Animal Stereotypes

Welcome to Creature feature production of iHeartRadio. I'm your host of Many Parasites, Katie Golden. I studied psychology and evolutionary biology, and today on this show, we're talking about animal stereotypes. The wise owl, the lazy sloth, and the courageous lion. How much do these animals live up to their names? Or should we not judge a book by its cover or a sloth by its algae? Discover this more as

Welcome, Hey, thank you for having me. I appreciate it.

Yeah, absolutely.

So.

I asked you what you were interested in talking about, and you told me you like sloths, and you've encountered some of them recently. H And you think owls are overrated.

Yeah, I'm not a fan of owls. I think we could do without them. Know what they bring, They attack our hats, they killed Michael Peterson's wife, They're just they're just full of problems. Yeah, not a big fan.

Yeah, that owl incident, the owl murder. So I assume you're in the pocket of big mouse. Uh in your anti owl stance. But I think the thing about owls is they are a symbol of wisdom, which is an interesting choice. I think when you are going to like, what bird would you pick instead as a symbol of wisdom, because I assume you're you don't really think too highly of owls as being the wise the bird of the wisdom.

Didn't science decide a long time ago that crows are actually the smart bird.

Crows are a smart bird. In fact, much of the corvid family is quite smart, including crows, magpies, New Caledonian crows, ravens. They are quite a smart family of birds. I would say parrots as well. They are seen as kind of goofballs, I guess, but they are extremely smart. The African gray parrot is one of the smartest birds in terms of its ability to learn words, and so yeah, I think that a lot like I would say the corvids and the parrots are probably among the smartest birds in the world.

And see, owls seem like they just have a reputation, yeah, being smart, but we never get any evidence of it exactly.

Well.

Crows, Yeah, like I've read articles where they're like a crow can use a gun, but owls that they just turn their stupid head all the way around, turn it around. That's all they got.

Falls off, they got to screw back in, you know. I mean I think that with well, get into the evidence actually in a little bit. But I think the rep that owls have for being wise just comes from Greek and Roman mythology of Athena and Minerva. It's that the Greek and Roman goddess of wisdom, she had an owl as her symbol, and she was often pictured with an owl like a little owl pet, like some kind

Yeah, I don't think so. I think it just flies, It flies and turns its stupid head around and yeah, attacks women when they're jogging.

Well yeah, I mean it is a that was one time, Adam, just one time. You're never gonna go let that owl live it down.

Oh no, it's it's a documented thing. It happens a whole lot owls. How owls have a tendency to mistake women's hair when it's up for a nest right, and they very often attack joggers especially. It's a very common thing.

I'm not to victim blame, but don't put eggs in your hair. I would say that.

That would probably cut back on the incident. So right if women would stop that.

Yeah, stop putting eggs in your hair, ladies.

Fun women be putting eggs in their hair.

Women be putting eggs in their hair. So the one of the theories in terms of why an owl became associated with Athena is that they a lot of these small owls just lived in Athens. They're actually called the Athenae owls. They're pretty cute, but there's no evidence there whyse they just happen to be there and people are like owl Athena. They're in Athens, so therefore Athena is

Yeah, it doesn't make a lot of sense. I don't know how a bird could be wise, just in general. Even if you're hanging out with a woman who was known to be extra smart, you're still just a bird. No one's ever gotten advice from an owl. No asking an owl of question.

That kid did that kid did with the sucker on that topsy pop commercial, and look what he got, Look what he got.

The owl lied to him.

Owl lied to it. It is candy. He got nothing.

That's what they do, that's what they did do.

Yeah, so let's let's actually take a look at owl and elligence, right, because there's there's there's studies so and also there are there are some things about owls that I think can give the impression of wisdom. But I would I'm actually cut like I like owls. I don't have an aversion to owls like you do. I'm not anti owl, but I just don't think they are particularly smart. But they are very interesting. So they have incredibly good eyesight. A small amount of light goes a very long way

So they can't even use like the video thing that connects to your phone so.

You can see. Yeah, if you go in, they're liable to just bonk right into that eyeball. So they cannot rotate their eyes at all in their sockets because they're too big. This is actually similar to a primate called the tarsier. It's this tiny primate native to Madagascar who also evolved eyes so huge that it cannot rotate them in its head and it has to swivel its head instead, and so it has this a lot of degrees of freedom with its neck that a lot of like most

Yeah, good for them.

Lots of animals can out, so they also have an addible sense of hearing. They have those big ear holes, and the feathers around their ears can help funnel the sound into their ears. Also their flat faces. They've got that flat face partially so that sound collects in their face and like kind of goes into their ears, like their faces a sound bowl. And so that's that's why they got that look, that flat face look, not just because they smack into windows all the time, which they

No? I think that's just like an internal process. Humans do that also, you know, yeah, probably not to the same degree. But we don't have to hunt field mice and things of the light, so both that if we had to, we would evolve those same features as those stupid owls.

Probably, yeah, exactly like that that little tiny primite. I mentioned that the tar sier it's got pretty owl for a primate, and so it You know, these are just features that when you are nocturnal and a predator and you are looking for little things that make little scratchy noises and you need to find them and hear them and see them, this is all pretty neat, right. The

Rude, yeah, ude, yeah, owls.

So there is a study that compares the performance of various raptors. So raptors being birds of prey, that in their ability to do something called the string pulled task, which is there's food on a string and the animal has to pull it to get to the food. Pretty easy puzzle, but still it requires a little bit of No. How sometimes they make the test even a little more tricky, right, like there's multiple strings and only one of them is

Hamish Hamish we Hamish. Oh that's that's that's a name.

Uh. Also, this was not an owl, but one of the turkey vultures tested was named Lord Richard and he absolutely killed it. He did great on the string poll task. He was a plus bird.

Lord saw a turkey vulture in person long ago. It's a neat bird. They're neat stand in the trees and look at you.

They look at you, but they're they're nice, you know, they just like to hang out and he scritch scritch. Yeah that stuff, so okay. Onto the owls. We Hamish, the Eastern screech owl, completely ignored the test during the first two trials. On the third trial, he grabbed the string and just kind of flew away, which I guess kind of solved it. But I mean, you know, it's not really going with the intention of the test.

I think, yeah, yeah, a little work around. Yeah, I mean I guess that's smart. Yeah of an owl?

Yeah, good, good job we Hamish Cyprus. The Western screech owl was a little more clever. She took about twenty minutes to solve it, and she was able to pull on the string to get to the meat, and she became more efficient at it as the trials went on. She still wasn't as good as the Turkey vultures, but you know she did all right. Tito the barn owl just ignored uh it completely. He like glanced at the test apparatus once and just zoned out. No interest.

Wow.

Yeah.

And was he paid? I bet he was paid.

Still yeah, under the table probably so yeah. I mean, so the owls in this trial, like one of them did pretty well, one of them, I mean kind of got it on a technicality, and the third one didn't care, just no interest.

Lowit.

So there is another Another study conducted in twenty twelve in Russia by Obosova at All looked at great gray owls and compared their performance on the string poll task to corvids and some other bird species that I don't know. I'm not going to talk about them because who cares. So they had twelve owls, which, well that's a lot of owls, But on all the various string polling tasks, the crows outperformed the owls every time. Majority of the crows figured out how to return free the food on

Yeah, that's what I've always heard is that crows are incredibly smart. They are and like can even use simple machines like levers and things.

Yeah, the new Caledonian crow especially, it can craft a tool out of either wire when it's provided to them or in their natural habitat twigs and use it to hook food or get to stuff, or in the wild that uses it to get at larva that's stuck in trees.

See that's amazing. Yeah, that that bird deserves the wise title.

Yeah, exactly, those are like a little bird to Kloma.

Yeah, kind of the owls are out here doing America's best vision commercials and things right now, come on, that should be crows, that should be crosed.

That should be crows. Remember a Sword in the Stone? That movie?

Yeh?

That there was, like the owl is wise in this one, Li lying to us, Yeah, there was also like, what is it The Guardians The Owls of Wahooly? What was that movie?

Oh?

You know there was. I never watched it.

I kind of know what you're talking about, but I also guarantee.

To look it up because I think I'm getting that name wrong. Owl movie. It comes right up. Legend of the Guardians, The Owls of Gholy. That's a real movie, folks. Came out in twenty ten.

I did not see that.

No, I did not. I saw Happy Feet. I did not see this movie.

Oh happy Wasn't that penguins?

That was penguins. I will sure you could feed me slop, absolute slop of a movie. If it's penguins in it, I'm watching it.

Penguins are cool. Pengins are cool literally and figuratively.

That is true. They do live in cold environments, so they are both cold and cool.

And they do the wattle.

They waddle they it is very cute. I like a penguin.

Aren't they monogamous too?

Yeah, they can be. It depends on the species, but for like the breeding definitely for a single breeding species, yes, they are monogamous. And some species they are monogamous or longer and there are like albatrosses are very monogamous. They they will stick by each other for a long period of time. So yeah, a lot of seabirds are into the whole kind of like marriage monogamy things. Yeah, very sweet good birds. Yeah yeah. Well okay, so we've dunked

Yeah, I took a trip to Costa Rica recently. Wonderful, beautiful, really puts the rain and rainforest got them right a bit. Yeah, they call it rainforest for a reason. It was very wet. But sloths are a big thing in Costa Rica, and there's a bunch of different sloth tours and things of the like. What I think people would not expect when you go on a sloth tour. You think you're going to walk in there and just see slaw doing their slow version of bouncing around in the trees and whatnot.

Yeah. Yeah.

And then when I when I got back my you don't even like this show. Co host Jeff May was like, you know, there's a place here in la where you can just like hang out with a sloth. It's like, I don't I could go to a zoo and do that. I don't not try to marry the sloth. I just want to see it in its natural habitat, and I don't want to see it at a library or something.

Yeah. I would if there was a sloth library where you could like lend out sloths and just hang out with a sloth and then return it, that'd be pretty nice. I do like them, Yeah, as long as the sloths are into it, which they probably would not be so Yeah, sloths, Uh, they are incredibly slow and they sleep a lot, and the fact that you cannot see them easily on a sort of sloth expedition is kind of a feature, not

But yeah, as long as they're not endangered or anything, and if they are, as long as it's not too expensive, right exactly do you know why sloths only come down to the ground for one thing. That's what that is. Poopen, oopen, poopen, to take a dump.

Poopen, And they do it once a week because their digestive system is so slow because they eat very tough leaves. So yeah, sloths given all this right, Like we like, sloths are considered lazy. They're named after, you know, sloth, the sin. The word sloth to mean the animal was first used in sixteen ten, which is a translation of the word uh pregusa, which is Portuguese for slowness. So

I I mean laziness to me, I think is just kind of sitting around and doing nothing. And I assume that's not what sloths are doing because they do need to eat, so they yet once a week.

Yeah, for me, laziness is like choosing, choosing inactivity instead of being sort of like choosing the easy way out right, like choosing sort of you know, like cutting corners, choosing the easy way. So, like, let's see if sloths actually are that way. So, first of all, what are sloths?

Right?

There are two main families of sloths still living today, there's the three toad sloths and the two toad sloths. The three toad sloths typically have weirder faces. They have the little banded eyeshadow and the wide set eyes. They have those little smushed faces. Two toed sloths typically have like pink pinkish noses, and their faces tend to be kind of more conventionally cute because their eyes are larger, their eyes are less like widely spaced.

So, yeah, which is the one that has the permanent smile?

That's the three toad slows? I think the one that has the it's they have the little smooshed, really weird faces and it just looks like they have this big smile and their eyes are like a million miles apart.

Yeah. Yeah, that's very cute.

Very very cute. They're both very cute in their own way. Two toed slaves have two claws on their four limbs, and then the three toad slaws have three claws on each of their limbs. The two toed sloths do have three claws on their hind limbs, which is a little confusing, but yeah, the front limbs have two, whereas for the three three toed slaws, their front limbs have three.

Uh, so take me through this again. Okay, two toed sloth, two toes, two.

Toes front limbs, three toes back three to sloth three toes all around everywhere, to drive all around. So they actually both of these families of sloths evolved their ability to be arboreal, live in trees and to be very slow and just hang out there. Independently. They both evolved from ground dwelling sloths, some of which got to be huge like the giant sloth, and so both of these families like independently evolved to live in trees and be

Sense, Yes, no sense.

And they're distributed throughout Central and South America, and uh so, the behavior between the two families of slavs is a little different. Two toad sloths, so those are the big eyed ones. They are a little more active, They have a more varied diet, They are nocturnal, and they travel between trees more frequently. They're still pretty slow and pretty laid back, but they're just a little more active than the three toad sloths, who only feed on a specific

We know why sloths are as slow as they are.

Yes, yes, we do so. The one thing is that they are very slow on the ground, bad walkers on the ground, And the reason for that is that their limbs have evolved not to walk but to hang, so they're pulling. Muscles are really strong and actually when they're at rest, they're pulling muscles are engaged, whereas they're pushing, muscles are super super weak. So to walk where they are like pushing on their legs, like having to push

That makes sense. Yeah, yeah, I remember hearing when we were in Costa Rica that one of their natural predators is a puma and that sometimes a puma will just go up in the tree to get slough. Yeah, oh that would suck. Yeah anything.

The thing is, the thing is like it is so when they are other than like pumas, which can just get up in those trees and look around, Like when they're on the ground, they are at their most vulnerable because they're much more visible and they're on the ground, and they are even less agile on the ground. But they still go down the tree to poop every week, which you would think that, like the truly lazy thing

Oh yeah, no, not at all. That seems like it would have taken some planning.

Mm hm.

Those sloths would have had to figure that whole thing out, like what these moths are doing to eth this algae off us? Amazing?

Yeah, just very slowly pulling the cap off of a whiteboard marker. Yeah, no, I mean, is one of those things where clearly they didn't all come to some kind of sloth consensus. It's in it's a evolutionary symbiosis that evolved over you know, many many hundreds of thousands of years.

Yeah, I think the lazy tag is maybe not correct comes to sloth or just I mean, they're slow, but it sounds like they're doing a lot.

They are for yeah, and they're putting in the works slowly.

So what if they sleep eighteen hours? What do they have to do? They don't have plans, they don't have anything to take care.

I think if we call them lazy because we're jealous that they don't have to do things like taxes or car payments, you know.

I am very jealous of that.

Yeah, me too. Also also, uh, just one more evidence piece of evidence that they are not lazy. So sloth copulation lasts around half an hour, so you know the fellas are you know, they're they're they're going, they're look, they're not unattentive lovers, is what I what I would say. They're also polygamous, so they are having to do this for multiple lazy sloths, so yeah.

Oh you know, yeah, nothing lazy about that.

Nothing lazy about that. And then the mothers have to take care of their offspring and their very attentive mothers. So I would say when it comes to reproduction, not lazy, just you know, like they are. They're putting the effort in where where it truly matters. Pooping and mating.

Yeah, and eating. Yeah, what else matters in life?

Literally, nothing else matters eating, pooping, and mating. That those are the only things you need really to be a successful animal.

Yeah, I feel like Bosts sound like they are a successful animal.

They really are.

Sol the show in the movies Utopia, remember that?

Oh yeah that? Yeah, those I love those guys, those little slows. I love the joke that they're slow. I like the joke being repeated a few times throughout the movie, and it was good every time.

Yeah. I like the DMV scene where yeah, little rabbits in a hurry and the DMV is fully staffed by sloths.

It's so it's so true though, right, you know you're at the DMV and it's like, man, I've been at this DMV for a while, ain't at the.

Truth And it smells like a jungle in here.

Oh boy, roasted d be roasted. Man. Those DMV workers probably not paid enough, with long days and just exhausted. Anyways, So we are going to take a quick break and when we get back, we're going to talk about an animal that has a very good reputation for being brave. But is it all right? So we've talked about how Slavs are actually industrious and brave, but what about the lion, the courageous lion. Are they actually brave or a bunch of pussycats?

Uh?

What do you think, Adam? What is your general attitude towards the lyons.

Lions seem like they don't have a lot to be afraid of, so I could see them being especially brave. But yeah, I don't know. I feel like I'm being set up here. I feel like you're gonna tell me they're a bunch of cowards.

I'm gonna yeah, I'm gonna first I'm gonna insult your intelligence and be like, Adam, you fool, you fool, like that foolish fool. Uh yeah, no, no, this is not a trick question. Lions are interesting. I I do think they are very complex animals and uh, but first, so the for me, the definition of courage is not being like omnipotent where you just can crush everything, right like if you if you are the strongest animal and you have nothing to fear, you're not really being courageous, right,

Fun, right, miss out on fun?

Yeah? Man, Like if if you it's skydiving tiger, have you ever seen it? I've never seen it? So you know, maybe they should kick back a little more.

Learn to drive a car, Learn to drive?

Uh man? Remember in Utopia when the sloth was driving a car too fast? Oh yeah, yeah yeah, and they're like, wow, who could be speeding? And it's the sloth didn't see that come one coming. I didn't see that twist. Come on, I got I got blasted in the face with that twist because I didn't see it coming. So lions seem to know not to take stupid chances with large, dangerous herbivores.

Yeah, taking down a hippo seems like it would be a lot.

Yeah, I think taking down a hippo, you're probably gonna get crushed. Hippos are not only extremely powerful creatures, they are very aggressive. So I mean, like, between a hippo and a rhino, I feel like I would be less afraid of the rhino. I'd be afraid of both of them, but I think I could like I would be more likely to escape and encounter with a rhino as long as I'm like slow and careful. But a hippo, I think it's not gonna matter. A hippo's gonna mess me up.

Yeah. Yeah, There's very few things I love more than an Internet video of someone just getting wrecked by a seemingly calm animal. I think buffalo, Oh, yes, do not approach.

Do not approach buffalo. They yes, they're an herbivore. That doesn't mean they're not going to mess you up. Have you seen a buffalo? They're yoked, sometimes literally, and they got horns their.

Whole thing is they just want to step on you.

They can crush you. I mean even deer, even deer can mess you up, like, you know, especially male deer. They've got like they can gore you with their antlers and look as an herbiv war. You've got to like constantly be on alert for predators and if they feel like they need to chase you off, they will be aggressive and they can hurt you. And they will do

Yeah, yeah, what are they gonna do? Go to the doctor?

Yeah, there's not Like, yeah, the lion doctor.

Not a thing you I've never seen the Lion.

King really even the animated one.

Not the animated one, not the live action one, not the.

Play interesting, there's no doctor in it.

So yeah that makes sense.

I mean maybe the monkey is a doctor.

Maybe now I guess years of past month, maybe be doing something else.

Yeah, yeah, such a lot of has retired franchise. Yeah, so yeah, it is, uh, it is, man, I still can't believe I haven't seen The Lion King. I think that was the first movie I saw in theaters as a kid.

Oh wow, Iron King, And I think mine was Star Wars.

I Burial, Well, yeah no, but Star Wars that's a that's essentially the same plot. I think Lion King and Star Wars. Hero doesn't want to be a hero, then you know, family gets killed, then they gotta.

Go train And isn't James Earl Jones and The Lion King Also.

James Earl Jones is in The Lion King also, and they all both movies. I think there's some bug eating probably anyways, Probably the point is there's only one movie that's ever been made, so yes, So lions will sometimes team up on something like an elephant or a hippo, although I think they're very avoidant of hippos, but they will if they are part of a team. And so female lions will often hunt together and to take down larger prey, but female lions can hunt solo as well.

Sure, sure, yeah, I didn't know that about male lions. I didn't know that they hunt less than female lions. It sounds smart though, because yeah, just steal the food when.

Yeah, it's that's that. Yeah, and it depends, right, Like, in some cases, the male allions may be hunting just as much as the females, but if they can steal food for like, male lions are larger than females, so they can sometimes steal food from females, so they will, right, So it's it's just which is not like you know, it's all all these lions are making calculations to try to enhance their survival. So I wouldn't say the male allions are just scumbags.

And so when these male lions go out hunting together, would you say that they in that moment have formed an alliance? Yes, gave myself some A plus.

Yeah, no, that was you got you got me?

I walked into that alliance you know.

Yeah, no alliance yeah lions. Well that's true. Where it's the lions do. No, it's I don't think they do. I don't think they do. You got you roasted these lions so bad, so you know, this is the only competition in which we can beat lions just roasting them. So yes, So far lions aren't exactly courageous, right, they

Peperds or is it leopards or cheatahs that like kitty cats.

Cheatah is mew. In fact, they chirp. It's very cute. It's very very very adorable. Cheetahs. They make little chrippy like sounds. It's adorable. So yeah, and like, you know, they just I don't think that they are cowards, right, I think lions face a lot of danger. In fact, especially male allions, like they have a very like they have a life where they are drifters. Often they have to go and they try to find a pride. Sometimes

Yeah, that's I never thought about thing. We're just getting in a fight. Like you, you automatically think a lion's gonna win, and it probably is. But then yeah, it's gonna go back and die from sepsis, right, exactly wound it got. So that's smarter them to avoid a fight. One of the easiest ways to die in a human fight is to punch a person and put your hand on their tooth. Oh yeah, that'll turn into an affection back in.

The old days, man, No, I know. But it also likes there can be human fights that like someone punches someone, they hit their head and they're like, you know, oh, fight's over, but then they then they just die because like brain injuries are so serious and it's I think that like, you know, there's this movies have really changed our understanding of fights and injuries and like recuperation time, as well as video games right where it's just like

Oh definitely not.

Well. Before we go, we gotta play a game called the Mystery Animal Sound Game. Every week I play Mystery Animal sound in you the listener, and you the guests, try to guess who is making that sound. I do gotta I gotta mea kopa. Last the week before last week, there was a winner for the Mystery Animal saund game. Who I forgot to name it is Grant w round of applause. Who who the bearded bell bird as the sound that we played? You are correct? I forgot whoopsie

Is that a rabbit that's so close?

But no, it's a cicada?

Oh okay, So see I was I was actually going to guess that, but I thought we were just going animals.

Cicketa's is animals, okay? And science?

So set science? That is set science or science.

Wow, I'm a I'm a professor doctor of science, and I say cicadas is animals. Rocks are some kind of vegetable. Cicadas are an animal. So if you want to learn more about cicadas, you can listen to the past two podcast episodes I released. One is a rerun, but it's great. It was about the last time we had a huge brewd emergence of cicadas in the week before. We talk about the current one happening now. Trillions of cicadas emerging from the ground. You can also check out my TikTok.

Oh then I'm glad I wasn't right.

Yeah, but if you think you know who's making that sound, you can write to me a creature feature poduct femail dot com. Thank you so much trusting Adam work. Wait, you didn't listen, you participated actively. You were a guest. Thank you for being my guest, Adam, Where can people find you.

Hey, thank you for having me. Uh. You can find me on Instagram at Adam Todd Brown. That's Todd with one d. T o D means death in German, so my middle name is death. Cool.

You know what also what means thank you in German? What donkey donkey donkey?

Uh? Yeah, you can find me on Instagram and my podcasts are everywhere. I host a bunch conspiracy show. Pretty scary. Uh, you don't even like this show. You don't even like sports everywhere.

That's the name of the podcast you're on. He's not insulting my show or networks. Yeah, check those out. Thank you so much for gusting, and thank you for listening. If you're enjoying the show and you leave a rating interview, it actually tangibly helps me, So thank you for that. And thanks for those Space classics for there are some song x Solomon a creature features a production of iHeartRadio.