Speaker 1: Guess what gave? What's that? So I read this great
Speaker 1: story in Scientific American. It's called Saving California Condors with
Speaker 1: a chisel and hand puppets. So it has to be
Speaker 1: one of the greatest titles I've read in a while.
Speaker 1: But are you familiar with these birds? I mean, I
Speaker 1: know they're huge birds, and I think they're in danger too,
Speaker 1: aren't they. Yeah, that's right. So they were close to
Speaker 1: extinction a few decades ago. I think the count was
Speaker 1: down to just over twenty birds in the early eighties,
Speaker 1: and that's actually when the Oregon Zoo stepped in. So
Speaker 1: one of the strange things about condor eggs is that
Speaker 1: sometimes the chicks aren't actually strong enough to break out
Speaker 1: of the shells. So the caretakers at the zoo like
Speaker 1: they stand by ready with a chisel to help them
Speaker 1: break out. And in fact, it worked so well that
Speaker 1: the zoo is now raised more than seventy condor chicks.
Speaker 1: That's awesome. But what do they do then? Do they
Speaker 1: release them into the wild? Yeah, but if the chicks
Speaker 1: are raised in captivity without their parents, the minders have
Speaker 1: to be really careful about how they feed them, because
Speaker 1: you know, they don't want these birds to be too
Speaker 1: trusting of humans, so they have these hand puppets made
Speaker 1: to look like condors, and that's what they used to
Speaker 1: feed the little hatchlings. But reading that story made me think,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe it's time to do an episode on
Speaker 1: some of the world's largest birds and also all the
Speaker 1: secrets we definitely don't know about them, So let's dive in. Hey,
Speaker 1: their podcast listeners, welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm mongo
Speaker 1: Iss Articula and my good pal Will Pearson's on vacation today.
Speaker 1: But I am so thrilled because I get to hang
Speaker 1: out with the wonderful Gabe Luisier, who's on the line
Speaker 1: with me. Hey, Gabe, how's it going. Hey, it's going well.
Speaker 1: Thanks for having me. It's great to have you, gave
Speaker 1: And on the other side of the soundproof glass car
Speaker 1: having into the biggest, fattest turkey I've seen this side
Speaker 1: of Thanksgiving. That's our friend and producer Tristan McNeil. And
Speaker 1: I've got to say, while Tristan's on theme as usual,
Speaker 1: it does feel a little weird to watch him chow
Speaker 1: down on a bird while we're also talking about birds. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I was hoping we'd get to see Tristan
Speaker 1: in like a big bird costume today, or maybe find
Speaker 1: out that he's secretly been taking falconry classes or something. Well,
Speaker 1: we should put that in the suggestion box for next time,
Speaker 1: I think. But today's episode is all about the world's
Speaker 1: largest birds. Yeah, that's right. We scoured the skies to
Speaker 1: find the most oversized birds out there, and now it's
Speaker 1: time to spill all their juicy secrets, like how have
Speaker 1: large birds adapted for survival and how they got so
Speaker 1: big in the first place. But you know, a mango,
Speaker 1: I'm curious, where do you want to start with this one?
Speaker 1: So I thought I kicked things off with a nice,
Speaker 1: feel good story about one of the world's largest birds,
Speaker 1: which is the wandering albatross. And this species of albatross
Speaker 1: is big by just about any measure. Their bodies are
Speaker 1: about three and a half feet from bill to tail.
Speaker 1: They weigh twenty some pounds on average. But without a doubt,
Speaker 1: their biggest and most striking feature has to be their
Speaker 1: enormous wingspan. Because you know, I'm sure you probably know this.
Speaker 1: Wandering albatrosses have the largest wingspan of any living bird.
Speaker 1: It's between eleven and twelve feet from tip to tip,
Speaker 1: and with wings that big, you know, these birds are
Speaker 1: obviously built for flight. They've actually been known to circumnavigate
Speaker 1: the Southern Ocean up to three times in a single year,
Speaker 1: and one bird in particular is known to have traveled
Speaker 1: nearly four thousand miles in just twelve days, which is
Speaker 1: so impressive of course, but like, what's their secret for
Speaker 1: covering that kind of distance? Because you have to think
Speaker 1: that flapping a pair of twelve foot wings must take
Speaker 1: an awful lot of energy. Yeah, there's really no way
Speaker 1: an albatross could do that by flapping like they'd be
Speaker 1: exhausted within an hour tops. Instead, albatross has actually used
Speaker 1: this method called dynamics soaring, and it allows them to
Speaker 1: a glide across these incredible distances without needing to flap
Speaker 1: their wings. And this works because the birds have this
Speaker 1: special tendon in each of their shoulders that helps lock
Speaker 1: their wings into place. It's kind of a birdie cruise control,
Speaker 1: and once their wings are locked into position, albatross is
Speaker 1: simply glide along, swooping as needed to catch the wind
Speaker 1: and gradually rise back up. That's really cool, but I
Speaker 1: mean they never have to stop and take a rest
Speaker 1: or anything. No, not really. I mean it's hard to
Speaker 1: walk on land with that twelve foot wingspan. So apart
Speaker 1: from mating season, wandering albatrosses tend to stick to the
Speaker 1: air as much as possible. And there is one exception though,
Speaker 1: if an albatross goes crazy and just eats way too
Speaker 1: many fish, they might need to take a break and
Speaker 1: float on top of the water for a while, you know,
Speaker 1: until they've digested. Well that's pretty cute, but I think
Speaker 1: you said you had a feel good story about albatross
Speaker 1: is like, well, what exactly does that mean? Yeah, that's right,
Speaker 1: and it's actually about one albatross in particular. Her name
Speaker 1: is Wisdom, and as of this year, she's going to
Speaker 1: be sixty seven years old, which makes her the world's
Speaker 1: oldest known wild bird. She was born sometime in one
Speaker 1: but this Biologists started tracking her in nineteen fifty six,
Speaker 1: and since then, Wisdom has managed to rack up somewhere
Speaker 1: between two to three million miles in flying time, which
Speaker 1: is the equivalent of about four to six trips to
Speaker 1: the moon and back. Gosh, that's incredible, or at least
Speaker 1: I think it's incredible. I mean, I actually don't know
Speaker 1: how long albatross is typically lived, do you. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean it depends on the species, but they live I
Speaker 1: guess for you to fifty years if they're lucky. Albatrosses
Speaker 1: are one of those rare species of birds and wild
Speaker 1: animals in general. I guess that sometimes live long enough
Speaker 1: to die of old age. Well, I guess that's, you know,
Speaker 1: one of the perks of that wandering lifestyle, right, because
Speaker 1: I mean, if you're constantly on the move flying over
Speaker 1: an ocean, you pretty much have an unlimited food supply
Speaker 1: right there below you, and most predators wouldn't be able
Speaker 1: to keep up with you anyway. Yeah, that's definitely true,
Speaker 1: and amazingly the biggest threats to albatrosses are natural disasters
Speaker 1: and also I guess the consumption of plastic, both of
Speaker 1: which Wisdom has managed to avoid for almost seven decades now.
Speaker 1: But perhaps the most interesting thing to me was that
Speaker 1: she's birth and raised over forty chicks over her long lifetime,
Speaker 1: and that includes her most recent one, which was hatched
Speaker 1: just this spring. I've always thought albatrosses were really cool,
Speaker 1: you know, partially because of all the old sea myths
Speaker 1: around them, and also that epic collar ridge poem. But
Speaker 1: you know, nowadays they mostly make the news. You know,
Speaker 1: there's like YouTube videos and stuff that just kind of
Speaker 1: make fun of how silly they look when they're trying
Speaker 1: to walk on land, which kind of a bummer. I mean,
Speaker 1: even the name albatross, which is pretty awkward in its
Speaker 1: own right, Like it was apparently just taken from words
Speaker 1: used to describe other sea birds. So it comes from algatas,
Speaker 1: which was I guess, this Arabic word for a sea eagle,
Speaker 1: and and then that was adapted into a Spanish word alcatraz,
Speaker 1: which was the word for a pelican, and then finally
Speaker 1: the word made into English. I guess this is the
Speaker 1: seventeenth century, and that's when we got the word albatross. Well.
Speaker 1: As poorly conceived as that name is, I think penguins
Speaker 1: might have it even worse. And that's because way back
Speaker 1: when sailors actually used to call them ours feet. That's ridiculous,
Speaker 1: I know, and I mean you can guess why. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's on account of their short legs and
Speaker 1: their feet being so close to their backsides. But you know,
Speaker 1: thankfully the Welsh did come up with their own name penguin,
Speaker 1: which literally translates as white head. So I like, how
Speaker 1: both these names that are on such random characteristics, Like
Speaker 1: you know, if if I was defining a penguin the
Speaker 1: fact that it's bum touches his feet like that wouldn't
Speaker 1: be a defining characteristic, you know, or or that they
Speaker 1: have white heads, like do penguins even have white heads? Well,
Speaker 1: I mean the white head name it was actually another
Speaker 1: are a case of mistaken bird identity, just you know,
Speaker 1: just like with the albatross, the Welsh applied the name
Speaker 1: penguin to their local great ac population, and you know,
Speaker 1: and ac being another kind of giant black and white
Speaker 1: see birds. So the thinking is that some sailors just
Speaker 1: mistook penguins for ox and the name just stuck. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think we've got to make emotion to stop letting
Speaker 1: sailors name things because they always get it wrong. But
Speaker 1: I'm with you. Also, this is kind of random, but
Speaker 1: have you heard Benedict Cumberbatch try to say the word penguins, Like,
Speaker 1: for whatever reason, he always winds up calling them penguins
Speaker 1: or penglings. It's just hilarious because he winds up doing
Speaker 1: all this like penguin content, like he was in this
Speaker 1: cartoon penguin movie and he did the narration for a
Speaker 1: BBC documentary about penguins, and the whole time he's just
Speaker 1: butchering the name, Like I have no idea how he
Speaker 1: lands these gigs or why no one corrects him. That's
Speaker 1: pretty hilarious. I had no idea, but I'm going to
Speaker 1: YouTube it right after this episode. Should but you know,
Speaker 1: since we're on the subject of penguins or penguins if
Speaker 1: you prefer, we should really take a few minutes to
Speaker 1: talk about the largest of their kind, which of course
Speaker 1: our emperor penguins, and these big birds stand around four
Speaker 1: ft tall, which makes them the largest of the eighteen
Speaker 1: penguin species found on Earth. And you know, also a
Speaker 1: far cry from the smallest penguin species, and that's the
Speaker 1: little blue penguin, which is only about sixteen inches tall,
Speaker 1: and that's when it's fully grown. I love that blue
Speaker 1: penguins are so little, like like they're almost like a
Speaker 1: pocket penguin. I just wanted to think, what I like
Speaker 1: stuff it into my pockets. But let's talk more about
Speaker 1: these emperors, Like is it just their size that sets
Speaker 1: the emperors apart, or are they different from other penguins
Speaker 1: in other ways as well? Yeah, well, one difference is
Speaker 1: that emperor penguins don't do anything the easy way, like,
Speaker 1: for instance, other penguins in the southern hemisphere, they make
Speaker 1: the sensible decision to lay their eggs, you know, during
Speaker 1: the relatively warm summer months, and that's the same time
Speaker 1: when Antarctic cruizes make their rounds. But emperor penguins they
Speaker 1: actually wait until winter arrives to do their mating. And
Speaker 1: even then, emperors don't head for the warmth of the coasts,
Speaker 1: you know, to lay their eggs. Instead, they do the
Speaker 1: opposite and head south into the harshest weather. That's not
Speaker 1: if I've learned anything from marsh of the Penguins. It's
Speaker 1: that emperors don't make things any easier on themselves during
Speaker 1: their incubation periods. Like I know, most penguin species will
Speaker 1: build nests out of like loose feathers or tiny pebbles
Speaker 1: and keep their eggs there until they've hashed. But emperor
Speaker 1: penguins have a different system, right, Like, they incubate their
Speaker 1: one egg for the entire season, and they do it
Speaker 1: by standing still and I think balancing it on top
Speaker 1: of their feet. Yeah, that's right. And and this method,
Speaker 1: it really wouldn't work at all if it weren't for
Speaker 1: some pretty impressive teamwork on the part of their parents.
Speaker 1: Like because as soon as the mother penguin lay her egg,
Speaker 1: she high tails it towards the sea to feed and
Speaker 1: build up her fat reserves. So for the next eight
Speaker 1: or nine weeks after that, the task of incubation is
Speaker 1: left to the emperor dads, who are able to keep
Speaker 1: their egg warm thanks to uh, this special loose fold
Speaker 1: of skin that contains a high concentration of blood vessels
Speaker 1: and this featherless patch of skin it kind of drapes
Speaker 1: over the egg at all times to to keep it
Speaker 1: from freezing. And that's why the father stands still for
Speaker 1: months on end. I've actually read that male emperor penguins
Speaker 1: typically burned through nearly half their body weight while waiting
Speaker 1: for their mates to return. So this is actually one
Speaker 1: of those rare cases in the animal kingdom where the
Speaker 1: plumpest and pudgest males are also the most desirable. I
Speaker 1: mean that they're you know, easily the best equipped to
Speaker 1: survive those long months without a meal. Yeah that's true,
Speaker 1: but you know, just so people know that we aren't
Speaker 1: body shaming penguins or anything, I want to mention that
Speaker 1: emperor penguins male and female, are actually quite athletic, or
Speaker 1: you know, at least they are in the water. In fact,
Speaker 1: while most aquatic birds would be lucky to dive two
Speaker 1: hundred feet or so underwater, the emperor penguin is capable
Speaker 1: of diving a stunning undred feet or more, and the
Speaker 1: amount of time they can stay under is just as impressive.
Speaker 1: Like I read, the longest dive on record for an
Speaker 1: emperor is just under twenty eight minutes, so that actually
Speaker 1: is staying to me like the fact that then go
Speaker 1: fift hundred feet under the water that that's incredible. But
Speaker 1: what is their secret? Well, it comes down to this
Speaker 1: amazing trick of physiology. So basically, they can metabolize oxygen
Speaker 1: at a slower rate during a dive than they would otherwise,
Speaker 1: like when resting. And this is how Live Science explains it. Quote,
Speaker 1: the penguins can switch between two modes of oxygen use,
Speaker 1: either starving their muscles or giving them an extra shot
Speaker 1: of oxygen to help keep them working. And so emperors
Speaker 1: they actually have one other trick up their sleeves as well,
Speaker 1: which is that their brains have evolved to tolerate extremely
Speaker 1: low levels of oxygen without shutting down. So not only
Speaker 1: can these birds control their flow of oxygen, they can
Speaker 1: survive on a reduced flow for periods of time that
Speaker 1: would result in brain damage or even death and just
Speaker 1: about any other animal alright, So clearly they're the Olympic
Speaker 1: divers of the animal kingdom, even if their parenting habits
Speaker 1: are a little unusual. But now that we've covered everyone's
Speaker 1: favorite flightless water birds, what do you say we switch
Speaker 1: gears and talk about some of their land loving cousins.
Speaker 1: Calmed down for that, But first, let's take a quick break.
Speaker 1: You listen to part Time Genius and we're talking about
Speaker 1: the secrets of the world's largest birds. Okay, Gabe, So
Speaker 1: we've already covered the biggest fire a big swimmer, but
Speaker 1: inch for inch and pound pound, the planet's tallest and
Speaker 1: heaviest bird actually does neither of those things. And of
Speaker 1: course we're talking about the ostrich here. Now. However awkward
Speaker 1: they might look, ostriches are actually built for land speed.
Speaker 1: In fact, they're capable of sprinting up to forty three
Speaker 1: miles per hour in the short burths, and that actually
Speaker 1: makes them the fastest bipedal runners on the planet. But
Speaker 1: it's not just their speed that's so impressive. Their endurance
Speaker 1: is absolutely staggering as well. Ostriches are able to maintain
Speaker 1: speeds of thirty one miles per hour for up to
Speaker 1: ten miles at a time, which is you know why
Speaker 1: you never want to challenge an ostrich to a foot race,
Speaker 1: right we all know that old saying. Yeah, but you know,
Speaker 1: I did some reading on what makes ostriches such great runners,
Speaker 1: and it turns out the key to their speed is
Speaker 1: actually their toes. Really, so why is that? Well, so
Speaker 1: most birds have three or four toes on each foot,
Speaker 1: but ostriches only have two. And while you might think
Speaker 1: this would hinder the birds balance in some way, the
Speaker 1: reduced number of toes actually greatly improves their running form.
Speaker 1: And as it turns out, two toed feet result in
Speaker 1: less mass at the end of each leg, and that's
Speaker 1: why ostriches can cover up to sixteen feet in a
Speaker 1: single stride. Six ft in a single stride. That's crazy,
Speaker 1: but you know, this whole two toe thing actually does
Speaker 1: make sense. I I read somewhere that hoofed animals once
Speaker 1: had more toes than they do now, but gradually, over
Speaker 1: the course of millennia, their toes dwindled down to just
Speaker 1: two per foot, and they, I guess it, became some
Speaker 1: of the fastest runners in the world as a result
Speaker 1: of that. But that's really fascinating to me. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: is interesting. And you know, another thing I didn't realize
Speaker 1: is that people have been racing ostriches, you know, for sport,
Speaker 1: like the way we race horses. And this has been
Speaker 1: going on for over a hundred years at this point,
Speaker 1: and weird are still The practice got its start in Florida,
Speaker 1: and that's where ostrich r of course it did, right,
Speaker 1: of course, and that's where ostrige race tracks first started
Speaker 1: popping up up and this was in the late nineteenth century.
Speaker 1: Tourists would pay fifty cents to mount these giant birds
Speaker 1: and attempt to ride them. And you know, I say
Speaker 1: attempt because of course, writing an ostrich is easier said
Speaker 1: than done, right, Like, they don't take well to training,
Speaker 1: and it's next to impossible to make them run in
Speaker 1: a straight line. Not to mention how hard it is
Speaker 1: to hang onto the back of something that's moving at
Speaker 1: forty miles per hour. You know that there's actually a
Speaker 1: way around that problem now that there's this annual event
Speaker 1: at the Meadowlands called the Ostrich Derby, and I've never gone,
Speaker 1: but it just sounds so great to me. So instead
Speaker 1: of writing the birds bare back, the jockeys are actually
Speaker 1: being pulled along in these brightly colored chariots and the
Speaker 1: whole thing is completely ridiculous, but it's got its own audience.
Speaker 1: Two thousand eighteen was actually the seventh year the races
Speaker 1: have been held, and you and I should really go
Speaker 1: to this. Oh yeah, we gotta get tickets next year.
Speaker 1: I do want to mention though, that if you ever
Speaker 1: come face to face with a wild ostrich, running away
Speaker 1: is not in your best interests well, I mean, there's
Speaker 1: a good chance the ostrich will give chase. And remember
Speaker 1: these things can top out at like forty five miles
Speaker 1: per hour, so they will catch you right. And male
Speaker 1: ostriches can go to be I think nine ft tall
Speaker 1: and over three pounds, so you definitely don't want to
Speaker 1: be on the receiving end of that. But uh, Ostriches
Speaker 1: are sometimes known to attack humans if they feel their
Speaker 1: territories being threatened, but if running is out, Like, what
Speaker 1: is your best bet for surviving an angry ostrich attack? Well,
Speaker 1: I looked into that because obviously ostrich attacks are such
Speaker 1: a common threat that it's really just irresponsible to not
Speaker 1: be prepared for one. And so this is the advice
Speaker 1: I found in Discovery News. Instead of running away in terror,
Speaker 1: they recommend quote hiding, playing dead until the bird becomes
Speaker 1: bored and leaves, or standing your ground and fighting the
Speaker 1: ostrich off with a long pole. I like this idea
Speaker 1: of like fighting an ostrich off in a long pull,
Speaker 1: and it makes a lot of sense to me. Right,
Speaker 1: never go anywhere without your ostrich pole and you'll be
Speaker 1: just fine. That's good advice. But you know, before we
Speaker 1: move on from ostrages, I do want to talk about
Speaker 1: a couple other ways that these massive birds tip the scales. So,
Speaker 1: for one thing, they have the largest eyes of any
Speaker 1: land mammal on Earth. Each eye is roughly two inches across,
Speaker 1: which means they're about as big as a billiard ball
Speaker 1: and even larger than the bird's own brains. Ostriches also
Speaker 1: have the largest eggs in the world, which I guess
Speaker 1: an average one comes in and about six inches in
Speaker 1: diameter and weighs more than three pounds, which is about
Speaker 1: as much as two dozen chicken eggs. Good lord, that
Speaker 1: is one big omelet. Also, they're like people do eat them,
Speaker 1: right like Aurent Ostrich eggs a delicacy in some places, definitely,
Speaker 1: and a single egg provides quite a meal. I think
Speaker 1: it's roughly two thousand calories, so basically a day's worth. Wow. Well,
Speaker 1: I know there's at least one more giant bird we
Speaker 1: wanted to cover today. But if you don't mind, there
Speaker 1: are a couple of misconceptions about as are just that
Speaker 1: have always bugged me. So I'd like to take a
Speaker 1: couple of minutes to set the record straight on those.
Speaker 1: And and actually I want to start with the idea
Speaker 1: that ostriches bury their heads in the sand. Sure, so
Speaker 1: I I remember this from mental class, but I remember
Speaker 1: thinking it was just an illusion, right, Like, ostrich heads
Speaker 1: are pretty tiny compared to the rest of their bodies,
Speaker 1: so if you're looking at them at a distance and
Speaker 1: they're like nibbling at food, it just might look like
Speaker 1: their heads stuck in the ground. Yeah, that that's definitely true.
Speaker 1: But you know, actually some researchers think the real root
Speaker 1: of the myth has more to do with the nesting
Speaker 1: habits of ostriches. So the birds they have to dig
Speaker 1: some pretty big holes to stow those massive eggs you mentioned,
Speaker 1: and sometimes these holes are up to eight feet wide
Speaker 1: and two feet deep. And you know, it's during the
Speaker 1: egg incubation period where all the confusion comes in. Like
Speaker 1: ostrich parents take turns rotating their eggs with their beaks,
Speaker 1: which you know obviously requires them to stick their heads
Speaker 1: pretty far into the nest. So you know, to an observer,
Speaker 1: it might look like the ostriches bury in its head
Speaker 1: in the sand, but that's actually not what's going on
Speaker 1: at all. That's really fascinating. I've never heard that. But um,
Speaker 1: do you have like another austar smith you wonder? Sure? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: And and this one it actually goes beyond just ostriches
Speaker 1: because it concerns the origin of an entire family of
Speaker 1: flightless birds known as rattites. So along with ostriches, the
Speaker 1: rabbits family also includes other big birds like EMUs and rays,
Speaker 1: as well as tiny flightless birds like Kiwi's. And for
Speaker 1: the longest time, researchers have assumed that rabbites never had
Speaker 1: the ability to fly at all. And that's because we
Speaker 1: know that the wings of these birds are still functional
Speaker 1: rather than ornamental. So in Ostrich, for example, uses its
Speaker 1: wings like a rudder. Not only are they good for
Speaker 1: maintaining balance, they also helped the birds turn and break
Speaker 1: when running at high speeds. So the thinking has been that,
Speaker 1: you know, since their wings don't seem to be vestigial,
Speaker 1: rabbites probably always lacked the ability to fly, and instead
Speaker 1: they simply evolved from other ancient flightless birds, which is
Speaker 1: really interesting. But I think we're saying is that theory
Speaker 1: is now being challenged. Is that right, right? Yeah, that
Speaker 1: is right. More recent research suggests that the ancestors of
Speaker 1: rabbites spread to more isolated regions at a time when
Speaker 1: their wings were still used for flying, and you know,
Speaker 1: they likely did this as a way to avoid becoming
Speaker 1: the lunch of their larger dinosaur cousins. And you know,
Speaker 1: then as the dinosaurs died out and the continents began
Speaker 1: to separate, these now isolated birds found themselves at the
Speaker 1: top of the food chain and suddenly without the need
Speaker 1: to escape to higher ground anymore. So once the need
Speaker 1: for flight was removed, so too was the need to
Speaker 1: stay small and you know, in order to be able
Speaker 1: to fly, and and that enabled the birds to independently
Speaker 1: evolve and become larger as well as flightless, which you
Speaker 1: know makes a lot of sense. And it also explains
Speaker 1: why far flung islands are home to so many big
Speaker 1: flightless birds, right Like, Uh, New Zealand had this twelve
Speaker 1: but tall, five pound moa bird and that was until
Speaker 1: humans hunted it to extinction in the thirteenth century. And
Speaker 1: Madagascar was also home to this elephant bird. I'd never
Speaker 1: heard of this bird, but it's amazing. It was an
Speaker 1: astonishing ten ft tall and nine pounds. Yeah, and I
Speaker 1: mean jack birds can thrive in these islands settings, partially
Speaker 1: because there aren't any you know, predators for them to
Speaker 1: worry about, aside from humans, right exactly. Well, with all
Speaker 1: that in mind, what do you say we talk a
Speaker 1: little about another member of the ratsite family, one of
Speaker 1: the world's biggest and most misunderstood birds, the island dwelling cassowary. Sure,
Speaker 1: so this is actually what I've been waiting to talk about.
Speaker 1: But before we do, let's take another quick break. Alright, mangoes,
Speaker 1: So you said you were excited to talk about castlewaries
Speaker 1: just like I am. So would you mind giving us
Speaker 1: a quick rundown of their stats, because I somehow feel
Speaker 1: they're not as well known as ostriches and penguins and
Speaker 1: all these other birds we've been talking about. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: definitely true. Cassowaries are large, flightless birds. They've got black
Speaker 1: and blue feathers and these big protective frills on the
Speaker 1: sides of their heads called casks. And there are only
Speaker 1: three species in the world at this point. To live
Speaker 1: in the rainforests of New Guinea off the coast of Australia,
Speaker 1: and the third and largest one lives at the wet tropics.
Speaker 1: This is in the northern tip of Australia. You know.
Speaker 1: Birds of the third species are called southern cassowaries, and
Speaker 1: they typically weigh in around uh a hundred thirty pounds.
Speaker 1: They stand about six ft tall, and they're also fiercely territorial.
Speaker 1: If you intrude on their habitats, they'll happily slice you
Speaker 1: up with their terrifying five inch long claws. Yeah, castawaries
Speaker 1: are famous for that kind of deadliness, and and with
Speaker 1: good reason, honestly, Like I was reading this article in
Speaker 1: Smithsonian Dot com and the author Jacob Brogan. He said
Speaker 1: that cassowaries resemble quote an ostrich as described by HP Lovecraft,
Speaker 1: or maybe a turkey fused with a veloci raptor. And
Speaker 1: I mean, if those descriptions don't sell you on how
Speaker 1: dangerous these birds are, consider that they're also sometimes nicknamed
Speaker 1: murder birds. Yeah, and I mean, not only do they
Speaker 1: have those razor sharp clause you mentioned, they also have
Speaker 1: one of the strongest kicks of any animal. And they
Speaker 1: also have a tendency to charge their victims at up
Speaker 1: to thirty miles per hour and then they pounce on
Speaker 1: them by leaping up to five feet in the air.
Speaker 1: That's terrifying. And it also makes me wonder, like what
Speaker 1: if they remade the movie Birds with murder birds Like
Speaker 1: that would be so much scarier. But you know, you
Speaker 1: mentioned before the break that cassowaries are somewhat misunderstood, and
Speaker 1: and I was hoping you clarify that a little bit. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: it's just like with ostriches, you know, cassowaries aren't some
Speaker 1: kind of malicious human hunters like we might think of them.
Speaker 1: They're actually shy, peaceful, and pretty harmless when left to themselves,
Speaker 1: and in fact, a cassowary hasn't killed a human since
Speaker 1: nineteen six and even then that was only in self defense.
Speaker 1: And you know, while over a hundred humans have been
Speaker 1: injured by cassowaries since then, we've actually done way more
Speaker 1: damage to them, like car accidents and habitat loss. Those
Speaker 1: kinds of things have decimated the southern cassowary population in Australia,
Speaker 1: and in fact, they're now list is endangered and only
Speaker 1: around fifteen hundred to two thousand or thoughts to be
Speaker 1: left in the wild at this point, and and it
Speaker 1: really it could be even fewer than that for all
Speaker 1: we know. So one of the things I didn't get
Speaker 1: too that was curious about the castawary is is how
Speaker 1: did the locals feel about them? Because on one hand,
Speaker 1: I think the birds would figure into like culture and folklore,
Speaker 1: and on the other hand, people probably don't want these
Speaker 1: giant dinosaur birds just slicing up their neighbors, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a good point, and you know, I'd say it's
Speaker 1: kind of a rocky relationship at the best. But the
Speaker 1: cassowaries definitely have their supporters, like in fact, you'll often
Speaker 1: see signs along the highways in Australia now that encourage
Speaker 1: motorists to be cassowary on right, And you know that's
Speaker 1: just to you know, get people to keep an eye
Speaker 1: out for the birds while they're driving. And as for folklore,
Speaker 1: castawaries have always been a big part of the mythologies
Speaker 1: of Australia's rainforest tribes. For example, some locals believe that
Speaker 1: cassowaries are cousins to human beings, while others say that
Speaker 1: they are human beings who have been reincarnated as birds.
Speaker 1: And and actually this last part there, it's actually even
Speaker 1: inspired a bit of envy and in some of the
Speaker 1: female locals, like they'll joke that they'd like to reincarnate
Speaker 1: as female cassowaries, since it's the males of that species
Speaker 1: rather than the females who sit on all the eggs
Speaker 1: and then raise the chicks that hatch from them. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, even apart from the stress free reincarnation for females,
Speaker 1: Australians do have another reason to stand up for the
Speaker 1: castagary cousins. Oh yeah, and what's that. Well, apparently cassowaries
Speaker 1: are masters of seed dispersal, which means they're a big
Speaker 1: part of why Australia still has as much rainforest as
Speaker 1: it does. And this is something I learned from a
Speaker 1: nat Geo article by Olivia Judson, so I just want
Speaker 1: to go ahead and read her explanation of this relationship. Quote.
Speaker 1: As Australia's fruit eaters in chief, cassawaries are also chief
Speaker 1: architects of the forest. In the course of a day,
Speaker 1: a single adult cassawary eats hundreds of fruits and berries.
Speaker 1: Cassowary digestion is gentle, though, and does not harm the
Speaker 1: seeds which emerge intact, and so as a cassawary wanders
Speaker 1: through its territory, eating, drinking, bathing, and defecating, it moves
Speaker 1: seeds from one part of the forest to another, sometimes
Speaker 1: over distances of half a mile or more. It also
Speaker 1: moves seeds up hills and across rivers. It's short, it
Speaker 1: transports in ways that gravity alone cannot by means that
Speaker 1: their fruit scented droppings, then, castawaries are a powerful vehicle
Speaker 1: for spreading seeds around. That is pretty awesome, And you
Speaker 1: know now that you mentioned it. That's something I read
Speaker 1: about large birds in general, like how the growth or
Speaker 1: loss of rainforests is directly tied to their presence. I mean,
Speaker 1: the tallest, hardiest trees, those tend to come from bigger seeds,
Speaker 1: and without birds big enough to carry or swallow them,
Speaker 1: the odds of those seeds ever taking root is pretty slim.
Speaker 1: So in a very real way, the future of our
Speaker 1: rainforest depends on the existence of big, weirdo birds like
Speaker 1: the Castle area like that. And you know, in fact,
Speaker 1: there was this one study down on a particular tree
Speaker 1: that only grows in a small region of Australia's coastal rainforest,
Speaker 1: and it went a long way towards showing just how
Speaker 1: crucial castawaries are for the tree's survival. And that's because,
Speaker 1: according to the report, without passing through one of these
Speaker 1: giant birds, only four percent of these tree seeds ever
Speaker 1: take root and grow. But after passing through a castawary,
Speaker 1: a looping two were shown to grow into adult trees.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's remarkable, Like of those seeds that go
Speaker 1: through castuwaries end up growing into trees. But why is
Speaker 1: that exactly? That's the thing no one knows exactly. It's
Speaker 1: it's still one of the best kept bird secrets out there.
Speaker 1: And you know, because I like that idea of going out,
Speaker 1: you know, with an air of mystery. What do you
Speaker 1: say we just leave the discussion there and jump straight
Speaker 1: into the fact off for it it? H yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: So I'll go first, because I can't bear going through
Speaker 1: an episode like this without at least mentioning the fastest
Speaker 1: predator on the planet, the peregrine falcon, And they have
Speaker 1: two unbelievable abilities. The first is their eyesight, and I
Speaker 1: read somewhere that their vision it's about twelve times that
Speaker 1: of humans, and they can actually use it to spot
Speaker 1: a smaller bird from up to five miles away. And
Speaker 1: once this prey is spotted, I mean it might as
Speaker 1: well call it quits. Because peregrine falcons can fly over
Speaker 1: a hundred and eighty miles per hour when they hit
Speaker 1: peak speeds. That's terrifying. You know. I was at the
Speaker 1: beach and walking with like, um a trade of food
Speaker 1: and fries on it for for my kids, and this
Speaker 1: seagull just swooped down and picked up one fry off
Speaker 1: the plate, and I just remember being stunned at like
Speaker 1: how fast it was and how accurate, and the fact
Speaker 1: that like a falcon can do that at a hundred
Speaker 1: eighty miles per hour is so scary to me. But
Speaker 1: you know, we talked about penguins earlier, but I wanted
Speaker 1: to note that while we think of penguins mainly being
Speaker 1: at the South Pole, there are definitely a few other
Speaker 1: spots where you can find them. In fact, the majority
Speaker 1: of the world's eighteen penguin species also live around New Zealand.
Speaker 1: But the reason I bring this up is because a
Speaker 1: few years ago there was this fossil that was discovered
Speaker 1: on what might be the largest penguin species to ever live.
Speaker 1: It was probably over fifty million years ago, but the
Speaker 1: penguin was six ft tall and two twenty pounds. So
Speaker 1: even the Emperor penguin, which is gigantic, but seem tiny
Speaker 1: next to this thing that's scared to even think about.
Speaker 1: If if you search online for the bird hat craze
Speaker 1: of the late eighteen hundreds, or if you listen to
Speaker 1: the podcast Dressed, you will realize that this was a
Speaker 1: really serious fat At some point these bird hats. Women
Speaker 1: all over the US and Europe were wearing these hats
Speaker 1: with feathers and even entire birds propped on top. Like
Speaker 1: I was reading an article from Popular Science that talked
Speaker 1: about how someone reported back after taking two strolls through
Speaker 1: Manhattan in eight six and on this stroll they counted
Speaker 1: seven hundred hats and five hundred and twenty five of
Speaker 1: them were topped by feathers or just entire birds. So
Speaker 1: I mean the craze it actually got so big that
Speaker 1: several bird species became at risk of or even outright endangered,
Speaker 1: and a campaign to stop the practice launched, and much
Speaker 1: of this work led to the birth of the earliest
Speaker 1: auto bonn societies, as well as the first federal conservation legislation,
Speaker 1: which was the Lacy Act of n So do you
Speaker 1: know that one of the ways researchers can take a
Speaker 1: census of large birds on remote islands is from space?
Speaker 1: And this is how researchers studying albatross in New Zealand
Speaker 1: and on islands off the coast of Argentina actually keep
Speaker 1: a better account of the birds. So it's with a
Speaker 1: little help from cameras on satellites orbiting the Earth, researchers
Speaker 1: can actually look at images and count the pixelated white
Speaker 1: dots to see how many albatrosses are there, and ends
Speaker 1: up being way cheaper and much less labor intensive than
Speaker 1: having to travel and count them all in person. Oh
Speaker 1: my bad. Well, you know, they might be able to
Speaker 1: count birds from space, but one thing they won't be
Speaker 1: able to do is take birds into space. Why is that, Well,
Speaker 1: it's because birds need gravity to swallow. So unless we
Speaker 1: come up with another way to assist birds and swallowing,
Speaker 1: chances are you know, NASA is not going to be
Speaker 1: bringing any birds on future Shuttle launches, at least not
Speaker 1: anytime soon. Well, it just seemed wrong to me to
Speaker 1: do an episode on Big Birds and not at least
Speaker 1: mentioned Big Bird himself. So, you know, Carol Spinney, who
Speaker 1: is the voice of Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch.
Speaker 1: It turns out that if it wasn't for the encouragement
Speaker 1: of a mentor, he might not have made it past
Speaker 1: the first year of the show. When Spinney moved to
Speaker 1: New York City, he didn't have much money. New York
Speaker 1: City is obviously very expensive, and he didn't feel like
Speaker 1: he was fitting in with the rest of the cast.
Speaker 1: So just a few months into the gig he mentioned
Speaker 1: this to Kermit Love, who's the man who built Big Bird,
Speaker 1: And you know, he said, I might be quitting, and
Speaker 1: Kermit encouraged him to give it some time, and in
Speaker 1: fact he told him you'll never get an opportunity like
Speaker 1: this again. It will get better given another mom and
Speaker 1: nearly five decades later, I'm pretty sure he's glad he
Speaker 1: got that advice. Yeah, I would say so, and I mean,
Speaker 1: because there's just no way I could beat a big
Speaker 1: bird fact. I think you'll have to take the trophy
Speaker 1: for today. Well, I'll take that honor from your gives.
Speaker 1: So thank you so much and for all you out there.
Speaker 1: If we missed any bird facts, be sure to email
Speaker 1: us at part Time Genius at how stuff works dot com,
Speaker 1: where hit us up on Facebook or Twitter. Thank you
Speaker 1: so much for listening. Thanks again for listening. Part Time
Speaker 1: Genius is a production of How Stuff Works and wouldn't
Speaker 1: be possible without several brilliant people who do the important
Speaker 1: things we couldn't even begin to understand. CHRISTA McNeil does
Speaker 1: the editing thing. Noel Brown made the theme song and
Speaker 1: does the MIXI mixy sound thing. Jerry Rowland does the
Speaker 1: exact producer thing. Gay Blues years our lead searcher with
Speaker 1: support from the Research Army, including Austin Thompson, Nolan Brown
Speaker 1: and Lucas Adams and Eves. Jeff Cook gets the show
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Speaker 1: you heard, we hope you'll subscribe. And if you really
Speaker 1: really like what you've heard, maybe you could leave a
Speaker 1: good review for us. Do we do we forget Jason?
Speaker 1: Jason who