MAMMALS with Danielle N. Lee

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Oh, hey, it's that mark that you get on your chin when you're wearing lipstick and then you take a bite of a giant sandwich. Allie Ward back with informative chuckles that I just can't wait to get to. Mammology. So this ologist is a... Big deal. A TED Talker? multiple times, a Nat Geo explorer, a longtime science writer and an advocate and a researcher, a professor, a tweeter, an icon, an idol of mine. So we talk about this biologist's work on animals of all kinds.

especially the furry, milky ones, and we chat about fieldwork, platypi, furriness, and... parenting styles. And I was so excited to talk to her that I honestly was kind of speechless and just starstruck. And I just wanted to get out of the way and listen because she's just wonderful and insightful and informative. So please get ready to meet one of the world's coolest professors and mammologists, Dr. Danielle N. Lee.

I'm ready to sit. Oh, yay. Okay. Of course, I want to talk to you about... All these warm-blooded, furry little creatures. First thing I'll have you do, if it's okay, if you could just say your first and last name so I make sure I pronounce it right and pronouns. Thank you. So my name is Danielle N. Lee. My pronouns are she and her, but I also just don't care. And I'll tell you why. So in the process of doing my research in Tanzania and learning Swahili, there are no gender pronouns in Swahili.

Really? They don't exist. They just don't exist. Like, cause I kept asking and I was, I realized that because people who speak English would constantly get their pronouns mixed up. They would say he and she interchangeably. And I thought it was, oh, it's because they don't know English very well. No, it's because those words are the equivalent. He and she are equivalent in Swahili because he and she don't exist. So that's why it's just like, so this is all a construct. It doesn't matter.

That's so beautiful. That's so good to know. Can you tell me a little bit about your research that you did in Tanzania? Absolutely. I study giant pouch rats. For those who get the reference Princess Bride, I study R.O.U. Estes. Rodents of unusual size. I don't think they exist. They are large rodents that look like rats. They're not rats proper. They're rat-like rodents. And I'm holding my hands up across my body.

Anywhere from nose to tip or tail, they can go anywhere from one and a half to two and a half to three feet long. What was it like the first time that you saw one? The first time I finally got to see one, I was just like, I can't believe this thing. It's big. It's the size of a cat, like a nice size house cat, like they're cat size.

They're very strong. They're very fast. They are smart. They have a lot of dexterity in their hand. Like they can grab things very easily. They were really good at... removing their name cards. Because at first, I apologize now, but I thought it was the animal care cleaning the cages and they forgot to put their name tags back on. And I was like, we can't have this. We got to keep the name cards on.

And we come to find out it wasn't the staff at all. It was the rats. They were removing their own cards. They were removing their own water bottles. We have to change a lot of our protocols and how we care for them. They're that different from regular rat. We have to change the materials we use. We can't use glass bottles because they're so good at flipping them out. They were breaking these.

super industrial expensive Pyrex bottles. Oh my God. Every night they were just breaking them because they would flip them out. And then they would use that little hole to either reach their hand out and undo the cage. or for the smaller ones they would move their food hutch because it slide in and then they would use that to escape out.

Okay, so I asked what happens when they escape, and she said it's not like there's mayhem. There are double doors for safety, but it's certainly like a come on, guys, moment. Well, they're so smart and they're so dexterous. You... are able to research how they can be used to help with finding landmines. Right. So that's actually a nonprofit does this. So they do the training. What they do is really basic. operant conditioning, positive reinforcement.

Wait a minute. What are those things she just mentioned? Operant conditioning and positive reinforcement. Okay. So operant conditioning is a name for one way that we learn things where a creature like you or me. or a rat in a lab, maybe your dog does something, and that thing is followed by something else that either encourages or discourages the behavior. And if it discourages the behavior, it's called...

punishment. And if it encourages that behavior, it's called reinforcement. With positive reinforcement, the behavior trying to be taught is reinforced with a reward being added to this situation. So in this case that Danielle and I were talking about, were teaching rats how to find certain chemical smells from landmines by giving them a tasty, tasty little treat whenever they succeeded in locating those chemicals. So find the right smell, ding, ding, ding, you receive a reward.

Boom. That is positive reinforcement. You did a thing. Good job. Here's another thing. So then what is negative reinforcement? It's when something bad happens to you, right? Well, a lot of people think so, but no, that is actually just straight up punishment. So negative reinforcement, rather, would be removing something bad from the situation as your reward. Let's say that it's raining on you and you're starting to get a little wet.

and a little cold, but aha, you remember to bring an umbrella in with you because you're smart and you opened your umbrella and you block the rain that is making you wet and cold and you feel better. So you didn't add something pleasant, you kind of took away something unpleasant. But still, in doing that, you've reinforced the lesson that on days when it might rain, it's a good idea to bring an umbrella.

That's negative reinforcement. Now, can you think of any other behaviors that you've learned through positive reinforcement, like receiving a reward or negative reinforcement, which is reducing unpleasantness? I'm sure there's all kinds of things. And people who work with animals typically are like, no punishment, just reward for good behavior, which is good when you're trying to motivate yourself to do something. Don't be mean to yourself. Just say, hey, good job when you did the right thing.

I learned that all the animals that have gone into the program, they're all nuisance animals that are caught within the town because they were getting into somebody's house or food stores or...

Just vexing them in some sort of way. It'd be like if we had a raccoon getting in the garbage and then we're like, you know what? As long as we gotcha, do you want to help us find some landmines? Now, whatever you do, don't... push this button that's exactly how it works landmines and help us diagnose tuberculosis because that's also what they can do really and that's um are they using like old faction for that all old faction this is all old faction

That just means smell, but I was trying to sound more professional because underneath I was very giddy to be having this conversation, if you must know. So this is a big deal because between 15 to 20,000 people each year are killed or injured by landmines. little rat friends are really great at sniffing out the TNT, plus are too light to detonate the landmines, and they don't bond with their trainers like dogs do.

so they can move around to different countries without getting emotionally hurt. Okay, what about mammals? We're mammals, but so are pouched rats. And wolves and Tasmanian devils. Is there more variation among mammals than, say, reptiles? And so now if we're going to look at the whole thing. reptiles big big umbrella then of course they got the spread they win they win we're more weirder than you that's a very good point if we do it that way um but

Yeah, mammals are interesting. So we have a little bit of everything. So we have the live birthers versus the not live birthers. And among the live birthers, we have the... fully developed versus the barely developed among those that do the fully developed stay with mama a long time or i need you out the door as soon as possible so this what I like to call diversity and investment strategy of the species. Like how much do you invest in an offspring to make sure they're...

you know, big and strong before they're out there on their own in that big, widening world. It literally can range from years to moments. Yeah. Years to moments. Why do you think that is? And what influences that? So it's a lot of things that influence that. Some of it is evolutionarily.

you know just part of it is you got to work with what you got but it's also ecology in other words where you are the time you are how much space you have to do your business and make a living all these inputs determine how you make a living and how well you live. So all these different evolutionary pressures, like if you're dodging predators constantly, or if you gorge food and then store it really well, or if you have a fast metabolism, those will affect your internal furnace.

All these different strategies determine a lot of stuff. So like going back to comparing birds and mammals, so we're both warm blooded. And so in order for gestation, in other words, for your babies to develop really, really well, and this is across all species, even for reptiles, you got to have that right temperature. It literally has to cook. When we say it's been in the oven, it literally has to cook.

It has to cook, and it has to cook at the right temperature. Too hot or too cold, you mess up the whole recipe. Nothing is not going to happen. But there's a few different ways of doing it. So a lot of reptiles, they drop their eggs. they put it in the soil, they cover it up, they do a little kiss, throw it up to the sky, and be like, hope it works out. Like, Mama Reptile's like, I did a little temperature check, this ground is about right.

And I know I'm going to be gone for forever because I ain't going to never see you again. Hope this stays. Literally kiss up to the sky and I'm out. So that's like turtles. Birds, on the other hand, are like, you know what? I still got to get this temperature right. But I still need to be able to move a little bit here and there to go get some more food. Because carrying on these eggs, they're heavy. They're heavy. Female animals, when they're gravid or when they're sitting on a nest,

They got to be careful because it makes them easy pickings for predators. So that's the reason why, you know, Mama Turtle holds on to those eggs as long as she can. Yeah. She incubates them and cooks them. Otherwise, she's like, I'm too slow. I'm going to get gobbled up by these sharks. or whatever else is out here in the water. I got to drop these eggs and lighten my load. Mama Bird is very similar, but she's like, you know what?

I can kind of get up and move a little bit. So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna make this really nice nest. I'm gonna insulate it as much as possible. If there's a partner involved, we'll take turns sitting on it and keeping it warm. But they have to be careful with that too. If they stay gone too long, that throws the temperature off. Back to the cooking. Like, oh, messed the recipe up. What happens in mammals is, you know what? I need to be able to move.

And I need to be able to keep the temperature going. So what female mammals are able to do is they're able to keep their babies with them at all times. They know their temperature is going to be right. They're going to go where they go. There's still some trade-offs and loss of movement and dexterity, but compared to other species, like female mammals are able to still get quite a bit done.

even though they're pregnant up until the last day. So that's why some have strategies of sitting still in the end. But think about cats. They stay hunting. Yeah. Till near the end. We have these trade-offs, but like... that temperature control is really important. And what we see are these three very dramatic strategies for that temperature control across the three main groups of vertebrates.

Drop them off, wish for the best. Yeah. Drop them off, but keep up with them. But if things get real, real bad, I'll bug out and I'll start all over again. Or... This we are all we in this together. That's that's the mammal. We are in this together. I got you and you got me. Gosh. I have so many questions from listeners that know that you're coming on the show. Okay. We're going to let those questions.

cook a second longer while we take a quick break to hear about sponsors of the show who enable us to make a donation to a cause of theologist choosing. And this week, Dr. Lee chose SEMLINK, that's Science, Engineering, and MathLINK, which is a nonprofit. founded in 2005 by Taika T. Smith in Atlanta. And Semlink promotes student achievement and career exploration in math and science while increasing student exposure to STEM communities. So a donation went to them and Dr. Dan.

Danielle N. Lee's name. Thanks to some sponsors of the show who you may hear about now. With next day delivery available straight to your job site, it's easy to keep jobs running smoothly with The Home Depot. Plus, with pricing benefits for pros and top quality brands, you only have to make one stop for the whole job. The Home Depot. How pros get more done.

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Okay, your questions. This was the most asked question. What is happening with the platypus? Natalie Landon Brandt's first-time question asker essentially says, like, why are they so weird? They've got eggs and venom, but they're a mammal. What's happening? Yeah. All right. So platypuses are mammals because they meet what I call the base criterion of what makes a mammal a mammal. And that is they make nourishment from mammary glands.

On the evolutionary tree, they're like high up. So they're really in between. Like they are a really good example of that connection to our other vertebrate cousins, like the birds and the reptiles that I mentioned before. They have so many traits. Than a very bird slash reptilian like. But they have eggs. They lay eggs? They do lay eggs. And so you don't have to have live birth to be a mammal? No. The drop dead criteria is do you make... Milk from mammary glands.

That's where the word comes from. Mammal mammary. Okay. Listen, some of you might be wondering what the heck is a mammary gland? And because this is where you come to learn science, we're going to tell you, even though some of you might want to giggle, but a mammary gland is the part of the mammal. including humans, that makes milk. So that is udders on cows or perhaps boobs on...

people you call mom, their mammary glands. And in fact, the word mammary has the same root word as mom. Did you know versions of the word ma mean mother in Greek and Latin and Persian in Russian? Lithuanian and German and French and Welsh in so many languages. This word is nearly universal in Indo-European languages. And it's believed to come from the natural human animal sounds that babies...

including you at one point, made when they were imitating sucking milk out of what? That's right, a mammary gland. And you can store that in your memory gland or your brain, which isn't really a gland, but that's another episode. So it doesn't matter if you drop some eggs or have a bill. It doesn't.

Ellen Skelton wants to know, why have so many mammals evolved to cooperate or stay in large groups as opposed to other animals? So sociality is really common in a lot of species that we see. that we attribute a lot of high cognitive function to we see that um and that's because sociality yields a lot of benefits think about it you don't have to look for a mate when it's time to mate You can conserve your own physiological energy when it comes to keeping warm, the right temperature.

Being around others is a really good way to exploit them for information and other resources. So I don't have to be really good at hunting. I can let you be good at hunting and I come around and pick up scraps. So sociality has a lot of benefits. Now there are costs to it as well. So likelihood of spreading communicative diseases, whether it's like parasites or...

Things like the mange or even sicknesses like what we're experiencing now, like with COVID among us, you know, sociality counts against us. Yeah. But so much of what we need to do to make a living requires for many species. outright cooperation or even just passive cooperation. Our evolutionary toolkit does not allow us to do a lot of things very, very well for long without the aid of others. Right.

We all affect each other and we're in this together. Mo Casey had a great question about life expectancy and why does a mouse have such a short one compared to a horse which lives for decades? And is it just size? The reason why different things live at different times is not just about size. Size is a correlate with it, but it comes down to what's happening with them physiologically, their metabolism, how long something takes. So being large.

enables you to avoid a lot of predators. So big things don't have as many other things that can take them out. If you're not taken out, then you can live a long time thereafter assuming everything else in your body is in pretty good shape.

You just got to get through that scary small period of your life. So that's one of the reasons. So once you get past that scary... juvenile period then you can pretty much live until what we call that natural death when your body just wears out but little things live for a short period of time because

part of it is their metabolism their metabolism is real fast they're they're burning themselves up we don't use that that's not technically what's happening but that's just one way to envision it from a lay position is that they're they're always going But the other thing that you got to keep in mind for things like mice is they don't tend to die of old age. Like we really take for granted as people that most things don't die of old age.

Longer-lived animals, we tend to see what we call age-related disease, what we call natural causes of death. So things like diabetes or heart disease or later onset. diseases either due to metabolism or structure. In animals that tend to be predated upon or die early, those things just don't accumulate because they tend to die when they're still...

just in or just past the prime of life. And by prime, I mean like the height of reproductive life. So in other words, when you're at the height of having the most babies. And even looking at people, old age is a relatively new thing for us. Living to be 100 would not have happened without antibiotics. That's magic. Let's be honest. Yeah. We're the transport and talk to someone from 200 years ago. 100 years is magic. Yeah.

Speaking of ancient things, a lot of patrons wanted to know if it weren't for the asteroid wiping out the dinosaurs, do you think that mammals would have survived to today? No, that had to happen for mammal evolution. Like that is a critical, like when I teach mammology, that's one of the one historical events that is critical. If it had not been for that.

mammal evolution, they would have stayed small. They would have stayed in the ground. We would not have had a mammalian radiation. That's what we call it. That's when the explosion like the mammals came above ground and they were able to diversify and form shape and species.

If the dinosaurs hadn't died, none of that would have happened. We would not be here if it had not have been for the KT event. Really? This is literally the first I've ever heard that. That's amazing. Yeah. we said they had to go for us to flourish okay what about your favorite thing about being a mammologist the travel I do science to travel. I grew up in my family. We never got to go on family vacation, so travel was always a dream of mine. I just...

I grew up working class before, so my biggest dream was to grow up to be middle class. And so there are certain things that I was envious of. So like... being able to travel and go places and back to those nature shows that I love. They just seem to always be all over the world. And so for me,

being able to travel to see a lot of things for myself. I love being able to travel. This has been so great having you on. I just, I feel like I'm such a fangirl. I've been like so nervous and excited to talk. to do when folks say that because i'm always like are we talking about this you're talking about me so ask smart people

all kinds of furry, milky questions because that's what makes mammals mammals. And to find out more about Dr. Danielle Lee, you can see the links in the show notes. Also linked is more episodes. Also linked is aliward.com slash smologies, which has dozens more kid safe and shorter episodes you can blaze through. And thank you, Mercedes Maitland of Maitland Audio and Jared Sleeper of Mindjam Media for editing those as well as Zeke Rodriguez-Thomas.

And since we like to keep things small around here, the rest of the credits are in the show notes. But before I go, I like to give you one very tiny piece of advice. And this week, it's just to make sure if you can, that you go outside and not just go outside, but if you can.

play outside or look at things outside. We have so many screens around us these days full of a lot of really fun stuff, but for a million reasons, you just can't substitute the feelings that your body gets from being outside. Maybe smell some grass. Dig in some dirt. You can look for bugs. You can toss a ball around for your dog or maybe your cat on a leash. I don't know your situation. Climb a tree. Just do something IRL. And I'm not just talking to...

kids out there, I'm talking to their parents or people who don't even have kids. And that includes myself. So yes, let's all go outside a little more. Okay. Have fun. Bye-bye. Okay. If your small business is booming and ready to expand, you might say something like, It's happening! B-b-b-booyah! Yeah! Crushed it. But if you need someone who can actually help protect your growing business,

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