We humans have social ties to family, friends, communities, and other human beings. These bonds can be complicated and convoluted, but we are by no means the only animal to have complex social lives. Katy and Laura explore the social intelligence of of several different species who have more in common with us than many would think.
We humans have social ties to family, friends, communities, and other human beings. These bonds can be complicated and convoluted, but we are by no means the only animal to have complex social lives. Katy and Laura explore the social intelligence of of several different species who have more in common with us than many would think.
Hello and welcome to For The Love of Nature, a podcast where we tell you everything you need to know about nature and probably more than you wanted to know. I'm Laura. And
Katy:I'm Katie. And today we're gonna be talking about how some animals have complex or interesting social lives. Yeah.
Laura:I'm like, I feel like me these days. I used to have a way more interesting social life than I had a baby and w did a podcast and school
Katy:I'm dating in my thirties, so my life is just,
Laura:I mean, you know what I mean? You do have an interesting social life, dude,
Katy:shit show that is, no, it's not that bad. It is interesting by far. Laura knows all the details, the good, the bad, the ugly, everything. And yeah, poor
Laura:Laura. No, I'm here for it. I'm living up. Seriously.
Katy:I wish I could have my own dumpster fire. No, I really, I, that sounds dramatic, but. There. What's life if it's not a little chaotic sometimes, and we're both storytellers by nature, so I mean, I feel like, yeah, and you're having fun and
Laura:you're meetings are awesome people.
Katy:No, I'm definitely meeting awesome people, but also, I mean this is, you figure life, life is just fun right now and it's really, it is really enjoyable. Okay, I wanted to pause because before I forget that my, I'm launching my website like next week, so I wanna do an episode for us and I can write up like my own questions and then you can ask me questions and that way we can go through it, but I didn't wanna forget about that, so, okay. We'll cut that out. Okay. All right. You had Nature news though, Laura.
Laura:Yeah. For this episode particularly, it seems very apt. And the article is called Lonely Pet Parrots. Find Friendship Through Video Chat's a new study. Aw, so cute. It's such a good wholesome article. I mean, it's all over the internet right now. But boy, this specifically, this NPR one is really good. It's well-written. The first line is it's npr, of course. Yeah. Once upon a time, Polly just wanted a cracker. Nowadays, Polly might want a Zoom call,
Katy:you know, you know, whoever wrote that is like, that's a good
Laura:opening line, you know? So it's a study that looked at 18 Pet Parrots and examined whether video calls, helped them fulfill their social needs. Um, so, you know, a lot of times. I mean, parrots are extremely social. They're extremely social. Yeah. And they live in large flocks. And a lot of time, you know, people aren't up to having large flocks of parrots in their houses. Right. One is enough. Geez. And most people probably also don't set up like play dates for their parrots. Yeah. Although it sounds like a good idea. But anyway, it does. So they were trying to see could they get the same thing from a video call? And at first they thought maybe they would see like aggression behaviors mm-hmm. Via phone call. Yeah. But that's not what happened. They were having a blast. They were singing together. They learned language from one another. Like they, that's insane. They were having so much fun. They were teaching them, um, like first it was just, they were doing calls and they weren't giving the parrots like much choice of it, but they were monitoring things and Hmm. But then eventually they did teach them to ring a bell after which a tablet would be presented. And then they would be shown like an image of a parrot and then they could choose with their tongue or beak, which parrot they wanted to talk to. So they made like best friends with other parros and then just
Katy:try. That's so crazy. And they spent it's so crazy. Hours,
Laura:hours and hours talking to each other. Um, I
Katy:mean that's a, that's not surprising cuz you figure parrots are normally they're in a flock all day. Yeah. They're
Laura:always talking long Yeah. To each other. So it does at least fulfill some of that need. Is it ever gonna be as good as being in a real flock? No, but it can give, you know, some stimulation and some social aspect. Yeah. And a lot of the pet owners said they really saw their birds like come alive in these video calls, but they believe it mostly monitored because they didn't want the parents learning any like weird technology stuff
Katy:buying Bitcoin again, stop it. Outfit.
Laura:And then the final, the final line of the article is, in other words, maybe what Polly wants is a lasting friendship even through a screen. Mm. The npr Good on ya. Npr, check it out. That's a great article.
Katy:All righty. Uh, who wants to go first? I can, I can always go first. Um,
Laura:well let, do you wanna go quick? I don't need to go first, but I just wanted to start off cuz I found this really good, um, quote by Aristotle, the Greek philosopher, and he said that man is by nature a social creature. And so we humans have social ties to our family, our friends, our communities, and other human beings. Even those that are super introverted. Like, I am not an introvert, but even people who are very introverted still enjoy spending time with other people or have ties whether they want them or not.
Katy:Well, yeah, because I mean, we're, I, it's human nature to want love and to belong. Like, you can't, like you said, even though you're an introvert, you still need to have that experience. Yeah. It's that feeling of belonging and,
Laura:you know, these bonds can be complicated and convoluted, but, and suck. Yes.
Katy:They'll be great.
Laura:Yeah. Um, but we are by no means the only animals that have these complex social ties. No. As we're gonna talk about.
Katy:Yep. All righty. Yeah. Guess you can go first. I can go first, yeah. All right. So we're gonna start by talking about a very charismatic, one of the war, I don't know, one of those big mega fauna animals. The orca.
Laura:Yeah. I can get behind an orca.
Katy:Yeah. But untrue to my normal character. I'm not gonna be telling any free willy jokes in this section. Cause I could, oh man. We're
Laura:dating ourselves and I feel like some of our younger listeners are gonna be like, what?
Katy:Dude, I saw though. I saw though my ex sent me a video and apparently there's a video coming out that's very, it's literally this generation's free Willie, but it's about a, like a grouper fish. They're trying to Yeah, no joke. It's random. Yeah, they're trying to set one free, apparently. Anyway, I'll have to figure out what the name of it is. Um, okay. Right. So an orca scientific name is Oris Orca. The
Laura:the first Me. What they say, what the, the noises they make? No, it does. Or
Katy:the first part of the name Oris originates from the Latin word Orca.
Laura:Whoa, who are we gonna give that one?
Katy:Yeah. Which means, but that means a kind of whale or a large vessel.
Laura:Hey, who do you think that is? I don't know. A kind of whale.
Katy:Yeah, but it's not, but or it's a large vessel. It is derived from their Greek word orkos, meaning huge or gigantic. Orcas can be found in all oceans, all around the world. From the freezing waters of the arctic to the tropical seas of the equator, including, which I didn't know this till a few years ago. Freaking Texas Gulf. Yeah, that's Which is nuts. Yeah. Right. There's, I mean, I mean, I don't know what they're seeing. I mean, I love Texas, but on the gulf up, up where they typically are seeing, I mean south southern Texas, heck yeah. Gorgeous down there, but Northern Texas, just tour of the oral rigs, like, I'm not sure. But yeah, there's posit, it's, it is very rare, but you can even see'em in the Gulf of Mexico, which again, crazy. Yeah, I usually
Laura:think about'em
Katy:being in the Arctic. Yep. Nope. All over the place. So here's a fun fact. Despite their name at Killer Whales, like Lord alluded to earlier, are actually the largest members of the Dolphin family. They're true, not a white right, not a whale. They're true apex predators, feasting on a wide variety of prey, including fish, squid, seals, and even other marine animals. Okay. I just need to pause for a second because as horrible as the sounds, a bucket list item of mine is definitely to see an orca punt a seal into the air. Listen, it is, but it goes so high and so far, and I know, I know. What smell would be horrible is we'd probably be on like this, you know, commercial tourism trip. Yeah, yeah. E everybody else is horrified. And
Laura:I'm back there like children are sobbing. Yeah. And I can't stop
Katy:laughing just because I mean, I've read, what was it once? It was like, it can be l like some of these seals are launched like 80 feet in the air. That is insane. 80 feet and you know, I mean, they're intelligent enough. Yeah, they're playing. They are a hundred percent. But did, what else did it be like? Can you imagine? Cuz they, they're intelligent enough to play so you imagine they're like, I can hit one higher than that max. Yeah. Like they're just talking. No, I can go higher than that. I can boom and just punting these seals higher and higher. It's just
Laura:kicking the fuel skin around instead of picking Yeah.
Katy:Geez. 80 feet in the air. I, yeah. I couldn't hold it together. I would be laughing. So, yeah. As horrible as it is. Bucket list item of mine. I guess most of our
Laura:sports balls are originally made out of animal hides, so like, or and dead animals around how not that
Katy:much different. Yeah. These ones are still mostly alive, so. Okay.
Laura:So yeah.
Katy:Little, a little different, but, all right. So, but what truly sets orcas apart from other animals besides their remarkable punting skills are their social lives. These Marion Marvels live in highly structured and tightly bonded groups called pods. These pods consist of family members who stick together through thick and thin. Which again, thank God humans aren't like that. We could just ditch
Laura:family members. You're so pessimistic. You're like, man, I hate these social sounds. I'm so glad I don't have to stick with it.
Katy:Listen,
Laura:that's so wholesome. They stick with each other through thick and thin, like, thank God we're just good cop bad over here. Right?
Katy:As always, if you haven't listened to our, could you Quite that episode and really wanna see the true dynamic of mine versus Laura's personality,
Laura:he's a violent one. Listen,
Katy:because immediately if somebody said, ask me, could you fight that animal? You go on the defense, I go on the offense every single time. I, I immediately click into survival mode where you're like, okay, how can I get away without harming this animal? I'm like, if it's me or you, bud, you're going down. Like it's going to be you down hear you every time. Not with orcas, though. I could not survive
Laura:against orcas. No, definitely not. Definitely
Katy:not. So within a pod, there's definitely a strong sense of unity and cooperation. They work together to hunt, protect their young, and navigate vast oceans. And so, and that is really neat because again, you're in a giggles. I hope that your mic caught that meow, cuz I could hear it. I'm sure it did. I don't imagine being able to navigate underwater in the ocean. Like there's nothing No, there's
Laura:nothing you to talk it out and hope somebody remembers the way, remembers
Katy:something. Oh, yeah. I, the plankton is thicker here, so, you know, like, I don't know, man. I don't know either. Gosh. Interesting though, each pod has its own unique culture and diet, like, which I think is, that's so freaking cool. That is pretty neat. Just like humans, orcas have their own distinct languages, which they use to communicate with one another. They have a repertoire, clicks, whistles, and calls that they use to express emotions, coordinate hunts, and maintain social bonds. Yeah. All of
Laura:these really social animals are very talkative so that they can constantly maintain, especially the ones that are like coordinating hunting. Yeah. Which, because we talked about that before in our animal smarts episode with the dolphins.
Katy:Yeah. Which is an interesting thing that you say that though, because. The smartest ones, they do communicate the most because th there's tons of animals that live in flocks, herds groups or whatever, and so physically they're close. But it's that communication, that constant talking. Yeah. Which like sets all of the ones that are social, at least the two that I have. That's what really sets'em apart as being intelligent, is that constant communication. Yeah, because it's
Laura:Like yeah, you can have a whole bunch of willer bees in a herd, but they're not jiggles. This cat just pulling my microphone out. Yeah like Willer bees might be hanging out together, but they're not
Katy:necessarily like intelligent. Yeah, they're not Do a task. Yeah. It's like it's all very, yeah, it's all very reactionary. Like this one runs this one, you know, and so, yeah. But anyway, yeah, so it's all communication. But with orcas, and this communication can come up in handy for a variety of reasons. One reason is how their pod is structured, how their pod structure is set up. So pause are typically composed of several generations of related individuals within a pod. There is a complex social structures where different roles and responsibilities are unsign. This structure facilitates the communication, cooperation and collective decision making, which are vital for successful navigation. Oh, cool. Yeah, it's like workers are
Laura:worker republic. Norco a good band name. No, that would be
Katy:an am and an amazing and an amazing t-shirt. I feel like you can make a yes or
Laura:republic. Please join the Orca Republic.
Katy:Make a sweet t-shirt. And a lot of this though, comes in handy whenever they're cooperative hunting. So different individuals within a pod work together to hunt and capture prey such as the fish, the seals that we talked about, and even other whales. Yeah, it's, and
Laura:so you even brought this up before with the Bonobos. You were talking about how some tribes or some groups have developed different hunting techniques. Yes. Some are. Some like hunt. Hunt. Yes. And some don't. Yes. Or chimpanzees. Was it chimpanzees that were,
Katy:I, I I don't It's gotta be chimp. It's gotta be chimpanzees. Cuz bonobos are just creepy. That's right. They're too busy having sex. Yeah. They're just creepy.
Laura:But, but yeah. Like the, the same like chimp, like the, the whales have their own like you were saying, culture their own, yeah.
Katy:Their own culture. So, yeah, so it's the cooperative behavior that not only increases their chances of the successful hunt, but also allows'em to share and distribute resources within the pod ensuring the overall wellbeing of the group. Yeah. So what's really interesting then is within these orca pods, they communicate even between like pods and within hunting. So within, as they're hunting each animal, sort of like a, uh, in a wolf pack, they each have their own separate job and they're each trained at their own separate job. But then pods of different pods of orcas specialize in eating different things. Like some will eat, they're not eating. Yeah, yeah. So they're not competing. So their own, they fill their own niche in the wild. Yeah. Um, and a lot of that is that knowledge transfer and stuff. And so I'm gonna go into that here in a second. So, well, or right now, that's the next paragraph. Um, so another interesting dynamic to orcas social structure is the knowledge transfer. That I just said. They exhibit remarkable ability to learn from one another and pass down the knowledge across generations. They have distinct cultural traditions, which is just to think that orcas have cultural traditions. Well, you're
Laura:like, I mean, right. Is insane. Yeah. Yeah. Like what kind of is there an example of things that they specialize in? Like as far as like their culture or
Katy:hunting? Most of it is like the finding the food and the migration roots and avoiding potential dangers. Like most of it is just as far as culture is. Hold on. Lemme look up the actual definition of culture.
Laura:I meant like with the, you were saying that they specialize, so they're not competing, they specialize in certain food resources.
Katy:Yeah, like some will do like, Closer to the shore fish. Some will do farther out, some will do sharks, some will do. You know, they each have like their own little, yeah. Their own little niche that they'll fill. It'd be so cool
Laura:to be part of the family that eats like sharks. Like you gotta be like the be medal of the right, of the orcas. Right.
Katy:It would, it would have to be, imagine if that was like your cousin, like you're in the pod that eats, you know, the little dainty inland fish. Yeah. And then there goes like your metal, like you hear'em like screaming and screeching chasing sharks. Just Yeah. Flying
Laura:by you. Gosh dang it. I
Katy:wish I was part of that too. Yeah. Could have been there. Could have been there. But besides the, like the cultural differences and everything, here's to me where it gets mind, way more mind blowing was that recent research has revealed that the complex social structures and relationships that do, they do within orcas rival a lot of those of human societies. They have the intricate hierarchies where older females known as the matrix hold a key decision making positions within the pod. Get it girl. Female orcas can live up to 90 years or more making them one of the longest live males on the earth.
Laura:Mm-hmm. I was reading a thing where they were saying that it's like elephants and orcas and us, I think are the only three animals that go through menopause, which means like you no longer reproductive, but are still around. Yeah. And that's because just so old grandmothers are actually still important to like, it's not even just like an age thing, but what's your purpose of being there if you're not breeding? Knowledge transfer. Yeah. So like with elephants, us and orcas, there's still a point for us to be around even when we can no longer make
Katy:babies. Well, and I think too though, okay, so think of it this way, you know, evolutionary speaking males, what are they? They young, they fit, hunt. You know, provide that kind of nature, natural instinct, which very much so fits the bill whenever you're younger. You know what I mean? And so it's like males almost fill that, that need of protection and everything as they're younger. And then as they get older, I don't wanna say they don't have a purpose, but you just get to a point where you're just too old. Yeah. Whereas I feel like the dynamic switches. Yeah. You know what I mean?
Laura:Like where the women are too busy raising the kids early. Yeah. And then finally we get into our element of being like, okay, now I can actually teach you some things. Yeah.
Katy:Like the em, the empathy the transferring, the knowledge, the teaching and all that stuff like that. So I feel like even within like groups, there's, I. Like a time and a place for which one needs to have, which role is, if that, does that make sense? Yeah. And I think that's why for like those ones, cause I know like the male bowl elephants, you know, they're not gonna be, you know, with the herd and everything. But it's just very interesting to me because I feel like, while, like, I don't wanna say the men are just around to make babies, but like, they have a, that for a lot of it is, it is like that for where they are. That is what they are. And then, but at the end of the day, it's the empathy, the knowledge, the survival that the females just happen to be way, way better at. So anyway, but yeah, they, uh, mothers, they invest a tremendous amount of time and energy into raising their calves, teaching them essential survival skills. Young orcas stay with their mother for several years, forming really an unbreakable bond that really does can't and can last a lifetime. These incredible creatures also display remarkable empathy and compassion. Like I said, there have been numerous accounts of orcas supporting injured or sick members of their pod and helping them to swim and even bringing them food whenever they're sick. Cute and sad. It is. So in addition to their tight-knit family bonds, orcas can engage in social interactions with neighboring pods. These interactions can range from peaceful encounters to intense displays of power and dominance with sea battles. Right. So, but all in all, that's the or of social
Laura:bonds. I can't, I wonder if anybody's ever done any studies, if anybody has, give us a shout out on social media, like grieving and death rituals of orcas, obviously, oh yeah. It's done with other intelligent animals, but, or I haven't heard anything about like, surely if they have the know-how to rescue their friends, they must understand the death is a, a possibility.
Katy:It has to. Um, yeah, it shows that they have both in the wild and in captivity showed severe signs of a grieving process. Yeah. When needed bit more about it. That's so cool. Yeah. There is actually, I'm looking at like different research backgrounds too. Yeah. Whale orcas, they do more in their death just like we do. Yeah. Tons of it. Interesting. Yeah. I mean, which is not shocking cuz again, just like elephants, I mean elephants worn. Right. Any of these, these highly social Yeah.
Laura:Smart. Yeah. Usually tied together. Yeah. Well, speaking of another animal that is very social also has black in color. Um, this is the American crew. I like that. That's your tie. Orca Crow. Right? You know, black. They're both black. Um, so they're, I mean we bring up Crows Corvids and that whole family up so much on this podcast, but that's because they're so we do
Katy:freaking cool.
Laura:Yeah, they're pretty amazing. So I actually had to write an article about this for a magazine and so I'm, a lot of this information I already knew, but I did look up some more and synthesized it. So I learned a little bit for the podcast too. So I'm specifically focusing on American Crows, but there are more than 35 species of crows found all over the world.
Katy:Oh geez. Yeah. I didn't realize it was that many. Me neither.
Laura:With the exception of the polar regions and Southern South America. I don't know what they have against it down there, but they don't like it. Yeah, right. Geez. No. Patagonia for them. Right. So they're relatively large black birds. Some species have extra markings. The American crow just black. They belong to the Corvis genus, which includes rooks and ravens and are part of the corvid family, which of, like I said, we've talked you about before, which also contains the blue jays and the mag pies and a couple of other species. All corvids are known to be highly intelligent and social intelligence is part of that. So American crew spend a lot of time with their extended family, this, so, their social in, in the aspect of family. Um, which makes, it's just funny because, you know, you usually call like a mob, like when they mob animals. And so think of like, you know, the
Katy:family. Yeah. Um,
Laura:the godfather. Yeah. Yeah. So the family may consist of parents and their offspring from the past few years or siblings helping raise their nieces and nephews. So just multi-generational kind of thing. Hmm.
Katy:Which again, I mean, I feel like people think of like, they, when I say everything I said about orcas, as cool as it is, I feel like none of that should have been that shocking. But I feel like this about crows. I think more people will be like, what? Because it's a bird. You don't typically think of this sort of structure.
Laura:People like flying around together, but Right. You're not thinking about families taking care of each other. That yeah,
Katy:you see them that they're flying around, but they're, you don't know that there's, you know, there's order literal law and order to it. Yes. There's not
Laura:Right. So while many birds chase off, they're young, after they've fledged and left the nest, crows actually welcome the help of their children in raising chicks, defending their home territory, bringing food and gardening water. That's smart. Listen, that's smart, right? You're not gonna kick your kids out if they're gonna pull their own weight. Right? Um, but I will if they don't. Right? These family groups are typically small, but might actually contain as many as 15 birds. So that's gotta be several generations. Yeah. So they're, but interestingly enough, so the sacrifice is that let's say you do decide to live with your parents and help raise your sister's kids or whatever, or something like that. There is only one breeding pair. Per group, sort of like wolves. There's just, you know. Okay. Okay. Ones get to breed, so you might not get to breed Interesting. If you're a helper. Because it's all about you know, you want the jeans to pass on, but they're jeans. Do they mate for life though? The crows mate? I feel like it might be like one of those series moly monogamous kind of things. Okay. Which is like, oh, you
Katy:guys couldn't see, I was gonna say you couldn't see Laura's eyebrows of like, ah,
Laura:like, um, oh, actually nope. I am so good because I'm a a actually, Katie, that's in my next bullet point. Oh, here we go. So there, like I said, one breeding group pair per group, while everyone else helps out, crows are considered socially monogamous, meaning that they tend to stay together for life as long as things are going well. Just like people, so
Katy:they're like, you know what? Done Things aren't working out.
Laura:Yeah. But bond, when looking at d n a of these Crow families, not all the babies always have the same father. Wa w w this extra pairing is going on. If
Katy:the, I mean, nevermind. I was gonna say at least girls all look alike, but
Laura:they're all like, you're not, I know, but you're not gonna like,
Katy:you're not gonna know. Like, it all looks like it's just like an unmarked
Laura:black bird. It's not like a cat snake tell the difference between each other at some point.
Katy:That would be interesting to test, like, could, could dad
Laura:grow, recognize that it's not as scary. That beak. Divot looks different. What doesn't look like my beak? Look at his, look at
Katy:hises. He doesn't, doesn't my toes
Laura:so funny. Imagine when like an albino kro gets born. I knew she was messing around with that salon. I knew it. Um, so, uh, and then also the, of the breeding pair situation, there's also some like bible rules going on here of like, when the breeding male dies, if he dies, his brother might take his place and just become the new crow father. Oh geez. Like, she doesn't really get to say she, he just separated. That's a, just stepped right in. Yeah. So unlike, unlike the orcas, this is not a matriarchal society. Once the young disperse, they may set up a territory next door to their parents or somewhere nearby, but within flock and families, hold on, wait. Are always dominant male.
Katy:Okay.
Laura:Okay. Yes. Yeah. So not matriarchal. Definitely males always dominant and they're very territorial towards other strange males. So not maybe towards their own siblings and parents, but definitely towards other so this is the crazy part. And like, man, female crews really get the shaft here. So let's say, let. Oh, I didn't even realize they made a pun. That's great. Um, so once, once a female pairs up, they are made to cut all ties to their Crow family. Like their new Crow husband is like, listen, you cannot speak to them. You cannot see them. They are dead to you now. All right. You can no longer stay with them because he's territorial towards his brother's, her brothers
Katy:and her father. That's, that is called abusive relationship. I know. Poor get
Laura:out girl. Meanwhile, if your son moves next door, he can visit and come home and get food as much as he wants. Like it's, which that sounds
Katy:about right. A mama's boy. Yeah. Yeah. That's totally on
Laura:par. But dad's cool with it. Like dad's cool with his own kids. But yeah, the boys don't mess with each other's families. Um, so yeah, that's really rough for them, I'm sure. Yeah. So when not with their extended families. Crows also spend a lot of time in large flocks searching for food and eating and sometimes getting into trouble. And, you know, I'm sure we all understand the value of hanging out with friends, not just our family members. In late fall crows, at least around here, crows and Lees parts are known to form huge flocks in the evenings known as winter roosts. And these flocks can range in size from a few hundred birds to up to 2 million crows.
Katy:That's, that's too much. That's like apocalyptic numbers. No, that is, that really is Crow is like the size of a chicken almost. Yeah, no, that would be, that would be a little 2 million black chickens flying around in the year. You be like, this
Laura:is it 2
Katy:million black chickens? This is it
Laura:families. So, and I've seen, like in the winter where I work, there is a roost. And mm-hmm. Only a couple of hundred, maybe a thousand birds, but it is loud and they just fly. Oh, yeah. Over. And they fly over. But I was driving and they were on like both sides of the roads, in the trees, and it was so noisy. And I was wondering like, yes, when people are driving what they think, like I know what's going on. Yeah. But does the common
Katy:person know what's going on down here, down here in Texas? We have, it's the same thing with grackles. Mm-hmm. They're, they're not, they're not big by, well, they're bigger than a robin. Yeah. But they're, but they're like very lanky. But man, they, in like the spring and stuff, when they're moving the groups that they have and the winter it's insane. I believe it, the groups and they hang out on power lines and it'll just be like thousands and thousands, same thing, like first thing in the morning doesn't take much. They're up and then all of a sudden they all fly off at once. Wow. It's, yeah. It's insane.
Laura:And so these the, when like they make these giant roofs, families might join a flock altogether, but then they'll intermingle with their friends once they arrive. So it's like they all gather up together and they're like, oh, interesting. I haven't seen you in a while. And, but they don't need to spend time with their family the whole time. Hmm. So these groups might consist of local birds as well as ones that have migrated from up to several hundred miles away, which is crazy. Wow.
Katy:Yeah. That is weird.
Laura:It's almost like in the pioneer days when there were like festivals, you know, everyone came. It's a
Katy:crow, it's a crow
Laura:festival. Yeah. Like a, like a cro Shindi or Hootin name. Yeah. Hoot. Nanny a crow. Such a great word, nanny. Yeah. And it isn't unusual for these flocks to contain multiple, like two, at least two different species of crows around here. It's American and fish crows will actually spend time together. Um, and if
Katy:you listen to. Our next week's episode Next week. Yeah. Yeah. That we, we've already recorded that. Everybody knows you record these in batches. We refer to, we talk about the fish crow again. Yeah. We need to play that at some point. Yeah, I'll
Laura:find it in that book. So there could be several explanations for why crows form these big winter roofs. It could be that it helps in state warm and cold temperatures by huddling together. Could be to look for potential mates in early spring. You know, it's how you suss out, you know, who's here
Katy:to keep when out. The women
Laura:get in trouble. Yeah. To keep predators away when food is scarce and seemingly to share information such as feeding locations. Cuz it seems like when they come back at night, they talk a lot and then the next day they'll go and they'll form other feeding groups. Like after the places that somebody found during the day. Yeah. They're exchanging information somehow. Hey,
Katy:I was talking to Martha down, down the wire, down there.
Laura:Um, scientists though are still kind of piecing it all together because crow behavior and motives are not always clear. So you're motives many. Um, but many animals gather in like large groups for similar reasons. So these assumptions make sense. And
Katy:you know, but's though it's crows and to me that's more terrifying then like, because you don't, I feel like there's more thinking going on than there is action. And for me that's what's like the freaky part is they're motivated. Yeah. They're mo like they have motivation cuz they're really smart. And so for me that's like, I have no issues with bird. I have a coworker who also used to work in zoos and she's terrified of birds. I have zero problems with birds. Crows just are creepy to me just because they are intelligent. Like there's, again, there's more thought. Going on than what they're acting out. And that's beanie
Laura:little eyes.
Katy:Yeah. But then they're stopped by those bedi eyes. Yeah.
Laura:Um, and you know, as I was saying, you can obviously see that crow's exhibit, high social intelligence, but beyond just like the family stuff, they're known to work together to drive off predators, find food, solve problems, and this requires them to be in constant communication with one another via a wide variety of vocalizations and body language, very similar to humans. And it even carries over into their interactions with other species because crows are known to be able to recognize and remember individual human faces. So this, I think was brought up many episodes ago. Yeah. With
Katy:pigeons, something. Yeah, it was with pigeons that they recognize that they
Laura:remember even like even before that, towards the beginning of this podcast, I feel like I brought up this crow thing once before. Yeah, yeah. But there has been studies that, you know, if you harm a crow, bad juju, remember you like, yeah, you're a friend of crows. They're gonna remember and they might even bring you trinkets. Like, it's my dream to be a crow princess who gets trinkets from crows. That
Katy:would, I mean, I will say that would be
Laura:amazing. And, but if you harm a crow, you better watch out because not only they will they remember you, but they have even been observed teaching their family and flock members to recognize specific undesirables. Geez. So like, if they're gonna tell their friends, their friends are gonna hate you too. And so it seems like, you know, crows don't forget. And it also doesn't seem like they forgive.
Katy:No, never again. There's more thought going on than action. Yeah. Good grief.
Laura:And that's crows, man. I love'em. They are really neat. They're really
Katy:neat. Cool birds. All righty. So my second one that I'm gonna do is the spotted hyena. Mm.
Laura:Another animal that we've brought up multiple times in this podcast. Yeah.
Katy:Because, uh, hyena, we were offered to pet one whenever Laura and I visited the legal Well, it was an illegal Yeah. Quote unquote animal auction in Ohio before Zanesville happened. And all the Ohio laws thankfully were changed, but whenever we went to that auctions, there was a lady with a hyena in a crate. Yeah. A baby. Yeah. And she, yeah, a ba, a c a little pup. And she was like, do you want a pet? Like, okay, I say a pup, but it was so big enough that it was gonna do some damage. Yeah. And she's like, oh, do you guys wanna pet it? No.
Laura:I want you, I
Katy:wa yeah. Like I wanna, but also like, I'm not stupid
Laura:like a hyena. They definitely, they came up like I did a whole thing on them in our animals of the OC cult episode cuz I focused on the hyenas. And I even think that I chose them as one of those Could you be that like I I would be They're pretty cool because Yeah, because of like some of the things The Hemi teen. Yeah, the Hemi Teen. I bet. Charcoal society and like all that.
Katy:All right, so let's dive into this. So the spotted hyena, scientifically known as Crok Croda
Laura:cro up, right?
Katy:Croda Crod at all. Is a fascinating creature found in various habitat habitats across Sub-Saharan Africa. They have a distinct appearance with their powerful build, sloping back, and unique coloration featuring a spotted coat. Spotted hyenas are highly adaptable and can be found in a wide range of environments, including savannahs, grasslands, woodlands, and even mountainous regions when it comes to their diets. Spotted hyenas are skilled and very opportunistic hunters. They're a, they are apex predators and are known for their remarkable ability to take down large prey such as wilder beasts, zebra, and even young elephants, which is to me is nuts. Yeah, I mean, not to me it's crazy because they are like stocky, like, and they're not, they don't seem like very agile creatures, I guess I could, should say, because even though lions are bigger they're a lot more agile than what hyenas are. So to me, like a hyena to take down a young elephant. It because it's, it would be like a bulldog, you know what I mean? Like taking down a deer. Yeah. Like could it, yeah. That wouldn't be too shocking. But at the same time it's like a little bulldozer taking down something. Yeah. But they also adapt like very, very good scavengers and were readily feast on any carryon, which is dead. Things making the most of any available food source. This versatile feeding behavior contributes to their remarkable success in survival in the harsh African wilderness. So let's go a little bit more into the social lives of the Spata hyena. Unlike many other carnivores spotted hyenas live in complex and highly organized social groups called clans. These clans can consist of anywhere from a few individuals to over 80 members. The Klan is led by a dominant alpha female, again matriarch, who holds a position of power and authority. She is larger and more aggressive than males, and she outranks them within the social hierarchy by far. Within the Klan, there is a strict hierarchy with the alpha female at the top. She exercises authority over other females and her cubs inherit their rank and social order. This may matriarchal society creates a fascinating dynamic where female hyenas display way more aggressive and assertiveness than their male
Laura:counterparts. Yeah. I remember in one, I think it was the Occult episode where I talked about how like it's, it's all the females above all the males. All the males and the males do like, they literally bow. Two emails. Yeah. Like give us a mission. Yeah.
Katy:Which is, that's a whole other level, like, yeah. Yeah. So cooperation and collaboration are key elements of spot spotted hyena social lives. They engage in cooperative hunting where the individuals work together to bring down large prey. Like I said, elephants, this cooperative behavior allows them to tackle prey that normally should be too challenging for a single hyena. So same thing, sort of like wolves. They do things like encircling their prey, communicating through vocalizations, organizing everything, and using their intelligence to outwit their targets. Well,
Laura:plus they're hunting an elephant, which is another insanely intelligent species Y right? Yeah. It's like a battle of the wits here. Yeah. No,
Katy:it really would be. Another intriguing aspect of the spotted hyena social Lives is their exceptional communication skills. They possess a wide range of vocalizations, including, whoops, crackle, cackles grows and giggles, which play a crucial role in maintaining social bonds, coordinating group activities and establishing territories. Their distinctive vocal repertoire also allows Klan members to identify each other, convey emotions, and communicate effectively over long distances. So research has shown that spotted hyenas possess the remarkable intelligence and problem solving abilities, which I feel like when people look at hyenas, they don't. Think of them as a particularly smart individual. Yeah. Because they, you know what I mean? Dumb. Yeah. Well, and I mean, look
Laura:at it that it's all because of everything we've ever seen of them portray.
Katy:Yeah. Think of the, the Lion King. They're like, ed, you know, he is like, you know, not
Laura:all that into London. Always the bad guy on, they're always portrayed as being evil or
Katy:stupid. Yep. But they exhibit complex social behaviors, cooperative hunting like I've talked about, and demonstrate advanced understanding of social dynamics within their clans. These traits combined with their strong family bonds and intricate communication systems make up their social lives make up to be a rich and dynamic social lives. That's one thing
Laura:I never took care of at a zoo that I've always wanted to, would've been hyena.
Katy:Hyena. That that would be interesting. Yeah.
Laura:They were really interesting animals.
Katy:So one thing, so Laura already talked about like how it's complete and I mentioned it's a complete reversal of male versus female. And one interesting fact about the Hyen notes, which I know we've talked about is females, they have the pseudo pene. Mm-hmm. Which is an in long clitoris that closely resembles the male genitalia a penis. Which is insane that it is gone. It has gone that far, like evolutionary speaking to reverse, like to show the matriarchal that it's gone. That,
Laura:yeah. Yeah. Although, and, but I do remember it being like, wow, that sounds incredible. But then they have to give birth through it too. Yeah. And I can like kill them. So then I'm like, oh, it could maybe I don't actually want, yeah,
Katy:maybe, maybe that's not for me. Despite though the remarkable socialized, spotted hyenas, they do face numerous threats to their survival, habitat loss, human wildlife conflict. Just like we said, like because of that bad reputation, a lot of people just don't see the need for'em. And again, they're great at eating dead things that are left over that other things don't want to eat. Yeah. They know that it could given disease. So we just clean up crew animals. Yep, definitely do. So, yeah, so that's the spotted hyena in their social labs, which is, which I think is pretty neat. Again, under, I think it's unvalued and under appreciated. Yeah. And it is really neat. I don't think, man, I don't know how many zoos I've actually been to that have, hi uss, I
Laura:think I might have seen one once. Yeah. Not very many. Not very many. They're really cool. Yeah, I think they're really cool. I would actually like to know a lot more about them, like, um, yeah, I think they're just an underappreciated animal. Yeah. Um, okay. So I wanna end it with, I just had to, I feel like I talk about honeybees a lot and again, we've talked Oh, nice. About honeybees and our episodes before too, but not their social lives. We talked about their sex lives and probably some other things.
Katy:Yeah. Um, everything about honeybees and
Laura:I talk about this a lot at work cause we have an observation hive and I'm blown away all the time and just when I think I know everything, of course I'm like, something comes up not Laura. Yeah. Um, so it keeps us humble. Yeah. In the best way. Like, I'm glad. So,
Katy:yeah, it would suck. If I knew it, I would not be, because for me, learning stuff is so much fun and I enjoy it that if I knew everything, and maybe that's why I have such great, like I love a d h ADHD because I do forget so much that sometimes things are just new to me. I'm like, this is fascinating. Yeah.
Laura:Well, I, uh, I mean, and of course there's lots of different bees in the world. And honey bees are, you know, People talk about them way more than the other bees, the native bees don't get enough love. And that's for a whole nother episode. Yeah, but I do need to talk about honey bees, European honey bees in particular because they're the ones that are social. Cuz not all bees are, but hold on,
Katy:pause. Diggle literally just went open the door and then turned around to come back. Cuz he is like, no, I do not want, just check. Yeah. I do not want this door shut. No, thank you. Yeah.
Laura:What a turd. Um, after you just shut it. No, it needs to be open. I need to fix it. Yeah. Um, so when you picture a bee in your head, I can almost guarantee you that you're thinking of a European or also call the Western honeybee. They're the classic bee. The classic, classic bee small flying insect, black and yellow in color, big eyes. Stinging butts. If you're, if they're a girl. Uh,
Katy:this one I just like the stinging butts. The classic bee. Classic bee.
Laura:So this one species, the European honey bee can actually divide it, be divided into more than 20 different subspecies. But that's because they can be found pretty much all over the world now, although they're originally native to Europe, the Middle East and Africa. But thanks to European colonization, they can be found everywhere. Not a good thing. But honey's great. I mean,
Katy:yeah, great. Honey's fantastic.
Laura:Um, they seem, it appears that they were first brought to the United States in 1622, so they've been here a while. I. In the wild. They live in hollow trees but can now be found in all sorts of manmade structures. Like you can find them in anything. Yeah. All sorts of crazy videos on the internet. We'll show you where bees can live. But basically you can find them in places near flowering plants because that's what they need because they eat nectar, pollen and honey. So we're just gonna cover their insanely complex social lives and dive into other bee stuff another day. But honey bees, I wanted to talk about them specifically because they're what's called a use social animal, or specifically a use social insect. And that means that they have to have three things to be considered you social. They have to have reproductive division of labor, cooperative brood care. And overlapping generations. Hmm. So I'm gonna break
Katy:it down. Wait, hold on. Wait, is that classification just for the B or is that for all you Social? Um, social and, oh, you
Laura:social. Okay. Okay. So the division of labor or the reproductive division of labor, basically it's a caste system or that everybody has their own job. So each honeybee colony consists of a queen, workers and drones, and each cast has a clearly defined role that is not performed by any other cast. So it's clearly defined division of labor and it all has to do with reproduction. Hmm. So the queen is the only reproductive female on the hive. Typically, she's solely responsible for creating new offspring. It's her one and only job. Lay those eggs During peak production, Queens can actually lay up to 1500 eggs per day. Dang, more than 250,000 in her lifetime. Sometimes up to a million people think. The second feature, major function of a queen is producing pheromones that serve as actually like social glue, unifying and helping to give individual identity to a b colony. So like she's releasing pheromones that's telling everybody their job. That's like solidifying their social structure.
Katy:Dang. I, I need that. Like, gotta,
Laura:like, your team would be perfect, right?
Katy:I, I, man, I
Laura:don't have Katie do this
Katy:today. Right. I have an amazing team that worked for me now. Like they're, again, as a man, I love when I have a team, like my team right now, I feel into a true manager role where I'm there to sup, I'm there to support them and for me that's like a true leadership role. I'm just there to support them, but to not even have to say anything. And just like other people around you being like, oh, I need to go do this as soon as they see me. Yeah. Bingo,
Laura:bango. I would love that. Yeah. It's the queen for sure. Other jobs are the, most of the bees that you see are the workers. These are the non reproductive females. This is basically all the daughters of the Queen. They do all the work within the hive. What I didn't know though, like I knew that part. What I didn't know before doing research for the podcast was that this work is actually age dependent. Wait, what? Yeah. So rather than specializing in only one job, okay, each worker progresses through the tasks ba in a predictable order based upon their age. So for, how did we not know this? I don't know. Because other people I talked to, they were like, yeah, yeah, I knew this other naturalists. I just, man, I did not, no. So I, I mean, I just, I don't know how I thought they figured it all out, but this is how they do it. It's so systematic. Of course, this is how they do it. Yeah. Yeah. But, So the queen laser eggs, once those eggs hatch, they're the workers, those baby bees and the young females, they're in charge of brood care, which is cleaning the brood cells, the baby cells feeding and tending to those babies and tending to the queen as she lays the eggs. So like soon they hatch, they come out and they start taking care of their sisters and the queen. So they're staying close by. Then they get a little bit older and their next job is hive maintenance. So this is like building new honeycomb, receiving the nectar in the pollen from the ones that are bringing it into the hive, storing it, processing the honey and ventilating the hive.
Katy:Okay. Which I get that that's like a very complex thing, but is it really the first job we want people to do to raise the young, like, like
Laura:inexperienced ones with the baby? Yeah. That have no
Katy:experience doing anything ever. Yep. Actually we need you to raise your siblings. Yeah. Con Conti
Laura:continue. I mean, I don't know what else they would do, but still that's terrifying. Yeah. Maybe the hive maintenance because it's babies raising
Katy:babies. Baby And
Laura:babies. Yeah. And then finally the oldest ladies, they get to do hive defense and forage. So they're the only ones that ever get to leave the hive. So you don't leave until you're old enough to leave. Dang. You need experience. So they guard the hive from predators. How do you have
Katy:that experience though? If you're never allowed to leave the hive?
Laura:You're a month old and that's your, you're working. Yeah. Yeah. Month old.
Katy:I know
Laura:it. All one month old. Yeah, they removed. And they go out and they forage and they get all the nectar and the pollen and they bring it back to their sisters to be able to process that. So crazy. So much work. Hmm. Yeah. And then finally the drones, the other reproductive cast, it's the males and their one and only job is to pass on their jeans by meeting with a queen from another hive. That's it. They don't do any of the work. Yeah, just hang out. They fly out every day. Hope to hide a new queen. Those males, lot being bad, boom. They die from that too. Go back and listen to our Sex to Death episode, which is like number two. Yeah. The second episode. That's all about that. Yeah. So that is the cast system of the Division of labor. Another you social aspect is the cooperative brood care. That means that the workers are caring for the queen's offspring in most cases. Like I said, it's the sisters. They're all doing, the sisters are all raising each other. And then they also need to have those overlapping generations. So honeybee queens can actually live for several years, typically two to three years, which is crazy. Yeah. Doesn't out like a tiny little bee. And they coexist in the colony with their offspring, who are the workers in the drones. So that's the overlapping generations. But not only, here's the other thing that I didn't know. Not only are they considered like crazy social individuals. Yeah. But the social animals are considered super organisms because the entire like colony functions as one large organism. What? So each bee is almost like a cell of a body that helps the hole to function. So here's three ways that it does it. This is literally mind exploding to me. So bees are insects. Insects are cold-blooded animals. But when you're talking about the entire hive, it acts like a warm-blooded animal because it can thermoregulate, it can control temperature. That's crazy. So the hive works to maintain a specific internal temperature range of about 93 degrees Fahrenheit. They need to keep it that way. When it gets too hot, they cool it down by fanning their little wings over water droplets. That's cute. So cute
Katy:AC system.
Laura:Yeah. When it's too cold, they just heat it up by vibrating their bodies and wings very quickly. So like they're thermo regulating as if,
Katy:which is nuts. Yeah. They also, it's, it's crazy that it's crazy cuz that they figured out. That's, so again, this is so much an evolution. Yeah. But like, how the heck did they figure that out? And then passing it on? Passing it on. Anyway, continue.
Laura:So they also, the hive breathes like an animal, like of course they're all breathing, but the actual hive itself, there needs to be some ventilation going on in there. So since it's an enclosed space, they need to maintain airflow, otherwise they're all gonna suffocate. Yeah. So there certain bees, it's their job to fan air in and out of the hive in distinct inhalations and exhalations at the entrance and fun trivia effect. How much, how much does a hive breathe the same volume as a domestic cat does in one minute? That's another great measurement. Yep. Yep. How,
Katy:how much does it go for volume? Oh yeah. Just the same amount as a domestic cat breathes in about approximately three hours. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Laura:And then finally, the hive as a whole. Can reproduce. So this is not talking about like the queen laying babies things, but swarming is considered reproduction as a superorganism.
Katy:So, okay. Okay. I, I see what you mean now, because I was like, wait
Laura:a minute. Yeah. So the resident queen, so instead of, it's actually kind of backwards of how most reproduction wor, like usually a mom has babies. Those babies then leave and disperse and go find new houses. Yeah. This is the opposite. It's the actually the queen, the mom who leaves, yeah, she leaves and the daughter colony stays. Yeah. So the queen usually takes about two thirds of her daughters to find a new play home, and that's known as the parent colony. The rest remain with a new younger queen, and that is the daughter colony. So the colonies themselves are reproducing through swarming.
Katy:That's crazy. That is neat though. Yeah.
Laura:And then last but not least, before we let you go bees have to communicate efficiently within their hive, as we've talked about with all of these social animals. Communication must happen order in order for their societies to work. So mainly that's done by chemical pheromones, like I said, with the queen, but it's also done through interpretive dance which is fantastic. I was to say this is right up your alley. You normally get better. Yeah. So this actually was discovered in 1973. Carl von Fri won the Nobel Prize for deciphering the language of bees, which is impressive. Yeah. To figure
Katy:it out. Project that's a lot of, that's a lot of bee time to
Laura:understand bees, right? Like studied these bees and figured out that the dancing meant something and could actually figure it out what they were trying to communicate. So experienced bees used the angle of their body relative to the hive ceiling. To tell their sisters the direction and approximate distance of whatever they're dancing for. That's insane. Yeah. In relation to the sun, because the dance changes throughout the day because they are, they're like, all right, LA and the sun's in the east, and you know, 10 clicks from here in a Western in Aly fashion. Look, I'm definitely imagining that's what they're saying. No, I know, right? That's the distance. They're dancing it out and the bees are like memorizing this and they're tiny little bee brains. They're just watching dancing and they're like, okay. Left over there at the, that flower and then a right at the dandelion. And then like, maybe that's
Katy:my memory problem. Maybe we just got all like interpretive dance. Yeah. Be like, ah, yes, yes. Now I remember. I mean, to be fair, I probably would remember that if somebody came into my office was like the papers or two Monday, I feel like what
Laura:just happened? I not forget that. I would not forget it. Well, how long do you, I mean, I mean think about how like when did you learn like the mock arena? You're never gonna forget. Oh no. Yeah, you're gonna anyway. And that there are three types of dances that the bees do. The waggle dance is when they're telling their sisters about a nectar source. So like where is the flower? Okay. The shake dance is when they come back and they tell other sisters that they need more help collecting nectar. So they're like, Hey, there's, not only is there nectar here, but like you need to come right now and help me carry it. This is a Let's go get the groceries together. Yeah,
Katy:exactly. That's what I was gonna say. We can go get everybody, go grab gr you
Laura:know, bags. Yeah, grab, grab a bag. And then finally the tremble dance, which is when they need more help processing. So this is when the sisters inside the hive are like, too much. Too much. I need help. I need putting away the groceries. Yeah, yeah. Right. So
Katy:one frantically at the fridge trying to put all way, all the frozen food. Yeah. You know, just like, yeah. Goodness.
Laura:That's neat though. Yeah. Freaking bees so cool. Right? I can watch them all day. They are very, very interesting. And that's the social life of bees.
Katy:Man, I feel like we picked like a really good variety of, of like things that animals that obviously people know, but I don't think that people know at least not that, that kinda stuff about You're pretty
Laura:commonly Yeah. About animals. But we did what a mammal? A bird. An insect and
Katy:orca Spotter. Hyena. Oh, right. Two mammals. Yeah, two
Laura:mammals. Yeah. I both had mammals. Spot aquatic versus terrestrial. Yeah. But yeah, a great variety of stuff. Yeah.
Katy:Cool. Well guys, if you wanna reach out to us on Twitter and interact with us, we're posting and everything on there. And then make sure you go over to Patreon and support us so we can keep bringing you con good content week after
Laura:week. Yeah. And this coming Friday, we will be doing our 100th episode q and a. So whoop whoop, if you wanna join us,
Katy:which my grandma, my grandma, sent us an email and said, congratulations, by the way.
Laura:Thanks grandma. Um, we would love to have you guys join us live. We wanna meet you, especially people from other countries that we know you're listening. Um,
Katy:yes. I just told Laura this today. I mapped out because again, I had, you know, all the, I'm so busy, but I found like a solid two hours to do this. I figured out how to download all of our location stats from Buzz Sprout and then map it on Google Earth and the spread of where everybody is. It's insane. We're going to find
Laura:you. Yeah, yeah,
Katy:we can. No,
Laura:um, yeah, but it's this Friday, 8:00 PM Eastern Standard time. Private message us on either Twitter or Facebook. Probably not Instagram, but you can if you want to. And then we'll send you a link so that we don't get a bunch of creepers joining us or sending Yeah. Weird stuff, right? Yeah, go on that. Learn that. Many of us learned that in the pandemic. Um, I God horror stories. Okay. I was like, thank God. Yeah. Hopefully now that you guys have heard a little bit more, hopefully, you know, maybe more than you wanted to, you care a little bit more and we've inspired you guys and we'll talk to you next week. Bye everybody. Bye.