Latest / Stuff You Should Know / Ba-Gawk! How Peacocks Work
Transcript
- 0:01Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
- 0:11Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck.
- 0:14Speaker 2: Jerry's here too, And I can't think of anything hilarious
- 0:19Speaker 2: to say, so I'm just going to say this is
- 0:21Speaker 2: stuff you should know.
- 0:23Speaker 1: That's right. A live show listener request edition because peacocks
- 0:29Speaker 1: came to us. Did you get her name? Or can
- 0:31Speaker 1: we just say the wonderful young girl at our Atlanta
- 0:36Speaker 1: live show?
- 0:37Speaker 2: I really want to say Sarah, but I'm not sure. So,
- 0:42Speaker 2: whoever you are, young girl who suggested peacocks at the
- 0:47Speaker 2: Atlanta show, right in to tell us your name so
- 0:49Speaker 2: we can tell everybody.
- 0:50Speaker 1: Yeah, so this is a great idea. We're talking about peacocks,
- 0:54Speaker 1: which is, if you want to look at the word itself,
- 0:57Speaker 1: it's English and it is derived from the Latin word pavo,
- 1:01Speaker 1: and in Old English that was pronounced pah wah pawa,
- 1:06Speaker 1: and that was shortened over the years to poe eventually pocock,
- 1:11Speaker 1: then palcock, and I guess peacock. And it's linked a
- 1:16Speaker 1: little bit to this old expression proud as a poe,
- 1:20Speaker 1: which is, you know how a peacock kind of struts
- 1:22Speaker 1: around all prideful, and then eventually it became peacock.
- 1:26Speaker 2: Yeah, and you would think it would have become peacock
- 1:28Speaker 2: like in the nineteen fifties or sixties, but no, it
- 1:31Speaker 2: became peacock as far back as the thirteen hundreds. Yeah,
- 1:35Speaker 2: so that's it for etymology of peacock. But there's a
- 1:38Speaker 2: little more about the word peacock, because a lot of
- 1:40Speaker 2: you are getting things wrong and you need to be corrected, Yeah, harshly.
- 1:44Speaker 2: Sometimes a peacock is specifically the male of the species. Obviously,
- 1:52Speaker 2: the p hen is the female. So if you see
- 1:55Speaker 2: a brown, kind of drab looking peacock, he's you look
- 2:00Speaker 2: at that brown peacock, Well, you just sound like a
- 2:03Speaker 2: hay seed. Yeah, it's a p hen and she's not drabbed,
- 2:06Speaker 2: she's camouflaged.
- 2:08Speaker 1: That's right. Their little babies cairlled pea chicks. And if
- 2:11Speaker 1: you want to talk as we're going to about the
- 2:14Speaker 1: the species as a whole, we're going to be saying
- 2:16Speaker 1: p fowl. And then we will you know, when we
- 2:19Speaker 1: say cock, we're going to mean male. When we say hn,
- 2:22Speaker 1: we're going to mean lady. And when we say chick
- 2:25Speaker 1: we're going to mean beebe Okay, I think.
- 2:28Speaker 2: We've really laid it out.
- 2:31Speaker 1: There are three main species, speaking of laying this out
- 2:33Speaker 1: of the pa fowl. Uh and you have the most
- 2:36Speaker 1: common that you if you live in the United States
- 2:38Speaker 1: and you've seen one, maybe in a zoo, maybe in
- 2:41Speaker 1: a park, or maybe startting around your neighborhood.
- 2:44Speaker 2: Yeah, we have some walking around our area too.
- 2:47Speaker 1: Oh yeah, is it? I mean the same ones from
- 2:49Speaker 1: many years ago, because you told the story years ago
- 2:52Speaker 1: about the sound of the peacock.
- 2:55Speaker 2: Sorry, no, those were those were Yumi's grandma's peacock. Neighborhood peacocks.
- 3:03Speaker 2: Oh okay, And for some reason, the ones that live
- 3:05Speaker 2: around me are not a disturbance at all. I mean
- 3:10Speaker 2: they make their sounds, but few and it's few and
- 3:13Speaker 2: far between. It's not annoying at all. It's kind of
- 3:17Speaker 2: cute and it's just a different experience than it was
- 3:21Speaker 2: around Jumi's grandma's house.
- 3:23Speaker 1: All right, fair enough. I mean I've talked before about
- 3:25Speaker 1: my neighborhood peacocks. I have not seen them in a
- 3:29Speaker 1: few years, so I don't know if they're still around.
- 3:32Speaker 1: And the house is on my morning dog walk, so
- 3:36Speaker 1: I haven't seen those peacocks around in a little while
- 3:38Speaker 1: those p fowl, So I'm not sure if they're around,
- 3:41Speaker 1: but we used to see them occasionally and it was
- 3:43Speaker 1: all great fun. But where I started ten minutes ago
- 3:46Speaker 1: saying is if you see one of those in the
- 3:49Speaker 1: United States, you're probably almost certainly looking at a blue
- 3:52Speaker 1: pfowl or an Indian p fowl.
- 3:55Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. They are not native to the United States,
- 3:58Speaker 2: although they thrive and coastal wormish areas, kind of muggy areas,
- 4:04Speaker 2: you could say, too, although also arid areas anyway, California
- 4:09Speaker 2: and Florida. Let's just specify that they do really well there.
- 4:13Speaker 2: But they're native to India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka.
- 4:16Speaker 1: Yes, exactly. They're the most common, little less common, but
- 4:22Speaker 1: still more common than The third group is the green
- 4:24Speaker 1: p fowl or the Javanese p fowl, so native to Java,
- 4:28Speaker 1: Southeast Asia and me and mar And then what's our
- 4:32Speaker 1: little third grouping.
- 4:33Speaker 2: The Congo p fowl. That's right, little it's like a
- 4:38Speaker 2: little mini turkey. He looks like they look like they're
- 4:43Speaker 2: native to the Congo basin in Africa, and the Indian
- 4:47Speaker 2: and Javanese p fowl prefer kind of open ish fields.
- 4:52Speaker 2: And maybe kind of tree lined streets. That's why they
- 4:56Speaker 2: love neighborhoods parks like it replicates their native of habitat.
- 5:00Speaker 2: The congo pea fowl prefer to live in the forest itself. Yeah,
- 5:05Speaker 2: that's right, So that's that's where they like to live.
- 5:08Speaker 1: No matter which kind of pea fowl you're talking about,
- 5:10Speaker 1: they're all going to be omnivores. They eat lots of
- 5:13Speaker 1: seeds and berries and you know, plant life and stuff
- 5:16Speaker 1: like that, as well as some insects. But they'll also
- 5:19Speaker 1: much down on a mouse or a little cute lizard
- 5:24Speaker 1: or a snake if they want to. If they're feeling peckish,
- 5:28Speaker 1: I guess.
- 5:29Speaker 2: Get a peckish. So they are among the largest flying
- 5:35Speaker 2: birds in the world. At Something a lot of people
- 5:37Speaker 2: don't realize about p fowl is that they can fly. Apparently,
- 5:42Speaker 2: the green pea fowl fowl, yeah I said that right, Yeah,
- 5:46Speaker 2: is a pretty strong flyer. The Indian or blue pea
- 5:50Speaker 2: fowl is not great. But they can make it to
- 5:54Speaker 2: the roof of a two story building. Yeah, pretty fast.
- 5:56Speaker 2: If a dog like Mamo barks at them, I can
- 5:59Speaker 2: tell you that.
- 6:00Speaker 1: Yeah, I've seen that too.
- 6:02Speaker 2: So they can fly and they are very large too.
- 6:06Speaker 2: Blue pea fowl the most common one. They're the biggest
- 6:09Speaker 2: of the three. The adult male can measure fifty inches.
- 6:13Speaker 2: It's a little over four feet. God knows how many
- 6:16Speaker 2: meters we're talking about, let's say one point two. And
- 6:21Speaker 2: it's train, so that what you think of as the
- 6:24Speaker 2: tail feathers are actually not the tail. They actually protrude
- 6:27Speaker 2: out of the back of the pea fowl or the
- 6:30Speaker 2: peacock in this case. That can be five to seven
- 6:33Speaker 2: feet long. So they are a big, big bird, not
- 6:37Speaker 2: big bird size, but there's.
- 6:38Speaker 1: Still a big that's right. And as you'll see, that
- 6:42Speaker 1: big beautiful train is a big part of the mating ritual.
- 6:46Speaker 1: So when you see that thing fully displayed, when that
- 6:50Speaker 1: peacock wants to have a little good time with a
- 6:53Speaker 1: p hen, that thing may go five to seven feet
- 6:56Speaker 1: in every direction.
- 6:58Speaker 2: It's amazing, very very long.
- 7:00Speaker 1: Arch.
- 7:00Speaker 2: They also use it to defend their territory. I saw
- 7:03Speaker 2: a guy laying pavers once, and he was apparently laying
- 7:06Speaker 2: pavers on a peacock's territory because the peacock had his
- 7:09Speaker 2: train like fully fanned out. Oh really, it was like
- 7:12Speaker 2: shaking and staring at the guy like, I'm going to
- 7:15Speaker 2: kill you if you don't stop laying pavers right there.
- 7:17Speaker 2: Oh wow, the guy just completely ignored him. It was
- 7:20Speaker 2: pretty funny to see because that peacock was quite serious.
- 7:23Speaker 1: I bet so. The blue adult male peacock is about
- 7:27Speaker 1: a thirteen pounder if you don't count wild turkeys, which
- 7:30Speaker 1: are usually put into a different family, although they can
- 7:32Speaker 1: be in the pheasant family. They are the largest. The
- 7:36Speaker 1: peacock that is is the largest in the pheasant family.
- 7:39Speaker 2: You're not going to take a shot at the family
- 7:41Speaker 2: name for the turkeys. No, I wouldn't gun on it,
- 7:43Speaker 2: but you can, uh, Millia Gridi Day. Yeah, great, I
- 7:49Speaker 2: think I got it. I didn't even practice that one.
- 7:52Speaker 1: Good job.
- 7:53Speaker 2: But those turkeys, did you say they can weigh up
- 7:55Speaker 2: to thirty pounds?
- 7:57Speaker 1: I didn't say that about the turkeys, but yeah, they're big.
- 8:00Speaker 2: That's a big turkey. It's like the baby hweie types.
- 8:03Speaker 1: Yeah. I got that turkey family living in living at
- 8:07Speaker 1: my camp. There's six or eight of them now, they're
- 8:09Speaker 1: just they hang around together. I get them on the
- 8:11Speaker 1: camp camp. It's just lovely.
- 8:13Speaker 2: Well, are they used to your presence or because those
- 8:16Speaker 2: things run? They have really sharp eyesight, and they scatter quick.
- 8:20Speaker 1: No, no, I mean sadly. All the wonderful camp activity
- 8:23Speaker 1: is when I'm not there. Well, I have a feeling
- 8:26Speaker 1: that they peer through the woods and they're like other
- 8:28Speaker 1: guys are down there again?
- 8:30Speaker 2: Right to leave tomorrow, spending a weekend like standing up
- 8:34Speaker 2: against the tree and not moving seeing what happens.
- 8:37Speaker 1: No, I'll do that, though you should.
- 8:40Speaker 2: Buy yourself some nice camouflage clothing first, though it'll help
- 8:44Speaker 2: a lot.
- 8:44Speaker 1: I've already got that stuff.
- 8:46Speaker 2: Okay. So I also said that the blue pea hens
- 8:51Speaker 2: are sometimes considered drab, and I mean compared to the males.
- 8:55Speaker 2: They are not quite as easy on the eyes, right,
- 8:59Speaker 2: But they're brown in their drab because the female blue
- 9:04Speaker 2: pea hens are responsible for guarding their nests, and even
- 9:08Speaker 2: though they spend a lot of time roosting in trees,
- 9:11Speaker 2: very often they sleep over night in trees. They build
- 9:14Speaker 2: their nests on the ground and little depressions on the
- 9:16Speaker 2: ground lined with sticks, and so they have to defend
- 9:19Speaker 2: that nest at all times. The easiest way to defend
- 9:22Speaker 2: it is to not be seen, so they steer clear
- 9:25Speaker 2: of being seen by things like leopards and tigers and
- 9:29Speaker 2: mongoose and all that by blending in with the surrounding.
- 9:32Speaker 1: Terrain and momos.
- 9:35Speaker 2: Yeah, Momo doesn't actually want to predate the peacock. She
- 9:40Speaker 2: just wants it to know, like, this is Momo's yard. Yeah, peacock,
- 9:43Speaker 2: let them know who's boss, right, exactly, Momo's boss.
- 9:47Speaker 1: So the green pea fowl, you know, we're going to
- 9:50Speaker 1: talk about a little bit about all of them, even
- 9:52Speaker 1: though the blue are the most common, but the green,
- 9:56Speaker 1: if it's not mating season, you may not be able
- 9:58Speaker 1: to tell them apart. They both have that really nice
- 10:00Speaker 1: green neck, that sort of light green here and there,
- 10:05Speaker 1: And during mating season is when you're going to see
- 10:07Speaker 1: the male's train grow a lot longer. But then they
- 10:09Speaker 1: molten they shed those so more or less they look
- 10:12Speaker 1: about the same when it's not mating season.
- 10:15Speaker 2: Yeah, and they're both very, very beautiful. They have amazingly
- 10:17Speaker 2: beautiful feathers as well. The little congo pea fowl, they're
- 10:21Speaker 2: kind of cute, dark blue neck feathers and dark green
- 10:24Speaker 2: and black train. Females are also brown, but they they're
- 10:30Speaker 2: just not Nothing can beat a blue peacock, Yeah, they
- 10:35Speaker 2: just can't. I'm sorry. That's a hill I'll die on
- 10:37Speaker 2: if I have to.
- 10:38Speaker 1: Yeah, it's fantastic. And if you have one in your
- 10:40Speaker 1: neighborhood and as a pet in captivity, if one of
- 10:43Speaker 1: your neighbors does, you may just get used to that
- 10:45Speaker 1: sound and get used to seeing them because they could
- 10:48Speaker 1: live forty to fifty years when kept his pets. Not
- 10:52Speaker 1: suggesting that they be kept his pets. I'm just saying
- 10:53Speaker 1: that people do that. They live about ten to twenty
- 10:56Speaker 1: five years in the wild.
- 10:57Speaker 2: Yeah. They can also kind of haul pretty. They can
- 11:00Speaker 2: run up to ten miles an hour when they need to.
- 11:03Speaker 1: Okay, you got to get a good running start if
- 11:05Speaker 1: you want to get off the ground.
- 11:06Speaker 2: I guess with their little like aviator goggles.
- 11:10Speaker 1: Yeah, totally.
- 11:11Speaker 2: Uh you want to take a break, Yeah all right,
- 11:14Speaker 2: well we're going.
- 11:14Speaker 1: To do that.
- 11:14Speaker 2: Everybody watch this.
- 11:21Speaker 1: Stop.
- 11:41Speaker 2: So I think it's high time that we talk about
- 11:43Speaker 2: what everybody thinks of when they think of peacocks, which
- 11:46Speaker 2: is that amazing train of feathers spread out in a
- 11:50Speaker 2: fan behind him, and it's correct to see him and
- 11:55Speaker 2: this is all part of the mating ritual, right, that's
- 11:58Speaker 2: the whole point of the those feathers. Again, the peacocks
- 12:01Speaker 2: will use it to try to or off or intimidate
- 12:04Speaker 2: trespassers in their territory, but for the most part, the
- 12:07Speaker 2: whole thing is to impress the pea hens.
- 12:09Speaker 1: That's right. And when a male wants to impress a
- 12:13Speaker 1: p hen, that peacock will prop up those feathers into
- 12:17Speaker 1: a big, beautiful fan. Dave likens it. Dave helped us
- 12:22Speaker 1: with this to like an inverted umbrella, So it's sort
- 12:25Speaker 1: of you know, when you see this sort of pointed
- 12:27Speaker 1: back from their butthole area towards and they will shake
- 12:33Speaker 1: those feathers, and the shaking isn't just like, hey, look
- 12:36Speaker 1: how pretty and iridescent this gorgeous train is. Science has
- 12:41Speaker 1: discovered semi recently that those vibrations are in lockstep with
- 12:49Speaker 1: the p fowl's head feathers that they used to think
- 12:51Speaker 1: were just for show, but now they realize they are.
- 12:55Speaker 1: They vibrate at the same intensity, and that they can actually,
- 12:58Speaker 1: you know, sort of feel when those tail feathers are
- 13:00Speaker 1: vibrating in their direction through their head feathers.
- 13:03Speaker 2: Yeah, they're like receivers.
- 13:04Speaker 1: Isn't that neat super cool?
- 13:06Speaker 2: They resonate at at the same rate the male peacock
- 13:11Speaker 2: when he shakes those those feathers that fan, he can
- 13:15Speaker 2: shake it at more than twenty five times a second,
- 13:19Speaker 2: and that resonance I think it's like twenty five point
- 13:21Speaker 2: six hurts to be exact. That just happens to be
- 13:24Speaker 2: tuned in almost precisely to the cress feathers on the
- 13:27Speaker 2: pea fowl's head. And in addition to the site, apparently
- 13:31Speaker 2: p hens have amazing sight, so they're seeing everything that
- 13:34Speaker 2: the peacock's showing them, but also they're they're feeling it
- 13:37Speaker 2: like they're there. That's transmitting that vibration or resonance is
- 13:41Speaker 2: transmitting to their head. So it's quite a like you're
- 13:44Speaker 2: not going to turn down a peacock if you're a
- 13:46Speaker 2: p hen. They're pretty amazing dudes.
- 13:50Speaker 1: That's right. And before we get emails, I'm sure Josh
- 13:53Speaker 1: will admit that when you said it just happens to
- 13:56Speaker 1: vibrate the same frequency, that is no accident at all.
- 14:00Speaker 1: It's called natural selection. Baby.
- 14:02Speaker 2: Oh yeah, sure, you're.
- 14:04Speaker 1: Cheeky, But I'm sure somebody would write in and say, no, Josh,
- 14:08Speaker 1: it didn't just happen to vibrate that way. It's by design.
- 14:12Speaker 2: Intelligent design people.
- 14:14Speaker 1: You mean no, no creationists, no by design as natural selection.
- 14:22Speaker 2: It's very teleological.
- 14:24Speaker 1: I don't even know what that means. What's that mean?
- 14:26Speaker 2: It means that that everything has a purpose. So it
- 14:30Speaker 2: was like design to be a certain way.
- 14:33Speaker 1: I love that. See, people, when you don't know a word,
- 14:35Speaker 1: it's okay to say I don't know what that means.
- 14:37Speaker 2: It sure is, Chuck, that's a great example. This set.
- 14:40Speaker 1: So and you didn't talk down to me. You told
- 14:43Speaker 1: me the definition. Now I'm a little bit smarter because
- 14:45Speaker 1: of you.
- 14:46Speaker 2: Yeah, I wasn't like a dummy. Listen up.
- 14:49Speaker 1: Teleological, all right, So we need to cover this part
- 14:54Speaker 1: of the mating ritual because the fact of the matter
- 14:57Speaker 1: is the peacock loves to get around the block, if
- 15:02Speaker 1: you know what I mean. They have a social structure
- 15:05Speaker 1: called a lech l e k, which is basically a harem,
- 15:09Speaker 1: and the male is gonna mate with several females. But
- 15:12Speaker 1: here's the part that's a little maybe not intuitive. Even
- 15:16Speaker 1: though the male is mating with many females, the male
- 15:19Speaker 1: isn't running the show as far as who he gets
- 15:23Speaker 1: to do that with.
- 15:25Speaker 2: Yeah, so he's putting on this huge show not to
- 15:28Speaker 2: be like, I'm hypnotizing you, baby, do my bidding. He's
- 15:33Speaker 2: doing it because he's like, check me out, don't you
- 15:35Speaker 2: like me? Like look at this isn't aren't I amazing?
- 15:37Speaker 2: And the female can either be like I've seen better
- 15:40Speaker 2: or she could be like, yeah, you're right up my alley.
- 15:42Speaker 2: You just happen to be vibrating at my residence, right.
- 15:47Speaker 1: That's telelogical.
- 15:49Speaker 2: So yeah. So one of the ways that a male
- 15:51Speaker 2: will make himself seem even more virile than he is,
- 15:56Speaker 2: there's something called the hoot dash noise, and just the
- 15:59Speaker 2: hoot is the noise part. It's called a hoot dash
- 16:03Speaker 2: because right after the male hoots, he dashes toward the
- 16:06Speaker 2: female and they start mating. Right, it's actually quite disturbing
- 16:09Speaker 2: to see a lot of mating in the animal world
- 16:12Speaker 2: is really disturbing.
- 16:13Speaker 1: This saw video too, It's like the dash was very
- 16:15Speaker 1: close to the hoot.
- 16:17Speaker 2: Yeah, but that's what the noise is called. So the
- 16:21Speaker 2: males realize that like the more hoot dashing or hoot
- 16:25Speaker 2: sounds that they make the more females in earshot but
- 16:30Speaker 2: not in eyeshot. I guess well here, oh wow, Like
- 16:34Speaker 2: Terry really gets it on with a lot of p hens.
- 16:38Speaker 2: I'm going to give him a shot next time he
- 16:40Speaker 2: comes around, because he must be very virile. Like a
- 16:43Speaker 2: third of those hoot dash sounds are faked essentially, that's right.
- 16:48Speaker 1: So when that finally happens, the female p hen will
- 16:53Speaker 1: scratch out a little depression in the ground basically and
- 16:58Speaker 1: line it with sticks, and that's their little They're going
- 17:00Speaker 1: to layford to eggs that are gonna hatch after four weeks,
- 17:03Speaker 1: and those little pea chicks are up and around pretty
- 17:06Speaker 1: much right out of the gate. It'll take them a
- 17:08Speaker 1: couple of weeks to fly. And those boys that are
- 17:12Speaker 1: peacocks aren't gonna get those train feathers until their second year.
- 17:16Speaker 1: They're like, why don't you just chill for a couple
- 17:19Speaker 1: of years and not think about that thing?
- 17:21Speaker 2: Yeah, they are so cute too. Do not rely on
- 17:24Speaker 2: the internet for what a baby peacock looks like? Apparently
- 17:27Speaker 2: it's been a great example to demonstrate how much AI
- 17:32Speaker 2: is just screwing the internet.
- 17:33Speaker 1: Oh really, yeah?
- 17:35Speaker 2: Yeah. If you go on Google image search for baby peacocks,
- 17:39Speaker 2: like people think that there's pictures of like a giant
- 17:43Speaker 2: or like a miniatureized cute, big eyed peacock, and that
- 17:46Speaker 2: that's a baby peacock. They all look like p hens,
- 17:49Speaker 2: like little brown p hens. But even if they're peacocks,
- 17:53Speaker 2: that's how they start out. So just check it out.
- 17:55Speaker 2: Just search the baby peacock for images, and it's a lie.
- 18:00Speaker 2: It's a lie for sure.
- 18:03Speaker 1: That's the cutest little iridescent blue baby duckling thing I've
- 18:08Speaker 1: ever seen.
- 18:09Speaker 2: Right, but it doesn't exist. That's not real. Hey, don't
- 18:14Speaker 2: blame me, blame the AI running the internet.
- 18:18Speaker 1: Yeah, those eyes are suspiciously large and disney like.
- 18:22Speaker 2: So. One other thing about the pea chicks is that
- 18:25Speaker 2: they stay with their mom for two to six months,
- 18:27Speaker 2: depending on whether they're in captivity in the wild. Moms
- 18:31Speaker 2: are much more maternal instinct wise in the wild than
- 18:35Speaker 2: they are in captivity, so you know, depends on the
- 18:40Speaker 2: situation how long they hang around them. But just watching,
- 18:43Speaker 2: have you ever seen a p hen with their little
- 18:45Speaker 2: pea chicks following her?
- 18:47Speaker 1: Uh no, I've just seen the turkey version at the camp.
- 18:51Speaker 2: It's very cute. Oh my god, I'll bet baby turkeys
- 18:53Speaker 2: are pretty cute too.
- 18:55Speaker 1: Yeah, the following around is just very cute because like
- 18:58Speaker 1: mom's up front and there's like six little guys and
- 19:01Speaker 1: girls just following it along like I can keep up,
- 19:03Speaker 1: I can keep up.
- 19:04Speaker 2: And there's always one straggler that has to like run
- 19:07Speaker 2: faster when the group.
- 19:08Speaker 1: Yeah, Barney, love that guy who Barney.
- 19:14Speaker 2: That's a perfect name.
- 19:15Speaker 1: So the dads, as far as blue and green peacocks go,
- 19:19Speaker 1: are not around. There are complete absentee dads. But hey,
- 19:23Speaker 1: if you're feeling bad for the family unit, just go
- 19:26Speaker 1: to the congo because those congo p fowl are monogamous.
- 19:29Speaker 1: They don't have those leks. They like one lady and
- 19:32Speaker 1: they hang around and feed and raise pea chicks with mommy.
- 19:36Speaker 2: Yeah pretty great.
- 19:37Speaker 1: Huh, yeah, it's great.
- 19:40Speaker 2: So I think we should talk a little bit about
- 19:42Speaker 2: natural selection, sexual selection Charles Darwin, kind of what you
- 19:46Speaker 2: were alluding to earlier.
- 19:47Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, because Charles Darwin was bringing a little too
- 19:52Speaker 1: much of his human baggage to some of this research.
- 19:54Speaker 1: It seems pretty clear, don't.
- 19:56Speaker 2: You think, Uh huh for sure?
- 19:58Speaker 1: And how was he doing that?
- 20:01Speaker 2: So Darwin grew up or lived in the Victorian era
- 20:05Speaker 2: where women were viewed as passive, submissive. They were just
- 20:10Speaker 2: there and had their fingers crossed that a man of
- 20:14Speaker 2: adequate dashingness would come along and marry them, right, So
- 20:18Speaker 2: that meant that it was the men, the males of
- 20:20Speaker 2: the Victorian era human species in England at least, that
- 20:25Speaker 2: were responsible for sexual selection. They chose the winners and
- 20:28Speaker 2: the losers among women. Well, Darwin was looking around the
- 20:33Speaker 2: world of nature basically all the other animals, and was like,
- 20:36Speaker 2: that's not really what I'm seeing out there. And in
- 20:39Speaker 2: the peacocks in particular, the females are again drab, really camouflaged,
- 20:46Speaker 2: while the males have these amazing beautiful displays. That strongly
- 20:50Speaker 2: suggests that the males are performing for the females and
- 20:53Speaker 2: it's the females who are doing the sexual selecting. Yeah,
- 20:57Speaker 2: and he had such a hard time wrestling with this.
- 20:59Speaker 2: There's a quote from him that said the sight of
- 21:01Speaker 2: a pea feather made him sick, right because he could
- 21:04Speaker 2: not give in. And he finally was you know, science
- 21:09Speaker 2: got the better of him. And he's like, that's just
- 21:11Speaker 2: how it is. I don't like it. But females in
- 21:13Speaker 2: the animal kingdom are typically the ones who select sexually
- 21:17Speaker 2: and end up are the They're the drivers of natural selection.
- 21:20Speaker 2: They choose what passes on to the next generation based
- 21:24Speaker 2: on the kind of male mates that they choose.
- 21:27Speaker 1: That's right, And that choosing is based on that flashy
- 21:30Speaker 1: display that we're going to talk a little bit more
- 21:32Speaker 1: about as far as the colors and stuff go, and
- 21:35Speaker 1: that vibration. But if they're science behind that, or is
- 21:39Speaker 1: there science behind that? Yes, In nineteen ninety four it
- 21:42Speaker 1: seems like it, at least there were some researchers in
- 21:45Speaker 1: Britain that found that the bigger peacocks that had more
- 21:50Speaker 1: eye spots, you know, they look like eyes. What are
- 21:52Speaker 1: they called.
- 21:53Speaker 2: Asily ocelli In the Italian it'd be celli because ce
- 21:59Speaker 2: followed by a vowel is a just sound. So let's
- 22:02Speaker 2: just go with Italian, say, oh chelly.
- 22:03Speaker 1: Okay. But the more of those they have, and the
- 22:06Speaker 1: larger that they are, and the more just big and
- 22:09Speaker 1: beautiful they are, it looks like the larger offspring they're
- 22:14Speaker 1: going to have that are going to be more likely
- 22:16Speaker 1: to survive. So it seems like they are more genetically fit.
- 22:19Speaker 2: Yeah, and those eye spots play a real starring role
- 22:22Speaker 2: in this whole sexual selection mating process. Right. So the
- 22:26Speaker 2: feathers in and of themselves are pretty amazing, but the
- 22:29Speaker 2: eye spots, these little dots with different colors on them
- 22:32Speaker 2: that are across like a like, scattered all across the
- 22:36Speaker 2: train feathers the fan. They are of a slightly different
- 22:40Speaker 2: structure slightly different density than the rest of the feathers
- 22:43Speaker 2: surrounding them. So when that train resonates at twenty five
- 22:47Speaker 2: point six hurts, they appear to stand still and float
- 22:53Speaker 2: against the background of the other feathers that are vibrating
- 22:57Speaker 2: at the same frequency, but are just of a slightly
- 22:59Speaker 2: different density. And this is so important. These o'celly. The
- 23:03Speaker 2: eye spots are so important. The scientists have figured out
- 23:06Speaker 2: that other species that also have eye spots aren't. They
- 23:11Speaker 2: don't share a common ancestor with peacocks that had eye spots. Chuck.
- 23:19Speaker 2: Eye spots evolved separately over different times among different species.
- 23:24Speaker 2: They're that important for mating.
- 23:26Speaker 1: That's right, And thanks to our listener Mail in the
- 23:30Speaker 1: Ruby Ridge episode, it's called conversion evolution and not co evolution.
- 23:36Speaker 2: Very nice. I say we take a break then, since
- 23:38Speaker 2: we're done talking about eye spots, right.
- 23:40Speaker 1: Yeah, we'll finish up with that three right after this.
- 23:43Speaker 2: Oh wait, wait, there was one more thing about eye spots.
- 23:45Speaker 1: Wait stop, the presses Jerry roll tape.
- 23:50Speaker 2: Researchers have figured out for sure the eye spots play
- 23:53Speaker 2: a big role, because some poor schmoe of a peacock
- 23:56Speaker 2: had his eye spots covered up and they said, go
- 23:59Speaker 2: out to ladies night and see what happens, and he
- 24:01Speaker 2: got nothing from nobody. Ever will his eye spots were
- 24:06Speaker 2: covered up.
- 24:07Speaker 1: Yeah, the copulation The quote is their copulation success declined
- 24:11Speaker 1: to almost zero.
- 24:14Speaker 2: Almost. They were just being nice.
- 24:16Speaker 1: They were all right, now are we breaking Yes.
- 24:19Speaker 2: I don't have any other breaking news.
- 24:22Speaker 1: All right, everybody tick five, then we're back stop. All right,
- 24:50Speaker 1: we are back to finish up with peacocks, and we're
- 24:52Speaker 1: going to talk a little bit about something we did
- 24:54Speaker 1: an entire episode on, and that is iridescent h This
- 24:59Speaker 1: was a this was many years ago that we didn't
- 25:02Speaker 1: up on iridescence. And there's if you want to really
- 25:05Speaker 1: deep dive on the science of it, you can go
- 25:07Speaker 1: listen to that ep. But what we're looking at in
- 25:11Speaker 1: the case of peacock feathers and why they look aridescent
- 25:14Speaker 1: and are just so shiny and majestic looking is because
- 25:19Speaker 1: of the shape. It's a physical shape of something and
- 25:23Speaker 1: not necessarily a color of something, right.
- 25:26Speaker 2: Yeah, the pigments that are in the peacock's tail feathers
- 25:31Speaker 2: are melanin, and melanin typically looks brown to us. It's
- 25:35Speaker 2: what gives human skin kind of brown cast to it.
- 25:40Speaker 2: That is melanin pigment. And it's no different than a
- 25:43Speaker 2: peacock's feathers, but the structure is totally different. Like you said,
- 25:47Speaker 2: there's a crystalline structure of overlaying barbs that if you
- 25:51Speaker 2: look on an electron microscope you can see quite clearly.
- 25:55Speaker 2: And those barbs, those crystal barbs of melanin, there's like
- 25:59Speaker 2: little gaps between them, and in fact, it creates what's
- 26:02Speaker 2: called a partial band gap, which means that electromagnetic waves
- 26:07Speaker 2: do not penetrate some area depending on where that light
- 26:11Speaker 2: is hitting. To put simply chuck. Depending on which angle,
- 26:16Speaker 2: which direction, light hits these melanin rods, the crystalline melanin rods,
- 26:23Speaker 2: it's going to reflect or absorb all different kinds of light.
- 26:27Speaker 2: And so the same structure can reflect or absorb different
- 26:31Speaker 2: kinds of light depending on where the light hits it,
- 26:34Speaker 2: which means if you're looking at it one way and
- 26:36Speaker 2: you move slightly left, you're looking at a different part
- 26:39Speaker 2: of that structure, and it's reflecting different colored light, and
- 26:42Speaker 2: that's how iridescence comes along.
- 26:44Speaker 1: That's right, partial band gap, not to be confused with
- 26:47Speaker 1: the partial gap band, which is the sad tour. When
- 26:50Speaker 1: two out of three of those guys went out on
- 26:53Speaker 1: the road.
- 26:55Speaker 2: It wasn't a very good tour, was it.
- 26:56Speaker 1: It wasn't a very good joke. What I couldn't help
- 26:59Speaker 1: my Yeah, I mean that's eridesnence in a nutshell. That's
- 27:02Speaker 1: basically how it works in across nature. It's just about
- 27:08Speaker 1: you know, the structure of the thing, and like, you know,
- 27:12Speaker 1: what do we talk about? You talked about fish and
- 27:15Speaker 1: butterfly wings mainly. I think on that episode.
- 27:20Speaker 2: It's so neat And yeah, it's just the structure. If
- 27:22Speaker 2: you take a bunch of crystals and pile them on
- 27:24Speaker 2: top of each other and little weird repeating patterns, they're
- 27:27Speaker 2: going to become iridescent. It's gorgeous. Apparently Isaac Newton figured
- 27:31Speaker 2: it out all the way back in seventeen oh four. Yeah,
- 27:34Speaker 2: based on aggressive Yeah, based on peacock feathers. He said,
- 27:38Speaker 2: check these out, man, I know what's going on. You'll
- 27:42Speaker 2: just have to find out that's right.
- 27:44Speaker 1: We do need to talk about their yelp because it's
- 27:48Speaker 1: a you know, I mean, you used to do a
- 27:51Speaker 1: pretty good impression. You want to try it?
- 27:54Speaker 2: Help?
- 27:55Speaker 1: Hell, it always sounds like help.
- 27:58Speaker 2: That's what it sounds like to me. It's uncanny and unnerving.
- 28:01Speaker 1: Yeah, it is. And I always laughed at that years
- 28:04Speaker 1: ago until like we got our own neighborhood peacocks, and
- 28:06Speaker 1: then I would hear it occasionally and I was like, yeah,
- 28:09Speaker 1: Josh's right, or is Josh in that backyard right now?
- 28:13Speaker 1: Like it's one of those two things is happening. Yeah,
- 28:16Speaker 1: it's pretty shrill. It can get annoying if you live
- 28:19Speaker 1: near one. I don't mind it so much because I
- 28:21Speaker 1: didn't live a next door to one, but it's usually
- 28:24Speaker 1: in the morning and evening during mating season. It can
- 28:27Speaker 1: pick up a bit. So I don't know if there
- 28:28Speaker 1: were complaints or if these local peacocks just you know,
- 28:32Speaker 1: met their natural end. You know. I don't know if
- 28:37Speaker 1: they were taken out, or if they were moved to
- 28:39Speaker 1: a farm, you know what I'm saying, yeah, or if
- 28:42Speaker 1: they just had little peace strokes that's bad.
- 28:46Speaker 2: They were elf struck. So they also they honked too, Like,
- 28:53Speaker 2: I can't even do the honk and the goose that's
- 28:57Speaker 2: that hoot dash thing sounds kind of like, oh yeah
- 28:59Speaker 2: it does.
- 29:00Speaker 1: I'm a little hankish.
- 29:01Speaker 2: Yeah, so they can do that a lot too, And
- 29:05Speaker 2: if you put it all together, yeah, it can be
- 29:06Speaker 2: very annoying. But I chuck, I cannot figure out what
- 29:10Speaker 2: the difference is between Umi's grandma's neighborhood my neighborhood, because
- 29:14Speaker 2: I have a completely different opinion of the annoyance level
- 29:19Speaker 2: of peacocks. Now I don't understand why, but there's the facts.
- 29:24Speaker 1: Well, maybe you aged into it, I guess.
- 29:27Speaker 2: So I'm older wives or gentler. Yeah, we're peacock loving.
- 29:33Speaker 1: Sure, I think we all get that way. Sure, all right,
- 29:37Speaker 1: So let's talk about the history of these things. Jumping
- 29:40Speaker 1: back a little bit a few thousand years ago. The
- 29:43Speaker 1: ancient Phoenicians were the first folks to say, hey, these
- 29:47Speaker 1: things are great, Let's move them around to different places,
- 29:49Speaker 1: because these things strutting around a palace is really something
- 29:52Speaker 1: to see. So they brought them from India to Syria.
- 29:56Speaker 1: They were traded around the Mediterranean at that point, and
- 30:00Speaker 1: they did become like a status symbol if you were
- 30:03Speaker 1: nobility or royalty, or had a lot of money or
- 30:05Speaker 1: lived in a palace, then you probably wanted to some
- 30:07Speaker 1: peacock strolling around your property.
- 30:09Speaker 2: Yeah, you might also want to eat them. Bow, I
- 30:13Speaker 2: forgot to send you this thing that I found. The
- 30:15Speaker 2: Romans ate them, but they specifically liked their tongues. Peacock
- 30:20Speaker 2: tongue was a delicacy in ancient Roman times in the
- 30:24Speaker 2: Middle Ages.
- 30:25Speaker 1: Wait, where are you going to send me?
- 30:27Speaker 2: This is what I'm about to tell you.
- 30:28Speaker 1: Oh okay, I thought You're gonna send me a peacock
- 30:30Speaker 1: tongu in the male Flashow.
- 30:34Speaker 2: Why is this so? In the Middle Ages in Europe,
- 30:40Speaker 2: they would actually eat peacock like the whole thing, but
- 30:44Speaker 2: they figured out a way to remove the skin so
- 30:47Speaker 2: that the feathers all came off too. Then they would
- 30:49Speaker 2: roast the bird, and then they would redress it with
- 30:52Speaker 2: its feathers to be served at to the lord of
- 30:56Speaker 2: the manor by the most beautiful girl at the party.
- 31:00Speaker 2: I guess, yeah, And then it would just sit there
- 31:02Speaker 2: for a little while. They would carve into it, eat
- 31:05Speaker 2: it and have a lot of trouble digesting it because
- 31:07Speaker 2: apparently it's really tough. So much so that doctors of
- 31:10Speaker 2: the time were like, don't eat peacock. It's really just
- 31:12Speaker 2: not good for you.
- 31:13Speaker 1: So they would just stick the feathers back in it
- 31:15Speaker 1: in an ornamental way.
- 31:18Speaker 2: The picture I saw, the painting I saw made it
- 31:21Speaker 2: look like they did a pretty good job of it. Yeah, yeah,
- 31:24Speaker 2: making it look like it was alive again.
- 31:27Speaker 1: Yeah. Interesting. I think even a lot of meat eaters
- 31:32Speaker 1: appreciate the animal not looking like its original form when
- 31:36Speaker 1: it's on the plate.
- 31:37Speaker 2: Sure right, you don't really want to recognize it?
- 31:41Speaker 1: Yeah? Like it? You know, I love a brainzeno, but
- 31:44Speaker 1: I don't like that fish head looking up at me.
- 31:46Speaker 2: Oh no, no, you don't like roly poly fish heads?
- 31:50Speaker 1: Uh no, I don't want to see it. But I'll
- 31:53Speaker 1: still dine on a braanzeno. I got a friend whose
- 31:54Speaker 1: brother will take that eyeball out and eat it right
- 31:56Speaker 1: at the table in front of everybody.
- 32:00Speaker 2: Wrong with that guy.
- 32:01Speaker 1: I mean, supposedly that's the thing to do, you know,
- 32:03Speaker 1: use all the animal. But I just I don't want
- 32:05Speaker 1: to eat an eyeball.
- 32:07Speaker 2: No to ever tell you. By the time we went
- 32:08Speaker 2: to H and F and like we we just went
- 32:11Speaker 2: too far. No, so for everybody who doesn't know. H
- 32:15Speaker 2: and F is a restaurant in Atlanta, and they're well
- 32:19Speaker 2: known for like using all parts of the animal. Yeah,
- 32:22Speaker 2: and we went and we were like, if you go
- 32:25Speaker 2: further down the menu like gets more and more hardcore.
- 32:28Speaker 2: We just kind of tried it one time and we
- 32:31Speaker 2: got as far as fried chicken heads or beaks, which
- 32:35Speaker 2: had a lot of the head attached still in goodness,
- 32:38Speaker 2: like the whole table just kind of it just took
- 32:40Speaker 2: a dark turn and everybody stopped talking and it was
- 32:43Speaker 2: a bad jam. So I don't recommend the fried chicken
- 32:47Speaker 2: beaks at Homan and Finch anymore.
- 32:49Speaker 1: That sounds too much like a mcnoggan. You remember that, No,
- 32:53Speaker 1: I think I sent it to you years ago. It
- 32:55Speaker 1: was supposedly in the thing a chicken nuggets, but it
- 32:59Speaker 1: was a a deep fried little chicken head that got
- 33:02Speaker 1: through and they called it the mcnoggan.
- 33:06Speaker 2: That is what HNF sells as a as a dish.
- 33:09Speaker 1: All right. It's been very instructive, for sure.
- 33:13Speaker 2: I know, our poor, our poor live show fan Sarah
- 33:17Speaker 2: is like, I know, sorry, I.
- 33:18Speaker 1: Asked for it, Yeah, I said, butthole earlier too. This
- 33:21Speaker 1: is going downhill, all right, so back to history in
- 33:26Speaker 1: peacocks Lord Krishna in the Hindu tradition, where's peacock feathers
- 33:31Speaker 1: is a head dress, and there have been many other
- 33:34Speaker 1: examples over the years in Greek mythology and Roman mythology
- 33:38Speaker 1: about the peacock. I believe Harrah even had peacocks pulling
- 33:42Speaker 1: her chariot.
- 33:43Speaker 2: At ten miles an hour.
- 33:45Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly.
- 33:47Speaker 2: She she was protected by a giant named Argus who
- 33:50Speaker 2: had one hundred eyes, and he was killed by Hermes,
- 33:54Speaker 2: and so she brought him back as the peacock. That's
- 33:57Speaker 2: a great story. Yeah, there's also the cock throne, right.
- 34:02Speaker 1: Yeah, the peacock throne is one of the most expensive
- 34:05Speaker 1: things that's ever been made. If it drives at home,
- 34:10Speaker 1: I think it was about twice the cost of the
- 34:13Speaker 1: taj Maha to build this one throne, which had oh,
- 34:18Speaker 1: twenty five hundred pounds of gold, five hundred pounds, not
- 34:22Speaker 1: five hundred precious stones, five hundred pounds of precious stones.
- 34:27Speaker 2: Including the Corey Newer diamond, which is one hundred and
- 34:30Speaker 2: five carrot diamond. Pretty amazing stuff. They managed. The Mughal
- 34:35Speaker 2: Empire in India managed to hang on to the throne
- 34:38Speaker 2: for about one hundred years until they were invaded by
- 34:41Speaker 2: the Persians, I believe, who were like, we're taking this throne.
- 34:45Speaker 2: This is essentially the reason we invaded was to get
- 34:48Speaker 2: this throne, and they disassembled it and basically sold it
- 34:52Speaker 2: off for parts. Right. Yeah, but if you go onto
- 34:55Speaker 2: the Internet and you search peacock throne, you will see
- 34:58Speaker 2: photographs of a peacock throne that looks pretty amazing, and
- 35:02Speaker 2: you will say, well, how could this have been destroyed
- 35:04Speaker 2: back in the seventeenth or eighteenth century? And the reason
- 35:08Speaker 2: why is because what you're looking at is the replica
- 35:11Speaker 2: that King Ludwig the Second of Bavaria, our friend, the
- 35:16Speaker 2: fairy tale King, had constructed for his castle. Nushwe look
- 35:23Speaker 2: at that, Nushefinstein. Yeah, which one?
- 35:27Speaker 1: I don't know. I'm just amazed that you brought that around.
- 35:29Speaker 1: Nice work, thanks, any Uschefinstein sounds great.
- 35:33Speaker 2: Nuschwinstein. Yeah, any chance I have to bring King Ludwig
- 35:37Speaker 2: the Second into the story, I'm going to take it.
- 35:39Speaker 1: Well, you had that shirt made.
- 35:40Speaker 2: That helps ask me about King Ludvig the Second.
- 35:46Speaker 1: Endangered? Yes or no? Indian bluefowl are not endangered. In fact,
- 35:51Speaker 1: they're doing really, really well, and you mentioned you know,
- 35:53Speaker 1: in places in Florida and even southern California, they can
- 35:57Speaker 1: get a little out of hand with their men. They
- 36:00Speaker 1: can tear up foliage, and they can poop all over
- 36:04Speaker 1: the place, and they can destroy habitats that other birds have.
- 36:07Speaker 1: So people sometimes now even are trapping them and giving
- 36:13Speaker 1: them vasectomies.
- 36:15Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a town called pine Crest, a suburb of Miami,
- 36:18Speaker 2: which is giving peacock's vasectomy. So if you couldn't have guessed,
- 36:21Speaker 2: pine Crest is a rather well healed suburb of Miami
- 36:25Speaker 2: because a lot of towns can't afford to give peacocks vasectivey.
- 36:30Speaker 1: That green pea fowl, they are under threat though they're
- 36:33Speaker 1: listed is endangered because they are from Southeast Asia and
- 36:36Speaker 1: a lot of their natural habitat has been done away
- 36:38Speaker 1: with thanks to land development and agricultural mowing down of
- 36:43Speaker 1: their environment and also farmers who will poison them if
- 36:48Speaker 1: they come into their fields.
- 36:50Speaker 2: Yeah, there's only I think ten twenty thousand left of
- 36:53Speaker 2: them in the wild. Hopefully someone steps up, because losing
- 36:57Speaker 2: any animal to extinction sucks, but losing particularly beautiful ones
- 37:03Speaker 2: that their very presence makes the world a better place
- 37:05Speaker 2: to live in those are You don't want to lose those.
- 37:09Speaker 1: That's right. And as for the congo p fowl, we
- 37:11Speaker 1: don't want to forget about those spellas they are vulnerable,
- 37:16Speaker 1: also habitat loss and hunting, and they're about ten thousand
- 37:19Speaker 1: of those in the wild.
- 37:21Speaker 2: Man alive.
- 37:22Speaker 1: I know.
- 37:24Speaker 2: Let's see. I'm trying to think if there's anything else.
- 37:27Speaker 2: I don't really think we have anything else, do we?
- 37:29Speaker 1: I got nothing else?
- 37:31Speaker 2: Oh? A group of pea fowl? You know? Yeah? What
- 37:33Speaker 2: is it? Collective nouns? Isn't that what they're called?
- 37:36Speaker 1: Uh? Yeah, that was another name form something of something.
- 37:43Speaker 2: Yes, I remember what you talking about. I don't remember
- 37:44Speaker 2: what it was too, but yeah, in this case, peacocks,
- 37:48Speaker 2: A group of peacocks are called a pride, an ostentation,
- 37:53Speaker 2: or a party, a peacock party. I like that. I
- 37:57Speaker 2: do too, I like all three of them. Well, since
- 38:00Speaker 2: Chuck and I agreed that we like the collective nouns
- 38:03Speaker 2: for peacocks, then obviously we have just unlocked listener mail.
- 38:09Speaker 1: I'm going to call this Maine and Billboards. Hey, guys,
- 38:14Speaker 1: longtime super fan of spreading the stuff. You should know
- 38:17Speaker 1: kool aid oh far and wide flavor eight. I think
- 38:21Speaker 1: they make any miles our drive to reach anywhere in
- 38:23Speaker 1: Maine flyby, So thanks for that. When you ask someone
- 38:26Speaker 1: in Maine how far away a destination is, be prepared
- 38:28Speaker 1: to often hear about an hour, but that can mean
- 38:31Speaker 1: forty five minutes to nearly two hours. Fun fact here
- 38:34Speaker 1: though about Maine. During a recent episode on Kadzu, you
- 38:36Speaker 1: were talking about how it takes over billboards, and I
- 38:39Speaker 1: know you get a lot of listener mail for Maine.
- 38:41Speaker 1: I thought you might like to know an exciting factoid.
- 38:44Speaker 1: Have you ever been to Maine and marveled at it's
- 38:46Speaker 1: natural beauty? Well, part of that is due to something
- 38:49Speaker 1: that's missing billboards. Guys. Maine law does not allowed billboards
- 38:54Speaker 1: of any kind. They have a very prescriptive law regarding
- 38:57Speaker 1: signs not on business property AKA and main vernacular official
- 39:02Speaker 1: business directional signs. The rules are very strict and include
- 39:06Speaker 1: a special provision that rolling signs like ones attached to
- 39:09Speaker 1: vehicles cannot even be used to get around these requirements.
- 39:13Speaker 1: And I think it is a thirty dollars license fee
- 39:19Speaker 1: to get a sign that can be forty eight inches
- 39:22Speaker 1: by twelve inches or seventy two inches by sixteen inches,
- 39:27Speaker 1: and you can only use two fonts. They must be
- 39:30Speaker 1: white with a single color background. And this is literally
- 39:33Speaker 1: just to say, like my pressure washing business is down
- 39:35Speaker 1: there or whatever. They say that people may consider billboards
- 39:41Speaker 1: to be detrimental to the preservation of scenic resources. And
- 39:44Speaker 1: that is a great law. And that's one reason we
- 39:47Speaker 1: love Maine. And that is from who is that from?
- 39:50Speaker 1: That's from Katrina Peterson.
- 39:52Speaker 2: Thanks Katrina. That is a very sensible, awesome law. I
- 39:56Speaker 2: love that. It's one of the worst things to see
- 39:58Speaker 2: when you're driving down the highways, to billboards. It is terrible.
- 40:03Speaker 2: Great thanks for letting us know that. Hopefully as Main goes,
- 40:06Speaker 2: the rest of the world follows. And if you want
- 40:09Speaker 2: to be like Katrina and get in touch with this
- 40:11Speaker 2: and let us know of a very sensible local law.
- 40:13Speaker 2: We love that kind of thing. You can send us
- 40:15Speaker 2: an email to stuff podcast at iHeartRadio dot com.
- 40:22Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
- 40:24Speaker 1: more podcasts my heart Radio, visit
- 40:26Speaker 2: The iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
- 40:30Speaker 2: your favorite shows.