87: Mating Rituals & True Crime

Just how complicated can animal mating rituals be, and why did they even evolve them at all? And why is true crime Everywhere, and what can we learn from breaking down what makes it feel so icky? Also see Tom's new Game Show in NYC this Sunday! www.OurFindingsShow.com Things we Talk About: Deathwatch Beetle Red-Winged Blackbird House Finch Lesser Florican Video Dance Analysis Video 1 Dance Analysis Video 2 Cruell Step-Dames Carolina Buddies Murder Ballad Timestamps: (00:00:00) Intro (00:04:04) Mating Rituals (01:03:01) True Crime (01:46:08) Outro Support us with a Max Fun Membership! Join our Discord! We also learn about: the adorable death watch beetle, the deep sea “ah fuck it - you’re here” approach, of course the man on the podcast thinks reproduction is easy, why are people on hinge so picky, hermaphrodite sea bunnies, there’s plenty of fish in the sea and the sea is fucking huge, sexual ornaments, peacock feathers made Darwin SICK, sexual ornaments to identify you’re doing it with the right species, you can hang your sexual ornaments all year long for other purposes, finch dating shows, carotenoids from skilled foraging make a brighter pigment is an indicator trait, or just g…