The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week - Bat-Devouring Rodents, Penguin Retirement Home, Chicago "Rat" Hole

Episode Date: December 17, 2025

Kendra Pierre-Louis joins Weirdest Thing for the season 9 finale! She talks about the rats chowing down on bats, producer Jess Boddy explains the scientific study on Chicago's rat hole, and Rachel talks about the wonderfully heartwarming penguin retirement home at the New England Aquarium. Plus, Rachel has a very special announcement! The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week is a podcast by Popular Science. Share your weirdest facts and stories with us in our ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Facebook group⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ or ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠tweet at us⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Click here to learn more about all of our stories! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Links to Rachel's TikTok, Newsletter, Merch Store and More: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://linktr.ee/RachelFeltman⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  Rachel now has a Patreon, too! Follow her for exclusive bonus content: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.patreon.com/RachelFeltman⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Link to Jess' Twitch: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.twitch.tv/jesscapricorn⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Link to all of Jess' content: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.jesscapricorn.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠ -- Follow our team on Twitter Rachel Feltman: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.twitter.com/RachelFeltman⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Produced by Jess Boddy: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.twitter.com/JessicaBoddy⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Popular Science: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.twitter.com/PopSci⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Theme music by Billy Cadden: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://open.spotify.com/artist/6LqT4DCuAXlBzX8XlNy4Wq?si=5VF2r2XiQoGepRsMTBsDAQ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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This Memorial Day get low prices guaranteed at the Home Depot. While supplies last, price invalid May 14th or May 27th, U.S. only exclusions apply. See Home Depot.com slash price match for details. At popular science, we report and write dozens of science and tech stories every week. And while most of the stuff we stumble across makes it into our articles, we also find plenty of weird facts that we just keep around the office. So we figured, why not share those with you? Welcome to the weirdest thing I learned this week from the editors of popular science. I'm Rachel Feldman.

I'm just Bodie. And I'm Kendra. Welcome back to the show. It's been a while. It has. Listeners, if you don't remember Kendra, she used to work with us at Pops Eye. She hates mayonnaise. and also does a lot of really great journalism, but...

But the most important part is that I hate mayonnaise. Right, right, of course. Yeah, on the record as a mayonnaise hater. Kendra, would you tell listeners what you've been up to over the last few years? Yeah, that's a really good question. I was working in audio for a little bit, and I show called How to Save a Planet, and then we all got laid off, and that sucked. Media.

And then I was working for Bloomberg for a couple years as a climate reporter, and I left in February to take some time because it's a weird time to be a climate reporter. And I've just been really taking some time until pretty recently when something changed. Yeah, well, I will say all three of us on this episode are people who have taken some time from media. I love to take some time away from media personally. But yes, Kendra is going to be filling in for me as the host of Science Quickly, Scientific Americans, three-time-a-week podcast that you should absolutely listen to. because surprise, I'm going away for a little bit, not for forever, but I'm facilitating the

arrival of a new human being to Earth. Yeah! So, yeah, I will also be taking a break from weirdest thing, but the show will not be gone for long. If you're listening to this episode, basically we're wrapping up season nine as usual, and then we're going to take a very short break. And then we'll be back with a mix of like some vintage episodes with, you know, a little bit of commentary. And then Jess is going to do some hosting and bring in a bunch of awesome friends from Twitch.

It's true. And it's going to be great. And then I'll be back in the spring. And, you know, it'll be awesome. And that's what's happening. We'll remind you a couple more times that that is the case in case you missed this episode the first time it aired and are confused and think maybe I died. That was a real fear in 2020. I would be emailing people I hadn't like talked to in a while and I'd be like, hope they're not dead.

Yeah. Seriously. Well, and I've like generally speaking, I've been pretty incognito about having a kid. And I really considered fully never addressing it and just saying it was taking a break. But then I was like, Rachel, people are going to think you're, you're, you've talked about how your body is in shambles. People are going to think something's something bad is happening. and I didn't want you to worry. Right.

But anyway, for now, we are here to do the weirdest thing I'm doing this week. So on the weirdest thing I learned this week, we start by each offering up a little tease about some kind of fact or story we found in the course of reading, writing, reporting, et cetera, and decide which one we just absolutely have to hear more about first. Then once we've all had time to spin our little science yarns, we reconvene and decide what the weirdest thing we learned this week actually was. Though heads up, Kendra, since the last time we were on, we no longer. or actually pick a winner because we kept having three-way ties.

And it was just a farce. And I, you know, whatever. But I'll never rewrite the intro because I already have enough trouble remembering it from week to week. Jess, what's your tease? My tease is there's finally a peer-reviewed scientific study in a journal about the Chicago rat hole. Incredible.

When I saw this story, I was like, you're like, this is your fact this week. And I said, you're right. You're right. I was like, I must know Jess's thoughts on this and only Jess's thoughts. I didn't even click through and read any of the articles because I was like, I wanted you to filter it for me. And I will and I did. I is now a bad time to admit I don't know what the Chicago rat hole is. Not at all.

And I will enlighten you. Yeah. Kendra, what's your teeth? I unknowingly also picked something thematically rat related, which is ironic because rats are my second least favorite animal or critter after the mosquito. Wow, that's harsh. We child. You're a rat hater. Oh, fully.

Well, I'm a born and raised New Yorker. So I've come to my hate naturally. Sure. When I was four, we lived in an apartment that was mouse infested, not rot infested, but I was four and they might as well be the same thing. Right. Sure. And size relativity and all that. Yeah.

One of my earliest memories is of my dad who is not an especially violent human being, but there was a mouse that was half in and half out of a mousetrap. And it was like getting ready to make it make a go for it. Oh. And my dad just lost it and he stomped on it. And the sound of that mouse screaming is just, it's in there. And it's weirdly not the first time I've seen someone Stompa rodent to death because New York City. Yeah. Which I don't advocate.

I'm all on the side of killing them humanely. Yeah. It's just so clear. My fact does involve, well, actually, no, I'm not going to say, I'm not going to say what it involves. I'm going to surprise you because. I would say that my fact involves the fact that rats. killing in the most unusual way possible. The rats doing the...

Do the rats are doing the killing? Yeah. Oh, okay. They're assassins. Which, again, does little to redeem them in my eyes. Sure. Not even a rat assassin. No.

Ratatoui is just rat propaganda as far as I'm concerned. Oh, my God. Along with the rats of nym. No. This is funny because I feel like Rachel and I are kind of like rat lovers. Yeah. where I'm relatively pro-rat, I would say. Their tails are like, oh.

I think they're cute. I also love, I also love possums, though. I actually, the only good thing about possums is that in 2005, the Brooklyn, in Brooklyn, like the Brooklyn Borough Community Board or, what is it at a city level? Like, the borough level. So there's like the Brooklyn City Council, which I know makes no sense, but the Brooklyn City Council passed a law deliberately introducing. possums to try and take out the rat population. It did not work. We did that here in Chicago with feral cats. Yeah, you just got a bunch of freaky little guys out there all together. Yeah. Literally. And it did not work at all. And then eventually, like five years after they did

this, there's this famous footage of a possum hitching a ride on the subway all curled up next to the heater. See, like I find possums very cute in abstract. Yeah. And I think I would find one cute if I saw it like in its proper place and I was in I was encroaching on the proper territory of the possum but it might be a bit much for me to to find one on the subway. I have I have not seen one on the subway but I had seen one like when I was walking home I near my parents asked in Deep Queens and it was jarring but the way I felt was like you have a job to do get to it. Sure.

Get those rats. Yeah, I did a, I did a fact on possums for grudest thing once and they like truly will eat anything. Like they can digest rattlesnake venom. Like they will eat anything. And they should be eating more rats apparently. My tease is that I'm going to talk about penguin retirement homes. What? Yeah. When penguins get to retire. Wait, that's so cute. Yeah, it's nice.

Jess, why don't you start with, I feel like we should, we should separate the rats. So why don't you start us with the rat hole? Gladly. Okay. So rat hole hysteria began back in January of 2024, which is almost two years ago. That is actually shocking to me. Like, what is time? So many, many of you listeners will probably remember the sensation that swept the internet.

In Chicago's Roscoe village neighborhood up on the north side, folks found a hole. in the concrete shaped like a rat. Or was it a rat? We'll get there. I'm getting ahead of myself. That's for later. It's like when people find like the face of Jesus and toast. Oh dude.

Kind of. Yeah. Yeah. But I will say having seen the photo of the rat hole, it's not. It's a rat. It's pretty unambiguously an animal. Yeah. True.

It's not like that reminds me of. It's like, yeah. You can see little. lives. Are you implying that Jesus was not in my toes, though? Fair enough. Oh, boy. So yes, okay, back then, Chicagoans, myself included, and meme enjoyers worldwide came to know this rat hole. And it was just a piece of sidewalk that looks like a rat went splat right into the wet concrete. And, you know, maybe it died there, like encased in the concrete. Maybe it was already dead. And somehow it went splat in there and then, you know, when it decayed after the cement dried or

something or, you know, maybe something came and ate it. Whatever happened, it left a rat shaped hole. And you can Google Chicago rat hole and you can see many images. I have many images that I took during my pilgrimages to the rat hole that I will send to Rachel. How many? How many times did you make a pilgrimage to the rat hole? A couple. You know, you got to go check it out. You got to make your offerings. And so, so yeah, there's this rat hole. And one local Chicagoan named Winslow Dumae. He is an artist, a board game designer.

And he's also, he co-hosts a podcast called I'm from the internet, which is all about something awful.com. And I need to listen to this show because that just sounds like, that's great. I didn't know that was a podcast. And now I do. And now I got to check it out. I don't think I want to be reminded of something awful.com. But I, like, it's a good topic.

It's just that like, whatever. a period of the internet. Okay, I just, my friend just showed me the, this, this YouTube video essay about the Grover House. Did you guys know about the Grover House? From something awful forums? Okay, well, I'll send it to you later. It's, it's a whole thing. It was, it was awesome. It was highly recommend. You're going to love it. Okay. Yeah. Anyway, this guy wins low. He tweeted a picture of the rat hole and he made it, he, he's seemingly patient zero for making the rat hole go viral. So he tweeted at 208 p.m. on January 6th of 2024. The most auspicious day of the calendar.

I know, very auspicious. He tweeted the rat hole picture and said, had to go make a pilgrimage to the Chicago rat hole. And it took the internet by storm. And as of right now, this tweet has over 5 million views and over 125,000 likes. So soon after he posted about making his pilgrimage, his pilgrimage, to the rat hole, many, many, many other Chicagoans also made their pilgrimages. I don't, I couldn't find any like official estimates for how many folks went to go see this rat hole, but it did eventually become so troublesome for the people that lived next to it because

it was truly just on a residential street that they took out the sidewalk chunk and like moved it and now it's in city hall because it was like, there were too many crowds. So I didn't take this away. I knew that it had been repaired. I didn't know that they'd preserved it. That's such a relief to me. Yes. It's no longer there. Like I will, I occasionally will walk by where it was on the north side and like it's just regular sidewalk now. But yeah, they did. There's a hilarious photo of like one of like, they know those little like bobcat like forklift truck things. Yeah. With like precious car go.

Of sidewalk and you can see the little rat hole in it. So yeah, they took it to city hall. And it's not on display, but I hope they put it on display one day. It's just being like stored and preserved there. So so yeah, people went to go see it. I went to go see it. And like I said, I'll put my picks on pops out.com slash weird. And people left a bunch of stuff like offerings. So I went, I looked at my date of my photos when I took a bunch of pictures.

And that was on January 20th. And that's like well into this rat hole frenzy. So people left coins like change in the hole. They put holy water in the hole. I saw blocks of cheese, shredded cheese. People like would make little shrines. There were prayer candles, Pokemon cards. cash out tickets from the rivers casino, Midwesterners,

Chicaguanans, you know. There's bottle of mallort and, you know, books, cards, rubber ducks, coolade packets, estrogen pills, bouquets of roses. And amidst all of this stuff, there's a little laminated sign that said, quote, Dear rat visitors, please be respectful of the rats of the rats neighbors and keep noise and clutter to a minimum. Please do not leave any food by the shrine as that may attract live rats. Also, please do not leave anything that could be harmful to children with love rat neighbors.

Yeah, I feel for the rat neighbors. No, I know. I do too. And I had like a little heart with the Chicago flag on the sign. It was very cute. They're like trying to be very nice. And they were very nice, you know, like I get it. And there was also the situation like I don't know if this was an angry neighbor or like who did this because of all of the Hall of Blue, but somebody filled the rat hole with plaster. Like, somebody tried to fill it in. And then other neighbors and rat hole enthusiasts went and cleaned it out and re-excavated it, which is just so funny. As one does, you have to re-execuate the rat hole. And the Chicago Sun Times, one of our local papers, interviewed some folks about the re-excavation and one local resident said, quote, Chicago takes care of its own.

I love that. It's like so on brand. So, yeah, in the height of rat hole hysteria, there was a scientist here in Chicago doing some postdoc research. His name is Michael Granitowski, and he's an evolutionary biomechanist. So he kind of studies how like creatures, you know, have changed the way they move over many, many, many years and that sort of thing. So he saw the rat hole and he was like, do you know what? This thing's kind of like a modern day trace fossil. So trace fossils are basically like, you know, a fossil of something left behind by an animal, like like a footprint, a burrow or something like that, or perhaps the best kind of fossil, in my opinion, the corporalite, the poop fossil.

Yeah. Those are all trace fossils. So Dr. G saw this and was like, Ratthole could fit this bill. Wow. This reminds me of the contemporary archaeology story with the scape park excavation. It's contemporary paleontology. Totally. That is exactly what it is.

I love that analogy. Yeah. That makes total sense. And Dr. G was like, I wonder if I can study. this rat hole, like scientists use other trace fossils to figure out if it really was a rat that fell into the wet cement. Because even back two years ago, people were kind of like, guys, was it a rat? But not, they wouldn't say that too loud because, you know, they wouldn't dare desecrate the name of the rat hole. But people were, I think there were some murmurs about like,

is it a rat? So Dr. G wanted to figure it out. And he also wanted to study the hole scientifically because he thought it would help provide insight into interpreting, like, way older, like more typical trace fossils, like as a whole. So it would kind of like, you know, advance the field of studying trace fossils. So he and his team at the University of Tennessee Knoxville used a bunch of different photos of the rat hole. And because they couldn't really get access to the, to the rat hole because it was in City Hall. And they didn't want to use like the post-excavation, re-excavation measurements anyway,

because it was like, you know, tainted by it's not, it's not an accurate sample anymore. Right. Yeah. So they used, they used photos and then they used the little offerings, like the coins and stuff, as like scale bars. So they used that to like get accurate measurements of the different parts of the creature of the quote unquote rat. And then they got measurements from museum specimen skins of local Chicago residents like mice, rats, chipmunks, musk rats and several species of squirrel. That was going to be my question because, you know, in New York City, our rats are the size of chihuahuas. Yes. So our rats are the same. And actually, Chicago was 10 years running the radiest city in the U.S. I am so sorry.

Yeah. I don't, I mean, we actually just lost this year to L.A., which is like, L.A. I know. It's shocking, isn't it? Yeah. I mean, I guess it's like with the weather, it's like always a good time to be a rat in L.A. No, it is. Yeah. You just don't think of it. Yeah. And I know that like Chicago has always been a really big rat city, especially post-pandemic because of the way our alleys work. So like, you know, when Chicago was built, there were city ordinances for how they built the streets and the alleys because they forced or the ordinances were like we need to have alleys because we don't want trash on our streets like New York does. Like we want to have an ordinance to have alleys for the trash. New York has basically no alleys. That is one of the fun facts about how the, like, biggest inaccuracy in Law & Order is how much stuff happens in alleys.

Oh my God. Wait. There's only like one alley they can film in. Wait, that's, I never even thought about that. That's crazy. And that alley is privately owned. So it's like very expensive to film in it. No way. It's like in Chinatown. I'm not kidding. Someone's making bank from Law & Order. I actually did live around the block from an alley. Oh, yeah. It doesn't exist anymore. Bummer. And it was like an almost suburban alley. Yeah.

You know, and I did cut through it, but that's because it was brightly lit in next to people's homes. Yeah. I mean, in Chicago, it's like basically almost everyone has alleys. Like, you know, you know your neighbor that you like your backyard, you have your backyard, your alley and then your neighbor's backyard. So you kind of like meet your neighbors across the alley. It's like it's kind of like a fun little community thing. Also, community thing for the rats because they have a designated playground. And that's why Chicago, one of the reasons why Chicago ends up being one of the radiest cities, because, and why our rats are huge.

Like, I swear to God, like the size of a football, dude, huge, massive. My dog caught a rat once, a live rat. And it squeaked. And I yelled. I went, ah, Flora. And she dropped it and it ran away. And I looked at her and I was like, Flora, what did you do? And I panicked and called the vet.

And I was like, is it okay? if she caught a rat? Is she got to die? And they were like, did you see any blood or anything? I was like, no. And they were like, yeah, yeah, she's fine. So there are, there are, I remember reading a New York Times piece. I think it was in New York Times a few years ago about a community of like upper west side

rat terrier owners who are like, our dogs have a natural instinct to hunt rats. Oh my God. And they should be allowed to hunt rats. And they just like get together and are like, little terrier, go hunt some rats. I love that. Yeah. No, it's like not, I don't actually have a problem with with what they're trying to do, but their vibes were terrible. Oh, sure, sure. Sure. No, absolutely. That makes sense. So, so yeah, the alleys rampant with rats. That's why we have so many rats. But was it a rat that made the rat hole? We, you know, could maybe. So when they did their statistical analyses, these scientists and crunched all their numbers,

They took, you know, they took a bunch of measurements, like even the little fingers in the rat hole. And they did like, you know, the classic snap to tail, limb length, like the whole nine yards. They took a bunch of measurements. And they concluded with nearly a 99% likelihood that the rat hole is actually a squirrel hole. Wow. No. I know. And they said it's probably a fox or a gray squirrel, fox squirrel or gray squirrel, both of which live in Chicago.

But what is an urban squirrel? but a rat with better PR. You're telling me. Wait, no, there's a difference I can say as someone who had a squirrel in the wall of her apartment one time. Oh, yeah. The big difference is squirrels are only looking for temporary shelter and they will only go as far as they will have to go home,

but they store their food outside of the home. So they're always eating. And that's one of the reasons why, like, if you have a squirrel in your home, you have to wait for the squirrel to get out before you seal that hole because otherwise, because it will go out basically. So you don't want to risk trapping it in your home.

So that's the big difference is that they don't really want to be in your home and they don't want your food. That's a difference. Rats will eat babies. Squirrels will not. Okay, that's fair. That's a big difference. Yeah.

Yeah. And for the rat slash squirrel hole, like squirrel would make sense because squirrels are active during the day when construction usually occurs and they're like pouring wet cement. Rats are usually nocturnal. But like, again, ask any Chicagoan or New Yorker. And like, you know, rats are always around. It's not like they only come out of night.

But additionally, there weren't any footprints around the hole, meaning it probably like fell from a tree. And I don't think rats usually, usually climb trees. Squirrels are up there, obviously. And Roscoe Village residents nearby said there did used to be a tree right above the rat hole. It's all coming together. Yeah.

However, there isn't like a big tail mark in the rat hole, right? It looks like a rat tail. It doesn't look like a squirrel tail. Scientists said that the fluffy tail probably wouldn't have made a big mark, which makes sense. It's like a light fluffy tail. But still, there aren't any like hair marks or anything where it is. So I don't know.

At the same time, I also thought of how many squirrels I see in the city with small tails or even like no tails, probably because some people's... Cago doing to the poor squirrels? Well, I was just going to say, you know, I've, not that I, not that I would, would know, but some, some people's dogs, I would say, have caught squirrels by the tail. Not that, not that my dog. Not that girl, Flora. No, Flora is absolutely caught squirrels by the tail. And again, I freak out. And then she, she drops it. And then it's fine. But, you know, I'm sure there are other dogs where people, where people just let the dogs, or dogs that are on off leash in a backyard and like, you know, catch a squirrel. And the tail is an easy target. I tell you what.

Or dogs where their owners are like, my dog evolved to hunt squirrels. Yes. I'm going out with my gang of squirrel. Literally. Literally. But so yeah, Dr. Granitowski said that the fact that they could only narrow it down to the genus of squirrel and not the specific species, it highlights how hard it is to make big scientific claims using only trace fossils. So it's still, it's still kind of like, you know, it was an important thing to study to kind of better understand how to study trace fossils, but it's still like a really difficult thing to only use to kind of understand more complete scientific landscape of what you're looking at of an ecosystem or something like that. And to tie it all back together, I have a quote from Winslow Dume, the artist and game designer

who sparked the initial rat hole fame. He said, quote, I've got two quotes from him here. He said, quote, the exact dimensions and causality of the Chicago rat hole were not the driving force of the story. It doesn't matter how it was made, but that it brought us together. Wow. And then he was also talking about how I love this. This is like my favorite thing, is that he talks about how Chicagoans still refer to our tallest skyscraper as the Sears Tower, despite it being actually named the Willis Tower. And it's been called the Willis Tower since 2009. Nobody calls it that. It is the Sears Tower, even though it's no longer officially that. And so that's kind of like, you know, our attitude towards the rat hole.

I think it's always going to be the rat hole, even if it's technically a squirrel hole. And then Kendra, this is kind of what you were saying, too. He said, besides, squirrels are just jizzed up rats. Don't let the tails fool you. They eat garbage too. So maybe not, maybe not as much garbage or, you know, they won't eat your babies. But they're still, they're still just kind of a rat, sort of. I think the tails make the difference.

And the fact that they don't, they're not trying to get into your home. I get that. Those are, those are two crucial differences. I agree. I agree. It's much cuter tale and, you know, different approaches to home invasion. Yeah. It's just like I intellectually understand that a capybara is basically a rat.

But a copybar is an adorable. I love caparas. They, they can luxuriate in a hot citrus bath. And probably a rat would do if given the opportunity. And maybe it's really unfair that we. having chicken rats more opportunities. I'm saying. What animals chill on them, though.

Can you imagine a rat letting an animal? Yeah, never. Yeah. Little bird on the head. Yeah. No. It's very different. I've seen rat gangs before.

I would love to be the Khabara gang. Wait, yeah. Oh, my God. I'm picturing like the yakuza, but it's like Kapi Baras. All right. We're going to take a quick break and then we'll be back with some more facts. Did you know that there's an online cannabis company that ships federally legal THC right to your door? I'm talking about mood.com. They have an incredible line of cannabis gummies and a lot more.

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Okay, we're back. And I'm going to jump into my fact, which is not about rats. It's about penguins who are retired. So I recently saw a blog post from New England and Queensland. about the different enrichment activities that they offer for penguins of various ages. But what obviously really stuck out to me was the fact that they mentioned that they basically have a penguin retirement home, which is a pretty recent development. And so I had to learn more about that.

So this aquarium, which is in Boston and is a great aquarium, by the way, if you've never been, revealed its new elder habitat in March of 2025. And they compared it to an assisted living facility. Cute. Yeah, and why is this here, first of all, the aquarium has a community of African penguins, which in the wild only tend to live to be like 10 years old. Due to like the stuff you'd expect, they have plenty of natural predators. They have to deal with scarce food at times due to overfishing.

And then, of course, there are like natural ailments that penguins will come across in the wild, especially as they get older. Meanwhile, at the aquarium, where they have plenty of food, no predators, and really cushy medical care, which I'll get into it. in a second. More than half the colony that they have at the New England Aquarium has met or outlived their species life expectancy. And a handful of them are in their 30 years. They actually had one that almost lived to 42. She died just quite recently, like a couple years ago. And that was, I think, the oldest penguin in the like American Zoological Association or

whatever the organization is that's like, these are all the real zoos and aquariums that are legit. She was a real old dame. And it's so old that one of her kids is actually in the retirement home. My goodness. But yeah. So being an African penguin in your 30s, huge deal. You're really over the hill. And it's like you're so over the hill that this would simply not happen in the wild. Not like, it's not just that it would be rare. A penguin that slid. down this much is going to get eight. So it just doesn't happen. And so here at this aquarium, they were like, wow, we have more and more like truly geriatric

penguins. So what can we do for them? And like I said, they're already taken gorgeous care of. But something that was increasingly coming up is that, you know, young penguins, they can be very rambunctious. They can be very territorial over food, and especially during mating season, they get like territorial over literal territory. So it was just kind of, it was like a rough and tumble life for the old penguins to be living on the same little aquarium islands as these young bucks. It's like when elder millennials get on TikTok.

Yeah. Oh, it's just like that. And also, I think I was really empathizing with these penguins a lot because being pregnant in New York City, and taking public transit and just like being out in the world, there were many situations where I was like, many times people behaved actively poorly, and I really was like way more self-righteous about it than normal. But even when people were just kind of like acting average bad for New York City,

I was still just like, I shouldn't have to be in this lane of existence, you know? Like there should be a different place for me to be existing, Because, like, it's fair that you just want to be your normal asshole self, but like, I'm really pregnant. Yeah. Like, this sucks. Anyway, so now they have their own little island, but it's only separated from the islands where the young penguins live by like a mesh gate in the water.

So they're not like fully isolated. They can still see the other, I think there are three other islands full of young penguins. But the space allows them to chill without competing for fish. or space with the more hail and hearty young birds. And then plus, because there are fewer of them, it's easier for caretakers to keep a really close eye on their individual needs. I need that service for middle-aged podcasters. Yes.

Yeah. Yeah, they keep really careful records on like what a penguin's up to, how much they're eating, how they're acting at feeding time, keeping an eye out for ailments that tend to afflict older penguins, like foot injuries and cataracts. So it does really help the caretakers out that there's a smaller, more condensed group of them to be watching that closely.

And in fact, the aquarium has said that they may eventually bring in injured birds or ones that otherwise have special needs that aren't old on a case-by-case basis, you know, either for like temporary rehab or to move there permanently. You know, any penguin that just needs to get out a life in the fast lane.

And they already do they do a ton of specialized care at this aquarium a few years ago, an African penguin named Beach Donkey. I will address why she's the beach donkey in a minute. Oh my God. But just hold on to that for a sec. So she was in her early 20s. So compared to a lot of the penguins that are living on this island, you know, a fresh young chicken, but like double the age of a penguin that would typically be alive in the wild. She was treated for potodermatitis, which is an inflammatory condition of the feet. And it can cause lesions on the pad of the foot and it can really progress into like bone infections and loss of mobility,

so you really need to treat it. It's also known as Bumblefoot, which sounds a lot cuter. But one of the, they had like this whole course of treatment for her, which ended up including surgery. But one of the things that they were working on were custom shoes to minimize foot irritation. They thought she might end up wearing them all the time. It turns out she just wore them after surgery recovery, but they were still really helpful. But you have to train a penguin to be willing to walk around in shoes. And the way that they trained her to be willing to wear them was by taking her on field trips around the aquarium in them. Her rewards were, quote, novel views. There is an amazing video that I will post on popside.com slash weird of her just

being, her just walking freely with, you know, caretakers around her while the aquarium was closed and just look at stuff. Because she's a penguin, she's very interested in the office spaces, very curious about those. And also, like, when she gets to, like, look at a fish, she's like, whoa. So that was enough of a reward

that it sufficiently trained her to be happy to wear these shoes, which ended up really helping with her surgery recovery. And, yes, why is her name Beach Donkey? because one of the vernacular names of the African penguin is the jackass penguin, because they apparently make very loud donkey-like noises. And in South Africa, they live on the beach. So beach donkey. But they called her beach for short.

And yeah, they're, you know, outside of like specific injuries and conditions, the aquarium does a ton of stuff for older penguins. They'll take fish. and inject them with extra water to help keep the penguins hydrated so their kidneys keep working. Oh my God. They give them eye drops really often. They'll do treatments on their feet to keep them from getting infections.

And they even get acupuncture and physical therapy to help deal with like, you know, bone pain and, you know, muscle pain. And apparently the pigments really like the acupuncture. So they do have to be, they have to be trained to like accept this kind of care. But it's something I'll talk about in a minute is, is that they sort of start training them really young to like be open to a human touching their feet or, you know, picking them up. Specifically so that when they get old, they're going to be open to these treatments. And like with that training, apparently they like really love getting their acupuncture and their like little rub downs. Same.

Which is very sweet. Honestly, the penguin health care system at the New England Aquarium seems really good. Are they... Are there opportunities for humans to become penguins? But only at the New England Aquarium. Yeah, yeah, I do it. So, yeah, how are things going on Penguin Retirement Island? And, you know, they're not actually retired because they're still visible to the guests,

but they're, you know, they're at their senior community, live in their best senior life. Apparently, they like all started to just slow down once they realized they weren't competing with and dealing with younger birds. They do a lot more laying down and resting. The island has more flat areas than the other islands and apparently, you know, some other sort of subtle features that make it easier for them to get in and out of the water. And some of them actually started swimming more because they were more confident about getting in and out of the water. So yeah, really similar to like a good human assisted living facility where it's like it's not about doing less. It's about the facility suiting your needs so that you can live a better life and do more.

And yeah, apparently now that they're there and they like spend more of their time chilling out, but then also, you know, when they're having fun, they're having more fun. And it has been also referred to as a country club for older animals. So who's there right now? The last, the most recent update I saw, which was just for a few months ago, was that there are eight penguins there. Initially, there were six. There was a 32-year-old harlequin and 31-year-old Durbin who had been mated since 2000 and had raised eight chicks together. There was also Boulders, the second oldest penguin in the colony, who was 34, and was starting to have arthritis. symptoms and 29-year-old ISIS who was like struggling to fit in socially with some of the

younger birds in the colony as she got older. There was also Lambert who's 32 and has a history of cataracts but also his younger mate Dyer who's only 14 moved in with him because they could not separate those two and I think she's having a good time too. And then after those six birds were settled in they added their oldest African penguin which is Good Hope who's 35 years old who is the child of that penguin that almost made it to 42, who I mentioned, and his 23-year-old mate, St. Croix. And like I said, there are plenty of aging penguins who will age into this island, but they also are hoping that it can become a place to, you know, put penguins who need a slower pace and more accessible terrain for any reason, and they'll probably expand it. They're hoping to add some additional accessibility features like sloping ramps into the water,

more flat areas with textured mats to help with traction, you know, more cushioned surfaces. And apparently now they also have like a floating island made from PVC pipe, which is like a prototype for just a potential, you know, added feature to give them, I guess maybe somewhere to rest when they're like going out into the water that's not going all the way back to the main island. And yeah, going back to the blog post that first clued me into this, the existence of this incredible club med for old penguins, what enrichment do old penguins get versus young penguins? So a big part of enrichment for old penguins is just training them to receive the health care they need and then also engaging in that health care.

Like apparently they tend to be really sort of alert and curious and active after they've had their medical treatments because it is like a novel experience that, you know, gets their brain working. So yeah, in some ways the geriatric birds are the ones that have the most frequent new experiences because they're going to acupuncture and stuff, which is an unusual and interesting experience for a bird. And younger birds do things like painting with their feet, which has the added bonus of getting them used to having their feet touched when the caretakers paint them, which again is crucial as they age and require foot care. So that's one way that they sort of, you know, that's one way that they sort of pave the way for providing this geriatric care years in advance. Young penguins also love mirrored balls and other reflective shiny objects and playing tug of war, which is adorable, but also kind of makes it clear why maybe the 35-year-old penguins don't want to hang out there.

So yeah, that's the story of the penguin nursing home, which you can go see at the New England Aquarium. And I certainly, the next time I find myself in Boston, want to go see them. I find it aspirational. I think they are aging correctly and being cared for in a way that all humans should get the dignity of as well. But unfortunately, I think we're not there yet. But yeah, that's my story. I love that. Yeah.

It's sweet. I have been to the New England Aquarium. It lives up to the hype. Oh, yeah. It's really good. Also, when I think of it, I can smell it. Yeah. I know someone who volunteered there for years.

Apparently the penguins are asses. Oh, my God. Well, they're so spoils. Yeah. Kind of famously. This came up actually a story. The first time I heard this was a story for Popsie about the New Zealand penguins. And this researcher who was Kiwi was like, Americans keep calling to ask if they can have a penguin.

And he was like, first of all, that's weird. And then secondly, like he's like, you can really tell they came from dinosaurs. He's like, I don't know a penguin researcher who doesn't have scars from like trying to handle them because they'll just take a chunk out of your skin. And there was this friend that I knew who volunteered, she was too short. She was like 5-2 or 5.3 and you have to be like 5-5 or 5-6 to work the penguins. I'm not sure. I think it has something to do with the size of the tank. So she never had to give the penguins.

But there was some volunteer who apparently they put him on penguin duty that day and he just lost it. And he was like, I've been here for long enough that I have seniority and I shouldn't have to deal with the penguins. He went on this entire rant about like how he shouldn't have to deal with the penguins. Oh, my God. Wow. I bet, you know, probably like if you've got to work with the penguins, working with the geriatric penguins was probably the way to go. Yeah. Yeah, they've chilled out.

But it also, it does explain why they put so much effort into acclimating young penguins to human touch being like, don't you want to make a painting with your feet? Ooh, that's interesting. And like maybe that means that in 10 years when we have to care for your decrepit toes, you won't try to kill us. Incredible. All right, we're going to take one more break and then we'll be back with one more fact. peak pollination season, and my business is scaling fast. To keep the nectar flowing, I need a phone plan with top priority data speeds. That's why I chose GoogleFi Wireless.

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for Indeed sponsored jobs. Okay, we're back. And Kendra, more rats. There are always more rats. Ain't that the truth? Some days I dream about moving to Alberta, which because it's rat free, although increasingly contentious

about whether or not they've maintained their rat status. Okay, I just heard that, that if you see a rat, you can call someone and they'll come get it or something. It's not just that. If you have like a barn and they find a rat in your barn, they burn your barn down. Like, they're not joking.

That's insane. So unfortunately, yeah, it is, I don't know much about Alberta. The only thing I really know about Alberta is that it is rat-free, and that makes me love Alberta to a degree that the only way Alberta could make me love it more as if it was also declared mail-free. So this story involves the rat. In the study, they call it the brown rat, but here in the United States, we tend to refer to them as the Norway rat.

It's the same story. and it has to do with what rats eat. And besides babies, in general, it is, like, well known because, like, rats are ground-dwelling creatures that they will eat. They're apparently picky eaters, which, you know, suss. I've seen pizza rat. I don't think their standards are that high. But in general.

I don't know. We do have the best pizza. I don't actually say if we have the best pizza. There are different kinds of pizza. I love deep dish pizza, et cetera. off. But anyway, pizza's good. I just think that my... Justice for Pizza rat.

I just think that once a pizza has hit the stairs of a subway, it is below my threshold of consumption. That's fair. Valid. But their faces are so close to the ground anyway. I feel like their standards are naturally lower in that regard. Literally. Outside of New York City, they're famous for...

eating kind of what they can find on the ground, often like the eggs of other animals. Because fun fact, one way you can tell if you have a rat in your home versus a mouse in your home is that rats like protein and fat. So yeah, if they go for your giant bag of sugar, probably not a rat. And they're fitness heads. What? They're, you know, protein and fat. They're not, you know, they're they're protein maxing. But just like everyone else, they're overlooking fiber. True, true. This is important. And so our story takes us to the dietary habits of rats in 2021 to 2024 in an area of Germany that I'm not going to try to pronounce because my German is limited to I love you and I love cheese. That's all you need.

And then also something that's just I can't say on a podcast because it's incredibly filthy. You too should make friends who are native German speakers and then ask them to only teach you the dirty words. And so the researchers had noticed sort of the carcasses of bats around these caves that bats frequented on the ground. And they weren't completely sure about like what was killing the bats until I believe last year. I think the footage comes from last year where they were able to discover. And I think we can, it's a study. So I think we can probably post a link to the video or post a video itself on the website at popsye.com slash weird. And it is proof, I think, of why rats are the second worst animal on the planet after mosquitoes.

And it is a photo of a rat catching a flying bat midair. And it turns out that's where the bones were coming from. They were eating the bats. Yeah. And apart from being wild and incredibly unsettling, that these common rats have apparently developed a way of eating bats that nobody knew they could. it also spells new methods of disease transmission. And it could be that they are spreading bat diseases and we just didn't know they could because why would we think they were eating bats who I do not think, who unlike rats,

I think are a maligned animal. I think bats are cool, though not in my home. Yeah, I'm pretty much not fan of most animals in my home, especially when that involves me getting multiple shots after I discover it. It's in my home. Valid. But yeah, so there isn't much more to it except that there's crazy footage of a rat eating a bat. I, I, I'm imagining it like in those slow-mo, like, Nat Geo documentaries or like, you know, when it's like jumping the air and it's like grabbing onto the bat and like, you know what I mean?

It kind of is, it's black and white footage. It was caught by one of those like wildlife cams or whatever. Yeah. Yeah, it is horrific. I've watched the videos like 40 times because it's horrendous. And I let me just check. Do you have the link handy? Can I do it? I do it. Okay. Sick.

Yeah. It is in the footage. If they like jump out on this little ledge and just catch the bat. Oh, I'm watching. It's it's watching. Capture and predation of bat in flight. Oh my God. Right. Everybody thinks, you know, this, this is my issue. This is my issue. Oh. Okay, and then they show it like going to town like devouring. Yeah. It kind of reminds me, sorry, you go, you go ahead.

No, no, you go. I was just to say it reminds me of how ticks like go on the top of a blade of grass and just like extend. These rats are just on this ledge like waiting and that they strike. Yeah. For me, the problem is, is that like flying is top to wish list ability. And you kind of think once you're up there, you're pretty safe from everything except for other things that fly, right? Yeah. Certainly say from rats. What the hell?

Yeah, that's really unfair to the bats from an evolutionary standpoint. I'm watched. There's so many videos. There's multiple. Yeah. And they're unsure if this is just like this cave or if it's a thing that bats can do. Like, you know, because rats are pretty smart and they can like teach each other things. So they're not totally sure if this is just like something the rats in this cave system. have sort of learned and taught each other to do or if it's something that rats and caves elsewhere have also taught themselves to do.

But yeah, it completely changes our understanding of bat disease vector and it's also terrifying. Yeah, well, because like, you know, bats obviously can bite us and give us things. But a rat can get a bat thing and then give it to a flea. Yeah. And then it's, then it's,

Yeah. Who knows where's God? Or even like there are, I mean, I don't know if like it take a lot more steps, probably who knows, for rat, for bat disease to go to rat and then be transmissible through urine. But there are so many rat diseases that are transmissible through urine. And like that is like so easy to just. Yeah. Pick up because they're everywhere and they pee on everything.

Yeah. I remember one time in in one of the New York City apartments I lived in, I came across a mouse in the night. And that building actually had like every. infestation you can have except we didn't get bed bugs, but that was truly like, but for the grace of God, because we broke our lease and moved out, I think. But yeah, they kept the trash cans in the basement and they were all full of rats. So when you threw your trash away, you had to, like, stand at the elevator door and, like, throw the bag. Stop. Because otherwise, you'd be surrounded by rats, who felt very comfortable jumping out at you, because to be fair, that's crazy. They had a perfect

rat home had been created for them. Anyway, predatory landlords in New York City are the worst. There were a lot of problems with those guys. Trash in the basement? Yeah, no. No, I don't know. I don't know what they were thinking. What they were thinking was they were trying to get people to move out so they could jack up the rest. Anyway.

Yeah. One day, one day, the most pleasant infestation I had was this one little mouse that showed up in my bathtub. And it was so tiny. Oh. I think I tweeted when I caught it in a cup. I was like, can someone tell me why I can't decide that this mouse is my mouth? pet and somebody was like, hentovirus. And I was like, yep, that's all takes.

Okay. Fine. But I really was like, I don't know, seems like if this mouse wants to live with me and I think it's adorable, what's the problem? What's the problem? I did a story years ago, like 10 years ago now, maybe, yeah, because I was in grad school. Wow. And it was about like the first ever real rat survey of rats in New York City where they were

actually, they were live trapping the rats. And there was like one rat they nicknamed Stumpy because they got. They trapped him so often he started to like the anesthesia. Stop. Oh, that's awesome. But apparently these guys, every time they, like, do these rat surveys, they, like, find all these crazy viruses that they, like, just didn't know existed. You know, like, rats are just, they're filthy. I'm sorry.

I know, like, people have them as pets. I don't know why. Well, I think that there's a difference between, like, a New York City street rat and, like, a pet rat, you know? Is there, though? Well, at least in terms of exposure. Yeah, in terms of disease exposure, but everything else, no. Sure. I feel like this, I do want to, I feel like I have come out sympathetic to possums and bats.

Yeah. I feel like I am not like an animal, and squirrels. I'm not, I just want to be clear, I'm not an animal. You're not a monster. Right. I love, I love dogs. I love cats. I just.

everybody's allowed at least like one animal to vehemently hate, I think. I just think the world would be better if we got rid of every rat and every mosquito. I agree on mosquitoes. Objectively better. Yeah. And mosquitoes everybody gets as a freebie. It's okay to just hate mosquitoes. But yeah, so there isn't a lot of depth to this because I don't know what you need beyond a rat's catch buying bats.

You're so right. Yeah, so right. Truly. That's just something for us to sit with, I think, and ponder. So Batman's biggest nemesis was not penguin. It should be something called Rat Man, apparently. True. We need a new comic book arc right now.

Yeah. I think why make it a human villain, just make it rats. Yeah. And it also turns out that, you know, Kung Fu, or I think the Teenage Muti Ninja Turtle's new Kung Fu is that. Yeah. Is that correct? It turns out apparently you can learn that from a rat. Oh.

True. As long as bats are your target. I see. Yes. Yes. Well, Kendra, thank you so much for coming on and for filling in for me over at Scientific American Science quickly where everybody should go take a listen. And yeah, that's it for me on weirdest thing in a way until sometime this spring.

Though, ideally I will be popping in to share some pre-recorded commentary on our vintage episodes. Though I've recently become very paranoid that my kid is going to arrive early and none of that will happen. But whatever happens, we'll figure it out. You have episodes coming and they're going to be great. Don't fret, listeners. Don't fret. All right. See you guys very soon.

The weirdest thing I learned this week is produced by. all of our hosts, including me, Rachel Faltman, along with Jess Bodie, who also serves as our audio engineer and editor extraordinaire. Our theme music is by Billy Cadden. Our logo is by Katie Belloff. If you have questions, suggestions, or weird stories to share, tweet us at Weirdest underscore thing. Thanks for listening, Weirdos. You can't reason with the sun. Trust us. We've tried. This summer, it's time to put that angry ball of fire on mute. Columbia's Omni-Shade technology. is engineered to protect you from the sun's harsh rays that can burn and damage your skin. The sun is relentless, but so is our gear.

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