[00:00:00] Speaker A: Join the new Rewadology Book Club and learn how to support the
[email protected] wow, what a wild four years it has been. Rewadology has just reached its fourth birthday and what better way to celebrate than with a laid back, fun filled conversation over drinks with a great friend.
Welcome to Rewildology, the nature podcast that explores the human side of conservation, travel and rewilding the planet. I am your host, Brooke Mitchell, conservation biologist and adventure traveler.
Today's episode marks the third installment of the Nature Happy Hour series where I sit down with my good friend and Fellow conservation scientist Dr. Charles von Rees, Ph.D. for an unfiltered chat about all things nature, conservation and life.
In this special birthday episode, Charles and I take a moment to reflect on Rewildology's journeys, the highs, the lows, and everything in between.
We also unveil some exciting updates, or bombs, as Charles calls them, about the future of the show before diving into this episode's theme, new horizons. From newly discovered species to thrilling rediscoveries of those thoughts lost to time, we explore the wonder of nature's ongoing surprises before we dive in. I want to thank today's sponsor, Sea Turtles, spelled S E E Turtles. Sea Turtles mission is to connect people with sea turtles in meaningful, personal and memorable ways and help the sea turtle community connect, grow and thrive by supporting community based conservation efforts. I've personally admired sea turtles work for years and I'm so excited that they're sponsoring this episode. If you're inspired by this conversation and want to take action, check out seaturtles.org rewild to learn five ways you can help sea turtles from joining a conservation trip to. To saving a baby turtle and even fighting the illegal trade. Plus, Rewildology listeners can get $50 off of a conservation trip by using the promo code rewild.
All right, everyone, grab your favorite drink, get comfortable and join us as we toast to the past, present and future of Rewild.
Well, Charles, I could not be more excited to celebrate the show's fourth birthday with you and having a Nature Happy hour. So first, cheers.
[00:02:55] Speaker B: Cheers indeed. To Rewild Olives.
[00:02:57] Speaker A: Cheers. Yes. To Click.
Nothing like a virtual clink.
[00:03:03] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:03:05] Speaker A: Yeah. Wow. I just. I just can't believe it, you know? Like, it's just that it's been four years, 200 episodes, 40 countries. Over 40 countries.
I don't even know how many people have been on the show. I stopped keeping track. It's, I don't know, 130 plus.
[00:03:23] Speaker B: Yeah, you've got A serious roster going.
[00:03:26] Speaker A: Yeah. And then the theme for today I thought would be really cool to explore with you is New Horizons.
So, you know, reflecting back on the past four years of the show, looking into the future for both of us, you know, both exciting things that we have going on because a lot has happened for you. Can't believe it's been a year since we sat down. This is crazy.
[00:03:48] Speaker B: Yeah, I was completely floored when you answered that. I figured it had been maybe six months or something, but quick year.
[00:03:55] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, yes, a lot happened in this time period and yeah, so announcing like a whole lot of exciting things that I'm into. That you're going to be into. And then the theme of today with just new species and recovering new species. So new horizons all around. All the way around.
[00:04:16] Speaker B: So thinking about four years of rewildology, that is like you said, that's incredibly fast. And I think that's incredibly fast because of the amount of work that you've been putting into this. I mean, it's just especially as someone who, you know, has also been trying to do their own thing on the side with Gulo and nature and everything, I am so inspired by how much you put into the podcast and rewildologist and all the sort of related, you know, content, that kind of family of content coming out of it.
I mean, what, what sort of habits and strategies have you been using to, you know, that have, that have worked over that time period that have led to what we're kind of seeing now? I mean, because it's, it, it's an amazing growth, it's an amazing transformation. I still am astonished just thinking about talking, talking with you when you were, you know, getting it started in the first place.
And to see it come that far in that amount of time, I'm still kind of perplexed. You know, it's just amazing.
[00:05:28] Speaker A: Habits. Wow, that's actually really good question because I haven't thought too much about that.
I think the thing that I always have done from the very beginning is just always trying to improve and whatever that means because, you know, like when you're a one person show and I had no background in this, you know what I mean? Like I didn't, I didn't go to school, I didn't go to audio engineering school. I went to, you know, pretty hardcore science background that I have. And so there was no teaching on these kinds of things. Luckily during my master's I was exposed to other forms of education.
So that was super helpful and inspiring. And the more I Think about it. Maybe it was all of my schooling and like doing and working several jobs at the same time as doing school. So I think I always had this habit of doing maybe too much.
[00:06:31] Speaker B: Just the hustle. I mean.
[00:06:33] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:06:34] Speaker B: Amazing.
[00:06:35] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. So always focus, finding time. And I think maybe the structure of the show is what's helped me get it to the point that it is today is because it was a weekly show. And when you're a weekly show, that means every single week you need to be accountable. And I've never viewed this from my point of view in a sense where like, this show has never been about me. It's always been about the people that I have on in the community that I'm trying to foster and elevate and get voices out. And so even on the days where it was really hard, we're like, I do not want to open audio freaking audition again and edit another file and watch another YouTube video on how to do this and how to make this better and better. But the days that I would get lost in that mindset because it's so easy to do as you know, you know, when it's like when you have all this stress of wanting to be as perfect as you possibly can. And then, you know, a lot of stuff that happened in my personal life that I'm more than happy to talk about, it was. It got really hard to get outside of myself at many times. But when I remember the bigger picture of what all this is about, that helps me get back on the train to continue building this further and further.
And even in the times I. I almost shut this down several times. Charles, to be completely honest.
[00:08:08] Speaker B: No, I mean, that's a. That's a long and difficult journey. And I think it is for. I think anybody who. Who's done any kind of self starting stuff like this can relate.
[00:08:16] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. And one thing that I did say when I first started this was if you do this, Brooke, you will do it for five years.
And like come hell or high water, little did I know that hell was going to come. That even through that, even through all those things that like, you will find a way to make this work and just see what happens. You know, this is a total experiment from the beginning. I never done anything like this before.
I never led. I guess you can call it a company now, but not really. Like, I never been at the helm of something. I never had a big creative project like this that I've ever done. So just the discipline of showing up every single day, even if that day Wasn't that much.
[00:09:06] Speaker B: Yeah, that's huge.
[00:09:07] Speaker A: And then finding the balance of trying to step away from it too. Cause that's also been really hard for me. That's actually probably been harder, to be honest, to like, step away at times when I'm feeling overwhelmed. And you could probably relate too, like when you make your passion like your purpose for why. Why ever all of us are put on this planet. Apparently my purpose was to be like a conduit for these wild stories and the people on the ground. Like, that's what I was here for. And when you build everything around your passion in your life, sometimes it's so, so hard to shut it off.
[00:09:44] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely.
[00:09:45] Speaker A: There's always more to do.
My to do list never ends. And so finding that cutoff point. So, yeah, I think from a habit standpoint, it was like always looking to improve.
Showing up every single day, if not for me, for those that were, you know, coming on and sharing their stories with me and therefore the rewaterology community and.
Yeah, yeah. Lots of YouTube videos. Lots of YouTube videos.
Okay, teach me how to do this. You do?
[00:10:22] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah, that's just. That's just like modern skill acquisition, right?
[00:10:28] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:10:29] Speaker B: So. Okay, follow up question. It's gonna. It's gonna seem irrelevant, but I promise it's not. Were you. Were you a Girl Scout?
[00:10:37] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:10:38] Speaker B: Did you ever do Rosebud Thorn?
[00:10:42] Speaker A: I don't know. I don't think so. I don't know if I got that far.
[00:10:45] Speaker B: I feel betrayed by my. By my Girl Scout friends because they were the ones who taught me Rosebud Thorn and told me it was a universal Girl Scout thing. We'll have.
[00:10:53] Speaker A: Oh, wow.
[00:10:54] Speaker B: There's any Girl Scouts in the audience that can give us feedback on that. But Rosebud Thorne. Have you heard of it?
[00:11:00] Speaker A: No. Maybe I've, like, forgot about this. I don't know.
[00:11:04] Speaker B: I love it. It's a. It's a very nice kind of reflection practice where you try to pick out from the past X amount of time. In this case, four ski beer. Beer was a terrible choice.
I'm gonna. I'm gonna start sounding like Rick Sanchez pretty soon and just like belching all my science out. Okay, I'm gonna try.
[00:11:27] Speaker A: I will laugh hysterically.
[00:11:30] Speaker B: I mean, who knows? It may be what happens.
Okay, so rosebudthorn, you pick from the last, in this case, four years of rewildology.
A rose, which is like something that was really awesome and nice that happened in those four years. A thorn, which was decidedly not so nice and kind of the opposite. You could think of it as high point, low point, and then a bud, which is a thing that, like, you're looking forward to or a thing that started the, like, where's this going to go? You know, like the, the. The.
The. What would you call that? The prospective vision. Right, for the future. Yeah, yeah. I don't know if it would. If you would find it useful, but that would, that would. That's my first instinct when I think of like the fourth birthday of rewildology, which, honestly, we need to be serious. I think you need a nice cake. But. Yeah. What would be your rosebud thorn dcing?
[00:12:27] Speaker A: Oh, okay. So let's start with the rose. I love roses. I actually have a rose tattoo. As cliche as that sounds.
I was 19. So, hey, @ least a little bit of grace.
[00:12:38] Speaker B: Cool, creative ways to do that. It doesn't have to be, you know, I do actually.
[00:12:43] Speaker A: It's so funny. Okay, maybe this is, like, ingrained in me because the reason why I love roses is because they're so beautiful and yet they also have thorns so that something so beautiful that can be put on this planet but still have something as potentially painful and, you know, very classic rock deterring. Yes. Very, very metal of me. You're right. Like me and my metal ways, since that's my favorite genre. But anyways, so rose. Rose would be. Oh, my gosh. This is this whole thing, like, the number of skills that I've developed in the past four years, I would have never been able to do otherwise. Like to think that my undergrad was four years. The show has been running for four years. My master's was three years. So, like, I have. I have seven years of, you know, like, post secondary education.
And this show has been running for as long as my undergraduate degree. That cost me a lot of money at Ohio State.
[00:13:45] Speaker B: Sure.
[00:13:46] Speaker A: And so, like, the.
The amount of skills that I've obtained at that time is wild. Just to the point, you know, where it got me poached, where my former company brought, like, poached me back to essentially run their show, which is like, absolutely freaking crazy. And so, like, that's on like, a personal level, like, I can't believe that I've developed these skills to the point where it's like being recognized by these other platforms, other people, these other companies, and they want that as part of their company. Like, that's so freaking cool. And then just the experiences and the opportunities that this show has led me. I would have never dreamed in my life, like, like, you, like, you Are a. I would consider you a fantastic close friend now and I never would have met you if it wasn't for this. And all of just the beautiful humans that I have met through this, not to mention the places I've gone around the world to interview in the field.
And that will hopefully be the future part. We'll get into that. The bud of that I could have never dreamed of the opportunities that this has given me when I started it, I never would have foreseen it. So that just the, the whole thing as a whole is the beautiful rose like, like reality as a whole. And I mean the growth become you.
[00:15:14] Speaker B: Know, the people that you were pulling in after just a few months. I mean I was blown away having been in on like you know, some of the conversations that went into it. Started starting and developing to see what was happening. I mean I was floored have been.
[00:15:32] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Because you came on we were like episode 36 or something like that. You were in the 30s which you know in hindsight it's like baby. That's baby show in comparison to 200.
[00:15:45] Speaker B: But you had like already done so much which is so wild because I think when we, when we were first talking you were really early in the whole thing.
[00:15:52] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. And so thorn.
Hmm.
I think two things for thorns, a double sided thing. I think one thorn is finding a way to cope with and be okay with.
It may be growing at the rate that you want it to or any negative feedback that you get for something that you care so passionately about. Especially when you're trying to bring stories from people that probably have never had an opportunity to speak about their work. So like that is really hard.
And going back to one of the habits thing time like just the amount of time that this takes when you know, like I don't do as many social things as a extroverted person as myself would normally do because I'm working on this. You know, like there's no such thing as vacations when you're working on a show like this. Like so finding that separation really truly is hard because there's nobody else that's going to do the work if I don't. You know, I've been on planes to Nepal to wherever buying the Internet package. So like try to get some social media posts scheduled, you know, just so that this thing can keep running because there's nobody else to do that.
[00:17:31] Speaker B: Right.
[00:17:32] Speaker A: So that has been definitely hard to manage. That that's been a big thorn is just the number of hours it's taken to do It And I pretty sure that any single person that has built everything, they know exactly what I'm talking about. Like just the behind the scene hours that nobody sees you do. That is you by yourself. You're not. There's no. You don't have any cheerleaders around you and yet you're still doing it. You're showing up every single day and you're skipping the parties, you're skipping the happy hours. All of your extra money is like, I would technically have way more money. Not way more money. Oh my God. That's not the way to put that. I would have more money than I do now.
[00:18:14] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:18:15] Speaker A: In my savings account.
[00:18:16] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:18:16] Speaker A: It costs money because I've been putting it in this. So that's a thorn. But Bud, I love this. This would definitely be the new Horizons idea. Everything that is coming and I wanted to use this episode to announce them. So the show is going to go to themed seasons. So we. I am stopping the weekly episode interview style.
[00:18:43] Speaker B: Mm.
[00:18:44] Speaker A: And while it has been so much fun and it has given me more skills than I can imagine, I feel like my skills have moved beyond that and I want to do much more in depth storytelling. And going to theme seasons will allow me to do that. It'll allow a lot more creative freedom to tell stories and to give a lot more historical context and issues and stuff. And also I think it'll help reach a lot more people when you're telling stories. Like, who doesn't want to listen to stories? And for those who didn't listen to my pants and all series or those who did, that was an experiment that was like, can I do this style?
Can I try something new? And that went so well. And that alone, man, that expanded my skill set. It was the hardest thing I've ever done.
[00:19:32] Speaker B: Sure. Yeah. Research muscles, right?
[00:19:35] Speaker A: Wow. That was so hard. And it was phenomenal. Like turning this. Because I'd never done anything like that before. We were turning this an in the field experience research and turning it into like a chronological story, multiple part story in audio form. Like what? I'd never done that.
[00:19:54] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:19:55] Speaker A: And so that that style was so fun and so rewarding that that is what the show is going to move towards. And I was thinking because I. I'm getting so many pitches anymore to the show, it's like crazy. And a lot of them are really good episodes. So I was thinking about possibly also having like in betweener sodes. I don't know what to call them. But like just.
[00:20:20] Speaker B: Yeah, no, there's fun episodes. What do they call that, I feel like Netflix shows and stuff have done that. Right, like between seasons.
[00:20:28] Speaker A: Yeah, like, like betweeners or something. Like, yeah, like so. So if there's like a credible story, because you and I talked about, like, I would love to have, you know, these happy hours and we could do those in between the seasons, but they would be one offs. They would not be part of these bigger seasons. So still having these stories and then expanding a lot more article stuff on the show, like bringing people on and like let's turn your story into an article and give that form, form of media too to everybody. Because that doesn't exist right now. Like right now all of these stories are in audio form, but what if they were also in written form? So that is another big thing that's coming up in 2025 is turning a lot of these phenomenal stories into articles that people can also read and go along with the podcast episode and then also future stories as well. Because I have the numbers keep piling up of things and different ideas. And so yeah, the first season I'll go ahead and announce it here and so those that listen will know what it's going to be. And it's going to be Patagonia. So I was in Patagonia last year. I was down there with a phenomenal tourism company called Birch Chile and also partly sponsored by the tourism board. And I got to go around and meet some absolutely incredible conservationist working on some of the biggest issues all through the root of the parks. So I started it in port a month up in the north and went all the way down to Dippy Dippy Dippy south of Patagonia and Chile. And so that's going to be the first season and it's probably going to be a seven or eight part series, I haven't quite quite nailed it down all the way. And fingers crossed I will launch this on World Rewilding Day in March. So assuming I can get everything produced in time, that's when that'll be coming down. So everyone stay in the know for that. And who knows, might be a couple of in between episodes in between. We'll see what things come around, come up and then what else? What else is Future 4 exciting? Oh, the Rewatology Book Club.
I like this announcing this year as well. I've always wanted to develop a like a true community around watology and one of the only ways that podcasters do this is with a subscription model. And while that is a fantastic way for a lot of shows like monetize their show and get support and all that kind of stuff. I just. I don't know, I just couldn't put things behind a paywall. Maybe I should be more money motivated than I am, I don't know. But I never developed a subscription model, even though a lot of people advised me to. And then this wonderful idea came to start this book club. And my amazing friend, Katie Prop, she is the chief operating officer at Penguins International and she's a really good friend and she's like one of the most extroverted people I've ever met in my life. She is a beautiful human.
[00:23:29] Speaker B: Like more extroverted than you or girl. Always talking to like.
[00:23:34] Speaker A: Yes, like somehow she's way more extroverted than me. Yeah, it's quite impressive. But she's going to be leading it. So she is the moderator of the book club. She's been in a lot of book clubs. And so we're going to be, fingers crossed. A lot of the authors that have been on the show, I'm going to feature them in the book club.
[00:23:57] Speaker B: Oh, that's neat.
[00:23:58] Speaker A: And I already have one big name lined up for. For one of the meetings that we're going to be having. So everybody, if you wanna be part of a conservation and environmental book club, join the Rebotology book club and have a chance to at least ask the authors that are on the show or like a part of the book club and also part of this that were on the show your questions after reading the books. And then if I can, fingers crossed, I will also have them in our book club meetings.
So cool.
[00:24:29] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:24:32] Speaker A: So that'll be. So I'm announcing it right now. This is it. This is gonna say.
[00:24:38] Speaker B: You'Re just straight dropping bombs. Like, I didn't know. I didn't know there was gonna be this level of like intense. Oh, by the way, stuff happening on this episode. Dang. Okay. Okay. Wow.
[00:24:51] Speaker A: The bomb.
[00:24:51] Speaker B: Wow. All right.
[00:24:52] Speaker A: So 2025 is going to be a big year. So yeah, the show is switching and I really hope that everybody is happy with the switch. I mean, I don't know. Of course this is a big. A big change, but I feel like it'll bring new people into the community because the episodes are long form. I love long form. I mean, the current episodes, they're all also pretty technical.
I feel like most of them are probably like college level stuff that we talk about and touch upon in episodes. And so I hope that this will help reach new ear holes and eyeballs and it's one way to put it.
Bring more People into it. Yeah. So other big, exciting things that I also can't quite announce because they're not 100% yet.
[00:25:47] Speaker B: Yeah. There are some top secret bombs out there too.
[00:25:50] Speaker A: Yeah. Let's just hope that YouTube is going to be the main platform of the show moving forward. But to do that, there's a lot of other things that have to be finalized. So I will just drop that bomb as like a teaser for maybe 2026.
[00:26:05] Speaker B: I'm going to stop using the B word before, like the FBI comes after us.
But yes, a pretty. A pre teaser. Good to know. Very, very. Yeah.
[00:26:17] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:26:18] Speaker B: Way to keep us in the edge of our seats.
[00:26:20] Speaker A: Yeah.
So that is. That's what's for the show's fourth birthday.
[00:26:27] Speaker B: Happy birthday.
[00:26:28] Speaker A: All the things. Yes, yes. Patagonia theme seasons. The second season will more than likely not be in the field, but it'll be a themed story arc and it'll hopefully be very, very, very exciting topics. I'm going for the scary hard topic that it's going to be kind of hard to kneel down, so. Because it'll be that it'll be so cool. If I can get this, if I can do it, it'll be awesome.
[00:26:54] Speaker B: I'm big.
[00:26:55] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Cause I have a backup. I have a backup season. If this one can't come to come through. To come through to for me. But it should. I think it will.
[00:27:06] Speaker B: That's the professional approach. That's how you know that you're a professional. You've got that.
[00:27:10] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:27:11] Speaker B: You've got that backup plan.
You didn't, you didn't pick up any, any bird interest while you were hanging out with all these bird people, did you? You didn't like, catch the bug, did you?
[00:27:24] Speaker A: I mean, I definitely love birds a lot more than I used to. Pantanal. It was the freaking pants and owl.
[00:27:29] Speaker B: Okay. Yes, I do remember you talking about that. Yeah.
[00:27:32] Speaker A: The pants and now. Definitely sparked some bird interest. Especially now that I'm back in Ohio where there's a lot of migratory birds and stuff like that.
[00:27:43] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:27:43] Speaker A: And I. I need some bird friends to come out and show me where a lot of things are.
[00:27:48] Speaker B: Well, you and I gotta do Magee Marsh sometime. That's like. Yeah, I think we talked about it. That's like super, like North American bird Mecca. I've never been. I've had people tell me to go a million times. You know, it's not exactly in your neighborhood, but it's in Ohio.
[00:28:04] Speaker A: Anything in Ohio's driving distance. You know, now that you And I are not out west where like anything is pretty much in a reasonable distance out here in the eastern. Yeah, I mean, these states are still huge. Like, let's not get that wrong.
[00:28:17] Speaker B: But I think it was like a couple hours from you or something. Yeah, I don't know.
[00:28:22] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm totally down because I had no idea how many migratory owls are in Ohio.
Like, I, I just didn't know. Yeah, I just didn't know. But I'm like starting to get into these birding like you said.
[00:28:37] Speaker B: Here we go.
[00:28:38] Speaker A: This, this Ohio owl birding group and they're showing all these beautiful photos of like these short ear owls and, and even like where I grew up. Like, I had no clue. And then people from the north are photographing snow. Snowies.
[00:28:56] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:28:56] Speaker A: And posting snowies.
[00:28:58] Speaker B: Yeah, big time.
[00:28:59] Speaker A: I'm like, oh, my gosh. I love owls, but I'm a predator fan, so I'm not biased in my love of predators. If they're feathered or furry or scaly.
[00:29:09] Speaker B: Got it.
[00:29:11] Speaker A: Owls are cool.
[00:29:13] Speaker B: Yeah, I just. Winter's a cool time for owls showing up all over the darn place.
[00:29:18] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:29:19] Speaker B: Yeah, I just, I just got a picture from a friend of mine out in Montana whose friend had a saw wet owl hanging out in her chicken coop. And it was probably just like eating the mice that came to eat the chicken feed.
It was just chilling. Like it was totally, you know, just hanging out, having a nice time. Probably warm in there too.
[00:29:36] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. Last. Oh my gosh. What was that? Last January, I. For my last job, I was bringing back our big roaming bison and we have. We. Well, we. I don't work for that company anymore, but have this special Minnesota owls trip and I got to do a mini version of it at the Saxon Bog. And so I. It was my first time seeing a saw whet owl. I saw long ears while I was there in Minnesota.
[00:30:00] Speaker B: Yeah. Probably shorter too, right?
[00:30:02] Speaker A: Yes. And then.
Oh, what's the little one that looks like a football? Oh, no, it's badass.
[00:30:11] Speaker B: There's a boreal owl that's really tiny. I don't know who else shows up there.
[00:30:16] Speaker A: Oh my gosh. I'd have to look this up. Oh my God.
[00:30:18] Speaker B: Did he have ears or.
[00:30:18] Speaker A: No, no, no, that thing. But it was freaking sweet. And then I also saw a great gray.
[00:30:27] Speaker B: Oh, dang. Wow.
[00:30:29] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:30:29] Speaker B: That's a serious owl.
[00:30:31] Speaker A: Yeah, I saw a great gray. I also saw an ermine and a pine martin, which obviously I like lost my mind over.
[00:30:40] Speaker B: Those are. Yeah, exactly. I mean, close cousins of My. Of my namesake. So I'm a big fan.
[00:30:46] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. Of Gulo. Absolutely. Absolutely. So, yeah, I definitely love owls.
Yeah. I finally saw. Saw what?
Cute little things.
But yeah. Yeah. So I would also love to ask you, Mr. Professor at UGA.
[00:31:07] Speaker B: Right.
[00:31:08] Speaker A: What.
[00:31:10] Speaker B: Yeah, we. What do you think? Football season didn't go quite as hot as. As we might have been.
[00:31:17] Speaker A: As mine.
[00:31:18] Speaker B: Yeah.
As. As I was just finding out before this call, which probably tells you how much I care about football.
My complete lack of awareness. But congratulations to all. Whoops. To all y'all black guys out there. Oops. Hold on.
[00:31:33] Speaker A: This champion. Small friends.
[00:31:37] Speaker B: Yeah. So my huge. My huge congratulations to all of y'all Buckeyes out there on your. Is that NCAA champs? Is that the corrections from your reaction? I'm gonna take that. I got that correctly.
[00:31:51] Speaker A: Yes, he did.
We're the Big Dogs. The Big Dogs. We won it all. Sorry, Bulldogs. We won.
[00:31:59] Speaker B: Yeah, I know. Speaking of SEC champs, at least.
Yeah, I guess you helped drop the bomb for me. But probably my biggest development from the last year is progressing whatever. Advancing, transitioning to an assistant professor position at the Odum School of Ecology at the University of Georgia.
Congrats. Thank you. Yeah, it was a whole. I mean, it's a much longer story than I can get into, but a very exciting one. But they were. There were opportunities popping up, and those led to suddenly a lot of other opportunities and interest at the school to have somebody with my particular s. Set of skills. Not to sound too Liam Neeson about it, but, yeah, I'm tremendously excited. I mean, it's a very different set of responsibilities. I'm know I'm leading a lab now, a research lab, so I'm taking on graduate students and starting a lot of new projects and really having the chance and the freedom and suddenly the kind of weight on me to do a lot of very new and innovative thinking and delving into branches of the science that I haven't done so much in before. So. So it's, you know, speaking of new horizons, it's a super exciting time on my end. So the. The Wildlife and Water Lab, the WWL at uga, has officially been born. We've got our own website. We're recruiting our first round of Ph.D. and master's students for next year and working on all sorts of new, you know, really exciting conservation biology projects. So. So I'm. I'm over the moon. I'm. I'm a little bit sleep deprived and hired from how the schedule's been, but it's yeah, it's already been just an absolute privilege. You know, I've loved working at the OM school the last couple years, and getting to shift into this capacity just feels like. Yeah, I mean, it feels like a privilege. It's a, it's such a rare opportunity and I get to just massively expand the scope and scale of my work. You know, suddenly I have scholars from across the globe reaching out and saying, you know, I'd love to do research with your lab in, in very far flung locations. And so for me, it, it really gets to part of why I got into this. You know, I, I've always wanted to do more international conservation work, and I started to feel weird about being a parachute scientist. Know, showing up someplace.
[00:34:41] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:34:41] Speaker B: And, and doing a bunch of work and taking all the glory or whatever. And suddenly now there are so many opportunities to train people who are going to go and do impactful work in other places and also to, to collaborate with people and make those connections to do work in Madagascar and Nepal and on and on from there. So, so yes, that's to drone on about it too long, but that's, that's my very exciting news, despite the disappointing news from the football side of things. But, yeah, I, I, that's a huge, you know, that's a huge new horizon for me.
[00:35:19] Speaker A: Yeah. So what are the main research topics or questions that your lab is going to be researching? Looking to answer all of those things.
[00:35:28] Speaker B: Great question.
And one that I've been definitely spending a lot of time on in the last, Yeah, I mean, in the last year, I sort of was trying to be prepared to answer questions about that when I was making the transition and interviewing at different departments and universities in the process of getting this professor job and the, the two sort of major ones, because I'm, I'm at a school of ecology, there has to be some, you know, some basic ecology, some fundamental science in there. And the fundamental science side of things is really based around questions pertaining to the interaction between, like, we talked about. And actually the podcast with you was like, gave me so much chance to think about this. I think it really inspired a lot of these topics. But this interaction between freshwater and ecosystems and how water is kind of a central driver in ecology and how it determines where species are and what they do and how ecosystems function and things like that. That's kind of like the nerdier ecological theory side. A lot of stuff having to do with that and how communities are structured and how, you know, wetland ecosystems function and things like that. And then on the Conservation side, there's a big focus on organisms that depend on freshwater or that are affected by our manipulations of freshwater. So on the negative side, right, how does our manipulation of the hydrological cycle affect wildlife?
And on the positive side, this nature based solutions angle that I've been getting so into that there's this huge global excitement right now around making new ecosystems or restoring ecosystems to have them help people. But at the same time, they can be helping wildlife in really huge ways. Right. Because a lot of time our conservation budgets are scratching the bottom of the wallet or whatever the expression is. We don't have a ton of money for conservation. But you talk to people who are, who are trying to protect cities from sea level rise or who are trying to prevent droughts and things like that, suddenly they have really deep pockets. And when they're, when they're investing that money in restoring ecosystems in ways that we could maybe have a win win situation that supports wildlife, suddenly instead of talking about, oh, maybe we can raise $10,000 to save this endangered bird, it's like, no, no, the budget on this project is 350 million. So let's make a big change and see what happens. So I've been having a tremendously fun time doing that type of work. And that's going to be the expanding part of the research in my lab is trying to work with civil engineers and economists and policymakers that are, that are working in that nature based solutions space and trying to find ways to make that really pay conservation dividends and be a major, you know, what's the word for that? Kind of like a, a windfall. Right, for conservation.
So those are the, those are kind of the two big prongs of the Wildlife and Water lab is like basic science side, conservation side, maybe a little, you know, interaction between the two. We'll see what happens.
[00:38:41] Speaker A: Yeah. How exciting. Oh my gosh. Next. And you can elaborate as much as you want, but you are a dear friend and I think I know what your thorn was this past semester.
[00:38:55] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:38:57] Speaker A: Let's just say that I am so, so happy and grateful to still have you here and everything that you went through. So I will just let you, you talk about that. Could you maybe elaborate on what it was like for you the past few months and what you went through and undergone and how you were able to keep moving forward in some really, really hard personal times? Because I would love to hear that too. How did you continue to reach to your personal goals and keep this brand new lab and all this exciting stuff that you had when you were going through something that was literally tearing your body apart, how did you do that?
[00:39:37] Speaker B: Yeah, man, you've got, you've got a knack for dropping all the good bombs here. Yeah, I mean, you know, in for those listening and not watching on YouTube, you know, I'm sporting a very different haircut than I did in our last few episodes or that I did for the last many years of my life.
So I am recently finished with a several month treatment plan of chemotherapy because I was diagnosed with stage two cancer in the middle of last summer. And so I spent the fall going through a very intensive chemotherapy regimen to deal with that cancer. And fortunately, as far as we could tell, I'm in the clear now, you know, and I'm just at that stage where I kind of have to hold my breath. Yes, that. Good point. Good point indeed. Yes.
So, you know, hopefully it stays that way. Statistically speaking, it usually does with this particular type of cancer. So I'm very grateful for that and I'm just, yeah, grateful to be living my, my life somewhat normally now, which is great.
But you know, as for getting through it, I think the major thing was I just had an enormous amount of support.
You know, I had people from the Odum School of ecology reaching out and helping or bringing me food or, you know, even just the leadership of the school saying, like, hey, look, like we know that you're in this really intense part of your career as a brand new professor. We know that you're dealing with a tenure clock and whatever. Like, we can accommodate this. Like, you know, we are invested in you in the long term.
Just focus on getting better. You know, we, we will handle the rest. Like, you know, and so there's been a lot of like, you know, rearranging of responsibilities and finding ways to cover for stuff that I couldn't do because I was, you know, immunocompromised and getting just wrecked by, by these intense treatments.
So that was, you know, I mean, that was amazing. And that was just not. You don't always expect that from an employer. I mean, as brutal as it sounds, you know, they didn't have to do that for me, but they did. They did. And a lot of people came through and helped take care of me. And then, you know, I also have a lot of friends at the mixed martial arts and jiu jitsu gym that I've been training at. And again, like tons of people showed up and were there to like, drive me in back and forth to appointments and to check up, check, check up on me and things like that and, you know, help get groceries and stuff, like things that, just very mundane, everyday things that I just couldn't do in my condition.
There were lots of other people that took care of me, so I don't know when people are kind of like, oh, you're such a fighter. You're so brave. You did it. I'm sort of like, okay, yeah, I, you know, I, I focused on getting the things done that I needed to do, but this wasn't me, you know, this was a lot of people really caring and doing something about it. And, and, and that's, I think that's the biggest kind of victory with this whole thing is, is those people, you know, doing really amazing stuff for somebody else. You know, I, I would not have gotten through that the way that I did without them. So I'm so, I'm enormously grateful for it.
But, yeah, you know, I, I wish them I could have something more like, more creative or less intense for a thorn. But, like, it happened, so that's definitely my thorn.
And yeah, I feel like other than that, it was a pretty sweet year.
[00:43:25] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. And I think one of our past conversations is just, it's crazy, like, hindsight's always 20 20, because I remember you were offered a different professor role and somewhere else, and you decided to stay with UGA and just how much they've cared for you and loved you.
Like, just imagine if you would have made the other decision, you know, and gone halfway across the freaking world again and all that stuff. You would have never known that when we were having long conversations, like, I do go here, do I stay here? And it's just, it's clear that you made the right decision, you know, not having known that you were going to get this diagnosis again and stuff like that. And so I just, I, yeah, it's been so inspiring to see you just come through everything that you have and come back strong and like, ready to go and resilient and, and like now everything's blossoming back again. It's like, okay, just get this out of the way while I'm young and healthy. We're done with this now. Time to do some epic shit for nature based solutions and conservation. We're done with this.
[00:44:39] Speaker B: Oh, man.
[00:44:40] Speaker A: Time to move forward.
[00:44:41] Speaker B: I gotta put that, I gotta put that slogan on the lab website now. Time to do some epic shit in presidency with HVA Solutions. Yeah, Bingo.
[00:44:54] Speaker A: Leave it to me to come up with your new slogan on the.
[00:44:58] Speaker B: Yeah, it's gonna be on the lab T shirts. You'll get a free one.
[00:45:01] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, I will totally support that at all times. Yes, please. I would love a.
What was it? Water and Wildlife Lab.
[00:45:11] Speaker B: Wildlife and Water Lab? Yeah, the wwf.
[00:45:14] Speaker A: Wow. Okay. My dyslexic. I got it right, but just backwards.
[00:45:17] Speaker B: I mean, does the order really matter? I mean.
[00:45:23] Speaker A: Oh, leave it to me. I do think I might be slightly dyslexic. I have moments like that all the time. I was like, wait, no, it's that. But exact opposite. Okay, got it, got it, got it.
Well, awesome. Okay, so I think it's time now to move new horizons in a different way. Charles, I would love to learn from you.
So there's been a lot of very exciting news at the end of last year of all of these new species rediscovered species. Just a lot of positive news about things that we're finding, you know, just these species that were either. Of course, I'm sure there was like local tribes and indigenous people that knew these species were here. But to western science, there's a lot of things that we didn't know existed beforehand, but now there's a lot more than we know.
[00:46:14] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:46:15] Speaker A: And this past year I sent you a ton of links. I know you did a whole bunch of research. So could you, from a scientist side a little bit, teach us. So how are new species discovered?
What does that mean?
[00:46:34] Speaker B: Amazing question.
First off, I definitely want to thank you for, you know, so explicitly acknowledging the role of indigenous and local people in all this.
This is something that I run into a lot in the sciences and it's exciting to see the awareness of it growing. Right. But yeah, I mean, anywhere you go in the world, or almost everywhere you go in the world, there are people who have been there and have these, what we, what we call in the business of kind of integrative conservation, long standing ties to place, people who have been there for thousands of years and of course they know what's going on, you know.
So, yes, a lot of the time, a lot of the time. Certainly not all the time, but a lot of the time when we discover new species, it's western science discovering new species. And I don't, I don't think that makes it less exciting or less monumentous necessarily because it is important that, you know, everybody in the world knows about these organisms.
So it is exciting for us to gain that awareness. But you're right, it's, it's, it's not always as, oh, for the first time ever as it would seem, you know, but there are plenty of cases where it is I don't know as much about it, but certainly most of the times when we send some submersible down into the, the, you, the, the, what is it? The aphotic zone and stuff like that way, the abyssal zone of the ocean. Yeah. There aren't any people who are indigenous to that region, and so no one's seen any of that stuff before that's basically going to Mars as far as.
[00:48:13] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
[00:48:16] Speaker B: But, yeah, a lot of time when it's, you know, in places that are inhabited by people, it's just, you know, we as Western scientists are catching up in a way, you know, so, so yeah, you were asking about kind of ways that we discover these new species. Right. Is that where you want to start?
[00:48:36] Speaker A: Yeah, because like, if somebody sees these headlines. Yeah, well, what exactly does that mean? Does that mean that somebody is like straight, like 1800s, like, going into the forest to explore these things?
[00:48:49] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:48:49] Speaker A: Is, does this mean that it's like, based on genetic code? Is that, what, what does discovering new species mean?
[00:48:58] Speaker B: Right. Yeah. And I've heard a lot of people, you know, spin it. Okay. And this is like, I, I, this is me. I need to put on my like, killjoy scientist hat for like a second and then I promise I'll stop because I'm not here to make everybody sad. Okay. But like, I hear a lot of people when there are these like, really exciting stories of new species, I hear people say, like, oh, this is good news for the planet. And I'm like, well, it's, it's good news for us because, like, we get to know about this new thing, but it's not necessarily good news for the plant. It's not like a new species just appeared. Right.
[00:49:35] Speaker A: Like, evolution's like, hello.
[00:49:38] Speaker B: Yeah. And like, it's not that, that, you know, doesn't happen. Like, like real time evolution happens. It just doesn't usually lead to, like, species. But like, you know, there is what we call contemporary, Contemporary evolution. But yeah, like, exactly. Like, we're, we're losing species all the time. We are having extinctions. That's real. But we're not exactly, we're not having new species compensating for that in any way.
What's happening is we're, you know, this species has always been here. Like, like most of them have been around for longer than, you know, humans have or Homo sapiens certainly are our species of, you know, hominid.
So they've always been around. From our perspective, this is, now is the first time that we as Western scientists are like, oh, My God, look at that thing. That's cool, right? Like, and I do so I do think it's cool and exciting, we're learning something new. But I don't think it's like, oh, this means that, like nature's healing, you know, it, it doesn't necessarily mean that. Okay, I'm done killing the joy. Okay, let's focus, let's focus on, on the joy there.
Yeah, like, like I said, I like that some of these articles, I don't know if you're going to be sharing any of them, but I like that some of the articles from this year talk about the fact that like many of these species that are new to science and they're describing them as new to science, which is very correct.
Are nonetheless, we're already known to local people. I love that. I think that's a very good nuance.
As for how this happened, you mentioned being deep in the rainforest and I always think of machetes and pith hats and getting eaten by tigers and whatever other Victorian era stereotypes we have, sometimes it still does happen that happen that way, you know, maybe even a good proportion of the time. But like you mentioned, there are molecular tools now that we can use to get into what we call the phylogeny. Right. How different species relate to one another in terms of their evolutionary relationships and divergence. And so we can oftentimes discover what are called cryptic species. So species that look very similar but that are genetically very distinct and enough so to be considered different species.
If I was here to bore everybody, we could get into all the different notion, like kind of concepts of species and definitions of types of species, but it's. We're not going to do that.
But you're right, like sometimes we discover new species because some nerd in a lab coat spent a bunch of time pipetting and, you know, finding the right molecular markers or whatever and then suddenly finding some, some substantial differences and saying, oh, wow, these are not the same thing, which is super, super cool. And the, the general term we use for that, whether it's some nerd pipetting or some nerd with measuring calipers in a museum, sitting there looking at different specimens for a long time, regardless of how that's happening, we call that taxonomic revision.
And that kind of discovery of species, I think is still extremely exciting.
But what I find kind of poetic about it is it's not just always, yeah, Mr. Pith Hat, Shotgun, machete, you know, riding on an elephant or whatever. It's like, you know, everyday scientists coming in with their Dunkin Donuts cup and, and, and like, you know, listening to Metallica while going through a bunch of, you know, drawers in an old museum and blowing the dust off things. You know, there's a lot of room for, for discovery there. And I think that those, those are sort of assumptions and stereotypes about this whole process might lead us to forget or, or maybe not, not appreciate. But that's a way that it happens.
[00:53:32] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think that this is a, also a really great time to bring up the rediscovery of species because this to me is just so hope giving. And I had the amazing privilege of sitting down with Scott Trigger of the biodiversity group and one of the things that they do is rediscovery missions. Like they go out where they think that there's been like X amount of time that this species has not been seen in this area, but they think that there might be a possibility that it's still there. And then with all of their just unbelievable like biology searching tools, I, I almost feel like this is like the ultimate I spy, like are they like going out, you know what I mean, to find these, to find these lost species. And he's actually on one right now and so I can't wait for him to get back to tell us like what it is that he's currently out looking for. But you know, the amazing organization Rewild, they have like a long list of these species that were missing from, you know, the known world.
[00:54:37] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:54:37] Speaker A: For like 80 years.
[00:54:38] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:54:39] Speaker A: And then they went out like, you know, a team of fantastic researchers, I'm sure like a local people were also involved and they went out and they like rediscovered species that weren't there. You know, just how cool this is.
Yeah. So like I have right here a lot of like just different articles up of some of the things that have been rediscovered and I think to what you call them, like Lazarus.
[00:55:05] Speaker B: Lazarus species. Yeah. Which I think is a, it's from the Bible. Right. There was somebody who came back to life that was last.
[00:55:12] Speaker A: Oh, that would make sense.
[00:55:13] Speaker B: And so yeah, these are species that, you know, I think it's a little bit of a tongue in cheek name because obviously the species isn't recovering from extinction. But what we're seeing is we thought they were extinct and, and they're not.
And I will say I don't think I can kill Joy this one. I think that is actually good news. I mean when we rediscovered a species that we thought was extinct, like is the problem solved?
No, no, but, but we have a chance of Solving it now. Right. I feel like a Lazarus species. And this might be. I might be dating myself as a millennial here, but I feel like the Lazarus species is like the green mushroom in Mario.
You just get plus one life and now you get to try again. You know what I mean?
[00:55:57] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:55:58] Speaker B: It's a second chance. That's what a Lazarus species is. It's a second chance to prevent an extinction. And that's a beautiful opportunity. But like any other opportunity, you can waste it. You know, you could drop the controller and Mario falls down the cliff and it's like, oh, that life didn't do anything. You know, but we won't do that. We're not going to squander those opportunities. We're not.
[00:56:17] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. And you also brought up something too, that I would love to hear more about. So one of the articles that I was looking, looking deep, deep into, and then I went down this deep rabbit hole because you know me, I'm a sucker for cats.
And the. The new species was announced or whatever you want to say. Yeah. Called the clouded tiger cat. And I guess it was like in 2010 or 2013 or something like that, the original tiger cat was split into two species. So there was like the eastern and southern tiger cat. I should re. Look up my details, make sure that it's correct. I will have all the links in the show notes where I found all this information. And then recently they actually split them again into three species.
Now there is the clouded tiger cat, and it is. So they split it based on. They did do like, genetics and what else did they do? So it was like location, genetics and like, some also, like, just like physical differences.
[00:57:23] Speaker B: Sure.
[00:57:24] Speaker A: With them. Like, so, like the phenotype of them was like, different.
[00:57:26] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:57:27] Speaker A: And. And so they determined then that it was a different species. So now it's like into a third species. And now there's serious conservation implications for this Clonidge tiger cat because of that.
[00:57:41] Speaker B: Yeah. That's an interesting point. Right. I mean.
[00:57:43] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:57:44] Speaker B: What you, you could be dealing with a species that has plenty of individuals and you're like, oh, it's got a big range. Right. They're all over the damn place. Or they've got several locations and the population is like 4 or 5,000 or whatever. Like, okay, like, they're out there, you know, they're, they're not like, you know, pigeons, but there's a lot of, you know, there's a lot of them. And then all of a sudden, you know, you see what happened with, with these tiger cats and Suddenly they split them three different ways. And now each one of those species has a tiny range or a tiny population because you split into three or whatever.
And if you look at iucn, right, the International Union of the Conservation of Nature, what are their big indicators of what's endangered and what's not? Right. It's usually how big is the range, how many individuals are there? And so there is this weird thing here. When we start to split species, then it is more likely that they're, you know, going to be endangered.
I, I don't think there's anything wrong with that. I think it's important to pay attention to these local, these local species that are their own thing, you know, they're, they're important and I'm glad that they're getting that recognition because it does lead to a conservation need. Right.
[00:59:04] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:59:04] Speaker B: Where, where do these clouded tiger cats live?
[00:59:10] Speaker A: Let me just double check really fast. I want to say it was definitely somewhere in South America.
[00:59:19] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:59:21] Speaker A: Latin America. Yes. Asking me.
So the cloud forester countries such as Colombia, Peru, Costa Rica are separate species from the savannah dwelling variety.
[00:59:34] Speaker B: Oh. So assume very different habitats.
[00:59:39] Speaker A: So I think as part of the reason why they're like, wait, no, this is, this is different. Yeah, this is a different cat, this is a different cat. But I mean it makes sense as somebody who's like looked try to find a lot of these cats in the wild, like small spotted cats are one wildly hard to spot in nature and they do look a lot alike.
Yeah. I would definitely make sure that the link to this really great article is in the show notes. But like they even have like the three different species and how they separated them and they are different. Like there's their coat patterns, it looks like some of their size, their tail is different and all three, but it kind of looks like like a mini ocelot. If you want to know what ocelots look like. They look like a mini ocelot.
[01:00:26] Speaker B: I like the sound of that.
[01:00:29] Speaker A: Yeah.
Yeah. So. So it looks like, yeah, the higher clouded forests is where these ones are. What makes sense. Cloud tiger cat.
[01:00:39] Speaker B: Sure.
[01:00:41] Speaker A: Yeah.
Because you know me, I'm like, wait, what? How is there a brand new cat? Like wait, what? How's there a brand new cast species? And then two like please show me a picture. Yeah, see it. And it is very, very cute.
[01:00:56] Speaker B: New cat just dropped.
[01:00:58] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. As minds are currently sitting in my lap, she comes to the episode, she decided to make her appearance. Yes. I'm always obsessed with cats, but like that too. I was like, wait a second. What do you mean there's like a new cat?
You don't imagine new cats. Yeah, and I know that you found a lot of interesting examples, too. So what were some of them that really piqued your interest when you were like, doing research in this new space species idea or rediscovered species or, or what?
[01:01:28] Speaker B: Sure, yeah, I, Yeah, I mean, I was, I was going off of kind of the, the list that, you know, other journalists had been putting out of.
You know, sometimes the, sometimes the kind of pop science accounts of these things are a little bit sensationalized, but it's fun, you know, Like, I'm not, like I said, I'm done being the scientist killjoy. So I'm cool and hip. I'm hip with the kids, you know, no cat.
[01:01:55] Speaker A: That was so nerdy.
[01:01:56] Speaker B: So.
[01:01:56] Speaker A: No, no, that was so nerdy, Charles.
[01:01:59] Speaker B: But. So I, I started with. Because I, yeah, I'm cool with the journalists and all their crazy spins on things. I started with the vampire hedgehog because I was like, hell, yeah. Vampire hedgehog.
Let me check that one out.
So.
And, and this one is a really good example, I believe, of a species that, yes, okay, it does live in the middle of the woods and blah, blah, blah, but it wasn't like this was not one of those ones where there were dudes out in the middle of Vietnam stalking through the rainforest, getting eaten by leeches and finding this thing.
The specimens had been collected who knows how long ago, and researchers with their Dunkin Donuts cups and their earbuds in were like, you know, messing around in a museum, and they were like, like, these aren't the same at all. Oh, my God. You know, and they worked it out and is, and they, they split this into a new species. So I think that the actual discovery itself happened at the Smithsonian, which is in D.C. and Drexel University in Philadelphia. That's where they actually did the, did the work. So less exotic, the species itself is known as the Da Lat.
Jim. Jim. New. I don't actually know how to pronounce this name. Dalat, of course, is a state or a province in Vietnam. It's in central Vietnam, and it has these beautiful temperate highlands. So it's kind of a colder climate year round. A lot of mistakes. It's not as tropical as, as some other parts of the country. And the animal itself, the Dalat Gymnure, it's part of this group called the Gymnors, also known as.
What are they also known as. What's the, what's this other thing here?
Gymnors Wood mouse. I'm trying to see what it is. Oh, yeah, they're in the, they're in the genus Hylomus, which, which translates to like, wood mouse.
What's cool about them is they're in a group of rodents that are sort of ancient. Like, they kind of have a lot of traits that mammalian scientists, scientists, memologists might call, like, primitive. So they have a lot of, like, they, they, they kind of look how a lot of people think some primitive ancestral mammals used to look.
And they don't have very many living, living relatives. They're kind of a little bit sticking out on the side of the phylogeny of, like, the existing species right in their evolutionary relationships. They're kind of off to the side and a lot of the stuff in between them and everybody and all the other living mammalian species, a lot of that stuff in between is extinct now. So they're kind of off on their own.
Their closest relative, because they're not really hedgehogs, but their closest relative are indeed the hedgehogs of Europe.
[01:05:06] Speaker A: Oh, really?
[01:05:07] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, Far distance. Yeah, it is. It's an interesting. Yeah. And of course, you know, continental drift and all that. But so they're both in this family arena. Cayde, which are the, which are the hedgehogs? And then these guys are in the sub family Galera Galerie G. Which are the gym. Oh, here's the term I was looking for, Jim. Or Moon Rats. Like, Moon Rats name. I don't know, it sounds like a werewolf or something. Moon rats.
And, and Moon rats in general are just these weird, like, crepuscular, little funky little kind of dumpy rodents. They have like, really short tails and like fat butts and they have this.
[01:05:50] Speaker A: Oh, I like them.
[01:05:51] Speaker B: Yeah, they're really cute. And they have like a long snout, kind of like a tapir. It's not like an elephant. It's like a little, little, you know, like a little like.
They're very funny looking. Apparently they smell really bad because they're like, curatorial and they, like, they use their stank to, like, lay out their territory.
But yeah, they discovered a new species by discovering that the ones that they collected in Dalat were different than the ones everywhere else.
And in this particular. This is where the vampire thing comes from. This particular species, which is Hylomus makarong, the males have, like long front incisors. And so it looks kind of like.
[01:06:35] Speaker A: A vampire effect, like almost like fangs or something.
[01:06:38] Speaker B: It looks like fangs, yeah.
[01:06:39] Speaker A: So, but they don't actually, like, bite and suck blood it's just literally the way they look.
[01:06:45] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, if the males have them, I suspect it probably has to do with, like, intimidating other males or something, maybe getting in fights or whatever, using them in some way, but it's probably just for, like, testosterone purposes.
Yeah. And then. And then the. The. The specific epithet. The second word of their Latin name, makarong, actually is a bastardization of a Vietnamese word that means vampire, because they have their little.
[01:07:11] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, okay. I thought that was pretty double vampire.
[01:07:15] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But, yeah, that's kind of. That's kind of how they happened. So that was one of those ones that was like. That was like a Dunkin Donuts discovery rather than a. Wow. Yeah, Yeah.
I mean, I can keep going. Dude, do you want to cover some more?
[01:07:29] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:07:31] Speaker B: Do you have another one that you. That you want to talk about, or should I just keep rolling?
[01:07:35] Speaker A: No. Well, I guess the only one that I think would be a really cool example to bring up, because you brought it up for a second, I was like. Oh, I. I didn't want to interrupt you, because one of the big announcements, I think that they've discovered they can discover. Let me just make sure I get the numbers right. Like.
Yeah. Potentially over a hundred species have been discovered, and it's because it was an expedition to a seamont in southeast Chile. So it was under the sea. Yeah. And they have stunning pictures of some of this wildlife, including.
Oh, my gosh. How in the world do I pronounce that?
[01:08:19] Speaker B: Oh, good luck. Oh, good luck.
[01:08:21] Speaker A: Chana cops. What is it? C H A U n A C O P S.
Chow. No cops. Chana cops.
[01:08:31] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[01:08:32] Speaker A: Chow. No cops.
Yeah. I mean, it's like, this thing is crazy. It's like. It's like. It almost looks like a. Like a blowfish. So it's like, all, like.
[01:08:41] Speaker B: I'm gonna look this up right now.
[01:08:42] Speaker A: It's almost like a sphere. It's almost like a sphere. And it's red.
I know. Look at that thing. And it's, like, almost like walking on its fins at the bottom of the sea. So it was found at a depth of nearly 1400 meters, so literally at 45,000ft under, like. I mean, sorry. 4500ft, 1400 meters on a seamount in Chile of the Nazca. Nazca, yeah. Des Venturatas Marine Park.
[01:09:14] Speaker B: What an absolute cartoon character of an animal.
[01:09:18] Speaker A: I know. Like, what? So, yeah, it's just, like, speaking of Chile, I was, like, so excited about this, and I actually was like, starting to look Into a lot of the species that they have looked in, that they have found and what they have shown, what they've like published.
But yeah, so like the probably the cutest looking octopus that I've ever seen in my life. A Casper octopus. Oh speaking of Mario, it literally looks like the inky, like the inky octopus that like spray ink like when you're playing the game.
[01:09:51] Speaker B: Yes, that's what it looks like.
[01:09:52] Speaker A: This picture looks like that. So but yeah, so it's like two things. So like this was like an expedition into the seas, you know, somewhere that we have never been. And there's the scientists here, potentially more than 100 species that were not previously known. I mean like period. Because we're talking about depths of 1400 meters and they have photos of these things. Like how unbelievably incredible and well, spoiler alert. I guess I'll just go ahead and talk about it. So like when I was in Patagonia I was meeting with this amazing person. I will wait to do all the spoiler alerts. Please listen to the season when it drops. But they were working on protecting a lot of the marine reserves outside of a national park that's currently being born in the very like tippy southern tippy part of Chile. And so they were like the marine ecosystem is actually a lot harder to protect in Chile because a lot of the salmon industry. So I will get way more into this in a series just as like a little, you know, this is real conservation. And so they're like let's go ahead and protect the land and then we'll worry about tackling these marine reserves. So I hope that this big announcement of this seamount that has potentially over 100 species that we didn't even know existed.
[01:11:19] Speaker B: Right.
[01:11:19] Speaker A: Like maybe that'll be more motivation for like Chilean government and other international bodies to protect areas like this and for them to become marine reserves. If like the how much we have to discover still like I think that I was reading some articles in preparation for this conversation and they're like estimated that maybe 20% of species have been discovered. And I'm like what does it even mean? Like how do you even come up with that number? But even if that's true that to western science we've only discovered 20% of the known species of like this is across all life.
[01:11:58] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
[01:11:58] Speaker A: Like that is on this planet. What? Are you serious? And they, they estimate that even like 80% of mammals. How is there still 20%? Of course these are guesstimates a mammal still to be Discovered, that is unbelievable. And so to think of these different levels of our seas that we've never even been to, or just even having the tools to discover stuff. Like, I know that there's probably a toad species or frog species, I don't remember which delineation they're going to bring up as like the size of like a fingernail. And for anybody who's like been in a dense rainforest, yo, you ain't not finding a little toad that's that size. Like when I was in Costa Rica trying to find poison dart frogs that are like the brightest, most brilliant frogs that you can find. And even those suckers were really freaking hard because they were like super tiny, they're diurnal, they're in the day and still it's like finding these things are ridiculously hard.
[01:13:00] Speaker B: Yep.
[01:13:01] Speaker A: So, yeah, so, like, I thought that was a really cool point going back to what you were bringing up earlier, because there was one of these sea monster in like the depths of the ocean off Chile that like potentially like a hundred species are going to be added to what we know of in science.
[01:13:19] Speaker B: What? That's wild. Yeah.
[01:13:21] Speaker A: And the pictures are beautiful.
[01:13:24] Speaker B: I gotta check those out. But just the cops was enough for me. That thing was. I know, Excellent.
[01:13:31] Speaker A: It's walking. It was like walking on his fins. It was.
[01:13:34] Speaker B: What a fantastic little dude. I love it.
[01:13:37] Speaker A: Yeah. And it's like perfectly spherical and like, what are you. You know what I mean?
[01:13:45] Speaker B: That's a good one. Yeah, that's a really.
[01:13:47] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Yes, absolutely. Did you have any other species that you thought were really cool? You're like, yeah, this one I want to talk about.
[01:13:54] Speaker B: Yeah, there were, there were two others. I'll try to, you know, I won't linger on them too long. But there were two others that I was excited by especially because I'm kind of a water guy and I'm really into water in nature.
So one was a new species of water mouse.
[01:14:14] Speaker A: Water mouse. Mammals. Another mammal. What?
[01:14:16] Speaker B: Yes. No. Well, and here's the thing. Here's the thing, right? And so, like when you talk about like 80% of mammals, you know, have been discovered and that means that maybe another 1/5 need to be discovered. Like, it's kind of, it's kind of important to think about the usual suspects a little bit. And I can clarify my point, but like, yes, like the number of species in a larger category, like mammals, they're not like evenly distributed.
Some groups have just way too many species and then some groups don't at all, you know, and so when it comes to mammals, we have like bats and rodents and those two have so many species, it's insane. And we just keep finding new ones. And so it's not like we're going to discover like a new species of rhino all of a sudden, you know?
[01:15:11] Speaker A: Right.
[01:15:12] Speaker B: Or like a new what? I mean, you know, they did, they did split that cat, which is really cool. But like, for the most part, like, we could probably expect like cryptic, tiny mammals to be discovered, enter the water. This particular water mouse, excuse me, I don't think it has a, an official common name yet. The genus is Necromis aquaticus. I like the sound of Aquaticus myself. Necromus sounds like dead mouse. I don't know. I know I was thinking of like, isn't that like dubstep, Like.
But they're part of this group.
Daptimus is like maybe a synonym for their name. But anyway. But whenever I look up one of these species, I know that I'm not going to find much information on it. Why? Because we just discovered it.
[01:16:03] Speaker A: What?
[01:16:04] Speaker B: But if this is ever of interest to you, a really nice way to learn more about one of these new species is you look at its closest cousins. Right. The reason we have taxonomy is that we can organize species into these categories, into who they're closely related to. So, yeah, you might not know much about that species, but chances are there's some other dudes in its genus that are very similar. And so if you learn about what the family and genus and whatever have going on, you could start to pick up on what's going on with that species. So I, I looked up, you know, what was going on with this water mouse that they discovered. I think this was one of the discoveries in Peru, part of this ginormous family called the Cretessidae, which are, you know, everything from voles to muskrats, all of the rats that live in the new world. Hamsters are part of this group. Really adorable. Yeah.
And then they have like smaller and smaller groups. So there's like the sub family Sigmo Dante, which are named because their molars have kind of an S shape to them. Their molars have an S. They're molars, yeah. Mammals. Mammals. I feel like you always want to look at the. I'm not an homologist, obviously, but like my, the vibe I get from mammal people, especially when you get to more obscure mammals, is you always want to look at their teeth. It's one of those things that, like, it's under such intense evolutionary selection that teeth always get different and so it's always a good way to like classify them.
[01:17:29] Speaker A: That makes sense. Total sense. Yes, yes.
[01:17:32] Speaker B: And so within these like s toothed little dudes, they're in the, they're in the tribe called Ichthyomy, which I think is just the water mice, which is adorable and I love it.
And they're all, they all live in the New World, so they're all Latin and North America and they eat, they're, they're carnivorous aquatic mice and so they swim around and they eat crabs and crayfish and bugs and, and fish and stuff like that, which also I just find very cute. So they're like little small like meso predators and there were some really, there's a really neat paper at the American Museum of Natural History about the discovery of some of the first Daptimus mice in Peru and Venezuela. Apparently they're really hard to catch, which is probably why we're discovering new species of them because, like, it's just so hard to get a hold of one, like, just like you were talking about with like finding the frogs in the rainforest. It's like, good luck, dude. You know, it's like if we were going to discover new species, it's probably going to be the ones that are really hard to get because otherwise they would have been discovered by now.
But yeah, people kept finding mice in this genus Daptimus and finding different species by setting up traps along rivers usually pretty deep in the rainforest, on like sandbars and in like trees at the edge of the water and stuff like that, and then finding these funny little mice. So I thought that was amazing. And then speaking of a different, a very different type of water, the one that got me really excited were these pandan frogs. Did you see that?
You could say no.
[01:19:09] Speaker A: Well, let me look, let me look, let me look.
I have like all of the links up right now. I said pandan.
[01:19:15] Speaker B: Pandan fries. In the genus. I'm going to try to pronounce this one. Here we go. The genus.
[01:19:27] Speaker A: That's not the frog I'm looking at right now, but you keep going.
[01:19:30] Speaker B: So, so several new species of frog were discovered in this genus and. Oh yeah, yeah. And they, they, this genus of frog exists, as far as I understand it, only in Madagascar.
Oh. And they live only in little puddles of water that collect amongst the leaves of pandanus trees in Madagascar.
[01:19:58] Speaker A: I found them.
[01:19:59] Speaker B: Great.
I'm going to be like beer burping throughout this explanation. But that's why we Happy hours. So it's crazy.
So a really important Thing in amphibian ecology. Right. Is amphibians, you know, were like are like these ancient animals that are kind of, in a way they're kind of like a time capsule of, of us as terrestrial animals leaving the water. Right.
And they are still tied to water for their reproduction. They still have to go back and lay their eggs in the water and do the whole tadpole thing. For the most part. Some of them have kind of short circuited that. But the big problem is most of water now has fish in it and fish are eat baby frogs and amphibians in general. So it's just not good. So. So frogs and other amphibians always have this issue where they have to find fish free water. And sometimes that means colonizing really weird bits of water.
In this case, the pandan frogs are nesting in the water collecting in the leaf axle. So the, the kind of area, the kind of crotch between the leaf and the stem of the, of this big pandanus tree.
[01:21:12] Speaker A: Wow.
[01:21:13] Speaker B: And, and the water that collects in there actually has a really cool name. It is the phyto has a name. Yes, the Phytotal mata.
Wow. Yeah. And that these are the, these plant held water bodies. Phytotelmata.
You might recognize this as a tropical wildlife traveler. You might recognize this from Costa Rica and other places with the bromeliads.
Bromeliads are really famous phytotelmata. And there's all sorts of junk that lives in those little bits of water. From mosquito larvae to baby frogs to freshwater crabs. Crazy stuff. It's all the same in Madagascar, but in the pandanus rather than in the ramelias. And the pandanus get huge and they're spiky and they have these gnarly leaves. Madagascar has some of the highest diversity of these pandanus in the world.
They also have some of the biggest species. So they have ones that can get 60ft high and like 3ft in diameter. So the big, big trees. And evidently. Yeah, it's crazy.
So evidently, like, you know, dudes would like western scientists came in and poked around inside these phytotelmata and found all these frog species. And then this year or last year, I guess somebody poking around and they found a bunch of frogs and they were like, I can't identify these. Like if I look at my guidebook, it doesn't check out. And that's how these new species, you know, became new species was they found ones that, you know, and, and just like you, you mentioned at the beginning, this is one of those things where the local people in Madagascar have always known about these funny little frogs. Trying to see if I can find it.
Yes. And so, you know, they asked locals about it and they're like, oh, yeah, those are the sahona vakoa, which literally translates to, like, frogs that live in the bandanas.
People are like, well, yeah, dude, there's frogs in there. Like, why didn't you ask? You know, but. But there's, you know, obviously Western scientists are still kind of working out the systematics of all those.
So those were. Those were my two major ones. The last one that I don't. And I don't have very much information on at all, but I think I kind of want to bring to you as one, like, final point from my end, anyway.
[01:23:50] Speaker A: Yes.
[01:23:51] Speaker B: Is a liana, which is a woody vine that was discovered. So a new plant species discovered growing in. Also, I think it was Vietnam.
Yeah, Vietnam's in the name. So the name of it is chloro hiptage Vietnamesis.
[01:24:14] Speaker A: Good job.
[01:24:16] Speaker B: When you start mashing Greek and Latin together, you have no idea how to pronounce it. That's the problem.
[01:24:22] Speaker A: Right.
[01:24:23] Speaker B: But this is this. This was this, you know, cool little liana they found growing in the limestone karst habitats of Vietnam. So Vietnam has this. And a lot of Southeast Asia has this very unique geology, right? Where it's this heavily eroded limestone and, and, and, and it forms caves and blah, blah, blah. The problem with all the habitats and stuff growing on the limestone is that people are mining the limestone to make cement.
And so the habitat loss is immense. And so what happened with this chloro hyptage via the mensis is they were like, wow, we discovered a new liana, and at the exact same time as discovering it, we're like, oh, like the one place that it lives is about to get, like, leveled to make cement. Right?
[01:25:10] Speaker A: Oh, God.
[01:25:11] Speaker B: And so, like, you know, I could talk all about this vine, but the biggest thing I was really struck by in this. In this story was the conservation angle, right. Is like, a lot of the time when we discover new species, they're also, like, endangered. Immediately.
[01:25:29] Speaker A: Immediately.
[01:25:30] Speaker B: Yeah. And. And, you know, part of it has to do with the fact that, like, Western science does kind of have eyes everywhere, for better or for worse, right? We have people looking and recording biodiversity everywhere. And so if something has escaped their notice, unless it's like, again, like, maybe the bottom of the ocean, whatever. But even then, it's like, it probably lives in such a tiny amount of space and, like, so few locations that maybe it's. Yeah, it is Probably a really small population or a really restricted population, which means it's going to be endangered. Right. Like, those are the factors that we know make things vulnerable to extinction. And so that's kind of an interesting thing that I've been thinking about is like a lot of new species also are like also new endangered species issues.
[01:26:18] Speaker A: Right. Like almost immediately put on the IUC IUCN list. Depending on.
Yeah, yeah, like I said, going back to the tire cat. Like immediately it's like, okay, as I was reading through. So it was published in which journal? The scientific reports of lithic Nature. So like a highly. Yeah, yeah, so like a highly.
[01:26:40] Speaker B: That is a no joke journal.
[01:26:42] Speaker A: That is a no joke. I mean it. This is nature.com scientific report. So a no joke just dropped.
Yeah, so it was dropped just a year ago. Yeah, it was dropped around a year ago. So it was published January 29, 2024. So like, like this is like a really big thing and so. But that's one of the big things that they were talking about. It's like, okay. And they. It's like it's the location and the space at which this cat is supposed to be found is it's not there. And like, so immediately it's like, wait, what's going on?
And so the implications. So, you know, it's like multiple different factors if we think about it. So not only is this three populations of a cat that was previously 15 years ago thought to be one species. No, it's actually three species and the newest species, it's not even where all it should be. So, like, what does this mean for the conservation of this cat?
So it's almost like a rallying cry immediately it's like, wow, not only do we have a species that is distinct from what we thought it was, it is actually struggling from a conservation standpoint.
So.
Yeah. What exactly does that mean? I'm definitely going to continue following up on this. I think that there was even some quotes from Panthera. So of course, if. OH is involved, they will do a lot in their conservation. You know, I. They're one of my favorite NGOs that I've ever had. A. I mean, ever since I knew.
[01:28:18] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:28:19] Speaker A: What NGOs were. I've been following Panthera. So the fact that they're involved is like, you know, exciting and reassuring, at least for me.
[01:28:25] Speaker B: Right. As a. As a crazy wildcat lady, I imagine you'd be a fan.
[01:28:29] Speaker A: Yeah.
Yes. The good P Is involved.
Yeah. Yeah. So just like looking through these articles and stuff and. And yeah. The oncilla that's what it looks a lot like. Yeah. So, like, there's the ocelot and the oncilla, which is like a smaller version of that. And as I'm, like, looking through this article right now, I have not seen an ancilla in the wild because, again, seeing spotted tiny cats are really hard. I've almost knocked all of the big cats off my list. Who knows? It's going to take a lifetime to see all the small cats.
[01:29:05] Speaker B: If I can.
[01:29:06] Speaker A: If you. If you. If you could even do that. I don't know. Has anyone seen all, like, 30, what, 739 species? I don't know. Apparently we're getting more species of cats feline, so I don't even know how you see all of them. Ooh.
[01:29:18] Speaker B: But I feel like that should be your first book. Book?
[01:29:22] Speaker A: My first book. The Journey to See all the Cats.
[01:29:24] Speaker B: Yes. Yes. Because I read a book about a bird watcher trying to see all of the species of pittas in the world, which are really cool, like, colorful, little funky ground bird.
And it was a very entertaining read. And I feel like you could do a killer, like trying to sell a cat's book.
You heard here from.
I get 2% of the royalties on that.
[01:29:55] Speaker A: Sounds good. I thought about that.
How do you bring up things that I've thought about? I've thought about how cool it would be to write a book one day.
I don't know the topic yet, so maybe you just gave it to me. What is the topic of a future book? So, Charles, I thought this was a really, really cool topic to explore. Explore. Like this new horizons, not only from 4th birthday standpoint and announcing where the show is going. And of course, I will do a lot to announce it more online for everybody. But I wanted to say here first with a really good friend and everybody who's listening, like, over. Cheers. Over Happy hour, I have one. I open a special bottle of wine.
[01:30:38] Speaker B: Oh, nice.
[01:30:39] Speaker A: So very special bottle of wine for our fourth birthday celebration. And of course, it had to be happy hour. He had to turn into a happy hour. So the new horizons all around. New species rediscovered species, new exciting role for you. Like, you know, going through some hardships, some big hardships, you know, for. For you. For me went through a really traumatic divorce, like, during all of this. And so.
And yet we're still here. We're still here. Plugging along and like, having a platform where we can openly share the good and then also peel back a few of the layers and show some of. Just like we're real humans and we go through real human shit and some days are really hard.
[01:31:23] Speaker B: Well said.
[01:31:23] Speaker A: And yet we're still here.
[01:31:25] Speaker B: Yeah. Well said. Cheers to that. Indeed.
[01:31:28] Speaker A: Cheers to that.
Awesome.
Well, thank you, Charles. This is great.
[01:31:37] Speaker B: Yeah, this was a real privilege. I'm glad I could be a part of it. And Happy Birthday to rewildology.
[01:31:42] Speaker A: Yes, Happy Birthday, rewildology.
Thank you for joining me on this wild adventure today. I hope you've been inspired by the incredible stories, insights and knowledge knowledge shared in this episode. To learn more about what you heard, be sure to check out the show
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