Hey there, friends, and welcome to episode 214 of Just the Zoo of Us. This week, I am joined by a special guest, Bachelor Star-turned science communicator, here to share love and curiosity for the animal world. In this episode, we discuss pigs in their achievements in some surprising endeavors, from digging up truffles and thriving in the wilderness

to playing video games and basking on the beaches of the Bahamas.

Just the Zoo of Us presents pigs with Kendall Long.

Music I'm I'm I'm The I'm I'm Zoo of Us, your favorite animal review podcast. I'm very excited this week to be bringing y'all a new friend. This is Kendall Long. Say hi, Kendall. Hello, everyone. How are you? I'm so excited to be talking to you. Kendall, really quick. What are your pronouns? My pronouns are she, her. Thank you so much. I'm excited to talk about this animal because it's one that is in my heart and in my mind all the time, but I'm really excited to like get into this animal.

But before we get into our animal, let's talk about you.

Kendall, what got you into the work that you do communicating animal science?

I've always had a big passion for animals, documentaries, and all of that growing up.

I constantly would read books on entomology,

zoology, botany. And so it just kind of started as a curiosity. I collected tax term me when I was

younger as well. So I would move like natural history museums and see like all these animals up

close and then find specimens, whether it be like a garage

sales and then take them home and research about them. So I've always been surrounding myself

with animal type things since I was younger. Did you have a favorite piece that you collected?

I have a piece called Pegos Bill and it was a boar's head actually. And it was the first piece of taxidermy I ever got, and I got it at this flea market, and it was super dirty. One of the teeth was missing. A fixer-u-u-upper. Definitely. A lot of my taxidermy is because it's always, like, secondhand. And so, yeah, that was the first piece that I got. And I just remember being so proud because I actually haggled the guy down to like $50. And so yeah, that was the first piece that I got. And I just remember being so proud because I actually

haggled the guy down to like $50. And so that in its own is an accomplishment. I've never in my life had like the confidence to like haggle with anybody on anything. I'm just like that's the price it is. Got it. That's like probably the only thing I've ever been able to haggle down in my entire life. That's your trophy. Yeah, it is. I'm like, because I literally had no other money and that's the only reason why it probably works because he's like, oh yeah, she actually doesn't have more. She's not really haggling. She's just like trying to get this beat up piece of tax toemy that no one else will probably get.

I've always been kind of like neutral towards taxidermy until I also went to like a museum.

It was a biodiversity museum where they had like academic taxidermy where they had like specimens of like extinct animals taxidermine in this museum so that like scientists

could still study them. I thought that was so cool.

It is. You learn so much through going to natural history museums. There's this natural

history museum in Germany that I just went to and they had such an extensive collection and

so many of the things that you see you'll never be able to see in like real life. And when had such an extensive collection and so many of the things that you see, you'll

never be able to see in like real life. And when taxonomy was first brought into people's lives,

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