Speaker 1: Welcome to Creature Future production of iHeartRadio. I'm your host
Speaker 1: of Many Parasites, Katie Golden. I studied psychology and evolutionary biology,
Speaker 1: and today on the show, we are answering some listener questions,
Speaker 1: and by we I mean me. You write to me
Speaker 1: your questions to Creature Featurepod at gmail dot com, and
Speaker 1: guess what, I do my best to answer them, either
Speaker 1: on the show, or I try to send an email
Speaker 1: back to you, or I use my brain powers to
Speaker 1: transmit the answer directly into your minds. Is it working anyways?
Speaker 1: Let's get right into it and answer some listener questions
Speaker 1: about evolutionary biology, animals, pets, you name it. Hello, Katie
Speaker 1: was listening to your latest listener to episode and got
Speaker 1: to thinking if you knew anything about Manx cats or
Speaker 1: the tail liss gene. My husband and I do tea
Speaker 1: in our trap, neuter and release in our neighborhood, just
Speaker 1: to do our part to keep our feral cat population
Speaker 1: in check. Recently, our summer mama cat had three kittens.
Speaker 1: Two of them were tail us. We've never seen that
Speaker 1: in real life and thought how cute, but we'd never
Speaker 1: dealt with tail as cats. Oh boy, are we learning
Speaker 1: a lot about how important tales are for kiddies. Baron
Speaker 1: Ferdinand Flufferton Wait no, I didn't say that name right.
Speaker 1: Baron Ferdinand Flufferrington is the boy kitten, and he is
Speaker 1: overall very healthy and only has an issue with rectal prolapse.
Speaker 1: But his sister Bunny is missing the last vertebrae and
Speaker 1: a half of her spine before it was supposed to
Speaker 1: be a tale, so she is incontinent because of no
Speaker 1: nerves there. She sits funny and if you want to,
Speaker 1: can send you her X ray is pretty well to
Speaker 1: look at. So I got a sad update that Bunny
Speaker 1: did pass away due to these complications, so you know
Speaker 1: my condolences for that. They had a normal torty sister
Speaker 1: and we got her a home, but we accidentally gained
Speaker 1: a special needs kitten into our clouder, given that they
Speaker 1: are harder to find homes for and our local rescues
Speaker 1: are full. Anyways, I don't know if it would make
Speaker 1: for a good topic, but I would be curious about
Speaker 1: what causes the M gene. According to the Internet, this
Speaker 1: is what makes cat's tail is And if the tails
Speaker 1: are so important to cats, why would they have something
Speaker 1: in their DNA that makes them not have one. Is
Speaker 1: it just mutated? I will include pictures of the kittens.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much and can't wait for the next episode. Sincerely,
Speaker 1: Danielle s Hi Danielle, thank you so much for the
Speaker 1: work that you guys do for feral cats. I'm so
Speaker 1: sorry to hear about Bunny, but I am sure you
Speaker 1: guys gave her the best care and end of life
Speaker 1: care possible. So thank you so much for the work
Speaker 1: that you guys do. One reason that cat rescuers might
Speaker 1: find a high rate of genetic mutations is that feral
Speaker 1: cat populations often suffer from genetic bottlenecks, so that's essentially inbreeding.
Speaker 1: This is caused by freeways or other physical barriers between populations,
Speaker 1: which can result in a higher rate of genetic mutations.
Speaker 1: Some feral cat populations are highly diverse, but some are
Speaker 1: less diverse. It depends on the geography of the area
Speaker 1: as well as the genetic history of the cats. So,
Speaker 1: for instance, were these cats all kept together on a property,
Speaker 1: did they all descend from the same group, did they
Speaker 1: all take shelter in a single building and breed within
Speaker 1: the confines there, or other things like are they on
Speaker 1: an island, are they on the mainland, etc. Additionally, some
Speaker 1: cats may be more likely to carry the tailless gene because,
Speaker 1: unfortunately they descend from cats who were purposefully bred not
Speaker 1: to have a tail for asthetic reasons. There's also the
Speaker 1: chance that they descended from the Manx cat, which is
Speaker 1: a short tailed cat breed that arose spontaneously on the
Speaker 1: Isle of man Again, interestingly, this mutation seemed more likely
Speaker 1: to propagate due to the narrow genetic bottleneck on this
Speaker 1: small island. Interestingly, the Japanese bobtail cat, which is another
Speaker 1: breed of cat, does have a shortened or kinked tail,
Speaker 1: but this is caused by a different genetic mutation, one
Speaker 1: that does not seem to adversely affect the spine or
Speaker 1: the back legs, and so it's associated with fewer health problems.
Speaker 1: So tails are indeed very important for cats. They help
Speaker 1: with balance, they provide warmth when they curl up. It's
Speaker 1: also great for sensing their environment and being able to
Speaker 1: communicate with other cats, as well as warning off threats
Speaker 1: by puffing up their tails to appear imposing. So the
Speaker 1: tailis mutation isn't necessarily beneficial, but a bad mutation can
Speaker 1: still propagate if there are other factors involved, such as
Speaker 1: what I mentioned earlier, with a limited genetic pool or
Speaker 1: human intervention. Sometimes a mutation might not be ideal, but
Speaker 1: it's not enough to cause the organism to not reproduce,
Speaker 1: and so that gene will continue to kind of be
Speaker 1: in the population and sort of sprout up once in
Speaker 1: a while, especially if it's a recessive gene and it
Speaker 1: only really comes up when there's some inbreeding involved, so
Speaker 1: it can remain in the population. Remember that natural selection
Speaker 1: is not this perfect clairvoyant process. All that really matters
Speaker 1: is if something manages to breed and pass down its genes,
Speaker 1: and if that happens, that gene stays in the animal's
Speaker 1: genetic library and it can pop up again later down
Speaker 1: the line. So yeah, I mean it's I think it's
Speaker 1: important to understand that when we do do selective breed
Speaker 1: of cats, or if there are feral populations that are
Speaker 1: you know, not well looked after, there there are actual consequences.
Speaker 1: Unfortunately for these cats. There's consequences also for the wildlife.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I think it is it's something that is
Speaker 1: interesting to see as well as being an important reminder
Speaker 1: of how important the health of animals are as opposed
Speaker 1: to just sort of the aesthetics of like, oh, it's
Speaker 1: cute because it has a little bobtail, but not always
Speaker 1: good for their health. So on to another cat question.
Speaker 1: Actually here it is, Hi Katie. Why do cats sleep
Speaker 1: face down? Like? How do you breathe? My guy picture
Speaker 1: of Festo included best example of the face down pick
Speaker 1: I could find, though it usually just looks like his
Speaker 1: face was too heavy and he has to set it down.
Speaker 1: I really love the show. Highlight of the week. Have
Speaker 1: a great day, Emily. Well, thank you, Emily. I'm so
Speaker 1: glad you like the show, and thank you for your question.
Speaker 1: So your cat, first of all, very cute. Thank you
Speaker 1: for the picture. Always love them. Your cat is in
Speaker 1: the classic sea position that cats like to relax in
Speaker 1: to sleep in. And yes, sometimes kitties like to bury
Speaker 1: their face in their paws or in their feet, as
Speaker 1: a Festo seems to be doing so. There are a
Speaker 1: few reasons that cats like to sleep in this way.
Speaker 1: It can block out light, which helps them sleep. It
Speaker 1: keeps themselves warm, so like they're keeping their nose warm
Speaker 1: with their paws or their feet or their bodies. And
Speaker 1: then also the hot air that they're expelling out of
Speaker 1: their nose might actually warm their paws or their feet,
Speaker 1: so it just creates sort of a warmth bubble. And
Speaker 1: it also can make them feel safe and secure. They're
Speaker 1: curled up, all their sensitive bits are covered and safe,
Speaker 1: so they it's kind of like it's warm, it feels secure,
Speaker 1: it feels safe, and you don't really need to worry
Speaker 1: about your cat suffocating itself. He will come up for
Speaker 1: air if his nose gets blocked, but it's unlikely that
Speaker 1: he's not getting enough oxygen with his nose covered by
Speaker 1: his feet. It might just be stinky oxygen, but it's
Speaker 1: his own stinks, so he probably doesn't mind. But yes,
Speaker 1: very common. I remember I had a cat that would
Speaker 1: just fully cersantify himself and it was always a mystery
Speaker 1: to me, like why why would you want to be
Speaker 1: in there breathing your own sort of like butt stink
Speaker 1: with your mouth, But hey, he liked it, so who
Speaker 1: am I to judge? All Right, on to another question.
Speaker 1: This one is about dogs, So dog lovers, here we go.
Speaker 1: My dog is great at playing catch. She anticipates the
Speaker 1: arc of objects I throw for her and catches them
Speaker 1: every time on a classic ring shaped rotating the space habitat,
Speaker 1: though the arc of throwne objects would curve in strange
Speaker 1: ways due to the gravity coming from the spin of
Speaker 1: the space station. A ball would dip on naturally, rise strangely,
Speaker 1: or veered to the left or right, depending on the
Speaker 1: direction throne. Would a dog still be able to learn
Speaker 1: how to play catching that environment? Heck? Could humans figure
Speaker 1: it out? Okay, Katie lol, thanks for the constantly great podcast.
Speaker 1: This is from Juanito. Thank you so much and I'm
Speaker 1: glad you're enjoying the show. Thanks for the question. This
Speaker 1: is a great question. So unfortunately we don't have any
Speaker 1: dogs on the International Space Station, or maybe fortunately right
Speaker 1: like we don't necessarily the dogs might not enjoy that
Speaker 1: so much. But there's no definitive answer about how dogs
Speaker 1: behave in space, And of course we don't necessarily have
Speaker 1: the ring shaped space habitat. Yet we don't know what
Speaker 1: that artificial gravity would feel like for humans other than
Speaker 1: sort of what we understand from physics, and we certainly
Speaker 1: don't know what that would be like for dogs. But
Speaker 1: let's still try to answer this, right, So, there have
Speaker 1: been other animals in space, and they do struggle with
Speaker 1: understanding the change in gravity. These are of course all
Speaker 1: in low gravity. So Japanese quails were hatched on the
Speaker 1: Russian so I use thirty two station. Many of the
Speaker 1: embryos didn't even develop right, and those that did struggle
Speaker 1: to feed themselves. They couldn't figure out how to mate,
Speaker 1: and they really did not seem to understand how to
Speaker 1: get around in the low gravity situation. But maybe dogs
Speaker 1: are more intelligent than quails. So researchers have found that
Speaker 1: dogs can learn to anticipate the trajectory of objects and
Speaker 1: will show surprise if an object does not follow the
Speaker 1: trajectory that they expect. Given that dogs are good at
Speaker 1: learning and adapting to new patterns, I think it is
Speaker 1: probable that a dog might be able to learn to
Speaker 1: pay play fetch in space. So in this research, they
Speaker 1: kind of the dogs would learn that objects would have
Speaker 1: a typical trajectory and then they would show interest when
Speaker 1: the object did not follow that trajectory. But it was
Speaker 1: a learning process, and so the fact that the dogs
Speaker 1: seem to have this pattern recognition rather than just maybe
Speaker 1: the more innate understanding of physics is really interesting. So
Speaker 1: certainly an anecdote is that my dog seems to have
Speaker 1: learned how to anticipate different types of throwing of treats
Speaker 1: that I do. So when I get ready to throw
Speaker 1: a treat in a gentle arc for her to catch
Speaker 1: it mid air, she will wash my hand carefully, and
Speaker 1: then she stays where she is right, so she is
Speaker 1: ready to just catch a treat that I gently toss
Speaker 1: to her. But when I get ready to throw a
Speaker 1: treat across the room for her to go chase after,
Speaker 1: she'll get up and she'll scamp herway. This is before
Speaker 1: I throw it, right, She's just seeing my posture how
Speaker 1: I'm getting ready to throw the treat, and she readies
Speaker 1: herself to be in the prime position to start running
Speaker 1: after this treat, and she'll look back at me waiting
Speaker 1: for me to throw it, try to follow the arc
Speaker 1: getting ready to get that treat. So, personally, I think
Speaker 1: a dog is really good at learning and identifying patterns,
Speaker 1: probably better at that than they are at sort of
Speaker 1: an understanding of physics. It might take a while for
Speaker 1: a dog to learn new patterns, and it might be
Speaker 1: disoriented or surprised when it sort of physical reality is
Speaker 1: not what it anticipated. Now would be really interesting, again hypothetically,
Speaker 1: to see the difference between say, puppies raised in a
Speaker 1: space environment with either low gravity or artificial gravity versus
Speaker 1: dogs who were raised on Earth and then were sent
Speaker 1: up into space. I'm not suggesting we do it right.
Speaker 1: We've had a bad track record with sending animals into
Speaker 1: space and dogs into space where we have not been
Speaker 1: very kind to them. But let's imagine a situation in
Speaker 1: which space would be you know, like people lived up
Speaker 1: there other than the space station, where it's like a
Speaker 1: nice life, and dogs could potent be happy and safe there.
Speaker 1: It would really be interesting to see how they adapt
Speaker 1: to that new environment. And I would presume that they
Speaker 1: might actually be quite good at it, because they are
Speaker 1: so adept at learning patterns and following also the guidance
Speaker 1: of humans, so paying attention to our cues and using
Speaker 1: our cues and our behavior to better understand their environment.
Speaker 1: And so like a hypothetical dog living on a hypothetical
Speaker 1: space habitat, I think if it was born there, it
Speaker 1: would learn how objects behave. And if it was born
Speaker 1: on Earth and went up, I think it might take
Speaker 1: a little while, but then it would learn relearn how
Speaker 1: things move and especially if there are humans there to
Speaker 1: guide and train them, I think that they would actually
Speaker 1: be able to adapt pretty well. That is one of
Speaker 1: the really incredible things about dogs and their coevolution with humans.
Speaker 1: They're great learners. They are really really good at kind
Speaker 1: of understanding human technology. I mean, for instance, there are
Speaker 1: dogs who will take the subway. These are like feral
Speaker 1: dogs in Russia who've learned how to use the subway.
Speaker 1: And my dog certainly has learned how to use the elevator.
Speaker 1: And if you think about it from a dog's perspective,
Speaker 1: you get in a box and maybe you feel some
Speaker 1: motion of the box, but then you're teleported somewhere else.
Speaker 1: Like you don't probably have an understanding of how this
Speaker 1: elevator or how this train car works. It's like a
Speaker 1: magical thing that you get in. It kind of feels
Speaker 1: weird for a little bit, and then you get out
Speaker 1: and you're in a totally different place. But they adapt
Speaker 1: to it, they figure it out, and so you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's very interesting. I think that animals, especially dogs,
Speaker 1: can perhaps cope with things that seem really disorientate, disorientating, disorienting.
Speaker 1: My dog's very good on the elevator. By the way,
Speaker 1: I taught her how to safely write it. She's always
Speaker 1: there with me. I never let her write it alone.
Speaker 1: But basically, you know, I taught her elevator safety, to
Speaker 1: go all the way into the elevator and sit down
Speaker 1: and not wander around so that she never gets caught
Speaker 1: in the doors. And she's very good at it, and
Speaker 1: she's a good girl. Just in case you guys were wondering.
Speaker 1: All right, next listener question. Hi Katie, I've been a
Speaker 1: longtime believer in evolution, but the leaf cutter ant still
Speaker 1: blows my mind. How did it evolve? It does not
Speaker 1: make sense. I don't understand how you can get from
Speaker 1: a plain old aunt to leaf cutter ant through incremental change.
Speaker 1: It just seems like there are too many steps in
Speaker 1: leaf cutter business that had to all pop up at
Speaker 1: the same time. Thank you, you're the best, Will Hey Will,
Speaker 1: thank you, and thank you for the question. Evolution can
Speaker 1: indeed churn out some of the most weirdly complex symbiotic relationships.
Speaker 1: Just look at any parasite and you'll be awestruck by
Speaker 1: how complex something has evolved, Like leuco chloridium, that parasite
Speaker 1: that turns caterpillar eyeballs into undulating egg sacks that attract birds,
Speaker 1: and then the birds eat the caterpillars and the leuco
Speaker 1: chloridium completes its life cycle very weird. Similarly, ant colony
Speaker 1: behavior is incredibly complex, especially ants that practice farming, like
Speaker 1: leafcutter ants. Leafcutter ants are found in southern US and
Speaker 1: South and Central America, so they will cut off pieces
Speaker 1: of specific leaves and take them back to the colony,
Speaker 1: and you may have seen pictures of them. They'll be
Speaker 1: sort of in these rows, each carrying a little segment
Speaker 1: of leaf, really really interesting. They do eat the leaf sap,
Speaker 1: but there is a greater purpose for these leaves. These
Speaker 1: leaves are used as fodder for a type of fungus
Speaker 1: that feeds on the decaying leaves. So the ants actively
Speaker 1: cultivate the fungus by getting rid of pests and competing molds.
Speaker 1: And the ants even have another symbiotic back materia on
Speaker 1: their bodies that act as an antimicrobial, protecting themselves in
Speaker 1: the fungus. They make sure to only use leaves that
Speaker 1: are not toxic toxic to the fungus, and they will
Speaker 1: actively alter which leaves they collect if they notice that
Speaker 1: leaves are not good for the fungus. So the fungus
Speaker 1: is so dependent on the ants it no longer produces spores.
Speaker 1: It completely relies on the ants to reproduce and to propagate,
Speaker 1: and the ants use the fungus as a food supply
Speaker 1: for its larvae, who have also grown completely dependent on
Speaker 1: eating the fungus. So these are codependent species and not
Speaker 1: unhealthy in the way that it is in human psychology.
Speaker 1: While this seems ridiculously specialized, right, like, how could this
Speaker 1: ever just happen naturally, it's really no different than say
Speaker 1: the human body, or any other animal's body, any other
Speaker 1: complex organism's body, which is also a complex symbiotic interaction
Speaker 1: between cells, and even within the cells, you have organelles
Speaker 1: that are all acting in concert, like the mitochondria interacting
Speaker 1: with the other organelles in the cell. And it's really
Speaker 1: really kind of weird when you think about it, because
Speaker 1: the just one individual organism's body. It is hard to
Speaker 1: fathom how that came about because you have all of
Speaker 1: these interconnected systems that are all working in concert, and
Speaker 1: so how does that happen? Right with evolution, which has
Speaker 1: a very simple set of rules, which is just did
Speaker 1: you pass on your genes? Did you survive or didn't you?
Speaker 1: Did the genes get passed on? That's it. That's the
Speaker 1: only rule that evolution follows. Nothing else really, And you know,
Speaker 1: of course it gets more complex when you start talking
Speaker 1: about like how these things happen, like how does one
Speaker 1: pass on genes? What are the pressures acting on it?
Speaker 1: But the basic rule is whether or not something passes
Speaker 1: its genes on to the next generation. And that is it. Well,
Speaker 1: one way I like to think about it to kind
Speaker 1: of understand why these incredible complexities can come out of
Speaker 1: such a simple rule is thinking about computers. Right, so
Speaker 1: computers operate on binary you know, you have like on
Speaker 1: off zero one, and you can think about that in
Speaker 1: terms of evolution, like zero is it doesn't reproduce one.
Speaker 1: It does reproduce right off on. And so even though
Speaker 1: a computer might be based on binary, this very very
Speaker 1: simple off on sort of you know, building block, it
Speaker 1: is capable of incredible complexity given enough bytes and given
Speaker 1: enough processing times. So likewise, evolution operates over millions of
Speaker 1: years and through trillions of organisms. So you can think
Speaker 1: of time and the number of cells and organisms as
Speaker 1: processing time and bites of data for a computer. So
Speaker 1: even though it starts off with this very simple off
Speaker 1: on binary system, it becomes exponentially more complex, offering these
Speaker 1: like seemingly magical kind of things, of being able to
Speaker 1: create these incredibly complex organisms. Just how a computer based
Speaker 1: on binary can now do incredible, ridiculous and sometimes stupid things.
Speaker 1: That's exactly how evolution operates, right, it can make incredible
Speaker 1: complex and sometimes stupid things. So if you once you
Speaker 1: start to think about it in that way, right where
Speaker 1: it is this it is a complexity that unfolds from
Speaker 1: a simple binary system, then it makes more sense how
Speaker 1: you get such complexity. Now in terms of like the
Speaker 1: individual steps, that's always a difficulty as a say, like
Speaker 1: an evolutionary biologist to try to work backwards and think
Speaker 1: about all the individual steps that happen to create the
Speaker 1: complex systems that we see. Sometimes we find evolutionary evidence
Speaker 1: for it, right, like a related species that seems to
Speaker 1: have half of the behavior that the other species does,
Speaker 1: and then we can kind of guess like maybe this
Speaker 1: is how this happened, you know, And a lot of
Speaker 1: that is storytelling, right, where if we don't have enough
Speaker 1: evidence of something we kind of try to come up
Speaker 1: with stories of like, well, how did this happen? But
Speaker 1: you know, so I could say, like, well, maybe these
Speaker 1: ants collected these leaves for food, right like ants will
Speaker 1: often other species of ants will often collect vegetation, dead things,
Speaker 1: et cetera, bring them back to the nest in order
Speaker 1: for them to eat or to feed their offspring. And
Speaker 1: maybe they did that, and then some fungus started to
Speaker 1: eat the decaying leaves because that's what fungus does. And
Speaker 1: then actually they started to eat the fungus because it
Speaker 1: just happened to be growing there. And then hey, that
Speaker 1: fungus is actually really nutritious, And so you have, over
Speaker 1: many years something's kind of happening to happen that fine
Speaker 1: tunes this relationship between the ants and this fungus until
Speaker 1: you get to the point today where it is just
Speaker 1: such a complex, interestingly interwoven relationship. So yeah, I hope
Speaker 1: that helps. Basically, our planet's a giant computer, but that
Speaker 1: doesn't doesn't mean that it's not real, all right, So
Speaker 1: onto the last question. Hi, Katie, I was wondering if
Speaker 1: you have a favorite adapted insect wing. You know, insects
Speaker 1: generally have two pairs of wings, but some insects have
Speaker 1: adapted one or more of these pairs for another use.
Speaker 1: I am partial to the electra found in beetles. I
Speaker 1: love the cool shapes and colors. Do you have a favorite? Thanks,
Speaker 1: Bob Bonus pick of my rat, you know, judging you
Speaker 1: silently from his box? Fort? Hi, Bob and Juno, do
Speaker 1: you know your right to judge me from your rat? Fort?
Speaker 1: I bet you have cool snacks and like rat comic
Speaker 1: books inside, so I'm very jealous. All right, So, insect
Speaker 1: wings are incredibly cool. I love that you bring up
Speaker 1: eletra and how interesting they're. They're beautiful, come in all
Speaker 1: sorts of different colors, different shapes, different patterns, and they
Speaker 1: are used to protect the insects. So, and wings in
Speaker 1: general are really interesting from insects because one of the
Speaker 1: leading theories is that they evolved from gills that their
Speaker 1: aquatic ancestors once used, So like, the wings are basically
Speaker 1: overgrown gills that then they can use two flies, so
Speaker 1: so yeah. The these wings then evolve into yet other
Speaker 1: structures like the eletron of beetles, the hardened shell like
Speaker 1: wings that close over the more fragile wings and protect
Speaker 1: them and also just protects the beetle. In terms of
Speaker 1: my favorites, I really do like fasmid wings, so fasmids
Speaker 1: being things like stick insects. Some species have evolved wings
Speaker 1: that basically are just used as a threat display. They
Speaker 1: don't they're tiny. They're actually kind of humorously tiny compared
Speaker 1: to the rest of the insect, but it is used
Speaker 1: as a threat display, like a little set of fans
Speaker 1: that are usually a bright color like bright pink or
Speaker 1: bright red, and so it's just a flash of this
Speaker 1: red to scare off predators. An example would be the
Speaker 1: bud wing stick insects. So I don't know, that's really cool.
Speaker 1: I love it. I just also love the idea of
Speaker 1: this insect like fanning open a fan and trying to
Speaker 1: scare something off, like I'm done with you, go away.
Speaker 1: Very very sassy and very cool. I also like wings
Speaker 1: that have been adapted as noise makers, such as in
Speaker 1: species of crickets. There are some species of crickets that
Speaker 1: can fly, but a lot of them are flightless, and
Speaker 1: they use their to produce chirps, like by stridulating and
Speaker 1: rubbing them against each other, so that is very cool.
Speaker 1: Insect wings are really awesome and flight is not the
Speaker 1: only awesome thing about them. And you know, it's interesting
Speaker 1: because you can kind of see like this doesn't just
Speaker 1: happen in insects and birds. You see wings being adapted
Speaker 1: for other purposes than flight. Obviously, flightless birds can use
Speaker 1: their wings for things like swimming like in penguins, ostriches, rays,
Speaker 1: and EMUs will use their wings and things like heat
Speaker 1: control or in mating displays. And then also there's the
Speaker 1: club wing Mannikin that uses its wings for making sound,
Speaker 1: similar to say a cricket. So their wings have actually
Speaker 1: developed to rub against each other to vibrate and create
Speaker 1: this really interesting sound. It's one I think it is
Speaker 1: the only bird that is known to use stridulation is sound.
Speaker 1: And as a consequence, they are actually worse at flying.
Speaker 1: They're poor flyers. They can still fly, but they're pretty
Speaker 1: bad at it. Mostly they use their wings for communication
Speaker 1: through this sound that they make just like a cricket.
Speaker 1: Very very cool. So, guys, thank you so much for
Speaker 1: your questions. If you have a question that I did
Speaker 1: not answer on this episode and you want me to,
Speaker 1: you can write to me at Creature feature Pod at
Speaker 1: gmail dot com. That's Creature featurepod at gmail dot com.
Speaker 1: Send me your questions, your pictures of rat forts, animals, pets.
Speaker 1: I really appreciate all of that. Thank you guys so
Speaker 1: much for listening. We will resume the Mystery Animal sound
Speaker 1: game next week. It's happening. Don't you worry. It's happening.
Speaker 1: And thanks to this space coassics for They're a super
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