143: Muskox w/ Kirsten Engeseth!

Ellen: Hello friends and welcome to episode 143 of Just the Zoo of Us. Just super quick before we get started with the episode, I want to say thank you. We wrapped up the Max Fun Drive last week in excess of our membership goals. Thanks to those of you who showed up for us in an incredible way. Not only are we going to be delivering on that really cool new content that we promised, like video game live streams, and next week's episode where Christian and I are going to be playing DnD, but we're also able to make some really ambitious upgrades to the podcast itself that will be coming soon. And I'm really excited for you to hear about them. Basically, we get to continue creating and growing all because of you. And for that, I just want to say thank you for believing in us and trusting us with your support. Now time for this week's animal review. This week, I am talking with a scientist who joins us all the way from Norway to talk about the fluffiest softest living tank you have ever seen: the muskox! We talk about how these real life Banthas keep warm in the harsh Arctic winters, band together to defend their herd with unwavering honor, and do their absolute best to overcome the challenges of new environments and an ever-changing world. Just the Zoo of Us presents the muskox with Kirsten Engeseth.

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Ellen: Hey everybody, this is Ellen Weatherford. I'm here with Just the Zoo of Us, your favorite animal review podcast. And this week we have a new friend with a really cool animal that is quite unique, and I have to admit, I know so little about, so I'm really excited for the stuff we're going to learn today. This is Kirsten Engeseth. Say hi, Kirsten.

Kirsten: Hi everybody.

Ellen: It is so nice to talk to you, and we're going to talk about a very charming and delightful animal today. But before we talk about our animal, Let's talk about Kirsten a little bit. Kirsten, you're coming to us from Norway. We were joking around a little bit before I hit record. And on your screen, it looks to me like the middle of the afternoon. It's quite bright, but you have informed me it is 8:00 PM.

Kirsten: Yes. That's the joy of these high latitudes. You have that long daylight hours in the spring and summer.

Ellen: Yeah. So you're all the way up north in Norway, which is way up there, where you get some chilly winters and some animals that are adapted to those chilly conditions in some really interesting ways. But before we dig into that Kirsten, what brought you to the work that you're doing with these awesome animals in Norway?

Kirsten: I am pursuing my master's degree at NTNU in Trondheim, Norway. And I came here because, well, I guess for two reasons, part of it is because I love the Arctic. I've always been really fascinated by Arctic ecosystems and the nature and the wildlife, but also my heritage is Norwegian. And so that always drew me to come back in a way to Norway. I've done two bachelor's degrees. My first one was in foreign language. I was interested in going into political science and linguistics, but after I finished that degree, I found rather than going into grad school, like I had anticipated, I just kept feeling a strong sense of regret that I didn't pursue my original passion in science and a big part of that was because I think growing up, um, we often hear, oh, if you're not good at math, you can't be a scientist. If you're not good in chemistry, you can't be a scientist. So I was really put off of pursuing science.

Ellen: I think that's really relatable.

Kirsten: Yeah. I think a lot of people go through that. And so for me, I realized that I wasn't getting the fulfillment from my career path that I wanted. I grew up loving animals as all of us have, I'm sure. For me, I think I always knew in the back of my mind that that was the path that I wanted to take. So, um, as an older student, I decided to do another bachelor's program at the University of Minnesota. And I got my bachelor of science in fisheries, wildlife and conservation biology. So my specialization was actually in fisheries because I spent a long time on the California coast doing marine science education and outreach. I worked in an aquarium for a while. I was really heading down this path of marine science and fisheries and my bachelor's program. It was really great because we could specialize in a field like fisheries, but also we had field courses in things like mist netting and banding birds and setting up camera traps. I did a wildlife immobilization class where we got to learn how you sedate and handle wildlife like wolves, mountain lions, bears. So I got to do a bit of everything. And I knew at that point, um, as I was wrapping up my bachelor's program, that I really did want to continue in this career as a scientist that really brought me the most fulfillment.

Kirsten: So I knew I was going to go for a master's degree. For doing a master's program, I looked overseas exclusively. I wanted to go to Norway in particular because I'm really drawn to the environment here. I mean, Norway is so well-known for its natural beauty. You think of the Northern lights and you think of the mountains and the fjords. Oh, it just doesn't get any better than that. So.

Ellen: I'm thinking of the romance from Game of Thrones, which I don't think was in Norway--

Kirsten: I think they filmed it in Iceland maybe, but at a certain point up north, it all looks the same.

Ellen: The sweeping landscapes, like you get a nice snow-capped mountain in there and ugh! Chef's kiss.

Kirsten: Yeah, it's just unbeatable.

Ellen: As someone who lives in the wetlands of Florida, which is like the highest up you're going to get. It's about 10 feet above sea level, it's the closest where you could get to a mountain. So, I mean, I see pictures of Norway and it's mindblowing.

Kirsten: Well, my field site is out in the mountains and for me as someone that doesn't come from a mountainous area, it just, oh, it took my breath away. But so I was applying to master's programs here in Norway, because I wanted to work in these beautiful landscapes. And also as someone who was specializing in fisheries at the time, Norway has a huge history of fishing and they're developing all kinds of aquaculture and fisheries management. The marine ecosystem here is really fascinating, so originally that was what I was planning on pursuing. The program that I'm in is actually called natural resource management in the biology program. And this is a master's degree that's based on how people interact with the natural environment. So it's not just the biology of these systems. It's not just ecology, but it's also how humans interact with and manage these systems. And how can we improve that relationship? And how can we bridge the gap between science and the people who live and move through the world? That's really important to me. So, um, it's, it was just like, I can study that in Norway? Perfect.

Ellen: And it sounds like a good merging of, like you mentioned, like the first interest of like language and political science and like bridging that and passion for natural science. Like they go hand in hand so perfectly.

Kirsten: Absolutely. Um, so much of natural resource management is people management. And for me, there's nothing more gratifying than like we're doing on this podcast. Just sharing my love of the natural world and the animals and plants that live there with people that either live in co-habit with these organisms, or maybe are half a world away and have never heard of them, or have never seen them.

Ellen: Like me!

Kirsten: And me for many of the other episodes that I've listened to, you know, there's so many that I've never seen. And, and for me too, like when it came to my study animal, like I said, I was mostly interested in fisheries and marine science and marine invertebrates. And for me to be studying large mammals, is a complete left turn. I always thought all the large mammals, everyone wants to do large mammals. I want to do something else, but, um, the more you learn about any animal you can become so invested and the muskox in particular is, it's a very emblematic species in Norway. Which is sort of interesting given their history, which I can tell you a little bit, a little bit about.

Ellen: I guess if you had like asked me what would be an emblematic animal of Norway. I don't even know if I could have given you an answer. I would have thought maybe a moose?

Kirsten: Yeah. Moose is the other really big one. So quite literally, one of the big ones. Yeah. So moose are, they're really common and Norway they're here by my apartment building, you know, they're, they're all over the place. So they're definitely an animal that people, when they think of Norway, they think of moose and also reindeer, which is one of my main study animals and the muskox, which is interesting because the muskox in Norway, it went extinct sometime before the last ice age.

Ellen: What?

Kirsten: So typically when you think of a muskox, their native range is Arctic Canada, Greenland, primarily they were in Alaska. They went extinct there too, I believe. Or were extirpated and then were reintroduced. So there's actually been a lot of reintroduction programs to bring the muskox to areas where they existed before the last ice age.

Ellen: Wow. Like before, before.

Kirsten: A long time ago.

Ellen: So like a lot of times when you hear about animals, like going extinct in certain areas, a lot of times that's kind of like at the hands of humans, right? This sounds like this is not that situation. Like they went exchanged for other reasons. Is that what happened?

Kirsten: The history of the muskox, as I remember it is that they wound up in these patches due to glacial retreat. So they were able to survive when other megafauna were not able to. So like, for example, the wooly mammoth went extinct. The muskox was still around, but human hunters that were moving and following this retreat also would wipe them out in certain areas.

Ellen: What do you mean by glacial retreat?

Kirsten: So just as the glaciers were shrinking or moving further up, so glaciers used to cover more land than they do now. And so as they retreated. They would leave these areas that have been thawed, essentially, so animals could survive in those areas. That's my, that's my very basic understanding. I'm not a geographer or geologist, but what I do know is that fossil records were found of the muskox here in Norway. They were, the fossils were discovered in 1913, I believe by people who are building a railroad.

Ellen: Oh wow.

Kirsten: And so they found fossil evidence of the muskox and that was how it was discovered that they had been in this area.

Ellen: Okay. So even as recently as within the last century, there were still no muskox.

Kirsten: Yes, correct.

Ellen: Wow. So this is a recent thing, huh?

Kirsten: It's really recent. And there had been multiple attempts at that point to bring the muskox back. And part of this was because Norway was wanting to have this emblematic animal. They wanted a big charismatic megafauna. Maybe the moose wasn't big enough. I'm not sure.

Ellen: Also I feel like Canada has dibs on the moose, right?

Kirsten: Yeah. I feel like Canada has, they're probably most associated with the moose.

Ellen: Right? You think of moose? You probably think Canada.

Kirsten: North American moose are bigger than the European ones. So...

Ellen: So I'm getting like slightly stunted on a little bit.

Kirsten: Exactly.

Ellen: Like, okay, well, if we can't have the biggest moose, then we'll do something else.

Kirsten: Polar bears don't come down this far south or up on Svalbard much further north. So you can't even have the polar bear down here on the mainland.

Kirsten: They need a W.

Kirsten: Yup, they needed something else, so they decided that they would try and bring the muskox back. This had varying degrees of success. So this is the early 1900s. So try and imagine, well, first of all, what does a muskox look like?

Ellen: Yeah, we should probably talk about " what's a muskox," right?

Kirsten: Right. Like, cause you need to picture them to understand how this would go. So a muskox is, I guess the closest thing for someone who's never seen a muskox I would say maybe picture a bison that is smaller and hairier and has bigger horns, or if you like Star Wars, picture a Bantha and that's it.

Ellen: Let me Google a Bantha real quick. Yeah. Now the Bantha has these big, like curly Q sorta horns. Is that what the muskox is like?

Kirsten: Yeah. So the muskox, if you picture a bison, they have these horns that sort of curl out and upward while muskox they curl out and down, back toward their face. So if you think of like a bob haircut, they sort of had this little like, the curl around the face, a nice little face frame moment, and then curl back out at the bottom.

Ellen: Bangs. They have bangs.

Kirsten: Exactly. They're like bangs.

Ellen: Well, I'm looking at a picture now and I want to say they also have a pretty fierce middle part.

Kirsten: Yes, they do.

Ellen: The middle part and the fringe bangs. This is a gen Z icon.

Kirsten: And that's actually one way that you can tell the females from the males, the females have a wider middle part than the males.

Kirsten: And this is because the males will actually use their horns for establishing social dominance. So head butting with other males. And so they have to have a tougher, stronger plate on their head. So the horns actually kind of form a headbands on the males.

Ellen: Oh, it's doubling as a helmet.

Kirsten: Yep. And on the females, they don't have that. So they've got that really strong middle part.

Ellen: Their horns are sisters, not twins.

Kirsten: Exactly. They're quite unique looking animals. There's not anything else that looks like them. They're quite large. They can be around four to five feet tall at the shoulder. It's hard to see how big they are in reality, because they have so much hair. Just an unbelievable amount of hair. They have a really thick insulating coat of under hair. And then they have these long course guard hairs that fall like curtains from their body.

Ellen: Have you ever seen one like soaking wet so that the hair all lays down so you can see like, like, imagine, actually like the size of a dog underneath?

Kirsten: I've often wondered about that. I've always thought "I wonder what they would look like if you were to, like give them a poodle cut or something." Like, I want to know what they actually look like under there. I know they have like a shoulder hump and apparently when you're looking at one, you're like, where's the neck. Because there's so much hair and they're so round that you can't really make out any musculature, but apparently even underneath all that hair, they don't really have a neck because they're just so stout. I would just love to see what they look like underneath all of that.

Ellen: Okay. So you mentioned that they, you know, they do look like a bison, they have the word ox in the name, the name, what are they relate --I mean, are they like a cow or are they like a deer? Like where are they in the family tree?

Kirsten: Yeah, they're kind of often their own part of the family tree. Everything about their name is a misnomer. A muskox is not an ox. Nor is it musky.

Ellen: O for two.

Kirsten: Yeah. So it's really a poor name, to be honest.

Ellen: 0% accuracy.

Kirsten: Exactly. I don't know who was in charge of that, but they really dropped the ball on that one.

Ellen: Hello friends. It's me editing this episode with a real quick clarification of this point.

Ellen: Kirsten let me know after we recorded that the "musk" part of the name comes from a smell that the males spread on themselves during rut, but is not technically musk as they have no musk gland. She said that they have a preputial gland near their genitals that produce a strong smell, which they spread by their urine.

Ellen: It's similar in function to musk but Kirsten told me that musk from a musk deer is traditionally highly prized in its powder form to make fragrances. But if you tried that with a muskox, you would just get a stinky urine, basically. So as so often happens over time. The word musk just came to be sort of casually used for pungent animal smells, but it technically refers to a specific chemical compound, which the muskox doesn't make. Of course muskox does sound way cooler than stink ox, so maybe it's for the best. All right. Is there a better Norwegian name for them?

Kirsten: No, it's Moskusoske.

Ellen: Okay. Well, we tried.

Kirsten: And Moskusoske, it's funny. It's the name for muskox but when it literally translates, like if you were to run that through Google translate, sometimes it comes back as muskrat. So you'll be reading something about muskrats, but it's actually talking about muskox.

Ellen: Context clues would be wild.

Kirsten: Yes, exactly. A really cute one I saw recently it said musk, fairy which I love. And I, now that's how I think of them. I think of them as musk ferries, probably more accurate than muskox anyway.

Ellen: The petition to have it officially changed, begins here and now. Musk fairy, the absolute opposite of what a person typically thinks of when they think the word fairy. A massive lumbering ungulate is probably the vibe of the fairy mood board.

Kirsten: Right. But I think it's a sweet name. So that's kind of always in the back of my mind. So the muskox is actually more closely related to sheep and goats than it is to cattle.

Ellen: I can see that, especially with the horns. Cause a lot of goats with that sort of horn situation.

Kirsten: Yeah, exactly. That's kind of the big giveaway that you can tell that they're not related to cattle, the horn configuration, the horn moment that they've got going on is, uh, more sheep or goat, like.

Ellen: Yeah. Or like a big horn sheep, you know, I'm thinking of that too.

Kirsten: But even then it's a pretty distant relation. They're off in their own group. The scientific name Ovibos moschatus means sheep ox, musky.

Ellen: None. Correct.

Kirsten: Free word association when someone looked at one, I guess.

Ellen: Oh, I mean like if all you're going off of is vibes, you know, look at it and you probably aren't going to immediately think, oh, sheep and goats. There's a few other things that would come up first.

Kirsten: Yeah. It's I like that sort of vibe based naming convention. It's the way that people named birds, you know?

Ellen: Absolutely. And in the meanest possible way at every opportunity. Well, we're big proponents of vide based taxonomy here on Just a Zoo of Us. Just follow your heart, man.

Kirsten: I'm right there with it.

Ellen: Do they have the same kind of attitude that goats have? Cause when I think of goats, I think of pure attitude.

Kirsten: They can have attitude, definitely. Um, it probably depends on the time of year, they go through a rutting season, just like when people think of rut, they often think of deer. So this is typically late summer or in the autumn. When they're going through the mating season, the males will get some attitude for sure. They, um, become a little bit more aggressive. They'll start trying to establish dominance. They'll start fighting with subordinates or challenging each other. So that's the time of year where I don't want to get too close to a muskox. They can be a little bit temperamental. I don't want to get too close to them anyway, but especially not at that time so they can, they can have attitude.

Ellen: I feel that. So earlier we mentioned that all of the environments that they live in, whether it's in scandinavia or in North America, these are all like very cold, not just in winter, but like kind of all year round. Right. It's pretty frigid up there. So they have to be adapted to some pretty harsh conditions. I love to think about animals that have adapted to really hostile climate because you see some like, really, really cool ways that they have adapted their body to respond to that. And so I would love to take a look at some of those adaptations in the muskox. If this is your first time listening to this podcast, we rate animals out of 10 in different categories. The first category that we rate animals on is effectiveness, and this is physical adaptations that let it do a good job of the things it's trying to do. Let it survive in their environment. What do you give the muskox out of 10 for effectiveness?

Kirsten: So I'm going to go a little against the grain from what I've heard in past podcasts episodes, I would love to give a 10, I'm going to give a nine and I'm going to do that for educational purposes. So I can talk about why I'm not going to give them full points as much as I want to. So let me talk about all their great adaptations that they have for success and, and why I would like to give them a 10.

Ellen: Hype them up first.

Kirsten: Their range is typically the Arctic, the Norwegian population is actually south of the Arctic circle. It's a little bit different conditions there, but it's still Alpine Tundra. So it's still quite harsh. I mentioned earlier that they're very hairy animals. You can see in any picture of them. And especially if you look at pictures of them, when they are shedding in the spring, they start shedding their installation layer.

Ellen: I was wondering if they do that, because I think that our bison here do that too, right?

Kirsten: Yes.

Ellen: They lose that sort of fluffy coat.

Kirsten: Yes. So the muskox, if you go out into the fields where they live at the right time, you will just see clumps of muskox wool on the ground, caught on shrubs, I have some that I grabbed out in the fields. I have some muskox wool.

Ellen: Is it soft?

Kirsten: It is so soft.

Ellen: Oh my gosh.

Kirsten: Muskox wool -- so the, I really hope I don't butcher this name, but the muskox is a really important animal for a lot of indigenous cultures in the Arctic. And I believe it's the Inuktituk word, for muskox wool is _qiviut_. Not only is it incredibly soft, it is the most expensive wool in the world as far as I know.

Ellen: Really?

Kirsten: If you want to give yourself a shock, look up how much a muskox wool sweater or blanket, or even scarf costs. It is tremendous.

Ellen: Okay. The first thing that comes up is muskox wool socks. I'm going to EUUUGHH OH MY GOD --

Kirsten: Many people think cashmere is the most expensive, but I want to point out that there's only about 140,000 muskox in the world. So this is a, this is a limited resource they're only found in the high Arctic. And there are some that are raised in like farm settings, but not nearly enough to have any kind of commercial production. A lot of what you find that's made out of this wool is hand collected by people going out in the field and doing what I did and just grabbing clumps of it as you find it.

Ellen: Okay. So this price makes sense, right? For the materials. I'm looking at a pair. This is on Etsy. This is a listing for a 100% kevia lace or plain knit scarf. It is $350.

Kirsten: Yeah. It's not a joke.

Ellen: And, you know, once you say that, you know how labor-intensive and how scarce this product is, like, that definitely makes sense for that product. If you didn't know that though, and you just saw $350 scarf, you'd be like, I think not.

Kirsten: Yeah, exactly. And the thing is we were talking about their adaptations, this wool, not only is it extremely soft, it's like holding a cloud, but it is so warm that things like those socks and those hats and sweaters. You almost can't wear them because they are so warm. It's eight to 10 times more warm than sheep wool.

Ellen: Wow.

Kirsten: It is extremely warm, which makes sense because they live in these really harsh Arctic environments. And they don't hibernate in the winter, so they just have to withstand those temperatures.

Ellen: Just sticking it out in the coldest of the cold.

Kirsten: So they are bundled up. If I was going to get any sort of muskox wool accessory maybe a scarf, but anything more than that, I would not try to wear outside or I would have a heat stroke probably. I would overheat immediately. So they're, they're very well adapted to that for warmth. They've got this amazing insulation. They also have really sturdy hooves, for digging in snow in order to find food, they are not that effective at moving through deep snow. They have really short legs.

Ellen: Oh no.

Kirsten: If you look at a picture of a muskox, it's kind of funny how short their legs are compared to the rest of their body. They're not very good at moving through deep snow.

Kirsten: So they will move further up slopes where the snow is a little bit, or hasn't accumulated as much, but they can dig through snow and break through ice with their hooves, um, in order to find food in the winter time.

Ellen: I did look up a picture. Well, just so that I can see like the full body of the muskox and it does look like they have big like Clydesdale feet almost.

Kirsten: Yes. They actually bear a lot of their weight on the front ends. They've got quite wide and sturdy hooves.

Ellen: Like snowshoe hooves.

Kirsten: Yeah, exactly. You know, if you compare it to the other mammal that lives in the high Arctic, um, like the other big herbivore, which is the reindeer, reindeer have really sharp, tough hooves as well, but they're built for speed and they're built for, you know, they can dig through more deep snow, things like that. The muskox kind of went the other direction. They went for short, sturdy and tough.

Ellen: The muskox is the tank build? Reindeer is the DPS.

Kirsten: Exactly. I mean, they really are just built like tanks, to survive in that environment.

Ellen: I've heard that this is a thing, like a phenomenon where like the farther north you get the bigger animals get.

Kirsten: Yes. So I think a lot of this has to do with just metabolic needs.

Ellen: The context I was thinking of it in was in like wolves, for example, like the wolves that you'll find up north are like substantially bigger than the types of wolves you'll find farther south, that like further south you'll get wolves that are like smaller and thinner and lankier, but then up north you'll get wolves that are like bigger and bulkier, but that like a lot of animals that have that sort of wide range will be like huge in the north and then little down in the south.

Kirsten: Yeah. I think that's just due to heat retention and the ability to disperse heat as well.

Ellen: It's kind of the name of the game. Isn't it? When you're an animal.

Kirsten: So the muskox, there's one other adaptation that I think is really cool. And that's, if you look at a picture of their eyes up close, they have horizontal pupils rather than round ones.

Ellen: I love this!

Kirsten: They function sort of like sunglasses.

Ellen: Really?

Kirsten: So the horizontal positioning of the pupils helps reduce glare off of snow.

Ellen: Is that what that's for?

Kirsten: Yes. At least in the case of the muskox. That seems to be, uh, the purpose of that.

Ellen: Oh, wow. Cause I've, I've seen, you know, like goats that have that like horizontal slit pupil, and it definitely is strange to look at when you're up close with one in person. It has-- it gives you that sort of like alien looking sort of like feel to it when you look them in the eye.

Kirsten: Yeah. Goats do have that. Well it makes sense, because they're closely related. So it makes sense that they would have that similar configuration. Yeah. Yeah. It definitely is a little unnerving to look at.

Ellen: You know, when you said that, that it's for like reducing glare off of the snow, it reminded me of those sunglasses that are just kind of like, they're usually like carved out of bone and they're sort of like a visor over your eyes with the slits carved out. Have you seen those?

Kirsten: Yep. I think that's what that is, maybe not what it's based on, but it's the same principle. And they're used a lot by indigenous cultures. It's like a traditional way of reducing glare for hunters. So they have all these really cool adaptations that are really impressive for surviving one of the harshest environments that you can imagine. The reason why I didn't give them a 10 and the reason why I'm bumping them down a little bit is because we're living in a time of global change. Climate change in particular is affecting all Arctic animals to a really high degree. And for the muskox, this has impacts in terms of not being able to access their food, because rather than having snow, that they can access, you're having warming temperatures, which is creating snow melt and refreeze. So you get this ice crust rather than snow, that they can easily, um, navigate. And so it's much harder to access food underneath an isolator than it is under snow. And this affects animals like the reindeer as well. They're going to the same, same difficulty right now.

Ellen: Is there also an issue for them with the actual, just like temperature of the air in the sense that, like you mentioned that they're first so good at keeping them warm, which is great when the temperatures are falling really low, but as the temperatures are creeping higher, is that working against them as like, are you seeing like muskox suffering from like overheating?

Kirsten: Muskox certainly can overheat, you know, right now the population that I study is further south in Norway. It's not in the Arctic, so they are capable of living in some of those. So I'm going to say warmer, but warm is a relative term in this area. Um, they do live in a warmer environment than their Arctic counterparts, but they do have limitations for, for example, how much they can migrate because they are prone to overheating. That's one part of it. So I, I totally imagined that that is something they would find difficulty with if temperatures were to get too high. And the populations are pretty small. Like I said, there's only about 140,000, maybe less. Individuals in the world. And a lot of these populations are small isolated ones. There's not a lot of genetic variation. So their ability to adapt is definitely something that will work against them. And that's obviously not, I can't really fault them for that.

Ellen: Right. It's not their fault.

Kirsten: But they're definitely going to struggle to adapt in a changing environment. And especially as things warm or the climate changes, that's going to affect the way that people move and interact with the environment. And that's gonna affect human interactions with the muskox as well. So that is a concern I have about their ability to adapt.

Kirsten: Yeah. It's not a criticism, right? It is just a concern.

Kirsten: Yes, exactly. Otherwise 10 out of 10.

Ellen: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, if it weren't for us, they'd be perfectly suited for what they're doing.

Kirsten: Exactly.

Ellen: Hey there, we are going to take a quick break to hear from a couple of the other shows on the Maximum Fun Network. When we get back, we're going to talk ingenuity and aesthetics for the muskox. So stick around!

Ellen: Well, that brings us to our next category. You know, I'm wondering since maybe some things built into their body are starting to slowly work against them, you know, let's think about what are they doing? Like, what is their behavior like? The next category that we rate animals on is ingenuity, which for us is behavior. So things they're actually like doing with their body ways that they're solving problems or interacting with each other. Uh, what would you give muskox out of 10 for ingenuity?

Kirsten: I'm going to give them a 10.

Ellen: All right!

Kirsten: They do have some really cool behaviors.

Ellen: I'm interested to hear about this. Cause I-- no clue. You can tell me that they do calculus right now and I'd believe you.

Kirsten: Well, I'll tell you a story.

Ellen: Oh, I love a story.

Kirsten: And kind of frame this behavior. So like I said earlier, there was not a native population of muskox in Norway until the early, mid, nineteen hundreds. So. Now that you know, what a muskox looks like and bear in mind, they can weigh something like 400 pounds to 800 pounds.

Kirsten: I mean, they're big animals,

Ellen: chunky boys,

Kirsten: and their native range is in Arctic, Canada and Greenland. How are you going to move those animals, in the early nineteen hundreds, to Norway?

Ellen: That had not occurred to me until you said that, but now that you say that, that does pose an interesting dilemma, doesn't it.

Kirsten: So you have to go to where the muskox live. You have to find a way to capture them and get them onto a boat and transport them into the mountains somewhere else.

Ellen: Easy.

Kirsten: You're right. Yeah, exactly. So one of the challenges that people found when trying to achieve this was that muskox did not want to, they will not go willingly. I'll put it that way, so.

Ellen: Okay. I wouldn't either, but alright.

Kirsten: They have this really cool defensive behavior when they feel threatened. So a lot of animals, if you, if they encounter humans their instinct is to flee. Muskox are not built for speed. They can run surprisingly fast. They can run anywhere between 25 to 35 miles per hour, which is why you should not get too close to one in case they decide to sprint at you.

Ellen: I mean, it's a big animal. It's a lot of forward momentum.

Kirsten: They can't do it for very long. With their short little legs and their heavy fur and they'll overheat, but to compensate for that, they have developed these other behaviors for defense that don't involve having to run away. So, what they do is the more dominant members, typically the males in a herd, will start forming a ring around the young. The females will also join this, but the females are smaller. So sometimes they're also found in the, kind of more towards the middle with the young. And so they form a circle around the more vulnerable members and they have all their horns pointed out.

Ellen: Like a phalanx.

Kirsten: It's like an impenetrable wall of just mass.

Ellen: A fortress.

Kirsten: Yes. It's a living fortress. This works great against predators because the biggest predators that they're going to encounter typically in their Arctic distribution are wolves. So a wolf, even as pack hunters, they're not going to be able to breach that fortress.

Ellen: That's 360 degrees of coverage, baby.

Kirsten: Exactly. Those wolves will get injured. I don't know if they even will try in that case.

Ellen: Right. Just give up, find something easier, you know, like, at that point there's easier stuff to hunt.

Kirsten: So muskox are really hard to intimidate. I'll put it that way.

Ellen: Plus you have the audacity factor, right?

Kirsten: So that's a really cool adaptation to have against predators. You will sometimes see other predators attempt to take muskox like polar bears, for example, but they tend to go for individuals that are older or weakened in some way. Sick. You're not going to see many predators go after a healthy herd because they will just form that tight ring and be impossible to get through.

Ellen: That's so interesting. I'm going to see if I can, oh yeah. I typed in muskox and then the letter C and the first result that came up was like, muskox protective circle. That is really cool. I'm looking at a picture of it. It's very inspirational looking.

Kirsten: And it's organized looking, right?

Ellen: It is! Like, it looks like they should be charging into battle.

Kirsten: Yes, they absolutely do.

Ellen: They look very noble and majestic.

Kirsten: And it's just something that's so fascinating to me because when you think about animals, that exhibit herd behavior, you often think there's a threat. And so they'll start fleeing and they'll sort of flock together, safety in numbers, but they just band together and they organize this like beautifully symmetric circle of protection. I think that's a really amazing behavior that they have.

Ellen: I'm thinking about how you said earlier that like the males get so territorial and aggressive towards each other. And when you see a picture of them, like banding together to protect the herd, it feels like such a, like a lay down your arms, like solidarity with each other. Like, it just feels like such a, like a motivational thing. That's like set aside their differences. They're banding together and finding common ground and protecting their herd. Oh yeah. I could cry.

Kirsten: Their social interactions are, are so dynamic and they change throughout the seasons based on if there's young around, that changes the dynamic. Sometimes you'll get just bachelor groups where they were not able to establish dominance. You'll get just like some males or you'll get like a family. Maybe there's only five members in one herd, so it can vary quite a lot, but it's amazing the way that they've found to, to protect themselves and each other.

Ellen: I feel like when I look at all these pictures of them and it's usually like, the snow is blowing around them, like, of course --

Kirsten: It's dramatic.

Ellen: Their hair is blowing in the wind and there's like a flurry of snow -- I feel like, like you can hear the picture. It's like looking at the picture you can hear the dramatic theatrical score, swelling in the back.

Kirsten: They make for some of the best dramatic photos.

Ellen: Incredible, absolutely stellar.

Kirsten: It's just amazing. So this strategy that they have of banding together works great, but it makes it difficult when your adversary I'll say is human hunters, because they can find ways around that defense. And I believe, some of this is not recorded. So it's like an oral history, but some of the stories I've heard about how they tried to re-establish muskox populations was that they couldn't catch the big strong adults. They would try and catch only the young. At one point they were barred from like hunting family groups like that and taking just the young and like breaching those circles if they formed them.

Kirsten: So some of the techniques involved, like hurting them towards the sea for example, to like break that formation and try and collect individuals to bring back the reintroduction actually took several attempts. And part of this is because the muskox are quite used to being the only big herbivore in their environment. When they moved here, where you have sheep and other deer, for example, things like disease would spread and make it difficult for them to survive. And a lot of these animals are used to the Arctic Tundra where it's a little bit flatter and they were introduced here into the mountains, where there's avalanches, which is something that they were not as prepared for, for example.

Ellen: I'm so not used to this, like a snowy mountain area that I forgot avalanches existed until you said that word.

Kirsten: So right. And these animals have never encountered these before. And especially since a lot of the reintroduction was focusing on bringing young individuals over, they didn't have the adult family members that can sort of guide them through different scenarios. And so they struggled to make it through some of those winters and these like different conditions. Now that population is over 200 individuals, it's maintained at that number. I think the fact that this population managed to grow after so many initial setbacks really shows their, I guess I'll say ingenuity and their ability to learn and adapt to those scenarios because the population started at just a handful and then World War II happens and they were wiped out. During that time they were, they were hunted, um, because it was a tough time. There was scarcity. And so they had to be re-introduced again, um, after World War II.

Ellen: After all that hard work.

Kirsten: Yep.

Ellen: Start from zero.

Kirsten: Had to start from scratch. Um, and so they had to bring more over to start that population. And since then that population has only grown and some have actually migrated. There's a handful. 10 individuals I believe that broke off from this population and moved to Sweden.

Ellen: Do you think there was some drama in the herd where they were like, "you know what, forget you guys, I'll start my own herd."

Kirsten: They crossed the border over to Sweden and Sweden was like, "all right, we're the muskox country now."

Ellen: I mean, what are they going to do? Turn them away at the border? It's a muskox. Like, what are you going to do? You can't tell them no.

Kirsten: Exactly.

Ellen: They'll like charge right through the little, uh, the arm thing, but yeah, you're not gonna stop that.

Kirsten: You could not stop that muskox that wants to cross.

Ellen: There's no border patrol for the muskox. They recognize no borders.

Kirsten: But it's really funny because in Norway they're actually a black listed species. Um, so this is a status that has given to species that are invasive and that are not allowed. So, I said earlier that this population is kept at a maximum of around 200. Last I checked, it was something like 240 individuals. So it's a little bit over. But they try and keep this population fairly low. And that is to reduce things like competition with the native species, like reindeer that they share that area with just reduce grazing pressure on the mountains. I don't think they envisioned having that problem when they moved this handful of muskoxen over.

Ellen: Right, because it feels so like, all right, you guys are doing great now do less great.

Kirsten: Yeah. So try and keep it under control now, you know.

Ellen: Stop, stop, stop too much, too much, too much.

Kirsten: Yeah. There's a highway that cuts through the national park where they live. Um, it's the Dovrefjell -Sunndalsfjella national park. And they're only on the west side of the highway. They're not supposed to go over the east side. If they cross the east sides, then I think, . Um, some management agency gets involved because they don't actually want them to spread beyond their designated range.

Ellen: That is a very specific demarcation. It's just like, you shall go no further, do not cross the street.

Kirsten: It's okay to go the other way to Sweden, but--

Ellen: Then they're like, you can go be their problem.

Kirsten: I just thought it was so funny that they introduced this species that they really wanted to be like this new national symbol. It's the emblem of Dovre of that municipality down there. They have that on their coat of arms, I guess I'll say, is a muskox. So they're quite proud of their muskox, but they say don't, don't get carried away.

Ellen: And it was like a, okay. We want to keep him special. We don't need too many of them. We don't want them to inflate the value, what a charming problem to have.

Kirsten: Yeah. So I think they're, they're an amazing species.

Kirsten: I, again, I'll give them 10 out of 10 for ingenuity because of their social behaviors and how they have managed to thrive in this area that they weren't used to is quite an achievement.

Ellen: For sure. And they're beautiful. They're so cute.

Kirsten: Yes.

Ellen: Let's talk aesthetics. The last category that we rank animals on is aesthetics, which is pretty self-explanatory. It's just, how nice is this animal to look at? What do you give the muskox out of 10 for aesthetics?

Kirsten: It has to be a 10.

Ellen: It has to be right?

Kirsten: Is there anyone who would say otherwise?

Ellen: That's a big fluffy puppy dog.

Kirsten: If anyone is in doubt, I would encourage them to Google image, search a baby muskox.

Ellen: Let's do it.

Kirsten: And try not to cry.

Ellen: You're going to get a live real-time muskox baby-- you're kidding! The first picture that comes up is, has this little foot up and it's very proudly marching.

Kirsten: They are the cutest babies in the animal kingdom, and actually my desktop wallpaper is baby muskox because whenever I feel overwhelmed with my work or I'm like working too hard, writing my papers, um, I can minimize it. Look at the baby muskox. Recenter myself.

Ellen: This is a self care, like looking at pictures of baby muskox I think is a self care item. Like . I feel like, uh, like therapists should start prescribing images of baby muskox. Muskoxen?

Kirsten: So it's, I think technically it's muskoxen, sometimes I'll use muskox and that's, I think it's because of Norwegian, they just say Moskususke. And so I got in the habit of just saying muskox for all of it.

Ellen: It's what I'd be doing.

Kirsten: I kind of go back and forth, but I think muskoxen is technically correct. Yeah. They're just incredible to look at. And if cuteness, isn't your thing and you want something dramatic lookup, muskoxen, and winter, and just see their like windswept, beautiful-- standing in the mountains, their hair blowing back. Just stunning.

Ellen: Very tormund from Game of Thrones.

Kirsten: Yes.

Ellen: It's definitely Freefolk.

Kirsten: Yeah.

Ellen: It's very good. It's also a little bit Hoth.

Kirsten: Absolutely. Absolutely.

Ellen: Yeah. And as much as we want to fawn over how cute the babies are, they don't lose that energy.

Kirsten: No, they keep that through adulthood.

Ellen: They still have that big, I love, a big, broad, like snout on a, on a pig. It's what I find cute about cows. Like, yes, just the big soft muzzle.

Kirsten: It's definitely that vibe.

Ellen: And also knowing that they're soft like that they're actually soft to touch because sometimes you look at an animal and you're like, it looks soft, but I bet it's really not. But like, knowing that they're soft brings me a lot of inner peace.

Kirsten: Yeah. Their, their wool is incredible. Like I've been sitting here with this piece of wool in my hands. It just stays on my desk. It's like a, like a stress ball almost.

Ellen: Does it make a sound? Do they make sounds?

Kirsten: They do. So the adults, you'll sometimes hear the males before you'll see them in the rutting season. They have sort of a roaring rumbling sound.

Ellen: Roaring! That's cool.

Kirsten: It sounds kind of prehistoric. Like if you try and imagine what a wooly mammoth might sound like. They kind of remind me of that. Just scaled down.

Ellen: So if anybody out there is a filmmaker and is looking to incorporate some really cool, like fictional animal sounds look into the muskox.

Kirsten: And the babies, they bleat kind of like goats.

Ellen: Of course they do. Right?

Kirsten: And it's really cute.

Ellen: Oh my gosh. I just, I'm thinking of those little goats that make like the goofiest sounds. Like the videos where the goat's like, BLEH, which is way funnier when you imagine it coming from an even larger and more intimidating animal.

Kirsten: Right. The first time I saw the muskoxen, it was a family group that had two calves with them and it was just perfection.

Ellen: Blissful.

Kirsten: It was so, yeah, it was like sitting there in the mountains, watching them graze and rest, ugh and watching the little ones run around. It was so cute.

Ellen: Here's one minor aesthetic issue I'm having. And it is that I have now come across pictures of them actively shedding.

Kirsten: Yes.

Ellen: And that's not great.

Kirsten: Luckily that's only part of the year when they start shedding that winter coat.

Ellen: That is unsuccessful.

Kirsten: That's when they look like the Banthas, that's when they're channeling that Bantha energy.

Ellen: Like ghosts is what they look like. They look like a banshee, like a zombie version.

Kirsten: Yeah, that's true. They are not that beautiful when they are shedding.

Ellen: At least. I mean, listen, we all have our days where maybe we're having a breakout, maybe like, you haven't washed your hair. Like we, I will grant them. You know, everybody sometimes has an off day. That's maybe not the most flattering angle for them all other times, if you've ever groomed a very, very fluffy, like a Husky or something, and you take like the de-shedder thing to a Husky and you're just like pulling out sheets and sheets of fur. But it doesn't make the dog look any less furry, you're getting all this fur but you're like, nothing's happening. Where's it all going?

Kirsten: I think muskoxen um, when they are shedding like that, they lose something like five kilos of hair, which I'm not good at math, but I think that that's something like 12 pounds. It's a lot of hair.

Ellen: That is like my whole dog of

Kirsten: hair lost.

Kirsten: And you only need, so if they shed 11 pounds of hair, you only need something like a hundred grams of it to make a sweater.

Ellen: So it is efficient.

Kirsten: Yes.

Ellen: I feel like it would be nice to like, feel it just to experience the softness of it, but that is a very high investment.

Kirsten: When I'm out in the field, I'll just, because I am one of those people that goes out in nature and has to like, touch everything and like puts random things in my pocket.

Kirsten: So I'll grab some of this. Cause it's, it's all over the branches, especially this time of year, I'll be able to, there'll be start shedding. So I will grab some and we'll see if, if mail gets stopped, but just has like,

Ellen: "Wait a second..."

Kirsten: random hair in it.

Ellen: And it was $70 worth of fluff that you're trying to send in the mail.

Kirsten: Yeah.

Ellen: Insure this. I would love to feel one someday. They look beautiful and soft. What a spectacular animal. And, and it makes me surprised that I guess, because it does live so far up north and it doesn't have a very southward extending rain range, I guess it doesn't surprise me that not a ton of people know about them. Like, I couldn't even tell you if I've ever, I've never seen one in a movie.

Kirsten: Right?

Ellen: Like maybe in a nature documentary somewhere, but I could not tell you any depiction I've ever seen of a muskox.

Kirsten: Yeah. And now I think of it. I don't think I've ever seen them in pop culture either. I do believe that the Bantha and Star Wars was, it has to have been inspired by the muskox. But other than that, I don't think, I can't think of any, any example in culture.

Ellen: I Googled it and Discovery Channel posted on Instagram that muskox were one of the inspirations for the Banthas, seen in Star Wars.

Kirsten: Oh, there we go.

Ellen: And that's from Discovery. I don't know where they got that information, but that's what they said.

Kirsten: I'll take their word for it.

Ellen: Yeah, I mean, they got the blue check and everything, so they must be right.

Kirsten: Yeah, absolutely.

Ellen: Beautiful. Well, as we're getting wrapped up with the real life Bantha, the muskox, for today, let our folks listening at home know, like, what are you up to now that people can follow along with?

Kirsten: Well, I am working on two projects right now. One of which of course is my master's thesis. So my research is studying the diet overlap in the Dovre mountains between reindeer, sheep and the muskox to see if there is, um, any seasonal overlap there. And, um, I'm also working on a collaboration through the UArctic Sematic Network on herbivory , where we are working on a field ID guide for pellet sampling. And so, um, I am currently working on that. We'll be launching that soon. You can find me on Twitter at @reindeerist. So that's just reindeer, I S T on Twitter and that's where I will be posting mostly about my research and the upcoming project with the herbivory network. And lots of pictures of Norwegian wildlife. That's mostly what I've been tweeting. So if you want to see pictures of Norway and Norwegian wildlife, then, uh, my Twitter is the place to be.

Ellen: Awesome. And I'll have links in the episode description. So anybody who wants to follow along with your work and check out some adorable baby muskox can just scroll down and click on through.

Ellen: Perfect.

Ellen: Awesome. Well, thank you so much for your time and your knowledge and your love for muskox that I think we have probably left some people with here today. Like if the baby muskox, isn't going to do it, like nothing's going to do it. It's--

Kirsten: Absolutely. I mean, come on. Just look at them.

Ellen: If the baby muskox doesn't break through the glacier of your heart.

Kirsten: If it doesn't ignite something...

Ellen: Yeah, like that's going to do it. Um, so thank you so much for your time and teaching me about muskoxen. And now I feel like I love and appreciate them so dearly. So it has been a delight. Thank you so much. And we will talk to you later.

Kirsten: Well, thank you so much for having me. It was great talking to you.

Ellen: Of course! Thanks, bye.

Kirsten: Bye.

Ellen: Thank you all so much for listening friends. I hope that this episode gave you a feeling in your heart as warm and fuzzy as a baby muskox. If you liked what you heard today, it would mean a lot to us if you could leave us a five star review on your Podcatcher, we are also on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram. We even have a discord server that's a lot of fun, so come hang out with us on social media to connect. You can also send me an email, ellen@justthezooofus.com. If you have a cool animal you'd like to hear about. We'd like to say thank you to Maximum Fun for having us on their network, along with their other fantastic shows like the one that you heard a promo for here today, you can check them out and learn more about the network at Maximumfun.org. While you're there, consider signing up for a membership to keep us going along with the rest of the shows on the network. Finally, we'd like to say thank you to Louie Zong for our incredible theme music.

Ellen: And that's all for today. See you next week, Christian and I are playing DnD. It's going to be a lot of fun. Thanks, bye!