Secretly Incredibly Fascinating - Musk Oxen

Episode Date: December 14, 2020

Alex Schmidt is joined by comedy writers/podcasters Katie Goldin (‘Creature Feature’ podcast, @ProBirdRights) and Elliott Kalan (MST3K, The Daily Show, ‘The Flop House’ podcast) for a look at why musk oxen are secretly incredibly fascinating. Direct link to see a picture of a musk ox: https://www.alaskawildlife.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/AWCC-Muskox-Bulls-Fighting-Feb-2018-6.jpg Visit http://sifpod.fun/ for research sources, handy links, and this week's bonus episode.

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So you can visit SIFPOD.fun to become a backer and get that promo free experience. You'll also get many, many more benefits and you'll be someone who makes it possible for this podcast to exist at all. Anyway, that's Libro.fm. That's this podcast itself. And speaking of this podcast, it's MuskOx time. podcast, it's MuskOx time. MuskOxen, known for being animals. Famous for arguably not famous. Nobody thinks much about them, so let's have podcast episode. A podcast all about why being alive is more interesting than people think it is. My name is Alex Schmidt, and I'm not alone. My guests today are Katie Golden and Elliot Kalin.

And Katie Golden is more than a guest. She is someone who helped get this entire podcast off the ground. She guested on the first ever taping, which became episode number two about cattle. She's also the amazing comedy writer behind the AtProBirdWrites Twitter account, and she hosts and makes the fantastic animal-focused podcast, Creature Feature, over on iHeartRadio. Elliot Kalin is a new guest. You may know his comedy writing from The Daily Show or Mystery Science Theater 3000,

or from multiple children's books. He is a children's author on top of everything else. And everything else includes amazing podcasting. He is one of the co-hosts of The Flophouse on Maximum Fun. He co-hosted the miniseries iPodius with John Hodgman on Maximum Fun. He co-hosted the series Presidents Are People Too with Alexis Coe on Audible. Elliot and Katie are both amazing. I am thrilled they joined up to get packed into this one podcast episode about something they are perfect for talking about. Also, I've gathered all of our zip codes and used internet resources

like native-land.ca to acknowledge that I recorded this on the traditional land of the Catawba, Eno, and Shikori peoples. Acknowledge Katie and Elliot each recorded this on the traditional land of the Catawba, Eno, and Shikori peoples. Acknowledge Katie and Elliot each recorded this on the traditional land of the Gabrielino-Ortongva and Keech and Chumash peoples. And acknowledge that in all of our locations, native people are very much still here. That feels worth doing on each episode. And today's episode is about musk oxen. And musk oxen is a topic that I am so thrilled we're doing an episode about for a lot of reasons. It's only the second animal I've ever chosen to talk about on this podcast.

It's an animal that is unique among all other animals on Earth, and we will talk about why. Also, there's a small chance, or maybe a medium chance, I don't know, but there's a chance that you have never heard of musk oxen, in which case I am thrilled to be introducing you to them. They're one of the coolest animals around. Super, super short version of musk ox, if you just want to hear that. They are furry, shaggy, large-hoved animals that live in the Arctic. You find them in Alaska, Canada, Greenland, and Russia, as well as some Scandinavian countries. And there's also a direct link in the description of this episode so you can see a picture of them if you'd like to. Either way, you've heard of them, or this is the thrilling opportunity to discover them,

and let's get you into it. Please sit back or check in with your musk, right? Take a sniff, we all got one. And either way, here's this episode of Secretly Incredibly Fascinating with Katie Golden and Elliot Kalin. I'll be back after we wrap up. Talk to you then. But with some episodes of this show, I just kind of randomly book people you know but i feel that two of you both have skills that are a particular fit for the topic of the musk ox and i always

start by asking guests what's your relationship with this topic or opinion of it either of you can can lead off with uh how you feel about the musk ox, the animal. Yeah, I mean, I don't have any personal relationship with the musk ox. I think it is one of those things where they probably are one of the animals that started my sort of rabbit hole on learning about how animals can look similar to each other, but then not really be closely related. Like, hey, they look like big furry cows. And it's like, nope, no, but then not really be closely related. Like, hey, they look like big furry cows. And it's like, nope, no, they're not. Fooled you, tricked you.

Yeah. Take that, eyes. Take that, deduction. Fooled again. Evolution just snickering, going like, oh, you thought that was a big hairy cow well sorry sucker loser yeah it's like in uh in like ap bio i remember learning about this early animal taxonomy where they grouped animals by color and so it was like ants and bears would go together

because they're both black and it was like well that's a terrible way to classify animals like what are you thinking like red ants and black ants they're two different types of animals but like black ants and black bears they're the same bees in that sports team i can't remember the one that looks like bees the one that looks like steelers yeah yeah the st louis bees yeah yeah that sounds right that i have lacrosse that i have lacrosse the uh i i have never really thought much about muskox before but i have a real interest in megafauna and special especially mammalian megafauna ever since i read a book called

end of the megafauna uh by a guy named mcfee and it's a book about there used to be giant mammals on every continent of the earth like giant elephants everywhere giant and giant sloths yeah and like and they're just not there anymore what happened to them and it's really made me i i used to be pretty uh except for elephants which are amazing animals everyone loves them i used to be pretty cold on large mammals and then i read that book and I was like, no, there's something magical about these. And I'm glad we still have some large mammals, even if they're not the biggest ones. So when you, so when I saw that the topic was muskox, I said, okay, yeah, I'd call them kind of a medium sized megafauna. That's pretty good.

Yeah. What's up? What are they all about? Yeah. Medium sized megafauna. That's, that's like exactly right. I also, I feel like just the term megafauna is exciting. It sounds like a band that I want to follow. It sounds like a metal band. Yeah. It's either, yeah, like a death metal band, or it's like an Emerson, Lake, and Palmer, like kind of like prog jazz, like long, wordless songs.

And at the end, they're like, that was about a mammoth that's songs and at the end they're like that was about a mammoth that's also a robot and you're like oh okay i didn't know i couldn't pick that up from the jazz but i guess that's what it's about colors fur grass fields megafauna i'm glad you're both both excited about animals because i knew katie is from her podcast creature feature which is all about animals. And then also, Elliot, I thought of you for this partly because of Presidents, which we'll explain later, but also because— Okay, yeah, because now I'm curious. I was curious why you thought of me about this, and now I'm even more curious.

Somehow your explanation has made me more curious about what happened. What if I had no reason, but I'm just stretching it out like a show like Lost or something. Like I'm just trying to stack confusing things. Mystery box. To keep you hooked. You're like, by the end of the show, I'll tell you why I thought of you as muskox. A polar bear on a tropical island.

How does this relate to Elliot? I don't know. Only one way to find out. Never find out. Tune in next week. Why don't you tell us about muskox, Alex? So muskox, yeah. Impose some form on this chaotic lump that we're in.

We'll form. We'll form. This brings me back to Elliot. I thought of you for Presidents, which we'll explain, but also because you're a children's author and you write excellent children's books. Oh, yeah. Thank you. but also because you're a children's author and you write excellent children's books. And like my musk ox connection, I think, started as a kid because it was in animal alphabets a lot. Like because sometimes it's M and then sometimes it's O because of ox. And then sometimes it's X because like you don't have a ton of options.

And so you cheat. And so they. Xenomorph. Yeah. Xenomorph. If you're going gonna misspell zebra sometimes you can get away with that xylem so you mentioned children's books like my new book sharko and hippo in stores now uh by me illustrated by andrea cerumi uh but and what else so must that's how is

that how you were connected with musk ox from childhood is because you would see them in those books you're saying yeah it was that and then, I feel like it was also one of the first animals that was a comedy animal because musks are funny. Like, you know, people will like pull a noun that's incredibly specific and then that's the humor. I feel like musk oxes were an animal that would just pop up like that. It was a very referential animal for me, for alphabets and jokes. I want to explore more why musk is funny.

Well, right off the bat, it's a funny sound because it's got a comedy K at the end. Got the K. That's just comedy science. Comedy. I mean, I assume they're smelly animals, right? Because they have musk in the name. Or maybe it's a good smelling musk. I've always assumed that musk is something that smells bad, but it must smell good to

somebody because why else would the animal have that smell if it smelled bad to everybody? Yeah. Yeah. Smells good to someone. Every smell smells good to someone. There's a musk out there for all of us, you know? Yeah. That's it.

Well, I want to talk about musks. And that leads us into our first segment here. Because on every episode, our first fascinating thing about the topic is a quick set of fascinating numbers and statistics. And we get those in a segment called, I believe in numerals. Where you from? You stancy thing. You stancy thing. Where you from?

You stancy thing. You stancy thing. And that name was submitted by Kevin Tanager. Thank you, Kevin. There's a new name for this segment every week. Please make them as silly and wacky as bad as possible. Submit your names to SifPod on Twitter or to SifPod at gmail.com. I'm just so happy to be here. That's a good name. I don't know if anyone's going to be able to top that name for that segment,

but they should try. They always do. Yeah, yeah. And now we can get into a lot of the first numbers here are about the size of a muskox's body. A muskox is four to five feet at the shoulder. That's first number, four to five feet. So the height up to the shoulder is about that. It's not like taller than most people, but it's about the same height.

And they also... It's tall enough that you would notice it. Yes. Wouldn't miss it. It's like you'd still notice what's essentially three or four short people in an ox costume, you know, just walking around. That's the withers, right? It's the withers of the ox.

So another reason I'm very excited to be talking to Katie is she was on my podcast about making the bison emoji. And we talked about the withers often because bison have withers. It's a big, big ungulate thing, the old withers. Yeah. It's leading to my new podcast, Witherscast.

It's like whether it's withers, whether it's withers or whether it's not withers. Wither are the withers. Wither withers. Wither be their withers or whether it's not withers wither are the withers wither withers wither be there withers a lot of a lot of one-star reviews from bill withers fans who are like this was not what i was looking for yeah he's a great musician i was looking for a biopic of bill withers i was fairly disappointed.

They left that as an audio review. That's how they talk. Yeah, yeah. It was written in that font. It was written in the font that that voice is. It was written in middle-aged man font. No, exactly. Well, and the other body stuff they weigh, next number here, is 500 to 800 pounds. That's the average weight of a musk ox.

The males are larger than the females. And then during the summer mating season, male musk oxen will emit a powerful musk to attract females. So the musk comes from the men. It's unclear to me from the sources. I looked pretty hard and I couldn't find a description of it. I just hope, I just hope they look like Pigpen from Peanuts with all this musk just in a cloud around them all the time. That's my hope.

Just a cloud and they dance the same way? Yeah. Like just their feet shuffling and they nod their head in both directions? Yeah. To Vince Giraldi music? Probably. Makes sense to me. Yeah.

Yeah. And the other thing, thing uh with their name so they get musk in the name from from giving a musk and then katie as you pointed out they are not related to cattle to oxen uh very closely they're much more closely related to other animals like wild sheep and mountain goats so the ox part of the name is kind of fake. It's kind of false. Yeah. Yeah. Scientists are always trying to trip us up, just like, oh, you think we call this a mole, but guess what? It's not a mole.

We sure got you. It's just they're such nerds, and they don't have much fun other than tricking people into believing that an animal belongs to a different taxonomy, which is great. When you read about reptiles, you'll be like, this looks like a snake, but it's actually a legless lizard. That's based on something you wouldn't be able to see unless you x-rayed it, stupid. You have to x-ray this thing to find out if it's a lizard or a snake because it looks like a snake, but if you thought it was, you're wrong.

It's like, I don't know. Let me call it a snake. I don't know the difference between a snake and it looks like a snake. But if you thought it was, you're wrong. It's like, I don't know. Like, let me call it a snake. I don't know the difference between a snake and a legless lizard. That is no snake. That is a Sicilian. Every now and then you'll hear the story where you're like, a new frog was discovered in Central Park. It's a new species of frog, but it looks identical to a different species of frog.

That's why they didn't identify it as its own species till now. And you're like, okay, I don't know. Then why don't we just call them the same thing? I don't know. I don't see, I don't see how this benefits anybody. I mean, if we don't categorize everything, what are, where are we going to like, what are, what are natural biologists going to do? Like just, you know, like, like say like say like oh there's a frog we're

not going to name it but there it is check it out but i think about that kind of stuff sometimes because so i have an app on my phone that i use to identify animals and plants that i see around my neighborhood and every time i do it i'm like pokemon go yeah totally yeah yeah it's called pokemon go and i gotta catch them all the thing is i've got this rare thing i take pills for it where i see the pokemon without the phone and it's only that i when i catch them with my phone that's when i can feel safe and go to sleep but i'll so the other day i saw a bird and i uh looked at it in a in the app and it was like oh that's a nut all's woodpecker and i was like oh i finally know what that is but it's not like the

woodpecker knows that's what its name like it's it's the woodpecker knows that's what it's named like it's it's the woodpecker didn't call itself that like go over to it and just whisper sweetly in its ear like you're a nut all you're in you're not all well it's just some guy named nut all was like this is my woodpecker now deal with it i'm claiming all of these but it's like without if we if we don't name everything and categorize it then how then it says almost as if we're not the god-given masters of the earth and are just other animals running around pretending that we're special and that's why we get to have clothes and podcasts and things like that alex i did i have to admit i did google and according to wikipedia the scholars encyclopedia uh musk ox uh the musk ox musk has a light sweetish ethereal odor and i think comes from their face so yeah thank you for that that is in hindsight the first thing i should have

looked up going on this show so thank you for finding that little professional tip it's very important there's something called Wikipedia. I don't know if you've heard of it. It's what us smart researchers use. So what you're saying is that a more accurate name for this animal would be the smell face goat? Yes. Which is a great name. Sounds like it to me. The ethereal smell face goat.

That's amazing. The ethereal smell face goat is a great, yeah, it's because not Knox. Yeah. And when I think musk, I think bad smell. a yeah it's because not knocks yeah and when i think musk i think mega goat that smell yeah it's a more mega what is an ethereal smell though that isn't actually very descriptive like an ethereal smell like are we going by like an angelic smell like the smell of angels as we conceive them today or like actual old testament angels that were just like a bunch of eyeballs and like rotating spheres.

Because I imagine they smell different. Like one probably smells like sweet flowers and the other one probably smells like eternal torment. Right. What angel type science? Tell me that. Yeah. They figured out, they eventually realized there are two different species of angels.

They're both called angels colloquially, but they cannot mate, and they actually have different phyla. Right. One is actually more closely related to naked mole rats. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Oh, what if angels looked like that? Whole world. Anyway.

What if it was that there was one, like, because evolution is based on just kind of like freak genetic mutation. What was that? There was one, like, because evolution is based on just kind of like freak genetic mutation. What if one time a chimp was born with wings and one person saw it and that's where the story of angels comes from? It's just seeing a chimpanzee with wings once. And for thousands of years since then, we've had to deal with this concept of people with wings who have magical powers. When it's really just that one chimp. And it's not like, I bet the wings were not functional and the chimp probably died pretty quickly because he's a you know the same mutation that caused the wings probably made his kidneys not work properly so but it he lives on i guess

in religion did the angel spake and thus spake the angel want banana banana, banana. Give banana, thou shalt give banana. I mean, it explains a lot. This is my new theory. I feel like this explains a lot about it. It all adds up. So musk ox, sweet, angelic, giant, furry goat, face smellers. Yeah. That's where we're at, right?

This next number here, it's sort of an angelic aspect of the musk ox in terms of goodness the next number here is seven and seven is the number of pounds of yarn that a male musk ox can produce in a year seven pounds like he poops it out yeah a lot and he does not poop it out so what happens is sorry i kind of it was the first thought that came into my head and i was like i gotta say it so he just poops yarn out because you just mentioned he said he got a nest he said he produces it so either either he has a spinning wheel or a loom of some kind or or just a natural gland like a silkworm elliot's next children's book is just like what if there's yarn in my poop there's only one person who should have yarn in my poop? There's only one person who should have yarn in their poop,

and that's that one brother of our crumbs in the documentary about him who swallows a thread every year to clean out his system. Oh, God. And just passes it through. So the yarn is spun from their wool? Yeah, so they have the big shaggy fur on the outside, and then under that they have what's big shaggy fur on the outside. And then under that, they have what's called their underwool.

Makes sense. And the name for it is Kivyut, spelled Q-I-V-I-U-T. And it's an incredibly strong and warm yarn that also does not shrink. And it's like plucked from the animal when it molts its main fur, and then you can get to the wool underneath. And according to the internet, it's very they like plucked from the animal when it molts its main fur, and then you can get to the wool underneath. And according to the internet, it's very, very expensive. It's about double the price of cashmere. This was, I accidentally did some research by reading a New York article I didn't realize was going to be so much about muskox. That was about this guy's trip when he was a young man to Alaska to go and forage for this kivyat.

And because he wanted to, because it was going to be a gold mine in musk ox fur. Oh, wow. And basically the story is him kind of like scrambling around in the tundra collecting a small bag's worth of ox hair and almost dying a bunch of times. I can't imagine it's very easy to approach a wild musk ox and just pull hair off of it. I don't think they'd be down for that. Yeah, probably not.

Yeah. According to Metal Floss, quote, when the animal molts, the kivyut is plucked from its coat and salvaged from objects it has rubbed against, end quote. So there's no like shearing process because they'd freak out. Like it's a finding it when it drops it kind of thing. I see. I see. You know what they need is one of those cow rubbers, you know, like those motorized cow scratchers.

It's like those big bristly brushes. Yeah, because this is a real thing. Yeah. Because cows love to be scratched. But like, you know, there's not always a farmer around to give old Bessie a good rub down. So you got to get this big motorized cow scrubber that it looks like just like a giant sort of car wash scrubber.

And it rotates and then the cows go up and rub against it and they look so happy. And it's very cute. But you do that for the muskox, right? You'd make men. Yeah, you'd be- Oh, yeah. It would easily defray the cost of having to go to the Arctic and build one of those and put it in a place and like live, I guess, with the muskox.

But I'm glad you explained what that's for because my children have a toy barn and in it there is one of those rolls. And all this time I'm like, I guess that's for cleaning cows. I don't know. Yeah, because it looks like it's from a car wash. I didn't realize cows liked being scratched so much. They love it. It's a very realistic toy.

I like it. Oh, yeah. It's this German company that makes very realistic toy animals in their locations. Yeah. Germans. Yeah. Say no more. So you're teaching kids the difference between a castrated steer and an uncastrated bull.

Exactly. Yes. They're hyper-det steer and an uncastrated bull. Exactly. Yes. They're hyper-detailed. Hyper-detailed toys. Yes. There's two more numbers here, and one of them is 52,000 square kilometers. That's the size of a musk ox. Which is around 20,000 square miles.

That's the size of one musk ox. They're huge. Megafauna. Right. And so that 52,000 square kilometers or 20,000 square miles is the size of Thalon Wildlife Sanctuary in Nunavut and the Northwest Territory in Canada. And it's an area of land bigger than Vermont and New Hampshire put together. And it was established in 1927 chiefly to help save the musk ox species from extinction.

And they did it. Worked out. That's great. Yeah, I approve. Yeah. Yeah, the Arctic's got a lot of land up there. Yeah, yeah. You look at a globe, you don't really realize it.

There's a lot of weird squashing and stretching that happens with globe, but you look at an actual spherical representation There's a lot of like weird squashing and stretching that happens with globe. But like they're all the, like you look at an actual like spherical representation of Earth. It's like, oh, dang, that's a lot of Arctic. Well, and there's one more just an incredible number here.

More than 600,000 years. So that's a lot of years. How old they live. Yeah, when people find ancient manuscripts, they take them to the musk ox, because they know those languages. They used to speak those languages. So when they found the Dead Sea Scrolls, they go take it to Nunavut, got to ask some musk ox what they think about this.

Musk ox watching Matlock going, I remember when before there was animals. They're always dropping. They're like, I remember when I met this guy, Adam. You might know him. Anyway, so there weren't a lot of people then. Just big name dropping old musk ox. So 600,000 years is what? It's how long we've had muskox on earth they are from

very deep in the ice age according to the university of alaska at fairbanks they lived with saber-toothed tigers and woolly mammoths and lots of those other mega fauna that are gone now well because apartments were so expensive back then nice got them nailed them boom i like how you did specify it's how long we've had muskos on earth just in case yeah just in case yeah you're not you're not like you're not you're not assuming anything about mars you don't need some plutonian writing in saying actually uh musk have been around for 700 000 years here on my planet and you're like you don't even live on a planet it's a planetoid and they're like, you don't even live on a planet.

It's a planetoid. And then they hang up. They're so mad. We will destroy you. Also, we will order 600,000 of your Earth pizzas. One for each year that musk ox have been on the Earth. Now, so what makes it, how come the musk ox are still around and all those other great animals are not?

What makes them so special? Yeah, it seems like it is at least partly because they're smaller, but also it's the other surprising number here is as of about 4,000 years ago, there were still woolly mammoths. Like some Ice Age species were here relatively recently. And according to the BBC. Right here in LA too. No, really? Yeah. I thought of modern LA, but yes, you're right. Right in that land. Yeah. I mean, there's still, it's crazy when you go over to the tar pits and you're just in the middle of modern LA and there's that statue of mammoths and one of them is by the tar and every time i'm like yeah i buy it i buy that they're just walking around at night when nobody's looking and that still in modern la i also i had i had no knowledge of california as a kid and i would read about the labrea tar pits and i extremely

imagined them being in a rural place and then when i visited them I visited them next to the grove, it was very surprising. The grove is a mall for people who don't know. It's not a grove of trees, which again would make it seem like the Tar Pits are out in the wild in a forest somewhere.

Yeah, yeah. Where else can you go from a Pete's Coffee to see natural history in the bones of dire wolves? But fabulous LA. I took my older son there and I'm fascinated by natural history in the bones of dire wolves but fabulous la i took my i took my older son there and i'm fascinated by natural history and how the the scale of time uh that life has been on the earth and how little humanity has had of that time and there's this big mural in there that

must be 40 or 50 years old you know of that's just a timeline of earth and i was taking him through it and i think i was up to when fish started crawling onto land when he was like dad can we do something else he just did not was not as interested as i was yeah well actually elliot one other so like when it comes to animals that go extinct especially megafauna that go extinct it's all based on their evolutionary niche and whether they can maintain that for that amount of time. So the fact I think that musk ox live in the Arctic, somewhere that is harder for other animals to live in, especially humans, and how we prefer a less chilly climate

probably meant they were saved from being hunted to extinction or being out-competed by other animals. So if you highly specialize in a certain type of biome that is not preferable to other animals, then you can survive. Whereas like, you know, I mean, have you seen LA? There's just simply no room for mammoths now. Yeah, that's true.

And again, with rents the way they are, it's just not. I wonder if those tar pits are rent control. I might want to go move in there. That's a good point. That's kind of like how a long time ago I took a tour of the Federal Reserve Gold Bank in New York, and it's literally just an underground basement with cages of gold. And they have a big scale that they measure the gold on. And it's so it's this incredibly sensitive scale. And they're like, yeah, yeah, there's this one guy who knows how to fix it when it breaks.

And he moved to Florida a while ago. So every now and then we fly him up just to fix it. But when he dies, we don't know what we're going to do. And it's like, he picked the niche of like guy who fixes super sensitive gold scales, and there's no competition for it. So he's been able to hold that job for decades. He's like a muskox professionally. I like it. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, exactly. And when he dies, so dies the entire economy. Yeah, it was really, if you ever want to feel like the economy is based on nothing, then go there because they're like, yeah, yeah, each of these cages is a different country's gold holdings. And when they make deals, we just move the gold from one cage to another cage. And then sometimes we have to move it back.

And this one is full of leprechauns. Don't let them bite you. And that's how the economy works. don't let them bite you and that's how the economy works well we got a we got three big takeaways about the muskox and uh let's get into them let's talk about them also one one last um fact about the mammoths is coming from a scientist that we'll talk about a lot named joel berger he once said quote as we had pyramids being built we still had woolly mammoths on Wrangel Island. End quote.

Wrangel Island is a remote island north of Russia, which is where mammoths hung out. But we'll talk about Joel a lot because here we go into takeaway number one. Scientists dress up in giant bear costumes to study musk oxen herds, and they do it by spooking them until the scientist explodes so i know there was a lot there until the scientists explodes yeah which is uh i'll explain what that means but uh so it's like so it's like one of the old looney tunes cartoons where a guy is auditioning and he swallows a lot of tnt and blows himself up. And they go, that's a great act. And he goes, yeah, but I can only do it once. And then his ghost flies away. Yeah, that was Daffy Duck, by the way.

It was Daffy Duck. That's true. Yeah, there you go. Not to be offended, but... And is this related at all to the scientists that put on bear costumes at the Overlook Hotel and give favors to ghosts? Or is that a different experiment?

It's kind of like that costume of the dog. So I'm being fast and loose with the word explodes. We'll save that for last. Because there's a very specific definition that I think Katie and I are aware of. Right, right. There's only one definition I really know but go on i'm using explodes in the sense of writes down their notes and then submits them to an academic paper being peer-reviewed it's like an explosion so this uh i think people should know about

this amazing experiment about musk oxen which is a scientist uh it's mainly the scientist named joel berger who is doing an experiment where he studies musk oxen herds by dressing up in a giant bear suit to see how they react to the approach of a bear which is just him in a like giant costume out in the tundra. And I sent you two some pictures. We'll have them linked for people. It's the best visual in the world, just this man looking at a herd of muskox in a full bear suit. What is his thesis?

That muskox will react a specific way to bears? Because are they aware of, do they ever encounter bears normally in the wild or no? That's an excellent question, yeah. And so the- Because at a certain point you might as well just see how they react to the philly fanatic like if it's something that they're not gonna encounter in their everyday life i'm dressed as a spooky ghost how do you

like this muskox yeah i'm jack sparrow well musk musko now I'm Borat. How do you react to this? It's me, Austin Powers, Musk Ox. What's your reaction? That's not what Austin Powers sounds like. I had to get the one Musk Ox that's seen Austin Powers. It's one of the odds. Where's his affable British accent? Right, they know the reference is done by canadian performers specifically because they're way up there they're like i know i know mike myers's career very well thank you

yeah and so that was a great question elliot about like why do they want to know how they react to bears and it's because um and this scientist, Joel Berger, he's a professor and university chair at Colorado State University. He's a senior scientist for the Wildlife Conservation Society. And the goal is to study how musk oxen respond to climate change. He says, quote, the central goal is to get inside the mind of a musk ox. But in this case, we're interested in how they respond to grizzly bears, because grizzly bears are expanding their range into some of the Arctic islands, end quote. And it's driven by climate change. They're kind of pushing up that way because it's getting warmer. And the scientists don't know. They're testing whether the musk oxen will try to defend themselves or run away or not even know what a brown bear is because they just don't see it.

Sounds like I know an animal that's going to get brown bear, brown bear, what did you see? The classic children's picture book for a birthday present from me. Just so they can learn it, you know? You should send it to Santa at the North Pole and have him forward it slightly downward to where the musk ox are. Yeah, Santa and I're not on great terms uh my the uh it's he doesn't he doesn't appreciate people of my faith but anyway the uh but that's it but otherwise that's it but i'll buy into the premise yeah yeah that's what I'll do. But that's it.

I hadn't thought about that, that like there, as it gets warmer, that climate will, that habitat will change to the fact that, to the point that other animals will become invasive species that would not be interested before. Interesting. Yeah, yeah. The other like exciting thing about this experiment to me, well, there's a few things, but one of them is that they're having Joel Berger wear a bear suit to try to see what the muskoxen do. But also they need a control group. And so the control group is Joel Berger in a caribou suit, which is not a predator. So they obviously won't react to that.

But just the control group is more costumes because that makes sense it's also very funny it's good stuff yeah yeah steve is that you you've lost weight you look great why aren't your eyes moving steve it's like a guy who bought a halloween costume with university funds thinking no one's gonna notice notice this. I'll just call it experiment supplies. And then they look through and they're like, did you buy a caribou costume with university money? Yeah, it's for an experiment. I'm going to go see. It's the control group.

I got to see how the oxen, the musk oxen, you know, I'll put on the suit. It's just furries getting government grants is what I'm saying. I mean, I support that. I mean, actually, now you've put it in terms that I can support as a taxpayer. Finally, finally, a Trump initiative I can point to and say, yes, okay, there you go. That I'll agree with. I do actually, like, unironically, I bet that furries have some great costuming tricks that they could probably pass on to researchers. Oh, yeah.

Except I don't know that scientific accuracy is usually what they're going for. It's more of a mascot costume. Isn't it? So Joel Berger, he's dressing up in costumes and scaring musk ox or just bothering them. Yeah. And there's two neat things to me here about how musk oxen react to really any predator, but especially this experiment, because there's a thing I think not everybody knows, which is that musk oxen form a- If it's about musk oxen, then probably, if it's about musk oxen, it is probably a thing not everybody knows.

I'm going to say you're probably right about that. thing not everybody knows. I'm going to say you're probably right about that. So they travel in herds of like 20 to 30 individuals. And when they're in danger, they form a defensive circle. And we'll have pictures linked. It's a thing where like all the adults face outward in a ring, and then the babies are in the middle of it, almost like, you know, pioneer wagons or something. So they're incredibly social and organized when they're in danger. It's a cool thing they do. I mean, one of many reasons, one of many ways it sounds like that they're superior to humans, because when humans are in danger, they immediately go after each other rather than after the danger.

But the other thing is, apparently in Joel Berger's case, he says, quote, on seven occasions occasions males have left the group to come toward me on three of those occasions those were real charges end quote and so did he have a plan for that he did and it's the best so there are a few defenses wait wait first first you guys want to hear my bad my bad wordplay joke off of that? Oh, please. Yes. Okay, you said three times it was real charges. The other times the charge was declined. Nice. The company called the muskox

and the muskox says, no, that wasn't me. Please don't put that on my bill. And I'm hanging up the Zoom call. Very understandable. Have a good rest of the podcast. Just a muskox. I didn't buy anything at the furry store near the university.

That wasn't me. That wasn't experiment supplies. What would I need that for? I'm a musk ox. So they charged at him. And what happened? So he had already ruled out a couple of defensive maneuvers. A whistle won't work because they're not scared of it.

And pepper spray. Yeah, I wouldn't think they they're not scared of it. And pepper spray. Yeah, I wouldn't think they would be, to be honest. Wouldn't even occur to me to try that. I tried confetti. I tried dance. None of that didn't scare them. Like an 800 pound animal is coming at me. Maybe I'll whistle at it. I'll whistle at it. I'll whistle at it. It will feel embarrassed and ashamed, even though I should be the one who's ashamed because I'm treating it that way.

And then it'll leave. And I'll be saved. The next thing, he carries this, but he has pepper spray. But he believes it is too cold and too windy in the Arctic environment for that to work. And then he also told him. To not just blow back in his face. He goes, god oh musk ox oh i feel like that's the movie where will ferrell plays joel berger that is exactly the scene that's gonna happen there's a musk ox running at him and he goes oh but i've got my pepper spray and he's running around can't see be chased by musk ox and then they just skunk him like pepe

lepew like there's no actual danger but it's like comedy danger you know yeah yeah comedy danger yeah yeah and so uh they also don't want to shoot the muskox and and so what they the defense he has come up with no right won't do that uh that would be a real that would be such again like a very human move, but such a mean move to be like, I'm going to test how they react to danger. He's charging at me. Kill him. Rawr, I'm a bear.

Uh-oh. Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, my. That's like a Teddy Roosevelt experiment. Like, well, it makes sense to me. Can I guess the actual escape maneuver? If you want to, yeah.

Rocket-powered skis. No. Rocket-powered skis. From Acme? No, no, no. His experiment was outfitted by Mr. Wileson Edward Coyote. Smokebomb. And he goes, and I disappear.

smoke bomb and he goes and i disappear so let me there's a there's an amazing quote from him about what does work it's quote the one thing that works is if i self detonate and the cape of the costume goes in one direction the head goes in the other and i stand up the muskox if're charging, get very confused and then I'm safe. End quote. So he just explodes the costume off of his body and is, nope, now I'm a human. And they're like, oh, okay. Yeah, that must be very alarming, right? Like if you were talking to a person, like you're talking to me right now, you see me, I look somewhat person-y and then my head and my arms just like fly off and then just the squid comes out of me and goes like it was an experiment i have to assume that he discovered that that method by accident and that muskox was chasing

him and he just started throwing he just started ripping the costume off of himself to get away from it and i was kidding i was kidding i was kidding i was kidding it's funny it's like it's like there's only one way to get out of this i better confuse him so it's not it's not like putting on a uh like getting on another costume which is like a lady musk ox costume with exaggerated eyelashes and and uh you must have been a beautiful baby plays in the background as he parades back and forth I'm glad we all grew up on cartoons

this is very good the same cartoons we have a real this kind of shared cultural background is a thing of the past so I'm glad we can enjoy it now because the future generations will have been so balkanized it's all pepper pig and baby shark boss baby Because the future generations will have been so balkanized in their entertainment. It's all Peppa Pig and Baby Shark, Boss Baby. These wretched cultural touchstones. The Boss Baby generation.

It's so funny to me. I see the new stuff that comes out. I'm like, ugh, what dreck? And then I'll find myself singing the Denver the Last Dinosaur theme song. Or something from some terrible slapdash Saturday morning cartoon. And I'm like, that's real kid culture. Lost Cowboys and Moo Mesa. Like that's what these kids don't have anything good like Transformers or He-Man.

Remember Thundercats? They were cat people. All right. Off of that, we're going to a short break, followed by the big takeaways. See you in a sec. I'm Jesse Thorne. I just don't want to leave a mess. I'm Jesse Thorne.

I just don't want to leave a mess. This week on Bullseye, Dan Aykroyd talks to me about the Blues Brothers, Ghostbusters, and his very detailed plans about how he'll spend his afterlife. I think I'm going to roam in a few places, yes. I'm going to manifest and roam. All that and more on the next Bullseye from MaximumFun.org and NPR. bullseye from MaximumFun.org and NPR. Hello, teachers and faculty. This is Janet Varney. I'm here to remind you that listening to my podcast, The JV Club with Janet Varney, is part of the curriculum for the school year. Learning about the teenage years of such guests as Alison Brie,

Vicki Peterson, John Hodgman, and so many more is a valuable and enriching experience, one you have no choice but to embrace, because, yes, listening is mandatory. The JV Club with Janet Varney is available every Thursday on Maximum Fun or wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you. And remember, no running in the halls.

Well, yeah, there's two more takeaways here, and they're pretty quick, but I think we should get into them. They're very fun. Okay. Here we go into takeaway number two. Musk Oxen played a key role in cold war diplomacy and the them they're very diplomatic they're very nice yeah now hang on you guys nuclear apocalypse is not on the table now is it a lot of people don't know that john foster dulles was a musk ox the only still the only muskox to serve

in a presidential cabinet right right Acheson was part muskox doesn't count uh yeah so doesn't count yeah he was because he was he was part muskox but he didn't identify as muskox I'm sorry I want you to continue but I also can't stop thinking of a muskox shaking hands with gorbachev and being like no i think we can come to a reasonable conclusion gentlemen there's a muskox he's in he's in he's in uh berlin and he's saying tear down this wall and then the wall explodes and it's just joel berger in a costume underneath the ox is so confused yeah so explain how muskox cold war how's that possible because it's cold i get that yeah and it's it's really one main story which is that president richard nixon when he

received pandas from china in exchange we gave china a pair of musk oxen i think the panda story is very very famous and the reciprocal musk oxen, nobody knows about it. Because people love pandas. Yeah. I do think China got the better animal, though, if you know anything about pandas. Oh. Real layabouts, those pandas. Yeah, yeah.

That pandas, people, it shows you how cuteness can get, it's much like in the real world, that if you're attractive, people will overlook other faults that pandas are so cute. And so the fact that they're super lazy and they refuse to eat anything but one type of food. Yeah. Like they're just eternal toddlers who will only have one thing to eat. They're really not great animals. I'm just going to go out.

You can quote me on that. I'm going to go out on a limb. Run against me for office and point out that I said on the record that pandas are not great animals. You know, I'm just going to go out and you can quote me on that. I'm going to go out on a limb. Run against me for office and point out that I said on the record that pandas are not great animals. I think the reckoning is happening, though. I think people are catching on. Oh, panda backlash.

The luster is wearing off. It's all about narwhals now. People love them. Can't get enough of them. Yeah, people are all like, you know, it's a tooth. And it's like, yeah, I know it's all about narwhals now people love them can't get enough of them yeah people are all like you know it's a tooth and it's like yeah i know it's a tooth stop it it's like what else would it be dude it's not a toe that'd be crazy well how did the chinese respond to this gift did they were they like oh uh because i okay well i got you pandas but sure i'll take these like we got you magical bears.

Thank you for this big hairy cow. There was that time when Obama was president and he got Queen Elizabeth an iPod with some of his speeches on it as a gift. And everyone was like, that's a terrible gift. Like, what are you doing? Oh, no. Oh, I see. Thank you.

It was right after, it was like, like he was just he was a new president he didn't know what he was doing yet put this with the other pods of the eye but uh so anyway what's the third takeaway no the uh the nixon story here real quick is uh richard nixon i think people know there's the concept of like Nixon opened China in history and diplomacy. So Nixon goes to China in February 1972. They have the first like diplomatic relations with China since 1949. And the results are normalized relations and peaceful handling of the Taiwan issue. And the communist Chinese government announces we're sending two pandas to the United States. And then I don't think they asked for anything back. But according to the New York

Times, quote, Nixon reciprocated the gift up to a point by sending two muskoxen to China, end quote, which is a very insulting New York Times statement, I feel. But that's what they said about it. Well, that's the liberal elites looking down on muskoxen again, like they always are. Yeah. And that's why China is now lousy with muskox. Just muskox scampering around, getting in their garbage. Yeah, they call them smelly raccoons over there because they're everywhere and they're just, yeah.

They got to keep a lid tight on your trash cans so or musk ox is gonna get him so actually the story turns tragic but i feel the musk oxen are heroes in this case because people don't know there's this very famous story of two pandas come from china and live at the zoo in washington dc and they're beloved by all of america and what a great thing meanwhile america uh gets two musk oxen named Milton and Matilda, and the director of the D.C. Zoo flies to China with the musk oxen before coming back with pandas. So how do you buy airline tickets for two musk oxen? You need to get multiple seats, I assume. Just extra leg room does it.

Oh, really? Okay. Right. Appro need to get multiple seats, I assume. Just extra leg room does it. Oh, really? Okay. Right. Approximately double. Yeah, sure. Yeah. The musk oxen is like, I like that I can stretch out,

but I can't lean back. That's the problem with these seats. And everyone else is like, did someone take off their shoes or something? It's like, it's my musk. Hey, I have a musk. It's pretty well known about me. Everyone just stop bugging me

about my musk and then hold up a glass. Another one of these, please? It's a long flight. The only way that the musk ox can get through it is if they enjoy themselves. Of course. So, musk ox. They're in China now. So, Matilda and what was the other one?

Milton and Matilda. And the New York Times in 1972, they interviewed Theodore Reed, the director of the National Zoo in DC about like, hey, how did it go bringing the muskox in when we got these pandas? And he quote, confirmed that Milton was suffering from post nasal drip, possible depression, a cough and falling hair in the Beijing Zoo Matilda is also reported to be feeling poorly end quote and according to the sources both of the muskox and died within a few years of going to China which I feel makes them heroic because they like sealed this diplomatic deal that prevented some kind of war with China or something. So they came through. Even musk ox that had

no idea what the hell was going on get shoved on a plane and they're so confused and then get put in a zoo and then get like the musk ox cold and then die in a few years and

Alex is like heroes heroes give them the presidential medal of freedom hero oxes they sacrifice themselves you work hard you too could lose all your hair in a zoo yeah yeah so I mean yeah without

it probably we would have had a nuclear war so those must be like there's some alternate universe where we don't send the muskox and then the world is a is a blasted landscape uninhabitable you know yeah yeah what you're saying is now we should start sending more muskox around the world exactly and make i think that would be like a good first move for biden just start sending muskox to various foreign leaders being i'm sorry here's a muskox i'm sorry here's a muskox i'm so so sorry here's two muskox for you iran i'm sorry here's a muskox they get to you yeah yeah he's on the phone with with uh the

prime minister of uh of the iraqi parliament he's like hey i know this won't make up to you but we'll wake up for everything, but look out your window. There's just two muskox in there. What do you see out there? Musk ox, those are yours. Those are yours to keep. Yeah, just revitalizing our image throughout the world, one muskox at a time. That's good. The one real other thing with the Cold War is that musk oxen had been hunted completely out of Russia. And then in 1975, the U.S. shipped some musk oxen to the USSR in exchange for Siberian bullcats. And those did great. They took off and now they're back.

They solve every problem as long as you keep them cold enough. Yeah, yeah. But keep them cold enough. Like, have a Just like keep, but keep them cold enough. Like you have a label on them that's like, please keep refrigerated after opening. But you keep sending muskox to all these countries that we have tension with. And I think we will have a new era of peace and disarmament.

So how are the, so are there more muskox in Russia now? Have they been able to build up a herd or? And they have and they're especially on an island called wrangle island the one that used to have woolly mammoths oh right right uh and so they're doing very well there so wait so they were like this island used to have mammoths on it but i guess muskoxes are okay like we'll have those yeah well we have uh we have one last takeaway here and i think we can get into it takeaway number three musk oxen were the favorite animal of alex trebek i think that's just fun to know and r.i.p alex trebek of course uh but there is uh i think it's like very heartwarming to know about it and we'll have linked many pictures for people of Alex Trebek

hanging out with musk oxen because that's just exciting it's very good to know I'm gonna cry that's very sweet it's wonderful I mean it makes a lot of sense when you think about it I mean now I feel kind of foolish that I didn't know that I didn't guess that that was his favorite animal.

Alex Trebek and musk ox just go together like peanut butter and jelly. I mean, if anything, peanut butter and jelly are kind of weird things. Who did that? Who thought that was a great idea the first time? Am I right? Takes microphone off of mic stand, walks in front of brick wall. Peanuts and like jelly or jam? Like who's mixing these things out of their mind but

i never knew that did he did he was he on the record as saying that he really likes musk he really liked muskoxen a lot yeah or was this something like caught by paparazzi who like snatched a photo of him sneaking around with a particularly attractive musk ox. What game show host was seen canoodling in Nunavut with a certain smelly ungulate? And it's just like these black silhouettes with question marks on them and one clearly in the shape of a musk ox. My family needs its space in this time. I'm just going to reconnect with them. We're just friends. I'm just going to reconnect with them. We're just friends.

We're just good friends. So he apparently, Alex Trebek has just always been a huge fan of them. And then from there, connected with an actual musk ox farm in Alaska. This is according to Jeopardy's website and blog. They said, quote, when asked why the musk ox is his favorite, Alex Trebek responded, musk ox and are family oriented, and I like that. When in danger, they form a protective circle with the males facing outward and the cows and calves in the center. There are very few predators brave enough to attack this formation. He just likes the community. That's so sweet.

Every time I learn something new about him, I'm like, oh, he was a really good guy. Yeah, he was cool. I hadn't known that he donated like 74 acres of land to Los Angeles to not be built on and to just be like a small kind of like preserve and walking area. I mean,

it's a lot of acres. It must be pretty nice for a house. You know, he could have built like a big complex there but instead but uh and i was like oh and it's called like the alex trebek preserve and i'm like oh that's really wonderful you know yeah i like it when i like it when someone doesn't turn out to be a monster when you find out things about their life after the fact yeah and that's been the thing with him yeah it's really good he also no more musk oxes in his closet.

Most of us have skeletons. No, no, no, I need musk oxen. That's my secret. That's what I keep. That's why he has automated Febreze sprayers out at the closet door so that nobody can tell that there's a musk ox in there because you'd think you'd notice that way.

Musk is in the name. You've got gotta get that ethereal smell out of there where people think he has angels in his closet well and then uh in terms of him connecting with real musk oxen because he because alex trebek is from canada he's from northern ontario but i don't think they were they live very far north in canada i don't think he saw them. But in the late 1980s, John McKee, the director of the Musk Ox Farm in Palmer, Alaska, just found out Alex Trebek liked them, reached out, they connected. And then Alex Trebek, I guess kind of throughout his time hosting Jeopardy, made several visits to this farm in Palmer, Alaska. He also became the person who hand signed every adoption certificate for the farm. So for over 30 years, anytime you adopted a musk ox at this farm, you got a certificate, probably to your surprise, signed by Alex Trebek from Jeopardy, thanking you for supporting this farm. Really cool.

Oh, that's incredible. Yeah. Now I want to see a movie about Alex Trebek going on a mission to China to save those two musk ox. It's like Argo, but for musk ox, and he's Ben Affleck in it. We're taping A Week of Jeopardy in Beijing. Actually, it's a cover for getting these musk ox out of the air. We've got to get them to the American embassy so we can fly them out over cover of night. Wear the sun hat so they can't see your face.

He's handing them Canadian passports. He's like, your names are no longer Milton and Matilda. What if to make the plan work, part of it is the oxen have to win the game. Like they have to be the champion at the end of the run of shows. And then they can leave, you know? Like, well, we have to keep filming with them in LA.

So here we go. The prize is a flight, is a trip to the United States. He had a play in LA in the studio in the Tournament of Champions. And they can't, but Alex Trebek is such a man of his word that he can't coach,

he can't give them the answers and he can't even coach them. They just have to. That's the rules. I guess like a dream team of former Jeopardy players to coach the Musk oxen. Has anyone really smelled Ken Jennings? Do we know? I mean, no one I know.

Yeah. I keep trying, but. Yeah. Hard enough to get close to get a good enough wh know. Yeah. I keep trying, but. Yeah. Hard enough to get close to get a good enough check to make sure there's not a musk ox. Alex, you keep sending him letters being like, Ken, I'm a big fan. Can you put some of your scent into this envelope and mail it back to me? Specifically your musk. Other scents don't need it.

I need your musk and I need it. Regards, Alex. Rub it on your orbital glands and send it back. And one very last thing with this. There is a zoo in Tacoma, Washington, the Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium. They had a naming contest for their new baby musk ox, and the name Trebek won by, quote, a clear margin. Oh, that's wonderful.

So you can go to the zoo in Tacoma and see Trebek the baby musk ox, if you would like to, and if it's safe. I'm trying, I keep imagining the exploding bear costume to not cry. folks that is the main episode for this week my thanks to katie golden and elliot kalin for being so wonderfully fun about such a woolly musky animal also i said that's the main episode because there is more secretly incredibly fascinating stuff available to you right now. If you support this show on Patreon.com, patrons get a bonus show every week where we explore one obviously incredibly fascinating story related to the main episode. And this week's bonus topic is the strange history of panda diplomacy. We barely scratched the surface on that in the main. The bonus goes deep, and it's really exciting. Visit

SIFpod.fun for those pandas, for a library of more than a dozen other bonus shows, and to back this entire podcast operation. And thank you for exploring MuskO oxen with us. Here's one more run through the big takeaways. Takeaway number one, scientists dress up in giant bear costumes to study musk oxen herds by spooking them until the scientist explodes. Takeaway number two, musk oxen played a key role in Cold War diplomacy. And takeaway number three, musk oxen played a key role in Cold War diplomacy. And takeaway number three, musk oxen were the favorite animal of Alex Trebek, and there is a baby Trebek musk ox that you can visit in Tacoma. Those are the takeaways. Also, please follow my guests. They're great.

Katie Golden tweets as at ProBirdWrites all of the time and hosts the Creature Feature podcast weekly on iHeartRadio. And that show is my favorite set of news every week because it is incredible and strange and relatable animal news. And then Elliot Kalin is an amazing television writer. He's an amazing podcaster co-hosting The Flophouse on Maximum Fun, in addition to past shows like iPodius and Presidents Are People 2. And if you have children or know any young readers,

check out Elliot's book Horse Meets Dog, or check out Elliot's book Sharko and Hippo. They are two hilarious books geared toward children featuring animals. If you liked a musk oxen podcast episode, you will probably like those children's books. That's all I'm saying. Also, we had many research sources this week. Here are some key ones. Two great New York Times articles on musk oxen and their role in Cold War diplomacy.

Those articles are by Alexander Burns and by Mary Jo Murphy. We drew on an amazing radio show from Science Friday. It's from 2017, and it's called Getting Inside the Head of a Musk Ox. We also used articles from Alaska Public Media and from the Anchorage Press to get into the great Alex Trebek and his great big friendship with musk oxen. I also highly recommend Alex Trebek's memoir. It's just wonderful all around, and it also features some additional

thoughts on the musk oxen, so check that out. Find links to that and so much more in this episode's links at sifpod.fun. And beyond all that, our theme music is Unbroken Unshaven by The Budos Band. Our show logo is by artist Burton Durand. Special thanks to Chris Souza for audio mastering on this episode. Extra, extra special thanks go to our patrons. I hope you love this week's bonus show. And thank you to all our listeners. I'm thrilled to say we will be back next week with more secretly incredibly fascinating.

So how about that? Talk to you then.