Episode 225: Talking Animals
Talking animals! It's not what you're thinking about. No parrots here, just mammals.\n\nOur new logo is by Susanna King of Flourish Media! If you'd like to JOIN OUR MAILING LIST!, I'll be sending out a discount code soon for merch with our logo on it--but only for people on the mailing list (and patrons).\n\n\n\nFurther listening:\n\nThe MonsterTalk episode about Gef the Talking Mongoose (this episode has no swearing that I recall but some other episodes may have a little bit of salty language)\n\nMongolian Throat Singing\n\nFurther reading:\n\n'Talking' seals mimic sounds from human speech, and validate a Boston legend\n\nHow do marine mammals produce sounds?\n\nElephant communication\n\nHoover the talking seal:\n\n\n\nJanice, a gray seal who learned to mimic human speech and song:\n\n\n\nWikie, the orca who mimics human speech:\n\n\n\nKosik, an elephant who mimics human speech:\n\n\n\nGef the "talking mongoose":\n\n\n\nShow transcript:\n\nWelcome to Strange Animals Podcast. I\u2019m your host, Kate Shaw.\n\nBefore we get started, I have some announcements! First, you may have noticed we have a new logo! It\u2019s by Susanna King of Flourish Media, who did a fantastic job! Susanna is also a listener, which is awesome. I\u2019ve put a link to Flourish Media in the show notes if you have a company or something that needs professional graphic design.\n\nIf you\u2019re interested in getting a shirt or mug with the new Strange Animals Podcast logo on it, I\u2019m figuring out the best company to use for merch. If you sign up to our mailing list, as soon as merch is available I\u2019ll be sending an email out about it, and I\u2019ll include a discount code you can use to save some money! I\u2019ve linked to the mailing list in the show notes, and it\u2019s also linked on the website and my social media, but if you can\u2019t find it, just send me a message and I\u2019ll reply with the link.\n\nThe final announcement is that my cat Poe is finally home and recovering from a scary illness. He developed what\u2019s called pyothorax, which is an infection in the chest, and in Poe\u2019s case we still don\u2019t know what caused it. After a week in the veterinary intensive care unit, he\u2019s finally home and getting better all the time. That\u2019s why last week\u2019s episode was so short, and if you messaged me this week about something and I seemed impatient when I replied, that\u2019s why. I just haven\u2019t had any mental energy to concentrate on anything but Poe. Thank you to everyone at the Animal Emergency and Specialty Center of Knoxville for taking such good care of him.\n\nWe\u2019ve got something fun and a little different this time, inspired by two things. First, I saw a tweet about a captive beluga whale who had apparently learned to mimic human speech and one night told a diver in his pool to get out. Then the awesome podcast BewilderBeasts had a segment about a harbor seal in Maine who was rescued by a fisherman as a pup, which reminded me of a similar situation with another harbor seal in Maine, Hoover the Talking Seal. That\u2019s right, it\u2019s an episode about mammals that can talk, including one of my favorite cryptozoological mysteries ever.\n\nBefore we learn about talking animals, we need to learn a little bit about how humans talk. Humans produce most vocal sounds using our larynx, which is sometimes called a voicebox. The human larynx is situated at the top of the throat, and it helps us breathe, helps keep food from going down the wrong tube and into the lungs, and enables us to make sounds. It consists of cartilage, small muscles, and flaps of tissue called vocal folds or vocal cords. There are two kinds of vocal folds: the true vocal folds that are connected to muscles and actually produce sound, and the false vocal folds that don\u2019t have any connected muscles and just help with resonance.\n\nUsually resonance just makes the sound louder, but humans have learned to do amazing things with our voices. Some cultures use the false vocal folds to create a secondary tone. It\u2019s called overtone singing,