WEBVTT - Squirrels, Part 2: A Skugg Mystery 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:05.840 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:05.840 --> 0:00:14.239 Works dot com. Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow 0:00:14.240 --> 0:00:16.880 your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, 0:00:16.920 --> 0:00:19.560 and we're back for part two of our two part 0:00:19.600 --> 0:00:23.880 exploration of the world of skugs. That's right, squirrels. Squirrels. 0:00:23.880 --> 0:00:26.720 If you did not listen to our last episode, our 0:00:26.720 --> 0:00:30.560 most recent episode about squirrels, go back and listen to it, 0:00:30.600 --> 0:00:35.519 because it will. It will provide some necessary, horrific revelations 0:00:35.600 --> 0:00:38.960 about the squirrel that you really need going into this episode. 0:00:39.159 --> 0:00:42.639 And we should warn at the beginning that, uh, if 0:00:42.680 --> 0:00:45.199 you didn't listen to the last episode you want to 0:00:45.200 --> 0:00:47.960 listen to this one anyway, you should be forewarned. This 0:00:48.040 --> 0:00:51.000 is going to be one of the most gruesome things 0:00:51.040 --> 0:00:54.360 we've ever explored on the show. I think how squirrels, 0:00:54.440 --> 0:00:56.920 I would say that the last episode, which largely dealt 0:00:56.960 --> 0:00:59.880 with the fact that squirrels eat meat and do act 0:01:00.000 --> 0:01:03.080 really stalk prey. Uh Like, that's an episode I would 0:01:03.080 --> 0:01:05.280 listen to with my six year old son and I 0:01:05.280 --> 0:01:08.000 wouldn't have any problem with it. I've talked about the 0:01:08.040 --> 0:01:11.640 topics on that episode with him. This episode, I would 0:01:11.640 --> 0:01:14.520 probably not listen to with nice year old son. Yeah, 0:01:14.520 --> 0:01:16.560 I didn't think it would roll out this way. But 0:01:16.560 --> 0:01:18.920 but our exploration of squirrels is one of the most 0:01:19.360 --> 0:01:22.440 inappropriate for children of all things we've ever we've ever 0:01:22.480 --> 0:01:25.440 explored here. Yes, but we're walking in deep truth tonight 0:01:25.440 --> 0:01:28.600 at children, So so stick with us as we explore 0:01:28.800 --> 0:01:33.679 more horrific facts about squirrel behavior. So again, last episode, 0:01:33.720 --> 0:01:37.119 we talked about squirrels eating meat, squirrels stalking their prey, 0:01:37.240 --> 0:01:41.720 squirrels messing around with snakes. Uh, squirrels, and their relationship 0:01:41.800 --> 0:01:46.000 with Benjamin Franklin. This time now. In the last episode, 0:01:46.000 --> 0:01:49.120 we talked about certain myths about Benjamin Franklin and the 0:01:49.160 --> 0:01:52.160 reality of Benjamin Franklin having a pet squirrel named Mungo 0:01:52.240 --> 0:01:54.400 who he wrote analogy for when it was killed by 0:01:54.400 --> 0:01:58.000 a dog. Um. This time, I want to start off 0:01:58.080 --> 0:02:02.440 with another possible myth, possible fact that that dwells in 0:02:02.520 --> 0:02:06.360 that hazy middle world of rumor. I want to know, Robert, 0:02:06.360 --> 0:02:08.639 if you've ever heard the same rumor I have. It's 0:02:08.639 --> 0:02:10.840 a horrifying rumor. It's one I've heard for years, and 0:02:10.880 --> 0:02:14.520 it's about the competition between squirrels and the rumor goes 0:02:14.600 --> 0:02:18.880 something like this. When two adult male squirrels come into 0:02:18.919 --> 0:02:23.800 conflict over food, over territory, over mating, or whatever. The 0:02:23.840 --> 0:02:27.120 two squirrels fight with a horrible aim, and that aim 0:02:27.280 --> 0:02:31.200 is to castrate the other by biting off its squirrel testicles. 0:02:31.560 --> 0:02:33.320 I had never heard of this before. I would say 0:02:33.320 --> 0:02:36.360 the closest thing i'd heard was, you know some details 0:02:36.400 --> 0:02:41.800 about competition between chimpanzees. Yeah, by biting off Well, I 0:02:41.840 --> 0:02:45.640 just know that genital attacks um have have have been 0:02:45.680 --> 0:02:49.240 reported among chimpanzees. Uh, but I don't know with what 0:02:49.360 --> 0:02:51.760 degree of frequency. But it's the kind of thing where 0:02:51.960 --> 0:02:54.280 I heard about it in relation to chimpanzees, and now 0:02:54.360 --> 0:02:57.240 makes me look at chimpanzee is a little uh well, 0:02:57.280 --> 0:02:59.000 there's a lot with chimpanzees to be you know, a 0:02:59.040 --> 0:03:01.880 little concerned about. But but I've never heard about this 0:03:01.919 --> 0:03:04.600 with squirrels. Well, I I've heard about this for years. 0:03:04.639 --> 0:03:06.760 I don't remember where I heard it first. It might 0:03:06.800 --> 0:03:09.560 have been from some old, some good old Tennessee woodsman 0:03:09.680 --> 0:03:13.320 somewhere who spoke wisdom of the forest into my ears. 0:03:13.360 --> 0:03:15.800 But this is important for us to remind all of 0:03:15.800 --> 0:03:19.079 our listeners, is that Joe and I both grew up 0:03:19.280 --> 0:03:22.840 with with with with access to the Tennessee woodlands. Yes, 0:03:23.200 --> 0:03:25.360 so there is a lot of I'm rather surprised that 0:03:25.400 --> 0:03:29.720 I didn't hear this story from from from people who 0:03:29.760 --> 0:03:32.520 wandered out of the out of the Tennessee of forests 0:03:32.520 --> 0:03:35.000 with tales of the skug. Well, if you want to 0:03:35.000 --> 0:03:38.800 hear about the horrors of skug castration from the lips 0:03:38.840 --> 0:03:42.080 of the true speakers, you should go to YouTube, because 0:03:42.120 --> 0:03:45.240 there will be many a video of some bearded hunter 0:03:45.440 --> 0:03:48.440 standing there and Camo talking into his phone in the 0:03:48.480 --> 0:03:51.360 middle of the forest saying, here's what happens when these 0:03:51.360 --> 0:03:56.040 here squirrels buy it off each other's nuts. But it 0:03:56.120 --> 0:03:59.480 turns out there are many variations on this base rumor. 0:03:59.600 --> 0:04:02.480 So one is that you've got one squirrel species that 0:04:02.680 --> 0:04:06.640 supplants another in an area by castrating all the males 0:04:06.640 --> 0:04:10.240 of the other squirrel species. Sometimes this version goes, you've 0:04:10.240 --> 0:04:13.320 got gray squirrels doing it to red squirrels. Sometimes they 0:04:13.360 --> 0:04:16.160 say it's red squirrels doing it to gray squirrels. Sometimes 0:04:16.160 --> 0:04:19.120 the fox squirrel is thrown in there somewhere. And so 0:04:19.160 --> 0:04:21.360 what we want to look at is is there any 0:04:21.400 --> 0:04:23.680 truth to this? Is it true or is this just 0:04:23.760 --> 0:04:30.240 a horrible woodsman myth? My uh guess, of course would 0:04:30.320 --> 0:04:32.960 be that it is a myth, because it just doesn't 0:04:33.000 --> 0:04:39.560 sound like behavior one finds in animals, especially against another species. 0:04:39.960 --> 0:04:45.360 You know, it is a certainly strange targeted behavior, one 0:04:45.400 --> 0:04:47.600 thing that I wanted because because you don't have to 0:04:47.680 --> 0:04:50.120 castrate another species to drive it off. We see plenty 0:04:50.120 --> 0:04:54.760 of examples of one one species driving off another from resources, 0:04:54.760 --> 0:04:57.760 competing for the same resources, or of course, uh, two 0:04:57.839 --> 0:05:01.000 members of the same species competing for re sources or mates. 0:05:01.560 --> 0:05:04.560 But you can drive they will drive each other off 0:05:04.600 --> 0:05:09.880 through through fighting, through displays, much more conventional means. Yeah, 0:05:10.279 --> 0:05:13.720 usually genital mutilation doesn't come up. Yeah, it doesn't seem 0:05:13.800 --> 0:05:17.120 like a necessary step. But then again, well we'll we'll 0:05:17.160 --> 0:05:19.080 come back to this, will weigh the pros and cons 0:05:19.160 --> 0:05:21.960 later on. So one of the best things about this 0:05:22.080 --> 0:05:25.560 myth is that it doesn't just come from the woodsman 0:05:25.600 --> 0:05:28.280 and Camo talking into his phone by a forest stream. 0:05:29.080 --> 0:05:32.200 There's a rather crazy back and forth about this in 0:05:32.279 --> 0:05:35.720 several volumes of the Journal of the American Medical Association 0:05:36.240 --> 0:05:39.599 in JAMMA for more than a century ago. So in 0:05:39.640 --> 0:05:42.880 the year eight for some reason, Jamma got a little 0:05:42.920 --> 0:05:47.279 bit obsessed with rampant squirrel castration. So it started when 0:05:47.320 --> 0:05:51.040 the American surgeon Edmund Andrews wrote an article for the 0:05:51.120 --> 0:05:55.279 Journal in eight about unux and about the physiological effects 0:05:55.320 --> 0:05:59.520 of castration. And in this article Andrews puts together sort 0:05:59.560 --> 0:06:01.960 of a round owned up of what he knew about 0:06:02.000 --> 0:06:05.480 the natural effects of castration and many different animals, and 0:06:05.600 --> 0:06:08.760 one of those animals was the squirrel. And he writes 0:06:08.839 --> 0:06:12.640 quote naturalist state that the black or gray male squirrels 0:06:12.680 --> 0:06:16.040 in fighting seek to castrate each other with their teeth, 0:06:16.520 --> 0:06:19.880 so that many of those taken by hunters are thus mutilated. 0:06:20.320 --> 0:06:22.760 As they do it only in adult life, it does 0:06:22.800 --> 0:06:26.240 not materially change their general development. Because he was talking 0:06:26.240 --> 0:06:28.800 about this in the context of, well, what happens if 0:06:28.800 --> 0:06:31.440 a young animal is castrated? How does that change the 0:06:31.440 --> 0:06:34.240 way it develops into an adult? Okay, so the the 0:06:34.240 --> 0:06:37.320 the idea here is that it is it's reached material. Yeah. 0:06:37.680 --> 0:06:41.920 Unfortunately Andrews does not say who these naturalists are, and 0:06:42.000 --> 0:06:44.960 makes me wonder, especially given the time, is this is 0:06:45.000 --> 0:06:47.880 this real empirical data or is he just repeating the 0:06:47.920 --> 0:06:51.039 eight version of an urban legend? Or maybe a rural 0:06:51.120 --> 0:06:53.840 legend just against somebody wandering out of the wood saying, yep, 0:06:54.000 --> 0:06:56.960 squirrels in there. They're buying each other's nuts, and they're 0:06:56.960 --> 0:07:00.360 they're they're buying the next year. That's good you called 0:07:00.400 --> 0:07:02.279 to mind. In the last episode, we talked about some 0:07:02.400 --> 0:07:05.560 rumors about squirrel attacks that seemed very unlikely to be 0:07:05.640 --> 0:07:09.640 true about like in Borneo Hunters talking about squirrels taking 0:07:09.680 --> 0:07:13.800 down deer and killing them seems hard to believe. But 0:07:13.880 --> 0:07:16.280 so this first mention is just this one off in 0:07:16.280 --> 0:07:19.840 in Andrew's article about eunux in general. And Andrews comes 0:07:19.880 --> 0:07:23.880 back to this in another volume of Jamah with an 0:07:23.960 --> 0:07:27.400 article called do adult squirrels cast rate each other? So 0:07:27.480 --> 0:07:30.480 Andrews writes, in this article, remember we asked who that 0:07:30.600 --> 0:07:32.920 naturalist was or the natural square that he got his 0:07:32.960 --> 0:07:36.160 information from. He says he got the information about squirrels 0:07:36.200 --> 0:07:39.280 from quote a distinguished naturalist, but he still doesn't say 0:07:39.280 --> 0:07:42.760 who it is. Good good lessons, cite your sources with 0:07:42.880 --> 0:07:46.600 possible folks. Apparently he got a contradictory response to this 0:07:46.680 --> 0:07:49.960 claim from a doctor named Dr A. S Allen of 0:07:50.040 --> 0:07:53.400 Mercy Hospital, Chicago, and Alan claims first of all, about 0:07:53.400 --> 0:07:56.840 a third of wild squirrels captured by hunters are found 0:07:56.880 --> 0:07:59.720 to be castrated. I assume he means one third of 0:07:59.800 --> 0:08:02.240 may squirrels, but it doesn't say I hate to be 0:08:02.280 --> 0:08:05.560 this low brow, but I'm I'm wondering if mistaking dead 0:08:05.600 --> 0:08:09.680 female squirrels for dead male squirrels could be causing some 0:08:09.800 --> 0:08:14.160 confusion among some hunters here. Perhaps perhaps, Alan says he 0:08:14.200 --> 0:08:17.440 thinks that this castration is not done in fighting between 0:08:17.480 --> 0:08:21.240 adult males, as Andrews did in his original article. He 0:08:21.280 --> 0:08:24.480 writes quote. He says that a number of gray squirrels 0:08:24.480 --> 0:08:27.760 lived protected in these trees above his former residence. A 0:08:27.840 --> 0:08:30.440 female raised a litter of young in a tree close 0:08:30.480 --> 0:08:32.839 to the house. One day, when the young were about 0:08:32.880 --> 0:08:36.080 one quarter grown, he observed the male trying repeatedly to 0:08:36.240 --> 0:08:39.160 enter the nest, but the female, which in that species 0:08:39.240 --> 0:08:41.680 is the largest of the two, fought him off and 0:08:41.760 --> 0:08:45.040 drove him away. This repeated several times, and the male 0:08:45.160 --> 0:08:49.640 finally desisted. Sometime later, the female went away, apparently to 0:08:49.679 --> 0:08:53.640 gather food. Before she returned, the male reappeared, entered the 0:08:53.679 --> 0:08:56.720 nest and created a great disturbance there, so that the 0:08:56.800 --> 0:08:59.959 doctor climbed the tree and examined the young. He found 0:09:00.080 --> 0:09:03.240 four young quarter grown males and one or two females. 0:09:03.600 --> 0:09:06.760 Three of the young males had been freshly castrated, the 0:09:06.800 --> 0:09:10.520 old male squirrel having bitten their squrotum and testies cleanly 0:09:10.600 --> 0:09:14.760 and smoothly off with his sharp incisors. That's terrifying, that 0:09:15.320 --> 0:09:19.000 is gruesome. So Alan claims that he's had a career 0:09:19.040 --> 0:09:22.080 of squirrel hunting, and he has found castrated adult males, 0:09:22.120 --> 0:09:26.760 but never freshly castrated adult males. And so Andrews considers 0:09:26.800 --> 0:09:29.120 that it would be difficult for an adult male squirrel 0:09:29.200 --> 0:09:32.880 to hold another adult male still enough to bite off 0:09:32.880 --> 0:09:35.840 his testicles, but this might be easier if the victim 0:09:35.880 --> 0:09:38.400 is a juvenile. Thus, he seems to think that Dr 0:09:38.440 --> 0:09:41.520 Allen's story is probably a better explanation for why hunters 0:09:41.559 --> 0:09:44.760 report finding so many castrated squirrels. On the other hand, 0:09:44.800 --> 0:09:47.480 he thinks this is very weird in light of natural selection, 0:09:47.600 --> 0:09:50.920 since it quote would hardly tend to benefit or perpetuate 0:09:50.960 --> 0:09:54.600 the species. Not to be condescending, but this indicates to 0:09:54.600 --> 0:09:56.680 me a kind of poor understanding of the level at 0:09:56.679 --> 0:09:59.920 which natural selection acts. Like members of a species are 0:10:00.040 --> 0:10:03.200 constantly doing things that do not benefit other members of 0:10:03.200 --> 0:10:05.839 that same species. Right, there is that there is a 0:10:05.920 --> 0:10:08.720 great deal of selfishness. Again we talk about you know, 0:10:08.840 --> 0:10:11.680 males that are competing with each other for mates, or 0:10:11.800 --> 0:10:14.280 just members of the species in general that are competing 0:10:14.280 --> 0:10:17.120 with other members of the species for resources. Right, but 0:10:17.400 --> 0:10:20.400 that is not at all I think a good argument 0:10:20.520 --> 0:10:22.920 that this is really going on. I'm not sure exactly 0:10:22.960 --> 0:10:25.439 how to explain what Alan claims he observed in this 0:10:25.559 --> 0:10:28.280 nest of assuming the story is true, but there are 0:10:28.320 --> 0:10:32.840 a few other reports, so uh. In Spratling's follow up 0:10:32.840 --> 0:10:35.959 again in the Journal of the American Medical Association, quote 0:10:35.960 --> 0:10:39.560 how squirrels become unix. This is another volume of JAMA 0:10:39.640 --> 0:10:43.160 and there is just a flurry of letters about squirrel castration. 0:10:43.240 --> 0:10:46.200 The this really seemed to get the turn of the 0:10:46.240 --> 0:10:49.199 century physician engines revving like they were like, oh, I've 0:10:49.200 --> 0:10:52.760 got a squirrel castration story, and they wrote in one 0:10:52.840 --> 0:10:55.960 is from Dr William Spratling of New York, and Spratling 0:10:56.040 --> 0:10:58.480 writes that he spent a lot of years squirrel hunting 0:10:58.520 --> 0:11:01.800 in eastern Alabama with an experienced squirrel hunter in his sixties, 0:11:01.840 --> 0:11:04.000 and one day he shot a young male squirrel to 0:11:04.080 --> 0:11:08.280 discover it had a fresh castration wound. His companion said 0:11:08.360 --> 0:11:10.640 it must have been done by an older male and 0:11:10.679 --> 0:11:13.319 that he had often found young male squirrels like that 0:11:13.440 --> 0:11:16.480 sometimes still in the nest. Spratling asked him why the 0:11:16.480 --> 0:11:20.000 older males did it. His companion replied that Spratling should 0:11:20.040 --> 0:11:23.280 ask the squirrels. Okay, you have to kind of wonder 0:11:23.320 --> 0:11:25.880 if he just shot the squirrel. Perhaps it could have 0:11:25.880 --> 0:11:28.920 been injured in the shooting, but who knows. And of 0:11:28.960 --> 0:11:30.959 course there are a number of different ways of squirrel 0:11:31.000 --> 0:11:34.599 could be injured. You know, let's let's not limit the 0:11:34.640 --> 0:11:37.400 ways that a squirrel can could lose its scrowed them 0:11:37.440 --> 0:11:41.040 to mirror, you know, you know, hunting practices, or the 0:11:41.240 --> 0:11:45.480 the teeth of a rival male. Sure, here's another one. 0:11:45.520 --> 0:11:47.800 This one's a really choice. So this is from Dr. E. H. 0:11:47.840 --> 0:11:51.280 Smith of Santa Clara, California. First, I should know this guy. 0:11:51.640 --> 0:11:54.400 His whole writing style and everything. He sounds a little off. 0:11:55.120 --> 0:11:58.560 So Smith writes that he observed plenty of squirrels in 0:11:58.640 --> 0:12:01.920 southwestern Michigan, and he claims that the adult males do 0:12:02.040 --> 0:12:05.680 indeed fight in order to castrate, looking for opportunities to 0:12:05.840 --> 0:12:09.599 dive beneath one another and bite off the rival squrotum. 0:12:09.640 --> 0:12:12.839 He says this is primarily the red squirrels that do this, 0:12:12.920 --> 0:12:15.680 and they do it to other kinds of squirrels for heat. 0:12:15.760 --> 0:12:18.520 For the red squirrel quote is the hardest fighter of 0:12:18.559 --> 0:12:23.400 them all. And Smith says he tested this out by 0:12:23.440 --> 0:12:26.319 putting a red squirrel and a ferret in a box 0:12:26.360 --> 0:12:29.440 with each other, quote, expecting of course, that the ferret 0:12:29.480 --> 0:12:32.680 would make short work of the squirrel. Instead, he said 0:12:32.760 --> 0:12:35.560 that the squirrel went right for the ferrets testicles, and 0:12:35.600 --> 0:12:38.520 it was only by Smith intervening to protect the ferret 0:12:38.520 --> 0:12:41.280 with a stick that he avoided the doom chomp of 0:12:41.360 --> 0:12:44.760 the red squirrel. And I just wonder, like, what is 0:12:44.840 --> 0:12:47.199 worse if the guy made this up or if he's 0:12:47.240 --> 0:12:49.920 telling the truth. Yeah, and I do not really like 0:12:50.000 --> 0:12:52.760 this experiment that he claims to have performed. That is 0:12:52.800 --> 0:12:55.360 not a good experiment, that is not rigorous, and it 0:12:55.520 --> 0:12:58.599 is it's also not nice. I'm more comforted by the 0:12:58.640 --> 0:13:01.520 fact that this guy, maybe this was just some fourteen 0:13:01.600 --> 0:13:04.360 year old writing dajama making up a fake identity in 0:13:04.360 --> 0:13:07.240 the story. One last letter from a doctor Samuel J. 0:13:07.400 --> 0:13:10.320 Ford of Elliott City, Maryland, and Fort writes that he'd 0:13:10.360 --> 0:13:13.400 been hunting squirrels for years and has never noticed any 0:13:13.480 --> 0:13:16.120 castrated squirrels. That he admits he hasn't been on the 0:13:16.160 --> 0:13:19.160 lookout for this in particular, and he doubts that the 0:13:19.200 --> 0:13:22.080 biting off procedure could really be done cleanly in a 0:13:22.080 --> 0:13:24.720 way that the victim usually survives, given the shape of 0:13:24.800 --> 0:13:28.120 squirrel incisors, Like if you think about picturing them, they're 0:13:28.120 --> 0:13:30.120 more like, you know, they are kind of chompy, but 0:13:30.200 --> 0:13:33.920 they're narrow. Yeah, the survivability of the wound is something 0:13:33.960 --> 0:13:35.920 that I in my mind keeps turning to because we're 0:13:35.920 --> 0:13:39.600 talking about a pretty grievous injury, but one for for 0:13:39.760 --> 0:13:42.360 enough males to survive. And then you know, so that 0:13:42.440 --> 0:13:44.760 hunters could comment on them, they would need to not 0:13:44.920 --> 0:13:49.600 die of either blood loss or or secondary infection. And yeah, 0:13:49.800 --> 0:13:52.640 that's a very good point. And also think about this again, 0:13:52.720 --> 0:13:55.920 we we mentioned this earlier, but why would there actually 0:13:55.960 --> 0:13:58.520 be any incentive for an older male to do this? 0:13:58.640 --> 0:14:01.440 Why not just kill the rivals? Like, if you're actually 0:14:01.520 --> 0:14:04.880 fighting and there's some kind of serious competition, why not 0:14:04.960 --> 0:14:08.360 just injury or kill? Why this very specific targeted type 0:14:08.360 --> 0:14:11.160 of injury that's so sillacious and the kind of thing 0:14:11.240 --> 0:14:13.800 that a hunter might repeat in in rumor to another. 0:14:14.040 --> 0:14:17.000 But Ford gives a couple of rival explanations for the 0:14:17.000 --> 0:14:19.960 discovery of neutered male squirrels. He says, quote, could it 0:14:20.040 --> 0:14:23.520 not be congenital absence of the organs or failure of 0:14:23.560 --> 0:14:26.640 the organs to descend into the scrotum. I think Fort's 0:14:26.680 --> 0:14:28.640 maybe onto something there, and we can come back to 0:14:28.720 --> 0:14:32.360 that later on when we discuss possible explanations for these stories. 0:14:32.760 --> 0:14:35.320 But he also says, quote, the theory has been advanced 0:14:35.320 --> 0:14:37.920 by many hunters I have met that during the absence 0:14:37.920 --> 0:14:41.680 of the mother squirrel, the young utilize the male appendages 0:14:41.800 --> 0:14:45.520 as teats, and in their in their kind effort to 0:14:45.560 --> 0:14:48.640 produce something that is not there cause in time and 0:14:48.760 --> 0:14:52.720 atrophy of the organs. I don't know if he is 0:14:52.720 --> 0:14:54.760 he making a joke there. I can't maybe I'm not 0:14:54.800 --> 0:14:58.520 reading through the writing style has been he has been 0:14:58.560 --> 0:15:00.680 a victim of a hoax on this one. There are 0:15:00.720 --> 0:15:03.000 somebody else's joke. I mean. One thing that that I 0:15:03.600 --> 0:15:06.200 keep thinking too with each of these doctors is that, yes, 0:15:06.240 --> 0:15:09.760 these appear to be medical doctors. Assuming their realfe assuming 0:15:09.760 --> 0:15:13.160 they're real. But then also just because their medical doctors 0:15:13.200 --> 0:15:16.560 do not mean that they are really they're not biologists 0:15:17.000 --> 0:15:21.640 with any expertise in observing uh, squirrel behavior. This seems 0:15:21.760 --> 0:15:27.120 very or it smacks very much of amateur biology. Yes, 0:15:27.240 --> 0:15:30.880 they're even from someone who who should, by all rights, 0:15:31.120 --> 0:15:34.280 you know, be familiar with the scientific method to to 0:15:34.760 --> 0:15:38.000 a significant extent. These are people who practice human medicine 0:15:38.000 --> 0:15:41.080 and human medicine in the eighteen nineties. These are not 0:15:41.080 --> 0:15:46.560 not squirrel experts. They're not zoologists, they're not animal behaviorists. Um, yeah, 0:15:46.600 --> 0:15:48.840 I don't know so though, on the other hand, we 0:15:48.920 --> 0:15:51.320 do have to deal with Okay, well, at least people 0:15:51.320 --> 0:15:53.960 are making these reports. What do these reports mean? That 0:15:54.000 --> 0:15:56.880 they could certainly be mistaken, But we've got plenty of 0:15:56.920 --> 0:15:59.400 reports of people who claim to have one heard stories 0:15:59.400 --> 0:16:02.080 about squirrel castration from people who deal with a lot 0:16:02.080 --> 0:16:06.400 of squirrels, seen lots of examples of castrated squirrels, both 0:16:06.440 --> 0:16:09.680 young and old, and a few kinds of dubious seeming 0:16:09.760 --> 0:16:14.280 claims of witnessing castration from adult squirrel fights. So despite 0:16:14.320 --> 0:16:17.360 the claims of people to have witnessed it themselves, that 0:16:17.520 --> 0:16:20.240 this really does have all the hallmarks of an urban legend. 0:16:20.240 --> 0:16:24.440 To me, I believe people have found squirrels missing their genitals, 0:16:24.800 --> 0:16:28.040 but I'm not sure I buy the causes people have proposed. 0:16:28.360 --> 0:16:30.680 And I keep coming back to this idea, Why this 0:16:30.800 --> 0:16:33.760 one particular gruesome kind of attack. Why not just a 0:16:33.840 --> 0:16:36.640 general fighting attack, an attempt to injure or kill the 0:16:36.640 --> 0:16:38.560 other squirrel? All right, Well, on that note, we're going 0:16:38.640 --> 0:16:40.800 to take a quick break, and when we come back, 0:16:41.240 --> 0:16:45.000 we will look for more answers concerning this myth. Thank you, 0:16:46.080 --> 0:16:49.120 all right, we're back. Okay. So I found a book 0:16:49.200 --> 0:16:54.800 by former National Wildlife Federation executive Warner Shed called Owls 0:16:54.800 --> 0:16:58.120 Aren't Wise and Bats Aren't Blind and Naturalists Debunks our 0:16:58.160 --> 0:17:01.960 favorite fallacies about wildlife, which addresses a version of this 0:17:02.040 --> 0:17:05.359 claim about squirrel castration. So, first of all, Shed is 0:17:05.400 --> 0:17:07.639 writing about this in the context of a chapter on 0:17:07.840 --> 0:17:12.120 squirrel myths, specifically the myth that red squirrels drive out 0:17:12.200 --> 0:17:15.600 gray squirrels from any area they inhabit, and Shed writes 0:17:15.680 --> 0:17:18.680 that while it isn't necessarily true that red squirrels will 0:17:18.800 --> 0:17:21.040 drive gray squirrels out of a forest, it is true 0:17:21.359 --> 0:17:24.239 that red squirrels tend to be very territorial and if 0:17:24.280 --> 0:17:27.080 any animal like a gray squirrel, gets too close to 0:17:27.119 --> 0:17:29.840 the red squirrels hidden cash of nuts, the red squirrel 0:17:29.920 --> 0:17:32.680 will sometimes get aggressive and try to chase the gray 0:17:32.720 --> 0:17:37.119 squirrel off. And shed says that this territorial chasing tendency 0:17:37.200 --> 0:17:40.120 might be somehow linked to the version of the castration 0:17:40.119 --> 0:17:43.520 claim that says red squirrels castrate gray squirrels, which he 0:17:43.560 --> 0:17:46.920 claims is simply the result of quote an overheated imagination 0:17:47.200 --> 0:17:50.639 or quote a deliberate tall tale. And he argues that 0:17:50.720 --> 0:17:53.439 it makes no sense for a squirrel to bite another 0:17:53.480 --> 0:17:57.399 squirrels testicles off merely consider the facts. The gray squirrel 0:17:57.480 --> 0:17:59.959 generally weighs from two to three times as much as 0:18:00.080 --> 0:18:03.280 the little red. Even what are normally the most peaceable 0:18:03.280 --> 0:18:07.240 of animals will fight savagely if necessary to protect themselves. 0:18:07.720 --> 0:18:10.720 Nor could a red squirrel, with its little teeth neatly 0:18:10.800 --> 0:18:13.159 snip off the testicles of the gray with one or 0:18:13.200 --> 0:18:16.200 two bites. The notion that the much bigger gray would 0:18:16.240 --> 0:18:19.160 allow its testicles to be gnawed off by this little 0:18:19.200 --> 0:18:22.920 relative is preposterous. Long before that happened, the gray would 0:18:22.920 --> 0:18:25.639 make squirrel hash out of the offending red, and that 0:18:25.680 --> 0:18:27.679 has an exclamation point on it, by the way, that 0:18:27.800 --> 0:18:32.560 is like, so he's really he's really driving it home. 0:18:33.440 --> 0:18:36.080 He also adds that if in general Red's had a 0:18:36.119 --> 0:18:40.159 successful strategy of sterilizing grays, grays would tend to disappear 0:18:40.240 --> 0:18:42.560 in areas where reds existed, and he says this is 0:18:42.600 --> 0:18:47.200 not the case. So it's Shed's judgment that that's his judgment. 0:18:47.200 --> 0:18:50.320 But if he's correct, and squirrels do not castrate each other, 0:18:50.640 --> 0:18:53.040 what should we make of all these reports in jama 0:18:53.080 --> 0:18:56.680 and elsewhere of people finding squirrels with castration wounds all 0:18:56.680 --> 0:18:59.119 over the place. Now, of course it's possible some of 0:18:59.119 --> 0:19:01.159 these could be lies or hoaxes. And I think with 0:19:01.359 --> 0:19:03.640 some of the even a couple of those letters into 0:19:03.720 --> 0:19:05.920 jama you have kind of have to wonder. I mean, 0:19:05.960 --> 0:19:09.240 these these supposedly are doctors writing in but I don't 0:19:09.240 --> 0:19:13.320 know that's smith guy. Well, we've discussed time and time 0:19:13.359 --> 0:19:17.119 again that even very educated individuals can either be the 0:19:17.119 --> 0:19:21.000 perpetrators of hoax hoaxes or the victims of hoaxes. And 0:19:21.040 --> 0:19:26.960 then also there's that interesting relationship between the the the 0:19:26.960 --> 0:19:30.919 the what, the hoaxer and the hoaxe um Karl Sagan 0:19:30.960 --> 0:19:33.240 talks about this in the demon Haunted World and points 0:19:33.280 --> 0:19:36.159 whether it's like a magic trick, a magic trick, is 0:19:36.720 --> 0:19:39.399 it is? It is something that exists because of a 0:19:39.480 --> 0:19:43.280 silent pact between the magician and the audience. Yeah, people 0:19:43.320 --> 0:19:46.280 don't want to admit they've been tricked. If they've been tricked, 0:19:46.320 --> 0:19:49.240 even momentarily, they kind of don't want to admit that 0:19:49.280 --> 0:19:51.560 they fell for it, and will fight to defend the 0:19:51.600 --> 0:19:54.159 reality of the illusion. But then again, I don't think 0:19:54.200 --> 0:19:57.960 I would explain all of these cases in terms of hoaxes, 0:19:58.160 --> 0:20:00.800 deliberate hoaxes or tricks. I think in a lot of 0:20:00.800 --> 0:20:02.880 cases you're probably going to be dealing with people who 0:20:02.920 --> 0:20:06.800 were mistaken about what they saw or who were interpreting 0:20:07.119 --> 0:20:12.000 misinterpreting something. So that brings us to the question of 0:20:12.280 --> 0:20:16.680 what else could cause a squirrel to appear incorrectly to 0:20:16.800 --> 0:20:20.080 have suffered this type of injury or attack. Now, there's 0:20:20.119 --> 0:20:23.160 one hypothesis that's pretty far out there. It's not exactly 0:20:23.200 --> 0:20:25.639 a perfect fit, but it is kind of worth a look. 0:20:26.119 --> 0:20:29.880 And this is an explanation put forward by Ernest Thompson Seton, 0:20:30.000 --> 0:20:32.600 who was an early influence on the formation and mythology 0:20:32.600 --> 0:20:36.120 of the boy Scouts of America. Uh Seton noted that 0:20:36.160 --> 0:20:40.040 there is a species of parasitic bot fly that is 0:20:40.080 --> 0:20:43.639 an obligate of tree squirrels. Intends to lay eggs in 0:20:43.680 --> 0:20:47.439 the squirrels groin, and these eggs hatch and the larva 0:20:47.600 --> 0:20:50.680 erupt from the skin and it's gross, but the squirrel 0:20:50.760 --> 0:20:53.560 can usually survive it. It doesn't really benefit the bot 0:20:53.600 --> 0:20:57.000 fly to kill its host. And if this larva eruption 0:20:57.119 --> 0:20:59.800 were to happen in the groin as it apparently, sometimes 0:21:00.080 --> 0:21:03.560 US hunters seeing wounds of this kind might think that 0:21:03.600 --> 0:21:06.919 the squirrels had had their groins violently attacked. And this 0:21:07.000 --> 0:21:11.359 bot fly does exist, It's called coutarebra emasculator, or the 0:21:11.440 --> 0:21:14.440 tree squirrel bot fly. And bot flies on their own 0:21:14.600 --> 0:21:18.400 are fascinating subject we we we could return to them endlessly. 0:21:18.920 --> 0:21:22.040 Oh yes. The bot fly also known as the heel fly, 0:21:22.320 --> 0:21:25.040 the gad fly, or my favorite, and especially as it 0:21:25.080 --> 0:21:28.800 relates to squirrels, is the warble fly. Now why is 0:21:28.840 --> 0:21:31.720 that your favorite as it relates to squirrels, Because you 0:21:31.760 --> 0:21:35.640 will sometimes see what is often described as a lumpy squirrel. 0:21:35.960 --> 0:21:38.959 If you spend as much time looking at squirrels as 0:21:39.000 --> 0:21:44.000 we have, and certainly any kind of like rural southern environment. 0:21:44.400 --> 0:21:46.800 Then I bet you've either seen or heard of a 0:21:46.840 --> 0:21:51.760 warble squarbled squirrel, a lumpy squirrel. It I remember seeing 0:21:51.760 --> 0:21:53.760 one when I was young and find it found it 0:21:53.840 --> 0:21:57.520 rather grotesque. Why is that squirrel lumpy? What is going 0:21:57.560 --> 0:22:00.600 on with that squirrel? And you're saying a warble fly 0:22:00.840 --> 0:22:03.560 is a good explanation, y Oh, yeah, I mean it is. 0:22:03.640 --> 0:22:07.359 It's it's the explanation. So but again, there are a 0:22:07.359 --> 0:22:09.280