Speaker 1: Oh hey, it's the dog in the backseat of the
Speaker 1: car next to you. Ali Ward back with episode three
Speaker 1: of somologies, right sized, classroom friendly versions of our deep
Speaker 1: dive ologies classics, and this one makes me so happy
Speaker 1: because toads get it.
Speaker 2: Hoppylogymologylogiologies.
Speaker 1: Are toads the unsung underdogs? Are they wardy friends yet
Speaker 1: to be made? Do they belong in a heap of
Speaker 1: canceled beasts who don't deserve our admiration? You'll find out. Okay, boophology,
Speaker 1: let's go down a tot hole. So boofology is a
Speaker 1: word that I did not make up, although it's seldom cited.
Speaker 1: To be fair. A twenty eleven Reptile Magazine article titled
Speaker 1: Oh to a Toad uses the term boofhology one oh one,
Speaker 1: So I'm going with it. There's also herpetology, which is
Speaker 1: reptiles and amphibians. There's about tractcology, which is the subfield
Speaker 1: that is just amphibians, which I may have pronounced wrong.
Speaker 1: But what if I want to do a frog episode
Speaker 1: down the line or one on Newts So I'm going
Speaker 1: boofhology because it exists, people use it sometimes. Also, its
Speaker 1: root is buffo and the Latin for toad, which may
Speaker 1: come from a word meaning slimy plant, or it may
Speaker 1: also come from bouffara, meaning to puff up, and buffoonery
Speaker 1: is a related word. It's debatable, like toads for some people.
Speaker 1: Speaking of people, get ready to hear a scientist passionately
Speaker 1: describe a love of toads. She's so human, I cherish her.
Speaker 1: She was once the program manager for the Association of
Speaker 1: Fish and Wildlife Agencies, where she also served as a
Speaker 1: national coordinator for Partners in Amphibian and Reptile Conservation. She
Speaker 1: worked as a biological science technician for the us GS,
Speaker 1: the US Geological Survey, and now works in the nonprofit
Speaker 1: ecology sector at Conservation Science Partners. But it's still in
Speaker 1: the field a bit out toading and salamandering and frogging
Speaker 1: and neoting. So hop on into a conversation with amphibian
Speaker 1: enthusiast and boufologist Priya Ninjapa. Okay, but what makes a toad?
Speaker 1: Straight away? What is the difference between frog and a toad?
Speaker 3: Okay, So generally speaking, most frogs have like smooth skin,
Speaker 3: they tend to need a closer association with water or
Speaker 3: aquatic environments. And then the toads that we traditionally know,
Speaker 3: you know, with the big kind of stout fat bodies
Speaker 3: and the warts and everything, they typically can be away
Speaker 3: from water longer and they don't need as much of
Speaker 3: that sort of direct moisture the way that frogs do.
Speaker 3: And then they also secrete these toxins from their skin
Speaker 3: and so yeah, and so like that's the biggest thing.
Speaker 3: There are some frogs that do that as well, but
Speaker 3: pretty much all toads have some sort of gland you
Speaker 3: know that they and they secrete some sort of bufo toxin.
Speaker 3: And so to.
Speaker 1: Such a good punk band, right, yeah, that would be
Speaker 1: is there skin thicker? And what exactly are the worts?
Speaker 1: Are they air quotes warts?
Speaker 3: That's a good question. These warts on toads are associated
Speaker 3: with these They have mucous glands and granular glands, but
Speaker 3: the granular glands are the ones that are responsible for
Speaker 3: the toxic secretions and it's for an anti predator defense,
Speaker 3: so that when anything, you know, grabs it, it just
Speaker 3: tastes bad and they spit it out, you know, or
Speaker 3: sometimes they'll get sick. Some of the toads produce some
Speaker 3: pretty strong toxins. So all toads are frogs, but not
Speaker 3: all frogs are toads.
Speaker 1: I love it's the old this succulent, Yes, like all
Speaker 1: cactus are succulents, not all succulents are cacti. Yes, exactly.
Speaker 3: Like in the amphibian world, there's like like nuts, you know,
Speaker 3: like all nuts are salamanders, but not all salamanders are nuts,
Speaker 3: and newts are too salamanders, like toads are to frogs
Speaker 3: kind of okay, early lineages of toads are they look
Speaker 3: more frog like, okay, and so like over time those
Speaker 3: different features, the more like stout bodies and uh, bigger
Speaker 3: warts and glands and things like that, appear kind of
Speaker 3: later in evolutionary history. They came after frogs. So somewhere
Speaker 3: in that like Cretaceous Cenozoic period they've been around.
Speaker 1: So to recap, toads are frogs, and toads have no teeth. Yes,
Speaker 1: for warts, They've got a poison gland behind their eye
Speaker 1: called a parotoid gland, thought to have been like an
Speaker 1: adrenal gland, just gone bonkers. Oh and another souped up
Speaker 1: special feature not available on the standard frog model.
Speaker 3: And then the other really weird thing is it? Toads
Speaker 3: have this thing called the bitters organ, okay, which sits
Speaker 3: like kind of between the kidneys and the gonads. And
Speaker 3: I think both males and females have them, but they're
Speaker 3: thought to be like a primitive ovary or like it's
Speaker 3: kind of like a spare set of follicles. But the
Speaker 3: males have it too, and so like in experiments in
Speaker 3: the lab, they've removed the testes and all of a sudden,
Speaker 3: this bitter's organ like is like, oh, okay, time for
Speaker 3: me to come into play, and then like it starts
Speaker 3: forming eggs.
Speaker 1: How long have toads had a place in her life
Speaker 1: and her heart?
Speaker 3: I remember my first toad sighting, which was in my
Speaker 3: mom's garden in Iowa, and it just would like hop
Speaker 3: along the tomato plants and eat things, and like eventually
Speaker 3: we figured out that we could build a little toad
Speaker 3: hut like out of a pot, you know, and just
Speaker 3: put that in there and it would just, you know,
Speaker 3: go and hang out. And I was so sad on
Speaker 3: the days when I didn't see it, Like I'm sure
Speaker 3: it was all seasonal. I don't remember, you know, the
Speaker 3: specifics of it, And I do remember other people's houses
Speaker 3: where there'd be one like sitting under the gutter eating
Speaker 3: the flies and stuff like that. And I liked other
Speaker 3: critters too, but there was something about the toads that
Speaker 3: I just kept coming back to that I just kept like,
Speaker 3: I don't know, I just love them. They're just they
Speaker 3: just have that face, you know, it's just that face.
Speaker 1: I love that you had a toad friend, Like the
Speaker 1: toad was your friend. It kind of was my friend.
Speaker 1: Are the males bigger than the females.
Speaker 3: The females are bigger than the males. Oh by a lot, Yeah,
Speaker 3: by a lot. Yes, Oh yeah, usually by quite a bit.
Speaker 1: Oh. And both have tympanyms to hear sound, such as,
Speaker 1: for example, the romantic screamy love ballads man toads make
Speaker 1: by inflating an air sack like a big extra chin,
Speaker 1: kind of like having a subwoofer on your face.
Speaker 3: So another thing that's really cool about toads is they
Speaker 3: have all like a lot more bony material in their skull,
Speaker 3: like their their skulls are like highly ossified, and those
Speaker 3: crests and the shape of those crests and stuff are
Speaker 3: what you can use to distinguish species when they are
Speaker 3: like in the same area, and you have a lot
Speaker 3: of similar looking little brown toads with warts other than
Speaker 3: the wartz per spot certain species. Yeah, no, it's yeah,
Speaker 3: it's it's warts per spot. So like in the like
Speaker 3: dark brown spot, there'll be like two or three warts
Speaker 3: if it's an American toad, and then if it's a
Speaker 3: Fowler's toad or something or wood houses toad, they'll have
Speaker 3: more in each like dark spot. And then there's like
Speaker 3: the shape of the parotoid glands, which are the things
Speaker 3: that produce like behind their eyes that produce that more
Speaker 3: of the toxic secretion. And then those little crests and
Speaker 3: bosses and ridges and everything. That's how they differentiate themselves.
Speaker 3: But yeah, so they have these really cool skulls. Frogs
Speaker 3: don't have that.
Speaker 1: So next time you see a toad, absolutely okay to say, hey,
Speaker 1: what's up Your skull looks totally cool. But where can
Speaker 1: you see a toad? But there are toads on all.
Speaker 3: Consonance everywhere except Australia, which right now is only being
Speaker 3: overrun by the invasive cane toad.
Speaker 1: Oh really, yes, Australia got a little bit ripped off
Speaker 1: on the toad card and then they got paved and.
Speaker 3: They got yeah kind of yeah, and they didn't used
Speaker 3: to be on Madagascar either, But now there's a different
Speaker 3: toad that is found on Madagascar that's also super invasive
Speaker 3: and yeah, wreaking havoc. So yeah, unfortunately the toads that
Speaker 3: are finding their way to places where they never were,
Speaker 3: like the ones, you just don't want to be there.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's loop around back real quick and talk about
Speaker 1: cane toads, shall we. Okay, great, So these are these
Speaker 1: huge toats. They're also called marine toads even though they're terrestrial,
Speaker 1: but the largest recorded one measured over nine inches long.
Speaker 1: They look like holding a big leathery pretzel roll, but
Speaker 1: with legs. They eat everything from like live bats, sometimes plants,
Speaker 1: to bugs, to dead animals to just right up garbage,
Speaker 1: sometimes just literal actual garbage. Another reason we love toads.
Speaker 1: They're not too picky. Can you ever have too many toads? Now?
Speaker 1: In some places, perhaps like those so called marine but
Speaker 1: actually terrestrial toads in Australia, the cane toads, why are
Speaker 1: they there? So?
Speaker 3: I think it's like where they were growing sugar cane,
Speaker 3: they had brought them there to control like the bugs,
Speaker 3: you know that were eating the sugar cane. And then
Speaker 3: of course, you know, anytime you bring a thing to
Speaker 3: control the thing that you don't want, then that thing goes,
Speaker 3: you know, crazy. So there are these big beefy marine toads,
Speaker 3: and so they can live. They can tolerate like saltwater environments,
Speaker 3: but they also apparently can live all over the place.
Speaker 1: Does Pria have a favorite toad? Yes, she has a
Speaker 1: soft spot. She has a soft warty spot for American
Speaker 1: toads because they were the first she saw in the Midwest.
Speaker 1: But she did clarify that they no longer belong to
Speaker 1: the Bufo genus. North American toads are now classified Anaxorus,
Speaker 1: which sounds like a very cool rebrand if you ask me.
Speaker 1: Bufo versus Naxorus reminds me of the time my gothfriend
Speaker 1: Ben wanted us to call him Sebastian with an E
Speaker 1: on the end, but unlike Anaxorus, it didn't stick. I'm sorry, Sebastian.
Speaker 3: They're a little bit fatter and their eyes are just
Speaker 3: a little bit more like bulbous, so I really kind
Speaker 3: of fell in love with them. But there's some really
Speaker 3: pretty toads too, Like in the southwestern US there are
Speaker 3: these green toads and then these red spotted toads, and
Speaker 3: especially in South America, like I haven't seen like all
Speaker 3: the buffon and species you know that are down there.
Speaker 3: I mean it would take you know, millions of years.
Speaker 3: There's so many species of toads all over the world,
Speaker 3: but they are really diverse and interesting.
Speaker 1: Ps how many species of toad are out there hop
Speaker 1: and around and frowning. It's over six hundred and some
Speaker 1: look like dead leaves with a face, and some are
Speaker 1: beautiful rainbow colors. Some we haven't even discs covered yet
Speaker 1: right now, just kicking it in a hollow, I think,
Speaker 1: is that where toads live? Do they live in toad hollows?
Speaker 1: Do they live in little like carbons spots and trees
Speaker 1: and stuff?
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, pretty much in burrows of different sorts. Some
Speaker 3: of them can do a little bit of digging, but
Speaker 3: a lot of times they'll live in other you know,
Speaker 3: mammal burrows and things like that.
Speaker 1: Do toads ever get chilly?
Speaker 3: They don't freeze like some frog species can totally freeze
Speaker 3: in the winter, like they produce this anti freeze, but
Speaker 3: toads don't do that. They just go underground, like below
Speaker 3: the frost line where it's just warm enough that they
Speaker 3: can survive through the winter and they hibernate. But they
Speaker 3: don't freeze, so they just live underground.
Speaker 1: Don't freeze. That's handy. Oh, speaking of hands, true or false?
Speaker 1: Toads have arms? Yes they do? Okay, thank you. I
Speaker 1: don't feel like toads have four legs. I feel like
Speaker 1: the two legs and two arms. They do.
Speaker 2: Toads have arms.
Speaker 3: They do have arms. I mean they're like little popeye
Speaker 3: arms right, Like couldn't you just seal tattoo on those
Speaker 3: little forearms? They're so fat and the males have fatter
Speaker 3: forearms on purpose, like to clutch. Yeah, they have arms.
Speaker 1: Okay, thank you, and tell you will see it like
Speaker 1: in different places and references about there at their.
Speaker 3: Arms in the couse.
Speaker 1: Really, so is that official?
Speaker 3: I'm gonna say it is so.
Speaker 1: Priya has done a lot of work with a lot
Speaker 1: of amphibians, namely salamanders, but her field work helping collect
Speaker 1: toad data made her love them even more.
Speaker 3: Just a little ways into the season, the toads would
Speaker 3: come in and they would just be everywhere, and they
Speaker 3: were just so fun to watch. The eggs were everywhere,
Speaker 3: and then the tadpoles would be everywhere. And there's probably
Speaker 3: at least a couple of sites where they probably was
Speaker 3: close to one hundred toad We definitely saw a lot
Speaker 3: of them, you know, just just out and about and
Speaker 3: just hopping along.
Speaker 1: Are they solitary or do they or did they burrow
Speaker 1: with friends? Do you think?
Speaker 3: I wonder if they have I don't think there are
Speaker 3: some records of them, like in sharing burrows with other toads,
Speaker 3: and we actually found a multiple species like Hybernaculum. But
Speaker 3: I do think that there are toads that will share
Speaker 3: the same types of burrows. And then there are some
Speaker 3: places like where the soil is really sandy and they
Speaker 3: can just kind of shimmy down under the sand, especially
Speaker 3: in the more hotter environments, because in a lot of
Speaker 3: places in the southern US, both east and west, they're
Speaker 3: active pretty much year round, or they don't really have
Speaker 3: much of a hibernation, but you know, in the northern
Speaker 3: areas they do they I don't know, yeah, they do,
Speaker 3: they do sleep. I've never seen a sleeping toad. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I haven't seen a sleeping tone.
Speaker 1: Are they nocturnal or are they out in the day.
Speaker 3: When they first come out, it's usually during the day,
Speaker 3: and they will just be singing their little hearts out
Speaker 3: like all during the day. Then they kind of shift
Speaker 3: to just calling at night, and so you don't really
Speaker 3: hear them during the day, but you'll see them out
Speaker 3: there sometimes. We definitely, like when we go out in
Speaker 3: the field to our sites during the daytime, we would
Speaker 3: see the toads just everywhere, and they weren't always calling
Speaker 3: by that point. But then if you came to the
Speaker 3: same pond that night, you know, they would just be
Speaker 3: singing like crazy. Yeah, and so it's cool.
Speaker 1: Oh, listen to these beautiful sounds, so relaxing and soothing.
Speaker 1: Now let's hear something both cute and horrifying. Toads oozing
Speaker 1: out of your skin, well their mom's skin. Okay. Is
Speaker 1: there a type of toad where the baby toads are
Speaker 1: berthed from holes in the back or was that an
Speaker 1: American horror story?
Speaker 3: No, no, those are those are a different family. So
Speaker 3: they're not bufon ands, they're not true toads, but they
Speaker 3: are called like the Surinam toad. And yeah, that oh man,
Speaker 3: that's like the craziest like reproductive strategy. They'll lay the
Speaker 3: eggs and they'll be fertilized, and then they like scoop
Speaker 3: them up with their legs onto their back, and then
Speaker 3: their back like the chemistry of the skin changes and
Speaker 3: it basically like absorbs the eggs into their back, and
Speaker 3: then the skin grows over the back, over the top
Speaker 3: of it.
Speaker 1: And then when they.
Speaker 3: Get ready to hatch, they hatch out as like little
Speaker 3: live it's not even tadpoles, it's like little live baby toads,
Speaker 3: and they just start cracking out of the mom's back.
Speaker 1: What is the state of the toad these days? How
Speaker 1: are toads?
Speaker 2: Do they need us?
Speaker 1: Do they hate us? Now? I know that cane toads
Speaker 1: are having a heyday, right, yeah, it's the it is
Speaker 1: the era of the cane toad. But how in general
Speaker 1: are toads faring these days?
Speaker 3: It depends. So some of the species of toads have
Speaker 3: been hit pretty hard by the kittrid fungus, the amphibian
Speaker 3: kytrid fungus patraka Kytrium dender badatus.
Speaker 1: That's quite a mouthful, or BD for short.
Speaker 3: In Central America especially, there's a couple of the Adylopus
Speaker 3: genus species that have that are thought to be extinct.
Speaker 3: Now there's a golden toad that's in the Inscillus genus
Speaker 3: from Costa Rica, that is, it was like their iconic
Speaker 3: toad species, and they think that that's extinct. I think
Speaker 3: there's they've found like maybe a couple of individuals here
Speaker 3: and there of all of these different species. But yeah,
Speaker 3: but they're they've gone extinct. It's because of this fungus,
Speaker 3: this fungal pathogen. So have you heard of like white
Speaker 3: nose and bats. So this actually came before and then
Speaker 3: like the people in the white nose world like learned
Speaker 3: from that, but it took the BD world, the amphibian world,
Speaker 3: like a really long time to figure out that it
Speaker 3: was this fungal pathogen. It was described as a new
Speaker 3: species once they figured out that that's what it was.
Speaker 3: But it's been responsible for h Well, it's questionable, but
Speaker 3: there's there's a recent paper that says that there's like
Speaker 3: five hundred species that have declined throughout the world on
Speaker 3: that because of BD. But there's some question about that
Speaker 3: a little bit. So at least most people say like
Speaker 3: around like two hundred or so species that have declined
Speaker 3: or gone extinct specifically because of the impacts of of BD,
Speaker 3: and in the US in particular, some of our toad
Speaker 3: species have been the ones that have been most impacted.
Speaker 1: What are the predators of toads?
Speaker 3: Oh, there are various birds and snakes that will eat toads.
Speaker 3: Hogno snakes are kind of toads specialists. The toxin doesn't
Speaker 3: seem to bother them, so they're able to manage with them.
Speaker 3: But crows, which are super smart as you know, will
Speaker 3: like eviscerate toads and then just eat their guy insides.
Speaker 1: Gosh, yeah, that's what I do with airport sandwiches. I
Speaker 1: just eat the middle. But before I ask the questions
Speaker 1: that you submitted, patrons, a few sponsors of the show
Speaker 1: who make it possible for us to make a donation
Speaker 1: each week to a cause of the ologist choosing. In
Speaker 1: this week, Prea requested a donation be made to the
Speaker 1: Amphibian and Reptile Conservancy to support inclusivity and diversity in
Speaker 1: amphibian and reptile conservations. So thank you, Pria. Okay, sponsors,
Speaker 1: all right, we're back your questions, Okay. Jack kelliher asks
Speaker 1: life cycle of a toad same as similar to a
Speaker 1: frog or do they live longer or shorter than a frog?
Speaker 1: Do you think?
Speaker 3: Oh, well, I think it depends on the species. And
Speaker 3: you know, some frogs live pretty long. Some some toads
Speaker 3: live pretty long. But but you know, kind of on
Speaker 3: average in that sort of five ish seven ish, you know,
Speaker 3: tennish range of years. But life cycle, yeah, very fairly
Speaker 3: similar to a frog, because you know, they are frogs.
Speaker 2: They are frog.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So they will like mostly be on land until it's
Speaker 3: breeding season, you know, or like be hibernating or whatever,
Speaker 3: and then they'll come to the ponds for that breeding season.
Speaker 3: They'll call attract their mate. There are some toads that
Speaker 3: don't call and they're oh my god, I can't. There
Speaker 3: are some toads that will do that leg waving thing.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: Have you ever seen that? Oh my god, you have to.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So they like in these like stream environments where it's
Speaker 3: so loud because of all this stream noise, they have
Speaker 3: evolved this like they just they literally take their back
Speaker 3: leg and they just like go like this.
Speaker 1: By the way, is laying on the hotel room doing
Speaker 1: a move that looks like part synchronized swimming, but also
Speaker 1: part shipwreck victim.
Speaker 3: And I think in some of them it's their front
Speaker 3: leg maybe too, but they anyway, or their arms. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and they they just like they're like, hey, I'm.
Speaker 1: Over here, god like hailing a cab.
Speaker 3: Yes, And then some you know, chick toad is walking
Speaker 3: by and just like, oh, oh okay, I see I
Speaker 3: never know that they did that. Yeah, so there are
Speaker 3: so anyways. I kind of digress there. But yeah, so
Speaker 3: generally speaking, they attract their mate. The mate, you know,
Speaker 3: the female comes over and they you know, they lay
Speaker 3: their eggs, and mostly most of the species like lay
Speaker 3: a lot of eggs. Maybe you'll have a pretty decent
Speaker 3: amount of the eggs that will hatchet to tadpoles. But
Speaker 3: then like the tadpoles are food for all sorts of stuff.
Speaker 3: Oh delicious, Oh my god. Have you ever seen like
Speaker 3: all the little toadlets popping on them?
Speaker 1: They really called toadlets?
Speaker 3: Yes, oh good, toadlets.
Speaker 1: Heather all bricks. What are toad communities? Like? I always
Speaker 1: see toads on the ground blazing their own trails, but
Speaker 1: then there's always another little guy not too far away.
Speaker 1: Do they reconvene at the end of the day in
Speaker 1: communal housing, if they survived my lawnmower, or do they
Speaker 1: battle it out for prime resources? Do they have friends?
Speaker 3: Do you think they all come together for the breeding season,
Speaker 3: but they're not really like friendly, you know, they're like
Speaker 3: all competing during that time. And it is true that
Speaker 3: you do tend to see them together, and I think
Speaker 3: that is probably because they must like hang out together
Speaker 3: wherever they're overwintering or hanging out during the hot months
Speaker 3: or something.
Speaker 1: Laura Kenney wants to know. Do toads travel far from
Speaker 1: their borough or where whatever a toad home is called
Speaker 1: to forage or find a mate? How is their commute?
Speaker 1: What's a toad commute?
Speaker 3: Like? You know, I think generally speaking they're thought to
Speaker 3: be not that they don't move that far, but there
Speaker 3: was recently one of my colleagues in Utah was tracking
Speaker 3: these western toads and found that they moved like five
Speaker 3: or six miles, which you know a toad that hops
Speaker 3: like that's a long way, like between where their breeding
Speaker 3: site was and where they I think were hanging out
Speaker 3: like in the winter, because they'll go back to the
Speaker 3: same ponds where they emerged to go breed, and so
Speaker 3: when those habitats got fewer and far farther between, Like
Speaker 3: if they went back in their pond that they know
Speaker 3: was not there, they'll usually just go a little bit
Speaker 3: further until they find the next thing. And so probably
Speaker 3: like over time, these animals have developed the ability to
Speaker 3: go that far, and especially the ones in these montane habitats,
Speaker 3: you know, like there are a lot fewer areas, you know,
Speaker 3: and a lot more ground to traverse between ponds. That
Speaker 3: was one that I remember was like pretty striking, Like
Speaker 3: I just learned that a couple of years ago that
Speaker 3: those particular ones were able to do that. And I'm
Speaker 3: pretty sure that there's nothing in the literature that suggests
Speaker 3: that they go that far.
Speaker 1: Do they have a homing device? How are they finding
Speaker 1: the same ponds? Yeah, I think they believe.
Speaker 3: It's a little bit both like astrological as well as chemosensory,
Speaker 3: and they're able to like you know, smell their home
Speaker 3: ponds basically and go back. Yeah, that's that's true of
Speaker 3: a lot of amphibians in general, Like they tend to
Speaker 3: go back to the same and actually a lot of
Speaker 3: reptiles as well, like they'll they'll kind of they have
Speaker 3: sight fidelity do.
Speaker 1: You have a favorite thing, the one thing about a
Speaker 1: toad that you love the most, or about your job
Speaker 1: as a herper?
Speaker 3: Oh, what is my favorite thing about a toad? I
Speaker 3: don't know, there's just I just I just love their
Speaker 3: little bodies. They're little, that classic toad shape and just
Speaker 3: the little hop and the face, you know, just that
Speaker 3: little classic toad face.
Speaker 1: So there you have it. Toads have cute faces and
Speaker 1: little arms, and they are our friends. Thank you for
Speaker 1: being my friend. Smologites and for listening. New Smologies episodes
Speaker 1: are out every other Thursday and you can find them
Speaker 1: all together at Alleyward dot com slash smologies that will
Speaker 1: be linked in the show notes along with the credits
Speaker 1: because we keep these short. But before I go, I
Speaker 1: share a tid bit of advice from a lady who
Speaker 1: calls herself dad word. That's me, and my advice is
Speaker 1: to make stuff. The best way to get good at
Speaker 1: something is to do it. So if you want to
Speaker 1: be a poet or a painter or a paleontologist, write
Speaker 1: and build and draw and dance and read and do
Speaker 1: experiments and just get in the game. Don't be afraid
Speaker 1: to mess up, because as long as you're doing, you're learning,
Speaker 1: and that is not messing up. Okay smologizes byebyemology, slogimologies, silologies,
Speaker 1: mom red it, in it,