Radiolab - Bonus: Wild Animal Dads from Terrestrials

Episode Date: June 18, 2026

In honor of Father's Day, here is a family friendly bonus episode from our kids' podcast Terrestrials.  What does it really mean to be a dad? In the animal world, fathers have long been painted as aggressive or absent. At best providers and protectors, but certainly not caregivers. And yet for every tale of a lion or chimp dad eating its own young (yikes!), there’s another creature who tells a sweeter story.  Two HUMAN dads bring us on this DADventure: Dr. Eduardo Fernandez-Duque, who has spent decades studying owl monkey dads in the forests of Argentina, and Michael Feigelson, who once worried he wasn't cut out for the softer side of parenting.  They introduce us to seahorse dads who get pregnant, poison dart frog dads who give piggyback rides to their tadpoles, Darwin frogs who swallow their eggs to keep them safe, burying beetles who build "corpse cribs," jacana birds who do all the egg-sitting, and stickleback fish who construct intricate underwater nests for their young. Along the way, we learn that nature doesn’t offer just one model of fatherhood. Alongside Mother Nature... there just might be a Father Nature, too. Special thanks to the Van Leer Foundation for the support of this episode.  Resources on Animal fatherhood Eduardo Duque's Owl Monkey Project: https://www.owlmonkeyproject.com/ An interview with Eduardo in Yale News Lauren O’Connell lab – frog behaviour Short explainer: frog parenting research Stickleback fish parenting study (Alison Bell) Alison Bell lab video Human fatherhood  Fathertime by Sarah Blaffer Hrdy ECM interview: evolution of “man the nurturer” Lee Gettler – biology of fatherhood (video) Lee Gettler article in Early Childhood Matters Darby Saxbe book: Dad Brain Darby Saxbe Article in Early Childhood Matters Talks, films & convenings Yale Conference on Fatherhood Live Recording of Yale Conference:  Fathers and Fatherhood: From Molecules to Modern Families Fathertime documentary Campaigns & global perspectives Equimundo's State of World's fathers report Men Care Changemakers Journey Parenting Out Loud (Elliot Rae) Terrestrials was created by Lulu Miller with WNYC studios. This episode was produced by Tanya Chawla, with sound design by Mira Burt-Wintonick. Sarah Sandbach is our Executive Producer. Our team also includes Ana González, Alan Goffinski, Natalia Ramirez, and Joe Plourde. Fact checking by Angely Mercado.  Signup for our newsletter!! It includes short essays, recommendations, and details about other ways to interact with the show. Sign up (https://radiolab.org/newsletter)! Radiolab is supported by listeners like you. Support Radiolab by becoming a member of The Lab (https://members.radiolab.org/) today. Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @radiolab, and share your thoughts with us by emailing [e-mail]. Leadership support for Radiolab’s science programming is provided by the Simons Foundation and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey friends, Lulu here. And with Father's Day coming up this weekend, I just wanted to drop a special little meditation on dads in the animal world. This is an episode that we are dropping for terrestrials. And I thought some of you might enjoy it because I think it expands our understanding of what fatherhood can look like. And rest assured, tomorrow is your regularly scheduled radio lab drop. So enjoy that. And enjoy this dead. adventure. Okay, here we go. Wait, you're listening.

Okay. All right. Okay. All right. You're listening to Radio Lab. Flickette. Radio Lab. From W-N-Y-C.

See? Yeah. Three, two, one. Imagine. You shrink down to the size of the Chihuahua. And your eyes. grow bigger and bigger until they take up almost half your head and these eyes give you great night vision so when most of the forest has gone to sleep you can come out to

feast and swing and play you have become an owl monkey at almonkey now is part where i make you sing the theme song with me terrestrials terrestrials we are not going to The worst, we are the best. Best. Bestrioles. You got it. Bastrials. Oh, my.

Terrestrials is a show where we uncover the strangeness, waiting right here on Earth. I'm your host, Lou Miller, joined, as always by my song, bud. Hoot, who, who do you think you are? Now, like snowflakes, no two families are exactly the same. There are families with one parent, families with a mom and a dad, families with two moms like mine, families with two dads, families with a non-binary parent or a grandparent parent, like snowflakes,

the shape and beauty of a family is limitless. But with Father's Day right around the corner, we wanted to spend some time today shining light on Daddy! Hey, lovely to be here. Yep, yep, whoa, what's up? That's right, we are heading off on a dad venture that will have you swinging high in the trees. With owl monkey dads, who, who, who, who, and burbling deep in the sea. With seahorse dads and leaping and bounding and twirling with such cool frog, bug, and bird dads, that it just might flip. Your understanding of fatherhood showing you why what it looks like to be a dad is way more rad than we are sometimes taught.

And here to guide us on this dad venture are two human dads. Hello. You go first. No. Dad number one, Michael, he's got a daughter. Mila, she's 11, almost 12. And dad number two. My boys are 33, 30, and 23.

Dr. Eduardo. And my last name is Fernandez Duque. Someone chimed in. Was that a bird? I am surrounded by birds in my backyard. Yeah, there was a gorgeous bird call. And you're right now in Argentina? Yes. Dr. Eduardo is a biological anthropologist and behavioral scientist

who has spent decades observing owl monkeys in the forests of South America. Let me close the window. That may reduce the bird. Okay, but say hi to the bird or say hola. And our story begins outside that window. Way out in the forest, way up high in the canopy, where there is a male owl monkey who is just moments away from becoming a father. Now picture this guy.

He's about the size of a chihuahua, white face with huge orange eyes that help him see really well at night. That's why he's called an owl monkey. He does not, unfortunately, hoot like I thought he might, but like owls, he does come out at night. Anyway, at this particular moment, next to this monkey, his mate, the female owl monkey, is pushing out a baby owl monkey,

the size of a chipmunk. Now, this is a very charged moment in the animal world, because with some animals, like chimps, Lions, hamsters, goby fish, beetles. Okay, the list is pretty long. The father has been known to kill their babies. Sometimes even eat them. What, I was hungry.

Which is, I guess, common enough to give it a scientific name. Fillionilial cannibal is on. And if they're not doing that, certain animals dads are famous for, well, bailing. Ooh, I'm out. Checking out, leaving the female parent to do all the care and feeding of the baby. You got this, babe. So back to our owl monkey dad, sitting right next to the baby in the Argentinian forest, the thing is, up until this moment, no one knew how that dad was going to respond because... No one, no one had ever seen a baby owl monkey being born in the wild.

But that day, Eduardo's team happened to be there on the forest floor observing. It took about half hour that the baby came out of the wild. the mother's womb. And what was fascinating is that the father was also very, very close. Really? And trying to help. I mean, he was touching the umbilical cord. No.

You know this cord that connects the baby? Yeah. The baby. He was possibly trying to help the mama monkey cut it so the baby could be free. That is right there as the baby is born born. And for the first week, the baby is just nursing, nursing, nursing, like crazy on the mom until... Mom is like, enough. I've had it with this suckling.

I'm done, I need some space. Yeah. But there comes dad to the rescue. The baby literally climbs onto the dad's back and basically does not leave for months. The two of them bounce and swing through the treetops together. Daddy's going to play with an infant. Tag, you're it.

He grooms the infant. Get those mites out. He teaches him how to curl up into a tiny ball way up high. in the tree so he looks almost invisible so he can sleep during the day. Sweet daydreams, little one. And as the baby grows up, dad starts teaching him how to pick out tasty fruits

which fruits to bite into, which to avoid. That one tastes gross. How to catch a moth mid-air. Nice job. But pretty much this whole time the baby's little arms are wrapped around the dad's shoulders, meaning this is a three

month long piggyback ride. Or should I call it a monkeyback? ride. Now, around four months, the baby climbs off the piggyback ride and starts braving the big leaps up in the branches by itself, unless... Suddenly you get to a gap between branches and you need to take a jump, and so they may give you a little bit of a squeak or a squeal, and that says, okay, hold on a minute. I'm going to put you in my back and take him across the gap. I got you a little one. What is very powerful is the evidence we have that eventually over the years, the infant, seems to have a stronger attachment or bond to the father than the mother.

Wow. So as Eduardo and his team are discovering all the secrets of the owl monkey dad, halfway across the globe living in Switzerland at the time, our other human dad, Michael, he's becoming a father. Yeah. And while he is completely obsessed with his new daughter, Mila, completely in love with her, He says he wasn't sure exactly what to do with her, or how to soothe her, bathe her.

I was, I didn't grow up sort of being super comfortable expressing my emotions or super comfortable with physical touch. And so at first with this baby in his arms, he just felt a little awkward or unnatural, which felt in this weird way. like maybe the natural way for a dad to feel? There was this story about what's natural, you know, what's natural for the mom, for the dad, for the family. And we did have, in my education, a lot of comparisons to animals, but usually we were being compared to chimpanzees. Growing up, Michael was told that since humans were closely related to chimps through evolution, were both primates, we share a common ancestor, then some of the things chimps do might somehow

be inside us as instincts too. And chimp dads, well, at the time Michael was growing up, they were understood to be very aggressive at their worst. And at their best, well, they were just off somewhere else. It seemed like in nature, the dad role was about hunting and protection. And he thought, well, maybe nature was sending him a message that he'd never be good at the softer side of parenting. And then one day, a few years ago, Michael is lamenting about all this what a dad's natural role truly is when his friend says, wait, wait, wait, you got to call Dr. Eduardo. He studies owl monkeys and I reached out to him and he was like, I'll come over.

I'll come over to your house. Let's have a play date, basically. Really? Okay, that's awesome. Come to my house. He felt like that. Yeah. So he came over and we're like, let's go swimming.

And I brought my goggles. He's a really good swimmer, by the way. Okay. Really fast. We kept talking about all sorts of different dads. Chimp dads and their own dads. And at some point, Dr. Eduardo started telling Michael what he had observed with owl monkey dads. He's talking about a two to three-month piggyback ride.

Your guys are at your play date. I'm picturing you. You're swimming in the waves. And like, I don't know, Eduardo's like, no, Michael. And then a wave comes. He's like, no, no, no, really. Owl monkeys are amazing. Dads!

So what, from your side, Michael, what did you, what did Eduardo tell you that day and how did it hit you? Well, first I was like, that's so cute. And then at the same time, I was kind of upset. Hmm. Why? Well, I was like, why am I hearing about this for the first time? And so I was sort of like, who picked which monkey we were going to be compared to? And why did they pick chimpanzees? because if they had picked the owl monkeys, you know, maybe I would have learned something different.

So I found myself kind of wanting to dig into sort of what other animals are out there that might do fathering differently. And he will share what he finds and take us on some of the wildest turns in this dadventor. After this short break. Terrestrials is back. We are talking about the raddest of the daddest with our dad friend Michael. and he is on a quest to learn all about animal dads who defy the stereotypes and show us all the amazing ways a dad can dad. And to start off, we have...

Sea Horses! The seahorses is the one that everybody knows. Okay, but tell it. But it's important because the dads get pregnant. So what does that mean? They really... What does that mean? He does, like, the dance, a courtship dance, and then the female will put her eggs into a pouch in the...

the male seahorses belly, and the pouch is kind of like a magical pouch. It will change the levels of oxygen and salt, and it's kind of like a womb, you know, getting them ready to go out into the ocean. And they're pregnant for, I think, a couple weeks, and then the dad seahorse goes into labor, and it could take a few hours, and they just shoot out hundreds of baby seahorses, all like fully formed but really tiny. And then they can get pregnant again a few days later. Wow, just right off the bat.

There goes nature shattering another rule. Like those hard lines we thought existed between what a mom is supposed to do and a dad's supposed to do. Like the two categories, they just aren't there. There's so many different ways to be a dad. there's a lot of options and we're flexible and we can organize and be whatever it is that our kids need. That in and of itself is natural, that that is something you find in nature. Okay. Who is our next dad?

I got totally obsessed with poison dart frogs. So they live in that rainforest. in South America. Do they shoot poison dart? So they're called poison dart frogs because people have used venom that comes from them to make poison tips on arrows. Oh, cool. Okay. They're the size of like your thumbnail.

Oh, tiny. Okay. Little frogs. And they're singers. Well, they chirp, right? Okay. To kind of claim like a territory. And the females will listen to them chirping to see like who's the best singer to decide where they want to lay their eggs.

And I swear, by the moon and the stars in the sky, I'll be there chirping. And so the females will lay the eggs on wet leaves on the forest floor. And then the dads will guard them. And this is the best part. When they hatch, the dad will take each tadpole individually on a piggyback ride. What? So on his back. Just like the owl monkey.

Each one individually and go and find. a plant that sort of has some covering, it has some water inside, and it'll lay the tadpole in there so that it's safe and it has water. Like in a pool, a little kitty pool? Here, kiddo, take a swim. But he won't put any of them together

because he doesn't want them to compete for resources. And I think he also doesn't want if one's born, it comes up to eat the other one. And then coming back and checking on them all the time to make sure there's, enough water, and if they need to eat, the dads, they can't feed the tadpoles. Sorry, little frogies. Only mommy can feed you by laying one of her eggs for you to eat. So they'll do their song again to try and persuade if there's a female in the area to come and

feed them a little bit more. Remember, they're the size of your thumbnail. And they're like journeying with these tadpole babies all over, placing them coming back, checking on them. And they're so cute. Like playing music to like lure food back. Like, wow, that is a toad-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-aw-some father. Next up, another contender from Frogland. The Darwin Frog. Found in the forest of Argentina in Chile.

They also guard the eggs, like the poisoned dartfrogs. But then they do this really funny thing. They put them in their mouth. They swallow them. No. Wait, the bat-like the tadpoles or the eggs, the eggs? swallow the eggs and then they store them in a vocal sack in their throat because it's safer, right? It's safer in there. And then inside this pouch in their throat, they grow and they're

protected. The father eats a bit less. He stops calling around so much because he doesn't want to draw attention. Oh, you can't sing because otherwise you're like, oh, look at my babies. And then, but then, and then, like the big reveal is when they're sort of ready to go out. on their own, they just walk out of their dad's mouth into the world. They're literally taking refuge in him. Yeah. Wow. That is talking about biting off more than you could chew.

That's a big fatherly commitment. Yeah. Next up, father number four. The burying beetles. Okay, so burying beetles, also tiny little beetles. Okay, and berry, we're not talking like blueberries. You mean burying underground, like burying underground. Like burying underground because.

They find a small animal like a mouse or a bird that's dead. They will team up with a mom. Okay. And they'll bury it underground. The dead, the corpse. The carcass. Okay, this sounds pretty gross. Okay.

It is gross. But it's also really cool. Okay. Full of love. They'll clean it. They'll get rid of debris and they'll shape it. And they turn it. They shape it.

Okay, let's just go with a mouse. So like a dead mouse, they clean it, meaning like they eat all the dead meat and fur? Hold on. Or they get it off. I have a picture, too. Wait, what am I looking at? It was a mouse. It's going to be a nursery.

Wait. A corpse, a skeleton crib? Yeah, yeah. It's not just a skeleton because it's also going to be a source of food. It's going to be like an edible nursery. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's like a corpse nursery. It's a corpse crib.

Exactly. It's the corpse crib, but not so scary. Because they code it. with this anti-microbial secretion. Oh, because dead meat has lots of bacteria. And the antimicrobial secretion, I look this up just for terrestrials, it comes from their mouth and from their butt.

Show that you care with antibacterial spray from your dairy. Don't try this at home. Don't try this at home. They find a dead body. They like mush the dead flesh around so that it becomes shaped like a crib, they disinfect it, and then what do they do? The babies hatch, the larvae hatch, and they can hang out in there, but they can't yet eat themselves.

So the dad will do this thing that you see with birds, like chew it and then feed them from it. Once again, the it is dead flesh. Yeah. So he like baby birds some dead flesh from the walls of the crib. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Into its both so sweet. Happy Father's Day. And, and, and they'll defend their kids from animals that could be like a hundred times bigger, like a mouse.

Like there's no chance, right, that they're going to be able to do it. One of the ways that they do this is they have this nasty smelling chemical that they can make in the glands of their butt again. Like a skunk. It's like an insect skunk. Yeah, yeah. And then the last part of this, and very relevant for a conversation, sometimes the mom. The mom will just wander off. And if the mom just wanders off, the dad will raise the whole family by himself, which is like 10, 20, 30 babies per brood.

So like some serious, heavy single fathering goes on here. Whoa. Okay, moving on to dad numero Cinco. The chimp! Wait, what? Wasn't the chimp the whole symbol of the mean dad? List your thin. Not all chimp dads are mean dad.

So in recent years, scientists observing chimps in the wild in the forests of Tanzania have discovered that chimp fathers are not always as aggressive or gnarly or absent as we thought. There is no one way that a male chimp parents. It depends on the individual. Some of those dads groom and cuddle their babies, and on rare occasions have even been observed taking in a baby that isn't theirs. That's way better than our first chimp impression of them. All right. Next up, a feathery father fellow. Say that 10 times fast.

A feathery father fellow. A feathery father fellow. A feathery father fellow. Chacana. Jacana is a waiting bird about the size of a chicken. Waiting meaning it likes water? Yes. Yes.

And so the Jacanas, what happens, is that moms are looking around and they go shopping for a potential dad that's going to take good care of the eggs. Oh. So the females are fighting for the attention of a male who's going to take good care of the eggs she lays. Wow. So she finds a spot.

She lays the eggs. And so the male is going to sit with the eggs and incubate them and protect them until the eggs hatch. And mom isn't incubating at all? I don't think Mabby incubates. Oh, gosh, I don't know why it's so hard for me to picture a dad. incubating all on his own. It's like proof of how strong my miseducation has been. Like these beliefs about dad and mom are even in our language. Because we say things like,

oh, she's a mother hen. It's a part of our language. Like... Mother nature. Yeah, mother nature. Wow. Does that hurt your feelings as men? Not. Doesn't hurt my feelings, but I think that there's a father nature as much as there's Mother Nature. Oh, I like that. Okay, now, speaking of father hen types, nesting dads, it is time now for our sixth and final dad.

Don't poo-poo this papa to meet the top of the pops. We got to go down deep to give props. The stickleback fish. Okay, this to me looks like a tiny stagosaurus of a fish with like sharp spikes running down its back. And that's why it's called stickleback, I think. Okay. So they're known as.

as like underwater architects. So they build nests on the bottom of a pond or streamed, also to get the moms to want to lay eggs. And they use bits of plants that they glue together with a sticky substance that is called spigin. Spigin. It's made out of protein-based mucus. And so they build these nests.

And then they do these zigzag dances. Like they do dances when they see a female with a belly full of eggs. try to get her to lay the eggs in the nest, and then she goes and the dad will take care of them and sort of take them the rest of the way. Wow. I just pulled up a picture of the nest because I was trying to picture it because I usually think of a fish nest as just like a little smoothed out bit of sand, but this is, this has

architecture. It looks almost like a bird's nest up on its side. It's clearly arranged with so much care. And I don't know. It just makes me think back to all your worries that started this thing, Michael, that dads don't do the nesting or the cozying or the softer parts and it's just like here's another one yet another creature where the dad is doing that can i can i jump in edwardo yeah go ahead there was this study by another college michael says that all kinds of scientists have been trying to understand

where a parent's caretaking behavior where it comes from like is it an old part of us or something that's new and involves lots of complex thought in the brain. And they're finding some pretty neat stuff. Like there was one experiment that took dads and watched... How their brain activates when they see and play with the baby. And you would see activation in the really old parts of our brain. And another scientist called Kumikaroda. And she was trying to isolate what part of the brain was responsible.

for nesting behavior. And she had concluded that the first sort of parental instinct, the first nesting behavior, was male fish millions of years ago. Whoa. Fish, of course, are who we came from. Mammals descended from fish hundreds of millions of years ago. And it was only then when we came on land and, you know, had the babies outside the body and had to breastfeed that these other parts came in.

But one of the big lessons of all of this was, you know, get in touch with your inner fish. We all have that kind of biology and it's really, really old. It's deep. Yeah. Has learning about all these different ways that dads show care in the animal world, has it changed you in any way? The sort of joke I've been making is it's a kind of new take on dad bod. Like we're actually incredibly flexible. and capable of connecting in a profound way.

Like, we can do this. And our bodies, our brains are made for this, actually. Give it up for dance. Give it up for dance. Give it up for dance. Come in all shapes and sizes. They're full of surprises. Come in all shapes and sizes.

They're full of surprises. Of all different species. and every location The dad delegation Is sweeping the nation Deep in their mind these dads are going primal The love and care they share with their child is wild Dads

I'm talking about They're singing off key They don't really care They're clapping off beats They're baking dessert They're mowing the lawn They're braiding your hair They're dancing along

If their back doesn't hurt Dads Give it up for Dads Come in all shapes and sizes They're full of surprises When a kindness arises They don't try to fight it Of all different species

From monkeys to fish Are loving and cuddling They hug and they kiss Daddies who care are everywhere, it's true So let's do this one more time with Dadatitude I'm talking about Dats All kinds of

So cancel your kids your plans and celebrate. So cancel your plans and celebrate. Alan, go Finsky, everyone. And that's it. Nothing else cool about that. What's that? Excuse me.

I have a question. Me two. Me three. Me four. The batterers. Listeners with badgering questions for our expert. Eduardo, are you ready? Yeah, absolutely.

Hi, my name is Emerson. I'm seven years old. My question is, who would win in the fight? An owl monkey or an owl owl owl? Oh, gee, I think an owl owl. I would be scared of an owl grabbing the old monkey with its feet and claws, yeah? I put my money with an owl owl owl. Well, with that scientific recommendation, I would put owl my money with an owl owl, too.

Hi, I'm Cassidy. I'm nine years old. My question is, have you ever hugged an owl monkey? Full disclosure. It was back in the day where we're allowed to do these things. Uh-huh. 20, 24 years ago. Yes, I've had them in my arms and hold them. But what did it feel like?

It moves you. I mean, you're handling these animals. You want them to do well. You're releasing them into the forest again. So it's a very nice feeling. My name is Lucan. I'm five years old. And my question is,

can owl monkeys go onto the top of your roof somehow? Of course. In fact, some people told me when I started working with owl monkeys, they were showing me the roof of their houses, and they said, can you see how clean they are? There are no spider webs. Well, that's because our monkeys do come on the roof, and they like insects, and they eat them, and they do the job for us of keeping our roof clean. Now that's the monkey business. I can get behind. Hey, I'm Tobin, and I'm Lucy's dad. Why are owl monkey toes so long? Because that's very important if you're walking

around in relatively thin branches. That's for the same reason that them like us have what we call the opposable thumb. It really helps your gripping of the branches along which you walk. Hello, my name is Parker. I'm five years old. Do owl monkeys see anything different with their orange eyes? Ooh, I love that. What would the world look like through an owl monkey's eyes?

Black and white, for one, not in color. Okay. And we would have pretty, very, very detailed skills to detect the variation of the black and white. I mean, the hues, the gradient. And what about at nighttime? They see better than us. They see better than us because of specific cells of the eyes. But Eduardo says we humans can see better in the dark than you might think.

Get out. Get out on a night of a full moon. Give yourself 10 minutes without light and bring a book. and if you have a full moon and you allow yourself at 10 minutes you'll be reading the book Oh, me if you cannot

I bet you that you'll do it you can read a book, no problems but you have to let your eyes adjust I'm going to try this there's actually a full moon in a couple of days there you go okay

test test it is a very full moon I'm sitting you can maybe hear the waves of Lake Michigan I'm sitting right near the lake in this dark park where there are no street lights. And I'm going to do the test. Ten minutes later, I opened up my son's copy of Wild Robot to a random page.

If I really look, I can almost get words. Like, somebody grinned. Kempink grinned? I can't quite. Definitely got better. Dr. Eduardo was right. It got impressively better my eyesight in 10 minutes, but I can't quite get there. Here's what might be messing with the experiment. Number one, there's some clouds in front of the moon. And number two, I'm getting older and my eyesight has actually started to get worse, and I don't have glasses.

So I don't know. If you guys try this on a full moon, see if you can read even more. And I think that's where we're going to leave it with a little bit of real-life experimentation. Learning owl about owl monkeys has been a real hoot. And I won't tell you about barking tree frog dads who prevent their egg clusters from getting too dry by dousing them with urine. I won't tell you that. Because I'm nice.

Treasials was created by me, Lulu Miller with WNYC Studios. This episode was produced by Tanya Chala with sound designed by Mira Bertwin Tonic. Sarah Sambaki's our executive producer, our team also includes Ellen Kofinski, Anna Gonzalez, Joe Plurton, Natalia Ramira, is a fact-checking by Anjali Mercado. with additional editorial advising by Cassius Adair.

And big special thanks to our dads, Michael and Eduardo. They actually organized a conference all about dads in the animal world and the human world over at Yale. That was called Fathers and Fatherhood from molecules to modern families. And that's where Michael learned all about dads in the animal world. And they recently participated in another conference on dads in Brazil. And I guarantee you they're going to organize or participate in another one. So if you are interested in dads in the animal world and are evolving understanding of dads in the human world, keep an eye on the project Early Childhood Matters. That's early childhood matters.

Dot online. Support for Terrestrials is provided by the Simon's Foundation, the Arthur Vining Davis Foundation, and the Templeton Foundation. Thank you. And you, in honor of Father's Day, go show some love on the father figures in your life, whoever it is that tells the best dad jokes, aka the worst. in your life. And if you are making a Father's Day card, here is some inspiration from listener Emmy, age nine. She drew a picture of a toucan holding up a foam finger that says number one. And the toucan is saying, two can do it.

And inside the card it says, together we can wing it. I love that. Because isn't that all we're all trying to do here together? Just get through as best we can together. Okay, finally, preview. Our next episode is all about King Cobra's, and we want to know what would you draw for the episode art?

What would you be your episode poster of a king cobra? Send it to us at T-E-R-R-E-S-W-N-Y-C. Or if you want to draw the thing and send it in the real mail to us, the snail mail, the old school way, just put in an envelope, throw a stamp on there,

send it to Terrestrials team, WNYC Radio, 160 Verick Street, New York, New York, 100,0,0,0,03. We love getting mail, that's all. See you in a couple spins of this dirty old planet of ours. Bye. Hi, I'm Maya, and I'm from London, and here are the staff credits. Radio Lab is hosted by Lulu Miller and Latif Nasser. is our executive editor. Sarah Sandbuck is our executive director.

Our managing editor is Pat Walters. Dylan Keith is our director of sound design. Our staff includes Jeremy Bloom, W. Harry Fortuna, David Gable, Maria Paz Gutierrez, Simdu Nain Asambandan, Matt Kielty,

Mona Maud Galka, Annie McEwan, Alex Nissen, Sarah Kari, Natalia Ramirez, Rebecca Rand, Joanna Strogatz, Anisa Vita, Arienne Wack, Molly Webster, and Jessica Young,

with help from Gabby-Sentas and Maya Appleby-Mal-Amad. Our fact-checkers are Diane Kelly, Emily Krieger, Natalie Middleton, Angeline McCardo, and Sophie Samay. Hey, Radio Lab, Michael, Tacoma, Washington. Leadership support for Radio Lab Science Programming is provided by the Simons Foundation and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundation foundational support for Radio Lab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.