Episodes

Further reading: Audubon’s Bird of Washington: Unraveling the fraud that launched The Birds of America The Mystery of the Missing John James Audubon Self-Portrait Washington’s eagle, as painted by Audubon: The tiny detail in Audubon’s golden eagle painting that is supposed to be a self-portrait: The golden eagle painting as it was published. Note that there’s no tiny figure in the lower left-hand corner: Show transcript: Welcome to Strange Animals Podcast. I’m your host, Kate Shaw. This past...

Thanks to Richard from NC for inspiring this episode! Further reading: Paleontologists Debunk Popular Claim that Protoceratops Fossils Inspired Legend of Griffin The Fossil Dragons of Lake Lucerne, Switzerland The Lindworm statue: A woolly rhinoceros skull: A golden collar dated to the 4th century BCE, made by Greek artisans for the Scythians, discovered in Ukraine. The bottom row of figures shows griffins attacking horses: The Cyclops and a (damaged, polished) elephant skull: A camahueto s...

Thanks to Kai and Emily for their suggestions this week! The greater siren [photo by Kevin Stohlgren, taken from this site]: The anhinga [photo by Tim from Ithaca – Anhinga, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15526948]: An anhinga swimming [photo by Wknight94, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons]: Show transcript: Welcome to Strange Animals Podcast. I’m your host, Kate Shaw. This week we’re going to learn about two ani...

Thanks to Cosmo and Zachary for suggesting this week’s monitor lizards! Further reading: No One Imagined Giant Lizard Nests Would Be This Weird The Mighty Modifications of the Yellow-Spotted Goanna The Asian water monitor: A yellow-spotted goanna standing up [picture by Geowombats – https://www.flickr.com/photos/geowombats/136601260/, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2595566]: Show transcript: Welcome to Strange Animals Podcast. I’m your host, Kate Shaw. Last week w...

This week we need to thanks a bunch of listeners for their suggestions: Bowie, Eilee, Pranav, and Yuzu! Further reading: Elaborate Komodo dragon armor defends against other dragons Giant killer lizard fossil shines new light on early Australians A New Origin for Dragon Folklore? The Wyvern of Wonderland The Komodo dragon: The beautiful tree goanna: The perentie: Fossilized scale tree bark looks like reptile scales: Show transcript: Welcome to Strange Animals Podcast. I’m your host, Kate Sha...

Thanks to Catherine and arilloyd for suggesting the marsupial mole! Further reading: Northern marsupial mole: Rare blind creature photographed in Australian outback The marsupial mole, adorable little not-mole from Australia [photo from article above]: Grant’s golden mole, adorable little not-mole from Africa: Show transcript: Welcome to Strange Animals Podcast. I’m your host, Kate Shaw. This week we have a little short episode about a very small Australian animal suggested by two listeners:...

Thanks to Luke for suggesting this week’s topic: Smilodon, the saber-toothed cat, AKA the sabertooth tiger! Further reading: Did sabertooth tigers purr or roar? The double-fanged adolescence of saber-toothed cats We don’t know for sure what Smilodon looked like, but it might have been something like this: An artist’s rendition of an adolescent Smilodon with doubled fangs [picture from second link above]: Show transcript: Welcome to Strange Animals Podcast. I’m your host, Kate Shaw. This week...

Thanks to Richard from NC, Pranav, and Alexandra for their suggestions this week! Further reading: ABA Rare Bird Alert One Reason Migrating Birds Get Lost Is Out of This World Inside the Amazing Cross-Continent Saga of the Steller’s Sea-Eagle A Vagrant European Robin Is Drawing Huge Crowds in China Bird migration: When vagrants become pioneers A red-cockaded woodpecker: Steller’s Sea Eagle making a couple of bald eagles look small: Steller’s sea eagle: A whole lot of birders showed up to see...

Thanks to Joel and Mary for suggesting some really interesting woodpeckers this week! Further watching: Rare woodpecker thought extinct spotted in Ohio The green woodpecker really likes to eat ants [picture by Remyymer – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=65008314]: The white-headed woodpecker looks like its face got splashed with paint: The red-headed woodpecker has the prettiest shade of red [picture by colleen – originally posted to Flickr as Red Headed...

Thanks to Pranav, Isaac, and an anonymous listener for their suggestions this week! Let’s learn about some animals that inspired three Pokemon. Sandshrew: Possible Sandshrew inspirations: Drowzee: Possible Drowzee inspiration: Fennekin: Undoubted Fennekin inspiration: Show transcript: Welcome to Strange Animals Podcast. I’m your host, Kate Shaw. This week we’re going to do something slightly different. At least two people and probably a lot more have suggested that we talk about some ani...

Thanks to Nathan-Andrew for suggesting giant ichthyosaurs! Further reading: Paleontologists unearth what may be the largest known marine reptile Ruby and some other scientists with the ichthyotitan fossils [photos taken from this page]: How the pieces fit together: Show transcript: Welcome to Strange Animals Podcast. I’m your host, Kate Shaw. This week we’re going to learn about some of the biggest animals that have ever swum through the oceans of this planet we call Earth, a suggestion from...

Thanks to Max for suggesting Titanoboa! Further reading: Largest known madtsoiid snake from warm Eocene period of India suggests intercontinental Gondwana dispersal This Nearly 50-Foot Snake Was One of the Largest to Slither on Earth Meet Vasuki indicus, the ‘crocodile’ that was a 50ft snake Titanoboa had really big bones compared to its modern relatives: Vasuki had big bones too: Show transcript: Welcome to Strange Animals Podcast. I’m your host, Kate Shaw. Almost exactly two years ago now,...

Thanks to Khalil for suggesting the horny toad, also called the horned lizard or horned toad! Further reading: The Case of the Lost Lizard The Texas horned lizard: Texas Horned Lizard (Phrynosoma cornutum) The rock horned lizard [photo taken from article linked above]: Show transcript: Welcome to Strange Animals Podcast. I’m your host, Kate Shaw. This week we’re going to learn about a reptile suggested by Khalil, who is Leo’s friend, so a big shout-out to both. Khalil wants to learn about t...

Thanks to Elijah and an anonymous listener for suggesting that we talk about some more species of praying mantis! Further reading: The luring mantid: Protrusible pheromone glands in Stenophylla lobivertex (Mantodea: Acanthopidae) Dragons and unicorns (mantises) spotted in Atlantic forest Citizen scientists help discover new mantis species The dragon mantis [photo from first article linked above]: The possibly new species of unicorn mantis [picture from second article linked above]: Inimia nat...

Thanks to River for suggesting this week’s topic, the pufferfish! Further reading: Grass puffer fish communicate with each other using a non-toxic version of their deadly toxin Mystery pufferfish create elaborate circular nests at mesophotic depths in Australia Pufferfish, puffed: A starry puffer, un-puffed [picture by Diego Delso, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=116912671]: A grass puffer, un-puffed: The mystery structure that turns out to be made by pufferfish...

Thanks to Carson, Mia, Eli, and Pranav for their suggestions this week! Further reading: RNA for the first time recovered from an extinct species Study finds ongoing evolution in Tasmanian Devils’ response to transmissible cancer Tasmanian devil research offers new insights for tackling cancer in humans The Tasmanian devil looks really cute but fights all the time [picture by JJ Harrison (https://www.jjharrison.com.au/) – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0]: The Thylacine could opens its jaws verrrrrrry w...

Thanks to Will and Måns for their suggestions this week! Let’s learn about some mystery bovids, or cows and cow relations! Further reading: A Book of Creatures: Songòmby Kouprey: The Ultimate Mystery Mammal A musk ox (top) and a wild yak (bottom): A young kouprey bull from the 1930s: Sculpture of two grown kouprey bulls [photo by Christian Pirkl – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=73848355]: A banteng bull (with a cow behind him) [photo taken from this s...

Thanks to Ari for suggesting this week’s episode, about the peacock! Further reading: Peacock tail feathers shake at resonance and hold eye-spots still during courtship displays Indian peafowls’ crests are tuned to frequencies also used in social displays An ocellated turkey (not a peacock but related): An Indian peacock male: An Indian peahen with chicks [photo from this site]: Close-up of a male Indian peacock’s crest [photo by Jatin Sindhu – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimed...

Let’s look at some of the most interesting animals discovered last year! Further reading: Newly-discovered ‘margarita snails’ from the Florida Keys are bright lemon-yellow Tiny spirits roam the corals of Japan—two new pygmy squids discovered Strange New Species of Aquifer-Dwelling Catfish Discovered in India Bizarre New Species of Catfish Discovered in South America Unicorn-like blind fish discovered in dark waters deep in Chinese cave New Species of Hornshark Discovered off Australia Cryp...

Sorry to my Patreon subscribers, since this is mostly a rerun episode from April 2019. It’s a fun one, though! The teensy pumpkin toadlet [photo by Diogo B. Provete – http://calphotos.berkeley.edu, CC BY-SA 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6271494]: The electromagnetic spectrum. Look how tiny the visible light spectrum is on this scale! [By NASA – https://science.nasa.gov/ems/, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=97302056]: Show transcript: Welco...

Thanks to Jason for suggesting this week’s topic, the bison! Further reading: New research documents domestic cattle genetics in modern bison herds Higgs Bison: Mysterious Hybrid of Bison and Cattle Hidden in Ice Age Cave Art A cave painting of steppe bison and other animals: An American bison [photo by Kim Acker, taken from this site]: Some European bison [photo by Pryndak Vasyl, taken from this site]: The bison sound in this episode came from this site. Show transcript: Welcome to Strange...

Thanks to Pranav for suggesting this mystery big cat this week, the marozi! Further reading: From Black Lions to Living Sabre-Tooths: My Top Ten Mystery Cats Spotted Lions A young lioness who still has some of her cub spots: Subadult lions who still have a lot of cub spots: The skin of an animal supposedly killed in 1931 and said to be a marozi: Two photos of a “leopon,” a lion-leopard hybrid bred in captivity in a Japanese zoo: Show transcript: Welcome to Strange Animals Podcast. I’m your ...

Thanks to Chuck for suggesting this week’s topic, a weird little deer called the muntjac! Further reading: Dam Project Reveals Secret Sanctuary of Vanishing Deer Wildlife camera trap surveys provide new insights into the occurrence of two threatened Annamite endemics in Viet Nam and Laos Getting ahead (or two?) with Vietnam’s Viking Deer – the Long-Running Saga of a Slow-Running Mystery Beast A giant muntjac [photo by Mark Kostich, taken from article linked above]: A Reeve’s muntjac [photo by ...

Let’s take a look at some new findings about the temnospondyls this week! Further reading: Ancient giant amphibians swam like crocodiles 250 million years ago Fossil of Giant Triassic Amphibian Unearthed in Brazil Kwatisuchus rosai was an early amphibian [picture taken from article linked above]: Koolasuchus was a weird big-headed boi: Show transcript: Welcome to Strange Animals Podcast. I’m your host, Kate Shaw. This week we’re going to revisit an animal we talked about way back in episode ...