The Science of Birds - Ostriches

Episode Date: September 29, 2022

This is Episode 61, and it’s all about Ostriches. These are the birds in the avian family Struthionidae.Ostriches are among the most recognizable and charismatic birds. No living bird is bigger than an ostrich. If you’ve ever seen one up close, you know how impressive these giants can be. They’re amazing.So I’m excited to dig into their biology with you today. You probably know a thing or two about Ostriches already, but let’s see if we can get a deeper understanding of them. We’ll look at their basic traits, their distribution, habitat, diet, and more.~~ Leave me a review using Podchaser ~~Links of InterestCyclists chased by an ostrich [VIDEO]Link to this episode on the Science of Birds websiteSupport the show

ostriches are such enormous and strange birds. It's no surprise they've gotten a lot of attention from humans throughout history. However, they probably would have preferred that we ignored them. Because humans being humans, much of the attention we've given ostriches has been focused on how to hunt them, eat them, monetize them, and humiliate them. People in Africa, the Middle East, and Asia have hunted these giant, flightless birds since the Stone Age, for not only their meat, but also their feathers, skin, and eggs. Ostrich was an exotic delicacy in ancient Rome. Those crazy Romans ate dishes like

ostrich stew, boiled ostrich, and even ostrich brains. But the Romans being Romans, they couldn't just eat ostriches. They also brought these birds into the Coliseum, where they were subjected to the cruel Venetio games. This is where wild animals like elephants, lions, crocodiles, and ostriches were pitted against gladiators for sport to entertain the cheering crowd. Such events rarely ended well for the animals. Eventually, some genius got the idea that it would be fun to clamber onto the back of an ostrich and attempt to ride the poor thing. When I was a kid in the early 80s, there was a popular arcade game called Joust. Your character in the game is an armored knight who happens to be riding an ostrich.

I loved Joust. As a kid, I thought it would be super cool to ride around on the back of a trusty ostrich steed, charging it bad guys with a spear. I know most video games are pretty grounded in reality, but Joust? I mean, come on. An armored knight weighs over 250 pounds or 115 kilograms. There's no way an ostrich could carry all that. also the bird in the arcade game could fly you frantically hit the flap button and your ostrich takes to the air what's wrong with this picture even though ostriches aren't built for carrying heavy loads on their backs that hasn't stopped humans from riding them since ancient times trying to anyway it doesn't actually work very well the ostrich has never really shined as a mount the way the horse and camel have today the

the quote-unquote sport of ostrich riding is fading from popularity due to legitimate concerns about animal cruelty. But there are still ostrich riding races in several parts of the world. This sort of nonsense has been most popular in South Africa. That's where ostriches first became semi-domesticated. Tourists visiting some ostrich farms in South Africa can pay to go for a brief, awkward ride on a bird. But again, this is falling out of favor. So humans have given ostriches a hard time for millennia. But sometimes these birds get their revenge on us. After all, an ostrich is one of the most dangerous birds on the planet. One can easily kill a person with a kick from one of its powerful, claw-tipped legs. Famous American musician Johnny Cash had a close call in 1981 when one of

his pet ostriches decided to rebel. Cash was walking a trail on his property when a belligerent male ostrich confronted him. It lunged and Cash took a swipe at the bird with a stick he was carrying. Here's what happened next in Cash's words. He wrote, quote, I missed. He wasn't there. He was in the air and a split second later he was on his way down again with that big toe of his, larger than my size 13 shoe extended toward my stomach. He made contact. I'm sure there was never any question he wouldn't. And frankly, I got off lightly. All he did was break my two lower ribs and rip my stomach open down to my belt. If the belt hadn't been good and strong with a solid belt buckle, he would have spilled my guts exactly the way he meant to. As it was, he knocked me over onto my

back and I broke three more ribs on a rock. End quote. And be thankful I spared you my Johnny Cash impression. I don't actually have one, but I'm sure it would be pretty bad. So the man in black, the legendary Johnny Cash, almost got taken out by a feisty ostrich. Hello and welcome. This is the science of birds. I am your host, Ivan Philipson. The Science of Birds podcast is a lighthearted exploration of bird biology for lifelong learners. This is episode 61, and it's all about ostriches. These are the birds in the avian family, Struthianity.

Ostrogies are among the most recognizable and charismatic birds. No living bird is bigger than an ostriches. If you've ever seen one up close, you know how impressive these giants can be. They're amazing. So I'm excited to dig into their biology with you today. You probably know a thing or two about ostriches already, but let's see if we can get a deeper understanding of them. We'll look at their basic traits, their distribution, habitat, diet, breeding, and more.

Ostriches are the largest birds in the world, pretty much any way you look at them. They're certainly the heaviest by far, and also the tallest. An adult weighs between 250 and 300 pounds, or 115 to 135 kilograms. Standing up straight, an ostrich can be up to 9 feet tall, or 2.75 meters. Females are a bit shorter than males. The oval-shaped body is supported by long, muscular legs. The neck, too, is long. It terminates in a fuzzy head that seems disproportionately tiny.

And no offense, Mr. Ostridge, but your head and neck looks sort of like, what if an elephant slipped its trunk into a sock puppet? A sock puppet with huge, soulful eyes. ostrich eyeballs are the largest of not only any bird but any land vertebrate period this bird's eye is twice the size of yours it's even bigger than an elephant's eye most of the space inside the sock puppet head of an ostrich is occupied by the eyes each of them is the size of a billiard ball and each is larger than the bird's entire brain to protect those ginormous bulging eyes from dirt and stuff ostriches have long, elegant eyelashes. They look like they're made of hair, but birds don't have hair, right? The eyelashes of ostriches are formed by simple, hair-like feathers called bristles. The bill of an ostrich is wide and blunt. The rolled edges of the bill make it look sort of like

the bird has lips. But I don't recommend trying to kiss an ostrich on the mouth, no matter how much you're tempted to. Ostriches are the only birds with just two toes on each foot. The larger inner toe is tipped with a long, hoof-like claw. It's about four inches or ten centimeters long. That's the weapon that almost disemboweled Johnny Cash back in 1981. Why only two toes? Well, a common theme in the evolution of running animals is reduction in the number of toes. Critters like deer and antelope also run on just two toes. Horses have taken this to the limit, having only one toe on each foot. Well, I suppose the real limit would be zero toes. But what would that look like? Weird, I guess. I don't know. Anyway, as far as plumage goes, adult male ostriches

have black feathers over most of their bodies and their upper wings. The tips of the wings and the tail are white. A male doesn't get this bold black and white coloration until he's in his second year. Before then, young males look a lot like females, which are duller and more brownish. Ostrich feathers look fluffy, sort of shaggy. They're loose and soft because their barbules don't interlock. Remember that barbules are the tiny, hook-like structures that sort of zip the larger barbs of a feather together. Without interlocking barbules, An ostrich feather can't form the flat, blade-like structure of a typical bird feather. Ostriches and their ancestors haven't been able to fly for millions and millions of years.

So these birds don't need the same sorts of feathers that flying birds do. But the feathers of ostriches do have some important functions. They provide insulation against the beating sun and from the cold on chilly nights. The male's feathers also have a role in sexual display. We'll come back to that in a little bit. And, most importantly, natural selection acting on ostrich feathers for millions of years has finally perfected them for the purpose of making feather dusters. Yes, feather dusters, and there was much rejoicing among French maids everywhere.

It's not all about feathers with ostriches. Their legs and necks are mostly bare skin, but there are some fine downy feathers on the neck, more so in females. A male's bare skin is brightly colored in the breeding season. Depending on the species, the neck and leg skin of a male can be red or bluish-gray. Okay, that's a little about what ostriches look like. Now, let's consider a few aspects of their behavior. These birds often live in flocks, sometimes called herds, of about 10 to 12 individuals.

There's a dominance hierarchy. a pecking order among them. A single male is the dominant bird. The highest-ranking female is called the major hen. The rest of the group is made of lower-ranking females, the minor hens. These birds are highly adapted for a life of running. Using those long muscular legs and their two-toed feet, ostriches sprint at speeds up to 43 miles an hour, which is 70 kilometers per hour.

but they can run at sustained speeds of about 30 miles an hour or 50 kilometers an hour. So another superlative quality of ostriches is that they're the fastest running birds in the world. In fact, an ostrich is the fastest thing on two legs. There's a hilarious video of an ostrich chasing some cyclists on a road in South Africa. Maybe you've seen it, but I'll put a link in the show notes. It's amazing to see how fast this bird can move, was about 50 kilometers per hour in the video. Scientists have figured out that ostriches use their wings while running.

They can position their wings to use them as rudders or stabilizers when breaking hard, turning, or while zigzagging as they run. Some non-avian dinosaurs back in the Cretaceous might have done something similar with their feathered arms. For example, Gigantoraptor was a 26-foot-long dinosaur with a body shaped, more or less like that of an ostrich. It couldn't fly, but it seems to have had long feathers on its arms. Some scientists speculate that Gigantoraptor may have used its forelimbs the way

ostriches do while running. When they aren't running around at high speed, ostriches like to get down in the dirt for a good old dust bath. They fluff their feathers and work dust into their plumage. Water is in short supply in the arid habitat. where ostriches live, so using dust and dirt is the best option they have for keeping their feathers free of oil and parasites. Speaking of getting down in the dirt, we have to address a conspiracy theory about ostriches that's been circulating for thousands of years. Ever since the

Romans were eating ostrich brains and having a grand old time by murdering these birds in the Coliseum. When I was a kid, I remember people saying that an ostrich will bury its head in the sand when frightened, you know, as a way to hide or to avoid dealing with the problem. I'm sure you know this, but for the record, ostriches do not bury their heads in the sand. They have much better tactics for dealing with threats. An ostrich can simply run away, or, if necessary, it can kick the living heck out of the offending creature, whether a lion, a jackal, or even a famous country musician. But where did this myth come from?

Back in the day, some ancient Romans probably saw wild ostriches out on the plains. These birds graze close to the ground, with their relatively tiny sock puppet heads. It doesn't take much to obscure the head, such that it sort of disappears seemingly into the ground. It's an illusion. Also, ostriches have nests on the ground that are dug a little below the source. surface. The birds tend to their eggs by moving them around with their beaks. Seen from a distance, an ostrich poking around in the nest might look like its head is buried. Let's move on to talk about the voice of ostriches. These birds make simple, whistling, grunting, and snorting

sounds most of the time. An ostrich will fluff out its feathers, spread its wings, and make a hissing sound when it feels disagreeable. To stake his territory or to impress the ladies, a male ostrich makes a powerful, low-frequency call by inflating his neck. Phonetically, I've seen this call written out in books as boo, boo, boo, boo. I don't know, it seems like if a male ostrich wants to attract females, making a spooky ghost sound like that is going to have the opposite effect. Imagine a couple females, a.k.a. potential mates, are wandering into the male's territory one night when one of them says,

Did you hear that, Sheila? Did you hear that? I swear, I just heard someone saying, boo. I think this place is haunted. Let's get out of here. Sheila, what are you doing? Sheila, no, don't stick your head in the sand. The ghost is going to see you. We have to run, Sheila. Run! If you actually hear the deep booming call of a male ostrich, you can decide for yourself if it's Halloween worthy and should be translated as boo. So here you go. Here's the real deal. The name of the ostrich family is struthionity. Some might pronounce this word struthionity, so thai instead of th. In any case, the word root there, struthio, is Latin for ostrich.

But that came from the ancient Greek word struthion, and that in turn had come from struthos megaly. You know what struthos megali translates to? Big Sparrow. That's right, big Sparrow. I guess some ancient Greek thousands of years ago saw an ostrich for the first time and they were like, Wow, look at that sparrow over there. That's probably the biggest sparrow I've ever seen. It's friggin huge. Really, guys, an ostrich looked like a sparrow to you? You don't think big chicken or big goose would have been a better name? An even wackier name for the ostrich in ancient Greece was struthocamilos, which means camel sparrow. Seriously, camel sparrow. You know, because of the long neck and whatnot.

The Latin word struthio is the genus name for the two ostrich species. Yes, there are only two living species in the family struthionity. There's the common ostrich, struthio camelus, and the Somali ostrich, struthio malibdefanes. These two species were once treated as just a single ostrich species. But in 2014, the Somali ostrich was promoted to full species status. It lives only in northeastern Africa. The East African Rift Valley seems to be the barrier that separates the Somali ostrich from common ostrich found to the west and south. One thing that distinguishes the Somali ostrich is that males have blue-tinted skin on their necks and legs, rather than red, as in the other species. The range of the common ostrich is mostly in Kenya and Tanzania in East

Africa, as well as south of the Congo Basin in southern Africa. So ostriches today are confined to the continent of Africa. But in historical times, these birds were found on the Arabian Peninsula and in Western Asia. Sadly, the last of the Middle Eastern and Asian birds were hunted to extinction by the 1940s. There are several small feral ostrich populations in Australia. Again, these are feral, so not natural. Emus and cassowaries are native to Australia, but not ostriches. People tried to farm ostriches in Australia, both in the 1890s and again in the 1970s.

but most of the farms failed, so the birds were set free to roam the outback. In their natural range in Africa, ostriches either stick around the same area all year or they're nomadic. They tend to be sedentary in regions where green food is plentiful because it rains enough. Nomadism is necessary where there's a long dry season and food is scarce. The birds need to head to greener pastures in that case. This brings us to habitat. What sorts of habitats are preferred by ostriches? Both species prefer arid or semi-arid grassland, savannah, or open woodland. Some common ostriches live in full-on deserts. Dry environments like this aren't all that intimidating to ostriches because these birds are superbly adapted for conserving water. They get most of the water they need from the plants they eat. Like camels, they can go for days and days without drinking, maybe even weeks. Still, an ostrich that happens to come across a waterhole might take the opportunity to

tank up, but it doesn't necessarily have to. Okay, so maybe camel sparrow isn't the worst name. Still, I think something like camel goose would have been way better. Osterges are members of the most ancient lineage of living birds. Other birds on this branch of the avian tree include Kiwis, Rias, emus, and tinamus. All of these birds are called paleognaths, and they trace their origins to well before the great extinction

that killed off the non-avian dinosaurs. ostriches, the family Struthianody, became its own distinct lineage beginning around 20 million years ago, give or take 10 million years. It's unclear where exactly these birds came from. Was it Africa or Eurasia? Ornithologists don't seem to be sure yet. Interestingly, there's something special about ostriches that has helped scientists unravel their ancient history. That something is their eggs. You know that these birds have massive eggs with thick shells. Well, unlike the eggs of smaller birds, ostrich eggs make great fossils. So there's an extensive record of fossil ostrich eggs across the old world. Ostrage species diversity was higher in the ancient past.

Even though we don't know if they first evolved in Africa or Eurasia, we do know that there have been a bunch of ostrich species running around on both continents at one time or another. For example, there was Pachistruthio, a titanic bird with an estimated height of 11.5 feet or 3.5 meters. It might have weighed almost 1,000 pounds or 450 kilograms, so it was way bigger than the modern ostriches. Pachistruthio lived in Eastern Asia a couple million years ago. As far as we know it's the largest bird that ever lived in the northern hemisphere. The closest relatives of ostriches that still roam the planet today are the Rias of South America and the cassowaries and emus of Australasia. These belong to separate families.

They're not members of Struthianity and have been separated from ostriches for tens of millions of years. I started off this episode talking about the trials and tribulations ostriches have gone through since antiquity. Enthusiastic hunting by humans has taken a major toll on ostriches across Africa and Eurasia. Once upon a time, ostriches were strutting around in places like China. Illustrations of these birds have been found on 4,000-year-old Chinese pottery. More recently, there was a subspecies of the common ostrich living on the Arabian Peninsula,

its scientific name was Struthio Camelus Syriacus. This is the population that humans had killed off by the 1940s. Conservationists have tried to re-establish ostriches on the Arabian Peninsula by introducing birds from northern Africa into Saudi Arabia and Qatar. But so far this hasn't worked. Of the two remaining species, the common ostrich appears to be doing reasonably well. It remains in the least concern category on the IUCN Red List. The Somali ostrich, on the other hand, isn't doing so hot. It's in the vulnerable category. A combination of hunting, egg collecting, and habitat destruction

has caused severe declines in this species over the last few decades. One possible solution for saving the Somali ostrich is ecotourism. This bird's population is concentrated in northern Kenya. If local people there can view ostriches as being more valuable, alive, and wild, rather than dead or displaced, they might be more motivated to protect them. Ostrages eat mostly plants. They hork down a wide variety of green things. Grass, leaves, roots, succulents, shrubs, shrubs, berries and seeds. An ostrich will often eat an entire plant, leaves, stems, thorns, roots, and all. Small animals, too, are on the menu. These include insects like grasshoppers, as well as

small vertebrates like the occasional lizard or frog. But probably 90% or more of an ostrich's diet is plant material. The wide, blunt-tipped bill of the ostrich with those seductive pseudolips is a general purpose tool for grazing and gobbling up plants. These birds also swallow small rocks and sand. Many other birds do this too. The gritty material helps to grind up tough plants in a muscular part of the digestive system called the gizzard. The technical, more sciencey word for gizzard, is ventriculus.

The digestive system of the ostrich, which, like ours, is essentially a tube connecting the place where food goes in at one end and the hole where waste comes out at the other end, the tube of the ostrich is unusually long. One source I found published in the Animal Science Journal reported that the intestines of an adult ostrich are about 75 feet long. That's 23 meters. For comparison, your intestines would stretch out to maybe 25 feet or 8 meters. The insanely long digestive tract of the ostrich

provides lots of surface area for nutrients and water to be absorbed from tough plant material. I want to point out that while doing my research online for this stuff about the digestive system, Google alerted me to some other search phrases to consider, you know, where it says people also search for and people also ask. Well, apparently, people also search for Do ostriches have eight hearts? And how many brains does an ostrich have? How many brains? Eight hearts? Seriously? Who are these

people asking these questions? My suspicion is they're ancient Romans, desperately hoping to learn that ostriches have multiple brains. You know, so they can eat them. It's not just Romans that ostriches need to worry about. An assortment of salivating predators hunt ostriches and eat their eggs. The biggest threats are lions, leopards, cheetahs, and hyenas. If an ostrich can't outrun or hide from one of these predators, it has those powerful legs to kick with. Even a lion can be killed by the furious karate kicks of an ostrich. Unguarded ostrich eggs are especially vulnerable to one particular predator, the Egyptian vulture. Neophran perchnopterus. These birds are mostly white with black flight feathers on their wings.

The bare skin of their faces is yellow. The Egyptian vulture's hooked bill isn't strong enough to crack open the thick shell of an ostrich egg, but this vulture has figured out how to use a tool to get the job done. It searches the ground around the egg until it finds a rock. Just the right rock, one that is more rounded than jagged. The vulture picks up the rock in its beak, then hammers the egg with it. Or the vulture will throw the rock at the egg. It misses the target 40 to 60% of the time, but the vulture is persistent. It picks the rock back up and keeps throwing until the egg cracks.

The open habitats of Africa aren't just home to ostriches and their predators. Our struthyanid friends also hang out around. a bunch of mammalian herbivores, zebras, antelopes, wildebeest, and critters like that. The hooves and feeding activity of such grazing mammals flush insects and other small animals that ostriches can snap up. In return, the tall, keen-eyed birds act like a sort of predator detection system for the grazing herds. If an ostrich sees an approaching predator like a cheetah, it will tear off at high speed, away from the danger. with its shaggy feathers all a flutter.

The other animals see this, and they know that it's time to run away. Run away! Run away! Run away! Do you know what a baby ostrich looks like? If not, do yourself a favor and check out the show notes for this episode on the Science of Birds website. I'll put a photo or two of an ostrich tick on there. A freshly hatched ostrich is painfully cute. It's covered in fuzzy down feathers,

looking almost like a stuffed animal version of a hedgehog, but with a pair of thick legs and a long neck, of course. Ostrich chicks are precocial, which means they hatch with their eyes wide open, and they're walking, running, and feeding themselves in no time. Let's look at how ostriches are able to make such delightful little fuzzballs. Let's look at their reproduction. The breeding system of these birds is unusual and really interesting. First off, ostriches are polygamous. A male breeds with multiple females in his group. And most females will also mate with multiple males. A male with his own territory will have a harem of females. But he usually forms a strong, permanent bond with just one of them. She's the

major hen I mentioned earlier. The male and his major hen will often stick together for many years, for better, for worse, in sickness and in health, yada, yada. The other subordinate females in the group aren't really bonded to the male. They may visit males in neighboring territories too. The male courts females using a dramatic, ritualized display. He makes the most of his black and white plumage to impress potential mates. The courtship display involves the male crouching on the ground and waving his fluffy wings and tail around. He also wriths his neck across his back,

showing off the color of his bare skin, red in the common ostrich and blue gray in the Somali ostrich. Then the male stands up and approaches the female. He raises his wings high and does a little prancing dance as he moves toward her. If she's into it, if she accepts him, mating ensues. Unlike so many other birds, male ostriches have a penis. This is also true for all male birds in the Paleignath lineage, cassowaries, kiwis,

Rias, etc. Males of most other types of birds have just a simple, multi-purpose orifice called a cloaca. Eventually, the male chooses a nest site on his territory and digs out a bird. A broad, shallow depression. The major hen lays her eggs first. She lays one egg every other day until there are between 7 and 10 in the nest. Then the minor hens get their turns.

The communal nest might end up with 20 to 40 giant cream-colored eggs. The male and his major hen alone incubate the eggs and care for the chicks. Incubation takes about six weeks. During that time, the pair have to, be super vigilant against predators. The female with her camouflaged plumage sits on the eggs during the day and the male takes over at night. To protect her reproductive investment, the major hen rolls her own eggs to the center of the pile in the nest. I wish I could tell you how she knows

which eggs are her own, but I haven't found a good explanation yet, and I'm not sure anyone knows, actually. Anyway, this is a useful trick, because nest predators are more likely to bust open an egg on the periphery. In other words, an egg laid by one of the many minor hens. Both minor and major hens lay eggs in multiple nests, as another strategy to ensure they contribute some genes to the next generation. So in the nest of her bonded male, her main squeeze, the major hen is the dominant female. But at the same time, she has probably laid eggs in the nests of a few neighboring males. Over in their territories, she's just a lowly minor hen. One reason we know all this happens is because researchers have used genetic information from DNA samples to

match eggs to their male and female parents. What ends up happening is, the eggs in every ostrich nest represent multiple fathers and multiple mothers. And yet, all the hatchlings in a nest are cared for by just two adults, the local territorial male and his major hen. Now, before you go thinking, aw, isn't that so beautiful? The ostriches just want to be selfless and help everyone else's babies. For the greater good! No way, Jose, that pair of ostriches isn't behaving this way out of the goodness of their hearts. I mean, I'm sure they do have good hearts, but that's beside the point. These birds have parental instincts that are, at their core, adaptations for passing on as many genes as possible. One hypothesis explaining this behavior goes like this. By accepting the eggs

of minor hens, the major hen is creating a sort of buffer of protection for her own eggs and young. She dilutes the danger of predators across the many eggs in the nest, making it more likely that some of hers will survive. She'll happily use the eggs of minor hens as cannon fodder to protect her own. The ostrich egg is, as you probably know, a wonder of nature. At about 6.3 inches or 160 millimeters long, it's the largest egg laid by any living bird species. It would take more than 20 chicken eggs to weigh as much as one ostrich egg. Interestingly, though, the ostrich egg is the smallest bird egg in the world in proportion to the size of the bird who made it.

It weighs only about 1 to 4% of what an adult female weighs. Anyway, after those six weeks or so of incubation, the eggs hatch. It takes about four days for all the chicks in the nest to emerge. The male and female are now responsible for a herd of baby ostriches. And remember, some of those chicks aren't even related to their caretakers. Despite this, the male and female take good care of all the younglings in their charge. They guide the chicks to feeding pastures, protect them from the elements, and protect them from predators. And there's no shortage of predators on the plains of Africa.

Jackals especially are notorious killers of young ostriches. The probability of survival for any single chick is low, despite the efforts of the adult birds. Half or more of the chicks don't live for more than a few months. And only 10 to 20% survive to adulthood. This is probably why ostriches lay so many eggs in the first place. Reaching adulthood takes about 18 months. At that point, the ostrich is pretty much full-sized, so it's much less vulnerable to predators. It can run like the wind and can deliver a killing blow with those powerful clawed legs.

These birds have relatively long lives. In captivity, some have lived over 60 years. But in the wild, where things are less predictable and less cushy, ostriches live more like 30 to 40 years. still that's not too shabby for a big old camel sparrow given all that we've put ostriches through hunting them to extinction in some places stealing their eggs forcing them into mortal combat with gladiators and making them run around while we cling to their backs like grinning monkeys given all of that i'm just thankful that these magnificent beasts are still with us on planet earth maybe there's still hope that they'll forgive us for our bad behavior and that was today's lesson on the world's

largest living birds i hope you thought it was interesting and at least mildly entertaining if you have something you'd like to share with me please go ahead and shoot me an email maybe you have a comment about the podcast or perhaps a question like hi ivan how many brains do you have in any case case, my address is Ivan at Science of Birds.com. You can check out the show notes for this episode, which is No. 61, number 61, on the Science of Birds website, scienceofbirds.com. I'm your loyal host, Ivan Philipson. I'm honored to have spent some time with you today, and I hope you're doing just great. Cheers.