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Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. This is

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Speaker 1: Robert Lamb. I've you been listening this week. You know

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Speaker 1: the deal. We're on vacation, we're re airing. You've got femail.

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Speaker 1: This is going to be part two of three and

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Speaker 1: it originally published five twenty five. Let's happen.

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Speaker 2: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name

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Speaker 1: is Robert Lamb.

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Speaker 3: And I'm Joe McCormick, and we're back with part two

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Speaker 3: in our series on urine based communication in animals. In

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Speaker 3: Part one, we introduced the idea that while humans have

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Speaker 3: an almost infinitely expanding arsenal of tools and skills and

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Speaker 3: tricks for sharing information with one another, one medium that

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Speaker 3: we don't use, or at least don't use very much,

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Speaker 3: but which is used throughout the animal kingdom is urine.

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Speaker 3: So in part one we also talked about a story

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Speaker 3: that the story that initially got me interested in covering

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Speaker 3: this on the show, which was a recent paper documenting

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Speaker 3: a behavior in Amazon river dolphins called aerial urination, which

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Speaker 3: goes like this. One male dolphin floats upside down and

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Speaker 3: urinates in a stream up in the air over the water,

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Speaker 3: and then usually another male dolphin seeks out the stream,

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Speaker 3: swims over and puts its face right into the pea fountain.

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Speaker 3: It's not yet known why the dolphins do this, but

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Speaker 3: the researchers who wrote the paper propose that it is

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Speaker 3: a form of communication. It's information sharing between male dolphins

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Speaker 3: to sort of give a fact sheet about the originator

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Speaker 3: of the urine stream, kind of have a look at

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Speaker 3: my medical chart. Here you can sense my urine with

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Speaker 3: the whiskers on your snout and get a sense of me.

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Speaker 3: And of course we talked also about how urine can

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Speaker 3: convey lots of different kinds of information about physical health,

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Speaker 3: social dominance and things like that, and those pieces of

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Speaker 3: information are useful for male dolphins to share with one

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Speaker 3: another because it helps them make decisions about whether to

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Speaker 3: challenge each other for access to food resources or mates.

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Speaker 3: We also talked more generally about what urine is and

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Speaker 3: is not, and what kind of information it contains to

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Speaker 3: a fluent reader. We also went on some other interesting tangents,

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Speaker 3: for example, about why so many animals actually have voluntary

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Speaker 3: control over urination in the first place, why can they

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Speaker 3: actually decide when they want to release the urine. We

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Speaker 3: talked about how urination actually can be thought of as

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Speaker 3: a kind of social behavior in humans, and a bunch

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Speaker 3: of other things, and we're back today to talk more

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Speaker 3: about pe based communication.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, Like, in general, there's just a lot of

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Speaker 1: information in urine, but as humans we cannot pick up

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Speaker 1: on most of it via our own senses. We can

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Speaker 1: turn to technology. May come back to some of that

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Speaker 1: later on, but basically in this episode, we're going to

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Speaker 1: be talking about the various ways that some animals can

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Speaker 1: read the urine of others and perhaps communicate through their

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Speaker 1: own urine.

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Speaker 3: Yes, now, I'm sure the subject of trading information through

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Speaker 3: urine has had all of the dog owners in the

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Speaker 3: audience like desperately raising their hands and saying ooh ooh,

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Speaker 3: I know one. And yes, we briefly touched on this

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Speaker 3: last time. But domestic dogs are a great example. They

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Speaker 3: are well known for being prolific scent markers and for

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Speaker 3: being very concerned with gathering information from the markings left

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Speaker 3: by other dogs. And while urine is actually not the

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Speaker 3: only method domestic dogs use in scent marking, it is

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Speaker 3: you can probably think of it as the primary one.

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Speaker 3: Now some dog lovers out there might be thinking, huh

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Speaker 3: that there are other methods beyond urine. Yes, there actually are.

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Speaker 3: I don't know if I would have said this before

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Speaker 3: I started research for this episode, but there are other

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Speaker 3: ways that dogs leave scent marks. One thing, of course,

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Speaker 3: is the dreaded anal glands, which produce a pungent, foul

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Speaker 3: smelling fluid that gets expressed and deposited naturally in small

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Speaker 3: quantities when a dog defecates, but it can be expressed

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Speaker 3: and rubbed off in other situations as well, and these

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Speaker 3: secretions contain identifying information about the dog. Another interesting example

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Speaker 3: is that dogs have scent producing apocrine glands in their paws.

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Speaker 3: Apocrine glands are glands that produce a kind of oily sweat.

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Speaker 3: Humans have them in parts of their bodies too, like

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Speaker 3: you've got them in your armpits and stuff. But dogs

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Speaker 3: have apocrine glands in their paws and the regions in

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Speaker 3: between their digits, meaning that a dog can leave a

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Speaker 3: scent mark by scratching at the ground or sometimes even

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Speaker 3: just by walking on the footpaths leave a little scent

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Speaker 3: trail through time.

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Speaker 1: Many are the stinks of the dog, beautiful.

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Speaker 3: Stinks, but yes, scent marking by urine is the most

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Speaker 3: overt and visible, certainly of the dog's marking behaviors. You

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Speaker 3: see it most frequently in male dogs who have not

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Speaker 3: been neutered, but it is also done by female dogs

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Speaker 3: and neutered males.

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Speaker 1: Here's a potentially dumb dog question. Never had an indoor

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Speaker 1: dog and never had a dog as an adult, How

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Speaker 1: does one keep an indoor dog or an indoor outdoor

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Speaker 1: dog from marking territory within the household.

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Speaker 3: Well, that's a good question.

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Speaker 1: Rob.

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Speaker 3: It varies from dog to dogs. Some dogs it's just

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Speaker 3: going to be a struggle keeping them from doing it.

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Speaker 3: Some dogs that have been living inside for years will

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Speaker 3: still continue to mark the chair, you know, like here

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Speaker 3: I am, I'm marking the chair once again. But no,

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Speaker 3: most of the time, a dog will respond to training.

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Speaker 3: You know, I'm not a dog behavior expert, know what

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Speaker 3: all the training the best training methods are these days.

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Speaker 3: But yeah, dogs will respond to training that to get

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Speaker 3: them to save it for outside.

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Speaker 1: Okay, gotcha.

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Speaker 3: But it often does mean that when you know, especially

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Speaker 3: with some dogs, you take them outside and maybe you

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Speaker 3: want to get the get their business done quickly. Maybe

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Speaker 3: you're on a timeline, you've got to do something else.

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Speaker 3: But it's kind of hard to get them to like

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Speaker 3: pee all the pee that they need to pee at once. Instead,

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Speaker 3: they want to go all around the neighborhood and leave

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Speaker 3: little marks here and there and just dole it out

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Speaker 3: a little bit at a time.

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Speaker 1: Because coming back to what we've been talking about, the

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Speaker 1: dog is not just going out to relieve itself and

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Speaker 1: then come back. It has messages to leave messages to

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Speaker 1: and to interpret and so forth.

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Speaker 3: Yes, it's it's business time when it's time for the walk. Yeah,

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Speaker 3: time to time to check and send some emails. And

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Speaker 3: it is very worth noting, I think we said this

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Speaker 3: last time, but worth really stressing that we do not

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Speaker 3: know all of the different kinds of information that are

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Speaker 3: conveyed when a dog leaves a urine mark and another

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Speaker 3: dog smells it. But we do know some things. There

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Speaker 3: are reasons to suspect a lot of different kinds of

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Speaker 3: information might be shared, and I can go through some

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Speaker 3: examples here. One thing is a dog's unique identity. There

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Speaker 3: is evidence that dogs can identify other individual dogs by

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Speaker 3: urine smell useful for knowing who's around right, So the

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Speaker 3: same way that a human might be able to recognize

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Speaker 3: another person by seeing a picture of them, like, oh,

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Speaker 3: that's you know, that's Harry, I know Harry. A dog

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Speaker 3: can uniquely identify another individual dog by the smell of

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Speaker 3: their urine. Another thing, similar to what we talked about

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Speaker 3: in the dolphin example is health information. Urine probably reveals

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Speaker 3: a lot about how healthy the dog is, whether they

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Speaker 3: have diseases or parasites, what kind of shape or fitness

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Speaker 3: they're in, probably age. Urine certainly reveals sex and reproductive information.

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Speaker 3: It reveals the sex of the dog, but also hormonal

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Speaker 3: content can reveal how receptive the dog currently will be

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Speaker 3: to mating. Urine can reveal dominance within the dog's social

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Speaker 3: group that could be revealed through marking behavior. And then

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Speaker 3: it gets in There are even like weirder, more interesting things.

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Speaker 3: One is that dogs may possibly even communicate momentary emotional

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Speaker 3: information through urine. This is less certain than some of

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Speaker 3: the other ones. Some of the other ones I was

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Speaker 3: just naming are pretty well known. This is less certain,

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Speaker 3: but it seems likely. Like for example, it has been

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Speaker 3: found that dogs can tell the difference between the smell

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Speaker 3: of a stressed out humans urine versus human urine at baseline,

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Speaker 3: they actually can smell your fear. They can smell your

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Speaker 3: stress and anxiety at least in your pee. Now do

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Speaker 3: they actively seek this information about other dogs? And if so,

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Speaker 3: does this information change their behavior? Like how do they

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Speaker 3: react to getting that information? The answers to these questions

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Speaker 3: are not known for sure. But regarding that second question,

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Speaker 3: I did find an interesting study by par Cortes at

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Speaker 3: All published in the journal Scientific Reports in twenty twenty

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Speaker 3: four called the odor of an unfamiliar, stressed or relaxed

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Speaker 3: person affects Dog's responses to a cognitive bias test, and

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Speaker 3: this study found that dogs would preferentially avoid food bowls

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Speaker 3: in locations that had been previously associated with the smell

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Speaker 3: of urine from a stressed out human, suggesting that the

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Speaker 3: smell of stress, at least human stress, could play a

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Speaker 3: role in cognition and learning for dogs.

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Speaker 1: That is fascinating.

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Speaker 3: Again, we don't know if dogs use this information about

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Speaker 3: other dogs, though it seems quite plausible. You can imagine

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Speaker 3: maybe dogs I don't know, the like if there is

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Speaker 3: an area where there are a lot of scent markings

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Speaker 3: that have high stress. I don't know, that could signal

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Speaker 3: to the dog, They're like, uh, oh, there's something to

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Speaker 3: be concerned about here. I need to you know, be

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Speaker 3: more on guard or something.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, as we've discussed before, dogs very

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Speaker 1: social animals, and via domestication, we are their social group,

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Speaker 1: we are their pack, and therefore, you know, the importance

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Speaker 1: of this information, like to the wolf concerning other wolves,

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Speaker 1: is also potentially important concerning the human members of their

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Speaker 1: domesticated pack. Yeah.

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Speaker 3: I wonder if for a dog, like going down the

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Speaker 3: sidewalk smelling a bunch of urine marks from other dogs

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Speaker 3: that all have like stress in them, is like the

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Speaker 3: human equivalent of doom scrolling.

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Speaker 1: It could be yeah, going to a community meeting where

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Speaker 1: people get to volunteer their opinions, hair, their fears.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly. But it really is interesting to imagine, Like

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Speaker 3: I don't know what kinds of complexity are there in

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Speaker 3: like if momentary kind of emotional states even can be

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Speaker 3: communicated across time in these chemical signatures. This is probably overinterpreting.

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Speaker 3: I don't know when analogies like this are warranted or not,

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Speaker 3: but I'm imagining a kind of p based literature almost,

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Speaker 3: you know, the same way that poetry contains emotions and

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Speaker 3: so forth, Like, what is the kind of richness of

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Speaker 3: the experience that a dog has when smelling all these

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Speaker 3: different health states and sexual information and threat information and

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Speaker 3: emotional information all at the same time.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, their sense of smell is just so

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Speaker 1: ratcheted up above anything that we can truly even relate to,

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Speaker 1: you know, outside of our human use of comparisons and

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Speaker 1: metaphors and so forth, that I mean, I don't know

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Speaker 1: that it's it's really out of bounds to say something

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Speaker 1: like that. It seems like that's the best we can

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Speaker 1: get at in trying to understand like how a dog

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Speaker 1: experiences the world.

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Speaker 3: I think we probably only have the barest kind of

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Speaker 3: idea of what really is happening in this information exchange.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. I keep coming back to that Terry Pratchett comment

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Speaker 1: about a werewolf character being essentially able to smell through

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Speaker 1: time to like know the interpersonal history of a space

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Speaker 1: going back like a month. And that's the kind of

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Speaker 1: thing that like, as humans highly visual that we are, like,

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Speaker 1: we don't really have something like that unless you're dealing

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Speaker 1: with some like very obvious physical signs of passage, such

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Speaker 1: as you know, muddy bootprints and so forth. Yeah, but

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Speaker 1: the smell left by something, I mean, at least to us,

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Speaker 1: that's far more subtle to the dogs, I guess, far

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Speaker 1: more overt, but in a way that it's really hard

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Speaker 1: for us to compare, you know, like, what is is

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Speaker 1: there anything like that in our own actual sensory environment

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Speaker 1: that compares to it? I guess the closest you could

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Speaker 1: come would be something that is electronic or literature based.

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Speaker 3: Or actually I think maybe the more core equivalent would

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Speaker 3: be language that, like with language, humans create for ourselves.

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Speaker 3: It's like our core technology. It's the thing we use

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Speaker 3: to create this like rich layer on top of reality

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Speaker 3: where we can recall past and project future and imagine counterfactuals,

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Speaker 3: and it's all there in constructs that we build out

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Speaker 3: of words. Yeah, coming back to dogs in the female,

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Speaker 3: we also know that dogs use urine based scent marking

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Speaker 3: in expressions of territoriality. Though this is something that I

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Speaker 3: think we have to be a little cautious about because

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Speaker 3: it seems to me this is something that easily gets oversimplified.

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Speaker 3: Like a common thing you'll hear people say, is that

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Speaker 3: when a dog does a p mark out there somewhere

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Speaker 3: they're like marking the boundary of the territory, like here's

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Speaker 3: my property line, no crossing, no trespassing on my turf.

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Speaker 3: From what I can tell the current research actually paints,

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Speaker 3: it's a more complicated picture of how urine marking and

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Speaker 3: territoriality interact. However, it does seem that at least one

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Speaker 3: major aspect of urine marking is related to territoriality and dominance.

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Speaker 3: It is to both signal your own ability as a

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Speaker 3: competitor and possible threat to other competing dogs in the area,

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Speaker 3: especially to other dogs of the same sex as you,

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Speaker 3: and then also to gain information about possible rivals and

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Speaker 3: to understand how much of a threat they represent. I

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Speaker 3: found one study from twenty twelve that looked into this especially.

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Speaker 3: It was looking at the territorial and dominance threat aspects

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Speaker 3: of urine scent marking, and this was in free ranging

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Speaker 3: domestic dogs. The study was by Cafaso, Natali and Valseki

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Speaker 3: in the journal Ethology, and it was called Scent marking

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Speaker 3: behavior in a pack of free ranging domestic Dogs in

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Speaker 3: their abstract to the author's right quote, we found evidence

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Speaker 3: that markings are used by dogs to form a property

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Speaker 3: line and to threaten rivals. During agonistic conflicts, both males

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Speaker 3: and females utilized scent marking to assert dominance and probably

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Speaker 3: to relocate food or maintain possession over it. Raised leg

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Speaker 3: urination and ground scratching probably play a role in olfactory

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Speaker 3: and visual communication in both males and females. Urinations released

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Speaker 3: by females, especially through flexed leg posture, may also convey

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Speaker 3: information about their reproductive state. All right, so there are

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Speaker 3: a range of different things there, but one of the

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Speaker 3: main things they mention is about territoriality. However, this does

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Speaker 3: not mean that a dog only places a urine mark

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Speaker 3: on ground that they expect will never be crossed by

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Speaker 3: an unfamiliar dog. It's not so much a balance line

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Speaker 3: that cannot be violated. Instead, it's more kind of a

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Speaker 3: an announcing of your presence within an occupied space.

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Speaker 1: Uh.

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Speaker 3: And so like we're trying, we're trading information about one another.

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Speaker 3: And uh, you you know, with this information about me,

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Speaker 3: you might want to go somewhere else or you might not.

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Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, saying this is who I am, this is

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Speaker 1: what I'm all about. And we touched that. We touched

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Speaker 1: on this in the last episode and it's gonna continue

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Speaker 1: to be important. We need to remind ourselves. One of

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Speaker 1: the important things about communication between especially competing males UH,

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Speaker 1: but also competing females, is that the more information that

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Speaker 1: is exchanged and that is visible, the less actual physical

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Speaker 1: violence is needed to to to solve these various interactions. Yes,

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Speaker 1: and of course that benefits all of the organisms involved,

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Speaker 1: because every fight UH brings with it a cost, a

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Speaker 1: potential injury, and with every potential injury, you know, possibility

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Speaker 1: to be weakened, to become sick, and so forth. If

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Speaker 1: any of that can be avoided through communication, all the better.

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Speaker 3: Exactly, honest information benefits both parties. However, that's honest information.

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Speaker 3: It's different to ask the question could information represented through

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Speaker 3: urine possibly be dishonest? And that brings me to a

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Speaker 3: paper that I came across that I wanted to talk

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Speaker 3: about here can urine based communication involve lying? So there

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Speaker 3: was a study published in the year twenty eighteen in

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Speaker 3: the Journal of Zoology by McGuire, Olsen Bemis, and Oraantes

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Speaker 3: called urine marking in male domestic dogs Honest or Dishonest.

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Speaker 3: The lead author here, Betty maguire, is a behavioral ecologist

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Speaker 3: at Cornell University. So the study got me thinking about

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Speaker 3: an interesting question. Of course, when we're talking about human communication,

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Speaker 3: there are actually two completely different modes of information shearing,

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Speaker 3: which have different goals and rely on different skills. You've

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Speaker 3: got normal, truthful communication, and then you've got deceptive communication

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Speaker 3: aka lying. Both modes can be useful in life. Both

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Speaker 3: can be useful for gaining advantage and forgetting what we want,

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Speaker 3: but they rely on different mechanisms and skill sets. For example,

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Speaker 3: to communicate truthfully, if you want to communicate the truth successfully,

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Speaker 3: you need to know what the truth is, so like

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Speaker 3: your various powers of perception and logical reasoning are implicated

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Speaker 3: in truthful communication, also like your ability to translate that

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Speaker 3: knowledge into the medium of communication you're using with minimal

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Speaker 3: loss of informational fidelity. On the other hand, to lie successfully,

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Speaker 3: you need to have other skills, like a good ability

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Speaker 3: to simulate the minds of other people to know what

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Speaker 3: kinds of false beliefs would get them to act the

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Speaker 3: way you want and what kinds of lies would be

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Speaker 3: believable to them. And of course, lying also comes with

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Speaker 3: major risks If you get caught lying at the very

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Speaker 3: least people will stop believing you, they'll stop trusting and

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Speaker 3: cooperating with you, or worse, they may actively punish you.

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Speaker 3: Humans can switch easily between truthful and deceptive communication because

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Speaker 3: we communicate with language, which is able to represent an

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Speaker 3: infinite array of both factual and counterfactual statements. But you

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Speaker 3: might think, you know, urine is not like that, urine

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Speaker 3: is honest. We sort of put it this way last time.

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Speaker 3: Like with language, you can have near total control over

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Speaker 3: what you say. With urine, it seems usually you cannot

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Speaker 3: control what you say, only where, how, when, and whether

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Speaker 3: you're going to say something at all. If you say

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Speaker 3: something with urine, usually it's going to be honest or

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Speaker 3: least we would assume.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, that's the human experience with it, right. If you

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Speaker 1: are worried about your urine saying something you don't want

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Speaker 1: to say, in certain specific circumstances, you may get someone

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Speaker 1: else's urine to stand in for your own, with perhaps

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Speaker 1: limited success. But but yeah, there's this idea that like

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Speaker 1: the urine is just a readout. It's just straight up information.

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Speaker 1: It's not something that can be manipulated outside of manipulating

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Speaker 1: like the system that produces said urine which again we

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Speaker 1: still only have like a limited ability to do that

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Speaker 1: to ourselves.

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Speaker 2: You know.

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Speaker 1: It's like we can change what we eat, what we consume,

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Speaker 1: but the urine is going to tell us who we are.

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Speaker 3: Right, you can maybe think of lying with human urine.

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Speaker 3: I don't even know if this is possible, but maybe

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Speaker 3: you could take some kind of pill that like changes

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Speaker 3: your urine profile to something else.

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Speaker 1: Or if you're like I don't want this drug to

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Speaker 1: show up in my urine, I'm going to get them.

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Speaker 1: I'm going to stop taking that drug. Yeah, boom, I

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Speaker 1: tricked them. Well you didn't really trick them. You just

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Speaker 1: change the truth will read out of your system in

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Speaker 1: that scenario.

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Speaker 3: Well this is good because actually I think there will

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Speaker 3: be a question when I'm done talking about the study

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Speaker 3: about whether this should count as deception or lying or not.

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Speaker 3: But anyway, yes, So the researchers here in this paper

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Speaker 3: observed an interesting pattern that might be a counterexample to

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Speaker 3: the assumed honesty of urine, which is dogs potentially being

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Speaker 3: deceptive with their urine scent markings. So how would a

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Speaker 3: dog send a deceptive scam message over the seemingly honest

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Speaker 3: medium of pemil let's go to the paper. So the

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Speaker 3: authors begin by noting that a bunch of different mammals

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Speaker 3: leave scent marks, and lots of the mammals that do

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Speaker 3: tend to elevate them, meaning they place the mark not

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Speaker 3: on the ground, but up higher, often on some kind

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Speaker 3: of vertical surface. Dog walkers are probably going to be

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Speaker 3: familiar with this. A dog, they will usually like to

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Speaker 3: pee on landmarks, the telephone pole, the fire hydrant, the

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Speaker 3: mailbox posts, the tree trunk, the flower, the clump of

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Speaker 3: tall grass, or some times, let's be real, the furniture.

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Speaker 3: Why is this? Why do they like to pee on

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Speaker 3: the raised thing and not just wherever? Why not just

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Speaker 3: on the ground. The authors say that this could be

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Speaker 3: because elevated marks are easier for other dogs to detect

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Speaker 3: via both site and smell. So they cite a bunch

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Speaker 3: of different research here. One thing is researched by Alberts

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Speaker 3: from ninety two, about which they write, quote the ground

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Speaker 3: physically restricts diffusion, meaning the spreading out of the urine

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Speaker 3: physically restricts diffusion. So both size of mark and likelihood

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Speaker 3: of detection by olfaction are increased when the scent marks

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Speaker 3: are elevated. So when you pee on an elevated vertical

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Speaker 3: object on the fire hydrant instead of just on the ground,

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Speaker 3: it tends to increase the size of the splatter area

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Speaker 3: and thus how easy it is to both see and

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Speaker 3: smell the mark in the future. The other interesting things

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Speaker 3: worth noting the ground has more other smells already within it,

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Speaker 3: so peeing on an elevated object helps isolate the message

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Speaker 3: of your pemail in order to increase the signal to

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Speaker 3: noise ratio. Kind of like how if you're going to

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Speaker 3: write a message on something with a magic marker, you

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Speaker 3: would look for a blank, relatively blank space to write on,

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Speaker 3: not something that already had tons of different markings and

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Speaker 3: color variations on it. Also, two more things. Elevated marks

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Speaker 3: are closer to the nose height of other dogs. That's

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Speaker 3: just courtesy, you know. But then finally, elevated marks are

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Speaker 3: visually conspicuous and can be seen at great distance, So

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Speaker 3: you kind of have a biological you can imagine like

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Speaker 3: a communication culture among dogs where they can be wandering

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Speaker 3: around around in an area wondering if there are any

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Speaker 3: good pe mail messages to read, and they see a

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Speaker 3: stump or a fire hydrant at a distance and they know, ah,

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Speaker 3: that's a good place to check for messages. I'll go

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Speaker 3: sniff and see. So these are previously accepted reasons why

404
00:24:04,080 --> 00:24:07,240
Speaker 3: dog might might try to elevate their urine mark. It

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Speaker 3: helps get the message out there, It makes it easier

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Speaker 3: to find, and makes it easier to decipher upon being found. However,

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Speaker 3: increased detectability should benefit all animals that scent mark. And

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Speaker 3: something that's kind of interesting that the author's note is

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Speaker 3: that in lots of mammal species, on average, males elevate

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Speaker 3: their scent markings much more often than females do. The

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Speaker 3: motivations for scint marking are somewhat variable according to sex.

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Speaker 3: Like we were talking about earlier, dogs are more likely

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Speaker 3: to view dogs of the same sex as competitors and

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Speaker 3: thus as threats. Male dogs especially will more often react

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Speaker 3: to other males as competitors and threats, and this is

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Speaker 3: given as a possible reason for why male dogs are

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Speaker 3: more likely to use the raised leg posture when elevating

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Speaker 3: their scent marks. They might be doing this so that

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Speaker 3: they can leave the mark higher on the tree trunk

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Speaker 3: and thus appear to a dog that comes along later

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Speaker 3: to have been bigger and thus a more formidable competitor.

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Speaker 3: You know, So the other dog comes along and smells it,

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Speaker 3: they can't the dog's not here anymore. They can't see

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Speaker 3: them and evaluate them. So they're getting some information just

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Speaker 3: through the smell of the urine about health and maybe

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Speaker 3: even emotions and sex and dominant status and stuff like that.

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Speaker 3: But they can't see the dog, and they might smell

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Speaker 3: a higher up urine mark and think, oh, don't want

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Speaker 3: to mess around with this guy. His urine is above

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Speaker 3: the chain on the fire hydrant. That's a big boy.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. He definitely smells anxious but also enormous.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, so interesting possibility. Maybe that contributes to the desire

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Speaker 3: to place the urine mark higher. And this brings us

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Speaker 3: to the experimental finding by Maguire at all. So in

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Speaker 3: this experiment, the author is like walked around with a

436
00:25:57,000 --> 00:26:01,159
Speaker 3: bunch of adult male shelter dogs and just took measurements

437
00:26:01,240 --> 00:26:03,960
Speaker 3: about their urine marks. They were like apparently filming them

438
00:26:04,000 --> 00:26:07,479
Speaker 3: and trying to measure everything, and they found something funny

439
00:26:07,520 --> 00:26:12,120
Speaker 3: and interesting. The smaller the dog, the higher it would

440
00:26:12,200 --> 00:26:15,760
Speaker 3: lift its leg to p The angles of leg lifts

441
00:26:16,119 --> 00:26:19,280
Speaker 3: observed in this study varied between eighty five degrees and

442
00:26:19,359 --> 00:26:22,080
Speaker 3: one hundred and forty seven degrees. That's a stretch that's

443
00:26:22,119 --> 00:26:24,800
Speaker 3: really good. Eighty five degrees is not even a right angle, though.

444
00:26:26,680 --> 00:26:30,720
Speaker 3: But on average, the smaller the dog, the greater the angle.

445
00:26:31,359 --> 00:26:34,359
Speaker 3: The little dogs would lift their legs the highest. And

446
00:26:34,440 --> 00:26:36,920
Speaker 3: so there are a number of different things that could

447
00:26:37,000 --> 00:26:42,199
Speaker 3: explain this, some more mundane and some more interesting. In

448
00:26:42,280 --> 00:26:45,159
Speaker 3: terms of the more mundane possibilities, it's very important to

449
00:26:45,160 --> 00:26:47,959
Speaker 3: consider these as well. One could just be anatomy. I

450
00:26:48,000 --> 00:26:51,040
Speaker 3: was reading a write up of this research in Science magazine.

451
00:26:51,080 --> 00:26:53,960
Speaker 3: In this article quoted another researcher in the field, an

452
00:26:54,000 --> 00:26:57,840
Speaker 3: ethologist at the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine

453
00:26:57,880 --> 00:27:00,920
Speaker 3: named James Sirple, who said, you know, there are a

454
00:27:00,960 --> 00:27:05,040
Speaker 3: couple of possibilities apart from the main interpretation of the authors.

455
00:27:05,560 --> 00:27:09,400
Speaker 3: One of those is anatomy. Maybe small dogs are more

456
00:27:09,480 --> 00:27:12,280
Speaker 3: flexible or limber on average. This is not like an

457
00:27:12,400 --> 00:27:15,480
Speaker 3: established finding, but it's just possible. Maybe all dogs like

458
00:27:15,640 --> 00:27:18,160
Speaker 3: lift their legs as high as they can. What if

459
00:27:18,200 --> 00:27:21,600
Speaker 3: smaller dogs can achieve a greater angle on average. Another

460
00:27:21,840 --> 00:27:25,920
Speaker 3: explanation could be going on here is over marking dogs

461
00:27:26,119 --> 00:27:30,080
Speaker 3: like to write over another dog's female message. You know,

462
00:27:30,160 --> 00:27:32,040
Speaker 3: they like to pee on top of it and be like,

463
00:27:32,240 --> 00:27:36,000
Speaker 3: I'm marking this now, and so they do that. And

464
00:27:36,040 --> 00:27:39,439
Speaker 3: it could be that a smaller dog, by virtue of

465
00:27:39,480 --> 00:27:43,320
Speaker 3: being smaller, has to really angle up to aim higher

466
00:27:43,400 --> 00:27:46,960
Speaker 3: to over mark the mark left by a larger dog. Okay,

467
00:27:47,160 --> 00:27:49,760
Speaker 3: so on average you'll get them trying to angle higher.

468
00:27:50,280 --> 00:27:54,400
Speaker 3: But a third possible explanation is that this is basically

469
00:27:54,520 --> 00:27:58,600
Speaker 3: animal behavior that is attempting to lie or be deceptive

470
00:27:58,720 --> 00:28:03,760
Speaker 3: about the dog's the author's right quote. Assuming body size

471
00:28:03,800 --> 00:28:08,159
Speaker 3: is a proxy for competitive ability, small adult male dogs

472
00:28:08,240 --> 00:28:12,040
Speaker 3: may place urinmarks higher relative to their own body size

473
00:28:12,080 --> 00:28:16,440
Speaker 3: than larger adult male dogs to exaggerate their competitive ability.

474
00:28:16,840 --> 00:28:19,719
Speaker 3: So like, I am huge, Look how high I can pee,

475
00:28:19,880 --> 00:28:23,639
Speaker 3: while they're like bending over backwards basically to pee way

476
00:28:23,760 --> 00:28:26,600
Speaker 3: up there as high as they can. So that's the

477
00:28:26,640 --> 00:28:29,399
Speaker 3: idea about how dogs might be attempting to lie with

478
00:28:29,440 --> 00:28:32,720
Speaker 3: their pe even if the p itself is honest, how

479
00:28:32,880 --> 00:28:36,440
Speaker 3: you pee isn't necessarily honest. But then again, I was

480
00:28:36,520 --> 00:28:40,480
Speaker 3: kind of thinking about this, is this really a lie?

481
00:28:40,960 --> 00:28:42,880
Speaker 3: I don't know. We'll come back to that in just

482
00:28:42,960 --> 00:28:44,680
Speaker 3: a minute. But before we do, I wanted to mention

483
00:28:45,960 --> 00:28:49,880
Speaker 3: one more thing. So there was a study in support

484
00:28:50,080 --> 00:28:54,840
Speaker 3: of the lying or at least the body size exaggeration interpretation,

485
00:28:55,640 --> 00:28:58,240
Speaker 3: and that was that the same dynamic has been observed

486
00:28:58,240 --> 00:29:01,880
Speaker 3: in other mammals that use in environmental scent marking. A

487
00:29:01,920 --> 00:29:04,760
Speaker 3: paper I was looking at here is called handstand scent

488
00:29:04,840 --> 00:29:08,040
Speaker 3: marking in the dwarf mongoose. This was in the journal

489
00:29:08,040 --> 00:29:13,440
Speaker 3: Ethology in twenty twelve by Sharp, Juiced and Cherry, and

490
00:29:13,520 --> 00:29:16,640
Speaker 3: the lead author here, Linda Sharp, is an ecologist at

491
00:29:16,680 --> 00:29:20,760
Speaker 3: Australian National University in Canberra, and this study was looking

492
00:29:20,840 --> 00:29:25,160
Speaker 3: at scent marking behaviors by the dwarf mongoose, which is

493
00:29:25,440 --> 00:29:29,720
Speaker 3: known to use what is called handstand scent marking. To

494
00:29:29,800 --> 00:29:34,600
Speaker 3: quote the author's description here quote. In this flamboyant marking posture,

495
00:29:34,760 --> 00:29:39,880
Speaker 3: the individual balances bipedally on its fore paws while flinging

496
00:29:39,960 --> 00:29:43,600
Speaker 3: its hind legs up into the air and depositing its

497
00:29:43,640 --> 00:29:48,480
Speaker 3: scent urine feces and or anogenital secretions one full body

498
00:29:48,640 --> 00:29:51,560
Speaker 3: length above the ground. So the animals that do this

499
00:29:51,640 --> 00:29:53,880
Speaker 3: they literally stand up on their hands to reach us

500
00:29:54,000 --> 00:29:56,320
Speaker 3: high up on like say the tree trunk or whatever

501
00:29:56,360 --> 00:29:59,120
Speaker 3: it is, as they can to maybe rub their anal

502
00:29:59,160 --> 00:30:02,040
Speaker 3: glands on it, or to rub whatever part of their

503
00:30:02,040 --> 00:30:04,080
Speaker 3: body they need to, or to pee on it, to

504
00:30:04,120 --> 00:30:06,240
Speaker 3: get up there as high as they can by fully

505
00:30:06,280 --> 00:30:08,400
Speaker 3: inverting and going upside down.

506
00:30:08,640 --> 00:30:11,360
Speaker 1: Wow. Yeah, you see a behavior just like this in

507
00:30:11,440 --> 00:30:13,080
Speaker 1: giant pandas. I don't know if this came up in

508
00:30:13,080 --> 00:30:13,880
Speaker 1: the paper as well.

509
00:30:14,040 --> 00:30:16,720
Speaker 3: Oh, this wasn't about giant pandas, but I have read

510
00:30:16,760 --> 00:30:19,840
Speaker 3: that pandas do this as well. Yeah, so anyway, the

511
00:30:19,880 --> 00:30:22,720
Speaker 3: authors of this paper say that it was widely assumed

512
00:30:22,800 --> 00:30:28,640
Speaker 3: that this type of marking is useful because it gives

513
00:30:29,720 --> 00:30:32,600
Speaker 3: other mammals an idea of how big you are. You

514
00:30:32,640 --> 00:30:34,640
Speaker 3: know when you do it, because you're flipping up your

515
00:30:34,640 --> 00:30:37,040
Speaker 3: whole body length, and that's sort of like measuring your

516
00:30:37,080 --> 00:30:41,640
Speaker 3: body essentially, so it's like you're leaving body measurements along

517
00:30:41,760 --> 00:30:46,560
Speaker 3: with your scent marking. But interestingly, the authors say quote,

518
00:30:46,800 --> 00:30:50,440
Speaker 3: this study investigated the relationship between body size and handstand

519
00:30:50,480 --> 00:30:53,479
Speaker 3: mark height in a wild population of dwarf mongooses in

520
00:30:53,520 --> 00:30:57,040
Speaker 3: South Africa. We found that although body size and marking

521
00:30:57,080 --> 00:31:00,840
Speaker 3: height were correlated positively, for female dwarf mongoose uses, they

522
00:31:00,880 --> 00:31:04,880
Speaker 3: were not for males. Male dwarf mongooses, who are subject

523
00:31:04,920 --> 00:31:09,360
Speaker 3: to intersexual competition from outside their group, invested more heavily

524
00:31:09,480 --> 00:31:14,360
Speaker 3: in anogenital range marking, marking at three times the female

525
00:31:14,360 --> 00:31:18,800
Speaker 3: frequency and placing their deposits significantly higher than females, although

526
00:31:18,840 --> 00:31:21,400
Speaker 3: they were not dimorphics I Meaning they're not actually bigger

527
00:31:21,440 --> 00:31:24,040
Speaker 3: than the females. They're just like finding ways to get

528
00:31:24,040 --> 00:31:28,200
Speaker 3: the mark higher. Males that were particularly vulnerable to rivals

529
00:31:28,280 --> 00:31:30,920
Speaker 3: i e. Those that were small for their age tended

530
00:31:30,960 --> 00:31:35,160
Speaker 3: to mark higher than more robust age mates. And then

531
00:31:35,200 --> 00:31:39,240
Speaker 3: they refer to a particular model of deceptive threat communication

532
00:31:39,360 --> 00:31:42,800
Speaker 3: called the Atoms and Mesterson Gibbons model. But they say

533
00:31:42,880 --> 00:31:45,840
Speaker 3: quote these findings suggest strongly that the height of anogenital

534
00:31:45,880 --> 00:31:50,360
Speaker 3: scent deposits is of social significance to dwarf mongooses. Now,

535
00:31:50,440 --> 00:31:53,800
Speaker 3: on one hand, I was thinking, Okay, if this is

536
00:31:53,840 --> 00:31:58,840
Speaker 3: true that in multiple mammal species, possibly including domestic dogs,

537
00:31:59,400 --> 00:32:04,200
Speaker 3: there is in a tempt by smaller individuals to exaggerate

538
00:32:04,280 --> 00:32:09,160
Speaker 3: their size by leaving their markings higher, should that be

539
00:32:09,280 --> 00:32:12,480
Speaker 3: thought of as lying or should that actually just be

540
00:32:12,600 --> 00:32:16,040
Speaker 3: thought of as well. They're competing to place the mark

541
00:32:16,080 --> 00:32:19,800
Speaker 3: as high as they can, and thus their ability to

542
00:32:19,800 --> 00:32:23,480
Speaker 3: place the mark higher is signaling something like ability to

543
00:32:23,600 --> 00:32:26,200
Speaker 3: place the mark. But I guess it's a question of

544
00:32:26,280 --> 00:32:30,960
Speaker 3: like how widely that could or would be interpreted by

545
00:32:31,080 --> 00:32:34,479
Speaker 3: other dogs as actually just reflecting them being bigger.

546
00:32:35,880 --> 00:32:39,880
Speaker 1: Hmm. Yeah, it's it's difficult to like really put ourselves

547
00:32:40,000 --> 00:32:43,440
Speaker 1: once more in the mind of the animal. Like I

548
00:32:43,520 --> 00:32:46,320
Speaker 1: guess it's it's kind of hard not to think about

549
00:32:46,360 --> 00:32:50,040
Speaker 1: graffiti in comparison to this. And certainly if you see

550
00:32:50,080 --> 00:32:53,400
Speaker 1: graffiti placed in a very hard to reach spot, you.

551
00:32:53,320 --> 00:32:54,400
Speaker 3: Know, oh, that's impressive.

552
00:32:54,440 --> 00:32:56,680
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, it can be quite impressive. We of

553
00:32:56,720 --> 00:32:59,400
Speaker 1: course don't think, wow, that person was really tall. That

554
00:32:59,480 --> 00:33:01,560
Speaker 1: person is like thirty feet tall to do that, but

555
00:33:01,640 --> 00:33:04,480
Speaker 1: we might think that looks like a really dangerous and

556
00:33:04,560 --> 00:33:06,560
Speaker 1: daring place to put a tag up.

557
00:33:06,960 --> 00:33:09,640
Speaker 3: Exactly right, Yes, we do think it's impressive, but not

558
00:33:09,720 --> 00:33:12,600
Speaker 3: because we think they're giants. It's because of the imagining

559
00:33:12,640 --> 00:33:14,120
Speaker 3: the feet that got them there.

560
00:33:14,800 --> 00:33:17,920
Speaker 1: But then again, with dogs, it's interesting, right with domestic dogs,

561
00:33:17,960 --> 00:33:23,240
Speaker 1: you have such differing sizes in the species among the

562
00:33:23,240 --> 00:33:26,719
Speaker 1: different breeds. Yeah, it kind of open like humans are

563
00:33:26,720 --> 00:33:28,840
Speaker 1: only going to be so tall. But what if we

564
00:33:28,880 --> 00:33:31,959
Speaker 1: did have a range of, say, you know, three to

565
00:33:31,960 --> 00:33:35,800
Speaker 1: four feet to twenty to thirty feet, then perhaps we

566
00:33:35,840 --> 00:33:38,840
Speaker 1: would have to consider these factors in looking at tags

567
00:33:38,920 --> 00:33:40,120
Speaker 1: or many other things in life.

568
00:33:40,640 --> 00:33:44,160
Speaker 3: Yes, that's right. If cloud giants existed, you wouldn't necessarily

569
00:33:44,200 --> 00:33:46,440
Speaker 3: assume somebody had like daringly climbed out.

570
00:33:46,560 --> 00:33:50,080
Speaker 1: Yeah, and for dogs, cloud giants kind of do exist. Yeah,

571
00:33:50,120 --> 00:33:51,479
Speaker 1: they're just big breeds of dogs.

572
00:33:52,960 --> 00:33:56,240
Speaker 3: But this also makes me wonder could there be other ways?

573
00:33:56,280 --> 00:33:58,800
Speaker 3: Since this is this one thing where it's possible, we

574
00:33:58,840 --> 00:34:01,240
Speaker 3: don't know for sure, but it's possible dogs and other

575
00:34:01,280 --> 00:34:05,200
Speaker 3: mammals are maybe trying to at least exaggerate their body

576
00:34:05,240 --> 00:34:08,879
Speaker 3: size through these markings. You could maybe call this deceptive communication.

577
00:34:09,680 --> 00:34:12,360
Speaker 3: What other kinds of things are we not even imagining

578
00:34:12,400 --> 00:34:17,319
Speaker 3: that could be deception? Through chemical signals and stuff that

579
00:34:17,360 --> 00:34:21,440
Speaker 3: we would normally think of as by definition almost honest signals.

580
00:34:21,920 --> 00:34:25,480
Speaker 3: I mean, could animals have kind of internal mechanisms for

581
00:34:25,960 --> 00:34:30,279
Speaker 3: voluntarily regulating the presence of hormones or other things in

582
00:34:30,320 --> 00:34:33,480
Speaker 3: their signals the same way that we can voluntarily control

583
00:34:33,520 --> 00:34:34,440
Speaker 3: when we urinate.

584
00:34:35,000 --> 00:34:38,319
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is a fascinating question, Like I mean, one

585
00:34:38,320 --> 00:34:42,760
Speaker 1: could imagine a scenario where a human could artificially ratchet

586
00:34:42,840 --> 00:34:45,759
Speaker 1: up there, I don't know their stress response in order

587
00:34:45,800 --> 00:34:51,279
Speaker 1: to create more stressful urine or the reverse. Like, to

588
00:34:51,320 --> 00:34:56,520
Speaker 1: the extent that we can actually control these things, it

589
00:34:57,080 --> 00:34:59,520
Speaker 1: seems possible that these levers could be in place to

590
00:34:59,560 --> 00:35:02,040
Speaker 1: some degree or another in various organisms.

591
00:35:02,480 --> 00:35:05,640
Speaker 3: But then again, would that be kind of evolutionarily unstable,

592
00:35:05,760 --> 00:35:08,680
Speaker 3: like if you you know, if you have enough dogs

593
00:35:08,680 --> 00:35:11,560
Speaker 3: that are able to lie through their scent markings, with

594
00:35:11,719 --> 00:35:16,040
Speaker 3: scent markings cease to be useful information. Yeah, I don't

595
00:35:16,080 --> 00:35:17,839
Speaker 3: really know how the math of all that works out,

596
00:35:17,840 --> 00:35:18,360
Speaker 3: but the.

597
00:35:18,680 --> 00:35:20,560
Speaker 1: Does that work out for humans? We see some olar

598
00:35:20,680 --> 00:35:24,879
Speaker 1: problems with our ability to communicate. What happens when when

599
00:35:24,920 --> 00:35:28,640
Speaker 1: truth erodes? What does that do to our trust in

600
00:35:28,680 --> 00:35:30,920
Speaker 1: each other and in our ability to communicate?

601
00:35:31,120 --> 00:35:34,040
Speaker 3: Well, I'd say that's a hugely significant part of human life,

602
00:35:34,080 --> 00:35:36,480
Speaker 3: Like a big part of what all culture is is

603
00:35:36,560 --> 00:35:38,440
Speaker 3: just trying to separate truth from lies.

604
00:35:39,480 --> 00:35:53,319
Speaker 1: Perhaps you're in is better, that's what we're getting at all? Right, Well,

605
00:35:53,360 --> 00:35:55,360
Speaker 1: I want to turn at this point to the world

606
00:35:55,560 --> 00:36:00,400
Speaker 1: of the lobster, So not to be outdone, lobster not

607
00:36:00,440 --> 00:36:03,080
Speaker 1: only pe on each other's faces. They pee out of

608
00:36:03,120 --> 00:36:06,520
Speaker 1: their own faces to do this. That's great, and I

609
00:36:06,560 --> 00:36:08,840
Speaker 1: love this fact in and of itself. It kind of

610
00:36:08,880 --> 00:36:11,840
Speaker 1: turns the very idea of urine upside down, and I

611
00:36:11,880 --> 00:36:15,239
Speaker 1: think kind of humbles the human reader or listener, because

612
00:36:15,280 --> 00:36:17,720
Speaker 1: I feel like, you know, your initial reaction to something

613
00:36:17,760 --> 00:36:19,760
Speaker 1: like this might be something like, oh, well, that's weird

614
00:36:19,880 --> 00:36:22,080
Speaker 1: and or funny that they do this with their urine.

615
00:36:22,640 --> 00:36:26,360
Speaker 1: But I think it's the fact settles in, it evolves

616
00:36:26,440 --> 00:36:30,680
Speaker 1: into a different realization and you realize, truly, these creatures

617
00:36:30,719 --> 00:36:32,920
Speaker 1: stand apart from us, and while they do not understand

618
00:36:33,000 --> 00:36:36,760
Speaker 1: human complexity, ours is the greater deficiency because we clearly

619
00:36:36,840 --> 00:36:40,200
Speaker 1: do not understand and have never understood the very nature

620
00:36:40,200 --> 00:36:43,000
Speaker 1: of urine outside of our narrow human perspective.

621
00:36:43,320 --> 00:36:45,440
Speaker 3: Well said, I mean, I think that's shaping up to

622
00:36:45,480 --> 00:36:48,680
Speaker 3: be the main takeaway of this whole series of it.

623
00:36:48,480 --> 00:36:50,879
Speaker 1: And I find this is also interesting because yeah, they're

624
00:36:50,880 --> 00:36:54,200
Speaker 1: literally peeing out of their faces into other faces, and

625
00:36:54,239 --> 00:36:56,160
Speaker 1: you could compare that on some level to the way

626
00:36:56,520 --> 00:36:59,120
Speaker 1: words come out of our face, out of our head

627
00:36:59,400 --> 00:37:02,120
Speaker 1: and then are interpreted by the censor ray on another

628
00:37:02,239 --> 00:37:04,040
Speaker 1: into the individual's head. Yeah.

629
00:37:04,040 --> 00:37:06,520
Speaker 3: I mean, if you're just some kind of like alien

630
00:37:06,560 --> 00:37:10,520
Speaker 3: metazoan coming in like studying human anatomy, you look at us,

631
00:37:10,600 --> 00:37:13,120
Speaker 3: you're like, wait. They use one hole on their faces

632
00:37:13,200 --> 00:37:17,680
Speaker 3: to mash up and swallow food. But then they also

633
00:37:17,920 --> 00:37:20,759
Speaker 3: like flap things in that hole to make sounds at

634
00:37:20,760 --> 00:37:23,640
Speaker 3: each other, which is how they share information. And then

635
00:37:23,640 --> 00:37:27,240
Speaker 3: they can also sometimes attack one another with like teeth,

636
00:37:27,640 --> 00:37:30,200
Speaker 3: with little sharp things in that hole and like bite.

637
00:37:30,480 --> 00:37:33,600
Speaker 3: And they also use that hole in like mating rituals

638
00:37:33,600 --> 00:37:36,880
Speaker 3: with each other. And they also use that hole to breathe,

639
00:37:37,800 --> 00:37:42,480
Speaker 3: to take it into oxygen and the vomit and to vomit. Yeah,

640
00:37:42,800 --> 00:37:46,080
Speaker 3: from a sufficiently alien perspective, I think the single mouth

641
00:37:46,120 --> 00:37:49,399
Speaker 3: hole issue is about as weird as the lobsters peeing

642
00:37:49,440 --> 00:37:51,600
Speaker 3: in each other's faces. But the lobsters are no less

643
00:37:51,600 --> 00:37:52,279
Speaker 3: weird for that.

644
00:37:52,600 --> 00:37:56,640
Speaker 1: Right now, I want to note that lobster here covers

645
00:37:56,640 --> 00:37:59,600
Speaker 1: a lot of ground. Lobster tends to refer to various

646
00:37:59,600 --> 00:38:03,120
Speaker 1: deck of pot odds with comparable body plans. Several papers

647
00:38:03,160 --> 00:38:06,360
Speaker 1: I looked at concerned claude lobsters or true lobsters of

648
00:38:06,400 --> 00:38:10,440
Speaker 1: the Nephropodias superfamily, but other papers I looked at, were

649
00:38:11,239 --> 00:38:16,480
Speaker 1: looking at spiny lobsters or ling ghostas of the Pollinuridae family.

650
00:38:16,840 --> 00:38:19,320
Speaker 1: I'm to understand that the power of urine is strong

651
00:38:19,480 --> 00:38:23,399
Speaker 1: in both of these and that both in essence pee

652
00:38:23,440 --> 00:38:26,799
Speaker 1: through their faces. We also see this to some degree

653
00:38:26,840 --> 00:38:31,120
Speaker 1: in crabs as well, but specifically dealing with lobsters, spiny

654
00:38:31,200 --> 00:38:34,160
Speaker 1: or claude and peeing out of the face. I feel

655
00:38:34,200 --> 00:38:35,239
Speaker 1: like we got to we got to sort of take

656
00:38:35,239 --> 00:38:39,320
Speaker 1: this revelation in phases. First of all, how you're in

657
00:38:39,440 --> 00:38:45,000
Speaker 1: from face, and we'll momentarily set aside whether this constitutes

658
00:38:45,040 --> 00:38:48,120
Speaker 1: a face or front of head with the lobster. The

659
00:38:48,200 --> 00:38:49,800
Speaker 1: lobster is not a creature that I look at and

660
00:38:49,880 --> 00:38:52,880
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, look at look at its face. It's

661
00:38:52,880 --> 00:38:55,799
Speaker 1: more just like it looks at the frontal array of

662
00:38:55,840 --> 00:38:56,720
Speaker 1: sensory organs.

663
00:38:57,160 --> 00:38:59,359
Speaker 3: As lee we established in the past, I'm much more

664
00:38:59,360 --> 00:39:01,880
Speaker 3: of a sucker when ruling things into the face category.

665
00:39:01,920 --> 00:39:05,520
Speaker 3: I think if I see at least two eyes above

666
00:39:05,680 --> 00:39:07,680
Speaker 3: the mouth parts, that's a face.

667
00:39:07,840 --> 00:39:12,920
Speaker 1: All right, Well, you know, fair enough. So with these lobsters,

668
00:39:13,120 --> 00:39:16,759
Speaker 1: urine is excreted through the antennel glands. These are thought

669
00:39:16,800 --> 00:39:20,440
Speaker 1: to be versions of the coxaile glands or maxillary glands.

670
00:39:20,760 --> 00:39:24,719
Speaker 1: These are the excretory openings found in some arthropods and

671
00:39:24,800 --> 00:39:28,839
Speaker 1: most erachnts. But while the glands are further down on

672
00:39:28,920 --> 00:39:34,239
Speaker 1: other organisms, lobsters in their kin feature them much further up,

673
00:39:35,320 --> 00:39:37,239
Speaker 1: essentially on the face if we're going to call it

674
00:39:37,280 --> 00:39:41,400
Speaker 1: a face, under the base of each antenna. Thus the

675
00:39:41,480 --> 00:39:44,840
Speaker 1: name and the opening of the antennel gland is called

676
00:39:45,000 --> 00:39:48,279
Speaker 1: the nephropore. Now the urine, which, as we'll discuss, is

677
00:39:48,320 --> 00:39:53,440
Speaker 1: both excretory and communicative in purpose. I guess that's worth

678
00:39:54,480 --> 00:39:57,280
Speaker 1: driving home is that like the dog, it's still excreting

679
00:39:57,320 --> 00:39:59,520
Speaker 1: waste when it urinates, but it also has this.

680
00:39:59,520 --> 00:40:01,280
Speaker 3: Other why not both?

681
00:40:01,360 --> 00:40:04,400
Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah, But with the lobsters, it's still emerging from bladders,

682
00:40:04,440 --> 00:40:07,080
Speaker 1: and the bladders are adjacent to the creature's brain.

683
00:40:08,280 --> 00:40:12,160
Speaker 3: That's funny too, Like when your bladder's full, it's like

684
00:40:12,200 --> 00:40:14,640
Speaker 3: you can feel it pressing on your brain. Just can't

685
00:40:14,719 --> 00:40:15,399
Speaker 3: imagine that.

686
00:40:15,560 --> 00:40:17,439
Speaker 1: But I mean, look at us where our pie hole

687
00:40:17,560 --> 00:40:19,279
Speaker 1: is right up here next to our brain as well,

688
00:40:19,400 --> 00:40:21,400
Speaker 1: And yeah, you can make a case for that being weird.

689
00:40:21,640 --> 00:40:24,640
Speaker 1: Uh huh. Now, let us consider why you're in from

690
00:40:24,719 --> 00:40:27,880
Speaker 1: face and I think our number one answer should be,

691
00:40:27,920 --> 00:40:30,280
Speaker 1: of course, why not? You know, does it matter? Sharks

692
00:40:30,320 --> 00:40:34,000
Speaker 1: and some amphibians excrete liquid waste through their skin. Sharks

693
00:40:34,000 --> 00:40:37,560
Speaker 1: also excrete through their gills. The Chinese soft shell turtle

694
00:40:37,600 --> 00:40:41,239
Speaker 1: can apparently excrete you're in through the mouth, you know.

695
00:40:41,280 --> 00:40:43,719
Speaker 1: If anything, consider how much easier it would be if

696
00:40:43,719 --> 00:40:46,759
Speaker 1: we in fact urinated through our faces instead of having

697
00:40:46,760 --> 00:40:47,760
Speaker 1: to use our other parts.

698
00:40:48,440 --> 00:40:51,320
Speaker 3: Having trouble assessing whether that would be an upgrade or

699
00:40:51,360 --> 00:40:52,000
Speaker 3: a downgrade.

700
00:40:52,280 --> 00:40:54,400
Speaker 1: I mean it would change a lot of things. Yeah,

701
00:40:54,480 --> 00:40:56,680
Speaker 1: you could make a case that if would then mean well,

702
00:40:56,719 --> 00:40:58,480
Speaker 1: then we'd wear pants on our heads as well, But

703
00:40:58,920 --> 00:41:01,920
Speaker 1: maybe it would mean that you could you not use

704
00:41:01,960 --> 00:41:04,240
Speaker 1: those other parts for urination and just set those aside

705
00:41:04,239 --> 00:41:08,080
Speaker 1: for other purposes. Sure. On top of this, though, there

706
00:41:08,080 --> 00:41:10,840
Speaker 1: are basically two main reasons that I was reading about

707
00:41:10,840 --> 00:41:13,560
Speaker 1: for why have urine come out of your face or

708
00:41:13,600 --> 00:41:16,200
Speaker 1: the front of your head. First of all, as we've

709
00:41:16,200 --> 00:41:20,000
Speaker 1: been getting at, urine is highly important for communication for

710
00:41:20,040 --> 00:41:22,800
Speaker 1: the lobsters. We'll come back to how and it simply

711
00:41:22,840 --> 00:41:24,920
Speaker 1: makes sense for all of this to be front loaded

712
00:41:25,000 --> 00:41:28,279
Speaker 1: onto the head and adjacent to this because you might

713
00:41:28,320 --> 00:41:30,680
Speaker 1: because I imagine you're instantly thinking, well, my dog doesn't pee

714
00:41:30,680 --> 00:41:33,959
Speaker 1: out of its head and it p is important for it. Well,

715
00:41:34,040 --> 00:41:37,080
Speaker 1: but your dog isn't a din dweller. That's the other

716
00:41:37,400 --> 00:41:41,239
Speaker 1: argument made with the lobsters is that they'll spend a

717
00:41:41,320 --> 00:41:44,880
Speaker 1: large portion of their life in little dens. Communicating to

718
00:41:44,920 --> 00:41:46,719
Speaker 1: others to come into your den or to stay away

719
00:41:46,719 --> 00:41:49,279
Speaker 1: from your den is important, and it makes sense to

720
00:41:49,480 --> 00:41:54,000
Speaker 1: front load your urine excretion systems in order to broadcast

721
00:41:54,080 --> 00:41:57,000
Speaker 1: outside of the den, you know, outside of the rocks,

722
00:41:57,000 --> 00:41:58,920
Speaker 1: outside of the corals, wherever you happen to be held

723
00:41:59,000 --> 00:41:59,800
Speaker 1: up at a given moment.

724
00:42:00,120 --> 00:42:02,200
Speaker 3: That makes sense, okay, Yeah.

725
00:42:02,040 --> 00:42:04,719
Speaker 1: And they can apparently excrete the you know, sometimes it's

726
00:42:04,719 --> 00:42:06,719
Speaker 1: hard for us to imagine, like what is it like

727
00:42:06,840 --> 00:42:09,920
Speaker 1: to like squirt urine underwater? And I think we'll probably

728
00:42:09,920 --> 00:42:12,080
Speaker 1: get into more of this in a subsequent episode. We

729
00:42:12,080 --> 00:42:15,120
Speaker 1: can get into fish, but with the lobster, apparently they

730
00:42:15,160 --> 00:42:18,400
Speaker 1: can really push the urine out like multiple multiple body

731
00:42:18,480 --> 00:42:21,800
Speaker 1: lengths all right. Now, the next level is to consider

732
00:42:21,920 --> 00:42:26,560
Speaker 1: what is communicated through the urine pheromones and other chemical

733
00:42:26,600 --> 00:42:31,000
Speaker 1: signatures that feature intomate selection and competition. These are apparently

734
00:42:31,040 --> 00:42:32,279
Speaker 1: some of the big ones and the ones that have

735
00:42:32,280 --> 00:42:35,680
Speaker 1: been studied the most. Females will use their urine to

736
00:42:35,719 --> 00:42:39,680
Speaker 1: indicate that they are ready to mate, and following competition

737
00:42:39,840 --> 00:42:43,520
Speaker 1: between males, the winner of those competitions will then broadcast

738
00:42:43,680 --> 00:42:48,040
Speaker 1: their serotonin rich urine to declare their victory. I was

739
00:42:48,080 --> 00:42:52,400
Speaker 1: thinking about this when we were talking about lying and urine, like,

740
00:42:52,440 --> 00:42:54,200
Speaker 1: I think this would be a case where it would

741
00:42:54,239 --> 00:42:57,759
Speaker 1: be impossible or unlikely that you would be able to lie,

742
00:42:57,880 --> 00:43:00,880
Speaker 1: because the contents all the year are kind of like

743
00:43:01,000 --> 00:43:05,560
Speaker 1: signaling your victory. Like there, it's an seemingly authentic chemical

744
00:43:05,600 --> 00:43:09,200
Speaker 1: signature of the way you feel after defeating another lobster

745
00:43:09,360 --> 00:43:13,160
Speaker 1: or scaring off intimidating another lobster. On top of this,

746
00:43:13,520 --> 00:43:16,719
Speaker 1: the female you're in apparently is thought to calm the

747
00:43:16,719 --> 00:43:20,520
Speaker 1: male and will also keep other females away and say like, Okay,

748
00:43:20,560 --> 00:43:23,640
Speaker 1: this den is now claimed, I am shacking up with

749
00:43:23,719 --> 00:43:27,480
Speaker 1: this male lobster. Go your own ways. I was reading

750
00:43:27,480 --> 00:43:30,000
Speaker 1: a bit about this in a Snoop's article actually by

751
00:43:30,080 --> 00:43:33,799
Speaker 1: Madison Dapkovich, and two other sources that I looked at

752
00:43:33,840 --> 00:43:37,480
Speaker 1: were Chemical Communication and Crustaceans Lobsters from twenty ten by

753
00:43:37,520 --> 00:43:41,960
Speaker 1: Aggio and Derby. And a novel tegmental gland in the

754
00:43:42,000 --> 00:43:47,040
Speaker 1: nephropoor of the lobster Homarus americanas by Bushman and Attema

755
00:43:47,320 --> 00:43:50,319
Speaker 1: from nineteen ninety three, this latter being I think a

756
00:43:50,320 --> 00:43:53,800
Speaker 1: commonly cited source over the years. Now, I want to

757
00:43:53,800 --> 00:43:57,440
Speaker 1: add that lobster reproduction is pretty fascinating in and of itself,

758
00:43:58,160 --> 00:44:00,399
Speaker 1: you know, talking about like the males and female talking

759
00:44:00,440 --> 00:44:03,880
Speaker 1: to each other, the males competing well, the male and

760
00:44:03,920 --> 00:44:06,759
Speaker 1: the female apparently form quite a bond, and then the

761
00:44:06,800 --> 00:44:11,160
Speaker 1: female molts, sheds her exoskeleton in order to mate with

762
00:44:11,280 --> 00:44:17,000
Speaker 1: the male. Now, as with pretty much any exoskeleton equipped organism,

763
00:44:17,080 --> 00:44:20,640
Speaker 1: molting is part of your continual development process. You're always

764
00:44:20,960 --> 00:44:24,960
Speaker 1: growing out of and then growing new armor, and you'll

765
00:44:24,960 --> 00:44:27,800
Speaker 1: see this in the lobsters, of course, but it's essential

766
00:44:27,840 --> 00:44:30,520
Speaker 1: here for the reproduction. The female has to shed the

767
00:44:30,560 --> 00:44:35,480
Speaker 1: exoskeleton in order to reproduce, and during this time she's vulnerable,

768
00:44:35,560 --> 00:44:39,360
Speaker 1: but she's also protected by the male. The eggs that result,

769
00:44:39,680 --> 00:44:41,719
Speaker 1: up to like one hundred thousand of these will then

770
00:44:41,760 --> 00:44:45,000
Speaker 1: remain attached to her swimmerettes under her tail for nine

771
00:44:45,040 --> 00:44:48,280
Speaker 1: to twelve months, and of course she eats, she builds

772
00:44:48,320 --> 00:44:52,600
Speaker 1: up her strength and gets that exoskeleton back as she recovers, You've.

773
00:44:52,440 --> 00:44:54,680
Speaker 3: Never seen a lobster with all the eggs under the

774
00:44:54,680 --> 00:44:58,640
Speaker 3: tail is pretty cool looking. It's where they've got sometimes

775
00:44:58,640 --> 00:45:00,799
Speaker 3: it's called caviare I guess looks kind of like that.

776
00:45:00,840 --> 00:45:03,799
Speaker 3: It's like a million little balls. They're curled up on

777
00:45:03,840 --> 00:45:04,800
Speaker 3: the underside of the body.

778
00:45:05,239 --> 00:45:08,400
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're fascinating and we're only just dipping our toes

779
00:45:08,440 --> 00:45:12,879
Speaker 1: really into the lobster waters. They're the fascinating organisms now.

780
00:45:12,880 --> 00:45:15,719
Speaker 1: I also looked at a couple of articles dealing specifically

781
00:45:15,840 --> 00:45:19,840
Speaker 1: with the urine of the spiny lobster. A two thousand

782
00:45:19,840 --> 00:45:23,160
Speaker 1: and nine study from Shabini at All published in the

783
00:45:23,239 --> 00:45:27,040
Speaker 1: Journal of Experimental Biology, points out that urine factors into

784
00:45:27,160 --> 00:45:33,279
Speaker 1: aggressive behaviors between male spiny lobsters, and along with physical aggression,

785
00:45:33,800 --> 00:45:37,800
Speaker 1: the urine helps to broadcast social status and reduces overall

786
00:45:37,880 --> 00:45:43,120
Speaker 1: physical aggressive behaviors. So they cited some experiments that involved

787
00:45:43,160 --> 00:45:47,960
Speaker 1: like removing the ability from a studied lobster to urinate

788
00:45:48,080 --> 00:45:51,640
Speaker 1: and actually like spread it's into this necessary information and

789
00:45:51,640 --> 00:45:55,120
Speaker 1: then what happens when you then pump that urine into

790
00:45:55,200 --> 00:46:00,200
Speaker 1: a given conflict zone for spiny lobsters, And basically this

791
00:46:00,239 --> 00:46:02,400
Speaker 1: is a great example of what we were talking about earlier,

792
00:46:02,440 --> 00:46:06,120
Speaker 1: like the more urine, like urine gives information, it broadcasts information,

793
00:46:06,280 --> 00:46:09,280
Speaker 1: and the more information that is out there, the less

794
00:46:09,960 --> 00:46:14,920
Speaker 1: absolute violence has to occur between these competing males piece

795
00:46:14,960 --> 00:46:18,640
Speaker 1: through p Yeah exactly, yeah yeah. On top of this,

796
00:46:19,400 --> 00:46:22,920
Speaker 1: spiny lobsters may apparently sometimes seek each other out to

797
00:46:22,960 --> 00:46:27,640
Speaker 1: sort of like aggregate and shelter, and they'll find each

798
00:46:27,680 --> 00:46:31,160
Speaker 1: other via their urine. And finally, another interesting finding that

799
00:46:31,200 --> 00:46:34,400
Speaker 1: I came across this is coverage in The Guardian authored

800
00:46:34,440 --> 00:46:39,120
Speaker 1: by Richard Luscom from twenty twenty four pointing out that

801
00:46:39,239 --> 00:46:42,160
Speaker 1: the urine of the spiny lobster can also serve as

802
00:46:42,160 --> 00:46:46,120
Speaker 1: a kind of accidental warning to various prey species that

803
00:46:46,320 --> 00:46:49,080
Speaker 1: the spiny lobsters of course feast on in their coral

804
00:46:49,120 --> 00:46:52,520
Speaker 1: reef habitats, and the smell of this urine can actually

805
00:46:52,560 --> 00:46:57,680
Speaker 1: scare off various organisms that feast on vulnerable and degraded coral,

806
00:46:58,800 --> 00:47:01,480
Speaker 1: offering them some amount of protection. And this can be

807
00:47:01,600 --> 00:47:04,640
Speaker 1: especially be helpful in cases where you have nursery grown

808
00:47:04,719 --> 00:47:08,560
Speaker 1: coral restoration projects. So like this nub of nursery grown

809
00:47:08,600 --> 00:47:11,560
Speaker 1: coral that you're trying to like establish and re establish

810
00:47:11,600 --> 00:47:14,920
Speaker 1: in a given area. You know, it's a highly delectable

811
00:47:14,960 --> 00:47:18,640
Speaker 1: meal to these organisms such as the coral, liverous snails,

812
00:47:18,719 --> 00:47:23,479
Speaker 1: and fireworms. So the presence of the spiny lobster urine

813
00:47:23,920 --> 00:47:26,440
Speaker 1: can actually like drive them away and keep them away.

814
00:47:27,520 --> 00:47:30,560
Speaker 1: And it's just I guess part of this just comes

815
00:47:30,560 --> 00:47:32,239
Speaker 1: back like, as far as I could tell, there's not

816
00:47:32,360 --> 00:47:35,440
Speaker 1: actually like anybody's saying, well, we need to pump spiny

817
00:47:35,520 --> 00:47:38,000
Speaker 1: lobster urine into an area. It's more like, well, you

818
00:47:38,200 --> 00:47:41,680
Speaker 1: need a balanced ecosystem, and spiny lobsters are part of

819
00:47:41,719 --> 00:47:45,920
Speaker 1: that balanced ecosystem, and so their presence can help protect

820
00:47:46,120 --> 00:47:47,440
Speaker 1: these vulnerable corals.

821
00:47:47,680 --> 00:47:51,280
Speaker 3: So, from the lobster's evolutionary perspective, the urine is sending

822
00:47:51,280 --> 00:47:56,319
Speaker 3: both intended and unintended messages. It's both the communication that you're,

823
00:47:56,480 --> 00:47:59,840
Speaker 3: the conversation you're having with somebody at the table with you,

824
00:48:00,080 --> 00:48:02,959
Speaker 3: and also the person eavesdropping on you from next door.

825
00:48:03,440 --> 00:48:06,920
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, it's like between lobsters of the same species,

826
00:48:07,520 --> 00:48:12,319
Speaker 1: urine is language, and it's it's negotiating these various scenarios.

827
00:48:12,719 --> 00:48:17,200
Speaker 1: And then in the case of these coral eating creatures

828
00:48:17,280 --> 00:48:20,120
Speaker 1: and the spiny lobster. It's like essentially like hearing the

829
00:48:20,160 --> 00:48:24,320
Speaker 1: howl of the spiny lobster a terrifying announcement that predators

830
00:48:24,360 --> 00:48:26,759
Speaker 1: are near. And yeah, spiny lobsters eat a lot of

831
00:48:27,239 --> 00:48:30,239
Speaker 1: a lot of critters in their choral environments. Like they're

832
00:48:30,480 --> 00:48:33,600
Speaker 1: they're they're important predators. It's easy to focus on something

833
00:48:33,640 --> 00:48:36,680
Speaker 1: like this as food since it is on the menu

834
00:48:36,760 --> 00:48:39,520
Speaker 1: for human beings, but yeah, they eat a lot of critters,

835
00:48:39,560 --> 00:48:44,840
Speaker 1: including these critters that are dangerous to to to endangered corals.

836
00:48:45,239 --> 00:48:49,120
Speaker 3: Well, I found this section about lobster face peas strangely heartwarming.

837
00:48:49,560 --> 00:48:53,239
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, they're they're complex organisms. It's it, you know,

838
00:48:53,760 --> 00:48:56,399
Speaker 1: the lobster. You know, it really kind of goes back

839
00:48:56,440 --> 00:49:00,680
Speaker 1: to to David Foster Wallace is considered the lobster from

840
00:49:00,920 --> 00:49:02,880
Speaker 1: two thousand and four. There's, you know, we often just

841
00:49:02,920 --> 00:49:04,759
Speaker 1: take them for granted because we just think of them

842
00:49:04,840 --> 00:49:08,480
Speaker 1: as food and really only you know, to the content

843
00:49:08,520 --> 00:49:11,640
Speaker 1: of his article only recently as kind of like upper

844
00:49:11,680 --> 00:49:15,719
Speaker 1: class food. And it's easy to assume that they're just

845
00:49:15,800 --> 00:49:19,239
Speaker 1: simple creatures that do not have these complex interactions, but

846
00:49:19,640 --> 00:49:21,600
Speaker 1: that they do. Yeah, they're fascinating.

847
00:49:21,760 --> 00:49:23,680
Speaker 3: All right, Well, do we want to wrap up part

848
00:49:23,719 --> 00:49:26,279
Speaker 3: two there and come back next time for more about

849
00:49:26,440 --> 00:49:27,480
Speaker 3: urine based communication?

850
00:49:28,000 --> 00:49:30,640
Speaker 1: Sounds like a plan in the meantime. Yeah, we'd love

851
00:49:30,680 --> 00:49:32,280
Speaker 1: to hear from everyone out there if you have thoughts

852
00:49:32,280 --> 00:49:35,720
Speaker 1: on either of these two episodes regarding urine. I'm sure

853
00:49:35,880 --> 00:49:38,640
Speaker 1: you dog owners have some tales to share with us.

854
00:49:38,719 --> 00:49:41,640
Speaker 1: Ride in certainly, and maybe we'll feature those on an

855
00:49:41,719 --> 00:49:44,879
Speaker 1: upcoming listener mail episode. A reminder that Stuff to Blow

856
00:49:44,880 --> 00:49:47,279
Speaker 1: Your Mind is primarily a science and culture podcast, with

857
00:49:47,320 --> 00:49:50,319
Speaker 1: core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. On Fridays, we set

858
00:49:50,360 --> 00:49:52,479
Speaker 1: aside most serious concerns to just talk about a weird

859
00:49:52,480 --> 00:49:55,200
Speaker 1: film on Weird House Cinema. And if you want to

860
00:49:55,200 --> 00:49:58,000
Speaker 1: find us online while we're on various social media accounts,

861
00:49:58,040 --> 00:49:59,920
Speaker 1: you can get our podcasts wherever you get your podcast

862
00:50:00,160 --> 00:50:03,160
Speaker 1: wherever that happens to be. Just rate and review that

863
00:50:03,200 --> 00:50:05,280
Speaker 1: helps us out throw some stars our way.

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Speaker 3: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway.

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Speaker 3: If you would like to get in touch with us

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Speaker 3: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest

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Speaker 3: a topic for the future, or just to say hello,

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Speaker 3: you can email us at contact at Stuff to Blow

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Speaker 3: your Mind dot com.

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Speaker 2: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For

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Speaker 2: more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,

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Speaker 2: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you're listening to your favorite shows.