Speaker 1: Welcome to the show Ridiculous Historians. Quick question for you,
Speaker 1: what's the most amazing animal that you have seen up
Speaker 1: close in real life? Hi, my name is Ben, my
Speaker 1: name is no. I would say ostrich if by amazing
Speaker 1: you mean terrifying, right, because your bird thing bird thing
Speaker 1: ostros in particularly, I got those gangly, weird necks and
Speaker 1: those really musculous talents and the whole shape of the
Speaker 1: bird is just wronged me. Do you know, for a
Speaker 1: relatively or comparatively brief span of Earth's history, flightless birds
Speaker 1: large flightless birds with a dominant species totally I mean,
Speaker 1: aren't like Jurassic Park dinosaurs meant to have had feathers. Yes,
Speaker 1: that is true, that's true. Skilberg did not back down.
Speaker 1: Another person who does not back down is our super producer,
Speaker 1: Casey Pegram. Yeah, that Tom Petty song is about him,
Speaker 1: it is. It is a lot of Tom Petty's catalog
Speaker 1: is actually based on the life and times of Casey Pegram. Yeah,
Speaker 1: which didn't seem to work out age wise and timeline wise,
Speaker 1: but trust us it does. Trust us. Yeah, the whole
Speaker 1: thing is a concept album. I would say the most
Speaker 1: amazing animal that I have seen up close for entirely
Speaker 1: subjective reasons, would be a tiger. Uh. The most amazing
Speaker 1: animal I've seen up close in the wild was a
Speaker 1: brown bear. Did I tell you that story? For ma?
Speaker 1: I was not. I did survive. At the end, I
Speaker 1: was in boy Scouts and we were on a camping trip.
Speaker 1: I had walked away from the campsite. And let me
Speaker 1: put this delicately, I was I was peeing in creek,
Speaker 1: which you know, I probably shouldn't have been doing. And
Speaker 1: then mid stream is the best way to put it.
Speaker 1: I looked across the creek and I saw a bear
Speaker 1: on the other side of the creek, just chilling and
Speaker 1: staring at me while it was mid stream, and I
Speaker 1: didn't know what to do, so I just kept going
Speaker 1: and then I backed away. I walked backwards back to
Speaker 1: the campsite, and uh, the bear just stared at me.
Speaker 1: What you're describing, Ben, is the natural adaptation that was
Speaker 1: the inspiration for the care Bear stairs with the care
Speaker 1: Bear stair. Yeah, as long as it wasn't the inspiration
Speaker 1: for that Leonardo DiCaprio vehicle. What was that where he
Speaker 1: was he in a live action care Bears movie? No,
Speaker 1: he was in a movie with a bear. Oh, the
Speaker 1: one where he eats there he eats raw meat and
Speaker 1: curls up in an animal carcass and I think they
Speaker 1: gave him the oscar for it. Yeah, Casey, do you
Speaker 1: remember which one that was? The Revenant? That was it?
Speaker 1: Casey on the case. Today's episode is about several things.
Speaker 1: It is about an amazing animal that very few of
Speaker 1: us get a chance to see in the wild nowadays. Uh,
Speaker 1: And it's about the way fame can affect people. And
Speaker 1: this is a very special episode today because we are
Speaker 1: not entering into this foray alone. Well we're entering into
Speaker 1: it alone, but we're gonna exit it with company. Yes
Speaker 1: that's correct. Yes we do have a surprise guest at
Speaker 1: the end. But our first guest, at least in concept,
Speaker 1: here in spirit, there we Go, is actually not a person.
Speaker 1: Our first guest is a rhinoceros, not to be confused
Speaker 1: with the very depressing Smashing Pumpkins song of the same
Speaker 1: name and actually, in retrospect, highly pretentious. I was so
Speaker 1: in love with that stuff, and I like some of
Speaker 1: it holds up, but that song, he's like, he's like
Speaker 1: planned a show trees and alloons. What does that even mean?
Speaker 1: Billy Corgan, you know, I scream. Yeah, I lumped them
Speaker 1: in with a lot of bands from that time period.
Speaker 1: Who if you don't pay attention to the lyrics. I've
Speaker 1: said this before, if I've had those moments with Stone
Speaker 1: Temple Pilots as well, where I think, you know, if
Speaker 1: I didn't understand English, I would love this song. But
Speaker 1: that stuff like, um, the fashion victims nash their charcoal teeth.
Speaker 1: Oh that that's that's zero melancholic. My beef with the
Speaker 1: song Rhinoceros. Not one mention of a rhinoceros in the
Speaker 1: entire so I guess it's maybe just the feeling of
Speaker 1: a rhinoceros. It has sort of a rhinoceros like melancholy
Speaker 1: to it um, which you know that interesting into the
Speaker 1: story only it's interesting, Um, we'll get we'll get to it.
Speaker 1: Does It does matter though, because for quite a long
Speaker 1: time rhinoceros was considered to be somewhat of a mythical creature.
Speaker 1: There was a very famous etching by Albrecht Durer that
Speaker 1: depicted a rhinoceros b based on description alone um in
Speaker 1: a really cool way. Yeah yeah, fifteen fifteen would cut
Speaker 1: and it shows a rhinoceros in profile, and it looks
Speaker 1: like it's dressed for war, like it it came to
Speaker 1: kick button, chew bubble gum and it's all out of gum.
Speaker 1: Looks like one of those ones from at least like
Speaker 1: one of those ones from the Black Panther that the
Speaker 1: there's that tribe and that the that comes into play
Speaker 1: um pretty heavily in the big battle structure of the film.
Speaker 1: They ride these rhinoceros like creatures that aren't quite the rhinoceros.
Speaker 1: Is that we know they're a little bit of an
Speaker 1: augmented rhinoceros, which is this this etching is very much
Speaker 1: the case. It has an extra horn on its back,
Speaker 1: which makes it look even more fierce. But overall, pretty
Speaker 1: damn good depiction of a rhino based on just word
Speaker 1: of mouth, right yeah, especially considering how woefully inaccurate many
Speaker 1: depictions of this type were at the time. Now, at
Speaker 1: this time in the fifteen hundreds, many many people in
Speaker 1: Europe would place creature like the rhinoceros up there with
Speaker 1: a creature like the griffin, the hippogriffins, the unicorns. You know,
Speaker 1: it's a cool idea, but someone was a bit in
Speaker 1: their cups or as are different. Ben Franklin may have
Speaker 1: put it they had been to speak with the King.
Speaker 1: The King, yeah, and Ben, I well, well, the last thing.
Speaker 1: Um this, this Albert Jure etching really reminds me of
Speaker 1: battle Cat from He Man because it's a very large,
Speaker 1: muscular creature decked out in some very bespoke like armor
Speaker 1: and kind of a helmet that goes over the rhino head.
Speaker 1: I remember that you're a battle Cat. Yeah, he was.
Speaker 1: He was Cringer and then turned into battle Cat. Yeah. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: because he had to transform with he Man in one
Speaker 1: of the most creative names for a new superhero. I've
Speaker 1: never heard of the band Man Man. Yes, I wonder
Speaker 1: if that's sort of a jab at he Man. I
Speaker 1: don't know. I never understood why it was she Ra
Speaker 1: and she Woman if it was he Man. That's a
Speaker 1: good point. No, no one knows. But I will say
Speaker 1: that the new sh Rack cartoon is supposed to be incredible.
Speaker 1: It's being held up there on with like shows like
Speaker 1: Stephen Universe is being very inclusive and very well written
Speaker 1: and interesting and handling trauma quite well exactly. I really
Speaker 1: want to check it out. Oh and speaking of checking things, out.
Speaker 1: Durer ultimately arrives at at least part of this description
Speaker 1: via the courtesy of the first century Roman author Plenty
Speaker 1: the Elder, and I love his description of the rhinoceros noll.
Speaker 1: He calls it fast, impetuous, and cunning, the mortal enemy
Speaker 1: of the Yeah, there's some night man day man stuff
Speaker 1: going on, big time. No, And I think even like,
Speaker 1: what was what were what was he basing these observations on.
Speaker 1: Did plant where there where there rhinoceros is in Rome?
Speaker 1: That's a good question. What do you think? I have
Speaker 1: a feeling it was probably more word of mouth, and
Speaker 1: he probably did some research based on people that were
Speaker 1: traveling to foreign lands and then maybe interviewed them. But
Speaker 1: he didn't strike me as the type that was going
Speaker 1: to go off to you know, India or Africa or
Speaker 1: anything that wasn't really in the cards. Plenty also got
Speaker 1: plenty of things wrong, you know what I mean. It's
Speaker 1: out as if he could hop on the internet or
Speaker 1: even visit a particularly well stocked library. So he most
Speaker 1: likely Plenty that is, was getting his accounts from Greek
Speaker 1: and Roman forays into India, and he was describing an
Speaker 1: Indian rhinoceros which is the subject of our story today. Actually,
Speaker 1: and one last thing. Plenty was a naval commander earlier
Speaker 1: in his life before he became like you know, a
Speaker 1: well known no at all as in maritime not belly button,
Speaker 1: that's right, that's right. So I don't know that he
Speaker 1: experienced these things firsthand, but I think he definitely had
Speaker 1: the opportunity possibly to have, but more likely than that
Speaker 1: he heard it from someone else. And this is where
Speaker 1: we meet Clara. Let's fast forward to the seventeen hundreds.
Speaker 1: Clara is a rhinoceros and in seventeen thirty eight, her
Speaker 1: mother is tragically killed in India Bamby style Bambi style dude,
Speaker 1: and she becomes a house pet of one yawn Albert Seek, German,
Speaker 1: director of the Dutch East India Company, and he kept her.
Speaker 1: He raised her in his estate in Kolkata until she
Speaker 1: got too big. Now, apparently she's very well behaved. People
Speaker 1: loved her, She loved people, but a rhinoceros is a
Speaker 1: huge creature, and eventually, as she grew into adulthood, she
Speaker 1: was just, despite her best intentions, too big to walk
Speaker 1: around inside without reckon the place. What do you call
Speaker 1: a baby Rhinoceros ben Is it a pup Thomas Janine
Speaker 1: Clara Clara calf like a hippo. I believe that's the case. Um.
Speaker 1: This is so cool though, because it's this is one
Speaker 1: of the stories where anytime you have animals taken out
Speaker 1: of their natural habitat and kind of trotted around for
Speaker 1: human amusement, there's it's easy to do an eye roll
Speaker 1: and be like, oh, that is not what this animal
Speaker 1: was meant for. But again, left to her own devices,
Speaker 1: Clara may will have perished in the harsh wilderness of
Speaker 1: of the Indian jungles, right. Um, But this this kindly
Speaker 1: gentleman took her in and um, you know, would trot
Speaker 1: her out for guests, um, apparently demonstrating her quote table
Speaker 1: manners or right. This is coming from an article from
Speaker 1: Getty dot du. They curated a very cool exhibit at
Speaker 1: the Getty Museum UM in New York about Clara. And
Speaker 1: we'll get to what might have been contained in such
Speaker 1: an exhibit in just a bit. But for one particular dinner,
Speaker 1: let's say, just for editorial purposes, uh, Jan Albert Sickerman, Um,
Speaker 1: Clara's caretaker had a guest, a kindly Dutch sea captain.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna let you attempt this pronunciation. Bendwimot. VanderMeer very good.
Speaker 1: And Clara at this time is about three years old.
Speaker 1: So she spends the first two and change years of
Speaker 1: her life living with Sickerman. But then she is acquired
Speaker 1: by vander Meer and he takes her own a seven
Speaker 1: month uh sea voyage around to the African continent, eventually
Speaker 1: arriving in Rotterdam in July. See, and let's make no mistake, um,
Speaker 1: Clara was not full grown at this point, but not
Speaker 1: in years. That's that's a big creature right there. I
Speaker 1: want to say somewhere probably in the range of two
Speaker 1: thousand pounds because by now and that's not true because
Speaker 1: by the age of eight she was five thousand. So
Speaker 1: what do we conjecture that she was at the age
Speaker 1: of three somewhere between that? Yeah, okay, somewhere between zero
Speaker 1: pounds and five thousand pounds. I'm gonna say a three
Speaker 1: year old rhino calf, I'm gonna estimate about a thousand pounds,
Speaker 1: so just to get her loaded up onto the ship,
Speaker 1: not to mention six month journey, um, where this creature
Speaker 1: would be need to be cared for and fed. Um,
Speaker 1: no small task. This This is kindly sea captain really
Speaker 1: did have a soft spot. He was impressed and very
Speaker 1: taken in by this gentle giant as she was described,
Speaker 1: and she was. She was a little bit high maintenance
Speaker 1: because she was not designed to live life on a boat.
Speaker 1: Uh So, during her travels from India to Rotterdam, she
Speaker 1: acquired some favorite human things, namely orange peels, beer, and
Speaker 1: tobacco smoke. Yeah. I think people would like blow her
Speaker 1: shotguns or something and also give her a little sip
Speaker 1: of their beer, probably as a gag at first, but
Speaker 1: I think she really did develop a taste for it
Speaker 1: and would have a little nip throughout the rest of
Speaker 1: her existence. A lot of mammals do. Yeah. And also, uh,
Speaker 1: Clara's skin required special moisturizers so she didn't dry out,
Speaker 1: and that's why historians conjecture that the captain may have
Speaker 1: used fish oil, may have massaged her flesh with fish
Speaker 1: oil to keep her moisturized. Yeah. I saw a really
Speaker 1: adorable YouTube video I think it was. This is like
Speaker 1: sort of a fable almost there. This has been recreated
Speaker 1: in picture books and like laure or whatever because it
Speaker 1: is a really cute story. And I saw kind of
Speaker 1: a pictorial animated um recreation of this, and in that
Speaker 1: they suggested that he thought, oh, she's drying out. What
Speaker 1: do we have in abundance of we're in the sea fish,
Speaker 1: Let's do fish oil um. And as you can imagine,
Speaker 1: it probably wasn't the most pleasant smell um, but it
Speaker 1: did keep her skin from drying out and cracking like
Speaker 1: under the under the sun. Yeah. Absolutely, this is first off,
Speaker 1: we have to commend the captain and their crew because
Speaker 1: they would realistically have been figuring this out on the fly.
Speaker 1: What does a rhinocero see? How much food does it need?
Speaker 1: How much water does it need? So this was trial
Speaker 1: and error. Unfortunately for Clara, they persevered and it worked.
Speaker 1: When they arrived in Rotterdam, she gets a temporary home
Speaker 1: in Leaden and then in Amsterdam and she's exhibited around
Speaker 1: the Netherlands for several years before she makes her next
Speaker 1: trip abroad to Germany, and that was in seventeen forty four.
Speaker 1: At the time, she was called the Dutch Rhino because
Speaker 1: that's where that's what people associated her with. They wouldn't
Speaker 1: say it would be an unne necessarily long explanation to say, well,
Speaker 1: you've heard of India rights, sure, And I mean, let's
Speaker 1: think about the the way we've used circuses today. You know,
Speaker 1: we know circuses are problematic, and then the way animals
Speaker 1: are treated in circuses has historically been proven to be
Speaker 1: kind of gross. But think about the fascination even at
Speaker 1: the top of the show, Ben you had with your
Speaker 1: pal the grizzly bear, and my abject horror slash fascination
Speaker 1: with the ostrich things that we have seen in various forms,
Speaker 1: whether printed or in movies or whatever. But this is
Speaker 1: a thing that people had no notion of even existing.
Speaker 1: As far as some of people who were seeing this,
Speaker 1: this rhino was concerned it was a dragon of some kind, right,
Speaker 1: or some kind of mythical creature. So it was like
Speaker 1: rhino hysteria, the rhino craze, rhino craze, rhinomanias Germania. Yep.
Speaker 1: This is also the heaviest land animal on the planet.
Speaker 1: There is an excellent book called Clara's Grand Tour, Travels
Speaker 1: with the Rhinoceros eighteenth century Europe by Glennis Ridley, which
Speaker 1: describes in the most accurate detail possible Clara's journey. You see,
Speaker 1: Vandermer did a lot of great things for Clara, kept
Speaker 1: her alive much longer than the normal rhino lifespan in captivity,
Speaker 1: but he didn't keep a journal, So some of this
Speaker 1: stuff is conjecture on Ridley's part. And one of the
Speaker 1: things that Ridley points out that there was an earlier
Speaker 1: attempted transport of a rhino in seventeen seventy in France,
Speaker 1: and for a single check this out, for a single
Speaker 1: journey transporting this mail rhino to Versailles, the French government
Speaker 1: paid for two days of work by carpenters, thirties six
Speaker 1: days of work by locksmith's, fifty seven days of work
Speaker 1: by blacksmith's, and seventy two days of work by a
Speaker 1: team of wheelwrights, and the wagon still collapsed. Jezus, And
Speaker 1: wouldn't that have been like at the request of a monarch.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, So this is just like a dude, like
Speaker 1: a sea captain who's had to like, you know, pull
Speaker 1: this stuff together and figure it out. And not to
Speaker 1: mention that in that same book you're talking about by
Speaker 1: the time um Clara was basically full growing around eight
Speaker 1: years old, we're talking five thousand pounds of creature. Uh
Speaker 1: that eats about sixty pounds of hay, twenty pounds of bread,
Speaker 1: and fourteen buckets of water a day, not counting the beer. No,
Speaker 1: not kind of, that's just like for a treat, you know.
Speaker 1: But Rhinomania was a real thing. I mean it swept
Speaker 1: the nation Europe, you know. Um. Clara made trips to Switzerland, Berlin, Vienna, Munich, Strasburg, Augsburg,
Speaker 1: all over Germany, vert Sport where I was born actually,
Speaker 1: and as Bach, Italy, London several times and inspired like
Speaker 1: all of these aristocratic kind are members of these aristocratic
Speaker 1: courts who were like poets and painters, right right, She
Speaker 1: had private audiences with royalty, aristocracy and people. May This
Speaker 1: is very clever of Vandimir. He understands the value of merchandizing,
Speaker 1: you know, so he actively encourages these different pieces of
Speaker 1: memorabilia and souvenirs commemorating Clara the Rhino. They're bronze sculptures
Speaker 1: that are porcelain curios. There are you know, life size
Speaker 1: portraits of her, one in seventeen forty nine by Jean
Speaker 1: Baptiste Ludrie. She stands in this like rustic landscape. There
Speaker 1: etchings of her. There's another painting in seventeen fifty one
Speaker 1: that's currently at the National Gallery in London by Pietro Longy.
Speaker 1: And this entire thing impact society as a whole. It
Speaker 1: is Rhinomania. She is a craze. Now most people probably
Speaker 1: cannot afford the opportunity to see her in person, but
Speaker 1: vandermir anticipates that and makes some different memorabilia for different
Speaker 1: budget levels. I like the the equivalent of like a
Speaker 1: commemorative circus cup or something like that, you know, exactly
Speaker 1: one of those light up swords. And during her heyday,
Speaker 1: during the heyday of her tour for a season, things
Speaker 1: that were fashionable in the world of style and dress
Speaker 1: were referred to as anceros. Yeah. I think there was
Speaker 1: even a hair do that got popular in France, and
Speaker 1: we can picture some of those big, billowy bouffon hairstyles
Speaker 1: in France. One of them was I believe called the rhinoceros,
Speaker 1: and they decorated horses with that as well, with like
Speaker 1: little rhino ears and little rhino tails. Yeah, it was like,
Speaker 1: I mean, it was an absolute sensation. Um. And I
Speaker 1: know you mentioned private audiences with certain monarchs, but I
Speaker 1: I haven't confirmed this, but I did see uh in
Speaker 1: one um source that Louis the fifteen actually offered to
Speaker 1: buy Clara from our kindly sea captain um and or
Speaker 1: or or at least expressed that he very much wanted
Speaker 1: this creature, to which VanderMeer said, I'll give her to
Speaker 1: you for some exorbitant price, to which Louis turned his
Speaker 1: nose up because he was expecting it to be gifted
Speaker 1: to him. But no, VanderMeer was very very much this
Speaker 1: was like a companion, even though he was, you know,
Speaker 1: cleaning up making bank. Obviously, with this rhinow it really
Speaker 1: does seem like he loved her. Yeah, and she was
Speaker 1: inspiring songs and poems dedicated to Clara. And I think
Speaker 1: you already mentioned that when she towards Italy she met
Speaker 1: the same fanfare. That's where this wonderful painting comes from,
Speaker 1: with some Venetians and masked staring at the rhinoceros very
Speaker 1: very eyes wide shut. That one's for you, Casey. And
Speaker 1: speaking of way, check out Casey Pegram's recurring guest spot
Speaker 1: on our our buddy Chuck's podcast movie Crush, which I
Speaker 1: appear on occasionally as well doing a series about Kubrick's
Speaker 1: eyes Weet shut and I believe you a Linden and
Speaker 1: the Shining as well. Right, yeah, those three, and we
Speaker 1: got Passive Lord upon Love Passive fantastic, such a good one.
Speaker 1: And so it's sort of a lets I think if
Speaker 1: people don't think of it as like top Kubrick, but
Speaker 1: it's one of my favorites. I agree. Why you may ask, well,
Speaker 1: you'll have to tune in to move be crushed to
Speaker 1: find out along the way. Both as an animal and
Speaker 1: as an increasingly relevant cultural icon. It seems that vandom
Speaker 1: Mere and Clara really do have this bond. And she
Speaker 1: lives where we said. She lived longer than any rhino
Speaker 1: and captivity beforehand had. She lived around twenty years. She
Speaker 1: went to London three times. You know there are I
Speaker 1: haven't been to London three times. What am I doing
Speaker 1: with my life? Dude? I mean I went to I
Speaker 1: think I have all the cool European destinations I've been to.
Speaker 1: I went when I was too young to remember, um,
Speaker 1: when I traveled with my mom when she was doing
Speaker 1: opera stuff. So I really hope to remedy that. But yes, seriously,
Speaker 1: this rhin now lived large, and think about all the
Speaker 1: voyages and the hoisting onto a ship and all of this.
Speaker 1: So yeah, the coach itself, she had to be pulled
Speaker 1: by six horses in a specially reinforced coach. And again
Speaker 1: with the whole trivia about the French over men's attempts
Speaker 1: to do this thing. This dude cracked the code. And
Speaker 1: I guess he must have parlayed all of that Clara
Speaker 1: money into ways of keeping her comfortable. You know, we
Speaker 1: don't really read a lot about him living in the
Speaker 1: absolute lap of luxury. I even heard that read that
Speaker 1: early on, when she was still growing and he hadn't
Speaker 1: quite cracked his racket yet, he would go hungry in
Speaker 1: order to feed Clara the rhino again. This again, it's
Speaker 1: sort of taken the form of a bit of a
Speaker 1: fairy tale the way it's written in some places. But
Speaker 1: that's it's it's it's interesting detail to have survived, you know.
Speaker 1: And so spoiler alert, Clara is no longer with us.
Speaker 1: If we assume that she was approximately two years old
Speaker 1: when purchased by Vandermere and brought to Laden in seventeen
Speaker 1: forty one, she would have been twenty and seventeen fifty eight,
Speaker 1: and that is when on her third visit to London
Speaker 1: she passed away. Unfortunately, there are no contemporary reports from
Speaker 1: visitors who saw Clara of any visible signs of illness,
Speaker 1: and to this day her death seems sudden, unexpected, and
Speaker 1: we don't have a clear cause of death either. No,
Speaker 1: we don't. Um, from from what I've seen it, it
Speaker 1: just sounds like it was her time. I mean, it
Speaker 1: was sort of an old age thing, given that she
Speaker 1: exceeded the lifespan of a typical rhino. Yeah. I I
Speaker 1: saw one one version of the story that she lost
Speaker 1: her horn or her horn fell off earlier before she
Speaker 1: passed away, and that vander Meir was concerned for her.
Speaker 1: But then he continued to he felt that she enjoyed
Speaker 1: this life and that she was like, this was the
Speaker 1: life for her, that she got pleasure out of being
Speaker 1: paraded around and being admired and you know, sort of
Speaker 1: anthropomorphizing I guess, which we'll get to in a little bit.
Speaker 1: But apparently the horn grew back, and um, she had
Speaker 1: another couple of good years in her of this life. Yeah,
Speaker 1: let's see. There's one theory that I thought was interesting
Speaker 1: that comes again from that book I mentioned earlier. Clear
Speaker 1: as brand tour. There's one theory that says it's possible
Speaker 1: bowl that she just had a natural disease that would
Speaker 1: have led to her death in the wild regardless. And
Speaker 1: there's another theory that says the vast quantities of bread
Speaker 1: she ate while on display in London may be a
Speaker 1: cluded or death, since any fungal growth in the week could,
Speaker 1: if consumed in large enough quantities, have a severe effect
Speaker 1: on the digestive system. But this is all speculation, and
Speaker 1: the main point is that this gentle, gigantic, beautiful creature,
Speaker 1: single horned lee, I'm gonna keep that. Thank thanks, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna keep it. She she changed the way that Europe
Speaker 1: understood uh the world beyond the edges of their maps.
Speaker 1: And while we're speculating no this this leads us to
Speaker 1: our segue. It's often said that fame can change people, right, Right,
Speaker 1: sudden rise to fame and you can't remember who your
Speaker 1: real friends are, you win the lottery or something like that, Right,
Speaker 1: how does it affect you psychologically? Well, Claire of the
Speaker 1: Rhinoceros had a sudden stratospheric rise to fame. Is it
Speaker 1: possible that this rise to fame could have affected her
Speaker 1: the same way it affects a human being. Admittedly, Noll,
Speaker 1: this is a pretty great question, but I think we
Speaker 1: could use a little bit of help exploring it. What
Speaker 1: do you say. I think we have to because we
Speaker 1: set up a special guest at the beginning of the show,
Speaker 1: and if we don't follow through with that, people will
Speaker 1: think we're liars. There'll be chaos in the streets. My friend,
Speaker 1: Luckily that wasn't just a bunch of smoke and mirrors
Speaker 1: of fellow ridiculous historians. We are delighted to introduce you
Speaker 1: to today's guest, uh Pure podcast of ours, A big
Speaker 1: friend of the show, Katie Golden, the host of Creature
Speaker 1: feature Kaka, is happy to be here. We are so
Speaker 1: happy to have you. And you might remember Katie because
Speaker 1: an episode of her amazing show snuck into our feed
Speaker 1: and then obviously you subscribed to her show immediately and
Speaker 1: now you're huge fans, so we're all family here. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so we were. We were very curious on to hear
Speaker 1: your take on this, Katie. We set up earlier that
Speaker 1: question of how sudden fame could impact human being psychologically.
Speaker 1: We were we were hoping to learn if there's whether
Speaker 1: there's any analog to that in the world of or
Speaker 1: in the mind rather of the rhinoceros. Yeah. I think
Speaker 1: that's a really interesting question because there is so there's
Speaker 1: a lot of research into animals in captivity and their psychology,
Speaker 1: especially these larger animals like elephants and rhinos and tigers,
Speaker 1: you know, where they they require a lot of territory
Speaker 1: and a lot of their natural environment is just so
Speaker 1: expansive that when you put them in captivity and you
Speaker 1: put them in a different environment, it is a drastic
Speaker 1: psychologic whole shift for them. So I think, like to
Speaker 1: explore the question of fame, like first you kind of
Speaker 1: have to know a little bit about animals and captivity.
Speaker 1: So like, even when animals are really well looked after,
Speaker 1: um and cared for and the zookeepers really love them,
Speaker 1: say it like the San Diego Zoo, where it's just
Speaker 1: a it's a fantastic zoo, but they still have these
Speaker 1: issues of what are called stereotypes, which are like these
Speaker 1: kind of like obsessive compulsive behaviors that animals do when
Speaker 1: they're in captivity, um, like polar bears or elephants, um,
Speaker 1: And they'll do things like repeated ticks, movements, obsessive grooming, pacing, um.
Speaker 1: And for rhinos, one of the things they do is
Speaker 1: they have these awesome prehensile upper lips or their semi
Speaker 1: prehensile and that's how they can like grasp twigs or
Speaker 1: grasp stocks of grass and chew those up. They'll kind
Speaker 1: of fidget with that upper lip and do these repeated
Speaker 1: motions with that as a sign of stress. And uh
Speaker 1: so there is something in uh in terms of captivity
Speaker 1: that can really stress out animals, and especially the large ones.
Speaker 1: But there's evidence that increased um enrichment helps them out.
Speaker 1: It helps de stress them. So things like having to
Speaker 1: work through puzzles to get through their food. UM like
Speaker 1: games and toys and positive interactions with their trainers, so
Speaker 1: allowing them to Uh. One thing that I think people
Speaker 1: might not know about rhinos is you can actually train
Speaker 1: their trainable. Uh. They're fairly intelligent. You can give them.
Speaker 1: There's one rhino that has learned learned how to paint
Speaker 1: using its upper lip. So the so the keeper applies
Speaker 1: a dab of paint to its upper lip and then
Speaker 1: it just kind of The paintings are gotta say, they
Speaker 1: aren't great, A little abstract perhaps. I mean, I know
Speaker 1: it's it's easy to be a critic, but they I mean,
Speaker 1: there's a certain genes sequa that's lacking in them. But
Speaker 1: saying gorilla paintings are superior elephants, they think they might be.
Speaker 1: Even elephant paintings I think are a little better. I'm
Speaker 1: really sorry to say, but I mean the rhino paintings,
Speaker 1: they put in a real good effort there. I'd put
Speaker 1: it on my fridge. Well, I mean, a limp isn't
Speaker 1: quite the same as like a trunk or like, you know, hands.
Speaker 1: I know, I'm waiting for the octopus paintings. I have
Speaker 1: a quick question for you, because this is all super
Speaker 1: fascinating already, But one thing we maybe didn't mention is
Speaker 1: that Clara Um lost her mother as a as a baby,
Speaker 1: like Bambi style, and was always kind of taken care
Speaker 1: of by humans from from the age of like two
Speaker 1: or three. Do you think that would make these this
Speaker 1: transition into captivity or whatever version of captivity you could
Speaker 1: call being paraded aroun ound in this way. I mean,
Speaker 1: it wasn't in one place. There was a lot of traveling,
Speaker 1: which probably was even more traumatic now that I think
Speaker 1: about it. But do you think having been exposed to
Speaker 1: that kind of life from such an early age would
Speaker 1: make a difference in developing those ticks or any kind
Speaker 1: of negative attributes. I mean it is interesting because there
Speaker 1: is kind of a precedent of a polar bear being
Speaker 1: separated from its parents, uh and then developing these ticks,
Speaker 1: and then like being reunited with its parents and still
Speaker 1: having the ticks. So it's not necessarily clear that that
Speaker 1: parental separation would make it worse or better. It could
Speaker 1: trigger uh some stress for sure, um. But then also
Speaker 1: being raised from such a young age by humans would
Speaker 1: probably allow her to see them more as peers, especially
Speaker 1: if they're um interacting with her in a real positive way,
Speaker 1: and if the training is very um it takes the
Speaker 1: approach of being encouraging rather than punitive. Uh that I
Speaker 1: think that would have a potentially positive effect on her psychology. Obviously,
Speaker 1: none of this is ideal, Like the ideal thing is
Speaker 1: for her to be in her natural environment and have
Speaker 1: a social life with other rhinos. Although I have to
Speaker 1: say rhinos aren't the most social of animals there, they
Speaker 1: definitely do display a lot of friendly behaviors with each other.
Speaker 1: They're not very aggressive with other rhinos. Only male rhinos
Speaker 1: can be a little bit territorial and aggressive with other males,
Speaker 1: and when they are it's pretty catastrophic, but typically they're
Speaker 1: not in uh. Females will sometimes be in groups in
Speaker 1: the wild, so like with usually it's with their their
Speaker 1: infants or young um or even young males can sometimes
Speaker 1: be tolerated by females as they're sort of learning to
Speaker 1: make it on their own, and sometimes they'll have like
Speaker 1: play dates with other females where they're all their calves
Speaker 1: will get together and kind of romp around um. So
Speaker 1: I think for a female rhino like Clara, she would
Speaker 1: tolerate social interaction and expect it, although it must be
Speaker 1: very bizarre for her because no matter how kind her
Speaker 1: or well intentioned her owners are, they are not going
Speaker 1: to know rhino body language. They're not going to be
Speaker 1: able to flap their ears back and forth and kind
Speaker 1: of like bob their head in a way that's going
Speaker 1: to communicate to her that they're playful or friendly. So
Speaker 1: she might I'd imagine it'd be confusing, probably a little
Speaker 1: better since she was raised since she was a calf,
Speaker 1: but still kind of like, you know, imagine being stuck
Speaker 1: with these aliens who seem to care for you, but
Speaker 1: they just are so weird. They're just these blobs that
Speaker 1: have no expression, no show, no emotion, and kind of
Speaker 1: just give you food and sometimes soothe you in certain ways,
Speaker 1: and so you could maybe sometimes infer some hair, but
Speaker 1: it would be hard for you to totally feel like
Speaker 1: you're actually socializing. Fantastic. They can't even paint with their lips,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. I had some follow up
Speaker 1: questions here. Do female rhinos specifically experience any kind of
Speaker 1: um like fertility cycle that would change their behavior in adulthood?
Speaker 1: That is interesting because typically like the only sort of
Speaker 1: adult interactions that female rhinos are going to have our
Speaker 1: when they're in estras, so like they're when they're going
Speaker 1: to mate with a male. So I would assume, Um,
Speaker 1: it's hard for me to say definitively how that would
Speaker 1: translate to interactions with humans, but um, there's certainly periods
Speaker 1: of time where you know they'll be more receptive to males,
Speaker 1: and they're also um when their mothers, they're more receptive
Speaker 1: to company from um females with calves and juvenile males.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I would think that perhaps her kind of
Speaker 1: she might even have sort of a longing for certain
Speaker 1: rhino's social events that she's missing out on without really
Speaker 1: understanding what they are or why she feels that way,
Speaker 1: because I don't, you know, like she may have that
Speaker 1: urge to do some kind of like socializing with her
Speaker 1: own young But if she didn't, she didn't have any calves, right,
Speaker 1: So it's it's kind of it's an interesting thing. I
Speaker 1: wonder if she since something was missing, but probably couldn't
Speaker 1: understand why she felt that way or what that would be,
Speaker 1: because I don't think they're They're intelligent, but not intelligent
Speaker 1: enough to no like, oh I want to have a
Speaker 1: baby or I want to mate with a male right now,
Speaker 1: but be just sort of a vague anxiety. Could they
Speaker 1: feel loneliness perhaps? Or and also additionally, would over time
Speaker 1: a rhinoceros be able to learn, for the lack of
Speaker 1: a better word, learn to read human body language or
Speaker 1: physical cues, I think to some extent um. Well, first
Speaker 1: of all, um, I mean it's hard to say how
Speaker 1: especially in an animal like a rhino that is not
Speaker 1: as social as other animals. So I would be a
Speaker 1: lot more confident to say like an elephant or a
Speaker 1: dog is going to feel lonely. Um. Rhinos are solitary
Speaker 1: enough that I don't know. I think that maybe I
Speaker 1: think that, you know, because they do have some positive
Speaker 1: social interactions, and although they're infrequent, they do happen. Um,
Speaker 1: and especially the females have a longer period of time
Speaker 1: where they're with their young. I think it's certainly possible
Speaker 1: she felt loneliness, but probably couldn't you know. It would
Speaker 1: be a very different experience for an animal like a
Speaker 1: rhino versus a human or even a more social animal
Speaker 1: like a primate. And then in terms of understanding human
Speaker 1: body language, yes, I do think because rhinos are trainable,
Speaker 1: I think they could start to understand certain cues and
Speaker 1: body language is meaning certain things. It's hard to know
Speaker 1: how emotionally salient that would be the too a rhinos,
Speaker 1: So like there's a difference between understanding a certain que
Speaker 1: means they're about to get food or praise and actually
Speaker 1: making the connection to being a meaningful social interaction. So
Speaker 1: I think it's possible, though for sure. I think that's
Speaker 1: a really interesting angle to this story too, because the
Speaker 1: sea captain who kept her um didn't we don't have
Speaker 1: any journals of his, so a lot of this is
Speaker 1: like second third hand, and it almost has taken on
Speaker 1: the quality of like a fable or a fairy tale
Speaker 1: or something, and it feels very Disneyfied, like all of
Speaker 1: the accounts are very much like he and he cared
Speaker 1: for Clara the young rhino, and she was like his
Speaker 1: very own child and blah blah blah, and it's very
Speaker 1: anthropomorphized kind of version of this wild animal. And I
Speaker 1: think that holds true with what you're saying. But I'm
Speaker 1: just wondering, do you feel like I feel like what
Speaker 1: we're doing here talking to you is kind of arriving
Speaker 1: at more of the reality of the thing as opposed
Speaker 1: to the fable side. I don't really have a question.
Speaker 1: I was just kind of commenting it's just interesting because
Speaker 1: you know, I initially I was like, Oh, this sea
Speaker 1: captain is such a nice kind man, and I'm sure
Speaker 1: he was, and I'm sure there's some truth to it,
Speaker 1: but he made a lot of money. He made a
Speaker 1: lot of money. And also I bet Clara wasn't as
Speaker 1: down for it as he maybe made her out to me.
Speaker 1: You know, I think up to Clara, she would have probably,
Speaker 1: given the choice, opted to hang with rhinos. Yea, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it's it's not an ideal scenario. I think
Speaker 1: no real like captive situation for a wild animal, especially
Speaker 1: the size of a rhino, is going to be ideal.
Speaker 1: If it's true that she was without her mother. You know,
Speaker 1: now we do kind of have the understanding of how
Speaker 1: to potentially rehabilitate young calves in captivity, but then kind
Speaker 1: of socialize them so they understand how to uh succeed
Speaker 1: out in the wild. But maybe back then they didn't
Speaker 1: understand that as well, so there may not have been
Speaker 1: much of an alternative. Do you think left to her
Speaker 1: own devices, she probably would have like perished like left alone. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she's a if she's a yacht like a calf, it's
Speaker 1: unlikely without her mother she would survive. I guess it
Speaker 1: depends on how young she was. But you know, rhinos
Speaker 1: don't have that many natural predators as adults, but the
Speaker 1: calves certainly can get taken down by tigers and uh,
Speaker 1: and she was I think she was in Indian right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: so like tigers and humans would be her main threats,
Speaker 1: and a tiger could certainly take down a young calf. Well,
Speaker 1: and then I maybe I'll get the kindly sea captain
Speaker 1: a bit of a past, because the alternative probably not
Speaker 1: not a good thing. Yeah. I don't want sea captains
Speaker 1: to get the idea that you should be just like
Speaker 1: taking rhinos out of the wild. Though, Oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: our sea captain audience, Katie, they just they just turned
Speaker 1: on us. They're gonna take this really tough. That also,
Speaker 1: you've lost the coveted sea captain democrats. Yeah. Well, also
Speaker 1: that that goes for any any animal that's similar. Right.
Speaker 1: We we see these, um, these cute sea stories, for instance,
Speaker 1: about a couple in South Africa that has a hippo,
Speaker 1: right that lives in their house. But it's very important
Speaker 1: to remember that as much as we want to anthropomorphize
Speaker 1: these things, these creatures are fundamentally different animals and there's
Speaker 1: not a there's not a really compelling reason to take
Speaker 1: one out of the wild other than conserving the species, right,
Speaker 1: And I think that's that's something that we we hit
Speaker 1: on a lot with these stories. Yeah, no, I completely agree,
Speaker 1: And um, I think this is a really awesome way
Speaker 1: to take this out of that kind of fairytale realm
Speaker 1: and do a little bit of a reality check. So
Speaker 1: thanks again for giving us that, Katie. I have one
Speaker 1: more question. This is purely for my curiosity and probably
Speaker 1: for our listeners as well. Do you yourself have any pets?
Speaker 1: I do? Yeah, so I have a dog named Cookie.
Speaker 1: She's a pretty good girl. It's fantastic. I I just
Speaker 1: I was going on the off chance that you might
Speaker 1: say I actually do have a rhino but but let
Speaker 1: me explain. Um, well, please say a little to Cookie
Speaker 1: for us. Thank you, as as my COO said, thank
Speaker 1: you so much for coming on the show and shedding
Speaker 1: some light on the enigma of rhino intelligence and the life,
Speaker 1: the inner life of animals and captivity. Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1: And this is the thing that you do on the
Speaker 1: regular on your incredible podcast creature feature. Can you tell
Speaker 1: us a little bit about that and where folks can
Speaker 1: find you and it. Yeah. So we talk about human
Speaker 1: behavior and also animal behavior and sort of the crossroads
Speaker 1: of these two seemingly different worlds. And I think as
Speaker 1: we have these discussions, we find out that even though
Speaker 1: you can't necessarily completely anthropomorphize the animals, there's a lot
Speaker 1: of interesting crossover and behaviors that you'll find in animals
Speaker 1: that are kind of eerily similar to our own. Uh,
Speaker 1: and we look at it from the perspective of evolutionary
Speaker 1: biology and research and clinical psychology. UM. And so you
Speaker 1: can find us. Our podcast is called Creature Feature and
Speaker 1: it's on iTunes, uh wherever you get your podcasts, and
Speaker 1: also the I Heart Radio app uh. And also you
Speaker 1: could follow us on Twitter at Creature Feet pods. So
Speaker 1: not feet like you know, but feet as an f
Speaker 1: E A t as in a great accomplishment. I want
Speaker 1: to I do wanna, I do want to thank you,
Speaker 1: in particular for an episode that came out in December,
Speaker 1: Extra Sensory Pssception. I appreciate that episode, in particular exploring
Speaker 1: the uncanny ways the animals are able to perceive the world.
Speaker 1: So this this stuff is great. Of course, I and
Speaker 1: probably Noel as well, really enjoy the Dark Tetrat episode.
Speaker 1: Not just because we're on it, no, but it was
Speaker 1: just like it was so cool the way you had
Speaker 1: a song where we really didn't do much legwork ahead
Speaker 1: of time, just kind of came in and we're able
Speaker 1: to have a cool conversation with you about animal psychopaths.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I mean, true crime is the thing now
Speaker 1: and I feel like animals. You gotta get a piece
Speaker 1: of that true crime pie, no question. And don't you
Speaker 1: also run a Twitter account where you like are the
Speaker 1: persona of like of a bird bird rights activists? Okay, yes,
Speaker 1: so I'm allegedly the author of a pro bird rights
Speaker 1: bird rights activists and I am totally a real human
Speaker 1: person and not. I haven't been paid by birds to
Speaker 1: pretend to be well, I totally and I gotta I
Speaker 1: gotta tell you real quick. And I've then knows this.
Speaker 1: Everybody who knows me knows this. I am terrified of birds.
Speaker 1: I don't like their weird, little creepy beady eyes and
Speaker 1: their unpredictable movements, and they absolutely give me the creeps
Speaker 1: and always have. But I think your account is hilarious
Speaker 1: and actually you kind of play into some of the
Speaker 1: things that I find creepy and untrustworthy about birds. App well,
Speaker 1: their direct descendants of the TRX. They're little little tiant
Speaker 1: dinosaurs that must be what does it? And jackdaws corvids
Speaker 1: in general are just brilliant. You can befriend them and
Speaker 1: they'll teach their young. Oh that's a different I would
Speaker 1: I would prefer not to. You can have all the corvids.
Speaker 1: You can have them all. But yeah, thanks again Katie
Speaker 1: for coming on the show. Thanks to our super producer
Speaker 1: Casey Pegram, Thanks to Alex Williams who composed our theme.
Speaker 1: Thanks to our research associate Gabe Katie, thank you again.
Speaker 1: We hope that you have enjoyed this episode. We hope
Speaker 1: that you tune in for our next episode, which is
Speaker 1: going to examine the story of someone who may indeed
Speaker 1: be the highest paid athlete in history. Who is it?
Speaker 1: The answer will surprise you. There are several ways to
Speaker 1: find out. We have a way that we would like
Speaker 1: you to find out, which is to tune into our show.
Speaker 1: In the meantime, you could say hello to the best
Speaker 1: part of our show, your fellow listeners on our Facebook page,
Speaker 1: Ridiculous Historians. Yeah, you can check me out on Instagram
Speaker 1: at Embryonic Insider. I am Ben Boland in a burst
Speaker 1: of creativity. That's the name I chose. On Instagram, you
Speaker 1: can see pictures of my pets and my various weird adventures.
Speaker 1: Did I tell you I'm ending up in Korea again? Yeah? No,
Speaker 1: you wouldn't tell me. You said you had a thing
Speaker 1: you weren't be able to record. It's okay, okay, thanks
Speaker 1: for thanks for the infact, but we'll see you next time. Huxo.