Filthy Animals

Filthy Animals Podcast

Filthy Animals is a sex, drugs, and ecology podcast for grown-ups. Every month, science educators discuss unusual adult activities of the natural world that your high school science teacher was too embarrassed to talk about.

This podcast features hosts Rachel Roth, Nicole Brown, and Allan Saylor of Kansas-based nonprofit Grassland Groupies.

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Filthy Animals

Filthy Animals is a sex, drugs, and ecology podcast for grown-ups. Every month, science educators discuss the unusual adult activities of the natural world that your high school science teacher was too embarrassed to talk about.

This podcast features hosts Rachel Roth, Nicole Brown, and Allan Saylor of Kansas-based nonprofit Grassland Groupies.

Content Warning: cannibalism, suicide, coercive/violent sexual behavior, death during pregnancy, partner death, drowning, necrophilia

(start the episode at 36:12 to avoid our discussion of all of the above, which are discussed in the context of ”most dangerous courtship behaviors”. we promise, it gets much sillier after that!)

Filthy Animals is back! We open Season 2 with some very important data-driven nonsense to settle some burning questions about the world of animal courtship. TO WIT: Which animals are mating in the most dangerous way possible, AND who is doing it the most obnoxiously? Danger and stupidity abound. Let the great debate begin!

Sources:
Allan’s Sources:

Ancel, A., Gilbert, C. & Beaulieu, M. The long engagement of the emperor penguin. Polar Biol 36, 573–577 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00300-013-1285-9

Biaggio MD, Sandomirsky I, Lubin Y, Harari AR, Andrade MC. Copulation with immature females increases male fitness in cannibalistic widow spiders. Biol Lett. 2016 Sep;12(9):20160516. doi: 10.1098/rsbl.2016.0516. PMID: 27651535; PMCID: PMC5046930.

Maydianne C. B. Andrade, Risky mate search and male self-sacrifice in redback spiders, Behavioral Ecology, Volume 14, Issue 4, July 2003, Pages 531–538, https://doi.org/10.1093/beheco/arg015

Rachel’s Sources:
Drop Dead! Female mate avoidance in an explosively breeding frog (2023) https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.230742

Breeding Mortality in the Wood Frog (2000) https://scholarworks.uark.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1735&context=jaas

Mothers want brainy babies: https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2000/11/female-birds-choose-best-singers-have-smarter-offspring

Birds of the World – Golden-collared Manakin: https://birdsoftheworld.org/bow/species/gocman1/cur/introduction

Nicole’s Sources:

Han, C., and Jablonski, P. 2010. Male water striders attract predators to intimidate females into copulation | Nature Communications.

CicadaMania.com

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