Speaker 1: Welcome to Creature feature production of I Heart Radio. I'm
Speaker 1: your host of Many Parasites, Katie Golden. I study psychology
Speaker 1: and evolutionary biology, and I know that a lot has
Speaker 1: been going on the past few weeks and we're all
Speaker 1: probably pretty brain fried. But one thing I thought of
Speaker 1: is that we've probably missed a lot of animal lose
Speaker 1: because of all the other news which we aren't going
Speaker 1: to talk about today. We're gonna take an animal news
Speaker 1: and all the news that is fit to print an
Speaker 1: audio form because this is a podcast anyways. So I'm
Speaker 1: going to go through all of the incredible animal news
Speaker 1: stories that you may have missed these past few weeks.
Speaker 1: We're talking robotic wolves, bear Blade Runner, newly discovered flying
Speaker 1: Teddy Bears, discovered this more as we asked the angel question,
Speaker 1: and what the platypus rave like? Is it awesome? It
Speaker 1: is spoilers, it is awesome. Joining me today is host
Speaker 1: of the podcast, secretly incredibly fascinating and friend of the pod.
Speaker 1: I'd like to say, I hope I'm not, you know,
Speaker 1: just consuming too much a friend of the pod, Friend
Speaker 1: of the pod, Alex Schmidt. Katie. It is like I
Speaker 1: feel like every time I'm on this podcast. Very exciting.
Speaker 1: It's also going into a podcast. People are always like,
Speaker 1: I'm excited to be here, but like that intro, I'm
Speaker 1: very excited to know about all these things. This is great.
Speaker 1: I can't wait. Bear Blade Runner doesn't just very exciting.
Speaker 1: I don't remember what the theme song to Blade Runner was.
Speaker 1: Was it like Blade Runner, it's in the future. Yes,
Speaker 1: Later on he had a standard like thirty second upbeat
Speaker 1: television theme song that's part of lading Yeah, played by staying.
Speaker 1: It was weird. It was in sting we're in the future,
Speaker 1: robot people are here Blade Runner. Let me tell you
Speaker 1: a little story about a man named Blade and then
Speaker 1: you just go yeah. But yeah, we're going to talk
Speaker 1: about bear Blade Runner because apparently while we've been distracted
Speaker 1: with elections, the world has been creating a bear Blade
Speaker 1: Runner for bears, a bare new future. So in Japan,
Speaker 1: in Tachikawa, they have built huge, terrifying woolf robots with
Speaker 1: glowing red eyes that are being used to scare bears. Okay,
Speaker 1: so this so it's it's bear Blade Runner because the
Speaker 1: bears are being hunted down like the robots were hunted
Speaker 1: down in Blade Runner. It's not being the hunting. I
Speaker 1: didn't think that through, honestly, Alex, I didn't think it
Speaker 1: through that far. I just saw a robot. I saw
Speaker 1: a robot. I saw I had to do with bears
Speaker 1: as like bears and a wolf robot. This is bear
Speaker 1: blade Runner. So yeah, I think if I remember right,
Speaker 1: no one cares. But if I remember right, the blade
Speaker 1: Runners are the hunters, which in the movie, then that's
Speaker 1: the question of is he a robot or not? But
Speaker 1: if I remember, the blade Runner is the hunter hunting
Speaker 1: the robots, So a Bear blade Runner would be somebody
Speaker 1: hunting bears. That makes sense, yeah, right. But these wolf
Speaker 1: robots I do not think would pass the Turing tests
Speaker 1: or whatever is the test they use in the movie
Speaker 1: where they're like, what would you do do a turtle?
Speaker 1: Like they asked the robots, hey, are you a robot?
Speaker 1: And they're like no, and then they're like, hey would
Speaker 1: you if you found a turtle on its back in
Speaker 1: the desert? What would you do? And they're like, I'm
Speaker 1: a robot. I don't know what I would do. But
Speaker 1: these are not very I wouldn't say convincing wolf robots,
Speaker 1: but terrifying. They look like Halloween decorations. In fact, I
Speaker 1: feel like they may have been made out of parts
Speaker 1: of Halloween decorations. But they have glowing red eyes, they
Speaker 1: move around and kind of gyrate around. They have weird
Speaker 1: robot legs that just kind of like sort of stops
Speaker 1: looking like a wolf at one point and looks like
Speaker 1: a metal stick figure. Anyways, But yeah, it's got it's
Speaker 1: got like a fake rubber wolf head, and then it
Speaker 1: makes terrifying noises as well. Let me play some of
Speaker 1: these for you. So yeah, it's you know, kind of
Speaker 1: I'm not I think part of that what was wolf noises,
Speaker 1: and then it sounded a bit like birds. I'm not
Speaker 1: really sure it really escalated. It initially sounded like standard
Speaker 1: horror movie sound effects from maybe, and then it was
Speaker 1: like it's like if you know how there there's a
Speaker 1: human will turn into a were wolf wolf and then
Speaker 1: they like, yeah, yeah, now I know how that is
Speaker 1: for sure. Yeah, yeah, it's so they make the noises,
Speaker 1: they flash, the head turns around and this is too
Speaker 1: scare bears, which I can I can imagine it would
Speaker 1: scare bears. You have a possessed devil robot wolf making
Speaker 1: horrible sounds. Poor bears. They have been encroaching on human
Speaker 1: populated areas recently, and I say encroaching with a bit
Speaker 1: of irony because of course humans are the ones that
Speaker 1: have been encroaching on the bears territory and the reason
Speaker 1: that they have had more interactions with humans. There have
Speaker 1: actually been more bear attacks in this region, which is
Speaker 1: very serious. But this has been due to the fact
Speaker 1: that there's a short stage of acorns that the black
Speaker 1: bears in the region in Japan used to supplement their diet,
Speaker 1: and because of deforestation and human developments kind of getting
Speaker 1: closer and closer to the bear's habitat and taking up
Speaker 1: more of it, it makes these bears desperate for food
Speaker 1: and come into the human populated area, and so in
Speaker 1: order to reduce the number of bear attacks, the city
Speaker 1: has deployed these wolf robots to scare them away, and
Speaker 1: I I get it. I think it's important you don't
Speaker 1: want bear attacks at all, obviously for humans and also
Speaker 1: for the bears, because when you have a bear attack,
Speaker 1: often you have to actually put down the bear itself.
Speaker 1: So keeping them away from human populated areas, even if
Speaker 1: it is with freaking terminator wolf over here, I think
Speaker 1: makes sense. On the other hand, I think it is
Speaker 1: just a band aid on the bigger issue, which is
Speaker 1: that they need more or food in acorns and territory.
Speaker 1: Otherwise they're going to keep you know, uh like at
Speaker 1: a certain point, I feel like they'll become desensitized to
Speaker 1: the wolf robot and just start coming into human areas
Speaker 1: anyways if they if their food problem is not solved.
Speaker 1: So yeah, yeah, you're very nice to send a picture
Speaker 1: as well, And between the picture and the sound, I
Speaker 1: feel like this is trying to solve the problem both ways.
Speaker 1: Where you scare bears out of the region and you
Speaker 1: scare humans out of the region. There's no bear attack
Speaker 1: if there's no people to get attacked, right, fixed, right,
Speaker 1: exactly knocked it out. This belongs to the robot wolves,
Speaker 1: now are we sure? Are we sure? Like? Whoever selling
Speaker 1: these robot wolves? I imagine like coming in in the
Speaker 1: wolf robot wolf truck, like they have sort of a
Speaker 1: human costume on. They're like, we come bearing robot wolves
Speaker 1: for your small village to scare the beards. Oh that's
Speaker 1: another thing we need to be concerned about, is anyone's
Speaker 1: selling human costumes. There is never a good scenario where
Speaker 1: a being is like I would like one human costume.
Speaker 1: It's only to deceive us. It's only we need to
Speaker 1: stop manufacturing them in our huge human costume factories. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I think you're being a little paranoid, Alex.
Speaker 1: It's not like a flock of super intelligent birds would
Speaker 1: use a human costume to do a podcast. Anyways. Facial
Speaker 1: recognition of bears, Katie, did it? Did a feather just
Speaker 1: fall out of your eye? That was weird? No? That
Speaker 1: was that was normal perspiration anyways. Uh. Step two in
Speaker 1: bear Blade Runner is facial recognition of bears For bears.
Speaker 1: Bears are just having technology thrown at them, and I
Speaker 1: I don't know how they're going to deal with it.
Speaker 1: So uh. Silcon Valley software developers are making bear facial
Speaker 1: recognition along with bear researchers in Canada, and the project
Speaker 1: is called Bear I D which I feel like you
Speaker 1: could be a little more inventive with your evil seeming
Speaker 1: bare facial recognition software like bear faced is right there,
Speaker 1: fair Faced. Purportedly, this technology is being used for bear
Speaker 1: conservation studies to be able to track individual bears. So
Speaker 1: to figure out how to make this software, it's kind
Speaker 1: of an interesting path via software developers took. They took
Speaker 1: cues from a program called dog Hipsterizer, which can find
Speaker 1: dogs faces, eyes and snouts and photos and puts the
Speaker 1: little mustache she's in glasses on them. Yeah, we all
Speaker 1: know that app from its recent Nobel Prize win. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's a pretty pretty common scientific achievement and has absolutely
Speaker 1: it's an absolute disrupter in the dog face app tech industry. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and so they're like, oh, how do we you know,
Speaker 1: we've got facial recognition for humans, but now we need
Speaker 1: it for bears so the government can track the bears
Speaker 1: and the I R s can hunt them down or whatever. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I love that. They're like, huh, well, this app, these
Speaker 1: app developers already did it with their technology to put
Speaker 1: glasses on hipster glasses on dogs to make your chihuahua
Speaker 1: look like a hipster. So we'll just use what they
Speaker 1: did and but put it on bears for science research. Um.
Speaker 1: So you know my opinion on this news is if
Speaker 1: this is used for conservation, which they are claiming it is,
Speaker 1: this is great because then you can use it to
Speaker 1: I D individual bears and track them. You don't have
Speaker 1: to collect them tranquilize them and and tag them or anything,
Speaker 1: or you know, try to spot them by visual differences.
Speaker 1: That can be hard to do as a researcher. And
Speaker 1: so that would mean a lot for conservation, especially if
Speaker 1: it can adopt this technology to other animals. But if
Speaker 1: we're going to be in a bear surveillance state where
Speaker 1: the government is tracking down rogue bears, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I can't support it. Yeah, yeah, watch out for watch
Speaker 1: out for bear brother another name they could have used
Speaker 1: for this software. That's there's so many out there, work
Speaker 1: harder at this element, scientists. Please be better, far better,
Speaker 1: bear best bear. All these pictures are amazing, But if
Speaker 1: this is a mock up of how it works, I
Speaker 1: feel like they didn't try that hard. Like it's just
Speaker 1: it's a picture of a bear and then there's a
Speaker 1: red square around the bear's whole head, and then there's
Speaker 1: just a triangle where the three points are its eyes
Speaker 1: and its nose point. Like that doesn't it doesn't seem
Speaker 1: like it's trying bad hard to identify that. I mean,
Speaker 1: I mean, I get I get what it's doing. It's
Speaker 1: like saying, like here's the bare face we've we've spotted
Speaker 1: the bear face, and then this is how far its
Speaker 1: eyes are from its snout. I guess kind of like
Speaker 1: detecting very small differences in individuals. But it does look
Speaker 1: very simplistic, doesn't it, Like, well, here's the bare head,
Speaker 1: which is vaguely square shaped, and then it's nose triangle.
Speaker 1: I'm a smart computer, this is bear. Bears are just
Speaker 1: triangles on squares. When you think about it, what if
Speaker 1: the software really just tells you whether something is a
Speaker 1: bear or not, Like it can't distinguish between bear right,
Speaker 1: Like you right, you pointed out like a like a
Speaker 1: blue jay, it's like, not bear. You pointed out a coyote,
Speaker 1: not bear, and then you pointed out a bear, and
Speaker 1: it's like, that's a bear, and then you know, you
Speaker 1: know that's a bear. You would also know it's a bear,
Speaker 1: like the bear is already charging at you and then
Speaker 1: gets your whole face and it's out in the programs
Speaker 1: going like yep, definitely bear. And also I feel like
Speaker 1: in every Silicon Valley story it's that. And then the
Speaker 1: next line is the company was valued at ten trillion dollars.
Speaker 1: They always expect this to change the world. There's there's
Speaker 1: big bucks and bear surveillance. Yeah, I do hope also
Speaker 1: because they got the technology from dog Hipsterizer that we
Speaker 1: will be able to put hats and little glasses and
Speaker 1: little mustaches on bears. I'm just saying the technology is
Speaker 1: already there, a whimsical bear surveillance state, right, perfect, right,
Speaker 1: how do you do? It's me? Mr Bear two plus
Speaker 1: two is five? Ha ha. It's nice within the totalitarian element,
Speaker 1: right right right, freedom is freedom is bear bear? Big? Wait,
Speaker 1: what bear? I don't know. That's another name. That's it.
Speaker 1: That's the name of this thing. Yeah, exactly, a bare
Speaker 1: New World. Yep, No, it's it's good. We're gonna be
Speaker 1: I guess turning bears into soldiers. I don't know, I'm
Speaker 1: I'm I'm guessing we're gonna Okay, we're gonna scare them
Speaker 1: with the with the wolf robots be able to track
Speaker 1: them down, and then I guess the next step is
Speaker 1: to convince them that in order to fight the robot
Speaker 1: wolf scourge, they must join the U. S. Military. Well,
Speaker 1: we were warned, you know, like as soon as the
Speaker 1: election is over, they're going to implement these bear policies
Speaker 1: and we have to be vigilant and well, now we're here.
Speaker 1: You know. The bear army. Yeah, you know, so just
Speaker 1: keep your keep your eyes open for uh, a bear
Speaker 1: army that is waging war on robot wolves. Another bare news,
Speaker 1: a bear in King's Beach, California rated a convenience store
Speaker 1: for snacks. The bear ate a bunch of candy bars
Speaker 1: before being chased out and slapped on the butt by
Speaker 1: the owner. But before you judge this bear, you should
Speaker 1: know that the bear was recovering from a leg injury
Speaker 1: and just wanted to have a few snickers. For God's sake.
Speaker 1: The bear was captured by wildlife officials and relocated, which
Speaker 1: barely seems fair. When we return, we're going to discuss
Speaker 1: some more suspicious species in the news. Human politicians often
Speaker 1: seemed to fail us, so why not a different kind
Speaker 1: of political animal. Apparently, the idea of voting for an
Speaker 1: animal as an elected official has been quite popular. In
Speaker 1: two Yo Yo, the billygoat was elected to be city
Speaker 1: counselor of Fortaleza, Sierra Brazil. In Curtis, the mule was
Speaker 1: unanimously elected for a Republican precinct seat, and Milt in Washington, Bosco,
Speaker 1: the dog was elected mayor of Soon all California. In
Speaker 1: one in a cat named Stubbs was elected honorary mayor
Speaker 1: of Talquitna, Alaska. And in ten Lincoln the Goat won
Speaker 1: his election for mayor of fair Haven, Vermont, defeating Sammy
Speaker 1: the Samoya Dog by two votes. I hope Sammy demanded
Speaker 1: a recount. But sometimes voting for animals goes beyond symbolism
Speaker 1: and has real policy and environmental implications. So, Alex, Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, I feel like people have probably been paying
Speaker 1: attention to the election and stuff, but I think people
Speaker 1: have missed perhaps the most important election results of all time. Oh,
Speaker 1: and that is in Colorado, wolves got voted in. They
Speaker 1: got voted in, Alex. The wolves got voted in a
Speaker 1: Colorado like voted in existing in the state or of
Speaker 1: the legislature. They got voted in to Colorado. They won
Speaker 1: the election, and now they get to be in Colorado.
Speaker 1: This is literally actually what it was. So there was
Speaker 1: a proposition in Colorado to reintroduce gray wolves to the
Speaker 1: southern Rockies. So gray wolves, which are basically you know,
Speaker 1: gray wolves are the standard wolf. They are basically all
Speaker 1: the wolves in the world. Uh, And they have been
Speaker 1: hunted to extinction in the area. There have been no
Speaker 1: wolves in the Southern Rockies since the nineteen forties, and
Speaker 1: the people of Colorado voted and they voted to bring
Speaker 1: back the gray wolf and to reintroduce them to the area,
Speaker 1: which conservationists have said that the Southern Rocky Mountain area
Speaker 1: has capacity for hundreds of wolves to thrive. Before the
Speaker 1: fire marshal kicks him out. If you go over that
Speaker 1: fire marshal says, out of here. Alright, alright, alright, shut
Speaker 1: it all down. The wolf rave. They got the robot
Speaker 1: wolf playing skirl x just pumping out, pumping out stick peek. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's interesting because it was narrowly passed. It did not
Speaker 1: pass by a landslide. There, the wolves have not gotten
Speaker 1: a mandate unfortunately, wolf supermajority. Yeah, there we go. The
Speaker 1: opponents worry that the wolves will reduce the elk population.
Speaker 1: Ranchers are worried that the wolves will attack their cattle.
Speaker 1: In terms of them reducing the elk population, I don't
Speaker 1: think that's really that much of a concern in my
Speaker 1: personal non elk expert opinion, because well, in general, like
Speaker 1: wolves and predator animals can actually be really good for
Speaker 1: prey animal populations, like when they When you have a
Speaker 1: good balance of prey to predator, the predators actually keep
Speaker 1: the prey from dangers like overpopulation, mass starvation, uh, and disease.
Speaker 1: So I feel like if anything, introducing the wolves might
Speaker 1: actually be good for the elk population. I guess it
Speaker 1: all depends on the balance, like the number of wolves
Speaker 1: to elk and how things have changed since they went
Speaker 1: extinct from the area, because obviously when when you have
Speaker 1: an animal, one of the tricky things with reintroducing them
Speaker 1: is if the environment and balance of things have changed
Speaker 1: since they disappeared from the area and then you suddenly
Speaker 1: reintroduce them, there can be some issues. But I think
Speaker 1: that you know, we've done We've done a lot of
Speaker 1: successful reintroduction of species that I'm I think conservationists are
Speaker 1: well aware of all those issues and will probably be
Speaker 1: pretty careful about that. And they're not They're not just
Speaker 1: like dumping hundreds of wolves all at once, like they're saying,
Speaker 1: this is going to take years to like we build
Speaker 1: up to Yeah, and they and they haven't been there
Speaker 1: since then you said, that's amazing, Yeah, yeah, want to
Speaker 1: come back and for what it is, you know, great,
Speaker 1: and like uh yeah, and A bit of evidence for
Speaker 1: the wolves actually being good for potentially good for the
Speaker 1: elk population is that in another area in Yellowstone, the
Speaker 1: wolf population maybe saving the deer population from a deadly
Speaker 1: brain disease called chronic wasting disease. Oh, I've heard of this.
Speaker 1: By picking off the deer that have the disease and
Speaker 1: preventing it from spreading, the wolves are actually saving the
Speaker 1: deer population from this disease. So like the disease can
Speaker 1: spread from deer to deer, I don't think it can
Speaker 1: spread to wolves yet, but it is a concern, like
Speaker 1: whenever you have a zoonotic disease that it could jump
Speaker 1: from deer to other species, including humans. So the wolves
Speaker 1: are heroes, their hero doctor wolves. Wh am. I you
Speaker 1: probably know more about it than me. But am I
Speaker 1: overdoing it if I say the chronic chronic wasting disease
Speaker 1: is sort of like zombie ism and pop culture. That's
Speaker 1: what I've heard of. Compared to Yeah, I think because
Speaker 1: it does attack the brain, it is a little bit concerning.
Speaker 1: I don't I don't know that these deer are eating
Speaker 1: other deer brains necessarily um or or like stomping around
Speaker 1: on their hind hooves like with their front legs kind
Speaker 1: of sticking out and go like right at a tattered
Speaker 1: shirt from their old profession, and everything right right, right right,
Speaker 1: a bunch of like like football players and patterns, and like,
Speaker 1: oh a priest. How ironic that they're now a flesh eater.
Speaker 1: That is really commentary someone in a hazmat suit. Now,
Speaker 1: how did that deer in the hazmat suit get the
Speaker 1: zombie ism? Because you think now I have the main character,
Speaker 1: I'm frowning at this new development. Yeah, yeah, sure, but
Speaker 1: yeah it is so like this is a really good
Speaker 1: example of how predators can actually be good in general
Speaker 1: for a prey population. Obviously it sucks for whatever dear
Speaker 1: they end up eating. But like, if you have deer
Speaker 1: that have the chronic wasting disease and the wolves kill
Speaker 1: them and eat them, it prevents it from spreading. Uh,
Speaker 1: And you know, if anything, like, it's probably marginally sucks
Speaker 1: less to get eaten by a wolf than to die
Speaker 1: of chronic wasting disease. I don't, I don't. Actually no,
Speaker 1: I'm going to say maybe I would potentially prefer to
Speaker 1: get eaten by a wolf then go out by chronic
Speaker 1: wasting disease. Yeah, if you're if you're a deer right
Speaker 1: in the Creature Feature podcast at one to three Main Street.
Speaker 1: Anytime you want, say and let us know what you're Yeah,
Speaker 1: call into the show at one. Death by Wolves uh
Speaker 1: so uh yeah. It shows the importance of predator prey
Speaker 1: balance in nature, sure, and also the importance to humans.
Speaker 1: Like if this chronic wasting disease God forbid mutates and
Speaker 1: is able to jump from dear to human, that is
Speaker 1: really bad. That could be another Like, you know, I
Speaker 1: don't want to scare people. This is all very low probability.
Speaker 1: It's just like whenever whenever you have a disease or
Speaker 1: a virus and you give it time to mutate and evolve,
Speaker 1: like you're rolling the die over and over again for
Speaker 1: it to be able to jump from one animal to another.
Speaker 1: Um And so you just like but like by reducing
Speaker 1: the chance that that happens, you reduce the chance of it,
Speaker 1: you know, spreading to humans and potentially being a disease
Speaker 1: that that humans have to deal with. Um. So yeah,
Speaker 1: thank you wolves, hero doctors. Yeah, and just Andrew, I
Speaker 1: wish I knew more about wolf conservation in general. It
Speaker 1: seems really cool I used to work at Brookfield Zoo
Speaker 1: as a tour guide and we had Mexican gray wolves
Speaker 1: on exhibit and because that was I guess because the
Speaker 1: Mexican population of gray wolves is distinct and was way
Speaker 1: way down, so they were trying to conserve them bring
Speaker 1: them back. But it's so easy for people to be
Speaker 1: like predator fire, you know, and then and then we
Speaker 1: got to save them too. Yeah, yeah, exactly, Yeah, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think it is. It's really important to remember that
Speaker 1: once an animal is taken out of the game, Like
Speaker 1: I kind of use this metaphor a lot, where you know,
Speaker 1: the environment is sort of like a game of Jenga,
Speaker 1: and you take out an animal and you don't know,
Speaker 1: you don't know, like once you take out one animally,
Speaker 1: you don't know which one is gonna like mess up
Speaker 1: the tower of Jenga. And the more animals you take out,
Speaker 1: the more unstable it becomes. So yeah, I'm I think
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously I don't know some of the ins
Speaker 1: and outs of reintroducing these wolves, but I think it
Speaker 1: sounds like a good idea. Yeah, and you can you
Speaker 1: can sue me if it turns out not to be
Speaker 1: a good idea. Send your subpoena or whatever to one
Speaker 1: death by wolf. But if you want to talk about
Speaker 1: introducing a species that is not a good idea, let's
Speaker 1: talk about the giant murder hornets that everyone is all
Speaker 1: a buzz about. I'm so pleased to be back for
Speaker 1: more murder hornet news. I believe yea, yeah, yeah, murder
Speaker 1: hornet news. That's very exciting, was it. Well, Welcome back,
Speaker 1: Alex to the The Katie Alex Podcast. Within the podcast
Speaker 1: murder Hornet. Uh, just dial MH for murder hornets. There
Speaker 1: it is let of touchstones, touch tone stuff in this episode.
Speaker 1: I can't talk, but it's fun. It's good. We're fine.
Speaker 1: We're fine. Our brains are good and healthy and normal
Speaker 1: after the last few weeks. So here's the difference between
Speaker 1: reintroducing like a species that used to be indigenous to
Speaker 1: an area and introducing a species that is and invasive species.
Speaker 1: So wolves are indigenous animals being reintroduced. They are suited
Speaker 1: for that environment and their prey. The elk probably still
Speaker 1: have a lot of the defense mechanisms that they had
Speaker 1: while the wolves were there in order to prevent them
Speaker 1: from just being all killed by the wolves. So you
Speaker 1: have you reintroduced the wolves. It's basically inserting them back
Speaker 1: in the balance. As long as things haven't changed too
Speaker 1: much since the wolves have been gone, shouldn't be too
Speaker 1: harsh of a transition. Meanwhile, when you have an invasive
Speaker 1: species like the giant murder hornets, So giant murder hornets,
Speaker 1: um are not just kid a kid, They're not so
Speaker 1: I don't think they They're not like bad animals. So
Speaker 1: like the areas in which they are originally found, like
Speaker 1: in countries in Asia, the animals there have developed antipredator
Speaker 1: defense mechanisms against the giant murder hornets, so they the
Speaker 1: giant murder hornets are kept in check by a series
Speaker 1: of checks and balances. Damn it, I don't want to
Speaker 1: talk about politics anymore in this podcast. So they are,
Speaker 1: but they have been accidentally introduced into North America, which
Speaker 1: is really bad because our bees, both are native bees,
Speaker 1: and our honey bees, which are not native but they
Speaker 1: are like our domesticated population of bees, are both in
Speaker 1: danger from this invasive species of murder hornets because they
Speaker 1: just don't have any defensive and the murder hornets are
Speaker 1: huge and they can decapitate a bunch of bees at
Speaker 1: an alarming rate master decapitators. So that's where we are
Speaker 1: with the murder hornets. But here's uh murder hornet update.
Speaker 1: Maybe I do a sound effect here, or if maybe
Speaker 1: I'll probably be too lazy to do that. Should we
Speaker 1: do our own like, let's do our own thing like
Speaker 1: we wi we wi we Murder hornet update, Buds trying
Speaker 1: to do like you did it in the morning with
Speaker 1: Katie and the Spas. I'm the Spas now it's my
Speaker 1: nickname on the show. So in Blaine Whatcom County, Washington,
Speaker 1: state entomologists have found the first murder hornet nest filled
Speaker 1: with queen murder hornets. So when did you find them?
Speaker 1: Just queens? No, not just queens, but had a bunch
Speaker 1: of queens in it. I'm sorry, it's not all it's
Speaker 1: like oops, all queens murder hornet nest. No, No, there
Speaker 1: were workers in the nest as well. So the way
Speaker 1: that they do it is when they find a murder hornet,
Speaker 1: they don't just like kill it with fire like the
Speaker 1: people want them to. They actually trap it, put a
Speaker 1: radio tracker on it, and then revived them with a
Speaker 1: little bit of grape jelly. Wait, which is my favorite
Speaker 1: part of it. Okay, yes, so they knocked them out
Speaker 1: like with ether or something like a cartoon well yeah,
Speaker 1: or just like chill them. I'm not exactly sure how
Speaker 1: they knocked them out, but yeah, they trapped them, put
Speaker 1: a radio tracker on them, revived them with a little
Speaker 1: bit of grape jelly, which is kind of and then
Speaker 1: like follow them back to the nest so that they
Speaker 1: can actually destroy the nest, because killing a worker murder
Speaker 1: hornet doesn't really get you anything if there's still a
Speaker 1: nest out there with queens, because the worker murder hornets
Speaker 1: are most likely likely not going to be reproducing, whereas
Speaker 1: the queens are the ones that are reproducing. And so
Speaker 1: standard anti mafia stuff like don't worry about exactly the
Speaker 1: foot soldiers, right exactly. So uh, yeah, so you gotta
Speaker 1: have them lead them back to their hideout and yeah,
Speaker 1: throwing in a little bit of grape jelly to you know,
Speaker 1: kind of grease the wheels them. Quiet. Hush jelly, never
Speaker 1: hurt nobody, you know, a little bit of hush jelly.
Speaker 1: So then they followed this this murder hornet back to
Speaker 1: the nest, and indeed they found the nest and it
Speaker 1: had I think several queens in it and they destroyed it.
Speaker 1: So that's good because, yeah, you don't want we do
Speaker 1: not want the murder hornets to get a foothold in
Speaker 1: uh in North America because our native bee populations just
Speaker 1: wouldn't know how to handle it. You know, we could
Speaker 1: get we could try to train them like Rocky, give
Speaker 1: them a little tiny boxing gloves, but you know, I
Speaker 1: don't know that's there's a lot of bees, so that
Speaker 1: would be very time consuming. Yeah, if I if I
Speaker 1: remember right, the Japanese honey bees would do some kind
Speaker 1: of thing where they surround and explode the murder hornets,
Speaker 1: which seems hard to teach. You can't you can't just
Speaker 1: like learn that in a school for bees. Yeah, school
Speaker 1: for bees. So that would be a fun show. But no, no, no, yeah,
Speaker 1: you're completely correct. Uh. These Japanese honey bees will surround
Speaker 1: the invading murder hornets and then vibrate their bodies, heating
Speaker 1: them up such that the invading hornets will basically boil
Speaker 1: to death as Yeah. Yeah, as they heat up, heat
Speaker 1: up the murder hornet with their little angry vibrating bodies. Um.
Speaker 1: I think they also like drop the oxygen level. Uh
Speaker 1: in the in the big bee ball, so like they're
Speaker 1: suffocating and boiling the hornet to death and they can
Speaker 1: pretty effectively defend their high against hornets this way, and
Speaker 1: so yeah, but our bees don't know how to do that,
Speaker 1: so they're yeah, right, we can't just do a training
Speaker 1: montage wherever we like, it's going to be yeah, like vibrate,
Speaker 1: come on, you can do what boy vibrates so well,
Speaker 1: actually they're all all of these bees would be would
Speaker 1: be girls because they are well females, because all the
Speaker 1: worker bees are female. So it'd be come on, come on, gals,
Speaker 1: you can do this. You just gotta vibrate harder. There's
Speaker 1: no crying in defensive vibration is the female sports movie.
Speaker 1: I guess, just like dump a gallon of gatorade on
Speaker 1: them and all the bees die. Anyways, and then our
Speaker 1: last bit of specious species, suspicious species. Uh, this is
Speaker 1: actually great news, which is that two new species of
Speaker 1: greater glider have been discovered in Australia. So we have talked, yes,
Speaker 1: we have talked about greater gliders before. They are Australian marsupials.
Speaker 1: They are the largest gliding mammal in the world. They
Speaker 1: are about seventeen inches long, that's about forty three centimeters
Speaker 1: and they look like big teddy bears with long fluffy
Speaker 1: tails and like a face that looks like a cross
Speaker 1: between a kitty cat and a mouse. They look made up.
Speaker 1: They look like they look like a stuffed animal that
Speaker 1: like is made up from the imagination of Lisa Frank.
Speaker 1: They are just so fluffy, so incredible, like in the
Speaker 1: neo pet family of creature. Yes, yes, they look like
Speaker 1: a neo pet. Damn it, I forgot to feed my
Speaker 1: neo pets for the last twenty years. Oh no, what
Speaker 1: if it's alive and just politely upset, like it's just
Speaker 1: looking at it's watch in an armchair like they're flapping
Speaker 1: its little foot. Makes you feel bad, you know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it turns around, turns on the lamp like. So, I
Speaker 1: guess you've been busy and gone for the because you've
Speaker 1: been busy for the past twenty years. Yeah, so this
Speaker 1: is a real life neo pet. Uh. They have flaps
Speaker 1: at the sides of their bodies, skin flaps that allow
Speaker 1: them to glide, much like a flying squirrel, but they
Speaker 1: are much bigger than a flying squirrel and here is
Speaker 1: the cool news. Recently, it's been discovered that there are
Speaker 1: actually two other is shees of greater glider, when we
Speaker 1: originally thought there was only one species. So they look
Speaker 1: a little bit different, and they are have been found
Speaker 1: to be genetically different as well. And yeah, they're all
Speaker 1: put this picture in the show notes, but you can
Speaker 1: see all three of these species. You have one that
Speaker 1: looks sort of gray with cute, big old like cat
Speaker 1: mouse ears and it's super fluffy. And you have another
Speaker 1: one that's sort of like a darker, sort of ashy
Speaker 1: color and with a little white belly as well, and
Speaker 1: in big old, big old mouse looking ears. And then
Speaker 1: a third one that's sort of a even darker color,
Speaker 1: kind of black. It looks scruffier and it's got, you know, again,
Speaker 1: that cute little white belly there. I've got to say,
Speaker 1: they're all adorable. That's that's my that. You know. If
Speaker 1: I was cataloging these, I'd be like, that one's cute. Uh,
Speaker 1: this one's cute. Uh. Specimen thirty five a also cute,
Speaker 1: very cute. As as different as they are, they're all
Speaker 1: rated thirteen out of ten. You know, they're all great.
Speaker 1: It's a referenced Twitter. Yeah, it's just good, really good. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's got to be hard to basically identify these when
Speaker 1: you're just going, oh, look, I don't little baby, look,
Speaker 1: I don't let a baby jumi baby, it's a flying baby.
Speaker 1: Like the expert scientist has the tradeing scientists and they're like, now,
Speaker 1: when you approach these, you need to be very oh
Speaker 1: but like as soon as they see big tale have
Speaker 1: to be quiet. As we approached the subagect, all call
Speaker 1: that blaa and then it just screams and glides away.
Speaker 1: It's a big problem. It's probably why we only are
Speaker 1: finding out there are three species as of now, because
Speaker 1: like scientists have just been blown their cover too much.
Speaker 1: They can't even identify them. Do you remember There's another
Speaker 1: thing I learned as a zoo tour guide. We had
Speaker 1: all copies and no copies are from like Central Africa,
Speaker 1: like and deep rainforest. There. Those are those like zebra,
Speaker 1: giraffe hybrid looking things, right, yeah, exactly, And between their
Speaker 1: fantastical looks and how deep they were in the rainforest,
Speaker 1: a lot of Europeans thought they were mythical because they
Speaker 1: just couldn't track down a report of them. I feel
Speaker 1: like this is like that, like it was just so cute.
Speaker 1: The boss back at Science headquarters was like, no, you're
Speaker 1: making this up. Forget it right, which has happened before,
Speaker 1: Like with the platypus. Uh, they thought that was a hoax.
Speaker 1: They thought someone just glued spare parts altogether to make
Speaker 1: the platypus. But actually, speaking of platypus, we have some
Speaker 1: exciting platypus news right after the break. Oh how will
Speaker 1: people tolerate the break that's so excited? I don't know,
Speaker 1: They'll just like pe the p Speaking of US Australia,
Speaker 1: they've just invited devils into their island. Tasmanian devils have
Speaker 1: been reintroduced to Australia's mainland, which they haven't stepped foot
Speaker 1: in for three thousand years. Tasmanian devils have in recent
Speaker 1: history lived exclusively on Australia's Tasmania Island. By introducing them
Speaker 1: to the mainland, conservationists so for two things, that the
Speaker 1: devils bring some balance to Mainland Australia's ecosystem and that
Speaker 1: their population numbers increase. Mainland Australia has suffered many blows
Speaker 1: to their native ecosystem from cane toads to pet kitty kats.
Speaker 1: Rare animals like bandicoots have been threatened Tasmanian devils. Pugnacious
Speaker 1: scavengers may help ward off invasive species and act as
Speaker 1: ornary custodians of the ecosystem, and the increase in natural
Speaker 1: habitat for the Tasmanian devil may help their population grow.
Speaker 1: As they've suffered from a contagious facial cancer outbreak in Tasmania,
Speaker 1: conservationists are hoping that the new colony of cancer free
Speaker 1: devils in mainland Australia will have a better fighting chance,
Speaker 1: and they do love to fight, though they're no farat
Speaker 1: to humans. When we return, we're going to switch to
Speaker 1: the entertainment beat and talk about some breaking party animal news.
Speaker 1: So how have animals been partying while we've been distracted?
Speaker 1: If you miss partying during quarantine, why don't we take
Speaker 1: a peek to see some of the most festive, sexy,
Speaker 1: and remarkable animal news stories of the past few weeks.
Speaker 1: So now we are back with a Platypus update and
Speaker 1: the spares. We're still doing it in in an air
Speaker 1: Platypus in the morning mono e monotream. That's a joke
Speaker 1: because their monotreams um, which is a type of mammal
Speaker 1: who lays eggs and it does not have nipples to lactate. Instead,
Speaker 1: they actually use milk out of their bellies, and that's
Speaker 1: what a mon They're called monotream because they have a
Speaker 1: cloaca and mono tree means one hole mo no ivano
Speaker 1: tream in the morning. So, yes, platypus snooze is that
Speaker 1: Platypuses are biofluorescent and glow blue under UV light. Wow,
Speaker 1: that's awesome. Yes, I actually think I had a listener
Speaker 1: asked me. I'm so sorry, I don't remember what your
Speaker 1: Twitter handle is, but a listener did ask me if
Speaker 1: this this was true, and I am happy to report
Speaker 1: that yes, yes, it is true. It was probably a
Speaker 1: young platypus figuring out its own body, and I'm glad
Speaker 1: we can guide them on this journey, you know, like
Speaker 1: I'm changing. Oh yeah, normal. I also have huge braces
Speaker 1: even though I don't have teeth, and I'm trying to
Speaker 1: figure out why. It's very it's very weird to have
Speaker 1: a retainer in my bail button, you know. So biofluorescence
Speaker 1: happens when a living organism is able to absorb and
Speaker 1: re emit light. So typically this is only visible to
Speaker 1: humans under u V black light, but other animals can
Speaker 1: actually see biofluorescence. Coral scorpions, fungi and other living creatures
Speaker 1: all biofluoresce, so this is there is a lot of
Speaker 1: biofluorescence in a variety of organisms. But this we did
Speaker 1: not know about until recently, and it really was just
Speaker 1: researchers going like, you know what, I wonder if platypuses
Speaker 1: glow under UV light and trying it out because like,
Speaker 1: you know, it's not it's not like it's not like
Speaker 1: we test every animal to see if they biofluoresce. But yeah,
Speaker 1: like flying squirrels have a little bit of biofluorescence. So
Speaker 1: some researchers were like, you know, I wonder if mom
Speaker 1: platypusts do that. Let's let's try platypust is. Why not.
Speaker 1: They're weird. I'm imagining the boss of Australian Science right there,
Speaker 1: working from home. They're juggling children and cooking and everything,
Speaker 1: and then they're getting all these reports of gliders and
Speaker 1: luminescent platypuses and everything like they got they gotta be
Speaker 1: pulling their hair out all this stuff, right, gosh, darn
Speaker 1: TikTok teams trying to prank me. Yeah, so researchers aren't
Speaker 1: sure why this happens, but sure enough, under UV light
Speaker 1: or black light, their fur glows a beautiful bright blue.
Speaker 1: And again we're not sure why this happens. This is
Speaker 1: a very recent discovery. Maybe it's a form of I'm
Speaker 1: a flash question mark in this like scan or whatever.
Speaker 1: It almost looks like a blue footed booby in a
Speaker 1: weird little the little paddles, the little front webbed feet. Look.
Speaker 1: They also seem to be fluorescing, which is interesting. But yeah,
Speaker 1: it does look a little bit like a blue footed booby,
Speaker 1: which I must say is a bird. It's a bird,
Speaker 1: and it's got blue feet. It's called a blue foot
Speaker 1: a booby. Yeah, oh yeah, yeah, I don't know if
Speaker 1: I guess it's not everybody. We just, yeah, we just
Speaker 1: like to name birds nanny things like kits and boobies. Scientists,
Speaker 1: I guess, I guess, like, uh, ornithologists are just kind
Speaker 1: of kind of horny on Maine. But you know, there
Speaker 1: you go, speaking of ornithologists being horny on Maine, let's
Speaker 1: talk about a bird that was discovered that is half male,
Speaker 1: half female in a spectacular way. In Pennsylvania, a row
Speaker 1: was breasted gross speak again with the breasts, you guys,
Speaker 1: just to take it down a notch burners, all right.
Speaker 1: So a rosebreasted gross speak was discovered that is half male,
Speaker 1: half female, literally split down the middle. One side of
Speaker 1: it is male and the other side is female. So
Speaker 1: gross speaks are small birds with sturdy beaks for cracking
Speaker 1: open seeds. They look very finch like. They come in
Speaker 1: many colors, and they are often sexually dimorphic, meaning that
Speaker 1: the females and males differ in physical appearance and color
Speaker 1: and size. In this case, the rosebreasted growth speak that
Speaker 1: was discovered is a very rare bilateral gynandromorph meaning that
Speaker 1: one side of its body is female and the other's male,
Speaker 1: split laterally from head to tail. So I think in
Speaker 1: this case the right side is male and the left
Speaker 1: side is female. And this picture is amazing because like,
Speaker 1: I don't know a ton about birds. You know more,
Speaker 1: and you are birds. But but as I understand it,
Speaker 1: like it's very common for bird male and female of
Speaker 1: a species to look different, but it's almost always symmetrical
Speaker 1: within the bird, you know, and then this picture of
Speaker 1: a bird. It has a red wing and it has
Speaker 1: like a golden yellow wing and that must be because
Speaker 1: of the split. That's that's fascinating. Yes, yes, exactly. So
Speaker 1: the red wing is the male side. Males have red
Speaker 1: coloration and that wing is actually a little bit longer
Speaker 1: than the yellow wing which is the female side, which
Speaker 1: is a little shorter, which is also like females have
Speaker 1: slightly shorter wings, which I hope this poor bird isn't
Speaker 1: like flying around in circles because of that. But so
Speaker 1: this is extremely rare. This is like winning the bird lottery,
Speaker 1: like literally one in a million chance to find one
Speaker 1: of these incredible birds. So, although this is not the
Speaker 1: only bird that's ever been discovered, there have been other birds.
Speaker 1: This has also been recorded in butterflies, crustaceans, spiders and
Speaker 1: other insects, snakes, uh and particularly I think zebra finches
Speaker 1: for whatever reason, have it happened to them a lot.
Speaker 1: It's been found in chickens as well, cardinals um. So.
Speaker 1: This is caused by an unusual event during a bird's
Speaker 1: embryonic development, when the cells are splitting during a fertilized
Speaker 1: eggs development, where one of the dividing cells does not
Speaker 1: split the sex chromosomes as it normally would. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: it literally develops where one side of the bird is
Speaker 1: physically female and then the other side is physically male.
Speaker 1: And this can be both external characteristics like the coloration
Speaker 1: and size as we see in this bird, can also
Speaker 1: be internal anatomy. So sex organs like you may have
Speaker 1: over is only on one side. Uh So it is absolutely,
Speaker 1: absolutely fascinating. One thing is that, like, I feel like
Speaker 1: there are a lot of prudes that like to reference
Speaker 1: nature when it comes to like human gender expression, and
Speaker 1: they're like, oh, well that's unnatural. It's like, dude, you
Speaker 1: don't know anything about nature. Nature is incredibly fun and free. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's just like, oh, you're you can't you know, identify
Speaker 1: as another another gender. That's unnatural. It's like, no, nature,
Speaker 1: Nature wrote the book on this stuff. You guys, Like, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it always frustrates for me when people are like, well,
Speaker 1: you know, biology says you can't be you know, different
Speaker 1: as a human. It's like, no, it actually does. It's
Speaker 1: actually your biology is incredibly creative and fun and so
Speaker 1: you know, you don't. It's it's frustrating also, can I
Speaker 1: just say this bird absolutely beautiful, Like, it's just I mean,
Speaker 1: there's something about like, I guess, I guess because we're
Speaker 1: so used to symmetry in animals. Seeing an animal where
Speaker 1: it's like one side is red, in the other side
Speaker 1: it's yelled, it's just incredible looking. Yeah, I now, I
Speaker 1: just want to see all the animals like this. Like
Speaker 1: you said, a cardinal was found like this, I don't
Speaker 1: know if it was the past and they didn't. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: one side is red reddish coloration, to the other side
Speaker 1: is sort of a lighter, lighter coloration like a female. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's really really interesting. Also important to note that
Speaker 1: this is different from hermaphroditism, where so in that case,
Speaker 1: it's not like bilateral asymmetry. So like you can have
Speaker 1: a mixture of male and female second sexual characteristics and
Speaker 1: an organs, and that is actually a lot more common
Speaker 1: than this. This is just very uncommon because it's the
Speaker 1: the particular arrangement of having like literally like one half
Speaker 1: one side of the animal is male the other half
Speaker 1: is female is just very very rare, very interesting. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: they're there, but there are a lot of different types
Speaker 1: of situations where an animal will have both male and
Speaker 1: female parts, and sometimes it's not even like unusual, like
Speaker 1: there's species of animals that are always from aphroditic, all
Speaker 1: always have both male and female parts. This just happens
Speaker 1: to be a species where this is not typical. And
Speaker 1: it's also especially interesting because it's again that that whole
Speaker 1: like you know, one one half half and half split
Speaker 1: right down the middle. Yeah. Also, also good job humans
Speaker 1: noticing this tracking it down. I feel like I don't
Speaker 1: see I'm not a birder, but I never see birds
Speaker 1: that clearly in the wild are walking around the neighborhood.
Speaker 1: So a good job well done. I mean there's probably, yes,
Speaker 1: yes it is. That is an incredible find. Also, it's
Speaker 1: probably there are probably more of these bilateral gynandromorphs than
Speaker 1: we know because some birds are not quite as obvious
Speaker 1: with the sexual dimorphism, so spotting a like the males
Speaker 1: and females look more similar, So being able to find
Speaker 1: ones that that have this like you just wouldn't know
Speaker 1: looking at them. It would be very subtle. So yeah,
Speaker 1: it's really interesting and I just want to in the
Speaker 1: show with a little bit of bat news, and I
Speaker 1: feel like this We've actually talked about this bat before
Speaker 1: on the show I think actually almost exactly a year ago,
Speaker 1: and of talking about it's there, we go, yes, thank you.
Speaker 1: But now I think it's relevant to bring this up again.
Speaker 1: First of all, they they're in the news, and also
Speaker 1: it's very applicable to us humans. So these are wrinkle
Speaker 1: faced bats. They are found in Central America. They have
Speaker 1: a very very wrinkle wrinkly face. It just I don't know, like,
Speaker 1: how would you describe this face? Like a walnut look
Speaker 1: a little bit like a one. Yeah, it's like if
Speaker 1: a walnut was made of knuckles. Yeah, and then the
Speaker 1: good description. I like that. Then the overall shape but
Speaker 1: like that that Sumerian dog monster from Ghostbusters, like the
Speaker 1: two of them form like the activated thing. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: think it's cute and it's cute. Yes, I should clarify that.
Speaker 1: I mean that that is cute. It's like you put
Speaker 1: if you put like Stitch in the washing machine, but
Speaker 1: then you didn't like fold them, so then he got
Speaker 1: all wrinkly. I saw that movie for the first time
Speaker 1: last month. I finally caught up with it. It's very fun,
Speaker 1: that's very good. I love Lelane. Stitch is amazing best movies.
Speaker 1: So they have mouth pouches to store food in. They
Speaker 1: eat fruit. They have one of the strongest bites per
Speaker 1: their size compared to other bats, because this allows them
Speaker 1: to eat tough fruit, get through the tough skin of fruit.
Speaker 1: And most most importantly, they have a little chin flap
Speaker 1: that they can use as a mask that they literally
Speaker 1: pull up over their face as a mask, as we
Speaker 1: should all be doing right now, hero bats. So god,
Speaker 1: I just imagined a Republican wriggle face bat. That's like, sure,
Speaker 1: I have a chin based flap that's a mask, but
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna wear it like just the laziest worst
Speaker 1: bat anyway. Well and well, bad news for that bat,
Speaker 1: because the lady bats love a mask. Female bats find
Speaker 1: these masks sexy, which look Speaking as a female human,
Speaker 1: I say all masks are sexy, and wearing them like
Speaker 1: instantly improves you're standing. In my mind, I'm like, that
Speaker 1: person cares about other people. That's respectable. Caring is sexy,
Speaker 1: So it is it is literally signaling your virtue, Like
Speaker 1: you're a virtuous person who bothers to care about people.
Speaker 1: That's good, right, right exactly, So these masks are sexy
Speaker 1: for for female birds, and the males will use them
Speaker 1: to attract mates. Uh. Bernald Rodriguez Herrera, who is a
Speaker 1: bat biologist at the University of Costa Rica, calls the
Speaker 1: male masked seducers, which I love. I would like to
Speaker 1: adopt that for humans, Like, like, you wear a mask,
Speaker 1: you're a masked seducer. Uh. They will literally flex their
Speaker 1: little face masks like they're flexing their muscles. They will
Speaker 1: lift it over their face and like pull it with
Speaker 1: their little arms, like and you like what you see?
Speaker 1: And that drives the lady bats wild with desire. Uh.
Speaker 1: And one of the theories is that the mask may
Speaker 1: help them modulate their mating calls, because they seem to
Speaker 1: always chirp while the mask is up, so maybe it
Speaker 1: gives the mating calls some interesting kind of resonance. Another
Speaker 1: theory is that because the skin flap is white, it
Speaker 1: might help the females locate the males visually. And so
Speaker 1: you're sort of almost flat sishing a beacon at the
Speaker 1: females like, hey, look at me, I'm an eligible bachelor
Speaker 1: who cares about public health and safety. Also, the little
Speaker 1: masks are furry, so they kind of look like Santa beards,
Speaker 1: which I think is cute. Oh man, and we're in
Speaker 1: the ear of Kurt Russell being sexy Santa. So that's
Speaker 1: that's understood. Now, people get it. Oh wait, I just
Speaker 1: had an idea, why don't people put fake beards over
Speaker 1: their masks so you can look like Santa? Yeah? What,
Speaker 1: why haven't we done this? I do? I remember. I
Speaker 1: think it was around August. I was just walking and
Speaker 1: I had a realization that the mask would feel warm
Speaker 1: in the winter. Like I got excited for now. I
Speaker 1: was like, oh, yeah, it's gonna be good. So yeah,
Speaker 1: that's getting like I'm always getting running noses and stuff,
Speaker 1: and like I've been noticing like, hey, you know what,
Speaker 1: my hot breath is heating up my nose. It feels good.
Speaker 1: So again, I think we can learn a lot from
Speaker 1: these bats that they have. They love masks. The ladies
Speaker 1: love them, and yeah, I mean for humans obviously, everyone
Speaker 1: everyone of good caliber loves a mask, and I just
Speaker 1: think that it is great to wear them. Yeah, me too, Like,
Speaker 1: keep keeping up, folks, it's spiking. Yeah, I'm sure that.
Speaker 1: I feel like all of our listeners are probably on
Speaker 1: board with the whole mask wearing thing, but I want
Speaker 1: I want to give you hope. I want to give
Speaker 1: you some cheer that like, the bats are on board
Speaker 1: with us, and they'll think you're cute if you wear
Speaker 1: a mask, bats are going to think you're cute, and
Speaker 1: then that is I'm sure you're right at every listener
Speaker 1: to this show is like on top of masks, like
Speaker 1: I prior to the election, I realized as I was
Speaker 1: taping a secretly incredibly fascinating I was like, I would
Speaker 1: tell you guys to vote, but you're great, Like if
Speaker 1: you can vote, I'm sure you did a good job.
Speaker 1: Like this space, we don't need to do it, you're
Speaker 1: you're at it. I just think it will help with
Speaker 1: the monotony of wearing a mask every day, and no
Speaker 1: that bats will think you're cute for wearing the mask,
Speaker 1: and you know you might get noticed by bats and pie,
Speaker 1: so that's good. Yeah. Bat society is really interesting to me.
Speaker 1: I love it, like like the romance novels with a
Speaker 1: heavily masked bat on the cover, like, wow, look at it.
Speaker 1: You'd never see that really? Yes, yes, yes, So if
Speaker 1: you want, if you want to attract a bat, wear
Speaker 1: a mask. Well, specifically the wrinkle faced bats. But yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: who wouldn't Who wouldn't want to attract a wrinkle face bat?
Speaker 1: They are Oh boy, you know again a handsome knuckle
Speaker 1: walnut that you want to walnut. I want to get
Speaker 1: to know this handsome walnut. Well, Alex, I think that's
Speaker 1: gonna do it for today. I think we've covered all
Speaker 1: of the news stories that people may have missed during
Speaker 1: you know, the recent weeks. I guess other stuff was
Speaker 1: going on that was important, but yeah, now we're caught
Speaker 1: up on the animal news. I'm I there's so much
Speaker 1: going on and I I'm sure, like you said, it
Speaker 1: all happened when I was distracted with other other things,
Speaker 1: and it's so excited about it. I get the bear
Speaker 1: and wolf stuff alone, remember that, folks, Holy cow later
Speaker 1: runner bears. Yeah. Uh well, So, Alex, thank you so
Speaker 1: much for joining me today. I'm so happy to be
Speaker 1: able to talk to you about animal news. So where
Speaker 1: where can the people and the bats and the robot
Speaker 1: wolves find you? Because they will. I'm on I'm on
Speaker 1: Morning drive Time with Katie Golden on Katie and the
Speaker 1: Spas every week w KA. That is the end of bit.
Speaker 1: I've hosted a show called Secretly Incredibly Fascinating. It's a
Speaker 1: podcast I'm really proud of. It's about the history and
Speaker 1: science and lower that make ordinary things secretly incredibly fascinating.
Speaker 1: And it's had wonderful guests like Katie Golden, who's on
Speaker 1: the second every episode and did a lot to help
Speaker 1: like get it going at all, so I really appreciate
Speaker 1: that a whole lot. We talked about Luke How's yeah,
Speaker 1: and the episodes about cattle, so you know, animals for you, Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: You can find us on the internet at Creature Feature
Speaker 1: Pod on Instagram, at Creature Feet Pod on Twitter. That's
Speaker 1: not et that's something very different. You can find me
Speaker 1: at Katie Golden online that's k A T I E
Speaker 1: G O L D I N. I usually post Katie thoughts. Look,
Speaker 1: a lot of my tweets are going to be political,
Speaker 1: because you know, politics is important. But you know here
Speaker 1: on the podcast, it's animals time as always. I'm also
Speaker 1: at Pro Bird Rights, where I am definitely just a
Speaker 1: normal human talking about birds. It's fine, it's pretend birds,
Speaker 1: not real birds. I'm certainly not a bunch of real
Speaker 1: birds in a human suit. That would be weird and
Speaker 1: I'm not that, I am. I'm also really impressed how
Speaker 1: much seed you can eat without the mic picking it up,
Speaker 1: you know, like usually during a tape things doctor stop.
Speaker 1: I'm also really impressed how much bird seed you can
Speaker 1: eat during a taping without the mic picking it up
Speaker 1: usually snacking. It really gets in there. But you do
Speaker 1: a good job that. It keeps me regular. It's good fiber.
Speaker 1: I don't know why there's a big handwritten note that
Speaker 1: says human seed over the label of whatever that really is.
Speaker 1: That's interesting. It's good to label products as they accurately are. Anyway. Anyways,
Speaker 1: if you have any questions for the podcast, you can
Speaker 1: email me. I mean, obviously you can message me on
Speaker 1: any of those social media platforms, but if you prefer
Speaker 1: the old email, you can do Creature Feature pod at
Speaker 1: gmail dot com and also send me pictures of your pets.
Speaker 1: I love that, I like that, or birds um at,
Speaker 1: you know, as normal humans like sea birds. Thanks so
Speaker 1: much to the Space Classics for their super awesome song Excelumina.
Speaker 1: Creature Feature is a production of I Heart Radio. For
Speaker 1: more podcasts the one you just heard, visit the I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or Hey guess what gab
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows. See you next Wednesday,
Speaker 1: m