WEBVTT - Evolution and the City: The Beasts 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:05.840 Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:05.840 --> 0:00:14.920 Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:00:15.000 --> 0:00:17.880 My name is Robert lamp and I'm Joe McCormick. Hey, Robert, 0:00:18.040 --> 0:00:19.919 I've got a I've got a quiz question for you. 0:00:20.000 --> 0:00:23.360 All right, quiz what do you think is the animal 0:00:23.520 --> 0:00:27.240 out there in the world that humans are the most like? 0:00:27.960 --> 0:00:32.200 M hmm, Well, I mean we're we're so unlike all 0:00:32.240 --> 0:00:35.680 the creatures, but I mean one obviously turns to the 0:00:35.680 --> 0:00:41.080 primates for our closest evolutionary relatives. Yeah, I would say physiologically, 0:00:41.120 --> 0:00:43.960 if you look at comparative anatomy, and of course genetically, 0:00:44.360 --> 0:00:48.880 we are the most similar to primates like chimpanzees and binobo's, 0:00:48.920 --> 0:00:52.120 and they actually are known to be our closest relatives 0:00:52.120 --> 0:00:55.000 in the animal kingdom. But I think if you look 0:00:55.000 --> 0:00:58.400 at humankind in a different light, if you don't just 0:00:58.480 --> 0:01:02.040 look at the individual body plans and compare one individual 0:01:02.080 --> 0:01:06.680 to another individual, but if you compare the entire species 0:01:06.880 --> 0:01:11.200 ecological and trophic profile as a whole population, you can 0:01:11.280 --> 0:01:15.080 make a very different case. We're the most like ants, 0:01:17.160 --> 0:01:21.000 and we became more like ants starting around ten thousand 0:01:21.040 --> 0:01:24.160 and maybe thirteen thousand years ago. Before this time, I 0:01:24.160 --> 0:01:26.160 would say, there's really no way to compare us to 0:01:26.200 --> 0:01:29.040 ants at all. We just weren't very antlike, except maybe 0:01:29.040 --> 0:01:31.520 that you could say we were a social species. But 0:01:31.720 --> 0:01:34.160 you know, maybe ten thousand to thirteen thousand years ago 0:01:34.280 --> 0:01:39.000 humans first started practicing plant and animal agriculture, and over 0:01:39.040 --> 0:01:42.320 the years more people began to transition from a nomadic 0:01:42.400 --> 0:01:45.440 hunting and gathering way of life to a settled agricultural 0:01:45.480 --> 0:01:48.080 way of life. And of course the introduction of farming, 0:01:48.120 --> 0:01:50.320 we know the story. It changed everything. It allowed for 0:01:50.360 --> 0:01:56.880 surpluses of food resources, specialization of skills, education, writing, construction, invention, 0:01:57.000 --> 0:01:59.800 and so on. And because all of these processes were 0:01:59.800 --> 0:02:03.920 made possible by keeping people and resources close together with 0:02:04.040 --> 0:02:08.320 continuous interconnected access to one another, this meant the birth 0:02:08.440 --> 0:02:12.280 of cities. And I would say ever since then, the 0:02:12.360 --> 0:02:15.360 construct of the city, the idea of the city as 0:02:15.400 --> 0:02:19.359 a technological thing and as a social organizing principle, has 0:02:19.400 --> 0:02:22.640 been one of the biggest influences that has changed the 0:02:22.680 --> 0:02:26.200 way human beings relate to the earth. Now, we're all 0:02:26.240 --> 0:02:29.480 pretty familiar with this story of of urbanization from a 0:02:29.560 --> 0:02:33.560 human point of view, but from a biological or ecological 0:02:33.639 --> 0:02:37.840 point of view, It is an extremely strange and interesting 0:02:37.919 --> 0:02:40.640 thing for us to do. And it's also extremely similar 0:02:40.880 --> 0:02:44.120 to what ants do when they form colonies and build 0:02:44.120 --> 0:02:46.920 ant hills. It is yeah, when you when you start 0:02:46.919 --> 0:02:50.320 thinking about it, this this artificial habitat that they can 0:02:50.400 --> 0:02:53.400 they construct to live in and in, you know, in 0:02:53.400 --> 0:02:56.960 in in in some cases, grow their food in, cultivate 0:02:57.000 --> 0:03:00.720 their own crops. Yeah, almost all creatures on Earth adapt 0:03:00.840 --> 0:03:04.639 to their environment. The environment is one way, and the 0:03:04.680 --> 0:03:07.840 animal over time evolves to be a best fit to 0:03:08.040 --> 0:03:12.040 the environment around them. But humans and ants and some 0:03:12.120 --> 0:03:14.519 other creatures you could argue, like bees and some other 0:03:14.600 --> 0:03:18.640 use social insects, termites to some extent, don't adapt to 0:03:18.680 --> 0:03:23.320 their ecosystem as much as they build an ecosystem for themselves. 0:03:23.360 --> 0:03:28.320 They engineer their own environments in their own ecosystems, and 0:03:28.360 --> 0:03:31.959 of course, in both cases ant hills and human cities, 0:03:32.000 --> 0:03:35.680 these ecosystems are not hermetically sealed off from the rest 0:03:35.680 --> 0:03:38.360 of the world. They're poorous and connected to the rest 0:03:38.400 --> 0:03:41.200 of the world. And what this means for ants, of course, 0:03:41.280 --> 0:03:44.080 is that they have entire classes of organisms that have 0:03:44.200 --> 0:03:49.800 specifically evolved to thrive within the ecosystems created by the ants, 0:03:49.880 --> 0:03:53.080 the same way that a fox or wolf, spider or 0:03:53.120 --> 0:03:56.720 any other creature would thrive within its natural environment. There 0:03:56.720 --> 0:04:00.120 are organisms that that have evolved to thrive within the 0:04:00.200 --> 0:04:05.240 ant engineered environments, and these organisms are called myrmica files. Yeah. There. 0:04:05.320 --> 0:04:08.960 Then there are a number of different species that the 0:04:09.000 --> 0:04:12.120 one could spend time with. Here, Uh, a couple that 0:04:12.520 --> 0:04:15.160 that came up from me though, Uh, there's one. Uh. 0:04:15.240 --> 0:04:18.480 This is an example of research before the p Favieri deetle. 0:04:19.000 --> 0:04:21.960 So it uses a complex dance of both chemical and 0:04:22.000 --> 0:04:26.440 auditory mimicry to convince the ant population that it's one 0:04:26.480 --> 0:04:30.760 of them, even as it crawls in into their abode 0:04:30.880 --> 0:04:34.320 and feeds on their larva and benefits from the colony's protection. 0:04:34.960 --> 0:04:37.679 But as Carl Zimmer highlights in his New York Times 0:04:37.680 --> 0:04:41.240 piece on a study concerning these beetles, the deceptive beetle 0:04:41.480 --> 0:04:44.440 may even mimic the queen from time to time in 0:04:44.560 --> 0:04:47.920 order to receive royal treatment, but it otherwise knows to 0:04:48.000 --> 0:04:51.160 leave the queen unharmed. It doesn't seek to decimate its 0:04:51.160 --> 0:04:55.520 host colony, but rather to thrive within it through perfect mimicry. 0:04:55.600 --> 0:04:59.000 Uh and uh. I explored this, by the way, originally 0:04:59.040 --> 0:05:02.080 because I was interested the Monster from John Carpenter's The Thing, 0:05:02.720 --> 0:05:06.000 because one of the ideas that is explored in the film, 0:05:06.040 --> 0:05:08.640 and I think also in like a comic book sequel, 0:05:09.120 --> 0:05:11.279 is that if this thing gets gets out, if it 0:05:11.440 --> 0:05:15.080 escapes from this frigid base, it's going to just decimate 0:05:15.120 --> 0:05:17.279 the world in no time. Right, it will mimic all 0:05:17.440 --> 0:05:20.320 life forms and just take over the entire planet. Right. 0:05:20.520 --> 0:05:23.600 But would it necessarily do that? Right? I mean, I mean, 0:05:23.760 --> 0:05:27.159 you can certainly make a case that it's an alien contamination, 0:05:27.200 --> 0:05:30.000 So who knows what it would do to to to 0:05:30.200 --> 0:05:32.920 what is to it an alien ecosystem. But I think 0:05:32.920 --> 0:05:35.839 if we look to examples like this from our natural world, 0:05:35.839 --> 0:05:38.839 we can we can see that, well, maybe it wouldn't 0:05:38.880 --> 0:05:41.640 necessarily overrun the planet because it needs to live at 0:05:41.680 --> 0:05:46.200 harmony within the host ecosystem. Yeah, it needs an ecosystem 0:05:46.240 --> 0:05:49.240 to survive off off of. It can't become the whole 0:05:49.279 --> 0:05:52.520 ecosystem itself. Yeah, So it's they're going to be essentially 0:05:52.560 --> 0:05:57.400 self imposed limits on what it will take over and destroy. Now, 0:05:57.440 --> 0:06:00.359 that's far from the only example of mermai else that 0:06:00.440 --> 0:06:05.400 have evolved specifically to survive and thrive within the environments 0:06:05.440 --> 0:06:08.719 created and maintained by ants. There are thousands more, right, 0:06:09.320 --> 0:06:11.400 One that I ran across that was interesting is the 0:06:11.440 --> 0:06:15.680 oak blue butterfly. So these don't reside really within the 0:06:15.720 --> 0:06:20.160 colony so much, but the butterfly larvae may chemically mimic 0:06:20.320 --> 0:06:24.240 or camouflage themselves and be accepted by the what are 0:06:24.279 --> 0:06:28.120 sometimes called the plant ants on their host plant, the 0:06:28.200 --> 0:06:33.640 ant plant, or macaranga as it's called. So essentially what's 0:06:33.680 --> 0:06:37.960 happening here is the chromato gaster ants. They nest in 0:06:38.000 --> 0:06:41.719 the plants hollow stems and then attack anything that climbs 0:06:41.800 --> 0:06:45.480 or lights upon their domain, except for the oak blue larvae. 0:06:45.760 --> 0:06:48.279 And this is presumably because it has an evolved a 0:06:48.320 --> 0:06:51.000 defense that tricks the ants into thinking it's okay for 0:06:51.040 --> 0:06:53.719 it to be there. Yeah, so there's protection within the 0:06:53.760 --> 0:06:58.040 ants domain, even if ultimately there's no more dangerous place 0:06:58.080 --> 0:07:01.880 to be than within an antstone. Right, there's protection if 0:07:01.960 --> 0:07:04.800 you have some kind of evolved defense to sneak through 0:07:04.839 --> 0:07:07.440 the city walls and say, okay, I'm part of this colony. 0:07:07.480 --> 0:07:10.000 Now nobody noticed that I'm not an Aunt. Yes, hello, 0:07:10.040 --> 0:07:15.240 fellow ants. Now, Aunts have been engineering their own ecosystems 0:07:15.280 --> 0:07:17.360 for millions of years, right, so there has been a 0:07:17.400 --> 0:07:21.720 lot of time for these mermica files and these creatures 0:07:21.760 --> 0:07:25.680 that infest ant colonies and other AUNT controlled environments to 0:07:26.480 --> 0:07:30.600 very tightly hone their their evolved traits, right that, There's 0:07:30.640 --> 0:07:32.880 been a lot of time for them to do this. Humans, 0:07:32.880 --> 0:07:35.640 on the other hand, have only been engineering their own 0:07:35.720 --> 0:07:39.000 environments for much much less time, just thousands of years. 0:07:39.200 --> 0:07:42.440 But nevertheless, our human ant hills seem to be in 0:07:42.480 --> 0:07:45.760 the early stages of developing Mermica files of our own, 0:07:45.760 --> 0:07:49.240 except they wouldn't be Mermica files, they would be creatures 0:07:49.280 --> 0:07:53.000 of the city. As we continue to engineer environments around 0:07:53.000 --> 0:07:56.520 the concept of the city, more and more forms of wildlife, 0:07:56.520 --> 0:08:01.760 we're beginning to show marked adaptations and eventually heritable evolved 0:08:01.880 --> 0:08:07.720 traits for specifically surviving in human urban landscapes. This is 0:08:07.840 --> 0:08:10.680 urban evolution, and this is gonna be our topic for today. 0:08:11.080 --> 0:08:13.320 This is actually going to be the first part of 0:08:13.360 --> 0:08:16.400 a multipart episode that we will continue to explore just 0:08:16.440 --> 0:08:19.160 because there's so much interesting stuff to talk about, but 0:08:19.280 --> 0:08:22.880 it's going to be focused on wild organisms evolving to 0:08:22.880 --> 0:08:26.040 survive and even thrive within the ecosystems that humans have 0:08:26.120 --> 0:08:29.720 engineered for themselves. And we should go ahead and mention 0:08:29.840 --> 0:08:32.120 that we've been wanting to do this episode for a while, 0:08:32.200 --> 0:08:34.480 but recently a book came out on this topic and 0:08:34.520 --> 0:08:37.080 this became one of our major sources for this episode. 0:08:37.320 --> 0:08:41.680 It's a book but the Dutch evolutionary biologist Minnow Skill Tausend, 0:08:41.840 --> 0:08:45.200 who is a researcher at the Naturalist Biodiversity Center, which 0:08:45.240 --> 0:08:48.560 is a museum in Leiden, Netherlands, and the book is 0:08:48.559 --> 0:08:51.200 called Darwin Comes to Town. It was just published by 0:08:51.200 --> 0:08:54.320 Pikador just recently. Yeah, I'll include a link to this 0:08:54.360 --> 0:08:56.439 book on the landing page for this episode of Stuff 0:08:56.440 --> 0:08:58.880 to your Mind dot Com. I want to note that 0:08:58.920 --> 0:09:02.200 the cover illustration is fabulous because you have this this 0:09:02.320 --> 0:09:07.280 drawing of various animals scaling a zigaratte that it's formed 0:09:07.280 --> 0:09:10.480 of all these buildings and skyscrapers. Yeah, it's it really 0:09:10.640 --> 0:09:13.760 captures the spirit of the book. I appreciate a good 0:09:13.760 --> 0:09:17.040 cover illustration because so many books have bad cover art. Now, yeah, 0:09:17.040 --> 0:09:19.960 it seems to be a dying art form. Here's my 0:09:20.080 --> 0:09:22.560 cry out there. If you're a publisher of science fiction 0:09:22.640 --> 0:09:25.280 or fantasy or something like that. Stop going with the 0:09:25.400 --> 0:09:28.520 stop going with the stock art. Get those original illustrated 0:09:28.559 --> 0:09:30.800 covers back. Those were great. Yes, And I do not 0:09:30.840 --> 0:09:34.200 want to see another minimalist like mock up of a 0:09:34.240 --> 0:09:36.640 movie poster or a book cover. I'm done with that. 0:09:36.720 --> 0:09:40.880 I want I want to a full visual experience. No. 0:09:41.000 --> 0:09:43.520 Back to the subject. Okay, So Skill Tolls and actually 0:09:43.720 --> 0:09:48.400 himself makes this comparison between human cities and ant colonies, 0:09:48.400 --> 0:09:52.360 and the subsequent comparison between mermenicaphiles and the organisms that 0:09:52.400 --> 0:09:54.679 have come to thrive in our cities. And I think 0:09:54.720 --> 0:09:58.000 it's a really good comparison, except one difference is that 0:09:58.040 --> 0:10:02.200 our cities are actually and much more vast and varied 0:10:02.280 --> 0:10:07.040 landscapes than the complex environments that ants create. Right, yeah, 0:10:07.080 --> 0:10:09.679 I mean you look at something like say New York City, 0:10:09.840 --> 0:10:14.120 right You have the sort of concrete jungle regions of 0:10:14.120 --> 0:10:18.600 the city. You have an artificial um wilderness in its center. 0:10:19.080 --> 0:10:23.240 You have essentially mountains made out of steel and glass 0:10:23.320 --> 0:10:28.560 that alter the flow of air, that alter the weather itself. 0:10:28.600 --> 0:10:31.360 You just have so many different elements going on to 0:10:32.160 --> 0:10:35.480 warp the natural world into a new form. I tried 0:10:35.480 --> 0:10:37.520 to make a short list of just some of the 0:10:37.559 --> 0:10:42.439 ways that cities are fundamental departures from what the natural 0:10:42.520 --> 0:10:44.839 landscapes around them are like. And I know I didn't 0:10:44.880 --> 0:10:48.120 capture everything here, but here just the things that occurred 0:10:48.160 --> 0:10:52.400 to me in our research. One of them is habitation surfaces. Right, 0:10:52.559 --> 0:10:56.720 not many complex organisms can live on flat concrete without 0:10:56.760 --> 0:10:59.880 soil or vegetation. That that's not an environment that occur 0:11:00.080 --> 0:11:03.080 is all that much on Earth. And when environments kind 0:11:03.080 --> 0:11:04.880 of like that do occur, there aren't a whole lot 0:11:04.880 --> 0:11:07.920 of organisms that inhabit them. So much of the plant 0:11:07.920 --> 0:11:10.880 and animal life in cities is isolated to or based 0:11:10.880 --> 0:11:13.920 in urban islands of vegetation. So they're gonna be things 0:11:13.960 --> 0:11:18.200 like parks or small undeveloped areas, or urban trees or 0:11:18.360 --> 0:11:22.640 yards or gardens or grassy street medians. We look at 0:11:22.640 --> 0:11:26.280 these spaces in our urban areas as kind of blank, right, 0:11:26.880 --> 0:11:28.839 Maybe not parks, but a lot of these other things, 0:11:28.880 --> 0:11:32.040 like the grassy median between two sides of a highway. Yeah, 0:11:32.040 --> 0:11:34.080 we think we might think of that as a place 0:11:34.840 --> 0:11:37.840 that is empty, but really, like that's the only place 0:11:37.840 --> 0:11:40.520 in your field of vision where there is non human 0:11:40.600 --> 0:11:44.120 life taking place at any like real degree. We look 0:11:44.160 --> 0:11:46.319 at those places sort of like the margins of of 0:11:46.679 --> 0:11:50.319 a page, like that's where nothing's going on. But yeah, 0:11:50.120 --> 0:11:53.480 that is in fact like a hot spot. It's a 0:11:53.520 --> 0:11:57.439 hotbed of life and activity that is surrounded by these 0:11:57.520 --> 0:12:02.160 dead rivers of asphalt, so many feral cats just whooping 0:12:02.200 --> 0:12:05.400 it up in there. But there is so much more 0:12:05.400 --> 0:12:08.560 than that. So okay, that's the obvious habitation surfaces. But 0:12:08.640 --> 0:12:12.040 then there is climate. Actually, the climate of a city 0:12:12.240 --> 0:12:15.200 is generally different than the climate of the surrounding area. 0:12:15.400 --> 0:12:17.319 We've talked before on the podcast about the idea of 0:12:17.400 --> 0:12:20.839 the urban heat island effect and urban rain. Uh. The 0:12:21.120 --> 0:12:24.160 the material properties of cities in the way they absorb 0:12:24.240 --> 0:12:28.679 and reflect light and retain heat actually affects the temperature 0:12:28.720 --> 0:12:31.040 and the weather within the city, usually leading to these 0:12:31.080 --> 0:12:33.600 situations where in the middle of a city it's a 0:12:33.640 --> 0:12:37.200 lot hotter than the surrounding countryside is on the same day. 0:12:37.480 --> 0:12:40.880 An obviously huge factor that makes a city different than 0:12:40.920 --> 0:12:44.599 the surrounding environment is what types of food resources are available, 0:12:44.880 --> 0:12:48.800 because it's going to be completely different nutritional profiles. Yeah, 0:12:48.800 --> 0:12:51.360 outside of the city, a bird has to you know, 0:12:51.480 --> 0:12:54.280 hunt around for its h its food, but inside the 0:12:54.280 --> 0:12:56.760 city it can just fly into at home depot and 0:12:56.840 --> 0:12:59.320 just aisle upon aisle of food awaits it. Now, I 0:12:59.360 --> 0:13:02.880 wonder if for birds, home depot eventually becomes a sub 0:13:02.960 --> 0:13:05.680 city within a city, where birds will evolve their own 0:13:05.679 --> 0:13:09.200 populations within the home depot over that's kind of frightening. 0:13:09.240 --> 0:13:13.400 I imagine like large prehistoric carnivorous birds roaming the home 0:13:13.480 --> 0:13:16.760 depot picking off humans that are a little too little 0:13:16.800 --> 0:13:18.920 too picky in which soil they're going to purchase for 0:13:18.920 --> 0:13:22.920 their home garden. Here's another one. You've got very different 0:13:23.080 --> 0:13:26.360 kinds of threats in human created environments than you do 0:13:26.440 --> 0:13:31.600 have an unspoiled natural landscapes. You have environmental threats, human threats, 0:13:31.600 --> 0:13:35.160 and machine threats. I mean, think about try to put 0:13:35.200 --> 0:13:38.439 yourself in the mind space of like a fox or 0:13:38.480 --> 0:13:42.080 a coyote or raccoon or something, and you're living in 0:13:42.080 --> 0:13:47.960 a place where there are these giant mechanical predators constantly 0:13:48.600 --> 0:13:51.720 plowing through the city back and forth at high speeds, 0:13:51.960 --> 0:13:54.840 and they will kill you. But also they don't really 0:13:54.840 --> 0:13:57.480 seem to chase you, and so it's it's you're not 0:13:57.600 --> 0:14:01.320 evolved at all to deal with this kind of situation. Yeah, 0:14:01.520 --> 0:14:05.320 the Frogger game, that is life for an animal in 0:14:05.320 --> 0:14:08.040 the city. Yeah, cars as predators. It's a thing that's 0:14:08.040 --> 0:14:10.400 hard to direct wrap your mind around. If you're a fox, 0:14:10.760 --> 0:14:13.760 then of course there's a totally different chemical environment than 0:14:13.800 --> 0:14:17.040 there is in in unspoiled nature. So you've got pollutants. 0:14:17.120 --> 0:14:19.880 Of course, you've got the byproducts of industry and all that. 0:14:19.920 --> 0:14:22.440 But then you've got things that people wouldn't even often 0:14:22.440 --> 0:14:24.680 tend to think of, Like, how about if you're in 0:14:24.680 --> 0:14:28.960 a northern city, what chemically you might you do to 0:14:29.200 --> 0:14:32.480 alter the surfaces of the city during the winter. I'm 0:14:32.480 --> 0:14:36.320 thinking about spilled hot chocolate for starters. I guess that's 0:14:36.320 --> 0:14:38.480 a good one. But how about salting the roads? Oh 0:14:38.560 --> 0:14:41.360 my goodness, I mean, yeah, millions of pounds of salt. 0:14:41.480 --> 0:14:43.800 You turn it into basically a big salt lick of 0:14:43.880 --> 0:14:47.760 death exactly. Yeah, so you're you're fundamentally altering the chemical 0:14:47.840 --> 0:14:51.400 profile of the surfaces that these animals dwell upon, and 0:14:51.480 --> 0:14:54.720 suddenly all this runoff water that would normally be fresh 0:14:54.760 --> 0:14:59.080 water become salt water. And yeah, it's totally strange. Here's 0:14:59.080 --> 0:15:03.200 another one. The darkness regime, completely different in cities than 0:15:03.240 --> 0:15:06.000 it is in a place that hasn't been colonized by 0:15:06.080 --> 0:15:08.320 human beings. That that's a that's a great one. I 0:15:08.360 --> 0:15:12.000 mean that in roads are situation like light pollution, and 0:15:12.080 --> 0:15:16.440 in roads, of course are everywhere. The roads crisscross human 0:15:16.480 --> 0:15:21.320 habitats wherever they occur, and and you know, invite death 0:15:21.360 --> 0:15:23.960 for anything that dares to cross it. And then of 0:15:23.960 --> 0:15:28.240 course we we've all heard accounts of how dangerous artificial 0:15:28.360 --> 0:15:33.400 lighting can be uh into various natural habitats, including beach 0:15:33.400 --> 0:15:36.880 habitats for turtles that are returning from the ocean to 0:15:36.960 --> 0:15:39.000 lay their eggs. Yeah, and of course a big one 0:15:39.040 --> 0:15:42.200 being for insects. The way light affects insects is crazy. 0:15:42.240 --> 0:15:44.720 I mean, there's this thing that's the vacuum cleaner effect 0:15:45.160 --> 0:15:47.440 that Skill tous And talks about in his book, where 0:15:47.840 --> 0:15:50.880 you put say a service station out by a dark 0:15:50.960 --> 0:15:53.280 highway in the middle of nowhere, and it's got lights 0:15:53.280 --> 0:15:55.480 on at night. And what this is going to do 0:15:55.600 --> 0:15:59.239 is act like a vacuum that just sucks in insectual 0:15:59.240 --> 0:16:03.120 life from the hire surrounding countryside for a period of 0:16:03.160 --> 0:16:07.080 time until it's killed so many millions of insects that 0:16:07.160 --> 0:16:10.800 Eventually the density around it just kind of drops off, 0:16:10.840 --> 0:16:13.400 and then it stops happening for a while, and then 0:16:13.400 --> 0:16:15.760 you have the city which just has that going on 0:16:15.840 --> 0:16:19.360 all the time. It's just a center of artificial light 0:16:19.400 --> 0:16:21.880 all night. Now, that's by no means all of the 0:16:21.920 --> 0:16:25.400 ways that cities change the environment from the natural environment, 0:16:25.400 --> 0:16:27.280 but that that's a handful of them to get you 0:16:27.320 --> 0:16:30.000 thinking about the ways that these techno beasts that we 0:16:30.040 --> 0:16:33.720 inhabit that feel very natural and normal to us are 0:16:33.720 --> 0:16:38.480 are aliens sci fi environments for animals that are designed 0:16:38.520 --> 0:16:40.640 to live in a meadow or live in the forest 0:16:40.840 --> 0:16:43.440 or something like that. And yet at the same time 0:16:43.920 --> 0:16:46.760 we know for me and Malcolm that life, uh finds 0:16:46.800 --> 0:16:50.520 a way that's right and find a way it does. 0:16:50.640 --> 0:16:52.240 And that is what we're going to be focusing on 0:16:52.280 --> 0:16:55.160 for the rest of the episode today is many of 0:16:55.200 --> 0:16:59.120 the fascinating ways that urban life affects wildlife and that 0:16:59.200 --> 0:17:02.240 wildlife apps to it or fails to adapt to it. 0:17:02.320 --> 0:17:03.840 All Right, we're gonna take a quick break and when 0:17:03.840 --> 0:17:05.840 we come back, we will dive right into the topic. 0:17:06.600 --> 0:17:11.880 Thank alright, we're back. You know, Joe, we live in Atlanta, 0:17:12.200 --> 0:17:15.600 and certainly especially the portion of Atlanta we reside in 0:17:15.760 --> 0:17:19.879 is is far from a like stereotypical concrete jungle. We 0:17:19.920 --> 0:17:22.040 have a lot of green trees around, a lot of 0:17:22.080 --> 0:17:26.680 these little noman zones of of of of built up 0:17:26.760 --> 0:17:29.520 weeds and vegetation for things to live in. What are 0:17:29.560 --> 0:17:33.320 some of your your favorite wild animals that you've encountered. Yeah, 0:17:33.440 --> 0:17:35.760 Landa actually is sometimes known as the city of Trees, 0:17:35.840 --> 0:17:37.679 and I like that about it. I mean, it can 0:17:37.720 --> 0:17:39.480 be a problem if a tree falls on your house 0:17:39.560 --> 0:17:41.720 or something, but otherwise it's very nice to have all 0:17:41.800 --> 0:17:45.320 this urban greenery that we do have. But yeah, as 0:17:45.400 --> 0:17:47.440 far as urban wildlife goes, I don't know. I mean, 0:17:47.920 --> 0:17:51.199 there's a lot just in my backyard. Like our our 0:17:51.280 --> 0:17:55.159 dog Charlie, he loves to chase the squirrels in the backyard. 0:17:55.359 --> 0:17:58.080 And there was one night not too long ago, when 0:17:58.520 --> 0:18:01.080 he's not a barker, he'dn't bar much, but we let 0:18:01.119 --> 0:18:04.040 him out in the backyard one night and suddenly he 0:18:04.040 --> 0:18:06.119 started barking, and we're like, what's going on? And we 0:18:06.160 --> 0:18:07.919 went out to get him and we realized he was 0:18:07.920 --> 0:18:11.199 in a standoff with an opossum. It's perched up on 0:18:11.240 --> 0:18:14.199 the fence and not moving. It just was frozen and 0:18:14.280 --> 0:18:18.040 staring at him and making the face. And so we 0:18:18.080 --> 0:18:20.720 got him inside and the possum never moved. We looked 0:18:20.720 --> 0:18:24.119 back out the window like a while later, and it 0:18:24.160 --> 0:18:26.399 was still in the exact same place, hadn't moved from 0:18:26.440 --> 0:18:29.080 the spot. And I think about adaptations when I see 0:18:29.119 --> 0:18:32.440 stuff like that. So, Okay, you've got an urban opossum 0:18:32.480 --> 0:18:35.560 and that maybe is getting some tasty trash morsels living 0:18:35.560 --> 0:18:37.600 in the city like this, but it's also got a 0:18:37.680 --> 0:18:41.399 deal with dogs and backyards and people and animal catchers 0:18:41.440 --> 0:18:44.119 and cars and all this stuff that threatens it. And 0:18:44.200 --> 0:18:47.399 for some reason, it's it's evolved response to this is 0:18:47.800 --> 0:18:50.680 freeze and make the scary face. Why does it do 0:18:50.760 --> 0:18:53.560 that and does that usually work or what? What was 0:18:53.640 --> 0:18:57.320 that traite evolved as a solution to. You know, the 0:18:57.600 --> 0:19:01.120 backyard division of things is really interesting because it does 0:19:01.160 --> 0:19:06.600 create these these little sequestered zones where that are protected, 0:19:07.040 --> 0:19:10.040 but each one also may contain its own localized predator 0:19:10.440 --> 0:19:14.040 in the form of a dog or even you know, cats, 0:19:14.080 --> 0:19:16.800 which I guess are gonna be less restricted by the 0:19:17.080 --> 0:19:20.879 fences little enclosures with monsters in them. Yeah, it was 0:19:21.000 --> 0:19:23.680 very recently It was just last week actually that I 0:19:24.400 --> 0:19:27.480 heard this rucus bird rucus in the backyard, and I 0:19:27.520 --> 0:19:29.040 went to check it out because I'm thinking about what's 0:19:29.040 --> 0:19:31.240 happening in cat that there's a maybe a feral cat 0:19:31.320 --> 0:19:33.760 back there messing with some birds. I look back there 0:19:33.960 --> 0:19:37.000 the birds were agitated because a wild turkey was in 0:19:37.040 --> 0:19:40.840 my backyard. Yeah, so good, I know. It's it's really 0:19:40.880 --> 0:19:43.480 kind of a holy experienced to see a creature that's 0:19:43.560 --> 0:19:45.840 ultimately so large. If you've not seen one there, it's 0:19:45.880 --> 0:19:49.840 a far different animal than the like the Thanksgiving turkey, 0:19:49.920 --> 0:19:52.520 but it is it is still a big critter and 0:19:52.600 --> 0:19:54.560 seeing it hop up there on the fence and then 0:19:54.760 --> 0:19:57.880 uh disappeared into the next yard was pretty pretty awe 0:19:57.920 --> 0:20:01.240 inspiring for me. Yeah, my parents actually in Tennessee sometimes 0:20:01.240 --> 0:20:03.640 get turkeys in their yard. Well, you know, I don't 0:20:03.640 --> 0:20:06.760 know about everyone else, but one animal that instantly came 0:20:06.800 --> 0:20:10.199 to mind from me when thinking of of creatures that 0:20:10.320 --> 0:20:14.080 thrive in an urban environment is the noble trash panda. 0:20:14.240 --> 0:20:18.760 The raccoons. Raccoons, Yeah, they've you know, it makes sense 0:20:18.800 --> 0:20:23.600 because raccoons, they've thrived in North America for at least 0:20:23.640 --> 0:20:25.560 two point five million years or at least we know 0:20:25.640 --> 0:20:30.040 that it's Procyon genus was well established here by that point, 0:20:30.040 --> 0:20:34.000 with its ancestry reaching back a good through thirty seven 0:20:34.040 --> 0:20:38.360 million years. But their success is due largely to their flexibility. 0:20:38.359 --> 0:20:40.760 Oh yeah, there's sort of a jack of all. Yeah, yeah, 0:20:40.840 --> 0:20:44.399 they they have They have teeth for both the shearing 0:20:44.440 --> 0:20:49.119 of meat and also expanded molars for crushing. They also 0:20:49.160 --> 0:20:52.919 have these incredibly sensitive hands which can be used to 0:20:52.920 --> 0:20:57.720 manipulate objects and feel without loss of sensitivity for food 0:20:57.760 --> 0:21:00.399 and chilly stream beds. You know, that makes me wonder 0:21:00.640 --> 0:21:03.520 Sometimes our listeners have asked this fun question before. It 0:21:03.560 --> 0:21:05.920 was like, if humans disappeared, what would be the next 0:21:06.080 --> 0:21:09.600 creature on Earth to like assume the sort of intelligent 0:21:09.640 --> 0:21:12.120 civilization mantlepiece. And of course you want to say, well, 0:21:12.119 --> 0:21:14.680 probably great apes or something. Uh. Some people want to 0:21:14.720 --> 0:21:17.840 say dolphins or whatever. But you could say, well, I 0:21:17.880 --> 0:21:20.480 wonder about raccoons. They've got hands that are really kind 0:21:20.480 --> 0:21:24.600 of a hand alike. They can manipulate objects. That seems significant. Yeah, 0:21:24.640 --> 0:21:27.800 And I was when I dived a little deeper into this, 0:21:27.920 --> 0:21:31.560 I was really impressed by just how sensitive their hands are. 0:21:32.000 --> 0:21:33.560 So I want to read a tidbit here. This is 0:21:33.560 --> 0:21:38.919 from Northern Woodlands magazine. Quote. There's a myth that raccoons 0:21:39.000 --> 0:21:42.040 wash their food, but what they're doing when they wet 0:21:42.119 --> 0:21:46.040 and rubn object is seeing it. It's thought that water 0:21:46.280 --> 0:21:50.959 contact increases a raccoon's tactile ability. When a raccoon wets 0:21:50.960 --> 0:21:56.360 and handles a crayfish, stone worm, or clam, he's gathering information. 0:21:56.680 --> 0:21:59.880 Nearly two thirds of the sensory data that he's processed 0:22:00.160 --> 0:22:04.080 comes from cells that interpret various types of touch sensation. 0:22:04.160 --> 0:22:07.720 In other words, touches as important a sense as hearing, smell, 0:22:07.880 --> 0:22:10.840 and sight. I had no idea. That's fascinating, Yeah, I 0:22:10.840 --> 0:22:12.840 mean it's it's it's I think it's especially hard for 0:22:13.760 --> 0:22:17.040 you know, any of us with with healthy um sight 0:22:17.480 --> 0:22:20.399 to really think about that, to think about that sense 0:22:20.400 --> 0:22:23.720 of touch as being one of the most important ways 0:22:23.760 --> 0:22:26.520 that you interact with your surroundings. Well, there's that, but 0:22:26.560 --> 0:22:30.800 there's also the peripheral sort of mentality that comes along 0:22:30.800 --> 0:22:34.440 with that, right, the the animal personality that is correlated 0:22:34.560 --> 0:22:38.480 with the feeling of touch as an exploratory mechanism, because 0:22:38.520 --> 0:22:40.840 it makes you think that this is a creature that's 0:22:40.920 --> 0:22:45.280 likely to sample objects in its environment at a high rate. Yeah, 0:22:45.320 --> 0:22:48.240 it's it's not enough just to peer at it from 0:22:48.320 --> 0:22:50.120 the shrubs. It's got to get up there. It's got 0:22:50.119 --> 0:22:53.280