WEBVTT - Licking, Part 3 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:06.760 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:12.880 --> 0:00:14.960 Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My 0:00:15.040 --> 0:00:16.280 name is Robert Lamb. 0:00:16.200 --> 0:00:18.880 And I'm Joe McCormick. And today we're back with the 0:00:19.000 --> 0:00:23.120 third part in a series on lick licking with the tongue, 0:00:23.160 --> 0:00:26.640 which we began before the week we were recently out 0:00:26.720 --> 0:00:29.960 for the holiday. We thought we might end the series 0:00:30.000 --> 0:00:32.480 after the second part. We got some great listener mail 0:00:32.560 --> 0:00:34.800 on this subject and decided we'd like to come back 0:00:35.120 --> 0:00:38.120 and talk about it for at least one more episode, 0:00:38.520 --> 0:00:42.600 so to refresh on the previous two episodes. In part one, 0:00:43.159 --> 0:00:47.000 we talked about licking in the context of ancient Egyptian 0:00:47.120 --> 0:00:51.520 ritual magic, where licking could bestow healing and divine blessings. 0:00:51.720 --> 0:00:55.040 For example, in the Licks of the Cow goddess Hathor 0:00:55.160 --> 0:00:59.160 who is described licking the limbs of Pharaoh Hatchupsot to 0:00:59.200 --> 0:01:02.240 give her life and kingly power, and licking could also 0:01:02.280 --> 0:01:05.200 be a vehicle for curses and magical violence, like the 0:01:05.280 --> 0:01:07.600 danger described in the Book of the Dead of the 0:01:07.680 --> 0:01:10.840 danger of being licked by the demon Crocodile in the afterlife, 0:01:10.840 --> 0:01:13.640 where the lick is some kind of attack understood is 0:01:14.000 --> 0:01:18.280 removing protective magic from the dead person's soul. We briefly 0:01:18.319 --> 0:01:22.279 talked about some research on at what age children start 0:01:22.319 --> 0:01:25.840 to get the idea that food or eating utensils can 0:01:25.880 --> 0:01:30.160 be contaminated by being licked by other people. And we 0:01:30.200 --> 0:01:34.200 also talked about the surprisingly interesting question how many licks 0:01:34.240 --> 0:01:35.959 does it take to get to the center of a 0:01:36.000 --> 0:01:39.360 TUTSI pop? That question kind of well, it starts from 0:01:39.400 --> 0:01:42.360 a classic candy commercial. If you haven't seen it, where 0:01:42.360 --> 0:01:44.920 have you been? Look it up? But also that sort 0:01:44.920 --> 0:01:48.560 of moved from the commercial to a bunch of laboratory experiments, 0:01:49.280 --> 0:01:51.880 empirical testing, and then I think you could say, finally 0:01:51.960 --> 0:01:54.080 winds up in the mind of the philosopher or the 0:01:54.120 --> 0:01:57.960 philosopher of science, prompting us to think about think about 0:01:57.960 --> 0:02:02.080 the ways that assumptions are often hit in seemingly mundane 0:02:02.120 --> 0:02:05.280 empirical questions and how that should affect the way we 0:02:05.320 --> 0:02:06.240 try to answer them. 0:02:06.480 --> 0:02:08.600 Yeah, we got some good listener mail about the tussy 0:02:08.639 --> 0:02:09.600 Rall topic as well. 0:02:09.880 --> 0:02:14.240 Yeah, definitely addressed in the listener mail episode from earlier 0:02:14.320 --> 0:02:16.080 this week on Tuesday, So if you haven't heard that, 0:02:16.160 --> 0:02:18.760 check it out after this In part two of the 0:02:18.800 --> 0:02:22.040 Licking series, we talked about wound licking behavior in animals, 0:02:22.160 --> 0:02:26.200 especially in mammals, and the difficult trade offs involved. In effect, 0:02:26.560 --> 0:02:30.720 the licking of wounds comes with both benefits and dangers biologically, 0:02:30.800 --> 0:02:34.040 so there's a balancing of risk and reward underlying the 0:02:34.040 --> 0:02:37.800 evolution and preservation of that behavior. Though fortunately humans have 0:02:37.840 --> 0:02:41.160 come up with a technological replacement for wound locking, which 0:02:41.240 --> 0:02:44.200 is washing wounds with clean water or clean water and soap, 0:02:44.240 --> 0:02:47.280 which gives us most of the same benefits while eliminating 0:02:47.320 --> 0:02:50.680 most of the risks. We also talked about the specific 0:02:50.840 --> 0:02:55.440 qualities of the cat's tongue and its roughness and function, 0:02:55.560 --> 0:02:58.840 and self cleaning, and some prevailing theories about what it 0:02:58.960 --> 0:03:01.960 means when a cat licks of human. After this, we 0:03:02.000 --> 0:03:06.120 got into eye locking, especially self eye looking in geckos 0:03:06.160 --> 0:03:09.280 and in a few alleged cases, I guess, some verified 0:03:09.320 --> 0:03:13.440 cases in humans with extraordinarily long tongues. And we're back 0:03:13.440 --> 0:03:14.800 today to do another episode. 0:03:15.240 --> 0:03:18.639 Yeah, so let's start with bears. So this is the one. 0:03:18.680 --> 0:03:20.720 This is the reason that we're doing a part three, 0:03:20.760 --> 0:03:22.799 though not everything that we're going to be discussing here 0:03:22.880 --> 0:03:24.520 is going to relate directly to bears. 0:03:24.800 --> 0:03:27.640 Right, So I wanted to begin with an email we 0:03:27.760 --> 0:03:32.760 received after the first two parts from listener Elena. Elena says, hello, 0:03:32.880 --> 0:03:36.080 Robert and Joe. I really enjoyed the episodes on licking. 0:03:36.200 --> 0:03:39.360 They made me think of a medieval belief about bears. 0:03:39.840 --> 0:03:44.760 People thought that bears gave birth to shapeless blobs of 0:03:44.920 --> 0:03:48.920 flesh and only through licking the mother would give them 0:03:49.000 --> 0:03:53.320 the physical characteristics of a bear cub. Elena, that's the 0:03:53.360 --> 0:03:56.040 whole message, So thank you, Elena. I actually did not 0:03:56.200 --> 0:03:58.640 know that. That was really interesting to me, and it 0:03:58.680 --> 0:04:00.520 made me want to do a whole segment here. But 0:04:00.600 --> 0:04:04.000 I have to also mention that with this email, Elena 0:04:04.160 --> 0:04:08.920 attached a medieval illustration of an adult bear licking. I 0:04:08.920 --> 0:04:11.600 guess what's supposed to be an unformed lump of flesh. 0:04:11.680 --> 0:04:15.280 It is like a three lobed little pink ham, just 0:04:15.400 --> 0:04:20.760 a little kind of three three hump thing. And I 0:04:20.760 --> 0:04:23.400 didn't know where this was from. Elena did not include 0:04:23.400 --> 0:04:25.440 that information in the email, but I did a reverse 0:04:25.480 --> 0:04:29.200 image search and figured out that this is originally from 0:04:29.360 --> 0:04:33.680 a twelfth century text called the Aberdeen Bestiery, which has 0:04:33.760 --> 0:04:37.080 been held by the Aberdeen Library in Scotland. Since the 0:04:37.120 --> 0:04:41.680 mid sixteenth century. The bear entry in this bestiary actually 0:04:41.720 --> 0:04:44.919 shares a page with the entry for the monoceros, a 0:04:45.320 --> 0:04:49.400 legendary one horned creature sometimes equated with the unicorn, or 0:04:49.440 --> 0:04:51.680 maybe a different creature than a unicorn, but sharing a 0:04:51.720 --> 0:04:54.760 lot of the same characteristics. Rab I went back and 0:04:54.760 --> 0:04:56.680 I got a picture of the whole page for you 0:04:56.760 --> 0:04:59.480 to look at here, so you can get bear licking 0:04:59.520 --> 0:05:04.280 the three and the one horned unicorn or non unicorn 0:05:04.320 --> 0:05:06.160 type creature right above it. 0:05:06.520 --> 0:05:08.440 Well, I certainly can't read any of the text, but 0:05:08.480 --> 0:05:11.120 the mere fact that the bear image is on the 0:05:11.160 --> 0:05:13.680 same page with the unicorn image lets me know that 0:05:13.720 --> 0:05:15.520 I can trust its accuracy. Right. 0:05:16.400 --> 0:05:19.920 The University of Aberdeen Collections website hosts a full scan 0:05:20.040 --> 0:05:21.680 of the text, so you can actually go look at 0:05:21.720 --> 0:05:24.400 it yourself if you'd like to. It's worth the look. 0:05:24.440 --> 0:05:28.719 It's pretty interesting. They've also got sort of interpretation materials 0:05:29.000 --> 0:05:30.960 beneath each page of the text, as well as their 0:05:31.000 --> 0:05:34.400 own translations of the Latin. I believe it's in Latin, 0:05:35.520 --> 0:05:38.919 but there are modern English translations. First of all, I 0:05:38.960 --> 0:05:41.280 have to say that the best Eieri entry on the 0:05:41.279 --> 0:05:46.800 bear is full of awesome twelfth century bear facts varying accuracy. 0:05:47.839 --> 0:05:50.600 I'm going to come back to the claims about the 0:05:50.720 --> 0:05:54.599 unformed newborn bear in a bit, but first I just 0:05:54.640 --> 0:05:57.039 wanted to talk about a few other things said in 0:05:57.080 --> 0:05:59.040 this text, especially since a few of them end up 0:05:59.040 --> 0:06:03.080 connecting in interesting ways. Back to the bear's tongue. The 0:06:03.120 --> 0:06:07.000 first thing that this book says, apart from some claims 0:06:07.000 --> 0:06:11.240 about bears being unformed at birth, is quote, the bear's 0:06:11.320 --> 0:06:14.880 head is not strong. Its greatest strength lies in its 0:06:15.040 --> 0:06:20.000 arms and loins. For this reason, bears sometimes stand upright. 0:06:20.600 --> 0:06:23.640 And I don't know, I think it's kind of hilarious 0:06:23.680 --> 0:06:26.200 to imagine somebody in the twelfth century looking at a 0:06:26.200 --> 0:06:28.159 bear and saying, not a very strong head. 0:06:30.440 --> 0:06:32.159 Yeah, I don't know. I feel like I've seen plenty 0:06:32.160 --> 0:06:35.640 of bear footage where I'm thinking long and hard about 0:06:35.640 --> 0:06:37.560 how strong and terrifying the head is. 0:06:38.000 --> 0:06:39.640 To be fair, I think this might not be an 0:06:39.800 --> 0:06:43.960 inaccurate original observation. Probably a lot of the facts in 0:06:44.000 --> 0:06:47.640 this bestiary are not direct observations by the author, but 0:06:47.680 --> 0:06:50.680 there are things being repeated from other texts going back 0:06:50.960 --> 0:06:52.159 into classical times. 0:06:52.440 --> 0:06:54.599 Yeah, that kind of game of telephone, And I don't know, 0:06:54.640 --> 0:06:57.880 I guess you could. You know, you can probably imagine 0:06:58.240 --> 0:07:03.160 certain interpretation of the basic form of the bear, and 0:07:03.200 --> 0:07:06.080 maybe in some cases, with some bears particularly, I'm thinking, 0:07:06.160 --> 0:07:09.920 like you know, black bears, you could maybe interpret the 0:07:10.000 --> 0:07:13.240 head as being smaller than the body. Like, you know, 0:07:13.840 --> 0:07:15.480 there's a way of looking at, say a black bear, 0:07:15.520 --> 0:07:17.720 where you might interpret this. I can sort of see 0:07:17.720 --> 0:07:19.080 where they're maybe coming from. 0:07:19.440 --> 0:07:22.160 Yeah, yeah, so there's a way in which you could say. 0:07:22.160 --> 0:07:25.360 This is kind of true, but not as stated. It 0:07:25.440 --> 0:07:27.720 is not fair to say that bears have weak heads. 0:07:27.920 --> 0:07:32.080 A brown bear, for example, has an extremely powerful skull 0:07:32.520 --> 0:07:36.600 with powerful bones and jaw muscles, powerful neck muscles, with 0:07:36.680 --> 0:07:40.400 a bite capable of crushing bones. What is true, however, 0:07:40.680 --> 0:07:44.960 is that when you compare the bite force to the 0:07:45.000 --> 0:07:48.920 body mass in a factor that's called bite force quotient, 0:07:49.120 --> 0:07:51.320 that's how strong the bite is compared to how big 0:07:51.360 --> 0:07:54.720 your body is. Even brown bears tend to have a 0:07:54.880 --> 0:07:59.640 smaller bite force quotient than many other carnivores, like less 0:07:59.680 --> 0:08:02.720 than half of that of standouts like the Tasmanian devil, 0:08:02.760 --> 0:08:06.040 which has an incredibly high bite force quotient and still 0:08:06.040 --> 0:08:09.520 significantly lower than that of a jaguar very high bite 0:08:09.560 --> 0:08:12.800 force quotient. So it's a huge body and a very 0:08:12.800 --> 0:08:15.680 powerful jaw. But you can say that its jaw is 0:08:15.720 --> 0:08:19.640 not especially powerful for its body size, but its body 0:08:19.640 --> 0:08:20.560 size is enormous. 0:08:20.800 --> 0:08:21.000 Yeah. 0:08:21.360 --> 0:08:24.200 I also thought it was interesting how the text claims that, 0:08:24.720 --> 0:08:27.240 so it doesn't have a strong head, its greatest strength 0:08:27.320 --> 0:08:31.160 lies in its arms and loins. For this reason, bears 0:08:31.240 --> 0:08:36.280 sometimes stand upright. That actually got me wondering why do 0:08:36.400 --> 0:08:39.920 bears usually stand upright when they do? We've seen bears 0:08:39.960 --> 0:08:41.920 doing this, you know, what are the most common reasons? 0:08:42.240 --> 0:08:44.760 I was reading around. It seems that people with a 0:08:44.760 --> 0:08:48.600 lot of experience with bears emphasize that the most common 0:08:48.640 --> 0:08:53.320 reasons bears seem to do this is for information gathering purposes. 0:08:53.720 --> 0:08:57.600 So the head contains the sensory array the eyes, the ears, 0:08:57.640 --> 0:09:00.800 and the nose, and by standing up and placing the 0:09:00.840 --> 0:09:05.120 head higher, bears allow themselves a longer viewing horizon, seeing 0:09:05.120 --> 0:09:09.760 over obstacles, better ability to use directional hearing, and the 0:09:09.800 --> 0:09:13.240 ability to isolate smells wafting from a distance as opposed 0:09:13.280 --> 0:09:15.920 to what's coming up from right around the ground where 0:09:15.920 --> 0:09:21.040 you are. Bears might also stand up to reach objects 0:09:21.120 --> 0:09:24.959 high up or to manipulate objects with their forelimbs. So 0:09:25.000 --> 0:09:27.640 there is some truth here. Bears do tend to have 0:09:28.000 --> 0:09:31.640 more forelimb dexterity than many other carnivores, though not as 0:09:31.720 --> 0:09:35.000 much as most primates. That dexterity comes from a number 0:09:35.040 --> 0:09:38.400 of things, in part, like the way that bears are 0:09:38.440 --> 0:09:41.160 able to rotate their arms with a greater degree of 0:09:41.200 --> 0:09:44.080 freedom than animals like dogs, whose fore limb movement is 0:09:44.080 --> 0:09:47.000 more restricted to the backward forward motion parallel to the 0:09:47.080 --> 0:09:50.360 length of the body. There are also differences in the 0:09:50.360 --> 0:09:54.160 bear's posture, like walking flat footed versus walking on the digits, 0:09:54.200 --> 0:09:59.559 which some carnivores do, having more separated digits independently movable digits. 0:09:59.600 --> 0:10:02.640 Things like that, and these things make bear arms and 0:10:02.679 --> 0:10:05.679 bare four paws more versatile than like a dog's fore 0:10:05.720 --> 0:10:08.760 legs and four paws, which are built with more focus 0:10:08.760 --> 0:10:09.560 on running speed. 0:10:09.960 --> 0:10:11.400 Yeah, and I guess something to keep in mind in 0:10:11.440 --> 0:10:13.880 all of this, too, is that in general, when we're 0:10:13.880 --> 0:10:18.319 talking about bears, especially modern bears, you're mostly dealing with 0:10:19.040 --> 0:10:23.000 a varied omnivorous diet. Of course, there are outliers on 0:10:23.080 --> 0:10:26.960 either end, you know, considering polar bears and panda bears. 0:10:27.000 --> 0:10:28.840 But for the most part, you're dealing with a bear 0:10:28.880 --> 0:10:31.360 that like one. Depending on what's available in the season, 0:10:31.400 --> 0:10:35.000 it might be eating a bunch of vegetation. It might 0:10:35.040 --> 0:10:37.360 be eating a part of a dead whale. It might 0:10:37.440 --> 0:10:40.200 be eating honey, it might be eating the contents of 0:10:40.200 --> 0:10:43.120 a refrigerator. You know, it's going to depend and it 0:10:43.200 --> 0:10:46.720 needs to have the abilities to shift between these different 0:10:47.600 --> 0:10:48.480 sources of food. 0:10:48.960 --> 0:10:52.240 The diet is more varied. Therefore, the bear's behavior needs 0:10:52.280 --> 0:10:55.240 to be more general as opposed to more specific, and 0:10:55.320 --> 0:10:57.959 so as a generalist, it has to have more freedom 0:10:58.040 --> 0:10:59.959 to do different kinds of things with its bot. 0:11:00.559 --> 0:11:01.119 Yeah. 0:11:01.200 --> 0:11:04.120 Another interesting claim from this book is about bear sex. 0:11:04.720 --> 0:11:08.080 It says bears and we have to assume here that 0:11:08.080 --> 0:11:11.440 this is talking mainly about brown bears, you know, for 0:11:11.559 --> 0:11:16.400 geographical historical reasons. It says they do not mate like 0:11:16.480 --> 0:11:20.400 other quadrupeds, but embrace each other when they copulate, just 0:11:20.480 --> 0:11:21.959 like the couplings of humans. 0:11:24.000 --> 0:11:25.960 You know, I didn't have time to see what else 0:11:26.000 --> 0:11:29.120 Plenty had to say about sexual positions for humans, but 0:11:29.200 --> 0:11:31.560 it almost sounds like he's saying for humans, only two 0:11:31.559 --> 0:11:35.080 sexual positions are known, and this is how bears stack, 0:11:35.559 --> 0:11:36.360 or maybe just one. 0:11:36.480 --> 0:11:41.920 Yeah, yeah, so it says, yeah, it says that they 0:11:41.960 --> 0:11:45.160 embrace one another. I can't say for sure that bears 0:11:45.400 --> 0:11:48.319 never face each other during copulation. I can't like rule 0:11:48.320 --> 0:11:51.400 out that that happens. But after some extensive kind of 0:11:51.440 --> 0:11:55.320 awkward googling, it seems to me that the standard what's 0:11:55.320 --> 0:11:58.719 called the dorso ventral position, which you see in other 0:11:58.800 --> 0:12:02.240 quadrupedal mammals, the male mounting from behind, that is also 0:12:02.320 --> 0:12:04.400 the norm for bears, at least most of the time. 0:12:05.280 --> 0:12:08.800 What is definitely true, however, and what may have inspired 0:12:08.840 --> 0:12:13.000 this claim, is that male and female bears engage in 0:12:13.280 --> 0:12:18.240 extensive courtship rituals, lasting for days or even weeks at 0:12:18.280 --> 0:12:22.280 a time. And these courtship rituals, while the bears are 0:12:22.320 --> 0:12:26.319 sort of getting to know one another, they can include 0:12:26.320 --> 0:12:29.959 all kinds of things that could be mistaken for face 0:12:30.000 --> 0:12:33.480 to face copulation. So this can include face to face 0:12:33.720 --> 0:12:37.680 wrestling and play fighting, which does sometimes look like embracing, 0:12:38.040 --> 0:12:40.360 as well as just lots of sniffing each other and 0:12:40.480 --> 0:12:43.920 nuzzling and body rubbing of various sorts. So bears go 0:12:43.960 --> 0:12:48.120 through extensive courtship rituals, and you could think how somebody 0:12:48.160 --> 0:12:50.560 seeing this from a distance could think that this was 0:12:50.600 --> 0:12:52.440 actually the act of mating. 0:12:53.000 --> 0:12:53.959 Okay, that makes sense. 0:12:54.040 --> 0:12:58.160 Another interesting claim here is the entry says when sick, 0:12:58.400 --> 0:13:03.320 the bear eats ants. Now bears do eat ants, though 0:13:03.360 --> 0:13:06.199 I couldn't find any evidence that they do so, especially 0:13:06.240 --> 0:13:08.480 when they're sick. It just seems ants are part of 0:13:08.480 --> 0:13:13.120 a bear's omnivorous repertoire, especially it seems with black bears. 0:13:13.960 --> 0:13:16.640 I was reading up on this and I discovered that 0:13:16.800 --> 0:13:21.960 bears are not usually interested in eating adult ants. Instead, 0:13:21.960 --> 0:13:24.400 when they go ant hunting, they are looking for what's 0:13:24.440 --> 0:13:29.160 called the ant brood, the plump little insect sausages that 0:13:29.240 --> 0:13:32.040 are the ant colonies young. This would be the larvae 0:13:32.160 --> 0:13:36.480 and the pewpe These are little grub like juveniles that 0:13:36.559 --> 0:13:39.960 are packed with protein and fat, and they are especially 0:13:40.040 --> 0:13:44.040 prized as a nutritious food source by black bears. And 0:13:44.120 --> 0:13:46.720 in fact, to come back to the subject of licking, 0:13:46.880 --> 0:13:50.120 have you ever seen a black bear's tongue, rob, I. 0:13:50.040 --> 0:13:52.600 Don't think I had until you shared this image here, 0:13:52.640 --> 0:13:54.960 and it is. Oh, it is extensive. This is a 0:13:55.000 --> 0:13:58.440 creature that I'm not saying it could. It could of 0:13:58.480 --> 0:14:02.720 its own power, own eye but the tongue is long 0:14:02.840 --> 0:14:06.240 enough to at least with help reach the eye of desire. 0:14:06.440 --> 0:14:09.000 Certainly. I've got one image here in the outline, and 0:14:09.080 --> 0:14:11.560 it looks like a whole can of bubble tape hanging 0:14:11.600 --> 0:14:14.440 out of the bear's mouth. It's just this long, long, 0:14:15.200 --> 0:14:20.000 pink thing. So a black bear's tongue is quite long, flexible, 0:14:20.200 --> 0:14:23.560 and sticky, and a major reason for it to be 0:14:23.720 --> 0:14:27.320 that way is to help the bear attack difficult to 0:14:27.320 --> 0:14:29.920 reach food sources. And this this can be I don't know, 0:14:30.000 --> 0:14:31.840 reaching up to get berries and other stuff. It's not 0:14:32.080 --> 0:14:34.640 limited to ants, but ants are a big part of this, 0:14:35.960 --> 0:14:40.280 attacking ant broods inside nests. So the bear wants to 0:14:40.320 --> 0:14:43.520 get the ant larvae and the pupet inside the cavities 0:14:43.520 --> 0:14:45.960 of a rock crevice or a hollow log or a 0:14:45.960 --> 0:14:49.080 piece of wood. Might chew, you know, chew at a 0:14:49.480 --> 0:14:51.640 rotten log or piece of wood to get some holes 0:14:51.680 --> 0:14:53.200 in it, and then kind of stick the tongue in 0:14:53.240 --> 0:14:56.760 trying to get the ant brewed out. And so I 0:14:56.800 --> 0:15:00.960 was reading about black bears attacking ant colonies to get 0:15:00.960 --> 0:15:05.720 at the brood, and I came across a fascinating hypothesis 0:15:06.080 --> 0:15:08.960 about that on a fact page for the North American 0:15:09.040 --> 0:15:13.200 Bear Center. This is relating to the chemical warfare that 0:15:13.240 --> 0:15:18.080 goes on during these black bear versus ant raids. And 0:15:18.200 --> 0:15:22.200 so the North American Bear Center page says, quote, when 0:15:22.240 --> 0:15:26.040 researchers experimentally put their faces next to the bears faces 0:15:26.080 --> 0:15:31.840 at logs, First of all, that's funny. The researchers jerked 0:15:31.880 --> 0:15:35.640 away from the acrid cloud of formic acid. Okay, so 0:15:35.720 --> 0:15:39.480 the ants are producing this formic acid to repel the 0:15:39.520 --> 0:15:43.200 attacking bear that's trying to steal all their children. But 0:15:43.320 --> 0:15:46.400 then this goes on to say, quote, they stood amazed 0:15:46.440 --> 0:15:50.480 that the bears could keep working. Formic acid is probably 0:15:50.600 --> 0:15:53.120 and again I want to emphasize this is just a hypothesis. 0:15:53.160 --> 0:15:55.440 This is not proven. But they say formic acid is 0:15:55.480 --> 0:16:01.560 probably a reason bears sometimes bite into insulated snowmobile seats, 0:16:01.960 --> 0:16:07.600 hot tub covers, and refrigerator walls. Huh, what's going on there? Well, 0:16:07.640 --> 0:16:12.320 they explain these items all produce formic acid when the 0:16:12.320 --> 0:16:17.000 formaldehyde in the insulation breaks down, making them smell like 0:16:17.120 --> 0:16:18.000 ant colonies. 0:16:18.600 --> 0:16:20.120 Huh. That is fascinating. 0:16:20.320 --> 0:16:26.040 So yeah, some industrially produced foams and insulating materials apparently 0:16:26.080 --> 0:16:29.920 do release these these scents that are reminiscent of the 0:16:29.960 --> 0:16:33.880 scent of ant chemical warfare. So what the ants would 0:16:33.880 --> 0:16:36.680 be producing in order to repel and attacking animal like 0:16:36.720 --> 0:16:39.560 a bear, it and you know, to a hungry enough 0:16:39.600 --> 0:16:42.320 bear that probably just smells like, well, you know, there's 0:16:42.320 --> 0:16:45.760 something in there that's good to eat. Another thing that 0:16:45.880 --> 0:16:49.280 is mentioned in this Besteria entry is quote they attack 0:16:49.440 --> 0:16:53.120 beehives and try hard to get honeycombs. There is nothing 0:16:53.200 --> 0:16:57.200 they sees more eagerly than honey. This one I rule 0:16:57.560 --> 0:17:01.200 partially true. Hard to say, hard to actually rank the 0:17:01.240 --> 0:17:04.080 food sources or say, there's nothing that bears like more 0:17:04.119 --> 0:17:08.080 than honey, but honey is and especially energy dense food, 0:17:08.160 --> 0:17:11.800 and black bears and brown bears will aggressively pursue honey 0:17:11.800 --> 0:17:16.720 resources in their environment. They are partially protected from beastings 0:17:16.760 --> 0:17:18.960 by their thick fur coat, though they will just also 0:17:19.119 --> 0:17:21.240 put up with a lot of stings on the face 0:17:21.320 --> 0:17:25.080 to get at the honeycomb, which it's worth emphasizing is 0:17:25.880 --> 0:17:30.320 rich with both the sugar dense honey and the fat 0:17:30.359 --> 0:17:33.600 and protein dense bee broods. So once again we're back 0:17:33.640 --> 0:17:37.840 to the hymenopter and brood. Those insect young are like 0:17:38.000 --> 0:17:43.000 little arthropod sausages, but unlike the ant sausages, which are 0:17:43.040 --> 0:17:46.960 retrieved through a cloud of chemical warfare, these sausages come 0:17:47.000 --> 0:17:49.639 preloaded with their own thick sugar syrup. So it's like 0:17:49.680 --> 0:17:50.240 even better. 0:17:50.520 --> 0:17:54.760 All right, So the bear appreciation for honey is it's 0:17:54.800 --> 0:17:58.280 a little different compared to the human appreciation for honey. 0:17:58.320 --> 0:18:00.399 We maybe shouldn't lean too much on Winnie the Poof 0:18:00.400 --> 0:18:01.399 for understanding it. 0:18:01.600 --> 0:18:03.920 Well, yeah, when humans look for honey, they're actually looking 0:18:04.000 --> 0:18:06.600 usually just for the honey. They're not as much interested 0:18:06.640 --> 0:18:19.840 in trying to eat the bee broods. Yeah yeah, but okay, 0:18:19.840 --> 0:18:21.760 we want to come back to the idea of licking 0:18:22.000 --> 0:18:25.440 the newborns, the stuff that Elayna mentioned in that original email. 0:18:25.720 --> 0:18:27.600 So here I'm going to read a couple of passages 0:18:27.720 --> 0:18:31.399 directly from the Aberdeen Library's online translation of the entry 0:18:31.480 --> 0:18:36.080 on the bear. First passage says the bear is said 0:18:36.119 --> 0:18:39.679 to get its name because the female shapes her newborn 0:18:39.760 --> 0:18:43.480 cub with her mouth or a giving it so to speak. 0:18:43.600 --> 0:18:47.760 It's beginning or sus ford is said that they produce 0:18:47.840 --> 0:18:51.200 a shapeless fetus, and that a piece of flesh is born. 0:18:51.880 --> 0:18:54.600 The mother forms the parts of the body by licking it. 0:18:55.119 --> 0:18:57.560 The shapelessness of the cub is the result of its 0:18:57.600 --> 0:19:01.640 premature birth. It is born only thirty days after conception, 0:19:02.080 --> 0:19:04.719 and as a result of this rapid fertility, it is 0:19:04.760 --> 0:19:10.040 born unformed. And then later the entry says, repeating some 0:19:10.080 --> 0:19:13.359 of the same ideas it says among bears, the time 0:19:13.359 --> 0:19:17.840 of gestation is accelerated. Indeed, the thirtieth day sees the 0:19:17.880 --> 0:19:20.480 womb free of the cub. As a result of this 0:19:20.600 --> 0:19:24.480 rapid fertility, the cubs are created without form. The females 0:19:24.560 --> 0:19:28.280 produce tiny lumps of flesh, white in color, with no eyes. 0:19:28.920 --> 0:19:32.520 These they shape gradually, holding them meanwhile to their breasts, 0:19:32.640 --> 0:19:35.320 so that the cubs are warmed by the constant embrace 0:19:35.720 --> 0:19:39.000 and draw out the spirit of life. So, to review 0:19:39.040 --> 0:19:43.119 the claims here, the bear's pregnancy lasts only thirty days. 0:19:43.800 --> 0:19:47.919 Newborn bear cubs are shapeless pieces of flesh, white in color, 0:19:48.000 --> 0:19:51.719 with no eyes. And then the mother licks the flesh 0:19:51.800 --> 0:19:54.920 lump into shape, giving it limbs, giving it a head, 0:19:55.359 --> 0:19:57.760 and all the other parts of the body, forming it 0:19:57.800 --> 0:20:02.000 with her tongue like a sculptor mold clay. I think 0:20:02.040 --> 0:20:04.720 most of you can guess correctly that this is not true, 0:20:05.280 --> 0:20:08.280 but it is interesting to compare to reality because, while 0:20:08.359 --> 0:20:13.119 literally incorrect, it taps into the spirit of some true 0:20:13.200 --> 0:20:16.879 facts about bear birth, about dinning, and maternal care in 0:20:16.960 --> 0:20:20.719 several different bear species. So one of the ideas mentioned 0:20:20.720 --> 0:20:23.560 here is that the bear cubs are born as these 0:20:23.600 --> 0:20:28.080 limbless flesh lumps after a mere thirty day pregnancy. That 0:20:28.240 --> 0:20:31.480 is not correct, but it does tap into something. So 0:20:31.560 --> 0:20:34.679 the total pregnancy time for a bear varies bear to 0:20:34.680 --> 0:20:37.000 bear in species to species, but generally it's going to 0:20:37.040 --> 0:20:41.720 be a lot longer than thirty days. Nevertheless, bears actually 0:20:41.760 --> 0:20:48.520 do have an interesting adaptation called delayed implantation, which means 0:20:48.600 --> 0:20:54.360 that a fertilized embryo will pause its development for months 0:20:54.400 --> 0:20:58.360 at a time, only implanting in the uterine, lining, and 0:20:58.520 --> 0:21:04.000 continuing growth if certain timing and metabolic conditions are met. 0:21:04.359 --> 0:21:08.320 For example, in the North American black bear, mating typically 0:21:08.359 --> 0:21:11.600 happens in the spring or early summer, and then you 0:21:11.640 --> 0:21:14.160 will get a fertilized egg inside the body that will 0:21:14.240 --> 0:21:16.760 just kind of float in the uterus and it will 0:21:16.760 --> 0:21:20.600 temporarily halt or at least dramatically slow down its development. 0:21:21.480 --> 0:21:26.960 Shortly after fertilization at the blasticist stage, and it doesn't 0:21:27.000 --> 0:21:31.560 implant and begin differentiated cell growth until late fall or 0:21:31.600 --> 0:21:35.240 the onset of wintertime, and only then if the mother 0:21:35.359 --> 0:21:38.439 has reached a sufficient body weight so that she will 0:21:39.080 --> 0:21:42.400 have the energy resources to survive and sustain a pregnancy 0:21:42.480 --> 0:21:45.040 and provide milk for offspring born over the winter in 0:21:45.080 --> 0:21:48.840 the mother's den. The actual period of embryonic development after 0:21:48.880 --> 0:21:52.240 the pause, again, it varies. It might be like, you know, 0:21:52.359 --> 0:21:54.680 two months or something. Maybe maybe up to three months, 0:21:54.720 --> 0:21:56.800 so like two to three months or something, but the 0:21:56.800 --> 0:22:00.280 total time between mating and birth is a lot longer, 0:22:00.520 --> 0:22:03.719 might be more like six to nine months, though it 0:22:03.800 --> 0:22:06.640 is true, and I don't know if this is the 0:22:06.880 --> 0:22:10.360 reason for the initial claim that's repeated in the bestiary here. 0:22:10.640 --> 0:22:15.280 It is interesting that the actual time between the resumption 0:22:15.600 --> 0:22:19.480 of development here from the blastocyst stage until birth is 0:22:19.600 --> 0:22:22.359 quite short. It's still longer than thirty days, but it 0:22:22.560 --> 0:22:26.560 happens pretty fast. Interesting, and I was just talking about 0:22:26.640 --> 0:22:29.560 black bears. A similar overall pattern occurs in brown bears, 0:22:29.720 --> 0:22:34.600 with a few different slight timing differences. Now coming to 0:22:34.640 --> 0:22:37.480 the idea of the flesh lump, of course, that's not 0:22:37.600 --> 0:22:40.879 literally correct. Newborn bears of all species do actually have 0:22:41.000 --> 0:22:44.399 limbs and heads and fully formed individual body parts. But 0:22:44.640 --> 0:22:47.760 the grain of truth in the flesh lump legend is 0:22:47.800 --> 0:22:53.520 that newborn bear cubs are highly altricial and extremely small 0:22:53.680 --> 0:22:57.360 compared to adults of the same species. Rob, I've got 0:22:57.359 --> 0:22:59.720 a picture of some grizzly bear cubs for you to 0:22:59.720 --> 0:23:02.680 look at at here that are adorable, But they're also 0:23:02.880 --> 0:23:06.399 just so tiny compared to the adult. And they also 0:23:06.640 --> 0:23:09.360 look I don't know, you know, they're very cute. There's 0:23:09.760 --> 0:23:13.560