Listener Questions and Final Thoughts

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Try their personalized energy saving tips, or explore budget billing, which helps to spread out your biggest payments Visit coned d. com slash Bill helpelp to get started. because taking control is New York. Hey friends, Lulu here and with Father's Day coming up This weekend, I just wanted to drop a special little meditation on dad's In the animal world This is an episode that we are dropping for terrestrials, and I thought some of you might enjoy it because I think it expands our understanding of what fatherhood can look like. And rest assured tomorrow is your regularly scheduled radio lab drop. so enjoy that and enjoy this Dad Aventure Okay, here we go. Oh wait, you'reistening. Okay B listening to radio labs Radi from W NY Three Two What Imagine you shrink down to the size of a Chihua And your eyes grow bigger. and bigger and bigger until they take up almost half your head. And these eyes give you great night vision. So when most of the forest has gone to sleep, you can come out to feast, shop and swing and play. You have become an al monkey, A al monkey G Now is part where I make you sing the theme song with me. Terrestrials, Terrestrials. We are not the worst we are the Best estrios Tests. Terstrials is a show where we uncover the strangeness, waiting right here on Earth. I'm your host, Lula Miller joined as always on the song bud. Who's who T? Wh do you think you are? Now, like snowflakes, no two families are exactly the same. There are families with one parent, families with a mom and a dad, families with two moms, like mine, families with two dads, families with a non binary parent or a grandparent parent. likeike Snowflakes, the shape and beauty of a family is limitless With Father's Day right around the corner, we wanted to spend some time today shining light on dadir. Hey, love what here.'s up. That's right, we are heading off on a dad adventure. That will have you swinging high in the trees y dadsoooooo and burbling deep in the sea The seahorse dads and leaping and bounding and twirling with such cool frog bug and bird dads that it just might flip. W you're understanding. a fatherhood showing you why what it looks like to be a dad is way more rad than we are sometimes taught. And here to guide us on this dad vventure Our two human dads. Hello, You go first. No. Dad number one. Michael. He's got a daughter. Mila. She's eleven, almost twelve. And dad number two. My boys are thirty three. thirty And twenty three. doctor Eduwardo. And my last name is Fernandez Duquke. Someone chimed in. Was that a bird? I am surrounded by birds in my backyard. Yeah, there was a gorgeous bird call. So and you're right now in Argentina? Yes. doctor Eduardo is a biological anthropologist and behavioral scientist who has spent decades observing owl monkeys in the forests of South America. Let me close the window. That may reduce Okay. alth o, but say hi to the bird or say ola And our story begins outside that window. Way out in the forest, way up high in the canopy where there is a male owl monkey who is just moments away from becoming a father Now picture of this guy he's about the size of a Tihuahua, white face with huge orange eyes that help him see really well at night. That's why he's called an owl monkey. He does not, unfortunately, hoot, like I thought he might, but like owls, he does come out at night. Anyway, at this particular moment, next to this monkey his mate The female owl monkey is pushing out a baby owl monkey the size of a chip monk. Now this is a very charged moment in the animal world because with some animals, like chimps, lions, hamsters, goobe ffish beetles, okay, the list is pretty long. The father has been known to a Kill their babies. Sometimes even eat them. What I was hungry! Which is I guess common enough to give it a scientific name? P cannibalis. And if they're not doing that, certain animal dads are famous for well, failing.ow chehecking out, leaving the female parent to do all the care and feeding of the baby. You got this babe. So back to ar Owl monkey Dad, sitting right next to the baby in the Argentinian forest, The thing is up until this moment, no one knew how that dad was going to respond because no one, no one had ever seen a baby o monkey being born in the wild. But that day, Eduardo's team happened to be there on the forest floor Observing It took about half hour that the baby came out of the mother's womb. And what was fascinating is that the father was also very, very close Re and trying to help I mean, it was he was touching the umbilical cord. You know this cord that connects baby He was possibly trying to help the mama monkey cut it so the baby could be free. Dad is right there as the baby's bborn. For the first week, the baby is just nursing, nursing, nursing crazy on the mom until M is like enough I've had it with this suckling. and done, I need some sfe. Yeah There comes da to the restant You come kid! The baby literally climbs onto the dad's back and basically does not leave Four months The two of them bounce and swing through the tre topops together. Daddy's gonna play with the infant Tag, you're it. He grooms the infant. Get those mites out. He teaches him how to curl up into a tiny ball way up high in the tree so he looks almost invisible so he can sleep during the day. Sweet daydreams little one. And as the baby grows up, dad starts teaching him how to pick out tasty fruits Which fruits to bite into? Which to avoid? what grow. How to catch a moth mid aair? Nice job. But pretty much this whole time the baby's little arms are wrapped around the dad's shoulders, meaneing this is a three month long piggyback ride. Or should I call it a monkeyback ride Now around four months, the baby climbs off the piggy back ride and starts braving the bigig leaps up in the branches by itself Sless. Suddenly you get to a gap between branches and you need to take a jump And so they may give you a little bit of a squeak or a squeal and that says, okay, hold on a minute. I'm gonna put you on my back and take him across the job. I got you a little one. What is very powerful is the evidence we have that eventually over the years, the infant seems to have a stronger attachment or bond to the father than the mother. Wow So as Eduardo and his team are discovering all the secrets of the Owl mononkey Dad Halfway across the globe living in Switzerland at the time, our other human dad, Michael, He's becoming a father Yeah Oh And while he is completely obsessed with his new daughter, Mila, completely in love with her He says he wasn't sure exactly what to do with her or how to soothe her, bathe her. I was I didn't grow up sort of Being super comfortable expressing my emotions or super comfortable with physical touch And so at first, with this baby in his arms, he just felt a little awkward or unnatural which felt in this weird way like maybe the natural way for a dad to feel. There was this story about what's natural, you know, what's natural for the mom, for the dad, for the family. And we did have in my education a lot of Comparisons to animals But usually we were being compared to chimpanzees. Gring up, Michael was told that since humans were closely related to chimps through evolution, We're both primates, we share a common ancestor, then some of the things chimps do might somehow be inside us as instincts too. And chimp dads, well, at the time Michael was growing up, they were understood to be very aggressive at their worst and at their best, they were just off somewhere else It seemed like in nature, the dad role was about hunting and protection. And he thought, well Maybe nature was sending him a message that he'd never be good at the softer side of parenting And then one day, a few years ago, Michael is lamenting about all this, what a dad's natural role truly is when his friend says, wait, wait, wait, you gota call do Dr Edwardardo He studies owl monkeys and I reached out to him and he was like, I'll come over. I'll come over to your house. Let like let's have a play date, basically. Really? Okay, that's awesome. come to my house. He felt like that. Yeah. So he came over and we're like, let's go swimming and I brought my goggles. He's a really good swimmer, by the way. Okay. really fast We kept talking about all sorts of different dads. Chimp dads and their own dads.. And at some point, doctor Eduardo started telling Michael what he had observed with owl mononkey Dads. He's talking about a two to three month piggyback ride Y guys are at your play date. I'm picturing you. you're swimming in the waves. and like, I don't know, Eduardo is like, No, Michael. And then a wave comes. He's like, no, no, no, really. Ow monkeys are amazing. Dgs. Okay, so what from your side, Michael, did you what did Eduardo tell you that day and how did it hit you First I was like, that's so cute Um And then at the same time, I was kind of upset. U Why? Well, I was like, why have I'm hearing about this for the first time? And so I was sort of like, who who picked which monkey we were going to be compared to And why did they pick chimpanzees? Because if they had picked owl monkeys You know, maybe I would have learned something different So I found myself kind of wanting to dig into sort of what other animals are out there that might do fathering differently. And he will share what he finds and take us on some of the wildest turns in this dad venture. After the short break Radio lab is supported by AT and T. Summer is great for many reasons. 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That's betterhlp dot com slash radioab WNYC Studios is supported by Con Edison New York, it's hot out there, and you're probably relying on air conditioning to keep cool But if your AC is always turned up Well, your energy bills are likely to go up too Luckily, Con Edison has ways to help Try their energy saving tips, which are personalized to you, or explore budget billing, which helps you spread your biggest payments out across the year Visit coned d. com slash Bill helpp to get started because taking control is New York Terrestrialss is back, we are talking about the raddist of the Daddess with our dad friend Michael, and he is on a quest to learn all about animal dads who defy the stereotypes and show us all the amazing ways a dad can dad. And to start off, we have sea horses. The seeaahorses is the one that everybody knows. Okay, but tell it. But it's important The dads get pregnant. So what does that mean? They really What does that mean? She does like the dance, the courtship dance and then the female will put her eggs into a pouch in the male seahorse's belly. and the pouch is kind of like a magical pouch. It will change the levels of oxygen and salt and it's kind of like a womb, you know, getting them ready to go out into the ocean. And they're pregnant for I think a couple weeks and then the dad seahorse goes into labor and It could take a few hours and they they just shoot out Hundreds of baby seaahorses, all like fully form, but really tiny and then They can get pregnant again a few days later Wow, just right off the bat. There goes nature shattering another rule. like those hard lines we thought existed between what a mom is supposed to do and a dad's supposed to do. like the two categories they just aren't There There's so many different ways Dad There's a lot of options And we're flexible and we can organize and be Whatever it is that our kids need H. that in and of itself is natural, that that is something you find in Nature Okay Who is our next dad? I got totally obsessed with poisoned dart frogs. Poison dart frog. Okay, what are these So they live in that rainforest in South America. Do they shoot poisoned dartro? So they're called poisoned dart frogs because people have used venom that comes from them to make poison tips on arrows. Oh cool. And they're the size of like your thumbnail So really. Okay little Frogs And their're singers, will they chirp, right? Okay to kind of claim like a territory. And the females will listen to them chirping to see like who's the best singer to decide where they w to lay their egg. And that whereere by the moon and the stars in the sky, I'll be there chirping And so the females will lay the eggs on wet leaves on the forest floor. and then the dads guard them And this is the best part. When they hatch, The dad will take each tadpole individually on a piggyback ride. What? So on his back. just like the Owl one. Each one individually and go and find a plant that sort of has some covering and has some water inside and it'll lay the tadpole there so that it's safe and it has water. L Like in a pool, a little kiddie pool? Here kiddo, take a swim. But he won't put any of them together because he doesn't want them to compete for resources. And I think he also doesn't want if one's born who comes up to eat the other one and then coming back and checking on them all the time to make sure there's enough water. and if they need to eat, the dads, they can't feed the tadpoles. Sorry little froggies. On Mommy can feed you by laying one of her eggs for you to eat. So they'll do their song again to try and persuade if there's a female in the area to come and feed them a little bit more Remember, they're the size of your thumbnail And they're like see journeying with these tadpole babies all over, placing them, coming back, checking on them. So they're playing music to like lure food back. L, wow, that is a toad a awesome father. Next up Another contender from Frogland, The Darwin Frog in the forest of Argentina and Chile. They also guard the eggs, like the poison dive frogs, but then They do this really funny thing. They put them in their mouth. They swallow them. No Wait the like the tadpoles are the eggs, the eggs. They swallow the eggs. and then they store them in a vocal sack in their throat because it's safer, right? It's safer in there. Oh. And then inside this pouch in their throat, they grow and they're protected. the father eats a bit less. He stops calling around so much ' you can't drawise you're like o, look at my baby. And then but then and then then like the big reveal is when they're sort of ready to go out on their own, they just walk out of their dad's mouth into the world And they're literally taking refuge in him. Yeah. Wow. that is talking about biting off more than you could chew. That's a big fatherly commitment. Yeah. Next up, father number four. burying beetles. Okay, so burying beetles, also tiny little beetles. Okay. and burry, we're not talking like blueberries. you mean bur burying underground. like burying underground They find a small animal like a mouse or a bird that's dead They will team up with a mom. and they'll bury it underground. The dead, the cor car. Okay, this sounds pretty gross. Okay. It is gross. But it's also really cool. And full of. They'll clean it, they'll get rid of debris and they'll shape it And they turn it. I'icting, okay, let's go with a mouse. So like a dead mouse, they clean it, meaning like they eat all the dead meat and fur Hold on where they get it off? I have a picture too. Wait, what am I looking at? It was a mouse It's gonna be a nursery This is a corpse, a skeleton crib? A skeleton nursery? It's not just a skeleton because it's also gonna be a source of food. It's gonna to be like an edible nursery. nursery. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's like a corpse nursery. It's a corpse crib Exactly. It's the corpse crib, but not so scary. because cod it with this Antibic microbial secretion So they kind of like deed meat has lots of bacteria. And the antimicrobial secretion, I look this up just for terrestrials.. It comes from their mouth and from their butt Sow that you care with antibacterial spray from your dair hair D Don't try this at home. Don't try this at home. That's. F a dead body Yeah. They like mush the dead flesh around so that it becomes shaped like a crib. They disinfect it. And then what do they do? The babies hatch the larvae hatch and they can hang out in there, but they can't yet eat themselves So the dad will do this thing that you see with birds, like chew it and then feed them from it. But once again, the it is dead flesh So he like baby birds some dead flesh from the walls of the crib. Yeah, yeah. ye intont it's both so sweet. Happy Father's D. And and and they'll defend their kids from animals that could be like a hundred times bigger, like a mouse. L there's no chance, right that they're gonna be able to do it. One of the ways that they do this is They have this nasty smelling chemical that they can make in the glands of their butt again. In a skunk. insect skunk. Yeah, yeah. And then the last part of this and very relevant for a conversation Sometimes the mom The mom will just wander off And if the mom just wanders off The dad will raise the whole family. by himself, which is like ten, twenty, thirty babies per brood. So like some serious heavy single fathering goes on here. Okay, moving on to Dad Numero Senko. Wasn't the chimp the whole symbol of the mean dad Let's just in, not all chimp dads are bean dads So in recent years, Scientists observing chimps in the wild in the forests of Tanzania have discovered that chimp fathers are not always as aggressive or gnarly or absent as we thought. There is no one way that a male chimp parents it depends on the individual Some of those dads groom and cuddle their babies and on rare occasions have even been observed taking in a baby that isn't theirs. That's way better than our first impression of them. Allright, next up, a feathery Father feellllow. S that Tendos has a feathery father feellllow, a feeathery father feellllow, a feathery father feellllow, a feathery Father. As! The Jacakana is a wading bird about the size of a chicken. Wading meaning it likes water. Yes, yes. Okay. And so the jacanas, what happens is that mums are looking around and they go shopping for a potential dad that's going to take good care of the eggs. Oh. So the females are fighting for the attention of a male who's gonna take good care of the eggs she lays. Wow. So she finds a spot, she lays the eggs, and so the male is gonna sit with the eggs and incubate them and protect them and shield the egg hatch. And mom isn't incubating at all I don't think My incubates. Oh gosh, I don't know why it's so hard for me to picture a dad incubating all on his own. It's like proof of how strong my miseducation has been. like these beliefs about dad and mom are even out in our language because we say things like, oh, she's a mother hen. It's a part of our language. L mother nature M at Mother Nature. Wow. Does that hurt your feelings? as men It doesn't hurt my feelings, but I think that there is a father nature as much as there iss a mother nature I like that. Okay, now, speaking of father hen types, nesting dads, it is time now for our sixth and final dad. Don't poopoo this popa to meet the top of the pops we gotta go down deep to deickleb. Okay, this to me looks like a tiny stegosaurus of a fish with like sharp spikes running down its back. And that's why it's called stickleback, I think. Okay. So they're known as like underwater architects. So they build nests on the bottom of a pond or stream also to get the moms to wanna lay eggs and they use bits of plants that they glue together with a sticky substance that is called spiggins. Sigin It's made out of protein based mucus. Okay. And so they build these nests And then they do these zigzag dances. like they do dances when they see a female with a belly full of eggs to try to get her to lay the eggs in the nest. and then then she goes and the dad will take care of them and take sort of take them the rest of the way. Wow. I just pulled up a picture of the nest because I was trying to picture it because I usually think of a fish nest as just like a little smoothed out bit of sand, but this is This has architecture. It looks almost like a bird's nest up on its side. Yeah. It's clearly arranged with so much care. and I don't know, it just makes me think back to all your worries that started this thing, Michael, that dads don't do the nesting or the cozying or the softer parts. and it's just like, here's another one Yet another creature where the dad is doing that C I can I jump in Eduardo? Yeah, go ahead. There was this study by another colle. Michael says that all kinds of scientists have been trying to understand where a parent's caretaking behavior, where it comes from. Like is it an old part of us or something that's new and involves lots of complex thought in the brain? and they're finding some pretty neat stuff. Like there was one experiment that took Dads and watched how their brain activates when they see and play with their baby And you would see activation. in the really old parts of our brain. And another scientist called Kumi Karoda, and she was trying to isolate what part of the brain was responsible for nesting behavior. She had concluded that The first sort of parental instinct, the first nesting behavior was male fish millions of years ago. Wha. Fish, of course, are who we came from. Mammals descended from fish hundreds of millions of years ago. And it was only then when we came on land and you know, had the babies outside the body and had to breastfeed that these other parts came in. But one of the big lessons of all of this was, you know Get in touch with your inner fish We all have that kind of biology and it's really, really Oh, it's deep. Yeah. has learning about All these different ways that dads show care. in the animal world, has it changed you in any way? The sort of joke I've been making is it's a a kind of new take on Dad Bod. Like we're actually incredibly flexible and capable of connecting in a profound way. like we can do this in Our bodies, our brains are made for this actually. Give it up for dance That dads! C in all shapes and sizess They're full of surprises hats! C in all shapes and sizesats! They're full of surprises hats. Of all different species hats and every location hats. The dad delegation hs is sweeping the nation. Deep in their mind these dads are going primal. The love and care they share with their child is wild I talk abouts They're singing off kei dad. They don't really care Dad They're clapping off beets, Dad. They're baking dessert, dad. They're bowing the lawn dad. They're braiding your hair Dad. They're dancing alwn Dad If their back doesn't hurt dad Give it up for dads! Come in all shapes and sizess They're full of surprisess When a kindness arisess they don't try to fight its ds Of all different speciesats For monkeys, fish dad As are loving and cuddlly dads. They hug and they kiss. Daddies who care are everywhere, it's true. So let's do this one more time with attitude. I'm talk about ads. All kinds of ads We're bad about. So cancel your plans and celebrate. So cancel your plans and celebrate. Aome Allen, go, Finsky everyone, and that's it, nothing else cool about that What's that? Excuse me, I have a question two three four. The badgers! Listeners, with badgering questions for our expert. Edward, are you ready? Yeah, absolutely. Hi, my name is Emerson. I'm seven years old, My question is who would win in the fight? An owl monkey or an owl owl Oh gee, I think an owl owl. I would be scared of an owl grabbing the owl monkey with its feet and claws, yeah. I put my money with an owl owl. Oh with that scientific recommendation, I would put an owl my money with an owl owl too. Hi, I'm Cassy. I'm nine years old. My question is, have you ever hugged an owl monkey Full disclosure. It was back in the day when we were' allowed to do these things. twentyw, thirty five years ago. Yes, I've had them in my arms and heold them. But what did it feel like? It moves you. I mean you're handling these animals. you want them to do well, you're releasing them into the forest again So it's a very nice feeling My name is Lucy, I'm five years old and my question is, can owl monkeys go onto the top of your roof somehow? Of course. In fact, some people told me when I started working with owl monkeys, they were showing me the roof of their houses and they said, can you see how clean they are? There' no spiderwbs Well, that's because owl monkeys do come on the roof and they like insects and they eat them and they do the job for us of keeping our roof clean. H Now that's a monkey business. I can get behind. Hey, I'm Tobin and I'm Lucy's dad. Why are owl monkey toes so long? Because that's very important if you're walking around in relatively thin branches. that's for the same reason that them like us have what we call your posostable thumb. It really helps your gripping of the branches along which you walk. Hello, my name is Parker. I'm five years old. Do ourwl monkeys see anything different with their orange eyes Ooh, I love that. What would the world look like through an owl monkey's eyes? Black and white. one. N in color. Okay. And we would have pretty very very detailed skills to detect the variation of the black and white. I mean the hues, the gradient. And what about at nighttime? They see better than us. They see better than us because of specific cells of the eyes Eduardo says we humans can see better in the dark than you might think. Get out, Get out on a night of a full moon. Give yourself ten minutes without light and bring a book And if you have a full moon, And you allow yourself at ten minutes, you'll be reading the book. In. if you cannot. I bet you that you'll do it. You can read a book, no problems. but you have to let your eyes adjust. I'm gonna try this. There's actually a full moon in a couple of days. There you go Okay, pass pass It is a very full moon I'm sitting, you can maybe hear the waves of Lake, Michigan, I'm sitting right near the lake in this dark park where there no street lights. and I'm gonna do the test And minutes later, I opened up my son's copy of Wild Robot to a random page If I really look, I can almost get words. like somebody grinned Brink Gin I can't quite deffinitely got better doctor Eduardo was right. It got impressively better, my eyesight in ten minutes, but I can't quite get there. Here's what might be messing with the experiment. Number one, there's some clouds in front of the moon And number two, I'm getting older and my eyesight has actually started to get worse and I don't have glasses. So I don't know. If you guys try this on a full moon, see if you can read even more.