Terrestrials

Today we bring you a story stranger than fiction. In 2006, paleobiologist Natalia Rybczynski took a helicopter to a remote Arctic island near the North Pole, spending her afternoons scavenging for ancient treasures on the ground. One day, she found something the size of a potato chip. Turns out, it was a three and a half million year old chunk of bone. SPOILER ALERT BELOW. Keep reading if you’re okay with us spoiling the surprise. It’s a camel! Yes, the one we thought only hung out in deserts. Originally from North America, the camel trotted around the globe and went from snow monster to desert superstar. We go on an evolutionary tour of the camel’s body and learn how the same adaptations that help a camel in a desert also helped it in the snow. Plus, Lulu even meets one in the flesh. Special thanks to Latif Nasser for telling us this story. It was originally a TED Talk where he brought out a live camel on stage. Thank you also to Carly Mensch, Juliet Blake, Anna Bechtol, Stone Dow, Natalia Rybczynski and our camel man, Shayne Rigden. If you are in Wisconsin, you can go meet his camels at Rigden Ranch . And follow his delightful TikTok @rigdenranch to see camels in the snow! Terrestrials was created by Lulu Miller with WNYC Studios. This episode was produced by Ana González, Alan Goffinski, Mira Burt-Wintonick, Joe Plourde, Lulu Miller, and Sarah Sandbach, with help from Tanya Chawla and Natalia Ramirez. Fact checking by Anna Pujol-Mazzini. Our advisors this season are Ana Luz Porzecanski, Anil Lewis, Dominique Shabazz, and Liza Demby. Support for Terrestrials also comes from the Simons Foundation, the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations, and the John Templeton Foundation. HEY GROWN-UPS! Love the show? Leave us a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ rating and review on your podcast app—it helps curious listeners find us! Terrestrials is made possible in part by listeners like you. Support the show by joining The Explorers Club —and we’ll send you a special puzzle as a thank-you gift from our team! We want to hear from you! Share your thoughts about Terrestrials with us . Subscribe to our weekly newsletter for bite-sized essays, activities, and ways to connect with the show. Follow us on YouTube , Instagram , and TikTok for behind-the-scenes extras and more. Listen to original music from Terrestrials on Spotify , Apple Music , or our music page . Got a badgering question for the team? Email us at terrestrials@wnyc.org or submit a voice memo with your name, age, and your question using this form ! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Ervin Carlson grew up on the Blackfeet Reservation in Montana hearing stories about buffalo (aka American bison) who once roamed the land by the hundreds of thousands. These giant beasts weighed up to 2000 pounds, were almost 7 feet tall, and had two curved horns so sharp they could even buck away grizzly bears. And they were ecosystem engineers! Just by grazing and rolling in the dirt, they brought new life to the land. But Ervin had never seen one. Not in the wild. To him, buffalo were a thing of the past. Because in the 1800s, as America expanded west, settlers hunted them by the trainload, for sport and fashion, until the wild herds completely disappeared from Montana. And that could've been the end of the story, if not for a secret inter-generational baby buffalo rescue mission that you'll have to hear to believe. To uncover the twists and turns of this tale first-hand, Producerbud Ana travels to Montana where she witnesses an epic horse race, joins a three-day celebration of all things buffalo, and crosses her fingers that she’ll get to meet one of these creatures up close. Huge thanks to Ervin Carlson, Paul Weatherwax, Chazz Racine, Sloo, everyone at Buffalo Spirit Hills Ranch, the Intertribal Buffalo Council, Latonna Spotted Eagle, Cristina Mormorunni, and everyone who helped organize the 2026 Iinnii Days. Thanks also to Valerie June for lending her voice to Alan's stampede song, and to the students and teachers at the Blackfeet language immersion school. Terrestrials was created by Lulu Miller with WNYC studios. This episode was produced by Ana González with sound design by Mira Burt-Wintonick. Sarah Sandbach is our Executive Producer. Our team also includes Alan Goffinski, Tanya Chawla, Natalia Ramirez, and Joe Plourde. Fact checking by Sophie Samiee. HEY GROWN-UPS! Love the show? Leave us a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ rating and review on your podcast app—it helps curious listeners find us! Terrestrials is made possible in part by listeners like you. Support the show by joining The Explorers Club —and we’ll send you a special puzzle as a thank-you gift from our team! We want to hear from you! Share your thoughts about Terrestrials with us . Subscribe to our weekly newsletter for bite-sized essays, activities, and ways to connect with the show. Follow us on YouTube , Instagram , and TikTok for behind-the-scenes extras and more. Listen to original music from Terrestrials on Spotify , Apple Music , or our music page . Got a badgering question for the team? Email us at terrestrials@wnyc.org or submit a voice memo with your name, age, and your question using this form ! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Meet François Tranquille. He's a snail. He's French. And this is the first episode of a little experiment we're calling Celestials: Bedtime Stories from Terrestrials. Restful tales, bedtime meditations, and the occasional lullaby, designed to help you drift off to sleep. Like Terrestrials, it's about a creature here on Earth. Unlike Terrestrials, it wanders away from the world of facts, towards someplace dreamier. In our very first Celestials pilot, Monsieur Tranquille tries his hand — er, antennae — at helping you slooowww doooowwwn. We're experimenting with a few more of these this year, and we'd love your help shaping them. After you listen, take two minutes to tell us what you thought: https://forms.gle/6WKkJsVpbJZgpLLf6 We'll be back next week with your regularly scheduled Terrestrials programming. In the meantime, sweet dreams! HEY GROWN-UPS! Love the show? Leave us a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ rating and review on your podcast app—it helps curious listeners find us! Terrestrials is made possible in part by listeners like you. Support the show by joining The Explorers Club —and we’ll send you a special puzzle as a thank-you gift from our team! We want to hear from you! Share your thoughts about Terrestrials with us . Subscribe to our weekly newsletter for bite-sized essays, activities, and ways to connect with the show. Follow us on YouTube , Instagram , and TikTok for behind-the-scenes extras and more. Listen to original music from Terrestrials on Spotify , Apple Music , or our music page . Got a badgering question for the team? Email us at terrestrials@wnyc.org or submit a voice memo with your name, age, and your question using this form ! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Artist Ashley (Ash) Eliza Williams was so shy growing up that they found it hard to speak to people. Instead, they withdrew from the world of humans and found comfort in the forest, where they spent hours exploring, scavenging, and collecting — eventually discovering lichen. They began painting portraits of lichen’s wild, colorful, and fuzzy shapes. In time, Ash learned that lichen is actually a composite organism, a mixture of two species — algae and fungi — working together to live. This idea originally challenged evolutionary theory so much that scientists didn’t believe it. But lichen had much more to teach us. Chef Prashanta Khanal fills us in on the food science of lichen, and how its collaborative powers also extend to making certain foods healthier! Learning that lichen draws its strength from collaboration eventually encouraged Ash to break out of their shell and reconnect to the world, where they would find not just friends and collaborators, but their true love. Since the release of this podcast, artist Ash Eliza Williams goes by Ash and uses they/them pronouns. Check out Ash Eliza Williams’s beautiful paintings . Visit chef Prashanta's cooking blog, the Gundruk , for more on Nepali food history and recipes. This episode features punk rock legend Laura Jane Grace, who makes a musical cameo on the song The Fuzzy Ruckus. Watch the music video and find the link to stream on our songs page . Terrestrials was created by Lulu Miller with WNYC studios. This episode was produced by Brenna Farrel, Mira Burt-Wintonick, Alan Goffinski, Ana González, Tanya Chawla, Joe Plourde, Sarah Sandbach, Valentina Powers and Lulu Miller. Fact-checking by Diane Kelly. Transcription by Caleb Codding. Special thanks to Siya Sharma-Gaines, Niran Bhatt Scharpf, Scott LaGreca, and Sarita Bhatt. Our advisors are Ana Luz Porzecanski, Andy J. Pizza, Anil Lewis, Dominique Shabazz, Liza Demby, Princess Daazhraii Johnson and Tara Welty. Learn more about storytellers, listen to music, and dig deeper into the stories you hear on Terrestrials with activities you can do at home or in the classroom on our website, Terrestrialspodcast.org. Badger us on social media: @radiolab and #TerrestrialsPodcast or by emailing us at terrestrials@wnyc.org . HEY GROWN-UPS! Love the show? Leave us a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ rating and review on your podcast app—it helps curious listeners find us! Terrestrials is made possible in part by listeners like you. Support the show by joining The Explorers Club —and we’ll send you a special puzzle as a thank-you gift from our team! We want to hear from you! Share your thoughts about Terrestrials with us . Subscribe to our weekly newsletter for bite-sized essays, activities, and ways to connect with the show. Follow us on YouTube , Instagram , and TikTok for behind-the-scenes extras and more. Listen to original music from Terrestrials on Spotify , Apple Music , or our music page . Got a badgering question for the team? Email us at terrestrials@wnyc.org or submit a voice memo with your name, age, and your question using this form ! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

If you’ve been on the internet recently, you might’ve heard of Jimothy—a raccoon from Seattle who went viral. Jimothy t-shirts, murals, tattoos, and tribute songs popped up across the country. We wanted to understand why this raccoon had captured so many hearts, so we spoke to one of the first people who spotted him: Ben Trammell. One night in Seattle, Ben was watching a raccoon family walk along his backyard fence when he saw a tiny, scruffy, hunched-over raccoon with stiff front legs and a short puffball of a tail instead of the usual long, stripey one. He was instantly enamored with this clumsy little guy and began watching his escapades night after night. What Ben saw taught him something about raccoons he never expected. Songbud Alan talks with Ben about raccoon chaos, family care, and the joy of watching a wild animal do life his own way. They flip the script on “survival of the fittest” to discover that compassion and care are natural and weird is good! Lulu also speaks with Seattle writer and disability activist Elsa Sjunneson about how Jimothy became a champion for grungy Seattle and an icon for the disability community. Very special thanks to Robin Pecknold of Fleet Foxes for his performance of the song, "Jimothy." KEEP LEARNING! Huge thanks to Elsa Sjunneson for joining us. Her new book, Dear Blind Lady , is out this fall and available for preorder now - it includes a whole chapter for parents on how to talk to their kids about disability. Elsa also recommended two children's books for young readers who want to learn more: We Move Together by Kelly Fritsch and Anne McGuire, a picture book about the many different ways disabled people move through the world. All the Way to the Top: How One Girl's Fight for Americans with Disabilities Changed Everything by Annette Bay Pimentel, the true story of Jennifer Keelan-Chaffins, who at 8 years old crawled up the steps of the U.S. Capitol to protest for the Americans with Disabilities Act. Want more Elsa? Listen to her Radiolab episode, The Helen Keller Exorcism , and watch this wonderful PBS mini documentary about Elsa and her fencing. Terrestrials was created by Lulu Miller with WNYC studios. This episode was produced by Alan Goffinski with sound design by Mira Burt-Wintonick. Sarah Sandbach is our Executive Producer. Our team also includes Ana González, Tanya Chawla, Natalia Ramirez, and Joe Plourde. Fact checking by Diane Kelly. HEY GROWN-UPS! Love the show? Leave us a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ rating and review on your podcast app—it helps curious listeners find us! Terrestrials is made possible in part by listeners like you. Support the show by joining The Explorers Club —and we’ll send you a special puzzle as a thank-you gift from our team! We want to hear from you! Share your thoughts about Terrestrials with us . Subscribe to our weekly newsletter for bite-sized essays, activities, and ways to connect with the show. Follow us on YouTube , Instagram , and TikTok for behind-the-scenes extras and more. Listen to original music from Terrestrials on Spotify , Apple Music , or our music page . Got a badgering question for the team? Email us at terrestrials@wnyc.org or submit a voice memo with your name, age, and your question using this form ! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

It’s summer break! So, while Terrestrials takes a summer breather,, we’re bringing you a show that we really love. It’s called Just the Zoo of Us , and it’s produced by Ellen and Christian Weatherford, a married couple with a shared love of telling stories about this wonderful planet!In every episode, they rate a different animal on three qualities - effectiveness, ingenuity, and aesthetics. In this episode, they’re tackling the DUNG BEETLE, a beetle that loves… poop. It's a story that will take us to incredible places - beetles in boots, in hats, in planetariums! Enjoy! Check out the full episode to learn about Moray Eels here ! HEY GROWN-UPS! Love the show? Leave us a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ rating and review on your podcast app—it helps curious listeners find us! Terrestrials is made possible in part by listeners like you. Support the show by joining The Explorers Club —and we’ll send you a special puzzle as a thank-you gift from our team! We want to hear from you! Share your thoughts about Terrestrials with us . Subscribe to our weekly newsletter for bite-sized essays, activities, and ways to connect with the show. Follow us on YouTube , Instagram , and TikTok for behind-the-scenes extras and more. Listen to original music from Terrestrials on Spotify , Apple Music , or our music page . Got a badgering question for the team? Email us at terrestrials@wnyc.org or submit a voice memo with your name, age, and your question using this form ! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Lulu has been terrified of snakes all her life. But strangely, her oldest son has been obsessed with them since he was two. So to understand his fascination, she called a snake expert who might also be one of the least afraid people on Earth: Gowri Shankar Pogiri . As a kid in Bangalore, India, Gowri was his neighborhood's resident snake-catcher — wrangling seven-foot snakes and motorcycling into the sunset with the serpent draped around his neck so he could release it back into the wild. In college, he'd skip school to look at snakes for hours at the zoo. And the day he met his first king cobra? He became completely entranced. He started working as a professional herpetologist, and became one of the first researchers to track king cobras in the wild. He’d spend his days in the rainforests of India, following the giant snakes as they climbed trees, swam across streams, and hunted prey. Until one day, when a dramatic encounter with a king cobra nearly ended his life. That remarkable story, plus a last-minute marriage proposal, a heroic bag, and how the only thing that Gowri is truly scared of might just be what Lulu, and all of us, are most afraid of, too. Terrestrials was created by Lulu Miller with WNYC studios. This episode was produced by Alan Goffinski with sound design by Mira Burt-Wintonick. Sarah Sandbach is our Executive Producer. Our team also includes Ana González, Tanya Chawla, Natalia Ramirez, and Joe Plourde. Fact checking by Sophie Samiee. HEY GROWN-UPS! Love the show? Leave us a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ rating and review on your podcast app—it helps curious listeners find us! Terrestrials is made possible in part by listeners like you. Support the show by joining The Explorers Club —and we’ll send you a special puzzle as a thank-you gift from our team! We want to hear from you! Share your thoughts about Terrestrials with us . Subscribe to our weekly newsletter for bite-sized essays, activities, and ways to connect with the show. Follow us on YouTube , Instagram , and TikTok for behind-the-scenes extras and more. Listen to original music from Terrestrials on Spotify , Apple Music , or our music page . Got a badgering question for the team? Email us at terrestrials@wnyc.org or submit a voice memo with your name, age, and your question using this form ! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The director of horticulture at Madison Square Park, Stephanie Lucas , spends her days caring for over 300 trees in the heart of New York City. One day in 2022, she saw a callout from NASA giving away seeds that had traveled to the moon. This would be the crown jewel of the park! She and her team worked hard on their application, submitted it, and then waited for two years. Eventually they gave up. Until one day, Stephanie got a call from NASA telling her to check her spam inbox. A week later, a cardboard box arrived at the park. The tree - an American sweetgum - has been growing in the park for a year. Lulu and Producerbud Ana went to see it, met Stephanie, and imagined how this little sapling might grow one day. If you’d like to see it yourself with the Terrestrials team, come to our Moon Tree Launch Party happening from 4-8 PM on July 16th at Madison Square Park! It’s FREE, open to the public, and full of moon-tree magic: we’ll be showcasing our Moon Tree drawing contest submissions, inviting park-goers to make their own art, and giving folks a chance to meet Songbud Alan (who may or may not have a real half Moon Tree seed). See you there! We also hear a brand-new poem from New York State Poet Laureate Kimiko Hahn and revisit our episode about astronaut Stu “Smokey” Roosa and the origin story of Moon Trees. HEY GROWN-UPS! Love the show? Leave us a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ rating and review on your podcast app—it helps curious listeners find us! Terrestrials is made possible in part by listeners like you. Support the show by joining The Explorers Club —and we’ll send you a special puzzle as a thank-you gift from our team! We want to hear from you! Share your thoughts about Terrestrials with us . Subscribe to our weekly newsletter for bite-sized essays, activities, and ways to connect with the show. Follow us on YouTube , Instagram , and TikTok for behind-the-scenes extras and more. Listen to original music from Terrestrials on Spotify , Apple Music , or our music page . Got a badgering question for the team? Email us at terrestrials@wnyc.org or submit a voice memo with your name, age, and your question using this form ! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

What does it really mean to be a dad? In the animal world, fathers have long been painted as aggressive or absent. At best providers and protectors, but certainly not caregivers. And yet for every tale of a lion or chimp dad eating its own young (yikes!), there’s another creature who tells a sweeter story. Two HUMAN dads bring us on this DADventure: Dr. Eduardo Fernandez-Duque , who has spent decades studying owl monkey dads in the forests of Argentina, and Michael Feigelson , who once worried he wasn't cut out for the softer side of parenting. They introduce us to seahorse dads who get pregnant, poison dart frog dads who give piggyback rides to their tadpoles, Darwin frogs who swallow their eggs to keep them safe, burying beetles who build "corpse cribs," jacana birds who do all the egg-sitting, and stickleback fish who construct intricate underwater nests for their young. Along the way, we learn that nature doesn’t offer just one model of fatherhood. Alongside Mother Nature... there just might be a Father Nature, too. Special thanks to the Van Leer Foundation for the support of this episode. Resources on Animal fatherhood Eduardo Duque's Owl Monkey Project: https://www.owlmonkeyproject.com/ An interview with Eduardo in Yale News Lauren O’Connell lab – frog behaviour Short explainer: frog parenting research Stickleback fish parenting study (Alison Bell) Alison Bell lab video Human fatherhood Fathertime by Sarah Blaffer Hrdy ECM interview: evolution of “man the nurturer” Lee Gettler – biology of fatherhood (video) Lee Gettler article in Early Childhood Matters Darby Saxbe book: Dad Brain Darby Saxbe Article in Early Childhood Matters Talks, films & convenings Yale Conference on Fatherhood Live Recording of Yale Conference: Fathers and Fatherhood: From Molecules to Modern Families Fathertime documentary Campaigns & global perspectives Equimundo's State of World's fathers report Men Care Changemakers Journey Parenting Out Loud (Elliot Rae) Terrestrials was created by Lulu Miller with WNYC studios. This episode was produced by Tanya Chawla, with sound design by Mira Burt-Wintonick. Sarah Sandbach is our Executive Producer. Our team also includes Ana González, Alan Goffinski, Natalia Ramirez, and Joe Plourde. Fact checking by Angely Mercado. HEY GROWN-UPS! Love the show? Leave us a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ rating and review on your podcast app—it helps curious listeners find us! Terrestrials is made possible in part by listeners like you. Support the show by joining The Explorers Club —and we’ll send you a special puzzle as a thank-you gift from our team! We want to hear from you! Share your thoughts about Terrestrials with us . Subscribe to our weekly newsletter for bite-sized essays, activities, and ways to connect with the show. Follow us on YouTube , Instagram , and TikTok for behind-the-scenes extras and more. Listen to original music from Terrestrials on Spotify , Apple Music , or our music page . Got a badgering question for the team? Email us at terrestrials@wnyc.org or submit a voice memo with your name, age, and your question using this form ! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

We're back with PURR-T TWO of our big cats journey, and this time, we’re heading even deeper into the cat-iverse. We travel to India, where conservationist Shatrunjay Pratap Singh introduces us to leopards that live among shepherds and ancient temples. Then we head to Colombia, where biologist Laura Lisbeth Jaimes Rodriguez helps us track one of the most mysterious cats on Earth: the jaguar. We meet shapeshifting shamans, forest guardians, and cats so secretive that some scientists spend years studying them without ever seeing one. Finally, we meet the ghost cat of the mountains—the snow leopard—with wildlife biologist Dr. Nyeema Harris . Along the way, we stumble onto the idea that the world might actually need its scariest creatures, that fear might be one of the most powerful forces keeping our planet in balance. Special thanks to Luke Hunter at the Wildlife Conservation Society, Shatrunjay Pratap Singh, Laura Lisbeth Jaimes Rodriguez, and Dr. Nyeema Harris. LEARN MORE: Watch this video of Shatrunjay Pratap Singh explaining the harmonious coexistence between humans and leopards in Bera, Rajasthan. Read Panthera's piece on why Indigenous culture is key to jaguar conservation , including how shamans in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta believe jaguars travel between physical and spiritual worlds. Learn about the Jaguar Shamans of Yuruparí , recognized by UNESCO as guardians of sacred sites along Colombia's Pirá Paraná River. Meet the "ghost cat of the mountains" with National Geographic Kids' snow leopard page . Learn more about Dr. Nyeema Harris's work studying carnivores at the Applied Wildlife Ecology Lab at Yale. Terrestrials was created by Lulu Miller with WNYC studios. This episode was produced by Ana González, with sound design by Mira Burt-Wintonick. Sarah Sandbach is our Executive Producer. Our team also includes Alan Goffinski, Tanya Chawla, Natalia Ramirez, and Joe Plourde. Fact checking by Diane Kelly. HEY GROWN-UPS! Love the show? Leave us a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ rating and review on your podcast app—it helps curious listeners find us! Terrestrials is made possible in part by listeners like you. Support the show by joining The Explorers Club —and we’ll send you a special puzzle as a thank-you gift from our team! We want to hear from you! Share your thoughts about Terrestrials with us . Subscribe to our weekly newsletter for bite-sized essays, activities, and ways to connect with the show. Follow us on YouTube , Instagram , and TikTok for behind-the-scenes extras and more. Listen to original music from Terrestrials on Spotify , Apple Music , or our music page . Got a badgering question for the team? Email us at terrestrials@wnyc.org or submit a voice memo with your name, age, and your question using this form ! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Big cats are our most requested animal, but Lulu doesn’t really want to make an episode about them! . She thinks lions, tigers, and their feline cousins are the bullies of the animal kingdom. So Songbud Alan and Producerbud Ana set out to change her mind. We head to the Bronx Zoo where big cat expert Luke Hunter introduces us to tigers that cough up furballs and wrestle crocodiles, and lion prides built around mothers, sisters, and grandmothers, who roar not just to intimidate, but to call out to their family. Along the way, we play a game show called The Roar , learn why cheetahs aren’t technically “big cats”, and why orange tiger fur looks green to deer. By the end, Lulu sees these fearsome animals in a different light. And this is only part one of our first ever two purr-ter! Terrestrials was created by Lulu Miller with WNYC studios. This episode was produced by Alan Goffinski and Ana González, with sound design by Mira Burt-Wintonick. Sarah Sandbach is our Executive Producer. Our team also includes Tanya Chawla, Natalia Ramirez, and Joe Plourde. Fact checking by Diane Kelly. HEY GROWN-UPS! Love the show? Leave us a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ rating and review on your podcast app—it helps curious listeners find us! Terrestrials is made possible in part by listeners like you. Support the show by joining The Explorers Club —and we’ll send you a special puzzle as a thank-you gift from our team! We want to hear from you! Share your thoughts about Terrestrials with us . Subscribe to our weekly newsletter for bite-sized essays, activities, and ways to connect with the show. Follow us on YouTube , Instagram , and TikTok for behind-the-scenes extras and more. Listen to original music from Terrestrials on Spotify , Apple Music , or our music page . Got a badgering question for the team? Email us at terrestrials@wnyc.org or submit a voice memo with your name, age, and your question using this form ! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In the depths of the ocean, a tiny male anglerfish catches a scent and follows it through the darkness. Eventually he finds a glowing, toothy female with a bacterial lightbulb on her head. He kisses her… and never lets go. Their bodies permanently fuse, merging bloodstreams, flesh, and digestive tracts. Radiolab correspondent Molly Webster brings us the wild story of this eternal kiss. We dive deeper into glowing lures, bioluminescent bacteria, and the biology of two creatures becoming one. Plus, Alan tells us about the time he broke a world record, and marine biologist Dr. Kory Evans answers our questions about some of the weirdest fish in the sea. Big thanks to Molly Webster for bringing us this story. Check out all of her Radiolab stories, but if you want one to start off with, listen to Goo and You about butterflies! If you have something special you think you can hold a world record in, draw us a picture and email us at terrestrials@wnyc.org . Terrestrials was created by Lulu Miller with WNYC studios. This episode was reported by Molly Webster and produced by Alan Goffinski with sound design by Mira Burt-Wintonick. Sarah Sandbach is our Executive Producer. Our team also includes Ana González, Tanya Chawla, Natalia Ramirez, and Joe Plourde. Fact checking by Emily Krieger. HEY GROWN-UPS! Love the show? Leave us a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ rating and review on your podcast app—it helps curious listeners find us! Terrestrials is made possible in part by listeners like you. Support the show by joining The Explorers Club —and we’ll send you a special puzzle as a thank-you gift from our team! We want to hear from you! Share your thoughts about Terrestrials with us . Subscribe to our weekly newsletter for bite-sized essays, activities, and ways to connect with the show. Follow us on YouTube , Instagram , and TikTok for behind-the-scenes extras and more. Listen to original music from Terrestrials on Spotify , Apple Music , or our music page . Got a badgering question for the team? Email us at terrestrials@wnyc.org or submit a voice memo with your name, age, and your question using this form ! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Amy Ray (whose music you might know from the Indigo Girls ) was on a walk in the Georgia woods with her dogs when she passed a tree branch and saw hundreds of tiny, white, fluffy creatures doing a synchronized stadium wave. She was mesmerized. Turns out, she was looking at woolly aphids - small, defenseless bugs who have somehow figured out how to survive everything the forest throws at them. Resident Bug Correspondent Dr. Sammy Ramsey explains how: from the army of ants fighting their battles, to their power to clone themselves over and over, to their sap-eating ways that make plants scream chemical SOS signals through the air! What starts as a story about a fuzzy bug turns into one about a secret harmony running through the whole forest. Plus, we try aphid poop honey! Special thanks to Amy Ray and Ozie, and to Dr. Sammy Ramsey, whose new documentary Secrets of the Bees from National Geographic is out now. Terrestrials was created by Lulu Miller with WNYC studios. This episode was produced by Alan Goffinski with sound design by Alan and Mira Burt-Wintonick. Sarah Sandbach is our Executive Producer. Our team also includes Ana González, Tanya Chawla, Natalia Ramirez, and Joe Plourde. Fact checking by Diane Kelly. HEY GROWN-UPS! Love the show? Leave us a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ rating and review on your podcast app—it helps curious listeners find us! Terrestrials is made possible in part by listeners like you. Support the show by joining The Explorers Club —and we’ll send you a special puzzle as a thank-you gift from our team! We want to hear from you! Share your thoughts about Terrestrials with us . Subscribe to our weekly newsletter for bite-sized essays, activities, and ways to connect with the show. Follow us on YouTube , Instagram , and TikTok for behind-the-scenes extras and more. Listen to original music from Terrestrials on Spotify , Apple Music , or our music page . Got a badgering question for the team? Email us at terrestrials@wnyc.org or submit a voice memo with your name, age, and your question using this form ! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

As one of the most famous cellists of all time, Yo-Yo Ma has spent a lot of time playing music inside. But a few years ago, he decided to take the cello out of the fancy concert halls and into nature, bringing our very own Producerbud Ana along for the ride! That brings us to humpback whales. Like Yo-Yo, humpbacks are musical. They communicate through melodies, clicks, grunts, whispers, and bellows. Human beings still don’t fully know what the whales are saying to each other, but for Yo-Yo it sounds just like cello music. So, he had a wild idea: What if he tried to communicate with whales using his cello? On a very windy December day, Producerbud Ana and Yo-Yo travel to Hawai'i and meet up with hula master, Snowbird Bento, who explains how she uses music to connect with the natural world. Then, they all board a legendary canoe called Hōkūleʻa with local fishermen, seafaring captains, and marine biologists, and Yo-Yo plays his cello, hoping the whales will hear the vibrations and maybe... respond? To find out what happens next, sit back, relax, and join Ana and Yo-Yo on an aquatic adventure. This was an episode from Our Common Nature , a seven-episode podcast series of Yo-Yo Ma’s musical journey around the country to places where people have deep connections to the Earth. Listen to the Our Common Nature EP Credits: Our Common Nature is a production of WNYC and Sound Postings Hosted by Ana González Produced by Alan Goffinski Editing from Pearl Marvell Sound design and episode music by Alan Goffinski Additional sound design by Mira Burt-Wintonick Mixed by Joe Plourde Fact-checking by Ena Alvarado. Additional fact checking by Sophie Samiee. Executive Producers are Emily Botein, Ben Mandelkern, Sophie Shackleton, and Jonathan Bays. Our advisors are Mira Burt-Wintonick, Kamaka Dias, Kelley Libbey, and Chris Newell Episode photo by Austin Mann; Episode and show art by Tiffany Pai HEY GROWN-UPS! Love the show? Leave us a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ rating and review on your podcast app—it helps curious listeners find us! Terrestrials is made possible in part by listeners like you. Support the show by joining The Explorers Club —and we’ll send you a special puzzle as a thank-you gift from our team! We want to hear from you! Share your thoughts about Terrestrials with us . Subscribe to our weekly newsletter for bite-sized essays, activities, and ways to connect with the show. Follow us on YouTube , Instagram , and TikTok for behind-the-scenes extras and more. Listen to original music from Terrestrials on Spotify , Apple Music , or our music page . Got a badgering question for the team? Email us at terrestrials@wnyc.org or submit a voice memo with your name, age, and your question using this form ! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

What do loons have to do with courage and community? In January, we received a letter from two sisters in Minnesota - Jude and Mo. They wrote to us because their city was experiencing a lot of unrest, with immigration agents arresting members of their community and protests ringing loud in the streets as people tried to protect their neighbors. And in the middle of it all, an unexpected symbol began appearing on storefronts, stickers, and even as tattoos: the black and white, migrating waterbird known as the loon. Jude and Mo were curious: why are loons a good symbol of standing strong in the face of adversity? Loon expert Dr. Walter Piper breaks down the incredible biology of the loon and helps us decode their mysterious calls; storyteller Hope Flanagan brings us Ojibwe tales of how the loon got its famous red eyes; and biologist Dr. Leonardo Chapa Vargas teaches us about loon migration, helping us expand our definition of home. We learn why these loud and eerie birds came to stand for something very powerful: the scrappy resilience of trying over and over again, no matter how many times you get knocked down. Huge thanks to Jude, Mo and their mom, Natalie, for writing in about loons. Reminder that you can also write in about any creature you’d like to see an episode on! Email us at terrestrials@wnyc.org . Listen to “The Going Home Star” on Spotify, Apple Music, and wherever you get your music. We made special activity sheets for this episode! Coloring Page Activity Sheet We hope they will help you and your friends, family, students, or neighbors dig more deeply into the world of loons. If you want to share what you’ve made, ask an adult to share it on Instagram and make sure to tag @terrestrialspodcast, or email us at terrestrials@wnyc.org. Dig Deeper: Check out Jude and Mo’s favorite loon sculpture in St. Paul, Minnesota! To learn more about Hope Flanagan, check out Dream of Wild Health , a farm and storytelling organization restoring wellbeing in the Native community. To see Walter Piper in a cool documentary, check out Loons: A Cry from the Mist . Read Shannon Heffernan’s reporting on how kids and adults are being affected by ICE Raids at The Marshall Project Check out how the students of Valley View Elementary are writing letters to ICE agents detaining their friends and families by watching this video . We mentioned how loons are generalists - flexible - like our friends from our coyotes episode. Check out The Howler: The Dog Who Joined a Coyote Pack if you want to learn more! The Rumble Strip Vermont podcast has a beautiful episode about Hold On, a song that people have been singing at various protests. When Liam Conejo Ramos was detained by ICE agents, his classmates started folding origami bunnies in solidarity with Liam and all students who are unsafe. Watch a video of the project here. Immigration resource links: Immigration and Families Resources (National Council on Family Relations) Resource Hub for Undocumented and Immigrant Families ( Center for Migration Studies ) Terrestrials was created by Lulu Miller with WNYC Studios. This episode was produced by Ana González, with sound design by Mira Burt-Wintonick. Sarah Sandbach is our Executive Producer. Our team also includes Alan Goffinski, Tanya Chawla, Joe Plourde and Natalia Ramirez. Factchecking by Angely Mercado. Support for Terrestrials is provided by the Simons Foundation, the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations, and the John Templeton Foundation. HEY GROWN-UPS! Love the show? Leave us a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ rating and review on your podcast app—it helps curious listeners find us! Terrestrials is made possible in part by listeners like you. Support the show by joining The Explorers Club —and we’ll send you a special puzzle as a thank-you gift from our team! We want to hear from you! Share your thoughts about Terrestrials with us . Subscribe to our weekly newsletter for bite-sized essays, activities, and ways to connect with the show. Follow us on YouTube , Instagram , and TikTok for behind-the-scenes extras and more. Listen to original music from Terrestrials on Spotify , Apple Music , or our music page . Got a badgering question for the team? Email us at terrestrials@wnyc.org or submit a voice memo with your name, age, and your question using this form ! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Middle schooler, Aanya, has an up-close encounter with a squirrel in the school yard, which leads her to an obsession with one of North America's most common critters. She tells host Lulu Miller all about the overlooked superpowers of squirrels, including one squirrel who lives way up in the Arctic, where the weather gets so cold the squirrels who live there drop their body temperatures down below freezing and somehow, miraculously, survive. Host Lulu travels to Alaska to meet one of these squirrels as it sleeps, and Lulu talks with biologists Dr. Kelly Drew and Dr. Brian Barnes about why this humble squirrel holds potential for treating Alzheimers, brain injury, and even helping astronauts hibernate on the long journey to Mars. Check out the making of this episode here ! Video by Amy Pearl . This episode features a song with a cameo from Chicago-based musician Tasha . Check out our songs page for 'On The Other Side (ft. Tasha)' and more new singles every week. Special thanks to Aanya and her mom Roli for bringing us this story, and to Amy Loeffler, Clara Goulet, Loi Goulet, Ellie Bell and Ferris Jabr, the writer who first made the “pop-squirrel" joke. We came across it in a wonderful article he wrote in Scientific American. Also, check out this Wired article by Brendan I. Koerner for more on arctic ground squirrels. Terrestrials was created by Lulu Miller with WNYC Studios. This episode was produced by Ana González, Mira Burt-Wintonick, Alan Goffinski, Joe Plourde and Lulu Miller, with help from Tanya Chawla, Sarah Sandback and Valentina Powers. Fact checking by Natalie Middleton. Transcription by Caleb Codding. Our advisors are Ana Luz Porzecanski, Andy J. Pizza, Anil Lewis, Dominique Shabazz, Liza Demby, Princess Daazhraii Johnson and Tara Welty. Learn more about storytellers, listen to music, and dig deeper into the stories you hear on Terrestrials with activities you can do at home or in the classroom on our website, Terrestrialspodcast.org . Badger us on social media: @radiolab and #TerrestrialsPodcast or by emailing us at terrestrials@wnyc.org . HEY GROWN-UPS! Love the show? Leave us a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ rating and review on your podcast app—it helps curious listeners find us! Terrestrials is made possible in part by listeners like you. Support the show by joining The Explorers Club —and we’ll send you a special puzzle as a thank-you gift from our team! We want to hear from you! Share your thoughts about Terrestrials with us . Subscribe to our weekly newsletter for bite-sized essays, activities, and ways to connect with the show. Follow us on YouTube , Instagram , and TikTok for behind-the-scenes extras and more. Listen to original music from Terrestrials on Spotify , Apple Music , or our music page . Got a badgering question for the team? Email us at terrestrials@wnyc.org or submit a voice memo with your name, age, and your question using this form ! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

How rested would you feel if you took 10,000 naps a day? Chinstrap Penguins in Antarctica spend their days taking MICRONAPS, each around 4 seconds long. To learn why, Lulu meets one (played by Songbud Alan), who explains how micronaps help them conserve energy and protect their babies from “sky pirates”! Then, in a badgermania, penguin scientists Dr. Eric Wagner and Dr. Dee Boersma answer your questions! Why are penguins black-and-white? Why is their poop pink? What might they dream about? And we learn that what may look like laziness… turns out to be an evolutionary superpower. Don’t sleep on these articles, maybe read them before your next nap: Read about chinstrap penguin naps here , and here , and here . Learn why penguin poop is pink and how it may be helping cool the climate ! Read about how neurons help flush waste out of the brain during sleep . Terrestrials was created by Lulu Miller with WNYC Studios. This episode was produced by Ana González, with sound design by Mira Burt-Wintonick. Sarah Sandbach is our Executive Producer. Our team also includes Alan Goffinski, Tanya Chawla and Joe Plourde. Factchecking by Sophie Samiee. Support for Terrestrials is provided by the Simons Foundation, the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations, and the John Templeton Foundation. HEY GROWN-UPS! Love the show? Leave us a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ rating and review on your podcast app—it helps curious listeners find us! Terrestrials is made possible in part by listeners like you. Support the show by joining The Explorers Club —and we’ll send you a special puzzle as a thank-you gift from our team! We want to hear from you! Share your thoughts about Terrestrials with us . Subscribe to our weekly newsletter for bite-sized essays, activities, and ways to connect with the show. Follow us on YouTube , Instagram , and TikTok for behind-the-scenes extras and more. Listen to original music from Terrestrials on Spotify , Apple Music , or our music page . Got a badgering question for the team? Email us at terrestrials@wnyc.org or submit a voice memo with your name, age, and your question using this form ! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

On February 17, in places like China, Malaysia, Korea and Chinatowns across the globe, dragons will rise in the form of massive puppets. Today we bring you a special Terrestrials episode on dragons to understand what they have to do with the New Year, what the dragon myth means, and explore the tiny chance that dragons could have ever been real. First, we meet Mr. Lu Dajie, one of China's most renowned dragon dancers, who tells us about the significance of dragons in China. Then producer bud Ana and song bud Alan ask whether there’s any chance that dragons were ever real. And if not, could we make a dragon out of the things already evolved on Earth? Were there any reptiles as large as and shaped like dragons? Any large reptiles that flew? Any that spat fire? The answers may surprise you. Terrestrials was created by Lulu Miller with WNYC studios. This episode was produced by Ana González, Alan Goffinski, Mira Burt-Wintonick, Tanya Chawla, Sarah Sandbach, Joe Plourde, and Lulu Miller. Fact-checking by Diane Kelly. Learn more about storytellers, listen to music, and dig deeper into the stories you hear on Terrestrials with activities you can do at home or in the classroom on our website, Terrestrialspodcast.org . Badger us on social media: @radiolab and #TerrestrialsPodcast or by emailing us at terrestrials@wnyc.org . HEY GROWN-UPS! Love the show? Leave us a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ rating and review on your podcast app—it helps curious listeners find us! Terrestrials is made possible in part by listeners like you. Support the show by joining The Explorers Club —and we’ll send you a special puzzle as a thank-you gift from our team! We want to hear from you! Share your thoughts about Terrestrials with us . Subscribe to our weekly newsletter for bite-sized essays, activities, and ways to connect with the show. Follow us on YouTube , Instagram , and TikTok for behind-the-scenes extras and more. Listen to original music from Terrestrials on Spotify , Apple Music , or our music page . Got a badgering question for the team? Email us at terrestrials@wnyc.org or submit a voice memo with your name, age, and your question using this form ! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Holes are full of a whole lot of nothin'. Pure, hollow emptiness. At least that’s what Songbud Alan thought before he fell down a rabbit hole of, well, HOLES! In honor of Groundhog Day, he takes Lulu to a fossil-filled pit behind a Chick-fil-A to dig up 66-million-year-old treasure, and deep down to an underwater hole where blobs of colorful microbes reveal a time when Earth’s days were only 6 hours long. We discover eyeless cave fish, fall into a sinkhole of Corvettes, and go house hunting for the perfect animal hole to cozy up in... which leads us to one of the coziest holes of all: a groundhog’s burrow. Want to DIG deeper? Learn more about Staten Island Chuck , the groundhog with the highest spring prediction accuracy. Explore Edelman Fossil Park and dig for real fossils . Discover Mammoth Cave . Check out eyeless cave fish . Read about the Corvette Museum Sinkhole and how sinkholes form . Terrestrials was created by Lulu Miller with WNYC. This episode was produced by Alan Goffinski, with sound design by Mira Burt-Wintonick. Sarah Sandbach is our Executive Producer. Our team also includes Ana González, Tanya Chawla and Joe Plourde. Factchecking by Sophie Samiee. Support for Terrestrials is provided by the Simons Foundation, the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations, and the John Templeton Foundation. HEY GROWN-UPS! Love the show? Leave us a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ rating and review on your podcast app—it helps curious listeners find us! Terrestrials is made possible in part by listeners like you. Support the show by joining The Explorers Club —and we’ll send you a special puzzle as a thank-you gift from our team! We want to hear from you! Share your thoughts about Terrestrials with us . Subscribe to our weekly newsletter for bite-sized essays, activities, and ways to connect with the show. Follow us on YouTube , Instagram , and TikTok for behind-the-scenes extras and more. Listen to original music from Terrestrials on Spotify , Apple Music , or our music page . Got a badgering question for the team? Email us at terrestrials@wnyc.org or submit a voice memo with your name, age, and your question using this form ! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Where do animals come from? That's something people have been trying to explain for thousands of years. And for a while, scientists and philosophers believed that any ol' person could create creatures if they just had the right recipe. A touch of sand, maybe a drop of blood and POOF: you could create life. That idea was believed to be true for generations until one brave scientist decided to look more closely at an unlikely bug and change the course of science forever. Lulu calls up our biology correspondent, Dr. Avir Mitra , to solve this ancient mystery. Terrestrials was created by Lulu Miller with WNYC. This episode was produced by Ana González and Alan Goffinski, with sound design by Mira Burt-Wintonick. Sarah Sandbach is our Executive Producer. Our team also includes Tanya Chawla and Joe Plourde. Factchecking by Diane Kelly. Support for Terrestrials is provided by the Simons Foundation, the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations, and the John Templeton Foundation. HEY GROWN-UPS! Love the show? Leave us a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ rating and review on your podcast app—it helps curious listeners find us! Terrestrials is made possible in part by listeners like you. Support the show by joining The Explorers Club —and we’ll send you a special puzzle as a thank-you gift from our team! We want to hear from you! Share your thoughts about Terrestrials with us . Subscribe to our weekly newsletter for bite-sized essays, activities, and ways to connect with the show. Follow us on YouTube , Instagram , and TikTok for behind-the-scenes extras and more. Listen to original music from Terrestrials on Spotify , Apple Music , or our music page . Got a badgering question for the team? Email us at terrestrials@wnyc.org or submit a voice memo with your name, age, and your question using this form ! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.