Animal Sounds

These creatures have some of the most distinctive voices on the planet. We'll look at some lyrical links. Is possessive porcupines, chirping cheetahs, whistling walruses, and other very vocal critters. Discover this and more as we answer the age old question our this is mocking us. A lot of us are staying indoors right now, so I thought it'd be a great time to take some nature and put it inside

your ear holes. Animals communicate for a whole variety of reasons, to find a mate, to call their young, to warn their peers, or to express happiness. But sometimes they're just plain old grumpy, and they aren't shy about letting you know it. Later in the show we'll cover some cuter and quirkier noises too, But for now, let's hear these

animals who have a very unusual way of complaining. Joining me today to listen to some very opinionated animals as co host of game Fully Unemployed David Bell, Hello, hey, Dave, thanks for joining me again. Animals he does for having me. I think last time we talked about turkeys, is that right? Yeah? Yeah, it was great, great time we saw some really fluffy, really fluffy turkeys, unbelievably fluffy, like you can't handle it.

You wouldn't handle it, Dave. Dave had to take a break from the podcast for a while because he couldn't handle it. It was like a forty minute uh yeah, where I had to sit and just breathe out in the balcony, deep breathing, and he was just like, oh my god, they're so fluffy. My whole life changed. Had to reassess everything. Have you been watching Tiger King, the Netflix series? No, you're the tenth person to bring it up. No,

I haven't. I guess I should watch it. Sorry, every everybody, it's one of those things where, like everything I hear about it, it's like, that doesn't sound fun. Nobody sounds like a good person in the documentary. Nobody is a good person. Well, it's hard to tell. I don't even

know if the documentarians are good people. It's I watched it because it seemed relevant and people were talking about it, and it it's about people who own big cats as I guess pets and as an attraction like these private zoos. And then another person who has a big cat rescue. But then she's got I guess some skeletons in her closet too. But the takeaway thing I think that I learned from watching it is definitely a tiger will eat your arm, and you know, so don't keep them as pets.

I mean, you shouldn't keep them as pets because it's not nice to the tigers. They need much more life than being stuck in a cage and being paraded around for your entertainment. But for sure, they're going to eat your arm. And at that point I gotta say, you know, you can't be surprised. No, no, don't don't hang out with tigers, right right? They don't like you, have you

seen the movie Roar, No, I haven't. It's um. It was directed by Noel Marshall and it's it's about like a family living with um with lions on a preserve and they just filmed it with lions and it is a terrifying film because the lions do not cooperate. The actors are in danger throughout the movie and many of them get hurt. Yeah, filming with lions. Just don't go near lions, don't. Lions do want to chomp you. That is a thing I know about lines. I'm not like

specifically a lion expert, but I do know this. They want to chomp you. Yeah, they would love nothing more than to chomp you. Even if they like you, like say you you have some personal friendship with a lion, they still want to chomp you sometimes. Right, I think any friendship with a lion there like I like this human, I'm gonna have a lot of fun with it until I eat it, right. I mean it's like your cat. That's exactly what your cat thinks too. It's just they're

so tiny and small they can't actually eat you. But it is the same thought process where it's like I love you, chomp but I love you. Chomp, chop, chomp. It's just waiting, is just waiting for me to drop dead, and then it's like, this is my time. So I want to talk first about lynxes because they are a big cat, I mean, one of the smallest of the big cats. But they have a very interesting call that

surprised me when I heard it. So they've you know what lynxes are, right, I believe, So I have a I have a mental image that I'm now going to google so I don't feel like a dummy. They're the ones with the ears. Yeah, they're the one with ears exactly unlike other cats. They have ears and no, no, they have they have the big tufts on their ears, is what they've talking about. So they're found in the

cold northern forests of North America, Europe, and Asia. There are several species, and this includes the Canada lynx and bob cats are also in the Lynx genus. Uh. They're found all over the US and even in parts of Mexico, and they typically are in warmer ranges of climates than their other Lynx cousins. So all lynxes are carnivores and active hunters. The biggest difference physically between Bobcats and the Canada Lynx. Is that a Canada lynx is a bit

bigger and it's got bigger, fluffier mutton chops. So it's it's big old fluff ball ball, and the Canada Lynx is the one we're gonna be primarily looking at or listening listening to, listening to. So lynxes are generally solitary except for mother offspring relationships and temporary mating relationships. Otherwise they kind of keep to themselves, and so when they do encounter each other, the meeting is often pretty tense

because they're highly territorial. So when male Canada lynxes fight over territory or mating, they screaming each other's faces like they are a toxic family at Thanksgiving. So let's take a listen to these links. Is having an argument give me give me them lynxes? Hm? Okay, that that really got me. It's because it's because they're like four ft from each other in that video, right, and they're just

screaming in each other's faces. And when I saw this, I worried that, Okay, maybe this is just a prank. Like someone voiced over this and made it sound like they're screaming at each other, you know, in classic YouTube form of doing funny videos. So I found another video that is the exact same thing. It doesn't get old. I love it. It's like almost a people's voice, like have you seen the the c g I Lion king? H? No, I haven't. It doesn't work in my opinion, and one

of the main reasons is that their photo realistic. So when uh spoilers, Scar kills um Mufasa, Uh, he falls to his death and it's a lion like it looks like a lion falling to his death, but it's just going ah. It's like it's this tragic moment that just you you burst into laughter watching because it's just got a yeah, it's so funny. It's so it's can't watch this without laughing. It's so unexpected. I don't expect that

noise to come out of a bobcat. Well, it does make sense because there are like housecats that will make like a maniac sounds sometimes right, but they like even the weirdest sounding house cat they I don't know, like like the cat, the cat that sounds like he's going like we're all all there, you know, And this is like screaming goat level. Yeah, yeah, it's it's I don't know why the whole podcast isn't about this. It's incredible. It's it's someone. It's like, you don't I don't know.

You don't expect a Bobcat to sound like someone screaming at your face because you accidentally cut them off in traffic or something and you know it, or like Gilbert Gotfreed like getting really mad at you. You know, it's like if all like all Bobcats are voiced by Gilbert Gotfreed and it's freaking me out. And imagine being attacked by one and this is like the last thing you hear. It's got like a face like at the ending of Invasion of the Body Snatchers like that Donald Sutherland meme. Um,

And I can't. I just can't imagine like running into one at night and its just being like and just coming straight at me. Yeah, yeah, I mean it's it's uh. They aren't very dangerous to humans. Actually, they're quite small. They typically can't do much damage to a person. Yeah, I mean I feel like if if I saw that coming at me and they were screaming at me, like like a body snatcher or like Gilbert Godfrey or whatever, and I would run that that'd be it. I'm done

they are. I mean, it's boy nature is is sure weird? It doesn't. It never feels to surprise me. It's like, yeah, I know, I know the I know these links is I I've seen those before. You know, it screamed. It

screamed like a muppet in trouble Well. One of the reasons that the bobcat sounds so insane is that it's very high stakes for them when they are competing with each other, because females only mate with one male per year, and so competition for territory inform is very fierce, and that's why they scream at each other like those uh screaming chicken toys. And I would say, it is. I can imagine what they're saying too. It's just like, you know,

just like it's my babe. So wait the males are yelling. Yeah, it's it's typically are like you know, what really does it for me? Like a sound like Fozzy Bears on fire, like I want to I want to hear a guttural, distressful sound. Yeah, I wonder if the females are really into just hearing it, like like the two males sounding like golden girls yelling at each other really attractive. The next animal I want to talk about is the gray go away bird, and this is a bird that is

found in Africa, Madagascar, Iran, and Pakistan. It is a medium sized gray bird with a gray mohawk, which in bird lingo of those little mohawks that birds have are called crusts. Their social with each other, but really antisocial with everybody else. So when they're disturbed, they'll issue a call that sounds kind of like they're saying go it's horrible. It's so cranky, it sounds like sad. Yeah, oh I I love It's a It's basically every aging punk rocker

right now. It's got a gray mohawk. It's it's it's to go away from it. So there are other species of go away bird in the same genus. There's the bare faced go away bird, which actually doesn't say go away. This all makes sense very much. Uh. The white bellied go away bird and the white belly go away birds do say go away. Uh. And I want to tell you the tale of Mr mcbouncy pants, who is a

white bellied go away bird. At the Houston Zoo. I just want to note while you're loading it up, white bellied go away bird sounds like an insult Joe Biden would give somebody. That's very true, isn't it. You're a white bellied go away bird. You're you're a son of a white belly go away bird. But they've named this

bird Mr mcbouncy pants. The reason why he named Mr mcbouncy pants is because school children would come by his exhibit at the Tropical Birdhouse that he ston zoo and watch him, and he would fly down to the glass to greet them and run back and forth along the glass with the school children watching, bouncing back and forth trying to get their attention. So he he just hated school children, or I guess maybe loved them. I just love that. So this is a from the Houston Zoo.

They named their white bellied go a bird Mr mcbouncy pants, which I like to think that he absolutely hates that name, given the fact that they seem like such grubby birds, and it's like, are you a Mr mcbouncy pants. He's like, go away, O kill all of you. Are you a grumpy Mr mcbouncy pants die, you all die. So another cute little animal who has a little bit of of the Mondays a case of the Mondays is the porcupine. So so porcupines. There are many different species of porcupines.

They are large rodents, they're sharp, quills are modified hairs covered in hardened keratin, and they are used to defend themselves. One of the myths about porcupines is that they can shoot quills at predators, and as awesome as that would be, they don't shoot them at people. Uh, quills don't shoot people. People shoot people. Uh. So the quills can be detached though, so if you you know, like say, you shove your face in a porcupine butt and all the quills get

stuck in your face. When you pull back, the quills will come off and into your face. And the quills are barbed, which allows them to more easily stick into flesh. So that's cool. Yeah. As someone who grew up with a dog in the country, I'm very familiar with porcupine quills and the removal of them. Uh. Luckily, my dog was smart and it only happened to her once and then whenever there was a porcupine in our yard. So

we had apple trees, so it would go. It would wattle in the yard eat the apples, and my dog would lose her mind because she knew so she would stand about three feet away from it, barking and like those you know, those high pitched barks with the desperation barks. Yeah, and the porcupine did not care. It would just waddle along, enjoying its day, would stay as long as it pleased.

It was fantastic. There's such They're like chill animals because they kind of can be right they know, Yeah, they're like, yeah, see what happens. Yeah, yeah, go ahead, take a Yeah, I'm gonna eat these apples. Oh you don't want me to eat these apples? Will see what happens. So, like I said, there are many different species of porcupines. They're found in North America, South America, Europe, Asia, and Africa.

They're actually one of the longest living rodents. They live into their twenties and they're herbivores and apparently they love corn. So Teddy is a porcupine at a wildlife education center in Houston, Texas called University. And Teddy is a porcupine who loves corn and gets very mad at anyone who tries to interfere with his corn habits. Yes, it's more than fair the corn situation, Teddy, can you share your coin with me? Can I have it? No? We had it.

You won't share really, Lets use this little more pass like people that corn. Oh no, okay, you have your corn. Disney characters, Oh my god, don't take its cord away. Let it have its corn. It's so grumpy. It's got that gremlin sound like there's this stop watching it. I'm gonna be watching this one later. Uh, it's got that thing like my cat will do this to where it's like there's the high pitched squeaks, but then it'll go to the like like the weird addition that animals are

apparently capable. You like, I'm just a cute little animal I will destroy. Yeah, I like how at one point in the video, one of his squeaks sounds like he's saying my card, and so many animals are on the verge of talking, that's right. Yeah, It's like I understand that porcupines can't really imitate human language, but it is. It's getting a little spooky. It's like, can't like, you know, she's she's taunting him so and can I have the corn?

And it really sounds like he's saying, oh my god, right, Like I'd love to be able to check in with them, like a thousand years ago to see if it's still if it's been like this the whole time, or if we should be concerned, right, or maybe we discovered corn from the porcupine. I have no evidence of that, yeah, but it's definitely true. So the North American porcupine who you just heard complaining a lot about someone, some lame

person trying to steal with corn. They are also interesting animals because their skin is covered in a natural antibiotic, which is important because if they fall on their butts and they get poked by their own quills, they can

get injured. And so by having that antibiotic on their skin, it prevents them from getting infected by their own quills, which I think is really funny when you basically evolution has designed this animal that is covered in spines, and then there's the problem of like, well, what if you get poked by your own spines. It's like, we'll cover your skin in medicine. I don't know. I like I like the the idea of the trial and error of that of like, dang, they're just dying because I mean

it is I do. I am joking about it. But you know, evolution doesn't like I think the way a programmer does in terms of like there's no overarching plan, but it is but through trial and air that is how it works. So, like, you have a bunch of porcupines that like probably it's like great, we have the quills now, and then they just impale themselves on their own quills. So the ones that have these antibiotic properties to their skin are more likely to survive a self skewering.

So um, when it's threatened, it will bristle its quills obviously, but it also chatters its teeth together. So one thing people might not know about porcupines is their teeth look a lot like beaver teeth. They are along and they're capable of eating through tough vegetation and absolutely destroying a corn cob, and they are because of their quills. Few natural predators are able to overcome its defenses. There is one predator that's really good at getting porcupines, and it's

the fissure, which is a relative of the weasel. And we've actually talked about the Fisher on the show before, and it is known for being able to also attack bobcats and kill bobcats, which is crazy. It's a it's not a very big animal there, about ten pounds, but it's pretty scary that they're able to both kill bobcats and porcupines. They are really really evil, little weasel like animals. I don't want to say evil. No animal is evil,

but no, these ones are. I'm sorry. If you, I mean, if you, if you, if you're able to destroy an animal that like the bobcat which screams in each other's faces, and the porcupine he gives in my carn't, I'm sorry. That's it's wrong. It's wrong. It's morally wrong. It's morally wrong. This is probably not a helpful question. Do you remember that porcupine mutant and X men? I do? Yeah, Yeah, that I was hilarious because he well, if you remember, like he was made up for the movie and he

had his only power was putting out quills. So he kills a woman by hugging her. I remember that. That's the only way. Yeah, that really sticks in my memory is is like it's not a great superpower. If your only way of killing someone is to convince them to hug you, like, come here, give me a hug. It's like, no, you're you're evil. No, come on, really, come on, bring

it in. There's a scene where like I think, like Juggernaut or someone's fighting Wolverine and Storm is fighting someone else and they all they all like meet each other and this name hood and they like Storm like creates a tornado and Juggernaut and Wolverine like collide and they cut to porcupine man and eat his quills come out like he's gonna do something with them. It's it's adorable.

Oh man, it's it's fine because it's even worse than an actual porcupine because like with actual porcupines, their quills are quite long and they always are sticking out, so you you know who you're messing with. But his were like sort of the length of acupuncture needles or something. So it's like really like, oh, real tough guy, Mr Pencushion over there, huh Right, you just have to stay at like six inches away from him, and you're good, Like you just like give me a high five, and

you're like, oh, you almost got me this time. Well, when porcupines mate here, here's I'm gonna leave leave us with this one last tidbit for this section, which is that they will actually flatten their their quills so they don't shish kababi each other, which I also love because it's just there's all these these things of like, wait a minute, if you're covered in spikes, how do you mate? And then they're like, oh, well, you know, we uh, we just flatten them out. We can do it at

anytime we choose not to. Yeah, it sounds like a child or I guess a writer for the X Men trying to come up with the things at hawk, like, well, how do they hug each other? Oh, I don't know. They lay their quills flat or something. Yeah, you're right, it is like nature. It's some bad writing on nature's part, but it works. It works. Apparently there's more there there. There is more than just one porcupine. They're making other I would say they're quite successful if there are several

species of them. Yeah, they did it. Like you said, they live, They live pretty long. I think we would too, if you're covered in spikes. Tell the voices something used by animals and humans to make suggestions about mood and to convey other information. Dogs and humans are uniquely well suited to communicating with each other. Our body language and vocal language, generally speaking or barking makes sense to each other.

A low growl from a dog means back off, A lowe no from a human means get that thing out of your mouth, and we can get ideas across to each other fairly well and interestingly, this isn't where our shared understanding of sounds ends. You know, in cartoons, where there's a high pitch that goes up like an upward slide whistle, it directs your attention upwards. Researchers found that dogs share the same instinct. In a similar evolutionary mechanism.

Dogs were able to track the movement of a rising ball better when it was accompanied by a high pitch directing their attention upwards. Could it be that we associate high pitches with the sky because of birds, or low pitches with the ground because of large predators slowly sculping towards us. One thing is for sure, you should definitely bring a slide whistle with you next time you play

fetch with your dog. When we return, we're going to look at some ridiculously cute noises that don't always come from an animal that you'd expect. Why do we consider some noises cute? One reason could be that we find any noise reminiscent of a baby to be cute, much like the baby schema, that is, finding facial proportions similar to a baby, like big eyes and a big forehead to be cute. High pitched noises are more similar to baby sounds. In fact, even babies prefer the voices of

other babies to our stupid adult voices. Researchers found babies liked to listen to fellow babies longer than an adult woman's voice. This could mean that we have some sort of innate preference for cute baby sounds, or maybe it just means the babies are plotting something. I don't know, Dave. If you think those babies they're up, they're up to something. I don't trust a baby. Never trust a baby, Never trust a baby from you. That's all they want, exactly.

I wouldn't trust a baby as far as you could throw a baby, and you shouldn't throw a baby. So I don't trust a baby at all. Yeah, exactly. So I want to talk about another big cat, this time the cheetah, which is most famous for being the one of the fastest runners in the animal kingdom. They can run up to fifty eight miles per hour, which I would say is a little faster than I can run. Yeah, it's too fast, it's too fast, a little too fast.

They're found in Africa and sparsely in Iran. They mostly prey on anteloe uh and the way they do this is by outrunning and exhausting them, tripping them over, and then biting their necks to suffocate them. But I also like the idea this is not what happens. But if like, a cheetah is chasing an antelope and another cheetah is nearby with its paw stuck out, so the antelope like

trips over its paw and then they kill it. Yeah, the cheetahs like leaning against a locker, looking real, looking, real, casual, and just exactly like exactly. They actually don't always hunt together, so unlike lions and some other big cats that are more social hunters, cheetahs tend to be somewhat solitary, although they do form mother offspring groups that will hunt together, and sometimes males will form little boy bands that hunt together.

And there they're these small coalitions and they work together because life. Life can be pretty tough for a cheetah. And despite being ferocious killers of antelope, they're pretty kind of a lightweight and they have some adorable vocalizations. So a couple of reasons to love a cheetah is there's no records of cheetah's ever killing humans, and they're also victims of bullying by other animals, so lions, leopards, hyenas, and wild dogs will often steal their kills and even

kill their cubs, So cheetahs are real underdogs. Now, I do want to point out to the listener that Dave has just been joined by another guest of the show, uh cat named Kitty little cat. What's her name? Kitten? There we go, that's the right. Yeah, she came up, she sniffed the microphone. She decided she wasn't interested and please please leave a rating though, kitten. Please? Yeah, I'll try if she comes back, I'll try to get her

to me now in the microphone. She's not gonna I don't think she's going to leave me a rating or review or stars or subscribe. But unlike Kitten, you can leave a rating, review or subscribe and download, and that actually really helps me. Don't be like kitten and and review review it. So like like a kiddy cat or like a house cat, Cheetahs can purr when they're content. So here's a cheetah purring. It's a good kitty cat. And they make a lot of interesting noises, so they

do growl, but they can't roar. Roaring and purring are actually mutually exclusive, so lions can't really purr because they can roar. But cheetahs bleat when they're in distress. So here is a bleeding cheetah. Not bleeding, but bleat like a goat. Yeah, taken out of the cage. K. So it's it's in a trap set up by conservationists to relocate him so that he can be dispersed into another territory without being threatened by humans and to prevent inbreeding.

So it's they're actually doing a nice thing, but he's kind of upset about it, so he's letting it, letting them know by these really cute little little little hm katy, I want you to know that my cat started pawing on your face my monitor, that she's trying to she's trying to write, she's trying to subscribe. She's subscribing to my face. I think she's interested in these cheetah sounds, to be honest. So here's one that that your kitten is gonna like. So cheetahs also chirp. So here's a

cheetah chirping. It sounds unbelievable. Yeah, my cat does this too. Um, the cats do more like the clicking like and they see something they want. Yea, cheetahs sound like they're basically the biggest house cat, like in terms of their anatomy, Like you said, the purring roar and the chirping they sound. But they sound even more like like bird chirps than I've ever because, like I had a cat who would do the little chirpy thing like we did see a

burden do that little sound. But cheetahs just straight up bird tweet chirp like it's it's adorable and well, they chirped like that to locate each other, like a mother calling her young or a cub calling for its mother. So here's here's a cub calling for its mother. It just it sounds like a bird call. So that's that's a juvenile it's like a teenager calling for its mom, and it just sounds like it's chirping. And they also sometimes will bark like a puppy to find mates or

to locate their young or their family. Mhm m that's cute. And why don't you do that? My cat has completely taken over my work area right now. She does this thing where she walks over the keyboard constantly like am I gonna step on a key and I'm going to stop everything. She's really interested in these cheetah noises. Yea, it sounds like it sounds remember those little toy dogs you'd get, like at the mall where they would go like and then like it's flipping a little black backflip.

That's what they sound like. Um. They also just do a straight up meal. So here's here's the meal. H h h yeah, and it kind of sounds like a person pretending to be a cat and mewing like it doesn't quite sound like a domestic or a house cat's meal. It sounds like it just sounds like sound going yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's it's I don't believe them. I don't believe you cheetah. It sounds like it sounds like a jungle cat trying to convince a human to get close to it so

it can eat it. Like, I feel like cheetahs would have a good racket going if they just slowly approached humans and what yeah, we would, I would pett it. I mean they are interesting because they there aren't any records of cheetah's killing humans. But maybe it's just because they get away with it so easily. They're just so cute. I don't know, they're all like you know those stories when people jump in the like the zoo fences. I'm

that person. I know. I'm that person. I'm the person who sees a lion and I think like it'll like me though, like you know, it'll make an exception, it'll absolutely it'll absolutely like you, especially like how your flesh tastes. Yeah, but cheetahs. Cheetahs aren't man eaters. They're kind of they are like I would say, sort of the whimps of the big cats. They're pretty pretty, just like little scrawny, nerdy ones and chirping around and doing little puppy barks.

And it's no wonder they get bullied by almost every other predator that shares their region. I've seen the videos of them getting like Golden retrievers to hang out with emotional support. Yeah, at Zeus they need they need a

dog for emotional support because they really struggle. Uh. It's hard to house cheetahs together again because they are often solitary, and even though they do sometimes form these groups, it's hard to simulate that because they have these smaller territories in zoos, and so to keep them occupied and to keep them calm, they have Golden retrievers or other dogs raised with them and hang out with them at Zeus. And they don't eat them. They I don't think a

cheetah could eat. Well, maybe they could, but I doubt it. I mean, like they really do. It's mostly like like little antelopes that they again, they have to trip them over in order to get the upper hand. I remember there was there was a news story that I only followed in headlines and it was the first one was something I'm are we going to mess it up? But

I know the general idea. It was like local lion at zoo befriends pig and then like and then like there was a couple more like watch this video of the lion hanging out with the pig and then the final headline like a week later, it was like, sad turn for the lion. I wonder what what was it was? Did the pig break up with the lion? I assume that's what it is. Again, I never I never clicked on it, and it's like, yeah, that's I wonder what

that is. That does happen a lot when they're these stories of like lion adopts an antelope as its pet and then it's like sad turn of event for antelope adopted by lion. But these do legit seem to like their little doggie friends. No, yeah, they don't. Cheetahs Again, they're not. They are predators. And again I would never suggested cheetah as a pet, mostly for the cheetah's sake. It will, it can mal it has malden people. It just doesn't typically kill them. But yeah, it's it's not

a good pet, but it is not. It's a Yeah, it's kind of a in a way, it's kind of a delicate animal. And you know, the probably they feel safer with the dog around, and I don't think that they would want to attack the dog. And I'm not even sure, like if it's a big golden retriever, Like the golden retriever is going to be able to hold its own with thee always. I feel like the if I were a domesticated cheetah, seeing a golden Retriever would not make me feel better because you're seeing like the

end result of domestigation happened. What have they done to you? Wolf? Oh? No, am I going to turn into this high like tenose balls? What have they done to you? Okay, so Dave, now I want to talk to you about rhinos. So what kind of noise do you think rhinos make? Like the rhino rhino like Pokemon rules just say your own name, or like some sort of you know, rall like a dinosaur noise right like raw? Yeah? Yeah that's what I

thought too. Um did you think it would sound like air being lit out of a balloon though, like like slowly lit out like an elephant trunk a little bit? So if you, if you uh, take a look, see at this this treat I gave you, Is this what you hear when they're charging? Well? So these are baby white rhinos that are being taken care of by a wildlife veterinarian in South Africa and they're really really peeved that they haven't been fed yet, so they are squeaking, squeaking,

some real mad squeaks there. While rhinos are dangerous to animals or people who threaten them, they are much more chilled than they're given credit for, especially white rhinos. So here's some some quick rhino facts. Females and young males will live in small herds of up to about fifteen individuals. Adult males are the ones that are the most aggressive.

They're typically solitary and they defend their territory and they're not actually excessively violent, but they will charge at you if they since that you are encroaching on their territory, and it's usually a warning charge, but they can do serious damage if you don't get out of the way, and they will demarcate their territory with dung and urine of course, just like we all do, right like as as soon as we had to, like are like self quarantining. It was like peeing on it all the things that

I wanted to keep for myself. Oh yeah, well, my maintaining eye contact with my cat exactly. So they are a lot more swift and agile than you might think they can run up to forty miles per hour, and if they feel sufficiently threatened, they can definitely kill with that horn. But white rhinos, compared to other rhino species, are actually the most socially gregarious and they have the

most diverse calls. One reason that they're so vocal with each other is that their eyesight isn't great, so having a wide range of calls helps them communicate. And a recent study found that they can actually tell the sex, social status, and age of another rhino just based on their call. And that little squeaky wine is characteristic of young white rhinos who want to let their mom know that their hungry and they want milk, and they want it now, and they're not going to stop until you

pull over and give them some milk. Um. So adults will kind of use grunts and huffs to communicate, and so to demonstrate this, here's a video of a baby whining and then then adult, probably small, sort of like grunting back. And it's really funny. Give it what it wants. I just imagine that conversation being like, but man shut up, but man shut up foraging squeak. That sounds a lot like my cat. I feel like everything we've talked about

sounds like your cat, well, high pitched squeak. That's that's what it is. She's got that real high pitched yeah, so like that. Yeah, I mean it's I think it's probably for a similar purpose. She's trying to get you to feed her milk. Milk. Yeah, she wants my milk, your dave milk, fresh from the day. Weird, That got weird. Well that's what these rhinos are doing. They want they

want fresh mall milk. Yeah that's fair. Uh So here's an animal that I think we all expect it to sound this cute because I'm going to talk about baby seals. Welcome to Baby Seal Corner. Everybody, come on in, get all, get all settled in, because we're about to listen to some baby seals and it's gonna make you happy. So, uh, Dave, do you want to explode from just sheer delight? Okay, here we go. It's got that puppy dog face staring right at me, beady little eyes. Oh it's blinking, the

little blinking oh little squeaks. Oh. I want it. I want it in my house. Yeah, I want to hold it. I want to hold it. I want to like a baby. It's not gonna it's not gonna be good for anyone to keep this as a pet, but you know I do, I do want to hold it. I want good for us to keep it. You know, like, yeah, you have a you'd have like a day of really enjoying it until you realize you don't know how to feed it, and like you don't even know who to call to

like get it out of your house. It'd be a solid, it would be a solid, good hour until the reality sets in that you have an actual seal in your house. Yeah, and then it's a real problem. Have you seen that a video of the fisherman waking up in his boat to a seal curled up like a dog at his feet. Yeah,

he has to chase it off the boat. But it made me think because there's also those videos of seals getting chased by the sharks and they jump on the boat and they're just like, everybody, be cool, all right, just let me sit here a little bit, don't guys, don't knark on a seal. Come. It makes me feel like seals are ready, they're ready for our love and to be domesticated, Like they're like please, it sucks in

the ocean. I think they're What they're most ready for is for us to like not freaking tell on them to a shark that wants to eat them. I mean, come on, um, So that seal that you watched is a baby harp seal and those are those adorable fluffy white little balls of flufe and they grow up into those gray, chunky adults that are they look like little orbs with maybe a couple of flippers. And they live

in the Northern Atlantic an Arctic ocean. And the sounds that you were hearing it make were it calling for it's mommy. But they also make cute noises when they're playing. They do kind of a mumbling, so even when mom's nearby, they kind of will mumble to themselves and just like roll around in the snow and have a good time. M this is getting my cat's attention. She's looking over at me like what are you doing. I feel like listeners who have cats, you should play this without headphones

on and see how your cat enjoys it. It's so moby. It's such a moby little stamp. Well, so while these baby calls are adorable, seals have even more complex vocalizations underwater. So harp seal adults have over nineteen different calls underwater for mating and courtship. And it sounds completely crazy. It sounds like a synthesizer. Those are some sick beats. It sounds like a synthesizer, right, sounds like sounds like some scrillics. Yeah,

it sounds it's got like spaceship sounds spaceship. Yeah, like a like a Moog synthesizer. Water synthesizers. What are they doing down there? They're they're jaming, They're they're doing those scynth beats. You are, Yeah, you are waiting because you hear like it's you're waiting for the like and like maybe the ice some like strobe like colored lights to start like like y these mysterious lights. We we always

thought the Aurora borealis was a natural phenomenon. It's actually seal raves seals, Oh, seals just odeon in the bathrooms. So harbor seals are a related seal that also live in the North Atlantic Arctic Ocean, but on more temperate coastlines, and their pups are gray to blend in with gray rocks. And there here is a video of a harbor seal being cared for by that veterinarians, and he really strongly objects to having having to get his shot of medicines.

Poor a little guy. Oh my god, what a little Oh what a little nugget. Oh my god, it's delicious too. Oh my god. They're first so velvety and smooth. I just want to rub it now, the first little when when it's the first sound of me, Oh my god, I can't. I can't imagine being the doctor and having to give this little guy a shot. I think I would just melt. Yeah, I would fall to my knees. Yeah, that sounds just like. You're right, seal. You're right. You

don't need a shop. I'm sorry. So, just to cap this section off, I want to quickly visit the difference between a seal and a sea lion. So here is the scientific difference. Seals are little blobs with almost no neck and have to flop around on land and kind of do the worm, whereas sea lions have longer necks, ear flaps, and can walk on land by rotating their limbs under them. So seal is little blourb sea lion is like ocean. Ocean labradors is the scientific term for it.

And the sea lions are like, you've got to be a seal or a sea lion bro, and they like give motivational speeches like seminars. Sea lions are definitely the frat bros. And the seals are like the little little d and d nerds are like, I have a level chevity night elf though nerd seal nerd they ducked their heads and water. But doesn't really it's not really affective. Yeah, doing swirlies. I don't think works on sales. Can the sounds of nature actually help our bodies? Researchers at Brighton

and Sussex Medical School conducted a very relaxing study. They had participants listened to nature sounds while measuring their heart rate and their brains response with an m r I. They compared these results to a control group who listened to artificial sounds. The researchers found that nature sounds caused outward directed brain activity, that is the brain focusing on external stimuli, whereas the artificial sounds caused in word directed attention,

which is often associated with anxiety and stress disorders. And distingly, the nature sounds caused relaxation of the autonomic nervous system for participants who started out stressed, but for those who were already relaxed just chilling out in the m r I, the nature sounds slightly stimulated their bodily response. So here,

why don't you try it for yourself. I'm going to play some nature sounds for the next twenty seconds right before the ad break, and when we returned, after you've had a chance to relax, we'll talk about some goofy animals who are clearly mocking us. Will be right back well. Nature sounds can help relax us. Cubans sounds seemed to have the opposite effects on some animals, even those whom

we might consider to be fearsome beasts. You see Santa Cruz study found that human speech was enough to frighten mountain lions, making them avoid areas where they've heard human voices, or at least to tread more cautiously. This was a great benefit to the mice and small rodents. He used the opportunity to be more active. Of course, I'm not saying it's a good thing that we played these human voices.

The balance between predator and prey is very delicate, and the fact that our voices alone can have such a dramatic impact on the environment is a bit alarming. So maybe we deserve a bit of mockery from the animal kingdom, like from these animals, who, if I didn't know any better, I would say, are making fun of us. So, Dave, have you ever heard oh walrus whistle? No? I don't think that was That was a long hesitation. I feel

like if you had, you would have known. I had to think back at like Disney cartoons and stuff like that to see if I've at least seen a cartoon have you seen I didn't ask have you seen a cartoon walrus whistle? That one was on me. That was my bad. I could have meant, like if someone dressed a furry dressed as a walrus like kind of whistling at you. Yeah, I could have meant that. Um, well, if you check out that link I have provided, then you can hear the walrus whistle. I'm hearing it. Nice.

It's like a flute. Yeah, So walrus is will actually make a variety of calls, typically to woo a female. Females will react to both physical and vocal displays when choosing a mate and to whistle. If you saw in that video, Dave, they actually use their lips like a human does. So like with a bird when they whistle, they're not they don't have lips, so they don't use their lips. They use their syrinx, which is the bird

version of a larynx um. But with the walrus, they actually purse their lips and whistle much like you know one of us would. That's somehow really horrifying or so. I don't know what it is, because yeah, I always imagine the bird thing where it's like, yeah, they have weird throat stuff. It's like, how does the waters whistle? It's like, yeah, it just you know, puts his lips

together and it does. It does make you face the fact that walrus is have big, thick, juicy lips, which you know, I didn't really want to necessarily think about, but here it is, and that's what they say. They when they're whistling, they're like, hey, hey baby, I got look at my juicy lips. How you doing. So here's

another one. Um. This is et the orphaned walrus at point defines zoo and aquarium, making a whole variety of sounds it's the lesser known sequel to the Spielberg class less sexy or is it more sex or is it more It's a matter of perpective. The face. Oh my god, oh god. That one whistle at the end, that's like

a fire alarm. Yeah, what baffling creatures. These are, like I feel like I don't If I like I heard someone cat call me and I turned around and it was a walrus, I feel like i'd be a pleasant surprise. Actually oh yeah, absolutely, It's like, no, it's not just some dude. It's a walrus who's into you, and I would be kind of honored actually a little bit. Yeah. Yeah, the walrus is crossing species. It's it's defying nature for you.

I'm just showing my appreciation. Come on, on the other hand, if you heard walrus sounds and you turned around and it was a human, horrifying Yeah, unless it's that guy who was the guy in that movie Tusk. Justin Long, Yeah, justin Long. You turn around, it's justin Long. It's like, yeah, nice, good job, justin Long, good job. I know you deserve

some recognition for that movie. I get it. Yeah. Yeah, it's a big that's a big swing I do wish that like in that movie they had just justin long doing like these walrus noise tricks, So just like whistle justin and just doing a walrus tricks in general, yeah, exactly, honking some horns, yeah, yeah. Do they play with falsly? Probably you could. Probably a walrus will probably have a lot of fun with like a blow up ball hanging around. Was was that supposed to be a sad ending though?

Because like if you could just like live the rest of your life like eating fish and being a walrus, I don't know, Yeah, it sounds cool, right, yeah, especially now like the more and more I go to life, I'm like, yeah, I wish, man if I could just be a walrus lifestyle looking better and better, Yeah, sort of. I mean the oceans aren't great so well, but like in general, like that the concept of just being a exactly doing walrus stuff, having walrus chores, I don't know,

wiggling around do they is there? What do they do? They get up in there? Like time to wiggle? That is kind of the walrus day is like you get up and it's like time to wiggle, and then they kind of like heff themselves a few inches over and they're like, well, that's it. That's all it is for today. Yeah. I guess maybe tomorrow I'll go to the beach and scream until I find a mate. I'll just make crazy sounds. Yeah.

So there is an animal that has been our constant companions for a long time that I think is completely sick of our crap and is mocking us. And that is the horse. So get a good old horse raspberry in your life. Oh screw you too, horse. So that's a horse literally pursing its lips, sticking out its tongue and blowing like a raspberry. And uh, there's a the It's not just that one horse. It's not like the one weird old horse going around going um, but there are.

It is a noted thing that horses occasionally do. And that second video also shows another horse behavior of the horse just kind of flapping its gums by tossing its head up and down. I'm watching watching the little jerk jerk. That's just I I think the behavior is from horses just being like, hey, did you know we could do this? Oh? Cool? Kind of like how babies like blow bubbles and like blow raspberries, just be like, look at what I can do. Yeah,

I figured this out. We shake our heads violently or are just just go wild it's hilarious. Well, I went on a deep dive to find out why horses would blow raspberries or like flap their gums like this, and I couldn't really find like a direct answer. But this is what I have gathered from my research. And what I suppose is I think they're probably doing it out of boredom. So flapping lips can be a sign of stress.

But if they're just standing there otherwise relaxed, I think it means their board um or it could just be for fun, and I think but here's the thing is, like, while I don't have any direct evidence of it, I do think a lot of it is just mocking us. I think it's making fun of us. Yeah, well, yeah, they must think we're maniacs, because if horses communicate with each other at all, there'll be like, hey, what did

you do today? And they're like, well, you know, they all like everybody dressed up around me and like pretended to like get into fights, and there was all this equipment and I don't know what was happening. What did you do? Like, oh, yeah, I was in front of a crowd, and I like, and they made me like Prance and everybody, I don't know, everybody applauded. And then their other friend is like, yeah, I'm at this, Like

I don't know. They're all like it's like a hockey rink, but they're like eating and watching me, and like they got guys dressed up in metal. I don't know what they're doing. I don't know what any of this is. Like, there's no no, there's no context for any of the things. But we do so many different things with horses. Yeah, I just like I like the idea of like an adult horse explaining this to young horse. It's like, well, how do I put this? They're gonna sit on you? What? Yep,

there they're they're gonna sit on you. But but why, well, you know, we don't know. We don't know. There's no pattern. Sometimes we just run in circles. Yeah, just like I'm sure that what I think what these horses are saying is like, look, I'm a human. I'm a human. Look at me. I'm a human thing. So it's interesting you mentioned goats earlier, because I do want to talk about goats if you would like There is a video I have here of a man arguing with a goat. Sounds

like it sounds like a man at rock bottom. Let me click up. I'm about like two days away from arguing with a goat, so I'm not one to judge that's fair. Goats constantly have that that dark crystal energy, like the Jim Henson muppets that are like meant to like traumatized kids. So in that audio clip, if you couldn't tell who was the human and who was the goat, the one screaming was the goat, it would be messed

up if the goat was the one who was like talking. Perfect. Yeah, a lot of these screaming goat videos are actually sheep, so I wanted to make confirmed that this was a goat. And I think I'm not a goat goat expert. I'm not a goat girl, but I think this is a Parinian goat. They have long hair, a mop head and those curly twisted horns, and um, here's another video of

a goat screaming. It is the most it is the most shocking thing nature does, right right, You don't you really don't expect it to just kind of we've kind of come full circle back to the Lynxes where they just kind of scream at each other there, Yeah, where they sound like just deeply pained by their existence. It's I really think it's the most horrifying. It's like it's like it's like goats screaming then like the existence of sharks under it. Like it's the most it's the most shocking.

I don't I don't know, it's I can't get over it. Every time I hear it, I'm like, surely that's not true. It does seem like they're having an existential crisis. Um, But I wondered about this. I was like kind of concerned for the goats. So I did a little bit of research and Dr. And Pischal of Tennessee State University was interviewed by Slate to explain the goat situation because apparently other people have noticed that goats just scream into

the void. So Dr Anne Pischal has a pretty grim outlook on the whole goat screaming thing, she says, because like the interviewer was saying, like, oh, people find these videos really funny, and she says, quote maybe for some it's entertained. I am a goat producer and don't consider it entertainment at all. And I'm just starting to realize, like, yeah, for us, like we click on a YouTube video, goat screams. It's kind of funny for someone who has to beer

around these goats constantly, just unending screaming. It's there. It's their little defense, it's their little revenge. But my ears are too long. I'm a buster. Yeah, So I wanted to look into why they yell, and what I could find is that they yell for a whole bunch of different reasons. So they yell to call, they're young, They yell when they want to be fed. They yell if you touch them and they don't want you to touch them. They yell when they want food. They yell when they're

getting food and they're happy. They yell when they see another goat getting food and they're jealous. They yell when they're lonely. So basically most situations, they either respond by yelling or bleating. And even though it may be hard for a human to tell the difference between all these bleats, researchers found that goats do know the difference, and they react either calmly or with agitation, depending on if the bleat is a happy bleat or a I guess frustrated

or sad bleat. So why do why does the goat yell? Who knows many different reasons because it feels like it, reason like it? I think the most common explanation I saw as they yell at you when they want you to feed them, or especially if you see them feeding another goat first and they get really mad and so so it's like just them going like like why feed me? Why? Hey, hey, human, hey, get over here. It's a good acting. I think it is. It is it's uh. Or again back to my theory.

They could just be mocking us and we have we've domesticated them, Like you said, this is their revenge, Like, well, you want to keep us and use all our milk and turn us into cheese and stuff. Well, unending yelling, just relentless, endless screams. If aliens come and they take us into like a human zoo, let's learned from the Majestic goat and scream NonStop, I would do the worst thing I could think of to annoy the aliens, which would be to seeing smash mouth constantly on a loop.

What if they love it? Though, well, that's just a risk I will be willing to take. I suppose, but that that would be a real grim, grim future if like the aliens come to Earth and not only are they immune to our diseases, they're also immune to smash mouth and please on and and they're really they're really into like that era that was our only defense was like crappy nineties early two thousands music. But if they're

also immune to that, we have literally no defense against daily. Well, thank you so much for joining me today, Dave and listening to all these animals sounds. Uh, do you have anything to plug? Sure? You mentioned it at the top. GameFly Unemployed. It's a podcast network I read with Tom Ryman. You can check out our Patreon, pature dot com slash game Fly Unemployed. You can see are we have free podcasts, we have exclusive podcasts. You can kind of see it

all there. Um My twitter is movie Hooligan and along with you, Katie, I am a writer for some more news. So that's right. Yeah, let's check out check out all those things. I've also been a guest on one of the podcast that you guys do, um, the Hypecast, that's right, and that's that's always a good time. That's fun um. So you can find the show on the internet on I Heart radio dot com just search for Creature Feature. You can find us on Instagram at Creature Feature Pod

on Twitter at Creature Feet Pod. That's f e A T, not f e E T. That's I'm going for ourn different. You can find me on Twitter at Katie Golden if you want to hear my Katie thoughts. You may not want to hear my Katie thoughts, but if you do, you know, check them out. And of course, as always, I am at pro bird rites, which is you know, it is my effort to make sure that we are ruled by birds. And can you blame me? Can you really blame me? Wouldn't you feel I mean, wouldn't you

feel safe being ruled by birds? Right now? I would? History will look back at you as a here at Katie, Yeah, I mean history will be birds like in the future. Birds will write the history and they will look back on me fondly. And I I'm hoping to be like in a bird future, like being like a pet, A nice pet was scream at them. I was thinking a golden statue and under it says the one we ate last. What an honor, true honor, and a privilege. I might add thanks to the Space Cossics for their super groovy

song ex Alumina. Creature features a production of I Heart Radio. To listen to more podcasts like this, visit I heart radio dot com, Apple podcast or where if you listen to your favorite shows, See you next Wednesday.