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Strange Animals Podcast.

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Welcome to Strange Animals

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Podcast. I'm your host,

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Kate Shaw. We've talked about

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mammoths and other ice age megafauna plenty

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of times before, but this week we're

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going to learn something specific and really

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weird about these animals. Although it's more

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accurate to say we're going to learn

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how weird humans are. You

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may have heard this story before

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or something similar to this story.

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A group of scientists in Siberia

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or Alaska have unearthed a mammoth

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carcass that's been frozen in permafrost

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for at least 25,000 years. It's

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in such good shape that the meat looks

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as fresh as a fancy restaurant steak that's

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ready to go on the grill. At

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the end of a long day of

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using pickaxes to dig the mammoth out

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of ground, frozen as solid as rock,

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the scientists are so hungry that when

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someone suggests they actually grill some mammoth

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meat, they all think it's a good

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idea. The meat turns out to

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taste as good as it looks. Everyone

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has a big steak dinner, even the

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camp dogs. And when the expedition ends,

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they not only have a mammoth to

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put on display in their museum, they

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have a great story to tell about

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a meal no human has eaten for

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thousands of years. You

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may even have come across an

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event that inspired this particular story.

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The incredibly well-preserved 44,000-year-old Berezovsky

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mammoth was discovered in Russia in

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1900 and excavated

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in 1901, and

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it's now on display in the

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Zoological Museum in St. Petersburg. Rumors

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persisted for years that the expedition

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members ate some of the mammoth

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meat. But while we don't know

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exactly what happened, definitely no one

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actually sat down to have a

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yummy meal of mammoth steak. It

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turns out that the meat did look

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appetizing. when thawed, but stank

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like old roadkill. The

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expedition erected a big tent over

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the dig site as they excavated

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the carcass, which was a slow

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process in 1901, and the smell

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became so bad that the expedition

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members had to take frequent breaks

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and leave the tent for fresh

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air. Apparently, the scientists got

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drunk one night and dared each other

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to try a bite of the meat,

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but even after they practically covered it

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in pepper to disguise the taste,

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no one could force any down.

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One man might have managed to eat

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a single bite, but reports vary. They

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fed the meat to the camp dogs

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instead, who were just fine. Dogs

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and wolves have short, fast digestive

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tracts, and can tolerate eating foods

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that would make humans very sick.

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But that's not the only story

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of modern humans eating meat from

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frozen mammoth carcasses. It supposedly

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happened on January 13, 1951, at the

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Roosevelt Hotel's Grand Ballroom in

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New York City. A group

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called the Explorers Club met for

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their annual fancy dinner that evening,

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and as always, the menu contained

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lots of exotic foods. The

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main course has gone down in history

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as being slices of mammoth meat from

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a 250,000-year-old carcass

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found in Alaska. That's

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where things get confusing, though,

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because supposedly the main course

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was megatherium meat found in

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Alaska. Megatherium

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was a giant ground sloth that

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hasn't ever been found frozen in

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permafrost at all, certainly not in

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Alaska. It lived in South

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America. However, the Christian

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Science Monitor magazine thought megatherium

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was another word for mammoth,

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and reported that the group was served

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mammoth meat. Some of

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the Explorers Club members genuinely thought

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they were dining on megatherium. Some

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may have thought it was mammoth. The

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club's press release just said

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prehistoric meat, which doesn't sound

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very appetizing. An

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Explorer's Club member who couldn't attend

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the dinner asked that his

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portion be saved for him in

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a bottle of formaldehyde that he

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provided. This was done and

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the promoter himself, Wendell Phillips Dodge,

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better known as Mae West's one-time

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film agent, filled out the

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supplied specimen card as Megatherium Meat.

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The club member put his bottled

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meat on display at the Bruce

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Museum in Greenwich, Connecticut, where he

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worked. There, the bottle stayed

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until 2001, when

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it ended up at the Yale

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Peabody Museum of Natural History. In

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2014, a couple of Yale students

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ran DNA tests on the meat.

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As you may have already guessed, the

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meat wasn't from a mammoth or

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a giant ground sloth. It's

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meat from the decidedly not extinct

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Green Sea Turtle, although the Green

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Sea Turtle is endangered and protected

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these days, so don't eat it.

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Since Green Sea Turtle soup was

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also served at the meal, it's

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probable that the leftover turtle meat

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was called Megatherium Meat as a

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sort of joke. Dodge even

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published a statement after the dinner

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that he'd discovered how to turn

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Green Sea Turtle into giant sloth

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meat. But by then, the story

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of mammoth meat being served at the

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dinner had already passed into history. But

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while we don't know if anyone in

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modern times has eaten frozen mammoth meat,

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we do know for certain that a

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group of scientists did eat the meat

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of a mummified step bison that died

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around 36,000 years ago. The bison was

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discovered in 1979 in Alaska and was

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nicknamed Blue Babe, both

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from the folk tales of the

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giant lumberjack Paul Bunyan and his

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pet, Babe the Blue Ox, and

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because the mummy was coated in

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crystals of Vivianite, which which turns

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blue when exposed to oxygen. Eventually,

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Blue Babe was taxidermied and

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put on display in the

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University of Alaska Museum at

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Fairbanks. At some point,

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the team in charge of the

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specimen decided to try some of

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its meat in a stew, which

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from all accounts turned out okay

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and didn't make anyone sick. The

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scientists examined the meat carefully before

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deciding to cook and eat it,

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and decided that it was basically

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freezer burned but not actually rotten.

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Dale Guthrie was part of the

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Blue Babe excavation team. I'll

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quote the relevant paragraph from page 29

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of her booklet Blue Babe. The viewer

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in Kureten mentioned in the quote is

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the man who helped preserve the mummy,

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and he was also the guy who

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interviewed one of the Russian scientists who

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tried to eat mammoth meat with pepper.

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To celebrate Iric's work and the

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new Blue Babe, we decided to

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cook a bison stew. A

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marvelous bit of luck had brought Bjorn

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Kureten to Fairbanks for guest lectures, and

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we invited other friends who were game

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enough to try the stew. Spring

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was underway. With a good

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burgundy to brave the rather muddy

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tone of the dish, we toasted

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the past and present in the

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long evening twilight, a taste of

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the Pleistocene with friends who shared

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and added to it with their

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talents and imagination. It was

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a special evening." Guthrie

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reported that the meat wasn't very

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good, but that anything is edible

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if you use enough onions. In

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March of 2023, a company

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that produces lab-grown meat for

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human consumption made a giant

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meatball grown from mammoth DNA.

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They displayed it as a way to

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advertise the possibilities of lab-grown meat, but

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because this particular meat hasn't been tested

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to make sure it's safe for people

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to eat, no one was allowed to

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eat it. But maybe in the future, it's not. In

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the future, you'll be able to order

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a mammoth steak from your local restaurant.

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Let me know what it tastes like. You

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can find Strange Animals

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Podcast at strangeanimalspodcast.blueberry.net. That's

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blueberry without any E's. If

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you have questions, comments,

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or suggestions for future

8:21

episodes, email us at

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[email protected]. We

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also have a Patreon at

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patreon.com/strangeanimalspodcast if you'd like to

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support us for as little

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as $1 a month and

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get monthly bonus episodes. Thanks

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for listening! Oh,

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I almost forgot. I'm going to

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run a promo after this for

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a new podcast called Herbarium of

8:47

the Bizarre and it is so

8:49

good. It is short

8:52

episodes like Strange Animals Podcast, but

8:54

about interesting plants, like one plant

8:56

per episode. Very interesting,

8:59

well-researched, a lot of fun. So

9:02

if you like Strange Animals Podcast, you

9:04

will like the Herbarium of the Bizarre.

9:07

There's also a link in the show notes if you

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want to just click right through and find it at

9:12

the Roosevelt Hotel's grant... Why

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can't I say that? Do

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you like pretty plants? How

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about tasty plants? Are

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good plants plants

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that can kill you? Those are

9:30

my favorites. If

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you're more of a mushroom person, we

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like fungi here too. There

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are botanical marbles all around

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us. Step

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into the Herbarium of the Bizarre and

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let me show you our collection. The

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fact that it looks like eyeballs on blood-red

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stalks may have been a

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warning from Mother Nature too. Botanically speaking,

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there's actually no such thing as a vegetable.

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No one knows why these mushrooms are called that. are

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bleeding. I love apple a day keeps the

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doctor away. Join

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us every Friday to encounter a

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new specimen and don't forget

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to hug a tree today.