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Smologies with Alie Ward

FEATHERS with Allison Shultz

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Plumage! Dance battles! Possible holographic disco birds? Natural History Museum of LA ornithology curator Dr. Allison Shultz is a professional plumologist aka feather expert. We visit the museum’s collection of rare specimens and chat about everything from fossilized dinosaur feathers to peacock tails, the fanciest roosters, quill pens, pigments, flight feathers, the blackest…

© Alie Ward Length 25 min 31 July 2025 Age: 6-10 , 11plus Topics: Science , Educational , Nature , Animals Country: USA Type: Episodic

Full episode description

© Alie Ward Length 25 min 31 July 2025 Age: 6-10 , 11plus Topics: Science , Educational , Nature , Animals Country: USA Type: Episodic

Introducing Smologies: The Shorter, Kid-Safe Ologies

Introducing Smologies: The Shorter, Kid-Safe Ologies

This is an episodic podcast, so you can listen to it in any order, but episode one is a great place to start.

Listen to episode one here

Plumage! Dance battles! Possible holographic disco birds? Natural History Museum of LA ornithology curator Dr. Allison Shultz is a professional plumologist aka feather expert. We visit the museum’s collection of rare specimens and chat about everything from fossilized dinosaur feathers to peacock tails, the fanciest roosters, quill pens, pigments, flight feathers, the blackest black birds, and why birdwatching is like seeing tiny purple raccoons zoom overhead. Birds: like Pokemon Go but weirder.

Visit Dr. Allison Shultz’s website and follow her on Bluesky

Full-length (*not* G-rated) Plumology episode + tons of science links

More kid-friendly Smologies episodes!

Become a patron of Ologies for as little as a buck a month

OlogiesMerch.com has hats, shirts, hoodies, totes!

Follow Ologies on Instagram and Bluesky

Follow Alie Ward on Instagram and TikTok

Sound editing by Mercedes Maitland of Maitland Audio Productions, Jarrett Sleeper of MindJam Media, and Steven Ray Morris

Made possible by work from Noel Dilworth, Susan Hale, Jacob Chaffee, Kelly R. Dwyer, Aveline Malek and Erin Talbert

Smologies theme song by Harold Malcolm

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© Alie Ward | 25 min

The content, artwork and advertising within this podcast is not owned or affiliated with Sound Carrot and remain the property of their respective owners.

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