10: Atlantic Puffin & Aardwolf
Ellen: Hi there! This is Ellen Weatherford.
Christian: And Christian Weatherford!
Ellen: And we are back after a brief hiatus with a brand new episode of Just the Zoo of Us, a podcast where we rate and review your favorite species of animals out of 10 in the categories of effectiveness, ingenuity and aesthetics.
Christian: Yeah, we're back. New house, new room, who is this?
Ellen: New office, who dis? Christian and I are not zoological experts but we do a lot of research for the show and we try really hard to make sure that the information we're giving you guys is as accurate as we can get it. We really are trying our best out here, but if you are a zoological expert and we have messed something up, please let us know and we will make it right.
Christian: For sure. We try real, real hard.
Ellen: We do. Christian has been, uh, I've been watching Christian do his notes pretty much for the last 45 hours. He's been really doing his best over here.
Christian: Sleep is for the weak.
Ellen: All right, Christian. Well, so I went first last episode. So Christian, it is your turn to go first.
Christian: All right. My animal for this week is the Atlantic puffin.
Ellen: All right.
Christian: It's scientific name is Fratercula arctica.
Ellen: That's adorable! Fratercula?
Christian: F-R-A-T-E-R-C-U-L-A. That's how I'm pronouncing it.
Ellen: I love it.
Christian: We had two submissions for this animal coming from our friends, Kyle Rauch and Amy Pate.
Ellen: All right. Excellent choices.
Christian: Yes, and my main source of information for this animal is allaboutbirds.org.
Ellen: Love it.
Christian: It's actually a very good website. I highly recommend that. One for bird info, but two, good web design
Ellen: For context, Christian comes from a web development background.
Christian: I sure do. Okay, so quick description for those that may have not have seen them. They often get mistaken for penguins, but they're not.
Ellen: I think they're cuter than penguins.
Christian: For sure. So something that separates them from penguins mainly is the ability to fly.
Ellen: Get wrecked penguins.
Christian: They're also found at the opposite end of the world.
Ellen: So they're up at the north, and penguins are down at the south.
Christian: Yeah, yeah. Although I think there was a Happy Feet movie where they included a puffin for some reason.
Ellen: Nooo, no puffins in Happy Feet. I've seen that movie 46 times.
Christian: No no no, it was like Happy Feet 3 or something.
Ellen: Oh, you lost me there. I'm sorry. I saw the first one 46 times. I don't know about the other ones.
Christian: It's a banger. So let's talk about what these guys look like. Black and white are their main feather colors, and then their bill is pretty colorful and large and triangular in shape. They have these sad eyes.
Ellen: They're so sad! They look so sad.
Christian: And they have a orange feet and they have wings that act as flippers underwater.
Ellen: Versatile!
Christian: Yes.
Ellen: This is an amphibious wing.
Christian: So much like penguins, they do use their wings as flippers underwater. Trying to think of how else I could describe these little guys....
Ellen: Bold color choices.
Christian: Sure.
Ellen: High contrasting. Black, white, orange. Got It.
Christian: They seem a little, a little, uh, thick I would say. Right? Their bodies seem a little big for the rest of their body.
Ellen: A slight chonk.
Christian: I think it's super duper cute. So how big these guys are. So lengthwise, is 10.2 to 11.4 inches or 26 to 29 centimeters. I was going to say chicken size , but
Ellen: One chicken. That's our unit of measurement.
Christian: A much cuter chicken. They weigh from 10.9 to 19.4 ounces or 310 to 550 grams. Their wingspan is 20.9 inches or 53 centimeters.
Ellen: Okay. A little size to them. This is a cold chicken.
Christian: So as their name might imply, they are found usually around the Atlantic Ocean at sea, and that's when they're outside of breeding season. They're usually out at the ocean.
Ellen: Sure.
Christian: However, when it is breeding season, that's when they come to a land. So this is the majority of pictures you see of puffins are usually during their breeding season. So for breeding season, they are found on the coasts of the North Atlantic from Canada to Norway, and south to Spain. And in between all that, Iceland is the home to half of the world's population.
Ellen: Okay Iceland, I see you.
Christian: A lot of them in Iceland. Um, but in North America, they're found primarily off of the eastern coast of Canada and just barely into the United States, around the state of Maine. But, as you cross the Atlantic Ocean, like they said, you know, it's all the way down to Spain, so all of the western European countries. There's lots of good places in the UK for example, to see them.
Ellen: I'm a little jealous.
Christian: So yeah, us being in the southeast of the United States, we'd have to travel pretty far to come to see these in the wild.
Ellen: Yep. They're not close.
Christian: They belong to the taxonomic order... I'm going to try my hardest here.
Ellen: I believe in you.
Christian: Charadri... I'm going to try my hardest here.
Ellen: Let's hear it.
Christian: Charadriiformes.
Ellen: Okay. That's pretty good.
Christian: Yeah. The notable evolutionary relatives there are, basically other puffins. There are different kinds of puffins out there.
Ellen: Oh, there's a bunch of puffins!
Christian: A couple. Um, the Atlantic puffin is known as the common puffin.
Ellen: Oh, the basic puffin! Your starter kit puffin.
Christian: So I'm going to jump right into the rating. First category is effectiveness.
Ellen: And what is effectiveness, Christian?
Christian: Effectiveness is how well do they do what they do.
Ellen: These are physical adaptations.
Christian: Yes. I'm giving the puffin a 7 out of 10.
Ellen: That's decent! That's decent.
Christian: Yeah! They're very good swimmers and fishers. So they can fly, of course, they spend a lot of their time out in the ocean just kind of bobbing on the surface of the ocean, but they're very good swimmers. Their wings act as very good flippers to catch pretty fast fish in the water. Another thing I thought it was interesting, evidently this is pretty common for seabirds, bu the puffin is long lived, so they have an average life span of 30+ years.
Ellen: That's a lot for a bird!
Christian: Yeah. A bird the size of a chicken, right? Although now I think about it, I don't know what the average lifespan of a chicken is.
Ellen: Well, now I know that parrots will live for a very long time, right? Parrots will live for like 70, 80 years, but I wouldn't have thought that from like, a puffin.
Christian: Yeah, right? But evidently that's a common trait in seabirds in general.
Ellen: Very cool.
Christian: The oldest recorded puffin lived to be 41.
Ellen: Aw. He's an old one.
Christian: Yeah. And that was, and they only knew that because of how it was banded, so they might live longer. It's just at the time the technology used in those bands might not have lasted long enough to get the true oldest living puffin.
Ellen: So like, at least 41.
Christian: Yeah, sure. Next category: Ingenuity. So this is where they, do you know how, how do they do smart things like a...
Ellen: Behavioral adaptations.
Christian: Sure. That could be tool use, or interesting hunting methods, that kind of thing.
Ellen: Strat. Pro strat.
Christian: Yeah. Wildlife meta. So, ingenuity, I'm giving again a 7 out of 10.
Ellen: Okay.
Christian: Um, so here's something interesting here. So they only nest in established nesting grounds. What that kind of means is they're only going to nest in areas that already have puffins nesting there.
Ellen: Wait a second... How do they establish the nesting ground?
Christian: Well, I guess there's gotta be some group that's like, Oh yeah, this is where I was last year. Here we go. And then everyone else is like, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. Go, go, go, go.
Ellen: Sure, but how did the first puffin get there? Were they just there forever?
Christian: I guess it's the sea chicken or the sea egg first conundrum. I'm sure there's a better way to explain this. So I'm going to pull from a different source for this one. For this type of a behavior, I'm getting this from projectpuffin.audubon.org which I'll talk a little bit more about what project puffin is a little later.
Ellen: Oh, this is from the Audubon project?
Christian: Yes.
Ellen: Okay, cool. Cool. Cool. Just make sure you're saying audubon and not autobahn, like...
Christian: Audubon?
Ellen: Audubon.
Christian: Okay. So what this project has done is they create decoys.
Ellen: Excellent.
Christian: So they create decoys of puffins that are meant for social attraction and conservation.
Ellen: Lawn ornaments.
Christian: Not Quite, I've never seen the bunch of flamingos on someone's front lawn.
Ellen: Well, lawn ornaments for Iceland, I don't know.
Christian: Here's a quote from the website: "Developed by National Audubon Society's Dr Stephen Kress, social attraction is a method to attract colonial seabirds to safe, often historic nesting sites using social cues. Colonial seabirds recognize the presence of other birds as evidence for suitable habitat and are drawn in by the appearance of a thriving colony. Managers can create this illusion using decoys and audio systems, depending on the species. The method also may use artificial boroughs, mirrors and decoy eggs and chicks.
Ellen: Oh, decoy eggs?!
Christian: Yes.
New Speaker: Oh my gosh.
Christian: So the whole idea is to make, you know, the puffins think, "Oh! This neighborhood's already up and coming. I think I'll just move right on in."
Ellen: So this is like the opposite of a territorial effect then, right? Like you'll see animals that like won't come to an area because they think there's another one already there. This is like the opposite effect.
Christian: Yeah. I think it's kind of a two factor thing. So one, it gives credence to like, oh, there's everything we need here. If there are other birds here, this must be a good place. But also second, I think there's a survivability aspect there. And when you have a bunch of animals together, when you have to deal with predators, you know, like maybe they'll eat my neighbor instead of me.
Ellen: Sure. Yeah. Law of large numbers, one of you is bound to survive.
Christian: So with the decoys, they make decoys that look just like the Atlantic puffin and-
Ellen: Where can I get one? Can I buy one for my house?
Christian: You know, I bet you could.
Ellen: I just want to have one. We don't live where puffins are, I just want one.
Christian: Please! Here!
Ellen: On the off chance a puffin flies by in Florida.
Christian: I'm kind of curious now, can I just order one? There's got to be a minimum.
Ellen: Amazon prime.
Christian: So one of the things that made me look for this, and you actually pointed this out to me, but there was a social media post that showed a picture of one of these decoys and a real life puffin standing next to it. So the decoys are usually built with a metal rod, just a single metal rod, stuck into the ground or a base of some sort to keep it looking like it's standing. So the whole idea of this little social media post was like, oh look at this puffin, and the puffin has one of its legs up. It looks like it's imitating the decoy.
Ellen: Yes, it's adorable. It's so cute.
Christian: I couldn't find any real credence to this idea. It may have looked like it was like a one time thing. It's not like all puffins are out there learning to stand on one leg.
Ellen: Oh, so like maybe it was just like a lucky shot, like the photographer just happened to take the picture as the bird was like, moving in a way that made it look like it was like standing on one leg.
Christian: I mean, at best, yes, this single puffin was imitating, but it's not like it's something catching fire among the puffin populus.
Ellen: This is not a, this is not a trending topic? This isn't the latest craze? Like how in like 2010 or so, there was planking, then there was dabbing, and now there's puffining, where you just stand on one leg.
Christian: All right, so I'm going to move on to the final category: Aesthetics.
Ellen: Can't wait.
Christian: So as a our listeners can probably guess from how much I've been gushing over this bird thus far...
Ellen: Well they don't know this, but you've been doing this all day long.
Christian: It's true.
Ellen: All day long. So in our office, our computers are set side by side, and I've just- all day long, I've just been listening to Christian periodically, maybe every 20 minutes or so, I hear, "THEY'RE JUST SO CUTE."
Christian: Yep. That has been my life for the past several hours. So aesthetics, 10 out of 10.
Ellen: No surprise there.
Christian: Um, as I said before, and I will say again, super duper cute.
Ellen: Yeah. For real though. They have the sad eyes and then they have the big old Schnoz of a nose, it's just so cute.
Christian: They make kinda cute sounds too.
Ellen: Do they really?
Christian: Yeah, they're kind of like a, I wouldn't say a honking exactly.
Ellen: They look like they would honk.
Christian: Listeners, just go out, find some audio, treat yourself.
Ellen: They look like they would honk because of the shape of like their- they have that really like, thick beak.
Christian: Yeah. So they have a triangular bill, they have a black collar that separates their face and their white belly.
Ellen: Oh, they're dressed up all nice...
Christian: Right? They have black wings and their back is also black.
Ellen: So precious.
Christian: But however, I didn't know this about puffins: they look different depending on the breeding season. So outside of the breeding season, their face is greyer and the bill lacks the yellow highlights.
Ellen: Huh! That's really interesting.
Christian: Right? So most pictures you see of puffins are usually during the breeding season, which kind of makes sense because the only way you would see a puffin outside of the breeding season would be at the open ocean. There are pictures though, out there of them outside of the breeding season. It's just most of them are on land or close to shore during the breeding season.
Ellen: Sure.
Christian: And while we're talking about it, the juveniles, their bills are reddish orange and they're also, the bill itself is smaller.
Ellen: Are the baby puffins also cute?
New Speaker: I saw one picture of baby puffins. It was a little, a little chick with black feathers. It was very cute.
Ellen: I feel like with birds, you get the opposite effect that you get with most other animals. Where with most other animals, the baby version is much, much, much cuter than the adult version, but I feel like with birds it's the opposite effect. Right? Baby birds are usually hideous. I feel like baby birds usually do not... With the one exception, I think, being the ostrich. Baby ostriches are very cute because they have all the feathers and then when they grow up they have like bald heads and necks, but when they're babies they have all these downy feathers. But so I was wondering if like the puffin being very, very cute. I was wondering if like the babies...
Christian: I mean as far as bird chicks go, I say they're cute.
Ellen: Is the chick cuter than the adult?
Christian: No.
Ellen: Well there you have it.
Christian: So yeah, 10 out of 10 aesthetics.
Ellen: I guess they grow into their looks.
Christian: Sure, as many of us do.
Ellen: They're late bloomers.
Christian: So, with three scores of a 7, a 7 and a 10, that comes out to an overall score of 8 out of 10
Ellen: It's decent.
Christian: Right?
Ellen: That's pretty good.
Christian: So I've got lots of fun facts for these birdies.
New Speaker: Yes!
New Speaker: But first let's talk about conservation.
New Speaker: Okay.
New Speaker: They are listed as vulnerable. In North America in particular, there is a big problem with them being over hunted. So they were hunted for their meats, feathers, you name it.
Ellen: They don't really look like they would have that much meat on them, do they?
New Speaker: They do though.
New Speaker: Oh! Really?
Christian: I actually came across a somewhat upsetting picture of several de-feathered puffin bodies...
New Speaker: Skip, skip, skip, skip, skip, skip.
New Speaker: But yeah, I can see why they're hunted. It's the kind of bird that you would get enough out of to hunt.
Ellen: See: Chicken.
New Speaker: Exactly. So yeah, they were over hunted in North America greatly, so much so that they were gone from the United States entirely.
New Speaker: Oh Geez.
New Speaker: Yeah. Still in Canada though.
New Speaker: We didn't deserve them.
New Speaker: Yeah, no, but here's where Project Puffin comes back into play that I mentioned earlier. Project Puffin, you know, with their decoys and everything else they were doing, another part of their project was getting a puffin hatchlings from other places and bringing them to islands in north, uh, specifically the United States. So now there is a population of about 2000 puffins that breed in Maine.
Ellen: Aww!
Christian: Or islands off of the coast of Maine, rather.
New Speaker: Welcome back, puffins!
New Speaker: Yeah. So some of the things they're vulnerable to so obviously changes to the food supply and the warming ocean waters, specifically the warming of the water temperature can lessen the availability of their primary diet, which are sand eels.
New Speaker: Sand eels?
New Speaker: Yeah. It's actually just big family of fish. So that's not a specific species. It's a large family of small fish.
New Speaker: Oh, okay.
New Speaker: Yeah. They're also known as sand lances.
Ellen: I feel like this is so common for any sort of fish that just kind of has a longish shape for people to just be like, it's an eel. Sure. Cause those, this was the case of the electric eel too, right? Like it's not actually an eel. Are... Are there even eels? Do eels exist?
Christian: Somewhere. So yeah, that's their vulnerable status. Second fun fact, they are the official bird of Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada.
Christian: Love it. Excellent.
Christian: Yes.
Ellen: Excellent choice. You've all chosen wisely.
Christian: So my other fun facts about them, I think their whole reproduction cycle and how they raise chicks is interesting. First of all, they're considered to be somewhat monogamous, at least. So they're known to have mating pairs for several years with the same mate.
Ellen: Is this like, permanent monogamy or is this like serial monogamy where they'll like have one partner for a while and then a different partner later?
Christian: It was stated as several years. I'm not sure if that's because they just haven't studied it long enough to confirm lifelong monogamy, or maybe they do switch it up after a couple of years. I don't know.
New Speaker: Yeah. Okay.
New Speaker: At least partial.
Ellen: So it sounds like it's like a serial monogamy sort of thing.
New Speaker: Sure. I thought their courtship dance is very cute. It involves head bobbing and rubbing their bills together.
Ellen: Ohhh, that's so cute.
Christian: It is. It's super duper cute.
Ellen: I love it...
New Speaker: Uh, when they do mate, they only have a single egg.
New Speaker: Just the one...
New Speaker: Yep. And they don't do nests like in trees and that kind of thing, they do burrows. So kind of depending on the specific location, they'll dig a hole or they might even use spaces under boulders and that kind of thing.
Ellen: This makes sense for where they live, right. It's probably like a rocky area. They probably don't have a lot of sticks and twigs laying around and to make nest out of, right.
Christian: When the chick does hatch, both male and female takes turns hunting and feeding the chick.
Ellen: Okay. It's a little little egalitarian parenting going on.
Christian: Yeah. Teamwork. And then when the chick does fledge, you know, when they go out on their own, they don't breed for about three to six years.
New Speaker: Oh, they take their time.
Christian: So here's what's crazy, during that time period that from when they leave the nest and when they do become of breeding age, they go out to the ocean and they stay out in the ocean. So that's several years at the ocean.
Ellen: Sure. They're just working on themselves, okay? They're not ready. They just work on themselves and take care of themselves. And it's a very healthy self-care routine.
Christian: Also, they eat lots of stuff and are usually wet.
Ellen: Also my self care routine.
Christian: Oh. And uh, the final little interesting thing about their reproduction, the chicks are called pufflings
Ellen: Pufflings!
Christian: Yes.
Ellen: What else would they be? That's so cute!
Christian: This is probably a good time to mention the popular cartoon that I believe is on Netflix...
Ellen: Puffin Rock!
Christian: That's right.
Ellen: I love Puffin Rock. It's so cute.
Christian: So it's a, it's a cartoon that comes out of Ireland. It is based off of real life island called Puffin Island, of course. It turns out, by the way, there are several islands across the globe that are titled Puffin Island. This one is specifically off the coast of Ireland.
Ellen: Oh, okay. It's so cute by the way, it's such a cute little show.
Christian: It is, it is. And those are supposed to be Atlantic puffins, by the way.
Ellen: Excellent.
Christian: Um, which I was only able to confirm because I couldn't find anything about the show to say that. But I looked up the real life island and those are the kinds of puffins that go to that island.
Ellen: Oh, okay. I like the show because, so my five year old son went through a period of time where he was very, very into the show and we watched it a lot at home. But the show has like a lot of other animals from that area, right. There's characters that are like, um, shrews and foxes and other types of animals that live on the island. It's just such a cute little show.
Christian: So, I gotta ask and I haven't actually watched the show. What is the relationship with the fox?
Ellen: Oh, so the fox, it's really interesting because the fox is like very rude and like kind of like standoffish and kind of a jerk to the other animals. But like she's still their friend and like, I don't know, it's, it's...
Christian: That's weird...
Ellen: Well no, cause like, I don't know, there's this one episode where like she's trying to sleep in her cave and the other animals are bothering her and she keeps trying to get them to leave her alone and they keep like trying to get her to play with them and stuff. I don't know. It's just, it's cute.
Christian: So I say that it's weird because fox is, would be one of the main predators of breeding puffins.
Ellen: I'm pretty sure they actually mentioned that in the show. They're kind of scared of her and I don't know, it's just, she's kinda like the, um... She's kinda like the mean girl of puffin rock. Yeah. So she's like a little bit rude and kind of a diva, but I dunno, she's like still their buddy. Like there's a couple of times where like she helps them out anyway, and... yeah...
Christian: We wear fur on Wednesdays. Okay. So my last bit, this one's a bit of a, a different segment for us.
Ellen: Oh!
Christian: I was able to get some firsthand experience. So I have a friend, his name is Phil Cumming and he is a birdwatcher.
Ellen: Excellent.
Christian: Another name for that activity is birding. So what he does, he travels around to try and see rare birds. He keeps a journal of those birds and where and when he saw them, and I knew he's done some traveling to do this too, so I thought, you know, I know we live in Florida, but maybe, maybe he's been up in those parts where they are.
Ellen: He's not from Florida though. Right?
Christian: Correct. He and his family are from the UK.
Ellen: Okay.
Christian: Um, so I reached out to him and asked and sure enough, he has seen puffins.
Ellen: I'm so jealous. Like in the wild?
Christian: Yeah.
Ellen: Wow!
Christian: But not in North America though, in the UK, which makes sense.
Ellen: That's so cool.
Christian: So yeah. You know, I talked to him and he said he visited a nesting colony on the Farne Islands off the coast of North Umberland, which is a part of the UK. He described it as a superb experience. He mentioned they nest with several other auks and more in those colonies.
Ellen: Oh, an auk is like a type of bird.
Christian: Yeah. So an auk is actually any bird of the Family Alcidae and the order Charadriiformes, the one I mentioned earlier. So the puffin is one of these, so he was saying, he was talking about things like razor bills, murres, terns and cormorants were everywhere on this island. And by the way, um, razorbills and murres are also auks. He said he thought there was well over a hundred thousand birds on this island.
Ellen: What? That's so many! Oh, I bet that was so cool.
Christian: Yeah, that sounds awesome. Um, we kind of started to talk about, you know, how they take care of their young and how they deal with other birds. He mentioned they're very dedicated parents and have a super specific diet and he said at least the ones in Britain did. He mentioned the sand eels, like I mentioned earlier. They are constantly under threat from big mean birds, like the greater black backed gulls and skuas.
Ellen: Oh, you leave them alone! The skuas were the mean birds in Happy Feet?
Christian: I think so. Yeah, I think so. So one, they'll go for chicks and eggs of course. Um, but also they participate in stealing food while the puffin is trying to feed their young.
Ellen: Oh! We've talked about this before.
Christian: Yes. And the term escapes me now.
Ellen: Kleptoparasitism.
Christian: There it is. So yeah, so these kinds of birds, you know, as the puffin is bringing back fish for their chick and they'll have a big mouth full of these fish, you know, these, these big birds will bother them until they drop the food and then the bigger bird will just go take that food.
Ellen: Rude.
Christian: Yeah. Honestly.
Ellen: Can you not?
Christian: So it was great chatting with Phil about puffins.
Ellen: Excellent. Okay. We love to hear firsthand accounts of wildlife encounters. So I would urge anybody who has any like, really cool wildlife stories to send them to us and we will give you a shout out and share your experience on the show.
Christian: Yeah, I'll even narrate them in a dramatic tone.
Ellen: I would love that. I would love that. We need to make that a new segment.
Christian: Excellent. All right, my dear. That was the Atlantic puffin.
Ellen: Well done. That was great! What a good animal and well reported.
Christian: Thank you so much.
Ellen: You welcome.
Christian: All right, hun. What animal have you got for us this week?
Ellen: This week, I'm bringing to the table the aardwolf. The scientific name is Proteles cristata. It means no worries...
Christian: What.
Ellen: For the rest of your days.
Christian: No, it doesn't!
Ellen: Proteles cristata!
Christian: Oh, nooo. How long have you been waiting to do this?
Ellen: So the aardwolf was requested by our listener Riley Elmgren. Thank you Riley. This was a phenomenal suggestion. I'm very glad we got to talk about it. And just before I really launch into it, I'm getting my information from the Kruger National Park and the Animal Diversity Web, which is a learning resource that is hosted online by the University of Michigan. They have a lot of, they had a lot of really good information on the aardwolf. So to introduce you to the Aardwolf, they're about... They're between one and two feet tall at the shoulder, that's like one to two chickens. For our metric listeners, that's 40 to 50 centimeters.
Christian: I thought you were saying, "here's our units in chickens for our metric listeners."
Ellen: Well, you already introduced the chicken standard. So, um, 15 to 33 pounds or 7 to 15 kilograms. This is about the size of our dog. except a little taller. They're a little more slenderly built. They do look very dog like. They are, you know, quadruped carnivore, have that kind of look about them. They are, you'll find them in eastern and southern Africa and you'll really get what their appearance looks like when I tell you that their taxonomic family is Hyaenidae.
Christian: Oh.
Ellen: Yeah, this is actually a type of hyena. So there are four species in the hyena family. The other three are the spotted hyena, the brown hyena, and the striped hyena. So the aardwolf is farther removed from the other hyenas, so it looks very different from the other ones. The other three, mostly- they're more closely related. They kind of look like each other. The aardwolf is very much distinguishable from those. So the aardwolf is a lot smaller than other hyenas. It's a little more thinly built. It's kind of little. It has these little tiny little feet. It is kind of slender. Its fur is this tan brown color with black stripes. It has a black muzzle and a black bushy tail and it has these really big triangular ears and a mane of long fur on the back of its neck that goes down the back of its neck and all the way down the spine. And when it's agitated, the hairs stand up straight to make it look bigger. But, it looks like a dog. It looks a lot like a dog that looks like a jackal or a fox or something like that. And hyenas for the most part look like dogs, right?
Christian: Sure.
Ellen: They're actually in the Feliformia suborder, which means they are more closely related to cats than dogs. Yeah, the aardwolf is just basically a little hyena. It's just a tiny one. Now for effectiveness, I gave the aardwolf a 9 out of 10.
Christian: Alright.
Ellen: Whereas the other species of hyenas are carnivores that eat meat and they're kind of known for that like, bone crunching power...
Christian: Yeah.
Ellen: Aardwolves are specialized insectivores.
Christian: Really?
Ellen: They eat bugs. Specifically, they eat termites, and even more specifically they eat harvester termites of the family... Trinerviter...nimes....
Christian: Woah.
Ellen: Hold on, let me try again. Trinerviterm... Trinervitermes.
Christian: Okay!
Ellen: So these, these are also called snouted harvester termites. These are actually toxic to eat. They produce a toxin that discourages predators, since they actually forage for food up on the ground. Not like, hiding underground or they don't like burrow underground or anything. They forage above ground and their self-defense mechanism is a toxin that they produce. But the aardwolf is immune to the toxin and can eat them without any problem. The aardwolf, it's immune to this toxin, which I gave it an effectiveness point for a resistance adaptation. They have been reported very rarely eating carrion or like, small animals. So they do sometimes eat meat, but it's not very common. Even some people have said, oh no, they're not actually eating the meat. They're actually eating like maggots and beetles and stuff around the carrion. But it's kinda, the jury's kind of out. They eat meat sometimes, but they really don't prefer it.
Christian: Interesting.
Ellen: So aardwolves eat the bugs with their sticky, bumpy tongue. They have a tongue that's really, really, it's broad and it's very sticky. And when you look at it, it actually looks like a cat's tongue cause it's covered in bumps. So that's for gripping the termites. It picks them up off the ground by licking them. The aardwolf can eat between 200,000 and 300,000 termites per night.
Christian: Woah...
Ellen: Yes, they're nocturnal. So overnight they can eat two to 300,000 termites. So hyenas are known for their really, really powerful bone-crunching teeth, right?
Christian: Yeah.
Ellen: They have these, these just really thick skulls and very dense teeth. Now the aardwolf teeth are actually really small and much more thin. So they still have those canine teeth and they have like, some like molars and incisors and stuff, but they're very, very small. They're kind of like peg like, so they don't really do much chewing. Right? They're eating bugs. They don't have to chew bugs. They really don't have much use for their teeth. So their teeth have adapted to be very, very small, but their stomach is very muscular. Their stomach actually does all the grinding. So like, rather than chewing with their teeth, they kind of chew with their stomach. Yeah, that's kind of weird. Right?
Christian: So like, are the termites still alive when they get to the stomach, I wonder?
Ellen: I mean, they're probably really not like dwelling on them. They're probably just like licking them and swallowing them immediately. Right? Like it's just a termite,don't worry about it. So they do actually still have those powerful jaw muscles, but that's mostly for defending themselves or fighting each other.
Christian: So are these the kind of termites that are in like big mounds, or they're just...?
Ellen: So they do have like mounds, but they're probably not the ones that you're thinking of that are like, towering in the air.
Christian: Sure.
Ellen: So, their very specialized diet kind of limits their habitable range to only areas where these species of termites are found. So that's kind of why I took a point off for effectiveness, is that they're so specialized that they can kind of only live in very certain areas. You know, like they don't have a lot of versatility, but, they're super specialized, so they're really good at doing what they're doing. They just have this one thing that they do and that's eat bugs, but they're really good eating those bugs. So yeah, that's my 9 out of 10 for effectiveness. They're well adapted to eat these little dudes. Ingenuity: I gave them an 8 out of 10. so I didn't really know how much I was going to find on aardwolf intelligence, but I found a couple of things. I thought this was really interesting: Even though they're fully capable of it, aardwolves do not eat all of the termites in the colony. They only eat some and they leave behind enough live termites to repopulate.
Christian: Okay...
Ellen: And then they move on and then they will revisit that mount every few months or so. So they'll like, give the termites time to build their numbers back up, and then a few months later they'll come back in and eat again. They're allowing their food to regenerate, they're not devastating the population, even though they could.
Christian: That's pretty smart.
Ellen: Yeah. I thought that was pretty bright of them. So they do this by memorizing the location of mounds of termites in their territories and they cycle through those mounds throughout the year to make sure that the termite supply is replenishing itself. So during the year they're going from mound to mound, they have this territory and they know where all the termite mounds are and they'll visit each one like throughout the year to make sure they're cycling through and give all the termites a chance to rebuild.
Christian: That's pretty awesome.
Ellen: Yeah. So that takes a lot of smarts, right? You have to like, know your territory well enough to know where the mountains are, which ones you've been to recently, which one it's time to go to again. Like it just, it takes a lot, right?
Christian: I mean, even we as humans messed that up.
Ellen: I could not do that.
Christian: Well, what I mean is, you know, just like we were talking with the puffin, you know we often over hunt things.
Ellen: Yeah. We ourselves have not figured that out yet. So yeah, I gave the aardwolf some points for, for using moderation.
Christian: Yeah.
Ellen: They're using moderation. So they're being responsible. Unlike some species I know. So something else that I thought was neat is that the aardwolf is nocturnal, so it spends the day time resting in their underground dens to escape the heat, but during the winter, their favorite termite, the snouted harvester termite goes inactive. So they eat a different species of termites to kind of bide their time until their favorite ones come back out. So the ones that they eat during the winter are active during like, the afternoon time. So the aardwolf will actually switch its habit up and become diurnal so that it's awake early enough to catch these termites when they're out. Yeah, so they'll like adjust their activity cycle to match their prey.
Christian: Okay.
Ellen: I thought that was pretty cool.
Christian: Yeah!
Ellen: Other species of hyenas live in packs and they typically will have a den where the whole pack lives together, but aardwolves don't. They don't live in packs. They typically will live either on their own as a solitary animal or they'll live in a mated pair with another aardwolf that they're, that they are mated with. There's a reason for this. So hyenas eat meat and carrion, they pick it up and drag it back to their den and share it with their pack. Aardwolves can't do that. You can't exactly pick up a termite and bring it back to your den, right? So they don't really have a prey that they can share with other members of their pack. So there's no reason for them to be in a pack, right? They can't share. So that's why they don't live in a pack cause it would not benefit them.
Ellen: They can't bring termites home. So they have to forage for themselves. They do mate monogamously and they raise pups together with females staying in the den and caring for the pups while the male protects the den from threats outside. So not as egalitarian as the puffins, but a similar dynamic, right, where they'll have like a mated pair that, that stays together and raises the offspring. So that's my 8 out of 10 for ingenuity. I think they're pretty bright little critters. Aesthetics: 10 out of 10. I know we got tens across the board this episode, right? We got a couple of lookers here.
Christian: This is the aesthetic episode.
Ellen: This is a very aesthetic episode. This is a very, um, visually successful episode. So, 10 out of 10. This is a tiger puppy. It's a little puppy and it's covered in stripes and it's just so good. It's so cute. They have stripes, they have giant ears, they have a bushy tail, they have teeny tiny paws, they have a long hair down the base of their neck that looks like a rad mullet and that's pretty great for me. It's absolute perfection. Aardwolf has it all. If you've ever played the video game The Last Guardian, some visual inspiration for Trico in the last guardian was from the aardwolf.
Christian: I could see that.
Ellen: Yeah. You see it more so in the face. Because Trico does have like those big huge paws and like, kind of some more like catlike qualities, but you can really see it in the face. It's like pretty much the exact same muzzle and ears and like head shape and even the same black muzzle with like the black sort of almost tear marks down the side? Yeah. When you look at, you look at a side by side of Trico and an aardwolf, the face is definitely there.
Christian: Interesting.
Ellen: Yeah. And I loved that game, so I was happy to see that and to see that parallel.
Christian: Cool.
Ellen: Yep. So with a 9 for effectiveness, an 8 for ingenuity and 10 for aesthetics, that brings us to a 9 out of 10 for the aardwolf.
Christian: Excellent.
Ellen: This is a very good animal. So, gonna wrap up with some uh, conservation information. They're of least concern.
Christian: Really?
Ellen: They don't have a large territory that they live in. Like they don't have a wide range of places where they live. But in the places that they do live, their population numbers are doing pretty well. They're doing okay.
Christian: Okay.
Ellen: Yeah, there's not really a lot of threats to the aardwolf. They can sometimes be preyed on by like, larger animals that might live there like jackals or something. So the aardwolf is actually a very good friend to the human. So think about it, right? They don't eat any animals that we would be using as livestock, right? They don't eat chickens or cows or anything like that. They provide pest control by limiting termite populations in the area. This is a great friend. You really want these around. This is like having really, really cute ground-dwelling bats around, right. They're like, they're just, you keep them around to keep the termites down. So this is a good friend. Now, sometimes aardolves will be mistaken for a fox or a jackal by a farmer, orr a lot of times farmers in that area will have domestic dogs that they have trained to kill foxes and jackals. And either the farmer or the dog will confuse the aardwolf for one of those animals that could be like threats to their livestock, and so they will kill the aardwolf by mistake.
Ellen: So that- every once in a while that happens. Though there aren't any sort of, like, people usually don't go out of their way to kill these little dudes because they are totally harmless. Honestly, they're not gonna do anything to you. Like they're fine. They're very shy. They don't really hang out near humans. They don't really, they're shy, they're nocturnal. You're really not going to see them very often and they just, they really won't bother you. I've seen some videos online of people like feeding, like rehabilitated aardwolves or aardwolves like in zoo exhibits and they'll just eat right out of your hand.
Christian: Wow.
Ellen: They're very sweet and they're gentle and they're adorable and they're just very good friends. So in Jacksonville, Florida where we live, there is a brewery called Aardwolf and they make a beer called Aardwolf. Um, which I have been to one time. I went with my aunt and it's lovely and very good beer. And when I heard about it, I assumed that the aardwolf that was like depicted in like their logo and stuff and the name, I assumed that this was a cryptid of some sort. I assumed it was like a jackalope. Like I didn't think it was real. I thought it was mythological. I thought it was like, a cross between an aardvark and a wolf or something like that. I just kind of assumed it wasn't real. But when I, I got to kind of look it up and I realized it was real and it's also great,. It's so good. So I was really glad to see that. But actually, that prefix "aard" comes from the Dutch word for earth. So it's like an earth wolf, which is the same prefix as aardvark.
Christian: Sure.
Ellen: So they both have similar names because they come from the same language.
Ellen: Cool.
Ellen: Yeah. But no relation to the aardvark. They have nothing to do with them actually, but still both very, very cute.
Christian: Also nothing to do with wolves, it sounds like.
Ellen: Yeah. Nothing to do with either of them. Completely unrelated to either one. So yeah, this is a, this is, I haven't had a chance to talk about hyenas on the show yet, so I was glad for this lesser-known hyena to be our sort of intro to. I think hyenas get a bad rep and they are not as bad as people kind of make them out to be. So I'm glad for the gentle and sweet perfect angel, the aardwolf, to be our intro to hyenas on this show.
Christian: Oh, how lovely.
Ellen: Yes, this is a good friend. So that's the aardwolf.
Christian: Yay! Thank you, honey. That was great.
Ellen: You're welcome. So that's all we have for this episode. Thank you so much for tuning in. Thank you to everybody who has been listening and also to everybody who has been recommending the show to your friends. We've been seeing our numbers steadily climb and that's been really delightful to see.
Christian: It's cool stuff.
Ellen: Yeah, this is great! So, um, you know, keep, keep letting your friends know that there's a cool animal podcast you listen to called Just the Zoo of Us and we can be listened to on you know, Spotify, iTunes, Google, some other different podcast listening apps. So you know, whichever app you are most comfortable using, use that. You can connect with us on our Facebook page by searching the title of the show. We are also on Twitter and Instagram, so find us on there. It should be pretty easy to find. There's only one of us... (there's actually zoo of us!)
Christian: Oh! There it is!
Ellen: Yikes, that was bad. I'm so sorry. If you have an animal species that you want to hear us review, you can submit it to us either by our Facebook page, if that's easier for you or at thezooofus@gmail.com. A transcript of this episode will be made available at justthezooofus.home.blog and as a final note, we would like to thank Louie Zong for the use of his song "Adventuring" from his album Bee Sides.
Christian: So, so good.
Ellen: It's excellent, as is the rest of his music, so go check him out. Okay. I think that's all we have for this week.
Christian: Thank you... So much...
Ellen: Why did you say that so weird?
Christian: That didn't work. Didn't work.
Ellen: Can you come up with a better sign off and it can't be, "I'm going to go see Spiderman"
Christian: Next episode: spider, and... Man.
Ellen: Okay. All right. That's going to do it for us here at Just the Zoo of Us. Thank you for listening.
Christian: Thanks everyone.
Ellen: We'll see you next week.
Christian: Byeeee!.
Ellen: Byeeee.