The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week - Reptilian Theater Kids, Gay Giraffes, Impatient Birds

Episode Date: June 19, 2024

Owen Ever, co-host of the podcast A Field Guide to Gay Animals, joins the show this week to talk about the scientists who studied homosexuality in giraffes. Plus, Jess explains the most dramatic snakes on the planet, and Rachel gets into birds who wave quite impatiently. 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 -- 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 Thanks to our Sponsors! Get 20% OFF @honeylove by going to https://honeylove.com/WEIRDEST! #honeylovepod Right now, get 60% off at https://Babbel.com/WEIRDEST Get 15% off LolaVie with the code WEIRDEST at https://www.lolavie.com/WEIRDEST #lolaviepod Keep track of what’s important with Tile. Visit https://Tile.com today and use code WEIRDEST to get 15% off all Tiles This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Get 10% off your first month at https://BetterHelp.com/WEIRDEST Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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square foot, so all you have to do is pick your perfect floor. Start your carpet project today at the Home Depot. How doers get more done. Exclusions apply for licenses, see Home Depot.com slash license numbers. 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 art. 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. I'm Owen Ever. Woo, welcome. Welcome to the show. Thank you so much for having me. It's so great to have you. Listeners, Owen is one of the hosts of a new podcast that I really think that fans of the weirdest thing. and of my book are going to like.

So why don't you tell folks a little bit about it? Yeah, there's definite crossover. And I feel so honored to be entering into the esteemed cadre of podcast hosts. This is my sort of my debut into the podcasting arena. So thank you so much for welcoming me. So hospitable, so generous. So, yes, I'm working on a podcast called, a field guide to gay animals with Canada Land from Double Double Productions,

with a wonderful co-host, Elaine Kaplan Levinson, who does a lot of radio journalism. And we will be exploring, investigating, celebrating queerness in the natural world. We'll be using a principal text called biological exuberance, animal homosexuality, and natural diversity to guide us through. Are you familiar with this book? Is it a bedside table read for you?

Yeah, in fact, I think it's literally in a pile of books, my ever-growing TBR. Yes, yes. Your emotional support pile of books. Exactly, yes. There must be many of them at any given time. Yes, yes. Well, for listeners who are curious about this book, but maybe like don't want to read it because it's 750 pages long. Oh, my gosh.

Have I got a podcast for you? So yeah, the podcast will be, Lane and I sort of exploring our journey with coming to understand that queerness is an inherent part of nature, as well as talking to other experts and curious folk, such as yourselves, who have been asking those questions

and finding those affirmations. Amazing. When does it premiere? Field Guide premieres mid-June, June 13th specifically, and you'll be able to find it on Sing-Along, if you know this one, Apple, Spotify, or anywhere you get your podcast. Anywhere you get your podcast. Yeah, we have the great honor of being an official selection of the Tribeca Festival. So we'll be launching in New York in June.

Yeah, yeah. Well, then let's get into it. On the weirdest thing I'm in 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, but not in a competitive way anymore. In fact, now we don't even like decide what the weirdest thing we've been this week actually was. We just assume all the things are weird.

Yeah, they are. Yeah, it's true. We appreciate weirdness equally. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. We pause, reflect, and then we stop the podcast. Because we must, you know. Yes, yeah, it's true. Unfortunately. Yes.

Jess, what's your tease? Okay, I'm going to talk about the most dramatic snake ever. Mm. It's a high bar. It truly, there are some dramatic stakes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm thinking about Robin Hood, the one with foxes. Oh, my God.

Since being a child, I've always wanted to slurp a ring off of King's fingers. I think that movie gave a lot of, a lot of us, a lot of confusing feelings. Yes. Yeah. Oh, my goodness. And then I went on to make a gay animal podcast. It's all coming together. Is this my own origin story? Oh, I love that. When I hear dramatic snakes, I think of that. I forget his name now, but there was a viral snake back when the internet was good. And he was a really large, like, ball python.

And he would open the door by himself. Julius. Julius. Yes, thank you. Say his name. And here we go, he was such a derpy snake. Long live Julius in our hearts. My tease is that.

that I'm going to talk about, sorry, this bird is the Japanese tit, and I'm really torn about whether to say no more. Yeah, but anyway, so just, you know, fill in the blank with whatever joke you would make. But I'm going to talk about some birds that wave at each other. And it's very cute and polite. Wow.

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, and what's your tease? Okay. So my tease. is we're going to celebrate the surprisingly horny outcome of ritualistic jousting in the animal queendom. Oh my God.

I cannot wait. Very exciting. On guard. I have a policy of never making guests go first, but that is tempting. But Jess, why don't you get us started with snakes? I would love to. Now I'm thinking about the Robin Hood Fox. So let's get our minds off of this.

Okay. Apologize for derailing. No, never apologize for that. Yes, that's actually what we do here. Yes. Curiosity is about. Yeah. So, okay, I was looking for a fun fact this week.

And I was, you know, nothing was really tickling my fancy. And then I found this study, and it's about a snake called the D-I-C-E-D-E-D-S. It's this non-venomest. semi-aquatic, you know, a very inoffensive snake. Looks like anything else. And it is a water snake for my fellow Herp enthusiasts, if you know,

you know. And they're like two to four feet long, very unassuming looking like a regular snake. But they are so dramatic. That is like the biggest thing about them is that they're so, there's very drama, which I can understand

because I love drama. Yes. But what do I mean by that? What I mean by that is they have the most elaborate fake deaths in the animal kingdom, in my opinion. And that's saying a lot because there are a lot of elaborate fake deaths. Like obviously there's the possum and stuff like that. And there's even like the, I think it's the eastern hognosed snake that will like fake die and like writhe around and stuff like that.

But this one's even more dramatic. And you know, most snakes do not do this. And I think animals in general learn to just like run from predators. most animals will just flee. But here's what these dice snakes do. So when threatened by a predator, usually from the skies, it's usually like an avian bird predator, they will do the thing that the hog-nosed snake does, which is they like writhe around theatrically as if they're in pain.

Like, you know, on the ground, they're kind of like rolling over and being like, ah, this hurts so bad, whatever. And then they soil themselves in both poop. And this something called musk, which is this foul-smelling, greasy, milky fluid, which, gross. Put that in a perfume and you've got a moneymaker. Honestly. True. Yeah.

I mean, isn't there a gross, like, whale thing they put in perfumes? Yeah. Yeah. Whale vomit. Yeah. And, like, beaver, like, anal gland secretions, you know. Vanilla. Yeah.

We've had that. That was one of the first facts on this show, actually. Back in the day, wasn't it? Talking about putting it in whiskey, I think. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, so, yes. Back to the melodramatic.

But anyway, yes, exactly. So snakes will, like, release the poop and musk combo. And which I think it's funny, a lot of the coverage of this study, maybe this is like a scientific thing, but they call this poop musk combo a cocktail. That's a choice. So anyway, yeah, they like will writhe in pain, excrete the cocktail, and the cherry on top is that sometimes they will cough up blood. That's when the theater director is like, you've gone too far. Like I loved the impulse with the like pooping yourself.

That felt really embodied. We're going to lose the audience when you start puking blood. Yes, precisely. And sometimes it'll just. like bubble up from their mouths. Like they ride around, they poop themselves and they go motionless and they bubble up blood from their mouth. It's so funny and dramatic. So yeah, just a true master of the acting craft, I would say.

Yeah, so why do they do this? Why do animals play dead? Basically, it's because, you know, they're trying to tell the predator, I'm so dead and so gross right now, like you don't even know. Like, if you eat me, you will get sick and die. Like, that's their angle. and a lot of times it does work. It does work for these snakes. So how do we know that these snakes do this? Well, somebody went out and studied it. So there's this pair of scientists from the University of Belgrade, which is in Serbia,

and they went to this lake on an island. The island is called Golemgrad, which is in North Macedonia. And I just like the name of the island. It sounds like straight out of a video game. Giving Lord of the Rings. Yes, what I'm a lot of the rings. I think. That's what I was going to say. It sounds like a fantasy novel. There's something. Yeah. Yeah. Of course they have dramatic snakes there. Of course they do. Well, get this. Apparently, it's also called snake island. People there call it snake island because of all the snakes that are there. Because at first I was like, at first I was like, go Goliard. Like, I got to go visit. And then I learned people call it Snake Island. And I was like, wait, do I want to visit? But then I also learned people also call it Pelican Island. because it has so many pelicans.

So like, you know, we're so over. There's some confusing branding going on. Yeah, but I'll go, you know, for some snakes and pelicans. And also it's just a little, a neat little place. It's like super small. So it's only like 20 hectares, which is less than a square mile. I did math. So 50, it's 50 acres or 37 football fields.

So it's little. And people have visited it like throughout history. there are some super old buildings and roads still there and there's evidence of a building from as early as the fourth century which is so cool Is it currently inhabited by human animals? It's like a tourist destination so you can like take a little dingy and sail out there and like see

and there's like a little plaque by some of like the buildings and stuff like you can like read about old stuff so is it snake island? I love the kingdom of snakes. Right, right. Is it snake island? Yes. but also there's cool stuff there

and well stakes are cool you can go for the stakes let me clarify but it's not like I mean we didn't we do a fact once about like the bad snake island there's a place called snake island that is a bad snake island

there are like laws against going there because it's sort of like when there's like a place that's so dangerous to climb or go cave diving that they're like don't make us have to save you from here that's what snake

Island is like, but just with snakes. Right, right. So this is not that intense. Calling it bad snake island, though, may have the inverse impact. Yes, big time. So yeah, anyway, these scientists go to this little island called Golemgrad. And what do they do? They just start lunging at snakes, just going for it.

And then they grab them as well. Lunge and grab. And they grab them right around the middle. right where a bird would maybe go for them. And one of the researchers was quoted as saying, we acted like a predator that's hesitant to eat the prey and then recorded to see what they do. So they did this to 263 different snakes,

which is, that's a lot of snakes. That's a lot of lunging. And so then also after they would get that, after they would catch them, they would like gently squeeze and stretch them a little bit. Like maybe as if a predator might do to be like, do I want to eat this? And important note,

they were very, very careful to not hurt the snakes. They're very gentle, and they did release them when they were done. So no snakes were harmed in the making of this study. But basically, yeah, they made notes. They would like catalog of which snakes did what thing? Like, did they only play dead? Did they also do the poop muck? Poop musk cocktail?

Did they also cough up blood? And so, yeah, just under half of the snakes played dead and did the cocktail. And then 10%? 10% took it all the way and coughed up blood. And then they also noted how long the snake's performances were. Like, how long were they playing dead? Good question. And another fun note about this, which is really what, like, the methods of this are just so funny to me.

So they found that some snakes were really tense when they were playing dead, like really, really stiff. So they couldn't really move them around. But then other snakes were so limp that some of the grad students, would like arrange them into hearts like on the ground. Which I think is so cute. And so yeah, I just think this study is really, really cute. You know, researchers and their students, lunging at snakes, having a lovely time on this Lord of the Rings Island, turning them into hearts, letting them run free.

It's just, this is the spice of life. Do you know how long some of these performances lasted? Oh, yeah. I think around like 40 seconds. Wow. Yeah, so almost a minute long, which is considerable, I would say. That is. That is.

Yeah. And, okay, so the results, what did they find? So snakes that bled from the mouth and douse themselves in the musk and poop cocktail, they tended to play dead for two seconds less than other snakes. So what does that mean? Right, because the production value is higher. They've already sold it. That's so true.

So, and the scientists think that this means that they, literally, I mean, what Rachel is saying is probably more effective. Like, they're able to escape a little more quickly is what they think. And so, yeah, more intense performance, packs a bigger punch, and it's over quicker. Also, the energy expenditure, I imagine. So it's fascinating that they can conjure these secretions. I think so, too. And a lot of, like, the researchers say this too, it's like a very high risk, high reward strategy. Like, it's a lot easier to just run away than it is to expend a lot of energy and also risk staying out in the open, you know?

Right. Like, it's not like, I'm running away and hiding. It's like, no, look at me and how gross I am. And potentially get, like, prodded and fondled for, like, a few moments more. Totally. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

I want to know what other things they did. The heart made it into the article, but like, what else were they drawing? How immature were they? And yeah, so researchers are also like telling people to take this research with a grain of salt because they want to do more research because this is a really, you know, limited sample size. It's all about the data set is like these island snakes who have only been hunted by birds and by grad students. So they mean to like observe more you know things in the real world in the wild Maybe stuff not involving grad students grabbing them

And maybe some other look at some other snake species too to kind of just get the bigger picture of all of this Because now that we know like there are multiple snakes that play dead in a very dramatic way like what does this mean For just snakes as a whole in their behavior and also like other reptiles and other animals? I don't know it's like a kind of a cool question And I hope they do more research because I really want to know, like, the mechanics of how they cough up the blood. Where does the blood come from? Yeah, totally. You know, like, what's the deal there?

But, but, yeah, that's. Special Effects, Master. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What is this blood I need to know? So that's my snake fact. I think they're wonderfully, like, cute little actors.

And it works for them. It works. They live, not all of them, but most of them will live when they play dead, which I think is very special. You got to die to live, you know? You got to die to live, yeah. Although this is like a great advice for thwarting unwanted attention, you know. You could run away or you could be like, look at how gross I am. Yeah, it makes me think of, I don't know who said this first, but I always hear people talk about like, if a man is harassing you on the subway, just look at him and yell and look, be the way.

weirdest person you can be and that will deter them. Yeah. And if that doesn't work, take it up a notch, puke blood. Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. I need to start carrying like those little, uh, little pills. You can crunch.

Little capsule. It's like fake blood. Be like, oh no. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. The thing that men hate the most on the subway is a tubercular gal, you know, in my humble experience. Not in fashion anymore.

Not anymore. I love these little snakes. They're the theater kids of the animal world. Amazing. 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.

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and save up to 20% to get the stay you expected. When you want savings, not surprises. It matters where you stay. Hilton, for the stay. Okay, we're back. And Owen, tell me about some jousting. Ooh, some ritualistic jousting. Yes. In high school, I definitely did some fencing.

But I'll say, despite being an adolescent, and never got as horny as what we're going to describe. So I'm going to start with a quote from Canadian biologist Anne Innes Dag. She says, quote, Necking involved one male gently rubbing his head or neck against the body of another, or the two males mutually rubbing their trunks and necks together, this often sexually aroused one

so that he mounted the other or even several other males. There seemed to be no jealousy among partners. Dot, dot, dot. Do you all know what animal I'm talking about? Well, I heard trunk. Yeah. Is it elephant? And neck?

It's true. I don't think of elephants is having. I was having a neck. Yeah, yeah. I feel like I'm a medieval scholar describing some animals that I'm seeing. Is it a giraffe, perhaps? Tis a giraffe. It is, yes.

So I wanted to talk about the giraffe necking behavior, which is exclusive to the males of the species, in part because Anne Innes-Dagg was a pioneering zoologist and biologist from Canada, who recently passed. She passed in April of last month, and I knew about her investigations into their same-sex sexual behavior, but felt like this was a timely opportunity to look a little bit further into this and to really understand what she was up against within the field of behavioral biology as being a woman who was pretty adamant at calling this sexual behavior. So yeah, so we are talking about giraffes and their necking behavior. So much is made of giraffe necks.

So what is necking? Let's see a good description. Necking involves caressing the body with the neck among one or more giraffes. Interestingly enough, giraffes often have a preferred side, like their left-handed, right-handed. When they meet up, one will always be like, can I? this is my good side. Let me be over here. And then they'll begin to tenderly rub each other,

and then that will amplify in presumed aggression, though there is never any intent to injure. And in fact, injury is rarely ever the result of this, which we can talk about a little bit more. And so they'll caress each other, wrapping their long necks around each other, exploring each other's bodies, sniffing and licking, often of the genitals.

And some males will actually perform, oh, what is it called? I want to say Fremen, but that's from Dune. I have the word written down somewhere here. So some males will flare their lips as they would if they were in a courtship behavior with a female as she was urinating in order to suck in the pheromones. So they'll do this with each other as well and like, you know, explore each other. Other males tend to get curious, begin to observe, and then at some point we'll be invited to engage, which is really exciting. This often results in erection, and in a stag talks about the penis being eight inches long and looking rather like a crochet hook. And it's very...

Oh my God. Right. And as she describes that she often sees liquid dripping from the tip. What an image. What an image indeed. Many of these males will mount each other. Anal penetration does occur and full orgasm and ejaculation. So pretty gay, right?

Super gay. Yeah, I would say it though, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But there seems to be this sort of like recurring question within the scientific community like, fellas, is it gay to sniff your mate, mount them, ejaculate? Like, couldn't possibly be. And one thing that I think is really profound about Anne in his stagg is that she boldly did declare this as being the result of the reward of pleasure and the pursuit of sex because it is specifically among males. studies have shown that the frequency of same-sex behavior among males in giraffes

is far higher than heterosexual or reprocentric sex. A lot of that has to do with the fact that gestation with female giraffes takes a long time. It's like 15 months, then there's a recovery period of 20 months at minimum in between. So rarely do any adult males actually perform heterosexual reprocentric sex with a female. And for the most part, they're having just horrendousy. Amounts of male sex Male, male action going on

Because they want to, they're horny, and it's pleasurable. We often don't afford pleasure to animals But clearly this is something that's happening. The presence of erection, the presence of the lips Blaying, all indicative of the fact that this is about courtship, about mating, about mounting. Though many scientists, there's like an evergreen argument

or reasoning behind same-sex sexual behavior, that it is purely a social function, which I do believe that it is. When is sex not part of a social context, part of a historical context, part of a social political context, about two people, two animals, human animals, giraffe animals, getting to know each other,

establishing some sort of relationship. But I think there's an overemphasis on dominance as being the primary outcome, Many people talk about necking, and it has been described as ritualistic jousting, which is exciting. But it does sort of fail to cross the line into actual agro behavior because of the lack of injury and the result of sex and orgasm instead. So I think domination is part of it. And within giraffes, it's interesting. There's like necking in giraffes offers an interesting rebuttal to the sort of de-sexualized.

neutered explanation that this is all about dominance because they do actually have a hierarchical structure. They have like a social system that is about dominance. But when it comes to the male male sexual behavior, all that goes out the window. Pleasure is for everybody. It's like very homo-communist. And so that sort of, they're not doing it

in order to establish a social hierarchy. They're in fact ignoring social hierarchy and we'll mount one and then go over and mount another, many males up to six at a time, will be involved in this. Right? Right? Think about all of those necks. Yes.

Yes. It's a lot of necks. It's a lot of necks. A lot of necks. It's also described as a stately dance, which is really exciting. I know. Any choreographers out there want to like a reenact of this? Like, hit me up.

The stately dance of it, which speaks to its virtuosity, which is another interesting point. This is something that they perform and they perform for themselves and for each other. And there is like a trained amount of gentlemanly force that doesn't go beyond the cause of pain. So there is, you know, there's a little BDSM involved, but it's like clearly not accidental. Sure. Yeah. Another one of the common explanations given to same-sex sexual sexual. behavior in the animal queendom is that it's simply the result of confusion. But there's just like a lot of whoopsie going on among animals, which this seems to refute because they have to be

good at this. You don't like accidentally, you know, become a power bottom because you like made a mistake. Like they're like taking six giraffes and doing it with high frequency. There was a study in Tanzania that looked at mountains, just mountings in general, among giraffes in the wild, over 3,200 hours. They observed 18 sexual mountings. How many of those mountings would you suppose were same-sex? All? Oh, all but one. Okay.

I love that vote of optimism. All but one. It's like 94%. And this has been a frequency that seems to continue to show up among observations. Of course, a lot of the observations when scientists look at this behavior, they're so quick to misinterpret or misidentify it as simply a social function, disregarding the sexual aspect of it. And so the data doesn't actually go into sexual data. It's like, oh, this is about male-male aggression. and so we're not going to really look at that and we'll only observe the Repercentric mountings that we see. But when you are open to looking at as a sexual activity, you realize, oh, yeah, there's an abundance of it.

And that's something that Anne did, and I really want to give her a shout out and just thank her and honor her. She's so fascinating. She was born in Toronto and studied biology was up against a lot of misogyny, which she spoke out about.

and has written about. And in 1956, she self-funded a trip to South Africa to study on her own as a 23-year-old giraffes in the wild. Dude, what? What a legend. Absolutely iconic queen.

She wrote to two different giraffe research facilities, used an alias. She shortened her first name. she abbreviated it to A, so it was just A innes. And they both accepted her, and with one of them, when she showed up and they saw she was indeed a woman, they denied her entry. But she was dogged in the pursuit of giraffe knowledge, studying their ecosystems, their behavior, all of these things following them around in her little car. Also, she was, you know, this is height of apartheid in South Africa. So she was studying them with all different types of people.

not just the white Western scientists, but also people indigenous to South Africa. So breaking a lot of grounds and barriers. And then went back and was the first person to publish studies of giraffe behavior in the wild. And really has been an advocate for their abundant queerness up until last month. Yeah. Wow. Yeah.

What an iconic lady. That's awesome. Absolutely. Absolutely. You should watch. There are so many videos of her. There's actually a documentary. Oh, is there?

Yeah, there is. I don't remember the name of it. We can find it, yeah. We'll find it. We'll find it. And link it. Yeah, she's really beautiful. And also to bring it back to my personal sacred text, biological exuberance, written by Bruce Bagamel from Seattle, PhD.

He has a whole section about giraffes. And there's a really wonderful quote in it. Let's see. He says, when a male giraffe sniffs a fish. female's rear end without any mounting, erection, penetration, or ejaculation, he is described as being sexually interested in her, and his behavior is classified as primarily, if not exclusively, sexual. We see that play out among many scientific observations. Yet, quote, when a male giraffe sniffs another male's genitals mounts him with an erect penis and ejaculates, he is engaging in

aggressive or dominance behavior and his actions are considered to be at most only secondarily or superficially sexual. So one thing that he also confronted was the amount of homophobic closeting that has happened. It's a historic and ongoing practice within many scientific institutions and practices. Because as I'm sure, you know, we all know the practice of science reflects the practices of the scientists. Big time. And the way that they observe behavior from their own biases

and cultural biases. And so there has over time been a large pushback to declaring animals as gay. Are you familiar with Valerius Geist the sheep mammologist? Not off the top of my head, no. Please tell me more.

So in the 19th century, forgive me for not knowing exact dates, but he was the go-to a mammologist on big horn sheep, another hoved animal, that lives most of the year in exclusively sex-segregated herds. So male-male herds, female-female herds, and in that time, they're having a lot of same-sex sexual behavior. It's very easy to observe.

It's high frequency. He loved these sheep so much that he refused to publish this data for fear that humans would perceive them as queers. He later reflected on this being like, I am not afraid of the amount of like anthropomorphizing that would go into calling this sexual behavior or homosexual behavior. But I don't want there to be the assumption of stigma and shame that we give to human animals. That's where I feel like it gets messy. And I do want to like draw the line. I'm like, let's not give, let's not project shame and stigma on animals.

Sure, yeah. Let's just say what it is. Totally. Yeah. Also wondering, question for you all. I was listening to this podcast and I was like, oh, there's a culture of asking questions, which I really love. Please.

So, do you all know what the collective noun of giraffes are? Ooh, I feel like I got this on like a snap-o cap once, but I don't know. I definitely don't know. Well, the boring answer is a herd because they're hooked animals. because they're ungulates. But the exciting answer is that it's a tower. A tower of giraffes. I love that.

That's really nice. Like put that on a tarot card. Yeah, beautiful. All right, we're going to take one more quick 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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Okay, we're back. And I'm going to get into my fact, which is about a bird called Paris Minor or a Japanese tit, which makes Googling this research perilous. Snickers, same, snicker. Yeah. So I recommend adding keywords like birds or even their Latin name if you wish to seek out more information on the story I'm about to tell. Or not.

And just like know that you're going to get some other stuff and maybe that's what you want and that's okay. Be open to the possibility. Yeah. Just be aware. proceed with knowledge. So scientists from the University of Tokyo were observing these birds that they previously found to communicate pretty sophisticatedly. In a 2018 study and then actually another study in 2016, they argued that the call combinations used by the birds amounted to compositional syntax, which only human. are known for sure to use. And that's our ability to put words and phrases together in a way that

creates new meanings. We know that many non-human animals use what's called referential communication, so like sounds mean specific things. But syntax makes speech more complicated, but also makes it more useful. It can encode more information. You have phonological and compositional syntax. phonological syntax are like sounds that individually they don't have any meaning come together and now they have meaning and previously non-human animals were only supposed to have phonological syntax these birds researchers had said no they actually have compositional syntax the example is that when they were signaling to other birds about a predator they would be scanning for predators they would make this ABC call, so putting together, you know, these clusters of sounds A, B, and C. And that was a signal that bird should be scanning for predators. And then when they followed it up with D, that meant birds should approach each other. So ABCD was like, look around for predators, but come over here. And they were like, well, maybe they're just hearing those two separate

separate like words, if you will, ABC and D and doing two reactions because they are hearing both pieces of information. But then they like scrambled it up. They played like D, ABC and the birds were like, I don't know what that means. So it basically they were saying they're putting together like sentences, if you will. That is not, you know, that was like just a couple of studies from one research group. It's still sort of an ongoing question. If we can call that compositional syntax and whether other birds do it. But the same group, which is led by a researcher who has now been observing these birds for 17 years, was like, what other kinds of communication might these birds be doing? Let's look at gesture. And gesture is really interesting because some kinds of gestures

are like quite common in non-human animals and some are really, really rare. We have, humans have, I looked up different kinds of gestures for this, and I'm kind of delighted, so I'm just going to share, even though it's not the most important to the study. So we have what are called motor or beat gestures, and those are things that can only occur in tandem with speech. It's stuff like gesticulating to emphasize a point. And then we have lexical or iconic gestures. Those also happen with speech, but they either echo or elaborate on the meaning of the words being spoken.

So like rubbing your hands together when you say that you're cold or like using air quotes. And yeah, like just it's emphasizing or changing the meaning of the words you're saying. But it's with words. They don't really mean something on. We've all been rubbing our chins this whole time to indicate the scholarly nature of the discussion. Yeah, it's true this entire time. Then there are dietic or indexical gestures, indexical, what a word. And those can happen either with or without vocalized speech.

So those are indicative. So like a point or like a ta-da motion where it's like, look at this or look at that. So limited meaning, but extremely useful. And it's generally thought that indexical gestures are the only kind of gestures that non-primates can make. There's been some research on, for example, ravens and certain kinds of fish that they have gestures that mean like, look at that. Again, like not super complex, but like still communication and really useful. and, you know, sort of like using your body as a tool, if you think about it. And then dogs and elephants have both been shown to understand what humans mean when they point at something, even if they don't point themselves.

So, you know, it does seem like this sort of straightforward indexical gesture is like a lot of animals probably have the cognition to figure out without. means or do it. But symbolic gestures are another matter entirely. These are gestures that are inherently loaded with meaning. So like a wave, an eye roll, a clap, a come hither motion. Chimps use dozens of gestures, many of them symbolic, to communicate with each other. You know, that is how they manage sophisticated communication with, you know, much more limited vocal repertoire than humans have. And research suggests that actually humans can usually figure out what chimp gestures mean, which is fun.

There have been some studies where they show humans like a hundred different chimp gestures and we mostly can figure out what they mean. Wow, they can interpret that. You know, like sometimes researchers are like, this is, you know, this, shows how early back in our evolution the gesturing goes, it's like it makes intuitive sense to us. And I just think it's fun to think about trying to interpret the message of a chimp trying to get your attention.

That makes me think that chimps also have a rather robust gestural vocabulary for indicating what kind of sex they want to have. Totally, yeah. Yeah. So they have, I mean, they do come hither. They will like talk about like, oh, we just do. like nozzling, I want like genital engagement. Yeah, yeah.

So they can communicate beforehand, you know, to each other. I love that. Isn't that beautiful? It is. It's lovely. They've figured out how to communicate about that. Right. I was going to say.

What's our excuse. But anyway, back to the Japanese tit. It seems like they might also be capable of symbolic gestures. I know. I know. I like as many times as I'm as I encounter the fact that there are birds called tits, it's still. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. It's just great. I mean, tits are great all around. Like, speaking about like a horny group of people, they're out there being like, it's a booby. It's a dick sysole. Yeah. You're like, come on.

They know what they're doing. As a gay birder, I will say. Yeah. They know what they're doing. So in the forest where these birds live, um, again, these researchers have been observing them for 17 years and counting now. And in that time, they've installed dozens or hundreds of nest boxes that are meant to mimic the tree cavities that these birds usually live inside of. And an important thing about them is that only one bird can fit through the entry hole of these cavities and the boxes meant to mimic them at a time.

so you they do not enter simultaneously. So that will become important in a second. So in this new study, the researchers observed a bunch of nest visitations because they were investigating something that they thought they had spotted. They were like, we're pretty sure that we're seeing the birds. Sometimes one of them will flap their wings in this very particular way. and that we think they're telling the other bird to go into the nest before them. And so they were like, okay, we're going to observe a lot of birds entering the nest.

And they watched more than 320 from eight different mated pairs. They were bringing foods back to the little huts to feed their babies. And they did see this behavior happening. And it was most often performed by females, but both of them would do it. And regardless of which bird arrived first at the site, if one of them fluttered their wings, the other one would enter the box first. And actually, usually the female would enter first. So it kind of made sense that the females were more likely to do this jester because basically they would be like, buy their little nest box. and in the normal course of events, apparently,

mom would go in first. And if instead she flutters her wings, dad goes in first. Why? We don't know. But that does seem to be what the flutter was indicating. And of course, all of the coverage of this recent study

was like, they're saying after you. Right, right, right, right. That is very adorable. And also, like, they could just as easily, be saying like hurry the fuck up. Totally. But, you know, I digress.

They got them, you know, they make this gesture and it seems to be saying please enter the box we live in before I go in. And yeah, there were a few things about the way they used this motion that the researchers say does indicate

it's being used in this symbolic gesture fashion. So they only made this flutter when they were together in pairs. It wasn't something they saw the birds ever do when they were alone. They would stop the motion once the mate entered the box. They didn't physically touch the other bird.

They also didn't gesture toward the box. So which would have made it more of a, you know, this indexical thing. They were fluttering at the other bird. It was, it was they were going like, you do something. Yeah. And so, yeah, they all of this together. combined with the sort of like frequency with which they saw this sequence of events happening makes the researchers say they are pretty confident that this is a symbolic gesture

that that birds have a wave that means get in the house you know again tone who knows but the message is is clear I want to think that it's like I'm afraid to go in there it's dark there could be monsters or a bad guy will you please go check first I also had that thought yeah I was like these are like fake tree cavities that researchers stop and maybe sometimes they're like I don't know maybe there's a grad student dudes of them weird in there gonna grab me yeah yeah I was thinking maybe she's just like

I need a moment yeah right I need a moment totally yeah also valid times go tidy up exactly yeah yeah all all really valid reasons right um yeah so it's really cool about this is, like I said, it's, they're probably not the first people to claim they have seen subaic dusters and other animals. I'm sure there have been other studies doing that, but, you know, it's not something that's been really conclusively proven in another animal. So if they're able to keep observing these birds and, you know, this is reproduced, that would be very exciting.

And then, you know, of course, you know, if one non-primate is doing this, then it's like, I bet there are a bunch that we don't know about, haven't thought about. And I think it's, you know, what's always really exciting about this kind of animal behavior research is that there are so many animals that like physiologically do not have the same gestural tools we have. So it's sort of like how many animals are there that do communicate to each other with symbolic gestures. And it's just that like what they're doing involves, you know, features or body parts that we don't pay attention to as being important for communication. I mean, we often fail to recognize the symbolic gestures of each other just across culture.

Very true. So, you know, trans species. Yeah. Yeah. Great point. When I was looking at the, like, list of gestures, there were definitely a lot of them that are like so rude in one country, you know. Right.

Very chill in another, which, you know, is, of course, a classic trope. But yeah, the other thing that the researchers really like about this is because humans are thought to have relied on gestures quite a bit in developing our communication. You know, of course, because chimps use symbolic gestures to have very sophisticated communication with each other, even though they don't have speech at all. like ours, the thought is that speech, you know, came out of an existing communication system that we had that, you know, probably did rely heavily on gestures. So just in terms of studying the evolution of like social cognition, it's really exciting. There's a cool thought that basically once humans started walking on two legs, our hands were free. So we were able to do way more complicated stuff.

with our communication. That's interesting. And yeah, and that things just kind of unfolded from there. And the researchers are like, birds also have their hands free. That's true. If you think about it.

They can perch. And, oh, and while we were taking a break, you mentioned that meme of the bird pointing angrily with their wings. Yes. I would say that that is probably indexical.

But I don't know. Could be symbolic. Could be exasperation. Hard to say. Is not pointing at, is not looking at the thing that they're pointing at, is making direct eye contact. Yeah. So it's sort of like, get your ass in there. Yeah, exactly.

Incredible. I love that we had all animal stories say. Yeah, me too. A delightful assortment of tales about cute little critters and, and, and, and, you. and funky little guys, always enjoyable. Owen, thank you so much for coming on. This was great. This was such a pleasure.

It was so fun. Such a pleasure. Yeah. You know, as a curious person as you all are, I am so excited to now know about these snakes and these birds, the Japanese tit. Deser being said one more time. Absolutely.

And remind listeners what your should. show is called so that they can find it. Yeah, so I'm Owen Ever, co-host of a field guide to gay animals from Canada land. It will be streaming on Apple Spotify or wherever you get your podcast coming this June. Woo! Pride Month. Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! The weirdest thing I learned this week is produced by all of our hosts, including me, Rachel Fultman, along with Jess Bodey, who also serves as our audio engineer and editor extraordinaire. Our theme music is by Billy Cadden. Our logo is by Katie Belly. If you have questions, suggestions, or weird stories to share, tweet us at Weirdest underscore thing.

Thanks for listening, Weirdos.