What The Duck?!

A tiny penis, a 12-hour annual fertilisation window, picky females and strawberry bubble bath – these are just a few of the issues that pop up when making a panda cub. Featuring: Chad Crittle, Acting Assistant Curator for Carnivores and Ungulates at Zoos SA. Mr Li Zhang, Consul, Head of Bilateral Section at the Chinese Consulate-General in Adelaide. Dr Meghan Martin Wintle, Director, Conservation...

There's a whole world of mystery, and quite a bit of maths,  inside the humble sea shell. Forget ancestry searches online, shells can tell you the history of the world! Featuring: Amy Prendergast, University of Melbourne. Jann Vendetti, Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County.  Dr Paul Butler, Researcher at the University of Exeter.  Production: Ann Jones, Presenter / Producer. Petria Ladgrov...

Jaws (1975) was a massive hit that also created a whole lot of fear, but does anything in the film really stand up to shark science?  Do sharks stalk humans? Do they roar? What can they sense?  There are so many misconceptions when it comes to sharks that even now, 50 years later, these are impacting shark policies in Australia, and have come to be known as 'the jaws effect.' Featuring: Sophie May...

Female lab mice have been bred to be passive and breed with ease.  But, in the wild they're feisty and even pugnacious. How much of our biological understanding of the world is based on misogyny? Featuring: Lucy Cooke, Zoologist and author of Bitch A Revolutionary Guide to Sex, Evolution and the Female Animal. Professor Arthur Georges, University of Canberra. Professor Catherine Dulac, Harvard Uni...

Eels are mysterious and have a fascinating history.  People in pre-medieval England used them to pay rent. Early 17th-century maps featured 'eel ships,' and even Sigmund Freud studied their breeding and reproduction habits for a whole summer. Dr Ann Jones gets 'eely' curious about eels in today's What the Duck?! Featuring: Dr. John Wyatt Greenlee, Historian Cornell University.  Erin Rose, Budj Bim...

When it comes to sexual organs, the penis is really ‘out there.’  Name another organ that can change its form AND function in a matter of seconds!  There’s a lot of variety in the animal kingdom; from spikes and nails to coils and collagen – so, this appendage is worth investigating... close up.   Sex is Weird is a new series of What the Duck?! with Dr Ann Jones following the sexual evolution of t...

Aussie classic Babe turns 30 this year, and its story of the little pig that achieves his dream of being a sheep dog is still as uplifting as the day it premiered. But we can't say "that'll do, pig" when it comes to the science.... By now, we know pigs aren't "definitely stupid", but how smart are they? Would an orphaned pig be taken in by a family of dogs? Could a pig really learn to herd sheep?...

If you have a fear of getting swooped by magpies, mobbed by seagulls or blinded by crows, perhaps Alfred Hitchcock is to blame. His 1963 horror classic The Birds created a generation of ornithophobes, and played on our fears of death by feathered fiend.  But how accurate are his creepy corvids? Do birds of a feather flock together exclusively? Can a bird go all 'Here's Johnny' on a locked door? Do...

Remember that 1998 film Antz? The one about an ant named Z? The one where the ants had nightmare-inducing human teeth? The one we probably have to blame for the existence of Jerry Seinfeld's Bee Movie? Considering the movie is all about ants, you'd think it'd get SOMETHING right about ants. But Hollywood has once again LIED TO US. Do male ants have any jobs outside the boudoir? Can ants breathe? D...

In 1985, a real American black bear consumed a bunch of cocaine that'd been dropped from a plane into the forest, and died. Nearly 40 years later Hollywood stepped in the rewrite the story. What would happen if the bear survived? Maybe it'd go on a coke-fueled rampage. That's how it works, right? Cocaine Bear (2023) launched a lot of memes, but does it get anything right about bears, or how they'd...

Quick! Think of a ‘dinosaur movie’. Chances are Jurassic Park (1993) was first to mind.    Steven Spielberg’s genetic nightmare/theme park gone wrong classic is so iconic that it inspired a generation of kids to study palaeontology, and reinvented our modern popular idea of dinosaurs. But does that idea still stack up?    Could you really clone a triceratops from DNA found in an ancient mozzie?  ...

When you really think about it, sex to make babies is WEIRD! You take an outie that has to get stuck inside an innie that links into a production line of eggs to assemble a perfect tiny being. It’s so damn complicated! So why does it work like that? Join us at What the Duck for the first episode of a series where we figure out how living things went from splitting ourselves in half to double the p...

Could a legless lizard be 'minimalist of the year' for famous podcaster T. K. Coleman? Ann Jones leads an unlikely gang of animal experts on a tidy dance through the philosophy of minimalism. There are moths without mouths, flies without wings, and a worm-lizard that will even declutter its own tail.  Move over Marie Kondo, Minimalist Mother Nature is in town.  Featuring: T. K. Coleman, Co-host of...

ASMR (autonomous sensory meridian response) is a tingly sensation that can bring relaxation, and it's spawned a growing industry of videos online of whispering, tapping, mouth noises and soft speaking.  But, if you wanted quiet, intimate sounds, well, Nature does it so. much. better.  Ann Jones goes on an ASMR journey with vibrating caterpillars, whispering monkeys and birds who want to keep secre...

Imagine you've just been cancelled for a controversial opinion about Taylor Swift's musical output, and you have to go to ground. You can act like the Olsen twins, and hide behind big glasses and a big coat. Or you could take a lesson from nature and blend in, like a proverbial spotty quoll into the bush. The animal kingdom has a lot to teach us about camouflage and animal markings. Featuring: Dr...

Right now, you’re probably sitting on one of the most unique things about humans. One thing that separates us from the apes, from the birds, from EVERYTHING on earth. The thing that allows us to walk upright, on two legs. We have big butts and I cannot lie,This sort of exceptionalism doesn’t deny,That when a bird walks in with a little bit of hasteAnd drumsticks in your face, you have to admit tha...

How many species live around your house? In the COVID lockdown of 2020, three housemates decided to count. They thought there’d only be a handful, but the number kept rising and rising. Could their simple suburban Queenslander house be the next candidate for a new national park? Featuring: Dr Matt Holden, Mathematician, University of Queensland. Dr Andrew Rogers, Ecologist, University of Melbourne...

Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer is a Christmas classic... but how much do we really know about reindeer?  In the last instalment of "Hollywood lied to us" for 2024, Ann Jones fact-checks the festive fairytale for biological accuracy. What would it take for a reindeer to fly? What are their noses really like? Would a glowing nose even make a decent fog light?? Featuring: Belinda Smith, ABC Science O...

The Lion King (1994), aka Hamlet with Cats, is an iconic family classic. But would The Lion King's portrayal of a pride make biologists proud? Ann Jones presents “Hollywood lied to us” - a What The Duck?! podcast that takes your favourite movies and puts them under the microscope to work out what would happen in the real world and what’s just Hollywood magic. Would Simba really end up with Nala? W...

The movie is fictional but Groundhog Day (asking a groundhog for a long-term weather report)  IS A REAL THING! But wait, what even ARE groundhogs? AND do they have any qualifications in meteorology? Ann Jones is examining the biological accuracy of classic movies with the help of scientists and fans in the series "Hollywood Lied to Us." Featuring: Link Olson, Curator of Mammals, University of Alas...

Yes, the Little Mermaid is an animated movie, but if it were real, where would this mermaid paradise be?  Is it plausible that Ursula the Octo-woman would have henchmen in the form of eels?  Ann Jones is examining the biological accuracy with the help of scientists and fans  of classic movies in the series "Hollywood Lied to Us." Featuring: Flo Rama- The Little Mermaid super fan.  Professor Peter...

Jaws (1975) was a massive hit that also created a whole lot of fear, but does anything in the film really stand up to shark science? Do sharks stalk humans? Do they roar? What can they sense? There are so many misconceptions when it comes to sharks that even now, 50 years later, these are impacting shark policies in Australia, and have come to be known as 'the jaws effect.' Featuring: Sophie Mayco...

Did you know that pigeons make milk?  The pigeon gets a bad rap, but it is actually an incredible bird with a rich history. It is related to the dodo and even played a role in the French Revolution! Surely this bird deserves some recognition? Featuring: Rosemary Mosco, Science writer and author of 'The Pocket Guide to Pigeon Watching'. Nathan Finger, Host of 'Bird of the Week' podcast  Dr Robin Le...

Are you high, or is that a sheep glowing? Yep- sheep glow, but that's not all... when it comes to glowing the list of animals includes the platypus, dolphin teeth, bilby ears and Tasmanian Devil feet.  Featuring: Linda Reinhold, Zoologist at James Cook University. Professor Simon Lewis, Curtin University.  Dr. Kenny Travouillon, Western Australian Museum.  Caitlin Grieve, Hillend Dorsets. Producti...

There's a statue of an ostrich wearing a saddle in Meningie, South Australia. The large bird statue is dedicated to the legend of "John Francis Peggotty", the Birdman of the Coorong.  He loved gold, robbed stagecoaches, and used an ostrich as a getaway car. OR DID HE?!  Featuring: Denice Mason, teacher and Meningie resident. Associate Professor Rohan Clarke, Monash University and co-author of the...