Wild World with Scott Solomon (Scott Solomon)

Antarctica is famous for gigantic ice sheets and charismatic animals, but Antarctica is also one of the best places to search for meteorites– rocks that have traveled through space and survived passing through Earth’s atmosphere. 

Mini Wadhwa is a planetary scientist who studies meteorites to learn about the formation of our universe and what conditions are like in other parts of our solar system. She is the Director of the School of Earth and Space Exploration at Arizona State University and the Principal Scientist for the Mars Sample Return Mission at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Dr. Wadhwa discusses what it’s like to work in Antarctica, an accident that nearly killed her while on a field expedition, and why representation matters as a woman of color in science.

Learn more about Mini Wadhwa at https://search.asu.edu/profile/957644

Watch her TEDx talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iukJJ2u0vlo 

McMurdo Antarctic Research Station: https://www.nsf.gov/geo/opp/support/mcmurdo.jsp

This episode of Wild World was produced with support from: 

Lindblad Expeditions: https://www.expeditions.com    

The Rice University Traveling Owls: https://alumni.rice.edu/travelingowls 

Mentioned in this episode:

Lindblad Expeditions

Today’s episode of Wild World is sponsored by Lindblad Expeditions. Discovery is in the Lindblad DNA. Visit expeditions.com to see where in our wild world you’d like to explore next.

Antarctica 2023-25

JOURNEY TO ANTARCTICA: THE WHITE CONTINENT 14 DAYS | FROM $15,840 Scan QR code for itinerary details and current rates or visit expeditions.com/antarctic Aboard National Geographic Explorer, National Geographic Endurance, & National Geographic Resolution EXPEDITION DETAILS DATES National Geographic Explorer: 2023-2024 January, February, November, December 2025 January National Geographic Endurance: 2023-2024 November, December 2025 January National Geographic Resolution: 2023 January, February, December 2024 January, November, December 2025 February National Geographic Resolution departures route via Santiago instead of Buenos Aires.

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Wild World live broadcast from Antarctica!

Saturday, December 14 at 1 pm ET

Scott will be traveling with the Rice University Traveling Owls aboard the National Geographic Explorer. They will be somewhere along the Danco Coast of the West Antarctic Peninsula.

The broadcast will be live streamed from our YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/@wildworldpodcast).

Link to live event: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJnU3khcV8c

Subscribe to @wildworldpodcast on YouTube @wildworldshow on X, Instagram, and Bluesky for updates and notifications!

The Himalayas are the highest mountains in the world. They span some 1,500 miles through the heart of Asia, from Afghanistan to China. Having such enormous mountains makes much of the Himalayan region hard for people to access. But that doesn’t mean that nothing lives there. The Himalayas are home to some incredible types of wildlife that have adapted to the thin air, steep slopes, and very cold temperatures. But living in the upper slopes of the Himalayas makes these among the most difficult wild animals to catch a glimpse of– and even harder to photograph.

Prasenjeet Yadav is a nature and wildlife photographer from India who specializes in capturing images of elusive creatures. Prasenjeet has a background in science, having trained in a field of biology known as molecular ecology before turning to a career as a full-time photographer. His work has taken him all over his home country of India and surrounding areas. His photographs of snow leopards from the Spiti Valley in Himachal Pradesh appeared in the July 2020 issue of National Geographic magazine. 

To see some of Prasenjeet Yadav’s photos of snow leopards and other wildlife, visit his website: https://www.prasenjeetyadav.com/. You can also follow him on Instagram: @prasen.yadav.

To learn more about snow leopards and ways to help protect them, visit:

Snow Leopard Trust https://snowleopard.org/ 

Nature Conservation Foundation https://www.ncf-india.org/

This podcast is produced by 3Wire Creative.

Help support this podcast and future episodes by checking out Autio the perfect travel companion app for more engaging road trips. Autio is a network of stories, told by master storytellers like Kevin Costner, Phil Jackson, and John Lithgow, with the power to bring the landscape, its people, and its history alive as you pass through it.

Brazil is one of the most biologically diverse nations on Earth. In the center of Brazil, between the Amazon Rainforest and the Atlantic Coast Rainforest is an ecosystem found nowhere else on Earth– a savanna known as the Cerrado. The Brazilian Cerrado is home to more than 11,000 species of plants, 800 species of birds, and 200 species of mammals, and an unknown number of insects. Yet, much of the biological diversity of the cerrado is hidden underground.

In this episode, Scott speaks with his former research advisor Dr. Ted Schultz, Curator of Entomology at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. Dr. Schultz describes his lifelong fascination with ants, particularly a group of ants that live in the Cerrado and engage in a form of agriculture by cultivating fungi deep underground. To study these fascinating ants– which have been living as farmers for 66 million years– Scott and Ted share stories of their expeditions to the Brazilian Cerrado. 

But finding the ants is only half the battle. To learn about their underground farming practices, they have to dig deep pits while carefully tracing the ant’s narrow tunnels– all in the sweltering, tropical heat. But, with much of the Cerrado being lost to agriculture and urban development, it’s a race against time to learn about these species before they disappear. 

Smithsonian Ant Lab website: https://naturalhistory.si.edu/research/entomology/collections-overview/hymenoptera/antlab 

More about the Brazilian cerrado: www.worldwildlife.org/places/cerrado

Follow Wild World on social media: @wildworldshow 

This episode of Wild World was produced by 3WireCreative

Mentioned in this episode:

Lindblad Expeditions

The Rice Alumni Traveling Owls program offers exciting intellectual itineraries to destinations across the globe. Traveling Owls trips serve as a catalyst for lifelong learning and strengthen bonds between Rice University alumni and friends. You don’t have to be a Rice alum to participate in Traveling Owls programs. Visit alumni.rice.edu/travelingowls to see a list of upcoming trips.

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Before signing off on our first season, we wanted to share a little more of the conversation Scott had with nature and wildlife photographer Tui De Roy.

Tui has lived in the Galapagos Islands since her family moved there in 1955 when she was just 2 years old. Her unique perspective as a local and as a photographer has given her both a keen eye for detail and the opportunity to observe how the islands and its wildlife have changed over the last half century.

Scott asked Tui what she thinks about the future of Galapagos, and how what she sees in Galapagos might be relevant for wild places throughout the world.

You can hear the rest of Scott's conversation with Tui in Episode 3 - Experiencing Galapagos with Tui De Roy and Lee Ehmke.

Learn more about Tui and see some of her outstanding photography at https://www.galapagosconsultant.com/

This season of Wild World was produced by 3WireCreative.

If you’d like a T-shirt, poster, or coffee mug with the Wild World logo, check out the Wild World merch shop run by Alltheus.com: https://alltheus.com/collections/wild-world/SSolomon+Wild-World

Join us next season as we explore even more of our wild world!

Madagascar is home to some incredible wildlife. Many of the animals in Madagascar occur nowhere else on Earth. Among them are lemurs– a group of primates that resemble monkeys but are in fact their own distinct group. But, unfortunately, these remarkable animals are facing enormous challenges. 

Dr. Jonah Ratsimbazafyis a primatologist who is from Madagascar and is considered one of the world’s experts on lemurs and is helping lead the fight to protect them. He is the President of the International Primatological Society and was a Co-founder and President of the Madagascar Primate Study and Research Group at the University of Antananarivo, or GERP. He is a member of the African Academy of Sciences and a National Geographic Explorer. He also works with the Houston Zoo as Director of their in-country Madagascar program. 

Madagascar Primate Study and Research Group: https://www.association-gerp.org/

International Primatological Society: https://internationalprimatologicalsociety.org/ 

Houston Zoo’s Madagascar program: https://www.houstonzoo.org/conservation/african-wildlife/#:~:text=The%20Zoo%20is%20committed%20to,primates%20de%20Madagascar%20(GERP). 

World Lemur Festival: https://www.lemurreserve.org/world-lemur-festival/

Thanks to Eric Wuesthoff and Amy Dunham for lemur audio and video.

This podcast is produced by 3Wire Creative

Help support this podcast and future episodes by checking out Autio the perfect travel companion app for more engaging road trips. Autio is a network of stories, told by master storytellers like Kevin Costner, Phil Jackson, and John Lithgow, with the power to bring the landscape, its people, and its history alive as you pass through it.

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Corals– tiny animals that form structures so large they can be seen from space– provide food and habitat for a quarter of all marine life. Half a billion people worldwide depend on coral reef ecosystems for their food and livelihood. Yet, corals worldwide are facing unprecedented threats.

Marine ecologist Dr. Adrienne Correa is studying corals in the waters around the South Pacific island of Moorea. Through her research, she hopes to better understand how corals form symbiotic relationships with algae and other microscopic organisms that affect their survival. 

Scott speaks with Dr. Correa during her research expedition to this remote South Pacific Island, where she witnessed incredible natural phenomena and gained new insights into corals and their symbiotic partners.

Correa Lab: owlnet.rice.edu/~ac53/

 @adriennescorrea and @correalab

Gump Research Station: moorea.berkeley.edu. 

This episode of Wild World was produced by 3Wire Creative with support from Lindblad Expeditions and the Rice Alumni Traveling Owls. Visit alumni.rice.edu/travelingowls or expeditions.com to get more information about their trips to the South Pacific and other destinations and to book your cabin for the experience of a lifetime.

https://wild-world.captivate.fm/traveling-owls

Mentioned in this episode:

Next week we travel to Brazil to find ants!

Lindblad Expeditions

The Rice Alumni Traveling Owls program offers exciting intellectual itineraries to destinations across the globe. Traveling Owls trips serve as a catalyst for lifelong learning and strengthen bonds between Rice University alumni and friends. You don’t have to be a Rice alum to participate in Traveling Owls programs. Visit alumni.rice.edu/travelingowls to see a list of upcoming trips.

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Around the world, wildlife is in decline. We know that animals play important roles in their environments, but it’s often difficult to know how exactly the natural world would change if any particular type of wildlife no longer existed. 

In this episode, Scott speaks with Dr. Haldre Rogers, an ecologist working on the island of Guam, where invasive snakes have eliminated nearly all of the island’s native birds. By comparing the forests on Guam with forests on nearby islands that still have birds, Dr. Rogers’ work is helping reveal the importance of birds in the Mariana Islands and elsewhere. 

Dr. Rogers is also an avid rugby player who helped establish Guam’s first female rugby team. She is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Fish and Wildlife Conservation at Virginia Tech University. 

Learn more about Haldre Rogers’ research at https://www.haldre.org

To see photos and hear records of the calls of the native forest birds of Guam and the Mariana Islands, visit: https://www.guampedia.com/a-native-forest-birds-of-guam

This episode of Wild World was produced by 3WireCreative.

Mentioned in this episode:

Lindblad Expeditions

The Rice Alumni Traveling Owls program offers exciting intellectual itineraries to destinations across the globe. Traveling Owls trips serve as a catalyst for lifelong learning and strengthen bonds between Rice University alumni and friends. You don’t have to be a Rice alum to participate in Traveling Owls programs. Visit alumni.rice.edu/travelingowls to see a list of upcoming trips.

Rice Traveling Owls

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The emergence of life on land was one of the most important moments in the grand saga of life’s evolutionary history. Many of the characteristics of our bodies– like our arms, legs, hips, hands, fingers, and necks– can be traced back to adaptations that occurred during the transition from fish to amphibians. But how do we know that? What evidence exists from this time that can help us piece together the sequence of events that led our ancestors out of the water and onto land?

Neil Shubin is a paleontologist, evolutionary biologist, and an award winning science communicator whose fieldwork in the Canadian Arctic is helping piece together some of the most important transitions in the history of life. He’s the Robert R Bensley Distinguished Service Professor of Organismal Biology and Anatomy at the University of Chicago. He’s also the author of several books, including Your Inner Fish, The Universe Within, Some Assembly Required, and a new book entitled Ends of the Earth: Journeys to the Polar Regions in Search of Life, The Cosmos, and Our Future. His team has discovered several important fossils that have helped biologists better understand how fish evolved into land animals.

Neil Shubin’s Lab at the University of Chicago: https://shubinlab.uchicago.edu/

Neil Shubin’s new book, Ends of the Earth:

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/692649/ends-of-the-earth-by-neil-shubin/

Interactive 3D model of Tiktaalik fossil:

https://www.biointeractive.org/classroom-resources/tiktaalik-fossil-body

Qikiqtania - fossil fish that returned from land to water

https://shubinlab.uchicago.edu/2022/07/20/meet-qikiqtania-a-fossil-fish-with-the-good-sense-to-stay-in-the-water-while-others-ventured-onto-land/

This podcast is produced by 3Wire Creative.

Help support this podcast and future episodes by checking out Autio the perfect travel companion app for more engaging road trips. Autio is a network of stories, told by master storytellers like Kevin Costner, Phil Jackson, and John Lithgow, with the power to bring the landscape, its people, and its history alive as you pass through it.

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We’re stepping away from our regular podcast this week to bring you an episode from our friends at WCS Wild Audio—a podcast of the Wildlife Conservation Society. WCS Wild Audio brings you the latest news and newsmakers from WCS’s global field sites and its five wildlife parks in New York City, including the Bronx Zoo and the New York Aquarium.

In today’s episode, Wild Audio’s Hannah Kaplan talks to Inaoyom Imong, Director of Cross River Landscapes for the WCS Nigeria program. The Cross River gorilla is one of the most elusive and critically endangered subspecies of gorilla in the world. Found exclusively in the densely forested jungles between Nigeria and Cameroon, it is thought that there are as few as 300 animals left in the wild. But despite the persistent threats of habitat loss, gene fragmentation, and poaching, there is hope, says Imong.

We hope you enjoy the episode. If you like what you hear, follow “WCS Wild Audio" on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or your favorite podcast app. And tell them we sent you!

WCS Wild Audio: https://www.wcs.org/wcs-wild-audio

Manuel Domínguez-Rodrigo is a Visiting Professor of Anthropology at Rice. His research focus is paleoanthropology and the archaeology of human origins, with methodological expertise in zooarchaeology, vertebrate taphonomy, and the application of artificial intelligence tools to paleoanthropology. He co-directs the Institute of Evolution in Africa (IDEA, Madrid, Spain) and is Professor of Prehistory at the University of Alcalá in Spain.

Since the 1990s, he has co-directed multiple paleoanthropological and archaeological projects in Tanzania, including at Peninj (Lake Natron), Lake Eyasi, and, currently, Olduvai Gorge, where he co-directs TOPPP (The Olduvai Paleoanthropology and Paleoecology Project). He has also conducted research at the paleoanthropological sites of Gona (Ethiopia). He has been a visiting scholar and visiting professor at Harvard University, Rutgers University, and University of Missouri at St. Louis.

This podcast is produced by 3Wire Creative

Help support this podcast and future episodes by checking out Autio the perfect travel companion app for more engaging road trips. Autio is a network of stories, told by master storytellers like Kevin Costner, Phil Jackson, and John Lithgow, with the power to bring the landscape, its people, and its history alive as you pass through it.

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The Galapagos Islands are one of the few places where visitors can get a glimpse of what the world was like before humans existed. The unique wildlife, active volcanoes, and rich undersea world has made them a haven for ecotourism. In this episode, we get two very different perspectives on what it’s like to experience the Galapagos Islands.

First, Scott speaks with nature photographer Tui De Roy, who has spent a lifetime in Galapagos. Her family moved to the island of Santa Cruz in 1955 when she was just two years old. As a child, she picked up a camera and began photographing the animals she grew up with. What began as a hobby blossomed into a career that has taken her around the world, and yet the Galapagos remain her home as well as one of her favorite subjects. Tui’s perspective as a lifelong resident of the Galapagos Islands adds a personal touch to her photos that allow us to briefly glimpse this magical place the way she does.

Next, we get a behind-the-scenes sneak preview of the Houston Zoo’s new Galapagos Islands exhibit from Houston Zoo President and CEO Lee Ehmke. The exhibit, which is scheduled to open to the public on April 7, 2023, will be the only one of its kind in the world. Scott and Lee tour the exhibit and then sit down to discuss how the exhibit was designed, what visitors will experience, and why encounters with animals like those found in the Galapagos Islands are often so profoundly impactful.

Tui De Roy’s websites: http://www.galapagosconsultant.com & https://www.tuideroy.com  

Tui De Roy’s latest books: “A Pocket Guide to Birds of Galápagos” and “A Lifetime in Galápagos” are available from Princeton University Press. 

The Houston Zoo’s Galapagos Islands exhibit opens on April 7, 2023. 

The Houston Zoo: https://www.houstonzoo.org 

For more information about efforts to protect and restore the Galapagos Islands, visit The Galapagos Conservancy’s website: https://www.galapagos.org 

This episode of Wild World was produced with support from: 

Lindblad Expeditions: https://www.expeditions.com    

The Rice University Traveling Owls: https://alumni.rice.edu/travelingowls 

Mentioned in this episode:

Next week we travel to Mo'orea!

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The Rice Alumni Traveling Owls program offers exciting intellectual itineraries to destinations across the globe. Traveling Owls trips serve as a catalyst for lifelong learning and strengthen bonds between Rice University alumni and friends. You don’t have to be a Rice alum to participate in Traveling Owls programs. Visit alumni.rice.edu/travelingowls to see a list of upcoming trips.

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Today’s episode of Wild World is sponsored by Lindblad Expeditions. Discovery is

The Andes are the longest mountain chain in the world and the second highest mountain range in the world after the Himalayas. There are over a hundred peaks in the Andes with summits that exceed 6,000 meters (19,685 feet)-- and many of the mountains are covered in glaciers.

Glaciers cover 10% of the land area on Earth. They store about ⅔ of the world’s fresh water– an incredibly important and valuable resource. But as global temperatures rise, those glaciers are disappearing. Not only are we losing precious fresh water as glaciers melt into water that flows into the sea and gets salty and harder to use, but all that water is also causing sea levels to rise. If all of the glaciers on Earth melted, the sea level would rise about 230 feet, flooding every coastal city on the planet and displacing about one-third of the world’s population.

One person who is working to help understand and raise awareness of the problem of shrinking glaciers is Ulyana Horodyskyj Peña. She’s a glaciologist– a type of geologist that specializes in studying glaciers. She has a Bachelor's degree in Earth Science from Rice University, a Masters from Brown University, and Ph.D. from the University of Colorado Boulder. She was also a Fulbright Fellow in Nepal where she lived for 10 months. Her current job is Communications Lead at North Central Climate Adaptation Science Center at the University of Colorado, one of nine Climate Adaptation Science Centers across the country. 

Ulyana’s Persistent Pollutants Project: https://scienceinthewild.com/persistent-pollutants-project/

To follow Ulyana and Ricardo’s mountain climbing expeditions, visit http://summitssongsandscience.com/index.html 

To learn more about glaciers, visit the world glacier monitoring service website wgms.ch/  

Watch Ulyana’s TEDx Talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OE54K0sF-1g

This podcast is produced by 3Wire Creative.

Help support this podcast and future episodes by checking out Autio, the perfect travel companion app for more engaging road trips. Autio is a network of stories, told by master storytellers like Kevin Costner, Phil Jackson, and John Lithgow, with the power to bring the landscape, its people, and its history alive as you pass through it.

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 At more than 42 million acres, the Pantanal is the world's largest tropical wetland.

It spans parts of three countries, Paraguay, Bolivia, and Brazil. If you visit the Pantanal, depending on the time of year, you may find open plains dotted with small green patches of forest, with water found mostly in the rivers that wind their way through the area. But when the rains come, those rivers spill out over the plains, covering them in water.

It is the perfect place for biologists to come and study the remarkable creatures that live here. Dr. Arnaud Desbiez is a biologist who's originally from France but has lived in Brazil for more than 15 years where he works to study and protect animals in the Pantanal. He's the founder of the Instituto de Conservação de Animais Silvestres (ICAS)

Houston Zoo's South America’s Pantanal allows guests to explore the tropical wetlands of Brazil. The lush habitat highlights animals they are protecting in the wild, including giant anteaters, tapirs, and more. Partnered with on-the-ground conservationists, the Zoo offers visitors the chance to see these animals in an immersive and engaging trail.

This podcast is produced by 3Wire Creative

Help support this podcast and future episodes by checking out Autio the perfect travel companion app for more engaging road trips. Autio is a network of stories, told by master storytellers like Kevin Costner, Phil Jackson, and John Lithgow, with the power to bring the landscape, its people, and its history alive as you pass through it.

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We can learn a lot by exploring the edges of the biosphere, where conditions can just barely support even the most hardy organisms. And by venturing beyond the biosphere– by leaving Earth and traveling into space– we can really test the limits of what our bodies are capable of. 

Scott Parazynski is a former NASA astronaut who has flown on five missions to space and completed seven spacewalks. He is also an emergency medical doctor who has climbed some of the highest mountains on Earth, including Everest, a scuba diver, pilot, rock climber, and luge athlete. 

Scott describes what it’s like to live and work in space, his journey toward becoming an astronaut, and what being in space and other extreme environments has taught him about Earth and about the limits of the human body.

To learn more about Scott Parazynski, check out his book “The Sky Below” and his website:  https://parazynski.com/

You can learn more about space science and exploration at https://www.nasa.gov/

Mentioned in this episode:

Lindblad Expeditions

The Rice Alumni Traveling Owls program offers exciting intellectual itineraries to destinations across the globe. Traveling Owls trips serve as a catalyst for lifelong learning and strengthen bonds between Rice University alumni and friends. You don’t have to be a Rice alum to participate in Traveling Owls programs. Visit alumni.rice.edu/travelingowls to see a list of upcoming trips.

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Australia is famous for its strange creatures. And rightfully so. They’ve got kangaroos, koalas, echidnas, and of course one of the wackiest animals anywhere– the platypus! But it’s also home to equally weird and wonderful creatures of a different sort. They just tend to be a little smaller.

Ecologist storyteller Mark Moffett specializes in finding these small wonders– and sharing their stories with the world. To learn more about Mark Moffett’s incredible career as an ecologist storyteller, check out his website: doctorbugs.com. You can also learn about his most recent project on the life and death of societies at the Templeton Foundation’s website: 

https://www.templeton.org/grant/the-life-and-death-of-societies-investigating-the-societies-of-animals-to-understand-our-own

You can read some of Mark Moffett’s recent articles here: 

https://bigthink.com/the-well/human-ability-to-coexist-coffee-shop/

https://thesunmagazine.org/issues/532/one-of-us-issue-532

His latest book “The Human Swarm: How Our Societies Arise, Thrive, and Fall” is available from Basic Books (https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/mark-w-moffett/the-human-swarm/9781549195082/?lens=basic-books) and wherever books are sold.

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Help support this podcast and future episodes by checking out Autio the perfect travel companion app for more engaging road trips. Autio is a network of stories, told by master storytellers like Kevin Costner, Phil Jackson, and John Lithgow, with the power to bring the landscape, its people, and its history alive as you pass through it.

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Wild World with Scott Solomon’ is a new podcast that explores the natural wonders of our planet through the voices of the people who explore, study, and protect them. Each episode features a new location, from the forests of Madagascar to the underwater world beneath the Galapagos Islands and the icy shores of Antarctica. Hosted by a renowned field biologist and science communicator, you’ll hear directly from the people on the ground (or in the water) to understand what drives them to work in such remote, and often dangerous, locations. Featuring diverse voices, guests share their stories of adventure and discovery, from epic triumphs to dismal failures. Experience the wildest places on Earth and beyond and come away with a new sense of wonder and awe about the natural world and the people who help us understand it.

Scott Solomon teaches ecology, evolutionary biology, and scientific communication at Rice University in Houston and is a Research Associate at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History. He has a Ph.D. in Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior from the University of Texas at Austin where his research examined the evolutionary basis of biological diversity in the Amazon Basin. Dr. Solomon is a correspondent for the CityCast Houston podcast and has appeared on numerous other podcasts and radio broadcasts, as well streaming series such as Life 2.0, and Becoming Martian. He is the host of What Darwin Didn’t Know: The Modern Science of Evolution and Why Insects Matter: Earth’s Most Essential Species, available through Wondrium/The Great Courses.

Madagascar is home to species found nowhere else on Earth, yet the island was once home to an even richer array of species that mysteriously disappeared thousands of years ago.

To find out what caused the extinction of these magnificent species like giant lemurs, archeologist and artist Dr. Fabio Amador joined a daring SCUBA diving expedition into a network of flooded caves.

Dr. Amador's use of sophisticated imaging technology-- the same used by NASA to explore the surface of Mars-- helped to document the team's remarkable discovery: a treasure trove of fossil bones that suggest humans may have contributed to the demise of Madagascar's megafauna.

Dr. Fabio Amador: https://www.atelierdffoto.com/-fabio-esteban 

Twitter: @rude_rebel Instagram: @fabioesteban 

CNN article about the cave diving expedition with video:

https://www.cnn.com/2015/03/19/africa/underwater-fossil-lemur-graveyard-madagascar/index.html 

National Geographic article “Graveyard of Giant Lemurs Discovered Underwater in Madagascar”

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/150217-lemur-cave-madagascar-graveyard

More on the extinction of Madagascar’s megafauna: https://theconversation.com/last-of-the-giants-what-killed-off-madagascars-megafauna-a-thousand-years-ago-112672

Madagascar Cave Diving Association: https://www.madacaves.com/

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Next week we travel to the Galapagos!

Lindblad Expeditions

Today’s episode of Wild World is sponsored by Lindblad Expeditions. Discovery is in the Lindblad DNA. Visit expeditions.com to see where in our wild world you’d like to explore next.

The Rice Alumni Traveling Owls program offers exciting intellectual itineraries to destinations across the globe. Traveling Owls trips serve as a catalyst for lifelong learning and strengthen bonds between Rice University alumni and friends. You don’t have to be a Rice alum to participate in Traveling Owls programs. Visit alumni.rice.edu/travelingowls to see a list of upcoming trips.

Rice Traveling Owls

Scarlet macaws are icons of the tropical rainforests of Central and South America. But in the Central American country of Belize, scarlet macaws are disappearing as poachers steal their chicks for the international pet trade.

Scott Solomon speaks with Dr. Boris Arevalo, a biologist with the Wildlife Conservation Society, who is working to protect these spectacular birds by any means possible, including camping at the base of the trees where they nest and rearing chicks until they're large enough to be safe from poachers. A native Belizean, Dr. Arevalo became a conservation biologist after learning about the threats facing the species he grew up with, including scarlet macaws, and noticing how few of the researchers working in the rainforests near his home were from Belize.

Thanks to the efforts of Dr. Arevalo and his team, poaching rates have plummeted and every chick that the team has reared over the last six years has been successfully reintroduced into the wild.

This episode of Wild World features music from Belizean musical group The Garifuna Collective: https://www.garifunacollective.com/ 

Wildlife Conservation Society - Belize

https://belize.wcs.org   

Friends for Conservation and Development, a Belizean NGO working to manage and protect Belize’s Chiquibul Forest

https://www.fcdbelize.org 

More about Belize’s scarlet macaws:

https://belizebirdconservancy.org/scarlet-macaw-project

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Lindblad Expeditions

Lindblad Expeditions

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The Rice Alumni Traveling Owls program offers exciting intellectual itineraries to destinations across the globe. Traveling Owls trips serve as a catalyst for lifelong learning and strengthen bonds between Rice University alumni and friends. You don’t have to be a Rice alum to participate in Traveling Owls programs. Visit alumni.rice.edu/travelingowls to see a list of upcoming trips.

Rice Traveling Owls

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The 3-masted topsail schooner Oosterschelde is on a two-year journey around the world, following the route taken by Charles Darwin aboard the HMS Beagle nearly 200 years earlier. The voyage is known as the Darwin200 expedition. It’s the brainchild of Stewart McPherson, a British naturalist and science communicator. McPherson and his colleagues organized conservation projects and educational outreach led by young researchers known as Darwin Leaders in each location.

Thanks to The Explorers Club, Scott had the opportunity to join the Darwin200 expedition in in December 2023 as it sailed from Uruguay to Argentina. During the journey, he sat down with Grant Terrell, an ornithologist serving as the ship’s naturalist who is collecting data about seabirds along the two-year, worldwide journey. 

Learn more about the Darwin200 project, and follow the Oosterschelde on its global journey:

https://darwin200.com/  

Follow the expedition on social media: 

https://www.facebook.com/darwin2002021/

https://www.instagram.com/darwin200_

https://x.com/darwin200_

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUTGh9MgZjuBFQE8i8Bn8Ag 

There are also free educational activities and resources shared live each week that are designed to to inspire children’s curiosity and passion for learning: https://worldsmostexcitingclassroom.com/  

This podcast is produced by 3Wire Creative.

Help support this podcast and future episodes by checking out Autio the perfect travel companion app for more engaging road trips. Autio is a network of stories, told by master storytellers like Kevin Costner, Phil Jackson, and John Lithgow, with the power to bring the landscape, its people, and its history alive as you pass through it.

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Autio is a network of stories, told by master storytellers like Kevin Costner, Phil Jackson, and John Lithgow, with the power to bring the landscape, its people, and its history alive as you pass through it. Professionally edited and narrated, the audio vignettes combine to paint a picture you’re unlikely to get from a history book or visitor’s...

Chimpanzees are our closest living relatives. In fact, chimps are more closely related to you and I than they are to other apes, like gorillas. That means we can learn a lot about ourselves by studying chimpanzees. But to really learn the secrets of these amazing animals, you can’t just watch them in a zoo. You have to venture out to where they live.

Jane Goodall’s work with wild chimpanzees in Tanzania in the 1960s was groundbreaking in many ways. No one had ever gotten wild chimpanzees to trust them enough to allow close observation of what they do. And, although people had studied captive chimpanzees for decades, she saw chimps doing things that had never been seen before. Her work revealed that wild chimpanzees have much more complex and sophisticated behaviors than people previously thought. That was true of both their individual behaviors– like fishing for termites with a stick– but also their social interactions.

But Jane Goodall’s work also proved that it was possible for wild chimpanzees to become habituated to the presence of humans. And that paved the way for other researchers to do the same...

Researchers like Dr. Jill Pruetz, who has been studying wild chimpanzees in the West African nation of Senegal since 2001 when she began the processing of habituating chimpanzees at a savanna site called Fongoli. While several other groups of forest chimps had been habituated since Jane Goodall’s work in the 1960s, no one had successfully habituated savanna chimps. Until Jill Pruetz did-- and her work has revealed that savanna chimps are quite different from forest chimps.

Jill Pruetz is Regents Professor of Anthropology at Texas State University in San Marcos, Texas. In addition to publishing dozens of research papers about chimps and other primates, she is also the author of several books, including her latest, Apes on the Edge: Chimpanzee Life on the West African Savanna published by The University of Chicago Press. 

Learn more about Jill Pruetz’s work with savanna chimpanzees and how you can help:

Jill Pruetz's Faculty Profile at Texas State University: https://faculty.txst.edu/profile/2013121  

Jill Pruetz book, Apes on the Edge: Chimpanzee Life on the West African Savanna: https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/A/bo238989411.html   

Neighbor Ape, a non-profit organization dedicated to the conservation of chimpanzees in Senegal and to the well-being of humans that live alongside them: https://www.globalgiving.org/donate/10235/neighbor-ape/   

This podcast is produced by 3Wire Creative.

Help support this podcast and future episodes by checking out Autio the perfect travel companion app for more engaging road trips. Autio is a network of stories, told by master storytellers like Kevin Costner, Phil Jackson, and John Lithgow, with the power to bring the landscape, its people, and its history alive as you pass through it.

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