Filthy Animals

Content Warning : heavy discussion of death, decomposition, and impolite body functions. I believe it was Imhotep in 1999's The Mummy who said "Death is only the beginning...", and he was right! Not in the sense of returning from the realm of the dead to fight Brendan Fraser, but in the sense that death turns an organism's mortal shell into a entirely new sort of ecosystem. In this grisl...

Content Warning : descriptions of sexual acts and genitalia Allan's Sources: Coming soon! +++ More of Our Work +++ Website Facebook TikTok Twitch Bluesky +++ Contact Us +++ Text/Call: (316)-512-8933 info@grasslandgroupies.org +++ Support Us +++ Bonfire Merch Store CashApp: $GrasslandGroupies Or... donate directly to our org .

Content Warning : none In this month's Filthy Animals, Rachel tests the strength of monogamous bonds in the animal kingdom by seeing what the data says about their infidelity. As it turns out, even in species where pair bonds are key to the social survival of the animals, reckless passion can play a big role in their breeding systems. Our host graciously brings us examples ranging from the expecte...

Content Warning: Discussion of cancer and related illnesses Cancer is scary. A transmissible, STI-based cancer is even scarier. Canine Transmissible Venereal Tumor (CTVT) is the oldest, most prolific, cancer known in nature. And it's not alone. Nicole illustrates this bizarre disease which is expanding our understanding of cancer itself, and may have given one particular animal the key to immortal...

Content Warning : This is a pretty wholesome episode. No fear, dear listener! In honor of Pride Month, Rachel is taking us beneath the waves and beyond the binary into the fascinatingly queer world of fish! In this episode, she investigates stunningly fluid species that defy the concept of biological sex as an innate and immutable characteristic. SPOILER: Sex and gender in the animal kingdom is fa...

Content Warning : explicit language, descriptions of sex, pretty wholesome episode honestly Dancing, fighting, spreading sweet-smelling pheromones… all in the name of love. Lekking is a strange behavior that is a bit paradoxical in its hyper-competition but birds, frogs, bees, and even a few mammals all make it work. A male buffet where females have their pick of the best male, or perhaps a swanky...

Content Warning : Drug use, including recreational drugs. Moral panics. Sexual references. Spoiler: ((it's not the cats)) What is catnip, what's its effect on cats, and is it really cats getting horny like so many think? Turns out these answers are a bit more complicated that we first thought. Nicole's Sources: Shi, X., et al. Repellency of Novel Catnip Oils Against the Bed Bug (Hemiptera: Cimicid...

Content Warning : cannibalism, suicide, coercive/violent sexual behavior, death during pregnancy, partner death, drowning, necrophilia ( start the episode at 36:12 to avoid our discussion of all of the above, which are discussed in the context of "most dangerous courtship behaviors". we promise, it gets much sillier after that! ) Filthy Animals is back! We open Season 2 with some very im...

Content Warning : Discussions about sexual acts and copulation rituals in bees, including some graphic "traumatic mating events." :) "It can't always be roses." - Nicole Brown, 2024 THIS IS OUR LAST EPISODE OF THE SEASON! We're taking a winter break, and we'll be back at the end of March with a new slate of episodes. Thanks for tagging along with us this year. Wasp orgy videos...

The miracle of life is straightforward and simple, right? Sperm. Egg. BOOM. Babies. That's what they taught us in science school! In actuality, it's much more complicated, as pregnancy and childbirth in the wild leave mother and embryo alike vulnerable to environmental conditions, social constraints and hypercompetitive males. In this episode, Rachel tells us the many fascinating adaptations for r...

Content Warning : Body horror, existential dread, "nature is metal" prey-predator interactions. This Halloween episode is about predators who stash their prey for later... alive . Nicole's Sources: Eleonora's Falcons imprison live birds for a later meal . 2015. MaghrebOrnitho.  BirdLife Cyprus. 2022. Eleonora's Falcon - Life in the Balance . YouTube.  Gayahan, G., Tschi...

Content Warning : References to sex and nonviable pregnancies. Spending every moment of waking life trying to get laid has its downsides, and for some organisms, the business of reproduction is just too much of a hassle. So why bother with mating at all? If you want something done right, sometimes you just have to do it yourself. In this episode, Nicole runs down the fascinating asexual strategies...

Content Warning : graphic descriptions of STIs, death, some sprinkling of thinking too much about how much of a horror bodies are. Koalas are well known for being disease ridden (at least in our circles) so lets talk about it. Chlamydia is highly contagious and deadly in koalas as well as birds, cows, and many other animals. This is a trip down sex education memory lane and details the horrible de...

Content Warning : graphic descriptions of sex, violent acts Turns out lots of animals just wait around till maturity and then turn into horny little guys. The genus Antechinus is no exception as males will mate over and over until exhaustion. Allan's Sources: Book: “The Secret Lives of Carnivorous Marsupials ” by Andrew Baker and Chris Dickman. Kraaijeveld, K. et al. (2006) Does female mortality d...

Content Warning : This episode is WEIRDLY explicit for an episode about plants. Contains explicit discussions about sex, sexual acts, and genitalia. Nicole's Notable Sources: Heiduk, A., Brake, I., Tolasch, T., Frank, J., Jurgens, A., Meve, U., Dotterl, S. 2010. Scent chemistry and pollinator attraction in the deceptive trap flowers of Ceropegia dolichophylla . South African Journal of Botany. Gre...

Content Warning : descriptions of sexual acts and genitalia, mild body horror Rachel's Sources: Arikawa, K. 2001. Hindsight of Butterflies: The Papilio butterfly has light sensitivity in the genitalia, which appears to be crucial for reproductive behavior . BioScience. Arikawa, K. 2009. Genital Photoreceptors Have Crucial Role in Oviposition in Japanese Yellow Swallowtail Butterfly, Papilio xuthus...

Content Warning: descriptions of sexual acts and genitalia Allan's Sources: De Waal, Franz. Bonobos: The Forgotten Ape. 1st ed., published 1997. De Waal, Franz. “Bonobo Sex and Society”, Scientific American. June 1, 2006. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/bonobo-sex-and-society-2006-06/ Annicchiarico, G., Bertini, M., Cordoni, G., & Palagi, E. (2020). Look at me while having sex! Eye-...

Filthy Animals is an ecology podcast for adults. Episodes may contain strong language and graphic descriptions of natural phenomena. A more detailed list of content warnings is included in each episode description. Science educators will talk about the unusual adult activities of the natural world that we believe you need to know about. Every month, we’ll expose you to the latest research on all t...