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2:16

At Popular Science, we report and write

2:18

dozens of science and text stories every week.

2:20

And while most of the stuff we stumble

2:22

across makes it into our articles, we also

2:25

find plenty of weird facts that we just

2:27

keep around the office. So we figured, why

2:29

not share those with you? Welcome to the

2:31

weirdest thing I learned this week from the

2:34

editors of Popular Science. I'm Rachel Feldman. I'm

2:37

Jess Bodie. I'm Owen Ever. It's

2:39

so great to have you. Um,

2:41

listeners, Owen is one of the hosts of a new podcast

2:49

that I really think

2:51

that fans of the weirdest thing and

2:54

of my book are gonna like. So why

2:56

don't you tell folks a little bit about

2:58

it? Yeah, there's definite crossover and

3:00

I feel so honored to

3:03

be entering into the esteemed

3:07

cadre of podcast hosts. This

3:09

is my, my sort

3:12

of my debut into the podcasting

3:15

arena. So thank you

3:17

so much for welcoming me.

3:19

So hospitable, so generous. So

3:22

yes, I'm working on a podcast

3:24

called a field guide to gay

3:26

animals with Canada land from double

3:28

double productions with a

3:30

wonderful co-host lane Kaplan Levinson, who

3:33

does a lot of radio journalism. And

3:36

we will be exploring

3:38

investigating celebrating queerness in

3:40

the natural world. We'll

3:43

be using a principal text

3:45

called biological exuberance, animal homosexuality

3:48

and natural diversity to

3:50

guide us through. Are you

3:53

familiar with this book? Is it a bedside

3:56

table? Yeah, in

3:58

fact, I think it's literally in a

4:00

pile of books, my

4:03

ever-growing TBR. Yes,

4:05

yes, your emotional support pile of

4:07

books. Exactly, yes, yes. There must be many of

4:09

them at any given time. Yes,

4:12

yes. Well, for listeners who

4:14

are curious about this book, but maybe don't

4:16

wanna read it because it's 750 pages long.

4:20

Oh my god! Or have I got a

4:22

podcast for you? So

4:26

yeah, the podcast will be, Lane and I sort of

4:29

exploring our journey with

4:31

coming to understand that

4:33

queerness is an inherent part of

4:35

nature as well as talking to other experts and

4:38

curious folk such as yourselves who

4:42

have been asking those questions and finding

4:44

those affirmations. Amazing.

4:47

When does it premiere? Field Guide premieres mid-June,

4:50

June 13th, specifically,

4:54

and you'll be able to find

4:56

it on Sing Along

4:58

if you know this one, Apple, Spotify, or

5:00

anywhere you get your podcast. Anywhere you get

5:02

your podcast. Yeah, we have

5:05

the great honor of being an official

5:07

selection of the Tribeca Festival. So

5:09

we'll be launching in New York in

5:12

June. Yeah, yeah. Well then, let's get

5:14

into it. On the weirdest thing I learned

5:16

this week, we start by each offering up

5:18

a little tease about some kind of fact

5:20

or story we found in the course of

5:22

reading, writing, reporting, et cetera, and decide which

5:24

one we just absolutely have to hear more

5:27

about first. Then once we've all had time

5:29

to spin our little science yarns, we reconvene

5:31

and decide what the weirdest thing we learned

5:33

this week actually was, but not

5:35

in a competitive way anymore. In fact, now we

5:37

don't even like decide what the

5:39

weirdest thing we learned this week actually

5:41

was. We just assume all the things

5:43

are weird. And they are. Yeah,

5:46

they are. Yeah, it's true.

5:48

We appreciate weirdness equally. Yeah,

5:50

exactly. We pause,

5:53

reflect, and then

5:56

we stop the podcast. Because

5:59

we must. Oh

8:00

my god, I cannot wait.

8:04

Very exciting. On guard. I

8:07

have a policy of never making

8:09

guests go first, but that is

8:11

tempting. But,

8:14

Jess, why don't you get us started with snakes?

8:17

I would love to. Now I'm thinking about the

8:19

Robin Hood fucks, so let's think about, let's get

8:21

our minds off of this. Okay.

8:24

Apologies for derailing. No,

8:26

never apologize for that. Yes, that's actually

8:29

what we do here. Yes. Curiosity

8:31

is abound. Yeah.

8:33

So, okay, I was looking for a

8:36

fun fact this week, and nothing was

8:38

really tickling my fancy. And

8:40

then I found this study, and it's about

8:42

a snake called the dice snake, like D-I-C-E

8:45

dice. It's

8:47

this non-venomous, semi-aquatic,

8:49

very inoffensive snake. Looks like anything

8:52

else. And

8:54

it is a water snake for my fellow Herp

8:56

enthusiasts, if you know, you know. And

8:59

they're like two to four feet long, very unassuming looking,

9:02

like a regular snake. But

9:06

they are so dramatic. That

9:09

is like the biggest thing about them, is that

9:11

they're so, there's very drama, which I can understand,

9:13

because I love drama. But

9:17

what do I mean by that? What I

9:19

mean by that is they have the most

9:21

elaborate fake deaths in the animal kingdom,

9:23

in my opinion. And that's saying

9:25

a lot, because there are a lot of elaborate fake

9:27

deaths. Like obviously there's the possum and

9:30

stuff like that. And there's even like, I think it's

9:32

the Eastern Hognose snake that will like die, fake

9:34

die and like writhe around and stuff

9:36

like that. But this one's even

9:38

more dramatic. And you know,

9:40

most snakes do not do this. And

9:43

I think animals in general learn to just

9:45

like run from predators. Most animals

9:47

will just flee. But

9:50

here's what these dice snakes do. So

9:53

when threatened by a predator, usually from the

9:55

skies, it's usually like an avian bird

9:57

predator. They will do the thing that

10:00

the the hog nose snake does, which is they like, ride

10:02

around theatrically as if they're

10:04

in pain, like, you know, on the

10:07

ground, they're kind of like rolling over and

10:09

being like, ah, this hurts so bad, whatever.

10:12

And then they soil themselves

10:15

in both poop and this

10:17

something called musk, which

10:20

is this foul smelling greasy

10:22

milky fluid, which, gross.

10:25

Put that in a

10:27

perfume and you've got a money

10:29

maker. Honestly, yeah, I mean,

10:31

isn't there a gross whale thing they

10:36

bring to fumes? Yeah, ambergry, whale

10:38

vomit, and like

10:41

beaver anal gland secretions,

10:43

you know? Vanilla. Yeah.

10:46

We've had that, that was one of the first facts on this

10:48

show, actually, back in the day,

10:50

wasn't it? Yeah, talking about putting it in whiskey, I

10:52

think. Yeah. Yeah,

10:54

anyway, so yes. So anyway, back to

10:56

the melodramatic. But anyway, yes, exactly. So

11:01

snakes will like release the poop and

11:03

musk combo, and which

11:05

I think it's funny, a lot of the coverage

11:07

of this study, maybe this is like a

11:10

scientific thing, but they call this poop musk

11:12

combo a cocktail. That's

11:15

a choice. So anyway, yeah,

11:17

they like will writhe in pain, excrete the cocktail,

11:20

and the cherry on top is that sometimes

11:22

they will cough up blood. That's

11:26

when the theater director is like, you've

11:28

gone too far. Like I

11:30

loved the impulse with the like,

11:32

pooping yourself, that felt really embodied,

11:36

but we're gonna lose the audience when you

11:38

start puking blood. Yes, precisely.

11:42

And sometimes it'll just like bubble up from

11:44

their mouths. Like they writhe around, they poop

11:46

themselves, and then they go motionless, and they

11:48

bubble up blood from their mouth. It's so

11:50

funny and dramatic. So

11:52

yeah, just a true master of the acting

11:54

craft, I would say. Yeah,

11:57

so why do they do this? Why do animals play dead?

11:59

Basically... it's because they're trying to

12:02

tell the predator, I'm so

12:04

dead and so gross right now, you don't

12:06

even know, if you eat me, you will

12:08

get sick and die. Like that's their angle.

12:12

And a lot of times it does work. Like

12:14

it does work for these snakes. So

12:17

how do

12:19

we know that these snakes do this? Well,

12:21

somebody went out and studied it. So

12:23

there's this pair of scientists from the University

12:25

of Belgrade, which is in Serbia, and

12:28

they went to this lake on an island. The

12:31

island is called Golumgrad, which is

12:33

in North Macedonia. And I

12:35

just like the name of the island. It

12:37

sounds like straight out of a video game

12:39

or like a- Giving Lord of the Rings.

12:41

Yes, what I think. That's what I was

12:43

gonna say. It sounds like a fantasy novel.

12:45

There's something. Yeah, yeah. Of course they have

12:47

dramatic snakes there. Of course they do. Well,

12:49

get this. Apparently it's also called Snake

12:53

Island. People there call it Snake Island because

12:55

of all the snakes that are there. Because

12:58

at first I was like, Golumgrad, I gotta go

13:00

visit. And then I learned people call it Snake

13:02

Island. And I was like, wait,

13:05

do I want to visit? But then

13:07

I also learned people also call it

13:09

Pelican Island. Because

13:12

it has so many pelicans. So like, you

13:15

know, we're so over and so back. There's

13:17

some confusing branding going on. Yeah, but I'll

13:19

go for some snakes and pelicans.

13:22

And also it's just a little, a neat little

13:24

place. It's like super small. So it's only like

13:26

20 hectares, which is less than a

13:29

square mile. I did

13:31

math. So it's 50 acres or 37 football fields. So

13:35

it's little. And

13:37

people have visited it like throughout history.

13:40

There are some super old buildings and

13:42

roads still there. And there's evidence of

13:44

a building from as early

13:47

as the fourth century, which

13:49

is so cool. Is it currently

13:51

inhabited by human animals? No, but

13:53

it's like a tourist destination.

13:57

So you can like take a little dinghy and sail out there and

13:59

like see. And there's a little plaque by

14:01

some of the buildings and stuff, like you can

14:03

read about old stuff. So is it

14:05

Snake Island? I love the Kingdom of

14:07

Snakes. Right, right. Is it Snake Island?

14:09

Yes, but also there's cool stuff there.

14:11

Snakes are cool, you can go for

14:13

the snakes. Let me clarify, but it's

14:15

not like, didn't we do

14:17

a fact once about the bad Snake Island? There's

14:20

a place called Snake Island that

14:22

is a bad Snake Island. There

14:24

are laws against going there because it's

14:26

sort of like when there's a place

14:29

that's so dangerous to climb

14:33

or go cave diving that they're like,

14:35

don't make us have to save you

14:37

from here. That's what Snake Island is

14:39

like, but just with snakes. Right, right.

14:41

So this is not that intense. Not

14:43

that bad Snake Island though may have

14:45

the inverse impact. Yeah.

14:50

Yes, big time. So

14:53

yeah, anyway, these scientists go to this

14:56

little island called Gollumgrad. And

14:59

what do they do? They just start lunging

15:01

at snakes, just going for it. And

15:04

then they grab them as well, lunge and grab.

15:07

And they grab them right around the middle, like

15:09

right where a bird would maybe go for them.

15:12

And one of the researchers was quoted as saying,

15:14

we acted like a predator that's hesitant to eat

15:16

the prey and then recorded to see what they

15:19

do. So they did this to 263

15:21

different snakes, which

15:23

is, that's a lot of snakes. That's a lot of lunging.

15:26

And so then also after they would get them, after

15:28

they would catch them, they would like gently squeeze and

15:31

stretch them a little bit. Like maybe as if a

15:33

predator might do to be like, do I want to

15:35

eat this? And

15:38

important note, they were very, very careful to

15:40

not hurt the snakes. They're

15:42

very gentle and they did release them when they were

15:44

done. So no snakes were harmed in the making of

15:46

this study. But

15:49

basically, yeah, they made notes. They

15:51

would like catalog of which snakes

15:53

did what thing? Like did they

15:55

only play dead? Did they also

15:57

do poop musk cocktail? Did

15:59

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24:21

we're back. And Owen, tell

24:23

me about some jousting. Ooh,

24:26

some ritualistic jousting. Yeah.

24:29

In high school, I definitely did

24:31

some fencing. But

24:34

I'll say, despite being an adolescent, it never

24:36

got as horny as what we're going to

24:38

describe. So

24:41

I'm going to start with a quote

24:43

from Canadian biologist Ann Innes Dagg. She

24:46

says, quote, necking involved one

24:48

male gently rubbing his head or

24:50

neck against the body of another,

24:52

or the two males mutually rubbing their

24:55

trunks and necks together. This

24:57

often sexually aroused one so that

24:59

he mounted the other or even

25:01

several other males. There seemed

25:03

to be no jealousy among partners. Dot,

25:06

dot, dot. Do y'all know what

25:08

animal I'm talking about? Well, I

25:10

heard trunk. Yeah.

25:13

Is it elephant? And neck. It's

25:17

true. I don't think of elephant

25:19

as having much of a neck. Yeah. I

25:21

feel like I'm a medieval scholar

25:24

describing some animals. Is

25:28

it a giraffe? It is

25:30

a giraffe. It is. Yes.

25:33

So I wanted to talk about

25:35

the giraffe necking behavior, which is

25:37

exclusive to the males of the

25:39

species, in part

25:42

because Ann Innes Dagg was

25:44

a pioneering zoologist and biologist

25:46

from Canada who recently passed.

25:48

She passed in April of

25:51

last month. And I

25:53

knew about her investigations into

25:56

their same-sex sexual behavior, but

25:59

felt like this was a timely opportunity

26:01

to look a little bit further into

26:04

this and to really understand what

26:06

she was up against within the

26:08

field of behavioral biology as

26:11

being a woman who was

26:13

pretty adamant at calling this

26:15

sexual behavior. So yeah, so

26:18

we are talking about giraffes

26:20

and their necking behavior. So

26:22

much is made of giraffe necks.

26:25

So what is necking? Let's see a good description of

26:27

what is necking. Necking

26:31

involves caressing the body with

26:33

the neck among one

26:35

or more giraffes. Interestingly enough,

26:37

giraffes often have a

26:40

preferred side, like they're left-handed, right-handed.

26:42

When they meet up, one will

26:44

always be like, this

26:46

is my good side. Let me be

26:48

over here. And then they'll begin to

26:50

tenderly rub each other, and then that

26:52

will amplify

26:55

in presumed aggression, though there is

26:57

never any intent to injure. And in

26:59

fact, injury is rarely ever the result

27:01

of this, which we can talk about

27:04

a little bit more. And

27:06

so they'll caress each other, wrapping

27:08

their long necks around each other,

27:10

exploring each other's bodies, sniffing

27:13

and licking often of the

27:15

genitals. And some

27:17

males will actually perform, oh, what

27:21

is it called? I want to say

27:23

Fremen, but that's from Dune. I

27:29

have the word written down somewhere

27:31

here. So some

27:35

males will flare their lips as they

27:37

would if they were in a courtship

27:39

behavior with a female as she was

27:42

urinating in order to suck in the

27:44

pheromones. So they'll do this with each

27:46

other as well, and like, you know,

27:48

explore each other. Other

27:52

males tend to get curious,

27:54

begin to observe, and

27:56

then at some point, will

27:58

be invited to engage. which is

28:00

really exciting. This

28:03

often results in erection and

28:06

in a stag talks about the penis being

28:08

eight inches long and looking rather like a

28:10

crochet hook. And it's very... My

28:12

god! Right. And

28:16

as she describes that she often

28:18

sees liquid dripping from the tip.

28:21

What an image! What an image

28:23

indeed. Many of these

28:25

males will mount each other, anal

28:27

penetration does occur, and

28:30

full orgasm and ejaculation.

28:33

So pretty gay, right?

28:36

Super gay. Yeah, I would say so, yeah.

28:38

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But there seems to be

28:40

this sort of like recurring question within the

28:43

scientific community like, fellas, is it

28:45

gay to sniff

28:47

your mate, mount them, ejaculate?

28:50

Like, couldn't possibly be. And

28:55

one thing that I think is really profound about

28:58

Anne in a stag is that she

29:00

boldly did declare this as being

29:03

the result of the reward of pleasure

29:06

and the pursuit of sex because

29:08

it is specifically among males. Studies

29:11

have shown that the frequency

29:13

of same-sex behavior among males

29:15

in giraffes is far higher

29:17

than heterosexual or reprocentric sex.

29:20

A lot of that has to do with

29:22

the fact that gestation with female giraffes takes

29:24

a long time. It's like 15 months, then

29:27

there's a recovery period of 20 months at

29:29

minimum in between. So

29:31

rarely do any adult males

29:33

actually perform heterosexual, reprocentric sex

29:35

with a female. And

29:37

for the most part, they're having just heroic

29:40

amounts of male sex, male-rattle

29:42

action going on because they

29:44

want to. They're horny and

29:46

it's pleasurable. We often don't

29:48

afford pleasure to animals,

29:51

but like clearly this is

29:53

something that's happening. The presence

29:55

of erection, the presence of

29:57

the lips playing, all indicative.

30:00

of the fact that this is

30:02

about courtship, about mating, about mounting.

30:06

Though many scientists, there's like

30:08

an evergreen argument

30:10

or reasoning behind same-sex

30:13

sexual behavior that it is

30:16

purely a social function, which

30:18

I do believe that it is. When

30:20

is sex not part of a social

30:23

context, part of a historical context, part

30:25

of a social political context about, you

30:27

know, two people, two animals, human animals,

30:29

giraffe animals, getting to know each other,

30:32

establishing some sort of relationship. But

30:34

I think there's an over emphasis

30:37

on dominance as being the primary

30:39

outcome. Many people talk about

30:41

necking and it has been

30:43

described as ritualistic jousting, which is

30:45

exciting. But it does sort of

30:48

fail to cross the line into

30:50

actual agro behavior because of the

30:52

lack of injury and

30:54

the result of sex and

30:57

orgasm instead. So

30:59

I think, you know, domination is part

31:01

of it and within giraffes, it's interesting.

31:04

There's like necking in giraffes offers

31:06

an interesting rebuttal to the sort

31:08

of desexualized, neutered explanation that this

31:11

is all about dominance because they

31:13

do actually have a hierarchical

31:16

structure. They have like a social

31:18

system that is about dominance. But

31:20

when it comes to the male-male

31:23

sexual behavior, all that goes out

31:25

the window. Pleasure is

31:27

for everybody. It's like very homo-communist. And

31:30

so that sort of they're not doing

31:32

it in order to establish a social

31:34

hierarchy. They're in fact ignoring social hierarchy

31:36

and will mount one and then go

31:39

over and mount another. Many males up

31:41

to six at a time will

31:44

be involved in this. Right? Right.

31:47

Think about all of those necks. Yeah. A lot of

31:49

necks. A lot of necks. It's also described as a

31:51

stately dance. Which

31:56

is really exciting. I know any choreographers

31:59

out there? like a reenactment, like hit

32:01

me up. The

32:04

stately dance of it, which speaks to

32:06

its virtuosity, which is another interesting point.

32:08

This is something that they perform,

32:11

and they perform for themselves and for each other.

32:14

And there is like a

32:17

trained amount of gentlemanly

32:19

force that

32:21

doesn't go beyond the cause

32:24

of pain. So there is,

32:26

you know, there's a little BDSM involved,

32:28

but it's like clearly not accidental. Another

32:32

one of the common

32:35

explanations given to same-sex sexual

32:37

behavior in the animal queendom

32:40

is that it's simply the result of

32:42

confusion. But there's just like

32:44

a lot of whoopsie going on among

32:46

animals, which this seems

32:48

to refute because they have to

32:50

be good at this. You don't

32:52

like accidentally, you know,

32:55

become a power bottom because

32:57

you like made a mistake.

32:59

Like they're like taking six

33:01

giraffes and doing it with

33:04

high frequency. There was a study

33:06

in Tanzania that

33:08

looked at mountings, just

33:10

mountings in general, among

33:13

giraffes in the wild. Over

33:15

3,200 hours, they observed 18 sexual mountings. How

33:21

many of those mountings would you suppose

33:23

were same-sex? All.

33:26

Ooh. All

33:29

but one. Yes. I

33:34

love that vote of optimism. All but one.

33:36

It's like 94 percent. And

33:39

this has been a frequency that

33:41

seems to continue to show up

33:44

among observations. Of course,

33:46

a lot of the observations when scientists

33:48

look at this behavior, they're so

33:50

quick to misinterpret or misidentify it

33:53

as simply a social function,

33:56

disregarding the sexual aspect

33:58

of it. And so the data doesn't go away. You

36:01

should watch there are so many videos of

36:03

her. There's actually a documentary. Oh is there?

36:05

Yeah, there is I don't remember the name

36:07

of it, but well if we can find

36:09

it. Yeah, we'll find it. We'll find it

36:11

and link it Yeah, she's she's really beautiful

36:15

And also to bring it back to

36:17

my personal sacred text biological exuberance written

36:19

by Bruce Bagell from

36:22

Seattle PhD

36:24

he has a whole section about giraffes

36:27

and there's a really wonderful quote in

36:29

it Let's see.

36:32

He says when a male giraffe

36:34

sniffs a female's rear end without

36:36

any mounting erection penetration

36:38

or ejaculation He

36:40

is described as being sexually interested

36:42

in her and his behavior is

36:45

classified as primarily if not exclusively

36:47

Sexual we see that play out

36:49

among many scientific observations Yet

36:52

quote when a male

36:54

giraffe sniff some another males genitals mounts

36:56

him with an erect penis and ejaculates

37:00

He is engaging in aggressive or

37:02

dominance behavior and his actions are

37:04

considered to be at most only

37:06

Secondarily or superficially sexual. So

37:09

one thing that he also confronted was the

37:11

amount of Homophobic

37:13

closeting that has happened It's

37:16

just a historic and ongoing

37:18

practice within many scientific institutions

37:20

and practices Because as

37:23

I'm sure you know We all know the

37:25

practice of science reflects the practices

37:28

of the scientists Big time and

37:30

and the way that they observe

37:33

behavior from their own biases and

37:35

cultural biases And so there

37:37

has over time been a large pushback

37:40

to Declaring

37:43

animal tis gay. Are you

37:45

familiar with Valerius Geist the

37:47

sheep mammologist? Not

37:50

off the top of my head So

37:53

in the 19th century forgive me for not knowing

37:55

exact dates, but he was the go-to Mammologist

37:58

on big horn sheep the

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44:14

Okay, we're back and I'm going

44:16

to get into my fact, which is

44:18

about a bird called

44:21

a Paris miner or

44:23

a Japanese tit, which

44:25

makes googling this research. Parallis

44:28

Snickers. I

44:32

recommend adding keywords like

44:35

birds or

44:37

even their Latin name. If you, if you

44:39

wish to seek out more information on the

44:41

story I'm about to tell or

44:43

not, and just like know that you're going to get

44:45

some other stuff and maybe that's what you want. And

44:47

that's okay. So be

44:49

open to the possibility. Yeah, exactly.

44:52

Just be aware, proceed

44:54

with knowledge. So

44:58

scientists from the University of Tokyo

45:01

were observing these birds

45:04

that they'd previously found to communicate

45:06

pretty sophisticatedly. In

45:10

a 2018 study and then actually

45:12

another study in 2016, they

45:15

argued that the call combinations used

45:17

by the birds amounted

45:20

to compositional syntax, which only humans

45:22

are known for sure to use.

45:24

And that's our ability to put

45:26

words and phrases together in a

45:28

way that creates new meanings. We

45:31

know that many non-human animals

45:33

use what's called referential

45:36

communication. So like sounds

45:38

mean specific things, but

45:41

syntax makes speech more

45:44

complicated, but also makes it more useful.

45:46

It can encode more information. You

45:49

have phonological and compositional syntax. Phonological

45:52

syntax are like sounds that individually

45:54

they don't have any meaning come

45:57

together and now they have meaning.

46:00

And previously, non-human

46:02

animals were only supposed to have

46:05

phonological syntax. These birds, researchers

46:07

had said, no, they actually

46:09

have compositional syntax.

46:13

The example is that when

46:15

they were signaling to other birds

46:17

about a predator, they would be

46:19

scanning for predators. They would

46:21

make this ABC call, so putting together,

46:23

you know, these clusters of sounds A,

46:26

B, and C. And

46:29

that was a signal that birds should be

46:32

scanning for predators. And then when they followed

46:34

it up with D, that

46:36

meant birds should approach each other. So

46:39

ABCD was like, look

46:43

around for predators, but come over

46:45

here. And

46:48

they were like, well, maybe they're just

46:50

hearing those two separate, like,

46:53

words, if you will, A, B, C,

46:55

and D, and doing two reactions because

46:57

they are hearing both pieces

47:00

of information. But then they like scrambled it up. They

47:02

played like D, A, B, C, and the birds were

47:04

like, I don't know what that means. So

47:08

it basically they were saying they're putting together

47:10

like sentences, if you will. That

47:14

is not, you know, that was like just

47:17

a couple of studies from one research group. It's

47:19

still sort of an ongoing question. If

47:22

we can call that compositional syntax and

47:24

whether other birds do it. But

47:27

the same group, which is led by

47:29

a researcher who has now been observing

47:31

these birds for 17 years, was

47:34

like, what other kinds of communication might these

47:36

birds be doing? Let's look

47:39

at gesture. And

47:41

gesture is really interesting because

47:45

some kinds of gestures are

47:47

like quite common

47:50

in non-human animals

47:52

and some are really, really

47:55

rare. We have humans

47:58

have, I looked up to different kinds

48:00

of gestures for this. And I'm

48:02

kind of delighted, so I'm just going to share, even

48:04

though it's not the most important to the study. So

48:07

we have what are called motor or

48:09

beat gestures. And those are things that

48:11

can only occur in tandem with speech.

48:14

It's stuff like gesticulating to emphasize a

48:16

point. And

48:18

then we have lexical or iconic

48:21

gestures. Those also happen

48:23

with speech, but they either echo

48:25

or elaborate on the meaning of

48:27

the words being spoken. So like

48:30

rubbing your hands together when you say

48:32

that you're cold or using air quotes.

48:36

And yeah, it's emphasizing or changing

48:39

the meaning of the words you're

48:41

saying, but it's with words. They

48:43

don't really mean something on their

48:45

own. We've all been rubbing our

48:48

chins this whole time. Yes, exactly.

48:50

To indicate the scholarly nature of

48:52

the discussion. Yeah, it's true

48:54

this entire time. Then

48:57

there are diactic or

49:00

indexical gestures. Indexical, what a

49:02

word. And

49:04

those can happen either with or without vocalized

49:07

speech. So those

49:09

are indicative. So like a point or like

49:12

a ta-da motion, where it's like, look at

49:14

this, or look at that. So

49:17

limited meaning, but extremely useful. And

49:20

it's generally thought that indexical

49:23

gestures are the only kind of

49:26

gestures that non-primates can make. There's

49:28

been some research on, for

49:31

example, ravens and certain kinds of fish

49:34

that they have gestures that mean like, look at

49:36

that. Again,

49:39

not super complex, but

49:41

still communication and really

49:44

useful and using your body

49:46

as a tool, if you think about it. And

49:52

then dogs and elephants have both been

49:54

shown to understand what humans mean when

49:57

they point at something, even

49:59

if they don't. point themselves. So, you

50:02

know, it does seem like this

50:04

sort of straightforward indexical

50:08

gesture is like a

50:11

lot of animals probably have the cognition

50:13

to figure out what that means or

50:15

do it. But

50:19

symbolic gestures are

50:21

another matter entirely. These are gestures that

50:23

are inherently loaded with meaning.

50:26

So like a wave, an eye

50:29

roll, a clap, a come hither

50:31

motion. Chimp's

50:33

use dozens of gestures, many

50:36

of them symbolic, to communicate

50:38

with each other. You

50:41

know, that is how they

50:43

manage sophisticated communication with,

50:46

you know, much more limited

50:48

vocal repertoire than humans have.

50:51

And research suggests that actually humans can

50:53

usually figure out what chimp gestures mean,

50:55

which is fun. There have

50:58

been some studies where they show humans

51:00

like a hundred different chimp gestures and

51:03

mostly can figure out what they mean. Like

51:05

sometimes researchers are like, this

51:11

shows how early back in

51:14

our evolution the gesturing goes.

51:17

It's like it makes intuitive sense

51:19

to us. And I just think it's

51:21

fun to think about trying to interpret

51:23

the message of a chimp who's trying

51:25

to get your attention. That

51:27

makes me think that chimps also have

51:30

a rather robust gestural

51:32

vocabulary for indicating what kind of sex

51:34

they want to have. Really? Yeah. So

51:37

they have, I mean, they do come hither.

51:39

They will like talk about like, oh, we

51:41

just want like nuzzling. I want

51:44

like genital engagement. Yeah.

51:46

Yeah. So they can communicate. You

51:49

know, to each other. I love that. Isn't

51:51

that beautiful? It's lovely. They've

51:54

figured out how to communicate.

51:56

Yeah. But

52:01

anyway, back to the Japanese tit. It

52:04

seems like they might also be

52:07

capable of symbolic gestures. I

52:10

know, I know. Like as

52:12

many times as I

52:14

encounter the fact that there are birds called tits,

52:16

it's still, it's just

52:18

great. Tits are great all around, full stop.

52:20

It's true, it's true. Thinking about like a horny group

52:22

of people, they're out there thinking like, it's a booby,

52:25

it's a dixisole. You're like, it's a mop.

52:29

They know what they're doing. As a

52:31

gay birder, I will say. Yeah,

52:34

they know what they're doing. So

52:37

in the forest where these birds

52:39

live, again,

52:41

these researchers have been observing them for 17 years

52:44

and counting now. And in that time

52:46

they've installed dozens

52:48

or hundreds of nest boxes that

52:51

are meant to mimic

52:54

the tree cavities that these birds

52:56

usually live inside

52:58

of. And

53:02

an important thing about them is that only

53:04

one bird can fit through the entry hole

53:06

of these cavities and the boxes meant to

53:08

mimic them at a time. So

53:11

you, they do

53:13

not enter simultaneously. So

53:17

that will become important in a second. So in

53:19

this new study, the researchers

53:22

observed a bunch of nest visitations

53:25

because they were investigating something

53:28

that they thought they had spotted. They

53:30

were like, we're pretty sure that we're

53:32

seeing the birds, sometimes one of them

53:34

will flap their wings in this very

53:37

particular way. And

53:40

that we think they're telling

53:42

the other bird to go into the nest

53:44

before them. And so they were

53:46

like, okay, we're gonna

53:48

observe a lot of birds entering the nest.

53:50

And they watched more than 320 from eight

53:54

different mated pairs. They

53:56

were bringing foods back to the little

53:59

hut. to feed

54:01

their babies. And

54:04

they did see this behavior happening and

54:07

it was most often performed by females, but

54:09

both of them would do it. And

54:14

regardless of which bird arrived first at

54:16

the site, if

54:19

one of them fluttered their wings, the

54:21

other one would enter the box first.

54:23

And actually, usually the female

54:25

would enter first. So it kind of made sense

54:27

that the females were more likely to do this

54:29

gesture because basically they would be like, buy

54:32

their little nest box. And

54:35

in the normal course of events, apparently mom would

54:39

go in first. And

54:41

if instead she flutters her wings, dad

54:44

goes in first. Why? We don't know.

54:46

But that does seem to be what

54:48

the flutter was indicating.

54:51

And of course, all of the coverage

54:53

of this recent study

54:55

was like, they're saying after

54:57

you. Right, right, right, right, right.

54:59

That is very adorable.

55:01

And also like, they could just as

55:03

easily be saying like, hurry the fuck

55:06

up. Totally. But

55:09

you know, I digress. They

55:11

got them, you know, they make this gesture

55:13

and it seems to be saying, please

55:15

enter the box we live in

55:17

before I go in. And yeah,

55:20

there were a few things about the way

55:22

they used this motion that the

55:24

researchers say does indicate it's

55:27

being used in this symbolic

55:29

gesture fashion. So

55:33

they only made this flutter when they were

55:35

together in pairs. It wasn't something they saw

55:37

the birds ever do when they were alone.

55:41

They would stop the motion once

55:43

the mate entered the box. They

55:47

didn't physically touch the other bird. They

55:50

also didn't gesture toward the box. So

55:52

which would have made it more of a,

55:54

you know, this indexical thing, they were fluttering

55:57

at the other bird. It was, you know,

55:59

they were going like. you do

56:01

something. And so yeah, all of

56:03

this together combined with

56:05

the sort of frequency with which they

56:08

saw this sequence of events happening makes

56:11

the researchers say they are pretty

56:13

confident that this is a symbolic

56:15

gesture, that birds have a wave

56:17

that means get in

56:19

the house. Again, tone, who

56:21

knows, but the message is

56:24

clear. I want to think that it's

56:26

like, I'm afraid to go in there, it's dark, there could

56:28

be monsters or a bad guy, will you please go check

56:31

first. I also had that thought. I

56:33

was like, these are like

56:35

fake tree cavities that researchers have. And

56:37

maybe sometimes they're like, I don't know,

56:39

maybe there's a grad student doing some

56:41

of the weird in there. Gonna

56:44

grab me. Yeah, I

56:47

was thinking maybe she's just like, I need

56:49

a moment. Yeah, right. I need a

56:51

moment. Totally. Also,

56:53

go to India. Yeah,

56:56

exactly. Yeah. All really

56:58

valid reasons. Right. Yeah,

57:01

so what's really cool about this

57:04

is, like I said, it's, they're

57:06

probably not the first people to claim they

57:08

have seen symbolic gestures in other animals. I'm

57:10

sure there have been other studies doing that.

57:12

But, you know,

57:14

it's not something that's been really conclusively

57:18

proven in other animals. So if they're

57:20

able to keep observing these birds and,

57:22

you know, this is reproduced, that would

57:24

be very exciting. And then, you

57:26

know, of course, you

57:28

know, if one non-primate is doing this, then it's

57:30

like, I bet there are a bunch that we

57:33

don't know about and haven't thought about. And I

57:35

think it's, you know, what's

57:38

always really exciting about this kind of

57:40

animal behavior research is that there

57:43

are so many animals that like

57:46

physiologically do not have the same

57:49

gestural tools we have. So

57:51

it's sort of like, how

57:53

many animals are there that

57:55

do communicate to each other

57:57

with symbolic gestures? And it's just that, like,

58:00

like what they're doing involves,

58:04

you know, features or body parts

58:06

that we don't pay attention to as

58:08

being important for communication. Absolutely. I

58:11

mean, we often fail to recognize the

58:13

symbolic gestures of each other just across

58:16

culture. Very true. So, good point. Trans

58:18

species. Yeah. Yeah, great point.

58:20

When I was looking at the like list

58:22

of gestures, there was definitely

58:24

a lot of them that are like

58:27

so rude one country, you know, very

58:29

chill in another, which is of

58:32

course a classic trope.

58:36

But yeah, the other thing that the

58:38

researchers really like about this is because

58:40

humans are

58:44

thought to have relied on gestures quite

58:46

a bit in developing our communication. You

58:49

know, of course, because chimps

58:51

use symbolic gestures to have very

58:53

sophisticated communication with each other, even

58:55

though they don't have speech

58:59

at all like ours. The

59:01

thought is that speech, you

59:04

know, came out of an existing

59:07

communication system that we had that, you

59:09

know, probably did rely heavily on gestures.

59:11

So just in terms of studying

59:14

the evolution of like

59:16

social cognition, it's

59:19

really exciting. There's a cool thought that basically

59:22

once humans started walking on two legs, our

59:25

hands were free. So we were able to

59:27

do way more complicated stuff with our communication.

59:30

That's interesting. And yeah, and that things just

59:32

kind of unfolded from there. And

59:34

the researchers like birds also

59:37

have their hands free. That's true. If

59:39

you think about it, they can perch.

59:42

And, oh,

59:44

and while we were taking a break, you mentioned that

59:46

meme of the bird pointing

59:48

angrily with their wings. Yes. I

59:52

would say that that is probably indexical,

59:55

but I don't know, could be

59:57

symbolic, could be exasperation. Hard

1:00:00

to say. Anyway.

1:00:02

Is not pointing at, is

1:00:05

not looking at the thing that they're pointing

1:00:07

at. That's true. Is making direct eye contact.

1:00:10

Yeah. So it's sort of like, get

1:00:12

your ass in there. Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

1:00:16

Incredible. I love that

1:00:18

we had all animal stories today. Yeah,

1:00:20

me too. A delightful assortment

1:00:24

of tales about, about

1:00:27

cute little critters and funky

1:00:30

little guys. Always

1:00:32

enjoyable. Owen, thank

1:00:34

you so much for coming on. This was great. This

1:00:36

was such a pleasure. It was

1:00:39

so fun. Such a pleasure. Yeah.

1:00:41

I, you know, as a curious

1:00:43

person as you all are, I am

1:00:46

so excited to now know about these

1:00:48

snakes and these birds, the Japanese tit.

1:00:51

Deserves being said one more time. Yeah. Absolutely.

1:00:57

And remind listeners what

1:00:59

your show is called so that they can find it. Yeah.

1:01:01

So I'm Owen Ever, co-host of a

1:01:04

field guide to gay animals from Canada

1:01:06

land. It will

1:01:08

be streaming on Apple Spotify or wherever

1:01:10

you get your podcasts coming this June.

1:01:12

Woo. Pride month. Woo. Woo.

1:01:16

The weirdest thing I learned this week

1:01:18

is produced by all of our hosts,

1:01:20

including me, Rachel Thalman, along with Jess

1:01:23

Bodie, who also serves as our audio

1:01:25

engineer and editor extraordinaire. Our theme music

1:01:27

is by Billy Cadden. Our logo is

1:01:30

by Katie Belloff. If you have questions,

1:01:32

suggestions, or weird stories to share, tweet

1:01:34

us at weirdest underscore thing. Thanks for

1:01:37

listening, weirdos. This

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episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. This year is

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