Bill and Steve dive into a tiny, bustling world - a world that’s hiding on the feathers of the birds we see every day. Joining them is Dr. Alix Matthews, postdoctoral research associate in the Department of Biological Sciences at the University at Buffalo, and she reveals the strange lives of feather mites — how these barely-visible hitchhikers feed and get around and whether or not they’re helping or hurting their avian hosts.
If we want to help wildlife, we need to know when and where they’re moving on the landscape. Dr. Scott LaPoint has spent his career researching just that. When our recent episode on fisher cats left us with a lot of questions, we figured who better to help us out than Dr. LaPoint. He was kind enough to join Daniel and Bill for a hike, sharing his expertise and his amazing ability to communicate science with enthusiasm, humor, and clarity. Join the guys for a wide-ranging discussion on fishers, connectivity, and wildlife-human interaction.
They’re hard-working, tail-slapping, tree cutting machines, and they’re one of the greatest wildlife recovery stories in North America: Castor canadensis, the North American beaver. And, as if all that weren’t enough, apparently their rear ends produce an oil that’s vanilla-scented. Join the guys as they keep their puns and innuendos in check and dive into beavers!
With the high-end guests we’ve recently had on, we’re concerned that the podcast is getting a bit too classy. So, this month, we’re getting down and dirty, delving into the delightful topic of defecation. Specifically, animals and plants that eat poop. We know, it seems gross. We thought so, too. But once we started exploring this surprisingly common behavior (called coprophagy), we were amazed at what we uncovered!
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