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Butterflies: Caterpillars with Wings! · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, Chuck here, Happy Spring.
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: And of course this is episode number two in our
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: Think Spring Playlist Spring edition because of Spring, and so
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: these are all spring centric because we love spring and
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: you guys today the episode is Butterflies poland Caterpillars with
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: Wings and there's nothing more spring I think we can
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: agree than butterflies.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: So please enjoy cool.
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
• 0:49
  Speaker 3: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's
• 0:52
  Speaker 3: Chuck and Jerry's here too, and this is Stuff you
• 0:54
  Speaker 3: Should Know, Part two of a one two punch of
• 0:58
  Speaker 3: insect goodness.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, caterpillars, hopefully you just listen to. If you didn't,
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: you might want to because it really, you know, without caterpillar,
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: there is no butterfly episode.
• 1:11
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I feel like they could stand on their own, Like,
• 1:13
  Speaker 3: I don't think you have to have listened to one
• 1:15
  Speaker 3: to understand what we're going to talk about here.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: No, no, no, but you know we're probably gonna say
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: when it comes time to talk about how the caterpillar
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: turns into a butterfly, just go back in time to
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: two days ago and listen to that one.
• 1:28
  Speaker 3: Right, we'll be like.
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: And Once again, we have to thank HowStuffWorks dot Com
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: and our former and current colleague Tracy Wilson, as well
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: as our former colleague not current, Jennifer Horton, wrote a
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: fun piece about butterfly gardens that we're going to talk
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: about at the end. But I forgot about Jennifer. You
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: remember her?
• 1:49
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, she was great. She wrote lots of great stuff.
• 1:52
  Speaker 3: She's a good person.
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: So, Jennifer, I don't know if you're out there and listen,
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: but Hi, Hi, it's been a while.
• 1:58
  Speaker 3: Yeah, this is like two thousand and eight or while. Well,
• 2:02
  Speaker 3: So we're talking about butterflies and we should probably kind
• 2:06
  Speaker 3: of pick up not where we left off, because we
• 2:08
  Speaker 3: talked I think about caterpillars being pests at the end,
• 2:11
  Speaker 3: or considered pests, but they're not really. Yeah, we should
• 2:15
  Speaker 3: pick up after the caterpillar emerges from its chrysalis, because
• 2:21
  Speaker 3: we're talking specifically about butterflies. So it's the chrysalis, not
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: a cocoon that it metamorphosizes within, and once it emerges,
• 2:30
  Speaker 3: it is a beautiful creature that resembles the caterpillar that
• 2:35
  Speaker 3: it was almost not at all, but it's the same
• 2:37
  Speaker 3: exact creature. It's got the same mind. It can remember
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: smells and all that. But whereas the caterpillar was built
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: for eating, I think we said it in the last
• 2:45
  Speaker 3: episode too, the butterfly is built for sex, sex, sex.
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they're built for reproducing. Should we talk, I mean,
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: should we go back in time just a little bit
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: and talk about the fact that, like the distinction between
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: moths and butterflies and stuff like that. Sure, well, what's
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: the deal, wasn't it aren't moths and butterflies basically mostly
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: the same except moths are they do their sex at
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: night and butterflies do their sex in the day.
• 3:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, there's there's not many distinctions between them
• 3:21
  Speaker 3: other than like the obvious ones. But that's the biggest one.
• 3:25
  Speaker 3: And the reason why butterflies are diurnal and moths are
• 3:28
  Speaker 3: nocturnal is because all butterflies, I think, what is there
• 3:32
  Speaker 3: like fifteen twenty thousand species of butterflies, A lot of them, Yeah,
• 3:36
  Speaker 3: all of them are descended from moths. And these were
• 3:39
  Speaker 3: just moths that started to do their thing in the
• 3:42
  Speaker 3: daytime rather than the nighttime, and over time they evolved
• 3:46
  Speaker 3: to fit in in the daytime rather than the nighttime,
• 3:50
  Speaker 3: which is how moths evolved, So a moth's camouflage is
• 3:54
  Speaker 3: meant to blend in with like a tree where it's
• 3:57
  Speaker 3: sleeping during the day. Yeah, whereas a butterfly bright colored
• 4:01
  Speaker 3: because it's out in the daytime and it needs to
• 4:03
  Speaker 3: blend in with the big colorful flowers that it likes
• 4:08
  Speaker 3: to hang out on.
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: Do you know why I'm meant to look this up
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: and didn't. Why then a moth is so attracted to light?
• 4:16
  Speaker 3: I saw that they think that it is attracted to
• 4:18
  Speaker 3: the moon for navigation. Oh okay, and that butterflies aren't
• 4:22
  Speaker 3: attracted to light because they don't navigate by the moon.
• 4:24
  Speaker 3: They lost that ability or that need.
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: Well, butterflies navigate by the sun. That's one of the
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: one of my amazing facts about butterflies.
• 4:32
  Speaker 3: Yeah, but then that's weird that they don't fly to light,
• 4:35
  Speaker 3: but they are not attracted to flames or light bulbs.
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Oh, well, maybe they know sun is death.
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah, whereas the moon is nice and cool.
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: Should we talk about their bodies a little bit, because
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: that's where we like to start off usually with our
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: insect casts.
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  Speaker 3: One more thing, let's talk about where the word butterfly
• 4:52
  Speaker 3: came from?
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  Speaker 1: Eh, where to come from Oh.
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  Speaker 3: Well, it's very old English and it means butter and
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  Speaker 3: f right. No real mystery there, but the reason they
• 5:04
  Speaker 3: think there's two reasons why they are named butterflies in
• 5:08
  Speaker 3: the Old English. And they think it's either because some
• 5:11
  Speaker 3: of them are a pale yellow in color, so they
• 5:13
  Speaker 3: resemble butter. We can pretty much discard that one. The
• 5:16
  Speaker 3: other one is that there was a folk belief that
• 5:19
  Speaker 3: they stole butter, that they were just kind of some
• 5:23
  Speaker 3: sort of supernatural spirit in a butterfly form to come
• 5:27
  Speaker 3: and steal your milk in your butter. And there's evidence
• 5:30
  Speaker 3: of that in other nearby languages. I think the Germans
• 5:33
  Speaker 3: called butterflies milk thieves.
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: And butterfairy almost.
• 5:37
  Speaker 3: Yes, And then the Dutch and the Germans have a
• 5:40
  Speaker 3: word for butterfly that means butter witch. So that's probably
• 5:44
  Speaker 3: why butterflies are called that, because they used to think
• 5:46
  Speaker 3: that they stole butter.
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: Well, you knew who it was the whole time. It
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: was Grandpa Night eating.
• 5:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah, he could get one cc of blood through those arteries.
• 5:57
  Speaker 3: They were so clogged he was, he was on a.
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: Does it does it say when the name morphed for
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: my wife into flutterfly.
• 6:08
  Speaker 3: Uh, they actually used to think or something like, it's
• 6:11
  Speaker 3: a pretty strange idea that they're called butterflies rather than flutterbys,
• 6:15
  Speaker 3: because that makes more sense. So Emily's kind of taking
• 6:18
  Speaker 3: it in a much smarter direction. But it's interesting. She
• 6:21
  Speaker 3: probably just doesn't know the fact that they're actually witches
• 6:24
  Speaker 3: in disguise who are out to steal butter and milk.
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, she's always she still calls them butterflies.
• 6:30
  Speaker 3: Just does she call spaghetti pasquetti?
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: No? No, just fluterflies. Can we talk about their their
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: bodies now?
• 6:38
  Speaker 3: Yes? Yes, thank you for indulging me. I feel so indulged.
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: Sure. So, like we mentioned, the head, the thorax, and
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: the abdomen of the butterfly will look a lot like
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: a caterpillar in some ways if you hold them up
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: next to each other, and that's about it. For one,
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: A butterfly can see a lot better then a caterpillar. Can.
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: I get the idea that it still doesn't have like,
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: you know, like great vision, but caterpillars, remember, we're essentially blind.
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: Butterflies at least have these compound eyes and they can
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: detect color. And I think we said the caterpillar could
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: only see in black and white. They can detect movement
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: as well. Right, But when it comes to like the
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: star of the show, as far as butterfly parts go,
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: it's those antennae.
• 7:27
  Speaker 3: Well, hold on, before we move on, I've got one
• 7:29
  Speaker 3: about the eyes too. Do you know the monarch butterfly
• 7:33
  Speaker 3: like basically the quintessential butterfly. Sure, they have twelve thousand eyes,
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  Speaker 3: both compound and simple, and they go basically all the
• 7:41
  Speaker 3: way around their head.
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  Speaker 1: It's a lot of eyes.
• 7:43
  Speaker 3: They can see into your soul.
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: And that's why they Maybe that's why they're so great,
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: migrating every year such large numbers.
• 7:52
  Speaker 3: Possibly. I think we talked about in our Animal Migration episode.
• 7:55
  Speaker 3: We talked about monarch butterfly migration, and I think we
• 7:58
  Speaker 3: said one of the reasons why they're able to make
• 8:01
  Speaker 3: it from eastern Canada all the way down to northwest
• 8:03
  Speaker 3: Mexico is because they are they navigate using UV they
• 8:08
  Speaker 3: see in the UV.
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's that it's that sun And that's kind of
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: brings me back around to antennae. These things are amazing.
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: They they get their sense of direction from the position
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: of the sun, so they are literally navigating by the
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: position of the sun at The antennae also act as
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: light receptors, obviously to tract the sun. They're highly attuned
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: to odors. Those antenna are great smellers. They sense pheromones
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: during times of mating, and they can even sense these
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: antennae the beat of wings of butterflies of the same
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  Speaker 1: species during amazing.
• 8:49
  Speaker 3: Just the antennae, Just the antennae. How about the labial palps.
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: Well, yeah, those are if you if you look at
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: a close up of a butterfly, and they can take
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: different positions, but usually I've seen them they look like
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: kind of little hairy tusks coming out.
• 9:06
  Speaker 3: Coming out of what chuck coming out of their their.
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: Head well near the mouth parts.
• 9:11
  Speaker 3: Yeaping thing. Okay, it's now officially a Tracy Wilson article.
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: That's right.
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  Speaker 3: So they apparently are like this is food. This isn't food.
• 9:20
  Speaker 3: This is food. But they don't eat with the labial palps.
• 9:23
  Speaker 3: It's just a way of sensing food. What they eat
• 9:26
  Speaker 3: with is their proboscis and that's the long kind of
• 9:32
  Speaker 3: tongue like appendage that they suck nectar with.
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: That's right, I got one more thing on the labial palps.
• 9:38
  Speaker 3: So oh, okay, they.
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: They've kind of surmised that it detects food. That the
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: function was is fairly unknown, but I think they've learned
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: I'm not sure how recently, that they can those labial
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: palps detect CO two in the air. Oh, neat as well,
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: and they think that might be the main function.
• 9:56
  Speaker 3: Oh that's really cool.
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: Who knows?
• 9:58
  Speaker 3: So instead of seeing D or green, they have the
• 10:01
  Speaker 3: labial palps that detect I guess CO two. That was
• 10:05
  Speaker 3: a reference to our reality episode.
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, So what part did you move to?
• 10:10
  Speaker 3: I moved on to their proboscis.
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: Oh, everyone loves a good prescos and the uh, the
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: butterfly proboscos is interesting because when the butterfly comes out,
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: and we'll talk about this morn in a second, it's
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: almost like it should have a label that says some
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: assembly required. Yeah, because they got to do some stuff
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: before they can really do their butterfly thing. And one
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: of those things is literally almost like screwing together their proboscis.
• 10:38
  Speaker 3: Mm hmmm. Yeah. They have two parts of the proboscis
• 10:41
  Speaker 3: that they have to connect in order to start eating.
• 10:44
  Speaker 3: So that's one of the first things that they do
• 10:46
  Speaker 3: when they e close from their.
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: Chrysalis e close. It's a great name.
• 10:51
  Speaker 3: Now it sounds like Apple has trademarked it or something.
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: And we'll talk more about the proboscos as we go,
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: but we do need to mention their leg If you remember,
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: the caterpillars have six real legs and then a bunch
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: of pro legs. The butterfly says, I don't need those
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: pro legs anymore because I'm flying basically, but I've still
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: got those six legs. I've got a set of four legs,
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: some middle legs and some hind legs. And these things
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: are pretty they're more than just legs as well, because
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: they will land on something and they're looking for dissolving
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: sugars basically to eat, and they're looking for that with
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: their legs.
• 11:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah. And also you'll probably see fairly commonly that there
• 11:33
  Speaker 3: are some butterfly species that only have two pairs of legs,
• 11:37
  Speaker 3: and that's not true. They actually have six, but one
• 11:40
  Speaker 3: pair is basically shriveled almost to nothingness.
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: And by the way, I should clear up when I
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: say their legs are looking for dissolving sugars, they're not
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: doing it by feel like they are taste organs in
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: their feet.
• 11:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah, they can taste through all sorts of different organs.
• 11:56
  Speaker 3: It's pretty cool. They apparently when they're they step in
• 12:00
  Speaker 3: some dissolving sugar, their proboscis uncoils involuntarily, like and it
• 12:06
  Speaker 3: just starts sipping nectar immediately. Oh man, So you better
• 12:10
  Speaker 3: hope that your your legs are finely attuned to sugar
• 12:14
  Speaker 3: and you don't accidentally suck up some really gross stuff. Yeah,
• 12:18
  Speaker 3: you know, like, oh it was puss, right.
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: Oh my god, Oh, the worst word. It's the worst.
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: It's pretty bad and hygenic utensil though.
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: Like, what are the odds that one of the grossest
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: things has the grossest word.
• 12:36
  Speaker 3: I don't know. I wonder if that was intentional?
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, like, what is that?
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: Ugh?
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: Puss?
• 12:42
  Speaker 3: Right?
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: Does that sound gross enough? Sure, let's go with it.
• 12:45
  Speaker 3: Can we please stop talking about puss?
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: Sure? Webster. The wings, We're going to talk about a lot.
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: We did a whole episode on the iridescence of butterfly wings,
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: so we're not going to really get into it here,
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: but if you want to learn about yourridescence, it's very
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: complex and complicated and deserved its own episode many years ago.
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah, but the opshot is the structure of the scales.
• 13:07
  Speaker 3: They're transparent, multi layered, and they reflect and amplify light
• 13:11
  Speaker 3: multiple times. That was a really cool episode if I
• 13:14
  Speaker 3: remember correctly.
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: It was, and it was a tough one if I
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: remember to absorb.
• 13:20
  Speaker 3: Yes, but we did such a great job of it.
• 13:22
  Speaker 3: I would like to say we probably just knocked it
• 13:24
  Speaker 3: out the park. Really.
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: I think so too. But the butterfly wings are made
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: of it's transparents called kitan. If you've heard of kitenre,
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: you're probably just alive on the earth because it is
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: one of the most abundant polysaccharrides in nature. It's I
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: think the second most abundant. It's all over the place.
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: Their wings are made of that kitan, and they have
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: those sort of vein like structures that you can if
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: you look at their wings closely. Don't touch them though,
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: please no, we talked about that in that episode. But
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: they have those four wings that are obviously toward the
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: front and they are basically triangular, and then the hind
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: wings toward the butt, and they kind of look like
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: little seashells.
• 14:07
  Speaker 3: Yes, And they're like you said, don't touch them. They're
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: very very delicate, and those veins are species specific, so
• 14:15
  Speaker 3: that's one of the ways that they use to recognize
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: one another when they're mating as well.
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think butterflies cannot repair their wings, isn't
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: that correct?
• 14:24
  Speaker 3: Yes, they have no means of doing that. They have
• 14:27
  Speaker 3: no car shield for wings.
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: But I don't think it kills them. But if a
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: butterfly can't fly, that's probably ultimately a death sentence, right.
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: That's my guess. It would make them easy prey at
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: the very least.
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's kind of the deal. When they
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: say a butterfly will die if you touch their wings, yes,
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: it will die quicker.
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: There's something that a butterfly that's recently e closed and
• 14:49
  Speaker 3: a baby that's just been born have in common. Do
• 14:52
  Speaker 3: you know what it is? Mmmm?
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: Maybe? But go ahead.
• 14:57
  Speaker 3: They both poop out in a meek oh.
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: Sure a human baby? Yeah, yeah, yeah, maconium? Is that
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: that first poop that they take. And in this case,
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: the butterfly is pooping what it last eight as a caterpillar.
• 15:14
  Speaker 3: That's so cool.
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: It is really cool.
• 15:16
  Speaker 3: It's usually red bright red, almost looks like blood. But
• 15:20
  Speaker 3: the butterfly poops that out. That's one of the first
• 15:22
  Speaker 3: things it does. It has to clean off all of
• 15:25
  Speaker 3: its organs, its feet to make sure it's sugar finding,
• 15:28
  Speaker 3: not puss finding. Clean off its antennas, put its proboscis
• 15:32
  Speaker 3: together again, let its wings dry out. I saw, and
• 15:36
  Speaker 3: I don't think we mentioned in the Caterpillar episode that
• 15:39
  Speaker 3: in its last in star it has wings already. They're
• 15:43
  Speaker 3: just folded up under its skin. That they develop even
• 15:46
  Speaker 3: further in the chrysalis. But when they they're when they
• 15:50
  Speaker 3: come out, they're soaking wet because the butterfly was goo
• 15:54
  Speaker 3: not too long ago, and they have to spread them
• 15:57
  Speaker 3: out and let them dry in the sun before they
• 15:59
  Speaker 3: can fly. So they're doing all this like self care,
• 16:03
  Speaker 3: basically a morning at the spa right after they're born.
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but they can't just like flop their wings open immediately.
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: They actually have to pump them up, almost like an
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: air pump inflating a raft or something. Or some high tops, yeah,
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: or some oh man, remember those. That's so funny. What
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: a scam. That was a scam.
• 16:24
  Speaker 3: Right, I'm quite sure you could break your ankle in
• 16:27
  Speaker 3: that just as easily as any other shoe.
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: Sure. Yeah, it may give you like a little tighter
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: fit or something. I don't know about that, Uh, and
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: for people that are our young our younger listeners. If
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: you don't know who Millie Vanilli was, or pump up
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: basketball shoes, there were I think Rebock.
• 16:42
  Speaker 3: Right, pretty sure it was Rebock.
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: Had basketball shoes that on the tongue had a little
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: basketball that was a little pump, and you would put
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: on your shoes, tie them up, and then press that
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: pump a bunch of times and it would fill some
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: cavities with air, I guess, and make your shoes tighter.
• 16:58
  Speaker 3: Yeah, especially around your ank clothes to give you extra
• 17:00
  Speaker 3: ankle support so you could daunt easier, even though you've
• 17:03
  Speaker 3: never donked in your life.
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: That's right. But they had Spudweb repping them, so oh yeah, yeah,
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: I think I think he was one of their pitch
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: guys for a little while. Okay, cool, but anyway, the
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: butterfly Wait.
• 17:17
  Speaker 3: Wait, should we explain who spud Web?
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: He was a diminutive NBA player. Yeah, for these good
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: line to get his autograph one time. Yeah.
• 17:24
  Speaker 3: Nice.
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: They pump their wings out, but not with air. There's
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: a fluid that they pump through these those two black
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: veins we were talking about and just sort of inflate
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: them out and like you said, they just get all
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: cleaned up and ready to fly.
• 17:39
  Speaker 3: Yes, And then once they're all ready, they start flying
• 17:43
  Speaker 3: and they realize very quickly, up it's not a very
• 17:45
  Speaker 3: good day to fly. And I say we take a
• 17:47
  Speaker 3: break and come back and explain just what in the
• 17:50
  Speaker 3: holy heck I'm talking about?
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: All right, what in the holy heck are you talking about?
• 18:17
  Speaker 3: Oh well, let me explain, Chuck. It turns out that butterflies,
• 18:21
  Speaker 3: while being pretty hardy individuals at least as far as
• 18:24
  Speaker 3: insects are concerned, on that level, they're also very delicate,
• 18:28
  Speaker 3: like we talked about with their wings, and even beyond
• 18:31
  Speaker 3: their wings, getting like a rain drop driving through it
• 18:35
  Speaker 3: that can happen, or say like strong wind pattering it.
• 18:39
  Speaker 3: That's a big problem for a butterfly. Just the temperature,
• 18:44
  Speaker 3: the ambient temperature has a tremendous effect on them, not
• 18:47
  Speaker 3: just because they're ectotherms, meaning they're like a lizard. They
• 18:50
  Speaker 3: rely on the ambient temperature to warm themselves or cool
• 18:54
  Speaker 3: themselves off. Their muscles just simply will not function when
• 18:59
  Speaker 3: it drops below a certain temperature.
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think Tracy points out they work best when
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: their internal temperature is about eighty two fahrenheit twenty eight celsius.
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: And you know, they use these wings for flying, which
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: is great, but you might think like, oh, it's no
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: big deal. If it's cold, they just kind of hunker down.
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: But they also use these wings to do all kinds
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: of like cool things, like, namely to scare away predators.
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: They can do all sorts of like they can make
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: eyes where it looks like a scary face, kind of
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: like their little caterpillar former selves can look like snakes.
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: They can flash these bright colors that a lot of
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: times say get away predator. And if they can't move
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: their wings, it's not just that they can't fly, but
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: they can't defend themselves or disguise themselves. So it means
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: that when it's cold outside, or when it's two windy
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: or rainy or something, then they're way more vulnerable to
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: prey for sure, or as prey.
• 19:56
  Speaker 3: Right, but even prey could probably get them. That's how
• 19:59
  Speaker 3: yeah lable they are so for sure. So you'll often
• 20:03
  Speaker 3: see like butterflies is kind of basking in the sun.
• 20:06
  Speaker 3: I've always wondered what they're doing, Like they just seem
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: like they're they don't know what to do next. That's
• 20:12
  Speaker 3: how it's always struck me. For some reason, they're thinking
• 20:14
  Speaker 3: of their next move, but in reality, they're just sitting
• 20:17
  Speaker 3: there getting warmed up by the sun so they can
• 20:19
  Speaker 3: fly to another spot. And if you stop and think
• 20:22
  Speaker 3: about it, the next time you see a butterfly basking
• 20:24
  Speaker 3: in the sun, I'll bet it's below eighty degrees out
• 20:29
  Speaker 3: and the butterflies having to warm itself so it can
• 20:32
  Speaker 3: fly on to the next flower to eat or rest
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: or whatever.
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a good point. They do take shelter at
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: night when it gets chilly. That's why you don't see
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: butterflies flying around at night mainly. And like you said,
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: they're what are daytime dwellers called diurnal diurnal day urinal? Yeah,
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: day ernal? Is that how you remember it?
• 20:57
  Speaker 3: Now? It is?
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: Okay, you do remember it. That's how I need to
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: remember it, right. But yeah, they bass those wings. They'll
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: sit around on rocks, they shelter at night sometimes that
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: they will actually do like a kind of like human
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: shiver to warm up. They can kind of shake their
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: butterfly wings to get their muscles warmed up to fly.
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: They just can't go out cold. They gotta do a
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: little warm up first.
• 21:21
  Speaker 3: It's like that knee hike thing, their knees really really high,
• 21:26
  Speaker 3: like in place a bunch of times.
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that soccer players do. Yeah, like that ted Lasso guy.
• 21:33
  Speaker 3: Right, then there's a name for that. But don't bother
• 21:35
  Speaker 3: emailing us with it. We can figure it out ourselves.
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: They also can use those wings as little reflectors, like
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: you know how in the nineteen fifties and sixties people
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: would sit out in the sun with those reflectors under
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: their neck to reflect sun back on their faces. They
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: can use their wings to do that to their body
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: and warm.
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: It up, right, which is pretty cool. They can also
• 21:57
  Speaker 3: they can also keep the sun from warming them up
• 22:00
  Speaker 3: when it's too hot out. They'll fold their wings together
• 22:02
  Speaker 3: and just present like the edge, the outer edge of
• 22:06
  Speaker 3: their wings to the sun, so there's much less surface area.
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And they, like
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: you said, when you see them sitting, they're probably not
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: sitting for long. They're probably sitting just so they can
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: get it going to fly again very shortly.
• 22:25
  Speaker 3: Exactly, so, even though they're sitting there warming themselves up
• 22:28
  Speaker 3: to move from flower to flower even and that's typically
• 22:32
  Speaker 3: what you see. There's a lot of species I see
• 22:35
  Speaker 3: at least two hundred that migrate over very long distances,
• 22:40
  Speaker 3: and monarchs are the ones that they're like the money,
• 22:42
  Speaker 3: the money butterfly that everybody knows about. But one of
• 22:45
  Speaker 3: the reasons why is because they migrate so far. Again,
• 22:49
  Speaker 3: they migrate from eastern Canada to northwest Mexico. It takes
• 22:53
  Speaker 3: eight months, and not a single butterfly that starts that
• 22:56
  Speaker 3: journey is alive at the end. So it's like you
• 23:00
  Speaker 3: look at the butterfly. By the way, the butterfly flock
• 23:03
  Speaker 3: or a group of butterflies is called the kaleidoscope. Mm
• 23:08
  Speaker 3: I love that also, that's the official one. They're also
• 23:11
  Speaker 3: called flutter, shimmer, and rainbow of butterflies.
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: Okay, a flutter of butterflies, yep.
• 23:17
  Speaker 3: But you look at the kaleidoscope of butterflies, it's like
• 23:19
  Speaker 3: a single organism in each individual butterfly that lives and
• 23:23
  Speaker 3: dies and reproduces, not necessarily in that order, as kind
• 23:27
  Speaker 3: of like cells that function and make up the larger hole.
• 23:30
  Speaker 3: But it's really a bunch of individual butterflies flying together,
• 23:34
  Speaker 3: but migrating as a whole down from eastern Canada to
• 23:38
  Speaker 3: northwest Mexico.
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I guess since we're there. There was a
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: big deforestation, illegal deforestation, logging operation in Mexico at the
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: Butterfly Biosphere Reserve in twenty fifteen and they got like
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: I can't remember, like thirty or forty acres of land
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: just down before anyone knew what was going on. And
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: since then, and we can't get into it here because
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: it's really complex, but they have this very involved plan
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: that they've been enacting since then of reforestation, including something
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: called assisted migration that I don't fully understand yet, but
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: I'm going to look into it more.
• 24:18
  Speaker 3: They just drive slowly by some butterflies, swipe them into
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: the car and drive them halfway.
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: Well, things are better now, but there were a billion
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: butterflies in that migration in nineteen ninety six, and in
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: I think twenty sixteen that was down to thirty five
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: million from a billion, and I think has since gone
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: up due to these efforts.
• 24:37
  Speaker 3: But that's good.
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Then, you know, butterflies, if you take down where
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: they're trying to get to, then they're.
• 24:44
  Speaker 3: Going to die. Yeah, And that's that Biosphere Reserve is
• 24:49
  Speaker 3: a UNESCO World Heritage Site and you can go visit it.
• 24:52
  Speaker 3: But apparently when the number of butterflies that show up
• 24:56
  Speaker 3: are in the billions. The branch is that they're sitting
• 25:00
  Speaker 3: on bend under the weight of butterflies. That's how many
• 25:04
  Speaker 3: butterflies there are sometimes. But yes, it's very problematic that
• 25:08
  Speaker 3: there's fewer and fewer. I'm glad to hear that it's
• 25:11
  Speaker 3: kind of bounced back a little bit, but they're still
• 25:14
  Speaker 3: under I don't know if they're endangered or just critical
• 25:19
  Speaker 3: right now, but there's there's something to keep an eye on,
• 25:23
  Speaker 3: as we'll see, because they're an indicator species.
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: They are, and they're also pollinators. They're not, you know,
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: the best pollinators, but they're pretty good. They're not like bees.
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: I mean, bees were made to pollinate.
• 25:36
  Speaker 3: They wear shirts that they do.
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: They wear be shirts. But the some butterflies, some butterflies
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: don't spread pollen at all. They just love that nectar.
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: But generally butterflies are looked at as polleners, and they
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: have that proboscis like you said, that's just it's made
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: for diving deep into those flowers and getting all that
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: sweet stuff. But butterflies have lots of dietary needs. They
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: can't just get bynd that sweet, sweet sugar. They need
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: minerals and stuff, and they get this in a variety
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: of interesting ways.
• 26:08
  Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, one is puddles. They'll just descend on a
• 26:12
  Speaker 3: puddle that's bare dirt. I don't think asphalt would work, So, yeah,
• 26:17
  Speaker 3: it's kind of gross to think about. But the minerals
• 26:20
  Speaker 3: from the dirt and the soil leach into the puddle,
• 26:23
  Speaker 3: and the butterflies suck up those minerals through the puddle,
• 26:26
  Speaker 3: and apparently if there's not enough minerals for their liking,
• 26:30
  Speaker 3: they'll actually flutter off real quick and then come back
• 26:33
  Speaker 3: to the puddle, and just that little butterfly movement is
• 26:37
  Speaker 3: enough disturbance of the water to bring some extra minerals
• 26:41
  Speaker 3: to the surface of the puddle for them to drink
• 26:44
  Speaker 3: and to create a hurricane in Belize.
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: Right, if there's no water, it's pretty gross. If it
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: gets pretty bad, they will resort to puking onto the
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: soil and then drinking that mineral puke.
• 27:02
  Speaker 3: I took it more as spit.
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: Hey one man's man's that's right.
• 27:08
  Speaker 3: But yeah, they need the minerals, the nutrients, and it's
• 27:11
  Speaker 3: just not enough for the nectar.
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, They've done some studies because they'll they'll eat fruit.
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: They'll eat rotten fruit on the ground, or they will
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: get on a piece of fruit. They will stomp on
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: it with their little feet to try and tenderize it
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: a little bit and then jab it with that proboscis
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: and drink it up. And they've done studies that have
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: found that the fruit eaters live longer and are better
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: at reproducing in studies because they I think it was
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: the monarchs, even they fed them either mash banana or sugar,
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: and the ones that ate the mash banana laid almost
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: two times as many eggs, and those eggs were bigger
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: and like more robust and vital as well.
• 27:57
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I also read that they tend to be easier
• 28:00
  Speaker 3: going in social situations and are more well liked by their.
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: Peers, the fruit eaters. Yeah, oh wow.
• 28:07
  Speaker 3: So there's a couple other places that they can get
• 28:10
  Speaker 3: nutrients and minerals, dung and urine. Butterflies are not above that,
• 28:15
  Speaker 3: especially if they need it really badly. But when they're
• 28:20
  Speaker 3: getting it from a puddle, it's called puddling. There's just
• 28:23
  Speaker 3: so many great words around butterflies, and there's a specific
• 28:26
  Speaker 3: word for butterflies pollinating plants. It's called psychophily like psychophillly,
• 28:32
  Speaker 3: but with one l Okay, specifically, butterflies pollinating plants is psychophily.
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: I love that.
• 28:39
  Speaker 3: I thought you would. I found that and I was like,
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: fuck's gonna love this.
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: The sexy stuff you mentioned. They you know, butterflies love
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: to try and reproduce, and they reproduce like a lot
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: of animals. They they join themselves, they join end to
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: end at the abdomen. I think the male has a
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: like class clasps down on the female to make sure
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: they stay together. And there is sperm from the male
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: that is eventually going to fertilize the eggs of a female.
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: But not like you would think. It's pretty remarkable because
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: what they do is they well, first of all, they
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: have to recognize each other, like I said, using those antennae,
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: they recognize themselves as the same species or whatever, and
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: through their pheromones as well, which is also the antennae.
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: And then the male delivers a spermatophor. So it's like, hey,
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: I don't just have sperm for you. I've packaged it
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: up in a little package for you, and it's got
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: all these other minerals and nutrients that you love. That
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: will help you in this fertilization process, and they will
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: take extra time to get an extra good spermatophore package
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: ready to be an extra attractive mate to the good
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: ones will well, sure.
• 29:57
  Speaker 3: So the the I guess the female butterflies when they
• 30:03
  Speaker 3: fertilize their eggs, they use the last sperm that was
• 30:08
  Speaker 3: inserted to them, the last spermatophor package.
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 30:12
  Speaker 3: So there are some species where the male will basically
• 30:16
  Speaker 3: close up shop after he's inserted a spermataphor with kind
• 30:20
  Speaker 3: of like a sticky substance that prevents more sperm from
• 30:23
  Speaker 3: going in. So his sperm is the most recent sperm.
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's not very cool at all. But I guess
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: that guy's also like, you know what am I doing
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: giving you my spermataphor if you're just gonna use the
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: latest spermataphor that.
• 30:36
  Speaker 3: You got Exactly, I went to a lot of trouble
• 30:38
  Speaker 3: combining the spermatophoor.
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, like, look at this stuff, Look at all these minerals.
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: I also saw that some of the males in some
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: species will spray them with an off putting scent. Huh,
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: so no other butterflies will want them. There are mating
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: dances that they'll do, and they, you know, when the
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: female gets this super metaphor, they put it in their
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: bursa and then they wait until they're ready to lay
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: their eggs, and they actually lay the eggs first and
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: then use the sperm to fertilize them once they have
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: laid the eggs, which is also I think pretty unusual
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: in the insect kingdom, right.
• 31:15
  Speaker 3: I don't know. For some reason, I had the impression
• 31:18
  Speaker 3: that they were fertilizing each egg as they were coming out,
• 31:22
  Speaker 3: kind of like a pez dispenser. Yeah.
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what I mean though, But they're not like,
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: they're not fertilized in the body.
• 31:29
  Speaker 3: I see what you're saying. They're fertilized externally.
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, sure, that's the word.
• 31:35
  Speaker 3: One other thing you talked about terrible smells. I turned
• 31:38
  Speaker 3: up that there some pheromones are pleasant smelling to humans. Specifically,
• 31:45
  Speaker 3: let me tell you about the green vein white butterfly.
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: Let's hear it.
• 31:50
  Speaker 3: It puts together lemon oil for all intents and purposes.
• 31:53
  Speaker 3: It has the same chemical composition as lemon oil, but
• 31:56
  Speaker 3: it's the pheromone it produces to attract a mate. And
• 31:58
  Speaker 3: I got to tell you, lemon old is a pretty
• 32:00
  Speaker 3: great smell. It would attract me too.
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: I love it.
• 32:03
  Speaker 3: So if you ever smell a great veined white during
• 32:06
  Speaker 3: mating season, you're going to smell some lemon oil.
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: The gestation periods about three days, and they lay anywhere
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: from ten to three hundred eggs in clusters over a
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: two to four week period.
• 32:20
  Speaker 3: Oh wow, it's that long.
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it can't. Yeah, two to four weeks and these eggs,
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: you know, they lay that many because it's tough for
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: these eggs to survive into adulthood. They got to be
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: The temperature's got to be just right, humidity's got to
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: be just right. They can rot very easily if it's
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: too wet. If it's not wet enough, they're going to
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: dry out. And then of course there's all those predators
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: that are just dying to eat those butterfly eggs.
• 32:46
  Speaker 3: They need to find the goldilock zone with the humidity.
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: For the eggs, that's right. They do so.
• 32:52
  Speaker 3: They also make sure that they put the eggs on
• 32:55
  Speaker 3: their baby's favorite food, which is a certain kind of plant.
• 33:00
  Speaker 3: Their butterflies are very frequently indiscriminate pollinators. They just go
• 33:04
  Speaker 3: from plant to plant but there are also plenty of
• 33:06
  Speaker 3: species that are very plant specific, and those are the
• 33:09
  Speaker 3: ones where they will not only eat that plant while
• 33:12
  Speaker 3: they're caterpillars, they were probably born on that same plant
• 33:16
  Speaker 3: as well.
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: We used to have a butterfly bush in our yard
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: that was those things get really big and out of control,
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: kind of in a we have sort of a wild
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: garden anyway. It's not like a you know, super manicure
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: like English type garden. It's kind of a crazy, fun garden.
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: So it fit in the garden and we had tons
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: and tons of butterflies, but it went away, and I
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: don't know if it was because I think some people,
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: well I think it could be an invasive species, and
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: a lot of people say, like they'll plant the butterfly bush,
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: but we had one for a while but don't now,
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: so Emily may have taken it down for that reason.
• 33:49
  Speaker 3: So the reason it's considered invasive and harmful the butterflies
• 33:52
  Speaker 3: is it produces tons of nectar, but it has no
• 33:55
  Speaker 3: value in supporting eggs or the life stylele of it
• 34:00
  Speaker 3: other than nectar for adults. And so it's a distraction
• 34:05
  Speaker 3: from native plants that do provide not just nectar but
• 34:09
  Speaker 3: also shelter and a place to lay their eggs. So
• 34:12
  Speaker 3: it actually disrupts the life cycle of local butterflies. Even
• 34:15
  Speaker 3: though it's a butterfly bush and they love it, it's
• 34:18
  Speaker 3: actually bad for them. So I have to go cut
• 34:20
  Speaker 3: down mine after this.
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: Even if you have a lot of those natives nearby,
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: like as a whole, it's still bad.
• 34:26
  Speaker 3: Yes, because it's a distraction, because it's so chuck full
• 34:28
  Speaker 3: of nectar that they go to that one instead and
• 34:31
  Speaker 3: just die off.
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: Well, some distractions are okay, right, like television.
• 34:36
  Speaker 3: Sure, you could put a TV with an extension cord
• 34:39
  Speaker 3: out in your butterfly garden. That's not going to harm them.
• 34:41
  Speaker 3: If you have a butterfly bush, you have to chop
• 34:44
  Speaker 3: it down. I command you, all right.
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: They're really pretty though, and it's fun to see other butterflies,
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: but yeah, I get you in.
• 34:51
  Speaker 3: But wait until you've planted other plants, which we'll talk about,
• 34:55
  Speaker 3: and then you can chop down your butterfly bush.
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: All right, Well, let's take a break or second break,
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: and we'll talk a little bit more about what's going
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: on with a butterfly population and butterfly gardens right after this. Okay, Well,
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: we talked already about the Monarchs and how they had
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: been hit hard from the illegal logging going on in
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: Mexico in the mid twenty tens. And in general, butterflies
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: are doing okay, but there are some you know, pesticides
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: and things like that. I think one of the other
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: big reasons besides the logging for that migration of the monarchs,
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: I think pesticides has killed a lot of milkweed, which
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: I think the monarchs love. So pesticides are a big threat.
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: And it's not like I'm just going to spray this
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: one little part of my garden, Like pesticides in your
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: garden in one part of your garden generally means it's
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: in most parts of your garden.
• 36:13
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it travels very easily. But on top of that,
• 36:15
  Speaker 3: butterflies are extremely sensitive to pesticides, So I don't know
• 36:20
  Speaker 3: about herbicides, but definitely pesticides. So if you're going to
• 36:23
  Speaker 3: plan a butterfly garden, you want to use natural pest defenses.
• 36:27
  Speaker 3: But that's a big thing that's killing off butterflies and
• 36:30
  Speaker 3: bees too. Yeah, and then also we talked about it
• 36:33
  Speaker 3: in the last episode. A lot of people think of
• 36:35
  Speaker 3: caterpillars as pests. It's like, oh, you ate some of them,
• 36:37
  Speaker 3: I lettuce, I'm going to kill all of you. That
• 36:42
  Speaker 3: kills butterflies too. They never make it to be adult butterflies,
• 36:45
  Speaker 3: and you've just disrupted generations of butterflies that could have
• 36:49
  Speaker 3: been So when you put all that together, humans have
• 36:52
  Speaker 3: not been super good for butterflies. Did you mention urbanization
• 36:56
  Speaker 3: and rhodes too, No, those are a problem. Like anytime
• 37:01
  Speaker 3: we build somewhere, we destroy plants, and those often are
• 37:04
  Speaker 3: butterflies or that's a butterfly habitat. And then the roads
• 37:07
  Speaker 3: that we have, the marginal land alongside of the roads
• 37:11
  Speaker 3: are often like great places for butterfly centric plants to grow.
• 37:17
  Speaker 3: But that means that the butterflies are very close to
• 37:19
  Speaker 3: cars that are going seventy eighty miles an hour, which
• 37:22
  Speaker 3: is never good for the butterfly when they come in
• 37:24
  Speaker 3: contact with them. So yeah, like I was saying, humans
• 37:27
  Speaker 3: have been kind of bad for butterflies. But fortunately we're
• 37:30
  Speaker 3: starting to wake up and see the value in butterflies
• 37:34
  Speaker 3: goes beyond like let's put that thing on a stamp,
• 37:37
  Speaker 3: Like there's there's more value to the butterfly than just
• 37:39
  Speaker 3: its esthetic beauty. But that makes it plenty valuable in
• 37:43
  Speaker 3: and of itself.
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: I wonder if butterflies and other insects would ever if
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: natural selection would be such that they would learn to
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: fly higher than the height of an average car.
• 37:56
  Speaker 3: Sure, I could see that, but then they run into
• 37:58
  Speaker 3: semis and there's like it's going to take millions more
• 38:02
  Speaker 3: years to get higher than a semi.
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a good point.
• 38:06
  Speaker 3: Maybe they'll figure out how to fly undercrs very quickly.
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: Okay, that collecting butterflies is, believe it or not, another
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: thing that has hit the butterfly population. Butterfly collecting butterflies
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: is a thing. Hunting butterflies and putting them behind glass
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: in your office is a thing that some people are
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: really into. And I don't know a lot about that,
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: but I do know that that there are certain species
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: that are endangered, and part of the problem is over collecting.
• 38:42
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and the more rare a butterfly species gets, the
• 38:45
  Speaker 3: more desirable it is for collectors, and the more collecting
• 38:50
  Speaker 3: harms that population because it's so small. So or a
• 38:53
  Speaker 3: Burroughs but the worst kind.
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And I imagine we'll hear from some collectors who
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: who can tell us that there are responsible ways of
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: doing this. I really don't know enough about it to
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: speak to it, but I'm not going to click butterflies,
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: That's all I'm gonna say.
• 39:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I wonder if it's one of those things like ivory,
• 39:09
  Speaker 3: where it's like, Okay, this happened, this is done, Like
• 39:12
  Speaker 3: these things are out there and we're not just gonna
• 39:17
  Speaker 3: throw them away. That's an even bigger waste. Right, So,
• 39:22
  Speaker 3: like antique ivory or antique taxidermy, butterflies are legal, but
• 39:26
  Speaker 3: anything new is illegal. I wonder if it's treated like
• 39:30
  Speaker 3: that or what. But I get the impression that butterflies
• 39:32
  Speaker 3: don't have that much legal protection. I think they do
• 39:35
  Speaker 3: on paper, but it's very rarely enforced.
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I guess if you find one in the ground
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: or something that's uh you know that for your collection.
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: Sure not sunning on a rock, but you know dead right.
• 39:48
  Speaker 3: Sure it just fell over of old age.
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: Uh Huh. Should we talk about butterfly gardens here at
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: the end.
• 39:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah, because one of the things people are doing or saying, like, hey, butterflies,
• 39:59
  Speaker 3: we got to save these butter flies. If we don't,
• 40:02
  Speaker 3: things are gonna go pear shaped even more. And so
• 40:04
  Speaker 3: people are starting to plant butterfly gardens.
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because I think you said they're a big indicator
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: of like, if butterflies are dying off all around you,
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: that's a big indicator of how your local ecosystem is
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: doing in.
• 40:16
  Speaker 3: The larch part, the canari and the coal mine.
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. And butterfly gardens are beautiful and it doesn't
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: take a lot. You need some plants, and you're gonna
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: want plants. Well, you're gonna want to find out what
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: kind of butterflies you have around you.
• 40:29
  Speaker 3: That's a big one.
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: You can look with your eyeballs and then cross reference,
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: or you can just look it up on the internet,
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: and then you want to find out what kind of
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: plants those butterflies love that are native to your area,
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: and plant those.
• 40:41
  Speaker 3: Chuck. When I was researching this, all I wanted to
• 40:44
  Speaker 3: do was be done with this episode so I can
• 40:46
  Speaker 3: go garden.
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: Oh. I love that Emily's gardening. I'm looking at it
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: right now, is gardening outside?
• 40:52
  Speaker 3: Well, pound on your window and tell her I'm jealous
• 40:54
  Speaker 3: of her.
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: We got I put it on my Instagram. I don't
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: know if you saw it, but you I saw a
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: huge well it's not that big, but a hornet's nest
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: in our backyard yesterday. That is the coolest, most beautiful thing.
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: I'm kind of tucked in a magnolia branch about only
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: four feet off the ground, And I'm glad I saw
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: it because I was about to go do some trimming
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: of my box woods right behind it in a few
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: days and I would have bumped right into that thing.
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: So boy, now we're just going to steer clear of
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: it until it is out of season and then hopefully
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: try and preserve it. But hornets nests are so cool looking,
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: and I just love that we have one back there.
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: We got a crazy backyard full of all kinds of critters.
• 41:37
  Speaker 3: Does it look like a mummy's head? Sometimes it looks.
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: It looks like a sort of a mummy's head, but
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: if it was an alien mummy, because it's like top
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: heavy and it looks like it has a little mouth
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: at the bottom, you know, their little door. Yeah, I'll
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: send you the picture, it's cool.
• 41:52
  Speaker 3: Yeah, Or I can just go on Instagram like everybody else.
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: Now you get text privies, thanks man. What else about
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: the butterfly garden? You need water? Right?
• 42:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah? Remember they like to drink minerals from puddles. So
• 42:06
  Speaker 3: if you have a little bit of water dripping that
• 42:08
  Speaker 3: forms a puddle in the soil, that's definitely going to
• 42:11
  Speaker 3: help them. You want rocks for them to sun on.
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 42:14
  Speaker 3: A big one, Chuck is you want to use native plants.
• 42:17
  Speaker 3: I know you and Emily are like big into that,
• 42:19
  Speaker 3: and I feel like people, including myself, are really waking
• 42:23
  Speaker 3: up to just how bad for the local ecosystem like
• 42:27
  Speaker 3: non native plants are, and to use native plants whenever
• 42:31
  Speaker 3: you can. When you're building a butterfly garden, it's crucial
• 42:36
  Speaker 3: because even plants within the same species can be harmful
• 42:40
  Speaker 3: to butterflies. Yeah, and I have an example if you'll
• 42:43
  Speaker 3: allow me. Sure, So, butterflies in Florida and Georgia in
• 42:48
  Speaker 3: the Southeast in general, I think are very very keen
• 42:50
  Speaker 3: on what's called butterfly weed. It's what monarchs love. It's
• 42:54
  Speaker 3: that very tiny, multi flowered, orange flowered weed. It's a
• 43:00
  Speaker 3: type of milkweed. Okay, yeah, that's native. Yes, there's another
• 43:06
  Speaker 3: kind of milkweed called tropical milkweed that does just fine
• 43:09
  Speaker 3: in Florida and Georgia in the southeast too, but it's
• 43:12
  Speaker 3: not native. And the problem with putting that in your
• 43:15
  Speaker 3: butterfly garden into the southeast is that it blooms so
• 43:20
  Speaker 3: late into the season that butterflies will keep reproducing and
• 43:24
  Speaker 3: entire parts of the population will freeze to death because
• 43:28
  Speaker 3: they've gone beyond their natural reproductive window. And then furthermore,
• 43:34
  Speaker 3: when the temperature drops a little bit, they're more susceptible
• 43:37
  Speaker 3: to a specific kind of protozoan parasite called ot or
• 43:41
  Speaker 3: oe I. Can't remember that they wouldn't otherwise be if
• 43:45
  Speaker 3: they were just on the native milkweed rather than the
• 43:47
  Speaker 3: tropical milkweed. So like, that's how much attention you really
• 43:51
  Speaker 3: should be paying to your butterfly garden, because you can
• 43:53
  Speaker 3: inadvertently harm them while you're doing something you think is
• 43:56
  Speaker 3: good for them, like putting a butterfly bush out there.
• 43:59
  Speaker 3: Everybody like, that's great, I'm gonna put a butterfly bush
• 44:02
  Speaker 3: out and I can pretty much call myself Gandhi from
• 44:04
  Speaker 3: here on out, Gandhi the butterflies. But it turns out
• 44:08
  Speaker 3: you're harming them. So it's definitely something that you need
• 44:10
  Speaker 3: to take some research for. But it's the kind of
• 44:13
  Speaker 3: research that it's like an invitation to go, like immerse
• 44:16
  Speaker 3: yourself in the natural world in all of the best ways.
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Boy, that butterfly weed is beautiful, Yes.
• 44:23
  Speaker 3: It is, and it's native to Georgia. So you just
• 44:25
  Speaker 3: plan it all you.
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: Like, you know what, I'm gonna go tell Emily like, oh,
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: this butterfly milkweed and shes gonna be like it's right
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: behind you, coming right.
• 44:32
  Speaker 3: But it's not only a food source, it's it's like
• 44:34
  Speaker 3: a place where monarchs lay their eggs. So you will
• 44:37
  Speaker 3: have butterflies like living in your garden. I mean they'll
• 44:41
  Speaker 3: fly to Mexico eventually, but they'll hang out there for
• 44:43
  Speaker 3: a while. Yeah.
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: I mean that's the cool thing about the butterfly garden too.
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: If you if you do it right, then you're you're
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: gonna have butterflies in your yard. And not only that,
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: but butterflies are gonna like word gets around and it'll
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: become a place for butterflies. It'll become like haven for butterflies.
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: And they don't they don't generally, I mean the ones
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: who migrate migrate. But other than that, you could have
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: you could have butterflies families living their whole life back
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: there in your backyard.
• 45:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah. And speaking of backyards, I've got a backyard. A
• 45:13
  Speaker 3: lower part of my backyard is kind of wild. I
• 45:17
  Speaker 3: keep it wild, like I don't know it very often,
• 45:19
  Speaker 3: and there's lots of weeds and like little clovers and
• 45:21
  Speaker 3: stuff growing. So I've left it there for the beads,
• 45:24
  Speaker 3: the birds and the bees and all that, and the butterflies.
• 45:27
  Speaker 3: But I'm going full on, man, I'm going to let
• 45:29
  Speaker 3: Oh yes, it's gonna be all butterflies, like up to
• 45:33
  Speaker 3: your hips butterfly stuff. I cannot wait to go plan it.
• 45:36
  Speaker 3: It's I'm really looking forward to it because it's really
• 45:39
  Speaker 3: goes right up to the edge of some woods too,
• 45:41
  Speaker 3: so it's gonna be amazing.
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there's something we really love like leading green spaces
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: and making it an invitation for animals. You know, like
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: I got my camp up there in North Georgia, and
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: like all of North Georgia is just being torn down
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: for neighborhoods and or and you know, if you're a hunter,
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: let's find that that's your thing. I'm not into it.
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: And we love that we have this acreage where we're
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: just like, tell your dear buddies this to come to
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: our land setup shop here. No one will be shooting
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: you and spread the word, everybody. We have we have
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: a safe space for all you critters out here.
• 46:21
  Speaker 3: Yes, except for humans, because it's also a most dangerous
• 46:25
  Speaker 3: game type setup. You got going there?
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: Huh well sure by the weekends.
• 46:30
  Speaker 3: Right. Let's see one more thing about butterflies. There is
• 46:33
  Speaker 3: an amazing fact that I think we can end on.
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: How about that, Let's do it.
• 46:38
  Speaker 3: They're frequently cited as inspiring the discovery of the RH
• 46:43
  Speaker 3: blood factor, which is a type of subtype of blood types,
• 46:47
  Speaker 3: and it actually cured what's known as Rhese's hemolytic disease,
• 46:51
  Speaker 3: which is where a baby has a positive RH blood
• 46:54
  Speaker 3: type and is born from a mother with a negative
• 46:57
  Speaker 3: RH blood type, and it's immune systems starts attacking its blood.
• 47:01
  Speaker 3: Not good. But the discoverer of the RH blood factor,
• 47:06
  Speaker 3: his name is Sir Cyril Clark, and he was big
• 47:08
  Speaker 3: time in the butterflies, and he was inspired by the
• 47:11
  Speaker 3: butterfly's ability to mimic other butterflies genetically, that they had
• 47:17
  Speaker 3: these what are called super genes, these big clusters of
• 47:19
  Speaker 3: genes that all produce this mimicry, and that we're refined
• 47:22
  Speaker 3: by smaller genes over time. And he was like, I
• 47:24
  Speaker 3: wonder if that has to do with blood types and diseases,
• 47:28
  Speaker 3: and in fact, it was, oh wow, yeah, so butterflies,
• 47:32
  Speaker 3: super useful, super beautiful. Go cut down your butterfly bush today. Amazing,
• 47:38
  Speaker 3: Chuck said, amazing. So that means it's time for listener
• 47:41
  Speaker 3: mail everybody.
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna call this our influence on Spotify. Perhaps, Hey, guys,
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: I was wondering, wondering if you were aware of your
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: potential impact on Spotify searches. On the Milli Vanilli episode,
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: Josh mentioned the song Owner of a Lonely Heart by
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: Yes being the best song of the eighties, and in
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: my head, I'm like, I'm not sure what that song is,
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: but I set it out loud and immediately the chorus
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: popped into my head. So I go over to listen
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: to it later on Spotify. I see a ton of
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: covers for it, and I see Milli Vanilli is also
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: in the search results, which was going to be my
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: next search. So I think you guys may have had
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: enough people searching Owner of a Lonely Heart and Millie
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: Vanilly close together so that the algorithm associated those two.
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: That's awesome because other than the time period, it's not
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: similar music.
• 48:33
  Speaker 3: You know no, I would say not.
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: Maybe do a test to mention two unrelated songs for
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: something to see what happens. Oh boy, should we try it?
• 48:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah, let's mix Sabbath and you pick the other one.
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: Okay, So Black Sabbath, you name a song specifically, Warpigs. Okay, Warpigs. Hey, everybody,
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: if you haven't heard Warpigs, you should go search it
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: on Spotify. Give it a listen. It's a great song.
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: And while you're at it, I don't know if you've
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: ever heard Barry Manilow's Chuck.
• 49:07
  Speaker 3: I was going to suggest Barry Manilo I had it.
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: Well, I had a fifty to fifty chance there. I
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: don't know if you've ever heard the Barry Manilo song
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: even now, but it's a classic Barry Manilo song. And
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: everyone should just go search those two on Spotify.
• 49:23
  Speaker 3: So war Pigs and even now by Black Sabbath and
• 49:27
  Speaker 3: Barry Manilo, Let's see what happens. Let's see what happened.
• 49:29
  Speaker 3: That was a great experiment. Who was that from?
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: That was from Cory and I just want to give
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: Corey's to side notes, saw you guys for the Andre
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: the Giant Live in Chicago episode. I also saw Josh's
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: Into the World live in Chicago when you tour that
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: your short series. That was so great and I really
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: enjoy that. Josh walked by on his way in when
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: we were outside and patted my friend Sam on the shoulder,
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: and he's definitely mentioned that several times since then.
• 50:01
  Speaker 3: That's awesome.
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: So that's from Corey and you patted Sam on the shoulder,
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: and I think that.
• 50:05
  Speaker 3: Men lunch to say, yeah, thanks for coming to see me,
• 50:07
  Speaker 3: Sam and Corey. It was a fun show. Actually, let's
• 50:12
  Speaker 3: see if you wanna let us know how this experiment
• 50:14
  Speaker 3: pans out. Corey's Experiment is what we're gonna call it,
• 50:18
  Speaker 3: Corey's Choice. How about that love it? No, let's call
• 50:23
  Speaker 3: it a Corey's song rather than Brian's song. Oh okay, okay, no,
• 50:30
  Speaker 3: Corey can wait?
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: Perfect okay, so oh no, but how about Corey's in Charge.
• 50:36
  Speaker 3: Okay, that's a good one. That's perfect. We're gonna end
• 50:38
  Speaker 3: on that. If you want to let us know how
• 50:41
  Speaker 3: the Corey's in Charge experiment goes, but we'd love to
• 50:44
  Speaker 3: hear from you, you can send us an email to
• 50:47
  Speaker 3: Stuff Podcast at iHeartRadio dot com.
• 50:52
  Speaker 2: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
• 50:55
  Speaker 2: more podcasts My heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
• 51:00
  Speaker 2: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.