Pants on Fire

Liars of the animal kingdom

Hard truth:

A US Presidential candidate can state no less than 162 misstatements, exaggerations and pure lies in a 64-minute press conference (that’s upwards of two per minute) and still somehow remain—rabidly, cultishly, weirdly—adored by half of the population.

Just the other day, NPR followed Donald Trump’s talk at his Mar-a-Lago estate with an intensive fact-checking romp, in which they itemized each and every one of his 162 fibs, white lies and all-out deceptions. Not covering the event verbatim but uncovering. This is the kind of journalism we need, all day long, in every print piece, podcast, screen clip. Not equal airtime for facts vs. not-facts as if both deserve the same space, but calling BS as loud and often and heavily footnoted as possible. (As one recent meme said: reporters should not ask, do you “believe” in global warming as if it’s an article of faith, rather instead challenge, “what are you going to do about it?”). It took an entire team to make this incredible list on NPR happen; who, when so much real journalistic enterprises have shuttered, is even equipped to handle this level of limbo-trick for the next 70-something days and onwards? And does it even make any dent in the willingly deluded?

The earliest association between lying and fire might come from this English naval ballad from 1840. Any connection with pants comes later.

I’ve made the mistake of diving into dangerous debate water with folks of the right from acquaintances to family in the last few weeks. The results: a rueful hang up on my elderly mom, a far weather friend outed as no longer. Even when armed with my data and earnest good will for all, such endeavors inevitably fall into a sinkhole fast. Faced with the intractable insouciance of people who can’t handle the truth (and don’t want to), you may be inclined, like me, to just seek solace with your simpler, sweeter pets and forget Western Civ for a while—at least until Nov. 6.

Soft liars:

Many people say they prefer the company of animals over their own kind, like my elder daughter, who gets more sensitive and longs for softer, furrier comforts the older she gets. But, is there anything alive left to trust? Animals too have some dark deception hiding behind those adorable big eyes—if only innate and survival-inspired.

This little bit on NPR from July 23, asks the question: do animals lie? Indeed they do, and they inspired this week’s essay more than I’d like to credit Trump.

Onto the animal parade:

The anthropologist they talk to here briefly is Barbara King, emerita professor of anthropology at the College of William and Mary, who has also written books and articles including this 2019 piece in Scientific American, “Deception in the Animal Kingdom.”

Deception is so animal-abundant in her article, I’ll list them all and in King’s fine words.

On cuttlefish:

Cuttlefish are masters of such disinformation. Relatives of the octopus, they have the ability to quickly change color, thanks to pigment-containing cells in their skin called chromatophores. Their powers of disguise can make mating a turbulent affair. In 2017 marine biologists led by Justine Allen of Brown University reported that they had observed a male common European cuttlefish approach a female as they scuba-dived in the Aegean Sea off Turkey. The female moved away with apparent indifference. The male camouflaged himself against the background for six minutes, leaving the female seemingly unaware of his continued presence. Then, suddenly, he lunged and grabbed her, and the two mated head to head.

Or, more specifically the Australian mourning cuttlefish:

In an Australian species called the mourning cuttlefish, deception goes beyond camouflage. When a male swims along between a female paramour on the left and a male competitor on the right, he displays two sets of signals containing polar-opposite information. From his left side he issues typical male courtship signals. On his right side, though, he emits the signals typical of a female. To his male competitor, then, this suitor appears to be just another female. Brilliant—and sneaky!

Fork-tailed Drongo bird of Africa’s Kalahari Desert:

A highly vocal bird called the fork-tailed drongo, a resident of the Kalahari Desert in Africa, emits alarm calls on sighting predators. Sometimes this is honest signaling that benefits not only other drongos but also the birds’ neighbors: southern pied babblers and meerkats will dive for safety when they hear the drongo’s calls. But other times drongos do something not as honest, even downright obnoxious. For instance, if a drongo spots a meerkat in possession of a particularly winsome food item such as a plump gecko, the bird may call falsely—in the absence of any predators at all. On hearing the call, the meerkat drops the food and flees to safety. The drongo then scoops up and consumes the gecko.

Closest to humans, the monkeys and apes might be best at this:

Yeroen, a chimpanzee at the Arnhem Zoo in the Netherlands, limped only in the presence of his great rival Nikkie, a fake hobbling apparently meant to gain sympathy. Systematic research on chimpanzees and many kinds of monkeys shows that these primates think up innovative ways to distract and mislead social partners when there is a mating or food prize at stake that they want for themselves.

Unconscious attempts from the “Magnificent” spider:

The magnificent spider of Australia hunts moths at night using a ball of sticky silk termed a bolas. This grandiosely named arachnid is white in color with varied markings across its body. Rather than spinning a web to catch prey, this spider produces a single strand of silk with a bolas at the end and flings the line at nearby moths. Here is the magnificently Machiavellian part: the bolas gives off a pheromone that mimics the scent of a female moth. Lured by the irresistible odor, male moths flutter close and become ensnared in the sticky silk. The spiders may gobble the moths right away or store them for a snack later on. Nothing about the spiders’ deception suggests a thought-out strategy. Instead evolution has promoted the behavior because it benefits their reproductive success.

Even the mere fruit flies:

These insects are not shy about their cannibalistic tendencies—young larvae readily consume older or injured individuals. Yet they rarely slurp up fruit-fly eggs. Ecologist Sunitha Narasimha of the University of Lausanne in Switzerland and her team discovered why. It turns out a pheromone exuded by the fruit-fly mother seals the eggs, preventing telltale odors from leaking out, which in turn masks their identity from the tiny cannibals. It is a nifty way to disguise eggs in plain sight in a species not known for straight-up parental protection.

Cuckoo females:

Among birds, cuckoo females are famous for depositing their eggs into the nests of other females, then fleeing the scene. The nesting mothers are fooled into expending labor to care for offspring not their own. This behavior is widespread far beyond cuckoos. Called conspecific brood parasitism, meaning within-species cheating that deploys an egg as a freeloader in a nest, it is practiced by 200 bird species.

And, wow, brown trout…faking orgasms:

Female brown trout sometimes quiver violently as though they are ready to lay eggs even when they are not. In a 2001 study of this startling behavior, Erik Petersson and Torbjörn Järvi, both then at the National Board of Fisheries in Sweden, called it “false orgasm.” In response, tricked males spew their sperm yet fertilize nothing at all. Why do the females spend this extra energy? They may just be discouraging unwanted males. Intriguingly, though, Petersson and Järvi found that the frequency of false orgasm went up as females neared the time of genuine spawning. So it could also be that females seek—and achieve—release of sperm from multiple males because doing so boosts the vigor of their offspring.

Faking orgasms? Seriously? Now I’ve heard everything and can be done with this list if animals are akin to the saddest content of Pornhub. The moral, because morals still do matter in my rose-hued worldview, is that it is normal and natural to mislead or lie, sometimes unbeknownst to ourselves. If you thought, as the expression goes, lying is human nature, it turns out it’s just animal nature. The difference is when it’s a matter of intention and choice vs. mere mindless genetics. We of supposedly deeper intellect should have our limits and standards when it comes to our fellow primates, and certainly those with aspirations presidential. I think 162 is a good boundary.

I’d sooner vote for the fruit flies, pants optional.