Strange Animals Podcast

Katherine Shaw
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  • NATURAL SCIENCES
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A podcast about living, extinct, and imaginary animals!

  1. 2D AGO

    Episode 465: The Mermaid

    Thanks to Holly for suggesting this week’s topic! Further reading: Mermaids: Myth, Kith and Kin [this article is not for children] Feejee Mermaid A manatee: A female grey seal, looking winsome: A drawing of the “original” Fiji (or Feejee) mermaid: Show transcript: Welcome to Strange Animals Podcast. I’m your host, Kate Shaw. Let’s close out the year 2025 with a mystery episode! Holly suggested we talk about mermaids! Mermaids are creatures of folklore who are supposed to look like humans, but instead of legs they have fish tails. These days mermaids are usually depicted with a single tail, but it was common in older artwork for a mermaid to be shown with two tails, which replaced both legs. Not all mermaids were girls, either. Mermen were just as common. Cultures from around the world have stories about mermaid-like individuals. Sometimes they’re gods or goddesses, like the Syrian story of a goddess so beautiful that when she transformed into a fish, only her legs changed, because her upper half was too beautiful to alter, or the Greek god Triton, who is usually depicted as a man with two fish tails for legs. Sometimes they’re monsters who cause storms, curse ships, or lure sailors to their doom. Sometimes they can transform into humans, like the story from Madagascar about a fisherman who catches a mermaid in his net. She transforms into a human woman and they get married, but when he breaks a promise to her, she turns back into a mermaid and swims away. In 2012, a TV special aired on Animal Planet that claimed that mermaids were real, and a lot of people believed it. It imitated the kind of real documentaries that Animal Planet often ran, and the only disclaimer was in the credits. I remember how upset a lot of people were about it, especially teachers and scientists. So just to be clear, mermaids aren’t real. Many researchers think at least some mermaid stories might be based on real animals. The explorer Christopher Columbus reported seeing three mermaids in 1493, but said they weren’t as beautiful as he’d heard. Most researchers think he actually saw manatees. A few centuries later, a mermaid was captured and killed off the coast of Brazil by European scientists, and the careful drawings we still have of the mermaid’s hand bones correspond exactly to the bones of a manatee’s flipper. Female manatees are larger than males on average, and a really big female can grow over 15 feet long, or 4.6 meters. Most manatees are between 9 and 10 feet long, or a little less than 3 meters. Its body is elongated like a whale’s, but unlike a whale it’s slow, usually only swimming about as fast as a human can swim. Its skin is gray or brown although often it has algae growing on it that helps camouflage it. The end of the manatee’s tail looks like a rounded paddle, and it has front flippers but no rear limbs. Its face is rounded with a prehensile upper lip covered with bristly whiskers, which it uses to find and gather water plants. The manatee doesn’t look a lot like a person, but it looks more like a person than most water animals. It has a neck and can turn its head like a person, its flippers are fairly long and resemble arms, and females have a pair of teats that are near their armpits, if a manatee had armpits, which it does not. But that’s close enough for Christopher Columbus to decide he was seeing a mermaid. Seals may have also contributed to mermaid stories. In Scottish folklore, the selkie is a seal that can transform into human shape, usually by taking off its skin. There are lots of stories of people who steal the selkie’s skin and hide it so that the selkie will marry the person—because selkies are beautiful in their human form. Eventually the selkie finds the hidden skin and returns to the sea. Similar seal-folk legends are found in other parts of northern Europe, including Sweden, Iceland, Norway, and Ireland. Many of the stories overlap with mermaid stories. Seals do have appealing human-like faces, have clawed front flippers that sort of resemble arms, and have rear flippers that are fused to act like a tail, even if it doesn’t look much like a fish tail. The grey seal is a common animal off the coast of northern Europe, and a big male can grow almost 11 feet long, or 3.3 meters, although 9 feet is more common, or 2.7 meters. It has a large snout and no external ear flaps. Males are dark grey or brown, females are more silvery in color. It mainly eats fish, but will also eat other animals, including crustaceans, octopuses, other seals, and even porpoises. While I don’t think it has anything to do with the mermaid or selkie legends, it is interesting to note that seals are good at imitating human voices. We learned about this in episode 225, about talking mammals. For instance, Hoover the talking seal, a harbor seal from Maine who was raised by a human after his mother died. Imagine if you were walking along the shore and a seal said this to you: [Hoover the talking seal saying “Hey get over here!”] Let’s finish with the Japanese legend of the ningyo and a weird taxidermy creature called the Feejee mermaid. The ningyo is a being of folklore that dates back to at least the 7th century. It was a fish with a head like a person, usually found in the ocean but sometimes in freshwater. If someone found a ningyo washed up on shore, it was supposed to be a bad omen, foretelling war and other disasters. If you remember the big fish episode a few weeks ago, if an oarfish is found near the surface of the ocean around Japan, it’s supposed to foretell an earthquake. The oarfish has a red fin that runs from its head down its spine, like a mane or a comb, and the ningyo was also supposed to have a red comb on its head, like a rooster’s comb, or sometimes red hair. Some people think the ningyo is based on the oarfish. The oarfish is a deep-sea fish so it’s rare, usually only seen near the surface when it’s dying, and it has a flat face that looks more like a human face than most fish, if you squint and really want to believe you’re seeing a mythical creature. These days, artwork of the ningyo usually looks a lot more like mermaids of European legend, but the earliest paintings don’t usually have arms, just a human head on a fish body. But by the late 18th century, a weird type of artwork had become popular among Japanese fishermen, a type of crude but inventive taxidermy that created what looked like small, creepy mermaids. They looked like dried-out monkeys from the waist up, with a dried-out fish tail instead of legs. That’s because that’s exactly what they were. Japanese fishermen made these mermaids along with lots of other monsters, and sold them to travelers for high prices. The fishermen told tall tales about how they’d found the monster, killed it, and preserved it, and pretended to be reluctant to sell it, and of course that meant the traveler would offer even more money for it. The most famous of these fake monsters was called the Fiji Mermaid, and it got famous because P.T. Barnum displayed it in his museum in 1842 and said it had been caught near the Fiji Islands, in the South Pacific. It was about three feet along, or 91 cm, and was probably made from a young monkey and a salmon. The original Fiji mermaid was probably destroyed in a fire at some point, but it was such a popular exhibit that other wannabe showmen either bought or made replicas, some of which are still around today. People still sometimes make similar monsters, but they use craft materials instead of dead animals. They’re still creepy-looking, though, which is part of the fun. You can find Strange Animals Podcast at strangeanimalspodcast.blubrry.net. That’s blueberry without any E’s. If you have questions, comments, corrections, or suggestions, email us at strangeanimalspodcast@gmail.com. Thanks for listening!

    10 min

  2. 12/22/2025

    Episode 464: Farmyard Animals

    Thanks to Emily, Jo, and Alexandra for their suggestions this week! Further reading: Highland Cattle Society Mongolian Sheep The Donkey Sanctuary The Highland cow is so cute (picture taken from the first site linked above): Some fat-tailed sheep (picture taken from the sheep article linked above): Donkeys: A happy donkey and a happy person (photo taken from the Donkey Sanctuary’s site, linked above): Show transcript: Welcome to Strange Animals Podcast. I’m your host, Kate Shaw. After last week’s giant fish episode, this week we’re going to have a shorter episode of animals you’ve probably seen, especially if you live in the countryside. But first, I forgot to credit two people from last week’s episode, Dylan and Emily, who both wanted to hear about mudskippers along with Arthur! I had so many names I missed some. This week we’ll talk about some domestic mammals, suggested by Alexandra, Jo, and Emily. Let’s start with Emily’s suggestion, the Highland cow. Cows are classified in the family Bovidae, which includes not just the domestic cow and its relations but goats, sheep, antelopes, and many other animals with cloven hooves who chew the cud as part of the digestive process–but not deer or giraffes, and not the pronghorn even though people call it an antelope. It is confusing. Many bovids have horns, usually only two but sometimes four or even six, and those horns are never branched. Sometimes only the male has horns, sometimes both the male and female. Bovids don’t have incisors in the front of the upper jaw, only in the lower jaw. Instead, a bovid has a tough dental pad that helps it grab plants. The Highland cow is a breed of domestic cow that originated in Scotland, although it’s now popular in many other places too. It’s a tough animal with a long outer coat of fur and a short, fuzzy undercoat that helps it survive harsh winters. Most are reddish-brown, but some are black, silvery-white, dun, or other shades. It has long, wide horns and its long fur usually falls over its face, which protects its eyes and also looks incredibly cute. Not only can the Highland cow thrive on pasture that’s considered poor, meaning the plants aren’t as nutritious, it’s also disease resistant, even-tempered, and intelligent. It’s a compact, relatively small cow, but it’s not a miniature cow. Like, you can’t pick it up like a dog, although you could probably hug one if the farmer says it’s okay. A bull can stand about 5 feet tall at the shoulder, or 1.5 meters, while cows are smaller overall. The Highland cow is raised for its meat, which is naturally lean and delicious. But because they also happen to be small for cows, and so even-tempered, and so cute, many small farms and petting zoos keep a few just as pets. Since the Highland cow likes eating plants that other cow breeds won’t touch, it’s also helpful for clearing overgrown land. Next, Alexandra wanted to learn more about the fat-tailed sheep, another bovid. The sheep is one of the oldest domesticated animals in the world, with some experts estimating that it was first domesticated at least 11,000 years ago and possibly over 13,000 years ago, around Asia and the Middle East. Sheep are especially useful to humans because not only can you eat them, they produce wool. Wool has incredible insulating properties, as you’ll know if you’ve ever worn a wool sweater in the snow. Even if it gets wet, you stay nice and warm. Even better, you don’t have to kill the sheep to get the wool. The sheep just gets a haircut every year to cut its wool short. Wild sheep don’t grow a lot of wool, though. They mostly have hair like goats. Humans didn’t start selecting for domestic sheep that produced wool until around 8,000 years ago. The fat-tailed sheep isn’t a single breed but a type of sheep, most common in central Asia, northern Africa, and the Middle East. It’s adapted for life in arid conditions, where there isn’t a lot of water. The fat deposits on both sides of the tail act like a camel’s hump, allowing the animal to absorb the stored fat if it can’t find enough food and water. The fat-tailed sheep can have a really huge tail, so big it can make up almost a third of its body weight. Because the fat mostly collects on either side of the tail bones, the tail’s shape has two lobes, which makes the sheep look like it has an extra butt on its butt. In some breeds, the tail gets wider as the fat deposits grow, while in other breeds, the tail just gets longer, sometimes so long it actually brushes the ground. The tail fat helps the sheep, but it’s also considered a delicacy to people. Wherever the fat-tailed sheep is raised, there are special recipes to cook the tail. Many breeds of fat-tailed sheep also produce long, coarse wool that’s used to make carpets and felt. We’ll finish with Jo’s suggestion, the domestic donkey. Donkeys are equids, and instead of cloven hooves like bovids, they have solid hooves. They’re closely related to horses and zebras, and more distantly related to rhinoceroses and tapirs. The domestic donkey is descended from the African wild ass. Researchers estimate it was domesticated around five to seven thousand years ago by the ancient nomadic peoples of Nubia in Africa, and quickly spread throughout the Middle East and into southern Asia and Europe. The domestic donkey is a strong, sturdy animal that’s usually fairly small. One of the biggest breeds is the American Mammoth Jackstock, and another is the French Baudet du Poitou, which has long fur. Both breeds can be as big as a horse. Big donkey breeds like these were mostly developed to cross with horses, to produce even larger, stronger mules. Mules are hybrid animals and are infertile, but they’re very strong. The donkey is usually gray or brown and has long ears. Most have a darker stripe down the spine, called an eel stripe, and another stripe across the shoulders. Many have a lighter-colored nose, belly, and legs. The donkey’s mane is short and stands upright. The donkey’s small size and big strength has made it a popular working animal throughout the world. It can carry loads, can be ridden, and can pull carts and plows. It’s famously tough and can be stubborn if it doesn’t feel like it’s being treated well, and it can even be dangerous when it kicks and bites. Sometimes farmers keep donkeys with their sheep or other animals, because the donkey will look out for danger and warn the herd by braying if it sees a predator. If the predator gets too close, the donkey will attack it instead of running away. In many places in the world, the donkey is an important work animal even today. Not everyone is lucky enough to afford a tractor or truck, so donkeys do the same work for people that they’ve done for thousands of years. The problem is that when a donkey gets old or is injured, and can’t work anymore, sometimes they’re killed for meat or just abandoned. Luckily there are donkey rescues who do their best to help as many donkeys as they can, especially the Donkey Sanctuary. The Donkey Sanctuary started in England in 1969, but it now has sanctuaries throughout Europe, and it runs programs that offer free veterinary care and education about donkeys for people in many parts of the world. One important thing the Donkey Sanctuary does, and other donkey rescues do too, is give a home to elderly donkeys who can’t work anymore. It’s only fair that a hard-working donkey gets to retire and have a peaceful old age. You can find Strange Animals Podcast at strangeanimalspodcast.blubrry.net. That’s blueberry without any E’s. If you have questions, comments, corrections, or suggestions, email us at strangeanimalspodcast@gmail.com. Thanks for listening!

    9 min

  3. 12/15/2025

    Episode 463: The Big Fish Episode

    It’s an episode just absolutely full of fish! Thanks to Arthur, Yuzu, Jayson, Kabir, Nora, Siya, Joel, Elizabeth, Mac, Ryder, Alyx, Dean, and Riley for their suggestions this week! Further reading: Study uncovers mechanics of machete-like ‘tail-whipping’ in thresher sharks Business end of a sawfish: Giant freshwater stingray! The frilled shark looks like an eel: The frilled shark’s teeth: The thresher shark and its whip-like tail [photo by Thomas Alexander – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=50280277]: The Halmahera epaulette shark, looking a little bit like a long skinny koi fish [photo by Mark Erdmann, California Academy of Sciences, Attribution, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=30260864]: A mudskipper, which is a fish even though it kind of looks like a weird frog [photo by Heinonlein – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=44502355]: The red-lipped batfish wants a big kiss: The male blue groper is very blue [photo by Andrew Harvey, some rights reserved (CC BY) – https://www.inaturalist.org/photos/62196538, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=157789928]: The giant oarfish is very long: Show transcript: Welcome to Strange Animals Podcast. I’m your host, Kate Shaw. This week we have a big fish episode! I mean, it’s a big episode about a lot of different fish, not necessarily fish that are big—although some of them sure are! Thanks to Arthur, Yuzu, Jayson, Kabir, Nora, Siya, Joel, Elizabeth, Mac, Ryder, Alyx, Dean, and Riley. I told you this is a big fish episode. Let’s jump right in with a fish suggested by Jayson, the sawfish. There are five species of sawfish alive today. The smallest can still grow over 10 feet long, or 3 meters, while the biggest species can grow over 20 feet long, or 6 meters. The largest sawfish ever reliably measured was 24 feet long, or 7.3 meters. The sawfish lives mostly in warm, shallow ocean waters, usually where the bottom is muddy or sandy. It can also tolerate brackish and even freshwater, and will sometimes swim into rivers and live there just fine. The sawfish is a type of ray, and rays are most closely related to sharks. Like sharks, rays have an internal skeleton made of cartilage instead of bone, but they also have bony teeth. You can definitely see the similarity between sharks and sawfish in the body shape, although the sawfish is flattened underneath, which allows it to lie on the ocean floor. There’s also another detail that helps you tell a sawfish from most sharks: the rostrum, or snout. It’s surprisingly long and studded with teeth on both sides, which makes it look like a saw. The teeth on the sawfish’s saw are actual teeth. They’re called rostral teeth and the rostrum itself is part of the skull, not a beak or a mouth. It’s covered in skin just like the rest of the body. The sawfish’s mouth is located underneath the body quite a bit back from the rostrum’s base, and the mouth contains a lot of ordinary teeth that aren’t very sharp. Since the sawfish has plenty of teeth in its mouth, you may be wondering how and why it also has extra teeth on both sides of its saw. It’s because the rostral teeth evolved from dermal denticles. Dermal denticles look like scales but they’re literally teeth, they’re just not used for eating. Sharks have them too, along with some other fish. In the case of the sawfish, the rostral teeth grow much larger than an ordinary dermal denticle, and stick out sideways. Both the rostrum and the head are packed with electroreceptors that allow the sawfish to sense tiny electrical charges that animals emit as they move. This might mean a school of fish swimming through muddy water, or it might mean a crustacean hiding in the sand. The sawfish sometimes uses its rostrum to dig prey out of the sand, but it also uses it to slash at fish or other animals. Then the sawfish can either grab the injured or dead animal with its mouth or pin it to the sea floor with its rostrum to maneuver it into its mouth. Its mouth is relatively small and it prefers to swallow its food whole, head-first, so it can only eat fish that are smaller than its mouth. That’s also why it doesn’t want to eat people. Its mouth is too small. Yuzu wanted to learn about another shark relation, the giant freshwater stingray, which lives in rivers in southeast Asia. It’s dark gray-brown on its back and white underneath, and it has a little pointy nose at the front of its disc. It also has dermal denticles on its back. The giant freshwater stingray has a rounded, flattened body, and it’s really big. A big female can grow over 7 feet across, or 2.2 meters. Its tail is long and thin with the largest spine of any stingray known, up to 15 inches long, or 38 cm. Its tail is so long that if you measure the giant freshwater stingray by length including its tail, instead of by width of its disc, it can be as much as 16 feet long, or about 5 meters. Some researchers think there might be individuals out there much larger than any ever measured, possibly up to 16 feet wide. The length and thinness of the tail gives the ray its other common name, the giant freshwater whipray, because its tail looks like a whip. While we’re talking about shark relations, let’s go ahead and talk about a few actual sharks. Kabir wanted to learn about the frilled shark, which looks and acts more like an eel than a shark. A big female can grow up to 6 and a half feet long, or 2 meters. Males are a little shorter on average. The frilled shark has the same anatomy found in ancient sharks from the fossil record, dating back at least 95 million years. It’s found a body type that works for it. The frilled shark lives on the continental shelf in many parts of the world, and while it technically lives near the sea floor, at night it migrates closer to the ocean surface to find fish, squid and other cephalopods, and other food. There are two species known, with the southern African frilled shark only discovered in 2009. The frilled shark is dark brown or gray, and its jaws are long and contain clusters of teeth in little rows. Each tooth has three sharp points, and there are 300 teeth, so a frilled shark has 900 points in its mouth. The points are so sharp that scientists examining dead sharks have gotten cut on the teeth, which would be really embarrassing if you’re a shark expert that was bitten by a dead shark. The frilled shark can open its jaws extremely wide to swallow fish and other animals that are up to about half the size of the shark itself. It even eats other sharks. Next, Joel wanted to learn about the thresher shark. It’s a truly big fish that can grow up to 20 feet long, or over 6 meters. It’s a fast, slender shark with a tail fin that can be as long as its body. It eats a lot of other animals, including birds and crustaceans, but it specializes in hunting fish that travel in schools, like tuna, sardines, and mackerel. It uses its incredibly long tail as a whip, slapping a fish to stun it so the shark can eat it. When it whips its tail, its body flexes so that its head points downward in the water with the tail snapping forward over it. A 2024 study determined that the thresher shark’s vertebral column is fortified to allow it to work like a catapult. The thresher shark can also use its long tail to help it leap out of the water completely, although scientists don’t know why it wants to do that. There are three species of thresher shark known to science, but in 1995 a genetic analysis revealed the possible presence of a fourth species. Scientists think it lives in the eastern Pacific and may look similar to the bigeye thresher, enough that it gets misidentified as that species when it’s seen. The three known species of thresher shark are hard to tell apart at a distance as it is. And for our last shark, Siya asked about the Halmahera epaulette shark. It’s light brown with darker and lighter spots, and is a slender shark that can grow a little over 2 feet long, or 68 cm. It lives around Indonesia, and it might live in other places too. We don’t know yet, because it was only discovered in 2013 and only two specimens have ever been found. Epaulette sharks are also called walking sharks, because they use their fins to walk along the sea floor and explore crevices in rocks. Some species can even walk short distances on land to enter tidal pools and other places where they can find food. They live in warm, shallow water, usually near reefs or islands, and they eat whatever small animals they can find. There are nine species known, but there are undoubtedly more than haven’t yet been discovered by science. You might think this is strange for a shark that can walk on land, but walking sharks are nocturnal and not very big, so it’s easy to miss them when they’re out and about. That brings us to Arthur’s suggestion, the mudskipper. The mudskipper also uses its fins to walk. Its pectoral fins are muscular and allow it to climb out of the water and onto land, climb into low branches, and even jump. Its pectoral fins look like little arms, complete with an elbow. The elbow is actually a joint between the actual fins and the radial bones, which in most fish are hidden within the body but which stick out of the mudskipper’s sides a short distance. This helps it move around on land more easily. Its pelvic fins are also shaped in such a way that they act as little suction cups on land. The mudskipper is so good at living on land that it’s actually considered semi-aquatic. It lives in mudflats, mangrove swamps, the mouths of rivers where they empty into the ocean, and along the coast, although it prefers water that’s less salty than the ocean but more salty than ordinary freshwater. It only lives in tropical and subtropical areas because it needs high humidity to absorb oxygen th

    21 min

  4. 12/08/2025

    Episode 462: Cryptic Coloration

    Thanks to Måns, Sam, Owen and Askel for this week’s suggestions! Further reading: Shingleback Lizard What controls the colour of the common mānuka stick insect? The mossy leaf-tailed gecko has skin flaps that hide its shadow. There’s a lizard in this photo, I swear! [photo by Charles J. Sharp – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=92125100]: A shingleback lizard, pretending it has two heads: The beautiful wood nymph is a beautiful moth but also it looks like a bird poop: The Indian stick insect (photo by Ryan K Perry, found on this page): The buff tip moth mimics a broken-off stick. This person has a whole handful of them: A cuttlefish can change colors quickly [photo by Σ64 – Own work, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=77733806]: Show transcript: Welcome to Strange Animals Podcast. I’m your host, Kate Shaw. This week we’re going to talk about a few types of camouflage, a suggestion by Måns, and we’ll also talk about some camouflaged animals suggested by Sam, Owen and Aksel, Dylan, and Nina. There are lots of types of camouflage, not all of it visual in nature. Back in episode 191 we talked about some toxic moths that generate high-pitched clicks that bats hear, recognize, and avoid. Naturally, some non-toxic moths also generate the same sounds to mimic the toxic moths. Måns specifically suggested cryptic coloration, also called crypsis. It’s a type of camouflage that allows an animal to blend into their surroundings, which can involve multiple methods. Some animals have cryptic coloration mainly along the edges of the body, to defeat a skill many predators use called edge detection. A lot of amphibians and reptiles have patches surrounded by an outline, with dark patches having a darker outline and light patches having a lighter outline. This acts as disruptive camouflage, hiding the outline of an animal’s body as it moves around. Some animals take this camouflage even further, with a way to hide their own shadow. This is the case with the mossy leaf-tailed gecko, which is native to the forests of eastern Madagascar. It can grow up to 8 inches long, or 20 cm, not counting its tail, and it’s nocturnal. Its tail is flat and broad, sort of shaped like a leaf, but it doesn’t disguise itself as a leaf. The mossy leaf-tailed gecko has a complicated gray and brown pattern that looks like tree bark, and it can change its coloration a little bit to help it blend in even more. At night it’s well hidden in tree branches as it climbs around looking for insects, but in the day it needs to hide really well to avoid becoming some other animal’s snack while it’s sleeping. It does this by finding a comfortable branch and flattening its body and tail against it so that it just looks like another part of the branch. But to make it even more hidden, it has a flap of skin along its sides that wraps even farther around the branch. Not only do these skin flaps hide its edges, it hides its shadow, since the flaps are really flat and there’s no curved edge of a lizard belly pressed against a branch that a predator might notice. The most common kind of cryptic coloration is called countershading, and it’s so common that you might not even have noticed it although you see it almost every time you see a fish, amphibian, reptile, and many birds and mammals. Countershading is an animal that’s darker on top and lighter underneath, like a brown mouse with a white belly. It’s even found in some insects and other invertebrates. Countershading is another way to hide a shadow. If a dolphin, for instance, was gray all over, its underside would look darker because of shadows, since sunlight shines down from the sky and makes shadows underneath the body. That would make its body shape look rounder, meaning it stands out more and a predator would notice it more easily. But most dolphins are pale gray or even white underneath. There’s still a shadow, but it’s no longer darker than the rest of the body. The lighter colored underside makes the shadow paler, and as a result, from a distance the dolphin looks almost the same shade all over, which makes it appear flat and the edges of its body harder to see. We even know that some dinosaurs were countershaded, with lighter colored bellies. Countershading is so common in animals that it’s almost impossible to pick one example. Dylan suggested we learn about the shingleback lizard, an amazing animal found in many parts of Australia. It’s also called the stumpy-tailed lizard, the bobtail lizard, or the two-headed lizard. All three of those names refer to the animal’s tail, which is short and fat and actually looks like a second head. This is an example of automimicry, similar to animals that have markings that look like eyes. The lizard is brown with darker and lighter speckles and it sometimes has yellow spots too. Its belly is pale with dark spots. Its scales are large and overlap each other, and its eyes are tiny, like little black beads. It grows about a foot long, or 30 cm. The shingleback lives in arid and desert areas, and its tough skin and overlapping scales help reduce water loss. It eats snails, insects, flowers, and other small animals and plants. When threatened, it will open its mouth wide and stick out its large, dark blue tongue. It is an impressively blue, impressively big tongue, and the inside of the shingleback’s mouth is bright pink, so the lizard has a chance to escape while its predator is startled and wondering if the lizard is dangerous. The shingleback can give a painful bite, although it’s not venomous. The shingleback mates for life, and the female gives birth to two or three live young every year instead of laying eggs. In many reptiles that give birth to live young, the eggs basically remain in the mother’s body until they hatch, and then she gives birth. But in the shingleback’s case, her babies develop in placentas in a process very similar in many ways to placental mammals. The babies eat the placenta after they’re born, giving them a quick first meal, and they’re born ready to take care of themselves. Sam suggested we talk about animals that can be confused with inanimate objects, which is a type of camouflage referred to as mimicry. Mimicry of all kinds is a really common type of camouflage, like all those harmless insects that have yellow and black stripes to mimic bees and wasps that can sting. My favorite inanimate object mimic is a moth we talked about in episode 191, the beautiful wood nymph of eastern North America. It has a wingspan of 1.8 inches, or 4.6 cm, and it is indeed a beautiful little moth. Its front wings are mostly white with brown along the edges and a few brown and yellow spots, while the rear wings are a soft yellow-brown with a narrow brown edge. It has furry legs that are white with black tips. But when the moth folds its wings to rest, suddenly those pretty markings make it look exactly like a bird dropping. It even stretches out its front legs so they resemble a little splatter on the edge of the poop. If you think about it, it makes sense that a tiny animal like an insect would want to resemble something common in its environment that’s also not eaten by very many other animals. For instance, a stick. Owen and Aksel wanted to learn more about the walking stick, since it’s been a long time since we talked about it, episode 93. Walking stick insects are also called stick insects or phasmids. When I was a kid I was terrified of the whole idea of a stick insect, although I don’t know why. I think I thought one day I’d climb a tree and discover that some of those sticks were not actually part of the tree. I guess I spent a lot of time climbing trees, but I never actually saw a walking stick insect. Maybe that’s because they were so well camouflaged that I thought they were sticks! Walking sticks live in trees and bushes, naturally, especially in warm areas, but they’re found on every continent except Antarctica. They’re long, thin insects with long, thin legs and they really do look like sticks. Some are green, some are brown or gray, and many have little patterns, projections, and ridges that make them look even more like real sticks. They’re closely related to another type of phasmid called a leaf insect, which as you may have already guessed, mimics a leaf. All phasmids eat leaves and other plant material and most are nocturnal. Some phasmids can even change colors to help blend in with their background. The Indian stick insect, which is indeed found in southern India although it’s been introduced in many other parts of the world and is considered invasive in some places, grows up to about 4 inches long, or 10 cm. It’s usually brown, but it can change its color in response to light levels by moving pigment granules in its cuticle that absorb and scatter light. The Indian stick insect has many other ways to hide in plain sight. If it feels threatened, it will stretch out with its rear legs folded flat against its body and its front pair of legs stretched forward to make it look even longer. It will stay perfectly stiff even if someone picks it up, but if it thinks it’s in danger, it will spread its front legs to show a patch of red at the base of the legs. This can startle or frighten a potential predator long enough to let the stick insect get away. One interesting thing about the Indian stick insect is that almost all individuals are females. Females don’t need to mate with a male to reproduce. The female’s babies are little clones of herself, and she drops an egg every so often onto the ground. It looks like a tiny seed, and ants think it’s a seed and will collect it and take it back to the nest to be stored for later. The egg is then protected until it hatches, when the larval insect leaves the ant nest and finds a tree or bush to hide in. The buff t

    17 min

  5. 12/01/2025

    Episode 461: Therizinosaurus and Its CLAWS

    Further reading: Study: Giant Therizinosaurs Used Their Meter-Long, Sickle-Like Claws for Display Show transcript: Welcome to Strange Animals Podcast. I’m your host, Kate Shaw. I am delighted to report that Therizinosaurus lived in what is now Mongolia in Central Asia, in the Gobi Desert. 70 million years ago, the land wasn’t a desert at all but a forest with multiple rivers and streams flowing through it. Lots of other dinosaurs and birds lived in the area, including a tyrannosaurid called Tarbosaurus that was probably the only predator big enough to kill Therizinosaurus. When the first Therizinosaurus fossils were discovered in the 1950s, they were initially thought to belong to a type of giant turtle. Later it was reclassified as a sauropod relation, not a turtle. These days, we know for sure it’s not a turtle and we’re pretty sure it’s not anything like a sauropod. The Therizinosaurus fossils found so far are incomplete. All we have are some ribs, one hind foot, and mostly complete arms and hands. We don’t have any parts of the skull or any vertebrae, so paleontologists still have a lot of questions about what Therizinosaurus looked like and how it lived, although we have more complete specimens of some of its close relations to help scientists make good guesses. Luckily we have its hands, because its claws are enormous. Therizinosaurus had claws bigger than any other dinosaur known. Therizinosaurus was a big dinosaur overall, with an estimated length of 33 feet, or 10 meters, although until a more complete specimen is discovered we can’t know for sure how big it really was. It may have stood up to 16 feet tall, or 5 meters, and walked on its hind legs. It’s classified as a theropod these days, a group that includes famous dinosaurs like T. rex and Spinosaurus, but it wasn’t closely related to those big fast meat-eaters. Most paleontologists think Therizinosaurus ate plants, but again, we don’t know for sure since we don’t have any of its teeth to examine. Its closest relatives were herbivorous but its immediate ancestors were carnivorous. If Therizinosaurus was a plant-eater, why did it have such enormous claws? Its claws were seriously terrifying! Its arms were big and strong in general, measuring about 8 feet long, or 2.5 meters, including long, slender fingers, and the claws measured over three feet long! That’s more than a meter long. If the claws were covered with a keratin sheath, which is probable, they would have been even longer when Therizinosaurus was alive. They were relatively thin and straight with a curve at the end. There are many reasons why an animal develops big claws. Predators need claws to help grab prey or tear meat into pieces, or an animal may need big claws to help it dig or climb trees. Claws are also great for defense. Some animals use claws to grab tree branches and bend them closer to the animal’s mouth, which is something that giant ground sloths probably did, at least sometimes. The new study published in February 2023 examined the claws of Therizinosaurus and lots of other dinosaurs to learn how strong they were. The claws were 3D scanned, and then the scans were used in various models that measured the stress placed on each claw in various different activities. The study discovered that the claws of different dinosaurs were strong in different ways depending on what they were used for, which wasn’t a surprise. What was a surprise was that Therizinosaurus’s claws were weak no matter which model the scientists used. In other words, Therizinosaurus probably didn’t use its claws to fight other dinosaurs unless it just had to, because they would break too easily. It wouldn’t have dug with its claws or even used them to hook branches down closer to its mouth. As far as we can tell, its claws were basically useless. But obviously, Therizinosaurus used its claws for something or it wouldn’t have evolved to have such gigantic claws. The study concluded that the giant claws must have been for display, to attract a mate or maybe just scare off potential predators. Lots of animals have special features used to attract a mate, like a peacock’s tail. Sometimes these features serve a double purpose, like a male deer’s antlers. The size of the antlers show how healthy he is, and he also uses them to fight other males. I’m not a claw expert, but as far as I know there aren’t any other animals known that use their claws for display only. It’s possible that Therizinosaurus did use its claws for something else, we just don’t know what. It’s also possible that the study had flaws that a follow-up study will discover, and Therizinosaurus’s claws weren’t actually so weak. But for now, as far as we know, during mating season Therizinosaurus would strut around waving its super-long claws to show how amazing it was. And, let’s face it, Therizinosaurus really was amazing. Thanks for your support, and thanks for listening!

    8 min

  6. 11/24/2025

    Episode 460: Blue Blobs and Graveyard Snakes

    Further reading: Mysterious ‘blue goo’ at the bottom of the sea stumps scientists Three new species of ground snakes discovered under graveyards and churches in Ecuador Show transcript: Welcome to Strange Animals Podcast. I’m your host, Kate Shaw. I’ve come down a cold this week, and while I’m feeling better, it is settling into my chest as usual and I’m starting to cough. Since I’m still recovering and need to be in bed instead of sitting up researching animals, and since my voice is already sounding a little rough, here’s a Patreon episode this week instead of a regular episode. I had been planning to run old Patreon episodes for a few weeks in December so I could have some time off for the holidays, and those were already scheduled, so I just moved one of those episodes up to use this week instead. This is a Patreon episode from October of 2022, where we talked about two very slightly spooky animal discoveries. We’ll start with a suggestion from my brother Richard, about a strange newly discovered creature at the bottom of the ocean. On August 30, 2022, the NOAA Ocean Exploration research team was off the coast of Puerto Rico. That’s in the Caribbean, part of the Atlantic Ocean. The expedition was mostly collecting data about the sea floor, including acoustic information and signs of climate change and habitat destruction. Since the Caribbean is an area of the ocean with high biodiversity but also high rates of fishing and trawling, the more we can learn about the animals and plants that live on the sea floor, the more we can do to help protect them. When a remotely operated vehicle dives, it sends video to a team of scientists who can watch in real time and control where the rover goes. On this particular day, the rover descended to a little over 1,300 feet deep, or around 407 meters, when the sea floor came in view. Since this area is the site of an underwater ridge, the sea floor varies by a lot, and the rover swam along filming things and taking samples of the water and so forth, sometimes as deep as about 2,000 feet, or 611 meters. The rover saw lots of interesting animals, including fish and corals of various types, even a fossilized coral reef. Then it filmed something the scientists had never seen before. It was a little blue blob sitting on the sea floor. It wasn’t moving and it wasn’t very big. It was shaped roughly like a ball but with little points or pimples all over it and a wider base like a skirt where it met the ground. And it was definitely pale blue in color. Then the rover saw more of the little blue blobs, quite a few of them in various places. The scientists think it may be a species of soft coral or possibly a type of sponge, possibly even a tunicate, which is also called a sea squirt. All these animals are invertebrates that don’t move, which matches what little we know about the blue blob. The rover wasn’t able to take a sample from one of the blue blobs, so for now we don’t have anything to study except the video. But we know where the little blue blobs are, so researchers hope to visit them again soon and learn more about them. Next, let’s return to dry land and learn about some newly discovered snakes. In fact, we’re not just on dry land, we’re way up high in the Andes Mountains in South America, specifically in some remote villages in Ecuador. A teacher named Diego Piñán moved to the town of El Chaco in 2013, and he started noticing dead snakes on the road that he didn’t recognize. He also realized that people were killing the snakes on purpose. A lot of people are afraid of snakes, so Piñán made sure to teach his students about them so they would learn that most snakes aren’t dangerous. He also kept the dead snakes he found and preserved them in alcohol so he could figure out later what species they were. But he never could figure it out. Then a scientist named Alejandro Arteaga assembled a team to study the animals found in remote areas of the Andes Mountains. When they came to Piñán’s town, they were excited to see the snakes he’d preserved, because even the snake experts on the team didn’t recognize the snakes either, although they were pretty certain they belonged to a genus of snakes called Atractus. The snakes were quite pretty, gray-brown above with a bright yellow pattern underneath. They were small and slender, completely harmless to humans and pets, and they lived underground most of the time. The team searched and discovered more of the snakes living in the area. Most Atractus snakes are shy and stay away from people, but because the town of El Chaco had grown a lot recently, the snakes had moved from their home in the forest into the local cemetery. That’s right, they were burrowing around among the crypts. Of course, the snakes don’t know they’re in a graveyard. They just know they’re in a quiet place where people don’t visit very often to disturb them. The team eventually found three new species of snake in different towns, all three described in September 2022. One species was living in the cemetery, another was in a schoolyard, and another was living near a church. Still. Graveyard snakes. Thanks for your support, and thanks for listening!

    6 min

  7. 11/17/2025

    Episode 459: Strange Little Dolphins

    Thanks to Alexandra, Jayson, and Eilee for their suggestions this week! Further reading: Scientists have discovered an ancient whale species. It may have looked like a mash-up of ‘a seal and a Pokémon’ The nomenclatural status of the Alula whale Field Guide of Whales and Dolphins [1971] The little Benguela dolphin [photo taken from this site]: The spinner dolphin almost looks like it has racing stripes [photo by Alexander Vasenin – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=25108509]: The Alula whale, which may or may not exist: Show transcript: Welcome to Strange Animals Podcast. I’m your host, Kate Shaw. This week let’s learn about some whales and dolphins, including an ancient whale and a mystery whale, all of them really small. Thanks to Alexandra, Eilee, and Jayson for their suggestions! Let’s start with an ancient whale, suggested by Jayson. The genus Janjucetus has been known since its first species was described in 2006, after a teenage surfer in Australia discovered the fossils in the late 1990s. It grew to about 11 feet long, or 3.5 meters, and lived about 25 million years ago. So far it’s only been found around Australia. But much more recently, just a few months ago as this episode goes live, a new species was described. That’s Janjucetus dullardi, also found in Australia along the same beach where the first Janjucetus species was found, and dating to around the same time period. We don’t know a lot about the newly described whale, since it’s only known from some teeth and partial skull. Scientists think the individual was a juvenile and estimate it was only around 6 feet long when it died, or 2.8 meters. Small as it was, it would have been a formidable hunter when it was alive. Its broad snout was shaped sort of like a shark’s and it had strong, sharp teeth and large eyes. Because it was an early whale, it wouldn’t have looked much like the whales alive today. It might even have had tiny vestigial back legs. Its eyes were huge in proportion to its head, about the size of tennis balls, and it probably relied on its eyesight to hunt prey because it couldn’t echolocate. Its serrated teeth and strong jaws indicate that it might have hunted large animals, but some scientists suggest it could also filter feed the same way a crabeater seal does. Modern crabeater seals have similar teeth as Janjucetus, as do a few other seals. The projections on its teeth interlock when the seal closes its mouth, so to filter feed the seal takes a big mouthful of water, closes its teeth, and uses its tongue to force water out through its teeth. Amphipods and other tiny animals get caught against the teeth and the seal swallows them. If Janjucetus did filter feed, it probably also hunted larger animals. Otherwise its jaws wouldn’t have been so strong or its teeth so deeply rooted. But Janjucetus wasn’t related to modern toothed whales. While it wasn’t a direct ancestor of modern baleen whales, it was part of the baleen whale’s family tree. Baleen whales, also called mysticetes, have baleen plates made of keratin instead of teeth. After the whale fills its mouth with water, it closes its jaws, pushes its enormous tongue up, and forces all that water out through the baleen. Any tiny animals like krill, copepods, small squid, small fish, and so on, get trapped in the baleen. It’s just like the crabeater seal, but really specialized and way bigger. Whether or not Janjucetus could and did filter feed doesn’t really matter, because the fact that it’s an ancestral relation of modern baleen whales but it had teeth helps us understand more about modern whales. Next, Eilee wanted to learn about the Benguela [BEN-gull-uh] dolphin, also called Heaviside’s dolphin. It lives only off the southwestern coast of Africa, and it’s really small, only a little over 5 and a half feet long at the most, or 1.7 meters. It’s dark gray with white markings, with a blunt head that’s almost cone-shaped and a triangular dorsal fin. The Benguela dolphin is named for its ecosystem. The Benguela current flows northward along the coast, bringing cold, nutrient-rich water up from the depths, which attracts lots of animals. The dolphin lives in relatively shallow water and mainly eats fish and octopuses that it finds on or near the sea floor. The Benguela dolphin lives in social groups and sometimes hangs out with other species of dolphin. It doesn’t travel very far throughout the year, barely more than 50 miles, or 80 km. When it hunts for food, it uses very high-pitched navigation clicks that orcas can’t hear, but when it’s in safe areas, socializing without any predators around, it communicates and navigates with lower-pitched sounds. Sharks also sometimes attack it and sometimes humans will catch and eat one, but for the most part, it lives a pretty stress-free life just hanging out with its friends and eating little fish. And that’s basically all we know about this little dolphin. Alexandra wanted to hear about the spinner dolphin, which is common in warmer waters throughout the world. It’s called the spinner dolphin because it likes to leap into the air, spinning around as it does like an American football, which is pretty spectacular. No one except the spinner dolphin is completely sure why it spins, but scientists speculate it serves more than one purpose. The activity takes a lot of energy, so it might be a way to signal to other dolphins that it’s really strong and fit. The big splash when it lands on its side may be a way to communicate with other dolphins. The action might also help dislodge parasites like remora fish that really do attach themselves to bigger, faster animals to hitch rides and incidentally steal food. Whatever the reason, the spinner dolphin is one of the most acrobatic dolphins in the world. It not only spins, but it jumps around, flips, slaps its tail on the water, and basically acts like a kid on the first swimming pool visit of the summer. Like most dolphins and whales, it’s a social animal, hanging out with friends, family, and sometimes other dolphin species. It eats small animals like fish, squid, and crustaceans, and at least some populations are nocturnal so they can hunt animals that migrate to shallower water at night. The spinner dolphin is actually pretty small, growing to not quite 7 feet long at most, or 2.4 meters. It’s mainly dark gray on top, lighter gray on the sides, and pale gray or white on its belly. Let’s finish with our mystery whale or dolphin, called the Alula whale because it was sighted near the town of Alula, Somalia at some time prior to the early 1970s. In 1971 a Dutch sea captain reported that he had seen these whales on multiple occasions, in the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean. But although it’s a distinctive-sounding whale or dolphin, its existence hasn’t been verified. Captain Willem Mörzer Bruyns, whose name I have mispronounced, described the Alula whale as being similar in size and shape to the orca or pilot whale, with a tall dorsal fin and rounded forehead. It was sepia brown all over, though, except for white scars all over its body that were shaped sort of like stars. He reported seeing small groups of these whales, anywhere from 4 to 8 of them, traveling together on at least four occasions. He estimated the whales were up to 24 feet long, or 7.2 meters. There’s quite a bit of confusion about this mystery whale spread across the internet. Some sites I looked at mentioned a book written by Mörzer Bruyns called Field Guide of Whales and Dolphins, published in 1971, but quoted a different book, A World Guide to Whales, Dolphins, and Porpoises published in 1981 by Donald S. Heintzelman. Let me quote the relevant paragraphs from the 1971 book, the original: “At first encounter a school of 4 approached the ship head on and seeing the dorsal fins the author thought they were [orcas]. When they passed the ship at a distance of less than 50 yards just under the surface in the flat calm, clear sea, it was obvious that this was a different species. … These dolphins were seen in the area during crossings in April, May, June and September, usually swimming just under the surface with the dorsal fin above the water. One duty officer reported he observed them chasing a school of smaller dolphins, who tried to escape. There is, however, a possibility that both species were chasing the same prey.” If you go to Wikipedia to read about the Alula whale, as of mid-November 2025, it states that the dorsal fin was about 6 and a half feet tall, or 2 meters. But Mörzer Bruyns reported that the dorsal fin was 2 feet tall, or about 60 cm. That’s an important difference. Orcas, AKA killer whales even though they’re actually big dolphins, are distinctively patterned with black and white, and a male orca can have a dorsal fin up to 6 feet tall, or 1.8 meters, while a female’s is typically less than half that height. The pilot whale is also a dolphin, despite its name, but it has a relatively small dorsal fin and is black, dark gray, or sometimes brown. Some researchers suggest that Mörzer Bruyns misidentified pilot whales as something mysterious, but the details he provided don’t really match up. There are a lot of little-known whales alive today, some only discovered in the last few decades. It’s possible that the Alula whale really is a very rare small whale or dolphin. It’s not clear from his report, but it sounds like Mörzer Bruyns saw the whales on several occasions in the same year. If so, maybe the Alula whale doesn’t actually live in that part of the ocean most of the time, and Mörzer Bruyns saw the same small group several times that just happened to have traveled to the Indian Ocean that year. Maybe no one else has seen them because they’re all living in some remote part of the ocean where humans seldom travel. Hopefully someone will sp

    12 min

  8. 11/10/2025

    Episode 458: The Tasmanian Tiger and Friends

    Thanks to Viki, Erin, Weller, and Stella for their suggestions this week! Further reading: Tasmanian tiger pups found to be extraordinary similar to wolf pups The thylacine could open its jaws really wide: A sugar glider, gliding [photo from this page]: A happy quokka and a happy person: A swimming platypus: Show transcript: Welcome to Strange Animals Podcast. I’m your host, Kate Shaw. This week we’re going to learn about some marsupial mammals suggested by Erin, Weller, and Stella, and a bonus non-marsupial from Australia suggested by Viki. Marsupials are mammals that give birth to babies that aren’t fully formed yet, and the babies then finish developing in the mother’s pouch. Not all female marsupials actually have a pouch, although most do. Marsupials are extremely common in Australia, but they’re also found in other places around the world. Let’s start with Weller’s suggestion, the Tasmanian tiger. We’ve talked about it before, but not recently. We talked about it in our very first episode, in fact! Despite its name, it isn’t related to the tiger at all. Tigers are placental mammals, and the Tasmanian tiger is a marsupial. It’s also called the thylacine to make things less confusing. The thylacine was declared extinct after the last known individual died in captivity in 1936, but sightings have continued ever since. It’s not likely that a population is still around these days, but the thylacine is such a great animal that people hold out hope that it has survived and will one day be rediscovered. It got the name Tasmanian tiger because when European colonizers arrived in Tasmania, they saw a striped animal the size of a big dog, about two feet high at the shoulder, or 61 cm, and over six feet long if you included the long tail, or 1.8 meters. It was yellowish-brown with black stripes on the back half of its body and down its tail, with a doglike head and rounded ears. The thylacine was a nocturnal marsupial native to mainland Australia and the Australian island of Tasmania, but around 4,000 years ago, climate change caused more and longer droughts in eastern Australia and the thylacine population there went extinct. By 3,000 years ago, all the mainland thylacines had gone extinct, leaving just the Tasmanian population. The Tasmanian thylacines underwent a population crash around the same time that the mainland Australia populations went extinct—but the Tasmanian population had recovered and was actually increasing when Europeans showed up and started shooting them. The thylacine mostly ate small animals like ducks, water rats, and bandicoots. Its skull was very similar in shape to the wolf, which it wasn’t related to at all, but its muzzle was longer and its jaws were comparatively much weaker. Its jaws could open incredibly wide, which usually indicates an animal that attacks prey much larger than it is, but studies of the thylacine’s jaws and teeth show that they weren’t strong enough for the stresses of attacking large animals. Next, Stella wanted to learn about the sugar glider, and I was surprised that we haven’t talked about it before. It’s a nocturnal marsupial native to the forests of New Guinea and parts of Australia, with various subspecies kept as exotic pets in some parts of the world. It’s called a glider because of the animal’s ability to glide. It has a flap of skin between its front and back legs, called a patagium, and when it stretches its legs out, the patagia tighten and act as a parachute. This is similar to other gliding animals, like the flying squirrel. The sugar glider resembles a rodent, but it isn’t. It’s actually a type of possum. It lives in trees and has a partially prehensile tail that helps it climb around more easily, and of course it can glide from tree to tree. It’s an omnivore that eats insects, spiders, and other small animals, along with plant material, mainly sap. It will gnaw little holes in a tree to get at the sap or gum that oozes out. It will also eat fruit, nectar, pollen, and seeds, but most of the time it prefers to hang around flowers and wait for insects to approach. Then it grabs and eats the insect without having to chase it. The sugar glider is gray with black and white markings, big eyes that allow it to see well in darkness, rounded ears, and a really long, thick, furry tail. It’s a social animal that lives in family groups in small territories. Both males and females help take care of the joeys when they’re out of the mother’s pouch, mainly by helping them stay warm when it’s cold. Our last marsupial of this episode is Erin’s suggestion, the quokka. It’s about the size of a domestic cat, related to wallabies and kangaroos. It’s shaped roughly like a chonky little wallaby but with a smaller tail and with rounded ears, and it’s grey-brown in color. The quokka is considered incredibly cute because of the way its muzzle and mouth are shaped, which makes it look like it’s smiling. If you take a picture of a quokka’s face, it looks like it has a happy smile and that, of course, makes the people who look at it happy too. This has caused some problems, unfortunately. People who want to take selfies with a quokka sometimes forget that they’re wild animals. While quokkas aren’t very aggressive and are curious animals who aren’t usually afraid of people, they can and will bite when frightened. Touching a quokka or giving it food or drink is strictly prohibited, since it’s a protected animal. The quokka is most active at night. It sleeps during most of the day, usually hidden in a type of prickly plant that helps keep predators from bothering it. It gets most of its water needs from the plants it eats, and while it mostly hops around like a teensy kangaroo, it can also climb trees. Let’s finish with our non-marsupial animal. Viki wanted to learn about the platypus, which we haven’t really talked about since way back in episode 45. It’s native to Australia and is very weird-looking, so it’s easy to think it’s another marsupial, but the platypus is even weirder than that. It’s not a marsupial and it’s not a placental mammal. Instead, it’s an extremely rare third type of mammal called a monotreme. There are only two kinds of monotremes alive today, the echidna and the platypus. Monotremes retain a lot of traits that are considered primitive in mammals. Instead of giving birth to live babies, a monotreme mother lays eggs. The eggs have soft, leathery shells, but when they hatch, the babies look like marsupial newborns. The platypus is sometimes called the duck-billed platypus, because its snout does kind of look like a duck’s bill, but instead of being hard, the snout is soft and rubbery, and it’s packed with electroreceptors that allow the platypus to sense the tiny electrical fields generated by muscle contractions in its prey. I bet that was not what you expected from what looks like a small beaver with a duck bill! The platypus grows not quite two feet long, or 50 cm, and has short, dense, brown fur. It spends a lot of its time in the water, and has a flattened tail that acts as a rudder when it swims, along with its hind feet. It propels itself through the water with its front feet, which are large and have webbed toes. It lives in eastern Australia along rivers and streams, and digs a short burrow in the riverbank to sleep in. The female digs a deeper burrow before she lays her eggs, and she makes them a nest out of leaves. Baby platypuses are called puggles, and while the mother doesn’t have a pouch, she keeps her babies warm by tucking them against her tummy with her tail. Monotremes don’t have teats, but they do produce milk from what are called milk patches. The puggles lick the milk up. Until scientists figured out that monotremes have these milk patches, in 1824, they thought monotremes weren’t mammals at all but something more closely related to reptiles. Monotremes were much more common throughout the world until about 60 to 70 million years ago, when marsupials started outcompeting them. Marsupials don’t spend much time in water, though, because if they did their joeys would drown. The platypus and echidna both survived to the present day because they’re adapted for the water. The platypus mainly navigates in the water using its electrolocation abilities, and eats worms, fish, insects, crustaceans, and anything else it can catch. It’s easy to think, “Oh, that mammal is so primitive, it must not have evolved much since the common ancestor of mammals, birds, and reptiles was alive 315 million years ago,” but of course that’s not the case. It’s just that the monotremes that survived did just fine with the basic structures they evolved a long time ago, and they’re still going strong today. You can find Strange Animals Podcast at strangeanimalspodcast.blubrry.net. That’s blueberry without any E’s. If you have questions, comments, or suggestions for future episodes, email us at strangeanimalspodcast@gmail.com. We also have a Patreon at patreon.com/strangeanimalspodcast if you’d like to support us for as little as one dollar a month and get monthly bonus episodes. Thanks for listening!

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