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b'This week we learn about two interesting animals from opposite parts of the world! Thanks to Felix and Jaxon for suggesting the wolverine and the kakapo.\\n\\nFurther reading:\\n\\nStudy: Wolverines need refrigerators\\n\\nKakapo Comeback [this article has some fantastic pictures!]\\n\\nThe wolverine likes cold weather:\\n\\n\\n\\nSo many young kakapos!\\n\\n\\n\\nThe kakapo is a really big bird:\\n\\n(Photo by Matu Booth)\\n\\nShow transcript:\\nWelcome to Strange Animals Podcast. I\\u2019m your host, Kate Shaw.\\nThis week we\\u2019re going to cover two animals suggested by listeners who spell their names with an X. I had already picked out these topics from the list and just now noticed both suggesters have X\\u2019s in their names. Thanks to Jaxon and Felix for these suggestions!\\nFirst, Felix suggested we learn about the wolverine. We\\u2019ve talked about it before in episode 62, but there\\u2019s a whole lot more to learn about this uncommon animal.\\nThe wolverine is a mustelid, which is a family that includes weasels, ferrets, and other small, long, skinny animals with short legs. But the wolverine is big and broad, although its legs are pretty short. It kind of looks like a small bear and stands about 18 inches tall at the shoulder, or 45 cm. It\\u2019s light brown with darker brown or black legs, muzzle, tail, and back, and some have silvery-gray markings too. Its tail is short but fluffy. It lives in cold, mountainous areas, including northern Canada and Alaska, Siberia, and parts of Norway, Sweden, and Finland.\\nThe wolverine is mainly a scavenger of animals that are already dead, but it will also kill and eat pretty much anything it can catch. This includes rabbits, mice, rats, porcupines, geese, and other small or relatively small animals, but it sometimes kills animals a lot bigger than it is, like deer. It will also eat eggs, berries, seeds, and anything else it can find. It\\u2019s not a picky eater.\\nThe wolverine nearly went extinct in the 19th century due to overhunting for its fur, which is mostly waterproof and frost-proof. People used it to line winter clothes. The wolverine is also vulnerable to habitat loss and climate change, since it needs deep snow and cold temperatures to survive.\\nBecause the wolverine lives where winters are harsh, when it finds a lot of food, it will sometimes bury it in snow to eat later. It chooses a protected area between boulders or a natural crevice in rocks to put the dead animal, then covers it with deep snow to keep it fresh for longer, just like putting meat in a freezer. Females in particular need this stored food, because they give birth in winter and need lots of food so they can produce milk for their babies.\\nBut if you\\u2019ve ever taken food out of the freezer, you know it\\u2019s hard as a rock. How does the wolverine eat meat that\\u2019s frozen solid? Not only does the wolverine have strong jaws and teeth, it actually has a special tooth in the back of the mouth that points inward, one on each side of the upper jaw. The inward-pointing tooth allows the wolverine to tear off chunks of frozen meat more easily. Other mustelids have this arrangement of teeth too.\\nA male wolverine roams widely through a large territory, which can sometimes be hundreds of square miles. Pairs often mate for life although they don\\u2019t spend a lot of time together, and sometimes a male will have two or three mates. In winter, the female digs a den deep into the snow to have her babies, and while she mostly takes care of them by herself, the father wolverine will visit from time to time and bring everyone food. The babies stay with their mother for up to a year, and sometimes the half-grown wolverines will go traveling with their dad for a while.\\nThe wolverine is sometimes called the nasty cat because it has a strong smell, which it uses to mark its territory. \\u201cNasty cat\\u201d is the funniest name for an animal I\\u2019ve ever heard.\\nNext, Jaxon suggested the kakapo, which is a weird and adorable bird. It\\u2019s flightless and nocturnal, lives only in New Zealand,'