Alie Ward

Also, rubber canids.

This is a good Halloween prop.

Yeah, it is scary.

I also left with swag.

I got a t-shirt and this handy fridge magnet with advice on a skunk spray first aid because when you need it, you need it.

More on that later.

So let's get right into it.

The things that keep critters, including yourself, safe.

From quills to barbs to plates to rotting flesh smells to hair dye to impeccable acting, commendable drama, shrieks, spikes, stinks, and fashion.

With animal behaviorist, evolutionary biologist, professor, defense mechanism expert, and thus your favorite, zoo-hoplologist, Dr. Ted Stankiewicz.

Stankiewicz?

I always put a V there.

Oh, there you go.

How do you know that it's not a whale call coming from the beyond?

Now, before he was a full professor and before he moved to the East Coast for a stint at Harvard, Ted was a California boy.

He grew up southeast of L.A.

in hilly Whittier, which has its share of kind of suburban Americana and patches of landscape that are home to native and imported plants and animals from cacti and wildflowers to some scaly and furry residents.

What kind of critters did you see growing up in Whittier?

Were your parents or siblings or aunts, uncles, were they outdoorsy at all?

Which states haven't you been to?