Nature

Just the Zoo of Us

Join us, Ellen and Christian Weatherford, while we review your favorite species of animals and rate them out of ten in the categories of effectiveness, ingenuity and aesthetics.
More information can be found at justthezooofus.com 😊
Got a species you want us to review? Submit your animal friend to us at ellen@justthezooofus.com and when we review your animal we’ll give you a shoutout! 😊
Cover art by Mrs. Brainbow (Taylor Gordon-Wood). Theme music by Louie Zong.

Latest Episodes:

Bonus Content Free Samples! (2026) Apr 30, 2026

Show notes

Curious about the exclusive bonus content for Maximum Fun members? Enjoy some free samples from special episodes: "All Fun and Games with Isaac," "Just the Two of Us," and Let's Learn Everything's "Frogs! II A Royal Rescue"

If you like what you hear, head over to https://maximumfun.org/join and sign up to get access to the entire bonus content library and SO much more!

Help support this show and unlock bonus content! Become a member at https://maximumfun.org/joinjustthezoo

334: Animals in Space w/ Let's Learn Everything! Apr 29, 2026

Show notes

Ellen & special guests, Ella Hubber and Tom Lum of Let’s Learn Everything, turn our gazes to the skies and talk animals in space. We discuss the fruit fly fan club, the great big farm on the moon, which earthlings were ACTUALLY the first to make the trip around the moon and back, a spider escape where you least want it, why dentistry researchers had a snake room, shooting tardigrades out of a gun, and so much more. This one is truly out of this world.

Works Cited & Further Reading:

"Bioastronautics Research" video
"This New Ocean: A History of Project Mercury" - Loyd S. Swenson, Jr., James M. Grimwood, Charles C. Alexander, NASA SP-4201
"Judith's Web - Student Experiment Aboard Skylab 3" - NASA.gov
“URODELEAN AMPHIBIANS IN STUDIES ON MICROGRAVITY: EFFECTS UPON ORGAN AND TISSUE REGENERATION” - E.N. Grigoryan et al., Adv. Space Res, 2002
"From Undersea to Outer Space: The STS-40 Jellyfish Experiment" - NASA STI Program
"For water bears, the glass is all full" - Tina Hesman Saey, Science News, December 2015
"Tardigrades survive exposure to space in low Earth orbit" - K. Ingemar Jonsson et al., Current Biology, September 2008
"What happened to those tardigrades sent to the Moon?" - Laurent Palka, The Conversation, February 2024
"Tardigrade Survival Limits in High-Speed Impacts—Implications for Panspermia and Collection of Samples from Plumes Emitted by Ice Worlds" - Alejandra Traspas & Mark J. Burchell, Astrobiology, July 2021

Links:

Support our shows with your membership during the MaxFunDrive!
Check out Let's Learn Everything!
For more information about us & our podcast, head over to our website!
Follow Just the Zoo of Us on BlueSky, Facebook, Instagram & Discord!
Follow Ellen on Instagram or BlueSky!

Help support this show and unlock bonus content! Become a member at https://maximumfun.org/joinjustthezoo

333: Great White Shark Apr 23, 2026

Show notes

Ellen jaws away about the great white shark. We discuss making our own planetary rings, performance-enhancing Speedos, how sharks sleep, the White Shark Café, IRL baby shark, and so much more.

Works Cited:

“Shark evolution: a 450 million year timeline” - Josh Davis, Natural History Museum
“SPEEDO FASTSKIN – A HISTORY OF THE WORLD’S FASTEST SWIMSUITS” - SwimSwam.com, November 2023
“White Shark Bite Kinematics — Preliminary Exploration of a New Aspect” - R. Aidan Martin, ReefQuest Centre for Shark Research
“An electrophysiological correlate of sleep in a shark” - John A. Lesku et al., Journal of Experimental Zoology Part A: Ecological Genetics and Physiology, July 2024
“For five days in 1980, a great white shark named Sandy lived in Golden Gate Park” - Peter Hartlaub, San Francisco Chronicle, June 2024
“The Great White Way” - Pete Thomas, Los Angeles Times, September 2006
“White Shark Café: The mysterious meeting spot for great whites in the middle of the Pacific Ocean” – Sascha Pare, LiveScience, September 2024
“First-ever sighting of a live newborn great white” - Jules Bernstein, UC Riverside, February 2024
“Shark Management Laws” - NOAA Fisheries

Links:

Support our podcast by joining the Maximum Fun network at maximumfun.org/join
For more information about us & our podcast, head over to our website!
Follow Just the Zoo of Us on BlueSky, Facebook, Instagram & Discord!
Follow Ellen on Instagram or BlueSky!

Help support this show and unlock bonus content! Become a member at https://maximumfun.org/joinjustthezoo

Casters on Casters: Teylor Smirl and Ellen Weatherford Apr 20, 2026

Show notes

It's MaxFunDrive. And here, for the first time, we give you an exclusive look (well, listen) at the craft of podcasting: presenting Casters on Casters.

In this episode, Teylor Smirl (Still Buffering) and Ellen Weatherford (Just the Zoo of Us) bond over the media they consumed that shaped who they are today, and how that media informs their perspectives on their shows. Plus, each host reveals their dream guest.

If this glamorous, in-depth journey into what makes your favorite hosts tick inspires you, support them by joining as a member at maximumfun.org/join.

Edited by Laura Swisher and Produced by Hannah Muroz for Maximum Fun.

Help support this show and unlock bonus content! Become a member at https://maximumfun.org/joinjustthezoo

332: Asian Elephants w/ Kartick Satyanarayan! Apr 16, 2026

Show notes

Join Ellen & special guest, co-founder and CEO of conservation organization Wildlife SOS Kartick Satyanarayan, for a review of Asian elephants. We discuss the harm caused by wildlife exploitation, how they protect animals by uplifting human communities, how education can help tourists make more ethical choices, and of course our guest shares some stories of what it’s like living and working alongside these beautiful giants. He’s got feel-good conservation success stories, workplace comedy, an adorable baby elephant, truly what more could you want from a podcast episode?

Links:

Learn more about Wildlife SOS's work on their website!
See Baby Bani and more on Wildlife SOS's YouTube channel!
Learn more about ethical tourism on RefuseToRide.org
For more information about us & our podcast, head over to our website!
Follow Just the Zoo of Us on BlueSky, Facebook, Instagram & Discord!
Follow Ellen on Instagram or BlueSky!

Help support this show and unlock bonus content! Become a member at https://maximumfun.org/joinjustthezoo

331: Jackrabbits Apr 10, 2026

Show notes

Follow Ellen down the jackrabbit hole. We discuss facial tilt, satellite dish ears, evolutionary ghosts of predators past, touchdown dances, jackalopes, Easter, and so much more.

Works Cited:

"A Field Guide to Jackrabbits" - Matthew L. Miller, The Nature Conservancy, Nov 2022
“Ecological correlates to cranial morphology in Leporids (Mammalia, Lagomorpha)” - Brian Kraatz et al., PeerJ, Dec 2014
"Jackrabbit Gets a Touchdown!" - YouTube
“Celebrating Easter, Christmas and their associated alien fauna” – Malene Lauritsen et al., World Archaeology, Oct 2018
“The Shifting Baselines of the British Hare Goddess” - Luke John Murphy & Carly Ameen, Open Archaeology, August 2020
“What Do Eggs Have To Do With Easter?” - Encyclopedia Britannica
"Meet Jack" - City of Douglas, Wyoming's website

Links:

Check out your local MaxFun Meetup Day - Ellen will be at the Seattle meetup!
For more information about us & our podcast, head over to our website!
Follow Just the Zoo of Us on BlueSky, Facebook, Instagram & Discord!
Follow Ellen on Instagram or BlueSky!

Help support this show and unlock bonus content! Become a member at https://maximumfun.org/joinjustthezoo

330: Cryptids w/ the Cryptonaturalist, Jarod K. Anderson! Apr 02, 2026

Show notes

Join Ellen & the Cryptonaturalist (Jarod K. Anderson) to talk about the ways that nature and wildlife can inspire our creativity and shape our stories, particularly the enticingly unknowable cryptids. We discuss being raised by a witch, the natural poetry in scientific facts about starfish, the value of enthusiasm, caked up Mothman and the tragic Squonk, getting emoted on by skunks, the surprisingly complicated history of dandelions, a vulture named Potato, and so much more.

Links:

Learn more about Jarod's work on his website
Find Strange Animals and Jarod's other books on his Bookshop
Follow Jarod as The Cryptonaturalist on Instagram
Follow Jarod on Bluesky or Substack
Check out The CryptoNaturalist Podcast
For more information about us & our podcast, head over to our website!
Follow Just the Zoo of Us on BlueSky, Facebook, Instagram & Discord!
Follow Ellen on Instagram or BlueSky!

Help support this show and unlock bonus content! Become a member at https://maximumfun.org/joinjustthezoo

329: Coelacanth Mar 26, 2026

Show notes

Don't call it a comeback, coelacanth's been here for years. We discuss life on Earth 400 million years ago, a military escort mission, our own fish ancestors, five year pregnancies, underwater handstands, an unnecessarily complicated puzzle in the third generation Pokémon games, and so much more.

Works Cited:

“The Coelacanth” - Knysna Museum
“The Discovery” - UC Museum of Paleontology’s website
“Earliest known coelacanth skull extends the range of anatomically modern coelacanths to the Early Devonian” - Min Zhu et al., Nature Communications, April 2012
“Animated Life: The Living Fossil Fish | HHMI BioInteractive Video”
“The coelacanth rostral organ is a unique low-resolution electro-detector that facilitates the feeding strike” - Rachel M. Berquist et al., Scientific Reports, March 2015
“New scale analyses reveal centenarian African coelacanths” - Kélig Mahé et al., Current Biology, August 2021
“Neurocranial development of the coelacanth and the evolution of the sarcopterygian head” - Hugo Dutel et al., Nature, May 2019
“Buoyancy and hydrostatic balance in a West Indian Ocean coelacanth Latimeria chalumnae” - Henrik Lauridsen et al., BMC Biology, August 2022

Links:

Come hear Ellen talk about dragons LIVE at Nerd Nite Seattle! https://seattle.nerdnite.com/
For more information about us & our podcast, head over to our website!
Follow Just the Zoo of Us on BlueSky, Facebook, Instagram & Discord!
Follow Ellen on Instagram or BlueSky!

Help support this show and unlock bonus content! Become a member at https://maximumfun.org/joinjustthezoo

328: Apollo the African Grey Parrot w/ Dalton Mason! Mar 20, 2026

Show notes

Join Ellen & Dalton Mason, creator and bird parent behind Apollo and Frens, for a look into life alongside the world-famous African grey parrot. You may have seen their videos on social media showing off Apollo’s incredibly impressive vocabulary, answering questions and even speaking in full sentences, which have earned the bird a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records in 2025 - on top of all the pistachios, of course. We discuss animal cognition and what makes parrots such great models for animal intelligence, the brain soup machine, bird-proofing a home, parrots video calling each other, and so much more.

Works Cited:

"Birds have primate-like numbers of neurons in the forebrain" - Seweryn Olkowicz et al., PNAS, June 2016
"Birds of a Feather Video-Flock Together: Design and Evaluation of an Agency-Based Parrot-to-Parrot Video-Calling System for Interspecies Ethical Enrichment" - Rebecca Kleinberger et al., Proceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, April 2023
African Grey Parrot flight calls: Peter Boesman, XC719450. Accessible at www.xeno-canto.org/719450

Links:

Learn more about Apollo and Frens on their website: https://apolloandfrens.com/
Follow Apollo and Frens on YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok!
For more information about us & our podcast, head over to our website!
Follow Just the Zoo of Us on BlueSky, Facebook, Instagram & Discord!
Follow Ellen on Instagram or BlueSky!

Help support this show and unlock bonus content! Become a member at https://maximumfun.org/joinjustthezoo

327: Mandarin Duck Mar 12, 2026

Show notes

Ellen falls in love with the Mandarin duck. We discuss why waterfowl's webbed feet don't freeze in the winter, the evolutionary arms race between male and female ducks, New York City's local celebrity Hot Duck, your new favorite coffee order, and more.

Works Cited: