Speaker 1: Of course, our supermarket has a cheesemonger. Our cells the
Speaker 1: milk of nineteen different mammals.
Speaker 2: What does yours of an entire aisle dedicated to venison.
Speaker 1: Feel my curtains? Guess where they're from. Our supermarket has
Speaker 1: a granola launch.
Speaker 2: Ours has a sorbe.
Speaker 1: Chainer, Molly and salt library.
Speaker 2: We're having our honeymoon in ours.
Speaker 1: Have another FEELI b my curtains. Oh, has your supermarket
Speaker 1: got notions?
Speaker 3: If so, switch to Aldi, where you'll get all the
Speaker 3: quality with none of the madness the prices.
Speaker 2: You'll love Aldi.
Speaker 1: It's not complicated. Oh hey, it's the lady that hosts
Speaker 1: that podcast, and let's go. Let's get right in. You
Speaker 1: don't need me talking about talking about Cape Beras. Okay,
Speaker 1: So we're going to chat with the associate professor of biology,
Speaker 1: the only North American expert in these furry, gorgeous charmers,
Speaker 1: so capybas side note, there are those snubnosed the bricks
Speaker 1: of relaxation, these creatures that just are chilling. You may
Speaker 1: have seen them in video footage. Maybe they got a
Speaker 1: bird on their head. Maybe you watched it on a
Speaker 1: loop to help you forget about your divorce for a
Speaker 1: few moments. Everyone loves a capit bear. So this expert
Speaker 1: did her undergrad at Kent State University in zoology. It
Speaker 1: got a PhD in biology at the University of Missouri
Speaker 1: Saint Louis and has collaborated with the folks who wrote
Speaker 1: the actual textbook on this exceptional neotropical species as they call.
Speaker 1: So we're going to chat in a sec But first,
Speaker 1: thank you to everyone who supports this show on Patreon
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Speaker 1: in the show notes. And also, thank you so much
Speaker 1: to everyone who has ever left a review, which helps
Speaker 1: the show so much. I read every single one, like
Speaker 1: this week from Laura's COO one who said that they
Speaker 1: love the variety of personalities that make each episode special,
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Speaker 1: for free. So have at it atologies dot com. Okay.
Speaker 1: Hydro Coroology derives from this animal's scientific name, which in
Speaker 1: Greek means pig of the water. Okay, So draw yourself
Speaker 1: a bath, put a piece of fruit on your head,
Speaker 1: and let's get ready for a weird feet square faces,
Speaker 1: inner species, snorgling, Capibera, cafes, spa days, natural habitats, escaped
Speaker 1: Capyberra and rodents of unusual size of fossil record that
Speaker 1: will rock you What the Pope thinks of them? Capumera, songs, books, movies,
Speaker 1: and so much more with Zoologist Associate Professor of Biology,
Speaker 1: Absolute Capeberra expert and thus, hydro coroologist, doctor Elizabeth Beth Conden,
Speaker 1: you know how exciting this is? This is what you
Speaker 1: do for a job.
Speaker 2: Well it is, I mean, and it's so funny because
Speaker 2: I'm like, oh, what talk about capyberras for an hour?
Speaker 1: Yeah, not a problem.
Speaker 2: I love it. I love it, Okay, Elizabeth Conden, she
Speaker 2: her and I am at Bethune Cookman University and I'm
Speaker 2: associate professor of biology.
Speaker 1: Amazing. Okay, first question, hydro choreoologist? Does that? Is that a?
Speaker 1: Is that a word?
Speaker 2: Well? No, but but I think it. I think it
Speaker 2: should be quite frankly, so yeah, I'm with it. Hydrocarologists yeah, okay.
Speaker 1: And capyberra capybara? How is it said?
Speaker 2: So in English capi bera, But of course they don't
Speaker 2: occur in any English speaking countries, so capybara or in
Speaker 2: Brazil capibara, in Peru, bron soco, in Venezuela, tiguire. So
Speaker 2: they go buy a lot of different names. But in
Speaker 2: the native Venezuelan language, capebrera translates to master of the grasses.
Speaker 2: How cool is that? That's so great?
Speaker 1: I love that there are mammals who are less adept
Speaker 1: at grasses.
Speaker 2: There's a hierarchy like I'm really good at grass.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the grass really well, just have pioneered the art
Speaker 1: of grass. Now, how big are they because so many
Speaker 1: of us have seen videos but not necessarily with a
Speaker 1: person like how like dog size casts eyes.
Speaker 2: At more dog large dog? Oh, and they vary a
Speaker 2: little bit so in the north they're a little bit smaller,
Speaker 2: but a little bit smaller is still like fifty to
Speaker 2: fifty five kilograms.
Speaker 1: American translation, over one hundred and twenty pounds, as much
Speaker 1: as a Great Dane.
Speaker 2: In Brazil, where they're protected, they actually grow up to
Speaker 2: seventy five kilograms, which is close to one hundred and
Speaker 2: fifty pounds. No, yeah, no huge. Now they're chunky, so
Speaker 2: they're shaped kind of like a pig or the way
Speaker 2: I think of them is they have the body of
Speaker 2: a pigmy hippo what And so they're solid, right, and
Speaker 2: this would be you know, in the rainy season when
Speaker 2: there's plenty of grass to eat. Yeah, they're solid little
Speaker 2: buggers and standing next to one, it's gonna come up
Speaker 2: at least to your if not a little taller. There
Speaker 2: are some pictures out there because people do have the misspets.
Speaker 1: I don't know why more on the feasibility of all
Speaker 1: of your hopes and dreams. In a bit, I can't
Speaker 1: believe it. I thought they were maybe the size of
Speaker 1: like a French bulldog.
Speaker 2: One hundred Oh no, yeah, it's crazy, I know. So
Speaker 2: they are literally the largest rodent species in the world,
Speaker 2: and the second largest is the beaver.
Speaker 3: Nice beaver.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, and yet the beaver is like less than
Speaker 2: half their size.
Speaker 1: Is a beaver a rodent? Yes, okay, a beaver is
Speaker 1: a rodent. We haven't done a beaver episode. So this
Speaker 1: is also I suppose news to me. I got a
Speaker 1: guy in Montana for castrology. Just too wait, but yeah,
Speaker 1: keep going.
Speaker 2: So basically, what makes adent a rodent is that their
Speaker 2: incisors continue to grow, so their two front teeth are
Speaker 2: super sharp, and that helps them like cut through the grass,
Speaker 2: right if you think about trying to eat a piece
Speaker 2: of celery and it's all stringy. So they have super
Speaker 2: sharp teeth so that they can just cut right through
Speaker 2: the grass, you know, without having the stringy problem. And
Speaker 2: they need to gnaw on something like if you've ever
Speaker 2: had a pet, guinea pig, gerbal hamster, they gnaw on
Speaker 2: wood in their cage and stuff like that. That helps
Speaker 2: wear down the teeth and keep them sharp, because otherwise
Speaker 2: they'll just keep growing and they can be really dangerous
Speaker 2: if they grow, like down into their chin essentially. So yeah,
Speaker 2: that's that's a rodent.
Speaker 1: And if you're thirsty for more information, you can head
Speaker 1: to the Sewers for our urban rodentology episode with the
Speaker 1: endearing and lovable New York City rat expert doctor Bobby Corrigan,
Speaker 1: an episode during which I cry about rats in a
Speaker 1: good way. But back to South America, and is grass
Speaker 1: enough to keep their teeth sharp and worn down? Or
Speaker 1: are they out there eating all kinds of stuff.
Speaker 2: They'll gnaw on wood occasion just to keep their teeth
Speaker 2: worn down, but typically when they're you know, munching on
Speaker 2: the grasses and a few other plants, that keeps their
Speaker 2: teeth worn down as well.
Speaker 1: What are their teeth like?
Speaker 4: Like?
Speaker 1: How big are their teeth? I imagine you've probably gotten
Speaker 1: up close much more than anyone else I'm ever going
Speaker 1: to eat.
Speaker 2: Yeah, actually I have a couple because I've saved them
Speaker 2: because of course I did their top teeth, I mean,
Speaker 2: their curb. But they're like good four inches.
Speaker 1: That rustled around her desk for one that she had
Speaker 1: on hand, like other people might have an eraser or
Speaker 1: hand lotion.
Speaker 2: Good three and a half three and a half inches
Speaker 2: anyway on a full grown Yeah, and the bottom ones
Speaker 2: are a little bit smaller. In Venezuela, they are. They
Speaker 2: taste really good.
Speaker 1: No, I was wondering about that if people eat them.
Speaker 2: They do so, being that they eat primarily grass, they
Speaker 2: taste like cow, except you know, if you think they're
Speaker 2: entirely grass fed, So they're like a really good grass
Speaker 2: fed beef. And so in Venezuela they're harvested right before
Speaker 2: Lent every year, and with a managed harvest, a census
Speaker 2: is taken and then ranchers will get permits to take
Speaker 2: twenty percent of their population. And I worked on a
Speaker 2: ranch that participated in that, and so every spring, basically
Speaker 2: I could take my pick of capybary teeth, among other things.
Speaker 2: It was the less glamorous part of the research. But
Speaker 2: they've actually become a bit of a traditional meal during
Speaker 2: lent because they are semi aquatic. And so in seventeen
Speaker 2: eighty four the Pope declared them fish to fish.
Speaker 1: That's so bonkers. Why do they even have cabibers in Italy?
Speaker 1: What did the Pope have to do with any of this?
Speaker 2: No other than them, Well, they wanted to convert Venezuelans
Speaker 2: to Christianity Catholicism. But Venezuelans really liked their meat. And
Speaker 2: when they explore, you know, I can't remember the name
Speaker 2: of the individual, but sent back a description of capi
Speaker 2: beer's to the Pope, describe them as you know, being
Speaker 2: in the water. And so the Pope said, well, all right,
Speaker 2: let's call them fish. And so they eat during Lent.
Speaker 2: The Venezuelans will not eat other meats, but they eat
Speaker 2: capy beer.
Speaker 1: Is it beefy or is it piggy?
Speaker 2: It's it's beefy. It tastes like cow wow.
Speaker 1: And this is absolutely bonkers to me. But I ask
Speaker 1: so many questions. Are there enough to eat them? Or
Speaker 1: are they pretty endangered?
Speaker 2: So it really depends on where you are. Brazil, they're protected,
Speaker 2: so it's illegal to kill them in Brazil. So they're
Speaker 2: almost a nuisance if you think about in the United States,
Speaker 2: some of the places where the deer get overpopulated and
Speaker 2: become a nuisance to people's guarden, you know, get into
Speaker 2: people's gardens and things like that. In Brazil, the capub
Speaker 2: beerreras start getting into people's crops and things because there
Speaker 2: are so many of them. But in Venezuela, where of course,
Speaker 2: the economy is struggling and so people are somewhat desperate
Speaker 2: for adequate food and in particular meat, outside of protected areas,
Speaker 2: you really don't see any capubreras. They're in ranches, private
Speaker 2: cattle ranches, or in protected areas, and they're actually worth
Speaker 2: more perkilo. The meat costs more per kilo than beef does,
Speaker 2: so there's incentive for the ranchers to protect them. So
Speaker 2: when they're protecting their cows from poachers, they're also protecting
Speaker 2: the capu beras.
Speaker 1: And are they managed like in corrals.
Speaker 2: No, they're territorial, so they're not really trying to go anywhere.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 2: My dissertation research was looking at their movement patterns and
Speaker 2: natal dispersal. When the young ones mature, do they stay
Speaker 2: it's there with the social group they were born in,
Speaker 2: or do they leave? And what I found, for the
Speaker 2: most part, the females will stay with their natal social group,
Speaker 2: but the males will leave and find another group. And
Speaker 2: so occasionally you'll see a lone male wandering out just
Speaker 2: in the in the savannah. Hello ladies. But they become
Speaker 2: lunch pretty quick, and for the most part they're going
Speaker 2: to stick because these cattle ranches are just huge, and
Speaker 2: so they just wander to another group a little bit
Speaker 2: across the grassland. And what we don't know is how
Speaker 2: a cape bera sort of sidles up to an established
Speaker 2: group of capy beras and introduces himself. That's what I
Speaker 2: wanted to do for my next study. Honestly, you would.
Speaker 1: Have to be out in kind of the wilds where
Speaker 1: they're doing their thing in these long ranges, right, would
Speaker 1: you have to really be like traveling that.
Speaker 2: Yes. So for my dissertation work, I lived on a
Speaker 2: cattle ranch in ato El Sdral, which is in Apota State, Venezuela,
Speaker 2: and I lived there on and off for about two
Speaker 2: and a half years. Oh my god. There's also an
Speaker 2: eco lodge on the ranch, and so they had infrastructure,
Speaker 2: a translator while I was still learning my Spanish and things,
Speaker 2: and they had a kitchen there that I could use
Speaker 2: and things like that, and they had an extra cabin
Speaker 2: that they let me stay in free of charge while
Speaker 2: I did my research.
Speaker 1: So getting to your history, I want to know how
Speaker 1: someone becomes essentially the North American expert on this.
Speaker 2: When I was in school for my masters, I studied
Speaker 2: primates in Venezuela and I was just absolutely became enamored,
Speaker 2: just enthralled with tropical forests, with conservation, seeing animals in
Speaker 2: the wild. I was just hooked. And so for my PhD,
Speaker 2: I wanted to do something in the tropics, but I
Speaker 2: didn't want to stick with primate because I did not
Speaker 2: want to be a primatologist. Not that there's anything wrong
Speaker 2: with being a primatologist, but many primatologists are in anthropology departments,
Speaker 2: and I wanted to be in an ecology department. I
Speaker 2: wanted to have a broader focus. And so I happened
Speaker 2: to be at the University of Missouri Saint Louis and
Speaker 2: my major advisor, her name is Zulema te Martinez. She
Speaker 2: is Venezuelan, has lived in the US for over forty years.
Speaker 2: But she had a colleague, Emilio Herrera, who was at
Speaker 2: the University Simon and Belivar in Venezuela, and so she said,
Speaker 2: you know, my friend Emilio is looking for someone to
Speaker 2: do field work for capybars because he wants to be
Speaker 2: in the lab more. Oh, And I said, well, I
Speaker 2: don't like being in the lab. I want to be
Speaker 2: in the field. And so Emilio and I teamed up
Speaker 2: and I went down and met him and saw the
Speaker 2: ranch and everything, and we established a collaboration.
Speaker 1: Had you done a lot of traveling before that in
Speaker 1: your life and were you familiar with the work of
Speaker 1: doing a dissertation or a PhD? What was your background like?
Speaker 2: So I started out pre vet as a lot of
Speaker 2: people do. Right when you love animals and you're good
Speaker 2: in science, it's like, oh, well, go pre vet. So
Speaker 2: I started out that way. But then I worked at
Speaker 2: a small animal practice throughout undergrad and realized that veterinarians
Speaker 2: spend so much time talking to people about their pets,
Speaker 2: and I don't want to talk to people. I shouldn't
Speaker 2: say that as I'm talking to people, but I mean,
Speaker 2: my name was. I wanted to work with an animal.
Speaker 2: I wanted to be more directly involved with the animals
Speaker 2: more than the and I found it so heart wrenching
Speaker 2: when you had an animal that was ill and it
Speaker 2: was because the owner wouldn't take care of it.
Speaker 1: And of course there are cases of animal neglect just
Speaker 1: straight up, but they're also financial and mental health factors.
Speaker 1: And if you're considering giving an animal a good home
Speaker 1: and you can afford that time, and the vetcare shelters
Speaker 1: are overrun with owner surrenders right now post lockdown, So
Speaker 1: you deserve unconditional love from a hairy baby and those
Speaker 1: critters to serve a safe home.
Speaker 2: I just that's not something I wanted to deal with
Speaker 2: for my job. So I started exploring other possibilities, and
Speaker 2: so I got an internship volunteering at the Cleveland Zoo.
Speaker 2: And this was back in I'm going to age myself
Speaker 2: the mid mid nineties, and it was when the Cleveland
Speaker 2: Zoo first established a research office and hired their first
Speaker 2: research coordinator, and so I was like among the first
Speaker 2: cohort of volunteers to collect behavioral data with the animals
Speaker 2: instead of cleaning up poop, which is what you usually
Speaker 2: have to do when you get started.
Speaker 1: Yes, we have a poop episode. It's called Scatology with
Speaker 1: a zoo pooh biologist. And yes, if you can volunteer
Speaker 1: anywhere that you love being, it could really change everything.
Speaker 1: I did a field trip episode about the natural history
Speaker 1: Museum of la There would be no ologies without that
Speaker 1: time of my life. And unfortunately volunteer positions don't pay,
Speaker 1: and a lot of internships don't either, so it's really
Speaker 1: a privilege to afford the time. But if you can
Speaker 1: give even a few hours a week, I've found it
Speaker 1: was worth every second to lift my spirits and help
Speaker 1: narrow down what you love well hopefully helping some people too.
Speaker 2: So I went into it thinking I wanted to be
Speaker 2: like a zoo keeper and go into animal care, and
Speaker 2: that was my first assignment, was to do behavioral observations
Speaker 2: of Chilean flamingos and I just fell in love with
Speaker 2: the process, everything from creating the data sheets, collecting the data,
Speaker 2: figuring out how to analyze it. And that's a whole
Speaker 2: other podcast about the flamingos.
Speaker 1: Speaking though, of birds and the bees, I.
Speaker 2: Want to know how Capyberra's date. You know, you grow up,
Speaker 2: you leave home, How do you find a new group?
Speaker 2: How do you introduce yourself if you're a Capi beerra
Speaker 2: Hi the hi Hello?
Speaker 1: Where do they originate from?
Speaker 4: And what is like?
Speaker 1: Geographically? Where are they and how long have they been there?
Speaker 2: So basically they are from the Panama Canal all the
Speaker 2: way down to northern Argentina. So they're just in Latin America.
Speaker 2: There are no natural populations in North America or in Africa.
Speaker 2: And I believe there was a fossil, like a six
Speaker 2: hundred pound fossil.
Speaker 1: Okay, so about twenty five years ago the skeleton of
Speaker 1: a six hundred ish pound rodent named Phoberamus petersone was found.
Speaker 1: But then in two thousand and eight, a bigger extinct
Speaker 1: rodent emerged on the fossil scene, the Josepho Artigasia monissen,
Speaker 1: which may have weighed in at one thousand kill or
Speaker 1: twenty two hundred pounds. Here you are, you're going about
Speaker 1: your life. You're deciding what burrito bowl to order for
Speaker 1: lunch on a planet that once had rodents weighing more
Speaker 1: than a Ford Fiesta. Good luck going back to your
Speaker 1: old life after this episode. It's never going to happen.
Speaker 1: How did they get so big? Well, the way I.
Speaker 2: Think about it is not so much how did they
Speaker 2: get so big? But how did they survive being that big?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Right, So if you think bigger more babies, capy bears
Speaker 2: do have more offspring then would be expected from an
Speaker 2: animal their size or from another mammal. Right, so they
Speaker 2: average about four offspring per litter, but they can have
Speaker 2: eight nine. I saw one with ten, but that was
Speaker 2: a rare, rare event. Bigger animal, more offspring, more offspring,
Speaker 2: more of them in the next generation. And then it
Speaker 2: just is sort of a forward loop. Where in Africa
Speaker 2: you have a lot of different grazers, a lot of
Speaker 2: different grass feeders and browsers and things. But in Latin
Speaker 2: America you have deer and cappy bears, oh not much else. Oh,
Speaker 2: they are the master of the grass. Yeah, I was
Speaker 2: gonna say they just once they found their niche, they
Speaker 2: were like, cool, this is ours.
Speaker 1: The deer can't compete with them. Maybe, Well, the.
Speaker 2: Deer tend to be browsers, so they're eating like the
Speaker 2: lower on the lower branches of trees and leaves off
Speaker 2: of floor things and in the brush, whereas the capy
Speaker 2: bearers are the grass. They're eating slightly different foods in
Speaker 2: terms of the species that they eat.
Speaker 1: Speaking of other species, are they okay with other animals?
Speaker 1: Do they have natural predators? Why do we see so
Speaker 1: many videos where they got monkeys on their heads or
Speaker 1: they're chilling with crocs, or they're like raising kittens.
Speaker 2: With I know, so I think, really it's they're super chill.
Speaker 2: So I was just watching a clip of them in
Speaker 2: the movie and Kanto. They're completely nonchalant like whatever. The
Speaker 2: way I think of them in the field too is
Speaker 2: give me a patch of grass, I'm good, don't bother me,
Speaker 2: leave me alone. And so now, of course in the
Speaker 2: zoos they've got monkeys crawling around on their backs and everything.
Speaker 2: But also in the wild I have seen them where
Speaker 2: they are in the water, and there's a turtle that
Speaker 2: crawls up on the back and basks on the back
Speaker 2: of the cape barrel like it's a log iguanas birds
Speaker 2: just riding around on their back while they're swimming around.
Speaker 2: And there are caman in the same habitat. And also
Speaker 2: the particular ranch I worked at had introduced ornocle crocodiles
Speaker 2: because they are endangered. And I have a photograph of
Speaker 2: capyberra's sleeping right next to the orinocle croc.
Speaker 1: Why don't they attack each other?
Speaker 2: Well, I mean I can't ask the crocodile, of course,
Speaker 2: but it would appear that if crocodile's not hungry, there's
Speaker 2: plenty of fish. Crocodiles eating fish just to ps.
Speaker 1: Ornico crocs are native to the Ornico River in Venezuela,
Speaker 1: and are these critically endangered long snooted water beasts. They
Speaker 1: pretty much only eat fish, and they're not hunting capit
Speaker 1: beras because very few of these crocodiles are catholic.
Speaker 2: But back to your question of their natural predators jaguars, Oh, anacondas, Ah, yeah,
Speaker 2: there are big anacondas, and so a big anaconda can
Speaker 2: wrap around and take an adult capyberra.
Speaker 1: What and a person too?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Well, yeah, that's a whole that's a whole movie
Speaker 2: genre into itself.
Speaker 4: Of course, right, and condas are a perfect curing wash.
Speaker 2: And then the baby capy beras are snacks for just
Speaker 2: about anything. Baby capy beras about the size of an
Speaker 2: adult guinea pig. Baby. Yeah, and they are most closely
Speaker 2: related to guinea pigs, so if you think about like
Speaker 2: the shape of their head and stuff, they're kind of
Speaker 2: like giant guinea pigs.
Speaker 1: Getting back to chill, because I don't think I had
Speaker 1: more questions. Why are they so chill? Even my sister asked,
Speaker 1: I just texted her, she's a capubera enthusiast Celeste Saucy,
Speaker 1: this one's for you, and she's like, please ask why
Speaker 1: are they so chill? Do they have bigger brains that
Speaker 1: are like, I'm not threatened? Or do they have tiny
Speaker 1: little walnuts that are like, who could not like me?
Speaker 2: I love them dearly, but I don't think they're the
Speaker 2: brightest in the bunch. I really don't, because I think
Speaker 2: what it is is because they eat grass. Grass takes
Speaker 2: a long time to digest, and so their metabolism is
Speaker 2: somewhat slow. And if you think about how cows are like, okay,
Speaker 2: I'm just you know, eating my grass, chilling standing here. Also,
Speaker 2: because of their size, there aren't very many natural predators,
Speaker 2: so they can afford to be kind of chill and relaxed.
Speaker 2: Now they will. I have seen a mama capiberra back
Speaker 2: down a Cayman when that came in, was going after
Speaker 2: her babies. And you know, they can run pretty fast
Speaker 2: for short distances.
Speaker 1: That's gonna be so weird to see one just galloping
Speaker 1: full speed.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they are kind of funny. They're not the most graceful.
Speaker 1: I needed to know how fast our beautiful piggy friends
Speaker 1: can run and I was alarmed to learn it's up
Speaker 1: to thirty five kilometers or twenty two miles an hour.
Speaker 1: That is a speed comparable to a horse, the world's
Speaker 1: largest rodent running as fast as a horse into your arms. Maybe,
Speaker 1: But in looking this up, I also learned that the
Speaker 1: lethal black mamba snake can move about twenty miles an hour,
Speaker 1: which is as fast as an Olympic sprinter. One animal
Speaker 1: that can go twice that speed forty miles an hour
Speaker 1: is called a Mongolian wild ass, which one hundred percent
Speaker 1: sounds like a hot sauce that your brother in law
Speaker 1: brings to Thanksgiving. Let's talk about the zeitgeist. So what
Speaker 1: do you use to catch a kapy bara? Well, how
Speaker 1: about another kapy Fally.
Speaker 2: Ducked in kapy bars from zoos all around the region,
Speaker 2: and zoo keepers recorded the times each contestant entered a
Speaker 2: hot math and then left. I'm sorry, are we bothering
Speaker 2: you with a story case?
Speaker 1: I don't even know that you know.
Speaker 2: These These animals were like trending on TikTok until my
Speaker 2: twenty five year old daughter said, oh my gosh, mom,
Speaker 2: you get to get training. A kapy bara named Tater
Speaker 2: talk that's great name.
Speaker 1: Oh yes, and the cold following on TikTok and now
Speaker 1: a local business is feeling the copy bar Cranze.
Speaker 2: They are kind of cute.
Speaker 1: Right, Let's talk about the world's love of Kathy Beas.
Speaker 1: What has gone on? And you've been researching this for
Speaker 1: so long, At what point did you see, like, holy shit,
Speaker 1: people really love Cathbers. What did the internet fall in
Speaker 1: love with them?
Speaker 2: Well, certainly the Internet's helped. But one of the things
Speaker 2: I always find interesting is that when I meet families,
Speaker 2: it tends to be the kids that know what capi
Speaker 2: Beras are. Yes, yeah, And up until recently, if it
Speaker 2: don't knew what they were, it was only because they
Speaker 2: loved the movie The Princess Bride. Rouss Rodents of Unusual size? Yes, yeah, Leslie, what.
Speaker 3: About the Rouss Rodents of Unusual size?
Speaker 2: I don't think that exists. I mean for the first
Speaker 2: couple of years I started studying, That's why I got
Speaker 2: that all the time. Oh my god, r o us
Speaker 2: is and I used to get I used to get
Speaker 2: kind of upset because I'm like, they're not that ugly.
Speaker 2: In the movie. They were made to look like giant
Speaker 2: New York city rats, and I'm like, there's so much
Speaker 2: caterer than.
Speaker 1: That, Okay. So I dug deep on the internet and
Speaker 1: I found a PDF script for the classic nineteen eighty
Speaker 1: seven romance fantasy masterpiece The Princess Bride, and the screenplay
Speaker 1: directions described the rodents of unusual size as quote no
Speaker 1: more than eighty pounds of bone and power. And in
Speaker 1: the film, the ro us s are these tree dwelling,
Speaker 1: carnivorous predators of the bog and all that being that,
Speaker 1: they are still smaller than actual capy beras. So does
Speaker 1: that ever disturb you, as someone who is a hydrochoreologist,
Speaker 1: that cat by beras were done so dirty?
Speaker 2: I have I have learned to let it go, mostly
Speaker 2: because my friends hate it when I interrupt a good
Speaker 2: movie to say that's not right, especially if it's a cartoon.
Speaker 2: It's a cartoon. Let it go. But it's so great
Speaker 2: to just see people appreciating them, you know. But I
Speaker 2: still think one of my favorite was do you remember
Speaker 2: the cartoon the Tic? Oh? Yeah, of course, and the
Speaker 2: ticks pet was a capi Bera named.
Speaker 1: Speak good by Speak, I love you.
Speaker 2: And then it was the young people who when the
Speaker 2: internet really started getting popular. It was the young people
Speaker 2: that were on the internet, and so they just somehow blew.
Speaker 2: They went viral.
Speaker 1: How do you feel about them wearing oranges on their head?
Speaker 2: So, I I mean they're going to do people are
Speaker 2: gonna do what they do in zoos.
Speaker 1: But I.
Speaker 2: Really don't like exotic animals being like pets. I mean,
Speaker 2: people do it, but I prefer people stick to dogs
Speaker 2: and cats and not. I mean, you really want to
Speaker 2: see me get upset put a monkey in a dress, yes,
Speaker 2: or a diaper. I've I've loved terrible things about that.
Speaker 2: Just the thing about kapy bars is I don't understand
Speaker 2: why people would they're they're not cuddly. I mean, of
Speaker 2: course they you can get to know them, and I'm
Speaker 2: sure they have some kind of, you know, a personality
Speaker 2: that you can become endeared to in things. But I
Speaker 2: like to appreciate them in there in the wild. I
Speaker 2: like to leave them there, not recommended as pets. That
Speaker 2: was another massive question we got. They look maybe like
Speaker 2: they could be soft, but are they bristly. They're bristolly, yeah,
Speaker 2: so they're not like a pillow. It's interesting because in
Speaker 2: Venezuela people eat them but they do not use to
Speaker 2: hide for leather. In Argentina, they use to hide for leather,
Speaker 2: but they do not eat them.
Speaker 1: Oh what's up with that? What do they do with
Speaker 1: the hides they make?
Speaker 2: It makes a really soft like like half skin like leather.
Speaker 1: But what are they doing with them if they're not
Speaker 1: using them?
Speaker 2: In Venezuela, Oh, they just toss them into They just
Speaker 2: let them rot.
Speaker 5: No.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I got a business proposition for you when I
Speaker 2: was there. I'm like, okay, so how about Argentina send
Speaker 2: the meat to Venezuela. Venezuela send the hides to Argentina.
Speaker 2: I mean, couldn't we make this more efficient? But you know,
Speaker 2: Venezuelans and Argentinians are kind of rivals.
Speaker 1: God man, we need a diplomat down there, like everyone.
Speaker 1: Fewer Cababaras need to die. Everyone's making a lot more money.
Speaker 1: What do they smell like?
Speaker 2: Okay, well again I was in the wild. They didn't
Speaker 2: smell great. But they smell better if they're a pet
Speaker 2: or in a zoo. But I can't come up with
Speaker 2: a description off the top of my head.
Speaker 1: Musky Are they musky? Are they barnyard like dusty?
Speaker 2: They smell kind of dusty because I was in the savannah,
Speaker 2: and I would capture them to put ear tags because
Speaker 2: it's very difficult to tell them apart. Actually I hired
Speaker 2: local cowboys who would last them from horseback, and then
Speaker 2: once they had one lassoed, I would drive my jeep
Speaker 2: across the savannah to meet them, and then I would
Speaker 2: put an ear tag, take measurements, take a tissue samples,
Speaker 2: we could do genetics. And that was during the dry season,
Speaker 2: and so it was everything was very dusty, and they
Speaker 2: kind of had that just dirt smell, but clean dirt.
Speaker 1: I must say, would you have to give them like
Speaker 1: a xanax for that?
Speaker 2: We didn't. For the most part. We would just do
Speaker 2: it as quickly as it only took like ten minutes
Speaker 2: to do all the processing. So rather than risk some
Speaker 2: sort of negative side effect to any kind of of
Speaker 2: anesthetic or sedative, we just did it as quick as
Speaker 2: we could and release them and they they would come
Speaker 2: back to their range, you know, within a couple days. Man,
Speaker 2: So they would kind of run away immediately, of course,
Speaker 2: but then they would be back within a couple of days.
Speaker 1: They'd be like, oh it's fine, Yeah again, they're chill.
Speaker 1: Did you ever take the opportunity scientifically to boop them
Speaker 1: on the snoot at all.
Speaker 2: I never booped. Okay, I did not boop. But I
Speaker 2: did have the opportunity once there was a baby that
Speaker 2: was orphaned and someone brought it to me. So I
Speaker 2: did have the opportunity to bottle feed a baby for
Speaker 2: a few days. And that was that little baby that
Speaker 2: one I booped.
Speaker 1: I don't blame you. I don't blame you.
Speaker 2: He slept in my hammock with me.
Speaker 1: Oh, these are the perks of being a hydrochoreuologist.
Speaker 2: And yet and I and I totally admit that it
Speaker 2: is not fair. It is not fair that I tell
Speaker 2: people that they cannot have them as a pet, but
Speaker 2: I got to play with the baby for a week.
Speaker 2: Not fair if it makes people feel any better. I
Speaker 2: was in school for a really long time, and I
Speaker 2: still don't make great money.
Speaker 1: Or trade offs.
Speaker 2: Trade offs to everything your.
Speaker 1: Sacrifice well knowing, Okay, So looking at their nose, and
Speaker 1: I feel like maybe I read this serial research that
Speaker 1: males produce a lot of like copious amounts of secretions to.
Speaker 2: Be attractive, so they have a scent gland on their nose.
Speaker 2: Males and females have the gland, but it's much more
Speaker 2: pronounced in males, so you can actually from a distance
Speaker 2: tell a male as a male by this. It's called
Speaker 2: the morio, which is Spanish really little hill. It looks
Speaker 2: like they have a computer mouse sitting on their nose
Speaker 2: because it's this boom bump, and they produce this milky secretion.
Speaker 2: And the dominant males use more than the more subordinate
Speaker 2: or juvenile males, and they produce more than females. Now,
Speaker 2: females will not scent mark with their snout, males will.
Speaker 2: Males will go over rub on a tree, rub on vegetation,
Speaker 2: don't pretty much sent mark anything they can get near.
Speaker 2: When I was observing them, as long as I was
Speaker 2: downwind so they couldn't smell me, they would come over
Speaker 2: and sent mark on my tripod.
Speaker 1: Oh god.
Speaker 2: But the females and the males both have scent glands
Speaker 2: in their anal region anal scent lands, and so they
Speaker 2: sent mark with those as well. And this would be
Speaker 2: basically communication within the group. Right, They're signaling that we
Speaker 2: are a part of this group, who who is sexually
Speaker 2: receptive at what time you are, who's the dominant and
Speaker 2: who's the subordinate, And so that whole communication is through those,
Speaker 2: through those scent lands and through those scents.
Speaker 1: Did you ever have to smell your tripod afterward? Did
Speaker 1: that have a smell?
Speaker 2: No, as I I would clean that up. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So when someone posts a sign in the breakroom about
Speaker 1: how the office manager is not your mom, so please
Speaker 1: wash your own coffee mugs, just remember some jobs involve
Speaker 1: smearing capabera nose musk off of your belongings. And I
Speaker 1: asked the Internet and apparently this sultry face juice has
Speaker 1: a mild musky odor like that of a beaver or
Speaker 1: a muskrat, which did not help me at all because
Speaker 1: I have sniffed neither of those things, even in a
Speaker 1: platonic way. But yes, a male cappy will have this
Speaker 1: nose lump. It looks kind of like a face scab,
Speaker 1: but it's it's just as riz. What about they have
Speaker 1: these big square noses. Is the scent gland part of
Speaker 1: the size of that? And why generally are they so square?
Speaker 1: They're such blocky animals.
Speaker 2: So if you look at photos of them when they're swimming,
Speaker 2: they have just the top of their head out of
Speaker 2: the water and with just a little bit of the
Speaker 2: top of their head out of the water, their nostrils,
Speaker 2: eyes and scent gland or out of the water. Oh okay,
Speaker 2: So that box like shape allows them to be almost
Speaker 2: completely submerged but still have their nostrils and eyes above
Speaker 2: the water. When there is a predator, they will run
Speaker 2: into the water. Their territory always has a body of water,
Speaker 2: an area of bushes that they can sleep in, hide in.
Speaker 2: That's where they hide the babies, and then a grassy
Speaker 2: area where they eat. They alarm call. They alarm call,
Speaker 2: so they warn each other when a predator's coming. So
Speaker 2: they have this like bark honk bark crossover and when
Speaker 2: someone sounds an alarm in the group, everybody jumps in
Speaker 2: the water.
Speaker 1: Really do they have different alarm calls for different things?
Speaker 2: Their alarm palls pretty much just one type. But they
Speaker 2: do have different vocalizations, so they have that. And then
Speaker 2: they have this like chirping clicking that is more when
Speaker 2: they're playing or when they're mating. So they have like
Speaker 2: an affiliative a friendly sound, and then an oh crap.
Speaker 2: Those are the jaguar sound.
Speaker 1: I'm glad that we've answered that. Can I ask you
Speaker 1: some listener questions. Yeah, absolutely, okay, but before we soak
Speaker 1: in the misty waters of your inquiries, let's give to
Speaker 1: a charity. And this week Beth chose a critter cause
Speaker 1: that was close to her heart and her home, and
Speaker 1: that's Edgewater Rescue in Florida, where she helps train and
Speaker 1: find homes for rescue dogs like piples and boxers, which
Speaker 1: are also smaller than Kapabera's. I can't get over that
Speaker 1: they could be one hundred and fifty pounds.
Speaker 2: It's what.
Speaker 1: I didn't know anyway. Yeah, that donation went to Edgewateranimalshelter
Speaker 1: dot org in her name, and that was made possible
Speaker 1: by sponsors of the show. Okay, your questions. Patreon pals, friends,
Speaker 1: and bff teers get to submit audio questions now, which
Speaker 1: may run on the show, but any patron can join
Speaker 1: for a dollar a month and submit written questions. I
Speaker 1: may read your name and your question on the show.
Speaker 1: So let us hap this off with your very good questions. Okay,
Speaker 1: questions from patrons. Kelsey lives in California. This is a
Speaker 1: good story. Hi.
Speaker 2: My name is.
Speaker 4: Kelsey and I live in California. When I was in college,
Speaker 4: I went to college in Texas, and for a summer,
Speaker 4: I commuted between Waco and Houston every weekend. And one night,
Speaker 4: late one night, I was driving down a country road
Speaker 4: and I had to slam on the brakes because there
Speaker 4: were like twelve brown rocks crossing the road. And people
Speaker 4: have tried to tell me that those were nutria, but
Speaker 4: I've googled nutria and they're like little muskrats. Basically, these
Speaker 4: things were huge. I mean, they definitely looked like if
Speaker 4: I slammed into one.
Speaker 2: The car would be hurt and the animal would be fine.
Speaker 2: So is there a chance that there were kappy bars
Speaker 2: in Texas?
Speaker 1: Thank you for helping me solve this mystery.
Speaker 2: There is absolutely a chance. So really, oh yeah, oh yeah.
Speaker 2: So one of the things Texas is known for, unfortunately,
Speaker 2: is ranches that have canned hunting. Okay, so there would
Speaker 2: be a ranch and they have exotic animals, and people
Speaker 2: pay thousands of dollars to have the opportunity to go
Speaker 2: and shoot a lion or a giraffe, and I think
Speaker 2: it's horrible. Just to make that clear, I'm not advocating
Speaker 2: for that at all, but there are a few ranches
Speaker 2: in Texas that have capybarras. If you ask me, it's
Speaker 2: not a real sporting sport to shoot at capyberra's that
Speaker 2: are contained by a fence.
Speaker 1: Like shooting fish in a barrel anyway.
Speaker 2: But people will pay for this, so there's absolutely a
Speaker 2: possibility that some escaped and yeah, we're wandering across the road.
Speaker 2: We have some sightings sometimes here in Florida. There was one,
Speaker 2: I think in twenty eighteen, somebody hit a capyberrera.
Speaker 1: With a car. Yikes, that's and that's a big boy, right, Yeah.
Speaker 2: Typically if there's just one, it's going to be a
Speaker 2: big male that's trying to find a new home. The
Speaker 2: story goes here in Florida that a small group escaped
Speaker 2: from a research facility in the nineties and then reproduced
Speaker 2: and got up to something like fifty individuals. But there's
Speaker 2: only really occasional, sporadic sightings and nothing of groups that
Speaker 2: size anymore. So the idea is that they they're not invasive.
Speaker 2: They're exotic, but they maybe have a few offspring, but
Speaker 2: not enough to become what we would call invasive where
Speaker 2: they really create a problem for the local Florida and fauna.
Speaker 1: So being in Florida, you're not based in Florida because
Speaker 1: it's getting overrun with cabyberras and pythons and all kinds
Speaker 1: of other Like no, I.
Speaker 2: Came to Florida for the job and then was thrilled
Speaker 2: that there might be capuberras here and thought this could
Speaker 2: be too good. So I did work with some people
Speaker 2: out of University of Florida, and we did our best
Speaker 2: to find them, and we were not able to locate
Speaker 2: any kind of breeding population. We'd find an occasional footprint
Speaker 2: that was pretty much it.
Speaker 1: Okay, I needed more info on this escape drama, and
Speaker 1: apparently near the Santa Fe River in Florida, near Gainesville,
Speaker 1: five of them busted out in the chaos of a
Speaker 1: storm that broke a pasture fence, and according to the
Speaker 1: twenty eighteen paper status of Cafeberas and Potential for establishment
Speaker 1: in Florida by nineteen ninety five, all the original escapees,
Speaker 1: they said, were recovered, but they had already started reproducing.
Speaker 1: So does this mean they're not invasive but kind of feral?
Speaker 1: Like if you found a like one hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: pound poppy and you took it home to feed it
Speaker 1: organic lettuces other patrons and I know We've addressed this
Speaker 1: a little bit, have asked.
Speaker 5: In Aaron's words, Hey, this is Aaron Ryan from Vancouver, Canada,
Speaker 5: and I'm calling because I would like to dash the
Speaker 5: hope and dreams of my friend Allison and just reaffirmed
Speaker 5: that kapi baras make terrible pets.
Speaker 2: Thank you. Well, I'm gonna say two theres one again.
Speaker 2: They're not cuddly, but also they like to pee and
Speaker 2: pooh in the water, so you have to have like
Speaker 2: a pond or a swimming pool in the backyard and
Speaker 2: then clean the cappy bear crap.
Speaker 3: Out of it.
Speaker 2: That doesn't sound like any fun to me.
Speaker 1: No, how big are their pooh like? Are they like
Speaker 1: doura flame logs that come out? Are they like.
Speaker 2: Guinea pig pooh? No? Actually it's more like pellets, okay,
Speaker 2: like you would think of deer pellets, but a little
Speaker 2: bit bigger. Okay, Actually they look like they look like
Speaker 2: chocolate peanut em and m's.
Speaker 1: Honestly, I could deal with that, but the lack of
Speaker 1: cuddling would be heartbreaking and frankly a little triggering. But
Speaker 1: I wasn't the only one thinking about it, dreaming about it.
Speaker 1: Patron's average prime mollipets, a Lista Mercier, Christina, Samela Peyton,
Speaker 1: Nill Cotolade, Jasmine Leo, Bianca Palm and Jesse the Hope.
Speaker 1: First time question asker wants to know. Are they as
Speaker 1: snugly as they look like? Would a cabebera let me
Speaker 1: give it a hug or would it rip my face
Speaker 1: off or something in between?
Speaker 2: A baby would give you a hug. Oh, an adult
Speaker 2: would probably bite you. Okay, I have I have been
Speaker 2: bitten because again I lastle them, tackle them and you know,
Speaker 2: pierce their ears and so you know, I make the
Speaker 2: mad So I've gotten nipped. Nothing, you know, nothing serious,
Speaker 2: but yeah, when you like any ann't scare me, I'll
Speaker 2: bite you. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Did they bite you on the glove or did they
Speaker 1: draw blood?
Speaker 2: Well one got me in the back of the leg
Speaker 2: and drew some blood, but nothing too serious.
Speaker 1: Did you need any antibiotics just sloly sporn on that?
Speaker 2: Well, whether or not I needed some or had some
Speaker 2: or kind of two different things possibly us. I literally
Speaker 2: used crazy glue on it.
Speaker 1: What does your family think of your job?
Speaker 2: They're getting used to it. Okay, yeah, they got used
Speaker 2: to it when I first went to Venezuela to study
Speaker 2: the part my mates, and they realized that I was
Speaker 2: going to be there kind of by myself, that I
Speaker 2: wasn't there with a whole team. They looked at me
Speaker 2: a little sideways, but by now, I mean I've done
Speaker 2: it enough that they're kind of like, oh, yeah, Aunt
Speaker 2: Beth is going someplace again.
Speaker 1: I just think he must be the most exciting person
Speaker 1: at Thanksgiving. I just feel like all eyes would be
Speaker 1: on you and asking more questions about having to last
Speaker 1: you at Cappy Bear.
Speaker 2: But I don't know about exciting. But I tend to
Speaker 2: have some unusual stories when I'm with my family. But
Speaker 2: certainly it's what's fun is when I'm you know, someplace
Speaker 2: with my other wildlife biology behaviorally collegy friends and we're
Speaker 2: all swapping stories about you know, giant pouch rats in
Speaker 2: Tanzania or noles lizards in the Bahamas, and then kapy
Speaker 2: bears you know in the savannahs are just another story.
Speaker 1: And I understand that you are palas with another mammologist
Speaker 1: and rotentologists. We've had on doctor Lee right, oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: Doctor Lee and I were in the same lab as
Speaker 2: grad students and are still really good friends. He's like
Speaker 2: one of my heroes.
Speaker 1: Oh, she's amazing. See Doctor Daniel Lee's mimology episode about
Speaker 1: giant pouched rats that wear backpacks and sniff out land mines. Oh,
Speaker 1: we love her and her rats. You were talking about
Speaker 1: whether or not you can cuddle them, and Meghan Hurt
Speaker 1: and Evan Davis both want to know. Meghan's husband wants
Speaker 1: to know can I kiss them or if they do
Speaker 1: they like little kisses on the head. I'm going to
Speaker 1: guess that's a no.
Speaker 2: Again. Just the babies, Okay, just the babies.
Speaker 1: Olivia Lester, first time question.
Speaker 2: Ask her.
Speaker 1: You just mentioned rats want us to know can they
Speaker 1: learn commands akin to rats?
Speaker 2: I'm not aware of anyone being able to train one
Speaker 2: with anything as impressive as rats are pretty smart. M hmm.
Speaker 1: Okay, So I think this is all stemming from the
Speaker 1: can I Keevy be my best friend? And the answer
Speaker 1: is this is going to be a no unless you
Speaker 1: like cleaning up a lot of poop and just not
Speaker 1: a good idea. I'm sorry everyone. Heather Crane would like
Speaker 1: to know about their Do they also work like hands?
Speaker 1: Can they grab things with them?
Speaker 2: Now? Actually, their feet are more adapted to being able
Speaker 2: to swim. They have web toes. Yeah, so they can
Speaker 2: dive and they can stay underwater for quite a bit
Speaker 2: of time. I think like two two and a half minutes.
Speaker 2: They can stay underwater when they dive. So they have
Speaker 2: little web toes, which makes them not great for grasping anything,
Speaker 2: but good for swimming.
Speaker 1: Do they have really big lungs for that or just
Speaker 1: slow metabolism.
Speaker 2: Just slow metabolism. Wow.
Speaker 1: Sarah King and Olivia Lester would like to know about
Speaker 1: their dogs. What's the average penis size for a capubera
Speaker 1: Sarah would like to know.
Speaker 2: So, I don't have an exact measurement, but it's kind
Speaker 2: of dog size, you have the average dog. What's funny
Speaker 2: is that they're the penis is carried sort of inside
Speaker 2: a little pouch in the abdomen. It doesn't like dangle free,
Speaker 2: so to speak. And so when we would catch them,
Speaker 2: I would have to like massage their abdomen to see
Speaker 2: if anything popped out, okay, And it got to be
Speaker 2: sort of a talent like the locals. The locals would
Speaker 2: take their guesses and then I was there's a there's
Speaker 2: there's a yeah, a claim to fame for you. It's
Speaker 2: like yeah, I was really good at getting the dog
Speaker 2: to fling out.
Speaker 1: You got to know the whole thing, Yeah, all of it,
Speaker 1: from big nose to tail. Speaking of tails, Mattie Barnard,
Speaker 1: Mamma By and Dad Ossie marcule It wants to know
Speaker 1: do they have functional tails? Olivia wants to know why
Speaker 1: don't they have long tails like other rodents?
Speaker 2: So they don't have tails really, And again it's if
Speaker 2: you think about, like a guinea pig doesn't have a tail,
Speaker 2: and this I'm going to flip the question backwards and
Speaker 2: be like, well, why would they need a tail? And
Speaker 2: if they don't need one, why waste the tissue?
Speaker 5: Right?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 2: So, if you think about a tail as being good
Speaker 2: for flicking off bugs or something that get on your back,
Speaker 2: will they have a really thick hide so the average
Speaker 2: mosquito and things isn't really going to bother them too much.
Speaker 2: Or a tail might be for communicating, like we think
Speaker 2: of in dogs wagging a tail. I'm happy, my tail
Speaker 2: gets stiff, I might be scared. Well, they have their
Speaker 2: scent glands to communicate, so it's just that they don't
Speaker 2: really have a use for one. And so in an
Speaker 2: evolutionary sense, the way we think of it is that
Speaker 2: the energy is better spent being devoted to other.
Speaker 1: Things, Like I don't need a tractor, so why would
Speaker 1: I have a tractor? Exactly, But you need answers about
Speaker 1: body language and behaviors. Rachel Kate's, Hennegory, Aurora, Ariaga, Alfie Holmes,
Speaker 1: Jackline Campsey and Emma who had the all caps question
Speaker 1: why are they so silly? Which dovetails well into chime
Speaker 1: Witch's question. Do they have their own body language? And
Speaker 1: is it easy to pick up on?
Speaker 2: So I'm sure that they do, but no, it's not
Speaker 2: easy to pick up So in terms of anything subtle, right,
Speaker 2: I mean, they have the clicks in the chirps, and
Speaker 2: they will groom each other sometimes and give each other
Speaker 2: like snorts there if they're angry. But in terms of
Speaker 2: anything subtle, not that I could tell. But again, they're
Speaker 2: so thick bodied. They also don't have a lot of flexibility,
Speaker 2: so I think they're limited a little bit in sort
Speaker 2: of their repertoire of fancy movements because they're so stalky.
Speaker 1: Well, these questions from patrons kind of shocked me. Stephen
Speaker 1: Moxley says, they look so friendly and kind, but I've
Speaker 1: heard they can really throw down and fight, and Angela
Speaker 1: Clark says, I worked at a zoo over the summer
Speaker 1: and one secret we kept from the public is that
Speaker 1: our adult female Cappy, was a murderer. She killed two
Speaker 1: other kapaberas that they thought she'd gotten used to. What's
Speaker 1: up with that? Terman still wants to know. Is this
Speaker 1: a sea otter situation where they look really cute but
Speaker 1: are actually very evil See our Lutronology episode about otters
Speaker 1: to shock and to horrify you. But capaberas are not
Speaker 1: sea otters.
Speaker 2: They're territorial. They will get into gang wars if two
Speaker 2: groups from different territories come next to each other too close.
Speaker 2: But also the males have a dominance hierarchy, so the
Speaker 2: dominant male will basically beat the begeebas out of a
Speaker 2: male that tries to challenge him, and the dominant male
Speaker 2: will try to be the only one that mates with
Speaker 2: the females by chasing others off. Subordinate males can sometimes
Speaker 2: be sneaky and sort of catch a female when the
Speaker 2: dominant is you know, off eating or something like that.
Speaker 2: But so they do get to sneak some fun time
Speaker 2: in there. But they can get really nasty. I've seen
Speaker 2: some pretty nasty wounds from them fighting during the night
Speaker 2: when they're wandering. So during the day they tend to
Speaker 2: sleep because it's so hot, so they sleep more during
Speaker 2: the day, and then at night they might be more
Speaker 2: likely to be up moving around and then get into
Speaker 2: fights and scrapes and things. So yeah, those teeths can
Speaker 2: do damage.
Speaker 1: Oh Aliyah Cephalu, first time question asker, knowing that maybe
Speaker 1: people will change their minds, but wants to know if
Speaker 1: you've heard about or been to the Cabebat cafe in Tokyo.
Speaker 1: A lot of people mentioned this. I did not know
Speaker 1: there was one, thoughts.
Speaker 2: I would love to see it. Oh my goodness, now
Speaker 2: I want to go. So I have not been, and
Speaker 2: it really makes me curious because now I just have
Speaker 2: all kinds of questions. How close can you get? How
Speaker 2: tame are they so once they get habituated and are
Speaker 2: used to people being around. There was one even at
Speaker 2: the ranch that would let people come up and pet her,
Speaker 2: so they can't. Once they're convinced that people are safe,
Speaker 2: then they can be, you know, okay with being pett
Speaker 2: and stuff. So yeah, that could be cool. I can't
Speaker 2: imagine it. It smells real good. I don't know why
Speaker 2: you would want to eat in the same area, but.
Speaker 1: I'll look at the trip Advisor reviews and see you
Speaker 1: what they think. Okay, So I looked at videos and reviews,
Speaker 1: and it seems that they will crawl right up on
Speaker 1: your lap if you're holding a fistful of arugula or something.
Speaker 1: And as far as the vibe, the capa Beerra in
Speaker 1: the videos I saw appear much more low key than
Speaker 1: a guy on a zoom call at Starbucks. It's very
Speaker 1: chill environment. And a TikTok I watched described their fur
Speaker 1: is feeling like you're petting a coconut or a broom,
Speaker 1: and a Reddit post about the ethical issues of these
Speaker 1: individual animal cafes shared their own report that the one
Speaker 1: they went to, the Capubreras looked happy. They could roam freely,
Speaker 1: and the staff would kindly ask you to wait for
Speaker 1: them to come up to you in your seat so
Speaker 1: it was not possible to corner them. I also poked
Speaker 1: around trip Advisor, and then I asked my husband your
Speaker 1: pod mother, Jared Sleeper, to please read one actual review
Speaker 1: that deserved to be savored orally, and.
Speaker 3: Found it to be a wonderful intimate experience. I had
Speaker 3: envisioned a petting zoo, but it's really getting your own
Speaker 3: one on one time with the animals. Every step of
Speaker 3: the process was translated to English, and we were able
Speaker 3: to purchase fresh greens and sugar cane for a nominal
Speaker 3: fee over the provided dry food, and they loved it.
Speaker 3: Such sweet animals. I think Miss Ringo Apple is still
Speaker 3: grieving the loss of ron Boy, but Miss Potato could
Speaker 3: put her grief aside for yummy food well worth the trip.
Speaker 2: Excellent.
Speaker 1: As for the Pooh factor, I saw videos from some
Speaker 1: cabberret cafes that looked very clean and tidy, like the
Speaker 1: lobby of a nice office building, and others that were
Speaker 1: hasterewn with peeling floors. I'm not a capeberra. We all
Speaker 1: know that I've never been chased by a jaguar in
Speaker 1: the wild, but I'm sure that cabberts would rather be
Speaker 1: in the wild smearing their noses on rocks and having
Speaker 1: harerums and intercourse. So look within yourself and do your
Speaker 1: own research, folks. So I hope that answers your questions.
Speaker 1: Beth and Patrons, Austin, Broadwater Natalie Jones, Celeste Not My Sister, Russo,
Speaker 1: Emily lou Mindy and Elias Safalo, Reagan Candara wants to
Speaker 1: know if they fart a lot.
Speaker 4: They do.
Speaker 2: They do, okay, and they fart underwater and they have
Speaker 2: to see the bubbles. Oh my god, it's so entertaining.
Speaker 3: Well, you know that.
Speaker 1: Actually that goes well with a question we had so
Speaker 1: many people wanted to know about spa life. Okay, I'm
Speaker 1: saying your name's fast, but I'm holding you deer in
Speaker 1: my heart. Rieka Putnam Stella and Claire Millennial, Niki Juliet Jesse,
Speaker 1: Jordan Boudreaux, Frankie z Hiragane, Mandy Smith, Patronicole, Emmas Rosie
Speaker 1: Are Lookay Grace and first time question asker is Daphnie Claudier,
Speaker 1: Ruben Numart and Carrie Chin and Carrie's words, why do
Speaker 1: they always seem to be relaxing in a spa love
Speaker 1: that for them though, and why we see so many
Speaker 1: videos of like Captive Kapibera's just enjoying the spa life.
Speaker 2: Because it's really hot where they're from. That's as simple
Speaker 2: as it is. They spend a lot of time in
Speaker 2: the water, because it's freaking hot.
Speaker 1: Really Okay, So then if they were, say, taken to
Speaker 1: the Cleveland Zoo or if they were taken to the
Speaker 1: Seattle Zoo, would they still want to bob around in
Speaker 1: a jacuzzie of their own hearts or not?
Speaker 2: They're still attracted to the water. It's because now it's
Speaker 2: just part of it's part of their genetics that they're
Speaker 2: attracted to water. I'm sure they wouldn't spend as much
Speaker 2: time in the water. So there's two ideas for why
Speaker 2: they defecate and urinate in the water. One is just that, well,
Speaker 2: they're always around the water and that's where it is.
Speaker 2: And the other is that that hides it from predators.
Speaker 1: Oh got it, so that they don't leave like a
Speaker 1: trail of.
Speaker 2: M and ms, and particularly with the urine the smell
Speaker 2: of urine.
Speaker 1: Oh okay, But they're scent marking glands they're fine with.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, But scent glands tend to be like pheromones.
Speaker 2: Those are for the same species capu bears talking to capubers. Okay,
Speaker 2: as far as I know, other animals do not react
Speaker 2: to their scent gland.
Speaker 1: Oh that's handy, right, Because jaguars have like a very
Speaker 1: pungent kind of smell that I imagine other animals could smell.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, okay, so apparently it's like secret Capyberra code.
Speaker 1: Big blocky spies. Who knew?
Speaker 2: Yeah, there you go.
Speaker 1: Kate Hammon and Tilden Mills wants to know how long
Speaker 1: they live for what's her life span?
Speaker 3: Like?
Speaker 2: So we think it's about six to seven years in
Speaker 2: the wild. It's really hard to tell. They haven't been
Speaker 2: popular enough in zoos for long enough for us to
Speaker 2: really have a good handle, at least the last time
Speaker 2: I checked on how long they live in zoos. But yeah,
Speaker 2: in the wild, we think six to seven years.
Speaker 1: Okay, so not real long. Yeah, not real long, not
Speaker 1: as long as I would have hoped for.
Speaker 2: They live hard and fast, they harden, get.
Speaker 1: Out, take a few risks live. Is that typical for
Speaker 1: an animal of that size.
Speaker 2: Yeah. If you think about in dogs, like the larger
Speaker 2: dog breeds tend to not live as long. Yeah, so yeah,
Speaker 2: bigger rodent not live as long.
Speaker 1: Ah, that's sad. But if they trade in their freedom
Speaker 1: for fame and they live in a zoo, they'll have
Speaker 1: an average life span of twelve years in captivity. Never
Speaker 1: hungry but never out of the spotlight. Meg Kelly asked
Speaker 1: very important, very scientific question, have you heard the Cappy
Speaker 1: Barral song? And Molly Rubb, Rachel Weiss, Leanne Murray, Lauren Hurlbert,
Speaker 1: Timmy h Storm, Delie Dames and Earl of Gramblican also
Speaker 1: needed her thoughts on this earworm of a bop. Others
Speaker 1: want to know how you feel about the Cappy Bary
Speaker 1: song that's been on TikTok. I'm unfamiliar, but I'm sure
Speaker 1: that people have sent that to you.
Speaker 2: The Kapi Bearra song that's out now is just the
Speaker 2: lyrics are Capi Berra, Capi Berra, keby Berra capy Barra.
Speaker 2: So it's cute, but I'm hoping for something with a
Speaker 2: little more nuance to it. I might have to write one.
Speaker 2: I just have to write one.
Speaker 1: I think that you're the songwriter that the world needs
Speaker 1: right now. You can cram a lot of facts in
Speaker 1: a few minute song.
Speaker 2: Everybody's looking for a side gig these days, right that
Speaker 2: could be my side gig.
Speaker 1: Listen, we live in the hellscape of hustle culture, but
Speaker 1: how is life for capies, asked Marie ka Oliver Kellis,
Speaker 1: Finn Marksen Deanna Roberson, German Sill, and Tina Robbins. A
Speaker 1: lot of people want to know. Sadly, Scott Sheldon says
Speaker 1: Debbie Downer here, but with the destruction of the Amazon,
Speaker 1: are they okay? I doubt thriving, but okay. The Joyful
Speaker 1: Spitfire wants to know how has deforestation impacted the capy Bera.
Speaker 2: So, of course deforestation is affecting everything. The advantage that
Speaker 2: the Cape Beara has is they are so versatile. So
Speaker 2: they are found in forests along rivers because they want
Speaker 2: that water, so they are in riparian forests, but they're
Speaker 2: also in open grassland and open savannah. There are pockets
Speaker 2: where they're doing very well and then pockets where they
Speaker 2: are not. It's sort of a challenge to really say, so,
Speaker 2: are they threatened or endangered or not? Well? Do we
Speaker 2: want to look at the whole distribution of throughout South
Speaker 2: America or are we just talking about one region because
Speaker 2: in one region they might be in trouble, but in
Speaker 2: another region they're doing okay. Ah, So for right now
Speaker 2: they're overall numbers, they're not considered threatened at this point.
Speaker 1: That's surprising. For some reason, I would think that because
Speaker 1: they're so weird and because they're on the end of
Speaker 1: a bell curve in terms of size and adorability, that
Speaker 1: of course they would be threatened.
Speaker 2: Well, this is where they get lucky because they like
Speaker 2: the same habitat as cows, and we have a lot
Speaker 2: of space for our cows. So Venezuela, Argentina, Brazil, big
Speaker 2: agricultural culture there, and so the agricultural lands can also
Speaker 2: support the capibars. So they happened to share a habitat
Speaker 2: that we have a vested interest in protecting as well
Speaker 2: because it feeds our cows.
Speaker 1: Okay, but some places like these wetlands outside of Buenos
Speaker 1: Aires in Argentina have been shrinking. The habitat is shrinking
Speaker 1: due to luxury real estate being built. And this one
Speaker 1: very expensive gated neighborhood saw a rise in wild Capibera
Speaker 1: populations during COVID lockdowns because the quiet streets gave them
Speaker 1: room to rome and it fostered a new boldness in them,
Speaker 1: and they started milling about in empty intersections. They were
Speaker 1: grazing on lawns and rose bushes. Sometimes they would run
Speaker 1: eerily fast toward delivery drivers. Capuberras probably loved it, but
Speaker 1: the residents did not, and a cologists had to remind
Speaker 1: people in the neighborhood that, hey, this is not an
Speaker 1: invasion of capy beerra. You are living on their turf.
Speaker 1: You're lucky the capu beer is. Let's just stay here.
Speaker 1: And I haven't looked at any Zillow listings for the area,
Speaker 1: but personally I would be stoked to see some real
Speaker 1: estate photos with a capy bear on the deck or
Speaker 1: in the hot tub. But speaking of a cology, Alice
Speaker 1: ruben wanters know what ecosystem services do they provide? And
Speaker 1: do cattle ranchers want to kick the cabeberras off the
Speaker 1: land because they're eating all the grass, or they like,
Speaker 1: you can come through here.
Speaker 2: It's fine the capy bearra is because they're trimming the
Speaker 2: grass back, but they don't take the roots. They actually
Speaker 2: help the grass grow better and they're not trampling on it. Right,
Speaker 2: So the problem with cows is they eat the grass,
Speaker 2: but then they trample the ground and it's just mud.
Speaker 2: H Well, the capy bearers trim the grass without trampling
Speaker 2: the ground, so they're actually good for it.
Speaker 1: And is there enough water nearby that they can do
Speaker 1: their thing?
Speaker 2: If there isn't They're not there?
Speaker 1: Okay?
Speaker 2: Basically so in the managed areas, the water is often
Speaker 2: managed as well, with different dikes and small dams and
Speaker 2: things to make sure that even in the dry season
Speaker 2: there's still water availability, depending on what that land is
Speaker 2: being managed for, either for cattle ranching or as an
Speaker 2: eco lodge or as some sort of preserve.
Speaker 1: Okay, you're not going to have like a duck farm
Speaker 1: without a little pond on it, right, right, right? Yeah?
Speaker 1: And why do capybas take like ducks to water? Cape
Speaker 1: beers breed in the spring and they're pregnant for about
Speaker 1: five months, so why if they are virgos and libras,
Speaker 1: why are they such pisces? What's up with the water thing?
Speaker 1: Shizam X, Valerie Handling, Morgan Darling, Janey Chones, Bonnie M. Rutherford,
Speaker 1: Emily P. Tory, Baggett, kay Getz and b He's a Party,
Speaker 1: Mara Rosenblooms, Punky Asspecky, the Sassy Seacrest. Scientists Polytar and
Speaker 1: first time question askers Rachel A and Hellie Mickley wanted
Speaker 1: to know what is up with their life aquatic? Do
Speaker 1: they need really big wide bodies of water? To hang
Speaker 1: in or is anything fine?
Speaker 2: What would be adjusted is the group size. So like,
Speaker 2: for instance, in the forests where they're along rivers, they
Speaker 2: tend to have much smaller groups than in the open savannah,
Speaker 2: where there can be larger bodies of water, like larger
Speaker 2: in area but not very deep. Okay, which is you
Speaker 2: know fine for them? You know, in the forest, I
Speaker 2: think there's group sizes of like five to six animals.
Speaker 2: In the savannah, I had a group that got up
Speaker 2: to about ninety individuals before it split into two groups.
Speaker 1: Could you slide into one of those groups unnoticed and
Speaker 1: just live their vegan pool side lifestyle? Steel drop Handa asked,
Speaker 1: how do I apply to become a capebera? Kind of
Speaker 1: done with being a monkey tbh, Steel drop Handa, I
Speaker 1: get it for both of us. Do they nap? Are
Speaker 1: they just sleeping like calves? They kind of PLoP down
Speaker 1: and take a nap.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they don't sleep all night, they don't sleep all day.
Speaker 2: They sort of have this just a twenty four hour
Speaker 2: cycle of we nap for a while, we eat for
Speaker 2: a while, we nap for a while, we eat for
Speaker 2: a while, and just kind of in little shorter bursts.
Speaker 1: It sounds like vacation aft. Yeah, Jesse p, Melissa Po,
Speaker 1: and Alice Rubin, great question. They want to know. Please
Speaker 1: explain why pelicans want to try to eat capy beras.
Speaker 1: You know, you've seen those videos where a pelican is
Speaker 1: like trying to size up whether or not it could
Speaker 1: fit a cafe be in its pouch.
Speaker 2: Like are they just dreamers? Yeah? I would think that. Yeah,
Speaker 2: the babies might be a snack because the babies, especially
Speaker 2: if the babies are near the water, pelican might be
Speaker 2: it just looks like a big hairy fish and then
Speaker 2: they just get ahead of themselves when they go for
Speaker 2: something bigger.
Speaker 1: The pelican's been talking to the pope.
Speaker 2: Yeah right.
Speaker 1: Someone asked about pleisisine era capy beras that were the
Speaker 1: size of bison. True.
Speaker 3: False.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there was that fossil found, but just one of them. Well,
Speaker 2: I mean, fossils are hard to find, right, so if
Speaker 2: there was one, there were more. We just haven't found
Speaker 2: very many fossils of them.
Speaker 1: We just found that one. I say we, as though
Speaker 1: I had anything to do with that. Lisas Kanyon Maguli
Speaker 1: first time questionsker, why aren't there one hundred and forty
Speaker 1: pound squirrels so I.
Speaker 2: Could be flip and say because there's one hundred and
Speaker 2: forty pound capu beers.
Speaker 4: There, you go.
Speaker 2: So, but it has to do with the limitation of habitat.
Speaker 2: So if you think about up in the north, there
Speaker 2: are no capuberras because the weather is just the habitat
Speaker 2: is just too extreme. You have to be able to
Speaker 2: have enough food to sustain your body over the winter.
Speaker 2: And so a little squirrel body can be sustained over
Speaker 2: the winter by the nuts that they you know, scavenge away.
Speaker 2: But that's not going to do it for a capu
Speaker 2: beerra or something that, you know, something that large. And
Speaker 2: then when you get further south and you get into
Speaker 2: the nicer weather, then they would have to compete with
Speaker 2: the kepibers.
Speaker 1: It's kind of like niche science. Yeah, and aniche ology
Speaker 1: scurritiology with the lovely doctor Karen Monroe, which is all
Speaker 1: about squirrels. What about family ties? Okay, So Chris Moore
Speaker 1: wanted to know if Capybera's cash food like many of
Speaker 1: their rodent kin. Someone else wanted to know if they
Speaker 1: cash their food like other rodents. But there's no need
Speaker 1: to cash grass, right, correct? Nice do they ever come
Speaker 1: upon shrubs that are psychoactive, like there's so much yabramat
Speaker 1: down there, right, yeah, not that.
Speaker 2: We're aware of. But again they're so chill. Anyway, how
Speaker 2: would we know? What would a trip in kapy Berra
Speaker 2: look like?
Speaker 1: I don't know. Did you drink a lot of your
Speaker 1: ramat when you were down there at all?
Speaker 2: No? I didn't, actually, because that's more Brazil and Argentina, Okay,
Speaker 2: more than it was popular where I was.
Speaker 1: Okay, where I was, it.
Speaker 2: Was the mushrooms that were growing out of the cowpoop
Speaker 2: is what people really wanted me to collect for them.
Speaker 2: But of course I was doing a dissertation, so I
Speaker 2: was like, you guys, enjoy those. I've invested way too much.
Speaker 1: Please see the mycology episode all about mushrooms of all kinds.
Speaker 1: But the caby bears aren't much on them, No, not
Speaker 1: that we've ever seen. Interesting, Amy Martin, first question is
Speaker 1: are you familiar with who post Malone is?
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 1: Amy Martin would like to know why do they look
Speaker 1: so much like post malone? Very specific question.
Speaker 2: They're just lucky, I guess.
Speaker 1: Okay, so kapy Bears, I look this up. They have
Speaker 1: fewer face tattoos and post malone has probably zero sticky
Speaker 1: musk glance. But in this viral tweet a few years ago,
Speaker 1: it became obvious that the singer Rapper Actor's golden brown
Speaker 1: mustache resembled two capy bears meeting midlip for a kiss.
Speaker 1: And if that wasn't intentional, he is the luckiest man
Speaker 1: in the world. Rachel Gardner was vulnerable and honest and says,
Speaker 1: I'm irrationally afraid of them. Is there a cabe beret
Speaker 1: fact that will help me love them?
Speaker 2: Think of them as guinea pigs instead of rats?
Speaker 1: Okay, all right, And if you're afraid of guinea.
Speaker 2: Pigs, well then that's a little tougher. But they they
Speaker 2: like popsicles. Oh it's hard to be afraid of something
Speaker 2: that's licking on a popsicle.
Speaker 1: So maybe look for their more relatable activities.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, amazing.
Speaker 1: Oh, Heather Livingston, how fast do their hearts beat? Pretty slow?
Speaker 2: That's a good question. I'd have to look it up.
Speaker 2: I'm sure that information is out there somewhere.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I would expect their heartbeat to be a little slower
Speaker 2: because of the grass diet.
Speaker 1: Okay. For heartbeat facts, you can please see the twenty
Speaker 1: twenty one study Evaluation of a laryngeal mask airways an
Speaker 1: alternative to autotracheal intubation for maintaining airway potency during inhalent
Speaker 1: anesthesia under spontaneous ventilation in capaparis, which seems to mention
Speaker 1: it's about sixty seven bees permitted. I don't know what
Speaker 1: a races too when they sniff some musk, or how
Speaker 1: low it gets with an orange on their head. Jenna
Speaker 1: Congden says, has theologist who shares my last name ever
Speaker 1: given one a good scratch between the ears? Life goals
Speaker 1: right there. But I mostly just wanted to shout out
Speaker 1: that Jenna Congdon shares your last name and maybe you're related.
Speaker 2: That's awesome. I'm like, Hi, Jenna, you gotta check that out.
Speaker 2: It's not a very common last name. Sadly, when we
Speaker 2: were measuring them and tagging them and stuff, I would
Speaker 2: give them little belly scratches and yeah, I mean, if
Speaker 2: I'm gonna palpate their belly for their penis, then you
Speaker 2: know they deserve a little scratch to scratch.
Speaker 1: Pavka thirty four wants to know has anyone ever tried
Speaker 1: to use capybara as beasts of burden. Have they been
Speaker 1: used for carrying packs or has anyone ever tried to
Speaker 1: use them as livestock that way, not that I know of.
Speaker 2: Because they're territorial. I think that they just wouldn't willingly
Speaker 2: go very far. They'd be like as far as I walk,
Speaker 2: you know. Yeah, but it does seem like that ought
Speaker 2: to be Yes, fit one with a saddle. You ought
Speaker 2: to be able to put a nice little pack on them.
Speaker 1: I'm sure someone has probably to peril on both sides.
Speaker 1: Not recommended. So I looked for photographic evidence of someone
Speaker 1: saddling at Capivera, and y'all, I found none, so I
Speaker 1: think that's good news. But I did find a saddle
Speaker 1: bag made of quote distinct capy bear a suede exteriors
Speaker 1: a bummer. I understand if you need some emotional support
Speaker 1: after this. Speaking of mental health, Olivia Lester, first time
Speaker 1: question asker asked therapy animals, and yes. According to the
Speaker 1: twenty seventeen article pet therapy with a twist, kapy Bera,
Speaker 1: Kinkaju and owls sooth stressed students, capy Bera have lowered
Speaker 1: the heart rates of people who need some of their chill.
Speaker 1: I don't know how the animals like it though, So
Speaker 1: I guess look for reputable sources of capy Bera proximity,
Speaker 1: or you can just stare at their videos and you
Speaker 1: can vibe to Capyberra Capuvera music. What about fun for them?
Speaker 1: How do they kick back? You wanted to know Rica
Speaker 1: Putting and longtime listener Spencer. I assume that they run
Speaker 1: around and have fun and you know, look for food
Speaker 1: and everything. But they're just always looking so chill to us,
Speaker 1: and I just want to know why. And also Max
Speaker 1: Chanterrell for some question asker wants to know what brings
Speaker 1: them whimsy or do they appear like they're having fun?
Speaker 1: Do they play?
Speaker 2: The juveniles definitely play. They wrestle and they play and
Speaker 2: they flop around in the water and they have a
Speaker 2: good time.
Speaker 1: Okay, that sounds just delightful to watch. But something's got
Speaker 1: to talk about your job. Some sucks about every job,
Speaker 1: But is there a part of your work that's your
Speaker 1: least favorite.
Speaker 2: It's very difficult to study animals without at some point
Speaker 2: causing them at least a little bit of discomfort. And
Speaker 2: so when we capture them to ear tag them and stuff,
Speaker 2: Like I said, we don't use a sedative because we
Speaker 2: don't want to have that negative side effect. But you know,
Speaker 2: we just stressed the little babies out, So that was
Speaker 2: very stressful for me. And it's also it's very hot,
Speaker 2: so we have to be really careful that we don't
Speaker 2: let them get overheated. So that was absolutely the most
Speaker 2: stressful for me. Is the capturing.
Speaker 1: Would you have to spram with some water keep them
Speaker 1: cool down?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 2: And I lost one and it was just it was
Speaker 2: a horrible, horrible day. The cowboys, the Jennetos they're called,
Speaker 2: captured like four or five all at once, and as
Speaker 2: I was processing them, by the time I got to
Speaker 2: the last one, it had been you know, sitting still
Speaker 2: in the hot sun for like thirty minutes and he
Speaker 2: had a heat stroke. Oh yeah, and it was really horrible.
Speaker 1: And you're out there doing a lot of the field
Speaker 1: work kind of solo and media.
Speaker 2: Hideta my collaborator from univers Nadimon Bliber, he went out
Speaker 2: with me the first couple of days of capturing to
Speaker 2: make sure that I could communicate. So the area the
Speaker 2: savannah is called the yanos in Venezuela, and so the
Speaker 2: cowboys that work there are Janneros. And Yanero Spanish is
Speaker 2: different than city Spanish, and so there was a certain
Speaker 2: amount of training for me to be able to communicate
Speaker 2: with the yanetos to do the capturing. But once I
Speaker 2: got used to that, then it was me, me and
Speaker 2: the yananos. I would go sometimes a couple of weeks
Speaker 2: without speaking to anybody other than the animals.
Speaker 1: Did you have to develop ways to make sure you
Speaker 1: were taking care of yourself too, in the heat and
Speaker 1: in the hard physical work and that kind of isolation
Speaker 1: away from home.
Speaker 2: Oh, absolutely, Yeah. Luckily there was electricity and so I
Speaker 2: had a computer. You know, there was no internet and
Speaker 2: there were no phones. So I had a couple of
Speaker 2: DVDs and a couple of movies I have. I watched
Speaker 2: the English version, in the Spanish version, of the French version,
Speaker 2: the director's commentary. I had to memorize and read books.
Speaker 2: And it was hard for me at first because as
Speaker 2: a graduate student you're just told go, go, go, you
Speaker 2: get more data, more data, more data. And there were
Speaker 2: days when I just had to let myself rest and
Speaker 2: just take a day off and just lay in my
Speaker 2: hammock and just be you know. But it was an
Speaker 2: amazing experience. I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world.
Speaker 1: What were the movies?
Speaker 2: My sister sent me cast Away, which was hilarious because
Speaker 2: I was like, this is not helping how I feel
Speaker 2: because she send you a volleyball to hilarious. And then
Speaker 2: the other one was I Know, I had shuck a lot,
Speaker 2: and then we drew a chess board on a tablecloth
Speaker 2: and made a chess set out of an old egg carton.
Speaker 2: At different times, I had undergraduate students would come and
Speaker 2: assist me in the field, and so I would have
Speaker 2: somebody there with me for a couple months at a time.
Speaker 2: I had two come down from the US, and then
Speaker 2: a couple from Venezuela and a couple from Peru. So
Speaker 2: it was also great way to give undergraduates an opportunity
Speaker 2: to experience that. And then they also kept me company.
Speaker 1: Well, what about your favorite thing about your work? I
Speaker 1: don't know, I don't know how you're going to pick,
Speaker 1: but yeah, what's the best thing about being a cafe
Speaker 1: vera expert?
Speaker 2: I really learned how to just sit and watch them,
Speaker 2: and I could just sit quietly and have such a piece.
Speaker 2: I mean it sounds cliche, but also being there, I
Speaker 2: saw so much other stuff. A giant ant eater carrying.
Speaker 1: A baby, not a human baby.
Speaker 2: The birds, oh, the ibises and the scarlet ibises and
Speaker 2: storks and ocelots, I mean, just amazing wild like the
Speaker 2: anaconda's oh oh my god. Oh yeah, they were amazing
Speaker 2: and so yeah, so just all of that experience, right,
Speaker 2: and I got to just sit there and watch them.
Speaker 1: Did you ever have to get any training on what
Speaker 1: to do with an anaconda's looking at you like lunch?
Speaker 2: So the most I got was like tips on shuffling
Speaker 2: your feet if you were walking through water, you shuffle
Speaker 2: your feet so that you don't step on the back
Speaker 2: of a sting ray because then it stings you in
Speaker 2: the foot, and so that you kick an anaconda instead
Speaker 2: of stepping on it. And I'm like, oh, that doesn't
Speaker 2: that's not comforting at all. It's not really sure, no,
Speaker 2: not at all. And then I asked once about well,
Speaker 2: what do you do if you get stung by a stingray?
Speaker 2: And they said, don't get stung.
Speaker 1: Okay, all right, that's a strategy, Like, oh, okay, I'm
Speaker 1: willing to bet that ant Beth is definitely the most
Speaker 1: interesting person at any dinner party, and I just it's
Speaker 1: been such a privilege to talk to you. I was
Speaker 1: so thrilled that you said yes to this.
Speaker 2: Well, this was so much fun. I love the opportunity
Speaker 2: to talk about them. It's so great.
Speaker 1: Well kapy bears for.
Speaker 2: Life, Yes, yes, ya? And what at hydrocherologists. Yes, I'm
Speaker 2: gonna put that on my resume. Yeah, I like it.
Speaker 2: It's all yours.
Speaker 1: So ask chill experts, not chill questions about chill creatures,
Speaker 1: and adopt dog or guinea pig pretended to Capyberra. You'll
Speaker 1: have a much easier time with poop probably markcuddles. But
Speaker 1: thank you so much, doctor Congdon for hanging out, making
Speaker 1: my dream episode come true, and for killing our hopes
Speaker 1: of waking up with a Capybera snoozing on our pillow,
Speaker 1: loving us. It hurts, but we needed the truth. And
Speaker 1: For more about Beth's charity of choice, you can see
Speaker 1: the link in the show notes. We also have more
Speaker 1: research up at aliwar dot com slash hydrocaryology. Don't worry
Speaker 1: about it's linked in the show notes. Google ologies, Capybert
Speaker 1: take you right there. We also have smologies. There are
Speaker 1: shorter g rated episodes Those are also linked in the
Speaker 1: show notes Patreon dot com, slash Ologies, We've got ologiesimerch
Speaker 1: dot com. Thank you Aaron Talbert for admitting the Ologies
Speaker 1: podcast Facebook group. Thank you Avelene Malick and the Wordery
Speaker 1: for making our professional transcripts. Noel Dilworth is our scheduling producer.
Speaker 1: Susan Hale is our managing director and make sure that
Speaker 1: we are functional. Kelly Ardwyer makes our website and can
Speaker 1: make cures. And our Queen of the Grasses is Mercedes
Speaker 1: Maitland of Maitland Addio, who is our lead editor. Nick
Speaker 1: Thorburn made the music. And if you stick around until
Speaker 1: the end of the episode, I tell you secret. And
Speaker 1: this week it's that I was eating yogurt and sometimes
Speaker 1: I let my dog g Remy lick the bowl because
Speaker 1: she's like yogurt, and I let her lick the spoon
Speaker 1: and then I forgot that I did that, and then
Speaker 1: I licked the spoon afterward, which is disgusting. But she's
Speaker 1: also my daughter, so grosser things have happened, probably all right,
Speaker 1: Abye pacadermatology, hobiology, ydo zoology, lithology, technology, meteorology, paratology, anthology, zeriology, selenology.
Speaker 4: I am covered in Cappy Barrett slobbery.