WEBVTT - From the Vault: The Beast Wore an Apron, Part 2 0:00:05.880 --> 0:00:07.800 Hey, you welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My 0:00:07.880 --> 0:00:11.080 name is Robert Lamb. Joe is out sick today, and 0:00:11.240 --> 0:00:13.800 normally we would have a new core episode of Stuff 0:00:13.800 --> 0:00:16.520 to Blow Your Mind for you, but we're going to 0:00:16.560 --> 0:00:19.639 go ahead and bust out the next Vault episode a 0:00:19.680 --> 0:00:21.600 little early to just to give us a little more 0:00:21.640 --> 0:00:23.400 breathing room here. So this is going to be the 0:00:23.440 --> 0:00:26.920 Beast War and Apron Part two. Originally published on March 0:00:27.000 --> 0:00:34.200 twenty fourth, twenty twenty two. We hope you enjoy Welcome 0:00:34.240 --> 0:00:43.920 to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of iHeartRadio. Hey, 0:00:44.040 --> 0:00:46.040 welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name is 0:00:46.120 --> 0:00:48.680 Robert Lamb, and I'm Joe McCormick, and we're back with 0:00:48.760 --> 0:00:52.200 part two of our series on animals cooking non human 0:00:52.240 --> 0:00:55.240 animals and cooking in the sense of doing things to 0:00:55.320 --> 0:00:58.280 food before they eat it other than applying heat. Because 0:00:58.320 --> 0:01:01.480 in the last episode we talked about how humans are 0:01:01.520 --> 0:01:04.839 the only animals that regularly apply heat to their food 0:01:04.840 --> 0:01:07.280 on purpose to cook it, but animals do all kinds 0:01:07.319 --> 0:01:09.920 of other interesting things to their food before eating it. 0:01:09.959 --> 0:01:13.640 For example, we talked about birds that that sort of 0:01:13.760 --> 0:01:17.800 butcher and smash up and process their their their animal 0:01:17.880 --> 0:01:20.440 parts before they consume them in various ways, like the 0:01:20.800 --> 0:01:24.759 shrike making shish kebabs out of crickets and other critters. 0:01:24.760 --> 0:01:27.679 And uh, was it the lambur guyer that would would 0:01:27.680 --> 0:01:31.640 smash the bones or the turtles? Yeah? And you know, 0:01:31.720 --> 0:01:34.720 I realized after a record of that episode that there's 0:01:34.760 --> 0:01:39.400 another animal that cooks that is a part of my 0:01:39.440 --> 0:01:42.600 weekly life that I forgot to mention. It's that little 0:01:42.640 --> 0:01:47.160 puff on Instagram account in which a cat is made 0:01:47.200 --> 0:01:51.240 to appear to cook various items to try to replicate 0:01:51.520 --> 0:01:56.040 various sort of like TikTok cooking trends and crafting trends 0:01:56.600 --> 0:02:02.480 um sometimes to great success, sometimes it results in disappointing failure. 0:02:02.720 --> 0:02:06.120 Oh if if you're familiar with TikTok cooking trends, there's 0:02:06.160 --> 0:02:09.320 one that I've seen by image alone. Do you can 0:02:09.360 --> 0:02:11.400 you explain the thing to me where somebody takes a 0:02:11.400 --> 0:02:14.160 big old wad of hamburger meat and they wrap it 0:02:14.240 --> 0:02:17.160 around dry pasta. What is that? Do you know what 0:02:17.200 --> 0:02:20.800 I'm talking about? Well, I am only familiar with TikTok 0:02:22.240 --> 0:02:26.320 cooking trends that have been featured on that little puff, 0:02:26.440 --> 0:02:29.320 so I don't think I've seen the cat doing this 0:02:29.480 --> 0:02:33.480 to hamburger made yet So I'm not the one to 0:02:33.520 --> 0:02:35.520 answer that question. Well, I mean it sounds like a 0:02:35.560 --> 0:02:38.519 cat's idea. Well, to be clear, this cat is not 0:02:38.639 --> 0:02:42.000 actually has not been trained to do anything. It's it's 0:02:42.040 --> 0:02:44.960 just the appearance of a cat cooking that they have 0:02:45.520 --> 0:02:49.840 created here trick photography. Yeah, cats lousy cooks. They're not, 0:02:49.840 --> 0:02:52.239 they're not interested in cooking. But to tie it into 0:02:52.240 --> 0:02:54.680 our first segment here, you know, one thing that is 0:02:54.720 --> 0:02:57.480 great about cats is cats are very clean. You know, 0:02:57.520 --> 0:03:00.280 they enjoy it. They groom themselves, they clean themselves. They 0:03:00.320 --> 0:03:03.000 lick all over to get the dirt out of the fur. Actually, 0:03:03.040 --> 0:03:05.200 I don't know if that's why they lick. They lick themselves. 0:03:05.240 --> 0:03:07.480 It appears to be for some kind of hygienic purpose. 0:03:08.400 --> 0:03:10.560 I have no idea what it's actually for, but that 0:03:10.720 --> 0:03:13.639 mirrors some of the behaviors were about to talk about 0:03:13.680 --> 0:03:17.280 in the category of animals washing their food before they 0:03:17.320 --> 0:03:20.560 eat it. And Robert, I don't know about your house, 0:03:20.600 --> 0:03:25.359 but I tend to be pretty fastidious about washing fresh produce. 0:03:25.520 --> 0:03:27.320 Do you do the same, Well, you know, I don't 0:03:27.360 --> 0:03:31.160 want any grit in whatever I'm cooking, And certainly, depending 0:03:31.200 --> 0:03:33.280 on the produce in question, you might get some grit 0:03:33.320 --> 0:03:35.440 if you don't wash it off. Well, if I'm make 0:03:35.480 --> 0:03:36.960 an ants on a log, I want to make sure 0:03:37.000 --> 0:03:40.480 that I have a scrub my celery sticks off before 0:03:40.760 --> 0:03:43.480 and then dry them, you know, before I actually start 0:03:43.520 --> 0:03:47.520 applying the peanut butter, and said ants. Well, it turns 0:03:47.520 --> 0:03:51.720 out this is one of the food preprocessing behaviors that 0:03:51.920 --> 0:03:55.440 is not unique to humans. All kinds of animals exhibit 0:03:55.800 --> 0:03:59.600 various washing behaviors. And I'm want to say washing with 0:03:59.680 --> 0:04:02.840 scare quotes because in some cases this may actually be 0:04:02.880 --> 0:04:06.400 related to cleaning dirt or other materials off of the food, 0:04:06.600 --> 0:04:09.600 and in other cases it may have a completely different purpose. 0:04:09.640 --> 0:04:11.520 But in any case, it is taking a piece of 0:04:11.560 --> 0:04:14.720 food and washing it, or doing something that looks like 0:04:14.800 --> 0:04:18.880 washing with the help of water, that's right. I was 0:04:18.920 --> 0:04:23.080 reading about some of this in a paper titled food 0:04:23.120 --> 0:04:28.200 dunking Behavior by an Eurasian Jay by Dearborn and Gager, 0:04:28.600 --> 0:04:31.920 published in the Ornithological Society of the Middle East. They 0:04:31.920 --> 0:04:34.359 point out that crows and ravens have been observed to 0:04:34.680 --> 0:04:37.680 quote unquote wash their food and fountains before eating it, 0:04:39.040 --> 0:04:41.280 and they talk a little bit about how generally we 0:04:41.320 --> 0:04:46.480 see examples of this washing behavior in primates and birds 0:04:47.360 --> 0:04:52.560 washing or dunking, and in both birds and primates, the 0:04:52.600 --> 0:04:56.440 two main theories seem to be that it's about washing 0:04:56.520 --> 0:04:58.960 or removing a thin coating from the exterior the food, 0:04:59.000 --> 0:05:02.799 which generally that what we're doing, or it's about making 0:05:02.800 --> 0:05:07.400 the food easier to eat, which is not something we're 0:05:07.520 --> 0:05:10.599 usually doing if we're just washing our produce in the sink, 0:05:11.000 --> 0:05:14.159 but it is what we're doing if we're say, dipping 0:05:14.200 --> 0:05:18.559 a particularly tough biscuit into a cup of tea or something. Yeah, 0:05:18.560 --> 0:05:21.480 this the old hardtack tradition, you know, armies of old 0:05:21.600 --> 0:05:24.520 marching around or sailing around with hard tack biscuits a 0:05:24.520 --> 0:05:26.960 lot of times. Like, you can't even eat these things straight. 0:05:27.000 --> 0:05:29.039 You can't just bite into them. You got to like 0:05:29.240 --> 0:05:31.400 dip them into your gravy or some other kind of 0:05:31.440 --> 0:05:34.920 liquid and then soften them up before you can consume. Yeah. 0:05:35.040 --> 0:05:37.080 So some of the examples that they mentioned in this 0:05:37.120 --> 0:05:41.920 paper from other creatures are carrion crows eating dry bread. 0:05:42.040 --> 0:05:43.840 This would be a situation where dry bread has been 0:05:43.839 --> 0:05:47.839 provided for them and they dip it before they eat it. 0:05:48.560 --> 0:05:53.080 Kill deer have been observed washing muddy frogs off before 0:05:53.080 --> 0:05:55.040 they eat them. The cacs have been observed doing the 0:05:55.080 --> 0:05:59.880 same thing with sandy crabs. Captive monkeys have been a 0:06:00.000 --> 0:06:02.880 deserve doing this with dry monkey chow. And then the 0:06:02.920 --> 0:06:06.040 Eurasian jay example studied in the paper I cited. It 0:06:06.080 --> 0:06:08.880 involves the bird in question dunking an egg in water 0:06:09.000 --> 0:06:13.240 and then eating it, though the researchers ultimately remained they 0:06:13.240 --> 0:06:16.359 remained unclear about what that was all about. Yeah, and 0:06:16.400 --> 0:06:18.719 in a lot of cases, it seems like these washing, dunking, 0:06:18.800 --> 0:06:22.600 or dousing behaviors are still they're still unknown, and we 0:06:22.640 --> 0:06:24.560 still don't know exactly what the cause is that we 0:06:24.600 --> 0:06:28.520 have better ideas in some cases than in others. But 0:06:29.040 --> 0:06:31.560 one thing I was thinking about is that, you know, 0:06:31.600 --> 0:06:34.120 it may depend on your anatomy how important it is 0:06:34.160 --> 0:06:36.960 to douse something in external water before you eat it, 0:06:37.000 --> 0:06:40.120 depending on how strong your salivary glands are, because we're 0:06:40.120 --> 0:06:42.320 doing the same thing, but it happens in our mouths, 0:06:42.320 --> 0:06:44.240 I mean, all the foods you eat. It gets kind 0:06:44.240 --> 0:06:47.479 of like coated in saliva and moistened that way, and 0:06:47.520 --> 0:06:52.520 it helps lubricate the swallowing process. Doesn't that sound so appetizing. Yeah, well, 0:06:52.560 --> 0:06:54.799 I think we've we've touched on this before, but actually 0:06:54.880 --> 0:06:57.960 quite recently, I think talking about food and digestion. But 0:06:58.240 --> 0:07:01.600 like the digestive process begins in the mouth, like this 0:07:01.680 --> 0:07:06.680 is where food is initially masticated, broken up, broken down, 0:07:08.160 --> 0:07:11.240 partially liquefied, and then formed into that bolus that will 0:07:11.240 --> 0:07:14.560 then have been be swallowed and continue the journey. You 0:07:14.560 --> 0:07:17.160 don't want to be swallowing a dry bolus. No, no, 0:07:17.840 --> 0:07:19.960 But next, I wanted to think about one of the 0:07:20.000 --> 0:07:23.120 most famous examples of animals that appear at least to 0:07:23.280 --> 0:07:26.640 wash their food before eating it, and that is raccoons. 0:07:26.720 --> 0:07:28.760 This has got to be one of the cutest examples. 0:07:28.840 --> 0:07:30.960 I'm sure everybody out there on the Internet at this 0:07:31.040 --> 0:07:34.920 point has seen the heartbreaking video of the raccoon with 0:07:35.000 --> 0:07:37.480 a piece of cotton candy going to the water's edge 0:07:37.480 --> 0:07:40.120 to wash it and then it dissolving, and the raccoon 0:07:40.160 --> 0:07:44.120 looks just so sad. I don't think I've seen that one, 0:07:44.160 --> 0:07:46.400 but I'm picturing it. I can imagine it. So I 0:07:46.440 --> 0:07:48.440 found something out I didn't know before. You you know, 0:07:48.640 --> 0:07:52.800 the word raccoon. The English word raccoon is derived from 0:07:52.840 --> 0:07:56.600 a word originally in the Algonquian languages. But do you 0:07:56.600 --> 0:07:59.200 know what the raccoon is called in German? No, what 0:07:59.320 --> 0:08:02.720 is it called? It is the vah bear, the wash bear, 0:08:02.920 --> 0:08:06.720 the bear, the washes oh nice. And the same principle 0:08:06.760 --> 0:08:10.040 shows up in its scientific name, which is procyon lowtour, 0:08:10.600 --> 0:08:15.120 which means something like pre dog washer. So a raccoon 0:08:15.160 --> 0:08:17.360 is something that's maybe not quite a dog, not quite 0:08:17.400 --> 0:08:20.760 a dog yet, but it is associated with washing. And 0:08:20.840 --> 0:08:24.280 this etymology carries over multiple languages where the raccoon is 0:08:24.800 --> 0:08:27.720 known as something like the washing bear or the washing 0:08:27.760 --> 0:08:31.160 dog or something like that, and it reflects one of 0:08:31.200 --> 0:08:34.480 the most notable characteristic behaviors of the raccoon, which is 0:08:34.480 --> 0:08:36.640 the fact that when they acquire a piece of food 0:08:36.800 --> 0:08:40.080 and there is water nearby, they will often dunk that 0:08:40.160 --> 0:08:43.200 piece of food in the water and then manipulate it, 0:08:43.320 --> 0:08:45.240 kind of put it in the water and swish it 0:08:45.280 --> 0:08:47.760 around a bit, maybe feel at it, paw at it, 0:08:48.240 --> 0:08:50.920 rub on it, and then retrieve it from the water 0:08:51.240 --> 0:08:53.880 and eat it. And it gives rise to the idea 0:08:53.920 --> 0:08:57.320 that raccoons are meticulous, little neat freaks that they're I 0:08:57.320 --> 0:09:00.720 don't know, hyper hygienic or germophobes or something washing every 0:09:00.720 --> 0:09:03.600 bit of dirt and grime from food before consuming it, 0:09:04.520 --> 0:09:06.720 which is kind of funny when you think about other 0:09:06.920 --> 0:09:09.920 feeding habits of raccoons you might be familiar with, such 0:09:09.960 --> 0:09:12.840 as like getting into your garbage can and just eating 0:09:12.840 --> 0:09:14.720 the food in there, and they're not washing that food. 0:09:14.760 --> 0:09:16.520 They don't seem to be concerned about the dirt in 0:09:16.559 --> 0:09:19.120 that case. No, no, this is of course what it 0:09:19.160 --> 0:09:23.480 has earned them the nickname trash pandas before, because they yeah, 0:09:23.520 --> 0:09:26.720 there's straight up in the garbage can, or certainly they will. 0:09:26.760 --> 0:09:30.640 They don't need to be by a stream to eat. 0:09:30.200 --> 0:09:34.600 You can find poluty of evidence of raccoons eating without 0:09:34.600 --> 0:09:38.400 a handy washing station nearby. Right, So it's an activity 0:09:38.440 --> 0:09:41.440 that they do often enough that it's in the name, 0:09:41.640 --> 0:09:44.319 like they're clearly known for it, But they don't always 0:09:44.360 --> 0:09:48.079 do it. It appears to be optional, occasional, but again 0:09:48.200 --> 0:09:51.480 common enough that it has become a characteristic feature of 0:09:51.480 --> 0:09:54.760 the species. And so there's a big question like what 0:09:54.800 --> 0:09:57.400 are they doing. Are they actually trying to get dirt 0:09:57.520 --> 0:10:00.000 off of the food, or are they doing something else? 0:10:00.480 --> 0:10:03.319 And there have been experiments that looked into this. So 0:10:03.400 --> 0:10:07.040 one study I wanted to look at was by Malcolm 0:10:07.200 --> 0:10:11.560 Lyle Watson, published in Proceedings of the Zoological Society of 0:10:11.640 --> 0:10:15.800 London in nineteen sixty three, called a Critical Reexamination of 0:10:15.880 --> 0:10:20.880 food washing behavior in the Raccoon or procyon lowtour. Now, 0:10:20.920 --> 0:10:25.160 one thing this article says that I found alleged elsewhere 0:10:25.160 --> 0:10:28.800 on the internet is that raccoon food dowsing behavior, and 0:10:28.840 --> 0:10:32.800 it calls the behavior dowsing instead of washing to avoid 0:10:32.880 --> 0:10:36.280 prejudging the issue of the purpose of the dowsing. Raccoons 0:10:36.320 --> 0:10:39.040 put their food in water very often, but we don't 0:10:39.040 --> 0:10:41.320 know exactly why they're doing it yet, so they say 0:10:41.360 --> 0:10:45.240 dowsing instead of washing. So dowsing behavior is something that 0:10:45.280 --> 0:10:49.280 the author here says is only seen in raccoons in captivity. 0:10:49.840 --> 0:10:53.199 But I kind of doubt that. I've just browsing around. 0:10:53.200 --> 0:10:55.640 I've read plenty of reports of people saying they observed 0:10:55.720 --> 0:11:00.360 this behavior in raccoons in the wild, so I don't 0:11:00.360 --> 0:11:03.760 know about the only in captivity part. I guess the 0:11:04.480 --> 0:11:07.800 detail here would be that in captivity one generally has 0:11:07.920 --> 0:11:10.800 a readily available supply of water. There is like a 0:11:10.840 --> 0:11:14.400 dish of water, or I did just watch that cotton 0:11:14.400 --> 0:11:16.280 candy video in the background. You know, this is a 0:11:16.320 --> 0:11:18.560 case where it looks like it is a raccoon in 0:11:18.600 --> 0:11:22.080 a captive environment and there is the water for it 0:11:22.120 --> 0:11:24.679 to drink from, so it makes use of set water. Right, 0:11:24.720 --> 0:11:27.520 That's a good point. I mean, so captivity clearly provides 0:11:28.000 --> 0:11:31.600 the right setting and opportunities for this behavior to be observed. 0:11:31.679 --> 0:11:34.480 So maybe if it does occur in nature or if 0:11:34.520 --> 0:11:37.040 it doesn't, either way, we can at least admit that 0:11:37.040 --> 0:11:40.160 the majority of the times humans are witnessing this behavior 0:11:40.200 --> 0:11:44.240 it is in raccoons in captivity. But Lyle Watson says 0:11:44.480 --> 0:11:48.040 before this study, opinion was divided into roughly two camps 0:11:48.080 --> 0:11:52.080 about what the purpose of raccoon food dousing was. He 0:11:52.120 --> 0:11:55.559 says that some researchers thought that raccoons were actually washing 0:11:55.559 --> 0:11:59.040 their food, actively getting dirt off of it, and others 0:11:59.160 --> 0:12:01.720 thought that they were moistening it to make it easier 0:12:01.720 --> 0:12:04.640 to eat, you know, to essentially lubricate it for the mouth, 0:12:04.720 --> 0:12:07.880 like we were talking about with the birds. And before 0:12:07.880 --> 0:12:10.360 we go on to the actual experiments, I just wanted 0:12:10.400 --> 0:12:13.480 to note something from the paper that I thought was interesting. 0:12:13.559 --> 0:12:17.960 The author actually makes a table of observations of raccoons 0:12:17.960 --> 0:12:21.440 eating different kinds of foods and ranks them by which 0:12:21.480 --> 0:12:25.199 foods were doused the most often to the least often. So, 0:12:25.920 --> 0:12:27.679 if you look at this list, the foods that were 0:12:27.679 --> 0:12:32.480 doused the least often were things like corn oats and earthworms, 0:12:33.400 --> 0:12:38.240 and the foods that were doused the most often were crayfish, shrimp, 0:12:38.360 --> 0:12:47.920 water snails, land snails, crabs, locusts, cockroaches, muscles, clams, cherries, grapes, eggs, 0:12:48.040 --> 0:12:50.040 And I'm reading down the list now, so I'm getting 0:12:50.040 --> 0:12:52.920 to about the middle. But one thing I thought was 0:12:52.960 --> 0:12:56.480 interesting is that a lot of the food items that 0:12:56.520 --> 0:12:59.760 are the most doused are animals that naturally live in 0:12:59.800 --> 0:13:02.200 the water. So I think they're being given to the raccoon, 0:13:02.360 --> 0:13:05.679 probably already dead or out of the water when the 0:13:05.760 --> 0:13:08.560 raccoon receives them, But the raccoon is taking them to 0:13:08.600 --> 0:13:12.319 the water and dousing them and then eating them. Yeah, yeah, 0:13:12.360 --> 0:13:15.400 that is notable on this this hierarchy here, though of 0:13:15.400 --> 0:13:17.520 course you know you look at it too, and you're 0:13:18.040 --> 0:13:22.160 thrown for a curve on why the cherries are ranked 0:13:22.160 --> 0:13:26.440 so high, why the earthworm is ranked so low? Other 0:13:26.480 --> 0:13:28.280 things seem to make you know a certain amount of sense, 0:13:28.440 --> 0:13:31.560 like okay, yeah, corn is more or less good to go, 0:13:31.800 --> 0:13:34.840 same with a pair. But so this study tried a 0:13:34.880 --> 0:13:38.199 couple of experiments to test the reigning hypotheses, the food 0:13:38.240 --> 0:13:42.200 moistening hypothesis, and the active cleansing hypothesis. So as far 0:13:42.240 --> 0:13:45.840 as the cleansing hypothesis, they said, okay, what if we 0:13:45.880 --> 0:13:48.920 try giving raccoons food that is dirty and then food 0:13:48.920 --> 0:13:51.840 that we've already cleaned off, to see what the raccoons 0:13:51.880 --> 0:13:53.600 do with it. Will that make a difference, like will 0:13:53.640 --> 0:13:58.040 they clean? Will they douse dirty food more than clean food? 0:13:58.480 --> 0:14:01.680 So this was tried with quote, small mud crabs, so 0:14:02.120 --> 0:14:03.720 they might forge for these in the wild and you 0:14:03.760 --> 0:14:06.080 might expect them to have mud on them. And so 0:14:06.240 --> 0:14:09.319 raccoons in captivity were tested with clean crabs and dirty crabs, 0:14:09.360 --> 0:14:11.559 and what do you know, it made no difference at all. 0:14:11.640 --> 0:14:15.240 In fact, this was not a significant difference. But they 0:14:15.320 --> 0:14:19.040 doused the clean crabs more than the muddy crabs. Yeah yeah, So, 0:14:19.080 --> 0:14:22.000 like if you're going to be desperate with findings from 0:14:22.040 --> 0:14:26.640 this study, like this wouldn't even back up the idea 0:14:26.680 --> 0:14:30.000 that they're washing anything exactly. So, according to this experiment, 0:14:30.040 --> 0:14:33.120 it makes no difference at all, just sometimes they dunk 0:14:33.120 --> 0:14:35.920 and sometimes they don't, and it appears to have no 0:14:36.080 --> 0:14:39.720 relationship whatsoever to the amount of mud. So that's taken 0:14:39.760 --> 0:14:42.360 as a hit against the act of cleansing hypothesis. But 0:14:42.440 --> 0:14:45.960 what about the moistening action idea? So what if the 0:14:45.960 --> 0:14:48.440 point of dowsing is too is that wet food is 0:14:48.480 --> 0:14:51.840 easier to eat? Well, they tested this with an experiment 0:14:51.920 --> 0:14:55.520 as well. So Lyle Watson says there was a series 0:14:55.560 --> 0:14:59.160 of three trials with the choices between dry dog biscuits, 0:14:59.280 --> 0:15:03.040 dried shrim and similar objects which had been soaked in water, 0:15:03.600 --> 0:15:06.880 and the result was again the raccoons showed no significant 0:15:06.920 --> 0:15:09.920 difference at all. They were just as likely to duncan 0:15:10.040 --> 0:15:13.600 dous wet food objects as they were to douse dry ones. 0:15:14.760 --> 0:15:17.840 So both of the active hypotheses at the time of 0:15:17.840 --> 0:15:20.600 the study in nineteen sixty three were disconfirmed by the 0:15:20.640 --> 0:15:24.840 experiments that Lyle Watson did. So what does the author 0:15:24.880 --> 0:15:29.080 here think that the dowsing is actually for Well, he 0:15:29.120 --> 0:15:31.760 has an interesting idea. Of course this is not conclusive, 0:15:31.760 --> 0:15:35.360 but this is his interpretation. He says that the best 0:15:35.400 --> 0:15:39.280 explanation is that raccoon dowsing of food is quote, an 0:15:39.480 --> 0:15:43.880 artificial creation of a natural situation whose function is to 0:15:43.960 --> 0:15:48.560 allow the expression of a thwarted independent feeding mechanism. So 0:15:48.600 --> 0:15:51.440 I think what he means by this is that a raccoon, 0:15:51.960 --> 0:15:55.640 when dousing food, is going through the motions of an 0:15:55.680 --> 0:16:01.800 instinctual water based foraging or hunting strategy. That is, that 0:16:01.960 --> 0:16:04.360 is naturally rewarding, you know, in the same way that 0:16:04.360 --> 0:16:07.400 that hunting or foraging behaviors are to all kinds of animals. 0:16:07.400 --> 0:16:10.960 You know, we're motivated to do them, and it's rewarding 0:16:11.000 --> 0:16:15.040 to the raccoon's brain and associated with the acquisition of food, 0:16:15.480 --> 0:16:19.760 even though in these captive scenarios it's not actually doing anything. 0:16:21.120 --> 0:16:24.640 Now that's interest, because that would mean it's not adaptive. Well, 0:16:24.680 --> 0:16:27.240 it would be it would be adaptive that a raccoon 0:16:27.280 --> 0:16:29.880 has a natural desire to like fish around in the 0:16:29.920 --> 0:16:34.240 water for food items, but that maybe this urge is 0:16:34.280 --> 0:16:36.960 so strong it's coming through even in moments where it 0:16:37.040 --> 0:16:41.440 doesn't actually need to forage. It's just satisfying and overwhelming desire. 0:16:41.640 --> 0:16:44.760 And he gives a comparison. So what Watson says his quote, 0:16:45.160 --> 0:16:48.200 the raccoon's behavior is perhaps most closely related to what 0:16:48.280 --> 0:16:52.960 may be called the quote revitalizing behavior of certain feliday cats. 0:16:53.520 --> 0:16:56.920 A captive cat whose hunting patterns of behavior are starved 0:16:56.960 --> 0:16:59.520 by virtue of the fact that all food is presented 0:16:59.600 --> 0:17:04.400 dead will artificially create the opportunity to satisfy these responses 0:17:04.680 --> 0:17:07.560 by throwing a dead bird into the air and quote 0:17:07.640 --> 0:17:10.439 giving it life in order that it may be hunted 0:17:10.480 --> 0:17:13.919 down and caught before being eaten. This has been particularly 0:17:13.960 --> 0:17:17.280 well observed in the Golden Cat or feel us Taminki 0:17:17.640 --> 0:17:21.080 at the London Zoo and so yeah, in the same 0:17:21.119 --> 0:17:24.320 way that you might see a cat that doesn't actually 0:17:24.359 --> 0:17:27.840 need to hunt, kind of batting a food item or 0:17:27.880 --> 0:17:31.080 even like a dead mouse around as if like it's 0:17:31.080 --> 0:17:34.560 still alive, and maybe the cat is trying to satisfy 0:17:34.640 --> 0:17:38.639 some need for hunting behaviors just because the hunting behaviors 0:17:38.680 --> 0:17:43.120 are instinctually rewarding. Perhaps the raccoon is doing something similar 0:17:43.440 --> 0:17:46.399 by fishing around for a food item that it actually 0:17:46.440 --> 0:17:50.320 already has in possession in the water m okay, and 0:17:51.480 --> 0:17:54.520 so in this it would be comparable to like the 0:17:54.560 --> 0:17:57.080 play we observe in cats. We think of it as play. 0:17:57.160 --> 0:17:59.400 They're playing with a toy, But it's of course hunting 0:17:59.400 --> 0:18:02.960 instinct that you know that they've they're highly evolved to 0:18:03.160 --> 0:18:07.120 partake in. And if it's even though there's nothing live 0:18:07.240 --> 0:18:10.760 running around your living room, they need to engage in 0:18:10.760 --> 0:18:13.720 that kind of activity anyway, right, They have an instinctual 0:18:13.840 --> 0:18:18.440 drive for hunting behaviors. They can't actually hunt in their 0:18:18.520 --> 0:18:21.639 environment because there's nothing to hunt, so they kind of 0:18:21.720 --> 0:18:24.840 hunt in superfluous ways, hunt in ways that are not 0:18:24.920 --> 0:18:29.080 really necessary and so and so. Lyle Watson links this 0:18:29.160 --> 0:18:32.040 to the idea that this behavior is primarily observed or 0:18:32.080 --> 0:18:36.040 in his in his belief, only observed in raccoons in captivity. 0:18:36.359 --> 0:18:39.080 You know, normally they'd be out fishing around for crayfish 0:18:39.119 --> 0:18:42.879 and crabs and stuff in the water. In captivity, they 0:18:42.880 --> 0:18:45.879 don't have to do that, so they satisfy this drive 0:18:46.000 --> 0:18:49.680 by swishing their food items around in the water. I've 0:18:49.840 --> 0:18:52.359 I remember hearing before that the like the hands of 0:18:52.400 --> 0:18:56.080 the raccoon are extremely subtle, yes, and that they're not 0:18:56.119 --> 0:18:59.040 affected by the like they can reach into cold water 0:18:59.080 --> 0:19:01.520 and feel around in cold waters with a tolerance that 0:19:02.160 --> 0:19:05.760 humans are completely incapable of, and that their feeling of 0:19:05.800 --> 0:19:09.840 things in the water is more in line with like 0:19:09.920 --> 0:19:12.760 human sight, Like that's how sensitive their little hands are. 0:19:13.480 --> 0:19:19.720 So yeah, the sense experience of this, it makes sense 0:19:19.720 --> 0:19:22.640 when you think about like this, this sort of advanced 0:19:23.720 --> 0:19:27.480 grasping that's going on, this advanced sense of touch. Well, 0:19:27.520 --> 0:19:29.080 that's actually the next thing I was going to get 0:19:29.080 --> 0:19:32.719 to that. That is the The other hypothesis that seems 0:19:32.720 --> 0:19:37.320 to be live about why raccoons douse their food is 0:19:37.359 --> 0:19:41.480 the idea that somehow it hyper charges the sensory abilities 0:19:41.520 --> 0:19:44.680 of their paws. And exactly like you're saying, raccoons are 0:19:45.320 --> 0:19:48.840 known in the animal world for having incredibly sensitive fore paws. 0:19:49.080 --> 0:19:52.760 Apparently they gather a large proportion of their sensations of 0:19:52.760 --> 0:19:55.919 the world through touch, and of course this is very 0:19:56.040 --> 0:19:58.840 useful if you're an animal that's like rooting around in 0:19:58.920 --> 0:20:01.480 muddy water for for prey. You know, you want to 0:20:01.480 --> 0:20:03.639 be able to get a lot of information by the 0:20:03.960 --> 0:20:07.680 pads on your forepaws, on your hands and fingers, and 0:20:07.720 --> 0:20:11.720 so it has been argued that maybe the dowsing behavior 0:20:12.000 --> 0:20:15.800 is related to the hypersensitivity of their fore paws and 0:20:15.840 --> 0:20:19.159 the importance of the sensory information they get there. So 0:20:19.240 --> 0:20:23.240 perhaps moistening of the fore paws actually makes them more 0:20:23.480 --> 0:20:28.120 sensitive to textual information about the food in hand. So 0:20:28.160 --> 0:20:30.800 if this hypothesis were correct, it would be that dousing 0:20:30.880 --> 0:20:34.760 serves the purpose of letting the raccoon get better sensory 0:20:34.840 --> 0:20:38.400 information about the food they are about to eat in 0:20:38.480 --> 0:20:41.960 the type of since realm that is most relevant to them, 0:20:42.000 --> 0:20:44.360 which is touch. So it would be sort of similar 0:20:44.359 --> 0:20:47.160 to a human looking at a morsel of food by 0:20:47.160 --> 0:20:49.000 holding it up to the light so they could get 0:20:49.000 --> 0:20:51.120 a better look at it. Or you know, a dog 0:20:51.280 --> 0:20:53.840 really going to town sniffing a piece of food before 0:20:53.880 --> 0:20:56.879 they eat it. That it would be a specialized sense 0:20:56.920 --> 0:21:00.639 heightening behavior that is particular to the sense regime of 0:21:00.680 --> 0:21:03.640 the raccoon. Oh now this yeah, this makes a lot 0:21:03.640 --> 0:21:05.680 of sense, and at the same time, it also makes 0:21:05.680 --> 0:21:09.560 that cotton candy video all the more heartbreaking because it 0:21:09.640 --> 0:21:13.439 really wanted to understand this. This uh, this sugary concoction. 0:21:13.840 --> 0:21:16.879 What is this thing? Well, let me douse it in 0:21:16.880 --> 0:21:18.800 the water and feel it a little bit more. What 0:21:19.520 --> 0:21:22.159 now it is completely gone? Now I have I know 0:21:22.240 --> 0:21:24.760 even less about it than I did before. But anyway, 0:21:24.920 --> 0:21:27.399 I'm intrigued by both of these hypotheses. I don't know 0:21:27.480 --> 0:21:29.520 which one I would lean more toward the sort of 0:21:29.960 --> 0:21:33.679 the hypercharging sensory data from the from the hands or 0:21:33.720 --> 0:21:39.520 the thwarted natural foraging behavior. Both seem possible to me 0:21:39.560 --> 0:21:42.040 based on what I've read. The interesting thing about the 0:21:42.080 --> 0:21:46.520 idea of a thwarted foraging behavior is that it would 0:21:46.560 --> 0:21:49.400 seem to connect to that list of foods that are 0:21:49.440 --> 0:21:52.080 doused most often, that the top of the list was 0:21:52.160 --> 0:21:56.520 all like aquatic animals that the raccoon would naturally forage 0:21:56.560 --> 0:22:05.880 for in the creeks and in the mud. But Rob, 0:22:05.920 --> 0:22:08.000 if you're ready, I would actually like to turn to 0:22:08.200 --> 0:22:11.399 another example of animals doing something to their food that 0:22:11.640 --> 0:22:15.800 looks like washing but has been hypothesized to have a 0:22:15.840 --> 0:22:21.560 different purpose altogether. And this is related to seasoning. So 0:22:21.680 --> 0:22:25.639 in the last episode we spoken whispers of horror about 0:22:25.680 --> 0:22:29.040 the idea of eating an unseasoned potato. You know, potatoes 0:22:29.080 --> 0:22:33.040 are great, They really need some salt and pepper, hopefully 0:22:33.119 --> 0:22:36.320 some fat of some kind, butter oil or something to 0:22:36.480 --> 0:22:39.320 take them to their full potential. Just the thought of 0:22:39.359 --> 0:22:46.400 a completely unseasoned cooked potato is very unappetizing. Yeah, even 0:22:46.440 --> 0:22:48.480 if you have one of those those really good potatoes, 0:22:48.520 --> 0:22:51.680 you know, like those fingerlings, and the purple potatoes, and 0:22:51.880 --> 0:22:54.920 of course sweet potatoes. Even then they need a little something. 0:22:54.960 --> 0:22:57.800 And if you get into the realm of the Russets 0:22:57.840 --> 0:23:00.280 all the more. Now, as always, of course, you know, 0:23:00.600 --> 0:23:04.199