Smologies #22: REPTILES & AMPHIBIANS with David Steen

Hey, ologites, Hi, Ali Ward in your space. Hi, it's me so herbs. Let's talk about it. Herpetology, what is it? Okay? It's the study of amphibians like newts and salamanders and all all froggies and toads and reptiles like tortoises and turtles and crocodiles. Also snakes. What huh. Don't worry about them. Don't worry about it. Okay, listen. If you're afraid of the S word, we will address that. We will soothe

It depends on who I'm talking to. In general, I like to think of myself as a wildlife ecologist and conservation biologist. So I study how wildlife interact with other species and their surroundings. But most of the work that I do relates to amphibians and reptiles, and that's where the herpetology comes in.

So are you a herpetologist?

Yeah, we can go with that. Okay, Yeah, I study amphibians and reptiles, so yeah, I think it would be accurate to call me a herpetologists.

I became aware of you on Twitter because you're like fire when it comes to snake ideas, Like someone will send you the sasquatch equivalent of like it looks like a rope from half of football field away and you're like, oh, that's a copperheaded Like how do you know? How did you get so good at that?

Well? I like to think that it's kind of like how you recognize friends and family. You're not necessarily It's true though, you're not necessarily looking at the length of someone's mustache or the color of their eyebrows. You're you just recognize them, and I think that is how I see the snakes, So you don't necessarily have to Well, I don't necessarily have to look at for those really specific features. It's just an overall feel.

If someone's like, who's this, and you're like, that's Aunt Janet, it's just boom.

That's exactly right.

Well, why are people so freaked out by snakes, reptiles, amphibians. I personally, I'm down with them. I'm totally fine with them, but why are some people freaked out with them? Like? Have you found.

Yeah, we don't have the answer for that, but it's definitely the case, Believe it or not. You're not the first person to tell me that you know somebody that's scared of snake.

You're not shocking, right.

Yeah, it is really common. And there are some folks that point to research that say babies have this innate ability to recognize snakes, and that suggests that we have this we're born with this fear. And I'm not entirely convinced of those arguments. I think that we may have this inatebility to recognize snakes and react to them, but society helps push that initial reaction into fear. Ask anybody that does educational shows with snakes, and you could see

Maybe it's biblical lore. Maybe it's just like, oh, yeah, I've heard of these guys. They're troublemakers. Man. For you know what, I'm going to have to put on underpants. It's just going to be a downward spiral. Do you do you have a favorite animal?

There's something about Eastern diamondback round snakes, which are just really impressive. They're just they're the largest round snake in the world. They're only found in the southeastern United States, and they just have this quiet power and dignity about it.

So it's so dignity. Are there any just snakes or just clowns? Uh?

So I guess I would think of the hog no snake, and it has all these strategies for not getting eaten. Basically, it's going to play dead, it's going to puke up its last meal, and you, if you tried to catch it, I'm.

Not hungry anymore.

These are all great strategies for not getting eaten, but they do kind of make them seem a little silly.

So hognose snake down to clown.

Good to know that's right.

So did you always want to do this or at what point did you decide I'm going to be a scientist who studies wildlife or did it kind of evolve where all of a sudden you were like, oh who I looked up and here I am. I guess I'm doing this.

I've always been interested in creatures, and if you had asked me in second grade what I wanted to be when I grew up, I'd say a naturalist. Didn't really know what that meant, but I liked nature, So naturalis sounded good.

Do you have any favorite movies or television shows or least favorite ones about reptiles and amphibians where you're like they got it wrong or you're like you know what you nailed it. So this was an early interview when I would ask questions and then before they guess would have the chance to answer, I would ask another question. I'm sorry, what about the scene where it rains frogs in Magnolia? Were you like that would never happen?

So what has happened?

Oh, it did happen?

That has happened before? What yep?

So tell me everything.

Many frogs are breeding in these shallow temporary wetlands, and if a big storm comes through, it could suck up that moisture and frogs in the process. What sure, I mean you can imagine a tornado doing it, so maybe it'll be a step down from that.

So it's like a shark nado, but a rainstorm of frogs.

It's exactly like a frog nado.

First off, frog storms are indeed a thing, as are fish storms, spider storms, toad storms, and worm storms. They think maybe a tornado like water spout sucks them up and carries them and then rains them back down. Now, according to the Wikipedia page entry entitled rain of Animals quote, several witnesses of raining frogs describe the animals as startled but healthy and exhibiting relatively normal behavior shortly after the event.

These are kind of the thing things of legend, but there are reliable accounts of them.

So we have a lightning round of listener questions. But before we get to them, we're going to toss a donation to a great organization, the Alongside Wildlife Foundation, which through grassroots fundraising, pursues science based solutions for living alongside wildlife in perpetuity via their research and outreach and land acquisition. So it was also founded by a guy named doctor David Stein, who is our guest. So a donation will

So snakes are really hard to find. They're always hiding. But I don't really think of them as sneaky. I think of them as scared. I mean, they do not want to be found. So that's how I'd probably put a spin on that.

Oh, so they're just defensive exactly alone.

They don't want to Yeah, they don't want to sneak up on you. They do not want to be seen by you.

Okay, snakes not sneaky.

Cool, you heard it here first, Late.

Night Pie wants to know what allows amphibians to live in a hybrid environment of water slash land. Do they breathe air or water? And also if you had to kiss a frog, what kind would you pick?

Yeah, that covers a lot of territory there, it really does. So Amphibians are a really diverse group. But the classic example is the frog that lives on land. It goes in water, lays its eggs, then it's a tadpole, then it turns into a frog, and that's the classic amphibian life cycle. But there's a lot of exceptions. There's a lot of salamanders that never leave the water. Some frogs lay their eggs on leaves and they drop into the water, so lots of different strategies. Many have gills and that

One type of herb is a salamander called an axe a lotl which has really external gills. It lives exclusively in a few lakes in Mexico, and it retains these baby characteristics, like these external gills, which look so much like one of Char's fantastic feather fan headdresses from the eighties.

So they're one of the unique examples that they never really grow up with. The technical term is paedomorph and they retain their juvenile characteristics, in this case on a quantic lifestyle on gills for their whole life.

What about if you had to kiss a frog, what kind would you pick?

I don't know how to get consent from a frog, so I'm just gonna let it go on its way.

Good answer. Nicholas Smith wants to know what was the last snake to have legs.

Yeah, that's a pretty cool question because the general idea is that they all used to be lizards and then a group of animals kind of branched off, lost their legs and became snakes. So when does one of these animals stop being a lizard and start being a snake. That's kind of hard to say, but we do have fossils to look at. Some snakes today still have these little remnants of legs, like the BoA's and the pythons. Yeah, they have these little vestigial limbs on the back. They

What can you go there tickle their little mubbins?

You could, yeah, as a matter of fact. And it's you know, there's lizards that don't have legs, and there's those snakes that have the little nubbins. So you know, nature's really messy.

I did not know that. That's pretty exciting. I'm excited, right, that's pretty dope. I had no idea. John Worster wants to know what is the coldest climate that a snake is able to live in?

Yeah, snakes are pretty adaptable, and you can find them pretty far north. There's adders. It's a kind of viper in Europe. There in Scandinavia, what yep, Northern Russia. And over here in North America you can have garter snakes all the way up through Canada, not through Canada, but through much of it. And it's all about strategies. You know. The viper in Europe it's going to be underground for most of the year and then it warms up for a couple months and then gets really busy, you know,

Bonnie Wess note, can all different snake breeds be friends? She said, we used to play in a sunny hill covered in snakes as kids, what and there would be all colors and sizes, all chillen together in the sun. She said it was like the sun was their god and the hill was church. So she asked, was there no fighting in church? Are they just cool all the time?

I would have loved to see this scene. It sounds really cool. So snakes are a really diverse group. Some will eat each other, some will spend the winter together because they're limited by those unique places where they can escape the cold. So yeah, some are friends, some are food. I'm using friends, not literally, right, but they can spend time with each other, for sure.

I didn't know that. I figured that they'd be like, I'm the snake on this scene, please remove yourself from my orbit.

So that would be something we associate with a territorial animal, and there's really limited evidence that snakes are territorial.

Oh so they're nicer than we've given them credit for.

That's what I keep trying to tell everybody.

Emily Georgia wants to know where does the scary noodle's body end and the tail begin? Or is it just a tail with eyes?

I mean it's actually just a neck with eyes. Yeah, it's not. The tail is not a big portion of the body. It's like the last eighth.

Oh, that's good to know. Jocelyn Furnace has a very important question ken Snake's fart.

Who asked this question?

H Jocelyn Furnace, but Jenna Erickson also wanted to know the answer.

Okay, do you know about this book called No does it Fart? No?

I don't.

I feel like this person knows about it because it was last year or so somebody asked me if Snake's fart? And people ask that to me not infrequently, so I said, sigh, yes they do, and that started a hashtag does it Fart? And Nick Caruso and Danny Rabbe Lodi I'm sorry if I mispronounced your name, compiled all the answers and wrote a book Does it Fart? What? Yeah? And they should give me a cut after I just plugged their book.

Kate Gilmour, who was our primatologist on episode two, wants to know why do some lay eggs and some give birth to live young.

It's such an interesting phenomenon and it's kind of a quirk of evolution, but the general idea is that egg laying was probably the ancestral condition, that's what the animal in the beginning had, and then live birth evolved from that. But it hasn't been directly. There's they've been going back and forth. There's different kinds of egg laying and live birth, so evolution.

Okay, yeah, what are the advantages of live birth?

The eggs are really good because you've got this really climate controlled little spot, but the live birth, you know, they're ready to go. They're not as vulnerable to predation, so that would probably be a big benefit.

They can outrun whatever.

Yeah, they can start biting stuff. They're ready to go.

They hit the ground biting. Good for them.

Yeah, and in stable climates it might be an advantage because you don't necessarily need that enclosed space and an egg.

Oh, Daniel la Veneris, I'm sorry, Daniel, I'm probably pronouncing that wrong. Who is awesome? He asks? From flattened out ribs to glide, to tail scales that look like a spider, to lure birds, and worm like appearances to feed on ant larvae. Snakes are awesome, But which is the most awesome adaptation you've seen?

The most awesome adaptation is just the fact that, look, imagine you had to survive in the woods with no arms and no legs. How long would you last?

Oh? Yeah, no, I'd be toast.

Yeah, but all these different kinds of snakes have figured out a way to make it work. And so I think that's my answer.

Just the fact that they are yeah, yeah, and.

It works for them. You know, they lost their limbs, probably because it's easier to move underground, but somehow they've figured out all these amazing ways to get by, whether it's constricting their prey or this modified salima that's basically venom or things like indigo snakes, which are just grabbing other snakes and chewing their head. I mean, you do what you gotta do.

Last questions, what is the best thing about your job? What just like gives you butterflies? Keeps you going? You're like, I'm so lucky. I can't believe they pay me for this.

I'm really lucky to work with a great group of people that are really passionate about these animals, passionate about increased seeing our knowledge of them and making the planet a better place for them and us. And that's that's a great place to be.

So your colleagues, my colleagues, really so other people are the best thing about your job. That's that's surprising. You don't normally hear people say that.

Yeah, well it's true, it's true. It's it really makes things better when you're surrounded by people that are all working towards a common goal and are bright and motivated, and that's why they're there.

If someone wanted to be a herpetologist or a wild life ecologist, what would you tell them to do? What would you what do you wish you could be? Like, hey, yo, little.

Me, do you get experienced any way you can figure out if it's for you. Surround yourself with people that share those kinds of goals and figure out if it's for you, and a path will emerge.

Thank you so much for being on.

I'm honored to be here. I was really excited when I got the invitation.

So smart people goofy questions because goofy ones are actually good ones. And to find out more about doctor David Stein or his nonprofit alongside Wildlife Foundation, you can see the links in the show notes. Also linked is aliwar dot com slash Smologies, which has dozens more kids safe and shorter episodes you can blaze through. Thank you Zeke red Veguez, Thomas and Mercedes Maitland of Maitland Audio and

Bugy Buggies.