Speaker 1: Welcome to Creature Future production of I Heart Radio. I'm
Speaker 1: your host of Many Parasites, Katie Golden. I studied psychology
Speaker 1: and evolutionary biology, and today on the show, but do
Speaker 1: it's listener questions. I love answering your animal biology questions,
Speaker 1: and you guys are so good at asking them. If
Speaker 1: you have any questions to ask that you'd like to
Speaker 1: hear answered on the podcast, please send them to Creature
Speaker 1: Feature Pod at gmail dot com. Next week we're gonna
Speaker 1: have a regular episode, but for now, enjoyed the soothing,
Speaker 1: relaxing tones of a casual but well researched Q and
Speaker 1: A about animals. So I love this batch of questions
Speaker 1: very much. You guys are just so Yeah. I'm so
Speaker 1: proud of you all. You ask such amazing questions that
Speaker 1: always sends me on a great research tunnel and are
Speaker 1: things that, like I am really excited to address on
Speaker 1: the show. So let us start with this first one,
Speaker 1: which is from Senor Moderna on Twitter, who asks what
Speaker 1: is the weirdest, creepiest science fiction eye story or behavior
Speaker 1: you know about any animal ever? So this is a
Speaker 1: hard one because there are so many it's hard for
Speaker 1: me to pick my favorites, but I'll just go through
Speaker 1: a few that came to mind. I mean, creepiest science
Speaker 1: fiction e ish I think has to go to the parasites.
Speaker 1: Like any number of parasites, they're always so incredible and weird.
Speaker 1: So there are parasites that control their hosts brains, like
Speaker 1: the parasitoid wasp larva that infects or weaver spider brains
Speaker 1: and causes them to become mindless zombies. That's been a
Speaker 1: nice little cocoon for the parasite larva. And then the
Speaker 1: spider dies and the parasites suck all their juices out
Speaker 1: and just chucks their dead descated body out and goes
Speaker 1: to sleep in their little little cocoon that the poor
Speaker 1: zombie spider had to weave for them. So that it's
Speaker 1: just so interesting to me that you have this very
Speaker 1: relatively simple animal like a wasp, and I mean especially
Speaker 1: the larva, and it has some kind of chemicals that
Speaker 1: manages to hijack the orb weaver spider's brain and make
Speaker 1: it we've a little crib for it, and it's just
Speaker 1: it's so insidious. It's so fascinating, very very sci fi
Speaker 1: to me too. Um there's also the head bursting fungus
Speaker 1: court of Steps, and I think we've mentioned this a
Speaker 1: few times on the show. It's really fascinating. It infects
Speaker 1: Aunt's other insects, arthropods. It causes them to wander around
Speaker 1: like zombies before clamping down on a branch with their
Speaker 1: mandibles so the parasitic fungus can grow right out of
Speaker 1: their heads and at least more parasitic spores. So that
Speaker 1: is very to me horror movie, science fiction zombie movie esque.
Speaker 1: In fact, I think um so like in the Last
Speaker 1: of Us that video game, they use Cortoceps as the
Speaker 1: fungus that turns everyone into zombies. I think in I
Speaker 1: think it's called Cargo. It's a zombie movie where I
Speaker 1: think the I think it's a parasitic fungus or something,
Speaker 1: and then it makes people stick their heads under the
Speaker 1: ground as the scores start to develop in like in
Speaker 1: their brains, and which reminds me a lot of the courtoceps,
Speaker 1: because these insects, like their last act is to bite
Speaker 1: down on a branch their mannible so that the fungus
Speaker 1: has a secure place to grow, which is really messed
Speaker 1: up and really interesting. The ocean also has some really
Speaker 1: incredible sci fi type animals. In terms of the creepier ones,
Speaker 1: there is a microscopic parasite called salmoncola that infects It
Speaker 1: sounds like a beverage, doesn't salmonacola sounds like some kind
Speaker 1: of like coca cola, Like like there's cherry coke and
Speaker 1: then there's salmon flavored coke. But no, it is a
Speaker 1: parasite that infects salmon and directly feeds off of their
Speaker 1: A t P. So a TP is the most basic
Speaker 1: unit of energy that living creatures use. It is produced
Speaker 1: from respiration. And so the fact that these Salminicola parasites
Speaker 1: feed directly on the A t P. They actually do
Speaker 1: not have any mitochondria and they don't breathe. So they're
Speaker 1: the only animal known in the world that does not
Speaker 1: breathe and doesn't use some kind of form of respiration.
Speaker 1: So they look like alien sperm to uh be blunt.
Speaker 1: They are shaped like sperm. And then they have these
Speaker 1: two ice bots that kind of you know, they look
Speaker 1: like the classic like gray alien kind of thing with
Speaker 1: the with the big eyes. You know, you know what
Speaker 1: I'm talking about, Like any kind of alien logo. It
Speaker 1: just looks exactly like that, except attached to a little
Speaker 1: a little sperm tail. And those eye spots are not
Speaker 1: eyes at all. They are actually old stinger cells from
Speaker 1: their ancestors, who were probably a more jellyfish like animal. Uh.
Speaker 1: Salmon Cola shares the same phylum as jellyfish of Nideria,
Speaker 1: so these are probably some kind of thing that like
Speaker 1: started out as a sort of jellyfish like like Nigerian,
Speaker 1: and then just lost a bunch of features so that
Speaker 1: they could become these little microscopic parasites on salmon. They
Speaker 1: now use those stinging cells that look like alien eyes,
Speaker 1: not to sting, but to actually latch onto the salmon tissue.
Speaker 1: And another cool thing is they glow green under fluorescent lights.
Speaker 1: So they are I think the most alien looking and
Speaker 1: most alien acting, creepy little parasitic animal that I know of.
Speaker 1: They look like cartoonish aliens and they don't breathe, which
Speaker 1: is completely bizarre. So we're going to take a quick
Speaker 1: break and I will be right back to answer more
Speaker 1: of your listener questions. All right, and I am back,
Speaker 1: and I'm really excited about this question. This is from
Speaker 1: Jamie wrote Farthing on Twitter, who asks how domesticated. Our cats,
Speaker 1: aren't they technically counted as a domesticated species. All I
Speaker 1: know is that they will cuddle in my lap and
Speaker 1: then bite my face when they're hungry. Oh, cats, the
Speaker 1: cuddly little demons who sometimes allow us to be in
Speaker 1: their presence and feed them. So they are indeed domestic hated.
Speaker 1: They are a separate species of animal from their wild
Speaker 1: counterparts that have been tamed and adapted to live as
Speaker 1: pets to humans. But you are absolutely correct, Jamie, and
Speaker 1: noting that they are still really wild. So unlike dogs,
Speaker 1: cats are not too dissimilar genetically from their wild counterparts.
Speaker 1: It actually turns out that their natural wild behaviors, like
Speaker 1: chasing mice suited humans really well. Like when we started
Speaker 1: to have a grarian societies where we would store grain,
Speaker 1: and we started to get mice and rats all in
Speaker 1: our business eating up our food, and cats came in
Speaker 1: as like, we will take care of these mice and rats,
Speaker 1: and hey, if you could give us a dish of
Speaker 1: milk every so often, we'd be cool with that. And
Speaker 1: so we formed a partnership with cat, cat and human
Speaker 1: joining hand and paw to dominate the world. So they
Speaker 1: did adapt through selective breeding to be less scared and
Speaker 1: more tolerant of human you know, interacting with them, petting
Speaker 1: them without getting our faces scratched off. For the most part,
Speaker 1: dogs meanwhile, have made an incredible transformation from a wolf
Speaker 1: like ancestor who if you met, would definitely try to
Speaker 1: rip your face off into the sweet, lovable goofs that
Speaker 1: we know today. They were far more transformed to fit
Speaker 1: our human society than cats had to go through. Also,
Speaker 1: one thing to note is that cats don't have in
Speaker 1: general the floppy ears like I think. There's the Scottish
Speaker 1: fold is a breed of cat that has the fold
Speaker 1: down ears, but they're quite rare. Most domesticated animals, on
Speaker 1: the other hand, from dogs too, bunnies to pigs, have
Speaker 1: those floppy ears because they've seen a loss of the
Speaker 1: firmness of their ear cartilage through domestication. This is due
Speaker 1: to the way that animals develop as embryos. So neural
Speaker 1: crest cells are a group of cells in early embryonic
Speaker 1: development that go on to differentiate into many different types
Speaker 1: of cells, including cartilage melano sites which control for coloration.
Speaker 1: There's smooth muscle, and also certain types of neurons including
Speaker 1: those that comprise the adrenal medulla. To kind of grossly
Speaker 1: generalize about the adrenal medulla, proportionally, larger adrenal medulla means
Speaker 1: in general, a more aggressive or easily frightened animal, whereas
Speaker 1: a smaller adrenal medulla a more chill animal. That's a
Speaker 1: that's a big generalization, but you know, otherwise I'd have
Speaker 1: to go into a lot more detail about the adrenal medulla,
Speaker 1: and who has time for that. So fewer neural crust
Speaker 1: cells in embryonic development means a less developed adrenal medulla,
Speaker 1: which also just happens to mean also less cartilage, because,
Speaker 1: as I mentioned earlier, those neural crust cells both develop
Speaker 1: into cartilag millenna sites and also these adrenal mendula cells.
Speaker 1: So it just so happens that because these cells differentiate
Speaker 1: from the same cluster of cells, when you reduce that
Speaker 1: cluster of original cells, it means both less cartilage and
Speaker 1: smaller adrenal mendula. And it also means that the millenna sites,
Speaker 1: the cells that control for coat coloration, are you know,
Speaker 1: more blotchy and patchy. That's why domesticated dogs have these
Speaker 1: little spots or patches on their fur, whereas wild wolves
Speaker 1: do not. It also means that with less cartilage, the
Speaker 1: ears flop over because there's less strong cartilage. And you
Speaker 1: will notice that with cats, even though their ears aren't floppy,
Speaker 1: their coats tend to be more more modeled and patchy
Speaker 1: compared to their wild counterparts, which either can be they
Speaker 1: can have spots, they can have stripes, but it's usually
Speaker 1: pretty even even coding, whereas like you get calico cats
Speaker 1: and stuff, where you have these like spotches of coloration.
Speaker 1: So that's that's pretty interesting to me. So the reason
Speaker 1: that cats did not go through as great of a
Speaker 1: change from their wild counterparts to domesticated pets is just
Speaker 1: simply that they didn't really need to. Their behaviors didn't
Speaker 1: require such a great change as like wolves did. I mean,
Speaker 1: interacting with a small, wild feral cat is a lot
Speaker 1: less dangerous than interacting with a wild wolf, to kind
Speaker 1: of put it in a simple way. But yeah, so
Speaker 1: cats did not really take that much coaxing to become
Speaker 1: a house cat. They that life for them was pretty good,
Speaker 1: whereas wolves we had to go through a lot of
Speaker 1: iterations to get to Chihuahua's Yeah, really, great question. Another
Speaker 1: question from Twitter user eager Polcastra is to what extent
Speaker 1: are domesticated animals responsible for the decrease of wildlife in
Speaker 1: urban areas? So this is a really good question. Yes,
Speaker 1: the mess ssticated animals can do a lot of harm
Speaker 1: to indigenous species of animals and plants, especially in urban areas.
Speaker 1: So cats are notorious bird killers. They actually kill one
Speaker 1: to four billion birds globally every year. So if you
Speaker 1: can keep your cat an indoor cat, that is going
Speaker 1: to be much better for the environment. And you know,
Speaker 1: definitely spaying newter your cat because they are wow doing
Speaker 1: a doozy on the bird population. In fact, naughty kitties
Speaker 1: have been the cause of thirty three extinctions worldwide, not
Speaker 1: just of birds, but other animals such as rodents. Uh
Speaker 1: like the key Largo wood rat in the Florida Keys.
Speaker 1: So yeah, bad kitty, very bad. The dodo actually may
Speaker 1: have gone extinct due to the cats, dogs, pigs, and
Speaker 1: rats that came to the island Mauritius along with Dutch sailors.
Speaker 1: So rats not exactly the domesticated by humans, but they
Speaker 1: have definitely become adapters to in fact exploiters of human
Speaker 1: society to thrive. But yeah, when those Dutch sailors came over,
Speaker 1: they had ships that had cats and dogs and pigs,
Speaker 1: and those either out competed the dodos or killed their chicks,
Speaker 1: or killed the dodos themselves. I mean the Dutch also
Speaker 1: killed some of the dodos. But yeah, it was a
Speaker 1: combination of hunting the dodo but also these invasive species
Speaker 1: of domesticated animals that really really spelled the end for
Speaker 1: those lovable goofball birds. Livestock can also cause the endangerment
Speaker 1: and possible extinction of species by grazing indigenous plants. And
Speaker 1: if there is overgrazing of indigenous plants, those plants can
Speaker 1: go extinct and endangered the wildlife that rely upon those plants.
Speaker 1: So you know, like I always say, the ecosystem is
Speaker 1: like a Jenga tower, and you just don't know what's
Speaker 1: gonna happen when you take out one of those bricks.
Speaker 1: I'm not good at Jengas, so you know, it's especially
Speaker 1: bad in my case if I go around eating a
Speaker 1: bunch of birds. Does that make sense anyways? Next question,
Speaker 1: another question about pets. Uh. This is from Jess who
Speaker 1: reached out to me at Creature Future Product gmail dot com.
Speaker 1: Uh So, she writes, Hi, Katie, I'm a huge fan
Speaker 1: in coming to you with a hard hitting guinea pig question.
Speaker 1: As long as I can remember, they've been a staple
Speaker 1: in elementary school classrooms and pet stores. How and when
Speaker 1: did a rodent from Peru become such a common pet.
Speaker 1: They have no discernible use, though I have attached some
Speaker 1: empirical evidence of their undeniable appeal. Thanks so much. Your
Speaker 1: podcast makes my compute to work so much better, Jess.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, Jess, and thank you for the
Speaker 1: cute guinea pig pictures. I will always take cute pet
Speaker 1: pictures any day, anytime, send them to me. So, Jess,
Speaker 1: I do have some terrible news for you about your
Speaker 1: guinea pig pals. So, guinea pigs came from the andies
Speaker 1: of South America, and they are the domesticated relatives of
Speaker 1: wild cavvies. So they were domesticated not as pets, but
Speaker 1: as livestock to be eaten. So we mainly associate them
Speaker 1: as pets in the US, but in South America they
Speaker 1: are also food, much like rabbit. So in the city
Speaker 1: of Whuacho, Peru, there is a guinea pig festival where
Speaker 1: guinea pigs are dressed up in cute outfits and many
Speaker 1: dishes featuring guinea pig meat are served. And if you
Speaker 1: find that unsettling, you should check out any state fair
Speaker 1: in the US that will have like a petting zoo
Speaker 1: right next to a barbecue, or a cow and sheep
Speaker 1: costume contest. Uh. It's really all a matter of which
Speaker 1: animals we grew up thinking of as pets and which
Speaker 1: we grew up thinking of as food, which is not
Speaker 1: universal and not really based necessarily on on anything scientific.
Speaker 1: You know, a guinea pig, I would say, is a
Speaker 1: lot less intelligent than a pig, like, you know, a
Speaker 1: hog pig that we eat in in all over the world.
Speaker 1: But you know, people may be more horrified by a
Speaker 1: little guinea pig being eaten than by bacon. It's all.
Speaker 1: It's it's really interesting. It's like all this cultural perspective.
Speaker 1: Although I remember when I went to the fair. It
Speaker 1: was the Delmar Fair in San Diego where I grew up,
Speaker 1: and I loved all the animals, and I found out
Speaker 1: that these animals got sold uh for me, and I
Speaker 1: was horrified. And that was a sad day in my
Speaker 1: life to find that out, because I was like thinking like, oh,
Speaker 1: I want to be in fourage and raise one of
Speaker 1: these sheep, but then you have to give it away
Speaker 1: to get eaten. And it's not like something that I
Speaker 1: think is morally wrong. In fact, I think it's really
Speaker 1: good for people to learn, like, hey, where the meat
Speaker 1: comes from. Like, if you're gonna you're gonna eat meat,
Speaker 1: it's better that you take care of the animal well
Speaker 1: and understand like what goes into raising an animal properly.
Speaker 1: But yeah, it is. It is kind of h It
Speaker 1: was one of those shocking moments of like, oh yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: it is. It is animals, it is sheep's in cute piggies.
Speaker 1: Oh so yeah, very very interesting. Um, we're gonna take
Speaker 1: another quick break and then we will be back with
Speaker 1: just a few more of your listener questions. So hank tight,
Speaker 1: we are back and uh here is a question from
Speaker 1: Floyd Pollard who on Twitter who asks which bear is best?
Speaker 1: So I gotta say sun Bear, no contest, longest tongue,
Speaker 1: best bear tongue is almost a foot long. That bears
Speaker 1: the winner. Next question, John John on Twitter asks why
Speaker 1: are snails so slow. Shouldn't making the ground slippery underneath
Speaker 1: them make them, you know, faster, So this is a
Speaker 1: really interesting question. There's actually a recent snail study at
Speaker 1: Stanford that seems to indicate that the snail slime their mucus.
Speaker 1: It does help with snail locomotion, but it's not essential
Speaker 1: or even the most important part of snail locomotion unless
Speaker 1: the snail is traveling vertically, in which case the sticky
Speaker 1: slime is very important because it allows the snail to
Speaker 1: adhere to the surface. So snails move through a series
Speaker 1: of muscle contractions on their foot, so that's that flat
Speaker 1: base part of the snail. The mucus trail does help
Speaker 1: with their movement because as you put pressure, while it's
Speaker 1: very sticky, it seems like, well, how it's sticky, Like,
Speaker 1: how can they move across it easily? It seems like
Speaker 1: it would just like glue them down. But actually when
Speaker 1: they put pressure on the mucus, it stops being sticky
Speaker 1: and actually goes from being sticky to becoming a slick fluid.
Speaker 1: So that's a really important interesting physical property of the
Speaker 1: snail slime. Like if you've ever um experimented with like
Speaker 1: these sort of different different fluids, Like there's the um
Speaker 1: what's it called, Like you bleck the the when you
Speaker 1: mix corn starch and water, and it's like this um
Speaker 1: non Newtonian fluid. And you can see, like difference in
Speaker 1: pressure actually causes some fluids to change differently. So like
Speaker 1: when you mix when you mix corn starch with water
Speaker 1: and then you like slap it with your hand, like
Speaker 1: you have a high velocity pressure on the fluid, then
Speaker 1: it actually becomes firm more like a solid, whereas like
Speaker 1: if you slowly put your hand in, it behaves like
Speaker 1: a liquid. So I'm not sure that the same like
Speaker 1: it's not going to be the same exact reasons why
Speaker 1: snail slime changes property when you put pressure on it.
Speaker 1: It's just an example of like how a liquid um
Speaker 1: can change its physical property depending on the pressure that
Speaker 1: you put on it. So the snail there's not that
Speaker 1: much pressure on it, it's sticky. It can help the
Speaker 1: snail cling to surfaces or crawl up surfaces. And if
Speaker 1: the snail puts pressure on it, it becomes slick so
Speaker 1: it can slide across it. But yeah, this this Stanford
Speaker 1: study found that even in the absence of mucus, the
Speaker 1: snails can still move, so it really is those muscle
Speaker 1: contractions that is doing the mean force of movement for them,
Speaker 1: although the mucus does help them go along. In terms
Speaker 1: of why they're so slow, basically forming a wave movement
Speaker 1: with this very small squishy muscles along the foot of
Speaker 1: the snail isn't going to get them going very fast,
Speaker 1: no matter how well lubricated they are. So that's the
Speaker 1: mechanics of why they're slow. They just they simply don't
Speaker 1: have like the muscle uh to get them going that fast,
Speaker 1: and they don't have the surface area on their foot
Speaker 1: to get them going that fast. Um. The reason they
Speaker 1: have not evolved to be faster is that they don't
Speaker 1: really need to. Their shells offer them the protection that
Speaker 1: running away otherwise would, so instead of running, they have
Speaker 1: developed the strategy of hiding in their shells and so
Speaker 1: they don't actually have to be fast to escape predators,
Speaker 1: and they also don't have to be fast to eat.
Speaker 1: There they're chosen food, which is vegetation and leaves. But
Speaker 1: there is actually a faster snail. So the fastest land
Speaker 1: crawling snail in the world is the marine plow snail,
Speaker 1: which can crawl at a breakneck speed of two point
Speaker 1: five centimeters a second doesn't sound super impressive, but when
Speaker 1: you look at videos of these snails booking it, it
Speaker 1: is kind of surprising because you are not used to
Speaker 1: snails moving that fast. The reason they can go so
Speaker 1: fast that it has an unusually wide flat foot. So
Speaker 1: and the foot of the snail is just like that flat,
Speaker 1: you know, its main body like where you see that
Speaker 1: that flat thing that is what makes the slime and
Speaker 1: what what moves along um. But for these the plow snail,
Speaker 1: it's really wide. It almost looks like wings, and it
Speaker 1: can use this to like physically push itself and undulate
Speaker 1: kind of like it's doing, you know, the worm dance
Speaker 1: move to get along, and it this will because it
Speaker 1: has this greater surface area where it can use its
Speaker 1: muscles to like basically shove itself and flop along. It
Speaker 1: actually gets to go a lot faster than um are
Speaker 1: sort of common garden snail. So, uh, it needs to
Speaker 1: go faster than a common garden snail because it's preferred
Speaker 1: food is dead fish, jellyfish and other rotting things that
Speaker 1: have washed ashore, and these are very popular things for scavengers.
Speaker 1: So for it to get a crack at a carcass,
Speaker 1: it's kind of move pretty fast before it gets out
Speaker 1: repeated by other snails or other scavengers. Also fun is
Speaker 1: that they can use this large flat foot to surf
Speaker 1: the waves, so like when they want to come ashore,
Speaker 1: instead of having to swim or crawl all the way there,
Speaker 1: they just fan out their foot and like surf on
Speaker 1: to shore. So that's that's when a snail can really
Speaker 1: get moving, is when they're surfers. So this next question
Speaker 1: is from doc Garby on Twitter who asks tarantulas with frogs,
Speaker 1: owls with snakes, crabs with anemones, captive cheetahs with dogs.
Speaker 1: Is there any evidence of emotional attachment in these mutually
Speaker 1: beneficial pairings or could the respective creatures be swapped out
Speaker 1: for replacements of the same species without notice? So this
Speaker 1: is a very complex question first of all, So what
Speaker 1: doc Garby is talking about is some mutualistic symbiotic relationships here.
Speaker 1: So with tarantula's and frog it is the micro highland
Speaker 1: frogs who team up with tarantulas, and the tarantulas do
Speaker 1: not eat these little tiny frogs, so the frogs benefit
Speaker 1: from the tarantulas because, first of all, they have protection
Speaker 1: with this big tarantula bodyguard, and they also get to
Speaker 1: eat bugs that are attracted to the remains of a
Speaker 1: tarantula's kills. And the tarantula benefits from these little tiny
Speaker 1: frogs because the frogs love to eat ants, and ants
Speaker 1: love to eat tarantula eggs, so the frog protects the
Speaker 1: tarantula eggs from the ants. And ants are harder for
Speaker 1: the tarantulas to eat because they're so small and fast
Speaker 1: and nimble, and it's much easier for the frog who
Speaker 1: has this like really rapid fire tongue and mouth, to
Speaker 1: be able to eat the little ants. So the other
Speaker 1: pairing that Doc Garby mentioned is owls with snakes. So
Speaker 1: Eastern screech owls and Texas blind snakes form a sort
Speaker 1: of partnership. So the Eastern screech owl will pick up
Speaker 1: one of these little Texas blind snakes, and these snakes
Speaker 1: are the little idy beauty things. They kind of look
Speaker 1: like oversized worms, and they plot them in their nest.
Speaker 1: But for the most part, instead of the chicks eating
Speaker 1: the blind snake, they the snakes will burrow down into
Speaker 1: the nest and actually pick off bugs, keeping pests away
Speaker 1: from the owl's nest. And the other pairing that was
Speaker 1: mentioned was crabs with anemonies, which uh so palm palm crabs,
Speaker 1: which are these little tiny crabs very cute, will actually
Speaker 1: place little parts of anemonies on their claws and attach
Speaker 1: them there, and they use these as like uh these
Speaker 1: these venomous boxing gloves that can sting in any predator
Speaker 1: who tries to get too close. So this obviously benefits
Speaker 1: the crabs because it gives them cool boxing gloves, and
Speaker 1: the this actually helps ennimonies reproduce. So by basically splitting
Speaker 1: up these niminy parts and transferring them around two different
Speaker 1: parts of the ocean, that allows them to disperse and
Speaker 1: reproduce by actually like like breaking off from the main
Speaker 1: animity and they can actually uh reproduce that way, which
Speaker 1: is really fascinating. And the captive cheetahs with dogs thing
Speaker 1: is that in zoos where they have a cheetah, they
Speaker 1: will often pair it with a dog and raise them
Speaker 1: together with a puppy because cheetahs get really nervous all
Speaker 1: on their own and a they found that like, uh,
Speaker 1: dogs get along really well with cheetahs and vice versa,
Speaker 1: and it helps a cheetah feel really emotionally secure, and
Speaker 1: they also don't like have conflicts with the dogs as well,
Speaker 1: So it helps cheetahs who would otherwise be really anxious
Speaker 1: in captivity, to be a little a little more relaxed
Speaker 1: and feel protected by their buddy the dog. In terms
Speaker 1: of the meat of the question, which is is there
Speaker 1: evidence of emotional attachment or could you swap out like
Speaker 1: any of these individuals. So I think, first of all,
Speaker 1: it kind of depends on the animal. I think that
Speaker 1: you know with when you have the more simple relationships
Speaker 1: like tranchlas with frogs, ass with snakes, frogs with anemonies, yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't. I don't think they're particularly attached
Speaker 1: to any individuals, So I think you could swap them out.
Speaker 1: And now I'm not as certain about that answer with
Speaker 1: the tarantulas and frogs that have to look more into it.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure whether there's been research on that, whether
Speaker 1: they prefer any kind of like specific tarantula or any
Speaker 1: The tranchilas stick to one specific frog. I do know
Speaker 1: that they do, uh prefer once they've learned sort of
Speaker 1: like their smell and taste I guess of their skin,
Speaker 1: like they do know that that frog is there their
Speaker 1: little buddy. And if you these researchers skinned some of
Speaker 1: these frogs and put there like the okay, so this
Speaker 1: is messed up. But in the these micro highland frogs
Speaker 1: who are friends with tarantulas, there was there a research
Speaker 1: study where researchers would take one of the frogs which
Speaker 1: were the little buddies of the tarantula, and they would
Speaker 1: skin them and put that skin on another frog species
Speaker 1: that was not the buddy of the tarantulas. So the
Speaker 1: tarantula would not eat the frogs that normally they probably
Speaker 1: would eat once they had the skins of these micro
Speaker 1: highland frogs. So the tarantulas definitely have a preference for
Speaker 1: that species. But in terms of whether they have a
Speaker 1: preference for individual frogs, I'm not sure is known. At
Speaker 1: least I don't know it, but I would guess probably not. However,
Speaker 1: when you start to get more complex animals like cheetahs
Speaker 1: and dogs, they definitely have an attachment to individual dogs,
Speaker 1: individual cheetah like that you know, I mean, like if
Speaker 1: you have a dog, you know that that dog may
Speaker 1: form specific attachments with certain people or even certain other animals.
Speaker 1: And this also happens in nature, coyotes and badgers will
Speaker 1: sometimes pair up and hunt together, and it seems like
Speaker 1: it is an individual seeking out a specific individual, like
Speaker 1: a coyote knows that a specific badger is down to
Speaker 1: hunt together, and so they go and team up. Now,
Speaker 1: in terms of whether there's an emotional connection behind this
Speaker 1: preference or whether it's just a practical thing of like, hey,
Speaker 1: I know this individual, we've gone hunting together before. I
Speaker 1: know they're cool. I know that they are not gonna,
Speaker 1: you know, bite me or be unfair. It's hard to
Speaker 1: know like where the practicality starts and where the emotions start,
Speaker 1: and and if anything, I would guess that they'd be
Speaker 1: highly associated. Because for behaviors, you have to get some
Speaker 1: kind of reward or doing a behavior, and that can
Speaker 1: be like a physical reward feeling full, or a mental
Speaker 1: reward of feeling happy, or a positive emotion. So in
Speaker 1: terms of survival, if animals get a positive emotion out
Speaker 1: of a beneficial relationship, that will probably help them continue
Speaker 1: to seek out that relationship. So I would say that
Speaker 1: for more complex animals like coyotes and badgers or cheetahs
Speaker 1: and dogs, that yeah, I would guess they do have
Speaker 1: an emotion behind it, an emotional attachment to the individual
Speaker 1: that they like to hang out with and brings them
Speaker 1: some benefit. Um. But it's like, you know, we have
Speaker 1: emotions all the time that we may not think of
Speaker 1: as being like practical, but really do have a practical purpose,
Speaker 1: Like the reason humans like friends and family like it
Speaker 1: really is very helpful, in fact essential for our survival.
Speaker 1: Humans aren't the most strong, most you know, well adapted
Speaker 1: animals to survive on our own. We really depend on society.
Speaker 1: Our whole human history is being depending on other people
Speaker 1: to help us, and we help them in our emotional
Speaker 1: attachment to other people, I help think really aided in
Speaker 1: our survival. So I think that there is this connection
Speaker 1: there right where evolutionary behaviors are also emotional behaviors, and
Speaker 1: it's kind of hard to separate out the two in
Speaker 1: terms of when, like which animals feel that emotion right
Speaker 1: Like it's actually it seems kind of hard for me
Speaker 1: to be able to point a finger. It's like, all right,
Speaker 1: here's where the animal is complex enough to actually feel
Speaker 1: complex emotions. So, like, do you see enemies form an
Speaker 1: emotional attachment to the crabs who wear them as boxing gloves? Like, no,
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't think so. Other than literally being attached.
Speaker 1: Anemonies do not have a brain. They have a nervous system,
Speaker 1: but they have no centralized nervous system, so I don't
Speaker 1: think they have of really much capacity for thought at all. Uh,
Speaker 1: just very basic stimulus response stuff. Uh. But then it's like, well,
Speaker 1: so does a cheetah feel something for the dog that
Speaker 1: it was raised with? Yeah? I think so. But then
Speaker 1: where you know, kind of in this spectrum of animal
Speaker 1: brain complexity, do the emotions start to set in? I
Speaker 1: don't know. I mean, it's really it's hard to say.
Speaker 1: I mean, you have like a rat, which I think
Speaker 1: is shows some very complex emotional intelligence. I think rats
Speaker 1: may feel emotional bonds with each other and with humans. Uh,
Speaker 1: like anyone who is a pet owner who has a
Speaker 1: rat may attest to, but a mouse, I don't know,
Speaker 1: Like it's harder to it's kind of harder to see.
Speaker 1: Like mice seemed to have some problem solving ability. They
Speaker 1: seem to have a preference for their siblings. But then
Speaker 1: when it it's like, well, it's their preference for their
Speaker 1: siblings just the evolutionary advantage of sticking with your siblings
Speaker 1: and trying to make sure like your genes pass on
Speaker 1: and maybe their genes pass on, and knowing that they're
Speaker 1: probably not going to attack you. It's I don't know,
Speaker 1: it's really hard. It's hard to say. It's hard to
Speaker 1: tell how much capacity for emotion that might feel. And
Speaker 1: if anything, I think it's probably like a sliding scale
Speaker 1: of emotional awareness, like I would say, like maybe a
Speaker 1: mouse has some limited capacity for emotions. Maybe your rat
Speaker 1: has more capacity for emotions, and you get the more
Speaker 1: more and more complex, more and more social animals, and
Speaker 1: then maybe they get more like deeper emotions like humans
Speaker 1: and apes and and dolphins, cetaceans, elephants. I think I'll
Speaker 1: have great capacity for deep emotions, so that that's as
Speaker 1: close to an answer that I can probably give. So yeah,
Speaker 1: really interesting question. Uh, And I think that'll do it
Speaker 1: for us to a with with your wonderful listener questions.
Speaker 1: Really enjoy all of them. Thank you so much for
Speaker 1: sending them in Again. If you would like to send
Speaker 1: me some of your questions, all you gotta do is
Speaker 1: email me at Creature feature Pod at gmail dot com,
Speaker 1: or you can find me on Twitter Creature feet Pod.
Speaker 1: That's f e A T not f E T. That's
Speaker 1: something very different. And that's that's the Creature Feet Pod
Speaker 1: on Twitter. I'm also Katie Golden on Twitter k A
Speaker 1: T I E G O L D I N. And yeah,
Speaker 1: that's my that's my people account, So I tweet about
Speaker 1: all sorts of things, all my Katie thoughts, not always
Speaker 1: animal related, but yeah, if you if you have animal questions,
Speaker 1: you can send those there as well. And of course
Speaker 1: on Instagram at Creature feature Pod on Instagram. Then those
Speaker 1: in there also. You got you got pet pictures, send
Speaker 1: them to me. I love them. You got crab memes?
Speaker 1: Do it? Send it to me. You found a weird
Speaker 1: thing in your yard, I don't know, send it to me.
Speaker 1: I'll look at it. Will I be able to identify it? Maybe?
Speaker 1: Who knows? But go ahead and send those things, and
Speaker 1: I love reading them, and maybe I will answer some
Speaker 1: more questions on a future Q and A podcast. Yeah,
Speaker 1: let let me know. You know, if you guys like
Speaker 1: these Q and A things, maybe I'll keep doing them.
Speaker 1: If you kind of like maybe like them a little
Speaker 1: bit but want them to be like spread out between
Speaker 1: episodes and like, yeah, just just let me know. Uh,
Speaker 1: And if you're enjoying the show, please leave a rating
Speaker 1: and review. That really not only helps me out with
Speaker 1: the old with the old Apple podcast algorithm, but it
Speaker 1: also really makes me feel good to read. I I
Speaker 1: really enjoy reading all of your feedback and comments. Really
Speaker 1: warms my little little bird heart. Thank you so much
Speaker 1: for listening. I hope you're all having as good of
Speaker 1: a holiday season as is possible. Please stay safe out there.
Speaker 1: I love you all, uh and really care about you all,
Speaker 1: so you know I'm I'm here with you, you know,
Speaker 1: send me send me pictures of of your pets and
Speaker 1: like festive hat if you want, that'd be great. Thanks
Speaker 1: so much to the Space Classics for their super awesome
Speaker 1: song excell Alumina. Creature features a production of I Heart
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Speaker 1: See you next Wednesday