6: Canada Lynx & Shoebill

Ellen: Hello, this is Ellen Weatherford!

Christian: ...and this is Christian Weatherford

Ellen: ...and we're here with Just the Zoo of Us, the animal review podcast where we rate your favorite species of animals out of 10 based on the categories of effectiveness, ingenuity and aesthetics. We're not zoological experts, Christian and I are just enthusiasts, but we do a lot of research and try our best to make sure we're presenting information from trustworthy sources. Last week I talked about the blue dragon sea slug and I went first last week, so it's Christians turn.

Christian: Yes, my turn.

Ellen: All right, Christian, let's hear it.

Christian: All right, so this week our animal comes to us from our good friend Krystina Sanders.

Ellen: Thank you Krystina.

Christian: Yes, thank you so much. And the animal is the Canada lynx.

Ellen: Alright!

Christian: That's a very good animal. Very cute. Before I get started, let me just talk about where I'm getting some of my information for this here animal. I'm not going to go specific into article names just yet cause it might spoil some things coming up.

Ellen: Oh no, just make sure you come back and let us know when we're talking about them.

Christian: Yes, for sure. Yep, Yep, Yep, Yep. So, uh, today I pulled from National Geographic as well as the journal of Wildlife Management and finally the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Ellen: All excellent sources.

Christian: Yeah. So let's talk about what these little guys look like. Uh, I say a little, but they're about twice the size of a domestic house cat.

Ellen: Oh, that's, I mean, that's not that big, right? Cat's still pretty little.

Christian: I mean, if one of these jumped on your lap though, you'd, you'd, you'd, uh, you'd notice it.

Ellen: It's about the size of a medium dog. Big cat, medium dog.

Christian: So specifically though, in terms of length, they range from 75 to 90 centimeters or about 30 to 35 inches, and they weigh six to 14 kilograms or about 15 to 30 pounds. So that's a, that's heavier than our dog.

Ellen: Oh, it is, that's bigger than our puppy dog. She's a beagle, by the way. .

Christian: Smol beagle. Uh, so where are these, where these cats are found: mostly in Canada and Alaska as you could probably guess by their name as a Canada lynx.

Ellen: I had gathered.

Christian: Uh, that that accounts for about 98% of the population. The other 2% of their population is based in the most northern parts of the United States, an example being Maine or Washington state.

Ellen: Oh, okay.

Christian: Yeah. Uh, so speaking of that, their scientific name is Lynx canadensis. So lynx is actually their genus.

Ellen: Oh, okay. So there's like a family of lynxes.

Christian: Yes. They are closely related to the bobcat. They actually the, it's actually also in the lynx genus.

Ellen: Okay. This kind of makes sense when you look at them, they kind of do look similar.

Christian: They do. And you might actually have a hard time telling the difference, especially in areas where their territories kind of overlap. Some differences are lynxes are typically larger.

Ellen: Sure.

Christian: And their hind legs are more noticeably longer than their front legs.

Ellen: Oh, this is like the Manx cat that has the long, the very long back legs so that its butt is up higher than its shoulders.

Christian: I've never seen those, but yeah, that's spot on about what it looks like. Also, they a shorter tail than bobcats and their,, you know, little nub tails.

Ellen: Oh, even more of a bobbed cat.

Christian: Yes. And also the tip of their tail is completely black, whereas on a bobcat, it's black with a little bit of white. And also with the lynx, their paws are much bigger. And I'll get into why that is here shortly.

Ellen: You know I'm a sucker for those big, fluffy paws. It's a great look.

Christian: They're very big. And of course the iconic look of this whole family of cats are those little black tufts of hair at the end of their ears.

Ellen: Love them. Really a stellar look.

Christian: Fierce.

Ellen: Some you may have heard of winged eyeliner. These are winged ears.

Christian: So before I get into my ratings, so let me talk about what our rating system is all about for maybe some of our new listeners.

Ellen: Thank you.

Christian: So we have three categories, effectiveness, ingenuity, aesthetics. Now before I get started, all three are arbitrary.

Ellen: We made them up.

Christian: So take it with a grain of salt. But effectiveness, that just speaks to how well they do what they do. Basically. So they're built well for one thing, maybe not so much for another. And ingenuity is, a good example of that could be tool use or just coming up with smart solutions to problems. And then aesthetics, pretty straightforward, you know...

Ellen: My personal favorite category,

Christian: it's a good one.

Ellen: The one that matters most to me. How much we like the way they look.

Christian: Yes. So going from the top effectiveness, I am giving the Canadian lynxand eight out of 10 for effectiveness.

Ellen: That's pretty good.

Christian: So here's why. Based on where I said they're found, you can probably guess snowy climates, right?

Ellen: Sure.

Christian: And they are built for it. So they have large paws, which lets them distribute weight easily on snow because the smaller surface area you're working with, the more you're going to sink inside the snow.

Christian: So large paws to distribute weight, but also the bottom of their paws have fur, so it acts as a almost a silencing mechanisms for their footsteps.

Ellen: You know what this reminds me of? This reminds me of the camel.

Christian: That, yeah, that's true.

Ellen: We talked about the Arabian camel a few episodes ago and it has a similar foot structure, how they're very big and spread out to keep them from sinking. But that, that was for sand. This is for snow.

Christian: Similar concept. Very similar concept.

Ellen: Very cool.

Christian: Yeah. So in addition to their paws, they also have very large canine teeth and they're designed to get the maximum amount of piercing when they bite down on something. That's because the way they like to hunt is they kind of bite down on the head and the neck and the throat of what they prey on.

Ellen: Going for the jugular.

Christian: Yep. They have retractable claws like many cats, but these are fully retractable. Oh, and I just mentioned their prey and they have one very, I'm just going to say that they have one primary prey.

Ellen: They have a favorite?

Christian: Yes. And it's a big one.

Ellen: Physically large?

Christian: No, no, actually small. It is the snowshoe hare.

Ellen: Oh! Okay.

Christian: So it's that, it's that, uh, that, that white rabbit that you often see in snow in pictures.

Ellen: A little snow bunny.

Christian: Yep. Yep. So that's our favorite prey and it makes sense because they found in the same kind of climate and the lynx needs to be a little stealthy and be able to move through the snow to catch those.

Ellen: These are quick little dudes, huh?

Christian: They are. And they're, they're mostly- they like to hunt. They will do some ambush style things when they have to, but usually hunting down and they have a dense fur, of course, for the cold climate and they're actually more nocturnal than otherwise, which I guess matches the hares, like when they're most active too. So they'll start hunting, you know, when it gets late in the evening and through the nighttime.

Ellen: Okay. So they're really kind of matching the activity cycle of their prey.

Christian: Yeah. Yeah. And I'll get more into this, but their relationship with that prey because of how, how much they go for it, It drives a lot of their population statistics. Yeah. So, but anyway, for effectiveness, uh, gave it an 8 out of 10.

Ellen: That's pretty good.

Christian: Yeah. Ingenuity. I'm giving it a, a solid 7 out of 10. You know, a good hunters ingenuity, I would say. So, but, but here's what I was talking about. I guess I would deduct a point here for this, but because of how, because of their reliance on one type of prey, majority anyway, the cycle of the lynx population and the cycle of the hare population are usually on 10 year cycles and they go with each other. .

Ellen: Okay. So like one goes up and the other goes down?

Christian: No, no, they're going along with each other. So one goes up, the other goes up and one goes down, the other goes down.

Ellen: Oh! Okay.

Christian: So yeah. So those cycles correspond with each other.

Ellen: So they're both going up and down at the same time every 10 years.

Christian: Yeah. Yeah.

Ellen: Oh wow! Okay. So these are specialists, like they're specialized in hunting hares and that's about it.

Christian: Yeah, it's, it's, it's really the majority of their diet, they will go for other animals, but really it's more of an opportunistic type situation when they do.

Ellen: Like, hey, if a thing's working out for you, really like just lean into it, right?

Christian: Yeah, for sure. So earlier we talked about aesthetics. And this one I'm giving a full 10 out of 10.

Ellen: Excellent.

Christian: The fierce look of the lynx... It's just something else.

Ellen: It's really great.

Christian: That whole family really, it's just the, you know the cat look with the sharp eyes and those fierce ears, and also with these kinds of big cats, they have that fur that grows off their cheeks and their chin. It makes me think of a beard.

Ellen: Okay, so now you're showing your bias a little bit. For those that are listening and have never seen Christian, he has a big beard.

Christian: That's true.

Ellen: So he may be a little bit biased towards the facial hair inclined look of the animal.

Christian: That's okay. See: completely arbitrary. So. Also big toes. I love those big toes.

Ellen: The best. They're so good. These are the beaniest toe beans. They're so big and they're so fluffy, which makes them good at what they do, but also it's adorable.

Christian: Yeah, you kind of want to touch him, but you also don't want it to get stabbed.

Ellen: Yeah. Also don't. Just don't. Like I get it, I would if I had the opportunity, but I'd regret it.

Christian: And my final note on aesthetics. uh, I encourage anyone to look this up on Google, but the kittens of the lynx have these striking blue eyes.

Ellen: Oh, bless them.

Christian: It's something else.

Ellen: Oh, I bet they're adorable. Now I got to look at them.... I'll do that later.

Christian: Yes, please do. Please do.

Ellen: Stay focused.

Christian: So that that comes up to an overall score of 8.3 out of 10, and the way we get that score, we just give an even weight to all three scores, so we're just getting an average. So I have some fun facts now that don't really fit into those categories.

Ellen: Let me hear these fun facts.

Christian: So first up, their conservation status, surprisingly least concern.

Ellen: I would not have expected that.

Christian: Yeah. However, in the United States, you know, because of the amount of the United States that they live in is pretty small. They are considered endangered and those areas.

Ellen: Okay, so this is like a regional conservation status.

Christian: Right. But overall, least concern. Okay. So here's another thing I would like our listeners to look up about these guys. They make the most peculiar wailing sound. It's- to me it sounds like full-grown female humans groan-growling at each other.

Ellen: Oh my God. Terrifying.

Christian: Yeah, it is. The is the weirdest thing.

Ellen: Horrifying.

Christian: And what's even stranger is they do this for meeting, like to attract mates, but also to intimidate each other.

Ellen: That's such a weird dichotomy. Like it's supposed to scare you away, but also make you want to come get some at the same time. It's the same sound.

Christian: I guess. They're all into the, the bad cats, right?

Ellen: They have a thing. That's just their look, they're really into it. They like the edgy sort of... that's just their look that they like.

Christian: Yeah. And to tie it back to my national geographic source, they have an interesting predator of their own in Maine.

Ellen: This is someone who preys on them?

Christian: Yes.

Ellen: Oh, I would have thought this was an apex predator.

Christian: Right? So there are these weasel like creatures in Maine...

Ellen: Not a weasel. No.

Christian: They're weasel-like, at least. They're called fishers. And they are these little weasels that have really sharp teeth are really sharp claws and I guess they're known for not really caring how big something is in terms of deciding whether or not to attack it.

Ellen: Oh my gosh.

Christian: So the lynx is definitely larger than the Fisher, but I guess they've had documented cases in Maine where the links are hunted by fishers.

Ellen: I would probably, if we were talking about the fisher on this segment, I would probably give that a bonus point to effectiveness for the fisher and a minus point in ingenuity beBause that's dumb. Do not do that.

Christian: Yeah. Maybe in a future episode...

Ellen: But a weasel is taking down this giant cat! Man. That's shameful.

Christian: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, so reading the article- which, by the way, now I can tell you what that article's called: "Small weasel-like animals are taking down big cats," on national Geographic's website.

Ellen: They really had to name and shame the lynx like that.

Christian: Yeah, yeah...

Ellen: That is a public humiliation.

Christian: They're also expected to be impacted by climate change. So this kind of falls in line with other animals that are suited for cold climates or high altitude or upper latitude climates. So of course, you know, if the climate changes, so does their prey and because of their dependency on that one kind of prey, you know, they're, they're vulnerable to that. But it's thought that the lynxes that are found in the southernmost part of their, territory primarily, you know, United States, Rocky Mountains area, they think that if they're able to switch their diet up, they would probably be okay.

Ellen: Well they just need more variety.

Christian: Yeah. So like, hey guys, can you eat something other than chicken nuggets? Damn.

Ellen: Oh my gosh, this is so relatable as a mom to a five-year-old trying to, just desperately pleading with someone to please add some variety to their diet. Oh my gosh. Been there.

Christian: So basically they were saying that if they could go more with their number two pick for prey, which is the red squirrel, then they'd probably be all right.

Ellen: Probably just a less tempting meal though, right?

Christian: Yeah.

Ellen: Smaller creature. Probably a little harder to catch.

Christian: Yeah, maybe.

Ellen: But still like, y'all come on. Spice it up a little bit.

Christian: Yeah, so that's, that's the lynx. So big thank you to National Geographic and the Journal of Wildlife Management, specifically their article titled "Winter Diet and Hunting Success of Canada Lynx in Colorado, and of course the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service website.

Ellen: Awesome. Thank you so much, Christian.

Christian: Anytime, Ellen. All right, Ellen, what have you got for us this week?

Ellen: Today I'm going to be talking to you guys about a new friend of mine, the shoebill. The shoebill was also suggested to us by Erica Carr. Erica Carr sent us a really nice long list of species and this one was on it.

Christian: Thanks Erica.

Ellen: Yeah, thank you, Erica. I'm going to refrain from calling it the shoebill stork, as a common name for it is because it is not a stork. It is often called a stork because it looks like one, but it's not so I'm just going to call it the shoebill.

Christian: This is a common theme I'm finding with animals.

Ellen: What, that they're just named for things that they kind of look like? Yeah, they're not, um, they're not storks. But they are a wading bird so they kind of look like a stork. When you look at it, you can kind of see where it gets that name from. The scientific name of this animal is Balaeniceps rex. So it is in the family of the Balaeniceps, which doesn't have any other members, but I'll talk a little bit more about its taxonomy in just a second. Uh, first of all, I'm going to start off by letting you all know that I got this information from the Dallas World Aquarium, the Audubon Society, and shoebillbird.org. So that's where I got my stats from.

Christian: They have their own website?

Ellen: They have many websites.

Christian: Whaaat.

Ellen: This is a popular bird. I'll talk to you about it in just a minute.

Christian: Alright. I'm excited.

Ellen: So, to introduce you to this very quirky bird, which you have probably seen pictures of- just like the Blue Dragon that I talked about last week- they have kind of had their moments of Internet fame for their appearance because it's a very striking appearance. So when you first look at it, the first thing you've probably noticed about it is its size. So it is a wading bird, so it has those long, long legs and it's very, very tall. So they're up to five feet or one and a half meters tall. Yeah, tall, right? Their wingspan is up to eight and a half feet. That's 2.6 meters for our metric listeners. That is enormous. This is very, a very big bird has very wide wings now as big as they are, their average weight is only 12 pounds. Because they're a bird. And they're very light all around. So not very heavy but still very, very tall. Now when you look at it, you can definitely see where they get the name stork because they're covered in these gray feathers from the neck down. They look like a normal wading bird, right? They've got the long legs, they've got kind of like the elongated large body. But then you get to the head... And that's where it kind of breaks down. So the bill on this bird is very thick and it's rounded. So from the front when you're looking at it from dead, on the bill is shaped like a shovel. So it's very wide. Now when you look at it from the side, you can see where it gets its name, the shoebill, because it is shaped like a shoe. Specifically, kind of like a clog a little bit. It has that sort of sloping shape to it and it's sloped downward from the face and it's sloped in such a way that it's kind of, I would describe it as banana shape. Like banana sloping outward from the face and it's almost a little bit like a smile. Its bill sort of shaped like it's smiling. Now it has all those grey feathers. It's whole body is this kind of slate gray color and its eyes are like a piercing yellow. The whole head, since it has that really big, really thick bill, the whole head is built very thick. So it's very sort of, "bulbous" is the most common word I saw used to describe how the head looks. It's bulbous. So it has like a really round forehead and it has this tiny little crest of feathers at the back of its head. Which I... It is kind of a cute look. Think, uh, Pikipek, the Pokemon, how it has that little crest of feathers that points upward at the back of the head. See also Pearl From Steven Universe.

Christian: Bird mom?

Ellen: Yeah, exactly like that. That's what the crest looks like. So you're going to find these birds in freshwater swamps in eastern-central Africa. Their range where you'll find them stretches from Sudan at the northern end to Zambia in the southern end. Now when you look at this bird, sure it's- a lot of people call it the shoe bill stork and you can kind of see why they would say stork, but it's taxonomic order is actually Pelicaniformes. This is most closely related to the Pelican. So that is its closest cousin is the pelican. So you can sort of see that when you look at a pelican, it's like a little bit there. I think mostly in the, I guess in the bill, I don't know. I don't see the resemblance, but it doesn't matter because that's what it is.

Christian: I can- So, I googled it as you were speaking and first of all...

Ellen: Thanks for paying attention. Thank you very much.

Christian: No, I was paying attention, but I don't know what it was like, and now I do. Um, definitely a cartoon character. Right?

Ellen: Ah, yeah. It's very dinosaur looking, it a lot- most people say it kind of looks like a dinosaur.

Christian: Yeah. So I think for me I can see the Pelican and the head shape, like the part that's not the bill.

Ellen: Right, like the forehead sort of.

Christian: Yeah.

Ellen: You can sort of see they're a little bit, but so yeah, but it's related to pelicans. It's also more broadly related to like ibises and herons and those other wading birds. But it's, it's most closely related to the pelican.

Christian: Okay.

Ellen: And it was not classified by Western scientists until 1850 but it has been depicted in art that goes all the way back to the ancient Egyptians. So the ancient Egyptians have like statues and paintings that depict these shoe bills. So they look ancient because they are ancient. They, they've been around for a really long time. So I'm going to be using the same scoring system that Christian did. So I'm going to start with effectiveness. For effectiveness. I also gave my animal an 8 out of 10 the shoe bill is a pretty good hunter. It also uses ambush predation like the, like the lynx also uses ambush predation, but the shoe bill kind of only uses ambush predation. So this is really cool to watch, if you see a video of them hunting. This is a big bird. You think they're hard to miss, but what they do is their entire body stands completely motionless. They become a statue. You can see videos of them doing this and it's absurd. Like they are completely still, totally motionless and they hold this pose- it's not really, a pose, but they hold this motionless state for long periods of time so they could be standing there completely still, not moving for hours at a time, and then when their prey gets close enough, then they just all of a sudden dive down on it from above and it's described as a collapsing motion where the whole bird just totally plunges down in on their prey and they just fall onto it, sort of like head first because they kind of pull their wings up behind them and plunge the head down into the water and grabbed their prey with that bill. So they're built to pull this off pretty well. The reason that that bill and the head and the neck are so thick is that they act as shock absorbers so that when they're plunged into like the really thick mud of the wetlands where they live, it's not hurting them. They can handle just kind of banging their heads into the ground, which is essentially what they're doing, but they can handle it because of how thick and tough their head is.

Christian: This is, uh... This reminds me of that one character on the Avengers where he's like, "I've mastered the art of moving so slowly, I've become entirely invisible."

Ellen: Yes. They're very much like Drax in that way.

Christian: Ah, there it is.

Ellen: You're welcome. So yeah, so they are, they stand completely still and then their prey gets close enough to them that they collapse down on top of it. It's really, really cool to watch. You can see lots of videos of them doing this online. So something that's also neat about watching them do this, something that is actually kind of a standard bird ability, like most birds can do this, but I still found it really cool so I'm going to mention it anyway: They have that head stabilization where the head stays completely still while the rest of the body moves around it. Have you seen birds do this?

Christian: I think I've seen it where it was like a chicken and someone was holding it and then they put it to trap music.

Ellen: Excellent. Yes. You can see- Yes. So you'll see those videos where someone's holding a chicken and they're like moving the chicken around in the air, but the chicken's head is staying in the same place. This is like that. Like-

Christian: And then the bass drops.

Ellen: Yeah, and then the bass drops and then everything just, all hell breaks loose and it goes wild and yeah, there's a sick beat. I'll- don't worry, I'll edit an airhorn in here but so it's wild. But so the, the shoe bill does this as well. This is a normal thing that birds can do, this is not like specific to the shoebill, I just thought it was really cool to watch because it's such a big animal and because it's head looks so heavy, like proportionate to the rest of its body. It doesn't look like it would be able to do that. But it does and it's very cool to watch.

Ellen: So that bill, that really heavy bill is really well made to catch the prey that it's catching. So that bill is very thick and very wide, but it has a hook at the end. It hooks downward and, and it, it hooks downward into a sharp point. So that hook actually digs in to catch the prey. And also you wouldn't probably think it just from looking at the bill because the bill looks like has very rounded edges, but the edges around the sides of the bill are razor sharp so it can actually snap down and decapitate its pray that it catches that worked pretty well for them.

Christian: So it's basically a [gill-o-teen], it's just kind of dropping and then-

Ellen: I'm gonna ask you to say that one more time, but this time please say it "guillotine."

Christian: No.

Ellen: All right. Asked and answered. Anyway. I'm leaving that in so that everyone can hear your shame. Anyway. They have powerful wings that let them fly for very long distances. Even though they themselves are actually not migratory birds. They have these really, really large territories. So seasonally they'll move within their territory between their feeding grounds and their breeding areas. So they'll kind of move around within their territory, but their territory doesn't actually change based on like the season or the year or anything. It stays in the same place. They just move around within that territory. So, they can still fly, because they're huge and their territories are huge, which is, it's a little bit terrifying to see a five foot tall bird with an eight and a half foot wingspan, just kind of gliding through the air...

Christian: With basically a sword on its face?

Ellen: Yeah, with the uh, um... What is the anime sword? The big wide anime sword.

Christian: There's so many examples of this. I don't know.

Ellen: Tetsusaiga?

Christian: I don't... Bleach? Is that one? Is that anything?!

Ellen: Large anime sword, uh, flying above you really more like a dragon. So we'll, we'll, we'll cue the game of Thrones music. So, a cross between a jet plane and a dragon flying above you. Actually when you, when you look at them flying, you can really see where birds are dinosaurs.

Christian: Yeah.

Ellen: Like no clearer evidence that birds are definitely dinosaurs then when you're looking at a shoe bill, especially in flight, it looks like a pterodactyl. So they also have these really big feet with really, really long toes. Now, a lot of times like wetland birds or birds that that spend a lot of time in the water have webbed feet, but they don't, they have un-webbed toes like other, like herons and ibises and stuff. This is really good for walking through the wet swamp cause they're trying to walk through like, the reeds and they, the swamps that they live often have papyrus growing in them. So they have to kind of navigate in that area, so the un-webbed toes are much better for that. So they have good feet, good bill, good wings, just pretty well built for what they're trying to do. They've even been documented eating snakes, monitors and crocodiles. So young crocodiles, but still crocodiles and turtles. So like that's pretty tough. They gotta be pretty good at, at cracking their prey open to get that though I will mention that their favorite prey, what they eat the most of, is lungfish which are a wetland, sort of like an eel shaped fish. Yeah, it's a long slithery looking fish. But so lung fish are their favorite thing to eat, but they're pretty good at what they're doing. I gave them an 8 out of 10 for effectiveness.

Ellen: So moving on to ingenuity, I gave them a seven out of 10 pretty good, not amazing, but not bad either. I gave them ingenuity points for their strategic hunting locations. They tend to hunt in these, like I said, these wetland swampy areas, they hunt in these areas that have really, really muddy water. So what that means is that when that water is so muddy, it has a lower oxygen content. This means that the fish that live there are more likely to be obligate air-breathers, just like the electric eel that we talked about way back when. So this is a fish that lives under water but still has to come up to the surface to breathe. So the lung fish is actually an obligate air breather and has to come up.

Christian: That makes sense.

Ellen: Yeah! So when they come up to the surface to breathe, then they're prime shoebill prey. That's when the shoebill gets them. So some- they're also really smart about where they hunt because they, first of all, they will use their bill, that sharp edge of their bill to chop away the grass around them and that will reveal the fish that may be hiding underneath. So sometimes fish will hide in the long grass, but the shoebill will like, razor chop all that grass away.

Christian: That's intense.

Ellen: Yes, they'll bring the fish out of their hiding spots. But also something that I think is really smart that they do is that they will hunt in areas near hippos. So they'll see hippos and they'll go like hunt near them because when the hippos move around underwater, it frightens the fish up to the surface. So the fish have to come up because they're scared of the hippos and then the shoe bill gets them. So I thought that was pretty smart that they do that. They hunt near hippos, so they're kind of, they kind of have a sort of understanding with their hippo pals. I really would hate to be a fish living in these swamps cause you got hippos underneath you, you got shoebills above you, you really just, you're in a tight spot.

Christian: How do they get along with the hippos? Do the hippos bother them or...?

Ellen: I mean the shoebill can fly.

Christian: That's true.

Ellen: What is a hippo gonna do?

Christian: "You get down here!"

Ellen: Yeah. So the shoebill is also fiercely competitive even among the chicks. So shoebills are really competitive with each other. They're totally solitary and they live completely alone except for mated pairs. Even mated pairs that live together in the same territory, they still feed on opposite ends of the territory and like they don't hang out.

Christian: So this is like a, "this is my side of the house and that's your side of the house" type situation.

Ellen: Yeah, it like this is taking like the whole, like couples with two beds in the same bedroom? This is like taking that to the extreme. Like they really don't just chill. So they don't really hang out with each other, but even the chicks don't really like each other. So shoebills usually have really, really small clutches. They only have one or two eggs. Um, on, on rare occasions they'll have three eggs. But it's usually only one or two. But even in the situations where they do have two eggs, the parents will only raise one of the chicks. So they could have two babies, but they'll pick one and raise that one. The parents will favor the older chick, the chick that hatches first is older, it's bigger, it has kind of dibs. And the parents will give that one preference during feedings. So the parents actually have to go out and get food and bring it back to the chick, but they also have to bring water to the nest. So they will give the older chick preference in feeding and water. So eventually when once the older chick gets big enough, it will kill the younger one. So you can see this in action if you want on the BBC series Africa in season one, episode two, there is a scene in which this occurs. Spoiler Alert I guess, but you can watch this, this sort of drama unfurl. This was the first time I saw a shoebill by the way, was in this, um, in this BBC documentary series. It's very intense and it's actually very sad, so I dunno if you're a really sensitive person like me, maybe skip this one. But if you just really want to see this really brutal scene, it's, it's very um, intense. But it's still interesting to watch how these animals can make decisions like that.

Ellen: So the idea behind it is that they have a younger chick as an insurance policy sort of in case the older chick dies. So if something, if the older chick is born and it's not doing well, it kinda dies quickly, they still have a backup chick. But as they get a little bit older, it seems like things are fine with the older one, they don't have the means to feed both chicks because it's very intense to keep even just one alive cause you have to bring back food and water and you have to support yourself. So they don't have, they just don't have time to raise two chicks. So one of them takes the other one out so they can focus their resources on one chick. I was kind of stumped on how I was going to factor this into their ingenuity because on the one hand, this is kind of I guess forcing natural selection to happen, like in action, but on the other hand, their numbers are not doing great.

Ellen: They kind of need all the shoebills they can get. So this whole like siblicide practice is not doing their population any favors. So I wasn't really sure how to factor this into ingenuity. So I kind of left it alone, but I still wanted to include it in there. Now since shoebills are solitary, they don't really communicate with each other because they don't have any reason to, but they will signal to each other their location by clattering their beak rapidly in a sound that sounds like a machine gun. So this is like a rapid fire clacking sound that they make.

Christian: Don't like that.

Ellen: It's very scary. It sounds a lot like the predator. Yeah, it's very predator. So it's, it's scary. It's very loud, but it's really just to kind of like signal to each other that they're there and they're really territorial and competitive. So it's just kind of like a back off sort of sound. Shoebill chicks will communicate with their parents by making a really cute little hiccuping sound, but they're still terrifying looking. Also, something that I thought was like at least a little bit of a smart thing to do is that they poop on their legs to cool off. That's just a thing they do.

Christian: I wonder if that's just an unintended side effect of being lazy.

Ellen: Well, so they've got- like most birds, they've got that liquidy poop, right? So they poop and it goes down their legs and then it's like, it's basically like pouring water on your legs. I dunno, it keeps their legs cool, so I guess that counts as something. It's gross, but they don't seem to mind. Now... Aesthetics.

Christian: Here we go.

Ellen: Ugh... I gave it a 4 out of 10. if I could have, I would have given it a yikes out of 10 because that's really the only word that comes to mind when looking at this animal. So four out of 10 is not the worst I could have given it, cause I did grant it four points for being... When they're relaxed and when they're happy and feeling good, they kind of puff up and like they sit down in a way that they sort of collapse into themselves. And so like I said it earlier had their bill is shaped like a smile, when they're happy and relaxed, it's kind of cute. It looks like they have really big smile.

Christian: Aw...

Ellen: Yes. But at literally all other times in their life because this is not a generally, um, peaceful bird, at all other times in their life, t,hat smile is a menacing glare because they have very angry wrathful eyes. And when you pair those very, very angry looking eyes with that very big wide smile, it just makes a really creepy combo. It's a very unsettling look. So I guess I can grant them a little bit for looking mostly like a bird. They mostly align with what a bird should look like.

Christian: They've got all the components.

Ellen: They have the components of a bird, they're just done wrong. So you start with the feet and you're like, alright, bird feet. Got It. And you work your way up, you're like, yes. Bird legs, bird body... bird neck, I guess. And then just once you get to the face, all hell breaks loose. It's just a disaster up there. So it looks, I think it looks like a pelican ate a bee. If you've ever seen like these dogs that eat a bee in their face swells up really big, it looks like that. It looks like a pelican ate a bee and it's face got all messed up.

Christian: There's an opportunity for an origin story there.

Ellen: Oh, like a little folklore story! Like where did the shoebill come from? It came from a pelican having an allergic reaction.

Christian: It ate a spicy fly, and now it's a spicy bird!

Ellen: If there was any bird that would be described as spicy, it would be this one. So the, the, the slope of the bill is just, it comes straight down from like the rounded, the rounded eyebrows go straight into this sloped bill that looks like a slide directly into hell and it's got poop legs. Gross. Ew. Major deductions. So all, overall aesthetics, 4 out of 10. Not good.

Christian: Womp womp.

Ellen: Yeah. Sorry. So for 8 out of 10 effectiveness, 7 out of 10 ingenuity and 4 out of ten aesthetics, I gave the shoebill a 6.3 out of 10. which is decent.

Christian: Sure.

Ellen: This is passing. This is an acceptable animal. So I have some assorted miscellaneous information on the shoe bill.

Christian: Alright, let's hear it.

Ellen: So when you look at the shoebill, your first- if you've never seen them before, your initial reaction is probably, this is photo shopped. Like this is definitely not real.

Christian: Yeah, yeah for sure.

Ellen: As many scientists responded to the platypus. Similar, like you're like there's no way this is real. There is a Snopes article that fact checks the existence of the shoebill.

Christian: Really!

Ellen: Yes. If you go on Snopes, there is like, because recently a video of the shoebill went like viral a little bit I guess, and people on Twitter were freaking out saying it was definitely like photo shopped or edited in. So people didn't think it was real. They thought it was like an animatronic like, dinosaur or something. So Snopes like had to put out an article saying "Nope, they're, they're real, they exist. This is what they are." So I thought that was pretty funny. Snopes had to fact check you on that. They have a little bit of a cult following. You can see that, you know, since they are kind of cute from certain angles, I can kind of see why people are fans of these animals and they're also just otherwise, they're very interesting.

Ellen: Like aesthetics aside, they're interesting animals. They have a little bit of a fan club over on reddit. There's a subreddit called r/shoebillstorks so you can go share all of your shoe bill fan information and just gawk over these bizarre creatures.

Christian: What's the activity like, I wonder, on that subreddit?

Ellen: You know, I checked it out and it's surprisingly active. There's like, people are into these animals and I can see why they're into these animals, but I'm wondering how they have this much content to generate about... It's mostly like people that see them, they'll like go visit a zoo that has a shoebill. They'll take a picture of it and share it or take a video of it and share it. So it's mostly people just kind of appreciating the shoebill.

Christian: Okay....

Ellen: It's, it was actually really great. I was glad that I, I was glad that I found that little internet community and it made me feel bad for the low score that I gave the shoebill for aesthetics that really dragged its overall score down. So I felt kind of guilty about that afterwards. But it's okay. Anyway, there is a famous shoebill, his name is Sushi and he lives at the Uganda Wildlife Education Center. So his name is Sushi because if you bow to him, like with your body, you bow to him, he will bow back at you and let you pet him.

Christian: Oh my goodness.

Ellen: But you have to bow to him. If you don't bow to him, he'll fly away.

Christian: I mean that's probably... not The worst thing that could do.

Ellen: Like, yeah, so if you don't bow to him, he'll fly to the other side of his enclosure. But if you do bow to him, he'll be, he, it's really cute! You can see so many videos of him doing this. He does this very low bow where he like he, he bows his head all the way down to the ground and shakes it back and forth and he shakes his head in like a really cute way. And then once he's done that, then he'll let you approach him and you can like scratch him on the head and he seems to actually kind of enjoy it. Like he's not crazy about it, but he kinda like, you can see he kinda like, will lean into it a little bit. It's really cute.

Christian: Yes, show your appreciation for the dinosaur.

Ellen: Yes, kneel to me please. So I thought that was really, really cute. I'm a big fan of Sushi the shoebill. Oh, and his name is Sushi because the keepers at the place where he's kept found that bowing behavior to be reminiscent of the Japanese bowing tradition. So, Japanese like Sushi. That was where your connection was. So that's why his name is Sushi.

Christian: That's a bit of a tongue twister, isn't it? Sushi the shoebill.

Ellen: Yeah, Sushi the shoebill. But he's very cute. So I'm gonna wrap up by talking about their conservation status. They are vulnerable, which means that they're not yet endangered technically, but their numbers are on the decline and they're rapidly approaching endangered status. So they're not fully endangered yet, but they're going to be, so I got a ton of information on this from the International Single Species Action Plan or the ISSAP for the Conservation of the Shoebill. This was compiled by Nature Uganda for the Agreement on the Conservation of African Eurasian Migratory Water Birds.

Ellen: This was in September of 2013 they put this together. And what this is is this is basically a long document detailing where shoebill populations are right now, how they're currently doing, and then what they're threatened by. So what threats exist to the shoebill population and what we can do about them. So if you have a few minutes and this sort of, this is the sort of thing that interests you, I really, really recommend checking it out. You can find this on the AEWA website. I'll probably drop a link to this on our social media so that you can check it out because it's really, really interesting. I really recommend you, you'd take a read of it but I'll kind of summarize what I found in this document here. So the global population of shoebills is fewer than 8,000 birds with numbers declining. The major threats to the shoebill are that the shoebill needs a really quiet undisturbed habitat in order to hunt effectively.

Ellen: You know, they're those ambush predators. They need quiet, they need to be able to stay totally still so that their prey isn't spooked away. They're really, really sensitive to human activity and they'll flee an area where humans are active. So if humans come into an area and start kind of stomping around, they'll fly away and go somewhere else. Now, some major human activity that's going on that's threatening the shoebill is oil exploration and extraction that's going on in Sudan and Uganda. They also have a lot of agricultural development of the wetlands and intentional fires. We talked about this a little bit with the okapi episode, that sort of slash and burn agricultural method where you set fire to the area to try to like enrich the land. So these intentional fires threaten the habitat and the safety of the shoebills. So not only can that actually degrade the habitat but it can actually kill them directly.

Ellen: Like these fires can kill shoebill, young shoebills that aren't old enough to fly yet. They're also facing a lot of illegal trade, so it's currently illegal to trade them. But law enforcement in that area has really limited resources and it's really difficult for them to police those laws because this is a very, very large area and there's not a lot of monitoring going on of this area. So shoebills are sometimes illegally caught and then sold internationally. They actually, since they are so rare, they can catch a really high price on the black market.

Christian: Oh, so they're being sold like as live specimens?

Ellen: Yes. Yeah, the live bird. And unfortunately since they are so sensitive and so fragile, they don't travel well. It's really hard to get them from one place to another. So usually they die in transit, so they don't do very well with that. It is illegal to trade them. But the police in those areas don't kind of, don't really have what they need to back that up. And lastly, livestock and fishing disturbance. So during the dry seasons, cattle are moved into the wetlands where the shoebills live and they're moved into the wetlands to seek water cause it's the dry season. So they moved to a winter place. But once they're there they can disturb the shoebill. Like I said, they can disturb their hunting the shoebill will flee, but they can actually sometimes trample young shoebills. If the shoebill's not old enough to fly yet, then the cattle can kill them. So all these things, these are kind of the biggest threats to the, well there's other things, if you want to learn more about what else are threatening the shoebill you can read that document.

Ellen: But back in 2012 the nonprofit conservation organization African Parks launched a program to protect shoebills from poaching and disturbance. So what they've done is they've actually hired a staff of fishermen to monitor the nests of breeding shoe bills and keep an eye on the local populations. So they actually send people out to check on the shoebills, make sure they're doing okay and make sure nobody's bothering them and make sure nobody's poaching them. So there's actually, there's a lot going on that people are doing to try to protect these shoebills because things aren't going great for them. Now in captivity, the shoebill is highly unlikely to breed, making it really hard to sustain a captive population. So with a lot of animals that are like threatened in the wild, maybe they might do better in captivity where you can monitor them and you can breed them in captivity, they might be able to bounce back in that sort of setting.

Ellen: But shoebills don't normally breed in captivity. So if you have one in captivity, you're not likely to be able to produce more. So you can't, you would have to, in order to maintain like shoebills, you'd have to keep bringing them in from the wild. So there have been two instances of captive shoebills breeding. One of them was in Tampa's Lowry Park Zoo! Yeah. Here in Florida. This was, that was the first wildlife institution, North America, but the second in the world. So the first one was Parc Paradisio in Berlin, Germany.

Christian: Wow.

Ellen: So those are the two zoos in the world where shoebill eggs have hatched.

Christian: Very cool.

Ellen: Yeah. But like I said there, it's really, really tough to breed them in captivity. So if you have one in captivity, you can't maintain that. You would have to keep bringing them in from the wild, which they're suffering in the wild. So it's not, it's not a big option.

Christian: You know, I wonder though, for those that do lay eggs in captivity, if they do, if they lay more than one, do you think they separate the eggs so that that uh, siblicide doesn't happen?

Ellen: I don't know if it's happened enough for there to be like a standard on it.

Christian: That's true.

Ellen: Yeah. Like this has only happened two times in the world, so it's not a common occurrence. So the best thing to do for them is to leave them where they are in the wild, but make the wild habitat better for them. There are, like I mentioned earlier, there is African Parks and there's also Nature Uganda. Those are two local nonprofit organizations that are doing their best to help the shoebills. So if you're interested in learning more about the conservation of these species, you can go check them out.

Ellen: So kind of a summary of all that stuff is that the population of the shoe bill is at risk due to human caused factors, but efforts are being made in their habitat to help them out. So I think there's kind of hope for this species.

Christian: Awesome.

Ellen: Yeah, yeah, that, that's all I've got on my new friends, the shoebills.

Christian: Thank you, Ellen. Those are very interesting, interesting bird.

Ellen: Thank you, I thought so too. You know, I, I gave it a lower score than some of the other animals I've done, but I hope that doesn't come across to me anthat I love them any less. It's just that they're very ugly.

Christian: It's a angry bird.

Ellen: It- the, yeah-

Christian: I mean... bird that is...

Ellen: Stop it!

Christian: Not happy... Don't sue me.

Ellen: Don't. Please. Stop right there. All right y'all. That's all we've got for today. You can connect with us on Twitter at @JustTheZooOfUs or on our Facebook page by searching the title of the show. If you have an animal species you want to hear Christian and I talk about on the show, you can submit those to us at thezooofus@gmail.com. That is NOT justthezooofus@gmail.com, it is thezooofus@gmail.com so send us your favorite animal and when we talk about it on the show we will give you a shout out. A transcript of this episode will be found at justthezooofus.home.blog as well as transcripts for episode 4 and 5, and finally I want to wrap up by thinking Louie Zong for the use of his song "Adventuring" off of his album Bee Sides that is our intro and outro music and we love it.

Christian: It's excellent.

Ellen: Yes, we love it very much so thank you Louie Zong for that. All right, that's all I have.

Christian: Thanks everyone. This is Christian Weatherford...

Ellen: And this is Ellen Weatherford.

Christian: And you have... A great time.

Ellen: ...Doing what?

Christian: Animal things.

Ellen: Thanks for listening. Byeeee!