E09: Mike Ryan on A Taste for the Beautiful

Episode Summary:

In this episode, Matthew speaks with Mike Ryan, the Clark Hubbs Regents Professor in Zoology in the Department of Integrative Biology at the University of Texas as well as a senior research associate at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Balboa, Panama.

They focus their conversation around Mike's book, A Taste for the Beautiful. They discuss the túngara frog system in detail, as well as the sensory exploitation hypothesis. After the break they talk about some compelling examples of sexual beauty that span modalities in non-human animals, and close by discussing human and non-human perception of non-sexual beauty.

For more content from this interview with Mike, check out the Supplemental Material bonus episode in your feed.

This week's Two-Minute Takeaway comes from Dr. Emily Bray (@DrEmilyBray), a postdoc at the University of Arizona Canine Cognition Center and Canine Companions. Read the paper that Emily references in the episode here.

Media relevant to today's show:

1.  Read more about the ways in which bats and female frogs respond to variation in male túngara frogs

Akre, K. L., Farris, H. E., Lea, A. M., Page, R. A., & Ryan, M. J. (2011). Signal perception in frogs and bats and the evolution of mating signals. Science, 333(6043), 751-752.

2.  For a deep-dive on the sensory exploitation hypothesis, read Mike's book chapter on the topic

Ryan, M. J. (1990). Sexual selection, sensory systems and sensory exploitation. Oxford surveys in evolutionary biology, 7, 157-195.

3.  Check out the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama 

Credits:

The Animal Behavior Podcast is created by Matthew Zipple (@MatthewZipple) and Amy Strauss (@avstrauss).

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