Two ex-zookeepers, one animal, and a lot of detours.
Fauna and Flora introduce themselves as former zookeepers and take one animal per episode, anything from the kea to the louse, pulling out a handful of facts worth remembering. The rest is detours, swearing and self-mockery, and the pair are the first to admit it.
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Keeper Chat takes one animal per episode and hands it to two people who describe themselves as former zookeepers. Fauna and Flora trade the introduction back and forth. Then they add a disclaimer that nothing they say reflects any organization, past, present or future. After the cue 'let's get grimy', the conversation takes off. Patrons often choose the animal, and supporting the show on Patreon can include the right to pick, along with bonus episodes and a Discord. The pair are candid about how much of each episode is actually about the animal. One intro promises three or four facts and calls the rest nonsense, and elsewhere they joke that the animal gets only a sliver of the airtime. When the facts come, they are specific and often odd. Female lice glue their eggs to the hair shaft with a secretion that hardens into a sheath, leaving an opening for the egg to breathe, and in hot tropical climates those eggs can sit as far as six inches down the hair. The crested coua of Madagascar is a weak flier with no fear of heights, and it has a third toe that flips around to help it grip in the canopy. Males and females look alike, while juveniles are paler, with a smaller crest and none of the turquoise around the eye. Kea no longer live on New Zealand's North Island, and the hosts link the bird's range to humans and to where mammalian predators live. Emperor tamarins live in groups run by a dominant female and her mate, and they form mixed foraging troops with another tamarin species, which the hosts act out as a trip to the mall. Between the facts, almost anything can come up. The pygmy falcon episode falls during National Zookeeper Week and veers into a muddle over how big the shark in 'The Meg' is supposed to be. The kea conversation stalls on the hosts' confusion about New Zealand's islands and where Papua New Guinea sits. They mock themselves constantly, from admitting they were never experts to joking about waking up dumber every day. The language is strong throughout, and some jokes turn crude and sexual. Sign-offs include the Patreon pitch, a pledge to give five dollars to a conservation group chosen by a patron for each rating and review, and the farewell 'smell you later'. In '213: Pigeon', the hosts tell listeners the show is ending and thank everyone who wrote in during their break. They also say the back catalog will stay up on podcast platforms.
Made for: Suits a listener who wants a few memorable, oddball animal facts per episode and doesn't mind frequent detours, blunt humor and plenty of swearing along the way.
What sets it apart: Two self-described former zookeepers let patrons pick the animal and openly joke about how little time they spend on it. The biology is specific and often strange, and it comes surrounded by self-mockery and crude jokes rather than a lecture.
Two zookeepers talk weird animals. Informative, irreverent, and sometimes funny. Learn about animals in a way you never have before, with all the dirty details from two people who aren't afraid to call animals out on their junk.
A capybara getting scritches turns into a capy cloud, and suddenly your animal trivia has texture.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A warm, funny farewell that keeps the work, weariness, and familiar banter in view.
Keeper Chat turns an 11-month absence into a goodbye for a long-running animal podcast, with Fauna and Flora looking back on roughly 325 to 350 episodes, bonus installments included.
A tiny raptor anchors a casual keeper chat about sexual dimorphism, workplace jokes, and one megalodon-sized detour.
Fauna and Flora build a loose, affectionate animal chat around a very small, cute raptor, using it to point listeners toward visible animal detail.
A sharp, funny look at kea surviving in New Zealand's alpine country.
Kea follows a parrot into terrain that still feels unlikely: mountains, snow, and the exposed country above the tree line. Flora and Fauna tie the bird's range to people and mammalian predators, then shape a portrait of a social, high-country species that can gather in groups of…
Emperor tamarins turn mixed-species foraging into a lively look at hierarchy, speed, and opportunistic food scouting.
Emperor tamarins make social rank feel surprisingly practical, pairing up with Waddell's saddleback tamarins in mixed-species foraging groups and profiting when their smaller, quicker companions reach food first.
Lice biology turns grimly memorable when sticky facts meet Flora and Fauna's loose comic chemistry.
Keeper Chat's "Louse" turns head lice into a surprisingly sticky little biology lesson, following how eggs fasten near the scalp and how the nit sheath can linger after the live insects are gone.
Steven Novella and a rotating panel dissect weekly science news and debunk pseudoscience claims.
Two former zookeepers discuss animal biology with irreverent humor and personal anecdotes.
Two former zookeepers chat about their day and animals with humor and irreverence.
Fauna and Flora announce that Keeper Chat is ending after roughly five to six years and an 11-month absence.
["Keeper Chat's pygmy falcon episode centers on the African pygmy falcon, which Fauna and Flora call the smallest raptor in Africa and compare to a sharpened pencil.
Keeper Chat's "Kea" episode centers on Nestor notabilis, a New Zealand parrot the hosts describe as eating, hunting, and attacking sheep.
Keeper Chat episode 210 centers on the emperor tamarin, a 500-gram South American monkey with a mustache-like face fringe and a 35- to 42-centimeter tail.
Keeper Chat's Flora and Fauna spend this episode on head lice after a Patreon member, Al, picked the topic.
Keeper Chat hosts Fauna and Flora examine the crested coua, a medium-sized cuckoo-family bird found across Madagascar's tree and shrub habitats.
Keeper Chat episode 207, “Crocodile Monitor,” examines Varanus salvadorii, a New Guinea monitor that Flora and Fauna describe as one of the world's longest lizards.
Keeper Chat episode 206 examines the crabeater seal, a species that eats krill rather than crabs and lives primarily around Antarctic pack ice.
Keeper Chat hosts Flora and Fauna revisit the flamboyant cuttlefish after Bradley suggests an animal previously covered in episode 30.
Keeper Chat hosts Fauna and Flora examine pangolins, focusing on the tree pangolin and its keratin scales, toothless mouth, and pelvis-anchored tongue.
Keeper Chat hosts Flora and Fauna examine lobster anatomy, including the decapod classification that gives the animal ten legs because its front pincers count as legs.
Keeper Chat episode 202, “Capybara,” combines a detailed discussion of the world’s largest living rodent with explicit horror-film commentary and dentist jokes.
Keeper Chat's Flora and Fauna examine African buffalo taxonomy, including four to five subspecies ranging from the large Cape buffalo to the smaller forest buffalo.
Keeper Chat hosts Fauna and Flora, both former zookeepers, explain how Arctic foxes survive tundra conditions through seasonal coats, compact body proportions, dense fur, and heat-conserving behavior.
Keeper Chat hosts Flora and Fauna examine the echidna, one of only two living mammals that lay eggs and one of four living echidna species.
Keeper Chat hosts Fauna and Flora examine the American woodcock, a 10-to-12-inch shorebird found across eastern North America.
Keeper Chat's Flora and Fauna examine Spirobranchus giganteus, a roughly 1.5-inch tube-building polychaete commonly called the Christmas tree worm.
Keeper Chat episode 196, “Dik-Dik,” follows former zookeepers Fauna and Flora as they explain the four species of small African antelope.
Keeper Chat hosts Flora and Fauna examine the Arkansas darter, a roughly six-centimeter ray-finned fish with olive-brown coloring, dark stripes, and males that develop bright orange bellies during breeding season.
Fauna and Flora of Keeper Chat answer an anonymous listener asking how animal-care staff can advocate for animals, document quality of life, and decide when to bypass management.
Keeper Chat hosts Flora and Fauna examine the vampire deer, a small water deer whose males grow upper canine teeth averaging about 5.5 centimeters.
Keeper Chat episode 193 examines skeleton shrimp, caprilid amphipods that can reach 1.5 inches and have 18 appendages.
Keeper Chat hosts Flora and Fauna, both former zookeepers, examine the eastern screech owl after Morgan suggested it as a possible memorial for “Lil Bud.” They give measurements of 16–25 centimeters in length, 121–244 grams in weight, and a 46–61-centimeter wingspan.
Fauna and Flora answer a listener’s question about how zoos reproduce wild-animal diets when ingredients such as an Amazonian beetle are unavailable.
Two former zookeepers introduce their weekly animal podcast, starting with a playful G-themed word game and birthday banter.
Two former zookeepers humorously discuss animal biology and their personal lives.