Zoohoplology (ANIMAL DEFENSES) with Ted Stankowich

Summary

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Ologies with Alie Ward — Zoohoplology (ANIMAL DEFENSES) with Dr. Ted Stankowich

Aired: February 19, 2026
Guest: Dr. Ted Stankowich, Professor of Biological Sciences at California State Long Beach, Evolutionary Biologist & Animal Defense Mechanisms Expert

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Episode Overview

This lively, knowledge-packed episode dives into the study of animal defenses—why critters have spikes, sprays, scales, and more—and the evolutionary logic behind them. Host Alie Ward tours the lab and mind of Dr. Ted Stankowich, a leading "zoohoplogist," to understand the many wacky and wondrous ways animals defend themselves, from skunks to pangolins, armadillos to horned lizards, and even humans. The conversation is rich with oddball anecdotes, evolutionary insights, and practical tips (like fixing skunk spray stink!), all delivered in Alie’s signature humorous tone.

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Main Topics & Key Insights

1. Meet Dr. Ted Stankowich & The Birth of Zoohoplology

• [00:00–05:34]
  Alie introduces Ted, rattling off his impressive academic creds and local fame among LA biologists. Ted is a major player in animal defense research and helped coin the term “zoohoplology” (zoo–animal, hoplon–armor).

“So Zoohoplology. It is. It combines zoo animal with the Greek root hoplon, which means arms or armor. So animal armor and defense.” — Alie Ward [01:35]

• Ted’s lab tour description features 3D-printed whales, robot coyotes, and skunk pelts—setting the wacky stage for the chat.

2. Ted’s Animal-Loving Roots & First Experiences with Wild Critters

• [06:00–08:07]
  Ted grew up as a “nerdy kid” in Whittier, not especially outdoorsy, but car trips and national parks with his parents inspired a love of nature and science.

“I was a nerdy kid who liked his books and liked to go to the museum and got into biology in high school eventually, and then made a career out of it.” — Dr. Ted Stankowich [06:09]

3. Global Defense Hotspots: Where and Why Defenses Evolve

• [08:07–10:14]
  Regions with high biodiversity, openness, and large predators (think tropics, savannas) drive evolution of notable defenses.

“You see more defended species in areas that are more open, more visually exposed to predators and where there are larger predators that can kill you.” — Dr. Ted Stankowich [08:22]

4. The “Danger Zone”: Who Needs the Best Defenses?

• [09:06–10:14]
  Mid-sized animals (1–10 kg) are in an evolutionary pinch: too big to hide, not big enough to be safe—so they innovate the wildest defenses.

5. Weapons, Armor, and the Great Menu of Defense

• [11:14–12:32]
  From cryptic camouflage to speed, spikes, sprays, and toxins, animals have a menu of evolutionary tricks:

“Most animals are cryptic. They are camouflaged. They want to avoid being seen at the start. That’s the first line of defense.” — Dr. Ted Stankowich [11:30]

• Ted describes his own PhD work: scaring deer to study their escape choices ([12:51–15:06]), using life-sized cutouts of mountain lions, tigers, and deer.

6. From Deer to Skunks: Ted’s Evolution as a Researcher

• [15:14–16:55]
  Ted’s career shifted from deer to coloration and finally to skunks—where he found a relatively unstudied animal and started exploring predator-prey interactions and warning coloration.

7. How Predators Learn About Dangerous Prey

• [16:55–19:14]
  Are predators wired to avoid warning colors, or do they learn? Both—Coyotes and dogs exposed to skunk models/sprays show varied, often hilarious responses.

“Some got sprayed one time in the face by skunk oil and never again went back. … Some got sprayed nine times and kept going back for food.” — Dr. Ted Stankowich [17:29]

8. Why Not All Animals Evolve Spikes or Smells

• [22:53–25:32]
  Defense evolution is constrained by what traits a lineage already has:
  • Spiky mammals: modified hairs (porcupines)
  • Stinky mammals: developed from anal glands (carnivore communication)
  • Armor: evolved from bony plates (osteoderms)

“I don’t think we can really assign a rhyme or a reason to it. I think it’s just what you have available as your building blocks.” — Dr. Ted Stankowich [22:53]

9. Brains vs Brawn: The Cost of Carrying Armor

• [25:32–26:42]
  Animals with elaborate physical defenses (armadillos, skunks) tend to have smaller brains—tradeoff of energy spent on armor vs smarts.

“So the more you invest in your defense, the, the dumber relative you tend to be.” — Dr. Ted Stankowich [26:38]

10. Vulnerability of Humans & The Psychology of Armor

• [27:00–29:22]
  Humans went the “big brained, tool-using” route instead of physical defenses. The conversation turns philosophical (and delightfully nerdy) about how wearing artificial armor might change our own behavior and sense of safety.

11. Listener Questions Segment: Defense Deep Dive

Time-stamped Q&A ranging from serious science to hilarious trivia.

a. Do Animals Eavesdrop on Each Other’s Alarm Calls?

[34:09–35:11]
Yes—animals gather public information from alarm calls and even use deception.

“They will learn to give the alarm calls of other species in their area and give false alarm calls … and the other animal … might fly in and grab it and take it.” — Dr. Ted Stankowich [34:29]

b. Does Playing Dead Work?

[35:11–36:52]
“Thanatosis” can be a last-ditch defense, sometimes succeeding—in opossums and fainting goats alike.

c. Are There Scent-Based Alarm Systems in Nature?

[37:19–40:22]
Yes, especially in fish—chemical cues warn others. Skunks may also “waft” as an area-wide warning, but more research is needed.

d. Skunk Oil: Deterrent or Attractant?

[41:11–41:57]
Predators usually avoid skunk oil and stripes, but scavengers will eat around skunk glands, and hunters sometimes use skunk oil in lures.

e. Do Coyote Vests Protect Pets?

[44:02–45:33]
Probably! Spiky vests deter chomping, especially if covering the neck—a prime attack target.

f. Defensive Diarrhea & Flatulence

[48:26–49:43]
Snakes can “fart” to deter predators; mammals may also “lighten up” for escape, but most don’t weaponize poop.

g. Blood-Squirting Horned Lizards

[49:43–54:01]
Muscle contractions in their eye sinuses let horned lizards shoot blood up to four feet—disgusting and chemically deterrent to predators.

“That would be like you being able to, say, like, spit the entire length of a bowling lane.” — Alie Ward [50:41]

h. Venomous Mammals: Slow Lorises, Platypuses, Shrews

[54:01–56:02]
Slow lorises’ elbow gland secretions and platypus venomous spurs are among rare mammal poisons, usually working to taste bad or wound attackers, not kill prey.

i. Oscar-Worthy Animal Acting & Altruism in Defense

[56:33–58:49]
Killdeer and other birds “fake injury” to lure predators away from nests—a parent’s risky (but evolutionarily sound) sacrifice.

j. Butt Armor: Wombats and Pink Fairy Armadillos

[59:01–61:17]
Armored butts plug burrows against attackers; the pink fairy armadillo’s tiny pink butt-plate might be the cutest defense in the animal kingdom.

k. Are Animal Defenses Automatic or Intentional?

[62:41–63:36]
Depends—many are automatic, but spraying/aiming, erecting quills, etc. require conscious action.

l. Leftovers from Our Primal Defenses

[63:37–64:33]
Human piloerection (hair standing on end), sweating, and “screaming almond” amygdala-driven fear responses are ancient defense holdovers.

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12. Practical Advice & Fun Facts

a. What To Do If Sprayed by a Skunk

[66:44–68:17]

“Tomato juice will NOT work… you want to oxidize the sulfurous thiols in their spray, where if you use hydrogen peroxide, baking soda, and liquid dish soap in a mixture… that solution will oxidize those stinky chemicals and your animal will no longer smell.” — Dr. Ted Stankowich [66:46]

Recipe:

• 32 oz (1 qt) 3% hydrogen peroxide
• 1/3 cup baking soda
• 1 Tbsp dish soap
  Mix fresh, scrub into fur, repeat as needed. Do NOT store the solution, and avoid water as it can worsen the stink.

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13. The Joys & Challenges of Studying Defenses

• Best Part: “Doing science is like going out to play. … Living a life of expert exploration and discovery ... is deeply, deeply fulfilling.” — Dr. Ted Stankowich [post-68:17 note]
• Worst Part: Small research field, little funding, rare collaboration.

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Notable Quotes & Moments

“Now, before he was a full professor ... Ted was a California boy. He grew up southeast of LA in hilly Whittier...”
— Alie Ward [05:34]

“The more you invest in your defense, the dumber relative you tend to be.”
— Dr. Ted Stankowich [26:38]

“Hiding, climbing, throwing things — oh absolutely. Throwing objects at threatening animals for sure.”
— Dr. Ted Stankowich [64:05]

“Dogs don’t listen to those same behaviors ... as long as you respect [skunks] and can read their behavior, they don’t want to spray.”
— Dr. Ted Stankowich [65:42]

“Human hair dye is part of a mammalogist’s science kit more often than you would suspect.”
— Alie Ward [43:10]

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Fun Fact Lightning Round

• Pangolins’ scales are made of keratin, like fingernails.
• Armadillos’ and sloths’ ancestors both had bone plates under the skin (osteoderms).
• Horned lizards shoot blood from their eyes, and the blood contains ant toxins to repel predators.
• Some snakes “fart” to scare off attackers (cloacal popping).
• Parent birds and mammals will risk their own lives—sometimes Oscar-style acting—to save their young.

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Useful Timestamps for Reference

• [02:49] — Whale skeleton/Robot coyote lab tour
• [12:51] — Deer escape behavior/PhD research
• [15:14] — Armadillo balling/conglobation
• [16:34] — Predator learning, skunk/coyote studies
• [22:53] — Why some species evolve spikes, others smells
• [25:32] — Defenses vs. brain size
• [29:19] — Humans in armor & psychology
• [34:09] — Animal alarm calls and shared warnings
• [44:02] — Pet coyote vests: do they actually help?
• [48:35] — Defensive pooping and farting in snakes
• [49:43] — Horned lizard blood-squirting explained
• [54:24] — Slow loris venomousness and other venomous mammals
• [63:37] — Human defense mechanisms, evolutionary leftovers
• [66:44] — How to de-skunk a pet: the recipe and myth-busting

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Final Thoughts

Alie and Ted’s conversation is packed with humor, affection for animals, and a vibrant curiosity about all things spiky, smelly, and strange. Whether you want practical advice for skunk encounters, evolutionary context for why your cat is so squishy, or a reason to Google “pink fairy armadillo,” this episode arms listeners with fascinating tidbits and a deeper appreciation for nature’s creativity in survival.

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Follow-Up Links:

• Ted Stankowich on Instagram @drtedstankowich
• Support the Pangolin Crisis Fund — pangolincrisisfund.org
• Ologies Show Notes & Merch

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For More:
Search “Ologies” for kid-friendly “Smologies” episodes, and become a patron to submit your own questions for ologists.

Transcript

[Alie Ward]

Oh hey, it's your mom's friend who's always vaping into his sweatshirt. Alie Ward and this episode is about putting your dukes up or curling into a ball so that you don't die. Either or sometimes both. Let's talk to an ologist I've known for years, an LA area animal icon who invited me to the lab down at California State Long beach where they're a professor, for a visit, a tour and a chat about armadillos, gunks, pangolins, spikes, spurs, stripes, spots and the will to keep living. So we'll chat in a sec. But first, thank you to all the patrons who support the show for as little as a dollar a [e-mail] Ologies we also have brand new merch about revolutions and protests. It's [e-mail] Designed by Andy Diaz, with proceeds benefiting the National Immigration Law Center. That's brand new again, ologiesmerch.com and for $0 thank you for helping boost the show by leaving reviews, such as this very recent one from Jordan D. Fre, who wrote five Stars. It's great but and it's a big but, they write. It's too damn interesting, they say. I listen to the podcast as I fall asleep and suddenly it's two hours later I'm still awake and I'm like, damn girl, beavers are interesting. Jordan D. Friend, thank you for that. I hope it's your real name, because friend indeed. Also, thank you to sponsors of the show who let us donate to a cause of each ologist's choosing every week. Ready to save on new tech? It's time for Dell Tech Day's annual sales event, celebrating your customers with fantastic deals and benefits. Perks include Dell rewards, free shipping, premium support, and more. PCs like the Dell 14 with Intel Core Ultra processors will help you do more faster, and with a premium suite of monitors and accessories, you can upgrade your whole setup with amazing savings. Visit Dell.com deals if you your parent or spouse served in the military, you could join our family. Our members saved an average of $70 a month on auto insurance when they switched. Tap the banner or visit usaa.com join today to check your eligibility restrictions apply. Okay, this absolute gem studied biological sciences at Cornell, then got a Master's and a Ph.D. in animal behavior from Davis, and has taught at UMass, Amherst, University of Mississippi and Harvard and has been a Darwin Postdoc Fellow. But above all that, if you know an animal biologist in la, they know this guy Everyone loves him. Also kind enough to help coin a term for this ology since it's so specific. So Z Hoplology. It is. It combines zoo animal with the Greek root hoplon, which means arms or armor. So animal armor and defense. The visit was also a visual feast as I walked past skunk pelts and tiger cutouts and sat under a whale skeleton.

[Dr. Ted Stankowicz]

This is our new 3D printed whale.

[Alie Ward]

What kind of whale is that?

[Dr. Ted Stankowicz]

It's a humpback whale. It's one quarter size. Every bone's been individually 3D printed. We just finished it, like, a month ago.

[Alie Ward]

No. Aren't those leggies or hips?

[Dr. Ted Stankowicz]

That's the pelvis nuts. Yeah.

[Alie Ward]

And this was a deer at one point blank.

[Dr. Ted Stankowicz]

Yeah.

[Alie Ward]

Also rubber canids.

[Co-host or Guest (possibly a producer or editor)]

Who's this werewolf?

[Dr. Ted Stankowicz]

This is Obi Wan Coyote. This is our coyote robot. This was to harass skunks. We can remote control thermal infrared cameras on the front. It worked fine. However, we thought it was going to get sprayed all the time because we're harassing skunks. Never got sprayed once, so. And if we use it in the future, I'll actually use a taxidermy animal and we can harass skunks with it, though it's actually fun to drive it around. And thank God you could.

[Co-host or Guest (possibly a producer or editor)]

This is a good Halloween prop.

[Dr. Ted Stankowicz]

Oh, it scares little kids. Like, they are running and hiding behind. Like, some kids love it and want to play with it. Others are truly terrified of this thing.

[Co-host or Guest (possibly a producer or editor)]

Yeah, it is scary.

[Alie Ward]

I also left with swag. I got a T shirt and this handy fridge magnet with advice on skunk spray first aid, because when you need it, you need it. More on that later. So let's get right into it. The things that keep critters, including yourself, safe, from quills to barbs to plates to rotting flesh, smells to hair dye to impeccable acting, commendable drama, shrieks, spikes, stinks, and fashion with animal behaviorist, evolutionary biologist, professor, defense mechanism expert, and thus your favorite zoo hoplogist, Dr. Ted Stankowicz.

[Dr. Ted Stankowicz]

My name is Dr. Ted Stankwich, and I'm a he. Him.

[Alie Ward]

Stankiewicz.

[Dr. Ted Stankowicz]

Stankiewicz.

[Co-host or Guest (possibly a producer or editor)]

So kind of a W for the.

[Dr. Ted Stankowicz]

V. There's no V in it. It's just how it's spelled.

[Alie Ward]

I always put a V there. Yeah, yeah.

[Dr. Ted Stankowicz]

It used to be Stankiewicz in Russian. And then when my grandfather was here and he was a little boy in school, they mistranslated it, and so it became Stankowch.

[Co-host or Guest (possibly a producer or editor)]

Oh, there you go. Ooh, is that the pipe?

[Dr. Ted Stankowicz]

Yeah. So let's just pause for a second. It'll stop.

[Alie Ward]

How do you know that it's not.

[Co-host or Guest (possibly a producer or editor)]

A whale call coming from the beyond?

[Dr. Ted Stankowicz]

It's a hunch, Professional opinion. It's not a whale call.

[Alie Ward]

How long did it take you to.

[Co-host or Guest (possibly a producer or editor)]

Realize that was a pipe and not a ghost?

[Dr. Ted Stankowicz]

Well, I guess I heard it the first time, like, what is that? And then it stopped. I'm like, okay, I guess we're fine. And I've been doing that for over 13 years now in this room. So everyone's always surprised by it, though.

[Alie Ward]

Now, before he was a full professor and before he moved to the east coast for a stint at Harvard, Ted was a California boy. He grew up southeast of LA in hilly Whittier, which has its share of kind of suburban Americana and patches of landscape that are home to native and imported plants and animals, from cacti and wildflowers to some scaly and furrier residents. What kind of critters did you see growing up in Whittier?

[Dr. Ted Stankowicz]

So just squirrels, the occasional opossum in the backyard, occasional coyote. So normal urban mammals, a raccoon here and there. I wasn't a real outdoorsy kid.

[Alie Ward]

You weren't?

[Dr. Ted Stankowicz]

No, I was a nerdy kid who liked his books and liked to go to the museum and got into biology in high school eventually, and then made a career out of it. Yeah. So I was not a kid who was going to be spending every waking hour in the forest or in the field as a kid.

[Listener or Additional Guest]

Yeah.

[Co-host or Guest (possibly a producer or editor)]

Were your parents or siblings or aunts, uncles? Were they outdoorsy at all?

[Dr. Ted Stankowicz]

My mother was an educator. My dad was a high school teacher as well. But he did take us when I think I was probably 8 and then again when I was 10, cross country and back by car. First time we saw national parks. And so that was my big, really early intro to seeing national parks all over the country. I've been to 48 of the 50 states. So that time was sort of very formative to see nature and. And really get that experience. And you sort of fall in love with the experience of that. So if you ever get a chance to drive across the country and see just national parks and the amazing landscapes that are out there, it's really a great experience. Especially you can take your kids. It's just a transformative type of thing that they'll experience. So. Yeah.

[Alie Ward]

Which states haven't you been to?

[Dr. Ted Stankowicz]

Hawaii and South Carolina?

[Listener or Additional Guest]

Yeah.

[Co-host or Guest (possibly a producer or editor)]

Yeah, I've been to 48. No New Mexico and no West Virginia.

[Alie Ward]

Okay.

[Co-host or Guest (possibly a producer or editor)]

If anyone's listening to this, if there are talks in South Carolina or whatever.

[Dr. Ted Stankowicz]

I'd love to come out. Yes, absolutely.

[Co-host or Guest (possibly a producer or editor)]

Where has your work taken you, country wise? I know you mentioned that you had seen a platypus in the wild, so.

[Dr. Ted Stankowicz]

Most of my field work with live animals has been in the States. I did spend my sabbatical. I spent a month in Australia about five years ago where I chased echidnas around for about a month by myself in the bush. It was really an amazing month, just me and a truck and running around. They're the easiest animals in the world to capture by hand when they're walking around. But I loved it and I do a lot of museum work where we measure skulls and skins and that kind of stuff. So that's been fun to experience other countries that way. Eventually I'd love to make it to Africa and work on pangolins or porcupines or I can actually look for excuses to go out and explore.

[Co-host or Guest (possibly a producer or editor)]

Do you find that different continents or different regions where or biomes have animals with stronger defense systems? Does it matter what kind of predators are around? Do you see an evolution of different scales or spikes or stinks?

[Dr. Ted Stankowicz]

You tend to see it more in warmer, more tropical climates where things are just more biodiverse in general. I can speak for mammals in particular because that's what I know the best. But you see more defended species in areas that are more open, more visually exposed to predators and where there are larger predators that can kill you. And not as much sort of alpine or arctic types of areas. It's more based on what aspect of your environment gives you a lot of risk from predators. How exposed are you to a threat?

[Co-host or Guest (possibly a producer or editor)]

I always think like, okay, if there are big cats around, you're a little screwed. But is that like not the case? Are there smaller predators that you still would need a lot of defense for?

[Dr. Ted Stankowicz]

Depends how big you are. Okay, so if you're under, say a kilogram in size, maybe like small rabbit to squirrel and below, you can usually hide and be cryptic enough to avoid most predators just by your size alone. If you're above 10kg, large dog and above, then you are too big for the vast majority of predators, especially birds of prey.

[Co-host or Guest (possibly a producer or editor)]

Okay.

[Dr. Ted Stankowicz]

If you're in that sweet spot between 1 and 10, you're big enough to want to eat. It's hard to hide because you're large enough and most things can still kill you. There's like a danger zone of if you live in a sort of exposed area and are like intermediate and body size, that's where you're at the greatest amount of risk.

[Co-host or Guest (possibly a producer or editor)]

Well, okay, male deer Bucks, Yes.

[Alie Ward]

Horns.

[Co-host or Guest (possibly a producer or editor)]

You know, eight point deer has like eight shivs coming out of its face, but a doe doesn't. But they're still vulnerable to like pumas, let's say.

[Alie Ward]

Are the horns used for defense or.

[Co-host or Guest (possibly a producer or editor)]

Is that purely just mating? I would be inclined to say just mating. But can you ever stab back?

[Dr. Ted Stankowicz]

Absolutely. So deer have antlers and bovids have horns. So they're two different structures entirely.

[Alie Ward]

Right, thank you.

[Dr. Ted Stankowicz]

So deer have antlers which are bony. There's no keratin sheath on top. They are shed every year. The only species where the female has them are reindeer and caribou and then in bovids. So your antelope, your goats, your cows, gazelles, that sort of thing, all males have horns. And some females. Females of some species have horns. But to answer your question, absolutely yes. A great weapon to have for when you're fighting over mates, which is what the males primarily use them for. But it's also useful if you have a predator around. You're swinging those around and trying to stab them too. In fact, we did a study in 2009 and we're following it up now where we looked at why do female bovids have horns? Why do some species have them and others don't? So females can battle over territory themselves, which is not that common, or they are found in larger, more exposed species where they are more at risk of being cornered by a predator. So females can definitely use their horns to defend themselves for sure. They're usually smaller, straighter, more dagger like compared to the males. But they are definitely useful as a defensive weapon.

[Alie Ward]

Stay back.

[Co-host or Guest (possibly a producer or editor)]

Run me down a menu. Let's say that you are a critter, you need defense and you have a menu of options. Scales, spikes, horns, stinks. What are some of the options that you could have?

[Dr. Ted Stankowicz]

So the menu is interesting. If you're looking evolutionarily in terms of mammals, the options are spawning stinky sprays, stinky glands on your body that you can release armored plates, claws, teeth, antlers, horns, toxins. Some have toxins and poisons that they can use. That's what's helpful for defense if you are cornered. If you are attacked, that's what you can use. But most animals are cryptic. They are camouflaged. They want to avoid being seen at the start. That's the first line of defense. Just avoid being seen entirely. So coloration is a really big one and then rapid speed. So most of the things that live in that sort of intermediate body sized, open, exposed habitat area. A lot of your armored quilled animals live in that area. The other things that live in that area are other carnivores that can defend themselves with claws and teeth as well as rabbits and things that hop. So high speed escape, hopping is a very fast form of escape. And so if you're living in this danger zone, as we called it, then having a high speed escape is also a way out as well.

[Alie Ward]

Right now my ass is on the highway to the danger zone.

[Co-host or Guest (possibly a producer or editor)]

When it comes to your PhD, you showed me that you had huge life size cutouts of tigers and a cougar. What did you study when it came to getting your PhD? Could you tell me a little about that?

[Dr. Ted Stankowicz]

Sure. I basically scared deer for six years. It was really a great experience. So part of my PhD was walking towards or running towards deer to look at their escape behavior with speed, directness of approach, if I was holding a fake rifle or not, and looking at how they chose when to flee and how they chose where to flee. So escape decisions were a big part of it. I was studying black tailed deer up on the northern coast of California, and their only current large cat predator is a mountain lion. But historically, 600,000 years ago, they would have seen spotted cats, spotted jaguars, and now jaguars only come as far north as Arizona and New Mexico.

[Alie Ward]

You need a big cats episode. I know that. And a few days ago I recorded megaphelonology with Dr. Imogen Cancellari. But you gotta be patient. My baby's. It'll be up in a few weeks, I think. But until then, we have Ted's fieldwork hijinks with kind of like cardboard wooden cutouts, which, I'm sorry, is very funny. Science is extremely funny.

[Dr. Ted Stankowicz]

So we exposed them to pop up two dimensional life size models of a mountain lion, a spotted cat, a tiger, and another mule deer. As a control, essentially I would have a student drive a car and I would hide behind the car. We would drive past a group of deer and I'd duck behind a bush. The student would go drive away and put a camera up to start the film. Then I'd pop the model up over the bush from about 20 meters away and we'd record their responses. And sometimes they got really, really scared. Other times they just stared at it like it was not there at all. And so we were looking how the coloration affected it. And essentially what we found was that not surprisingly, the mountain lion evoked the strongest response in terms of snorting, stamping, never running away. Because those cats need to be about 6 to 10 meters away before they can really have a chance of capturing A deer. So they just were saying, I'm here, I see you here. Don't come around, there's something over there. So apparently the vertical stripes did not camouflage the big cat shape in that coastal California environment. So they treated the tiger just the same as they did a mountain lion. And the deer they didn't respond to at all. In fact, I had some males try to approach me with a very interested look on their faces. A female deer model had to abort those trials pretty quickly.

[Co-host or Guest (possibly a producer or editor)]

It sounds like a Halloween haunted house, like pop up and does a zombie scare you? Does a vampire scare you? Does a guy with a chainsaw?

[Dr. Ted Stankowicz]

I was at the field station. I was a weird guy laying on the ground with big cat models that everyone else was driving to the marine lab.

[Co-host or Guest (possibly a producer or editor)]

When did you start to branch out in your studies and in your teaching into scales and spikes? And I understand in an armadillo it's conglobation where they just go into a ball.

[Dr. Ted Stankowicz]

They curl up into a ball. Yeah. Only one species can actually make it all the way into a ball.

[Alie Ward]

Really?

[Dr. Ted Stankowicz]

Yeah. The three banded armadillo is the only one that actually form a tight ball. The rest of them can maybe curl a little bit, but most of them just sort of hunker down and try to keep their shell over top of them.

[Alie Ward]

Oh, I didn't know that.

[Dr. Ted Stankowicz]

But yeah, I think as you progress in your career, you expand your horizons. So as a PhD student, I was all about deer and escape behavior and anti predator recognition. And then I started to get more into evolutionary work with bold coloration. We did a lot of work with Tim Caro, who is a well known mammalian coloration biologist. We've published a bunch of papers now together. And then I got interested in skunks. And the great thing was no one works on skunks. It's very uncommon to have anyone work on skunks. And those who do usually are just doing, coloring and tracking their movements. They aren't doing behavior. I'm a behaviorist at heart. And so I really honed in on the idea of looking at predator prey relationships with a defended animal that advertises its defense, the black and white stripes and their common predator, a coyote. So a lot of what we do is looking at how do skunks perceive fear, how do they respond to predators and how do predators learn about those types of prey?

[Alie Ward]

Well, you know, that's prevalent too in poisonous insects.

[Co-host or Guest (possibly a producer or editor)]

Like if you see, you know, a really brightly colored insect or a frog, it's likely that they're either poisonous or they're a mimic of one that is right.

[Alie Ward]

Is that something that a predator learns.

[Co-host or Guest (possibly a producer or editor)]

From the first time, or is that innate?

[Dr. Ted Stankowicz]

It's a great question, and a lot of work has been done on that very question. And it varies depending on the type of animal you're talking about. We did a project where we trained coyotes to not attack skunks using skunk models. This was a captive colony in Utah. We sort of conditioned them to eat off of brown, furry plates, take their normal food off of a brown furry plate. Then we gave them a skunk model with their food on it. And the vast majority had a really strong hesitation of, what is that? Like, that is something new. That's bold. That's striped. What is that? Some never even ate the food off those plates. Others, those models had a sprayer so we could spray them in the face with skunk oil when they attacked the plates. And some got sprayed one time in the face by skunk oil and never again went back. Yeah, some got sprayed nine times and kept going back for food. So there's lots of variation in willingness to attack boldly colored animals. And so I think the answer to your question is there's both an innate aspect to it and a learned aspect to it.

[Co-host or Guest (possibly a producer or editor)]

Mercedes, our lead editor, told me about.

[Alie Ward]

A dog they had up in Canada.

[Co-host or Guest (possibly a producer or editor)]

That went back and tried to chew on a dead porcupine numerous times. Numerous times getting just stabbed in the face. They were like, come on, man. But like, is it similar for spikes?

[Dr. Ted Stankowicz]

Yes. If you notice spikes, or spines, if they are strong, dangerous spines, they tend to be black and white. So porcupine quills tend to be striated black and white. Those are warning signals. You're telling the predator not to do that. And most wild predators will not attack black and white spiky animals because they know your dogs are not quite as intelligent as wild predators are. Plus, my thought is that dogs are. They're artificially selected, and different breeds are selected to have what we call hypertrophied aspects of their attack sequence. So some breeds just love to chase and grab and bite, and that's just what they're bred to do because that's what we want them to do as part of whatever their job had been. And they get so much pleasure and internal hormonal rewards from doing that that no spike is ever gonna overcome that initial drive to want to do that thing. So I think that some dogs can learn better than others based on sort of what their background is, but some just can't help themselves, I think is the answer to that question.

[Alie Ward]

I saw it and I had to have it.

[Dr. Ted Stankowicz]

The people who buy skunk chew toys for their dogs, I don't know why you would do that. I see those in the stores and say, don't do. Why would you ever buy. You're training your dog to go after a skunk, you know, oh, my God. Or a hedgehog, if you live in Europe or, you know. So just be mindful of what toys you're giving your dog and how you're training them to. To chew. When I first got here, one of my very first grad students, her name was Holly Schiefelbein, Very, very first grad student. Her project was going to be, we made some robotic skunk models. You could drive these little animals around. There was a spraying mechanism in them that could spray. Not skunk spray, but citronella spray, which is aversive just the same. And the goal was to expose them to dogs and see how different breeds of dogs respond to skunks in different ways. And no one would let us work with their dogs, especially the purebreds. We wanted purebred dogs. We wanted to look at breed differences, and we couldn't find people who would let us use their dogs for it. And we couldn't find a park that would allow us to do that project in it. So now what we do is we put out static prey models with our trail cameras, our wildlife cameras, and just see how opportunistically we get coyotes in that come and interact with the models or if they contact or if they stay away. And varying the coloration or the pattern types or the. The poses or the type of animal it is. You can do a lot in that respect.

[Co-host or Guest (possibly a producer or editor)]

I can't believe I haven't asked this yet, but you work with skunk oil. You have some in a fridge. Your last name does have the word skank in it. How often does that come up in emails in classes? I mean, it's perfect.

[Dr. Ted Stankowicz]

Very rarely, really. I did not even realize it until I was well into working with skunks. In fact, I remember when you actually called me out on your aptonym episode. I think you mentioned me working with skunks. I didn't really had never even realized up until very late. And so there was no preconceived idea of it. And it's just a coincidence that it's so good that I, you know, I don't tend to draw attention to it. I know it's so good, but, you know, it happens. It's important to note that I don't I'm not a stinky person. Just what we work on is stinky. Yes.

[Co-host or Guest (possibly a producer or editor)]

Okay, not at all. In fact, I've said several times and I'm like, I'm so surprised that this room smells so good for as many dead animals in it like this. I've actually noticed that. But yeah, there's a guy in England who is a reclamation hydrologist who is named Andrew Drink water. There is a planetary geologist I know named Raquel who goes by, whose name was Rocky. Like her, that was her nickname. And I was like, do you ever notice that? And she's like, I've never thought about it. Which is. I absolutely love that. I feel like that's a total spin off podcast.

[Alie Ward]

So we just discussed this in the asinology episode with donkey expert Dr. Faith Burden, who, yeah, studies Beasts of Burden. And she noted that taking on a job, that's a pun. There's a name for that. It's nominative determinism. And also, if you want to hear Raquel Nuno, AKA Rocky, talk about planetary geology, you can see her selenology episode on the moon. And also Dr. Drinkwater, I just emailed his office yet again. I've tried so many times over the years. So cross your fingers. If anyone personally knows Dr. Andrew Drinkwater, a hydrologist, please message me, send a pigeon, whatever it takes. But back to the utterly charming and warm Dr. Stankowicz.

[Co-host or Guest (possibly a producer or editor)]

When it comes to things like spikes versus scales, is there a different level of efficacy in terms of what is a better predator deterrent or does it totally depend on your environment?

[Dr. Ted Stankowicz]

So I often get this question of why do some species evolve spikes, others evolve smells, others evolve armor. I don't think we can really assign a rhyme or a reason to it. I think it's just what you have available as your building blocks. So you think of the carnivores that all use stinky sprays or old odors, your skunks, your polecats, mustelids, weasels, civets, those types of things. Their ancestors had anal glands and all carnivores have anal glands that they use for communication purposes. And so they had access to sort of stinky sulfur based chemicals that they were using communication that they co opted in different ways and to different degrees to use for defense. So they had something, a building block already there. They were already emitting kind of stinky stuff already in communication. You think about armadillos, there's evidence, fossil evidence, that osteoderms, the bony plates that make up an armadillo's carapace we can find bony osteoderms, individual ones, in the skins of fossil giant ground sloths. So the ancestors of the sloths and armadillos are in the same superorder.

[Co-host or Guest (possibly a producer or editor)]

That's nuts. I didn't know that.

[Dr. Ted Stankowicz]

There was probably a building block there that got enhanced in some way.

[Alie Ward]

Just a side note, your teeth started out on the outside of your body and there are still so many creatures who are studded with external teeth. But please enjoy the recent paleohistology episode with Dr. Yara Haridi to learn more on that. But, but osteoderms, that means bone skin, they're yeah, like the scutes on the back of our armadillo friends. But there are more avenues to armor up.

[Dr. Ted Stankowicz]

For example, quills and spines are just modified hairs. Pangolin scales are. It's keratin, it's modified hairs. So they're taking what building block you have and modifying it away. And whoever comes up with a good way of using it evolutionarily, it just gets elaborated and exaggerated more and more and more. And I think it's just a something that's fortuitous. Now, if you're talking about an animal that is arboreal, that lives in trees, you probably don't want a thick coat of armor because it's so heavy. Although pangolins, there are a bunch of tree pangolins, but they are smaller in size. So trees versus ground, you might not want to be as armored. There are spiny animals that live in trees. It's just a matter of what you.

[Co-host or Guest (possibly a producer or editor)]

Had to begin with are the more armored mammals are they tend to be slower lopers. Do they not have that bunny hop fast getaway? Like the fact that an armadillo is related to sloths. You don't think of sloths for their like fast getaways. But do these all tend to be slower little dudes?

[Dr. Ted Stankowicz]

Most of the ones that have a big defense tend to be a little bit slower, a little bit more lumbering. Cause they don't need to be fast to get away. That's not their main defense. Yeah, I noticed early on that especially working with skunks, that skunks aren't the smartest animals in the world. You know, I knew that armadillos aren't really the smartest animals in the world. So we had a question of, well, maybe having to carry around this big coat of armor or evolve this stinky smell takes extra energy and there might be a trade off there. So I thought, well, maybe they have smaller brains. And so we did a Study and we found, lo and behold, that mammals that have more elaborate defenses, morphological defenses, have relatively smaller brain sizes. So you could say that those that have really strong defenses don't need to be as smart because they can hang out and not have a care in the world and know they're defended against most other mammals they find. And also there's this energetic trade off there that there's a cost to growing, developing, and carrying around a giant coat of armor on your back all day long.

[Co-host or Guest (possibly a producer or editor)]

So they're less brains, more kind of brawn in terms of, you know, not strength, but at least the strength of their defenses.

[Dr. Ted Stankowicz]

Yeah. So the more you invest in your defense, the, the dumber relative you tend to be.

[Co-host or Guest (possibly a producer or editor)]

You know, we're sitting in this lab full of pangolin scales and armor and spikes and spines, and it occurs to me, like, how squishy humans are, how absolutely vulnerable. Does that ever strike you that you're walking around with no armor like we're wearing, just like cotton?

[Dr. Ted Stankowicz]

Yeah, yeah. It's amazing because we took a whole different route, right? Our evolutionary history, we became a little bit more cursorial, a little bit more able to run and outpace, and that's mainly in order to hunt. But we would use trees, escape into trees, but larger brains, that's the way out of it. Right. So the bigger the brain, the more able to avoid predators by using those brains that you are. But what strikes me more about humans is what happens when we do put armor on. And so I have lots of questions that I would love to explore someday about how do humans perceive fear? Not just in general, but what happens to their perceptions of fear when they are wearing body armor or when they do have a weapon on? And how does that change their thought process and their decision making process?

[Co-host or Guest (possibly a producer or editor)]

Like, does their cortisol level go up.

[Alie Ward]

Or down or down?

[Dr. Ted Stankowicz]

Yeah. Are they more brave? Are they more bold? Are they able to do more because they know they have this first line of defense if they are shot at, you know.

[Alie Ward]

Well, getting back to humans, it's so.

[Co-host or Guest (possibly a producer or editor)]

Funny that you mentioned human beings wearing armor. My husband has a black belt in jiu jitsu and he's a musician, a playwright. He's working on this piece right now and he's going to perform it in a full suit of armor. And we have a friend who is a prop maker who shipped us his suit of armor. They're about the same size. And literally yesterday, my husband is putting on a full suit of armor in the living room. It's his dream. Like he has Wanted to put on his suit of armor forever and then it starts to fit a little different.

[Dr. Ted Stankowicz]

That feels so good.

[Co-host or Guest (possibly a producer or editor)]

He's also clanking around and can barely sit down. He's like, how do people ride horses on this? And I'm like, well, are you more vulnerable than like, you know, if you got in a fight in that bar? Like.

[Dr. Ted Stankowicz]

Exactly. I mean, I think you can explore, you know, some inner psyche of why your husband wanted that, to feel that so much. But it's the same idea of. Yeah, if you're wearing a giant suit of metal armor, you are lumbering, you're slow, you're. You're more vulnerable in that aspect, but you're also far less likely to be stabbed or shot by an arrow.

[Co-host or Guest (possibly a producer or editor)]

Yeah.

[Dr. Ted Stankowicz]

You know, so there's definite trade offs. Maybe you just feel a lot more safe curled up in a cocoon of steel.

[Co-host or Guest (possibly a producer or editor)]

Yeah.

[Dr. Ted Stankowicz]

So there's definitely some psychological process happening there of being wrapped in steel and feeling a bit safer and more at ease and less stressed, I would assume. Yeah.

[Co-host or Guest (possibly a producer or editor)]

I have to ask him.

[Alie Ward]

Okay. I asked him.

[Dr. Ted Stankowicz]

Most armor has a sort of compressing quality to it. You know how dogs have thunder shirts sometimes, like some dogs helps their anxiety for storms and fireworks to where a thundershirt. That's what armor feels like. You know, feels extra safe and cozy.

[Co-host or Guest (possibly a producer or editor)]

The timing couldn't be more perfect. Literally lumbering around in it, just so happy yesterday, like his dream.

[Alie Ward]

Can I ask you questions from listeners?

[Dr. Ted Stankowicz]

Absolutely.

[Alie Ward]

Just a heads up, Jarrett, your podmother will be performing this musical live in LA in the next month or so. So follow him on Instagram jarretsleeper. It's J A R R E T tsleeper. Like someone who sleeps where he'll be announcing it. It's so good. Also, he's just making some great content about the world. In this a time of chaos, Ward approved would marry again. But before we hear your questions, patrons, let's take a quick break. We're going to donate to a cause of Ted's selection, which is the Pangolin Crisis Fund, which works to stop the poaching and the trade of and the demand for pangolin and pangolin products. And it raises the profile of the eight species of this little known animal. They deserve their own multi part episode sometime in the future because they're amazing creatures. They're impacted so adversely by human trade and so we have to find the best pangolinologist and yeah, that is a real word. I just looked it up. And Also they say 100% of any designated donation to the Pangolin crisis fund goes directly to the field and we're really happy to make that donation on Ted's behalf [e-mail] we'll link them in the show notes. Thank you to Ology sponsors for making these donations each week possible. Oh Ollie. Ollie came to me as a potential sponsor and I wrote back all caps. I take Ollie every day. Ollie, I love you. I love you. Ali loves Ollie. I've had doctors recommend certain supplements like I take their goodbye stress literally every day and half for years. For me I'm looking for that Gaba and L theanine. I love that Ollie is easy to take. They taste good so I remember to take them and also is a big dork who likes to research what I'm taking. I love that Ollie has science backed supplement help my brain and bod on a daily term. Also your assigned female of birth. Ollie knows that women are dealing with enough okay so they make it simple to find some good solutions that fit your needs. They have again science backed supplements that support women's wellness. Multivitamins, libido support vaginal probiotics. They have these mango gummies that are delish. They have a clinically studied probiotic that supports your gut and your digestive health and your immune system. And yes again mango. Go bring it on. Easy to take. So yeah Ollie, they're in my gut every day. So science backed wellness can be simple. Head to o l l y.com and start supporting your gut and overall well being with solutions that are easy and delightful. These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.

[Sponsor or Advertiser Voice]

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[Listener or Additional Guest]

The greatest to ever play the game.

[Sponsor or Advertiser Voice]

Return to finish what they started.

[Dr. Ted Stankowicz]

Welcome to Survivor 50.

[Sponsor or Advertiser Voice]

I wanted one more shot to play the game that I fell in love.

[Dr. Ted Stankowicz]

With 25 years ago.

[Listener or Additional Guest]

I want to win against the best of the best.

[Sponsor or Advertiser Voice]

I chickened out at the final tribal.

[Co-host or Guest (possibly a producer or editor)]

Season 50.

[Alie Ward]

It's an honor.

[Listener or Additional Guest]

Light your torch.

[Alie Ward]

I've got some unfinished business. Be part of history.

[Dr. Ted Stankowicz]

I have more to play for this.

[Sponsor or Advertiser Voice]

Time bigger than ever. Survivor 50 new milestone season begins CBS tonight at 8, 7 Central.

[Listener or Additional Guest]

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[Alie Ward]

Possible our patrons at patreon.com ologies who submit questions for ologists before we record and this week we had a great one from A. Ortega who asked about noises and communication used for certain types of dangers or threats or urgency. Olga Kolesnikova asked, is screaming actually a good defense mechanism? Screams internally.

[Co-host or Guest (possibly a producer or editor)]

And Marla T. Wants to know, do animals in the wild pick up on each other's warnings? Like, for example, do squirrels listen to warnings from birds when hawks or eagles fly over? Is there like being on blue sky where everyone's like, hey, this is going on politically, Everyone like a meerkat.

[Alie Ward]

Like, do they listen to each other?

[Dr. Ted Stankowicz]

Absolutely they do. There's totally shared public information out there and especially with alarm calls. There's lots and lots of studies looking at how species use information from other species about where food might be, where predators are, and even cases of deception where species will give false alarm calls. They will learn to give the alarm calls of other species in their area and give false alarm calls. So the animals, like a meerkat might drop the bug it was foraging on and the other animal, the bird might fly in and grab it and take it.

[Co-host or Guest (possibly a producer or editor)]

That's so mean.

[Dr. Ted Stankowicz]

Public information is a very well studied aspect of behavior and it's super common for animals to, of course use calls and signs and visual information from other species.

[Co-host or Guest (possibly a producer or editor)]

Well, you know, you mentioned seeing possums when you were younger and we're looking at, you know, armadillos that are kind of possum size. A lot of people wanted to know scalebar the Cole, Gracie Maldonada, Brittany Corrigan, Jen Squirrel Alvarez and Justin Bowen scalebar asked does playing dead ever like backfire laying down in front of a predator seems kind of risky. And Justin asked, I wonder if fainting goats qualify as playing dead. So opossums don't have any armor on their bellies, but they just keel over drooling. Is that a defense? Is that a bug or a feature?

[Dr. Ted Stankowicz]

It's absolutely a defense. It's called thanatosis. It's very hard to study because you just have to opportunistically see it in an animal. Right. But it's really the last option. And normally it's not the first option. You're running away, you're trying to get away, but happens when the predator grabs you and you're in the jaws already. So what other thing? Rather than trying to squirm or claw, if you just play dead, maybe they'll stop and drop you and look around and okay, this thing, I've killed it. I can make sure there's no other predators around that might steal this. And you can see videos online of predators dropping opossum on the ground and start to walk around and look for things that might take it. And the opossum pops up and runs away. Bye now. It's not a super common thing that it's successful, but at that point, what else do you have? So death feigning is a thing we see fear screams where screaming bloody murder to hopefully call in other members of your species that might mob the predator to help you out. So you'd be surprised at what animals might do as a last gasp to save themselves because what else do you have to lose?

[Alie Ward]

Yeah.

[Co-host or Guest (possibly a producer or editor)]

Eleanor Wall said, hello Allie and guest expert. This is Eleanor from New York. And the thing that I would like.

[Alie Ward]

To ask you about regarding animal defenses.

[Co-host or Guest (possibly a producer or editor)]

Is alarm calls, whether sound based, light.

[Alie Ward]

Based or chemical or any other form.

[Co-host or Guest (possibly a producer or editor)]

You mentioned anal glands. Does anyone spurt anything to like let other people know like there's some danger in the area?

[Dr. Ted Stankowicz]

So chemical for sure. But when we know about the chemicals are in fish. So fish, when they are attacked, they will emit chemicals from their body that once they're in the water, other fish use that as a conspecific alarm cue or alarm cue that something that death is happening here and you get away. And so it's found in so many different aquatic species that smelling death will cause other animals to swim away.

[Alie Ward]

And if you have questions like is there a fish alarm cue? Luckily for all of us, there's a 2004 study from the Journal of Animal Behavior titled is there a fish alarm cue Affirming evidence from a wild study which yeah, noted that chemical alarm cues released from injured tissue are not released under any other context and therefore reliably they inform nearby prey of the presence of a predator. And that both laboratory and field studies have demonstrated that most aquatic taxa show anti predator responses to these chemical alarm cues. You can also see the 2022 study Attenuation and recovery of an Avoidance response to a Chemical Anti Predator cue in an Invasive Fish Implications for use as a Repellent in Conservation, in the Journal of Conservation Physiology. And it found that these chemosensory alarm cues may prove to be an effective tool in guiding the movement of fish, especially invasive ones, for control or for conservation. So conservationists could potentially use these, these odor cues, kind of like a gentler fish cattle prod made out of stress perfume, to guide the fish. In order to control these invasive species, however, they did lab tests with sea lampreys. And if they're exposed to prolonged alarm cues, like if they just keep smelling the danger scent over and over again, I guess the fish just figure someone's crying literal wolf and they're like, whatever. So, yeah, this might be called, say, flooding the zone. So not only does it work to desensitize and numb captive fish, but it's also a political strategy employed by dictatorships. So the term flood the zone, meaning to overwhelm a population with so much bad news or corruption or fear or misinformation that they simply can't keep up and then they tune out for survival. It was actually coined by our current president's chief strategist, Steve Bannon, who famously said that the Democrats don't matter. The real opposition is the media, and the way to deal with them is to flood the zone with shit. There you go. So whether you're a fish or a human person, this is handy news to keep hold of. But apparently if the sea lampreys took some time away from the alarm odor, they were more attenuated and active in avoiding the threat. So maybe every day, read a romance novel, watch your favorite show for an hour or two, give your brain a break. That way you can stay angry and active. Right now, any skunks? If you're listening to this, you're like, okay, great, but what does this have.

[Dr. Ted Stankowicz]

To do with me in mammals, in terms of spraying, it's so unstudied. Not many people study spraying skunks. I don't know why they're so fun, but we don't know a lot about how animals respond to skunk odor in their environment. What we do know is skunks can spray. Like, they might spray your dog intentionally. Liquid gets on their face, but they can also release a waft of smell. So sometimes if you're walking around your house and you smell skunk, it might not be that a skunk sprayed a predator or got attacked. It might just be that they got stressed out and released a puff of odor. It's lingering in the air and it's sort of staying around.

[Co-host or Guest (possibly a producer or editor)]

Is that you?

[Dr. Ted Stankowicz]

That might be an inadvertent response. Or it could be a warning to other animals in the area that something happened around here. There's some sort of scary thing. But. But again, we don't know that in mammals for sure.

[Alie Ward]

Would that also warn a predator?

[Co-host or Guest (possibly a producer or editor)]

Like, if you're a coyote walking around, you're a bobcat and you start to smell skunk, would you be like, ugh.

[Alie Ward]

I'm out of here.

[Co-host or Guest (possibly a producer or editor)]

This is like a restaurant that stinks.

[Dr. Ted Stankowicz]

So our work with coyotes and the responses to skunk oil is kind of mixed. Generally speaking, they will avoid models that smell strongly of skunks. But we also use skunk oil in a mixture with other stuff as a lure for carnivores and predators. So if it smells like skunk oil and death, it can be an attractant. If it just smells purely like skunk oil and it's on a skunk model, like on a thing that looks like a skunk that does not look dead, they tend to shy away from it. Oh, so it's context dependent. But it's odd that we use the thing that they hate the most being sprayed with is what we use as a lure to draw them in.

[Alie Ward]

I know you want more on this, so you can please report to some cozy book nook and curl up with a paper Aversive or attractive, the effects of skunk oil on predator behavior by professor Holly Schieffelbein and our own Dr. Ted out of. Yes, his lab at California State Long Beach. So this study notes that skunk carcasses have been encountered in which everything except the anal glands had been consumed by scavengers like they were leftovers. And that notes probably coyotes, which could indicate an aversion to an avoidance of the oil contained within these glands. But the researchers in this study, they made skunk decoys out of tanned hides, and half of them they kept black and white sand striped, and the other half they dyed, they bleached them, and then they paired some with the smell of skunk. So they wanted to see if the coloration in conjunction with the smell did anything. And the study found that scented models were less likely to be visited, indicating yes, there was an avoidance of the oil. But some of my favorite passages of research papers in general are always hiding out in the methodology section. This one did not disappoint. So they had to makeover skunk pelts into a more neutral color so that they had striped ones and that they had just drab brown ones. So the lab had to create the brown pelts via it says Clairol Basic white lightener and 40 volume cream developer from Sally Beauty. And then they dyed them brown over that using permanent hair color in the shade dark blonde. And if you listen to our pinnipedology episode on seals and sea lions or our recent marmotology episode about groundhogs, you will know human hair dye is part of a mammalogist's science kit more often than you would suspect. But I want to save some skunk facts for a future episode with another years long quest for a very specific guest. I really need Jerry Dragu of New Mexico. He's exceptionally hard to get a hold of. He is the only skunk expert who will do. I've had my eyes on him forever. Jerry, email me back. I love you. Also, no patrons asked this question, which was shocking to me.

[Co-host or Guest (possibly a producer or editor)]

How about coyote vests?

[Dr. Ted Stankowicz]

How about coyote vests?

[Co-host or Guest (possibly a producer or editor)]

Yeah, like spiky little vests. They have a lot of like plastic bright colored spikes. They're so metal even though they're plastic. But I have a 12 pounder who is not the sharpest but also I'm sure delicious. Do they work?

[Dr. Ted Stankowicz]

So the coyote vest is a Kevlar vest and some of them have metal spikes on them, some have little plastic spines sticking up off the top. It's unclear. It seems like it couldn't hurt. You know, if you're a small dog and get chomped down on by something that's chomping on those spikes, it would certainly hurt to chomp down on those spikes. So I don't think that the creators have any direct scientific evidence of it working, but I can totally see it being a reasonable way to defend your animal. It's not a foolproof way, of course, because it doesn't protect the entire animal and the head is exposed. But it certainly would be a good first line of defense if you can intervene while they're dealing with that vest.

[Alie Ward]

What about the neck?

[Co-host or Guest (possibly a producer or editor)]

Like, does the neck have to be protected more than other areas?

[Dr. Ted Stankowicz]

The neck is one of the most common areas that they go for because it's the way to kill the animal so quickly, either by breaking the spine or by cutting the jugular vein to bleed them out. So the neck is what you really want to protect. And so having a spiked collar there might be helpful too. Although most small dogs, their body can be crushed by strong jaws of mountain lions or coyotes in a variety of ways. So that would be one of the most vulnerable parts.

[Alie Ward]

And just a heads up, yes, many versions of this coyote vest, or I suppose it's really an anti coyote vest, they feature like Sex Pistols level spiked collars as well. And it was invented, I just read this, it made me so sad. It was invented by a Southern California man who was mourning his late ten pound little white fluffy poodle named Buffy, who was stealthily stalked by a coyote while they were at this busy dog park. And the coyote pounced, grabbed Fluffy by the neck, shook her to death in front of her distraught owners and then the coyote scampered away up a steep hill. They ran after they couldn't catch this coyote with a limp dead Buffy in its mouth. Buffy was never seen again. And through grief and a lot of I think, if I may self blame, Buffy's owner created this Kevlar bite proof spiked collar and vest [e-mail] if you're looking. And there have been many reports of attacks that were thwarted by these spiked little outfits. And my daughter Gremlin, she's a delicious 12 pound meal waiting to happen. May need one of these. I was just shopping, I was like, do I get our pink one, yellow one? I can't decide, but the tab's open. If you're encountering a lot of coyotes in your neighborhood though, especially now because it's coyote mating season, like January through March, there are some ways to scare them away. I found this 2023 master's thesis by Gabrielle Lejeuness and it was titled Two Programs for Use of Aversive Conditioning to Manage Bold Urban Coyotes. So they lured coyotes with dogs or dog scents. The study also taught community members to stay on the lookout for coyotes and then haze them by running and screaming at them and throwing tennis balls their direction to cause them to retreat from humans. Or they had the high intensity method which involved a non contact shot of a chalk pellet toward a coyote with like a paintball gun. And the verdict was the low and the high intensity hazing caused coyotes to leave the immediate area. But only the high intensity hazing, the paintball shotgun demonstrated measurable changes in subsequent behavior by coyotes. But the yelling, though they say may deter coyotes during conflict situations while increasing the sense of security in residential areas either way, haze coyotes when you see one for the good of the nearby pets, but also the coyotes because it keeps them safer. Even though they belong here as much, if not more than us. They were here before us. And if you have an outdoor cat, you're putting so much wildlife at risk because they love to eat lizards and birds and such and you might be feeding the coyotes. So real talk, keep your kitties indoors.

[Co-host or Guest (possibly a producer or editor)]

But a leash is also a good idea.

[Dr. Ted Stankowicz]

A leash? Yeah. Honestly, if your dog's on a leash, it's close enough to you where you can hopefully protect it.

[Co-host or Guest (possibly a producer or editor)]

Yeah.

[Dr. Ted Stankowicz]

If you have your dog free roaming, then having a collar with some spikes on it might be a better idea.

[Co-host or Guest (possibly a producer or editor)]

We talked about stinky, stinky glands and Andy Pepper and Emily Stauffer wanted to know. Emily asked, I don't know if this would be part of this ology, but.

[Alie Ward]

What is it with nervous poops?

[Co-host or Guest (possibly a producer or editor)]

Is that a defense mechanism? Andy asked, are there animals that poop for defense and not just out of fear? And does it matter?

[Alie Ward]

Honorable mention to patron briodiversity who shared that they quote know of two snakes, the Sonoran coral snake and the western hooknose snake that used to cloacal popping, basically farting on command to repel predators. Biodiversity called them ophidian flatulists and wondered if any of Ted's research has caught wind of any other animals that employ farcial arts in self defense. Honestly, if you've ever been close to someone with ibs, you know, it can certainly keep you anxiously ensconced in a bathroom stall when things get dicey.

[Dr. Ted Stankowicz]

Our brains and guts Nervous poops might be a way to lighten your body load in preparation for a fast runaway. A fast escape. That's the one thing I can think of it might help you. I don't know of any mammals that release a defensive compound in their poop that would in any way hinder an attack, but it would sort of lighten your load to help you escape a predator attack.

[Co-host or Guest (possibly a producer or editor)]

What about horned lizards? A hand, the bee? Lee Jacobstock wanted to know. Jacob asked my question. How the heck do some lizards straight up shoot blood out of their eyeballs? What would the evolutionary advantage of that even be? But the. Yeah, the horned lizard, the horny toad, hand, the bee said that they're native to their home state of Texas. Can we please discuss this bizarre mechanism?

[Dr. Ted Stankowicz]

A number of things can shoot bodily fluids out of their body.

[Alie Ward]

Indeed.

[Dr. Ted Stankowicz]

And it's a somewhat common way of defending yourself. If it happened while being squeezed or being attacked or being pressed on and something squeezed out and shot the predator, and it deterred it. That animal survived. So guess what? That animal's genes get to live on and be spread, and that trait gets to be spread. So if it's something that happened, fortuitously, an animal is more likely to have stuff shoot out of its body when pressed on or squeezed. That gets to spread, and more copies of it are found in the next generation. So that's how that thing happens.

[Alie Ward]

All right, there's a glut of information available on this, but let's break down how to shoot blood from your eyes in case there's ever a weird guy staring at you at the bus stop. So first be a horned lizard, which means eating a diet of mostly harvester ants. And if you recall from our myrmecology episode with Dr. Terry McGlynn about ants, harvester ants, the juicy ones that used to roam untouched lands, are struggling because of invasive ant colonies, which means horned lizards are going hungry. But as for the blood, so these horned lizards are able to constrict some muscles around their eyes, which keeps the blood kind of shunted and dammed up in a few sinuses under the eyeball. Then as it's ready, it's like building up. The lizard further constricts those muscles really quickly, and the blood has nowhere to go but out. And they can shoot it up to four feet away. And this would be like you being able to, to say, like, spit the entire length of a bowling lane. How often can they do this? Like if you were at a lizard party, just kind of goofing around. So there's some research out there. For example, the 2001 paper titled Blood Squirting Variability in Horned Lizards, which exposed horned lizards to the presence of dogs. And they found that body mass of these lizards was positively correlated with the total number of squirts and the number of days in a row a lizard could continue squirting from its eyeballs. There's this other stellar paper, 2004's Banger Responses of Kit Foxes to Anti Predator Blood Squirting and Blood of Texas Horned Lizards. And this study gave kit foxes some alive horned lizards to eat, during which the lizards squirted blood from the tissues around their eyes. I'm guessing Jackson pollocked the foxes in the face with their blood. And then when the kit foxes were presented with with more horned lizards to eat, the researchers say that the foxes displayed a learned aversion to them. They were like, I'm good, dude. Now, the study also suggested active anti predator Chemicals are carried in the circulating blood as well as in squirted blood, and that the lizards can tell a fox wants to eat its ass and it's worth doing the blood squirt. Now fast forward a few decades to the October 2025 paper Anti Predator Blood Squirting and Seed Harvesting Ants in the Evolution of Myrmecophagy, or Ant Eating in Horned Lizards. So scientists now know that during digestion of these harvester ants, a compound from their toxin enters horned lizard blood, becoming a circulating anti predator deterrent. The study says chemical warfare shot out your eyeballs. Also, I read too many studies about horned lizards for this aside, and I can tell you that they were all authored by one guy, Wade C. Sherbrooke, who I was thrilled to find out is alive and well in Arizona. He wrote the book Introduction to Horned Lizards of North America. And he made a recent visit to the educational Coopers center, which made an Instagram post that said, today our team met with the wizard of the lizard, Wade Sherbrooke, wizard of the Lizard Folks, beauty's all around us. If you just open your eyes, provided they're not filled with blood, it's definitely.

[Co-host or Guest (possibly a producer or editor)]

Someone I would leave alone. If I could mug someone that was just sitting there or someone that was squirting blood at me through their eyeballs, I definitely would be like, I'm going to go for the more chill situation. Slow lorises, Alison Clark and Emily Z. Wanted to know. Allison asked pygmy slow loris, are they really the only venomous mammal? Emily Z. Said, can we talk about how slow lorises have venomous elbows?

[Alie Ward]

What?

[Co-host or Guest (possibly a producer or editor)]

This was news to me also.

[Dr. Ted Stankowicz]

So the slow lorises will take the secretions of the gland from their elbow and spread it on their fur to make themselves toxic, distasteful, poisonous, or their bite can be very painful because it's in their mouth. However, shrews, solenodons, they all have poison glands in their mouth that they use to subdue prey.

[Co-host or Guest (possibly a producer or editor)]

Really?

[Dr. Ted Stankowicz]

And they actually have grooves in their front teeth that they can inject the poison into prey and the prey will become immobilized. They can catch that prey and store it for longer periods of time. So they're definitely not the only poisonous mammals. And of course, platypus, male platypus have spurs on their hind legs that have venom in them that are used in male male combat. Those are very painful if they stick you in the skin. So there are multiple things that are poisonous among mammals, but very few use toxins or poisons as an anti predator.

[Alie Ward]

Defense, we do have a fresh platypus episode for you. And in it we go into depth on these venom spurs and exactly how bad they hurt, which is like a bitch. And also, most people who get barbed and like crumpled physiologically from these platypus franken creatures, they were actually trying to help them, like scoot them out of the road, only to find that mother Nature is as cruel as she is funny. They go to help and they get so barbed. So later. So when you say poisonous, like if.

[Co-host or Guest (possibly a producer or editor)]

A slow loris gets eaten, would that venom get denatured in their stomach? Or would it cause, like, illness or like, would it just taste, you know, and a deterrent to biting your fingernails? You put like really bitter stuff on it.

[Dr. Ted Stankowicz]

I would imagine it would just taste really bad.

[Co-host or Guest (possibly a producer or editor)]

Okay.

[Dr. Ted Stankowicz]

Yeah, that's usually because you wouldn't want it to. Wouldn't want it to happen in the stomach as much because by that point you're dead.

[Co-host or Guest (possibly a producer or editor)]

Yeah.

[Dr. Ted Stankowicz]

So you want it to just be a really foul taste on your fur and that's what caused them to spit you out. Yeah.

[Co-host or Guest (possibly a producer or editor)]

That's good to know. If there's any vampires, you just put like the gnarliest cologne on your neck and they're like, no.

[Dr. Ted Stankowicz]

Or some garlic, right?

[Co-host or Guest (possibly a producer or editor)]

Yeah. A little garlic aftershave, you're good to go.

[Alie Ward]

We have a vampire episode. It's two parts. In it, we talk a lot about necks and garlic. Andy Pepper. Erin Burbridge.

[Co-host or Guest (possibly a producer or editor)]

Brittany Briceno wanted to know. Brittany asked, I've seen videos of killdeers pretending to have a broken wing in order to distract and lure predators away from their nest. So wild. You gotta look it up.

[Alie Ward]

I did. And a killdeer, which is named for the sound of its shrieking call. It's a shorebird. It's a type of plover, and it looks kind of like a mix between a hawk and a quail, but smaller. And it sits on the ground with its wings spread and it taps one of them so convincingly in what appears to be like imperiled panic, it almost emotionally feels like it's trying to turn the ignition on a sputtering getaway car. Like, such panic. Absolutely Oscar worthy. I have seen far worse acting on Netflix.

[Co-host or Guest (possibly a producer or editor)]

Aaron asked, what about altruistic defense, where one member of a group risks their own life like mother birds faking an injured wing. Is that a defense mechanism?

[Dr. Ted Stankowicz]

It's absolutely a defense mechanism to protect your prey. And it depends on how you want to define altruism. If you define altruism, as something that puts yourself in more danger in order to help another. Another individual, then yes, it's altruism because you're helping your offspring. Parents all the time will alarm call. They'll put themselves in harm's way to help protect their offspring because their offspring are their genes. That's how you pass down your genes. Any behavior that helps to spread your genes and make your offspring survive will be favored by natural selection. However, if your idea of it is that there's a no benefit to the actor at all, then it would not be an altruistic act, but absolutely. Distraction behaviors, as they talked about, are a thing that happens in lots of different animals. And it would be very favorable to sacrifice yourself to protect your own offspring if there's a good chance those offspring were going to survive and live on. And taking into account what are your future reproductive opportunities, would you do it to save your very first baby? If you thought that, that you're gonna live a long life with multiple seasons of mating and reproduction again, maybe it wouldn't be favored as much. But if you have one big shot at reproduction and there's not a good chance of surviving year to year, then helping this year's brood survive would certainly be a smart thing to do.

[Co-host or Guest (possibly a producer or editor)]

There are so many oldest kids in therapy for that same reason.

[Dr. Ted Stankowicz]

As a youngest son, I appreciate that.

[Co-host or Guest (possibly a producer or editor)]

As a youngest daughter, I would like to apologize to my sister Celeste.

[Dr. Ted Stankowicz]

I would not like to apologize.

[Co-host or Guest (possibly a producer or editor)]

Claire Gammon wanted to know, can we talk about the sweet wombats?

[Alie Ward]

Armored.

[Co-host or Guest (possibly a producer or editor)]

But you've gotten to meet a wombat in situ, right?

[Dr. Ted Stankowicz]

Yes, in the field. Yeah.

[Co-host or Guest (possibly a producer or editor)]

In Australia they have armored butts.

[Dr. Ted Stankowicz]

I mean, it's thickened skin. Anything that sort of goes into a burrow to plug up a hole. Having an armored part of your body would be super helpful. My favorite example of an armored butt is. As though there's lots of examples of an armored butt. My favorite example of an armored butt is the Pink fairy armadillo. They're one of the smallest armadillo species. Their only armor is a strip of armor along its back that's pink and a plate over the butt that is pink as well.

[Alie Ward]

Pink fairy armadillo is more than deserving of your Google image search. But since you might be, I don't know, refinishing a bookshelf or driving a wheat combine or changing a diaper that needs more immediate attention, or, God forbid, maybe you're on a lime scooter right now with no helmet. Don't do that. I'm just going to share the visuals with you auditorily. So, a pink fairy armadillo. It's like 4 inches long. It's tiny. Absorb that. It's 4 inches long. It looks like a mole creature with huge big scaly mitts for paws. It's got a furry blonde stomach and then this blush colored plate of armor on its dorsal side. It looks like if you draped an oblong potholder on its back as it waddled away. It doesn't even cover its whole body. It also doesn't look like an earth creature. It looks like something scuttling in the corner of, like, Starship Troopers.

[Dr. Ted Stankowicz]

I want to witness one and very small. You can't imagine how that armor would really help them. However, the plate over the rear end is much thicker and harder to get through, and they will go into burrows. And that is the plug that helps to protect them from predators. In fact, the armor on the back is not very well hardened at all. It's very much more leathery. It doesn't show up well on CT scans, but the plate over the rump certainly does. So having armor on your rump is great for burrowing animals because it helps to sort of seal things up if a predator is trying to come down a hole to go after you.

[Co-host or Guest (possibly a producer or editor)]

It's like a trapdoor spider kind of thing.

[Dr. Ted Stankowicz]

Exactly.

[Alie Ward]

Yeah.

[Co-host or Guest (possibly a producer or editor)]

There is a diptych of a pink fairy armadillo and a salmon sushi.

[Dr. Ted Stankowicz]

Yes.

[Co-host or Guest (possibly a producer or editor)]

These things look like land prawns. It's bonkers.

[Alie Ward]

So, yes, we need a whole armadillo episode because there is a pink fairy armadillo, but there's also a screaming hairy armadillo. And allow me to demonstrate via the YouTube channel of a guy named Joe. Joe has a pet screaming Harry armadillo who becomes vocal if he gets rolled into the wrong position for a nap. And side note, this account Joe is Joe Fuhrman. Fuhrman. A guy with a hairy armadillo.

[Co-host or Guest (possibly a producer or editor)]

People.

[Alie Ward]

I can't. I just can't. But anyway, Ted has one too, but it's dead and it's used for education and podcaster lab tours. Where do these guys live?

[Dr. Ted Stankowicz]

South America.

[Co-host or Guest (possibly a producer or editor)]

Oh, how beautiful.

[Dr. Ted Stankowicz]

South America has all the armadillo diversity. Yeah.

[Co-host or Guest (possibly a producer or editor)]

Wow.

[Dr. Ted Stankowicz]

He's got one in the States.

[Co-host or Guest (possibly a producer or editor)]

I love that it's a screaming hairy.

[Alie Ward]

Can I touch these?

[Dr. Ted Stankowicz]

Oh, they're sharp, aren't they?

[Alie Ward]

Yes. That's like a bed of nails.

[Co-host or Guest (possibly a producer or editor)]

That's like needles. It's like a pin cushion reversed. That's cool.

[Dr. Ted Stankowicz]

I think they're maybe a little softer when they're alive. I think Maybe harden up over time.

[Co-host or Guest (possibly a producer or editor)]

Oh, I'm in love. Ariel Van Zant had a great question. Are animal defenses done consciously or are they automatic or both?

[Dr. Ted Stankowicz]

I think it depends on what defense you're talking about. There are defenses that are certainly automatic and subconscious. Other ones, like things that actively aim and spray, noxious things with predators, are intentional because you have to aim and be mindful of what you're doing. Things that where you attack or stab porcupines when they erect their quills and they turn and they are trying to stab you with their quills. That's certainly an intentional thing. But I can imagine armored animals curling up in a ball. You're just curling up in a ball, but you're not deploying the defense in any particular way. But in the end, it doesn't matter if it's intentional or not. Whatever. If it works, it works. We try not to anthropomorphize too much to get into the minds of the animals because selection doesn't care about whether or not they think about it. All it cares about was how effective it was.

[Alie Ward]

It is what it is.

[Co-host or Guest (possibly a producer or editor)]

Well, a bunch of people wanted to know. Mark Rubin, Emily Krieger, Brooke A. Ann over many many ghoul next door, first time question asker mashed tatoes wanted to know what are some modern human physiological responses or artifacts of defense mechanisms from our ape ancestors? Is it mostly just hiding, climbing, outwitting? We talked about how squishy we are, but like what is keeping us safe?

[Dr. Ted Stankowicz]

That's right. Hiding, climbing, throwing things. Oh absolutely. Throwing objects at threatening animals for sure. When our hair stands up on our body, that's called piloerection. That's a common thing to make yourself look bigger. Animals do that all the time. When they get angry or when they get stressed, they make their hair stand up, increased heart rate, even sweating to help make your hands a little bit tacky to climb trees better. So those are all the same things that we would have seen in our ancestors for sure.

[Alie Ward]

You can thank a little nut shaped chunk of your brain called the amygdala for your fear and stress response. I like to call it your screaming almond of terror. And to learn more about anxiety and stress and how to fight it, you can see our widely loved fearology episodes with Dr. Mary Pofenroth, who also just wrote the book Brave New Strategies, Tools and Neurohacks to live more courageously every day. She's amazing. Everyone loves her. We'll link it on our website as a tool for your little ape brains.

[Co-host or Guest (possibly a producer or editor)]

Have you ever been attacked by something you've studied?

[Dr. Ted Stankowicz]

I've never been attacked. I've been sprayed by a skunk once. The very first day I was trapping a skunk on a release, I scared it while I was in a trap waiting to leave a trap, and it sprayed my hand as I was trying to open the trap again. But six years after that, I never got sprayed again. So as long as you respect them and can read their behavior, they don't want to spray. I tell people if you've been sprayed by a skunk, you've probably, you know, tripped over it, didn't see it, scared it, or you've done something really dumb because they will tell you well beforehand that they're going to spray you. Dogs don't listen to those same behaviors that we can. Have I ever been attacked by an animal? No.

[Co-host or Guest (possibly a producer or editor)]

Or, I suppose, been on the receiving end of a defense?

[Dr. Ted Stankowicz]

Well, so working with echidnas, we think of them as just curling up into a ball with their spikes sticking out. So you can pick them up and you can wear gloves. You pick them up and your hands are protected with leather gloves. When you're handling them, if you're fully handling them, they will sort of clench their back muscles. And I called it bucking, where they're trying to clench their muscles and jab their spines into your hand. And so they would certainly do that while you're handling them. And even with leather gloves, little spines get through the gloves and you get little tips in your fingers. But that's as closest to an attack I've ever experienced. I've been bitten by a rat during a capture one time, you know, while handling it. But otherwise, nothing that was ever life threatening. There's lots of people out there who go run and grab animals in the wild. A lot of herpetologists and entomologists will go grab their animals in the wild. That's not my thing. I just know the stress it puts on animals, and I prefer to just observe. So I don't have a history of being attacked or bitten in retaliation for grabbing them. So. Yeah. Yeah.

[Co-host or Guest (possibly a producer or editor)]

What'd you do about your hand?

[Dr. Ted Stankowicz]

So a skunk spray. It's an old myth that tomato juice will descend to skunk. Yeah. Does not work. It just makes you smell the tomato juice. If there's a chemical reaction where you want to oxidize the sulfurous thiols in their spray, where if you use hydrogen peroxide, baking soda, and liquid dish soap in a mixture, where if you mix those together, no water, that solution will oxidize those stinky chemicals and your animal will no longer spill. Bleach will do it too, but you don't want to put bleach on your pet. So when my hand was sprayed, I came back and rinsed it with that solution and it was immediately gone. So on your pet, it might take a couple rounds of washing it because it gets in the fur and it's hard. You need to get that solution into their fur. Also, that solution can't be kept for a long period of time. It's not shelf stable. So I would keep those items on hand. If you have a dog that's prone to being sprayed by skunk.

[Co-host or Guest (possibly a producer or editor)]

I have to tell my friend Simone. She's got a dog named Scraps that is real firecracker.

[Dr. Ted Stankowicz]

I'll have to give you an extra magnet for her too.

[Co-host or Guest (possibly a producer or editor)]

Yeah, we've gotten that call late at night being like, oh, no.

[Dr. Ted Stankowicz]

There are commercial things you can buy as well that work. Okay, but just home stuff at home. Peroxide, baking soda, liquid dish soap. If you have a dog that is out and could be sprayed, just keep some on hand. Do not use water. Water. There's actually a third sulfurous thioacetine in skunk oil that is not as stinky. But when you put water on it, when it mixes with water, it becomes stinkier. So you're just making it worse if you try to use water.

[Alie Ward]

Okay, so the recipe is from Ted Ready. 32 ounces of 3% hydrogen peroxide. That's a quart. One third of a cup of baking soda and a tablespoon of liquid dish soap. So you need to mix this up as soon as you can. You gotta get rid of it. The faster the better. And you gotta make a fresh batch of this stuff each time you need it. Cause it doesn't keep well. So you take this mixture, you scrub it thoroughly into your pet's fur or your face. Whatever the problem is. You gotta avoid eyes and mouths. And then you rinse yourself or the pet and you repeat the process if you need to. And Ted notes that this remedy may lighten your pet's fur, but it'll do wonders for reducing the stink. And also, everyone loves a makeover. So there you go once again. A quart or about a liter of 3% hydrogen peroxide. A third of a cup baking soda and a little dish soap. A tablespoon. Right? Mix those up. Go to town. Good luck. And also, I always ask first the worst thing and then the best thing about people's jobs. And I don't know I kind of accidentally did it out of order, but I wanted to make sure that Ted had a chance to say what his favorite was. So I shot Ted a note about what he loves the most in his work, and he said the play part is accurate. Doing science is like going out to play. I love being able to explore how and why these amazing animals have evolved such powerful defenses. I love being able to explore how and why these amazing animals have evolved such powerful defenses and being able to mentor and study alongside fantastic and enthusiastic young minds. He continues living a life of expert exploration and discovery, traveling the world and sharing. My passion for wildlife with other scientists and the public is deeply, deeply fulfilling. What sucks?

[Co-host or Guest (possibly a producer or editor)]

What's the worst thing about studying this? You've only been sprayed once. You haven't had a face full of spines and quills. What's the worst thing?

[Dr. Ted Stankowicz]

It's hard to find a worst thing about it. I know because I love what I do. And it's such a fun, unique thing to study. My graduate advisor used to say that, that you should always feel like you're going out to play when you pick a study. Just go play. Go do what sounds fun. And that's sort of what I've tried to do in my career, is explore the things that are fun with that. The downside is, more professionally, is there's not a lot of people who do what I do and work on the things I work on. So there's not huge fields of collaboration to be had. There's not gobs of funding for animal defense work and evolution of defenses. So that's the downside more professionally. But in terms of, you know, my soul and what makes me happy and exploring getting to study the things that I love and I find are cool, that's the biggest reward is to sort of, you know, answer the questions that come to my mind and just go out and play.

[Co-host or Guest (possibly a producer or editor)]

You've never gotten an email from the Department of Defense being like, hey, I.

[Dr. Ted Stankowicz]

Have not been contacted by the Department of Defense. The Department of War, I've explained, explored DoD grants, but a lot of that goes to more biomechanics type work on armor.

[Co-host or Guest (possibly a producer or editor)]

It's so interesting because the Department of Defense and the Department of War are so different from an evolutionary perspective.

[Dr. Ted Stankowicz]

Yes.

[Co-host or Guest (possibly a producer or editor)]

You know what I mean?

[Dr. Ted Stankowicz]

They would be opposite of each other.

[Alie Ward]

Exactly.

[Co-host or Guest (possibly a producer or editor)]

It would take an evolutionary biologist to really get that.

[Dr. Ted Stankowicz]

Yeah, yeah.

[Alie Ward]

Real different.

[Dr. Ted Stankowicz]

It's like, what's your intention?

[Co-host or Guest (possibly a producer or editor)]

Exactly. And that is very, very different. What a world. What a world. Thank you so much for doing this.

[Dr. Ted Stankowicz]

Absolutely. It's been a pleasure.

[Co-host or Guest (possibly a producer or editor)]

It's been years coming.

[Alie Ward]

So ask knowledgeable people not knowledgeable questions and make some pals in the process. Also, leave the animals alone if you can. They don't want trouble. Neither do you. We're going to link to Ted's info in the show notes and you can follow him on Instagram Dr. Tedstankowich we are at Ologies on bluesky and Instagram. I'm le Ward just one L&Ally on both Ologies merch including the new Design [e-mail] We do have shorter kid friendly episodes for you. They're in their own podcast feed. Search wherever you get podcasts. They're called Smologies S M O L O G I E S. You can join our Patreon if you want to submit questions ahead of [e-mail] Ologies Aaron Talbert admins Theologies Podcast Facebook group Avileen Malik makes our professional transcripts. Kelly R. Dwyer does the website. Our brave scheduling producer is Noelle Dilworth. Susan Hale performs Feats of Strength each week as managing director and defending our edits every episode. Our editor Jake Chaffee and lead editor Mercedes Maitland of Maitland Audio. Nick Thorburn emitted the theme music. And if you stick around until the very end, you know I may tell you a secret. And this week, a barometer for how well I'm doing or how much I have my shit together has always been my desktop on my laptop. I don't know if this happens to you, but I got icons galore on my laptop. They start just making a little pile, a stack in the upper right hand corner, and I go, oh God. It's like you look at your desktop, there's just files everywhere. Nothing's in folders. There's screenshots of shit you don't even care about anymore. And so I know that when my desktop is a mess, I gotta slow down, I gotta take a breather, I need a nap. If you relate, I urge you to just like make yourself a nice warm beverage, sit down, organize that desktop. All right? You need as much mental clarity as possible. Now I'm talking to myself. I'm talking to you too. Also. This one time I think I told this in another episode, but it's so worth repeating. I was in a like a training kind of conference at the Natural History Museum to get trained to go do scicom in the Butterfly Pavilion with all the other volunteers. And we're all watching this presentation from this really awesome entomologist and at some point she goes to open a folder on her desktop with all this butterfly.

[Co-host or Guest (possibly a producer or editor)]

Information, but she just labeled it butt stuff and.

[Alie Ward]

I don't know how many.

[Co-host or Guest (possibly a producer or editor)]

People in the room caught it. I don't even know if she still remembers. I should email her and see if.

[Alie Ward]

She remembers that, but I sure do. It was so good. This is all butterfly facts. All right, take a breath. Organize your desktop. Bye bye. Pachydermatology, Homeology Cryptozoology Litology Nanotechnology Meteorology Olfactology, Nephology Serology.

[Dr. Ted Stankowicz]

Hey, don't mess with me.

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[Alie Ward]

Ologies is sponsored by Strawberry Me. So every new Year's Eve, I like to sit down and write what I want for the year ahead. And then I put it in a jar with my favorite rocks. Don't worry about the jar or the rocks. It's so helpful to write down what you want for career growth. But sometimes the next step is difficult. Inertia is real. But now nothing really changes unless you change it. And Strawberry Me career coaching can help you get out of that slump or help you start on a new path. They match you with a certified career coach. It's a real human. It's not an AI with questionable motives. And your career coach can help you strategize. They listen to what you want. They help you create a plan. And then this is so important. They hold you accountable so you don't just think about the thing that you do the thing. And I've used Strawberry Me and they've helped me break break things down into smaller steps. And I see that I can stretch myself a little creatively. I can do a live show maybe here or there, and having someone who understands performance anxiety but still encourages me to keep going and tackle things has been really helpful. So if you're waiting for the right moment to level up, this is it. Go to Strawberry Me ologies and get 50% off your first coaching session. So that's Strawberry Me Ologies.