Speaker 1: Welcome to Creature Future production of iHeartRadio. I'm your host
Speaker 1: of Many Parasites, Katie Golden. I studied psychology and evolutionary biology,
Speaker 1: and today on the show, I'm answering your questions. That's right,
Speaker 1: your questions about animal behavior, about biology, about sometimes pets. Uh.
Speaker 1: You can send me your questions at Creature featurepot at
Speaker 1: gmail dot com and I do my best to answer them.
Speaker 1: Got some really good questions this time around, so let's
Speaker 1: get right into it. Here is the question. I've been
Speaker 1: breathing here since shortly after I was born, so maybe
Speaker 1: it's hard to think about having gills. We can't smell
Speaker 1: anything without drawing air through our nostrils. How to fish smell?
Speaker 1: And how do shark smell blood in the water for
Speaker 1: miles away? Do they smell with their gills or something?
Speaker 1: This is from j T. And I do want to
Speaker 1: point out the title of the email because it's very funny.
Speaker 1: It is do fish smell fishy to fish? So very
Speaker 1: good question, and yes, so fish do smell fishy to
Speaker 1: fish in the sense that fish can smell other fish
Speaker 1: and other things in the water, So this is a
Speaker 1: great question. Smells work a little differently under water. So
Speaker 1: up here in the air, molecules are carried by the air.
Speaker 1: We inhale them and they go up in our nostrils
Speaker 1: and they bind two olfactory receptors in our nasal cavity,
Speaker 1: and so that is how we will smell something. The
Speaker 1: molecule will lock on, that'll trigger a chain reaction of
Speaker 1: neural cells to our brain, and then we identify something
Speaker 1: as a smell. And obviously the strength at which we
Speaker 1: can detect smells depends on our species. Humans are decent smellers,
Speaker 1: We're not amazing. Something like a dog is really really good,
Speaker 1: and you can see with a dog they have a
Speaker 1: lot of techniques that involve the passage of air in
Speaker 1: terms of smelling things. So you see a dog kind
Speaker 1: of sniffing the ground and then exhale like snort out.
Speaker 1: That doesn't mean that the dog doesn't like the smell.
Speaker 1: Means the dog is trying to get a better whiff
Speaker 1: of it, with the air going both into the nostril
Speaker 1: and then those molecules binding to receptors and then forcing
Speaker 1: it back out of the nostrils once again, the air
Speaker 1: carrying the molecules passing over these sensitive receptors once again,
Speaker 1: and then they have a second pass at picking up
Speaker 1: even more molecules, and they have really really sensitive sense
Speaker 1: of smell. So all of that is enabled by the
Speaker 1: air carrying these molecules. But underwater you can have a
Speaker 1: very similar thing happening. So in the water, obviously you
Speaker 1: don't have molecules carried by the air. You have them
Speaker 1: carried by the water. So fish receive chemical information through
Speaker 1: the water. It's a very good hypothesis that there might
Speaker 1: be olfactory receptors in their gills, given that the waters
Speaker 1: they have to have water pass over those anyway, so
Speaker 1: it's a good spot to have some receptors there. In fact,
Speaker 1: they do have receptors there. Technically they're not considered olfactory receptors.
Speaker 1: They are taste receptors in their gills. In effect, it's
Speaker 1: a very similar result where these receptors are picking up
Speaker 1: on chemicals in the water, chemicals being any kind of
Speaker 1: like compound, any molecule, and are sensing that. It's just
Speaker 1: like they're the way that we've mapped sort of the
Speaker 1: fish brain. Some we categorize as olfactory receptors and some
Speaker 1: as taste receptors, just like in humans. But yeah, taste
Speaker 1: and smell are very very much connected, very similar in
Speaker 1: terms of how it works in terms of things binding
Speaker 1: to receptors. So technically the receptors that they have in
Speaker 1: their gills are taste receptors. But they do have noses.
Speaker 1: I know it doesn't look like it, but if you
Speaker 1: look at a fish or close up, they have nostrils
Speaker 1: and those open up to olfactory chambers. Their nostrils, unlike ours,
Speaker 1: are only used for smells. They do not breathe through
Speaker 1: these nostrils. Their gills they use for breathing, as in,
Speaker 1: they take in water and the water flows over these
Speaker 1: gill structures that collect oxygen molecules from the water that
Speaker 1: the fish can use. The nostrils don't do that. The
Speaker 1: nostrils collect water solely for the purpose of smelling it
Speaker 1: by the water flowing through, and again they pick up
Speaker 1: these molecules, but instead of it being oxygen, they're picking
Speaker 1: up any kind of like small molecule that combined to
Speaker 1: these olfactory or scent receptors in this nasal cavity. And
Speaker 1: then since what that is, so water containing molecules of
Speaker 1: things like amino acids or other chemicals enter into this
Speaker 1: old factory chamber and bind to the receptors in there.
Speaker 1: This exact same thing goes for sharks. So sharks are
Speaker 1: a type of fish. They have a similar situation with
Speaker 1: their nostrils where the water goes in and carries these
Speaker 1: molecules with it and then binds to the olfactory receptors.
Speaker 1: So they may pick up on say, amino acid proteins
Speaker 1: from blood which flow into their nostrils and bind to
Speaker 1: their receptors, allowing them to follow its scent from up
Speaker 1: to around a quarter of a mile away. They're very,
Speaker 1: very sensitive to this. But it's not true that they
Speaker 1: can smell a drop of blood a mile away. The
Speaker 1: scent would be too diffuse before reaching them, because you
Speaker 1: think about it, the physics of it, the molecules from
Speaker 1: that blood droplet have to diffuse use far away enough
Speaker 1: that the shark can get, you know, some amount of
Speaker 1: the molecules, these little proteins from the blood up in
Speaker 1: its nostrils. So if it's too far away, just mechanically speaking,
Speaker 1: it's not feasible. But the sensitivity of a nose can
Speaker 1: be that it picks up on a very small number
Speaker 1: of these molecules, where for maybe other fish or other animals,
Speaker 1: it would be way too low of a concentration for
Speaker 1: them to pick up on it, but they can smell it.
Speaker 1: So like the difference between say, humans and dogs, we
Speaker 1: need a higher concentration of these molecules to actually like
Speaker 1: have it trigger a response in us, whereas with dogs
Speaker 1: they have more receptors, they're able to pick up on
Speaker 1: lower concentrations of molecules in the air. So a similar
Speaker 1: thing with sharks, who are very sensitive smellers, but not
Speaker 1: maybe as much as the sort of internet or old
Speaker 1: wives myths have about them being able to like smell
Speaker 1: a drop of blood from miles away. So there are
Speaker 1: other animals in the ocean aside from bony fish, and
Speaker 1: they have different methods of smelling, but it follows the
Speaker 1: same principle of picking up molecules from the water that
Speaker 1: then bind to receptors. So, for example, sea slugs have
Speaker 1: a rhinophores, which are these horn like protrusions that pick
Speaker 1: up on chemicals in the water and it binds to
Speaker 1: them and it's you know, sort of a form of
Speaker 1: taste or form of smell. Octopuses have dimples in their mantles,
Speaker 1: so the mantle is the main part of the octopus
Speaker 1: and they have these little these little indentations, very very
Speaker 1: tiny pores where they can detect smells and you know,
Speaker 1: so like the water will flow over their mantle and
Speaker 1: it'll pick up on these molecules and they'll bind to
Speaker 1: these receptors. Their tentacles have taste receptors to further explore
Speaker 1: their environment, so like they have to for their tentacles
Speaker 1: to pick up on tastes and stuff like, you know,
Speaker 1: it's more of a tactile thing. They can like touch
Speaker 1: things and that will help them to pick up on
Speaker 1: the taste of an object or the chemicals that are
Speaker 1: coming off from it, and then other like all sorts
Speaker 1: of different animals have sort of different organs or places
Speaker 1: upon which these receptors are, but the mechanics of it
Speaker 1: are pretty similar, where it's like a molecule binding to
Speaker 1: a receptor. So for example, starfish have olfactory receptors all
Speaker 1: over their skin, but it's the same technique where the
Speaker 1: water passes over it, molecule binds to a receptor and
Speaker 1: then that they perceive that they have the feedback of
Speaker 1: like oh, here's something, and they can move towards it
Speaker 1: or away from it, depending on what it is so
Speaker 1: great question. Yes, fishes can smell, both smell as in
Speaker 1: being smelly and smell as in detect odors. Onto the
Speaker 1: next listener question. Hi Katie. Recently I've seen a post
Speaker 1: circulating online claiming that hyenas can grow a winter coat
Speaker 1: when exposed to colder climates. I cannot find proof one
Speaker 1: way or another and was hoping you could help me
Speaker 1: find some evidence. Thank you for the help, longtime listener
Speaker 1: and zookeeper. This is from k Ewart and there is
Speaker 1: a Reddit post that they sent as well. And I'm
Speaker 1: looking at a fluffy hyena who appears to be sort
Speaker 1: of buy some rocks and also buy some snow. So
Speaker 1: this is a This is a great question. Always, if
Speaker 1: you have there's like some kind of internet claim about
Speaker 1: animals and you're sort of curious about it, please do
Speaker 1: contact me because I love digging into these things, especially
Speaker 1: when it's like something you just see all over and
Speaker 1: there's no never like a link to a study or
Speaker 1: an article or some experts say anything about it. So
Speaker 1: let's investigate this. Do hyenas grow winter coats? A social
Speaker 1: media post also makes a claim that that hyenas can
Speaker 1: grow winter coats? Because they used to roam Europe. So
Speaker 1: first let's let's explore the second claim, because that's that
Speaker 1: one's easier to address. We're hyenas ever in Europe. This
Speaker 1: part is true. So spotted hyenas, as well as extinct
Speaker 1: relatives of hyenas, including the giant cave hyena, did live
Speaker 1: in Europe for around a million years, but at about
Speaker 1: twenty thousand years ago, their range was forced south. It's
Speaker 1: not exactly known why they had to abandon Europe. It
Speaker 1: may have been due to the colder climate or having
Speaker 1: to compete with humans for resources. It could have been
Speaker 1: a combination of these factors. Right, it got colder, harder
Speaker 1: to get food, but then they also had to compete.
Speaker 1: There's no definitive theory on this that has been sort
Speaker 1: of I mean, it's really hard. It's really hard to
Speaker 1: prove anything that happened in the past. But the understanding
Speaker 1: of why hyenas had to leave Europe is not super
Speaker 1: well understood. There's just some theories that lack a whole
Speaker 1: lot of evidence. So they did exist in Europe though,
Speaker 1: for sure, and they did exist in cold climates before
Speaker 1: they were forced to leave, And we don't know whether
Speaker 1: they were forced to leave because say, their coats were
Speaker 1: insufficient or something like that. So onto the winter coat claim.
Speaker 1: So I looked and do this. I saw tons of
Speaker 1: posts about this on various social media websites, and like you,
Speaker 1: none of them I could find any reliable sources, Like
Speaker 1: it would just be this claim like did you know
Speaker 1: that hyenas grow winter coats because they used to live
Speaker 1: in Europe? And variations of that all over. Very frustrating, right, like,
Speaker 1: you know, how do you determine whether this is true?
Speaker 1: And I looked on Google scholar which is sort of
Speaker 1: my go to resources in terms of really trying to
Speaker 1: find some kind of evidence of something. I couldn't actually
Speaker 1: find any really good sort of studies on this. The
Speaker 1: closest things I found were like kind of vague claims
Speaker 1: made by books written I don't know, like in the
Speaker 1: nineteen thirties or something, right, So not really I wouldn't
Speaker 1: consider that a reliable source, so I'm not going to
Speaker 1: use that as one. But I kind of dug into
Speaker 1: the posts themselves, these social media posts, and interestingly, I
Speaker 1: found that they depict different species of hyenas, So some
Speaker 1: of these posts depict like a brown hyena, And if
Speaker 1: you a brown hyena is going to be different than
Speaker 1: a spotted hyena. They actually have a longer, shaggier coat
Speaker 1: than a spotted hyena. But they have this coat year
Speaker 1: round and they're they're they're very they're very cute, they
Speaker 1: look very nice. But it's like basically claiming that this
Speaker 1: is a spotted hyena, right, because spotted hyenas are the
Speaker 1: ones that used to be in Europe, and then showing
Speaker 1: a brown hyena. So I think part of that is
Speaker 1: that it's subverting the expectations of the person, right, like,
Speaker 1: who may not know the brown hyena exists because they're
Speaker 1: only expecting the lion King's sort of hyenas with the
Speaker 1: really short coats and not the brown hyena, which has
Speaker 1: a longer coat. So yeah, brown hyenas are a different species.
Speaker 1: They have thicker coat year round. They live in Africa.
Speaker 1: Their coat could be used for thermal regulation or protection,
Speaker 1: but it's not really meant for cold winter seasons. But
Speaker 1: including the post that the listener sent me, there are
Speaker 1: posts that genuinely depict spotted hyenas with shaggy coats and
Speaker 1: the images of actual spotted hyenas In these posts, to me,
Speaker 1: actually do show a normal variation in coat and main
Speaker 1: and not necessarily one that is seasonal. So one source
Speaker 1: of the confusion could be that spotted hyena fur length
Speaker 1: changes as they age, So from seven to fifteen months
Speaker 1: old they have longer fur, which then gets a bit
Speaker 1: shorter as they're older, and then really old hyenas might
Speaker 1: have some hair loss that gives them a much shorter coat.
Speaker 1: Can also depend on the health of the hyena. If
Speaker 1: the hyenas more malnourished, it's not going to be able
Speaker 1: to find off mites and parasites as well, so then
Speaker 1: it might have more mange or more hair loss, more itchiness,
Speaker 1: so then it'll have a thinner coat. And so there
Speaker 1: are a lot of factors that can affect coat length
Speaker 1: and hyenas. I really couldn't find any evidence any indication
Speaker 1: of their coat length changing seasonally with colder weather or
Speaker 1: being triggered somehow to grow out, say if they're at
Speaker 1: a zoo where there's colder weather than they would encounter
Speaker 1: in their natural habitat. Really couldn't find any evidence of that.
Speaker 1: That doesn't mean it couldn't be true, right, Like, there
Speaker 1: could certainly be some effect that temperature has on their shedding, right,
Speaker 1: I think it's completely plausible that if it's cold, somehow
Speaker 1: the hyena's hair follical growth cycle could be affected by that, right,
Speaker 1: very believable, But couldn't find any studies on it, couldn't
Speaker 1: find any evidence. But I did find plenty of evidence
Speaker 1: that there are lots of variations in hyena coat length
Speaker 1: as well as the patterns on it that does not
Speaker 1: have to do with temperature, So that could be basically,
Speaker 1: these these posts, like these images could just be say
Speaker 1: a younger hyena at a zoo where there's snow around
Speaker 1: and someone took a picture, and that are making this
Speaker 1: claim that in general hyenas grow out these longer coats
Speaker 1: in the winter without any evidence of this being true.
Speaker 1: So I'm not going to say it's not true, because
Speaker 1: again I think there's a it's a plausible hypothesis that
Speaker 1: hyenas could grow out their coats in the winter, but
Speaker 1: I couldn't find any evidence of it, And so when
Speaker 1: there's no evidence, I think it's not responsible to make
Speaker 1: the claim that this is something that is happening, right,
Speaker 1: especially knowing that you can have a law kind of
Speaker 1: a long haired spotted hyaena uh in perfectly warm weather
Speaker 1: like that. If you if you look at like go
Speaker 1: online right like, if you're curious and look at images
Speaker 1: of spotted hyaenas, you will see uh pictures of them
Speaker 1: in Africa in what's probably perfectly warm weather, with a
Speaker 1: variety of coat lengths, short, longer. And I would suspect
Speaker 1: that a lot of that has to do with age
Speaker 1: and health things like that. Yeah, but no evidence. It's
Speaker 1: it's temperature based. There could be some effect, but yeah,
Speaker 1: we don't know. And this claim that they have this
Speaker 1: sort of latent gene or capability to do it because
Speaker 1: they used to be in Europe, yeah, I really could.
Speaker 1: I couldn't find I could not find evidence of that,
Speaker 1: so you know, still could still could be true, but
Speaker 1: you can't can't make a claim unless you actually have
Speaker 1: evidence of that. So it's you know, social media is
Speaker 1: frustrating in that way, really spreading like something that it
Speaker 1: could be misinformation, and it's I think what's frustrating about
Speaker 1: it is there are plenty of really cool facts about
Speaker 1: hyenas and other animals that have plenty of evidence supporting it.
Speaker 1: And if this is true, and somehow the first person
Speaker 1: who posted it had some access to a study that
Speaker 1: was done on this, and then that got lost in
Speaker 1: a mix. That's also really frustrating because I can't using
Speaker 1: my modest research skills, I'm unable to track it down.
Speaker 1: The listener, who I'm sure also has research skills, couldn't
Speaker 1: track it down. So then you lose that like if
Speaker 1: it ever existed. You lose that connection to actual research,
Speaker 1: which is especially important with like social media posts, because
Speaker 1: there might be some real research and then you look
Speaker 1: into it, maybe the details are a little different right
Speaker 1: from what the social media claim is. And yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean things are just gonna get worse and worse with AI.
Speaker 1: I've seen a lot of posts of animals that are
Speaker 1: making some claim about an animal and it's not even
Speaker 1: a it's not even a real image of the animal, guys.
Speaker 1: It's like it's AI and it's you know, my There's
Speaker 1: like this video of a koala quote unquote adopting kittens
Speaker 1: and picking them up, and I was looking at it
Speaker 1: and my immediate feeling was this is not real. Just
Speaker 1: there is something about it that felt a little uncandy,
Speaker 1: even though it was very photorealistic and indeed it's a I.
Speaker 1: And then when you really looked at it, you could
Speaker 1: see that the number of toes and the placement of
Speaker 1: the toes on the koala is all wrong. So yeah,
Speaker 1: there's gonna be a lot of these claims made online
Speaker 1: about things, so please do, like, I really do like
Speaker 1: to try to either debunk or bunk these things. I
Speaker 1: don't know if bunk is the opposite of dbunk, but yeah, like, uh,
Speaker 1: send me if you find something online on social media
Speaker 1: where it's like making some claim about animals or even
Speaker 1: like an image of an animal that you're like, is
Speaker 1: this real or not? Do feel free to send that
Speaker 1: to me. You can write to me at Creature Future
Speaker 1: Pod at gmail dot com and I'll help you figure
Speaker 1: that out. Because I think it's increasingly difficult to parse
Speaker 1: media landscape. It's important to be able to do that,
Speaker 1: and it's it's getting it's getting harder. It's getting a
Speaker 1: lot tougher to uh identify misinformation. And so if it's
Speaker 1: something that's like outside of my area of expertise, I'm
Speaker 1: not very good at it because like the like AI
Speaker 1: and stuff is getting really good at faking faking you out.
Speaker 1: So yeah, thank you so much for that question. All right,
Speaker 1: on to another listener question. I watched a video recently
Speaker 1: about human persistence hunting and the video said the hunt
Speaker 1: took eight hours. This make me think, first, are there
Speaker 1: other persistent hunters in the wild? And then what is
Speaker 1: the longest an animal will take to do a single task?
Speaker 1: For clarification on what I mean, what is the longest
Speaker 1: amount of time a spider will take to build a
Speaker 1: web and doesn't take breaks while building its web? What
Speaker 1: about burrowing animals? How long will they take to build
Speaker 1: their home? What about mating displays? What is the longest
Speaker 1: an animal continues its dance or display before it will stop?
Speaker 1: Or are there animals that will dance to their deaths? Thank
Speaker 1: you for the wonderful podcast and for helping me understand
Speaker 1: evolution a little better, which is to say, now understand
Speaker 1: evolution less than I thought, but more than I did.
Speaker 1: But that's science. And this is from Daniel Hi. Daniel, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I think when you start learning stuff, you
Speaker 1: realize how much you don't understand. So getting more confused
Speaker 1: is actually sometimes assign your understanding things better. And I'm
Speaker 1: certainly confused a lot of the time. So you are
Speaker 1: right in that humans are thought to have hunted not
Speaker 1: by necessarily being the fastest or the strongest, but by
Speaker 1: being able to out endure or outsmart their prey, so
Speaker 1: distance running, tiring out the prey, but also hunting together
Speaker 1: and using strategy. We have a pretty unique ability for
Speaker 1: patients long term or medium term planning. That doesn't mean
Speaker 1: that we are the only ones, though, So let me
Speaker 1: I would actually just like to eat with your examples.
Speaker 1: Just answer all the questions in your examples. So the
Speaker 1: spider web question of like how long you could a
Speaker 1: spider take to build a web, it's a really interesting one.
Speaker 1: We can both look at individual spiders who build a
Speaker 1: web on their own and social spiders who There are
Speaker 1: various species of social spiders who usually are these little
Speaker 1: tidy spiders who live in these big communal webs. And
Speaker 1: so first let's look at individual spiders. A spider who
Speaker 1: will build her web all on her own. Many species
Speaker 1: of spiders can complete a web in around an hour.
Speaker 1: Kind of depends on how big it is, how complex
Speaker 1: it is, so anywhere from like twenty minutes to an hour.
Speaker 1: It certainly takes some patience, especially because there might be
Speaker 1: some interference and they have to start over again. But
Speaker 1: for a real marathon weaver. We can take a look
Speaker 1: at the Darwin's bark spider. These are little spiders. They're
Speaker 1: less than an inch and diameter, cute little fluffy spiders
Speaker 1: if you are into that sort of thing. They're found
Speaker 1: in Madagascar and they make these giant webs all on
Speaker 1: their own, so like where the basic the baseline structure
Speaker 1: of the web can be up to twenty five meters
Speaker 1: or eighty feet long and then two meters wide, so
Speaker 1: they have what's basically like a giant bridge made out
Speaker 1: of web, and then kind of in the center of it,
Speaker 1: you have this large expanse where it is an actual
Speaker 1: like spider web with the spiral and the reticulated structure,
Speaker 1: and that one is about two meters wide, which is
Speaker 1: still quite big. So the spider will sit on a
Speaker 1: tree branch and spray out a line of silk and
Speaker 1: let the wind carry it off to another tree. They
Speaker 1: like to do this sort of at river banks where
Speaker 1: there's like trees on one side and the other side
Speaker 1: of the river and you have a lot of insect activity.
Speaker 1: So the silk is really strong for it's a diameter,
Speaker 1: but it's also really really light, so it might carry
Speaker 1: it across the river, and then the wind takes it,
Speaker 1: and then it settles on another tree and wants the
Speaker 1: spider sense is that it basically has this long line,
Speaker 1: like I said, up to like twenty five meters, and
Speaker 1: now it can use that as a bridge for building
Speaker 1: the central web. So it goes out. It reinforces first
Speaker 1: this like sort of tether this line running between the trees,
Speaker 1: and then she starts to build the center of the web.
Speaker 1: And yeah, it takes a really long time. I wasn't
Speaker 1: able to find the exact amount of time that it takes,
Speaker 1: but many hours, many many hours to build this. And
Speaker 1: she is really really patient because often she has to
Speaker 1: restart if some bigger animal messes up the web, or
Speaker 1: even if another another spider, either her own species a
Speaker 1: Darwin spark spider or some other orb weaver spider finds
Speaker 1: the structure that she's building and tries to sort of
Speaker 1: steal her foundation to build its own web, and so
Speaker 1: she'll have to like fight off this other spider or
Speaker 1: cut off the webbing herself, and so she has to
Speaker 1: restart and tear it all down. She'll actually collect the
Speaker 1: webbing the silk, bundle it up and then she'll eat
Speaker 1: it because that's valuable for resources that she can't like
Speaker 1: redeploy the webbing, but she can eat it get some
Speaker 1: calories so that she can produce more of the silk
Speaker 1: from her spinneret, which is an organ on her abdomen.
Speaker 1: They create a huge amount of this silk. And it's
Speaker 1: not one hundred percent understood exactly how these little spiders
Speaker 1: are capable of producing just so much webbing to make
Speaker 1: these big, big webs. But they must have a very
Speaker 1: efficient metabolism, and as their behavior suggests in eating webbing
Speaker 1: that they have to recycle, they must be very very
Speaker 1: good in terms of allocating their resources so they can
Speaker 1: produce a good amount of silk. So, in terms of
Speaker 1: social spiders, this is like a different species of spiders,
Speaker 1: the little ones that live in these big, big communal groups.
Speaker 1: There's many different species of these, and because they work
Speaker 1: in large groups, these they're more human like in their
Speaker 1: ability to create structures that take multiple generations to finish,
Speaker 1: sort of like humans building a cathedral, right, So they
Speaker 1: create these multi generational webs that take long beyond a
Speaker 1: spider's single lifetime to build. And so recently there was
Speaker 1: actually a social spider web found that's over one hundred
Speaker 1: square meters found in a cave between Albania and Greece,
Speaker 1: made by over one hundred thousand tiny spiders. And this
Speaker 1: has probably taken many, many, many, many many many generations
Speaker 1: of these spiders years and years to build this up.
Speaker 1: I don't think they know yet. This is a relatively
Speaker 1: recent discovery. They don't know yet how old it is.
Speaker 1: I would not be surprised if it was, you know,
Speaker 1: over one hundred years old. And when it comes to burrows,
Speaker 1: we can actually turn to another arthropod. So termites definitely
Speaker 1: when the prize, when it comes to patients and building burrows.
Speaker 1: They build these giant tunnel systems that can sometimes be
Speaker 1: built over thousands or tens of thousands of years. So
Speaker 1: these are termites building tunnel systems and termite mounds, which
Speaker 1: the mounds are basically like the dirt that they have
Speaker 1: to extract from the ground in order to excavate these
Speaker 1: massive tunnel systems. And so they may have built started
Speaker 1: these structures tens of thousands of years ago and are
Speaker 1: still being inhabited by living termite colonies to this day.
Speaker 1: In Brazil, there is a termite colony estimated to be
Speaker 1: around four thousand years old. It is the size of
Speaker 1: Great Britain. So in it's this large area with two
Speaker 1: hundred million termite mounds, which you know they're not always
Speaker 1: like big mounds, but you know there is it is,
Speaker 1: there is a mound there of some of this dirt
Speaker 1: that has been excavated and put above ground. It is.
Speaker 1: I didn't really when I saw these these numbers, I
Speaker 1: was like, no, this is it has to be misinformation.
Speaker 1: I looked into it, and it seems to be genuine
Speaker 1: that it is just genuinely a termite country. That it
Speaker 1: is that these termines have over thousands of years built
Speaker 1: up in this Brazilian Uh, these Brazilians plane planes area.
Speaker 1: So the termites created what's essentially like an entire England
Speaker 1: size termite civilization. Yeah, let's let's keep going on with
Speaker 1: these really patient animals. The question asker really did identify
Speaker 1: an area in which animals have to be typically quite patient,
Speaker 1: and that is courtship rituals. That's usually an exercise and
Speaker 1: endurance and patients which might help the female select a
Speaker 1: male who has the fortitude UH to provide good genes.
Speaker 1: For example, for a lot of species that do co parenting,
Speaker 1: the assessment is often like, hey, can this other this
Speaker 1: this mate like actually have the attention span, the devotion
Speaker 1: and to be able to take care of our offspring together.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about some of the interesting mating rituals
Speaker 1: that take a long time. So, the greater mouse eared bat,
Speaker 1: which is the largest native bat in Europe, compete for
Speaker 1: females in les so alek is a mating display arena.
Speaker 1: It's a word used for multiple in any kind of
Speaker 1: species that uses like this, like basically a big mating
Speaker 1: area grounds and competes for female's attentions there. So these
Speaker 1: mouse eared bats will find a bit of roosting territory
Speaker 1: and they will defend it from other males and let
Speaker 1: out these trill vocalizations to attract the females. So all
Speaker 1: of this is tiring enough, but once a female actually
Speaker 1: comes and chooses him, mating can last over thirty hours.
Speaker 1: That's three zero thirty hours of mating. So this doesn't
Speaker 1: mean they're kind of constantly having sex during this time.
Speaker 1: A lot of it is cuddling actually, so the male
Speaker 1: will wrap his wings around the female for hours after
Speaker 1: copulation before going at it again. It's very, very time
Speaker 1: consuming to do this, very romantic, and it also helps
Speaker 1: him reaffirm the bond with the female, so the female
Speaker 1: is motivated to stay and also to keep fend away
Speaker 1: other males who may try to get in on this mating.
Speaker 1: So who knows, maybe human cuddling has you know, there
Speaker 1: may have been some point at which human cuddling had
Speaker 1: a similar purpose. Right, So, in terms of your other question,
Speaker 1: are there any mating rituals where the animal just basely
Speaker 1: does courtship until they die. It's not exactly courtship, but
Speaker 1: there is an animal that mates to its death, so
Speaker 1: this is the antikiness. These are small mouse like marsupials
Speaker 1: in Australia who go on frantic mating sprees until the
Speaker 1: male dies of stress. So for two to three weeks
Speaker 1: they mate near constantly, sometimes a single copulation lasting over
Speaker 1: ten hours, which is yeah, there's a lot. The huge
Speaker 1: surges of cortisol and testosterone actually kills off their organs
Speaker 1: and they die and the females will mourn them by
Speaker 1: eating their corpses, which is fuel for the offspring that
Speaker 1: the males worked so hard to fertilize. So you know,
Speaker 1: your basic meat cute in nature. Well, guys, thank you
Speaker 1: so much for the question. If you've got some for
Speaker 1: me that you want me to answer on the air
Speaker 1: or in a response to your email, you can write
Speaker 1: to me at Creature feature Pod at gmail dot com.
Speaker 1: That's Creature feature Pod at gmail dot com. Thank you,
Speaker 1: guys so much for listening, and thanks to the space
Speaker 1: Cosaics for their super duper awesome song XO Lumina. Creature
Speaker 1: features a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts like and
Speaker 1: When You Just Heard, visit the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcasts
Speaker 1: or Hey, guess what for you listen to your favorite shows.
Speaker 1: I don't judge you, I'm not your mother, but man,
Speaker 1: you know make maybe take some breaks when you're doing
Speaker 1: a mating marathon. Maybe get a massage or do some
Speaker 1: light meditation. Don't be like the anti Guayanas. All right,
Speaker 1: see you next Wednesday.