Speaker 1: Welcome to Creature Feature production of iHeartRadio. I'm your host
Speaker 1: of Mini Parasites, Katie Golden. I studied psychology and evolutionary biology,
Speaker 1: and today on the show, it's another listener questions episode.
Speaker 1: This one I am particularly excited about. I went down
Speaker 1: a rabbit hole. First, some amazing questions that I got
Speaker 1: from you guys. I always love these because these send
Speaker 1: me on research journeys. And so if you hear these questions,
Speaker 1: you're like, wait a minute, I have a question and
Speaker 1: I want to hear the answer to it. Well, you
Speaker 1: can always email me at Creature Feature Pod at gmail
Speaker 1: dot com and I will answer your question. So let's
Speaker 1: get right into it. First listener question, Hey, Katie, this
Speaker 1: blew my mind. So this listener sent me a link
Speaker 1: to a YouTube video by Ben Jordan. Ben Jordan's channels
Speaker 1: seems to be devoted to music things about music, technical
Speaker 1: things and you know, interesting stories about music and sounds,
Speaker 1: sound production and so cool stuff. Let's look into what
Speaker 1: this listener email is actually about. So the linked YouTube
Speaker 1: video that was sent to me by this listener is
Speaker 1: about animal perception and about how animals view the world.
Speaker 1: And in the video you see these this approximation of
Speaker 1: how animals see things or hear things, and the thesis
Speaker 1: of the video is basically that animals experience life sometimes
Speaker 1: slower or faster than human beings. So like maybe a
Speaker 1: dog experiences things like kind of slowed down, where as
Speaker 1: something like a cat might experience things sort of sped
Speaker 1: up to a certain degree. So the listener asks me,
Speaker 1: is this true? Is Ben's fascinating study on animal perception
Speaker 1: a bit too visual centric or is this on the
Speaker 1: right track. The most fascinating part to me is that
Speaker 1: a lizard could adjust its perception of time by adjusting
Speaker 1: its metabolism depending on what's needed. Also, the facts that
Speaker 1: apparently elephants see us buzz along super fast as they
Speaker 1: watch weather patterns developing. Would love to learn more about
Speaker 1: what biologists know about this. And this is from p K.
Speaker 1: So I watched this video and I found it very interesting,
Speaker 1: And so the question is is this video accurate? Is
Speaker 1: this actually how animals perceive the world, Maybe like dog
Speaker 1: seeing things kind of more slowly than humans, or an
Speaker 1: elephant seeing things really slow, so we kind of just
Speaker 1: or elephants seeing things sped up, So humans just kind
Speaker 1: of flitting around like we're like we're flies or something.
Speaker 1: So this kind of time time difference in terms of
Speaker 1: how animals perceive time. Of course, I think what this
Speaker 1: YouTuber is doing is he's trying to approximate things. I
Speaker 1: don't think he's making any big claims that he absolutely
Speaker 1: knows what animal how animals perceive the world, but he's
Speaker 1: trying to sort of do a representation of how they
Speaker 1: might see things or hear things based on a concept
Speaker 1: known as critical flicker fusion rates. So what is critical
Speaker 1: flicker fusion rate? I looked into this, looked into what
Speaker 1: biol just had to say about this, what bird researchers,
Speaker 1: sound experts, and physicists had to say about this whole
Speaker 1: idea of animals perception of time. So biologist doctor Kevin
Speaker 1: Healey I was interviewed by the BBC four channel in
Speaker 1: a segment called a Sense of Time, which I highly
Speaker 1: recommend if you are interested in learning more about this topic.
Speaker 1: So what is flicker fusion rate? So flicker fusion rate
Speaker 1: is the rate at which you can see flashes of light. Essentially,
Speaker 1: so flashing a light to see a what point you
Speaker 1: stop being able to differentiate between flashes and then at
Speaker 1: what point, those flashes actually fuse into a single beam,
Speaker 1: or at least they fuse in your brain, so it's
Speaker 1: still flashing. The light is still flashing, but your brain
Speaker 1: can only perceive it as a steady light because it's
Speaker 1: going too fast for you to perceive the difference between flashes.
Speaker 1: So if you flash a light slowly, you can see it. Right.
Speaker 1: Even if you flash light relatively quickly like a strobe light,
Speaker 1: we can see that. We can see that flashing. But
Speaker 1: if you flash it way way too quickly, we will
Speaker 1: stop being able to perceive it as flashing, and it's
Speaker 1: just going to look like a steady light. So humans
Speaker 1: can see at around sixty frames per second, but above
Speaker 1: that we can't see the flashes. It just looks like
Speaker 1: constant light to us. So I looked into what evolutionary
Speaker 1: biologist doctor Kevin Heally had to say about animals critical
Speaker 1: flicker fusion. Right, So he was interviewed by the BBC
Speaker 1: four channel in a segment called a Sense of Time,
Speaker 1: which I highly recommend if you're interested in learning more
Speaker 1: about this topic. So, different animals have different critical flicker
Speaker 1: fusion rates. Some are higher and some are lower than humans.
Speaker 1: So certain deep sea fish species can only see about
Speaker 1: one to two frames per second, so you can be
Speaker 1: moving around, but to this fish it would be like
Speaker 1: a slide show. Pied flycatchers, a type of bird, can
Speaker 1: see around one hundred and forty five frames per second,
Speaker 1: so this is well over twice the number of frames
Speaker 1: per second. Then we could see something like a blowfly
Speaker 1: can see around two hundred frames per second, which is
Speaker 1: bananas bonkers. And so if you wonder, like why can't
Speaker 1: I swat a fly? Fly can see things coming and
Speaker 1: process things quickly, so our fast movements to them, they
Speaker 1: can actually process that. They can see our movements and
Speaker 1: you know, quite quite easily. But one of the downsides
Speaker 1: to this really high frame rate is actually that they
Speaker 1: when you move slower, it's really hard for them to
Speaker 1: perceive that movement. So really slow movement is going to
Speaker 1: be super super slow to them, and it may not
Speaker 1: even come off as movement to them. So like you
Speaker 1: may find that trying to catch a fly, if you
Speaker 1: try to swat it quickly, it doesn't work, but if
Speaker 1: you very slowly, calmly grab it, it doesn't even realize
Speaker 1: that you are going for it. So you know, the
Speaker 1: question of why certain animals have different critical flicker fusion
Speaker 1: rates than others. Why wouldn't we all just have really
Speaker 1: fast flicker fusion rates so we could all see things
Speaker 1: happening at this faster rate, meaning that like the ideas
Speaker 1: that maybe if you can see things at this faster rate,
Speaker 1: right like two hundred frames per second, you can perceive
Speaker 1: a lot more and your ability to react to it
Speaker 1: may be enhanced or something. Well, having super fast eyesight
Speaker 1: costs a lot of energy and brain processing, so it
Speaker 1: doesn't really make sense to have for all animals, and
Speaker 1: it's not so like something that may seem useful right
Speaker 1: to all animals to have, Well, it's costly, and you
Speaker 1: can get by with a slower flicker fusion rate if
Speaker 1: you have cognitive processes that allow you to do other things.
Speaker 1: So it is or if you have a bigger body,
Speaker 1: for instance, like a fly has a very tiny body,
Speaker 1: very simple brain, and so its ability to avoid getting
Speaker 1: eaten by any number of frogs, reptiles, birds, every basically
Speaker 1: everything wants to eat these guys. Being able to have that,
Speaker 1: you know, that high level of perception being a little
Speaker 1: see two hundred frames per second, Being able to have
Speaker 1: that kind of like bullet time. It maybe really really
Speaker 1: valuable to it it's survival because it's so small and
Speaker 1: such a tasty snack for everything. Interestingly, some animals can
Speaker 1: actually turn up and turn down the flicker fusion rate
Speaker 1: as if going into bullet time, like Neo from the Matrix.
Speaker 1: So swordfish can do this by heating up an organ
Speaker 1: near their eye, which can increase their flicker fusion rate,
Speaker 1: which they might do while hunting to improve their performance.
Speaker 1: So it's like Keanu Reeves, but a fish. So according
Speaker 1: to physicist Carlo Rovelli as well as evolutionary biologist doctor
Speaker 1: Kevin Healey, the idea that animals perceive time differently is
Speaker 1: not so bizarre. So time is not time is a
Speaker 1: thing in physics, but the perception of time happens in
Speaker 1: the brains. So the perception of time is not an objective,
Speaker 1: physics based universal truth. It's based on the biology of
Speaker 1: our brains and how they function, how quickly they can
Speaker 1: process the events as they occur, how quickly we can
Speaker 1: process sounds or visuals, how many frames per second our
Speaker 1: brains work in. And you know, both this physicist and
Speaker 1: this evolutionary biologists believe that it is credible that animals
Speaker 1: can perceive time differently. In terms of empirical evidence of this,
Speaker 1: there is, there's some. I mean, it's always hard, right,
Speaker 1: So why you have to keep in mind whenever you're
Speaker 1: thinking about animal perception is we cannot avatar into an
Speaker 1: animal head. We can't make an assumption about what it's
Speaker 1: like to be that animal just based on our empirical
Speaker 1: observations of this animal. But we can, we can guess,
Speaker 1: we can make these estimates. So some empirical evidence on
Speaker 1: this biological time slovidone is actually in birdsong. So bird's
Speaker 1: song is lovely, sometimes it's shrill, and sometimes it sounds unpleasant,
Speaker 1: just like sort of chaotic screaming. But when you slow
Speaker 1: down birdsong sometimes you can perceive more notes than you
Speaker 1: were able to with birdsong being played in real time.
Speaker 1: So birdsong has many more notes per second than our
Speaker 1: human brains can process. And when we slow down the birdsong,
Speaker 1: we actually can hear more of the notes. And so
Speaker 1: Bob Dueling, an auditory scientist at the University of Maryland,
Speaker 1: as well as Norah Prior, who is a postdoc researcher
Speaker 1: on birds talked on this BBC four program about whether
Speaker 1: birds can hear more, can hear more in the birdsong
Speaker 1: than humans, So like when you slow it down, there
Speaker 1: are more notes, But does this mean that birds can
Speaker 1: actually perceive these greater number of notes? So their research
Speaker 1: on birds do indicate that birds can just doing these
Speaker 1: subtle changes within a single note that humans can't. So
Speaker 1: these birds may be able to distinguish these notes by
Speaker 1: perceiving things slower than a human with that higher critical
Speaker 1: flicker fusion rights. So yeah, I would say that it's
Speaker 1: always going to be hard to know exactly, Like I
Speaker 1: don't I imagine that when you have such a different brain, right,
Speaker 1: you're an animal, you have a very different brain imagining
Speaker 1: the world is Just like when we look at these
Speaker 1: videos that Ben Jordan made, which I think are it's
Speaker 1: a really interesting video and I'm not I don't want
Speaker 1: to be too critical of it because I think it's
Speaker 1: really fascinated and he presents the information really well. I
Speaker 1: think that like when you the problem, right is that
Speaker 1: we are looking at a video that's been slowed down
Speaker 1: or sped up, or you know, the colors changed, the
Speaker 1: sounds changed. To kind of estimate what this animals perception
Speaker 1: is based on, you know, some math based on their
Speaker 1: flicker fusion rate, the frames per second that they can
Speaker 1: hear or see in. But we are a human being
Speaker 1: with our human brain looking at a video, So we're
Speaker 1: filtering all of this information through our human brain and
Speaker 1: trying to imagine what that is like as a dog,
Speaker 1: as a cat, as a fish, as a reptile, and
Speaker 1: so that it's it's we're kind of trapped in a
Speaker 1: prison of our own brains, so we can't directly experience
Speaker 1: what it's like to be that animal. So we can't
Speaker 1: ever really know what is that direct experience of that
Speaker 1: animal and what amount of it is being filtered through
Speaker 1: our human brain. Looking at this video of going like, oh,
Speaker 1: it's kind of like if I'm a dog, it's kind
Speaker 1: of like I live in this like blue and gray,
Speaker 1: blue and gray and brown world with like humans, but
Speaker 1: the humans are kind of moving a little slower and
Speaker 1: their voices are slowed down. Well maybe, but it's also
Speaker 1: again that's been filtered through our human brains, our human cognition.
Speaker 1: But I would say, you know, I think it is
Speaker 1: very plausible, very very plausible that animals. I mean, first
Speaker 1: of all, I do think animals are conscious and experience things,
Speaker 1: And so I think that this idea that animals could
Speaker 1: sort of experience things in this maybe slowed down experience
Speaker 1: or something like an elephant would perceive things as kind
Speaker 1: of like flittering around a little faster. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: that's very credible. It's something we I don't know if
Speaker 1: we'll ever have the technology to know exactly what it's
Speaker 1: like to be in an animal brain, because how do
Speaker 1: we escape the prison of our own brains? But it
Speaker 1: is really fascinating and I love that question. So we're
Speaker 1: going to take a quick break, but when we get back,
Speaker 1: we are going to actually talk more about bird song.
Speaker 1: So we are back, and speaking of birds, I have
Speaker 1: another listener question, a short and a sweet one with
Speaker 1: a long and hopefully also sweet answer. Why can some
Speaker 1: birds imitate human voices and other birds don't? Our pigeons
Speaker 1: and sparrows not smart enough? Or is there an anatomical reason?
Speaker 1: Thanks sincerely, Stephen High Sincerely, Stephen, As you've guessed, both
Speaker 1: brain and the vocal structures are involved in being able
Speaker 1: to mimic human voices in birds. So when you think
Speaker 1: about it, like our brains are the software and the
Speaker 1: hardware are things like our larynx. For birds, this is
Speaker 1: actually the syrinx. So birds who are able to mimic
Speaker 1: human voices have to have both the right physical structure,
Speaker 1: so the hardware of the syrinx that's the bird version
Speaker 1: of a larynx, and they have to have the right
Speaker 1: cognitive ability is the right software. So a bird's ability
Speaker 1: to remember different songs or bird calls is a repertoire.
Speaker 1: Birds vary in their complexity of repertoire size. There are
Speaker 1: some birds like thrashes that have a wide repertoire of
Speaker 1: complex songs, whereas maybe a bird like a seagull has
Speaker 1: different calls for sure, and these calls can be complex
Speaker 1: and that they mean different things, but they don't have
Speaker 1: the number of like different songs different calls is say
Speaker 1: a thrush or something like a brown thrasher, which is
Speaker 1: a songbird that has thousands of different songs. So a
Speaker 1: wide repertoire, however, doesn't mean a bird is like the
Speaker 1: smartest bird or even the best able to mimic human speech.
Speaker 1: So a raven, for instance, has a smaller repertoire than
Speaker 1: something like a brown thrasher, but ravens that were studied
Speaker 1: had around a dozen calls versus like the hundreds or
Speaker 1: even thousands of songs that a songbird can memorize. However,
Speaker 1: ravens are very very intelligent, they're great puzzle solvers, they're
Speaker 1: highly social, and ravens can actually mimic human speech, whereas
Speaker 1: a thrasher can't. So corvids including ravens, but other other
Speaker 1: types of birds such as parrots. There are also starling's,
Speaker 1: lyre birds and minas. These all can mimic human speech.
Speaker 1: There may also be other species of birds who can
Speaker 1: mimic human speech, but they just don't spend enough time
Speaker 1: around humans for us to really see that. So what
Speaker 1: sets apart the birds that can mimic human speech from
Speaker 1: the birds who can't? So also, I want to look
Speaker 1: at why birds can mimic human language but something like
Speaker 1: our closest relatives like chimpanzees or binobos can't, because it
Speaker 1: seems like they should be able to write. They have
Speaker 1: brains more similar to ours, They have larynxes more similar
Speaker 1: to ours. They have lips, But whereas a bird doesn't
Speaker 1: have a lips, doesn't have a lipts, they don't have lips.
Speaker 1: Birds don't have lips, So what is going on. So
Speaker 1: let's look at parrots first. Parrots are a really good
Speaker 1: example of a bird who's very good at mimicking human speech,
Speaker 1: and they have a few things going for them. It's
Speaker 1: the syrinx and tongue structure in terms of their hardware.
Speaker 1: So parrots have really strong tongues that can manipulate sounds,
Speaker 1: and the muscles controlling their synx are concentrated around this
Speaker 1: single tube before the seringx branches off into these two
Speaker 1: bronchial structures, and so this makes it a little more
Speaker 1: similar in structure and functionality to a human larynx than
Speaker 1: a lot of birds who have whose muscles in their
Speaker 1: serings are sort of more concentrated where the se splits
Speaker 1: off into these two tubes. So you know, they have
Speaker 1: the hardware to be able to mimic human speech, and corvids,
Speaker 1: liar birds, starlings, and mina's are also they also have
Speaker 1: hardware to greater less extent in terms of like being
Speaker 1: able to mimic human voices. I think parents are, like,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's kind of arguable, like who's the best.
Speaker 1: I guess parents are sort of the best at doing
Speaker 1: it strictly speaking, But yeah, all those other birds do
Speaker 1: have the hardware where they can to some capacity mimic
Speaker 1: human voices. So now let's talk about the software the brain,
Speaker 1: so repertoire size, the number of songs that a bird
Speaker 1: can learn, like I mentioned before, doesn't necessarily mean that
Speaker 1: a bird is the smartest or able to mimic things
Speaker 1: the best. So a lot of this has to do
Speaker 1: with how birds learn songs and sort of the may
Speaker 1: it's maybe line, maybe they're born with it. So a
Speaker 1: lot of songbirds will indeed learn songs, but they could
Speaker 1: be optimized to learn songs of their own species. And
Speaker 1: this is useful because learning the songs of their own
Speaker 1: species their conspecific so conspecific means a member of your
Speaker 1: own species helps them do things like mate or defend territory.
Speaker 1: There are birds, a lot of birds actually, that are
Speaker 1: innate singers, so they are born with being able to
Speaker 1: recognize their own species songs and able to sing it.
Speaker 1: And there's a lot of sort of gray area here.
Speaker 1: There are birds who are born with the innatability to sing,
Speaker 1: but by hearing it and sort of practicing it, they
Speaker 1: get better at it. There's some birds who are born
Speaker 1: basically with the structure these these sort of template structures
Speaker 1: that enable them to better learn and hear their own
Speaker 1: species songs, but they actually have to learn this larger repertoire.
Speaker 1: So it's this really interesting I mean, bird's song is
Speaker 1: studied a lot by like linguists, by cognitive scientists because
Speaker 1: the language acquisition of birds, or the song acquisition of
Speaker 1: birds is very interesting in terms of this some of
Speaker 1: it being an innate characteristic they're born with this programming,
Speaker 1: and then some of it being learned this like plasticity,
Speaker 1: or they have to learn things listen, practice, develop muscle memory.
Speaker 1: So it's really really interesting and complex area of research.
Speaker 1: So some songbirds are selected for a large repertoire, which
Speaker 1: may help males attract females mates. It could also help
Speaker 1: to then territory. Sometimes both males and females also sing
Speaker 1: to each other, but often songbirds like these, these mating
Speaker 1: songs can become very complicated. They can get these large repertoires,
Speaker 1: and there could be a fitness reason for why females
Speaker 1: like larger repertoires, where maybe it indicates a males more fit,
Speaker 1: but it could also be an example of runaway selection.
Speaker 1: So we know with birds they are often selected for
Speaker 1: their beauty for these amazing ornamentations on birds, which doesn't
Speaker 1: necessarily translate to fitness, like in terms of being able
Speaker 1: to you know, survive better. A bird with a huge
Speaker 1: tail is not necessarily going to be better at flying.
Speaker 1: In fact, sometimes it hinders these birds. But the females
Speaker 1: really like these signals, and so this is potentially an
Speaker 1: example of runaway evolution where there's some reason that this
Speaker 1: female is drawn to or notice is better the males
Speaker 1: that develop these greater repertoires, and then because the females
Speaker 1: are drawn to it, it's selected for more, until like
Speaker 1: it's more and more and more and more complex, just
Speaker 1: like you have in terms of bird ornamentation, like large
Speaker 1: repertoires are the sort of auditory version of peacocks in
Speaker 1: terms of that amazing splendid visual display that they do
Speaker 1: for females. So this is all basically the complexity of
Speaker 1: the birds repertoire is due to selective pressures, and some
Speaker 1: birds may not have the same selective pressures, so they
Speaker 1: may not need a larger repertoire, but they may need
Speaker 1: a lot of cognitive skills to figure things out. Like
Speaker 1: parrots are highly social and they have to maybe get
Speaker 1: nuts or grubs out of tree. So they have these
Speaker 1: like these you know, good cognitive skills. It's just not
Speaker 1: based on like having this wide song repertoire. But birds
Speaker 1: like parrots, liar birds, even birds like mocking birds or
Speaker 1: birds like corvids may have a more of more plasticity,
Speaker 1: so they're able to learn and mimic sounds that are
Speaker 1: not necessarily just their own species sounds, and so they
Speaker 1: have more flexibility in the kinds of sounds that they
Speaker 1: can learn, even though they don't maybe have the capacity
Speaker 1: to learn the like thousands of songs that songbird may
Speaker 1: be able to learn. They have more flexibility. They aren't
Speaker 1: sort of preprogrammed with this framework that is specific to
Speaker 1: types of songs that are unique to their species. So
Speaker 1: something like a liarbird can mimic a variety of sounds
Speaker 1: like lawnmowers or a camera shutter. So like these kinds
Speaker 1: of this kind of like plasticity in terms of being
Speaker 1: able to mimic a sound that does not come from
Speaker 1: its own species is something that was selected for in
Speaker 1: these birds but maybe not in songbirds. And in addition,
Speaker 1: these birds with the more plasticity are have the hardware
Speaker 1: of the hardware ability to produce these sounds. And so
Speaker 1: think about it, like if you hooked a game Boy
Speaker 1: that was loaded with like Super Mario Brothers cartridge, and
Speaker 1: you hooked that up to a set of speakers. The speakers,
Speaker 1: which is like the syrinx or larynx, could technically play
Speaker 1: the sound of a violin if a iPod was hooked
Speaker 1: up to it. I guess people don't use iPods anymore.
Speaker 1: It's all iPhones now, I'm so old. So but these
Speaker 1: speakers could play a sound of a violin, but not
Speaker 1: when a game Boy with Super Mario Brothers is plugged
Speaker 1: into the speakers, it is only going to play Super
Speaker 1: Mario Brothers sounds, whereas like if you plugged in a
Speaker 1: computer to the speakers, it could play basically anything. So
Speaker 1: this is probably this is like the difference between these
Speaker 1: like different birds in terms of these sounds. They're able
Speaker 1: to produce a mimic. Of course, if you plugged in
Speaker 1: like a computer to something like a you know, I
Speaker 1: don't know, gramophone, it's not I mean, that's not going
Speaker 1: to work. That's not how computers is. I'm not a
Speaker 1: computers professor, but I know that's not how computers is anyways,
Speaker 1: you get the idea. It's both hardware and software. So
Speaker 1: birds that can mimic human sounds have the unique brains
Speaker 1: that are plastic enough and good at learning novel sounds,
Speaker 1: plus the hardware such that they can actually mimic our
Speaker 1: human words. But why can't something like a chimpanzee do it?
Speaker 1: So it has this smart chimp brain and a larynx
Speaker 1: that's more similar to our own. So why could something
Speaker 1: like a parrot mimic human speech but a chimpanzee can't.
Speaker 1: So it's not about intelligence. It's not that parrots are
Speaker 1: smarter than chimps, or chimps are smarter than parrots, you know.
Speaker 1: Like again, like animal intelligence is somewhat relative, and it
Speaker 1: depends on what that intelligence is geared towards. So chimpanzees
Speaker 1: are very intelligent, but their intelligence is directed in a
Speaker 1: specific way that is advantageous to them. And so in
Speaker 1: the same way that a human is very intelligent, But
Speaker 1: we can't slow down time in the way that maybe
Speaker 1: a blowfly can. It doesn't mean the blowfly is smarter
Speaker 1: than us. It just means that the blowfli's brain has
Speaker 1: to put a priority on a high frame rate so
Speaker 1: that it can react quickly, whereas with humans, we don't
Speaker 1: need that high frame rate to function in our brains
Speaker 1: are more geared towards cognitive processing, learning, puzzle solving, social interaction,
Speaker 1: so very complex stuff. Just it's a different type of
Speaker 1: intelligence and it is geared in a different way. And
Speaker 1: so chimpanzees lack the brain structure to learn speech outside
Speaker 1: of the chimpanzee vocalizations, whereas a bird like a liar
Speaker 1: bird or a parrot does have the brain structures that
Speaker 1: are optimized to learn and mimic sounds. So it's thought
Speaker 1: that humans and close human ancestors had genetic mutations that
Speaker 1: allowed us to learn specific syntax and develop language. So
Speaker 1: human language is really unique because while birds are able
Speaker 1: to have a syntactical structure, there's not much evidence that
Speaker 1: they can learn language and use it in the same
Speaker 1: symbolic way that we do, where words have these nested
Speaker 1: meanings and you can put words together to form sentences
Speaker 1: that means something different, and put sentences together to mean
Speaker 1: something that forms something even more different. So this kind
Speaker 1: of like nesting of concepts within words seems to be
Speaker 1: quite unique to human language, So there are there is
Speaker 1: some evidence that something really smart, like an African gray parrot,
Speaker 1: which is one of the more intelligent of the bird species,
Speaker 1: and it can talk. They can see to make some
Speaker 1: associations between words and objects, so they can potentially learn
Speaker 1: what the name of an object is or even learn
Speaker 1: to differentiate between like what a plastic object is versus
Speaker 1: what a felt object is. But there's kind of a
Speaker 1: debate to what extent they understand the meanings of words
Speaker 1: and language, and their ability to kind of have this
Speaker 1: extent to which we nest concepts, putting a concept inside
Speaker 1: a concept inside a concept seems pretty unique to humans. Dogs,
Speaker 1: for instance, can learn to associate words with like a
Speaker 1: toy or food, or going outside or the v et,
Speaker 1: but it doesn't necessarily mean they have the capacity to
Speaker 1: understand language in the same way that humans can. They
Speaker 1: have associated a specific sound with a specific meaning, which
Speaker 1: sounds like, well, hey, that's just a word, right, But really,
Speaker 1: our human language is a lot more complex in terms
Speaker 1: of how we fit a lot of concepts inside, say
Speaker 1: a word, and then it has a lot of re
Speaker 1: related concepts, and we're able to kind of do this
Speaker 1: modular as symboling of language and words to give them
Speaker 1: new meaning. And that's quite unique, and that's quite special.
Speaker 1: It does, I think, make us a little bit different
Speaker 1: from other animals, even animals that can communicate. That's not
Speaker 1: to say that animal communication is not complex. It's just
Speaker 1: ours is quite ridiculously, ridiculously complex. So we are going
Speaker 1: to take a quick break, and then when we get back,
Speaker 1: we're going to answer some of our listener questions. Okay,
Speaker 1: so I am back, and this one is actually more
Speaker 1: of a story that I am going to share because
Speaker 1: it was I think very interesting. And so here is
Speaker 1: this listener's story. Hi, Katie, thank you so much for
Speaker 1: the hours of animal entertainment. Your podcast brings me so
Speaker 1: much joy and education. I'm a dork and harass my
Speaker 1: fellow employees with animal facts, and I've learned that I've
Speaker 1: learned from your show. I just got done with your
Speaker 1: drunken Animal part of your listener Maile episode. Here's my
Speaker 1: intoxicated animal story. I have a fifty pound pit bull
Speaker 1: and a three pound Chihuahua and a sixty pound Dingo
Speaker 1: shepherd mix. Yes I did say dingo, and yes we
Speaker 1: did do a DNA test, and yes, she was very strange.
Speaker 1: She had oscillating wrists and an intense devotion to me,
Speaker 1: and ended up being my service animal due to her
Speaker 1: ability to sense when I was going to have an
Speaker 1: epileptic seizure. But to my point, we lived in a
Speaker 1: mobile home with a gas furnace, water heater, and a
Speaker 1: neighbor that had an overhanging apple tree. My wife and
Speaker 1: I had really bad headaches one evening, and the Pity
Speaker 1: and the chihuahua started acting strange and falling while they walked.
Speaker 1: The dingo seemed fine, loll The dingo slept in a
Speaker 1: cold area of the house because she was tough, but
Speaker 1: the other two slept near us our heater ducks, even
Speaker 1: if we moved their bed. Our reasoning went to carbon
Speaker 1: monoxide poisoning because of recent gas work done in the home.
Speaker 1: We called the fire department, not knowing fully what was
Speaker 1: about to happen. I communicated everything I told you, and
Speaker 1: the fire department told us to leave the house immediately,
Speaker 1: don't open any windows or doors so that they could
Speaker 1: test the air quality inside. So me and my wife
Speaker 1: and our dogs, two of which are acting crazy, in
Speaker 1: a smaller trailer park of less than one hundred homes
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, an ambulance for humans, one for animals,
Speaker 1: which is rich people's stuff, not for our money. Class
Speaker 1: four police cars, one small fire truck and one ladder truck,
Speaker 1: and a hazmat team with full suit protection and detection gear,
Speaker 1: all with lights and sirens blazing. At one thirty am,
Speaker 1: we worked restaurant hours. The hazmat team inspected our home
Speaker 1: and four others while waking up residents to get them
Speaker 1: to evacuate their homes. So now we have twenty to
Speaker 1: twenty five people standing in the street. In November, at
Speaker 1: one thirty eight m the fire department did a full
Speaker 1: inspection for raid on carbon monoxide and dioxide inspections on
Speaker 1: five homes around us. They didn't leave until four thirty am.
Speaker 1: After my wife and I passed every emergency test outside,
Speaker 1: they decided to see why our dogs were messed up.
Speaker 1: Turns out that our neighbor's apples had dropped into our
Speaker 1: yard and our greedy dogs got smashed on apples. My
Speaker 1: sweet Lola hated sweet food, so she was fine and
Speaker 1: that's why she indicated to the other two. I don't
Speaker 1: know how many apples the big or little guy must
Speaker 1: have had, but they definitely got drunk. The fire department
Speaker 1: and ambulance and police laughed at the mistake but praised
Speaker 1: us for our vigilance about the dangers of carbon monoxide poisoning.
Speaker 1: Plus we got a home inspection for free from the
Speaker 1: hazmat team before we sold the house. Do with that info?
Speaker 1: What chew? Well? And I hope my waisted pit and
Speaker 1: chihuahua story makes you smile. Hope my dogs getting hammered
Speaker 1: makes you laugh. Also, just imagine a trailer park in
Speaker 1: the middle of no We're suddenly looking like a chemical explosion,
Speaker 1: where everyone knows your name, lots of questions to be answered.
Speaker 1: Two dogs like sweets, and Lola wanted nothing to do
Speaker 1: but take care of her friends. I hope you have
Speaker 1: a great day. And I hope I made you laugh
Speaker 1: because your show puts a smile on my face every time.
Speaker 1: Peace Maddie. Gee, that was very, very funny. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean that is I would have done the same thing
Speaker 1: you did. I would have been very concerned about carbon
Speaker 1: monoxide if I had been feeling bad and if my
Speaker 1: dogs were woozy and acting strange. Yeah, that is scary.
Speaker 1: I'm glad it turns out it was just fermented apples
Speaker 1: that your dogs got drunk on. That is incredible. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean there are It is funny because like you
Speaker 1: may see an animal acting loopy, and it's scary because
Speaker 1: there are all sorts of things that go through your head,
Speaker 1: like it could be raybies, it could be some kind
Speaker 1: of horrible thing happening. But then yeah, on occasion, it
Speaker 1: turns out that they have eaten something fermented and gotten drunk.
Speaker 1: In fact, a lot of these wildlife bird centers have
Speaker 1: to deal with birds in the winter who get drunk
Speaker 1: because they eat berries that have been frozen and fermented,
Speaker 1: and then they crash into windows and then they have
Speaker 1: to go to kind of a bird drunk tank and
Speaker 1: get healed rest up before they get released. So it
Speaker 1: does happen. So here's another listener email that is more
Speaker 1: of a story than a question, and this one is
Speaker 1: in reference to the pololo worms that we discussed in
Speaker 1: the episode mosh Pit. So to remind you, pololo worms
Speaker 1: are a type of polykeete marine worm that live in
Speaker 1: coral reefs, and so they will attach themselves to the
Speaker 1: reefs and then when they reach sexual maturity, they actually
Speaker 1: detach their lower obdomens, so they attach their butts, which
Speaker 1: then autonomously swim to the surface. So all these butts
Speaker 1: just like swimming to the surface where they mate with
Speaker 1: the other detached butts in a big soup of reproductive parts.
Speaker 1: If you want to find out more, you should definitely
Speaker 1: check out the mosh Pit episode. But also, these pololo
Speaker 1: worms are a delicacy in certain Pacific island cultures, and
Speaker 1: it is the detached part of the worm. The in
Speaker 1: segments of the worm that come up to make that
Speaker 1: are collected as a delicacy. And because these worms actually
Speaker 1: follow a very strict schedule, only appearing at night for
Speaker 1: a couple of hours based on the moon cycle, it's
Speaker 1: a rare treat, so keep that in mind for this email. Hi, Katie,
Speaker 1: I was excited to hear you talk about pololo worms
Speaker 1: on your mosh Pit episode because I had been meaning
Speaker 1: to write to you for ages to see if you
Speaker 1: could explain to me what the heck I ate. In
Speaker 1: late twenty nineteen, I took a trip to Samoa and
Speaker 1: it happened to coincide with the October full moon and
Speaker 1: the pololo night. I heard about it for the first
Speaker 1: time while on the island and managed to convince a
Speaker 1: local woman I met to let me tag along. It
Speaker 1: helped that I had a higher car so I could
Speaker 1: drive her and her friends to the good beach. We
Speaker 1: gathered on the beach in the middle of the night,
Speaker 1: and pretty much all of Samo was on the beach,
Speaker 1: just chatting quietly and making last minute repairs to their nets,
Speaker 1: waiting for the right time to get in the water.
Speaker 1: The ocean was just lousy with palolo worms. You could
Speaker 1: basically just scoop a cloth through the water and come
Speaker 1: out with a bunch, squish them into a bucket, trying
Speaker 1: not to squish them too much, and then go back
Speaker 1: for more. Everyone was out doing this until the sun
Speaker 1: came up. It was pretty lovely, with multigenerational families out
Speaker 1: there and all lighting their way with small lanterns, the
Speaker 1: tiny lights all up the coastline, looking like stars that
Speaker 1: had fallen into the sea. Wow, this is a this
Speaker 1: email writer is a very good rider. Walking back up
Speaker 1: to the beach, everyone was comparing catches and the women
Speaker 1: I was with were explaining to me how much each
Speaker 1: catch was probably worth, and it was outrageous. I was
Speaker 1: trying to understand if it was expensive just due to scarcity,
Speaker 1: or if there were other properties which contributed to this.
Speaker 1: But it was hard to get a satisfying answer, probably
Speaker 1: because I speak no Samoan, so communicating was challenging. But
Speaker 1: some people did say they were taking it for their
Speaker 1: sick grandmother, etc. So there are at least some beliefs
Speaker 1: of medicinal or restorative properties. The other thing I had
Speaker 1: been trying to get someone to explain to me was
Speaker 1: what these worms actually were. I had terrible internet connection there,
Speaker 1: so my research only got so far as disembodied reproductive
Speaker 1: organ But asking complete strangers on a beach in the
Speaker 1: middle of the night if they are actual worms or
Speaker 1: escaped penises doesn't get you far when you have limited
Speaker 1: common language, and I suspect the intensely Christian culture and
Speaker 1: Samoa mint modesty stopped many people talking about animal genitalia
Speaker 1: with a stranger darn, so I am glad to have
Speaker 1: finally gotten a satisfying answer. Anyway, I got to take
Speaker 1: a small sample from our catch back to my accommodation
Speaker 1: and asked the chef in the kitchen to cook it
Speaker 1: up for me. It was served to me like a
Speaker 1: kind of caveat, I guess although I have never had that.
Speaker 1: It was sauteed in butter and served with toast. It
Speaker 1: reminded me of snails, and that it was an unfamiliar
Speaker 1: texture and the taste was just whatever it had been
Speaker 1: cooked in, so it was just salty from the ocean
Speaker 1: and very buttery. I only had a little served, but
Speaker 1: I couldn't pick any distinctive or memorable flavors, thankfully, not
Speaker 1: something I personally will crave for the rest of my days.
Speaker 1: Usually when I eat adventurously on holiday and end up
Speaker 1: with worms in my belly, it is unintentional, so it
Speaker 1: was nice to at least go in with my eyes
Speaker 1: wide open this time. I've attached a couple of photos
Speaker 1: and there's a video on my Instagram if you want
Speaker 1: to see them wiggling about and briefly. In the same episode,
Speaker 1: you also said crabs have bug energy. I hope you
Speaker 1: know that there are several crustaceans here in Australia with
Speaker 1: such bug energy that they are called Moreton Bay bug
Speaker 1: and Ballmain bug. They are wonderfully buggy and much tastier
Speaker 1: than disembodied sex organs. Love your work, Katie from Melbourne,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for your story, Katie. I love
Speaker 1: how many interesting foods there are out in the world
Speaker 1: and the lengths to which we will all go to
Speaker 1: get a good meal and interesting flavors. The images that
Speaker 1: you sent me actually look quite appetizing. It kind of
Speaker 1: looks like a pesto or a spinach dip. Although I'm
Speaker 1: pretty sensitive to textures any kind of like, I don't know,
Speaker 1: I just there are certain textures that I can hardly
Speaker 1: even swallow. It's some kind of just psychological thing, I think.
Speaker 1: So in addition to the pololo worms, here are some
Speaker 1: of my favorite worm or warm like dishes from around
Speaker 1: the world. So I haven't actually eaten these, I do
Speaker 1: love the concept of them. Again, I wish I wasn't
Speaker 1: so picky about textures, because I definitely like to try this.
Speaker 1: But if you out there have tried any of these
Speaker 1: that I've described or something similar, I'd love to hear
Speaker 1: from you about what it's tastes like, what the experience
Speaker 1: is like. So with that said, let's look at some
Speaker 1: of the culinary worms from around the world. Now these
Speaker 1: are not all actually worms, these are just kind of
Speaker 1: worm like animals. So first, the fat innkeeper worm aka
Speaker 1: the penis fish, not to be confused with the candero fish,
Speaker 1: which is that tiny Amazonian fish that is rumored to
Speaker 1: swim up people's urethras, and the evidence on that is
Speaker 1: kind of mixed. It's potentially an urban legend. Potentially, maybe
Speaker 1: it's happened like once or twice. Anyways, that's not what
Speaker 1: we're talking about. We are talking about the fat innkeeper worm,
Speaker 1: which is quite big. It is actually another polykeete marine worm,
Speaker 1: like the palolo worm. So fat innkeeper worms look a
Speaker 1: bit like a wiener, which earns them the name the
Speaker 1: penis fish. They are pinkish and floppy, and you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: they kind of look like ding dogs or at least
Speaker 1: like floppy sea hot dogs. In South Korea they are
Speaker 1: eaten with chili paste and in China they are stir
Speaker 1: fried or they can also be ground up into umami seasoning.
Speaker 1: I love umami. So from the Philippines there are woodworms
Speaker 1: or shipworms. So these are not actually worms, but a
Speaker 1: type of mollusk that feeds on rotting wood using symbiotic
Speaker 1: bacteria in their guts, similar to termites. They are the
Speaker 1: bane of ships, but for people who live near mingrove
Speaker 1: forests in the Philippines. They are a long and linguini
Speaker 1: like delicacy, similar in taste to other mollusks like oysters
Speaker 1: and so people have described these woodworms as having a
Speaker 1: creamy and salt see texture and they're apparently really good
Speaker 1: with lime juice. So onto terrestrial worms, which they're not
Speaker 1: really worms. These are larva. So meal worms are the
Speaker 1: larval stage of the yellow mealworm beetle. The beetle itself
Speaker 1: is actually black. The larva is a sort of golden brown.
Speaker 1: You've probably seen meal worms or those little little guys,
Speaker 1: a little segmented sort of brown light brown worms. And yeah,
Speaker 1: the I for me, the texture is not great. I
Speaker 1: think I've now Have I had that? Or did I
Speaker 1: have a cricket? I'm trying to remember, but yeah, not
Speaker 1: necessarily my favorite thing, but um, you know, they are
Speaker 1: very nutritious. And there are also oh wichitty grubs, so
Speaker 1: whichitty grubs are the larva of various wood eating malves.
Speaker 1: The larva are large and fat. Think that seen in
Speaker 1: The Lion King where Simba's learning to eat grubs. These
Speaker 1: are the are quite juicy grubs. So they have been
Speaker 1: used as food by Aboriginal Australians for centuries. They can
Speaker 1: be eaten raw or cooked. So when they're raw they
Speaker 1: apparently taste a little bit like almonds, sort of a
Speaker 1: sweetish taste to them, that almondy taste. But when cooked,
Speaker 1: the inside has the consistency and color of a fried egg,
Speaker 1: while the skin gets crispy. I've said this before on
Speaker 1: the show, but I think it's too bad that, like
Speaker 1: in certain cultures, were taught to have such an aversion
Speaker 1: to bugs or squirmy food sources. Like, imagine how many
Speaker 1: more food options we'd have if we weren't socialized to
Speaker 1: be so fussy about like, oh, but that's a larva,
Speaker 1: or you know that that looks strange. And I say
Speaker 1: this as someone who is a very picky eater. I
Speaker 1: cannot eat mayonnaise without gagging, and I'm very sensitive to textures.
Speaker 1: So I totally get being very picky and not wanting
Speaker 1: to eat something like an insect. Yeah, yeah, I struggle
Speaker 1: with it too. I just kind of wish that we
Speaker 1: didn't socialize ourselves to be grossed out by it, because
Speaker 1: I think it is, you know, both in terms of
Speaker 1: practicality and also just culinarily. It seems like it'd be
Speaker 1: nice to have those as options. So yeah, I think
Speaker 1: it's really interesting to see these foods that you we
Speaker 1: just wouldn't have in our culture. But it's not really
Speaker 1: for any reasonable reason that we don't have them. So
Speaker 1: onto the mystery animal sound segment. So last week's mystery
Speaker 1: animal sound, the hint was it's something no lemur wants
Speaker 1: to hear. Oh, all right, so that is definitely a
Speaker 1: horrifying sound that lemurs don't want to hear. Also, I
Speaker 1: don't want to hear it. That's scary. So I got
Speaker 1: so many people riding in with a correct answer. I'm
Speaker 1: really blown away. I'm so impressed and proud of everyone
Speaker 1: for getting this right. That said, the three fastest guessers
Speaker 1: were Tim m Antibe and Laurel l Congratulations and congratulations
Speaker 1: to everyone else who guess correctly that this is the fossa. So,
Speaker 1: the fossa is a predator found on the island of
Speaker 1: Madagascar who looks like a brown cat with a head
Speaker 1: like a weasel cross with a dog. And they are
Speaker 1: a I would say, medium sized sort of animal. They
Speaker 1: are not as small as like a domesticated cat, but
Speaker 1: they're not as big as say, a cougar. They're kind
Speaker 1: of you know, they're they're a little bigger than a bobcat.
Speaker 1: But yeah, so they're you know, they're about six feet long,
Speaker 1: a little over around maybe the thirty pounds, so yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's not small, but it's not huge. So the
Speaker 1: fuss is in the Philoformia sub order, but many of
Speaker 1: its catlike features are an example of convergent evolution with
Speaker 1: cats in the Philodaye family. So it may look like
Speaker 1: a wildcat related to maybe a cougar or something, but
Speaker 1: it is actually probably just they may have started out
Speaker 1: with a common ancestor, but then they had this like
Speaker 1: convergent evolution. So Fussa love to eat lemurs, and they
Speaker 1: love to scream and make horrifying noises while mating, as
Speaker 1: you have just heard. And they love to eat one
Speaker 1: of the cutest primates on the planet, the gray mouse lemur,
Speaker 1: who is a couple ounces of big eyed cuteness and
Speaker 1: apparently a delicious snack for a fossa. I think, oh,
Speaker 1: this is this was a long time ago, but that
Speaker 1: movie Madagascar, I think that, yeah, the fossa were the
Speaker 1: the bad guys in that movie. And I think one
Speaker 1: of the little lemurs on the one of the lemurs
Speaker 1: I think is a ringtail lemur, and then the other
Speaker 1: one it was a gray mouse lemur. I'm pretty sure.
Speaker 1: I'm yeah, that movie came out a long time ago,
Speaker 1: but yes it was they were They were correct, though,
Speaker 1: the fossa is a predator to lemurs. So onto this
Speaker 1: week's mystery animal sound. The hint it's not a cool
Speaker 1: refreshing Italian treat, but a lip smacking animal. Nonetheless, if
Speaker 1: you think you know who is making that sound, you
Speaker 1: can write me an email at Creature featurepot at gmail
Speaker 1: dot com. And if you have questions that you would
Speaker 1: like to hear me answer on the podcast, you can
Speaker 1: write to me there as well. Thank you guys so
Speaker 1: much for listening. I will be back next week with
Speaker 1: another episode of Creature Feature and thanks to the Space
Speaker 1: Cossacks for their super awesome song Exo Lumina. Creature features
Speaker 1: a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts like the one
Speaker 1: you just heard, is the iHeart Radio app Apple podcast
Speaker 1: or Hey Guess what Raby listen to your favorite shows.
Speaker 1: See you next Wednesday,