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CLASSIC: Clara, The World's Most Famous Rhinoceros · Ridiculous History

0:00
Speaker 1: And we're back with this week's classic episode. I've been
0:04
Speaker 1: no riddle me this. What's the most famous rhinoceros?
0:08
Speaker 2: You know why? Clara the world's most famous rhinoceros? Man,
0:11
Speaker 2: you know the answer to that?
0:14
Speaker 1: Okay, Well, I don't know.
0:15
Speaker 2: I love the name Clara because it is it evokes
0:17
Speaker 2: images of like a dainty Ballerina esque figure. I only
0:21
Speaker 2: say that because of Clara.
0:22
Speaker 3: From The Nutcracker and the idea of maybe that's what
0:25
Speaker 3: they were going for, because the idea of a rhinoceros
0:27
Speaker 3: being a huge lumbering beast also being able to kind
0:30
Speaker 3: of tippytoe around and pirouette is a little funny.
0:33
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is This was a really interesting one for us.
0:36
Speaker 1: Back in twenty nineteen, we learned the story of an
0:41
Speaker 1: interprising I'll see enterprising see captain who got a hold
0:46
Speaker 1: of an orphaned rhino and made friends and took the
0:50
Speaker 1: rhino with him back home. And we're doing this, by
0:55
Speaker 1: the way, with a special guest, our dear friend, Katie Golden,
0:59
Speaker 1: the host of the podcast Creature Feature.
1:03
Speaker 2: So let's jump right in and begin to unravel this
1:05
Speaker 2: history mystery.
1:09
Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome to the
1:37
Speaker 1: show Ridiculous Historians. Quick question for you, what's the most
1:42
Speaker 1: amazing animal that you have seen up close in real life?
1:46
Speaker 2: Hi?
1:46
Speaker 1: My name is Ben, my name is Nol.
1:48
Speaker 2: I would say Ostrich if by amazing you mean terrifying, right,
1:52
Speaker 2: because you're bird thing bird thing Ostrich in particular cause
1:55
Speaker 2: I've got those gangly, weird necks and those really musculous talons,
1:59
Speaker 2: and the the whole shape of the bird is just
2:01
Speaker 2: rommed today.
2:02
Speaker 1: Do you know if, for a relatively or comparatively brief
2:06
Speaker 1: span of Earth's history, flightless birds large flightless birds with
2:10
Speaker 1: a dominant species totally I.
2:12
Speaker 2: Mean, aren't like Jurassic Park dinosaurs meant to have had feathers. Yes,
2:16
Speaker 2: that is true. That is true.
2:17
Speaker 1: Spielberg did not back down. Another person does not back down,
2:21
Speaker 1: is our super producer, Casey Pegram.
2:24
Speaker 2: Yeah. That Tom Petty song is about him. It is.
2:27
Speaker 1: It is a lot of Tom Petty's catalog is actually
2:30
Speaker 1: based on the life and times of Casey Pegram.
2:33
Speaker 2: Yeah. It didn't seem to work out age wise and
2:35
Speaker 2: timeline wise, but trust us it does. Trust us.
2:38
Speaker 1: Yeah, the whole thing's a concept album. I would say
2:41
Speaker 1: the most amazing animal that I have seen up close
2:45
Speaker 1: for entirely subjective reasons would be a tiger. The most
2:49
Speaker 1: amazing animal I've seen up close in the wild was
2:53
Speaker 1: a brown bear. Did I tell you that story?
2:56
Speaker 2: No?
2:58
Speaker 1: Were, I was not a survived at the end. I
3:01
Speaker 1: was in boy Scouts and we were on a camping trip.
3:05
Speaker 1: I had walked away from the campsite, and let me
3:09
Speaker 1: put this delicately, I was peeing in a creek, which
3:13
Speaker 1: you know, I probably shouldn't have been doing. And then
3:16
Speaker 1: mid stream is the best way to put it. I
3:19
Speaker 1: looked across the creek and I saw a bear on
3:22
Speaker 1: the other side of the creek just chilling and staring
3:26
Speaker 1: at me while I was midstream, and I didn't know
3:29
Speaker 1: what to do, so I just kept going and then
3:33
Speaker 1: I backed away. I walked backwards back to the campsite,
3:37
Speaker 1: and the bear just stared at me.
3:41
Speaker 2: What you're describing, Ben, is the natural adaptation that was
3:44
Speaker 2: the inspiration for the care Bear stair with a care
3:47
Speaker 2: bear stare.
3:48
Speaker 1: Yeah, as long as it wasn't the inspiration for that
3:52
Speaker 1: Leonardo DiCaprio vehicle. What was that?
3:55
Speaker 2: Where was he in a live action care Bears movie?
3:57
Speaker 1: No, he was in a movie with a bear.
3:59
Speaker 2: Oh where where he eats? There he eats raw meat
4:02
Speaker 2: and animal carcass and I think they gave him the
4:05
Speaker 2: oscar for it.
4:06
Speaker 1: Yeah, Casey, do you remember which one that was? That?
4:09
Speaker 2: Was it?
4:09
Speaker 1: Casey on the Case, Casey on the Case. Today's episode
4:14
Speaker 1: is about several things. It is about an amazing animal
4:19
Speaker 1: that very few of us get a chance to see
4:21
Speaker 1: in the wild nowadays, and it's about the way fame
4:25
Speaker 1: can affect people. And this is a very special episode
4:29
Speaker 1: today because we are not entering into this fora alone
4:34
Speaker 1: Well we're entering into it alone, but we're going to
4:36
Speaker 1: exit it with company. Yes that's correct. Yes we do
4:39
Speaker 1: have a surprise guest at the end. But our first guest,
4:44
Speaker 1: at least in concept here spirit, in spirit, there we Go,
4:49
Speaker 1: is actually not a person. Our first guest is a rhinoceros.
4:55
Speaker 2: Sure not to be confused with the very depressing Smashing
4:59
Speaker 2: Pumpkins song of the same name and actually, in retrospect,
5:03
Speaker 2: highly pretentious. I was so in love with that stuff,
5:06
Speaker 2: and I look, some of it holds up, but that song,
5:08
Speaker 2: he's like, he's like planned a show. Trees and balloons.
5:14
Speaker 2: What does that even mean? Billy Corgan, you know ice
5:16
Speaker 2: cream Snow.
5:17
Speaker 1: Yeah, I lump them in with a lot of bands
5:21
Speaker 1: from that time period. Who if you don't pay attention
5:24
Speaker 1: to the lyrics. I've said this before. I've had those
5:27
Speaker 1: moments with Stone Temple Pilots as well, where I think,
5:29
Speaker 1: you know, if I didn't understand English, I would love
5:32
Speaker 1: this song. But that stuff like the fashion victims gnashed
5:37
Speaker 1: their charcoal teeth. Oh that that's that's zero melancholi.
5:41
Speaker 2: My beef with the song Rhinoceros, not one mention of
5:44
Speaker 2: a rhinoceros and the entire so I guess it's maybe
5:46
Speaker 2: just the feeling of a rhinoceros. It has sort of
5:49
Speaker 2: a rhinoceros like melancholy to it, which you know that
5:52
Speaker 2: interest into the story only it's interesting. We'll get to
5:56
Speaker 2: we'll get to it.
5:56
Speaker 1: It does. It does matter though, because for quite a
6:00
Speaker 1: long time a rhinoceros was considered to be somewhat of
6:04
Speaker 1: a mythical creature.
6:06
Speaker 2: Right. There is a very famous etching by Albrecht Durer
6:11
Speaker 2: that depicted a rhinoceros based on description alone in a
6:15
Speaker 2: really cool way.
6:16
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, fifteen fifteen woodcut, and it shows a rhinoceros
6:20
Speaker 1: in profile, and it looks like it's dressed for war. Yeah,
6:24
Speaker 1: like it came to kick button, chew bubble gum and
6:27
Speaker 1: it's all out of gum.
6:28
Speaker 2: Looks like one of those ones from like one of
6:30
Speaker 2: those ones from The Black Panther. That there's that tribe
6:34
Speaker 2: and that comes into play pretty heavily in the big
6:37
Speaker 2: battle structure of the film. They ride these rhinoceros like
6:40
Speaker 2: creatures that aren't quite the rhinoceroses that we know. They're
6:43
Speaker 2: a little bit of an augmented rhinoceros, which is this
6:46
Speaker 2: this etching is very much the case. It has an
6:49
Speaker 2: extra horn on its back, which makes it look even
6:51
Speaker 2: more fierce. Yep. But overall, pretty damn good depiction of
6:55
Speaker 2: a rhino based on just word of mouth, right, yeah, especially.
6:58
Speaker 1: Considering how how woefully inaccurate many depictions of this type
7:03
Speaker 1: were at the time. Now, at this time in the
7:06
Speaker 1: fifteen hundreds, many many people in Europe would place a
7:11
Speaker 1: creature like the rhinoceros up there with a creature like
7:14
Speaker 1: the griffin, the hippogriffis or the unicorns. You know, it's
7:17
Speaker 1: a cool idea, but someone was a bit in their
7:21
Speaker 1: cups or as are different Ben Franklin may have put
7:24
Speaker 1: it they had been to speak with the King.
7:27
Speaker 2: The King. Yeah, and Ben Well, last thing, this Albert
7:31
Speaker 2: sure etching really reminds me of battle Cat from He
7:34
Speaker 2: Man because it's a very large, muscular creature decked out
7:38
Speaker 2: in some very bespoke like armor and kind of a
7:41
Speaker 2: helmet that goes over the rhino head.
7:44
Speaker 1: I remember that.
7:44
Speaker 2: Yeah, you were a battle Cat. Yeah, he was Cringer
7:47
Speaker 2: and then he turned into battle Cat.
7:49
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah, because he had to transform with he Man.
7:52
Speaker 1: That's in one of the most creative names for any superhero.
7:56
Speaker 2: You never heard of the band Man Man. Yes, I
7:59
Speaker 2: wonder if that's sort of a of a jab at
8:01
Speaker 2: he Man. I don't know.
8:02
Speaker 1: I never understood why it was she Ra and she
8:05
Speaker 1: Woman if it was he Man.
8:06
Speaker 2: That's a good point. No one knows. What. I will
8:08
Speaker 2: say that the new she Rack cartoon is supposed to
8:10
Speaker 2: be incredible. It's being held up there along with like
8:13
Speaker 2: shows like Stephen Universes being very inclusive and very well
8:16
Speaker 2: written and interesting.
8:17
Speaker 1: And handling trauma quite well. Yeah, exactly, Yeah, I really
8:20
Speaker 1: want to check it out. Oh and speaking of checking
8:22
Speaker 1: things out, Durer ultimately arrives at at least part of
8:27
Speaker 1: this description via the courtesy of the first century Roman
8:31
Speaker 1: author Plinny the Elder, And I love his description of
8:35
Speaker 1: the rhinoceros knoll. He calls it fast, impetuous, and cunning,
8:39
Speaker 1: the mortal enemy.
8:40
Speaker 2: Of the elephants.
8:41
Speaker 1: Yeah, where is this covering for some nightman day man
8:43
Speaker 1: stuff going on?
8:44
Speaker 2: Time? No? And I think even like, what was what was?
8:47
Speaker 2: What was he basing these observations on. Did plant? Were
8:49
Speaker 2: there were there rhinoceroses in Rome? That's a good question.
8:53
Speaker 1: What do you think?
8:53
Speaker 2: I have a feeling it was probably more word of mouth,
8:56
Speaker 2: and he probably did some research based on people that
8:59
Speaker 2: were traveling too far oign lands and then maybe interviewed them.
9:01
Speaker 2: But he didn't strike me as the type that was
9:03
Speaker 2: going to go off to India or Africa or anything
9:06
Speaker 2: that wasn't really in the cards.
9:08
Speaker 1: Plenty also got plenty of things wrong, you know what
9:11
Speaker 1: I mean. It's not as if he could hop on
9:15
Speaker 1: the internet or even visit a particularly well stocked library.
9:20
Speaker 1: So he most likely Plenty that is, was getting his
9:24
Speaker 1: accounts from Greek and Roman forays into India, and he
9:29
Speaker 1: was describing an Indian rhinoceros.
9:30
Speaker 2: Which is the subject of our story today actually, and
9:33
Speaker 2: one last thing. Plenty was a naval commander earlier in
9:37
Speaker 2: his life before he became like, you know, a well
9:40
Speaker 2: known no at.
9:40
Speaker 1: All as in maritime, not belly button, that's right, that's right.
9:43
Speaker 2: So I don't know that he experienced these things firsthand,
9:46
Speaker 2: but I think he definitely had the opportunity possibly to have,
9:49
Speaker 2: but more likely been that he heard it from someone else.
9:53
Speaker 1: And this is where we meet Clara. Let's fast forward
9:57
Speaker 1: to the seventeen hundreds. Is a rhinoceros, and in seventeen
10:03
Speaker 1: thirty eight, her mother is tragically killed in India Bambi style,
10:08
Speaker 1: Bamby style dude, and she becomes a house pet of
10:11
Speaker 1: one Jan Albert Sikderman, director of the Dutch East India Company,
10:17
Speaker 1: and he kept her. He raised her in his estate
10:21
Speaker 1: in Kolkata until she got too big. Now, apparently she's
10:25
Speaker 1: very well behaved. People loved her. She loved people. But
10:29
Speaker 1: a rhinoceros is a huge creature, and eventually, as she
10:32
Speaker 1: grew into adulthood, she was just, despite her best intentions,
10:36
Speaker 1: too big to walk around inside without wrecking the place.
10:39
Speaker 2: What do you call a baby rhinoceros? Ben? Is it?
10:41
Speaker 1: A pup Thomas Janine Clara Clara a calf like a hippo.
10:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, I believe that's the case. This is so cool though,
10:52
Speaker 2: because it's this is one of those stories where anytime
10:55
Speaker 2: you have animals taken out of their natural habitat and
10:58
Speaker 2: kind of trotted around and for human amusement, there's it's
11:01
Speaker 2: easy to do an eye roll and be like, oh,
11:03
Speaker 2: that is not what this animal was meant for. But again,
11:07
Speaker 2: left to her own devices, Clara may will have perished
11:11
Speaker 2: in the harsh wilderness of the Indian jungles, right, But this,
11:16
Speaker 2: this kindly gentleman took her in and you know, would
11:20
Speaker 2: trot her out for guests, apparently demonstrating her quote table manners.
11:26
Speaker 1: Right.
11:27
Speaker 2: This is coming from an article from getty dot edu.
11:30
Speaker 2: They curated a very cool exhibit at the Getty Museum
11:34
Speaker 2: in New York about Clara. And we'll get to what
11:37
Speaker 2: might have been contained in such an exhibit in just
11:39
Speaker 2: a bit. But for one particular dinner, let's say, just
11:42
Speaker 2: for editorial purposes. Jan Albert Sickdermann, Clara's caretaker had a guest,
11:49
Speaker 2: a kindly Dutch sea captain. I'm gonna let you attempt
11:53
Speaker 2: this pronunciation ben.
11:55
Speaker 1: Daoomote Vandermere very good. And Clara at this time is
11:59
Speaker 1: about three years old. So she spends the first to
12:02
Speaker 1: and change years of her life living with Sickderman. But
12:06
Speaker 1: then she is acquired by Vandermere and he takes her
12:10
Speaker 1: on a seven month sea voyage around the African continent,
12:15
Speaker 1: eventually arriving in Rotterdam in July seventeen forty one.
12:19
Speaker 2: And let's make no mistake, Clara was not full grown
12:23
Speaker 2: at this point, but three years that's a big creature
12:26
Speaker 2: right there. I want to say somewhere probably in the
12:29
Speaker 2: range of two thousand pounds, because by no, that's not
12:31
Speaker 2: true because by the age of eight she was five thousand.
12:33
Speaker 2: So what do we conjecture that she was at the
12:35
Speaker 2: age of three somewhere between that? Yeah, okay, somewhere between
12:39
Speaker 2: zero pounds and five thousand pounds.
12:41
Speaker 1: That sounds acurate.
12:42
Speaker 2: I'm going to say a three year old rhino calf,
12:45
Speaker 2: I'm going to estimate about one thousand pounds. So just
12:47
Speaker 2: to get her loaded up onto the ship, not to
12:49
Speaker 2: mention a six month journey where this creature would need
12:54
Speaker 2: to be cared for and fed, no small task. This
12:58
Speaker 2: is kindly sea captain did have a soft spot. He
13:01
Speaker 2: was impressed and very taken in by this gentle giant
13:05
Speaker 2: as she was described.
13:06
Speaker 1: And she was a little bit high maintenance because she
13:09
Speaker 1: was not designed to live life on a boat. So
13:13
Speaker 1: during her travels from India to Rotterdam, she acquired some
13:17
Speaker 1: favorite human things, namely orange peels, beer, and tobacco smoke.
13:22
Speaker 2: Yeah. I think people would like blow her shotguns or something,
13:24
Speaker 2: and also give her a little sip of their beer,
13:26
Speaker 2: probably as a gag at first, but I think she
13:28
Speaker 2: really did develop a taste for it and would have
13:31
Speaker 2: a little nip throughout the rest of her existence.
13:33
Speaker 1: A lot of mammals do.
13:34
Speaker 2: Yeah.
13:35
Speaker 1: And also Clara's skin required special moisturizers so she didn't
13:41
Speaker 1: dry out, and that's why historians conjecture that the captain
13:45
Speaker 1: may have used fish oil, may have massaged her flesh
13:49
Speaker 1: with fish oil to keep her moisturized.
13:51
Speaker 2: Yeah. I saw a really adorable YouTube video. I think
13:54
Speaker 2: it was. This is like sort of a fable almost
13:57
Speaker 2: This has been recreated in picture books and like lore
14:00
Speaker 2: or whatever because it is a really cute story. And
14:03
Speaker 2: I saw kind of a pictorial animated recreation of this
14:07
Speaker 2: and that they suggested that he thought, oh, she's trying out,
14:12
Speaker 2: what do we have in abundance of we're in the
14:13
Speaker 2: sea fish, Let's do fish oil. And as you can imagine,
14:18
Speaker 2: it probably wasn't the most pleasant smell, but it did
14:22
Speaker 2: keep her skin from drying out and cracking like the
14:24
Speaker 2: under the sun. Yeah.
14:26
Speaker 1: Absolutely, this is first off, we have to commend the
14:31
Speaker 1: captain and their crew because they would realistically have been
14:35
Speaker 1: figuring this out on the fly. What does a rhinoceros seat?
14:37
Speaker 1: How much food does it need? How much water does
14:40
Speaker 1: it need? So this was trial and error. Unfortunately for Clara,
14:44
Speaker 1: they persevered and it worked. When they arrive in Rotterdam,
14:49
Speaker 1: she gets a temporary home in Laden and then in Amsterdam,
14:54
Speaker 1: and she's exhibited around the Netherlands for several years before
14:58
Speaker 1: she makes her next trip abroad to Germany, and that
15:02
Speaker 1: was in seventeen forty four. At the time, she was
15:05
Speaker 1: called the Dutch Rhino because that's where that's what people
15:09
Speaker 1: associated her with. They wouldn't say it would be an
15:12
Speaker 1: unnecessarily long explanation to say, well, you've heard of India.
15:16
Speaker 2: Right, sure, I mean, let's think about the way we've
15:19
Speaker 2: viewed circuses today. You know, we know circuses are problematic,
15:22
Speaker 2: and then the way animals are treated in circuses has
15:25
Speaker 2: historically been proven to be kind of gross. But think
15:28
Speaker 2: about the fascination even to the top of the show,
15:30
Speaker 2: Ben you had with your pal the grizzly Bear, and
15:33
Speaker 2: my abject horror slash fascination with the ostrich things that
15:37
Speaker 2: we have seen in various forms, whether printed or in
15:41
Speaker 2: movies or whatever. But this is a thing that people
15:44
Speaker 2: had no notion of even existing. As far as some
15:47
Speaker 2: of the people that were seeing this, this rhino was
15:49
Speaker 2: concerned it was a dragon of some kind, right, or
15:52
Speaker 2: some kind of mythical creature. So it was like rhino hysteria,
15:55
Speaker 2: the rhino craze, rhino craze, rhinomania, as the ermania.
16:04
Speaker 1: This is also the heaviest land animal on the planet.
16:08
Speaker 1: There is an excellent book called Clara's Grand Tour, Travels
16:12
Speaker 1: with a Rhinoceros in eighteenth century Europe by Glennis Ridley,
16:16
Speaker 1: which describes in the most accurate detail possible Clara's journey.
16:23
Speaker 1: You see, vandermir did a lot of great things for Clara.
16:25
Speaker 1: I kept her alive much longer than the normal rhino
16:29
Speaker 1: lifespan and captivity. But he didn't keep a journal, so
16:34
Speaker 1: some of this stuff is conjecture on Ridley's part. And
16:38
Speaker 1: one of the things that Ridley points out is that
16:40
Speaker 1: there was an earlier attempted transport of a rhino in
16:43
Speaker 1: seventeen seventy in France, and for a single check this out,
16:49
Speaker 1: for a single journey transporting this male rhino to Versailles,
16:52
Speaker 1: the French government paid for two days of work by carpenters,
16:56
Speaker 1: thirty six days of work by locksmith's, fifty seven days
17:00
Speaker 1: of work by blacksmiths, in seventy two days of work
17:03
Speaker 1: by a team of wheelwrights, and the wagon still collapses.
17:07
Speaker 2: Jeez, And wouldn't that have been like at the request
17:09
Speaker 2: of a monarchy. So this is just like a dude,
17:11
Speaker 2: like a sea captain who's having to like, you know,
17:13
Speaker 2: pull this stuff together and figure it out. And not
17:16
Speaker 2: to mention that in that same book you're talking about
17:19
Speaker 2: by the time Clara was basically full grown around eight
17:22
Speaker 2: years old, we're talking five thou pounds of creature that
17:27
Speaker 2: eats about sixty pounds of hay, twenty pounds of bread,
17:31
Speaker 2: and fourteen buckets of water a day, not counting the beer. No,
17:35
Speaker 2: not counting the trip. That's just like for a treat,
17:37
Speaker 2: you know. But rhino Mania was a real thing. I
17:41
Speaker 2: mean it swept the cl nation Europe, you know. Clara
17:46
Speaker 2: made trips to Switzerland, Berlin, Vienna, Munich, Strasburg, Augsburg, all
17:53
Speaker 2: over Germany, Vertzport where I was born actually, and Onsbach, Italy,
17:57
Speaker 2: London several times and inspired like all of these aristocratic
18:02
Speaker 2: kind are members of these aristocratic courts, who are like
18:05
Speaker 2: poets and painters.
18:06
Speaker 1: Right right, She had private audiences with royalty, aristocracy and
18:11
Speaker 1: people may This is very clever of vandermir He understands
18:16
Speaker 1: the value of merchandising, you know, so he actively encourages
18:21
Speaker 1: these different pieces of memorabilia and souvenirs commemorating Clara the Rhino.
18:26
Speaker 1: There are bronze sculptures, they're porcelain curios. There are you know,
18:31
Speaker 1: life sized portraits of her. One in seventeen forty nine
18:34
Speaker 1: by Jean Baptiste Adri She stands in this like rustic landscape.
18:39
Speaker 1: They're etchings of her. There's another painting in seventeen fifty
18:43
Speaker 1: one that's currently at the National Gallery in London by
18:46
Speaker 1: Pietro Longhi, and this entire thing impacts society as a whole.
18:52
Speaker 1: It is rhinomania. She is a craze. Now most people
18:55
Speaker 1: probably cannot afford the opportunity to see her in person.
19:00
Speaker 1: Vandermir anticipates that it makes some different memorabilia for different
19:04
Speaker 1: budget levels.
19:04
Speaker 2: Yeah, like the equivalent of like a commemorative circus cup
19:07
Speaker 2: or something like that, you know, exactly one of those
19:10
Speaker 2: light up swords.
19:12
Speaker 1: And during her heyday, during the heyday of her tour
19:17
Speaker 1: for a season, things that were fashionable in the world
19:20
Speaker 1: of style and dress were referred to as ala rhinoceros.
19:24
Speaker 2: Yeah. I think there was even a hairdo that got
19:26
Speaker 2: popular in France. If we can picture some of those
19:28
Speaker 2: big billowy boufont hairstyles in France, one of them was,
19:31
Speaker 2: I believe, called the rhinoceros.
19:33
Speaker 1: Yeah, and they decorated horses with that as well, with
19:36
Speaker 1: like little rhino ears and rhino little rhino tales.
19:39
Speaker 2: Yeah. It was like, I mean, it was an absolute sensation.
19:42
Speaker 2: And I know you mentioned private audiences with certain monarchs,
19:45
Speaker 2: but I haven't confirmed this, but I did see in
19:48
Speaker 2: one source that Louis the fifteenth actually offered to buy
19:54
Speaker 2: Clara from our kindly sea captain and or or at
19:59
Speaker 2: least breast that he very much wanted this creature, to
20:03
Speaker 2: which Vandermere said, I'll give her to you for some
20:06
Speaker 2: exorbitant price, to which Louis turned his nose up because
20:08
Speaker 2: he was expecting it to be gifted to him. But
20:10
Speaker 2: now Vandermere was very very much this was like a companion,
20:14
Speaker 2: even though he was, you know, cleaning up making bank. Obviously,
20:17
Speaker 2: with this rhino, it really does seem like he loved her.
20:21
Speaker 1: Yeah, and she was inspiring songs and poems dedicated to Clara.
20:27
Speaker 1: And I think you already mentioned that when she toured
20:30
Speaker 1: Italy she met the same fanfare. That's where this wonderful
20:34
Speaker 1: painting comes from, with some Venetians and masked staring at
20:38
Speaker 1: the rhinoceros, very very eyes wide shut. That one's for you, Casey.
20:43
Speaker 2: And speaking of we check out Casey Pegrim's recurring guest
20:46
Speaker 2: spot on our buddy Chuck's podcast movie Crush, which I
20:50
Speaker 2: appear on occasionally as well, doing a series about Kubrick's
20:54
Speaker 2: eyesweat shut and I believe you also by Linden and
20:57
Speaker 2: the Shining as well, Right, yeah, those three and we
20:59
Speaker 2: got it's passive Laura kind of soon. I love pass Laura.
21:02
Speaker 2: It's fantastic, such a good one. So it's sort of
21:04
Speaker 2: a let think of people. Don't think of it as
21:06
Speaker 2: like top Kubrick. It's one of my favorites. Yeah, I
21:09
Speaker 2: agree completely.
21:10
Speaker 1: Why you may ask, well, you'll have to tune into
21:12
Speaker 1: movie Crush to find out along the way. Both as
21:18
Speaker 1: a animal and as an increasingly relevant cultural icon, it
21:24
Speaker 1: seems that vandermir and Clara really do have this bond,
21:29
Speaker 1: and she lives what we said, she lived longer than
21:33
Speaker 1: any rhino in captivity beforehand had. She lived around twenty years.
21:37
Speaker 1: She went to London three times. You know there are
21:42
Speaker 1: I haven't been to London three times? What am I
21:44
Speaker 1: doing with my life?
21:44
Speaker 2: Dude? I mean I went to I think I have
21:46
Speaker 2: all the cool European destinations I've been to. I went
21:49
Speaker 2: when I was too young to remember, when I traveled
21:51
Speaker 2: with my mom when she was doing opera stuff. So
21:54
Speaker 2: I really hope to remedy that. But yes, seriously, this
21:56
Speaker 2: rhino lived large. And think about all the voyages and
22:00
Speaker 2: the hoisting onto a ship and all of this.
22:02
Speaker 1: So yeah, the coach itself, she had to be pulled
22:05
Speaker 1: by six horses in a specially reinforced coach. And again
22:09
Speaker 1: with the whole trivia about the French government's attempts to
22:13
Speaker 1: do this thing. This dude cracked the code, and I
22:16
Speaker 1: guess he must have parlayed all of that Clara money
22:19
Speaker 1: into ways of keeping her comfortable. You know, we don't
22:22
Speaker 1: really read a lot about him living in the absolute
22:25
Speaker 1: lap of luxury. I even heard that read that early on,
22:28
Speaker 1: when she was still growing and he hadn't quite cracked
22:32
Speaker 1: this racket yet, he would go hungry in order to
22:35
Speaker 1: feed Clara the rhino again this again, this has sort
22:38
Speaker 1: of taken the form of a bit of a fairy
22:40
Speaker 1: tale the way it's written in some places. But that's
22:43
Speaker 1: interesting detail to have survived, you know. And so spoiler alert,
22:48
Speaker 1: Clara is no longer with us. If we assume that
22:53
Speaker 1: she was approximately two years old when purchased by VanderMeer
22:57
Speaker 1: and brought to Leyden in seventeen forty one, would have
23:00
Speaker 1: been twenty and seventeen fifty eight, and that is when
23:04
Speaker 1: on her third visit to London she passed away. Unfortunately,
23:08
Speaker 1: there are no contemporary reports from visitors who saw Clara
23:12
Speaker 1: of any visible signs of illness, and to this day
23:17
Speaker 1: her death seems sudden, unexpected, and we don't have a
23:21
Speaker 1: clear cause of death either.
23:22
Speaker 2: No, we don't. From what I've seen, it just sounds
23:25
Speaker 2: like it was her time. I mean, it was sort
23:28
Speaker 2: of an old age thing, given that she exceeded the
23:30
Speaker 2: lifespan of a typical rhino. Yeah. I saw one one
23:35
Speaker 2: version of the story that she lost her horn or
23:38
Speaker 2: her horn fell off earlier before she passed away, and
23:41
Speaker 2: that vandermir was concerned for her. But then he continued
23:45
Speaker 2: to he felt that she enjoyed this life and that
23:48
Speaker 2: she was like, this was the life for her, that
23:50
Speaker 2: she got pleasure out of being paraded around and being
23:53
Speaker 2: admired and you know, sort of anthropomorphizing I guess, which
23:56
Speaker 2: we'll get to in a little bit. But apparently the
23:58
Speaker 2: horn grew back and she had another couple of good
24:01
Speaker 2: years in her of this life.
24:03
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's see. There's one theory that I thought was
24:06
Speaker 1: interesting that comes again from that book I mentioned earlier,
24:08
Speaker 1: Clara's Grand Tour. There's one theory that says it's possible
24:13
Speaker 1: that she just had a natural disease that would have
24:16
Speaker 1: led to her death in the wild regardless. And there's
24:20
Speaker 1: another theory that says the vast quantities of bread she
24:23
Speaker 1: ate while on display in London may be a clue
24:27
Speaker 1: to her death, since any fungal growth in the weak could,
24:30
Speaker 1: if consumed in large enough quantities, have a severe effect
24:34
Speaker 1: on the digestive system. But this is all speculation, and
24:38
Speaker 1: the main point is that this gentle, gigantic, beautiful creature
24:43
Speaker 1: single hornedly. I'm going to keep that bad Yeah, very well,
24:48
Speaker 1: I'm going to keep it. She changed the way that
24:52
Speaker 1: Europe understood the world beyond the edges of their maps.
25:01
Speaker 1: While we're speculating, no this leads us to our segue.
25:05
Speaker 1: It's often said that fame can change people. Right, a
25:10
Speaker 1: sudden rise to fame and you can't remember who your
25:14
Speaker 1: real friends are, you win the lottery or something like that. Right,
25:17
Speaker 1: how does it affect you psychologically? Well, Claire of the
25:20
Speaker 1: Rhinoceros had a sudden stratospheric rise to fame. Is it
25:25
Speaker 1: possible that this rise to fame could have affected her
25:29
Speaker 1: the same way it affects a human being? Admittedly, Noel,
25:34
Speaker 1: this is a pretty great question, but I think we
25:37
Speaker 1: could use a little bit of help exploring it.
25:39
Speaker 2: What are you say, I think we have to because
25:41
Speaker 2: we set up a special guest at the beginning of
25:43
Speaker 2: the show, and if we don't follow through with that,
25:44
Speaker 2: people will think we're liars.
25:46
Speaker 1: There'll be chaos in the streets. My friend. Luckily that
25:49
Speaker 1: wasn't just a bunch of smoke and mirrors of fellow
25:53
Speaker 1: ridiculous historians. We are delighted to introduce you to today's guest,
26:00
Speaker 1: peer podcaster of ours, a big friend of the show,
26:03
Speaker 1: Katie Golden, the host of Creature feature.
26:06
Speaker 4: Key Guys, Happy to be here.
26:08
Speaker 2: We are so happy to have you. And you might
26:09
Speaker 2: remember Katie because an episode of her amazing show snuck
26:13
Speaker 2: into our feed and then obviously you subscribe to her
26:16
Speaker 2: show immediately, and now you're huge fans, so we're all
26:18
Speaker 2: family here.
26:20
Speaker 1: Yeah, so we were very curious to hear your take
26:26
Speaker 1: on this, Katie. We set up earlier that question of
26:31
Speaker 1: how sudden fame could impact a human being psychologically. We
26:35
Speaker 1: were hoping to learn if there's whether there's any analog
26:39
Speaker 1: to that in the world or in the mind rather
26:42
Speaker 1: of the rhinoceros.
26:43
Speaker 2: Yeah.
26:43
Speaker 4: I think that's a really interesting question because there is
26:48
Speaker 4: so there's a lot of research into animals in captivity
26:52
Speaker 4: and their psychology, especially these larger animals like elephants and
26:57
Speaker 4: rhinos and tigers, you know, where they they require a
27:01
Speaker 4: lot of territory and a lot their natural environment is
27:05
Speaker 4: just so expensive that when you put them in captivity
27:08
Speaker 4: and you put them in a different environment, it is
27:10
Speaker 4: a drastic psychological shift for them. So I think, like
27:16
Speaker 4: to explore the question of fame, like first you kind
27:18
Speaker 4: of have to know a little bit about animals and captivity.
27:22
Speaker 4: So like, even when animals are really well looked after
27:27
Speaker 4: and cared for and the zoo keepers really love them,
27:31
Speaker 4: say it like the San Diego Zoo, where it's just
27:33
Speaker 4: a it's a fantastic zoo, but they still have these
27:37
Speaker 4: issues of what are called stereotypees, which are like these
27:42
Speaker 4: kind of like obsessive, compulsive behaviors that animals do when
27:46
Speaker 4: they're in captivity, like polar bears or elephants, and they'll
27:51
Speaker 4: do things like repeated tics movements, obsessive grooming, pacing, and
27:58
Speaker 4: for rhinos, one of the things they do is they
28:00
Speaker 4: have these awesome prehensile upper lips or their semi prehensile
28:05
Speaker 4: and that's how they can like grasp twigs or stocks
28:09
Speaker 4: of grass and chew those up. They'll kind of fidget
28:12
Speaker 4: with that upper lip and do these repeated motions with
28:15
Speaker 4: that as a sign of stress. And so there is
28:20
Speaker 4: something in terms of captivity that can really stress out animals,
28:25
Speaker 4: and especially the large ones. But there's evidence that increased
28:31
Speaker 4: enrichment helps them out. It helps destress them. So things
28:34
Speaker 4: like having to work through puzzles to get through their food,
28:40
Speaker 4: like games and toys, and positive interactions with their trainers,
28:44
Speaker 4: so allowing them to One thing that I think people
28:50
Speaker 4: might not know about rhinos is you can actually train
28:52
Speaker 4: their trainable. They're fairly intelligent. You can give them. There's
28:58
Speaker 4: one rhino that has learned how to paint using its
29:02
Speaker 4: upper lip. So the so the keeper applies a dab
29:08
Speaker 4: of paint to its upper lip and then it just
29:10
Speaker 4: kind of The paintings are I gotta say they aren't great,
29:16
Speaker 4: a little abstract perhaps, I mean, I know it's it's
29:19
Speaker 4: easy to be a critic, but they I mean there's
29:24
Speaker 4: a certain genes sequa that's lacking in them.
29:27
Speaker 2: But saying like gorilla paintings are superior elephant, I.
29:31
Speaker 4: Think they might be. Even elephant paintings I think are
29:33
Speaker 4: a little better. I'm really sorry to say, but I
29:36
Speaker 4: mean the rhino paintings, they put in a real good
29:39
Speaker 4: effort there. I'd put it on my fridge.
29:43
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, a lip isn't quite the same as
29:45
Speaker 2: like a trunk or like, you know, hands.
29:48
Speaker 1: I know, I'm waiting for the octopus paintings.
29:50
Speaker 2: I have a quick question for you, because this is
29:51
Speaker 2: all super fascinating already, but one thing we maybe didn't
29:54
Speaker 2: mention is that Clara lost her mother as a as
29:58
Speaker 2: a baby, like Bambi style, and was always kind of
30:01
Speaker 2: taken care of by humans from the age of like
30:04
Speaker 2: two or three. Do you think that would make this
30:07
Speaker 2: transition into captivity or whatever version of captivity you could
30:11
Speaker 2: call being paraded around in this way. I mean, it
30:14
Speaker 2: wasn't in one place. It was a lot of traveling,
30:15
Speaker 2: which probably was even more traumatic now that I think
30:17
Speaker 2: about it. But do you think having been exposed to
30:19
Speaker 2: that kind of life from such an early age would
30:21
Speaker 2: make a difference in developing those tics or any kind
30:24
Speaker 2: of negative attributes.
30:25
Speaker 4: I mean, it is interesting because there is kind of
30:29
Speaker 4: a precedent of a polar bear being separated from its
30:33
Speaker 4: parents and then developing these tics and then like being
30:37
Speaker 4: reunited with its parents and still having the tics, so
30:39
Speaker 4: it's not necessarily clear that that parental separation would make
30:45
Speaker 4: it worse or better. It could trigger some stress, for sure,
30:50
Speaker 4: But then also being raised from such a young age
30:52
Speaker 4: by humans would probably allow her to see them more
30:57
Speaker 4: as peers, especially if they're interacting with her in a
31:01
Speaker 4: real positive way, and if the training is very it
31:07
Speaker 4: takes the approach of being encouraging rather than punitive, that
31:13
Speaker 4: I think that would have a potentially positive effect on
31:17
Speaker 4: her psychology. Obviously, none of this is ideal, like the
31:21
Speaker 4: ideal thing is for her to be in her natural
31:24
Speaker 4: environment and have a social life with other rhinos. Although
31:29
Speaker 4: I have to say rhinos aren't the most social of animals,
31:32
Speaker 4: they definitely do display a lot of friendly behaviors with
31:36
Speaker 4: each other. They're not very aggressive with other rhinos. Only
31:40
Speaker 4: male rhinos can be a little bit territorial and aggressive
31:44
Speaker 4: with other males, and when they are it's pretty catastrophic,
31:48
Speaker 4: but typically they're not in Females will sometimes be in
31:52
Speaker 4: groups in the wild, so like with usually it's with
31:56
Speaker 4: their infants or young or even young males can sometimes
32:01
Speaker 4: be tolerated by females as they're sort of learning to
32:04
Speaker 4: make it on their own, and sometimes they'll have like
32:06
Speaker 4: playdates with other females where all their calves will get
32:11
Speaker 4: together and kind of ramp around. So I think for
32:16
Speaker 4: a female rhino like Clara, she would tolerate social interaction
32:22
Speaker 4: and expect it, although it must be very bizarre for
32:25
Speaker 4: her because no matter how kind her or well intentioned
32:29
Speaker 4: her owners are, they are not going to know rhino
32:32
Speaker 4: body language. They're not going to be able to flap
32:36
Speaker 4: their ears back and forth and kind of like bob
32:38
Speaker 4: their head in a way that's going to communicate to
32:41
Speaker 4: her that they're playful or friendly. So she might I'd
32:44
Speaker 4: imagine it'd be confusing, probably a little better since she
32:48
Speaker 4: was raised since she was a calf, but still kind
32:52
Speaker 4: of like, you know, imagine being stuck with these aliens
32:56
Speaker 4: who seem to care for you, but they just are
33:00
Speaker 4: so weird. They're just these blobs that have no expression,
33:04
Speaker 4: no show, no emotion, and kind of just give you
33:07
Speaker 4: food and sometimes soothe you in certain ways. And so
33:09
Speaker 4: you could maybe sometimes infer some care, but it would
33:14
Speaker 4: be hard for you to totally feel like you're actually socializing.
33:18
Speaker 2: Oh that's a fantastic way.
33:19
Speaker 1: They can't even paint with their lips, you know what
33:22
Speaker 1: I mean. Yeah, I had some follow up questions here.
33:31
Speaker 1: Do female rhinos specifically experience any kind of like fertility
33:38
Speaker 1: cycle that would change their behavior in adulthood?
33:41
Speaker 4: That is interesting because typically like the only sort of
33:46
Speaker 4: adult interactions that female rhinos are going to have are
33:50
Speaker 4: when they're an estress, so like they're when they're going
33:54
Speaker 4: to mate with a male. So I would assume it's
33:59
Speaker 4: hard for me to say definitively how that would translate
34:02
Speaker 4: to interactions with humans, but there's certainly periods of time
34:08
Speaker 4: where you know, they'll be more receptive to males, and
34:11
Speaker 4: they're also when they're mothers, they are more receptive to
34:16
Speaker 4: company from females with calves and juvenile males. So yeah,
34:23
Speaker 4: I would think that perhaps her kind of she might
34:27
Speaker 4: even have sort of a longing for certain rhinos social
34:33
Speaker 4: events that she's missing out on without really understanding what
34:36
Speaker 4: they are or why she feels that way, because I
34:39
Speaker 4: don't you know, like she may have that urge to
34:44
Speaker 4: do some kind of like socializing with her own young
34:48
Speaker 4: but if she didn't, she didn't have any calves, right,
34:52
Speaker 4: So it's it's kind of It's an interesting thing. I
34:54
Speaker 4: wonder if she sensed something was missing but probably couldn't
34:59
Speaker 4: underst and why she felt that way or what that
35:02
Speaker 4: would be. So I don't think they're intelligent, but not
35:05
Speaker 4: intelligent enough to know like, oh, I want to have
35:09
Speaker 4: a baby or I want to mate with a male rhino,
35:12
Speaker 4: but maybe just sort of a vague anxiety.
35:15
Speaker 1: Could they feel loneliness perhaps? Or and also additionally, would
35:20
Speaker 1: over time a rhinoceros be able to learn, for the
35:24
Speaker 1: lack of a better word, learn to read human body
35:28
Speaker 1: language or physical.
35:29
Speaker 4: Cues, I think to some extent. Well, first of all,
35:34
Speaker 4: I mean it's hard to say how, especially an animal
35:39
Speaker 4: like a rhino that is not as social as other animals.
35:43
Speaker 4: So I would be a lot more confident to say,
35:45
Speaker 4: like an elephant or a dog is going to feel lonely.
35:51
Speaker 4: Rhinos are solitary enough that I don't know. I think
35:55
Speaker 4: that maybe I think that, you know, because they do
36:00
Speaker 4: have some positive social interactions, and although they're infrequent, they
36:05
Speaker 4: do happen, and especially the females have a longer period
36:10
Speaker 4: of time where they're with their young. I think it's
36:13
Speaker 4: certainly possible she felt loneliness, but probably couldn't you know,
36:17
Speaker 4: it would be a very different experience for an animal
36:21
Speaker 4: like a rhino versus a human or even a more
36:23
Speaker 4: social animal like a primate. And then in terms of
36:26
Speaker 4: understanding human body language, yes, I do think because rhinos
36:31
Speaker 4: are trainable, I think they could start to understand certain
36:35
Speaker 4: cues and body language is meaning certain things. It's hard
36:40
Speaker 4: to know how emotionally salient that would be though to
36:44
Speaker 4: a rhino, So like there's a difference between understanding a
36:47
Speaker 4: certain que means they're about to get food or praise
36:50
Speaker 4: and actually making the connection to it being a meaningful
36:54
Speaker 4: social interaction. So I think it's possible though for sure.
36:57
Speaker 2: I think that's a really interesting angle to the story too,
36:59
Speaker 2: because the sea captain who kept her didn't we don't
37:03
Speaker 2: have any journals of his, so a lot of this
37:05
Speaker 2: is like second third hand, and it almost has taken
37:08
Speaker 2: on the quality of like a fable or a fairy
37:11
Speaker 2: tale or something, and it feels very disneyfied, like all
37:14
Speaker 2: of the accounts are very much like he and he
37:16
Speaker 2: cad for Clara the young rye know, and she was
37:19
Speaker 2: like his very own child, and blah blah blah and
37:22
Speaker 2: this very anthropomorphized kind of version of this wild animal,
37:26
Speaker 2: and I think that holds true with what you're saying.
37:28
Speaker 2: But I'm just wondering, do you feel like I feel
37:31
Speaker 2: like what we're doing here talking to you is kind
37:33
Speaker 2: of arriving at more of the reality of the thing
37:34
Speaker 2: as opposed to the fable side. I don't really have
37:37
Speaker 2: a question. I'm just kind of commenting. It's just interesting
37:39
Speaker 2: because you know, I initially I was like, Oh, this
37:42
Speaker 2: sea captain is such a nice kind man, and I'm
37:44
Speaker 2: sure he was, and I'm sure there's some truth to it.
37:46
Speaker 1: But he made a lot of money.
37:48
Speaker 2: He made a lot of money, and also I bet
37:50
Speaker 2: Clara wasn't as down for it as he maybe made
37:53
Speaker 2: her out to be.
37:54
Speaker 1: You know, yeah, I think up to Clara, she would
37:56
Speaker 1: have probably, given the choice, opted to hang with rhinos.
37:59
Speaker 2: Yep.
38:01
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean it's not an ideal scenario. I think
38:05
Speaker 4: no real like captive situation for a wild animal, especially
38:10
Speaker 4: the size of a rhino, is going to be ideal.
38:14
Speaker 4: If it's true that she was without her mother. You know,
38:18
Speaker 4: now we do kind of have the understanding of how
38:20
Speaker 4: to potentially rehabilitate young calves in captivity. But then kind
38:25
Speaker 4: of socialize them so they understand how to succeed out
38:29
Speaker 4: in the wild. But maybe back then they didn't understand
38:32
Speaker 4: that as well, so there may not have been much
38:35
Speaker 4: of an alternative.
38:36
Speaker 2: So you think left to her own devices, she probably
38:38
Speaker 2: would have like perished, like left alone.
38:40
Speaker 4: Oh yeah's if she's a yacht like a calf, it's
38:45
Speaker 4: unlikely without her mother she would survive. I guess it
38:48
Speaker 4: depends on how young she was. But you know, rhinos
38:52
Speaker 4: don't have that many natural predators as adults, but the
38:55
Speaker 4: calves certainly can get taken down by tigers, and and
39:00
Speaker 4: she was a I think she was an Indian, that's correct. Yeah, yeah,
39:04
Speaker 4: so like tigers and humans would be her main threats,
39:08
Speaker 4: and tiger could certainly take down a young calf.
39:11
Speaker 2: Well, then maybe I'll give the kindly sea captain a
39:14
Speaker 2: bit of a pass because the alternative probably not not
39:17
Speaker 2: a good thing.
39:17
Speaker 4: Yeah, I don't want sea captains to get the idea
39:19
Speaker 4: that you should be just like taking rhinos out of
39:22
Speaker 4: the wild.
39:22
Speaker 1: Though, Oh my gosh, our sea captain audience, Katie.
39:26
Speaker 2: They just they just turned on, They just turned really tough.
39:30
Speaker 4: That also, you've lost the coveted Sea captain democrats like our.
39:33
Speaker 2: Main demo, the Merchants.
39:37
Speaker 1: Well, also that that goes for any any animal that's similar, right.
39:41
Speaker 1: We we see these these QT stories, for instance, about
39:47
Speaker 1: a couple in South Africa that has a hippo, right
39:51
Speaker 1: that lives in their house. But it's very important to
39:53
Speaker 1: remember that as much as we want to anthropomorphize these things,
39:58
Speaker 1: these creatures are fundamentally different animals and there's not a
40:05
Speaker 1: really compelling reason to take one out of the wild
40:09
Speaker 1: other than conserving the species, right, And I think that's
40:13
Speaker 1: something that we hit on a lot with these stories.
40:18
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know, I completely agree, and I think this
40:20
Speaker 2: is a really awesome way to take this out of
40:22
Speaker 2: that kind of fairy tale realm and do a little
40:24
Speaker 2: bit of a reality check. So thanks again for giving
40:26
Speaker 2: us that, Katie.
40:27
Speaker 1: I have one more question. This is purely for my
40:32
Speaker 1: curiosity and probably for our listeners as well. Do you yourself
40:36
Speaker 1: have any pets?
40:37
Speaker 4: I do? Yeah, so I have a dog named Cookie.
40:41
Speaker 4: She's a pretty good girl.
40:44
Speaker 1: It's fantastic. I was going on the off chance that
40:48
Speaker 1: you might say I actually do have a rhino. But
40:52
Speaker 1: but let me explain, Well, please say hello to Cookie
40:56
Speaker 1: for us thank you, as as Minko said, thank you
40:59
Speaker 1: so much for coming on the show and shedding some
41:03
Speaker 1: light on the enigma of rhino intelligence and the life
41:07
Speaker 1: the inner life of animals and captivity. Yeah, for sure.
41:11
Speaker 2: And this is the thing that you do on the
41:12
Speaker 2: regular on your incredible podcast, Creature Feature. Can you tell
41:15
Speaker 2: us a little bit about that and where folks can
41:17
Speaker 2: find you and it.
41:18
Speaker 4: Yeah, So we talk about human behavior and also animal
41:22
Speaker 4: behavior and sort of the crossroads of these two seemingly
41:27
Speaker 4: different worlds. And I think as we have these discussions,
41:31
Speaker 4: we find out that even though you can't necessarily completely
41:36
Speaker 4: anthropomorphize animals, there's a lot of interesting crossover and behaviors
41:42
Speaker 4: that you'll find in animals that are kind of eerily
41:44
Speaker 4: similar to our own. And we look at it from
41:47
Speaker 4: the perspective of evolutionary biology and research and clinical psychology.
41:54
Speaker 4: And so you can find us. Our podcast is called
41:58
Speaker 4: Creature Feature and it's on iTunes wherever you get your podcasts,
42:04
Speaker 4: and also the iHeartRadio app, and also you could follow
42:08
Speaker 4: us on Twitter at Creature Feet pods not feet like
42:13
Speaker 4: you know and shoes, but feet as an feat.
42:18
Speaker 1: As in a great accomplishment, I do want to exactly.
42:21
Speaker 1: I do want to thank you in particular for an
42:24
Speaker 1: episode that came out in December, Extrasensory Posception. I appreciate
42:31
Speaker 1: that episode, in particular exploring the uncanny ways that animals
42:36
Speaker 1: are able to perceive the world. So this this stuff
42:39
Speaker 1: is great. Of course, I and probably Noel as well,
42:43
Speaker 1: really enjoy the Dark Tetrat episode. Not just because we're on.
42:47
Speaker 2: It, no, but it was just like, it was so
42:49
Speaker 2: cool the way you had a song where we really
42:51
Speaker 2: didn't do much leg work ahead of time. Oh, it
42:54
Speaker 2: just kind of came in and we're able to have
42:56
Speaker 2: a cool conversation with you about animal psychopaths. So yeah, I.
43:00
Speaker 4: Mean, true crime is the thing now, and I.
43:02
Speaker 1: Feel like animals.
43:05
Speaker 2: You gotta get a piece of that true crime pie,
43:07
Speaker 2: no question. And don't you also run a Twitter account
43:09
Speaker 2: where you like are the persona of a bird bird
43:12
Speaker 2: rights activist?
43:13
Speaker 4: Okay, yes, so I'm allegedly the author of at pro
43:18
Speaker 4: bird rights bird rights activists, and I am totally a
43:21
Speaker 4: real human person and not haven't been paid by birds
43:25
Speaker 4: to pretend to be.
43:27
Speaker 2: Well, that's totally and I gotta I gotta tell you
43:30
Speaker 2: real quick, and then knows this everybody who knows me
43:32
Speaker 2: knows this. I am terrified of birds. I don't like
43:35
Speaker 2: their weird, little creepy, beady eyes and their unpredictable movements,
43:39
Speaker 2: and they absolutely give me the creeps and always have.
43:42
Speaker 2: But I think your account is hilarious and actually you
43:44
Speaker 2: kind of play into some of the things that I
43:46
Speaker 2: find creepy and untrustworthy about birds.
43:49
Speaker 1: Amazing.
43:50
Speaker 2: I appreciate that.
43:51
Speaker 4: Well, they're direct descendants of the t Rex. They're little, little,
43:56
Speaker 4: tiny dinosaurs.
43:57
Speaker 2: That must be what does it?
43:58
Speaker 1: And jackdaws core It's in general are just brilliant. You
44:02
Speaker 1: can befriend them and they'll teach their young. Oh that's
44:04
Speaker 1: a different I would prefer not to dose. You can
44:08
Speaker 1: have all the corvids, you can have them all. But yeah,
44:11
Speaker 1: thanks again Katie for coming on the show. Thanks to
44:13
Speaker 1: our super producer Casey Pegram, Thanks to Alex Williams who
44:16
Speaker 1: composed our theme. Thanks to our research associate Gabe. Katie,
44:20
Speaker 1: Thank you again. We hope that you have enjoyed this episode.
44:25
Speaker 1: We hope that you tune in for our next episode,
44:28
Speaker 1: which is going to examine the story of someone who
44:32
Speaker 1: may indeed be the highest paid athlete in history. Who
44:37
Speaker 1: is it? The answer will surprise you. There are several
44:40
Speaker 1: ways to find out. We have a way that we
44:42
Speaker 1: would like you to find out, which is to tune
44:43
Speaker 1: into our show. In the meantime, you could say hello
44:46
Speaker 1: to the best part of our show, your fellow listeners
44:49
Speaker 1: on our Facebook page, Ridiculous Historians.
44:51
Speaker 2: Yeah. You can check me out on Instagram at Embryonic Insider.
44:55
Speaker 1: I am Ben Bollen in a burst of creativity. That's
44:58
Speaker 1: the name I chose on Instagram and see pictures of
45:01
Speaker 1: my pets and my various weird adventures. Did I tell
45:04
Speaker 1: you I'm ended up in Korea again?
45:05
Speaker 2: Yeah? No, you did. You wouldn't tell me. You said
45:07
Speaker 2: you had a thing you weren't able to record. Yeah,
45:09
Speaker 2: it's okay, okay, Well, thanks for thanks for the infat
45:12
Speaker 2: but we'll see you next time. Folks. For more podcasts
45:22
Speaker 2: from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
45:25
Speaker 2: you listen to your favorite shows.