Cannibalism (featuring Volker Rudolf)

Daniel and Kelly talk to Dr. Volker Rudolf about cannibalism. See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Daniel Whiteson?

  This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.

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• 1:10Speaker 03

  I was interested in animal behavior, and for my master's degree, I was studying juvenile smallmouth bass. So I went out in the wild, and after getting all of the permits I needed, I brought a bunch of them back into the lab, and they were like these little guys. And as they were growing up, I noticed that the number of fish in the tanks was going down, and I was totally stumped. The water quality was great. I wasn't finding any dead bodies in the tank. They weren't like getting sucked into the filters. I was crawling around on the ground, trying to see if they were somehow getting out of the tanks despite there being a lid on all of the tanks. And then one morning, I walked into the environmental chamber, and I was shocked. One of the fish had a giant tail sticking out of its mouth.

• 1:54Speaker 03

  It had not occurred to me that they were eating each other. Like, one, it hadn't occurred to me because the fish in the tank were pretty similarly sized, and this was not the first time in my life I was going to be amazed at how big prey items are for these bass, like how Much food they can fit into their gigantic mouths. So they weren't apparently able to eat each other, even when they were like pretty close to the same size. But also, I was totally naive to how common cannibalism apparently is in the animal kingdom. I was like, you can't eat your brothers and sisters. But no, absolutely, they were totally fine with that. And that's what we're going to be talking about today is cannibalism in the animal kingdom. We're going to mostly be talking about non-human animals and it's going to be quite a ride.

• 2:40Speaker 03

  We're interviewing Foka Rudolph and he'll tell us all about his research in this field. Welcome to Daniel and Kelly's Extraordinary Universe. Bon appetit.

• 3:03Daniel Whiteson?

  Welcome to Daniel and Kelly's Extraordinary Universe. I'm Daniel. I'm a particle physicist and I've never eaten a human being.

• 3:11Speaker 03

  I'm Kelly Wiener Smith. I also have never eaten a human being. No desire to do so, but as an ecologist, I have seen lots of animals eating other members of the same species.

• 3:21Daniel Whiteson?

  Well, let's dig into that a little bit more, Kelly. My question for you today is, what is the most intelligent animal you have ever eaten?

• 3:28Speaker 03

  Oh geez, probably pigs because they're super intelligent. I eat meat less these days because ever since I got on a farm and I've started interacting with like cows and pigs and goats and sheep, I'm like, oh my gosh, you all like, you have personalities. Some of you are very smart, but I gotta be honest, I feel way better about eating chicken. Because our chickens are so stupid and I don't feel too bad about eating chicken. So anyway, what about you?

• 3:57Daniel Whiteson?

  Well, are you saying that dumb deserve to be eaten? Is that what's happening here?

• 4:00Speaker 03

  That is not what's happening here. You don't need to extrapolate to the forbidden meal, but I do think chickens, you know, they're delicious and silly. What about you?

• 4:09Daniel Whiteson?

  I'm not going to answer your question yet. I'm going to keep pushing you. Would you eat a chimpanzee or a bonobo? If somebody puts the chimp of skull in front of you and flips it open and says, here's a brain delicacy. Is Kelly saying no, thank you? Or are you digging in?

• 4:22Speaker 03

  Hmm, I am saying, no, thank you. Yeah. Why am I saying, no, thank you? Oh, so much introspection happening right now. Are there not loads of bonobos in the wild? I don't know their status. So like, one, I don't want to eat anything that's like endangered or threatened or anything like that. But also, I guess I do feel uncomfortable the closer they are to me. And partly that's because like, there's a lot of zoonotic diseases. So a lot of diseases that jump from wild animals to humans. And I guess I would worry that the more closely related you are to those organisms, the more likely something is to jump. But I wouldn't have that excuse if it was like a lab raised chimpanzee. I still don't think I'd want to eat it. Yeah, no, I don't know that I have a good logical reason, but my tummy is saying no.

• 5:03Daniel Whiteson?

  Well, I'm an unabashed speciesist. I feel like being human is different from being a puppy or a chicken or a pig. And I used to feel like that wasn't fair, that you couldn't just say, hey, members of the human species have certain rights that pigs and dogs and whatever don't. But these days I've come to accept that that's just kind of how I feel, even if it is wrong. And so, for example, I'm happy to eat an intelligent pig, but I wouldn't eat a very stupid person.

• 5:32Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 5:33Daniel Whiteson?

  You're cool with that?

• 5:35Speaker 03

  Well, I'm trying to figure out what is the logical framework behind? Is it just anything that's not humans is good? Like, so you still haven't answered, would you eat the chimpanzee and the bonobo?

• 5:44Daniel Whiteson?

  I probably would eat the chimpanzee and the bonobo. Yeah, exactly. Nice, clean, lab raised chimpanzee. Yeah, why not? I mean, I eat pigs. And so, let's go all in. They're probably delicious.

• 5:55Speaker 03

  At least you're consistent. I recognize I'm not very consistent, which is part of why I shy away from meat altogether, because I feel like I haven't quite formulated the framework for what I feel comfortable with and what I don't feel comfortable with. Props to you for being consistent.

• 6:10Daniel Whiteson?

  Well, I think it's interesting that a lot of people probably haven't really thought through what they would eat and what they wouldn't eat and why. I remember reading an article about speciesism like 20 something years ago that actually inspired me to become a vegetarian, made me realize that I was being unfair to really smart pigs because I was giving them fewer rights than I was giving to, you know, not smart humans that I would refuse to eat. It made me feel like, hmm, maybe I just shouldn't be eating any creatures at all. And, you know, that lasted for like 10 years. I was a militant vegetarian for like 10 years until I had a son and he was very obviously a carnivore. And we lived in France where if you ask for vegetarian lunch, they give you like chicken or fish. It didn't last that long. And these days I just feel like, yes, there is something special about being human.

• 6:55Speaker 03

  For a while I was some special kind of vegetarian where I like mostly wouldn't eat meat, but if I knew that the animal had been treated humanely its whole life and was euthanized humanely. So it was a cow that lived on this beautiful farm. It had free range. It had buddies.

• 7:11Daniel Whiteson?

  It could paint twice a week and do arts and crafts and stuff.

• 7:14Speaker 03

  Yoga class on Wednesdays. I would make exceptions for that. And since I was a grad school at the time, I couldn't afford to do that very often. So it was like I'd have, you know, one meat dish a month where I would go and pay for that. And Zach, my husband likes to laugh because the thing that ended up breaking my like vegetarian streak was I just couldn't stop craving Arby's beef and cheddar sandwiches, which is just the lowest quality food ever. But like my grad student heart just had to have one. And that was the thing. Like I had one and then I was like, well, I've broken it. And then for a while I just ate what I could afford, which was Arby's because I was a grad student. Anyway, I've always had a complicated relationship with meat, I guess.

• 7:56Daniel Whiteson?

  And all of these behaviors are not rational, right? These are people's emotional feelings about what's right and what's wrong, what you grew up with. You know, I grew up not eating any shellfish at all. And so like, I think shellfish are gross and you cannot catch me eating shrimp. I'll eat a chimpanzee, but like shellfish, ick, it's icky. It's like insects of the ocean. I'm as likely to eat a cricket as I am to eat a shrimp.

• 8:16Speaker 03

  I am more likely to eat a cricket than a shrimp. I mean, you've got to like de-poop the shrimp before you eat them. Like, I don't, that's just gross.

• 8:24Daniel Whiteson?

  Shrimp are gross, exactly.

• 8:28Daniel Whiteson?

  And so on today's episode, I'm looking forward to exploring that line like, who eats who and why do they do it? Why don't we eat our neighbors' kids? Or should we?

• 8:36Speaker 03

  You know, I think law probably plays into why we don't eat our children's kids.

• 8:40Daniel Whiteson?

  But why is the law that way? And should it be that way, right? Should we have a reform movement that says cannibalism is actually okay?

• 8:47Speaker 03

  You are asking all the big questions, Daniel.

• 8:50Daniel Whiteson?

  This is not my field, and so I feel totally comfortable just like asking the big dumb questions.

• 8:56Speaker 03

  Well, that's great. I love that. All right. So speaking of big dumb questions, I asked, how common is cannibal in non-human animals? And have you ever seen it in nature? And so I asked this to some of my friends. And the big dumb thing that I did was I accidentally mistyped my friend's number in because like it was somebody I hadn't messaged for a while. And I sent some questions about cannibalism to like random person who's probably very confused. They never responded, but I like sent the questions. Then I was like, oh gosh, I'm sorry. Wrong number. I'm a scientist. This is for like a science thing. And like I got all awkward and I was like, I need to just stop texting this person. But the more texts I send, the more crazy they think I am.

• 9:35Daniel Whiteson?

  Well, at least you gave them a funny story that they can tell at their next dinner party, which I hope is not cannibalistic one. And if you would like to give answers to random questions, maybe about cannibalism, maybe about particle physics for future episodes of the podcast, please write to us to [email protected].

• 9:51Speaker 03

  And now let's hear from Kelly's friends.

• 9:54Speaker 04

  I have definitely heard of animals being cannibalistic. I remember being in the fifth grade and I had gotten like a tank of fish as a birthday present, and I had one fish that attacked all the other fish and ate them. And it was a little traumatic.

• 10:15Speaker 05

  I am really not sure. I don't think that it's terribly common in the vertebrate world, but maybe more common in some invertebrates. For some reason, I'm thinking among the insects, possibly. I do think I have seen especially some insects cannibalizing other insects that I believe would be the same species.

• 10:37Speaker 06

  I think it is pretty widely, you know, out there. So I think like insects and even like some insidians and things like that do it because it's one of those things where you want to eat no matter what and survive. I've also heard about bears. So bears will do it to other young cubs from breeding mothers because that will then induce them into like a breeding cycle so that they can then become the father, et cetera, and pass on their genes.

• 11:13Speaker 07

  I think this is probably pretty common in the animal kingdom, but I mostly associate it with parenting. My understanding is that it, in my brain anyways, that it comes up most often in situations where like a cat or a rabbit or a dog like is really kind of distressed, maybe like whatever the dog equivalent of postpartum depression is, I don't know, and they eat their offspring. I would guess that cannibalism is kind of common among frogs and snakes and insects,

• 11:58Speaker 07

  possibly fish. I do remember that I had Chinese fighting fish that gave birth to babies and you had to quickly separate the babies, otherwise mom and dad would eat them. Yeah, I guess if a bug dies in a colony, they're not just gonna give it a burial, they'll probably just repurpose all its nutrients or something. I'm just guessing.

• 12:20Daniel Whiteson?

  How'd you feel about these answers, Kelly?

• 12:22Speaker 03

  I thought that my friends gave great answers about cannibalism. I also felt like they were really great sports. One of the people, like I texted them the question and they texted back. I didn't know what to expect, but this is so totally on brand for you. I was like, what does that mean? But I then also, yes, you're right, totally on brand. So, uh, no, I thought they were great. It seems like there's this like hypothesis building based on the answers that invertebrates maybe do cannibalism more than vertebrates? Cause I thought that was like a pretty common theme. I don't actually know if like insects are more likely to eat each other than fish or frogs. I've seen lots of fish eating the same species. But yeah, I thought they were great answers. What did you think? And how are you going to try to connect it to humans this time?

• 13:06Daniel Whiteson?

  I thought it was interesting how widespread the answers were. Some people thought it almost never happens and some people think it's pretty common. I'm pretty curious to know, how often does this happen out there in the animal kingdom? Is it just humans that awkwardly joke about cannibalism on podcasts? Or is that also something that happens in the fish world?

• 13:25Speaker 03

  Let's learn more about the forbidden meal.

• 13:32Speaker 03

  On today's show, we have Volker Rudolph. He's a full professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at Rice. He's editor in chief at the American Naturalist, which in my field, that is a huge stinking deal. He is self diagnosed with scientific ADD. He studies stuff like a phenology, which is like the timing of when stuff happens in nature, like when are the flowers blooming? When are the tadpoles turning into frogs? And how does that change over time? He also studies like temporal dynamics, you know, how that stuff is changing across the United States, for example, and climate change. But we're not talking about any of that today because a few years ago, he was studying cannibalism and I've never forgotten how awesome that is. So we're going to talk to him today about cannibalism.

• 14:17Speaker 03

  So what got you into cannibalism?

• 14:22Daniel Whiteson?

  And what do your parents think about that?

• 14:24Speaker 04

  So I got interested in doing grad school and looking for a thesis topic. And I did some reading. I was generally interested like in the role of size and like mediating interactions. And at some point I came across some work in cannibalism and fish. And they were really curious about kind of like. The role of cannibalism in regulating the populations and then this had like bigger consequences for the entire ecosystem because this was like a top predator. And I got this interesting dynamics that were all driven by cannibalism and so I looked more into it and realized that there is not much known about cannibalism, especially the ecological consequences of it. And most of it's like treated as this kind of like weird thing that happens, but we don't want to talk about it.

• 15:09Speaker 04

  But it was really interesting to me and so like I focused, wanted to know more about the ecology of it, kind of like what's driving it. We've now been looking more into like the evolution of it as well. So it's been more like a slow organic process.

• 15:22Speaker 03

  So as a parasitologist, people always want to tell me about the time they thought they were infected by a parasite. Sometimes they want to show me photos of their feces. As someone who studies cannibalism, do people try to tell you stories about like, oh, my fish ate my other fish? Have you acquired many weird stories?

• 15:37Speaker 04

  If I talk about my research, then usually people get stuck on the cannibalism stuff because the most interesting is like dinner conversation topic.

• 15:44Daniel Whiteson?

  People want to talk about cannibalism over dinner?

• 15:48Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 15:50Speaker 04

  But it's like, once we start publishing some more and then especially, and then we're going to talk about later, the stuff we did on interaction with the illness, I started getting a lot of, you know, like media stuff from like in radio shows and other podcasts and experts thing. And 90% of those all had to do with some weird human anecdote thing, which is like nothing I do at all.

• 16:14Speaker 04

  So I got a little frustrated though, like, okay, I was like, this is not really what I do, but sure.

• 16:19Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 16:21Daniel Whiteson?

  Well, how widespread is any knowledge of cannibalism? Like, do people have mostly a misunderstanding of what cannibalism is and how it works? Or is the concept in the minds of the general public pretty much accurate?

• 16:32Speaker 04

  I would say there's a pretty big misconception overall. And most of that really comes from like our take on like enter my advising the whole thing. When we think about cannibalism, it sort of goes back to the idea that this is something that only happens on the extreme weird circumstances and it's not normal. I think that's kind of like how most people think like, oh, there's this weird anecdote about this shark doing some freaky thing and like, that's not normal. But in reality,

• 17:00Daniel Whiteson?

  And when cannibalism is completely normal, it's super widespread. It's everywhere in the animal kingdom. And this, why do we take the morals away from it? It makes sense, right? Because it's a normal ecological interactions, just a predator prey interactions. This happens to be like the same species.

• 17:18Speaker 03

  And how widespread is it? So I tell a story at the beginning of the episode where my small mouth bass were eating each other during my master's project. And I was like totally surprised by, you know, where all the fish in my experiment were going. What other organisms do it?

• 17:32Daniel Whiteson?

  I mean, I would say like if it's predatory, there's really high chance it's cannibalistic. So most species are predators are probably to some extent cannibalistic. And then there's some variation and a bit of nuance. But I would say for me, that's like the default. There are exceptions to that that are not cannibalistic. And there are various reasons for that. But I'd say the default is kind of like a predator is cannibalistic. And there are a bunch of other species that are not even predatory. They're still cannibalistic, right? Because it can help with nutrient deficiencies and other components, or just removing competitors from the field, right? So it's all over the place, right? It's probably one of the most underreported interactions in the animal kingdom.

• 18:15Daniel Whiteson?

  I think a lot of people might wonder why cannibalism is so widespread. I think like a naive understanding of evolution, like the one that I have, for example, would suggest that it might be detrimental to the population as a whole, right? But is it as simple as, yeah, but it helps you and your genes are all you care about? Pretty much, yeah. It's from an in real perspective, it's just another way of getting resources. And you're not doing it to the benefit of the population. You're just trying to increase your own personal fitness. And in many scenarios, that's a good option, right? So you can think of it, for instance, if you're cannibalistic, you can remove competitors from the environment, right? That's like a direct one. Not only do you remove them from the environment, you actually get energy from them on top of that, right? So it's a double win situation.

• 18:59Daniel Whiteson?

  And the costs are something then that's like under. Which conditions is it's not beneficial and then you sort of come back and like inclusive fitness and kind of like, what does it do to your offspring and what's the risk of eating those? It's like Google acquiring other companies, right? Competitors off the field. Yeah, pretty much. All right. Well, then I have a question for you about cannibalism that I'm pretty sure you've never gotten before. Okay. So I've heard the argument that on other planets, if life evolves, it's very likely that there will be predators there because beings will chomp on other beings because, as you say, it's a rich source of nutrients. So then my question to you is, are you suggesting that aliens are very likely also cannibals? There's a pretty good chance, yeah.

• 19:44Daniel Whiteson?

  All right. And I think we have our spinoff movie, Alien Cannibals. We'll wait for the first draft of the script from you. Looking forward to that. It's never a question I heard before, so.

• 19:55Daniel Whiteson?

  Way to go, Daniel.

• 19:58Daniel Whiteson?

  And I got to work in aliens. All right. Double bonus.

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• 22:23Speaker 02

  Okay, so is there a difference between cannibalism if you're the one killing the conspecific you plan on eating, or if you like come across it and it's dead? Both of those are cannibalism? Or does the definition of cannibalism imply that you had to like kill the organism before you eat it? Or is it all the same?

• 22:40Speaker 03

  So the definition we kind of stuck in was like killing and at least partial consumption of a conspecific. So if it's already dead, we would sort of call it necrophagy. As I can, so we talked about the so like in the disease perspective, that's like a different dynamic. But I guess I would usually even talk about cannibalism.

• 23:00Speaker 06

  And most of the literature involves the killing part, but of course, like most terms, there's various definitions of it floating around.

• 23:07Speaker 03

  Okay. All right. So I know that all of us on this call are parents. So what are some benefits of eating your children?

• 23:19Speaker 06

  Interesting choice. I mean, so when you see parents consuming their offspring, right? But for many ways, that's like the thing that usually selects against cannibalism. But there are reports of this in various instances where you have parents eating their offspring. And the example, for instance, like in fish, there's an interesting study that came out a while ago, where they showed that males that was regarding the eggs for the females were more likely to cannibalize the eggs if they thought that they weren't actually the dads, right? So other dad would swoop in doing like the fertilization process. And if they thought someone else actually fertilized the eggs, they would just eat it and do it over again.

• 24:03Speaker 06

  There's another one where you have scenarios where like parents will consume their offspring, for instance, in case of a disturbance, for instance, or like the risk of predation. I think in those cases, it's kind of like the idea behind it is the evaluating is okay. If some predator comes in, they're going to eat all my eggs. I get nothing. If I eat the eggs, I at least get part of the energy back that I invested in it. All right. So it's kind of like a very risky, kind of like, do I lose it all? Or do I keep some of it? It's like scenario, which does happen in some scenarios.

• 24:38Speaker 03

  That's cold.

• 24:38Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 24:40Daniel Whiteson?

  Rather cannibal dilemma, huh?

• 24:42Speaker 06

  Yeah. I mean, but there were a few instances where eating your offspring is beneficial. I mean, I can not.

• 24:50Speaker 03

  Really think of a whole lot like I said, in most cases, that's what selects against it. Don't eat your kids.

• 24:57Speaker 03

  Follow up on that one. We do like a random survey of people before we do an interview to ask what their opinions are on the topic. And one of the people we interviewed said that they thought mostly cannibalism was about eating their young because they had heard so many stories. And I guess they had a lot of like hamsters and the hamsters would get stressed out and they'd eat their young. So it was like a stress thing, but you're saying that like, it definitely happens sometimes, but it's probably not the most common example of cannibalism. So I mean, the most part is like the eating your own is kind of like a byproduct of just eating your conspecifics, right? So it does happen.

• 25:28Daniel Whiteson?

  Sorry, what's a conspecific for those of us who are not biologists?

• 25:31Speaker 03

  Oh, sorry. Conspecific means like a member of your own species.

• 25:34Daniel Whiteson?

  I see. Okay.

• 25:35Speaker 03

  Because sometimes cannibalism gets confused with like predation, but it has to be the same species or it's not cannibalism. So in most scenarios, right, where you have cannibalism, you get the accidental or occasional eating of your own offspring. Right. And so, for instance, like we did a study in flower beetles. We kind of tried to figure out whether these guys recognize their eggs, their own eggs, and whether they would eat them less because these are really cannibalistic. And so what we figured out is like that, yes, they do seem to recognize it, but that just means they eat them somewhat less, not they don't eat them. Okay.

• 26:14Speaker 03

  Right. And so I feel like many examples, it's kind of like when the risk of encountering your own like babies is relatively weak. There's no real selection for like recognizing or worrying about it. And you just eat whoever is like fits in your mouth sort of perspective. And sometimes those may be your offspring and sometimes they're not. And I think in the case of the hamsters and the others, it's like they would probably eat other babies too. And it's not that they specifically want to eat their own babies. They're just like stressed out. They're trying to remove competitors, the territorial. And there's just not enough of a barrier to like select against not eating your own in that scenario. But yeah.

• 26:55Daniel Whiteson?

  I'm still trying to understand the fact that there's no selection pressure against eating your neighbor's kids. I mean, don't a lot of creatures survive because of communities, you know, a bunch of penguins huddle together to survive the wind? Or a pride of lions help each other out or whatever? And don't we all get along better if we stop eating our kids and worry about our kids being eaten every time we leave the house? Isn't there some benefit to that?

• 27:18Speaker 03

  I was just sort of brought up the pride of lions. Because lions are also pretty cannibalistic.

• 27:26Speaker 03

  So I thought they're helping out. In fact, you often have like the meals go in and like when they take over pride, especially like kill all the offsprings of the female and eat them because they want to be like the dads of the kids and not like raise somebody else's kid. At least that's how the theory goes. I mean, that's a very sort of group selecting perspective, which is an interesting discussion. I'm sure Kelly has some ideas about it, too.

• 27:50Daniel Whiteson?

  Is that a controversial topic or something?

• 27:52Speaker 03

  Partial.

• 27:55Daniel Whiteson?

  Because we don't understand whether it happens or some people believe it does and some people believe it doesn't. Or as a non biologist, I don't know what's sort of the third rail to discuss in terms of evolution.

• 28:04Speaker 03

  Because it's a hard scenario to really make work to like care and like help genetically unrelated individuals. It's a complicated strategy to get working because it's just so prone to cheating. And so usually when you say see this or like helping behavior, that's kind of like more something where it's like your offspring or your siblings or something like that. In that case, it comes back to like kin selection and inclusive fitness, which is also something that's like influences cannibalism. In fact, with the helping, I often like to think of this altruistic behavior and cannibalism as like the flip side of a coin. Right. Then both extreme, there's the helping and being mutualistic and beneficial. And then there's the other extreme of like just being as selfish as you possibly can.

• 28:50Speaker 03

  And so cannibalism is like the selfish as possibly can, because you're literally killing someone on for your own benefit. Right. It's hard to be more selfish. And understanding at what point, you know, like selection favors one strategy over the other. That's kind of like, I think, one of the interesting questions. Yeah, I feel like my brief take on it is that for a while, you know, this idea that animals were doing things for the benefit of the species was kind of a popular idea. It was a long time ago. And then pretty quickly, when we started digging in, it just wasn't making sense. And doing things for the benefit of the species at the expense of yourself just sort of doesn't really work evolutionarily. And now the big question is when organisms are helping each other, why the heck are they doing that?

• 29:31Speaker 03

  So we've almost swung to the opposite direction. Now we're trying to explain why animals help each other out. And often it turns out that they're related in some way, or maybe they're like reciprocally sharing resources. And it's like, all right, you helped me out, so I'll help you out. But like if someone doesn't help out, then you know, maybe you eat them instead. That's sort of my take on how we've sort of swung from one direction to another.

• 29:52Daniel Whiteson?

  Is that how biologists all look at each other? They're like, look, we'll collaborate on this paper, but if you stop pulling your weight, I might just eat you.

• 29:58Speaker 03

  Academia is tough.

• 30:02Speaker 03

  But not that tough, I guess.

• 30:03Daniel Whiteson?

  Well, you know, something that's forefront of my mind during this conversation is the obvious counter example, which is humans, right? As humans, we do help each other out. Young men go off and die in wars to protect other people. It's also one of the examples of a species that maybe has less cannibalism than other species. Is it because we've succeeded to help each other out so much and work together as a society? Is that why we have a stigma against cannibalism? Or are you going to tell me that people eat each other just as much as other species?

• 30:32Speaker 03

  So I'm not an anthropologist, but it's like when we sort of looked into some of this, we kind of got into the anthropology literature. And I will say like, for most of the human history, there's been an element of cannibalism. And I linked it back to Neanderthals, different cultures, the point at which all societies, as far as we know, stopped cannibalism is actually pretty recent. Like in some of Papua New Guinea, you still had cannibalism in the like the 1950s to 1970s, somewhere around that. So for modern humans, right? 21st century humans, that's definitely true. But in the past, cannibalism has been pretty much part of like many different cultures, like across all the different continents.

• 31:16Speaker 03

  And that range between like some like ancestral rituals, about now ensuring that your ancestors live on to like getting the powers of your enemies and these sorts of different components. So humans have definitely engaged in cannibalistic activities in past societies, for sure. You mentioned that in the 1950s, cannibalism was still happening in Papua New Guinea, and that group became fairly famous because of a disease that they got through that practice. And when we come back from the break, we're going to go ahead and talk about that.

• 31:44Daniel Whiteson?

  So everybody finish cooking up your dinner and get ready to hear about it.

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• 32:25Daniel Whiteson?

  Hey, it's Niall Rogers, host of Before the Moment, a Lincoln original series. I'm driving across the country, meeting some of today's most fascinating artists. We're exploring the stories before the moment that changed everything. This week, I'm joined by breakout singer-songwriter Alex Warren. I'm like a kid when I play music and I make music and I'm constantly asking questions. You know, whether it's an instrument I haven't played, or it's a melody that seems foreign. You know, there's every night you play a show and it's the same set, but it's not the same show. At a certain point, your brain kind of goes on autopilot. When I'm in the studio, or if I'm making music, that's where that curiosity kind of comes back, you know? I haven't lost it yet, but I'm also on my sophomore album, so, and you, you obviously

• 33:09Daniel Whiteson?

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• 34:01Daniel Whiteson?

  Kelly, do you have a snack in front of you? Are you ready to talk about cannibalism some more?

• 34:04Speaker 03

  Oh, you know, I always have snacks. I've got my cheese and crackers and salami, and I'm just not thinking too hard about it. And, you know, as a person who studies parasites, I never think too hard about what I'm eating. Or maybe I should. But anyway, that would be a good diet strategy. We talked about the folks in Papua New Guinea who were engaging in cannibalism up until the 1950s. And another area of research that you focused on is disease and how it maybe makes cannibalism less beneficial. So can you tell us a little bit more about kuru, and then about disease transmission from cannibalism in the non-human animals? So I mean, kuru got famous because it's like, it's a prion disease that's in some way, you can sort of think of it like Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, another prion disease,

• 34:48Speaker 03

  that's like a neurodegenerative disease. And what's interesting about it, it often can take a long time for it to come up, like in several years. Can you tell us real quick, what are prion diseases? Because I think a lot of people don't know about those. Right. So prion diseases, diseases that are caused by infectious proteins, which are actually proteins that are normally in your body, but they're being inspired to change their shape. And that shape then is not as functional, can cause various diseases, right? There's, like I mentioned, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, which is like a neurodegenerative disease. There are several equivalents that we know, like an animal diseases, like meerkat disease, a few other ones.

• 35:28Daniel Whiteson?

  So if prions are proteins, it means they're not alive, right? There's like little bits of stuff, the little molecular machines. What makes it a disease and not like a poison? Is it because it replicates itself somehow, or?

• 35:40Speaker 03

  It replicates itself in the body, because it's basically sort of a dynamic reaction, where it's like, you can think of one protein that's like changed in the shape, bumping into the normal shape one, and like changing it to that shape, like weird sort of chain reaction.

• 35:53Daniel Whiteson?

  That's crazy. Proteins are amazing.

• 35:55Speaker 03

  It was a long controversy to prove that they actually- Actually, the cause of a disease because they're like normal parts of your body. And there's no like external infectious agent that was initially identified. So they it's a really interesting history about like how long it took them to figure out what prion diseases are and how what causes them. Yeah, they're crazy. But so as you noted, for the folks who were suffering from this neurodegenerative disease, it was really hard to figure out a cause because there was this long delay between the activity and then the onset of symptoms. Can you tell us some more about that before I derailed you? The idea was that they found these like diseases in certain cultural groups in Papua New Guinea. And ultimately, it was like tracked to some of their like burring rituals,

• 36:38Speaker 03

  which involved actually sort of consuming part of the dead ancestor, right? So like it had sort of diseased and they figured that this was like the main source and how these things were actually being transmitted. And that's kind of like the history of how Kuru was linked to the cannibalistic practices in humans.

• 36:55Daniel Whiteson?

  Wait, so they would bury the ancestors and then eat them? Or eat them and then bury them? Or eat them and bury them? I lost track.

• 37:01Speaker 03

  That's a good question. I'm trying to remember how.

• 37:03Daniel Whiteson?

  Or maybe it's like that Swedish dish where you bury them, you let them rot for six months, and then you dig them up and eat them?

• 37:08Speaker 03

  No, I think it was before I remember the details. I would have to look that up again. Interesting about prion diseases too, they're actually very stable. So sometimes even cooking can kill them, right? Which is another sort of thing that makes prion diseases weird.

• 37:22Daniel Whiteson?

  And so the connection to cannibalism is that if this exists in the person you're eating, you eat the thing, now you have the protein in you, and so now you have the disease?

• 37:31Speaker 03

  Yes. So that's how it was like traced back. It was tricky, but I mean, they're used to like, you know, records of like previous infections or like weird behaviors of people and others of stuff and trying to trace it back to like where they came from. But of course, it's like hard to trace a disease back that sometimes takes 20 plus years to establish and figure out where it's coming from. Yeah. And so how common is this in non-human animals? Not necessarily prions jumping back and forth during cannibalism, but just like any disease and what kind of diseases are most commonly transmitted? It's an interesting question because I think it's like in one way you can just think of like cannibalism being so like a way of interacting with members of your own species, which can always increase the risk of.

• 38:11Speaker 04

  Infected, right? So if you consume an individual that's infected just by like getting in contact with infected individual, there's a good chance that you pick it up.

• 38:22Daniel Whiteson?

  But are you saying you're more likely to get a disease if you eat somebody from your own species than if you eat somebody not from your species? Is that because you're more likely to be susceptible to the same diseases?

• 38:31Speaker 04

  It's more likely to go to susceptible to the same diseases. In fact, there's been like some theories and experiments like Dave Fennig, who was like testing that. And so they go, is like, are you more likely to get infected by your own species? They did that actually in tad balls, believe it or not, they're also cannibalistic, some of them, space for tad balls, actually. And they found that like when they consumed a con specific that was infected, they got more likely to be infected than if they ate another species. And so they used that as like a idea of selecting against cannibalism. And they did find that they were more likely to discriminate against their own species than the other and less likely to eat them. And so there was the idea that disease could select against cannibalism because there's a higher risk of infection.

• 39:15Speaker 03

  Does it depend on the kind of diseases? So like, you know, if someone's not sneezing anymore, because they're dead, they're probably not going to give me the cold or the flu. If I eat their brains, I might get a prion disease. So is there certain kinds of diseases you're more likely to get? Or is it not that easy? Because it's ecology.

• 39:32Speaker 04

  I think ultimately, there is not a lot of research on this specific topic. You might be surprising, but I'm like, there, for instance, I have like insects and others like it's pretty common that when the individuals become infected, then the just can lead to another infection. But there's also this scenario where like, if it's a disease that, for instance, needs to be inhaled, like get in your respiratory tract or like go a certain route. And you eat it and they just go in your stomach and get digested, they're not going to actually become infected, right? So if you consume the individuals before it's infectious state, especially, then you're like, you could actually remove sick individuals from the population.

• 40:13Speaker 04

  So it really sort of depends on like how much the infection relies on you actually coming in contact with it. Or whether it relies on you being ingested by the individual. I think there are no hard facts on it, but I think it comes down to the transmission mode of the disease.

• 40:28Daniel Whiteson?

  And in general, most of these diseases are killed by cooking, right? So if you cook the creature, you're most likely going to kill the disease, except for prions, which is why they're so terrifying, right?

• 40:37Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 40:38Daniel Whiteson?

  I guess in the natural world, temples don't usually like grill each other before eating.

• 40:42Speaker 02

  There's not a lot of cooking going on in the natural world.

• 40:46Daniel Whiteson?

  But is there zero? Like, I mean, is there really zero use of fire by any other creature other than humans? Excuse my completely naive question.

• 40:54Speaker 03

  I don't think chimpanzees or bonobos cook over fire. They've got other ways of trying to remove parasites that folks have postulated, but they're not cooking their meat beforehand.

• 41:06Daniel Whiteson?

  And so are there other species where cannibalism seems to be sort of disinclined or suppressed the way it is in modern humans? Or is it really everywhere in the animal kingdom?

• 41:16Speaker 02

  I would say it's almost everywhere. I always call it ubiquitous. I'm not saying everybody is cannibalistic, but a lot of them are. And there's of course a gradient, right? It's like some species are highly cannibalistic and some species may not be cannibalistic. Yeah, it's a full spectrum, I would say.

• 41:34Daniel Whiteson?

  And is there any organization to that spectrum? Is it like the more your fish like, the more cannibalistic you are? Or the larger your number of offspring or something? What are the patterns?

• 41:44Speaker 02

  Kelly is like, let's digress. I always thought about it and it's like, I don't think there is a general meta online list that's like can pull that out. I think part of that is because I don't think cannibalism is sufficiently reported in most organisms. Sometimes I remember reading like papers about food webs where it's like, oh, like in this food web, there's like, you know, they have no cannibalistic link in it. And like I looked at it and like pulled out 10 species that are known to be cannibalistic. There's a strong under reporting that makes it difficult to go out there and say, okay, all the general patterns are like certain taxa or certain functional groups are more cannibalistic than others. I don't think we even have the data to test that right now.

• 42:24Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 42:25Speaker 02

  That's why I say like, I do think like most predators are cannibalistic, but then after that, it's very hard to make more generalization about which ones are more likely.

• 42:36Daniel Whiteson?

  Certain, you know, like if you're species with parental care or certain social structure, it's a lot less likely or even selected against it. So there should be some patterns, but I'm not aware of any analysis that it looked at that. And when you say underreported, that makes it sound like it's, you know, stigmatized or something. People don't want to talk about it. Is it just that we don't have the data because there isn't enough funding? Or because it's difficult to gather for some reason, or? I think it's because for like decades, people stigmatized it. All right. So if you think, if you go back to like Abel Abelsfeld was a famous like behavioral ecologist. And he was the one that always talked about like they're good for the species. Whereas like, oh, we don't do that. And cannibalism was immediately linked into this where it's kind of like, oh, that's just a freak of nature.

• 43:20Daniel Whiteson?

  It only happens, you know, like Maroon on an island and have nothing else to eat. Or where the airplane crashes in the Arctic or something, right? It was definitely considered as not a normal interactions. And I still think to this day, it's like it's less studied than other interactions. Also, it's a lot more than it was, let's say, like in the nineties or the early 2000s. So I was like, so it's getting a little bit more attention, but because of the stigmatization, there was very little research for long. And so every time I like published one of my paper, I had first to argue and saying, actually, this is everywhere. We just don't talk about it.

• 43:53Daniel Whiteson?

  So I was like, I had to justify why I'm even doing this. And that it's not weird and I'm just doing like an unnatural behavior, but it's like pretty common. So if I had to summarize your entire academic career in one sentence, would it be fair to say cannibalism is everywhere and actually it's usually good?

• 44:10Speaker 03

  He does a lot of other stuff too, but.

• 44:12Daniel Whiteson?

  Yes.

• 44:15Daniel Whiteson?

  I think it's fair to say that it's really a part of the natural ecosystem. And in many ways it can be good, right? For instance, cannibalism in predatory species can really stabilize predator prey dynamics. And in fact, help natural ecosystem do not cycle.

• 44:28Speaker 05

  As much, right? Or it can promote coexistence, right? So it actually plays an important role in natural ecosystems. Just we haven't appreciated.

• 44:36Daniel Whiteson?

  I didn't expect we were going to end up being pro cannibalism. Here we are.

• 44:42Speaker 03

  We jumped around, which is totally great, but we were talking about parents eating their kids. I feel like it's much worse for kids to eat their parents because like, how can you not appreciate all the effort your parents have put in there? But does that happen?

• 44:54Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 44:55Speaker 03

  What? Can you give us some?

• 45:00Speaker 05

  I mean, in those cases, where you think about is like, there's some species out there that pretty much just reproduce it once in their lifetime, right? It's like, and we often think about like these repeated repetitive events where during your lifetime, you have multiple babies and so on. But for many species, it's a one time thing, right? It's like they put all their eggs in the basket that reproduce. And in those instances, actually, is like, there are some species, I'm trying to think of it. I think there's at least like a spider species, but essentially the idea there is that the parents would die anyway. And it's kind of like parent nourishment provision, right? It's like they give their kids more food. And in this case, it's just their last donation and it's them.

• 45:38Speaker 03

  Man.

• 45:39Speaker 05

  Right? It's like the all in investment, the ultimate parenting.

• 45:42Speaker 03

  Kids are always taking, taking, taking.

• 45:47Daniel Whiteson?

  All right. Well, I feel like I have to connect the obvious dots here. You're telling us that cannibalism is actually pretty widespread. It's even existed in human society for a long time. It's often beneficial and it's probably a good idea to eat your parents. So would you advise cannibalism? Were you saying like, hey, you're putting your parents to rest? Your options are like cremation, burial or saute? Is that something we should have in our society?

• 46:09Speaker 03

  I'm really shocked you're going there, Daniel, but okay.

• 46:12Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah. I feel like I shouldn't be answering that question at all.

• 46:17Daniel Whiteson?

  Look, when the aliens come, they're going to ask us this question and we need to have an answer, you know?

• 46:21Speaker 03

  You can plead the fifth.

• 46:22Speaker 05

  I always go back to like when Kelly said.

• 46:24Daniel Whiteson?

  That like with parasites and all that. I'm like, that's just an everything.

• 46:30Speaker 03

  Got it. Yeah, we're not going to think too hard about that. So I'm trained as an ecologist. I love hearing about, you know, ecological systems and I was going through the like titles of papers that you've published and I got really excited about the bulgy frogs. And so tell us about why salamander cannibalism results in bulgy frogs.

• 46:52Daniel Whiteson?

  So the frogs, not necessarily bulgy, it's the tadpoles that are bulgy, right? So now that people think of like giant blobby frogs, so they're actually tadpoles and they're so like get bulgy by getting these like outer jelly layers that really make him way bigger than they normally would be. And so that's a species in Japan that like one of our collaborators I came across and it's a defense mechanism. Because by being bigger, they can't get eaten by salamanders potentially because they don't fit in their mouth. Right? So it's just like blow yourself up, kind of like the pufferfish. So you don't fit in somebody else's mouth, which means you survive. Too big to fail. Yeah. And so, and so these researchers found is like, so cannibalism in the salamanders, which actually cannibalism in salamanders is really common.

• 47:35Daniel Whiteson?

  I've seen one species so far that's not cannibalistic, but everybody else I've worked with, all the other species, were all cannibalistic to some extent.

• 47:43Speaker 03

  But they're so cute.

• 47:44Daniel Whiteson?

  They are very cute. I agree. Salamanders will eat whatever fits in their mouth, right? That's kind of like if it moves, they'll try to shove it in their mouth. Like toddlers.

• 47:57Daniel Whiteson?

  I'm convinced if your parents would fit in your mouth, toddlers would try to eat them. They probably would just shove it in there. It's like, if you don't think about it, right? You're just like, food, food, food. More food. And so in salamanders, sometimes you get like different court of screens. Like some parents lay their eggs earlier and then maybe like a few weeks later, another egg laying event, right? And these guys hatch and they're smaller than the earlier ones. And for those earlier ones, they often get eaten by the older salamander larvae. And because of that, they actually grow a lot faster and get bigger, like way bigger than they would with.

• 48:36Speaker 04

  Out cannibalism, right? So there's the clear beneficial role of like, you know, eating a conspecific to get bigger and stronger. And that's like accelerates growth for a few individuals, like the cannibals in the system. And they are the ones that then also pose the biggest risk for the tadpoles in the system, because that's the other main food source. And so when you have those giants cannibals in the system, that's select for bulgy tadpoles. And so that's kind of like how to get the feedback.

• 49:05Speaker 03

  So why aren't the tadpoles always bulgy? Is it just like hard to move around if you're always bulgy? So you only do it if you have to be bulgy?

• 49:13Speaker 04

  I think there's a big investment cost in doing that. And if they don't have to, they don't do it. So it's kind of like an anti predator response. Like, once the predation is clearly happening, they're like, oh crap, like, I better get bulgy fast.

• 49:28Daniel Whiteson?

  So it's expensive, but it saves your life.

• 49:30Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 49:31Daniel Whiteson?

  But you don't do it unless you have to.

• 49:32Speaker 04

  Exactly.

• 49:33Speaker 03

  Excellent.

• 49:34Daniel Whiteson?

  So this is something at the cutting edge of understanding cannibalism. Can we zoom out and understand, like, what are the big questions remain? Like, you're a researcher, you're a professor, you're doing research right now into cannibalism. What is like a big question you would love to know the answer to about cannibalism? Or what are we going to know about cannibalism in 20 years that we don't know today?

• 49:52Speaker 04

  I think for me, what's something we're working on, and we currently actually have a grant that we submitted to look at this more, is trying to understand kind of like what limits cannibalism. Because like, what I've seen, work with a bunch of different species, there's a range of cannibalistic behavior, like I said, that goes from like, the super cannibalistic, right? It's like, they see another conspecific, they will eat him immediately. There's one where like, it's pretty uncommon. Even within the same species, you can find populations where some are more cannibalistic than others, and it has a genetic component to it. So it's not just like, some environmental media one, it's like, it's an inherited trait where like, some are more

• 50:33Speaker 04

  cannibalistic, some are less. And we don't really understand why. And I always like to think of this, where I said before, cannibalism is a form or the ultimate selfish behavior. And Kelly mentioned before that for like decades, people were really interested in kind of like, okay, when should selfish behavior move to altruistic behavior? And we spend like decades on like, figuring out when mutualism altruism should happen. But we don't really have a rule that says like, what should stop being extremely selfish, right? Why is an

• 51:06Daniel Whiteson?

  Everybody as cannibalistic as they can possibly be, right? There has to be something that's limited. And so what we try to understand is like, what are the environmental conditions that can do this? Is this something that really can go in different ways? And there are like multiple behaviors that can mitigate the cost of cannibalism? We talked about like one big of the cost of cannibalism is eating your own offspring, right? Your own, you're like children, because that's a big loss of fitness. You can mitigate this by recognizing your own offspring, and you can still be as cannibalistic as you want, right? Because then you set off the cost of fitness loss, but you can still remove your competitors. You can still get extra meals and all that stuff. And your kids' competitors, right? If you eat your neighbor's kids, then your kids are like top of the class. Right.

• 51:53Speaker 03

  So many lessons here.

• 51:57Daniel Whiteson?

  So there are many different ways of like mitigating the cost of cannibalism. And it's more like sort of a behavioral, multidimensional space where you can like just recognize them, or it could be that your kids just get the genes to like, get the hell out of here, right? Leave your parents as fast as possible and walk away from them. And then also like the parents can just continue to be cannibalistic, right? So there are different behaviors that can play a role with it. And understanding how they're all interact with each other to really drive the evolution of cannibalism, and then see how that can like explain a lot of the variation that we see within and across species. I think that's a big question for us.

• 52:33Speaker 03

  So you said you've been like beating the drum that like cannibalism is common. This happens all the time. We need to understand it more. Has that message gotten out? Are ecologists over the stigma? Are more people studying this now?

• 52:42Daniel Whiteson?

  I think there are more people studying it now. It's like, I'm not sure that this is because of me or whether that's just, well, actually, I'm pretty sure it's not because of me. I'm sure this has nothing to do with it. I think that the stigma has like seeded in is just by having more and more studies over the time to like, look at this. I know that there's been like a popular book on cannibalism that came out a few years ago that draws just on like talking about the misconception behind it and how that's pretty common. I don't think it was actually a scientist necessarily who works in it that wrote it, but they just thought it was a cool topic or something. That probably helped too, to like get it more out and then like public. But I think for researchers, it's funny whenever I gave this talk and then talked about cannibalisms and other things. And people would always come up and say, yeah, I see this all the time and just never really thought about it.

• 53:26Daniel Whiteson?

  Or like, what are the consequences? So, right, most people that work in natural system, unless they work in plants, probably have seen cannibalism at some point. Or like you said, like, or at home, right, you see fish getting eaten. So you were like, oh, how come I never get, you know, more guppies? And it's like,

• 53:42Speaker 03

  They're eaten.

• 53:43Daniel Whiteson?

  All got eaten up.

• 53:44Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 53:46Speaker 03

  When books on cannibalism have the best titles, I've got, is Eating People Wrong? Which I found on my husband's table the other day and I got fairly nervous. So the children and I, you know, went on a vacation, but it turned out it was not about us.

• 54:00Speaker 03

  Just for research.

• 54:01Daniel Whiteson?

  Just for research.

• 54:03Daniel Whiteson?

  Well, what about portrayals in popular media? You know, when I watch a show and they talk about particle physics and often cringing because they get all the details wrong. If you watch Silence of the Lambs or, you know, that TV show Hannibal was very popular. Are you cringing because you're like, oh, my God, that would never happen that way? Or are you just glad to hear people talking about cannibalism?

• 54:25Daniel Whiteson?

  Since it's your position that more people should do it. The answer to both of this is no, right? Because like all the human cannibalism is nothing that I do. It's all really like a psychological, mostly weird behavior that it's not aligned with like the natural cannibalistic behavior that we see like in these ecosystems. So, no, it's like, I don't think they get it wrong because to me it has nothing to do with what I see out in nature.

• 54:51Speaker 03

  All right, so Foka is not saying that any of us should engage in cannibalism.

• 54:55Daniel Whiteson?

  No.

• 54:56Speaker 03

  And I think that's where we need to end this conversation.

• 55:01Daniel Whiteson?

  I feel like we pushed you to like embrace it and endorse it, but like, no.

• 55:07Daniel Whiteson?

  We should study it more, not actually do it.

• 55:09Speaker 03

  That's right, right.

• 55:11Daniel Whiteson?

  The lawyers have gotten to you both. You're both afraid to say the truth.

• 55:15Speaker 03

  All right.

• 55:17Speaker 03

  All right, well, thank you so much for being on the show. You might have noticed I've avoided saying your name the whole time because now I'm convinced that I'm doing it wrong and I'm super embarrassed about it. But anyway, this has been a ton of fun. Thanks for being a good sport about all of the jokes that we made and the weird human references that we insisted on shoehorning in. And we look forward to having you back on the show in like a decade to tell us about what you've discovered.

• 55:40Daniel Whiteson?

  All right, sounds good. Thanks for having me. Thanks for the delicious conversations.

• 55:51Speaker 02

  Daniel and Kelly's Extraordinary Universe is produced by iHeartRadio. We would love to hear from you.

• 55:56Daniel Whiteson?

  We really would. We want to know what questions you have about this extraordinary universe.

• 56:02Speaker 02

  We want to know your thoughts on recent shows, suggestions for future shows. If you contact us, we will get back to you.

• 56:09Daniel Whiteson?

  We really mean it. We answer every message. Email us at [email protected].

• 56:15Speaker 02

  Or you can find us on social media. We have accounts on X, Instagram, Blue Sky, and on all of those platforms you can find us at D and K Universe.

• 56:25Daniel Whiteson?

  Don't be shy. Write to us.

• 56:30Speaker 02

  Wait, I came in for two things. How is this $47? All right, we're gonna need a plan here. Just start simple with Bank of America Advantage Safe Balance Banking. No overdraft item fees, no monthly maintenance fee if you're under 25. Oh, that's actually really simple. Safe Balance Banking, one less thing to figure out. Learn more at bofa.com/simplebanking. Terms and conditions apply. Bank of America and a member FDIC.

• 56:59Speaker 06

  Cash flow crunch? OnDeck's small business line of credit gives your business immediate access to funds up to $200,000 right when you need it. Cover seasonal dips, manage payroll, restock inventory, or tackle unexpected expenses without missing a beat. With flexible draws, transparent pricing, and control over repayment, get funded quickly and confidently. Apply today at ondeck.com. Funds could be available as soon as tomorrow. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 57:29Daniel Whiteson?

  Hey, it's Lunchbox from the Bobby Bones Show. Buy smart, drive for less, and trade for more. That's Toyota affordability, and it starts with a great deal on an all-wheel-drive Camry, Corolla Cross, or a Corolla sedan with the latest features in tech. Or test drive a spacious Grand Highlander or an adventure-ready RAV4. And with so many hybrid models available, you can enjoy longer trips without all the stops, while Toyota's legendary resale value means you could get more at trade-in. Get a deal today and great value tomorrow. Shop toyota.com for deals and details. Toyota, let's go places.

• 58:07Daniel Whiteson?

  Hey, I'm Niall Rogers. This fall, I'll be driving across the country, meeting some of today's coolest and most fascinating artists. We'll explore the stories before the moments that changed everything. Because every musician remembers the moment where it all began. Experience Before the Moment, a Lincoln Original Series on the iHeart Radio app, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 58:38Daniel Whiteson?

  This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.