Ten Things I Like About... Podcast

Summary: You are what you eat, right? Find out what tuatara eat and how they eat it in the seventh episode of Tuatara. For my hearing impaired followers, a complete transcript of this podcast follows the show notes on Podbean Show Notes: “Tuatara” Royal Ontario Museum, https://collections.rom.on.ca “Microstructure of dental hard tissues and bone in the Tuatara denture, Sphenodon punctatus,” by J.A. Kierser, T. Tkatchenko, M. C. Dean, M. E. H. Jones, and N. J. Nelson. Front Oral Biol. 2009:13:80-85. https://pubme.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19828975 Music written and performed by Katherine Camp Transcript (Piano music plays) Kiersten - This is Ten Things I Like About…a ten minute, ten episode podcast about unknown or misunderstood wildlife. (Piano music stops) Kiersten - Welcome to Ten Things I Like About… This is a podcast about misunderstood or unknown creatures in nature. Some we’ll find right out side our doors and some are continents away but all are fascinating. This podcast will focus ten, ten minute episodes on different animals and their amazing characteristics. Please join me on this extraordinary journey, you won’t regret it. We have made it to the seventh episode of Tuatara and the seventh thing I like about these super cool reptiles is their diet and dentition. We have hinted a bit about what they eat but today we’ll take a closer look at what that is specifically and how their teeth help. Let’s start with food. Tuatara are carnivores. They eat mainly invertebrates like worms and arthropods such as beetles, millipedes, spiders, and weta. Weta are insects native to New Zealand that look similar to crickets but like crickets on steroids. Weta have big bodies, spiny legs, and tusks. They look kind of like a cricket and a warthog had a baby. The majority of the tuatara diet is made up of invertebrates but they will also eat lizards, seabird eggs and chicks, and occasionally they venture in to cannibalism and will eat young tuatara. Because of this, juvenile tuatara are active during the day while adult tuatara are active at night. I mean, really, if your relatives might eat you at night, then who wouldn’t want to avoid them. Humans that live on the islands where tuatara are found always know when they’ve been hunting because they will see headless birds. Definitely not something you want to come across on a relaxing walk in nature. Why is this the indicator of the tuatara? The tooth pattern of the tuatara is unique. Just like almost everything else about them. They have two incisor like teeth in front of their top jaw. And they have three rows of teeth (I was not able to find an actual count but am guessing it’s around 85 teeth). One row of teeth lines the bottom jaw and two rows line the top jaw. The bottom row of teeth fit neatly into the two upper rows of teeth when the jaw is closed. Wait for it, we almost have our answer. The jaw motion of the tuatara is also unique. Instead of an up and down motion, like chewing, they have a forward and backward motion, like sawing. And there it is! This is why the birds that tuatara hunt are missing heads. They saw them off with their unique teeth. Hah! Didn’t see that coming did you? Besides the unique pattern of teeth, the structure of their teeth is also unique. They have acrodont teeth which means they are rootless and attached directly to the bone of the jaw. They kind of emerge from the actual bone. This is unlike any other reptile teeth alive today. The teeth are serrated which helps with the sawing motion. Tuatara cannot replace lost or cracked teeth. Once the tooth is gone, it is gone. As tuatara age their teeth wear down from use. They are eating crunchy invertebrates and bony vertebrates, so they do take a beating. Tuatara can live for up to 100 years, so the older tuatara have to switch their diet to softer prey as their teeth wear down. Now for a long time, we thought they didn’t have real teeth. We thought they were just bony protrusions that stuck out of the jaw, but some researchers in 2009 looked more closely at the teeth. They looked at teeth from a juvenile as well as an adult and found layers of typical tooth material. This was a surprise. Using Scanning Electron Microscopy, which is a sophisticated imaging technique that uses an electron beam to examine the surface of various materials, researchers found evidence of enamel containing dentine tubules, dentine, and cementum. All of these are found in other types of teeth. It’s not just serrated, bony material sticky up in their mouths. They have actually teeth. They are different then your average tooth, but they are teeth none-the-less. These tuatara are just full of surprises! I hope you enjoyed our dental adventure because my seventh favorite thing about the tuatara is what they eat and how they eat it! If you're enjoying this podcast please recommend me to friends and family and take a moment to give me a rating on whatever platform your listening. It will help me reach more listeners and give the

Summary: The term “living fossil” is a bit controversial but does it fit the tuatara? Join Kiersten to find out. For my hearing impaired followers, a complete transcript of this podcast follows the show notes on Podbean Show Notes: “New study shows modern tuatara are little changed from 190 million year old ancestors.” Harvard University Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, March 2022. https://www.oeb.harvard.edu/news Music written and performed by Katherine Camp Transcript (Piano music plays) Kiersten - This is Ten Things I Like About…a ten minute, ten episode podcast about unknown or misunderstood wildlife. (Piano music stops) Kiersten - Welcome to Ten Things I Like About… This is a podcast about misunderstood or unknown creatures in nature. Some we’ll find right out side our doors and some are continents away but all are fascinating. This podcast will focus ten, ten minute episodes on different animals and their amazing characteristics. Please join me on this extraordinary journey, you won’t regret it. The sixth thing I like about the tuatara is how long they have lived. Just like another animal we have talked about, the coelacanth, the tuatara appears in the fossil record from way back in time. The first time we see the tuatara in the fossil record is during the Jurassic period. Now, of course, a certain book and movie series has made this a very popular time in Earth’s history, so you may be familiar with this time period. It is famous for being the age of dinosaurs, at least some of the most popular and recognizable dinosaurs. The term living fossil has been tossed around in reference to the tuatara, as well as the coelacanth, but this term is controversial. It is quite the romantic phrase actually. To think that an animal is so well adapted to the world it lives in that is hasn’t changed since the first time it appeared on this planet is a notion that a lot of us want to believe, but is it true? The first major problem with this concept, is that there is no real definition of what makes an animal or plant a living fossil. Charles Darwin coined the term “living fossil” in 1859. According to Darwin’s definition a living fossil is a species or group of species that is so little changed that it provides an insight into earlier, now extinct, forms of life. A living fossil can also be described as an organism that has remained relatively unchanged over millions of years, or one that has no, or very few, close surviving relatives. It certainly sounds like we have stumbled on another controversy here. In the last episode we answered the question of whether the tuatara is a lizard or not. Spoiler here, listeners, if you haven’t heard the previous episode and you don’t want a spoiler to this question, stop listening now and go back and listen to last week’s episode. With that warning, let’s move on. We have established that tuatara are not lizards, they are reptiles but not lizards for various reasons. Shall we jump into the next controversial question then? Are tuatara living fossils? Let’s look at Darwin’s definition first. How much have tuatara changed since they first appeared in the fossil record? A 2022 study from Harvard University’s Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology may give us some insight. Tuatara are the last remnant of the Rhynchocephalians. These reptiles peaked in abundance in the Jurassic period. Then they disappeared from the fossil record. Two researchers were looking through the archives in the Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology and came across something that had been sitting in the drawers for decades, a tuatara fossil. This fossil was discovered in northern Arizona in the Kayenta Formation of the United States in 1982. Professor Stephanie Pierce and postdoctoral fellow Tiago Simoes jumped into examining this forgotten fossil. They used micro-CT scans to examine the fossil in three dimension. Then they digitally pieced the puzzle together revealing a full unflattened skull. It greatly resembled the modern day tuatara. It had rows of interlocking teeth that extended directly from the bone and it had two holes behind the eyes, just like the modern day tuatara. Pierce and Simoes named the fossil Navajoshenodon sani which means “old age” in the indigenous language of the Navajo. This fossil provides the first nearly complete skull of any fossil sphenodontine in the world. It also places the tuatara in the Late Triassic. They may be older than we thought. So how does this help us determine the answer to the living fossil question? It does give support for both descriptions. The modern day tuatara is similar enough to the fossil that it gives us insight into a long dead relative, and it seems to have changed very little from the long ago fossil of a creature that roamed the planet with dinosaurs. Unlike the coelacanth, which is definitely not a living fossil, maybe the tuatara is a living fossil. It is food for thought and that is one of the reasons I started this

Summary: Is the tuatara a lizard? We have hinted at it for a few episodes. Join Kiersten to find out if the tuatara is or is not a lizard. For my hearing impaired followers, a complete transcript of this podcast follows the show notes on Podbean Show Notes: “It’s not a lizard or a dinosaur: the tuatara is something else entirely,” by Bec Crew. Australian Geographic, https://www.australiangeographic.com.au “New study shows modern tuatara are little changed from 190 million year old ancestors.” Harvard University Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology. https://www.oeb.harvard.edu Parietal Eye, https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/veterinary-science-and-veterinary-medicine/parietal-eye Music written and performed by Katherine Camp Transcript (Piano music plays) Kiersten - This is Ten Things I Like About…a ten minute, ten episode podcast about unknown or misunderstood wildlife. (Piano music stops) Kiersten - Welcome to Ten Things I Like About… This is a podcast about misunderstood or unknown creatures in nature. Some we’ll find right out side our doors and some are continents away but all are fascinating. This podcast will focus ten, ten minute episodes on different animals and their amazing characteristics. Please join me on this extraordinary journey, you won’t regret it. During the last few episodes of tuatara, I have asked the question of whether the tuatara is a lizard or not a lizard. Today we are going to answer that question. The fifth thing I like about the tuatara is the unusual quirks that make them a unique reptile. We have established that the tuatara is in an order of reptiles all by itself, Order Rhynchocephalia. This means that they have no living relatives. That in itself doesn’t mean they are not lizards, it just means they are not related to any living lizards. So let’s look at a few more attributes of the tuatara that will help us answer our question. In the last episode we discussed the third eye, or parietal eye of the tuatara. Now other species of reptiles, mainly lizards, have a third eye as well. Certain iguanas, skinks, and monitors have a parietal eye, but their third eye is primitive and is not visibly seen at any stage of their development. The basics of the eye are there but it is hidden under a scale. The tuatara’s eye is much more developed and is exposed in young hatchlings. For more in depth discussion of the tuatara’s this eye, please listen to the previous episode. There are several things about the tuatara’s skeleton that also sets it apart from lizards. One is the teeth. The tuatara has three rows of teeth. One row in the lower jaw and two in the upper jaw. When the tuatara bits down the lower teeth fit into the groove between the two rows of upper teeth. That is very unusual and as far as we currently know, no other reptile has a tooth formation like this. The teeth are fused to the jaw and have no roots, which is unlike most lizard teeth. Tuatara teeth are not replaced during their lifetime and as they age and their teeth wear down, they have to switch to softer prey. Another strange and interesting thing about the tuatara’s jaw is that when it eats the jaw doesn’t open and close in the typical chewing motion of most animals. It moves forwards and backwards slicing their prey like a saw. Locals of the islands where tuatara live always know when the reptiles have been hunting because they find birds with their heads sawed off. Another unique attribute of the tuatara skull is the complete lower temporal bar that closes the lower temporal fenestra. The temporal fenestra is the opening in the skull behind the eye socket. Most modern lizards do not have a complete temporal bar. Researchers believe the complete bar in the tuatara is used to stabilize the skull during biting. It’s a unique jaw motion and it makes sense that the skull needs a bit more support. As we travel down the skeleton of the tuatara we see some more unique features. The spine is made up of hourglass shaped vertebrae. This shape can be found in fish and amphibians but is unique reptiles to the tuatara. Each vertebrae has a tiny hole through which a rennet of the notochord passes. This was typical in early fossil reptiles but not in modern ones. Could there be more unique features of this amazing reptile? Yes. We are not done with the odd features of the tuatara. Their ribs have some unique features as well. They have extra ribs, or rib-like bones, called gastralia that are not attached to the ribcage. These are also found in a few lizards and crocodiles. The tuatara have unicate processes on the actual ribs that are indicative of birds, and are found in modern bird skeletons, but are found only in the tuatara in the reptilians. The pelvis and shoulder girdles of tuatara are also completely different from lizards. Tuatara have a different rotational angle that allows them to push their body up off of the ground to move, should they choose to, where as lizards have a more sprawling motion when they

Summary: Are tuatara eyes like every other reptile’s eyes? Maybe. Join Kiersten to find out what makes tuatara eye so special. For my hearing impaired followers, a complete transcript of this podcast follows the show notes on Podbean Show Notes: “The lonely eye,” by I R Schwab and G R O’Connor. Br J Ophthalmic. 2025 Mar:89(3):256. Doi:10.1136/bio.2004.059105 “Reptilian Eyes and Orbital Structures,” Jeanette Wyneken. 2012 Proceedings Association of Reptiles and Amphibian Veterinarians. https://cdn.ymaws.com Parietal Eye, https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/veterinary-science-and-veterinary-medicine/parietal-eye Music written and performed by Katherine Camp Transcript (Piano music plays) Kiersten - This is Ten Things I Like About…a ten minute, ten episode podcast about unknown or misunderstood wildlife. (Piano music stops) Kiersten - Welcome to Ten Things I Like About… This is a podcast about misunderstood or unknown creatures in nature. Some we’ll find right out side our doors and some are continents away but all are fascinating. This podcast will focus ten, ten minute episodes on different animals and their amazing characteristics. Please join me on this extraordinary journey, you won’t regret it. As I begin episode four, I want to remind you of the question I posed at the beginning of the third episode. Is the tuatara a lizard or not a lizard? It is definitely lizard like. This episode, episode four, we will be talking about an attribute that might shed some light on the answer to this question. The fourth thing I like about the tuatara is their eyes, all three of them. To start, let’s look at the anatomy of the general reptile eye. Reptilian eyes are similar to other vertebrate eyes in the fact that they are layered, filled with fluid, and have a lens that focuses light on a retina. The structure of the eye includes three chambers. The anterior chamber is the fluid-filled space inside the eye between the iris and the cornea’s innermost surface. The posterior chamber is a small space directly behind the iris, close to the lens, and bordered by the ciliary muscles. The anterior and posterior chambers are filled with aqueous humour. The third chamber is the vitreous chamber located between the lens and the retina and filled with vitreous humour. Tuatara have two lateral eyes, one on each side of the head, that rest in a bony orbit. They are separated by a cartilaginous interorbital septum. A periorbital membrane lines the orbital bones and septum that connects to the orbital membranes and the internal parts of the upper and lower eye lids. Whoa! We got a little scientific for a moment there, but anatomy can do that! These two lateral eyes are placed on the opposites sides of the head so they can have a wide perspective of their environment. Typically we see this eye position in prey animals and not all lizards are prey animals, but many of them are. Tuatara, as full grown adults, don’t have to worry too much about being eaten, but this eye placement is very helpful, none the less. Most diurnal reptiles can see some amount of color, whether they see color the same way other vertebrates see color is still being studied, but the presence of cones is proof that they can see colors. Cones are useful in bright light, so reptiles active during the day will have more cones that those that are crepuscular, active at dawn and dusk, and those that are nocturnal. More rods are present in the eyes of nocturnal animals and these help pick up light and dark shades. Tuatara are active during the day and night, but are most active after dark; therefore, they most likely have more rods than cones. They do have both upper and lower eyelids and are capable of closing their lids. They do not appear to have a nictitating membrane, which is another protective lens that can open and close over they eye, that some other reptiles have. They also have pupils that can contract and expand to allow various levels of light into the eye. When looking at close up photos of the tuatara’s eye the pupil is circular or oval along the vertical horizon. Interestingly, pupil shape in reptile eyes varies with behavior of the animal. Diurnal reptiles tend to have to have round pupils while nocturnal hunters have slits. Reptiles with slit pupils will have a pupil that is perpendicular to their orientation because that offers the best focus. The shape of the pupil has a profound influence on the retinal image because of the way light is allowed into the eye. Who knew the anatomy of the reptilian eye could be so fascinating. Okay, let’s get to that third eye I mentioned. There are actually two orders of reptiles that have a third eye, Order Squamata, which includes lizards and snakes, and Order Rhynchocephlia, which includes only the Tuatara. Lizards and the tuatara are the only reptiles that we know of that have third eyes. The third eye is also called the parietal eye and is found on the dorsal portion of the skull. It is smack dab in the middle of

Summary: Join Kiersten as she takes you on a slow look at tuatara reproduction. For my hearing impaired followers, a complete transcript of this podcast follows the show notes on Podbean Show Notes: “Novel mating behaviors in male tuatara (Sphenodon punctatus) expand our understanding of reptile courtship,” by Sarah K. Lamar, Diane K. Ormsby, and Nicola J. Nelson. Austral Ecology, vol 49, Issue 2. https://doi.org/10.1111/aec13496 “Tuatara.” San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance, https://animals.sandiegozoo.org Music written and performed by Katherine Camp Transcript (Piano music plays) Kiersten - This is Ten Things I Like About…a ten minute, ten episode podcast about unknown or misunderstood wildlife. (Piano music stops) Kiersten - Welcome to Ten Things I Like About… This is a podcast about misunderstood or unknown creatures in nature. Some we’ll find right out side our doors and some are continents away but all are fascinating. This podcast will focus ten, ten minute episodes on different animals and their amazing characteristics. Please join me on this extraordinary journey, you won’t regret it. Welcome back to Ten Things I Like About after a year end break. I hope the new year treats you well and opportunities abound. Let’s get started! We will continue with Tuatara. The third thing I like about tuatara is reproduction. As we travel along with the journey of discovery with tuatara, I want to pose a question to you. Is the tuatara a lizard? Or is it something else? Based on the physical description I outlined in the first episode, they seem to be lizards, if not very lizard like. But I want you to keep this question in the back of your mind as we progress through each new episode. We will revisit this question at the end of this series and see what we all think. Okay, let’s talk about how baby tuatara are made. Tuatara mating and reproduction is not like anything else in the reptile world. Long incubation periods, extensive maturation, and unusual consummation marks the reproductive cycle of the tuatara. It all begins sometime between January and March when males begin showing off to attract a mate. Remember those spines that they have on their neck and back, well they are there for pretties. They can fan out and shake the larger crest of spines in hopes of attracting a lady. For a long time we thought this was all the males did during the breeding season, but a study that looked more closely at males on Takapourewa Island revealed many more tricks they use to catch the ladies eye. Boys will come a courting at a female’s burrow and it can get complicated and lengthy. It might be a good idea that she gets to stay at home once all the excitement begins. First, the male adopts body positions that make him look big, such as inflating the body and gular region (that’s the chin area), elevating his body off the forest floor (the up part of a push-up), and erecting those spines on his neck and back. Next, the male will begin the slow proud walk, also known as stolzer Gang, in a circle around the female. He’ll perform this slow exaggerated walk in concentric circles, pausing occasionally, and decreasing the circle circumference with each pass. If the female is interested, she will leave her burrow entrance, allow the male to paw at her, and then mount her from behind. If there are obstacles in the male’s circular path, they will climb over, or go around. If the obstacle is too big to conquer, they’ll just shorten the circle to a semi-circle. I mean you gotta give them props for not getting distracted from their goal. The proud walk can last up to 44 minutes. A few novel behaviors were observed by researchers studying the Takapourewa population. Mirrored head bobbing between the male and female was observed a few times, something that has not been seen in reptiles before. The male would bob his head a specific number of times and when he paused, the female would bob the small numbers of times. This was a very exciting discovery that will need more research to determine what it means and if it is found in other populations of tuatara, but how very interesting. Vocalizations in tuatara are typically limited to croaks emitted when handled, or during aggressive moments between males, but these researchers encountered several males that purred during the mating process. We aren’t sure what this means or if this is a wide spread behavior but it is another exciting discovery. Once the female has accepted the male and he mounts her from behind, he positions his pelvis so that both of their cloacas come in contact. This is how he spreads his sperm to her. Males do not have special reproductive organs like most other reptiles. So they perform the cloacal kiss to pass their sperm to the female. Male sperm are fast swimmers. They are actually the fastest sperm in the reptile kingdom, moving two to four times faster than any other reptile’s sperm. The female can store the sperm for 10 to 12 months. Before all this happens, the femal

Summary: Where do tuatara live? Can I see one in MY backyard? Join Kiersten to find out if you can see a tuatara in your own backyard. For my hearing impaired followers, a complete transcript of this podcast follows the show notes on Podbean Show Notes: “Distribution of tuatara”, Te Ara: https://teara.govt.nz/en/map “Tuatara” by Marc E. H. Jones and Allison Cree. Current Biology, Vol 22, Issue 23, PR986-R987, Dec 4, 2012. DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2012.10.049, https://www.cell.com/current-biology “Sphenodon punctatus (Tuatara)” Animal Diversity Web: https://www.animaldiversity.org Music written and performed by Katherine Camp Transcript (Piano music plays) Kiersten - This is Ten Things I Like About…a ten minute, ten episode podcast about unknown or misunderstood wildlife. (Piano music stops) Kiersten - Welcome to Ten Things I Like About… I’m Kiersten, your host, and this is a podcast about misunderstood or unknown creatures in nature. Some we’ll find right out side our doors and some are continents away but all are fascinating. This podcast will focus ten, ten minute episodes on different animals and their amazing characteristics. Please join me on this extraordinary journey, you won’t regret it. Last week’s overview of the tuatara probably made you want them in YOUR backyard, but they are only found in a small section of the world. This week we are going to find out where the tuatara live. The second thing I like about the tuatara is where they are found. To see a tuatara in the wild you will have to visit New Zealand. They are found on different islands surrounding the main island of New Zealand as well as on the mainland. Those found on the mainland are there due to a reintroduction program begun in 2005. The islands where you can find tuatara are fairly inaccessible which probably helped save them from extinction. The ones on the mainland were extinct before Europeans ever came to the island. There are about thirty islands surrounding New Zealand where you can find tuatara today. Those island include Poor Knights Island, Hen and Chickens Island, Little Barrier Island, Cuveir Island, Mercury Island, The Alderman Island, Karewa Island, Plate Island, Moutoki Island, Moutohora Island, and Tiritiri Matangi Island. These are all off the northern coast. Sphenodon punctatus occurs naturally on all of these islands except Moutohora and Tiritiri Matangi Islands where the Northern Tuatara were introduced to help increase their population. Tuatara can also be found on Stephens or Takapourewa Island, Trio Island, Titi Island, The Brothers Island, and Matiu or Somes Island. Sphenodon guntheri occurs naturally on The Brothers Island and was introduced to Titi and Matiu Islands to boost their population. Please excuse any mispronunciations. A scientific paper published in December of 2012 states that “there are about 32 natural populations of tuatara living on small offshore islands, a few island reintroductions, and at least one reintroduced mainland colony on the North Island [of New Zealand]. Most of the populations include just tens or hundreds of animals, but there are estimated to be at least 30,000 on Takapourewa Island.” End quote. The habitat that tuatara live in is an odd choice for a reptile as the islands are riddled with cliffs and exposed to strong winds. The vegetation is salt and wind tolerant; therefore, are pretty tough plants. The average temperature is below what the typical reptile can tolerate but tuatara are adapted to survive temperatures as low as 45 degrees Fahrenheit. They spend their days in burrows that are dug by seabirds such as petrels, prions, and shearwaters when they are available or they will dig their own burrows. They also spend time soaking up the sun on the cliffs. Tuatara are more active at night leaving their burrows or basking spots to hunt for food. This episode is a bit shorter than my usual episodes and I do apologize. I will make it up to you in future episodes of the tuatara. Thank you for visiting with me to find out where the tuatara lives. It is my second favorite about this seriously cool animal. As the holiday season is upon us, I will be taking a break until the new year. We will pick up where we left off with the tuatara in January 2026. If you're enjoying this podcast please recommend me to friends and family and take a moment to give me a rating on whatever platform your listening. It will help me reach more listeners and give the animals I talk about an even better chance at change. Join me in January 2026 for another exciting episode about the tuatara. (Piano Music plays) This has been an episode of Ten Things I like About with Kiersten and Company. Original music written and performed by Katherine Camp, my very own piano playing hero.

Summary: Tua-what? Join Kiersten to find out what the tuatara is. For my hearing impaired followers, a complete transcript of this podcast follows the show notes on Podbean Show Notes: “Sphenodon punctatus (Tuatara)” Animal Diversity Web: https://www.animaldiversity.org Music written and performed by Katherine Camp Transcript (Piano music plays) Kiersten - Welcome to Ten Things I Like About… This is a podcast about misunderstood or unknown creatures in nature. Some we’ll find right out side our doors and some are continents away but all are fascinating. My name is Kiersten and I have a Master’s Degree in Animal Behavior and did my thesis on the breeding behavior of the Tri-colored bat. I was a zookeeper for many years and have worked with all sorts of animals from Aba Aba fish to tigers to ravens to domesticated dogs and so many more in between. Many of those years were spent in education programs and the most important lesson I learned was that the more information someone has about a particular animal the less they fear them. The less they fear them the more they crave information about them and before you know it you’ve become an advocate for that misunderstood animal. This podcast will focus ten, ten minute episodes on different animals and their amazing characteristics. Please join me on this extraordinary journey, you won’t regret it. The next unknown animal I have chosen takes us on a journey through ancient times. We haven’t ventured this far back in time since we talked about the coelacanth. Welcome to the first episode of tuatara. The first thing I like about this unknown animal is their continued existence. You may be saying tau-what? Tuatara is our next animal. Let’s jump right into the classification which will answer some of your initial questions. Like what the heck is a tuatara? Remember classification is the way scientists identify different living things including animals and plants so that we all know who exactly we are talking about. The classification of the tuatara is as follows: Kingdom: Animalia (that’s the animals) Phylum: Chordata (chordates) Subphylum Vertebrata (that’s the animals that have an internal skeleton or the vertebrates) Class: Reptilia (that’s the reptiles) Okay! Now we’re getting somewhere. Tuatara must be a reptile! Order: Rhynchocephalia (there is only one reptile in this order) You guessed it! The tuatara. Family: Sphenodontidae Genus: Sphenodon Species: punctatus The scientific name for the tuatara is Sphenodon punctatus. There are two recognized species of tuatara. The Brother’s Island Tuatara is Sphendon guntheri. The first tuatara, Sphenodon punctatus, is referred to as the Northern tuatara. Now, we know this animal is a reptile, but what does it look like? Is it small? Is it large? Is it green, brown, or purple? Tuatara can be green, olive, or brick red in color. Their adult size ranges from 15 inches, or 40 cm, in the female to 24 inches, or 60cm, in the male. Both male and female have two crests of dull-edged spikes that travel down the back of the head to the neck with the second on the middle of the back along the spine. The male’s crests will be larger than the female’s which helps to distinguish the sexes from each other. They have four short legs and a long tail that usually exceeds the length of their body. They look a lot like a lizard, but they aren’t exactly lizards. We will dissect that statement in a future episode. They have no external earhole but they do have ears. They have two eyes that can focus independently and are placed on the sides of the head. They have a variety of scale structures along their body giving them a dinosaur-ish look. There are a few attributes that set tuatara apart from other species of reptiles. One of those is their third eye. Yes, they have a third eye, a parietal eye, right in the middle of the top of their head. It has a retina and is functionally similar to a normal eye. In juveniles it is exposed but as it ages a scale grows over it. We are currently uncertain of its purpose. Another attribute that sets the tuatara apart is their teeth. Tuatara teeth are fused to the jaw bone, unlike any other toothed reptile. This is an acrodont tooth structure. This speaks to the age of this species of reptile. The tuatara is the only living specimen of Rhynchocephalia. All of them, expect the tuatara, went extinct in the late Cretaceous period. We will dive into this topic in a future episode. One last thing about the tuatara before we end the first episode of this new series. One tuatara, many tuatara. When talking about the tuatara, the singular is the same as the plural. Thank you for choosing to start this series with me. We are going to have a fun time with the tuatara. My first favorite thing about them is them! If you're enjoying this podcast please recommend me to friends and family and take a moment to give me a rating on whatever platform your listening. It will help me reach more listeners and give the animals I tal

Summary: Do ants need conservation efforts? Join Kiersten to find out. For my hearing impaired followers, a complete transcript of this podcast follows the show notes on Podbean Show Notes: “Tales from the Ant World” by Edward O. Wilson “Adventures Among Ants” by Mark W. Moffett “Silent Spring” by Rachel Carson Music written and performed by Katherine Camp Transcript (Piano music plays) Kiersten - This is Ten Things I Like About…a ten minute, ten episode podcast about unknown or misunderstood wildlife. (Piano music stops) Kiersten - Welcome to Ten Things I Like About… I’m Kiersten, your host, and this is a podcast about misunderstood or unknown creatures in nature. Some we’ll find right out side our doors and some are continents away but all are fascinating. This podcast will focus ten, ten minute episodes on different animals and their amazing characteristics. Please join me on this extraordinary journey, you won’t regret it. The final episode of ants has arrived. As my loyal listeners know, this episode is typically about conservation and how we can help the animals or plantsman highlighted in this series, but the question I have about ants is whether they need conservation or do we need to conserve other animals and plants against ants. Let’s find out. The tenth thing I like about ants is conservation. The answer to this question may be both. Within our lifetimes it is thought that some species of ants have gone extinct, but not much research has been done on invertebrate extinction. I cannot say why, maybe it doesn’t happen often, maybe invertebrates that were undiscovered are the one that go extinct, or maybe no scientist has taken the time, or had the funding, to research this topic. One species of ant that was thought to be extinct was Myrmecia apicalis, a bull ant found outside of Australia. The only species of bull ant found outside of Australia. Somehow this species was able to cross an ocean and settle in New Caledonia. You probably noticed that I said it was thought to be extinct. Our ant hero Edward O. Wilson was on a trip with other scientists that happened to find a colony of Myrmecia apicalis on an island proving that it had not gone extinct. It was a joyful discovery but not one without concern. The ants had survived when we thought they had succumbed, but other ants, invasive ants had also come to the island and the excitement at finding Myrmecia apicalis was tempered with the knowledge that the invasive fire ant neighbors might wipe them out. As Edward Wilson said in his book Tales from the Ant World, “The dark fate of this exquisite little species is entirely up to humanity. Myrmecia apicalis can be saved, along with other species still unrecognized, only if the little fire ants are halted and pushed back, and if the woodlands where the New Caledonian bull ant and probably other endangered species yet to be identified live are turned into carefully monitored reserves.” End quote. I could not say it any better. On the other side of conservation efforts are invasive species. An invasive species as defined by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Interior is an exotic species that is introduced, non-native or alien and is also harmful in some way to the environment or to humans or both. I definitely think fire ants qualify. Solenopsis invicta, more commonly known as The fire ant, is one of the most successful invasive species of all time. Solenopsis invicta was probably introduced into the United States in the 1930s somewhere in Alabama. They establish themselves quickly and new colonies grow quickly. They can create new queens and more colonies within a year. By the 1940s it was well on its way to dominating the entire southern United States and found its way to Hawaii, Australia, New Zealand, and China. It also spread south onto the islands of the Lesser Antilles. Anywhere fire ants go, destruction follows. They are omnivorous and eat anything and everything that gets in their way. In pineland habitats, imported fire ants attack and consume small mammals and ground nesting birds. In the 1950s the U.S. Department of Agriculture said we must stop this destructive invasive species by any means. They decided to spray pesticides everywhere the ant was found all at one time. That would surely get rid of the problem. But that would also kill every other insect in the vicinity, poison mammals, birds and other vertebrates, pollute water sources, and expose humans to debilitating poisons. If even one fire ant colony survived it was all for not because that colony could start the process all over again within a few years. Thank goodness Rachel Carson and Edward Wilson spoke out against this option and widespread pesticide use was discontinued before more damage could be done. One thing we can thank fire ant for here in the United States is the launching of the new era of environmentalism. A time of more thought and less gut reaction. So how do we combat imported fire ants? One mound at a time. If w

Summary: Ants are such diverse organisms that extremes have evolved. Join Kiersten to learn about some ant extremes. For my hearing impaired followers, a complete transcript of this podcast follows the show notes on Podbean Show Notes: “Tales from the Ant World” by Edward O. Wilson Music written and performed by Katherine Camp Transcript (Piano music plays) Kiersten - This is Ten Things I Like About…a ten minute, ten episode podcast about unknown or misunderstood wildlife. (Piano music stops) Kiersten - Welcome to Ten Things I Like About… I’m Kiersten, your host, and this is a podcast about misunderstood or unknown creatures in nature. Some we’ll find right out side our doors and some are continents away but all are fascinating. This podcast will focus ten, ten minute episodes on different animals and their amazing characteristics. Please join me on this extraordinary journey, you won’t regret it. In this penultimate episode I thought we’d talk about the extremes of ants. The fastest, the slowest, the fiercest, and maybe a few more. The ninth thing I like about ants is the extremes. Edward O. Wilson studied ants for his entire life, give or take a few years when he was still in diapers, and that was 92 years. He discovered species we didn’t know about and described ant behaviors that boggled our human minds. It is no surprise that he included some of the extremes of ant life in his writings. Something I had no idea about when I decided to pick ants as my next topic was that each species of ant has it’s own tempo. Not unlike music, this is the speed at which worker ants get things done. Some colonies are speedy as a tornado and others are as slow as molasses in winter, but they all get the job done. Each tempo fits the niche that a specific species fills in their habitat. Sometimes fast wins the race while other times slow persistence fairs better. The fastest ants on Earth may very well be the workers of the genus Ocymyrmex. There are 34 known species in this genus and are found in most of eastern and southern Africa. Their chosen habitats are hot, hot, and hotter. Ocymyrmex, or swift ants, have streamlined bodies with very long legs attached with thick segments at the base. The mandibles are narrow and fit tightly against the head when folded. Their spiracles, air holes through which they breathe, are large. Ocymyrmex are built to be sprinters. On a trip to Gorongosa National Park in Africa, Edward Wilson came across a colony of Ocymyrmex and wanted to grab a few for the Harvard University Lab. By this time in his career he’d caught a lot of ants, so he was well versed in the best ways to snatch a few specimens. The first obstacle he had to overcome was the extreme heat emanating from the mud flat on which the ants were running. It felt like a stove top, so kneeling down to catch some ants was going to be a challenge, but he was up for it. He positioned himself above the workers, readied his forceps, and caught not one single ant. The workers were just moving too fast. He could barely follow them with his own eyes much less grab them with forceps. A quote from his book Tales from the Ant World, “The ants were moving like a sizzle of water droplets in a frying pan, difficult even for the eye to keep track.” End quote. Those are some fast ants! Ocymyrmex are made for sprinting but another ant, which is a double extremist, is made for marathons. Ants in genus Cataglyphis are long-distance runners and Cataglyphis bicolor is one of the most heat tolerant animals known to western science. These ants live in the Sahara desert and are mainly scavengers. They search for dead insects and other arthropods that have succumbed to the heat of the desert to dismantle and bring back to the nest. Cataglyphis bicolor can withstand temperatures up to 158F, or 70C, but they must keep moving. If they stop, they fry. Talk about a good reason to keep moving. Let’s look at the opposite side of tempo, the slowest ants in the world. Ants in genus Basiceros are as slow as ants can get without dying. These ants are found in Central and South America. They are not well studied and; therefore, poorly understood. The main problem is they are incredibly difficult to find. If you can’t find it, you can’t study it. What we do know is Basiceros ants are medium in size and rely on their camouflage to survive. Their opaque brown color closely matches the fallen leaves and mold in which they live. They do hunt for food and like any other slow moving predator they are ambush predators. They simply wait for prey to come to them, lunge, strike, and seize it. They will stalk prey, as well, just at a very slow pace. If they are discovered by something, or someone, uncovering their hidden pathways under the leaf litter they freeze and will remain still for minutes at a time to protect themselves. Edward O. Wilson says of them, “Their tempo may be as slow as an ant species can employ and still survive.” End quote. The Basiceros ants are also an extre

Summary: We know ants are farmers, but are they also ranchers? Join Kiersten to find out! For my hearing impaired followers, a complete transcript of this podcast follows the show notes on Podbean Show Notes: “Adventures Among Ants” by Mark W. Moffett “Trophobiosis is a tropical rainforest on Borneo: Giant ants Camponotus gigs (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) herd wax cicadas Bythopsyrna circulate (Auchenorrhyncha: Flatidae),” by Martin Pfeiffer and Karl Eduard Linsenmair “Aphid-farming ants,” by Annie B. F. Ivens and Daniel J. C. Kronauer “Ecological consequences of interactions between ants and honeydew-producing insects,” by John D Styrsky and Micky D. Eubanks Music written and performed by Katherine Camp Transcript (Piano music plays) Kiersten - This is Ten Things I Like About…a ten minute, ten episode podcast about unknown or misunderstood wildlife. (Piano music stops) Kiersten - Welcome to Ten Things I Like About… I’m Kiersten, your host, and this is a podcast about misunderstood or unknown creatures in nature. Some we’ll find right out side our doors and some are continents away but all are fascinating. This podcast will focus ten, ten minute episodes on different animals and their amazing characteristics. Please join me on this extraordinary journey, you won’t regret it. Two episodes ago we found out that ants are farmers, at least some species of ants are farmers and they are amazingly well organized and productive farmers. The other side of sustained food production is ranching. Ranching is a form of agriculture focused on raising livestock for various uses. Are ants ranchers? Let’s find out! The eighth thing I like about ants is their ranching activities. For those of you listening in order, last episode we learned about the Weaver ants of Africa that live in trees. They are some of the coolest ants out there with special physical adaptations and behavioral adaptations that help them survive in the tree. One of the activities I didn’t talk about, because I was saving it for this episode, is their ranching. The weaver ants, Oecophylla longinoda, use other insects as a form of food resources. Now they do hunt other insects and tear them apart and eat the bits, but they also corral certain insects and use the honeydew that those insects produce as food. Mealy bugs, plant hoppers, and scale insects are some of the “cattle” that Weaver ants utilize. These insects are all sap-sucking species that tap a plant for it’s sap and drink it. The ants love the honeydew, or doo-doo, that comes out the other end of these insects. Yes, that’s correct, the ants are eating their excrement which is actually more nutritious than nectar. The Weaver ants are protective of their livestock keeping them from harm and moving them to fresher pastures, just like human cowboys. They often build leaf tents over and around their charges keeping them hidden from predators and controlling their movements so they can gather the honeydew for as long as the insect lives. Who knew ants were ranchers? It’s not only Weaver ants that exhibit this behavior. Some species of Formica ants are also ranchers. They will tend similar insects as the Weavers including Mealy bugs, plant hoppers, scale insects as well as whiteflies and aphids. I found several papers talking about the relationship between Formica ants and aphids. They really treat these aphids like humans treat cattle. The ants tend them, watching them to protect them from predators, they will pick them up and remove them from a plant when danger arises (okay humans can’t pick up cattle, but we can escort them to another area when needed), and when the part of the plant that the aphids are eating from begins to run dry the ants will take them to greener pastures. The ants are after the honeydew, of course, the excrement from the aphids, just like the Weaver ants. It is high in concentrated sugars and carbohydrates that keep the ants running. Giant ants, Camponotus gigas, from the tropical forests of Borneo herd wax cicadas. They are incredibly well organized in their herding and perform three behaviors to help gather as much honeydew from these cicadas as possible. Some of the ants are collectors and spend about 80% of their time sitting below the cicadas to collect the honeydew as it comes out. Ants that spend their time collecting often focus on one cicada, returning to the same individual after each collection. There are also secondary gatherers that collect honeydew from the body parts of the primary collectors and receive honeydew via trophallaxis, or passing of regurgitated liquids to another insect. This allows the primary collectors to spend more time collecting directly from the cicadas. The secondary gatherers take the collected food back to the nest. A third worker might sometimes stand in front of the cicada and perform what the researchers called “antennating from ahead”. One or more ants will sit in front of the cicada or next to it and gently tap it with its antenna. At time

Summary: How do colonies of ants live in trees? Find out in this episode about arboreal ants. For my hearing impaired followers, a complete transcript of this podcast follows the show notes on Podbean Show Notes: “Adventures Among Ants” by Mark W. Moffett Music written and performed by Katherine Camp Transcript (Piano music plays) Kiersten - This is Ten Things I Like About…a ten minute, ten episode podcast about unknown or misunderstood wildlife. (Piano music stops) Kiersten - Welcome to Ten Things I Like About… I’m Kiersten, your host, and this is a podcast about misunderstood or unknown creatures in nature. Some we’ll find right out side our doors and some are continents away but all are fascinating. This podcast will focus ten, ten minute episodes on different animals and their amazing characteristics. Please join me on this extraordinary journey, you won’t regret it. We are rounding the bend with the ants series and there is no better way to do that than to take to the sky. The title of this episode is Arboreal Ants. There are ants that live in trees and never touch terrestrial earth their entire lives. You thought the Leafcutter ants were amazing, well hold on to your hat because the seventh thing I like about ants is the colonies that live in the trees. Arboreal ants, which are ants that live in trees, are found on many different continents and there is more than one species, but we are going to focus on one species in particular so we can really see their amazing qualities in detail. We’re spending some time with the Weaver ants of Africa, Oecophylla longinoda. Now living in a tree for an ant is no small feat, so how do they do it? Terrestrial ants dig into the dirt and create many chambered nests. It’s kind of difficult to dig into a tree, so where are arboreal ants living? Weaver ant nests are most common in the outer, uppermost branches of trees where the sun light is bright. Here, the ants will bind adjacent healthy leaves together to create a treetop tent. The size of each nest will vary but is often between the size of baseball or a volleyball. They are as light as an inflated ballon and can withstand wind, rain, and enemy invasions. To begin building a nest, a worker ant will pull the edge of a leaf toward the edge of another leaf. If her bending is successful other workers will come to her aide. Now weaver ants get their name from the next step. To keep the leaves together they employ their larvae. If you’re think, “What?” I hear ya! The larvae are picked up by workers and taken to the edge of the leaf connection. The workers tap the larvae on the leaf to encourage the larvae to release silk. Yes, the larvae of many species of ants create silk. The Weaver ants use this silk to secure the leaves together. The motion of shuttling the larvae back and forth to connect the leaves with the silk is where the weaving comes in. The nests may last for years because when one leaf dies the ants will just weave in another living one. The nests are larger enough to house thousands of ants, but the weaver ants don’t have just one nest in the tree. They travel all over the tree that they call home, so they often build other trees op tents so they can maximize their resources. They don’t stick to one central nest, they have the ability to move around when they need to. One territory can have multiple nests. The queen is often in a nest that is the most centralized to the territory, but her eggs are distributed throughout all the nests. With all of these spread out workers, Weaver ants have to have an excellent communication strategy. And boy, do they! Earlier we learned that pheromones are integral to ant communication. It’s the same with weaver ants, but they have a specialized gland that helps the pheromones that they use to create their paths last longer than terrestrial ants. They have an anal gland that helps them make their poop a bit more than just poop. To keep their pathways from wearing away too quickly, weaver ants use their feces to create longterm smell paths. The droplets of worker excrement hardens into a shellac like substance that can last for months. This form of communication also allows these ants to do something most other ants do not, defend a specific territory. Weaver ants are known to defend their treetop territories from other ants they encounter. With the pheromone lines drawn already it gives them an advantage in skirmishes. Their scent is already laid down. If a weaver ant encounters an enemy worker, she will race back to more familiar territory to recruit help. She does this by mimicking fighting motions and other workers will follow her prepared for battle. So what do weaver ants eat? This species of ant is omnivorous. They eat both meat and veggies. One of the coolest things they target is nectaries created by trees. These are spots on the leaves of trees that seep nectar. This isn’t like the sap that leaks from the tree’s bark, this is like the nectar that a flower produces. W

Summary? Can ants be farmers? Join Kiersten to find out! For my hearing impaired followers, a complete transcript of this podcast follows the show notes on Podbean Show Notes: “Tales from the Ant World” by Edward O. Wilson “Adventures Among Ants” by Mark W. Moffett Music written and performed by Katherine Camp Transcript (Piano music plays) Kiersten - This is Ten Things I Like About…a ten minute, ten episode podcast about unknown or misunderstood wildlife. (Piano music stops) Kiersten - Welcome to Ten Things I Like About… I’m Kiersten, your host, and this is a podcast about misunderstood or unknown creatures in nature. Some we’ll find right out side our doors and some are continents away but all are fascinating. This podcast will focus ten, ten minute episodes on different animals and their amazing characteristics. Please join me on this extraordinary journey, you won’t regret it. Can ants be farmers? In this episode we are going to find out. The sixth thing I like about ants is their farming abilities. You may have heard of leafcutter ants. These are ants that cut leaves and carry them back to their colony. They are often highlighted in nature television programs. It’s mesmerizing and charming watching a line of ants traveling with various sizes of leaf pieces held above their heads. Leafcutters will fall into one of two genera: Acromyrmex and Atta. There are 39 species that we currently know of and they are all found in the New World. Atta are most prevalent in the tropics of South America but there are two species that can be found in North America, one in Texas and Louisiana and one in Arizona. Leafcutter ant nests can extend 7 meters, or 22 feet, into the earth and contain eight thousand chambers. The largest chamber is typically the ant waste chamber which is buried as far down as they can make it. The title of this episode is farmers so how does that relate to our leafcutter ants? Well, leafcutter ants are farmers. I used to think that they cut those little pieces of leaves to eat themselves, but that is not what they are doing. They take the leaves back to their nest where they feed it to fungus. They tend the fungus like farmers and then they eat the fungus, or rather the larvae eat the fungus. So I guess every leaf cutter ant eats the fungus at some point in their life. The adult workers ants eat the sap from the leaf fragments that they cut. This is what energizes them to process the leaves. The leaves have to be mulched first before it is fed to the fungus. The fungus will grow and grow and grow in the leafcutter nest. It will fill up the majority of the chambers with a lightweight spongy structure that kind of looks like a human brain and is called a fungus garden. The ants tend the fungus by adding new leaves to the top and sides while they removed the older bottom portions. It is unusual that ants are completely dependent on vegetation, but leafcutter ants are. The fungus is actually high in protein and that helps the larvae grow big and strong. The largest nest that Mark Moffett ever came across during his studies was in the Kaw Mountains of French Guiana. The above ground soil mounds were chest high and ranged over a 14 meter wide area. It ranged over about 160 square meters in total. If we compared this to a human made structure, it would be bigger than the Empire State Building in New York City. This nest probably housed millions of workers. A nest of this size can require an excavation of 40 tons of soil. It must house the queen, the brood, and the workers but even with millions of ants it’s the fungus gardens that take up most of the real estate. The ant population can weigh up to 15 to 20 kilograms and utilize 280 kilograms of leaves. That’s enough plant matter to blanket a soccer field. Now, this is a lot of living things inside an enclosed space, so it gets hot and humid. To combat increasing heat and humidity which slows down fungal growth, the ants have installed air conditioning ducts. The long tunnels that open above ground are placed strategically around the nest to release humidity and heat. If it get too cold, the tunnels will be closed off. The only reason leafcutter ant nests can support millions of workers is because they are farmers. Just like humans, farming allows the ants to support a larger population by creating their own resources. These ants use incredibly advanced farming techniques. Humans will use various farming equipment to produce large quantities of crops, but for leafcutter ants its all hands on deck. The ants within this species are highly polymorphic, meaning sizes between workers vary greatly depending on your job. The largest soldier ant is 200 times bigger than that of a small worker. These colonies are run like assembly lines of self-directed individuals. Many steps are managed by ants in a variety of sizes. Mid-size workers cut the foliage, carry it into the nest, and deposit it onto the garden surface. Smaller ants with 1.6 millimeter wide heads take

Summary: Let’s talk ant anatomy! Join Kiersten as she discusses basic ant anatomy, as well as a few unbelievable anatomy specializations. For my hearing impaired followers, a complete transcript of this podcast follows the show notes on Podbean Show Notes: “Ant Body Structure” - Harvard Forest: https://harvardforest.fas.harvard.edu “Ant Anatomy” - Ask a Biologist, Arizona State University: https://askabiologost.asu.edu/explore/ant-anatomy “Tales from the Ant World” by Edward O. Wilson “Adventures Among Ants” by Mark W. Moffett Music written and performed by Katherine Camp Transcript (Piano music plays) Kiersten - This is Ten Things I Like About…a ten minute, ten episode podcast about unknown or misunderstood wildlife. (Piano music stops) Kiersten - Welcome to Ten Things I Like About… I’m Kiersten, your host, and this is a podcast about misunderstood or unknown creatures in nature. Some we’ll find right out side our doors and some are continents away but all are fascinating. This podcast will focus ten, ten minute episodes on different animals and their amazing characteristics. Please join me on this extraordinary journey, you won’t regret it. So far we have talked about some extraordinary ant behaviors and we have so much more to explore, but I thought we should look at an individual ant before we move forward. The fifth thing I like about ants is their anatomy. Ants are classified as insects, so they have three body parts: head, thorax and abdomen. They have an exoskeleton made of chitin. Chitin is the second most abundant amino polysaccharide polymer found in nature. It is hard and protects the internal organs of insects and gives their body structure. The head of an ant typically hosts two compound eyes, two antennae, two mandibles and a mouth on the outside while internally it houses the brain. Many species also have ocelli in the middle of the head, as well. The compound eyes contain hundreds of lenses that combine to form a single image. Species that use vision to hunt for prey will have larger compound eyes, while those that rely on other senses will have smaller compound eyes. All species of known ants have antennae, typically two. The antennae will be constantly moving as the ant tastes, touches, and smells everything it comes in contact with. The antennae will bend in the middle like a human elbow allowing maximum flexibility. Mandibles are super important to ants and they will vary by species. Some of them are extremely specialized and we will go through a few of those species in a moment. In general, mandibles are used to grasp anything ants need to pick up or carry. They are also used to bite, crush, cut, dig, fight, and hunt. Just behind the mandibles is the mouth which is used to eat, clean themselves, and groom nestmates. The last item on the head is the ocelli. Ocelli are simple eyes that detect light. Ant head shape will vary greatly between species and that is dependent on what they eat and how they build nests. The second segment is the mesosoma. Now, I just said ants have three segments and the second segment was the thorax, right? I did and this is technically correct, but the last two segments aren’t clearly visible. The mesosoma actually contains the thorax and the front of the abdomen. The mesosoma segment is full of muscles and is where the legs attach to the ant’s body. Ants have six legs. Their legs are made for movement and most ants can run fast when needed. Each leg has four segments and a hooked claw at the end of each leg helps the ant climb and hang onto surfaces. The third segment is the abdomen which is made up of the petiole and the gaster. This is the segment that contains all the important internal organs that keep the ant alive, besides the brain which is located in the head. The heart, the digestive tract, and the chemical weaponry is all found in the gaster. The chemical defense system will vary by species. Ants can have a stinger with which to inject venom into prey or predator or they may have a small opening through which they can spray acid to stun prey or defend themselves. In between the mesosoma and the gaster is the petiole. This structure attaches the mesosoma and the gaster together giving the ant enough flexibility to sting or spray acid in different directions. Some species of ants will have a second attachment segment called the post-petiole. Ant can have separate classes of workers, major and minor workers. They perform different activities. Minors typically take care of the young, clean and build the nest, and gather food. Majors are often soldiers, guarding and defending the colony. Some species will have size differences between these castes and can have modified anatomy to fit their specific jobs. Queen anatomy is slightly different as they are the only ant in the colony making babies. The body will still have three segments, like an other ant as well as all other anatomical parts we have discussed thus far. They will have wings at birth so they ca

Summary: Did you read that title right? Yes, you did. Some ants make slaves of other ants! Join Kiersten to find out how. For my hearing impaired followers, a complete transcript of this podcast follows the show notes on Podbean Show Notes: “Tales from the Ant World” by Edward O. Wilson “Adventures Among Ants” by Mark W. Moffett Music written and performed by Katherine Camp Transcript (Piano music plays) Kiersten - This is Ten Things I Like About…a ten minute, ten episode podcast about unknown or misunderstood wildlife. (Piano music stops) Kiersten - Welcome to Ten Things I Like About… I’m Kiersten, your host, and this is a podcast about misunderstood or unknown creatures in nature. Some we’ll find right out side our doors and some are continents away but all are fascinating. This podcast will focus ten, ten minute episodes on different animals and their amazing characteristics. Please join me on this extraordinary journey, you won’t regret it. In the last episode we talked about communication and how pheromones allow ants to give each other important messages and instructions. This is an amazing adaptation that makes them one if the most efficient organisms on the planet, but it does have a downside. Relying on pheromones as your main source of communication can lead to loop holes that others will take advantage of and by that I mean enslavement. Yep! Some ants enslave other ants. It’s not exactly something I like, but it is incredibly interesting. So, the fourth thing I find interesting about ants is how they use and misuse pheromones to their greatest advantage. We discussed how ants know who is allowed to come in and out of a colony in the last episode. When ants emerge from their pupal stage their body oils absorb the unique smells of their colony. This gives them the key to re-enter their colony when they venture out, and it helps protect the colony from intruders, but it can also be used to enslave them. Let’s find out exactly how this works. The workers of ant species specialized to be slave-makers will raid colonies of other species. Workers from Polyergus lucidus or Formica subintegra will raid the colony of a vulnerable species such as Formica subsericea. When they raid the colony they have one target, the pupae. The adults of the colony being raided certainly put up a fight and ants on both sides of the battle will lose their lives but the raiders will retrieve at least some of the pupae they were after. That pupae is taken back to the raiders colony and settled in with the nursery there. Within a few days or weeks, the raided ants will emerge and soak up the scent of their new colony. They believe this is their home. It’s where they are meant to be. They accept the raiders as their sisters and the raiders accept them as their own. So, the enslavement isn’t like what we think of from the human perspective. It is a bit more like capture and domestication of wild animals. In the north temperate zones of North America, Europe, and Asia ant slavery is common especially in the subfamily Formicinae. Oddly, slavery is known in only temperate areas. Five species of Polyergus ants are known to be slave-makers and these ants range across North America, Europe, Russia, and Japan. All of them enslave ants in the genus Formica. Let’s follow a specific raid detailed by Mark W. Moffett in his book Adventures Among Ants. At Sagehen Creek Field Station in the Sierra Nevada of the United States, Moffett and his graduate student watched a raid between Polyergus breviceps, also known as Amazon ants, and Formica argentea. The Amazons were raiding the Formica colony. They watch as the Amazons forced their way inside the Formica colony and then head out the other side with the pupae of the Formica. They flipped a rock to find out what was going on inside and expected to see a war going on between the raiders and the Formica, but that is not what they saw at all. The only fight they saw was one Formica ant in a tug of war with a n Amazon over a pupa, but all the other Formica were just walking around, business as usual. These species of Formica only fight raiders by putting up blockades of dirt. Once the raiders destroy those blockades and enter the colony, the residents just give up and let the Amazons raid the nursery. Mark and his student followed the Amazons back to their own colony and were amazed at what they saw. The Amazons were greeted by adult Formica slaves that took the pupae that they’d just raided from them and scuttled off with the stolen pupae. Other adult Formica ants exited the Amazon colony and picked-up the raiding party and carried them back into the colony where they would be waited on hand and foot. The majority of the time, the Amazons never did anything for themselves they just laid around maybe grooming one of their sisters as the Formica slaves did everything in the colony. A quote from Moffett’s book explains everything we need to know about the fate of the stolen Formica pupae, “Assimilated

Summary: How do ants organize all those colony residents? Join Kiersten to find out the amazing answer to this question. For my hearing impaired followers, a complete transcript of this podcast follows the show notes on Podbean Show Notes: “Tales from the Ant World” by Edward O. Wilson Music written and performed by Katherine Camp Transcript (Piano music plays) Kiersten - This is Ten Things I Like About…a ten minute, ten episode podcast about unknown or misunderstood wildlife. (Piano music stops) Kiersten - Welcome to Ten Things I Like About… I’m Kiersten, your host, and this is a podcast about misunderstood or unknown creatures in nature. Some we’ll find right out side our doors and some are continents away but all are fascinating. This podcast will focus ten, ten minute episodes on different animals and their amazing characteristics. Please join me on this extraordinary journey, you won’t regret it. I feel like we have already talked about so much cool stuff about ants and we are only on episode three. This is going to be quite an exciting series on ants. The third thing I like about ants is how they communicate. Most of us have probably seen a line of ants moving from one place to another at some point in our lives. We may have stopped to take a look and wonder what they were doing or just walked on by without too much of a second thought. Either way, your brain probably took a moment to puzzle over what they were doing, where they were going, or how they knew where to go. Communication is the key! So, how do ants communicate? Two types of chemical substances lead ants through their lives. Pheromones which are chemical substances passed back and forth between individuals of the same species and allomones which are chemical substance used by other species and used by social invertebrates to hunt prey or avoid being prey. A quote from Edward O. Wilson about ant communication states, “Among all of the organisms that live by smell and taste, ants are the virtuoso of chemical communication.” End quote. Just a heads up, of you haven’t already figured this out, I will be quoting E.O. Wilson a lot in this series, but he’s learned so much about ants and he is always eager to share that I just can’t help myself. Ants have created a unique chemosensory world that no other creature known to humans can surpass. Let’s look first at how those ants traveling in a line know exactly where to go? When an ant colony needs resources they send out scouts to find what they need. When a scout finds what they want, they eat or drink their fill and run back to the nest in as straight a line as possible. The scout always knows where her nest is regardless of how far away they have traveled (we will discuss this in a moment). When she arrives at the nest, the scout will puke all over the floor. No serious, she will gurp up a small portion of what she ingested in front of a few ants and then turn around an head back. Some of her sisters will immediately follow her out. But why? She just came in the house threw up all over the floor and then left! What is going on? When that scout regurgitated the resource she found she created a pheromone that simply stated, “I’ve found what we need! Here it is! Follow my trail to find more!” Who can resist an invitation like that? The original scout laid a scent trail for herself by dragging her stinger along the ground to follow back to the resource and now her fellow workers will also follow that trail to help gather more of what they want. E.O. Wilson encourages you to experiment with some sugar water to see this phenomenon for yourself. You can use a drop of sugar water near a line of ants and watch what happens when they find it! Please use common sense if you choose to do this. Be careful to keep yourself and the ants safe from harm. How do ants identify these chemical signals? Do they have a nose to sniff them out? Sort of. They do not have a nose like a mammal that sticks out on the front of their face. They have antennae. These structures are attached to the heads and protrude out into the environment. The first segment of the antenna is called the scape and it is typically the longest and support the other shorter segments. Collectively this structure is called the funiculus. The funiculus is the “nose” of the ant. It is covered in tiny hairs, knobs, and plates, that detect various chemical substances. The funiculus neurologically transmits the identity and quantity of the substance to the brain. The information transferred to the ant’s brain must be analyzed in a matter of seconds with unerring precision to ensure survival of the individual and, more importantly, the colony. Based on the sensory information received, the ant chooses her actions quickly and decisively relying on instinct and current circumstances. If you watch a line of worker ants traveling out and back to the colony, you won’t notice how they are communicating with each other the entire time because they are doing so wi

Summary: How do ants create new colonies? Join Kiersten to find out the amazing way new ant colonies are born! For my hearing impaired followers, a complete transcript of this podcast follows the show notes on Podbean Show Notes: “Tales from the Ant World” by Edward O. Wilson “Ant Biology” Ants Canada, https://www.antscanada.com Music written and performed by Katherine Camp Transcript (Piano music plays) Kiersten - This is Ten Things I Like About…a ten minute, ten episode podcast about unknown or misunderstood wildlife. (Piano music stops) Kiersten - Welcome to Ten Things I Like About… I’m Kiersten, your host, and this is a podcast about misunderstood or unknown creatures in nature. Some we’ll find right out side our doors and some are continents away but all are fascinating. This podcast will focus ten, ten minute episodes on different animals and their amazing characteristics. Please join me on this extraordinary journey, you won’t regret it. On to episode two of ants, listeners! The second thing I like about ants is the life of a colony. I had no idea how complicated the life a colony was when I started researching this topic. Each species of ant will have specifics that differ based on how they obtain resources and where they choose to live, but the basic structure of the life cycle of a colony is essentially the same for all ants. It all begins with a virgin queen. When a colony reaches a certain size, and that size varies with each species, the current queen will lay an egg, or several, that will develop into a new young queen. She will develop wings, and as soon as she is able, will take flight from the existing colony. Her first flight is also her nuptial flight. She will emerge form the colony structure and alight on a leaf or rock and release a pheromone that says “Hello! Here I am!” And the males will come flying. Typically they want to mate with males of a different colony, but when males are scarce they will mate with males of their own colony. Diverse genetics is not something most insects have to worry about like mammals must. Depending on the species, the queen will mate with one or multiple males. Regardless, the queen will mate only once in her life. Sometimes mating takes place in the air and sometimes it takes place on that leaf or rock. Either way, they will each go their separate ways once the deed is done. The queen will wonder off looking for the perfect place to start her new life while the male, having completed the only thing he was born to do, will die or become food for a predator. Sorry, gentleman. For the new queen, no longer a virgin but with a spermatheca full of sperm (a quick aside: a spermatheca is a pouch in the abdomen where queen ants store the sperm obtained during mating) she follows her instincts to find the best home for her new colony. Based on species it could be a rotten log, a perfect dirt mound, a tree branch, or any number of other places. If she survives the nuptial flight, and that is a big IF, and she finds the perfect colony-building site, another big IF, she will break off her wings and settle in to begin pumping out eggs. It can take a queen anywhere from 24 hours to a week to lay eggs. The first eggs laid will be the first workers in the colony, so…they will be female. That’s right! It’s a woman’s world in the ant universe. Disney Pixar’s A Bug’s Life is wrong, it would have been a female ant that saved the day while the males just laid around doing nothing! All working ants in a colony are female. And here comes the harsh truth about the males: According to E. O. Wilson, one of the foremost authorities on ants in the world, quote “Adult males, with the exception of competing for access to virgin queens, and the food and grooming they receive from their sister workers, are pathetic creatures.” End quote. Males have small brains and big genitalia. They are only necessary during the nuptial flight and mating success is not guaranteed, only death is guaranteed. Once again, gentleman, I’m sorry, but it is a pampered life of eating and eating until it’s time to go have some intimate time with a queen, so maybe it’s not so bad, even if it is a short, short existence. Let’s say our queen has been successful and she is on her way to creating her colony. Eggs have been laid, once they hatch she will clean and feed them as larva until they become pupa and then turn into adult ants. These ants will be workers, probably a combination of some minors, that will stay in the nest to care for the queen and more eggs, and some majors that will exit the colony in search of food and water. Once we are at this stage, the queen just keeps going. She will lay the eggs and the worker ants will keep the colony running. The various tasks performed by the worker ants varies by species, but you will typically have indoor and outdoor workers. In some species age determines your job. Young, new workers remain in the colony taking care of the queen and the eggs, larvae, and pupae, w

Summary: Ants are some of the most misunderstood animals on Earth. Join Kiersten as she begins a new series about these fascinating insects. For my hearing impaired followers, a complete transcript of this podcast follows the show notes on Podbean Show Notes: “Tales from the Ant World” by Edward O. Wilson “Adventures Among Ants,” by Mark W. Moffett “In Search of Ant Ancestors,” by Ted R. Schultz, Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2000 Dec 5;97(26):14028–14029. doi: 10.1073/pnas.011513798 “The abundance, biomass, and distribution of ants on Earth,” by Patrick Schultheiss, Sabine S Nooten, Runxi Wang, and Benoit Gurnard. PNAS, 119 (40) e2201550119, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2201550119 Music written and performed by Katherine Camp Transcript (Piano music plays) Kiersten - Welcome to Ten Things I Like About… This is a podcast about misunderstood or unknown creatures in nature. Some we’ll find right out side our doors and some are continents away but all are fascinating. My name is Kiersten and I have a Master’s Degree in Animal Behavior and did my thesis on the breeding behavior of the Tri-colored bat. I was a zookeeper for many years and have worked with all sorts of animals from Aba Aba fish to tigers to ravens to domesticated dogs and so many more in between. Many of those years were spent in education programs and the most important lesson I learned was that the more information someone has about a particular animal the less they fear them. The less they fear them the more they crave information about them and before you know it you’ve become an advocate for that misunderstood animal. This podcast will focus ten, ten minute episodes on different animals and their amazing characteristics. Please join me on this extraordinary journey, you won’t regret it. This is the beginning of a new series about a misunderstood animal that every one of us has encountered. Ants. Ants are one of the most misunderstood animals on the planet but they are so fascinating and very successful. In this series we are going to find out what makes them tick. The first thing I like about ants is their origins. As I begin this series I actually have a red, angry fire ant bite on my thumb. The irony is not lost on me that I am about to embark on a ten episode series dedicated to lauding the amazing attributes of ants to lure you into loving them while I have an itchy, painful welt from an ant bite on my thumb. These animals are truly fascinating so I bet I can get you to fall in love with them despite the nasty bites we’ve probably all experienced. Let’s get started from the beginning shall we? The classification of ants is as follows: Kingdom Animalia (Animals) Phylum Arthropoda (Arthropods): invertebrate animals that have a segmented body and jointed appendages Subphylum Hexapoda (Hexapods): a six-legged arthropod Class Insecta (Insects) Order Hymenoptera (Ants, Bees, Wasps and Sawflies) Superfamily Formicoidea (Ants) Family Formicidae (Ants) The scientific names will vary based on species. When did ants first appear on the planet? They have been on the planet between 100 -150 million years ago. The specific timing has been hotly debated for many years until and amber sample was found by some rock hounds in 1966. This sample was discovered in Cliffwood Beach, New Jersey in the United States. It seemed an unlikely place to find what scientists needed to determine the origins of ants and it took twenty more years after the initial discovery to clarify whether this sample was of an ant or not. In 1986, it was confirmed to be the amber fossil of an ant solidifying the origins of ants in the mid-Cretaceous period, 90-94 million years ago. By the mid-Eocene period, approximately 50 million years ago, ants had achieved their current level of abundance. How many ants are on the planet today? In the summer of 2018, Edward O. Wilson, one of, if not the, foremost experts in the study of ants said in his book, Tales from the Ant World, that there are 15,438 species of ants in the world that have been recognized and given a Latinized name. Edward O. Wilson described 450 of known species of ants so I think we can take his word for when he says he’s fairly certain there are approximately 25,000 species in existence today. A study published in 2022, says 15,700 species of ants have been identified. The numbers do see to be going up! The ant taxonomists working at Harvard University which has the world’s largest collection of ants believe the figure to be between 25,000 to 30,000 different species of ants. To sum it up, there are a lot of ant species out there! Ants actually make up two-thirds of all insect life on Earth. We don’t know have many individual ants are walking around on the Earth at this very moment, but it is in the billions possibly trillions. They are found on every single continent except Antarctica, but as soon as they figure out how to live in snow and ice, they’ll be there too. They inhabit every habitat the planet has to offer from fore

Summary: What does conservation look like for the Aba aba? Join Kiersten to find out! For my hearing impaired followers, a complete transcript of this podcast follows the show notes on Podbean Show Notes: Music written and performed by Katherine Camp Transcript (Piano music plays) Kiersten - This is Ten Things I Like About…a ten minute, ten episode podcast about unknown or misunderstood wildlife. (Piano music stops) Kiersten - Welcome to Ten Things I Like About… I’m Kiersten, your host, and this is a podcast about misunderstood or unknown creatures in nature. Some we’ll find right out side our doors and some are continents away but all are fascinating. This podcast will focus ten, ten minute episodes on different animals and their amazing characteristics. Please join me on this extraordinary journey, you won’t regret it. We have made it to our tenth and final episode of Aba aba. I hope you have enjoyed our journey with Gymnarchus niloticus, come on you have to admit, it is fun to say that, because I have had a blast talking about this amazing fish. The tenth thing I like about this unbelievably cool fish is conservation. As any of my longtime listeners know, I typically use the last episode to talk about the conservation status of the current animal or plant that we are discussing. This is the whole reason I started this podcast in the first place, to bring awareness to the animals and plants with whom we share this planet. We have to learn to live together if we are going to be good stewards of this amazing planet. Before we can learn to live together, we have to know what’s out there that is worth fighting for, and all the animals and plants I talk about are worth fighting for. Let’s talk about what conservation looks like for the Aba aba. When we look at the IUCN Red List, the International Union for Conservation of Nature, Gymnarchus niloticus is listed as Least Concern. This means that no conservation efforts need be taken at this time. The last time that the overall population of the Aba aba was assessed was in 2019, so this information needs some updating. The North African population was last assessed in 2007 and is also listed as Least Concern, but once again we need updated information for this population. The Western African population was last assessed in 2006 and is currently listed as Least Concern. The Eastern African population was last assessed in 2003 and is listed as Vulnerable. Vulnerable means that adult population numbers are decreasing. Overall and in the Western and Northern populations the population trends are unknown, so the Least Concern classification may be incorrect. What’s interesting is that the Eastern population that is labeled Vulnerable also has no population trend data. What does this mean? It means we really don’t know how many aba aba are out there and if they are holding their own as our plants changes. The IUCN does list the threats to the Aba aba and those include dams, water pollution related to the military and agricultural industry, logging and wood harvesting destruction of habitat, and overfishing. Natural climate impacts are droughts. The Aba aba relies on the seasonal flooding of rivers for breeding season. The overfishing impacts the Eastern population because the local humans use Aba aba as a food source in this region. Currently there are no conservation plans being implemented in any regions of residence, with the exception of small grassroots campaign in the Eastern population region informing local fishers about the risks of overfishing the Aba aba. Another threat to the wild population of the Aba aba in collection for the aquarium industry. Gymnarchs niloticus is a fascinating fish that many people fall in love with when they see them in a zoo or aquarium or learn about them from educational resources like this podcast. It’s great to develop an appreciation for nature after learning about a specific specie, but letting that appreciation grow into a need to possess that species can be disastrous. As I talked about in the last episode, Aba abas are not suitable for the home aquarium, but the market still exists. Some people think they can make it work even if they don’t have the correct size tank, or offer the type of food they need, or realize how dangerous Aba abas can be. They purchase a fish. And when it dies, they purchase another and so on and so on. Most of the time the Aba abas collected are so small and fragile that they are bound to die in transport or in the home aquarium. Collectors will come back for more and they aren’t just taking a few out of each nest they come across, they are taking all the babies and may even kill the adults to sell for food. There is some discussion about how to create an aquaculture program with Aba aba in response to the use of Aba abas as food. Whether this would work or not is yet to be seen since no one has tried to raise Aba abas in a captive situation. One study implied that using Tilapia and Aba aba in a dua

Summary: Do Aba abas make good pets? The short answer is no, but join Kiersten as she discusses why this animal should not be on your next pet list. For my hearing impaired followers, a complete transcript of this podcast follows the show notes on Podbean Show Notes: Seriously Fish: https://www.seriouslyfish.com Music written and performed by Katherine Camp Transcript (Piano music plays) Kiersten - This is Ten Things I Like About…a ten minute, ten episode podcast about unknown or misunderstood wildlife. (Piano music stops) Kiersten - Welcome to Ten Things I Like About… I’m Kiersten, your host, and this is a podcast about misunderstood or unknown creatures in nature. Some we’ll find right out side our doors and some are continents away but all are fascinating. This podcast will focus ten, ten minute episodes on different animals and their amazing characteristics. Please join me on this extraordinary journey, you won’t regret it. We’ve reached the second to last episode of Aba aba and I find myself in a quandary. This isn’t something I like about the Aba aba but it is a topic I think we need to address, so the ninth thing I would like to talk about the Aba aba is the possibility of having it as a pet. Whenever I start a new series for this podcast, I typically know at least a little about the animal. Even if I know a lot, like about bats, I always do extra research to make sure I offer you the best and most up to date information, I can. When I picked the Aba aba, it was one of the animals I thought of first when I decided to make this podcast, I did my extra research. I have personal experience with this animal, as I have mentioned, so I knew quite a bit about its behavior, diet, and life cycle, but you can always learn more, right? As I started researching for Aba aba I did find scientific research papers but the majority of information I found about this fish came from home aquarium sites. This surprised me because this fish gets big, really big and isn’t fit for the home aquarium. At the zoo we had a 250 gallon tank with multiple canister filters attached and our Aba aba wasn’t anywhere near full grown. Our aquarium was only a temporary home for him while the aquatic area of the zoo was under renovation. The 250 gallons tank would not be able to host him as he got bigger. Many of you may have had, or currently have, fish aquariums in your home. I have had some as well, both freshwater fish and saltwater fish. The largest we had was a fifty gallon saltwater tank, and I thought that was enormous for a home aquarium. So when I saw aquarium hobbyist websites talking about the Aba aba I was a little wary. The Aba aba is a terrible choice for a pet. Beyond the large tank, and when I saw large tank I mean a 2000 gallon tank to house a full grown Aba aba, and extensive filtration set up you need to provide a clean environment for a fish of this size, you have to provide large food items, not just fish flakes for the Aba aba. Food such as silverside fish and freshwater shrimp. Aba abas are also a dangerous pet to have in your home. Their feeding behavior is intentionally brutal, as a predator you don’t want your prey to get away. Once a fish is sucked into the Aba aba’s mouth, they most likely won’t get out again. If that happens to be a human finger, you’ll be one short for the rest of your life. I truly enjoyed taking care of our Aba aba at the zoo, and I can see what might attract a person to this amazing animal. They are mesmerizing to watch. The constant rippling of the fin is captivating. Watching them rearrange the aquarium furniture is a delight. Offering them various enrichment items and seeing them interact with each one figuring out the puzzle of the new item is rewarding. I personally think they have cute faces, but you have to remember this is a wild animal and they are not like your typical fish you buy at the pet store. This is a predator, a problem solving predator. And you just brought it into your home. You cannot house it with other fish, as the Aba aba will most likely eat anything you put in with it, so you will have a tank with only one fish. That isn’t typical what most home aquarists want. The Aba aba in unsuitable for a community tank. That includes keeping it with other Aba abas as they are solitary species in the wild with the exception of breeding season when they briefly tolerate each other's company to fertilize eggs and deposit them in a nest. I finally looked at what one of the hobby sites had to say about the Aba aba as a home aquarium fish, I was pleasantly surprised. This is what the Seriously Fish site had to say about Gymnarchus niloticus, quote “…the species is simply not suited to the home aquarium in any respect. If you see these for sale, and they are undoubtedly amazing looking fish, ask yourself if you have the money, facilities, and knowledge to house a species that can grow to 5 1/2 feet in length and could remove your hand as an adult.” End Quote. I can’t agree with th

Summary: Have Aba aba impacted human culture in the areas they are found? Join Kiersten to find out! For my hearing impaired followers, a complete transcript of this podcast follows the show notes on Podbean Show Notes: “Some Ecological Factors of the Tropical Floodplain Influencing the Breeding and Conservation of Gymnarchus niloticus (Cuvier 1829): A Review,” by Oladosu O. O., Oladosu G. A., and Hart A. L. https://core.ac.uk/downloads/pdf/158459099.pdf “Gross Anatomy and Histological Features of Gymnarchus niloticus (Cover, 1829) from the River Niger at Agenebode in Edo State, Nigeria,” by M. O. Agbugui, F. E. Abhulimen, and H. O. Egbo. International Journal of Zoology, Volume 2012, Issue 1, June 19, 2021. https://doi.org/10.1155/2021/3151609 “Morphology of Aba Knife Fish (Gymnarchus niloticus) (Cuvier, 1829)”, by S.O. Ayoola and C. E. Abotti. World Journal of Fish and Marine Sciences 2 (5): 354-356, 2010. Music written and performed by Katherine Camp Transcript (Piano music plays) Kiersten - This is Ten Things I Like About…a ten minute, ten episode podcast about unknown or misunderstood wildlife. (Piano music stops) Kiersten - Welcome to Ten Things I Like About… I’m Kiersten, your host, and this is a podcast about misunderstood or unknown creatures in nature. Some we’ll find right out side our doors and some are continents away but all are fascinating. This podcast will focus ten, ten minute episodes on different animals and their amazing characteristics. Please join me on this extraordinary journey, you won’t regret it. Through the last few episodes I think I have painted a pretty good picture of the Aba aba’s anatomy and natural history. I have fascinated you with the amazing way they hunt and today, I thought we’d investigate how this fish impacts human culture. The eighth thing I like about the Aba aba is how much humans value this fish. Animals of all kinds impact other animals that reside in their habitats. Aba abas are no exception to this and they have become important in many indigenous human cultures that live where these fish are found. The first thing you may think of when speaking about how fish impact people is as food. And no doubt, we, as do many other animals, eat fish. Aba abas are highly prized as a food fish. They can grow quite large, creating a lot of meat. A five foot long fish means a bunch a meat. They are an oily fish, but several sources say they are tasty. Smoking them seems to be delightful way to eat them. In West Africa they are also eaten raw. Some cultures also gift them, alive or dead is not entirely clear, my guess is probably both. Suitors will gift them to a bride’s family symbolizing respect and goodwill. Nothing like a long, electrical fish to start off a relationship right! Certain cultures, such as the Yoruba of West Africa, will also present them to community leaders as a sign of respect during community celebrations. The introductory paragraph of the scientific paper “Gross Anatomy and Histological Features of Gymnarchus niloticus from the River Niger at Agenebode in Edo State, Nigeria,” states: Gymnarchus niloticus commonly known as the Nile knife fish, trunk fish, or aba is one of the most valued fishes along the River Niger by the inhabitants of Agenebode and Idah. The trunk fish is highly valued for its good taste, rich nutrients, though oily flesh, ability to grow as large as 25kg, highly valued in customary rites for marriage and community celebrations. End quote. In Yoruba it is known as Eja Osan while in Hausa it is known as Dansarki which means son of a king. These names are a sign of respect for this amazing fish. (Do please forgive me if I mispronounced any words.) Since Gymnarchus niloticus is such a large fish and edible, a lot of research is going into whether it would be a good candidate for an aquaculture fish. Is raising them in a farming situation beneficial for protein production and economically sound? The answer is not yet decided but it would be extremely difficult to do in an aquarium situation since the fish get so big and they are aggressive to other animals. Someone did discover that polyculturing Aba aba with Tilapia might be possible. They can be kept together in the same space, feeding the tilapia food and then letting the Aba aba eat the tilapia fry. Tilapia grow quickly and create a lot of fry. The Aba aba can eat the tilapia fry but not all of them. Then both species can be harvested. Whether this is possible long term allowing Aba aba to reproduce is unknown, as they are a solitary species, it may not be functional. It is worthwhile investigating though. Current fishing practices of Aba aba often includes killing the adult and harvesting the young from the nest. This is an unsustainable fishing practices and to help this fish and humans weather the future of changing climate, we will need to work together. Some researchers believe that the Aba aba is a good candidate for an aquaculture food fish. It grows quickly and is a hefty f