Strange Animals Podcast

Strange Animals Podcast

A podcast about living, extinct, and imaginary animals!

Episode 507: The Minnesota Iceman
Strange Animals Podcast
Episode 507: The Minnesota Iceman

Recent Episodes

507
Oct. 18, 2026

Episode 507: The Minnesota Iceman

Show transcript: Welcome to Strange Animals Podcast. I’m your host, Kate Shaw. Monster month is upon us, and to kick us off I’ve got a fun episode about a supposed Bigfoot discovery called the Minnesota Iceman. It happened in 1968, although the iceman had been around for a while as part of a traveling exhibition. But in 1968 a zoologist named Terry Cullen saw it at a livestock fair in Chicago. Curious and excited, Cullen talked to the owner of the exhibition, named Frank Hansen. Hansen said he
506
Oct. 11, 2026

Episode 506: The Beast of Buderim

Photos of a mangy fox that make it look like it has stripes: Show transcript: Welcome to Strange Animals Podcast. I’m your host, Kate Shaw. Buderim is a small city in Queensland, Australia, right on the coast but extending up the side of a small mountain. It looks like an especially beautiful place in a beautiful part of the world, but in the 1990s it was in the news due to sightings of a strange animal. The animal was dubbed the Beast of Buderim by reporters. It all seems to have started in
505
Oct. 4, 2026

Episode 505: Three Animal Mysteries

Further reading: Scientists solve a shark murder mystery Stone Age Animal Urine Could Solve a Mystery about Technological Development South African rock art possibly inspired by long-extinct species The porbeagle shark [photo by Andy Murch, taken from this site]: Dicynodont fossils and their possible art interpretation by the San people: Show transcript: Welcome to Strange Animals Podcast. I’m your host, Kate Shaw. It’s finally monster month, and I’m looking forward to sharing lots of fun mys
504
Sept. 27, 2026

Episode 504: The Mystery Roar

Further reading: Wolves on rise in France as bears wreak mountain havoc Can Brown Bears Survive in the Pyrenees? Show transcript: Welcome to Strange Animals Podcast. I’m your host, Kate Shaw. On the evening of August 4, 2019, two hikers set up camp in the Pyrenees Mountains. Laurent and Frédéric were familiar with the area and had plenty of experience hiking and camping. Once their camp was ready for the night, they took off their boots and socks and sat down to eat dinner and relax at a small
503
Sept. 20, 2026

Episode 503: The Mystery of Typhloesus

Further reading: A possible home for a bizarre Carboniferous animal: is Typhloesus a pelagic gastropod? Typhloesus An artist’s rendition of what Typhloesus might have looked like [pic taken from the Nix Illustration link above]: Show transcript: Welcome to Strange Animals Podcast. I’m your host, Kate Shaw. I recently discovered the excellent Nix Illustration blog, which is about scientific illustration and palaeontology. I’m finding so many fun topics that I keep going back to it, so I hope yo
502
Sept. 13, 2026

Episode 502: Back to the Ocean

Show transcript: Welcome to Strange Animals Podcast. I’m your host, Kate Shaw. Life arose in the oceans and only much later spread to the land. But some land animals returned to the ocean and eventually became fully marine animals. That’s our topic this month, animals that returned to the sea. Vertebrates that evolved on land are called tetrapods, meaning four-footed. It applies even to animals like birds that have two legs and two wings, and snakes that have no legs, because all the ancestors