Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff production of I Heart Radio. Hey
Speaker 1: brain Stuff, Lauren bog Obam Here. Owls are birds of
Speaker 1: prey that hunt at night. We hardly ever see them
Speaker 1: because when the hawks and falcons of the daytime world
Speaker 1: clock out, the owls clock in on silent, fluffy edged
Speaker 1: stealth wings. They hunt small nocturnal animals while it's dark,
Speaker 1: occasionally hooting or screaming at each other through the night.
Speaker 1: Then when the sun shows up again, they repair to
Speaker 1: their favorite roost and let the other raptors go about
Speaker 1: their business of eating day creatures. And yet we humans,
Speaker 1: notorious day dwellers, pay a lot of attention to these
Speaker 1: night birds. For the article this episode is based on,
Speaker 1: has to Work, spoke with Denver Holt, the founder and
Speaker 1: lead researcher of the Owl Research Institute based in Charlo, Montana.
Speaker 1: He said, owls are probably one of the most widely
Speaker 1: recognized groups of animals in the world. They're in all cultures,
Speaker 1: no matter how far back you go. There's always art
Speaker 1: or myths or stories about owls. They're on our corporate logos,
Speaker 1: sports logos. Products use them to advertise their on castle
Speaker 1: walls and churches. I have a Greek coin that dates
Speaker 1: back to four d b C with an owl on it.
Speaker 1: Even cave art in what's now France, the dates back
Speaker 1: around thirty thousand years contains an etching of an owl.
Speaker 1: So what is it about owls? They're not super conspicuous birds,
Speaker 1: just like moles aren't super conspicuous rodents. But you don't
Speaker 1: see us going around putting moles faces all over tutsie
Speaker 1: pop wrappers and trip Advisor billboards. But owls are pretty cool.
Speaker 1: Although they are birds of prey, they're more closely related
Speaker 1: to mousebirds and kingfishers than eagles, hawks, or falcons. However,
Speaker 1: they also feel the exact ecological niche as these other
Speaker 1: hunting birds, except they evolved to be terrifying night killers
Speaker 1: instead of terrifying they killers. Owls are masters of camouflage,
Speaker 1: even though they share that ecological niche with other raptors.
Speaker 1: The day shift sees owls as a food source just
Speaker 1: as much as a rabbit or a squirrel. They use
Speaker 1: their feathers to help them blend in with their surroundings
Speaker 1: and hide from predators. Another aspect of an owl's mystique
Speaker 1: is in their eyes. They have to be large in
Speaker 1: order to see in the dark, and at this point
Speaker 1: in their evolution, a significant portion of what's inside an
Speaker 1: owl's skull is straight up eyeball. Their eyes are cylindrical
Speaker 1: and they extend all the way to the back of
Speaker 1: their head. You can even see a portion of their
Speaker 1: eyeballs through their ear holes, and their eyes can't roll
Speaker 1: around in their heads, which means that an owl's head
Speaker 1: has to do most of the rolling around work. It's
Speaker 1: for this reason that they can swivel their heads entirely
Speaker 1: around on their necks. Another thing owls have to be
Speaker 1: able to do at night is here. An owl's night
Speaker 1: vision can only get them so far, so they require
Speaker 1: their auditory sense to get them where they need to
Speaker 1: be while hunting, which is where they're big, round faces
Speaker 1: and lopsided ears come in a while. The feathers on
Speaker 1: the top of some owl species heads look like ears,
Speaker 1: those actually serve a function more akin to eyebrows. Their
Speaker 1: ears are large openings on the sides of their heads.
Speaker 1: One ear is always lower than the other, which helps
Speaker 1: them triangulate sound. A noise will go into one ear
Speaker 1: a little bit before it arrives in the other to
Speaker 1: better tell which direction that noise is coming. From to
Speaker 1: make their sense of hearing even keener. An owl's entire
Speaker 1: face acts as a sort of satellite dish for sound waves.
Speaker 1: Their beaks are tiny to keep out of the way,
Speaker 1: and the circular depressions around their huge eyes boost their
Speaker 1: ability to snag the sound of a mouse scurrying beneath
Speaker 1: the snow like a catcher's mit. Also, there are the
Speaker 1: noises that owls themselves make, from haunting hoots to a barn,
Speaker 1: owl's horrific shrieks, its horror movie stuff, and a shriek
Speaker 1: owls cry like a very lonely and distressed dog. So
Speaker 1: piecing the evidence together nocturnal winged killing machines with incredible
Speaker 1: night seeing powers, of preternatural sense of hearing, and a
Speaker 1: bizarre vocal repertoire, you can see why they've inspired so
Speaker 1: many myths and superstitions, and these stories are a mixed bag,
Speaker 1: though many of them were unflattering. One ancient Greek and
Speaker 1: Roman superstition indicated that owls were witches in disguise and
Speaker 1: would suck the blood right out of your baby, But
Speaker 1: the same cultures also believed owls to be connected to Athena,
Speaker 1: the powerful and influential goddess of wisdom and warfare. Her
Speaker 1: ancient Sumerian precursor was Lilith, who was depicted as a
Speaker 1: horned talent goddess surrounded by owls in a four thousand,
Speaker 1: three hundred year old Sumerian tablet. While Asian cultures largely
Speaker 1: considered owls to be good, protective spirits and disguise, most
Speaker 1: other cultures around the world considered owls to be the
Speaker 1: bringers of witchcraft, illness, and death. But why owls, which
Speaker 1: ordinarily stay out of our way and even manage our
Speaker 1: rodent past population, Holtz said, If we have strong feelings
Speaker 1: about owls, maybe it's because they look like us. They've
Speaker 1: got a large head of flat face, big eyes, a
Speaker 1: symmetry about their mouth and nose. We tend to be
Speaker 1: attracted and repelled by animals that are morphologically similar to us.
Speaker 1: Today's episode is based on the article why are we
Speaker 1: so Fascinated with Owls? On how Stuff Works dot Com
Speaker 1: written by Jescelyn Shields. The brain Stuff is production of
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio in partnership with how stuff Works dot
Speaker 1: Com and is produced by Tyler Clang. Four more podcasts
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