Speaker 1: Welcome to Creature Feature production of iHeartRadio. I'm your host
Speaker 1: of Many Parasites, Katie Golden. I study psychology and evolutionary biology,
Speaker 1: and today on the show, it's a listener's Questions episode.
Speaker 1: I love to answer your questions. It always sends me
Speaker 1: on a really interesting research trip. I go to the library,
Speaker 1: and by library, I mean I send my Piamazon, go
Speaker 1: on to Google scholar and el Sevier, etc. Make sure
Speaker 1: I am answering your questions with as much accuracy as possible.
Speaker 1: So if you have a question and you're like, hey,
Speaker 1: wait a minute, I want that answered by Katie, you
Speaker 1: can send it to me at Creature Featurepod at gmail
Speaker 1: dot com. Any questions about evolutionary biology, your pets, ammals,
Speaker 1: I will do my best to answer them as an
Speaker 1: armchair zoologist. All right, so let's get right into it, Hi, Katie.
Speaker 1: Let me start by saying that Death Bloat Corpse Parade
Speaker 1: is actually a really good pretend metal band name. I
Speaker 1: have a question about bird sounds. Some birds can mimic
Speaker 1: or have calls that sound almost mechanical or robotic rather
Speaker 1: than melodic. Does that have something to do with the
Speaker 1: mechanics of how birds produce sound. I've wondered this for
Speaker 1: a while, but the recent mystery sound White Bell Bird
Speaker 1: reminded me. Thanks as always for the great show, Carolyn. So, Carolyn,
Speaker 1: this is a great question and one I've wondered about
Speaker 1: many times myself. I think what have come to the
Speaker 1: conclusion is that the reason they sound more mechanical is
Speaker 1: how they can produce crisp sounds with rapid trills and
Speaker 1: fluctuations that are loud, clear, and distinct, as well as
Speaker 1: producing more than one note at a time. So when
Speaker 1: human singers produce trills, there's a sliding between notes. Now
Speaker 1: I'm not a singer, please don't laugh. This is what
Speaker 1: it kind of sounds like for you. And you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: you know, you have this sort of like in between
Speaker 1: the notes. It's not like, oh, although really skilled operatic
Speaker 1: singers can do that quite fast, not as fast as
Speaker 1: a bird can, which makes it sound mechanical right, like
Speaker 1: it sounds like a keyboard or an instrument. It doesn't
Speaker 1: sound like something biological because it's so fast, it's so precise,
Speaker 1: and there's no sliding around. So yeah, a bird can
Speaker 1: go from one note to another extremely quickly without having
Speaker 1: to make that slide in between the notes. So the
Speaker 1: question is this a mechanical or learned difference in bird's
Speaker 1: song versus human sounds or other mammal sounds. So surprisingly,
Speaker 1: it's actually kind of a combination of the two. It's
Speaker 1: not purely mechanical, but the mechanics are really important. It's
Speaker 1: also how birds learn. Song Birds have a syrinx instead
Speaker 1: of a larynx. The syrinx is the sound producing organ
Speaker 1: in birds, whereas the larynx is the sound producing organ
Speaker 1: in humans and other mammals. There are some physical and
Speaker 1: mechanical differences between the syrinx of a bird and a
Speaker 1: larynx that allows birds some special techniques. So the syrinx
Speaker 1: of songbirds actually splits into two bronchial tubes, each of
Speaker 1: which can operate independently of one another. That means they
Speaker 1: can produce two notes simultaneously, something that is very difficult
Speaker 1: for a human to do. There are actually a few
Speaker 1: exceptions to this in terms of humans being able to
Speaker 1: produce two notes at once. Tuven throat singers and other
Speaker 1: overtone singers can produce two notes at once. This is
Speaker 1: accomplished by an extremely skillful manipulation of the tongue and
Speaker 1: throat while singing to create a base, humming and overtone simultaneously.
Speaker 1: It's really really cool. It takes a lot of skill
Speaker 1: to master. Birds, of course, can do this more naturally.
Speaker 1: They also have a lot of other mechanical differences, right,
Speaker 1: They don't have lips or the shape of their mouth
Speaker 1: openings that well. They do in a certain ways, so
Speaker 1: like a large mouth that they can open really wide
Speaker 1: can produce a louder volume. That's the case for the
Speaker 1: white bell bird. But the precise control of shaping the
Speaker 1: sound with like our mouths that we do with human language,
Speaker 1: a bird can't do. They don't have the lips for it.
Speaker 1: They also don't use their tongues as much as humans
Speaker 1: to manipulate sounds, or as much as other mammals. They
Speaker 1: do use their tongue sometimes to shape sounds, especially parrots
Speaker 1: when they're mimicking human speech, they can use that tongue
Speaker 1: in a much rougher less We're much more skilled. We
Speaker 1: have more muscles and fine motor control over our tongues
Speaker 1: such that we can produce much mo more complex sounds
Speaker 1: with our tongues, whereas birds can't do that. On the
Speaker 1: other hand, they can produce very complex sounds through the
Speaker 1: contraction of muscles inside the syrinx, which changes how the
Speaker 1: sound vibrates. We also do this. You can experience it
Speaker 1: yourself by humming with your mouth tightly closed. Clamp it shut.
Speaker 1: You start to hum. All of that is coming from
Speaker 1: your vocal cords, right, the vibration of your vocal cords,
Speaker 1: and you can hum pretty complex, right mmmm. It's all
Speaker 1: coming from those vocal cords. None of that is really
Speaker 1: coming from your lips or your tongue to produce that sound.
Speaker 1: So birds are the masters at this muscle manipulation. Their
Speaker 1: syrinxes are also longer and thinner than mammalian larynxes, which
Speaker 1: makes the production of sound more efficient, so they can
Speaker 1: produce really complex, precise sounds that doesn't have as much
Speaker 1: of the fluidity perhaps as human speech. Right, Like, we
Speaker 1: have this sound that we kind of shape with our
Speaker 1: mouths and our tongues and it comes out. And for birds,
Speaker 1: they can just kind of hit that note with shifting
Speaker 1: of those muscles from one vibration to another, which is
Speaker 1: quite uncommon for humans to be able to do. We
Speaker 1: can't a bit though, with and there are certainly people
Speaker 1: who can mimic the sounds of birds through impressive larynx control.
Speaker 1: One of my favorite recent news stories is about a
Speaker 1: little boy who learned to mimic birds in a way
Speaker 1: that I've personally never heard before. I'll try to play
Speaker 1: a clip for you right now.
Speaker 2: That is not a blue jay you're hearing, not a robin,
Speaker 2: nor a tufted titmouse. Those sounds are all coming from
Speaker 2: a Samuel an eleven year old Samuel Henderson.
Speaker 1: I actually quite enjoy this. I actually think it's not
Speaker 1: super surprising that a child is capable of doing this.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think this child in particular is really
Speaker 1: really talented, But children are really really good at language
Speaker 1: acquisition and learning how to manipulate sounds. And for a
Speaker 1: kid to learn how to do this, right, I think
Speaker 1: it's actually more likely a child could learn how to
Speaker 1: do this, given the interest in it, than say, if
Speaker 1: an adult wanted to suddenly learn how to do bird calls.
Speaker 1: It would be more difficult for us to learn that,
Speaker 1: because as we get older, that kind of language ability,
Speaker 1: the ability to manipulate sounds and learn how to manipulate sounds,
Speaker 1: it just gets harder. It's not impossible if you want
Speaker 1: to learn how to do bird calls. Don't be discouraged
Speaker 1: if you're older. But yeah, it is easier as children,
Speaker 1: which is interesting because birds are the same way. Young
Speaker 1: birds can learn how to make really complex song, but
Speaker 1: there's this crystallization period and after which birds really can't
Speaker 1: learn that. They're not that good at learning new songs
Speaker 1: or new noises. Parrots are something of an exception. There
Speaker 1: are some birds that can learn into adulthood new sounds,
Speaker 1: but younger birds are really really the best at it,
Speaker 1: and for some songbirds that's really the only period of
Speaker 1: time where they can learn new sounds. Unlike humans, where
Speaker 1: we can be learners our entire lives. It just does
Speaker 1: get a little bit harder. Maybe when we're adults we
Speaker 1: have to as it's not necessarily harder to learn, because
Speaker 1: we do learn how to learn better as we get older,
Speaker 1: but it is less. We don't absorb things as instinctively
Speaker 1: as adults. We're not like a sponge, especially in terms
Speaker 1: of acquiring languages, which I'm learning as someone trying to
Speaker 1: become good at Italian. It's so much harder now as
Speaker 1: an adult trying to learn Italian, even though I've learned
Speaker 1: how to learn. I'm probably more disciplined than I used
Speaker 1: to be in high school. But when I was in
Speaker 1: high school, with that younger brain, language acquisition was just
Speaker 1: a lot pastor came a lot more naturally to learn
Speaker 1: these things and just have them sink in. So, if
Speaker 1: there are any kids listening, if you want to learn
Speaker 1: an instrument or learn a language and you're still a kid,
Speaker 1: you know now is the best time to do it.
Speaker 1: But it's never too late. That's the cool thing about
Speaker 1: being human is we do have a lot of neuroplasticity
Speaker 1: all throughout our lives. So it's actually it's actually fine.
Speaker 1: If you miss your chance to learn how to play
Speaker 1: the violin, you can learn as an adult. It's just
Speaker 1: a little more challenge. Onto the next listener question. Hello,
Speaker 1: I always enjoy learning about animals, which is why I'm
Speaker 1: a big fan of Creature Feature. Thank you, thanks for
Speaker 1: doing the show. Well, thank you for listening. I've also
Speaker 1: been watching some VET shows and a recent episode that
Speaker 1: I watched had a baby two headed snake. I was
Speaker 1: wondering how common are situations like that? What would cause
Speaker 1: a snake to be born with two heads? Are other
Speaker 1: animals ever born with two heads. Any information would be great.
Speaker 1: And here are a couple photos of my sne headed kitties, Erica, Erica,
Speaker 1: I have to admit I misread your email. At first,
Speaker 1: I thought you were saying here's a couple photo of
Speaker 1: my two headed kitties. And I was aghast and I
Speaker 1: was like, oh my god, how do you have multiple
Speaker 1: cats with two heads? Because it is very very rare
Speaker 1: for animals to be born with two heads, particularly mammals,
Speaker 1: but it does happen. Any animal can be born with
Speaker 1: two heads. It can happen in any species, although it
Speaker 1: is extremely rare and even rarer for the individual to
Speaker 1: survive past gestation. So the key thing is it's not
Speaker 1: really one organism that has somehow decided to grow an
Speaker 1: extra head. Right, we don't really have like a headbud,
Speaker 1: you know, Like it's sort of like with there are
Speaker 1: certain types of having an extra something that can happen,
Speaker 1: like if you have an extra finger, you know, that
Speaker 1: can happen in humans, where like with polydactylism, or you
Speaker 1: kind of have like an extra site where you have
Speaker 1: like stem cells creating another finger. Right, that's not really
Speaker 1: the case for heads, for having an entire extra head.
Speaker 1: For both humans and any other animal, you really need
Speaker 1: to have a specific situation that would result in what's
Speaker 1: called polycephaly having more than one head. So during embryonic growth,
Speaker 1: a few things can happen to create an extra head.
Speaker 1: And it's the same types of situations that can also
Speaker 1: create conjoined twins. So an embryo while undergoing division and
Speaker 1: development can sometimes make an error and partially split. So
Speaker 1: a full splitting of the embryo might result in identical twins,
Speaker 1: but a partial splitting can result in conjoined twins or
Speaker 1: an individual that seems to have two heads. Right. In
Speaker 1: that case, it's actually conjoined twins, but they're really limited
Speaker 1: in terms of having like one body and two heads,
Speaker 1: but they're still conjoined twins. Another situation is two embryos
Speaker 1: that form at the same time that merge together. So
Speaker 1: normally embryos developing together that didn't result from one embryo
Speaker 1: or one blast is splitting in two are fraternal twins,
Speaker 1: so they're non identical twins. It could be a boy
Speaker 1: and a girl, they could look a little bit differently,
Speaker 1: but they are developing at the same time in utero,
Speaker 1: and so this happens with you know, it's pretty rare
Speaker 1: that that happens. But it's even more rare that these
Speaker 1: twins will actually kind of push it into each other
Speaker 1: and sort of merge during development. Actually, there are some
Speaker 1: cases in which one of the twins it's kind of
Speaker 1: a miss. Like sometimes I hear like, oh, a twin
Speaker 1: eats another twin in utero. It's not eating. What happens
Speaker 1: is one twin absorbs the cells of the other twin
Speaker 1: almost entirely. It's called a vanishing twin. And then you
Speaker 1: really only discover it if you find maybe part of
Speaker 1: like the twins cells or organs inside the living twin
Speaker 1: later on. So it's not really eating another twin in utero.
Speaker 1: There's nothing intentional about it. It's just at that point
Speaker 1: cells absorbing other cells. So for an animal with two heads,
Speaker 1: what could happen is these two embryos mostly merge, except
Speaker 1: for partially, you know, the part of it where they
Speaker 1: have two heads. And so again it is a case
Speaker 1: of conjoined twins, but in an extreme case where you know,
Speaker 1: there's basically one body and two heads. So these types
Speaker 1: of genetics shenanigans are really rare. It's rarer still that
Speaker 1: one would survive two fetal maturity, and even rarer that
Speaker 1: the newborn individual would survive past that to the complications
Speaker 1: that arrived with conjoined blood vessels and a single heart
Speaker 1: pumping for more organs or body parts than it bargained for.
Speaker 1: So having two heads is a problem, mostly in terms
Speaker 1: of those structural issues that would usually result in a miscarriage.
Speaker 1: But even with a newborn it's going to make it
Speaker 1: really hard for it to thrive. But interestingly so snakes, turtles,
Speaker 1: and other reptiles seem to have this sort of two headed,
Speaker 1: conjoined twin situation more than we see in other animals,
Speaker 1: at least like more in terms of what we observe.
Speaker 1: Why this is, I'm not one hundred percent certain. It
Speaker 1: could be that there's an increase in probability of there
Speaker 1: being an incident. Given that reptiles lay eggs. They lay
Speaker 1: a lot of eggs, and so there's two things that
Speaker 1: go on with that, or actually three things. One is
Speaker 1: that eggs are exposed to an environment more than say
Speaker 1: an embryo that's developing in utero. The embryo developing in
Speaker 1: utero is exposed to whatever the mother is exposed to.
Speaker 1: Through eating, but an egg can be more directly affected
Speaker 1: by environmental conditions like temperature, by pollution, et cetera. The
Speaker 1: other thing is that in utero, right, one of the
Speaker 1: interesting benefits of having a live birth is that the
Speaker 1: animal can, the organism can kind of determine whether this
Speaker 1: embryo is viable or not and whether it wants to
Speaker 1: spend the resources on it. So in some cases, the
Speaker 1: maternal body will not consciously just decide that the embryo
Speaker 1: is not viable and will do a spontaneous abortion. And
Speaker 1: it's a natural process that happens in all mammals. All
Speaker 1: animals that are live give live birth, And this might
Speaker 1: in a lot of cases, say, happen in the case
Speaker 1: where you have like some sort of abnormality with an embryo,
Speaker 1: like an embryo splitting partially or merging or something, it
Speaker 1: may result in a miscarriage in a library animal, whereas
Speaker 1: maybe that happens less often that like in an animal
Speaker 1: that lays eggs. Obviously it's not going to necessarily miscarry
Speaker 1: during the during the development of the egg, just whether
Speaker 1: the egg continues to develop or not. Write the maternal
Speaker 1: the mother's body doesn't really have any say in it
Speaker 1: at that point. So also they lay you know, large
Speaker 1: clutches of eggs, so you just have more chances for
Speaker 1: something interesting to happen. Now, we probably only see a
Speaker 1: great number of two headed reptiles due to the frequent
Speaker 1: breeding and key being of reptiles. I think otherwise we
Speaker 1: probably wouldn't see that. There may be also an element
Speaker 1: of safe we're breeding them selectively, right, there might be
Speaker 1: some inbreeding. I'm not really sure. There's not like great
Speaker 1: research on this that I could find, and I was
Speaker 1: curious in say, other examples of egg laying livestock or
Speaker 1: domesticated eggling animals. It is true that like chickens will
Speaker 1: have high rates of sort of conjoined twin cases, but
Speaker 1: usually they're not viable. Usually it's something where they either
Speaker 1: don't hatch or they die pretty shortly after hatching. So
Speaker 1: it is really interesting to me that with reptiles there
Speaker 1: does seem to be more, say snakes and turtles especially
Speaker 1: that actually survive at least a few months, if not longer,
Speaker 1: with having two heads. I don't know exactly why that is.
Speaker 1: I couldn't find good research on that. My guess would
Speaker 1: be it has something to do with the circulatory system
Speaker 1: being more amenable to having that extra pressure of having
Speaker 1: two heads, right, and somehow it being easier to bifurcate
Speaker 1: those blood vessels. That does not arise in greater fatality rates.
Speaker 1: But I really don't know. It's a really interesting question. So,
Speaker 1: but to answer your question, it can't happen in any animal.
Speaker 1: It's just very very rare. And the situation itself when
Speaker 1: that could happen is very rare of embryos conjoining or
Speaker 1: partially splitting, but it's even more rare that that pregnancy
Speaker 1: would come to full term, or that the egg would
Speaker 1: even hatch, and even even more rare that this animal
Speaker 1: could live, you know, and be able to say, eat
Speaker 1: or breathe normally. So yeah, very very rare, but it
Speaker 1: does happen, which is pretty wild. And I mean, there
Speaker 1: are cases of conjoined human twins where it's they essentially
Speaker 1: have one body and two heads and you know they're conjoined.
Speaker 1: Twins are two individual people who do have complex situation
Speaker 1: in terms of internal organs, but it's not like it's
Speaker 1: not I want it to be clear that it's not
Speaker 1: like a two headed person. These are two people and
Speaker 1: they just are conjoined, but in a very complete way
Speaker 1: where really they cannot be separated at all, right, because
Speaker 1: they're sharing a lot of organs and so it seems
Speaker 1: like it's a two headed person, but it's really two
Speaker 1: people conjoined twins. So onto the next listener question. Hi,
Speaker 1: while listening to the most recent episode, I immediately recognize
Speaker 1: the American woodcock. Please be sure to mention their flexible
Speaker 1: beak when talking about them. I adore them. My question
Speaker 1: may be strange, but as someone who's around all kinds
Speaker 1: of animals during my life, I desperately need to know
Speaker 1: if they recognize when we repeat or mimic their sounds
Speaker 1: back at them. I'm mainly curious about cats for this question.
Speaker 1: I have a few in the home and a feral
Speaker 1: population nearby, and I'm always curious to know if they
Speaker 1: judge me or enjoy when I repeat their sounds back.
Speaker 1: But I'd love to know if different animals have different
Speaker 1: understandings or reactions. This is from Max. My max great
Speaker 1: point about the woodcocks, So this is true. The tips
Speaker 1: of their beak have a bit of give to it,
Speaker 1: which allows them to open up just the tip of beaks,
Speaker 1: so like you press your fingers together kind of tightly,
Speaker 1: like your two index fingers together. You can kind of
Speaker 1: just open the very tip of your index fingers together,
Speaker 1: and so remember that sort of feeling of like opening
Speaker 1: your index fingers together fully and just the just kind
Speaker 1: of the tippy tip of it. So this this is
Speaker 1: called disto. This is called distal rinko kinesis, and it's
Speaker 1: also common among sandpipers. And the reason they have this
Speaker 1: features that they can then dig their beaks into the
Speaker 1: sand and open just the tips of their beak to
Speaker 1: grab earthworms or other kinds of insects. And it makes
Speaker 1: it a lot easier, right, like if you're looking at
Speaker 1: your fingers right, it takes a lot less effort and
Speaker 1: force to just open the very tips of your fingers
Speaker 1: versus the whole like opening up. And if you combine
Speaker 1: that with, say you have a bunch of pressure of
Speaker 1: packed sand, bird's not necessarily going to be able to
Speaker 1: open their beak fully under the ground or in sand,
Speaker 1: especially a long, thin beak, but they could just open
Speaker 1: that very tippy tip of the beak and then that's
Speaker 1: exactly what they do to snatch up their prey from
Speaker 1: inside sand or inside dirt. So onto your question. There
Speaker 1: are definitely ways to kind of mimic animal sounds or
Speaker 1: gestures that they can understand as being in their sort
Speaker 1: of way of communication, right, including cats and dogs. So
Speaker 1: if you've ever slowly blinked at a cat and you
Speaker 1: see it blink back, that's a form of communication it understands.
Speaker 1: It's kind of a way of saying like, I'm chill,
Speaker 1: I'm relaxed, how about you, And if it blinks back,
Speaker 1: it's kind of saying, yeah, I'm chill, I'm relaxed. It's
Speaker 1: a show of trust of you know that things are cool,
Speaker 1: like you're not anxious. Everything's cool. If you've ever fake
Speaker 1: sneezed at your dog, I mean I highly recommend it.
Speaker 1: You kind of just do it and they might sneeze
Speaker 1: back and it's kind of a playful gesture. Or if
Speaker 1: your dog sneezes at you and you sneeze back, they
Speaker 1: might actually sort of then drop down into a play
Speaker 1: bow because they're saying, oh, you want to play I
Speaker 1: sort of as like making this fake sneeze sound, which is, hey,
Speaker 1: I'm feeling kind of playful. You sneeze back, and now
Speaker 1: I'm in a play bow with their little paws on
Speaker 1: the ground and their butts in the air because they're thinking,
Speaker 1: you just responded to my place sneeze, so you want
Speaker 1: to play. So if you're a dog or cat owner,
Speaker 1: you probably have these like interesting little interactions all the time.
Speaker 1: You may not even maybe just natural at this point, right,
Speaker 1: but you are communicating with them using their language when
Speaker 1: you kind of learn these cues from them. Now, specifically
Speaker 1: with cats, right, Like, I mean, anyone who's had a
Speaker 1: cat or interacting with a cat, I'm sure we've all
Speaker 1: faked a mew at a cat, tried to fake a
Speaker 1: perretta cat, right and watched their reaction. Now, it's really
Speaker 1: interesting because cats don't really mew at each other that much.
Speaker 1: They do, but like say feral cats or cats just
Speaker 1: sort of left in the company of other cats. They uh,
Speaker 1: they do me ow at each other occasionally, but the
Speaker 1: main purpose of meowing in say the ancestors of cats,
Speaker 1: the African wild cat, is to communicate between the mother
Speaker 1: and the kittens. And then there's a lot of other
Speaker 1: vocalizations that cats might communicate with each other, either for
Speaker 1: mating or for territoriality, which is going to be more
Speaker 1: of a growling and hissing. Right, So cats do communicate,
Speaker 1: but the kind of mews that we so associate with
Speaker 1: cats and are so frequent and adult cats seem to
Speaker 1: be unique to domesticated cats in their communications with humans
Speaker 1: because meowing at humans gets them attention and love and stuff,
Speaker 1: and it's an instinct from when their kitchen, from when
Speaker 1: they're kittens where meowing gets them attention from their mothers,
Speaker 1: and then when they're in the care of humans, it's like, hey,
Speaker 1: I'm meowing. I'm an adult, but I'm still basically being
Speaker 1: taken care of by my human mommies. So I'm gonna
Speaker 1: keep mewing and getting attention, eating food, getting cuddles. So
Speaker 1: because of this, it's really interesting. There there is some
Speaker 1: research in terms of like how cats respond to human communication,
Speaker 1: and there's some evidence that cats can tell when a
Speaker 1: human is addressing them versus just talking to another person.
Speaker 1: Our tones, i think change like when we look at
Speaker 1: a cat, we're like I missed the wish girls like
Speaker 1: our tones kind of change into this kind of like
Speaker 1: baby talk cat talking. Cats, it seems, based on this research,
Speaker 1: actually respond to that they can tell that it's being
Speaker 1: addressed to them, or at least they pay more attention
Speaker 1: to those vocalizations, seem to heed them more then say
Speaker 1: the way I'm talking to you right now, it's cats
Speaker 1: may think nothing of this kind of conversation, but if
Speaker 1: I suddenly go, oh, heng you on, miss you wish girls,
Speaker 1: your cat might sort of perk up, pay a little
Speaker 1: more attention because that sounds like something that is like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I know this, this is something that's meant for me.
Speaker 1: It's probably a learned response, right, They probably learned that
Speaker 1: these kinds of things are aimed towards them. And it's
Speaker 1: also the exaggerated change and tones. The high pitch probably
Speaker 1: also helps them be able to into it better, sort
Speaker 1: of your tone in the same way that like a
Speaker 1: high pitched meal is different from a low pitch like
Speaker 1: growling meal that's like stay back right. So, uh, when
Speaker 1: you meow at a cat, you're probably not really talking cat.
Speaker 1: I would imagine I think you're It's it's almost the opposite,
Speaker 1: like when a cat meow's at you. They've learned how
Speaker 1: to modulate their vocalizations to be more supplicating to you.
Speaker 1: So those kind of like you know that an adult
Speaker 1: cat makes is something where it's like I've learned that
Speaker 1: they respond really well to this, and sometimes they even
Speaker 1: make these little purring sounds that are a little more
Speaker 1: whiney towards people because they found that that's more effective
Speaker 1: to get the person to pay attention to them. So
Speaker 1: when we meow back at a cat, we're kind of
Speaker 1: like mimicking the cats who are not quite mimicking us,
Speaker 1: but the cats who have modified their language for us,
Speaker 1: So we're not doing a natural cat sound, but we're
Speaker 1: kind of playing back for them this like this sound
Speaker 1: that the adult cat has learned to make for our
Speaker 1: for attention from us. And uh, I think probably if
Speaker 1: we're basically copying what they sound like, right Like if
Speaker 1: you're if it's a high pitched now that your cat
Speaker 1: is making when they have relaxed body language, and you
Speaker 1: kind of mimic that, or like a purring sound while
Speaker 1: they're also relaxed, because purring can be done when they're anxious.
Speaker 1: It's all a lot of this is a combination of
Speaker 1: the vocalization and their body language. You can tell when
Speaker 1: a cat is relaxed or agitated. Uh So if you're
Speaker 1: mimicking the sounds they make when they're relaxed, they probably
Speaker 1: just see it as a way of you saying like,
Speaker 1: I'm also relaxed and I'm paying attention to you. You're
Speaker 1: not really speaking cat necessarily, but you are finding a
Speaker 1: commonality with the cat, like a common kind of way
Speaker 1: to communicate with them that you are paying attention to them,
Speaker 1: and also that you're also chill. You're fine. Obviously. I
Speaker 1: think if you try to antagonize a cat, which I
Speaker 1: would never recommend, and you like hissed or growled at them,
Speaker 1: you could make them upset. The actual application of this
Speaker 1: is like if you have a especially with a dog
Speaker 1: who's barking. If you yell at a dog who's barking,
Speaker 1: you're just basically encouraging them to bark more because it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: you're barking, so then or the dog is barking and
Speaker 1: then it hears you yelling, so you're matching that emotional
Speaker 1: heightened like anxiety like, oh, you know, I think something's wrong.
Speaker 1: They also think something's wrong, so I'm gonna bark even louder.
Speaker 1: That's the same thing with cat. It's like if a
Speaker 1: cat is growling and hissing and you get really kind
Speaker 1: of severe with your voice and really intimidating sounding, they're
Speaker 1: probably going to be even more scared or be even
Speaker 1: more upset. So when you match your pet at sort
Speaker 1: of where they are in terms of if they're upset
Speaker 1: or agitated, they're going to get more upset or agitated,
Speaker 1: even if you're using human words right. In some cases,
Speaker 1: I don't know if there's been research on this. I've
Speaker 1: just noticed it with the pets that I've had. When
Speaker 1: you have, say, if you have a pet who's scared
Speaker 1: of thunder, sometimes I mean certainly for me with my dog,
Speaker 1: I've developed a voice where it's like, oh poor baby,
Speaker 1: and you know, coddling her, and I think sometimes using
Speaker 1: that tone of voice actually makes her more anxious because
Speaker 1: she associates it with the bad thing, Like oh, right,
Speaker 1: this is what Katie sounds like when there's thunder and
Speaker 1: I'm kind of scared right now, So she hears the
Speaker 1: oh you poor baby, and she'd get she like maybe
Speaker 1: either gets more anxious or leans into the anxiety response
Speaker 1: because she's getting attention for it. Whereas if during a thunderstorm,
Speaker 1: I kind of choose a very cheerful tone like oh hi, Cookie,
Speaker 1: how'd you go on? Cookie? And then play with her
Speaker 1: maybe try to play with a squeaky toy or act
Speaker 1: like things are fine. It tends to help her anxiety.
Speaker 1: It doesn't make it go away, will never go away
Speaker 1: with thunderstorms, but with bad and other things like you know,
Speaker 1: stroking her back or putting on a thundershirt, those things
Speaker 1: do seem to help. In addition to a tone of
Speaker 1: voice that's like light and care free and it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: you know it's thunder it's okay. And then you know,
Speaker 1: playing with her and trying to make things seem like
Speaker 1: fun and like a game that can actually help them.
Speaker 1: So animals are really responsive to tone of voice. Doesn't
Speaker 1: really matter if you meow at them or you use
Speaker 1: human words, it's really the tone of it. I think
Speaker 1: they respond to the most purring, if you like fake
Speaker 1: a purr at cats. I couldn't find research about this.
Speaker 1: I don't know why someone should do it, but I
Speaker 1: imagine that might actually be something that makes them feel relaxed, right, like,
Speaker 1: because you're sort of mimicking that relaxing sound. And cats
Speaker 1: do per around like kittens will pur around their mothers
Speaker 1: when they're feeding, So I don't know that adult cats
Speaker 1: typically pur around each other. Like say, in like feral
Speaker 1: cat populations, but I think domesticated cats also, like say
Speaker 1: you have more than one cat, you might notice like, hey,
Speaker 1: these cats actually do seem to meow at each other
Speaker 1: or pur around each other. I think that's kind of
Speaker 1: a learned response in this unusual situation of domestication. So anyways,
Speaker 1: I would say, keep meowing at your cats. I'm sure
Speaker 1: they love it as long as you're meowing in a
Speaker 1: nice way. All right, guys, So I I think the
Speaker 1: last few weeks we had a few reruns. But the
Speaker 1: mystery animal sound hint before I went on a brief
Speaker 1: break was this. This fierce little carnivore is like a
Speaker 1: wolf that you can fit in your pocket. And here
Speaker 1: is that sound now, all right, congratulations to rees I,
Speaker 1: Rob and Ali D for guessing correctly. This is a
Speaker 1: grasshopper mouse, so they howl and this very hard to hear,
Speaker 1: high pitched frequencies. I actually got a lot of emails
Speaker 1: from people who could not hear this sound. I tried
Speaker 1: to turn the volume up a little bit. But part
Speaker 1: of it is just as are like for some people,
Speaker 1: we just can't hear these higher frequencies. For me, it's
Speaker 1: barely audible for my dog. She could certainly hear it
Speaker 1: and did not like it. So I apologize if your
Speaker 1: dogs out there are unhappy. But yeah, they howl and
Speaker 1: these really high pitches to defend their territory. They're also
Speaker 1: fierce predators, eating in vertebrates and even smaller mice, and
Speaker 1: they stalk their prey like a wolf and pounce on them.
Speaker 1: So very terrifying but very tiny. All right, guys. So
Speaker 1: a quick programming note is I might do a few
Speaker 1: more of these listener questions episodes in a row, so
Speaker 1: please do send me your questions and I will do
Speaker 1: my very best to answer them and thank you guys
Speaker 1: so much for listening. If you're enjoying the show and
Speaker 1: you leave rating or review, it's always appreciated thanks to
Speaker 1: the space cause it's for their super awesome song ex Alumina.
Speaker 1: I'll just repeat the email if this might be useful.
Speaker 1: If you do want to send in a question, you
Speaker 1: can reach me at Creature Featurepod at gmail dot com.
Speaker 1: Creature Future is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts
Speaker 1: like the one you just heard, visit Dieheartradio app Apple
Speaker 1: podcast or Hey guess what where of you listen to
Speaker 1: your favorite shows. I'm not your mother. I can't tell
Speaker 1: you what to do. I can tell you, though, if
Speaker 1: you hear a tiny, high pitched owl could be a
Speaker 1: grasshopper mouse that could be trying to have you for dinner.
Speaker 1: I mean, if you're the size of a grass. See
Speaker 1: you next Wednesday.