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 the show Dogs Dogs Are Good from rare dog hybrids to dogs saving the world. Discover this more as we answer the age old question, wo Yo go radio active boy?
Who Yo go?
Radio active Boy? Joining me today is friend of the show, dog appreciator and host of the podcast, Joses Racist Andrew T. Welcome.
Hello, How's it going pretty good? Who Let the Dogs Out? It was me?
I just we just walked. Wow, I took my dog out and now she's back.
Yeah. Man, I remember that song that was such a that was such a song.
Such as the perfect song.
It was the perfect song we hit. We reached peak musicality with that song, and we've never flown so close to the sun before or since.
I found out recently that the band behind Who Let the Dogs Out? Let's see, that song came out in two thousand. They had been a band for like over a decade, I believe before that song came out.
Wow, you know, sometimes it takes takes a while. Give up, Never give up.
God, twenty years they've been a band for over twenty years.
Sometimes it takes twenty years to get reached that perfect peak song about letting dogs out? Never forget and asking why did we ever find out? Who did it?
Though?
Because like, uh, that was the main question and I don't know if that's ever been answered. Did they do a follow up song of Well, turns out it was Steve.
Me see, I'm gonna guess who let the dog? They had to have, right.
Yeah, oh no, they never answered the question.
Wow.
Yeah, well, at least the albums are not dog like. Subsequent to Who Let the Dogs Out, The rest of the albums and song titles do not appear to be more dog stuff.
Yeah, it's just they just which is.
Which makes sense because they're they're artists.
This is just one in one in Who Let the Dogs Out was their Bahaman Brother one, two, three, four, five, six, seven eighth album.
It's dog Lightning in a Bottle.
I guess yeah, fucking just just keep at it.
Yeah, if you don't don't succeed, just try seven more albums.
Yes, exactly, Well.
Then you will succeed.
Yeah. No, it's a promise. You can sue Andrew if you don't succeed after that amount of time. So speaking of lightning in a bottle, we are talking about something that is a very rare event and it is super weird. It is the first ever fox dog hybrid, which seems to have been discovered in Brazil. So they are calling her dog sim I'm probably not pronouncing that correctly. She's apparently a cross breed of domesticated dog and wild Pampis fox.
Called again, I apologize. I'm gonna say this bad and wrong grass same do campo in Portuguese.
So uh.
She was found in Vicaria in Rio Grande do sulstat after being hit by a car.
She was alive.
She was taken to the vet where they thought, okay, she looks kind of weird for a dog, and she's definitely not a fox, but she's not acting like a dog in terms of her behavior. She doesn't looked like a dog. So researchers from the Federal University of Politus and the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul conducted genetic tests and they found this link to the Pampas fox, which is nuts.
That's so wild, is it? Okay?
Is this a thing where it's like definitely clear that this is a hybrid or is it that sort of thing where like because I have you know, and I'm sure these companies make all kinds of ludicrous claims, but like you know people that get twenty three in me and they're like, well you have this much Neanderthal DNA or whatever, like you know, like that sort.
Of yeah, like that like far back of yeah. No, no, So I mean, first of all, the Pampas fox would not at all be like a dog ancestor or vice versa, which is why this is so strange. But yeah, in terms of it being a hybrid, the investigation into its DNA does seem to indicate that it's a recent hybrid. So this dog sim, which is I guess they just
named this gal dog sim. She has seventy six chromosomes instead of seventy eight like typical dogs, and her mitochondrial DNA seems to be Pampis fox, which would mean her mother was a Pampis fox and found in her. They found in her nuclear DNA a mixture of dog and Pampas fox genes, which means that her father was likely a domesticated dog. So you know, she was treated for her wounds. They did these blood tests on her, and she was taken to a wildlife preserve. So it's it is,
this is a very rare thing. It's not like there's a bunch of dog pampis fox hybrids walking around now. This occurred in twenty twenty one, and sadly, in March
of twenty twenty three, she died of unknown causes. There's actually an investigation into her death, but I think that the most likely thing is that when you have a really rare hybrid, that genetic mix can cause a lot of genetic diseases problems, So there was probably some underlying health issue that she had that she probably naturally died of. But if this analysis is correct and this is truly a dog pampas fox hybrid, it is really really remarkable.
This is like a much bigger deal than like a dog wolf hybrid or a zebra horse hybrid, which are both, you know, real hybrids that happen. A domesticated dog in a pampas fox are in the same family, but ancestors of the dog and the pampas fox diverged at least six million years ago into two separate groups. So dogs like our domesticated dogs like your dog Peanut and my dog Cookie are in the genus Canus, and pampas foxes
are in this genus that's called like Kaloplex. So the pampas fox, despite being called a fox, is not actually what we think of when we think of like the typical red fox. So the red fox is in the Vulpes genus, but this pampas fox is not a quote unquote true fox. It's in a genus with other South American quote unquote foxes called like Kaloplex. So the genus Canus that includes you know, our our dog also contains coyotes, jackals, wolves, and so hybridization between say wolves and dogs or coyotes
and wolves like koi wolves. You know, these are things that, while somewhat rare, you know, it kind of makes sense that it happens because they're in the same family. But having this dog and this pampas fox being able to hybridize after being separated by many millions of years in evolution in two distinct genre genuses. Whereas like common hybrids like zebras and horses, coyotes, wolves, tigers, lions, grizzly bears, polar bears are all within the same genus. It's really weird.
It's a super weird thing that they've found here.
Oh yeah, yeah.
Does that call into question the like the taxonomy that they had done, or just like it's just weird.
I mean, that's that's not a bad question. Like I think that it could lead to some investigation in terms of the relatedness of this like kloplex genus and canus, but you know, it could also just be a really rare weird occurrence. It could be also one of the theories is that dogs and these pampas foxes are forced
into the same areas. More so, pampas foxes habitat being encroached upon by human activity, meaning that they have to get closer to dogs, and so there's more opportunities for dog and pampas foxes to mate and so like, even if you have like a point zero zero zero one percent chance of this happening, if you have enough encounters, I guess it could happen. But it is certainly very very strange.
H But it's right.
I guess it's also like there's like biology isn't hard lines, even though that's how we have to talk about it. Yeah, but yeah, yeah, right, right, right, it's like, yeah, going to happen much.
Yeah, very rarely. Is there really hardline in biology? There is typically some exceptions In fact like this, this intergeneric breeding is not completely unheard of. So sheep and goats can actually produce jeeps or shots, so again very very rare.
But these are two species that are in different genre and so even more rare though, which does very very infrequently happen, are hybrids from different families of animals, So like, you know, at least the dogs and pampas foxes are in the same family, goats and sheep are in the same family. Sometimes like animals that are in completely different families just are able to hybridize, which is super weird. This has been seen to happen in chickens and guinea fowl,
which is again super weird. Like typically they die before being born, and even if they manage to hatch, they will die young due to genetic problems. But it's just it's just a it's something that I guess makes the world feel kind of weird and small, because you know, you have it's like, wait, completely different animals are not supposed to be able to breed, but you know, if they're lucky once in a while they can.
Yeah, well who else.
Yeah, I mean, it'd be like a human in a chimpanzee being able to breed. It's like, you know, the idea of it. It feels unholy, it feels like something that should we should be smoked by some kind of evolutionary god. But yeah, I mean it happens in animals. I'm not saying we should try to make it happen. I think that's a bad idea.
But yeah, but that's the one hybrid I do remember from I assume biology class at somewhere is that it is possible to make a human Z, which is probably pleasant. Yeah, I mean, I think it's very unpleasant to think about.
It's theoretically possible, but I don't There has never been a case, a real case of it. There was once where it was like some chimpanzee that probably had some kind of genetic abnormality and people are like, oh, maybe that's a human Z. But no, it was not.
Oh okay, yeah, maybe I misremember.
I think there was like some very strange Russian scientist during the Soviet era who is trying to create humans's I do not think successfully, not successful, But yeah, look at like, look at I have sent you some pictures of this little this pampas fox dog hybrid.
Yeah, yeah, I love her.
Look at that, Like she's so cute.
She's got kind of a black and brown modeled coat, and she's just got like a sort of pointier snoot, I guess, a little bit more of a triangular face, pointy ears. She does look like she could definitely just be a strange sort of dog. But yeah, off, she's at lenkier, a little bit off for a dog.
I guess that's true. Dogs are have such variation. Though you know it's true.
I would not guess that this is a hybrid by by any stretch.
I was like, I don't know just all kinds of dogs, so.
There could be I mean, there could be more of them, right, Like you see a stray dog in a country where there's a ton of stray dogs and it's a little weird, a little pointy, and you're like, it's just like a sort of angular, right straight dog, right like.
Right, like, how would you how could you for sure?
No?
Without testing?
I suppose, right, And you don't go around testing every dog, every straight dog you find. I mean, it's a miracle they even not anymore, not since.
The restraining car, since the incident.
But yeah, I mean like if they hadn't, like I mean, if this dog hadn't been hit by car, and if they didn't go like well too bad, so sad and didn't take it into the vet, like, we wouldn't have known. So it's just just the chance of this happening, is what bewilders me. Is Like, it is such a tiny chance that this hybrid would happen and that we'd find it and that we'd test for it and it'd survived this getting hit by a car. It's just so many
things had to align for this to happen. Or maybe these hybrids are happening all the time, but we're just not recording them.
Yeah, well that's that, I guess, is the thing, right, because it is like how often would you even bother testing?
Like right, yeah, yeah, just like it's really interesting.
Following a dog around with like a mouth swab or a syringe. You know, we don't. Yeah, I mean it's like again, yeah.
They don't let me do that anymore.
No, not anymore, not anymore.
Whatever.
Well, we're going to take a quick break and when we get back we're going to talk about some more good doggies who do a good job. Good dog, Yeah, good job. Can Peanut hear me? Pina, you're a good yoggy.
I have had phones, but I don't just particularly just doesn't give a shame about anything. So she's she's going to stay asleep.
I think, Yeah, Cookies, Uh, gives very much a crap about it everything at all times, which you know, is great.
I love it.
I'm not tired at all. All right, we will be right back. Okay, we are back, and we are talking about dogs who are amazing and good and so wonderful and I love them, love them so much. So I have talked about how dogs have incredible noses. Their sense of smell is something that is hard for the human mind to conceive. They have such sensitivity and complexity of
their senses, their smelling senses. I really think that for a dog, smelling thing is as rich and deep in experience as like seeing things or hearing things is for human like reading a book for a human. For a dog is like smelling another dog's But it's just like I am reading your Facebook profile, except it is your anal glands.
Yeah, yeah, and it is certainly most most people are not like that, but not all people are not not like that.
Yes, I feel like this restraining order is making more and more sense. But so Peanut, your dog does she like to smell things?
She does?
She just this week, just before we started recording, she like went outside and just not even smell.
This is also just so gross.
But she was like really going to town on a corner of a sidewalk, which I assume was where someone had peed, and then just took like a little teeny tiny lick and I was like, oh my god, that's so gross.
Sometimes you gotta taste the stain. Sometimes there's a mystery stain and you gotta taste it. Yeah, always taste it. So dogs have this wonderful, extraordinary sense, and they are also amazing animals that have co evolved with us and for whatever reason, want to please us. So with these powers combined, we can teach dogs how to be super dogs who can use their sense of smell to do amazing things. Not for searching for drugs, because that's BS and I do not like the use of dogs as
like police sniffer dogs. That is all totally bunk or not. It's not totally bunk. They can smell drugs and stuff, but they're also so sensitive to their handlers that they give so many like fall signals because they're like, oh, you want me to say there's drugs here, Okay, there's drugs here. So yeah, So not so much a fan of that. But what I am a fan of is using dog smells to save the environment. So there are dogs that have been trained how to help see turtles.
So sea turtle populations are vulnerable, and so conservationists often inspect the beaches where sea turtles lay their eggs to protect them from poachers, both animal poachers and humans. So they want to protect them from scavengers. I know, it's like one of those things where we're tipping the scales
sometimes because scavengers want to eat food and what. But you know, it's kind of we've already sort of messed the balance up enough that we try to maintain these sea turtle populations so you know, lesser of two evils perhaps, but you know, it's also to protect them from human poachers. So in southeastern US, there are a ton of sea turtles that come to the beaches, including loggerheads, camps, Ridley's
Green sea turtles and leather backs. They gather on beaches at night at a certain time of year to lay their eggs in nests. And what a nest is is basically they dig a hole, they plunk out these little golf ball like eggs, cover the hole and leave. Parenting easy.
Yeah, that's the ideal.
You just kind of like put of in a hole and that's that, and that you've done your job.
You cover them in sand and then you leave, because that is you know, it builds character for the for the children. So conservationists then have a hard time finding these sea turtle nests because it's buried in the sand. It's like buried treasure. Also, seed turtles will sometimes go like they might make tracks, but sometimes they'll go try to lay eggs and nothing comes out, and then they just go back to the seas. So that you can dig where you see tracks and there's nothing there. So
it's also kind of a time sensitive thing. You want to like find where these nests are and observe them and make sure to protect these areas before you know, time runs out. And so they have have trained some dogs to smell chloakele mucus, which is doesn't that sound lovely.
Yeah, I mean, look, it's not worse than any other thing my dog likes.
Yeah. Man, Like again, I love that dogs love stinky, heinous, disgusting things. And we're like, you know what, that's that's an employable skill right there. So next time your dog smells like some pile of goo on the ground and you don't want to know what it is, just remember there are dogs out there that use that skill to find cloacal mucus and save the turtles.
So I I'm loving it.
So there are some professional sea turtle egg sniffers. There is Dory, a Florida mutt who is uh who is rescued from the side of the road in Florida, and Captain Ron, who is a beagle who's apparently also a captain. They were both trained by dog behavioral expert Pepe Peruyero to detect these eggs, and they have been tested and they can be more accurate and more efficient in certain circumstances at detecting sea turtle nests than humans. So essentially the dogs are after our jobs.
Oh yeah, yeah, that's okay. Now I'm anti dog, I guess right. A lot of trigulation here yeah.
I mean, you know, we were worried about to what is it automation and the robots staying here jobs? But it was dogs, dogs the whole time. They're going to take our jobs. Uh, and then you're just gonna, you know, gotta try to go to McDonald's and there's a dog with its you know, giving you urger.
And now I'm not now a pro dog taking our job. There's a lot to figure. I feel like, yeah, it's a complex issue, right, I.
Mean, if you don't mind, like if they get a little bit of like slobbery in your fries, you.
Know, yep, right, the evidence suggests I don't mind, given how I live my life so.
Like, and they're you know, if you think they're only coming after uh service jobs, they're probably gonna start a podcast too. So I'm going to be out of a job because who would who wouldn't rather listen to a dog than to me? Like, honestly, oh man, do they make dog podcasts?
I guess they make something.
They must, right, there must just be a podcast that's like just a dog sort of breathing.
I guess.
I guess there's those like I mean, I think spam YouTube channels that are just like four hours of a squirrel.
Right, Yeah? Is there like dog asmr that's just the sound of hot dog breath, stinky stinky dog.
Breath has to be just because it's like.
Not right, it's there's ASMR of everything, and there's podcasts of everything. Maybe maybe Cookie and Peanut should start their own podcast where it's just kind of mouth sounds, you know, licking sounds.
Or just dumb, dumb weird humans, you know, right, other weird like, oh, wouldn't even let me lick any.
P right, happening, Yeah, exactly complaining about owners, you know, so it's happening. The dogs will take all of our jobs. But you know, apparently dogs and conservationists can work together, uh, such as the case with sniffing out invasive species. So in Alberta, Canada, trained dogs such as a Helo the black labrador checks the holes of boats for invasive muscles and sniffs out invasive bore turds, which is just like that must be candy to dogs, like bore turds are
you kiddmny. And they also can detect the aroma of invasive plants. So it is a really important job because, for instance, an invasive muscle the bivalves that can cling to things. It can be the larva. The muscle can be the size of a grain of rice. So visually it might be really hard to see, but having the dog's keen nose can help spot these really tiny muscles, and that can prevent invasive muscles from causing mayhem in the local waterways, which is really dangerous for the local ecosystems.
It also costs a lot of money. So humans will be looking at the same boat and visually looking for anything while the dog is sniffing out anything. So they're working together. You know, humans have really good vision and dogs have really good sense of smell, and we're combining those to be the ultimate kind of unit.
Yeah.
Well yeah, and it is like, how good are your eyes really compared to I mean, yeah, like finding especially finding a little muscle. It seems like noses by far the best way to go. I might even have to use my nose given the senses I have available.
Yeah, I mean to be fair human beings, like in general, our eyesight and our color kind of spectrum, while not the best in the animal kingdom, it's pretty good. Like we have a wider range of colors that we can see than dogs, and so we our visual system in terms of detail is probably better than a dog. But you know, dog's sense of smell is like ridiculously better than a human sense of smell. So it is. I
just think it's kind of cute that we have. Like us and wolves were like, hey, we have different skills here that we're going to share. Okay, fine, you can breed us to look really cute, but essentially, like you know, we bring the nose. We're the nose of the operation, and you're the eyes and hands of the operation because those opposable thumbs get really good butt scratches.
And then just thumbs is key.
Thumbs is Thumbs is the one thing, right, Like when my dog is feeling a little smug, I'm just like, thumbs, dude, how are you going to open up your bag of dog food without these babies?
It's true, It's true.
Piana actually is Like also, like I was watching my friend's dog and I kind of forgot because they were about the same size, but this other dog was much much more of a go getter, and I didn't realize I had to like quite hide the treat bag the way I ultimately needed to because I was like, oh, like a dog with wherewithal will just open the shut right right with their mouth.
Yeah, whenever, my when my dog has never quite figured out how to open the treats bag, so she can seize the means of production, but then she doesn't know what to do with it once she sees it. So like she has it and you can tell she feels the power and the autonomy of being able to treat herself, but then that final step of opening it up, she is befunny.
Yeah, this one in particular was more of a brute force sort of situation.
Yeah, tearing it open, Yeah, yeah, Cookie, I should mention is a small dog.
She is.
She is little, and though she is fierce, she does not have much in terms of raw power, so she has to uh invent other ways to terrorize me, including stealing my socks. Holding things hostage is kind of her technique, like my socks, right, docum. She knows she can hear the printer and she will run over and grab documents right out of the printer because she knows TH's are important and I want them.
Oh my god, that's so cute.
Yeah, he's my malicious secretary.
And you have a printer I would see what are those in years?
Yeah? I mean, you know, it's a relic of the past.
Uh.
And I've I have a blood packed for all of the printer ink, so I gotta make use.
Oh yeah, I'm start making your own.
Five thousand dollars a month for that printer ink. Okay, well, we are going to take a quick break and when we get back, we are going to talk about some rat dogs as in they are radioactive. We will be right back. So, Andrew, do you know about the Chernobyl little uh oopsy bopsy that happened over there?
Yeah, a little bit, although I feel like I'm not as up to speed as most people because I didn't watch the show about it, which seems to be the easiest pop cultural way to digest all the information.
I didn't watch the show either because I've I have read a lot about the Chernobyl disaster, and I didn't want to watch it because it's depressing. And also there's details that I think the show might get into in terms of just like when you're exposed to huge amount of radiation, even if you don't die immediately, like almost it's better if you die immediately because the days and weeks of dying of radiation poisoning, where like your skin falls off and your hair and teeth just like fall out,
and just your body is essentially disintegrating. It's like truly horrific. I you know, do not recommend reading about it if you're if you like to sleep well, No, I also don't recommend getting it, you know, all right, you know if you if you haven't, yeah, I know, I know, I know, like you know, the Nanny state coming in telling me what I can and can't do with my DNA strands.
Yeah, or whatever's left.
Yeah. So yeah, like the Chernoble Exclusion Zone, it was you know, for a good amount of time abandoned by humans because of the deadly, deadly radiation after the reactor meltdown. That it did kill people, and it was horrible, horrifying, also really sad, like when people had to up and abandon their homes, they often had to leave their dogs behind, and a lot of the dogs were killed by authorities because there was fears that they would spread disease or
nuclear contamination because you know, the dogs were irradiated. But enough of the dogs survived that they created a population of hundreds of feral but friendly dogs who are just
still hanging out in the Chernobyl exclusion zone. And so like the difference between like a wild animal and a feral animal, as feral animals are domesticated animals that have you know, just do not have any owners and are out and about making it on their own, whereas a wild animal has not been domesticated, like a wolf is going to act very differently from a feral dog because the faral dog is generally going to be a lot friendlier, not always, So don't go and like always, you know,
just immediately put your face up to the mouth of a feral dog. That might not be a good idea, but often feral dogs are pretty friendly. And these ones definitely, like are relatively friendly. They will accept handouts from humans, Like there are people now in the Chernobyle exclusion zone, which is wild to me, but they do have to like actually take care of the reactor because there's still like active reactors there and if you don't maintain it, it's a problem.
Yeah yeah, yeah, oh that's so.
Wait, Okay, so the difference wild and feral refers to individual organisms or.
No whole species.
Okay, I see, I see right, right, right, So it is dogs.
These species have been domesticated, Yes, but these I got Okay, so it's not it's not like a formerly.
Owned right.
No, you can't undomesticate a dog unless I guess it is it's like bread with wolf populations or something for years, or if there's like some kind of like I guess in theory, you could have a wild popular or a feral population of dogs that genetically stray far enough from domesticated dogs that it forms like a new species. But generally speaking, yeah, if it's a like if you have a chicken and it escapes and it lives in the forest and it becomes the king chicken of the forest, like,
it's still a domesticated chicken. It's just answered the call of the wild, and it's a feral chicken.
And that chicken's offspring even if assuming it's with another chicken, even if they've never been in a coop, Ye, you're still domesticated.
Still domesticated. Because domestication is a genetic process, taming is a behavioral process. So a tame wolf is a wolf who has been you know, raised since a puppy. You tamed it, you trained it, and then it ate your face one time, but like you know, overall, it's a still pretty a good wolf other than that pinky it got. Oh that's a tame animal. Domesticated animal is like you know a chicken or a floppy or Danny or you know a cow like something.
That has been mostly bread but yes, or whatever to need to coexist with humans.
Yes, that we have. We have tinkered around with its DNA. So it doesn't want to kill us, you're right, or it's not afraid of us, yeah, exactly. So these dogs are they are domesticated dogs. They are just a feral population of domesticated dogs. But it's an interesting situation because there is some interaction between these dogs and human beings in the area. Like I said, like people still have to be in the exclusion zone because they have to
maintain the power plant, which was wild to me. It was like, how I mean, obviously the radiation levels have diminished substantially since the reactor meltdown that happened. What was that the eighties?
Yeah, like the seventh we watched the show.
It's always mystery Chernobyle eighties disaster. Uh yeah, in nineteen eighty six. Uh wow, For once in my life. I
remembered a history fact, so uh the uh. There's like actually a nonprofit organization called the Clean Futures Fund, which has set out to offer medical care and support to the employees who work in the power plant, like maintaining it, you know, because you have to have a whole whole crew of employees there, people who are actually maintaining the plant, janitors, people who serve food to everyone, and they actually have to work in shifts so that they don't get overly
exposed to the still present radiation. So like they'll do like a couple of weeks on, a couple weeks off so that they don't you know, get overly exposed, but obviously still like there is a concern of their health. So there's this organization, nonprofit and then they were like, hey, it's interesting, there's all these dogs around, and they noticed that, like some of these dogs seem to need medical care.
So they also started offering the dogs vaccines, spaying and neutering the dogs, taking blood samples, generally just kind of
trying to take care of these dogs. Again, they're still feral dogs, Like they're not you know, as far as I know, they're not being adopted partially because they're like irradiated, but they are being somewhat looked after now and this has presented researchers with a very tantalizing opportunity, which is looking at these dogs genetic makeups and seeing how the exposure to radiation over many generations of these dogs has impacted them. So it turns out they're actually too distinct
populations of these Chernobyle dogs. There are dogs who live like right near the power plant. They're like within this sort of fenced area that is the power plant. And then there are a separate population of dogs who live in Chernobyl City, which is kind of like outside of the power plant, still kind of in the exclusion zone.
But interestingly, these dogs don't seem to breed with each other that much, the power plant dogs and the Chernobyl City dogs, not because of some like what is it like Romeo and Juliet blood feud, but because there's like fencing that seems to limit their ability to interact. So I'm just thinking of like an like lady in the tramp, But it's like they are irradiated and you know, slightly glowing. Uh,
they don't glow, which is too bad. But so uh, but that's also really interesting because now you have two populations of dogs, some closer to the radiation and some further away that they can study both of these distinct populations. And also they have found that a lot of these dogs have German Shepherd DNA, which is likely because the most popular dog in the area at the time of the meltdown was a German shepherd, so when they left,
they're all these German shepherds. They were probably also most likely to be the dogs that would survive on their own, So you have a high amount of German Shepherd DNA
and other European shepherd DNA and these dogs. They plan to compare the DNA sequences of both of these dog populations, the chernobyle dogs with each other and with the DNA of like say, German shepherds, other shepherds that are that are not irradiated, that are you know, just sort of your standard dogs, to see how this radiation has changed the dog's genomes and like, what is the impact of this low level constant radiation over many generations of dogs,
Has it like forced them to evolve in some way? I don't, They don't have answers yet, but I think this is really interesting and exciting.
Yeah huh, I mean right, And it's just because this like cannot really occur, Like even if like there's an animal population near like a uranium or vein or something, it's not like.
Yeah, it's not like this constant you you can't get this. Yeah yeah, yeah, I mean they have they have like done research on wild animal populations in this area as well, like looking in how it has affected their their phenotypic presentation, how it's affected their DNA, like sometimes it has affected say bird coloration because this ends up also impacting how the birds are able to like fight free radicals in their bodies. So there's really interesting stuff that goes on here.
So I'm really excited to learn more about what is going on with these dogs. This is something I will definitely keep my eye on, keep people posted. But it's also just really cool that there are these like chernobyle dogs out hanging out, uh doing Okay, I guess, Like obviously, I think it gets tough for them in the winter, and so this nonprofit group is also trying to make sure that they don't overbreed or starve or anything. But it's it's you know, it's just like the tenacity of
these dogs. Yeah, like literally survive a nuclear meltdown and then survive in the wild, and they're all slightly irradiated, but they're still cute and still fluffy.
Yeah.
Well, the compound of the confound is also surely like what the part happens on their own humans everywhere.
Well, no, that is you are absolutely right. That is a great point because a lot of the animal populations in this area of different species are doing surprisingly well. And the ideas like, well, wait, is low level radiation good for them? Or is it that there aren't humans around messing with the environment which actually allows them to thrive?
Both things are you know, plausible explanations Like obviously radiation, don't go huffing radiation, But there's some idea of like a really low level radiation could do something in terms of like your body produces more free radical uh, more more ways to antioxidants to fight free radicals, and therefore that might have a protective effect for other disease or something.
So it's interesting stuff. Yeah, yeah, it's it's an interesting thing. Again, I me and my lawyers cannot emphasize enough don't get yourself radiated yeah, I guess I.
Lean more towards the humanity is more toxic than radiation.
I think that for the Earth, I think it's I think it's almost certain that a lot of the animals doing well in this area are because it's been mostly abandoned by people. I think that this other effect of radiation, maybe having like a slightly protective effect, may be true of animals living on the fringe, like where they're kind of further away from the radiation. And it's it's an interesting idea. It could be a it could be a combo. I'm hoping that these dogs do well and that the
radiation gave them cool powers. I know that's not how it works, but sometimes, you know, I can dream that, like we'll get some psychic dogs out of the deal.
Are just very bright dogs.
Right right, just like highly intelligent radiated dogs who know nuclear secrets. What could go wrong?
I guess that's true. They can't do anything about it.
Yes, no thumbs, that's right, baby, you want to you want to turn the key to start a nuclear war? Where's your thumbs? I don't see them. Yeah, yeah, I would actually feel safer if dogs were in charge of nuclear weapons. I don't think they'd ever use them because they're good. It's dogs are good boys and girls. I don't know.
Peter feels like she would sell out the earth for just a few few treats.
Okay, and in them only dogs excluding Chihuahba was in Pomeranians. Yeah, my dog is probably a combination of chihuau and Pomeranian. So she is not allowed to be in charge of the nuclear codes because she would just like if she's not getting enough belly scratches, she would threaten war.
Yeah, it feels very likely.
Yeah, as it stands now, she just kicks me until I pet her. But yeah, if she had mutually assured destruction, if like the belly rubs do not continue, it'd be a bad situation.
Yeah, in a heartbeat.
All right, before we go, we gotta play a little game called the Mystery Animal Sound Game. Every week I play a mystery animal sound in You the listener, and you the guests, try to guess who is making that sound. It can be any animal in the world. Uh. Last week ten it was this when he's crabby, he's happy? All right, did you hear that little yelp?
Yeah? I think I'm gonna go with an otter.
Interesting guess I mean, okay, this is very interesting because like you're close in terms of its diet, but not the animal. So this is the crab eating fox. So h congratcha relations to Roberts who gets correctly. Remember how we talked about the pampas fox earlier, So this is in the same genus as the pampas fox. This is not a true fox, but a South American canad in the genus. I can never say this good, like like alo plex. So crab eating foxes look similar to a fox.
They're gray, they have a fox like snout, little fluffy tail. They only get up to around fifteen pounds, which is about seven kilograms. But it's more closely related to a rare canad called the short eared dog, which lives in the Amazon, than it is to any kind of red fox. So the crab eating fox, as its name suggests, eats crabs. They hunt in monogamous pears, and when they get separated, they will call out for each other like these little
these little yelps. They make other sounds too. I had a dick and of a time trying to find any any audio online of this the crab eating fox making sound. They are typically quite quiet. So I just found this on a random Facebook page of a random like uh organization that studies animals, and it was all in Spanish, so it was a little tricky for me to figure it out, but I found it. So there you go. That's what sounds like.
That's a bad plus love love love to eat a crab, so.
Right, I know, right? Like, man, these fox delicious.
I did watch. I watched a YouTube video recently have a sting ray eating a king crab and.
It was wild nice man some some uh just I don't know why, but when animals eat seafood it makes me hungry, like seeing a lion deep and like an antelope carcass does nothing for me. But if I when a bear like is just chowing down on a sand, I'm like, that's essentially sushi.
Yeah, delicious, delicious.
Uh.
The crab eating fox does indeed eat crabs, and it will eat also rodents, small reptiles, insects, eggs, fruit, and more. It'll pretty much eat anything, but it does specialize in eating crabs, which, man, I feel like I would invite this fox to a crab crab crab boil. Yeah, they're very cute. All right, onto this week's mister animal sound the hint. This baby has one of the longest snoots, but definitely don't boo. All right, you hear that weird little sound? Mm hmmm uh, got any guesses?
Long snoop? Okay, craymm I guess that like a like an anti eater. So deal.
That is an excellent guest. I'm not gonna tell you if you're right or not. We will find out next time on Creature Feature. If you think you know what is making that sound right to me at Creature featurepot at gmail dot com. You can also write to me your questions, your photos of your pet dog or cat or gerbil. No pictures of pet bunnies, I'm joking, send those two, send all of them. Andrew T thank you so much for joining me today. Can tell people where to find you?
Sure, yeah, just on my podcast is called Jos's Racist. It's not very much like this, but you're supposedly just take an advice show. People call it. You know. It's silly as it can be.
Like man, if you like animals, you should like people too.
So yeah, that's fine.
That Yeah, there you go, and fun.
And Peanut the dog is a frequent guest.
There you go, Peanut's got some problematic opinions.
But you know, oh my god, yeah, I'll straighten her out one day.
Thank you guys so much for listening. If you're enjoying the show, you can leave a rating or review. I read every single one of the reviews. I print them all out. I turn them into a giant paper mache statue that I call my ego. And thanks to the Space Cossics for their super awesome song Exo. Lumina Creature features a production of iHeartRadio for more podcasts like the one you just heard was the iHeartRadio app Apple podcast?
Or get are Yeah, I'm gonna actually redo that so that you can understand what I'm saying.
Sure, or hey, guess what?
Wherever you listen to your favorite shows, See you next Wednesday.