Animal oddities, with jokes and the caveats left in.
Creature Feature is Katie Golden's iHeartRadio show about how animals live, from penguin fathers who adopt abandoned eggs to ants that carry infected nestmates away from the colony. Golden, who studied psychology and evolutionary biology, keeps the jokes coming but stays honest about what the evidence can and cannot confirm.
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Creature Feature is an iHeartRadio production hosted by Katie Golden, who introduces herself as having studied psychology and evolutionary biology and, jokingly, as a host of many parasites. The show is about animals, and its episode titles show how far that reaches. Examples include 'I Just Had a Baby Rerun! Moo Deng! Pesto! Giant Babies!', 'Creature Classic: Evolution's Best Mistakes!' and 'What's Up With Skin?'. The titles are loud, often ending in an exclamation mark. The answers are more careful. The Moo Deng episode shows the show at its best. It greets the internet's favorite baby hippo and Pesto, an enormous, fluffy baby king penguin, with open excitement, and trades jokes about Fantasia's ballet hippos and Dance Moms. It also makes a serious point: a famous zoo animal is still a wild animal, owed respect rather than treatment as a pet, a toy or entertainment. Penguins come back in 'Creaturekringletimes: Chill Babies!', which describes fathers staying with the egg while mothers go off to bulk up and bring food back. It also covers male penguins pairing up to adopt abandoned eggs or chicks, something that has happened at zoos around the world, with Roy and Silo offered as probably the most famous couple. The caution here is typical. The episode notes that the examples it found were in king penguins and declines to confirm the same for emperor penguins, while calling it unsurprising given how closely related they are. 'What's Up With Skin?' brings in Dr. Kaveh Hoda, a medical professional who hosts the House of Pod medical podcast. Its premise is research suggesting humans are remarkably poor at healing wounds, set against an animal whose healing Golden describes as Deadpool-esque and bordering on the grotesque. Along the way the conversation jokes that cooperating and pounding one rock against another may be humanity's main talents. 'Creature Classic: Evolution's Best Mistakes!' goes much further back, to an ancient predator whose front appendages, lined with bristly spines, may have suited soft-bodied prey better than a struggle. Then there are the Listener Questions episodes. In 'Listener Questions: Bugs!!', a listener named Jesse C. asks about ants, cordyceps and bait traps, and the answer weighs slow evolution against learning. In 'Listener Questions: Do Fish Smell Fishy to Fish?', an answer on spotted hyena coats runs through age, nutrition and mites, then admits it found no evidence of a seasonal change, without ruling one out. For insects, start with the Jesse C. question; for the show's blend of silliness and conscience, start with Moo Deng.
Made for: Suits a listener who enjoys animal science told with plenty of jokes but still wants the caveats kept in, from penguin parenting to why human wounds heal so poorly.
What sets it apart: Loud, exclamation-heavy titles lead into careful answers that say plainly when evidence could not be found. The show is also willing to question how people treat famous animals like Moo Deng.
We take a critter’s eye view to explore how animal behavior parallels humans. Join comedians and science-lovers as we get inside the minds of animals
A snowy hyena photo walks in; you get an evidence check before sharing the winter-coat claim.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
Giant baby animals turn internet delight into a funny, humane test of where fascination should stop.
Creature Feature uses oversized animal babies as a quick route into a broader question about attention, affection, and responsibility. Katie Golden and Lydia Bugg move from Mu Dang, the internet-famous hippo, to Pesto, a huge baby king penguin described as taller than the…
A pre-dinosaur animal gets reexamined through its hooks, possible prey, and the limits of fossil reconstruction.
Creature Feature treats a pre-dinosaur animal as a useful reminder that dramatic reconstructions can move faster than the evidence behind them.
A playful winter look at penguin devotion, unusual family bonds, and the evidence around them.
Creature Feature turns winter survival into a surprisingly tender study of childcare, tracing how animal parents keep their young warm, fed, and protected when conditions get harsh.
Katie Golden moves from fish senses to hyena coats while keeping plausible ideas distinct from evidence.
Creature Feature starts with listener questions about smell underwater: how fish use it, and how sharks can pick up blood in the water. Katie Golden, host of Many Parasites, brings a background in psychology and evolutionary biology to questions about animal behavior, biology,…
Creature Feature moves from compound eyes to cordyceps, ant bait, and the strange role of living larders in colony life.
Creature Feature uses listener questions as a quick, curious route into insect perception and colony defense. Katie Golden begins with how bugs see, including the strange possibilities of compound eyes, then moves toward cordyceps, ants, and human bait traps.
Science education between theory and classroom reality.
This episode explores why humans are bad at wound healing compared to other animals, featuring a medical professional guest.
A Valentine's Day episode promoting podcasts about a con artist and financial literacy.
A horror audio drama about a creature that collects missing body parts.
Katie Golden and a co-host discuss the lips of extinct and living animals, including the recent scientific consensus that T-Rex had lips.
Creature Feature focuses on Mudang the juvenile pygmy hippo in Thailand and Pesto the oversized King penguin at Sea Life Melbourne Aquarium.
Creature Feature’s “Creature Classic: Evolution's Best Mistakes!” focuses on pre-dinosaur animals, with Katie Golden joined by paleontologist and science communicator Dane Pavitt.
Katie Golden opens Creature Feature by saying she studied psychology and evolutionary biology, then explains that the episode on "chill babies" is about how animals keep young warm and fed in cold environments.
Katie Golden opens Creature Feature with JT’s question, "Do fish smell fishy to fish?" and explains how water carries molecules to fish nostrils, gills, and other receptors.
Creature Feature’s "Listener Questions: Bugs!!" has Katie Golden answering insect questions using evolutionary biology and psychology, including dragonfly vision, ant bait, and insect farming.
Katie Golden and naturalist Heather Montgomery use puppy poop, ant colonies, and turkey vultures to explain animal defenses against disease.
Katie Golden and Will Pool compare Fallout creatures with real animals, including cockroaches that tolerate up to 6,000 rads and parasitoid wasps that tolerate nearly 160,000.
Katie Golden and comedian Kimia examine spectral bats that hunt birds, rodents, and other bats with skull-crushing bites.
Host Katie Golden and Dr.