Terrestrials: The Snow Beast

Radiolab

WNYC Studios

Science, Natural Sciences, History, Society & Culture, Documentary

4.6 • 43.5K Ratings

🗓️ 2 May 2025

⏱️ 32 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Today we bring you a story stranger than fiction. In 2006, paleobiologist Natalia Rybczynski took a helicopter to a remote Arctic island near the North Pole, spending her afternoons scavenging for ancient treasures on the ground. One day, she found something the size of a potato chip. Turns out, it was a three and half million year old chunk of bone. Keep reading if you’re okay with us spoiling the surprise. It’s a camel! Yes, the one we thought only hung out in deserts. Originally from North America, the camel trotted around the globe and went from snow monster to desert superstar. We go on an evolutionary tour of the camel’s body and learn how the same adaptations that help a camel in a desert also helped it in the snow. Plus, Lulu even meets one in the flesh. Special thanks to Latif Nasser for telling us this story. It was originally a TED Talk where he brought out a live camel on stage. Thank you also to Carly Mensch, Juliet Blake, Anna Bechtol, Stone Dow, Natalia Rybczynski and our camel man, Shayne Rigden. If you are in Wisconsin, you can go meet his camels at Rigden Ranch. And follow his delightful TikTok @rigdenranch to see camels in the snow! Terrestrials was created by Lulu Miller with WNYC Studios. This episode was produced by Ana González, Alan Goffinski, Mira Burt-Wintonick, Joe Plourde, Lulu Miller, and Sarah Sandbach, with help from Tanya Chawla and Natalia Ramirez. Fact checking by Anna Pujol-Mazzini. Our advisors this season are Ana Luz Porzecanski, Anil Lewis, Dominique Shabazz, and Liza Demby. Support for Terrestrials also comes from the Simons Foundation, the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations, and the John Templeton Foundation.Signup for our newsletter!! It includes short essays, recommendations, and details about other ways to interact with the show. Sign up (https://radiolab.org/newsletter)! Radiolab is supported by listeners like you. Support Radiolab by becoming a member of The Lab (https://members.radiolab.org/) today. Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @radiolab, and share your thoughts with us by emailing [email protected] support for Radiolab’s science programming is provided by the Simons Foundation and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Listener supported WNYC Studios.
0:09.2	Hello, Latif Nasser.
0:11.2	Hi, Lulu Miller.
0:12.3	This is Radio Lab, and I'm feeling very gloaty because I finally dragged you onto an episode of Terrestrials.
0:19.9	Yeah, that's true.
0:21.2	You told a story you sang, you did the whole thing.
0:26.2	And it's really wonderful.
0:28.7	And it's about a creature that you keep a surprise.
0:33.5	It's one of my favorite creatures on this planet of ours.
0:35.7	I feel like it's a signature you story.
0:38.5	Oh, thank you.
0:39.3	Something you told me about a while ago.
0:42.0	I've never been able to forget.
0:43.8	And it kind of like has the effect of truly turning your sense of nature and the world upside down.
0:52.0	And so we're going to play it here today on Radio Lab.
0:55.1	Because there's a new season of Terrestrials out.
0:57.7	Yes.
0:58.5	And we're sort of in the middle of it.
1:00.3	There are a few already out that you can hear.
1:02.5	It's very exciting.
1:03.6	Yeah.
1:03.9	It's all about the monsters among us.
	...

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