The Animal Turn
Animals are increasingly at the forefront of research questions – Not as shadows to human stories, or as beings we want to understand biologically, or for purely our benefit – but as beings who have histories, stories, and geographies of their own. Each season is set around themes with each episode unpacking a particular animal turn concept and its significance therein. Join Claudia Hirtenfelder as she delves into some of the most important ideas emerging out of this recent turn in scholarship, thinking, and being.
The Animal Turn
S4E9: Time in the field with Denise Herzing
Claudia talks to Denise Herzing about her decades of fieldwork with Atlantic Spotted Dolphins in the Bahamas. They touch on some of what she has learnt about dolphins in the wild and the ways in which they communicate using sound. They also talk about the significance and challenges of doing extended field studies.
Date Recorded: 23 March 2022
Denise Herzing is the Founder and Research Director of the Wild Dolphin Project. Denise has spent decades working with Atlantic spotted dolphins in Bahamian waters. She has a B.S. in Marine Zoology, an M.A. in Behavioral Biology and a Ph.D. in Behavioral Biology/Environmental Studies. Denise is an Affiliate Assistant Professor in Biological Sciences at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, Florida. In addition to becoming a Guggenheim Fellow in 2008, Denise is a fellow with the Explorers Club, a scientific advisor for the Lifeboat Foundation and the American Cetacean Society, and on the board of Schoolyard Films. Over and above her numerous academic articles, Denise is the author of Dolphin Diaries: My 25 years with Spotted Dolphins in the Bahamas and The Wild Dolphin Project as well as the co-editor of Dolphin Communication and Cognition. You can learn more about Denise and her on the Wild Dolphin Project Website.
Claudia (Towne) Hirtenfelder is the founder and host of The Animal Turn. She is a PhD Candidate in Geography and Planning at Queen’s University and is currently undertaking her own research project looking at the geographical and historical relationships between animals (specifically cows) and cities. She was recently awarded the AASA Award for Popular Communication for her work on the podcast. Contact Claudia via email (info@theanimalturnpodcast.com)
A.P.P.L.EAnimals in Politics, Law, and Ethics researches how we live in interspecies societies and polities.
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SPEAKER_03:So, yeah, I mean, there's nothing that replaces fieldwork. I don't care how much theory you have. You know, you want to get the data and follow the data and then design some theories and ask more questions and collect maybe other kinds of information, but there's nothing that replaces spending time with animals in the wild. You know, nothing.
SPEAKER_00:Welcome back to the Animal Turn, everyone. This is season four, where we're focused in on animals and sound. And in today's episode, I'm going to be speaking to Dr. Denise Hertzing about time, and more specifically about how she's come to know dolphins with her decades and decades of experiences hanging up with the same pod in the Bahamas. Dr. Denise Hertzing is the founder and research director of the Wild Dolphin Project, which focuses in on Atlantic spotted dolphins. She received a BS in marine zoology and MA in behavioral biology, as well as a PhD in behavioral biology and environmental studies. Denise is an affiliate associate professor in biological sciences at the Florida Atlantic University. And among the many awards and fellowships she's had in 2008, she was a Guggenheim Fellow, as well as a fellow with the Explorers Club. She has published widely in many scientific articles, and she is also the co-editor of a book called Dolphin Communication and Cognition, as well as the author of Dolphin Diaries, My 25 Years with Spots and Dolphins in the Bahamas and the Wild Dolphin Project. Her work has been covered widely in a variety of public media platforms, including on National Geographic, BBC Wildlife, Ocean Realm, and Sonar magazines. You can also find her on a TED Talk, which is one of the first introductions I had to Denise and her work. And when I reached out to her to say hi, do you want to speak about dolphins? Because I think dolphins are pretty remarkable when it comes to sound. And after having listened to Hannah's Animal Highlight, I realized just how little about dolphins I actually knew or understood. So I thought, why not speak to someone who's hung out with some dolphins for such a long period of time? So Denise and I speak a fair deal about time and about getting to know dolphins and some of the ways in which dolphins communicate. I think you'll hear throughout the episode though that Denise and I also approach and think about time in kind of different ways. Coming from the social sciences, I think I sometimes get a bit more uh theoretical and I try to think about like the feelings of spending time with beings. Whereas Denise is pretty uh pretty good, I think, in some ways, at saying, like, this is what we know and this is what we don't know, and this is how much time it took for us to even get to know the little bits that we do know. So it was a really fascinating conversation, uh, and I think it kind of shines a bit of light on how important it is to spend time with animals, getting to know them, uh, but also how institutionally difficult it can be to kind of find the funding and the means and the mechanisms to do that. But it was a good interview, and I had a really good time talking to Denise, and I hope you enjoyed listening to the show. Hi Denise, welcome to the Animal Time Podcast.
SPEAKER_03:Happy to be here.
SPEAKER_00:Really looking forward to talking to you today, and I'm happy it all worked out. Uh, we had a couple of emails going back and forth. And uh in one of the animal highlights in an earlier episode, one uh Hannah Hunter, who does the animal highlights, she spoke a little bit about dolphins and dolphin sound. And I realized how little I know about dolphins. They're kind of everywhere, but I don't know anything. And I saw your TED talk, and then I was like, whoa, there's this, all this stuff going on with dolphins, and you've spent so much time with dolphins. So I thought it would be really great to kind of just speak to you a bit today about the significance of time in getting to know another species and getting to think about another species. Um, so this season, uh, as you know, is focused on animals and sound. So I'm hoping that today we'll kind of have the opportunity to speak about how important time is in getting to understand uh that. But before we get into the concept itself, uh perhaps you could tell us a little bit about the work you've done and how you came to be interested in doing it.
SPEAKER_03:Sure. Well, I was, I guess, kind of a nerdy teenager, and I just always was curious about animal minds and what they were thinking. And at the about the same time, Jacques Cousteau came on the TV screen. So he was showing us the underwater world, which I thought was pretty nice. And Jane Goodall was out studying chimps, and I just thought, wow, has anybody kind of planted themselves in a group of dolphins for 20 years and tried to see what they were doing and what they were about? So I just took the marine biology route, went to school, went to graduate school. And after I had studied uh dolphins in captivity, actually, for my graduate work, I decided I wanted to be out in the wild, somewhere looking underwater if possible. And I found the Bahamas as a place where there was an interesting group of spotted dolphins that seemed to be somewhat tolerant of people. So I got out there through various uh means and thought, okay, this is the place. I'm gonna try to find a way to plant myself out there for a few decades. Now it's like almost four decades, but um yeah, it just, you know, it's so good. You just kind of keep going, right? So uh so I really wanted to not just look at dolphins from the surface of the water, which many researchers do just because you can't see underwater in a lot of places, right? So I just wanted to correlate sound and behavior and try to decode it as much as possible, knowing the players and the society and their regular behavior. So that's what we've been doing for 37 years now is uh tracking the animals. It's the same group, they're resident, um, pretty much resident in this in one area. So we know their grandmothers and the grandkids and you know who's related to who, and we do some genetic work to help us with that as well. So, yeah, so it's just adding to the database of what we know about wild dolphins.
SPEAKER_00:Incredible. And were you always interested in dolphins before, or like you just saw it was just a matter of all the right things coming together at the right time, and you were like, Whoa, okay, dolphins is where I'm gonna go and what I'm gonna focus on. Um, or did you always have kind of an affinity towards dolphins?
SPEAKER_03:Well, I grew up in a landlocked area, so I hadn't even seen a dolphin, but I saw their pictures, uh, whales and dolphins, and I just thought, here's a real social mammal in the water. So they must have some similarities to primates and elephants, you know, creatures that had been studied. And I thought, yeah, I mean, it's harder. Gosh, you're in the water. It's not our realm, right? Even if you have a scuba tank. So um, I just thought they were kind of not studied enough and that we could learn a lot by trying to watch them underwater.
SPEAKER_00:Fascinating. And and in terms of sound, did you always think sound was a good way in to doing this kind of long-term field study? Or uh, you know, why not just observations? Why, why focus on sound in in kind of trying to get to know these dolphins?
SPEAKER_03:Well, the underwater world is good for sound. And we knew dolphins made complex sounds. You know, that's been known since the 50s and 60s. Yeah, so I started right off correlating sound and behavior because I figured that's probably where we were going to find, if anything, uh some interesting patterns and perhaps language-like uh structures if we're lucky. So, yeah, of course, very important.
SPEAKER_00:So now you say you've been there 37 years with but the same, so you say it's the same, is it the same pod of dolphins? So we're talking now about the same just group of dolphins, and you said you know grandmothers and granddaughters, which is just remarkable. Do family members seem to like each other?
SPEAKER_03:Do granddaughters seem to like I haven't asked them, I'm not sure about that one. Yeah, I mean they have strong bonds, but you know, they have individual personalities. So sometimes they're a little feisty dolphins who might not get along with the group as well as some others, but they're all necessary, right, for the survival of the group in some ways. Um, yeah, they're they're a resident group. Um, at least they were for about 30 years, and then part of them move to another group because of some climate change issues. That's a whole other story. So now we study a second group of dolphins that are resident in a different area that our older dolphins move to. So it's a little complicated, but it's kind of a natural experiment. Okay, so how does a uh a bunch of immigrant dolphins, you know, adapt to a place where there's already dolphins, but they have to go there to feed? So, you know, the story goes on and on and on.
SPEAKER_00:And when you were a graduate student, kind of starting to get interested in this, what was like how did you how did you start to navigate that? How did you get to the Bahamas? Did you have a supervisor or people that were able to kind of prop you up and support you in this? Or did you find it to be a difficult realm to break into?
SPEAKER_03:Well, I was actually doing uh graduate work at a marine park in the San Francisco Bay Area, and I was studying sound and behavior in a tank, but I was just like rather disgusted. I was like, I'm never gonna learn about really how they use their sounds. I mean, you can learn a certain amount, but it's pretty limited because they're not foraging and you know, traveling and all that stuff. Yeah, no, actually, I saw a film of these dolphins on TV made by Hardy Jones, who's a filmmaker, and I knew him from some whale work I had done in that area. And I called him up and I said, Hardy, I mean, can I look at some of your outtakes? Can I, because I'm looking for a place to do research long term. And then by luck, uh there was a group called the Oceanic Society Expeditions who was doing ecotourism. They had just started going out to this area. So I jumped on board as their naturalist to just check it out. And the rest is really history, you know. So I once I saw it, I was uh pretty, pretty sure I would stay there.
SPEAKER_00:Just goes to show how important it is to just kind of reach out to someone. If you've got an idea and you have a network to just say, hi, I have an idea. Let's uh let's see what we can make possible, which is really um important. Now you've spoken a couple of times here that you you engaged with dolphins who were in captivity and then decided to go and look at dolphins in the wild because of the types of behavior that they were doing, and that that was somewhat different. Did you have to uh do any sort of like, I don't know, ethics review or thinking about how you interact with dolphins in these different spaces? Or was it just a matter of you want to look at dolphins in different spaces? And like, is it similar to an anthropologist who wants to go and into a different society or culture? Do you have to kind of navigate anything like that?
SPEAKER_03:You know, I don't think anyone had ever really done it on a regular basis. You know, I looked at how other researchers were going in the wild and planting themselves with gorillas and chimps, and the strategy was to be not obnoxious, you know, get to know their etiquette so you weren't breaking rules, try to be a benign observer for the most part, behave yourself. And that's what we really did for the first five years. It kind of took that to get them comfortable with us, because yeah, and it's it's it was a remote area where we worked, and there was nothing else out there except an occasional boat. So they had plenty of time to sort of check us out. We'd anchor our boat, just wait for them to come to us, and then we'd slip in the water and you know, just try to take pictures and get to know them. So yeah, it was careful treading, and you know, we we you know learned a lot on the way of how to be and not be with them. So yeah, absolutely. And you know what, it was a great investment because if you uh set out wrong with a group of animals, you know, you know, first impressions are important, and I think it's the same with with animals. So I think that really helped our abilities to hang out in the water with them and watch what they do, basically.
SPEAKER_00:So so what were some of those first impressions? You're there your first your first time out in the field, you're good in the Bahamas. Um, I don't know if you'd ever been to the Bahamas before. It sounds incredible, but you're there and you're on the boat. What was the first encounter like with this part of dolphins?
SPEAKER_03:Well, first encounter is overwhelming, you know, there's beautiful, clear water, much of the time, not all the time, and there's dolphins coming up to you looking at you and buzzing you with their sound, and you're like, I don't know what to do. I mean, I always had a camera in the water, but it was it was, you know, it's overwhelming in the sense of, you know, what do I track, what do I shoot with my camera? But you know, I knew enough to do photo identification of the individuals to try to sex them. You know, that was on the list to get data. And then I had a video camera always to get sound and behavior. So, you know, we learned how to adjust as we got to know them and who they were and how much they were comfortable with us for sure.
SPEAKER_00:And they were curious about your presence from the beginning. They were already coming up to you and checking you out.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, they were, but they weren't uh doing a lot of what I would call their uh natural behavior. So that took a while for them to get comfortable with us, to go on about their daily feeding and playing in front of us. So we just sort of let them get comfortable with us. And we didn't even move the boat most of the time. We just anchored and let them come to the boat when they wanted to. And when they came around, we slipped in the water and and eventually we started moving around with them and finding them in different areas, doing different kinds of behavior.
SPEAKER_00:I mean, this this kind of brings us to the the concept, I think, of of time, which I'm hoping we can sit with a little bit uh today in our conversation. Is for anyone who's interested in animal studies or understanding a specific species or a specific group of animals, uh, how important is it to spend time with them?
SPEAKER_03:Well, you know, I was kind of brought up in the old school naturalist zone where you watch an animal for a long time before you start even taking, you know, a lot of data and making big theories. Yeah, I was just big on collect, collect, collect, and then try to make sense of it. Because, you know, it's kind of like a scaffolding, you know, you might learn a bunch of stuff at this point, and then it's kind of like, oh, this is all normal, and all of a sudden you see some other cool behavior and it opens up, oh wow, this is what they're doing when they do this. And so, yeah, I mean, there's nothing that replaces field work. Yeah, I don't care how much theory you have, you know, you want to get the data and follow the data, and then design some theories and ask more questions and collect maybe other kinds of information, but there's nothing that replaces spending time with animals in the wild. You know, nothing.
SPEAKER_00:Did you find that you got to know the dolphins yourself, as as Denise? Did you find that you got to know, just know them better over time, that you kind of developed an, I don't know, an intimacy of sorts that was because that's what I imagine. I haven't spent a long amount of time with with any animals except the ones who've been in my homes. Um, and I've just found the first six months with a shelter dog uh versus two years in, just feel I'm not collecting data, I'm not doing anything, but it feels as though we relate to one another in very different ways. Um, there's kind of an intimacy there that uh that's just seems different to what it was in the beginning. Did you kind of find that at all in in your work?
SPEAKER_03:Well, sure. You know, you get to know animals on an individual level and you get to know their quirkiness and their personalities. And we all had our favorites, you know, ones that we specifically bonded with for some reason, and they seem to recognize us differently, maybe, than other people. So yeah, I mean, you can't help it, right? I mean, there are animals with different personalities.
SPEAKER_00:Who are some of your favorites, or who have been who who are some of your favorites?
SPEAKER_03:Well, I had a favorite named Rosemole. She I grew up with her as a juvenile, and she was just kind of a sweet dolphin, and I don't know, she was kind of an average dolphin in some ways, but just very sweet, you know, not temperamental or bold or whatever. So, you know, we hung out a lot together. Um yeah, so she was one of one of them, and she was around for quite a while.
SPEAKER_00:Do you see their personalities change over time? So you you get to know a dolphin like this and as a juvenile and she grows up. Do you see her personality shift and change in the ways in which she interacts with with you and others?
SPEAKER_03:Well, we we have done some personality work. I had a graduate student who did some measures on that. But what it looks like is it looks like personalities are pretty stable, really, uh, over time, over years. You know, I mean, of course, one of the big things that changes, specifically for females, is when they start to reproduce. You know, they and all of a sudden they don't have so much time to play, right? They're responsible mothers and they have to babysit each other's calves, that sort of thing. So that changes, but their personality is really, I mean, I would just say qualitatively, it looks like they're pretty stable. And we we know that from other studies too. That doesn't seem to shift too much. I mean, maybe if you had some trauma, and we've had traumas, we've had hurricanes, and you know, I'm sure they've had their own losses with sharks and orcas, that sort of thing. Maybe if you had a major trauma that might shift, but it seems like stability is pretty important for personality, even with wild animals.
SPEAKER_00:Do you look at um spotted, is it spotted dolphins? Atlantic spotted dolphins. Atlantic spotted dolphins. Um, do you find kind of one, what made you decide to focus on on this species of dolphins? And uh two, the kind of relationships that uh dolphin mothers have with their calves, do you see it across these species, or do you think that there are differences within um across different species? Do you see like bottlene bottlenose mothers behaving differently to Atlantic spotted dolphins, for example?
SPEAKER_03:Well, first of all, we haven't studied all the species, so we don't really know the big answer to that question. I mean, bottlenose dolphins have been studied the best, both in the wild and in captivity. And the species we study, Atlantic spotted, they have a lot of similar patterns, you know, the same kind of lifespan, the same kind of tending to their calves. Uh, it may not be true for you know other species in different oceans. Um, but they have the same kind of life cycle. So yeah, they're they're quite similar in in many ways. You know, they have a calf for three or four years, and then they might have another calf and another three or four years, and and the juveniles hang out together, and then the males form these little gangs and grow up as as male gangs and do their thing. So those patterns are pretty consistent, I think. I I would guess they're probably similar in other species that have similar lifestyles.
SPEAKER_00:And are the the males involved at all in kind of the raising of the calves, or is this primarily a mother's affair?
SPEAKER_03:Well, the the past thought was it was primarily mother, and I that's still true. But the males, at least with Atlantic spotted, they do take somewhat of a role, especially the older males. I think they've learned that maybe once they lose their their strength and their rank, another way to saddle up to a female is just to invest in helping her raise her calf. So you see older males tending the mother and the calf and helping out, you know, as far as discipline, that sort of thing. Yeah. So, I mean, it's still a mother's game, right? With the calf because she has to nurse and there's, you know, pass down information as far as babysitting and how to tend a young animal. And the males do other things, you know, they do have a dip primarily a different role in the society. You know, they protect the school and they fight off sharks, and you know, they do a variety of things to help the whole group. So they don't have really time to babysit.
SPEAKER_00:And with with spending time with these dolphins and using sound uh as one of the key mechanisms through which you're trying to understand how they relate to one another, how important has it been that you've spent 37 years with the same pod and to understanding their sound in particular? How did how did time help you to develop a more sophisticated appreciation of their sound?
SPEAKER_03:Well, first you just get exposed to more, so you get more samples of, you know, you know, what their whistles sound like and their other sounds. Then you start looking at variation, you know, amongst different dolphins, you know, how their whistles might vary or how their whistles might be the same if they're related. Um, the other thing, though, that really changed was the technology, right? So dolphins make sounds in the ultrasonic range that we just don't hear. And until we were able to really record that in the water on a regular basis in our situation, you were missing a lot, right? You're missing the things you don't hear. I mean, this is typical, right? Of of studying an animal. You want to be in their sensory world. So if an animal sees ultraviolet and you don't, you're just kind of missing what's going on. So same with dolphins. So the toys changed, you know, so we get bigger and better toys to record, you know, sounds in different ways. And um, and of course, analysis has changed with uh machine learning and detailed programs now we can use to help us go through all those data, right? Because you accumulate so much, now you've got to have help going through all the hours and hours and hours that you have. Try to make sense of it. So yeah, I mean it's totally critical. I mean, now, like if we get in the water and we might not see dolphins, but we hear them, we can kind of tell what they're doing, right? I mean, we can tell, oh, that's a group fighting, or oh, they're feeding over there, or there's some moms and calves over there whistling. I mean, to a certain extent, we have a sense of that. That's pretty consistent.
SPEAKER_00:Is that surprising at all? Um, I mean, did did you I guess I'm I'm so I'm not from the the natural sciences, right? So I I try to, I'm I'm more from the the social sciences in terms of thinking about the relationships between animals. And I think I kind of start to some extent from thinking, okay, many animals have culture and they have language. And I know for for you with the with the project you're working on, this is an empirical question that needs to be measured and and figured out. Um so did you find it surprising that they had these kinds of uh interactions and that you can predict now, based on what you're hearing, the kinds of interactions you might be finding, or did it just confirm what you expected to find?
SPEAKER_03:I mean, it wasn't surprising in the sense that you're exposed to it all the time, right? So, you know, after a hundred jumps in the water when you see them fighting and you hear the sounds, and then you're reviewing it on the computer at night and analyzing it, uh, you know, at that point you know it has a certain quality of types of sounds, right? So, I mean, it becomes somewhat predictable and that's empirical. You can measure, you know, you know, 80% whistles and 20%, you know, clicks mean X, Y, and Z, right? So it's just exposure and analysis time. I mean, I think any person that studies animal acoustics that has the ability to watch their behavior is gonna have a sense of that, honestly. I mean, they would have to do if they were paying attention, right?
SPEAKER_00:I mean, again, I just I can't help but bring it to my own personal interactions with with the animals who are in my lives. Kind of when I think we all kind of do intuitively with the dogs and cats that are in our lives. When they make a particular sound, we kind of, or even babies who can't necessarily talk to us, they make a particular cry or a particular uh sound. And through I think time and practice with them, we're able to discern a little bit about what they might be asking for. Um, which is which is interesting. Are you able to discern like individual dolphin voices? If you're hearing, if you're listening to something you've recorded that day, have you kind of gotten to a stage now where you can hear the difference between different individuals?
SPEAKER_03:Uh that's tougher. Uh, we don't know that they have voices that are different. We know their sounds can take on qualities that are different, like the shape of a whistle, for example. Um, I mean, now that being said, there are dolphins that have funny little vocal tri vocalizations, really. You know, some might have a raspy quality to their sound and or a tinny quality, but that's pretty rare, honestly. You know, I would say no, we can't tell really who's there. We can tell what they're doing if we don't see them, but we can't really tell who's there for the most part.
SPEAKER_00:And what kind of sounds are are dolphins making? Um, so you've you've spoken about fighting and stuff. Uh but what what what kind of sounds are they making?
SPEAKER_03:Well, they have whistles, right? So those are their long-distance communicative signals. And sometimes they're uh unique to an individual, so they have basically whistles that are names. Um they're called signature whistles. Uh they make sonar clicks, echolocation clicks, which they use for hunting and navigation, you know, so like we would use sonar on a boat. Um they use that for, you know, figuring out depth. And now those are close proximity sounds, they don't travel very far. And then they also use kind of a version of their clicks, and they're called burst pulse sounds, and they're just kind of condensed, rapidly firing clicks, and those are social sounds, so they'll use those when they're fighting, for example. So those are the considered the three main types, and then there's you know all sorts of versions of those, right? You've got clicks that are broadband and rapid, or clicks that are slow, or sounds that have energy up in the real high frequencies that you can't hear, and other sounds that have energy in the low frequency. And to complicate everything, dolphin sounds are very directional. So if you're a researcher in the water and if you're really not head-on recording a dolphin, you're actually getting only part of their sound a lot of the time. So it's very tricky. In fact, you know, sometimes I think, wow, for the first, you know, 30 years of dolphin research, people stuck a hydrophone, which is an underwater microphone, over the side of a boat, it recorded sounds, and they had no idea of the orientation of the animal. And so they might have gotten a whistle, but if the animal was turned away from them, maybe they got a partial upsweep of a whistle, for example. So it kind of probably skewed our sense of what their repertoire of sounds were just because of the way we record them. And it's it's an ongoing issue. I mean, you know, even in our situation, we're not always head-on to animals. So we know it's we're missing kind of the high frequency components sometimes of those sounds. But, you know, that's just the way it is.
SPEAKER_00:There's not much to be done about it except what kind of technology are you using now then uh to like so you have to kind of be face on with the dolphin and and see what they're doing to try and make that correlation between what they're doing and the sound they're making.
SPEAKER_03:Well, you can still record their sound, you're just gonna miss parts of it if you aren't head-on. So we use you know GoPros now, like everybody, um, and we use high-frequency uh recorders that are kind of separate from the GoPros. So those kind of media streams have to be merged eventually. Um, and then we have a 360 camera that is pretty cool because you can record what's going on behind you and below you and above you, um and reanalyze that. That's something that's been missing too. And just recently we are working with a colleague, Matthias Hoffman-Kunt, in uh Singapore, who's developed an underwater uh unit that basically records video and sound and uh basically localize it. It has multiple hydrophones on it, and it when you post-process the video, it'll put a little sign on which dolphin is vocalizing. Because that's the other thing that's happening. You're under the water, you're recording a group of dolphins, you don't really know who's making the sound. You know, this has been a big problem for all dolphin researchers in captivity and in the wild. So knowing, you know, the dolphin conversation is the mother whistling, or is the calf whistling, or who's fighting in this group of dolphins? You know, so boy, that's going to be really interesting to see what comes from that.
SPEAKER_00:I think I saw a video, one of the videos you were talking in. Is this when um you see the dolphins and then you're kind of getting that little red square showing up on the dolphins? Okay, so so now if if I'm understanding correctly, it's because it's I imagine it's something akin to being in a really busy bar and everybody's speaking and you can't quite make out who's making anything, and you have to focus in on a person to kind of hear. So I'm guessing what's also significant here is that you're kind of seeing dolphin number one and dolphin number two going red square, red square, then another red square, red square, and then that's showing you conversation.
unknown:Right.
SPEAKER_03:Exactly. Yeah, dolphin to dolphin conversation, right? Or simultaneous sounds, you don't know. Maybe they use their equalcation clicks together. I mean, it would be analogous to having a big dinner table and 10 people and just recording their sounds. And I mean, and humans, they have voices that are unique, so maybe you can track those differently. But if you're just courting a group of, you know, sounds, you wouldn't necessarily know who was talking unless you're recording their lips moving. In the case of dolphins, they don't have lips that move. So, you know, there's no way to get it except localize their sound in the water while it's happening.
SPEAKER_00:And do you find uh at least are you finding that dolphins have particular dolphins they like to talk to? Like, I don't know, are you finding Joe Dolphin likes to talk to Susie Dolphin and they often tend to hang out and talk? Or um or or are you not quite there yet in terms of uh seeing if they have preferences for who they vocalize with?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, we don't know yet. I mean, we know they have preferences of who they hang out with, but we don't know, you know, if one dolphin never talks to dolphin B, but they talk talk to dolphin C. You know, we'll see. That could that'd be an interesting question, actually.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I mean, I'm always I always wonder whenever I see kind of big, you know, murmurations of birds. I know I don't know that's I think it's with geese now. They've they've found geese and some fish, I think, where they're finding that they tend to hang out with the same other individuals. They tend to want to be near, even cows. I think they're finding they have kind of in a big group, they tend to seek out particular individuals in the group, which I think is really fascinating. Um it's an interesting question.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I mean, we know that about dolphins too, of course. They have preferred associations. But whether within a group of five that associate, you know, do they not talk to one as much for some reason? You know, that would be the question.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and it might even tell you something about authority or is is one kind of giving instructions or something if if there's a particular dynamic going on. Right. So the other thing that I want to do, so we spoke a bit about uh tools, and you mentioned that you've got a lot of data coming in um and and going in the water. How does it one, what does it look like when you go into the water? So you're talking here about cameras and holding things. How many people are going into the water to kind of get this stuff? How do you how do you even navigate kind of going into the water and and holding all of this stuff? And two, once you've got this data, um what does that start to look like? Do you just put it into a computer and it figures it out for you? Like what are the processes involved?
SPEAKER_03:Well, wouldn't that be so lovely if you just put it in the computer?
SPEAKER_00:Do I say that someone who knows nothing about technology? I mean, do you just press the big red button and it tells you the answers to life?
SPEAKER_03:No, it's a complicated process. So, like getting in the water, we usually have at least one uh camera, you know, just a photo camera for shooting slot, you know, digital shots of an individual, you know, to verify who was there with their markings. And then we always have a video camera with sound in the water. And we might have an extra one, depending on what work we're doing. Like if we have a huge group of dolphins, we might put a couple extra cameras in so we can make sure we can document everybody, for example. Um, or if we're, you know, sometimes we're just testing equipment to see how it works. So we might throw in the the uh 360 camera or that sort of thing. Um, yeah, so it really depends on what's going on, really. Um and then we get out of the water, we'll process our photos, our video at night, we'll watch it, we'll kind of do a rough narrative of it that goes into a database so we know, you know, within this 20 minutes, this was happening, and then they were feeding, and then oh, these two made it, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So that goes into like a searchable database. So if we want to go back and you know, look for sounds that were associated with feeding, for example, we could find it using that track. And then the um the sound, really, we work that up in the winter. It's too much to do really during the field season because we're busy gathering the data. And now we're trying to develop some machine learning tools that help us go through our audio. Um, but that's not as easy as people think it is either. It's not some magical throw it in and pull out a pattern. It requires supervision to a certain extent, and um we're still playing with that as well. But there are tools that are available now. But, you know, I mean, I'm just old school in the end. You know, I think you still have to go back to the basics of you know what you're seeing visually and ask some really basic questions, not get too crazy. Because you know, computers can make mistakes too. They're just as good as kind of how you've set them up to work, right? So you always have to question your data. I always tell my students that, you know, like if it doesn't seem right for some reason, you know, you better double check it because maybe maybe it didn't get entered correctly. Maybe the computer's just pulling out something that, you know, isn't real.
SPEAKER_00:So, you know, it's the dance we do, but um and maybe it's making a connection that that wasn't expected. I think um it was on a different podcast, but someone was talking, I think it was to do with with breast cancer scans, and they'd realized that the the machine had started making predictions of the scans almost like to 99% was unbelievably accurate. And uh then they realized afterwards that someone had left the label at the top of each of the scans saying whether or not and actually the the connection that the computer was making was reading the label at the top, um, not the scan itself, which is just you know, it does, it does exactly what you're saying there, to kind of still be critical and look at this and and question how these things are made and put together. Uh, and I mean I guess it takes time. You've you've been in this field for for a long for a long period of time. Perhaps we could go a bit broader now, beyond, you know, beyond dolphins and just thinking about long-term field study generally. Is this is this something that's fairly common for researchers to do, to spend this amount of time in the research uh in the field? Uh, do you are there resources to do this type of work?
SPEAKER_03:Oh, resources are hard to find for sure. Um, we've been lucky, you know, and I really wanted to commit to long-term just because you've got a long-lived society. So there are some other, for example, dolphin projects that are long-term. There's even one that's longer than we're the longest underwater project in the world, but there are other surface projects that are longer. And you know, sometimes researchers adjust to the questions, right? So now you've got a lot of climate change happening. So maybe after studying their animal for 25 years, now they're saying, oh, we better start sampling the habitat and taking other samples. You know, it really depends on um, you know, what's available to question, too.
SPEAKER_00:So and and I it it feels to me like I was reading a bit about long-term studies now, and it feels to me though that it seems like there is opportunity available if you're focusing on, I guess, uh, charismatic species, like wolves or elephants, or chimps, or dolphins. Um, but yeah, I I think it's just especially on the climate change side. Like, do you find that there are long-term studies focusing on specific types of fish as well? Um, do you speak to these other kinds of long-term studies or is this type of research very isolated around a specific species?
SPEAKER_03:You know, I would say long-term studies have been quite rare. And that's again, from my knowledge, uh, a lot of the times because the funding agencies simply didn't fund long-term studies. They didn't see the need for it, right? And I always found that ironic. And now I find it horribly ironic because only when you have a baseline can you see change. And that's what's happening with climate change. Like, for example, even in our own study, if we hadn't been studying our dolphins for 28 years and then suddenly see them move, we wouldn't have known, like, you know, oh, they went somewhere, right? So if you didn't have that information, it'd just be like, oh, there's just some more dolphins. And I think it's really a shame. I mean, I think there are plenty of scientists who have tried to do some long-term stuff because they know that how important it is, right? But as far as funding, oh my gosh, you know, I mean, if I'd be waiting, if I would have been waiting for long-term funding for my project from some of the traditional uh organizations like the science foundations and stuff, I'd still be waiting. I mean, honestly, it was just kind of unheard of, frankly. Um now they're seeing the value in it, and now it's a little late, right? For a lot of places, right? If you don't have baseline of some environmental parameter for the last 20 years, how are you going to tell it changed? You you aren't.
SPEAKER_00:Especially now that we're starting to think, I think, about animals having culture and using things like language. I think you need time and and data and information to try and, like you say, discern whether our cultures and ways of being in the world are changing in response to a heating world. We're figuring out new ways of being in the world, and I suspect other animals are too.
SPEAKER_03:Um Right, right, yeah, I agree. Yeah, or trees or put other plants. I mean, it's everything, right? Everything was, well, maybe not always stable, but it would at least had a kind of a normal variation. Now you've got huge changes going on, and unless you're monitoring that, you wouldn't really know the changes.
SPEAKER_00:Before we switch to your quote, we're nearing the end now of the uh episode. I was wondering if maybe you could share some some anecdotes with us. For for most of us, we will never maybe encounter dolphins or know what it's like to be in the water with dolphins. And and does does their sound have a feeling to it? When you're in the water and dolphins are speaking and playing with you, do you feel their sound? Um, could you maybe provide us some sense of what it's like to be in the water with dolphins?
SPEAKER_03:Sure. Well, you know, it's a three-dimensional world, right? Um, and we are not good at uh knowing what direction sounds come from, just the way sound works in the water. But if a dolphin buzzes you with their sound, you can definitely feel it, you know, uh because it goes through your tissue and it doesn't stop until it hits air or bone. Um so that you can get a sense of. Yeah, and um, sometimes I practice sort of, you know, sitting on the bottom and rotating my head and seeing if there's something I can get out of, you know, directionality just from you know where it comes in in my body. So that's quite uh unusual. Um and you know, you've got a creature that moves really fast. So you've got a dolphin zooming in and out, maybe from you know where you are, and you take in a certain amount of it, but if you look at the video later, you see all the different things they do while they're coming at you, and then all the different things they do are going away. So again, it's the time frame of what they're doing relative to what we can perceive, right? That's a big thing. Um, and then there's just kind of the I mean, again, I work in a very special place, and not every dolphin in the world wants to have a human in the water with them. So that needs to be said, right? So, but but uh these these dolphins are fairly tolerant and interested in humans. And sometimes they'll just kind of look at you for like minutes and you just go laying there in the water. You kind of go, what are you thinking? You know, you see their eyes and they're maybe not moving, and you know they know you because you've been in the water a lot. You just kind of wonder, what are they wondering about us, right? They see blobs coming, jumping in off a boat and swimming very badly in the water, and they don't see us eating or sleeping, and but yet they seem curious about us, like we're maybe interesting enough to be somewhat curious about us. And they have a sense of humor too, I swear. Sometimes they'll like sneak up on you, they love to sneak up on people, like buzz you from behind and scare you, like they startle you, you know. It's kind of I guess you're you know, dogs and cats do that too, but so that can be kind of funny. So they kind of toy with us. Um, one of the things they love to do is play um keep away with uh seaweed sargassum, which is a natural toy for them. They do it with each other, and the game is they'll drag it on their tail, and the other dolphin will try to get at it, and then eventually the dolphin will let it go on their tail and the other dolphin will grab it. Well, they do that with us too, but we're so pathetic, we can never catch up to a dolphin, right? So they let it kind of egg us on and they might even let it go. And by the time we get close to it, they've turned around and come back and grabbed it again. I mean, it's just kind of really funny how they, you know, you might call it abuse. I don't know. I think go ahead.
SPEAKER_00:If they're watching you, do you think they ever run? So you're running experiments on them and you're setting tests for them. Um, and we haven't even spoken about some of the cool, like, I think language tools you've kind of created for making sound and them responding to your sounds. But do you think they ever set up tests for you guys? Like that they're trying to see if you can figure stuff out, like um, I don't know. Does that seem like a silly question?
SPEAKER_03:Well, I think the seaweed game is one. Yeah, sometimes they'll be on the bottom, and that can be anywhere from you know five meters to 10 meters, right? And so they'll be on the bottom, maybe with again the piece of seaweed, and they're they want you to dive down and like chase them, right? But sometimes we can't dive down if we're not able to or we're tired or whatever. And they just kind of sit there like, come on, you guys, like, you can't do it today, you wimps, or you know, your ears block so you can't dive down. So I think they do that kind of thing. Um, but you know what? One of the things that's really interesting is that we we try to be very aware of the signals that they use with each other because sometimes they apply them to us. Like, for example, uh sometimes we're in the night uh in the water at night watching them feed, and it's deep water, and I'm sure there's sharks around. And sometimes they'll actually uh take us back to the boat to get out of the water. As if, you know what, there's something down there and we know, and we're gonna lead you back to the boat because you need to get out of the water now. Um, or if they leave quickly in certain situations, we take that as a cue, like, okay, if they're leaving, you know, we need to get out of the water, right? Because they can hear and see things we can't. So we try to tap into their knowledge and and try to, you know, respect it in the sense that, hey, this is their world, you know, it's not our world.
SPEAKER_00:And they've got something to say. They know how to, they've they're really adept at thinking about where sharks are. And I mean, you said we're not terribly good with with sound, but I don't think we're terribly good at nighttime either. Can dolphins see at night? I uh I again I don't know much about dolphins. I'm guessing do they use echolocation?
SPEAKER_03:Uh yeah, so they're very active with their sound at night, of course. It takes a place of vision, but they're uh they're they are very good at low light, they can see a certain amount. They're kind of like, you know, those animals you see in the road when you flash your headlights at them like deer. They have a uh a substance behind their eyeball that reflects light, and the dolphins have that too. So they can see a certain amount in low light, but sound, you know, hearing and putting out sound at night is is really their vision.
SPEAKER_00:Fascinating. And so I know that you, and I think it's an important thing for us to maybe just touch on that you dive with dolphins and you've been you've gotten to know this pod for a long period of time. What do you think about kind of trends of tourists and boats of tourists going out and trying to seek out pods of dolphins and hopping into water with pods of dolphins? Is this something that we should be doing? Or, you know, is this supporting ecotourism franchises, or is it actually something where we could be hurting dolphin populations?
SPEAKER_03:You know, I think it's somewhere in between. You know, I think um it really depends on who you go out with, uh, how they work with the animals, are they respectful? Do they know their behavior? I mean, like I said, not every dolphin in the world wants a human to jump in the water. In fact, most of them probably don't, because they have their own stuff to do and they don't want to be disturbed. And many countries have pretty good ecotourism rules, but it's, you know, it's hard to enforce. I mean, uh, that's well known in many countries. Um, yeah, I mean, there's in the US, you can't jump in the water at all, at least you're not supposed to, without a permit if you're a researcher, maybe to do some work. In other countries, they allow it or they have um educational processes for operators to go through for ecotourism. You know, I mean, I think it's better than capturing animals and putting them in a tank. But at the same time, of course, you can affect their reproduction, their behavior. Yeah, and people have studied this. You know, there's there's short-term implications like, oh, you jump in with a bunch of whales and they have to change course. Yeah. Maybe not a big deal, annoying, but not a big deal. But you jump in with a group of whales that are mating and you stop them from mating. Now you've disrupted mating patterns and potential reproduction, which is a fact, right? So, yeah, there's a lot of different scenarios with different species in different parts of the world. Um, it's disturbing. I mean, I've seen some very disturbing things in um other countries where there's no regulation, and it's, you know, people can get killed from other boats running them over because everything's crazy. I mean, yeah, it's uh it's too bad because I think operators want to be responsible, but often they get pressures from their passengers too. Like we paid, we want to see wildlife, and we want to see it now, and it's just not how it works, right? Like wildlife is wildlife. It may show up, it may not. Yeah, I mean, these are the things we have to learn as humans and how to, you know, be respectful. Yeah, restraint and you know, situational awareness of of what's going on.
SPEAKER_00:I was on a boat in in Mozambique, I think, and we were trying to, they hadn't seen whale sharks for about three weeks. It had been fairly stormy weather, and I'd never even snorkeled before, and we went out and we got we got lucky. They came, they were all about. Um, and on the way back, I think we came. We didn't come upon a part of dolphins, a part of dolphins came upon us, just completely encircled the boat. And I think in that instance, we all just we hopped in the water and we we took it as a um I suppose to some extent as an invitation. But then I've I've thought about I've thought about it since, you know, is that and and I don't know, I think like you said, there are some situations where maybe it's okay, but if everybody wants to hop in with the pot of dolphins all the time and that's a particular eating place or something, then it's because I do think those connections are also important, but I think yeah, I don't know, it really gets complicated and messy because there are local people and populations and regulations.
SPEAKER_03:Um but it's nice if it's mutual, right? And how do you recognize that an animal wants to interact with you?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. And I mean the fact that you've stared into a dolphin's eyes and spent time with dolphins and gotten to know some of them and and them you, have have you seen that translate at all into how they respond to other humans? Uh or is it a matter of they trust you and your research group? But if other humans who they don't know come by, they're more aware or wary.
SPEAKER_03:Well, we have different people on our boat. I mean, it's not like they know everybody on, you know, every trip. You know, again, we try really hard to train people as to what's proper etiquette, you know, how to watch experienced people and do what they do, or just don't do any of this and we'll do it, right? Because we know the animals. I mean, I think that's part of the trick, too, is to either train people or say, none of you can do this. You know, don't dive down in the water, just float at the surface. They do that in Hawaii. Actually, I've seen that with like mana, mana ray dives and things like that, where they'll just say, Don't do this. You know, it's kind of simple, really in some ways, if you listen, you know, to the experienced people. Yeah, you know, kind of need to have that experience around to understand what it's like. You know, for example, with our dolphins, it's so typical of uh boats, like day boats that might come out from the islands. And they've got three hours and they want to see dolphins, right? I mean, we spend three weeks out there trying to do our work, right? And and so they might just be pressured by the people, like they want to jump in. And then when they're in the water, they want the dolphins to play with them because that's what they've seen at a marine park, right? The dolphins may be busy, so it's this expectation that dolphins always want to play with humans when you're in the water, and that's just so far from the truth, you know. So, yeah, it's tough. Yeah, you you protect what you love and you want to have people love the dolphins, but you also you want to train people to respect a creature, right? So, and if the creature needs X, Y, and Z, that's what they need, and maybe you're not X, Y, and Z.
SPEAKER_00:I think that's a really good lesson in kind of just decensoring ourselves as being the most important thing in the paper. We're maybe not, we're maybe not at the forefront of every other living creature's mind all the time. Um you know, maybe just shifting some of our human narcissism just a little. Um I think we don't know how to deal with that. We don't know how to deal with the fact that we might not be the most fascinating. Just yeah, that.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah. Simple.
SPEAKER_00:Um, so before we wrap up, do you have a quote? Uh, give uh guests an opportunity uh towards the end of the show to read out a quote if they've got something that inspires them or or wants to convey to the listeners.
SPEAKER_03:My quote is there are many different types of minds on the planet. How will we recognize them?
SPEAKER_00:And you're doing some of that work. Who uh who who gave that quote? Is it yours?
SPEAKER_03:It is. I just made it up.
SPEAKER_00:Yay!
SPEAKER_03:I guess it's more of a question question than a quote. So maybe I did the wrong thing, but I don't know.
SPEAKER_00:I I think sometimes questions, and maybe this is my my philosophy being slightly different. I for some reason I find asking questions sometimes, sometimes you're not gonna get a definitive answer. You're not gonna get like a this or a that, but in the act of asking questions, I think you find out fascinating stuff on the way. Um, so uh you're definitely doing, I think, some of that work to figure out how other minds work, which is just awesome. What are you currently working on? I'm guessing much the same. And if folks are interested in learning more about the project and about dolphins, where could they learn more?
SPEAKER_03:So people can go to our website, which is uh wildolphinproject.org. Uh, we have research papers up there, we have videos up there, we have kids stuff up there. Yeah, and we're working, well, we uh our work is always baseline stuff. We're always tracking the animals, checking on their health and who has calves and that sort of thing, their life history. And then right now we're doing a lot of work with our sound with machine learning and our underwater computer system, which we're uh trying to tweak again with some new technology to create perhaps a two-way system on a simple level, at least, to see how they might respond to some playbacks of sounds. And um, so that's all ongoing.
SPEAKER_00:Is that the one where you've got kind of the machine on your body and you were was it on your body and you pressed a particular button that made a specific sound for a specific so you had like a sound for rope and a sound for for different toys?
SPEAKER_03:Is that yeah, we labeled some toys. Yeah, we labeled toys with the hopes that if the dolphins wanted to play with those toys, they'd mimic the sound and request the toys from us to give them, you know, to empower them to have some choice in what they wanted. Um, yeah, so we're actually redoing that system so it's a little more user-friendly, so it it's on the arm instead of the chest, so it's a little easier to swim with. And I know it was big technology getting smaller, right? Um, yeah, so it's been interesting. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And and so have they have they figured out? Like if you do do they say rope and you give rope? Have they are they doing that?
SPEAKER_03:Um they haven't yet, surprisingly. But you know, the trick for us is getting enough time with the same animals to get them exposed to the sounds. And we demonstrate how it works in the water with with humans, right? So we have multiple researchers in the water with the equipment on so we can show them, you know, if researcher B makes this sound, they get a scarf from Denise or some other toy. Yeah, so the idea is is really exposure. It's kind of why we're miniaturizing the system so we get more time in the water. It's easier to get in the water on a regular basis and kind of show them how it works. So, yeah, so we'll see. Yeah, you know, these experiments like this are not easy in the wild. You know, there's so many variables you have to utilize. And we don't use a system if they're doing their own behavior. Part of our protocol is we just don't do that work because we don't want to disturb them, right? So we we pick the times only when they're interacting with us and playful, for example, to do that work.
SPEAKER_00:Did you just develop your own protocol for how to interact with dolphins, or did something like this exist for your team already?
SPEAKER_03:No, we developed it, you know, with a lot of good minds, thinking about, you know, what motivates an animal to work with you. And then because we work in the wild, we didn't want to disturb their behavior, right? That's pretty important to us as much as we can. So um, yeah, that was primarily the goal is to just behave ourselves and not disrupt what they're doing. But use these, I call them windows of opportunity, use these little windows of opportunity uh where they're interested in us and interacting to try this work. So that's how we do it.
SPEAKER_00:Wonderful. Well, thank you so much for uh spending so much time with me here today and just giving us a glimpse into the world of dolphin communication. Is there anything else you would like to add about the significance of dolphins and getting to know them uh before we say goodbye?
SPEAKER_03:Well, you know, I just encourage people to protect the planet wherever they can, however they can, right? There's so many issues now. Dolphins are only one of them. You know, they live in the ocean, which is in trouble. And the land has its own issues. So pick a project, any project, just do something and you know, help out, which would be great.
SPEAKER_00:That's a great way to end it. Uh, thank you so much. Uh, and yes, everyone should do their part and uh get your governments to do their part too. So thank you for for joining on Animal Turn.
SPEAKER_03:All right, thank you.
SPEAKER_00:Hello, Hannah. Welcome back to the Animal Turn Podcast.
SPEAKER_01:Thank you. Uh so what are we gonna talk about today? We're gonna talk about spiders.
SPEAKER_00:So I was terrified. I was so afraid of spiders. Like I love animals, but I gotta say, like, spiders, I still I see how beautiful they are, but I really I still struggle with um I don't know how good I'd be at holding a spider.
SPEAKER_01:No, yeah, me too, me too. I especially doing research that these two spiders we're gonna talk about. I did kind of recoil a little from some of the pictures. Amazing, beautiful animals, but I wouldn't want to be like hanging out with them, you know?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, but they really are super impressive and um yeah, and just incredible. And like with all the animal highlights you've done, the more I the more I kind of learn about these animals, the more I'm just like they're so impressive. And I think we don't have to like them all, we just need to respect them, right?
SPEAKER_01:Okay, yeah. And I'm sure there's some of them don't like us either, so it's okay.
SPEAKER_00:But they do good, they do good work. Like increasingly now I see spiders in about my house, and I'm like, you keep doing your work because they're like you do you, spider. Um, so anyway, I'm sorry.
SPEAKER_01:Well, hopefully, this will make you find them even more interesting.
SPEAKER_00:So I'm sure. So, which spiders are we talking about?
SPEAKER_01:So, first we're gonna talk about orb weaver spiders, um, who are very beautiful spiders who are related to um, they're kind of a similar spider than that you would find in sharp. Charlotte's Webb, you know, the spider in Charlotte's Web.
SPEAKER_00:They're huge, right?
SPEAKER_01:They're really huge. Yeah, they got sort of big, kind of baldest bodies.
SPEAKER_00:I saw them in Botswana when I was doing field work in Botswana. They were everywhere.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, they're impressive. They're also impressive sonically, not so much for the sounds they make, but how they hear. So a recent study by researchers at Binghamton University as well as Cornell University found that orb weaver spiders use their webs to capture sounds. So they refer to this as the spiders outsourcing their hearing. So as in the spiders' hearing isn't constrained to their body, but they outsource it. So the thin silk strands of a web act as quote hyperactive acoustic antenna. And because they're so thin, they move in response to sound-induced air particle movements. So as the kind of uh a prey might might approach, it will, the sound will travel through the air, and that will literally move the um silky web. So the spider will then pick up on the movements of the web through their sensory organs in their claws that are at the tip of their legs. So these claws are also the same thing that hold on to the web and they kind of take up the movement, and that's how the spiders hear. So they're not having claws. They're kind of teeny tiny things that they because otherwise, how because you if you see a spider on a um like on a web in the wind, it it doesn't blow away, right?
SPEAKER_00:So I thought it was like sticky, I thought it was like sticky hair. I'd never thought of spiders as having claws. Like it's a whole different thing.
SPEAKER_01:I'm not sure if all spiders have claws, but these spiders at least have claws. Okay, okay. Um but they're very like sensor, they're sensorial organs, so they're not they're kind of multi-purpose. So by listening in this way, so through their webs, the researchers say that the spiders don't only outsource their hearing, but they're also able to supersize it. So their webs are up to 10,000 times greater than the um spider itself as in the surface area, not the actual web. And what's cool about this is usually us organisms are um pretty much stuck with the hearing apparatus that we're given. Um but orb weaver spiders, orb weaver spiders can adjust their hearing apparatus or their webs according to their needs. So if their web is damaged, they can recover it by weaving a new one. And also, in theory, not necessarily the case that they do this, they could kind of tune their hearing by making their webs differently. So by making it tighter or looser or something in order to hear different frequencies and things like that.
SPEAKER_00:You know, it kind of makes sense because I mean you say us organisms or like as humans, we're kind of restricted to the hearing apparatuses we have, but we I mean we make earbuds and satellites and we're using satellites to hear out into the middle of the universe. Is there a middle to the universe? I don't know. But um like I think about the shape of a satellite and then the shape of a spider web, and actually it starts to there there seems to be some synergy there, I think, somehow in terms of the shape and how sound is captured. And I like yeah, I don't know much about kind of sound and sound waves and stuff, but that's a really yeah, because you you see spider, like I always used to see spiderwebs move in the wind and think, oh shame, like the their house is moving, you know, but maybe you know, this is all part of the strategy and how they they interpret and understand the world, which is really pretty cool.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah. And so while I was researching this, I also came across another kind of spider, and these are the ones that gave me the heebie jeebies a little bit, um, called ogre-faced spiders, and they're called that because they look like ogres, they look a lot different than your kind of average household spider. So they're kind of they look like stick insects, they're kind of these long, thin spiders, and rather than having eight eyes, they have these two huge eyes at the front of their face, and that's you gotta you gotta look these up. They're pretty crazy looking. And also, I was watching a video of them, and they they kind of perfectly camouflage themselves during the day. They're nocturnal, so really hard to find. But and and also different from your average spider is they do weave webs, um, which they sit upon, but their main way of catching prey, it's not kind of this passive, like sitting there waiting for the prey to come, but rather they have these four front legs within which they create a kind of smaller, fuzzy web, and then they so they have this kind of web between their four front legs and they propel themselves forward towards prey. So this web acts as kind of like a net or a sticky baseball glove, and then they kind of capture the prey that way. And so I found a study which absolutely wildly turns out to be by a friend of mine. I had not someone I go climbing with. I'm called now called Jay. Anyway, he did this really cool study. Um, that found that they so because of these huge eyes, they were mostly thought to capture, you know, see their prey that they then propel themselves towards through sight. But sometimes they don't propel themselves forward, but they go backwards. And um, it's just this movement is described as a ballistically rapid overhead back twist, or like this ninja backflip that they do to capture prey from behind. And obviously, because their eyes are forward, the researchers believed that these were relied on audio cues, and they found that this maybe was the case. And again, the auditory sensors for this are at the tips of their legs, so they kind of hear through their legs and then they backflip with these webs in between their legs and they capture prey in that way.
SPEAKER_00:So it's incredible, yeah. And it gives, I think when we first started talking about these animal highlights, I remember actually coming across, I can't recall which spider it was, but that there was research coming forward that spiders can hear through their legs. And I remember saying to you, whoa, this gives a whole different meaning to the concept of soundwalking, right?
SPEAKER_01:Like, oh my god, I completely forgot about that.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, because we we like we do soundwalks and we walk with our ears and stuff. But if you kind of if you take that as a method, I suppose, and and try to think about how other animals soundwalk, spiders soundwalk and jump and backflip, which is pretty amazing.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I might be having some nightmares about these like sticky baseball gloves coming at me.
SPEAKER_00:I looked them up right now as you were talking, and they're rather. I mean, okay, the whole body I could see, I could see it's almost crab-like. It makes me think of um those king, are they called king crabs? Those like crabs, those deep sea crabs. So the body looks a lot like that, and the legs are a bit spooky, but the face, I mean, there's something about big eyes that just make me go, oh, like so cute.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, they look like Solarises or something with those kind of yeah.
SPEAKER_00:They're rather gorgeous, and just how incredible and miraculous the world is that they're doing all of this at kind of this small scale that we, you know, that we don't even consider 90% of the time. So it's just incredible. Thank you so much for an amazing animal highlight. It was really fun. A huge thank you to Denise for being a great guest, to Hannah Hunter for the highlight, to Jeremy John for the logo, and Gordon Clark for the bed music. As always, a thank you to Animals and Philosophy Politics, Law and Ethics Apple for sponsoring this podcast. And this season is also sponsored by the Sonic Arts Studio and the Sonic Arts of Place Laboratory. All three research groups are at home at Queen's University in Ontario, Canada. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you to you, also, dear listener. This is The Animal Tone with me, Claudia Hotenfelder.
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