Strange by Nature Podcast

What a wild ride this week. We've all heard stories of someone needing their appendix removed but what if the only surgeon available is you? Rachel brings us a horrifying tale of a doctor in Antarctica who had to remove their own appendix.

Victoria tells us the tale of African sleeping sickness. This nasty disease is spread by the tse-tse fly and humans are making strides in fighting both the disease and the flies.

Finally, Kirk brings us a lighter story this week. Mysterious crop circles in Tasmania ended up being from Bennet's wallabies chowing down on opium poppies and jumping in drug-induced circles.

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Kirk starts the show this week with an odd story about Perceptual Narrowing. The long and short of it is that babies are better at remembering monkeys than you are.

Rachel takes the second slot this week and bring us a story of one of the cutest little bats in the world. These odd creatures are one of the only mammals to get colors from the plants they eat. Let us introduce you to the Honduran White Bat.

Victoria gets deep at the end of the show by taking us to the bottom of the deepest cave in the world. Is it really the bottom though? It turns out the deepest depths of the world's deepest cave is yet to be fully explored.

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It's that time again, our annual anniversary show. Guest naturalist and friend of the show Brett Sieberer takes control of the snow and quizzes us about our past year of shows. He challenges us to pronounce nearly unpronouncable latin names, makes us make tough choices about the animals we talked about on the show and of course we play a rousing round of Eat, Ride, Jacket. Let us know which you would choose!

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This episode was made possible by our Patrons. Thank you!

Victoria starts off today's show with a completely bizarre parasite. Usually parasites are secretive and don't want to be seen but the amazing Green Banded Broodsac absolutely loves attention and goes great lengths to be seen.

Kirk is up next and, big surprise here, he has a bird story for us. It turns out that not only are New Caledonian Crows super intelligent but research shows they also have handedness. That makes them only the second species on Earth other than humans to display this quality.

Rachel rounds out the last episode of the year with a thought to be extinct mole that lives in the desert? The research methods of finding not only evidence of, but living De Winton's Golden Mole is wild.

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This episode was made possible by our Patrons. Thank you!

Rachel kicks off the show this week by talking about the strange pollinators of the beautiful Red Hot Poker flowers. Turns out it is the Ethiopian wolf! This is an incredible and rare example of pollination by large mammals.

Victoria is up next and she brings us the mysterious case of the all-female population of whiptail lizards. This population survives without men and reproduces through parthenogenesis.

Kirk finishes up the show with a short story about why sometimes it pays to be the loser. Research on Japanese Quail show that females often pick the loser of fights but they do it for a very good reason.

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Support us: patreon.com/strangebynature

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