Speaker 1: Welcome to Creature Feature production of iHeartRadio. I'm your host
Speaker 1: of Mini Parasites, Katie Golden. I studied psychology and evolutionary biology,
Speaker 1: and today on the show it's another listener's Questions episode.
Speaker 1: Every week, well not every week, but you know occasionally
Speaker 1: I do these. You write to me your questions, and
Speaker 1: I try to answer them the best that I can.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for your emailed questions. If you're
Speaker 1: listening to this and you're saying, hey, I have an
Speaker 1: evolutionary biology question, a question about animals and parasites and
Speaker 1: so on that I would like answered, you can write
Speaker 1: to me at Creature Featurepod at gmail dot com. So
Speaker 1: let's get right into your questions. Hi, Katie. I found
Speaker 1: a new subreddit called Crowbro. There's lots of cute stories, pictures,
Speaker 1: and videos of people friending or feeding corven. I saw
Speaker 1: this lovely post, and I guess I have never seen
Speaker 1: ravens up close before. They're beautiful. It looks like they
Speaker 1: have feathers coming from their face down their beaks a bit.
Speaker 1: Is there any reason evolutionarily why they would need feathers
Speaker 1: on that part of their beak? Is this normal for
Speaker 1: more or all birds asking the true bird lady, do
Speaker 1: you think it would benefit to get rid of those
Speaker 1: stragglers or to keep them or get more. I'm not
Speaker 1: sure why I'm surprised to see it, but truth be told,
Speaker 1: I don't look at birds too closely because well, they're
Speaker 1: flight risks. Some screenshots attached in case it gets removed
Speaker 1: or anything. Thank you Chloe Story. So, first of all,
Speaker 1: that's an incredible subreddit. I'm very much in favor of
Speaker 1: befriending ravens and crows with photographs and tasteful snacks, and
Speaker 1: this is an absolutely fantastic observation and wonderful questions about
Speaker 1: the feathers around their beaks. So both ravens and crows
Speaker 1: have feathers that covered the tops of their beaks allthough,
Speaker 1: so in general, raven beak feathers and also their little
Speaker 1: throat feathers, like their little beards, tend to be shaggier
Speaker 1: than crows, but they both have them. So interestingly, those
Speaker 1: feathers do cover their nostrils, which is something that isn't
Speaker 1: found in all birds, so that seems like that might
Speaker 1: be giving us a hint as to what they're for
Speaker 1: the fact that they are so far down on their
Speaker 1: beaks that it's also covering their nostrils. Then again, many
Speaker 1: other birds don't have any feathers covering their nostrils, so
Speaker 1: what gives, Like, what is going on here? So what
Speaker 1: are those feathers? Those feathers on top of a crow
Speaker 1: or raven's nose are called Richdal bristles. They're present in
Speaker 1: other birds, but in many bird species they're smaller and
Speaker 1: less noticeable, maybe even absent. But some of them have
Speaker 1: them where they're just kind of like whiskers above their beaks.
Speaker 1: So their purpose seems to be widely very in birds,
Speaker 1: having evolved and been lost multiple times. Some birds seem
Speaker 1: to use them as sensory organs, similar to cat whiskers,
Speaker 1: and there has been a study that found that species
Speaker 1: who are active in low light conditions grow longer Rickdal bristles.
Speaker 1: But that's a bit different from this question in terms
Speaker 1: of the corvids, because their bristles aren't long in the
Speaker 1: sense of like cat whiskers, where they're sort of sticking
Speaker 1: out as sensory organs. They're long and then flat against
Speaker 1: their bills. So I'm not sure if using them as
Speaker 1: a sensory organ is the answer there in terms of
Speaker 1: our crows and ravens. So you'd think that the fact
Speaker 1: that ravens and crows and other corvids have a high
Speaker 1: density of richtal bristles over their beak would be easily
Speaker 1: explained like kind of a standard crow fact, standard raven fact.
Speaker 1: But actually no. So the purpose of richt ol bristles
Speaker 1: and the reason for the differences and their shape and
Speaker 1: density is somewhat debated, and it seems somewhat understudied. So
Speaker 1: let's look into this. Let's try to come up with
Speaker 1: some theories and think through what might make sense. So
Speaker 1: why might they be covered? Let's compare them to other birds.
Speaker 1: Let's look at sort of features of crows and ravens
Speaker 1: and try to figure out what are some of the
Speaker 1: possible theories for these these feathery beaks. So the first
Speaker 1: thing I thought of was like, well, does this have
Speaker 1: something to do with them being carrion birds? So while
Speaker 1: it is true that crows and ravens do eat carrion,
Speaker 1: it seems like, so you know, maybe the covered beaks,
Speaker 1: maybe that's some kind of protection keeping stuff out of
Speaker 1: their nostrils, keeping pathogens out of their nostrils as they
Speaker 1: root around in carrion, and that could be the case,
Speaker 1: and there is certainly an incentive to heap like blood
Speaker 1: and guts and stuff out of their nostrils or to
Speaker 1: help protect their nostrils from pathogens. But there are other
Speaker 1: carrion birds, like many species of vultures and condors, that
Speaker 1: have relatively naked beaks, whereas there's other carrion raptors like
Speaker 1: bearded vultures who feed mostly on bones, who do have
Speaker 1: beaks that are covered in bristles, kind of similar to
Speaker 1: ravens and crows, which is really interesting. So you have
Speaker 1: both both of these kind of styles. Most of these
Speaker 1: fashions and birds who eat carrion where some of them
Speaker 1: their beaks are covered, some of them are uncovered. So
Speaker 1: I'm not exactly sure whether eating carrion has anything to
Speaker 1: do with the state of feathers on their beaks. So
Speaker 1: bearded vultures, crows, and ravens who do have covered nostrils
Speaker 1: do live in environments that can get really cold, so
Speaker 1: you know, I looked into other birds, like birds who
Speaker 1: are cold specialists. It does turn out that penguins who
Speaker 1: live in cold environments also have nostrils that are covered
Speaker 1: in like these velvety feathers, which may help them with
Speaker 1: temperature regulations. So that's one possibility, right, Like the feathers
Speaker 1: on their beaks helps keep them warm in the cold,
Speaker 1: But there are plenty of birds who live in cold
Speaker 1: environments who do not have feathers covering their bills. This
Speaker 1: doesn't necessarily mean that the feathers aren't used to help
Speaker 1: in the cold. Different species can approach problems from different
Speaker 1: evolutionary angles, of course, but maybe some winter birds such
Speaker 1: as cardinals who don't seem to have a ton of
Speaker 1: feathers covering say their nostrils, have different techniques to stay
Speaker 1: warm in the winter, and their behaviors are going to
Speaker 1: be different from ravens and crows. So these these little
Speaker 1: birds that often feed on seeds, they may have seed
Speaker 1: stores which might require less exposure of the beak to
Speaker 1: the cold, snowy forage. Like they're probably not getting into, like, say,
Speaker 1: a frozen carcass with their beaks so much because they
Speaker 1: eat seeds instead. And they have a different bill shape
Speaker 1: which is kind of like a bit thicker and broader,
Speaker 1: which is great for cracking seeds. So you know, maybe
Speaker 1: they have a different technique for staying warm in the winter,
Speaker 1: that doesn't require them to have as much coverage over
Speaker 1: their bills. But you know, it could also mean that
Speaker 1: the feathers over the beaks for ravens and crows has
Speaker 1: nothing to do with staying warm in the cold. Interestingly,
Speaker 1: rooks are a species of corvid with a distinctively bald beak.
Speaker 1: Like this is a characteristic that if you're curious, like, hey,
Speaker 1: why does this crow seem to have a white, sort
Speaker 1: of featherless area around its beak, It's like, well, that
Speaker 1: is actually probably a rook. So understanding why why rooks
Speaker 1: are featherless might help us understand why crows and ravens
Speaker 1: do have feathers on their beaks. So juvenile rooks actually
Speaker 1: do have feathers on their beaks, just like crows and ravens,
Speaker 1: but as they mature at around six months, they lose
Speaker 1: these feathers. So often when there's a difference between juvenile
Speaker 1: and adult morphology, it's either due to a vulnerability that
Speaker 1: the juvenile has, or behavioral difference or sexual selection. So
Speaker 1: a lot of say like penguin baby penguins have a
Speaker 1: lot more down, a lot sort of fluffier. They're not
Speaker 1: really built to say, swim around so much, but they
Speaker 1: are built to be able to stay warm because they're
Speaker 1: going to be a lot more vulnerable to the cold.
Speaker 1: They won't need to swim because their parents are going
Speaker 1: to be feeding them. And then they grow in the
Speaker 1: feathers that are more specialized for keeping them dry and
Speaker 1: hydrodynamic as they grow older. Now, some birds also don't
Speaker 1: develop their adult coloration until they are mature, so any
Speaker 1: sorts of ornamentation, any kind of feather patterns that would
Speaker 1: help for sexual selection, don't develop until they're older. So
Speaker 1: these feathers on their beaks, there's like a few possibilities
Speaker 1: right for why they have them when they're young but
Speaker 1: not as adults. Like it could be that that bald
Speaker 1: beak is a feature of sexual selection. It could be
Speaker 1: that juveniles are more vulnerable to say, the cold, or
Speaker 1: maybe to pathogens, and so having those feathers over their beaks,
Speaker 1: over their nostrils is much more important for the young
Speaker 1: rooks than for the adults, which, you know, it still
Speaker 1: kind of presents this mystery because having a covered beak
Speaker 1: as an adult seems like it could also have benefits.
Speaker 1: So why did rooks lose this this covering, whereas other
Speaker 1: corvids like ravens and crows seem to have these feathers
Speaker 1: all over their beaks, you know, pretty far down. Actually,
Speaker 1: it is quite noticeable once you do see them up close,
Speaker 1: because it's true their feathers are black and it kind
Speaker 1: of blends in with their beak. But then once you
Speaker 1: see it, you can't really not see it anymore. They
Speaker 1: have these very fluffy beaks, especially ravens, because their feathers
Speaker 1: a little shaggyar, so you can really notice that beak fluff.
Speaker 1: So that's kind of all to say that I don't
Speaker 1: necessarily have a really precise answer for you, not yet.
Speaker 1: At least I will continue to look for when I've
Speaker 1: reached out to some crow experts, some corvid experts, and
Speaker 1: if I find a really compelling answer, like maybe some
Speaker 1: new research or some really compelling theories, I will definitely
Speaker 1: share them with you. This is just such a good
Speaker 1: question because it's such a good observation, first of all,
Speaker 1: to notice, yeah, they do have these feathers on their beaks,
Speaker 1: and then also to think of like, hey, you know,
Speaker 1: is this a normal thing for birds? What are those feathers?
Speaker 1: What purpose could they serve you are definitely thinking like
Speaker 1: an evolutionary biologist, that's a fantastic question. And yeah, it
Speaker 1: is surprising to me always that sometimes there's a lot
Speaker 1: of there are things that seem relatively like, yeah, we
Speaker 1: should have an answer for that, but you know, it's
Speaker 1: hard for me to find like a definitive study or
Speaker 1: a definitive answer that seems to indicate exactly what those
Speaker 1: that feature of the animal is. So in a way
Speaker 1: that's exciting, right, Like, there's still things that are left
Speaker 1: to figure out. So I will keep you updated. I
Speaker 1: will continue to reach out to corved experts and see
Speaker 1: if I can find out exactly why they have those
Speaker 1: feathers on their beaks. My guess would be it's a
Speaker 1: form of protection of some kind, Like it either keeps
Speaker 1: their beaks warmth, or it's protecting their nostrils from say
Speaker 1: dust or pathogens or something similar to say like eyelashes
Speaker 1: on a human, right like, or nose hairs, right like,
Speaker 1: something that is a part of like maybe their passive
Speaker 1: immune system, right like they're keeping stuff out maybe because
Speaker 1: they're so they have to be so omnivorous, so like
Speaker 1: they'll they're definitely not above eating carrion, but they have
Speaker 1: to eat different kind of weird things, so maybe that's
Speaker 1: to help protect them. Whereas maybe a vulture that doesn't
Speaker 1: have feathers on its beak has a different, like different
Speaker 1: techniques for keeping pathogens out, like a maybe a different
Speaker 1: part of their immune system that's a lot stronger. They
Speaker 1: have highly acidic stomachs, things like that. So you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's it is a really interesting thing. It's a
Speaker 1: really interesting observation. So thank you so much for that question.
Speaker 1: All right, next listener question. This person received a newsletter
Speaker 1: from dog Juice. I don't know what dog juice is,
Speaker 1: but it sounds delicious, said Hi Katie. I received a
Speaker 1: newsletter in my inbox from dog Juice today and found
Speaker 1: this to be particularly interesting here to share jessec So
Speaker 1: she links to a study called Sneeze to leave. African
Speaker 1: wild dogs like on Pictus, use variable quorum thresholds facilitated
Speaker 1: by sneezes in collective decisions. So this is a study
Speaker 1: I'm actually familiar with. I think it's really really cool.
Speaker 1: So just a kind of brief summary of it is
Speaker 1: that this study found that African wild dogs engage in
Speaker 1: sneeze democracy if one of them wants to move on
Speaker 1: from somewhere, she will sneeze, and you know it's a
Speaker 1: controlled sneeze, Like if you have a dog, you might
Speaker 1: kind of know what this is. Like a dog can
Speaker 1: kind of like do this sort of like a like
Speaker 1: sneeze on command apparently, and like my dog does so
Speaker 1: frequently when she's trying to tell me something. So and
Speaker 1: these are African wild dogs who are not domesticated. They
Speaker 1: are wild animals. They will they live in pack structures
Speaker 1: with as a hierarchy. But interestingly they also seem to
Speaker 1: really kind of rely on group decision making. So one
Speaker 1: dog sneezes, and then maybe her neighbor agrees like yeah,
Speaker 1: I want to move on, and then her neighbor sneezes,
Speaker 1: and then if there's enough sneezing, like a critical mass
Speaker 1: of sneezing, the pack will move on. It's like basically
Speaker 1: like hey, who wants to get out of here and
Speaker 1: go somewhere else? Dominant dogs in the pack might get
Speaker 1: more clout for their sneezes. It's not maybe exactly one dog,
Speaker 1: one sneeze vote, but it really does depend on the
Speaker 1: other dogs agreeing. So if you have a domesticated dog,
Speaker 1: you will know that they're highly social and they use
Speaker 1: their sneezes to communicate to each other as well as
Speaker 1: to us humans. Sneezes and dogs can mean distress or
Speaker 1: a desire to play, maybe just to get your attention frustration.
Speaker 1: Sometimes my dog loves to sneeze loudly and wetly into
Speaker 1: my face when I'm not paying enough attention to her,
Speaker 1: like when I'm writing my responses to listener questions for example.
Speaker 1: All right, onto the next listener question. This is from
Speaker 1: Scott M. Have you discussed carrion bees yet on the pod?
Speaker 1: They are super cool bees that are adapted to eat meat.
Speaker 1: So hey, Scott, you know what. I cannot remember if
Speaker 1: I have discussed them or not, but even if so,
Speaker 1: they are worth more than one mentioned because you are correct.
Speaker 1: They are super cool and I could talk about them,
Speaker 1: probably in their whole episode, but why not spit some
Speaker 1: carrying bee facts right now? These are bees found in
Speaker 1: South America in rainforests. They're also known as vulture bees,
Speaker 1: and as both their names suggest, they feed exclusively on
Speaker 1: dead animals, which is called obligate necrophagi, so that means
Speaker 1: they have to eat dead meat. And that is what
Speaker 1: they are involved to do. As honeybees are nectivorous, they
Speaker 1: are flesh chivorous. That is not a real word, but
Speaker 1: I just said that. So there are three species of
Speaker 1: carrion bees. They're all very closely related, very similar. So
Speaker 1: as creepy as it sounds, they're actually harmless to the living.
Speaker 1: They don't have stingers. They're stingless type of bee. Like
Speaker 1: honey bees. They live in use social colonies with defined
Speaker 1: social structures, rolls and a queen. So yeah, they're essentially
Speaker 1: like honey bees, but they don't have stingers, and they
Speaker 1: eat you know, rotting flesh instead of nectar. So carrion
Speaker 1: bees will find a carcass, just as a honey bee
Speaker 1: would find a flower, and signals to other members of
Speaker 1: the colonies to come join them. So they will crawl
Speaker 1: into sort of orifices in the carcass to get to
Speaker 1: soft tissue. One of their favorite places to climb up
Speaker 1: in apparently is the eye socket, which you know, lovely
Speaker 1: cute little bees. So they will start to chew little
Speaker 1: bits of flesh away and they don't eat it right away,
Speaker 1: they will carry it back to the colony. Now, this
Speaker 1: is the point at which some of the research is
Speaker 1: a little threadbare about these bees. We're not exactly sure
Speaker 1: how they process these pieces and meats, but there's a
Speaker 1: couple theories. So they The thing that researchers know is
Speaker 1: that they steal the meat away and these little wax pots.
Speaker 1: What they don't know is whether they do some kind
Speaker 1: of pre processing, like pre digesting with like a special
Speaker 1: gland or some enzymes, and then spit it into the
Speaker 1: wax pots, or if they just place it directly without
Speaker 1: doing any kind of digestion, and then inside the little
Speaker 1: wax pots is where sort of all of the processing happens.
Speaker 1: All the processing happens. So either way, the meat goes
Speaker 1: through some sort of breakdown process in these wax pots
Speaker 1: and it turns into a nutritional paste that the bee
Speaker 1: can easily consume and digest over the course of a
Speaker 1: few days. So at first people thought that this was
Speaker 1: just honey right from like flowers, weird honey or like,
Speaker 1: but it's actually kind of it's meat honey. It is
Speaker 1: a nutritive substance made out of flesh rather than the
Speaker 1: proteins found in plant pollen. So a study charmingly called
Speaker 1: why did the bee eat the chicken, symbion gain loss
Speaker 1: and retention in the vulture. Be microbiome examined the gut
Speaker 1: microbiome of carrion bees versus nectivorous bees and found a
Speaker 1: shift in what sorts of digestive bacteria live in the
Speaker 1: carnivorous bees, So their guts are more acidic in general,
Speaker 1: protecting them from pathogens that might be present in carrion.
Speaker 1: So these bees have evolved from being nectivores, you know,
Speaker 1: sipping nectar to eating meat, and meat can be a
Speaker 1: lot more dangerous in terms of pathogens that can be found,
Speaker 1: like bad bacteria that can be found growing on the meat,
Speaker 1: and so if you eat that and you consume that
Speaker 1: you don't have any defense against it, you can get
Speaker 1: really sick. That's one reason that humans like our whole
Speaker 1: thing is that we developed an ability to cook our meat,
Speaker 1: which not only protects us from pathogens, but it also
Speaker 1: helps process the meat a bit, which helps us digest
Speaker 1: it more efficiently. And so that cooking has been really
Speaker 1: important for us. And these bees have a double kind
Speaker 1: of a double pronged approach here. Not only are their
Speaker 1: guts more acidic, allowing them to digest meat better, they
Speaker 1: also process it by putting it into these little wax pots.
Speaker 1: So you know what, we really share a lot with
Speaker 1: carnivorous bees. You think about it onto the next listener question. Hi,
Speaker 1: I just listened to the episode about ear mites and
Speaker 1: dog hair and have an allegory with photo receipts. I
Speaker 1: adopted my dog Milly when she was seven months old
Speaker 1: and she had short, straight fur. The first time she
Speaker 1: went into heat, her fur grew about one and a
Speaker 1: half inches and went full curly. Sue. She'll be three
Speaker 1: on Valentine's Day and she looks like an orange and
Speaker 1: white shag carpet. Love the show, especially when there's a
Speaker 1: story about animals who do crimes or get sweet sweet revenge.
Speaker 1: And this is from Michael, and I got photos of
Speaker 1: smooth Milly and fuzzy Milly. I love so cute. Thank
Speaker 1: you for sending me this very adorable and very important
Speaker 1: case study of Milly's fluffiness. First of all, adorable, she's
Speaker 1: adorable with both hairstyles. Tell her that she's beautiful no
Speaker 1: matter what she does with her hair. And although I
Speaker 1: do have to say I love the shag carpet version
Speaker 1: of Milly, you know, thinking about it. Actually, my dog
Speaker 1: went through something similar, not quite as dramatic as Milly.
Speaker 1: But when she was a younger dog, when she was
Speaker 1: a puppy, her hair was smooth, short and straight until
Speaker 1: you know, I don't know exactly, but I would I
Speaker 1: want to say, like when she was about a year old,
Speaker 1: maybe she got a lot fluffier, with a few curls
Speaker 1: here and there. So like, hormones are really wild in
Speaker 1: how much they can affect the body. As for animals
Speaker 1: who get revenge, there's a few stories that I love.
Speaker 1: Of course. One is that the fact that crows can
Speaker 1: remember the faces of those who have wronged them, or
Speaker 1: even the faces of those that they simply do not
Speaker 1: like and find to be suspicious and questionable of character,
Speaker 1: so that there have been these amazing studies by researchers
Speaker 1: who will provoke them by holding up dead taxidermine crows,
Speaker 1: which not surprisingly crows don't like. They don't like it
Speaker 1: when you do that. But the researchers wore masks to
Speaker 1: product their real identity, because the crows were able to
Speaker 1: recognize their faces, the masked faces, and they would attack them.
Speaker 1: They'd get really agitated and go on the offense against them,
Speaker 1: which they had this behavior for many years, Like they
Speaker 1: would learn to hold grudges for years and they would
Speaker 1: teach it to their young. So I mean to be
Speaker 1: fair though to these crows. I think that's completely justifiable.
Speaker 1: If someone holds like a dead crow out to a
Speaker 1: group of crows and they're also wearing this super scary
Speaker 1: mask and they're like, hey, crows, what's up, Like you're
Speaker 1: gonna not make friends with the crows? Like this is
Speaker 1: the opposite, Like Listener mentioned the Crowbros subred out where
Speaker 1: it's like you offer tasteful snacks and you take photos
Speaker 1: of how pretty the crows are. That's how to befriend
Speaker 1: a crow. This is how to the enemy a crow.
Speaker 1: And you probably don't want to do that unless you're
Speaker 1: a researcher whose identity is being protected by the Witness
Speaker 1: Protection Service, because these crows will remember you and they
Speaker 1: will attack you. So that's I do love that story
Speaker 1: of animals holding onto a grudge, another fun act of revenge.
Speaker 1: Actually bringing up another sort of creature that we talked
Speaker 1: about today. Bees, different types of bees Asian bees, and
Speaker 1: they have evolved to having a defense against Asian giant hornets.
Speaker 1: So we had this big scare in the US where
Speaker 1: we had some invasive Asian giant hornets, and it was
Speaker 1: very concerning because the bees that live in North America
Speaker 1: do not have defenses against Asian giant hornets. So these
Speaker 1: these hornets who prey on bees were just going hogwild
Speaker 1: on bee hives, and so and kind of intervention had
Speaker 1: to happen in terms of trying to get rid of
Speaker 1: these giant hornets. And in contrast, bees that are in
Speaker 1: the sort of natural environment of Asian giant hornets, ones
Speaker 1: that have co evolved with these hornets, do have defenses
Speaker 1: against these murder hornets. So what happens is these bees
Speaker 1: will surround the hornet and wiggle their cute little bodies,
Speaker 1: generating a massive amount of heat. So, like one bee
Speaker 1: wiggling might not generate a lot of heat, but if
Speaker 1: you form a bee ball, a bunch of bees cramped
Speaker 1: together like in a mosh pit, like all jiggling and
Speaker 1: vibrating and beating their little wing muscles, they can actually
Speaker 1: generate quite a bit of heat. That literally, once they've
Speaker 1: completely ensconced this hornet, they can boil the hornet alive
Speaker 1: and don't feel too bad for the hornet, because if
Speaker 1: she had her way, she'd be beheading and eating scores
Speaker 1: and scores of bees. You know, yeah, these these bees
Speaker 1: have developed a strategy to counter the incredible ferocity of
Speaker 1: Asian giant hornets. So real David and Goliath situation, except
Speaker 1: it's like hundreds of Davids, all like Towerking to defeat Goliath,
Speaker 1: which sounds fantastic. I'd love to see that. Also, I'm
Speaker 1: sure that you've heard of orcas ramming boats, so I
Speaker 1: would love to think that this is revenge against loud,
Speaker 1: annoying motor boats in their territory. But according to whale biologists,
Speaker 1: they're probably just being curious and having fun, which I
Speaker 1: don't know. Maybe so Orca researchers like to point out
Speaker 1: that if orcas really wanted revenge against boats, they could
Speaker 1: do a lot more damage, and that they're most likely
Speaker 1: playfully investigating their environment. On the other hand, I don't know,
Speaker 1: Maybe these orcas are sending us a message anyways, don't
Speaker 1: underestimate the orcas. If they wanted to mess with us,
Speaker 1: I'm sure they could figure out a way to capsize
Speaker 1: a boat. But doctor Deborah Giles, who is an orca
Speaker 1: researcher thinks that an orca matriarch probably discovered how fun
Speaker 1: it was to ram a boat and then taught the
Speaker 1: boat ramming behavior to her family, and the tradition has
Speaker 1: just spread. It's like basically a hot new Orca fad.
Speaker 1: Because intelligent animals, especially social animals that learn from each other,
Speaker 1: can have fads. Things catch on among them and they
Speaker 1: do behaviors. That's kind of like the Japanese macaques that
Speaker 1: learned how to wash yams and salt water. There's a
Speaker 1: lot of behaviors that can become sort of go viral
Speaker 1: among animals, and so apparently boat ramming is one of them.
Speaker 1: So good job Orca's focus on the yachts. I say,
Speaker 1: all right, onto the next listener question. Hi Katie, I
Speaker 1: love your show and how much you managed to cover
Speaker 1: the years while keeping an interesting Well, thank you. I
Speaker 1: have a subject that I found interesting, and that's the animal.
Speaker 1: So with autismo, CDADHD, depression or other symptoms that are
Speaker 1: usually related to humans, are there enough studies to cover this?
Speaker 1: We'd love to hear about our fellow suffering creatures. Happy holidays, Arena,
Speaker 1: Hi Arena, I definitely do think that animals can be
Speaker 1: neurodivergent or suffer from mental illness in the same way
Speaker 1: humans do, which is typically a mixture of physiology, so
Speaker 1: something that sort of brain structures that you're born with
Speaker 1: and environment, which is sort of the way in which
Speaker 1: your brain structures sort of inact interact with your environment,
Speaker 1: and then your environment in turn shapes your brain. So
Speaker 1: it's very much kind of a complex recipe here where
Speaker 1: it's not you know, the whole nature nurture debate in
Speaker 1: terms of brains. It's like, in my opinion, based on
Speaker 1: the evidence that I've read, like it's very much a
Speaker 1: interwoven mixture. Like you have environment that has a very
Speaker 1: strong role in brain development, but a lot of people
Speaker 1: are actually born with certain structures that are much more
Speaker 1: likely to respond to their environment in specific ways. So
Speaker 1: given that animals also have brains and interact with an environment,
Speaker 1: I think it is almost a certainty. And it actually
Speaker 1: has been documented in a lot of animals that some
Speaker 1: of them are either neurodivergent or have mental illness. Now,
Speaker 1: the sort of definitions of neurodivergence mental illness is very
Speaker 1: much on one's experience, right, So like if you're a
Speaker 1: neurodivergent you may not have, Like, your neurodivergence may not
Speaker 1: be necessarily a problem, but the ways in which the
Speaker 1: nerdivergent might make it difficult to say in you know,
Speaker 1: socialization or something, or to interact with society. There may
Speaker 1: be specific aspects of that neudivergence that can manifest as
Speaker 1: like say, a mental illness. Like for instance, if if
Speaker 1: you're neurodivergent with autism, I would say autism, in my opinion,
Speaker 1: is not really a mental illness, but if you are
Speaker 1: depressed or anxious, like if you have a lot of
Speaker 1: social anxiety, because your way of thinking makes it more
Speaker 1: difficult to say, interact with others than that anxiety, and
Speaker 1: that depression is the mental illness where it's you know,
Speaker 1: the autism is a form of neurodivergence. And so I
Speaker 1: kind of, you know, it's interesting because I have OCD
Speaker 1: and OCD is generally accepted as a mental illness. But
Speaker 1: I would kind of in my opinion, just as you know,
Speaker 1: and I'm very open to people disagree with this, I
Speaker 1: feel like OCD itself, this sort of the different kind
Speaker 1: of way of processing information is not necessarily always disordered.
Speaker 1: So like sometimes the way my brain works, the way
Speaker 1: my brain processes information is can be quite helpful, say
Speaker 1: if I'm writing something and sort of making unusual connections
Speaker 1: or something that can be helpful to me, when it's
Speaker 1: not helpful with like making connections that don't make any
Speaker 1: sense or are interfering with my life, like say rituals,
Speaker 1: where with OCD you have a couple you have both rituals,
Speaker 1: say like oh, if I don't do X, like maybe
Speaker 1: turn on and off a light switch or something, then
Speaker 1: something bad is going to happen. And that's a ritual
Speaker 1: attached to an intrusive thought. There's also purely intrusive thoughts
Speaker 1: when it comes to OCD. So maybe a thought you
Speaker 1: can't get out of your head that's unpleasant, or you
Speaker 1: can start thinking things like making kind of I guess
Speaker 1: like say you have an anxiety about something like oh
Speaker 1: is this a freckle a mole or like skin cancer,
Speaker 1: and then you just cannot stop thinking about it and
Speaker 1: no amount of reassurance seems to help quiet that thought.
Speaker 1: All of that can fall under the umbrella of OCD.
Speaker 1: And so while obsessive compulsive disorder refers to sort of
Speaker 1: the maladaptive behaviors, right, like the things that cause suffering
Speaker 1: and difficulty for whoever's having it. I think the other
Speaker 1: the sort of like other features of it, Like I
Speaker 1: think it's probably there's sort of a different kind of
Speaker 1: sensory processing brain that is like maybe behind the OCD
Speaker 1: that to me would not necessarily I don't even it
Speaker 1: probably doesn't really have a specific label other than neurodivergence.
Speaker 1: But to me that part is not really mental illness,
Speaker 1: because you know, when I have sort of maybe a
Speaker 1: unique way of looking at things that isn't causing me suffering,
Speaker 1: that's not causing me problems, if anything, that can be
Speaker 1: useful for me. So you have both elements, and we're
Speaker 1: just talking about humans now. So with animals it's a
Speaker 1: lot more difficult to kind of bought these things and
Speaker 1: understand what's going on. Because with the human a human
Speaker 1: being can generally communicate, right, Like I can say like, yeah,
Speaker 1: my OCD rituals cause me distress, cause me anxiety, interfere
Speaker 1: with my life. I'm saying that as an example. I
Speaker 1: actually I used to suffer from a lot of OCD
Speaker 1: rituals as a child, as an adult. Most of them
Speaker 1: are under control, but like a lot of people with
Speaker 1: OCD will have say, rituals, like things repetitive tasks that
Speaker 1: they don't really want to do, but if they don't
Speaker 1: do them, they get really anxious. And so this causes distress.
Speaker 1: It can cause anxiety, depression, It can just sort of
Speaker 1: in terms of your daily routine, interfere with your life
Speaker 1: because you're spending time on these things. In terms of animals,
Speaker 1: they may be engaging in OCD rituals, but we can't
Speaker 1: really ask them what amount of distress it's causing them.
Speaker 1: We can only really guess. But there are some cases
Speaker 1: in which I think we can pretty I would say
Speaker 1: with a lot of confidence say like this is kind
Speaker 1: of like an OCD ritual, and it does seem to
Speaker 1: be done in a situation where the animal is anxious
Speaker 1: or distressed or bored or something. So the most documented
Speaker 1: cases are in places like zoos because we can absorb
Speaker 1: the animals more, but also because zoos presents an environment
Speaker 1: that can be I think, more likely to produce like
Speaker 1: mental illness and animals, so animals will get We don't
Speaker 1: really call it like OCD in animals necessarily, but in zoos,
Speaker 1: like when an animal engages in a repetitive ritualistic behavior.
Speaker 1: It's called a stereotype. So it's a repetitive compulsive behavior
Speaker 1: like pacing, excessive grooming. The grooming can even be so
Speaker 1: excessive it results in baldness or skin irritation, and really
Speaker 1: extreme cases, it can even be things like slamming against
Speaker 1: walls and self injury. So this is usually due to distress.
Speaker 1: It could be due to loneliness, to boredom. It could
Speaker 1: be due to lack of proper socialization, lack of space,
Speaker 1: or stimulation, or conversely, it could be over stimulation or
Speaker 1: being housed with an animal with whom they don't get
Speaker 1: along and so they're suffering a lot of anxiety. Now,
Speaker 1: this is not like a thing where it's like all
Speaker 1: animals in all zoos suffer in this way. This is
Speaker 1: specific to certain situations in zoos, So not all zoos
Speaker 1: are bad. There's a lot of really good zoos. San
Speaker 1: Diego Zoo is a good one in terms of taking
Speaker 1: really good care of their animals, trying to make sure
Speaker 1: that they're in good spaces. I do think that certain
Speaker 1: animals probably are never going to be in an ideal
Speaker 1: situation in a zoo. Something really big and really intelligent,
Speaker 1: say like an elephant. I think that it's going to
Speaker 1: be really tough to ever have a good environment for
Speaker 1: an elephant in a zoo, just because they in their
Speaker 1: natural environment, so much of their natural behavior involves like
Speaker 1: roaming over long, long distances, and you simply cannot recreate
Speaker 1: that in a zoo. But you know, what you see
Speaker 1: is animals that if they are in a situation in
Speaker 1: a zoo where they really don't have the right type
Speaker 1: of environment, they will sometimes engage in these stereotypees, especially
Speaker 1: because there's not really escape sometimes. So a lot of
Speaker 1: times in nature, say like if an animal is having
Speaker 1: a conflict with another animal, it can like go off
Speaker 1: find its own space and then kind of cool down
Speaker 1: a bit. But in a more kind of confined environment,
Speaker 1: maybe they can't do that. So either that could result
Speaker 1: in fights amongst the animals, or you could have some
Speaker 1: kind of behavior like excessive grooming, excessive self soothing that
Speaker 1: turns into kind of like an OCD behavior, And so
Speaker 1: this would I would think that, you know, this would
Speaker 1: be sort of a form of animal mental illness that
Speaker 1: is definitely environmentally influenced. But the other question is, like
Speaker 1: could an animal be born with, say like autism or OCD,
Speaker 1: and you know, like like born with sort of a
Speaker 1: a neural like structures that are more likely to end
Speaker 1: up with sort of some some neurodivergence or some disorder.
Speaker 1: I think it's really hard to exactly map human labels
Speaker 1: onto animals, like say like this dog has OCD or
Speaker 1: this cat is autistic. I don't know that we can
Speaker 1: really do that because autism and OCD, all of the
Speaker 1: definitions that we have are based on human behavior. It's
Speaker 1: based on human emotions, human behaviors, human socialization. So you know,
Speaker 1: we would really kind of need to come up like
Speaker 1: and I have seen, like, you know, some attempts by saying,
Speaker 1: like in papers to come up with sort of specific
Speaker 1: terms for animals, like compulsive disorders rather than like obsessive
Speaker 1: compulsive disorder, right, Like stereotype ES is another one, which
Speaker 1: is like, you know, this is a ritualistic behavior, because
Speaker 1: you know, an animal's mental sort of landscape is going
Speaker 1: to be a lot different from a human and so
Speaker 1: the types of you know, using like a human sort
Speaker 1: of diagnostic manual for an animal doesn't make a lot
Speaker 1: of sense. But you know, I think that we can
Speaker 1: definitely make these connections, right, like saying like, hey, this
Speaker 1: is quite similar to OCD in humans, or this is
Speaker 1: similar to anxiety or ADHD in humans, even if it's not,
Speaker 1: doesn't like map on you know, directly onto the animal.
Speaker 1: Most of our observations about say an animal being born
Speaker 1: with a sort of different brain is going to be
Speaker 1: documented best in pets, domesticated animals, animals in captivity because
Speaker 1: we just get to observe them more. Right, if you
Speaker 1: have a dog, you're going to notice if the dog
Speaker 1: seems to excessively groom groom himself or herself when she's
Speaker 1: when she's anxious, right, Whereas we're maybe not going to
Speaker 1: be able to see that as much as in say
Speaker 1: like a wild dog like or a wolf or a
Speaker 1: coyote or something, because like if we see a coyote
Speaker 1: and it's got a bald spot on its butt, be like, well,
Speaker 1: that could be mange, that could be from a fight.
Speaker 1: We don't know. So without constant observation, you wouldn't know
Speaker 1: if that coyote is doing some kind of nervous excessive
Speaker 1: grooming on its butt. So but you know, like I
Speaker 1: think everyone who has a pet, even if your pet
Speaker 1: doesn't have any sort of specific issues. I think you've
Speaker 1: all sort of experienced, like an animal having maybe a phobia, right, like,
Speaker 1: which is really common in humans too, Like having a
Speaker 1: phobia is like one of the most common you know,
Speaker 1: mental health issues and people, really common in animals and pets.
Speaker 1: Because it kind of makes sense, like phobias are a
Speaker 1: it's an exaggerated response to something that's seen as a danger. Oh,
Speaker 1: and it is something that is probably really useful for
Speaker 1: survival and animals and people, right Like something scares you,
Speaker 1: you have traumatic experience, or you know, something seems dangerous
Speaker 1: to you and you learn like, hey, this thing is scary.
Speaker 1: That could save your life. But in the terms, in
Speaker 1: terms of phobia, a phobia is defined by the fact
Speaker 1: that it is not a reasonable response to something. It
Speaker 1: isn't rational, and it is causing you distress. Right Like
Speaker 1: if you if you have a normal fear of like
Speaker 1: spiders or snakes, but it's not really in you know,
Speaker 1: causing you any distress, Like you can see a photo
Speaker 1: of a spider and you're fine, you just don't want
Speaker 1: to like hold one. That's I don't think that would
Speaker 1: generally be described as a phobia. It's really only once
Speaker 1: it's causing you distress, Like if you see a photo
Speaker 1: of a spider, you start sweating, you start getting really anxious,
Speaker 1: and uh, it's causing you distress. Then then that would
Speaker 1: be like a phob and these are often treated in
Speaker 1: humans with like exposure therapies. Like by the way, if
Speaker 1: you have a phobia and you're afraid of treatment or
Speaker 1: you feel like there's no way for it to be treated,
Speaker 1: phobias are one of the most treatable disorders, like mental
Speaker 1: health issues in people through you know, I think it
Speaker 1: can be really and I used to have a phobia
Speaker 1: of graveyards actually, and anything that had to do with
Speaker 1: like graveyards or death like coffins, gravestones, mummies, all these
Speaker 1: things I had a very severe phobia of and it
Speaker 1: was causing me issues and I went through sort of
Speaker 1: a I would say, very gentle exposure therapy. But like
Speaker 1: you know, so I would say, like, if you are
Speaker 1: dealing with that, it is treatable. The treatment is often
Speaker 1: basically like slowly and carefully introducing you to the the
Speaker 1: thing that makes you scared in a safe environment so
Speaker 1: that you learn that nothing bad happens to you. So
Speaker 1: it's it is. It is treatable. But the point that
Speaker 1: I'm bringing this up is that in animals it can
Speaker 1: be quite common. So, like, maybe you have a cat.
Speaker 1: This is just an example, none of I'm not speaking
Speaker 1: for any of the cats in my life, but maybe
Speaker 1: like a pillow, like he was sleeping on a pillow
Speaker 1: and had a nightmare, or a pillow like fell on
Speaker 1: him at one point, Like and it's a specific pillow,
Speaker 1: say it's like a blue, fluffy pillow, and now this
Speaker 1: cat is like terrified of this pillow. The pillow never
Speaker 1: hurt the cat. The pillow is not a threat to
Speaker 1: the cat. It's just the cat has made some negative
Speaker 1: association with this pillow, and now the cat's terrified of
Speaker 1: this pillow. And anytime it's in the room with this pillow,
Speaker 1: it freaks out, it panics and runs away. I'd say
Speaker 1: this cat does have a phobia of this pillow, because
Speaker 1: the pillows never actually hurt the cat. The cat's just
Speaker 1: developed this extreme fear responds to a pillow, and despite
Speaker 1: the fact that it's seen the pillow numerous times and
Speaker 1: nothing bad has happened, the cat is retaining the phobia.
Speaker 1: Another example, so my dog when she was young, was
Speaker 1: attacked pretty severely by another dog, And even though we've
Speaker 1: made a lot of progress over the years, she still
Speaker 1: has serious trust issues and anxiety around other dogs, which
Speaker 1: is pretty similar to say, like a phobia or a
Speaker 1: sort of PTSD, right like in humans. So like, even
Speaker 1: though we can't like I can't ask my dog, like, well,
Speaker 1: how do you feel when you're around another dog? I
Speaker 1: can see her body language, right Like, we've gotten to
Speaker 1: the point where she can go on walks and she's
Speaker 1: not constantly agitated, but I can see like if she
Speaker 1: sees another dog, her body language indicates she's anxious, right
Speaker 1: like her her tail may drop sort of below her feet,
Speaker 1: her ears are back, you know, she her posture is
Speaker 1: a little more stiff, or she gets defensive, right like
Speaker 1: her hair stands on end. The opposite, like, there's there's
Speaker 1: different ways a dog can show anxiety. Sometimes it's more
Speaker 1: sort of like like inward anxiety or like passive anxiety,
Speaker 1: where tail is down, ears are back, you know, posture stiff.
Speaker 1: Or it can be kind of a more aggressive version
Speaker 1: of anxiety where it's like tails straight up, fur is up,
Speaker 1: you know, ears are up, postures stiff, but more like
Speaker 1: that that's kind of more of a defensive or offensive posture,
Speaker 1: where it's like I will bark and bite you if
Speaker 1: you like come near me, because like I'm not joking,
Speaker 1: whereas the other posture can be like I'm I'm scared
Speaker 1: and I'm acting submissive and I'm a little bit nervous here,
Speaker 1: but I really don't want you to, you know, Like
Speaker 1: it's both kind of a form of communication of the
Speaker 1: dog warning the other dog or saying like, look, I'm
Speaker 1: I'm really not here to make friends right now. I'm
Speaker 1: not I'm not super happy about this situation. And there's
Speaker 1: a lot of subtleties with dog body posture, like sometimes
Speaker 1: a tail can be up, ears can be up. Posture
Speaker 1: can be kind of like alert, but it's not the
Speaker 1: dog's not being aggressive or defensive. You kind of have
Speaker 1: to look for other cues right Like it's the first
Speaker 1: standing on in like look at their face, like is
Speaker 1: the face friendly? Or are they like is are their
Speaker 1: lips pulled? Back? Like? How stiff is the tail? How
Speaker 1: stiff and rigid is their posture? Like? Because they can
Speaker 1: be alert and interested and curious without actually being aggressive.
Speaker 1: I digress, I don't want to get too much on
Speaker 1: the topic of just interpreting dog micro expressions, but anyways,
Speaker 1: the point is, yes, I absolutely think that, you know,
Speaker 1: neurodivergence and mental illness can be present in animals. I
Speaker 1: think that it would be different from human like the
Speaker 1: way that we categorize human mental illness. I mean to
Speaker 1: be honest with you, Like we're constantly changing the sort
Speaker 1: of diagnostics for human mental illness. We're also changing what
Speaker 1: we consider to be mental illness versus neurodivergence, and there's
Speaker 1: a lot of sort of gray area between the two, right,
Speaker 1: So it makes stands to reason that it'd be the
Speaker 1: same thing with animals. And also, like you like say
Speaker 1: you could have some kind of diagnostic criteria for say
Speaker 1: a dog, that's gonna be different for a cat, right
Speaker 1: like you have every species of animals, and also animals
Speaker 1: in different situations, like a domesticated animal versus a wild animal,
Speaker 1: They're just gonna have a whole different kind of mental
Speaker 1: and emotional landscape and so behave a behavior that is
Speaker 1: normal for an animal, like certain animals will like eat
Speaker 1: their own young, right like if if if a human
Speaker 1: did that, not normal, not not good, not normal. So yeah,
Speaker 1: so it's gonna be different standards for animals. Depends on
Speaker 1: the species, depends on the animal situation. But yeah, when
Speaker 1: we do have these observations over long periods of times,
Speaker 1: like in zoos and domesticated animal situations and pets especially,
Speaker 1: I think the sort of stuff that we get in
Speaker 1: terms of like ve veterinarians writing about clients and pets
Speaker 1: is really interesting because I think that for the most part,
Speaker 1: at most, a lot of these pets that come in
Speaker 1: presenting with say mental health issues, are being treated well
Speaker 1: by their owners. Usually an owner who brings in a
Speaker 1: pet is like, I'm concerned my dog is anxious. It's
Speaker 1: going to be treating that dog pretty well, even if
Speaker 1: there could be some mistakes that they're making, right, It's
Speaker 1: not like the dog is being abused. But like, that's
Speaker 1: very interesting to me because that seems more applicable to
Speaker 1: sort of like the range of human mental illness, because
Speaker 1: mental illness can definitely be caused by environment in human beings, right, Like,
Speaker 1: I mean we see this, Like you know, I could
Speaker 1: go on a whole soapbox about say, like prison systems
Speaker 1: can exacerbate or cause mental illness because of the way
Speaker 1: that like say, captivity can harm human being mental health, right,
Speaker 1: so that's a big problem. And so you know, with
Speaker 1: animals you can see the same thing in them, but
Speaker 1: with pets, you know, like it's it is really interesting
Speaker 1: to me because I think that it does show us
Speaker 1: that you can have a lot of similar say like
Speaker 1: mental health issues or mental differences in pets, and they're
Speaker 1: not necessarily suffering in their lives in the sense of
Speaker 1: like you know, they're not being mistreated horribly or anything,
Speaker 1: but they just might be more sensitive to their environments.
Speaker 1: So something like the sound of a car might really
Speaker 1: make them anxious, even if it's not even if they've
Speaker 1: never been hurt by a car or something like that.
Speaker 1: And so you know, I definitely think there's strong evidence
Speaker 1: that animals have the same kinds of issues, in the
Speaker 1: same kinds of like mental diversity that humans do. It's
Speaker 1: just a little bit tricky to study that in wild animals,
Speaker 1: but we can definitely see it in the animals that
Speaker 1: we live with. So thank you guys so much for
Speaker 1: all your questions. If you have a question, you can
Speaker 1: write to me at reach your feature Pod at gmail
Speaker 1: dot com and I'll either try to answer on the
Speaker 1: show or through email. Next week should be a normal episode,
Speaker 1: so we're getting right back into it. And thank you
Speaker 1: guys so much for listening to the show. Hope you're
Speaker 1: all doing all right and I will see you next week.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much to the Space Posics for their
Speaker 1: super awesome song XO. Lumina Creature features a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts like the one you just heard, visit
Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcasts, or Hey, guess what where
Speaker 1: have you listened to your favorite shows? I do not
Speaker 1: judge you. I'm not your mother, and I can't tell
Speaker 1: you what to do except that, Hey, kids, if you're
Speaker 1: sticking your face and some carrions, be sure that your
Speaker 1: microbiome has adapted to that first, and wash your hands.
Speaker 1: See you next Wednesday.