Wildly Curious

Send us Fan Mail
Subscribe and unleash your inner science goblin. We see you. We respect it.
How do scientists study animals that spend their lives hiding, migrating thousands of miles, or living deep underwater?
In this episode of Wildly Curious, Katy Reiss and Laura Fawks Lapole explore the incredible technology that's transforming wildlife research. From radar that detects millions of migrating birds to satellites tracking whales from space, conservation has become a real-life spy mission. 
Discover how researchers can monitor animals without disturbing them—and sometimes without ever seeing them at all.
In this episode:
🛰️ How the International Space Station helps scientists track wildlife around the globe through the ICARUS program. 
📡 Why weather Doppler radar doesn't just detect storms—it can reveal bird migration, bats leaving caves, and even massive insect swarms. 
🌳 How LiDAR lasers create detailed 3D maps of forests to identify critical wildlife habitat hidden beneath the canopy. 
🧬 The fascinating science of environmental DNA (eDNA), allowing researchers to identify species from tiny traces of genetic material left behind in water, soil, and even air. 
🎙️ How passive acoustic monitoring uses AI and machine learning to recognize birds, frogs, bats, and entire ecosystems simply by listening. 
🤖 Why scientists build lifelike robotic "spy animals" that secretly film wildlife behaving naturally in the wild. 
These technologies are helping scientists understand migration, protect endangered species, detect invasive animals, monitor habitat health, and make better conservation decisions—all while minimizing disturbance to the wildlife they're trying to protect.
If you love wildlife biology, animal behavior, conservation, bird migration, ecology, or cutting-edge science, this episode is packed with some of the coolest technology you've probably never heard of.
Support the show
🎉 Support us on Patreon to keep the episodes coming! 🪼🦤🧠 For more laughs, catch us on YouTube!
Track a real wild animal. Support conservation. Feel slightly cooler than you did five seconds ago. Visit the Fahlo tracking bracelets website to get 20% off tracking bracelets with code WildlyKaty.

Send us Fan Mail
Subscribe and unleash your inner science goblin. We see you. We respect it.
What if dragons were real?
In this minisode of Wildly Curious, Katy Reiss and Laura Fawks Lapole explore one of the strangest reptiles on Earth: the Armadillo Girdled Lizard (Ouroborus cataphractus), a tiny armored lizard from South Africa that looks like it crawled straight out of a fantasy novel. 
Covered in spiky scales and equipped with one of the most unusual defense strategies in the animal kingdom, this reptile doesn't run from danger. Instead, it grabs its own tail and curls into a living ball of armor. 
In this episode:
🐉 Why this lizard is often called a real-life dragon
 🦎 The bizarre defense strategy that inspired its scientific name
 🌍 Where Armadillo Girdled Lizards live in South Africa
 🛡️ How armor, behavior, and social living help them survive predators
 👶 Why these reptiles give birth to live young instead of laying eggs
 🏜️ How evolution shaped one of the world's most unique lizards
If you love reptiles, wildlife, weird animal adaptations, dragons, natural history, or bizarre creatures from around the world, this episode is for you.
🎧 Part of our ongoing Animals You've Probably Never Heard Of minisode series.
Support the show
🎉 Support us on Patreon to keep the episodes coming! 🪼🦤🧠 For more laughs, catch us on YouTube!
Track a real wild animal. Support conservation. Feel slightly cooler than you did five seconds ago. Visit the Fahlo tracking bracelets website to get 20% off tracking bracelets with code WildlyKaty.

Send us Fan Mail
Subscribe and unleash your inner science goblin. We see you. We respect it.
What happens when your DNA makes a typo?
In this episode of Wildly Curious, Katy Reiss and Laura Fawks Lapole dive into the strange, fascinating world of genetic mutations—the tiny changes in DNA that can shape evolution, alter proteins, create disease, or sometimes do absolutely nothing at all. 
From harmless genetic quirks to serious inherited disorders, this episode breaks down some of the most important mutation types in a way that actually makes sense.
🧬 What mutations really are—and why they happen constantly
 🔠 How DNA “letters” form the instructions for building proteins
 ⚠️ What happens during frameshift, substitution, insertion, deletion, duplication, and inversion mutations
 🩸 Why mutations can influence things like blood type, lactose tolerance, HIV resistance, and sickle cell anemia
 🧠 The genetics behind disorders like Tay-Sachs disease, Fragile X syndrome, Prader-Willi syndrome, Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease, and hemophilia A
 ✂️ How scientists are using CRISPR and gene editing technology to potentially correct harmful mutations
Along the way, Katy and Laura explore how mutations drive evolution, why most genetic changes are harmless, and why it’s honestly kind of incredible that our bodies function at all considering DNA is constantly being copied trillions of times.
Whether you’re into genetics, biology, evolution, medicine, or weird science, this episode is a deep dive into the microscopic changes that shape life itself.
🎧 Season 14 continues with one of the biggest science topics we’ve ever tackled.
Support the show
🎉 Support us on Patreon to keep the episodes coming! 🪼🦤🧠 For more laughs, catch us on YouTube!
Track a real wild animal. Support conservation. Feel slightly cooler than you did five seconds ago. Visit the Fahlo tracking bracelets website to get 20% off tracking bracelets with code WildlyKaty.

Send us Fan Mail
Most birds are harmless.
This one is poisonous.
In this minisode of Wildly Curious, Katy Reiss and Laura Fawks Lapole dive into one of the strangest birds on Earth: the pitohui, a brightly colored songbird from New Guinea that carries powerful neurotoxins in its skin and feathers.  
The toxin is chemically similar to the same compounds found in some poison dart frogs, making the pitohui one of the very few known poisonous birds in the world. But how does a bird become poisonous in the first place?
🐦 What a pitohui actually looks like
☠️ How this bird stores toxins in its feathers and skin
🪲 The beetles responsible for its poison
🧠 Why scientists think the toxins may help defend against parasites
🤧 Why handling one can cause numbness, sneezing, burning skin, and watery eyes
🌴 Why indigenous communities call them “rubbish birds”
Along the way, the episode explores toxic animals, warning coloration, bird evolution, and the bizarre ecosystems of New Guinea—home to some of the weirdest wildlife on Earth.
If you love birding, ornithology, toxic animals, weird nature facts, or evolutionary biology, this is one bird you’ll never forget.
🎧 Part of our “Animals You’ve Probably Never Heard Of” minisode series.
Support the show
🎉 Support us on Patreon to keep the episodes coming! 🪼🦤🧠 For more laughs, catch us on YouTube!
Track a real wild animal. Support conservation. Feel slightly cooler than you did five seconds ago. Visit the Fahlo tracking bracelets website to get 20% off tracking bracelets with code WildlyKaty.

Send us Fan Mail
Subscribe and unleash your inner science goblin. We see you. We respect it.
What if “zombies” weren’t just fiction?
In this Season 14 kickoff episode of Wildly Curious, Katy Reiss and Laura Fawks Lapole dive into the real science behind “nature zombies”—organisms that can hijack behavior, manipulate brains, and turn animals into living tools for their own survival.
From parasitic fungi to mind-altering parasites, this episode explores how evolution has produced some of the most disturbing—and fascinating—strategies in the natural world.
🧠 How parasitic fungi infect insects and control their behavior down to the exact moment of death 
 🐜 The infamous zombie ant fungus (Ophiocordyceps) that forces ants to climb and die in precise locations for spore release 
 🦗 How hairworms manipulate insects into seeking water—something they would normally avoid—just to complete their life cycle 
 🐭 The parasite Toxoplasma gondii, which alters fear responses in rodents and may even influence human behavior 
 🦟 Cicada infections that turn insects into walking, mating, spore-spreading machines
These aren’t just gross curiosities—they’re real examples of how parasites can alter nervous systems, change decision-making, and reshape behavior at a biological level.
Support the show
🎉 Support us on Patreon to keep the episodes coming! 🪼🦤🧠 For more laughs, catch us on YouTube!
Track a real wild animal. Support conservation. Feel slightly cooler than you did five seconds ago. Visit the Fahlo tracking bracelets website to get 20% off tracking bracelets with code WildlyKaty.