Whether it’s Easter or paying $9 per dozen, eggs are in the news. But what do we really know about these delicious breakfast orbs? How did they evolve? Why do they exist? Which came first: the chicken or the egg?

The more we thought about it, the more we realized that eggs are weird. Really weird. Think about it, most animals lay SOME kind of egg. Why did they all decide to go with that? Did they have a meeting about it? If so, why weren’t mammals invited?

To find out, we interviewed Dr. Ashley Ferguson, a palaeontologist who specializes in dinosaur nests and studies the evolution of eggs. Dr. Ferguson knows more about eggs than a breakfast chef and we were so lucky she was available to answer all our weird egg questions.

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We all want to live good, long lives, but it’s not just about diet and exercise. Some animals simply live longer than others. It’s just how things are: cats live longer than mice, humans live longer than deer, bears live longer than salmon.

But why? And how? And most importnatly, could I you live forever?

People have spent their entire careers trying to answer these seemingly simple questions. We don’t have all the answers yet, but the ones we do have go right to the heart of life itself.

In this episode, we interview Dr. Pierre Blier, a researcher at Université du Québec à Rimouski who studies the evolution of animal energy metabolism, mitochondria, and aging. Dr. Blier has spent most of his career trying to untangle the knot of how and why aging happens. With over 200 published papers, his work has been fundamental to our understanding. Very few people on Earth understand aging as well as him.

Also, he knows a lot about one specific kind of clam.

Want to know more? Then listen now!

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Poop is a part of life. Animals, plants, and even bacteria need to eliminate waste to survive. But what about the animals that eat poop to survive? Why would nature make them do something so gross? And, most importantly…

Do animals actually enjoy eating poo?

At Frick, we’ve been pondering this question for years. It’s a complicated topic, touching on not just the sense of taste, but also on the very nature of how animals see the world. In this episode, we finally get a chance to answer it with the help of a world-renowned expert.

We interviewed Dr. Paul Moore, the head of the Laboratory for Sensory Ecology at Bowling Green State University. Dr. Moore has spent decades studying the intricate relationships between taste, smell, and perception. Nobody knows more about what animals think and feel than Dr. Moore.

And he’s going to talk to us about eating poop.

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Ants build structures. Ants wage war. Ants even do agriculture. But ants also live in large, organized colonies that experience challenges, disagreements, and even natural disasters. This begs the question:

Do ants vote?

Seriously, are humans the only ones to figure this out (kinda)? Do ants have their own form of democracy? Do other animals? Is there an ant George Washington?

We interview Dr. Aaron Fairweather, an entomologist specializing in ants, to find out more about our 20 quadrillion closest friends (that's how many ants there are on earth. Crazy, right?).

Want more nature facts from Aaron? You can find them on Bluesky, X, or email them at fairweaa@uoguelph.ca

And you can follow Frick, I Love Nature on Instagram, YouTube & TikTok. You can follow our nature newsletter here.