The comedy nature podcast for more than just nature nerds. A really wild show for grown ups, each episode looks at stories and science from across the natural world and also pits a host against a listener suggested species of animal to decide how many they could take in a fight. Insta @howmanygeese Support the show at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/howmanygeese
Hello and welcome to how many geese, I'm Jack Baddams and I'm Roddy Shaw and if you're after a Nature podcast that doesn't take itself too seriously, then we are the natural selection. On today's show. We go to Tasmania and we meet Fred the sulphur crested cockatoo, who is at least 105 years old. I don't think it's a snake you have to worry about until the last second there. Glass cannons that all offence with zero defence.
King Henry news from the east. What the water it hath creatures.
Have you seen the midnight snap news? No. Is this a recognized publication? This is in The Guardian. All right.
Ok, so this is a midnight snack bar, which is a type of fish which was caught off. Western Australia has set the new record for the age of a tropical fish at 81 years old, significant for a fish. My initial question was, how do you know how old a fish is? Yeah, I actually found a very interesting answer. So fish have got a really small ear bones called otoliths, which continually grow throughout their lives. And they've got visible bands like Tree Rings that's Handy and the science. So the scientists were looking at the age of snappers because it's a widely eaten commercial fish and many snapper species are harvested and those that are harvested are like 40, 50 and 60 years old. So, like, I don't think I've ever thought about this before when we're harvesting fish to eat. Obviously, we talk about overfishing and we talk about all that kind of stuff. But harvesting species that can live as long as humans. Yeah. Is pretty obviously. It's got big ramifications for overfishing. And when these fish get to like a sizable age. But yeah, generally the snappers that are being fished to a 40, 50, 60 years old. But this one is 81 years old, the oldest one.
But they are snapper is I'm holding my hands up on a completely audio medium only like a foot and a half long when I'm trying to think, have I seen them like at a fish market? Like how big? Like this 50 year old fish in my head is a big fish. I guess tortoises can live for like one hundred ninety. They.
Well, speaking about fish and the age of fish, because from then you go down the rabbit hole of looking at other stuff. And I came across a fish called the orange roughy, which is a cold water, deep sea fish, which is also known as the deep sea perch or the slime had Lovelace. That is only 35 to 45 centimetres long. So just bigger than your school ruler. Mm hmm. So in the 1970s, they believe that they only lived for about 30 years or so. But by the 1990s, there was clear evidence that this species lived to an exceptional age. So they did some radiometric dating of trace isotopes found in an orange roughy otolith, the ear bone, and that got to one hundred and forty nine years old. Oh, for a fish that's thirty centimetres long, which is pretty impressive.
I take it the fish has to die to get the. Yeah, I don't think it can willingly. Well when they started I was like, oh nice. We know how old fish are. Yeah. The fish doesn't know how old. Well the fish dead until we finished it. Well a thirty five centimetre fish. It's otolith. Must be tiny. Yeah. And it's a deep-sea fish. It's a deep sea fish so. Right. So I imagine they're not very easy to get a hold of a slime head and then you've got to get it's otolith out and not like I'm just imagining going to look at it and accidentally like oh, I broke the tiny well I broke the tiny er bone.
I think, I think for the things like the snappers maybe it's easier to do for the orange roughy. You take the otolith out but you are doing radiometric dating of the isotopes within it. Oh. So you're not counting the so you're not, it's not simply counting the rings because those rings are being laid down throughout its life. The trace isotopes within them allow you to count back.
That makes a lot more sense because I was like, sure, accounting rings in a tree is easy. You still have to cut the tree down. We need to kill a lot of stuff in the quest of working out how old is. Yes. Oh, yeah.
You're going to learn a lot about that. So that orange roughy is currently the oldest age we've got four orange roughy is one hundred and forty nine years old in our conversation so far. But one specimen was caught fifteen hundred kilometres east of Wellington in twenty fifteen in New Zealand. Yeah, it was estimated to be over two hundred and thirty years old.
Estimated they didn't take a look and be like we have caught this. I estimate this to be two hundred and thirty years old. Put it back.
But there was one caught near Tasmania which was aged at two hundred and fifty years old, but two hundred and fifty years old is currently the oldest aged orange roughy that we know about, which makes it the longest lived commercial fish species because these are still caught, even though they're Deep-Sea Fish. You can catch any and orange roughy. Oh, imagine eating a fish. That's two hundred and fifty years old.
The oldest thing I've eaten is chickens a week sort of thing, although that's a great question. I have never eaten a tree. I'm thinking of the things I routinely eat. But then fruit. What are weightlessness like the lifespan of an apple. That's within the last hour or so. We're talking about something that's had to die for you to eat it because that to me brings it home, surely.
Yeah, it's got to be Kotzen it here or I've eaten like wild venison and stuff before, which I guess, you know, on the hills for like ages. Yeah. Who knows, to be honest, reading about this, it's probably some kind of fish that we never knew about. That's true.
Trout from 400 year old trout, a sardine, a sardine as old as Babylonian.
Right. So on from the orange roughy. Do you know the oldest fish in the sea? I think I do. What do you think it is? I think it's the Greenland shark. Yes. Yeah. So on to the Greenland shark, which is this mysterious shark that lives in the Arctic and North Atlantic waters. And they seem to be in the news every kind of year or so.
They do the rounds for setting a new record. I really like the thought now that in the BBC newsroom, it's like Post-it notes of like check in on Palestine, see what's happening in North Korea. And they've just got a little reminder. Every year, like July 7th, was the Greenland shark doing all of the Greenland sharks got up another year on the clock. So tell the people, remember the figure last year, add one. Now the weather.
So the Greenland shark, they take life pretty slowly and a deep diving species that cruise around about one foot per second. So slow swing fish. Now, how do you work at the age of a Greenland shark? Because they don't have otoliths, that very convenient ear bone that you can age with. Is that because they are a cartilaginous fish and thus do not have a bones? Correct. Thank you. So they're aged by radiocarbon dating the carbon isotopes absorbed in their eye tissue science. Ladies and gentlemen, like we need to just ask things. Yeah, it's not great. Although the study that I'm going to say next, the 2016 study looked at 28 sharks that have been captured as bycatch. So science didn't kill the shark, fishing killed these sharks. Well, I mean, if you kill sharks, fishing does. So they were captured by catch. And the largest of those 28 sharks that have been captured as bycatch was estimated to be around 300 to 500 years old, was estimated to have been born somewhere between 50 and 04 and 1744. And saying something is 300 to 500 years old is one thing. But when you put it in like human terms and say that that shark could have been swimming around since 15, 04 when he was doing the rounds in 15, 04, Henry the eighth was here. And then I don't know, this is a nature thing, not a 15 04 podcast's. But to think that there was fish like around when the Tudor's or whatever were doing their things.
Oh, I'm sure the Tudor's had fish. I think Short knew. What's this man called? King Henry News from the East. What the water it hath. It hath creatures. They sliver a sliver slither and swim at one foot per second. I will eat this beast of the deep.
Why? Why I'm hung up on the 15 004 round it down 1500. Yeah, I don't know. I think it was because the isotope is one of those classic things where science can give you, especially when aging things, it can give you a very specific range of. Yes, I can tell you that this thing was born between 15 04 and 1744 on an August, but not exactly when that 250 year time frame. So fish can get quite old. And from there I basically jumped into the age of animals and I thought I'd start with the ones that we're all pretty aware of, which is reptiles. So reptiles, we know they get quite old. The Guinness World Record for the oldest living land animal is held by Jonathan, a giant tortoise from the Seychelles who's one hundred and eighty eight years old. Bless you, Jonathan. Bless you. Still doing there and still going strong. Love, Jonathan. And then there's also the two Atari's. You heard of a tuatara.
Yeah. They're the lizards that aren't lizards. Yeah. Zeland, they're they're really funky species of reptile from New Zealand. Yeah. That looks like a lizard, but isn't it lizard. But they're like an ancient lineage of their own tails thing. And yeah, there's something about them having a third eye but it's not a third eye. Oh is that on top of their head.
Yeah I think it's an opening in their skull. So if you look at the skull, it looks as if there's a third eye socket. I think because I remember when I was a kid, I went to New Zealand and I was like, oh my God, we're going to see the three eyed lizards. And then I got there and they were completely too wide. And I was like, I've been lied to.
It's something to do with, like some of the most basic animals that we know about. They have light sensitive cells basically on the top of their head. Yeah. That they they use as rudimentary eyes where they can detect night and day and not much else. Squiggly shit in the sky. Exactly. In the sky. In the sky, in the sky. In the sky where the fish don't swim in. So maybe the two towers got one of those. But the oldest tuatara that we know about is Henry. I love how they've all got names. Oh, and he lives in New Zealand and. He was still producing eggs with his 70 year old May when he was 111 years old, you started with Henry and then said he was producing eggs.
And I said a moment. But now. Yes. So he is still fertilized eggs. Fertilized eggs. Got it going. No, Henry. Yes.
We're still fertilizing eggs with this 70 year old mate when he was one hundred and eleven, but now he's 120 and I've not seen any more. Henry, birth the news. I couldn't find any more updates. So maybe it's packed in there.
Surely the people of New Zealand get a telegram from New Zealand. Yeah. You know, there's a lot of news from the east, from the east.
Henry Osborne, another 70 children, another clutch, sire.
Excellent.
Send my regards to Henry question. Yes. Do you have anything on either crocodiles or snakes?
I don't. I briefly switched over reptiles because I thought everyone knows that they're old. Actually, I don't know how old snakes can get to the big ones. Probably quite old.
I was going to say the other, I bet is some weird. Like there's a garter snake in Finland. That's 203. So that's called Jamie. Yeah, well, Sufan or sort of thing.
That's what makes it even more amazing because Jamie Jamie Smith. Jamie Finch, Galatasaray. Pleasure.
So from reptiles to reptiles with wings, birds, let's play a little game with the birds rather than me just telling you, what do you think the life expectancy is of something like a Robin? Five years if it's doing good. Yeah, you're pretty right. The life expectancy of a Robin is two years, but that's because there is a really high mortality rate in the first year of life because being a baby bird. Oh, so the average kills it down, so it pulls it down. So the average life expectancy of a robin is somewhere between one point one to two years. However, once it's passed its first year, it can expect to live longer. The oldest, Robin in the wild, reached 19 years of age. Oh, which is pretty good. How do we know the age of Robin bird rings. Oh, okay.
So so this. So hang on. The fish are going to be looking at the birds and thinking how dare those? These humans have invented a system where they politely attach little things to set them on their way. They live their life and then they check in on them. And the fish are like, we get our heads cut open tissues taken from our eyes. We're just living at the bottom of the sea going about one foot a second.
That's a very valid point.
And I think on behalf of the fish, I think you've raised an excellent topic that does need addressing fish wringing movement for anyone who doesn't know we should. I think we should explain that bird ringing is the process where you fit little metal rings to birds like that. I've got an individual number on them which stays with that bird throughout its life. So if you ring it when it's a little chick in the nest, it keeps that ring until it's in the case of this Robin, 19 years old, and you can catch that bird and you can read it number and you can say, oh, that was the same Robin that I ring 19 years ago. So it's a way of of identifying them as individuals. I think we are doing that with things like sharks and things now, but they tend to be satellite trackers that bubble up. After a while, they detach and they bob up onto the surface of the water and you get the data back.
I don't think where there's an app you can get on your phone, which is like plugged into the shark tracking network and you can just see where all the sharks in the world as well. Not all of it would be helpful if you going swimming, all the tracked ones. And they've all they've got names as well as they all. Sheeler's visiting Miami again.
That's great. Yeah, that's really cool. So yeah. Robbins' two years but once they're, once they're past their first year of life then they can live four or five years. But what you often get with robins is you get people saying that they've had the same Robin in their garden for like ten years in a row or whatever, but it's probably not the same. Robin, it's five different robins have been coming to your garden rather than just the one over all that time.
Do they keep territories in any kind of generational sense? Would it maybe be the same family of robins? No, not necessarily family, because they're not like, you know, like a dynasty. Yeah, because if that territory turnover must be fairly quick, if they only live in about two years. Yeah.
So when they have their checks so they have their checks, they raise them the adults until they become independent and then they kick them out and then it becomes like every Robin for himself and they're all fighting over those checks. May depending on the quality of the habitat and how the territories are taken around them, they may disperse quite far. So I ring to Rob in a few years ago now that was I ring it in August and it was recaptured. That wasn't actually recaptured. It was brought in dead to somebody's house by a cat a few months later in North Wales. So it went from where I ringed it in North Derbyshire into Wales. So that's a fair old track for the Robin. So no hundred miles. Yeah. So Robin do actually move a lot more than people think. And especially in like Scandinavia, you get big migrations of robins. And in certain parts of Northern Europe, robins are seen to them like swallows, they seem to us. So when the swallow arrives, it's like, oh, spring's here. So certain parts of northern Europe, that's when the robin arrives back because they don't hang around all year because it gets so cold. So they are actually quite migratory, like further north of their range. They can come down when it gets colder and then they go back up. So we do get an influx of birds over from Scandinavia through the winter. So that can kind of really mess up the whole territory thing up a little bit. But if a robin in your garden dies, then it's going to be very quickly replaced by another Robin. Unless it's marked, you've got no way of knowing if it's the same Robin or not. It could be it's checks, but chances are probably not.
Yeah, the parents are going to have to be alive for the chicks to get old enough to disperse. Yeah. So it's probably then gone some distance, some distance then the parent. Yeah.
Because the chance, the chances are robins are a pretty common species and even if it went into say the surrounding territories, likelihood is all those are going to be taken by robins because there's going to, because there's just so many robins. So they probably have to range a fair bit to actually settle down and find find a territory. And that kind of lifespan of the robin continues across pretty much all garden birds. Things like blue tits are about the same. But the oldest blue tape was. 21 years old, the oldest ringed blue tech, which is mad, that's bonkers. What about how do you think a crow gets to crow average 12 four four years old for a crow swan 12. Ted, you got to say 12 forever. But, Ted, I fear you've seen my sister town for swans and birds of prey, 12 birds of prey generally. Well, depending on the bird, depends how long it can live. But the interesting thing about birds of prey is that they have a huge mortality rate when they're younger birds of prey, things like sparrow hawks. Only about a third of them will actually make it through to becoming adult lifestyle. If you've got to chase down your food and you can't just rely on popping up to a bird feeder or whatever, yeah, I wonder what the there's obviously a link with size and a link with how hard your life is. Yes. So on that note, actually, so talking about little small songbirds, they have a much, much smaller life expectancy in temperate regions where we have seasons rather than the tropics. So if you take a robin sized bird that lives in the Amazon, it's going to live for longer than the Robins. Yeah, but that's because it's not dealing with winter. The great leveler to compensate for that. Birds like robins, they might only breed once.
If they live for two years, they might only breed once or twice. So to offset the fact they're not going to live very long, they have a nest that has seven, eight chicks in it. Whereas in the tropics, those birds generally only have maybe like a couple of eggs per season because they can bank on the fact that they're going to live for longer, but they're going to be in next year. Yeah, exactly. So evens itself out. So there's a lot at play when it comes to life expectancy, but obviously having to go through something like a winter and if you're a migratory species that throws in a whole load of other challenges. Yeah, but in the tropics, life is pretty much pretty swell. There's always food around. Things are coming into fruit at different times. You'd have to go through a spell where it's cold and dark, a lot more stuff. Trying to kill you. Yeah, everything. Really?
Yeah. In the game of Robins sized bird versus spider in the UK, Robin wins every time in the game of Robin sized bird versus spider in the tropics.
That's right.
Yeah. Robin sized bird versus basically I do it without a backbone. Yeah. Up here it's a very one sided conquest, but in the tropics it's where the real heavyweight invertebrates show up.
Yeah, they do. Well that they have a decent lifespan. All this confirmed wild bird in the world 12, 70 times. She's got albatross, she's got name wisdom. The Laysan Albatross. Oh yes. Who breeds on Midway Atoll in the North Pacific. She's 70 years old and still laying eggs. She was ringed at about five years old. She should hook up with the tuatara. Still fertilizing eggs. Yeah, I'd like to see what that would look like. Flying three eyed Jesus. So wisdom is the oldest confirmed wild bird, but not the oldest bird that we know about. The oldest bird that we know about, of course, birds in captivity, because you take away all the predator pressure and having to find food and all that kind of stuff. Is it a parrot? The top five oldest birds ever recorded are all captive parrots. Right. And I can give you a rundown of are any of them African greys? No, because they're always the ones that can talk the most. Yeah, there's a I think they're cursed with knowledge and they they they have to pay for that by with an early death compared to some of these other parrots. So let's have a little rundown of some of the oldest parrots. So we'll start with Kookie, the pink cockatoo who died in 2016, aged 83 years old. Good effort, Cookie. Then there's Poncho, the green winged macaw who had a long Hollywood career. Oh, including appearances in Ace Ventura and Dr. Doolittle. Those are real high ticket films for a parrot. She retired to the UK and was 92 in twenty eighteen, and I couldn't see any reference that she was dead. So I'm assuming that nineteen ninety four. We're going up, we're starting at five. We're starting at five and going up.
Oh I was like wow. Eight. Okay now we're going. And what was the 92 year old Hollywood star of the silver screen. What was the name. Poncho.
Oh Poncho the green wigmaker. So she was on the Corbi in the massive ones with the long tails. Then we go to Tasmania, of course, and we meet Fred, the sulphur crested cockatoo, who is at least 105 years old but may be older. Oh, and he's still kicking around. So the zoo that is held in in Tasmania, they celebrated his 100th birthday five years ago. Yeah, but they waited until they knew for sure he was one hundred. But he was probably kicking around a bit earlier, so it was probably already a hundred. But they waited until they could guarantee that it was 100 years old and he's still going now. So he's now a hundred and five years old. Wow. Then still climbing. We've got Charlie, who's a. Blue and gold macaw from England that allegedly used to belong to Winston Churchill. Wow. And apparently spews anti Nazi curses that legend says she picked up from Churchill. What kind of. I mean, like, there's only really wrong, but what is she saying? I don't know. I couldn't find any record of any quote, any jolly the blue and gold macaw, the Nazis, those bloody ones, all of that. She was allegedly 114 in 2014, which is the last record that I could find. But there is some debate about Charlie and her back story and whether Winston Churchill was involved and whether she is really a hundred and fourteen. So at number two, Charlie is a bit of a needsome investigation, but the oldest bird is a sulphur crested cockatoo who lived in Australia called Cocchi Bennett and died at the age a confirmed age of 120 years old. Wow, man, I didn't I don't know why it struck me so much thinking about birds being that old and a parrot could live for over 100 years.
I've always liked the idea of having a parrot that sits on your shoulder and tracks. And, you know, it's a pretty cool thing. But now I bought a parrot. Now that could live a hundred years. Yeah, that parrots live longer than I am. Yeah. Well, what's the oldest human that's ever lived? I think there's someone that's like one hundred twenty two or something like, wow, OK, so we're level pegging in a sense with parrots. I think it's pretty close. Yeah. I think the average parrot and the average human lifespan can't be. But then I mean in captivity we're talking of course. But I mean all humans are in captivity.
Yeah, both.
So it turns out there was a lot more to talk about AIDS than we could fit in one episode.
So we'll be back next time to pick up this chat after we've done our animal fight. OK, now it's time for the segment where we take an animal we pitted against Roddy. And he tells us how many of said animal he can fight off. Now, as always, the animals have been suggested by the people on Instagram who didn't know that they were putting these animals up for a battle to the death with Roddy. But today's is from someone on Instagram who, I'll be honest, I don't know their real name, but their Instagram name is Nebojsa Nelva. Sorry if I've pronounced that horribly wrong, but I do know I think I know that they're Spanish. And this species that you're talking, the animal that are going to be talking about is the ASP. Now, the ASP is a viper species found in south Western Europe that reach about 65 to eighty five centimetres now think similar to an adder in its colour, in its appearance, olive brown with strong markings on it. But of course, the weapon here is venom and the venom is more potent than others. This is the species, if you know anything about history that was supposedly used to assassinate the Egyptian queen Cleopatra and bites from this species are more severe than the European leader. Not only can they be very painful, but also about four percent of all untreated bites are fatal. Now, the symptoms from an veneration are rapidly spreading acute pain and can within a few hours lead to severe haemorrhagic necrosis. Vision may be severely impaired, most likely due to the degradation of blood and blood vessels in the eyes. So is sure how many ASP's is too many? ASP's.
Now, this, I reckon, is a real case of blaze of glory. Yeah, because the moment it goes south, it sounds like it's game over. It's not just a scratch. It's not this. It's really serious consequences here. Yeah, I think it's good to take into account again, terrain. And my thinking is I don't want them able to climb anything. Yeah. I only want them on ground level. I don't want to have to be dodging blows to the face, to the upper body. And so I'm thinking at school, gym, school, gym, school, James, a good a good battleground, empty school gym.
Very open. Very see everyone coming clean. Hard for. Yeah. And I think it's set the bar high because again it's, it's their glass cannons, they're all orphans with zero defence, tiny things really. I don't think it's a snake you have to worry about until the last second. Yeah. I'm going to wager like one hundred I think as I think you just stomping. Yeah. I think, I think stomping would be the key now. I think you're gonna need some sturdy footwear. Yep. Steel toed steel toes, long trousers. Because if they bite you, like you say, as soon as they bite you, the chances are it's game over. Now, one thing I want to throw in is that I have that first hand experience, but kind of second hand experience of just how quick these things can strike. Not the ASP in particular, but others. Because once I was on a school trip to the Yorkshire Moors, a university trip to the Yorkshire Moors, and we were told, if you see any snakes, don't try and touch them because they're probably at. Sure, we all go out and we do our transects on the moors and we get back on the bus and I'm sat in one row on the couch and the guy behind me is sweating quite profusely. And his mate who sat next to him is laughing quite a lot. So I turn around and I'm like, what's up? And he's MacOS. He's been bitten by a snake. And the guy who's sweating goes, I've never seen one move so fast in my entire life.
Who's that? I saw it curled up in the heather and I just went to, like, grab its head, like Steve Irwin did. And he went, I've never seen an animal. And you could see on his finger with the two puncture marks, the classic snake puncture marks, and his hand was swelling. His hand was huge. And he was terrified of going and telling the lecturer who'd taken his out, the professor, because we'd been explicitly told not to touch them. Anyway, the boss back to the hotel that we were staying at was maybe like 20 minutes or so when we got off the bus. He couldn't hide it. It was sweating profusely. His hand was now massive and he had to go up to the U.S., went up to the professor and he pretended he'd been stung by a wasp. And the professor immediately looked at his finger and saw the two puncture marks. When you've tried to pick up a snake, it was two wasps next to each other and he had to go. You have to go to hospital. And luckily was fine because others that their venom is only really dangerous to small children or old frail people. But just want to throw that in there that these are lightning fast. Yeah. And if you go with the hands. Oh, no, you can't. Yeah. You can't outmaneuver these so good sturdy boots. Long trousers I think is a good I think I think about a hundred you could probably get away with.
It's not even that. What this has taught us is school gym. It had the leather advantage homefield. You've got to take that away. You've got to take the animals off their home turf.