 Joining us in Ohio is Dr. Jennifer Vertiland. She's the author of a new book out, Raised by Animals, which talks about Dr. Vertiland's views on relationships, families, and lives that she's picked up from animals. Hello, doctor. Thank you for having me. Your book Raised by Animals, we had you on the Ralph Nader radio hour and we talked about families and parenting. This new book comes after your other book, Wild Connection, What Animal Courtship and Mating Tell Us About Human Relationships. You're an animal behaviorist. What is an animal behaviorist? You study lemurs from what I understand. Yeah, so right now, one of my current projects is looking at personalities and lemurs and looking at personalities and other animals is a big topic in animal behavior research currently, but really an animal behavior is someone who is curious about and tries to understand why animals do what they do. And of course, humans are animals and so I've embraced both human and non-human animals and look through that lens and compare the behaviors of both. Can you correct behavior in an animal or are you just studying it? There are people who, for example, might train dogs or cats or other domestic animals in behavior and correct certain things and certainly I would be capable of doing that, having a fundamental understanding of behavior and learning, but my goal is really just to watch what animals are doing and place that into a broader context of trying to understand why certain behaviors emerge in certain animals and in certain environments and how flexible animals are in what they do. I happen to be a great father. My kids don't think I am, but I took the Hippocratic oath, first do no harm. That's how I raise my kids. Watch TV, read, don't get involved unless there's danger. Let's go through parenting. I'm kind of curious. You've studied how different animals raise their children. You say that chimpanzees can get their kids to stop screaming on an airplane. How do they do that? Why don't think I quite said that, but... Well, when I heard that you observed chimpanzees minimizing temper tantrums in their kids, I figured it must have been on an airplane. Well, only if only, right? So yes, chimpanzee moms in particular, they do this thing called termite fishing. So if people aren't familiar with what this means, that means that a chimpanzee will take a stick and modify it and make a tool. And then they sit patiently at a termite mound, and there's a technique to this. And they dunk their stick into the termite mound, and it's just so. And the termites grab on it, and they pull it out, and they eat the termites, and they have a delicious snack. And this technique takes five or six years to perfect. And so chimpanzee moms, obviously this is a rich protein source for them. And so they go to these termite mounds and their young kids get bored because they can't do it and they want to play or they want attention. And it requires all of this focus of their parents away from them. And so they will try to interfere or become generally annoying. And the strategy for chimpanzee moms most of the time, about 85% of the time, is to completely ignore the antics of their children. And if it gets really too much, the worst they might do is turn their back on their kid or push them gently to the side like enough. And so I think in that sense they're highly tolerant. And others in the community are also tolerant because there's a general understanding that young chimps don't have as much control over their behavior. This sounds like every airplane I've ever been on. That's right. And really it begs the question, are we expecting too much of a two or three-year-old to really sit quietly on a plane and behave? Is that really what they're capable of doing? Well, now we can't even expect grown-ups to behave on an airplane. This is true. This is very true. Wait a second. Do chimpanzees get annoyed? I mean, don't they sometimes just say enough already? I'm not in the mood today. Daddy's hungover? They do get annoyed. And in fact, there are some chimps that do get hungover because they have an addiction to palm wine, but that's a different story. But so they do get annoyed. And that annoyance is still expressed gently. So for young chimpanzees, they really don't experience any kind of physical aggression by their parent. It's the worst that might happen is turning their back or pushing them away from them. Like, OK, you're getting on my nerves. You know, go over there. What do you call a group of chimpanzees? A troupe. You can call them a troupe. Is there a leader of the troupe? There tends to be. So chimpanzees is very interesting. They have a pretty dynamic and highly political social system. So you do have an alpha male. But that alpha male is only at the top because of the alliances that he makes with other males. And those alliances are built on sand. They can shift very quickly in his favor or against his favor. And so it's a pretty stressful position being alpha male. And the females are formed, these family groups, these sort of, we call them matrilines, so-related females. And there's a dominant structure there. You have high-ranking females. And their daughters and their sons are high-ranking as well. So you can start to see some of the analogies. If you happen to be born in a high-ranking family, you tend to become a high-ranking individual in the group that you're in later as an adult. So with the temper tantrums, will a high-ranking chimp walk over and say, do something about your kid or I will? So not in chimpanzees, but it will happen in rhesus macaques. And we call this the bystander effect. So if you set the scene at any supermarket or target or other store, any of us have seen this happen. You have a two or three-year-old throwing themselves to the floor screaming, and we might give dirty looks. Or if you're the parent, you might be on the receiving end of some dirty looks or some comments. And that's pretty much what happens in rhesus macaques. So when a rhesus macaque infant is throwing a tantrum, most of the time, the mother, if she's around friends and family, will either ignore it or give in. Those are roughly equally. She'll either ignore it or she'll give in to whatever is going on, and it's usually about milk, wanting milk. And so if there's a dominant individual around, though, this is a high-risk situation for not just the mother who could get beat up, but also the infant. So the dominant individual may, as you said, do something about this or I will. And is that a man? Not necessarily. It can be a high-ranking female, a dominant female, someone who's not a friend or family member of that particular female. So there is physical violence? There is. There can be, yes. So in those cases, what they found was that rhesus macaque moms, when faced with that situation, give in 85% of the time. So they almost write. So they just want to make their infant stop, and they will do whatever it takes to make it stop. Let's get back to chimps, because I would assume humans are closer to chimps, right? Well, I mean, it depends. So there's a lot of behaviors that we do share with chimpanzees, but we also have a lot of behaviors that we share much more closely with others. So for example, we rely on mothers and fathers to raise offspring. And chimpanzees males don't necessarily know that they are the father, right? So they don't play a role in raising offspring. Whereas in a species like a Siberian hamster, the male not only helps deliver the babies, but helps care for them as well. Why would the chimps not know whether or not they're the father? Well, that's because so female chimps, even though there's an alpha male, will mate with as many males as they can to confuse paternity. And in many species, they don't have a Maury-Povet show among the chimpanzees. They don't, but you can certainly see the analogies here where human females do this as well. Why do they want to confuse paternity? Well, so there it's a matter of protection. So a male is less likely to be aggressive towards an infant if he thinks he could be the father. So it's usually a strategy in many species to protect against infanticide or infant killing. It's not always done just by males. We don't want to give males a bad rap. But in species where males may be physically aggressive to an infant, it is less likely to happen if he thinks he could be the infant's father. So if he mated with that mother, he doesn't know, but he could be. And so it tempers aggression. And is the aggression directed at both female and male baby chimps or just male chimps? Oh, both male and female. OK. Yeah. The male chimps aren't possessive. They don't mind that the chimpanzee they just slept with is now sleeping with somebody else. It doesn't bother them. Well, well, I mean, of course, we can't ask them directly, but I will say that the alpha male generally would find that quite troublesome and goes to great lengths to prevent that. But he can't necessarily control the movement of all the females in a group. And so, and this is a common problem for males, trying to control the movement of a female to prevent her from mating with other males. I see. So how long do chimps live? It depends. In the wild, they can live, I don't know, 30 to 45 years. In captivity, it can go a bit higher. There's a sanctuary that I used to volunteer at the Center for Great Apes. And we have a chimps who's in his 50s currently. And do some chimps make better parents than others? It's a matriarchal society in terms of raising the kids. Yes. Yes. Are some females better mothers than others? And secondly, you would think chimpanzees being raised by women would create more peaceful troops. Is that the case? OK, so in answer to your first question, are there better mothers than others? And that is absolutely true in chimpanzees, in humans, in birds, in hamsters, in snakes. There's always going to be variation in the quality of care that a parent provides. And so yeah, in chimpanzees, some moms are great moms, some are not so great, some inexperienced females may lose their first infant because they make a mistake. And of course, the more experience you get, the better you get. When you say lose them as in they die, or they're not taken away by other female chimps, are they? Oh, no, no, no. But they might die, yeah. And are they upset when they die? Oh, absolutely. I mean, grief is pretty well established in many other species, and especially surrounding either the loss of a mate or of a child. And so in many cases, when a chimpanzee mom has an infant die, she may carry the body around for days not wanting to leave it. And is she consoled by the other female chimps? I don't know how much evidence there is to suggest that. I don't know the answer. I wouldn't be surprised if there was. Some we do have some anecdotal evidence from Emperor Penguins, where that is the case. So I wouldn't be surprised. But I'm not aware of any particular study or information about that. With chimps, there's no family, right? There's no father who is consoling the mother, right? They're separate. Well, there's no nuclear family. They live in a community. But there's no nuclear family like we think of nuclear family, right? Where the mom and dad are going to be over here raising their offspring. And another mom and dad are going to be over here. Now, that happens in titi monkeys, tamarin monkeys, marmoset monkeys. Those are like super dads. And so that social structure is present in other primate species and in many other birds and many, many other animals. But not in the common chimpanzee. And in terms of your other question was being raised by a female, doesn't that lead to a more generous and kind and peaceful? So not for the common chimpanzee. And because they're not matriarchal society, they have matriarchal female lines where you have dominance among females and you have separate dominance among males. But males are dominant to females. Things switch around when we're talking about bonobos. And there's some recent evidence to suggest that bonobos might be more closely related to us than the common chimpanzee. Yeah, they have. I wish, I wish they would. I know. Well, and of course, people may not know why, but those are the apes from Venus. It's all sex and love and good stuff. But they are a true matriarchal society, right? So the females are dominant over males in that case. And so they are considered to be quite peaceful. Are they peaceful or just exhausted? Well, they solve a lot of their problems through sex. So if you use up all that energy in a positive way, isn't that what we tell our kids, right? Go run in the yard and burn that off. Do something productive with all of that. So they have sex to solve their problems. They have sex. How much sex are they having? And is there any monogamy there? Well, so I don't know if anybody's quantified. Probably somebody has quantified the amount of sex. It's a lot of sex. Like, will Chamberlain? I mean, what kind of numbers are they putting on the board? Well, I mean, it's a free-for-all in a sense. I mean, if I were a bonobo and I wanted to distract you from the food you're eating, I might offer myself up. And while you're having sex with me, I'm going to eat your food. And if we have a conflict, we're going to make up by have makeup sex. So there's a lot of sex happening for everybody. Male, male, female, female, everybody is just in on it. How productive are they? Well, I mean, how do you define productive, right? They're very successful where they're not being having to deal with other threats, right? So of course, the current environment is putting so much pressure on so many animals that whatever their strategies they may or may not be able to cope with the changes we're throwing at them. But for themselves, they're quite successful. And I don't know how a bonobo would define being productive, but if it finds enough food and has enough friends and is clearly having lots of sex, perhaps that is a productive life for a bonobo. Is there birth control? I'm being serious. No, there's no birth control. So I would assume the bonobos are always pregnant? No, well, so this is a I'm glad you brought that up. That's it's a bit of a myth that other animals only have sex to reproduce. So lots and lots of animals, whether it's bonobos or those that form long term partnerships, say like a cockatoo, watch your language. Well, then I won't talk about the cockated woodpecker, but there's lots of good touching and lots of sex that goes on outside of pure mating, and that's to form and maintain bonds, which I think we can all relate to. If you're in a relationship and sex is a great barometer for how healthy that relationship is. You say that the chimps don't do that. The chimps don't. But that's a societal thing. So as a society, they're matriarchal, and it does keep the peace. And they are much more peaceful. And part of that might be because they have a lot of good touching involved. You're talking about who the good touching is? Bonobos, right? Bonobos have good touch. Right, but they're not always pregnant. So I was trying to address that issue. I'm sorry. No, no, no, that's OK. It's a myth that animals only have sex to get pregnant or to reproduce. So Bonobos use sex as a social tool to solve conflicts. And they also use it, obviously, for reproduction. But a female that is nursing, she may not produce another infant for four years, five years even. And in that time, she's still having sex. So but they naturally suppressed another pregnancy while they're nursing. And this is true most of the time for humans. There are some exceptions. And some women have, unfortunately, or fortunately found themselves immediately pregnant again. But many times, if you're nursing, that is an automatic sort of physiological suppression of pregnancy. Do Bonobos, are there ever any men, male Bonobos, who force themselves on a woman? No, so there isn't a lot of, from what I understand, there isn't any kind of sexual coercion in Bonobos. And in fact, there was a study done by Franz DeWall or it was published in one of his books. Because he's worked with Bonobos quite a lot, quite a bit. And where if there's an expression of boredom or disinterest by one of the partners, the sexual activity just stops. Really? Yeah, nobody's offended, right? I mean, if anybody's ever been bored while they were having sex, we certainly use a lot of strategies to try to make it end faster so that it's over rather than just say, yeah, it's not working for me right now. Can we just stop and everybody can be OK with that? And so, yeah, in one of his books, he pointed out because they're one of the only other species other than porcupines, for obvious reasons, that have sex face-to-face. And so they're looking at each other. And if one is disinterested, then they seem to stop. Yeah. Tell me about the alchic. You say that they're born to share? Oh, yeah. So the really neat thing about some owls was when I was talking about sibling rivalry, right? So I don't know if you have any siblings or how many people have siblings and experienced any kind of conflict. But barn owl chicks really negotiate how much food they get each one might get from a parent because in barn owls, when a parent is both males and females, our mother and father are providing food to their chicks. And they can't break up the food. So if they get a small mouse, one chick is going to get that mouse. They're not going to get a half a mouse, and the other chick is going to get a half a mouse. And so prior, there was some research that showed prior to the parents arriving at the nest, the chicks' brother and sister or siblings would start chirping to each other. And if one chirped louder, they decided they negotiated that that was the hungrier one and was the one that got fed rather than fighting over one chick, getting all the food, leaving the other one to die, which certainly happens in many other bird species. And that's innate. That's imprinted on them. They're not taught that by the mother, right? That's correct. They're not taught. That's just an automatic negotiation that they make as a form of cooperation. And we need to be schooled or taught by our parents in this process, right? We don't, not all of us are born automatically sharing. Some of us are and many of us are not. And unless we're taught or the right conditions are set up for us to share, we will share spontaneously under the right conditions. How many animals, other than humans, have a need to teach? Oh gosh, you know, so many. Any animal that requires direct parental care in the form of either feeding or other forms of direct extended, direct parental care, they're being taught something. So honey badgers. I mean, okay, so when we think about what we need to learn, we need to learn what to eat. And honey badgers, they, the mom has to teach their baby to eat up to 50 different food items and how to handle things like cobras, bees, scorpions. Like we just want to get our kids to eat broccoli. You know, and they're- Or honey badgers. No, we don't want to eat honey badgers. They wouldn't taste very good. They're better. They teach through example. They teach through example. They also teach through like orcas or killer whales have been shown to help teach. So they, in some populations, they beach themselves to get at seals, one of the food items that are in their diet. And learning how to beach yourself without stranding yourself is very difficult. What happens when an orca gets stranded? Do the other orca, can they save a stranded beached orca? They can try. And in fact, with some of the young ones, that's what they see happen, right? Is that an adult will actually try to come to the rescue of a younger orca that might have gotten itself in a sticky situation. Now an orca is a dolphin or a porpoise, right? It's a whale. Well, that's a good question. Let me just- I think they're dolphins. I think that's one of the misconceptions. It belongs to the, yeah, it belongs to the dolphin family. You're right. And it's a two- What does it mean, a toothed whale? What does that mean? It includes dolphins, porpoises, and whales that have teeth. So it's just basically having teeth. Well, have you studied dolphins? I'm afraid to even open that. I have not studied dolphins personally, right? But I do incorporate them a lot in wild connection and in raised by animals and for very different purposes. I mean, they really do parent, right? They do parent and in fact- And they also, I would assume, we're going to discover they don't only teach through example, but they actually tell their kids what to do. They could. In fact, there was some recent research out on whales on a, I forget what species it was. I will find out in just a second. But where the calves whisper to their mom when they're first born rather than call full out volume because when there's a predator around that would put them at risk. And so it wouldn't be surprising to me if there was some communication there going on between the mother and the calf about how loud to talk. What is a group of dolphins called? I believe it's a pod. Right, okay, I think you're right. And so, I think you're right, like I would know. Like I know anything, what do I know? So a pod of dolphins, they develop their own dialects, right? Isn't that something they've discovered that when a pod travels together they have their own language which another pod can't understand. Do pods fight each other? That's a great question. So it's not just dolphins, but also killer whales, different groups have their own dialect as well. So do pods of dolphins compete with each other? They probably do. It might depend on the area that they're in. Like how many dolphins would be in a pod? Let's see, that can vary quite a lot. I mean, when it gets to the point where like if I were a father in a pod and my son met a dolphin from another pod, would I want that to happen? Or would I say I don't approve of that pod. They're different from, their values are different. I don't want you. Not necessarily. So groups can vary, they can be anywhere between, I don't know, 10, 30, depending on the species too. But so for example, I'm gonna go back to killer whales just because I know a little bit more about them in this regard. So they live in family groups and the male and female will stay with their mom their whole life, but both will go and mate with individuals from another pod. Wait, wait, wait, the male, say that again? Yeah, so basically killer whale males are mama's boys for their whole life. And also the daughters stay with their mom. So they, in fact, a killer whale male may die if his mom dies before he's 30 years old because she helps fight his battles for him. So the, the, the... I know. Wait a second. So the, let me understand this. If you're a killer, you don't sound too tough. That doesn't sound like a killer whale to me. I know. It's kind of a misname or like misnames, right? It's kind of like the Italian mafia when you think about it. Now I get it, but they're probably more vicious because the mothers are even more vicious than the sons. I get it now. There you go. So the mother, so the mother, let me, what's the family dynamic here? The son and the daughter stay with the mother. That's right. But what, oh, hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on. This is very important to me. Yes. Then the father, suppose the son has a baby. He goes home to the mother. Correct. So the daughters go out and male, mate with males from other groups and then come home to their group and have the calf there. But the father, but the father isn't there. That's correct. There's no involvement. There's no male parental involvement. Because the son goes off and comes back to the mother. That's right. That's right. And the mother has no interest in her grandchildren unless it's from the daughter. Well, she wouldn't know about them, right? Well, so let me just understand this because so the daughter brings, the pregnant daughter comes home to the son and the mother. Correct. That's the family unit, the son, the mother and the daughter and the baby. That's right. Interesting. That's very interesting. You know, in the Jewish religion, you're born, the mother has to, if your mother's Jewish and you're Jewish because they figure that, well, I don't want to get into it but that's kind of like a Jewish mother. And so what is the son is hanging at? Does he help raise his sister's baby? Well, he wouldn't nurse or do anything like that but they travel as a family unit and cooperate and help each other. And it's sort of like, you know, elephant families except the boys don't leave, right? So in elephant families, the males grow, once they're teenagers, they go off and they form these bachelor herds and then they will end up as adults, typically roaming alone whereas the daughters stay with their mother and so a daughter will mate with a male but be with her mother and aunt and sisters, right? How recent is this knowledge about orcas or killer whales? I would assume killer whales are dangerous, right? Well, I mean, any wild animal is potentially dangerous if you're not really under, how close you're getting to it and what you're trying to do to it but I mean, people go kayaking around killer whales and they're not eaten by them but you know, I wouldn't mess with a killer whale and dolphins are actually much more aggressive, I think. Sexually aggressive, right? Oh, they're kind of jerks, I mean, really. But towards humans, right? Haven't humans say they were violated by a dolphin? Well, yeah, I mean, sea turtles have been known to molest a person too so there's, I don't know what's going on in the ocean, right? But dolphins are notoriously sexually aggressive with each other and the late Robin Williams was bitten by a dolphin and I think that was, you could see in the documentary that was pretty devastating for him because he really loved dolphins and he got bit by one. Was it a love bite? Was it a hickey? I don't know, I'm not sure. I think he touched it the wrong way perhaps but they're pretty aggressive and we have a misunderstanding about them because they have that toothy grin so we think they're always smiling but that's not really, that's just the shape of their face. Right, has a dolphin ever killed a human? I don't know if a dolphin has ever killed a human. I don't know. But they definitely are aggressive towards each other and you know, kidnap females, gangs of males will kidnap females and keep them for a while and they. And do bad things. And do very bad things, yes. And they use puffer fish and get high from that. They kind of abuse puffer fish. What do you mean they get high of puffer fish? So the toxin of puffer fish, so dolphins have been observed getting basically getting high off of puffer fish and the nerve toxins, right? So they basically pass this poor puffer fish around from one dog to the other. And they basically, by provoking the puffer fish it releases a nerve toxin, okay? And so they carefully chew on the puffer fish without injuring it and pass it and then they get into like a trance-like state. So that's kind of awful for the puffer fish, you know? I'm sure that's pretty stressful. But what does it do for the dolphins? Do they just chill? Do they just get high? How do they manifest their mellow? Do they just get mellow? They do, they get like in a trance-like mellow state. Is there any other evidence of, I know catnip. Oh gosh, all kinds of animals use medicinal, I mean there was like, so what we mentioned earlier on about chimpanzees, there's chimpanzees in this group that have discovered the palm wine in this village and they basically go down and drink the palm wine until they get drunk. Wait, what is palm wine? Palm wine. Is it made by humans? Is that made by humans or? Well, no, it's made out of the sap of various palm trees. Oh, oh, so it occurs in nature. That's right, and there's a village where they set up like a spigot, right? And the chimps were observed going and taking this palm wine and drinking it and getting drunk. And I don't know if it's anecdotal, but some kangaroos that ate too many poppies and couldn't get out of the field. There's a lot of plants that, and some overdo it, right? So cedar wax wings, they have a really rough time. The berries, birds can get drunk off of berries that are a bit too fermented. And when they get drunk, they can't flop well. Unless they're working for Northwest Airlines. Oh, no. And so sometimes volunteers will pick up drunk birds and let them dry out, you know. And it's the young ones, it's the juveniles that don't know their limit, right? It's like teenage cedar wax wings have too much berries and they don't fly and drink. That's basically their motto, don't drink and fly. Yeah. Well, this is all about parenting. There's a listener named, there's a guy named Nickname who we don't know who it is, but he is a listener to the show. He sent me these elephants protecting a baby elephant from falling down a well. There was some kind of manmade well, I don't know, on the reserve and this baby elephant was a little baby jessica and he kept going, what's in this well, what's in this well? And it was about 10 elephants with their trunk kind of batting at them and protecting him. It was really beautiful and it takes a village. So are you, were those all female elephants? Are you saying the men are just in a constant bachelor party somewhere? Well, so yeah, so adult males travel alone. They have a solitary existence and only really interact with females and potentially compete with males during the breeding season when they go into a state called must. And so yes, in an elephant group, you will have adult females that are all related. You will have and then offspring that are all part of that family unit at various ages. And you will have males, but once they reach teenage years, they head off into bachelor groups. And so yeah, but elephants are notorious for working together to protect each other. But these are women, right? Yes, they are female elephants. And the male elephants are doing what? So in other words, a grown elephant does not hang out with women. That is correct. That is correct. A grown male elephant hangs out alone. He doesn't even hang out with other males. What happens when he gets a little musty? When he gets a little musty, he gets a little cantankerous. So that's a very dangerous elephant right there is basically a horny elephant is a very dangerous one. And so they become very aggressive to anybody and anything other than a receptive female. Yeah. Is there homosexuality among the elephants? Well, so that's an interesting question that you ask. There's homosexuality has been documented in almost every animal species that has been looked at for any extensive period of time. The reasons for homosexual behavior can vary. So for example, if an insects, about 85% of insects have been observed engaging in some form of homosexual behavior, but it's usually by accident. That's what they say. Well, I know, but it's sort of like, I'll jump now and ask questions later. And, you know, because they're just enthusiastic or they maybe it's hard to come across another one. And so there's misidentification is one. In other species, it could be for dominance issues or a lack of mates. So basically, you know, what we see in prison. And so... Is there homophobia? No, I don't, I think it's, we are one of the, we are the only species that really becomes overly concerned with, you know, what another member of our species is doing with respect to that. So I don't know... Well, I find that interesting because the people who don't believe in Darwin justify homophobia by saying it's Darwinian in that if men just breed with men, what, you know, they don't know what the kids are gonna look like. There are gonna be no kids. So I guess, but in other animal groups, they don't have a fear of homosexual bonding. Did they adopt? Do... Yeah, so you bring up a really great point. It's a false equivalent to say that homosexuality shouldn't exist because it would lead to no children. Sexuality in humans and other animals has always been and will always occur on a spectrum. We'd like to have categories, but in case you hadn't noticed, we don't fit into them perfectly. And neither do other species. Are there species, do we see animals? Do we see elephants or chimps? I'm laughing because it's still funny. I know we're not supposed to laugh, but it's still funny. Are there chimpanzees who are born as men but identify as females? Well, I don't know about chimpanzees, but I can tell you about some lions in Botswana. Okay, and this has been going, the Tsavo Alliance has been going on for a while. Researchers have noted this in this particular population. There is always a number of females that grow manes and act like males. And it's related to... Did they drive volvos? No, they don't. But they act like males, and when they've done some of the, they've gotten blood work from, they have higher levels of testosterone than females normally would. So these are masculinized female lions. Wow. Yes. And this is not as unusual as it sounds. I mean, in hummingbirds, about 10% of hummingbirds, males have a structure that's typically only found on females and females might have coloring that's only found on males. And so that's what I mean by a spectrum of sexuality and gender. And in fact, we have, we think are two sex chromosomes, but they're animals like the platypus that have 10 sex chromosomes. So that's, you know. What does that mean? That means there's a lot of different combinations that can yield what we might consider male or female. Can you be born? Are there, I mean, I'm asking you, I'm a comedy writer, so I'm gonna just ask you some stupid questions. This is fine. Because I'm still, I mean, do they have, like, would a platypus be born with both sexual organs? Well, so a platypus normally would not be, but these kinds of things do happen and they don't just happen to humans. We do have some species that are what we call hermaphrodites where they contain both sex organs. So barnacles come to mind for me. You know, barnacles are hermaphrodites and in some fish. But they're born, I mean, all barnacles are hermaphrodites. That's right. But do we know, I mean, this is an unfair question, but like, are there some chimpanzees that are, you know, not accidentally, that occasionally there's a chimpanzee who's a hermaphrodite? I don't know if that's ever been documented. I would say that if it has happened, it wouldn't surprise me in the entire evolutionary history of chimpanzees any more than it's surprising that it happens at a very rare low rate in humans. And it's basically has to do with a developmental process that occurs, you know, when the fetus is developing. And so that could theoretically happen to any mammal. This is so fascinating. This is so fascinating. You know, we had at any given time in our house four cats and four dogs. That was just- Oh, wow. Yeah, well, that's what ruined my marriage. Oh, no. But yeah, it was, and our furniture. And we had a cat named Sammy, you know, the black and white cats are the most interesting we found. Sammy was the brother to Melvin and Melvin was a tabby who was epileptic. Okay. And whenever Melvin had an epileptic seizure, Sammy would try to crush his skull. Oh, gosh. Oh. So he was doing, so that was some kind of Darwinian. He was right, was he protecting the species by trying to get rid of the weak? Well, no, you mean he would attack him while he was having a seizure? No, afterwards, when Melvin was recovering, Sammy would walk over and put his mouth on the head. Okay. And he was kind of mimicking crushing his skull and attacking him. And we had to separate them. Okay, well, so I wouldn't say that he was acting in a Darwinian manner. Now I don't know, under normal circumstances, because cats are very social and they form sort of hierarchies, especially in a household where there are multiple cats. And so I would need to, I would be curious if was it Melvin who would have the seizures or Sammy? Melvin had the seizures. Was Melvin typically dominant to Sammy? No, Melvin was cross-eyed and kind of out of it. Okay, so he didn't get the favorite spot, he didn't get to food first, he didn't have any of those kind of signals. Yeah, Melvin was kind of out of it. Well, I don't know the answer to that. What I can say is that it wouldn't be necessarily unusual for one individual to kick another when they're down. That certainly could happen. Is that an evolutionary thing? Because I've noticed that humans tend to, when things are going bad, for me, humans tend to pile on. And I often say, well, that's some kind of evolutionary mandate that if I'm weak, they gotta get rid of me. Is that true? Well, I would say it's taking an opportunity. So if you're in a competitive, we are interesting as a species because some populations historically are very cooperative, others very competitive. And so we see that diversity reflected today. And so some people might react to you being down with wanting to help you. And other individuals might react exactly that way and piling on top of you. And I think in a competitive species, which of course in cats, males are very competitive with each other. And taking advantage of when someone is down to really out-compete you would make sense from an evolutionary perspective, for sure. But are they protecting the gene pool by doing that? Is that the justification for that behavior? No, I mean, so when we think about evolution, right? Evolution happens in populations, but it's a consequence of individual action. And any individual is not behaving for the good of the population or the species. They're behaving for the good of themselves or in their group, so they're cooperating because ultimately cooperation is how they're going to do better versus if I'm more competitive and I'm in a competitive species, then being more competitive is going to put me into a better position. But it's not, oh, this individual is weak and is a drag on us as a species, so we need to get rid of them. It's really not. This individual is weak and I see an opportunity to increase my own success by taking advantage of that. I'm going to make a prediction. I know two psychiatrists and they're cat people. They're not interested in dogs. They are fascinated by cats. I'm going to just predict that you're a cat person. I am actually neither cat nor dog person. I had a great dane, so I'm an animal person. I had a great dane for many years and he was a 185 pound dog. And so I found that really fascinating and then I've had the opportunity to adopt a family of cats. So that's why I was very curious about Sammy and Melvin and that interaction because I had a mother, black and white, and her two kids and the mother recently... Hello? Hello? I lost you, the mother recently... Yeah, the mother recently died. How old was she? She was about 16, I'm not sure. She was feral and her two kids that I ended up also taking were feral and they're still alive, but the entire time that I had her and her daughter is now 14 years old, this daughter was under her mother's thumb and as soon as she was released from that competition with her mom, this daughter, Pina, has turned into the most delightful cat. I mean, I've had her for 14 years and it's only this year that she cuddles with me, she talks to me, she throws herself, she's playing. This cat was subjected to really terrible treatment by her mother because females compete and her mother preferred her son and played with him and I just have noticed such a change in her demeanor and her personality since not living with her mother anymore. So the mother competed for the son's affection with the daughter? Well, so the mother, so in general, and I write about this in the book, Raised by Animals, mothers prefer their sons in general and we can see that reflected in our own families many times. Do they know, do they know it's their son? Does a cat know their son? Oh yeah. Oh yeah. So if I were to take Pina, was that the name? Yes. And she goes away for two years and she comes back. Did the mother, would the mother know that this was her daughter? There's a pretty good chance that she would for two reasons. One, depending on how long they were together before that happens. And two, we know from many studies in humans and in other animals that we can recognize kin based on scent. Now we don't know that we know, right? But even grandparents that have not been exposed to their grandchild can sniff them out. Are these pheromones? Cause you write about this in your other book, Wild Connection, what animal courtship and mating tells us about human relationships. So it's pheromones. It is, it's pheromones. We all have a signature scent. And of course we find some people's scents more appealing than others for a variety of reasons. But we have a signature scent. In your other book, is that, you kind of touch on this, is that why relationships end because we're mismatched and we're not paying attention to how we smell? Well, so it's interesting. So you could have that happen. This is some fascinating research shows that when women, women prefer, strongly prefer the scent of males that are most opposite to them on a set of genes that we call major histocompatibility or MHC genes. And those genes are involved in our immune response. So if you think about why would it make sense to prefer someone who's most opposite to you, it would be because the combination of two very different would provide your offspring with the biggest coverage in terms of genetic coverage to protect against disease. That's why the royal family in England always looks like they smelled some bad cheese. Because they're mating among themselves and they don't like the smell. And they also, many of those families went extinct because of too much inbreeding and all of the problems that that caused. But when you go back to smell, so women will, when they're not on birth control, will choose a male that's most opposite to them. They'll prefer a scent of a male that happens to be the most opposite to them and their genetic makeup on these genes. When women are on birth control, they pick a male that's most similar to them. Oh, that's Republican talk. Well, there's a big problem when that happens, when they go off birth control, let's say at some point they wanna try to have a family, one, they could find the smell of their partner unappealing and two, you have higher miscarriage rate, lower frequency of orgasms and a higher rate of infidelity. Well, by hand, this is important because this is ammunition for the loons who are running Washington. You're saying that if a woman is on birth control... When she chooses... You're talking about the pill. Yes. Specifically the pill. That's right. And I accidentally was on the pill, I'm making a joke. But that's a hormone, right? The women are, when you're on the pill, that's a hormone, right? Yes, you're getting, depending on the version, you're either getting a combination of estrogen or progesterone, but you're getting those hormones and it's disrupting sort of an observation. It disrupts ovulation and it disrupts, you're saying how you interpret pheromones. That's correct. Now, that's not an argument to not take the pill, right? But it's gonna change, it's gonna... So, hang on, let me understand this. So you're on the birth control pill and suddenly you're attracted to a different type of man. That's right. Isn't that amazing and quite disturbing? But yeah, you are potentially attracted to a very different type of male. And you're attracted to a male who has a similar gene pool to you? Similar gene on the MHC genes, not like an inbreeding type of thing, right? But more similar to you on these genes that we call major histocompatibility complex genes that are involved in immune response. So you're attracted to more dangerous men when you're on the pill. Well, you're not attracted to more dangerous men, you're attracted to men that are not the best match for you genetically and that you would not otherwise choose. Or psychologically, I would assume as well. I don't know about that because those genes don't really play a role in one's personality or temperament or compatibility on other, you know, we make our choices also, this has to do with just attraction, right? But not any of those downstream characteristics that we also make decisions about to partner with somebody in terms of relationship and marriage and raising a family. I would think if the pheromones are telling you this, if you're not on the pill, pheromones are telling you to be attracted to this guy because you will have strong babies. Correct. If you're on the pill, it's suddenly these pheromones, you're attracted to different pheromones that are telling you to try out mates who you shouldn't be attracted to. That's correct. But that's just from a physical attraction perspective. But I would think that would inform your psychological attraction. Well, it might. So we all know we've been very, very attracted to people that were not good for us, whether even when we weren't on the pill, right? So you can be physically attracted to a lot of different people, but your compatibility as long-term partners, physical attraction is one component of it. Wow, well, this is like a really good argument to become a Christian conservative because it really is, when did they find this out? This has been known for quite some time. And I think it's, for me, you know, I would say it's more of an argument to use other forms of birth control until you've picked your mate and then go on the regular birth control. I wouldn't necessarily, or to be aware of it. So could a man, what happens if you're, you fall in love with a woman who is using like an IUD or something, the sponge? Right. Because the man is never gonna take responsibility. Right. I'm making a joke. But so you're on one type of birth control. You get married, you have kids. Yep. Then you switch to the birth control pill. Right. Is it conceivable then that the wife would be, would no longer find her husband attractive? It's conceivable. Sure. I mean, we underestimate how much hormones drive our behavior. We all like to think that we have all of this control of everything that we think. I mean, we are learning now that our gut microbes are controlling what we crave to eat. So I think that my chocolate problem is really just about me. But it could be that the bacterial community in my gut really likes chocolate. And is sending that signal to my brain through this nerve called the vagus nerve, which connects that's your gut to your brain nerve and compelling me to crave certain foods so that it can get fed. So we're learning how we can really be manipulated at all kinds of levels in terms of our. Don't the gut microbes also tell us how to think? They do, they can. That's right. And all kinds of other things that we're learning. So I think that the point I wanted to make in the book was for people to sometimes that's happened. And it's happened to friends of mine where they met their husband while they were on birth control, went off birth control, and they couldn't stand the smell of their husband anymore and found him not attractive. So I think just being aware, it's not an argument to not use birth control, but being aware that these changes can take place and thinking about why that's happening and what to do about it. Are there pheromones that you can splash on after shave, after shaving yourself? I'm being serious, if suppose I met a woman and I did a swab of her DNA and then my evil friend said to me, okay, you need this pheromone, wear this pheromone and she'll find you irresistible. Is that conceivable? Well, they haven't been able to isolate the pheromones in humans, but I will say that two things I wanna say about that. One is that we all have had the experience where someone could wear the same cologne or perfume, but it smells radically different, right? And it's not your scent, so to speak. And some people have very strong, and that can change over time, of course. How a scent worked for you when you were in your early 20s may no longer work for your body chemistry later, because there's other things, aside from genes like these MHC genes, the bacterial community that is living on you can determine how you smell as well, right? And because they release proteins and other acids when they eat the sweat, that's when they break that down. So we are a combination of our genes and our bacterial communities in terms of how we smell. So there's no pheromone that's been identified that said, okay, this is the super sexy pheromone. I mean, that's the cologne and perfume industry. I will say that for some reason they have figured this out for cats, both wild and domestic. They go nuts for obsession. They obsess over the scent of obsession. That is, is that Calvin Klein? I think so, yeah, yeah. It's potent stuff for cats. I don't know what it's in it, but all cats really just love the scent of obsession. Wow. Yeah. So I'm gonna wrap it up. This is, I could keep going, so. I know, me too. You'll have to. Yeah, this is, well, you'll have to come back because I have a million questions. But if you're with somebody and the pheromones don't match. Right. Then you have to really pay attention to the perfume or the cologne, right? Well, I think some people, I say don't wear any perfume or cologne if you really want to know how you feel about the way someone smells. I prefer personally, I'll always go sniff a neck. First date, you give me a goodbye hug. I'm in the neck and taking a nice, strong whiff. And then I apologize. I'm like, I'm sorry. I'm very scent-oriented. I talked to a woman who I went at with in college. She says she can remember the way I smelled. Oh, yeah. I mean, I swear there's a man that I can smell when he's within a mile of me. And I mean that in a good way. Like my radar would just be like, he must be in the neighborhood. Where is he? And so for sure. And that's an indication of how powerful something has sent. So I am not a proponent of covering up your scent with cologne or perfume because it really inhibits the ability of someone to determine how they feel about your scent. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, hang on for one second here. So Americans always complain when they go overseas by the stench of humans. Right. We are always taking showers. Right. We're always brushing our teeth and cleaning underneath our armpits. Are we the first culture to be this clean, this so obsessed with denuding ourselves of our sense? And if so, is that why we're a loveless society? Oh, that's such a fascinating question. Is that why we're, and we lie to each other then. We're on a very basic level. We're lying to each other about who we really are. That's why divorce is on the rise. Is that possible? I agree, and it doesn't stop with just that. So of course, makeup and all this artificial stuff that we put on is essentially a lie. I mean, you don't see any cardinals going through a cardinal spray tan to get redder. Well, in the Catholic church you do. Oh gosh, yeah, that's right. They have cardinals, don't they? I was referring to the bird. But in fact, the Egyptians were quite fastidious. They used to, the technique of sugaring is coming back and that was developed by the Egyptians. They were fastidious about removing all hair. Now, hair under your arms and in other places holds and traps a lot of those molecules that we call those pheromones and your scent stays there, right? But they removed all of this because of life. So it was very practical, right? So I don't know that they were the first, but they certainly perfected the art of removing of hair removal at that time. But I do think what you said is really profound that at a very basic level, whether it's with all of this, I mean, we should bathe and there's something to be said for a good hygiene, right? But I mean, the research has shown that we bathe way too often and we're stripping our skin of the oils and other things that help protect us. And we also, this obsession with antibacterial soaps and things like that, those are not taking us down a good path when it comes to our own health, but also what you said that we're lying to each other about our appearance down to the very basic things. I think that not recognizing the ways in which we lie to each other and the damage that it does, how can we possibly have honest communication when we can't even be upfront about who we are at that basic level? Wow. Yeah. Oh, you'll come back, I hope. I would love to. This is amazing. Dr. Jennifer Verdelein is an expert in animal behavior. She has two books out, which everybody should buy. One is her most recent, it came out last month, Raised by Animals. And I guess the book that came out two years ago is Wild Connection, what animal courtship and mating tells us about human relationships. And it tackles the wild world of romance, which I wanted to ask you about. You'll come back, right? Absolutely, anytime. Thank you for joining us. Thank you. Let me stop tape. That was great. I'm all over the map with you, but my mind wandered.