Speaker 1: Welcome to Creature Feature production of iHeartRadio. I'm your host
Speaker 1: of Mini Parasites, Katie Golden. I studied psychology and evolutionary biology,
Speaker 1: and today only share we're doing a listener questions episode.
Speaker 1: I like to answer your questions every so often. You
Speaker 1: can write to me at Creature Feature Pod at gmail
Speaker 1: dot com with your questions and I might just answer them.
Speaker 1: So let's get right into it. Wait, no, what before
Speaker 1: I do that? Last week I forgot to announce the
Speaker 1: winners of the Mystery Animal sound game. So the mystery
Speaker 1: animal was the Koala and the ones who gets correctly
Speaker 1: the fastest or magnus O, Jacob em and amrout Kay
Speaker 1: and I apologize for forgetting to announce that. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm human or Kala. Kualas make mistakes too, So let's
Speaker 1: get into the questions. First question, how accurate is the
Speaker 1: new Tarzan movie? What animals would make a real life Tarzan?
Speaker 1: And this is from my name is Mud, who wrote
Speaker 1: a review with the question in it. Thank you for
Speaker 1: the question and for rating the podcast. You don't have
Speaker 1: to leave your question and the reviews for me to
Speaker 1: answer them. I will still answer them if you email
Speaker 1: them to me, but I sure do appreciate it when
Speaker 1: you leave them as a review and when you leave
Speaker 1: a rating, because that helps me and podcast. It's great,
Speaker 1: So thank you. Well. I had no idea that there
Speaker 1: was a new Tarzan movie. I was only aware of
Speaker 1: the nineteen ninety nine Tarzan. That was the Disney version
Speaker 1: where he's like, you know, skateboarding down the trees and stuff.
Speaker 1: It's not super accurate that movie. It's a good movie though,
Speaker 1: but you know, animal musical sequence talking gorilla is not
Speaker 1: super accurate. But apparently there was a live action Tarzan
Speaker 1: twenty sixteen. I'm assuming this is the new Tarzan you're
Speaker 1: talking about. I'm not really sure. I'm not aware of
Speaker 1: other Tarzans, but yeah, the live action Tarzan in twenty sixteen.
Speaker 1: Apparently Alexander's Scarsguard was Tarzan. I guess alexander Scarsguard is
Speaker 1: the most gorilla like of the Scars Guards. There's so
Speaker 1: many Scars Guards anyways, So yeah, apparently in this movie,
Speaker 1: Tarzan like went to England, became English, and then went
Speaker 1: back to the Congo Basin, where he had been raised
Speaker 1: by a fictional species of gorilla, like a great ape
Speaker 1: called the Mangani I don't know, so apparently he wants
Speaker 1: to investigate some kind of like slavery operation thing. I
Speaker 1: have not seen this movie. It seems pretty wild. I
Speaker 1: read the plot on Wikipedia. Apparently has Margot Robi and
Speaker 1: Samuel L. Jackson in it too, which wow, all right
Speaker 1: Star said it. The plot seems to be kind of
Speaker 1: focused on action stuff and like a conspiracy plot. There's
Speaker 1: a little bit of uncomfortable like white Man's Burden stuff
Speaker 1: going on there too. Anyways, Yeah, I cannot review this
Speaker 1: movie because I have not seen it, but I can
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about the concepts behind Tarzan, right,
Speaker 1: like whether it's realistic for a man to have been
Speaker 1: raised by apes, and then these apes sort of part
Speaker 1: of the ideas that they are able to communicate with Tarzan,
Speaker 1: who can like translate what they are saying to Jane.
Speaker 1: I don't know if this happens so much in the
Speaker 1: twenty sixteen version, but in the Disney movie and in
Speaker 1: the original books, the apes are depicted as having a
Speaker 1: language that Tarzan understands and can translate to Jane. But
Speaker 1: this is so great a communication is very interesting, and
Speaker 1: it's complicated, and it is definitely not as simple as
Speaker 1: like being able to like they just have a secret
Speaker 1: language and if we could just translate it into English,
Speaker 1: we could communicate, right. So this is why attempts to
Speaker 1: create sign language for apes has been difficult. It's been
Speaker 1: very controversial whether apes can really use sign language and
Speaker 1: to what extent. Obviously they can learn the emotions, the
Speaker 1: hand motions, and they can learn certain like words, but
Speaker 1: it doesn't seem like we can just kind of get
Speaker 1: over our communication gap simply by sort of creating a
Speaker 1: common sign language or lexicon or something. So ape communication,
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously it depends on the species. There's the
Speaker 1: great apes, there's a lot of primates as well. You
Speaker 1: use complex communication. It is a combination of vocalizations and
Speaker 1: body language, you know, like facial expressions, posture. It can
Speaker 1: be very complex. I can convey specific attitudes, it can
Speaker 1: convey danger or information. But it's not quite the same
Speaker 1: as human language. Human language is very grammatical in structure.
Speaker 1: It serves to nest concepts within one another. So you'll
Speaker 1: have a word that is symbolic for a concept or
Speaker 1: a group of concepts, and then you can arrange words
Speaker 1: in a sentence and then you're sticking sort of stringing
Speaker 1: concepts together, and you can have sort of a recursion
Speaker 1: of concepts, so it can get very complicated, and that
Speaker 1: allows us to create complicated ideas, allows us to do things.
Speaker 1: And that whole ability of our brain to put a
Speaker 1: concept inside another concept inside another one and kind of
Speaker 1: nest things and string things together is also likely what
Speaker 1: is behind our ability to create tools and other complex
Speaker 1: creations or act or you know, essentially all the things
Speaker 1: that we did to build our civilizations. So vocalizations are
Speaker 1: perhaps different because even though you could have like a vocalization,
Speaker 1: say in a primate that has a vocalization that is
Speaker 1: a warning call, it can be pretty complex where it's
Speaker 1: like this is there's a specific warning call for hawks
Speaker 1: versus snakes versus some other predator. Right, like warning or
Speaker 1: vocalizations that indicate happiness, contentment versus being upset or angry,
Speaker 1: or like a call that means come here or a
Speaker 1: call that means run away. You know, there are a
Speaker 1: lot of like complex vocalizations postures methods of communication that
Speaker 1: primates and grade apes are capable of. But right there's
Speaker 1: this distinction between that and can they actually form like
Speaker 1: a sentence with grammar, So it is an interesting question,
Speaker 1: and there's definitely been attempts to get apes to learn
Speaker 1: essentially a form of language that we can communicate with,
Speaker 1: like sign language or lexicon. So there is a lot
Speaker 1: of debate though about how effective this is. So there
Speaker 1: are apes like the famous one, the most famous one
Speaker 1: actually is probably Coco the gorilla, who was taught sign language,
Speaker 1: which is kind of it's really tricky because it's like
Speaker 1: not really clear, Like she definitely learned how to make
Speaker 1: signs with her hands, and she definitely learned that certain
Speaker 1: signs would get her something like a treat or might
Speaker 1: indicate a stand in for a word or something. But
Speaker 1: sign language is not just sign language, is you know,
Speaker 1: it is a whole language. It's not just like here's
Speaker 1: a hand gesture that means this thing. Sign language has
Speaker 1: a syntax, it has grammatical structure. It is just like
Speaker 1: verbal language. You're able to nest concepts into sign language,
Speaker 1: and so a Coco's version of this signing may not
Speaker 1: have actually qualified as a language. A more perhaps compelling
Speaker 1: example of an ape being able to learn something akin
Speaker 1: to a language would be Kanzi the Bonobo, who seemed
Speaker 1: to be able to learn to string together very simple
Speaker 1: phrases using lexigram. So a lexigram being like a symbol
Speaker 1: that stands in for a whole word, like a like
Speaker 1: say you have sort of a symbol that's like a
Speaker 1: few lines or a circle, and then that whole that
Speaker 1: symbol just means orange. You don't have letters, you just
Speaker 1: have the symbol that represents the word. And so Kanzi
Speaker 1: the but was able to memorize a ton of these
Speaker 1: lexigrams and actually seemed to be able to combine them
Speaker 1: in a way that indicated a very very simple grammatical structure.
Speaker 1: So say like he picked a lexigram a symbol that
Speaker 1: meant play, and then another symbol that meant hide, and
Speaker 1: so that's saying sort of like he wants to play
Speaker 1: hide and go seek, and then he would actually do
Speaker 1: that behavior. So yeah, Impressively, he seemed to be able
Speaker 1: to come up with some very simple structures of these
Speaker 1: lexigrams that indicated a creative combination of concepts, which is
Speaker 1: actually something also seen in deaf children who were raised
Speaker 1: in groups like you would have maybe like a school
Speaker 1: for deaf children, and they'd be in a group and
Speaker 1: they would spontaneously come up with sign language that they
Speaker 1: used with each other. Because human beings are so primed
Speaker 1: for language, were so social and were so primed with language,
Speaker 1: and the absence of someone teaching us language, children are
Speaker 1: able to kind of spontaneously come up with the language
Speaker 1: when they are together, when they're with other children, when
Speaker 1: they're able to socialize. But Kanzi, even though he was
Speaker 1: raised since infancy by humans, still runs into issues drafting
Speaker 1: more complex sentences than like say a two word construction
Speaker 1: or something that maybe has multiple concepts kind of like
Speaker 1: nested in one another. So his ability to use these
Speaker 1: lexagrams is really impressive, but it seems like he's still
Speaker 1: not able to get past grammatical structure of like a
Speaker 1: young toddler in a human so like, there seems to
Speaker 1: still be kind of an upper limit in terms of
Speaker 1: how apes can kind of truly understand or truly use
Speaker 1: grammar to sort of string concepts together. And so back
Speaker 1: to this idea of Tarzan, like, is it possible for
Speaker 1: a human child to be raised by apes and you know,
Speaker 1: kind of live as a happy family. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I think strictly speaking, it may be possible, But the
Speaker 1: thing is, we've never actually had any concrete evidence of
Speaker 1: this truly happening. So there's this idea of like the
Speaker 1: feral child, while you know, the kid raised by wolves
Speaker 1: like Mowgli and the Jungle Book, but all of this
Speaker 1: is fiction. There have been quote unquote feral children. It's
Speaker 1: kind of not like a great word for it though,
Speaker 1: because most of the times, like these so called feral
Speaker 1: children are just children who have been severely, severely neglected.
Speaker 1: It's not like a kid who went off and was
Speaker 1: adopted by wolves as a baby. It's usually a child
Speaker 1: who was so neglected that they were kept somewhere away
Speaker 1: from other people, so they weren't unable to social lies
Speaker 1: with anyone, and it's you know, fortunately this seems to
Speaker 1: be extremely rare, but yeah, there were like a few
Speaker 1: cases of children being kept in such severe neglect that
Speaker 1: they never learned how to speak because they never had
Speaker 1: anyone talk to them, which is really really sad, it's
Speaker 1: really awful. There was this case of this girl born
Speaker 1: in the fifties, like I think the social workers named
Speaker 1: her Genie, but she was severely neglected in abuse. She
Speaker 1: was like locked in a room with no interaction, and
Speaker 1: like there is after she was quote unquote you know
Speaker 1: rescued by social workers. There were a lot of researchers
Speaker 1: interested in her language acquisition who tried to teach her
Speaker 1: how to speak, and it only kind of partially worked,
Speaker 1: like she was able to pick up some words communicate
Speaker 1: a little bit better, but unfortunately when she went into
Speaker 1: like a care home, apparently she was again neglected and
Speaker 1: subject to isolation. It's a really really sad case. It's
Speaker 1: it's you know, and I don't know that it really
Speaker 1: is clarifying in terms of language acquisition. You know, it's like,
Speaker 1: I mean, first of all, it's a little bit I
Speaker 1: don't know grim this idea of like using this child
Speaker 1: who was severely abused and neglected, and in terms of
Speaker 1: like research about language acquisition, it's kind of yucky all around.
Speaker 1: But yeah, like I mean, in this case, right, like
Speaker 1: she was just subject to severe neglect, and it's kind
Speaker 1: of hard to know how it would work, say, like
Speaker 1: if a child was abandoned in a forest and got
Speaker 1: picked up by apes or something. It's just not something
Speaker 1: that has ever been documented to have happened. And so,
Speaker 1: you know, I think though, to maybe end the section
Speaker 1: on a more positive note, I think it is really
Speaker 1: amazing that both humans and animals seem to be capable
Speaker 1: of some empathy towards like other species, right, Like you know,
Speaker 1: Cocoa the gorilla really did have like a kitten that
Speaker 1: she really loved. There's a lot of cases of like
Speaker 1: animals seeming to show tenderness not only towards their own species,
Speaker 1: but towards other species. And certainly humans, you know, are
Speaker 1: capable of great amounts of empathy towards you know, their
Speaker 1: own species as well as other species. So I think
Speaker 1: that it is it could be possible, right, Like, if
Speaker 1: you had like a human baby, it would I would
Speaker 1: think that some maybe bonobo's would be the best candidates,
Speaker 1: just in terms of like being very gentle. Gorillas are possibly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know, because they are, They're not that aggressive,
Speaker 1: but just the sheer strength. There might be, you know,
Speaker 1: some unwitting accidents with a human child. But yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean it's a it's an interesting idea, but so far
Speaker 1: it has only truly happened in fiction. Next question, Hi, Katie,
Speaker 1: I've been trying to find the paper you referenced in
Speaker 1: the Odd Couples episode about researchers getting frogs with mutualistic
Speaker 1: relationships with tarantula's I mentioned it to my herpetology professor.
Speaker 1: Now I can't seem to find it. Can you help me?
Speaker 1: Thanks Hannah, Hi Hannah, thanks for the question. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: this was an episode I think from twenty twenty, so uh, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's so that was a while ago. But yeah, So
Speaker 1: to recap in the episode that Hanna mentions, we'd talked
Speaker 1: about the relation between the dotted humming frog, which is
Speaker 1: a tiny brown frog in South America who would be
Speaker 1: perfectly comfortable sitting on the tip of your thumb. It's
Speaker 1: only about half an inch long, and they seem to
Speaker 1: be friends with tarantulas of the genius pamphobias, and these transulas,
Speaker 1: despite being perfectly happy eating other kinds of frogs, and
Speaker 1: they enjoy the company of these little cute humming frogs
Speaker 1: or other micro hylid frogs species and don't seem to
Speaker 1: eat them. So the theory is that the frog gets
Speaker 1: protection from his big spider friend, and maybe the spider
Speaker 1: gets some benefit from the frog. The frog eats a
Speaker 1: lot of ants, so maybe it eats ants that would
Speaker 1: pose a threat to the tarantula's eggs. So this is
Speaker 1: the theory in terms of this mutualistic relationship. And as
Speaker 1: I mentioned in that episode, there was any researcher who
Speaker 1: skinned some of these little microhylid humming frogs and put
Speaker 1: their hides on another species of frog that is actually
Speaker 1: known to be like something that the taransula is willing
Speaker 1: to eat, and the researcher seemed to find that when
Speaker 1: she put the skin of the friend frog on the
Speaker 1: food frog, the tarantula got confused and did not eat
Speaker 1: the food frog. So it's not a big surprise that
Speaker 1: you couldn't find the paper because this was actually from
Speaker 1: an unpublished master's report from two thousand and two by
Speaker 1: Jolene Saccani. So her two thousand and two work was
Speaker 1: referenced in other papers in a Scientific American article, but
Speaker 1: I couldn't find, like any further research from her or
Speaker 1: any follow up research reproducing her results. I don't necessarily
Speaker 1: want to like tell people to do another study where
Speaker 1: they like do a buffalo bill skinning of these adorable
Speaker 1: little frogs and put them on other frogs. But technically,
Speaker 1: probably if you really wanted to, you know, have sort
Speaker 1: of a make sure that this is reproducible, one would
Speaker 1: need to do that. But there might actually be a
Speaker 1: way to do it without skinning the frogs, like maybe
Speaker 1: sort of isolating compounds in the frog's skin to see
Speaker 1: what it is that is signaling to the tarantula that
Speaker 1: it should not eat this frog. So there was actually
Speaker 1: a study in twenty twelve by Dundee, Shillington, and Yurie
Speaker 1: called interactions between tarantulas a Phonopelma hintsi and narrow melthd
Speaker 1: toads gastrophryne Oliva sha port for asymbiotic relationship. So these
Speaker 1: researchers housed tarantulas with the microhighlt frogs as well as
Speaker 1: a similar sized small species of frogs, a crooked frog,
Speaker 1: which so it's a frog, not a cricket. But confusingly,
Speaker 1: they also put crickets in uh and also UH roaches
Speaker 1: just to make sure that these tarantulas would eat things
Speaker 1: that they are known to eat. So they found that
Speaker 1: the tarantulas loved eating the crickets and the cockroaches, and
Speaker 1: they would, you know, pretty frequently eat the the cricket frog.
Speaker 1: So this is a frog that is not known to
Speaker 1: have a friendship with these tarantulas, and so the tarantulas
Speaker 1: would would eat this. Similarly, sized small frog that it
Speaker 1: was naive to and UH. But then they found that
Speaker 1: the tarantula never ate the microhihlot frog, the UH the
Speaker 1: Glivich frog, and so they also never seemed to try
Speaker 1: to attack the frog. So the authors speculate that there
Speaker 1: is either an obvious old factory Q that allows them
Speaker 1: to immediately recognize the little micro highlod friend frog as unpalatable,
Speaker 1: or they've learned not to eat the frog through experience.
Speaker 1: So also the idea is that maybe their skin contains
Speaker 1: a compound that is slightly toxic or irritating or unpalatable.
Speaker 1: But there also seems to be another dynamic for why
Speaker 1: the tarantula not only doesn't eat or attack the frog
Speaker 1: but just tolerates the frog's presence because it does not
Speaker 1: get defensive around the frog. When the frog is near
Speaker 1: its eggsack, it allows the frog to approach its eggsack.
Speaker 1: So this is kind of lends itself to the idea
Speaker 1: that the frog will eat the ants that could pose
Speaker 1: a threat to the eggsack and the tarantula is not.
Speaker 1: It is basically going to let the frog do what
Speaker 1: it once and is comfortable being around the frog because
Speaker 1: they have this mutualistic relationship that it's either learned or
Speaker 1: has some kind of instinctive response to allow. Cute detail
Speaker 1: of the study is that sometimes the tarantulas would rest
Speaker 1: their petipalps on their little friend frogs. Of the petipalps
Speaker 1: are those little they look like little hands or arms
Speaker 1: at the sort of near the tarantula's mouth and face.
Speaker 1: So it doesn't necessarily mean that they're being affectionate towards
Speaker 1: the frog. That's not necessarily like spider lingo or affection,
Speaker 1: but it's cute, right, I think we can enjoy a
Speaker 1: little cuteness from this tarantula frog friendship. All right, onto
Speaker 1: the next listener question. Hello, and many thanks for the podcast.
Speaker 1: I was wondering if feeding wild birds and providing nest
Speaker 1: boxes in our own yards was a net positive for
Speaker 1: native native birds or just another example of human intervention
Speaker 1: throwing off the balance. Speaking of helping wild bird populations,
Speaker 1: I've attached a photo of Waffles, the adopted street kitten
Speaker 1: who now lives as strictly indoor life with me. Best
Speaker 1: wishes for a great twenty twenty four from Adam. Thank
Speaker 1: you and congratulations on being adopted by the adorable and
Speaker 1: magnanimous waffle. You are guaranteed to be saving a lot
Speaker 1: of bird lives by adopting a street cat and keeping
Speaker 1: cute little murder waffles indoors, and waffles will also be
Speaker 1: safer from cars and coyotes and so on. So great
Speaker 1: job there. Feeding birds. So is it good or not
Speaker 1: good for birds? Obviously, if you ask a bird, it'll
Speaker 1: tell you to shut up and just give it some
Speaker 1: more bread, because they love bread, and they will eat
Speaker 1: food that is yummy, even if it's technically not good
Speaker 1: for them, like bread. So bread and other kind of
Speaker 1: human foods not so great for birds. That said, feeding birds,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't say that it is just always bad, right.
Speaker 1: It depends on what you're feeding them, when you feed them,
Speaker 1: how much, what kind of feeder. There's all these kind
Speaker 1: of conditions. So like, if you feed ducks bread, that's
Speaker 1: not really great. If you really want to feed ducks,
Speaker 1: you can feed them frozen peas that have been kind
Speaker 1: of thought out. Seeds and grains can also be okay
Speaker 1: or sorry, not for the ducks. Seeds and grains are
Speaker 1: good for other birds. Ducks will actually eat oats and
Speaker 1: corn as well as peas, and it's a good alternative
Speaker 1: for bread to bread for ducks, but it's still possible
Speaker 1: to like overfeed them or leave too much of the
Speaker 1: food in their habitat, which can like encourage algae growth,
Speaker 1: or you know, like rats attract rats which can attack
Speaker 1: their eggs. So you know, I would just say in
Speaker 1: a kind of moderation, like a modest amount of peas
Speaker 1: rather than dumping in huge bowls, probably fine. Like if
Speaker 1: you just you see a duck, you give it a
Speaker 1: few peas, that's probably fine, as long as you don't
Speaker 1: overdo it. As far as far as backyard birds go,
Speaker 1: like songbirds and finches and other birds you get in
Speaker 1: your backyard, seeds and grains can sometimes help them through
Speaker 1: the winter, but it can also backfire. So too much
Speaker 1: nutritional rich at the wrong time of year might cause
Speaker 1: a bird to go into its breeding season early. And
Speaker 1: what might happen in that case is that if it's
Speaker 1: chicks hatched too early, they might actually miss the timing
Speaker 1: for like the insect season, and so it actually might
Speaker 1: reduce the ability of these chicks to survive. Another issue
Speaker 1: with feeding backyard birds is if you have like a
Speaker 1: really large like feeder where a bunch of birds congregate
Speaker 1: at like say, bird flu is going around and they're
Speaker 1: all congregating, that might help spread bird flu or another disease.
Speaker 1: But you know, don't like throw out all your bird
Speaker 1: seed or bird feeders yet. Like we'll get into like
Speaker 1: what exactly you can do to kind of feed birds.
Speaker 1: So I mean, one thing is if you want to
Speaker 1: be safe without doing too much research, things like waterstones,
Speaker 1: bird baths, or planting native plants that bear either fruit
Speaker 1: or seeds or nectar that is attractive to birds is
Speaker 1: totally great. But if you have time to kind of
Speaker 1: do some research into your local native birds, theirs sort
Speaker 1: of seasonality, their migration patterns, and their natural diet, you
Speaker 1: can probably like put out some bespoke food for them,
Speaker 1: like instead of in one giant like feeder kind of
Speaker 1: scattered like scattering it around your yard, and which is
Speaker 1: kind of nice because then you would attract birds to
Speaker 1: different locations, and you can also look up like for
Speaker 1: your region when food is really scarce, when birds really
Speaker 1: struggle versus when they kind of are fine, and you
Speaker 1: don't really need to put out any food, you know.
Speaker 1: So basically what I would say is if you enjoy
Speaker 1: feeding birds, I don't think you should necessarily just stop.
Speaker 1: I think you should like commit to it even more,
Speaker 1: or research your local bird needs, figure out like which
Speaker 1: food is best for them, create like little fun feeding nooks,
Speaker 1: or maybe even just like plant some native fruit bearing
Speaker 1: trees or shrubs that the birds will like. Like you
Speaker 1: could take it to a whole new level of nerding
Speaker 1: out over birds rather than just like giving up on
Speaker 1: your bird feeding hobby. I would say that, Yeah, like,
Speaker 1: if you want to feed the birds safely, there's not
Speaker 1: like advice just I can give to everyone in general,
Speaker 1: because it's going to depend where you live what kind
Speaker 1: of birds you have there. But yeah, like looking like
Speaker 1: sort of do look into what populations of birds you have,
Speaker 1: what is sort of suggested for your region. You could even, like,
Speaker 1: you know, if you have sort of local bird refuge,
Speaker 1: you could write to them and find out like what
Speaker 1: season is the best to leave out food for birds
Speaker 1: and what kind of food is the best. So yeah, again,
Speaker 1: like I think that it's really commendable to enjoy interacting
Speaker 1: with nature. I think there's no shame in wanting to
Speaker 1: do that. But yeah, if we like when you go
Speaker 1: like for a little extra effort in terms of doing
Speaker 1: research about how exactly to do it. You're gonna do
Speaker 1: it in a much more safe way that's going to
Speaker 1: be more beneficial to the birds and less likely to
Speaker 1: create these kind of like difficult to predict like effects
Speaker 1: such as altering their breeding season. In terms of nesting boxes,
Speaker 1: nesting boxes are great, especially when you live in a
Speaker 1: region where, say there's a lot of building and not
Speaker 1: as much like forest or natural habitat. Just make sure
Speaker 1: there's sort of the right size for your local birds,
Speaker 1: Like the aperture of the whole in the nesting box
Speaker 1: can be important. Also, if you have snakes in your area,
Speaker 1: you might want a certain size of birdhouse, like the
Speaker 1: opening small enough for the bird to get in, but
Speaker 1: too small for like certain types of predators or snakes.
Speaker 1: You can also put nesting boxes on a pole or
Speaker 1: use like anti predator cones to protect the boxes. I
Speaker 1: would avoid using things like netting because that can be
Speaker 1: both harmful to like snakes and to birds because they
Speaker 1: can get tangled in it, And we don't want to
Speaker 1: hurt the snakes. Right Like we like snakes, we just
Speaker 1: don't want to necessarily serve them baby birds on a platter.
Speaker 1: Make their job any easier to get to the baby birds.
Speaker 1: So I think I think it's wonderful to want to,
Speaker 1: you know, help your local bird bird bird population, so
Speaker 1: I would I would highly encourage it, and I would
Speaker 1: encourage you to do it by really getting familiar with
Speaker 1: your local species and finding out what suits them the best,
Speaker 1: the kinds of things that really suit them, and I
Speaker 1: think that's would make for a very fun project. All right, So,
Speaker 1: thank you guys so much for writing to me your questions.
Speaker 1: Always enjoy doing this always sends me on interesting paths
Speaker 1: for research, so love that. If you have a question
Speaker 1: that you'd like me to answer, you can write to
Speaker 1: me at Creature Featurepod at gmail dot com. You can
Speaker 1: also leave a review of my podcast where you rate
Speaker 1: it you review it, and if you leave me a
Speaker 1: question there, I will read those as well. Again, you
Speaker 1: don't have to leave rating a review for me to
Speaker 1: answer your question. I answer the one sent to me
Speaker 1: by email just as much, but if you would like to,
Speaker 1: that is really nice. And thanks to the Space Classics
Speaker 1: for their super awesome song x Alumina. We will do
Speaker 1: the animal sound gissing game next time. And yeah, thank
Speaker 1: you guys so much. Creature Feature is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts like the one you just heard, visit
Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcasts, or I Guess what Where
Speaker 1: have you listened to your favorite job? I don't judge you.
Speaker 1: I'm not your mother. You gotta live your life, make mistakes,
Speaker 1: get messy that one? Wait, is that am I doing
Speaker 1: Miss Frizzle? I don't mean to do Miss Frizzle. Anyways,
Speaker 1: I'll see you guys next Wednesday.