Ten Things I Like About... Podcast

Tarantulas: How They Hunt

Summary: Tarantulas are predators! They have a unique way of hunting their prey. Join Kiersten as she walks you through how these eight-legged wonders catch food.
 
For my hearing impaired listeners, a complete transcript of this podcast follows the show notes on Podbean.
 
Show Notes: 
The Tarantula Scientist by Sy Montgomery
Remarkable Animals: The Tarantula by Gail LaBonte
 
Transcript
(Piano music plays)
Kiersten - This is Ten Things I Like About…a ten minute, ten episode podcast about unknown or misunderstood wildlife.
(Piano music stops)
Kiersten - Welcome to Ten Things I Like About… I’m Kiersten, your host, and this is a podcast about misunderstood or unknown creatures in nature. Some we’ll find right out side our doors and some are continents away but all are fascinating. 
This podcast will focus ten, ten minute episodes on different animals and their amazing characteristics. Please join me on this extraordinary journey, you won’t regret it.
This episode continues tarantulas and the fourth thing I like about these eight-legged wonders is how they hunt!
 
Most of the tarantulas that we currently know about are carnivores. That means they eat meat. We have yet to discover a tarantula that eats vegetables but you never know. Most tarantulas are ambush predators which means they lay in wait until the right prey comes along. They hide under cover and wait patiently until food comes to them. Some species will stay in or near their burrows to hunt while others will travel a short distance from their homes. If you’ve ever encountered a tarantula in your house at night, it was probably searching for a nice midnight meal!
 
What is the correct prey item for a tarantula? That can depend on the species of tarantula and how big they are, but the majority of them hunt other invertebrates. Tarantulas are opportunistic eaters which means they will consume almost anything that they can catch. Examples of common prey items are grasshoppers, crickets, beetles, wasps, cicadas, worms, caterpillars, and even other spider species. 
 
Sam Marshall, a scientist studying tarantulas in the wild, has been able to lure them our of burrows by dangling earthworms in front the entrance. I could go on but the list is long when it comes to invertebrates. Almost any kind of insect you can think of could be consumed by a tarantula. Hmmm. Maybe not ants, I haven’t seen any references to tarantulas eating ants.
 
Some of you may be asking if they eat things other than invertebrates. You may even be thinking about the bird-eating tarantulas of South America. They must eat birds if it’s in their name, right? That is a reasonable thought but…Not so much. These tarantulas are large enough to eat birds, but there is not a lot of evidence proving that they do eat birds. These large tarantulas eat bigger invertebrates, mice, lizards, and will even occasionally catch a toad. The reason they have this name is because of an illustration depicting an arboreal tarantula eating a hummingbird, but as of yet no one has seen this behavior in the wild. I’ll have more on this in a future episode.
 
Now that we know what they eat, let’s find out how they catch their prey. For those of you who have already listened to the episode on senses, you know that tarantulas have fairly poor eyesight. They cannot see in detail. So if they cannot see clearly, they must rely on another sense to detect prey, right? That is an excellent thought, Listeners. And that is exactly what they do! The sensitive hairs, or setae, covering their body help them feel prey items when they are close enough to successfully catch them. These hairs are extremely sensitive and as the tarantula gains experience it learns which movements indicate potential prey. They can tell the difference between a grasshopper, a moth, or a mouse. 
 
Tarantulas that hunt from home have another trick they use to successfully  catch a meal. All spiders spin silk and tarantulas are no exception. Other species of spiders spin large webs in open spaces to catch prey items that happen to get caught in the sticky silk. It’s an excellent way to catch prey unawares, but tarantulas do not use their silk webs in this way. However, they do set trip wires along the ground that attach to webbing laid down on the floor of their burrows. These trip wires will vibrate when something walks by it. The tarantula will sit patiently in the entrance of the burrow with one of its legs touching the silk attached to the trip wire. As soon as the silk vibrates at just the right frequency, they pounce!
 
Tarantulas cannot jump but they have strong chelicerae and pedipalps that aide in catching, as well as eating, food. Once they have determined that an appropriate food item is nearby they can move quickly to snatch it. They grab it with the two fangs that are attached to the end of the chelicerae and stabilize it with the pedipalps. Tarantula fangs can only move up and down, so they must rear back to expose their fangs when they are grabbing their prey. 
 
The fangs are connected to venom sacs that sit inside the chelicerae. The tarantula will inject their prey with venom to kill it. The venom also helps breakdown the insides of the prey into a soup-like liquid. Don’t worry, it’s likely that their prey is dead before their insides begin to dissolve. This can take a little time so the tarantula will hold their food patiently as they wait. 
 
After the venom has had time to work, the tarantula will crush its food with its chelicerae. The juices will squeeze out and the tarantula’s strong stomach muscles will suck the juices into its mouth, like a vacuum cleaner! I have to admit it sounds kind of gruesome, but it’s also terribly fascinating. 
 
Like most spiders, the tarantula can only digest liquids, but unlike most spiders they do chew their food to get all the liquid out. To make sure no large pieces of exoskeleton get into their digestive system, they have small hairs around their mouth that act like a filter keeping out those large pieces. The whole process can take up to twenty minutes, so the tarantula will pull back into their burrow or hiding spot while they eat to protect themselves from predators that might be hunting them! Once they’re done the only thing that is left is a little bit of exoskeleton.
 
After the tarantula has finished its meal, they take a moment to clean their mouth parts. They are very fastidious about cleanliness because the hairs around their mouths are so important in keeping them healthy.
 
The last question we need to answer about how tarantulas hunt is how often do they need to eat. The answer is quite mind-blowing. Are you ready? One grasshopper can be enough food for the tarantula for two months! That’s 60 days! Could you imagine if we could live off of one hamburger for two months? That is some slow digestion! 
 
I know this to be true, through personal experience. I had a rose-haired tarantula as a pet for 12 years and I gave her about five crickets a month. Sometimes the crickets died of old age before she even ate them! 
 
The way tarantulas hunt is fascinating and I know you loved hearing about it because it is my fourth favorite thing about tarantulas. 
 
If you're enjoying this podcast please recommend me to friends and family and take a moment to give me a rating on whatever platform your listening. It will help me reach more listeners and give the animals I talk about an even better chance at change. 
 
Join me next week for another thing I like about tarantulas!
 
(Piano Music plays) 
This has been an episode of Ten Things I like About with Kiersten and Company. Original music written and performed by Katherine Camp, piano extraordinaire.

Tarantulas: Where They Live

Summary: Tarantuals live all over the world! Join Kiersten as she talks about where tarantulas live, what habitats they like, and how they got all over the planet.
 
For my hearing impaired listeners, a complete transcript of this podcast follows the show notes on Podbean.
 
Show Notes: 
The Tarantula Scientist by Sy Montgomery
“Tarantulas are everywhere and now researchers know why” by Mihai Andrei, ZME Science https://www.zmescience.com/science/biology/tarantula-evolution-gondwana-19042021/
https://www.heath-hands.org.uk/blog/subterranean-spiders
https://www.biodiversityexplorer.info/arachnids/spiders/theraphosidae/index.htm
https://environment.des.qld.gov.au/wildlife/animals/living-with/tarantulas
https://usaspiders.com/aphonopelma-hentzi-texas-brown-tarantula/
“The Natural History of Tarantula Spiders” by Richard C. Gallon https://www.thebts.co.uk/old_articles/natural.htm
 
Transcript
(Piano music plays)
Kiersten - This is Ten Things I Like About…a ten minute, ten episode podcast about unknown or misunderstood wildlife.
 
(Piano music stops)
Kiersten - Welcome to Ten Things I Like About… I’m Kiersten, your host, and this is a podcast about misunderstood or unknown creatures in nature. Some we’ll find right out side our doors and some are continents away but all are fascinating. 
 
This podcast will focus ten, ten minute episodes on different animals and their amazing characteristics. Please join me on this extraordinary journey, you won’t regret it.
 
This episode continues tarantulas and the third thing I like about these amazing arachnids is where they live!
 
Tarantulas are found on every continent on the planet with the exception of Antartica. For those arachnaphobs out there this is distressing news, but do not worry they have specific habitats that they prefer and once you know what these are you can successfully avoid them. Although, by the end of this series of Ten Things I Like About, I know all my listeners will be in love with tarantulas! Okay, okay, if not love then at least in appreciation.
 
Tarantulas are most commonly found in warmer climates. Semi-arid desert habitat is the environment that most people associate with tarantulas, but more tarantulas are actually found in tropical rainforests than desert areas. Most tarantulas are distributed on land found 40 degrees north of the equator to 40 degrees south of the equator. This places them in warmer regions of the planet which includes Africa, southern Europe, areas of the Middle East, southern Asia, Indonesia, Australia, and all of Central and South America.
 
Tarantulas found in North America are typically restricted to the Southwest, including Arizona, Utah, Nevada, California, Colorado, Texas, and Oklahoma; although, the Texas Brown has been seen as far east as Missouri. A common area home to several species of tarantula in North America is the desert. Various species of tarantula are found in semi-desert areas of the Sonoran, Chihuahua, and Mojave deserts. 
 
There are seven species of tarantula described in Australia. They are found in Queensland, New South Wales, South Australia, and Western Australia. The habitat they favor consists of desert, temperate, and rainforest areas. They are not found in the southern coastal areas or the northern tropics. 
 
South America is a hotspot for tarantulas. These hairy arachnids are found almost everywhere on this continent. The warm, humid tropical forests are a great place to find tarantulas. Just north of the equator sits French Guiana, it’s about the size of Indiana in the United States and is considered by many scientists to be the tarantula capital of the world. About a dozen different species of tarantula live there including the world famous bird-eating tarantulas!
 
In Africa, tarantulas are found almost everywhere with the exception of the Sahara desert. This desert is home to only a handful of creatures that can tolerate the super dry environment and the extreme temperatures. No tarantula has yet to be found that is equipped to survive there. But Africa is host to many species of temperate as well as tropical species of tarantula, one of the most famous being the baboon spiders.
 
In Europe, one must be very careful when looking for tarantulas. You must be sure to not get them mixed up with hairy wolf spiders! The original “tarantula” was a very hairy wolf spider seen in Taranto, Italy. The name was carried to other continents by European explorers who used it to describe other hairy spiders they saw. We ended up keeping and using the word “tarantula” for arachnids in the Family Theraphosidae. There is only one known species of tarantula in the United Kingdom classified in Family Therphosidae and that is the purse web spider.
 
You might be thinking, how did tarantulas find their way to almost every continent in the world? Well some scientists from Carnegie Mellon University had the same question. Behaviorally speaking, tarantulas are typically homebodies, so how did they spread across the planet? Turns out tarantulas are pretty old. Like Cretaceous period running around with dinosaurs old. Because they lived during this time they inhabited Gondwana, the supercontinent that existed before tectonic activity created continental drift resulting in the seven continents we have today. Tarantulas just hitched a ride. 
 
There is also some evidence that tarantulas may be better dispersers than we initially thought, at least on the Asian continent. It appears that two lineages colonized across the Asian continent. Some stayed in India while others diversified across Asia while the Indian tectonic plate was still drifting toward Asia. These two lineages actually colonized Asia 20 million years apart. This information is encouraging scientists to reevaluate how they think about tarantula dispersal. 
 
Now that we know where in the world to find tarantulas, let’s take a closer look at where they spend most of their time. There are two main places that tarantulas live. The first is the most common and what most people think of when you think about tarantulas, underground burrows.
 
The vast majority of tarantulas live in underground burrows. These burrows are often self made by the tarantula, but occasionally another animal’s abandoned burrow will be used. To dig the burrow, tarantulas will use their chelicerae and pedipalps to move the soil. If they are digging their own burrow and they are a sedentary species that lives in one place for many years, they will expand the tunnels and chamber as they themselves grow! Could you imagine having to build a larger house or apartment each time we humans got bigger?
 
Most burrows consist of one long tunnel leading to an ovoid chamber that the tarantula uses to rest in. Often both the tunnel and chamber floors will be covered in a layer of silk that the tarantula produces itself. Some species of tarantulas have a more elaborate set up with more than one chamber and additional entrance tubes. This does give you an escape route if confronted by another tarantula or a predator. Smart thinking!
 
Some species will spruce up the entrance to their burrow with a structure called a turret. The turret consists of plant material and soil stitched together with silk. It sits outside the lip of the burrow and prevents ground water from flooding the burrow! What a great example of forethought…in an arachnid! Amazing! 
 
The second place tarantulas live is in trees! Yes, that’s right I said trees. There are a handful of arboreal tarantula species. They are found in South America, Africa, and Asia, mainly in tropical forests. Arboreal tarantulas have many different choices when it comes to finding a secure living space in a tree. Some will construct a tube made of silk that it attaches to surrounding branches. Rotted holes in trees can make a lovely abode for a tarantula to inhabit. Some will rest behind loose panels of bark. And other’s use epiphytic plants that grow in the branches of trees. Talk about a fancy high rise home. These tarantulas know where it’s at!
 
There is a third life style that is still being studied, but it appears that some tarantulas may live a vagabond life. They wander from burrow to burrow or hiding spot taking refuge in whatever place they can find during the day. So far, it looks like only two species may lead this type of life, but more research is needed to confirm this behavior.
 
That’s it for this third fascinating episode about tarantulas. I hope you liked learning about where tarantulas live as much as I liked writing about it, because it is my third favorite thing about tarantulas.  
 
If you're enjoying this podcast please recommend me to friends and family and take a moment to give me a rating on whatever platform your listening. It will help me reach more listeners and give the animals I talk about an even better chance at change. 
 
Join me next week for another thing I like about tarantulas!
 
(Piano Music plays) 
This has been an episode of Ten Things I like About with Kiersten and Company. Original music written and performed by Katherine Camp, piano extraordinaire.
 

Tarantulas: Senses

Summary: The senses of the tarantula are complex and bind-blowing! Join Kiersten as she walks you through this amazing arachnid’s sense of sight, hearing, touch, taste and smell.
 
For my hearing impaired listeners, a complete transcript of this podcast follows the show notes on Podbean.
 
Show Notes:
The Tarantula Scientist by Sy Montgomery
https://study.com/academy/lesson/tarantulas-anatomy-habitat-bite.html
https://www.labroots.com/trending/plants-and-animals/18796/surprise-tarantulas-color-vision
“The evolution of coloration and opsin in tarantulas.” By Satires Foley, Vinodkumar Saranathan, and William H. Piel. Proceedings of the Royal Society B, September 2020. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2020.1688
“Airborne Acoustic Perception by a Jumping Spider.” By Paul S. Shamble, Gil Menda, James R. Golden, Eyal I. Nitzany, Katherine Walden, Tsevi Beatus, Damian O. Elias, Itai Cohen, Ronald N. Miles, and Ronald R. Hoy, Current Biology, Vol. 26, Issue 21, pg 2913-2920
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2016.08.041
https://faunafacts.com/spiders/can-tarantulas-hear/
 
Transcript
(Piano music plays)
Kiersten - This is Ten Things I Like About…a ten minute, ten episode podcast about unknown or misunderstood wildlife.
(Piano music stops)
Kiersten - Welcome to Ten Things I Like About… I’m Kiersten, your host, and this is a podcast about misunderstood or unknown creatures in nature. Some we’ll find right out side our doors and some are continents away but all are fascinating. 
]
This podcast will focus ten, ten minute episodes on different animals and their amazing characteristics. Please join me on this extraordinary journey, you won’t regret it.
 
This episode continues tarantulas and the second thing I like about these awesome creatures is their senses!
 
The five senses that are typically common amongst most animals are sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell. We’re going to look at each one of these in relation to tarantulas. Buckle up listeners, this is going to be a crazy ride!
 
Okay, let’s start with vision. As mentioned in the anatomy episode, tarantulas have eight eyes. They are set just above the chelicerae. Two large eyes, that are relatively easy to see with the naked human eye, are centered in the middle of the front portion of the cephalothorax. Four eyes sit below those. These are smaller than the large eyes and sit in a line. Of these four eyes, the two in the middle will be slightly larger than the two on the ends. 
 
Now, if you’re keeping count that gives us only six eyes. The final two eyes sit on each side of the head. Once again, they will be smaller than the large front facing eyes, but they are bigger than the four eyes that are lined below the main eyes. This is typical of most tarantulas but not all species will be exactly the same. So based on the fact that they have eight eyes, their eyesight must be amazing! That’s an excellent deductive thought listeners, but in this case it is not correct.
 
Tarantulas’ eyes are capable of detecting motion and changes in light, but cannot determine visual cues in any detail. When it comes to tarantulas, more eyes does not mean better vision. But before you shed a tear for these wee animals, their eyes are perfect for how they live their lives. Most tarantulas are nocturnal, so seeing in shades of light and dark is just what they need to navigate their environment successfully.
 
It is commonly thought that tarantulas cannot see color. It makes sense that if you live in the shadows of night the ability to see color is not important, but there is some recent research that is challenging this thought. There are some tarantulas that are covered in bright blues and greens. For example, the Cobalt Blue tarantula of Myanmar and Thailand is a bright, beautiful sapphire blue. This is a truly gorgeous species of tarantula, to the human eye, but why would the tarantula produce a blue color if they themselves cannot see it? 
 
  In a research paper published in 2020, scientists analyzed the opsins in tarantula eyes. Opsins are light-sensitive proteins that are often present in animals that possess color vision. It was previously thought that these opsins would not be present in tarantulas but the scientists found some. This indicates that the tarantula can see in color, or at least some colors. We’re not one hundred percent sure why these tarantulas are blue, but the current thought is that the color is used to attract mates. Studies have not been performed with brown, red, or orange colored tarantulas so we’ll have to wait to find out if they can see in color. The closer you look at these amazing arachnids, the cooler they become. Am I right? 
 
Let’s move on to hearing. The question here is can tarantulas hear? H-E-A-R. (Laugh) Sorry bad pun. The answer is more complicated than just a yes or no, so let’s discuss the details. Tarantulas do not have ears in the traditional sense, but they are capable of hearing. 
 
As you have probably noticed tarantulas are pretty hairy. These hairs, or setae, are not just for looks, they are specialized structures that perform various functions for the tarantula. One of those functions is to detect vibrations. The setae on the legs are highly sensitive to air-borne vibrations. Quoting from a scientific paper published in Current Biology in November 2016 titled “Airborne Acoustic Perception by a Jumping Spider" these setae “are air-flow mechanoreceptors sensitive to the particle-velocity component of airborne stimuli”. Plainly said, the setae on the tarantula’s legs vibrate when sound waves hit them and this transfers information from the environment to the tarantula. I think that’s pretty cool! 
 
(As a side note, this experiment was performed with jumping spiders, which are not a type of tarantula, but the setae of both arachnids are so similar that we can make educated assumptions that this ability also applies to tarantulas.)
 
What’s even more amazing is that these setae can help the tarantula differentiate between predators and prey. According to scientific experiments, typical predators of tarantulas produce low-frequency sounds when they move. When those sounds hit the setae they vibrate at a specific rate. When the tarantula feels those vibrations they know they need to go into defense mode. Prey items produce different frequency sounds and when the setae vibrate at those rates the tarantula knows to go into hunting mode! I think it’s outstanding that these little hair-like structures can do so much!
 
Next, let’s investigate the tarantula’s sense of touch. This sense is related to the setae that covers their whole body. Essentially the tarantula’s entire body is one big sensory receptor. But it can be aided by the silk that they produce. Tarantulas that live in burrows often spin a flat web covering the ground that makes up the tunnels and chambers of their burrow. These webs help transmit vibrations to the tarantula’s sensitive legs. It tells them when a larger predator may be present or when a smaller prey item is near by. This is the same for tarantulas that live in trees, our arboreal tarantulas, it’s just not done on a burrow. 
 
These setae are so sensitive that any movement in the air can provide information to the tarantula. A slight breeze, the flap of a predatory bird wing, or a rain drop can all impart important information through the sensitive setae covering the tarantula’s body.
 
The last two senses are smell and taste. These are combined in the tarantula, or as far as we know they are (It is a bit difficult to ask them how that cockroach tastes), and once again these senses rely on the setae. The chelicerae and the pedipalps are the two anatomical structures most closely involved in taste and smell. For more information about those two anatomical structures, please listen to the first episode on anatomy. These two structures are covered in, you guessed it, setae, but these setae are different from the ones on their legs. These setae are chemoreceptors. The structure of the chemoreceptors is different from the setae used as mechanoreceptors that sense vibrations. The chemoreceptor setae are curved, double-layered, open to the environment at the end, and innervated at the base. This structure allows odors to infiltrate the setae so the tarantula can determine what they have encountered. Is it a prey item they wish to eat, a dirt clod or leaf they need to ignore, or the scent of a known predator they need to hide from? 
 
It’s been wild ride into the world of tarantula senses, and I hope you have enjoyed it as much as I have because it is the second thing like about tarantulas. 
 
If you're enjoying this podcast please recommend me to friends and family and take a moment to give me a rating on whatever platform your listening. It will help me reach more listeners and give the animals I talk about an even better chance at change. 
 
Join me next week for another thing I like about tarantulas!
 
(Piano Music plays) 
This has been an episode of Ten Things I like About with Kiersten and Company. Original music written and performed by Katherine Camp, piano extraordinaire.

Tarantula: Anatomy

Summary: Tarantulas are a frequently misunderstood animal so join Kiersten as she illuminates what makes them so cool! We start off with anatomy.
 
For my hearing impaired listeners, a complete transcript of this podcast follows the show notes on Podbean.
 
Show notes: 
The Tarantula Scientist by Sy Montgomery
https://study.com/academy/lesson/tarantulas-anatomy-habitat-bite.html
https://www.britannica.com/science/book-lung
https://www.tarantulasdemexico.com/en/anatomia_en.htm
 
Transcript
(Piano music plays)
Kiersten - This is Ten Things I Like About…a ten minute, ten episode podcast about unknown or misunderstood wildlife.
(Piano music stops)
 
Kiersten - Welcome to Ten Things I Like About… This is a podcast about misunderstood or unknown creatures in nature. Some we’ll find right out side our doors and some are continents away but all are fascinating. 
 
My name is Kiersten and I have a Master’s Degree in Animal Behavior and did my thesis on the breeding behavior of the Tri-colored bat. I was a zookeeper for many years and have worked with all sorts of animals from Aba Aba fish to tigers to ravens to domesticated dogs and so many more in between. Many of those years were spent in education programs and the most important lesson I learned was that the more information someone has about a particular animal the less they fear them. The less they fear them the more they crave information about them and before you know it you’ve become an advocate for that misunderstood animal.
 
This is the first episode of tarantulas, my first misunderstood animal, and my first favorite thing about tarantulas is their anatomy! I’m not kidding listeners! This is one fascinating animal and o ne of the best ways to get comfortable with a misunderstood animal is to understand how they work, so let’s get started with the tarantula’s anatomy.
 
Tarantulas are classified as arachnids which means they are invertebrates that have eight legs. This puts them in the company of spiders, scorpions, harvestmen, ticks, and mites. Many people clump spiders and tarantulas together, but spiders and tarantulas are classified separately by scientists because of some anatomical differences and we’ll touch on these toward the end of this episode.
 
As invertebrates, tarantulas have an exoskeleton. This is a hard outer shell made of chitin that gives their body shape. To grow they must shed this exoskeleton periodically in a process called molting.
 
The most iconic attribute of tarantulas is their hair. This may be the biggest reason they creep people out, but this hair is super cool. The bristles are not made of of the same thing animal hair is made out, so technically not hair. Tarantula bristles are made of chitin, the same thing their exoskeleton is made of and there are four types of bristles. One type is the setae which all tarantulas have and these bristles act as sensory organs detecting chemicals, feeling vibrations, and sensing wind direction. The next type of bristles are the scopulae. These are found at the end of their legs and allow tarantulas to cling to surfaces. There are two other types of bristles that some but not all, tarantulas have, both are used in defense. One is the stridulating bristles that tarantula can rub together to make a hissing sound when threatened! How cool is that! And the fourth bristle is the urticating bristles that    can be detached from the abdomen and thrown at predators. These bristles are itchy and can irritate the nose, eyes, and mouth of a predator for hours.
 
Starting with the easily seen anatomy, tarantulas have two segments of their body the prosoma and the opisthosoma. The prosoma is the front portion of the tarantula, also known as the cephalothorax, where the eight legs are attached, where the eyes and mouth sit, and where the pedipalps attach. The opisthosoma is the back portion of the tarantula, often called the abdomen, where the lungs are housed and the spinnerets are attached.
 
Let’s take a closer look at the prosoma. The most notable appendage attached to the prosoma are the legs. Tarantulas have eight legs with seven segments on each leg. At the end of the legs are small tarsal claws that aide the tarantula in climbing and sticking to surfaces. These claws are retractable which means they can be extended when in use or brought back in when not in use. Depending on the species, there are two to three tarsal claws. 
 
Pedipalps are the second most obvious appendage attached to the prosoma. These are leg-like appendage at the front of the prosoma. They are often mistaken for legs but pedipalps are used to help catch and hold food, smelling, and feeling vibrations. They do not help the tarantula walk. Males will also use these to transfer sperm to the female during breeding season.
 
  The chelicerae are also on the prosoma but these are not as obvious unless you are holding the tarantula upside down, which I would not recommend, they really don't like that! The chelicerae kind of look like hairy beaver teeth and house the fangs and venom glands. They are also important in chewing their food. This chelicerae are so strong that they can sometimes use them to help move dirt in a burrow or even break roots that may get in their way. Another use for the chelicerae is for grooming. Tarantulas are very tidy and clean animals that use their chelicera, or mouth parts,   to groom their pedipalps and legs.
 
The eyes, eight of them are also found on the prosoma of the tarantula. They are located on the top, front portion of the prosoma just in front of the fovea, a depression in the middle of the carapace which the top of the prosoma. Tarantula eyes are mainly used for judging brightness of light rather than clear visual images. 
 
The prosoma also houses internal organs vital to the tarantula’s survival. As we covered before, the mouth is found here and the mouth leads to the esophagus and the stomach. The stomach is kinda like a vacuum, sucking food through the mouth and the esophagus. The underside of the fovea is where the suction muscles of the stomach are attached. 
 
The tarantula’s brain is also housed here in the prosoma. Their brain is definitely different from mammalian brains but it is just as important in processing environmental information. Their brain is divided into two ganglia, or bundles of nerves, that control nerve channels throughout the entire body. 
 
There are also large retractor muscles housed in the prosoma and these help anchor and control the mobility of the legs. These muscles are also anchored to the fovea just like the stomach muscles.
 
Alright, let’s move on to the second section of the tarantula’s body, the opisthosoma, or the abdomen. This is often the largest portion of the tarantula’s body. On the outside, the spinnerets poke out the back and these four appendages help produce and spin silk. 
 
There are four openings on the opisthosoma that connect to the tarantulas lungs, allowing oxygen transfer. And the anus is also found on this structure, because everyone poops!
 
Okay, let’s go inside the opisthosoma. Inside we run into the intestines. The glands that help produce silk are also found here. If it is a female tarantula her ovaries are housed in the opisthosoma. Last but defiantly not least, the lungs and heart are found here as well.
 
Now the tarantula has some of the coolest lungs around. They are called book lungs. Why? Because they look like the pages of a book. This is an old style of lung that does not expand and contact like our lungs. It’s actually a series of thin plates that are highly vascular and the entire surface area of the plates can transfer oxygen and carbon dioxide. This is where the slits in the opisthosoma become important. These slits allow the oxygen in and the carbon dioxide out.
 
Now these lungs are highly reliant on the pumping of the heart. The heart moves the hemolymph throughout the body of the tarantula. Hemolymph is the tarantula’s equivalent of mammalian blood, but the hemolymph does not stay in a maze of arteries and veins like our blood; instead, the heart pumps the hemolymph through arteries in the body that release the hemolymph directly into the body to oxygenate and feed the cells of the body. That’s why it looks all goopy when you squish a bug.
 
The tarantula relies on the thin plates of the book lungs being coated in hemolymph to help keep them oxygenated. It is incredibly important that both sections of the body get hemolymph and the pedicel is the structure that connects the prosoma to the opisthosoma. Sections of the heart, stomach and nervous system also run through the pedicel.
 
I know this a a lot of talk about tarantula anatomy, but I want to discuss one last really cool thing about their legs before I end this episode. The legs are all attached to the prosoma and every leg has about thirty muscles that move it, but the muscles can only retract the legs they cannot extend the legs.  We’ve all seen tarantulas walking, so how do they extend their legs? Their hemolymph! They rely on the pressure created by the hemolymph pumping through their body to extend their legs! How truly amazing is that!
 
In the beginning of this episode I said we’d talk about why scientists classify tarantulas and spiders in different families. Now that we’ve talked about their anatomy we can revisit this. There are two anatomical differences between tarantulas and other spiders, one is the book lungs. Tarantulas have book lungs while other spiders have more modern lungs. The second difference involves their mouth parts. Tarantulas can only move their mouth parts up and down while other spiders can move their mouth parts side to side. These two differences are significant enough to cause scientists to classify them in separate families. 
 
I hope you’ve enjoyed this look at tarantula anatomy because it is my first favorite thing about this misunderstood animal. 
 
If you're enjoying this podcast please recommend me to friends and family and take a moment to give me a rating on whatever platform your listening. It will help me reach more listeners and give the animals I talk about an even better chance at change. 
(Piano Music plays) 
This has been an episode of Ten Things I like About with Kiersten and Company. Original music written and performed by Katherine Camp, piano extraordinaire.
 

Vaquita: Conservation

Episode 15: Vaquita: Conservation
Summary: The vaquita is balancing on the edge of extinction. With only 10 left, can we save these beautiful porpoises? Join Kiersten as she talks about the conservation efforts surrounding the vaquita.
 
For my hearing impaired listeners, a complete transcript of this podcast follows the show notes on Podbean.
 
Show Notes: 
https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/west-coast/science-data/vaquita-conservation-and-abundance
https://seasheperd.org/milagro/
Robinson, Jacqueline; Kyriazis Christopher; Nidenda-Morales, Sergio; Beichman, Annabel; Rojas-Bracho, LOrenzo; Robertson, Kelly; Fontaine, Micheal; Wayne, Robert; Lohmueller, Kirk; Taylor Barbara, and Morin, Phillip. “The critically endangered vaquita is not doomed to extinction by inbreeding depression.” Science, May 2022: Vol 376, Issue 6593, pg 635-639; DOI:10.1126/science.abm1742
 
Vaquita: Science, Politics, and Crime in the Sea of Cortez by Brooke Bessesen
Original music written and performed by Katherine Camp
Vaquita Conservation Organizations
porpoise.org
 
Transcript
(Piano music plays)
Kiersten - This is Ten Things I Like About…a ten minute, ten episode podcast about unknown or misunderstood wildlife.
(Piano music stops)
 
Kiersten - Welcome to Ten Things I Like About… I’m Kiersten, your host, and this is a podcast about misunderstood or unknown creatures in nature. Some we’ll find right out side our doors and some are continents away but all are fascinating. 
 
This podcast will focus ten, ten minute episodes on different animals and their amazing characteristics. Please join me on this extraordinary journey, you won’t regret it.
 
This episode continues the vaquita and the fifth thing I like about the vaquita is how much effort we are putting into conservation of this species! Regrettably, this will be my last episode about the vaquita. I wanted to do a full ten episodes but we know so little about this animal that I could only gather enough information to do five episodes. Also, a word of caution about this episode, it will be hard to listen to and it was incredibly emotionally for me to write, but this is an important part of the vaquita’s story and must be told. Have some tissues handy.
 
At the posting of this episode, in December 2022 there are only 10 vaquitas alive in the Sea of Cortez. They are the only vaquitas alive on the planet. There are no individuals in captivity. We have the slimmest of chances to save them from extinction and the odds are not on our, or their side, but we haven’t given up.
 
Conservation efforts concerning the vaquita began in 1972 when the United States gave them protection under the Marine Mammal Protection Act. In 1975 Mexico also listed them as endangered. By this time, it was determined that the gill net fishing in the Sea of Cortez was greatly impacting not only the totoaba fish the nets were intended to catch but also the vaquita. 
 
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s website gill nets are described as a wall of netting that hangs in the water column, typically made of monofilament or multifilament nylon. Mesh sizes can vary depending on species that you wish to catch but they are designed to allow the fish’ s head to get through but not the body. As the fish struggles to get free it gets more and more tangled keeping it captured until fishermen retrieve the nets. This type of fishing is not manned, it is a passive form of fishing that means fisherman can come by at different times to retrieve the fish caught in the nets. Commercial fisheries have been using this method to catch the totoaba, a fish that can grow to 6 feet long and is in great demand in Chinese markets, since the 1930s. 
 
These nets are huge risks to oxygen breathing animals that live in areas where they are used. Animals such as sea turtles, sea lions, dolphins, whales and porpoises can all die when caught in these nets because they become trapped under water and suffocate. 
 
In 1996 vaquita were listed as critically endangered by the International Union of Conservation of Nature, aka IUCN. In 1997, the first reliable estimate of the vaquita population was obtained through a cooperative Mexican-American survey. A total of 567 individuals were estimated by this survey. In 2008 another survey found only 245 vaquitas. This is a loss of 57%. That’s 322 individuals in eleven years. 
 
Now gill net fishing for totoaba had been outlawed in 1975 because of the severe decline seen in this species, but the swim bladder of this fish can bring a very high price on the black market, so fisherman were willing to risk punishment for the huge payday. In 2010 the totoaba were listed as critically endangered by the IUCN. Gillnets are still used illegally to catch this fish and these nets are also the main reason vaquitas are balancing on the edge of extinction.
 
In the last episode, I mentioned the Sea Shepherd Organization and the conservation efforts they are involved in. Let’s start with two projects focused on helping keep the vaquita safe in the Sea of Cortez.
 
Operation Milagro is a program in which the Sea Shepherd ships work in conjunction with Mexican authorities to crackdown on illegal fishing in the Sea of Cortez. The ships go out on daily tours looking for illegal fishing activity. When they spot someone or something suspicious they contact the Mexican Navy to investigate further. This is a band-aid on a fatal wound but the volunteers of Sea Shepherd are willing to do everything they can to help this marine mammal. 
 
Another project they are involved in, now that gill net fishing has been outlawed in the Sea of Cortez, is retrieving ghost nets. These are nets that have been abandoned by fisherman but still remain in the waters. They may not be used for fishing anymore but they still pose a threat to the aquatic life in the sea. 
 
Sea Shepherd ships use specialized equipment to find these nets and haul them aboard freeing any animals caught but still alive and untangling those that have perished. They throw these individuals overboard with heavy hearts knowing that they may help feed other animals in the water. The nets are dismantled and sent to an organization that is making shoes out of them. Parley for the Oceans has joined forces with Adidas to turn ocean trash and gill nets into running shoes.
 
The question that haunts conservationists is whether all of this work is too little too late? With only ten individual vaquitas left on the planet, are our efforts to save them from gill nets even worth it?
 
For those of you that remember the basics of high school genetics you probably know that when you have a small pool of mammalian genes, inbreeding can cause some serious problems. If animals, especially mammals, breed with family members that have genes that are too closely related it leads to genetic diseases, infertile offspring, underdeveloped offspring that may not survive, and other serious problems. 
 
A new study looking at the genetics of the vaquita sponsored by NOAA Fisheries, UCLA, University of Washington, United Nations Development Program in Mexico, the Center for Research in Ecology and Evolution of Disease in France, and Groningen Institute for Evolutionary Life Sciences in the Netherlands may have an answer for us. The study published in May 2022 used tissue samples collected by Mexican researchers beginning in the 1980s. In an article on the NOAA Fisheries website, Lorenzo Rojas-Bracho, a co-author of this study, is quoted as saying, “Genomics gives us clues into the species’ past but also lets us peer into the future. Despite the small numbers, the species could recover if we stopped killing them.”
 
What the study reveals is that the vaquitas population has always been small, compared to other marine mammals, fluctuating between 1,000 to 5,000 individuals over a period of 250,000 years. Why does this give researchers and conservationists hope for their survival? Quoting from the NOAA Fisheries article, “Smaller populations have less genetic variation from one animal to another, and fewer harmful mutations. Over time, when two animals with harmful traits occasionally mated, they produced compromised offspring that likely died. That process gradually purged many harmful traits from the population.”
 
The scientists involved with this research ran computer simulations based on the archived vaquita genetic samples. The simulations found that if we immediately stop the deaths of vaquitas in gill nets, they have a chance to recover. We can still save this amazing mammal from extinction, if we stop using gill nets in the Sea of Cortez. 
 
I hope that they next thing we hear r about the vaquita is that their population numbers are on the rise. If not they will most likely become extinct by the end of 2023.
 
Thank you for joining me in learning about the vaquita.
 
Please visit porpoise.org to find out even more about the vaquita and to discover what you can do to help this unique animal.
 
Join me next week for a look at our first misunderstood animal, tarantulas.
 
(Piano Music plays) 
This has been an episode of Ten Things I like About with Kiersten and Company. Original music written and performed by Katherine Camp, piano extraordinaire.

Vaquita: Research Techniques

Summary: Scientific research into the natural history of animals is incredibly important. Join Kiersten as she talks about the ways we are researching the vaquita.
 
For my hearing impaired listeners, a complete transcript of this podcast follows the show notes on Podbean.
 
Show Notes: 
Vaquita: Science, Politics, and Crime in the Sea of Cortez by Brooke Bessesen
Original music written and performed by Katherine Camp
Vaquita Conservation Organizations
porpoise.org
 
Transcript
(Piano music plays)
Kiersten - This is Ten Things I Like About…a ten minute, ten episode podcast about unknown or misunderstood wildlife.
(Piano music stops)
 
Kiersten - Welcome to Ten Things I Like About… I’m Kiersten, your host, and this is a podcast about misunderstood or unknown creatures in nature. Some we’ll find right out side our doors and some are continents away but all are fascinating. 
 
This podcast will focus ten, ten minute episodes on different animals and their amazing characteristics. Please join me on this extraordinary journey, you won’t regret it.
 
This episode continues the vaquita and the fourth thing I like about the vaquita is how we are researching them!
 
There are two incredibly important ways we are researching vaquitas. If you’ve listened to the preceding episodes you know that vaquitas are very shy animals. They are notoriously hard to spot when looking for them from boats, but visual observation is one of the best ways we have of studying them. 
 
Researchers with a lot of patience, have actually compiled an identification guide using the dorsal fins of the vaquitas. Each dorsal fin is unique unto its owner. They have a particular curve, a notch or scar from some injury or encounter in its life that makes them easy to recognize. The dorsal fin always breaches the surface each time a vaquita needs to breath, so it makes them the perfect identification tool.  
 
To study an animal that lives in the water you need a boat or a ship that can get you where you need to go. Most researchers can’t afford to buy a boat or even rent a boat when they need to gather data, and some research institutions do not have their own boats either, but luckily, there are non-profit conservation organizations that are often willing to save a seat for a scientist. 
 
The Sea Shepard is one of those organizations. The Sea Shepherd’s main goal is to protect marine wildlife all over the world. Since the time we have determined that the vaquitas population is declining, the Sea Shepherd Organization has been involved. I’m going to discuss the vaquita conservation efforts this organization is helping with in the next podcast, but they are always happy to provide spotting opportunities to researchers. 
 
The Sea Shepherd organization has several ships of different sizes that they pilot for the various missions they are involved in. Some of these ships have been used in the Sea of Cortez for both conservation efforts and research opportunities. These ships are often staffed by volunteers that help scan the horizon for animal activity in the water. High-powered military binoculars called Big Eyes are mounted to the deck of most of their ships and are capable of swiveling to search the horizon easily. These binoculars have a magnification power of 25x150 which allows for visual clarity at exceptional distances helping scientists see activity clearly up to a mile away. Which is a good thing because the shy tendencies of the vaquita make it hard to approach too closely.
 
Volunteers and scientists will also use their own personal binoculars, as well ,increasing the chances of spotting vaquita activity. Since the Sea of Cortez is one of the most biologically diverse bodies of water on the planet, many variety of animals are often spotted and each sighting is documented and rejoiced no matter what species it is. Visual sightings are only one way we are currently studying the vaquita, though.
 
The second way we are researching the vaquita has to do with sound, but it’s not sound that we can hear. All porpoises use echolocation to hunt for food. The vaquita does this too. Using special equipment, researchers can use their echolocation calls to find the vaquitas.
 
Mexico’s National Institute of Ecology and Climate Change, also known as INECC, is using devices called c-pods to “listen” for vaquitas in the Sea of Cortez. Brooke Bessesen, in her book Vaquita: Science, Politics, and Crime in the Sea of Cortez, describes c-pods as “self-contained ultrasound monitors that select tonal clicks and record the time, duration and other features of each click to 5-microseconds resolution.” These devices are essentially recording the echolocation calls of the vaquita.
 
Okay, how exactly do they work? These are water proof devices that run on batteries and record data onto memory cards that can be removed to access the data later. They are deposited throughout a chosen range within the Sea of Cortez, specifically within the Vaquita Refuge area. Passive acoustic monitoring technology, also known as PAM, is loaded on these devices. This technology triggers the recording function whenever it detects the sounds of vaquita echolocation clicks. The c-pods used by INECC can run for up to five months recording every encounter the whole time.
 
The c-pod can record vaquita clicks up to 1300 feet away and  also documents time, duration, center frequency, intensity, bandwidth, and can even extrapolate a frequency trend. When analyzing the data, researchers need to focus on individual clicks and the number of clicks emitted by vaquita to obtain the most precise analysis of the data. These c-pod excel at this type of recording. 
 
C-pods are typically deployed from mid-June to mid-September. This is the off season for fisherman. This time of year is chosen because there is much less traffic on the water which decreases the odds of these expensive research devices being accidentally, or purposely, caught up and carried away by fisherman. 
 
To make sure the incredibly important data these devices record can be used, precise maps must be kept as to where the c-pods are positioned in the water. Each device is attached to a rope with a buoy on the end to mark where it has been dropped. Every few weeks employees of INECC with the help of local fisherman employed during the off season will retrieve the c-pods and replace them with fresh units. The c-pods will be placed in different areas throughout the Sea of Cortez. Moving them around has provided us with a more accurate idea of how much of this area is used by the vaquitas. It has also offered us a more reliable count of how many vaquitas are living in the Sea of Cortez.
 
I find it interesting sounds that we cannot hear have given us the most accurate count of an animal that is so difficult for us to see!
 
Thank you for joining me on this journey into how we are researching the vaquita it is my fourth favorite thing about the vaquita. 
 
Please visit porpoise.org to find out even more about the vaquita and to discover what you can do to help this unique animal.
 
Join me next week for an in-depth look at the conservation status of the vaquita and the efforts we are taking to ensure the survival of this mysterious porpoise. 
 
(Piano Music plays) 
This has been an episode of Ten Things I like About with Kiersten and Company. Original music written and performed by Katherine Camp, piano extraordinaire.
 

Vaquita: Behavior

Summary: Vaquita behavior is another fascinating thing about this unknown animal! Join Kiersten as she gives you a glimpse into the behavior of vaquita marina.
 
For my hearing impaired listeners, a complete transcript of this podcast follows the show notes on Podbean.
 
Show Notes:
https://www.aquariumofpacific.org/onlinelearningcenter/species/vaquita
https://porpoise.org/save-the-vaquita/
Vaquita: Science, Politics, and Crime in the Sea of Cortez by Brooke Bessesen
Vaquita Conservation Organizations
Porpoise.org
 
Transcript
(Piano music plays)
Kiersten - This is Ten Things I Like About…a ten minute, ten episode podcast about unknown or misunderstood wildlife.
(Piano music stops)
 
Kiersten - Welcome to Ten Things I Like About… I’m Kiersten, your host, and this is a podcast about misunderstood or unknown creatures in nature. Some we’ll find right out side our doors and some are continents away but all are fascinating. 
 
This podcast will focus ten, ten minute episodes on different animals and their amazing characteristics. Please join me on this extraordinary journey, you won’t regret it.
 
This episode continues the vaquita and the third thing I like about the vaquita is their behavior!
 
As we have already established in the first episode, vaquita’s are marine mammals, specifically, cetaceans. That means they live their entire lives in the water. The vaquita is a porpoise that lives in warmer waters than other cetaceans, but they are still sea dwelling animals. Being mammals, they do breath air and, just like many other cetaceans, they have a hole on the top of their head that allows them to release carbon dioxide when they surface and breath in fresh oxygen. This hole is called a blowhole and it’s a lot like our nose. They are able to open and close it with muscles, so they can hold their breath under water and keep the water from flooding in when they dive down. Okay! We have to use our fingers to do that with our noses, but still both orifices that we breath through!
 
Because of this physical need they must come to the surface, but they are extremely shy, secretive animals. Unlike their dolphin cousins, you will not see vaquitas leaping out of the water performing gravity defying acrobatics or frolicking in the wake of passing ships. They are very subdued when they visit the surface and rise slowly with a forward-rolling motion that hardly disturbs the water as they take a breath and then quickly disappear back into the depths of the Sea of Cortez. 
 
These small marine mammals are incredibly sensitive to passing ships and will not surface if they sense one. It is extremely difficult to observe them in the wild because they can be disturbed by boats passing within a mile of their location. This makes it incredibly difficult to study them, and this created another unforeseen challenge for conservationists. Many people do not believe vaquita even exist. 
 
For residents of the region surrounding the Sea of Cortez, the myth of the vaquita has been around for decades. Many residents do not believe they are real, living, breathing animals. They are like a unicorn or the Loch Ness monster, just something you talk about but never see because they’re not actually real. (Before anyone gets too upset, I’m not saying unicorns or the Loch Ness monster aren’t real, just that we have no tangible evidence to prove their existence….yet.  That’s a whole other podcast! On the other hand, we have a lot of evidence proving the vaquitas existence!) 
 
The main problem for conservationists is how do you encourage people to save an animal if they think it’s a mythological creature. When dead vaquita began to wash up on shore with more frequency, as sad as that is, devastatingly sad, conservationists thought this would prove their existence but some still believe they are a myth and these are photoshopped pictures or man-made dummies. Most fisherman know that they are real as thy have seen them or seen evidence of them, but they often deny it because it’s better for them if the vaquita remains a myth. Take my word for it listeners, vaquita are real! I promise you!
 
Vaquita are often solitary or travel in pairs, which is another reason they are not easily seen, but a few groups up to 8 individuals have been found. It is more likely when a couple is seen together, it’s a mother and a calf. 
 
Now, little is actually known about vaquitas reproduction, but researchers believe it is similar to harbor porpoises, which is their closest relative. Based on this, we are comfortable making a few assumptions about vaquita reproduction.  Vaquitas probably reach sexual maturity between 3 to 6 years. They can live uo to 20 years. The gestation period is 10-11 months and vaquita will give live birth to one calf every other year. The calves will be about 2 1/2 feet long at birth and can weigh 17 pounds. They will most likely nurse for about 6 to 8 months. All of this combined means that vaquita are very slow at reproducing.
 
When they are ready to eat sold food, they’ll become hunters like their mothers. Just like other species of porpoises, vaquitas echolocate to find food. How exactly does this work? Excellent question listeners? 
 
As Brooke Bessesen, I apologize if I’m saying that incorrectly, describes in her book Vaquita: Science, Politics , and Crime in the Sea of Cortez, “Porpoises make high-frequency clicks that bounce off objects and echo back, giving them an auditory “image” of scenes and objects. The fatty crown on the porpoise’s head, called the melon, emits and focuses ticks like a sound lens, while incoming reverberations, received through the thin, lipid-covered bones of the lower jaw, are directed to the inner ear.” Using this method is how porpoises can hunt and find their food. 
 
Through the research of Mexican acoustic expert Armando Jaramillo Legorreta we know that vaquita clicks are typically between 128 and 139 kilohertz. This is well above the ability of human hearing, which is 20 kilohertz max, but with specialized equipment their clicks can be recorded. According to Armando, vaquita make narrow band clicks. 
 
In your mind you may be thinking about the noises dolphins make, the whistles and clicks we can hear. Those of you who have been to a dolphin experience or show or those of you who remember the television show Flipper, ( I have just revealed my age with thane!) know what I mean! They have a much wider range of acoustic ability than vaquita. Our small vaquita marina is not capable of dolphin-like chatter, but it doesn’t make them any less adorable.
 
In some animals, such as dolphins, acoustic clicks are used for more than just hunting prey. They are also used for communication. We do not know whether this is something that vaquitas do as well, but we do know that their clicks increase in frequency when they are hunting. Vaquita will hunt at least 20 different marine species such as bronze-striped grunts, gulf croakers, small crabs, and squid. These are all mostly bottom dwelling species. 
 
It makes total sense that vaquita rely on their echolocation skills to hunt because the Sea of Cortez is very turbulent, making the water murky. Vision is fairly useless in these waters. The terrain under the water is also filled with ridges and valleys that vaquita can learn by using their echolocation.
 
By slowing down the clicks and click trains recorded using fancy acoustic equipment, humans can hear the sonar of certain animals, such bats and blue whales. When Brooke Bessesen was researching her book she asked if any researchers had done that to the vaquita calls. Someone had tried, but they’d only done it one because when you slow down their click trains it sounds too much like a fart to take it seriously. 
 
 I’m glad you all joined me in this glimpse at the vaquita’s behavior, it is my third favorite thing about them.
 
Please visit porpoise.org to find out even more about the vaquita and to discover what you can do to help this unique animals.
 
Join me next week for another ten-minute episode focusing on the vaquita. 
 
(Piano Music plays) 
This has been an episode of Ten Things I like About with Kiersten and Company. Original music written and performed by Katherine Camp, piano extraordinaire.
 

Vaquita: Habitat

Summary: The vaquita lives in the most biodiverse body of water on the planet! Join Kiersten as she take you on a journey through the Sea of Cortez.
 
For my hearing impaired listeners, a complete transcript of this podcast follows the show notes on Podbean.
 
Show Notes: 
https://www.nmmf.org/marine-mammal/vaquita-porpoise/
https://www.britannica.com/place/Gulf-of-California
https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1182
“Birth of an Ocean” by Annie Reisewitz: https://scripps.ucsd.edu/news/birth-ocean
https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/species/totoaba
https://porpoise.org/save-the-vaquita/
https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/dolphin_porpoise.html
Vaquita Conservation Organizations
Porpoise.org
 
Transcript
 
(Piano music plays)
Kiersten - This is Ten Things I Like About…a ten minute, ten episode podcast about unknown or misunderstood wildlife.
(Piano music stops)
 
Kiersten - Welcome to Ten Things I Like About… I’m Kiersten, your host, and this is a podcast about misunderstood or unknown creatures in nature. Some we’ll find right out side our doors and some are continents away but all are fascinating. 
 
This podcast will focus ten, ten minute episodes on different animals and their amazing characteristics. Please join me on this extraordinary journey, you won’t regret it.
 
This episode continues the vaquita and the second thing I like about the vaquita is their habitat!
 
Now, the vaquita is only found in one place on Earth and that is the Sea of Cortez also known as the Gulf of California. This gulf is surrounded by land with the northwestern Mexican states of Sonora, Sinaloa, and Nayarit on the eastern side of the water and the mountainous peninsula of Baja California on the west side. The bottom of the gulf opens into the Pacific Ocean. There are 244 islands in the Gulf of California. The unique geographical characteristics of this area make it a perfect region for isolated habitats that are ideal for hosting endemic species. Endemic species by definition are species that are evolutionarily native to a specific area. There is a total of 160,000 square kilometers in the Gulf of California.  
 
The vaquita only lives in 2235 square kilometers of this area. That’s smaller than the state of Rhode Island. Vaquitas favor the shallow lagoons about 25 kilometers or 16 miles off shore in the northern portion of the gulf. They prefer water only 10 to 28 meters or 33 to 92 feet deep where the water is warm. I have to admit I like warmer water too!
 
The vaquita is the only porpoise that chooses to live in warm water. This is probably why their adult size is so small and why their dorsal fin is large in comparison to their body. The large dorsal fin most likely helps dissipate heat. Please listen to the first episode of my vaquita series, if you have not yet done so, to find out more about the physical characteristics of the vaquita.
 
We don’t know why they choose warmer waters when all other porpoises prefer cooler water,    but what we do know is what the waters of the Sea of Cortez are like and from this we can make an educated guess about why this particular area appeals to this small porpoise.
 
The Sea of Cortez is an area teeming with aquatic life. After thousands of years of run-off from the Colorado River, life-supporting nutrients have built up on the bottom of this body of water. Strong currents stir up these nutrients and many species of animals take advantage of that.
 
In this natural inlet, there are 23 priority sites for marine biodiversity, 42 priority sites for terrestrial biodiversity, and 62 priority sites for bird conservation. Dubbed as the “Aquarium of the World” by Jaques Cousteau, the Gulf of California is recognized as an area of global marine conservation significance. Five of the seven existing species of sea turtle are found in the Sea of Cortez. It is home to 891 different fish species, 90 of them are endemic. It also contains 40% of the world’s total number of species of marine mammal. 40 sea lion colonies are spread throughout the area with an estimated population of over 30,000 individuals. And 1/3 of the world’s marine cetacean species can be found here at some time throughout their lives. There is even a healthy coral reef community off the coast of the seaside town of Cabo Pulmo. It is considered the only coral reef at such a high latitude in the Pacific Ocean. 
 
Another remarkable fact about the Sea of Cortez is that almost all major oceanographic processes occurring in Earth’s oceans are present in this body of water. Oceanographic processes are defined on the USGS website as recurrent natural changes that are physical, biological, or chemical, actively affecting the the seas and oceans. In the Sea of Cortez sediment runoff from the land occurs depositing minerals into the water, this area is also still actively expanding essentially creating a new ocean, turbulent tides and currents mix up the sediments from both expansion and runoff.  Of course not all sediment from runoff is good but this area has been protected as an important natural refuge since 1995. 
 
The sea floor below the gulf is actually made up of 2 types of crust, oceanic and continental. This combination creates a unique environment where marine mammals can thrive. The bay is an underwater marvel with 4,000 foot deep submarine canyons, enormous underwater mountains, and hydrothermal vents crawling with life. The hydrothermal vents were discovered about 50 years ago, and in 2008 biologists from the Scripps Institute of Oceanography documented marine animals previously never seen alive. All of this activity makes the Sea of Cortez the most biologically rich body of water on the planet. It’s no wonder that this is where the vaquita calls home.
 
Being a porpoise, the vaqutia are toothed mammals. Their teeth are spade-shaped   and flat, so they kinda look like the head of a shovel. They are perfect teeth for eating fish, squid, and even crab or lobster. We’ve actually found 17 different species of fish in the stomach of one vaquita. They are not terribly picky about who they eat and what a perfect place to live with so many species of fish found in the Gulf of California!
 
Now, as many of you know, when something has this much biodiversity it attracts more than just animas in nature, it also attracts humans. Many of the animals that live in and around the water make for good eating for humans. This means fishing occurs in the area. If it was just a few humans fishing for their daily dinner this wouldn’t be a problem. Even if it was the local town fishing to provide food for everyone that lived there, it wouldn’t be a problem. But humans rarely take only what they need for themselves, sadly, we are often motivated by how much profit can be made from a natural resource. This has put the vaquita in danger. I will focus another episode on the conservation status of the vaquita, but I’d like to touch on one of the fish in the area that our overfishing of has impacted the vaquita population, as well as, the fish itself.
 
The totoaba fish are found in the same exact area of the gulf as the vaquita. This fish can be 200 pounds and reach a length of 6.5 feet. It’s scientific name is Totoaba macdonaldi. It is considered a drum fish but it is the only fish classified in the Totoaba genus. What does that mean? There is no other fish like them on the planet.
 
The totoaba is endemic to the Gulf of California where it spawns each year in the Colorado River Delta. This fish is listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act because it has been overfished for entirely too long. Large fish, such as the totoaba, typically take many years to reach sexual maturity. When we fish for them, we often want the largest specimens and those are the ones that are sexually mature, which removes the individuals that will create the next generation from the environment.  
 
What is it that makes this fish so sought after? Their swim bladder. This is the organ in a fish that allows the fish to control its buoyancy. The totoaba’s swim bladder is used in traditional Chinese medicine. They dry it out and use it in a soup called fish maw. This is a pretty big swim bladder, when dried it is about the size of a laptop computer. Why do the Chinese want it? It is believed to boost fertility. 
 
How exactly is this impacting the vaquita. The adults of this species are not something the vaquita would eat because they are larger than the small porpoise. The problem comes with the fishing method. Most fisherman that commercially fish for totoaba want to catch as many as possible and; therefore, use gill nets. Gill nets are cast out and catch whatever they catch,  they are not a targeted fishing method. Vaquita get caught in the nest and cannot surface to get air and die. Because of overfishing of the totoaba, the vaquita are also incredibly endangered.
 
I hope you all enjoyed this trip to the Sea of Cortez because it is my second favorite thing about the vaquita. 
 
Please visit porpoise.org to find out even more about the vaquita and the totoaba and discover what you can do to help these unique animals.
 
Join me next week for another ten-minute episode focusing on the vaquita. 
 
(Piano Music plays) 
This has been an episode of Ten Things I like About with Kiersten and Company. Original music written and performed by Katherine Camp, piano extraordinaire.

Vaquita

Summary: What is a vaquita? Join Kiersten as she takes you under the sea to learn about this amazing porpoise.
 
For my hearing impaired listeners, a complete transcript of this podcast follows the show notes on Podbean.
 
Show Notes:
https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/525704/facts-about-the-vaquita
https://www.aquariumofpacific.org/onlinelearningcenter/species/vaquita
https://porpoise.org/save-the-vaquita/
https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/dolphin_porpoise.html
Vaquita Conservation Organizations
porpoise.org
 
Transcript
(Piano music plays)
Kiersten - This is Ten Things I Like About…a ten minute, ten episode podcast about unknown or misunderstood wildlife.
(Piano music stops)
 
Kiersten - Welcome to Ten Things I Like About… This is a podcast about misunderstood or unknown creatures in nature. Some we’ll find right out side our doors and some are continents away but all are fascinating. 
 
Just a bit about my background: My name is Kiersten and I have a Master’s Degree in Animal Behavior and did my thesis on the breeding behavior of the Tri-colored bat. I was a zookeeper for many years and have worked with all sorts of animals from Aba Aba fish to tigers to ravens to domesticated dogs and so many more in between. Many of those years were spent in education programs and the most important lesson I learned was that the more information someone has about a particular animal the less they fear them. The less they fear them the more they crave information about them and before you know it you’ve become an advocate for that misunderstood animal.
 
This podcast will focus ten, ten minute episodes on different animals and their amazing characteristics. Please join me on this fascinating journey, you won’t regret it.
 
This series of episodes will focus on the vaquita and my first favorite thing about the vaquita is, well, the vaquita!
 
What exactly is a vaquita? I’m so glad you asked. The vaquita is the smallest cetacean on the planet. Cetaceans are marine mammals in the order Cetacea which includes whales, porpoises, and dolphins. The vaquita is a porpoise. It is the smallest porpoise alive. 
 
The vaquita is also known as the Gulf of California porpoise, Gulf of California Harbor porpoise, cochita, and vaquita marina. Vaquita means “little cow” in Spanish and cochita means “little pig”. Both names are a reference to the grunting sounds they make. Their scientific name is Phocoena sinus which means “porpoise of the gulf” in Latin.
 
The vaquita was not officially named until 1958. The discovery of the vaquita is actually a strange but fascinating story involving three skulls found on the beach. In 1950, a University of California scientist named Kenneth Norris was walking along a beach north of Punta San Felipe in Baja, California when he came across a skull. It looked like the skull of a porpoise but not quite like others he had seen, so he decided to keep it for possible further research. (As a side note: he was able to do this because he was professor at a university with the correct permits to keep such items. Please do not pick up and keep skulls that you find on the beach today.) 
 
A year later colleagues of Professor Norris’s found two more similar skulls on the beach. Now that more than one example had been found, comparing them to other known cetacean skulls was the next step. When comparing the three skulls to other already identified cetacean skulls the scientists noticed enough considerable differences to conclude that this was a new, never-before-seen species of porpoise! Kenneth Norris published his findings in the Journal of Mammalogy in 1958 giving the vaquita the scientific name of Phocoena sinus meaning “porpoise of the gulf”.
 
It’s been 64 years since the discovery of the vaquita and we still know very little about their natural history, but we do know what they look like, so let’s talk about that. 
 
  As I mentioned before, the vaquita is small at only 4 to 5 feet in length and can  weigh up to 100lbs. Females tend to be larger than males. They have a typical porpoise shaped body that is curved and robust. The middle of the body will measure about 68% of the total body length. They have a small mouth with a slight protrusion of the upper jaw at the base of the melon, aka their head. Their dorsal fin, the fin on their back, is upright and relatively large when compared to other porpoise species. They have two front flippers on the under side at the front of the body with a double lobed tail. 
 
Their coloration is like a painted masterpiece with medium gray on the upper body fading to light gray halfway down their sides. The throat and belly are streaked with white like the organic strokes of a master painter. The mouth is ringed in black like perfectly applied lipstick, giving them the look of a know-it-all smile. A dark gray steak runs from the mouth to the flippers expanding as it reaches the flippers covering them in the same dark gray color. The eye is ringed with black and outlined with white. They are truly one of the most beautiful porpoises in the sea. 
 
The dorsal fins of vaquitas are unique enough they can be used like name tags. To study vaquitas in the wild, scientists needed a way to identify them without getting so close as to disturb their natural behavior, so they looked for something that would be easily seen from a distance. A big, ‘ole fin sticking up from their back fit the bill. The dorsal fins of marine mammals are often nicked or notched from various activities performed throughout their lives. Each individual vaquita dorsal fin will be unique to themselves. Scientists caught on quickly and took high resolution photos of the fins and created an ID guide for the animals they were researching. In 2008, they complied a photo ID catalog to help record the daily activities of the vaquitas.
 
One last thing before we finish up our first episode of the vaquita. I’ve been using the term porpoise a lot and want to clarify the difference between a porpoise and a dolphin. Many people use these two words interchangeably but they are two completely different animals. 
 
The difference is in their appearance including their faces, their fins, and their figures. Dolphins have elongated mouths called beaks while porpoises have very, short mouths that do not protrude past the head. The dorsal fin of dolphins is more curved or hooked while dorsal fins of the porpoise is more triangular. And in general, the dolphin’s body is more lean while our porpoise is a bit more portly. 
 
Dolphins also tend to be more talkative than porpoises but both are capable of making sound. Dolphins are definitely more prevalent than porpoises with 32 species of dolphin and only 6 species of porpoise. 
 
Just as a funny side note for all you trivia fans out there, the word ‘porpoise’ comes from the Latin porcus meaning ‘pig’ and piscis meaning ‘fish.’ So ‘porpoise’ technically means ‘pig fish’. 
 
Thank you for joining me for the first episode of Ten Things I Like About the Vaquita. 
 
Please visit porpoise.org to find out even more about the vaquita and discover what you can do to help this unique animal.
 
Join me next week for another ten-minute episode focusing on the vaquita. 
 
(Piano Music plays) 
This has been an episode of Ten Things I like About with Kiersten and Company. Original music written and performed by Katherine Camp, piano extraordinaire.

Pangolins: Conservation Organizations

Summary: Pangolins are in danger of extinction but there are people out there trying to help. Join Kiersten as she highlights four organizations that are working toward saving the pangolin.
 
For my hearing impaired listeners, a complete transcript of this podcast follows the show notes on Podbean.
 
Show Notes:
Save Pangolins: https://www.savepangolins.org
Zoological Society of London: https://www.zsl.org
Rare and Endangered Species Trust Namibia: https://www.restnamibia.org
Save Vietnam’s Wildlife: svw.vn
 
Transcript
(Piano music plays)
Kiersten - This is Ten Things I Like About…a ten minute, ten episode podcast about unknown or misunderstood wildlife.
(Piano music stops)
 
Kiersten - Welcome to Ten Things I Like About… I’m Kiersten, your host, and this is a podcast about misunderstood or unknown creatures in nature. Some we’ll find right outside our doors and some are continents away but all are fascinating. 
 
This podcast will focus ten, ten minute episodes on different animals and their amazing characteristics. Please join me on this extraordinary journey, you won’t regret it.
 
This episode concludes pangolins and my tenth favorite thing about pangolins is all the organizations trying to help keep these amazing animals alive.
 
I want to highlight some organizations that are working to try and help pangolins survive. Each organization that I talk about in this episode is one that I recommend supporting because they are doing amazing work in pangolin conservation.
 
Save Pangolins
Save Pangolins is an organization that supports conservation actions in Africa and Asia and raises public awareness of pangolins around the world. The first step to successful conservation efforts is education and awareness. If people don’t know what’s going on with wildlife they have no idea that they need to help. Save Pangolins publicizes the need for pangolin conservation through their extensive social media campaigns and facilitates communication between conservation organizations about pangolins. 
 
They are also a fund raising organization and offer support through three granting programs
 
1. Pangolin Crisis Fund: Is a program run in connection with Wildlife Conservation Network that invests in the best projects to stop the poaching of pangolins, stop the trade and demand for pangolin products, and raise the profile of the little known pangolin. They work in 26 countries with 45 projects and 31 grantees. PCF maintains a 100% donation model meaning all the money donated goes directly to the projects they support.
 
2. Pangolin Champions Fund: This program supports individual conservationists who are emerging leaders in pangolin conservation. They are currently funding 12 passionate, committed, and inspiring pangolin conservationists.
 
3. Innovation Grants: This funds key projects that are creative and innovative and are often harder to find support for such as ATREE, the Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment that is currently researching how many pangolins are left in the Darjeeling Himalaya region of India and how agricultural land my be affecting their survival. In Africa, they are supporting the Tikki Hywood Foundation and Pangolin.Africa to develop new fencing technology to save pangolins from electrocution on electric fences used throughout South Africa.
 
Zoological Society of London
Our second organization is the Zoological Society of London. They have a diverse conservation branch that focuses on saving wildlife from disappearing by working with local communities on monitoring animal populations and habitat use, educating the world about what is happening with the wildlife around the planet, and supporting conservation programs in situ, which means on site where the animal lives, to make the biggest impact for that specific species.
 
ZSL is working on over 50 conservation projects around the world and protecting pangolins is one of those projects. In 2015, ZSL launched the Pangolin Conservation Initiative. This was a two-year program that help protect four species of pangolin, the giant pangolin, the black-bellied pangolin, the whit-bellied pangolin, and the Sunda pangolin from the black market trade through supporting anti-poaching patrols and law enforcement at sites in Cameroon and Thailand. 
 
In Cameroon, the ZSL team trained and equipped eco-guards to undertake anti-poaching patrols using the SMART method. SMART stands for Spatial Monitoring and Reporting Tool. This technology lets law enforcement agencies focus their resources on hotspots of trafficking activity.
 
ZSL also got the community involved by establishing programs to empower locals to report traffickers through anonymous informants and setting up surveillance networks and secure reporting mechanisms. 
 
In Thailand, ZSL also helped set up the SMART technology with the Department of National Parks and Wildlife and Plant Conservation in two key areas that are important to the Sunda pangolin. They also tested various survey methods to determine the population of the Sunda pangolin so that we can determine whether the conservation efforts in use are effective.
 
ZSL knows that supporting these programs is important, but to save these pangolins from extinction due to poaching we must eradicate the demand for pangolin products. So they delved into the market demand to determine why pangolins are being sold so they could develop a public education outreach program to let people know about how these products are affecting pangolin populations.
 
With the information gained from this program, ZSL was able to do the same in Nepal with the local law enforcement there and to reach out to local hunters to help identify sustainable livelihoods as an alternative to hunting pangolins. 
 
Rare and Endangered Species Trust - Namibia
The third organization I’ll highlight is REST Namibia. It is a non-profit organization founded in 2000 to spotlight the plight of five groups of animals in Namibia including vultures, frogs, snakes, dik dik, and pangolins. REST stands for Rare and Endangered Species Trust and they are based in Namibia. Their mission statement is “To initiate and support the scientific and practical study of rare and endangered species in Namibia and to help develop and facilitate  solutions to conservation problems among these species at community, national, and international levels .”
 
REST has successfully rehabilitated Cape pangolin babies and adults that are rescued from poachers. They are an invaluable source of information about how to keep them alive in captivity and have shone a light on Cape pangolin behaviors in the wild. This is the home to the most famous pangolin named Honeybun. She was a Cape pangolin rescued from poachers and now resides at the facility but forages for ants in the surrounding land. A REST volunteer follows her around whenever she is on a walk-about and we are learning so much about their behavior because Honeybun does not fear humans. She will one day be on her own out in the wild but if you’d like to see Honeybun in action check out the PBS Nature video titled “The World’s Most Wanted Animal”.
 
Save Vietnam’s Wildlife
Our Fourth organization is Save Vietnam’s Wildlife a non-profit organization in Vietnam that was founded on the critical need for more effective solutions to secure a future for Vietnam’s wildlife.
 
They are involved with wildlife rescue and rehabilitation, habitat protection, education outreach, conservation research, and conservation breeding.
 
The wildlife they rescue are individuals confiscated by the authorities from illegal poachers. Vietnam’s wildlife is poached and illegally traded for consumption, traditional medicine, pets, and souvenirs. SVW takes in those confiscated animals, provides veterinary care and releases those they can into protected areas to give them the best advantage for continued survival. 
 
They have rescued 1,591 pangolins. Those that are releasable are taken to places that are difficult for poachers to travel to so they are not re-caught and those that cannot survive in the wild are kept at their facility. By keeping these pangolins in captivity, they are on the forefront of learning how to keep pangolins healthy and alive in a captive setting. This is valuable information to the future of pangolins.
 
SVW also makes it a goal to educate local people about the plight of the pangolin. Their mission statement is bringing communities and conservation together. The only way forward to a future filled with both humans and animals living together successfully is education.
 
If you are looking for a way to help with pangolin conservation, please consider donating to one of these originations. You can find links to their websites in the show notes of this episode.  Also consider recommending this podcast to someone you know. Thank you for joining me on this pangolin journey, I truly hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.
 
Join me next week for the first ten-minute podcast focusing on the vaquita.  
 
(Piano Music plays) 
 
This has been an episode of Ten Things I like About with Kiersten and Company. Original music written and performed by Katherine Camp, piano extraordinaire.