Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot Com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. In Today,
Speaker 1: we're bringing you a special conversation with another host in
Speaker 1: our network. That's right, We're gonna be talking to Katie Golden.
Speaker 1: She's the host of Creature Feature. And yeah, this is
Speaker 1: just a fun opportunity for us to support a new
Speaker 1: science show in our general network and chat with just
Speaker 1: a very knowledgeable host. Yeah, Creature Feature is a is
Speaker 1: a great new show. Katie knows a lot about animals
Speaker 1: and biology and evolution and psychology and uh, and so
Speaker 1: we we wanted our listeners to go check out that show.
Speaker 1: Get into that too. I think it'll be right up
Speaker 1: your alley. Yeah. She chats with guests about, you know,
Speaker 1: curious tidbits regarding animal biology, animal behavior, and it publishes
Speaker 1: every Wednesday. It was kind of sandwiched in between Stuff
Speaker 1: to Blow your Mind episodes like that, Right for all
Speaker 1: those people who are like, where can I get more
Speaker 1: leeches and bat sex between my two weekly episodes of
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind? This is where you go.
Speaker 1: All right, We're gonna play a trailer before we jump
Speaker 1: into our interview with Katie, and I also just want
Speaker 1: to let everybody know if you want to check this
Speaker 1: out online. The website for Creature Feature is Creature Feature
Speaker 1: pod dot com. All right, let's have a listen to
Speaker 1: that trailer. Humanity has spent a long time distancing ourselves
Speaker 1: from the animal Kingdom. We wear clothes over our nakedness,
Speaker 1: use the stock market, and go to the bathroom and
Speaker 1: specially designated areas. But if you take a closer look
Speaker 1: at the animal Kingdom, you'll find blood, bands and treachery
Speaker 1: that make Game of Thrones seem like a dumb show
Speaker 1: for babies. I'm Katie Golden. I studied psychology and evolutionary
Speaker 1: biology at Harvard and I pretend to be a bird
Speaker 1: on Twitter and my new podcast, Creature Feature brings you
Speaker 1: tales of love, murder, sex, betrayal, and deception and the
Speaker 1: lives of both animals and humans. We asked the questions,
Speaker 1: what is going on in the brains of people who
Speaker 1: suffer the delusion that they're a living corpse? How does
Speaker 1: a romantic relationship work out between a man in a car?
Speaker 1: What do you do when you find out your lover
Speaker 1: wants to move in to your body. On Creature Feature,
Speaker 1: we view nature in man from a new perspective each episode,
Speaker 1: asking a comedian to get inside the minds of animals
Speaker 1: so we can explore the startling connections to human psychology.
Speaker 1: Join us every Wednesday starting on Halloween and subscribe on
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your sick auditory kicks.
Speaker 1: All right, well, let's go ahead and have a chat
Speaker 1: with Katie Golden, host of Creature Feature. Welcome to Stuff
Speaker 1: to blow your mind. Hey, great to be here. Could
Speaker 1: you introduce yourself to the audience out there. Yeah, So,
Speaker 1: I'm Katie Golden. I studied psychology and evolutionary biology at Harvard,
Speaker 1: and I run the Twitter account pro Bird Rights, where
Speaker 1: I pretend to be a bird activist, and I host
Speaker 1: the new show from How Stuff Works called Creature Feature,
Speaker 1: where we take an animals eye view at human behavior
Speaker 1: and a humans eye view looking at animal behavior. So
Speaker 1: I love this particular angle because, yeah, we can't help
Speaker 1: but but look at the animal world, and we on
Speaker 1: one level, we can't help but see them as as
Speaker 1: little or large versions of ourselves, and then we can
Speaker 1: freak out a bit when they do something that is
Speaker 1: totally in human. Yeah, I just think it's it's interesting
Speaker 1: because there's either the tendency to other over anthropomorphizes or
Speaker 1: under anthropy morph us. So, UM, we'll see an animal
Speaker 1: behavior that we think, oh, they're feeling a certain way, like, um,
Speaker 1: if an insect is uh is stalking, something like like
Speaker 1: the bullet spider likes to capture its prey by swinging
Speaker 1: a piece of of its web with the sticky bullus
Speaker 1: on the end, which is like this this bulb that uh,
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's fashioned after it. It's kind of
Speaker 1: like that weapon, which is like a string with those
Speaker 1: two heavy weights, and then you swing it and you
Speaker 1: capture your prey. And then that's what the bullet spider does.
Speaker 1: So when you're watching him do that, you're thinking, oh,
Speaker 1: he's thinking, oh, here we go, gonna try to get
Speaker 1: this fly and oh, shoot, I missed, and then he
Speaker 1: looks disappointed. But of course it's a spider, so it's
Speaker 1: very unlikely it feels things like disappointment. But on the
Speaker 1: other hand, I feel like more intelligent animals like especially
Speaker 1: dogs um who have co evalved with us and chimpanzee
Speaker 1: is and other primates and uh uh. Sea mammals that
Speaker 1: are pretty complex do actually feel um emotions and and
Speaker 1: it is reasonable to attribute human esque feelings to them.
Speaker 1: And uh so, I think that's really interesting. I think
Speaker 1: one of the reasons that the whole like human pretending
Speaker 1: to be an animal on Twitter, one of the reasons
Speaker 1: that is so interesting is because it tends to tell
Speaker 1: us more about like humans in the nature of social
Speaker 1: media that does about animals. Yeah, I mean so, one
Speaker 1: thing is I find birds to be innately funny because
Speaker 1: they seem so self absorbed if you watch them. I
Speaker 1: used to own a couple of pair of heats. I've
Speaker 1: been an avid bird watcher since I was a toddler. Really,
Speaker 1: my mom used to say I would chase birds and
Speaker 1: get really disappointed because they wouldn't make friends with me.
Speaker 1: So I've always had an interest in birds, and they
Speaker 1: just they they The way they carry themselves is it's
Speaker 1: with such arrogance and with such self confidence and the
Speaker 1: little head bob that they do, and the preening and
Speaker 1: the fluffing up, and I feel like they kind of
Speaker 1: I think when our relationship with social media is at
Speaker 1: times really great, it can be used for wonderful things,
Speaker 1: but often it's very egotistical, very self indulgent. And so
Speaker 1: that's why I feel like a bird is a great
Speaker 1: character to have on Twitter and social media because that
Speaker 1: like self preening, uh just comes so naturally to birds.
Speaker 1: And it's really fun to explore the kinds of self
Speaker 1: centeredness that I think we we all have to a
Speaker 1: certain extent where everything is about us. We're uncomfortable when
Speaker 1: we're talking about things that aren't about us, and uh
Speaker 1: so it's it's just fun to explore that from a
Speaker 1: little acute, little bird. Another thing I love about human
Speaker 1: contemplations of the animal, Uh it comes to into these
Speaker 1: sort of folk ideas that we have about like, say
Speaker 1: what certainly what our pets are, but also regarding things
Speaker 1: like the squirrel. Uh. This is something that we we
Speaker 1: talked about on on our show recently about uh getting
Speaker 1: down into the meat eating habits of the of the squirrel,
Speaker 1: and also some of the ideas about squirrel predation about
Speaker 1: not just eating, uh you know, not just scavenging for me,
Speaker 1: but actively pursuing prey at least in certain certain circumstances.
Speaker 1: And it really throws our sort of folk mentality for
Speaker 1: what this animal is out the window and we either
Speaker 1: have to embrace or run from this this new idea
Speaker 1: that the science gives us. Yeah, that's really interesting. Um.
Speaker 1: When I was in school, I did this study that
Speaker 1: made me seem really weird amongst my peers because what
Speaker 1: we had to do is go out there with our
Speaker 1: clipboards and study the squirrels on campus. Um. And so
Speaker 1: you're just sitting there watching a squirrel eating nuts for hours. Um.
Speaker 1: And one thing, they're so highly programmed to get maximum calories.
Speaker 1: So if they find a nut that has a hole
Speaker 1: in it, they're going to eat it immediately because they
Speaker 1: have figured out uh that that whole means that there's
Speaker 1: a larva in there for a type of moth that
Speaker 1: if they just bury it, that larva is going to
Speaker 1: eat the meat of the nut. Uh. And if they
Speaker 1: eat it now, they get that extra protein that the
Speaker 1: meat of the insect uh, in addition to the meat
Speaker 1: of the acorn. But if they bury it, they don't
Speaker 1: get anything. So they've learned to hedge their beds there
Speaker 1: and eat it immediately, whereas pristine nuts they will bury
Speaker 1: and say for later. So they're extremely opportunistic. And um,
Speaker 1: I don't find it surprising that they actively go after
Speaker 1: meat because they're just so there. They require so many
Speaker 1: much caloric intake that they will do what they can.
Speaker 1: And I think that's kind of an interesting um. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's this is not they aren't actually the link evolutionarily,
Speaker 1: but you can kind of see how that sort of
Speaker 1: shrew like mammal can be a link but from or
Speaker 1: before an insectivore to uh the omnivorous um mammals that
Speaker 1: that are like badgers and uh ferrets and so on,
Speaker 1: that that can evolve from those more harmless seeming mammals.
Speaker 1: I love how the squirrel carnivory and squirrel predation thing
Speaker 1: reveals that there's just like people think. I mean, people
Speaker 1: in places where squirrels are common think they know everything
Speaker 1: there is to know about squirrels just by looking out
Speaker 1: the back window or something, because you see them all
Speaker 1: the time. And then when you suddenly become aware that
Speaker 1: they're they're doing these bloody things. Not all the time,
Speaker 1: but sometimes they're doing these bloody things that you had
Speaker 1: no idea about, it sort of makes you realize that
Speaker 1: there's so much to nature that you are completely blind to,
Speaker 1: even when you think you're looking at it a lot. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's sort of that weird shock moment you get when
Speaker 1: you see like a heron with a rabbit or a
Speaker 1: mammal like in its mouth and you're like, whoa that
Speaker 1: bird is? Because like we think of when we think
Speaker 1: of birds of prey, we think of raptors, so hawks, eagles,
Speaker 1: osprery's the ones with the you know, the menacing looking ones.
Speaker 1: Herons look beautiful and elegant, like, you know, these these
Speaker 1: exquisite pretty creatures. But they'll they'll eat a go for
Speaker 1: for sure. I think we were talking about the example.
Speaker 1: It's it's in one of the David Attenborough documentaries of
Speaker 1: these horrible sites of pelicans just gobbling up baby birds,
Speaker 1: just cramming them into their beaks and their little wings
Speaker 1: and feet sticking out all over the place, eating them
Speaker 1: like popcorns. Yeah. Funny, Yeah, that's uh, they'll yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: they got a lot of space in those beaks, might
Speaker 1: as well fill it up with baby birds. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean a lot of it, A lot of it. Especially
Speaker 1: these these acts of predation. They do come down to
Speaker 1: the the raw economy of of life. I mean you
Speaker 1: see it, especially in examples of say, cannibalism um. And
Speaker 1: and also we've talked a bit about this on the
Speaker 1: show with the coprophagiah the consumption of poop, which which
Speaker 1: once you boil away, boil down, you take away so
Speaker 1: many of the human complications associated with the topic. You're like,
Speaker 1: well that makes sense for an animal. Yeah, You're you're
Speaker 1: being efficient. You're recycling food, digesting it and then saving it,
Speaker 1: so a lot for a lot of animals. It's also
Speaker 1: like the special poops that aren't really pooped, they're like
Speaker 1: food poop. Uh, specifically like in guinea pigs and wombats
Speaker 1: and stuff, they make the little food poops pops. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And also with the cannibalism, I think it can be
Speaker 1: really counterintuitive. So like filial cannibalism, um seem like, well
Speaker 1: why would you do that, You're you're gonna be an
Speaker 1: evolutionary dead end. But with fish, um, when they practice
Speaker 1: eating their own babies, um, they're actually picking out the
Speaker 1: ones that are the least fit, so the slowest to develop,
Speaker 1: and then that way they can spend all their time
Speaker 1: investing in the baby fish that are most likely too
Speaker 1: mature to adulthood. So they're um, they're both benefiting from
Speaker 1: the extra nutrition from eating their babies, and then also
Speaker 1: the time um focused on the most likely to succeed.
Speaker 1: So it's this very cruel capitalist, uh like economic um
Speaker 1: cost benefits analysis that these fish do. They don't really
Speaker 1: have any sentiment for their own offspring, going all in
Speaker 1: on the best ones exactly. H doesn't help that they're
Speaker 1: called fries, which sounds delicious. Baby fish are called fries sous.
Speaker 1: Yesterday I was listening to a couple of recent episodes
Speaker 1: of your show, which I I must say, I really enjoyed.
Speaker 1: I was listening to the ones about animals who are
Speaker 1: worse at sex, and there was one that we've talked
Speaker 1: about on the show before that I really thought might
Speaker 1: come up, but but y'all didn't mention. And it's the
Speaker 1: male nursery web spider. Do you do you know about
Speaker 1: this one? Tell me a little more about it. The
Speaker 1: it's the one that so they bring nuptial gifts that
Speaker 1: in order to yeah, to woo the female spiders. The
Speaker 1: males bring like a package that's supposed to be a
Speaker 1: food item wrapped in silk. But the way that the
Speaker 1: bad gift giving comes in is that a lot of
Speaker 1: them try to pass off a insect husk that they
Speaker 1: have already drained of all the delicious fluids, or like
Speaker 1: a little or like a little twig. Yeah, yeah, just
Speaker 1: like nothing, and they're they're trying to cheat and such
Speaker 1: dirt bags. It's yeah, So I've actually I have heard
Speaker 1: of this and I've done a little bit of reading
Speaker 1: about it, and it's it's so interesting because they'll do
Speaker 1: a really elaborate wrapping jobs. So it'says if someone hands
Speaker 1: you this beautifully wrapped gift with bows and ribbons and spangles,
Speaker 1: and then uh, it takes you, like it takes you
Speaker 1: a long time to unwrap it, and as you're unwrapping it,
Speaker 1: there like making the moves on you, and like by
Speaker 1: the time you open the gift and it's like a rock,
Speaker 1: they've already copulated with you. And then you're like, hey,
Speaker 1: get back here, but then they're they're running off laughing.
Speaker 1: I think we did read a study, just off my memory,
Speaker 1: I think we were a study when we talked about
Speaker 1: this that found that the ones who brought bad gifts
Speaker 1: were more likely to be the victims of sexual cannibalism afterwards.
Speaker 1: That's right, So, like I mean, it makes sense too.
Speaker 1: So if you've brought a you're you're taking a big
Speaker 1: risk there because while you are getting rid of the
Speaker 1: cost of hunting for a piece of food, Um, once
Speaker 1: they open it and nothing's there, they're gonna go to
Speaker 1: prey mode because or pre it or more mode because
Speaker 1: they don't have a snack. So you know, they're like, oh, hey,
Speaker 1: well there's a snack over there that was just having
Speaker 1: sex with me, so I'll eat that. Do you do
Speaker 1: you have a favorite example that you wanna tell the
Speaker 1: stuff to blow your mind crowd about from the Bad
Speaker 1: Sex episode? Well, I think my favorite is, um the
Speaker 1: uh the new to branch uh having disposable penises, because um,
Speaker 1: it's really interesting. So uh they will have, uh, they'll
Speaker 1: copulate and then after copulation, they'll just shed their penis.
Speaker 1: Um and oh, by the way, new tole branches are
Speaker 1: these really interesting? They look like um, uh they're a
Speaker 1: marine animal that looks like a sort of beautiful snails
Speaker 1: or slug with all these colors and there are pretty
Speaker 1: neat looking um and so uh it'll once it sheds
Speaker 1: the penis, it grows one back within twenty four hours
Speaker 1: because it actually has this big coil of um of
Speaker 1: genital material uh inside of its body, and so it's
Speaker 1: like a fruit by the foot that just kind of
Speaker 1: like um keeps coming out. And the reason it does this,
Speaker 1: it actually has a really good reason. So it's too
Speaker 1: basically ensure that when it copulates, it's given like it's
Speaker 1: all fresh um uh sperm material. So it's all its
Speaker 1: own sperm material, and it's able to um. It's like
Speaker 1: decreases the chance that it's going to get uh sperm
Speaker 1: from a previous copulation with the other new to branch
Speaker 1: on its penis, and then if it sheds, it puts
Speaker 1: a new one in. Then it's like guaranteed that that
Speaker 1: this is gonna be all its own genetic material. And
Speaker 1: it's like the lysol wipe method of mating. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: was thinking when I was listening to that of like
Speaker 1: those things where you tear a ticket off at the
Speaker 1: at the deli counter or something number forty two, servicing
Speaker 1: number forty two. These are beautiful creatures, though I was
Speaker 1: just looking at images of them. They look kind of
Speaker 1: like eighties glam rock slugs. They really do um. They
Speaker 1: and there's so many different kinds. Some of them look
Speaker 1: like dragons. Some of them look like a scrunchy from
Speaker 1: the eighties, like you were saying, they're uh, they're beautiful.
Speaker 1: Animals are also hermaphrodites, so they they have the capability
Speaker 1: of having both sexual organs, which is really interesting. All Right,
Speaker 1: we need to take a quick break, but we will
Speaker 1: be right back with more of our conversation with Katie.
Speaker 1: Thank thank Alright, we're back now on Creature Feature. It's
Speaker 1: it's of course, not only just about animals. It's also
Speaker 1: about the guests that you have on to discuss these animals. Uh.
Speaker 1: So each episode has a particular guest in a particular
Speaker 1: theme or topic in place. How do you go about
Speaker 1: putting those two together, Like which comes first, the guests
Speaker 1: or the topic? Well, so all right, it's usually the
Speaker 1: topic first, so I'll write my notes, and then I
Speaker 1: kind of tried to think about guests who might fit
Speaker 1: best with that topic. So, for instance, I was really
Speaker 1: interested in looking at vices in um uh in the
Speaker 1: animal world, so drug use drinking, birds who get drunk, uh,
Speaker 1: animals who seek out natural highs um and so the
Speaker 1: guest I chose. Robert Evans has written a book on
Speaker 1: the history of advice and he talks a little bit
Speaker 1: about the evolutionary history of getting drunk and uh so
Speaker 1: he was perfect for that episode also because he's tried
Speaker 1: out some really interesting drugs. Yeah, he's He of course
Speaker 1: is also the host of Behind the Bastards. That's right,
Speaker 1: that's right, it's a great podcast. So earlier you mentioned
Speaker 1: that when you were a child you were not able
Speaker 1: to actually make friends with birds. And on the show
Speaker 1: on Creature feature you interview humans. But if you could
Speaker 1: have one bird on the show as a guest, and
Speaker 1: you could actually speak to that bird and ask you questions,
Speaker 1: which bird species would you choose? Oh, that's a really
Speaker 1: good question. I think, uh, any species of parasitic birds,
Speaker 1: so cuckoos or cowbirds or honey guides because they're so sneaky.
Speaker 1: Um if for those of you who don't know, cuckoos
Speaker 1: will uh lay their eggs in the nests of host
Speaker 1: species these uh and trick them into raising their own young.
Speaker 1: And they use a lot of different strategies, like sometimes
Speaker 1: the baby chicks have voices that sound like a bunch
Speaker 1: of baby birds, So then the host species feels compelled
Speaker 1: to feed it way more food than they would normally
Speaker 1: feed a single baby bird. They also push out the
Speaker 1: babies from the nests. Um. And when we'll kill the
Speaker 1: host species, real babies. Um. And sometimes the cuckoo parents
Speaker 1: will disguise themselves as raptors, so have the uh have
Speaker 1: stripes on their bellies and curved beaks that will look
Speaker 1: make them look like predatory birds. Um. And they're so
Speaker 1: devious that I feel like it would be they would
Speaker 1: be really interesting to interview, like like interviewing criminal or
Speaker 1: something where it's just like like why why do you
Speaker 1: do this? And um, uh like how how could you
Speaker 1: so like a hard hitting sixty minutes styled Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: like Frost v. Nixon like me versus Birdston, Like why
Speaker 1: did they always keep going back into the prison to
Speaker 1: interview Charles Manson again? It's like is he going to
Speaker 1: have something good to say this time? Yeah? Like a
Speaker 1: true bird crime podcast where yeah, like like why do
Speaker 1: you do these crimes? Birds? Stop it? So I've got
Speaker 1: another question along those lines. I assume you have the
Speaker 1: same kind of uh attitude in general toward animal life
Speaker 1: that we do, which is like we try not to
Speaker 1: have negative emotions about animal behaviors and and always just
Speaker 1: like have a sense of wonder about the natural world
Speaker 1: and positive feelings about animals, even when they do things
Speaker 1: that if humans did then we would find them disgusting.
Speaker 1: But is there an animal that you find you you
Speaker 1: can't separate your emotional reaction from, Like there's just some
Speaker 1: animal that you can't help but feel contempt for even
Speaker 1: though you know you shouldn't. Yeah, So I think it's
Speaker 1: interesting because a lot of animals that normally you would
Speaker 1: feel discussed for, like spiders or even even things like
Speaker 1: parasitic wasps that are really disgusting, I'm too interested in
Speaker 1: to find truly disgusting, So I think, in all honesty,
Speaker 1: even though I understand that like that cockroaches and then
Speaker 1: other pests and and things like parasites. So when my
Speaker 1: dog gets fleas or a tick, or when she was
Speaker 1: a puppy she had round worm, as a lot of
Speaker 1: puppies have the disgust I feel for those kinds of
Speaker 1: insects is too much for me to overcome, because while
Speaker 1: I find parasites actually really fascinating, when it's affecting my dog,
Speaker 1: who I love, you know, it's I just feel so angry.
Speaker 1: So when I would capture a tick guy would be
Speaker 1: like cursing at it and and be like, you know
Speaker 1: you messed up now, buddy, because I messed with the
Speaker 1: wrong dog. Um. And it's really the only time that
Speaker 1: I because like I don't I don't like to kill
Speaker 1: spiders that are in my house, So like I'll I'll
Speaker 1: capture them and release them outside and give them like
Speaker 1: a little snack of tiny sandwich to take with them
Speaker 1: because I care about them. But like finding a tick, yeah,
Speaker 1: finding like fleas, I really get so angry that I
Speaker 1: have to kill them because it's like, how dare you
Speaker 1: hurt my dog? What did she ever do to you? Well,
Speaker 1: they are these are the animals that are still the enemy.
Speaker 1: I mean it's you can't look at ketos and ticks,
Speaker 1: mosquitoes ticks and it's like guinea worm. I mean, these
Speaker 1: these things are still enemies of humanity. If there's anything
Speaker 1: that truly deserves our hatred and contempt in the animal world,
Speaker 1: I think that's probably it. Yeah. I mean, like I
Speaker 1: can't even though find my way to eating like rats,
Speaker 1: because I mean I'm afraid of them. I don't want
Speaker 1: them in my house. But once one got in my
Speaker 1: heating vent and like lived there for a while, and
Speaker 1: I kind of halfheartedly put some traps in there because
Speaker 1: it's like, well, I can't have this rat in here,
Speaker 1: you know, pooping in my and where the air comes in.
Speaker 1: But um it in a trap went off, and I
Speaker 1: felt kind of like, h huh, that's I'm sad. I'm
Speaker 1: I'm relieved, but sad. I feel bad that I killed
Speaker 1: a rat. And then I opened up the vent and
Speaker 1: there was the trap with like a tuft of hair
Speaker 1: in it, and the rat was nowhere to be found.
Speaker 1: And I was like, at that point, I was like,
Speaker 1: you've deserved it, buddy. He deserved to survive. So I
Speaker 1: didn't mess with it anymore. Eventually it went away, but
Speaker 1: it was just like, you know, I just had this
Speaker 1: rat living in my vent. It's like, oh, there's Mr
Speaker 1: Wiggles doing his thing. I find that I have complex
Speaker 1: emotions regarding like rats and mice and so forth in
Speaker 1: our urban environments, because on one level, I'm like, you're rat,
Speaker 1: you're not supposed to be here. But then I have
Speaker 1: been by I mean, you know, humans, we've done so
Speaker 1: much to unbalance the environment by building a house here,
Speaker 1: by having all these uh these these artificial food sources
Speaker 1: in the area. Uh, it's really on us that that
Speaker 1: they're here at all anyway, And so then I end
Speaker 1: up feeling guilty for for having to put out the traps,
Speaker 1: even though they're the ones that are breaking into my home. Right,
Speaker 1: it's not to them, it's not our our homes. It's
Speaker 1: like this is their natural environment because they've learned to
Speaker 1: they've learned to survive in human environment. And that's so
Speaker 1: interesting because for most animals, when humans move in, they
Speaker 1: just die off or move out. And for the animals
Speaker 1: that can actually adapt to human society and thrive, we hate.
Speaker 1: We hate them for being able to do that. We
Speaker 1: resent them for invading our bass even though you know,
Speaker 1: if anything, were the invaders that are encroaching on most
Speaker 1: animal territory and typically just breaking havoc and wiping them outain.
Speaker 1: And we have these these scamp few hero animals that
Speaker 1: are able to live with us, and then we're we
Speaker 1: have the goal to hate them for it. Hating hating
Speaker 1: a rat for getting into your pasta boxes or whatever.
Speaker 1: It is almost like hating a dog for loving, you know,
Speaker 1: it's just like what we made them do, right, right,
Speaker 1: they co evolved with us over thousands and thousands of
Speaker 1: years dogs and rats and somehow rats are the bad guys.
Speaker 1: You know. We actually talked about this in a couple
Speaker 1: of episodes we did UM earlier this year about the
Speaker 1: idea of urban evolution, ways that animals are adapting to
Speaker 1: urban landscapes. And there's a lot of fascinating stuff going
Speaker 1: on with animals in urban spaces, like the idea that
Speaker 1: in some cases, uh, that urban spaces might be selecting
Speaker 1: for personality traits and animals like neophilia, where like a
Speaker 1: racu raccoon has a better chance of surviving in a
Speaker 1: city if it's the kind of raccoon with a personality
Speaker 1: that wants to approach unfamiliar objects rather than regard them
Speaker 1: with caution. Yeah. Yeah, that's It's very interesting because you
Speaker 1: can take an animal that is feral and over you know,
Speaker 1: just a few generations start to find surprisingly uh tame traits.
Speaker 1: So there you know that experiment with UM the silver
Speaker 1: foxes in Russia where uh they were breeding them for
Speaker 1: they're testing to see if they could breed in these
Speaker 1: more tame traits and UM over, I mean it was
Speaker 1: like a couple of decades, but uh, just a few
Speaker 1: like several generations of these foxes, they would do the
Speaker 1: ones that had that neophilia where it's not that they
Speaker 1: were fearful of humans or aggressive towards humans, but sort
Speaker 1: of politely interested in humans. And then they kept selecting
Speaker 1: those foxes, and then they started having patchy fur, like
Speaker 1: having spots and patches like dogs do on their coats.
Speaker 1: And then there the cartilage in their ears became softer,
Speaker 1: and so they would have ears that would fold down, uh,
Speaker 1: like in dogs. So it's really interesting to see how
Speaker 1: those tame characteristics that we see in dogs have some
Speaker 1: there must be some shared genetic links where some the
Speaker 1: genes responsible for a more curious, tame personality can also
Speaker 1: be linked to something just superficial like ear cartilage. Uh So,
Speaker 1: I think that's really I wonder if raccoons had enough
Speaker 1: generations of these tame, more curious raccoons, if they would
Speaker 1: start to, you know, like look cuter in some way.
Speaker 1: Like we actually hypothesized that in the episode. We were like,
Speaker 1: I wonder if over many generations, city dwelling animals will
Speaker 1: tend to become cuter. Raccoons kind of have a leg
Speaker 1: up on the situation because they are already pretty cute.
Speaker 1: I mean, have you seen the video of the raccoon
Speaker 1: trying to wash cotton candy? Yes? Always sad, heartbreaking, it's
Speaker 1: the human condition. It's a modern day sisyphis because the
Speaker 1: ra the sorry, the raccoon has this piece of cotton candy,
Speaker 1: it's given and so because it's a raccoon and they
Speaker 1: like to wash their food because they're so fastidious that
Speaker 1: he went into the river and tried to wash it
Speaker 1: and it dissolved and he's like, what is this? What
Speaker 1: is this witchcraft? He gets a new piece of cotton
Speaker 1: candy but does the same thing and he doesn't learn.
Speaker 1: I know, poor baby. So Katie, uh we again, we
Speaker 1: talk a lot about biology on the show, and one
Speaker 1: of our favorite topics as well is monsters, both in
Speaker 1: terms of the biological hybridity that is often on display
Speaker 1: with them and because no matter how bizarre the monster noot,
Speaker 1: no matter how weird the creature, and a you know,
Speaker 1: science fiction film happens to be nature usually has it
Speaker 1: beat for weirdness. So we were wondering, do you have
Speaker 1: any favorite monsters or film or fiction that invoke real
Speaker 1: world biology in some way, shape or form. Mm hmm. Yeah,
Speaker 1: actually I do. So do you know that video game
Speaker 1: The Last of Us, So they have the I guess
Speaker 1: the monsters in the game are the people that have
Speaker 1: been infected with this zombiesque virus um. But it's not
Speaker 1: actually sorry, it's not a virus at all. Um. It's
Speaker 1: a fungus. So it's called courtis Ups in the game.
Speaker 1: And it's really cool because I think the game designers
Speaker 1: were paying attention to actual evolutionary biology because Court of
Speaker 1: Steps is a type of fungus that does in fact
Speaker 1: infect the brains of insects. So in the game, this
Speaker 1: fungus creates spores that you will breathe in and it'll
Speaker 1: affect infect your brain, causing you to be aggressive. Um.
Speaker 1: And then some of the later monsters are have this
Speaker 1: like really creepy overgrowth of fungus, just like sprouting out
Speaker 1: of their heads and growing over their bodies. Um. And
Speaker 1: in fact, like court a scepts in real life, this
Speaker 1: fungus will uh grow sprout out of the heads of
Speaker 1: ants and other insects and cause them to kind of
Speaker 1: go a little cookie, so they will leave. They'll either
Speaker 1: be carried off by fellow ants who are like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is uh, this is a zombie ant, so they'll
Speaker 1: carry it off, and those ants that actually carry the
Speaker 1: infected ant will go on a suicide mission because they're like, well,
Speaker 1: we're going to get infected too, so we don't want
Speaker 1: to risk the rest of the colony um which is
Speaker 1: also very kind of like a trope from um zombie movies.
Speaker 1: But so the the infected ant, once it's off on
Speaker 1: its own and it's in the final stages of this infection,
Speaker 1: it will have this this like instinct to climb up
Speaker 1: either a plant stalk or up a branch as high
Speaker 1: as it can and then clean bite down on it.
Speaker 1: Do this like death grip, a literal death grip, because
Speaker 1: it dies and then the fungus sprouts out of its
Speaker 1: head and then it will produce spores that will spread
Speaker 1: and hopefully infect another insect. So it's controlled this insect
Speaker 1: to become like an incubator for more spores, just like
Speaker 1: the in the Last of Us, which I think it's
Speaker 1: really one of my favorite I know it's a video game,
Speaker 1: but it's like, to me, beats a lot of the
Speaker 1: zombie movies or zombie genre because it's so cool and
Speaker 1: how carefully they constructed this zombie scenario. I'm not a
Speaker 1: big gamer, but I've played that game multiple times. I
Speaker 1: think it's really excellent, and I love the mythology there.
Speaker 1: It reminds me a little bit of of a nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty three Toho movie from Japan called Matango, not in
Speaker 1: a way where I think there's actually any connective tissue
Speaker 1: between the films, And I don't think Metango has a
Speaker 1: lot of science in it. It's got mushroom, has mushroom monsters,
Speaker 1: and like the mushroom spores turn humans into like into
Speaker 1: gradually more mushroom e creatures. That's interesting, that's so cool.
Speaker 1: One of the things that's so fascinating about stuff like
Speaker 1: the Court accepts parasite, though, is the specificity of the
Speaker 1: behaviors that generates, you know, like you can imagine very
Speaker 1: it feels more natural to say, okay, you could get
Speaker 1: some kind of parasite that would have a very very
Speaker 1: broad kind of effect on your behavior, like maybe the way, Oh,
Speaker 1: what's the toxoplasma one the idea that it that it
Speaker 1: toxoplasma toxoplasma Gandhi. I think it's called that it uh.
Speaker 1: It reduces the fear and caution and inhibitions and mice,
Speaker 1: so that they're more likely to go out and be
Speaker 1: eaten by a cat, and it increases their attraction to
Speaker 1: the what the smell of cat urine or something like that, Right,
Speaker 1: there's a lesion between the parts of the brain responsible
Speaker 1: for arousal and fear, and so it it it's like
Speaker 1: it it actually rewires their brains, so they associate that
Speaker 1: that fear response from the smell of cat urine with
Speaker 1: a arousal Yeah. Yeah, yeah, that's like the the excitation
Speaker 1: part of anxiety without the being repat old part of anxiety,
Speaker 1: right right, But but that's easier for me to just
Speaker 1: internalize and understand because it seems like that's actually a
Speaker 1: very broad and kind of easy change to make to
Speaker 1: the brain. In a way, it's fascinating the specificity of
Speaker 1: the ant behaviors that are created by the parasite in
Speaker 1: the case of corticeps, yeah, and there's other other um
Speaker 1: examples of that. So the parasitoid wasp will infect or
Speaker 1: weaver spiders um with their larva, So the wasp will
Speaker 1: attack the or weber spider and then lay it's larva
Speaker 1: either h inside of the spider or just on top
Speaker 1: of the spider and it clings to the spider and
Speaker 1: um it makes it do what seems like this really
Speaker 1: specific behavior, So instead of weaving its normal pretty web,
Speaker 1: it will start weaving like this cocoon, an extra strong
Speaker 1: cocoon that will eventually become sort of this cradle for
Speaker 1: the parasites offspring UM so that it can be it
Speaker 1: can safely develop and kind of in to twist the knife,
Speaker 1: the the larva will eventually eat the host spider and
Speaker 1: just discard its carcass uh and so it's it's really
Speaker 1: interesting because it's hard to imagine how is this larva
Speaker 1: controlling the brain of this spiders so that it weaves
Speaker 1: It's in a cocoon that seems so specific, so detailed,
Speaker 1: And what researchers have found is it there's a hormone,
Speaker 1: a chemical that the larva produces that is actually associated
Speaker 1: with the orb weavers spiders one of its molting stages.
Speaker 1: So when it's molding, it wants to create a cocoon
Speaker 1: made out of these especially strong fibers and they're also um.
Speaker 1: They they have this sort of ultra violet UH light
Speaker 1: so that other insects won't fly into it. While it's molting,
Speaker 1: and that protects it when it's vulnerable so high the
Speaker 1: larva hijacks the orb beaver and makes it think it's molting.
Speaker 1: But it's even stronger than um normally, so it's like
Speaker 1: it's pumping it full of this chemical that it's almost
Speaker 1: goes into this super molting stage where it creates an
Speaker 1: extra safe and protective cocoon that eventually the parasite will use,
Speaker 1: uh at the expense of the poor little spider. That's fascinating.
Speaker 1: I guess what it really means is that a lot
Speaker 1: of the behaviors we think of as very specific and
Speaker 1: very complex are actually just much easier to trigger by
Speaker 1: exploiting existing hormones and circuitry and stuff than we would think. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I think that's why you find it in insects
Speaker 1: much because they have while they do have very complex behavior,
Speaker 1: their brains are a great deal smaller and I think
Speaker 1: easier to reprogram. And I mean the same thing with rats.
Speaker 1: I think that it would be a lot more difficult
Speaker 1: to say too, reprogram primate to do a very specific behavior,
Speaker 1: although you could argue that with rabies, the some of
Speaker 1: the behaviors like aggression and excessive drooling and hydrophobia are
Speaker 1: all uh beneficial for the rabies virus to spread, so
Speaker 1: so you know it is it can happen. All right,
Speaker 1: hold that thought, because we're gonna take a quick break
Speaker 1: and be right back with more of this interview than Okay,
Speaker 1: we're back alright, Katie. One question that we we have
Speaker 1: frequently asked guests on the show, especially if they have
Speaker 1: any interest in biology at all, is this, what is
Speaker 1: your favorite dinosaur or prehistoric creature. Ah, that's a really
Speaker 1: good question. Uh. I would have to say archaeopterics because
Speaker 1: it's the predecessor to birds. It's uh that that first
Speaker 1: gliding dinosaur that uh, and it's so it's really interesting
Speaker 1: to see that transition from um, the the kind of
Speaker 1: raptor esque dinosaurs that had no no interest, no need
Speaker 1: to fly, and then the archaeopterics what couldn't fly exactly,
Speaker 1: but it did glide, so it would kind of climb
Speaker 1: up a tree and then really clumsily glide from one
Speaker 1: tree to the other. And I just think that's it's
Speaker 1: so cool to me how flight has independently evolved, uh
Speaker 1: in so many different species that you just never spect
Speaker 1: so uh, you have flying squirrels, which is sort of
Speaker 1: like the arc the optics of animals because they do
Speaker 1: the same thing where they kind of have um developed
Speaker 1: that gliding um ability. And then obviously there's also bats
Speaker 1: who have developed that more a little more um efficiently.
Speaker 1: And uh. In insects, flight evolved from actually like their
Speaker 1: wings sprouted from their lungs tissue, and so you see
Speaker 1: like with dragonflies there how wings are very close to
Speaker 1: where their their gills and lungs are and it's it's
Speaker 1: just I find it so cool that dinosaurs just you know,
Speaker 1: decided to become birds eventually. Uh. Speaking of other versions
Speaker 1: of evolving gliding, we just recently talked about flying snakes,
Speaker 1: which which is fascinating the way that they can flat
Speaker 1: their bodies out into a concave shape to create that
Speaker 1: kind of wing that they undulate in the air to
Speaker 1: to help prolong their gliding period. Yeah, and that's so
Speaker 1: cool because they do have Snakes have these really interesting
Speaker 1: muscle skeletal structures that allow them to contract their muscles
Speaker 1: and expand them in the act of swallowing food. So well,
Speaker 1: I don't I don't know this for a fact, but
Speaker 1: I would assume that the that gliding those gliding snakes
Speaker 1: have kind of they use those same muscles that are
Speaker 1: so good at swallowing and pushing food down through their
Speaker 1: very long trachea and bodies to digest, they can use
Speaker 1: that same those same kinds of structures to be able
Speaker 1: to flatten themselves and achieve the gliding structure. Do you
Speaker 1: guys know if that's that's the case. No, I didn't.
Speaker 1: I haven't read anything about that, but that's a very
Speaker 1: good point. I would assume that's probably true. It seems
Speaker 1: like it is. It's kind of but I know for
Speaker 1: a fact. Yeah. So, speaking of feather dinosaurs, do you
Speaker 1: do you also get worked up when you see dinosaur
Speaker 1: movies and there's not a feather to be found. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that. Here's the thing is, I think this
Speaker 1: is such a good opportunity now that we know. I'm
Speaker 1: fine with classics like Jurassic Park that the dinosaurs don't
Speaker 1: have feathers because we just didn't know back then. So
Speaker 1: that's fine. But now we do know, and people I
Speaker 1: hear people say like, oh, it would look so stupid,
Speaker 1: and I don't think so. No, exactly, birds don't look stupid.
Speaker 1: They look amazing. So can you imagine like a a
Speaker 1: raptor with fully feathered it would look glorious. Uh. And
Speaker 1: you know, it's interesting there's this habit of UH artists
Speaker 1: who recreate animal images from fossils of doing what's called
Speaker 1: I think it's called shrink wrapping, where you ignore, you
Speaker 1: don't know, muscle and fat tissoe precisely, so there's a
Speaker 1: tendency to underestimate how plump something is and how fluffy
Speaker 1: it is. So uh and I've seen there's this really
Speaker 1: cool image online where this artist made examples of it
Speaker 1: by uh working backwards from like a swan skeleton to
Speaker 1: create yeah, to create that like swan like animal, as
Speaker 1: if as if the swan skeleton were a dinosaur fossil,
Speaker 1: and and what it would look like if it was
Speaker 1: interpreted in the way that dinosaurs are. And it's horrifying
Speaker 1: and swans are lovely. So I feel like we should
Speaker 1: be giving, you know, just giving real dinosaurs have curves,
Speaker 1: is what I'm saying. Wow that, Yeah, I've never thought
Speaker 1: about that, it would even modern skeletons. But I think
Speaker 1: we're all three totally on the same page. And I
Speaker 1: think even if you're not going to make them beautiful
Speaker 1: if you're trying to make them terrifying. Can you imagine?
Speaker 1: I think that the predators would be more frightening if
Speaker 1: they were covered in feathers. Isn't imagine being eaten by
Speaker 1: a giant bird? That makes even less sense than eaten
Speaker 1: by a lizard. Oh. I mean, since since I was
Speaker 1: a kid, I've been I was always intrigued by these
Speaker 1: paleo art illustrations of terror birds snatching up um I
Speaker 1: forget the scientific name, but the dawn horses, the miniature
Speaker 1: prehistoric horses. Just the idea of this already large bird
Speaker 1: eating small horses, uh just filled me with dread and
Speaker 1: uh and I would love to see well, like where
Speaker 1: the terror bird movies. It seems like like this is
Speaker 1: an untapped area of riches here. Yeah, I mean I
Speaker 1: feel like if you try to imagine lying on your
Speaker 1: stomach and looking up at like a chicken, because if
Speaker 1: you look at it from that perspective, it's actually kind
Speaker 1: of scary. They have those dead reptilian eyes, sharp claws,
Speaker 1: and just this look of anger. There's a Werner Herzog
Speaker 1: quote about chickens about how I can't from memory just
Speaker 1: do the exact quote, but it's something about how chickens
Speaker 1: are just so innately achingly stupid in me, he says,
Speaker 1: when you when you look into the eyes of the chicken,
Speaker 1: the the immensity of the stupidity is breathtaking. Uh. And
Speaker 1: if you if you make Verner Herzog feel despair, it's
Speaker 1: you've got something going on, because that man is is
Speaker 1: a nihilist two and all nilism. Well, Katie, do you
Speaker 1: have anything coming out soon on the show that you
Speaker 1: specifically want people to watch out for and and listen
Speaker 1: when it when it hits the feed. Yeah. So I'm
Speaker 1: looking into evil in the animal and human world, and
Speaker 1: there's this really fascinating concept in criminal psychology called the
Speaker 1: dark tetrad, and I look at the animals and humans
Speaker 1: that best exemplify this evil behavior and it's it's really cool.
Speaker 1: It's it's actually kind of metal. So I'm excited for it.
Speaker 1: And can you remind all of our listeners here where
Speaker 1: they can find Creature feature when it publishes, and where
Speaker 1: they can find you on social media? Yeah. So it
Speaker 1: publishes every Wednesday. Uh. And you can find it on
Speaker 1: the I Heart radio app, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, pretty much
Speaker 1: anywhere you can get your podcasts um. You can find
Speaker 1: us on Twitter, Facebook, and our website is Creature Feature Pod.
Speaker 1: Our Twitter is Creature Feet Pod. Not feet as in
Speaker 1: you know, animal feet, but feet as in they have
Speaker 1: achieved a great feat. All right, well, it has been
Speaker 1: a delight to talk to you today, Katie. Thank you
Speaker 1: so much for joining us. Yeah, thanks for having all right,
Speaker 1: so there you have it again. The show is Creature Feature.
Speaker 1: The host is Katie Golden. You can find them at
Speaker 1: Creature Feature Pod dot com. As for Stuff to Blow
Speaker 1: your Mind, you can always find us at our mothership
Speaker 1: stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. That's where you'll
Speaker 1: find all the episodes of the podcast. You'll find links
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Speaker 1: These are all fine uh purchases you can made, especially
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Speaker 1: So yeah, thanks again to Katie for joining us today.
Speaker 1: Big thanks as always to our excellent audio producers Alex
Speaker 1: Williams and Try Harris. For a way to get in
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