Speaker 1: My Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of
Speaker 1: My Heart Radio. Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow
Speaker 1: your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb, and I'm Joe McCormick,
Speaker 1: and we're back with part two of our series on
Speaker 1: throwing behavior in animals. Now. In the previous episode we Foam,
Speaker 1: we focused almost exclusively on allegations from a paper published
Speaker 1: towards the end of last year in about octopuses throwing stuff,
Speaker 1: or at least appearing to throw stuff deliberately at one another.
Speaker 1: Often not just stuff as in like hard, uh singular objects,
Speaker 1: but like fistfuls of sand ory just trying to throw
Speaker 1: the silt right in each other's eyes. Yeah, that was
Speaker 1: a lot of fun. Octopus is playing dirty. But I
Speaker 1: had been looking around to try to find a good
Speaker 1: ancient myth or story that centered on the act of throwing,
Speaker 1: because it just seemed like there would be such a thing, right,
Speaker 1: like a throwing contest between the gods or something like that.
Speaker 1: And I think this must have been a common set
Speaker 1: piece since time immemorial. I'm sure there are examples like that,
Speaker 1: but I couldn't find a good one for today. However,
Speaker 1: I did want to talk about a myth that draws
Speaker 1: an interesting connection between an act of throwing and the
Speaker 1: origin of human kind, or at least the present lineage
Speaker 1: of humankind, and that is the Greek myth of Deucalion
Speaker 1: and Pira. M No, this one's not ringing a bell
Speaker 1: for me. If my son were around, I could perhaps
Speaker 1: even he knows this one. But yeah, this is not
Speaker 1: one that that that instantly springs into my head. Well
Speaker 1: settle in. It's a good story. So the version of
Speaker 1: the story I'm gonna reference is the one told in
Speaker 1: Ovid's Metamorphoses. So this is going to include some some
Speaker 1: Roman flare on the on the Greek myth. Ovid, of course,
Speaker 1: was a first century b c. Roman and poet, and
Speaker 1: this is from his Metamorphoses, Book one, translated by Brooks More. Now,
Speaker 1: the context of the of the story is that it's
Speaker 1: sort of the Greek or Roman version of the Great
Speaker 1: Flood story that we know from from other ancient texts
Speaker 1: that we know from the Hebrew Bible, that we know
Speaker 1: from the from the Epic of Gilgamesh and so forth.
Speaker 1: So uh, in this version, after the primordial ages and
Speaker 1: the origin of the gods and the giants and humankind,
Speaker 1: the gods look down on Earth and they're like it stinks.
Speaker 1: Human humans are awful, disgusting evil. There's a particular incident
Speaker 1: that really makes the gods upset where this vile king
Speaker 1: like Kon, tries to make Zeus and the gods do
Speaker 1: cannibalism to test their omissions. So he kills his own son,
Speaker 1: cooks him and tries to serve him to Zeus to see,
Speaker 1: like Zeus going to know that this is my son. Hilarious. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I definitely remember like Kon, We've talked about him before. Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: he has come up. So Zeus or Jupiter decides he's
Speaker 1: going to destroy the world with a great flood, and
Speaker 1: he does. It's brutal. Apparently only two humans are saved
Speaker 1: from from the flood, and they're from the region of Folks.
Speaker 1: They are a pious married couple named Ducalion, who is
Speaker 1: the son of Prometheus, and Pira, who is the daughter
Speaker 1: of Epimetheus. Now they survived the deluge, I think, on
Speaker 1: a little boat and they end up beached on a mountaintop.
Speaker 1: It might be the top of Mount Parnassus, but anyway
Speaker 1: that they end up stranded on a mountain. The floodwaters received,
Speaker 1: so they survive, but the rest of humanity has been destroyed.
Speaker 1: So what are they going to do now? Now they're
Speaker 1: they're all alone, And because they are a pious couple,
Speaker 1: they decide they should ask the gods for help. So
Speaker 1: here I'm going to start reading from the brooks Moore
Speaker 1: translation of Avid. And after he had spoken, they resolved
Speaker 1: to ask the aid of sacred oracles. And so they
Speaker 1: hastened to Kaffisian waves, which rolled a turbid flood in
Speaker 1: channels known thence. When their robes and brows were sprinkled well,
Speaker 1: they turned their footsteps to the goddess Fame. Its gables
Speaker 1: were befouled with reeking moss, and on its altars every
Speaker 1: fire was cold. But when the twain had reached the
Speaker 1: temple steps, they fell upon the earth, inspired with awe,
Speaker 1: and kiss the cold stone with their trembling lips, and said,
Speaker 1: if righteous prayers appease the gods, and if the wrath
Speaker 1: of high celestial powers may thus be turned, declare, oh
Speaker 1: famous WinCE, and what the art may raise humanity, Oh
Speaker 1: gentle Goddess, help the dying world. Okay, so they turned
Speaker 1: to the gods for help. They go to the temple
Speaker 1: of Famous. Of course, all the fires have gone out
Speaker 1: because it's been flooding, and it's covered with reeking moss,
Speaker 1: So the temples even nasty now. But still they're going
Speaker 1: to kneel down and kiss the stones of the temple
Speaker 1: to show how how holy they are. And they asked
Speaker 1: Famous for help, and Famous reply, so the poem goes on.
Speaker 1: Moved by their supplications, she replied, depart from me and
Speaker 1: veil your brows, ungourge your robes, and cast behind you
Speaker 1: as you go the bones of your great mother. Long
Speaker 1: they stood in dumb amazement. Pierra first a voice refused
Speaker 1: the mandate, and with trembling lips, implored the goddess to forgive.
Speaker 1: She feared to violate her mother's bones and vex her
Speaker 1: sacred spirit. Often pondered they the words involved in such obscurity,
Speaker 1: repeating oft and thus Dukalian to Epimetheus's daughter uttered speech
Speaker 1: of soothing. Import oracles are just, and urge not evil
Speaker 1: deeds or not avails the skill of thought. Our mother
Speaker 1: is the earth, and I may judge the stones of
Speaker 1: earth are bones that we should cast behind us as
Speaker 1: we go. Oh okay, so some some textual interpretation coming
Speaker 1: in here, all right, So basically the world has ended.
Speaker 1: They've come to the oracle the and they say, Oracle,
Speaker 1: what should we do? Oracle says, you need to take
Speaker 1: your robe off and throw your mother's bones around as
Speaker 1: you go behind you, right, But Pierre doesn't like this,
Speaker 1: so yeah, I think, I think. I think if I'm
Speaker 1: interpreting this right when they're saying oracle here, they're talking
Speaker 1: about the goddess Famous speaking to them, because I think, uh,
Speaker 1: this would not be a human oracle at this point.
Speaker 1: But yes, Famous, I think or whoever he is speaking
Speaker 1: the oracle here, I guess it's Famous directly says yeah,
Speaker 1: take your mother's bones, throw you wear your clothes loosely,
Speaker 1: ungird your robes, so kind of just like, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: sag your robes around and throw your mother's bones behind you.
Speaker 1: Pira is like, I'm not I can't do that my
Speaker 1: mother's but that would be really impious and I'm especially pious.
Speaker 1: But Dukalian has the solution. No, no, no, this doesn't
Speaker 1: mean your mother's bones. It's a metaphor. Our mother is
Speaker 1: the earth and the bones of the earth are stones.
Speaker 1: Makes sense, Okay, the oracle could have been a little
Speaker 1: more clear from the get go on that, but but
Speaker 1: fair enough agree, So the poem goes on. And although Pierre,
Speaker 1: by his words, was moved, she hesitated to comply, And
Speaker 1: both amazed doubted the purpose of the oracle, but deemed
Speaker 1: no harm to come of trial. They descended from the temple,
Speaker 1: veiled their heads, and loosened their robes, and threw some
Speaker 1: stones behind them. It is much beyond belief. We're not
Speaker 1: receding ages. Witness, hard and rigid stones assumed a softer form,
Speaker 1: enlarging as their brittle nature changed to mild their substance,
Speaker 1: until the shape of man appeared imperfect, faintly outlined, first
Speaker 1: as marble statue, chiseled in the rough, The soft, moist
Speaker 1: parts were changed to softer flesh, the hard and brittle
Speaker 1: substance into bones. The veins retained their ancient name. And
Speaker 1: now the God's supreme ordained that every stone Deukalian through
Speaker 1: should take form of man, and those by pura cast
Speaker 1: should woman's form assume. So are we hardy to endure,
Speaker 1: and proved by toil and deeds from what we sprung.
Speaker 1: So they do it, They throw the stones, And what
Speaker 1: do you know? It works. All the stones Pia throws
Speaker 1: become women, all the stones Doucalian throws become men. And
Speaker 1: I like the moral here. The fact that the new
Speaker 1: generation of humans, I guess the present one surviving emerged
Speaker 1: from stones in this telling is why humans are are
Speaker 1: so rough and ready. Like humans can get things done there,
Speaker 1: they can do hard work. They can they can really
Speaker 1: take a beating and keep on going. Hmm. Interesting. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I think there might be some kind of interesting
Speaker 1: evolutionary pressions in this story about the present generation of
Speaker 1: humans arising from an act of throwing stones, because I
Speaker 1: think you could make the argument that throwing stones or
Speaker 1: throwing uh items shinned out of stone is an early
Speaker 1: human technological advancement that is pivotal in the the arising
Speaker 1: regime of technologies and behaviors associated with those technologies that
Speaker 1: create human culture. Yeah. Absolutely. I hate to keep going
Speaker 1: back to the the introduction to two thousand and one
Speaker 1: of Space Odyssey, but we have discussed it a lot,
Speaker 1: and we've actually had an expert on the show to
Speaker 1: to discuss it with us before. But yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: even in that uh presentation, we see the idea that, yes,
Speaker 1: the the use of tools uh as a melee application,
Speaker 1: but also arranged application, and our ability to throw things
Speaker 1: at threats, perceived threats other individuals, either as a direct
Speaker 1: weapon or as a communication of intent. H is an
Speaker 1: important part of of human technology and the the advent
Speaker 1: of human technology. But while some of the most note
Speaker 1: examples of non human animals throwing or found in primates, Rob,
Speaker 1: I think you wanted to get us started today by
Speaker 1: talking about elephants, right, Yeah, Yeah, elephants were one that
Speaker 1: jumped out at me because I, you know, I I'm
Speaker 1: fascinated by elephants, but I hadn't really read much about
Speaker 1: their ability to throw things. Uh, So I dove into
Speaker 1: this a good bit. Now, um, I wanna advise everyone
Speaker 1: that I am going to get a little bit into
Speaker 1: the history of war elephants in this. I'm gonna try
Speaker 1: not to dwell on any of the you know, the
Speaker 1: gory details, but war is inherently cruel and monstrous, and
Speaker 1: warfare involving animals is also cruel and monstrous, um and
Speaker 1: at the same time fascinating. So yeah, I realized I'm
Speaker 1: something of a hypocrite on this myself, and that I
Speaker 1: I spend a certain part of every day horrified and
Speaker 1: fearful of warfare, and yet um, you know, ancient warfare
Speaker 1: is is a fascinating topic that I keep coming back
Speaker 1: to and actually find find p in in in studying
Speaker 1: and reading about and then uh covering on the podcast.
Speaker 1: So there you go, Bill, please tell me more than
Speaker 1: thank so. Elephants have long been reported to throw things. Uh,
Speaker 1: They've been seen to throw rocks at other animals. Uh.
Speaker 1: There's even at least one case and when an elephant
Speaker 1: was able to fatally hit a human in a zoo environment.
Speaker 1: This was in Morocco back in You can look up
Speaker 1: news reports on this if if you want to see more.
Speaker 1: But even in the while, there are some there's some
Speaker 1: impressive footage that you'll find online of say, I think
Speaker 1: there's one of a of an elephant in Africa throwing
Speaker 1: a rock in the direction of a rhinoceros near a
Speaker 1: water hole environment, you know where there's a lot of
Speaker 1: interspecies interaction and standoffs. Uh. There's also footage I was
Speaker 1: looking of an elephant again. This was an African elephant
Speaker 1: throwing a branch at a at a at a tourist
Speaker 1: who is out in a jeep to observe the elephants,
Speaker 1: and then the elephant is essentially I guess saying I
Speaker 1: don't really want to be observed right now. Here have
Speaker 1: the branch of a small tree. Uh. So they definitely
Speaker 1: can throw things when they want to throw things, and
Speaker 1: you can certainly break down a lot of why they're
Speaker 1: throwing things. You know, there are as a communication as
Speaker 1: a as an actual and actual attack. Uh, you know,
Speaker 1: some sort of expression of aggression. A lot of what
Speaker 1: we talked about regarding the octopus is very much in
Speaker 1: play here now. In trying to picture this act of throwing,
Speaker 1: I'm assuming that it is done with the trunk generally, Yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: definitely the trunk um and all of this really anytime
Speaker 1: we're in talking about elephants throwing things. This is all
Speaker 1: just a subset of a larger study of elephant tool
Speaker 1: use that's been going on for quite some time. Uh,
Speaker 1: multiple studies, uh, multiple observations. There's a lot of interesting
Speaker 1: data out there concerning not only aggressive use of branches
Speaker 1: and rocks wielded or thrown, but also the use of
Speaker 1: sticks or branches in grooming, thermoregulation and fly swatting. Um.
Speaker 1: Something that Charles Darwin apparently commented upon as well fly
Speaker 1: swatting interesting. Yeah, yeah, so there are other things too,
Speaker 1: like the manipulation of branches to weigh down fences so
Speaker 1: as to cross over them. Uh. And sometimes there there
Speaker 1: may be examples two of them retaining certain sticks of
Speaker 1: for for use as a tool. Um so, you know,
Speaker 1: not sticking in their pocket or anything, but um, but
Speaker 1: behavior that seems to indicate that once a stick is useful,
Speaker 1: they may hang onto it for at least a little
Speaker 1: bit in order to keep using it. So it's not
Speaker 1: just it's not like this kind of random interaction like, oh,
Speaker 1: there happens to be a stick in my truck. We well,
Speaker 1: I can sympathize with that because that I'm when I
Speaker 1: find a good stick. You know, not all sticks are equal,
Speaker 1: that some sticks are way better than others. And when
Speaker 1: you find a good stick, you kind of don't want
Speaker 1: to let it go. Oh. Yes. One especially sees this
Speaker 1: in in children on walks. Once they find a good stick,
Speaker 1: they absolutely don't want to put it away, even if
Speaker 1: they keep almost hitting people in the face with it.
Speaker 1: So anyway, as far as elephants go, though, one of
Speaker 1: the more interesting ideas out there, however, is that tool
Speaker 1: use in elephants emerges primarily to contend with thermoregulation and parasites, uh,
Speaker 1: basically parasite control. Both of these are important because the elephant,
Speaker 1: of course, basically has has no hair, and so it's
Speaker 1: a fertiless creature. And we tend to think of elephant
Speaker 1: skin as is thick and hard and sufficient protection against flies,
Speaker 1: but this isn't quite the case. Pain and blood loss
Speaker 1: from flies seems to be sufficient to provide for the
Speaker 1: natural selection of swatter usage. So being able to pick
Speaker 1: up a stick, small branch, it said, and using that
Speaker 1: with the trunk to swat away these troublesome insects that
Speaker 1: again are messing with the expansive skin of the elephant
Speaker 1: that is far more sensitive than you might give it credit.
Speaker 1: And the elephant has limited abilities to shoot those flies.
Speaker 1: It has the tail, it has expansive ears, of course,
Speaker 1: but mainly it's depending on that trunk, and you can
Speaker 1: extend that trunk via tool use, via a small branch
Speaker 1: or stick and use that to swat away the flies.
Speaker 1: Now this is swatting, not throwing the stick it flies
Speaker 1: that I don't think really wouldn't necessarily makes sense, and
Speaker 1: I yet to see anything about throwing as being a
Speaker 1: direct part of either activity thermoregulation of their their expansive skin,
Speaker 1: or regulation of parasites. So I think it's one of
Speaker 1: those things we might see a sort of a side
Speaker 1: skill of all that, an add on skill that comes
Speaker 1: via the the the evolution of this amazing trunk and
Speaker 1: all the abilities of this trunk as well as just
Speaker 1: their their ability to use tools. Yeah, well, you can
Speaker 1: imagine throwing as um as at least possibly on a
Speaker 1: continuum with the extended reach you get from a tool.
Speaker 1: So you know, by picking up a stick you in
Speaker 1: effect make your arm longer, you can hit or reach
Speaker 1: it something farther away than you can with your biological arm.
Speaker 1: And then if you could release that stick at just
Speaker 1: the right time, it could fact could in fact go
Speaker 1: even further. Yeah, so the basic ability here is not
Speaker 1: at all surprising. The elephant trunk is a highly tactile
Speaker 1: proboscis composed of some forty muscles. That this is a
Speaker 1: frequently sided number anyway, though I do see some different
Speaker 1: figures out out there. But anyway, you shake it, whatever
Speaker 1: the number happens to be, it it dwarfs the sum
Speaker 1: six and fifty muscles in the human body. Well, maybe
Speaker 1: just because I have them on the brain, But I
Speaker 1: almost want to compare the elephant's trunk to an octopus's arm. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I think there's a lot to compare there,
Speaker 1: just in terms of how much ability there is for
Speaker 1: the further trunk to move around. Well, I think I'm
Speaker 1: also thinking about that because there are no bones within
Speaker 1: the trunk, so like our arms and fingers have bones
Speaker 1: in them that make them rigid along a certain you know,
Speaker 1: axes of motion, whereas the elephants trunk has no bones
Speaker 1: at all. It's it's a mass of like muscles and fats,
Speaker 1: So it has a kind of almost octopus like I mean,
Speaker 1: not truly, not truly octopus like, but more in the
Speaker 1: octopus e direction. Uh, in a range of motion and
Speaker 1: kind of floppiness. Yeah. Absolutely. Um. One of the papers
Speaker 1: I was looking at for this section is from Scott L.
Speaker 1: Hooper in one edition of Current Biology of Papers titled
Speaker 1: Motor Control Elephant trunks ignore the many and choose the few.
Speaker 1: In this Hooper writes, quote, the elephant trunk is a
Speaker 1: muscular hydrostat with essentially infinite freedom of movement. Now, the
Speaker 1: paper itself here is the title suggests, explores how the
Speaker 1: elephant focuses on certain ways of move thing the trunk
Speaker 1: to achieve various objectives. Again, this is interesting because unlike
Speaker 1: with something like the human arm, the possible movements are
Speaker 1: far less restricted. Like you say, it's it's not like
Speaker 1: an arm where you have. Yes, the human arm is
Speaker 1: amazing in what it can do and the range of
Speaker 1: motion that it has, but still there are limitations in place,
Speaker 1: just based on how it is constructed the bones, the ligaments, etcetera.
Speaker 1: Like you can't bend your forearm in the middle of
Speaker 1: your forearm, or you can't build bend your elbow backwards
Speaker 1: right Like it would be interesting to see a list
Speaker 1: like all the possible ways you might move your arm
Speaker 1: in all of the like the small differences, all the
Speaker 1: different ways you might scratch your nose. However, many methods
Speaker 1: you come up with, however many movements you're able to
Speaker 1: decipher the elephant and that it is just is gonna
Speaker 1: have you beat every day, Like there's just so many
Speaker 1: more ways for it to potentially move its trunk. And
Speaker 1: this was really interesting. In the paper, the author points
Speaker 1: out that when control for body and brain size, Elephant
Speaker 1: cerebellums are physically much larger than expected, and that five
Speaker 1: of elephant brain neurons are in the cella bellus sarah cerebellum. Uh.
Speaker 1: This is a part of the brain that is, among
Speaker 1: other things, associated with fine motor control and movement error correction.
Speaker 1: So they point out that quote. It is tempting to
Speaker 1: hypothesize that this extreme hypertrophy is due to the greatly
Speaker 1: increased motor control challenges a muscular hydrostatic trunk poses. Thank
Speaker 1: thank thank so. Anyway, in general, though, there's a great
Speaker 1: deal that an elephant can do with its trunk, and
Speaker 1: many things that it does far more often with said trunk.
Speaker 1: But clear though throwing behavior again has been observed. They're
Speaker 1: perfectly capable of throwing branches, rocks, and in cases of
Speaker 1: hostile interaction, yes, other organisms including people. Oh. One question
Speaker 1: that ended up coming up from me though, is can
Speaker 1: they throw arrows? And um, I hadn't thought about this,
Speaker 1: there's but I ran across this interesting passage in Plenty
Speaker 1: of the Elders the Natural History. So if you have
Speaker 1: your stuff to blow your mind, plenty of the Elder
Speaker 1: punch card, please go ahead and put another star punch
Speaker 1: through there, and you're one star closer to your gigantic HOGI.
Speaker 1: So um, I'm going to read from plenty here. Quote
Speaker 1: uh and just as a reminder, plenty of course first
Speaker 1: centuries see Roman author that we've discussed many times on
Speaker 1: the show. Quote. The first harnessed elephants that were seen
Speaker 1: at Rome were in the triumph of Pompeius Magnus over Africa,
Speaker 1: when they drew his chariot, a thing that is said
Speaker 1: to have been done long before at the triumph of
Speaker 1: Father liber on the conquest of India. Priscilius says that
Speaker 1: those which were used at the triumph of Pompeius were
Speaker 1: unable to go in harness through the gate of the city.
Speaker 1: In exhibition of gladiators, which was given by Germanicus, the
Speaker 1: elephants performed a sort of dance. With their uncouth and
Speaker 1: irregular movements. It was a common thing to see them
Speaker 1: throw arrows with such strength that the wind was unable
Speaker 1: to turn them from their course, to imitate among themselves
Speaker 1: the combats of the gladiators, and to frolic through the
Speaker 1: steps of pyrrhic dance. After this, too, they walked upon
Speaker 1: the tight rope, and four of them would carry a
Speaker 1: litter in which lay a fifth meaning a fifth fifth
Speaker 1: elephant which represented a woman lying in They afterwards took
Speaker 1: their place, and so nicely did they manage their steps
Speaker 1: that they did not so much as touch any of
Speaker 1: those who were drinking there. Huh. So I have a
Speaker 1: kind of mixed reaction to that. On one hand, I
Speaker 1: think it's quite clear from you know, modern examples, that
Speaker 1: elephants can be trained to do all kinds of interesting things.
Speaker 1: They are intelligent animals, and they have a very adroit
Speaker 1: uh manipulation ability through their trunk. And yet I feel
Speaker 1: kind of doubtful when it says this thing about the arrows,
Speaker 1: that they are able to throw the arrows with such
Speaker 1: strength that the wind was unable to turn them from
Speaker 1: their course. I guess I'm imagining from that statement, though
Speaker 1: it doesn't directly say this, that it's like throwing arrows
Speaker 1: as if into a target so actually aimed, so they
Speaker 1: go tip first and hit something even when the wind
Speaker 1: is blowing. I don't know if Plenty doesn't actually say that,
Speaker 1: but that I would assume that's what he means. Yeah, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I wasn't sure how to take the wind thing either
Speaker 1: if that's if that's something that we should focus on,
Speaker 1: or if perhaps you know something lost in translation here
Speaker 1: and through the ages, that this is just kind of
Speaker 1: a standard way of describing an arrow being um uh
Speaker 1: fired with precision. You know, Yeah, well, I guess it's
Speaker 1: the precision I wonder about, Like, if he's just saying
Speaker 1: that that like they can throw arrows, sure, I guess
Speaker 1: that that that doesn't seem controversial, like they could throw sticks.
Speaker 1: If he's saying they could throw the arrow with the
Speaker 1: kind of like point forward precision that an archer can
Speaker 1: shoot an arrow, then I'm like, oh, whoa, I don't
Speaker 1: know about that. Yeah, he makes them sound like they're
Speaker 1: natural sharpshooters. And and granted, most of this description is
Speaker 1: clearly describing elephants that have been trained to perform for
Speaker 1: the amusement of humans, but it's reference in combat. It's
Speaker 1: referencing war elephants as well, So you know, part of
Speaker 1: me was wondering, it's like, did did they train did
Speaker 1: they actually train elephants to throw arrows? Did they have
Speaker 1: any kind of combat initiative in mind? Here? Surely not?
Speaker 1: And also wondering just is this at all accurate? Can
Speaker 1: elephants do this? And on the on that side of
Speaker 1: the the issue here, indeed, Asian elephants are still trained
Speaker 1: to throw darts at balloons as a spectacle. This is
Speaker 1: again something that you can look up multiple videos of online.
Speaker 1: I don't think there's any trickery involved in these, it's
Speaker 1: just they have they have trained the elephant, and the
Speaker 1: elephant will take a dart, fling it with its trunk
Speaker 1: and hit a balloon that's affixed to like a wooden
Speaker 1: board or so something. Hold on a second, I am
Speaker 1: I'm taking a moment to watch this video. Okay, I
Speaker 1: took a moment to watch video. I am simultaneously very impressed.
Speaker 1: And it makes more sense now because at least in
Speaker 1: the video you shared Robbed the Elephant dart throwing, it
Speaker 1: is throwing a dart and hitting balloons and popping them.
Speaker 1: But it is not a straight on line drive like
Speaker 1: you know, like an archer would shoot an arrow. It's
Speaker 1: more of a toss of a dart that happens to
Speaker 1: land point first on the balloon and hit it right.
Speaker 1: And you know, ethical concerns over training elephants for amusement aside. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's pretty impressive and I think it it certainly speaks
Speaker 1: to the throwing ability of the elephants. Again, like you said,
Speaker 1: the dart um uh throwing here is very much in
Speaker 1: line with other kind of throwing feats one sees from elephants,
Speaker 1: including some of these, uh, these these incidents that have
Speaker 1: occurred in the wild or sort of more or less
Speaker 1: in the wild. Yeah. Now, again, given the historical use
Speaker 1: of Asian elephants in warfare, you might well wonder if
Speaker 1: this ability was ever exploited for war because yes, war
Speaker 1: elephants were a part of warfare and parts of the world. Um.
Speaker 1: They were typically used though as powerful bulldozing steeds and
Speaker 1: shock weapons. They could also serve as as a sort
Speaker 1: of a weapons platform of sorts. You know, you could
Speaker 1: have a place on top where not only is the
Speaker 1: elephant ride or present, but perhaps someone uh brandishing a
Speaker 1: spear or a bow of some of some sort. And
Speaker 1: in some cases not only did you have additional armor
Speaker 1: added to the the elephant uh. And I should probably
Speaker 1: shouldn't even say additional armor, just armor because again you
Speaker 1: think of the skin of the elephant as being this
Speaker 1: kind of like natural armor, and uh, you know, I
Speaker 1: think for the most part, we're uh, we're dealing with
Speaker 1: with with a part of the animals far more sensitive
Speaker 1: than we think. So yeah, they're There are numerous examples
Speaker 1: that survived today of the sort of armor that we
Speaker 1: placed on the elephants. Sometimes that armor would be augmented
Speaker 1: with spikes or blades, and there were also special elephant
Speaker 1: swords that could be affixed to the tusks. I apologize
Speaker 1: I can't remember where I read this, but I know
Speaker 1: I've read at least one historians opinion before that elephants
Speaker 1: in ancient warfare would have been more useful for psychological
Speaker 1: impact than they were for direct like you know, mechanical
Speaker 1: advantage on the battlefield, and that most of what you
Speaker 1: could do with an elephant you could probably actually do
Speaker 1: better with just cavalry manched on horses. Yeah, that that
Speaker 1: lines up with a lot of what I've been reading here,
Speaker 1: Like we we should not think of the war elephant
Speaker 1: is some sort of super weapon. Uh, it's it was
Speaker 1: a specialized uh weapon, a specialized use of the elephant
Speaker 1: and rider and various other weapons that needed support, UH
Speaker 1: needed just the right situation to be useful and uh
Speaker 1: and yeah, so there's a there's a lot of ins
Speaker 1: and outs. You can't think of it again as this
Speaker 1: thing that oh once one to introduce war elephants to
Speaker 1: the game, you've got it. One one of the books
Speaker 1: I was looking at here is a book by John
Speaker 1: im Kissler titled War Elephants from two thousand and six,
Speaker 1: And in this he mentions that this that some sources
Speaker 1: mentioned blades affixed to trunk armor as well, though I
Speaker 1: don't take that to mean I personally didn't take that
Speaker 1: to mean that you would actually have some sort of
Speaker 1: scenario where you would put a sword on the trunk
Speaker 1: end of the elephants trunk. I think that would be
Speaker 1: more like blades higher up on the armor that's kind
Speaker 1: of protecting the front of the elephant's face. But he
Speaker 1: this is a book that goes into depth on elephant warfare,
Speaker 1: probably more than a lot of you really want to
Speaker 1: want to read. I mean, it's a very readable, very
Speaker 1: good book. But again, war is cruelty, and elephant warfare
Speaker 1: is also just loaded with cruelty. There are a lot
Speaker 1: of elephant deaths that are described in this. You know,
Speaker 1: it gets into not only the gory particulars of waging
Speaker 1: war with elephants, but also waging war against elephants. And
Speaker 1: but there are certainly accounts that are mentioned in this
Speaker 1: book of enemy soldiers being crushed and thrown by the
Speaker 1: trunk of of the elephant, and in some cases um
Speaker 1: throwing the horse as well, if it's encountering like a
Speaker 1: man mounted on a horse. Now I I look through
Speaker 1: this book, I did not find any examples of war
Speaker 1: elephants actually throwing projectiles as a as an offensive weapon tactic.
Speaker 1: Though it is mentioned that Skipio forced his elephants into
Speaker 1: battle against Caesar's forces with rock slingers, So these would
Speaker 1: have been human rock slingers marching behind the elephants, pelting
Speaker 1: them with stones to get them to continue forward. Uh
Speaker 1: So this would have been I think forty six BC.
Speaker 1: So a lot of what you encounter with projectiles and
Speaker 1: elephants are dealing with in this case making the elephants
Speaker 1: move forward into battle um and and all the grizzly
Speaker 1: realities that awaited them ahead. And then also you find
Speaker 1: plenty of discussions of projectiles being used against elephants, such
Speaker 1: as specialized like all metal arrows and so forth, darts,
Speaker 1: um cow trops and other things that would be useful
Speaker 1: fire added to projectiles as well that would be useful
Speaker 1: in combating elephants that are used by your enemy. Kissler
Speaker 1: also brings up an account from Plutarch's Life of Alexander
Speaker 1: fourth century BC, in which the Indian king Porus was
Speaker 1: said to ride in a war elephant that was so
Speaker 1: loyal that at one point it softly kneels down and
Speaker 1: begins to draw the enemy darts out of the king's
Speaker 1: body so that he continued can continue fighting. And Kistler
Speaker 1: weighs in on this and says, quote, such stories are
Speaker 1: not preposterous. Elephants do form intimate bonds with their human
Speaker 1: riders and have been known to protect their human friends
Speaker 1: and may even die of grief when their partner is lost.
Speaker 1: Megas Thinny is a contemporary of Alexander attest to both wow. However,
Speaker 1: this of course is not dart throwing, natural or otherwise,
Speaker 1: and Kistler makes no mention of elephants being trained to
Speaker 1: throw weapons. I think it might take on this is
Speaker 1: generally speaking, human army is capable of using war elephants
Speaker 1: are going to also have access to much better throwing
Speaker 1: projectile technology such as a bow used by a human,
Speaker 1: even a sling used by a human, catapults and so forth.
Speaker 1: Using a war elephant to throw a rock would just
Speaker 1: be a misuse of the resource that you have there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that is not what the elephants are best at. Yeah,
Speaker 1: uh and uh. And the Kissil gets into this a
Speaker 1: little bit as well. He's speaking directly about the sieges
Speaker 1: of Hannibal here, but he says, you're talking about the
Speaker 1: limitations of the war elephant. Quote, elephants do not make
Speaker 1: good siege weapons, but they do make excellent siege laborers.
Speaker 1: So again, a situation where um it an't given moment,
Speaker 1: an army that has elephants is going to have to
Speaker 1: use them where they are, whether where they are most useful,
Speaker 1: be it as a shock weapon or as just labor
Speaker 1: to help operate the other weapons of war. So and
Speaker 1: when it comes to bobbing projectiles at your enemies, better
Speaker 1: I would imagine to have human archers a top or
Speaker 1: near elephants to handle the range weaponry and allow the
Speaker 1: elephants to do their thing, hopefully in a matter in
Speaker 1: a manner that advances the front line rather than recedes it.
Speaker 1: Because that's another thing you run into. Like the use
Speaker 1: of the elephant on the battlefield. Um, it is kind
Speaker 1: of there's kind of a contained chaos to it. Uh.
Speaker 1: You definitely if you are the one using the elephants,
Speaker 1: you want them to keep going towards the enemy and
Speaker 1: not to to panic and turn back on your own forces. Yeah. Still,
Speaker 1: there's certainly many accounts of war elephants grabbing, crushing, throwing
Speaker 1: human adversaries, sometimes off their mounts, and then in some
Speaker 1: cases inflicting such damage to them to the mount as well. Well.
Speaker 1: This is interesting because it raises sort of a third
Speaker 1: category of animal throwing behaviors that we didn't really get
Speaker 1: to in the last episode. When we were talking about
Speaker 1: that study on octopuses, we made the distinction between throwing
Speaker 1: at and throwing away. So sometimes in octopus would quote
Speaker 1: throw again to to remind you what the octopuses did
Speaker 1: was not purely by like grasping something in the arm
Speaker 1: and then rapidly extending the arm and releasing the object.
Speaker 1: They would hold the object with their arms and then
Speaker 1: blast the object with their funnel or siphon with a
Speaker 1: jet of water to propel it through the water toward
Speaker 1: a target, or at least allegedly toward a target. But
Speaker 1: the two categories of throwing they talked about in this paper,
Speaker 1: we're throwing at and throwing away. So throwing away is
Speaker 1: just like you're trying to get something out of a
Speaker 1: certain place, Like cleaning out your din would be a
Speaker 1: throwing away behavior. You're trying to get all of the
Speaker 1: scallop shells out of there, uh and and make a
Speaker 1: make a clean place for you to settle down. Or
Speaker 1: throwing at would be trying to hit a target here
Speaker 1: you could have I don't know what this would be.
Speaker 1: If you're like grabbing an adversary and throwing it, that's
Speaker 1: not really throwing at or throwing away. The object of
Speaker 1: the throwing is the object you're throwing, not an object
Speaker 1: you're trying to hit. But you're also not just trying
Speaker 1: to get it out of your way, you're trying to
Speaker 1: harm it by throwing it. Yeah, I think there's there's
Speaker 1: at least one account that the Kissler shares again from
Speaker 1: from ancient writers, where someone is thrown and then they
Speaker 1: hit a rock and it like breaks their back. But
Speaker 1: that's it's hard to really weigh in on that. Like
Speaker 1: was the elephant in this case throwing the human at
Speaker 1: the rock or did they the elephant just throw this
Speaker 1: human aside and they happened to land on a rock.
Speaker 1: I wasn't alleging, Yeah, I wasn't alleging that the elephants
Speaker 1: like knew what they were doing and that type of throwing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but I think we have one more example of an
Speaker 1: animal where that third category the the might you might say,
Speaker 1: throwing into where the the main object of the throwing
Speaker 1: is what happens to the object thrown, not the object
Speaker 1: it's thrown at. And it's not just trying to get
Speaker 1: the object out of your space. You're you're trying to
Speaker 1: act upon the object by throwing it. And this comes
Speaker 1: up with the mongoose. I was surprised by this. I
Speaker 1: don't really know much about the mongoose, so I wasn't
Speaker 1: expecting it to to be a projectile tool user or
Speaker 1: a projectile Maybe not maybe tool user is going a
Speaker 1: little too far, but a creature capable of throwing objects, um, yeah,
Speaker 1: I wonder would this count of tool use or not.
Speaker 1: I don't know what. We can talk about the details
Speaker 1: and then see everything. Thank thank there are different families
Speaker 1: of mongooses about thirty four species in total. They have
Speaker 1: strong rodent vibes. There's definitely a rodent energy to them.
Speaker 1: If you're unfamiliar with them, you having to see them,
Speaker 1: if you have an end to be in a region
Speaker 1: where you have mongooses around, you might think, oh, they
Speaker 1: they're behaving much like rodents. They seem to be feel
Speaker 1: feeling that that niche at the very least. But they're
Speaker 1: actually more closely related to hyenas and fosces. They are
Speaker 1: carnivores and they're pretty opportunistics, so they feed on vertebrates.
Speaker 1: Invertebrates live prey, carry on their They're all about figuring
Speaker 1: out how to go about getting their daily allotment of meat.
Speaker 1: What kind of puzzles do I need to solve to
Speaker 1: get my meat? What do I need to crawl into
Speaker 1: to get my meat? Uh? And and uh And this
Speaker 1: is this the kind of area where often we times
Speaker 1: we see this more with the omnivores. Like we talked
Speaker 1: about the raccoon before, this creature that that is savvy
Speaker 1: and its ability to to find these different forms of food,
Speaker 1: And here we see it with the carnivorous mongoose. Now
Speaker 1: as they're trying to get at the meat. Sometimes the
Speaker 1: thing about your meat. Sometimes the meat is you know,
Speaker 1: smeared on the side of the road, or it's a
Speaker 1: um or it's a nice and soft and easy to
Speaker 1: tear into. But other times you'll find that the meat
Speaker 1: that you desire is a mongoose is encased. Uh. This
Speaker 1: would be the case with something like a millipede. There's
Speaker 1: there's goosey stuff on the inside that you want to eat,
Speaker 1: but there's hard stuff on the outside. Bird bird's eggs
Speaker 1: are another example, hard on the outside, delicious and liquidity
Speaker 1: in the middle. Beetles, balls of dung are all so
Speaker 1: brought up in some of the sources I was looking at,
Speaker 1: because the ball of dung might have, for instance, that
Speaker 1: a beatle inside of it, and you want to get
Speaker 1: at it. But on the outside you have perhaps this
Speaker 1: hardened dung. So how are you going to get the
Speaker 1: meat that is such so encased? Well? A reference that
Speaker 1: comes up on this question is a paper from nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty seven by Thomas Eisner and Joseph A. Davis, a
Speaker 1: couple of biologists. I think one was affiliated with Cornell University, UH,
Speaker 1: and I think maybe another with the Bronx Zoo. But
Speaker 1: the paper is called Mongoose Throwing and Smashing Millipedes, published
Speaker 1: in the journal Science. I actually had trouble finding the
Speaker 1: full text on this one, but fortunately I was able
Speaker 1: to sort of piece it together with some sections quoted
Speaker 1: in books and a blog post I found summarizing it
Speaker 1: by an archaeologist and named Michael Haslum. But the study
Speaker 1: looked at a relationship between the mongoose and a genus
Speaker 1: of af Can millipedes called sphero there Um sphero ethereum.
Speaker 1: You want to do the etymology on that? What does
Speaker 1: that mean? Ball beast? Now compared to the tiny roly
Speaker 1: pulleys or pillbugs that we're used to here in the
Speaker 1: Southern United States, rob these things the Spherotherium r. Indeed,
Speaker 1: beasts some species are very large comparatively. I found a
Speaker 1: picture of somebody holding one in their hand for scale,
Speaker 1: and this one looks to be about the size of
Speaker 1: an uncracked walnut. It's pretty big. They also have thick,
Speaker 1: tough plates of armor compared to roly roly pullies or
Speaker 1: pill bugs. And as a side note, I just wanted
Speaker 1: to mention that our familiar roly pullies here are actually
Speaker 1: not millipedes at all. They are isopod crustaceans, terrestrial crustaceans
Speaker 1: that moved out of the sea to colonized land millions
Speaker 1: of years ago. Huh. I don't think I quite realized that.
Speaker 1: Way to go, roly police. But so okay to this study,
Speaker 1: the authors were doing some testing to see what predatory
Speaker 1: animals were able to get the meat. Like you're talking
Speaker 1: about two as Mick Jagger would say, get the meat
Speaker 1: to uncas the spherotherium's tough outer defenses and get it
Speaker 1: what's inside if it balls up? Is this millipede basically invincible?
Speaker 1: Or can anybody crack the nut? Uh? Now? In other
Speaker 1: parts of this study, the spherotherium in ball modes survived
Speaker 1: attacks by a colony of harvester ants, They survived attacks
Speaker 1: by blue jays and uh certain species of mice. But then,
Speaker 1: to read from the author's observations quote, the unexpected occurred
Speaker 1: in tests with a banded mongoose or mongos mungo. The
Speaker 1: predator responded instantly to the glomerrid, and that's referring to
Speaker 1: the millipede. Here the glomerated sniffing it and rolling it
Speaker 1: about with the pause. It seased it in the jaws,
Speaker 1: biting upon it with sharp teeth, but the millipede was
Speaker 1: neither punctured nor crushed. Suddenly, the millipede was dropped from
Speaker 1: the jaw us and grasped with the front pause. The mongoose,
Speaker 1: backed against a rocky ledge in the cage, assumed a
Speaker 1: partially erect stance, and, with emotion so quick as to
Speaker 1: be barely perceptible, hurled the millipede backward between its legs,
Speaker 1: smashing it against the rocks. Fatally injured, with its shell
Speaker 1: broken and its body torn apart, the millipede was promptly eaten.
Speaker 1: This this is a great image. So first of all, um,
Speaker 1: I don't have an answer for this question, but I
Speaker 1: do wonder about, like how strong the bite of the
Speaker 1: mongoose is, Like maybe they're their their bite strength isn't
Speaker 1: isn't as powerful as as would be required to say,
Speaker 1: if you were going to actually bite down on this
Speaker 1: millipede and crunch it in your mouth. Or maybe it
Speaker 1: has to do with the size of the millipede. I
Speaker 1: don't know. I found some some great images of of
Speaker 1: a mongoose gnawing on an egg trying to sort of
Speaker 1: get it's it's it's horrible little mouth around the egg,
Speaker 1: and and uh, I don't know. It might in this case,
Speaker 1: perhaps the mongoose is able to actually bite through that
Speaker 1: egg and crack it. Certainly an egg is different than
Speaker 1: than a hardened a large millipede. But like I said,
Speaker 1: they have been observed to to take eggs and strike
Speaker 1: them or throw them as well. So I don't know.
Speaker 1: My second question that came out because I was looking
Speaker 1: at some different sources, but I came across similar descriptions
Speaker 1: and I was trying to picture it, and I was like,
Speaker 1: am I picturing this right? Is this a granny shot?
Speaker 1: Is this is? This is like the granny shot with
Speaker 1: the with the bat? Well, I guess it's. Wait, no,
Speaker 1: the granny shot is when you use your arms as
Speaker 1: a pendulum between your legs and throw the ball. What
Speaker 1: is it called when you project the ball back between
Speaker 1: your legs. It's a reverse granny shot? Okay shot? But yes,
Speaker 1: that's what's going on here if you want to picture it.
Speaker 1: The mongoose, the banded mongoose here is it's like sort
Speaker 1: of standing with its legs apart and then picking up
Speaker 1: the millipede with its four paws and then leaning over
Speaker 1: and throwing the millipede backwards between its legs to smash
Speaker 1: it against a rock behind it. And you included for
Speaker 1: me a couple of wonderful illustrations to drive home how
Speaker 1: this works. I think these illustrations are actually from the
Speaker 1: original paper, but they were. They were included in that
Speaker 1: blog post I referenced by Haslum. Yeah, they're quite amusing.
Speaker 1: We were talking before the recording about the uh. In
Speaker 1: the first shot, we see this uh, this, this mangoo
Speaker 1: is clearly thoughtful about its task, concentrating on what it's doing.
Speaker 1: Millipede grasp between it's it's it's pause rock behind it,
Speaker 1: and then in the next picture, bam, it has thrown
Speaker 1: the millipede. The millipede is in flight back between the
Speaker 1: creature's legs, and he's just kind of looking at us,
Speaker 1: the viewers. This is occurring, Yeah, yeah, making a sort
Speaker 1: of shameful eye contact with the illustrator. But but even this, this,
Speaker 1: this illustration also drives home that like, this is a
Speaker 1: creature that has like a tail um it's uh, it's
Speaker 1: legs are not nearly as long as human legs, so
Speaker 1: it seems like a very It's a precision shot. There's
Speaker 1: nothing like clumsy about this. Well, I wonder why the
Speaker 1: throwing happens behind the animal instead of in front of it. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: would it has to get past the legs and the
Speaker 1: tail to do this, But since the behavior has evolved
Speaker 1: this way, there must be a an advantage to the
Speaker 1: to the rear word throwing, right, Like maybe the animal
Speaker 1: can get more momentum throwing in that direction than it
Speaker 1: could throwing forward. I'm not sure. Well, what it reminds
Speaker 1: me of is digging behavior um and uh and the
Speaker 1: mongoose is certainly a creature that that I imagine is
Speaker 1: going to dig around for things. You know, maybe in
Speaker 1: not actual burrowing behavior perhaps, but we're talking about scratching
Speaker 1: around in the dirt, going after say, milipede, small bugs,
Speaker 1: et cetera. And you know what is the We can
Speaker 1: sort of imagine the steps between basic digging throwing the
Speaker 1: dirt back between your rear legs, and then launching small
Speaker 1: creatures backwards as well and making them hit a rock
Speaker 1: wall or something. M Yeah, okay, basic mongoose technology either way,
Speaker 1: I guess. Well anyway, uh so, apparently for the banded
Speaker 1: mongoose picking up and throwing food is part of their
Speaker 1: normal behavior. This wasn't just like a one off, weird
Speaker 1: thing that happened in this zoo environment. It is something
Speaker 1: that has been observed in the wild, and it's part
Speaker 1: of a behavioral repertoire that may in fact be passed
Speaker 1: on through a kind of teaching and observation between older
Speaker 1: mongoosees and younger ones, rather than strictly through uh inborn instinct. Yeah, fascinating. Um.
Speaker 1: I was looking around it for for various videos of this,
Speaker 1: and I did find a number of videos showing them
Speaker 1: with different encased foods that that do look more like
Speaker 1: a striking as opposed to a throwing. But I guess
Speaker 1: one can imagine that these would be sort of related it, right,
Speaker 1: especially if the striking If I'm remembering correctly from the
Speaker 1: videos I was looking at, some of the strikings are
Speaker 1: kind of the same initial movement instead of launching the
Speaker 1: encased food back between the legs, though bringing it down
Speaker 1: straight onto the ground or onto some sort of rocky surface.
Speaker 1: Good job mongoose. Yeah. Yeah. It reminds me of the
Speaker 1: dropping techniques that have been linked to other um organisms
Speaker 1: that are capable of flight. You know, if you have
Speaker 1: something like I think the you know cases where lamber
Speaker 1: guy or may drop bones to shatter on rocks far below.
Speaker 1: They're able to use a gravity assist on that act.
Speaker 1: But if you're just a mongoose, well you don't have
Speaker 1: gravity like that. You can't very well soar up into
Speaker 1: the sky and then drop it. You've got to hurl
Speaker 1: it instead. Yeah. I also like that this In this case,
Speaker 1: the animal is throwing the object behind them, just like
Speaker 1: Deucalion and Pira. Yeah, I think there's that's where the
Speaker 1: comparison stops. Though I don't see how the millipede really
Speaker 1: becomes the new generation mongooses. We just don't. We don't
Speaker 1: have much insight into the religious lives of the mongoose.
Speaker 1: It's true, all right, Well I think that does it
Speaker 1: for part two, But hey, should we continue looking at
Speaker 1: animal throwing behaviors in in a part three? Maybe? Yeah? Maybe? So.
Speaker 1: I know, there's there's certainly a lot in the primate world,
Speaker 1: and we kind of skipped over that because on one hand,
Speaker 1: primates throwing things. That's it's obviously on on top of
Speaker 1: the various non human primate examples. We know that of course,
Speaker 1: humans are are the greatest throwers on Earth. Um, but
Speaker 1: they're that, but not to take away from the primate world.
Speaker 1: They're the larger primate world though, because there are some
Speaker 1: amazing examples of the use of projectiles and uh the
Speaker 1: selection of projectiles and even the storing of projectiles for
Speaker 1: later use. So there's a lot of interesting stuff there
Speaker 1: that we get into. We can also get into how
Speaker 1: it plays into human evolution and so forth. So if
Speaker 1: if listeners want more animals throwing stuff, we can certainly
Speaker 1: put together some more episodes. Oh and by the way,
Speaker 1: I wanted to mention this, uh this earlier and I
Speaker 1: forgot But John I. M. Kisler, who wrote the book
Speaker 1: on war Elephants, also wrote a historical fiction novel titled
Speaker 1: Elephant Lord, set during the Second Punic War. I looked
Speaker 1: at this. I didn't pick it up yet, but I
Speaker 1: saw that you can get it on kindle. It looks
Speaker 1: pretty interesting. M hm, I was. I was trying to ponder, like,
Speaker 1: maybe this is a better way to get my to
Speaker 1: scratch the itch of curiosity over over in all the
Speaker 1: details of of elephant warfare, maybe if it's in a
Speaker 1: within a fictional shape, it'll be kinder somehow, I don't know. Alright, alright,
Speaker 1: so we're closing it up there, but yeah, right in,
Speaker 1: let us know what you think. If you want to
Speaker 1: hear more episodes about animals throwing stuff, be sure to
Speaker 1: let us know. Perhaps you have examples from the animal
Speaker 1: world that we didn't touch onthing like to bring up.
Speaker 1: Perhaps you just have observations of elephants or the mongoose
Speaker 1: that you would like to share. It doesn't have to
Speaker 1: be directed directly related to throwing things up, and maybe
Speaker 1: you do have those experiences you would like to uh
Speaker 1: to point out to us. If so, right in, we'd
Speaker 1: love to hear from you. Just a reminder that Stuff
Speaker 1: to Blow Your Mind as a science podcast with core
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