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Speaker 4: Oh hey, it's that extra stick of deodorant that you
Speaker 4: keep in the club compartment, Ali Ward, I'm here for
Speaker 4: you with a fresh new episode dedicated to apes just
Speaker 4: like us. So perhaps you have heard the Parmatology episode.
Speaker 4: It was released as episode two back when we were
Speaker 4: just tell a little Tiny bi Little Babies in twenty seventeen.
Speaker 4: But primates it's a big ass category. So when I
Speaker 4: got an email from someone that started quote, I'm probably
Speaker 4: one of only a few people in the world whose
Speaker 4: job involves feeling a four hundred pound silverback's breadth on
Speaker 4: the back of my neck. I was like, game on, woman,
Speaker 4: let's do it. So I googled to see if I
Speaker 4: was making up the term gorilla ology, and sure enough,
Speaker 4: it does exist in the literature. So there's a two
Speaker 4: thousand and seven textbook Gorilla Society, Conflict, Compromise and Cooperation
Speaker 4: between the Sexes, and it involves the word goerrillology, So
Speaker 4: it's on now. The word gorilla itself comes from an
Speaker 4: account written by a Carthaginian explorer circa five hundred BCE,
Speaker 4: who described a group of beings that his African guides
Speaker 4: called gorilla, and the translation says that the female's outnumbered
Speaker 4: males and then goes into this brutal, horrible account of
Speaker 4: chasing and trying to capture, being counterattacked by the males,
Speaker 4: abducting females who tried to and themselves and were eventually
Speaker 4: killed and skinned. So right there, Historical accounts of gorilla
Speaker 4: sightings involve a bunch of bad shit going down, as
Speaker 4: colonists ps. The word gorilla in Greek then went on
Speaker 4: to mean a group of hairy women, which sounds like
Speaker 4: my family read Union what anyway? Okay, So thanks for listening,
Speaker 4: thank you for subscribing, thanks for supporting on Patreon, for
Speaker 4: wearing ologiesmirch dot com items on your naked hairy body,
Speaker 4: and for no dollars, you can help out and leave
Speaker 4: a review of which I read all like this one
Speaker 4: that was left just a couple days ago by the Fang,
Speaker 4: who rated and wrote swiping right on Ologies. I love
Speaker 4: this show so much that my dating profile response to
Speaker 4: the prompt I won't shut up about is Ali Ward's
Speaker 4: Ologies podcast Love from the Fang, a Patreon supporter, also
Speaker 4: Shane Love's podcast. Thank you for being a patron. At
Speaker 4: patreon dot com slash Ologies, you can submit questions for
Speaker 4: the guests. It costs a dollar a month. But yes,
Speaker 4: I read every review that you leave, including the ones
Speaker 4: that you've been sending with life to me and my
Speaker 4: family right now as I spend some time with my
Speaker 4: ailing pop your grandpad and you can listen to the
Speaker 4: Secrets at the end of episode starting around the squid
Speaker 4: encore in mid April for more on that. But yes,
Speaker 4: this week we have a fresh episode for you. It
Speaker 4: is being recorded right now in my sister's garage. So
Speaker 4: this gorilla ologist is a longtime primatologist. Anne is the
Speaker 4: chief Scientific Officer and the CEO of the Diane Fosse
Speaker 4: Gorilla Fund, and she's dedicated her life to these animals.
Speaker 4: She's published over one hundred papers on them. She loves
Speaker 4: talking about them, so we love her. And she did
Speaker 4: her undergrad at Tufts, got her masters in zoology at
Speaker 4: the University of Oxford, and did the PhD at the
Speaker 4: Georgia Institute of Technology in experimental psychology. And she's worked
Speaker 4: extensively on the ground and in the field with them.
Speaker 4: So gather some branches and nest up for ap chit
Speaker 4: chat about hair harems, chest pounding, poaching, pooping, mating, mycology,
Speaker 4: crested skulls, thick fur, field work, primate emotions in a
Speaker 4: flim flam and the hidden secrets of gorilla wieners with primatologist, conservationist,
Speaker 4: and gorilla ologist indeed doctor Tara Stewinsky.
Speaker 5: Tara Stwinsky, she her and doctor of course, yes, doctor Tarasinsky.
Speaker 4: Where are you based exactly?
Speaker 5: Atlanta, Georgia, Atlanta?
Speaker 4: Okay, yeah, because you were at the Atlanta Zoo for
Speaker 4: a long time, right.
Speaker 6: I was yeahm hm, I always tease. I'm like in
Speaker 6: the same exact office I was in in grad school.
Speaker 6: I went from a student to CEO, and I'm still
Speaker 6: in the same office. I just don't have to share
Speaker 6: it now with three other people.
Speaker 4: But fun, You've been studying gorillas for decades, right, decades,
Speaker 4: and I.
Speaker 5: Have I have it's getting close to thirty decade.
Speaker 6: That's thirty, it's getting close to three decades, thirty years, Yeah,
Speaker 6: is it really?
Speaker 3: So?
Speaker 4: Did you have a fascination with them as a kid?
Speaker 4: I mean, this is such an question you must get
Speaker 4: at every single business meeting, every dinner party. But that's
Speaker 4: a lot of experience to have with gorillas.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I did not actually have a fascination with gorillas
Speaker 6: as a child. I had a fascination with animals, and
Speaker 6: for the longest time was planning to be a veterinarian,
Speaker 6: and then had the opportunity to go to Africa and
Speaker 6: study animal behavior and really that sort of changed the
Speaker 6: trajectory of my career and came back and decided to
Speaker 6: do a PhD instead of go to VET school, and
Speaker 6: then had the opportunity to start working with gorillas during
Speaker 6: my PhD time. So I think I started studying them
Speaker 6: in nineteen ninety five, ninety five.
Speaker 4: What was the animal that you were studying that got
Speaker 4: you hooked or what was that field work?
Speaker 6: Like I was studying jackals actually, so I was living
Speaker 6: in Zimbabwe and we were studying jackals their ecology, so
Speaker 6: looking at how far they ranged when they dispersed from
Speaker 6: their natal group, where did they go, what were their
Speaker 6: eating habits?
Speaker 5: And we never saw them. They were completely nocturnal.
Speaker 6: They wore radio collars, so we just had equipment that
Speaker 6: would let us track the radio collar.
Speaker 5: It was freezing cold.
Speaker 6: I had no idea how Chili sub Saharan African can
Speaker 6: be in their winter at night time.
Speaker 4: Okay, I'm at Chihuahwa, and I needed to know how
Speaker 4: cold it was. And so I found the paper that
Speaker 4: she worked on and the location, which was in Zimbabwe,
Speaker 4: and the overnight lows in the winter are around forty
Speaker 4: five degrees fahrenheit, which technically is warmer than the New
Speaker 4: Jersey where she grew up and Atlanta where she's now based.
Speaker 4: But you wait outdoors in the winter for an invisible
Speaker 4: jackal to show up for months, and you tell me
Speaker 4: how comfy that is.
Speaker 5: So I'm cold, it's pitch black.
Speaker 6: We never saw the animals, but I just absolutely loved it,
Speaker 6: and that just, you know, decided I really wanted to
Speaker 6: come back and do that, and then was lucky enough
Speaker 6: to get to work with species that are actually active
Speaker 6: during the day where you can see them.
Speaker 4: Was there a moment where there were advisers saying, stay
Speaker 4: with jackals and You're like, no, fuck jackals, you know, like,
Speaker 4: absolutely no offense jackals. How are you able to make
Speaker 4: that leap? And was it something about primates or was
Speaker 4: it something about the region that gorillas are endemic to?
Speaker 4: What was it? Because that's it in terms of like
Speaker 4: charismatic fauna, gorillas are it?
Speaker 5: They are? I would agree with you there one hundred percent.
Speaker 6: I was just very lucky to get into a PhD
Speaker 6: program where the whereas in a lot of places, you know,
Speaker 6: if you're in a program, you might work with fish
Speaker 6: or mice or things that can live conveniently in a lab.
Speaker 6: We had the zoo in Atlanta as our lab, so
Speaker 6: my PhD advisor was also the director of the zoo
Speaker 6: in Atlanta, so we got to come out and work
Speaker 6: with all of the amazing species that lived Atlanta. And
Speaker 6: they have a very large gorilla collection, and so I
Speaker 6: just came in. I did have some previous experience with
Speaker 6: primates and came in and starting studying the gorillas they are.
Speaker 6: I actually thought I might do my PhD on elephants.
Speaker 6: I was really fascinated and I love elephants. I also
Speaker 6: looked at a PhD program with lions. I ended up
Speaker 6: studying a small South American primate for my PhD. So
Speaker 6: I didn't even do my PhD on gorillas. I did
Speaker 6: it on an animal called the golden lion Tameran that
Speaker 6: is native to Brazil. But all the while was studying
Speaker 6: the gorillas here in the zoo and then started working
Speaker 6: with them in the wild.
Speaker 5: And that's just you become my career path.
Speaker 4: In terms of what you do, how much of this
Speaker 4: study is in the wild versus captivity, and what are
Speaker 4: their populations like in the wild versus captivity right now?
Speaker 6: So for the past eight years, I've been completely focused
Speaker 6: on wild gorillas. I spent about thirteen years working in
Speaker 6: conjunction with Zoe Atlanta. I split my time between Sue
Speaker 6: Atlanta and the Dime Fostergerilla Fund, so I did a
Speaker 6: little bit of both really Since I took over the
Speaker 6: CEO role, I've just been completely focused on protecting wild gorillas.
Speaker 6: And your question is a really good one. A lot
Speaker 6: of people don't realize there are four types of gorillas
Speaker 6: in the wild, and actually only one of them are
Speaker 6: found in Zoos, so the other three are only found
Speaker 6: in Africa. And of the four types, there's two species
Speaker 6: and two subspecies. At the species level, they are all
Speaker 6: considered critically endangered, which is the highest level of endangerment,
Speaker 6: you know. The next level up is extinction. In the wild,
Speaker 6: we have Western lowland gorillas. They actually have by far
Speaker 6: the healthiest population. We think there are probably about three
Speaker 6: hundred thousand of them left, so that's a nice robust population.
Speaker 6: There's another type in Western Africa called cross river gorillas,
Speaker 6: and there are only about three hundred of that subspecies
Speaker 6: left on the planet. And then if you skip over
Speaker 6: to Central East Africa, which is where the FOSSi Fund works,
Speaker 6: there are again one species two subspecies there. The mountain gorilla,
Speaker 6: which is the gorilla that most people know from Dian
Speaker 6: Fosse's time, there are about a thousand of them remaining
Speaker 6: on the planet, and then probably one and that most
Speaker 6: people haven't heard of, called the growers gorilla. They are
Speaker 6: found only in the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, and
Speaker 6: we estimate there's about sixty five hundred of them left,
Speaker 6: so very very small populations for the most part across Africa.
Speaker 4: Okay, that is a whole lot of gorilla. So let's
Speaker 4: recap to get a visual picture here. So all of
Speaker 4: these gorillas are from Equatorial Africa, so the band of
Speaker 4: the continent right around the middle, and the western gorilla
Speaker 4: is a species and genus and species is gorilla gorilla.
Speaker 4: So the one that you may have seen in the
Speaker 4: zoo is the Western Lowland gorilla, which at around four
Speaker 4: hundred pounds through the smaller of the four types of gorilla,
Speaker 4: and usually they're more brownish, they might have red fur
Speaker 4: on their face. And the number of Western Lowland gorillas
Speaker 4: left is about the population of Lincoln, Nebraska. Now, north
Speaker 4: of their range is a little pocket and in that
Speaker 4: lives another subspecies, the cross River type, and there are
Speaker 4: fewer of those than would fill a large college lecture
Speaker 4: haul like three hundred, which would be a party of
Speaker 4: gorilla gorillas. Gotta say, now the other species we move
Speaker 4: east on the continent, still Equatorial Africa to the gorilla
Speaker 4: Buringii species, which are a little larger and they have
Speaker 4: darker black fur. And we have another two subspecies of
Speaker 4: these eastern gorillas. There is the Eastern Lowland gorilla that's
Speaker 4: also called the growers gorilla. There's about a radio city
Speaker 4: music hall's worth of Eastern Lowland growers gorillas remaining. And
Speaker 4: then up in the Volcano Cloud forests on the borders
Speaker 4: of Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo and
Speaker 4: Rwanda are about one thousand thick furred stockier mountain gorillas
Speaker 4: that were the subjects of studies by the legendary primatologist
Speaker 4: and conservationists and gorillas and the myst author Diane Fosse,
Speaker 4: and her work with them spanned from the late sixties
Speaker 4: until her death in nineteen eighty five, which was a homicide.
Speaker 4: It was suspected by those who oppose posed her opposition
Speaker 4: to poaching And is habitat loss responsible for the population
Speaker 4: decline or is it human activity? Is it poaching what
Speaker 4: would be good populations or past populations for gorillas.
Speaker 6: Yeah, but it really depends on which gorilla subspecies you're
Speaker 6: looking at. When we talk about you know, the threats
Speaker 6: that are there for mountain gorillas, they are not actively poached.
Speaker 6: They weren't Dian Fosse's time, you know, fifty years ago,
Speaker 6: but they are.
Speaker 5: Not anymore, which is wonderful. That's good.
Speaker 6: There is poaching that happens snares that are set for
Speaker 6: other animals, and the gorillas can get caught in them,
Speaker 6: so indirectly, you know, hunting is a threat, but luckily
Speaker 6: they're not directly being hunted. The biggest threat for mountain
Speaker 6: gorillas is just their small population size and also very
Speaker 6: very small habitat. There's only about eight hundred square kilometers
Speaker 6: total left for the subspecies, so you've got them literally
Speaker 6: living in these islands of forests that are surrounded by
Speaker 6: heavy human population density, and so those populations still you know,
Speaker 6: rely on the forest for food, for water, for you know, firewood,
Speaker 6: and so because the population is so small and the
Speaker 6: habitat is so small, we don't want any further degradation
Speaker 6: or impact on that habitat. When you look to the
Speaker 6: other three types of gorillas, unfortunately there it really is
Speaker 6: is poaching that is primarily responsible for their decline. So
Speaker 6: poaching for food, people eat them. There is habitat instruction.
Speaker 6: Certainly that's happening, but luckily there is still unlike for
Speaker 6: mountain gorillas, there still is a lot of beautiful rainforest
Speaker 6: left in the Congo basin, but it is direct poaching
Speaker 6: and disease. You know, gorillas are can be highly affected
Speaker 6: by ebola, just like people. And so in some parts
Speaker 6: of Western Africa, populations have been you know, experienced ninety
Speaker 6: five percent to climb because ebolas come into the population
Speaker 6: and killed a lot of the gorillas.
Speaker 4: And what is it like to go and study them?
Speaker 4: What does that field work look like? Are you doing
Speaker 4: population counts, are you doing behavioral observations?
Speaker 6: It really again, it kind of varies depending on where
Speaker 6: you are. So in Rwanda where we work, you know,
Speaker 6: Dian Fosse started that work fifty five years ago now,
Speaker 6: in nineteen sixty seven, and those animals became habituated to
Speaker 6: human presence, which basically means that they just became accustomed
Speaker 6: to having people around them. And so there we get
Speaker 6: very close to the animals, you know, we're within thirty
Speaker 6: feet of them, and we collect data on everything you
Speaker 6: name it, we want to study it. So we do
Speaker 6: a lot of behavioral work and that dates back to
Speaker 6: Dian Foss's time. We do demographic work, which is basically
Speaker 6: understanding the structure of the population, so birth deaths, you
Speaker 6: know what gorillas live in, what group, and how they
Speaker 6: move around. We study their ranging habits, We study what
Speaker 6: they eat. We do a lot of physiology work, so
Speaker 6: we collect a lot of biological samples, such like gorilla poop.
Speaker 6: We can spend hours talking about poop, but that gives
Speaker 6: us insights into you know, their hormone, their genetics, their health,
Speaker 6: their parasite loads.
Speaker 5: So you name it, we study it.
Speaker 4: I fe're like I can listen to a whole episode
Speaker 4: on studying the feces of animals. I'm just going to
Speaker 4: gently direct you toward the scatology episode with the number
Speaker 4: one fan of number two doctor Rachel Santemyer. We'll link
Speaker 4: that in the show notes. But some gorillas are totally
Speaker 4: used to having other apes around them gawking, carrying clipboards
Speaker 4: and cameras. But with the fieldwork in the eastern Congo
Speaker 4: Basin forest, the strategy with these critically endangered Eastern Lowland
Speaker 4: aka Grower's gorilla is different. It's a little more low key.
Speaker 6: Where we work in Congo the gorillas there have not
Speaker 6: been habituated to people, and that's for their own safety
Speaker 6: because they are hunted. We don't want them to lose
Speaker 6: their fear of people. So there we follow them one
Speaker 6: day behind, so we can still get a lot of data.
Speaker 6: We can still see food remains to get an idea
Speaker 6: of what they're eating. We can still look at their
Speaker 6: ranging patterns, so how much space do they need? The
Speaker 6: biggest thing we're missing is those detailed behavioral observations on
Speaker 6: what they're doing on a day to day basis, because
Speaker 6: we're not close enough to see them.
Speaker 4: What are they doing on a day to day basis,
Speaker 4: Like what is a gorilla's life like? And how chill
Speaker 4: is it? How many nats? What are they eating? Are
Speaker 4: they fighting?
Speaker 6: They love to nap, So like a typical day for
Speaker 6: a gorilla family, and I'll talk about mountain gorillas is
Speaker 6: they wake up. Each family member makes their own nest
Speaker 6: every night, so they make nests on the ground. They
Speaker 6: don't reuse them, so every night they have to build
Speaker 6: their own nest. And it probably has a lot to
Speaker 6: do with thermal regulation. It's really cold. They live up
Speaker 6: at ten eleven thousand feet. It's wet, it's cold, so
Speaker 6: they build this nest. They go to bed when the
Speaker 6: sun goes down. They wake up when the sun comes up.
Speaker 6: They'll get up, they'll move a little bit. They'll forage
Speaker 6: for a while, and then they will rest. They have,
Speaker 6: you know, middle of the morning they like to take
Speaker 6: a rest. The adults will sleep, the kids will play.
Speaker 6: They'll get up, they'll forage again. They might walk a
Speaker 6: half a kilometer through the course of a day, just
Speaker 6: this intermitt and eating and feeding, and then it's the
Speaker 6: end of the day and they make their nets again.
Speaker 5: This schedule can vary.
Speaker 6: For example, if they run into another gorilla family, so
Speaker 6: the interactions that they have with these other families vary
Speaker 6: depending on whether they knew that family or not. So
Speaker 6: if it's a family that they are unfamiliar with, then
Speaker 6: a lot of times those interactions can be quite aggressive.
Speaker 6: It's an opportunity for males to attract females to join them,
Speaker 6: and for females to make decisions about their you know,
Speaker 6: reproductive future. If they want to leave the group they're
Speaker 6: in and join a new male.
Speaker 5: We could run away together.
Speaker 6: If it's a family that they maybe had lived with before.
Speaker 6: Sometimes families will split. Then it can be quite peaceful,
Speaker 6: and you know, the adults all kind of hang out
Speaker 6: near each other and the kids will play. So it
Speaker 6: really depends that, you know, they have incredibly long memories
Speaker 6: like we do. They form lifelong relationships like we do,
Speaker 6: and that really impacts how they move through space and
Speaker 6: how they interact with other gorillas that live in the habitat.
Speaker 6: How big are these families great quest, and it really
Speaker 6: can vary. So an average gorilla family is usually ten individuals,
Speaker 6: but we have had groups of up to sixty five animals,
Speaker 6: which is phenomenal. The other really funny thing about mountain gorillas,
Speaker 6: you know, again they're all very unique the different subspecies,
Speaker 6: but mount gorillas are particularly special of the four types
Speaker 6: of gorillas. They live in the most extreme environment, these
Speaker 6: really high elevation forests where there's not a lot of fruit.
Speaker 6: They basically kind of live in the equivalent of a
Speaker 6: salad bowl. And the reason that that's important is that
Speaker 6: the kind of food that you eat and its availability
Speaker 6: affects the kind of group that you live in. And
Speaker 6: so because mountain gorillas aren't dependent on fruit, which is
Speaker 6: very seasonally available, and you know, you might have one
Speaker 6: fruiting tree, and then you have to travel a kilometer
Speaker 6: to get to the next fruiting tree. That really constrains
Speaker 6: how big your group can be. So when we look
Speaker 6: at the other types of gorillas that rely a lot
Speaker 6: on fruit, their groups really sort of average around ten individuals.
Speaker 6: Moult gorillas because they live in a salable and foods
Speaker 6: kind of everywhere, it gives them a lot more flexibility.
Speaker 6: So number one, their groups can be a lot bigger.
Speaker 6: As I said, we've had one that was sixty five.
Speaker 6: Number two, and this is what becomes really interesting for
Speaker 6: us as scientists is their group's structure can be quite
Speaker 6: a bit different in that multiple males can live in
Speaker 6: the same group with females. For the other three subspecies,
Speaker 6: you really have a group structure that's one male the
Speaker 6: silver back, that's the adult male. He leads the group,
Speaker 6: a couple of females and their kids. In mountain gorillas,
Speaker 6: we've had groups that have had you know, up to
Speaker 6: eight to ten adult males living in the group, which
Speaker 6: just you know, introduces all sorts of interesting behavioral elements
Speaker 6: around you know, female choice and male competition.
Speaker 4: I understand that that affects the size of their junk.
Speaker 4: Also correct, if there's more competition, don't you tend to
Speaker 4: have perhaps, let's just say, a larger nut sac But
Speaker 4: I understand that if you don't have as much competition,
Speaker 4: you have smaller air go having giant balls is not
Speaker 4: a compliment as much as we think this.
Speaker 6: Well, and that's the really when you look at gorillas,
Speaker 6: and when you look at their junk, you see that
Speaker 6: they shouldn't be living in these large, multi male groups.
Speaker 5: They are not equipped.
Speaker 6: They have very small testicles, very small penis compared to
Speaker 6: a chimpanzee, which evolved in this multi male structure where
Speaker 6: there's all this competition in the group for access. With gorillas,
Speaker 6: once you get your females, normally you shouldn't have any
Speaker 6: competition in the group. So they don't have large testicles,
Speaker 6: they don't engage in sperm competition. So when we laugh
Speaker 6: at the Mountain gorillas, we're like, you guys are not chimps,
Speaker 6: but you're kind of living in chimp like groups. So
Speaker 6: how is this all working?
Speaker 7: Well?
Speaker 4: Also, what's the math on that? Because one silver back
Speaker 4: to let's say a handful of females, where are all
Speaker 4: the other silver backs and where are they getting all
Speaker 4: these ladies.
Speaker 5: Great question.
Speaker 6: So a lot of males actually never form family groups.
Speaker 6: So in the sort of traditional guerrilla structure, at like
Speaker 6: age fifteen or so, a male, you know, by the
Speaker 6: age of fifteen, they can leave earlier. But by the
Speaker 6: age of fifteen, a male has reached maturity and he
Speaker 6: needs to strike out on his own and he is
Speaker 6: not allowed to join another family. So he goes out
Speaker 6: on his own and he tries to interact with families
Speaker 6: and tries to recruit females to join him, and that's
Speaker 6: how you form a family. A lot of males are
Speaker 6: just never successful. They never actually form a group, and
Speaker 6: so they may live their entire lives as bachelors. Mountain
Speaker 6: Gorilla males do have this other option though they can
Speaker 6: choose to strike out on their own and form a family,
Speaker 6: or because their groups have can have multiple males, they
Speaker 6: can also make the decision to kind of queue up
Speaker 6: and wait and see if they can inherit dominance. Should
Speaker 6: you know, the dominant male die or maybe as he
Speaker 6: gets older he's not quite as fit, and so they
Speaker 6: can sort of take over dominance. That's one of the
Speaker 6: things that I'm super fascinated with is what influences whether
Speaker 6: a male chooses to day or go.
Speaker 4: What about the dominant male? They're typically for that species
Speaker 4: and subspecies called silverbacks, Right, why do they have silverbacks
Speaker 4: and how do they end up in that position?
Speaker 6: So a silver back is you know, people often say
Speaker 6: to me like, oh, do you know study the silverback species?
Speaker 6: And you know, silverback is simply the term for an
Speaker 6: adult male. So all four types of gorillas have silverbacks.
Speaker 6: It's a process of maturation. It starts roughly around the
Speaker 6: age of twelve and again, depending on the subspecies, is
Speaker 6: done by fifteen or eighteen. And just as in humans,
Speaker 6: you know, as males mature, they get broad chest, facial hair,
Speaker 6: their voice deepens. For gorillas, they get this mantle of
Speaker 6: silver hair on their back. And you know, no one's
Speaker 6: ever asked the question of why. But I imagine it's
Speaker 6: just a signal, Like it's so clearly visible in the
Speaker 6: forest when you see these black creatures walking through the forest,
Speaker 6: that silverback really stands out and given that he's the leader,
Speaker 6: makes them easy to follow, et cetera. But yeah, it's
Speaker 6: just a simple process of maturation that they get these big, big,
Speaker 6: big heads, which is where their jaw muscles attach. They're
Speaker 6: completely vegetarian. They eat the same thing as females, So
Speaker 6: the jaw muscles are not for processing food. It's really
Speaker 6: for fighting and defending their family and attracting females to
Speaker 6: join them.
Speaker 4: So when you see a male silver back with what
Speaker 4: looks like just a fantastic beehive of an updo, that's
Speaker 4: actually that bony crest plus a thick temporalis muscle giving
Speaker 4: all that volume. Now, if you have ever considered chewing
Speaker 4: plastic to look like a chad.
Speaker 5: And that's when we came up with the jaws size.
Speaker 4: That's actually your massader muscle at the crook of your jawline,
Speaker 4: and maybe a more square one will make someone love you.
Speaker 4: The great news is you can also just inject fillers there.
Speaker 4: Or maybe you're a lady and society tells you yours
Speaker 4: is too angular, you can have botulism toxins injected there
Speaker 4: so that your muscle is less square. And all these
Speaker 4: things are kind of normal to us, I guess, And
Speaker 4: for that reason, it's just that there are not aliens
Speaker 4: following us around with clipboards getting PhDs about this. Well,
Speaker 4: I guess there are. They're just other apes they're just us.
Speaker 7: Wow.
Speaker 4: Oh, I have so many questions. You mentioned the voice deepening,
Speaker 4: and that makes me wonder, how are we seeing them communicate.
Speaker 5: Is it through.
Speaker 4: Vocalizations, is it through chest beating, is it through body language,
Speaker 4: eye contact?
Speaker 5: All of the above, all of the above.
Speaker 6: So I would say they don't use their faces as
Speaker 6: much for communication like we do. And I think it's
Speaker 6: one of the reasons that people people often see gorillas,
Speaker 6: say in a zoo and say they look bored, but
Speaker 6: they have the same exact facial expression in the wild.
Speaker 6: It's very serious. And part of it is they think
Speaker 6: about it. They live in a jungle where there's not
Speaker 6: really great visibility, so they're not looking at each other's
Speaker 6: faces and using faces to communicate in the same way
Speaker 6: that we are. But they use a lot of vocalizations,
Speaker 6: and it's just a way to kind of, you know,
Speaker 6: keep in touch. They do this vocalization called the Belch vocalization,
Speaker 6: which is like and they'll do that, and you'll hear
Speaker 6: one will do it, and then another one that's, you know,
Speaker 6: fifty feet away, I'll do it, and it'll sort of
Speaker 6: go around the room and everyone.
Speaker 5: It's like saying I'm here. I'm present, I'm over here.
Speaker 6: It's also the vocalization that we do as we approach
Speaker 6: them to kind of let them know we're coming. We
Speaker 6: don't mean any harm because you just don't want to
Speaker 6: surprise them as you're approaching them. And then they use
Speaker 6: things like, you know, chess beats, which is primarily used
Speaker 6: by adult males, but it's a really important communication signal.
Speaker 6: And we've just recently found in some collaborative works we've
Speaker 6: done with the long term partner called the Max Planck
Speaker 6: Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology that those chess beats are an
Speaker 6: honest communication signal.
Speaker 5: So bigger is better for male gorillas.
Speaker 6: The bigger you are, the more likely you are to
Speaker 6: become dominant, the more likely you are to attract females.
Speaker 6: And the bigger you are, the lower your chest beat,
Speaker 6: the lower the noise of your chest beat. And so
Speaker 6: males can use this to sort of size up rival
Speaker 6: males by hearing this chess beat, which can travel as
Speaker 6: much as a kilometer, and females can also use it
Speaker 6: to size up a potential mate. You know, does this
Speaker 6: male sound like he's big? Yeah, I might want him
Speaker 6: as you know, as my new mate.
Speaker 4: You know, I'm like listening to this and I'm thinking
Speaker 4: of like all of the women on tender who are
Speaker 4: like six foot and over, and you're like guys. For
Speaker 4: more on this, you can see the twenty fourteen study
Speaker 4: Does Height Matter, An examination of height preferences in romantic coupling.
Speaker 4: It's about people, and the researchers report that women gravitate
Speaker 4: toward tall guys for a bunch of reasons. But that
Speaker 4: quote most of the explanations were connected to societal expectations
Speaker 4: or gender stereotypes, and the study goes on to explain
Speaker 4: this is because height is seen as a signifier of
Speaker 4: childhood health, which is a marker of class and also
Speaker 4: potentially the ability to fend off attackers of your shared babies.
Speaker 4: But nowadays there aren't like a lot of loose raccoons
Speaker 4: trying to eat our babies alive. So is that's a
Speaker 4: tall partner better at talking through maybe threats like classroom bullies?
Speaker 4: Probably not as much as a short guy. In fact,
Speaker 4: if you're out dating, don't sleep on short guys, maybe
Speaker 4: sleep with them. So under five to seven dudes thirty
Speaker 4: two percent less likely to divorce, and they do a
Speaker 4: greater share of housework than average and tall guys, and
Speaker 4: once in a relationship, researchers found they tend to compensate
Speaker 4: for their shortness by earning a higher relative share of income.
Speaker 4: Is this going to get so many short kings laid? No,
Speaker 4: you know why, because they're already pointing more. According to
Speaker 4: a study in the Journal of Sexual Health titled sexual
Speaker 4: activity of young men is not related to their anthropometric parameters,
Speaker 4: men under five to nine already have a higher coital
Speaker 4: frequency than their taller peers. And I bet right now
Speaker 4: there's a bunch of tall guys being like, why are
Speaker 4: you shitting on us right now? And I'm just saying,
Speaker 4: this is how a lot of shorter guys feel all
Speaker 4: the time on apps. So suck it up, bros. And
Speaker 4: if you are swiping for a mate, maybe get that
Speaker 4: height requirement out of your bio, because if you like
Speaker 4: tiktoks of people finding treasures while thrifting, you're gonna love
Speaker 4: the cool shorter guys who are constantly overlooked who rule. Now,
Speaker 4: there's this one guy named Dave who was quoted in
Speaker 4: a twenty fifteen Yahoo Lifestyle article about height and dating,
Speaker 4: and he said, when you're horizontal, there's only a couple
Speaker 4: of places the inches count, and Dave boy howdy, that's
Speaker 4: actually wrong according to a few studies. You can see
Speaker 4: the Philology and Urology episodes for more on that. Apparently
Speaker 4: those inches don't really matter either. Also, we're going to
Speaker 4: discuss gorilla junk in a bit, but wow, yes, males
Speaker 4: are judged by height from la to New York to
Speaker 4: the mountains of Central Africa. And if you're like, lord,
Speaker 4: why are you doing a two minute aside about online
Speaker 4: dating and divorce rates in a Gorilla episode? Because number one,
Speaker 4: it's my show, fuck off. Number two, they share ninety
Speaker 4: eight percent of our DNA And you and I both
Speaker 4: know you do not click on an ape episode to
Speaker 4: not learn about how you and APE work. I mean,
Speaker 4: is it so difficult not to extrapolate gorilla lifestyle and
Speaker 4: behavior and think about your own because right now I'm like,
Speaker 4: I should be vegan and nap more. Do you ever
Speaker 4: do you ever watch this and like modify your life totally?
Speaker 5: I mean, so I think it goes both ways.
Speaker 6: So to start on the gorilla side, like I remember
Speaker 6: when I was pregnant, and you know, I'm like, oh
Speaker 6: my gosh, am I going to be a good mom?
Speaker 5: It's this house is going to work.
Speaker 6: And they always tell you like, when you go to
Speaker 6: the hospital, you should nest, like make yourself feel really
Speaker 6: comfortable when you're when you and so I took all
Speaker 6: these pictures of gorilla moms and their babies to the
Speaker 6: hospital with me because I'm like, if I can be
Speaker 6: half as good a mom as a gorilla mom. They're
Speaker 6: so patient, you know, they nurse their kids for three years.
Speaker 6: They let them sleep with them every night, they never
Speaker 6: get frustrated with them. The kids will throw temper tantrums,
Speaker 6: you know, and cry when they're getting weaned, and the
Speaker 6: moms are just.
Speaker 5: Like, okay, it's okay.
Speaker 7: I love your mom.
Speaker 6: So I'm like, if I can be half as good
Speaker 6: a mom as a gorilla mom, then I will be
Speaker 6: all set and certainly watching them and seeing the way
Speaker 6: that they interact with their young it's very inspiring. And
Speaker 6: you know, we think about that a lot, I think
Speaker 6: as primatologists when when we have our own kids. But
Speaker 6: I also think what's really fun sometimes is to think
Speaker 6: about human behavior and to sort of if you sit
Speaker 6: back and objectively watch humans the way that we objectively
Speaker 6: watch animals. It is really interesting to see all of
Speaker 6: these subtle power plays that go on that we just,
Speaker 6: you know, we're used to it because it's our society.
Speaker 6: But when you really sort of sit back and if
Speaker 6: you were to sit there with a clipboard and take notes,
Speaker 6: it's really funny to see. Like my one daughter, every
Speaker 6: time she gets a new piece of food, she smells
Speaker 6: it before she eats it. And that's totally what primates do,
Speaker 6: you know, And so every time I watch her do that,
Speaker 6: it just makes me laugh because I'm like, oh my gosh,
Speaker 6: you're a little gorilla.
Speaker 5: You smell your food before you eat it.
Speaker 4: And what about that nexus between humans and gorillas where
Speaker 4: gorillas are in captivity, maybe modifying their behavior to be
Speaker 4: more human like, or using sign language or learning zoo
Speaker 4: keeper cues, What are the ethics of that, Like, what
Speaker 4: are the ethics of coco learning sign language and things
Speaker 4: like that.
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, so I feel like, you know, in zoos,
Speaker 6: I think the real effort that zoos have made is
Speaker 6: to let gorillas live in social structures that are that
Speaker 6: replicate what they would be in the wild, and that's
Speaker 6: by far the most enriching for them, so that they
Speaker 6: can have these complex social relationships that they would have
Speaker 6: in the wild.
Speaker 5: But they also do a lot of work.
Speaker 6: With them, you know, that aids them and keeping them
Speaker 6: in captivity, So a lot of positive reinforcement training, and
Speaker 6: it's amazing the.
Speaker 5: Things that gorillas can do.
Speaker 6: So they've been trained to present their bellies for ultrasounds
Speaker 6: when they're pregnant so they can see the health of
Speaker 6: the baby. They've been trained to present you know, their ear,
Speaker 6: to have a thermometer put in so they can see
Speaker 6: if they have a fever, trained to present you know,
Speaker 6: their hand if they have a wound so it can
Speaker 6: be cleaned. And all of this really enables improved care
Speaker 6: in a captive setting and it's it's really amazing and
Speaker 6: the gorillas, I really enjoy it too, inactive for them,
Speaker 6: I think, just the same way our pets enjoy being trained.
Speaker 6: I think the gorillas really they like the human interaction,
Speaker 6: they like that they get treats.
Speaker 5: Obviously they're food motivated just like us.
Speaker 6: But it is really amazing to see these relationships that
Speaker 6: keepers have with the gorillas. But at the end of
Speaker 6: the day, the most important relationship is the one that
Speaker 6: the gorillas have with the other gorillas with their family
Speaker 6: in the wild, it's very different. So you know, when
Speaker 6: Diane Fosse first went there, she did develop relationships with
Speaker 6: the animals, and I think that's part of what makes
Speaker 6: her story amazing and it really resonates with people. And
Speaker 6: if you see early images of her, you watch Gorilla's
Speaker 6: in the myst the movie that was made about her life,
Speaker 6: you'll see that she was very interactive with the gorillas.
Speaker 7: But she would risk it all.
Speaker 4: To save the gorillas in the mist.
Speaker 6: That is not something that we do anymore for several reasons.
Speaker 6: First and foremost, as scientists, we really want to know
Speaker 6: what gorilla society is all about, and if we're putting
Speaker 6: ourselves in the middle of that, then we're influencing that.
Speaker 6: So we really want as much as possible to be
Speaker 6: a fly on the wall. And that's like the biggest
Speaker 6: compliment if you walk into a gorilla family and they
Speaker 6: completely ignore you, because then you really are like just
Speaker 6: another tree that's in their environment. But the other really
Speaker 6: important reason is that they are susceptible to human respiratory viruses,
Speaker 6: and so things that can make us just a little
Speaker 6: ill can be make them quite sick or even be lethal,
Speaker 6: So wanting to keep that distance from them, that physical
Speaker 6: distance so that if you're carrying something and you don't
Speaker 6: you're not aware of it, that you're minimizing any risk
Speaker 6: of transmitting that to them.
Speaker 4: And I have so many questions for listeners. Can I
Speaker 4: wrap it fire you?
Speaker 5: Sure of course.
Speaker 4: But before we do, we're going to toss some coin
Speaker 4: at a charity. Big huge surprise. This one's pretty obvious.
Speaker 4: It's headed to the Diane Fosse Gorilla Fund, which is
Speaker 4: dedicated to the conservation, protection and study of gorillas and
Speaker 4: their habitats in Africa and their successful integrated approach includes
Speaker 4: close collaboration with local governments and communities as well as
Speaker 4: partners from around the world. They have more than fifty
Speaker 4: years of successful conservation work in saving gorillas and it's
Speaker 4: based on a model of protecting gorillas, conducting science, training conservationists,
Speaker 4: and helping communities. So thank you to sponsorsimologies who make
Speaker 4: that donation possible.
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Speaker 4: Okay, let's go real hard on this lightning ground. Y'all
Speaker 4: ask some sick questions, including about illnesses and I'm looking
Speaker 4: at you first time question askers Larissa Parsons, Baffiades and
Speaker 4: Elise Chezik who asked about gorilla ailments. A lot of
Speaker 4: people actually asked first time question asker the Awkward Cactus
Speaker 4: and Mike Mnakowski and Kayla Chung asked can gorillas get
Speaker 4: COVID nineteen? There are other listeners asked about natural illnesses
Speaker 4: that they get. But yeah, are you having to mirror
Speaker 4: what we're studying in humans on gorilla populations in the
Speaker 4: wild and in captivity.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's a great question.
Speaker 6: We have known from the start of the pandemic that
Speaker 6: gorillas and most Old World primates are primates that live
Speaker 6: in African Asia having a genetically identical receptor system to
Speaker 6: COVID nineteen that we do, which means that they can
Speaker 6: get it. So we immediately in the field put in
Speaker 6: place measures to minimize the chance that we would take
Speaker 6: it to it, so take any risk of taking COVID
Speaker 6: nineteen to them. So normally our trackers go in and
Speaker 6: out of the forest every day, So when COVID started,
Speaker 6: we put them in remote camps where they're isolated from
Speaker 6: their friends and family and community for a month at
Speaker 6: a time, so they get tested before they go in.
Speaker 6: They're in isolation, they work for a month on and
Speaker 6: then they come off the rotation. And they've been doing
Speaker 6: that now for two plus years and they're used to
Speaker 6: it now. But I mean, when we remember the beginning
Speaker 6: of COVID and how scary that was, and all I
Speaker 6: wanted to do was hunker down with my family and
Speaker 6: be there with them, and these amazing trackers, you know,
Speaker 6: put the health and safety of the gorillas at the
Speaker 6: forefront to be out there and make sure that there
Speaker 6: was minimal, minimal risks that we could be carrying COVID
Speaker 6: and bring it to them, and with a thousand of
Speaker 6: them left on the planet, that's always a concern of ours.
Speaker 6: We're always thinking about how do we minimize any.
Speaker 5: Risk to the gorillas.
Speaker 6: To our knowledge know wild gorillas have gotten COVID. There
Speaker 6: has been COVID that has happened in several zoo populations,
Speaker 6: and obviously zoos take that same level of protection, they
Speaker 6: wear masks, people are tested vaccinated, but because there is
Speaker 6: that closer proximity, there is the opportunity more of an
Speaker 6: opportunity for transfer, and three or four zoos have had
Speaker 6: gorillas that have gotten COVID. The great news is no
Speaker 6: gorillas have died of COVID and it seems to really
Speaker 6: mimic what we see in humans that really mild symptoms
Speaker 6: in most healthy individuals. In fact, I think a population
Speaker 6: that got omicron, they didn't show any symptoms. The only
Speaker 6: reason they knew they had it was because they were
Speaker 6: testing their fecal samples to see if they were shedding virus,
Speaker 6: and one day the fecal sample showed up positive, but
Speaker 6: they couldn't tell from the gorillas themselves. Early on, with
Speaker 6: some of the earlier variants. I think some of the
Speaker 6: older gorillas that, just like in people, had some pre
Speaker 6: existing health conditions, they suffered a little bit more and
Speaker 6: they showed more symptoms. But luckily, knock on wood, they've
Speaker 6: handled it in a similar way to the human population.
Speaker 4: For more on this, you can see the recent Environmental
Speaker 4: Microbiology episode about testing wastewater for COVID with doctor Amy
Speaker 4: Kirby from the CDC. Because listen, you're not using your
Speaker 4: number two more. Let the science people have it and
Speaker 4: run some numbers finders keepers. Now, what about pre pooh
Speaker 4: aka their diet. Let's dig into some gorilla cuisine. We
Speaker 4: had a bunch of questions about diet. I know we've
Speaker 4: covered a little bit, but Jacob Bowman, Chandler Witherington, Julia McDonald,
Speaker 4: Jesse Hurlbert, Karl Posik wanted to know what are gorilla's
Speaker 4: favorite thing to eat? And Adam Mcinness wanted to know
Speaker 4: is it true that because of their diets, gorillas are
Speaker 4: just like constantly farting. And then also Khalia Alahi wanted
Speaker 4: to know if they need to drink water. They say
Speaker 4: that their dad told them that gorillas didn't need to
Speaker 4: drink water because they ate so much parsley, and this
Speaker 4: person says that they believed it till they were way
Speaker 4: too old. Also, do they even eat parsley? They want
Speaker 4: to know a lot of questions. What do they love
Speaker 4: to eat? Do they fart all the time? Do they
Speaker 4: have to drink water?
Speaker 6: Phenomenal questions? And again they are there great questions. And
Speaker 6: again it does a very depending on which gorilla's species
Speaker 6: you're talking about, but I will just focus on mountain
Speaker 6: gorilla's for the moment. They love, basically we call it
Speaker 6: herbaceous vegetation, vines.
Speaker 5: They eat tons of vines.
Speaker 6: So gallium is a hugely preferred food, which we actually
Speaker 6: have here in the States. I don't know if it's
Speaker 6: the same species or not, but it's just like when
Speaker 6: you walk through a field, it sticks to your leg.
Speaker 6: They love love gallium. They'll pull it down. It sort
Speaker 6: of grows everywhere. They'll pull it down and make a
Speaker 6: ball and munch on it. They love wild celery, which
Speaker 6: has incredibly high water content.
Speaker 5: Which we'll get to our water question in a moment.
Speaker 6: They love bamboo, but particularly they love bamboo shoots. So
Speaker 6: there's two times a year when the bamboo it's bamboo
Speaker 6: shooting season.
Speaker 5: It's right now.
Speaker 6: Actually it's when there's high rainfall. And one of the
Speaker 6: really interesting things about bamboo is we've been able through
Speaker 6: studying their urine to know kind of their energy balance.
Speaker 6: And like most wild animals, gorillas kind of are always teetering.
Speaker 6: Unlike us, who you know we have, we're always in
Speaker 6: the positive at least, you know, most Western cultures were
Speaker 6: always in a positive energy balance because we have way
Speaker 6: easy access to food and we don't exercise as much
Speaker 6: as we probably should.
Speaker 4: I just want to pop in and say, even in
Speaker 4: Western cultures, of course, a lot of people go hungry,
Speaker 4: food insecurity and related problems. I just looked this up
Speaker 4: because I wasn't depressed enough and found out that twenty
Speaker 4: five thousand people on Earth a day die from food
Speaker 4: insecurity and hunger. So if you have any extra calories
Speaker 4: in the form of food to donate, you can look
Speaker 4: up your local food pantry and see what they need.
Speaker 4: Maybe drop off a bag of things like apple sauce,
Speaker 4: canned beans andastand potatoes, granola bars, canned meats, other staples
Speaker 4: I looked up they always tend to need. Also, let's
Speaker 4: donate to the LA Regional Food Bank for this episode too,
Speaker 4: shall we Okay, But in general, our species tends to
Speaker 4: have access to more calories than we need to survive.
Speaker 4: But for gorillas, doctor Stownski says, for.
Speaker 6: Most wild animals, you know, you're constantly teetering like just
Speaker 6: enough and what we found and gorillas, that's the case,
Speaker 6: are kind of eating getting just enough calories, you know,
Speaker 6: for all that they're burning off during the day.
Speaker 5: But when they eat bamboo shoots.
Speaker 6: That's when they get sort of like it's like the
Speaker 6: equivalent of a gorilla candy bar. So they're often described
Speaker 6: as like being drunk when they eat bamboo shoots, but
Speaker 6: really what it is is they've just got I think,
Speaker 6: kind of like a sugar high, Like they just have
Speaker 6: a ton of extra energy. So they're playful and they
Speaker 6: run around, and I mean they're always playful, but even
Speaker 6: more so during bamboo shooting season. So they eat bamboo,
Speaker 6: they eat allium, they eat celery, They love nettles. These incredibly,
Speaker 6: I mean, these nettles are insane, these huge leaves with
Speaker 6: like stinging, like it's almost like asbestos. Like if you've
Speaker 6: ever touched asbestos and you get not asbestos like insulation
Speaker 6: put in our insulation and you get all those little hair. Yeah,
Speaker 6: fiberglass exactly. They have basically the equivalent of fiberglass on
Speaker 6: the back of them. And so how the gorillas eat
Speaker 6: these I don't know. Like if you brush up against them,
Speaker 6: your hand will hurt for half an hour, but they
Speaker 6: carefully fold them to protect their mouths and then they
Speaker 6: eat them.
Speaker 5: So it's just incredible.
Speaker 4: How many calories a day does it grow? Ask gorilla need?
Speaker 4: How many pounds a day?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 6: Eat about the males eat about sixty pounds of vegetation
Speaker 6: a day. Think about that, sixty pounds of salad, you know,
Speaker 6: like when I get my salad at the store and
Speaker 6: it weighs, you know, like, yeah, a half a pound,
Speaker 6: I feel like I'm eating an enormous salad.
Speaker 5: And they eat sixty pounds a day, which.
Speaker 6: Is why they nap a lot. And to get to
Speaker 6: the second point, they do fart a lot. There are
Speaker 6: a lot of farting noises that you hear, and I
Speaker 6: still giggle most of the time, and it's kind of
Speaker 6: like when your dog farts and they just like they
Speaker 6: don't They act like nothing's happened, and it makes me
Speaker 6: feel really immature, but I'm like, oh my gosh, did
Speaker 6: you just hear that?
Speaker 7: But with a grina you may well hear them before
Speaker 7: you see them.
Speaker 4: Just a side note, thank you to you tuber's Natural
Speaker 4: World Safaris and Fiji twenty seven for those publicly available
Speaker 4: audio resources. Very much enjoyed that. I just wanted to toot
Speaker 4: your horns there.
Speaker 6: So yes, lots of farting as they process all of
Speaker 6: that vegetation. And then to the last question is they
Speaker 6: really don't drink water a lot because they don't get
Speaker 6: it from parsley, but they get it from things like
Speaker 6: wild celery, which is pretty close we are seeing. We
Speaker 6: just published a paper earlier this year showing that their
Speaker 6: water drinking is increasing, and we don't know if that's
Speaker 6: perhaps tied to climate change. These guys live in an
Speaker 6: area that is experiencing climate change, and it is there
Speaker 6: are days that are getting warmer, and so are they
Speaker 6: going to become more dependent on water?
Speaker 5: We don't know.
Speaker 6: But for the most part, they really don't need to
Speaker 6: drink because they get a lot of moisture from what
Speaker 6: they eat.
Speaker 4: Wow. Chelsea Rabel and Margherita Korchova and Alia Myers all
Speaker 4: asked about their teeth. Margerita said, question, if gorillas don't
Speaker 4: eat meat, why do they have huge canines? And then
Speaker 4: Chelsea wants to know they don't brush their teeth, and
Speaker 4: sometimes their teeth look yellow, but they must not rot out.
Speaker 4: So how do they maintain good dental health? Is it
Speaker 4: just all the chewing?
Speaker 6: Yes, I think all that massication that chewing really helps.
Speaker 6: They chew fibrous stuff, so it probably gets some of
Speaker 6: the you know, the dirt and debris on.
Speaker 5: You'll see a lot in the mountain gorillas.
Speaker 6: When they open their mouth, their teeth are actually black
Speaker 6: and the inside of their mouth is black, and that
Speaker 6: is because of all the tannins in some of the
Speaker 6: plants that they eat, so it actually stains their mouth.
Speaker 6: Just like when we drink a lot of tea, you know,
Speaker 6: our teeth get stained. So their mouths actually get stained.
Speaker 5: True like a swolt of tea.
Speaker 6: But those huge teeth are they're much bigger in males
Speaker 6: than females. And again it's all for attracting mates and
Speaker 6: defending your family. So the males use all that size
Speaker 6: and strength to look sexy and then once they have
Speaker 6: a family, to make sure that they can protect them
Speaker 6: from other males.
Speaker 4: Wow, so that's just like having a shive kind of
Speaker 4: having a knife. They packing Rory Jenkins and Kristin Rosenblum
Speaker 4: and Courtney Jones all had reproduction questions. Courtney wants to
Speaker 4: know how long a gorilla is pregnant, and Rory wants
Speaker 4: to know do gorillaz experience something like menstruation? Do they
Speaker 4: get their periods?
Speaker 6: They surely do. They They have monthly cycles just like
Speaker 6: we do. They're pregnant for eight and a half months.
Speaker 6: I mean, gorilla's share ninety eight percent of our DNA,
Speaker 6: and I mean their reproductive system is very very similar
Speaker 6: to ours.
Speaker 5: In fact, in zoos, you know, if a female's not.
Speaker 6: Breeding, like if they don't want her to breed for
Speaker 6: whatever reason, they take human birth control pills. I mean,
Speaker 6: human birth control pills can work in them the way
Speaker 6: that same way they work in us. So, yeah, pregnant
Speaker 6: for eight and a half months. They generally give birth
Speaker 6: every four years, so they will nurse for about three years.
Speaker 6: And when they're nursing, they don't cycle, so they don't
Speaker 6: get their period. When they're nursing, they don't cycle, and
Speaker 6: then they'll start cycling again. And usually within three or
Speaker 6: four cycles they'll get pregnant. So they only have about
Speaker 6: three or four cycles every four years just because of
Speaker 6: their reproductive system, so they don't have it nearly as
Speaker 6: frequently as we do. But yeah, that's that's a bit
Speaker 6: about their reproduction.
Speaker 4: Yep. More primate mating is in the Behavioral Anthropology episode
Speaker 4: with doctor Lara Durkovich and the Primatology episode in which
Speaker 4: chimp scientists Kate Gilmore divulged that primates and zoos such
Speaker 4: as gorillas take regular old human birth control bananas.
Speaker 5: Oh.
Speaker 4: Also, gorillas don't really eat bananas because the ones that
Speaker 4: we get at the store are highly cultivated and are
Speaker 4: not native to their Central African habitat. But they do
Speaker 4: like bananas. Apparently they'll eat a banana, but they're not evolved.
Speaker 4: Bananas are a part of their diet that is not
Speaker 4: a banana in their pocket.
Speaker 5: Oh.
Speaker 4: Speaking of which, Jesse Moses wants to know, what's the
Speaker 4: deal with dick bones? Why do they have them? Do
Speaker 4: they have bacula? I don't think so, okay, sorry again,
Speaker 4: me again. This is a great fun fact because they
Speaker 4: kind of do and they kind of don't. I had
Speaker 4: to look this up. They actually have a penis bone,
Speaker 4: but it's around six millimeters long, so it's there, but
Speaker 4: no one really knows how much heavy lifting it's doing
Speaker 4: on a gorilla's formidable two and a half inch long dong.
Speaker 4: They have tiny penises and FYI A fact check this
Speaker 4: via the textbook Primate Sexuality Comparative Studies of the Prosimians, Monkeys, Apes,
Speaker 4: and Humans, which was written by a scientist named doctor Dixon.
Speaker 4: It is available in hardcover. Only. Several people had a
Speaker 4: great question scale Bar Hannah Riiley, Timothy Anderson, Williams, Lauren
Speaker 4: McGregor all wanted to know about their smell. Timothy asked,
Speaker 4: why do they smell kind of like onions? And why
Speaker 4: does the smell so strong? And Laura McGregor wants to know,
Speaker 4: is it weird that I like their musty smell? Haha?
Speaker 4: They say, do they smell like onions? Or is that
Speaker 4: only if they've been eating onions?
Speaker 6: I would not describe it as smelling like onions. I
Speaker 6: think they smell amazing. I love it. It is a
Speaker 6: very musty, it's a little bit kind of like a
Speaker 6: human body odor smell, and it's really primarily the males
Speaker 6: and It also is when they're excited or when they're fighting.
Speaker 6: If males come together, a lot of times, you can
Speaker 6: smell them well.
Speaker 5: Before you see them.
Speaker 6: And I think it's just an odor that they put
Speaker 6: out when they get excited. It probably also contains information
Speaker 6: that you know, we're not aware of that they use
Speaker 6: that as a communication tool, but it's primarily the males,
Speaker 6: and I agree, I think it smells great. I wouldn't
Speaker 6: describe it as an onion, but you know, maybe my
Speaker 6: smell might be off.
Speaker 4: One reporter, Sarah Ivans of the Louisville Courier Journal described
Speaker 4: gorilla musk leuslie quote it does indeed smell like a
Speaker 4: teenage boys bedroom. Think stale sweat, mingling with rancid sneakers.
Speaker 4: And according to the twenty fourteen study, wild western lowland
Speaker 4: gorillas signals selectively using odor. Apparently, silverbacks in particular can
Speaker 4: turn the sense on and off depending on how conspicuous
Speaker 4: they want to be. And if you're wondering, this data
Speaker 4: was quote measured through a human pungency scale. I don't
Speaker 4: know what that means, but they do get smellier when
Speaker 4: they're mad or stressed. And anyone who has ever smeared
Speaker 4: deodorant on all kinds of body areas before a job interview,
Speaker 4: you get it. Speaking of nerves, patrons Sean Thomas Kane,
Speaker 4: Kristen don Urban, Ruby Johnstone, and Rory Jenkins wondered about
Speaker 4: the feelings of these complex, beautiful primates. How do scientists
Speaker 4: perform a vibe check? A lot of folks had questions
Speaker 4: about emotions, and Christa Avanpado wanted to know if they
Speaker 4: have the same emotions humans have, joy, grief, anger. Chris
Speaker 4: Moore wants to know do gorilla's cry. Christina Johnson says yes,
Speaker 4: and do they laugh? Joy West wants to know about
Speaker 4: gorilla grieving. Do they grieve for lost loved ones? And
Speaker 4: how what is their their mental health?
Speaker 6: Like I always, you know, people often ask me, like,
Speaker 6: you know, why is it important to conserve gorillas? We
Speaker 6: have so many challenges out there in the world. Why
Speaker 6: is saving this one species important? And I like to
Speaker 6: give three reasons. The first one is because they need us.
Speaker 6: As we've already kind of talked about, they're critically endangered.
Speaker 6: They're among the most at risk of the million species
Speaker 6: that are at risk of extinction right now, so they
Speaker 6: need our help.
Speaker 5: Number two, we need them.
Speaker 6: Gorillas live in these beautiful rainforests in Central Africa. They're
Speaker 6: the second largest standing rainforest tropical rainforest left on the planet,
Speaker 6: and they're one of our best natural defenses against climate change.
Speaker 6: And the gorillas are the gardeners of these forests. So
Speaker 6: by protecting gorillas, we're ultimately helping our own species. And
Speaker 6: the third reason to get to your to the listeners
Speaker 6: questions is that the gorillas, you know, they share ninety
Speaker 6: eight percent of our DNA and they share our humanity.
Speaker 6: So when you look at them, you know, we see
Speaker 6: so many of the behaviors that we think of as
Speaker 6: being human reflected in the gorillas. They form lifelong relationships.
Speaker 6: One of the things I love about the most is
Speaker 6: they take care of their most vulnerable. They grieve the
Speaker 6: loss of family members, and you see all of this
Speaker 6: when you watch them. So definitely, when a family member dies,
Speaker 6: it really depends on who the family member is and
Speaker 6: how how central they were. And a lot of times gorillas,
Speaker 6: if they're not well, they will actually kind of choose
Speaker 6: to separate themselves from the group. But for example, when
Speaker 6: Titus died, he was a silver back and a very
Speaker 6: kind of just elder statesman in his group, and when
Speaker 6: he died, the group refused to leave him. They stayed
Speaker 6: with him for multiple days. Youngsters in the groups laid
Speaker 6: with him. Sometimes they'll groom individuals and sometimes they'll even
Speaker 6: sort of kick and hit them, And I think it's
Speaker 6: really to get a reaction, like why aren't you moving?
Speaker 6: We need to go, we need to eat. We just
Speaker 6: had a male die in the groups that we helped protect.
Speaker 6: He died about three weeks ago. He died overnight in
Speaker 6: his nest. He had been sick and he died in
Speaker 6: his nest. And we saw his family come back to
Speaker 6: that area a few days later, and this video is
Speaker 6: actually on our website. And the kids in his group,
Speaker 6: these are his offspring. We're all picking up pieces of
Speaker 6: vegetation from the nest and smelling it, like I'm sure
Speaker 6: his scent was still there, and they were, you know,
Speaker 6: they spent lots of time just around his nest, smelling
Speaker 6: his nest, investigating where he had last been before he died.
Speaker 4: Was I choking back tears during this? I sure was.
Speaker 5: So. They definitely grieve. They do laugh.
Speaker 6: They have a wonderful laugh that they do when they
Speaker 6: play and it's great when you're in the forest and
Speaker 6: you just hear this chuckling off you can't see them,
Speaker 6: and you hear this chuckling, and you know that that
Speaker 6: two gorillas are having a great time playing. They don't cry,
Speaker 6: but they do this pitiful vocalization that sounds a lot
Speaker 6: like crying. So kids will do it like when they're
Speaker 6: getting weaned or if they're unhappy about something, and adults
Speaker 6: will do it if a family member is lost, So
Speaker 6: we call it hooting, but it's sort of like and
Speaker 6: it sounds very sad, particularly when little kids do it,
Speaker 6: and it is, you know, the equivalent of crying, but
Speaker 6: no tears. We don't see tears come out of their
Speaker 6: eyes the way that we do in people.
Speaker 4: That just made me think too of Jane Goodall, do
Speaker 4: you guys get to kick it ever? Do you guys
Speaker 4: get to hang out?
Speaker 6: Jane is super busy, you know, she is on the
Speaker 6: road like three hundred and thirty days a year advocating
Speaker 6: for the environment and for chimpanzees. But I have had
Speaker 6: the privilege, the distinct privilege of meeting Jane on multiple occasions.
Speaker 6: And I work with a lot of students that did
Speaker 6: their PhDs at Gamba are a lot of my colleagues.
Speaker 6: I've been involved in a long term collaboration where we're
Speaker 6: actually combining data on the chimps that Jane and others
Speaker 6: have studied with the gorillas that we study and several
Speaker 6: other primate species to kind of, you know, see what
Speaker 6: can we tell about primates in general when we pool
Speaker 6: our data and look beyond the individual species level kind
Speaker 6: of at primates more broadly. So, yeah, it's been a
Speaker 6: huge honor, and I actually have pictures of Jane and Diane.
Speaker 5: Together in my office.
Speaker 6: So it's an amazing legacy that these early female primatologists
Speaker 6: left for those of us that are working in the
Speaker 6: field today, you know.
Speaker 4: On the topic of conservation, Meghan Stanton, Laura M. Smith,
Speaker 4: Kelly Brockington, Scotti, d Amana Grip, and slust all wanted
Speaker 4: to know more about conservation. Meghan Stanton says poaching seems
Speaker 4: to be done generally by people who may not have
Speaker 4: other means supporting their families. Are there incentives or opportunities
Speaker 4: being made available to nearby communities who may be relying
Speaker 4: on poaching for income? And Laura Smith asked how do
Speaker 4: gorilla conservation organizations work with local communities. Other listeners just
Speaker 4: wanted to know what can we do to help gorillas
Speaker 4: in general? If you're on the other side of the world,
Speaker 4: should you recycle your electronics because silicon is harvested, Yeah,
Speaker 4: things like that.
Speaker 6: Yes, Yeah, those are excellent questions and ones that I
Speaker 6: really love answering, and so I really appreciate them. I mean,
Speaker 6: our motto at the FOSSi Fund is helping people saving
Speaker 6: gorillas because we know that for gorillas to thrive, the
Speaker 6: people that live near them must thrive. And yes, a
Speaker 6: lot of these populations that live near gorillas suffer from poverty,
Speaker 6: particularly in Congo. Congo has the second highest rate of
Speaker 6: extreme poverty in the world, with more than seventy five
Speaker 6: percent of other people living on less than a dollar
Speaker 6: ninety a day, and they don't.
Speaker 5: Have other options.
Speaker 6: So we really very strongly believe that, you know that
Speaker 6: people are part of conservation, and we always say we
Speaker 6: take a people centered approach to conservation. And what we
Speaker 6: really focus on at our organization is the root causes
Speaker 6: of why people are reliant on those forest ecosystems.
Speaker 5: So it's oftentimes.
Speaker 6: Food security, it's water security, so they go into the
Speaker 6: forest to get water. It's livelihoods going into the forest
Speaker 6: to have something to make money. So those are really
Speaker 6: the areas that we focus on, so helping people, like
Speaker 6: we just did a phenomenal mushroom growing project in Rwanda.
Speaker 6: So mushrooms are super high in protein, so they're really
Speaker 6: good thing for people to eat, and so we supported
Speaker 6: local communities to actually come in. We built huts for them.
Speaker 6: So mushrooms have this really interesting growing cycle, which you
Speaker 6: never think as a primatologist you're going to end up
Speaker 6: learning about mushrooms. But we helped build these huts they
Speaker 6: grow in these very specific conditions, bought the tubers for
Speaker 6: the community, We taught them how to grow the mushrooms,
Speaker 6: We help them with the harvest, We taught them how
Speaker 6: to cook the mushrooms. Because you have to make sure
Speaker 6: that people want to incorporate this into their diet so
Speaker 6: they were able to feed themselves. They distributed mushrooms to
Speaker 6: some of the most vulnerable in their community that couldn't
Speaker 6: afford to buy it, and then they actually sold mushrooms
Speaker 6: and made a profit. And so it's these types of programs,
Speaker 6: so it touches on all of the things that we're
Speaker 6: interested in. It touches on livelihoods, it touches on food security,
Speaker 6: and it also touches on education. And those are the
Speaker 6: areas where we work with local communities and then also
Speaker 6: just providing jobs.
Speaker 5: Where we work in eastern.
Speaker 6: Congo, there are you know, there are no other job opportunities,
Speaker 6: and there we're working with gorillas that actually don't live
Speaker 6: in national parks. So all of the mountain gorillas are
Speaker 6: lucky they live in a national park in one of
Speaker 6: the three countries where they're found, so they are afforded
Speaker 6: a level of protection just by being in that national park.
Speaker 6: For growers gorillas in Congo, the vast majority of them
Speaker 6: actually live outside of national parks, so they're living on
Speaker 6: you know, people's land. And so we are now protecting
Speaker 6: an area that's about twenty four hundred square kilometers, so
Speaker 6: three times the size of New York City, but previously
Speaker 6: had no protection. We've entered into a management agreement with
Speaker 6: the communities, so we agree that they agreed that this
Speaker 6: will be you know, have conservation as a priority. They
Speaker 6: won't hunt gorillas, they won't hunt chimpanzees or other endangered species.
Speaker 6: We will help them manage that for us and In
Speaker 6: exchange for that, they get employment. They're hired as trackers,
Speaker 6: they're hired as biodiversity scientists, etc. And then we'll also
Speaker 6: make these investments in their community around livelihoods, infrastructure like
Speaker 6: building health clinics or.
Speaker 5: Schools, food security.
Speaker 6: So definitely, for conservation to work, people have to be
Speaker 6: part of it. And I think the point is a
Speaker 6: lot of times people want to vilify poachers.
Speaker 5: These people are bad.
Speaker 6: What's happening with gorillas, and it's not like the organized
Speaker 6: poaching we see for rhino horn or for elephant tusks.
Speaker 6: These are really people that are trying to trying to
Speaker 6: survive and trying to keep their families alive, and so
Speaker 6: how we can help them make them part of conservation
Speaker 6: is a big part of our mission, and for people
Speaker 6: that want to help, I think it's a great question. Definitely,
Speaker 6: recycling your electronics. A lot of people don't know that
Speaker 6: some of the minerals that are critical for small electronics
Speaker 6: like computers and cell phones come out of Eastern Congo.
Speaker 6: If we're recycling everything, you know, is a good thing,
Speaker 6: but particularly if we can lessen the need to bring these.
Speaker 5: Out of the forest.
Speaker 6: Just being educated about these issues I always say, I eat, sleep,
Speaker 6: and you know, breathe gorillas. And it always surprises me
Speaker 6: to realize that most people don't know these guys are endangered,
Speaker 6: that we're at risk at losing them. So being educated,
Speaker 6: being an advocate, voting, you know, using your voice when
Speaker 6: you vote, to vote for politicians that believe climate change
Speaker 6: is real, that want to have environmental priorities, that is
Speaker 6: a huge thing. And then supporting organizations that are doing
Speaker 6: great work on the ground, Like we always want to
Speaker 6: encourage people if they like the Fossy Fund to support us.
Speaker 6: You can donate, you can adopt a gorilla. So these
Speaker 6: are real gorillas that we're protecting.
Speaker 5: In the wild.
Speaker 6: And so when you adopt them symbolically obviously we're not
Speaker 6: going to deliver a gorilla to your doorstep. All that
Speaker 6: money goes to help keep you know, we have more
Speaker 6: than three hundred staff in Africa that are out every
Speaker 6: single day protecting gorillas, working with communities, training that next
Speaker 6: generation of leaders in Africa and beyond. So all of
Speaker 6: those funds helped support those activities.
Speaker 4: And last questions, I always ask, something must suck about
Speaker 4: working with gorillas. Clearly the fact that they're endangered and
Speaker 4: you're up against a lot of challenges. Must be one
Speaker 4: of them. Anything petty about gorillas that you'd like to
Speaker 4: talk shit on, anything about the job in general that
Speaker 4: is more difficult than you would think it is.
Speaker 6: Taking I take a lot of equipment to Africa, like,
Speaker 6: you know, five hundred pounds of equipment at a time,
Speaker 6: and as I get older, that part, you know, gets worse.
Speaker 6: But no, I think the hardest thing for me is,
Speaker 6: you know, I came to this job as a scientist,
Speaker 6: and that's the part that I really, you know, get
Speaker 6: jazzed about. And I love doing science, but a lot
Speaker 6: of my day to day now is enabling the you know,
Speaker 6: getting the resources to enable other people to do that work,
Speaker 6: which I love to do and I love to see
Speaker 6: the next generation coming up underneath. But you know, there
Speaker 6: are moments during the pandemic. At one point when I
Speaker 6: was working at home all the time, my one daughter
Speaker 6: was like, Mom, your job really stinks, like all you
Speaker 6: do is email and zoom calls. And I had never
Speaker 6: really thought about it that way, because for me, it's
Speaker 6: all about the bigger picture.
Speaker 5: But I'm like, you know what, Yeah, I used to
Speaker 5: get to sit and.
Speaker 6: Watch animals all the time, and now you know, I
Speaker 6: do a lot of other stuff, but I love it.
Speaker 6: I mean, I feel so lucky to have had this
Speaker 6: amazing career and work with the incredible people in my organization,
Speaker 6: but all the partner organizations the governments that we work with, Like,
Speaker 6: it's so inspiring and it gives you a reason to
Speaker 6: get out of bed in the morning, when some mornings
Speaker 6: you may not really want to get out of bed.
Speaker 6: So I really have no complaints.
Speaker 4: What about your favorite thing about being a grirologist, which,
Speaker 4: by the way, looked it up. It's a word. It's
Speaker 4: a real word. I forgot to address that, but it's
Speaker 4: a word.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it is.
Speaker 6: I mean a I get to study like the coolest
Speaker 6: species on the planet, and you know, constantly learning new
Speaker 6: things and just to be in their presence is an honor.
Speaker 6: It's also a sort of really fun, you know, cocktail
Speaker 6: party talk when people are like, what do you do, Like, well,
Speaker 6: I study gorillas. That's usually they're like, well, I didn't
Speaker 6: expect to hear that answer. My husband was an attorney
Speaker 6: and so definitely, like I was, people either thought my
Speaker 6: job was really cool when we would go to attorney parties.
Speaker 5: It was either really cool or they were like, Okay,
Speaker 5: this lady's strange and I'm just going to kind of
Speaker 5: walk away. So but it is fun.
Speaker 6: I mean, it's a non traditional job and so it's
Speaker 6: fun to get to talk about it. Every once in
Speaker 6: a while, though I want to be incognito and I
Speaker 6: won't say what I do because it inevitably leads to
Speaker 6: lots of questions. And you know, there are most times
Speaker 6: I totally love talking about gorillas, and every once in
Speaker 6: a while I'm like, I need a little bit of
Speaker 6: a break today.
Speaker 5: So I'm an architect.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, you know, I work at Target, right, although
Speaker 4: I would have a lot of questions for someone who
Speaker 4: worked at Target probably too. But thank you so much
Speaker 4: for spending some of your day on a zoom call
Speaker 4: and doing emails to do this interview.
Speaker 6: Really appreciate well, I love it. It gave me, you know,
Speaker 6: a whole hour to talk about gorillas. Awesome questions from
Speaker 6: your listeners. Thank you guys so much for that, and
Speaker 6: please check us out. I mean, we are with the
Speaker 6: gorillas every day, so we post multiple times a day
Speaker 6: about the you know, I always say it's like the
Speaker 6: gorilla soap operas, the lives of these guys, the work
Speaker 6: that we do with communities. We're on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram,
Speaker 6: I think we're getting on TikTok, and so we would
Speaker 6: love to have people just come and learn more about
Speaker 6: these amazing creatures and the important work that's happening to
Speaker 6: make sure that they have a future as well as us.
Speaker 4: So ask apes excellent questions. You're an ape, isn't that
Speaker 4: fucking weird? I'm just an animal making noises with my
Speaker 4: mouth that you understand to mean abstract concepts. And we're
Speaker 4: allowed to drive cars. It's so fucked anyway. Find links
Speaker 4: to the Diane Fossey Gorilla Fund in the show notes.
Speaker 4: You can tell them hello, They've been doing excellent work
Speaker 4: for fifty years. You'll also find links to the primatology
Speaker 4: and behavioral anthropology episodes if you're into that, as well
Speaker 4: as philology and neurology. Ologies Merch is available at ologiesmerch
Speaker 4: dot com. Thank you Susan Hale for handling that and
Speaker 4: so so much else for Ologies. Thank you Neel Dilworth
Speaker 4: for all the scheduling. Thank you Aaron Talbert, Bonnie Dutch
Speaker 4: and Shinnefeltus for all the help. Adminting the Ologies podcast
Speaker 4: Facebook group. Emily White of the Wordery heads up our
Speaker 4: professional transcripts and Kayleb Patten bleeps them and those are
Speaker 4: up for free at aliboard dot com, slash Ologies, dash
Speaker 4: extras or the link in the show notes. Kelly R.
Speaker 4: Dwyer helps maintain the website. She can make you one.
Speaker 4: She's great. Link in the show notes.
Speaker 5: Seek.
Speaker 4: Rodriguez Thomas and Mercedes Maitland of mind jam Media head
Speaker 4: up these smologies episodes, which are te filthed and shortened
Speaker 4: for all ages. We release those every few weeks. Stephen
Speaker 4: Ray Morris helps out as well. And to my main
Speaker 4: ape and lead editor or Jared Sleeper of mindshrem Media,
Speaker 4: thank you so much for making these episodes at my
Speaker 4: sister's dining room table in between helping out my dad
Speaker 4: so much. He's a good one. Nick Thorburn made the
Speaker 4: Ologies music. If you stick around until the end of
Speaker 4: the episode, I tell you a secret and this week
Speaker 4: a little bts. Right after we stopped recording, Tara mentioned
Speaker 4: happy to mention that she's a huge fan of Duran Duran.
Speaker 4: She's a Duran durand poster in her office, and I
Speaker 4: was like, do you think that the members of the
Speaker 4: band should be their own genus and species, like Duran, Duran,
Speaker 4: like gorilla, gorilla. And she was like nice, and I
Speaker 4: was like thanks. If you've been tuning in also to
Speaker 4: see how we're doing with your grandpa. We're hanging in there.
Speaker 4: He's a really robust dude. He tends to bust through
Speaker 4: a lot of his oncologist prognoses. So man, oh man,
Speaker 4: we're just soaking up every moment with him. We're eating
Speaker 4: a lot of tiny miniature drumstick ice creams, we're looking
Speaker 4: at photos, we're crying, We're telling him how much we
Speaker 4: appreciate him. And remember, in the Pantatology episode about death
Speaker 4: and Dying from twenty seventeen, the lady that I met
Speaker 4: in the Hampton in conference room in Cincinnati, her name
Speaker 4: is Colin Perry, turned out to be one of my
Speaker 4: dearest friends. I don't know how I would be getting
Speaker 4: through this without her right now. She's so good. So yeah,
Speaker 4: we'll link that up in the show notes too. With Antatology.
Speaker 4: It's a real life changer, Okay, go wonder at the world,
Speaker 4: appreciate each other out there by may.
Speaker 5: Say the girls.
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Speaker 4: hayman a heckl ah ersuin it where auras lonce Ladani
Speaker 4: the tain Nudov shood will kill Nakatarhu la hula shumperodes
Speaker 4: on udas lanse is vader lad Gun's throw, Tasha Tapa
Speaker 4: siranashka as nyav and vad is fugu more trik h I.
Speaker 4: A punk ie is called lala a on tudoros urras lonc.
Speaker 5: If we willed this an a heron