Speaker 1: Welcome to Creature feature production of My Heart Radio. I'm
Speaker 1: your host of Mini Parasites, Katie Golden. I studied psychology
Speaker 1: and evolutionary biology, and today on the show Screaming. Uh yeah,
Speaker 1: animals that scream. Animals that's seeing animals that scream, ancing
Speaker 1: from the teeniest tiniest screams to some of the loudest
Speaker 1: ye owls in the animal kingdom. Discover the more as
Speaker 1: we answer the age old question, how much would you
Speaker 1: pay for your own personal security system? Would you pay
Speaker 1: them in blood? Joining me today is friend of the Pod,
Speaker 1: co host of George Center and lour After Hours, Will
Speaker 1: pull A k A Christie. I'm a good gi Maine. Welcome.
Speaker 1: Thank you for having me again, Katie. I think this
Speaker 1: is my third time on here. I'm a three peter.
Speaker 1: I'm super excited. That's right. You would be receiving in
Speaker 1: the mail of fruit basket. Oh good, yeah? Good? Now
Speaker 1: what kind of fruit? Uh should I expect? Well? You
Speaker 1: know they're exiting like a Towe pineapple. Okay, I just
Speaker 1: had an apple, regular apple. It's actually about one apple
Speaker 1: in it. Is there an actual basket or are you
Speaker 1: just mailing me a single apple with a stamp on it.
Speaker 1: It's it's an apple wrapped in a napkin. Okay. And
Speaker 1: then once you get to five yeah, once you get
Speaker 1: to five episodes, it'll be an apple tied to a banana, okay,
Speaker 1: tied to okay? All right. I was curious how you
Speaker 1: were going to fasten it. That seems difficult, and I
Speaker 1: don't think that's going to survive the postage, but I
Speaker 1: appreciate your effort. And ten episodes in, I'll thrown throwing
Speaker 1: a handful of grapes. So get excited, cannot I cannot
Speaker 1: wait for for the rotten fruit to show up in
Speaker 1: my mailbox. So excited for this? So did you know
Speaker 1: that animals screwam sometimes? So the when I think of
Speaker 1: animals screaming. We used to have a pet, pop belly pig,
Speaker 1: and when I would try to get his name was Spud.
Speaker 1: And whenever I would try to get Spud to cooperate
Speaker 1: with me, whenever I'd have to pick him up. That
Speaker 1: little dude. It's the wildest, most blood curdling scream have
Speaker 1: ever heard. I don't know if your listeners are familiar
Speaker 1: with with the sound like a pig makesure just how
Speaker 1: loud they can get um, but it's it's incredible and
Speaker 1: the first time it happened, it startled me so so
Speaker 1: much like it, uh, it completely catches you off guard.
Speaker 1: I feel like pig screams to our uncannily humanoid in
Speaker 1: a way that's really it's you can distinguish it from
Speaker 1: a human scream, but there's a definitely a humanoid aspect
Speaker 1: to it that's very unsettling. I agree, I agree. Similar
Speaker 1: to those goats. The compilations, yeah that scream. Uh. Some
Speaker 1: of my favorite videos are when people take like metal
Speaker 1: songs or or heavy heavy music and then they put
Speaker 1: the goat screams as the tracks. It's so good. There's
Speaker 1: one um that the let the Bodies hit the floor,
Speaker 1: Let the bodies hit the floor with animals sounds, uh,
Speaker 1: and they've got like a screaming cockatoo a goat in there,
Speaker 1: Couca Bura. It's really good. I love it. It's one
Speaker 1: of my favorite videos. Fantastic I've heard. I think the
Speaker 1: one that comes to mind as I think there's a
Speaker 1: system of a down mash up with like the song
Speaker 1: Chop Suey and yeah, the screaming goats. That's really good. Yeah. No,
Speaker 1: that's that's incredible. I love that. Uh So, yeah, I mean, like,
Speaker 1: there are a lot of animals. We know that they
Speaker 1: can make loud sounds, sometimes they can scream. But I
Speaker 1: think something that is it's potentially surprising to people is
Speaker 1: that in sex can also scream. In fact, bees can
Speaker 1: scream for help, which is cute and terrifying. Is it is?
Speaker 1: And I imagine these screams are inaudible to the human ear.
Speaker 1: That's not necessarily true. So remember the Asian murder hornets
Speaker 1: that we were freaking out about, I think kind of
Speaker 1: the beginning of the pandemic. So we got a little
Speaker 1: bit sidetrack there, but absolutely the the man, what a
Speaker 1: pleasant thought like that that the murder hornets were back
Speaker 1: before the world completely had gone Yeah. That that that's
Speaker 1: a that's a that's almost like a nice thing to
Speaker 1: reminisce on. Now, Yeah, we're like, oh, we gotta worry
Speaker 1: about these giant bees and then oops, no, that wasn't it.
Speaker 1: Uh But yeah, so so there was some uh some
Speaker 1: worry and still some worry about them because they were
Speaker 1: found in North America, and our North American bees are
Speaker 1: woefully unprepared for the presence of these giant hornets because
Speaker 1: they're very adept at murdering and ripping a bee colony
Speaker 1: to shreds, to literal shreds. They dismember the bodies of
Speaker 1: these poor little honey bees. And but of course these
Speaker 1: are invasive species, and when you go to their native
Speaker 1: territory in Asian countries, Asian honey bees have actually evolved
Speaker 1: a number of coping strategies for dealing with these giant
Speaker 1: murder hornets. So one of these strategies is a honey
Speaker 1: curdling scream. So obviously you may have an image of
Speaker 1: like B movie Jerry Seinfeld screaming into the camera with
Speaker 1: his weird little c g I be teeth, which I
Speaker 1: hate so much. What's with all these murder lords? You
Speaker 1: worry my whole my whole family. What's the dow that
Speaker 1: you're digesting my body parts? Okay, you do a much
Speaker 1: better Jerry sign felt impression than I do, and bye
Speaker 1: bye better. I mean it's terrible. Yeah, it's bad. Good,
Speaker 1: it's bad. Don't worry. It's gonna be bad. What makes
Speaker 1: it so good, That's what makes it good, So don't worry.
Speaker 1: Though bees do not scream with their mouths, They actually
Speaker 1: scream with their butts. What's somehow I knew it was
Speaker 1: going to be the butt, and it still surprised me
Speaker 1: when you say, yeah, it's always the butt, isn't it.
Speaker 1: It is it with insects. Yes, everything happens with the butt, everything, everything,
Speaker 1: all the time. You know that sign in that Japanese
Speaker 1: amusement park that went viral like a couple of years
Speaker 1: ago where it was like, please scream inside your heart
Speaker 1: because it was at the beginning of the pandemic and
Speaker 1: it was like they didn't want people to scream and
Speaker 1: release a bunch of saliva everywhere, so it was please
Speaker 1: scream inside of your heart to write while writing this
Speaker 1: roller coaster. I I missed that somehow, But that's such
Speaker 1: a beautiful and poetic like I feel like a lot
Speaker 1: of people are screaming inside of their heart at all
Speaker 1: times these days. Yeah, absolutely, evergreen sign. Yes for the bees,
Speaker 1: it's actually please scream with your butt. So they point
Speaker 1: their posteriors in the air and beat their wings against
Speaker 1: their abdomen and while running, so it's like if you
Speaker 1: were terrified, you like pointed your butt in the air
Speaker 1: and started slapping your thighs and then screaming as you ran. Damn. Okay,
Speaker 1: so I was picturing an ace venture, a moment um
Speaker 1: where the bee is bent over like spreading the butt
Speaker 1: uh and and talking out of its butts. Not not
Speaker 1: an ace venture, no, no more. More like you're running
Speaker 1: with your butt in the air while you're slapping it,
Speaker 1: and your slaps are so loud they sound like a scream.
Speaker 1: So yeah, So this causes a high pitched shrieking sound.
Speaker 1: You know. It's similar to how strigulation and other insects
Speaker 1: like crickets will strigulate by rubbing things against their abdomen.
Speaker 1: For the bees, it's the beating of the wings against
Speaker 1: their abdomen that creates this percussive sound that is that
Speaker 1: such a high frequency it sounds like a scream and uh.
Speaker 1: It alerts other Asian honey bees to the presence of
Speaker 1: a giant hornet. It's also used to warn its comrades
Speaker 1: of other types of hornets, like the Vespa sorora hornet,
Speaker 1: which is another large hornet who is very similar to
Speaker 1: the giant hornet, also hunts and packs and attacks bee hives.
Speaker 1: So they've got a few hornet species to worry about.
Speaker 1: These poor honey bees. But the most unsettling thing about
Speaker 1: this scream is how eerily humanlike it sounds. So researcher
Speaker 1: Dr Heather Matela said to The New York Times quote,
Speaker 1: I would get chills and start to worry about them.
Speaker 1: Even though the recordings are from years ago and the
Speaker 1: bees are long dead. There's something very human and recognizable
Speaker 1: in the sounds. So that's yeah. Unfortunately, looked. I tried
Speaker 1: to find audio of the be screams. I couldn't find it.
Speaker 1: I'll keep looking and if I find it, I will
Speaker 1: definitely share with you guys. But it is Yeah. I
Speaker 1: wonder if h did you did you happen to to
Speaker 1: learn whether the screams were distinct depending on the type
Speaker 1: of hornet attacking the colony. That's a really good question.
Speaker 1: I don't know if there are individual screams for the
Speaker 1: species of hornet, but there's definitely an alarm call. I
Speaker 1: think that means hornet intruder um. But that's a I mean,
Speaker 1: that's a really good question. I wouldn't be too shocked
Speaker 1: if they had different kinds of sounds for different types
Speaker 1: of threats, but as far as I know, there's sort
Speaker 1: of one general Hey, there's a hornet. It's going to
Speaker 1: decapitate us. This is bad sort of but drumming and
Speaker 1: do these honey bees um I've seen video before where
Speaker 1: bees will swarm a hornet um and and overheat the
Speaker 1: hornet basically like using their wings to to increase the
Speaker 1: their body temperature to the point where he can't survive.
Speaker 1: That is absolutely correct. This is the other tactic that
Speaker 1: these Asian honey bees will use. It's a remarkable behavior
Speaker 1: because they will cover the hornet and just like they
Speaker 1: just like you said, they will actually boil it alive.
Speaker 1: And they do that by vibe rating their abdomens, which
Speaker 1: generates this friction in a high enough temperature to cook
Speaker 1: the hornet in the middle of their tactical mosh pit.
Speaker 1: And they also by forming that ball, I think they
Speaker 1: increase CEO two levels, which also basically, if the boiling
Speaker 1: doesn't kill them, they suffocate it. And it's it is incredible.
Speaker 1: They actually have one more fun anti hornet tactic, and
Speaker 1: that is collecting animal dung and spreading it onto the
Speaker 1: entrance of their hive to ward off hornets. And it's
Speaker 1: kind of gross, but it's remarkable because bees are very
Speaker 1: fastidious they're very clean. They even poop outside of their
Speaker 1: own hives because they want to keep things as clean
Speaker 1: and tidy as possible. They want to protect their delicate
Speaker 1: larva from pathogens. So the fact that they were bringing
Speaker 1: poop to their hive was really confusing to researchers. It's
Speaker 1: seemed very counterintuitive. But by placing the animal dung at
Speaker 1: the entrance, it actually wards off these hornets with a
Speaker 1: foul smell, and it's called fecal spotting. And they'll just
Speaker 1: take basically little bits of dung from all sorts of
Speaker 1: different animals and like put it sort of like a
Speaker 1: just kind of like paint with it, very artistically, like
Speaker 1: Bob Ross, Like now we want to we want to
Speaker 1: put the I want to put the bare diarrhea right here.
Speaker 1: That's some nice bare diarrhea that'll really ward off those wasps.
Speaker 1: And oh and here's some here's some bobcat dung. We're
Speaker 1: gonna put the bobcat dung, and it's gonna make this
Speaker 1: really nice kind of fresco, happy happy little logs, happy
Speaker 1: happy little happy little turds. Okay, So I'm just I'm
Speaker 1: just saying I've never thought about this as like a
Speaker 1: security tactic. But if I went and collected the dog
Speaker 1: poop in my backyard and smeared it all over the
Speaker 1: front door of my house, I would not have to
Speaker 1: worry about anybody showing up on my front porch. That
Speaker 1: would absolutely that would not not no one's visiting me.
Speaker 1: I'm not getting any packages also, so that would you know,
Speaker 1: that'd be unfortunate. But also home intruders. Nobody is going
Speaker 1: to break into my house if they start to come
Speaker 1: in or try to pry in the front door. You
Speaker 1: don't need security systems. You don't need these ring doorbells
Speaker 1: or or you know, weapons for to protect your home.
Speaker 1: Just smear poop all over your front door and the
Speaker 1: entrance way, by the way, brilliant. This podcast is sponsored
Speaker 1: by poop Safe, a cheap, alternative and eco friendly solution
Speaker 1: to protecting your home. It's absolutely recycled. That poop get
Speaker 1: out there. Uh, you know, collected from your neighbors. Will
Speaker 1: love you if you're collecting their dog poop for your protection. Um,
Speaker 1: it's a win for everybody, will they? I sure love
Speaker 1: my neighbor who smears my dog's poop on their door.
Speaker 1: I I mean, if you know what like once it
Speaker 1: leaves my yard, I don't care what happens to it
Speaker 1: necessarily um. And also I don't have to visit them,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't have to to you know, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, be neighborly or anything. I still think it's
Speaker 1: I think it's a net positive or a net positive overall.
Speaker 1: Should I say yes? A good way to clear out
Speaker 1: guests to just start like, you know, laying down poop
Speaker 1: on the floor, and it's like, oh, this is what
Speaker 1: I do it, uh midnight, so you might wanna mose on.
Speaker 1: This may seem drastic right for the bees to smear
Speaker 1: poop all over their beautiful hive entrance, but if you
Speaker 1: had to face these hornets down, these hornets that are
Speaker 1: more than three times your size, you would probably scream
Speaker 1: with your butt and smear animal long around too. So
Speaker 1: just a quick quick overview of these hornets. The giant
Speaker 1: hornets or otherwise known as the Asian murder hornets, as
Speaker 1: well as the vesper sura hornets are very formidable foes
Speaker 1: and they can decimate a honey bee colony, just decapitate
Speaker 1: a bunch of bees in you know, their rapid berserkers
Speaker 1: of bees. They will often attack in packs and chop
Speaker 1: up their victims into bite sized pieces that they carry
Speaker 1: back to their hornet hive where they feed the body
Speaker 1: parts to their larva like they're feeding it into a
Speaker 1: wood chipper. So the adult such a brutal discretion. This
Speaker 1: is horrifying. I feel like like that scientists, uh said,
Speaker 1: she feels horrible. She like can can feel the connection
Speaker 1: listening to those recordings, I'm uh empathizing with these bees
Speaker 1: right now. Yeah, just based on the horror that they
Speaker 1: go through. Yeah. The reason they have this like using
Speaker 1: the baby as the wood chipper technique is that adult
Speaker 1: hornets cannot eat solid food, you know those that those
Speaker 1: our glass figures that they have to keep with that
Speaker 1: very thin waste. Food cannot pass through that that is
Speaker 1: any any thicker than a liquid. So the adults chew
Speaker 1: up the body parts and then spit this paste into
Speaker 1: the larva's mouths, and then the larva digest it and
Speaker 1: create this kind of like protein syrup, a protein shake, uh,
Speaker 1: and then regurgitate that for the adults to eat. So
Speaker 1: you know what a cute family. Yes, seriously, I want
Speaker 1: a sequel to be movie, but I want it. I
Speaker 1: want it done like a a like in a dramatic
Speaker 1: like a drama, just like a horror like drama style
Speaker 1: completely serious is um where we actually get to see
Speaker 1: the horrors of what it's like to be a bee
Speaker 1: and and and end your family off from these wasps.
Speaker 1: I want a remake of Game of Thrones, but it's bees.
Speaker 1: And if you've listened to this podcast before, you know
Speaker 1: that bees and wasps really do lend themselves to Game
Speaker 1: of Thrones style dramatization. I mean, these hornets not only
Speaker 1: attack honey bees, but they even attack other hornets species.
Speaker 1: They even attack their own species, like if there's another
Speaker 1: hive of their own species, sometimes they'll go in and
Speaker 1: do red wedding style kill everyone, but then also eat them.
Speaker 1: So yeah, they're they're hunting for their dinner. I guess, hey,
Speaker 1: you know sustainable. Yeah, so we did just talk about
Speaker 1: bees screaming with their butts and horror before getting murdered
Speaker 1: in terrible fashion. So I thought i'd light in the
Speaker 1: mood with some singing lemurs sing like okay, so we're
Speaker 1: talking like Madagascar saw Yeah exactly. Prince Julian, is that
Speaker 1: that character when he think I like to move it,
Speaker 1: move it. That whole thing. Yeah, the early two thousands
Speaker 1: called they want there, sort of dated c g I
Speaker 1: movie back timely reference. I love it though, because you're
Speaker 1: absolutely right that lemurs are from Madagascar. So that movie
Speaker 1: where you see you know, you have these mini species
Speaker 1: of lemurs altogether. They may not do a whole dance
Speaker 1: number and singing number together, but indeed Madagascar is where
Speaker 1: you will find all of the world species of lemurs.
Speaker 1: And there are many cool, awesome species of uh. And
Speaker 1: one of them possibly one of the lesser known ones,
Speaker 1: but a incredible species that should be more famous is
Speaker 1: the injury or bob a codo. So the Injury is
Speaker 1: one of the largest lemurs in the world, like all lemurs,
Speaker 1: lives exclusively in Madagascar, and they are critically endangered, which
Speaker 1: is a shame because they are absolutely amazing. So these
Speaker 1: Injury way up to about twenty pounds or nine point
Speaker 1: five ms and grow up to about twenty eight inches
Speaker 1: or seventy two centimeters long, so you know, bigger than
Speaker 1: a cat, maybe a medium sized dog. Uh. They are adorable.
Speaker 1: They look like teddy bears. They have black and white
Speaker 1: fur and yellow eyes. Their faces have this black fluffy
Speaker 1: fur with these tufted black ears that look like an
Speaker 1: extra fluffy teddy bear, and they have these short, stubby tails,
Speaker 1: which is very rare. In fact, they're the only lemurs
Speaker 1: that have lost their tails to this extent. So they look, Oh,
Speaker 1: that's unfortunate, that's cute, bum Yeah, I guess so. But
Speaker 1: if I was, if I'm a lemur, I want to
Speaker 1: tail the swing from like that's one of the coolest
Speaker 1: things about you know, living in a tree. But they don't,
Speaker 1: as all discussed it, or they don't really need it.
Speaker 1: They do live in trees, but they don't need their tail,
Speaker 1: and there's an interesting explanation for that. Actually, they are
Speaker 1: so big that one of the main purposes of these
Speaker 1: tails for lemurs actually isn't to hang from trees. Uh.
Speaker 1: It is for stabilization. And this is true of a
Speaker 1: lot of primate species. It helps them stabilize. It's true
Speaker 1: they can uh. Primates that have preinstiled tables sorry preinsiled
Speaker 1: tails can wrap them around branches to hold onto things
Speaker 1: or even use them to like grip things like leaves.
Speaker 1: They typically use it to balance their their leaps and
Speaker 1: their jumps and movement. And that's the same thing for lemurs.
Speaker 1: So lemurs like to leap from branch to branch, and
Speaker 1: they will use these tails as sort of almost like
Speaker 1: mid air rudders to help balance them as they glide.
Speaker 1: But the thing is, the bigger you get, the less
Speaker 1: a tail is going to do actually in terms of balance.
Speaker 1: And because the injury is so big, the one of
Speaker 1: the biggest lemurs it is um these tails sort of
Speaker 1: become less useful. And there was some research done looking
Speaker 1: at how like tail mass basically no longer if they
Speaker 1: had a tail, it just wouldn't really help them stabilize
Speaker 1: their leaping. So instead they have this cute little stubby
Speaker 1: tail that I think, how do you spell that again?
Speaker 1: Injury injury I in d r I or baba koto.
Speaker 1: There we go. Okay, oh my god, he is so cute. Okay,
Speaker 1: I was looking at the wrong kind. Uh wow, you
Speaker 1: were not kidding about the Teddy Bear thing, Like the
Speaker 1: big he's almost got like a Mickey Mouse shaped outline
Speaker 1: of a face and ears. That's absurd. Lemurs are so
Speaker 1: absolutely adorable, like a cartoon Teddy Bear, extra fluffy cartoon
Speaker 1: Teddy Bear. Do these things blink? It doesn't look like
Speaker 1: they can blink. I'm sure they can, but like it's
Speaker 1: the most high on meth amphetamines. Looking the animal in
Speaker 1: the Animal Kingdom, it does look like they would win
Speaker 1: a staring contest with you easily, or like you would
Speaker 1: get one of these as a teddy bear and you'd
Speaker 1: sit it at the foot of your bed and wake
Speaker 1: up in the middle of the night and it'd be
Speaker 1: staring at you. It looks like an animatronic, Like that's
Speaker 1: you know, the unblinking eyes of like a you know,
Speaker 1: showbiz pizza or chucky cheese or something gives off that
Speaker 1: vibe when I look at one. Yeah, I I see that.
Speaker 1: I think it's a creepy cute thing. Though it's like
Speaker 1: it's I think it's because of the the yellow eyes
Speaker 1: and little pupils. They look very alert. So despite maybe
Speaker 1: looking like a creepy animatronic sometimes or a cute animatronic,
Speaker 1: whatever your your opinion, uh, they are. Their behavior is
Speaker 1: very cute. So they have little family units. They are
Speaker 1: monogamous and they stay in family groups, and they are
Speaker 1: very playful and like to wrestle for fun, especially females.
Speaker 1: Another win for feminism. So they are extremely difficult to
Speaker 1: keep in captivity. They actually typically only last like a
Speaker 1: year in captivity, despite the fact that they can live
Speaker 1: up to eighteen years in the wild. And this is
Speaker 1: likely due to their extremely specialized diet that is very
Speaker 1: difficult to replicate. So they only seem to eat certain
Speaker 1: foods at certain times of days, and it's a variety
Speaker 1: of foods, so leaves, seeds, flowers, fruit, and bark. But
Speaker 1: they have this specialized diet where they eat a certain
Speaker 1: thing at a certain time of day and it helps
Speaker 1: them digest it better, which you just cannot replicate in captivity. Sure,
Speaker 1: too stressed out the follow their regimen probably, Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: being handled by people, are being in an enclosed environment,
Speaker 1: and that's what I mean. That's I'm I'm glad that
Speaker 1: they have realized that are these so they these aren't
Speaker 1: really kept. You can't see these anywhere but in the wild, basically, yeah, exactly. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: and they are one of the They are actually the
Speaker 1: only lemur that communicates through singing, and they are very
Speaker 1: musically talented, so their calls sort of sound like airhorn blasts.
Speaker 1: Not only are these calls loud, but they also follow
Speaker 1: musical patterns. So there was a study done at the
Speaker 1: University of Turin, Italy that found that their calls were
Speaker 1: used for a number of types of communication, to locate family,
Speaker 1: to establish territory, and to do sing offs with neighbors.
Speaker 1: And it can be either to establish a connection between neighbors,
Speaker 1: to communicate about mating or environmental conditions, territory boundaries, or
Speaker 1: warnings of predators. And it is actually interesting in that
Speaker 1: they seem to follow a musical pattern. So I'm gonna
Speaker 1: have you listened to a sample of some of these
Speaker 1: injuries singing. So this is actually a female singing with
Speaker 1: her mate and her son, so a little family, the
Speaker 1: von Trapp family singing group. So was that was that
Speaker 1: was one uh, like continuous song there or or samples
Speaker 1: from from many Yeah, that's one continuous song. Cool, okay, okay,
Speaker 1: you were not kidding about the the airhorn. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: it sounds like Jamaican airhorns, like yeah, some reggaetone or something.
Speaker 1: Oh my god. That's and it also has like kind
Speaker 1: of a like a hompback whale quality to some of
Speaker 1: the Yeah, yeah I can hear that. Yeah. And so yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it's it's adorable because it's family singing together. Mother, father,
Speaker 1: and son, and they often sing in duets and I
Speaker 1: don't know if you noticed, but they were harmonizing there.
Speaker 1: They would have one singing one tone to the other
Speaker 1: in a slightly different tone, and singing together in these duets.
Speaker 1: And they have very flexible mounds and lips that can
Speaker 1: change the tone of these notes, so they, you know,
Speaker 1: do this like little what uh, and so they can
Speaker 1: angle the tone. I'm not a musician, so I can't. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's kind of like the the Doppler effect, like
Speaker 1: you can stretch and and and contract the size of
Speaker 1: the wave the vibration coming out of your mouth right exactly.
Speaker 1: And so researchers have studied these calls and found that
Speaker 1: they like to do them in a specific rhythm, a
Speaker 1: one to two ratio of beat patterns, which is actually
Speaker 1: the same type of beat pattern as found in Queens.
Speaker 1: We Will Rock You, so that don't done, done done,
Speaker 1: which is kind of interestingly musical. They also drag out
Speaker 1: the final notes of their calls, which is similar to
Speaker 1: in music when you have the retardando at the very end,
Speaker 1: where you kind of like slow down a piece of
Speaker 1: music dramatically. It seems like they do that and have
Speaker 1: this kind of flourish at the end, which is unusual
Speaker 1: for animals who use song to communicate. Typically, an animal
Speaker 1: either sticks to a pattern or they don't. They don't
Speaker 1: often like add little flourishes at the end of their song,
Speaker 1: which is is very interesting, especially because I was just
Speaker 1: gonna say, have they decoded why they do that? I
Speaker 1: don't think so. No, It's it's not necessarily known why
Speaker 1: they have that slow down at the end of songs.
Speaker 1: They know that they use these songs for a variety
Speaker 1: of community cation from anywhere to saying like hey, I'm
Speaker 1: an available mate, to hey this is our territory, or
Speaker 1: even like you know, communication like I'm over here. So
Speaker 1: there could be a purpose to that. I'm not sure
Speaker 1: that it's known yet. I'm just going to pretend that
Speaker 1: it's it's just just artist's choice, like they're making they're
Speaker 1: making a decision there. Uh and and that's that's their signature,
Speaker 1: um uh style. You know the way I I write
Speaker 1: a song and I have a certain style to it.
Speaker 1: That's just there. That's their artistic interpretation, their their expression
Speaker 1: coming out. I mean, we got our appreciation from music
Speaker 1: from somewhere in our evolutionary history. Now, while we we
Speaker 1: did not evolve from lemurs, they are a primate. They
Speaker 1: are a cousin of ours, a distant cousin, a very
Speaker 1: distant one. But at some point, uh, you know, primates
Speaker 1: had an appreciation for you know, rhythm and sound that
Speaker 1: became our human appreciation for music. So I do find
Speaker 1: that really interesting that we see another primate species, no
Speaker 1: matter how distantly related they are from us. They did
Speaker 1: branch off at a very early point in our revolution,
Speaker 1: but they have this appreciation for some kind of I
Speaker 1: mean to me, it is at the very least a
Speaker 1: predecessor to music, if not if you couldn't classify it
Speaker 1: as music. Yeah, I mean, I'm a big fan of
Speaker 1: just musical air horn blasts. It's very festive. I kind
Speaker 1: of imagine them watching some some European football together. Uh
Speaker 1: oh man, yeah, just uh breaking that out, like I'm
Speaker 1: I imagine, uh they they make that sound like they've
Speaker 1: eatn eaten some fermented leaves or something there. They've gotten
Speaker 1: a little tipsy around the holiday party and then the
Speaker 1: air Yeah yeah, no, I love it. Yeah, but like
Speaker 1: I mentioned earlier, they are critically endangered, and conservation of
Speaker 1: the species is really really important. They can't be kept
Speaker 1: in captivity, so if their natural habitat goes, there is
Speaker 1: no way of preserving them or bringing their population back.
Speaker 1: And their habitat is threatened by deforestation and illegal mining
Speaker 1: of sapphires, which is a big problem in Madagascar. But
Speaker 1: before you get like mad at, like these individual miners
Speaker 1: are something that humans in Madagascar are suffering as well.
Speaker 1: They're being exploited. So these miners are often driven to
Speaker 1: do these extremely low paying, high intensity labor mining because
Speaker 1: you know, they're they're not getting enough food, they're not
Speaker 1: getting enough money, they can't feed their families, and even
Speaker 1: the local mind bosses aren't really paid that much compared
Speaker 1: to the money being aid off of this illegal sapphire mining.
Speaker 1: Most of the money goes to the gym dealers and
Speaker 1: the retailers. So I think I'm bringing this up because
Speaker 1: I think it's often important to point out how exploitation
Speaker 1: of animals often goes hand in hand with exploitation of humans.
Speaker 1: So you know, you see that this beautiful species is
Speaker 1: being threatened by something like illegal mining, and I think
Speaker 1: sometimes people may react in this way of like, oh,
Speaker 1: you know, being angry at these miners like, don't they
Speaker 1: understand they're ignorant, and it's like, well no, they're also
Speaker 1: being exploited by this system. So it's really a systemic problem.
Speaker 1: It's not these poor people in Madagascar just trying to
Speaker 1: make a living who are the problem. It's this this
Speaker 1: system that is causing this problem. So you know, it's
Speaker 1: important to have as much, if not more compassion for
Speaker 1: people as it is for when we're upset about animal
Speaker 1: being threatened. Direct direct the anger towards the people that
Speaker 1: are are causing the most of it. It's like I recycle,
Speaker 1: I you know, I try not to use one use
Speaker 1: plastics and stuff. But then you know, it's it's the
Speaker 1: thing you see all the time, like look at the
Speaker 1: top one most polluting corporations in the world, and it's like,
Speaker 1: there's not there's no amount of getting on the same
Speaker 1: page as a human population that can that can prevent
Speaker 1: the amount of CEO two release as these corporations do. Exactly,
Speaker 1: So direct your ire at the appropriate people responsible, exactly.
Speaker 1: Follow the money. Follow it, always follow the money. So
Speaker 1: we talked about poo safe earlier, right, the very environmentally
Speaker 1: friendly uh personal sort of homes security system that rivals
Speaker 1: these other these other silly home security systems. It who
Speaker 1: safe keeps protect your home with the presence of foul
Speaker 1: smelling dung that you spread on your door. But I
Speaker 1: actually do have another home security system called ox pecker Alert.
Speaker 1: It is an incredible, incredible technology of the red billed
Speaker 1: ox peckers who can alert you to the presence of
Speaker 1: poachers many many meters away. Ox Pecker is a very
Speaker 1: misleading name for something. I will say that much. I
Speaker 1: was I was not sure if this is going to
Speaker 1: be a bird or I did not know what kind
Speaker 1: of Okay, alright, all right, well it is a bird.
Speaker 1: Before you finish that thought, the red billed ox picker
Speaker 1: is a bird. It's a actually quite a pretty bird. Excellent.
Speaker 1: How would you describe this bird? Oh yeah, that's a
Speaker 1: that's a gorgeous bird. Yeah, yeah, it's like a It's
Speaker 1: like a small tan and black bird with a yellow
Speaker 1: and red bill in these red eyes. Quite quite beautiful.
Speaker 1: And they like to hang out with some big friends zebras, hippo's, drafts,
Speaker 1: cattle and other large mammals of the savannah in Africa.
Speaker 1: So they even sit atop the fearsome rhino and nibble
Speaker 1: at ticks, bought fly larvae and other pests. Love a
Speaker 1: love a good relationship there, Yeah, and it's a complicated relationship.
Speaker 1: It's really interesting because, uh, they do help their large
Speaker 1: companions by eating parasites, but they do occasionally peck little
Speaker 1: wounds into their host skin and sip on their host's blood,
Speaker 1: which actually would make the birds themselves parasites. But there's
Speaker 1: kind of debate, right like, because you know, even though
Speaker 1: that itself is parasitic, they are also helping their hosts
Speaker 1: by getting rid of parasites. So it's like, well, do
Speaker 1: they do more harm than good or do they help more?
Speaker 1: And some of the a point in favor of the
Speaker 1: ox pecker not being a parasite but being in a mutualistic,
Speaker 1: symbiotic relationship is the fact that they seem to protect
Speaker 1: black rhinos from poachers. So black rhinos are big, tough,
Speaker 1: endangered animals with great smell and hearing, but very bad eyesight,
Speaker 1: and they are unfortunately often the victims of human poaching,
Speaker 1: and they are critically endangered. So rhino researcher Dr. Rohn
Speaker 1: Plots noticed that rhinos that were close enough for them
Speaker 1: to observe had no ox peckers on their backs. They
Speaker 1: always seem to not have their little bird friends, and
Speaker 1: that made him wonder, that's that's an interesting coincidence. Maybe
Speaker 1: it's not a coincidence. So they did some observational studies
Speaker 1: that found that the ox peckers helped alert the rhinos
Speaker 1: of a humans presence. So when the ox peckers spot
Speaker 1: a human, they issue an alarm call, which is a
Speaker 1: hissing shriek, and the rhinos listen to this alarm call
Speaker 1: and we'll move away from uh the area. So these
Speaker 1: studies found that rhinos with ox peckers are better at
Speaker 1: moving away from humans than rhinos without ox peckers. And
Speaker 1: what's really interesting is the more ox peckers they have,
Speaker 1: the better they are at being alerted. So one ox
Speaker 1: pecker is okay, but you got a whole the whole
Speaker 1: group of five ox checkers all shrieking at You're like, ah, jeez,
Speaker 1: what's going on? Yeah, Like one uh one alarm on
Speaker 1: your front door is nice. But if you have all
Speaker 1: the windows uh hooked up and then your back door
Speaker 1: hooked up to, you're gonna you're gonna be even more
Speaker 1: safe exactly. Not, I mean, the more alarms, the better
Speaker 1: car alarms, air horns, everything bells. It's the home alone
Speaker 1: version of home security. Yeah yeah, seriously. I I love
Speaker 1: examples of species talking to each other. Um, I I
Speaker 1: absolutely loved. I heard a story of a long time ago.
Speaker 1: I think it was on like an episode of Radio
Speaker 1: Lab or something where this this researcher tells the story
Speaker 1: of um basically UH learning the distinct calls of monkeys
Speaker 1: and like eagles, and I believe like South America where
Speaker 1: uh they made distinct calls whenever a leopard was spotted.
Speaker 1: And he is walking through the jungle and it's starting
Speaker 1: to get you know, dusk out, and suddenly overhead he
Speaker 1: hears the distinct call. And as he's walking through the jungle,
Speaker 1: he you know, from from area to area they're making
Speaker 1: the call. He was basically being stalked by a leopard
Speaker 1: through he only he only knew about it because these
Speaker 1: other animals were making their call specific to the leopard.
Speaker 1: They made a specific call just for the leopard. When
Speaker 1: there was when the monkeys were threatened by birds of
Speaker 1: prey like an eagle or something, then they would make
Speaker 1: a different different exactly. So that's how he knew that
Speaker 1: there was a leopard following him, because it matters whether
Speaker 1: where the thread is coming from. If it's a bad
Speaker 1: from the sky, if it's a leopard, it's coming from
Speaker 1: the ground, and knowing where and and the nature of
Speaker 1: that threat is very important both for animals and human eavesdroppers.
Speaker 1: That's an incredible story. I love that. I mean, and
Speaker 1: that's it. It's so interesting about that story is the
Speaker 1: way that human use that those other animal alarm calls
Speaker 1: is exactly the way the rhino is using the bird's
Speaker 1: alarm call. Because there's no evidence that the birds are
Speaker 1: intentionally warning the rhino of this threat. It's not like
Speaker 1: the birds are like, hey, rhino, get out of the way.
Speaker 1: They're warning each other. This is what they've evolved to
Speaker 1: have this alert system with each other to warn themselves
Speaker 1: of a threat. But the rhino has learned that this
Speaker 1: call means humans and will use that knowledge to move away,
Speaker 1: so exactly in the same way that that human researchers like,
Speaker 1: I've learned this call means a leopard, I'm in danger,
Speaker 1: um and uh. And so it's the same thing with
Speaker 1: the rhino, but even more terrifying than a leopard. The
Speaker 1: human and and also like that there's a bit of
Speaker 1: self preservation there, I imagine from the bird in that. Uh,
Speaker 1: if my little floating raft of food, my buffet, my
Speaker 1: my tank of a buffet on the savannah gets killed
Speaker 1: by these poachers, then I'm out of a food source.
Speaker 1: It can't hurt. Yeah, it couldn't hurt for them to
Speaker 1: warn the rhino. It's again, it's it's hard to know
Speaker 1: whether that's just a happy coincidence or if there's any like,
Speaker 1: any sort of intention that. I mean, I think it's
Speaker 1: to say there's probably not much of an intention for
Speaker 1: the bird to warn the rhino. I don't know if
Speaker 1: they could logic that out, but I mean, maybe a
Speaker 1: smarter bird. Uh. There are some birds that I would
Speaker 1: not necessarily be surprised that they In fact, they may
Speaker 1: sometimes use alarm calls. There. No, there are actually birds
Speaker 1: that use alarm calls to scare other animals away from
Speaker 1: some kind of food source so that they can get
Speaker 1: to it, so they can There are definitely bird species.
Speaker 1: I take it back, there are bird species that know
Speaker 1: what they're doing, and they can use their alarm calls
Speaker 1: to manipulate other There's so it's possible that these birds
Speaker 1: are somehow they do know that if they alert that
Speaker 1: the rhino will move away, which is much better for
Speaker 1: them than having to like, you know, fly away and
Speaker 1: find another another rhino to sit on. Um, but there's
Speaker 1: no there's no evidence of that yet, so either way,
Speaker 1: this is a lovely little system. The rhino gets warned,
Speaker 1: the ox pecker gets to keep its perch, and humans
Speaker 1: get to be thwarted by a dynamic duo. Beautiful. I
Speaker 1: love it. So before we go, we've got to play
Speaker 1: a game of mstery animal sounds a k and guess
Speaker 1: who's squawking. Every week on the show, we play a
Speaker 1: mystery animal sound and you try to guess who is squawking. First.
Speaker 1: The hint from last week is this bald beauty is
Speaker 1: found in the forests north of the Amazon On River.
Speaker 1: It's named for its friar like appearance. But don't confuse
Speaker 1: them with another monk like animal, because this mystery squawker
Speaker 1: is not monkeying around. So very interesting call. What do
Speaker 1: you think there's so based on the clues, I don't know. Um,
Speaker 1: you said not monkeying around, which makes me want to
Speaker 1: guess it's a monkey of some sort. Um is it
Speaker 1: a howler. Nope, nope. I'm just gonna make you go
Speaker 1: through every animal in the animal kingdom until you get
Speaker 1: it in the Amazon, in the Amazon Rainforest, every every
Speaker 1: animal ten percent of the world's biodiversity, and um, let's see. Uh.
Speaker 1: I know you're joking, but I uh, I don't even
Speaker 1: know what's a guess. I have no idea. I'm overwhelmed
Speaker 1: with like I feel like I'm at a Blockbuster in
Speaker 1: trying to pick a movie right now. That's how it is,
Speaker 1: trying to identify animals in the Amazon. I think the
Speaker 1: blockbusters of the world's ecosystems also endangered, so you know,
Speaker 1: also under threat like the like the noble Blockbuster. But
Speaker 1: we must do more to save the Amazon rainforest than
Speaker 1: we did to save the Blockbuster, much more, much more,
Speaker 1: much more important. Well, this squawker is actually the capuchin bird,
Speaker 1: So congratulations Robert S. And congratulations to Emily M. Wow.
Speaker 1: I did have some listeners. Guess the capuchin monkey. That
Speaker 1: was my trap that I laid for you, because the
Speaker 1: capuchin monkey not monkeying around them, I know, But but
Speaker 1: was that a trick though? So it was it, But
Speaker 1: I had no idea there were multiple capuchin animals. Yes, yeah, so, um,
Speaker 1: you know, honorable mention for people who guess capuchin um.
Speaker 1: The capuchin monkey is also found in South America and
Speaker 1: is also named so because the monkey's black fur on
Speaker 1: top of their heads and backs looks like a friar's rope.
Speaker 1: So very similar animal, very similarly named. But no, it's
Speaker 1: the capuchin bird. So these beautiful birds have blue, bald
Speaker 1: heads and big fluffy, rusty orange brown feather coats. The
Speaker 1: fluffiness of their feathers combined with the bald tops of
Speaker 1: their heads, I think is it's both kind of funny
Speaker 1: but also beautiful. And it definitely looks like they're wearing
Speaker 1: a big fluffy coat with a hood, which I guess
Speaker 1: to people look like a capuchin monk. I'm not sure
Speaker 1: about that. To me, they look more of a Cruella
Speaker 1: de Ville, kind of like I'm wearing a fur coat
Speaker 1: pepe of deal, but absolutely gorgeous. Did you get a
Speaker 1: chance to look at one of these guys? Oh, I
Speaker 1: will look it up now. I'm I'm I enjoy your
Speaker 1: descriptions and so I'm just imagining them in my head
Speaker 1: and I forget that I can literally this is a
Speaker 1: median bird. I'm I'm just I'm just enjoying the discription.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, that is whoa that is okay, I love
Speaker 1: all animals. That is a creepy looking bird. I think
Speaker 1: I distinct looking. Okay, all right, distinguished. That's that's how
Speaker 1: we'll go, just because you're right. It is like when
Speaker 1: I think of like a somebody describing like a bald bird,
Speaker 1: my mind just immediately goes like the bald eagle, which
Speaker 1: obviously isn't actually bald. Uh No, that that is like
Speaker 1: it does look like it's just wearing. It looks like
Speaker 1: you wearing the neck brace pillow thing. Now, that's okay.
Speaker 1: I think this is important for everyone to know. I
Speaker 1: have a little bit of a sworneck, so I was
Speaker 1: wearing instead of being normal and getting an actual neck brace,
Speaker 1: I just used an airline pillow because I thought like, hey,
Speaker 1: I got I got this laying around and it it
Speaker 1: helps a little bit. Does the trick? Does the trick?
Speaker 1: That's exactly what it looks like, it's wearing, wearing a
Speaker 1: fluffy airline pillow but all over the rest of or
Speaker 1: or comically oversized sweater. Yeah. Yeah, that's man, that is
Speaker 1: a very cool looking bird look like a little bald
Speaker 1: little man wearing a huge, fluffy mohair sweater. Okay, I've
Speaker 1: I've come around. I've come around on it. I like
Speaker 1: it now. I am no longer creeped out despite having
Speaker 1: those bald, sort of vulture like heads. They actually don't
Speaker 1: eat carrion. They eat insects and fruit. Some people have
Speaker 1: said this this song sounds like a cow mowing. I don't.
Speaker 1: I disagree. I think it sounds like maybe a possessed
Speaker 1: cow mowing um, something possessed by Satan. But the capuchin
Speaker 1: bird sings in lex which are display areas that males
Speaker 1: gather to sing and impress females with their beautiful, chunky
Speaker 1: mo hair coats. So onto this week's mystery animal sound.
Speaker 1: Here is the hint. This happy little corn eating animal
Speaker 1: may sound cute, but it's a little stuck up that
Speaker 1: is so weird sounding. So okay, I have a guest
Speaker 1: for that. I know I'm not supposed to know. Can
Speaker 1: I guess? Is it a fox? No? One more free hint?
Speaker 1: It's not a fox? Okay, all right, I've seen videos
Speaker 1: where like foxes are like playing with people on camera
Speaker 1: and like in a very playful way, and they make
Speaker 1: the wildest human sounding like baby noises. Yeah, it's a
Speaker 1: very good guess. You're right. Foxes make very interesting sounds,
Speaker 1: and they can make like almost sounding like a human
Speaker 1: crying or something. It's kind of creepy. Yeah, exactly. But
Speaker 1: this is not a fox. It is something else. And
Speaker 1: the answer to this will be revealed and next week's
Speaker 1: Creature Feature. If you think you know the answer, you
Speaker 1: can email me at Creature Feature Pod at gmail dot com.
Speaker 1: I'm also on Twitter Creature Feet pod. That's e E T.
Speaker 1: That's something very different, and on Instagram at Creature Feature Pod.
Speaker 1: So will a k A Christie. I'm a gucca me.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for joining me. Tell tell the
Speaker 1: people where they can't find you. Oh, thank you so
Speaker 1: much for having me again. It was a delight as usual.
Speaker 1: You can find me on Twitter at Wapple House w
Speaker 1: A P P L E h O U s E
Speaker 1: UM and that's pretty much where I I live most
Speaker 1: of the time. Uh not in real life. UM, you
Speaker 1: can find me on there. I don't even know what
Speaker 1: my Instagram handle is, to be honest with you, it's uh,
Speaker 1: it's long. There's underscores involved, so whenever I am stupidly
Speaker 1: make a handle with underscores, I always forget where they're at,
Speaker 1: so uh yeah, just find me on there. Um you
Speaker 1: can listen to George Center pod or or George Center
Speaker 1: um but at George Center pod on Twitter, um and
Speaker 1: hour after hours. If you're a fan of the Damn
Speaker 1: Lebatar Heart Show, um and uh enough of a fan
Speaker 1: that you would make a podcast about being a fan
Speaker 1: of the Damn Labator show, you can find me there
Speaker 1: and thank you so much for listening. If you're enjoying
Speaker 1: the show, please leave writing and review. I read all
Speaker 1: the reviews. I love them so much. I really appreciate them, all,
Speaker 1: cherished them, print them out, put them underneath my pillow,
Speaker 1: and kiss them before I go to bed at night. Man,
Speaker 1: thank you so much to the Space Classics where they're
Speaker 1: super awesome song ex Alumina creat Your feature is a
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