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 I really love birds. I just can't get enough
Speaker 1: of them, dang birds. Today on the show Winter is Coming,
Speaker 1: Remember that from the Dragons Show. Well, we won't be
Speaker 1: talking about the Dragon show, but we will be talking
Speaker 1: about how animals prepare for the winter, from hibernation to
Speaker 1: magical wardrobe changes, to cryogenic freezing. To discover this and
Speaker 1: more as we answer the angel question, when, if ever,
Speaker 1: is the right time to breathe through your butt? What
Speaker 1: is hibernation? How do you distinguish hibernation from a really,
Speaker 1: really long nap. While there are definitely some distinctive features
Speaker 1: of hibernation, like many behaviors and evolutionary biology, it's hard
Speaker 1: to get away with one easy definition. But one thing's
Speaker 1: for sure. Hibernation isn't just an extreme nap. It's more
Speaker 1: akin to stasis, like something you'd come up with in
Speaker 1: a science fiction setting. There are many ways that animals
Speaker 1: cope with the winter, and we'll discuss some of the
Speaker 1: wildest winter adaptations. So let's start with this most famous method,
Speaker 1: and reveal the weird and sci fi details beyond our
Speaker 1: childhood image of a really sleepy bear in a nightcap.
Speaker 1: Joining me today to prepare for Winter's Comedian writer and
Speaker 1: co host of The Bechdel Cast, Caitlin Dorante.
Speaker 2: Hello, I'm also a sleepy bear.
Speaker 1: Oh we're here in our picamas. I'll talk in you know,
Speaker 1: old timey bed, very cozy, very cozy. Yes, yeah, So
Speaker 1: listen to this when you're driving and just let yourself
Speaker 1: drift off.
Speaker 2: Yes, very safe.
Speaker 1: How much do you know about hibernation? You know what?
Speaker 2: Not a ton? My personal favorite bear is, of course, Paddington.
Speaker 2: And Addington do not believe that Paddington hibernates in any
Speaker 2: of the movies, right.
Speaker 1: I don't remember him ever doing that or in the books,
Speaker 1: in the novels the series.
Speaker 2: Perhaps Peruvian bears do not hibernate. Well, they wouldn't need
Speaker 2: to for the winter because a tropical issue environment.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. So.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there hasn't been a lot of hibernation visibility on screen,
Speaker 2: at least that I've seen.
Speaker 1: That's right.
Speaker 2: And I only ever learned things if I see them
Speaker 2: in movies.
Speaker 1: Right, And that's that's with the Bechdel cast you guys
Speaker 1: talk about movies and sort of from a from the
Speaker 1: perspective of like, hey, are there women in movies? Yeah,
Speaker 1: we should, we should find that out. Usually not, Yeah,
Speaker 1: sometimes you know, it's just like webs, we forgot to
Speaker 1: put women in here. Oh, and then you put them
Speaker 1: in and then they just spend the whole time talking
Speaker 1: about boys. Yes, yeah, I think that hibernation is one
Speaker 1: of those things that we learn about briefly in school
Speaker 1: and it's just like, oh, Bear's school to sleep for
Speaker 1: the winter, and then there's not much else learned about it.
Speaker 1: Although maybe the education system is better now. I think
Speaker 1: that maybe children are smarter than we ever used to be.
Speaker 1: But yeah, let's get into some of the details about
Speaker 1: it that I think are really bizarre. And it's one
Speaker 1: of these things that everybody kind of knows about hibernation,
Speaker 1: but when you actually look at the scientific facts behind it,
Speaker 1: it gets a lot weirder than you expect. Can't wait, So,
Speaker 1: hibernation occurs during the winter. In summer, there are there
Speaker 1: is like a summer form of hibernation called estivation. It
Speaker 1: occurs in mammals, for reptiles and amphibians, it's called brumation,
Speaker 1: so it's a similar thing, but it's not called hibernation.
Speaker 1: The only exception is the common poor will, which is
Speaker 1: a nocturnal bird species in the family of night jars,
Speaker 1: and it goes into a state of torpor for weeks
Speaker 1: or months at a time, and this is I think
Speaker 1: the only bird species that's known to do this. Of
Speaker 1: the mammals that do hibernation, bears, squirrel, chipmunks, bats, skunks, hedgehogs,
Speaker 1: and dwarf and fat tailed lemurs are among them. And
Speaker 1: dwarf and fat tailed lumur is actually some of the
Speaker 1: only primates known to hibernate, and they can go up
Speaker 1: to ten minutes without breathing when they're hibernating. What yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: So this is where we get into some of the
Speaker 1: things about hibernation that makes it really clear it's not
Speaker 1: just sleeping, it's not just a nap. So to prepare
Speaker 1: for hibernation, the body temperature drastically drops and brain activity
Speaker 1: greatly decreases to a coma like state, and the metabolism
Speaker 1: slows so that you can basically be in this coma
Speaker 1: state without dying of starvation, and the heart rate can
Speaker 1: drop drastically so a grizzly bear's heart goes from about
Speaker 1: eighty four beats per minent to nineteen beats permanent, which
Speaker 1: is pretty crazy. And there's the mechanism of how this
Speaker 1: works is really interesting for a bear. So the heart
Speaker 1: isn't damn imaged, which you would think it would. So
Speaker 1: like if a heart beat slows too much in like
Speaker 1: a human, you're going to really damage the heart, and
Speaker 1: which could be fatal because the blood builds up in
Speaker 1: the left ventricle and then that can cause the ventricle
Speaker 1: to expand and become damaged. And yeah, that's no good.
Speaker 1: You know, you don't want your heart to be like
Speaker 1: an overly full water balloon.
Speaker 2: Essential I mean when we learn about I mean, speaking
Speaker 2: of wintertime, the grinch, when his heart grows three sizes,
Speaker 2: he would die. He would die, He would die.
Speaker 1: That would be very bad.
Speaker 2: For well, unless I don't know what species the grinch is,
Speaker 2: but maybe there's something about his heart that.
Speaker 1: I don't I don't know. I think he would most
Speaker 1: certainly suffer an errortic dissection from that, Like there's no green,
Speaker 1: you know, Let's let's fix grench to be accurate, so
Speaker 1: that the Grinch dies and everyone is sad. So in
Speaker 1: the bear, well maybe the grinch has some special heart
Speaker 1: physiology like a bear. Right. Yeah, So the bear's left
Speaker 1: ventricle stiffens, so as the blood pools in it from
Speaker 1: not beating as much, it doesn't damage the muscle and
Speaker 1: the heartbeat is significantly weakened so that the stiffer heart
Speaker 1: muscle won't be damaged by the left h or so. Okay,
Speaker 1: the left atrium pumps blood into the left ventricle, and
Speaker 1: so if the left atrium is like really pumping hard
Speaker 1: blood into a stiff surface of the left atrium, it's
Speaker 1: like taking a water balloon full of blood and like
Speaker 1: smashing it against a brick wall.
Speaker 2: It's kind of like something I do every Thursday.
Speaker 1: Well it is cathartic, but instead of smashing, if you
Speaker 1: kind of just like gently press it against the wall
Speaker 1: and there's like a little opening where the blood can
Speaker 1: squoosh out, like, then you know you got a functioning heart. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that is what I'm saying. So that's impressive. But a
Speaker 1: chipmunk's heart rate slows from two hundred beats per minute
Speaker 1: to only about five, which is.
Speaker 2: It that decreases wild.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it really it's almost like they're in the
Speaker 1: state of almost death.
Speaker 2: Like almost staceis that's like one beat for every ten seconds.
Speaker 1: Yeah, roughly. Yeah, yeah, it's I mean, if we if
Speaker 1: we got anywhere near that, you'd be dead. That it's
Speaker 1: just you can't survive that kind of slow heartbeat. But
Speaker 1: it is incredible that they're basic. And like one thing is,
Speaker 1: if you wake up a hibernating animal like a squirrel,
Speaker 1: the effort, it takes them a long time to wake up.
Speaker 1: They can't just like instantly awake, right because their body
Speaker 1: has to essentially come.
Speaker 2: Back to life online.
Speaker 1: Yeah, from this state of stace is kind of like
Speaker 1: that scene in Austin Powers, like he gets frozen and
Speaker 1: they unfreeze them and then he goes through all of
Speaker 1: this like you know, hilarious unfreezing process.
Speaker 2: In feminist text Austin Power.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, yes, you know, and it's really funny because
Speaker 1: we get to see as butt.
Speaker 2: That's I mean, that's comedy at its highest form.
Speaker 1: It's it's you have to go to years of comedy
Speaker 1: school to reach that level. So the breathing rate also
Speaker 1: drops dramatically as there's less of a demand for oxygen
Speaker 1: because your heart rate is so slow, Like I said,
Speaker 1: it takes a while to wake up from. And in fact,
Speaker 1: if they're waking prematurely for some reason, that can be
Speaker 1: really disastrous because that takes so much energy to wake
Speaker 1: up from the whole point of hibernation or partially the
Speaker 1: point is to preserve your your energy stores throughout the
Speaker 1: winter because the food supply drops, so you're inducing the
Speaker 1: state of near death where you're not consuming energy so
Speaker 1: you can survive. And so if you wake up use
Speaker 1: all this energy to wake up, you're kind of screwed.
Speaker 1: So it's really important to set your alarm clock like
Speaker 1: your little time any chipmunk alarm clock right.
Speaker 2: Otherwise it's like when your your battery on your phone,
Speaker 2: is it like two percent, but you still need to
Speaker 2: call your lift home, right, And it's like, what if
Speaker 2: I call this lift, it's gonna make my phone die
Speaker 2: and then I won't actually be able to take the run.
Speaker 1: It's just like that, you know what I'm saying. Chipmunks
Speaker 1: are exactly like that. Yeah, yeah, that's I mean, I
Speaker 1: couldn't put it more precisely myself.
Speaker 2: You're welcome.
Speaker 1: Chimps are lifts that would be cool though, just like
Speaker 1: you call.
Speaker 2: A giant lift like a giant chipmunk. Yeah, it's like
Speaker 2: the cat bus thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then you can just like put all your
Speaker 1: belongings in his little cheeks. Cute.
Speaker 2: Why isn't that a thing?
Speaker 1: Well, because it would probably.
Speaker 2: Kill us, I guess.
Speaker 1: So some scientists are hibernation purists and don't really think
Speaker 1: bears qualify as true hibernators because their body temperature doesn't
Speaker 1: drop that much and it's not too hard for the
Speaker 1: bears to wake up. But you know, it's it's kind
Speaker 1: of whatever your opinion is if you're in science, different science,
Speaker 1: Like some people are like, well, you know, it's close
Speaker 1: enough to hibernation.
Speaker 2: Hibernation is a spectrum, and we need to respect that.
Speaker 1: It is actually literally described as a spectrum. So yeah,
Speaker 1: you're exactly right. So animals who are hibernating don't typically eat,
Speaker 1: although some do require little food stores, so they'll wake
Speaker 1: up briefly from hibernation, nibble on their little snack, and
Speaker 1: then go back into hibernation. They also don't poop or pee,
Speaker 1: and they don't produce They don't produce fecal matter because
Speaker 1: their whole digestive system is slowed to a crawl if
Speaker 1: not like shut down entirely. Yea. And they do produce urea,
Speaker 1: which is like the main ingredient in urine, but the
Speaker 1: body is able to break break it down and recycle it,
Speaker 1: like bears break down urate into amino acids and recycle it. Okay, Yeah,
Speaker 1: so they're not just like full of pea, although.
Speaker 2: I'm sure pleasing themselves bed right exactly.
Speaker 1: Uh you put up bears like paw and hot Yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: timmy petem cells worm showering. So how do animals know
Speaker 1: when to go into hibernation? Is it based on like
Speaker 1: the like they know it's Academy Awards season coming up,
Speaker 1: or like you know what, what's sort of the thing
Speaker 1: like the.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean when Paddington I didn't get nominated or
Speaker 2: did get nominated but didn't win, Right, He's like, well,
Speaker 2: I got to go into hibernation now just to cope
Speaker 2: with this crub, is my guest.
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, you know that if you don't. If
Speaker 1: weather's not a reason to go in a hibernation, trying
Speaker 1: to cope with an oscar snub surely is. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: in twenty fifteen, researchers discovered calendar cells inside animals who
Speaker 1: undergo physiological changes during winter, such as hibernation, and these
Speaker 1: cells are located inside a structure within the piture two
Speaker 1: Glenn called the pars to barylous. The cells change what
Speaker 1: proteins they produce during the year in response to the
Speaker 1: amount of daylight. Actually, humans have a similar structure as
Speaker 1: the pars to to barrel it to the pars to barylus.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's exactly right to me.
Speaker 1: Pars to barylous, which indicates that we may also have
Speaker 1: some sort of internal calendar and research even though we
Speaker 1: don't hibernate. Obviously, speak for yourself. Yes, so your your
Speaker 1: your heart essentially stops and you stop pooping and peeing
Speaker 1: and yeah every winter. Wow, that's that's pretty marlow. Or
Speaker 1: you're not getting enough fiber.
Speaker 2: Right, I'm just constantly constipated.
Speaker 1: That's as you know. Just call it hibernation then it
Speaker 1: doesn't seem so bad. So there is a potential area
Speaker 1: of research suggesting that our immunity may change depending on
Speaker 1: the season, which means like maybe our immune system is
Speaker 1: giving us more protection based on like when we will
Speaker 1: most need it, and then that could potentially be regulated
Speaker 1: by this pars to beryl Us.
Speaker 2: Okay, got nailed it.
Speaker 1: So many animals who hibernate will prepare a den and
Speaker 1: insulate it with fur, dirt, vegetation, other cozy things. Some
Speaker 1: animals will bulk up before hibernation, eating massive amounts of food.
Speaker 1: This is often like large omnivores or carnivores like bears,
Speaker 1: while others will store food in their dens, meaning they'll
Speaker 1: wake up occasionally to eat. This is often the tiniest hibernators,
Speaker 1: like mice and chipmunks, because they're little, tiny bodies can't
Speaker 1: store enough fat and their metabolism can't slow down enough
Speaker 1: to keep them alive throughout the entire winter. They need
Speaker 1: their snacks, and in fact, chipmunks will really they'll like
Speaker 1: steal from each other. They'll fight over food stores. It
Speaker 1: gets quite quite nasty. There should be a movie about this, yeah, like, oh,
Speaker 1: like a gritty reboot of Alvin and the Chipmunks, like
Speaker 1: the squeak will where.
Speaker 2: It's just like it's like the Irishman.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like like I hear you know where my nuts are?
Speaker 1: You do know exactly? You do know you will have
Speaker 1: to die? But saw those squeaky chipmunk voices of like
Speaker 1: I'm gonna kill you. It's like, oh my god, it's
Speaker 1: Alvin's head in her bid. Oh I know. But actually,
Speaker 1: some of the best hibernators are guess what, I bet
Speaker 1: you won't guess this is where I'm.
Speaker 2: Which which species? Yeah, oh my goodness, some of the best, oh, raccoons.
Speaker 1: That's a good guess. But it's wrong because obviously I
Speaker 1: love to do this, just spring a question on my
Speaker 1: guests because it makes me feel so smugly superior because
Speaker 1: I have all the answers written down. So some of
Speaker 1: the best hibernators are bats, which is surprising, right, So
Speaker 1: big brown bats in the wild can hibernate for around
Speaker 1: sixty days, but in captivity, one of these guys broke
Speaker 1: the record at three hundred and forty four days.
Speaker 2: That's almost an entire year.
Speaker 1: That's almost an entire year. It was. This is actually
Speaker 1: a little sad. It was kept in a refrigerator in
Speaker 1: a lab environment to see how long it would hibernate,
Speaker 1: and it eventually died of starvation. Like cool scientists like
Speaker 1: once he like got to three hundred forty four days,
Speaker 1: you couldn't just be like, all right, buddy, that's long enough, like,
Speaker 1: wake up, let's get you some nachas.
Speaker 2: Right. That's horrible, I know, but sciences people dding sometimes.
Speaker 1: It's sometimes a little gruesome. Yeah. So the for a
Speaker 1: lot of bout species, the heart rate can go from
Speaker 1: a thousand beats per minute when they're actively flying to
Speaker 1: only about twenty five. And some species of bats only
Speaker 1: need to take a breath every forty five minutes or
Speaker 1: even up to two hours during hibernation. Wild that's it's
Speaker 1: they're like almost you wouldn't be able. You would think
Speaker 1: here's a dead bat, but it's not. The North American
Speaker 1: red bat can lower its body temperature to freezing point
Speaker 1: and can even survive its body tissues freezing, do in
Speaker 1: part to its thick fur, extremely a low heart rate,
Speaker 1: and its high red blood cell count, which is really crazy.
Speaker 1: It's I think one of the only mammals I know
Speaker 1: of that can really just kind of shake off having
Speaker 1: tissue frozen like that without getting frostbite.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, I certainly can't. If I go outside and
Speaker 2: it's lower than fifty degrees, forget about it.
Speaker 1: The first thing that happens to me when it gets
Speaker 1: cold is my nose just starts running like a faucet
Speaker 1: just streams and streams of like fluid and snot. I
Speaker 1: used to live on the East Coast and then it'd
Speaker 1: be great. You know, you go out and it's snowing,
Speaker 1: it's beautiful, and it's like, oh, I got to take
Speaker 1: a photo of me in the snow, and I turn
Speaker 1: the camera around. I'm just just streaming every hole in
Speaker 1: my face, streaming with fluid. Yeah, yeah, like you like
Speaker 1: your because like the wind, it's like your eyeballs freeze over.
Speaker 1: Does that happen to anyone else because it did to me?
Speaker 1: But yeah, I mean, yeah, I cannot withstand any amount
Speaker 1: of cold.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're so good for those bats.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that they've really I'm just so it's kind of
Speaker 1: shocking to me that bats. I don't even really you
Speaker 1: don't think of bats as the traditional winter animal. But
Speaker 1: they're really good, really good hibernators. So proud, so proud.
Speaker 1: So why don't humans hibernate? The most obvious reason is
Speaker 1: that our ancestors didn't originally evolve in the frigid tundra,
Speaker 1: so primates don't generally need to hibernate. But it's not
Speaker 1: unheard of for primate to hibernate. Like I mentioned before,
Speaker 1: one of the only types of primates who truly hibernates
Speaker 1: are dwarf lemur species in Madagascar. The only other primate
Speaker 1: known to hibernate is the pygmy slow loris, a tiny
Speaker 1: primate from Southeast Asia who can inter states of tour
Speaker 1: for up to sixty three hours at a time. But
Speaker 1: these regions in Madagascar and Southeast Asia only drop to
Speaker 1: about forty degrees in the winter, certainly not as cold
Speaker 1: as the frigid areas where animals generally hibernate. So why
Speaker 1: do these small primitive primates do it. It's speculated that
Speaker 1: hibernation for small animals not only protects them from the colder,
Speaker 1: harsher climate during the winter, but to stay hidden away
Speaker 1: from predators who may be seeking to pack on extra calories.
Speaker 1: This may be another reason why humans don't need to hibernate.
Speaker 1: While we certainly have needed to fear some predators in
Speaker 1: our evolutionary history, our line of primates are larger, with
Speaker 1: more ways to defend ourselves than to bundle up and
Speaker 1: hide away, and when we started to migrate into colder regions,
Speaker 1: we already had our big, nerdy human brains to figure
Speaker 1: out other ways to adapt to the cold. But maybe
Speaker 1: in the future humans will need to hibernate, like when
Speaker 1: we start to become space explorers. NASA is teaming up
Speaker 1: with Professor of Pharmacology and anesthesiologist doctor Rob Hitting to
Speaker 1: explore ways to induce hibernation in humans. After all, animals
Speaker 1: can hibernate without losing too much muscle tone due to
Speaker 1: how they slow their metabolism down. This would be of
Speaker 1: great use to space station dwellers who often must compensate
Speaker 1: for their weightlessness with exercises, which still doesn't make up
Speaker 1: for their loss in muscle tone and bone mass. So
Speaker 1: figuring out how to copy the animals technique for hibernating
Speaker 1: would be great for astronauts. Or hear me out alternative idea,
Speaker 1: Bears in Space. Bears in Space. When we return, we'll
Speaker 1: check out some Arctic adapters who go through a spectacular
Speaker 1: wardrobe change that's even more dazzling than those ugly holiday sweaters.
Speaker 1: Imagine it's the dead of winter and you're snugly tucked
Speaker 1: in a remote cottage that your pee Paul left you.
Speaker 1: It's a quaint old home, all snowed in, but You've
Speaker 1: got hot cocoa and cans of your favorite type of beans,
Speaker 1: so you're all set for winter. You're in your life,
Speaker 1: little fur lined bed, all cozy and comfortable. You think
Speaker 1: back to your time with the local villagers who warned
Speaker 1: you to be quiet when you go home to your
Speaker 1: pea pause old cottage for a terrifying invisible beast roams
Speaker 1: these snow covered hills and kills anything that dares breathe
Speaker 1: too loudly. You chuckle to yourself. These villagers are probably
Speaker 1: bored and have a bit of cabin fever to invent
Speaker 1: such a ridiculous monster. But as you're drifting off to sleep,
Speaker 1: you hear a weird sound, a soft crunching, like the
Speaker 1: snow over your roof is being gently pressed upon Santa's reindeer. Perhaps.
Speaker 1: Then you hear a muffled sound, as if someone's making
Speaker 1: snow angels on the roof. You start to get a
Speaker 1: little nervous and think back to what the villagers said.
Speaker 1: You hold your breath, trying not to make a sound.
Speaker 1: You hear a scraping and what sounds like a huge
Speaker 1: vacuum sucking up snow. Then silence, just the soft pattering
Speaker 1: of snowfall. It's been several minutes, so finally you exhale.
Speaker 1: That's when suddenly boom, the whole house shakes, and then
Speaker 1: again boom boom, until finally crash, a huge face instead
Speaker 1: of jaws crashes through the ceiling. You've just been the
Speaker 1: victim of one of the cutest Arctic adapters, the Arctic fox.
Speaker 1: Awh terrifying, so for humans, of course, there are no threat.
Speaker 1: They're about eighteen to twenty five inches long, not including
Speaker 1: the tail, and about seven to seventeen pounds, so like
Speaker 1: a little doggie, and like you probably guessed it, it
Speaker 1: lives in the Arctic. They live in burrows and snow tunnels,
Speaker 1: and they can survive temperatures as low as negative fifty
Speaker 1: eight degrees fahrenheit. That's pretty chilly, pretty cold, yep. Their
Speaker 1: coats change from being tan and brown in the summer
Speaker 1: to fluffy white in the winter, and the coats help
Speaker 1: them keep warm and camouflaged, both in terms of hunting
Speaker 1: and from being hunted because they too have predators, so
Speaker 1: their huge fluffy tail is used to wrap themselves up
Speaker 1: like a blanket. It's very cute. They're omnivores and will
Speaker 1: eat berries and scraps that they find. They're very opportunistic
Speaker 1: because they have to be. They live in such a
Speaker 1: hostile environment. They'll even store bird eggs in their dens
Speaker 1: as snacks for later. So food can be very scarce
Speaker 1: in the tundra, and they will sometimes tail after polar
Speaker 1: bears and eat their leftovers. And they can travel up
Speaker 1: to sixty miles a day and search for food, which
Speaker 1: I don't think I've ever walked even like more than
Speaker 1: two miles for food.
Speaker 2: I mean that, Yeah, that is quite a distance. Are
Speaker 2: polar bears one of their predators or yeah? No, okay, yeah,
Speaker 2: they have to worry about polar bears.
Speaker 1: They basically have to worry about anything, even like red
Speaker 1: foxes will hunt them sometimes. Okay, yeah, they they're you know,
Speaker 1: not the They're not the big big kid on the block,
Speaker 1: I would say. But yeah, as long as they give
Speaker 1: the polar bears their space, and the polar bears like
Speaker 1: bigger kills, then they'll just eat the scraps the leftovers.
Speaker 1: Got it. So when winter intensifies and there are no
Speaker 1: scraps to scavenge, they have to become killers themselves. So
Speaker 1: their big ears have such sensitive hearing that they can
Speaker 1: listen for tiny rodents mainly limmings, deep under the snow
Speaker 1: and find their exact location. So once a rodent is located,
Speaker 1: they can dig into the snow, or even more excitingly,
Speaker 1: they like to spring up and then dive into the snow.
Speaker 2: And fifteen videos.
Speaker 3: It's very cute.
Speaker 1: You want to look at one right now. Yes, it's
Speaker 1: really funny because they hop right up and then just
Speaker 1: faceplant right into the snow.
Speaker 2: But then do before that, they do a little like
Speaker 2: toe touch.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're doing a little digging because they they've found
Speaker 1: their location and the snow can be really hard and icy,
Speaker 1: so they're trying to break through down into the burrow.
Speaker 1: So they do big hop.
Speaker 2: Oh, oh, that was a good one.
Speaker 1: If the snow's too soft, they can get kind of
Speaker 1: stuck and they kick their little legs in the air,
Speaker 1: and if it's too hard, they'll just like bounce off
Speaker 1: of it. So they have to get pretty good at determining,
Speaker 1: like where's the best place to dive in sure, otherwise
Speaker 1: it gets really embarrassing their butts just right in the
Speaker 1: air and they're flailing around. But when they get it,
Speaker 1: when they get it right, they can snatch a little
Speaker 1: limming right out of its bed.
Speaker 2: Also, I had no idea that lemmings were real things
Speaker 2: until just now. I thought they were just that little
Speaker 2: that computer game.
Speaker 1: Now they're real, although they don't all run off of
Speaker 1: a cliff at the same time. That's see, that's a
Speaker 1: myth perpetrated by the evil documentarian industry. So yeah, it
Speaker 1: looks like ritualistic face planting. It's extremely cute, and they
Speaker 1: can smell limming popsicles two feet under the snow. So
Speaker 1: what's I think is interesting is people usually see the
Speaker 1: Arctic fox when they're completely fluffy in their white winter coat,
Speaker 1: but they don't see them between seasons as much. And
Speaker 1: it's very funny. Yeah, I don't know what that looks like.
Speaker 1: So let me show you. Here's the fox with those
Speaker 1: body patches of his coat growing in. Looks a little scraggly,
Speaker 1: oh but.
Speaker 2: Still cute, still very very patchy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And then here here he is shedding the coat.
Speaker 2: He supposed to be like springtime.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, this is shot in springtime. It kind of
Speaker 1: looks like, what would you say, it looks like, oh,
Speaker 1: good grief. It does look like good grief.
Speaker 2: It's it's just like I'm trying to think of like
Speaker 2: what like maybe like Jack Nicholson, as he's like getting
Speaker 2: as he's you know, getting up there in age, I
Speaker 2: was looking a bit haggard and.
Speaker 1: Bits are falling off of him. Yeah, sort of an
Speaker 1: in sort of chunks. Yeah, yeah, no, I see that.
Speaker 1: I do see that. But still cute in some sort
Speaker 1: of ineffable way. So other animals obviously change their coats
Speaker 1: during the winter as well, including snowshoe hairs, stoats, purie caribou,
Speaker 1: and the snowy owl. And one thing that's interesting is
Speaker 1: kind of like how do you think, like how do
Speaker 1: they do this? Like it it seems magical that they
Speaker 1: know every winter just to change their coat. So one
Speaker 1: thing is that the fur itself isn't changing color like
Speaker 1: once it's already grown, because basic hair fur like once
Speaker 1: it's already grown, it's not that part of it is
Speaker 1: not really alive anymore. So it's the hair follicles themselves
Speaker 1: that are changing at that level, so they have to
Speaker 1: grow a totally new coat. So similar to animals that
Speaker 1: undergo hibernation, they have a body clock that triggers hormonal
Speaker 1: changes that causes the change in growth of denser white
Speaker 1: coats from the follicular level. And so that's why between
Speaker 1: seasons you see these kind of Jack Nicholson esque patchy
Speaker 1: with the with the weird little little tufts of white
Speaker 1: hair growing in or and then like in the springtime,
Speaker 1: they shed it, so it all comes out in these
Speaker 1: big tufts and I think it's to me really cute,
Speaker 1: just like they look like they ran through a chicken coop,
Speaker 1: but then they got sticky and then all covered in feathers.
Speaker 2: Ah, that's a great description.
Speaker 1: But there is an animal that also has a coat change.
Speaker 1: I don't think you'd ever guess what it is and
Speaker 1: the method that it does it is really crazy. So
Speaker 1: bluega whales actually molt their skin every summer, and their
Speaker 1: skin over time will become a little more yellow and
Speaker 1: a little more marred. And that's not good for wanting
Speaker 1: to blend in with the ice. Especially in the winter,
Speaker 1: as you know, they're surrounded by these icy icebergs, and
Speaker 1: they actually do more and they in order to get
Speaker 1: that old layer of skin to come off, they have
Speaker 1: a spa day or multiple spot days. Treat yourself, treat
Speaker 1: yourself self care. Believe us know about self care.
Speaker 2: I could take a lesson from a blugal way.
Speaker 1: We really all could. They're great. We we talked about
Speaker 1: them on a previous episode. They are one of the
Speaker 1: only whales who can actually swivel their heads freely. Oh,
Speaker 1: which means that they can communicate by looking at each
Speaker 1: other and using expressions more than other whales. Yeah. So,
Speaker 1: I just I love because now I'm imagining them like
Speaker 1: kind of filing down their back and just like throwing
Speaker 1: their head back and looking really content.
Speaker 2: Which it's an herbal Essence commercial.
Speaker 1: Oh my god. They would be so good in an
Speaker 1: rbal Essence commercial, like.
Speaker 2: You know, just like, yeah, tell me about it.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So, they will rub their bodies on gravel or
Speaker 1: river sand help exfoliate the outer layer of skin, and
Speaker 1: this reveals that icy white skin underneath that will blend
Speaker 1: in better with their surroundings. And yeah, I just I wanna.
Speaker 1: I would love to join Belugas on a spa A
Speaker 1: Now I don't My objective wouldn't be to look more
Speaker 1: icy white than I already am with all my blue
Speaker 1: veins popping.
Speaker 2: Out everywhere, right, I mean it sounds just being exfoliated
Speaker 2: feels nice, you know, I do an apricot scrub on
Speaker 2: my face sometimes, yeah, and then you know, you leave
Speaker 2: the shower feeling refreshed and right rejuvenated.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I get it. There are certain skin exfoliating products
Speaker 1: that advertise that you'll see the like pilled up layers
Speaker 1: of skin just slough off your body. And it's that's
Speaker 1: an extreme level. That is a dedication to the exfoliation
Speaker 1: that I feel like Belugas would really appreciate.
Speaker 2: True, Like if you.
Speaker 1: Can't see your skin kind of coming up and umps, like,
Speaker 1: is it really exfoliation? Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 3: Extreme extreme body Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I went to a spa where they offered that
Speaker 1: treatment where apparently they just really scrub you down until
Speaker 1: you're raw and like get all the dead skin off.
Speaker 1: And I was like, you know what, my dead skin
Speaker 1: can hang around a little while longer, that's.
Speaker 2: Okay, okay, with some of its staying.
Speaker 1: You know what, you know what, it'll leave when it
Speaker 1: wants to leave. Right Throughout human history, we've had to
Speaker 1: figure out how to adapt to the coldness of winter,
Speaker 1: and in some cases camouflage ourselves against the snow. But
Speaker 1: that big white winter blanket presents another problem, snow blindness.
Speaker 1: Snow blindness also known as photocare titus, is damaged to
Speaker 1: the eyes caused by U V rays from the sun,
Speaker 1: sort of like an eyeball sunburn. It's painful and it
Speaker 1: can cause temporary loss and vision. When sun light reflects
Speaker 1: off snow, eighty percent of UV radiation is reflected back.
Speaker 1: That's a nifty reminder to always wear sunscreen and sunglasses
Speaker 1: even in the winter. But how did we cope with
Speaker 1: snow blindness before we had sunglasses like in prehistoric times? Well,
Speaker 1: short answer, we actually did have sunglasses. Prehistoric people who
Speaker 1: lived in the Arctic Circle invented snow goggles over four
Speaker 1: thousand years ago. These goggles were carved from bone antlers
Speaker 1: or walrus ivory. Later they could be carved from driftwood.
Speaker 1: They were carved to fit the wearer's eyes with a thin, long,
Speaker 1: horizontal slit to see out of. This slit allowed the
Speaker 1: wear to see while minimizing the amount of reflected UV
Speaker 1: light from entering the eye. Sometimes a black soot was
Speaker 1: rubbed inside the goggles to cut down on glare. In
Speaker 1: some ways, these goggles remained superior to modern goggles as
Speaker 1: they don't ice over in harsh conditions. That's why these goggles.
Speaker 1: The first ever sunglasses, remained a vital piece of equipment
Speaker 1: for people of the Arctic Circle for thousands of years,
Speaker 1: and though they weren't necessarily designed to be fashionable, they
Speaker 1: look pretty dang cool too. Speaking of cool, when we return,
Speaker 1: we'll talk about how some animals survive being turned into
Speaker 1: living popsicles. When Jack frost nips at your toes, sometimes
Speaker 1: he bites off a whole chunk. Frostbite is damaged to
Speaker 1: the tissues, usually on extremities, such as fingers, toes, and noses,
Speaker 1: as a result of being exposed to extreme low temperatures.
Speaker 1: While frostbite may not seem like a great coping strategy,
Speaker 1: the fact that your extremities suffer frostbite first is caused
Speaker 1: in part by your body's last ditch effort to save itself.
Speaker 1: In freezing temperatures, the blood vessels throughout the body narrow,
Speaker 1: which is called vasoconstriction. This prevents heat from escaping out
Speaker 1: your extremities, keeping it inside towards the more vital parts
Speaker 1: of your body, such as your brain, guts, and chest. Normally,
Speaker 1: this only results in cold, maybe slightly painful fingers and toes,
Speaker 1: But if you don't warm up soon the process of
Speaker 1: frost bite will begin. First comes frost nip, where the
Speaker 1: extremities start to lose feeling and go unnaturally pale. Blood
Speaker 1: flow to the outer parts of your body is reduced
Speaker 1: to the point where the tissues will start to become
Speaker 1: damaged if not warmed up soon enough. Frost nip can
Speaker 1: even result in a sunburn like injury due to the
Speaker 1: surface of the skin being frozen off, but this is
Speaker 1: not as concerning as frost bite. If you don't warm
Speaker 1: your fingers and toes in time, your tissues will fall
Speaker 1: below freezing point and ice crystals start to form in
Speaker 1: the cells. Ice crystals, biologically speaking, are ticking time bombs
Speaker 1: for cells, either destroying them during the freezing process itself
Speaker 1: or causing the cells to rupture when they start to thaw.
Speaker 1: This is why frost bite must be treated carefully and
Speaker 1: not warmed up too fast, or the damage will be
Speaker 1: even more severe. Frostbite can range in superficial damage and
Speaker 1: blisters to the skin to the loss of entire digits
Speaker 1: or body parts if muscle and other tissues are affected.
Speaker 1: Humans aren't really built to endure being frozen, but some
Speaker 1: animals cope with being popsicles surprisingly well. So I know
Speaker 1: that we have a lot of hopes that Walt Disney's
Speaker 1: frozen head could be brought back to life if you
Speaker 1: on thought. Of course, Walt Disney's head wasn't frozen. Don't
Speaker 1: see it anyways. One of the problems with cryogenics and
Speaker 1: humans is, sure, you could freeze a body, but unthawing
Speaker 1: it is really difficult to do without those ice crystals,
Speaker 1: just like rupturing the cells due to the nature that
Speaker 1: the cells will contain liquid and then if the liquid
Speaker 1: density changes, that can just burst open the cell. But
Speaker 1: you know, we're not the only animals on Earth, and
Speaker 1: some animals actually manage this fabulously well. So wood frogs
Speaker 1: we've actually talked about on the show in our Eat,
Speaker 1: Prey Die episode. But I think they bear another mention
Speaker 1: because they can remain frozen at zero degrees fahrenheit for
Speaker 1: up to seven months. Yeah. They're found all over North America,
Speaker 1: including in boreal forests. They're this little brown frog. They're
Speaker 1: very unassuming looking. They don't look like some kind of
Speaker 1: science fiction Star Wars blue you know, Baby Yoda thing. Sure,
Speaker 1: and they go through a process of partially freezing then
Speaker 1: rethawing over and over again until the glucose levels and
Speaker 1: their cell and their cells rise to an abnormal degree
Speaker 1: and glucose which is also you know, sugars can actually
Speaker 1: act as an anti freeze. Now that doesn't mean you
Speaker 1: can like eat a bunch of sugar and then survive
Speaker 1: being frozen. But these frogs, by introducing the high glucose
Speaker 1: levels inside each of their cells, will protect the cells
Speaker 1: from the freezing process, keeping water inside the cells, which
Speaker 1: keeps them alive and in suspended animation. So like the
Speaker 1: wood frogs become so frozen, they're like literally like a rock,
Speaker 1: you could throw it against the brick wall and they'd
Speaker 1: shout something I do every Friday.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know Thursdays are blood. Thursdays are against the
Speaker 2: brick wall.
Speaker 1: Friday is smashing frozen frogs against it. I mean it
Speaker 1: is like we all need ways.
Speaker 2: To blow off steam, exactly.
Speaker 1: And if blowing off steam means shattering a bunch of
Speaker 1: frozen wood frogs, I mean I'm not going to judge that.
Speaker 1: I think I would, but right, I mean I blow
Speaker 1: off steam by like, you know, making things out of clay,
Speaker 1: so that's much less violent making pottery. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: Smashing Frogs.
Speaker 3: It's all the same thing, right, it's it's therapeutic self care.
Speaker 2: Yes, is what you should do.
Speaker 1: I want to have a spot day with Belugas and
Speaker 1: then we could have great fun just smashing Frozen Frogs.
Speaker 2: Is the all alternative rock band, Smashing.
Speaker 1: Frogs right now, right.
Speaker 2: I play the clarinet, so I don't know if you
Speaker 2: bring any instruments to this.
Speaker 3: I sort of play the ukulele badly, okay, I mean
Speaker 3: I have played clarinet in like twenty years, so I
Speaker 3: don't remember it.
Speaker 1: I think we have a band. I think it's banned.
Speaker 1: That's banned. We did it, yes, yes, Smashing Frogs the band.
Speaker 1: We did it. Clarinet and ukulele neither very good, but
Speaker 1: it is banned now.
Speaker 2: It is banned.
Speaker 1: So there's another contender for the best animal at enduring popsicleness,
Speaker 1: which is the Siberian salamander. So this is found in
Speaker 1: well Siberia and Northeast Asia in wet woods, so that's
Speaker 1: like wooded areas where you have ponds and such, so
Speaker 1: they can survive being frozen at negative twenty two degrees fahrenheit,
Speaker 1: but for shorter periods of time. So that's a colder
Speaker 1: temperature than the woods, but they can't last quite as long.
Speaker 1: They can last up to forty five days, but they
Speaker 1: also have a lower survival rate, so they're sort of
Speaker 1: the more risk takers.
Speaker 2: So it is the idea that like ponds that they
Speaker 2: live in will like freeze over and then they'll but
Speaker 2: they'll survive like within the frozen.
Speaker 1: Yeah, be frozen in the permafrost.
Speaker 2: Yeah, got it.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So though there are stories of these salamanders surviving
Speaker 1: being frozen in permafrost for years and waking up like,
Speaker 1: those haven't really been confirmed scientifically. It kind of seems
Speaker 1: unlikely given that laboratory research shows they can only survive
Speaker 1: like forty five days. But I guess it's technically possible.
Speaker 1: I just don't I'm pretty doubtful.
Speaker 3: But like they're Let's put a Siberian find out, right,
Speaker 3: Let's put a bunch of Siberian salamanders like in the
Speaker 3: snow and.
Speaker 1: See how they do. Yeah, and sit there for you know,
Speaker 1: several years, several years. Yeah, I can't wait. I mean,
Speaker 1: if if we have enough water balloons full of blood
Speaker 1: and enough frozen frogs and our beluga friends, then you know,
Speaker 1: we'll be fine to be said. So now I want
Speaker 1: to talk about painted turtles. So these are pretty red
Speaker 1: and yellow streaked turtles that are found in North America
Speaker 1: and they live on land and in freshwater aquatic environments.
Speaker 1: And painted turtles don't hibernate. They brumate because they're reptiles
Speaker 1: and I am a really pedantic person. So they breathe
Speaker 1: through their asses during winter to survive. Tell me more, Ah,
Speaker 1: this is my favorite part. When their ponds freeze over,
Speaker 1: they can't rise to the surface to take a breath,
Speaker 1: which seems like a pretty bad problem to have when
Speaker 1: you need to breathe, because you know they're not fish.
Speaker 1: So since they can't breathe using their lungs, they'll use
Speaker 1: their little buttholes. And actually a turtle's butthole is a kloaca,
Speaker 1: and a kloaca is the all purpose butt of reptiles, birds, amphibians,
Speaker 1: and sharks, and also monotremes such as platypus. They all
Speaker 1: have cloaca. The kloaca is the whole that can do everything.
Speaker 1: So it can it can excrete, poop and urine. It
Speaker 1: can reproduce, It houses the reproductive organs, it can lay eggs,
Speaker 1: it's just it's like Nustave.
Speaker 2: Triple threat. Yes, yes, for disgusting things that bodies do.
Speaker 1: It's the omnihole omni hoole.
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 1: So the blood vessels around the cloaca are able to
Speaker 1: extract oxygen from water molecules, so they engage in chloachal respiration,
Speaker 1: which is butt breathing, and their chloac is second oxygen
Speaker 1: from the water like butt gills.
Speaker 2: Wow. Yeah, incredible. That's my favorite thing so far I've
Speaker 2: learned today.
Speaker 1: Yes, if we could just breathe with our butts a
Speaker 1: little bit, you know, swimming would be so much easier
Speaker 1: because your butt is usually submerged, right, extract the oxygen.
Speaker 1: But you know, they used to try to save people
Speaker 1: who were drowning victims by blowing smoke into their buttthole.
Speaker 1: And that's like true, yes, and it's I mean, it's
Speaker 1: true in that it happened. It's not true in that
Speaker 1: it worn't help. But yeah, so that's where I think
Speaker 1: that's where the sayres showing smoke up my ass comes from,
Speaker 1: because yeah, it's like it doesn't actually do anything, but
Speaker 1: it's acting as if you're helping. So yeah, and it
Speaker 1: was thought that this would revive someone suffering from drowning.
Speaker 1: And I guess the only way it would work is
Speaker 1: just the surprise of someone blowing smoke up your butt
Speaker 1: might kind of bring you back. But I don't think
Speaker 1: there was any.
Speaker 2: Actual How would that even work, Like you put a tube,
Speaker 2: it would have like a special butt pipe.
Speaker 1: I think that they stuck in the butt and then
Speaker 1: blow smoke up the butt. Okay, I don't know why
Speaker 1: they thought that would work.
Speaker 2: I what era are we talking about here. It's just
Speaker 2: like nineteen hundred, eighteen to early eighteen hundred. I think, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: we don't know anything back then about it. No, No,
Speaker 2: I do know.
Speaker 1: We were We thought we could just go in to
Speaker 1: a human body and toss things around and see what happened.
Speaker 2: Those were the days of like, yeah, you have like
Speaker 2: seven types of bile in your body and everything else.
Speaker 1: Right, let's put slugs in your eyes just, you know,
Speaker 1: see what happens. I don't know. I don't know. I'm trying.
Speaker 1: I am a I'm a medical doctor in seventeen fifty,
Speaker 1: and I don't know.
Speaker 2: No one knows.
Speaker 1: Let's let's breathe through our butts and just smash some
Speaker 1: frozen frogs and maybe that'll cure your consumption. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I am trying my best. My name is Hieronymous J. Fitzwelling,
Speaker 1: and I am trying my best. Good name. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Now I want to talk about something pretty cute. And
Speaker 1: it is so like if you don't have the special
Speaker 1: trick of breathing through your butt or being able to
Speaker 1: be frozen solid, what do you do and how do
Speaker 1: you evolve in a short period of time to survive
Speaker 1: just freezing cold temperatures? So I want to talk about
Speaker 1: wild Yakut horses. They are found in Yakushia in Siberia,
Speaker 1: and they can survive temperatures as low as ninety negative
Speaker 1: ninety four degrees fahrenheit. Wow, which is fairly cold, I
Speaker 1: would say, so a little chili. So these are horses
Speaker 1: that are thirteen hands. Now I'm not a horse girl.
Speaker 1: I don't know what hands are or what that means,
Speaker 1: like if they have thirteen hands, what's going on? So
Speaker 1: I looked it up. Apparently a hand is four inches
Speaker 1: and the you measure it at the horse's highest point
Speaker 1: of the withers.
Speaker 2: Oh, the horse withers, horse withers. Of course.
Speaker 1: Now I didn't know what withers were.
Speaker 2: So I looked that up.
Speaker 1: Too, and apparently the withers is the ridge between the
Speaker 1: shoulder blades of the horse. Okay, so you put your
Speaker 1: hands on the withers. You have to have four inch hands.
Speaker 1: I guess you put your hands.
Speaker 2: My hands are exactly four inches.
Speaker 1: Why, I you'd be great at measuring horses.
Speaker 2: Then a new career.
Speaker 1: AD wanted someone with exactly four inch hands to measure horses.
Speaker 1: So I guess that's like at it is four feet
Speaker 1: tall at the highest point between the shoulders. Is what
Speaker 1: thirteen hands means?
Speaker 2: I see.
Speaker 1: Okay, you know, come over here, horse people, I just
Speaker 1: want to talk to you for a second. Why why why? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Because I think hands are only ever used to measure
Speaker 2: specifically horses. I don't think any other and I mean
Speaker 2: slide into my men. I might be wrong about this, but.
Speaker 1: Do horses not like a tape measure? Do they get real?
Speaker 1: Do they get angry at a tape measure? Is thus
Speaker 1: why hands are necessary?
Speaker 2: Desperate for human contact? I see they they just don't
Speaker 2: it's too informal.
Speaker 1: They want the laying of the hands. They want evangelicals exactly.
Speaker 1: The most important fact about these Yakut horses is that
Speaker 1: they are super super, super duper fluffy. They are so fluffy.
Speaker 1: They are the fluffiest horses you see. Well, good news.
Speaker 2: Have you got pictures?
Speaker 1: I do. They're so poofy there. They look like if you,
Speaker 1: I guess, if you put a horse, a long haired
Speaker 1: horse in the dryer and just like it came out
Speaker 1: and it was just a poofball. You know, like in
Speaker 1: the cartoons where something that's not supposed to be put
Speaker 1: in a dryer comes out of a dryer and it's
Speaker 1: just a little poofball. Yeah, yeah, it's just like this.
Speaker 1: They're so fluffy. I just want to dive my face
Speaker 1: right in there. I'll put my hands on this horse.
Speaker 2: I bet your hands would disappear into.
Speaker 1: Those How do you even know how many hands this
Speaker 1: horse is? You can't see your hands.
Speaker 2: Oh my goodness.
Speaker 1: They are very very cute. They have the thickest coat
Speaker 1: of any horse, and they are kind of chunky and
Speaker 1: compact built, which is good because you don't want to
Speaker 1: like we talked about with frostbite, The more compact you
Speaker 1: are in the cold kind of the better because your
Speaker 1: blood doesn't have to work so hard to pump out
Speaker 1: to your extremities. They have slow metabolic rates relative to
Speaker 1: other horses, and they can dig in the snow for
Speaker 1: food like like dig dig, dig, find some vegetation under
Speaker 1: all that snow. And they actually didn't evolve from native
Speaker 1: species of horses in the area. Instead, these were horses
Speaker 1: that were brought to the area by the Yakout people
Speaker 1: eight hundred years ago, around the thirteenth century. And they're
Speaker 1: an example of rapid evolutionary adaptation on by human interactions.
Speaker 1: So we brought we brought horses who are not adapted
Speaker 1: to this cold weather over eight hundred years ago, and
Speaker 1: over that period of time they developed these adaptations like
Speaker 1: being really really fluffy, being stout, and having that slower
Speaker 1: metabolic rate. And they even have anti freezing properties of
Speaker 1: glucose in the blood like frogs like the wood frogs.
Speaker 1: Not you can't freeze. You can't turn it into a
Speaker 1: horse sickle like that will work, but it does help
Speaker 1: prevent frostbite.
Speaker 2: So what would have happened based on what I know
Speaker 2: about evolution, which I am not an expert by any means,
Speaker 2: but I did take a few you know, anthropology classes
Speaker 2: in college. So nice yiss rag, so they would have
Speaker 2: brought these horses over, and I'm guessing most of them
Speaker 2: would have died, but the ones that happened to be
Speaker 2: maybe fluffier or like carried the genes of fluffiness would
Speaker 2: have survived, and then they would mate with each other
Speaker 2: and then keep perpetuating that trait that enabled them to
Speaker 2: survive exactly. Thus the fluffiest horses we've ever seen.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I don't know this for a fact, but
Speaker 1: it is possible that we even helped along. Because humans
Speaker 1: are great, well, depending on how you define the word great.
Speaker 1: We're great at selective breeding and creating ridiculous features and animals.
Speaker 1: But in this case, because the horses were very crucial
Speaker 1: to our survival as humans, there's a good chance that
Speaker 1: we maybe.
Speaker 2: People saw.
Speaker 1: Or like we saw horses that were doing really well,
Speaker 1: and we're like, Okay, we got to get this one
Speaker 1: breeding a lot of baby horses because they've survived and
Speaker 1: they're doing really well. You know, I think we could have.
Speaker 1: It's well within our abilities to have done that at
Speaker 1: that time. So you know, it was probably a mixture
Speaker 1: of I would say it's mostly the environmental pressures, but
Speaker 1: then maybe we were assisted in their survival by humans,
Speaker 1: and then that's how they evolved so quickly without just
Speaker 1: immediately all tying out. Actually, comparisons of the Yakut horses
Speaker 1: to mammoth genome found similarities in metabolism, hair growth, and
Speaker 1: body proportions, which is an example of convergent evolution. So
Speaker 1: convergent evolution is when you have very similar traits but
Speaker 1: they have evolve at different points in evolutionary history, and
Speaker 1: they're like in different species or in the same species,
Speaker 1: but at different times.
Speaker 2: Got it.
Speaker 1: So one of the important things about Yakut horses is
Speaker 1: that they are mostly wild horses, so they don't they
Speaker 1: aren't kept in pins all year round, they're not kept
Speaker 1: at a corral are kept they're allowed to roam wild.
Speaker 1: And Yacot horse breeders have a really tough job because
Speaker 1: the horses get to go live free and wild for
Speaker 1: much of the time, and the horse breeders have to
Speaker 1: convince them to come back to get fed and get
Speaker 1: metical attention and to help them in their breeding. And
Speaker 1: so they'll drive out for miles and ailes to search
Speaker 1: for these horses, and then once they get there, they'll
Speaker 1: call them. They really have to convince them to come
Speaker 1: in because it's these big, these herds of horses. You
Speaker 1: can't just like last so all the horses and have
Speaker 1: them come in you. You have to kind of it's
Speaker 1: got to be a cooperative effort, like hey, we got
Speaker 1: hey hey remember remember remember hey, hey hey? Yes, And
Speaker 1: so they also will like call them out, like be like, hey,
Speaker 1: come on, Fred. The horse probably not named Fred, but
Speaker 1: you know.
Speaker 2: I think there's definitely a Fred come on, Ginger and
Speaker 2: and Jasper Jasper.
Speaker 1: Yeah, not clearly. I'm not good at measuring nor naming horses.
Speaker 2: I mean I named a bear Timmy earlier in this episode.
Speaker 1: That's a good bear name, though you sell yourself short
Speaker 1: on that.
Speaker 2: Thanks.
Speaker 1: So that's this habit of litting animals roam and then
Speaker 1: calling them back in over long distances is actually also
Speaker 1: done in Norway and Sweden and has been done since
Speaker 1: the Middle Ages. And there's this practice called kuning, which
Speaker 1: is the term for a herding call to let livestock
Speaker 1: know it's time to come home. So it is a
Speaker 1: specific type of song or call that has similar mechanics
Speaker 1: to yodeling, so that it can bounce off of the
Speaker 1: hills and really drink for long distances so that livestock
Speaker 1: can hear it even when they're far off into the mountains.
Speaker 1: And typically it's a tradition carried on by women because
Speaker 1: historically they were tasked with tending to flocks and herds,
Speaker 1: although men do also carry on the tradition, and each
Speaker 1: herder or shepherd would have their own unique call for
Speaker 1: their livestock and this so I have a clip from
Speaker 1: a very talented Kohing singer. Her name's Joanna Jenten, and
Speaker 1: she's calling her cows. I'll provide a link to the
Speaker 1: full video and the shit I really recommend looking at it.
Speaker 1: It's it's really hauntingly beautiful. But I'll just play a
Speaker 1: really short clip so you get an idea of what
Speaker 1: it sounds like. And in this clip you can see
Speaker 1: the little cow just like they're ambling on over like okay,
Speaker 1: I'm going.
Speaker 2: I recognize that. So it's the idea that all of
Speaker 2: the the animals that get hurted by the particular herders
Speaker 2: like recognize the sound of like their specific call.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I think so, And I think they they'll
Speaker 1: probably recognize the voice of their their herder and they'll
Speaker 1: recognize the specific call. They'll they know to come come
Speaker 1: home because then they get fed and they get a
Speaker 1: warm place. Yeah. I really love this, the practice of
Speaker 1: letting these animals just wander around, frolic around and play
Speaker 1: and occasionally get eaten by predator. But you know, and
Speaker 1: then you're just like, all right, come home, and they're
Speaker 1: like sure.
Speaker 2: Wow, that's how man, That's how farming should be done
Speaker 2: here to you.
Speaker 1: Know, just let the let the let the pigs just
Speaker 1: run around the city do their thing.
Speaker 2: I've seen Babe Pig in the City.
Speaker 1: That's doing exactly. The renowned documentary Big in the City.
Speaker 2: I love. I love the George Miller, famous documentarian.
Speaker 1: I loved both of those movies. When I was a kid,
Speaker 1: I was always horrified. Everyone's just like, yeah, you'll be
Speaker 1: baking someday, and he's like what and there he's calm down.
Speaker 1: It's the way of things here. So I wanted to
Speaker 1: do an update to crow boarding. So a little while ago,
Speaker 1: we did an episode on play and I talked about crowboarding,
Speaker 1: where there's this video of a crow picking up a
Speaker 1: metal lid to like a jar, and he walks up
Speaker 1: a snowy rope roof, sits on the lid and slides
Speaker 1: down and does this a few times. And of course, okay,
Speaker 1: so this is just one example. You know, maybe this
Speaker 1: was just some some man, you know, malfunctioning crow or something.
Speaker 1: But actually I found online that there were there have
Speaker 1: been more sightings of crows and ravens sliding down snow
Speaker 1: covered roofs just to fly back and repeat it over
Speaker 1: and over again. So this is an observed behavior that
Speaker 1: ravens and crows do.
Speaker 2: And they're just doing it for fun.
Speaker 1: We don't know why they're doing it, but there seems
Speaker 1: to be no purpose. And one of the definitions of
Speaker 1: play is that it's a repetitive action that has no purpose. Right,
Speaker 1: And then like logically you would conclude that it is
Speaker 1: just for fun or for some some pleasurable reason, right.
Speaker 1: And and then there's another report that birds would fly
Speaker 1: to a snow covered stump and then they would slide
Speaker 1: down the slope on their backs, and sometimes they would
Speaker 1: hold sticks as they would slide down, just like.
Speaker 2: Scared, just do their whatever.
Speaker 3: Those things are called those ski poles. Yeah, they're crow poles.
Speaker 2: I love that.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Sometimes they seem to do it for attention, like
Speaker 1: they'll slide down a steep incline and then seem to
Speaker 1: try to attract mates by showing them how cool they
Speaker 1: are at crowboarding. And sometimes they do it because there's
Speaker 1: this lodge that's been in their family for generations and
Speaker 1: this rich kid comes. It's like, I'm gonna buy your
Speaker 1: lodge and then you won't be allowed back in it,
Speaker 1: and the crows are like, we'll see about that, and
Speaker 1: then they raise them down death mountains, just.
Speaker 2: Like the plot of Oh my god, what movie is
Speaker 2: that crap? It's that it's a John Cusack movie.
Speaker 1: I think No Runnings.
Speaker 2: It's yes, the famous movie is not running Better Off Dead.
Speaker 1: Let's see John. His name is John Cusy.
Speaker 2: Parody that plot in movie in an episode.
Speaker 1: Of Yeah Better Are Dead Okay in nineteen eighty five
Speaker 1: American teen black comedy films aarring John Cusack.
Speaker 2: Do I know film or do I know film? I
Speaker 2: do have a master's green screenwriting. I hate to bring
Speaker 2: it up.
Speaker 1: In the town of Green Okay, according to Wikipedia, in
Speaker 1: the town of Greendale, Northern California, high school student blah
Speaker 1: blah blah blah blah.
Speaker 2: Am I totally wrong about this?
Speaker 1: Oh no, no, no. They try to ski the K twelve,
Speaker 1: the highest peak in towns in hopes of getting winning
Speaker 1: back Beth's love.
Speaker 2: Oh right, there's a race and who the race gets
Speaker 2: to get the woman as a reward because women are prizes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I you know, Like I actually it was weird.
Speaker 1: I went to this arcade and there's this big vending
Speaker 1: machine and then there're just a bunch of ladies in
Speaker 1: there as like trying to trying to like like get them,
Speaker 1: and they're like, please let us out of this giant
Speaker 1: claw machine. We're actually stuck in here because we tried
Speaker 1: to get the bears out by reaching our hands and
Speaker 1: we got sucked in. But I think that was just
Speaker 1: to add to the charm of the machine for sure.
Speaker 2: Okay, so back to the crows who are sledding for fun.
Speaker 2: Now wait, you suggested that maybe it's like could be
Speaker 2: sort of like the winter sports version of like the
Speaker 2: dances that birds do for like the mating dances, because
Speaker 2: they need a training montage to get better at.
Speaker 1: It's just this little crow like lifting sticks with its feet.
Speaker 2: I would watch that training montage.
Speaker 1: I would watch a whole movie trilogy about crows snowboarding
Speaker 1: and winning the winning the crow girls as prizes and
Speaker 1: winning the lodges as prizes. Sometimes the crow Girl wins
Speaker 1: skis as a prize.
Speaker 2: Sometimes the crow Girl gets to ski.
Speaker 1: Yes, the crow Girls skis sometimes, and sometimes the lodge
Speaker 1: skis and wins the prize of the year. Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: you just mix it all up. Crows are in it.
Speaker 1: I think we could we could get.
Speaker 2: This franchise, and then we also need the Chipmunks as mafia.
Speaker 1: Right right, stories right, Oh, and we could have a
Speaker 1: crossover like this could be sort of the Crowboarding universe.
Speaker 2: Right that we need like an animal cinematic universe.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, the Crowboarding cinematic universe. Who got the chipmunks
Speaker 1: who are like killing each other for for acorns. You
Speaker 1: got the crows trying to win ski contests. You got
Speaker 1: Beluga like a sort of Bridesmaid's movie but with Belugas
Speaker 1: going out and getting a spot a but everything goes
Speaker 1: horribly wrong. But then at the end they found out
Speaker 1: the the the Belugas were the friends you made along
Speaker 1: the way.
Speaker 2: Exactly. Yeah, there's a lot of content.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of minable content, guys, movie people, minable content. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2: Again, I'm a screenwriter.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we start writing, start me, please write me. Crowboarding screenplay. Okay,
Speaker 1: well yes, but we call it.
Speaker 2: Oh, there's got to be a pun or something.
Speaker 1: A pun, but like we need an extra one just
Speaker 1: to send it over the top, Like.
Speaker 2: Why is this so hard for that? Take an improvs?
Speaker 1: Not me? Corvas?
Speaker 2: Wait what is corvas? That's the family of the Oh
Speaker 2: I see that. That might.
Speaker 1: That slogan.
Speaker 2: Yeah, maybe it's a little too it's maybe too high
Speaker 2: brow for the for the audience. We'll figure it out.
Speaker 2: Or if you have.
Speaker 1: Crowboard and we'll have a raven good time. There we are,
Speaker 1: clar do send it to print DreamWorks.
Speaker 2: Wrap that up.
Speaker 1: Well, thank you so much for joining me today. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is really fun.
Speaker 2: Raven good time.
Speaker 1: Oh and there because my audience, they're all gone out by.
Speaker 1: Sorry about that, you guys, Do you have anything to plug? Oh?
Speaker 2: Sure, you can listen to my podcast right here on
Speaker 2: the same network.
Speaker 1: Do you see you guys around a lot? Here we are.
Speaker 2: It is called the Bechdel Cast, and we analyze movies
Speaker 2: through a feminist lens.
Speaker 1: Have dare you?
Speaker 2: I know how dare I? And you can follow me.
Speaker 2: You can check that out at Bechdelcast on Twitter and Instagram,
Speaker 2: and then you can follow me on those places as
Speaker 2: well at Kitlinderontay.
Speaker 1: You can find us on Inside the Internet, Creature featurepod
Speaker 1: dot com, Creature Future Pod on Instagram, Creature Feet Pod
Speaker 1: on Twitter. That's f e a T, not fee T.
Speaker 1: That's something very very different. And I have been Katie
Speaker 1: Golden and you can find me on Twitter, and you
Speaker 1: can also find me on Twitter at pro bird Rights,
Speaker 1: where I ensure that birds will one day take the
Speaker 1: reins to this planet and really steered in the right direction,
Speaker 1: a more birdie direction.
Speaker 2: I love it.
Speaker 1: Thanks to the Space Cossics for their super groovy song
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