Bat-Devouring Rodents, Penguin Retirement Home, Chicago "Rat" Hole

Kendra Pierre-Louis joins Weirdest Thing for the season 9 finale! She talks about the rats chowing down on bats, producer Jess Boddy explains the scientific study on Chicago's rat hole, and Rachel talks about the wonderfully heartwarming penguin retirement home at the New England Aquarium. Plus, Rachel has a very special announcement! The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week is a podcast by Popular Science. Share your weirdest facts and stories with us in our ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Facebook group⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ or ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠tweet at us⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Click here to learn more about all of our stories! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Links to Rachel's TikTok, Newsletter, Merch Store and More: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://linktr.ee/RachelFeltman⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Rachel now has a Patreon, too! Follow her for exclusive bonus content: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.patreon.com/RachelFeltman⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Link to Jess' Twitch: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.twitch.tv/jesscapricorn⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Link to all of Jess' content: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.jesscapricorn.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠ -- Follow our team on Twitter Rachel Feltman: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.twitter.com/RachelFeltman⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Produced by Jess Boddy: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.twitter.com/JessicaBoddy⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Popular Science: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.twitter.com/PopSci⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Theme music by Billy Cadden: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://open.spotify.com/artist/6LqT4DCuAXlBzX8XlNy4Wq?si=5VF2r2XiQoGepRsMTBsDAQ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:01Speaker 00

  This episode is brought to you by Google Chrome. You think you know a browser, but Gemini and Chrome? That's new. It can help you with practically anything on the web, like restoring a vintage motorcycle from a 50-page restoration block, or finally break down that long article you've had open for weeks. Gemini and Chrome is here for it. Ready to make anything online make sense? There's no place like Chrome. Check responses set up required. Compatibility and availability varies 18 plus.

• 0:27Speaker 01

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• 0:57Speaker 02

  This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Football has a play for just about everything. You can go deep, keep it on the ground, or draw up something nobody sees coming. And whether you want to run a flea flicker or the tush push, you need a plan to fit your unique situation. That's why State Farm takes the time to get to know you so they can help personalize coverage for your life and budget. Now that's a solid game plan. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.

• 1:29Rachel Feltman?

  At Popular Science, we report and write dozens of science and tech stories every week. And while most of the stuff we stumble across makes it into our articles, we also find plenty of weird facts that we just keep around the office. So we figured, why not share those with you? Welcome to the weirdest thing I learned this week from the editors of Popular Science. I'm Rachel Feltman.

• 1:49Speaker 04

  I'm Jess Bodie.

• 1:50Speaker 05

  And I'm Kendra Peer-Lewis.

• 1:52Rachel Feltman?

  Kendra, welcome back to the show. It's been a while.

• 1:55Speaker 05

  It has.

• 1:56Rachel Feltman?

  Listeners, if you don't remember Kendra, she used to work with us at Popsai, she hates mayonnaise and also does a lot of really great journalism, but.

• 2:06Speaker 05

  But the most important part is that I hate mayonnaise.

• 2:09Speaker 04

  Right, right, of course.

• 2:10Rachel Feltman?

  Yeah, on the record as a mayonnaise hater. Kendra, would you tell listeners what you've been up to over the last few years?

• 2:16Speaker 05

  Yeah, that's a really good question. I was working in audio for a little bit and a show called How to Save a Planet and then we all got laid off and that sucked.

• 2:24Rachel Feltman?

  Media.

• 2:25Speaker 05

  And then I was working for Bloomberg for a couple of years as a climate reporter and I left in February to take some time because it's a weird time to be a climate reporter. And I've just been really taking some time until pretty recently when something changed.

• 2:40Rachel Feltman?

  Yeah, well, I will say all three of us on this, on this episode are people who have taken some time from media.

• 2:47Speaker 04

  I love to take some time away from media personally.

• 2:50Rachel Feltman?

  But yes, Kendra is going to be filling in for me as the host of Science Quickly, Scientific Americans, three time a week podcast that you should absolutely listen to. Because, surprise, I'm going away for a little bit, not for forever, but I'm facilitating the arrival of a new human being to Earth.

• 3:12Rachel Feltman?

  So yeah, I will also be taking a break from, from weirdest thing, but the show will not be gone for long. If you're listening to this episode, basically we're wrapping up season nine as usual. And then we're going to take a very short break and then we will be back with a mix of like some vintage episodes with like, you know, a little bit of commentary. And then Jess is going to do some hosting and bring in a bunch of awesome friends from Twitch.

• 3:38Speaker 05

  It's true.

• 3:39Rachel Feltman?

  And it's going to be great. And then I'll be back in the spring and, you know, it'll be awesome. And that's, that's what's happening. We'll, we'll remind you a couple more times that that is the case in case you missed this episode. The first time it aired and are confused and think maybe I died.

• 3:57Speaker 05

  That was, that was a real fear in 2020. I'd be emailing people I hadn't like talked to in a while and I'd be like, hope they're not dead.

• 4:04Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 4:05Rachel Feltman?

  Seriously. Well, and I've like, generally speaking, I've been pretty incognito about having a kid and I really considered fully never addressing it and just saying I was taking a break. But then I was like, Rachel, people are gonna think you're, you're, you've talked about how your body is a jibbles. People are gonna think something's, something really bad is happening and I didn't want you to worry.

• 4:27Speaker 04

  Right.

• 4:30Rachel Feltman?

  But anyway, for now, we are here to do the weirdest thing of the week this week. So on the weirdest thing of the week, we start by each offering up a little tease about some kind of fact or story we found in the course of reading, writing, reporting, et cetera, and decide which one we just absolutely have to hear more about first. Then, once we've all had time to spin our little science yarns, we reconvene and decide what the weirdest thing we learned this week actually was. So heads up Kendra, since the last time you were on, we no longer actually pick a winner because we kept having three-way ties and it was just, it was just a farce and I, you know, whatever. But I have, I'll never rewrite the intro because I already have enough trouble remembering it from each week. Jess, what's your tease?

• 5:10Speaker 04

  My tease is there's finally a peer-reviewed scientific study in a journal about the Chicago rat hole.

• 5:18Rachel Feltman?

  Oh, incredible.

• 5:19Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 5:20Rachel Feltman?

  When I saw this story, I was like.

• 5:22Speaker 04

  You're like, Jess, you need to, this is your fact this week. And I said, you're right.

• 5:27Rachel Feltman?

  It's like, I must know Jess's thoughts on this and only Jess's thoughts. I didn't even click through and read any of the articles because I was like, I, I wanted you to, to filter it for me.

• 5:39Speaker 04

  And I, and I will, and I did. So.

• 5:41Speaker 05

  I, it's now a bad time to admit, I don't know what the Chicago rat hole is.

• 5:46Speaker 04

  Not at all, and I will enlighten you.

• 5:49Rachel Feltman?

  Yeah.

• 5:51Rachel Feltman?

  Kendra, what's your tease?

• 5:53Speaker 05

  I unknowingly also picked something thematically rat-related, which is ironic because I, rats are my second least favorite animal or critter after the mosquito.

• 6:06Rachel Feltman?

  Wow, that's harsh.

• 6:07Speaker 05

  When I was a wee child.

• 6:09Speaker 04

  You're a rat hater.

• 6:10Speaker 05

  Oh, fully. When, well, I'm a born and raised New Yorker. So I've come to my hate naturally. I feel like.

• 6:19Speaker 05

  When I was four, we lived in an apartment that was mouse infested, not rat infested, but I was four and they might as well be the same thing.

• 6:28Speaker 04

  Right, sure.

• 6:28Speaker 05

  And.

• 6:29Speaker 04

  Size, relativity and all that.

• 6:31Speaker 05

  Yeah, one of my earliest memories is of my dad, who is not an especially violent human being, but there was a mouse that was half in and half out of a mousetrap and it was like getting ready to make it, make it go for it. And my dad just lost it and he stomped on it. And the sound of that mouse screaming is just, it's in there and it's weirdly not the first time I've seen someone stomp a rodent to death because New York City.

• 6:56Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 6:57Speaker 05

  Which I don't advocate, I'm all on the side of killing them humanly. It's just to be clear.

• 7:03Speaker 04

  My, my fact does involve, well, actually, no, I'm not going to say, I'm not going to say what it involves, I'm going to surprise you because.

• 7:11Speaker 05

  I would say that my fact involves the fact that rats killing in the most unusual way possible.

• 7:19Speaker 04

  The rats.

• 7:19Rachel Feltman?

  The rats doing the.

• 7:20Speaker 05

  The rats doing the killing.

• 7:21Rachel Feltman?

  Yeah.

• 7:22Speaker 04

  Oh, okay. They're assassins.

• 7:25Speaker 05

  Which again, does little to redeem them in my eyes.

• 7:29Speaker 04

  Sure. Not even a rat assassin can.

• 7:33Speaker 05

  No, no. Ratatouille is just rat propaganda as far as I'm concerned.

• 7:37Speaker 04

  Oh, my God.

• 7:38Speaker 05

  Along with the rats of NIM, no.

• 7:40Speaker 04

  This is funny because I feel like Rachel and I are kind of like rat lovers.

• 7:44Rachel Feltman?

  Yeah, I'm relatively pro rat, I would say.

• 7:47Speaker 05

  Their tails are like, oh.

• 7:48Speaker 04

  I think they're cute. I also love, I also love possums though, so.

• 7:53Speaker 05

  I actually, the only good thing about possums is that in 2005, the Brooklyn, in Brooklyn, like the Brooklyn Borough Community Board, or what is it at a city level, like the borough level, so there's like, the Brooklyn, Brooklyn City Council, which I know makes no sense, but the Brooklyn City Council passed a law deliberately introducing possums to try and take out the rat population. It didn't work.

• 8:19Speaker 04

  Oh, my God. We did that here in Chicago with feral cats.

• 8:21Rachel Feltman?

  You've just got a bunch of freaky little guys out there all together.

• 8:24Speaker 04

  Yeah. Literally.

• 8:28Speaker 05

  And it did not work at all. And then eventually, like, five years after they did this, there's this famous footage of a possum hitching a ride on the subway, all curled up next to the heater.

• 8:39Rachel Feltman?

  See, like, I find possums very cute and abstract.

• 8:43Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 8:43Rachel Feltman?

  And I think I would find one cute if I saw it, like, in its proper place. And I was in, I was encroaching on the proper territory of the possum. But it might be a bit much for me to, to find one on the subway.

• 8:59Speaker 05

  I have, I have not seen one on the subway, but I have seen one, like, when I was walking home, I knew my parents' house in Deep Queens. And it was jarring. But the way I felt was, like, you have a job to do. Get to it.

• 9:14Speaker 05

  Get those rats.

• 9:15Speaker 04

  Yeah, I, I did.

• 9:17Rachel Feltman?

  The enemy of my enemy, as they say.

• 9:19Speaker 04

  I did a, I did a fact on possums for weirdest thing once. And they, like, truly will eat anything. Like, they can digest rattlesnake venom. Like, they will eat anything. And they, they should be eating more rats, apparently.

• 9:34Rachel Feltman?

  My tease is that I'm gonna talk about penguin retirement homes.

• 9:40Rachel Feltman?

  Yeah. When penguins get to retire.

• 9:43Speaker 04

  Wait, that's so cute.

• 9:45Rachel Feltman?

  Yeah, it's, it's nice. Jess, why don't you start with, I feel like we should.

• 9:49Speaker 04

  We should, we should separate the rats.

• 9:51Rachel Feltman?

  With rats. So why don't you start us with the rat hole?

• 9:54Speaker 04

  Gladly. Okay. So rat hole hysteria began back in January of 2024, which is almost two years ago. That, that is actually shocking to me. Like, what is, what is time? So many, many of you listeners will probably remember the sensation that swept the internet. In Chicago's Roscoe Village neighborhood, up on the north side, folks found a hole in the concrete shaped like a rat. Or was it a rat? We'll, we'll get there. I'm getting ahead of myself. That's for later.

• 10:23Rachel Feltman?

  Like when people find, like, the face of Jesus in toast.

• 10:26Speaker 04

  Oh, dude, kind of. Yeah. Yeah.

• 10:30Rachel Feltman?

  But I will say, having seen the photo of the rat hole, it's not, it's pretty unambiguously an, an animal.

• 10:39Speaker 04

  Yeah, true.

• 10:40Rachel Feltman?

  It's not like that reminds me of. It's like.

• 10:43Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 10:43Rachel Feltman?

  You can see little, little lips.

• 10:46Speaker 05

  Are you, are you implying that Jesus was not in my toast, though?

• 10:51Rachel Feltman?

  Fair enough, fair enough.

• 10:54Rachel Feltman?

  Oh, boy.

• 10:54Speaker 04

  So, yes, okay, back then, Chicagoans, myself included, and meme enjoyers worldwide came to know this rat hole. And it was just a piece of sidewalk that looks like a rat went splat right into the wet concrete. And, you know, maybe it died there, like encased in the concrete. Maybe it was already dead and somehow it went splat in there. And then, you know, when it decayed after the cement dried or something, or, you know, maybe something came and ate it. Whatever happened, it left a rat shaped hole. And you can Google "Chicago rat hole" and you can see many images. I have many images that I took during my pilgrimages to the rat hole that I will send to Rachel and you'll put on pops.com/Weird.

• 11:36Rachel Feltman?

  How many times did you make a pilgrimage to the rat hole?

• 11:38Speaker 04

  A couple, you know? You gotta, you gotta go check it out. You gotta, you gotta make your offerings. And so, so, yeah, there's this rat hole. And one local Chicagoan named Winslow Du Main, he is an artist, a board game designer. And he's also, he co-hosts the podcast called "I'm From the Internet", which is all about somethingawful.com. And I need to listen to this show because that just sounds like, that's great. I didn't know that was a podcast and now I do. And now I gotta check it out.

• 12:04Rachel Feltman?

  I don't think I want to be reminded of somethingawful.com, but I, like, it's a good topic. It's just that, like,

• 12:11Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 12:11Rachel Feltman?

  what a period of the internet.

• 12:13Speaker 04

  Okay, I just, my friend just showed me the, this, this YouTube video essay about the Grover House. Did you guys know about the Grover House? From something awful forums? Okay, well, I'll send it to you later. It's, it's a whole thing. It's, it was, it was awesome. It was, highly recommend. You're gonna love it. Okay.

• 12:29Rachel Feltman?

  Yeah.

• 12:29Speaker 04

  Anyway, this guy Winslow, he tweeted a picture of the rat hole and he made it, he, he's seemingly patient zero for making the rat hole go viral. So he tweeted at 2:08 PM on January 6th of 2024.

• 12:45Rachel Feltman?

  The most auspicious day of the calendar.

• 12:47Speaker 04

  I know, very auspicious. He tweeted the rat hole picture and said, "Had to go make a pilgrimage to the Chicago rat hole." And it took the internet by storm. And as of right now, this, this tweet has over 5 million views and over 125,000 likes. So. Soon after he posted about making his pilgrimage to the rat hole, many, many, many other Chicagoans also made their pilgrimages. I don't, I couldn't find any like official estimates for how many folks went to go see this rat hole, but it did eventually become so troublesome for the people that lived next to it, because it was truly just on a residential street, that they took out the sidewalk chunk and like moved it and now it's in City Hall.

• 13:31Speaker 04

  Cause it was like, there were too many crowds.

• 13:33Rachel Feltman?

  That's so funny. I knew that it had been repaired. I didn't know that they'd preserved it. That's such a relief to me.

• 13:39Speaker 04

  Yes, it's no longer there. Like I occasionally will walk by where it was on the north side and like, it's just regular sidewalk now, but yeah, they did. There's a hilarious photo of like, one of those little like bobcat, like forklift truck things with like the chunk of sidewalk and you can see the little rat hole in it. So yeah, they took it to City Hall. And it's not on display, but I hope they put it on display one day. It's just being like stored and preserved there. So, so yeah, people want to go see it. I went to go see it. And like I said, I'll put my pics on pops.com/ weird. And people left a bunch of stuff like offerings. So I went, I looked at my, my date of my, of my photos when I took a bunch of pictures and that was on January 20th. And that's like well into this rat hole frenzy.

• 14:24Speaker 04

  So people left coins, like change in the hole. They put holy water in the hole. I saw blocks of cheese, shredded cheese. People like would make little shrines. There were prayer candles, Pokemon cards, cash out tickets from the Rivers Casino. Midwesterners, Chicagoans, you know, there's bottle of Malort and you know, books, cards, rubber ducks, Kool-Aid packets, estrogen pills, bouquets of roses. And amidst all of this stuff, there's a little laminated sign that said, quote, "Dear rat visitors, please be respectful of the rats, of the rats neighbors and keep noise and clutter to a minimum. Please do not leave any food by the shrine as that may attract live rats. Also, please do not leave anything that could be harmful

• 15:08Speaker 04

  to children. With love, Rat Neighbors."

• 15:12Rachel Feltman?

  Yeah, I feel for the rat neighbors.

• 15:14Speaker 04

  No, I know. I do too. And it had like a little heart with the Chicago flag on the sign. It was very cute. They're like trying to be very nice and they were very nice, you know? Like, I get it. And there was also the situation, like, I don't know if this was an angry neighbor or like, who did this because of all of the hullabaloo? But somebody filled the rat hole with plaster, like, somebody tried to fill it in. And then other neighbors and rat hole enthusiasts wet and cleaned it out and re-excavated it. Which is just so funny. As one does, you have to re-excavate the rat hole. And the Chicago Sun-Times, one of our local papers, interviewed some folks about the re-excavation. And one local resident said, quote, "Chicago takes care of its own."

• 15:55Rachel Feltman?

  I love that.

• 15:56Speaker 04

  That's like so on brand. So, yeah, in the height of rat hole hysteria, there was a scientist here in Chicago doing some postdoc research. His name is Michael Granatoski, and he's an evolutionary biomechanist. So he kind of studies how like creatures, you know, have changed the way they move over many, many, many years and that sort of thing. So he saw the rat hole and he was like, do you know what? This thing's kind of like a modern day trace fossil. So trace fossils are basically like, you know, a fossil of something left behind by an animal, like, like a footprint, a burrow, or something like that. Or perhaps the best kind of fossil, in my opinion, the corporalite, the poop fossil.

• 16:39Rachel Feltman?

  Yeah.

• 16:40Speaker 04

  Those are all trace fossils. So Dr. G saw this and was like, rat hole could fit this bill.

• 16:45Rachel Feltman?

  Wow, this reminds me of the contemporary archaeology story with the skate park excavation. It's contemporary paleontology.

• 16:54Speaker 04

  Totally. That is exactly what it is. I love that analogy. Yeah, that makes total sense. And Dr. G was like, I wonder if I can study this rat hole. Like scientists use other trace fossils to figure out if it really was a rat that fell into the wet cement. Because even back two years ago, people were kind of like, guys, Was, was it a rat? But, but not, they wouldn't say that too loud because you know, they wouldn't dare desecrate the name of the rat hole. But people were, I think there were some murmurs about like, is it a rat? So Dr. G wanted to figure it out. And he also wanted to study the hole scientifically because he thought it would help provide insight into interpreting like way older, like more typical trace fossils, like as a whole.

• 17:36Speaker 04

  So it would kind of like, you know, advance the field of studying trace fossils. So he and his team at the University of Tennessee Knoxville used a bunch of different photos of the rat hole. And, cause they couldn't really get access to the, to the rat hole because it was in City Hall. And they didn't want to use like the post excavation, re, re excavation measurements anyway, because it was like, you know, tainted by, it's not, it's not, it's not an accurate sample anymore.

• 18:03Rachel Feltman?

  Right, yeah.

• 18:04Speaker 04

  So they, they used, they used photos and then they used the little offerings, like the coins and stuff as like scale bars. So they, they used that to like get accurate measurements of the different parts of the creature, of the, of the quote unquote rat. And then they got measurements from museum specimens, skins of local Chicago residents, like mice, rats, chipmunks, muskrats, and several species of squirrel.

• 18:31Rachel Feltman?

  That was going to be my question because you know, in New York City, our rats are the size of chihuahuas.

• 18:36Speaker 04

  Yes. So our rats are the same. And actually, Chicago was 10 years running the raddest city in the US.

• 18:45Rachel Feltman?

  I am so sorry.

• 18:46Speaker 04

  Yeah. I don't, I mean, we actually just lost this year to LA, which is like.

• 18:51Rachel Feltman?

  LA.

• 18:52Speaker 04

  I know. It's shocking, isn't it?

• 18:55Rachel Feltman?

  Yeah. I mean, I guess it's like with the, the weather, it's like always a good time to be a rat in LA.

• 19:00Speaker 04

  No, it is.

• 19:01Rachel Feltman?

  Yeah. You just don't think of it.

• 19:02Speaker 04

  Yeah. And I know that like Chicago has always been a really big rat city, especially post pandemic because of the way our alleys work. So like, you know, when Chicago was built, there were city ordinances for how they built the streets and the alleys because they forced, or the, the ordinances were like, we need to have alleys because we don't want trash on our streets like New York. Like, we want to have an ordinance to have alleys for the trash.

• 19:25Rachel Feltman?

  Whereas New York has basically no alleys.

• 19:27Speaker 04

  Correct.

• 19:27Rachel Feltman?

  That is one of the fun facts about how

• 19:29Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 19:30Rachel Feltman?

  The like biggest inaccuracy in Law and Order is how much stuff happens in alleys.

• 19:33Speaker 04

  Oh, my God. Wait.

• 19:34Rachel Feltman?

  There's only like one alley they can film in.

• 19:36Speaker 04

  Wait, that's I've never even thought about that. That's crazy.

• 19:39Speaker 05

  And that alley is privately owned. So it's like very expensive to film in it.

• 19:43Speaker 04

  No way.

• 19:44Speaker 05

  It's like in Chinatown. I'm not.

• 19:46Speaker 04

  Someone's making bank from Law and Order.

• 19:48Speaker 05

  I actually did live around the block from an alley.

• 19:51Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah.

• 19:52Speaker 05

  It doesn't exist anymore.

• 19:54Speaker 04

  Bummer.

• 19:54Speaker 05

  And and it was like, an almost suburban alley.

• 19:58Speaker 04

  Like, yeah.

• 20:00Speaker 05

  You know, and I did cut through it, but that's because it was brightly lit and next to people's homes.

• 20:04Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, in Chicago, it's like, basically, almost everyone has alleys. Like, you know, you know, your neighbor that you like your your backyard, you have your backyard, your alley, and then your neighbor's backyard. So you kind of like meet your neighbors across the alley. It's like, it's kind of like a fun little community thing. Also, community thing for the rats, because they have a designated playground. And that's why Chicago, one of the reasons why Chicago ends up being one of the ratiest cities, because and why our rats are huge. Like, I swear to God, like, the size of a football, dude, huge, massive. My dog caught a rat once, a live rat, and it squeaked. And I I yelled, I went, ah, Flora! And she dropped it and it ran away. And I like looked at her and I was like, Flora,

• 20:48Speaker 04

  what did you do? And I panicked and called the vet. And I was like, is it okay if she caught a rat? Is she gonna die? And they were like, did you see any blood or anything? I was like, no. And they were like, yeah, yeah, she's fine.

• 21:00Rachel Feltman?

  So there there are, I remember reading a New York Times piece, I think it was a New York Times, a few years ago, about a community of like, Upper West Side rat terrier owners who are like, our dogs have a natural instinct to hunt rats.

• 21:14Speaker 04

  Oh, my God.

• 21:15Rachel Feltman?

  And they should be allowed to hunt rats. And they just like get together and are like, little terrier, go hunt some rats.

• 21:21Speaker 04

  I love that.

• 21:22Rachel Feltman?

  Yeah. No, it's like, not, I don't actually have a problem with with what they're trying to do, but their vibes were terrible.

• 21:29Speaker 04

  Oh, sure, sure, sure. No, absolutely. That makes sense. So so, yeah, the alley's rampant with rats. That's why we have so many rats. But was it a rat that made the rat hole?

• 21:44Speaker 04

  We, you know, could maybe. So when they did their statistical analyses, these scientists and crunched all their numbers, they took, you know, they took a bunch of measurements, like even the little fingers in the rat hole. And they did like, you know, the classic snap to tail, limb length, like the whole nine yards. They took a bunch of measurements. And they concluded with nearly a 99% likelihood that the rat hole is actually a squirrel hole.

• 22:12Rachel Feltman?

  Wow.

• 22:12Speaker 04

  No. I know. And they said it's probably a fox or a gray squirrel, fox squirrel or gray squirrel, both of which live in Chicago.

• 22:21Rachel Feltman?

  But what is an urban squirrel but a rat with better PR?

• 22:23Speaker 04

  You're telling me.

• 22:24Speaker 05

  Wait, no, there's a difference. I can say, I saw my who had a squirrel in her, in the wall of her apartment one time.

• 22:32Speaker 05

  The big difference is squirrels are only looking for temporary shelter and they will only go as far as they will to go home, but they store their food outside of the home. So they're always needing, and that's one of the reasons why, like, if you have a squirrel in your home, you have to wait for the squirrel to get out before you seal that hole because otherwise, because it will go out, basically. So like, you don't have to risk, you don't want to risk trapping it in your home. So that's the big difference, is that they don't really want to be in your home and they don't want your food.

• 23:02Rachel Feltman?

  That's the difference.

• 23:03Speaker 04

  They're particular.

• 23:04Speaker 05

  Rats will eat babies.

• 23:08Speaker 05

  Squirrels will not.

• 23:10Rachel Feltman?

  Okay, that's fair. That's, that's a big difference.

• 23:13Speaker 04

  Yeah. Yeah. And for the rat slash squirrel hole, like squirrel would make sense because squirrels are active during the day when construction usually occurs and they're like pouring wet cement. Rats are usually nocturnal, but like, again, ask any Chicagoan or New Yorker and like, you know, rats are always around. It's not like they only come out at night. But additionally, there weren't, there weren't any footprints around the hole, meaning it probably like fell from a tree. And I don't think rats usually, usually climb trees. Squirrels are up there, obviously. And, and Roscoe Village residents nearby said there did used to be a tree right above the rat hole.

• 23:52Rachel Feltman?

  It's all coming together.

• 23:53Speaker 04

  Yeah. However, there isn't like a big tail mark in the rat hole, right? It looks like a rat tail. It doesn't look like a squirrel tail. Scientists said that the fluffy tail probably wouldn't have made a big mark, which makes sense. It's like a light fluffy tail, but still, there aren't any like hair marks or anything where it is. So I don't know. At the same time,

• 24:15Speaker 04

  I also thought of how many squirrels I see in the city with small tails or even like no tails. Probably because some people-

• 24:20Rachel Feltman?

  What is Chicago doing to the poor squirrels?

• 24:23Speaker 04

  Well, I was just gonna say, you know, I've, I've, not, not that I, not that I would, would know, but some, some people's dogs, I would say, have caught squirrels by the tail. And not that, not that my dog-

• 24:36Rachel Feltman?

  Not our girl Flora.

• 24:37Speaker 04

  Not that Flora, no, Flora's absolutely caught squirrels by the tail. And again, I freak out and then she, she drops it and then it's fine. But, you know, I'm sure there are other dogs where people just let the dogs, or dogs that are on off-leash in a backyard and like,

• 24:50Rachel Feltman?

  Yeah.

• 24:51Speaker 04

  you know, catch a squirrel and the tail, the tail is an easy target. I tell you what.

• 24:54Rachel Feltman?

  Or dogs where their owners are like, my dog evolved to hunt squirrels.

• 24:57Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 24:58Rachel Feltman?

  I'm going out with my gang of squirrels.

• 24:59Speaker 04

  Literally, literally. But, so yeah, Dr. Granatoski said that the fact that they could only narrow it down to the genus of squirrel and not the specific species, it highlights how hard it is to make big scientific claims using only trace fossils. So it's still, it's still kind of like, you know, it was an important thing to study to kind of better understand how to study trace fossils, but it's still like a really difficult thing to only use to kind of understand the more complete scientific landscape of what we're looking at, of an ecosystem or something like that. And to tie it all back together, I have a quote from Winslow Dumein, the artist and game designer who sparked the initial rat hole fame. He said, quote, he's, I've got two quotes from him here.

• 25:42Speaker 04

  He said, quote, "The exact dimensions and causality of the Chicago rat hole were not the driving force of the story. It doesn't matter how it was made, but that it brought us together."

• 25:53Rachel Feltman?

  Wow.

• 25:53Speaker 04

  And then he was also talking about how, I love this. This is like my favorite thing, is that he talks about how Chicagoans still refer to our tallest skyscraper as the Sears Tower. Despite it being actually named the Willis Tower, and it's been called the Willis Tower since 2009. Nobody calls it that. It is the Sears Tower, even though it's no longer officially that. And so that's kind of like, you know, our attitude towards the rat hole. I think it's always going to be the rat hole, even if it's technically a squirrel hole. And then Kendra, this is kind of what you were saying too. He, he said, besides squirrels are just zhuzhed up rats. Don't let the tails fool you. They eat garbage too. So maybe not, maybe not as much garbage or, you know,

• 26:37Speaker 04

  they won't eat your babies, but they're, they're still, they're still just kind of a rat, sort of.

• 26:44Speaker 05

  I think the tails make the difference and the fact that they don't, they're not trying to get into your home.

• 26:50Rachel Feltman?

  I get that. Those are, those are two crucial differences.

• 26:53Speaker 04

  I agree. I agree.

• 26:54Rachel Feltman?

  It's a much cuter tail and, you know, different approaches to home invasion.

• 26:58Speaker 05

  Yeah. Just like I intellectually understand that a capybara is basically a rat, but a capybara is an adorable.

• 27:06Speaker 04

  I love capybaras.

• 27:08Rachel Feltman?

  They, they can luxuriate in a hot citrus bath. And probably a rat would do if given the opportunity. And maybe it's really unfair that we haven't given rats more opportunities.

• 27:19Speaker 05

  Capybaras let animals chill on them though. Can you imagine a rat letting an animal?

• 27:23Rachel Feltman?

  Yeah, never. Yeah. Little bird on the head. Yeah. No, it's very different.

• 27:28Speaker 05

  I've seen rat gangs before.

• 27:32Rachel Feltman?

  I would love to be the capybara gang.

• 27:34Speaker 04

  Wait, yeah. Oh my God. I'm picturing like the Yakuza, but it's like capybaras.

• 27:43Rachel Feltman?

  All right, we're going to take a quick break and then we'll be back with some more facts.

• 27:52Speaker 00

  This episode is brought to you by Google Chrome. You think you know a browser, but Gemini and Chrome, that's new. It can help you with practically anything on the web, like restoring a vintage motorcycle from a 50-page restoration block, or finally break down that long article you've had open for weeks. Gemini and Chrome is here for it. Ready to make anything online make sense? There's no place like Chrome. Check responses set up required. Compatibility and availability varies 18 plus.

• 28:19Speaker 01

  Born from the intensity of a night in the eternal city. Introducing Born in Roma Fragrances by Valentino. Feminine perfume Donna Born in Roma features juicy black currant, central jasmine, soft cashmerin and warm vanilla. Masculine leaning but unisex Womo has notes of fresh violet leaf, aromatic sage, green vetiver and mineral salt. Shop holiday gifts at Macy's.com.

• 28:53Rachel Feltman?

  Okay, we're back and I'm going to jump into my fact, which is not about rats, it's about penguins who are retired. So I recently saw a blog post from New England Aquarium about the different enrichment activities that they offer for penguins of various ages. But what obviously really stuck out to me was the fact that they mentioned that they basically have a penguin retirement home, which is a pretty recent development. And so I had to learn more about that. So this aquarium, which is in Boston and is a great aquarium, by the way, if you've never been, revealed its new elder habitat in March of 2025. And they compared it to an assisted living facility. Cute. Yeah. And why is this here?

• 29:37Rachel Feltman?

  First of all, the aquarium has a community of African penguins, which in the wild only tend to live to be like 10 years old. Due to like the stuff you'd expect, they have plenty of natural predators. They have to deal with scarce food at times due to overfishing. And then of course, there are like natural ailments that penguins will come across in the wild, especially as they get older. Meanwhile, at the aquarium, where they have plenty of food, no predators and really cushy medical care, which I'll get into in a second. More than half the colony that they have at the New England Aquarium has met or outlived their species' life expectancy. And a handful of them are in their 30s. They actually, they actually had one that almost lived to 42.

• 30:19Rachel Feltman?

  She died just like quite recently, like a couple of years ago. And that was, I think, the, the oldest penguin in the like American Zoological Association or whatever, whatever the, whatever the organization is that's like, these are all the real zoos and aquariums that are legit. She Was a real old dame and so old that one of her kids is actually in the retirement home.

• 30:42Speaker 05

  My goodness.

• 30:43Rachel Feltman?

  But yeah, so being an African penguin in your 30s, huge deal. You're, you're really over the hill and it's like, you're so over the hill that this would simply not happen in the wild, not like, it's not just that it would be rare. A penguin that slows down this much is gonna get ate. So it just doesn't happen. And so here at this aquarium, they were like, wow, we have more and more like truly geriatric penguins. So what can we do for them? And like I said, they're, they're already taken gorgeous care of. But something that was increasingly coming up is that, you know, young penguins, they can be very rambunctious.

• 31:28Rachel Feltman?

  They can be very territorial over food and especially during mating season, they get like territorial over the literal territory. So it was just kind of, it was like a rough and tumble life for the old penguins to be living on the same little aquarium islands as these young bucks.

• 31:47Speaker 05

  It's like when elder millennials get on TikTok.

• 31:50Rachel Feltman?

  Yeah. Oh, it's just like that. And also I think I was really empathizing with these penguins a lot because being pregnant in New York City and taking public transit and just like being out in the world, there were many situations where I was like, many times people behaved actively poorly and I, I really was like way more self-righteous about it than normal. But even when people were just kind of like acting average bad for New York City, I was still just like, I shouldn't have to be in this lane of existence, you know? Like there should be a different, a different place for me to be existing. Cause, cause like it's fair that you just want to be your normal asshole self, but like I'm really pregnant.

• 32:35Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 32:36Rachel Feltman?

  This sucks. Um, anyway, so now they have their own little island, but it's only separated from the islands where the young penguins live by like a mesh gate in the Water. So they're not like fully isolated. They can still see the other. I think there are three other islands full of young penguins. But the space allows them to chill without competing for fish or space with the more hale and hearty young birds. And then plus, because there are fewer of them, it's easier for caretakers to keep a really close eye on their individual needs.

• 33:08Speaker 05

  I am. I need that service for middle aged podcasters.

• 33:13Rachel Feltman?

  Yeah. Yeah, they keep really careful records on like, what, what a penguin's up to, how much they're eating, how they're acting at feeding time, keeping an eye out for ailments that tend to afflict older penguins, like foot injuries and cataracts. So it does really help the caretakers out that there's a smaller, more condensed group of them to be watching that closely. And in fact, the aquarium has said that they may eventually bring in injured birds or ones that otherwise have special needs that aren't old on a case by case basis, you know, either for like, temporary rehab, or to move there permanently, you know, any, any penguin that just needs to get out of life in the fast lane. And they already do,

• 33:55Rachel Feltman?

  they do a ton of specialized care at this aquarium. A few years ago, an African penguin named Beach Donkey, I will address why she's named Beach Donkey.

• 34:03Speaker 05

  Oh, my God.

• 34:06Rachel Feltman?

  But just hold on to that for a sec. So she was in her early twenties. So compared to a lot of the penguins that are living on this island, you know, a fresh young chicken, but like double the age of, of a penguin that would typically be alive in the wild. She was treated for potodermatitis, which is an inflammatory condition of the feet. And it can cause lesions on the pad of the foot, and it can really progress into like, bone infections and loss of mobility. So you really need to treat it. It's also known as bumblefoot, which sounds a lot cuter. But one of the, they had a, like, this whole course of treatment for her, which ended up including surgery. But one of the things that they were working on were custom shoes to minimize foot irritation. They thought

• 34:48Rachel Feltman?

  she might end up wearing them all the time. It turns out she just wore them after surgery recovery, but they were still really helpful. But you have to train a penguin to be willing to walk around in shoes. And the way that they trained her to be willing to wear them was by taking her on field trips around the aquarium in them. Her rewards were, quote, "novel views." There is an amazing video that I will post on popside.com/Weird of her just being, her just walking freely with caretakers around her while the aquarium was closed and just looking at stuff. Because she's a penguin, she's very interested in the office spaces, very curious about those.

• 35:33Rachel Feltman?

  And also, when she gets to look at a fish, she's like, whoa. So that was enough of a reward that it sufficiently trained her to be happy to wear these shoes, which ended up really helping with her surgery recovery. And yes, why is her name Beach Donkey? Because one of the vernacular names of the African penguin is the Jackass Penguin, because they apparently make very loud, donkey-like noises. And in South Africa, they live on the beach, so Beach Donkey. But they called her Beach for short. And yeah, they're, outside of specific injuries and conditions, the aquarium does a ton of stuff for older penguins.

• 36:18Rachel Feltman?

  They'll take fish and inject them with extra water to help keep the penguins hydrated so their kidneys keep working. What? Oh, my god. They give them eye drops really often. They'll do treatments on their feet to keep them from getting infections. And they even get acupuncture and physical therapy to help deal with bone pain and muscle pain. And apparently, the penguins really like the acupuncture. So they do have to be, they have to be trained to accept this kind of care. But it's something I'll talk about in a minute, is that they sort of start training them really young to be open to a human touching their feet or...

• 37:04Rachel Feltman?

  You know, picking them up specifically so that when they get old, they're going to be open to these treatments. And like with that training, apparently they like really love getting their acupuncture and they're like little rub downs.

• 37:17Speaker 05

  Same.

• 37:18Rachel Feltman?

  Very sweet. Honestly, the penguin healthcare system at the New England Aquarium seems really good.

• 37:26Speaker 05

  Are there

• 37:27Rachel Feltman?

  To get on the plan.

• 37:28Speaker 05

  Opportunities for humans to become penguins, but only at the New England Aquarium.

• 37:34Rachel Feltman?

  Yeah, yeah, I'd do it. So yeah, how are things going on Penguin Retirement Island? And you know, they're actually retired because they're still visible to the guests, but they're, you know, they're, they're at their senior community, living their best senior life. Apparently, they like all started to just slow down once they realized they weren't competing with and dealing with younger birds. They do a lot more laying down and resting. The island has more flat areas than the other islands. And apparently, you know, some other sort of subtle features that make it easier for them to get in and out of the water. And some of them actually started swimming more because they were more confident about getting in and out of the water.

• 38:17Rachel Feltman?

  So yeah, really similar to like a good human assisted living facility where it's like, it's not about doing less. It's about the facility suiting your needs so that you can live a better life and do more.

• 38:30Rachel Feltman?

  And yeah, apparently now that they're there and they like spend more of their time chilling out. But then also, you know, when they're having fun, they're having more fun. And it has been also referred to as a country club for older animals. So who's there right now? The last, the most recent update I saw, which was just from a few months ago,

• 38:51Rachel Feltman?

  was that there are eight penguins there. Initially, there were, there were six. There was a 32 year old Harlequin and 31 year old Durbin, who had been mated since 2000 and had raised eight chicks together. There was also Baldur's, the second oldest penguin in the colony, who was 34 and was starting to have arthritis symptoms. And 29 year old Isis, who was like struggling to fit in socially with some of the younger birds in the colony as she got older. There was also Lambert, who's 32 and has a history of cataracts. But also his younger mate, Dyer, who's only 14, moved in with him because they could not separate those two. And I think she's having a good time, too.

• 39:31Rachel Feltman?

  And then after those six birds were settled in, they added their oldest African penguin, which is Good Hope, who's 35 years old, who is the child of that penguin that almost made it to 42, who I mentioned, and his 23-year-old mate, Saint Croix. And like I said, there, you know, there are plenty of aging penguins who will age into this island, but they also are hoping that it can become a place to, you know, put penguins who need a slower pace and more accessible terrain for any reason, and they'll probably expand it. They're hoping to add some additional accessibility features like sloping ramps

• 40:12Rachel Feltman?

  into the water, more flat areas with like textured mats to help with traction, you know, more cushioned surfaces. And apparently now they also have like a floating island made from PVC pipe, which is like a prototype for just a potential, you know, added feature to give them, I guess maybe somewhere to rest when they're like going out into the water that's not going all the way back to the main island. And yeah, going back to the the blog post that first clued me into this, the existence of this incredible Club Med for old penguins. What enrichment do old penguins get versus young penguins? So a big part of enrichment for old penguins is just training them to receive the healthcare

• 40:57Rachel Feltman?

  they need and then also engaging in that healthcare. Like apparently they tend to be really sort of alert and curious and active after they've had their medical treatments because it is like a novel experience that, you know, gets their brain working. So yeah, in some ways, the geriatric birds are the ones that have the most frequent new experiences because they're going to acupuncture and stuff, which is an unusual and interesting experience for a bird. And younger birds do things like painting with their feet, which has the added bonus of getting them used to having their feet touched when the caretakers paint them, which again is crucial as they age and require foot care. So that's one way that they sort of, you know.

• 41:42Rachel Feltman?

  That's one way that they sort of paved the way for providing this geriatric care years in advance. Young penguins also love mirrored balls and other reflective shiny objects and playing tug of war, which is adorable, but also kind of makes it clear why maybe the 35 year old penguins don't want to hang out there.

• 42:02Rachel Feltman?

  So yeah, that's, that's the story of the Penguin Nursing Home, which you can go see at the New England Aquarium. And I certainly, the next time I find myself in Boston, want to go see them. I find it aspirational. I think they are, they're aging correctly and being cared for in a way that all humans should get the dignity of as well. But unfortunately, I think we're not there yet. But yeah, that's my story.

• 42:31Speaker 04

  I love that.

• 42:32Speaker 05

  Yeah. And sweet.

• 42:34Speaker 04

  I have been to the New England Aquarium. It is, it lives up to the hype.

• 42:38Rachel Feltman?

  Oh yeah, it's really good. Also, when I think of it, I can smell it.

• 42:43Speaker 05

  Yeah. I know someone who volunteered there for years. Apparently the penguins are

• 42:50Speaker 04

  Oh my God.

• 42:51Rachel Feltman?

  Well, they're so spoiled.

• 42:52Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 42:53Speaker 05

  Kind of famously, I, this came up actually a story, the first time I heard this was a story I did up for Pops Eye about the New Zealand penguins. And this researcher who was Kiwi was like, Americans keep calling to ask if they can have a penguin. And he was like, first of all, that's weird. And then secondly, like, he's like, penguins, he's like, you can really tell they came from dinosaurs. He's like, I don't know a penguin researcher who doesn't have scars from like, trying to handle them, because they'll just take a chunk out of your skin. And there was this friend that I knew who volunteered, she was too short. She was like 5'2" or 5'3" and you have to be like 5'5" or 5'6" to work with penguins. I'm not sure. I think it has something to do with the size of the tank. So she never had to give the penguins. But there was some volunteer who apparently they put him on penguin duty that day and he just lost it. And he was

• 43:37Speaker 05

  like, I've been here for long enough that I have seniority and I shouldn't have to deal with the penguins. He went on this entire rant about like how he shouldn't have to deal with the penguins.

• 43:46Speaker 04

  Oh my god.

• 43:47Rachel Feltman?

  Wow. I bet, you know, probably like if you've got to work with the penguins, working with the geriatric penguins is probably the way to go.

• 43:55Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 43:56Rachel Feltman?

  Yeah, they've chilled out, but it also, it does explain why they put so much effort into acclimating young penguins to human touch, being like, don't you want to make a painting with your feet? Ooh, that's interesting. And like, maybe that means that in 10 years, when we have to care for your decrepit toes, you won't try to kill us.

• 44:22Rachel Feltman?

  Incredible. All right, we're going to take one more break and then we'll be back with one more fact.

• 44:32Speaker 00

  This episode is brought to you by Google Chrome. You think you know a browser, but Gemini and Chrome, that's new. It can help you with practically anything on the web, like restoring a vintage motorcycle from a 50-page restoration block, or finally break down that long article you've had open for weeks. Gemini and Chrome is here for it. Ready to make anything online make sense? There's no place like Chrome. Check responses set up required. Compatibility and availability varies. 18 plus.

• 44:58Speaker 01

  Born from the intensity of a night in the Eternal City. Introducing Born in Roma Fragrances by Valentino. Feminine perfume Donna Born in Roma features juicy black currant, central jasmine, soft cashmerin, and warm vanilla. Masculine leaning but unisex Womo has notes of fresh violet leaf, aromatic sage, green vetiver, and mineral salt. Shop holiday gifts at Macy's.com.

• 45:28Speaker 02

  This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Football has a play for just about everything. You can go deep, keep it on the ground, or draw up something nobody sees coming. And whether you want to run a flea flicker or the tush push, you need a plan to fit your unique situation. That's why State Farm takes the time to get to know you, so they can help personalize coverage for your life and budget. Now that's a solid game plan. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.

• 46:00Rachel Feltman?

  Okay, we're back and Kendra, more rats.

• 46:03Speaker 05

  There are always more rats. There are always more rats.

• 46:06Rachel Feltman?

  Ain't that the truth?

• 46:08Speaker 05

  Some days I dream about moving to Alberta, which, because it's rat free, although increasingly contentious about whether or not they've maintained their rat free status.

• 46:17Rachel Feltman?

  Okay, I just heard that, that if you see a rat, you can call someone and they'll come get it or something.

• 46:21Speaker 05

  It's not just that. They have, if you have like a barn and they find a rat in your barn, they burn your barn down.

• 46:26Rachel Feltman?

  What?

• 46:27Speaker 05

  They're not joking.

• 46:30Rachel Feltman?

  That's insane.

• 46:33Speaker 05

  So unfortunately, yeah, it is, I don't know much about Alberta. The only thing I really know about Alberta is that it is rat free. And that makes me love Alberta to a degree that the only way Alberta could make me love it more is if it was also declared male free. So this story involves the rat. In the study, they call it the brown rat, but here in the United States, we tend to refer to them as the Norway rat. It's the same story and it has to do with what rats eat. And besides babies, in general, it is like well known because like rats are ground dwelling creatures that they will eat, they're apparently picky eaters, which, you know, sus. I've seen pizza rat. I don't think their standards are that high, but in general.

• 47:15Rachel Feltman?

  I don't know. We do, we do the best pizza. I'm not actually saying we have the best pizza. There are different kinds of pizza. I love deep dish pizza, et cetera. But anyway, pizza's good.

• 47:30Speaker 05

  I just think that my-

• 47:31Rachel Feltman?

  Justice for pizza rat.

• 47:32Speaker 05

  I just think that once a pizza has hit the stairs of a subway, it is below my threshold of consumption.

• 47:41Rachel Feltman?

  That's fair. Valid. But their faces are so close to the ground anyway. I feel like their, their standards are naturally lower in that regard. Literally.

• 47:52Speaker 05

  Outside of New York City, they're, they're famous for eating kind of what they can find on the ground, often like the eggs of other animals. Because fun fact, one way you can tell if you have a rat in your home versus a mouse in your home is that rats like protein and fat. So yeah, if they go for your giant bag of sugar, probably not a rat. And

• 48:10Speaker 04

  They're fitness heads.

• 48:13Speaker 05

  What?

• 48:14Speaker 04

  They're, you know, protein and fat. They're not, you know, they're, they're, they're protein maxing.

• 48:20Speaker 05

  But just like everyone else, they're overlooking fiber.

• 48:23Speaker 04

  True, true. This is important.

• 48:27Speaker 05

  And so our story takes us to the dietary habits of rats in 2021 to 2024 in an area of Germany that I'm not going to try to pronounce because my German is limited to I love you and I love cheese.

• 48:42Speaker 04

  That's all you need.

• 48:43Speaker 05

  And then also something that's just, I can't say on a podcast because it's incredibly filthy. You two should make friends who are native German speakers and then ask them to only teach you the dirty words. And so the, the researchers had noticed sort of the carcasses of bats around these caves that bats frequented on the ground. And they weren't completely sure about like what was killing the bats until I believe last year, I think the footage comes from last year, where they were able to discover, and I think we can, it's a study, so I think we can probably post a link to the video or post the video itself on the website at popside.com slash weird. And it is proof, I think, of why rats are the second worst animal on the planet after mosquitoes.

• 49:28Speaker 05

  And it is a photo of a rat catching a flying bat midair. And it turns out that's where the bones were coming from. They were eating the bats. Yeah. And apart from being wild and incredibly unsettling, that these common rats have apparently developed a way of eating bats that nobody knew they could. It also spells new methods of disease transmission. And it could be that they are spreading bat diseases and we just didn't know they could. Because why would we think they were eating bats? Who I do not think, who unlike rats, I think are a maligned animal. I think bats are cool, though not in my home.

• 50:08Rachel Feltman?

  Yeah, there are limits.

• 50:09Speaker 05

  Yeah, I'm pretty much not a fan of most animals in my home, especially when that involves me getting multiple shots after I discover it's in my home.

• 50:16Speaker 04

  Valid.

• 50:18Speaker 05

  But yeah, so there isn't much more to it, except that there is crazy footage of a rat eating a bat.

• 50:25Speaker 04

  I, I, I'm imagining it like in those slo-mo, like Nat Geo documentaries or like, you know, when it's like, when it's like jumping through the air and it's like grabbing onto the bat and like, you know what I mean?

• 50:38Speaker 05

  It, it kind of is, it's black and white footage. It was caught by one of those like wildlife cams or whatever. Yeah, it is horrific. I've watched the videos like 40 times because it's horrific. And I, let me just check.

• 50:50Speaker 04

  Do you have the link handy? Can I view it?

• 50:52Speaker 05

  I do.

• 50:53Speaker 04

  Okay, sick.

• 50:54Speaker 05

  Yeah, it is in the footage. If they like, jump out on this little ledge and just catch the bat.

• 51:01Speaker 04

  Oh, I'm watching. It's, it's, it's watching. Capture and predation of bat in flight. Oh my God!

• 51:10Speaker 05

  Right. Everybody thinks, you know, this, this is my issue. This is my issue.

• 51:16Speaker 04

  Okay. And then they show it like, like going to town, like devouring.

• 51:20Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 51:22Speaker 04

  It kind of reminds me, sorry, you go, you go.

• 51:24Speaker 05

  No, no, you go.

• 51:24Speaker 04

  I was gonna say, it reminds me of how ticks like go on the top of a blade of grass and just like extend. These rats are just on this ledge like waiting and then they strike.

• 51:33Speaker 05

  Yeah. For me, the problem is, is that like flying is top two wish list ability. And you kind of think once you're up there, you're pretty safe from everything except for other things that fly, right?

• 51:44Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 51:45Rachel Feltman?

  Certainly safe from rats.

• 51:48Speaker 05

  What the hell?

• 51:50Rachel Feltman?

  Yeah, that seems really unfair to the bats from an evolutionary standpoint.

• 51:55Speaker 04

  I'm watch, there's so many videos. There's multiple.

• 51:58Speaker 05

  Yeah. And they're unsure if this is just like this cave or if it's a thing that bats can do, like, you know, because they're, rats are pretty smart and they can like teach each other things. So they're not totally sure if this is just like something the rats in this cave system have sort of learned and taught each other to do, or if it's something that rats in caves elsewhere have also taught themselves to do. But yeah, it completely changes our understanding of bat disease vector and it's also terrifying.

• 52:26Rachel Feltman?

  Yeah, well, cause like, you know, bats obviously can bite us.

• 52:31Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 52:31Rachel Feltman?

  And give us things. Um, but a rat can get a bat thing and then give it to a flea.

• 52:41Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 52:42Rachel Feltman?

  And then it's, then it's.

• 52:44Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 52:45Rachel Feltman?

  Who knows where it's going.

• 52:46Speaker 04

  Or even like there, I mean, I don't know if like, it'd take a lot more steps, probably, who knows for rat, for, for bat disease to go to rat and then be transmissible through urine. But there are so many rat diseases that are transmissible through urine. And like, that is like so easy to just.

• 53:02Rachel Feltman?

  Yeah.

• 53:02Speaker 04

  Pick up because they're everywhere and they pee on everything.

• 53:05Rachel Feltman?

  Yeah, I remember one time in, in one of the New York City apartments I lived in, I came across a mouse in the night and that building actually had like every infestation you can have, except we didn't get bedbugs. But that was truly like, but for the grace of God.

• 53:19Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 53:19Rachel Feltman?

  Because we, we broke our lease and moved out, I think. But yeah, they kept the trash cans in the basement and they were all full of rats. So when you threw your trash away, you had to like stand at the elevator door and like throw the bag.

• 53:30Speaker 04

  Stop.

• 53:30Rachel Feltman?

  Cause otherwise you'd be surrounded by rats who felt very comfortable jumping out at you. Cause to be fair.

• 53:36Speaker 04

  That's crazy.

• 53:37Rachel Feltman?

  They had a, a perfect rat home had been created for them. Anyway, predatory landlords in New York City are the worst. There were a lot of problems with those guys.

• 53:44Speaker 04

  Trash in the basement?

• 53:46Rachel Feltman?

  Yeah, no, no, I don't, I don't know what they were thinking. What they were thinking was they were trying to get people to move out so they could jack up the rent. Anyway.

• 53:54Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 53:55Rachel Feltman?

  One day, one day, the most pleasant infestation I had was this one little mouse that showed up in my bathtub. And it was so tiny.

• 54:03Speaker 04

  Oh.

• 54:04Rachel Feltman?

  I, I think I tweeted when I had like caught it in a cup. I was like, can someone tell me why I can't decide that this mouse is my pet? And somebody was like, hantavirus. And I was like.

• 54:15Speaker 04

  Yep, that's all takes.

• 54:16Rachel Feltman?

  Okay.

• 54:19Rachel Feltman?

  But I really was like, I don't know, seems like if this mouse wants to live with me and I think it's adorable, what's the problem?

• 54:26Speaker 04

  What's the problem? Not, I did a story years ago, like 10 years ago now, maybe, yeah, cause I was in grad school. Wow. And it was about like the first ever real rat survey of rats in New York City where they were actually, they were live trapping the rats. And there's like one rat they nicknamed Stumpy because they got, they trapped him so often, he started to like the anesthesia.

• 54:46Rachel Feltman?

  Stop.

• 54:48Speaker 04

  Oh, that's awesome.

• 54:50Speaker 05

  But apparently, these guys, every time they like do these rat surveys, they like find all these crazy viruses that they like just didn't know existed, you know, like rats are just, they're filthy. I'm sorry. I know, like, people have them as pets. I don't know why.

• 55:05Speaker 04

  Well, I, I think that there's a difference between like a New York City street rat and like a pet rat, you know?

• 55:12Speaker 05

  It's there, though.

• 55:15Rachel Feltman?

  Well, at least in terms of exposure.

• 55:16Speaker 05

  Yeah, in terms of disease exposure, but everything else, no.

• 55:24Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 55:24Speaker 05

  I feel like this, I do wanna, I feel like I've, I have come out sympathetic to possums and bats. So I feel like I am not like an animal and squirrels. I'm not, I just want to be clear, I'm not.

• 55:35Speaker 04

  You're not a monster.

• 55:38Speaker 05

  I love, I love dogs. I love cats. I just.

• 55:42Speaker 04

  Everybody's allowed at least like one animal to vehemently hate, I think.

• 55:46Speaker 05

  I just think the world would be better if we got rid of every rat and every mosquito.

• 55:51Rachel Feltman?

  I agree on mosquitoes.

• 55:53Speaker 05

  Objectively better.

• 55:54Rachel Feltman?

  Yeah. I think mosquitoes, everybody gets as a freebie. It's okay to just hate mosquitoes.

• 56:02Speaker 05

  But, um, yeah, so there isn't a lot of depth to this because I don't know what you need beyond a rat, cat, flying bats.

• 56:10Rachel Feltman?

  You're so right. You're so right.

• 56:12Speaker 04

  Truly.

• 56:13Rachel Feltman?

  That's just something for us to sit with, I think, and ponder.

• 56:17Speaker 05

  That Batman's biggest nemesis was not Penguin. It should be something called Ratman, apparently.

• 56:23Speaker 04

  True. We need a new comic book arc right now.

• 56:28Rachel Feltman?

  Yeah. I think why make it a human villain? Just make it rats.

• 56:32Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 56:33Speaker 05

  And it also turns out that, uh, you know, Kung Fu, or I think the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles knew Kung Fu. Is that correct? It turns out, apparently, you can learn that from a rat.

• 56:45Rachel Feltman?

  As long as bats are your target.

• 56:47Speaker 04

  I see, yes, yes.

• 56:50Rachel Feltman?

  Well, Kendra, thank you so much for coming on and for filling in for me over at Scientific American Science Quickly, where everybody should go take a listen. And yeah, that's it for me on Weirdest Thing, in a way, until sometime this spring, though ideally I will be popping in to share some prerecorded commentary on our vintage episodes, though I've recently become very paranoid that my kid is going to arrive early and none of that will happen. But whatever happens.

• 57:25Speaker 04

  We'll figure it out.

• 57:26Rachel Feltman?

  You have episodes coming and they're going to be great.

• 57:29Speaker 04

  Don't fret, listeners. Don't fret.

• 57:33Rachel Feltman?

  All right. See you guys very soon. The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week is produced by all of our hosts, including me, Rachel Faltman, along with Jess Boddy, who also serves as our audio engineer and editor extraordinaire. Our theme music is by Billy Cadden. Our logo is by Katie Belloff. If you have questions, suggestions, or weird stories to share, tweet us at weirdest underscore thing. Thanks for listening, weirdos.

• 58:10Speaker 02

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• 58:38Speaker 06

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