The Half Acorn Paradox

Thanks for tuning in to Wild Stories Season 2! I'm taking a short break then will be back bigger, bolder and weirder with Season 3 in a few months. Here's a peek!! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Do octopuses play football or basketball? This and other essential questions will be raised in this week's episode as I chat with the fantabulous Dr Jennifer Mather about her 50 years of finding out incredible things about octopuses (and spin off on a tangent about octopus gambling). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hyenas are smart. They put young women in charge. But they're also classist bastards. On this episode, the fantastic Dr Eli Strauss shares the secret that allows just a few enterprising low-born hyenas to beat the odds, rise up and take the crown in this game of clans. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When sheep and rabbits made the British introduce stoats to New Zealand, millions of kiwi got munched. This is the story of the sneaky conservation heist - Operation Nest Egg - bringing them back from the brink recounted by the wonderful Lindsey Gray. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week on Wild Stories we're joined by the insect researcher who discovered how elephants talk - Caitlin O'Connell Rodwell. I learnt how Botswana doubled its elephants whilst populations across Africa were halved, the reason pregnant ellies are brutally booted out of herds and how a Hawaaian bug unlocked the secrets of elephant communication through the ground. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When is half an acorn better than a whole one? The great Dr Karen Munroe joins the show to fill us in on one of the most chaotically fascinating squirrel-acorn-forest studies ever conducted, nut evolution and the scientific value of hoovers. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We shot them into oblivion for stealing our pants. But thanks to this week's guest, the incredible Dr Mike Pienkowski, red kites have made themselves a comeback. This is the story of how it happened, and why it changed one nation's outlook on conservation forever. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It's Easter and because eating chocolate is irresponsible we're doing an episode about the closest thing: wombat poos. This isn't an animal celebrity individual like our normal specials. This is a whole species fallen from grace, robbed of the spotlight. But one man and his robots are clawing wombats back to fame with some of the strangest headlines in science. This is Dr Scott Carver. And he's saving my all time favourite animal. Happy Easter everybody! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Once upon a time in Belize people worshipped crocodiles, swam alongside them, treated them as family. Then within two generations the nation turned against them and almost wiped them out. This is the story of how a greedy empire with an eye for gossip obliterated an entire country's wildlife - and what happens now - with ethnozoologist and crocodile wrangler Dr Marisa Tellez. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hedgehog numbers in the UK have fallen from 30 million to less than 1 million since mid-last century. Dr Sophie Lund Rasmussen is fixing that. She followed them around for a year peering into people's gardens to see where they went. She dissected hundreds peeled off roads to learn how long they lived. Now she's learning to communicate with them and keep them safe using sounds no one can hear. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.