My Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of My Heart Radio. Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb, and I'm Joe McCormick, and we're back with part two of our series on throwing behavior in animals. Now. In the previous episode we Foam, we focused almost exclusively on allegations from a paper published towards the end of last year in about octopuses throwing stuff, or at least appearing to throw stuff deliberately at one another. Often not just stuff as in like hard, uh singular objects, but like fistfuls of sand ory just trying to throw the silt right in each other's eyes. Yeah, that was a lot of fun. Octopus is playing dirty. But I had been looking around to try to find a good ancient myth or story that centered on the act of throwing, because it just seemed like there would be such a thing, right, like a throwing contest between the gods or something like that. And I think this must have been a common set piece since time immemorial. I'm sure there are examples like that, but I couldn't find a good one for today. However, I did want to talk about a myth that draws an interesting connection between an act of throwing and the origin of human kind, or at least the present lineage of humankind, and that is the Greek myth of Deucalion and Pira. M No, this one's not ringing a bell for me. If my son were around, I could perhaps even he knows this one. But yeah, this is not one that that that instantly springs into my head. Well settle in. It's a good story. So the version of the story I'm gonna reference is the one told in Ovid's Metamorphoses. So this is going to include some some Roman flare on the on the Greek myth. Ovid, of course, was a first century b c. Roman and poet, and this is from his Metamorphoses, Book one, translated by Brooks More. Now, the context of the of the story is that it's sort of the Greek or Roman version of the Great Flood story that we know from from other ancient texts that we know from the Hebrew Bible, that we know from the from the Epic of Gilgamesh and so forth. So uh, in this version, after the primordial ages and the origin of the gods and the giants and humankind, the gods look down on Earth and they're like it stinks. Human humans are awful, disgusting evil. There's a particular incident that really makes the gods upset where this vile king like Kon, tries to make Zeus and the gods do cannibalism to test their omissions. So he kills his own son, cooks him and tries to serve him to Zeus to see, like Zeus going to know that this is my son. Hilarious. Yeah, I definitely remember like Kon, We've talked about him before. Yes, yes, he has come up. So Zeus or Jupiter decides he's going to destroy the world with a great flood, and he does. It's brutal. Apparently only two humans are saved from from the flood, and they're from the region of Folks. They are a pious married couple named Ducalion, who is the son of Prometheus, and Pira, who is the daughter of Epimetheus. Now they survived the deluge, I think, on a little boat and they end up beached on a mountaintop. It might be the top of Mount Parnassus, but anyway that they end up stranded on a mountain. The floodwaters received, so they survive, but the rest of humanity has been destroyed. So what are they going to do now? Now they're they're all alone, And because they are a pious couple, they decide they should ask the gods for help. So here I'm going to start reading from the brooks Moore translation of Avid. And after he had spoken, they resolved to ask the aid of sacred oracles. And so they hastened to Kaffisian waves, which rolled a turbid flood in channels known thence. When their robes and brows were sprinkled well, they turned their footsteps to the goddess Fame. Its gables were befouled with reeking moss, and on its altars every fire was cold. But when the twain had reached the temple steps, they fell upon the earth, inspired with awe, and kiss the cold stone with their trembling lips, and said, if righteous prayers appease the gods, and if the wrath of high celestial powers may thus be turned, declare, oh famous WinCE, and what the art may raise humanity, Oh gentle Goddess, help the dying world. Okay, so they turned to the gods for help. They go to the temple of Famous. Of course, all the fires have gone out because it's been flooding, and it's covered with reeking moss, So the temples even nasty now. But still they're going to kneel down and kiss the stones of the temple to show how how holy they are. And they asked Famous for help, and Famous reply, so the poem goes on. Moved by their supplications, she replied, depart from me and veil your brows, ungourge your robes, and cast behind you as you go the bones of your great mother. Long they stood in dumb amazement. Pierra first a voice refused the mandate, and with trembling lips, implored the goddess to forgive. She feared to violate her mother's bones and vex her sacred spirit. Often pondered they the words involved in such obscurity, repeating oft and thus Dukalian to Epimetheus's daughter uttered speech of soothing. Import oracles are just, and urge not evil deeds or not avails the skill of thought. Our mother is the earth, and I may judge the stones of earth are bones that we should cast behind us as we go. Oh okay, so some some textual interpretation coming in here, all right, So basically the world has ended. They've come to the oracle the and they say, Oracle, what should we do? Oracle says, you need to take your robe off and throw your mother's bones around as you go behind you, right, But Pierre doesn't like this, so yeah, I think, I think. I think if I'm interpreting this right when they're saying oracle here, they're talking about the goddess Famous speaking to them, because I think, uh, this would not be a human oracle at this point. But yes, Famous, I think or whoever he is speaking the oracle here, I guess it's Famous directly says yeah, take your mother's bones, throw you wear your clothes loosely, ungird your robes, so kind of just like, uh, you know, sag your robes around and throw your mother's bones behind you. Pira is like, I'm not I can't do that my mother's but that would be really impious and I'm especially pious. But Dukalian has the solution. No, no, no, this doesn't mean your mother's bones. It's a metaphor. Our mother is the earth and the bones of the earth are stones. Makes sense, Okay, the oracle could have been a little more clear from the get go on that, but but fair enough agree, So the poem goes on. And although Pierre, by his words, was moved, she hesitated to comply, And both amazed doubted the purpose of the oracle, but deemed no harm to come of trial. They descended from the temple, veiled their heads, and loosened their robes, and threw some stones behind them. It is much beyond belief. We're not receding ages. Witness, hard and rigid stones assumed a softer form, enlarging as their brittle nature changed to mild their substance, until the shape of man appeared imperfect, faintly outlined, first as marble statue, chiseled in the rough, The soft, moist parts were changed to softer flesh, the hard and brittle substance into bones. The veins retained their ancient name. And now the God's supreme ordained that every stone Deukalian through should take form of man, and those by pura cast should woman's form assume. So are we hardy to endure, and proved by toil and deeds from what we sprung. So they do it, They throw the stones, And what do you know? It works. All the stones Pia throws become women, all the stones Doucalian throws become men. And I like the moral here. The fact that the new generation of humans, I guess the present one surviving emerged from stones in this telling is why humans are are so rough and ready. Like humans can get things done there, they can do hard work. They can they can really take a beating and keep on going. Hmm. Interesting. Yeah, and I think there might be some kind of interesting evolutionary pressions in this story about the present generation of humans arising from an act of throwing stones, because I think you could make the argument that throwing stones or throwing uh items shinned out of stone is an early human technological advancement that is pivotal in the the arising regime of technologies and behaviors associated with those technologies that create human culture. Yeah. Absolutely. I hate to keep going back to the the introduction to two thousand and one of Space Odyssey, but we have discussed it a lot, and we've actually had an expert on the show to to discuss it with us before. But yeah, I mean, even in that uh presentation, we see the idea that, yes, the the use of tools uh as a melee application, but also arranged application, and our ability to throw things at threats, perceived threats other individuals, either as a direct weapon or as a communication of intent. H is an important part of of human technology and the the advent of human technology. But while some of the most note examples of non human animals throwing or found in primates, Rob, I think you wanted to get us started today by talking about elephants, right, Yeah, Yeah, elephants were one that jumped out at me because I, you know, I I'm fascinated by elephants, but I hadn't really read much about their ability to throw things. Uh, So I dove into this a good bit. Now, um, I wanna advise everyone that I am going to get a little bit into the history of war elephants in this. I'm gonna try not to dwell on any of the you know, the gory details, but war is inherently cruel and monstrous, and warfare involving animals is also cruel and monstrous, um and at the same time fascinating. So yeah, I realized I'm something of a hypocrite on this myself, and that I I spend a certain part of every day horrified and fearful of warfare, and yet um, you know, ancient warfare is is a fascinating topic that I keep coming back to and actually find find p in in in studying and reading about and then uh covering on the podcast. So there you go, Bill, please tell me more than thank so. Elephants have long been reported to throw things. Uh, They've been seen to throw rocks at other animals. Uh. There's even at least one case and when an elephant was able to fatally hit a human in a zoo environment. This was in Morocco back in You can look up news reports on this if if you want to see more. But even in the while, there are some there's some impressive footage that you'll find online of say, I think there's one of a of an elephant in Africa throwing a rock in the direction of a rhinoceros near a water hole environment, you know where there's a lot of interspecies interaction and standoffs. Uh. There's also footage I was looking of an elephant again. This was an African elephant throwing a branch at a at a at a tourist who is out in a jeep to observe the elephants, and then the elephant is essentially I guess saying I don't really want to be observed right now. Here have the branch of a small tree. Uh. So they definitely can throw things when they want to throw things, and you can certainly break down a lot of why they're throwing things. You know, there are as a communication as a as an actual and actual attack. Uh, you know, some sort of expression of aggression. A lot of what we talked about regarding the octopus is very much in play here now. In trying to picture this act of throwing, I'm assuming that it is done with the trunk generally, Yes, yeah, definitely the trunk um and all of this really anytime we're in talking about elephants throwing things. This is all just a subset of a larger study of elephant tool use that's been going on for quite some time. Uh, multiple studies, uh, multiple observations. There's a lot of interesting data out there concerning not only aggressive use of branches and rocks wielded or thrown, but also the use of sticks or branches in grooming, thermoregulation and fly swatting. Um. Something that Charles Darwin apparently commented upon as well fly swatting interesting. Yeah, yeah, so there are other things too, like the manipulation of branches to weigh down fences so as to cross over them. Uh. And sometimes there there may be examples two of them retaining certain sticks of for for use as a tool. Um so, you know, not sticking in their pocket or anything, but um, but behavior that seems to indicate that once a stick is useful, they may hang onto it for at least a little bit in order to keep using it. So it's not just it's not like this kind of random interaction like, oh, there happens to be a stick in my truck. We well, I can sympathize with that because that I'm when I find a good stick. You know, not all sticks are equal, that some sticks are way better than others. And when you find a good stick, you kind of don't want to let it go. Oh. Yes. One especially sees this in in children on walks. Once they find a good stick, they absolutely don't want to put it away, even if they keep almost hitting people in the face with it. So anyway, as far as elephants go, though, one of the more interesting ideas out there, however, is that tool use in elephants emerges primarily to contend with thermoregulation and parasites, uh, basically parasite control. Both of these are important because the elephant, of course, basically has has no hair, and so it's a fertiless creature. And we tend to think of elephant skin as is thick and hard and sufficient protection against flies, but this isn't quite the case. Pain and blood loss from flies seems to be sufficient to provide for the natural selection of swatter usage. So being able to pick up a stick, small branch, it said, and using that with the trunk to swat away these troublesome insects that again are messing with the expansive skin of the elephant that is far more sensitive than you might give it credit. And the elephant has limited abilities to shoot those flies. It has the tail, it has expansive ears, of course, but mainly it's depending on that trunk, and you can extend that trunk via tool use, via a small branch or stick and use that to swat away the flies. Now this is swatting, not throwing the stick it flies that I don't think really wouldn't necessarily makes sense, and I yet to see anything about throwing as being a direct part of either activity thermoregulation of their their expansive skin, or regulation of parasites. So I think it's one of those things we might see a sort of a side skill of all that, an add on skill that comes via the the the evolution of this amazing trunk and all the abilities of this trunk as well as just their their ability to use tools. Yeah, well, you can imagine throwing as um as at least possibly on a continuum with the extended reach you get from a tool. So you know, by picking up a stick you in effect make your arm longer, you can hit or reach it something farther away than you can with your biological arm. And then if you could release that stick at just the right time, it could fact could in fact go even further. Yeah, so the basic ability here is not at all surprising. The elephant trunk is a highly tactile proboscis composed of some forty muscles. That this is a frequently sided number anyway, though I do see some different figures out out there. But anyway, you shake it, whatever the number happens to be, it it dwarfs the sum six and fifty muscles in the human body. Well, maybe just because I have them on the brain, But I almost want to compare the elephant's trunk to an octopus's arm. Yeah, yeah, I mean I think there's a lot to compare there, just in terms of how much ability there is for the further trunk to move around. Well, I think I'm also thinking about that because there are no bones within the trunk, so like our arms and fingers have bones in them that make them rigid along a certain you know, axes of motion, whereas the elephants trunk has no bones at all. It's it's a mass of like muscles and fats, So it has a kind of almost octopus like I mean, not truly, not truly octopus like, but more in the octopus e direction. Uh, in a range of motion and kind of floppiness. Yeah. Absolutely. Um. One of the papers I was looking at for this section is from Scott L. Hooper in one edition of Current Biology of Papers titled Motor Control Elephant trunks ignore the many and choose the few. In this Hooper writes, quote, the elephant trunk is a muscular hydrostat with essentially infinite freedom of movement. Now, the paper itself here is the title suggests, explores how the elephant focuses on certain ways of move thing the trunk to achieve various objectives. Again, this is interesting because unlike with something like the human arm, the possible movements are far less restricted. Like you say, it's it's not like an arm where you have. Yes, the human arm is amazing in what it can do and the range of motion that it has, but still there are limitations in place, just based on how it is constructed the bones, the ligaments, etcetera. Like you can't bend your forearm in the middle of your forearm, or you can't build bend your elbow backwards right Like it would be interesting to see a list like all the possible ways you might move your arm in all of the like the small differences, all the different ways you might scratch your nose. However, many methods you come up with, however many movements you're able to decipher the elephant and that it is just is gonna have you beat every day, Like there's just so many more ways for it to potentially move its trunk. And this was really interesting. In the paper, the author points out that when control for body and brain size, Elephant cerebellums are physically much larger than expected, and that five of elephant brain neurons are in the cella bellus sarah cerebellum. Uh. This is a part of the brain that is, among other things, associated with fine motor control and movement error correction. So they point out that quote. It is tempting to hypothesize that this extreme hypertrophy is due to the greatly increased motor control challenges a muscular hydrostatic trunk poses. Thank thank thank so. Anyway, in general, though, there's a great deal that an elephant can do with its trunk, and many things that it does far more often with said trunk. But clear though throwing behavior again has been observed. They're perfectly capable of throwing branches, rocks, and in cases of hostile interaction, yes, other organisms including people. Oh. One question that ended up coming up from me though, is can they throw arrows? And um, I hadn't thought about this, there's but I ran across this interesting passage in Plenty of the Elders the Natural History. So if you have your stuff to blow your mind, plenty of the Elder punch card, please go ahead and put another star punch through there, and you're one star closer to your gigantic HOGI. So um, I'm going to read from plenty here. Quote uh and just as a reminder, plenty of course first centuries see Roman author that we've discussed many times on the show. Quote. The first harnessed elephants that were seen at Rome were in the triumph of Pompeius Magnus over Africa, when they drew his chariot, a thing that is said to have been done long before at the triumph of Father liber on the conquest of India. Priscilius says that those which were used at the triumph of Pompeius were unable to go in harness through the gate of the city. In exhibition of gladiators, which was given by Germanicus, the elephants performed a sort of dance. With their uncouth and irregular movements. It was a common thing to see them throw arrows with such strength that the wind was unable to turn them from their course, to imitate among themselves the combats of the gladiators, and to frolic through the steps of pyrrhic dance. After this, too, they walked upon the tight rope, and four of them would carry a litter in which lay a fifth meaning a fifth fifth elephant which represented a woman lying in They afterwards took their place, and so nicely did they manage their steps that they did not so much as touch any of those who were drinking there. Huh. So I have a kind of mixed reaction to that. On one hand, I think it's quite clear from you know, modern examples, that elephants can be trained to do all kinds of interesting things. They are intelligent animals, and they have a very adroit uh manipulation ability through their trunk. And yet I feel kind of doubtful when it says this thing about the arrows, that they are able to throw the arrows with such strength that the wind was unable to turn them from their course. I guess I'm imagining from that statement, though it doesn't directly say this, that it's like throwing arrows as if into a target so actually aimed, so they go tip first and hit something even when the wind is blowing. I don't know if Plenty doesn't actually say that, but that I would assume that's what he means. Yeah, Yeah, I wasn't sure how to take the wind thing either if that's if that's something that we should focus on, or if perhaps you know something lost in translation here and through the ages, that this is just kind of a standard way of describing an arrow being um uh fired with precision. You know, Yeah, well, I guess it's the precision I wonder about, Like, if he's just saying that that like they can throw arrows, sure, I guess that that that doesn't seem controversial, like they could throw sticks. If he's saying they could throw the arrow with the kind of like point forward precision that an archer can shoot an arrow, then I'm like, oh, whoa, I don't know about that. Yeah, he makes them sound like they're natural sharpshooters. And and granted, most of this description is clearly describing elephants that have been trained to perform for the amusement of humans, but it's reference in combat. It's referencing war elephants as well, So you know, part of me was wondering, it's like, did did they train did they actually train elephants to throw arrows? Did they have any kind of combat initiative in mind? Here? Surely not? And also wondering just is this at all accurate? Can elephants do this? And on the on that side of the the issue here, indeed, Asian elephants are still trained to throw darts at balloons as a spectacle. This is again something that you can look up multiple videos of online. I don't think there's any trickery involved in these, it's just they have they have trained the elephant, and the elephant will take a dart, fling it with its trunk and hit a balloon that's affixed to like a wooden board or so something. Hold on a second, I am I'm taking a moment to watch this video. Okay, I took a moment to watch video. I am simultaneously very impressed. And it makes more sense now because at least in the video you shared Robbed the Elephant dart throwing, it is throwing a dart and hitting balloons and popping them. But it is not a straight on line drive like you know, like an archer would shoot an arrow. It's more of a toss of a dart that happens to land point first on the balloon and hit it right. And you know, ethical concerns over training elephants for amusement aside. Yeah, it's pretty impressive and I think it it certainly speaks to the throwing ability of the elephants. Again, like you said, the dart um uh throwing here is very much in line with other kind of throwing feats one sees from elephants, including some of these, uh, these these incidents that have occurred in the wild or sort of more or less in the wild. Yeah. Now, again, given the historical use of Asian elephants in warfare, you might well wonder if this ability was ever exploited for war because yes, war elephants were a part of warfare and parts of the world. Um. They were typically used though as powerful bulldozing steeds and shock weapons. They could also serve as as a sort of a weapons platform of sorts. You know, you could have a place on top where not only is the elephant ride or present, but perhaps someone uh brandishing a spear or a bow of some of some sort. And in some cases not only did you have additional armor added to the the elephant uh. And I should probably shouldn't even say additional armor, just armor because again you think of the skin of the elephant as being this kind of like natural armor, and uh, you know, I think for the most part, we're uh, we're dealing with with with a part of the animals far more sensitive than we think. So yeah, they're There are numerous examples that survived today of the sort of armor that we placed on the elephants. Sometimes that armor would be augmented with spikes or blades, and there were also special elephant swords that could be affixed to the tusks. I apologize I can't remember where I read this, but I know I've read at least one historians opinion before that elephants in ancient warfare would have been more useful for psychological impact than they were for direct like you know, mechanical advantage on the battlefield, and that most of what you could do with an elephant you could probably actually do better with just cavalry manched on horses. Yeah, that that lines up with a lot of what I've been reading here, Like we we should not think of the war elephant is some sort of super weapon. Uh, it's it was a specialized uh weapon, a specialized use of the elephant and rider and various other weapons that needed support, UH needed just the right situation to be useful and uh and yeah, so there's a there's a lot of ins and outs. You can't think of it again as this thing that oh once one to introduce war elephants to the game, you've got it. One one of the books I was looking at here is a book by John im Kissler titled War Elephants from two thousand and six, And in this he mentions that this that some sources mentioned blades affixed to trunk armor as well, though I don't take that to mean I personally didn't take that to mean that you would actually have some sort of scenario where you would put a sword on the trunk end of the elephants trunk. I think that would be more like blades higher up on the armor that's kind of protecting the front of the elephant's face. But he this is a book that goes into depth on elephant warfare, probably more than a lot of you really want to want to read. I mean, it's a very readable, very good book. But again, war is cruelty, and elephant warfare is also just loaded with cruelty. There are a lot of elephant deaths that are described in this. You know, it gets into not only the gory particulars of waging war with elephants, but also waging war against elephants. And but there are certainly accounts that are mentioned in this book of enemy soldiers being crushed and thrown by the trunk of of the elephant, and in some cases um throwing the horse as well, if it's encountering like a man mounted on a horse. Now I I look through this book, I did not find any examples of war elephants actually throwing projectiles as a as an offensive weapon tactic. Though it is mentioned that Skipio forced his elephants into battle against Caesar's forces with rock slingers, So these would have been human rock slingers marching behind the elephants, pelting them with stones to get them to continue forward. Uh So this would have been I think forty six BC. So a lot of what you encounter with projectiles and elephants are dealing with in this case making the elephants move forward into battle um and and all the grizzly realities that awaited them ahead. And then also you find plenty of discussions of projectiles being used against elephants, such as specialized like all metal arrows and so forth, darts, um cow trops and other things that would be useful fire added to projectiles as well that would be useful in combating elephants that are used by your enemy. Kissler also brings up an account from Plutarch's Life of Alexander fourth century BC, in which the Indian king Porus was said to ride in a war elephant that was so loyal that at one point it softly kneels down and begins to draw the enemy darts out of the king's body so that he continued can continue fighting. And Kistler weighs in on this and says, quote, such stories are not preposterous. Elephants do form intimate bonds with their human riders and have been known to protect their human friends and may even die of grief when their partner is lost. Megas Thinny is a contemporary of Alexander attest to both wow. However, this of course is not dart throwing, natural or otherwise, and Kistler makes no mention of elephants being trained to throw weapons. I think it might take on this is generally speaking, human army is capable of using war elephants are going to also have access to much better throwing projectile technology such as a bow used by a human, even a sling used by a human, catapults and so forth. Using a war elephant to throw a rock would just be a misuse of the resource that you have there. Yeah, that is not what the elephants are best at. Yeah, uh and uh. And the Kissil gets into this a little bit as well. He's speaking directly about the sieges of Hannibal here, but he says, you're talking about the limitations of the war elephant. Quote, elephants do not make good siege weapons, but they do make excellent siege laborers. So again, a situation where um it an't given moment, an army that has elephants is going to have to use them where they are, whether where they are most useful, be it as a shock weapon or as just labor to help operate the other weapons of war. So and when it comes to bobbing projectiles at your enemies, better I would imagine to have human archers a top or near elephants to handle the range weaponry and allow the elephants to do their thing, hopefully in a matter in a manner that advances the front line rather than recedes it. Because that's another thing you run into. Like the use of the elephant on the battlefield. Um, it is kind of there's kind of a contained chaos to it. Uh. You definitely if you are the one using the elephants, you want them to keep going towards the enemy and not to to panic and turn back on your own forces. Yeah. Still, there's certainly many accounts of war elephants grabbing, crushing, throwing human adversaries, sometimes off their mounts, and then in some cases inflicting such damage to them to the mount as well. Well. This is interesting because it raises sort of a third category of animal throwing behaviors that we didn't really get to in the last episode. When we were talking about that study on octopuses, we made the distinction between throwing at and throwing away. So sometimes in octopus would quote throw again to to remind you what the octopuses did was not purely by like grasping something in the arm and then rapidly extending the arm and releasing the object. They would hold the object with their arms and then blast the object with their funnel or siphon with a jet of water to propel it through the water toward a target, or at least allegedly toward a target. But the two categories of throwing they talked about in this paper, we're throwing at and throwing away. So throwing away is just like you're trying to get something out of a certain place, Like cleaning out your din would be a throwing away behavior. You're trying to get all of the scallop shells out of there, uh and and make a make a clean place for you to settle down. Or throwing at would be trying to hit a target here you could have I don't know what this would be. If you're like grabbing an adversary and throwing it, that's not really throwing at or throwing away. The object of the throwing is the object you're throwing, not an object you're trying to hit. But you're also not just trying to get it out of your way, you're trying to harm it by throwing it. Yeah, I think there's there's at least one account that the Kissler shares again from from ancient writers, where someone is thrown and then they hit a rock and it like breaks their back. But that's it's hard to really weigh in on that. Like was the elephant in this case throwing the human at the rock or did they the elephant just throw this human aside and they happened to land on a rock. I wasn't alleging, Yeah, I wasn't alleging that the elephants like knew what they were doing and that type of throwing. Yeah, but I think we have one more example of an animal where that third category the the might you might say, throwing into where the the main object of the throwing is what happens to the object thrown, not the object it's thrown at. And it's not just trying to get the object out of your space. You're you're trying to act upon the object by throwing it. And this comes up with the mongoose. I was surprised by this. I don't really know much about the mongoose, so I wasn't expecting it to to be a projectile tool user or a projectile Maybe not maybe tool user is going a little too far, but a creature capable of throwing objects, um, yeah, I wonder would this count of tool use or not. I don't know what. We can talk about the details and then see everything. Thank thank there are different families of mongooses about thirty four species in total. They have strong rodent vibes. There's definitely a rodent energy to them. If you're unfamiliar with them, you having to see them, if you have an end to be in a region where you have mongooses around, you might think, oh, they they're behaving much like rodents. They seem to be feel feeling that that niche at the very least. But they're actually more closely related to hyenas and fosces. They are carnivores and they're pretty opportunistics, so they feed on vertebrates. Invertebrates live prey, carry on their They're all about figuring out how to go about getting their daily allotment of meat. What kind of puzzles do I need to solve to get my meat? What do I need to crawl into to get my meat? Uh? And and uh And this is this the kind of area where often we times we see this more with the omnivores. Like we talked about the raccoon before, this creature that that is savvy and its ability to to find these different forms of food, And here we see it with the carnivorous mongoose. Now as they're trying to get at the meat. Sometimes the thing about your meat. Sometimes the meat is you know, smeared on the side of the road, or it's a um or it's a nice and soft and easy to tear into. But other times you'll find that the meat that you desire is a mongoose is encased. Uh. This would be the case with something like a millipede. There's there's goosey stuff on the inside that you want to eat, but there's hard stuff on the outside. Bird bird's eggs are another example, hard on the outside, delicious and liquidity in the middle. Beetles, balls of dung are all so brought up in some of the sources I was looking at, because the ball of dung might have, for instance, that a beatle inside of it, and you want to get at it. But on the outside you have perhaps this hardened dung. So how are you going to get the meat that is such so encased? Well? A reference that comes up on this question is a paper from nineteen sixty seven by Thomas Eisner and Joseph A. Davis, a couple of biologists. I think one was affiliated with Cornell University, UH, and I think maybe another with the Bronx Zoo. But the paper is called Mongoose Throwing and Smashing Millipedes, published in the journal Science. I actually had trouble finding the full text on this one, but fortunately I was able to sort of piece it together with some sections quoted in books and a blog post I found summarizing it by an archaeologist and named Michael Haslum. But the study looked at a relationship between the mongoose and a genus of af Can millipedes called sphero there Um sphero ethereum. You want to do the etymology on that? What does that mean? Ball beast? Now compared to the tiny roly pulleys or pillbugs that we're used to here in the Southern United States, rob these things the Spherotherium r. Indeed, beasts some species are very large comparatively. I found a picture of somebody holding one in their hand for scale, and this one looks to be about the size of an uncracked walnut. It's pretty big. They also have thick, tough plates of armor compared to roly roly pullies or pill bugs. And as a side note, I just wanted to mention that our familiar roly pullies here are actually not millipedes at all. They are isopod crustaceans, terrestrial crustaceans that moved out of the sea to colonized land millions of years ago. Huh. I don't think I quite realized that. Way to go, roly police. But so okay to this study, the authors were doing some testing to see what predatory animals were able to get the meat. Like you're talking about two as Mick Jagger would say, get the meat to uncas the spherotherium's tough outer defenses and get it what's inside if it balls up? Is this millipede basically invincible? Or can anybody crack the nut? Uh? Now? In other parts of this study, the spherotherium in ball modes survived attacks by a colony of harvester ants, They survived attacks by blue jays and uh certain species of mice. But then, to read from the author's observations quote, the unexpected occurred in tests with a banded mongoose or mongos mungo. The predator responded instantly to the glomerrid, and that's referring to the millipede. Here the glomerated sniffing it and rolling it about with the pause. It seased it in the jaws, biting upon it with sharp teeth, but the millipede was neither punctured nor crushed. Suddenly, the millipede was dropped from the jaw us and grasped with the front pause. The mongoose, backed against a rocky ledge in the cage, assumed a partially erect stance, and, with emotion so quick as to be barely perceptible, hurled the millipede backward between its legs, smashing it against the rocks. Fatally injured, with its shell broken and its body torn apart, the millipede was promptly eaten. This this is a great image. So first of all, um, I don't have an answer for this question, but I do wonder about, like how strong the bite of the mongoose is, Like maybe they're their their bite strength isn't isn't as powerful as as would be required to say, if you were going to actually bite down on this millipede and crunch it in your mouth. Or maybe it has to do with the size of the millipede. I don't know. I found some some great images of of a mongoose gnawing on an egg trying to sort of get it's it's it's horrible little mouth around the egg, and and uh, I don't know. It might in this case, perhaps the mongoose is able to actually bite through that egg and crack it. Certainly an egg is different than than a hardened a large millipede. But like I said, they have been observed to to take eggs and strike them or throw them as well. So I don't know. My second question that came out because I was looking at some different sources, but I came across similar descriptions and I was trying to picture it, and I was like, am I picturing this right? Is this a granny shot? Is this is? This is like the granny shot with the with the bat? Well, I guess it's. Wait, no, the granny shot is when you use your arms as a pendulum between your legs and throw the ball. What is it called when you project the ball back between your legs. It's a reverse granny shot? Okay shot? But yes, that's what's going on here if you want to picture it. The mongoose, the banded mongoose here is it's like sort of standing with its legs apart and then picking up the millipede with its four paws and then leaning over and throwing the millipede backwards between its legs to smash it against a rock behind it. And you included for me a couple of wonderful illustrations to drive home how this works. I think these illustrations are actually from the original paper, but they were. They were included in that blog post I referenced by Haslum. Yeah, they're quite amusing. We were talking before the recording about the uh. In the first shot, we see this uh, this, this mangoo is clearly thoughtful about its task, concentrating on what it's doing. Millipede grasp between it's it's it's pause rock behind it, and then in the next picture, bam, it has thrown the millipede. The millipede is in flight back between the creature's legs, and he's just kind of looking at us, the viewers. This is occurring, Yeah, yeah, making a sort of shameful eye contact with the illustrator. But but even this, this, this illustration also drives home that like, this is a creature that has like a tail um it's uh, it's legs are not nearly as long as human legs, so it seems like a very It's a precision shot. There's nothing like clumsy about this. Well, I wonder why the throwing happens behind the animal instead of in front of it. So, yeah, would it has to get past the legs and the tail to do this, But since the behavior has evolved this way, there must be a an advantage to the to the rear word throwing, right, Like maybe the animal can get more momentum throwing in that direction than it could throwing forward. I'm not sure. Well, what it reminds me of is digging behavior um and uh and the mongoose is certainly a creature that that I imagine is going to dig around for things. You know, maybe in not actual burrowing behavior perhaps, but we're talking about scratching around in the dirt, going after say, milipede, small bugs, et cetera. And you know what is the We can sort of imagine the steps between basic digging throwing the dirt back between your rear legs, and then launching small creatures backwards as well and making them hit a rock wall or something. M Yeah, okay, basic mongoose technology either way, I guess. Well anyway, uh so, apparently for the banded mongoose picking up and throwing food is part of their normal behavior. This wasn't just like a one off, weird thing that happened in this zoo environment. It is something that has been observed in the wild, and it's part of a behavioral repertoire that may in fact be passed on through a kind of teaching and observation between older mongoosees and younger ones, rather than strictly through uh inborn instinct. Yeah, fascinating. Um. I was looking around it for for various videos of this, and I did find a number of videos showing them with different encased foods that that do look more like a striking as opposed to a throwing. But I guess one can imagine that these would be sort of related it, right, especially if the striking If I'm remembering correctly from the videos I was looking at, some of the strikings are kind of the same initial movement instead of launching the encased food back between the legs, though bringing it down straight onto the ground or onto some sort of rocky surface. Good job mongoose. Yeah. Yeah. It reminds me of the dropping techniques that have been linked to other um organisms that are capable of flight. You know, if you have something like I think the you know cases where lamber guy or may drop bones to shatter on rocks far below. They're able to use a gravity assist on that act. But if you're just a mongoose, well you don't have gravity like that. You can't very well soar up into the sky and then drop it. You've got to hurl it instead. Yeah. I also like that this In this case, the animal is throwing the object behind them, just like Deucalion and Pira. Yeah, I think there's that's where the comparison stops. Though I don't see how the millipede really becomes the new generation mongooses. We just don't. We don't have much insight into the religious lives of the mongoose. It's true, all right, Well I think that does it for part two, But hey, should we continue looking at animal throwing behaviors in in a part three? Maybe? Yeah? Maybe? So. I know, there's there's certainly a lot in the primate world, and we kind of skipped over that because on one hand, primates throwing things. That's it's obviously on on top of the various non human primate examples. We know that of course, humans are are the greatest throwers on Earth. Um, but they're that, but not to take away from the primate world. They're the larger primate world though, because there are some amazing examples of the use of projectiles and uh the selection of projectiles and even the storing of projectiles for later use. So there's a lot of interesting stuff there that we get into. We can also get into how it plays into human evolution and so forth. So if if listeners want more animals throwing stuff, we can certainly put together some more episodes. Oh and by the way, I wanted to mention this, uh this earlier and I forgot But John I. M. Kisler, who wrote the book on war Elephants, also wrote a historical fiction novel titled Elephant Lord, set during the Second Punic War. I looked at this. I didn't pick it up yet, but I saw that you can get it on kindle. It looks pretty interesting. M hm, I was. I was trying to ponder, like, maybe this is a better way to get my to scratch the itch of curiosity over over in all the details of of elephant warfare, maybe if it's in a within a fictional shape, it'll be kinder somehow, I don't know. Alright, alright, so we're closing it up there, but yeah, right in, let us know what you think. If you want to hear more episodes about animals throwing stuff, be sure to let us know. Perhaps you have examples from the animal world that we didn't touch onthing like to bring up. Perhaps you just have observations of elephants or the mongoose that you would like to share. It doesn't have to be directed directly related to throwing things up, and maybe you do have those experiences you would like to uh to point out to us. If so, right in, we'd love to hear from you. Just a reminder that Stuff to Blow Your Mind as a science podcast with core episodes publishing on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and the Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast feed. On Monday's we do listener mail, on Wednesday's we do a short form monster fact or artifact episode, and on Fridays we set aside most serious concerns and just talk about a weird film on Weird House Cinema. Huge thanks to our audio producer Max Williams. If you would like to get in touch with us with feedback on this episode or any other. 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