WEBVTT - The Beast Wore an Apron, Part 2 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:05.400 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of My 0:00:05.480 --> 0:00:14.680 Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. 0:00:14.800 --> 0:00:17.439 My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and 0:00:17.480 --> 0:00:20.080 we're back with part two of our series on animals 0:00:20.200 --> 0:00:23.040 cooking non human animals and cooking in the sense of 0:00:23.720 --> 0:00:26.239 doing things to food before they eat it other than 0:00:26.280 --> 0:00:29.440 applying heat. Because in the last episode we uh, we 0:00:29.520 --> 0:00:32.320 talked about how humans are the only animals that regularly 0:00:32.360 --> 0:00:35.080 apply heat to their food on purpose to cook it, 0:00:35.159 --> 0:00:37.680 but animals do all kinds of other interesting things to 0:00:37.720 --> 0:00:40.480 their food before eating it. For example, we talked about 0:00:40.960 --> 0:00:44.720 birds that that sort of butcher and smash up and 0:00:44.720 --> 0:00:48.280 and process their their their animal parts before they consume 0:00:48.320 --> 0:00:52.120 them in various ways, like the shrike making shish kebabs 0:00:52.159 --> 0:00:55.000 out of crickets and other critters. And uh, was it 0:00:55.080 --> 0:00:58.120 the lamber guyer that would would smash the bones or 0:00:58.160 --> 0:01:02.040 the turtles. Yeah, And you know, I realized after a 0:01:02.080 --> 0:01:06.000 record of that episode that there's another animal that that 0:01:06.000 --> 0:01:09.399 that cooks that is a part of my weekly life 0:01:09.440 --> 0:01:12.679 that I forgot to mention. It's that little puff on 0:01:12.760 --> 0:01:16.880 Instagram account in which a cat is made to appear 0:01:16.920 --> 0:01:21.440 to cook various items to try to replicate various sort 0:01:21.480 --> 0:01:26.720 of like TikTok cooking trends and crafting trends. Um. Sometimes 0:01:27.000 --> 0:01:32.200 too great success. Sometimes uh it results in disappointing failure. Oh, 0:01:32.240 --> 0:01:35.560 if if you're familiar with TikTok cooking trends, there's one 0:01:35.640 --> 0:01:38.680 that I've seen by image alone. Do you can you 0:01:38.720 --> 0:01:40.800 explain the thing to me where somebody takes a big 0:01:40.800 --> 0:01:43.840 old wad of hamburger meat and they wrap it around 0:01:43.959 --> 0:01:46.520 dry pasta. What is that? Do you know what I'm 0:01:46.560 --> 0:01:51.440 talking about? Well, I am only familiar with TikTok um 0:01:51.480 --> 0:01:55.520 cooking trends that have been featured on that little puff, 0:01:55.640 --> 0:01:58.520 So I don't think I've seen the cat doing this 0:01:58.680 --> 0:02:02.680 to hamburger made yet. Uh. I'm not the one to 0:02:02.720 --> 0:02:04.720 answer that question. Well, I mean it sounds like a 0:02:04.760 --> 0:02:07.480 cat's idea. What to be clear, this cat is is 0:02:07.520 --> 0:02:10.600 not actually has not been trained to do anything. Um, 0:02:10.639 --> 0:02:13.760 it's it's just the appearance of a cat cooking that 0:02:13.880 --> 0:02:18.760 they have created here trick photography. Yeah, cats lousy cooks. 0:02:18.760 --> 0:02:21.079 They're not they're not interested in cooking. But to tie 0:02:21.080 --> 0:02:23.280 it into our first segment here, you know one thing 0:02:23.360 --> 0:02:26.320 that that is great about cats is cats are very clean. 0:02:26.440 --> 0:02:29.080 You know, they enjoy They groom themselves, they clean themselves. 0:02:29.320 --> 0:02:31.360 They lick all over to get the dirt out of 0:02:31.360 --> 0:02:33.440 the fur. Actually, I don't know if that's why they lick. 0:02:33.480 --> 0:02:35.680 They lock themselves. That appears to be for some kind 0:02:35.680 --> 0:02:39.160 of hygienic purpose. I have no idea what it's actually for, 0:02:39.520 --> 0:02:42.160 but that mirrors U some of the behaviors were about 0:02:42.200 --> 0:02:45.360 to talk about in the category of animals washing their 0:02:45.400 --> 0:02:49.040 food before they eat it, and Robert, I don't know 0:02:49.040 --> 0:02:52.360 about your house, but I tend to be pretty fastidious 0:02:52.480 --> 0:02:56.080 about washing fresh produce. Do you do the same. Well, 0:02:56.120 --> 0:02:58.840 you know, I don't want any grit in whatever I'm cooking, 0:02:58.960 --> 0:03:02.079 and certainly, pending on the protosant question, you might get 0:03:02.120 --> 0:03:04.360 some grit if you don't wash it off. Well, if 0:03:04.360 --> 0:03:05.800 I make an ants on a log, I want to 0:03:05.800 --> 0:03:09.040 make sure that I have a scrub my celery sticks 0:03:09.080 --> 0:03:11.760 off before and then dry them, you know, before I 0:03:11.800 --> 0:03:16.239 actually start applying the peanut butter, and said ants. Well, 0:03:16.320 --> 0:03:19.720 it turns out this is one of the food preprocessing 0:03:19.840 --> 0:03:23.240 behaviors that is not unique to humans. All kinds of 0:03:23.280 --> 0:03:28.760 animals exhibit various washing behaviors, and I wanna say washing 0:03:28.800 --> 0:03:31.920 with scare quotes because in some cases this may actually 0:03:31.919 --> 0:03:35.160 be related to cleaning dirt or other materials off of 0:03:35.200 --> 0:03:37.400 the food, and in other cases it may have a 0:03:37.480 --> 0:03:40.240 completely different purpose. But in any case, it is taking 0:03:40.240 --> 0:03:43.160 a piece of food and washing it, or doing something 0:03:43.200 --> 0:03:47.640 that looks like washing with the help of water. That's right. UM. 0:03:47.840 --> 0:03:51.200 I was reading about some of this in a paper 0:03:51.240 --> 0:03:56.560 titled food dunking Behavior by a Eurasian Jay by Dearborn 0:03:56.720 --> 0:04:00.360 and Gager, published in the Ornithological Society of the Middle Least. 0:04:00.960 --> 0:04:03.480 They point out that crows and ravens have been observed 0:04:03.480 --> 0:04:08.240 to quote unquote wash their food and fountains before eating it. Um. 0:04:08.280 --> 0:04:10.280 And then they talk a little bit about how generally 0:04:10.360 --> 0:04:15.160 we see examples of this washing behavior in primates and 0:04:15.240 --> 0:04:20.960 birds um washing or dunking um. And in both birds 0:04:20.960 --> 0:04:23.719 and primates, the two main theories seem to be that 0:04:24.200 --> 0:04:27.159 it's about washing or removing a thin coating from the 0:04:27.200 --> 0:04:31.120 exterior the food, which generally that's what we're doing, or 0:04:31.240 --> 0:04:34.960 it's about making the food easier to eat, which is 0:04:35.120 --> 0:04:38.760 not something we're usually doing if we're just washing our 0:04:38.880 --> 0:04:41.520 produce in the sink. But it is what we're doing 0:04:41.560 --> 0:04:45.320 if we're, say, uh, dipping a particularly tough biscuit into 0:04:45.839 --> 0:04:48.039 a cup of tea or something. Yeah, this is the 0:04:48.040 --> 0:04:51.120 old hard tack tradition. You know, armies of old marching 0:04:51.160 --> 0:04:53.880 around or sailing around with hard tack biscuits. A lot 0:04:53.880 --> 0:04:56.159 of times. You like, you can't even eat these things straight. 0:04:56.200 --> 0:04:58.640 You can't just bite into them. You've gotta like dip 0:04:58.680 --> 0:05:01.000 them into your gravy or some other kind of liquid 0:05:01.040 --> 0:05:04.080 and then soften them up before you can consume. Yeah. 0:05:04.279 --> 0:05:06.240 So some of the examples that they mentioned in this 0:05:06.320 --> 0:05:10.800 paper from from other creatures are carrion crows eating dry 0:05:10.800 --> 0:05:12.880 bread used to be a situation where dry bread has 0:05:12.920 --> 0:05:16.720 been provided for them and they dip it before they 0:05:16.720 --> 0:05:21.320 eat it. Uh. Kill deer have been observed washing muddy 0:05:21.320 --> 0:05:24.000 frogs off before they eat them. Macaques have been observed 0:05:24.040 --> 0:05:27.919 doing the same thing with sandy crabs. Um captive monkeys 0:05:28.680 --> 0:05:31.840 have been observed doing this with dry monkey chow. And 0:05:31.839 --> 0:05:34.920 then the Eurasian jay example studied in the paper I cited. 0:05:35.200 --> 0:05:37.680 It involved the bird in question dunking an egg in 0:05:37.760 --> 0:05:41.640 water and then eating it. Though the researchers ultimately remained 0:05:42.320 --> 0:05:45.479 they remained unclear about what that was all about. Yeah, 0:05:45.480 --> 0:05:47.440 and in a lot of cases, it seems like these washing, 0:05:47.520 --> 0:05:51.520 dunking or dowsing behaviors are still uh, they're still unknown, 0:05:51.560 --> 0:05:53.520 and we still don't know exactly what the cause is 0:05:53.560 --> 0:05:57.480 that we have better ideas in some cases than in others. Uh. 0:05:57.560 --> 0:06:00.560 But one thing I was thinking about is that, um, 0:06:00.600 --> 0:06:03.040 you know, it may depend on your anatomy how important 0:06:03.040 --> 0:06:05.839 it is to douse something in external water before you 0:06:05.839 --> 0:06:08.520 eat it, depending on how strong your salivary glands are, 0:06:08.560 --> 0:06:10.839 because we're doing the same thing, but it happens in 0:06:10.920 --> 0:06:13.000 our mouths. I mean all the foods you eat. It 0:06:13.000 --> 0:06:16.600 gets kind of like coated in saliva and moistened that way, 0:06:16.600 --> 0:06:19.919 and it helps lubricate the swallowing process. Doesn't that sounds 0:06:19.960 --> 0:06:22.840 so appetizing? Yeah, well, I think we've we've touched on 0:06:22.880 --> 0:06:25.599 this before, but actually quite recently, I think talking about 0:06:25.880 --> 0:06:29.840 food and digestion. But like the the digestive process begins 0:06:29.839 --> 0:06:32.280 in the mouth, Like this is where food is initially 0:06:32.920 --> 0:06:38.640 uh masticated, broken up, broken down, um, partially liquefied, and 0:06:38.680 --> 0:06:41.400 then formed into that bolus that will then uh have 0:06:41.480 --> 0:06:44.120 been be swallowed and continue the journey. You don't want 0:06:44.120 --> 0:06:47.559 to be swallowing a dry bolus. No, no, But next, 0:06:47.640 --> 0:06:49.960 I wanted to think about one of the most famous 0:06:49.960 --> 0:06:53.080 examples of animals that appear at least to wash their 0:06:53.120 --> 0:06:56.160 food before eating it, and that is raccoons. This has 0:06:56.200 --> 0:06:58.480 got to be one of the cutest examples. I'm sure 0:06:58.520 --> 0:07:00.880 everybody out there on the internet this point has seen 0:07:00.920 --> 0:07:04.240 the the the heartbreaking video of the raccoon with a 0:07:04.279 --> 0:07:06.760 piece of cotton candy going to the water's edge to 0:07:06.800 --> 0:07:09.600 wash it, and then it dissolving, and the raccoon looks 0:07:09.640 --> 0:07:13.320 just so sad. I don't think I've seen that one, 0:07:13.360 --> 0:07:15.600 but I'm picturing it. I can imagine it. So I 0:07:15.640 --> 0:07:17.760 found something out I didn't know before. You know the 0:07:17.960 --> 0:07:22.120 word raccoon. The English word raccoon is derived from a 0:07:22.160 --> 0:07:25.920 word originally in the Algonquian languages. But do you know 0:07:25.920 --> 0:07:28.560 what the raccoon is called in German? No, what is 0:07:28.600 --> 0:07:31.920 it called? It is the vah bear, the wash bear, 0:07:32.120 --> 0:07:35.960 the bear the washes Oh nice. And the same principle 0:07:35.960 --> 0:07:39.280 shows up in its scientific name, which is procyon low tour, 0:07:39.840 --> 0:07:44.320 which means something like pre dog washer. So a raccoon 0:07:44.360 --> 0:07:46.560 is something that's maybe not quite a dog, not quite 0:07:46.600 --> 0:07:50.000 a dog yet, but it is associated with washing. And 0:07:50.040 --> 0:07:53.480 this etymology carries over multiple languages where the raccoon is 0:07:54.000 --> 0:07:56.920 known as something like the washing bear or the washing 0:07:56.960 --> 0:08:00.360 dog or something like that. Uh, and it refle one 0:08:00.360 --> 0:08:03.560 of the most notable characteristic behaviors of the raccoon, which 0:08:03.600 --> 0:08:05.480 is the fact that when they acquire a piece of 0:08:05.520 --> 0:08:09.119 food and there is water nearby, they will often dunk 0:08:09.200 --> 0:08:12.400 that piece of food in the water and then manipulated 0:08:12.480 --> 0:08:14.440 kind of put it in the water and swish it 0:08:14.480 --> 0:08:16.960 around a bit, maybe feel at it, paw at it, 0:08:17.440 --> 0:08:20.120 rub on it, and then retrieve it from the water 0:08:20.480 --> 0:08:23.080 and eat it. And it gives rise to the idea 0:08:23.120 --> 0:08:26.480 that raccoons are meticulous, little neat freaks that they're I 0:08:26.520 --> 0:08:29.920 don't know, hyper hygienic or germophobes or something, washing every 0:08:29.920 --> 0:08:32.800 bit of dirt and grime from food before consuming it, 0:08:33.720 --> 0:08:35.920 which is kind of funny when you think about other 0:08:36.120 --> 0:08:39.120 feeding habits of raccoons you might be familiar with, such 0:08:39.160 --> 0:08:42.040 as like getting into your garbage can and just eating 0:08:42.040 --> 0:08:43.920 the food in there, and they're not washing that food. 0:08:43.960 --> 0:08:45.680 They don't seem to be concerned about the dirt in 0:08:45.760 --> 0:08:48.320 that case. No, no, this is of course what it 0:08:48.320 --> 0:08:52.800 has learned them the nickname trash pandas before because they 0:08:52.920 --> 0:08:55.920 there's straight up in the garbage can, or certainly they will. 0:08:55.960 --> 0:08:57.960 They don't need to be by a stream to eat. 0:08:59.440 --> 0:09:02.359 You can. You can find poluting evidence of of raccoons 0:09:03.120 --> 0:09:06.959 eating without a handy washing station nearby. Right. So it's 0:09:07.000 --> 0:09:10.200 an activity that they do often enough that it's in 0:09:10.240 --> 0:09:12.679 the name, like they're clearly known for it, but they 0:09:12.720 --> 0:09:16.280 don't always do it. It appears to be optional occasional, 0:09:16.520 --> 0:09:19.400 but again common enough that it is. It has become 0:09:19.400 --> 0:09:22.960 a characteristic feature of the species. And so there's a 0:09:22.960 --> 0:09:25.240 big question like what are they doing. Are they actually 0:09:25.240 --> 0:09:28.160 trying to get dirt off of the food or are 0:09:28.200 --> 0:09:31.080 they doing something else? And there have been experiments that 0:09:31.120 --> 0:09:34.280 looked into this. So one study I wanted to look 0:09:34.320 --> 0:09:39.160 at was by Malcolm Lyle Watson, published in Proceedings of 0:09:39.200 --> 0:09:43.240 the Zoological Society of London in nineteen sixty three, called 0:09:43.280 --> 0:09:46.840 a Critical re Examination of food washing behavior in the 0:09:46.920 --> 0:09:51.160 raccoon or procyon low tour. Now, one thing this article 0:09:51.240 --> 0:09:55.320 says that I found alleged elsewhere on the internet is 0:09:55.440 --> 0:09:59.120 that raccoon food dousing behavior, and it calls the behavior 0:09:59.200 --> 0:10:03.200 dousing instead washing to avoid pre judging the issue of 0:10:03.240 --> 0:10:06.120 the purpose of the dowsing. So raccoons put their food 0:10:06.120 --> 0:10:08.920 in water very often, but we don't know exactly why 0:10:08.960 --> 0:10:11.320 they're doing it yet, so so they say dowsing instead 0:10:11.360 --> 0:10:15.000 of washing. So dousing behavior is something that the author 0:10:15.040 --> 0:10:19.120 here says is only seen in raccoons in captivity. But 0:10:19.200 --> 0:10:22.600 I kind of doubt that. I've just browsing around. I've 0:10:22.600 --> 0:10:25.000 read plenty of reports of people saying they observed this 0:10:25.120 --> 0:10:28.920 behavior and raccoons in the wild. So uh so, so 0:10:29.000 --> 0:10:31.960 I don't know about the the only in captivity part. 0:10:32.320 --> 0:10:35.839 I guess the detail here would be that in captivity 0:10:35.880 --> 0:10:39.760 one generally has a readily available supply of water. There's 0:10:39.800 --> 0:10:43.040 like a dish of water or I did just watch 0:10:43.160 --> 0:10:45.280 that cotton candy video in the background. You know, this 0:10:45.360 --> 0:10:46.960 is a case where it looks like it is a 0:10:47.080 --> 0:10:50.959 raccoon in a captive environment and there is the water 0:10:51.080 --> 0:10:52.880 for it to drink from, so it makes use of 0:10:52.920 --> 0:10:55.000 set water. Right, That's a good point. I mean, so 0:10:55.120 --> 0:10:59.520 captivity clearly provides the right setting and opportunities for this 0:10:59.600 --> 0:11:02.679 behavior to be observed. So maybe if it does occur 0:11:02.760 --> 0:11:05.280 in nature or if it doesn't. Either way, we can 0:11:05.360 --> 0:11:07.840 at least admit that the majority of the times humans 0:11:07.840 --> 0:11:11.240 are witnessing this behavior, it is in raccoons in captivity. 0:11:12.200 --> 0:11:15.960 But Lyle Watson says before this study, opinion was divided 0:11:16.000 --> 0:11:19.040 into roughly two camps about what the purpose of raccoon 0:11:19.559 --> 0:11:23.120 food dousing was. He says that some researchers thought that 0:11:23.200 --> 0:11:26.960 raccoons were actually washing their food, actively getting dirt off 0:11:26.960 --> 0:11:30.000 of it, and others thought that they were moistening it 0:11:30.080 --> 0:11:32.600 to make it easier to eat, you know, to essentially 0:11:32.679 --> 0:11:34.880 lubricated for the mouth, like we were talking about with 0:11:34.920 --> 0:11:38.880 the birds. And before we go onto the actual experiments, 0:11:38.920 --> 0:11:41.800 I just wanted to note something from the paper that 0:11:41.840 --> 0:11:44.120 I thought was interesting. The the author actually makes a 0:11:44.240 --> 0:11:48.520 table of observations of raccoons eating different kinds of foods 0:11:48.559 --> 0:11:52.280 and ranks them by which foods were doused the most 0:11:52.360 --> 0:11:55.520 often to the least often. So so if you look 0:11:55.559 --> 0:11:57.839 at this list, the foods that were doused the least 0:11:57.880 --> 0:12:03.000 often where things like corn oats and earthworms, and the 0:12:03.000 --> 0:12:08.480 foods that were doused the most often were crayfish, shrimp, water, snails, 0:12:08.640 --> 0:12:17.120 land snails, crabs, locusts, cockroaches, muscles, clams, cherries, grapes, eggs, 0:12:17.240 --> 0:12:19.240 and I'm reading down the list now, so I'm getting 0:12:19.240 --> 0:12:22.120 to about the middle. But one thing I thought was 0:12:22.200 --> 0:12:25.680 interesting is that a lot of the food items that 0:12:25.720 --> 0:12:29.000 are the most doused are animals that naturally live in 0:12:29.040 --> 0:12:31.400 the water. So I think they're being given to the raccoon, 0:12:31.559 --> 0:12:34.800 probably already dead or or out of the water when 0:12:34.840 --> 0:12:37.680 the raccoon receives them. But the raccoon is taking them 0:12:37.679 --> 0:12:41.560 to the water and dousing them and then eating them. Yeah, yeah, 0:12:41.559 --> 0:12:44.560 that is notable on this this hierarchy here though of 0:12:44.600 --> 0:12:46.480 course that you know, you look at it too, and 0:12:46.520 --> 0:12:51.000 you're thrown for a curve on why the cherries are 0:12:51.080 --> 0:12:55.200 ranked so high, why the earthworm is ranked so low? Um. 0:12:55.440 --> 0:12:57.160 Other things seem to make you know a certain amount 0:12:57.200 --> 0:13:00.240 of sense, like okay, yeah, well corn is more us 0:13:00.320 --> 0:13:02.480 good to go the same with a pair. But so 0:13:02.559 --> 0:13:05.680 this study tried a couple of experiments to test the 0:13:05.720 --> 0:13:10.959 reigning hypotheses, the food moistening hypothesis and the active cleansing hypothesis. 0:13:11.000 --> 0:13:14.680 So as far as the cleansing hypothesis, uh, they said Okay, 0:13:14.679 --> 0:13:17.120 what if we try giving raccoons food that is dirty 0:13:17.520 --> 0:13:20.160 and then food that we've already cleaned off to see 0:13:20.240 --> 0:13:22.480 what the raccoons do with it. Will that make a difference? 0:13:22.520 --> 0:13:26.200 Like will they clean? Will they douse dirty food more 0:13:26.280 --> 0:13:29.520 than clean food? So this was tried with quote, small 0:13:29.640 --> 0:13:32.319 mud crabs, so that they might forge for these in 0:13:32.360 --> 0:13:34.240 the wild and you might expect them to have mud 0:13:34.280 --> 0:13:37.080 on them. And so raccoons in captivity were tested with 0:13:37.120 --> 0:13:39.240 clean crabs and dirty crabs, and what do you know, 0:13:39.400 --> 0:13:42.160 it made no difference at all. In fact, this was 0:13:42.280 --> 0:13:45.880 not a significant difference. But they doused the clean crabs 0:13:45.920 --> 0:13:48.559 more than the muddy crabs. Yeah. Yeah, So like if 0:13:48.559 --> 0:13:51.199 you're if you're going to be desperate with findings from 0:13:51.200 --> 0:13:55.840 this study like this wouldn't even back up the idea 0:13:55.880 --> 0:13:59.199 that they're washing anything exactly. So according to this experiment, 0:13:59.280 --> 0:14:02.320 it makes no difference at all, just sometimes they dunk 0:14:02.360 --> 0:14:05.120 and sometimes they don't, and it appears to have no 0:14:05.280 --> 0:14:08.920 relationship whatsoever to the amount of mud. So that's taken 0:14:08.960 --> 0:14:11.720 as a hit against the active cleansing hypothesis. But what 0:14:11.760 --> 0:14:15.400 about the moistening action idea? So what if the point 0:14:15.400 --> 0:14:18.040 of dowsing is too, is that wet food is easier 0:14:18.040 --> 0:14:21.640 to eat. Well, they tested this with an experiment as well. 0:14:22.080 --> 0:14:24.840 Um So Lle Watson says there was a series of 0:14:24.880 --> 0:14:29.480 three trials with the choices between dry dog biscuits, dried shrimps, 0:14:29.480 --> 0:14:32.920 and similar objects which had been soaked in water, and 0:14:32.960 --> 0:14:36.520 the result was again the raccoons showed no significant difference 0:14:36.560 --> 0:14:39.080 at all. They were just as likely to dunk in 0:14:39.240 --> 0:14:42.800 douse wet food objects as they were to douse dry ones. 0:14:44.000 --> 0:14:46.960 So both of the active hypotheses at at the time 0:14:46.960 --> 0:14:49.680 of the study in nineteen sixty three were disconfirmed by 0:14:49.720 --> 0:14:53.680 the experiments that Layle Watson did. So what does the 0:14:53.720 --> 0:14:56.960 author here think that the that the dowsing is actually 0:14:57.040 --> 0:14:59.960 for Well, he has an interesting idea. Of course the 0:15:00.120 --> 0:15:03.040 is not conclusive, but this is his interpretation. He says, 0:15:03.240 --> 0:15:06.920 um that the best explanation is that raccoon dousing of 0:15:07.000 --> 0:15:11.600 food is quote an artificial creation of a natural situation 0:15:12.000 --> 0:15:15.280 whose function is to allow the expression of a thwarted 0:15:15.360 --> 0:15:18.840 independent feeding mechanism. So I think what he means by 0:15:18.880 --> 0:15:23.120 this is that a raccoon, when dousing food, is going 0:15:23.160 --> 0:15:27.920 through the motions of an instinctual water based foraging or 0:15:28.000 --> 0:15:32.680 hunting strategy, that is, that is naturally rewarding, you know, 0:15:32.720 --> 0:15:35.320 in the same way that the hunting or foraging behaviors 0:15:35.320 --> 0:15:37.800 are to all kinds of animals. You know, we're motivated 0:15:37.840 --> 0:15:41.440 to do them, and it's rewarding to the raccoon's brain 0:15:41.920 --> 0:15:45.680 and associated with the acquisition of food, even though in 0:15:45.720 --> 0:15:50.600 these captive scenarios it's not actually doing anything. Now that 0:15:50.720 --> 0:15:53.960 that's interesting. That would mean it's not adaptive. Well, it 0:15:53.960 --> 0:15:56.600 would be. It would be adaptive that a raccoon has 0:15:56.640 --> 0:15:59.400 a natural desire to like fish around in the water 0:15:59.560 --> 0:16:03.440 for food items. But that maybe this this urge is 0:16:03.480 --> 0:16:06.200 so strong it's coming through even in moments where it 0:16:06.240 --> 0:16:10.640 doesn't actually need to forage. It's just satisfying an overwhelming desire. 0:16:10.880 --> 0:16:13.520 And he gives a comparison. So what Watson says, his 0:16:13.640 --> 0:16:17.200 quote the raccoons behavior is perhaps most closely related to 0:16:17.240 --> 0:16:20.880 what may be called the quote revitalizing behavior of certain 0:16:20.960 --> 0:16:24.800 feel a day cats. A captive cat who's hunting patterns 0:16:24.800 --> 0:16:27.440 of behavior are starved by virtue of the fact that 0:16:27.480 --> 0:16:31.880 all food is presented dead, will artificially create the opportunity 0:16:31.960 --> 0:16:35.640 to satisfy these responses by throwing a dead bird into 0:16:35.640 --> 0:16:38.720 the air and quote giving it life in order that 0:16:38.760 --> 0:16:41.600 it may be hunted down and caught before being eaten. 0:16:42.040 --> 0:16:44.760 This has been particularly well observed in the Golden Cat 0:16:44.880 --> 0:16:49.480 or Feelish Taminki at the London Zoo and uh so 0:16:49.480 --> 0:16:51.200 so Yeah, in the same way that you might see 0:16:51.560 --> 0:16:55.240 a cat that doesn't actually need to hunt, kind of 0:16:55.320 --> 0:16:58.440 batting a food item or even like a dead mouse 0:16:58.480 --> 0:17:01.520 around as if like it's still alive. And maybe the 0:17:01.520 --> 0:17:06.080 cat is trying to satisfy some need for hunting behaviors 0:17:06.080 --> 0:17:10.399 just because the hunting behaviors are instinctually rewarding. Perhaps the 0:17:10.520 --> 0:17:14.320 raccoon is doing something similar by fishing around for a 0:17:14.400 --> 0:17:17.240 food item that it actually already has in possession in 0:17:17.280 --> 0:17:21.560 the water, m okay, and so in this it would 0:17:21.600 --> 0:17:25.119 be comparable to like the play we observe in cats. 0:17:25.480 --> 0:17:27.200 We think of it as play. They're playing with a toy, 0:17:27.240 --> 0:17:30.840 but it's of course hunting instinct that you know that 0:17:30.880 --> 0:17:33.880 they've they're highly evolved to partake in. And if it's 0:17:34.320 --> 0:17:38.240 and even though there's nothing live running around your living room, uh, 0:17:38.280 --> 0:17:41.879 they need to engage in that kind of activity anyway, right, 0:17:41.880 --> 0:17:46.000 they have an instinctual drive for for hunting behaviors. They 0:17:46.040 --> 0:17:49.520 can't actually hunt in their environment because there's nothing to hunt, 0:17:49.880 --> 0:17:53.280 so they kind of hunt in superfluous ways, hunt in 0:17:53.320 --> 0:17:56.479 ways that are not really necessary and so uh and 0:17:56.520 --> 0:17:59.280 so Lyle Watson links this to the idea that this 0:17:59.359 --> 0:18:02.560 behavior is primarily observed or in his in his belief, 0:18:02.600 --> 0:18:06.520 only observed in raccoons in captivity. You know, normally they'd 0:18:06.520 --> 0:18:09.480 be out fishing around for crayfish and crabs and stuff 0:18:09.560 --> 0:18:13.160 in the water. In captivity, they don't have to do that, 0:18:13.440 --> 0:18:16.679 so they satisfied this drive by swishing their food items 0:18:16.720 --> 0:18:20.679 around in the water. I've remember hearing before that the 0:18:20.840 --> 0:18:24.119 like the hands of the raccoon are extremely subtle, uh, 0:18:24.520 --> 0:18:27.280 and that they're not affected by the like they can 0:18:27.280 --> 0:18:29.680 reach into cold water and feel around in cold waters 0:18:29.800 --> 0:18:33.400 with a tolerance that that humans are completely incapable of, 0:18:33.480 --> 0:18:36.560 and that their feeling of things in the water is 0:18:36.600 --> 0:18:40.160 more uh in line with like human sight, Like that's 0:18:40.200 --> 0:18:43.800 how sensitive their little hands are. Uh. So yeah, the 0:18:44.040 --> 0:18:49.080 sense experience of this, um uh, it makes sense when 0:18:49.080 --> 0:18:51.840 you think about like this uh, this sort of advanced 0:18:52.400 --> 0:18:56.680 uh grasping that's going on. This this advanced sense of touch. Well, 0:18:56.720 --> 0:18:58.879 that's actually the next thing I was gonna get to that. 0:18:58.880 --> 0:19:02.040 That is the The other or hypothesis that seems to 0:19:02.040 --> 0:19:06.639 be live about why raccoons doused their food is the 0:19:06.680 --> 0:19:10.119 idea that somehow it is it hyper charges the sensory 0:19:10.160 --> 0:19:13.560 abilities of their paws, and exactly like you're saying, raccoons 0:19:13.680 --> 0:19:17.440 are known in the animal world for having incredibly sensitive 0:19:17.480 --> 0:19:21.160 fore paws. Apparently they gather a large proportion of their 0:19:21.200 --> 0:19:24.800 sensations of the world through touch, and of course this 0:19:24.840 --> 0:19:27.600 is very useful if you're an animal that's like rooting 0:19:27.600 --> 0:19:30.399 around in muddy water for for prey. You know, you 0:19:30.440 --> 0:19:32.440 want to be able to get a lot of information 0:19:32.600 --> 0:19:35.400 by the pads on your fore paws, on your your 0:19:35.440 --> 0:19:38.359 hands and fingers, and so it has been argued that 0:19:38.520 --> 0:19:43.800 maybe the dousing behavior is related to the hyper sensitivity 0:19:43.840 --> 0:19:46.520 of their fore paws and the importance of the sensory 0:19:46.560 --> 0:19:50.240 information they get there. So perhaps moistening of the fore 0:19:50.320 --> 0:19:56.080 paws actually makes them more sensitive to textual information about 0:19:56.160 --> 0:19:58.879 the food in hand. So if this hypothesis were correct, 0:19:58.960 --> 0:20:02.159 it would be that dousing serves the purpose of letting 0:20:02.240 --> 0:20:06.240 the raccoon get better sensory information about the food they're 0:20:06.240 --> 0:20:09.320 about to eat in the type of sense uh, since 0:20:09.359 --> 0:20:11.920 realm that is most relevant to them, which is touch. 0:20:12.320 --> 0:20:14.600 So it would be sort of similar to a human 0:20:14.760 --> 0:20:16.959 looking at a morsel of food by holding it up 0:20:16.960 --> 0:20:18.760 to the light so they could get a better look 0:20:18.800 --> 0:20:21.160 at it. Or you know, a dog really going to 0:20:21.160 --> 0:20:23.639 town sniffing a piece of food before they eat it. 0:20:23.960 --> 0:20:27.320 That it would be a specialized sense heightening behavior that 0:20:27.440 --> 0:20:31.359 is particular to the sense regime of the raccoon. Ah. 0:20:31.640 --> 0:20:33.560 Now this, yeah, this makes a lot of sense, and 0:20:33.600 --> 0:20:35.639 at the same time, it also makes that cotton candy 0:20:35.760 --> 0:20:39.480 video all the more heartbreaking because it really wanted to 0:20:39.560 --> 0:20:44.359 understand this. This uh, this sugary concoction. What is this thing? Well, 0:20:44.680 --> 0:20:47.200 let me douse it in the water and feel it 0:20:47.240 --> 0:20:49.880 a little bit more. What now it is completely gone? 0:20:50.160 --> 0:20:52.439 Now I have I know even less about it than 0:20:52.440 --> 0:20:55.280 I did before. But anyway, I'm intrigued by both of 0:20:55.320 --> 0:20:57.520 these hypotheses. I don't know which one I would lean 0:20:57.560 --> 0:21:01.280 more towards, the sort of the hyper charging sensory data 0:21:01.359 --> 0:21:07.000 from the from the hands or the thwarted natural foraging behavior. Uh. 0:21:07.119 --> 0:21:09.840 Both both seem possible to me based on what I've read. 0:21:10.160 --> 0:21:13.120 The interesting thing about the idea of awar thwarted foraging 0:21:13.160 --> 0:21:16.600 behavior is that, um, it would seem to connect to 0:21:16.840 --> 0:21:19.679 that that list of foods that are doused most often, 0:21:20.000 --> 0:21:22.359 that the top of the list was all like aquatic 0:21:22.440 --> 0:21:26.439 animals that the raccoon would naturally forage for in the 0:21:26.480 --> 0:21:35.640 creeks and in the mud. Thank but Rob, if you're ready, 0:21:35.640 --> 0:21:38.560 I would actually like to turn to another example of 0:21:38.600 --> 0:21:42.080 animals doing something to their food that looks like washing 0:21:42.760 --> 0:21:46.480 but has been hypothesized to have a different purpose altogether. 0:21:47.000 --> 0:21:51.800 And this is related to seasoning. So in the last episode, 0:21:51.960 --> 0:21:55.399 uh we spoken whispers of horror about the idea of 0:21:55.400 --> 0:21:59.320 eating an unseasoned potato. You know, potatoes are great, they 0:21:59.680 --> 0:22:03.000 really needs some salt and pepper, hopefully some fat of 0:22:03.040 --> 0:22:06.199 some kind, butter oil or something to take them to 0:22:06.240 --> 0:22:09.720 their full potential. Just just the thought of a completely 0:22:09.880 --> 0:22:15.600 unseasoned cooked potato is is is very unappetizing. Yeah, even 0:22:15.640 --> 0:22:17.680 if you have one of those those really good potatoes, 0:22:17.720 --> 0:22:20.920 you know, like those fingerlings and the purple potatoes and 0:22:21.080 --> 0:22:24.120 of course sweet potatoes, even then they need a little something. 0:22:24.160 --> 0:22:27.000 And if you get into the realm of the Russets 0:22:27.040 --> 0:22:29.479 all the more. Now as always, of course, you know, 0:22:29.800 --> 0:22:33.399