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Ten Things I Like About... Podcast

Ten Things I Like About... Podcast

By: Kiersten Gibizov
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 This is a 10 minute, 10 episode podcast about unknown or misunderstood wildlife.Copyright 2022 All rights reserved. Biological Sciences Science
Episodes
  • Aba aba Fish

    Aba aba Fish
    Jul 2 2025
    Summary: What’s an Aba aba? It’s our next unknown creature! Join Kiersten as she introduces us to the Aba aba fish. For my hearing impaired followers, a complete transcript of this podcast follows the show notes on Podbean Show Notes: “Gymnarchus niloticus” Global Biodiversity Information Facility, https://www.gbif.org “Gymnarchus niloticus, Aba aba” Seriously Fish, https://www.seriouslyfish.com “Morphology of Aba Knife Fish (Gymnarchus niloticus) (Cuvier, 1829)”, by S.O. Ayoola and C. E. Abotti. World Journal of Fish and Marine Sciences 2 (5): 354-356, 2010. Music written and performed by Katherine Camp Aba aba Fish Transcript (Piano music plays) Kiersten - This is Ten Things I Like About…a ten minute, ten episode podcast about unknown or misunderstood wildlife. (Piano music stops) Kiersten - Welcome to Ten Things I Like About… This is a podcast about misunderstood or unknown creatures in nature. Some we’ll find right out side our doors and some are continents away but all are fascinating. My name is Kiersten and I have a Master’s Degree in Animal Behavior and did my thesis on the breeding behavior of the Tri-colored bat. I was a zookeeper for many years and have worked with all sorts of animals from Aba Aba fish to tigers to ravens to domesticated dogs and so many more in between. Many of those years were spent in education programs and the most important lesson I learned was that the more information someone has about a particular animal the less they fear them. The less they fear them the more they crave information about them and before you know it you’ve become an advocate for that misunderstood animal. This podcast will focus ten, ten minute episodes on different animals and their amazing characteristics. Please join me on this extraordinary journey, you won’t regret it. Welcome back, listeners! In this new series after summer break, we will be heading back into the water. Don’t worry we will not need a bigger boat! Okay, I had to throw in a reference to Jaws, being that it’s fifty years old this year, and also one of the reasons that an entire generation of people fear sharks. But that is another series all together. This episode is the first in a new series about a fish. The Aba aba fish to be specific. Never heard of it? That’s exactly why I picked it as my next unknown creature. This first thing I like about the Aba aba fish, is the Aba aka fish. We will start off this series with an overview of this wicked cool fish to whet your appetite to learn more. The Aba aba fish, Gymnarchus niloticus, is also known as the African knife fish, Frankish, freshwater rat-tail, or aba fish. It is a long, slender bodied fish with only one fin. The dorsal fin runs from the back of the head to the tip of the tail on the top-side of the body. This is their only fin and the reason they are called knife fish because they kinda look like a knife if you used the head as the handle. Aba aba are typically black to gray to brown on the top half of the body while the underside is a paler color, such as white or beige. They are covered in very small scales that do not stand out making it look like they have smooth skin. Adults can reach a length of five feet or 1.6 meters and weight 42 pounds or 19 kilograms. That’s a pretty big freshwater fish. Classification of the Aba aba is as follows- Kingdom: Animalia Phylum: Chordata Class: Actinopterygii (the ray-finned fish. These are fish that have lightly built fins made of webbings of skin supported by thin bony spines) Order: Osteoglossiformes (this is an order of ray-finned fish known as the bony tongue fish and we will delve into to this in more detail in a future episode) Family: Gymnarchidae Genus: Gymnarchus (meaning naked bum) Species: niloticus (meaning from the River Nile) They are the only fish in the family Gymnarchidae and in the Genus Gymnarchus which makes them special. In the wild the Aba aba is found in the freshwaters of Africa. They live n the lakes and rivers of the Nile, Turkana, Chad, Niger, Volta, Senegal, and Gambia basins. This fish is an obligate air breather which means they need to gulp air form the surface of the water to supplement the oxygen that they get from the water. If they cannot do this, they will suffocate. There are other species of fish that are also obligate air breathers. Typically this adaptation is found in fish that live in waters that are thick with sediment or have seasonal changes that can increase the sediments levels in the water. Gulping air gives the fish a clean source of oxygen. Aba aba are predators hunting for other small fish, crustaceans, aquatic insects, copepods, frogs, and snails. The diet is dictated by the size of the Aba aba but they are carnivores throughout their entire lives. This amazingly cool fish is nocturnal and because they are most active at night they have an adaptation that makes them even cooler. No way, you say! How could they get any...
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    9 mins
  • Screamers: Conservation

    Screamers: Conservation
    May 14 2025
    Summary: Are Screamers in need of conservation? Join Kiersten to find out! For my hearing impaired followers, a complete transcript of this podcast follows the show notes on Podbean Show Notes: Screamers: https://animaldiversity.org Data Zone by Bird Life: https://datazone.birdlife.org IUCN Red List: https://www.iucnredlist.org American Bird Conservancy: https://abcbirds.org/bird/southern-screamer/ Asociacion Armonia: https://armoniabolivia.org Music written and performed by Katherine Camp Transcript (Piano music plays) Kiersten - This is Ten Things I Like About…a ten minute, ten episode podcast about unknown or misunderstood wildlife. (Piano music stops) Welcome to Ten Things I Like About… I’m Kiersten, your host, and this is a podcast about misunderstood or unknown creatures in nature. Some we’ll find right out side our doors and some are continents away but all are fascinating. This podcast will focus ten, ten minute episodes on different animals and their amazing characteristics. Please join me on this extraordinary journey, you won’t regret it. This is the final episode of Screamers and we’ll be talking about conservation. Like everything else with Screamers this episode will have a few twists. The tenth thing I like about Screamers is conservation. Each species has a story of it’s own, so we’ll take them one by one. Let’s start off with the Southern Screamer. Southern Screamer, Chauna torquata, also known as the Crested Screamer is found from the eastern half of Bolivia south into Argentina as far as Buenos Ares Province and east through Paraguay into south western Brazil and Uruguay. The conservation status of the Southern Screamer is listed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources as Least Concern. This means that Southern Screamer population numbers are steady or increasing. Their population trend is listed as stable with adult individuals estimated between 66,700 to 667,000 individuals. The last time this species was assessed was in 2024. This species of Screamer is impacted by habitat loss. As wild lands are drained and deforested to create more land for cattle ranching and farming, Southern Screamers lose vital habitat, but a 27,000 acre reserve created in 2008 by Asociacion Armonia to protect the Blue-throated Macaw had the added bonus of offering protected habitat to the Southern Screamer. Barba Azul Nature Reserve protects 250 species of birds and is an important stop over for migratory shorebirds. If you are interested in seeing the Southern Screamer at the reserve you can book a conservation birding trip through American Bird Conservancy. All fees support the reserve and American Bird Conservancy’s mission for protecting wild spaces for birds. Now there are other things keeping the Southern Screamer protected, this is the twist for this species, ranchers and farmers actually like having Southern Screamer nearby as they are excellent guard birds and raise the alarm when any predators come near. Sometimes people sneak a young Screamer away from the parents and keep them on their property for exactly that reason. Southern Screamers have also been seen eating invasive plants species, such as white clover, which means they are helping their own conservation efforts. The Northern Screamer, Chauna chavaria, also known as the Black-necked Screamer is in a similar situation as the Southern Screamer. This Screamer is found across northern Columbia from the Atrato River and Magdalena River valleys east into the Lake Maracaibo area of Venezuela. They are also under pressure from habitat destruction for ranching and agricultural use. As of the latest surveys in 2023, the Northern Screamer is listed as Least Concern by the IUCN. Their population is stable with 60,000 to 130,000 mature adults. Locally, in Columbia and Venezuela, they are listed as Vulnerable. Conservation efforts in these countries include educational campaigns bringing awareness to Northern Screamers and their importance in the local environment. Several preserves have also been established to help protect the wetland areas that these birds rely upon. Other threats to the Northern Screamer include egg collection by humans for use as food and collection of young for the local pet trade. The last species of Screamer, the Horned Screamer, Anhima cornuta, is found in the Amazonian regions of Venezuela, to the eastern llanos of Columbia, to eastern Bolivia and south-central Brazil. Their latest assessment by the IUCN was in July of 2024 and they are currently listed as Least Concern with a stable mature adult population estimated between 16,700 to 66,700. There are not many conservation efforts in the region specifically aimed at the Horned Screamer, but there are established conservation sites throughout their range to prevent more wetlands from being drained for ranching needs. The subcutaneous air sacs found in all three species of Screamer keep these birds ...
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    8 mins
  • Screamers: Eyes and Beak

    Screamers: Eyes and Beak
    May 7 2025
    Summary: Join Kiersten as she talks about the eyes and beaks of the Screamer. For my hearing impaired followers, a complete transcript of this podcast follows the show notes on Podbean Show Notes: Ornithology 3rd Edition by Frank B. Gill “The evolutionary relationship among beak shape, mechanical advantage, and feeding ecology in modern birds,” by Guillermo Naval, Jen A. Bright, Jesus Marugan-Lobon, and Emily J. Rayfield. Evolution 73-3;422-435, Society for the Study of Evolution. doi:10.1111/evo.13655 “Bird Eye Color: A Rainbow of Variation, a Spectrum of Explanations,” by Eamon C. Corbett, Robb T. Brumfield, and Brant C. Faircloth. Https://doi.org/10.1111/ibi.13276. Music written and performed by Katherine Camp Transcript (Piano music plays) Kiersten - This is Ten Things I Like About…a ten minute, ten episode podcast about unknown or misunderstood wildlife. (Piano music stops) Welcome to Ten Things I Like About… I’m Kiersten, your host, and this is a podcast about misunderstood or unknown creatures in nature. Some we’ll find right out side our doors and some are continents away but all are fascinating. This podcast will focus ten, ten minute episodes on different animals and their amazing characteristics. Please join me on this extraordinary journey, you won’t regret it. This is the penultimate episode of Screamer and the ninth thing I like about this animal is their eyes and beaks. One of the things that is often overlooked in bird is their eye color, so today we will delve into the variations that exist by looking through the eye of the Screamer. Bird beaks, or bills either is correct, also vary extensively through out the avian family. Beak shape often indicates what type of food the birds eats, but like everything else about the Screamer, things are not always as they seem. Bird eye color varies more than anyone expected. Not many researchers have attempted studying this characteristic and the few that have taken up this research topic and finding more questions than answers. Colors ranged form dark black or brown to vivd emerald green, sapphire blue, scarlet and crimson, turquoise, and even white. There is even a bird with pink eyes. It is absolutely amazing the various hues that birds’ eyes contain. Irises can be one color or more than one. The eyes of Rock Pigeons, one of the most disliked birds around the world, are bicolored starting with a ring of yellow on the outside and red/orange close to the pupil. The Satin Bowerbird has eyes with a vibrant blue ring on the edge of eye with an equally vibrant ring of purple next to the pupil. The Three-streaked Tcharga has a ring of light spots that look like stars set in a dark background giving them some of the most unique bird eyes around. Eye color in birds can change as a bird matures, for example Osprey eye color changes from red as juveniles to yellow as adults. Sexual dimorphism is also present in some species of birds meaning the female’s eyes are a different color than the male’s. Seasonal changes in eye color can also happen, for example Brown Pelican eyes change from brown to blue during breeding season. Southern Screamers and Northern Screamers both have brown eyes as adults, while Horned Screamers can have yellow to orange to red eyes as adults. To clarify, I found no research indicating that these birds eye color changes as they age, but I could only find reference to their adult eye color. There are three things that contribute to the color of a bird’s eye, pigments, blood vessels, and structures. These three color options are still being closely studied but certain pigments are responsible for light colors and different pigments are responsible for darker colors. For example, carotenoids are responsible for the orange color of birds in Family Anatidae which includes certain ducks. An increased amount of blood vessels in the eye creates the red eyes of some species. Why do bird have such varied eye color? The short answer is we just don’t know. It could be related to how they find food, where they nest, diurnal versus nocturnal behaviors, communication, or another reason we have not thought of yet. Much more research needs to be done to answer this question, but for now, we can marvel at the extreme variation of bird eye color. Now, let’s take a look at some bird beaks. Just like eye color bird beaks vary tremendously. They can be wide and flat like a duck, tweezer-like similar to a gnatcatcher, chisel-like as the raven’s beak, long and thin like a hummingbirds, and deeply curved like the honeycreeper. These are only a few beak shapes found in the avian world. What a bird eats can impact the shape of its beak. Keeping this idea in mind, let’s look at the Screamer’s beak. Screamers eat leaves, stems, flowers, and roots of aquatic vegetation, so we might assume that their beaks would look at lot like their closer relatives ducks, geese, and swans who also eat similar items. Duck ...
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    9 mins

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