Speaker 1: Welcome to Creature Feature 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 the show we're answering your listener questions.
Speaker 1: That's right. You can write to me and I will
Speaker 1: try my best to answer your questions about animals, about
Speaker 1: evolutionary biology, about psychology, and everything in between. You could
Speaker 1: write to me at Creature Featurepod at gmail dot com.
Speaker 1: Let's get right into it, Hi, Katie, listening to one
Speaker 1: of your earlier episodes on Rats. I am reminded of
Speaker 1: this rats news from a few days ago with a
Speaker 1: link to a YouTube video. Enjoy I guess smiling crying
Speaker 1: face from jessec Hi Jesse, thank you for the cool video.
Speaker 1: This video is a nicely done summary by Anton Petrov,
Speaker 1: which is is a recap of the study a humanized
Speaker 1: Nova one splicing factor alters mouse vocal communications published this
Speaker 1: February in Nature. So let's talk a bit about this study.
Speaker 1: So mice were genetically modified to have a gene alteration
Speaker 1: that is unique to humans, targeting a specific gene called
Speaker 1: NOVA one, which, among other things, is a blueprint for
Speaker 1: the development of neurons in the brain, so all mammals
Speaker 1: have NOVA one, but there is a specific change in
Speaker 1: the amino acid sequence that seems to be specific to humans,
Speaker 1: even setting us apart from our close extinct relatives like
Speaker 1: the Neanderthals. So researchers in the study use the Crisper
Speaker 1: gene editing method to introduce this human amino acid sequence
Speaker 1: change into embryonic minds, and they found that, yeah, these
Speaker 1: mice started talking and walking and dancing little top hats
Speaker 1: and singing about cheese. Well okay, so not exactly, but
Speaker 1: the findings were pretty interesting. So the mice that were
Speaker 1: given this humanized NOVA one gene alteration had different vocalizations
Speaker 1: both as babies and as adults. They had a higher
Speaker 1: frequency vocalizations as puffs, so higher in the frequency in
Speaker 1: terms of higher pitched and interestingly, these higher pitched vocalizations
Speaker 1: lessited less of a response from their mothers. So I
Speaker 1: find this really important to point out because it really
Speaker 1: shows how difficult it is for a massive brain changing
Speaker 1: mutation to actually take hold in an animal, because it's
Speaker 1: not always going to be beneficial in a population. It
Speaker 1: could just as likely doom this animal that has this mutation.
Speaker 1: So in this case, right, if these were natural born mice,
Speaker 1: they might have more difficulty communicating to their own parents,
Speaker 1: their own mothers, and so if the mother doesn't properly
Speaker 1: respond to its calls for food or alarm calls, that
Speaker 1: might make the baby mouse less prone to survival. And
Speaker 1: so you could have a mutation that could potentially be
Speaker 1: beneficial down the road, right, creating more intelligent mice. But
Speaker 1: if in the shorter term it creates a situation in
Speaker 1: which the mouse offspring are less likely to survive, that
Speaker 1: mutation is not necessarily going to beneficial. So back to
Speaker 1: the study. As adults, the mice with this humanized nova
Speaker 1: one gene had more complex, high frequency vocalizations when attempting
Speaker 1: to communicate, especially when the male mice would attempt to
Speaker 1: communicate with female mice to convince them to mate. So
Speaker 1: this is another interesting indication about how a mutation, where
Speaker 1: it in natural populations, might either positively or negatively impact
Speaker 1: the organism's chance of successful reproduction. Right. So, in birds,
Speaker 1: for example, some species have evolved to have very complex
Speaker 1: mating calls, which the females seem to appreciate because it
Speaker 1: offers some signaling about the male's fitness mental physical fitness.
Speaker 1: The male has the resources, the time, and the intellect
Speaker 1: to be able to memorize really long songs. So in mice,
Speaker 1: it could be a situation in which these more complex
Speaker 1: vocalizations actually elicit a better response from mates, or it
Speaker 1: could be a worse response. Right the the female mice
Speaker 1: may have no idea what the males are talking about
Speaker 1: because they've essentially started speaking a slightly different mousey language.
Speaker 1: So the human mutation of the nova one gene did
Speaker 1: not suddenly gift mice the ability to speak, but it
Speaker 1: did alter their vocalizations, including possibly creating more complex use
Speaker 1: of syllables in adults, which is really interesting and it
Speaker 1: does offer more evidence that this gene sequence might be
Speaker 1: at least in part responsible for the development of human speech.
Speaker 1: It might also provide evidence that humans were genetically unique
Speaker 1: from our Neanderthal relatives, which could mean that Neanderthals did
Speaker 1: not use language in the same way that we did.
Speaker 1: There are multiple theories about this. Some anthropologists and researchers
Speaker 1: and evolutionary cologists thinks that it might be likely that
Speaker 1: Neanderthals had some form of language, whereas others think that
Speaker 1: the human brain probably had a change in it, a
Speaker 1: structural difference that was so profound that that is what
Speaker 1: allowed us to form our complex language that probably was
Speaker 1: different from There was certainly communication among Neanderthals and vocalizations,
Speaker 1: but it may have been either a proto language or
Speaker 1: something more simple than our language. So yeah, this is
Speaker 1: a really interesting addition to the evidence about how we
Speaker 1: developed language. And I do know what you guys are thinking.
Speaker 1: You're wondering if you could inject this gene into your
Speaker 1: dog and get her to talk. So basically the answer
Speaker 1: is no. First of all, it would need to be
Speaker 1: in an embryo, so you can't inject this gene into
Speaker 1: like an adult, fully developed animal and expect there to
Speaker 1: be much of a difference. Secondly, our ability to speak
Speaker 1: requires not just one genetic mutation, but an entire cognitive
Speaker 1: framework that an animal like a dog most likely lacks.
Speaker 1: So who knows exactly what this would do in say
Speaker 1: a dog, It may have no effect. It may have
Speaker 1: some effect on their ability to bark or produce sort
Speaker 1: of different barking patterns vocalizations. It would not give the
Speaker 1: dog the ability to speak, because a dog doesn't have
Speaker 1: the same kind of cognitive structures that human beings have
Speaker 1: that allow us to speak. So, for instance, our ability
Speaker 1: to nest concepts is really important in our ability to
Speaker 1: understand language, and that might be something that's a little
Speaker 1: bit beyond a dog. Could you, though, say, edit the
Speaker 1: genes of a more cognitively advanced animal, like say an
Speaker 1: elephant or a chimpanzee and give them more complex vocalizations
Speaker 1: and allow them to maybe eventually be able to speak
Speaker 1: with each other over man, maybe thousands of years of evolution.
Speaker 1: Maybe Ah, that's a solid Maybe I would say you
Speaker 1: would just have to do some wildly unethical experimentation and
Speaker 1: wait thousands of years. But you know what, never say never.
Speaker 1: All right on to the next listener email. Hi, Katie,
Speaker 1: just wanted to drop a note after a recent episode
Speaker 1: which discussed different ways of managing populations of animal shelters
Speaker 1: and possible regional differences in quote unquote no kill versus
Speaker 1: other animals shelters. My sisters and I have both been
Speaker 1: involved in animal rescue over the years, and my sister
Speaker 1: has fostered numerous dogs, including a pregnant mama and assisting
Speaker 1: the birth of her puppies. She kept Mama pick attached
Speaker 1: for the tax. Thank you for that. It was very cute.
Speaker 1: I hope it's a consolation to know that there are
Speaker 1: many rescues in my area, the Northeast, where no kill
Speaker 1: shelters are more common, who specialize in pulling animals from
Speaker 1: ones that use euthanasia. There's also lots of rescues that
Speaker 1: pull from New York City Animal Control as well. These
Speaker 1: rescues find dogs who are on borrowed time and get
Speaker 1: foster commitments. Once there's enough, though, they send vans down
Speaker 1: to transport them up here so they can be saved
Speaker 1: and have good homes. Most that pull from far away
Speaker 1: have entire networks of transport drivers that travel in legs.
Speaker 1: It's a small dent, but at least they can save
Speaker 1: some A lot of the shelters the rescue we work
Speaker 1: for are in the Carolinas, and we are in New York.
Speaker 1: Not sure about other parts of the country, but it
Speaker 1: seems to be the area closest to us that has
Speaker 1: a big dog overpopulation issue in their public shelters. And
Speaker 1: this is from Caroline H. Hi. Caroline, I really appreciate
Speaker 1: you writing in and letting me know about these programs.
Speaker 1: I love to hear that there's a network of limited
Speaker 1: intake and general intake shelters, so also known as no
Speaker 1: kill versus you know, euthanasia shelters. I think that's fantastic,
Speaker 1: especially when different states can work together to get animals
Speaker 1: to the homes that they need. It's you know, I
Speaker 1: think that both shelters perform very important services, and the
Speaker 1: fact that they can work together to try to get
Speaker 1: the dogs and cats to the resources that they need
Speaker 1: is wonderful, very beautiful. So just to share some stuff
Speaker 1: that I've learned being in Italy, there's a lot of
Speaker 1: cooperation between shelters in the South and the North to
Speaker 1: spread out the number of animals in any given shelter.
Speaker 1: In turn, there are huge numbers of dogs that find
Speaker 1: their way to people's homes. And this city really loves dogs.
Speaker 1: I've never been in a city that loves dogs so much,
Speaker 1: which is great for me as a dog owner. Most
Speaker 1: restaurants and shops allow you to bring your dog given
Speaker 1: that they're well behaved. There are tons of pet welfare
Speaker 1: laws on the books. It does kind of mean, actually
Speaker 1: that there's a lot of dog poop on the streets,
Speaker 1: even though I'd say about ninety five percent of people
Speaker 1: clean up after their dogs. There's so many dogs that
Speaker 1: even the five percent of people who are naughty and
Speaker 1: don't clean up after their dogs means that there's a
Speaker 1: good amount of mess for the rest of us. So
Speaker 1: people here also really love cats, so they're generally not
Speaker 1: allowed outside here. In turn, there are even requirements from
Speaker 1: shelters that balconies have to be kept secured so cats
Speaker 1: don't accidentally fall out of their apartments. I have actually
Speaker 1: seen cats on leashes on a surprising number of occasions.
Speaker 1: We've even seen a cat that was not on a
Speaker 1: leash but was following his owner around very very dutifully
Speaker 1: and loyally. I've never seen that before, but that was
Speaker 1: pretty incredible. There was another one that was sitting on
Speaker 1: its owner's shoulders while he was writing one of those
Speaker 1: hoverboard thingies, so like the owner was riding the hoffboard,
Speaker 1: not the cat, the cat was sitting on his owner's shoulders.
Speaker 1: It was incredible to see, and I would be remiss
Speaker 1: if I didn't mention one of the most famous cat
Speaker 1: shelters in Italy, which is in Rome, the Lago di
Speaker 1: Torre Argentina, which is near where Julius Caesar was assassinated.
Speaker 1: These are Roman ruins and the Torre Argentina Cat Sanctuary
Speaker 1: has about one hundred and fifty feline residents who wander
Speaker 1: around the ruins and are fed near this shed where
Speaker 1: archaeologists used to store their tools. It started as an
Speaker 1: informal arrangement where cats who would congregate there because it
Speaker 1: was a pleasant place for them to sun themselves or
Speaker 1: sleep in the shade, would get fed by the locals
Speaker 1: and by the groundskeepers, and now it's become a more
Speaker 1: formal situation. They work with vets to make sure that
Speaker 1: the cats are spayed and neutered, and visitors can come
Speaker 1: donate to the shelter, buy little chotchkeys, and all the
Speaker 1: proceeds go to benefit the cats. They can even go
Speaker 1: and meet a cat and adopt ones, so it's really
Speaker 1: really cool. I actually I have been to Rome. I
Speaker 1: have not been to this cat sanctuary, but I have
Speaker 1: been to other ruins, and there are cats that like
Speaker 1: to hang out there as well. So they are just
Speaker 1: rolling around sun bathing themselves, probably right on the spot
Speaker 1: where Julius Caesar was assessed. If they fits, they sits,
Speaker 1: even if it's the side of a historical assassination. Hi Katie,
Speaker 1: thank you for answering my questions and responding even when
Speaker 1: I didn't have a question. Today, I do have a question,
Speaker 1: and it's about emperor penguin chicks. They are so adorable,
Speaker 1: but why, specifically, what is the evolutionary advantage for them
Speaker 1: to look the way they do, spinning their chick hood
Speaker 1: in the dead of an Antarctica with no natural predators. They
Speaker 1: have no need for camouflage, so why I certainly wouldn't
Speaker 1: mind if they have evolved simply to be so darn cute.
Speaker 1: A side note, I had a similar question about pandas
Speaker 1: in general until a recent documentary revealed that wild panda
Speaker 1: mothers would leave their babies on tree branches that perfectly
Speaker 1: camouflage them to keep them away from male pandas. It's
Speaker 1: uncanny and satisfying to see at the same time. Cheers Jesse,
Speaker 1: Hi Jesse, this is a great question. So emperor penguin
Speaker 1: chicks do actually have to worry a bit about predators,
Speaker 1: though they might not be who you would expect. So
Speaker 1: other seabirds do like to eat young chicks, like giant
Speaker 1: petrels and skuas, so most likely the young penguins feathers
Speaker 1: are designed primarily for warmth rather than swimming, so the
Speaker 1: young penguins do not need to swim. Little babies don't
Speaker 1: swim out, they don't go fishing. It's that's all their parents.
Speaker 1: So their feathers are very downy. They're really fluffy, fluffy,
Speaker 1: they're very fluffy. It's designed for warmth rather than being
Speaker 1: able to swim, so that's their sort of baby down coat.
Speaker 1: In terms of coloration, the grayish white of their coats
Speaker 1: probably helps the grayish white of their plumage probably helps
Speaker 1: them blend in somewhat with their environment, while the black
Speaker 1: on their heads and beaks and the little patch under
Speaker 1: their chins give their parents a good target for where
Speaker 1: to deposit food and helps them identify them as a chick.
Speaker 1: So the features that we find cute about the baby penguins,
Speaker 1: like how their cheeks and eyes are surrounded by white feathers,
Speaker 1: that little black patch under their chin allowing their faces
Speaker 1: to be more recognizable, may also be in a way
Speaker 1: cute so to speak, to the adult penguins, eliciting a
Speaker 1: maternal or paternal response, helping them to recognize the chicks
Speaker 1: and making them want to care for them, so similar
Speaker 1: to how we find human babies cute and animals because
Speaker 1: animals proportions can be similar to human babies and elicit
Speaker 1: that same sort of care taking response, that may be
Speaker 1: achieving the same thing with the adult penguins. In a way,
Speaker 1: evolving for cuteness is not a bad idea. That may
Speaker 1: be part of the reason they look this way. As adults,
Speaker 1: they do need to change because they need to grow
Speaker 1: in feathers that are more that are more ideal for
Speaker 1: swimming rather than for simply one they do have a
Speaker 1: nice downy layer underneath their sleeker swimming feathers. They also
Speaker 1: need to advertise their sexual maturity to mates, so they
Speaker 1: lose their baby feathers that down and they molt, and
Speaker 1: then they develop that striking black, white and orange coloration
Speaker 1: that emperor penguins are so well known for, which advertises
Speaker 1: that they are also now sexually mature. Their little tuxedo
Speaker 1: suits might help them evade predation in the water as
Speaker 1: well through the lightness of their bellies and the darkness
Speaker 1: of their backs, because there's this phenomenon where when you're
Speaker 1: below something in the ocean and looking up, light is
Speaker 1: coming down from the top, so if you're looking up,
Speaker 1: things are light, and so if something has a light belly,
Speaker 1: it'll blend in better with looking up through the light
Speaker 1: filtering in through the top of the ocean, whereas if
Speaker 1: you're looking down, it's further away from the source of light,
Speaker 1: so it gets darker the further down you go. So
Speaker 1: you're looking down something has a dark back, it's more
Speaker 1: likely to blend in with the darkness of the ocean.
Speaker 1: That's why things like penguins and orcas have that coloration
Speaker 1: where it's dark on the top and then light white underbelly.
Speaker 1: It's very striking looking to us, but it actually acts
Speaker 1: as camouflage. The orange coloration, like along their beaks and
Speaker 1: on their chests, is likely for sexual selection purposes. As
Speaker 1: I mentioned earlier, they want to advertise that they're sexually mature,
Speaker 1: they're ready to mate, and both males and females have
Speaker 1: this coloration, which is typical for birds, especially who both
Speaker 1: invest a lot in childcare. So, which is the case
Speaker 1: for emperor penguins, both the males and the females have
Speaker 1: to tend the eggs take turns getting fish sitting on
Speaker 1: the eggs, so they both need to impress one another
Speaker 1: in order to mate, whereas in other species of penguin
Speaker 1: or in birds, where it's the female who primarily does
Speaker 1: the care tape, then she needs to be choosier in
Speaker 1: terms of her mate, and that's usually where you get
Speaker 1: this larger sexual dimorphism, meaning differences between the male and
Speaker 1: the female, where maybe the female is more optimized for
Speaker 1: camouflage and the male's more optimized for showing off as
Speaker 1: plumage and impressing a female. So in this case and
Speaker 1: inmper penguins, they're both trying to impress each other while
Speaker 1: also retaining some of that camouflage, and that's why they
Speaker 1: have both the stunning orange bands near their mouths and
Speaker 1: on their chests. But they also have the black and
Speaker 1: white coloration that helps them camouflage while swimming, which is
Speaker 1: where adult inmper penguins are going to find most of
Speaker 1: their predators while they're swimming. All right, last listener question,
Speaker 1: plaid frogs. These pictures look fake. The lighting is too
Speaker 1: perfect for the wild, and they are all taken at
Speaker 1: the same angle and distance. Are these AI generated or
Speaker 1: are there actually a species of classy dapper frogs out there?
Speaker 1: And then this was followed up by a quick email
Speaker 1: that said, disregard that last email plaid frogs. I'm ninety
Speaker 1: eight point four six seven percent sure that was an
Speaker 1: April fool's joke. This is from JR. S. I won't
Speaker 1: disregard this email because I see this all the time
Speaker 1: where there's I mean, obviously this was an April fool's joke,
Speaker 1: but there's so many AI images out there now of
Speaker 1: animals that are meant to deceive rather than just be
Speaker 1: a fun April fool's prank, and I find it frustrating
Speaker 1: because real frogs that actually exist have incredible skin textures
Speaker 1: and colorations that don't look like they should exist. So
Speaker 1: now it feels like people may see something really incredible
Speaker 1: or real frog and go like, ah, that might be AI.
Speaker 1: So let me give you some examples of some frogs
Speaker 1: that might look like they are AI creations, but they
Speaker 1: absolutely exist. One of them is the glass frog, which
Speaker 1: is found in Central America. There's a few different species
Speaker 1: of glass frogs, but in general, they have skin that's
Speaker 1: so transparent you can actually see their organs. The translucency
Speaker 1: is so that they can camouflage against the leaves that
Speaker 1: they sit on, so basically, you know, they have a
Speaker 1: invisible camouflage mode, which is incredible. When they're asleep, most
Speaker 1: of their blood is concentrated in the liver, leaving them
Speaker 1: mostly colorless and translucent, so they can be safe from
Speaker 1: predators while they're at rest. When they're awake and their
Speaker 1: blood is flowing, they're a little more not I would.
Speaker 1: They're still translucent there, but there's more color to them
Speaker 1: so you can see them a little more clearly. Of course,
Speaker 1: there's poisoned dart frogs that are absolutely beautiful, have amazing colorations.
Speaker 1: You've probably seen these before. They're the frogs that have
Speaker 1: the really bright coloration. Most of them are very very toxic.
Speaker 1: Some of them are mimics of the toxic and dart
Speaker 1: frogs so they can get some advantage. So some of
Speaker 1: my favorites just by looks are Zimmerman's poison frog found
Speaker 1: in Peru, which has these beautiful black spots and mint
Speaker 1: green and yellow sort of reticulations. It's really really pretty.
Speaker 1: Also in Peru is the red headed poison frog, and
Speaker 1: I like this one not just out of solidarity as
Speaker 1: a fellow redhead, but because it looks like half of
Speaker 1: its body got dunked in sort of an orange glaze,
Speaker 1: while the bottom half is reticulated blue and black. So
Speaker 1: it's absolutely stunning. And something that's not a poisoned dart
Speaker 1: frog but is really really pretty, at least during certain
Speaker 1: periods of the season is the Indian bullfrog. The males
Speaker 1: turn bright yellow during mating season, and their vocal sacs
Speaker 1: are this bright blue, so when they're inflated, they look
Speaker 1: like these bright blue balloons attached to this lemon yellow frog.
Speaker 1: It's really really pretty, really cool to look at. And
Speaker 1: then if you ever if you want to look at
Speaker 1: online for Indian bullfrogs, you can usually find videos of
Speaker 1: these guys in huge clusters, a bunch of them loudly
Speaker 1: making their call and trying to find a mate, so
Speaker 1: really amazing. So there are some really cool frogs out there,
Speaker 1: and they're not AI generated, which can be frustrating, but hey,
Speaker 1: you know what, if you ever see something and you're
Speaker 1: because AI is getting better and better and it gets
Speaker 1: easier and easier to be fooled bite, especially because there
Speaker 1: are genuinely really cool animals out there that do look
Speaker 1: like they might have been generated by AI and you
Speaker 1: can't tell the difference and you want my help with it,
Speaker 1: just go ahead and email me. You can email me
Speaker 1: at Creature feature Pod at gmail dot com and I'll
Speaker 1: help you figure out whether an image is real or not,
Speaker 1: or a hoax or whatever it is. And if you
Speaker 1: have any questions, you can also email me and I
Speaker 1: will do my best to answer them. Thank you guys
Speaker 1: so much for listening. And if you're enjoying the show
Speaker 1: and you leave a rating or a review, you know
Speaker 1: that that helps me in that does improve the metrics
Speaker 1: of the show. I don't know algorithms. We're all ruled
Speaker 1: by computers. Now. Soon the AI frogs will take over,
Speaker 1: and I, for one, I don't know if I welcome
Speaker 1: them because they look too smooth. It's creepy. I don't
Speaker 1: like it. Anyways, guys, thank you again for listening and
Speaker 1: I'll see you next Wednesday.