Speaker 1: Welcome to Creature Feature production of iHeartRadio. I'm your host
Speaker 1: of Many Parasites, Katie Golden. I studied psychology and evolutionary biology,
Speaker 1: and today on the show, it's a listener questions episode.
Speaker 1: You send me your questions to Creature Feature Product gmail
Speaker 1: dot com and I answer them from questions about pets
Speaker 1: to evolutionary biology to random animal questions. I do my best,
Speaker 1: so let's get right into it. First question is from
Speaker 1: Will h who sent me a TikTok video and asked
Speaker 1: is this real or AI slot? So thank you for this,
Speaker 1: Will and anyone else out there. If you see something
Speaker 1: online about an animal that looks weird or too good
Speaker 1: to be true or too strange to be true, or
Speaker 1: you're trying to tell the difference between something that's fake
Speaker 1: and real, send me an email and I will try
Speaker 1: to help you out with that. So I really feel you.
Speaker 1: Because there's so much AI slop out there. It is
Speaker 1: getting harder to tell the real animals from the fakes,
Speaker 1: which isn't great. But fortunately the video that Will scent
Speaker 1: is very real. It depicts this bird that certainly looks
Speaker 1: like a Jim Henson muppet. It does not look real.
Speaker 1: So this is a species of po to bird. These
Speaker 1: birds have huge, gaping mouths, they have giant eyes. They're
Speaker 1: mostly nocturnal. They look like owls sort of, although they
Speaker 1: are not owls. They have these beautiful camouflage feather that
Speaker 1: looks like tree bark, which allows them to perch on
Speaker 1: stumps to blend in. They'll even lift their little heads
Speaker 1: up at an angle so that their sharp profile looks
Speaker 1: like a split piece of wood jutting out from the stump.
Speaker 1: And they will lay their eggs on these stumps, which
Speaker 1: kind of sounds stupid, except that they carefully select a
Speaker 1: stump that has a cranny or a nook that they
Speaker 1: can wedge in the egg and when they're incubating the
Speaker 1: egg and using this amazing camouflage that makes them look
Speaker 1: like they're part of the you know, like when you
Speaker 1: see some wood and a tree's fallen or snapped in half,
Speaker 1: and the wood's uneven and there's like parts of the
Speaker 1: bark that kind of are jutting up. The po two
Speaker 1: mimics this look by using kind of the angles of
Speaker 1: its body and then its coloration to look like a
Speaker 1: piece of bark. It's very convincing and so when it's
Speaker 1: incubating the egg, the egg's completely hidden from sight. I
Speaker 1: think I've also read that the egg can kind of
Speaker 1: look a bit like maybe some fungus on the on
Speaker 1: the bark, so that might help it, like say, if
Speaker 1: a parent is not sitting on it. So in the
Speaker 1: video that will sit and it looks like. This is
Speaker 1: a great po two which is found in South America,
Speaker 1: and they have this really creepy call, which I'm going
Speaker 1: to play for you right now. Ah. So that's a
Speaker 1: call that was recorded in Colombia. Here's another recording that
Speaker 1: was done in Brazil, so you know that would be
Speaker 1: sort of disconcerting to hear at night. And then when
Speaker 1: you look at them, they are also pretty creepy. Their
Speaker 1: iris is dark brown, but when their pupils are expanded,
Speaker 1: it looks like they have these huge, solid black eyes,
Speaker 1: like a doll's eyes. They're about a foot long in
Speaker 1: height with a wingspan of over two feet. They are
Speaker 1: predators and they chase after mainly large flying insects that
Speaker 1: they'll find in the rainforest, or even the occasional bat
Speaker 1: or small bird. Whatever flies in the air and can
Speaker 1: fit in their mouths. The po too will try to eat.
Speaker 1: It's kind of terrifying to think of if you were
Speaker 1: that size, like if you're a little fairy. There's this
Speaker 1: thing that perfectly blends in with a stump, just looks
Speaker 1: like a piece of wood, and then it sits there
Speaker 1: until you fly by, and then jumps out at you
Speaker 1: with this giant, gaping, muppet like mouth and just eat
Speaker 1: your right up. So I would think, given that this
Speaker 1: bird is so strange looking and has such a kind
Speaker 1: of creepy call, that it would have a few sort
Speaker 1: of like myths about it cultural stories about it, and
Speaker 1: I did find some. So one is that parts of
Speaker 1: its body are sometimes uses charms to ward off seduction,
Speaker 1: which I guess, you know, if we listen to that
Speaker 1: call again, Yeah, I can kind of see how that
Speaker 1: would be considered a ward against seduction. It's not a
Speaker 1: very seductive call. But there's also apparently a story told
Speaker 1: by the Shuar group a it's a group of indigenous
Speaker 1: people of the Ecuadorian Amazon. Now, I unfortunately struggle to
Speaker 1: verify whether this is actual folklore. I could only find
Speaker 1: references to this on sort of the Park National Forest
Speaker 1: Lodge websites, So I apologize if this is not culturally accurate,
Speaker 1: but this is what I read. In the story. A
Speaker 1: husband tries to get space from his wife by climbing
Speaker 1: up a vine, and then she follows after him, and
Speaker 1: he is frustrated with her following him, so he cuts
Speaker 1: the vine, which causes her to fall, and she's so
Speaker 1: hurt by his actions that she turns herself into a
Speaker 1: bird the po two and starts to cry out in
Speaker 1: the night, my husband husband or I shearu, I shearu.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure if this is the actual story, but
Speaker 1: it's thought that this, like the call, is this mournful
Speaker 1: cry of this wife who was spurned by her husband.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I mean, it's a It's a fascinating looking bird.
Speaker 1: It is very real though, and it does look like
Speaker 1: something out of some strange fairy tale, a weird puppet
Speaker 1: or maybe AI, but it is absolutely real. Just a
Speaker 1: sort of a tip with identifying AI animals, you kind
Speaker 1: of want to look for a lot of like weird smoothness,
Speaker 1: the lighting being like really perfect for a strange animal
Speaker 1: you've never seen before. Sometimes those are giveaways, right, because
Speaker 1: if there's a newly discovered animal, it's unlikely that it's
Speaker 1: going to be in perfect studio lighting. But you know,
Speaker 1: on occasion there are animals that are well documented to
Speaker 1: have really good photos taken of them that are absolutely bizarre.
Speaker 1: So yeah, it's getting harder and harder to tell. So
Speaker 1: go ahead, and if you have any questions about things
Speaker 1: that you're not sure whether it's true or not, I'll
Speaker 1: try to look into that. Next listener question, Hi, Katie,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure if you ever want to discuss this
Speaker 1: issue on the show, because it's very dark and controversial.
Speaker 1: I was wondering if you had any great academic resources
Speaker 1: or studies on the topic, though too many I've found
Speaker 1: have an agenda. I volunteer at an open intake municipal
Speaker 1: kill shelter with the dogs. The city requires SPAE and neuter,
Speaker 1: but it is a secondary charge, not animal control. Walking
Speaker 1: around checking to see I am in the South. She
Speaker 1: means the Southern United States. How has the North conquered
Speaker 1: this problem? We have a partner shelter that takes at
Speaker 1: least one hundred dogs from US a year and they
Speaker 1: get adopted anyway. What are the reasons that SPAE and
Speaker 1: neuter campaigns never took hold down here in the South?
Speaker 1: I read we have more strays because we have milder winters.
Speaker 1: I know animal cruelty and hoarding exist outside this region.
Speaker 1: Attached are some shelter pups. Thank you, Caitlin. Hi, Caitlin.
Speaker 1: First of all, all the doggie is so cute, so cute.
Speaker 1: I hope they get adopted. I understand how challenging it
Speaker 1: must be to work at a shelter knowing that not
Speaker 1: all your animals will find homes, and in order to
Speaker 1: be humane, some of these animals have to be put down.
Speaker 1: And I know there is this stigma against kill shelters.
Speaker 1: I mean, the name itself sounds very violent. It's important,
Speaker 1: I think, for people to recognize that shelter workers never
Speaker 1: want to have to put animals down. They're not doing this,
Speaker 1: you know, for any other reason except that there's simply
Speaker 1: not infinite resources, infinite amount of space, and so if
Speaker 1: these animals aren't adopted out fast enough, you know, rather
Speaker 1: than letting this animal starved slowly to death and suffer,
Speaker 1: the decision is made to humanely put them down, which
Speaker 1: is very sad. Of course, I don't really like the
Speaker 1: term kill shelter and no kill shelter. It just I
Speaker 1: think it would be more accurate as Caitlin kind of
Speaker 1: phrased it to say open and take shelters, or with
Speaker 1: the no kill shelters. I think a more accurate name
Speaker 1: would be limited admission private shelters, because what the no
Speaker 1: kill shelters often do is they'll reject animals coming into
Speaker 1: their shelter that they know will probably not be able
Speaker 1: to be adopted or if they don't have space, which
Speaker 1: is of course in their right. I'm not saying that
Speaker 1: these limited admission private shelters shouldn't exist. I think they
Speaker 1: can do good work. But these animals that get rejected
Speaker 1: from the limited admission shelter have to go somewhere, and
Speaker 1: often that is like a municipal shelter also known as
Speaker 1: like a kill shelter, because they take in all of
Speaker 1: the animals that come in off the streets and because
Speaker 1: they don't again and have unlimited resources, infinite amount of space,
Speaker 1: and they can't adopt them all out. Rather than keeping
Speaker 1: these animals in like confined conditions where they're all in
Speaker 1: tiny cages where they can't move around or they don't
Speaker 1: have enough food, they are they're euthanized, which is which
Speaker 1: is really sad, I think, but it's not it's not
Speaker 1: done out of cruelty, it's done out of compassion for
Speaker 1: these animals. So onto the issue of how to different
Speaker 1: shelters manage to when we're talking about like municipal shelters,
Speaker 1: like why do have some have lower rates of euthanasia
Speaker 1: than others? And it's usually resources issue and the number
Speaker 1: of strays, And of course the best way to reduce
Speaker 1: the need for euthanasia and shelters is spaying and neutering programs.
Speaker 1: As our listener pointed out, so you know animals that
Speaker 1: are both strays and those with home being sterilized. Preventing
Speaker 1: an overflow of animals like so spain and neutering programs
Speaker 1: as well as the habits of owners fixing their own
Speaker 1: pets will very regionally. Uh. There was a survey that
Speaker 1: looked into this discrepancy. There's a paper by Carrol Glasser
Speaker 1: called Attitudes towards Spay and neuter in the US population
Speaker 1: Urban versus Rural Cat Dog and Demographic Differences, And there's
Speaker 1: some interesting results from this survey which found that there
Speaker 1: wasn't as much of a discrepancy in attitudes between oral
Speaker 1: populations and rural populations as was expected. Set there seems
Speaker 1: to be maybe more of a generational generational difference. So,
Speaker 1: for instance, millennials, surprisingly that's my generation. They're less likely
Speaker 1: than older generations to understand spain and neuter programs like
Speaker 1: what why they're important there, or to understand what the
Speaker 1: process is. They're also more likely to be concerned about
Speaker 1: the health effects on their pets, and they're also less
Speaker 1: likely to see it as morally positive to have it
Speaker 1: done to their pets than older generations. So there seems
Speaker 1: to be sort of this like shift in attitude towards
Speaker 1: spang and neutering to be less favorable. There's also a
Speaker 1: slight gender difference, so women are more likely to find
Speaker 1: spang and neutering to be more moral than men. I
Speaker 1: can't say why. I don't really know why that is,
Speaker 1: but I think it is interesting because the main thing is,
Speaker 1: this survey doesn't really seem to indicate that there's a
Speaker 1: difference between say, an urban setting, or a huge difference
Speaker 1: between an an urban setting and a rural setting in
Speaker 1: terms of attitudes towards spang and neutering. But you know,
Speaker 1: this is one survey, So in terms of answering Caitlin's question,
Speaker 1: I looked into a some other research. So the first
Speaker 1: thing is to confirm that Caitlin's observations reflect a wider
Speaker 1: trend of there being more stray animals in the South
Speaker 1: versus the North, and in fact that does seem to
Speaker 1: be the case. So there was a twenty eighteen review
Speaker 1: called Dog Population and Dog Sheltering Trends in the United
Speaker 1: States of America. This is by Andrew Rowan and Tamara Kartal.
Speaker 1: They are affiliated with the Humane Society, so you could
Speaker 1: argue that they may have some bias, but they did
Speaker 1: observe that quote. While New Hampshire and New Jersey have
Speaker 1: low intake and euthanasian rates and have significantly lower numbers
Speaker 1: of stray dogs, other states, especially in the South, report
Speaker 1: much higher numbers. So this does seem to back up
Speaker 1: Caitlin's personal observations as someone who works in a shelter.
Speaker 1: So also, according to this review, in places like New
Speaker 1: Jersey where they have lower euthanasian numbers, there are eight
Speaker 1: wide low income spay and neuter programs, So the decrease
Speaker 1: in euthanasia seems to be driven by lower levels of
Speaker 1: animal intake to shelter. So what that means is if
Speaker 1: there's less animal intake to shelters. Usually that means there's
Speaker 1: less of a stray population. Uh So that seems to
Speaker 1: be driving the euthanasian numbers down, which would mean there's
Speaker 1: fewer strays in these areas, which might indicate that these
Speaker 1: spay and neuter programs that are funded by the government
Speaker 1: and low income areas for low income families with pets
Speaker 1: for strays does seem to be having an impact on
Speaker 1: the amount of straight dogs in the area, And adoptions
Speaker 1: have also risen slightly, but they just don't account for
Speaker 1: the majority of the decrease in the euthanasia rates. So
Speaker 1: I would say, given that, like you know, these both
Speaker 1: these studies seem to indicate that it's possibly more of
Speaker 1: a policy issue rather than say a cultural difference, I
Speaker 1: would say that the most likely driver for the difference
Speaker 1: between the North and the South is whether there are
Speaker 1: these statewide spaying neutering programs that cover the cost for
Speaker 1: low income families or low income areas. Probably, if we
Speaker 1: want to see if you're animals being euthanized, we would
Speaker 1: have to increase funding for these spaying and neutering programs
Speaker 1: in these states. There might be more I'm not really sure.
Speaker 1: I'd love to hear from people who are more familiar
Speaker 1: with the politics regarding these issues in the South, but
Speaker 1: there might be more political resistance to bills that fund
Speaker 1: these programs. Maybe there might also just be more poverty
Speaker 1: in some of these states, so that would compete with funding.
Speaker 1: So that would be my educated guests, But I am
Speaker 1: definitely not an expert on this topic. I think it's
Speaker 1: really important to talk about though, thank you Caitlin for
Speaker 1: writing in. I think it is a sensitive question, but
Speaker 1: I think that even though it's sad and it's kind
Speaker 1: of difficult to discuss, I think it is really important. Otherwise,
Speaker 1: powerre we ever going to figure out how we can
Speaker 1: get those the shelters less full of dogs that can't
Speaker 1: be adopted, Like we can't just sweep it under the rug.
Speaker 1: And I think it's also really important to note that
Speaker 1: for so called, you know, like kill shelters, like, it's
Speaker 1: absolutely not morally wrong to adopt from these shelters that
Speaker 1: euthanize animals. In fact, by adopting from those shelters, you
Speaker 1: are helping to reduce the number of animals that are
Speaker 1: in the shelters. And then that leaves up more space
Speaker 1: for animals, and that keeps the euthanasia numbers lower as well.
Speaker 1: So please don't just avoid municipal shelters because they use euthanasia,
Speaker 1: because those animals also need to be adopted. And it's
Speaker 1: again like the private shelters that are no kill shelters.
Speaker 1: I'm I don't have a problem with those, but it's
Speaker 1: the animals that they reject, like they don't take in,
Speaker 1: will ultimately end up going to a municipal shelter. So
Speaker 1: it's not really that they you know, I don't know
Speaker 1: that other than the fact that these private shelters may
Speaker 1: increase capacity for their being more shelter space for dogs,
Speaker 1: they're not it's not necessarily that, you know, they are
Speaker 1: just voluntarily not killing dogs. They are just in a
Speaker 1: position where they are able to not take in all
Speaker 1: the dogs off the streets, so they are able to
Speaker 1: not employ euthanasia. So you know, that's that's the situation.
Speaker 1: It's a it's a sad one, but yeah, I think
Speaker 1: it's a it's a really important thing to discuss, and
Speaker 1: I really appreciate you writing in and anyone else who
Speaker 1: is familiar with these issues or works in shelters or
Speaker 1: has an opinion on it. Please feel free to write
Speaker 1: to me. I'd be really happy to hear from you.
Speaker 1: All Right, on to the next listener question. Dear Katie. Today,
Speaker 1: in an orchid house in Estepona, Spain, I learned about
Speaker 1: the parfumier bees U Glossini. I would love to know
Speaker 1: more about them, and about other artisanal wars Bauer birds
Speaker 1: and a few other artisanal courtiers I know a bit about,
Speaker 1: but more is good, So back to Uglossini. According to
Speaker 1: Wikipedia quote, the male Euphresia proparata is highly unusual among
Speaker 1: insects and seeking out and collecting large quantities of insecticide.
Speaker 1: Dressler discovered in nineteen sixty seven e Proparada collecting aldrin
Speaker 1: and Roberts in nineteen eighty two observed them collecting DDT
Speaker 1: in huge amounts from houses in Brazil, amounting to several
Speaker 1: percent of the bees weight without suffering any harm from
Speaker 1: the activity. Exclamation point always a fan. This is from
Speaker 1: mary Ann. Hi, mary Ann, this is a really cool topic.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for writing to me about it.
Speaker 1: I think as much as it's important for us to
Speaker 1: reduce our the amount of pollutants like pesticides that leach
Speaker 1: out into the environment. I always find it fascinating when
Speaker 1: animals manage to adapt to the nasty stuff that we
Speaker 1: come up with. It's really really interesting. So orchid bees
Speaker 1: uglossini are a group of brilliant jewel like bees. They
Speaker 1: have this beautiful metallic coloration. There are many species, including
Speaker 1: Euphresia preparata, so these are found in the Amazon basin
Speaker 1: in South America. They are this metallic green and indigo bee.
Speaker 1: And as listener Mary Anne pointed out, it is attracted
Speaker 1: to insecticides, including DDT, which is normally really bad news
Speaker 1: for insects and also birds. So orchid bees, the orchid
Speaker 1: bee species in general, collect scent producing compounds from flowers.
Speaker 1: So basically the males create a perfume for themselves to
Speaker 1: attract females, storing them in their leg baskets, so they're
Speaker 1: behind legs like a lot of bee species have these
Speaker 1: little divots in them where they can store pollen among
Speaker 1: these kind of like grooves, and in these bees, the
Speaker 1: males will store basically compounds that create perfume scents and females.
Speaker 1: These these leg baskets that the males have like they
Speaker 1: act as like diffusers sort of incense diffusers, and the
Speaker 1: females prefer males with a good cologne, and they're more
Speaker 1: likely to successfully entice a female to mate with them
Speaker 1: if they have perfume in their little leg baskets. So
Speaker 1: Euphresia proparata seems to find DDT and other types of
Speaker 1: pesticide compounds to have that genesicua poffume that smells good
Speaker 1: to these bees. So it's similar enough to orchid compounds
Speaker 1: that they typically for them to also use that to
Speaker 1: try to attract females. And because the bees only collect
Speaker 1: a specific broken down compound from say DDT or these
Speaker 1: other pesticides, and they also don't consume it, they store
Speaker 1: it in their leg baskets, the compound does not seem
Speaker 1: to harm them physically. Now, what I don't know is
Speaker 1: how successful it is with the ladies, whether they prefer
Speaker 1: actual orchid compounds or this kind of like pesticide knockoff.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I'd be really interested to find that out. So, guys,
Speaker 1: these were fantastic questions. I really love them. They help
Speaker 1: me learn as well, by the way, Like I have
Speaker 1: to do research for these questions to make sure I'm
Speaker 1: giving you the right answer and that helps me on
Speaker 1: my learning journey. I hope I helped you a little
Speaker 1: bit on your learning journey. Do you have any evolutionary
Speaker 1: biology animal related questions photos of your pets? You can
Speaker 1: write to me at Creature Feature pod at gmail dot com. Again,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for these questions, and thanks for
Speaker 1: the space classics where there's super awesome song Exolumina. Creature
Speaker 1: Feature is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts like
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Speaker 1: podcast or Hey, guess what where have you listen to
Speaker 1: your favorite shows? I can't judge you, just don't go
Speaker 1: spraying DDT on yourself and expecting your date to go well,
Speaker 1: it only works for bees. See you next Wednesday.