Bonus: Wild Animal Dads from Terrestrials

Hey friends, Lulu here, and with Father's Day coming up this weekend, I just wanted to drop a special little meditation on dads in the animal world. This is an episode that we are dropping for terrestrials, and I thought some of you might enjoy it because I think it expands our understanding of what fatherhood can look like. And rest assured tomorrow is your regularly scheduled radio lab drop. So enjoy that, and enjoy this dead ventured, okay, here we go. Wait, you're listening to radio lab from WNYC, three, two, one, imagine. You shrink down to the size of a chihuahua, and your eyes grow bigger, and bigger, on bigger, until they take up almost half your head. And these eyes give you great night vision, so when most of the forest has gone to sleep, you can come out to feast, and swing, and play. You have become an owl monkey. Now it's part where I make you sing the theme song with me. Terrestrials, terrestrials, we are not the worst, we are the best, bestrials. Bestrials, you got it. Bestrials, oh my. Terrestrials is a show where we uncover the strangeness, waiting right here on earth. I am your host, Lulu Miller, joined us, always by my song, bud. Now, like snowflakes, no two families are exactly the same. There are families with one parent, families with a mom and a dad, families with two moms, like mine, families with two dads, families with a non-binary parent, or a grandparent parent, like snowflakes, the shape, and beauty of a family is limitless. But with Father's Day right around the corner, we wanted to spend some time today shining light on. Dadder! Hey! What's up? That's right, we are heading up on a dad venture that will have you swinging high in the trees with a owl monkey dad, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, and burbling deep in the sea with seahorse dads and leaping and bounding and twirling with such cool frog bug and bird dads that you just might flip. Woohoo! Your understanding of Fatherhood showing you why what it looks like to be a dad is way more rad than we are sometimes taught, and here to guide us on this dad venture are two human dads. Hello. You go first. No. Dad number one? Michael, he's got a daughter. Meela, she's eleven, almost twelve. And dad number two? My boys are thirty-three, thirty and twenty-three, Dr. Eduardo. And my last name is Fernandez Duque. Someone chimed in. Was that a bird? I am surrounded by birds in my backyard. Yeah, there was a gorgeous bird call, so and you're right now in Argentina? Yes. Dr. Eduardo is a biological anthropologist and behavioral scientist who has spent decades observing owl monkeys in the forests of South America. Let me close the window. That may reduce the birth of a fox. But, okay, but say hi to the bird or say, "Hola." And our story begins outside that window, way out in the forest, way up high in the canopy where there is a male owl monkey who is just moments away from becoming a father. Now, picture this guy, he's about the size of a tuaba, white face with huge orange eyes that help him see really well at night. That's why he's called an owl monkey. He does not. Unfortunately, hoot, like I thought he might, but like owls, he does come out at night. Anyway, at this particular moment, next to this monkey, his mate, the female owl monkey, is pushing out a baby owl monkey, the size of a chipmunk. Now, this is a very charged moment in the animal world because with some animals, like chimps, lions, hamsters, goby fish beetles, okay, the list is pretty long. The father has been known to kill their babies. Sometimes, even eat them, which is, I guess, calm enough to give it a scientific name. If they're not doing that, certain animals as are famous for, well, belly. Checking out, leaving the female parent to do all the care and feeding of the baby. So, back to our owl monkey dad, sitting right next to the baby in the Argentinian forest. The thing is, up until this moment, no one knew how that dad was going to respond because. No one, no one had ever seen a baby owl monkey being born in the wild. But that day, Eduardo's team happened to be there on the forest floor, observing. He took about half-hour that the baby came out of the mother's womb and what was fascinating is that the father was also very, very close and trying to help, I mean, was he was touching the umbilical cord, you know, this cord that connects the baby. He was possibly trying to help the mama monkey cut it so the baby could be free. That is right there as the baby is born. For the first week, the baby is just nursing, nursing, nursing like crazy on the mom until. "Mom is like enough, I've had it with this suckling and done, I need some space, but there comes dad to the rescue." "You are come, kiddo!" The baby literally climbs onto the dad's back and basically does not leave for months. The two of them bounce and swing through the tree tops together. "Dad is going to play with the infant, tag your it." He grooms the infant, he teaches him how to curl up into a tiny ball way up high in the tree so he looks almost invisible so he can sleep during the day. "Sweet day dreams little one." And as the baby grows up, dad starts teaching him how to pick out tasty fruits, which fruits to bite into, which to avoid, how to catch a moth, mid-air, but pretty much this whole time, the baby's little arms are wrapped around the dad's shoulders, meaning this is a three-month long piggyback ride. Now, around four months, the baby climbs off the piggyback ride and starts braving the big leaps up in the branches by itself, nonetheless. "Suddenly you get to a gap between branches and you need to take a jump and so they may give you a little bit of a squeal or a squeal and that's okay, hold on a minute, I'm going to put you in my bag and take him across the gap." "I got you a little one." "What is very powerful is the evidence we have that eventually over the years, the infant seems to have a stronger attachment or bond to the father than the mother." "Wow." So as Eduardo and his team are discovering all the secrets of the owl monkey dad, halfway across the globe living in Switzerland at the time, our other human dad, Michael, he's becoming a father. And while he is completely obsessed with his new daughter, Mila, completely in love with her, he says he wasn't sure exactly what to do with her or how to soothe her, bathe her. I was, I didn't grow up sort of being super comfortable, expressing my emotions or super comfortable with physical touch. And so at first with this baby in his arms, he just felt a little awkward or unnatural, which felt in this weird way like maybe the natural way for a dad to feel. There was this story about what's natural, you know, what's natural for the mom, for the dad, for the family. And we did have in my education a lot of comparisons to animals, but usually we were being compared to chimpanzees. Growing up, Michael was told that since humans were closely related to chimps through evolution, we're both primates, we share a common ancestor, then some of the things chimps do might somehow be inside us as instincts too. And chimped dads, well at the time Michael was growing up, they were understood to be very aggressive, at their worst and at their best, well they were just off somewhere else. It seemed like in nature the dad role was about hunting and protection. And he thought, well, maybe nature was sending him a message that he'd never be good at the softer side of parenting. And then one day a few years ago, Michael is lamenting about all this would a dad's natural role truly is when his friends says, wait, wait, wait, you got to call Dr. Eduardo. He studies owl monkeys and I reached out to him and he was like, I'll come over, I'll come over to your house. Let's have a play date basically. Really? Okay, that's awesome. She comes to my house. He fell like that. Yeah. So he came over and we're like, let's go swimming. And I brought my goggles. He's a really good swimmer by the way. Okay. You're really fast. We kept talking about all sorts of different dads. - Chimped dads and their own dads. - And at some point, Dr. Eduardo started telling Michael what he had observed with Owl monkey dads. - He's talking about a two to three month piggyback ride. - Your guys are at your play date. I'm picturing you, you're swimming in the waves. And I don't know, Eduardo's like, "No, Michael." And then a wave comes. He's like, "No, no, no, really Owl monkeys are amazing." (laughing) Okay, so what from your side, Michael, what did you, what did Eduardo tell you that day and how did it hit you? - Well, first I was like, "That's so cute." And then at the same time, I was kind of upset. - Why? - Well, I was like, "Why have I am hearing about this for the first time?" And so I was sort of like, "Who picked which monkey "we were gonna be compared to?" And why did they pick chimpanzees? Because if they had picked the Owl monkeys, maybe I would have learned something different. So I found myself kind of wanting to dig in to sort of what other animals are out there that might do fathering differently. - And he will share what he finds and take us on some of the wildest turns in this dad ventures. After this short break. (thunder rumbles) (thunder rumbles) - To restrials is back. We are talking about the rattest of the daddest with our dad friend, Michael. And he is on a quest to learn all about animal dads who defy the stereotypes and show us all the amazing ways a dad can dad. (laughing) And to start off, we have. - Seahorses. - The Seahorses is the one that everybody knows. - Okay, but tell it. - But it's important because the dads get pregnant. - So what does that mean? - And they really, what does that mean? - He does like the dance, the courtship dance, and then the female will put her ex into a pouch in the male Seahorses belly. And the pouch is a kind of like a magical pouch. It will change the levels of oxygen and salt. And it's kind of like a womb, you know, getting them ready to go out into the ocean. And they're pregnant for, I think, a couple weeks. And then the dad Seahorses goes into labor and it could take a few hours. And they just shoot out hundreds of baby Seahorses. All like fully formed, but really tiny. And then they can get pregnant again a few days later. - Wow, just right off the bat. There goes nature shattering another rule. Like those hard lines we thought existed between what a mom is supposed to do and what dad's supposed to do, like the two categories, they just aren't there. - There's so many different ways to be a dad. There's a lot of options and we're flexible and we can organize and be whatever it is that our kids need. That in and of itself is natural, that that is something you find in nature. - Okay. Who is our next dad? - I got totally obsessed with poison dart frogs. - Poison dart frog. - Okay, so what are these? - So they live in that rainforest in South America. - Do they shoot poison dart? - So they're called poison dart frogs because people have used venom that comes from them to make poison tips on arrows. - Oh, cool. - And they, they're the size of like your thumbnail, so they're really tiny little frogs. And their singers, well, they chirp, right? - They kind of claim like a territory and the females will listen to them chirping to see like who's the best singer to decide where they wanna lay their eggs. ♪ And that's where by the moon and the stars in the sky ♪ ♪ I'll be there chirping ♪ - And so the females will lay the eggs on wet leaves on the forest floor and then the dads will guard them and this is the best part. When they hatch, the dad will take each tadpole individually on a piggyback ride. - What? - So on, on his back. - It's like the owl monkey. - Each one individually and go and find a plant that sort of has some covering and has some water inside and it'll lay the tadpole in there so that it's safe and it has water. - Like in a pool, a little kitty pool. Here, get out, take a swim. - Baby, baby. - But he won't put any of them together 'cause he doesn't want them to compete for resources and I think he also doesn't want if one's born, it comes up to eat the other one and then coming back and checking on them all the time to make sure there's enough water and if they need to eat the dads, they can't feed the tadpoles. - Sorry, little froggy's only mommy can feed you by laying one of her eggs for you to eat. - So they'll do their song again to try and persuade if there's a female in the area to come and feed them a little bit more. Remember, they're the size of your thumbnail and they're like journeying with these tadpole babies all over, placing them coming back, checking on them. And they're so cute. - They're like playing music to like lure food back. Like wow, that is a toad, a lay awesome father. Next up, another contender from Frogland. The Darwin frog found in the forest of Argentina in Chile. - They also guard the eggs like the poison dog frogs but then they do this really funny thing. They put them in their mouth. They swallow them. - No. - Wait, like the tadpoles are the eggs, the eggs? - They swallow the eggs and then they store them in a vocal sack in their throat because it's safer, right? It's safer in there and then inside this pouch in their throat, they grow and they're protected. The father eats a bit less. He stops calling around so much 'cause he doesn't want to draw attention. - Oh, you can't think 'cause otherwise you're like, "Oh, look at my baby." - And then, but then, and then, like the big reveal is when they're sort of ready to go out on their own. They just walk out of their dad's mouth into the world. (laughing) - Paps, they're literally taking refuge in him. - Wow, that is talking about biting off more than you could chew. That's a big, fatherly commitment. - Yeah. - Next up, father number four. - The burriest beetle. - Okay, so burying beetles, also tiny, little beetles. - Okay, and burry, we're not talking like blueberries. You mean burry? - No, burying underground, like burying underground because they find a small animal, like a mouse or a bird, that's dead, they will team up with a mom. - Okay. - And they'll bury it underground. - The dead, the corpse. - The corpse. - Okay, this sounds gross, okay. - It is gross, but it's also really cool. - Okay. - The food of mom. - They'll clean it, they'll get rid of debris, and they'll shape it, and they turn it, they shape it, like. - Okay, we saw them picturing, okay, let's just go with a mouse, so like a dead mouse, they clean it, meaning like they eat all the dead meat and fur. - Hold on. - Or they get it off. - I have a picture, too. - Wait, what am I looking at? - It was a mouse. - Oh. - It's gonna be a nursery. - Wait. - This is what. - A corpse, a skeleton crib, a skeleton nursery. - It's not just a skeleton because it's also gonna be a source of food, it's gonna be like an edible nursery. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - So it's like a corpse nursery, it's a corpse crib. - Exactly, it's the corpse crib, but not so scary. Because they coat it with this anti-microbial secretion, so because dead meat has lots of bacteria. - And the anti-microbial secretion, I look this up just for terrestrials, it comes from their mouth and from their butt. - Show that you care with antibacterial spray from your dear ears. - Don't try this at home. - That's the best. - They find a dead body, they like mush the dead flesh around so that it becomes shaped like a crib, they disinfect it, and then what do they do? The baby's hatch, the larvae hatch, and they can hang out in there, but they can't yet eat themselves. So the dad will do this thing that you see with birds, like chew it and then feed them from it. - Once again, the it is dead flesh. - Yeah. - So he like baby birds some dead flesh from the walls of the crib. - Yeah, yeah, exactly. - Into it's both so sweet, happy Father's Day. - And, and, and, they'll defend their kids from animals that could be like a hundred times bigger, like a mouse. Like there's no chance, right, that they're gonna be able to do it. One of the ways that they do this is they have this nasty smelling chemical that they can make in the glands of their butt again. - Like a scum, it's like an insect scum. - Yeah, yeah, and then the last part of this and very relevant for a conversation, sometimes the mom, the mom will just wander off. And if the mom just wanders off, the dad will raise the whole family by himself, which is like 10, 20, 30 babies per brute. So like some serious, heavy, single fathering goes on here. - Whoa! Okay, moving on to dad, numero sinko. - The chip! - Wait, what? Wasn't the chip the whole symbol of the mean dad? - Let's just end. Not all chimp dads are mean dads! So in recent years, scientists observing chimps in the wild, in the forests of Tanzania, have discovered that chimp fathers are not always as aggressive or gnarly or absent. As we thought, there is no one way that a male chimp parents it depends on the individual. Some of those dads groom and cuddle their babies, and on rare occasions, have even been observed, taking in a baby that isn't theirs. That's way better than our first chimp-pression of them. Alright, next up, a feathery father-fellow. Say that 10 hours fast, a feathery father-fellow, a feathery father-fellow, a feathery father-fellow, a feathery father-fellow, a feathery father-fellow! Shakhano! Shakhano! Shakhanan is a waiting bird about the size of a chicken. Waiting, meaning it likes water? Yes, yes. Okay. The kind of what happens is that moms are looking around and they go shopping for a potential dad that's going to take good care of the eggs. Oh! So, the females are fighting for the attention of a male who's going to take good care of the eggs she lays. Wow! So, she finds a spot, she lays the eggs, and so the male is going to sit with the eggs and incubate them, protect them, until the eggs hatch. And mom isn't incubating at all? I don't think mom incubates. Oh, gosh, I don't know why it's so hard for me to picture a dad incubating all on his own. It's like proof of how strong my miseducation has been, like these beliefs about dad and mom are even on our language, because we say things like, "Oh, she's a mother hen. It's a part of our language." Like. Mother nature. Wow! Does that hurt your feelings as men? Not. Doesn't hurt my feelings, but I think that there's a father nature as much as there's a mother nature. Well, I like that. Okay, now, speaking of father hen types, nesting dads, it is time now for our sixth and final dad. Don't poo poo this papa to meet the top of the pops we gotta go down deep to give props. The stickleback. Okay, this to me looks like a tiny stegosaurus of a fish with like sharp spikes running down its back. And that's why it's called stickleback, I think. Okay. So they're known as like underwater architects. So they build nests on the bottom of pond or stream, also to get the moms to want to lay eggs. And they use bits of plants that they glue together with a sticky substance that is called spiggin. Spiggin. It's a made out of protein based mucus. Okay. And so they build these nests and then they do these zigzag dances, like they do dances when they see a female with a belly full of eggs to try and get her to lay the eggs in the nest. And then she goes and the dad will take care of them and take the sort of take them the rest of the way. Wow. I just pulled up a picture of the nest because I was trying to picture it because like I usually think of a fish nest as just like a little smooth out bit of sand. But this is, this has architecture, it looks almost like a bird's nest up on its side. It's clearly arranged with so much care. And I don't know, it just makes me think back to all your worries that started this thing, Michael, that dads don't do the nesting or the cosying or the softer parts. And it's just like, here's another one yet another creature where the dad is doing that. Can I, can I jump in Eduardo? Yeah, go ahead. There was this study by another colleague. Michael says that all kinds of scientists have been trying to understand where a parent's caretaking behavior, where it comes from, like is it an old part of us or something that's new and involves lots of complex thought in the brain. And they're finding some pretty neat stuff, like there was one experiment that took dads and watched how their brain activates when they see and play with their baby. And you would see activation in the really old parts of our brain. And another scientist called Kumi Karota, and she was trying to isolate what part of the brain was responsible for nesting behavior. And she had concluded that the first sort of parental instinct, the first nesting behavior was male fish millions of years ago. Whoa! Fish, of course, are who we came from, mammals descended from fish hundreds of millions of years ago. And it was only then when we came on land and had the babies outside the body and had to breastfeed that these other parts came in. But one of the big lessons of all of this was get in touch with your inner fish. We all have that kind of biology, and it's really, really old. It's deep. Yeah. Has learning about all these different ways that dads show care in the animal world has a change due in any way. The sort of joke I've been making is it's a kind of new take on dad bod. Like we're actually incredibly flexible and capable of connecting in a profound way. Like we can do this, and our bodies, our brains, are made for this, actually. Give it up for dads, give it up for dads, give it up for dads, give it up for dads. Come in all shapes and sizes, they're full of surprises, come in all shapes and sizes, they're full of surprises, of all different species, and every location, the dad delegation, sweeping the nation. Deep in their mind, these dads are going primal, the love and care they share with their child is wild. I'm talking about dads, they're singing off key, they don't really care, they're clapping off beats, they're baking desserts, they're going the lawn, they're braiding your hair, they're dancing along. If they're back doesn't hurt, give it up for dads, come in all shapes and sizes, they're full of surprises, when a kindness arises, they don't try to fight it, of all different species, from monkeys to fish, are loving and cuddling dad, so they hug in the kiss, daddy to care are everywhere, it's true, so let's do this one more time with dad and tune, I'm talking about dads, all kinds of dads, we're mad about dads, so cancel your plans and celebrate it, so cancel your plans and celebrate it. Oh gee, I think an owl, I would be scared of an owl, grabbing the owl monkey with its feet and claws, yeah, I put my money with an owl, with that scientific recommendation, I would put owl my money with an owl to, hi, I'm Cassidy, I'm nine years old, my question is, have you ever hugged an owl monkey? Full disclosure, it was back in the day, we were allowed to do these things, 20, 30, five years ago, yes, I've had them in my arms and hold them, but what did it feel like? It moves you, I mean, you're handling these animals, you want them to do well, you're releasing them into the forest again, so it's very nice feeling. My name is Lucian Favre, I'm my quest genius, can owl monkeys go onto the top of your roof somehow? Of course, in fact, some people told me when I started working with owl monkeys, they were showing me the roof of their houses, and they said, can you see how clean they are? They're nose by the webs, well that's because owl monkeys do come on the roof, and they like insects, and they eat them, and they do the job for us of keeping our roof clean. Now that's the monkey business, I can get behind. Hey, I'm Tobin and I'm Luci's dad. Why are owl monkey toes so long? Because that's very important if you're walking around in relatively thin branches, that's for the reason that them, like us, have what we call the opposable thumb, it really helps your gripping, or for the branches along which you walk. Hello, my name is Parker, I'm five years old. Do owl monkeys see anything different with their orange eyes? Ooh, I love that. What would the world look like through an owl monkey's eyes? Black and white, for one, not in color, and we would have pretty, very detailed skills to detect the variation of the black and white, I mean the hues, the gradient. And what about at night time? They see better than us, they see better than us because of specific cells of the eyes. But Eduardo says we humans can see better in the dark than you might think. Get out, get out on a night of a full moon, give yourself ten minutes. without light, and bring a book. And if you have a full moon, and you allow yourself a 10 minutes, you'll be reading the book. - Interesting. - Call you if you cannot. I bet you that you'll do it. You can read a book, no problems, but you have to let your eyes adjust. - I'm gonna try this. There's actually a full moon in a couple of days. - There you go. - Okay, test test. It is a very full moon. I'm sitting, you can maybe hear the waves of Lake Michigan. I'm sitting right near the lake in this dark heart where there are no street lights. And I'm gonna do the test. - 10 minutes later, I opened up my son's copy of Wild Robot to a render page. If I really look, I can almost get words like, somebody grinned, come, come, come, grinned. I can't quite. Definitely got better. Dr. Eduardo was right. It got impressively better. My eyesight in 10 minutes, but I can't quite get there. Here's what might be messing with the experiment. Number one, there's some clouds in front of the moon. And number two, I'm getting older in my eyesight has actually started to get worse and I don't know glasses, so I don't know. If you guys try this on a full moon, see if you can read even more. - And I think that's why we're gonna leave it with a little bit of real life experimentation. Learning owl about owl monkeys has been a real hoot. And I won't tell you about barking tree frog dads who prevent their egg clusters from getting too dry by dousing them with urine. I won't tell you that. - 'Cause I'm nice. - Treshills was created by me, Lulu Miller with WNYC Studios. This episode was produced by Tonya Chala with sound designed by Mira Bertwin, Tonic Sarah Sandbachi's our executive producer, our team also includes Elenkovinsky, Anna Gonzalez, Joe Plort and Natalia Ramirez, a facturking by Anjali Mercado, with additional editorial advising, by Cassius Adair, and big special thanks to our dads, Michael and Eduardo. They actually organized a conference all about dads in the animal world and the human world over at Yale. That was called Fathers and Fatherhood from molecules to modern families. And that's where Michael learned all about dads in the animal world and they recently participated in another conference on dads in Brazil. And I guarantee you they're gonna organize or participate in another one. So if you are interested in dads in the animal world and are evolving understanding of dads in the human world, keep an eye on the project, early childhood matters. That's early childhood matters, dot online. Support for Trestrials is provided by the Simon's Foundation, the author of Vining Davis Foundations and the Templeton Foundation, thank you. And you, in honor of Father's Day, go show some love on the father figures in your life, whoever it is that tells the best dad jokes. Okay, the worst jokes in your life. And if you are making a Father's Day card here, is some inspiration from listener Emmy, age nine. She drew a picture of a toucan holding up a foam finger that says number one and the toucan is saying, toucan do it. And inside the card it says, together we can wing it. (laughs) I love that, 'cause this is not all world. Trying to do here together, just get through as best we can together. Okay, finally, preview. Our next episode is all about King Cobra's and who we want to know what would you draw for the episode art? What would you be your episode poster of a King Cobra? Send it to us at. R-E-S-T. R-I-A-L-S. - At w-n-y-c dot org. Or if you want to draw the thing and send it in the real mail to us, the snail mail, the old school way. Just put an envelope, throw a stamp on there and send it to terrestrial's team. W-N-Y-C radio, 160 Varic Street, New York, New York, 1-0-0-1-3. We love getting mail, that's all. See you in a couple spins. Love this dirty, old planet of ours. Woo, woo, bye. Hi, I'm Maya and I'm from London and here are the staff credits. Radio Lab is hosted by Lulu Miller and Latif Nasa. Soren Wheeler is our executive editor. Sarah Soundbuck is our executive director. Our managing editor is Pat Wolters. Dylan Keith is our director of sound design. Our staff includes Jeremy Bloom, W. Harry Fortuna, David Gable, Maria Paz Gutierrez, Simdu Nynasambundan, Matt Keelty, Mona Mordgaulka, Annie McEwan, Alex Niesen, Sara Kari, Natalia Ramirez, Rebecca Rand, Joanna Strogas, Anissa Vietsa, Aryan Wack, Molly Webster, and Jessica Young. With help from Gabby Santas and Maya Applebee Malamid. Our fact checkers are Diane Kelly, Emily Krieger, Natalie Middleton, Angelina Makardo, and Sophie Samae. Hey, Radio Lab, Michael Koma Washington. Leadership support for Radio Lab Science programming is provided by the Simon's Foundation and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radio Lab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. [BLANK_AUDIO]