December 25, 2024 • 59 mins
Happy Creaturekringletimes! Today we're getting cozy and snuggly with animal tips on how to stay warm. From bee cuddles, to round fluffy birds, we're gettin' toasty with some cuties. Plus, what a frozen sabertooth cat-cicle can tell us about these ancient kitties! I'm joined by Kelly Weinersmith to warm ourselves by the fire of evolutionary biology facts!
Footnotes:
Piping Hot Bees and Boisterous Buzz-Runners
Sabertooth kitten preserved in Siberia
Last week's mystery animal sound source
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Oky do keep. Welcome to Creature feature production of iHeartRadio.
I'm your host of Many Parasites, Katie Golden. I studied
psychology and evolutionary biology. And wow, it is cold out there.
It is chilly. We like to snuggle and sweaters. I
(00:20):
have a cold right now, so I am in a
big fluffy sweater. I've been huddling under the blankets drinking tea.
But you know what, what do animals do to stay
warm in the winter. We're talking from the tiny bee
to bigger animals, ones that are no longer around. The
most wonderful thing of the year, which is round birds.
(00:41):
Why are they so round? So we're going to talk
about all the ways in which animals stay warm in
the winter. Discover this and more as we answer the
angel question do you want to be in a bee
mosh pit? Joining me today is co host of Daniel
and Kelly's Extraordinary Universe, adjunct professor of biology at Rice University,
(01:02):
and co author of A City on Mars, Kelly Wiedersmith.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
Welcome, Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited
to be here.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
So where where are you Rice University?
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Where is that? So that's in Houston? Texas, but I
actually live in Charlottesville, Virginia. Oh okay, yeah, and it's
pretty warm here, but it was really cold the other day.
Like as soon as it's below freezing, I'm like, no.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
Yeah, yeah, I have heard that, Like, I mean they've
they've there have been some wild weather in Houston, because
usually it's pretty mild and then you get these like
incredible cold snaps. So so Charlottesville is getting pretty cold,
I would imagine.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
Yeah, yeah, it's getting pretty cold. It's it's a time
of year where you go out to take care of
the animals and you gotta dump the ice out of
the bucket first, which is in the rear end.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
Oh you got you got outdoor animals.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
Yeah, we got some chickens. We're looking into goats.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
Oh, you're you're sort of exploring the goats. You're setting
up an exploratory committee to sort of see your options
fees of goats. I get that.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
We've been visiting the local farms. We're trying to find
out which ones are most likely to like ram into
you and knock your kids over.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
And you get those and you get those ones.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
They're the funniest. Yeah, So I mean it seems like
a good option.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
That's fantastic. Yeah, I am. I'm lucky enough to only
have indoor animals, and they all seek me out for warmth. No,
it's not about love, it's not about affection. It's about wow,
your lap is warm, let us join you. Particularly the cats.
I think the dog is kind of like, she likes
to cuddle, she likes to get cozy. For the cats,
(02:34):
they see me as a warm object to heat them
throughout the winter.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
And you know what, I'm fine with that, Like, it's
totally cd with being a warm lap. As long as
I get animal snuggles, I'm hotly on board.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
It warms my lap as well. So we're we're both
we're working together, we're getting we're scratching each other's back,
sometimes a little too literally. So yeah, today we are
talking about how animals stay warm in the winter, and
these are animals where when you think about it, it's
I mean, with some of them it makes a little
more sense, but with some of them it's it's kind
of a question of like, wait, how do these guys
(03:08):
survive winter? And one of the ones that always comes
to mind is like insects, right, because they're so fragile
and they're so it's like, man, these guys, it does
not seem like they would do very well in the winter,
particularly some of the cutest insects, my favorite ones, uh
European honey bees. When I think of honey bees, they
(03:29):
just they do not It's not even with bumble bees, right,
I think, like, well, maybe bumble bees have a chance. Right,
they're chunky, they've got that little striped sweater, but with
like a with a sweet little honey bee and thing,
what's going on with you? You're gonna be a little honeysickle.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
Well they can like so I was reading about how
honey is made the other day and it was made
in like a way grosser way than I had realized.
And I still love honey Like it involves throwing things
up and increasing the surface area. Yeah yeah, but I
think part of how they do it is they like
generate heat by like in their wings really fast, right
to absolutely, and that's got to help them in the winter,
maybe I'm.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
Guessing, yes, absolutely, so this is exactly right. This is
something that you can also read more about if you
want to, in the book Piping hot Bees and Boisterous
buzz Runners, which is a great title by Thomas D. Seely. So, Yeah,
bees do have a remarkable ability to jiggle and wiggle
their bodies, and they do so many things with those
(04:27):
sorts of muscle vibrations, those undulations, they communicate, they can
ward off threats. European honeybees may not be so adept
at this, but there are species of Asian bees that
are able to to vibrate in order to actually boil
intruders alive. They reach such yeah, they reach such high temperatures.
It's a strategy against the predator. The the do you
(04:51):
remember that whole scare we had about the killer giant
killer Asian hornets. Yeah, like in their in their natural habitats, right,
there are bees that have co evolved with them, and
they've learned this strategy of like vibrating, the creating this
bee ball and then vibrating and basically boiling this intruder alive.
And the reason that these hornets are so dangerous to
(05:13):
bees in the US is just that these bees haven't
co evolved with them, so they don't have that strategy.
But European honey bees do have a great strategy to
survive in the winter, and that is to huddle together
and to vibrate for warmth, so a swarm will form
around the queen and undulate their wing muscles to generate warmth.
(05:36):
So the queen is she's a lucky gal. She gets
to be right in the center, so she's in the
warmest spot to keep being kept toasted, which serves a purpose.
It's not just about paying leeves to their highness. Because
she has to bear young, her body is the most
vulnerable to winter stress, so keeping her really nice and
(05:59):
warm and toast is helping to ensure the survival of
the brood. But yeah, even the workers though. This is
something that's interesting is that the workers on the outermost
fringe they still generally survive this and they reach up
to temperatures of around fifty degrees fahrenheit. So that's not bad.
(06:19):
That's really not bad.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
Do they have a rotation system where like the outside
ones get to go to the I mean, not as
inside as the queen, but like a little bit inside
every once in a while they do.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
It's not as much of an organized like let's make
sure that everyone gets a chance in the center. A
lot of it's going to be depend on the current
roles of the worker bees. So worker bees are basically
for a lot of like these sort of use social honeybees.
Species like the worker bees will as they grow they
(06:52):
kind of take on different roles throughout their lives. So
there may be some that are more likely to be
tending to the queen right, and so they're going to
be closer to the center. But there are these sort
of fluctuations in terms of like how dense and how
crowded together they are, so as the temperature changes, they
change how closely knit they are or how spread out
(07:14):
they are. And they also alternate like how intense their
wing beats are, so they dynamically respond to temperature changes
in order to keep pretty much everyone warm at a
reasonable temperature, but especially keeping that queen safe and warm
because she is the most vulnerable in terms of she
(07:35):
has the highest sort of energy caloric requirements of all
of the bees. Got it.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
I thought it was going to be like if you're
on the end, that's sort of the colonies way of
saying sorry, Joe, you're moving towards being expendable, or that
they're all girls at that stage.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
They are all girls, yes, so there may be a
few there may there may be a few male drones
in the hive, and male drones do sometimes. Actually, you know,
this is one case in which males are useful. Sorry guys,
the one case they do actually help warm hives in
the winter by vibrating their body. So there will be
a few males, but it is the gender dynamic is
(08:15):
very skewed, heavily female worker. So yeah, they it is
together they can warm this whole hive. They all pretty
much are able to survive this unless they are in
some kind of incredibly extreme cold snap. They also, in
preparation for the winter, will cluck pounds and pounds and pounds,
(08:36):
tens of pounds of honey so that they can survive
over the winter. Is classic chipmunk strategy, right, Like, they're
not necessarily going to be getting a lot of nectar,
not going to be able to produce a lot of honey.
So right before winter they gear up, they store a
bunch of honey, and then they're they're set for the winter,
and so all they need to really focus on is
staying warm and consuming calories, which is what I.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
Yeah, a lot more ice cream lately. I get it.
I'm prepared too.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
Now exactly, I just I do. I do love that
essentially the bee's strategy is uh, strategic cuddling, which I do,
you know, it's it's I it does feel like you know,
we often will see say like the bee as this
very robotic kind of it is part of the strict society.
(09:25):
It's like a tiny robot. But they do strategic cuddling.
So that's pretty pretty great.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
But it's not. It's like high movement cuddling like I
feel like when I snuggle with my kids at night. Yeah,
they just like will not stop rotating and moving around.
And now, instead of being frustrated, I'm gonna be like, oh,
they're trying to keep me warm.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
They're they're keeping the queen warm.
Speaker 2 (09:42):
That's right, exactly, Yes, I'll thank them instead of feeling
a little frustrated.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
So, you know what, you did mention this idea that
maybe the ones on the like outer perimeter, the ones
that don't get as warm, maybe they're sort of on
the fringes of society. It's a very interesting idea, and
that does come into play when we talk about snow monkeys.
So you have have you seen and or heard of
snow monkeys? I'm fairly certain you must have seen at
some point these adorable little guys.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
Are are they the ones that also go in the
like hot springs?
Speaker 1 (10:12):
Yes, yes, absolutely, they are Japanese macaques. Technically we call
them snow monkeys because a lot of them. They live
all over Japan and various habitats, but often they do
live in areas where during the winter it gets cold
and it snows, and they are very famous for this
hot springs habit which is mostly in the Jigoku Dani
(10:34):
Monkey Park in Japan, and they have these They have
both naturally occurring as and also man made hot springs.
They actually made an entire hot spring just for these monkeys.
And yes, because the monkeys were had already figured out
how to use hot springs. It's like, look, we got
to make a monkey hot spring.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
So okay, people, I'm torn between thinking like, oh, I'd
love to go visit and jump in the hot springs
with the monkeys. But one probably about because the monkeys
don't want you there too. They're probably pooping in that water,
aren't they.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
They are, So number two is most definitely like probably
correct number one. Actually, people do go and visit. Now,
you're not going to want to be in the water
with the monkeys, right, but people do go and visit
them to simply watch them admire them, and they actually
tolerate human visitors pretty well, which is rather surprising. But
(11:24):
it seems that there's perhaps like a culture there of
giving the monkeys some space, so they've learned to tolerate
human visitors. So and interestingly, it's not like these monkeys
are just completely chill, sort of like Cappy barras where
it's like, yeah, you get it, why kaby bars let
you watch them? Because kabby bars just are completely chill.
Some monkeys as cute as they are, as adorable as
(11:47):
this Spa habit is, they do have a very strict
social hierarchy, so they have a matrilineal dominance hierarchy. It
is a system in which you will have a matriarch
who is the dominant female who basically controls a territory
a group of females and males are a little more fluid,
(12:07):
so males will have their own dominance hierarchy, but it's
much more fluid. It's much more changeable because the males,
once they reach a certain age, they have to go
out and disperse to another group. So what happens is
you have this solid core of females with a hierarchy
that stays relatively stable, and you have males who come
(12:28):
and go and they kind of form a little bit
of a looser knit hierarchy, but there's still usually like
a dominant male. But yeah, that female power structure is
much more I would say institutional. It's like a monkey institution.
And you will have sometimes the daughter will take over
the family business and become the matriarch, but that doesn't
always happen. You might have a young upstart who comes
(12:52):
up and then becomes the new monkey matriarch. There was
a recent shakeup where there was a one of these
young monkeys before her mom even retires, she took over.
She took the company away from her mother. And yeah, family,
it's just it's like that one show had cheered in
cocaine in it. What was that? You know what I'm
(13:12):
talking about? Business?
Speaker 2 (13:13):
I don't think I don't family too close.
Speaker 1 (13:17):
Yeah, sad angry business people show is what I'm calling it. Succession,
that's it. That's the one.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
Yeah, I haven't seen that.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
I'm not good at TV. I haven't seen it either.
I just know I watched a couple episodes and it's like, yeah,
it's a sad, angry, rich family show. Not really interested,
but I get it. It's it's television. But anyways, if
that was done but with snow monkeys, I would absolutely
watch it. Oh absolutely, So yeah, so these females form
these stable matrilineal groups. Uh, and they have this rigorous
(13:47):
dominant structure and this also comes into play for spa time.
So yeah, so the the dominant female and her immediate
can get priority when it comes to the hot springs
if you have curried favor with her, perhaps like you're
a male that she's mating with. They don't form lifelong
(14:09):
monogamous pair bonds, but they do form like seasonal monogamy,
so they'll for a mating season at a time, maybe
formal paaramond. But she will groom others. She teaches her
daughters how to groom, so like mothers will teach their
daughters these grooming techniques and they groom each other. But
it's very clique. These are kind of this is like
(14:29):
a high school click that lasts their entire lives.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
This would be great as a reality TV show. I
think they'd have a really easy time with it. And
so is like if you're on top, does that mean
that you get the like warmest spot or you stay
in for longer, Like what do you get if you're
the queen of this group?
Speaker 1 (14:48):
Yes, all of the above. So there is limited space
in these hot springs. And so if you're the dominant
female and that dominant female's family and the dominant females friends,
you do get access to the hot springs more often,
you get the premium spots, and you also may get
the only spots. So sometimes if you are kind of
(15:10):
on the periphery of society, you are the proletariat, the
monkey proletariat, you don't actually get that spa time. And yeah,
so it is it is not. This is not a
utopian monkey society. Unfortunately, not everyone is treated equally. These
other monkeys.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
Do they die sometimes if they don't get their spot
in the water, do they freez.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
So they it is less good for them. So there's
actual health benefits for these these hot springs. There have
been studies on the monkey poop, because you always gotta
do the monkey poop, but when they want to Whenever
you see a study that's like about stress hormones and
wild animals, nine out of ten times it's going to
be that scientists are picking through poop looking for a
(15:54):
stress hormones.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
So informative that poop. There's parasites in there too. There's
so much you can learn.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
There's so much you can learn. In fact, in zoos,
sometimes they will do color coding for poop, maybe put
like glitter or some kind of color in the poop
so that like something that's harmless to the animal, so
that when they are trying to test various like you
know this, here's this group and this group that we're
doing various things like with research or medical studies in
terms of like in terms of the animal's health, like
(16:21):
like usually for zoos, it'll be like, we have to
treat this giraffe for this stomach issue, so we're also
going to test their poop, because why not, We're already
we're already dealing with giraffe diarrhea. You might as well
make giraffe diarrhea made out of giraffe diarrhea.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
Yeah, sure, I mean I would definitely want the glitter
poop if they were like, yes, you know what, except
but I think if you're doing like a fecal float,
you're trying to find the like parasite eggs. I would
get really annoyed with all of the glitter, like in.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
The cunder your microscope blinding out. So yeah, So they
looked at the feces of these monkeys and they found
lower amounts of stress hormones stress proteins that indicate that
these baths do have a material benefit for them in
terms of lowering stress. I read this very interesting summary
(17:09):
of it where it was saying that, well, the alpha female,
who has the hardest job thus needs this more than
the lower ranking females, And it's like, is that why?
I feel like that was written by the alpha female?
Like this this study summary was like written by the
alpha female, Like yeah, I need it because I boss
(17:30):
bay way too hard, so I'm always stressed, so I
need it. I need it.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
The CEOs who are like, oh, sor I need five
times the pay that you get, Yeah, just exactly how
else am I going to make this job worth it? Exactly?
How do you tease a part Like you know, if
you are at the top of the hierarchy, or you
are your hormones low because you get more time in
the hot tub, or is it low because you know
that you're in a good position and someone's cleaning off
(17:55):
your parasites. You don't have to stress out about that.
It seems like it would be hard to disentangle time
in the tub from all the other benefits of being
at the top of the hierarchy.
Speaker 1 (18:03):
That's a very good question. These are often issues with
observational studies in animals because it's really hard, like especially
so you have wild animals, you can't necessarily do a
control group. So these are like observational studies. I believe
what they did was they sort of tried to track
it with the amount of observable time that a monkey
(18:23):
is spent in the hot springs. Now that doesn't completely
satisfy your study design question because a monkey who's in
the spaw war you're right, maybe actually getting more access
to grooming as well. So that's a tricky thing to
tease apart. I think that they tried to, you know, essentially,
they tried to separate observations of like grooming from like
(18:44):
spa time and tried to make that separation. But it's
true that those are confounding factors, and it's one of
the difficulties with these studies that look into the natural
behaviors of animals. But then if you try to do
a controlled study in a laboratory environment, you have sort
of another problem, which is that these are this is
not capturing natural behavior. You're capturing the behavior of an
(19:05):
animal in a lab. So it can be a little tricky.
Speaker 2 (19:08):
Sometimes ecology use a huge pain in the ass's but
it's fascinating, but a real pain, very.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
Interesting, very much a pain. But yeah, they absolutely do
seem to at the very least really enjoy these hot springs.
It does warm them up. Your earlier question was like,
could these other monkeys freeze to death? They could. They
do also have really fluffy, furry coats, so those also
(19:36):
keep them warm. Generally speaking, just because they're missing out
on spa time doesn't necessarily doom them to die. But
in a really harsh winter where resources are really scarce,
if the temperatures drop way too low, they don't have
enough food, yeah, that could absolutely make the difference, right,
And that's sort of the that is the tricky part
(19:57):
of this evolution where you have the this incentive for
these this alpha structure of like we want to pass
on our genes, we want to give our offspring the
best opportunities, so it's sort of this dominance hierarchy. And
it's so interesting when you see it in animals who
are not you social right, so u sociality. You have
this like basically physiological hierarchy that is enforced genetically and physically,
(20:24):
and you see it in bees. You actually also see
it in animals like meerkats. But this is kind of
this is not quite you sociality you have it. It
goes from the that one extreme of like bees, where
you have like a queen and you have workers and
you have this like genetically enforced social hierarchy with these
(20:44):
well defined roles, to something a little more flexible, so
like a young, upstart monkey can take over the troop
and kick out the dominant. It's just a lot harder
when you don't have the resources, when you essentially grow
up poor as a monkey, and you don't get as
much food and you don't get as much time in
the spa. You know, monkey inequality.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
Yeah, yeah, not cool. Not cool. So there was a
I seem to remember a long time ago, like Jane
Goodall got a little bit of flack for putting out
like food while she was watching the chimpanzees, and it
like started a war yea. Did adding whoops? Did adding
another hot spring change the like dynamics because now maybe
there's enough hot springs to go around, so they don't
(21:27):
have like the hierarchy doesn't matter anymore because everybody can
get in the spa.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
It's a really good question. That's a super good question.
I don't know the answer to that, but I can
tell you that there have been ships and monkey cultures
where it's there's something that seems like, ah, this is
just the general behavior of this monkey that that must
be must have been since you know, they evolved and
like continues and it's not necessarily a culture, it's just
(21:54):
this instinctive trait and then it turns out that's wrong.
So this this was the case for I believe babboons
where there was an outbreak of a disease. They're eating
tainted meat at a dumpster, and the this was a
male dominated society, so you had these male baboons that
were dominant over the females and over weaker males, and
(22:17):
they were very violent, very aggressive, and they would do
kind of like have enforced this strict hierarchy, and so
they were able to go and feed at these food
dumps and eat all of this meat. And so they
ate this tainted meat that had a bacterial infection, and
so they got infected and they died off. And so
the females and the less dominant males survived because they
(22:39):
weren't given a seat at the table at these dumps.
And so what you saw is this reorganization of society
where the females started to enforce a less aggressive society.
They would punish males who would start to be too aggressive,
and so you got a much less both them. Females
and the less dominant males would force this sort of
(23:01):
more I wouldn't necessarily call it egalitarian. There was still
a hierarchy structure, but it was a lot more calm, gentle,
less aggressive. A lot of conflicts were settled by grooming
rather than fighting, and females seemed to enforce this and
teach this to males. And what was really interesting was
males that left their old troops and came to disperse
(23:22):
right and came to this new one then learned right.
So it was an effect that didn't go away. It persisted.
So in terms of your question, I don't know specifically
if adding more hot springs had a change in this
monkey society, but I would say that that is definitely possible.
You do see as resources and population shift, especially in
intelligent animals like primates, you do actually see cultural shifts,
(23:45):
which is really interesting.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
That is Yeah, that Baboon story is amazing. It almost
gives me like hope for the future, although you like,
I don't want a catastrophic mortality of all the people
in charge, but.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
Like it's felas. We're not gonna go around poisoning me.
It's okay, calm down.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
Sorry, Yeah, we're good. We're good. But but I like
the idea that you know, things can change over time
and that these cultural improvements can persist. That's pretty cool.
Speaker 1 (24:09):
Absolutely. Also cool is that snow monkeys do roll snowballs,
which I love.
Speaker 2 (24:15):
That's awesome. Oh that does the hierarchy influence? Like what
direction they throw the snowballs? Ah, hit the queen?
Speaker 1 (24:22):
Yes, exactly, you know what. I I don't know that
for a fact, but I bet that youngsters are probably
gonna get pretty punished severely if they hit the queen,
hit the matriarch with a snowball. I think it's mostly juveniles, uh,
messing around with each other. I don't. I don't think
they get into too many monkey snowball fights. But they
love rolling the snowball. They enjoy just like, this is fun,
(24:45):
This is cool. I'm making a snowball and then maybe
the juveniles kind of smack each other with it. That
sounds like something they would do.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
Yeah, irresistible. Like I love the idea of little monkey snowmen.
Speaker 1 (24:57):
Yeah, yeah, that would be so cute. You see a
little just just and then there's like a piece of
poop shoved in it because they're monkeys.
Speaker 2 (25:03):
Yeah right, they'd have to do that. Yeppold do that too,
if we let them, if we let them, which you
know it just don't don't eat the yellow snow folks.
Speaker 1 (25:13):
All right, we're gonna take a quick break and when
we get back, we are gonna talk about really interesting story.
This is an animal who it is a surprise that
we now know more about. All right, So this story
is it's a little less I mean, I have mixed
feelings about it because it does involve a very very
(25:35):
very old dead kitten. So I'm just gonna yeah, I'm
gonna go there right at the top. But this is
a saber toothed tiger kitten. Specifically, this is Homotherium and
this was a This is an incredible find that I
think was found in twenty twenty. It was a three
(25:55):
week old mummified extinct Homothereum kitten which had its fur
and its flesh and part of its skeleton in place. Shockingly,
it actually this this sounds a little bit morbid, but
it's actually kind of cute, Like it's it's it's sad.
It's kind of morbid and sad, but it's not grotesque looking,
(26:16):
like it's not super messed up looking. It looks a
little bit cute, like it has kind of a cute face.
It's like shockingly well preserved.
Speaker 2 (26:24):
I have a broad range of things I'm able to
consider cute, Like there are cute parasites. I think blobfish
are cute. I can imagine a cute preserved Yeah, fabertooth cat.
Speaker 1 (26:34):
Look, it's it's spooky. Uh, it's probably haunted, but it
is also really cute. So there were many different species
of home Ethereum. It's genus of these uh, sabertoothed tigers,
and they're different genuses of sabertooth tigers. So this was
this was one found in Siberia. There were also a
(26:55):
home ethereum in North America, and in North America they
were thought to have gone extinct around twelve thousand years ago,
while those in Europe. The fossil record there is a
little older, so around thirty thousand years ago. That doesn't
mean necessarily that that's when they went to extinct. North
America has some different manners in which these these fossil
(27:17):
records were preserved, such as like tarpits, incredible Librea tarpits
in Los Angeles. You get a lot of amazingly preserved
bones and so you're able to build particially a more
complete fossil record, whereas it may be a little more
difficult in Europe. So it's it's just it's hard to say,
but but yeah, this Honotheroeum kitten was found in.
Speaker 2 (27:40):
Siberia and it's ever been good to live in Siberia.
Speaker 1 (27:44):
It's tricky, but yeah, it's remarkably intact, kind of cute
and a grim way has this soft, fluffy, sort of
reddish brown fur. Now, the color, it's hard to make
a definite determination about the color. Some of the research
speculate there may have been some loss of the color
(28:06):
over time. One of the reasons they suspect that is
that the kitten doesn't have spots, and usually kittens will
have spots some kind of like disruptive coloration in terms
of camouflage. This doesn't have it could mean it didn't
have it, or it could mean that this coat has
degraded over the tens of thousands of years that it's
been frozen.
Speaker 2 (28:27):
Would let it haunt me? Though it sounds super cute.
Speaker 1 (28:29):
It's super cute. There is so not to get too gruesome.
There is only about half of it left, but it is.
It's the cute half. It's the it's the front half,
not the butt half.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
So that's preferable.
Speaker 1 (28:41):
Yes, look, we would both have failed that that one test.
That guy who's like, ah, you want you want to
chop this kitten in half, It's like, sure, give me
the cute half.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
Uh. It was that keep us out of biblical stories?
Speaker 1 (28:55):
It King Solomon, King Solomon, that's right, Yeah, yeah. So
the kitten had some interesting features that researchers were able
to kind of build a more complete picture of these
the species. Now, obviously, because it's a kitten, a lot
of its juvenile traits are not going to carry over
as adults. In a lot of this is kind of
giesswork and how this might have matured over time. But
(29:17):
what they did have is they seem to have some
evidence that they might eventually have had side burns. They
have these cute little huffs on their chin, adorable, I know.
And their upper lips were actually longer than the they
like compared it to a three week old lion cub
and looked at these morphological differences. The upper lips were
(29:39):
longer and so their fangs hadn't grown in all the
way yet because it was a kitten. But because of
that longer lip, it speculated that there's like warring theories
of like did they have the fangs out uncovered as
we kind of imagine like when you see a lot
of illustrations of saber toothed tigers, the various species, they've
(30:00):
just got these giant things right out, and a lot
of evolutionary biologists think that might be wrong, a lot
of paleontologists because it's like, well, because you're not protect
like if you have that tooth exposed and that gum
line exposed, that's gonna be a little more dangerous in
terms of infection. You're gonna get stuff in it. It's
(30:20):
a little bit potentially tricky there. So there's another theory
that maybe they covered it with skin. And so the
fact that this kitten's upper lip is larger compared to
say a line cub's upper lip, they think that that
might kind of help in the case that they're making
that maybe they covered at least part maybe not the
(30:40):
whole thing, but at least part of it with some
of their lipt to protect that sensitive area.
Speaker 2 (30:46):
So we think some adults might have had like super
long droopy lips.
Speaker 1 (30:49):
Yes, absolutely, possibly, way less epic. It feels a little doofier,
like you know, it goes. It goes from that character
from Ice Age really looking to like, hello everybody, I'm
I'm here to join your join your your franchise.
Speaker 2 (31:06):
But as like an old person with cold teeth sensitivity,
I like, I can imagine not wanting if you're inside
your teeth exposed to the cold all the time.
Speaker 1 (31:14):
That would suck. Tooth cover, Yeah, that would a tooth cozy. Yeah,
just knit a little little tiny like teeth warmers them
when you're ready to kill something. So the kitten also
had rounded paws like a lynx So that's pretty interesting
because again links uh certain species and links. The ones
(31:35):
that live in the cold have these really thick, fluffy,
rounded paws that help them stay warm against the snow,
and so it looks like this kitten had that as well.
Speaker 2 (31:45):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
They also had no carple pads on their wrist. So
the carpl pad you know, the little toebeans on your
dogs and your cats, and then they have a little
pad on their sort of like the wrist part that
is called a carple padu and it can help with say,
like gripping, gripping things like balones, rasping things, but it
(32:07):
is an exposed piece of flesh. And so what you
see sometimes in animals that live in very, very cold
environments is that they may lose parts of their bodies
that are more prone to say, frost bites, because getting
frostbite versus not getting it can make a significant difference,
right in terms of you don't want you don't want
(32:28):
a part of your body that's necrotic and potentially infected.
So you actually see this also in have you ever
seen a snubnosed monkeys? Are these they're these golden monkeys
with blue They're different species, but there's the golden monkey,
which is one with like this golden fur. It's got
like a blue face. People who watched any of the
(32:49):
what is it Golden Compass franchise, either the movie or
TV show or books, there's a monkey in there that's
a snubnose monkey. They're actually they're very interesting because they
their noses are very flat, but they somewhat have humanoid faces.
They're quite lovely looking a little strange, but they have
(33:09):
essentially lost any of the fleshy part of their nose
because they live in these high altitudes at these cold temperatures,
which which it just makes it such that it's not
necessarily that Like, we're not talking about la Marking evolution
right where a monkey gets frost bite, its nose falls off,
and then the next generation doesn't have a nose. This
(33:30):
is not what we're talking about. We're talking about the
monkeys whose noses were flatter and more inverted ended up
not having a deal with things like frostbite and therefore
had a better chance of survival.
Speaker 2 (33:40):
So I'm thinking of other sticky, outy parts you do.
How about ears? Do ears and cold tend to like
be smaller?
Speaker 1 (33:48):
Yeah? Ears, So that's very interesting yeat. Ears do play
a role in terms of say, adapting to temperature environments.
So like you'll see with say, uh with with fluffy animals,
right that the ears will be covered in fur, Like
you look at the links, big tufts of fluffy fur
that really protects those ears. Ears are quite important. So
(34:12):
having like a large ear that acts as a cone
to like have all of that sound get sort of
directed in and then being able to swivel them around
so that you can locate do this calculation that where
you can find figure out where your prey is coming from.
All that's super important. So you'll often see and say,
like a lot of predators species even when they're really
(34:34):
in the cold, they still have these big ears, but
they're covered in fur. And so for snubnose monkeys, their
ears are actually pretty small. They're also close to the
head and they're very fluffy, so it's just that bare
face where that nose. It turned out that the benefits
of having that nose were you know, not as not
(34:54):
as good as having a flatter nose that they don't
have to deal with frostbite and things like. Also, you
may have say like digits that can be prone to frostbite.
But you can also those are a little more dynamics,
so you can like hold them close to you. You'll
see them, you know, like holding it inwards, tucking their
feet in. So, yeah, you absolutely do see that. You
(35:16):
actually also see somewhat of the opposite effect and the heat.
You'll see animals get these really big thin ears and
they use those like like say, African hairs, and they
use that as a method of thermal regulation and the heat.
So they're using these giant ears that have all of
these veins kind of over a wide surface area as
(35:37):
an air conditioner.
Speaker 2 (35:39):
That is so much more functional than our ears.
Speaker 1 (35:42):
Yeah, I would like to have ears that are also
an air conditioner.
Speaker 2 (35:46):
Or a nose covered in fur. Yeah yeah, maybe I'll
think I'll pass on that one.
Speaker 1 (35:51):
Got a crochet and nose cozy. So we are gonna
take another quick break and when we get back, we're
gonna talk about birds getting round for the winter, and
then we're gonna play a little game whoop. All right,
So one of my my favorite, possibly the most favorite
part of the winter is birds getting round. It's birds
(36:13):
getting round season. They turn into fluffy little balls. It's
so it's adorable. And it's incredibly functional. So birds have
a variety of techniques to survive the winter. We have
a lot of migratory species, right from aquatic birds like waterfowl, ducks, geese,
(36:35):
they'll they'll form these big migrating flocks. You have smaller birds,
songbirds that may migrate into various areas. But you still
have birds who do have to deal with cold weather.
Some of them may stay in one location, or some
of them may migrate from even colder areas, so they'll
come in from say like Siberia and go somewhere that
(36:58):
still has a winter, but it's a lot more survivable.
So you do still have a lot of birds that
have to figure out how to stay warm in the cold,
particularly because they are you know, they have these very
high metabolisms, which is one of the things they need
in order to maintain flight.
Speaker 2 (37:20):
They burn.
Speaker 1 (37:22):
They do snuggle, so social speedy sas love to snuggle
with each other. They will huddle all bunch up. They'll
you often see also, like you know, how like in
winter photography, you'll often see like two say you see
a couple of tits and they're jammed together. They're huddling together,
they're doing that for warmth and it is adorable. And yeah,
(37:43):
they will form these big fluffy cuddle piles. They will
also shiver, So birds can shiver. They're not necessarily scared,
they're not necessarily uncomfortable, but shivering helps them warm up,
just like it helps us warm up. Which is kind
of wild because birds are died and we are mammals.
Speaker 2 (38:03):
But we're all still so similar.
Speaker 1 (38:05):
We're all we all shiver in the cold. So doesn't
that I feel like that's poetic, right, something about from
from dinosaurs to mammals. We all shiver in the cold.
So let's just get along and only occasionally eat each other.
Speaker 2 (38:20):
When we're cut and we all shiver in the cold.
Speaker 1 (38:22):
I like, right. So another thing that they do is
they get real fluffy, so they will fluff out their feathers.
They which is both in terms of like they get fatter.
They eat a lot of food preceding in the winter
(38:43):
because having more body fat having more calories is really important. Also,
species that are say insectivores, will expand their diet. They'll
start eating berries, they'll start eating seeds. Because you can't
be you can't be a beggar, or you can you
can't be a chooser. You can be a beggar in
the winter, but say like European robins, one of our
(39:05):
favorite Christmas birds, right, it has to expand out its
palette from invertebrates, worms to including berries, seeds, anything you
can find, because it's going to be a lot harder
to find insects in the winter.
Speaker 2 (39:23):
Does that make it harder for them to fly? Subsequently,
the extra.
Speaker 1 (39:27):
Their chunkier, Yeah, it's you know, it is a trade off.
Like you do potentially have a trade off between say
like getting really fat and being able to fly, but
in the winter it's absolutely worth it because you're really
not necessarily going to be flying long distances once you're
settled down for the winter. So whatever a slight amount
of sluggishness that might be a trade off in terms
(39:49):
of being a little thicker, is definitely worth the enhancement
of having enough calories to burn and being able to
have that chrishioning, especially when you'll there may be days
where they just can't find any food.
Speaker 2 (40:04):
I wonder if chunky robins take off faster when they
see a fox than less chunky robins, because like less
chunky robins, maybe they can get off the ground faster.
Speaker 1 (40:14):
So interesting, Yeah, like maybe there's some added vigilance right
in terms of like they understand, well not necessarily understand,
but they have this instinctive response that you know, they
may be a little more vulnerable and so that they
are on a higher alert during the winter. That could
be I think another trade off is that say you're
a migratory bird, right and you go somewhere warmer where
(40:36):
you're not really having to worry about these things, it's
gonna be a lot of predators that are out and
about able to get you. When you are going somewhere
really cold in the winter and you're surviving, there may
be fewer predators out, and yet there may be a counterbalance,
which is that the predators who are out and about
very desperate, really want to eat you. So there's all
(40:57):
these there are a lot of different sort of these
kind of countervailing weights that results in this kind of
spread out of like some species stay, some species migrate,
some species migrate from a really cold place to slightly
less cold place, all these kinds of things, and then
you get this really interesting kind of push pull mechanisms
(41:18):
that are you know, giving us winter birds in every
quarner of the world.
Speaker 2 (41:24):
Yep, it's complicated exactly.
Speaker 1 (41:27):
So one thing they do is they puff out their
feathers and so they turn it they not only are
they like meteor fatter because they're trying to eat more
or hopefully they physically fluff out their feathers, which gives
them the impression of being much fatter, which they may
not actually be that chunky, but that is there is
(41:47):
a purpose to that puffing out because if they puff out,
they're catching more air pockets in between the feathers. So
like when you have a winter coat, you may even
have something with synthetic reeled down. A lot of how
that coat works is you're trapping air pockets in between
these layers. That forms this insulation that keeps the heat
(42:08):
from transferring from your body and then going out into
the outside world. It keeps that heat in and so
a bird who has fluffed itself up is essentially doing
the same thing. There's pockets of air trapped between these feathers,
and those pockets of air act as insulation and it
basically it's like wearing a warm winter coat made out
(42:30):
of feathers.
Speaker 2 (42:31):
Do they have more feathers during the winter or different
kinds or is it just how they hold the feathers
which is what captures the heat.
Speaker 1 (42:39):
It depends on the species, but it can be both,
so it can some species might have more down more
of this downy feathers, like during the winter, and some
species some species actually even have a winter coat where
it's like they go from a completely different coloration to
say a white coloration to make them more linden with
(43:01):
the snow. So some species, yeah, they actually might have
a higher proportion density of down downy feathers and that
that kind of those downy feathers are really good at
trapping in warmth because they're like if you ever look
at the difference between say a flight feather and a
down feather, the down feather is a lot fluffier, It's
like a lot softer. Flight feather is sleeker, uh, and
(43:22):
that that is better for flight. Down is not good.
You really can't fly using these like down in inner
downy feathers. And you can even see, like when you
look at the bird, all their flight feathers and stuff
are kind of like more on the outside on their
wings and then the downy feathers like you know, around
their chests like under their wings, like on their bellies,
and that because the of the structure of those feathers
(43:43):
that are much more sort of they're they're finer, they're
they're branched out more more finely. It traps little pockets,
tiny pockets of air a lot better, and so those
keep that bird warm. You also have pretty much every
species of bird will have a oil gland near the
base of their tails that they can use to preene,
(44:04):
and that those oils cover the tops of their feathers,
because when you get those feathers wet, they no longer
functions as an insulation. Like if you've ever had a
warm like a winter jacket that's like filled with a
either synthetic or real down, and it gets wet, it's miserable.
It does not work. It's awful. It's awful because you've
(44:29):
now the air bubbles no longer get trapped in there.
It's wet, it's soaked through. You no longer have that insulation.
It's almost worse than it was before. And so it's
really important for birds to be able to maintain this
weather proofing on their feathers, otherwise if they get wet,
it's kind of game over. So like you'll see this
(44:49):
in waterfowl. They really like you've heard the term, you know,
like water off a ducts back. Well, that's because it's
covered in this oil. And if they need to constantly preene,
spread these oils around, maintain this in order to keep
that weather proofing because that is vital for their survival.
They would not survive if they didn't have that weatherproofing
(45:09):
over their feathers.
Speaker 2 (45:10):
Does that oil do anything else? So it helps keep
them warm? But like so there are another feather problem.
There are like parasites that live in the feathers. Does
it have any like anti parasite stuff so that the
it gets eaten by like the lice and then the
lifestye it.
Speaker 1 (45:28):
So if it has, it's not necessarily I don't believe.
I'll check on that, but I don't believe it's actually
like poisonous for the parasites. But it does provide a
physical barrier, right, like sort of like a physical blocking
because it's oily, right, it's a thick thing. It's sort
of like how you know how like tree sap sort
(45:49):
of works to deter boring beetles who are trying to
get into that tree and oily coating on these feathers
is going to potentially deter pairites because of the physical
barrier method. Now, they do sometimes anoint themselves with a
formic acid, which is called anting. Uh. They'll pick up
(46:11):
an ant, a poor innocent little ant and just rub
it on their bodies. This is done a lot by
crows actually, but other birds do this as well. And
so what that does is it uh that formic acid
that actually does kill the parasites. Like, if a parasite
is eating that that that acid, uh, it will uh
it'll it'll die. And so yeah, they do actually use
(46:34):
some other things in addition to that that oil barrier
that helps them to find off parasites. And actually I
think like there's also other species, like you also have
uh not just birds, right, I mean we also produce
something similar. We produce sebam in our in our hair.
That's why when you don't wash your hair for a
few days, it starts to get a little bit oily. Uh.
(46:56):
You see it very dramatically in sheep. It's called lanilin.
But essentially that's just sebam. It's it's oils produced by
these sebam glands and those have a similar similar function
in mammals as well. It's but yeah, we we do
often have so like you know, a sheep might be
able to survive out in the cold and the rain
(47:16):
because not only that amazing fluffy wool, but the wool
is a little bit waterproof. And if you've ever had
like a wool sweater that wasn't super highly processed and
still retain the those natural anilins, it does. Actually you'll
see the water beat up on it because the water's
not going to penetrate that, and the warmth from that
is going to function on a similar sort of uh
(47:38):
that that similar principle of it's trapping little pockets of
air inside that soft wool and keeping you warm.
Speaker 2 (47:45):
Very cool. Yeah, I've heard lots of stories, no, very warm,
very warm. I've heard lots of stories about people who
have sheep and they like open up the barns to
bring them in on the coldest days and the sheep
are like, no, man, I'm cool, like my kindness. Yeah,
And I'm also really looking forward to, like, you know,
if my elementary school kids ever come home with lice,
to just like getting a bunch of ants and like
rubbing the and taking care of that problem.
Speaker 1 (48:07):
Much much more fun than that nasty shampoo. Absolutely, yes, yes, yes, no,
just rub some ants on there, like I'm gonna start.
I'm I need to start a pseudo scientific health blog
where it's just like we shouldn't have any real medicine,
just stuff that animals do. So like rub ants on
(48:28):
your bodies, you know, poop on your legs like a
vulture to clean them. All of these natural remedies. Why
they're natural, they have to be good for you, right
right right.
Speaker 2 (48:38):
And penguins they shoot the poop to keep like other
passities away, so like put poop around your house if
you feel like being left alone. This is great. Yeah, absolutely,
you're not gonna take my kids away from me probably.
Speaker 1 (48:50):
You know. I just I just talked about that on
the show. These these penguins that the high velocity poop cannons,
and there was an actual paper. Did you read that?
Did you see that paper with incredible diagram? So great, yeap, fantastic, fantastic.
I love that. Speaking of birds who have incredible like
their feathers, completely different ballgame, very very sleek, designed mostly
(49:13):
for swimming, but also to keep them warm, so they
also have that effect of the super uh. They have
the the oily coat on the outside for waterproofing, and
then that's a very dense layer of down on the
inside that keeps them warm. But then they also have
other techniques of like huddling together, you know, sitting on
their eggs, sitting on their chicks, and kind of creating
(49:35):
that cocoon of warmness. So the penguins are kind of
the ultimate animal because they combine almost everything we've talked
about today, the big collective huddling. They they sit on
their babies, which is always great. They have the down,
they have the the that protective oily coating. I guess
they don't enjoy hot springs, which is really I would
(49:57):
love to put a penguin in a hot spring and
just watch its little pupils dilate as it like discovers
the most wondrous thing.
Speaker 2 (50:06):
I mean, I bet if they had access to hot springs,
I bet they'd use those hot sks.
Speaker 1 (50:09):
Absolutely, yeah, I mean there they do.
Speaker 2 (50:11):
Some some of them, like do.
Speaker 1 (50:12):
Live in warmer areas, right, They're not, like not all
penguins are Arctic penguins that or live near the Arctic circle.
There's a lot of tropical penguins, and I'm sure there's
someone in fairly warm waters. So we do have we
do have penguins that are enjoying the Mediterranean lifestyle.
Speaker 2 (50:28):
Yeah, way to go. They are warm in the cutest
of ways.
Speaker 1 (50:31):
Yes, I'm definitely tracking Pesto. I can't wait to see
his little what he looks like in his adult his
final adult form. He's going to be massive. I'm looking
forward to it.
Speaker 2 (50:42):
Is Pesto an emperor penguin. I've managed to make.
Speaker 1 (50:44):
Pesto is a king penguin, I believe. Okay, so he's
I don't think he's an emperor penguin. He's a king penguin.
So that's like the second largest penguin. But for a
king penguin, he's enormous.
Speaker 2 (50:55):
Awesome.
Speaker 1 (50:56):
Yes, well, there we go. We do gotta play a
little game. This is called Guess Who Squawk and the
Mystery Animal Sound Game. Every week I play a mystery
animal sound and you, the listener, and you the guest,
try to guess who is making this sound. The hint
for last week's is this. This is inspired by young
listener Eleanor. The hint is this. If you wanted it,
(51:21):
you should have put a ring on it? All right, Kelly,
you got any guests?
Speaker 2 (51:34):
I mean all right? So the sound made me happy,
totally unrelated. It sounds like a happy sound. It's gotta
be some kind of ring necked bird with the ring,
but I don't think I know it is.
Speaker 1 (51:48):
You are on the right track with the rings being
involved in the coloration. This is surprisingly the call of
the ring tailed lamour. Oh yeah, it's it's this is
such a tricky one. Congratulations to Jared him for guessing correctly.
I did a mystery animal sound where I did a
(52:08):
baby zebra and Eleanor had guessed a ringtailed lamur, and
I had thought, you know what, I don't actually know
what a ringtail fleamer sound like. So thank you Eleanor
for having me look this up because this was surprising
to me. So ringtail.
Speaker 2 (52:25):
Yeah, all those years of watching z boom fo, I
thought for.
Speaker 1 (52:28):
Sure different lemurs. The booma foo I believe is a
He is a what if he's a faka? Wait? Who
is zaboomafoo boom buff can't spell? That's hard. I think
he's such a fakka. Let me check. This is so important?
(52:50):
So he is he is? No? No, yes, he is
a Cockerell's sofaka lemur? So okay, yeah, yeah, uh it's
a it's really it gets tough. There's a lot of
lemurs and they're very similar looking. So yeah, this is
the call of the ringtail lemur. They're endemic to Madagascar.
(53:12):
Like other lemurs. Uh, they are sort of I think
they're the most iconic ones. They're the they're the striped lemurs.
They they like to do that side sache hopping. Other
lemurs do it as well, but these are quite famous
for it. Uh you know, the what's it the Madagascar
movie franchise King Julian. Uh, if you're, if you're, yes,
(53:32):
that's someone. And so they have extremely complex vocalizations they
use in social groups. They have calls for reaching out
to fellow members of their troop. They also have specific
predator alarm calls like actually similar to the Japanese macacus
we discussed earlier. Ringtailed lemurs form matrilineal social groups with
(53:54):
dominant females uh subordinate females. Males have a looser structure
they where they also have their own little hierarchy, but
basically the the dominant females calling the shots in the
troop like in the radio. Yeah, you know, I'm just saying.
Speaker 2 (54:08):
Look.
Speaker 1 (54:09):
Uh. First, first, a ringtailed leamer president so cutely lemurs
will sit on their behinds with their arms out, kind
of like in a lotus position, like a meditation pose.
It's called sun worshiping. All they're doing is warming up
in the morning sun. They're they're haven't they're warming up
all their fur they're getting they're soaking in the rays
(54:30):
and they look adorable and peaceful. Uh.
Speaker 2 (54:33):
Yes, reminds me of the vultures that I see sunning
u fences in the mornings.
Speaker 1 (54:38):
Yes, absolutely, it's it's so interesting. It's a behavior you
see in vultures. You see it. And also, uh, cormorants,
they're very they they love to strike that pose. It's
a it's very regal, very majestic. But they're just like,
ah my tummy's so warm. Yay, all right, onto this
week's mister annimill sound. The hint is this, just let
(54:59):
them grab winter coat and he's ready to start caroling. Beautiful,
it's stunning. Let's let's just hear it again just because
I love it so much. Fantastic, it's amazing, beatis beautiful song,
so regal. Yes, you got it. I guess this. This
(55:21):
is a tough one.
Speaker 2 (55:22):
You know that it sounds like a call that a
frog would make. But the put on his winter coat
just doesn't doesn't match.
Speaker 1 (55:29):
Uh frogs and their little winter coats, so.
Speaker 2 (55:33):
That'd be super cute.
Speaker 1 (55:34):
Yeah, I don't know, all right, Well, I will reveal
the answer next time on Creature Feature. Uh well, if
it's not next time, it might be in a future episode.
This is happening in the holiday, so I might have
a rerun. But the next time we do a fresh
hot pipe and new mystery animal sound game, you will
find out who is making this wacky noise. Kelly, thank
(55:58):
you so much for joining me today. This this is
a blast. Where can people find.
Speaker 2 (56:02):
You, well, thank you so much for having me. I
had a blast. You can find me at Daniel and
Kelly's Extraordinary Universe the podcast or at Wienersmith dot com.
Speaker 1 (56:12):
That is I highly recommend, very excited for this show
if you want to learn all about the universe, all
about physics, uh, particle physics, and you know, possibly aliens.
Not gonna say no to aliens.
Speaker 2 (56:27):
We've been doing parasites and stuff too. I've been screaming
more biology in there. We're working on a parasite series
right now. It's it's fantastic.
Speaker 1 (56:35):
I'm excited. I want to I want to be invited
to the parasite party. And yes, fantastic alien parasites. Let's
let's let's find out more about that. People are saying
the show. I'm I'm hearing this. I'm not saying it,
but I'm people are saying that there are alien parasites
out there right now.
Speaker 2 (56:56):
I mean, you know, I think if there's alien free
living creatures, a Delian parasites are probably never far Probably. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (57:04):
I'm auditioning for Joe Rogan right now. I'm just like like, look,
I've heard this, you know, like I've heard that maybe
there's alien parasites. I don't have any data to back
it up, but I've heard this.
Speaker 2 (57:15):
I think you'd be a great guest.
Speaker 1 (57:17):
Thank you, Thank you very much. Well, stay warm out there,
you guys. I hope you are all enjoying the winter season. Friendship,
stay and warm, family, food and cuddles, doing a bee
mosh pit, hot springs that show institutional problems of inequality,
(57:39):
all of these festive things. Take care out there, and
thank you so much for listening. If you're enjoying the show,
when you leave a rating, oar of you, it really
does help me. It's a tangible help to the podcast.
It tells the algorithm that it's worthy of being shown
on the internet. So yes, those do you really help?
(58:00):
And thank you guys so much for listening. Just by listening,
you are helping me out. And I really love teaching
you guys about animals. And I love it when you
guys write to me. If you guys think you know
the answer to this week's mister animal sound, you can
write to me at Creature Featurepod at gmail dot com.
You can also write to me your questions and you
(58:20):
know it is. It is fantastic. I've also been getting
a lot of things where people are sending me studies
and interesting things and I am learning new stuff, So
thank you so much for that. I love that. I
love opening up my email to find something about weird
gross parasites. I'm not even joking. I love that. So
thank you guys so much. And thanks to the space
Cossics for their super awesome song Exo Lumina. Creature features
(58:43):
a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts like the one
you just heard, Visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or
hey guess what where have you listened to your favorite shows?
I do not judge you. I'm not your mother, but
I do recommend this. If it's cold outside, don't only
eat worms, also eat berries and seeds. Don't be picky.
It's not the time to be picky. See you next Wednesday.
Speaker 2 (59:06):
Sound Advice
Speaker 1 (59:09):
All right, excellent
Oky do keep. Welcome to Creature feature production of iHeartRadio.
I'm your host of Many Parasites, Katie Golden. I studied
psychology and evolutionary biology. And wow, it is cold out there.
It is chilly. We like to snuggle and sweaters. I
(00:20):
have a cold right now, so I am in a
big fluffy sweater. I've been huddling under the blankets drinking tea.
But you know what, what do animals do to stay
warm in the winter. We're talking from the tiny bee
to bigger animals, ones that are no longer around. The
most wonderful thing of the year, which is round birds.
(00:41):
Why are they so round? So we're going to talk
about all the ways in which animals stay warm in
the winter. Discover this and more as we answer the
angel question do you want to be in a bee
mosh pit? Joining me today is co host of Daniel
and Kelly's Extraordinary Universe, adjunct professor of biology at Rice University,
(01:02):
and co author of A City on Mars, Kelly Wiedersmith.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
Welcome, Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited
to be here.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
So where where are you Rice University?
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Where is that? So that's in Houston? Texas, but I
actually live in Charlottesville, Virginia. Oh okay, yeah, and it's
pretty warm here, but it was really cold the other day.
Like as soon as it's below freezing, I'm like, no.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
Yeah, yeah, I have heard that, Like, I mean they've
they've there have been some wild weather in Houston, because
usually it's pretty mild and then you get these like
incredible cold snaps. So so Charlottesville is getting pretty cold,
I would imagine.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
Yeah, yeah, it's getting pretty cold. It's it's a time
of year where you go out to take care of
the animals and you gotta dump the ice out of
the bucket first, which is in the rear end.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
Oh you got you got outdoor animals.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
Yeah, we got some chickens. We're looking into goats.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
Oh, you're you're sort of exploring the goats. You're setting
up an exploratory committee to sort of see your options
fees of goats. I get that.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
We've been visiting the local farms. We're trying to find
out which ones are most likely to like ram into
you and knock your kids over.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
And you get those and you get those ones.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
They're the funniest. Yeah, So I mean it seems like
a good option.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
That's fantastic. Yeah, I am. I'm lucky enough to only
have indoor animals, and they all seek me out for warmth. No,
it's not about love, it's not about affection. It's about wow,
your lap is warm, let us join you. Particularly the cats.
I think the dog is kind of like, she likes
to cuddle, she likes to get cozy. For the cats,
(02:34):
they see me as a warm object to heat them
throughout the winter.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
And you know what, I'm fine with that, Like, it's
totally cd with being a warm lap. As long as
I get animal snuggles, I'm hotly on board.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
It warms my lap as well. So we're we're both
we're working together, we're getting we're scratching each other's back,
sometimes a little too literally. So yeah, today we are
talking about how animals stay warm in the winter, and
these are animals where when you think about it, it's
I mean, with some of them it makes a little
more sense, but with some of them it's it's kind
of a question of like, wait, how do these guys
(03:08):
survive winter? And one of the ones that always comes
to mind is like insects, right, because they're so fragile
and they're so it's like, man, these guys, it does
not seem like they would do very well in the winter,
particularly some of the cutest insects, my favorite ones, uh
European honey bees. When I think of honey bees, they
(03:29):
just they do not It's not even with bumble bees, right,
I think, like, well, maybe bumble bees have a chance. Right,
they're chunky, they've got that little striped sweater, but with
like a with a sweet little honey bee and thing,
what's going on with you? You're gonna be a little honeysickle.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
Well they can like so I was reading about how
honey is made the other day and it was made
in like a way grosser way than I had realized.
And I still love honey Like it involves throwing things
up and increasing the surface area. Yeah yeah, but I
think part of how they do it is they like
generate heat by like in their wings really fast, right
to absolutely, and that's got to help them in the winter,
maybe I'm.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
Guessing, yes, absolutely, so this is exactly right. This is
something that you can also read more about if you
want to, in the book Piping hot Bees and Boisterous
buzz Runners, which is a great title by Thomas D. Seely. So, Yeah,
bees do have a remarkable ability to jiggle and wiggle
their bodies, and they do so many things with those
(04:27):
sorts of muscle vibrations, those undulations, they communicate, they can
ward off threats. European honeybees may not be so adept
at this, but there are species of Asian bees that
are able to to vibrate in order to actually boil
intruders alive. They reach such yeah, they reach such high temperatures.
It's a strategy against the predator. The the do you
(04:51):
remember that whole scare we had about the killer giant
killer Asian hornets. Yeah, like in their in their natural habitats, right,
there are bees that have co evolved with them, and
they've learned this strategy of like vibrating, the creating this
bee ball and then vibrating and basically boiling this intruder alive.
And the reason that these hornets are so dangerous to
(05:13):
bees in the US is just that these bees haven't
co evolved with them, so they don't have that strategy.
But European honey bees do have a great strategy to
survive in the winter, and that is to huddle together
and to vibrate for warmth, so a swarm will form
around the queen and undulate their wing muscles to generate warmth.
(05:36):
So the queen is she's a lucky gal. She gets
to be right in the center, so she's in the
warmest spot to keep being kept toasted, which serves a purpose.
It's not just about paying leeves to their highness. Because
she has to bear young, her body is the most
vulnerable to winter stress, so keeping her really nice and
(05:59):
warm and toast is helping to ensure the survival of
the brood. But yeah, even the workers though. This is
something that's interesting is that the workers on the outermost
fringe they still generally survive this and they reach up
to temperatures of around fifty degrees fahrenheit. So that's not bad.
(06:19):
That's really not bad.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
Do they have a rotation system where like the outside
ones get to go to the I mean, not as
inside as the queen, but like a little bit inside
every once in a while they do.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
It's not as much of an organized like let's make
sure that everyone gets a chance in the center. A
lot of it's going to be depend on the current
roles of the worker bees. So worker bees are basically
for a lot of like these sort of use social honeybees.
Species like the worker bees will as they grow they
(06:52):
kind of take on different roles throughout their lives. So
there may be some that are more likely to be
tending to the queen right, and so they're going to
be closer to the center. But there are these sort
of fluctuations in terms of like how dense and how
crowded together they are, so as the temperature changes, they
change how closely knit they are or how spread out
(07:14):
they are. And they also alternate like how intense their
wing beats are, so they dynamically respond to temperature changes
in order to keep pretty much everyone warm at a
reasonable temperature, but especially keeping that queen safe and warm
because she is the most vulnerable in terms of she
(07:35):
has the highest sort of energy caloric requirements of all
of the bees. Got it.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
I thought it was going to be like if you're
on the end, that's sort of the colonies way of
saying sorry, Joe, you're moving towards being expendable, or that
they're all girls at that stage.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
They are all girls, yes, so there may be a
few there may there may be a few male drones
in the hive, and male drones do sometimes. Actually, you know,
this is one case in which males are useful. Sorry guys,
the one case they do actually help warm hives in
the winter by vibrating their body. So there will be
a few males, but it is the gender dynamic is
(08:15):
very skewed, heavily female worker. So yeah, they it is
together they can warm this whole hive. They all pretty
much are able to survive this unless they are in
some kind of incredibly extreme cold snap. They also, in
preparation for the winter, will cluck pounds and pounds and pounds,
(08:36):
tens of pounds of honey so that they can survive
over the winter. Is classic chipmunk strategy, right, Like, they're
not necessarily going to be getting a lot of nectar,
not going to be able to produce a lot of honey.
So right before winter they gear up, they store a
bunch of honey, and then they're they're set for the winter,
and so all they need to really focus on is
staying warm and consuming calories, which is what I.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
Yeah, a lot more ice cream lately. I get it.
I'm prepared too.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
Now exactly, I just I do. I do love that
essentially the bee's strategy is uh, strategic cuddling, which I do,
you know, it's it's I it does feel like you know,
we often will see say like the bee as this
very robotic kind of it is part of the strict society.
(09:25):
It's like a tiny robot. But they do strategic cuddling.
So that's pretty pretty great.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
But it's not. It's like high movement cuddling like I
feel like when I snuggle with my kids at night. Yeah,
they just like will not stop rotating and moving around.
And now, instead of being frustrated, I'm gonna be like, oh,
they're trying to keep me warm.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
They're they're keeping the queen warm.
Speaker 2 (09:42):
That's right, exactly, Yes, I'll thank them instead of feeling
a little frustrated.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
So, you know what, you did mention this idea that
maybe the ones on the like outer perimeter, the ones
that don't get as warm, maybe they're sort of on
the fringes of society. It's a very interesting idea, and
that does come into play when we talk about snow monkeys.
So you have have you seen and or heard of
snow monkeys? I'm fairly certain you must have seen at
some point these adorable little guys.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
Are are they the ones that also go in the
like hot springs?
Speaker 1 (10:12):
Yes, yes, absolutely, they are Japanese macaques. Technically we call
them snow monkeys because a lot of them. They live
all over Japan and various habitats, but often they do
live in areas where during the winter it gets cold
and it snows, and they are very famous for this
hot springs habit which is mostly in the Jigoku Dani
(10:34):
Monkey Park in Japan, and they have these They have
both naturally occurring as and also man made hot springs.
They actually made an entire hot spring just for these monkeys.
And yes, because the monkeys were had already figured out
how to use hot springs. It's like, look, we got
to make a monkey hot spring.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
So okay, people, I'm torn between thinking like, oh, I'd
love to go visit and jump in the hot springs
with the monkeys. But one probably about because the monkeys
don't want you there too. They're probably pooping in that water,
aren't they.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
They are, So number two is most definitely like probably
correct number one. Actually, people do go and visit. Now,
you're not going to want to be in the water
with the monkeys, right, but people do go and visit
them to simply watch them admire them, and they actually
tolerate human visitors pretty well, which is rather surprising. But
(11:24):
it seems that there's perhaps like a culture there of
giving the monkeys some space, so they've learned to tolerate
human visitors. So and interestingly, it's not like these monkeys
are just completely chill, sort of like Cappy barras where
it's like, yeah, you get it, why kaby bars let
you watch them? Because kabby bars just are completely chill.
Some monkeys as cute as they are, as adorable as
(11:47):
this Spa habit is, they do have a very strict
social hierarchy, so they have a matrilineal dominance hierarchy. It
is a system in which you will have a matriarch
who is the dominant female who basically controls a territory
a group of females and males are a little more fluid,
(12:07):
so males will have their own dominance hierarchy, but it's
much more fluid. It's much more changeable because the males,
once they reach a certain age, they have to go
out and disperse to another group. So what happens is
you have this solid core of females with a hierarchy
that stays relatively stable, and you have males who come
(12:28):
and go and they kind of form a little bit
of a looser knit hierarchy, but there's still usually like
a dominant male. But yeah, that female power structure is
much more I would say institutional. It's like a monkey institution.
And you will have sometimes the daughter will take over
the family business and become the matriarch, but that doesn't
always happen. You might have a young upstart who comes
(12:52):
up and then becomes the new monkey matriarch. There was
a recent shakeup where there was a one of these
young monkeys before her mom even retires, she took over.
She took the company away from her mother. And yeah, family,
it's just it's like that one show had cheered in
cocaine in it. What was that? You know what I'm
(13:12):
talking about? Business?
Speaker 2 (13:13):
I don't think I don't family too close.
Speaker 1 (13:17):
Yeah, sad angry business people show is what I'm calling it. Succession,
that's it. That's the one.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
Yeah, I haven't seen that.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
I'm not good at TV. I haven't seen it either.
I just know I watched a couple episodes and it's like, yeah,
it's a sad, angry, rich family show. Not really interested,
but I get it. It's it's television. But anyways, if
that was done but with snow monkeys, I would absolutely
watch it. Oh absolutely, So yeah, so these females form
these stable matrilineal groups. Uh, and they have this rigorous
(13:47):
dominant structure and this also comes into play for spa time.
So yeah, so the the dominant female and her immediate
can get priority when it comes to the hot springs
if you have curried favor with her, perhaps like you're
a male that she's mating with. They don't form lifelong
(14:09):
monogamous pair bonds, but they do form like seasonal monogamy,
so they'll for a mating season at a time, maybe
formal paaramond. But she will groom others. She teaches her
daughters how to groom, so like mothers will teach their
daughters these grooming techniques and they groom each other. But
it's very clique. These are kind of this is like
(14:29):
a high school click that lasts their entire lives.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
This would be great as a reality TV show. I
think they'd have a really easy time with it. And
so is like if you're on top, does that mean
that you get the like warmest spot or you stay
in for longer, Like what do you get if you're
the queen of this group?
Speaker 1 (14:48):
Yes, all of the above. So there is limited space
in these hot springs. And so if you're the dominant
female and that dominant female's family and the dominant females friends,
you do get access to the hot springs more often,
you get the premium spots, and you also may get
the only spots. So sometimes if you are kind of
(15:10):
on the periphery of society, you are the proletariat, the
monkey proletariat, you don't actually get that spa time. And yeah,
so it is it is not. This is not a
utopian monkey society. Unfortunately, not everyone is treated equally. These
other monkeys.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
Do they die sometimes if they don't get their spot
in the water, do they freez.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
So they it is less good for them. So there's
actual health benefits for these these hot springs. There have
been studies on the monkey poop, because you always gotta
do the monkey poop, but when they want to Whenever
you see a study that's like about stress hormones and
wild animals, nine out of ten times it's going to
be that scientists are picking through poop looking for a
(15:54):
stress hormones.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
So informative that poop. There's parasites in there too. There's
so much you can learn.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
There's so much you can learn. In fact, in zoos,
sometimes they will do color coding for poop, maybe put
like glitter or some kind of color in the poop
so that like something that's harmless to the animal, so
that when they are trying to test various like you
know this, here's this group and this group that we're
doing various things like with research or medical studies in
terms of like in terms of the animal's health, like
(16:21):
like usually for zoos, it'll be like, we have to
treat this giraffe for this stomach issue, so we're also
going to test their poop, because why not, We're already
we're already dealing with giraffe diarrhea. You might as well
make giraffe diarrhea made out of giraffe diarrhea.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
Yeah, sure, I mean I would definitely want the glitter
poop if they were like, yes, you know what, except
but I think if you're doing like a fecal float,
you're trying to find the like parasite eggs. I would
get really annoyed with all of the glitter, like in.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
The cunder your microscope blinding out. So yeah, So they
looked at the feces of these monkeys and they found
lower amounts of stress hormones stress proteins that indicate that
these baths do have a material benefit for them in
terms of lowering stress. I read this very interesting summary
(17:09):
of it where it was saying that, well, the alpha female,
who has the hardest job thus needs this more than
the lower ranking females, And it's like, is that why?
I feel like that was written by the alpha female?
Like this this study summary was like written by the
alpha female, Like yeah, I need it because I boss
(17:30):
bay way too hard, so I'm always stressed, so I
need it. I need it.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
The CEOs who are like, oh, sor I need five
times the pay that you get, Yeah, just exactly how
else am I going to make this job worth it? Exactly?
How do you tease a part Like you know, if
you are at the top of the hierarchy, or you
are your hormones low because you get more time in
the hot tub, or is it low because you know
that you're in a good position and someone's cleaning off
(17:55):
your parasites. You don't have to stress out about that.
It seems like it would be hard to disentangle time
in the tub from all the other benefits of being
at the top of the hierarchy.
Speaker 1 (18:03):
That's a very good question. These are often issues with
observational studies in animals because it's really hard, like especially
so you have wild animals, you can't necessarily do a
control group. So these are like observational studies. I believe
what they did was they sort of tried to track
it with the amount of observable time that a monkey
(18:23):
is spent in the hot springs. Now that doesn't completely
satisfy your study design question because a monkey who's in
the spaw war you're right, maybe actually getting more access
to grooming as well. So that's a tricky thing to
tease apart. I think that they tried to, you know, essentially,
they tried to separate observations of like grooming from like
(18:44):
spa time and tried to make that separation. But it's
true that those are confounding factors, and it's one of
the difficulties with these studies that look into the natural
behaviors of animals. But then if you try to do
a controlled study in a laboratory environment, you have sort
of another problem, which is that these are this is
not capturing natural behavior. You're capturing the behavior of an
(19:05):
animal in a lab. So it can be a little tricky.
Speaker 2 (19:08):
Sometimes ecology use a huge pain in the ass's but
it's fascinating, but a real pain, very.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
Interesting, very much a pain. But yeah, they absolutely do
seem to at the very least really enjoy these hot springs.
It does warm them up. Your earlier question was like,
could these other monkeys freeze to death? They could. They
do also have really fluffy, furry coats, so those also
(19:36):
keep them warm. Generally speaking, just because they're missing out
on spa time doesn't necessarily doom them to die. But
in a really harsh winter where resources are really scarce,
if the temperatures drop way too low, they don't have
enough food, yeah, that could absolutely make the difference, right,
And that's sort of the that is the tricky part
(19:57):
of this evolution where you have the this incentive for
these this alpha structure of like we want to pass
on our genes, we want to give our offspring the
best opportunities, so it's sort of this dominance hierarchy. And
it's so interesting when you see it in animals who
are not you social right, so u sociality. You have
this like basically physiological hierarchy that is enforced genetically and physically,
(20:24):
and you see it in bees. You actually also see
it in animals like meerkats. But this is kind of
this is not quite you sociality you have it. It
goes from the that one extreme of like bees, where
you have like a queen and you have workers and
you have this like genetically enforced social hierarchy with these
(20:44):
well defined roles, to something a little more flexible, so
like a young, upstart monkey can take over the troop
and kick out the dominant. It's just a lot harder
when you don't have the resources, when you essentially grow
up poor as a monkey, and you don't get as
much food and you don't get as much time in
the spa. You know, monkey inequality.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
Yeah, yeah, not cool. Not cool. So there was a
I seem to remember a long time ago, like Jane
Goodall got a little bit of flack for putting out
like food while she was watching the chimpanzees, and it
like started a war yea. Did adding whoops? Did adding
another hot spring change the like dynamics because now maybe
there's enough hot springs to go around, so they don't
(21:27):
have like the hierarchy doesn't matter anymore because everybody can
get in the spa.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
It's a really good question. That's a super good question.
I don't know the answer to that, but I can
tell you that there have been ships and monkey cultures
where it's there's something that seems like, ah, this is
just the general behavior of this monkey that that must
be must have been since you know, they evolved and
like continues and it's not necessarily a culture, it's just
(21:54):
this instinctive trait and then it turns out that's wrong.
So this this was the case for I believe babboons
where there was an outbreak of a disease. They're eating
tainted meat at a dumpster, and the this was a
male dominated society, so you had these male baboons that
were dominant over the females and over weaker males, and
(22:17):
they were very violent, very aggressive, and they would do
kind of like have enforced this strict hierarchy, and so
they were able to go and feed at these food
dumps and eat all of this meat. And so they
ate this tainted meat that had a bacterial infection, and
so they got infected and they died off. And so
the females and the less dominant males survived because they
(22:39):
weren't given a seat at the table at these dumps.
And so what you saw is this reorganization of society
where the females started to enforce a less aggressive society.
They would punish males who would start to be too aggressive,
and so you got a much less both them. Females
and the less dominant males would force this sort of
(23:01):
more I wouldn't necessarily call it egalitarian. There was still
a hierarchy structure, but it was a lot more calm, gentle,
less aggressive. A lot of conflicts were settled by grooming
rather than fighting, and females seemed to enforce this and
teach this to males. And what was really interesting was
males that left their old troops and came to disperse
(23:22):
right and came to this new one then learned right.
So it was an effect that didn't go away. It persisted.
So in terms of your question, I don't know specifically
if adding more hot springs had a change in this
monkey society, but I would say that that is definitely possible.
You do see as resources and population shift, especially in
intelligent animals like primates, you do actually see cultural shifts,
(23:45):
which is really interesting.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
That is Yeah, that Baboon story is amazing. It almost
gives me like hope for the future, although you like,
I don't want a catastrophic mortality of all the people
in charge, but.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
Like it's felas. We're not gonna go around poisoning me.
It's okay, calm down.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
Sorry, Yeah, we're good. We're good. But but I like
the idea that you know, things can change over time
and that these cultural improvements can persist. That's pretty cool.
Speaker 1 (24:09):
Absolutely. Also cool is that snow monkeys do roll snowballs,
which I love.
Speaker 2 (24:15):
That's awesome. Oh that does the hierarchy influence? Like what
direction they throw the snowballs? Ah, hit the queen?
Speaker 1 (24:22):
Yes, exactly, you know what. I I don't know that
for a fact, but I bet that youngsters are probably
gonna get pretty punished severely if they hit the queen,
hit the matriarch with a snowball. I think it's mostly juveniles, uh,
messing around with each other. I don't. I don't think
they get into too many monkey snowball fights. But they
love rolling the snowball. They enjoy just like, this is fun,
(24:45):
This is cool. I'm making a snowball and then maybe
the juveniles kind of smack each other with it. That
sounds like something they would do.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
Yeah, irresistible. Like I love the idea of little monkey snowmen.
Speaker 1 (24:57):
Yeah, yeah, that would be so cute. You see a
little just just and then there's like a piece of
poop shoved in it because they're monkeys.
Speaker 2 (25:03):
Yeah right, they'd have to do that. Yeppold do that too,
if we let them, if we let them, which you
know it just don't don't eat the yellow snow folks.
Speaker 1 (25:13):
All right, we're gonna take a quick break and when
we get back, we are gonna talk about really interesting story.
This is an animal who it is a surprise that
we now know more about. All right, So this story
is it's a little less I mean, I have mixed
feelings about it because it does involve a very very
(25:35):
very old dead kitten. So I'm just gonna yeah, I'm
gonna go there right at the top. But this is
a saber toothed tiger kitten. Specifically, this is Homotherium and
this was a This is an incredible find that I
think was found in twenty twenty. It was a three
(25:55):
week old mummified extinct Homothereum kitten which had its fur
and its flesh and part of its skeleton in place. Shockingly,
it actually this this sounds a little bit morbid, but
it's actually kind of cute, Like it's it's it's sad.
It's kind of morbid and sad, but it's not grotesque looking,
(26:16):
like it's not super messed up looking. It looks a
little bit cute, like it has kind of a cute face.
It's like shockingly well preserved.
Speaker 2 (26:24):
I have a broad range of things I'm able to
consider cute, Like there are cute parasites. I think blobfish
are cute. I can imagine a cute preserved Yeah, fabertooth cat.
Speaker 1 (26:34):
Look, it's it's spooky. Uh, it's probably haunted, but it
is also really cute. So there were many different species
of home Ethereum. It's genus of these uh, sabertoothed tigers,
and they're different genuses of sabertooth tigers. So this was
this was one found in Siberia. There were also a
(26:55):
home ethereum in North America, and in North America they
were thought to have gone extinct around twelve thousand years ago,
while those in Europe. The fossil record there is a
little older, so around thirty thousand years ago. That doesn't
mean necessarily that that's when they went to extinct. North
America has some different manners in which these these fossil
(27:17):
records were preserved, such as like tarpits, incredible Librea tarpits
in Los Angeles. You get a lot of amazingly preserved
bones and so you're able to build particially a more
complete fossil record, whereas it may be a little more
difficult in Europe. So it's it's just it's hard to say,
but but yeah, this Honotheroeum kitten was found in.
Speaker 2 (27:40):
Siberia and it's ever been good to live in Siberia.
Speaker 1 (27:44):
It's tricky, but yeah, it's remarkably intact, kind of cute
and a grim way has this soft, fluffy, sort of
reddish brown fur. Now, the color, it's hard to make
a definite determination about the color. Some of the research
speculate there may have been some loss of the color
(28:06):
over time. One of the reasons they suspect that is
that the kitten doesn't have spots, and usually kittens will
have spots some kind of like disruptive coloration in terms
of camouflage. This doesn't have it could mean it didn't
have it, or it could mean that this coat has
degraded over the tens of thousands of years that it's
been frozen.
Speaker 2 (28:27):
Would let it haunt me? Though it sounds super cute.
Speaker 1 (28:29):
It's super cute. There is so not to get too gruesome.
There is only about half of it left, but it is.
It's the cute half. It's the it's the front half,
not the butt half.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
So that's preferable.
Speaker 1 (28:41):
Yes, look, we would both have failed that that one test.
That guy who's like, ah, you want you want to
chop this kitten in half, It's like, sure, give me
the cute half.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
Uh. It was that keep us out of biblical stories?
Speaker 1 (28:55):
It King Solomon, King Solomon, that's right, Yeah, yeah. So
the kitten had some interesting features that researchers were able
to kind of build a more complete picture of these
the species. Now, obviously, because it's a kitten, a lot
of its juvenile traits are not going to carry over
as adults. In a lot of this is kind of
giesswork and how this might have matured over time. But
(29:17):
what they did have is they seem to have some
evidence that they might eventually have had side burns. They
have these cute little huffs on their chin, adorable, I know.
And their upper lips were actually longer than the they
like compared it to a three week old lion cub
and looked at these morphological differences. The upper lips were
(29:39):
longer and so their fangs hadn't grown in all the
way yet because it was a kitten. But because of
that longer lip, it speculated that there's like warring theories
of like did they have the fangs out uncovered as
we kind of imagine like when you see a lot
of illustrations of saber toothed tigers, the various species, they've
(30:00):
just got these giant things right out, and a lot
of evolutionary biologists think that might be wrong, a lot
of paleontologists because it's like, well, because you're not protect
like if you have that tooth exposed and that gum
line exposed, that's gonna be a little more dangerous in
terms of infection. You're gonna get stuff in it. It's
(30:20):
a little bit potentially tricky there. So there's another theory
that maybe they covered it with skin. And so the
fact that this kitten's upper lip is larger compared to
say a line cub's upper lip, they think that that
might kind of help in the case that they're making
that maybe they covered at least part maybe not the
(30:40):
whole thing, but at least part of it with some
of their lipt to protect that sensitive area.
Speaker 2 (30:46):
So we think some adults might have had like super
long droopy lips.
Speaker 1 (30:49):
Yes, absolutely, possibly, way less epic. It feels a little doofier,
like you know, it goes. It goes from that character
from Ice Age really looking to like, hello everybody, I'm
I'm here to join your join your your franchise.
Speaker 2 (31:06):
But as like an old person with cold teeth sensitivity,
I like, I can imagine not wanting if you're inside
your teeth exposed to the cold all the time.
Speaker 1 (31:14):
That would suck. Tooth cover, Yeah, that would a tooth cozy. Yeah,
just knit a little little tiny like teeth warmers them
when you're ready to kill something. So the kitten also
had rounded paws like a lynx So that's pretty interesting
because again links uh certain species and links. The ones
(31:35):
that live in the cold have these really thick, fluffy,
rounded paws that help them stay warm against the snow,
and so it looks like this kitten had that as well.
Speaker 2 (31:45):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
They also had no carple pads on their wrist. So
the carpl pad you know, the little toebeans on your
dogs and your cats, and then they have a little
pad on their sort of like the wrist part that
is called a carple padu and it can help with say,
like gripping, gripping things like balones, rasping things, but it
(32:07):
is an exposed piece of flesh. And so what you
see sometimes in animals that live in very, very cold
environments is that they may lose parts of their bodies
that are more prone to say, frost bites, because getting
frostbite versus not getting it can make a significant difference,
right in terms of you don't want you don't want
(32:28):
a part of your body that's necrotic and potentially infected.
So you actually see this also in have you ever
seen a snubnosed monkeys? Are these they're these golden monkeys
with blue They're different species, but there's the golden monkey,
which is one with like this golden fur. It's got
like a blue face. People who watched any of the
(32:49):
what is it Golden Compass franchise, either the movie or
TV show or books, there's a monkey in there that's
a snubnose monkey. They're actually they're very interesting because they
their noses are very flat, but they somewhat have humanoid faces.
They're quite lovely looking a little strange, but they have
(33:09):
essentially lost any of the fleshy part of their nose
because they live in these high altitudes at these cold temperatures,
which which it just makes it such that it's not
necessarily that Like, we're not talking about la Marking evolution
right where a monkey gets frost bite, its nose falls off,
and then the next generation doesn't have a nose. This
(33:30):
is not what we're talking about. We're talking about the
monkeys whose noses were flatter and more inverted ended up
not having a deal with things like frostbite and therefore
had a better chance of survival.
Speaker 2 (33:40):
So I'm thinking of other sticky, outy parts you do.
How about ears? Do ears and cold tend to like
be smaller?
Speaker 1 (33:48):
Yeah? Ears, So that's very interesting yeat. Ears do play
a role in terms of say, adapting to temperature environments.
So like you'll see with say, uh with with fluffy animals,
right that the ears will be covered in fur, Like
you look at the links, big tufts of fluffy fur
that really protects those ears. Ears are quite important. So
(34:12):
having like a large ear that acts as a cone
to like have all of that sound get sort of
directed in and then being able to swivel them around
so that you can locate do this calculation that where
you can find figure out where your prey is coming from.
All that's super important. So you'll often see and say,
like a lot of predators species even when they're really
(34:34):
in the cold, they still have these big ears, but
they're covered in fur. And so for snubnose monkeys, their
ears are actually pretty small. They're also close to the
head and they're very fluffy, so it's just that bare
face where that nose. It turned out that the benefits
of having that nose were you know, not as not
(34:54):
as good as having a flatter nose that they don't
have to deal with frostbite and things like. Also, you
may have say like digits that can be prone to frostbite.
But you can also those are a little more dynamics,
so you can like hold them close to you. You'll
see them, you know, like holding it inwards, tucking their
feet in. So, yeah, you absolutely do see that. You
(35:16):
actually also see somewhat of the opposite effect and the heat.
You'll see animals get these really big thin ears and
they use those like like say, African hairs, and they
use that as a method of thermal regulation and the heat.
So they're using these giant ears that have all of
these veins kind of over a wide surface area as
(35:37):
an air conditioner.
Speaker 2 (35:39):
That is so much more functional than our ears.
Speaker 1 (35:42):
Yeah, I would like to have ears that are also
an air conditioner.
Speaker 2 (35:46):
Or a nose covered in fur. Yeah yeah, maybe I'll
think I'll pass on that one.
Speaker 1 (35:51):
Got a crochet and nose cozy. So we are gonna
take another quick break and when we get back, we're
gonna talk about birds getting round for the winter, and
then we're gonna play a little game whoop. All right,
So one of my my favorite, possibly the most favorite
part of the winter is birds getting round. It's birds
(36:13):
getting round season. They turn into fluffy little balls. It's
so it's adorable. And it's incredibly functional. So birds have
a variety of techniques to survive the winter. We have
a lot of migratory species, right from aquatic birds like waterfowl, ducks, geese,
(36:35):
they'll they'll form these big migrating flocks. You have smaller birds,
songbirds that may migrate into various areas. But you still
have birds who do have to deal with cold weather.
Some of them may stay in one location, or some
of them may migrate from even colder areas, so they'll
come in from say like Siberia and go somewhere that
(36:58):
still has a winter, but it's a lot more survivable.
So you do still have a lot of birds that
have to figure out how to stay warm in the cold,
particularly because they are you know, they have these very
high metabolisms, which is one of the things they need
in order to maintain flight.
Speaker 2 (37:20):
They burn.
Speaker 1 (37:22):
They do snuggle, so social speedy sas love to snuggle
with each other. They will huddle all bunch up. They'll
you often see also, like you know, how like in
winter photography, you'll often see like two say you see
a couple of tits and they're jammed together. They're huddling together,
they're doing that for warmth and it is adorable. And yeah,
(37:43):
they will form these big fluffy cuddle piles. They will
also shiver, So birds can shiver. They're not necessarily scared,
they're not necessarily uncomfortable, but shivering helps them warm up,
just like it helps us warm up. Which is kind
of wild because birds are died and we are mammals.
Speaker 2 (38:03):
But we're all still so similar.
Speaker 1 (38:05):
We're all we all shiver in the cold. So doesn't
that I feel like that's poetic, right, something about from
from dinosaurs to mammals. We all shiver in the cold.
So let's just get along and only occasionally eat each other.
Speaker 2 (38:20):
When we're cut and we all shiver in the cold.
Speaker 1 (38:22):
I like, right. So another thing that they do is
they get real fluffy, so they will fluff out their feathers.
They which is both in terms of like they get fatter.
They eat a lot of food preceding in the winter
(38:43):
because having more body fat having more calories is really important. Also,
species that are say insectivores, will expand their diet. They'll
start eating berries, they'll start eating seeds. Because you can't
be you can't be a beggar, or you can you
can't be a chooser. You can be a beggar in
the winter, but say like European robins, one of our
(39:05):
favorite Christmas birds, right, it has to expand out its
palette from invertebrates, worms to including berries, seeds, anything you
can find, because it's going to be a lot harder
to find insects in the winter.
Speaker 2 (39:23):
Does that make it harder for them to fly? Subsequently,
the extra.
Speaker 1 (39:27):
Their chunkier, Yeah, it's you know, it is a trade off.
Like you do potentially have a trade off between say
like getting really fat and being able to fly, but
in the winter it's absolutely worth it because you're really
not necessarily going to be flying long distances once you're
settled down for the winter. So whatever a slight amount
of sluggishness that might be a trade off in terms
(39:49):
of being a little thicker, is definitely worth the enhancement
of having enough calories to burn and being able to
have that chrishioning, especially when you'll there may be days
where they just can't find any food.
Speaker 2 (40:04):
I wonder if chunky robins take off faster when they
see a fox than less chunky robins, because like less
chunky robins, maybe they can get off the ground faster.
Speaker 1 (40:14):
So interesting, Yeah, like maybe there's some added vigilance right
in terms of like they understand, well not necessarily understand,
but they have this instinctive response that you know, they
may be a little more vulnerable and so that they
are on a higher alert during the winter. That could
be I think another trade off is that say you're
a migratory bird, right and you go somewhere warmer where
(40:36):
you're not really having to worry about these things, it's
gonna be a lot of predators that are out and
about able to get you. When you are going somewhere
really cold in the winter and you're surviving, there may
be fewer predators out, and yet there may be a counterbalance,
which is that the predators who are out and about
very desperate, really want to eat you. So there's all
(40:57):
these there are a lot of different sort of these
kind of countervailing weights that results in this kind of
spread out of like some species stay, some species migrate,
some species migrate from a really cold place to slightly
less cold place, all these kinds of things, and then
you get this really interesting kind of push pull mechanisms
(41:18):
that are you know, giving us winter birds in every
quarner of the world.
Speaker 2 (41:24):
Yep, it's complicated exactly.
Speaker 1 (41:27):
So one thing they do is they puff out their
feathers and so they turn it they not only are
they like meteor fatter because they're trying to eat more
or hopefully they physically fluff out their feathers, which gives
them the impression of being much fatter, which they may
not actually be that chunky, but that is there is
(41:47):
a purpose to that puffing out because if they puff out,
they're catching more air pockets in between the feathers. So
like when you have a winter coat, you may even
have something with synthetic reeled down. A lot of how
that coat works is you're trapping air pockets in between
these layers. That forms this insulation that keeps the heat
(42:08):
from transferring from your body and then going out into
the outside world. It keeps that heat in and so
a bird who has fluffed itself up is essentially doing
the same thing. There's pockets of air trapped between these feathers,
and those pockets of air act as insulation and it
basically it's like wearing a warm winter coat made out
(42:30):
of feathers.
Speaker 2 (42:31):
Do they have more feathers during the winter or different
kinds or is it just how they hold the feathers
which is what captures the heat.
Speaker 1 (42:39):
It depends on the species, but it can be both,
so it can some species might have more down more
of this downy feathers, like during the winter, and some
species some species actually even have a winter coat where
it's like they go from a completely different coloration to
say a white coloration to make them more linden with
(43:01):
the snow. So some species, yeah, they actually might have
a higher proportion density of down downy feathers and that
that kind of those downy feathers are really good at
trapping in warmth because they're like if you ever look
at the difference between say a flight feather and a
down feather, the down feather is a lot fluffier, It's
like a lot softer. Flight feather is sleeker, uh, and
(43:22):
that that is better for flight. Down is not good.
You really can't fly using these like down in inner
downy feathers. And you can even see, like when you
look at the bird, all their flight feathers and stuff
are kind of like more on the outside on their
wings and then the downy feathers like you know, around
their chests like under their wings, like on their bellies,
and that because the of the structure of those feathers
(43:43):
that are much more sort of they're they're finer, they're
they're branched out more more finely. It traps little pockets,
tiny pockets of air a lot better, and so those
keep that bird warm. You also have pretty much every
species of bird will have a oil gland near the
base of their tails that they can use to preene,
(44:04):
and that those oils cover the tops of their feathers,
because when you get those feathers wet, they no longer
functions as an insulation. Like if you've ever had a
warm like a winter jacket that's like filled with a
either synthetic or real down, and it gets wet, it's miserable.
It does not work. It's awful. It's awful because you've
(44:29):
now the air bubbles no longer get trapped in there.
It's wet, it's soaked through. You no longer have that insulation.
It's almost worse than it was before. And so it's
really important for birds to be able to maintain this
weather proofing on their feathers, otherwise if they get wet,
it's kind of game over. So like you'll see this
(44:49):
in waterfowl. They really like you've heard the term, you know,
like water off a ducts back. Well, that's because it's
covered in this oil. And if they need to constantly preene,
spread these oils around, maintain this in order to keep
that weather proofing because that is vital for their survival.
They would not survive if they didn't have that weatherproofing
(45:09):
over their feathers.
Speaker 2 (45:10):
Does that oil do anything else? So it helps keep
them warm? But like so there are another feather problem.
There are like parasites that live in the feathers. Does
it have any like anti parasite stuff so that the
it gets eaten by like the lice and then the
lifestye it.
Speaker 1 (45:28):
So if it has, it's not necessarily I don't believe.
I'll check on that, but I don't believe it's actually
like poisonous for the parasites. But it does provide a
physical barrier, right, like sort of like a physical blocking
because it's oily, right, it's a thick thing. It's sort
of like how you know how like tree sap sort
(45:49):
of works to deter boring beetles who are trying to
get into that tree and oily coating on these feathers
is going to potentially deter pairites because of the physical
barrier method. Now, they do sometimes anoint themselves with a
formic acid, which is called anting. Uh. They'll pick up
(46:11):
an ant, a poor innocent little ant and just rub
it on their bodies. This is done a lot by
crows actually, but other birds do this as well. And
so what that does is it uh that formic acid
that actually does kill the parasites. Like, if a parasite
is eating that that that acid, uh, it will uh
it'll it'll die. And so yeah, they do actually use
(46:34):
some other things in addition to that that oil barrier
that helps them to find off parasites. And actually I
think like there's also other species, like you also have
uh not just birds, right, I mean we also produce
something similar. We produce sebam in our in our hair.
That's why when you don't wash your hair for a
few days, it starts to get a little bit oily. Uh.
(46:56):
You see it very dramatically in sheep. It's called lanilin.
But essentially that's just sebam. It's it's oils produced by
these sebam glands and those have a similar similar function
in mammals as well. It's but yeah, we we do
often have so like you know, a sheep might be
able to survive out in the cold and the rain
(47:16):
because not only that amazing fluffy wool, but the wool
is a little bit waterproof. And if you've ever had
like a wool sweater that wasn't super highly processed and
still retain the those natural anilins, it does. Actually you'll
see the water beat up on it because the water's
not going to penetrate that, and the warmth from that
is going to function on a similar sort of uh
(47:38):
that that similar principle of it's trapping little pockets of
air inside that soft wool and keeping you warm.
Speaker 2 (47:45):
Very cool. Yeah, I've heard lots of stories, no, very warm,
very warm. I've heard lots of stories about people who
have sheep and they like open up the barns to
bring them in on the coldest days and the sheep
are like, no, man, I'm cool, like my kindness. Yeah,
And I'm also really looking forward to, like, you know,
if my elementary school kids ever come home with lice,
to just like getting a bunch of ants and like
rubbing the and taking care of that problem.
Speaker 1 (48:07):
Much much more fun than that nasty shampoo. Absolutely, yes, yes, yes, no,
just rub some ants on there, like I'm gonna start.
I'm I need to start a pseudo scientific health blog
where it's just like we shouldn't have any real medicine,
just stuff that animals do. So like rub ants on
(48:28):
your bodies, you know, poop on your legs like a
vulture to clean them. All of these natural remedies. Why
they're natural, they have to be good for you, right
right right.
Speaker 2 (48:38):
And penguins they shoot the poop to keep like other
passities away, so like put poop around your house if
you feel like being left alone. This is great. Yeah, absolutely,
you're not gonna take my kids away from me probably.
Speaker 1 (48:50):
You know. I just I just talked about that on
the show. These these penguins that the high velocity poop cannons,
and there was an actual paper. Did you read that?
Did you see that paper with incredible diagram? So great, yeap, fantastic, fantastic.
I love that. Speaking of birds who have incredible like
their feathers, completely different ballgame, very very sleek, designed mostly
(49:13):
for swimming, but also to keep them warm, so they
also have that effect of the super uh. They have
the the oily coat on the outside for waterproofing, and
then that's a very dense layer of down on the
inside that keeps them warm. But then they also have
other techniques of like huddling together, you know, sitting on
their eggs, sitting on their chicks, and kind of creating
(49:35):
that cocoon of warmness. So the penguins are kind of
the ultimate animal because they combine almost everything we've talked
about today, the big collective huddling. They they sit on
their babies, which is always great. They have the down,
they have the the that protective oily coating. I guess
they don't enjoy hot springs, which is really I would
(49:57):
love to put a penguin in a hot spring and
just watch its little pupils dilate as it like discovers
the most wondrous thing.
Speaker 2 (50:06):
I mean, I bet if they had access to hot springs,
I bet they'd use those hot sks.
Speaker 1 (50:09):
Absolutely, yeah, I mean there they do.
Speaker 2 (50:11):
Some some of them, like do.
Speaker 1 (50:12):
Live in warmer areas, right, They're not, like not all
penguins are Arctic penguins that or live near the Arctic circle.
There's a lot of tropical penguins, and I'm sure there's
someone in fairly warm waters. So we do have we
do have penguins that are enjoying the Mediterranean lifestyle.
Speaker 2 (50:28):
Yeah, way to go. They are warm in the cutest
of ways.
Speaker 1 (50:31):
Yes, I'm definitely tracking Pesto. I can't wait to see
his little what he looks like in his adult his
final adult form. He's going to be massive. I'm looking
forward to it.
Speaker 2 (50:42):
Is Pesto an emperor penguin. I've managed to make.
Speaker 1 (50:44):
Pesto is a king penguin, I believe. Okay, so he's
I don't think he's an emperor penguin. He's a king penguin.
So that's like the second largest penguin. But for a
king penguin, he's enormous.
Speaker 2 (50:55):
Awesome.
Speaker 1 (50:56):
Yes, well, there we go. We do gotta play a
little game. This is called Guess Who Squawk and the
Mystery Animal Sound Game. Every week I play a mystery
animal sound and you, the listener, and you the guest,
try to guess who is making this sound. The hint
for last week's is this. This is inspired by young
listener Eleanor. The hint is this. If you wanted it,
(51:21):
you should have put a ring on it? All right, Kelly,
you got any guests?
Speaker 2 (51:34):
I mean all right? So the sound made me happy,
totally unrelated. It sounds like a happy sound. It's gotta
be some kind of ring necked bird with the ring,
but I don't think I know it is.
Speaker 1 (51:48):
You are on the right track with the rings being
involved in the coloration. This is surprisingly the call of
the ring tailed lamour. Oh yeah, it's it's this is
such a tricky one. Congratulations to Jared him for guessing correctly.
I did a mystery animal sound where I did a
(52:08):
baby zebra and Eleanor had guessed a ringtailed lamur, and
I had thought, you know what, I don't actually know
what a ringtail fleamer sound like. So thank you Eleanor
for having me look this up because this was surprising
to me. So ringtail.
Speaker 2 (52:25):
Yeah, all those years of watching z boom fo, I
thought for.
Speaker 1 (52:28):
Sure different lemurs. The booma foo I believe is a
He is a what if he's a faka? Wait? Who
is zaboomafoo boom buff can't spell? That's hard. I think
he's such a fakka. Let me check. This is so important?
(52:50):
So he is he is? No? No, yes, he is
a Cockerell's sofaka lemur? So okay, yeah, yeah, uh it's
a it's really it gets tough. There's a lot of
lemurs and they're very similar looking. So yeah, this is
the call of the ringtail lemur. They're endemic to Madagascar.
(53:12):
Like other lemurs. Uh, they are sort of I think
they're the most iconic ones. They're the they're the striped lemurs.
They they like to do that side sache hopping. Other
lemurs do it as well, but these are quite famous
for it. Uh you know, the what's it the Madagascar
movie franchise King Julian. Uh, if you're, if you're, yes,
(53:32):
that's someone. And so they have extremely complex vocalizations they
use in social groups. They have calls for reaching out
to fellow members of their troop. They also have specific
predator alarm calls like actually similar to the Japanese macacus
we discussed earlier. Ringtailed lemurs form matrilineal social groups with
(53:54):
dominant females uh subordinate females. Males have a looser structure
they where they also have their own little hierarchy, but
basically the the dominant females calling the shots in the
troop like in the radio. Yeah, you know, I'm just saying.
Speaker 2 (54:08):
Look.
Speaker 1 (54:09):
Uh. First, first, a ringtailed leamer president so cutely lemurs
will sit on their behinds with their arms out, kind
of like in a lotus position, like a meditation pose.
It's called sun worshiping. All they're doing is warming up
in the morning sun. They're they're haven't they're warming up
all their fur they're getting they're soaking in the rays
(54:30):
and they look adorable and peaceful. Uh.
Speaker 2 (54:33):
Yes, reminds me of the vultures that I see sunning
u fences in the mornings.
Speaker 1 (54:38):
Yes, absolutely, it's it's so interesting. It's a behavior you
see in vultures. You see it. And also, uh, cormorants,
they're very they they love to strike that pose. It's
a it's very regal, very majestic. But they're just like,
ah my tummy's so warm. Yay, all right, onto this
week's mister annimill sound. The hint is this, just let
(54:59):
them grab winter coat and he's ready to start caroling. Beautiful,
it's stunning. Let's let's just hear it again just because
I love it so much. Fantastic, it's amazing, beatis beautiful song,
so regal. Yes, you got it. I guess this. This
(55:21):
is a tough one.
Speaker 2 (55:22):
You know that it sounds like a call that a
frog would make. But the put on his winter coat
just doesn't doesn't match.
Speaker 1 (55:29):
Uh frogs and their little winter coats, so.
Speaker 2 (55:33):
That'd be super cute.
Speaker 1 (55:34):
Yeah, I don't know, all right, Well, I will reveal
the answer next time on Creature Feature. Uh well, if
it's not next time, it might be in a future episode.
This is happening in the holiday, so I might have
a rerun. But the next time we do a fresh
hot pipe and new mystery animal sound game, you will
find out who is making this wacky noise. Kelly, thank
(55:58):
you so much for joining me today. This this is
a blast. Where can people find.
Speaker 2 (56:02):
You, well, thank you so much for having me. I
had a blast. You can find me at Daniel and
Kelly's Extraordinary Universe the podcast or at Wienersmith dot com.
Speaker 1 (56:12):
That is I highly recommend, very excited for this show
if you want to learn all about the universe, all
about physics, uh, particle physics, and you know, possibly aliens.
Not gonna say no to aliens.
Speaker 2 (56:27):
We've been doing parasites and stuff too. I've been screaming
more biology in there. We're working on a parasite series
right now. It's it's fantastic.
Speaker 1 (56:35):
I'm excited. I want to I want to be invited
to the parasite party. And yes, fantastic alien parasites. Let's
let's let's find out more about that. People are saying
the show. I'm I'm hearing this. I'm not saying it,
but I'm people are saying that there are alien parasites
out there right now.
Speaker 2 (56:56):
I mean, you know, I think if there's alien free
living creatures, a Delian parasites are probably never far Probably. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (57:04):
I'm auditioning for Joe Rogan right now. I'm just like like, look,
I've heard this, you know, like I've heard that maybe
there's alien parasites. I don't have any data to back
it up, but I've heard this.
Speaker 2 (57:15):
I think you'd be a great guest.
Speaker 1 (57:17):
Thank you, Thank you very much. Well, stay warm out there,
you guys. I hope you are all enjoying the winter season. Friendship,
stay and warm, family, food and cuddles, doing a bee
mosh pit, hot springs that show institutional problems of inequality,
(57:39):
all of these festive things. Take care out there, and
thank you so much for listening. If you're enjoying the show,
when you leave a rating, oar of you, it really
does help me. It's a tangible help to the podcast.
It tells the algorithm that it's worthy of being shown
on the internet. So yes, those do you really help?
(58:00):
And thank you guys so much for listening. Just by listening,
you are helping me out. And I really love teaching
you guys about animals. And I love it when you
guys write to me. If you guys think you know
the answer to this week's mister animal sound, you can
write to me at Creature Featurepod at gmail dot com.
You can also write to me your questions and you
(58:20):
know it is. It is fantastic. I've also been getting
a lot of things where people are sending me studies
and interesting things and I am learning new stuff, So
thank you so much for that. I love that. I
love opening up my email to find something about weird
gross parasites. I'm not even joking. I love that. So
thank you guys so much. And thanks to the space
Cossics for their super awesome song Exo Lumina. Creature features
(58:43):
a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts like the one
you just heard, Visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or
hey guess what where have you listened to your favorite shows?
I do not judge you. I'm not your mother, but
I do recommend this. If it's cold outside, don't only
eat worms, also eat berries and seeds. Don't be picky.
It's not the time to be picky. See you next Wednesday.
Speaker 2 (59:06):
Sound Advice
Speaker 1 (59:09):
All right, excellent
Creature Feature News
Host
Katie Goldin
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