Hello and welcome back to mysteries of science. My name's Dan and I'm the editor of Science and Nature,

the monthly magazine from the team behind the week junior. And I'm Stevie, the deputy editor. This is the

podcast where we investigate strange mysteries and puzzling phenomena that have left scientists scratching

their heads and, despite their best efforts,

remain well and truly unsolved.

Stevie, I've got a question for our listeners today.

Do you know the story of the founding of the ancient city of Rome?

And what does it have in common with the Jungle Book and Tarzan?

What about you, Stevie? Any ideas?

Hmm, I don't know. What do they all have in common?

I'll tell you, well, they're all stories about children who are raised by wild beasts.

Ah, yes, of course. Romulus and Remus, the twins who set up the city of Rome, were raised by a wolf, right?

Yeah, that's right.

And in the creaky old Tarzan story, his mum was an ape.

Well, no, not his birth mum.

Ape was his foster mum and he was raised by apes as well.

Ah, these are all great stories, but Dan, they are all fictional.

Yeah, but what if I told you?

There are also real life stories of children being raised by animals.

And that's our mystery today.

We are going to investigate these tales of so-called feral children

and find out whether or not it would be actually possible to be raised by animals.

...