Season 2 Episode 14: Volcanoes, Sleeping Dogs and Dr. Meredith Palmer with prey response to lions!

This week on the Science Pawdcast we have a very exciting story about two teams of researchers having a battle of data and simulations about the eruptions on Kona, Hawaii in 2017!  In Dog Science, we take a look at some fun science about how similar the dog brain is to the human brain when asleep.  Our expert guest is the exceptional Dr. Meredith Palmer, a behavioral ecologist that studies the prey response of animals to predators.  Her stories and science research is fascinating and inspiring.  Below you'll find link to join her research team as a citizen scientist! 

Dr. Meredith Palmer on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/songofdodo

Dr. Meredith on Insta:
https://www.instagram.com/carnivores_and_cameratraps/

Dr. Meredith's Instagram Eyes on Wild account:
https://www.instagram.com/eyesonthewild/

Doc Palmer's website:
https://meredithspalmer.weebly.com/

Get involved!  Snapshot Safari! 
https://www.zooniverse.org/organizations/meredithspalmer/snapshot-safari

Get involved!  Eyes on Wild:
https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/forestis/cedar-creek-eyes-on-the-wild


Bunsen on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/bunsenbernerbmd
Bunsen on Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/bunsenberner.bmd/
InstaBunsen
https://www.instagram.com/bunsenberner.bmd/?hl=en
Bunsen Merch!
https://teespring.com/en-GB/stores/bunsen-berner

Genius Lab Gear for 10% link!-
10% off science dog bandanas, science stickers and science Pocket tools
https://t.co/UIxKJ1uX8J?amp=1

Transcript

spk_0:   0:08
Hello, science enthusiasts. My name is Jason Ziolkowski and your host. I'm a high school chemistry teacher, but you probably know our dog Bunsen burner. He's the Twitter science dog. This show takes what's best about Munson's account, the science of empathy found there and spins it into podcast. For every week you'll learn some new science in her science news section. We'll also talk about some really interesting dog or pet science every week. There's an amazing expert that has interviewed, and we get to learn so much from them, and we end the podcast with stories and trivia. This is the science podcast. Hey, guys, how's it going? Another week, Another week? And shut down. Hey, one of the things I've heard is less. People are listening to podcast now because there's no commute. People are staying at home to work. If you're listening to this podcast. Thanks. Thanks so much for not being part of that statistic. We're all fine. We're all healthy. Alberta is still shut down. School probably won't be back on. I know the big province in Canada, Ontario has extended school shut down until the end of May. I think they're just gonna pretty much as we roll into May, I think there's gonna be an announcement that school is going to be shut down on the weather front, Man, the great melt has occurred. All of the snow is almost gone. That happened so fast. We went from snow everywhere and in about a week and 1/2. There's virtually no snow anywhere in Alberta. Um and it's so muddy. For those of you with a big, fluffy dog, this is the worst time ever to have a big, fluffy dog Is mud season because Bunsen is so muddy? Alright, what we got on the podcast this week, we're going to talk about volcanoes in science news in dog science. We're gonna talk about sleeping dogs. And her expert guest is Dr MEREDITH Palmer, who studies the fear response of prey animals to predators in the savannas of Africa. So cool. Hey! Ah, Bunsen. What happened to the overconfident line Tamer? He was consumed by his own pride. OK, on with the show, because there's no time like sites Time this weekend science news. We're gonna talk about volcanoes, and this science article is all about the eruptions that were happening in 2018 on the Hawaiian island of Kona, the killer uea of volcanic system. In 2017 we actually took a family vacation to Kona for a week, and we were there in the summer. You know, we're so land. I've said this before. We're very land locked in Alberta and and the ocean has such a calling to me like Oh, man, I could snorkel and swim in the ocean for hours and I know not everybody. And not everybody loves the ocean as much as I do in my family. So but Chris loves Hawaii. Um, and the boys have been once before. So we took a second trip to Hawaii in 2017 and we're Ancona and I picked Kona because I wanted to see volcanoes. I have never seen an active volcano in my life before. There's not a lot of volcanic activity in Canada, I'll tell you that. We took a day trip to the what was it called, like the Volcano National Park on the east side of Kona, and it was amazing. It was unbelievably cool because it was like nothing I'd ever seen before in my life. The kids were enthralled. Chris was mesmerized. We walked through lavatory tubes and we felt the hot air and smell the sulfur of the fishers beneath us. And then at night we watched Kila uea Um and we didn't unfortunately get to see any lava erupt. But we saw the glow from the observation deck. And the irony is, Stet, had I waited one more year to go, we would have been there during the crazy eruptions that were happening everywhere on around that whole system. So this article is talking about that volcanic activity and this really cool because the article in the research has caused a big debate to vulcanologists. Did I say that rate volcano ologists air vulcanologists. It sounds like you're a Vulcan licks Bach. Anyways, they have a theory that the crazy volcanic activity that occurred on Kila uea was because of rainfall. And another team of scientists don't necessarily agree with that. So it's a big debate right now, So if you don't remember this crazy volcanic activity, it started in 2018 in May and went for three or four months, and it produced as much a lava as about 15 years of lava in just that short amount of time. The pictures were crazy. I was showing videos to my kids at the start of every day. They were just study. We're following this like crazy. And it was so cool because it coincided when I was teaching geology in one of my science classes. So this study came out on April 22nd in nature, and these vulcanologists, they say it was because of rainfall. So how does rainfall make a volcano erupt? How can you help? Is that even possible? So this is what they theorize. What happens is if you have constant rain and there's so much of it, the rain will seep deep under the ground and create pressure within rocks. Rocks actually swell. Um, due to rain like that, there's some rocks that absorb water, and that creates a whole bunch of pressure underneath the ground, and it could actually fracture it. So crack snap. And those cracks are like basically, ah, highway system for Lavatory Escape and Jamie Fruit Carson, the volcanologist that's part of the study, says that's what led to the eruptions, and they have precipitation dated a kind of back up their findings that it was crazy, wet and crazy rainy leading up to the volcanic eruptions. They ran simulations to show that as the pressure built up underneath the ground, there is a greater likelihood of these fissures occurring and thus increased volcanic activity. They also look back in history and found that throughout history when there was crazy wet periods, there is also more volcanic activity. The big problem with this study is it contradicts the observations by the geological surveys in Hawaii itself. That group showed that it was what what they think is there was a lot of pressure buildup. So the volcanic activity fell before me. It went toe a very, very low amount of output. The low volcanic activity created a build up like a plug, almost like you're Qingqing, a garden hose. And then all of a sudden that kink can opened up put and the volcanic activity occurred. They've been able to use pressure data at the base of the volcano is Pu uh and they followed that many kilometers back and it seems to hold up. They also state that if you go back in time and you look at the different wet periods, it could just be a coincidence. Know what's really cool is that the idea that this rain could cause weakness and then these cracks to form is definitely plausible. In fact, if you put the two theories together, it could also explain volcanic activity. So that's what another volcanic meteorologists said, is that you know there's merit to both of these ideas. There's data to show that the pressure built up under the ground do to kind of the stoppage of volcanic activity. And it's very plausible that the rain caused underground pressure to build up, so the two teams were fighting it out. I just thought that was really cool, and it was just because this article was brand new, um, this month. Now I don't know how many people listening have seen volcanoes erupt. I I would still love to see that in my life because it's just such a incredible thing that you see on TV, and it's definitely not something we have in Canada. I know there's some people that I've talked to who live in Costa Rica, and they have, like, live volcanoes down there. Other, like, does no big deal. It's kind of like us with snow because in people the folks I talked to in Costa Rica have never seen snow before. So when they see snow, they probably would be just like me if I saw a volcanic activity. Anyways, that science news for this week This weekend, Dog science. We're gonna be talking about dog sleep. I bet you some of you have some funny dog sleeping stories with Bunsen. He sometimes has sleep dreams. He sleeps a lot. So he's He's more often asleep than he is awake. He keeps a pretty big goat with you. Anyways, he has sleep dreams where he twitches and he moves a little bit. But then sometimes he, like, starts the barker whimper in asleep. And, uh, I don't like when he does that. It makes me feel sad for him, and I wanna wake him up and make sure he's okay. I'm pretty sure a lot of pet owners out there do the same thing. Your dog is like crying and you're like, wake up, wake up. It's OK when, really maybe we shouldn't be doing that. So the study we're gonna look at took a look at how dog brains work. Well, they sleep and applied that to learning new tricks. Retention of information. The study used E G machines, or electroencephalogram fee, which basically measures the electrolyte electrical activity in your brain and similar to humans. Dog brains showed bursts of activity during non rapid eye movement. This is called a sleep spindle. I've never heard that before until I, like did a deep dive into the study researchers is have, of course, done this with other animals like rats. But dogs air closer on the evolutionary pathway to us than rats are. Plus, dog brains have, um, disorders that are very, very similar and how they affect the dog brain to how disorders affect the human brain like epilepsy. They took a look at these sleep spindles, which are about like If you want to get in the nitty gritty of it. They're very quick. They last a very short amount of time, and they have a frequency between 12 to 14 hurts, and they occur in the film us. That's part of your forebrain on. That's like where you retain information. It's your sophisticated processing area of the brain. One of the things they theorize white. What happens to your brain during the sleep spindles is it closes your brain to anything else. So you're you're not getting anything jumbled around. Basically, where they think memory consolidation occurs. There's not a lot known about this in dogs. So that's what this why this study was really, really cool. They asked 15 dog owners to bring their dogs three separate times, and the dogs were a bunch of different breeds. Right there was it was a mix. It's always tough with It's always tough with dogs to get, like a uniform sample size. But you, the They had everything from schnauzers, two retrievers Before anything, they took the E G of the dog's brain to get a baseline right, so they compare stuff to. Then they were randomly assigned some commands to practice. And what's funny is this is, ah, Hungarian study. So these dogs knew the command in Hungarian, but they want to get the dog learnt to do the command English like sit or lie down. They split the study into a group that did. They did Hungary into English and the English Hungarian, so they just wanted to randomize the study that way. So they new determined Hungarian, and they were learning something in English. Um, and then there were some dogs that new some words in English but not in Hungarian, said they split the study to make sure it wasn't just a language thing. After the study, the dog's got a chance to sleep. They took a look at their brains to see how Maney sleep spindles the different dogs had and then compared it to how easily the dog was able to learn commands. The dogs, learning English words from, ah, Hungarian Command, then proceeded to practice their skills. Then the researchers tried toe link that knew the retention there. Two more sleep spindles. So they were looking at sleep spindles in two different areas. Sleep spindles while the dogs were asleep, in which dogs did the best learning and then sleep spindles among the dogs re practicing the new skills, the sleep spindles that they found during all this time look very similar to humans. There were more sleep spindles and female dogs, but that also tracks with humans. There's more sleep spindles in and females for humans, and it probably has something to do hormones. The dogs who had way more of these, like these slivers of time where that frequency was recorded during their snooze were better learners than those without the sleep spindles. So that also tracks with humans that humans that have mawr sleep spindles do better job learning. How does this track with humans? While there's some disorders of the human brain and during sleep where the sleep spindles are all messed up, people with schizophrenia have very low amounts of sleep spindles. Also, you could look at people with a D h D. And there's some dogs that are diagnosed with a type of dog 80 HD, and they also have a typical sleep spindles. So it's really cool that what tracks in humans tracks in dogs now, the end result of this study wasn't to provide, you know, some kind of like great process, but it was just a learning activity t show that dogs and humans, when we sleep are really similar. So maybe when Worsley and we're having a nightmare, Bunsen wants to wake us up. He's like, No, no, it's okay. He probably doesn't do that cause he's asleep already, and the dog goes retaining more information in there. Doug o brain after their dog. Oh, sleep. That's dog science for this week. Hey, guys, before we get to the interview section, I thought, I tell you a little bit about how the podcast is made possible. It's made possible with listeners just like you through our patri on page. The podcast is always gonna be free for you to download and listen to you and have fun with us. But the way that we make the show go and pay for the fees and and everything else that goes with running. One is through the donations per month under PATRI on page. If you're interested, head over there to pay tree on dot com. Backslash Bunsen burner. There's a link in the show notes, and there's four tiers of support. Why else might you want to join the Patri on page, Huh? That's for the cool perks that we've got for you there. Each tier has some really cool perks with the top Tier's getting a shout out in the podcast and play time with Bunsen on our for Bow. On top of that will send you some swag from time to time and postcards couple times a year. If you want to support us we so appreciate it. Okay, thanks. Back to the show on the science podcast in the Ask an expert section. I am thrilled to have Dr MEREDITH Palmer, who is a behavior Ecologist from Princeton University. How you doing today, MEREDITH?

spk_1:   15:50
Doing really good? Yep. Um, still staying and healthy, which I think is three important things right now,

spk_0:   15:57
right? And because I bank interviews, this probably won't air for, ah, three or four weeks. And you're said you're kind of trapped in Sweden right now.

spk_1:   16:06
Yeah, with all the border closures that are going on because of cove it at the moment, I managed to get myself stuck in the U. Um, but there's worse places to be, that's for sure. It's hoped that that we're living in a piece of history right now.

spk_0:   16:22
That is true. Well, let's talk about something that that z really uplifting and exciting, and that's your education and your research and what you do, Can you tell Everybody would kind of your educational journey? Um, em what your job is as a behavioral Ecologist.

spk_1:   16:37
Yeah, 100%. So, essentially, Like for a big picture behavioral Ecologist. I study animals. I study how different species interact. I said, we have those interactions, impact thing environment that animals live in. And I sort of I guess I've always wanted to be a biologist. I think it started when I was a kid, you know, reading stories about Jane Goodall and George Schaller and thes people who went off on exciting adventures to far off places. And, you know, they go live in the wilderness and they develop this amazing insight into the lives of animals. I found that you know so inspiring as a kid reading these stories about animals and people that worked with, um um, I think it was a bit of a nerd. My parents told me I really love. It's like this is a kid like apparently I, you know, new, more facts about animals than the average five year old. Because I was always buried in a book and then, you know, growing older, getting into high school, definitely reading more science e books so inspired by books There's some amazing authors out there, you know, you're you're David Corman's and Your Stephen Goods and your Carl Zimmer's. These people who spin these like really fascinating stories about research and whites importance. And that got me hooked, you know, like I got hooked immediately from the start. Never really wanted to do anything else. Um, so, you know, as a kid, I start doing a lot of citizen science, you know, helping out with people's field projects. There's so many opportunities out there to go out and and help out scientists and get a chance to figure out firsthand what what it means to be a scientist. And I was super lucky to be able to do some of that stuff. Went toe, went to college. What did my undergraduate? I got a bachelor's degree in sociology from a small liberal arts college. I didn't go straight into graduate school. I think a lot of people think that you go like if you want to be a scientist, you have to go like college Master's PhD like it's this progression. That's very linear. And for me, it really wasn't, um, so I I did my bachelors, and then I took two years off and I spent that time working as a field assistant. So I got to help how a bunch of different scientists working on all of these different projects around the world look very different things to, um I had one job where I caught guppies, which are kind of fish. I did that in the Caribbean. I got Google. That was amazing. Um, grouping of tropical rainforest is something else. But then, like, I also studied mice in Africa. I caught snakes in the South Pacific, you know? And that's not only, like, not only a bunch of adventure, which is, you know, what I was interested in as well, but a lot of practical hands on learning about the process of science. But being out there doing it, meaning all of these researchers, What are they interested in? How do they think? How did they do research? I think that's really been hugely beneficial for me when I did go back to graduate school. Um, and in the kind of work that I do now is a scientist. Eso Yes, like, took some time off, and then ah, one of the things I think that taking this time often experiencing all of this different kinds of ecology help me figure out, is what I was really interested in. Because being an Ecologist look again, You can study anything from guppies to mice. You can study anything from from insects to elephants. There's a whole bunch of different organisms out there. There's so many questions out there. One of the important things you have to keep in mind if you decide to go to graduate school is his graduate school is really, really hard. And you have to be so dedicated and passionate about the questions that you're trying to answer, right? Like it's a lot of school. It's a lot of work. And so doing all of the science really gave me a chance to figure out, like, Okay, I'm not super interested in this. You know, this is more interesting to me. Like I really don't wanna work in a tropical rainforest. I'd rather work, you know, somewhere else, Um

spk_0:   20:47
was it wasn't the bugs or her

spk_1:   20:50
What? They're so and so. The foot rot like everything falls hurts. You know, you're always moist. Your skin gets all your listeners probably don't want to hear about the skin lesions that you get that like it's very, very moist. That and then I was tired of being moist.

spk_0:   21:11
My high school students are gonna love that you keep using the word moist because that is the word. That word, It just i e When you say that it's just like, OK, I get it. Like everything is just damp.

spk_1:   21:23
Everything. If I had to pick one word to describe doing work in a tropical reinforce, it would be moist home. Uh, you look beautiful, like wonderful experiences, incredible biodiversity out there. Um, but I did. I did that for a couple of years, and that was like, Okay, we're gonna find something a little bit little bit drier have moving for us. So, like I became interested in deserts and savannahs, I realized that I was really interested in species interactions. And so, um, looking at different graduate schools, I ended up going with all lab that did work in Serengeti National Park in Tanzania, which is like, Serengeti is the Lion King Africa, right. It's the Rolling Plains is the open savannas. It's those majestic rocks. It's all of the wildlife everywhere. Um, and I was really interested in joining the lab that I did because they had on some really fantastic long term data, in some cases, like going back for decades on the dynamics of all of these different kinds of Waldo species in Serengeti eso they had I worked with a team that ran the Serengeti lion project. Eso These guys have been sitting lions in Serengeti Park since the 19 sixties? Um, yeah. No, it's, you know, it's incredible. They've had callers on dozens of lions. We've been following these lines around for decades. We know everything about them, you know? We know where they go. We know what they do. We've been following, you know, studying their behaviour and their demography for so long. And another thing that this lab had just done I was super interested in is that they just set up this massive, large scale, camera trapping initiative. Eso camera traps. So these, like, remote cameras, You set them up in the field and or something walks in front of it. It takes a picture, right? And so this lab deployed 200 camera traps all over the Serengeti Park.

spk_0:   23:24
Oh, my goodness. That's so cool.

spk_1:   23:26
It's so no. It was a fascinating because it gives us the secret the secret look into, like, how animals live their lives, right? Like animals don't know the cameras. There so they just go around doing the things that they dio. Um, and with 200 cameras were constantly collecting Lee of such high resolution information on where animals are and how many of them there are and what they're doing for, you know, everything. Like anything that contribute a camera trap, we get data on it. So entire wildlife communities. And it was really, you know, the power of the combination of these two projects the lion monitoring to allow me to study predators and the camera traps which allowed me to look into these wildlife communities. And I could start answering questions about how predators and prey interact. And so that's what I focus on now is trying to understand predator prey relationships and the impacts that those relationships have for larger ecological communities.

spk_0:   24:25
Wow, that is OK, So just for people at home, when you take data on lions, you're not like hiding under some like grass camouflage, Um, were not traipsing about with a camera or are you, um or is that kind of unsafe?

spk_1:   24:42
Well, so the lion monitoring the lions again, we had we had radio collars on the lions, so okay, living in prides, right, and we would call her going lion from every pride. So we did not use GPS collars. So there's fancy colors now where the color itself connects with satellites and it will give you a paying, you know, every couple of hours. This is where your lion is. That's not the kind of, you know, we didn't use that kind of technology. We use what are called VHF colors, and so those are the ones we've ever seen. Pictures of researchers out there with those radio antennas listening for callers

spk_0:   25:21
that they have those. Yeah, they have those on bears in in Banff.

spk_1:   25:26
So that's that's what the That's the kind of tracking we did is we weren't getting pinned by these colors. We had to go out with our radio antennas listening for the lion callers driving around the Serengeti, trying to find lions on. Then, when we found the Lions, we would sit in the car where it was safe, like we were never out there, you know, putting ourselves in danger. We weren't asking to get eaten, um, way we would sit there with the lions and take all of the day record all of the data that we needed to record about that particular pride of lions and then go and try and find the next pride. And, um, I got to take part in that. You know, that was just It's such an amazing field experience because you really get a feel for what it's like being there on the ground in the Serengeti, like you understand where the lions go and where they're sleeping and where they're hunting and how they how they think how they use a landscape. And that gives you a lot of insight into that. Um, the predators point of view, so to speak.

spk_0:   26:26
That's so cool. So that the radio collars helped you get pinpoint data on a pride. But those the the were the other cameras called this the ones that just get turned on by movement.

spk_1:   26:37
Yes. So the camera traps those

spk_0:   26:40
camera traps. Yeah, they would give you like like a webcam version of the entire area they're placed in.

spk_1:   26:46
Yeah, exactly. And so if it's cool, you know, if I'm interested in lions, eat a lot of stuff, right? What is this? Predators eat a lot of different kinds of animals is pray and we can't put a radio caller on. You know, every single will to be Seabra and Paula heart. You know, Topi heart a beast in the Serengeti. So the camera traps allowed us to sample that broader pray community. Um, and then we had the callers on the predators.

spk_0:   27:14
That's so cool. So, with your research, one of the things I'm really interested to ask you about with predator prey is use one of the things you talked about, like on your web page in your research. And hopefully I'm on the right track is something called anti predator decision making. Can you explain that, everybody? That sounds really interesting.

spk_1:   27:34
Yeah. Um, Tillett contextualized that, um, predators can impact prey populations in two different ways. In one way, that's very intuitive in one way. That's maybe not as intuitive. And the intuitive way is that predators eat. Pray right. Think, uh, predators gives me a great if you're a prey and you get eaten. You know, that's kind of a bummer. Um right.

spk_0:   27:58
Oh, just a little bit. That's been

spk_1:   28:00
Assad. It's a bad day. Um, so predators, they eat, pray, and then maybe there's less of those pre animals around eating plants so you can get cascading effects of predators. Um, you know, sometimes having predators around is really beneficial for plant communities, and you can see when predators are removed from certain ecosystems. Plant communities could really suffer X. All of a sudden, there's a ton more herbivores chowing down on those plants. Eso that's one way that predators can affect pray is consumptive lee. And then the other way that predators couldn't impact pre is by scaring them. So if you know, if you're a dear say, only one deer in your herd of deer might get eaten by a wolf. But every single deer in your herd is afraid of being eaten by wolves, right? And this changes, you know, it changes everyone's again. If you are a dear, it changes all of the prey animals, your behavior in your physiology in ways that

spk_0:   29:01
would change my behavior. If, like one person in my classroom got eight every month by a wolf, I think I think everybody would be pretty terrified of wolves. Sorry.

spk_1:   29:10
Like no, but exactly like. And what do you do then? Um, like you're gonna Yeah, we're dear. You're gonna be on the lookout for wolves. You, you know, army. Yeah. Gonna join. Like a big group of teachers. You'll cut. Walk around together. It's safety in numbers. Maybe you won't go to the areas where you have seen wolves eating people or dear God. Right? You can. Yeah. You can avoid where areas where predators are. You can be constantly vigilant, always on the lookout for predators. You could do different things to try and mitigate that predation risk. Um, but this is consequences. Like there's no free lunch, right? Um so maybe if you're always avoiding areas where there are wolves or lions, you're maybe not getting all of the resource is like maybe the area where the wolves is is where all the really good food is. Or maybe you're always so busy watching out for predators that you're not eating as much food or missing opportunities toe like finds inmates. Sir, your physical condition isn't as great. You're more likely to die from starvation or from other causes. You're not as likely to have as many babies. And so work done in smaller systems like experimental work with stuff like grasshoppers and spiders, suggests that these thes fear effects. These Norman consumption effects of predation the way that predators change, pray behavior can actually impact prey populations even more so than those consumptive effects of those you know, wolf snacking on one dear every month. So it's it's fear has this potential. Toby's a hugely powerful force shaping wildlife communities.

spk_0:   30:59
I've never even thought about that before. You know, it makes it makes total sense like if you live. If you're constantly in stressed that you're going to get eight, then something's in your kids someday. Some things in your daily routine kind of are as important anymore. Lake. If I woke up every morning thinking I was gonna get eaten, I might not brush my teeth a couple times a day. You know, like there's some things you just aren't as important for you. That decreases your health.

spk_1:   31:26
All of those little things add up, you know, like you're not immediately dying because you got no, you know, by a lion. But it's the yes, like they're not brushing your teeth. You're not eating as much. Your notice fit more stress hormones in your system. What? That will do a number on you. Um so all of those little things add up, and it seems to mean that fear is really important. Um, but the thing that I am interested in, like the reason I work with lions and wolves instead of with, you know, spiders and grasshoppers is that we look really easy to study what we call non consumptive or fear effects of predators in these small scale systems. So we know a lot we know along about, say, like how spiders scare grasshoppers because what scientists do is they manipulate that system you can take. You can take some glue, and you can glue the spiders mouths closed like people booted so that you know. So you've isolated the different pathways right? The spider eating grasshopper pathway and the spider scaring grasshopper pathway, because all the signatures of your spider can eat. Um, but I can't. I can't go out into the field with some Elmer's glue and, like glue, a lion's mouth closed right. The

spk_0:   32:48
museum ethical concerns their

spk_1:   32:50
cripple ethical hazards there, and because it's so difficult to study fear effects and again the behaviors that prey animals used to avoid predators. These anti predator behaviors it's really hard to study that in the systems with these bigger animals that are moving, you know, interacting across the larger spatial and temporal scales. So it's a bit of a challenge to study these questions. Just what I think is is really, really interesting, you know, tackling this question in some in a place like the Serengeti Park. And again, you know, like I was saying before, we do a lot of stuff with GPS collars and camera trap data, and what that really allows us to do is study how prey animals avoid predators proactively. So how they keep from running into predators in the first place, how they change their use of a landscape in ways that they're not running into predators, right?

spk_0:   33:49
They're almost tap making tactical decisions,

spk_1:   33:51
probably. Oh, everything is a trade off its, you know, like, do I go to this really tasty patch of grass where lions hang out? Or do I go to this patch of like, not super tasty shrubs? Um, but I'm safer from lions like everything is a decision, right? So that's one thing you can do is just trying. Avoid running into predators. It's not perfect, right? Like predators will find you eventually. And so the other set of anti predator behaviors that I'm interested in studying is the reactive responses to a predator encounter. So what do you do when you run into a wolf? Like, how do you escape from that situation? And like, this is the fun part of my workload

spk_0:   34:34
to cry Christ

spk_1:   34:36
curl up in a ball and make peace with your God?

spk_0:   34:39
Yeah, that's what It's one animal in Canada. I haven't We haven't been attacked by yet. Ran into it, got chased by a badger, and yeah, the North American Badgers not not like the friendly European badge badgers that look like they're gonna invite you for tea. These air, like the scary look like they're on meth. Badgers like these are the worst. Yeah, Bunsen and I got chased by one last summer, so Yeah, I know there's there's probably not wolves. We live by another's coyotes out there, but yeah. Uh, sorry. I didn't mean to derail you, girl. I reading If I ran into her wolf, I think I'd be more scared of running into a wolf than a bear, to be honest with you, because the wolf is there to get you most most likely.

spk_1:   35:23
Well, that I mean, like, you've hit on something. Actually, very important is how did prey animals respond to different kinds of predators. Right. That's the question that I'm also interested in studying. But t get at that question to city that question in the wild, I get to played the lion. I get to play the wolf and go out and simulate all of the scary things about predators. Like as a researcher. I'm not gonna eat you. Oh, this is so much fun. Um, and there's a There's a bunch of different ways that we've done this. So I've done some work in North America studying sitting wolf sitting wolves that ever colonizing in the States. And I spent a summer last year spraying wolf pee on everything to make dear think that there were still wolves around. I smelled. I have never smoked worse in my entire life. Oh, my goodness. So, like sense is a way that you can simulate the presence of a predator without a predator being there. I've also worked with life size predator models, so, like cardboard cutouts on wheels, all right, have trouble in eternal these through the savanna. You know, dragging a hi Nina cut out towards a herd of unsuspecting antelope to make them think that they were being attacked and then recording how they respond. Um, And then the third thing we do is we do a ton of stuff with predator sounds. So one of the projects that I'm working on right now super fun, we have these. I get away with all kinds of really cool technology. Um, and at the moment, I have thes camera traps. So again, these remote cameras that get triggered to take photos when animals walk in front of them. But these camera traps, I've modified them so that when an animal walks in front of it, the camera trap plays a predator noise like a lion snarl or a cheetah squeak. Um, and then it video records the animals response to that sound. So your will against walking through the bush. You don't know that cameras there, but you accidentally trigger it, and then you hear Ah, a leopard snarled, ends my camera records What you do, um, and again like,

spk_0:   37:38
it would be fascinating. Oh,

spk_1:   37:40
it's such an amazing I. I love it because it really gives you this amazing looking toe how animals live their lives, right? Um, you you see these natural responses of animals in their natural environments. The things they think are really threats. Um, and yes, it's super knee. And between this, the camera trapping and the predator callers and all of these weird experiments with with P and sounds a week, it allows us to look, you know, like our animals performing different behaviors. They have different responses to different kinds of predators, like wolves versus bears, predators with different traits that maybe you did. They respond differently to predators that hunt in different ways. We look at how pray trade off like I've been talking about, avoiding predators with getting food or other resource is, and it really allows us to get this picture of how strongly predators are shaping the communities, the wildlife communities that they live in via these these consumptive and non consumptive pathways.

spk_0:   38:41
So that this probably leads me into my next question. Like all of this data is mind boggling, fascinating, like so cool. But this all of this information has to be funneling to to something like beyond just answering questions and that is the health of the ecosystem. Is that correct? Like this is all part of ecology.

spk_1:   39:01
Yeah. I mean, like in the kind of ecology that I study that I'm interested in. We're trying to figure out how these communities fit together, how species interact with each other, how they interact with their environment. How you know, the repercussions of changing these communities is something that's very pertinent right now. So I do. A lot of my work has conservation implications. Um, a lot of animals are going extinct right now, and essentially you're pulling. You're pulling pieces out of that puzzle. You're changing those interaction webs between species. How does that affect the community? Or some of the amazing work that I get to do some of the you know, it's always a breath of fresh air to hear, like a positive conservation story. Uh, so I feel like most of our world is on fire right now, but I'm very fortunate to do a lot of work on projects where we're trying to restore predators to these communities, to try and take thes ecosystems that maybe become degraded because they've lost different key players and see if we can put back those key players and maybe restore those ecosystems back to how they used to be,

spk_0:   40:13
right? So for people, for people, maybe haven't. It's been a while since they've taken in the high school biology class, if you I haven't idea. But maybe you can explain it better than definitely I could. Why would you put an apex predator like some dangerous animal that's gonna eat other animals back into an ecosystem? How does that Why is that a good

spk_1:   40:37
thing? I mentioned a little bit before about predators shaking pray they shape a demography. So, like how maney prey animals, there are the shape, pre behavior they shape, how many pray there are and how those prey animals interact with the landscape. So that determines, you know, a lot of these poor animals are herbivores there, eating different kinds of plants there, trample ing the soils, they're redistributing nutrients through their through their pee and poo off. Or, you know, we're by dying and decomposing. So if predators effect, pray, you know how many there are, where they on the landscape, what they're doing to the landscape. This impacts plant communities. It impacts soil communities. I mean, it's actually mind boggling because studies have shown that you know these these cascading, trickle down effects of predators. It could be, you know, ultimately, predators could end up affecting bees, birds, disease spread, fire regimes, carbon cycling, water dynamics, all of these diverse and important ecosystem processes. And if you take predators away as predators go extents and these apex carnivores are the first animals to go extinct in areas that are highly impacted, Yeah, they require, you know, so much space and very specific resource is that at the top of the few gene, they also you know, there's a lot of human wildlife conflicts, like we don't like big predators, so we persecute them. Um, but if you take them away, suddenly this community is all out of whack. You might get an explosion of herbivores or rewards going places they never went before eating. You know so much of a certain plants that those bees go extinct. You know, the system changes dramatically. Um, it degrades, and often we, as people lose some of the very voluble ecosystem services like clean water, carbon storage. Um, you know, things that we rely on so it affects not just wildlife, but also us not having predators in it in a system. And so we do a lot of work trying to figure out how to fit them back in there on. There's a lot of issues, you know? It's it's not as easy as just, you know, opening up a box of wolves in. No,

spk_0:   43:03
you don't. You don't have. Like, you don't have, like, 60 wolves just in a room somewhere you can just throw out into the Serengeti or wherever.

spk_1:   43:10
I just told him the Serengeti.

spk_0:   43:12
Okay, Yellowstone or something like that.

spk_1:   43:16
Well, I mean, one of the one of the problems is is some of the places I work well in the States. For example, um, wolves have been eradicated for the states from most of the states, apart from like Minnesota in Alaska since the early 19 hundreds. In Africa, I work in ah, number of reserves in South Africa, where big carnivores like lions and cheetah and leopard have also been eradicated for almost 100 years. And if you're an Impala or ah, mule deer who has never seen a lion or a wolf before, you know, for generations in some cases, and then all of the sudden the conservationists just opens up that box of wolves. You know, like what they've lost these anti predator behaviors. That's the connection is is animals used these behaviors to avoid just completely getting wiped out, right? Eso some of the things I study are you know, Dupree Animals remember how to respond to predators, or how quickly do they regain the correct responses to predators after we reintroduce them Other certain species of animals That may be, um, have this genetic memory like they can. They can handle being with predators, new predators better and like figuring out these kinds of things, you know, both of baseline. How do animals change their behavior to respond to predators in quote unquote intact systems? Comparing that to systems that we're trying to rebuild by putting predators back in understanding what behaviors air retained in which behaviours air lost, that helps us make thes thes conservation plans so that we can do a better job of rebuilding these ecological communities.

spk_0:   45:07
So I'm getting more of a picture that you know classically when we want to teach ecology to kids. You have that pyramid and predators or at the top. And the misconception Maybe, that if you take off the top of a pyramid, you still have the rest of the pyramid. I'm getting more of an idea that it's like a Jenga puzzle. And if you take predators out, the whole thing conf all over before it gets a little more tipsy turvy.

spk_1:   45:32
That's the perfect analogy. I'm gonna have to use that one in my own when I talk about this. Yeah, no, it's not. You know, you can't just cool. We think about these wildlife interactions is being part of, like an interaction Web, like everything's cannot. And I think what people don't necessarily realizes how far reaching those connections are, you know, between wolves affect bees, you know, through screens. Are they impact here, which impact plants which are what the bees, you know, Reliant, you know, And you you pull out one of those players and and everything is all of the sudden, you know, messed up on do some cases unpredictable. I think that's one thing to think about. Two is we don't even really know at this point what happens like we don't really know at this point the concert all of the consequences of removing a predator from an ecosystem. And that's, you know, if you're talking to people like trying to incentivize people to, to try and learn to live with large carnivores to keep large to keep protective measures on large carnivores is we really need to have a better idea of all of the different processes using species that carnivores impact because you know there's such a valuable players in these communities.

spk_0:   46:51
I think that's so cool that you are also studying that when you introduce Predator to an area where the prey have no memory of it, like, do the remember it because they haven't built up that predator prey response. Um, when you're talking, it just reminds me of tourists that come to Alberta like we're only a couple hours from the mountains, and we have, like so many tourists, come to see the mountains on the wildlife and especially in Jasper, is all protected. So humans to them are the humans don't mess with them, right? But so the tourists think it's safe to go up to like, ah, grizzly bear on the side of the road, or like a moose right Because they don't understand. They've never had interaction with these things before. It was like a moose's palaces of pounds going. Take your face off. Get your camera away. Like Ronald, don't. What are you doing? Yeah, so maybe that's like you. And reintroduced like a hyena twosome Out out where you study and the prayer Lego something new. Whatever

spk_1:   47:50
we call it, it's actually that we call the phenomenon a predator pit where you put my study distance and reserves in South Africa, where you put a lion backing and none of the prey animals. No one to dio like what is this? And so the line and just eat everything and the prey populations go extinct. Uh, just obviously carefully, right?

spk_0:   48:14
So careful as an Ecologist like that's like a

spk_1:   48:17
heat roaming. Yeah, it's a huge problem and we're trying to figure out like Okay, so how do we can we teach some of these animals how to respond to lions and maybe they people do that like people do train naive animals that they want to reintroduce into areas with predators. This is a big thing they do in Australia. Australia has a huge problem with invasive predators, the predators of natural. So the poor animals don't know how to respond to these invasive predators because they've never seen. They've never seen a cat before. They don't have that. Like they haven't involved with cats. They don't have to respond to cats.

spk_0:   48:54
Cancer out Feral cats are the

spk_1:   48:56
worst are legitimately the worst. Um, so researchers will spend time teaching animals to be afraid of cats. That is, that is something that we do so that you know, you really that will be or that Quacka back into the wild. And it sees a cat. It knows that it needs to run away or else from

spk_0:   49:16
wickedness. That's you know what? I'm just fasten. I could talk to you for hours about your research. It's so that's so cool. One of the questions we always ask in the podcast with our guests is for Ah, pet story. Do you have a pet story you could share with us? Or maybe an at crazy animal story from your time in the field? I don't know. Um,

spk_1:   49:36
I can definitely give you I can give you a pet story. I can tell you something always surprises people about me given that I My work is with these, like very large vertebrate mammals. Um but to be honest, my secret animal passion is for herbs, which is the name we give to the group of reptiles and amphibians. Like I am a closet herpetologist. So I started. Really? But, like, I am all about the creepy crawly things, um, a lot of the work girls, I think they're so great. They're so great. Um, I used to do a lot of research on them. So a lot of the research I did before graduate school involved hurts. I said he frogs in Panama City lizards in Puerto Rico. I spent a whole year living on an island catching snakes, which was amazing. So

spk_0:   50:32
it would be terrifying for most people, including me. I do not like snakes. I have a lot. You did that for a year. I would last somebody like Go catch that snake. I'd be like peace out. See you later. I will swim to shore. I will get off. I will. Tom Hanks castaway a raft out of dental floss and get out of here.

spk_1:   50:52
Oh, man. I works the island. I was catching the snakes on has a problem with invasive snakes. There's more snakes per square mile on that island than there are on the Amazon basin. It is not a close to go if you don't like snakes. All

spk_0:   51:06
right, so, no, you did not see Indiana Jones there anywhere. Right there. That's your trim

spk_1:   51:11
fumble. Indiana Jones, you know. Okay, that's hysterical. Yeah, so? So I love hurts. And that's my pets at home. Like all my pets are hurts. I especially turtles. I love talk.

spk_0:   51:26
Okay. They're cute. Okay? They're cute. I'll give you that.

spk_1:   51:29
I have four turtles and tortoises. So

spk_0:   51:33
before I do for turtles, are they named Raphael, Michelangelo, Donatello and Leonardo? If

spk_1:   51:41
I'd known I was gonna end up with four, I might have quit and headed. They're actually all they're all named after characters from great ethic works. So I have ah, have Ophelia from Shakespeare's Hamlet. I have, uh, Ajax, who's named after a Greek euro from the ill. EOD. I don't have Belykh who says maybe a off the wall. One Belykh is a warrior from Tolkien's. Some early in, um and also my this. And then lastly, I have a box turtle names Darth Maul Because our eyes also an

spk_0:   52:18
epic of our time I love it I love it. Oh, the prequel to the prequel People are gonna love you

spk_1:   52:25
I, Darth Maul was the only good part of the prequels. That's

spk_0:   52:29
no no stance Darth Maul kick. But I love Darth.

spk_1:   52:33
Uh, yeah, So those of those of my pets those in my for my four turtles and tortoises uh, that I think they're great. I love him.

spk_0:   52:43
Uh, I love it. Thanks for sharing your pet story. That's great. One of the things we always ask her guests also is for a super fact, A super fact to something that you know that when you tell people that kind of, like, kind of like Rex part of their brain, because it's so crazy. Um, and I don't like every time I have guests on, it's like 20,000 super fax have already happened before this point. But do you did you save one back for a super fact for us?

spk_1:   53:10
Oh, I've got so many. I'm a collector of strange fax, and I've got

spk_0:   53:14
so many things

spk_1:   53:15
I could tell you right now,

spk_0:   53:17
you don't have to do just one. If you've got, like, five, go for it.

spk_1:   53:20
Okay, I'm gonna give you one super fact, and then I'm going to give you one super fact, which is also a sneaking incentive to lure people into helping me with my citizen science camera trapping projects. How about that? Um, So Okay, so I study, study large African carnivores on, and I'm interested in how they hunt their prey. And I think one of their carnivores, that's in terms of, like, the, um, adaptations that they have to hunt prey. That is the most absolutely fascinating. Bizarre is the cheetah, and so you probably know that they're incredibly fast, you know, they can go toe like 0 to 60 in three strides. They have a very aerodynamic body shape their feet. Anatomy is actually more dog like than cat likes to help run big lungs, big hearts, extra power runner like tails. But I think that absolutely best cheetah hunting adaptation is that they have these super specialized spines. They're extra flexible spines that curve with each stride, and they sort of acts like a spring for the back legs. And so one researcher once figured out. And like don't try this at home. But if you have guts, if you cut all the legs off a cheetah cheetah could still move at six miles an hour, powered solely by the undulations of its spine. Because the spine is so flexible and so powerful and it's so important in their forward propulsion.

spk_0:   54:50
It was just like

spk_1:   54:51
her after its legs. Yes, it would. Yeah, exactly.

spk_0:   54:55
Would do like the worm, like the 19 eighties dance move like the

spk_1:   54:58
Huh? Huh? That's terrifying. I feel bad for the Impala, you know, having a snack in the bush, and all of a sudden it looks up and there's a a cheetah wiggling towards it but wiggling towards at a very decent speed. Oh, no, that is I think that that's that's such a funny like, funny.

spk_0:   55:20
This is crazy. They're built that way. Hey, like that. That's insane.

spk_1:   55:23
They're so good at what they dio Um, so that's one of my fund fax, And then the other fact that I wanted to share, I think I just sort of if I could do like a two second backstory. Um, I hope that the camera dropping work I do the 200 cameras we have in Serengeti Park. I also run a lot of camera trapping projects all over Africa. I work in all these different ecosystems with camera traps, trying to study predator prey interactions. And so I ended up with, like, a couple 1000 camera traps. Uh, camera traps, take photos. 24 7 some photos is a couple 1,000,000 pictures, Um, and like as one researcher, it's impossible for me to go through a 1,000,000 photographs like I can't just to go to a camera, take out the SD card and, like that data isn't in a form that I can use to run all of my analyses and do my statistics and and make the discoveries I need to do. I need to take that photo. I need to figure out what's in that photo like it's a zebra. How many's Ybor? There are what they're doing. And if I had to look at a 1,000,000 photographs, I calculated this. You know, if I had to spend 20 seconds looking at each photograph, everything, what was in it? You know, during that eight hours a day, seven days a week, it would take me 99 weeks to go through a 1,000,000 pictures, and that's, you know, like That's nothing. You know, it's a fraction of the volume of images that we have coming into our different projects. And these the status so vital for science is so vital for conservation. We have this huge bottleneck that is extracting all of this valuable data from the images. And so what we do, um, is we put all of this data online. We crowd source are classifications. So people at home who are interested in being part of science and doing real authentic science can go to some of our citizen science websites. Citizen science is just people members of the public who want to help out in science. Um, you don't need any experience. You need any background in science or nature wildlife biology. You can go to our Web sites like Snapshot Serengeti dot or welcome Borrego's that organ and all my camera trap photos air there, and you can help me figure out what's in those photos by classifying them online. But so this is this is a set up. Um, so

spk_0:   57:51
it's a set up. Set it for

spk_1:   57:53
my next super fact. So I often don't get to look at a lot of these images myself because I have the help of all of these people, these wonderful people who help me classify my data. But the cool thing about that is that the people like the citizen scientists that you know, anyone who is interested in science who goes and looks at my images gets this first glance at the secret lives of animals that you know, data that no one has ever seen before about wildlife. Um, and someone was on our websites are snapshot. Serengeti is what we call our project snapshot Serengeti dot ord um, going through our images and you could hash tag cool things you see in the images. And I started to notice that a lot of our volunteers were finding pictures of a very interesting behavioral interaction that no one had ever seen before. And we actually wrote up a science paper about it. Um, but this interaction is focused on a species of birds, species of bird in the Serengeti called an ox pecker. And these are birds that will go and they pick ticks and bugs off of the backs of large mammals on they eat these bugs. They have this mutual ist IC relationship with large herbivores. But what we were discovering is that instead of like a normal everyday bird going to roost in a tree at night, the's ox peckers were actually spending their nights hanging out in the armpits of giraffes. So instead of going to find a normal tree, they were hanging out on these like moving warm living host Trini Things giraffes. And that's where they would spend the night is inside giraffe armpits. And then they'd wake up the next morning and they'd already be on their host. You know, the host couldn't wander away at night. Um, they just be there on our citizen Scientists helps us make this amazing, bizarre discovery about this weird interaction between birds and giraffes.

spk_0:   59:53
Thanks for sharing that. That's a great kind of lead up, and you can go on the show notes to this podcast, and I'll have links to all of your citizen science initiatives. And then maybe we can answer people signed up to help you look through pictures and help out there. I know there's ah bunch of educators that listen to the podcast, and this is something that your kids conduce. Do your science kids can do and get really get involved with if their home and having to do online

spk_1:   1:0:17
learning. And we also have. So not only is it like a very amazing authentic science experience for, you know, curious kids, or maybe you've got like, your mom and dad is stuck at home and they're driving me nuts. You know, you can give them something to do with the purpose. But for those educators, we also do have online labs and interactive multimedia videos and the researchers who work on the projects. Researchers like me. We are very keen to have these one on one interactions with the people who are helping us out. So we're happy to chat to classrooms or kids or answer questions. Do videos like we want people to realize how accessible science is to take partner science, and to really get a feel that you know who the kinds of people are doing the science are just like you. You know, I I'm being a scientist. Isn't anything impossible to become so We're really trying to generate those you know, connections and bring people into science and let people have an amazing science experience. And to facilitate that in any way that we can.

spk_0:   1:1:26
Oh, that's awesome. I saw hope people get involved. I'm excited. I might get involved myself. Um, that's just so inspiring. Thank you. Think so? Thanks so much so sadly were at the end of our time together, I swear we could talk. I could have a 1,000,000 more questions. I could just listen to you talk about stories about your your research for hours, but, um, sadly, neither of us has that kind of time. Uh um, where can people find you on social media?

spk_1:   1:1:54
Yeah. So I post, um, about my research I post camera trap pictures and videos, stories from the field you confined on my Twitter, which is at Song of Dodo, which is the name of one of my favorite science books running up growing up The Song of the dodo. So on Twitter at Song of Dodo, I haven't instagram again for a really cool camera trap pictures and sort of behind the scenes footage from the field from the times I'm in Africa. And that is carnivores underscore air and underscore camera traps. So carnivores and camera traps on Instagram as well.

spk_0:   1:2:35
Very cool. I'll make sure. Also, those links are in the show. Notes in the podcast.

spk_1:   1:2:39
Super people should feel free to ask me about about you know, anything to reach out on social media and ask me questions about the researcher being in the field or being a scientist. You know, we're super happy toe. Have that continue this conversation.

spk_0:   1:2:54
Well, thank you so much for agreeing to take time to talk to us today on the science podcast. It's been just amazing chat. Very informative and inspiring. Thank you. It's time for war. Wow. And on podcast today as my guest host, I have Christina Georgeson High doing Christina. I'm doing great. How are you doing? Good. And you teach with me at Lindsay Thurber? Well, you did teach with me until Cove it happened. You've been teaching from home. Very true. Yeah. Uh, what would you teach a Thurber? Um, this year I'm teaching science primarily Grade nine. Great. 10 honors and the bio 20. Bio 30 subject on the twenties and that I be stream. Right. So you're You're one of her. I'd say what You definitely. You're one of our biology experts. Yes. Hesitant to say that because I don't know what questions coming. Um, you're never prepared ahead of time, and I try and make sure though this one might This one might line up there. See? And you have a little girl named Amelia. Uh, is she to? Yeah, she turned to at the end of March. And with that came like all kinds of personality, which is awesome, but testing at sometimes Is she a climber she didn't used to have, like, any guts at all. But this last little while, maybe just being home with Corbett, she suddenly, like, developed this fearless attitude towards everything. It's a whole new world. That's that's what happened with my oldest son, Duncan Is that when he turned about to hey turned into a climber and he would like you to watch him, Or he'd be like, on top of, like, the tallest things in her house. And it was just so stressful time I can imagine, really right now is just into, like, going up and down the stairs and the weirdest ways you can imagine. I don't really know why I like I like down on her front, down on her back down or but going back, the crawling down the stairs backwards. That kind of stuff? Exactly. Yeah. Oh, that's cute. Well, okay. Are you ready for war? Wow. Yes. So I'm going to read three statements. Two of them are not true. They're fake and Onley. One statement is true. So you have to find the true statement among the weeds. Okay. And the category this week is lions, right? Have did you have you watched the line king with Amelia yet? Or is that kind of too spooky? Scary? No. She likes it a lot, actually. Yeah. Have you seen the live action when I've heard it's not maybe as good. I have not seen it. No, that's gonna be hard for me to wrap my head around somebody else being the voice of zazu because I loved him. Um, in the original line. King? Yes, he's He's actually a pretty cute character. I like him a lot. So the reason again we're having binds is the category is Dr MEREDITH Palmer was the guest this week and she talked to us about the prey response of animals in Africa and especially about their interactions with lions. So that's the tie in. Okay, cool. Okay. Ready? Here we go. Here's the first statement. A lion's pupils are slits like a domestic house cat. This allows them to have enhanced focus for catching prey. But do you have an idea about that one already? I think it's true. Okay, So that meat well, who we never know what the other. Okay. Yeah. You never want to jump the gun too early. Okay, here's the second statement in the jungle. The mighty jungle. The lion sleeps tonight. And other phrases like King of the jungle are technically correct because the first explorers to Africa did find lions in the jungles. Okay, ready for the last statement? Yeah. Lions have either the most or the most complex method of communication of any of the cats. Okay. You want me to recap? No, I think I know which one. While I I'm gonna say that the jungle statement is the false statement. Right. Okay, So remember, there's two false statements and one true one. Okay, Okay. So that one is false. Shoot. This is trickier than I like to see. What? The pupil statement. You had the jungle statement. And then the last one was, uh, complexity. I'm gonna go that the complexity statement was the true cement. The lines have the most complex method of communication out of the cats. Yeah, out of the cats. OK, so you're gonna go with that is the true statement. Final answer final. Okay. All right. So let's take a look at the second statement to the jungle and lion. That statement is false. That one is definitely false. Lions do not live in the jungles. And wherever that came from, it was probably because explorers found other cats in the jungle and just mistook them for lions. Um, but lines do not live in jungles. You know, Leopards do jaguars do tigers do. I don't Tigers don't even live in in Africa, so no. Okay, So you got that one. So that leaves us with two statements left. I changed my mind. You did? Yeah. We'll see if that we'll see if that was a mistake. The first statement was about the lions pupils. You said that one was not true. So that statement is not true. That means you're correct. The last statement was true. Statement. Good job. Ah, lions pupils are around. They have round large pupils on, and that's because they hunt large game. The evolution beneficiary of having like the slit eyes is to have enhanced focus for small prey. The big round pupils let the lions hunt at night or dusk, and that's when they mostly hunt. That makes little sense. Yeah, I didn't know that before. I have I would hope if I ever came across the line. I'm not looking too intently into its eyes yourself. Looks, I don't know. And it is true. The lions have either. The most are among the most complex method of communication. They roar, grunt, moan, growl, snarl Miao per hum puff and wolf like a dog sometimes. Yeah, it's crazy. It's a good job. You one were Well s. So I think I think Thurber teachers have done pretty good. I think only Sylvie and Graham have got them wrong so far. That's such a cool idea. I like it a lot, huh? Okay. I'll talk to you later. Take care today. Yes. Sorry for messing up the true false. I even wrote down on a piece paper, idiot. Have really good day. All right, it's time for story time with me, Adam. I know it's been a while, but it's time for story time because we haven't done it in a long time, You know, hot time. Anyway, we're gonna talk about stories that happened within the time of relevance, like the past week or two weeks or something like that. And we're gonna have a grand old fun time. All right, So does anyone have any stories? I dio We are practicing physical distancing, and, um, our medical officer, Dr Dina Hinshaw, said that what you can do is you can a

spk_1:   1:10:32
zoo, long as you are physical distancing with two meters. You can have family

spk_0:   1:10:37
members from a different house come over as long as you're you're maintaining

spk_1:   1:10:42
that distance. So, um, we had my niece and her kids over, and it was super fun, wasn't it,

spk_0:   1:10:50
Adam? Yeah, it was fun. Yeah. Anyway, um, the little girl,

spk_1:   1:10:55
her name is Elie. And I said,

spk_0:   1:10:59
Hey, would you like to go for a creek walk? And she said, Oh, yes. Now Jason had already left with the dog and they were far out there, and I got

spk_1:   1:11:09
her some boots and away. We went and we had a lot of fun walking. And then

spk_0:   1:11:13
all of a sudden, out of nowhere, Bunsen comes racing over. I was like, Hey, buddy, how's it going? Puppy

spk_1:   1:11:20
puppy. And he was just so happy. And then Jason came over the crest of the hill and he said,

spk_0:   1:11:27
Oh, that's what buns is doing He must have heard you because he took off like a rocket. So then we were all together. Ellie was just really, really happy to be walking in the creek. Jason said, Hey, we can cross over here And Ellie said I can cross over here promptly fell into the creek. It's like whenever Ellie says I can do something, she immediately falls over right in that right after.

spk_1:   1:11:48
Yeah. Anyway, so that happened. Bunsen just looked over and said from what happened and he carried on his

spk_0:   1:11:54
way. He was roaring around that it was so muddy. He is so pause or so money. What did you say about his feet, Adam? So what I like to say is that Bunsen you know how he has the black and then it goes into brown. Then it goes into white. I like to say it's just brown all the way down, you know, very cool.

spk_1:   1:12:13
It wasn't cool on the floor. We had some major cleaning

spk_0:   1:12:16
to do anyway. Are there any other stories that you'd like to tell that if you've been following Bunsen on Twitter, you've seen the amount of freaking moose legs he's found. It has been. I can't believe it's been happening. He's found since the thaw two moose legs and a deer leg, and he can smell them and he goes and gets them and hauls them around. And then he takes them away from me where I can't get him in there because we still have snow up on the banks. And when he found them, he went out into the snow, where it was so soft and I didn't have my snowshoes on because most of it's melted. I can't get him. And then once I finally tracked him down and took it away from him because he said, he gives it to me, not happy about it. Then I had to carry two frozen mousse legs all the way back and throw them in the compost, so our compost, if I had kept all the moose legs that Bunsen has found because some of them are gone now. I threw them in the big garbage bin we have. That would be six moose legs and two deer leg. Super crazy. Actually, One day I had gone for a

spk_1:   1:13:19
walk with Bunsen and we headed west instead of the usual East, and he was acting really bizarre, and he wasn't. He was like on point, and he was sniffing and I thought, What is going on? And I said, Come on, puppy, puppy, Let's go home And so we did. But then, when Jason

spk_0:   1:13:35
took him for a walk leader, he just took off like a rocket west and came back with most legs. Pretty gross. All right, I guess it's time for my story. All right, so my story is a bit different than moms and dads story. It happens inside. That's basically all of my stories. They all happen inside where were, you know, just chillin. So you're going to need a little back story to know my story. So after a walk, Bunsen usually gets really tired. He drinks a lot of water and then he just lays down and

spk_1:   1:14:11
he's so loud when he

spk_0:   1:14:12
drinks. You might have been hearing him earlier. He was like he was use one. You know, like if you grab an image of a dog drinking water, you can basically hear it. He drinks a lot of wider, and then he lays down. You know, Dad likes to sometimes try to cuddle with him, but it doesn't work. He just stands right up. But what I do instead is Grabem basically throw him across the room. And then I just laid down with him, and he's perfectly fine with me doing that. He I don't know. He doesn't like other people pushing them around, but when I, like, throw him across the room, he's a guy. It's Adam time. You'll cover with me. But he likes cuddling with you, Maura before Yeah,

spk_1:   1:14:48
I know what happens. Jason is your your so put out when Bunsen doesn't, um when you lay down and bun sends, like, Nope, getting out of here and he gets up and he goes away and you're

spk_0:   1:14:59
like, Oh, you're like, you're you want to cuddle with

spk_1:   1:15:02
him on the floor. I know, but sometimes he doesn't.

spk_0:   1:15:05
All right, that's been story. Time for this week. Hopefully, we get to talk again later. But if not, see you next time, I guess. Bye bye. Hey, thanks for coming back. Time after time to listen to the podcast were, sadly at the end. Thanks so much for listening and special thanks to our top tier patrons on Patri on because of their support, they get a showed out at the end of the podcast. So here they are. Andrea Persons, Bianca Hide, Brooke LaValle Oh Daniel Frye, Elizabeth Bourgeois, Judith Martin, Karen Beth ST George, Katherine Lynch, Kathleen's Worker, Mary Goose, Marianne McNelly, Ben Rather, Liz Button and Rebecca Rutherford. Thanks, guys. We've been having a lot of fun on the Patriot on page talking about the new merch slogans on the Bunsen T shirts and hoodies and things like that. That's been a lot of fun. Also special, thanks to our expert guest, Dr MEREDITH Palmer. No, she's not from the office. The behavioral Ecologist to talk to us about prayer response would have fun chat. All right, we'll see you guys next week. Let's end with Munson's motto for science, empathy and acuteness.