Speaker 1: Welcome to Creature Feature 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, it's another Listener Questions episode.
Speaker 1: On these episodes, you write to me. I read what
Speaker 1: you wrote, and usually it's questions, and then I answer
Speaker 1: those questions on the show. And it is a great
Speaker 1: way for me to delve into topics that maybe I
Speaker 1: don't talk about so much, or do some new research,
Speaker 1: or you know, just get to know you the listener
Speaker 1: and what you are interested in hearing. And so I'm
Speaker 1: very excited for this week's listener question episode. There were
Speaker 1: some really interesting questions that made me study. So make
Speaker 1: me be a nerd, make me study. If you have
Speaker 1: a question that you'd like to ask me, you can
Speaker 1: write to me at Creature featurepot at gmail dot com.
Speaker 1: Without further ado, let's get right into your questions about
Speaker 1: evolutionary biology. Is there any evidence of genetic memory and animals,
Speaker 1: specifically in fish like bluegills. I have access to this
Speaker 1: little beach on a lake and have swam there every
Speaker 1: summer since I was a baby. I am probably the
Speaker 1: person who swam there the most frequently in the last
Speaker 1: thirty years or so, and all that time there have
Speaker 1: always been very curious bluegills who swim with me. I've
Speaker 1: noticed that when I get in the water, they kind
Speaker 1: of flocked to me, but are more reserved with guests.
Speaker 1: I must have swam with generations and generations of these fish,
Speaker 1: and I was wondering if they could possibly remember me,
Speaker 1: or is it more like with dogs? And that I'm
Speaker 1: totally comfortable with them, so they're pretty comfortable with me.
Speaker 1: Thanks for reading all this. You're awesome, Phyllis. Thank you, Phillis.
Speaker 1: And then here is a related question. I think it
Speaker 1: would be really cool to talk in Layman's terms about
Speaker 1: epigenetics and evolution, since a lot of folks misunderstand and
Speaker 1: the degree to which epigenetics drives long term evolutionary change.
Speaker 1: And this is from Stellachou. So two excellent questions, and
Speaker 1: they are very related. We are trying to get to
Speaker 1: the bottom of two ideas. Could an organism pass a
Speaker 1: memory or association to its offspring genetically instead of say,
Speaker 1: teaching the offspring. And what is epigenetics and how does
Speaker 1: it influence evolution? So a little background first, a bit
Speaker 1: of history of our understanding of evolutionary biology. In the
Speaker 1: early eighteen hundreds, a man named Jean Baptist Lamarque came
Speaker 1: up with a theory of inherited characteristics. The theory was
Speaker 1: that acquired traits by the parent could be passed on
Speaker 1: to the offspring. The famous example is how giraffnecks purportedly
Speaker 1: would work. An early giraffe would stretch its neck in
Speaker 1: an attempt to get some tasty leaves, lengthening and strengthening
Speaker 1: its neck muscles, and then it would pass on a
Speaker 1: longer neck to its offspring, and so on until we
Speaker 1: have giraffes with very long necks. Similarly, Lamarck believed that
Speaker 1: in humans, physically acquired traits could be passed on to children.
Speaker 1: If you built up a lot of muscle, you could
Speaker 1: pass on that strength directly to your child. When Mendelian
Speaker 1: genetics came along, you know the guy with all the
Speaker 1: pea plants, and those were more demonstrably proven as well
Speaker 1: as Darwin's theory of evolution, Lamarchism was abandoned as being
Speaker 1: junk science, and it was wrong essentially. But now scientists
Speaker 1: think that there may be certain ways in which environment
Speaker 1: can affect gene expression and how that might also impact
Speaker 1: gamets and the genetic information passed on to offspring. So,
Speaker 1: in terms of Phyllis's question about bluegill fish making a
Speaker 1: positive association and passing that onto its offspring, well, I
Speaker 1: have no idea about these blue gill fish specifically. It
Speaker 1: could be that you are just a fish whisperer, like
Speaker 1: after many years of swimming, you your body language is
Speaker 1: soothing to these fish. Could be that they learn from
Speaker 1: their parents, they're the previous generations seeing that they're comfortable
Speaker 1: with you, and then the younger ones are more comfortable
Speaker 1: with you. Or there is a small but not zero
Speaker 1: chance that this could be a case of epigenetics. So
Speaker 1: there was a study that found that mice seemed to
Speaker 1: be able to pass on negative associations of a smell
Speaker 1: to their offspring without potentially teaching them. So the study,
Speaker 1: which was published in Nature in twenty thirteen, looked at
Speaker 1: whether olfactory learning, so that's the learning that has to
Speaker 1: do with smell, could be passed down in mice genetically.
Speaker 1: So in the study, the mice were made to smell
Speaker 1: a fruity smell called acetophenone and then were given a
Speaker 1: mild electric shock to their foot because researchers like to
Speaker 1: bully mice, so the mice learned to be fearful of
Speaker 1: the smell and would show startle behavior to that specific
Speaker 1: fruity smell and not to other smells and would startle,
Speaker 1: whereas control mice who were not trained with this shock
Speaker 1: method would not have that reaction. A previous study had
Speaker 1: also found that the learned fear of smell changed the
Speaker 1: neural structure of the mouse's nose. So the change in
Speaker 1: the mouse's behavior in terms of learning to associate this
Speaker 1: shock with this smell is so far not surprising, and
Speaker 1: they also found these same structural changes in these mice
Speaker 1: in terms of their nasal neural networks in their brains.
Speaker 1: Again not too surprising, right, Like, you have some kind
Speaker 1: of environmental impact onto you directly, and that can change you,
Speaker 1: can change your brain structure, can even change the neurons
Speaker 1: around your nose. That is sort of that's not too strange,
Speaker 1: not too unexpected. The surprising result of the twenty thirteen
Speaker 1: study was after they allowed these mice to mate, their offspring,
Speaker 1: who had never been exposed to the scary smell, showed
Speaker 1: a startle reflex to it, just like their parents had.
Speaker 1: They also examined the new generation of mice's nose and
Speaker 1: olfactory bulbs again that part that is the part of
Speaker 1: the brain that processes smell, and they found that just
Speaker 1: like the mice's parents, the new generation had more neural
Speaker 1: structures and their noses and olfactory bulbs dedicated specifically to
Speaker 1: detecting that scary fruity smell as compared to controls. So
Speaker 1: the researchers wanted to make sure that these mice were
Speaker 1: not somehow learning it from the other mice, so they
Speaker 1: trained male mice to be fearful of that fruity smell.
Speaker 1: Then they sent their sperm to an entirely different lab
Speaker 1: to female mice, and they did in vitro fertilization, and
Speaker 1: then those mice then gave birth to offspring who also
Speaker 1: showed the same areas of the brain and nose with
Speaker 1: those increased neural structures for that fruity smell. Unfortunately, it
Speaker 1: seems they didn't also do a behavioral test on these
Speaker 1: mice to see if they have the same startle reflex,
Speaker 1: apparently because of some limitations on how that other lab
Speaker 1: would do behavioral studies. Which I think is really disappointing,
Speaker 1: especially for such a bizarre and groundbreaking study. I think
Speaker 1: that I would like to see Judge Katie would like
Speaker 1: to see this replicated and also see the behavioral reaction
Speaker 1: of the mice replicated in the in vitro fertilization. Regardless,
Speaker 1: though the results are really really interesting, the fact that
Speaker 1: you still saw these changes in the neural structures of
Speaker 1: the brain and nose is really really interesting. So does
Speaker 1: this experiment show that animals can inherit memory. Not really,
Speaker 1: It doesn't prove that exactly. So what it shows is
Speaker 1: that environmental factors that can change the structure of a
Speaker 1: mouse's olfactory bulb and nasal neural structures seem to be
Speaker 1: able to pass something on that also changes the structure
Speaker 1: of their offspring's olfactory bulb and nasal neural structures. So,
Speaker 1: sort of condensed into more Layman's terms, a change to
Speaker 1: the parent mouse in terms of its response to a
Speaker 1: smell seems to be reflected in its offspring structurally, in
Speaker 1: its brain and in its nose. And this study, I
Speaker 1: think is I mean, it is really interesting and I
Speaker 1: would like to see many more studies along the same
Speaker 1: lines because I think that is really necessary to see
Speaker 1: exactly what's going on. You could define this as a
Speaker 1: sort of memory, right, Like it could be that they
Speaker 1: inherit some fear of the smell, but it could just
Speaker 1: be that they inherit a sensitivity to the smell. It
Speaker 1: may have not too much to do with fear. So
Speaker 1: it's hard to know exactly what they are cognitively or
Speaker 1: instinctively inheriting. But I think it is still really really
Speaker 1: a surprising and interesting results. So I'm sure a lot
Speaker 1: of you as I also question how can you pass
Speaker 1: on a trait you acquired from your environment to your offspring.
Speaker 1: So this is where we get into epigenetics, which seems
Speaker 1: really weird and a little bit scary, but it's not
Speaker 1: so scary, but it is still pretty weird. So epigenetics
Speaker 1: looks at how cell functions can be changed without a
Speaker 1: mutation or change in the DNA sequence itself. So the
Speaker 1: DNA sequence has not mutated or been altered like in
Speaker 1: the actual sequence of the amino acids, but there has
Speaker 1: been a change that creates a difference in cell functions.
Speaker 1: So how can you have a change in self function
Speaker 1: without an alteration of the DNA One way is gene expression,
Speaker 1: which is the way in which DNA gets copied into RNA,
Speaker 1: which can either be used directly. That RNA can be
Speaker 1: used directly or can further be used as instructions to
Speaker 1: build another protein that will then be used for self function.
Speaker 1: So you can, without fundamentally changing the DNA structure, change
Speaker 1: how the DNA is converted to RNA, and how that
Speaker 1: RNA is converted into proteins, and that will change the
Speaker 1: function of the cell. So there are three main ways
Speaker 1: in which this is accomplished. There is DNA methylation, histone modification,
Speaker 1: and RNA mediated processes. That sounds really scary and complicated,
Speaker 1: don't worry. That also sounded really scary and complicated to
Speaker 1: me when I was studying up on this, But in
Speaker 1: very simple terms, DNA methylation is when a methyl group
Speaker 1: molecule attaches itself to sites on the DNA strand and
Speaker 1: that affects how the DNA is transcribed into RNA. It's
Speaker 1: like you have a cookbook and you have some instructions
Speaker 1: in the cookbook of how to bake a cake, and
Speaker 1: you don't like tear anything out. You don't change the
Speaker 1: cookbook itself, but you paste on top of it some
Speaker 1: kind of new instructions or something that will affect how
Speaker 1: you read it. Or you put like a little bit
Speaker 1: of wide out over part of the recipe and now
Speaker 1: it changes how you read the recipe, even though underneath
Speaker 1: the white out the recipe remains the same. So the
Speaker 1: other method in which genetics works is histone modification. So
Speaker 1: histones are the spools that DNA winds around, so it's
Speaker 1: kind of like a spool of thread to keep the
Speaker 1: DNA sort of from getting knotted and tangled. It is
Speaker 1: wound around a histone, and if the histone is modified,
Speaker 1: it can also change how the DNA strand is transcribed.
Speaker 1: And apparently this is actually a key factor in the
Speaker 1: brain when it comes to addiction. Like this, the modification
Speaker 1: to the histones can affect how your cells function, especially
Speaker 1: in your neural cells when it comes to addiction. So
Speaker 1: the last one is RNA mediated processes. In extremely overly
Speaker 1: simplified terms, this involves modifications or markers on RNA that
Speaker 1: changes how they create proteins, and when it changes how
Speaker 1: they create proteins or how the RNA functions, that will
Speaker 1: also change how these cell functions. So to pass down
Speaker 1: an epigenetic change, the epigenetic tag or marker either the
Speaker 1: methyl group attached to the DNA the histone modification or
Speaker 1: marker on the RNA, must somehow also be copied and
Speaker 1: passed on in reproductive cells. So transgenerational epigenetic inheritance, which
Speaker 1: is the inheritance of some kind of epigenetic change from
Speaker 1: parent to offspring to another offspring, so like to grand
Speaker 1: offspring and great grand offspring, is largely understood to exist,
Speaker 1: even though it's not well understood exactly how these mechanisms work,
Speaker 1: and it's still a question as to how influential epigenetics
Speaker 1: is on behavior and also how it affects long term
Speaker 1: evolutionary changes, which gets into listener Stella Chow's question about
Speaker 1: explaining epigenetics and long term evolutionary changes. So much of
Speaker 1: evolutionary change is driven by DNA mutations, So these are
Speaker 1: random alterations to the DNA that happens as reproductive cells
Speaker 1: are formed and reassembled into offspring, and then you have
Speaker 1: selective pressures that may mean certain mutation get passed on
Speaker 1: and others don't. So the mutations themselves are random, but
Speaker 1: the process of natural selection is not at all random
Speaker 1: it is, it's very much driven by selective pressures, and
Speaker 1: that's how from random mutations you can get very useful structures.
Speaker 1: So the role that epigenetics has to play in terms
Speaker 1: of long term evolution is a very debated topic among
Speaker 1: evolutionary biologists. So many of lutionary biologists are very skeptical
Speaker 1: as to how long and inherited epigenetic trait could last.
Speaker 1: Maybe it sticks around for a few generations and then
Speaker 1: kind of wears off, But there's still the possibility that
Speaker 1: epigenetics has some influence on long term evolution, But it
Speaker 1: doesn't seem like there's been any definitive research proving such
Speaker 1: an influence. So until there's a larger body of research
Speaker 1: on the topic, you know, I don't think that researchers
Speaker 1: really know whether epigenetics plays much of a role in
Speaker 1: long term evolutionary changes, you know, And I certainly don't
Speaker 1: feel like enough of an expert to state my opinion
Speaker 1: on it. I just think that there hasn't really been
Speaker 1: evidence that is convincing that epigenetics has played a big
Speaker 1: role in long term evolution. But I don't think it's
Speaker 1: impossible that it has. That it has played some role
Speaker 1: in evolution. In fact, there is some there worried that
Speaker 1: epigenetics in general, the ability to have some kind of
Speaker 1: epigenetic change, is a result of evolution, which is to
Speaker 1: allow for a brief change in organisms in a response
Speaker 1: to environment, one that's not necessarily permanent, because like, if
Speaker 1: the environment is rapidly fluctuating, you know, you want to
Speaker 1: kind of be able to rapidly change with the environment
Speaker 1: instead of having, you know, this longer process of getting
Speaker 1: having to rely on random mutations in order to adapt
Speaker 1: to changes. So I know that saying like, we don't
Speaker 1: know exactly is kind of an annoying cop out of
Speaker 1: an answer, but I think it's also really important to
Speaker 1: remember how new a lot of sciences and how many
Speaker 1: questions about evolutionary biology still exist and need answers, And
Speaker 1: sometimes researchers are going to get it wrong. Sometimes they're
Speaker 1: going to get it right. Sometimes they're going to think
Speaker 1: that they got it completely wrong, and then later on
Speaker 1: they're like, actually, part of this may have been sort
Speaker 1: of right. It's just the whole process. It's a living science.
Speaker 1: So onto the next listener question. Dear Katie Golden, thanks
Speaker 1: always for your superb show. Thank you so much. Being
Speaker 1: an old I've lived through decades of human recitations about
Speaker 1: why non human animals aren't as advanced, animate, or worthy
Speaker 1: as we are, and decades of these distinctions being found
Speaker 1: do not actually exist tool use being uniquely human for instance,
Speaker 1: that is not true. My take on that is that
Speaker 1: humans as a species clearly have hierarchical anxieties, and ere
Speaker 1: we are at the elusive possessing a theory of mind.
Speaker 1: My related query is about the distinction between instinctive and
Speaker 1: rationally decided behavior. Is this just something people like saying
Speaker 1: or are there any effect of definitions? And how are
Speaker 1: habitual learned behaviors taken into account if they are. Thanks
Speaker 1: in advance for reading and thinking about this from Mary Anne. Also,
Speaker 1: I got a related question post on Twitter Great minds
Speaker 1: think alike you guys. So here's the similar question. How
Speaker 1: much do we know about the role genetics plays in
Speaker 1: passing on instincts, especially those instincts with complex urges that
Speaker 1: had no way of being taught. For example, animals going
Speaker 1: to a specific place to reproduce. And this is from radia.
Speaker 1: So these are also summert related to previous questions on epigenetics,
Speaker 1: but I think that scientists do have a much better
Speaker 1: understanding of the genetics of instincts. So I think the
Speaker 1: main way to define instinct versus rational behavior is that
Speaker 1: instinct is something you are preprogrammed with and can start
Speaker 1: using right out of the box, right out of the
Speaker 1: egg or woomb crying, for instance, is an instinctive response.
Speaker 1: You don't have to learn how to cry. It just
Speaker 1: you're ready to go with that preloaded. A startle response
Speaker 1: to something sudden, or to a snake or spider is
Speaker 1: potentially an instinct, like you don't have to be trained
Speaker 1: necessarily to have a startle reflex to a spider. In
Speaker 1: baby sea turtles, as soon as they hatch, they can
Speaker 1: start to crawl towards the light of the moon reflected
Speaker 1: in the water, and this is an instinct right out
Speaker 1: of the egg. They haven't been taught anything. They just
Speaker 1: know they got to go towards the light reflected in
Speaker 1: the water. Or they get eaten by a bird or something,
Speaker 1: but they try to get to that water as fast
Speaker 1: as possible. They start zooming as soon as they can
Speaker 1: right out of the egg. That's instinct. Rational behavior is
Speaker 1: responding to a situation and instead of having a pre
Speaker 1: prepared response having to come up with one through cognitive
Speaker 1: ps sesses your instinct maybe to flinch at a snake,
Speaker 1: and so that may be an instinctive response, but what
Speaker 1: you actually do in that situation either picking up a
Speaker 1: rock and bonking the snake on the head, which I
Speaker 1: do not recommend, be nice to snakes or avoid them
Speaker 1: if they're venomous, or you could look at the color
Speaker 1: of the snake to see if you really should be
Speaker 1: afraid of it, using reasoning and cognitive processes. So either
Speaker 1: of these responses, right, like a violent response to the
Speaker 1: snake or a more thoughtful response, These are actually both
Speaker 1: quote unquote rational behavior. These are you're using some kind
Speaker 1: of reasoning about what you should do about the snakes.
Speaker 1: So you have an initial instinctive reaction of like, oh,
Speaker 1: a snake, and then you start to reason like, well,
Speaker 1: I will I will smash the snake, or I will
Speaker 1: look at the snake and hey, maybe it's just a
Speaker 1: harmless snake and I don't have to worry about it.
Speaker 1: Either of those are behaviors that have arisen from cognitive processes,
Speaker 1: and this is not a uniquely human behavior. I want
Speaker 1: to emphasize many animals use cognitive processes to think their
Speaker 1: way through a response. In fact, I would say most
Speaker 1: animals have that ability, have that ability to use some
Speaker 1: form of cognition to come up with a response that
Speaker 1: the most animals do not behave purely on instinct, and
Speaker 1: they can either reason through something or they can learn
Speaker 1: behaviors from their parents or peers. Sometimes I would say
Speaker 1: instinct interacts with learning or rational responses in interesting ways.
Speaker 1: So songbirds, for instance, are born with a built in
Speaker 1: song learning structure in their brains and will instinctively pay
Speaker 1: attention to songs, but they're also dynamically learning how to
Speaker 1: sing that song. So you have this initial instinct that
Speaker 1: kind of grows into more complex learned cognitive processes. So
Speaker 1: you know, instinct and rationality. While I think that there
Speaker 1: is a distinctive definition for both, that doesn't mean that
Speaker 1: they don't kind of interweave with each other when you
Speaker 1: actually look at how these behaviors happen in real animals.
Speaker 1: So instincts are passed down genetically, so or as we
Speaker 1: discussed earlier, perhaps they could be passed down epigenetically, like
Speaker 1: those mice that have that increased sensitivity to that fruity smell.
Speaker 1: But in general, something like the sea turtle who like
Speaker 1: goes towards the moon, it is passed down genetically. This
Speaker 1: kind of pre programming that comes in the brain. I know,
Speaker 1: it's kind of like spooky, this idea that a brain
Speaker 1: can come preloaded with a set of instructions of how
Speaker 1: this organism should behave, But that's absolutely the case. It
Speaker 1: is like the way that babies know to suckle when
Speaker 1: presented with a nipple. You don't really have to teach
Speaker 1: them that. I mean, you can't. I guess that in
Speaker 1: some cases, like you can kind of like help teach
Speaker 1: a baby how to like latch on or something, but
Speaker 1: generally speaking, the baby, once it is given a certain
Speaker 1: set of stimuli, it will start to do this suckling behavior,
Speaker 1: just like a baby calf or something knows to suckle
Speaker 1: on the utters. Because you can't, you need to have
Speaker 1: some behaviors that are preprogrammed and ready to go so
Speaker 1: that newborn baby, that fresh baby can survive and can
Speaker 1: communicate that it's hungry and that it can actually act
Speaker 1: on its hunger. And that's important because otherwise, if you
Speaker 1: have to wait too long to learn or acquire some
Speaker 1: kind of behavior, then you're not going to survive because
Speaker 1: you need you need to eat, You need to eat
Speaker 1: fresh out of the box. So we are going to
Speaker 1: take a quick break and then when we get back,
Speaker 1: we're going to answer some more listen our questions. So
Speaker 1: here's the listener question about my dog Cookie. Dear Katie,
Speaker 1: thanks so much for all your work, love both your shows.
Speaker 1: Thank you. I was wondering if you could address some
Speaker 1: questions on your next mailbag show. One what is Cookie's
Speaker 1: greatest fear? Two? What is Cookie's highest aspiration? Three? What
Speaker 1: is Cookie's greatest achievement? For what is Cookie's cutest habit?
Speaker 1: I know these are deeply personal, but the listeners simply
Speaker 1: need to know. Thanks again, quote unquote Rusty shackle Ford,
Speaker 1: thank you for the question. Quote Rusty shackle Ford. Here
Speaker 1: are all the Cookie facts that you need to know. One.
Speaker 1: Cookie's greatest fear is being ignored. Two Cookie's highest aspiration
Speaker 1: is to bark at every single pigeon in the entire city.
Speaker 1: Three Cookie's greatest achievement is the time she found an
Speaker 1: entire chicken leg and managed to eat it, bone and
Speaker 1: all before we could get it from her, And she
Speaker 1: spent days in smug satisfaction while we worried and sifted
Speaker 1: through her poop to make sure she passed the bones safely.
Speaker 1: Four Cookie's cutest it is that she likes to play
Speaker 1: hide and seek with her toys and will stand up
Speaker 1: on her hide legs to get a better visual on
Speaker 1: her surroundings to find her toys. So those are all
Speaker 1: the cookie facts that you need to know. Relate a
Speaker 1: dog question from another listener. I was looking after Hamish.
Speaker 1: He mishes a dog by the way this weekend. When
Speaker 1: he smells other dogs pee, what does he know? Can
Speaker 1: he tell if they're male or female, or how big
Speaker 1: they are, or if they're sick? Could he even have
Speaker 1: some idea what they look like? He definitely knows something,
Speaker 1: and he's not telling gary D. Thanks gary D. So
Speaker 1: dogs have exquisitely sensitive noses and can smell all sorts
Speaker 1: of things that are beyond our human noses. That said,
Speaker 1: they may not know what they're smelling exactly. So a
Speaker 1: dog can be trained to detect cancer cells, but it
Speaker 1: doesn't mean the dog understands that those are cancer cells
Speaker 1: or even a sign of illness. They have to be
Speaker 1: trained to kind of use that as a diagnostic material.
Speaker 1: They have to go to dog medical school. What I'm saying, so,
Speaker 1: what do dogs determine by sniffing the peepee of other dogs? Well,
Speaker 1: they can determine the sex, the maturity, and reproductive status
Speaker 1: of the other dog, and all those things have been
Speaker 1: I think pretty much confirmed by research. But they can
Speaker 1: also potentially understand what their own brand of urine is.
Speaker 1: And this has been used in studies to try to
Speaker 1: see if dogs have a sense of self. So often
Speaker 1: we will use the mirror study to see if an
Speaker 1: animal has a sense of self. So you show an
Speaker 1: animal it's reflections, then you modify something about the animal,
Speaker 1: like you at a red dot on its face or something.
Speaker 1: And then if the animal looks in the mirror and
Speaker 1: scratches at its own face, it seems to be that
Speaker 1: the animal is making the connection between itself and the
Speaker 1: image in the mirror, which one could interpret as having
Speaker 1: a sense of self or at least understanding that itself
Speaker 1: exists and it can use the mirror to guide itself
Speaker 1: to change an aspect about itself. But dogs fail at
Speaker 1: the mirror test mostly because they have no interest in mirrors,
Speaker 1: and so we could say, like, well, dogs don't have
Speaker 1: a sense of self. They fail the mirror test. But
Speaker 1: I think this is a limited perspective because mirrors make
Speaker 1: sense for people like humans, because we have we're very
Speaker 1: very visual animals. But other animals don't necessarily only rely
Speaker 1: on their site, or don't primarily rely on their site
Speaker 1: to experience the world, and dogs really rely on their
Speaker 1: sense of smell. They love smells. They do have a
Speaker 1: sense of sight, and they do have a great sense
Speaker 1: of hearing, but smells to them, it's just like a buffet, like.
Speaker 1: They are really really good at detecting smells. And for them,
Speaker 1: like the variety of smells that they can detect, in
Speaker 1: the extent to which they can detect them is probably
Speaker 1: more precise and more colorful than say, just their vision.
Speaker 1: And so because they love smells, especially urine smells, researchers wondered, like, hey,
Speaker 1: maybe instead of trying to get a dog to look
Speaker 1: in a mirror like it's a little person, maybe we
Speaker 1: should try to kind of meet the dog halfway and
Speaker 1: see if the dog can do a version of the
Speaker 1: mirror test but with its urine with smells instead of sight.
Speaker 1: So can a dog understand what its own urine smell
Speaker 1: is and react and surprise if its urine is somehow modified.
Speaker 1: So in a study done on dogs smelling urine, the
Speaker 1: researchers found that the dogs spend more time smelling their
Speaker 1: own urine when it was modified compared to just their
Speaker 1: own urine, and they showed more interest in their urine
Speaker 1: mixed with the modifier smell than just the isolated modifier smell.
Speaker 1: So it wasn't just that they were responding to novelty.
Speaker 1: They seemed especially interested in their own urine when it
Speaker 1: was mixed with this modifier. Oh, do dogs pass the
Speaker 1: pe mirror test? Maybe I personally would like to see
Speaker 1: a comparison of whether dogs react differently to their modified
Speaker 1: urine versus the urine of another dog and a urine
Speaker 1: of another dog that's been modified. So what I'm saying
Speaker 1: is we need more smelly pee tests for dogs, And
Speaker 1: I think the dogs would also be thrilled with this,
Speaker 1: because I bet these dogs love these studies. They love
Speaker 1: smelling peepee, and if they get to go to a
Speaker 1: study and smell pepe, I'm sure they would enjoy that.
Speaker 1: By the way, most dog behavioral studies these days are
Speaker 1: using pet dogs, so they just go into the lab
Speaker 1: for a day. It's not generally dogs that are like
Speaker 1: held captive in the lab for their lives. So that's
Speaker 1: that's nice. I like it when studies are ethical with
Speaker 1: respect to animals, especially when we're trying to learn about
Speaker 1: animal behavior. I think it's it's nice to be respectful
Speaker 1: towards the animal. Doesn't always happen, but I think it
Speaker 1: is happening much more frequently now that we are really
Speaker 1: taking into account the animal welfare when it comes to
Speaker 1: behavioral studies. So yeah, more PPE tests for dogs. They
Speaker 1: love smelling p. I know my dog loves smelling P.
Speaker 1: I try to litter do it. It's gross, but you
Speaker 1: know what, that's how she enjoys life. So I'm not
Speaker 1: going to shamer I'm not gonna judge her. Here we
Speaker 1: are another listener question. Hey, Katie, I've always been in
Speaker 1: us versus then person when it came to parasitic organisms,
Speaker 1: be it humans or otherwise. That's not to say I
Speaker 1: don't find them fascinating, and you've covered quite a few.
Speaker 1: What I've long wondered, though, is what's the scientific opinion
Speaker 1: on whether or not they're an important part of the ecosystem.
Speaker 1: Are they part of the balance that keeps some others
Speaker 1: in check, or could we remove them all and be
Speaker 1: better off for it. Of course, I assume it's not
Speaker 1: all that black and white, and my guests would be
Speaker 1: that those that have been here for a while evolutionarily speaking,
Speaker 1: couldn't just be quickly removed without consequences. But then also
Speaker 1: there might be some newer ones that are more detrimental overall.
Speaker 1: But these are just guesses. Any thoughts, PK, great question.
Speaker 1: You know. I love parasites, and partially it's because they're
Speaker 1: really fascinating, but they are also an important part of
Speaker 1: our world, in our ecosystem, even if they are detrimental
Speaker 1: to a specific host, so obviously everything is a balance.
Speaker 1: I would say that it's not so much about the
Speaker 1: newness of a parasite evolutionarily speaking, but it could be
Speaker 1: like if a parasite is introduced to an ecosystem, right,
Speaker 1: like an invasive parasite, that could be quite bad for
Speaker 1: the ecosystem. But in general, parasites can keep things in balance.
Speaker 1: They may keep the population of a certain host species
Speaker 1: in balance, and if that host species were too successful,
Speaker 1: then they might take too many resources or prey upon
Speaker 1: too many other species, so they cannot help maintain a
Speaker 1: balance in an eco system. They may also help drive biodiversity,
Speaker 1: forcing adaptations and animals. Another important thing for parasites is
Speaker 1: that they are a food source for many species, and
Speaker 1: they can also compel animals to adapt pro social behavior
Speaker 1: like cooperation cooperative grooming from any animal from fish to apes.
Speaker 1: So like part of ape cooperation, some of the ways
Speaker 1: that apes bond, primates bond is through grooming parasites. And
Speaker 1: who knows this could have shaped like the pro social
Speaker 1: nature of primates. Maybe we humans have parasites in part
Speaker 1: to think for our evolution as being very pro social.
Speaker 1: So in short, parasites are awesome and important, but maybe
Speaker 1: not so fun if you individually have a parasite. And
Speaker 1: just because they're important for the environment doesn't mean you
Speaker 1: should feel compelled to keep a tape worm inside of you.
Speaker 1: It's okay to go to a doctor and get rid
Speaker 1: of a parasite. I'm not saying you personally have to
Speaker 1: be the host of many parasites, even though I am so.
Speaker 1: Before we go, I would like to go over something
Speaker 1: very important. It's the mystery animal sound game called Guess
Speaker 1: who Squawking every week I play Mystery Animal Sound in you,
Speaker 1: the listener, try to guess who is making a sound.
Speaker 1: It could be any animal in the wild. And if
Speaker 1: you think you know who is squawking, you can write
Speaker 1: to me at Creature featurepot at gmail dot com. Again,
Speaker 1: you also have a question, feel free to write it
Speaker 1: to me. And by the way, there are no dumb questions.
Speaker 1: You may think your questions like, I don't know, this
Speaker 1: might be too basic, this might be too silly. Nope,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna say no. Sometimes the most obvious questions are
Speaker 1: the ones that make me kind of scratch my head
Speaker 1: and go like, oh, I gotta hit the books. I
Speaker 1: have to study up on them. So hit me with
Speaker 1: all those questions. And now, Auntie the mister analysts sound game.
Speaker 1: Last week's hint was this you wouldn't want this around
Speaker 1: your neck? So can you guess who is making that sound? Well,
Speaker 1: congratulations to the three fastest guess theer's Laura W, Bryce V,
Speaker 1: and Auntie B who all guessed albatross, and special congratulations
Speaker 1: to Chris B, who not only guessed albatross, but guessed
Speaker 1: the correct species, the black footed albatross. So the albatross
Speaker 1: is a sea bird with an incredible wingspan. The black
Speaker 1: footed albatross is a sea bird found in the North
Speaker 1: Pacific which has an InCred credible wingspan of around six
Speaker 1: to seven feet or one hundred ninety to two hundred
Speaker 1: and twenty centimeters. And they are this lovely gray color
Speaker 1: with sort of white ombre on their face and indeed
Speaker 1: black feet and the sounds you just heard are probably
Speaker 1: either fighting over food or kind of courting or both. Honestly,
Speaker 1: kind of sounded like both to me. That you got
Speaker 1: a little bit of squabbles over food and you got
Speaker 1: a little bit of romance going on. And speaking of romance,
Speaker 1: they will form long term pair bonds that typically last
Speaker 1: for their entire life. So these are faithful boyds. And
Speaker 1: then they both take part in the care of their
Speaker 1: chick and they will actually take turns incubating the eggs.
Speaker 1: We love to see it. We love to see see
Speaker 1: successful co parenting in birds. Onto this week's mister Ann
Speaker 1: will sound the hint this foxy little filler loves bananas.
Speaker 1: Bonus points if you can guess why it's making the sound.
Speaker 1: The answer it's very cute. Well, thank you guys so
Speaker 1: much for listening. Thank you so much for your fantastic questions.
Speaker 1: I love them every time. They often send me on
Speaker 1: rabbit holes of studying and I truly appreciate the thoughtfulness.
Speaker 1: And if you have a question again, write to me
Speaker 1: at Creature feature Pod at gmail dot com and I
Speaker 1: will answer them to the best of my abilities. Thank
Speaker 1: you so much for listening, and thanks to the Space
Speaker 1: Classics were their super awesome song Exolumina. Creature features a
Speaker 1: production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts like the one you
Speaker 1: just heard, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or Hey
Speaker 1: guess what where have you listened to your favorite shows?
Speaker 1: Seed x Wednesday