11: Meerkat & Warthog

Ellen: Hey there friends, this is Ellen Weatherford.

Christian: And this is Christian Weatherford.

Ellen: And you are listening to Just the Zoo of Us, the animal review podcast where we take your favorite animal species and rate them out of 10 in the categories of effectiveness, ingenuity, aesthetics.

Christian: We are not zoological experts.

Ellen: Not at all.

Christian: We do a lot of research and try our best to make sure we're presenting information from trustworthy sources, so if we misstate something or just flat out get something wrong, please tell us and we will fix it.

Ellen: We'll make it right.

Christian: Yes. We dunk on ourselves. We can take dunks from others.

Ellen: This is episode 11 and this is a very special episode. I hope you all have your permission slip signed because we're going on a trip to the zoovies. Ahhh! We got this idea from our friend Krystina Sanders who asked that for the week of the release of the remake of the Lion King, we do a Lion King themed episode and I thought that was a fantastic idea.

Christian: For sure.

Ellen: So I put it to a poll a few weeks ago and I asked you fine folks what animal pairing you were most excited to see in the Lion King, and the answers you gave were Timon and Pumbaa.

Christian: It wasn't Animal McAnimalFace?

Ellen: Stop.

Christian: What with the Internet polls?

Ellen: It wasn't, it was a closed poll, by the way. I did not allow people to submit their own options for that exact reason. Thwarted. So I asked you fine folks which animal power duo you were most excited to see in the Lion King, you said Timon and Pumbaa, for that reason, this week's episode is about the meerkat and the warthog.

Christian: Yeah boy.

Ellen: We are bringing you real life Timon and Pumbaa this week. So if you've ever wanted to know more about these cute little animals you're seeing on the screen, we're here to tell you about them.

Christian: I believe you're first, dear.

Ellen: I am. Last week Christian went first, so this week it's my turn. I have the meerkat, also known as, I didn't know this, another name for the meerkat is the suricate.

Christian: Oh!

Ellen: Yeah, I didn't know that. That comes from the scientific name for the meerkat, which is Suricata suricatta.

Christian: Oh, interesting.

Ellen: Yeah, it's a fun, catchy little name. So I'm getting my information on the meerkat from the Smithsonian National Zoo as well as the San Diego Zoo. As an introduction to the meerkat, this animal is about 10 to 14 inches long, or 25 to 35 centimeters. It's about a chicken and a half, maybe.

Christian: This, this again.

Ellen: So that is just the length of the meerkat from the tip of the nose to like, their butt basically.

Christian: Okay.

Ellen: The tail adds an additional 7 to 10 inches, or 20 to 25 centimeters.

Christian: Sure.

Ellen: So the tail is like almost half of the length, the meerkat's body.

Christian: But the tail is usually, what, pointed... like, up?

Ellen: Yeah, they're usually, yeah, they're usually like having it -They're like holding it angled in such a way that, but anyway, they have a long tail. So this is basically a little, uh, weasel. It's a little long-shaped, pointy-nosed little dude. It looks like, looks like a rodent, really. You're going to find meerkats in southern Africa in dry grasslands. The taxonomic family they belong to is called Hermestidae, and that is the Mongoose family.

Christian: Okay, I can see that resemblance, yeah.

Ellen: Yeah, so they're actually like a part of the mongoose family. So they're, they're cousins of other types of mongooses. Now, so this family, herpestidae is also part of the Feliformia suborder, which I mentioned last week in the segment on the aardwolf. This is another one of those animals that's actually more closely related to cats than like dogs or anything like that. I'm going to draw some other parallels between the meerkat and the aardwolf throughout the show, and you'll, you'll see why.

Christian: Cool.

Ellen: They're not like closely related or anything, but they're both part of the Feliformia family. So I'm gonna kind of jump right into my rating for the meerkat. I'm going to start with effectiveness. So we define effectiveness as physical adaptations that the animal has developed in order to more effectively accomplish its goals. So if it has a thing it's trying to do, maybe it's trying to hunt prey, maybe it's trying to get away from predators, whatever it is, how well it is built to do that physically.

Christian: Like it's real good for swimming or something.

Ellen: Well, the meerkat is not so great for swimming. But anyway, I gave the meerkat a 7 out of 10 for effectiveness.

Christian: Okay.

Ellen: So like the Aardwolf, the meerkat eats a lot of bugs. The meerkat eats mostly bugs.

Christian: Alright. So that's one point in the movie getting it right.

Ellen: Yes. The grubs thing is spot on. Yeah. So meerkats do eat mostly bugs, but whereas the aardwolf was a highly specialized predator to eat mostly just this one type of termite, the meerkat is a little bit more of a generalist. So it does eat a lot of those termites and it eats a lot of bugs, but it also eats other things like it will eat small animals, it will eat like scorpions, snakes, stuff like that. But it does also eat fruit and like roots and like vegetation and stuff like that. So kinda a little bit more omnivorous of a style. They're not a strict insectivore like an aardwolf is. So the meerkat is a little bit more built for generalization. Their approach to hunting their insect prey is focused a lot more on digging. They have a lot of physical adaptations that optimize them for digging. They have a really keen sense of smell that lets them find their prey underground, they have really, really long claws on their front paws that are not retractable. They are out all the time.

Christian: Sun's out, guns out.

Ellen: And the sun's always out baby. So they have those long claws that are built for digging. Now, also their eyes and their ears can close up to keep sand out so they can close their ears and their eyes have a nictating membrane over them, which I mentioned in the episode about the camel. This is common for animals that may be exposed to sandstorms or just kind of sand in the air. So they can close up their eyes and their ears while they're digging to keep dirt and stuff from getting in there. They're built for digging in the sand. Really, that's what they're made for. Whereas the aardwolf was not, the aardwolf didn't actually dig, right. They just had a sticky tongue to pick termites up off the ground.

Christian: Sure.

Ellen: Some other adaptations the meerkat has that makes it really, really good at eating all these general critters: They have some immunity to venom from scorpions and snakes.

Christian: Okay.

Ellen: So they do eat scorpions and sometimes I get stung by scorpions, or they'll get bitten by snakes and they have some immunity to it. Now that's not 100%.

Christian: Sure.

Ellen: So sometimes they can die from venom, sometimes they don't. So it's not 100%, so I gave them like a little bit of points for that, but not a lot because it's not like sure fire.

Christian: Resistance.

Ellen: It's resistance. It's not total immunity. So I gave them a little bit for that. They have these dark patches of fur around their eyes that I refer to as eyeliner. Although it is more, it's like eyeshadow, I guess it's more eyeshadow because it's like a big blotch of black fur around their eyes and that reduces glare from the sun so that lets them see better. They also have a tapered snout that lets them get their nose into tight spaces, so like termite mounds and stuff. Their nose is very pointy so that they can get it in there. Meerkats also don't really need to drink a lot of water because they eat roots and they eat fruits like melons and stuff like that that have moisture in them. So they're getting the water that they need from their food.

Christian: Awesome.

Ellen: That's pretty cool. Yeah, so that's a 7 out of 10 for effectiveness. It's pretty good. It's not, it's not the best, but they're a little bit more versatile. Like they can eat a lot of different stuff and they can... They're a little bit more of a generalist. So they're well suited to what they're doing.

Christian: Going for the spice of life.

Ellen: Yeah. That's the 7 out of 10 for effectiveness. For ingenuity, this I think is where the meerkat shines. I give them a 9 at a 10.

Christian: Alright!

Ellen: We define ingenuity as behavioral adaptations that kind of give the animal an advantage. So this, a common example would be tool use, things like social interactions that help them out or just kind of ways that they're behaving to get an edge on other animals. So meerkats live in underground burrows, and in these burrows they live in big groups that are called mobs, and the mob is typically around 10 to 15 meerkats, but it can be up to 30 so it's a lot of meerkats all living together in this burrow together. So the mob is kind of like a neighborhood. It's made up of different families and with- and each family consists of a breeding pair and their offspring. So kind of like how a neighborhood will have a bunch of different families living together in it, that's kind of how this is. It's a bunch of different families clumped together to make one group. Within that mob, one of the families will be the dominant pair. So there's kind of one family that's in charge. Meerkats' social structure is also matriarchal. So the ladies are in charge.

Christian: Gotcha.

Ellen: The females are calling the shots. So of the dominant breeding pair, the female will be kind of the head of the whole mob. There's like one dominant female. So rather than there being like a dominant male, there's a dominant female, which I thought was pretty neat. So since they have a matriarchal society, when a breeding pair has like offspring, when females reach sexual maturity, they become ousted from the family and they'll leave their family to go start their own family, which is, you'll typically see that in reverse with males leaving their family group and starting their own family group. Like we talked about this with elephants, right?

Christian: Right, right.

Ellen: How like the males usually will be the ones that leave the group to start their own. But with meerkats it's females. The females will leave their family and start their own group.

Christian: Makes sense.

Ellen: Yeah. So adult meerkats in a mob all share duties and responsibilities of meerkat life. They take turns acting as guards, and guard duty is really interesting because guards will go stand on top of the highest point they can reach, whether that's like maybe it's a log or maybe it's a big boulder or maybe it's a termite mound, they'll stand on top of it and watch and they communicate with their mob using a surprisingly complex vocal language.

Christian: Okay.

Ellen: They have all of these different vocalizations that indicate things like the beginning of their duty, something called a "watchman's song" that means the coast is clear, and barks and whistles that alert the mob to threats. They even use specific calls to differentiate predators from each other.

Christian: Wow.

Ellen: So they have different calls that mean a land predator, so like a jackal or an airborne predator like an eagle or a hawk. So they'll make different sounds and that will determine what the mob does. In this way, they kind of negate their vulnerability to predators by using their strength in numbers.

Christian: Very cool.

Ellen: Even though on their own they might not physically be able to fight off a predator, together as a group they can avoid them.

Christian: Also, using the high ground, which has historically proven...

Ellen: Overpowered.

Christian: There's our Star Wars reference for this episode.

Ellen: That was our obligatory, we hit our cap. When they put out these calls to alert the mob of predators, they have a couple of different ways that they'll respond to these predators. Pretty much like their go-to is that they'll all run inside the burrow, right? They'll all run into these, they're called bolt holes and it's a hole that has a wider opening and a more narrow inside. So it's kind of like a funnel. It makes it easier for all of the meerkats to run in. So they'll run into these bolt holes and hide. Another thing that they could do is they could all just kind of run around like crazy and kick up dust and it makes a little dust storm that covers them so that like if an eagle's flying around, it can't see them through the dust. It's really cool! They have like all these different strategies that they do for different predators. So adult meerkats also teach their young what food to eat as well as how to eat it. Like I mentioned earlier, they eat scorpions, right? But if you're going to eat scorpions, you have to know how to avoid being stung. So what adult meerkats will do is they'll show the baby meerkats how to bite off the tails of the scorpions to avoid being stung. An adult meerkat will find a scorpion, bite its tail off, and then bring that scorpion to their baby and show it like, look, I bit the tail off. So then the baby learns that that's what it has to do to eat a scorpion.

Christian: Okay.

Ellen: So they're actually like, using generational learning. They're teaching their future generations how to be a real good meerkat. So adult meerkats within the same mob will actually take care of each other's offspring and act as babysitters. They'll even help transport each other's babies when it's time to switch burrows, like all the meerkats will like pick up each other's babies. They, it's not like, oh this is my baby, so I have to take care of it. Like they, they just all take care of each other. It's a very communal lifestyle. The meerkats live in these huge burrows, but even though they're really well built for digging, a lot of times they'll use burrows that have already been made. So they'll move into a burrow that's been dug by something like a, like a ground squirrel or a mole or something like that and they'll jus+t use that.

Christian: Okay!

Ellen: Yeah, there'll be like, well the work's already done. Might as well, which I thought was funny. Work smarter, not harder. Right? That's an ingenuity point.

Christian: Yeah.

Ellen: So within the burrow, they'll have different areas that serve different purposes. So they'll have like a sleeping area and like a potty area. They have like a latrine area, like part of the den will be specifically for going to the bathroom.

Christian: Oh, that's smart.

Ellen: Yeah, very smart. So a mob of meerkats will usually control a territory that's around four square miles.

Christian: That's pretty big.

Ellen: It's huge. Yes, very big. Within that territory, they'll cycle through different sections of the territory every day. This is kind of like the aardwolf, you know, you have a big territory and you just go visit little different spots of it every day. And throughout that territory, they will have memorized the locations of multiple burrows, and they'll cycle through burrows every few months. So every like few months or so, they'll all pick up and move to a different burrow within their territory.

Christian: Okay.

Ellen: Yep. So since that territory is huge and meerkats are real small, sometimes those territory zones overlap. This is when the drama happens. This is when it pops off. If two mobs of meerkats meet each other, hoo boy. It's spicy.

Christian: They come out of the alleys, and they start walking towards each other, yeah, and snapping.

Ellen: Yeah. They really aren't keen on it. So the San Diego Zoo describes an altercation between meerkat mobs and such: they say, "both sides line up across a field, and at the right moment charge forward with leaps and bounds, holding their tail rigid and straight up in the air. Every third or fourth leap, they arch their back and thrust their rear legs backwards like a bucking bronco."

Christian: Huh...

Ellen: Yeah. They're basically being as extra as they possibly can. So what they're doing is they're trying to intimidate their rivals into backing down. So usually one of the two groups will back down. They're really just all talk, right. It's a bluffing game. It's just a big game of chicken where they're trying to spook the other one off.

Christian: Right.

Ellen: So they do this on purpose because they understand that if the confrontation escalates to actual physical contact, it's very likely that they will kill each other. And you know, both groups are going to suffer massive casualties and probably like, very few of them are going to survive the encounter. So they know that. They know they can kill each other very easily. Since they know that there's a huge risk of dying, they'll choose to back down if they feel sufficiently like, threatened. So they're trying to like fake each other out so that they don't have to actually fight. So I, I thought that that warranted them a bonus to ingenuity for comprehending the cost of war.

Christian: Wow.

Ellen: Yeah. They get it right? Like they understand they, they don't actually want to go to war with each other because they know they'll die.

Christian: I think this was a common theme on the TV show Meerkat Manor.

Ellen: You're right. So that's my 9 out of 10 for ingenuity, because I think that the way that they interact with each other is just so fascinating. This brings me to aesthetics.

Christian: All right, let's hear it.

Ellen: I, I gave them a 7 out of 10 for aesthetics...

Christian: Really?

Ellen: Which is maybe a little surprising because I... Even, I thought I was going to give them higher, but I feel like they're cuter in person than they are in pictures. Do you know what I mean? I feel like the way that they run around is really cute and the way that they stand up on their hind legs is cute. But like when you just look at a picture of them, they're kind of... meh.

Christian: Oh, they have a, beauty in motion.

Ellen: Yes. Yeah. I feel like when you just look at them, they're kind of... meh. They just are. They're fine. They're just fine.

Christian: Sure.

Ellen: They're fine. Oh, but baby meerkats though? Hoo. They're cute.

Christian: They small?

Ellen: Boy are they good. Boy are they adorable! But yeah, like I feel like just =an adult meerkat just kind of standing around? I mean, they're pretty cute, but they're not exactly, um hitting, it out of the park for me. Listen guys, this is, this is subjective. Okay? This is arbitrary. I made it up.

Christian: Yeah, I mean, the name of the game.

Ellen: They can't all be perfect. So for a 7 in effectiveness, a9 in ingenuity and a 7 in aesthetics, that brings us to a 7.7 out of 10 for meerkats.

Christian: That's pretty good.

Ellen: Which you can round to an eight, right?

Christian: Sure.

Ellen: That's pretty good. That's a good animal. So I'm gonna wrap up with some fun facts. The conservation status is of least concern. They're doing okay. They're doing fine. No cause for alarm here with meerkat.

Christian: Sure.

Ellen: Which is maybe due to their popularity in media because these are very famous little dudes. So meerkats are highly beloved in popular culture. Most recently there is a character in the show Aggretsuko that is a meerkat. The characters name is Komiya. You've watched Aggretsuko. I have not.

Christian: I've seen the first season and it's been a little bit.

Ellen: Do you know the character Komiya?

Christian: No, I honestly don't remember any character names.

Ellen: Okay, well that's fine. Komiya in Aggretsuko is a meerkat. So going back a little further than that, there is of course Meerkat Manor, the documentary series that aired on Animal Planet from 2005 to 2008. This documentary series followed a family of meerkats named the Whiskers as part of the Kalahari Meerkat Project. I have binged this show. I watched the whole thing over a summer one time and it is just delightful. Boy is it great. It's so fun to watch. They have such intricate, complicated relationships with each other. So something that I thought was neat, I read a little bit about the show and I read that while the footage that they use is of course all completely like, legit documentary footage, it's not like they staged anything, they did some things where like there were rival clans of meerkats that the Whiskers family would have these like rivalries with, and in the show their rival family is portrayed as like this one family that keeps coming back to fight with them, whereas in reality that was footage that was kind of like spliced together from different groups of meerkats. So it wasn't like the same group of meerkats every single time, but it was, you know, they, they portrayed it that way in the show just for the sake of simplicity.

Christian: I mean, that's got to be common in that sort of documentary. I've always felt like, you know, they're, they're telling us a story right now, but they could really say anything for what's going on here.

Ellen: So yeah, there was actually, some people were really getting upset with the people that made the show because there were situations in which a meerkat was like wounded and suffering and dying, like horribly. And people would get so upset, they'd be like, why didn't the camera crew just like, rescue it? Why didn't the camera crew swoop in and save it and get it to safety? What the documentary crew said was like, that's not what we're here for. Like first of all, they were working on a real legitimate research project. They were there to document and research the activity of wild meerkats and any sort of interference on the crew's part would have basically like tainted the entire sample. Right? Like that would have just negated the entire thing because then it's like you've introduced the human element and also they were like, you know, if a meerkat is not doing well and it's not thriving in its environment, like they're basically like letting natural selection take its course. They're like, we don't want to contribute to like, the preservation of weaker genes that are then going to like affect the longterm sustainability of this meerkat population. So this is like standard documentary film crew ethics, right? If you're making a nature documentary, you don't interfere with what's going on.

Christian: Yeah, yeah.

Ellen: But, so that was, some people were kind of uncomfortable with the idea that like this film crew is filming these meerkats suffering and not doing so great, but that's just... c'est la vie, right?

Christian: Right, right. Just got too real for some folks.

Ellen: Yeah. Some people couldn't take the heat, so they had to step out the kitchen. So yeah, that was Meerkat Manor. Meerkat Manor's a great show. If you can get access to it, I definitely recommend checking it out because it's really, really cool and will give you a really much deeper appreciation for the intricate social lives of these really fascinating animals. And of course, can't neglect to mention Timon from the Lion King, arguably the most famous meerkat in the world.

Christian: True.

Ellen: Like probably a lot of people's only idea of a meerkat.

Christian: Yeah. TI mean, for me personally, it was just the Lion King and Meerkat Manor, and then the occasional documentary that would talk about them a little bit.

Ellen: Yeah, yeah yeah. Yeah. So a lot of people just know of Timon from the Lion King. Actually the animators on the Lion King used meerkats at the San Diego Zoo as models for the character design of Timon. And so really kind of the only thing that I would say about Timon being meerkat representation is that, you know, Timon is just kind of wandering around with this warthog and meerkats don't just wander by themselves like that. They live in very, very tightly knit meerkat communities and don't typically stray from them.

Christian: Oh, there's room there for some fanfiction. Timon: outcast of the meerkat dynasty.

Ellen: I don't know, maybe he's like a meerkat felon that's been like, like evicted from his community. Maybe he had like meerkat tax fraud or something. What kind of meerkat high crimes has he committed?

Christian: He ate too many bugs.

Ellen: Oh, this is my prompt for the listeners: what treacherous crimes has Timon committed to be excommunicated from his meerkat mob?

Christian: Muuurderrrr?

Ellen: It could be murder. That's up to our listeners to determine. We'll put up a poll. That's fine.

Christian: Yeah, yeah.

Ellen: Okay. So yeah, that's my bit on the meerkat.

Christian: Excellent job, hun.

Ellen: Thank you darling.

Christian: So my turn. Of course, my animal this week is the wart-HOG.

Ellen: Yeah- I'm sorry. The what?

Christian: The wart-HOG. Or is it war-thog?

Ellen: No! How did you do it two different wrong ways?

Christian: Okay. The warthog.

Ellen: Thank you.

Christian: The scientific name is... I don't know why I keep getting the animals with the hard ones, but the Phacochoerus africanus.

Ellen: Great job.

Christian: Woo! My information for the warthog is coming from nationalgeographic.com and the website for our local zoo, the Jacksonville Zoo, that website being jacksonvillezoo.org.

Ellen: Represent.

Christian: Yes. So a little basic info about our warthog friends, their height measured at the shoulder is 30 inches or 76 centimeters. So they would come up to almost waist for a lot of people.

Ellen: Can I get that conversion in chickens? How many chickens is that?

Christian: That would be two and a half chickens, I believe. Stacked on top of each other.

Ellen: Now I understand. Okay, thank you.

Christian: What do we call this system?

Ellen: Chicken scale.

Christian: The, the fowl system?

Ellen: No... Fowlenheit? Get it? Cause it's the height of fowls?

Christian: And then the next thing... The weight. So they weigh between 120 and 250 pounds. That's, that's a person.

Ellen: That's a dense little dude, isn't it?

Christian: Yeah, yeah. Which again, for metric listeners, that's 54 to 113 kilograms. They are found in Subsaharan Africa, so I believe some of that overlaps with the meerkat territory.

Ellen: Oh yeah. You would, you would probably find these like around the same place. Sure.

Christian: I believe they're a little bit more widespread though because it's not just southern Africa.

Ellen: Sure.

Christian: Their diet of short grasses, seeds, rhizomes, roots, fruits and surprisingly sometimes small animals.

Ellen: Oh... Grubs?

Christian: Nope.

Ellen: No grubs. Awww.

Christian: So it does not specifically mention insects or grubs and the like. Probably small mammals.

Ellen: I guess, when you look at them, they don't look like they're made for eating bugs.

Christian: No, it's probably- well, I mean...

Ellen: They got those big, broad snouts.

Christian: They do some digging, which I'll kinda go into more detail, but no, they're not particularly known for their grub eating. So to add on to my headcanon, I believe Timon was able to sell Pumbaa on the idea of eating grubs just like he did with Simba later in the movie.

Ellen: Oh, I see. So he's a proselytizer. He's an evangelist of the bug-eating lifestyle.

Christian: Yes. The taxonomic order is Artiodactyla.

Ellen: Artiodactyla!

Christian: Artiodactyla. Thank you for teaching me.

Ellen: Well, I talked about this with the okapi.

Christian: Oh, that makes sense. Um, so their most notable relative is actually domestic pigs. They belong to the same family as domestic pigs.

Ellen: Oh wow cool!

Christian: Yeah.

Ellen: Can we call his family oinkers? Is that the name of this family?

Christian: I didn't note what that family is actually called, unfortunately.

Ellen: Oinkers.

Christian: Sure. Don't @ me. So first up: effectiveness. I'm giving the warthog an 8 out of 10 for effectiveness.

Ellen: That's pretty good!

Christian: Yeah. So as I mentioned a moment ago, their tusks are very good for digging. They're very good at digging up earth. That's mostly for finding roots and vegetables and that sort of thing. Another adaptation that makes them very good for their environment is they can go for long periods of time without water.

Ellen: Nice.

Christian: Up to several months.

Ellen: Dang!

New Speaker: Surprising, right?

Ellen: Yeah.

Christian: Actually, here's the most surprising one: How fast do you think these guys are?

Ellen: Oh no. That wasn't the words I thought you were going to say. Uhh...

Christian: You can do like a relative thing, like, well, what do you think-

Ellen: 15 miles per hour. 15.

Christian: Okay. So here's their top speed at a sprint:

Ellen: Okay.

Christian: 30 miles per hour.

Ellen: NO! It is not!

Christian: Or 48 kilometers and hour. To put that in context, the fastest human sprint recorded is held by Usain Bolt in 2009, and that was 27.8 miles per hour.

Ellen: I'm so stressed. I'm in distress, knowing how fast these things can move.

Christian: Yeah, I mean that's the sprint speed of course. I mean they, I'm sure they cannot maintain that speed for too long, but still.

Ellen: I didn't think agility was going to factor highly into the effectiveness score of this animal.

Christian: Surprising. Right?

Ellen: You look at him and you don't think, boy, what a little runner he looks like.

Christian: Yeah. So this is kind of surprising. I'll touch on this in the next category a bit more, but they look like they would be ferocious based on their tusks and general demeanor, but they actually are more prone to running than fighting.

Ellen: Oh. When, when it comes to fight or flight?

Christian: Usually flight.

Ellen: Yeah.

Christian: The tusks, in terms of attack or defense is usually more for with other warthogs, between males usually. Yeah. Or, I guess when they're forced to fight cause they, they are hunted by large predators in Africa.

Ellen: Sure, sure. I mean, wish you would. Try me.

Christian: I'm sure there are plenty that could handle them. Maybe from some self harm though, in the attempt.

Ellen: Sure.

Christian: So, uh, 8 out of 10 effectiveness.

Ellen: That's pretty good. Good pig.

Christian: Ingenuity. I'm giving ingenuity a 7.

Ellen: Okay. That's okay.

Christian: So like domestic pigs, they use mud to stay cool. Um, so that's when they do find water, right. They'll use the mud to stay cool, but also to kind of gain some relief from insect bites.

Ellen: Oh. This is like a lotion. They're like lotioning...

Christian: Yeah. It's like, man, I'm dirty but at least I'm cool and not being bit.

Ellen: Hey, I can relate to that. That sounds like every summer here in Florida.

Christian: So here's something in common that the warthog and the meerkat have. So the warthog also uses burrows of other animals when it can.

Ellen: Oh!

Christian: But given its size, the animal burrow that they usually use is the ones created by aardvarks.

Ellen: Aardvarks aren't very big, are they?

Christian: Uh, I guess their burrows are big enough for warthogs.

Ellen: Sure. Go for it. So do warthogs wallow in the mud? Do they do that whole like, rolling around in it taking a little mud bath?

Christian: Uh, probably just to get the mud all over.

Ellen: Boy, that's cute. I think it's funny. I like it.

Christian: Our dog does something similar.

Ellen: In the grass.

Christian: On the carpet, wherever

Ellen: She might- you know, she makes that oinking sound too. She might be a warthog.

Christian: Hey Puppy? Puppy... Oh, she asleep. That's okay.

Ellen: Leave her alone.

Christian: Oh boy. So here's something interesting about how they use burrows: so obviously they use them for protection and to give birth, but here's something interesting, how they enter it usually. So they usually enter their burrows rear end first.

Ellen: Oh they're backing into it?

Christian: Yes.

Ellen: Awww.

Christian: So that they have the entrance kind of guarded by their big tuskss.

Ellen: Sure. And I would imagine since they're pretty front heavy, right?

Christian: Yeah.I would say that's a fair assessment.

Ellen: They're pretty front heavy. It's probably hard for them to, like if they're in a small enclosed burrow, they probably can't turn around.

Christian: So on the Jacksonville Zoo's website, they actually have a folklore listed and it reads: a tale tells of why the warthog enters his den backwards. While the warthog was out seeking food, a lion chased him. The warthog ran quickly down into his den to escape, and ran right into a porcupine. After receiving a face full of quills, the warthog now enters his den backwards to protect his face.

Ellen: How cute. Oh, how precious.

Christian: And like I mentioned earlier, they will usually choose running over fighting, which I count as an ingenuity point. Yeah. So 7 out of 10 ingenuity.

Ellen: Pick your battles.

Christian: Yeah. Aesthetics... ugh.

Ellen: Yikes.

Christian: Oof. Aesthetics. I think I was kind enough with a 5 out of 10.

Ellen: That's the best they could have hoped for, honestly.

Christian: Yeah. National Geographic, and I quote, says: "not among the world's most aesthetically pleasing animals."

Ellen: Rude. Y'all didn't have to say that. You guys didn't even have to do that. That's not even what you guys were there for.

Christian: Here comes National Geographic going hard in the paint, there's the dunk.

Ellen: Swish. Yikes.

Christian: So you know, they have the large flat head covered with warts, which are actually protective bumps. I guess the idea there is, you know, against other warthogs with tusks, the bumps help protect their eyes and other kinds of sensitive parts of their face. What I don't understand is why make defensive tissue out of something soft, right?

Ellen: Sure.

Christian: Why not just more horns or whatever?

Ellen: Just throw more spikes on it. You know what I think their face looks like to me?

Christian: What's that?

Ellen: A rusty shovel.

Christian: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. When they fight, you can just kind of imagine two shovels hitting each other.

Ellen: Thunk! Now you probably were going to mention the baby warthogs.

Christian: Yes.

Ellen: Okay. I'll wait until you do that then.

Christian: I'll go ahead. So their piglets, the piglets, very cute. I mean, I think all piglets are pretty cute.

Ellen: Yeah. You can't go wrong with a good piglet.

Christian: But you know what weirds me out about pigs and especially piglets? It's the inside of their mouths. I don't know what it is. Cause you can, that's the way their mouths are designed. You can clearly see their palette.

Ellen: Oh... You have way more like, up close and personal experience with pigs than I do. So I'm going to take your word for this one.

Christian: Well, even in the pictures you- so quick, shout out the Jax Zoo again, they recently had some more warthogs born in their zoo. So they have pictures of those and you can see pictures of people holding them, and you know, they're kind of doing their squealing thing and you can clearly see inside their mouth. I don't know what it is. It just weirds me out.

Ellen: Now. The piglets at the Jacksonville Zoo, the little baby warthogs, I went and saw them when they were babies. They're not babies anymore. They're full grown now because this was two years ago I think that these warthog piglets were born?

Christian: I guess not so recently.

Ellen: Not so recently. But when they were born, I actually went with my friend and took my camera out to the zoo and got to see the baby warthogs when they were like piglets. This was probably like the first weekend that they had them like out on the exhibit, boy were they cute! Man, they're so, they're like fluffy and soft and they're like, yeah. The baby wart hogs at the Jacksonville Zoo were so cute and what I thought was really funny was that they were all super, super hyper so they were running around all over the place and the parents of the piglets were in the exhibit with them and they looked so done. I have never seen an animal look more fed up with anything in my life. Oh my gosh. They looked so miserable because th little babies were running all around. They were like running up on them and like running into them and stuff and like the mom of the wart hogs was just laying on her side like please let it end to please let it all. And she looked so tired and so miserable.

Christian: Poor beebs.

Ellen: I know. But they were having a grand old time. Maybe I'll throw some of the pictures I took of the baby warthogs up on the social media.

Christian: Excellent.

Ellen: Yeah.They were great.

Christian: So the last little tidbit about them aesthetically, uh, they're mostly bald. As adults at least, except for the thicker mane that's on their backs.

Ellen: Yeah. They have that like wirey hair, right? It's like coarse and like thin and wirey and boy, it's not a cute look is it?

Christian: Yeah. I feel like it would be uncomfortable to touch.

Ellen: They don't look soft, no. They don't look inviting. It's not an animal that you think, "Ooh, I really want to interact with that."

Christian: Yeah. Which probably helps.

Ellen: Yeah, they probably did that on purpose. I bet. Now that I think of it. They're like, we really don't want people to look at us and think they want to mess with us.

Christian: Yeah. So with a score of 8, 7 and 5, that brings their overall to a 6.7 out of 10.

Ellen: That's okay... that's okay.

Christian: Yeah. Some little fun tidbits about them: Their conservation status is also of least concern. They're doing just fine.

Ellen: Sure.

Christian: Although, their population is on the decline though. So obviously some popular references in media include the Lion King with Pumbaa, but also one that I remember vividly is the Crash Bandicoot games.

Ellen: This is all you baby. I played one Crash Bandicoot game on the... GameCube I think?

Christian: Well maybe the GameCube. So the first one came out on the first Playstation in the mid to late nineties. But uh, I remember it because in the Crash Bandicoot games there were periods where you could ride a warthog.

Ellen: Oh my gosh. Was this, was it a good... Like a good thing to ride a warthog?

Christian: Yeah, it was cause like parts of the game would have like a change of pace, so to say. You know, "now you're riding a warthog and it moves differently!"

Ellen: Don't forget the most iconic warthog...

Christian: What's that?

Ellen: Seen in Halo. Didn't didn't you ever see that video "Warthog Jump?" It was like a video someone made of like people blowing up the jeeps, and...?

Christian: Are you asking me if I've seen some random fanmade Halo Youtube video?

Ellen: Yeah! You know the one that was out 20 years ago, you remember the one?

Christian: Let me just go into my backlog...

Ellen: Well, the warthog is from Halo. It's the name of the car.

Christian: Yes. It's a Jeep, has four tires...

Ellen: It's totally not totally not a Jeep TM, TM, TM...

Christian: An all-terrain automobile...

Ellen: There you go.

Christian: With a mounted gun. But anyway, a little bit about their reproduction. They have a gestation period of 170 to 175 days, which is about five and a half months.

Ellen: Oh. So they're really churning out these little piglets.

Christian: Yeah. And their litters are four or fewer, and the piglet stay in the den for 10 days before going outside with the mother. And the groups of warthogs that consist of female warthogs in their piglets are called sounders.

Ellen: Sounders? I've never heard that word before in my life.

Christian: Neither have I until extremely recently.

Ellen: Would you say within the last two hours?

Christian: Yes.

Ellen: A sounder of wart hogs. How delightful. That's very pleasant.

Christian: Right?

Ellen: Is a sow like a female warthog?

Christian: It is, but it's spelled differently. So a sow is spelled S-O-W whereas this is S-O-U-N-D-E-R-S.

Ellen: Okay, so you still use like... Is it sow and a bull? A bowl is a male, and a sow is a female?

Christian: I did not come across the term for a male pig, or warthog, I should say. I feel like that terminology is shared between domestic pigs and warthogs.

Ellen: Probably. They were probably just like, you know what, we've already got pig words. Just the same ones are fine.

Christian: Yeah. So that is the, the warthog.

Ellen: Lovely!

Christian: I have no stats on their singing prowess...

Ellen: Well, we can safely assume that it's wonderful.

Christian: Or their flatulence as is a popular theme in the Lion King movie.

Ellen: Yeah, they were really a going for that low hanging fruit there weren't they?

Christian: This guy farts.

Christian: Oh man... And if you were more interested in reproduction of warthogs, the Jacksonville Zoo has... A lot of details about that, but I didn't feel comfortable talking about on here.

Ellen: Also, if you want to see a warthog, you can go to the Jacksonville Zoo. They've got a whole bunch of them.

Christian: Yeah, hit 'em up. They're good friends.

Ellen: Whenever I go there, they're usually just kind of passed out like sleeping.

Christian: That's true. They're always just kind of resting in the shade.

Ellen: They're usually conked out, but it's pretty cute to see.

Christian: They're kind of stacked on, like stacked into each other.

Ellen: They really pile up. It's kind of funny.

Christian: Haha. Well, alright.

Ellen: Nicely done, my love!

Christian: Thank you!

Ellen: Great job. So that is the meerkat and the warthog! So now when you go see the Lion King that comes out this week and you see Timon and Pumbaa singing on the screen, you'll have a little bit more context information to know a little bit more about the meerkat and the warthog.

Christian: Yes, yes. You know what I'm looking forward to in that movie?

Ellen: What?

Christian: James Earl Jones!

Ellen: I know you are. I know that's your husband.

Christian: I could listen to him read the manual to my refrigerator.

Ellen: I know you're excited about that. You know who I'm excited for?

Christian: Who's that?

Ellen: Uh, Bey.

Christian: Abay?

Ellen: Bey.

Christian: Oh, you- oh, okay, who's this?

Ellen: Beyonce. Like, Bey, like B-E-Y.

Christian: Would you say... bae-yonce?

Ellen: Yeah, that's what I said. Yonce, and Donald Glover and Billy Eichner and whole bunch of other people.

Christian: Yeah! Great cast.

Ellen: Definitely. Yeah. I'm very excited for the Lion King, and so hopefully when y'all go see it you will think of us.

Christian: Yay!

Ellen: Yay! All right folks, well thank you so much for listening. Thanks for tuning in this week and also thank you to everybody who has been telling your friends about us. We've been seeing our numbers climb steadily and that's really, really exciting for us, so thank you so much for recommending the show. Please keep it up. Feel free to recommend the show to your friends. Let them know, hey, there's this cool podcast about animals I listened to. It's called Just the Zoo of Us. They can check us out on, you know, iTunes, Spotify, Google podcasts, all that good stuff.

Christian: Yeah, just tell them there's some, some pretty rad folks talking about the animals on podcast.

Ellen: Don't say it like that. Say it like a normal person, please. Otherwise they're never going to speak to you again.

Christian: You have to use rad. Do it.

Ellen: You don't have to do that. You can connect with us on our Facebook page by searching the title of the show. We can also be found on Instagram and Twitter, all that good stuff. So you know, reach out to us. Let us know what you thought and let us know if you have anything else you want to hear. If you have an animal species that you want to hear us review, you can submit it to us. You either hit us up on Facebook or if you want it to be a surprise, you can email it to us at thezooofus@gmail.com. A Transcript of this episode for your deaf or hard of hearing friends or people who maybe English isn't their first language and they would like to read along as they listen, transcript can be found at justthezooofus.home.blog. One more thing I'd like to add: thank you to Taylor Gordon Art for our brand new cover art!

Christian: So good!

Ellen: Yeah. Taylor did a really delightful illustration with our title text and everything like that and it looks so cute and it really captures the vibe of the show really well, so we're very thankful to have it. So thank you Taylor for the wonderful art.

Christian: Yes, thank you Taylor.

Ellen: And as our final note, I would like to thank Louie Zong for the use of his song "Adventuring" off of his album Bee Sides.

Christian: It's good stuff.

Ellen: Yep! All right. That's all I've got for this week. So thank you to everybody for listening.

Christian: Thanks everyone.

Ellen: See you next week. Bye!