Elephants, for example, will often rub their trunks on other dead elephants.

They may partly be doing that to assimilate the scents from the dead organism to then honor that organism, which also comes in the form of animal culture, right? Many cultures within animal societies mourn their dead.

We talked about this on a recent episode of Outside In, but-

Crows may not necessarily roll around in the dead material of one of their compatriots, but they certainly will circle around their dead compatriot to investigate what may have happened to that animal

Explain that.

Oftentimes when we think about ecosystems, we think about all of the component parts, and one of the most important component parts are these apex predators.

Why? Because these predators, through their movement, through how they interact with prey species and other carnivores, they dictate how animals use space and time.

And that oftentimes means that there's more space for more organisms when those predators are present.

Here's the thing.

When cities pop up, most of those apex predators can't persist in these human-dominated environments, except for organisms like coyotes.

So they have started to move into multiple cities, assume that role of the apex predator, and start to reshape the ecology of cities such that they fill this de facto role that then increases the biodiversity and the flow of other organisms throughout the system.

Chris, if someone were to see a coyote out- out on the- uh, on their walk, should they be afraid?