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 Baby Mayhem. We're talking
Speaker 1: about giant babies from a variety of big megafauna and
Speaker 1: all of the shenanigans these little babies get up to,
Speaker 1: from elk to elephants to the biggest animal in the
Speaker 1: world that has ever existed. We are talking about fairly
Speaker 1: large babies and how they live their lives, how they
Speaker 1: baby round, and how essentially every animal baby is pretty
Speaker 1: much the same. Joining me today is proprietress of the
Speaker 1: website how to Eat La and host of the smart
Speaker 1: Mouth podcast, Catherine Spires. Welcome. Thank you so much for
Speaker 1: having me back on. I love being here. I am
Speaker 1: so excited to have you on. You told me about
Speaker 1: a elk story that you have involving baby Elk, which
Speaker 1: is the whole reason I'm doing this. So can you
Speaker 1: share your baby elk observations? Yeah, yeah, okay. So my
Speaker 1: parents live in Utah, in like semi rural Utah, and
Speaker 1: there's a herd of elk that lives in their neighborhood.
Speaker 1: And so in the fall, there's just like I don't know,
Speaker 1: about two hundred elk just wandering about and you might
Speaker 1: wake up one morning and they're all in your yard
Speaker 1: or something like that. I was there in November and
Speaker 1: December and their backyard. Imagine like the house with a
Speaker 1: hill immediately behind it in the backyard, a hill that
Speaker 1: goes down and then there's a flat land and then
Speaker 1: it goes up again. So if you can imagine like
Speaker 1: a natural coliseum, yeah type thing, I'm imagining the stands
Speaker 1: of like elk sitting. That's pretty much it's blogs. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like one elk going around with big pretzels hanging from antlers, Yeah,
Speaker 1: selling them. Yeah, that's you're totally on points. Okay. So
Speaker 1: we were looking out in the backyard one day and
Speaker 1: the whole herd of elk was there, which isn't like
Speaker 1: crazy but obviously like very cool every time that you
Speaker 1: see it. I mean, not crazy in the sense of
Speaker 1: not being unexpected. And we've realized that they're sort of
Speaker 1: like circled up and two of the dudes are like
Speaker 1: in the middle of the arena. They've got like they're
Speaker 1: the biggest dudes, and they've got the biggest horns, and
Speaker 1: they're sort of circling each other, and we realized that
Speaker 1: there's two more dudes like on either side of the arena,
Speaker 1: and I was like, are these they're like rather seconds
Speaker 1: for the duel? Yeah? Yeah, And then like all the
Speaker 1: ladies and all the babies are just like hanging about,
Speaker 1: and then the two big dudes started getting closer and
Speaker 1: closer to each other, and we were like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: this is going to be some sort of epic battles.
Speaker 1: They're going to be bloodshed I nervous. I was like,
Speaker 1: I don't really want to see this. And then they
Speaker 1: locked horns and just stood there with their horns locked,
Speaker 1: going see ee at each other for like forty five minutes.
Speaker 1: And that was the fight, and we couldn't tell who
Speaker 1: won except for that one of them. When he separated,
Speaker 1: he went to his second and headbutted him a bunch
Speaker 1: of times, like he must have lost because he's like
Speaker 1: embarrassed in taking it out on his homie right now.
Speaker 1: So that was great. But my favorite part was what
Speaker 1: happened next. Is like as the dudes had their horns
Speaker 1: locked or their antlers locked, the baby started getting like
Speaker 1: more hyper. Yeah, like there was like more bouncing, yeah,
Speaker 1: and then when the fight was over, they were so
Speaker 1: hyped up. All the baby elks were just like running
Speaker 1: in circles and then they would do this thing where
Speaker 1: they would sort of like practice punch trees. That's like
Speaker 1: they were just kind of like and then they'd sort
Speaker 1: of like stand up on their hind legs like sort
Speaker 1: of near each other and sort of make the headbutting
Speaker 1: motion like they were practicing. And then a couple and
Speaker 1: they were probably boys, kind of like ran towards dudes
Speaker 1: who had been fighting and sort of made like a
Speaker 1: vague headbutting emotion and then would run away. Really that's
Speaker 1: so cute. Oh my god, it was amazing and I
Speaker 1: can't stop thinking about it because I do think that
Speaker 1: animals have more of like I don't know, awareness and
Speaker 1: maybe emotional intelligence that we give them credit for. But
Speaker 1: I was like, this is exactly how little kids human
Speaker 1: kids behave when something exciting goes on with adults. Yeah, no, absolutely,
Speaker 1: I mean they're playing, they're like what it's like watching
Speaker 1: sports and then acting out they see having fun and
Speaker 1: playing so everything, Like, I really don't think you're projecting
Speaker 1: in terms of emotions there I think that you really
Speaker 1: were seeing like what you think you were seeing that
Speaker 1: they're playing. Yeah, they're copying what they're seeing. They're very
Speaker 1: excited and they're you know, they're trying to get involved,
Speaker 1: like doing the little the playful headbuts and yeah, we're
Speaker 1: gonna we're gonna talk about the importance of play with
Speaker 1: baby elk and also other animals. But they let's first
Speaker 1: talk about what are elk. Elk are large ungulates. They're
Speaker 1: the largest deer or they're they they're the second largest
Speaker 1: member of the deer family, the first largest being moose.
Speaker 1: Elk live in North America as well as in Central
Speaker 1: and East Asia. They have very large antlers, and like
Speaker 1: all antlers, they're actually made out of living bone. So
Speaker 1: when antlers grow, they like when they're growing in and
Speaker 1: the spring, are covered in this like soft, slightly furry
Speaker 1: skin called velvet, which actually they will shed that off
Speaker 1: and it comes off in strips and sometimes they eat
Speaker 1: like the strips as they're shedding off, so it's kind
Speaker 1: of like a me jerky, like a self jerkey that
Speaker 1: they're eating. Gross. Yeah, it's kind of like it's kind
Speaker 1: of like when you eat, like when you chew up
Speaker 1: a little piece of your cuticle and you're just like, well,
Speaker 1: I don't know where else to put it. But yeah,
Speaker 1: they are there nutrients in it. Yeah, it's meat essentially,
Speaker 1: they get some nutrients from it. And deer and are
Speaker 1: not above just slurping up random little bits of meat
Speaker 1: sometimes like in fact, sometimes like elk and deer, Like
Speaker 1: if there's a carcass, they might be like, oh what's
Speaker 1: this and nibble a little bit off of it. Obviously
Speaker 1: they are herbivores, but once in a while they might
Speaker 1: eat a little bit of meat just you know, if
Speaker 1: they find it. That makes sense to me. I feel
Speaker 1: that moose have bloodlust. This is my firmly held belief
Speaker 1: they do, you know. I mean if you see, like,
Speaker 1: I've never seen a moose in person, but I've definitely
Speaker 1: seen the scale of a moose, and I have seen
Speaker 1: like a taxi dermied moose like from a natural history
Speaker 1: museum in purpose in person, and they are really frightening. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're scary. I I think I would not be able
Speaker 1: to handle seeing a moose in real life. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: people think that they can don't know what they're talking about.
Speaker 1: It's a very bad ideas. Yeah, we're gonna yeah, we're
Speaker 1: gonna be talking about bad ideas. So as you observed exactly,
Speaker 1: males will compete for mating opportunities by bellowing at each
Speaker 1: other or showing off their antlers. Uh. They'll try to
Speaker 1: avoid a confrontation at first by assessing who would be
Speaker 1: the likely winner, but if neither backs down, they'll they'll
Speaker 1: engage in a fight by ramming their antlers together, which
Speaker 1: is a very risky activity. They could be seriously injured.
Speaker 1: They could even die. Both of them could get could
Speaker 1: die if they get too entangled. It's it's kind of
Speaker 1: like medieval jousting, right like it's a it's a it's
Speaker 1: a serious activity that they're isking. So that's why they
Speaker 1: try at first to sort of see who they think
Speaker 1: is gonna win. So, but then if they can't make
Speaker 1: a determination, if neither backs down, then they engage in
Speaker 1: the fight because they don't really want to be killed
Speaker 1: or hurt, but they do have to compete in order
Speaker 1: to have access to females. Is the antler locking Is
Speaker 1: that the fight itself or is that like the pre fight?
Speaker 1: That is that is the fight itself? Like locking the antlers,
Speaker 1: Usually they they'll like shake it around. Sometimes they'll kick
Speaker 1: with their front legs, so it's that is a that
Speaker 1: is a fight. Sometimes they'll spar which is usually it's
Speaker 1: just a little less dramatic, so they'll they will sort
Speaker 1: of like butt heads or sort of kind of lock
Speaker 1: their antlers together, but in a way that's a little
Speaker 1: more testing. So like when they're sparring, it's you know,
Speaker 1: usually younger males who aren't quite at the level of
Speaker 1: like the big dominant ball. Uh, they'll they'll kind of
Speaker 1: like do these like sparring where it kind of looks
Speaker 1: like they're fighting, but there it's just a little bit
Speaker 1: more brief and it's a little it's less serious. They're
Speaker 1: not actually like what you saw with the loser, like
Speaker 1: butting heads with the other male that may have been
Speaker 1: sort of like a a sparring thing of like why
Speaker 1: what did I get wrong? Why am I? Why do
Speaker 1: I suck at this? And then for sure yeah and uh,
Speaker 1: and also what the babies were doing, which is like
Speaker 1: sort of mimicking the motion sparring with each other, kicking
Speaker 1: at trees, like that's all a form of play that
Speaker 1: helps them learn how to fight with rival mails without
Speaker 1: actually risking their lives right, like because because the idea
Speaker 1: is like you want to become you want to get
Speaker 1: good at it, and you want to avoid being seriously injured.
Speaker 1: And but but yeah, it's still the competition is so
Speaker 1: fierce that they have to get good at it and
Speaker 1: so like that that's that's where that playfulness comes from.
Speaker 1: Mm hmm. Yeah, you could tell that, like even though
Speaker 1: they were playing and not really making contact, there'd always
Speaker 1: be one that would back down first. I also wondered,
Speaker 1: so after the excitement, all the women, the women, this
Speaker 1: is I feel like a lot of my friends will
Speaker 1: just call female animals women and it's very funny to me,
Speaker 1: and I don't I don't feel like correcting it, just
Speaker 1: because it's very funny to me a lot of women.
Speaker 1: And by women, I mean I mean I mean female elk. Yes,
Speaker 1: they they all just sort of sat down. It was.
Speaker 1: It was just so interesting. I felt like, yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: the dudes are going at it. And then once they
Speaker 1: knew no one was seriously injured, they were like, enough
Speaker 1: with you. I'm like going back to my knitting type thing.
Speaker 1: But I want when they're little. Was was I only
Speaker 1: seeing the boy babies playfight or were the girl babies
Speaker 1: that it's probably mostly males, but I wouldn't be surprised
Speaker 1: if female young also engage in some of the play fighting.
Speaker 1: Like I think that it definitely once they get a
Speaker 1: little older, like when their adolescent. So I don't think
Speaker 1: the females do it, but like the real real young
Speaker 1: babies are probably just gonna play around, jump around, so
Speaker 1: they may also get pretty excited. But the you know,
Speaker 1: probably the ones that were more aggressively sparring were most
Speaker 1: likely the males, right like okay, kind of like like
Speaker 1: when my dog was a puppy, she observed a dog
Speaker 1: humping another dog and she's like, well, that looks like fun.
Speaker 1: So then she tried it out, but she got it wrong.
Speaker 1: So and so like going from the back, she did
Speaker 1: it like perpendicular to the dogs, so like kind of sideways, uh.
Speaker 1: And it was just sort of like resting her paws
Speaker 1: sideways on the dog's back and sort of like doing
Speaker 1: at like hit movement sort of like she was toerking,
Speaker 1: and it was very funny. Oh my god, that's amazing. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Oh you mentioned bellowing. The male's bellowing when they're fighting,
Speaker 1: but the noise I heard, like we all felt so
Speaker 1: embarrassed for the boy elks. It was just such. It's
Speaker 1: a little it's a very funny noise. It's called bugling.
Speaker 1: Let me play it. Let me play the American elk
Speaker 1: bugling sound for you, because you'll see what Catherine is saying.
Speaker 1: It's not it's not quite the manly roar that one
Speaker 1: might think would be a dominant cry. But yeah, it's
Speaker 1: more high pitched. It's kind of like it's it's called bugling.
Speaker 1: I guess because it sounds like a bugle, I mean,
Speaker 1: a really terrible bugle. But but yeah, that's a call
Speaker 1: to tract, attract the females to stick out their territory,
Speaker 1: sometimes as like a warning to another male. And yes,
Speaker 1: it's it's considered peak maskalinity in the elk elk world,
Speaker 1: sort of a a little bit of a Byork thing.
Speaker 1: I don't want to be mean to Byork. She's she
Speaker 1: does good songs, but there's a little bit of what
Speaker 1: she's doing. She does know what she's doing. Yeah, when
Speaker 1: it's no coincidence that when Byork sings they have to
Speaker 1: watch out for female elk, just going like, huh, what
Speaker 1: was that all? Across Iceland. York's great. Actually, yeah, in Iceland,
Speaker 1: they probably wouldn't. They wouldn't have elk, they would have reindeer.
Speaker 1: And those are indeed a kind of deer. Yes, yes, reindeer.
Speaker 1: They're real. They're not full of Christmas magic, but they are.
Speaker 1: They're real deer. So yeah, and elk are actually kind
Speaker 1: of freaks. They love urine, So males have urethra is
Speaker 1: specifically designed to direct p at a ninety degree angle
Speaker 1: up at their own fur so that they it's kind
Speaker 1: of like a cologne that females will smell and be
Speaker 1: attracted to. Males also create pea baths called wallows, where
Speaker 1: they pee in shallow ditches that they kind of dig
Speaker 1: out and then they roll around in the urine, so
Speaker 1: you know, whoa, that's nasty they look. It's uh, it's
Speaker 1: all done for the ladies because lady elk really do
Speaker 1: love the fresh smell of uh ppe ppe colonna ota toilette,
Speaker 1: but very literal, it's really the lady elk that are
Speaker 1: the freaks. Yeah, although the males also like to smell
Speaker 1: the ladies while they're peeing, so you know it's they're
Speaker 1: all free. Oh my god. Yeah, yeah, they're Also they're
Speaker 1: also extremely dangerous, particularly during calving season and when they
Speaker 1: have calves around, so they do not passively accept intruders
Speaker 1: and they will stomp you to smithereens if they think
Speaker 1: you're a threat. Again, these are the second largest ungulates,
Speaker 1: only dwarfed by moose, so they're quite large, quite dangerous.
Speaker 1: According to the Yellowstone National Park Service, during the calving
Speaker 1: season in the spring, elk are super dangerous. They will
Speaker 1: stomp you, they will attack you if you get too
Speaker 1: close to them and their babies. They have a warning
Speaker 1: on their website called warning Elk Calving has Begun. Cow
Speaker 1: Elk are much more aggressive towards people during the calving
Speaker 1: season and may charge or kick. Stay alert, look around
Speaker 1: corners before exiting buildings or walking around blind spots. Cow
Speaker 1: Elk may bed their calves near buildings and cars. Keep
Speaker 1: at least twenty five yards from elk at all times.
Speaker 1: If an elk charge does, you find shelter in your
Speaker 1: v or behind a tall, s dirty barrier as quickly
Speaker 1: as possible. You are responsible for your own safety. So elk's.
Speaker 1: Elk are serious business. They really are, and I have
Speaker 1: some I have some concerns overall, I think it's been
Speaker 1: really interesting with the rise of social media. I think
Speaker 1: a big part of why I think animals have more
Speaker 1: intelligence than we think has been from social media and
Speaker 1: seeing like chickens with feelings and stuff like that. And
Speaker 1: it's also been interesting. Remember Teddy the Porcupine, Yes, it
Speaker 1: was a big hit a couple of years ago. And noises, Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're like, oh my god, this is actual Disney animal
Speaker 1: noise happy noises. Yeah. Yeah, it was incredible. But then
Speaker 1: but then I'm like, but they're not Disney animals. In
Speaker 1: a couple summers ago, when I was in Olympic National
Speaker 1: Park in Washington State, the deer were so aggressive, yeah,
Speaker 1: at the picnic area, and I didn't want to touch
Speaker 1: them because I was like, I don't know what bugs
Speaker 1: y'all are carrying. But I had to get it's so
Speaker 1: aggressive back to get them to not eat our food.
Speaker 1: And I don't know what to say. I think everybody
Speaker 1: should be allowed to be in nature, but at the
Speaker 1: same time, why can't people respect animals? It really freaks
Speaker 1: me out. Yeah, it's it's really about respecting the both
Speaker 1: the animals safety and your own safety, and respecting the
Speaker 1: fact that yeah, it's not. It's not like it's gonna
Speaker 1: be like the scene in Snow White where if you
Speaker 1: crouch in a forest, a deer will gently put its
Speaker 1: head under your elbow, Like if if you like try to,
Speaker 1: you know, steal a baby elk, its mom is probably
Speaker 1: gonna find you, and she has a very particular set
Speaker 1: of skills, which is stomping you to smithereens. I have
Speaker 1: seen a video of an elk stomping. It's and I
Speaker 1: think it was like directed in a cougar. It's wild,
Speaker 1: it's very powerful. It messed this cougar up. So yeah,
Speaker 1: so yeah, be careful around elk I did earlier. I
Speaker 1: just want to correct a slip of the time I
Speaker 1: said I said elk are the second biggest ungulate. I
Speaker 1: meant the second biggest deer. Obviously there are bigger ungulates
Speaker 1: like Jiroffes. Anyway, Oh okay, yeah, but anyways, back to
Speaker 1: bad decisions. For some reason, people keep putting baby elk
Speaker 1: in their cars in national parks, thinking that if they
Speaker 1: find them alone, that they've been abandoned by their mothers.
Speaker 1: Don't do it. Don't do this with elk. Don't do
Speaker 1: this with other deer, like elk will leave their calves alone,
Speaker 1: but this is a actually a survival strategies. So the
Speaker 1: females will hide their newborn calves when they go out
Speaker 1: to forage, and then they will return repeatedly to the
Speaker 1: calve to like nurse them, because this is actually the
Speaker 1: safest way to take care of the babies because that
Speaker 1: first week, the newborn calf does not have a strong smell,
Speaker 1: so predators are unlikely to find it when it's nestled
Speaker 1: in the bushes. It'd be much more likely for this
Speaker 1: calf to get caught, like if it's following its mother
Speaker 1: and predators can see it out in the open, So
Speaker 1: the mother leaves it, you know, usually in a bushy
Speaker 1: or grassy area or behind some kind of structure so
Speaker 1: that the calf is hidden. And so essentially you're just
Speaker 1: kidnapping the baby if you try to, like, you know,
Speaker 1: quote unquote rescue it. So don't touch it, don't rescue it,
Speaker 1: you're really not. This goes for fawns as well, Like
Speaker 1: just like deer, you might be more used to, like
Speaker 1: if you see a fawn just kind of like curled
Speaker 1: up in the bushes in the grass, don't touch it,
Speaker 1: don't carry it away somewhere. It was probably left thereby
Speaker 1: its mother, and the mother's going to return, and this
Speaker 1: is a normal behavior. Yeah. I mean, podcast audiences are
Speaker 1: self selecting, so your audience probably knows this already. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but I just feel like want to say, in case
Speaker 1: someone who doesn't normally listen randomly listen to this second, like,
Speaker 1: don't touch the baby animals in wild areas, especially if
Speaker 1: it's government owned land, because if you, for instance, see
Speaker 1: a bear cub and think it's really cute and you
Speaker 1: interact with it, the government will kill that bear cub
Speaker 1: and its siblings and it's mom. So please leave them alone.
Speaker 1: And they're not killing the bear family for fun, They're
Speaker 1: doing it for everybody's future safety that you personally just ruined.
Speaker 1: So now you're a bear murderer. Yeah, I think, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I do agree. I don't think my audience
Speaker 1: is probably gonna be going out trying to kidnap baby animals,
Speaker 1: I know, but this is this is good advice because
Speaker 1: like I do feel like we're it's more that we're
Speaker 1: deputizing you to go and stop animal kidnappers with knowledge,
Speaker 1: with knowledge, and you know, it's I think that oftentimes
Speaker 1: these things. These things can come from a good place
Speaker 1: where it's like, oh, I have to help this animal.
Speaker 1: So I get that, and I don't think I think
Speaker 1: oftentimes it is done in good faith. Obviously there's the
Speaker 1: rfks of the world warts that's not done in good faith.
Speaker 1: But yeah, so yeah, don't kidnap a baby elk. You
Speaker 1: will get hunted down by a bunch of liam Neeson's
Speaker 1: that have hooves and anger. So that's not a great idea.
Speaker 1: I know you're not gonna do it, But tell your friends.
Speaker 1: Tell fine, you know, everyone has a friend where you're
Speaker 1: like that would be the friend that would think that
Speaker 1: maybe they should kidnap a baby elk. Talk to that
Speaker 1: friend and tell them not to because like in the case,
Speaker 1: like you know, I read a news story about like
Speaker 1: someone had put an elk, baby elk in their car
Speaker 1: and then like essentially they the park rangers forced them
Speaker 1: to release the elk. But the elk, you know, ran
Speaker 1: off into w's somewhere. Who knows if it ever found
Speaker 1: its mom again, right, like hopefully yes, But it's just like,
Speaker 1: what are you doing. It's like if you found you
Speaker 1: found like a kid at the mall and you're like
Speaker 1: all right, I'm gonna like take you to Canada or something,
Speaker 1: or if you're already in Canada, I'm gonna take you
Speaker 1: to uh, you know, America. Like it's just like, why
Speaker 1: would you do that? Just leave it, leave them alone,
Speaker 1: and you know probably their their moms nearby. So yeah,
Speaker 1: don't kidnap baby Elk. No, no kidnapping whatsoever. Blanket rule,
Speaker 1: blanket rule, it's bad, don't do it. Really, we're really
Speaker 1: sticking it to my audience of educated animal lovers. You
Speaker 1: already know all of this, but you know, well, you know,
Speaker 1: it never hurts to remind people. Right, Sometimes you just
Speaker 1: forget and you're like, oh damn, and there's a baby
Speaker 1: Elk in your car and you're like, oh man, forgot, Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: It happens to the it really does. All right, Well,
Speaker 1: we're gonna take a quick break and when we get back,
Speaker 1: we're gonna talk about another big baby, all right, Catherine.
Speaker 1: So now we're gonna talk about baby Elephants. Cute, very cute,
Speaker 1: super goofy. Everybody loves them, their little little scamps. Man,
Speaker 1: I feel so much for mom Elephants. Though it takes
Speaker 1: twenty two months, which is you know, nearly two years
Speaker 1: for baby elephants to gest date and then they give
Speaker 1: birth to like it's like a mini coop sized baby.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, yeah, it's it's wild. How long do
Speaker 1: elephants live? Big live quite a long time. I believe
Speaker 1: it's around forty to sixty years old. Let me double
Speaker 1: check that. Well, two years gestation seems too long for
Speaker 1: that lifespan. I don't like that. Yeah, so like African
Speaker 1: elephants live sixty to seventy years, Asian elephants live around
Speaker 1: forty eight years. That's that's a long time though for
Speaker 1: a wild animal. To be fair, that's a very long time.
Speaker 1: They could probably live even longer if there was some
Speaker 1: I mean, elephants don't really do well in captivity, but
Speaker 1: if like there was elephant healthcare, which there kind of
Speaker 1: is in certain natural reserves. Anyways, the point I'm making
Speaker 1: is that's a long lifespan for an animal that lives
Speaker 1: in such a sort of a tough and unforgiving environment.
Speaker 1: Uh huh uh huh. Do they have to eat more
Speaker 1: the entire time they're pregnant, yeah or anything like that? Okay, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: they have to eat more while they're pregnant. They also
Speaker 1: eat more while they're lactating to be able to Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, okay, it's going to be pretty similar to
Speaker 1: human human pregnant for a much longer period of time,
Speaker 1: right right, you know, so similar to humans, baby elephants
Speaker 1: will suck their trunks like human babies stunk their thumbs,
Speaker 1: and they also try to learn how to use they can.
Speaker 1: They get up and go walking very quickly, so like
Speaker 1: within the first few hours of life, they learn how
Speaker 1: to walk, but they do not know how to use
Speaker 1: their trunks yet, and so it takes them some time
Speaker 1: to learn how to operate their trunks. Because an elephant's
Speaker 1: trunk has around ninety thousand muscle fiber bundles and around
Speaker 1: fifty to sixty thousand motor neurons associated with controlling the trunks.
Speaker 1: So it's a very complicated organ, a very complicated limb.
Speaker 1: So and they have a high concentration of muscles also
Speaker 1: in the tip at the in the lip of the trunk,
Speaker 1: like the you know, the little at the end of
Speaker 1: the snout where it can like pick up like a
Speaker 1: paintbrush and you know, do art, elephant art. So yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: the babies will you like, that's why you can see
Speaker 1: videos of babies just sort of like helicoptering their trunk.
Speaker 1: It's because they're sort of they're playing, they're having fun,
Speaker 1: but they're also like learning how to use this very
Speaker 1: sophisticated limb. It's sort of like babies, you know, waving
Speaker 1: their arms around, kicking their legs. You know, you're, you're
Speaker 1: they're both having fun, but they're also learning how to, uh,
Speaker 1: how to move their bodies, and they're it's usually quite
Speaker 1: thrilling for them to learn how.
Speaker 2: To do that.
Speaker 1: I saw something about how when they start getting interested
Speaker 1: in adult food, they start mimicking the adults and start
Speaker 1: making the movement of picking stuff up with their trunk
Speaker 1: before they've actually have the dexterity and actual grip items. Yeah. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: I mean similar to babies, Like I've seen babies like
Speaker 1: pick like before they can eat food, where they pick
Speaker 1: up some soft food that their parents given them, put
Speaker 1: it in their mouth, just kind of like hold it
Speaker 1: in their mouth and then spit it out. Yeah, they
Speaker 1: don't know how to eat it, they don't know how
Speaker 1: to cheat it. They're kind of like mimicking the motions
Speaker 1: before they actually get it. Yeah, I mean there's a
Speaker 1: lot of similarities between the development of like say a
Speaker 1: baby elephant and a baby human, because they're both We're
Speaker 1: both very intelligent animals, both very social animals, also with
Speaker 1: limbs that have fine motor controls, so like our hands
Speaker 1: and fingers and in their trunks, So yeah, there is
Speaker 1: similar situation. Also, baby elephants will play with each other
Speaker 1: and they learn really important social skills through playing, just
Speaker 1: like human babies. This is something very common with like
Speaker 1: a lot of different types of social species, from dogs
Speaker 1: to lions to you know, dolphins. Like if you're a
Speaker 1: social species, like play is really important in terms of
Speaker 1: like playing with one another to learn social skills and
Speaker 1: also learn survival skills, like for predators like baby like
Speaker 1: if when you see like like kittens playing with each
Speaker 1: other where they're like chasing and pouncing and knocking each
Speaker 1: other over and biting each other's necks, but not that seriously,
Speaker 1: it's a way for them to practice their predation skills
Speaker 1: without actually getting hurt. Same thing for dogs, like tugle
Speaker 1: war with your dog is your dog play acting snapping
Speaker 1: something's neck. For elephants, obviously they are herbivores, and yet
Speaker 1: they do have to defend themselves, and they aren't quite
Speaker 1: good at it, and so like babies will spar with
Speaker 1: each other, they'll run around do stuff that they also like.
Speaker 1: The males have to learn how to defend themselves from
Speaker 1: other bulls or fight with other bulls if they want
Speaker 1: access to mating opportunities or to try to take over
Speaker 1: access to a herd, So like the elephant societies, basically
Speaker 1: it's like a matriarchy where the females form a core
Speaker 1: group that remains pretty consistent throughout the throughout the herds
Speaker 1: like lifetime or throughout the herd's history, whereas the males
Speaker 1: are the ones that kind of like disperse. So like
Speaker 1: the male once they're old enough, they'll leave the maternal
Speaker 1: group and go off try to find a new herd
Speaker 1: to join and then and sometimes they'll have to like
Speaker 1: fight in order to like oust the other bowl male
Speaker 1: or to get a mating opportunity, So it's important for
Speaker 1: the males to learn how to do that. But the
Speaker 1: females also have to learn how to be rough and
Speaker 1: tumble around to defend their young and defend themselves from
Speaker 1: predators and threats, and the males go to other herds
Speaker 1: like to prevent incest. Yes, I mean this is exactly
Speaker 1: You're exactly right. Like you look very sk to bring
Speaker 1: this up, but that's the very good point. Yeah, Like
Speaker 1: male dispersal. Dispersal is a great way to improve genetic diversity,
Speaker 1: or as you're praised, it prevent a game of throne situation.
Speaker 1: It is, it's, it's it. Actually, this is a pretty
Speaker 1: similar course. The social dynamics are a bit different, but
Speaker 1: like with lions, lion prides, it's often thought of as
Speaker 1: being like a very kind of male dominated situation, And
Speaker 1: in a way it's true because males do have a
Speaker 1: lot of like strength when it comes to the females,
Speaker 1: but the females form sort of a core group that
Speaker 1: remains much more consistent throughout the pride's lifetime. And they
Speaker 1: also if females get fed up with a male who's
Speaker 1: like taken over the pride, like sometimes all the females
Speaker 1: will gang up on him and and I think, like
Speaker 1: for elephants, like the matriarchy is a little more pronounced
Speaker 1: because you have like this lineage of older females and
Speaker 1: younger females and all taking care of each other, and
Speaker 1: they will enforce kicking out bull males that stick around
Speaker 1: too long. So like if there's if there's a young
Speaker 1: bull male who's like uh ready to disperse, they'll be like,
Speaker 1: all right, you got to go now, and they'll like
Speaker 1: actually kind of chase them out, and then he has
Speaker 1: to go find you know, ahrd to kind of hang
Speaker 1: around the periphery of and so that he can find
Speaker 1: some mating opportunities. So are there in cell elephants, I mean,
Speaker 1: are there some that just get rejected? And probably probably
Speaker 1: they go they go online trying to compare trunk sizes. Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: I mean, like you know, that's that is sort of
Speaker 1: that that's that's natural selection. Baby involuntary celibacy is his
Speaker 1: naturals lock. Okay, yeah that makes sense. Yeah, oh man.
Speaker 1: But yeah, so baby elephants play a lot. A baby
Speaker 1: elephant will invite another one to play by placing their
Speaker 1: trunk on the other one's head, like they'll play with me,
Speaker 1: and they'll wrestle with their trunks. They'll bonk their heads together.
Speaker 1: If they've developed tusks, sometimes they'll knock those around together.
Speaker 1: The Sometimes a teenage elephant will like kneel down and
Speaker 1: let like a baby elephant like kind of wrestle with them.
Speaker 1: It's super cute because it's like this much larger elephant
Speaker 1: like kneeling down and letting the baby kind of like
Speaker 1: go to town. And it's a great it's a great
Speaker 1: lesson for the baby because like it really teaches the
Speaker 1: baby like not to bite off more than they can chew,
Speaker 1: because sometimes they'll like try to pick a fight with
Speaker 1: like a larger elephant, and the big elephant just kind
Speaker 1: of like knock them over, and it's it's a good lesson.
Speaker 1: And then of course, like the mother and a lot
Speaker 1: of the other females will be very protective of the babies,
Speaker 1: so like if things get too intense, the baby will
Speaker 1: probably run back to its mommy and then the mom
Speaker 1: will be like, all right, stop, the game is over.
Speaker 1: You can't mess with my child anymore. Yeah, So it
Speaker 1: really is very similar to kind of playground politics. Yeah. Also,
Speaker 1: baby elephants will sometimes chase other animals for fun, like
Speaker 1: just just like hey, I'm gonna chase you now. They're
Speaker 1: not it's not because they're predators. Again, it's usually like
Speaker 1: kind of developing motor skills. It's fun for them, but
Speaker 1: it's also like developing skills for like chasing off predators
Speaker 1: or competing with rivals. So elephant researcher and behavioral at
Speaker 1: College Is Caitlin O'Connell documented the way that baby African
Speaker 1: eleph playing around can change political dynamics and herds. So
Speaker 1: like she she documented this like schism that happened like
Speaker 1: in this herd, like these two females didn't get along,
Speaker 1: so one of the females like broke off started her
Speaker 1: own herd, and then they came back together because the
Speaker 1: female who had left the other the big herd, like
Speaker 1: her baby was so playful with the babies from the
Speaker 1: other herd that whenever they would like see each other,
Speaker 1: the baby would just go there. She didn't want to leave,
Speaker 1: and so eventually this like other female in her herd
Speaker 1: were forced to join the primary herd because her baby
Speaker 1: was like way too excited to play with the babies
Speaker 1: and this other herd. So uh, sometimes what a spoiled
Speaker 1: baby elephant. I know, I know, it's it's great though,
Speaker 1: It's like, you know what we got to put make
Speaker 1: bygones be bygones because this baby ell if it wants
Speaker 1: to play, And how do you stop a baby elephant
Speaker 1: from playing? You don't no, oh, Wow, this is reminding me.
Speaker 1: I heard something and it was like I think I
Speaker 1: heard it first on Twitter, so I don't know if
Speaker 1: it was real. This was years ago, something about how
Speaker 1: an experiment was done where there were these two old
Speaker 1: lady elephants who did not care for each other, and
Speaker 1: they were in different groups, with the groups would sometimes
Speaker 1: you know, literally cross paths, and the researchers took recordings
Speaker 1: of one of the old Lady elephants and went played
Speaker 1: it at the other old Lady elephant who didn't hate her,
Speaker 1: and when she heard the recording of her arch nemesis,
Speaker 1: she would get really stressed out. Mm hmm. Do you
Speaker 1: think that's real? Yeah, that sounds sounds real to me.
Speaker 1: What amazing like jerk researchers though, Like we know you
Speaker 1: hate Helen with a passion. Anyways, here's Helen's voice and
Speaker 1: then Miriam's like, what, Helen, I told you to not
Speaker 1: come around here anymore. Yeah, it's just it would if
Speaker 1: it helps, Like imagine Old Lady Elephants is like Maggie
Speaker 1: Smith and Dame Judy Dinch taking potshots at one another,
Speaker 1: and then you will understand better the psychology of elephants.
Speaker 1: That's very pleasing to me. Yeah, I like that and
Speaker 1: I'm going to do that permanently. Yeah. Speaking of Helen
Speaker 1: Mrran or sorry not Helmet here, speaking of Judy Ditch
Speaker 1: and Maggie Smith. Elephants are very serious about protecting their
Speaker 1: young and they will exact revenge on anyone who hurts
Speaker 1: their calves, just as Judy Dinsch and Maggie Smith would do.
Speaker 1: In Malaysia, a car accidentally hit a baby elephant. Like
Speaker 1: it was a total accident. It was like there was
Speaker 1: a rainstorm and fortunately it was like a tiny compact car,
Speaker 1: so it didn't hurt the baby. Really, it didn't cause
Speaker 1: a serious injury. Also, the occupants of the vehicle were uninjured.
Speaker 1: But the baby's family was not having it because the
Speaker 1: baby like fell over and so like this family of
Speaker 1: elephants came over and like smashed the car, like totaled
Speaker 1: the car, like smashed all its windows in, like dentted
Speaker 1: in the doors, just absolutely wrecked this car because it's like,
Speaker 1: how dare you hit my baby with your car? Which
Speaker 1: you know, like all the people, like the reason this
Speaker 1: is a fun story is like all the people survived,
Speaker 1: so they were and I think they were completely uninjured
Speaker 1: the car itself not so not so pretty a situation.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, I mean, you know, it was a total accident,
Speaker 1: but like you can't like say like, oh no, I
Speaker 1: didn't see your child there and I hit them, Like
Speaker 1: the elephants are still gonna mess you up. I respect that,
Speaker 1: and sometimes I feel like, I mean, not if it's
Speaker 1: an accident, but maybe maybe humans could take a couple
Speaker 1: lessons and like discending I have. I think I saw
Speaker 1: a video once like like there was like a thing
Speaker 1: where like there was a sort of near accident, like
Speaker 1: a kid was in a crosswalk and like a car
Speaker 1: came and like basically kind of like the car eventually
Speaker 1: stopped or something and the kid, the kid was okay,
Speaker 1: but the car did hit the kid because you know,
Speaker 1: the car was not paying attention well enough, and like
Speaker 1: the kid's parents like ran over and like you know
Speaker 1: like hit the car like in anger. Right, Like it's
Speaker 1: just a very natural response, right yeah, this thing almost
Speaker 1: like hurt your kid, Like that response of like you know,
Speaker 1: like hit the car, like you know this stupid thing,
Speaker 1: you you hurt my You could have really seriously hurt
Speaker 1: my kid. It's just very very similar kind of thing. Right, like,
Speaker 1: just this just animal, this elephant family making the insurance
Speaker 1: premiums go up on this car smashing it in. I can't.
Speaker 1: I can't say that I wouldn't do the same if
Speaker 1: I was an elephant. Yeah, yeah, I agree. I heard
Speaker 1: another story. That's another one that I'm like, is this
Speaker 1: true about in a village in India there was a
Speaker 1: woman who did not like elephants, so she would yell
Speaker 1: at them and they smashed up her funeral. I heard
Speaker 1: this too. I looked into trying to figure out if
Speaker 1: it was true or not. I really don't know. I
Speaker 1: think it's believable. I just don't know, though, because like,
Speaker 1: how would they know for sure it's her funeral? Did
Speaker 1: they smell her? It's possible they did, I just I
Speaker 1: don't know. It could be that they were. It could
Speaker 1: also have been a coincidence where they were like agitated
Speaker 1: by the presence of people there. I could I really
Speaker 1: couldn't find out whether this was Like, first of all,
Speaker 1: I couldn't find out if it was genuine, and secondly,
Speaker 1: I couldn't find out if like it was some how
Speaker 1: confirmed that the elephant had come to like I don't know,
Speaker 1: gate crash her funeral. Yeah, pay disrespect, right. Maybe maybe
Speaker 1: they didn't know for sure that it was the same woman,
Speaker 1: but they were like, we don't care. Yeah, this is
Speaker 1: doing today. Anyone dies in this village, we're gonna hope
Speaker 1: it's this lady that was mean to us. I really
Speaker 1: I don't know. I think if they I think if
Speaker 1: they could tell that this it was this lady, I
Speaker 1: wouldn't put it past them. I'll say that much. Wouldn't
Speaker 1: put it past an elephant if it was possible for
Speaker 1: them to know that this was this lady's funeral. I
Speaker 1: just I really have a lot of respect for these
Speaker 1: herbivores that are not afraid to throw down. Oh man,
Speaker 1: so many herbivores are so not afraid to throw down.
Speaker 1: Like predators have a pretty tough life, honestly, lie Like
Speaker 1: you think of like, well, lions, like nothing's gonna mess
Speaker 1: with the lions. Lots of stuff mess with lions. Like
Speaker 1: there's a lot of gnarly, gnarly, gnarly injuries you can
Speaker 1: see on even like male, big tough male lions, like
Speaker 1: where they'll just have like half a limb missing, a
Speaker 1: chunk of their face taken out. That's probably because they
Speaker 1: got into a mix up with the wrong elephant or
Speaker 1: the wrong giraffe, you know, so like it's a or
Speaker 1: even like the wrong cape buffalo, right, like it's a
Speaker 1: There's a lot of herbivores that are not gonna take
Speaker 1: it lying down, and so yeah, it's they can be
Speaker 1: quite dangerous. And I mean that's one reason that lions
Speaker 1: tend to form, you know, groups, like it makes it
Speaker 1: a lot easier for them to take down large prey
Speaker 1: without risking dying every time. Interesting. Interesting, I forgot I
Speaker 1: heard that about Cape buffalo. They're wildly dangerous. They're very dangerous. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So yeah, herbivores. Being an herbivore does not mean being
Speaker 1: weak or docile. I think we might get a mistaken
Speaker 1: impression because we have domesticated herbivores that we live around,
Speaker 1: Like cows. Cows are not normal ungillis. They're not. They're
Speaker 1: not because we've bred out their fear and their aggressions.
Speaker 1: So cows are really docile. Sheep are really docile because
Speaker 1: we've bred them to be like like a if you
Speaker 1: go up to sort of the like the the ancestral
Speaker 1: sort of orcs that like you know, cows came from.
Speaker 1: They would be aggressive towards you if you tried to
Speaker 1: milk them, Like, it's not going to work out for you.
Speaker 1: Did you say ancestral orc ors? It's like a me
Speaker 1: nice spells spell ex the orcs, is it? It's a
Speaker 1: h let me, let me just double check, make sure
Speaker 1: I'm getting this completely correct. Uh orcs. So it's a
Speaker 1: U R O C hsh Okay, this is new information,
Speaker 1: not orcs like World of War. That's what I was thinking,
Speaker 1: and I thought that can't be. But yeah, or rocks extinct.
Speaker 1: But yes, this is the sort of ancestral uh. The
Speaker 1: the species that we think cows came from, and they
Speaker 1: were probably pretty feisty.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: And also cow relatives are pretty feisty. But yeah, we
Speaker 1: bred them to be. It's this. It's the same situation
Speaker 1: with dogs versus wolves. Okay, makes sense? Yeah, absolutely? Yeah. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: we're going to take a quick break and when we
Speaker 1: get back, we're going to talk about the biggest baby
Speaker 1: in the world. Uh named drop whoever? You hate it
Speaker 1: as a joke. Here all right, we are back. It's
Speaker 1: time for the biggest baby in the world. What do
Speaker 1: you think is the biggest baby in the world? Catherine Well,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna make a fear based answer and say whales
Speaker 1: because I may have said this on the show before,
Speaker 1: whales terrify me. I think I would die. Maybe I
Speaker 1: remembered that subconsciously, which is why we're going to be
Speaker 1: talking about the biggest whale in the world. Because I'm
Speaker 1: you're so mean, I'd be I'd be a cruel podcast mistress. Uh. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're talking about baby blue whales. Maybe I can help
Speaker 1: Maybe I can help us a wage or intensify your fears.
Speaker 1: It's exposure therapy. Let's see, which have you seen, Like
Speaker 1: have you seen whales sleeping in the ocean where they're
Speaker 1: just like because like they'll sleep and like their bodies
Speaker 1: kind of like hang down sort of a vertically. Oh,
Speaker 1: and they just look it's weird. It kind of looks
Speaker 1: like here, let me shin, is it Okay? If I
Speaker 1: send you a photo, I don't I don't actually want
Speaker 1: to freak you out. Yeah. No, I can see photos
Speaker 1: of them. Okay. I've actually been in a catamaran that
Speaker 1: a whale was swimming directly beneath and maybe I just
Speaker 1: like disassociated. I don't remember being that scared, but if
Speaker 1: I saw that now, I think maybe it's like I
Speaker 1: didn't even know that was possible, so I wasn't fully
Speaker 1: comprehending it in the moment. Yeah, I mean, I there
Speaker 1: are things that like fill me with a sort of
Speaker 1: fear slash awe where I don't get terrified. But it's
Speaker 1: it's it's hard to explain windmills do this to me.
Speaker 1: I'm like, is scary, you know, like I find them
Speaker 1: a little bit like, you know, not Dutch windmills, I
Speaker 1: mean like the giant, uh modern windmills. I'm like, they're
Speaker 1: kind of scary in a way just because they're so massive.
Speaker 1: But yeah, it's just it's the same kind of fear
Speaker 1: of like being on a roller coaster, where it's like
Speaker 1: I kind of enjoy the fear a little bit. It's hard,
Speaker 1: it's hard exactly to explain. I'm just saying, although I
Speaker 1: don't enjoy roller coasters, so that's a bad metaphor specifically
Speaker 1: for me. But I sent in the chat a photo
Speaker 1: of this. It's the it's sperm whales sleeping and they
Speaker 1: are actually kind of vertical like a whale forests. To me,
Speaker 1: that's it's super surreal to see them like that. What's
Speaker 1: going on with the perspective here, because the guy is
Speaker 1: much closer to the foreground. The whales are a lot
Speaker 1: bigger than Okay, I was gonna say, yeah, okay, that
Speaker 1: makes sense. Yeah, so those guys, I I I think
Speaker 1: I would die of fear if I were faced with
Speaker 1: six or seven whales awake or asleep. Yeah, fair enough.
Speaker 1: So blue whales are gigantic. They're the biggest animal that
Speaker 1: we know of that has ever lived on the planet Earth.
Speaker 1: And the babies are the biggest babies. It takes up
Speaker 1: to it takes about a year for them to gestate.
Speaker 1: Babies are born over twenty feet long, which is six
Speaker 1: meters and up to six thousand pounds or two seven
Speaker 1: hundred kilograms. They're basically the size of a metal shipping container,
Speaker 1: these babies. And I'm looking around my room. It wouldn't
Speaker 1: fit in my room. Probably not. No, I don't care
Speaker 1: for that, not, thank you. So the mother will lactate
Speaker 1: about fifty gallons of milk a day. The baby grows
Speaker 1: at an incredible rate, so as adults they get to
Speaker 1: be around one hundred two hundred, like over one hundred
Speaker 1: feet long, which is around over thirty meters long, and
Speaker 1: one hundred and fifty tons, So the baby has to
Speaker 1: drink extremely rich, high fat milk every day and they
Speaker 1: gain around like two hundred pounds per day, which is
Speaker 1: don't you You can't air this because those raw milk
Speaker 1: freaks are gonna hear it and they're gonna I think
Speaker 1: they should try to go and get it and the
Speaker 1: situation will sort itself out. But yeah, it's it is.
Speaker 1: It is an incredible feat. Uh. They grow very quickly.
Speaker 1: They have to, uh in order to get to be
Speaker 1: that size, and they are. It's it's very like we
Speaker 1: there's so much about blue whales that we don't know
Speaker 1: because they're they're just like can't get them. We can't
Speaker 1: get there. You can't study a blue whale in a lab.
Speaker 1: You can't put it in MRI. I can't, Like you
Speaker 1: can't and like we're not there. We're not where they are,
Speaker 1: and they like go to very uh you know, deep depths.
Speaker 1: They do come up in surface obviously because they have
Speaker 1: to breathe their mammals, but yeah, they're just it's there
Speaker 1: for being the largest animal on earth. Like, we know
Speaker 1: surprisingly little about them. We do know that they're balen whales,
Speaker 1: so they're filter feeders. They eat krill. They swallow enormous
Speaker 1: amounts of seawater that contains like if once they find
Speaker 1: a dense patch of krill, they swallow them in and
Speaker 1: they sort of push all that water out through their bileen,
Speaker 1: which are it's sort of like a broom bristles, and
Speaker 1: all the krill get tangled in there, and then they
Speaker 1: swallow them up and have a giant, giant snack of krill.
Speaker 1: And so, yeah, do we know what the biggest thing
Speaker 1: that they could swallow and not choke on is. I've
Speaker 1: literally never thought about them. I've thought about this a lot.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I mean, you'd have to look at
Speaker 1: what they're throat sizes. I suppose. Wow, that doesn't help.
Speaker 1: So they there's some blue baby blue whale news apparently. Yeah,
Speaker 1: in New Zealand, baby Blue, a baby pigmy blue whale
Speaker 1: got stuck in a pier under a wharf. So pigmy
Speaker 1: blue whales are you know, small blue whales, meaning they
Speaker 1: only grow to be about eighty feet long or twenty
Speaker 1: four meters, and this baby was nearly fifty feet long
Speaker 1: fifteen meters, so it got kind of like entangled among
Speaker 1: the supports for the pier. So what did the conservationists do?
Speaker 1: They just dismantled the pier so that the baby could
Speaker 1: could be free. So the entire the entire wharf was dismantled.
Speaker 1: It was like a small wooden I'm not not talking
Speaker 1: about like Santa Monica pre with a ferrosprayle on it.
Speaker 1: But I just found it funny because, like, in reading
Speaker 1: about it, New Zealand's Department of Conservation called it a
Speaker 1: highly unusual situation. It's like, oh, really, you don't get
Speaker 1: blue whales stuck in your peers all the time? I guess, uh,
Speaker 1: But also I am a little surprised it doesn't happen
Speaker 1: more often because like, have you ever seen like every
Speaker 1: time a child finds banisters, immediately the head gets stuck
Speaker 1: in it. Oh yeah, and this feels like a kid
Speaker 1: getting their heads stuck in a banister situation, but with
Speaker 1: like a blue whale. Oh absolutely, Oh funny. Wait, so
Speaker 1: there are pigmy blue whales. Yes, that's a known thing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're just they're just they're smaller than the full sized
Speaker 1: blue whales, So instead of being being over one hundred
Speaker 1: feet long, they're about eighty feet long. Just teeny tiny,
Speaker 1: little guy, bitty cute little pigmy. It's just so funny
Speaker 1: to call this thing a pigmy blue whale. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: rescuers dismantled the small wharf, guided the whale out of
Speaker 1: the bay with boats, and it was free to go. Uh. So,
Speaker 1: you know, whales or human children always getting stuck in
Speaker 1: anything that is like a stair banister. This is so
Speaker 1: funny and I will be very interested to know if,
Speaker 1: in the future if the offspring of that pigmy blue
Speaker 1: whale also gets stuck in a pier, Like it's a
Speaker 1: genetic trait of like, because yeah, I'm hearing about that curiosity. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's that otter wasn't Yeah, it was an otter who
Speaker 1: last year I think, kept biting surfboards. And it was
Speaker 1: the same one because he was tagged. Come to find out,
Speaker 1: it was the offspring of another otter who, however, many
Speaker 1: years before, kept biting kayaks. Hmm. I mean part of
Speaker 1: that could be genetics, but it could also be learned behavior, right,
Speaker 1: like if it's raised by an otter that likes to
Speaker 1: bite kayaks, sort of like when you have a kid
Speaker 1: and you're like, you know, uh, your kid goes into
Speaker 1: a pretty related career as you, right, Like, I guess
Speaker 1: for me, it'd be a kid who goes into radio.
Speaker 1: I don't know, like where it's just slightly like a
Speaker 1: new spin. I don't know. There's gonna be something different.
Speaker 1: It's gonna be like hollow holographic VR radio. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: probably will. But not if you're a traditionalist and you
Speaker 1: just stick to a career in biting, right, biting, biting surfboards.
Speaker 1: I will support my hypothetical child in whatever career they choose,
Speaker 1: whether it's biting kayaks, biting surfboards, biting you know, sandboards,
Speaker 1: biting I don't know, hookeyboards, yeah, hydrofoils. Biting yachts, Now,
Speaker 1: that would be a kid. I was proud of a
Speaker 1: kid who bites yachts. That's that. And that would be
Speaker 1: if your kid were in otter, you know, breaking into
Speaker 1: an orchad dominated industry. Yeah, always, Yeah, you'd be so proud.
Speaker 1: I think a bumper sticker for that, My ottered child
Speaker 1: bites yachts.
Speaker 2: All right, Oh, well, before we go, we got to
Speaker 2: play a little game called Guess you Squawk, a Mystery
Speaker 2: animal sound game.
Speaker 1: Every week I play Mystery Animal sound, and you the listener,
Speaker 1: and you the guest, try to guess who is making
Speaker 1: that sound. Last week's mystery animal sound hint was this,
Speaker 1: I've got some wild news for you guys. By all right, Kathy,
Speaker 1: you got any guesses? Bullfrog? Interesting and interesting guests. Uh,
Speaker 1: but you're one part of that word is almost correct.
Speaker 1: This is actually a wild to beast, also known as
Speaker 1: a new but that that was a wildebeest. That was
Speaker 1: a wilde beast. Wow, wow, amazing surprising, right, yeah. So
Speaker 1: wilde beests are large antelopes found in Eastern and South Africa,
Speaker 1: with long, bison like heads and thick withers. There are
Speaker 1: two species of wildebeest. There's the blue wilde beast with
Speaker 1: stripes on their back and short horns. I think that's
Speaker 1: the one you see in lion king. So that's what
Speaker 1: you're thinking of when you think wildebest. It's the blue wildebeest.
Speaker 1: And then there's the black wildebeest, which has a tan,
Speaker 1: shaggy mane, a mohawk like or sorry. And then there's
Speaker 1: the black wildebeest that has a mohawk like maine down
Speaker 1: its neck, a black head, and longer horns. So interestingly.
Speaker 1: Wildebeests like to take advice from other species, so they'll
Speaker 1: mingle with zebra herds and baboons and pay attention to
Speaker 1: warning calls of these other species for predators. So they
Speaker 1: are definitely there to let other species do the work
Speaker 1: of looking out and about for them. Oh my gosh, amazing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: what a cool animal. Very cool and also extremely generous
Speaker 1: of you to say that bullfrog was anything. Well, a
Speaker 1: bowl is also I got where we're going from. A
Speaker 1: male wildebeast might be called a bowl that sounds like
Speaker 1: a thing. It would be called uh that sounds like
Speaker 1: such a cool animal. I love that, the gossipy, gossipy animal.
Speaker 1: Uh onto this week's mister animal sound. The hint is this.
Speaker 1: Don't stick your head in the sand for this one.
Speaker 1: All right, you got any guesses, Katherine, No, it sounds
Speaker 1: like reving, but that's right, it's as rev is a
Speaker 1: it is a Hyundai BMX bike trick question. Yeah? Oh
Speaker 1: did I I just in case I forgot. Congratulations to
Speaker 1: Emily M for guessing correctly for the Well, all right,
Speaker 1: so we've got VMX bike as a guest. We will
Speaker 1: find out next time on Creature feature whether that is correct. Katherine,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for joining me today. Where can
Speaker 1: people find you? Well, let's see, I'm on Instagram, as
Speaker 1: Katherine underscore spires difficultly enough, and then I am on TikTok.
Speaker 1: Katherine Spire, that's where I am. That's you're fighting a
Speaker 1: good fight. I don't man, TikTok confuses me because I'm
Speaker 1: about two hundred years old. It's not easy. I still
Speaker 1: find it difficult to actually use, but I find so
Speaker 1: much good information on that. For me, it's like that
Speaker 1: scene in two thousand and one A Space Odyssey where
Speaker 1: I think the guy is getting turned back into a
Speaker 1: fetus after he goes inside the artifact. I kind of
Speaker 1: forgot what was going on in that movie. Slash didn't
Speaker 1: understand what was going on in that movie. Yep. But
Speaker 1: it's like that scene where that guy is turning back
Speaker 1: into a fetus, and like, I think, all the universe
Speaker 1: is flashing into his eyeballs and all those lights and stuff.
Speaker 1: That's what happens to me when I try to look
Speaker 1: at TikTok, I get turned back into a fetus. That's
Speaker 1: such an intense experience to be having. Yeah, and I
Speaker 1: don't think you need to put yourself through that. If
Speaker 1: you don't, I'm a little over stimulated. Yeah yeah, Well,
Speaker 1: thank you guys so much for listening. If you rate
Speaker 1: a review the podcast, I love that. I appreciate it
Speaker 1: so much. Thanks to the Space Cossics for their super
Speaker 1: awesome song ex Alumina. If you think you know the
Speaker 1: answer to this week's mister Animal sound, you can write
Speaker 1: to me at Creature Feature Pod at gmail dot com.
Speaker 1: You can also write to me with your animal questions,
Speaker 1: any sort of evolutionary biology related questions, pictures of your pets. Uh.
Speaker 1: Creature features of production, Oh my god. Creature features a
Speaker 1: production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts like the one you
Speaker 1: just heard, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or he
Speaker 1: guess what wherever you listened to your favorite shows. See
Speaker 1: you next Wednesday. I went hard into the NPR Voice
Speaker 1: At the end