Speaker 1: Welcome to Creature Feature production of I Heart Radio. I'm
Speaker 1: your host of Many Parasites, Katie Golden. I studied psychology
Speaker 1: and evolutionary biology, and to date on the show, it's
Speaker 1: another listener Questions episode. That's the Listener Questions episode song
Speaker 1: which I sing every time. No, I don't actually sing
Speaker 1: it every time. It's a new new thing every time,
Speaker 1: off the cuff song. Anyways. Yeah, I love to answer
Speaker 1: your questions. You write to me and I read them.
Speaker 1: Sometimes I have to do research because I'm not perfect.
Speaker 1: I don't got all the knowledge in my head, but
Speaker 1: it usually sends me on a really interesting research journey.
Speaker 1: So I love doing that. And if you are listening
Speaker 1: and you're like, hey, I want you to answer a question,
Speaker 1: what the heck? You can email me at Creature Feature
Speaker 1: pot at gmail dot com. And I tried to answer
Speaker 1: all the questions I get either on the show or
Speaker 1: responding to you via electronic mail. So let's get right
Speaker 1: into it, shall we. Here's the first email. Hi, Katie,
Speaker 1: as a cat owner, I wanted to say how much
Speaker 1: I enjoyed the episode you did about the evolution of cats.
Speaker 1: It was also fun to hear about finding the ping
Speaker 1: pong ball and how many cats like playing with them,
Speaker 1: because I've just gotten some ping pong balls for my cats.
Speaker 1: They're a big hit with Physic. Here's a video of
Speaker 1: him playing with one. I've watched the video I can
Speaker 1: confirm it's very cute. The email continues. I also had
Speaker 1: a question. My cats, who are indoor only often get
Speaker 1: the zoom ees and will tear around the house for
Speaker 1: no apparent reason. I've heard that other cats do this too,
Speaker 1: and so do some dogs. Do you know if this
Speaker 1: is something that only domestic animals do. I was wondering
Speaker 1: if it's because they don't run around as much outside
Speaker 1: that they have to get out their energy this way,
Speaker 1: and that probably animals in the wild wouldn't need these
Speaker 1: random bursts of running around. But if you have any insight,
Speaker 1: I'd love to hear it. And thanks again for doing
Speaker 1: the show. I look forward to it every week. Best Erica.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much Erica for your kind words, your
Speaker 1: cat stories, and your video of Heasic playing with ping
Speaker 1: pong ball. I loved watching that and great question. So
Speaker 1: the zomies are indeed a thing. Cats get it, dogs
Speaker 1: get it. So what are they and do they happen
Speaker 1: to wild animals. So the technical term for zumies is
Speaker 1: frenetic random activity period or FRAPP. I feel like zomies
Speaker 1: is a little bit of a better name than framp,
Speaker 1: but there you go. According to Dr Pamela Perry, a
Speaker 1: behavior resident at Cornell College of Veterinary Medicine, quote, there
Speaker 1: is no known specific cause of FRAPs and dogs. However,
Speaker 1: they appear to be a way to release pent up
Speaker 1: energy or perhaps apps to alleviate stress. A dog who
Speaker 1: has been home all day with nothing to do may
Speaker 1: feel the need to zoom around the house or yard
Speaker 1: to expend some of that energy and get some relief
Speaker 1: from hours of understimulation. For apps also can occur whenever
Speaker 1: a dog becomes very excited e g. When an owner
Speaker 1: returns after a long absence end quote. So personally, my
Speaker 1: dog Cookie gets the zoomies after her bath, which is
Speaker 1: something I've heard happening to a lot of people. I
Speaker 1: think it's because she hates bathing. She gets pretty anxious,
Speaker 1: but she kind of has to, you know, just be
Speaker 1: patient and wait for the bath to end. And so
Speaker 1: she has all this pent up kind of anxiety. Uh.
Speaker 1: And then once she's done with the bath. She's probably
Speaker 1: really relieved, really excited to be done, and then has
Speaker 1: all this nervous energy that she had to kind of
Speaker 1: contain while I was bathing her. And so once she's free,
Speaker 1: she just zooms around. She's releasing all that pent up stress,
Speaker 1: all that pent up energy, running around playing acting like
Speaker 1: a goofball. I mean, maybe like we've experienced this kind
Speaker 1: of thing, like when you do something really stressful and
Speaker 1: you're just like you're finally done with it, and you're
Speaker 1: just like, oh, you just gotta kind of shake it out.
Speaker 1: You know. You feel kind of like, you know, shaking
Speaker 1: your whole body, shaking your arms, like kind of jumping
Speaker 1: a little bit, or even doing like a little dance
Speaker 1: or something. It's like I got through that. Yes, So
Speaker 1: it can be a response to both stress or positive
Speaker 1: things like being really excited to see you um or
Speaker 1: just like you know, kind of they got this extra
Speaker 1: energy and maybe they didn't have an opportunity to get
Speaker 1: out all that energy, so they just got to get
Speaker 1: it out. Uh. The same kind of zoomies can happen
Speaker 1: for cats um and it works in a similar way,
Speaker 1: but there are some key differences. So cats do get
Speaker 1: the zoomies when they need to release energy. Unlike dogs, however,
Speaker 1: cats as often happen at dawn and dusk, and this
Speaker 1: is because cats are crepuscular, meaning that their activity levels
Speaker 1: are highest at dawn and dusk, and this is when
Speaker 1: the wild ancestors of our domesticated cats would hunt the most.
Speaker 1: So your cat has kind of you know, cats are
Speaker 1: a bit less domesticated than dogs in a sense, you know,
Speaker 1: they've retained many more of their wild traits than dogs have,
Speaker 1: and so your cat may have retained some of these
Speaker 1: spurts of energy that they get at dawn and dusk
Speaker 1: and may express it in the form of zoom ees.
Speaker 1: So onto the question of whether wild animals get the
Speaker 1: zooms and the answer is yes, absolutely so. Framps that
Speaker 1: frenetic random activity period UH or zomies have been observed
Speaker 1: in horses, ferrets, wallabies, elephants, and there's probably a lot more.
Speaker 1: The trick is, of course, being able to observe an
Speaker 1: animal long enough to notice the zoom ees and document them.
Speaker 1: Apparently bunny rabbits also get them, and apparently rabbit owners
Speaker 1: call them the bunny binkies, which is adorable and really weird.
Speaker 1: But the thing is that we often observe these zomies
Speaker 1: in captivity because that's you know, that's where we see
Speaker 1: them the most. So it is definitely possible that there
Speaker 1: are fewer zomies in the wild because there are more
Speaker 1: opportunities to burn off this extra energy. Uh So, animals
Speaker 1: in the wild may still do the zoom ees um,
Speaker 1: but it's possible that they do them less often if
Speaker 1: they have more chances to burn off that energy. So
Speaker 1: we kind of need to see some kind of comparative
Speaker 1: observational study between the same species of wild and captive animal,
Speaker 1: which I haven't been able to find anything of that nature,
Speaker 1: and it sounds pretty difficult to pull off, but I
Speaker 1: will keep my eyes open for any research about it.
Speaker 1: Uh Yeah. And there was some research regarding rabbits and
Speaker 1: their fredetic random activity periods, and it didn't seem that
Speaker 1: having like a larger enclosure meant they would have fewer
Speaker 1: of that. But it's that's not like, that's not exactly
Speaker 1: answering our question. Um So, yeah, I think it's a
Speaker 1: very interesting question. My guests would be that if you
Speaker 1: have like a really long day as an animal and
Speaker 1: you've done a lot of work that day, uh, in
Speaker 1: terms of either hunting or foraging or running away from predators.
Speaker 1: You're probably not going to have any excess energy that
Speaker 1: you expand through zoomies. But if you had not that
Speaker 1: much going on that day, even in the wild, yeah, sure,
Speaker 1: I don't see why you wouldn't want to express that
Speaker 1: extra energy because you got it and you gotta let
Speaker 1: it out, So that is that is my guess. But
Speaker 1: of course I think it will be great. We could
Speaker 1: see some good comparative studies between animals in their natural
Speaker 1: habitants and animals in captivity. Onto the next listener question.
Speaker 1: A few weeks ago, I accidentally left an apple core
Speaker 1: on the coffee table and unsurprisingly woke up the next
Speaker 1: day two hundreds of ants harvesting the leftovers. I love
Speaker 1: ants as much as the next Creature feature listener, but
Speaker 1: I eventually decided to take the apple core ants included
Speaker 1: and toss it into the organic spin in the backyard.
Speaker 1: Suddenly I started to worry if ants get around by
Speaker 1: following pheromone trails. Have I sentenced these ants to live
Speaker 1: out the rest of their days in exile or will
Speaker 1: they be able to find their way back to the colony,
Speaker 1: even without the pheromones to guide them. And this is
Speaker 1: from Susie m this, This is maybe the sweetest email
Speaker 1: I've ever gotten. I feel that like I too. Sometimes
Speaker 1: you know, if there's an ant invasion, you gotta get
Speaker 1: rid of them, right, like you can't be eaten like
Speaker 1: ants with your cereal or having your apple. Crawling with
Speaker 1: ants is just not workable. But I feel bad about it,
Speaker 1: like I don't. I don't enjoy getting rid of ants.
Speaker 1: And also that idea of like, oh, you you pick
Speaker 1: up a food item that all these ants are on
Speaker 1: you toss in the trash. All are all these ants
Speaker 1: doomed now to exile? Um, don't worry about that though,
Speaker 1: because your ants may indeed find their way home. Uh.
Speaker 1: Pheromones are very important for ant communication, but they are
Speaker 1: not the only thing that ants can rely on when
Speaker 1: it comes to navigation, So ants don't need to use
Speaker 1: pheromones necessarily to find their way home to their colony. No,
Speaker 1: the ability of ants to navigate differs from species to
Speaker 1: species because different species have different behaviors, they have different
Speaker 1: social structures. Some ants have colonies, some types of ants
Speaker 1: don't even have a colony. We'll talk about that a
Speaker 1: little bit later, um, But different species will have different
Speaker 1: methods of navigation. Aunts who have a home colony will
Speaker 1: often have different techniques of finding their way to and
Speaker 1: from their colony, because that is so critical. Yes, they
Speaker 1: do use pheromone trails laid out by other ants to
Speaker 1: find food sources, but they have got other navigational tricks
Speaker 1: up their little teeny tiny sleeves. So there is evidence
Speaker 1: that certain species of ants can use the sun's position
Speaker 1: as well as environmental markers to help guide them back
Speaker 1: to their colonies. Like there's some kind of I don't know,
Speaker 1: seventeen hundreds ship people sales salesman, that's not sailors. Okay,
Speaker 1: there's the word man. I do not have my sea legs.
Speaker 1: I can barely even speak in seafaring terms. So yes,
Speaker 1: they can use all of these things to navigate. So
Speaker 1: a study found that by shifting the apparent appearance of
Speaker 1: where the sun was with a mirror, researchers were able
Speaker 1: to confuse ants and send them in the wrong direction.
Speaker 1: Mean but interesting results. A lot of common ants that
Speaker 1: we find in our homes have actually been found to
Speaker 1: use complex navigation skills other than pheromones. There are ants
Speaker 1: like sugar ants, black carpenter ants um that that we've
Speaker 1: seen this in. But there's also ants primarily found in
Speaker 1: natural settings, such as rock ants. But all of these
Speaker 1: ants can memorize landmarks or structures and use them to
Speaker 1: aid in their navigation to and from their colonies. So
Speaker 1: vision and memorization are really important tools for these ants species.
Speaker 1: In fact, um rock ants which I just mentioned, they
Speaker 1: do use pheromone trails to lead other ants, but they
Speaker 1: also excel in teaching roots to other ants through a
Speaker 1: technique known as tandem running. So there will be a
Speaker 1: leader ant who will guide a follower ant to food
Speaker 1: by moveing a short distance. She waits for the follower
Speaker 1: to literally bump into her rear uh, and then she
Speaker 1: continues going on like that. She goes a short distance,
Speaker 1: the follower comes up bonks into her butt. She moves
Speaker 1: some more bonks into her butt until the goal is reached.
Speaker 1: The follower seems to memorize this specific path shown to
Speaker 1: her by the leader, and she doesn't necessarily need a
Speaker 1: pheromone trail to follow uh. And then when she goes
Speaker 1: back home, she doesn't retrace her steps from this path
Speaker 1: she followed she actually uses a different path entirely one
Speaker 1: based on her memorization of panoramic views or landmarks that
Speaker 1: lead her back to her nest. So I would say, um,
Speaker 1: that shows that a lot of these ants, especially the
Speaker 1: ones that have us a solid colony that they need
Speaker 1: to get back to, have a number of different ways
Speaker 1: to find their way back home, mainly memorizing the visual
Speaker 1: cues around where their home is. Obviously, some ants can
Speaker 1: also use the position of the sun to tell them
Speaker 1: where their home is, but yeah, like they will memorize
Speaker 1: landmark and go towards that landmark and be able to
Speaker 1: find their home that way. In contrast, there are ants
Speaker 1: called army ants. These are ants that actually encompass a
Speaker 1: wide variety of species, but they all share these similar characteristics,
Speaker 1: which is that they do not have a home colony.
Speaker 1: They just kind of march like a roving band of
Speaker 1: vikings who go and forage and pillage and eat everything
Speaker 1: in their path. But they do not have that home
Speaker 1: colony they have to get back to, and they really
Speaker 1: don't rely on their vision much at all. They do
Speaker 1: not have good vision. Sometimes they're mostly blind, and they
Speaker 1: depend mainly on pheromone trails Uh, they could truly become
Speaker 1: confused if you pick one up and drop it off
Speaker 1: in a random location. Um. But in terms of the
Speaker 1: ants that you probably would find in your kitchen, they
Speaker 1: are most likely not army ants, but probably a species
Speaker 1: of colony forming ants. And so I would guess that
Speaker 1: those ants that you dropped off in your garbage can,
Speaker 1: as long as they can get out of the garbage
Speaker 1: can and like reorient themselves to the kitchen, they can
Speaker 1: probably use visual cues uh and find their way back home.
Speaker 1: So fear not, Susie, you have not doomed those ants, um,
Speaker 1: probably and you can you can rest assured they will
Speaker 1: live another day to come and eat more of your apple.
Speaker 1: Next listener question, My girlfriend's cat always holds my hand.
Speaker 1: He'll move his paw on top of my hand, and
Speaker 1: he'll move his paw when I move my hand, and
Speaker 1: sometimes digging his claws in to keep my hand in place.
Speaker 1: He usually does this while laying on my chest and purring.
Speaker 1: Is he being affectionate or is there more to it
Speaker 1: than that? I've attached some videos for reference from William T. Hi.
Speaker 1: William watched your videos. Um, very cute, very very cute. Uh.
Speaker 1: This is another adorable question. Uh, and I would say
Speaker 1: long answer short, your kitty is indeed being affectionate and possessive.
Speaker 1: So cats love to use their paws on stuff. They
Speaker 1: love to scratch things, they love to need their paws
Speaker 1: on stuff. And there's a few reasons. In part, it's
Speaker 1: thought that that needing thing that they do with their
Speaker 1: paws reminds them of the act of nursing when they
Speaker 1: were little, tiny kittens, where they would need their paws
Speaker 1: on their mother's tummy which would stimulate lactations so that
Speaker 1: they could nurse and drink milk. So when they're making
Speaker 1: like biscuits, either on a pillow or on your hand
Speaker 1: or on your lap, they are probably acting out that
Speaker 1: comforting movement of needing their paws they did as kittens.
Speaker 1: Another purpose that they love to use their paws so
Speaker 1: much is that they actually have scent glands on their
Speaker 1: paws that they can mark what is theirs um. So
Speaker 1: like if they're kind of digging scratching at something, or
Speaker 1: digging their kind of claws into something or digging pressing
Speaker 1: their little paws um, they may be marking this thing
Speaker 1: is like I like this thing, this is mine. I
Speaker 1: declare that I own this, I own this person, I
Speaker 1: own this hand. Um, And uh yeah, they actually that's
Speaker 1: also the reason that they rub things with their cheeks
Speaker 1: and their chins, as they have scent glands in both
Speaker 1: their cheeks and under their chin. Uh. And that so
Speaker 1: like they'll rub anything. They'll rub a chair, they'll rub you.
Speaker 1: They are marking things that they like, and it's like
Speaker 1: that's mine, now, that's mine, now this chair, this human,
Speaker 1: this hand, this table online, um. And when they do
Speaker 1: these behaviors coupled with things like purring, it's a really
Speaker 1: good indicator that they are happy, they're content, and they
Speaker 1: love the person or the thing that they are rubbing
Speaker 1: up against cuddling with. And yes, so I looked at
Speaker 1: this video. I really do think that the kittie likes you.
Speaker 1: He probably likes the security of touching your hand and
Speaker 1: grabbing it with his paw. He has a positive association
Speaker 1: with you as a source of comfort. So that's why
Speaker 1: he will like reposition his paw on top of your
Speaker 1: hand because it's like this is a thing I like.
Speaker 1: It brings me comfort to kind of push my paw
Speaker 1: into your hand, and so if you move it, he'll
Speaker 1: just move his paw back on your hand. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, it is kind of similar to holding hands
Speaker 1: with people. I think that we do need to remember
Speaker 1: sometimes that yes, we can't anthropomorphize animals too much, but
Speaker 1: we also have to remember we are just big, weird animals.
Speaker 1: And at some point in the past, you know, our
Speaker 1: our behaviors things like holy hands kissing. There may have
Speaker 1: been some like kind of weird evolutionary reason for these things,
Speaker 1: but eventually it turned into just kind of pure affection,
Speaker 1: pure love. And I think that can be said for
Speaker 1: sort of animal behaviors as well, where yeah, technically, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe like rubbing things with their paws or rubbing things
Speaker 1: with their cheeks and their chin, it's like scent marking,
Speaker 1: it's marking their territory. But then I think there is
Speaker 1: room therefore, they associate this behavior with, you know, marking
Speaker 1: things that they like, and then it may kind of
Speaker 1: become just this sign of affection, something they enjoy doing.
Speaker 1: They're not coldly calculating these things. They may just be
Speaker 1: feeling love, feeling affection, feeling comfort and then doing these behaviors.
Speaker 1: And I think that's very similar to what humans do
Speaker 1: when we when we hug each other when we kiss
Speaker 1: and hold hands things like that. So, yeah, your kitty
Speaker 1: likes you. Ah, you and Katy sit in a tree
Speaker 1: making kitty biscuits, all right? So onto the next listener question.
Speaker 1: I was listening to your recent episode on animal possception
Speaker 1: and your guest hosting on Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe?
Speaker 1: Can you communicate with new trinos? I started wondering if
Speaker 1: there have been any studies to see if people who
Speaker 1: are deemed colored deficient have their vision shifted into what
Speaker 1: we normally consider invisible light. It occurs to me that
Speaker 1: some people would only have one or two cones to
Speaker 1: pick up on light and cause deficiency. But with the
Speaker 1: overwhelming number of animals who see in parts of the spectrum,
Speaker 1: we normally don't What if some of these people are
Speaker 1: able to see light the rest of us can't. My
Speaker 1: nephew is blue deficient, and after hearing you talk about
Speaker 1: Mona's cataract surgery, I started wondering if he might be
Speaker 1: sensitive to infrared light. This is from Palm Hi Tom.
Speaker 1: This is a really interesting question. So the issue with
Speaker 1: us being able to see UV light is that typically
Speaker 1: it can't make it through our lens. So the lens
Speaker 1: is I mean, it's it's a lens, a biological lens
Speaker 1: that focuses light onto the back of our eyes, onto
Speaker 1: the retina, and this is how we can focus on
Speaker 1: things see clearly. So this lens actually filters out UV light,
Speaker 1: most UV light. Uh. And this is thought to be
Speaker 1: possibly advantageous because maybe it's protecting our retina's from UV
Speaker 1: light because UV light can be damaging two cells. Um.
Speaker 1: But another theory is that there needs to be some
Speaker 1: filtering of light out of the spectrum because like when
Speaker 1: you when you have more light coming into the eye,
Speaker 1: you may be sacrificing sort of clarity being able to
Speaker 1: focus for a broader spectrum. So. Uh, those are a
Speaker 1: couple of theories why we have lenses that filter out
Speaker 1: UV light. Um. So this is why the fact that
Speaker 1: the lens is the thing filtering out this UV light
Speaker 1: is why people with cataracts surgery where the lens is
Speaker 1: removed or removed and replaced with an artificial lens can
Speaker 1: see more UV light than people typically can. So. Um,
Speaker 1: this is that's the theory behind why maybe Money was
Speaker 1: able to see UV light because he had his cataracts removed. Nowadays,
Speaker 1: you actually can have your cataracts removed, or if you
Speaker 1: have something wrong with the eye, you can have your
Speaker 1: lens replaced with an artificial lens. And this artificial lens
Speaker 1: helps you focus light, but it doesn't block out UV
Speaker 1: light as much as a biological lens does, and so
Speaker 1: it lets in more of that UVY light. So people
Speaker 1: who have had this surgery report being able to see
Speaker 1: more UV light and they reported as being sort of
Speaker 1: this violet blue color. And actually some UV light can
Speaker 1: get through our natural lenses. Some research has shown that
Speaker 1: young adults can detect UV wavelength of around three hundred
Speaker 1: and fifteen nanometers. And there's also a wide variation in
Speaker 1: individuals in like what range of UV light that they
Speaker 1: can see. So UV light is a shorter wavelength, so uh,
Speaker 1: that's going to be harder to see the light the
Speaker 1: shorter the wavelength is because that falls off further and
Speaker 1: further from our normal range of vision. So yeah, in
Speaker 1: terms of these these subjects that were tested on their
Speaker 1: ability to see this UV light, there was a range
Speaker 1: in terms of how many people could see like, um,
Speaker 1: you know, the wavelengths of light and which wavelengths they
Speaker 1: can see, which is really interesting in terms of why
Speaker 1: there are these variations. It's not very well understood. They
Speaker 1: seemed to find some correlation between sensitivity and the male sex,
Speaker 1: which is really weird. I don't know of any um
Speaker 1: understanding why that is. There is also decreased UV sensitivity
Speaker 1: for those who frequently wore glasses or contact lenses. That
Speaker 1: seems a little more understandable. Usually if you have glasses
Speaker 1: or contact lenses, maybe there is some issue with the
Speaker 1: um you know, the the the way that the lens
Speaker 1: contracts over the eye, So maybe the lens is blocking
Speaker 1: out more you be light. We're not not exactly sure,
Speaker 1: but that's an interesting finding. Uh. There's also decreased UV
Speaker 1: sensitivity for people of older age, so young adults can
Speaker 1: actually seem more UV light than older adults. Again, I'm
Speaker 1: not sure why that is. Maybe there's some something that
Speaker 1: happens to the lens as you age and it lets
Speaker 1: in less UV light. That's it's very interesting. It seems
Speaker 1: relatively new research, Like the idea that we can even
Speaker 1: see some UV light as a relatively new, uh new research,
Speaker 1: So I'm really interested to see kind of where they
Speaker 1: go with that. So onto your other question, which is
Speaker 1: like the correlation between seeing UV light or color blindness
Speaker 1: a k a. Color deficiency. So color blindness or color
Speaker 1: vision deficiency, that latter name for it is a lot
Speaker 1: more accurate because it's not that people can't see color
Speaker 1: at all. It's about the range of color that they
Speaker 1: can see and how that color is going to be
Speaker 1: interpreted by the brain when you're getting the kind of
Speaker 1: signals that you're getting from the eye. So, uh, it
Speaker 1: represents a shift in the visible light spectrum that in
Speaker 1: individuals I can detect and distinguish between. So in general,
Speaker 1: you have three basic types of cones. So you have blue, green,
Speaker 1: and red. There are the cones that are sensitive to
Speaker 1: the shorter wavelengths. Those are the blue cones. There's the
Speaker 1: middle wavelength green and longer wavelengths red um. So this
Speaker 1: is a spectrum. These aren't really distinct categories. So your
Speaker 1: blue cones aren't only going to be picking up on blue.
Speaker 1: Green cones aren't only going to be picking up on green,
Speaker 1: and so on. And there's actually overlap of what these
Speaker 1: cones can pick up on. So a quote unquote blue
Speaker 1: cone and a quote unquote green cone may both be
Speaker 1: activated at the same time in terms of their the
Speaker 1: range of wavelengths of light that they can pick up
Speaker 1: on overlapping. Like imagine, I mean, when you look at
Speaker 1: sort of the visualizations of like what your cones can
Speaker 1: pick up on, it's usually a bell curve in terms
Speaker 1: of like wavelength of light, and these bell curves actually overlap.
Speaker 1: So the mixture of activation of the types of cones
Speaker 1: as well as the strength of activation results in the
Speaker 1: full spectrum of color for typically sided people, but someone
Speaker 1: with color deficiency will actually have more overlap of what
Speaker 1: their cones are picking up on than someone with typical vision.
Speaker 1: So there's actually several types of color deficients see and
Speaker 1: several different causes. So there's total color blindness, which is
Speaker 1: like the inability to see any color, and it's called monochromacy.
Speaker 1: But this is actually not really a disorder of the eye.
Speaker 1: This is typically a disorder of the brain. So your
Speaker 1: eye can actually perceive color, pick up on color, but
Speaker 1: there is something that happens as that information is getting
Speaker 1: passed from the eye to the brain, where the brain
Speaker 1: cannot process that color. So uh, in terms of sort
Speaker 1: of like um problems with the actual eyeball, there things
Speaker 1: like um die chromacy where you can only perceive two colors.
Speaker 1: But then there's a whole range of issues with with
Speaker 1: color vision in terms of like when you have anomalis
Speaker 1: or missing cones, in terms of how you're able to
Speaker 1: distinguish between the wavelengths of light the quote unquote blue
Speaker 1: green and had wavelengths of light uh and then perceive
Speaker 1: a clear color from that. So for a lot of
Speaker 1: people with color deficiency, they will have a much more
Speaker 1: overlap of what their cones are picking up on than
Speaker 1: someone with typical vision. So for some people with color deficiency,
Speaker 1: their red cones, so the longest wavelength UH sensitive cones
Speaker 1: are actually down shifted in sensitivity to more mid range
Speaker 1: wavelength so the quote unquote green wavelengths, and we'll pick
Speaker 1: up on green colors. So this means that when they're
Speaker 1: looking at something green, it will actually appear more reddish,
Speaker 1: so it comes out a kind of amber or brown
Speaker 1: because it's activating more of those red cones, And so
Speaker 1: those red cones are saying, hey, brain, this is a
Speaker 1: reddish color even though you know it is quote like
Speaker 1: truly green. Of course, when we're talking about true reality
Speaker 1: and our brain's perception of it it gets into a
Speaker 1: whole philosophical conversation that maybe I am not qualified to do,
Speaker 1: but very interesting. So when the green cones, so those
Speaker 1: mid range wavelength cones are up shifted sometimes in terms
Speaker 1: of like either their anomalous or there's some issue with
Speaker 1: these cones, they may actually start to detect wavelengths of
Speaker 1: light closer to the red spectrum, and this actually results
Speaker 1: in seeing green colors as yellowish. So both of these
Speaker 1: color deficiencies are categorized as red green color blindness, and
Speaker 1: they make it difficult for people to distinguish light on
Speaker 1: the red green spectrum, so they can see reds and greens.
Speaker 1: But then it gets they get more muddled because you
Speaker 1: have the more overlap in terms of when these cones
Speaker 1: are becoming activated. So in terms of Tom's question, it
Speaker 1: sounds like Tom's nephew, UH might have blue yellow color blindness.
Speaker 1: I I don't know for sure, I'm just guessing. Which
Speaker 1: means that the cone are sensitive to short means that
Speaker 1: the cones that are sensitive to short wavelengths of light
Speaker 1: like blues, violets, or even shorter wavelengths like UV are
Speaker 1: actually more up shifted to be sensitive to mid wavelength
Speaker 1: than they are in a typically cided person. So that
Speaker 1: means when you look at blues, you'll see more greenish
Speaker 1: hues and it will be dimmer. In fact, sometimes blues
Speaker 1: light come out as almost like black. It also affects
Speaker 1: how you see purples, which will come out as being
Speaker 1: more reddish. So from how I understand it, this would
Speaker 1: actually make it more difficult to perceive UV light because
Speaker 1: it's harder to pick up on shorter wavelengths of light
Speaker 1: and distinguish them from mid wavelengths of light. But there
Speaker 1: are actually some studies that look into how people experience
Speaker 1: the world with color deficiency, because I think it is
Speaker 1: it's important to remember that, like if you have a
Speaker 1: different perception, right, like you have a different way, a
Speaker 1: different sensory experience from someone else, that doesn't make it worse.
Speaker 1: It may make it more difficult. Because our society largely
Speaker 1: caters to sort of the the typical sided person's experience,
Speaker 1: we don't often make a great effort to um accommodate
Speaker 1: people who have any kind of like vision uh disorder,
Speaker 1: which you know, I think is a shame, but so
Speaker 1: it can make things difficult. Like you know, we have
Speaker 1: a lot of color coded things that may be more
Speaker 1: difficult for someone with the color deficiency. But just because
Speaker 1: you have like a different, a different sort of sensory
Speaker 1: experience doesn't make it like inherently worse. So there are
Speaker 1: some theories that people that have various forms of color
Speaker 1: blindness may actually be able to pick up on certain
Speaker 1: patterns better. Uh. There was a theory that they may
Speaker 1: actually be able to pick up on camouflage better. There's
Speaker 1: been mixed science about this, like some research has not
Speaker 1: been able to really find this, but there has been
Speaker 1: some research establishing that people with certain types of red
Speaker 1: green color blindness, they can actually distinguish different shades of
Speaker 1: khaki much better uh than the norm, which you know,
Speaker 1: I think that it means that there could be a
Speaker 1: lot of other areas in which, like say, someone with
Speaker 1: blue light uh deficiency, like maybe they can pick up
Speaker 1: on certain shades or certain patterns better than the norm.
Speaker 1: I wasn't able to find any specific research on this,
Speaker 1: but I think that this idea that when you have
Speaker 1: a certain sensory quote unquote deficiency, you may actually have
Speaker 1: a stronger sensory experience in another way, And so I
Speaker 1: think that's a completely reasonable idea, And you know, I
Speaker 1: think we see that actually with some people who are
Speaker 1: have complete blindness will actually become very sensitive to sound
Speaker 1: to the extent that there are people who are blind
Speaker 1: who are able to make a clicking sound with their
Speaker 1: tongue and actually have learned how to do a form
Speaker 1: of human echolocation where they can use that to and
Speaker 1: like listen for the echo and use that to perceive
Speaker 1: their environment, which is really fascinating. It's amazing. I think
Speaker 1: it's so important to understand how adaptive our brains can
Speaker 1: be when we have a a sensory experience that is,
Speaker 1: you know, is different than what is typical. So I
Speaker 1: think that's a great question. I will keep my eyes
Speaker 1: peeled for any more research on, um, you know, the
Speaker 1: experience of people with color deficiency. I think it is Uh,
Speaker 1: it's really important. Onto the last listener question. I really
Speaker 1: enjoyed your latest Halloween show. Have you heard of another
Speaker 1: scary animal? The water dear a k a. The vampire
Speaker 1: deer who has fanglike tusks sticking out of its mouth
Speaker 1: like a slavering Dracula. Speaking of normal deer, I've heard
Speaker 1: they sometimes eat eggs, squirrels and other small animals. Watch
Speaker 1: out slumper, your listener, Michael d. So. First of all, yes,
Speaker 1: that is correct, dear, will sometimes eat meat. They are,
Speaker 1: of course herbivores, They're not considered omnivores like true omnivores,
Speaker 1: but on occasion they will be opportunistic they'll eat meat. Um.
Speaker 1: I don't think it's strictly well established why they do this.
Speaker 1: My assumption would be just you know, taking advantage of
Speaker 1: a situation essentially. But yeah, they they're they're typically herbivores,
Speaker 1: but they will on occasion eat meat, which is kind
Speaker 1: of creepy. I don't know why. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm not creeped out by a raccoon that's an omnivore,
Speaker 1: but a deer eating meats it's something something off about that.
Speaker 1: And arms of the water dear, Yes, I do know
Speaker 1: about the water dear. I love them. I was obsessed
Speaker 1: with these guys ever since seeing a taxidermy one as
Speaker 1: a college student. I even wrote a whole paper on
Speaker 1: them about the uh. There's some controversy about whether females
Speaker 1: have a tuft of fur on their lips that is
Speaker 1: mimicking the male tusk, and what that might mean. Why
Speaker 1: that might be the case, it's not. I was just
Speaker 1: you know, basically looking at the existing literature, wasn't doing
Speaker 1: any um independent research. But I wasn't doing any studies
Speaker 1: on it. But uh, still I have been really fascinated
Speaker 1: with this, this idea that the controversy surrounding why the
Speaker 1: females seem to have this lip tufed, and of course
Speaker 1: the fact that they are dear with giant, fearsome looking things.
Speaker 1: So they are incredible. So I don't think I saved
Speaker 1: that paper, by the way, So thank goodness for you guys.
Speaker 1: You don't have to see any of my college writing. So.
Speaker 1: Water deer are small deer found in China and Korea.
Speaker 1: They're also known as vampire deer given the large things
Speaker 1: that the males sport. Females actually have much smaller canines.
Speaker 1: But like I mentioned before, uh, they have these tufts
Speaker 1: of fur that can sometimes be mistaken for fangs. And
Speaker 1: there's this whole conversation and evolutionary biology. Are these tufts
Speaker 1: of for you know, like some kind of intentional mimicry?
Speaker 1: Is it just coincidence? And if it is mimicry, why, um? So, yeah,
Speaker 1: it is an interesting topic. So Uh. The deer have
Speaker 1: no antlers, but the teeth are used in a similar
Speaker 1: way to antlers. They are used for combat. So the
Speaker 1: large things are the size of like a long finger.
Speaker 1: They are not used for sucking blood. Uh. The deer
Speaker 1: are herbivores. Instead. The things are used in territorial fights
Speaker 1: between males. They can be used either as straight up
Speaker 1: weapons or simply to intimidate other males. Uh. An interesting
Speaker 1: thing about the things is that they are actually partially mobile.
Speaker 1: They fit relatively loose in the socket, and so the
Speaker 1: deer can use its facial muscles actually move the things slightly,
Speaker 1: shifting them out of the way when they're eating, or
Speaker 1: even shifting them forward when threatening a rival. So really incredible.
Speaker 1: I love those dear. If you haven't seen a water deer,
Speaker 1: look it up. It's like Bambi who has gone feral
Speaker 1: and is about to uh, you know, uh, suck your
Speaker 1: blood attack you. Um. Fortunately they aren't actually vampires. They
Speaker 1: do not suck blood, but yes they do. They do
Speaker 1: actually viciously attack each other. There have been male water
Speaker 1: deer with like these vicious looking scars on them. Uh.
Speaker 1: They will not fight if they can help it, like
Speaker 1: if they can just sort of use them as intimidation,
Speaker 1: but they will actually attack each other and it can
Speaker 1: be It's usually not fatal, but it can be just
Speaker 1: like antlers. Actually, so we have come to the end
Speaker 1: of the emails, but now we are onto to uh
Speaker 1: the Mystery animal sound game. Every week I play in
Speaker 1: Mystery Animal sound and you, the listener, try to guess
Speaker 1: who is squawking, who is making that sound? It can
Speaker 1: be any animal in the world. This is not just birds,
Speaker 1: it's not just bears. It's not just dogs or cats,
Speaker 1: anything anything in the world on land or in the sea.
Speaker 1: So here is last week's mystery sound and the hint
Speaker 1: was simply happy Halloween. I never horror like a walk
Speaker 1: a walk a walk. I never horror walka walka waka
Speaker 1: walka Alright, can you guess who is making that sound? Well,
Speaker 1: congratulations to Grant W. Steven M and Emily M who
Speaker 1: wrote in and gets correctly that this is the raven.
Speaker 1: So ravens can mimic human speech, as can other types
Speaker 1: of corvids, including crows, magpies, jay's, rooks, jackdaws and probably more. Uh.
Speaker 1: The reason we don't see a lot of talking corvids
Speaker 1: compared to like parrots is that they're typically not pets,
Speaker 1: nor really should they be, in my opinion, so they
Speaker 1: don't spend the time learning human speech. Along with parrots,
Speaker 1: many birds can mimic human speech. Actually, so Mina's Starling's,
Speaker 1: mocking birds, liar birds, and many more. The reason parrots
Speaker 1: are so particularly good at talking in human speech is
Speaker 1: not only are they very intelligent uh and are able
Speaker 1: to memorize a wide repertoire of sounds, they actually have
Speaker 1: a single synx. So the synx is like the bird
Speaker 1: version of a larynx. Larynx is the voice box of
Speaker 1: a human, the syrinx is the voice box of a bird.
Speaker 1: A lot of songbirds have two synxes, and that actually
Speaker 1: can result in these like incredibly complex bird songs. If
Speaker 1: you've ever heard these like other worldly bird trills that
Speaker 1: sound almost digital, it's because they have these two synxes
Speaker 1: and they can form these extremely complex sounds. But having
Speaker 1: those two syrinxes means your voice is not going to
Speaker 1: sound very human, where as a parrot having that single
Speaker 1: synx can more clearly mimic human speech because we humans
Speaker 1: have only one larynx um, so compare the sounds of
Speaker 1: a parrot mimicking human speech. Oh myever, why hit my garden?
Speaker 1: Oh my? A very interesting. You can see that that
Speaker 1: parrot has a lot of trouble with the hard T
Speaker 1: sound because the T sound is not really produced with
Speaker 1: our voice box as much as it is the tongue
Speaker 1: touching the teeth. Although impareds do have strong tongues, so
Speaker 1: they can use their tongue a little bit to manipulate sounds.
Speaker 1: But yeah, that those those like the things that we
Speaker 1: make with our lips and our tongue are really hard
Speaker 1: for a bird to reproduce. Now here's a starling mimicking
Speaker 1: human speech. And remember the starling has those two styrnxes
Speaker 1: instead of one. Music. Here's a station, lee music, here's
Speaker 1: a station. Here's a station. So that is a starling
Speaker 1: telling Alexa to play violin music and then Alexa responding
Speaker 1: both both uh is actually produced by the starling um
Speaker 1: both are talking, but the parent has a little, I
Speaker 1: guess a little more of a human inflection. The starling
Speaker 1: has this like interesting robotic quality to its voice due
Speaker 1: to having those two steeringxes. Personally, I love the sound
Speaker 1: of a starling imitating a human voice. I think there's
Speaker 1: something really I don't know eerie about it. I really
Speaker 1: quite like it and I think it's quite impressive. Um.
Speaker 1: But yeah, so that is why parrots are the most
Speaker 1: famous for make impersonating human sounds. But I feel like
Speaker 1: ravens sometimes for me like get it even more spookily
Speaker 1: similar to a human voice, which I do love. So
Speaker 1: onto this week's mystery animal sound. The hint this alarm
Speaker 1: call is no laughing matter. Can you guess who is
Speaker 1: making that sound? Well? If you can write to me
Speaker 1: at Creature Feature Product gmail dot com and if you
Speaker 1: have any listener questions, right to me too. I do
Speaker 1: these periodically. Next week we will be back to the
Speaker 1: typical format where I have a guest on and everything.
Speaker 1: But I do like answering your questions, So thank you
Speaker 1: so much for listening. And if you have, like if
Speaker 1: you just a couple of minutes, you know, and you
Speaker 1: want to leave a rating or review, I really really
Speaker 1: appreciate that. I read all of the reviews, all your feedback. Uh.
Speaker 1: It makes me feel like connected to you, the audience,
Speaker 1: and it also helps out the podcast, So I really
Speaker 1: appreciate that. And thank you so much to the Space
Speaker 1: Classics for their super awesome song. Exo Alumina Creature features
Speaker 1: a production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts like
Speaker 1: the one you just heard, visit the I heart Radio app,
Speaker 1: Apple podcast, or he Guess What Why If you listen
Speaker 1: to your favorite shows, See you next Wednesday.