Speaker 1: Welcome to Creature feature production of iHeartRadio. I'm your host
Speaker 1: of Many Parasites, Katie Golden. I studied psychology and evolutionary biology,
Speaker 1: and today on the show, we're firing the Easter Bunny
Speaker 1: and looking for a replacement. That's right, ebee, you're getting
Speaker 1: benched and we're sending in another animal out there to
Speaker 1: make mary with the eggs and the flowers and the
Speaker 1: chocolates and so on. We've got three candidates on the
Speaker 1: show today, each of whom may be able to beat
Speaker 1: the Easter bunny at his own game. From the mountains
Speaker 1: to the deserts to the Australian outback. Our contenders aren't bunnies,
Speaker 1: but that doesn't mean they can't hop a dig and
Speaker 1: maybe even deliver you a bouquet of fresh flowers. Discover
Speaker 1: this and more as we answer the age old question
Speaker 1: what did rabbits ever do? To the Foundation for Rabbit
Speaker 1: Free Australia. Joining me today to give the Easter Bunny
Speaker 1: the boot is front of the show, co host of
Speaker 1: Quick Question with So and Daniel and comedy writer Soren Booie.
Speaker 2: Welcome, Hey, thank you very much for having me giving
Speaker 2: this an opportunity to kick that Easter bunny and right
Speaker 2: in thee on this.
Speaker 1: I put a little quack sound over it, like a
Speaker 1: little duck quack, so you can't it's funny. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's cute.
Speaker 2: All right, Well I'll stick with butt for now. People
Speaker 2: hear my voice.
Speaker 1: So, I mean, look, the Easter Bunny has had a
Speaker 1: good run. But I think we can all agree that.
Speaker 2: It gets two goods. I would say it gets old.
Speaker 1: You know, the nose twitching, the ears, the floppy ears,
Speaker 1: the cottontail. It's he's like he's a one trick bunny.
Speaker 1: He's a one trick bunny.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I would say so.
Speaker 1: So I actually thought of this idea because when I
Speaker 1: asked you if you wanted to guess on the show,
Speaker 1: you were really interested in talking about the pika.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, I so I grew up. I grew up
Speaker 2: among the pika. Ah.
Speaker 1: They raised you from a feral time.
Speaker 2: Up in the scree of the mountains. We lived in
Speaker 2: the tiny holes of the screen, sort.
Speaker 1: Of like the Jungle Book, except the Alpine book. And
Speaker 1: you learned the way of the pika. Right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess my sheir con was sort of like
Speaker 2: an eagle. Yeah, because that was the natural enemy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, a hawk.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So I grew up in Colorado and from an
Speaker 2: early age, it's you're very encouraged from an early age
Speaker 2: to climb mountains, like your parents are like, I think
Speaker 2: you're about old enough that we can go climb something.
Speaker 2: And guaranteed as soon as you get above timberline, which
Speaker 2: just means like where that there's not enough air for
Speaker 2: the trees to survive, then you run into these. You
Speaker 2: run into these, you'll hear these little, tiny, adorable squeaks
Speaker 2: up there and it's up and I don't know who's
Speaker 2: like been up above like twelve thousand feet, but there's
Speaker 2: like it's all rock up there. It's giant boulders and
Speaker 2: you just like they're deep. I mean you can kind
Speaker 2: of like if you dropped a water bottle, you could
Speaker 2: you could lose it inside these essentially crevasses of rock. Yeah,
Speaker 2: And that's where these pika would live and they come
Speaker 2: out and they're so territorial, but it's adorable because they're
Speaker 2: there look like little cotton balls, essentially, the gray cotton balls.
Speaker 2: They're so cute. They're round and they come out and
Speaker 2: they yell at you, and they're yell is so it's
Speaker 2: just a little squeak and it's so nice. It's like
Speaker 2: they're they're adorable little animals. And uh, I feel like
Speaker 2: you don't even need to do like the laying egg piece.
Speaker 2: You could just double up. You just have this round
Speaker 2: animal be the egg itself. Yeah, so you get like
Speaker 2: little pikas and then you just open up the pika
Speaker 2: and your treats are in there.
Speaker 1: Right wait right wait, yes, okay. So to give the
Speaker 1: listener and sample of the pika call, it is it
Speaker 1: is astounding. So this is but a pika sounds like
Speaker 1: just to sort of eh.
Speaker 2: E. That's and like in pika that means you get
Speaker 2: out of here, get out of here, get up along.
Speaker 1: Here, Yes exactly. Yeah. So pikas have a variety of
Speaker 1: calls and songs they use for communication. The purpose of
Speaker 1: the calls can range from calling cards for individuals, attracting mates,
Speaker 1: territory defense, or warning of predators. So they they really
Speaker 1: are extremely verbal, which is I think it feels unusual
Speaker 1: for little animals like this. Often they tend to lay low,
Speaker 1: maybe not make a lot of noise, not make a
Speaker 1: lot of loud calls. But these guys really do an
Speaker 1: interesting thing so we are talking about replacing the Easter bunny,
Speaker 1: and of all the animals that we're going to talk
Speaker 1: about that look like bunnies on this show, this is
Speaker 1: the one that looks the least like a bunny, but
Speaker 1: it is the most related to rabbits. It is not
Speaker 1: a rodent. It is actually in the lagomorph order, which
Speaker 1: is also what rabbits belong to.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I heard that. I mean, they look kind of
Speaker 2: like hamsters, are like gerbils. But then I remember somebody
Speaker 2: telling me, no, no, no, they're more like a rabbit. And
Speaker 2: I was like, okay, you don't you don't know what
Speaker 2: you're talking about. Maybe you've just never seen a hamster.
Speaker 2: This is a hamster.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, they do. They look like large hamsters. They're
Speaker 1: not big. They're like a sort of you could hold
Speaker 1: one in your hand. It's like a handful of hamster.
Speaker 1: And they have these round ears. They're very fluffy, like
Speaker 1: you said, like little little egg shaped poofballs. They don't
Speaker 1: have a visible tail. They actually do have a tail,
Speaker 1: but it's just buried under all of their fluff, so
Speaker 1: you can't really see it. But even though they look
Speaker 1: like a rodent, they are in fact much more related
Speaker 1: to a rabbit in fact, like lagomorpha. The order it's
Speaker 1: rabbits and pike is and that's it.
Speaker 2: I didn't know that. I have a question for you.
Speaker 2: Do this is? This is going to sound like a
Speaker 2: dumb question, but but I need to know.
Speaker 1: I'll oh, yes they do. And the way I know
Speaker 1: this is I have been peed on by a rabbit.
Speaker 2: Uh my, oh very scientific.
Speaker 1: Yes. My my friend had a rabbit when I was
Speaker 1: a kid, and it not only kicked me very hard,
Speaker 1: it also flicked a bunch of pea on me, which
Speaker 1: I've heard is like a I guess I don't know
Speaker 1: too much about domesticated rabbits, but I think that they
Speaker 1: sometimes flick their pe as, sort of like a territorial thing.
Speaker 1: So yeah, yeah, so.
Speaker 2: It I'm going to steal that. I'm letting it down what.
Speaker 1: We can learn from rabbits. But what I mean, it's
Speaker 1: not a dumb question, but a weird one. So why
Speaker 1: do you ask?
Speaker 2: I asked, because I so, And maybe this I don't
Speaker 2: know if this is true, because obviously all of my
Speaker 2: information about pikea come from seeing them and then somebody
Speaker 2: telling me things about them. They said that because water
Speaker 2: is also very hard to come by up there, except
Speaker 2: in the winter when there's snow fields everywhere. But during
Speaker 2: the regular like the sunny season may through like August,
Speaker 2: there's not a ton of rainstorms up there. And I
Speaker 2: heard that the way that one of the things that
Speaker 2: they do it to save water, the pika is that
Speaker 2: they get a lot of their water from the food
Speaker 2: that they eat, and then they like birds, they just
Speaker 2: it's all comes out of one place, like when they
Speaker 2: poop and pee. It's all just like one collective. It's
Speaker 2: just like this white blop that comes out.
Speaker 1: I mean, I know, they do not have a kloaca
Speaker 1: like a bird does. So birds actually have a cloaca.
Speaker 1: It's like the magical hole that does it all, is
Speaker 1: what I like to call it on the show. It's
Speaker 1: where pee, poop, eggs, and sex all happens. But with pecas, no,
Speaker 1: they do. They do not have a but they do
Speaker 1: I think similar to bunnies. They produce a kind of
Speaker 1: weird poop that they will eat that looks kind of
Speaker 1: more like a it's kind of a more moist kind
Speaker 1: of thing, and so they may eat that to like
Speaker 1: retain their moisture. But yeah, they get they get most
Speaker 1: of their their fluid.
Speaker 2: From treats for themselves.
Speaker 1: Exactly. Yeah, yeah, hot out of the oven, which is there,
Speaker 1: but so so yeah. So the the pika, as you mentioned,
Speaker 1: are found in mountainous regions, often where a lot of
Speaker 1: wild flowers grow. They're found in North America, like you said,
Speaker 1: in the mountains of Colorado. They're also found in Asia.
Speaker 1: The American pika is found in the mountains of western
Speaker 1: United States and southwestern Canada, and the colored pika is
Speaker 1: found in Alaska, the Yukon, and British Columbia. So there
Speaker 1: are many more species though, than just the American pika
Speaker 1: and the collared pika. There are thirty four different species
Speaker 1: of pika, all extremely adorable. They're typically around six to
Speaker 1: eight inches big or fifteen to twenty centimeters long, sometimes smaller,
Speaker 1: sometimes a little bigger. They usually weigh less than a
Speaker 1: pound at like one hundred and twenty grams. The biggest
Speaker 1: pika I think is the illy pika of the Tianshan
Speaker 1: Mountains in China, which is over twenty centimeters long and
Speaker 1: about two hundred and fifty grams, which wow, so large.
Speaker 1: Good job, little buddies, you did it. But they're very cute.
Speaker 1: They have very fluffy ears, and they're adorable.
Speaker 2: Are they? Is this one of those situations where an
Speaker 2: animal just walks over the bearing straight and we're all like,
Speaker 2: that's fine, a hundreds and thousand miles And that's why
Speaker 2: it's in both these plates, in both these continents. I mean,
Speaker 2: is this like a animal?
Speaker 1: That's a really good question. I actually don't know that
Speaker 1: far back in their evolutionary history. It can be surprising.
Speaker 1: Sometimes there are animals and I'm not saying this is
Speaker 1: true with the pika because I don't actually know, but
Speaker 1: there's some animals that actually originated in America that end
Speaker 1: up in crazy parts of the world, like I think marsupials.
Speaker 1: There is some evidence to suggest that marsupials actually originated
Speaker 1: in America, And now, whoa, Almost all marsupials are in
Speaker 1: Australia except for one, which is the possum, which is
Speaker 1: still in America, and it's like the only North American marsupial,
Speaker 1: whereas like the rest of them are in Australia. So
Speaker 1: that could be the case with the pika. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I would be talking out of my butt, which unfortunately
Speaker 1: does not produce tasty treats like the pika's butts do.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're not talking of our bus today. We're here
Speaker 2: for kicking butts easter bunnies.
Speaker 1: But that's right.
Speaker 2: I wonder if U, like, if there was like a
Speaker 2: prehistoric I went to the tar pits recently with my
Speaker 2: son and we looked at all the there's just yeah,
Speaker 2: seeing all the ice age creatures, it's just everything is
Speaker 2: similar except bigger, Like there were just animals were just bigger,
Speaker 2: like a sloth. The sloth is like the size of
Speaker 2: a cow and maybe a bigger And I'm just sort
Speaker 2: of hoping that like, at some point there was a
Speaker 2: bigger pika out there that was just like contending with
Speaker 2: a saber to a tiger in the mountains. And then
Speaker 2: at a certain point it got small, but its attitude
Speaker 2: did not. It still stayed. It still continued to believe
Speaker 2: it was a kind of creature.
Speaker 1: Yeah, sloms have a kind of confidence of like I
Speaker 1: used to be bigger. I used to be big enough
Speaker 1: to like icha and just like see ya slowly move away.
Speaker 1: I actually just just quickly googled it. It looks like
Speaker 1: the fossil evidence now points towards the pike is actually
Speaker 1: originating in Central Asia and then dispersing from there. So okay,
Speaker 1: you know that's my uh transition from phylogeny song I guess. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: they are so so cute. Their physical appearance is very
Speaker 1: different from rabbits, even though they are cousins, and uh
Speaker 1: you know they actually we we talked about those calls
Speaker 1: as amazing little eh e calls that they make. They
Speaker 1: actually can have different dialects based on where they're located,
Speaker 1: So the same species can have a different dialect than
Speaker 1: their their relatives that live somewhere else, which I think
Speaker 1: is really interesting.
Speaker 2: That's so if you listen hard enough, you could hear
Speaker 2: an accent among the.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna say, yes, I think that's how the science
Speaker 1: is conducted, just scientists listening very hard.
Speaker 2: Like I hear on that squeak.
Speaker 1: So yeah, Pikas live in very high altitudes. They're highly
Speaker 1: adapted to cold weather, so much so that they can
Speaker 1: actually easily overheat and die in temperatures as low as
Speaker 1: seventy eight degrees fahrenheit or twenty six degrees celsius. So
Speaker 1: they need to find shade in that instance, and they
Speaker 1: can very very easily die from the heat.
Speaker 2: Oh man, is this am I about to find out
Speaker 2: that global warming is killing my pika?
Speaker 1: Yes, I'm sorry. They're actually they're actually known as a
Speaker 1: climate indicator species, a sort of canary in the coal
Speaker 1: mine for climate change, because if their population declines, it's
Speaker 1: a sign of climate increase, and so there are climate
Speaker 1: scientists who will actually collect pika poop and measure stress
Speaker 1: hormone levels in their poop to monitor temperature changes and
Speaker 1: changes in their population.
Speaker 2: That's an insult to injury because the piko is like
Speaker 2: not only dying off, They're like, I was gonna eat that?
Speaker 2: What do you do it?
Speaker 1: I think they collect squeak? Hey stab it? Get away
Speaker 1: from that. Uh yeah, I mean there to be very pedantic.
Speaker 1: The poop that they collect is the actual poop. So
Speaker 1: pikes are selective over which poop they eat. Uh and
Speaker 1: rabbits actually, so they will only eat the special poop
Speaker 1: that they poop out, not the uh not the regular poop.
Speaker 1: So uh okay. This is my favorite thing about pike
Speaker 1: is though, is that they collect flowers. They collect wild flowers,
Speaker 1: and so they in the summer, they'll spend all summer
Speaker 1: collecting wild flowers grasses for their din, and so they
Speaker 1: don't eat it right away. They get a big bunch
Speaker 1: of it and then run back to their din and
Speaker 1: add it to this big pile, which is called the haystack.
Speaker 1: And they because they don't hibernate, they stay awake during
Speaker 1: you know, well maybe not a they may sleep, but
Speaker 1: they don't hibernate, so they need food during the winter.
Speaker 1: And it's exceedingly difficult to find any food in the
Speaker 1: high altitudes during the winter, so having this huge stockpile
Speaker 1: of food is necessary for their survival. But it is
Speaker 1: so cute because you'll see them like with a huge
Speaker 1: bouquet of flowers in their mouth and they're just running around.
Speaker 1: Sometimes they'll like steal from each other, Like you see
Speaker 1: one sneak up to another pika's haystack and like take
Speaker 1: some flowers and run back to theirs and like pad
Speaker 1: it in as if it belongs there. It's so cute.
Speaker 2: That is perfect for Easter.
Speaker 1: It couldn't get more perfect when is the easter bunny
Speaker 1: hand delivered you a bouquet that it's stole from its neighbor.
Speaker 1: And it's actually really interesting because they will pick out
Speaker 1: toxic flowers because they have to store it for such
Speaker 1: a long time that if the flowers get moldy, that
Speaker 1: can be terrible, that that can be a death sentence
Speaker 1: for them. So by picking out flowers that have toxins
Speaker 1: in it, those toxins actually prevent the flowers from spoiling,
Speaker 1: and by the time they eat them in the winter,
Speaker 1: that toxin has degraded enough to the point where it
Speaker 1: is now safe to eat. So they know not to
Speaker 1: eat them right away, but they will store them and
Speaker 1: age the flowers until they are perfect for eating.
Speaker 2: Fascinating. I didn't know they could do that. I also
Speaker 2: didn't know that all those flowers up there were toxic.
Speaker 1: Yeah. It explains a lot, doesn't it. It does.
Speaker 2: I mean, poor poor flowers. Though that they have very
Speaker 2: few there's very few things that are actually going to
Speaker 2: be eating flowers up there. I mean you don't run
Speaker 2: into a lot of animals at that altitude. Yeah, they're
Speaker 2: not very many. And that they created They're like, oh,
Speaker 2: we got this. We will create a toxin and then
Speaker 2: no one will ever eat us. Like yeah, no, said
Speaker 2: the pika, Like no, that's exactly what I wanted you.
Speaker 2: Thank you very much.
Speaker 1: But it's so cute. You just gotta let them get
Speaker 1: away with flower maritor. But yeah, so they will sometimes
Speaker 1: go around, make back and forth trips to their din
Speaker 1: two hundred times a day for the whole summer, collecting
Speaker 1: these flowers until they have this massive pile, which yeah,
Speaker 1: it's very important. They will need that to survive the winter.
Speaker 1: But yeah, it is they are as cute as they
Speaker 1: are the they take their survival incredibly seriously. This I
Speaker 1: think this is my favorite aspect about them, how seriously
Speaker 1: they take themselves. Like as they're running around with flowers
Speaker 1: in their mouths, these little poof balls, squeaking angrily at
Speaker 1: each other, it's they have such a such a pompous attitude,
Speaker 1: and I love it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is really fun to see them because they
Speaker 2: are they'll come right out on the rocks to be
Speaker 2: like what's up, what's up, and yell at you. I
Speaker 2: mean like they're like they come out like you're going
Speaker 2: to be scared of them. Yeah, and it's it's just adorable.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I love it. I love the undeserved
Speaker 1: confidence these guys have.
Speaker 2: The Chihuahuas of the rabbit, the Chihuahuas of the rabbit world.
Speaker 1: I love that. So I think the Pika is a
Speaker 1: pretty good candidate for replacement Easter Bunny or springtime rabbit
Speaker 1: non denominational springtime rabbit. I guess it would be non
Speaker 1: denominational springtime Pika, which I think would be a great
Speaker 1: I would love I would go to that festival for sure.
Speaker 1: There's actually a festival here in Italy. I think it's
Speaker 1: in the summer or late spring, and it's a bunch
Speaker 1: of snakes. Like they collect a bunch of snakes and
Speaker 1: non poisonous snakes and just kind of put the I'm
Speaker 1: on a pedestal of a saint. I forgot what the
Speaker 1: saint's name is, but it's so awesome, and then afterwards
Speaker 1: they release all the snakes back into the wild. So
Speaker 1: I love it and I want to someday go to
Speaker 1: the snake festival.
Speaker 2: What what on earth? What a crazy I mean, it's
Speaker 2: a cool festival, but like, where how did that start?
Speaker 2: Like we still got all the snakes, Saint, look here
Speaker 2: they are and then just release them back into the wild.
Speaker 1: I mean, okay, So so it's it's Saint Dominico. Uh
Speaker 1: and it's in Coculo, but yeah, it's it's held on
Speaker 1: the first of May. So I haven't missed it yet.
Speaker 1: And yeah, so it's it's like I think, originally I'm
Speaker 1: trying to remember why they why why snakes? But it's
Speaker 1: it's I think that originally they used to like have
Speaker 1: a feast and eat the snakes afterwards, but now they
Speaker 1: have stopped doing that because people are like don't want
Speaker 1: to They don't want to hurt snakes anymore. They want
Speaker 1: to be nice to the snakes, which I think is nice.
Speaker 1: But I love that. I love that there's some Yes,
Speaker 1: bunnies are cute, cute, sort of harbinger of spring, but uh,
Speaker 1: you know, give snakes some love. They're cute too, I think.
Speaker 2: Yeah, would you see the first snake of the year.
Speaker 2: It's springtime, you know it, right?
Speaker 1: If the snake sees its own what its own shadow.
Speaker 2: You know, it's tough. Yeah, it's tough animal for that.
Speaker 2: It's like the one animal that doesn't have a show.
Speaker 1: Right, it's too close to the ground, so it's perpetually winter.
Speaker 1: I guess. So, so our next candidate actually to replace
Speaker 1: the easter bunny is the jerboa.
Speaker 2: Okay, I'm looking at it right now. Yes, this I
Speaker 2: don't know the difference between this and a kangaroo rat.
Speaker 1: That's a very good point. So it is not to
Speaker 1: be confused with the kangaroo mouse, which is found.
Speaker 2: In Oh sorry, I'm so sorry.
Speaker 1: The mouse it is found in the deserts of the US,
Speaker 1: but the jerboa is actually found in North Africa and Asia.
Speaker 1: It is also a desert rodent though, So okay. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so the jerboa has back feet like a kangaroo, with
Speaker 1: a tuft of fluff on their toes, a long tail,
Speaker 1: typically with another tuft of fur on the end. Very adorable.
Speaker 1: There are thirty three species of jerboa, so there are
Speaker 1: a lot of different species. They all look a little
Speaker 1: bit different. Some of them have incredibly long ears, and
Speaker 1: some of them are teeny tiny, like smaller than a
Speaker 1: ping pong ball. They are fascinating looking little guys, and
Speaker 1: all of them, though, have this sort of kangaroo even
Speaker 1: though some of them don't have really long ears and
Speaker 1: some of them are smaller, they all have the kangaroo
Speaker 1: leg looking legs and like a long, supportive kangaroo looking tail.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it looks like when these were being created that
Speaker 2: that mother Nature ran out of legs for a rat
Speaker 2: and was just like, here, I'll put some sandpiper legs
Speaker 2: on this thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it kind of and it's it kind of
Speaker 1: looks like a Character Creators sort of scenario too, where
Speaker 1: it's like ear slider all the way up, side slider
Speaker 1: all the way down for this one. It's there. They
Speaker 1: are exceedingly cute. Some of them have this little snub
Speaker 1: nose too, So not only do they have these really
Speaker 1: long ears, they have this little almost pig like nose.
Speaker 1: It is it is adorable. So they will eat seeds,
Speaker 1: insects and plants, and they often travel six miles almost
Speaker 1: ten kilometers every night for food. And yeah, so they
Speaker 1: those long legs serve them in several ways, several important ways,
Speaker 1: one of which is being able to travel long distances
Speaker 1: to get food in the desert, which can be It
Speaker 1: is a tough area to live in for animals, so
Speaker 1: they have to have very very special adaptations to be
Speaker 1: able to be able to thrive there.
Speaker 2: I'm just thinking about as that was lamenting the life
Speaker 2: of the Jerboa because two tough it was to live
Speaker 2: out in the desert. I was like, yeah, man, I
Speaker 2: know it or a poor guys, it's a little tiny one,
Speaker 2: like I don't know, what are they Are they eating vegetation?
Speaker 2: What are these things eat? Insects?
Speaker 1: Yeah, so seeds, insects, plants, you know, a lot. They
Speaker 1: have a kind of variety diet, which I think helps
Speaker 1: them because you get what you can get in this.
Speaker 2: But are are the ears for hunting or are the
Speaker 2: ears for predators?
Speaker 1: So the ears are, well, it's for two things. Predators
Speaker 1: is an important one, being able to have sensitive hearing.
Speaker 1: Probably they also do use them for hunting. But one
Speaker 1: of the more surprising things is it's actually an air
Speaker 1: conditioning unit. So by having these really long ears, the
Speaker 1: blood flows through them and the heat from the blood
Speaker 1: dissipates over this larger surface area of their ears, so
Speaker 1: it helps keep them cool in really hot temperatures.
Speaker 2: That's fascinating. I know that the kangaroo rat has basically
Speaker 2: a giant chamber in its skull right in its nose,
Speaker 2: so that when it breathes in through its nose, it's
Speaker 2: like this moist chamber in there and essentially acts like
Speaker 2: an air conditioning unit where the air cools in like
Speaker 2: the moisture of it. Does the jerboa have that too?
Speaker 1: Oh, that is such a good question. I'm not sure.
Speaker 1: I gotta look it up yourboa nose.
Speaker 2: You're just gonna get a bunch of cute pictures.
Speaker 1: Oh it's so cute. I mean, it just says that
Speaker 1: they have hog like noses in this shape helps the
Speaker 1: gerbo forage and dig to find food and shelter. Let
Speaker 1: me see bowen nose can air wait heat? There we go.
Speaker 1: Now I'm not seeing anything about it. I'm seeing well
Speaker 1: they've figured. Oh you still sound disappointed. I guess that's fine.
Speaker 1: They got air conditioner ears, but not air conditioner nose.
Speaker 2: But yeah, they should talk to the kangarooret.
Speaker 1: I mean, I wonder who like plagiarized too in that scenario,
Speaker 1: because they do look very similar. I think it's actually
Speaker 1: a case of convergent evolution. So I don't I think
Speaker 1: they're not super related. I think this is just like
Speaker 1: a convergent evolution.
Speaker 2: Yeah, if the nose is any judge, these things are
Speaker 2: most close related to piglets, not like piglets.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, so the huge feet though, we do have
Speaker 1: to talk about those massive kangaroo feet. They allow them
Speaker 1: to be highly mobile in the desert. They can run
Speaker 1: up to fifteen miles per hour, which is twenty four
Speaker 1: kilometers an hour. Faster than I think I can run
Speaker 1: for sure, and yeah, it's it's incredible. They can also
Speaker 1: jump two to three feet vertically, which is almost a
Speaker 1: meter and ten times its own body lengthwise. And so
Speaker 1: given that they're about the size of your palm, like
Speaker 1: some are going to be smaller, like the pigmy Dribboa
Speaker 1: is teeny tiny, and then other the long eared dribbo
Speaker 1: is a little bigger than the pigmy dribbo. But let's
Speaker 1: just say generally speaking, they're about the size of your palm,
Speaker 1: maybe five inches or twelve centimeters, so scaled to human dimensions,
Speaker 1: the speeds and distances that they can the speeds that
Speaker 1: they can run in the distances they can jump. So
Speaker 1: it would be like, first of all, having feet the
Speaker 1: length of your torso and being able to run around
Speaker 1: two hundred miles per hour or three hundred and twenty
Speaker 1: kilometers an hour and jump fourteen feet or twelve meters
Speaker 1: up in the air.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I want that. I like that would
Speaker 2: be nice. Yes, And and there's no like, there's no drawbacks.
Speaker 2: I wouldn't be like, oh but I'm not so cute anymore, right, No,
Speaker 2: these are way cute.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, they're adorable. I mean the drawback I guess
Speaker 1: is you are small and everything wants to eat you.
Speaker 1: So you know, usually when you're running, it's not because
Speaker 1: you're just having a fun marathon with those like tiny little,
Speaker 1: tiny little placards that you're wearing and little other drboas
Speaker 1: are tossing tiny cups of water in your face. It's
Speaker 1: usually because you're running for your life.
Speaker 2: It would be fun, though, I know marathons. Now they've
Speaker 2: got these, they've got tails that are like three times
Speaker 2: as long as their body. Yes, By needs such a
Speaker 2: long tail, Katie.
Speaker 1: It helps them balance because they're actually typically by pedals,
Speaker 1: so they will do a hopping motion for running and
Speaker 1: for walking, and so having that tail helps them balance
Speaker 1: when they are hopping on two feet at these really
Speaker 1: high speeds, because if they stumble, if they trip over
Speaker 1: and lose their balance, that could be death for them,
Speaker 1: because they often are chased by things like the desert fox,
Speaker 1: which can be faster than them. But the thing that
Speaker 1: they have going for them is their mobility, so they
Speaker 1: can the dubo can run in a zigzag pattern and
Speaker 1: be really really agile as they're running, so outmaneuvering their
Speaker 1: predator can be as important as being fast.
Speaker 2: They know, Serpentine, Yeah, it's important. That's a good one.
Speaker 2: I saw my son plays Freeze Tag. Now he's at
Speaker 2: an age like that's that's that's the game. That's fun.
Speaker 2: And I see him sometimes out there playing with the
Speaker 2: older kids on the block and he just gets he
Speaker 2: just gets chewed up by your kids, like they know,
Speaker 2: especially when like he's it and somebody's frozen and he's
Speaker 2: got to catch the last kid. Like he can't do
Speaker 2: it because the kids are they're so fast because they're
Speaker 2: you know, two years older, and then he's like they're
Speaker 2: two feet taller. But I went out with him once
Speaker 2: and I was like, I'm gonna teach you some strategies
Speaker 2: for for when you play Freeze Tag that it is.
Speaker 2: They're gonna help you and like you're not gonna beat
Speaker 2: these guys with speed, so you're like, you need these
Speaker 2: you need some moves, is what you need. And so
Speaker 2: I went out and we worked on it, and that
Speaker 2: was the first time that we had like practiced a
Speaker 2: sport where he was like he just saw the tangible
Speaker 2: benefit right away and was like, ah, you can see
Speaker 2: the light in his I where he was like, I
Speaker 2: want to learn more.
Speaker 1: Oh, that is so cute. Did you learn that from
Speaker 1: your time being raised by pikas or by jerboa's It.
Speaker 2: Was the pika, Yeah, it was so. I'll you also
Speaker 2: need a really long tail when you're up in the mountains.
Speaker 2: The snow leopard will tell you all about it. When
Speaker 2: you're like hunting and on the sides of mountains, you
Speaker 2: need all that balance you can get.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So so the jerboa, by by doing
Speaker 1: that serpentine pattern that you are teaching your son, can
Speaker 1: out maneuver things like desert foxes, owls, and snakes, which
Speaker 1: is it's also good for your son. I'm I think like,
Speaker 1: aside from freeze tag, the fact that your son can
Speaker 1: now outmaneuver a desert fox is going to be really important.
Speaker 2: It's gonna be very helpful.
Speaker 1: They also, the jerboahs have tufts of hair on their
Speaker 1: feet which act like little little running shoes because they.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, it's so cute.
Speaker 1: It's so cute because they provide some traction against the sand.
Speaker 1: So it's like these little palm palms on their titsies
Speaker 1: and it's you know, it's just it's so cute. It's
Speaker 1: every adaptation that they have that for them is very serious.
Speaker 1: Like I need these these running tufts otherwise I'm going
Speaker 1: to be eaten viciously by a snake. Oh would you
Speaker 1: use you cute? It's like, no, seriously, I will die
Speaker 1: if I do not have these topuffs. I will die, Yes,
Speaker 1: you will.
Speaker 2: I will eat you up. I'm going to eat you up.
Speaker 1: Oh, poor drabbos, it must be so hard to be taken.
Speaker 2: Seriously, hard life to carve out when you're so darn cute,
Speaker 2: so darn cute.
Speaker 1: The long eared Drboa actually has one of the I
Speaker 1: think actually the largest ear to body ratio in the
Speaker 1: animal kingdom. I think their ears are like two thirds
Speaker 1: the length of their body. It feels like if you
Speaker 1: like kind of tossed one like a paper airplane, that
Speaker 1: they would just like kind of take off. I'm not
Speaker 1: don't do that, like not do that, but it seems
Speaker 1: like that would be what would happen.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they've got I mean they've got huge eyes, big ears,
Speaker 2: tiny little nose. Like the baby schema is clicking on
Speaker 2: all cylinders with this animal.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I want to cuddle one of the so so bad.
Speaker 1: They actually can carry some diseases, so you don't really
Speaker 1: want to cuddle them. That is probably not they're actually
Speaker 1: I think they're banned in the US as pets, which
Speaker 1: is good because pet trade can be bad for animals.
Speaker 1: But I think the reason is that they can spread.
Speaker 1: I think it's a version of monkey pox actually geesus.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so it's just not In general, it's not a
Speaker 2: great idea to have a pet's nocturnal anyway. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: you shouldn't be doing it. They're the cutest ones, obviously,
Speaker 2: because they've got the biggest eyes.
Speaker 1: Biggest eze. Yeah, I mean, god, I remember having a
Speaker 1: hamster in my room going at the wheel all night long, just.
Speaker 2: Like now it's time to exercise.
Speaker 1: We've talked about maybe having the Easter Pika, the Easter driboa,
Speaker 1: both I think already like a vast improvement over the
Speaker 1: Easter buddy.
Speaker 2: Right, hands, hands down, head and shoulders, even though they're
Speaker 2: so small. Yeah, I mean not literally head and shoulders
Speaker 2: over these your money, but figuratively.
Speaker 1: Because the pika is like both an egg and an
Speaker 1: adorable creature all in one. The jerboa is, you know,
Speaker 1: just the the kangaroo style hopping allows it to hold
Speaker 1: a tiny basket. So you know, so you know, we've
Speaker 1: got our non non denominational springtime Pika Festival. We've got
Speaker 1: our jerboah Jerboa Bonanza I like to call this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like we do the It's like a spring,
Speaker 2: like the fun run in the spring. Yeah, fun run.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And just like instead of eggs, like little seeds
Speaker 1: and insects that you feel that your BoA's basket with
Speaker 1: this sounds like such a good holiday. Uh. And so
Speaker 1: finally I want to talk about an animal that I
Speaker 1: truly believe in to replace the Easter bunny, and that
Speaker 1: is the Bilby of Australia.
Speaker 2: I'm not familiar with this animal. I'm looking at it
Speaker 2: right now and I'm like, yeah, I don't know what
Speaker 2: this is.
Speaker 1: This is it is an amazing and bizarre animal. And
Speaker 1: I think people, I mean, certainly, I do underestimate how
Speaker 1: many ding marsupials there are, because there are a lot
Speaker 1: of weird marsupials. So this thing looks like uh, and
Speaker 1: it looks like some kind of weird rabbit with a
Speaker 1: long tail and a long snoot, or maybe even some
Speaker 1: kind of ardwork. This is in fact a marsupial. This
Speaker 1: is Australia's Easter Bunny, the bil b It's actually a
Speaker 1: type of bandicoot, which are you know, they are a
Speaker 1: group of marsupials, which is I guess that is the
Speaker 1: inspiration for Crash Bandicoot the video game. Although if you
Speaker 1: look at an actual bandicoot and you look at Crash Bandicoot,
Speaker 1: it's that there's not it doesn't really look like a bandicoot.
Speaker 2: Yeah, something lost in translation. I think same way Donkey
Speaker 2: Donkey Kong is a gorilla.
Speaker 1: They definitely don't wear Jinko jeans real bandicoot. But yeah,
Speaker 1: so bandicoots are long snooted marsupials. They tend to have
Speaker 1: sort of a shrew like appearance, but the bill b
Speaker 1: has these long rabbit ears that kind of I think
Speaker 1: elevates them to this special position of cuteness in my
Speaker 1: humble opinion. So they have these long, thin, furry tail.
Speaker 1: It would be mouse like this tail, except that it's
Speaker 1: covered in fur. They have like a black stripe on
Speaker 1: their tails, pink noses, and their bodies are overall sort
Speaker 1: of a grayish tan color.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I would say that this animal seems to solve
Speaker 2: a lot of the problems of the possum. Like the
Speaker 2: possum has like some aesthetic issues in my opinion, it
Speaker 2: really needs to work past. One is that bald tail
Speaker 2: that it's got that like pink rat tail. It's also got.
Speaker 2: Its ears are so like clipped to its head in
Speaker 2: a really gross, weird way, and its nose is really
Speaker 2: sharp and angular. And this one it still has the long,
Speaker 2: kind of narrow nose, but it it pulls it off
Speaker 2: a lot better. And then obviously it's got way bigger ears,
Speaker 2: that's yeah. And then the tail it has the decency
Speaker 2: to cover its tail in f.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I appreciate that it's rude.
Speaker 2: It's so gross.
Speaker 1: It's a decent Honestly, I actually do love possums. There
Speaker 1: to me to me cute, but I also think spiders
Speaker 1: are cute, so I may have as somewhat skewed uh
Speaker 1: skewed sense. There's actually the US alien possum, which is
Speaker 1: super super cute. It is, I mean, it doesn't look
Speaker 1: too much like the North American opossum, but they are.
Speaker 1: I would definitely definitely recommend, yeah, a Google images search
Speaker 1: of the Australian possum.
Speaker 2: Yeah, some genius has gone has gone to the like
Speaker 2: when you first just look up the Australian possum. They've
Speaker 2: they've put us side by side of the American possum
Speaker 2: versus the Australian ones, so you can see both of
Speaker 2: them side by side and be like, oh yeah, what
Speaker 2: is clearly better here? The even like the American possum
Speaker 2: has these like narrow evil eyes. They kind of slip
Speaker 2: down its face like it's it's angry all the time.
Speaker 2: Oh man, this, let's get this one. Let's trade.
Speaker 1: Now. American opossums serve a very important ecological purpose. They
Speaker 1: do they do they they awful lot of diseases. They
Speaker 1: eat a lot of ticks, so they prevent a lot
Speaker 1: of lime disease.
Speaker 2: I keep them around.
Speaker 1: But yeah, so actually, the I should say, the Australian
Speaker 1: possum is not really related to the North American opossum.
Speaker 1: They're both marsupial, so they're both distantly related, but just
Speaker 1: because they're both got possum and the name, they're not
Speaker 1: actually that closely related aside from the whole marsupial thing.
Speaker 1: Uh So, like probably the Australian possum is like I don't.
Speaker 2: Know her, Oh no, we don't, no, no.
Speaker 1: No, relation. Yeah, so back to.
Speaker 2: You're thinking of the opossum. You're thinking of the opossum.
Speaker 2: That's not me. That's very different.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, So back to the bill buh. The it is.
Speaker 1: The bilbi is an objectively adorable creature. The little, the pointy,
Speaker 1: little snowt the long ears, the fluffy tail, the large
Speaker 1: ears that they have actually worked similarly to the giboa ears.
Speaker 1: They help keep the bill be cool by dissipating heat,
Speaker 1: and of course it also helps them to hear threats.
Speaker 1: They are actually the largest of the little critters that
Speaker 1: we're talking about today. They're around ten to twenty inches
Speaker 1: or thirty to fifty centimeters long. Like other marsupials, they
Speaker 1: have a pouch. They give birth to very premature young
Speaker 1: that look more like a gross little jelly bean or
Speaker 1: fetus than a newborn, and they actually give birth after
Speaker 1: only fourteen days of development. And when they give birth,
Speaker 1: that little tiny jelly bean with like tiny stubby legs
Speaker 1: will crawl up into the mother's pouch and latch onto
Speaker 1: a teat. Which is it is it's hardcore that they
Speaker 1: expect so much like of course, we expect a lot
Speaker 1: of our kids. Maybe we push kids too much with
Speaker 1: extracurriculars and everything. But this is like, okay, now, climb
Speaker 1: a hairy mountain that is your mom as soon as
Speaker 1: you're born.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know. I feel like marsupials have got us.
Speaker 2: They've got us. They're a step ahead of us in
Speaker 2: this respect that they having that pouch is so valuable
Speaker 2: because you gestation does not need to be nearly as long. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's like kangaroos. Kangaroos are born they don't even like tadpoles. Basically,
Speaker 2: they don't even have back legs. Essentially, like they crawl
Speaker 2: up into the pocket and then they just hang out
Speaker 2: in the pocket until they're enough to come out and explore.
Speaker 2: And that's God, that's so great. I wish we had
Speaker 2: something like that.
Speaker 1: I mean, you're telling me, yeah, it is. I am
Speaker 1: very jealous of a lot of the way that a
Speaker 1: lot of animals have decided to deal with bearing offspring.
Speaker 1: I think that marsupials have a great system. In fact,
Speaker 1: the bilby has such a good system here, you know
Speaker 1: how like kangaroo pouch is open from the top. Billby
Speaker 1: is like to burrow a lot, both in terms of
Speaker 1: their dens but also for searching for food because they'll
Speaker 1: eat anything from like spiders, insects, small animal seed, fruit, fungui.
Speaker 1: So they'll dig for a lot of their food because
Speaker 1: they love digging so much. If they their pouch opened
Speaker 1: up at the top as they dig, their pouch would
Speaker 1: just fill with dirt. So if they had they would
Speaker 1: just like bury their young alive, which would be bad.
Speaker 1: So instead their pouch actually opens up at the other
Speaker 1: end at the bottom, and it's I mean, like the
Speaker 1: entrance to the pouch is very like elastic, so it's
Speaker 1: not just like this floppy kind of purse where the
Speaker 1: babies are just gonna fall out, So that way, when
Speaker 1: they're digging and burrowing, none of the dirt gets into
Speaker 1: the pouch. But it also means that if they're just
Speaker 1: like sitting there and you look at their butts, sometimes,
Speaker 1: like for the females, sometimes you'll just see like a
Speaker 1: little baby face come out from like where it looks
Speaker 1: like she just has like a fully formed like little
Speaker 1: baby like coming out of her butt. Of course, not
Speaker 1: coming out of the butt, it's coming out of the pouch.
Speaker 1: But it's very funny.
Speaker 2: I made the mistake of just searching for the bilby
Speaker 2: pouch that I could see it, and I feel like
Speaker 2: I should have done this with safe search on incognito window,
Speaker 2: because it is there's like humans basically opening these pouches
Speaker 2: up like and showing a baby inside of it is
Speaker 2: as invasive. I'm scandalized.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, just just leave the Bilbie pouch alone.
Speaker 2: Don't touch them.
Speaker 1: Don't touch them, so uh, Bilbie's unlike bunnies are omnivores,
Speaker 1: so you know, already cooler than the easter bunny. I
Speaker 1: love that they eat spiders. I mean, I do love spiders,
Speaker 1: but I also really admire animals that eat spiders because
Speaker 1: it's like, you know, it's just it's just cool, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. The legs don't bother them, they
Speaker 1: have like uh you know, there's it's like, instead of
Speaker 1: like smoking being cool, I feel like eating spiders should
Speaker 1: be the new cool thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm very cool in my sleep. Then, from what I.
Speaker 1: Hear, not true, Actually that is, don't worry you don't
Speaker 1: eat spiders in your sleep. Spiders do not want to
Speaker 1: be eaten. Like it's the idea that we eat a
Speaker 1: bunch of spiders in earth sleep sort of supposes that
Speaker 1: spiders are like oh, a big wet, moist cave. Let
Speaker 1: me go right in there.
Speaker 2: Let's see what we got in here rubbing their little
Speaker 2: pants together. Let's see. Oh no, oh, this is worse.
Speaker 1: This is bad little caving equipment. When of those little
Speaker 1: helmets with a light on it. But yeah, so they
Speaker 1: can actually that that long snowt of theirs. They can
Speaker 1: smell food underground, and they actually have a long, sticky
Speaker 1: tongue that they can use to lap up either insects
Speaker 1: or seeds from dug upholes in the ground. And in fact,
Speaker 1: this method of eating means they ingest a lot of sand,
Speaker 1: and so the sand they don't digest, it passes right
Speaker 1: through them. So you can tell what Bilby poop is
Speaker 1: because it's mostly sand.
Speaker 2: Oh gross, that's a terrible existence po sand. I don't
Speaker 2: even like one of the beat Yeah, I don't like
Speaker 2: going to the beach because I don't like getting Like
Speaker 2: the idea of getting sand in your mouth is horrifying. Yes,
Speaker 2: I it's the stuff of nightmare. It's just this whole
Speaker 2: life is that. It's just everything tastes like that grain,
Speaker 2: that sandwich that you accidentally dropped in sand, and you're.
Speaker 1: Like, oh no, I can tell it boogiey boarding and
Speaker 1: stuff is like when you like going to shore and
Speaker 1: then it's just sort of like sand getting into like
Speaker 1: it's everywhere and it's bad and I sort of don't
Speaker 1: understand people who enjoy the beach.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you'll be two days later you'll be like sand
Speaker 2: will just fall out of your pants and you're like
Speaker 2: where was that.
Speaker 1: You'll sneeze and like your hands are just full of sand.
Speaker 1: But I guess they're into it, so you know, and
Speaker 1: it's it's it's good for the environment because they're such
Speaker 1: proficient diggers. They actually help till the soil and make
Speaker 1: the ground more fertile for plants to grow. So hey,
Speaker 1: you know, good for you.
Speaker 2: That's a good Easter bunny animal, a good replacement. It's
Speaker 2: all about fertility, right.
Speaker 1: And probably people who are listening to this from Australia
Speaker 1: are you know, saying like uh, yeah, no, we use
Speaker 1: the bill be sometimes as our Easter bunny. And yes,
Speaker 1: so in Australia there is a campaign to make the
Speaker 1: Bill be the official Easter bunny. And it's really interesting
Speaker 1: why so Chocolate Easter Bilbies have been sold for almost
Speaker 1: thirty years in Australia with the funds going to the
Speaker 1: Foundation for Rabbit Free Australia. So suck it bunnies.
Speaker 2: Whoa that is a Is that a genocide? What are
Speaker 2: we talking about here.
Speaker 1: But bunageddon rabbit geddon Uh yeah, So why does Australia
Speaker 1: hate rabbits? What have rabbits ever done to Australia. Well,
Speaker 1: rabbits invaded Australia. They are an invasive species. Australia is
Speaker 1: an island that is extremely prone to invasive species. I mean,
Speaker 1: cane toad, cough cough, wink wink. I mean, I think
Speaker 1: I'm among friends, say no more. And so these invasive
Speaker 1: species can steal habitats resources, they can hunt native species.
Speaker 1: Of course, rabbits are not predators. However, they you know,
Speaker 1: breed extremely prolifically and they can eat a lot, and
Speaker 1: so they steal resources from native animals like bill bees.
Speaker 1: And so ecologists have declared war on invasive bunnies with
Speaker 1: the easter bilby as their mascot. And I just love
Speaker 1: I love that this. I don't know, it's such a
Speaker 1: vindictive use of Easter.
Speaker 2: Yeah, just see you. It's like, well, we like this
Speaker 2: other animal to be our Easter bunny and I was like, Okay,
Speaker 2: that's fine, that's good, that's really cute. Yeah, and we
Speaker 2: would also like to kill all the ones that you're using.
Speaker 2: That would be nice if we just didn't have to
Speaker 2: look at them anymore.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, no, seriously, bunnies, get out, we will murder
Speaker 1: you all. Yeah. No, it's I mean, I understand it though,
Speaker 1: because when you have an island like Australia and you
Speaker 1: have a lot of endemic species, that is, species that
Speaker 1: are only found in Australia and nowhere else in the world,
Speaker 1: and you have an invasive species that is threatening these animals,
Speaker 1: you know, it's like, yeah, it is. It is a
Speaker 1: serious problem. But yeah, I just the the aggressive, the
Speaker 1: aggressive and angry energy of the Easter Bilby is is
Speaker 1: incredible and I do love it.
Speaker 2: It does feel like nationalism to me, but that's fine, fine,
Speaker 2: what's fine, sing animals. We haven't no one's no one's
Speaker 2: decided to stick a claim in the ground over that,
Speaker 2: so have added Australia.
Speaker 1: Yeah all right, Well, I'm going to agree with you.
Speaker 2: I think the Bilby could be a really good choice.
Speaker 2: And already it seems like there's already momentum built behind it,
Speaker 2: so they rabbit, and let's kill all of them. Let's
Speaker 2: kill him here too, Let's just kill him. Let's kill
Speaker 2: the rabbits. I think this is a great idea. That
Speaker 2: Looney Tunes had it right. Kill the rabbit.
Speaker 1: Elmer Fudd had it right. Uncancel Elmer Fudd. He was right.
Speaker 1: All So before we go, would you like to play
Speaker 1: a little game?
Speaker 2: This is like the main reason I come, Katie. And
Speaker 2: I was, in fact, as you're asking me what animal
Speaker 2: I want to do this time, I was like the
Speaker 2: castaway and I was like, no, damn it, that was
Speaker 2: the animal last time. That This is just to make sure.
Speaker 2: This is the game where I get to you play
Speaker 2: an animal noise for me and I say, ah, I
Speaker 2: know what that is, and I tell you what it
Speaker 2: is and then the fun is over. But I look smart.
Speaker 1: Exactly. That is what this game. The game is makes
Speaker 1: orn seem smart. Game.
Speaker 2: A love games like that. So I hear dog.
Speaker 1: That is the Great North Italian nesting dog. She gets
Speaker 1: mad at the elevator, so I know it's it's a
Speaker 1: it's a witchcraft that I think. I think science has
Speaker 1: gone too far with the elevator. A people mover, excuse me,
Speaker 1: people can move themselves, So ignore the dog the dog barking,
Speaker 1: but please do listen to this, which is last week's
Speaker 1: mystery animal sound. And the hint was could this be
Speaker 1: the call of a unicorn? Wow?
Speaker 2: It was like echoey.
Speaker 1: So do you know who is squawking or talking or roaring?
Speaker 1: Could be any animal.
Speaker 2: Oh, it's so deep and resonant, and it like sounds
Speaker 2: like it's echoing wherever it is. I'm gonna say, hippo.
Speaker 1: Is that your final answer? Remember remember that show, Remember
Speaker 1: Milan who Wants to Be a Millionaire? It's topical.
Speaker 2: Oh, does sound like here's the problem I'm having. It
Speaker 2: sounds like so many savannah animals, but also like the
Speaker 2: echo is really throwing me. It feels like it has
Speaker 2: to be somewhere in a canyon. Uh, I'm gonna stay
Speaker 2: with hippo.
Speaker 1: All right, Well you're close than that. It is an
Speaker 1: ungulate like a hippo, but it is not a hippo.
Speaker 1: It is actually the Arabian oryx so x. Yes, so
Speaker 1: I was very shocked to hear this is what an
Speaker 1: orc sounds like. It's just much more imposing. But the
Speaker 1: Arabian ors is a really interesting animal and it is
Speaker 1: it is something of a unicorn, both in terms of
Speaker 1: its rarity and the mythology behind it. So the Arabian
Speaker 1: ORX lives in the desert and step area of the
Speaker 1: Arabian Peninsula, and it is a an antelope that it's not.
Speaker 1: It's got sort of a I would say, you know,
Speaker 1: formidable body like. It's not one of these very very
Speaker 1: lean and sleek antelope. It's medium sized. The it's mostly
Speaker 1: sort of this whitish color with some black markings on
Speaker 1: its nose and legs. But the most remarkable part about
Speaker 1: it is that it has these incredibly incredibly long horns
Speaker 1: which are just they're very long, in pointy and frankly
Speaker 1: menacing looking.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it would be hard for it to stab you
Speaker 2: with those, though, I think because they're so long, they're
Speaker 2: right unwieldy.
Speaker 1: It's actually both. Sometimes you'll have ungulates, you know, these
Speaker 1: foved animals, where like only the males will have horns
Speaker 1: or antlers, but in this case, both sexes actually have
Speaker 1: these horns, so congratulations to them for a gender equitable society.
Speaker 1: And they can be up to around thirty inches or
Speaker 1: seventy five centimeters long, which is just incredible.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're really big. Is it just they do they
Speaker 2: use them like goats and sheep or they just are
Speaker 2: button heads with each other.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so I think it is used in sort of
Speaker 1: posturing displays. They like to avoid the conflict more and
Speaker 1: they will use them to defend their territory. But they
Speaker 1: when they're doing sort of like conflict amongst themselves, they
Speaker 1: often will do a display kind of thing of like hey,
Speaker 1: check out how big my horns are. Seriously, you don't
Speaker 1: want to deal with these. So they like to avoid
Speaker 1: injuring each other because and they would rather sort of
Speaker 1: just intimidate each other with like the their horns.
Speaker 2: That checks out because it goes with the old adage
Speaker 2: you mess with the orcs, you get the horns.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, the classic adage. So yeah, And these orcs
Speaker 1: actually may have helped contribute to the unicorn myth along
Speaker 1: with other animals because the if people saw one of
Speaker 1: these animals with just a single horn, or maybe found
Speaker 1: one of these, it's thought that this may have led
Speaker 1: people to believe that there is the mythical unicorn. And
Speaker 1: because these are actually these are horns, therese are hollow
Speaker 1: bones that don't regrow. If an orx loses one of them,
Speaker 1: it will never grow it back, so it will appear
Speaker 1: like a unicorn for the rest of its life.
Speaker 2: Oh man, I know it's kind of sad, right, Yeah,
Speaker 2: I didn't I didn't know that that even happened. I
Speaker 2: thought all animals were like elk and deer, where it's
Speaker 2: just like you lose them every year and then you
Speaker 2: grow them back.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean it's really interesting because like elk and deer,
Speaker 1: antlers are there there's a lot of living tissue in there,
Speaker 1: so like they and they will like near the base
Speaker 1: of the horn and you know, they will break off
Speaker 1: and regrown. When they regrow, they actually have this sort
Speaker 1: of velvety skin coating on it that supplies to the
Speaker 1: horn or the antlers as it grows. But yeah, with
Speaker 1: these horns, they actually don't go through that cycle of regrowth.
Speaker 2: Interesting. Yeah, and well you stumped me, Katie.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And also, like unicorns, these are very they well,
Speaker 1: they used to be exceedingly rare. They actually went extinct
Speaker 1: in the wild in the seventies, but there was a
Speaker 1: reintroduction program and now they do exist in the wild
Speaker 1: and there's about over one thousand now in the wild.
Speaker 1: So it's an incredible great. Yes, it's amazing, such good news.
Speaker 2: Okay, feel good story at the end.
Speaker 1: Yep, we got we gotta have those feel good stories
Speaker 1: on this show.
Speaker 2: Yeah, considering the Pikes won't be around in six years,
Speaker 2: this is good. It's good at least.
Speaker 1: Unless they up. And you've got an angry riding on
Speaker 1: an Oryx with its mouthful of flowers.
Speaker 2: I think you just made the next Pixar movie. Yeah
Speaker 2: that sounds great.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So onto this week's mystery animal sound. The hint
Speaker 1: does this ring a bell? So? Who do you think
Speaker 1: is making that sound? God?
Speaker 2: I at first I want to say a bird, but
Speaker 2: I'm pretty sure that that's a frog. If it's a bird,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna be really in the weeds because I just
Speaker 2: don't know them well enough. But I'm going to say
Speaker 2: that that is a That is a type of frog.
Speaker 1: What an interesting guess, well, Soren. In fact, you'll find
Speaker 1: out next week when we will reveal the answer to
Speaker 1: this week's mystery sound next Wednesday for the next podcast.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for joining me today to talk.
Speaker 2: About Yeah, my pleasure, talk about.
Speaker 1: All the better candidates for I like bunnies. I gotta
Speaker 1: say I gotta admit I do like buddies. I do
Speaker 1: not hate bunnies. I think they're great.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're fine, They're beIN nine, They're good.
Speaker 1: I guess So where can people find you?
Speaker 2: You can find me on Twitter at Soren Underscore Ltd.
Speaker 2: You can find my podcast called Quick Question with Soren
Speaker 2: and Daniel that I do with Daniel O'Brien, and you
Speaker 2: can find my writings now on American Dad. Go watch
Speaker 2: the show, and.
Speaker 1: If you think you know the answer to this week's
Speaker 1: mister Animal sound, you can write to me at Creature
Speaker 1: Futurepod at gmail dot com. I'm also on Twitter at
Speaker 1: Creature Feet Pod. That is f e aight, not f
Speaker 1: e et sounding very different. And hey, guess what, thank
Speaker 1: you for watching the show. I really appreciate that. And
Speaker 1: when you guys leave ratings and reviews, I scream in delight.
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Speaker 1: But yeah, no, I seriously do love like every time
Speaker 1: someone writes in to the show or leaves a review
Speaker 1: it really does make my day, so I really appreciate that.
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