Barbs. Grunts. Bone caves. Dogs who got too close. We got porcupines, folks. Dr. Tim Bean of Cal Poly is as charming an ologist you can get, fielding questions about porcupine squeaks, stanks, cartoonish noses, and some romantic gestures that will leave you wanting to bleach your brain. We also cover counting quills, male models, flim-flam about quill removal, how to spot a porcupine in the wild, how to gently detain one for research, and so much more. An absolute instant classic.Follow Dr. Bean on Google Scholar and visit the Bean Lab websiteA donation went to NAFWS: Native American Fish & Wildlife SocietyMore episode sources and linksSmologies (short, classroom-safe) episodesOther episodes you may enjoy: Castorology (BEAVERS), Lepidopterology (BUTTERFLIES), Ethnocynology (ANCIENT DOGS AND HUMANS), Lupinology (WOLVES), Road Ecology (ROAD KILL)Sponsors of OlogiesTranscripts and bleeped episodesBecome a patron of Ologies for as little as a buck a monthOlogiesMerch.com has hats, shirts, hoodies, totes!Follow Ologies on Instagram and BlueskyFollow Alie Ward on Instagram and TikTokEditing by Mercedes Maitland of Maitland Audio Productions and Jake ChaffeeManaging Director: Susan HaleScheduling Producer: Noel DilworthTranscripts by Aveline Malek Website by Kelly R. DwyerTheme song by Nick Thorburn
Full Episode
Oh, hey, it's yesterday's medication in your jeans pocket. Oops, Ali Ward. Let's stab ourselves with information from a porcupine's business end. We have a good one. What a chat. I remember getting off this interview and being like, this is why I make the show. You're in for a treat.
Okay, so we've got an associate professor from San Luis Obispo's California Polytechnic State University, Cal Poly, who teaches courses like this. Introduction to Wildlife Conservation and Administration. They studied ecology, evolution, and environmental biology at Columbia University. They headed to UC Berkeley for a master's and PhD in environmental science policy and management.
Bonus, they specialize in rodents. What does that have to do with porcupines? Everything. Porcupines are rodents. What? Yep. Big, beautiful, barbed, rat-like creatures, and we love them. Thank you also to Sarah Listener Berman, to listener Sarah Berman, who suggested this ologist singing their praises of their porcupine enthusiasm.
So we're going to get to it in a sec, but first, thank you so much to everyone who sent in questions, audio ones as well. You can submit them at patreon.com slash ologies. Thanks to everyone wearing ologies merch from ologiesmerch.com. And thanks to everyone who leaves reviews for the show, which helps us so much.
Like this one from NJ Roadrunner, who wrote, if science could embody itself as a warm hug, this show would be it. Also want to shout out Snakes Rule, who left the review. I'm 11 years old and I love this podcast. No, I'm not kidding. No, I do not listen to Smologies. No, I do not listen to the bleeped ones. Yes, I actually understand it. You keep doing you, Allie. Snakes rule.
I'm a fan of you and of snakes. Okay, for those who are looking, though, for Kids Safe episodes, just a reminder that we have Smologies. It's available wherever you subscribe to podcasts. It's a spinoff show. You can look for the green cover art. Okay, porcupines. So porcupines, news to me, get their name from the Latin for thorn pig.
But the ology for this, let's just say erythrozinology, which comes from the Greek for... There's two major groups of porcupines. We're going to include both in this episode, but mostly we're focusing on the genus Erythrozon. Is that cool? Okay, great.
So get suited up for a thrilling array of weird stories involving barbs, grunts, squeaks, cartoonish noses, romantic gestures that will leave you wanting to bleach your brain, counting quills, male models, flim-flam about quill removal, how to spot a porcupine in the wild, and so much more with professor, ecologist, and erythrozinologist, Dr. Tim Bean. Do you get called Jim Beam a lot?
Jim Beam, yeah. And then sometimes like Kim for some reason for to-go orders. It's confusing.
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