The Wild Life

In this episode, we finally learn the answer to why wombats have cubed poop, learn how all of us mammals are bonded by our bowels, find out about something called the Law of Urination, and learn that we are in deep doo-doo as we discover the Global Feces Problem. Patricia Yang is a postdoc in Civil and Environmental Engineering, where she is studying the collective behavior of birds. Before c...

Stay tuned for her full episode, Poo Cubed, out this Friday! Patricia Yang is a postdoc in Civil and Environmental Engineering, where she is studying the collective behavior of birds. Before coming to Stanford, she completed doctoral and postdoctoral studies in Mechanical Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology on the fluid mechanics of body fluids, in particular, blood, feces, an...

The truth is, the concept of a plant or animals purpose isn’t as cut and dry as many would like. This makes sense. People are always trying to determine their purpose, their deeper meaning, and trying to answer age old questions like “What’s the meaning of life?”. When we start looking outward, we start trying to apply that same thought logic, but that’s just not how life really works. This is a t...

Welcome to part 1 of Us, an ongoing series examining our connections and impact on the environment, sustainability, and our changing climate. Part 1 through roughly 9 will focus on laying the groundwork for understanding these complicated issues from a variety of perspectives, while parts 10 through 20 or so will place the first half into real-world context, examining issues and controversies surr...

Have you ever seen an injured animal and wished you knew what to do or who to call? Have you ever seen an animal acting strangely but were unsure of whether or not that thing you saw was normal? Have you ever thought about getting into wildlife rehab? Then this is the episode for you. We talk baby birds, fledglings, bats, baby deer, squirrels, and so much more. Our guest is Tami Vogel, the Communi...

This episode has it all: Quokkas, trivia, selfies, Australia, the La Brea Tar Pits, Conservation Paleobiology, and somehow manages to tie it all together. Dr Larisa DeSantis, Conservation Paleobiologist and professor at Vanderbilt University, is our guest and she tells us how she is using relics of the past to inform the conservation of species now and into the future. Check out our new children's...

A fascinating journey that sounds the stuff of an animated movie or a children’s book is about to come to a rather different sort of end. On December 26th, a man by the name of Kevin Celli-Bird discovered an understandably exhausted pigeon resting in the backyard of his home in Melbourne, Australia. The bird was from America. Read the Story Here Support The Wild Life at patreon.com/thewildlife

Have you ever been outside during the spring and you see what looks like spit clinging to the sides of plant stems? Well, it's not spit, but it is a body fluid, and it hides a fascinating little creature that grows up to be something even more fantastical. Learn all about these snorkeling, high jumping, super-powered true-bugs with Dr Jason Cryan as your guide. Watch a Froghopper's incredible jump...

It's kind of hard to believe at first glance, but yes, they're actually pigeons. https://thewildlife.blog/2020/05/12/the-wild-life-of-the-nicobar-pigeon/

Shrew are many things. Sometimes venomous, sometimes able to walk on water, sometimes snake-killers, but always adoreable. https://thewildlife.blog/2019/02/26/twl-hiking-clubthe-always-adorable-sometimes-vicious-shrew/

Hey Wildlings! First off, Happy New Year. This episode is about 15 minutes of something a little different from what we normally do + a revisit to an old classic, The Metamorphosis Metaphor. We'd love to hear from you too. What do you want from us in the New Year? What would you like to hear, see, do? How do you want to interact with us? Also, we'd love to start off the new year in the top charts....

Follow all of the podcasts featured in this episode! The Root of the Science Twitter: https://twitter.com/RootofSciPod Website/Podcast: https://rootofthesciencepodcast.buzzsprout.com/ Earth Ideas Twitter: https://twitter.com/ideas_earth Website/Podcast: https://lnk.bio/SnYr Curiosity Cake Twitter: https://twitter.com/curiosity_cake Website/Podcast: https://curiositycake.co.uk/ Papa PhD Twitter: ht...

My 4 year old brought me my mic and asked if we could make a podcast episode. This is that episode!

Also know as the cigar shark for that one time a sailor mistook it for a cigar and only realized their mistake after trying to light it up—kidding of course—  Isistius brasiliensis  is shark of the family Dalatiidae. The genus name,  Isistius,  is based on Isis. No, not the terrorist group, but after Isis, the Egyptian goddess of light. https://thewildlife.blog/2019/08/05/...

NOT A LEMUR, NOR A CAT. THIS RACCOON-LIKE CRITTER IS A “CLEVER FOX”.

THIS TOXIC, NECTARLESS FLOWER IS SPREAD BY ANTS Support our work at patreon.com/thewildlife

This past August as I sat below an old oak tree while drinking my morning cup of coffee and looking out on a glassy Lake Darling in Alexandria, Minnesota, something fell from the sky and landed at my feet. Small and curled up like a slightly puff green and yellow sour gummy worm. It’s face made it look like a Pokémon, or like one of those smiley face antenna toppers. Two hours later, another fell...

In the skies across Minnesota (and much of the eastern US and southeastern Canada, for that matter), roams a fierce and agile predator, capable of taking down prey you would never imagine—and some many wouldn’t dare to try at themselves. Support us at patreon.com/thewildlife Read the transcript of this episode, see some art, and awesome videos at https://thewildlife.blog/2019/07/11/the-dragonhunte...

This is circle of life—or at least an ugly, albeit necessary, curve of it. This is the life of the American Carrion Beetle. Support our show at patreon.com/thewildlife Follow us on Twitter @thewildlifepod Read the transcript of this episode at https://thewildlife.blog/2018/08/03/carrion-my-wayward-beetle/

In this episode, Devon and Richard talk snow, Frozen 2, whether or not water has memory (and if it's good or bad), the Big Bang, the formation of planets, the secret role of bacteria, why snowflakes are intricately symmetrical, and more! Become a patron (and our best friend), and get tons of cool perks at www.patreon.com/TheWildLife and help us to keep doing what we are doing and getting better! A...

We’ve all heard of snakes on a plane, but this time of year, snakes are slipping their way into all sorts of unexpected places—like basements of the unsuspecting. Read the blog version and find the links mentioned in the episode here: https://thewildlife.blog/2019/11/30/snakes-in-the-basement/

Don’t let their cute little face fool you. The carnivorous Least Weasel is fierce, eating up to 60% of its body weight in food per day. Weasel vs Seagull Weasel War Dance Check out this and other shorts over on our other listing, too| The Wild Life: SHORTS! Support the show on patreon.com/thewildlife https://thewildlife.blog/2018/02/24/the-least-weasel-is-the-most-extra/

In our first episode back in over a month, we are revamping our Phylum series by focusing in on another tier of classification: Class. Welcome to our new miniseries. Chitons belong to the Phylum Mollusca, along with bivalves, gastropods, and cephalopods. They may seem simple, but there is a beautiful complexity in their story and existence if you know where to look. Welcome to Class.

Happy Halloween! In this super special, unexpected, and therefore super last minute holiday treat (and trick), Devon reads a retelling of Edgar Allen Poe's famous short story, A Tell Tale Heart , that you undoubtedly were coerced into reading in high school. In our somewhat modernized version, we get a different, more wildlife oriented ending that turns out to be the most opposite from horror as y...

While we're on a brief hiatus, we wanted to take a trip back in time to revisit our Season 2 premier from February 2019. In this episode, Devon and Richard attempt to settle an age old argument between them by enlisting the help of renowned biochemist, professor, and author, Dr Nick Lane of the University College of London. The debate: is there complex alien life somewhere out there, or is it impr...