Welcome to brain Stuff production of I Heart Radio. Hey brain Stuff, Lauren bog Obam Here. Owls are birds of prey that hunt at night. We hardly ever see them because when the hawks and falcons of the daytime world clock out, the owls clock in on silent, fluffy edged stealth wings. They hunt small nocturnal animals while it's dark, occasionally hooting or screaming at each other through the night.
Then when the sun shows up again, they repair to their favorite roost and let the other raptors go about their business of eating day creatures. And yet we humans, notorious day dwellers, pay a lot of attention to these night birds. For the article this episode is based on, has to Work, spoke with Denver Holt, the founder and lead researcher of the Owl Research Institute based in Charlo, Montana. He said, owls are probably one of the most widely
recognized groups of animals in the world. They're in all cultures, no matter how far back you go. There's always art or myths or stories about owls. They're on our corporate logos, sports logos. Products use them to advertise their on castle walls and churches. I have a Greek coin that dates back to four d b C with an owl on it. Even cave art in what's now France, the dates back around thirty thousand years contains an etching of an owl.
So what is it about owls? They're not super conspicuous birds, just like moles aren't super conspicuous rodents. But you don't see us going around putting moles faces all over tutsie pop wrappers and trip Advisor billboards. But owls are pretty cool. Although they are birds of prey, they're more closely related
to mousebirds and kingfishers than eagles, hawks, or falcons. However, they also feel the exact ecological niche as these other hunting birds, except they evolved to be terrifying night killers instead of terrifying they killers. Owls are masters of camouflage, even though they share that ecological niche with other raptors. The day shift sees owls as a food source just as much as a rabbit or a squirrel. They use their feathers to help them blend in with their surroundings
and hide from predators. Another aspect of an owl's mystique is in their eyes. They have to be large in order to see in the dark, and at this point in their evolution, a significant portion of what's inside an owl's skull is straight up eyeball. Their eyes are cylindrical and they extend all the way to the back of their head. You can even see a portion of their eyeballs through their ear holes, and their eyes can't roll around in their heads, which means that an owl's head
has to do most of the rolling around work. It's for this reason that they can swivel their heads entirely around on their necks. Another thing owls have to be able to do at night is here. An owl's night vision can only get them so far, so they require their auditory sense to get them where they need to be while hunting, which is where they're big, round faces and lopsided ears come in a while. The feathers on the top of some owl species heads look like ears,
those actually serve a function more akin to eyebrows. Their ears are large openings on the sides of their heads. One ear is always lower than the other, which helps them triangulate sound. A noise will go into one ear a little bit before it arrives in the other to better tell which direction that noise is coming. From to make their sense of hearing even keener. An owl's entire face acts as a sort of satellite dish for sound waves.
Their beaks are tiny to keep out of the way, and the circular depressions around their huge eyes boost their ability to snag the sound of a mouse scurrying beneath the snow like a catcher's mit. Also, there are the noises that owls themselves make, from haunting hoots to a barn, owl's horrific shrieks, its horror movie stuff, and a shriek
owls cry like a very lonely and distressed dog. So piecing the evidence together nocturnal winged killing machines with incredible night seeing powers, of preternatural sense of hearing, and a bizarre vocal repertoire, you can see why they've inspired so many myths and superstitions, and these stories are a mixed bag,
though many of them were unflattering. One ancient Greek and Roman superstition indicated that owls were witches in disguise and would suck the blood right out of your baby, But the same cultures also believed owls to be connected to Athena, the powerful and influential goddess of wisdom and warfare. Her ancient Sumerian precursor was Lilith, who was depicted as a horned talent goddess surrounded by owls in a four thousand,
three hundred year old Sumerian tablet. While Asian cultures largely considered owls to be good, protective spirits and disguise, most other cultures around the world considered owls to be the bringers of witchcraft, illness, and death. But why owls, which ordinarily stay out of our way and even manage our rodent past population, Holtz said, If we have strong feelings about owls, maybe it's because they look like us. They've got a large head of flat face, big eyes, a
symmetry about their mouth and nose. We tend to be attracted and repelled by animals that are morphologically similar to us. Today's episode is based on the article why are we so Fascinated with Owls? On how Stuff Works dot Com written by Jescelyn Shields. The brain Stuff is production of I Heart Radio in partnership with how stuff Works dot
Com and is produced by Tyler Clang. Four more podcasts my Heart Radio visit the i heart radio, app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.