Learn about why predators don’t hunt their prey into extinction, then discover the history of crossword puzzles from author Adrienne Raphel!
Learn about why predators don’t hunt their prey into extinction, then discover the history of crossword puzzles from author Adrienne Raphel!
Why Don’t Predators Hunt Their Prey Into Extinction? By Cameron Duke
Additional resources from Adrienne Raphel:
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Find episode transcript here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/why-dont-predators-hunt-their-prey-into-extinction
[MUSIC PLAYING] ASHLEY HAMER: Hi, you're about to get smarter in just a few minutes with Curiosity Daily from Curiosity.com. I'm Ashley Hamer.
NATALIA REAGAN: And I'm Natalia Reagan. Today, you'll learn why predators don't hunt their prey into extinction, then discover the history of crossword puzzles from author Adrienne Raphel.
ASHLEY HAMER: Let's satisfy some curiosity.
NATALIA REAGAN: Human activity has driven many species into extinction. And that trend is only getting worse, which might make you wonder, do any nonhuman species drive other species to extinction? You may be surprised to learn the answer is yes, but the culprits are almost always invasive species. How come invasive predators can hunt native species into extinction, but native predators don't tend to?
In a natural ecosystem, predators and prey evolve together. This is called coevolution, and it works like this. The predator eats its prey, and through natural selection, that prey evolves defenses to the predator. The predators that get around those defenses survive, and the ones that can't, well, don't. This is what you might call an evolutionary arms race.
Through this process, predators often specialize. They evolve traits that help them get around the defenses of only a couple of different species. The monarch butterfly is one example. It's so adapted to the defenses of milkweed that it can't really eat anything else.
If a predator species has specialized in one prey species, it will have a hard time hunting those prey to extinction. Here's why. If the prey population is large and its predator population is small, then all of the predators will eat and have babies, and their population will grow. Eventually, though, they'll overeat the prey. This will bottom out the prey population.
But it won't completely collapse. Instead, hunting will get harder for the predators, and that will make their population shrink. When this happens, the prey animals have fewer predators, and their numbers start increasing. Typically, predator and prey populations oscillate, going through population booms and bust periods.
But even if a predator doesn't specialize in only one type of prey, they don't hunt their prey into extinction either. Take Bears for example. Bears are omnivores that generally hunt the most common prey. It's those basic bears.
[LAUGHTER]
If one becomes scarcer than the other, they'll just move on to whatever's more plentiful. But invasive species are different. They move in with traits that native prey might not have defenses for. And because anything they eat probably already has a naturalized predator, they can eradicate both the prey species and its predator.
So what's the most damaging invasive species? Well, we've mentioned them before-- cats. Feral cats have already caused 63 known extinctions worldwide and have threatened more than 430 other species. The species affected are mostly birds, reptiles, and some small mammals. So for the good of global biodiversity, please keep your furry felines indoors if you can.
ASHLEY HAMER: I've mentioned on this podcast before that it's a benefit to the cats, too, because cats that live inside live longer lives, healthier lives. It's good for everybody.
NATALIA REAGAN: We have to be real that there are predators for the cats out there. Like, my mom's cat is, dare I say, morbidly obese, and there's coyotes in the neighborhood. And I call her Coyote Bait. My mom hates it. But it's true. I'm like, keep her inside because she's an easy target.
ASHLEY HAMER: I could see that.
What do Jon Stewart, Bill Clinton, Yo-Yo Ma, Nancy Pelosi, and Natalie Portman have in common? They all love crossword puzzles. Surprising, right? Crossword puzzles have been part of many people's daily routines for more than 100 years. But have you ever wondered how they were invented? In the turmoil of 2020, it might come as some comfort to know that crossword puzzles got their start in a similarly stressful time, the eve of World War I.
Today's guest is going to tell us the whole story. Adrienne Raphel is the author of the new book Thinking Inside the Box-- Adventures with Crosswords and the Puzzling People Who Can't Live Without Them. And in addition to exploring the fascinating communities and brilliant minds that surround this beloved puzzle, she dives into its fascinating history. We asked her to tell us about it.
ADRIENNE RAPHEL (ON PHONE): So the crossword's got a birthday, which is December 21, 1913. So this editor at the newspaper called the New York World, his editor's name is Arthur Wynne. And he puts together the newspaper's Fun section, so all the games and puzzles and stuff like that. And for the Christmas edition, his higher ups wanted a bigger edition, which is great. But he didn't have anything to fill the extra space. So Arthur Wynne has gone, what can I put in? And he realizes, oh, I could print a blank grid. That would fill a lot of space. That's a great idea. And I could put in clues to that to help people fill in the grid.
And he'd seen puzzles like that before. There's, like, lots of word puzzle-y games, but there hadn't really been anything with a blank grid and clues to fill it in, all printed on the same page. So Arthur Wynne invented it, called it Fun's Word-Cross Puzzle. Eventually, it was a typesetting error. And then it gets renamed as the Cross-Word Puzzle, so crossed wires. But yeah, then it sticks from then on. We've got the crossword.
CODY GOUGH: Is there a standard method of creating a crossword puzzle? What's the secret recipe for even making one of these things?
ADRIENNE RAPHEL (ON PHONE): Such a good question and something I was so curious about when I was researching this, and I tried my hand at it. So to make a really good crossword, it is tricky. It's basically two steps. You've to make the crossword grid. So you have to figure out where your letters are going to go.
And now, in American style crosswords, grids are symmetrical. So you have to figure out where the blank spaces are all going to go so your letters and words all fit each other perfectly. They have to cross each other. There's software that helps you do it now, but that's almost more of a math problem than anything else.
And then you also have to-- once you've got your grid set in place, then step two is cluing the words for that grid, so figuring out, huh, what are my cool answers going to be? So it really is a grid and clues process. And I have such respect for crossword constructors. They're magicians. [CHUCKLES]
CODY GOUGH: I got to ask then, too. What determines the difficulty of a crossword puzzle? It seems like it should be relative or subjective because it's referential, like a Quiz Bowl match or something.
ADRIENNE RAPHEL (ON PHONE): [GIGGLES]
CODY GOUGH: But is there an objective way to determine how hard a crossword puzzle is?
ADRIENNE RAPHEL (ON PHONE): So that really depends on a couple of different things. You can also make a crossword grid more and less difficult depending on how you clue those answers. So I talk about this in the book. But my favorite example is a word like "bacon," where a super easy clue for "bacon" is something like fried pork strips at breakfast. That's like-- you see bacon.
But then a difficult clue for "bacon" is something like strips in a club with a question mark after it. And I know "strips in a club." You're thinking about one thing, but that's actually "strips" as in a noun in a club sandwich. So words can be really straightforwardly clued, or they can be much more difficultly clued. So that's a way to think about a benchmark of how tricky is my crossword puzzle.
CODY GOUGH: So it's making a really good case for people who love puns almost, right, with all the wordplay?
ADRIENNE RAPHEL (ON PHONE): [CHUCKLES] Oh, yeah, there's some great puns out there. And there's some great, just straightforwardly more clever. There's all kinds of wordplays available in the crossword.
ASHLEY HAMER: Adrienne Raphel told us a lot more about word puzzles through the centuries and the differences between British and American crosswords. And you can read all about that and more in her new book, Thinking Inside the Box-- Adventures with Crosswords and the Puzzling People Who Can't Live Without Them. We'll put a link to pick it up in today's show notes.
NATALIA REAGAN: Let's recap today's takeaways.
ASHLEY HAMER: Well, to start, we learned that predators generally don't hunt their prey into extinction, with the exception of invasive species. That's because coevolution allows for checks and balances between predators and prey. But when an invasive species enters the picture, all bets are off. Case in point, outdoor cats and bird populations. Keep your kitties indoors.
NATALIA REAGAN: Yeah. Man, oh, man. And I think of just other invasive species. Cane toads in Australia, which aren't necessarily decimating the population. They're just amplexus, which is their term for doing the sex all the time. Essentially, the continent's being overrun by cane toads, which-- I love cane toads. I love them very much. But they also are poisonous. And if dogs eat them they're screwed.
ASHLEY HAMER: What do you love about cane toads?
NATALIA REAGAN: They're so fricking cute. When I lived in Panama, I had a cane toad that would-- oh, I'd come home from field work, and it would just be sitting next to my shoe. I had running shoes that would be out because we just wouldn't wear shoes inside. And it would just chill by my shoe. And he was my Shoe Toad. And I don't know. I just-- I think I love amphibians, though. I have a big soft spot for frogs and toads and things.
ASHLEY HAMER: Nice. I'm looking at pictures of them right now. They really look like the platonic ideal of a toad.
NATALIA REAGAN: Yeah.
ASHLEY HAMER: When I think of a toad, I think of this.
NATALIA REAGAN: Buboes, they're enduring. That's what they are. I like their resilience. I like their chutzpah--
ASHLEY HAMER: Yes.
NATALIA REAGAN: --their will to live--
ASHLEY HAMER: They just go for it.
NATALIA REAGAN: --their will to want to love my shoe.
ASHLEY HAMER: [GIGGLING]
NATALIA REAGAN: Shoe Toad was my friend. He's more than I can say for a lot of you. Just kidding.
[LAUGHTER]
We also learned that crosswords have only been around since 1913 and were created as a game for a New York publication, notably not The New York Times. There were also strategies for creating a well-laid-out grid and clues, including how much wordplay are in your crossword. We know Cody would love a pun-filled crossword, right?
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah. Oh, he was very into that part of the interview. He's like, wait a minute.
NATALIA REAGAN: [LAUGHS]
ASHLEY HAMER: Does this mean the better you are at puns, the better you are at crosswords? And she's like, yeah! [CHUCKLES]
NATALIA REAGAN: Oh, man. Cody must just kill the Sunday New York Times crossword. I need to ask him.
ASHLEY HAMER: I can neither confirm nor deny. But yeah, we better ask.
NATALIA REAGAN: Not that he has a lot of time on his hands right--
[LAUGHTER]
--now to do the Sunday New York Times crossword--
ASHLEY HAMER: Right.
NATALIA REAGAN: --puzzle. Maybe it'll be something he does with his kid for the rest of his days.
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah. I feel like-- you know what? I have felt guilty about this. We haven't actually told the audience that Cody had his kid. Cody had his kid! [CHUCKLES]
NATALIA REAGAN: He had? Oh, yeah, he had. Yeah.
[LAUGHTER]
ASHLEY HAMER: He had his kid in the beginning of September, a healthy baby boy. Everybody's healthy. Everybody is happy and doing well. And I've gotten a couple of snail mail messages from him, which has been awesome.
NATALIA REAGAN: Aw.
ASHLEY HAMER: But yeah, Cody's doing well, and he's doing fatherhood. It's happening.
NATALIA REAGAN: He did the thing. And we have seen some photos, and we can confirm the child is exceptionally cute and happy.
ASHLEY HAMER: I don't know anything about parenting, but I assume that's a good thing.
NATALIA REAGAN: Yes, the kid looks happy.
ASHLEY HAMER: [GIGGLES]
NATALIA REAGAN: Maybe it's all the crosswords they're doing together. I don't know.
ASHLEY HAMER: Maybe it is.
NATALIA REAGAN: [LAUGHS]
Today's first story was written by Cameron Duke and edited by Ashley Hamer, who's the managing editor for Curiosity Daily.
ASHLEY HAMER: Scriptwriting and editing by Natalia Reagan. Our producer is Cody Gough.
NATALIA REAGAN: Please keep your cats indoors. That means you, Mom. And join us again tomorrow to learn something new in just a few minutes.
ASHLEY HAMER: And until then, stay curious.
[MUSIC PLAYING]