Strange Animals Podcast

Thanks to Siya, Zachary, Khalil, and Eilee for their suggestions this week! The enamel pin Kickstarter goes live on Wednesday, August 14, 2024!! Further reading: How spiders breathe under water: Spider’s diving bell performs like gill extracting oxygen from water Aggressive spiders are quick at making accurate decisions, better at hunting unpredictable preys Into the Spider-Verse: A young biologis...

Thanks to Kari and Joel for their suggestions this week! You can find Kari Lavelle’s excellent book Butt or Face? Volume 2: Revenge of the Butts at any bookstore. Our Kickstarter for some enamel pins goes live in just over a week if you’re interested! Further reading: Jellyfish size might influence their nutritional value History of Taiji Mantis Glowing octocorals have been around for...

Follow the enamel pin Kickstarter here ! Let’s learn about some snakes this week! Thanks to Eilee, BlueTheChickenWing, and Richard from NC for their suggestions. Further Reading: Snake Island’s Venomous Vipers Find a New Home in Sao Paulo ‘Rarest Snake’ in the U.S. Hatches at Tennessee Zoo The golden lancehead [picture from first article linked above]: The Martinique lanceh...

Thanks to Jaxon and Lorenzo for their suggestions this week! Further reading: Rock-wallaby bite size ‘packs a punch’ Tiny Australian wallaby the last living link to extinct giant kangaroos Extraordinary Fossil of Giant Short-Faced Kangaroo Found in Australia Wiwaxia corrugata – The Burgess Shale The nabarlek: The banded hare-wallaby: Wiwaxia was a little less cute than wallabies...

It’s our annual updates episode! Thanks to Kelsey and Torin for the extra information about ultraviolet light, and thanks to Caleb for suggesting we learn more about the dingo! Further reading: At Least 125 Species of Mammals Glow under Ultraviolet Light, New Study Reveals DNA has revealed the origin of this giant ‘mystery’ gecko Bootlace Worm: Earth’s Longest Animal Produces Powerful Toxin...

Further reading: Audubon’s Bird of Washington: Unraveling the fraud that launched The Birds of America The Mystery of the Missing John James Audubon Self-Portrait Washington’s eagle, as painted by Audubon: The tiny detail in Audubon’s golden eagle painting that is supposed to be a self-portrait: The golden eagle painting as it was published. Note that there’s no tiny figure...

Thanks to Richard from NC for inspiring this episode! Further reading: Paleontologists Debunk Popular Claim that Protoceratops Fossils Inspired Legend of Griffin The Fossil Dragons of Lake Lucerne, Switzerland The Lindworm statue: A woolly rhinoceros skull: A golden collar dated to the 4th century BCE, made by Greek artisans for the Scythians, discovered in Ukraine. The bottom row of figures shows...

Thanks to Kai and Emily for their suggestions this week! The greater siren [photo by Kevin Stohlgren, taken from this site ]: The anhinga [photo by Tim from Ithaca – Anhinga, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15526948]: An anhinga swimming [photo by Wknight94, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons]: Show transcri...

Thanks to Cosmo and Zachary for suggesting this week’s monitor lizards! Further reading: No One Imagined Giant Lizard Nests Would Be This Weird The Mighty Modifications of the Yellow-Spotted Goanna The Asian water monitor: A yellow-spotted goanna standing up [picture by Geowombats – https://www.flickr.com/photos/geowombats/136601260/, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.ph...

This week we need to thanks a bunch of listeners for their suggestions: Bowie, Eilee, Pranav, and Yuzu! Further reading: Elaborate Komodo dragon armor defends against other dragons Giant killer lizard fossil shines new light on early Australians A New Origin for Dragon Folklore? The Wyvern of Wonderland The Komodo dragon: The beautiful tree goanna: The perentie: Fossilized scale tree bark looks li...

Thanks to Catherine and arilloyd for suggesting the marsupial mole! Further reading: Northern marsupial mole: Rare blind creature photographed in Australian outback The marsupial mole, adorable little not-mole from Australia [photo from article above]: Grant’s golden mole, adorable little not-mole from Africa: Show transcript: Welcome to Strange Animals Podcast. I’m your host, Kate Shaw. Thi...

Thanks to Luke for suggesting this week’s topic: Smilodon, the saber-toothed cat, AKA the sabertooth tiger! Further reading: Did sabertooth tigers purr or roar? The double-fanged adolescence of saber-toothed cats We don’t know for sure what Smilodon looked like, but it might have been something like this: An artist’s rendition of an adolescent Smilodon with doubled fangs [picture...

Thanks to Richard from NC, Pranav, and Alexandra for their suggestions this week! Further reading: ABA Rare Bird Alert One Reason Migrating Birds Get Lost Is Out of This World Inside the Amazing Cross-Continent Saga of the Steller’s Sea-Eagle A Vagrant European Robin Is Drawing Huge Crowds in China Bird migration: When vagrants become pioneers A red-cockaded woodpecker: Steller’s Sea E...

Thanks to Joel and Mary for suggesting some really interesting woodpeckers this week! Further watching: Rare woodpecker thought extinct spotted in Ohio The green woodpecker really likes to eat ants [picture by Remyymer – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=65008314]: The white-headed woodpecker looks like its face got splashed with paint: The red-headed wo...

Thanks to Pranav, Isaac, and an anonymous listener for their suggestions this week! Let’s learn about some animals that inspired three Pokemon. Sandshrew: Possible Sandshrew inspirations: Drowzee: Possible Drowzee inspiration: Fennekin: Undoubted Fennekin inspiration: Show transcript: Welcome to Strange Animals Podcast. I’m your host, Kate Shaw. This week we’re going to do something slightly...

Thanks to Nathan-Andrew for suggesting giant ichthyosaurs! Further reading: Paleontologists unearth what may be the largest known marine reptile Ruby and some other scientists with the ichthyotitan fossils [photos taken from this page ]: How the pieces fit together: Show transcript: Welcome to Strange Animals Podcast. I’m your host, Kate Shaw. This week we’re going to learn about some of the bigge...

Thanks to Max for suggesting Titanoboa! Further reading: Largest known madtsoiid snake from warm Eocene period of India suggests intercontinental Gondwana dispersal This Nearly 50-Foot Snake Was One of the Largest to Slither on Earth Meet Vasuki indicus , the ‘crocodile’ that was a 50ft snake Titanoboa had really big bones compared to its modern relatives: Vasuki had big bones too: Sho...

Thanks to Khalil for suggesting the horny toad, also called the horned lizard or horned toad! Further reading: The Case of the Lost Lizard The Texas horned lizard: Texas Horned Lizard (Phrynosoma cornutum) The rock horned lizard [photo taken from article linked above]: Show transcript: Welcome to Strange Animals Podcast. I’m your host, Kate Shaw. This week we’re going to learn about a reptile sugg...

Thanks to Elijah and an anonymous listener for suggesting that we talk about some more species of praying mantis! Further reading: The luring mantid: Protrusible pheromone glands in Stenophylla lobivertex (Mantodea: Acanthopidae) Dragons and unicorns (mantises) spotted in Atlantic forest Citizen scientists help discover new mantis species The dragon mantis [photo from first article linked above]:...

Thanks to River for suggesting this week’s topic, the pufferfish! Further reading: Grass puffer fish communicate with each other using a non-toxic version of their deadly toxin Mystery pufferfish create elaborate circular nests at mesophotic depths in Australia Pufferfish, puffed: A starry puffer, un-puffed [picture by Diego Delso, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curi...

Thanks to Carson, Mia, Eli, and Pranav for their suggestions this week! Further reading: RNA for the first time recovered from an extinct species Study finds ongoing evolution in Tasmanian Devils’ response to transmissible cancer Tasmanian devil research offers new insights for tackling cancer in humans The Tasmanian devil looks really cute but fights all the time [picture by JJ Harrison (ht...

Thanks to Will and Måns for their suggestions this week! Let’s learn about some mystery bovids, or cows and cow relations! Further reading: A Book of Creatures: Songòmby Kouprey: The Ultimate Mystery Mammal A musk ox (top) and a wild yak (bottom): A young kouprey bull from the 1930s: Sculpture of two grown kouprey bulls [photo by Christian Pirkl – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://common...

Thanks to Ari for suggesting this week’s episode, about the peacock! Further reading: Peacock tail feathers shake at resonance and hold eye-spots still during courtship displays Indian peafowls’ crests are tuned to frequencies also used in social displays An ocellated turkey (not a peacock but related): An Indian peacock male: An Indian peahen with chicks [photo from this site ]: Close...

Let’s look at some of the most interesting animals discovered last year! Further reading: Newly-discovered ‘margarita snails’ from the Florida Keys are bright lemon-yellow Tiny spirits roam the corals of Japan—two new pygmy squids discovered Strange New Species of Aquifer-Dwelling Catfish Discovered in India Bizarre New Species of Catfish Discovered in South America Unicorn-like blind fish d...

Sorry to my Patreon subscribers, since this is mostly a rerun episode from April 2019. It’s a fun one, though! The teensy pumpkin toadlet [photo by Diogo B. Provete – http://calphotos.berkeley.edu, CC BY-SA 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6271494]: The electromagnetic spectrum. Look how tiny the visible light spectrum is on this scale! [By NASA – https://scie...