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:

316: Southern Cassowary w/ Marco Wendt! Dec 18, 2025

Show notes

Joined Ellen & special guest wildlife ambassador and care specialist Marco Wendt from the San Diego Zoo Safari Park for a review of the towering birds that are ready to literally rumble: cassowaries. We discuss short kings and feminine rage, a secret bird language humans can’t hear, nature’s best dads, getting a modern dinosaur to be brave for his shots, and so much more.

Links:

Cassowary rumble audio: Marc Anderson, XC337534. Accessible at www.xeno-canto.org/337534.
Learn more about the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance and the San Diego Zoo Safari Park!
Follow Marco on 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

315: Kinkajou Dec 11, 2025

Show notes

Ellen irons out the kinkajous. We discuss Thomas Jefferson's giant moose sidequest, the dessert hypothesis, bad pets, who the real Frankenstein monster is, and so much more.

Links:

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 BlueSky!

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

314: Sarah Suta's Top 3 Dream Comebacks! Dec 04, 2025

Show notes

Join Ellen & host of Bizarre Beasts Sarah Suta for a lineup of some animals she’d like to see get a second chance, whether they’re species we’ve already lost or ones that might still have a shot. We discuss foreign exchange student accents, the ecological impact of the invention of the telegraph, bird call sheet music, the scientific fumble of the century, bison where you least expect them, and so much more.

Links:

Watch Bizarre Beasts and Endlings on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@BizarreBeasts
Follow Bizarre Beasts on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bizarrebeastsshow/
Follow Sarah on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sarah.suta/
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 BlueSky!

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

170: Wild Turkey (REPLAY) Nov 26, 2025

Show notes

In this week's re-broadcast of an episode from November of 2022, Ellen goes on an odyssey through history with the wild turkey. We discuss their path alongside humans for thousands of years, from prehistoric America to praise from Benjamin Franklin, the brink of extinction and nets fired out of cannons.

Further viewing:

Rocket Netting Turkeys, a video demonstration by the LSU AgCenter

Paul Kelly's Gobbling Demonstration

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

313: Turkey Vulture Nov 20, 2025

Show notes

Ellen has a bone to pick with turkey vultures. We discuss aura farming, our gripes with the pH scale, a check-in with our resident Dragon Ball Z correspodent, screaming inside your heart, laser harassment campaigns, and so much more.

Links:

For more information about us & our podcast, head over to our website!
Follow Just the Zoo of Us on BlueSky, Facebook, Instagram & Discord!
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Help support this show and unlock bonus content! Become a member at https://maximumfun.org/joinjustthezoo

312: Common Snapping Turtle w/ Emma Ratway! Nov 13, 2025

Show notes

Join Ellen & special guest from the world of wildlife rehabilitation Emma Ratway for a review of the chompy rogues lurking at the bottom of ponds all over the country: snapping turtles. We discuss working with wildlife and getting to raise and release baby snapping turtles, a jury of one’s deers, a cat named Crunch Wrap Supreme, butt breathing, magnets, simple English wikipedia, eating board game pieces, and so much more.

Links:

Follow Emma on Instagram!
For more information about us & our podcast, head over to our website!
Follow Just the Zoo of Us on BlueSky, Facebook, Instagram & Discord!
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Help support this show and unlock bonus content! Become a member at https://maximumfun.org/joinjustthezoo

311: Cleaner Wrasse Nov 06, 2025

Show notes

Ellen comes clean about the bluestreak cleaner wrasse. We discuss trust, cheating, fish patriarchy, manipulation, deception, game theory, the prisoner's dilemma, marketing, the mirror test, the horrors of self-awareness, and so much more. Christian drinks a Capri-Sun.

Works Cited:

“Testing the Low-density Hypothesis for Reversed Sex Change in Polygynous Fish: Experiments in Labroides dimidiatus” - Tetsuo Kuwamura et al., Scientific Reports, March 2014
“Punishment and partner switching cause cooperative behavior in a cleaning mutualism” - Redouan Bshary & Alexandra Grutter, Biology Letters, July 2005
“Power and temptation cause shifts between exploitation and cooperation in a cleaner wrasse mutualism” - Simon Gingins et al., Proc. Biol. Sci., June 2013
“Male cleaner wrasses adjust punishment of female partners according to the stakes” by Nichola J Raihani et al., Proc. Biol. Sci., June 2011
“Cleaner fish are sensitive to what their partners can and cannot see” - Katherine McAuliffe et al., Communications Biology, Sep 2021
“Biting cleaner fish use altruism to deceive image-scoring client reef fish” by Redouan Bshary et al., Proc. Biol. Sci., Feb 2002
“If a fish can pass the mark test, what are the implications for consciousness and selfawareness testing in animals?” - Masanori Kohda et al., PLOS Biol, Feb 2019
“Further evidence for the capacity of mirror self-recognition in cleaner fish and the significance of ecologically relevant marks” - Masanori Kohda et al., PLOS Biol., Feb 2022
“Cleaner fish recognize self in a mirror via self-face recognition like humans” - Masanori Kohda et al., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Feb 2023
“Cleaner fish with mirror self-recognition capacity precisely realize their body size based on their mental image” - Taiga Kobayashi et al., Scientific Reports, Sep 2024
“The false cleanerfish relies on aggressive mimicry to bite fish fins when benthic foods are scarce in their local habitat” - Misaki Fujisawa et al., Scientific Reports, May 2020

Links:

For more information about us & our podcast, head over to our website!
Follow Just the Zoo of Us on BlueSky, Facebook, Instagram & Discord!
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Help support this show and unlock bonus content! Become a member at https://maximumfun.org/joinjustthezoo

310: Lindsay Nikole’s Top 3 Periods of Life on Earth Oct 30, 2025

Show notes

Join Ellen & special guest, zoology and science communication powerhouse Lindsay Nikole, for a review of some of the animal kingdom’s greatest hits throughout the history of the Earth. We discuss ecological gossip, mass extinctions, the Cambrian explosion and evolution’s “experimental” phase, swimming potatoes with googly eyes, giant bugs, bizarre prehistoric sharks, imaginary friend lore, and so much more.

Links:

Pre-order your copy of Lindsay's book, Epic Earth!
Follow Lindsay on Instagram, YouTube, 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 BlueSky!

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

309: Hairy Frog Oct 24, 2025

Show notes

Ellen gets her claws out for the hairy frog. We discuss what the tooth fairy dispatch system is doing with all those teeth, frog gigging, Wolverine lore, the scariest horror of all: Chytridiomycosis, and so much more.

Links:

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 BlueSky!

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

308: Cara Giaimo's Top 3 Surprises from the Animal Kingdom! Oct 16, 2025

Show notes

Join Ellen & special guest, writer and science journalist Cara Giaimo, for a highlight reel of some of the animal kingdom’s biggest surprises. We discuss Lego trebuchets, the scifi potential of a projectile-based language, endangered relationships, biofluorescence, the great pacific garbage patch’s number 1 fan, and so much more.

Links:

Find Atlas Obscura: Wild Life and Leaving the Ocean Was a Mistake where books are sold!
Follow Cara on BlueSky!
Get updates from Cara's newsletter, What's New in Animals & Plants!
Find more of Cara's work on her website: https://caragiaimo.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 BlueSky!

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

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