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Terrestrials

Terrestrials

WNYC 62 Episodes Aug 20, 2026

Terrestrials is a family-friendly podcast that explores the wonders of nature, hosted by Lulu Miller. Every other week, listeners are taken on a nature walk to discover surprising behaviors of plants and animals, such as squirrels that can regrow their brains and octopuses that outsmart humans. The podcast features original songs by Alan Goffinski and selects the best Radiolab episodes about nature. It aims to transport audiences into the beyond-human world, from oceans to forests, with vivid storytelling.

Episodes

Celestials: A Bedtime Snail Story Experiment
Celestials: A Bedtime Snail Story Experiment Aug 20, 2026 00:14:04 Meet François Tranquille. He's a snail. He's French. And this is the first episode of a little experiment we're calling Celestials: Bedtime Stories from Terrestrials. Restful tales, bedtime meditations, and the occasional lullaby, designed to help you drift off to sleep. Like Terrestrials, it's about a creature here on Earth. Unlike Terrestrials, it wanders away from the world of facts, towards so
The Fuzzy Ruckus: The Power of Lichen (Replay)
The Fuzzy Ruckus: The Power of Lichen (Replay) Aug 13, 2026 00:28:49 Artist Ashley (Ash) Eliza Williams was so shy growing up that they found it hard to speak to people.  Instead, they withdrew from the world of humans and found comfort in the forest, where they spent hours exploring, scavenging, and collecting — eventually discovering lichen. They began painting portraits of lichen’s wild, colorful, and fuzzy shapes. In time, Ash learned that lichen is actually a
The Jimothy: Seattle Raccoon Steals Hearts
The Jimothy: Seattle Raccoon Steals Hearts Aug 6, 2026 00:29:33 If you’ve been on the internet recently, you might’ve heard of Jimothy—a raccoon from Seattle who went viral. Jimothy t-shirts, murals, tattoos, and tribute songs popped up across the country. We wanted to understand why this raccoon had captured so many hearts, so we spoke to one of the first people who spotted him: Ben Trammell. One night in Seattle, Ben was watching a raccoon family walk along
Dung Beetles from Just the Zoo of Us
Dung Beetles from Just the Zoo of Us Jul 30, 2026 00:34:35 It’s summer break! So, while Terrestrials takes a summer breather,, we’re bringing you a show that we really love. It’s called Just the Zoo of Us, and it’s produced by Ellen and Christian Weatherford, a married couple with a shared love of telling stories about this wonderful planet!In every episode, they rate a different animal on three qualities - effectiveness, ingenuity, and aesthetics. In thi
The Charmer: King Cobras' FANGtastic Powers
The Charmer: King Cobras' FANGtastic Powers Jul 16, 2026 00:35:31 Lulu has been terrified of snakes all her life. But strangely, her oldest son  has been obsessed with them since he was two. So to understand his fascination, she called a snake expert who might also be one of the least afraid people on Earth: Gowri Shankar Pogiri.  As a kid in Bangalore, India, Gowri was his neighborhood's resident snake-catcher — wrangling seven-foot snakes and motorcycling into
The Travelers Update: A Moon Tree Grows in New York
The Travelers Update: A Moon Tree Grows in New York Jul 2, 2026 00:40:28 The director of horticulture at Madison Square Park, Stephanie Lucas, spends her days caring for over 300 trees in the heart of New York City. One day in 2022, she saw a callout from NASA giving away seeds that had traveled to the moon. This would be the crown jewel of the park! She and her team worked hard on their application, submitted it, and then waited for two years. Eventually they gave up.
The DADventure: Wild Animal Dads from Owl Monkeys to Seahorses
The DADventure: Wild Animal Dads from Owl Monkeys to Seahorses Jun 18, 2026 00:33:45 What does it really mean to be a dad? In the animal world, fathers have long been painted as aggressive or absent. At best providers and protectors, but certainly not caregivers. And yet for every tale of a lion or chimp dad eating its own young (yikes!), there’s another creature who tells a sweeter story.  Two HUMAN dads bring us on this DADventure: Dr. Eduardo Fernandez-Duque, who has spent deca
BIG CATS 2: Leopards & Jaguars (2 Fast, 2 FURious)
BIG CATS 2: Leopards & Jaguars (2 Fast, 2 FURious) Jun 4, 2026 00:30:30 We're back with PURR-T TWO of our big cats journey, and this time, we’re heading even deeper into the cat-iverse.  We travel to India, where conservationist Shatrunjay Pratap Singh introduces us to leopards that live among shepherds and ancient temples. Then we head to Colombia, where biologist Laura Lisbeth Jaimes Rodriguez helps us track one of the most mysterious cats on Earth: the jaguar. We m
BIG CATS: Lions, Tigers & Roars (Oh My!)
BIG CATS: Lions, Tigers & Roars (Oh My!) May 21, 2026 00:25:20 Big cats are our most requested animal, but Lulu doesn’t really want to make an episode about them! . She thinks lions, tigers, and their feline cousins are the bullies of the animal kingdom. So Songbud Alan and Producerbud Ana set out to change her mind.  We head to the Bronx Zoo where big cat expert Luke Hunter introduces us to tigers that cough up furballs and wrestle crocodiles, and lion pride
The Wicked Smoocha: Anglerfish Break A World Record
The Wicked Smoocha: Anglerfish Break A World Record May 7, 2026 00:34:59 In the depths of the ocean, a tiny male anglerfish catches a scent and follows it through the darkness. Eventually he finds a glowing, toothy female with a bacterial lightbulb on her head. He kisses her… and never lets go. Their bodies permanently fuse, merging bloodstreams, flesh, and digestive tracts. Radiolab correspondent Molly Webster brings us the wild story of this eternal kiss. We dive dee
The Forest Fairy: Aphids Reveal Hidden Harmonies
The Forest Fairy: Aphids Reveal Hidden Harmonies Apr 23, 2026 00:31:57 Amy Ray (whose music you might know from the Indigo Girls) was on a walk in the Georgia woods with her dogs when she passed a tree branch and saw hundreds of tiny, white, fluffy creatures doing a synchronized stadium wave. She was mesmerized.  Turns out, she was looking at woolly aphids - small, defenseless bugs who have somehow figured out how to survive everything the forest throws at them. Resi
The Greeting: Yo-Yo Ma's Humpback Whale Experiment
The Greeting: Yo-Yo Ma's Humpback Whale Experiment Apr 9, 2026 00:39:56 As one of the most famous cellists of all time, Yo-Yo Ma has spent a lot of time playing music inside. But a few years ago, he decided to take the cello out of the fancy concert halls and into nature, bringing our very own Producerbud Ana along for the ride!  That brings us to humpback whales. Like Yo-Yo, humpbacks are musical. They communicate through melodies, clicks, grunts, whispers, and bello

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