Megafelinology (SNOW LEOPARDS + OTHER BIG CATS) with Imogene Cancellare

Oh, hey, it's that chair you broke that was not your fault.

Alie word, this is allergies, this is mega felonology, it's big cats.

So you learned way back in our felonology episode about house cats,

which we're gonna link in the show notes that felonology comes from the Latin

felonist for cats. Mega means huge, but in Greek. So this word is a

mishmash, but it's big wild kitties. It includes tigers, panthers, jaguars,

common leopards, cheetahs. We also talk about bobcats and cougars,

snow leopards. Some of those are the same. And we'll explain how that works as well as take you

to some remote mountain ranges and sunlit meadows to spy on elusive species that if they

could, would probably knock stuff off of huge bookshelves. Big cats, big deal. But first,

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subscribe to those tell your friends and your teachers. Okay, so thisologist is a conservation

biologist who has worked in numerous countries. A National Geographic Explorer and a Wildcat

scientist who did their undergrad in animal science at North Carolina University.

Got a master's in wildlife biology at West Texas A&M and earned a PhD in 2023 from the University

of Delaware in wildlife ecology, genomics, and the ecology of snow leopards across high Asia.

They're also a renowned wildlife science communicator and have worked as a guide for ethical

science tourism trips in the Amazonian rainforest. Casual, they also have always been a favorite

presence of mine on social media. They share tales and photos of field work, adventures all

over the world. And yeah, we're going to hear some field work stories. They're disease.

And though we've been buds forever, we have been in the same room never. But we hopped on

virtually to chat from their home outside of Missoula Montana. Imagine if L-fanning grew her

hair out and also knew everything about snow leopards. That's what we're working with. Amazing.

So find a patch of sunlight and curl into a ball for tales of snow-capped mountains,

narrow escapes, camera trap, revelations, DNA discoveries, all factory obsessions, stories from

the brink of extinction. If big cats like big boxes, why tales can be bobbed, lioness mains,

big cat attacks, making huge biscuits. And if a cat purrs in the woods, would anyone hear it?

With wildlife biologist, field researcher, lab whiz, science communicator, cat parent,

and mega-feel analogist, Dr. Imagine Cancelari.

You can hear me okay. Yes. We're all good. Okay.

You can hear me okay. Yes. Amazing. Oh my god. Look at us. We're finally doing this.

I know. I'm so excited. I know. I wanted to. I've never hung out with you in person. Have I?

No. Big bummer. I know. We've never met IRL. I'm just an internet fan from afar all these years.

Same. Same. We like each other. Okay. Let's get into it. Imagine Cancelari, she, her. Dr. Cancelari,

I was so thrilled when your PhD was in the bag. When you were studying this, did you always want to

be like a cat doctor? Did you always want to be a PhD? Were you just in the field with bobcats

and then you're like, I got to go next steps. No efforts. So I've always been interested in cats.

I always say that cheetahs are like my gateway cat. And then from there, I just kind of set out to

be able to train and get education. So I could ask good questions. And so I could eventually study

you know, other species that I was interested in. I have not yet done research, active research on

cheetahs, but I'm not done yet. So there's still time. But yes, I've been able to do a lot of other

research on a lot of different other species as well. Where did you have access to cheetah

information? For me, the interest in cheetahs mostly was jump started through like natural history

program. There was a TV show on like Discovery or Animal Planet. I think it was just called Big Cat.

And they featured a lot of footage and stories about cheetahs. And I have always found them

fascinating as a result. Just like the anatomy and physiology of a cheetah. And all cats in general

is just very, very interesting to me. But also just the unique ways that they interact with their

ecosystem. And in the case of cheetahs, like I'm obviously talking about how freaking fast they are.

And you know, combine that with being apex carnivores. I find them very interesting.

Do you have cats at home? I do. I actually have two cats that turn 18 this year.

No, since they were tiny, tiny little babies. Yeah. So I'm big, long time cat fan. I grew up with cats.

You've been all over the world studying big cats. Do you see behavior in big wild cats that's

similar to your babies at home? Yes. Or is that a myth? No, that's true. Oh, you do. Okay. Okay.

All cats are the same. Really? In one way or another. My very first job was in Northwestern

Montana out of undergrad. I had decided that I did not want to go to vet school. I grew up on a farm.

I was very interested in animals and nature. And I thought that the only pathway if you're

interested in animals was to be a veterinarian. Imaging says she's thankful that she learned

otherwise after a study trip to Australia showed her the importance of wildlife conservation.

And the thrill of field work and mega-feel analogy as a career. And my last year in college,

I worked at a tiger sanctuary called Johanna Tiger Rescue. Now this is a no-touch facility. This

is not like tiger came in any capacity whatsoever. They're accredited. I want to go ahead and shout

them out because they do good work and we're not petting cats. Get your handle. Yeah. I worked there

for a year. Had a great time learned a lot about all of the different animals that were there. But

specifically after I graduated, I came to Montana to work on a wild bobcat project. I worked with

the PhD student. It was her PhD and she had collared wild bobcats and she was tracking their movement

to understand how they interacted with like a snowy environment. What was their prey like in both

summer and winter. But we also at some point had to recapture the bobcats to replace some batteries

on their collars that had failed. There's a lot of different ways that you can trap an animal,

but we use box traps, which is the most humane method. So a box trap is like someone put a burrito

in a phone booth or a small room and you're like, hell yeah burrito. And then the door locked behind

you. And then some sweet aliens were like, hey, can we just study you for like a sec? We're trying

to save your species. And you're like, what's in it for me? And you either put raw meat inside of

it in this case like deer. But what's really similar about cats is all cats. We're carless of

if they're the ones in our house or they're the ones in the wild. They love shiny things. And when

we were trying to attract these wild bobcats into our traps, you're basically setting a trap out

in the middle of the woods and hoping that a bobcat walks by. Yeah. But when they get closer,

how do you actually draw them in? And one of the things that we always did is we would hang CDs

at like bobcat level from fishing line because they would twirl and sparkle in the wind and they

cannot resist that. Oh my god. Oh my god. Dude, I wonder if house cats like that as well.

Just the rainbows and the glimmers. Absolutely. I mean, I saw the tiger sanctuary

granted this is a captive setting, but all of the cats, if you give them a box, they will climb

into it. What? Okay. Why is that? Do you have any idea? I'm trying to think like what is the

intelligent ecological behavioral explanation? I think the only thing that I can come up with is

it satisfies their need to hide and has like an advantage from their advantage point. So like if

they're in a box, some part of their body is obscured and they are able to stalk better. So I think

it really is just kind of a mimic of a natural ambush predator behavior. Obviously, I guess

they're not realizing that if it's a box, it's totally open. Yeah. Everyone can see them.

You're not fooling anybody. Well, what about I've always wondered.

Litterboxes and sanctuaries? Yes, no. No, to litter boxes and sanctuaries. In the wild, all cats will

use feces and urine to scent mart and they have their preferences for where they do that.

Like for example, snow leopards always defecate and urinate along the tops of ridges.

And that's mostly because it's kind of like they maximize their calling card.

Like as in the wind is picking up the most of what they're doing. This is how they share their

emails. But in captivity, we don't think that quite as much.

Doing it on a ridge is like getting a billboard on Sunset Boulevard or something. It's just like

at highs, you can go. 100%. They want people to know they're there then. They're not trying to be

stealthy all the time. No. And so this is definitely a way that they communicate with one another

for a territory, but also like if they're receptive during breeding season to let someone else know,

hey, I live here. And hopefully, usually the other animals, if they come across that calling card,

they respect it. Especially if you're talking about two males or if you're talking about females,

you know, sometimes females have overlapping territories. But for the most part, males do not

for all species. All carnivores, cats included. Certainly the main marker for that is going to be

urine and feces, kind of on the periphery of their territory, as they're just constantly moving

through it to basically guard it, protect it, etc. It's like wonderful graffiti. It's just like

smelly, smelly graffiti. And okay, when it comes to big cats, I should have asked this up top,

mega-feelinology. What counts as a big cat? Because I've seen main coons that you should get a

tax deduction for. Bobcats can be tiny. Where is the line, especially if you're a mega-feelinologist?

So there's a couple of different lines of thinking. The first and potentially strongest

argument that a lot of people previously adhere to and people support is does the cat fall in the

big cat genus? And so the big cat genus is panthera. And so we're talking about taxonomy. You've got,

you know, your order, your class, your family, your genus and species. And so the five big cats that

fall into panthera include the lion, tiger, jaguar, common leopard and the snow leopard. So those

guys are basically irrefutable. They're in the club. They're the big cat. However, there are other

cats that people argue that should be considered big cats. And I tend to agree with them. Specifically,

the North American mountain lion and the cheetah. These two cats are relatively large. Both of them

tend to be taller and weigh a little bit more than the smallest of the big cat that I just named.

The snow leopard is the smallest. So the North American mountain lion, also called a puma,

a cougar, sometimes a Florida panther, a cat amount, meaning cat of the mountain, a painter,

a deer tiger, or a mountain screamer. Not all of those terms are scientific or scientifically

accurate. So the puma native to North and South America is not in the genus panthera, but rather in

the genus puma. While learning this, I googled puma and a sponsored ad for pants popped up,

and I was sucked into the vortex of the German sportswear company, Puma, only to find that Puma's

as well as other big cats do not live in Germany. In fact, the company Puma was originally called

Ruta, which was named for its founder, Rudolph Dazzler. His brother, Adolf Dazzler, was also a fan

of his own name and portmantos, and the founder of the company Adidas, Adidas, Adolf Dazzler, Adidas.

Eventually Rudolph gave up the name thing and just named it Puma. I don't know why. The two brothers

though were bitter rivals. One owned Puma, the other Adidas. They hated each other toward

the end of their lives. They're buried in the same cemetery as far away as the plots would allow.

They were also passionate Nazis. Another Puma fact, no one wanted to know, is that after the

company was floundering a few decades ago, it called in CEO Robert Louis Dreyfus. And if the name

sounds familiar, that's because his second cousin once removed his Julia Louis Dreyfus, who was

of Jewish descent, which is weird again, because the founders were Nazis. Also, Julia's dad was

worth four billion dollars at the time of his death in 2016. That's wacky, I didn't know that.

Anyway, Puma's can be six to seven feet long and they can weigh over a hundred pounds,

although the males can weigh in at double that 200 pounds. Now a snow leopard in the genus

panthera weighs 75 to 120 pounds, much smaller than the non-panthera non-big cat Puma. Also,

technically not a big cat is the beloved Cheetah in a totally different genus and is capable of

running faster than the 55 miles per hour speed limit in most days. Now Cheetah's weigh in between

50 and 140 pounds, again, not a panthera or big cat, but larger than the official big cat snow leopard.

For more on mountain lions also, you can see our very sad but touching memorial episode for P22,

the solitary lion that stalked around L.A.'s mid-city urban park until his death in 2022.

I interviewed drunk people on the street for that. But yes, Cheetah in mountain line,

are they big cats? Some folks argue that those two cats should also be considered big cats,

and I do tend to agree. The other factor is a lot of folks say that it should not be considered

a big cat unless it can roar. Oh no, are you serious? Yeah, not all cats can roar and that

specifically has to do with the structure of a bone in their throat called the hyoid bone.

Cats, I have a flexible hyoid bone. The bone is able to vibrate along the laryngeal folds in

the throat, which is what produces the roar. But like us, we can't roar, and that's because we

have a hardened hyoid bone. Yeah, we did a laryngeology and I was like, what the fuck floating

bone in our neck is this? That was like news to me. But so the hyoid bone is what's making the roar?

So let's see, tigers don't truly purr. Obviously, they can roar, but they do something called

like a chuffing, and we often see it when they interact with humans in a captive environment,

but they do still chuff it one another, and it's kind of like this rolling,

I've been a long time since I had to do it, because you can do it to a tiger, and they'll do it

back. It's a good type sound. That's a communication, but it's not exactly in the back of the throat,

like purriness, like when we think about our domestic cats purring, it's not like this vibrating

ball sound in the back of the throat. This is fully in the front of their palate, like the sound

that I just made, and humans can obviously mimic it. I know the tigers do that. I think I've heard

the lions do that. I don't know if jaguars and common lepers also do a type of chuff. It's

mostly a truly a tiger trait, but I don't know if they do anything that's kind of similar or

analogous to that. Yeah, and so for cats that cannot roar, they have a hard hyoid bone that allows

them to purr, but not produce a roar, and snow lebirds cannot technically roar in the way that

some of the other big cats can. So you see, like we have this disagreement from a genetic

evolutionary history standpoint in terms of their genus versus this anatomy physiology thing

versus just their size. And so certainly, I think the most inclusive option is their big size.

And so we do often say that there are seven big cats. So it's the five cats in panthera,

so again, that's the lion, the tiger, the jaguar, the common leopard, the snow leopard,

but I'm going to go ahead and add in the North American mountain lion as well as the cheetah,

because they're big cats. Okay, and again, big cats tend to be able to roar.

Up to 114 decibels, which is roughly the volume of a chainsaw,

audible from up to five miles away. And that is because they have a more flexible

hyoid bone and voice box, except the snow leopard, which is technically again a big cat,

but has a more ossified hyoid bone, like the puma and the cheetah, non big cats,

but that hard hyoid bone allows it to vibrate its voice box dozens of times a second,

making that purring noise when it's breathing both in and out.

And cats purring, they tend to do this when they're chilling, when they're happy, when they're

resting, or sometimes as a stim when they're stressed out. So with all these overlaps in size and

hyoid bones, why aren't all seven cats big cats, or at least in the genus panthera? Well,

the original ancestor to all these kiddies originated in Africa. And imaging says that these cat

ancestors migrated north out of Africa into what is now central Asia, or parts of what's now

Europe. But some migrated onto land that would become north and south America once Pangaea

busted up roughly 200 million years ago. So they diverged there. Now, not big cats are the shorter

small cats. And those include links, which weigh up to 60 pounds, the up to 30 pound oscillot,

and the bobcat, which is between 15 to 40 pounds. So compare that to the South American jaguar,

which can top 200 pounds and eat crocodiles. Unknown is if a jaguar would eat half the crocodile

and leave the rest on your porch as a gift, which would be sick. But yeah, big cats are,

they're not inside kiddies. And so it gets super confusing when we are talking about that nomenclature,

but I think what is most commonly confused, like in fashion, as well as in natural history,

is the difference between like the cheetah, a jaguar, and a common leopard. Okay, specifically,

because they all have different spots, right? So they're this like ready, orangey, brown cat that

have some varying types of spots. The first thing that is helpful if you don't know what you're

looking at is the cheetah has solid black spots. Okay. The spots are not open. They are not

irregularly shaped. They're just nice, good old-fashioned black polka dots. But the cheetah also

has these black stripes, these black tear lines that run from their eyes down to their mouth.

And that's unique for cheetahs. And it has to do with reflecting light on these open planes. It

helps them to create shadows so they can actually see better. And that is something that none of the

other cats truly have. But certainly jaguars and leopards are most often confused for one another.

And so the best way to tell the difference between a jaguar and a leopard, one, the jaguar tends to be

a bit like stockier little bit like it looks like you've taken a couple more steroids than the leopard

has. But if you're not looking at them side by side, it's hard to tell. And so the jaguar has what are

called rosettes. Their spot pattern are these beautiful open, it's like three petals of this

black circle that sometimes has a little bit of a darker centroid inside of it. Whereas the

common leopard has mostly black spots that are, yes, solid like the cheetah, but they're slightly

more irregularly shaped. Oh, okay. To recap, cheetah, the common leopard and the jaguar are all this

orangeish sandy brown color. Now the cheetah lives in Africa. It has long legs and solid spots.

The common leopard lives in Africa, Central Asia, India, and China, and has solid black spots.

And the jaguar lives in Central and South America and has those open, rosette looking spots.

Now a black panther isn't really a thing. What? They're either a common leopard or a jaguar,

but are they not spotted? Oh, contrary. If you look closely at a black panther, hopefully from a

photograph, you'll see the spots kind of like a fancy fabric that's all the same color, but at an

angle, it has like a floral pattern. I think it's called a brocade or a jackard. In terms of spots,

we're not even going to touch on any of the small cats because this is not a micro-feelinology

episode either, but I hope the mega-feelinology spot information wins you a bet. I hope it

humiliates your adversaries. And that's a good way to tell the difference between all of them.

I don't own any animal print clothing because I find it always incorrect and that drives me bonkers.

I also already am combating the stereotype of being like a cat lady. If I'm good, I don't,

if I'm going to add to it, I'm only going to add to it with like factually correct stuff.

And I find it fashion industry just doesn't do a good job. So shout out. They need to hire,

they need to hire a cat scientist. I was going to say they need you as a consultant because yeah,

if I see someone in a cat print, I always just think, oh, it's leopard print, like a leopard print,

mini skirt or something, but it could very well be a mishmash of Cheetah and leopard.

Well, let's talk about leopards versus snow leopards because you are a snow leopard scientist.

I understand your PhD involved also collecting a lot of snow leopard poop, perhaps some ridges.

How did you wind up in the arms of snow leopards?

Yes. Okay. So I first became aware of snow leopards in 2011. I got my bachelor's degree in 2010,

realized I wanted to be a wild ecologist, realized that I really wanted to work on wild cat

conservation. So I set out on learning as much as I could about mammalian carnivores in terms of

research, like different projects, different techniques. I learned about snow leopards in 2011

when I saw an advert online for a graduate research project that was focused on snow leopards

in Tajikistan, which is a country in the western part of Central Asia. It's near Afghanistan.

It's near Kyrgyzstan. It's west of China. And I was super excited. I learned as much as I

possibly could about Tajikistan, obviously about snow leopards. I mean, like I said, Cheetahs were

like my gateway drug, but then I learned about snow leopards and also I go, my god, this is amazing.

Before I applied. And I got a phone call that I had been selected for an interview for this

position. And I was freaked out in an unreasonable, or actually in a very reasonable way. I was very

freaked out. I was very excited. I did the interview and went really well, but I did not get the

position. Oh, I was super bummed. But the position went to one of Imagine's good friends and

colleagues. And Imagine went on to get her master studying Bobcat genetics all the while still

sending occasional emails to the snow leopard guy being like, Oh, hey, I'm getting my master's

cut banks email your potential boss. Nothing to lose. So a few months after completing that master's,

she got an email saying, Hey, interested in doing a snow leopard PhD, you'd be using your skills

in molecular ecology and genetics to investigate snow leopard evolutionary history throughout their

range, which is in 12 different countries in Central Asia. She interviewed and then one day,

while at an RV park helping a friend with some weasel research Imagine's phone rang.

I was my day off. I was standing in the middle of this RV park when I got his phone call that he

wanted to offer me this research position for my PhD. And it was just one of those like really silly

things. Like I feel like if I could have been a squirrel or a bird watching me, I would have thought

I was insane because I just started screaming and like running up and down this like fallen tree.

And I'm pretty sure all the people at the RV park were like, Oh my god, this woman is insane.

I was so excited. What is this? What is this woman doing? And so that is how I fell into the world

of snow leopard. You didn't fall into it though. You were so good at keeping up with it. Yeah,

I was a dog with a bone, a cat with a mouse, whatever metaphor you want to use.

Well done. What was the fieldwork like? Also, how long were you out there in the snow checking

up mountains, sniffing for cat poop? What was that like? Yeah, so first of all, the short answer is

absolutely amazing. Joy of my life. I don't think anything will ever top it.

So Imagine put her genetic skill set to use, filling knowledge gaps on where these snow leopards

were living and migrating and then applying that to conservation efforts across the boundaries

of these countries. And we used like different genetic markers to do that. However, in order to

answer these questions, I have to have a lot of samples, which means I have to have data from

a lot of individual snow leopards, which would be next to impossible if my only option was to capture

every individual snow leopard that I could and other take like a blood sample or a hair sample

or a tissue sample. Yeah. It would be very expensive. But also like, ethically, it would be stressful

for the animals. And so I do what's called non-invasive research, which means we're able to collect

genetic data about individuals without ever having to come into contact with them. And like you

alluded to, the magic source for that is poop. And we're able to take those samples and go into the lab

and we're able to scrape off those epithelial cells and expose the actual raw DNA. And we can

separate that from the DNA of whatever that animal might have eaten. Amazing. And so my trade is

all cat poop. And in order to get cat poop, you have to look for it. So I spent a lot of time

in parts of China on the Tibetan Plateau, as well as in southern Kurdistan, trying to fill sampling

gaps from all of these different collaborations that I manage as part of my PhD. So thankfully,

we did have collaborators that had already collected cat poop. And I was able to use that. And so,

yes, that means that I spent time mostly in the summer, thank goodness because it's very difficult

to access snow leopard habitat in central Asia. And as their name might suggest, snow leopard,

they live in really snowy environments. They live in really rugged environments from like 10,000

feet above elevation all the way to 25,000 feet above elevation. Just for context, Mount Everest

is 29,000 feet, only 4,000 feet higher than snow leopards are kickin' it. No oxygen tanks,

no gear, no Sherpas, no $60,000 selfies, just barefoot, nude, furry, hungry, and evolutionarily

adapted. They live on what's called the roof of the world. And it's super hardcore, right?

And there's only certain times of the year that we can go do that. The first time that I went to

the field, however, was in the winter. And because we're at such high elevation, we have,

thankfully, thank goodness, humans have a medication that we can take that helps us process

low oxygen environments. That's a problem for most humans because we don't have any physical

or genetic advantages that allow us to process these hypoxic or low oxygen environments,

but snow leopard do. And so that's why it's difficult to access some of where they live if you

are human. So just to back up, there are three species in the world possess these genes that

allow them to be successful in low oxygen environments. It's the snow leopard, the Himalayan rats,

and there is a group of Nepali people that actually also possess this unique evolutionary

adaptation. But me, I'm just this like Irish chick. Yeah. So like I got nothing, right? So I got to

take the pharmaceutical. I got to take the medication to make me stay alive in this environment.

And so we did go in the field. I was in China. I was basically kind of a volunteer for some

other research, even though it was like part of my PhD. It was like a collaborative effort.

And it was beautiful. It's wonderful. Like we're at like 11,000 feet. We get there. We're trying,

I'm, I am trying to acclimatize the environment and everything was mostly fine for the first

couple of days, but then we got a bunch of snow dumped on us the night before. So we got something

about the barometric pressure change completely obliterated me. The medication wasn't working. We

went to lower elevation. I was starting to get altitude sickness. And so we stayed at a lower

elevation for 24 hours, which low was a joke. We were still 12,000 feet. Oh my god. And I could

not get my rest in heart rate below like 120. Oh my god. Oh my god. Yeah. So I had to call my PhD

advisor back in the States. I had to let them know that, hey, I actually got to, I have to leave

because it's now getting dangerous. So like altitude sickness can be really severe, right?

Your brain can swell or your lung tissue can swell. Oh my god. Both of those not great first day

in a life. So I had to get out. And so the next year when I came back, it was summer. And I was

taking the medication that you take, call to seat as olamide. I'm going to butcher how it works.

But it basically allows you to process less oxygen in your body in a way that is not harmful. So

it prevents you from getting altitude sickness. It prevents dying from like brain swelling or

lung swelling. Oh my god. And so I spent a lot longer in the field. I was in the field on the

Tibetan Plateau for almost two months looking for snow leopards. I think I did five different

countries that year. And I spent some time in Uzbekistan. And I also spent time in southern

Kurdistan. We were working with the local hurting communities, with the local governing communities

to get permission to go into these mountains and look for scat. Like you're looking for pooping

mountains. And so if you know anything about the behavior of an animal, you can reasonably

predict where they're going to poop. They might live in these really, really rugged mountains. But if

you can get to the top of a mountain. And if there are snow leopards in the area, you can probably

find their poop. I mean, it was about 60 or some miles of just transects up and down mountains

in about six weeks. Oh my god. I mean, humbling, right? Like, were you starving all the time?

Sort of. I mean, I think I'm a little bit of an anomaly. When I'm in the field, I feel like my

appetite just gets completely ruined for some reason. I only want like pretzels and gatorade.

So I basically tried to hummingbird, which cannot possibly be great for my body.

But I will say the food that we ate in Kurdistan and in China while in the field was far

and above better than anything I've ever done on any of my research projects here in the United

States. When I was doing grad work here in the US, it's peanut butter sandwiches. It is the type of

energy bar that's a hard boiled egg if you're lucky because you don't have a fridge. What I wasn't

trying to and in Kurdistan, we cooked over a fire every single night. Delicious. Okay, but what if

you're hiking to a summit and you don't have time to make a fire and roast something? Imaging says

you need fat, protein, carbs, and also some quick, simple carbohydrates to keep your blood sugar up.

And so the best possible option is a whole Snickers bar. Really? If you're 14,000 feet above elevation

and you are hiking uphill both ways, you need fast, easy energy. And it had never occurred to me

that maybe I just needed Snickers bar, but one of the guys on my crew who was like, yeah,

we need to have a Snickers budget. And so we had a Snickers budget. I mean, I think that they started

candy bars to feed soldiers. I didn't know that. Candy bars were invented for that purpose. So that

makes sense. I also, there were times when I was, you know, broken college and would be like, well,

Snickers for lunch, it is. And what is, you know, 55 cent miracle? A Snickers bar.

Full circle, right? You can see our Confectionology episode. It's all about candy history.

Yeah, no, it was a lot of fun. I really enjoyed that. It was a very special time. We collected a lot

of good data. I did publish one big paper last year from my dissertation about the snow leopards

and very proud of it. Take a gander at snow leopard phylogiography and population structure

supports two global populations with single refugial origin. She wrote that, but she says one

ancillary thing that happened from that research was so interesting. Literally the first day they

were in the field in Kyrgyzstan. I was training some local herders that had cited that they wanted

to volunteer. So it was basically training them how to like pick up scat in a sterile way,

like giving them gloves, talking about the data, et cetera. And a gentleman reached into his

backpack and pulled something out and handed it to me. And I said, what is this? Oh, we heard

you were coming and we found a scat. And so I collected it and I gave it to you. And it was just

a scat that was in a nylon glove, right? So like not perfectly stored, but secure enough that

it was sterile. And I said, great, I marked it down. I was like, first day we haven't even climbed

a mountain. We have a sample. This is sample 001. Yeah. I collected like 80 samples on that trip,

came back to the United States. We processed the samples. Sample 001 ended up being from a species

that has not been seen in that part of the world in over 30 years. No. And so, yes, yes, we

documented our team for the first time in over 30 years. We documented the presence of a DOL DHOLE,

which is a very ancient social canad that had been extirpated from most of the former Soviet

Union countries for over 30 years. Wow. How what? Yeah. I never get a chance to tell that person,

like, thanks, you're a real one. Yeah, absolutely. They're in the acknowledgment of this paper

and specifically in the actual document of it. This 2022 paper, new distribution record of DOL

from Southern Kyrgyzstan using non-invasive genetic sampling in the journal Canad Biology

and Distribution. It details that this DOL was also called the asiatic wild dog, the red dog,

the red wolf, or the whistling dog. But yeah, it's spelled DOL, if you will. It's listed as

endangered with a maximum of 2,000 mature individuals estimated in the global population.

And in the paper itself, it says, a scat sample was found by a son of Ranger,

Tuzbek, Tuk-Tuk-Ulu, and we thank him and his family for their contribution. And she says that

this single scat sample helped scientists discover that the DOLs were not in fact gone,

or if they had been, they're now returning to their former range, or they might be living

cryptically nearby in a pocket of land that humans can access without a helicopter.

And so being able to document that after decades of surveys, researchers talking to locals

showing photos saying, hey, have you seen this individual and the locals repeatedly saying,

no, we have not seen it, it seems pretty likely that they have not been there, but now they are.

And so that was just a really, really amazing side effect of this research that is meaningful

for conservation within those range countries.

Well, I have questions from listeners about all kinds of cat stuff.

Perfect.

Can I ask you, can we dive in?

Absolutely, let's do it.

But first, as always, let's take a little break to scatter some money into the winds toward a

worthy cause. And this week, Dr. Cancelari chose aptly the snow leopard trust,

which aims to better understand the endangered snow leopard and protect the cat

in partnership with the communities that share its habitats by partnering with indigenous

peoples and local communities living across this vast mountainous landscape.

And you can see snowlepper.org for more info on their work, as well as

updated news and pictures and stories about snow leopards.

In case you like gorgeous, elusive, furry, lethal cuties that go exceptionally hard.

So thank you to Imagine for that recommendation.

Thanks to sponsors who make it possible to donate to a college.

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Week.

Okay, let's get our huge pause into the mail bag

for listener questions submitted before we record via patreon.com

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We love you for that.

And people love cats.

I love that people love cats and love you.

Okay, a few people had pause questions.

Lisa Gorman wanted to know what big cat has the biggest

paw size for its body size.

They feel like both links and snow leopards have very big paws.

And then Miriam first time question asked her

to Leila and JJ all asked about toe beans.

And whether or not they have toe beans and if they're squishy like

house cats.

Just a quick pause.

If you need the full version of toe beans by for life,

sung to the tune of Dolly Parton's Jolene,

we will link the YouTube on our website.

So you can get a stuck in your head and you can sing

into your cat daily like our editor,

Mercedes-Batelandus, back to cat feet.

First and foremost and most important, yes,

all cats have toe beans and all toe beans are perfect.

I have touched the toe beans of an anesthetized

or surgically asleep bobcat.

I have also touched the toe beans of a tiger

in a captive setting when it was also anesthetized.

They're much rougher than our domestic cats.

Okay.

They're a lot more calloused feeling.

They're not exactly as hard as dog pads are,

but they're a little bit closer.

I don't think snow leopards have pink toe pads.

They're all going to be like this gray black toe pads.

Let's see, the other question was about the biggest size

of the feet relative to body size.

Yeah.

Yes, the Canada links is definitely going to probably have

the biggest sized foot relative to its body

as well as the snow leopard.

So the Canada links, their feet, we call them snowshoes.

They literally have built-in snowshoes like,

you know, we would have snowshoes

and we would go hiking in the snow.

There's our built-in to their body and then allows them

to float on top of snowy environments,

same with the snow leopard.

Cats in the genus lakes, there are four of them.

There's the Canada links, the North American bobcat,

there's the Iberian links and the Eurasian links.

All four of them have, you know, the shortened tail

and different from the snow leopard,

which spends a lot of time running down mountains

when it's tracking its prey.

These Canada links are after smaller prey items,

often snowshoe hairs,

and they need to be able to jump really high.

And so having really powerful hind legs

with really big snowshoes

is a way that they're able to be successful

in that environment.

That's a great question.

Thank you.

Well, on the topic of tails,

Kelly Shaver and Brain Shenanigans

wanted to know what's up with their tails.

Kelly says, I've heard they're crazy strong and dexterous.

Brain wanted to know if they're used for balance.

And then in a Guzman,

Metzellope and Charlotte Felkegaard

wanted to know about links is Matilda asked,

why do links have such a short tail?

Why do they have the stumpy ones?

So why, what do they use it?

What are these big cats using their tails for?

And how do some get along without them?

Yeah, so that's a phenomenal question.

It all comes back to these evolutionary adaptations.

And I'm so fascinated with the way carnivores in general

are adapted to their environments,

but also as a wildcat enthusiast.

Yes, these are all great questions

because it really points out

just interesting ways to interact with their environment.

All cats with tails,

they use their tails for balance

to help them turn in different directions.

And also, they use them as queues to indicate their mood.

It's consciously,

but also I think subconsciously in some ways.

And so my favorite examples of the way cats use their tails

is with both snow lepers and cheetahs.

If you've ever seen a video of a cheetah running across,

you know, the serum get it is,

it is arguably one of the most beautiful things

that you could ever watch.

So if you like the Olympics,

Megafelinology (SNOW LEOPARDS + OTHER BIG CATS) with Imogene Cancellare

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