Speaker 1: Welcome to Creature feature production of I Heart Radio. I'm
Speaker 1: your host of Many Parasites, Katie Golden. I studied psychology
Speaker 1: and evolutionary biology, and today on the show, we're talking
Speaker 1: about angry animals. The grumpiest ornery is most cantankerous critters
Speaker 1: in the animal kingdom, from the frustrations of puzzled crows
Speaker 1: to the tantrums of tiny tots and the dastardly acts
Speaker 1: of bingeful varmints. Joining me today to discuss these cranky
Speaker 1: critters is the most ill tempered podcaster around, Alex Schmidt.
Speaker 1: Welcome her. Yeah, Um, stomping around the room from wearing
Speaker 1: I'm wearing the what is it n w O T
Speaker 1: shirt that they did where they did a heel turn
Speaker 1: in the wrestling events. Anyway, forget it. It's great to
Speaker 1: be here. How angry he is, themes coming out of
Speaker 1: his ears. Ah. I thought it would be appropriate to
Speaker 1: have you on the show, not only because of your
Speaker 1: ill tempered disposition, Um, but also because I am now
Speaker 1: the co host on secretly incredibly fascinating. I'm trying to
Speaker 1: modulate how loudly I'm like whoa with the microphone, but
Speaker 1: I'm very excited about it. And I'm sure folks who
Speaker 1: listened to secretly incredibly fascinating No Katie from being Amazing
Speaker 1: on like a dozen episodes of it, And and I
Speaker 1: of course know this audience is huge Katie fans, so
Speaker 1: everyone knows why this is awesome. She's on on my
Speaker 1: show is secretly incredibly fastening every week now because we're
Speaker 1: doing a whole thing where we're on the Maximum Fun
Speaker 1: network now and can do it. And I'm just very
Speaker 1: very excited about it. I'm super excited too. And as
Speaker 1: you can tell, it is it is tough work, though,
Speaker 1: dealing with Alex's moods and rage. You know, who knows
Speaker 1: what wrestling t shirt I'm going to clay up wearing, right,
Speaker 1: it could come. It could be anything. It could be
Speaker 1: that bull logo the Rock has. You know, I barely
Speaker 1: even know what that is. But here it comes all
Speaker 1: the stomping and chair throwing, like with the folding chairs.
Speaker 1: It's not great for podcasting, I gotta say, yeah it is.
Speaker 1: I love the idea of an angry podcaster because if
Speaker 1: folks noticed, thirty seconds ago, I was concerned about saying
Speaker 1: woo too loud because I don't want to blow out
Speaker 1: the system. So yeah, I don't know how people do
Speaker 1: shock jack stuff with microphones. It must be a skill
Speaker 1: that you learn over over time and breaking stuff. Who's that?
Speaker 1: There's that comedian who's famous for being angry all the time.
Speaker 1: He voiced anger in The Inside outis Louis Black? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Does he have a podcast? I hope he does. I
Speaker 1: want I want to have that experience he can pioneer
Speaker 1: at like a like an astronaut or experimental scientist for us. Right,
Speaker 1: they'll have to develop better audio engineering to accommodate his
Speaker 1: screaming in spittle. Some sort of large had round recorder
Speaker 1: does the most advanced and pioneering. So the reason we're
Speaker 1: talking about anger today's I'm talking about animals and their
Speaker 1: anger problems. What animals do when they get frustrated or
Speaker 1: angry or alarmed, and it's often really interesting and sometimes adorable.
Speaker 1: Uh So, first we're going to talk about crows. Now, crows,
Speaker 1: as you might note, are highly intelligent animals, along with
Speaker 1: other Corvid species such as ravens, magpies, New Caledonian crows. Um.
Speaker 1: We have actually talked about Corvid intelligence on the show before.
Speaker 1: There's a Swedish study at Luden University that shows the
Speaker 1: ability of Ravens to figure out puzzles and make plans.
Speaker 1: They found that when Ravens were given a food reward,
Speaker 1: either using tokens or using a tool to solve a puzzle,
Speaker 1: the ravens were able to plan out what supplies they'd
Speaker 1: need to accomplish the task. They would even forego an
Speaker 1: immediate food reward in exchange for a tool that the
Speaker 1: ravens knew they would use later to get an even
Speaker 1: greater food rewards. So they refused the immediate gratification of
Speaker 1: food in exchange for a tool or token that they
Speaker 1: know they can get an even better reward later. So
Speaker 1: it showed that these Ravens were patient, smart and can
Speaker 1: plan for the future. I really relate to saving up
Speaker 1: for a treat for yourself. That's great. We we we
Speaker 1: were saving up for a special vacuum cleaner for like
Speaker 1: a while, and then we got it. I won't say
Speaker 1: what brand, don't want to conflict advertisers, but we got
Speaker 1: it and we were like, this is worth it. I'm
Speaker 1: glad we saved up. It's actually Katie's Lucky Suck vacuum
Speaker 1: that is being used by Alex, I don't know why
Speaker 1: you're not taking the people about it. They're a sponsor.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, that's great. Our tagline for lucky suck vacuums.
Speaker 1: This gets all the cheerios in places unit and even
Speaker 1: though you put them, it's a long tagline. We're working
Speaker 1: on it. Yeah. Yeah, the saving up for bigger rewards later,
Speaker 1: that's really and I mean that feels so human. It's
Speaker 1: amazing that ravens do this. Uh. In fact, there's all
Speaker 1: sorts of amazingly intelligent crow behaviors, like being trained to
Speaker 1: use vending machines, using crosswalks to crack open nuts. They
Speaker 1: leave nuts out on the road and cars go over them,
Speaker 1: and they found that like a lot of them would
Speaker 1: use the crosswalk because that's the easiest place to get
Speaker 1: the nuts. Uh. And then crows like New Caledonian crows
Speaker 1: and other species will modify tools. They'll like modify wires
Speaker 1: or branches in order to use them as hooks or
Speaker 1: levers to get food out of sticky situations. That's they
Speaker 1: sound better at using, in particular vending machines than I am. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm proud of them. You don't you don't have the
Speaker 1: coin tied to a piece of floss that you put
Speaker 1: in the vending machine and then pull back out like
Speaker 1: in the cartoons. I've only ever been the master of
Speaker 1: one vending machine, and it was a British vending machine
Speaker 1: at when I was studying abroad, which is very nice,
Speaker 1: but it was one slot in the machine. It would
Speaker 1: just give you the candy without charging you. Master of
Speaker 1: getting lion bars. It's a British candy and I love
Speaker 1: it because it was free. But other other times I've
Speaker 1: been just at the mercy of how well those spools
Speaker 1: work and everything. Yeah, no, I mean I've definitely tried
Speaker 1: to memorize which of the aspects, like sometimes there are
Speaker 1: some vending machines where it's got a bit of a
Speaker 1: loose spool around, like the Swedish fish or whatever, and
Speaker 1: then you can usually get too instead at one. So yeah,
Speaker 1: we're just a dream. We're just essentially being grave And
Speaker 1: when we're doing that, or crows, I would receive my
Speaker 1: free British candy and then squawk and fly around the
Speaker 1: room very happily. It was not subtle. So I want
Speaker 1: to focus on when crows get angry. So we've talked
Speaker 1: about this on the show before, but I want to
Speaker 1: go over it again. For those who don't know, there's
Speaker 1: the famous University of Washington study where they learned that
Speaker 1: crows will recognize human faces and hold a grudge against
Speaker 1: humans that they deem evil or a threat. So experimenters
Speaker 1: in the study war extremely creepy masks with a neutral
Speaker 1: human face expression, which to me already they already looked
Speaker 1: like Michael Myers. They look like serial killers. I showed
Speaker 1: you a picture of one of these people. What what's your?
Speaker 1: What's your? What's your? What's you're feeling about that, Alex?
Speaker 1: It's I'm pretty sure this picture is a conventionally attractive lady,
Speaker 1: but she is wearing a neutral male to me mask,
Speaker 1: and then her hair is kind of all pushed behind
Speaker 1: it in a way where she looks like, uh, like
Speaker 1: that balding dude who plays a lot of annoying waiters
Speaker 1: and romantic comedies, but like if that guy was mad,
Speaker 1: and it's a really weird vibe. It's like she's sort
Speaker 1: of looks like evil Richard E. Grant, And uh, I
Speaker 1: don't like that experience for crows, But I'm sure it's
Speaker 1: experimentally useful, right, and can you tell what she's holding there? Uh?
Speaker 1: Is it like a dummy of a crow? What is that? Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a taxidermy crow. So okay, so a death threat.
Speaker 1: It's a dead crow. Uh. The living crows did not
Speaker 1: like this at all. Surprisingly, Uh. They saw took one
Speaker 1: look at this, and I'm like, no, no, no, do
Speaker 1: not like that. They memorized that mask and they would
Speaker 1: harass an issue alarm calls anytime they saw someone wearing
Speaker 1: that mask. And the crows would remember these masks from
Speaker 1: long periods of time. So I honestly team crow on
Speaker 1: this one. Like, if I saw a person like this,
Speaker 1: I would also squawk and swoop and harass them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm sort of waiting for the difference between me
Speaker 1: and crows. Are we different at all? Probably the same species? Yeah?
Speaker 1: If you if you want to learn more about this study,
Speaker 1: including like what it was like to do what, I
Speaker 1: actually interviewed Corvid researcher Kaylee Swift back in October in
Speaker 1: an episode called Corvid Horrors, So check that out if
Speaker 1: you want to learn more about that study. Um, but
Speaker 1: today I want to talk about crow frustration and more
Speaker 1: crow news, So I do I want to show you
Speaker 1: what happens Alex when a crow gets frustrated by a puzzle,
Speaker 1: Because we we've talked about how good crows are at puzzles,
Speaker 1: and this is a pet crow. Now I don't recommend
Speaker 1: crows as pets typically, but um, occasionally they wind up
Speaker 1: as pets. And this one is doing one of those
Speaker 1: shape puzzles and where you put like the shape in
Speaker 1: the hole that has the same shape as the shape,
Speaker 1: so the shape goes through the hole. And uh, this
Speaker 1: crow is doing this puzzle and it's actually pretty good
Speaker 1: at it, but it does get frustrated. I also, they
Speaker 1: deserve all the credit in the world for doing this
Speaker 1: without fingers. A great job. Oh yeah, So they are
Speaker 1: doing some fast cuts to speed up the process of this,
Speaker 1: but there are several lid tosses and box throws and
Speaker 1: just angrily moving it to a whole another area. I'm
Speaker 1: glad I accidentally kind of looped and wrestling at the
Speaker 1: top of this. I don't know much about wrestling, but
Speaker 1: this reminds me of everything I know about wrestling. Right,
Speaker 1: So the crow gets frustrated with this puzzle. It seems like,
Speaker 1: I mean, we're obviously sort of just intuiting what this
Speaker 1: crow is feeling at the time, but uh, it just
Speaker 1: like it can't get the shape into the puzzle. So
Speaker 1: then it picks up the whole box, the whole puzzle,
Speaker 1: and just throws it onto the ground, rips the puzzle apart,
Speaker 1: picks up like the top lid to the puzzle, and
Speaker 1: then like slams it back down, which I love. I mean,
Speaker 1: like you know, everyone's had that, everyone's had that experience,
Speaker 1: like you're doing a thing, you're trying to fix the thing,
Speaker 1: and you're just like the thing isn't working, it's not
Speaker 1: being fixed, and so you want to throw it, you
Speaker 1: want to smash it on the ground. Uh, And it's
Speaker 1: just it's I feel so sympatical with this crow, especially
Speaker 1: if you're being like required to do this kind of task.
Speaker 1: You know, like there's so many games and puzzles that
Speaker 1: we get to choose as adults and then just like
Speaker 1: move on from go to the kitchen and forget it.
Speaker 1: But these crows are I assume, being required to do
Speaker 1: this until they're done. I mean required asn't like probably
Speaker 1: given a treat. I don't know, like required asn't they
Speaker 1: signed a contract to do this puzzle, but to make
Speaker 1: the world go around man. Yeah, that's how it is.
Speaker 1: But treats everything around me they are required, right, I mean,
Speaker 1: like I feel like even with reward, right, like if
Speaker 1: you have to do a complicated task for reward, you
Speaker 1: still get really frustrated doing that task. Uh. And there's
Speaker 1: but even with voluntary puzzles, like I get so frustrated.
Speaker 1: I mean it's like computer games, right, it's really fun,
Speaker 1: but then sometimes like they make you scream and frustration
Speaker 1: because you get a lot of pleasure out of doing it.
Speaker 1: This reward pathway that games are really good at kind
Speaker 1: of giving you that dopamine release when you're playing them,
Speaker 1: but then you get to a frustrating part. God especially
Speaker 1: Elden ring Jesus. Uh. And then like just like so frustrating,
Speaker 1: but you want to keep doing it, but you're so angry. Uh.
Speaker 1: And to that, here's another crow who is This one
Speaker 1: is getting frustrated trying to get into a backpack. Um,
Speaker 1: but this could just as easily be playing Call of
Speaker 1: Duty and screaming and throwing their microphone on the ground.
Speaker 1: Pretty nice backpack, but yep, flap flap flap, flap, flap
Speaker 1: flap pick pick. I mean this video goes on for
Speaker 1: like ten minutes. Uh, it's this crow getting increasingly frustrated
Speaker 1: trying to open this backpack. At one point it poops
Speaker 1: on the backpack. It's like viciously starts pecking at it,
Speaker 1: pulling at it, tugging, trying to open it. Yeah. See,
Speaker 1: speaking of saving up for items, I'm so particular about
Speaker 1: a backpack this nice. I can't imagine going in on
Speaker 1: it like this just out of not wanting to buy
Speaker 1: a new backpack. But the crow is correct, this is
Speaker 1: a hard to open thing. Shout out to the YouTube
Speaker 1: user who simply titled this a frustrated crow. They're right,
Speaker 1: they delivered. They came through. You don't want a video
Speaker 1: it doesn't come through. That is wild, exactly so. And
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously this is a small sample size of
Speaker 1: a couple of videos that we have just observed, but
Speaker 1: I'm fairly confident from what I know about crows and
Speaker 1: their intelligence, that these are frustrated crows. Yeah, like they
Speaker 1: they are emotionally frustrated there. They're like we would be. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it makes sense. Yeah, I mean I I see it,
Speaker 1: I feel it. Um And so that I do want
Speaker 1: to talk about this incident that happened in where crows
Speaker 1: menace to college campus university campus, and uh, there was
Speaker 1: an email sent out to students. So in June of
Speaker 1: students at Acadia University in Nova Scotia received an email
Speaker 1: from the Department of Safety and Security warning students of
Speaker 1: aggressive crows due to the nesting season and instructed students
Speaker 1: not They instructed students not to carry anything shiny with them.
Speaker 1: They also recommended waving your hands at crows that swooped
Speaker 1: at you and to understand that crows have quote excellent memories,
Speaker 1: which is kind of foreboding. Uh, and even more forebodingly,
Speaker 1: they told students to try to make eye contact with
Speaker 1: the crows as much as possible and that just it
Speaker 1: feels like a horror movie, uh SCP Foundation kind of
Speaker 1: thing where it's like, do not break eye contact with
Speaker 1: the crows. You want to look at the crows as
Speaker 1: long as you can. Just at university, Like okay, here
Speaker 1: in the PR and Messaging department, it's very easy tell
Speaker 1: people it's not a concern, and also leave your shiny
Speaker 1: valuables at home. And we need to intimidate them into submission,
Speaker 1: but like it's not a big deal. It's gonna be fine.
Speaker 1: Do not turn your back on these crows anyways, have
Speaker 1: a good day at class. Just send them an explanation
Speaker 1: of what going to the mattresses means in the Godfather.
Speaker 1: Otherwise it's fine. It's totally chill. Um so everything. But
Speaker 1: the kind of last bit in that emails warning was
Speaker 1: not exactly accurate. So um in terms of being good advice,
Speaker 1: they didn't. They didn't give all the good advice. They
Speaker 1: only gave some good advice. So Dr Kayleie Swift, who
Speaker 1: I mentioned earlier, who I had on the show before
Speaker 1: to talk about Corvid's and corvid horror. Uh, she was
Speaker 1: actually interviewed in a Vice article by Julissa Castro Dale,
Speaker 1: and uh. Dr Swift revealed that really the only reason
Speaker 1: that these crows would attack you is if you get
Speaker 1: too close to the nests with young nestlings, or get
Speaker 1: too close to the nestlings, and they're really just trying
Speaker 1: to warn you away. Um. But the idea that you
Speaker 1: have to leave your shiny valuables at home is not
Speaker 1: really true. So crows and other corvids aren't especially attracted
Speaker 1: to shiny objects uh and will not attack you to
Speaker 1: try to basically mug you for your shiny things. That's
Speaker 1: not not necessarily true. Okay, that's good to know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And and I feel like that speaks to their intelligence
Speaker 1: because that shines does not have financial value to them
Speaker 1: a human society thing. I mean, it's they learn the
Speaker 1: value of things like tokens and stuff, but if it's
Speaker 1: just shiny, they don't necessarily They're not necessarily attracted to
Speaker 1: it just because it's shiny. I think what's interesting is
Speaker 1: people might notice more when a crow has something shiny,
Speaker 1: and it's because we notice shiny things more, and so
Speaker 1: because we notice them more, we notice it when a
Speaker 1: crow or other bird has a shiny object. But it's
Speaker 1: probably just because crows are naturally curious and we'll pick
Speaker 1: up a lot of things that they find. Sometimes it's
Speaker 1: going to be a shiny thing. But we humans when
Speaker 1: we look at a crow, like, we're not going to
Speaker 1: notice if they just have like a stick or a
Speaker 1: berry in their mouth, but if they have like a
Speaker 1: shiny thing, we're like, Wow, look that crow has got
Speaker 1: a shiny thing. Grows must like shiny things because I
Speaker 1: like shiny things. Wow. I like it feels like the
Speaker 1: issue of understanding it is that they are smarter than
Speaker 1: us and I have more perspective on life that you
Speaker 1: don't need to chase those bubbles, you know, right, Like
Speaker 1: if you want to, like, they must love bubbles like
Speaker 1: I do. Right. I feel like if you want to
Speaker 1: propose marriage to a crow, they'd be just as happy
Speaker 1: with a peanut, which is why when I was proposed to,
Speaker 1: I got a peanut because you're very Yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker 1: So uh. Also, um, Dr Swift was saying that, yes,
Speaker 1: it's true that crows have really good memories, but like
Speaker 1: if you're just sort of walking by their nesting sites, um,
Speaker 1: they're not going to like form a forever vengeance against
Speaker 1: you and pursue you relentlessly for the rest of your life. Um.
Speaker 1: But if you do pester them or threaten them, yes
Speaker 1: they will. And unfortunately, one way to kind of pester
Speaker 1: them would be like waving your hands at them, which
Speaker 1: is like the university told students, like wave your arms
Speaker 1: at them to like keep them way, But that's actually
Speaker 1: bad advice because then the crows are going to remember
Speaker 1: that you're the weird student who's like waving your arms
Speaker 1: at them, making them feel threatened, and then they'll probably
Speaker 1: remember you. That's that's such a big command from a university,
Speaker 1: Like they're they're already trying to get you to do
Speaker 1: a bunch of bursar paperwork and class registration kind of
Speaker 1: kind of business like like also challenge an entire species
Speaker 1: above our heads is a lot. That's a lot, man
Speaker 1: like I have school spirit. But come on, follow up
Speaker 1: follow up email from the administration, like, please disregard previous email,
Speaker 1: new email. Please build a giant effigy of a crow
Speaker 1: out of sticks and put peanuts on in offering bowls
Speaker 1: to make up for our mistakes from last time. We're
Speaker 1: very sorry. I'll hail our crow overlords. Yeah and all.
Speaker 1: And honestly, if crows are so smart, maybe not the
Speaker 1: worst overlords. Right, maybe they'll think through some stuff I
Speaker 1: have to figured out. Sounds good. Yeah, and we'll have
Speaker 1: like a peanut based economy. So yeah, I've I've been here,
Speaker 1: delicately tried to put shape through a puzzle. They busted open,
Speaker 1: they disrupted, Right, they are disruptors. Um doctor, So did
Speaker 1: say that crows do pay attention to eye gaze, and
Speaker 1: that direct eye contact will make them nervous and less
Speaker 1: likely to swoop. So that part of the email was
Speaker 1: actually correct. By making eye contact with them, you may
Speaker 1: prevent a swooping attack because they can see that you're
Speaker 1: looking at them, and they typically only will attack you
Speaker 1: when you're turned away because they like the sneak attack man.
Speaker 1: They're just can a species be too smart? How do
Speaker 1: we mind that down? Sneak attacks are so clever? The
Speaker 1: good news about this devastatingly smart species of flying animals
Speaker 1: is that they not only have a good memory for
Speaker 1: holding grudges, but they will also memorize you if you
Speaker 1: feed them, for better or for worse. They may continue
Speaker 1: to approach you for food and possibly get fussy if
Speaker 1: you don't have anything for them. So choose wisely whether
Speaker 1: you want to befriend crows um and you know, just
Speaker 1: I would say in general, like somewhat limit your contact
Speaker 1: with wild animals, but you know, like casual feeding is
Speaker 1: probably okay with healthy items like a peanut here and there.
Speaker 1: I'm now I'm curious if this could escalate where like
Speaker 1: I become friends with the crows and then suddenly I'm
Speaker 1: the neighborhood crow man if they start perching on my
Speaker 1: arms when I'm walking around town and people are like
Speaker 1: that crow guy again, and I'm like I have a name,
Speaker 1: and they're like, you're right, your name is Chrowman. That's
Speaker 1: all we can think of us. I'd kind of like
Speaker 1: that reputation. Although in college I did kind of have
Speaker 1: a reputation because whenever I was talking to someone, if
Speaker 1: there was a squirrel nearby, I would get very distracted
Speaker 1: and like go look at the squirrel and go like, oh,
Speaker 1: look there's a squirrel. They're like, yes, we know, there's
Speaker 1: lots of squirrels. I was like, yeah, but look at
Speaker 1: that one. Look at them. So why are there beliefs
Speaker 1: about the squirrels at Harvard being like distinctive Because the
Speaker 1: college my brother went to they believe that about their squirrels.
Speaker 1: And another friend of mine they went to a whole
Speaker 1: different college where it was like we have special black
Speaker 1: squirrels here. It's a thing. And I don't know if
Speaker 1: it's actually distinctive or not. No, I don't remember them
Speaker 1: being distinctive. They were distinctively fat um like they love.
Speaker 1: They got lots of treats and goodies. Uh, probably too much,
Speaker 1: but there was all There was one. There was an
Speaker 1: albino squirrel that was pretty famous and there was a
Speaker 1: squirrel that we called Nubbins because it was missing a
Speaker 1: lot of its tail, so it only had a little
Speaker 1: stumpy tail. Uh. So, you know, there were individual squirrels
Speaker 1: that we knew and we loved, but um no, they
Speaker 1: were pretty normal, normal squirrels. I think they were all
Speaker 1: just Eastern gray squirrels. You were right to be looking
Speaker 1: for the celebrity ones stuff. I've never seen an albino squirrel.
Speaker 1: That's amazing, that's really cool. But the squirrels up in
Speaker 1: Stanford are actually quite special because they are melanistic. They
Speaker 1: have darker coats than typical and for some reason there's
Speaker 1: a higher concentration of these squirrels near Stanford. Okay, there's
Speaker 1: a similar belief about Earlham College in Richmond, Indiana. Interesting
Speaker 1: do they have they have melanistic squirrels, sort of Darkerford squirrels.
Speaker 1: I just know they're darker and they like it that.
Speaker 1: That's probably the explanation they could there. They could have
Speaker 1: like a higher population of melanistic squirrels there too. It's
Speaker 1: really interesting. It's it's all these youths feeding them. Especially.
Speaker 1: You need to control the crows and control the youths.
Speaker 1: Those are my very positive and not at all regressive
Speaker 1: thigots about society. Well, speaking of youths, we're actually going
Speaker 1: to talk about that when we get back, and some
Speaker 1: wonderful tantrums that young animals will do, so we're back.
Speaker 1: I was actually when I was researching this episode, I
Speaker 1: was curious about tantrums because you know, like the fussiest
Speaker 1: of people are two year old. Um, although I would
Speaker 1: say that there are I guess adults who have never
Speaker 1: grown past that. Um. But man, the tantrums, the drama,
Speaker 1: it's unrivaled. Uh. And so I was wondering if the
Speaker 1: babies of other animals also liked to throw tantrums, And
Speaker 1: indeed that seems to be the case, and it's very funny.
Speaker 1: It would it would be kind of crushing if you were,
Speaker 1: like humans are the only ones. Everybody else's babies tanned together.
Speaker 1: They don't complain a bit quent wine and babies, babies,
Speaker 1: babies in the animal kingdom know that they're they're potentially
Speaker 1: gonna get eaten if they throw fuss, so uh, they
Speaker 1: keep it, they keep it prim and proper. No uh,
Speaker 1: no animal listening in what kingdom do indeed throw tantrum. So.
Speaker 1: Animal behaviorist Jennifer L. Virtul In wrote about these fussy
Speaker 1: babies and other family dynamics in nature in her book
Speaker 1: Raised by Animals, The Surprising New Science of Animal Family Dynamics.
Speaker 1: Uh so. A couple of examples that she highlighted um Apparently,
Speaker 1: young prairie dogs when they are weaned will throw tantrums.
Speaker 1: They will stomp on the ground, roll around, hop and
Speaker 1: scream and cry to get their mother's attention, cling onto her,
Speaker 1: and the mother's response is usually just to walk away.
Speaker 1: That's trevenous and they that's an animal. Prairie dogs they're
Speaker 1: like burrowing and stuff. Right, I'm imagining a lot of
Speaker 1: angrily going into her out of burrows. Break yourself. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: she'll just kind of walk away, go into a borough,
Speaker 1: uh like when she's because she'll sort of determine that
Speaker 1: she's done nursing them. And interestingly, they don't physically reprimand
Speaker 1: their young, so they don't like attack their young for
Speaker 1: throwing tantrums. They just kind of ignore the tantrum, just
Speaker 1: let it, let it happen. Oh yeah, Because you can
Speaker 1: pop into a tube blake Mario or something, you don't
Speaker 1: have to deal with it. You're out of there. Forget it. Apparently,
Speaker 1: tantrums when a young animals being weaned is relatively common.
Speaker 1: Another species that this happens in is Barbary macaques, So
Speaker 1: Barbary macaque babies will throw tantrum when they are being weaned.
Speaker 1: Barbary macaques are Old World monkeys with long tails and
Speaker 1: fluffy golden coats. They are very cute and they live
Speaker 1: in the Atlas Mountains in North Africa as well as
Speaker 1: a small population of a few hundred in Gibraltar. Um
Speaker 1: So they have to endure cold winters so they grow
Speaker 1: and especially fluffy winter coat that they shed in the summer.
Speaker 1: So the baby macaques will throw a tantrum and cry
Speaker 1: roll around on the ground when they are being weaned.
Speaker 1: And also with these animals, with the Barbara maccaques, the
Speaker 1: parents will just kind of calmly ignore, uh, these tantrums,
Speaker 1: and so that is that's very interesting to me, Like
Speaker 1: the animal parents tend to just like, oh, you're having
Speaker 1: a tantrum, all right, just whatever, I'll i'm, I'll let
Speaker 1: you leave into that. Then maybe maybe the parents just
Speaker 1: remind them that they live near the lovely Mediterranean Sea,
Speaker 1: right you know about this Katie, the lovely Mediterranean sea.
Speaker 1: You can just go look at it and chill out
Speaker 1: tantrums in this beautiful body of water. It is very calming. Um.
Speaker 1: I live in northern Italy, so we get no Mediterranean sea,
Speaker 1: so I am constantly stressed. Uh. And I thought it
Speaker 1: was interesting that this author, Jennifer virtil In, brought up
Speaker 1: both these barbary macaques and these prairie dogs because both
Speaker 1: um have these interesting social lives. I wouldn't say that
Speaker 1: their societies are exactly the same, but they both are
Speaker 1: highly social animals and live together in these large groups.
Speaker 1: So prairie dogs live in communal boroughs known as colonies
Speaker 1: or towns, which is adorable. Each prairie dog town consists
Speaker 1: of several family groups, and each family group has one
Speaker 1: the two breeding males typically one but sometimes two uh
Speaker 1: and two to three breeding females um. And then they
Speaker 1: also have a few of their offspring uh living with them.
Speaker 1: So within related family, prairie dogs will kiss each other
Speaker 1: as a creating like make mouth content, act and groom
Speaker 1: each other, which is adorable. I'm really glad It's great.
Speaker 1: Less adorable is that, uh, sometimes they will kill their offspring.
Speaker 1: So if a male wants to take over a family group,
Speaker 1: he will kill the offspring of the previous mail. Uh.
Speaker 1: This this happens in a lot of situations, like in
Speaker 1: lion prides, Like like if a new male comes in
Speaker 1: and tries to take over, he will kill the other offspring,
Speaker 1: which not great, but you know it's the it's nature. Uh.
Speaker 1: And also females will kill the offspring of other females
Speaker 1: to decrease competition resources are scarce. Uh, so you know,
Speaker 1: sometimes not so cute. But what is cute is they
Speaker 1: have a complex alarm system they use to protect all
Speaker 1: members of a prairie dog colony. They have like different
Speaker 1: alarms for different types of predators and where they're coming from.
Speaker 1: So it's like, uh, this really complex kind of alarm
Speaker 1: system and the issue that alarm, So all the prairie
Speaker 1: dogs know to go down in the tunnels. Um right,
Speaker 1: like they're the alarm is like crows, crows and their
Speaker 1: spooky masks and put those on like we're ready. Perfect, Yes,
Speaker 1: a very stern prairie dog. It is still cute. Too bad,
Speaker 1: it's still cute. It doesn't work. Cute, man, Can you
Speaker 1: imagine like a Little Prairie Dog horror movie. Michael Meyer's
Speaker 1: prairie dog is so cute just standing out in the
Speaker 1: yard holding a knife. But it's it's a little prairie dog,
Speaker 1: little cuteness. I would like keep petting him as he stabbed,
Speaker 1: and your little knife e stabbing me in the spleen.
Speaker 1: So interestingly, with prairie dogs, females tend to be the
Speaker 1: core of prairie dog colonies, So males will disperse, They
Speaker 1: will leave the colony to join other colonies and try
Speaker 1: to find a mate, whereas the females tend to stay
Speaker 1: in one colony typically their whole lives, and just like
Speaker 1: as the sort of older dominant female like age out,
Speaker 1: they will sort of take the place and become a
Speaker 1: dominant breeding female. It's all so interesting. I came into
Speaker 1: this knowing very little about prairie dogs, even though I
Speaker 1: have a big interest in animals like bison in that
Speaker 1: same ecosystem. I just kind of knew they're cute and uh,
Speaker 1: and that there's one minor league baseball team mascot called
Speaker 1: Sad Poodles, and it's prairie dogs, but they're called the
Speaker 1: Sad Poodles. That's all I knew about them. Sad poodles. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's just like a cute sie name. It's not scientific,
Speaker 1: but it's I think Amarillo Texas, the minor league baseball team,
Speaker 1: the mascot is the sad Poodles. I love that. I'm
Speaker 1: going to start calling them sad poodles. That's amazing. It
Speaker 1: sounds a little insulting, but it's also amazing. Exactly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's great. And I think in the I think in
Speaker 1: the mascot drawing they have little cowboy hats. I won't
Speaker 1: promise that I got double check, but yet, I mean,
Speaker 1: all prairie dogs have cowboy hats. That's just that's just fact, right,
Speaker 1: And the way of them, the predators wave them away,
Speaker 1: get out of um. So onto the social lives of
Speaker 1: barbary macaques, so they too live in large groups of
Speaker 1: multiple families. Um. They are matriarchal, with a hierarchy of
Speaker 1: related females and the lead matriarch. So these macaques actually
Speaker 1: have a much less brutal society than the prairie dogs.
Speaker 1: So the males in society are very gentle with offspring,
Speaker 1: and unlike many other primate species, they actually spend much
Speaker 1: of their time helping to rear the offspring, so these
Speaker 1: males will play with them and groom them. They will
Speaker 1: even care for offspring that are not their own, possibly
Speaker 1: due to vague unknown paternity, given that females will mate
Speaker 1: with multiple males in the group, which is really interesting
Speaker 1: because there's this unconfirmed theory just basically an idea that
Speaker 1: in early humans or human ancestors, no or vague paternity
Speaker 1: selected for more cooperation and less aggression, just as we
Speaker 1: see in these macaques, so more sort of communal living.
Speaker 1: And so yeah, I just I find that very interesting
Speaker 1: that it's like, well, I don't know whose kid this is,
Speaker 1: so I might as well not kill it. I might
Speaker 1: as well take care of it. Wow. Yeah, that's such
Speaker 1: an interesting way to motivate it versus like this is
Speaker 1: definitely my kid, so I have to protect this one
Speaker 1: and just this one. Yeah, exactly. It's really interesting, and
Speaker 1: I mean there's still you do definitely still see some
Speaker 1: like sexual selection, like competitive pressures, like males really do
Speaker 1: try to mate with as many females as possible, and
Speaker 1: the same thing for the female, so they are trying
Speaker 1: to um like increase their reproductive success. It wouldn't really
Speaker 1: be stable evolutionarily otherwise. But it's this really interesting stable
Speaker 1: system of like it's not so much like group selection,
Speaker 1: but because they don't know which one is their offspring,
Speaker 1: the more they take care of them, and the more
Speaker 1: others take care of you know, basically all this parenting,
Speaker 1: all communal parenting, like, the more likely their offspring are
Speaker 1: going to survive as well. Wow. Yeah, it's such a
Speaker 1: different mindset about like scarcity, I guess, yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: versus Oh, there's only so much prairie food I need
Speaker 1: to eat everybody. It's totally different. Well yeah, I mean, yeah,
Speaker 1: back to back to the anger part. Though we're too happy.
Speaker 1: We're into like wonderful society here. Um, chro mentality, chro
Speaker 1: mentality men great, Uh yeah, I mean there might be
Speaker 1: some usefulness to like I talked about how the prairie
Speaker 1: dog and the macaques don't really punish their offspring when
Speaker 1: they're like throwing a fit about weeding, and they're generally
Speaker 1: pretty permissive. Um, there may be some benefit for them
Speaker 1: being pretty gentle at that period of time of transition,
Speaker 1: not really spurning the offspring if they're upset about weaning,
Speaker 1: because weaning too early has been shown to cause aggression
Speaker 1: later in life in some animal species. So there's been
Speaker 1: research on go dogs, cats, and other domesticated animals that
Speaker 1: have found that too early weaning and separation from their
Speaker 1: mothers increases the risk of aggressive behaviors in these animals.
Speaker 1: So it's really really interesting to me that in this
Speaker 1: like lower stress, lower aggression community of barbary macaques, they
Speaker 1: are raised communally by both males and females. They're given
Speaker 1: plenty of attention UH and when they throw tantrums, they
Speaker 1: aren't physically reprimanded, they're just gently allowed to kind of
Speaker 1: work through their tantrum, and then that seems to kind
Speaker 1: of potentially have an impact on these macaques development. Now,
Speaker 1: there haven't been any specific studies on maccaques that I
Speaker 1: know of in terms of too early separation, but the
Speaker 1: fact this is seen in multiple species seems to indicate
Speaker 1: that like separating um young UH animals from their parents
Speaker 1: or from their mother too early can cause these developmental
Speaker 1: social problems, because you know, it makes sense, they're not
Speaker 1: they're not learning these social cues from their mothers. They're
Speaker 1: not getting these sort of secure attachment to be able
Speaker 1: to explore their world from their mother's that's amazing and
Speaker 1: that's so Yeah. I feel like when you think about animals,
Speaker 1: I try not to put too many human things on them,
Speaker 1: but that sounds very human. Yeah, yeah, I mean I
Speaker 1: think that it's uh, it is important. Like sure, we
Speaker 1: don't want to like just put our human emotions on animals,
Speaker 1: but we also don't want to deprive them of that
Speaker 1: emotional range that they probably feel. Yeah, and I hadn't
Speaker 1: heard of this species before the Barbary mccas. I'm excited
Speaker 1: to see them and stuff. They're very cute. Wait, just
Speaker 1: oh I didn't give you a picture, google it? Do it?
Speaker 1: Oh I as I said that I was doing it.
Speaker 1: It's it's it's happening right now. Oh yeah, that's a
Speaker 1: fun that's a fun face. Man, that's good. Yeah. They've
Speaker 1: got like sort of pinkish little faces, golden fur. Um,
Speaker 1: they're very cute. I'm looking at one that almost appears
Speaker 1: to have cat years. I know they're not cattiers, but
Speaker 1: it's like pointing and that's great. That's a good vibe. No,
Speaker 1: they've got like the adults have very serious little faces. Uh.
Speaker 1: And then the babies are just man, it's so cute.
Speaker 1: So so cute. I can see why their parents slit
Speaker 1: them just throw tantrums. I'd let this baby throw a tantrum. Yeah, oh,
Speaker 1: who can stop open? You know, just go for a
Speaker 1: little guy, cry it out. I already promised to let
Speaker 1: a prairie dog stab me like, so of course I'm
Speaker 1: gonna let um. Okay, it's like ten years down the
Speaker 1: line of prairie dog shows up at your doors, like
Speaker 1: I've come to collect on a promise. And then the
Speaker 1: red up. I hear a really cool score, like a
Speaker 1: John Carpenter score. That's a great way to go. That's good.
Speaker 1: So we've talked about animals who will hold grudges and
Speaker 1: get frustrated at puzzles. We've talked about baby animals that
Speaker 1: throw tantrums. Uh, and I want to talk about before
Speaker 1: we go, animals who get angry when they sense someone
Speaker 1: is not being fair. Which, again I feel like it's
Speaker 1: so fine, we can talk about me, fine, fine out,
Speaker 1: But yeah, I feel like this idea of like fairness,
Speaker 1: of being mad at someone for being unfair to you,
Speaker 1: it feels so human. But we do actually see this
Speaker 1: in animals, so of course, looking at our more closely
Speaker 1: related relatives, the chimpanzees. We can see this in quite
Speaker 1: a spectacular way. So researchers at the Max Planck Institute
Speaker 1: for Evolutionary Anthropology set up a devious situation for chimps
Speaker 1: to navigate. This is these studies are so devious. I mean,
Speaker 1: they're not. I don't think that these ones are particularly cruel.
Speaker 1: They're just devious. You'll see what I mean. So, Uh,
Speaker 1: these chimps were situated in little cubicles with a sliding
Speaker 1: table that had food on it, and so they could
Speaker 1: like there was like sort of a divider, like a
Speaker 1: plexi glass or something divider, and so they could pull
Speaker 1: the table under the plexi glass towards them and pick
Speaker 1: up food and eat it. Or the table would like
Speaker 1: already be there in place when they entered the the
Speaker 1: when they entered the cubicle, so they could like sit
Speaker 1: down and eat stuff from the table. But then there
Speaker 1: was another cubicle facing them that also could like pull
Speaker 1: on this table and pull the food towards them. So
Speaker 1: this other chimp could pull the food away from the
Speaker 1: previous chimp to get the food themselves. Uh. And now
Speaker 1: here's the other element. Is the chimps had ropes that
Speaker 1: they could pull on that would collapse the table and
Speaker 1: cause all the food to like scatter onto the ground,
Speaker 1: and the ground was kind of recessed, so like the
Speaker 1: food would basically be out of reach. Uh So, like
Speaker 1: I'm Chimpanzee Johnny Knoxville, and this is the trick table,
Speaker 1: and I just do the whole jackass segment. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: they found that when the chimp like had the food
Speaker 1: in its own cubicle, it didn't pull a rope. Obviously
Speaker 1: it's not going to sabotage itself. Um, And if the
Speaker 1: food was just kind of in the other cubicle, the
Speaker 1: chimp did not pull the rope. But when so the
Speaker 1: first chimp comes in, it sees the food. Great, it's
Speaker 1: going to get that food. But then the second chimp
Speaker 1: comes in and grabs the food away from the first
Speaker 1: chimp by pulling the table away. The first chimp pulled
Speaker 1: on the rope to cause all the food to fall
Speaker 1: down to punish the second chimp for stealing the food
Speaker 1: from the first chimp. This is such it feels like
Speaker 1: such a king Saliban make decisions terrible of justice with
Speaker 1: like a lot of moving parts that are surprising and memorable.
Speaker 1: It's great I feel like in that situation where like
Speaker 1: King Solomon and dealing with chimp since like, well you
Speaker 1: should I cut this baby in half, and they're like,
Speaker 1: I get the butt one, I get the butt part,
Speaker 1: DIBs on the butt um. So yeah, I mean it's
Speaker 1: really interesting because the chimps would not collapse the table
Speaker 1: out of jealousy. So like if they were blocked from
Speaker 1: getting to the food, whereas one chimp could get to
Speaker 1: the food but the other one couldn't, Like, they wouldn't
Speaker 1: collapse the table. They weren't like, oh you get food
Speaker 1: and I don't. That's not fair, and then collapse the table.
Speaker 1: It was only when they perceived the other chimp as
Speaker 1: having stolen the food from them that they would collapse
Speaker 1: the table. So like they were frustrated with that other
Speaker 1: chimp and they were punishing that chimp um basically say
Speaker 1: like well, if I can't have this food and you
Speaker 1: steal it from me, like then you're not getting that food. Man.
Speaker 1: It's it's a lot of politics. Yeah, that's the first
Speaker 1: thing I'm thinking of, Like we're we're arranging the fiscal
Speaker 1: year budget in Chimpanzee Congress for where this or like
Speaker 1: Judge duty. But then it's like these chimps with like
Speaker 1: the food and then like like just trying to work
Speaker 1: out this problem, and it's like I see, you know,
Speaker 1: don't don't piss on my leg and tell me that
Speaker 1: you know it's raining, but then the chimps are actually
Speaker 1: peeing on her leg and you know it's chaos. Right,
Speaker 1: don't piss on my leg like you usually do in
Speaker 1: certain situations because that's how we socialize. Yeah, there's nothing
Speaker 1: weird about it, but right now, no, not now, it's
Speaker 1: a different thing. So there's actually been lots of research
Speaker 1: on punishing cheaters in animals. So cheaters as in an
Speaker 1: animal that will take advantage of a situation and usually
Speaker 1: hurt the other animals in the group by taking advantage
Speaker 1: of the situation. So uh, this could also be you
Speaker 1: know how earlier we were talking about aloe parenting with
Speaker 1: these barbary mcaques and um these prairie dogs you know,
Speaker 1: like like take rearing young together in these groups, and
Speaker 1: the um the cats all sort of communally raising. I mean,
Speaker 1: in some situations there will be this communal raising, but
Speaker 1: sometimes it is enforced with rules. So in mere cats,
Speaker 1: more hens and carrion crows. They all share this feature
Speaker 1: where young females will engage in alo parenting, which means,
Speaker 1: you know, helping to raise the offspring of the older,
Speaker 1: more dominant females. And researchers have found that increased time
Speaker 1: helping to raise the offspring is associated with better fitness
Speaker 1: for the babysitter and a higher rate of weight gain
Speaker 1: and the high The hypothesis is that this is due
Speaker 1: to either more feeding opportunities granted to them by the
Speaker 1: dominant females or that they the ones that are not
Speaker 1: being a good babies, that are not spending as much
Speaker 1: time taking care of the offspring, are being punished by
Speaker 1: the dominant females with more bullying more like food deprivations.
Speaker 1: So it's kind of interesting because you have something where
Speaker 1: it's like, oh, it's communal parenting that seems really good
Speaker 1: and peaceful, but maybe there's, uh, there might be a carrot,
Speaker 1: but there might also be a stick involved with these
Speaker 1: situations of punishing the subordinate females who are not being
Speaker 1: good babysitters. Yeah, yeah, all this stuff. I'm always amazed
Speaker 1: and just mystified trying to imagine, like how these systems
Speaker 1: get put in place, to write like, of course human
Speaker 1: society there's also like a long, long, thousands of years
Speaker 1: process of developing it. But like how how animals work
Speaker 1: out these arrangements based on just biology or more. It's amazing. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean for some animals it's like, you know, they
Speaker 1: are born with certain instincts, Especially with simple animals or
Speaker 1: animals that don't spend as much like social time sort
Speaker 1: of learning from parents, it's like, okay, they probably are
Speaker 1: born with a certain instinct. But with animals that are
Speaker 1: really social, especially these intelligent animals like uh, you know,
Speaker 1: uh corvids or apes, even with prairie dogs, there's some
Speaker 1: element of learning from the older generations. So separating out
Speaker 1: like what is that animal's instinct, what are they born
Speaker 1: with kind of having that instinct for war, or what
Speaker 1: do they acquire through social learning? That can be tricky sometimes,
Speaker 1: I mean, as it is tricky with humans as well. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a that's amazing, yeah, and good for I am.
Speaker 1: I'm the most amazed by the species that to us
Speaker 1: appear to do It's probably not scientifically accurate to call
Speaker 1: it like no parenting, but the ones where just an
Speaker 1: egg hatches and the parents gone and never see the gun.
Speaker 1: Well I mean, yeah, no exactly. I mean like with
Speaker 1: sea turtles, they lay their eggs, they leave them, they're like,
Speaker 1: all right, good kiddos by, and then they hatch and
Speaker 1: they are instinctively attracted to light shining on the water,
Speaker 1: and they go towards the water. It's like you're just
Speaker 1: born little like robot computers, just going towards the ocean.
Speaker 1: That's amazing. Yeah, it's like an operating system exactly. Yeah, welcome.
Speaker 1: But speaking of cheaters, sometimes cheaters get very creative to
Speaker 1: avoid wrath in nature. So this is found in young
Speaker 1: white winged chuffs and Australian bird with a name that
Speaker 1: is sort of a misnomer because they're not related to
Speaker 1: alpine chuffs. Still, these are blackbirds with red eyes and
Speaker 1: they are social where juveniles are expected to help feed
Speaker 1: the offspring of their parents, so feed their younger siblings,
Speaker 1: and if they returned to the nest with no food,
Speaker 1: they are often chastised by their parents kind of swooped at,
Speaker 1: pecked at, um punished. But if they return to the
Speaker 1: nest with food, uh, they are not punished. So some
Speaker 1: of these birds will return to the nest with food,
Speaker 1: put the food in their younger siblings mouths and then
Speaker 1: pluck it right back out of their mouths and need it,
Speaker 1: and they do not get punished. Yeah, they just respect game.
Speaker 1: I guess. Hey. I mean, the the thought for why
Speaker 1: this is sort of stable in terms of evolution is
Speaker 1: that these are related birds, so that these are the
Speaker 1: older siblings and the younger siblings, and that when the
Speaker 1: older siblings do this, like steal the food from the
Speaker 1: younger siblings, they are um needing that nourishment. They need
Speaker 1: that food, and so the cheating is actually okay in
Speaker 1: this instance because uh, in terms of the passing on
Speaker 1: the genetic material, because uh, by doing this occasional cheating,
Speaker 1: they're not necessarily um going to prevent the younger offspring
Speaker 1: from flourishing, um, but they are also ensuring that they
Speaker 1: are getting enough nourishments. So it's like it's an off.
Speaker 1: It's sort of you know, it's like a trade off
Speaker 1: for the older sibling getting more nourishment versus the younger sibling.
Speaker 1: We're just lucky that with I'm lucky. I guess that
Speaker 1: humans aren't like that because I have an older brother
Speaker 1: and like, it'd be so funny if like, in order
Speaker 1: to survive, he had to like pull peanut butter and
Speaker 1: jelly sandwiches out of my mouth. Yeah, there are a
Speaker 1: few rules. But of course these birds are Australian and
Speaker 1: the joke about Australia is that everything's wild and we'll
Speaker 1: get outlaw there. So it's probably where it's coming from Australians.
Speaker 1: Let us know what your version of peanut butter and
Speaker 1: jelly sandwiches are and if older and younger siblings have
Speaker 1: to fight for them. Yeah, yeah, let us know your
Speaker 1: version of peanut butter and jelly and ben why is
Speaker 1: it vega might just vegamu vegimlt sand wiches and I
Speaker 1: had to fight my older brother for it. That's not Australian. No,
Speaker 1: I didn't do good there. That wasn't a good accent.
Speaker 1: And and this bird name, was it a chuff? You said,
Speaker 1: a chuck chuff? Yeah? Interesting, Yeah, that's a fun name
Speaker 1: even that even feels Australians. It's spelled yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: there's Alpine Chuff's as well. Um, it's spelled the same.
Speaker 1: They're not. They look like they're related, but they're not.
Speaker 1: It's also it's spelled like c h O u g
Speaker 1: H so to me, I try to I want to
Speaker 1: pronounce it how yeah, or like chow, which is probably
Speaker 1: not chows. Yeah, no, it's not chow's, but it's chuffs
Speaker 1: because there's I know, if you British people too, and
Speaker 1: they like to say they are chuffed like c h
Speaker 1: e U F f e D they're happy. Yeah no,
Speaker 1: I keep thinking of that. Well, it's a whole mom
Speaker 1: and wealth of people speaking English and we don't understand
Speaker 1: each other. I watch a lot of a lot of
Speaker 1: British bigoff and they do say I'm quite chuffed a lot,
Speaker 1: and I would love for that to happen where they're
Speaker 1: just covered in cows. Yeah, but the birds are too smart.
Speaker 1: They know four in twenty of them they'll get made
Speaker 1: into a poet. Right, stay out of there. It's a
Speaker 1: good move. So before we go, we have to play
Speaker 1: it a little game. And that game is called Guess
Speaker 1: who squawk and the Mry Animal Sound Game. Every week
Speaker 1: I play a Mr Animal sound in you the listener
Speaker 1: and you the guests trying to guess who is squawking.
Speaker 1: So uh, lots of times people do people bring this up.
Speaker 1: It's so good, Thank you, thank you so last week's
Speaker 1: hint was whoever named this animal was being a bit judgmental,
Speaker 1: and then actually, so that was I gave another hint,
Speaker 1: which was this is often used in move beast to
Speaker 1: create a spooky, haunted atmosphere, even when it's inaccurate to
Speaker 1: do so. And this is the sounds. That's not the sound. Sorry,
Speaker 1: that's my floating YouTube sounds it is. Yeah, it's spooky
Speaker 1: and it sounds like a whining sort of maybe I'm
Speaker 1: thinking of animal tantrums like babies that I'm pried for that. Uh,
Speaker 1: but and a big echo. I'm very impressed with anybody
Speaker 1: who can really you want you want to be like
Speaker 1: that mountain person who like calls out to the whole
Speaker 1: valley the sound of music or something. Yeah, it does
Speaker 1: sound sort of like a bit of a weir w. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna say it's some kind of mountain animal maybe
Speaker 1: lives in trees. But I almost want to go mammal.
Speaker 1: I don't know. Interesting. Well, congratulations to Tiffany in enjoy
Speaker 1: p who correctly guessed that this is the call of
Speaker 1: a loon. So Loons are a group of aquatic bird
Speaker 1: species found in North America and northern Eurasia. They are
Speaker 1: sort of duck like birds with a more pointed bill,
Speaker 1: often with a white belly and throat, black back and
Speaker 1: black or gray head. Typically they have red eyes, and
Speaker 1: often they have striking white lines and markings on their neck,
Speaker 1: chest and back. Uh. The loon you just heard is
Speaker 1: the red throated loon, which is found in Arctic regions
Speaker 1: or coastal regions in the northern Hemisphere. When it's breeding season,
Speaker 1: they develop a bright, rusty red patch of feathers on
Speaker 1: their throat to attract mates. They form monogamous, long term
Speaker 1: pair bonds, and that eerie cry they make is just
Speaker 1: a way for pairs to communicate with each other or
Speaker 1: for parents to call their offspring. So it's not spooky,
Speaker 1: it's very sweet. But that does not stop people in
Speaker 1: the movie industry from using this sound to try to
Speaker 1: evince a spooky atmosphere sometimes like the Untamed wild And
Speaker 1: it's really funny because they will use it in environments
Speaker 1: where this loon would never be found, like in the
Speaker 1: jungle or something that's not really where they are um
Speaker 1: or like just like some it's just like this is wilderness.
Speaker 1: This is spooky, haunted wilderness, and that's what the sound
Speaker 1: is meant to evoke. I like that. That means that
Speaker 1: jungle or whatever contains one lost Canadian. Right, that's great.
Speaker 1: It's a bird, Canadian bird. Like he's just like with
Speaker 1: those suitcases with all the stickers out of the various
Speaker 1: places they've been wearing a two and very politely asking
Speaker 1: for directions. Yes, shout out Canada. What a good bird
Speaker 1: it is. And it's like it's spooky, but it's pretty.
Speaker 1: It sort of reminds me of like whale song or
Speaker 1: something like that that has an ominous feel sort of,
Speaker 1: but it's also nice. Yeah, yeah, it's beautiful. I think.
Speaker 1: All right, now onto this week's Mr Annals sound the hint.
Speaker 1: This baby sure likes to make a point. M hmm.
Speaker 1: I'm really really thinking about that. Bathing likes to make
Speaker 1: a point hint because I immediately just imagine cute checks
Speaker 1: like chicken babies, but they're not pointy, uh left field
Speaker 1: gas scorpions, interesting gifts, very interesting. Well, you will find
Speaker 1: out if you're right or wrong on next week's episode
Speaker 1: the podcast. Actually guess the fact that I don't bliep
Speaker 1: you out means you are wrong, So that's next. It's
Speaker 1: not a scorpion spoil liter alert. Alex is wrong from
Speaker 1: a week from now. I was going to be listening
Speaker 1: to this like in my scorpion jacket from the movie
Speaker 1: Drive with a little scorpion flag, like I'm so ready
Speaker 1: to be right fingers. But it's a foam stinger. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so yes. I will reveal the answer to this week's
Speaker 1: mystery animal sound next time on Creature Feature. Alex, thank
Speaker 1: you so much for joining me today and unleashing You're
Speaker 1: just boundless rage. Thank you. People in my neighborhood are
Speaker 1: going to be like the chroman is really calm. I
Speaker 1: guess he worked it out this morning instead of your
Speaker 1: angry stomping around. Uh, And thank you guys so much
Speaker 1: for listening and check out. Secretly incredibly fascinating because Alex
Speaker 1: is on it and also me too, I'm truly overjoyed
Speaker 1: about it. I feel like I'm underselling it, but just
Speaker 1: because people know how awesome you are. So but it's
Speaker 1: it's the best thing in the world. It's it's if
Speaker 1: you listen to the podcast before, it's continuing to be
Speaker 1: the same podcast, but with this wonderful co host. It's
Speaker 1: like two Louis Blacks. Screaming into a void about interesting things.
Speaker 1: It just yeah, it just starts to create some sort
Speaker 1: of physics reaction where it destroys and it like it's
Speaker 1: a black hole or some type. Obviously I know a
Speaker 1: lot about black holes. That's why that was such a
Speaker 1: fluent joke. But we're screaming on a level that is
Speaker 1: vibrating the corks of every atom or something. Yeah that's right, yeah,
Speaker 1: any of that stuff. Yeah. Well, thank you guys so
Speaker 1: much for listening. Uh and thanks to the Space Classics
Speaker 1: for their super awesome song. Exo Lumina creates Your Features
Speaker 1: a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts like
Speaker 1: the one you just heard, visit the I Heart Radio
Speaker 1: app Apple podcast or Hey gus, what what have you
Speaker 1: listen to? Your favorite shows? See you next Wednesday.