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Speaker 1: Welcome to Creature Feature production of iHeartRadio. I'm your host

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Speaker 1: of Many Parasites, Katie Golden. I studied psychology and evolutionary biology,

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Speaker 1: and today on the show, it's a listener questions episode.

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Speaker 1: You send me your questions to Creature Feature Product gmail

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Speaker 1: dot com and I answer them from questions about pets

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Speaker 1: to evolutionary biology to random animal questions. I do my best,

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Speaker 1: so let's get right into it. First question is from

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Speaker 1: Will h who sent me a TikTok video and asked

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Speaker 1: is this real or AI slot? So thank you for this,

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Speaker 1: Will and anyone else out there. If you see something

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Speaker 1: online about an animal that looks weird or too good

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Speaker 1: to be true or too strange to be true, or

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Speaker 1: you're trying to tell the difference between something that's fake

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Speaker 1: and real, send me an email and I will try

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Speaker 1: to help you out with that. So I really feel you.

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Speaker 1: Because there's so much AI slop out there. It is

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Speaker 1: getting harder to tell the real animals from the fakes,

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Speaker 1: which isn't great. But fortunately the video that Will scent

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Speaker 1: is very real. It depicts this bird that certainly looks

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Speaker 1: like a Jim Henson muppet. It does not look real.

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Speaker 1: So this is a species of po to bird. These

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Speaker 1: birds have huge, gaping mouths, they have giant eyes. They're

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Speaker 1: mostly nocturnal. They look like owls sort of, although they

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Speaker 1: are not owls. They have these beautiful camouflage feather that

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Speaker 1: looks like tree bark, which allows them to perch on

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Speaker 1: stumps to blend in. They'll even lift their little heads

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Speaker 1: up at an angle so that their sharp profile looks

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Speaker 1: like a split piece of wood jutting out from the stump.

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Speaker 1: And they will lay their eggs on these stumps, which

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Speaker 1: kind of sounds stupid, except that they carefully select a

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Speaker 1: stump that has a cranny or a nook that they

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Speaker 1: can wedge in the egg and when they're incubating the

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Speaker 1: egg and using this amazing camouflage that makes them look

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Speaker 1: like they're part of the you know, like when you

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Speaker 1: see some wood and a tree's fallen or snapped in half,

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Speaker 1: and the wood's uneven and there's like parts of the

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Speaker 1: bark that kind of are jutting up. The po two

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Speaker 1: mimics this look by using kind of the angles of

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Speaker 1: its body and then its coloration to look like a

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Speaker 1: piece of bark. It's very convincing and so when it's

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Speaker 1: incubating the egg, the egg's completely hidden from sight. I

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Speaker 1: think I've also read that the egg can kind of

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Speaker 1: look a bit like maybe some fungus on the on

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Speaker 1: the bark, so that might help it, like say, if

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Speaker 1: a parent is not sitting on it. So in the

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Speaker 1: video that will sit and it looks like. This is

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Speaker 1: a great po two which is found in South America,

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Speaker 1: and they have this really creepy call, which I'm going

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Speaker 1: to play for you right now. Ah. So that's a

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Speaker 1: call that was recorded in Colombia. Here's another recording that

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Speaker 1: was done in Brazil, so you know that would be

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Speaker 1: sort of disconcerting to hear at night. And then when

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Speaker 1: you look at them, they are also pretty creepy. Their

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Speaker 1: iris is dark brown, but when their pupils are expanded,

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Speaker 1: it looks like they have these huge, solid black eyes,

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Speaker 1: like a doll's eyes. They're about a foot long in

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Speaker 1: height with a wingspan of over two feet. They are

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Speaker 1: predators and they chase after mainly large flying insects that

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Speaker 1: they'll find in the rainforest, or even the occasional bat

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Speaker 1: or small bird. Whatever flies in the air and can

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Speaker 1: fit in their mouths. The po too will try to eat.

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Speaker 1: It's kind of terrifying to think of if you were

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Speaker 1: that size, like if you're a little fairy. There's this

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Speaker 1: thing that perfectly blends in with a stump, just looks

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Speaker 1: like a piece of wood, and then it sits there

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Speaker 1: until you fly by, and then jumps out at you

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Speaker 1: with this giant, gaping, muppet like mouth and just eat

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Speaker 1: your right up. So I would think, given that this

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Speaker 1: bird is so strange looking and has such a kind

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Speaker 1: of creepy call, that it would have a few sort

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Speaker 1: of like myths about it cultural stories about it, and

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Speaker 1: I did find some. So one is that parts of

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Speaker 1: its body are sometimes uses charms to ward off seduction,

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Speaker 1: which I guess, you know, if we listen to that

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Speaker 1: call again, Yeah, I can kind of see how that

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Speaker 1: would be considered a ward against seduction. It's not a

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Speaker 1: very seductive call. But there's also apparently a story told

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Speaker 1: by the Shuar group a it's a group of indigenous

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Speaker 1: people of the Ecuadorian Amazon. Now, I unfortunately struggle to

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Speaker 1: verify whether this is actual folklore. I could only find

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Speaker 1: references to this on sort of the Park National Forest

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Speaker 1: Lodge websites, So I apologize if this is not culturally accurate,

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Speaker 1: but this is what I read. In the story. A

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Speaker 1: husband tries to get space from his wife by climbing

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Speaker 1: up a vine, and then she follows after him, and

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Speaker 1: he is frustrated with her following him, so he cuts

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Speaker 1: the vine, which causes her to fall, and she's so

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Speaker 1: hurt by his actions that she turns herself into a

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Speaker 1: bird the po two and starts to cry out in

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Speaker 1: the night, my husband husband or I shearu, I shearu.

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Speaker 1: I'm not sure if this is the actual story, but

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Speaker 1: it's thought that this, like the call, is this mournful

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Speaker 1: cry of this wife who was spurned by her husband.

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Speaker 1: So yeah, I mean, it's a It's a fascinating looking bird.

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Speaker 1: It is very real though, and it does look like

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Speaker 1: something out of some strange fairy tale, a weird puppet

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Speaker 1: or maybe AI, but it is absolutely real. Just a

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Speaker 1: sort of a tip with identifying AI animals, you kind

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Speaker 1: of want to look for a lot of like weird smoothness,

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Speaker 1: the lighting being like really perfect for a strange animal

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Speaker 1: you've never seen before. Sometimes those are giveaways, right, because

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Speaker 1: if there's a newly discovered animal, it's unlikely that it's

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Speaker 1: going to be in perfect studio lighting. But you know,

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Speaker 1: on occasion there are animals that are well documented to

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Speaker 1: have really good photos taken of them that are absolutely bizarre.

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Speaker 1: So yeah, it's getting harder and harder to tell. So

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Speaker 1: go ahead, and if you have any questions about things

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Speaker 1: that you're not sure whether it's true or not, I'll

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Speaker 1: try to look into that. Next listener question, Hi, Katie,

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Speaker 1: I'm not sure if you ever want to discuss this

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Speaker 1: issue on the show, because it's very dark and controversial.

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Speaker 1: I was wondering if you had any great academic resources

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Speaker 1: or studies on the topic, though too many I've found

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Speaker 1: have an agenda. I volunteer at an open intake municipal

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Speaker 1: kill shelter with the dogs. The city requires SPAE and neuter,

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Speaker 1: but it is a secondary charge, not animal control. Walking

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Speaker 1: around checking to see I am in the South. She

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Speaker 1: means the Southern United States. How has the North conquered

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Speaker 1: this problem? We have a partner shelter that takes at

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Speaker 1: least one hundred dogs from US a year and they

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Speaker 1: get adopted anyway. What are the reasons that SPAE and

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Speaker 1: neuter campaigns never took hold down here in the South?

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Speaker 1: I read we have more strays because we have milder winters.

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Speaker 1: I know animal cruelty and hoarding exist outside this region.

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Speaker 1: Attached are some shelter pups. Thank you, Caitlin. Hi, Caitlin.

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Speaker 1: First of all, all the doggie is so cute, so cute.

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Speaker 1: I hope they get adopted. I understand how challenging it

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Speaker 1: must be to work at a shelter knowing that not

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Speaker 1: all your animals will find homes, and in order to

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Speaker 1: be humane, some of these animals have to be put down.

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Speaker 1: And I know there is this stigma against kill shelters.

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Speaker 1: I mean, the name itself sounds very violent. It's important,

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Speaker 1: I think, for people to recognize that shelter workers never

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Speaker 1: want to have to put animals down. They're not doing this,

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Speaker 1: you know, for any other reason except that there's simply

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Speaker 1: not infinite resources, infinite amount of space, and so if

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Speaker 1: these animals aren't adopted out fast enough, you know, rather

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Speaker 1: than letting this animal starved slowly to death and suffer,

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Speaker 1: the decision is made to humanely put them down, which

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Speaker 1: is very sad. Of course, I don't really like the

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Speaker 1: term kill shelter and no kill shelter. It just I

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Speaker 1: think it would be more accurate as Caitlin kind of

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Speaker 1: phrased it to say open and take shelters, or with

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Speaker 1: the no kill shelters. I think a more accurate name

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Speaker 1: would be limited admission private shelters, because what the no

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Speaker 1: kill shelters often do is they'll reject animals coming into

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Speaker 1: their shelter that they know will probably not be able

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Speaker 1: to be adopted or if they don't have space, which

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Speaker 1: is of course in their right. I'm not saying that

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Speaker 1: these limited admission private shelters shouldn't exist. I think they

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Speaker 1: can do good work. But these animals that get rejected

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Speaker 1: from the limited admission shelter have to go somewhere, and

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Speaker 1: often that is like a municipal shelter also known as

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Speaker 1: like a kill shelter, because they take in all of

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Speaker 1: the animals that come in off the streets and because

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Speaker 1: they don't again and have unlimited resources, infinite amount of space,

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Speaker 1: and they can't adopt them all out. Rather than keeping

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Speaker 1: these animals in like confined conditions where they're all in

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Speaker 1: tiny cages where they can't move around or they don't

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Speaker 1: have enough food, they are they're euthanized, which is which

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Speaker 1: is really sad, I think, but it's not it's not

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Speaker 1: done out of cruelty, it's done out of compassion for

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Speaker 1: these animals. So onto the issue of how to different

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Speaker 1: shelters manage to when we're talking about like municipal shelters,

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Speaker 1: like why do have some have lower rates of euthanasia

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Speaker 1: than others? And it's usually resources issue and the number

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Speaker 1: of strays, And of course the best way to reduce

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Speaker 1: the need for euthanasia and shelters is spaying and neutering programs.

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Speaker 1: As our listener pointed out, so you know animals that

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Speaker 1: are both strays and those with home being sterilized. Preventing

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Speaker 1: an overflow of animals like so spain and neutering programs

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Speaker 1: as well as the habits of owners fixing their own

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Speaker 1: pets will very regionally. Uh. There was a survey that

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Speaker 1: looked into this discrepancy. There's a paper by Carrol Glasser

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Speaker 1: called Attitudes towards Spay and neuter in the US population

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Speaker 1: Urban versus Rural Cat Dog and Demographic Differences, And there's

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Speaker 1: some interesting results from this survey which found that there

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Speaker 1: wasn't as much of a discrepancy in attitudes between oral

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Speaker 1: populations and rural populations as was expected. Set there seems

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Speaker 1: to be maybe more of a generational generational difference. So,

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Speaker 1: for instance, millennials, surprisingly that's my generation. They're less likely

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Speaker 1: than older generations to understand spain and neuter programs like

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Speaker 1: what why they're important there, or to understand what the

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Speaker 1: process is. They're also more likely to be concerned about

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Speaker 1: the health effects on their pets, and they're also less

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Speaker 1: likely to see it as morally positive to have it

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Speaker 1: done to their pets than older generations. So there seems

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Speaker 1: to be sort of this like shift in attitude towards

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Speaker 1: spang and neutering to be less favorable. There's also a

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Speaker 1: slight gender difference, so women are more likely to find

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Speaker 1: spang and neutering to be more moral than men. I

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Speaker 1: can't say why. I don't really know why that is,

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Speaker 1: but I think it is interesting because the main thing is,

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Speaker 1: this survey doesn't really seem to indicate that there's a

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Speaker 1: difference between say, an urban setting, or a huge difference

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Speaker 1: between an an urban setting and a rural setting in

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Speaker 1: terms of attitudes towards spang and neutering. But you know,

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Speaker 1: this is one survey, So in terms of answering Caitlin's question,

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Speaker 1: I looked into a some other research. So the first

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Speaker 1: thing is to confirm that Caitlin's observations reflect a wider

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Speaker 1: trend of there being more stray animals in the South

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Speaker 1: versus the North, and in fact that does seem to

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Speaker 1: be the case. So there was a twenty eighteen review

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Speaker 1: called Dog Population and Dog Sheltering Trends in the United

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Speaker 1: States of America. This is by Andrew Rowan and Tamara Kartal.

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Speaker 1: They are affiliated with the Humane Society, so you could

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Speaker 1: argue that they may have some bias, but they did

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Speaker 1: observe that quote. While New Hampshire and New Jersey have

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Speaker 1: low intake and euthanasian rates and have significantly lower numbers

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Speaker 1: of stray dogs, other states, especially in the South, report

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Speaker 1: much higher numbers. So this does seem to back up

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Speaker 1: Caitlin's personal observations as someone who works in a shelter.

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Speaker 1: So also, according to this review, in places like New

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Speaker 1: Jersey where they have lower euthanasian numbers, there are eight

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Speaker 1: wide low income spay and neuter programs, So the decrease

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Speaker 1: in euthanasia seems to be driven by lower levels of

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Speaker 1: animal intake to shelter. So what that means is if

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Speaker 1: there's less animal intake to shelters. Usually that means there's

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Speaker 1: less of a stray population. Uh So that seems to

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Speaker 1: be driving the euthanasian numbers down, which would mean there's

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Speaker 1: fewer strays in these areas, which might indicate that these

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Speaker 1: spay and neuter programs that are funded by the government

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Speaker 1: and low income areas for low income families with pets

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Speaker 1: for strays does seem to be having an impact on

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Speaker 1: the amount of straight dogs in the area, And adoptions

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Speaker 1: have also risen slightly, but they just don't account for

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Speaker 1: the majority of the decrease in the euthanasia rates. So

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Speaker 1: I would say, given that, like you know, these both

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Speaker 1: these studies seem to indicate that it's possibly more of

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Speaker 1: a policy issue rather than say a cultural difference, I

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Speaker 1: would say that the most likely driver for the difference

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Speaker 1: between the North and the South is whether there are

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Speaker 1: these statewide spaying neutering programs that cover the cost for

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Speaker 1: low income families or low income areas. Probably, if we

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Speaker 1: want to see if you're animals being euthanized, we would

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Speaker 1: have to increase funding for these spaying and neutering programs

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Speaker 1: in these states. There might be more I'm not really sure.

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Speaker 1: I'd love to hear from people who are more familiar

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Speaker 1: with the politics regarding these issues in the South, but

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Speaker 1: there might be more political resistance to bills that fund

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Speaker 1: these programs. Maybe there might also just be more poverty

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Speaker 1: in some of these states, so that would compete with funding.

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Speaker 1: So that would be my educated guests, But I am

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Speaker 1: definitely not an expert on this topic. I think it's

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Speaker 1: really important to talk about though, thank you Caitlin for

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Speaker 1: writing in. I think it is a sensitive question, but

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Speaker 1: I think that even though it's sad and it's kind

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Speaker 1: of difficult to discuss, I think it is really important. Otherwise,

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Speaker 1: powerre we ever going to figure out how we can

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Speaker 1: get those the shelters less full of dogs that can't

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Speaker 1: be adopted, Like we can't just sweep it under the rug.

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Speaker 1: And I think it's also really important to note that

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Speaker 1: for so called, you know, like kill shelters, like, it's

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Speaker 1: absolutely not morally wrong to adopt from these shelters that

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Speaker 1: euthanize animals. In fact, by adopting from those shelters, you

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Speaker 1: are helping to reduce the number of animals that are

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Speaker 1: in the shelters. And then that leaves up more space

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Speaker 1: for animals, and that keeps the euthanasia numbers lower as well.

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Speaker 1: So please don't just avoid municipal shelters because they use euthanasia,

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Speaker 1: because those animals also need to be adopted. And it's

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Speaker 1: again like the private shelters that are no kill shelters.

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Speaker 1: I'm I don't have a problem with those, but it's

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Speaker 1: the animals that they reject, like they don't take in,

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Speaker 1: will ultimately end up going to a municipal shelter. So

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Speaker 1: it's not really that they you know, I don't know

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Speaker 1: that other than the fact that these private shelters may

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Speaker 1: increase capacity for their being more shelter space for dogs,

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Speaker 1: they're not it's not necessarily that, you know, they are

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Speaker 1: just voluntarily not killing dogs. They are just in a

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Speaker 1: position where they are able to not take in all

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Speaker 1: the dogs off the streets, so they are able to

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Speaker 1: not employ euthanasia. So you know, that's that's the situation.

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Speaker 1: It's a it's a sad one, but yeah, I think

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Speaker 1: it's a it's a really important thing to discuss, and

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Speaker 1: I really appreciate you writing in and anyone else who

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Speaker 1: is familiar with these issues or works in shelters or

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Speaker 1: has an opinion on it. Please feel free to write

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Speaker 1: to me. I'd be really happy to hear from you.

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Speaker 1: All Right, on to the next listener question. Dear Katie. Today,

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Speaker 1: in an orchid house in Estepona, Spain, I learned about

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Speaker 1: the parfumier bees U Glossini. I would love to know

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Speaker 1: more about them, and about other artisanal wars Bauer birds

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Speaker 1: and a few other artisanal courtiers I know a bit about,

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Speaker 1: but more is good, So back to Uglossini. According to

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Speaker 1: Wikipedia quote, the male Euphresia proparata is highly unusual among

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Speaker 1: insects and seeking out and collecting large quantities of insecticide.

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Speaker 1: Dressler discovered in nineteen sixty seven e Proparada collecting aldrin

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Speaker 1: and Roberts in nineteen eighty two observed them collecting DDT

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Speaker 1: in huge amounts from houses in Brazil, amounting to several

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Speaker 1: percent of the bees weight without suffering any harm from

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Speaker 1: the activity. Exclamation point always a fan. This is from

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Speaker 1: mary Ann. Hi, mary Ann, this is a really cool topic.

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Speaker 1: Thank you so much for writing to me about it.

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Speaker 1: I think as much as it's important for us to

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Speaker 1: reduce our the amount of pollutants like pesticides that leach

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Speaker 1: out into the environment. I always find it fascinating when

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Speaker 1: animals manage to adapt to the nasty stuff that we

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Speaker 1: come up with. It's really really interesting. So orchid bees

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Speaker 1: uglossini are a group of brilliant jewel like bees. They

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Speaker 1: have this beautiful metallic coloration. There are many species, including

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Speaker 1: Euphresia preparata, so these are found in the Amazon basin

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Speaker 1: in South America. They are this metallic green and indigo bee.

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Speaker 1: And as listener Mary Anne pointed out, it is attracted

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Speaker 1: to insecticides, including DDT, which is normally really bad news

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Speaker 1: for insects and also birds. So orchid bees, the orchid

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Speaker 1: bee species in general, collect scent producing compounds from flowers.

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Speaker 1: So basically the males create a perfume for themselves to

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Speaker 1: attract females, storing them in their leg baskets, so they're

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Speaker 1: behind legs like a lot of bee species have these

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Speaker 1: little divots in them where they can store pollen among

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Speaker 1: these kind of like grooves, and in these bees, the

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Speaker 1: males will store basically compounds that create perfume scents and females.

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Speaker 1: These these leg baskets that the males have like they

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Speaker 1: act as like diffusers sort of incense diffusers, and the

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Speaker 1: females prefer males with a good cologne, and they're more

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Speaker 1: likely to successfully entice a female to mate with them

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Speaker 1: if they have perfume in their little leg baskets. So

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Speaker 1: Euphresia proparata seems to find DDT and other types of

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Speaker 1: pesticide compounds to have that genesicua poffume that smells good

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Speaker 1: to these bees. So it's similar enough to orchid compounds

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Speaker 1: that they typically for them to also use that to

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Speaker 1: try to attract females. And because the bees only collect

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Speaker 1: a specific broken down compound from say DDT or these

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Speaker 1: other pesticides, and they also don't consume it, they store

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Speaker 1: it in their leg baskets, the compound does not seem

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Speaker 1: to harm them physically. Now, what I don't know is

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Speaker 1: how successful it is with the ladies, whether they prefer

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Speaker 1: actual orchid compounds or this kind of like pesticide knockoff.

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Speaker 1: I don't know. I'd be really interested to find that out. So, guys,

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Speaker 1: these were fantastic questions. I really love them. They help

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Speaker 1: me learn as well, by the way, Like I have

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Speaker 1: to do research for these questions to make sure I'm

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Speaker 1: giving you the right answer and that helps me on

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Speaker 1: my learning journey. I hope I helped you a little

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Speaker 1: bit on your learning journey. Do you have any evolutionary

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Speaker 1: biology animal related questions photos of your pets? You can

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Speaker 1: write to me at Creature Feature pod at gmail dot com. Again,

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Speaker 1: thank you so much for these questions, and thanks for

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Speaker 1: the space classics where there's super awesome song Exolumina. Creature

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Speaker 1: Feature is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts like

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Speaker 1: the one you just heard, visit the iHeartRadio app Apple

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Speaker 1: podcast or Hey, guess what where have you listen to

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Speaker 1: your favorite shows? I can't judge you, just don't go

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Speaker 1: spraying DDT on yourself and expecting your date to go well,

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Speaker 1: it only works for bees. See you next Wednesday.