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, it's a listener questions episode.
Speaker 1: You guys, send me your questions about evolutionary biology, animal behavior, pets, birds, worms.
Speaker 1: You send those to Creature Featurepod at gmail dot com
Speaker 1: and I do my best to answer them. And I
Speaker 1: love this because it always sends me on really interesting
Speaker 1: or thought journeys research. So let's get right into it. Hey, Katie,
Speaker 1: I have a question and a conundrum for you in
Speaker 1: tech behavior question. I know bugs must rest somehow and sometime,
Speaker 1: but it seems like there's always a type of mosquito
Speaker 1: around day or night. Are there specific times of day
Speaker 1: when bugs, or at least those awful zebra mosquitoes will
Speaker 1: be so that I can sit outside in peace. I
Speaker 1: also wanted to ask your philosophy on naming pets. Below
Speaker 1: er some pictures of my new friend. The name this
Speaker 1: shelter gave him didn't fit, so I've been referring to
Speaker 1: him as my guy, but all I know he thinks
Speaker 1: his name is Hey. Personally, I think I feel like
Speaker 1: a name needs to be at least three levels of meaning,
Speaker 1: but I've got a mental block theories, ideas, scathing, derision.
Speaker 1: Thanks for the creatures and the features, Andrew, Thank you
Speaker 1: so much. Andrew. First of all, I think Hey or
Speaker 1: Guy is an absolute cutie. My philosophy on pet naming
Speaker 1: is basically anarchy. I think, whatever you want to name them,
Speaker 1: you know, it's sometimes it's good to have like a
Speaker 1: name that you can definitely say in like a friendly
Speaker 1: upbeat tone. But usually my pet names are two syllables.
Speaker 1: They have like an E sound at the end. That's
Speaker 1: just my thing. Like I had it Pete the parakeet,
Speaker 1: Poppy the parakeet, Binkie the cat, Stewie the hamster, Mousey
Speaker 1: the mouse, which one of my more creative namings, and
Speaker 1: of course Cookie the dog, and I had just thought about, like, well,
Speaker 1: why do I do this? Why do I always have
Speaker 1: it and in an E sound? And I think it's
Speaker 1: because my name is Katie, so I'm just used to
Speaker 1: name sounding like that with an E at the end.
Speaker 1: But I don't think all pets need to be named
Speaker 1: that way. Really, it's just if the name has a
Speaker 1: positive association for you, that's the most important part, because
Speaker 1: pets can understand tone of voice, but they can't really
Speaker 1: understand words so much. We can teach them a few words,
Speaker 1: but your dog's not gonna know. Really the difference between
Speaker 1: being named like no Stradamus or being named guy as
Speaker 1: long as you're saying it with a lot of love.
Speaker 1: So that's that's it. Onto the question about most squitos.
Speaker 1: Do they ever sleep even though it seems like they don't,
Speaker 1: because believe me, it really does seem that way, they're
Speaker 1: always around, they do actually sleep, so researchers have studied
Speaker 1: mosquitoes sleep in several species and found that sleep deprived
Speaker 1: mosquitoes would choose rest over blood meals, so they do
Speaker 1: need sleep. They will even sometimes prefer sleep over biting you,
Speaker 1: but that's only when they're sleep deprived. The problem is
Speaker 1: that they're not always sleep deprived, so mosquitoes are really
Speaker 1: easily roused from rest by the smell of a nearby
Speaker 1: food source, and if they're not sleep deprived, they'll happily
Speaker 1: wake up to try to bite you. University of Cincinnati
Speaker 1: researchers had to take this into account when designing their
Speaker 1: research on mosquitoes, because mosquitoes tend to wake up and
Speaker 1: become active when human researchers walk in the room because
Speaker 1: basically they smell like a banquet, and so they had
Speaker 1: to isolate their mosquitoes that they were doing sleep studies
Speaker 1: on from passers by. So that's one reason it seems
Speaker 1: like they don't sleep, you see. Assistant Professor of Biology
Speaker 1: Joshua bin Watt said, quote, it's really hard to quantify
Speaker 1: sleep and mosquitoes when as soon as you walk in
Speaker 1: the room, you're considered their Thanksgiving dinner. So that's one problem.
Speaker 1: Mosquitoes are great at waking up, smelling us, and then
Speaker 1: wanting to bite us. Another problem is that different species
Speaker 1: have different sleep schedules. So if you're in a mosquito
Speaker 1: rich area, the chances are that you have multiple species
Speaker 1: there and some species that are going to be active
Speaker 1: at different times a day, and some of that means
Speaker 1: even during the daytime hours and then even at night
Speaker 1: there may be mosquitoes that are active. So for instance,
Speaker 1: the striped mosquitoes Adias elbow pictus, also known as the
Speaker 1: Asian tiger mosquito, are those black and white banded mosquitoes.
Speaker 1: I think some people call them zebra mosquitoes. They're found
Speaker 1: in tropical areas as well as the south and southwestern US.
Speaker 1: They are real menaces. They can spread danga and zeka
Speaker 1: in areas where the disease is prevalent. They're not inherently diseased.
Speaker 1: They can only spread the disease if the pathogen is
Speaker 1: present in that environment and in that country. That's why
Speaker 1: mosquito related deaths are worse in some countries. They like
Speaker 1: to feed during the day, primarily in the morning and
Speaker 1: the evening, while resting at night. Now, at the same time,
Speaker 1: common mosquitoes kulex are more active and tint to bite
Speaker 1: at night, so those are also the ones that make
Speaker 1: more sound buzz in your ear. So this is why
Speaker 1: it seems like mosquitos never rest. They do, but usually
Speaker 1: at least one species is on the clock. And also
Speaker 1: even though they might be resting, they're very sensitive and
Speaker 1: they can detect carbon dioxide emissions so easily that we
Speaker 1: make while we're breathing that they can wake up, find
Speaker 1: you and eat you. They are just really good at it.
Speaker 1: And I'm sorry, there's no better there's no good news
Speaker 1: I can tell you about mosquitos. They're just amazing at
Speaker 1: finding us and biding us. All right, on to the
Speaker 1: next listener question. Dear Katie, could you kindly focus your
Speaker 1: powers of research and deduction on this poor creature? So
Speaker 1: I was sent a video of what appears to be
Speaker 1: a crocodile with a deformed S shaped spine. All right,
Speaker 1: now back to the email. What happened to them? Where
Speaker 1: in the world are they? Are they being well taken
Speaker 1: care of? Are they suffering? Is this common among crocodilians?
Speaker 1: A huge fan of the show, and we'll give you
Speaker 1: a million good reviews if you can find any answers
Speaker 1: about this little guy, who I think is my new
Speaker 1: spirit animal, at least a million good reviews. Thanks for
Speaker 1: all you do. Keep up the good word, Susie. Thank
Speaker 1: you so much for your question, Susie. So I can
Speaker 1: tell you what happened to them and about their care,
Speaker 1: I can't. I couldn't figure out where this specific crocodile was.
Speaker 1: But let me get into what's going on with this guy.
Speaker 1: Just a description of the video. It's a very It's
Speaker 1: a crocodile that looks like it has a really really
Speaker 1: severe like scoliosis. It's spine is shaped like an s.
Speaker 1: It's kind of like it looks a little bit scrunged
Speaker 1: up in a way, and it is alive and it's
Speaker 1: walking and it's an adult, but it's moving pretty awkwardly
Speaker 1: due to this huge s and spine. This unfortunately seems
Speaker 1: to be a crocodile with cayphoscoliosis, which is a curved
Speaker 1: deformation of the spine caused by osteomalicia, which is kind
Speaker 1: of the word for quote, soft bones. This is due
Speaker 1: to improper mineralization during development, so it starts when they're
Speaker 1: baby crocodiles. This is a disorder primarily found unfortunately in
Speaker 1: captive crocodiles, because when they're young, what can happen is
Speaker 1: they're not getting enough calcium and other minerals in their diet,
Speaker 1: so they start to develop these symptoms. Other symptoms are translucent,
Speaker 1: glassy teeth, inflexible jaws. They call them rubber jaws in
Speaker 1: the medical literature. It's just these jaws that they don't
Speaker 1: have enough of the calcium and these other minerals to
Speaker 1: have the strength in their jawbones, and so that can
Speaker 1: also cause spinal deformities. So when crocodiles are only fed
Speaker 1: meat without bones or other supplementation, like say, just fed chicken,
Speaker 1: raw chicken with no bones. No, they're supplements, no other vitamins.
Speaker 1: They don't get enough calcium in their diet to properly
Speaker 1: grow their bones. In the wild. They don't just eat
Speaker 1: deboned chickens you'd get in the grocery stores. Some captive
Speaker 1: crocodiles are fed, but they'll eat entire animals, including bone, skin, joints,
Speaker 1: all the things that wild crocodilians can break down and
Speaker 1: use as nutrients. They also get a variety, right, they
Speaker 1: don't just eat chickens. They eat a variety of different
Speaker 1: animals which give them a variety of nutrients. So it
Speaker 1: can be treated in young crocodilians with calcium supplementation which
Speaker 1: will save their lives. But any spinal deformation is likely permanent,
Speaker 1: so if they start to get a spinal deformation as
Speaker 1: a baby crocodile, they'll just have that throughout their whole lives,
Speaker 1: as can be seen in the adult crocodile in the
Speaker 1: video that Susie sent to me. So without treatment, though,
Speaker 1: they will lose the ability to walk, lift their heads,
Speaker 1: and eventually this is fatal. So this is why wild
Speaker 1: animals like crocodiles, alligators. All crocodilians are really not good pets.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's pretty obvious, right because once they grow
Speaker 1: up they can also eat you. But beyond sort of
Speaker 1: the you know, an adult crocodile, an adult alligator is
Speaker 1: not a good pet because they are an alligator and
Speaker 1: a crocodile, and they are built to be eaten swimming machines,
Speaker 1: not pets. The other factor is that they have very
Speaker 1: specific dietary and behavioral needs which are typically not feasible
Speaker 1: for the average pet owner. They may be adorable as babies,
Speaker 1: they are really really cute babies, but they're predators. They're
Speaker 1: not only driven to dangerously try to eat prey, which
Speaker 1: is not great in the suburbs, but they must do
Speaker 1: so for their own health. So even if you keep
Speaker 1: your pet crocodile from eating the neighbor's dog, it's gonna
Speaker 1: be unhealthy, probably because it's not getting the full diet
Speaker 1: that it needs. It's actually this is kind of tangential,
Speaker 1: but it's one of the reasons I cringe sometimes when
Speaker 1: I see tiktoks of people giving their dogs or cats
Speaker 1: completely raw diets. Sometimes that's okay, but if you're not
Speaker 1: an expert and you're not being guided by a veterinarian.
Speaker 1: Giving your animals more quote unquote like natural foods isn't
Speaker 1: necessarily good because unless you're getting all of the nutrients
Speaker 1: that they need, and you could be missing something, right,
Speaker 1: Like if you feed your dog just chicken every night,
Speaker 1: like cooked chicken, that's not enough. So kibble has a
Speaker 1: lot of problems. I agree with that. Kibble's definitely not perfect,
Speaker 1: but good kibble is nutritionally balanced with these components that
Speaker 1: your dog or your cat needs. So if you don't,
Speaker 1: if you're not an expert, kibble's pretty good and that
Speaker 1: will get your dog and your cat the nutrition that
Speaker 1: it needs. And so unless you really know what you're doing,
Speaker 1: you can actually paradoxically deprive your pet of nutrients if
Speaker 1: you say, feed them raw meat only right, you may
Speaker 1: have the best of intentions wanting to have a healthy
Speaker 1: animal and actually accidentally give them a nutritional deficiency. Dogs
Speaker 1: in particular, are very different from their wild wolf counterparts
Speaker 1: and have different dietary needs. So looking at what a
Speaker 1: wolf feeds is not necessarily gonna help a dog. They've
Speaker 1: evolved to be able to eat eat near our human
Speaker 1: tables and our food supply. They actually have evolved to
Speaker 1: be able to digest grain in a way that wolves can't,
Speaker 1: so it is it's tricky. I'm not saying that fresh
Speaker 1: meat raw diets are always bad and that you shouldn't
Speaker 1: ever do them, but it's really important to do it
Speaker 1: with a guidance from a veterinarian so you can find
Speaker 1: out make sure that you're not accidentally depriving your pet
Speaker 1: of key nutrients. It's also good in terms of like
Speaker 1: individual animals will have out food allergies sometimes, right, so
Speaker 1: some people actually do have to put their pets on
Speaker 1: a specific diet, sometimes a raw diet because of food allergies,
Speaker 1: but those are guided by a veterinarian. They're probably also
Speaker 1: being given vitamin supplements. So yeah, anyways, trying don't just
Speaker 1: feed your dog or cat raw sheet every night, that's
Speaker 1: not a good situation. And don't feature pet crocodile, just
Speaker 1: raw chicken, and don't have a pet crocodile is the
Speaker 1: main takeaway. So unfortunately, Yeah, I feel really bad for
Speaker 1: this crocodile in Susie's video. Not fair, not a great situation, unfortunately.
Speaker 1: All right on to the next listener question, Dear Katie,
Speaker 1: I am reading a marvelously gospy British bird book and
Speaker 1: hit a puzzle to quote my commonplace book. Okay, So,
Speaker 1: a female cuckoo seeks to lay an egg in the
Speaker 1: nest of a bird of the same species it hatched
Speaker 1: in quote from the book. Having contracted out the care
Speaker 1: of it's young to a series of foster parents. The
Speaker 1: cuckoo's breeding season comes to an end as soon as
Speaker 1: the eggs are laid, or in the case of the male,
Speaker 1: as soon as the females are no longer soliciting for copulation.
Speaker 1: Cuckoos have no need to hang out out and find
Speaker 1: out the fate of their progeny. The youngsters have an
Speaker 1: internal clock and will and compass that will help them
Speaker 1: make their way under their own steam to the wintering areas.
Speaker 1: Thus their task completed, Some adult cuckoos migrate south as
Speaker 1: soon as they can. Amazingly, this means that some reach
Speaker 1: their winter quarters even before their offspring leave the foster nest.
Speaker 1: This is domin Nick Kuzin's twenty twenty four The Hidden
Speaker 1: Life of Garden Birds, the unseen drama behind everyday survival
Speaker 1: that sounds like a great book. By the way, I
Speaker 1: probably need to read that right back to the email,
Speaker 1: and that's it in the book, leaving me to figure
Speaker 1: figuring that first year migrating cuckos learn how to be
Speaker 1: cuckoos really only when they reach their winter quarters, the
Speaker 1: shyness with which they must approach other cuckoos for the
Speaker 1: first time. I wonder how comparable it is to homeschool
Speaker 1: students arriving out of college campus. Typically, birds learn the
Speaker 1: songs of their species by hearing them in the nest
Speaker 1: and for some birds local groups. They're often human discernible
Speaker 1: regional variants. In doing a light web search to find
Speaker 1: out what has been found out about this processing cuckoos,
Speaker 1: I've found research on Chinese blackbirds learning cuckoo calls and
Speaker 1: teaching them to other blackbirds in the vicinity. Can you
Speaker 1: elucidate Thanks in advance, Mary Anne. What a thoughtful, well
Speaker 1: researched email. This is really impressive. Thank you so much
Speaker 1: for this. This is a great conundrum. So essentially the
Speaker 1: question is how do cuckoos learn how to be cuckoos
Speaker 1: if their parents abandon them to care abandon them In
Speaker 1: the care of these foster parent birds foster parents is
Speaker 1: kind of a nice way of putting it. Really, these
Speaker 1: are brewd parasites, right, Birds that lay their eggs in
Speaker 1: the nests of unsuspecting birds to the detriment to these
Speaker 1: other birds real offspring, and so they're considered parasitic. And
Speaker 1: the quote unquote foster parents are host parents, right, it's
Speaker 1: not sort of a consensual adoption happening happening here. So
Speaker 1: but nevertheless, this problem remains, right the cuckoo, how does
Speaker 1: it learn to be a cuckoo or a cowbird? Write
Speaker 1: another brood parasite, how does it learn to be a
Speaker 1: cowbird when it doesn't have a cuckoo parent or a
Speaker 1: cowbird parent there to teach it? And we know a
Speaker 1: lot of birds learn, so they learn complex songs from
Speaker 1: their parents. The songbirds are fascinating because they present a
Speaker 1: really interesting case of both the power of pre programmed
Speaker 1: behaviors learned behaviors. They've been studied a lot by linguists
Speaker 1: because of their ability to learn complex songs, but also
Speaker 1: have the framework that they're built with to learn complex songs.
Speaker 1: But brood parasites like cuckoos and cowbirds are really interesting.
Speaker 1: They share something in common, so they have really strong
Speaker 1: pre programming that keeps nature in a sense stronger than nurture.
Speaker 1: So there was a study done on cowbirds where the
Speaker 1: sounds of a host species and their own species were
Speaker 1: both played to them from a young age. The cowbirds
Speaker 1: instinctively had a preference for the sounds of their own species.
Speaker 1: So this means they have a built in schematic for
Speaker 1: what cowbirds are meant to sound like, so they are
Speaker 1: born within their brains basically a framework that will recognize
Speaker 1: the call of a cowbird and know that is a
Speaker 1: cowbird call and something they should pay attention to versus
Speaker 1: the call of their you know, quote unquote foster parents.
Speaker 1: Another interesting study found that they have a preference for
Speaker 1: birds who share the color of their own plumage, so
Speaker 1: they're looking at their own plumage, they see the color
Speaker 1: and they're drawn towards that type of plumage. The way
Speaker 1: they found this out was by painting brown cowbirds black
Speaker 1: and raising them in isolation, and they would find that
Speaker 1: these cowbirds will incorrectly prefer birds with black plumage, So
Speaker 1: that part they are learning, but it's self referential and
Speaker 1: they're programmed to know to look at themselves rather than
Speaker 1: their foster parents for cues on who is going to
Speaker 1: be their appropriate mate. There's also some research that finds
Speaker 1: that they self reinforce with their own song. Right, They're
Speaker 1: pre programmed with an ability to do a song, and
Speaker 1: then they listen to themselves, and then that this kind
Speaker 1: of creates a reinforcement loop of knowing what song to
Speaker 1: recognize as a cowbird song or a cuckoo song. So
Speaker 1: basically cowbirds and cuckoos, these brood parasites are born with
Speaker 1: brood parasite dot ex right a program, a strong program
Speaker 1: that tells them that they should learn either from them
Speaker 1: themselves or not from their host species, and it gives
Speaker 1: them certain bits of data right about like what does
Speaker 1: the sound of a cowbird? What is that? And what
Speaker 1: should I look for in plumage And basically it prevents
Speaker 1: them from imprinting too much on their host species. Also
Speaker 1: something to note is like, compared to songbirds, their calls
Speaker 1: are really simple, like the cuckoo call cuckoo. You might
Speaker 1: have heard it. It's like, oh, you know, very simple call.
Speaker 1: Cowbirds I can't really do. It's kind of this gurgling
Speaker 1: sound and a chatter, even though it's sort of hard
Speaker 1: for me a human to do. It is not a
Speaker 1: long complicated song, nor do they have a repertoire of
Speaker 1: many different songs like some songbirds do. And those kinds
Speaker 1: of songbirds absolutely have to learn that repertoire, so to
Speaker 1: be pre programmed. Essentially, you do need relatively short and
Speaker 1: simple songs. The birds that have the really long complicated
Speaker 1: songs vast repertoires do need to learn them. So as
Speaker 1: versatile and as plastic as human brains are, right, we're
Speaker 1: great learners. We are so affected by our environment. We
Speaker 1: definitely don't seem like little preprogrammed robots, right, and I
Speaker 1: wouldn't say we are, but we are born with certain
Speaker 1: schematics and there's a lot of weird pre programming that
Speaker 1: we have because essentially, when you are first born, you
Speaker 1: have to come out being able to identify your own species.
Speaker 1: Other humans got to be able to eat, and you
Speaker 1: got to be able to cry make sound when you're
Speaker 1: in distress. But what's really interesting is that newborn babies
Speaker 1: have a rough schematic for what a human face looks like,
Speaker 1: and from a young age seems to know that there
Speaker 1: is the facial parts are supposed to fall in certain places, Essentially,
Speaker 1: they are more likely to look at correct facial diagrams,
Speaker 1: like a simple drawing of a face, and they're less
Speaker 1: interested in random patterns or diagrams of faces that have
Speaker 1: been scrambled around, like a nose on the forehead and
Speaker 1: eyes and places they're not supposed to be. They're really
Speaker 1: drawn towards a facial schematic of eyes essentially where they're
Speaker 1: supposed to be nose mouthed in relatively the correct proportions.
Speaker 1: So it's a bit spooky to consider that. Even we
Speaker 1: come with a lot of pre programming, but it's necessary
Speaker 1: for our survival to come prepared to eat recognize members
Speaker 1: of our own species. Also, even for the things that
Speaker 1: we learn, right, we have certain frameworks for learning. We're
Speaker 1: not completely blank slates. Were kind of like a canvas
Speaker 1: that has like basic schemas already penciled out a little bit.
Speaker 1: And then as we're growing, we are just absorbing so
Speaker 1: much information and we're learning so much. And this is
Speaker 1: a little different from like a cowbird or a cuckoo,
Speaker 1: who is probably learning, you know, of course they are
Speaker 1: some things, but they're not learning a whole lot from
Speaker 1: their host species. They're basically pre programmed with the edict
Speaker 1: that you know this, this bird that is feeding you
Speaker 1: is not your own species. You don't need to pay
Speaker 1: attention to them too much. You need to pay more
Speaker 1: attention to your own plumage. And then they've also got
Speaker 1: these handy calls. So is it like being homeschooled and
Speaker 1: going off to college for the first time. I can't
Speaker 1: speak to homeschooling. I haven't experienced it, so I don't know,
Speaker 1: but I would say that these birds probably are a
Speaker 1: lot more comfortable meeting members of their own species for
Speaker 1: the first time in a way then say, you know,
Speaker 1: we would write because they do come with so much
Speaker 1: pre programmed schema where it's like, ah, yes, I had
Speaker 1: these instructions to seek out a bird that has this
Speaker 1: call and a bird that has this kind of plumage,
Speaker 1: and there they are. So I don't think they're necessarily confused,
Speaker 1: but it is a little spooky maybe to think of
Speaker 1: them as these robots that come with programming. But that's
Speaker 1: what happens with a lot of animals, animals that come
Speaker 1: right out of the shell, having a lot of behaviors
Speaker 1: that they just can go right into, like sea turtles
Speaker 1: kind of following the light of the moon, sort of
Speaker 1: reflecting on the ocean, knowing to go towards that ocean
Speaker 1: water that just is in them right as they hatch.
Speaker 1: No learning, just they gotta go. So uh yeah, it's
Speaker 1: a it's an interesting thing. I guess it's kind of
Speaker 1: nice to be an animal that has a lot of
Speaker 1: stuff that we get to learn and shape us that
Speaker 1: we're not inherently born with. So yeah, we're not like
Speaker 1: a cowbird or cuckoo. Although I guess being able to
Speaker 1: just leave your kid with some hapless victim and have
Speaker 1: them raise it, is that a good thing. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I like kids, all right, guys, So thank you so
Speaker 1: much for all your questions. If you have an animal
Speaker 1: related question that you'd like to send to me, you
Speaker 1: can write to me at Creature feature Pod at gmail
Speaker 1: dot com. I'm definitely gonna do a few more of
Speaker 1: these episodes. I'm kind of taking like a quasi summer break,
Speaker 1: but I still want to have some freshness in here,
Speaker 1: and I feel like having listener questions episodes is a
Speaker 1: good way to do it. I hope that you're liking them,
Speaker 1: and I will see you next Wednesday. Two features a
Speaker 1: production of iHeartRadio for more podcasts like the one you
Speaker 1: just heard, Visit I heard Radio, app Apple podcasts, or Hey,
Speaker 1: guess what? What? Have you listened to your favorite shows?
Speaker 1: I can't judge you and thanks to the Space Classics,
Speaker 1: but they're super awesome. Song Excellana, I think I did
Speaker 1: the outro in the wrong order, but you know, only
Speaker 1: God can judge me. See you next Wednesday.