Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff production of I Heart Radio. Hey
Speaker 1: brain Stuff, Lauren vog Obam Here, I'm afraid that we've
Speaker 1: got it all wrong about road runners. Close your eyes,
Speaker 1: assuming you're not driving or something similar, and picture a roadrunner.
Speaker 1: What do you see? A bird call and leggie like
Speaker 1: an ostrich with a billowy blue tail. When it runs,
Speaker 1: all you see is a pinwheel of legs and a
Speaker 1: streak of dust. And it's constantly being pursued by one
Speaker 1: wiley coyote named yes, wiley coyote, but always without exception escapes,
Speaker 1: alas as entertaining as they are, Warner Brothers cartoons have
Speaker 1: rarely been going for scientific accuracy. Real road runners don't
Speaker 1: even say beep beep. Road Runners are unique among birds,
Speaker 1: though mostly due to their ability to rent it speeds
Speaker 1: up to twenty seven miles or forty three kilometers per hour.
Speaker 1: Most closely related to cuckoo and about the size of
Speaker 1: a crow. The two species of roadrunner, the greater roadrunner
Speaker 1: or geocockics California aus and the lesser road runner or
Speaker 1: geocockyx Bellocks, are scrawny desert birds with long tails and
Speaker 1: curved beaks, and they love to hang out on the ground,
Speaker 1: despite the fact that it can get hot in the
Speaker 1: deserts and shrublands of the southwestern United States, Central America,
Speaker 1: and South America. Oh We spoke via email with Dean Ransom,
Speaker 1: a wildlife biologist and roadrunner researcher in the Department of
Speaker 1: Biology at Baylor University. He said road runners are quite
Speaker 1: capable of powered flight, but they spend most of their
Speaker 1: time on the ground. When they do occupy the trees,
Speaker 1: they usually hop up to the lowest branch and hop
Speaker 1: up to where they need to go. But it's the
Speaker 1: terrestrial running habit that makes them somewhat unique. They're a
Speaker 1: mid sized predatory bird that feeds on reptiles, insects, and
Speaker 1: small mammals like field mice and rats. They chase down
Speaker 1: their prey and then either kill it with strikes to
Speaker 1: the head or grasp it by the tail and slam
Speaker 1: it down on a rock for the killing blow. Road
Speaker 1: Runners mate for life, but are normally pretty solitary otherwise.
Speaker 1: They nest in trees and are prolific re nest ors
Speaker 1: and meaning that if they lose their first nest predators,
Speaker 1: they'll go right out and look for different real estate.
Speaker 1: Ransom said. The road runners lay and hatch eggs asynchronous lee,
Speaker 1: which means there will be noticeable size and age differences
Speaker 1: among a brood of young roadrunners. In years of food scarcity,
Speaker 1: the oldest young often eats one or more of its
Speaker 1: younger siblings, and sometimes for the same reason, the adults
Speaker 1: will eat their young to survive and breed another day. Brutal, yes,
Speaker 1: but it's tough out in the desert, and roadrunners don't
Speaker 1: get a break from it since they don't migrate, living
Speaker 1: year round in the same stomping grounds. To deal with
Speaker 1: the extreme heat of the days and the plummeting nighttime temperatures,
Speaker 1: road runners employ a physiological process called copper in which
Speaker 1: they lower their body temperature on cold nights to conserve
Speaker 1: body heat and energy expenditure. In the mornings, when the
Speaker 1: sun comes up, they bask in the sun to warm up,
Speaker 1: putting on quite a display in the process. They turn
Speaker 1: their backs to the morning sun and erect all of
Speaker 1: their feathers, exposing black, pigmented skin underneath that absorbs heat.
Speaker 1: Road Runners have feet in which two toes are pointed
Speaker 1: forward and two toes are pointed backward. Scientists call this
Speaker 1: a zygodactyl foot arrangement. It's not terribly uncommon in perching
Speaker 1: birds like Swift's owls, woodpeckers, and the like, but it's
Speaker 1: pretty unique in a bird that spends most of its
Speaker 1: time hoofing around in the desert. It makes their tracks
Speaker 1: look X shaped, which makes it near impossible to tell
Speaker 1: which direction the bird was running in. These tracks have
Speaker 1: captivated humans for millennia. The symbol of road runner tracks
Speaker 1: has been used to ward off evil by some Pueblo tribes,
Speaker 1: and stylized roadrunner prints have been identified an ancient Anasazi
Speaker 1: and maga Yan rock art. In fact, road runners have
Speaker 1: figured prominently in human stories up through the present day.
Speaker 1: Pueblo peoples of New Mexico have a tradition of drawing
Speaker 1: road runner tracks on the ground near the resting place
Speaker 1: of a newly dead loved one in order to lure
Speaker 1: evil spirits away from the soul as it makes its
Speaker 1: way to the afterlife. Eating road runner meat has been
Speaker 1: thought to bring speed by some Native American traditions, and
Speaker 1: crossing paths with a roadrunner has been thought to bring
Speaker 1: good or bad luck, depending on the direction of approach.
Speaker 1: Early European colonists said that roadrunner tracks could lead a
Speaker 1: lost traveler to a path, and of course, the road
Speaker 1: runner of Looney Tunes fame is a somewhat magical and
Speaker 1: certainly lucky figure. After all, how many times can of
Speaker 1: hungry coyote try to murder you with Acme brand Rube
Speaker 1: Goldberg machines and failed miserably many many times? It turns out.
Speaker 1: Today's episode was written by Jesselyn Shields and produced by
Speaker 1: Tyler Clang. For more on this and lots of other
Speaker 1: speedy topics, visit how stuff works dot com. Brain Stuff
Speaker 1: is production of iHeart Radio. For more podcasts in my
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