Speaker 1: Welcome to Creature Future production of iHeartRadio. I'm your host
Speaker 1: of Many Parasites, Katie Golden. I studied psychology and evolutionary biology,
Speaker 1: and today on this show, it's a listener questions episode.
Speaker 1: You send me your questions via email or Twitter. I
Speaker 1: guess sometimes and I do my best to answer them.
Speaker 1: If you are listening to this and you're thinking, hey,
Speaker 1: I have a question, why aren't you answering my question? Well,
Speaker 1: you can write to me at Creature Featurepod at gmail
Speaker 1: dot com. So onto the first listener question. Hey, Katie,
Speaker 1: I was just curious. Do you know if any other
Speaker 1: animals lose their hair as they age? And if yes,
Speaker 1: is it like with humans where it's super selective which
Speaker 1: hair disappears in which keeps growing strong right untill we croak?
Speaker 1: This is from p K. Thank you for the question.
Speaker 1: Baldness is common in humans, and it is actually found
Speaker 1: another animals, either as a permanent and useful feature, such
Speaker 1: as the bald heads of vultures and buzzards, which keeps
Speaker 1: them clean when they are feeding on carrion. There's also
Speaker 1: the bald skin of naked mole rats and of course elephants,
Speaker 1: which you know their skin. They do have hair on
Speaker 1: their skin, but it's very thin and fine. But these
Speaker 1: are evolutionary traits. These have adapted over a long period
Speaker 1: of time, and so it is something that benefits these animals.
Speaker 1: But there is I think the kind of conception of
Speaker 1: baldness in humans is something that changes over time due
Speaker 1: to age, due to genetics, environment and hormones. So in humans,
Speaker 1: pattern baldness is a type of baldness that occurs during aging,
Speaker 1: and you usually follows a pattern. It is hereditary, and
Speaker 1: it is typically more pronounced in people assigned male at
Speaker 1: birth than in female, but it occurs for both males
Speaker 1: and females. What happens is the hair follicles shrink over
Speaker 1: time and the hair becomes shorter and thinner until it
Speaker 1: stops growing thick and full like it used to. So
Speaker 1: the follicle isn't dead, but the hair is so thin
Speaker 1: and fine it is no longer visible. And so the
Speaker 1: reason that pattern baldness isn't as common in furry animals
Speaker 1: like you know your cats or what have you, is
Speaker 1: that if they have fur, generally there's a good evolutionary
Speaker 1: reason for it, and there are selective pressures for them
Speaker 1: to keep that fur. In humans, the hair on our
Speaker 1: head might keep us marginally warmer or offer some sun protection,
Speaker 1: but it's not as article to our survival, especially given
Speaker 1: our ingenuity and our social behaviors and being able to
Speaker 1: invent things like hats, so we are able to sustain
Speaker 1: a large population of people with baldness. So the mechanics
Speaker 1: of how pattern hair loss works in humans relates to
Speaker 1: the sensitivity of a keratin protein to the androgen hormone
Speaker 1: and the lack of this keratin protein on human scalps.
Speaker 1: So this is why you can have a hairy chest
Speaker 1: or back or other parts as well as like a
Speaker 1: fully luxurious beard, while also having a bald head. The
Speaker 1: scalp doesn't have the same type of kerotin protein as
Speaker 1: these other parts of the body and so a different
Speaker 1: type of sensitivity to androgen. So while androgen can cause
Speaker 1: hair growth on other parts of the body, it can
Speaker 1: actually overstimulate and cause hair loss on the scalp. Androgen
Speaker 1: can actually shorten the growth cycle of hair on the scalp,
Speaker 1: and that inhibits hair growth while you know, still growing
Speaker 1: hair elsewhere on the body. This is also why trans
Speaker 1: people who take male hormones can both gain the ability
Speaker 1: to grow a beard or other body hair, but can
Speaker 1: also paradoxically cause baldness on the scalp, not always but sometimes. Again,
Speaker 1: it has something to do with genetics. That is why
Speaker 1: pattern baldness is also called androgenetic alopecia. So animals can
Speaker 1: experience baldness due to stress or mange. Right. Mange as
Speaker 1: a skin infection caused by mites, and it can cause
Speaker 1: hair loss all over the animal's body. A lot of
Speaker 1: the cryptid sidings that people document, like the chupacabra, are
Speaker 1: typically coyotes, dogs, or foxes affected by mange, which alters
Speaker 1: their appearance. But this is kind of different from human balding. Right,
Speaker 1: Like human balding is not due to a disease, It
Speaker 1: is just a natural genetic predisposition to the hair follicles
Speaker 1: shrinking in response to androgen So are there animals who
Speaker 1: experience this kind of pattern baldness the same kind that
Speaker 1: occurs in humans where it happens as you age, And yes,
Speaker 1: actually it does. There is an animal called the stump
Speaker 1: tailed macaque. It is a primate found in South and
Speaker 1: Southeast Asia. It has a red, hairless face, a stubby tail,
Speaker 1: and shaggy brown fur. Both male and female stump tailed
Speaker 1: macaques experience pattern baldness as they age on their heads,
Speaker 1: so their baldness is thought to be caused by similar
Speaker 1: factors that affect human baldness, so like the androgenetic alopecia
Speaker 1: that occurs in humans. Also, there are certain breeds of
Speaker 1: domesticated dogs, usually short, short haired, and pure bred dogs
Speaker 1: such as docsins, who also have patterned baldness, but it's
Speaker 1: not usually just like on the top of their head.
Speaker 1: It would be on the ears, chest, and back legs,
Speaker 1: so it Yeah, it does occasionally occur in other animals,
Speaker 1: but it is way more common in humans. So yes,
Speaker 1: it does occur in other animals, but yeah, it's relatively rare.
Speaker 1: It's kind of an interesting, somewhat unique thing that occurs
Speaker 1: in humans and the other examples that I mentioned. All right,
Speaker 1: onto the next listener question. Hello Katie, long time, first time.
Speaker 1: I just found out about the Morning Gecko and my
Speaker 1: mind can't comprehend them. Have you done an episode on
Speaker 1: them in the past, and I don't remember it. If
Speaker 1: you haven't done an episode on the Morning Gecko, would
Speaker 1: you please? I don't understand how they clone themselves, how
Speaker 1: they evolve that ability. Are there any evolutionary advantages to
Speaker 1: being able to clone yourself? And are there other animals
Speaker 1: that can do the same thing or something similar? Thank
Speaker 1: you and this is from Tuck so Hey Tech. Thank
Speaker 1: you for the really cool question. This is a great question.
Speaker 1: There are a few species of reptiles who can do
Speaker 1: the same thing as the morning gecko, who can reproduce asexually,
Speaker 1: and there are a lot of animals who do so
Speaker 1: or go through cycles of cloning and sexual reproduction, like
Speaker 1: aphids like coral so whiptail lizards are another reptile who
Speaker 1: reproduce asexually and are entirely female. They're very similar in
Speaker 1: terms of how their sexual reproduction works to the morning gecko.
Speaker 1: So whiptail lizards use three sets of chromosomes to create
Speaker 1: heterozygotic offspring. So all this means is that, you know,
Speaker 1: we have pairs of matching chromosomes, and chromosome has the
Speaker 1: same number of alleles and alleles that line up with
Speaker 1: each other, kind of like a zipper lines up with
Speaker 1: another half of the zipper. So for heterozygotic organisms, the
Speaker 1: aligning alleles are not the same. They can be slightly
Speaker 1: different So imagine like a zipper, where each little tooth
Speaker 1: represents an allele, and you have the left zipper and
Speaker 1: the right zipper, and these are each chromosomes, and each
Speaker 1: tooth of the zipper is like a different color, and
Speaker 1: this example color is a stand in for like nucleotide
Speaker 1: sequence of the allele. So in monozygotic animals, each zipper
Speaker 1: tooth is matched with the same color of zipper tooth
Speaker 1: on the opposite side, But in heterozygotic animals, each zipper
Speaker 1: tooth is matched with a different colored tooth, and they
Speaker 1: can still zip together. It still functions, And so this
Speaker 1: is how you get sort of dominant and recessive genes
Speaker 1: in interacting with each other. You can have a recessive
Speaker 1: allele maybe that is negative or something that gets over
Speaker 1: rowed by a dominant allele, and then it can protect
Speaker 1: you from something like rare disease. And so in the
Speaker 1: case of whiptail lizards, they can actually create this heterozygotic
Speaker 1: zipper effect even through clonal offspring by having three sets
Speaker 1: of chromosomes rather than the usual two, and so they
Speaker 1: give their offspring twice the number of chromosomes than sexually
Speaker 1: reproducing animals give their offspring. So Now let's talk about
Speaker 1: the morning geckos since this was brought up in the question.
Speaker 1: They are from Southeast Asia, but they are invasive to
Speaker 1: the Americas and Australia. It is a small brown gecko
Speaker 1: who looks pretty plain, but their reproductive cycle is really fascinating.
Speaker 1: Like the whiptail lizards, they are typically an all female species.
Speaker 1: Occasionally they will give birth to an oopsie male baby.
Speaker 1: Usually this offspring cannot reproduce and so yeah, these geckos
Speaker 1: use parthenogenesis to reproduce. It is asexual reproduction from an
Speaker 1: unfertilized egg, and rather than combine their genes with a male,
Speaker 1: they will shuffle their own genetic material to reproduce, just
Speaker 1: like the whiptail lizard. They are also triploid, so that
Speaker 1: means that they have three sets of chromosomes, just like
Speaker 1: the whiptail lizard, and that allows them to have their
Speaker 1: offspring be heterozygots. So why is it so important to
Speaker 1: be a heterozygote. Well, this allows some genetic diversity to
Speaker 1: avoid dileterious alleles from stef Say you have an allele
Speaker 1: that actually causes an issue, having an opposite allele on
Speaker 1: another chromosome, that's slightly different can actually protect an organism
Speaker 1: from sort of mistakes stacking up. But because these geckos,
Speaker 1: the morning gecko and species like the whiptail lizard are
Speaker 1: still clonal and they aren't able to shuffle and replenish
Speaker 1: their genetic library like sexually reproducing animals do, they are
Speaker 1: still vulnerable to things like environmental change or disease. Because
Speaker 1: if one of these geckos is vulnerable to something happening,
Speaker 1: say the temperature changing slightly or some fungal infection happening,
Speaker 1: and it has a vulnerability to it, well so does
Speaker 1: all of the rest of the population. Because they're genetically
Speaker 1: so similar, if not identical, so they will be affected
Speaker 1: in similar ways. Whereas a population that has more genetic
Speaker 1: diversity has more of a chance of their being an
Speaker 1: individual or individuals who have some adaptation or difference that
Speaker 1: allows them to deal with environmental stressors. So the question
Speaker 1: would be why would you ever want to be a
Speaker 1: clonal species? Well, I mean the main thing is just
Speaker 1: that you don't have to date. You don't have to
Speaker 1: be in the dating pool. Not having to find a
Speaker 1: partner or compete to find a partner means that you
Speaker 1: can simply drop your little lizard pants and lay an
Speaker 1: egg when the conditions are right. This allows them greater
Speaker 1: ability to reproduce without constraints. So this is one of
Speaker 1: the reasons they are such an invasive species. All they
Speaker 1: need is one individual to land on an island or
Speaker 1: new continent to establish a population there. They don't even
Speaker 1: need to find a partner to reproduce, so that is
Speaker 1: a benefit. But then you know, so these these geckos
Speaker 1: and lizards have kind of comp and stated for the
Speaker 1: fact that clones are less genetically diverse by using that
Speaker 1: three chromosome trick. But other species I mentioned earlier, like
Speaker 1: aphids coral, they will have both a sexual and sexual
Speaker 1: reproduction and sometimes it happens in seasonal cycles or depending
Speaker 1: on the environment, And that's another way that a species
Speaker 1: can try to compensate for the downsides of both sexual
Speaker 1: and a sexual reproduction. So like with sexual reproduction, you
Speaker 1: know you have to find a partner, it can be
Speaker 1: tricky and you can't create as many offspring as quickly,
Speaker 1: whereas with a sexual reproduction you can create a lot
Speaker 1: of offspring. And so kind of combining both systems for
Speaker 1: these organisms allows them to introduce some genetic diversity while
Speaker 1: also pumping out a lot of babies, which is, you know,
Speaker 1: important if you're an avid, because gosh, you're just a
Speaker 1: tiny little jellybean of the natural world. Everybody likes to eat,
Speaker 1: especially ladybugs. Anyways, we're gonna take a quick break and
Speaker 1: when we return we will answer another couple listener questions.
Speaker 1: All right, onto the next email. I have a burning question.
Speaker 1: Why is dog skin like that? You can just grab
Speaker 1: a handful of dog skin. You can't do that to
Speaker 1: a human it hurts, but dogs like it. You can
Speaker 1: grab fistsful of dog skin on the back of their neck,
Speaker 1: which makes sense for scruffing puppies, but you can also
Speaker 1: do it on their butt, legs and belly. It's like
Speaker 1: it's hardly attached. The only place you can do that
Speaker 1: on a human is the elbows, and it's the same
Speaker 1: with cats too. I don't know for sure, but I
Speaker 1: was traumatized by Michael Moore's Roger and Me, and I'm
Speaker 1: guessing that you can grab a fistful of buddy skin too.
Speaker 1: How come some animal skin is all loose like that?
Speaker 1: Thanks will Well, will I I have not seen that movie,
Speaker 1: and I don't know what you're referring to, and I'm
Speaker 1: going to keep it that way because I do like bunnies.
Speaker 1: So yeah, as you pointed out, dogs, bunnies, cats, a
Speaker 1: lot of other animals actually have looser skin than humans.
Speaker 1: Like if you try to sort of scruff your own neck,
Speaker 1: you're gonna have a bad time. And as you point
Speaker 1: it out in your question, one reason that dogs, bunnies,
Speaker 1: and cats skin is loose on their neck is that
Speaker 1: as puppies and kittens, they can easily be transported by
Speaker 1: the neck by their mother. Now, don't do that with
Speaker 1: adult dogs or cats or well, actually I don't know
Speaker 1: too much about handling rabbits, but yeah, if you scruff
Speaker 1: an animal that is an adult without supporting them properly,
Speaker 1: you can hurt them. Because it's really only meant for
Speaker 1: kittens and puppies because they're lighter and so there's less
Speaker 1: pressure on that neck scruff. So yeah, always always grab
Speaker 1: your animal's skin with care you cut, Like if you
Speaker 1: own a dog, you kind of know, like you can
Speaker 1: usually like sort of massage your dog's neck and like
Speaker 1: there's skin that kind of is loose there, and they're
Speaker 1: happy enough to have their skin kind of massaged in
Speaker 1: a way that would maybe be uncomfortable for a human.
Speaker 1: But you know, aways, always be gentle with your dog
Speaker 1: skin because even though it's looser, it can still be sensitive,
Speaker 1: especially in places like on their bellies or on their haunches.
Speaker 1: But yeah, so it is definitely looser than human skin,
Speaker 1: and loose skin in animals has a variety of purposes,
Speaker 1: including protections. So loose skin around the throat or other
Speaker 1: vital organs can prevent an animal from being injured or
Speaker 1: killed if they're clad or bitten by another animal, so
Speaker 1: basically their skin will be grabbed while their organs will
Speaker 1: be safe. In fact, some animals go to the extreme
Speaker 1: when it comes to this type of defense. The hagfish have,
Speaker 1: which are basically these like deep sea fish that look
Speaker 1: like gross slimy tubes, and hagfish have such loose, detached skin.
Speaker 1: They're basically like a long, tough, mucas y water balloon
Speaker 1: filled with organs, which makes it really hard for a
Speaker 1: predator to puncture their internal organs because they can grab them,
Speaker 1: but they're basically just like grabbing the skin while the
Speaker 1: organs shift around inside them. So this is protection for
Speaker 1: the hagfish. Another interesting species is the African spiny mouse.
Speaker 1: So African spiny mice have this adaptation, which is detachable skin.
Speaker 1: Their skin can actually be built, pulled off and grow back,
Speaker 1: allowing them to escape predation by the skin of their teeth,
Speaker 1: which I guess technically it's just the skin everywhere, but
Speaker 1: it's sort of like that the the technique that some
Speaker 1: lizards have where their tails can pop off. So yeah,
Speaker 1: it's their skin can basically come off, come loose, and
Speaker 1: the mouse can live another day. It regrows the skin
Speaker 1: and is able to survive predation. So really there's a
Speaker 1: lot of good reasons to have loose skin. So the
Speaker 1: better question is why humans and some other animals have
Speaker 1: really tight skin, since it puts us at greater risk
Speaker 1: of a predator or competitor biting our organs. Right, we
Speaker 1: don't have that same defense technique that say a dog has,
Speaker 1: so humans and some animals like pigs have very firmly
Speaker 1: attached skin. Actually, pig skin is similar to humans, and
Speaker 1: it's often used in research sort of to examine it
Speaker 1: in place of human skin because of how similar it is.
Speaker 1: So we also have a limited paniculous noosis, which is
Speaker 1: a thin layer of muscle attached to the skin. So
Speaker 1: you have you noticed like your dog or a horse
Speaker 1: can like twitch its hind legs, say, like a fly
Speaker 1: lands on a horse a horse's butt, and it's skin
Speaker 1: just kind of like flicks around, twitches around to kind
Speaker 1: of ward off this fly. We can't really do that.
Speaker 1: We have a very limited muscle control of our skin.
Speaker 1: And so you know, this is a limited thing that
Speaker 1: we cannot do. So why again, why have we lost
Speaker 1: this ability? So this is it's a big question. So
Speaker 1: one of the possible benefits of more firmly attached skin
Speaker 1: may have to do with our need for sweat glands.
Speaker 1: You know, like maybe we are more kind of endurance hunters.
Speaker 1: We need to have a lot of sweat glands. We
Speaker 1: need to be able to have our skin get kind
Speaker 1: of like evenly coated and sweat to cool off if
Speaker 1: we're doing sort of these this sort of endurance hunting. Also,
Speaker 1: it could have something to do with the immune function
Speaker 1: of our skin. Uh, Honestly, I am not entirely certain
Speaker 1: why this is, and I really want to find out more.
Speaker 1: If there are any dermatologists or skin experts out there
Speaker 1: who have an answer, you can write to me at
Speaker 1: Creature featurepod at gmail dot com. In the meantime, I
Speaker 1: will continue to keep my eyes peeled for skin news.
Speaker 1: That's right. I will keep reading the news to see
Speaker 1: if any more discoveries come out about human skin and
Speaker 1: why why we don't gotta lose saggy baggy skin seems
Speaker 1: like it'd be fun. You could just kind of like
Speaker 1: slide around in it, you know. Can you imagine if
Speaker 1: we had naked mole rat skin and we were just no,
Speaker 1: there would be no more marketing to get rid of
Speaker 1: or wrinkles, because we'd all have wrinkles by design, and
Speaker 1: we'd think they look sexy, and that would be great.
Speaker 1: It'd be liberating. We should be allowed to have wrinkles
Speaker 1: in age. In fact, we should come out all Benjamin
Speaker 1: buttony and just get older. That's how I feel. Let's
Speaker 1: move on to another listener question. So here it is, Hi, Katie.
Speaker 1: I just saw this short video of a spider tailed
Speaker 1: horned viper and was truly horrified, But I thought it
Speaker 1: might inspire you to do a show on some of
Speaker 1: the most amazing or horrifying cases of memoricry. This is
Speaker 1: from Amanda m Hi Amanda, So the spider tailed horned
Speaker 1: viper is indeed an amazing mimic It is a viper
Speaker 1: that lives in the mountains of Iran and Iraq, with
Speaker 1: a tail tip that looks uncannily like a spider, even
Speaker 1: with these little sort of dingly bits that look like legs.
Speaker 1: So it will wiggle this tip of its tail until
Speaker 1: it grabs the attention of a bird or other small insectivore,
Speaker 1: and the bird will come down try to eat this spider,
Speaker 1: but hey, that's just part of a snake. And then
Speaker 1: at this point the viper will strike and it will
Speaker 1: get its lunch. So I did actually talk about this
Speaker 1: snake a while back on an episode called the Go
Speaker 1: Home Nature, You're Drunk, which aired August fifteenth, in twenty nineteen.
Speaker 1: So that was a really long time ago. I was
Speaker 1: just a little baby, little baby podcaster and my little
Speaker 1: podcasting diapers. I didn't know what I was doing at
Speaker 1: that point, but yeah, you could listen to it Go
Speaker 1: Home Nature, You're Drunk, August fifteenth, twenty nineteen. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I definitely will do more cases of horrifying mimicry. I
Speaker 1: love mimicry. I think it's really fascinating. So yeah, keep
Speaker 1: your ears peeled. For that, I guess you don't peel
Speaker 1: your ears. What's the term for that? Keep your ears perked?
Speaker 1: We can't even perk our ears. We've lost so much
Speaker 1: through evolution in terms of moving our skin and our
Speaker 1: ears around. All right, So last listener question. One question
Speaker 1: I have is why some sloths have to climb down
Speaker 1: to the ground to poop, exposing them to overwhelming danger.
Speaker 1: Why don't they just poop from the skies like most birds,
Speaker 1: which is a worse calamity to your hat than most droppings. So,
Speaker 1: Michael D. From Sacramento, thank you for this question. I
Speaker 1: always love a poop question. Keep them coming. So before
Speaker 1: I answer the question directly, here's some background that will
Speaker 1: help you understand. There is this interesting thing that happens
Speaker 1: when sloths descend and poop. They are able to facilitate
Speaker 1: the life cycle of a symbiotic moth that lives on
Speaker 1: the sloth spur. The moth that lives in the sloths
Speaker 1: fur actually poops on the sloth and will dye sometimes
Speaker 1: in its fur, which sounds gross like you have a
Speaker 1: bunch of moth poop and corpses in your fur, But
Speaker 1: actually what that does is provide fertilizer for another symbiote
Speaker 1: that lives on the sloth, green algae. So green algae
Speaker 1: lives on the sloth. You can actually see algae sometimes
Speaker 1: on sloth. They'll have a greenish tint to their fur.
Speaker 1: And this algae feeds on the moth droppings or even
Speaker 1: the moth corpses. And the algae is beneficial to the
Speaker 1: sloth because it grows on the sloth skin and fur,
Speaker 1: and the sloth can actually absorb vitamins and nutrients through
Speaker 1: its skin from this algae that it otherwise can't get
Speaker 1: through its diet. So ecologist Jonathan Polly and his team
Speaker 1: at the University of Wisconsin think that this algae moth
Speaker 1: connection may be a reason for the sloth inefficient pooping
Speaker 1: method of climbing all the way down from the tree
Speaker 1: onto the ground. So Polly describes the sloth descending the
Speaker 1: tree to poop as quote, it's like if you had
Speaker 1: to go to the bathroom and you were programmed to
Speaker 1: go run a five k on the interstate before you
Speaker 1: could go to the bathroom, which you know, man, I've
Speaker 1: I've been camping, and the worst part of camping is
Speaker 1: like trying to go to the bathroom in the middle
Speaker 1: of the night, either walking all the way to the
Speaker 1: one bathroom on the campsite or finding like a secret
Speaker 1: spot when you're really out there. I did that once,
Speaker 1: had like a mouse run across my foot as I
Speaker 1: was trying to do a little bit of pee, and
Speaker 1: that was horrible. Don't recommend. I mean, I still enjoy
Speaker 1: the great outdoors, but I do love a convenient bathroom.
Speaker 1: I think humans really nailed that. So back to the moth. Uh. Basically,
Speaker 1: when the back to the moth, back to the sloth.
Speaker 1: When the sloth the sinds to poop, the moth can
Speaker 1: then lay its eggs in the sloth poop. So the
Speaker 1: moth hops off of the sloth, lays its eggs in
Speaker 1: the sloth poop, and that is where the new generation
Speaker 1: of moths will hatch. And then those as the sloth
Speaker 1: is doing its business pooping, the new generation of moths,
Speaker 1: the moth larvae can actually crawl onto the sloth, and
Speaker 1: so the sloth gains these passengers, and these are helpful passengers.
Speaker 1: This is a mutualistic, symbiotic relationship where the sloth provides
Speaker 1: the moth a home and the moths provide the sloths. Well,
Speaker 1: it's like a complicated symbiosis, right, because it involves at
Speaker 1: least three organisms, where it's the sloth, the moth, and
Speaker 1: the algae, and so the moth helps grow the algae
Speaker 1: which helps the sloth, and the sloth provides a home
Speaker 1: for the moths. It's beautiful, it's a beautiful relationship. It's
Speaker 1: a pollocule, a natural pollocule. So there have been other
Speaker 1: explanations proposed for why sloths to send all the way
Speaker 1: to poop, and none of these are mutually exclusive. They
Speaker 1: could all be factors. So one is that, like maybe
Speaker 1: they want to go down so that they make less noise.
Speaker 1: I guess if they pooped from the tree, it might
Speaker 1: make a plopping sound, and they don't want to be conspicuous.
Speaker 1: Another theory is that it's a social activity, a way
Speaker 1: to meet other sloths, other sexy singles in your area.
Speaker 1: I do love a singles bar just called the poop
Speaker 1: floor where you get over all of your embarrassments and
Speaker 1: hang ups from the beginning because you all go just
Speaker 1: you know, to poop on the forest floor and meet
Speaker 1: other sloths. That's great for them. I'm really happy for them. Anyways,
Speaker 1: that'll do it for our listener Questions episode. If you
Speaker 1: have a question that you would like me to answer,
Speaker 1: you can write to me at Creature featurepot at gmail
Speaker 1: dot com. I am also exciting submissions of pet photos
Speaker 1: for me to look at. And it's not like a contest.
Speaker 1: You don't win anything. You don't really gain anything at
Speaker 1: all by sending me these photos. But guess what, I
Speaker 1: get a bunch of cute photos of animals. So hey
Speaker 1: works out for me. Anyways, Thank you guys so much
Speaker 1: for listening. If you're enjoying the show and you leave
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