Welcome to Creature future production of iHeartRadio.

I'm your host of Many Parasites, Katie Golden.

I studied psychology and evolutionary biology, and today on the show, we're gonna talk about Jane good Old Jane Goodall.

As you've probably heard, she did pass away recently.

While she was on a speaking tour.

She's ninety one, still at it, still going.

On speaking tours, which I mean, she really loved being with the Champanzees, so the like, it was kind of a sacrifice for her to go on these speaking tours because she would much prefer to be, you know, out there with the Champanzees, but she really wanted to educate the public.

Wonderful, wonderful woman, one of the most influential primatologists, So.

We're gonna talk about her.

She obviously did a lot of amazing research, and she was just also really fun.

And cool lady.

Joining me today is comedian and musician host of the podcast Coldbrew Got Me Like and whose new record just came out.

I'm your Man, Chris crafton.

Welcome Chris, Hi, How are you nice to be here?

Katie.

It's been a little while.

Yeah, it's good to have you back.

It's always fun.

Yeah, No, I'm I'm excited to talk about this.

Of course, the news is sad, of course, like we we've lost We've lost Jane.

But I I just she's so she's such a cool, positive person.

And I mean, obviously her contributions to primatology were immense and amazing, So I really I just want to kind of celebrate like how fun she was.

She had an actually really good sense of humor.

She made some really incredible observations, and I'll give a little bit of back ground about her, but yeah, I mean, like, what what is your perception of Jane Goodall, Chris, Like, how have you?

Because she's in I mean, she's so famous, she's in all sorts of bits of populace.

Yeah.

I would describe her as like the led Zeppelin of primatologists.

That's like like sort of like you know, like you might not know anything about primatologists.

But you know who Jane Goodall is.

That's how much she how much she transcended science.

And and I think a lot of times for people, science is like you know, scary or or you know, and so people who cut through, like Carl Sagan or these types of people who human, like put a human face on science.

You know, it's such a it makes huge steps forward possible.

And so I think of her as that like the sort of yeah, just like the the rock star of of of one of those rock stars.

Of science kind of absolutely, And you know, I think that's a really good observation about how she made science very accessible to people, right, she put a human face to it.

And her story is actually really interesting because she didn't.

She had a very unusual career path.

She did not start out as a scientist, like I mean, she was doing science at the beginning, but she actually had no formal scientific education.

She had no bachelor's degree.

She just loved animals so much that she kept putting her foot in the door where she since there was an opportunity to be around animals.

So like, she had no no bachelor's degree, no formal education in primatology, evolutionary biology, nothing, but she managed to get herself to Kenya for a job as a secretary and she was on this farm where she got to be, you know, at least closer to these animals that she had grown up really really loving.

And then she reached out to the Kenyan paleontologist uh Louis Leakly uh, and she wanted she was interested in working with animals.

Leakally at the time was actually really interested in getting someone on board to study chimpanzees.

But he didn't tell her this.

Uh.

He was kind of keeping it.

He wasn't sure of the plan yet, so he hired her on as a secretary.

And she just I think that she just kind of like, uh, inspired him about her personality about her.

She had such the this U such an intense love for animals and such a great spirit about it.

He's like, you know what, I actually think you could.

You could do this despite her not having the the credentials right and also being a woman, which at the time was a barrier.

Uh.

He said, you know what, I would like you to.

Make these observational studies champanzees.

And she was absolutely, like one hundred percent on board.

This was her dream.

So she do you know how she got interested in in chimps or monkeys in general?

Was this something she actually so like?

She said that when she was a kid, she had a stuffed animal that her parents got.

Instead of a teddy bear, they got her chimpanzee, and she just loved it and then started loving chimpanzees and animals.

And I think it's it's I really relate to this, right because like when I was a kid, I was very much a stuffed animal girl.

Like I didn't have a lot of dolls, didn't have a lot of barbies.

I loved stuffed animals though.

I was fascinated with them, and I would get a stuffed animal and I would want to learn more about it, right, Like of course, like when I was a kid, that we didn't quite have the Internet yet.

It was starting, but it wasn't like easy to look up stuff online.

But I would always like watch Animal Planets, so to have like my stuffed animals with me watching Animal Planet, and.

So I really relate to that.

I think I think she she had this since childhood, just a fascination with animals.

Uh, you know, she may have become interested in chimpanzees regardless, but she didn get like a little stuffed chimpanzee that seemed to really capture her heart.

So I wonder if it was curious George, I mean curious George probably did a lot, probably activated a lot of rhymatologists or something.

Yeah, because I had stuffed animals too, and I was pretty like attached to them.

But I never like, I just you know what I mean, Like I never well, I never went further with the biological Like I was just like, oh, I love my rabbit and I love my my bear.

But I never like got interested in bears.

Yeah, I just clung to them.

Yeah, you know, because I was frightened.

Yeah.

No, I I think I got into it actually because of Beatrix Potter, because uh, I had I had all those books.

Uh And actually my my nursery was apparently decorated with a bunch of Beatrix Potter animals.

And Beatrix Potter is interesting because she makes these very anthropomorphic animals right there wearing clothes.

I know that was I would say, Eel White.

Maybe, I'm not sure she did yet.

No, she did Peter Rabbit and all those other stories.

But she was actually a really good naturalist illustrator, and so she even though the animals would be wearing little like waistcoats and dresses and stuff, they were very realistic looking, like she didn't make them cartoony, which was I think really interesting because for me, that was that made really fascinated in them, because like they were these little animals wearing clothes, but they were also very realistically portrayed.

Sure, So.

For Jane, I think it was just something that she had grown up love absolutely loving animals, uh, and it just felt, you know, feels like they're some people who just kind of like for her, it was like she kept putting herself in the position to get closer and closer and closer to the animals that she loved, and she got there, and she that kind of like patience right where like I have this goal and I'm gonna like get there.

She was really really patient when she started to study chimpanzees.

So in nineteen sixty she went to the old Duvai Gorge in what is now Tanzania and started to observe champanzees, which was not easy because at first the champanzees are like, who is this lady and they would be either really avoidant of her or even aggressive, and she had to spend a bunch of time just acclimating them to her presence by just sitting there and being quiet, which you know, is like that is one of the most like she was obviously really really smart, but one of the most impressive things about her is her monk like patience where she could just do that and also endure the threat of these chimpanzees.

Who a chimpanzee can mess you up, like it's not it's not a shy woodland creature like it can.

No I know about Yeah, we all know about chimpanzees from various documentaries that have come out.

But I, uh, it's funny because I was just overfeeding my sister's cats and I have to do a sort of similar thing.

Oh yeah, Like cats are very mad at me for no reason, and and I have to sit there quietly and let them hiss at me and stuff until they finally get it out of their system and then they let me give them food.

That's kind of exactly what she had to.

Do, and that irritates me.

And it takes like eight minutes.

Yeah, this took a lot longer.

Yeah, I can imagine.

No, I would I get it though.

I would not have the patience.

Honestly, I would also not have the nerve the first time I trimpancy would like run at me, I'd be like, you know what, you're right, this is your area.

I'll leave goodbye.

But no, she was she was with She was like patient, She had nerves of steel, and she was highly.

Observant, so she no internet either, no internet, just writing.

Seeing there, writing down a huge amount of observations.

So she she.

Was impressive enough that she was actually able to uh uh get her pH d in ethology without having obtained her bachelor's degree first.

She later got an honorary bachelor's degree, but she kind of like just she started out being like, I'm gonna just make these observations, and she was so good at it.

Uh, it was like, actually, yeah.

You you should get a PhD like the your you're you know, even though she received no, no, no, she worked for the the for the peace, she had to work for it.

So she did a lot of work for the PhD.

The bachelor's degree she got as like an honorary degree, but honestly, at that point she had already done enough work to have gotten several bachelor's degrees, so like, you know.

She was not she did it was not like the easy, the easy way.

But I'm gonna I'm going for my honorary doctorate in most broke musician.

I think that's you know, I I I think that's a very competitive feel, Chris, I think, but yeah, so she but she did receive a lot of pushback.

I mean a lot of it was sexism, but also a lot of it was from her perspective, based on her perspective, where she sort of she humanized the chimpanzees while also making very accurate observations.

So what I mean by that is that she'd give them all names.

She would kind of talk about their individual personalities, which the idea that animals would have individual personalities was not like a super commonly accepted idea in evolutionary biology or primatology, right.

That, I sure, like I read about that.

Yeah, so I read that she gave them.

Names based on their personalities or or like, and she would describe them as being different individuals, right, Like some of them are really sweet and good natured, some of them were bullies.

And so she was.

Kind of conducting herself a little bit like an anthropologist.

And so there was a lot of pushback at the time saying, well, this isn't scientific, this is an objective But honestly, I think that what was interesting was that she wasn't really pretending to be completely impartial and objective, right, she was noting her opinions and writing stuff like writing down all these observations, which I think, like, there it is a bit of a myth that any kind of observational science is going to be completely without bias.

So she kind of like leaned into that, where it's like, yes, I'm going to I'm going to make sure that I am recording reality, but it's obviously through my own eyes and through my own understanding of what's going on.

So I think that it was a really interesting kind of like in a way more honest approach to observational studies, where it's like, yeah, like these are I'm certainly like I'm.

Part of the equation, right, which is a difficult.

Thing to admit when you're like doing doing science right, because it's like, well, we need objectivity.

We can't be coloring the results, which is a valuable is definitely a valuable principle, especially if you're doing like laboratory studies, right, But for observational studies, I mean, it's kind of hard to avoid.

We're human beings, we have our own perspectives, and so she kind of, you know, she she leaned into it, like, yeah, I named these chimpanzees.

I feel like I'm friends with them, right, Like she she didn't pretend that she wasn't involved, which I think kind of helped change people's perception of what, uh what primatology could be, what like and in general, what science could be that you didn't You couldn't always be like just have you know, being a white lab coat have a thing and be completely impersonal about it.

Well, especially with chimpanzees like or primates, because primates are it's not like a fish.

Like.

You know, you could sit around in a lab coat around some fish all day long and uh, it wouldn't make one.

You could wear a tuxedo or a lab coat and the fish wouldn't mind.

Right, But if you wear a tuxedo around a chimp, next thing, you know, you're at a dinner park, right So you yeah, yeah, you're damn right.

I guess you know that better than me.

But I'm sure, yeah it's no good.

But uh, I don't know what they eat?

What do they bark?

They eat their omnivores.

This is great because actually this.

Was one of Jane's one of her discoveries, which was that they're not vegetarians.

They're omnivores like we are.

So they do eat vegetation, but they also eat meat and insects and basically anything they can find, nuts, fruits.

Uh So they like us.

Are omnivores, will actively hunt for meat, and we'll also eat insects like termites.

So yeah, they're they they.

Have similar palettes to us, except that maybe the specific menu is a bit different.

Right, kind of like macabre trail mix.

Yes, yeah, yeah, the trail mix would be it would be uh yeah, termites, little bits of yeah, a little bits of veget Yeah.

Yeah, if they can get their hands on absolutely, they would show down on that.

Yeah.

Yeah, So yeah, I would think there's a social component to automatically with dealing with primates that if you tried to well, who knows, I don't really, but anyway, there's I would imagine it's sort of unique that that you know that they're so smart and and that you would have to be hard to hide your presence.

Yeah, completely, Yeah, for sure.

And I mean it's like, yes, you do become part of the equation, but that does allow you to see their behaviors with some with someone present, right, So as long as you're, in my opinion, as long as you're kind of showing your hand in terms of like yes, I am here, and yes, my presence influences their behavior.

You're still learning things about them, right, because you're still learning about like how they act, how they act around an observer.

But because she became so such a common sight for them, they did begin to exhibit behaviors where they are just like interacting with each other and kind of ignoring her.

Where she could see their their interactions among themselves.

And she even though she loved them, uh and she empathized with them, she had a pretty unflinching look at them, like she didn't shy away from the fact that they can be real jerks, like chimpanzees can be terribly unpleasant.

They can be they can fight each other and kill each other.

And she would she would make these observations, and she wouldn't try to, like, you know, make it seem all sunshine and rainbows, right Like it's like, yeah, there's a lot of a lot of grim reality to the chimpanzee life, but she she documented it all.

She also had, like I said earlier, she had a great sense of humor.

There's this story that I love because I I love Have you do you read, uh, have you read a Gary Larson's cartoons?

Yeah?

Far Side exactly.

Of course.

Yeah, I'm like I'm fifty six, so like yeah, like like in college and stuff that was like a big deal also pre internet, so like yeah, like those everybody loved Farside.

Farside's so funny.

I love Farside when I was a kid.

I like also because he had so many cartoons about animals, right, like a lot.

Of the humans.

Oh yeah, genius, Yes for me as a kid, I loved it.

I bought a bunch of his, like galleries, right, his collections.

It holds up its insants, it's so good.

Yeah.

And so there's this really funny story of between Jane Goodall and Gary Larson, so like oh wow, yeah, so he uh did a did a comic strip where it's like it was one of his one panels, right, he loved doing those, just like one panel, the art and the text under it, and it's these two chimpanzees female grooming a male, and she's got the like she's got like the horn rim glasses, you know, like he he liked most of the female characters, I know exactly.

The yeah those granny cat eye glasses.

That's the only clothes she's.

Wearing, right, But she's got those, so you know that.

Uh and she uh she The caption of the comic was the female chimp saying to the male chimp, as she's grooming him.

Well, well, another blonde hair conducting a little more quote research with that.

Jane Goodall tramp.

Uh.

Yeah, fantastic funny.

And then what happened is the Jane Goodall Institute wrote into the newspaper and the Jane Goodall Institute called the cartoon an atrocity.

There was this fear that they were gonna sue Gary Larson.

Jane Goodall had no idea this was happening.

When she found out, like someone finally like she's got sent this, uh the cartoon, she said, wow, fantastic, real famoute last fancy being in a Gary Larson cartoon.

And it was her favorite thing.

Like she loved it.

She was like, oh, maybe I should write to Gary Larson and let him know I loved it.

But she got distracted because chimpanzees and so like.

She had no idea that this like beef was going on where people were like, oh, Jane Goodall hated this cartoon, and when she found out, she's like, no, I loved it.

It's amazing.

Of course I don't want to see Gary Larson.

And so she invited him to her research institute at the Gombe National Park, and so he came as a guest, and he was really apparently really nervous because he's like, like, I was worried that I had maybe offended her, and she's like, no, no, of course not.

She she loved the cartoon.

She actually received a bunch of copies of it and she couldn't throw any of them out, so, like she just had a massive collection of the same Gary Larson cartoon and so yeah, she ended up writing the forward to one of his collections of cartoons, the I think the Far Side Gallery five.

Yeah, and so she like told she like told these stories about Gary Larson coming to visit her at the Gombe National Park and she introduced him to like she brought him with her to go see the chimpanzees.

But like it went a little awry because there was a this mail chimp that she called Frodo, who was actually kind of an asshole, a real jerk and a bully, and Frodo saw Gary Larson and it was like nerd alert and went over and started bullying Gary Larson like pushing him around, kind of hitting him.

And Jane was really like she was projecting calm, right, like trying to remain very calm, trying to redirect Frodo's attention from Gary Larson to herself.

But she was like, I was panicking internally because like what if, like I get the world's best cartoonist killed by this chimpanze.

Yeah, but the chimpane Frodo gave up after a while.

He was just like just like kind of like all right, gave you a wedge, he slapped around a little bit.

All Right, I'm fine, I'm done.

Uh so Gary Larson survived.

And uh yeah, so it's I think it's just one of these humanizing moments, right.

She's like she's a she was a person who had a great sense of humor about herself and about her work, and uh yeah, I mean like it's the it's very it's also like, uh you know, it's a it's so funny to me that she's like because she just seems so serene right, like like almost like just like like monk like right, but then she's like apparently like uh you know, internally panicking because she thinks she's gonna get Gary Larson killed by this.

Yeah, I think people, I mean, yeah, they people like to look at her like as a monk.

I think, because I don't know why, that's just maybe.

Because she has calm presence, she.

Doesn't show off like that doesn't But that doesn't mean you're a monk.

I mean, I think the comparison now is just like you're either a monk or or you're Taylor Swift or whatever.

Yeah, I mean I think there's something in between.

But I think people take serious people as you know.

I just think like you can be a serious person but also be fun.

I mean, just because you have an attention span doesn't mean you're some kind of a monk.

Yeah, so I think I also think that is a I think of everything through the lens of like modern attention span versus old time attention span, and like it just makes me, I like the idea of somebody who has the has the sort of attention span where they can be fun and serious at the same time, which is just very It's not an either or situation, you know, but I do she gets portrayed as I don't know.

Also, she had like long straight hair.

They always like to just make her look like, I don't know, they make her look serious.

Yeah.

She actually had a very very good sense of humor.

I mean you can you can definitely see it when you watch interviews with her where she.

Y she gave a backstage past the chimps, Yeah to Gary Larson.

Yeah, and she she she like she in some of her interviews.

She I mean she finds things very funny, because how can you not when you're surrounded by chimps, She said.

She like, well it's fun yeah, Like.

And she she like talks about chimps laughing at things right, like they they have a specific way that they they laugh.

There was a case where she saw like a mother saw like her.

This is really funny because like chimp humor can be pretty like mean, but like a mother like her offspring, her baby was like, uh, you know in the like in the young phase where he's like able to walk around on his own, but he got a little bit lost and he's like sending out this kind of like he's like kind of crying because he doesn't know where he is.

But the mother's like right there, but he's not seeing her, and she's laughing at because it's so the like because like she finds it funny that her her kid is so dumb that he doesn't see her like sitting right there in the nearby tree.

And so Jane's like recounting this, and it's you know, I think it's uh, yeah, it's just like she had a she had a great way of humanizing the chimps, but also making these observations that genuinely changed like our understanding of chimpanzees and their behavior.

Well, yeah, the idea of laughing.

Yeah, like, you know, that's just that's just like something that that I would always think is you know, without if I didn't think about it too much, I would assume only humans last.

Right.

You know, I saw a video.

I don't know if it's true or not because it's on the stupid internet, But have you seen that.

I'm sure you have that ant eater that plays around with their trainer.

Is that a real video?

Yeah?

I think that it's I'm not I haven't done a lot of investigation into that specifically, but I would believe that an ant eater could play around, for sure.

Yeah, so it's an ant eater playing around.

Yeah, And so it just changes.

I mean I think we have you know, we have all these things we can learn and and they do require an open mind and patience, which we are not you know, we are not excelling in at the moment.

So I think it's also nice to have a hero like to be reminded of people who you know, had patients and and and taught us.

Yeah, because animals are, like, I mean, really overlooked in this really funny way, like I mean, or people.

Certainly people value certain animals like cats and things, but people don't necessarily ever think that an ant eater has any fun.

And so I was amazed by that, and so like and then you see like those videos of chimps like getting tricks played on them at the zoo, you know those people who do those magic tricks and then they fall on the ground and like laugh their heads off, Like I mean that's insane.

Yeah.

And then yeah, then you might be a little less cavalier about cutting down their habitat if you know they're in there like crying.

Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely, yeah, I mean like everything from them being amused by things to demonstrating grief has all been documented.

I mean I think that yeah, and this is it's definitely part of Jane Goodall's legacy.

I think like she's certainly not the only one to point out that animals feel things in the same way that humans do, but she was one of the one of the people that really brought it to both the public's attention but also introduce these ideas into you know, the scientific literature.

That makes me think of, you know, like the opposite of that, like the opposite of that the part of humanity that brings in a chimp to their house and feeds them, makes them drink wine and smokes cigars, so that it can go too far.

Humanizing chimps can go too far.

Obviously, they're not pets, and like Jane Goodle was also very clear about that these are not These are not good pets.

They're not they Yeah, I mean, I think I think it's like this.

I talk about this a lot on the show, Like sometimes we over anthropomorphize animals, like we assume they're just like us, that their communication styles, their needs and their wants and their emotional landscape is the same as ours, or we just think they don't feel stuff at all and that they're not at all like us, and it's like, obviously, the truth is that, yes, they do feel things, they do feel emotions, but they're they're not they're not humans.

They're not fluffy humans, right, they are chimpanzees or ant eaters or you know, all these different animals have their own their own needs, their own emotional landscapes, and you know, we have to kind of like humble ourselves to understand them, meet them where they're at.

Not assume that we put them in a little three piece suit and give them a cigar that they're gonna be happy.

Yeah, don't make them capitalists.

Yeah, man, oh man, remember the remember the the uh what was it the chimpin fts?

Oh yeah, yeah, for a minute.

Yeah, that was absurd, God, the worst artwork you've ever seen in your life.

Yeah, it looked, it.

Looked worse than something that would have actually been drawn by a chimpanzee.

And that would actually be cool if we could get some.

Yeah, imagine being one of the hapless owners of one of those things because you fell for the marketing that happened for ten minutes in twenty nineteen or whatever.

I weep many tears for.

Yeah, there's some people somewhere that paid a million dollars or some digital picture.

I'm very sad for whoever paid a million dollars for a digital picture of a chimpanzee And it's.

All Jimmy Fallons for Yeah, like most.

Things, everything is mm hmm.

Well, we're going to take a quick break and when we get back, we're going to talk about some of the cool discoveries that Jane Goodall made and then also how that research led us to more recent observations and findings about chimpanzees.

That are also really really cool cool.

So yeah, Jane Goodall really forced the field of primatology to accept that chimpanzees fashion.

And use tools.

This is one of her huge contributions based on her observations of them fishing for termites.

So I'm sure people who lived in the area had been making these observations for a long time, but the field of primatology and evolutionary biology did not necessarily widely accept this idea that chimpanzees would make tools, and Jane Goodall kind of made force them to with her observations.

So she would see them take like a twig, maybe a sturdy blade of grass and stick it into termite mounds or rotting logs and get at like fish out the termites pull it out and like, you know, lick them off like it's a little I don't know.

Little dipsticks or whatever, like fun dip.

Yeah, yeah, exactly, the stuff you stick the paddle in when.

You're Yeah, they don't make that anymore like kid sugar, Kids, you're missing out.

It was a somewhat flavorless white stick and you'd lick it and stick it into a bag of sugar and then lick it and it was good.

Fun just didn't make any sense.

But they basically that.

I think it was called fun wasn't right.

It was yeah, like what a what a?

What a like a very unambitious candy went through.

Concept candy went through a weird phase.

And I don't understand why the paddle tasted like such ship.

Really the paddle was unnecessarily bland.

Yeah, it was bad.

It was supposed to have a flavor, but I never tasted it.

So those chips were using fun dip paddles to the.

Probably the twigs tasted better, but yeah, they were using that to get at uh termite.

So she published an article called tool using and aimed throwing in a community of free living chimpanzees in nineteen sixty four.

So at the time, it was difficult to get the larger scientific community in the public to except that animals could use tools, because for the longest time, there.

Was this idea that.

Human beings are different from animals, were unique because we use tools.

And this kind of you know, shattered this idea that we were uniquely I mean, we are uniquely intelligent, I would say, like we we obviously have a.

Lot of evidence of that.

Maybe not always, but like, but tool use is certainly not the thing that makes us human, right, And that was like an idea before dispelled that idea, And so, like I said earlier, she also dispelled the notion that chimpanzees were vegetarians.

They're actually omnivores.

They eat meat when they can get at it, and they actively hunt for it.

So so now, like with both of these these paradigm shifts that Jane Goodall was more or less responsible for, we have a lot of really cool observations.

So one is that chimpanzees use tools in their hunting.

So this was an observation of the Fongoli site in Senegal, So this is a different site from Jane Goodall's research.

But again, like she was so influential that you know that there are now you know, all these other different observations at all these other different sites, which is really also interesting because different sites, different groups of chimpanzees in different countries, different national parks, have different tool use behaviors.

Yeah, they wear different and they wore different cuts of their pants and stuff.

Essentially essentially it's like that, It is like that if they if they could wear pants, it would be like that, Like they have different styles of doing things different.

Whereas bell bottoms, the other ones were Bible wols exactly.

They're all they're all antless, they're all they all are missing the butt so that they can do chimp stuff.

But like the so they were.

These these chimpanzees in Senegal were observed to fashion tools made out of branches, but not to hunt for termites, not to fish for termites, but actually to hunt for meat.

So what they would do is they would take these branches, they would strip them of their leaves, trim the ends, and then go to like a tree where they would know that a tasty tree is hiding inside.

And this tasty tree is very very cute.

One of my favorite animals growing up actually called.

A bush base be uh.

I actually I actually received a stuffed bush baby for Christmas once, and I fell in love with them.

They're very very cute.

Uh.

They're also apparently delicious for chimpanzees.

They're they're they themselves are very small primate, but this does not matter.

The relatedness earns them no favors from the chimpanzees.

So they use the sticks to like flush like kind of flush them out of these these crevices in these trees, and then they hunt them and they eat them.

So they're using tools to hunt for meat, which is both really cool and also a little sad when you see a picture of a bush baby, because.

I'm looking up a bush baby right now.

Yeah, they're they're very cute, baby.

No, I mean, but oh oh yeah.

Oh my gosh, they're very cute.

They look like.

Yeah, yeah, I mean the lemurs are also primates, you know, it's they're similar.

Oh, they're so cute.

They've got eyes like those those little kids and those paintings by.

That Yeah, the big eyed kids.

Yeah yeah, yeah, they have giant eyes.

That's terrible.

Those chimps should quit quit well, you know, I mean.

Jane Goodall should have stepped in and been like that's enough.

We're not they got they got They don't got like a McDonald's there though, so they can get bush baby burgers.

So they got to do it themselves.

So they like take these like they strip these these sticks and stick them down in the tree.

Yeah, and like because like the exactly the bush baby will be hiding in the crevice of the tree, and then the like they use them as like to root them out to get them out of there.

Yeah.

A less uh, a less disturbing tool use is that they like to make sponges.

So they will use leaves.

Sometimes moss and kind of like bundle it up so it's a sponge and they use it.

They dip it into like pools of water so that they can drink it.

They can drink water in other ways, but they do like to use this technique, particularly because it allows them, like there's a lot of pools water that like has minerals and stuff that might be kind of hard to slurp up when it's a really shallow pool, So they'll stick the sponge in that little pool and then like suck out the juices.

And a lot of chimpanzees use sponges and it's a behavior noticed across different chimpanzee troops, but this is an example where based on the troop, they might do it differently.

So like in.

Wow, researchers have actually observed them changing their type of sponge if one of them figures out a better way, like maybe uses more moss or something, and then the rest of the chimpanzees are like, oh, that looks pretty good.

The sponge looks pretty great, and they'll start doing it too.

And so we've actually seen in real time chimpanzees developed like a specific culture, a sponge culture.

It's I mean, you know again, humans, like we go through phases where like everyone's having Stanley cups right like where we're like, oh, this vessel for drinking beverages is really.

In right now.

Remember when everyone Stanley mode?

And then now everyone has like like what are they called?

Like ooh, Wallas.

I'm not I'm actually not super up to date on uh water bottle culture anymore, but like we do the same thing where like there's a trendy thing to drink water in and that seems like a weird thing to be trendy, but it happens and we like it instead of chimpanzees, Like we're the same.

Yeah, because if you go to a thrift store now, like the whole place is just whatever water bottle it used.

To be exactly.

There's a kind of ruined thrift stores because it's seriously wall to wall whatever cup went out of fashion.

Yeah, yeah, that's the Yeah.

Like hundreds of them, and no one buys them because they're all like vaguely afraid that they have germs on them.

Yeah yeah, no, I mean it's and also like sometimes there's scares of like, oh, don't want this water bottle because it actually has lead in it, or it's got a plastic in it that's gonna sit and sit inside your testicles forever.

So we I think chimps would probably be like, listen, we don't need these cup updates.

Yeah, but like we need these sponge Yeah.

Unless it's a new sponge, they'll be like cup updates now, like that's stupid, But a new sponge tell me.

More, right, and that makes sense.

Yeah.

One of the this is my favorite story of a chimpanzee tool use it's actually not a wild chimp.

It's in a it's a behavior that was displayed by a captive chimp, and it actually makes a lot of sense that he would do this given that he was at a zoo.

Now I'm not anti zoo.

I think that there are a lot of zoos.

I'm obviously anti roadside zoo or non accredited zoo where they're not treating the animals well, and they're not they don't care about conservation and it's all about just extracting entertainment from the animals.

That's terrible and it does happen to chimpanzees and it's awful.

There are a lot of zoos that are very much focused on rehabilitation, on conservation, and on making sure that they have sufficient resources for their animals.

It's never completely ideal though, right Like animals, behavior is always going to be different in a zoo, So any observations you make of animal behaviors and a zoo is not necessarily going to tell you a lot about what they.

Do in the wild, but it does tell you what they're capable of.

This is what's kind of interesting to me.

It tells you what their minds are capable of.

Doesn't necessarily show you natural behavior, but it shows you what their range of potential behavior could be given the right circumstances.

So this is the story of Santino, a chimp at the Swedish Zoo.

Who decided to take.

Revenge against onlookers against a zoo visitors.

We don't know why he wanted vengeance.

It could have just been because he thought it would be funny.

We really don't know.

It could be as simple as that he thought it was a fun game to do this.

But what he did was premeditated assault on zoo visitors by collecting rocks of a very specific sort of like parameter of like I can throw this, it's a nice projectile.

So he would carefully select AMMO and then gather it in a pile and like chill out until the zoo visitors came.

And then when they would get close enough, he'd go to his pile, pick one out and run out of them and check it at them and try to hit these these zoop visitors.

So zookeepers had a unfortunately, like you know, obviously you have to be careful in terms of warning the public, like okay, you could get hit with a rock, so please don't get too close.

But despite the zookeeper's mourning visitors, Santino still enjoyed doing this, so he would make hundreds of these rock piles over the years, and he he would even start collecting things like chunks of concrete that he would find if it was the right size and shape, and really give it a go, like really.

Try to nail these zoo visitors.

And when they would observe him, what was interesting was like it was all very calm and premeditated beforehand, so like he would find the rocks, he was selective about what rocks he would use.

He would like gather them in a you know, convenient pile.

Then when he would throw the rocks, he would display sort of a typical chimpanzee aggression body language like I'm angry, I'm mad at you.

But it's also like but he it was all.

Very calmly and coolly premeditated, like he would collect the rocks, and.

He was just like, oh, here's a good.

One for trying to nail Nancy from accounting that I see comes to the zoo too.

So did they so did they get did they Did he hurt anybody?

I don't he never.

I don't think he ever like actually seriously hurt anyone.

But he tried.

He wanted to the desire was there and so did that?

Was that?

Was that?

Did that?

Was that surprising to people?

Yes, because this was a case where it's an observation of.

It's not so much the tool use that it was surprising.

It was that he made a plan, right, a mischief, a plan of mischief long in advance, and he did it with it this like kind of calm premeditation.

That was I think it's like, you know, so like it was a premeditated crime.

We've never really seen a premeditated crime so closely observed and chimpanzees, but you know, it was something where it was a pretty clear demonstration that he could make a plan, he could think through the plan, right, Like he selected rocks based on things he could reasonably throw.

It wasn't like he would get something too small or too large.

They're all kind of this like perfect size for throwing.

Also that he was calculating the distance right like, ah, this is a rock that could actually make it far enough, right, Like if he had like a stick or a smaller rock, it's not going to make it that far.

And then he also wouldn't choose things that were too big for him to throw, So he was like, these are the right sides projectiles that I'm estimating are going to reach the zoo visitors, collecting them in advance, having them in convenient caches, so when he sees someone that pisses him off, he can like.

Easily access it.

This is all like this, like planning and premeditation that it makes sense that chimps.

Are capable of doing.

But we like, this is one of the clearer examples of one of them doing it, and.

You know, yeah, I want to see this.

I want to see this happen now.

I want to go see him.

I want to see who he picked and whether he picked people with like glasses, washy eyebrows, or hats or whatever.

He hated the Mets, anyone that had a Mets hat right right, wonder But yeah.

I don't know Sweeterish sports.

Yeah, so he uh yeah.

It was an amazing observation of a chimpanzee planning.

And again we were not really sure why he did it, like it could it could be aggression or I mean, obviously it was aggressive.

It could be something where he felt defensive or he didn't like people.

It could also be because he thought it was funny, like honestly, I'm not even making a joke, right, Like he might have been bored and it was like, this is funny when I like throw things.

I watched people like run Away.

I think zoos can be quite like one of the more dangerous perils for animals in nice zoos is boredom, and so a lot of zoos try their best to offer enrichment to their animals, so like toys, games, play areas natural puzzles for them to solve, like things for them to do that kind of mimics the types of problem solving that they have to do in the wild.

But obviously they can't they can't completely compensate for the fact that it's a limited area.

It's a zoo, it's not actually in wild with all the different sort of variables that being out in the wild brings.

So occasionally you'll get an animal who's bored.

And in this case, I think Santino was like figured out how to keep himself amused, and it was by terrorizing people.

Yeah, I mean that's when I go to the zoo.

If there's ever anything I think about, it's usually I mean, I haven't I mean the zoo.

I'm thinking about the Nashville zoo or or you know zoos that are pretty pretty nice, you know, and you just worry about the animals being born.

I mean, that's that's the thing I think of the most, you know, I mean, because they've just they have checked out every square inch of their you know, quote unquote habitat.

Yeah, and then they're like, let's throw some rocks these people.

Exactly.

It's a genuine problem and you have like the like intelligent animals in a zoo, and I think zoos do their best to address it.

But yeah, I mean sometimes Champanzee is just gonna be like, all right, I'm sick of your these puzzles that you're giving me.

Like, I think what would be really fun is some uh some projectile rock throwing and uh yep.

I wonder if any of the zoo keepers tried to get in there and switch out the piles of rocks for like a you know, a pile of banas.

Then he'd learned, he'd probably learned that's like a currency to get bananas.

Uh yeah, you know, many knows then he knows he can extort them, you would think.

Unfortunately, I wish, we I wish we couldn't.

Unfortunately we often do that's they're threatened.

But yeah, I mean, you know, real smart, so yeah, I mean, uh again, just uh, Jane Goodall really like was I think just I think what I love about her is she's she was just she was an animal lover, and that was like her main her main thing.

Like she was obviously of unique intelligence and patience and persistence, so she was a remarkable individual.

But she also she also was kind of like us, right, someone who just loves animals and and then made mineral life about that.

It's not like everybody could, you know.

I think people like Grizzly Man probably may have been inspired by someone like Jane Goodall, but he didn't have the the right temperament for it.

He was too manic.

Yeah, Like, uh, you know, I think that's I always think about that documentary when I think about people trying to live with animals, you know, and I feel bad for that guy because he just I think he was motivated by by something, probably sweet, but he was His energy was like it's like me going in to feed my sister's cats, Like I don't, I don't like now I'm kind of afraid of him, and I can't really like because one time, Polly like really went off and hissed at me like crazy, and I was like like, I just now I'm a little bit scared, and so like it makes.

She and she's just like fear now.

Yeah, and she's just like kind of a bit of a bully.

I mean she's really Also whenever I'm there, it's because the cats are already mad, because because they are pissed at my sister for going away, so they're already mad at me.

Just like we know what you are.

We know you're the guy who brings us some food, but so what we're still pissed and and so you know, you better be And I respond to that not in a in a you know, a levelheadedche So I would imagine that I get I get nervous, and so I think that you know, to have a temperamentally.

While also being respectful of the fact that you're around a powerful animal.

I think that, I mean, yeah, like the I think.

She she saw the chimpanzees as individuals with feelings and personalities.

She did not see them as human beings right Like she wasn't like, this is a person who is going to have the same reactions to things as a person would write like she didn't, she didn't underestimate, she didn't underestimate them, she respect acted there there being uh, wild animals always, which I think was important, right, Like if it's it's what it's what makes the difference between someone like uh, Chain goodall and then like you know, I don't even want I mean, Tiger King's kind of a different like you're you're, you're, you're a guy.

The King's he just sees them as objects.

He doesn't.

Yeah, he's just he's.

Just he's just a huge shirt.

But but like no, like the grizzly guy like that you're talking about, he thought he could kind of live among bears, underestimated that bears are very dangerous and uh, yeah he was killed.

But I think that that's I think this is it is.

It is interesting because it's obviously the balance is understanding you understanding, and a wild animal is a wild animal, understanding their individual there that the fact they do have emotions.

It's true, they're not just mindless monsters, but they're under there that you have to meet them where they're at, right, like, uh, and they're not going to have the same kind of like oh, this guy probably doesn't mean me any harm.

I'll be chill around them, right.

They have a completely different way of thinking, even though we have a lot of similarities, and so I think, yeah, I think Jingoddle was really really good at threading that needle of like, you know, look, they are like us.

But they're not us.

They're wild animals.

They're like us.

We can't impose our humanness on them, but they are sort of mirrors of our behavior.

That's a very special talent, I think.

I mean, I think everybody wishes animals were comfortable around them, at least I do, and I do, okay, you know, but I used to be frightened of dogs because when I grew up, I mean, this is all suburban and you know what I mean, Like I don't have any good animals, Like I grew up in the suburbs, so the only thing you ran to do was like a dog or a cat mostly or or maybe a frog.

And frogs never frightened me, although I didn't like grabbing them.

I kind of always thought that, like you know, when people, when people were catching frogs and stuff, I was like, are you sure they don't have any teeth?

Yeah, that was my thought.

So so I would kind of fake act like I wanted to catch them, but I always pulled away with one a second because I really didn't want to catch the bull.

I was afraid it would hurt me.

So anyway, this is I'm not good for see, I'm not good.

I'm not good for this kind of job.

But like it is a it is a very special talent because I love animals.

It's just I you know, I'm not like as insightful about animals as I am about some other things.

And she obviously was insightful.

And you know that it's not like anybody could be Jane Goodall.

Yeah, but she did.

I think she It's true that not not just anyone could be Jane Goodall, but she inspired like a bunch of people to be like be like that, right.

Like like she she was.

It made it clear that this like an at the very at the very least, an appreciation for nature and an interest in and evolutionary biology was not something inaccessible to people.

Of course, not everyone can do what she did, but she inspired a lot of people to follow in her footsteps, and they're like nowadays there are tons of people doing a lot of the similar type of observational research that she's doing and they're just as you know, they're doing work that's like, uh, you know, as important.

But she really paved the way for that.

Did you two things?

Are you a katie?

Are you aware?

Did she ever wear banana perfume?

And the other question is is that in anywhere in the thing or in her bio?

And then the other thing was like when I was growing up, I was crazy about music, like like like more than animals, you know, so I like wore a John Denver T shirt.

Did you ever have a Jain Goodall T shirt?

Or do you have any Jane Goodall merch?

Both good questions.

I don't think she ever wore banana perfume.

The closest thing, then, why is her biography called banana perfume for autobio.

Scent called oh oh do monkey?

Uh?

No?

I I The closest thing was that they.

Did have sometimes like feeding stations to be able to observe chimps more.

And that could be sometimes controversial because they're saying that, well, then you're not getting the natural behavior.

She was.

Her opinion on it really only changed in terms of like getting like too close to them with these things really only changed when she when they had later found out that champanzees can get human diseases.

Uh, so like she had kind of changed.

She was like, yeah, actually, because now we know that there can be these this pathogenic exchange, we want to keep some more distance from them, Like you can still you can still observe them, but she would she increased her distance with them right like once once because they didn't know, like at that point, they didn't know that there was potential transfer.

So she changed that.

So I would say no to the banana perfume.

I actually don't have.

I didn't have like a lot of Jane Goodall merch as a kid.

I didn't have like A.

I didn't have like a I think mostly I was focused on the animals, to be honest, So I would have like images of animals as posters and things, not so much of the people, uh doing the research.

But I remember really really liking her and once being really excited because there was like a did you ever were you Are you aware of the cartoon The Wild thorn Berries or is that that stuff that's like a squarely millennial thing.

No?

Yeah, I was like this cartoon about a.

Girl who could talk to animals and there was like an episode where Jane there was a Jane Goodall characters, so I was very excited about that.

But yeah, no, I didn't have much.

I didn't really do a lot of Jane Goodall merch.

Maybe I should, maybe I should get she did actually speaking actually merch.

So they did get permission from Gary Larson.

You know the story I told you earlier about the comic that got his permission to do shirts with that comic printed on it, that that benefited their foundation, and it was one of their best sellers.

So real, it's just she's like she was cool with making fun of herself.

Their most popular shirt was calling Jane Goodall a tramp, which which and she loved it and she loved it.

It's so funny.

So yeah, I mean it's so out there, it's great.

Yeah.

So before we go, we're gonna play a little game called Guess Who's Squawk and the Mystery Animal Sound Game.

Every week I play Mystery Animal Sound in you the listener.

I've played Yeah, I've played this before.

I've lost a lot of money on this.

He is a Chris is deep in debt.

To me and I hope you remember always yeah and uh yeah, so I will play mister animal sound, and you will try to guess who it is.

The hint for this one is this, you may find these colorful animals at zoos, but they're not always behind bars.

Christy Gotteny guesses.

Flamingo.

You're actually close.

This is a type of bird about the size of a flamingo.

But this is a peacock.

Hora.

I can't believe I was close.

Yes, so this is a peacock.

They are, at least I did get.

Someone told me that, like, they haven't been at the San Diego Zoo recently, but they used to be very abundant at the San Diego Zoo and also at other zoos, just kind of walking around and they're beautiful birds make the most horrific screeching sounds.

I got a lot of people who wrote in with the correct answers, and honestly, like, I'm so proud of you guys.

I'm gonna read off in the order quite a few names in the order of receiving your emails.

Con congratulations to Laura W.

N.

L.

Craig K, Julie, Penelope and Eleanor T.

Carolyn H.

Emiliam and Julie B.

Who described the sound as being like a baby being tortured.

My friend had a peacock like move it on to her balcony during the pandemic.

Oh yeah, and yeah, and they were it was no fun.

Yeah, they're loud, they make so much noise and they and they like stick around forever once they get gone.

Yeah.

No, we had when I was a kid, we had a stray peacock wander into our yard and I was like, this is good and my mom would feed it bread, which you're not You shouldn't feed it bread.

We didn't know, we didn't have internet.

We were just she was trying to be nice and so she did her best.

It's not like we knew how to feed it.

She was no Jane Goodall.

We just didn't know how to a goddamn peacock.

And the peacock showed up.

We didn't go out and acquire a peacock like this is this peacock was like hoisted itself upon us and we're like, all right, you want I don't know, do you want bread?

Like we don't know?

And yeah, well, I mean Jane Goodall, when she first started out, was making the monkey's omelets, and then they told her that was.

Right.

Excuse me swear this is this has been such a very nice podcast.

I keep swearing.

No, no, it's okay, I'll cuack it all out, okay, okay.

But yeah, this peacock showed up.

We fed it for a while.

It was like it was just like, yeah, this is this yard.

Is mine now.

And it would scream every morning, and it would like do this thing where it would like get up on our fence, scream and then like fly across the yard and then scream again.

It was like all right, and then it was done screaming for the day.

For the most part, it just had this like ritual of screaming every day and flying across the yard.

But yeah, it was never like super friendly with us.

It was more like I'm a tenant here, I don't pay rent, and you do feed me bread.

And then it eventually moved on like it was just like okay.

I'm out.

Off to visit another person's yard and demand bread from them.

So that's a loud noise.

Yeah, I wonder what they're asking for with that noise.

Yeah, I mean probably sex, to be honest.

Okay, Yeah, onto this week's mister animal sound.

They may look like squirrels, but they're more closely related to us, Chrissy getting giesses.

Donald Duck.

Yeah, exactly, you got it, doll Duck.

He's more like us then we know, because he wears the shirt but no pants.

You're right, or maybe it was here we do it sounded smaller than Donald Duck, so I'd say hewey do here?

Yeah, one of the little ones, one of the little nephews.

Yeah, no, exactly, that's that's right.

But if you out there, if you out there think you have another a better idea, if you've got a better idea than Donald Duck or one of his irascable nephews, you can write to me at Creature Feature Pod at gmail dot com.

Thank you guys so much for listening.

Chris, thank you so much for coming on the show.

Where can people find you?

It's always fun.

You can unfortunately find me on Instagram at the Crofton Show, and you can find my record just because that's the most recent thing I've I've put out and it's it's I'm so proud of it.

It's called I'm Your Man.

And I don't say I'm proud of everything, but this record is is really my whole life in the making, and uh, it's just super sweet and hopefully inspiring for you know, some stressful times.

And so I'm Your Man.

You can get it.

You can stream it, or you can buy it on band Camp but it's called I'm Your Man and it's yeah, it's just fun.

You Google it comes right up on band Camp.

On Italian Amazon too, I don't know.

If you knew that.

I did not know that.

I've not been on Italian Amazon in a while.

And also Craft, sorry not crafton Colebrew got me, Like, is really a great podcast?

I mean if you look at the summaries, like, I don't know if you know about this, Katie, but you probably do.

Like now Spotify like we'll do chapters against your will, They'll they'll have AI do chapters for your podcast, like describing what you say, which I can only imagine is just for Border Patrol to be able to when you say my podcast is fine, you know, and they can be like, oh, that's not what it says here, but because it makes my podcast sound so dark.

But it's fun.

But it's all about like, you know, politics, So it's it's about politics in a way.

I mean, I don't want to talk about politics.

I want to talk about Bigfoot.

I always say that, but I but I kind of got stuck talking about politics.

But anyway, I don't look at the summary because it makes it sound really like it's no fun, and it's it's a pretty fun podcast.

So Colbrew got me like, is the podcast?

Check it out.

Don't believe AI you know lies it lies to you.

I mean, if I if you, if I showed you the description.

It's just like the dead End of Capitalism chapter one.

Chapter two, the Ballad true valid.

Yeah, like living under the Thumb of the Internet chapter two.

It's just like all this miserable detected there.

It's not as miserable as it looks.

Well, do check that out, and thank you so much for listening.

If you're enjoying the show and you leave a rating or review, I read all the reviews.

I really take him to heart and it does help the podcast to get those, So thank you so much for that.

Thanks for the Space Classics for their super awesome song.

Ex So Lumina.

Creature features a production of iHeartRadio.

For more podcasts like the.

One you just heard, vis of the iHeart Radio Abubble podcasts or I Guess what wherever you get your favorite show.

So I'm not your mother.

I can't tell you what to do.

I can tell you though, like, uh, if.

You're hanging around Jane Goodall and you get a blonde hair on you and you're a chimp, your wife will find out.

So have your have your stories straight.

See you next Wednesday.

Thanks Katie,