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Caterpillars: Nature's Magicians · Stuff You Should Know

0:04
Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the playlist. The Stuff You Should
0:07
Speaker 1: Know Think Spring playlist to be exact, Chuck, Jerry and
0:10
Speaker 1: I figured it was high time that winner got the
0:12
Speaker 1: heck on, So we're tapping into all of our wishful
0:15
Speaker 1: thinking and getting the crocuses to sprout and the air
0:18
Speaker 1: to warm up and the chipmunks to come out. For
0:21
Speaker 1: our first episode, we're going with caterpillars colon Nature's Magicians
0:26
Speaker 1: because we can't think of a more poetic way to
0:28
Speaker 1: kick things off. So enjoy this episode, and enjoy the playlist,
0:32
Speaker 1: and don't forget to think Spring with all your might.
0:37
Speaker 2: Cool. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
0:55
Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh and there's
0:57
Speaker 1: Chuck and there's Jerry. The three of us just inchin
1:00
Speaker 1: along in life together, trying to make do, making our
1:04
Speaker 1: way in the world today. It takes everything a cop
1:09
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, and this is stuff you should.
1:12
Speaker 2: Cheers.
1:13
Speaker 1: Cheers, Chuck cheers. Uh.
1:17
Speaker 3: You know, if it's an episode where we say mouth parts.
1:22
Speaker 1: I knew you're gonna say.
1:23
Speaker 3: This, then we're going back to the old school from
1:27
Speaker 3: our let's say, former colleague Tracy is still our colleague.
1:31
Speaker 2: We just never see anyone anymore, right fully.
1:34
Speaker 3: But Tracy Wilson, a co host of The Stuff You
1:38
Speaker 3: Missed in History Class along with Holly. They're wonderful. They've
1:41
Speaker 3: been around for years. They're icons of podcasting. Tracy used
1:46
Speaker 3: to write a bunch of insect articles for HowStuffWorks dot
1:48
Speaker 3: com back in the day.
1:49
Speaker 1: She very legendarily stayed up for seventy two straight hours
1:53
Speaker 1: and wrote like more than two dozen insect articles in
1:56
Speaker 1: that time. They just got weirder and as the time
1:59
Speaker 1: went on.
2:00
Speaker 3: I almost believe that for a second. But Tracy always
2:04
Speaker 3: does a great job with those, or did a great job,
2:06
Speaker 3: And most of most of the insect articles we've ever
2:10
Speaker 3: used have been Tracy's original, like the ticks and the
2:14
Speaker 3: fleas and I don't think ants, but bees probably was.
2:20
Speaker 1: She's the master of it for sure.
2:23
Speaker 3: I mean she wrote a lot of them, and this
2:25
Speaker 3: one about caterpillars was from Tracy, along with stuff from
2:28
Speaker 3: World at List in the eighty eight and rereading butterflies
2:31
Speaker 3: dot com. But I just realized today when I was
2:34
Speaker 3: researching this some more, that we haven't done butterflies yet no,
2:38
Speaker 3: which is shocking.
2:39
Speaker 1: We've done one we.
2:41
Speaker 2: Did the wings like that, you're desk Okay.
2:43
Speaker 1: That's what it was. Yeah, And we talked about them
2:45
Speaker 1: in the Animal Migration episode two.
2:47
Speaker 3: Yeah, but not a standalone on butterflies. So we're going
2:50
Speaker 3: to talk about their their counterpart. And one of the
2:55
Speaker 3: facts of the episode already for me is that but
2:58
Speaker 3: caterpillars that eventually turned into butterflies.
3:01
Speaker 2: It's it's the same species. It's still the same thing.
3:03
Speaker 4: Right.
3:04
Speaker 1: We should never knew that we should do it too,
3:06
Speaker 1: You didn't.
3:08
Speaker 2: I just figured it like, well, now it's something else,
3:11
Speaker 2: like entirely huh.
3:12
Speaker 1: But did you know about the transformation and the chrysalis
3:15
Speaker 1: or cocoon and everything? Did you know that was sure?
3:17
Speaker 3: Okay, I knew how it happened, but I thought it
3:19
Speaker 3: was like presto chaninjo. Now you're you're not whatever Latin
3:24
Speaker 3: name you are, you're a new Latin name.
3:26
Speaker 1: Oh gotcha. So like they just became a completely different
3:28
Speaker 1: animal basically, or a different insect. Yeah, okay, I gotcha. Yeah, No,
3:32
Speaker 1: they're the same thing, they're just configured differently. Yeah, they
3:36
Speaker 1: got wings like a transformer, like they go box to
3:39
Speaker 1: robot with the gun. That's right, you know, But in
3:42
Speaker 1: a much more organic, soupy way, as we'll see you.
3:46
Speaker 1: I love this one, Chuck. Like every kid knows about
3:49
Speaker 1: caterpillars to go look at them in the garden and everything,
3:51
Speaker 1: and they're super cute and weird looking, and you learn
3:54
Speaker 1: the hard way not to touch some of them. But
3:57
Speaker 1: I did not know a lot of this stuff either,
4:00
Speaker 1: and it's endlessly fascinating to me, especially if you step
4:03
Speaker 1: back and think about a life stage where an organism
4:08
Speaker 1: undergoes such a complete transformation that their cells, they break
4:13
Speaker 1: themselves down to their cells and then are rebuilt into
4:17
Speaker 1: a new version. Not that many animals do that, and
4:21
Speaker 1: scientists aren't exactly sure how or even why that evolved.
4:25
Speaker 1: Although why it's kind of teleological, but how that evolved.
4:29
Speaker 1: It's just this really bizarre thing that we're so aware of,
4:33
Speaker 1: we kind of just take for granted until you really
4:35
Speaker 1: stop and think about it. I love caterpillars, I guess,
4:38
Speaker 1: is what I'm trying to say.
4:40
Speaker 3: Yeah, And it was also one of those where I
4:43
Speaker 3: just I kept looking and kept looking. I was like,
4:44
Speaker 3: how has just this been sitting here under our noses
4:47
Speaker 3: all this time? I don't know, because it's right up
4:50
Speaker 3: our Alley to talk about something like cat.
4:53
Speaker 2: No.
4:54
Speaker 1: Yeah. One of the reasons why they are so different
4:58
Speaker 1: and they're configured differently, is that a caterpillar's life it
5:03
Speaker 1: is the larval stage of an adult moth or butterfly.
5:06
Speaker 1: That's probably the best easy definition of a caterpillar. The
5:12
Speaker 1: reason that it's configured differently than its adult form is
5:15
Speaker 1: because in the larval stage, its entire life is pooping, eating, pooping, molting, eating,
5:21
Speaker 1: pooping molting. That's what I saw the caterpillar's life described
5:25
Speaker 1: as over the course of five different molts. As we'll see,
5:28
Speaker 1: that's all it does. That's all it wants to do.
5:30
Speaker 1: It just wants to eat. So it's designed essentially as
5:33
Speaker 1: an eating machine.
5:34
Speaker 3: Yeah, kind of shark like. And as Tracy points out,
5:37
Speaker 3: like it's a very singular purpose. And the same butterfly
5:42
Speaker 3: has a singular purpose later on, which is propagating the species,
5:46
Speaker 3: if you know what I'm saying. But the caterpillar, yeah,
5:49
Speaker 3: it's very shark like.
5:50
Speaker 2: All it does is eat.
5:51
Speaker 3: And store food and poop it out. And they eat
5:54
Speaker 3: so much that apparently they say that they can eat
5:57
Speaker 3: as much as twenty seven times they're body size in
6:01
Speaker 3: their fairly short life. Yeah, and they can end up
6:04
Speaker 3: being about one hundred times bigger at the by the
6:08
Speaker 3: time they go to pupe et, which is when they
6:10
Speaker 3: you know, hole up and turn into the butterfly as
6:12
Speaker 3: when they.
6:13
Speaker 2: Pop out of that little egg that they also eat.
6:16
Speaker 1: That's amazing. And if you want to see something just astounding,
6:20
Speaker 1: go look up a caterpillar egg or butterfly egg. I
6:24
Speaker 1: don't know which one you'd call it, but they look
6:26
Speaker 1: like little have you ever seen vasaline glass Huh? They
6:30
Speaker 1: look like little like ornate vasaline glass vases.
6:34
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're very pretty.
6:35
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean everything about butterflies are just great. Okay,
6:39
Speaker 1: I'm on board with them fully.
6:42
Speaker 3: But yeah, that thing, I mean, it starts eating, It
6:45
Speaker 3: eats its way out of the egg.
6:47
Speaker 2: Then it says, well, I'll just eat the rest of
6:49
Speaker 2: the egg.
6:50
Speaker 3: And you know, I'm gonna I'm gonna go ahead and
6:54
Speaker 3: eat this leaf that the egg is sitting on as well.
6:56
Speaker 2: While I'm at it.
6:57
Speaker 1: Uh huh.
6:57
Speaker 3: And they said, wow, I really like eating. Maybe I
7:00
Speaker 3: should just keep eating for the rest of my life.
7:02
Speaker 1: Yeah, each one suddenly turns into Augustus glop and just
7:05
Speaker 1: keeps going from there.
7:07
Speaker 2: That's exactly right.
7:08
Speaker 1: So I said that at molts. Apparently it molts five
7:11
Speaker 1: different times, and the reason why it molts is because
7:14
Speaker 1: it eats so much it outgrows its skin.
7:17
Speaker 2: It's amazing.
7:18
Speaker 1: It has a mechanism where it releases an enzyme. There's
7:21
Speaker 1: a hormone that says, hey, you're getting a little your
7:24
Speaker 1: clothes are getting a little tight. Maybe it's time to bolt.
7:26
Speaker 1: And so that releases an enzyme that basically dissolves its
7:30
Speaker 1: attachment to the exoskeleton. And then the new, bigger version
7:34
Speaker 1: pops out of the old exoskeleton, walks away, and guess
7:38
Speaker 1: what it does immediately after it starts eating again.
7:41
Speaker 2: Yeah, it tries to outgrow that suit.
7:44
Speaker 1: And it does that five times in its larval stage
7:47
Speaker 1: as a caterpillar.
7:48
Speaker 2: Yeah, these molts are called in stars. Did you say.
7:51
Speaker 1: That that's the period of its life between molts.
7:55
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, so five in stars and between molts. Like
7:59
Speaker 3: you said, all it's doing is just eating, trying to
8:01
Speaker 3: get a larger suit size. But here's another cool fact
8:06
Speaker 3: is they believe that not only do caterpillars have a
8:11
Speaker 3: memory that lasts like a molt or two, but they
8:15
Speaker 3: even think there are researchers at Georgetown that have sort
8:20
Speaker 3: of proven that. I'm not how you sort of prove something,
8:23
Speaker 3: but they feel pretty good about the fact that they
8:25
Speaker 3: think that a butterfly remembers being a caterpillar.
8:29
Speaker 1: Yeah, they've done this at least one study that showed
8:31
Speaker 1: that if they trained it to avoid certain smells as
8:35
Speaker 1: one of its last in stars, it will remember that
8:39
Speaker 1: as an adult butterfly, that it will avoid those same smells.
8:43
Speaker 1: That's pretty cool because, as you'll see, what happens in
8:46
Speaker 1: the chrysalis is so mind bending and nuts that the
8:50
Speaker 1: idea that it can remember anything is it's pretty pretty amazing.
8:55
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, for sure, I didn't even consider that. That
8:58
Speaker 3: is really hard to process.
9:00
Speaker 1: So let's talk about the body. Like you said, it
9:03
Speaker 1: has mouth parts very important because it eats, eats, eats,
9:08
Speaker 1: and the rest of its body is essentially a storage
9:12
Speaker 1: facility for that food that it eats and that it
9:16
Speaker 1: breaks down and stores. Essentially is fat. They're very fatty.
9:21
Speaker 2: Yeah.
9:21
Speaker 3: I get the idea that the inner body movement through
9:25
Speaker 3: that body tube never stops. It's just a conveyor belt
9:30
Speaker 3: almost of food coming in and poop leaving.
9:33
Speaker 1: That's my impression too.
9:36
Speaker 3: Yeah, the caterpillar is six legged. If you're like Pho Chuck.
9:41
Speaker 3: I've seen a caterpillar or two in my day, and
9:44
Speaker 3: they have tons of little legs.
9:47
Speaker 2: Those are not real legs.
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Speaker 3: They only have six genuine legs, meaning that they have
9:52
Speaker 3: segments and joints. The rest of those are called pro legs,
9:56
Speaker 3: and there are a lot of those, and they move
9:58
Speaker 3: all up the length of the abdomened the caterpillar, and
10:02
Speaker 3: at the end of those little pro legs they have
10:03
Speaker 3: little suction cups, little hooks. Basically, is it is it
10:07
Speaker 3: a crochette? Do you think I think crochet?
10:09
Speaker 1: I'm going with crochet.
10:11
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're called crouschettes. And the yachts a crack rocket.
10:18
Speaker 3: Isn't that what those really fast motorcycles are called. Sure, okay,
10:23
Speaker 3: I didn't know if that was, you know, a dirty
10:25
Speaker 3: thing to say or not.
10:26
Speaker 1: No, no, that's all over. It's like douchebag. It was
10:29
Speaker 1: it one time, like not very nice, but now everybody
10:32
Speaker 1: says it, so even PG. Thirteen Movies.
10:36
Speaker 3: Oh I thought you meant it was okay to say, yes,
10:38
Speaker 3: you're a real douchebag.
10:39
Speaker 1: Okay, Oh no, no, no, it's not. Still not, but
10:42
Speaker 1: it's not like, you know, a horrid thing to say
10:45
Speaker 1: like it used to.
10:46
Speaker 3: I gotcha because someone called me one the other day
10:48
Speaker 3: in the car and I was like, oh, I thank you.
10:49
Speaker 2: Did they really No? No, they don't have bones, of course,
10:56
Speaker 2: but they do have lots. They're very muscly.
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Speaker 3: If you compare them to a human, we have about
11:01
Speaker 3: six hundred and twenty nine muscles. Caterpillars have four thousand muscles.
11:06
Speaker 3: Because those muscles, that's the way they're moving, you know.
11:09
Speaker 3: They move in a little wave from front to back,
11:13
Speaker 3: front to back. Yes, front to back, back to front,
11:16
Speaker 3: back to front. How did I mess that up?
11:18
Speaker 1: Well, it depends on which the direction they're going.
11:20
Speaker 3: I guess, well, I guess so, And they move in
11:23
Speaker 3: a couple of ways. One of two ways is sometimes
11:25
Speaker 3: they're crawling, which means they're moving all of those pro
11:28
Speaker 3: legs and legs at the same time in sequence. Or
11:32
Speaker 3: they do what it sounds like an inch worm does.
11:34
Speaker 2: Right.
11:35
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know why they didn't identify them as inchorms,
11:38
Speaker 1: but that's what they're talking about. They can move in
11:40
Speaker 1: little arches where they bring their their front to their
11:44
Speaker 1: back and their back together, making a mound. Out of
11:47
Speaker 1: their middle their abdomen, and then they stretch the front
11:50
Speaker 1: out and they bring the back up and then they
11:51
Speaker 1: stretch the front up. That's what an inch worm does.
11:53
Speaker 1: And that's basically one of two ways. The other way
11:57
Speaker 1: for a caterpillar to move, either as a wave under.
12:01
Speaker 1: There's a lot of like really cool videos of caterpillars
12:03
Speaker 1: moving or inching along.
12:05
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I never looked close enough at an inch
12:08
Speaker 3: worm to figure out why they move that way. And
12:12
Speaker 3: I feel like a dummy now because it seems obvious
12:15
Speaker 3: they move that way because their middle section doesn't have legs, right,
12:19
Speaker 3: it's pretty The front pulls the back because those are
12:21
Speaker 3: where the legs are, and the legs go, let me
12:23
Speaker 3: catch up.
12:24
Speaker 2: It's like a little cute accordion.
12:25
Speaker 1: And it's really neat to see. When you watch a
12:28
Speaker 1: close up of a centipeder, I keep wanting to say centipede,
12:31
Speaker 1: but that's definitely a different animal. Caterpillars pro legs moving
12:36
Speaker 1: as they they attach themselves. Like you said, they have
12:39
Speaker 1: a suction cup. They just attach themselves to like the
12:42
Speaker 1: branch or whatever that they're walking on. And if you
12:46
Speaker 1: watch it and close enough detail, yes, excellent, Chuck, you
12:53
Speaker 1: can really see those suction cups working and it's pretty cool.
12:56
Speaker 2: It's awesome.
12:57
Speaker 3: Most things on a caterpillar are small, obviouslycluding their little eyelets.
13:01
Speaker 3: They have twelve of those are called stemata, and they
13:05
Speaker 3: if you do look closely, though, it's really cool looking.
13:07
Speaker 3: They have their arrange in a semi circle, sort of
13:10
Speaker 3: wrapping around the head.
13:12
Speaker 1: Like what's his name from Reading Rainbow but on Star
13:15
Speaker 1: Trek the next generation.
13:18
Speaker 2: Yeah, LeVar Burton.
13:19
Speaker 3: Like his eyewear, Yes, yeah, that's what I said. It
13:23
Speaker 3: would be on top of his head though, right, like
13:24
Speaker 3: like a headband. I think is it more on the front?
13:27
Speaker 3: I thought it was more on top.
13:29
Speaker 1: I thought it was on the front, but you could
13:30
Speaker 1: be right, it could be on top.
13:32
Speaker 2: It's kind of hard to tell with the caterpillar head
13:34
Speaker 2: right exactly.
13:35
Speaker 1: You don't really know what's what. It's kind of like
13:37
Speaker 1: a studio baker. You can't tell which way it's going,
13:40
Speaker 1: right for our aged listeners love a good STUDI baker, Joe.
13:47
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's one little guys like Damn Skippy.
13:51
Speaker 3: Uh So those stamata they can identify light in darkness,
13:54
Speaker 3: but caterpillars are are basically blind. They're for sure color blind,
14:00
Speaker 3: and they just like I said, they can see sort
14:01
Speaker 3: of light and dark and shadow and stuff like that,
14:03
Speaker 3: but they are not like they're not crawling around seeing things.
14:07
Speaker 3: They're kind of feeling their way around with those antennae
14:10
Speaker 3: that they have. But although those antennae only handle taste
14:14
Speaker 3: and smell, so I don't even know why I said that.
14:16
Speaker 1: So they also breathe in a really interesting way. They
14:19
Speaker 1: breathe through spiracles, which are holes in the side of
14:22
Speaker 1: the caterpillar, and they breathe in oxygen. It goes directly
14:26
Speaker 1: to the trachea, and they breathe out carbon dioxide and
14:29
Speaker 1: as they move, it's kind of like breathing in and
14:32
Speaker 1: breathing out. That's like a byproduct of their movement, and
14:36
Speaker 1: it all goes to that trichia, like I said, and
14:38
Speaker 1: the trachia just diffuses it to the tissue throughout the body.
14:42
Speaker 1: They have blood. It's called hemolymph like most insects blood,
14:45
Speaker 1: but it doesn't it's not used to transport oxygen. It
14:48
Speaker 1: transports things like hormones that trigger molting and things like that,
14:51
Speaker 1: but the oxygen just diffuses throughout the body.
14:55
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, an inch worm, it is like a
14:57
Speaker 3: little accordion, And if you could figure out how to
15:01
Speaker 3: build and insert a tiny little like wooden reed in
15:07
Speaker 3: each spiracle, that little thing might sound like an accordion
15:10
Speaker 3: as it moved.
15:11
Speaker 2: That'd be pretty neat, kind of cruel to I imagine.
15:14
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean probably if you're sticking wood in the
15:17
Speaker 1: tiny breathing holes of a caterpillar. I don't think it would.
15:21
Speaker 2: Don't try that.
15:22
Speaker 1: By the way, Chuck, did I tell you that caterpillar
15:25
Speaker 1: is from the old French chateapellos, which means shaggy cat.
15:30
Speaker 3: Oh, like the actor Timothy Chatapellos? Is that you know
15:33
Speaker 3: that's Timothy Shallomey?
15:35
Speaker 1: Sorry, right, Yeah, Timothy. Shaggy cat would be that name.
15:39
Speaker 2: Kind of looks like a shaggy cat.
15:40
Speaker 1: But apparently they think it was the the is it
15:43
Speaker 1: the wooly bully caterpillar that? Yeah, they think that that
15:48
Speaker 1: was the original shaggy cat and it's just kind of
15:51
Speaker 1: caught on from there, But that's where caterpillar comes from.
15:54
Speaker 3: Yeah, And speaking of wily bully, you notice on caterpillars
15:57
Speaker 3: a lot of times those little hairs or little quills
16:01
Speaker 3: or spines those are called Oh man, we've even had
16:04
Speaker 3: scientists tell us how to pronounce that ae.
16:07
Speaker 2: Is it? Stay?
16:09
Speaker 1: That's what I think it is.
16:10
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's either that or we've been getting it wrong.
16:13
Speaker 2: I can't remember.
16:14
Speaker 3: But everyone is like in science guys, anytimes it's AE,
16:17
Speaker 3: you pronounce the blank and I can't remember which one
16:21
Speaker 3: it is. Oh, it's either set or SETAE. And now
16:25
Speaker 3: we're gonna get more emails. And maybe I should just
16:27
Speaker 3: put a sticky note on my laptop so i'll always
16:29
Speaker 3: remember that. But that's what they're called, and they have
16:32
Speaker 3: a lot of functions. They can deter things that want
16:36
Speaker 3: to eat caterpillars because a lot of times these things
16:39
Speaker 3: carry little irritants and toxins. And you just put a
16:42
Speaker 3: pin in that for our very final segment at the end.
16:44
Speaker 3: But like you said, yeah, but you can get, you know,
16:52
Speaker 3: little little irritated bumps sometimes if you handle the wrong caterpillar.
16:55
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, and you shouldn't handle a category get much
16:57
Speaker 1: worse than that too. Yeah, if you've ever touched the caterpillar,
17:00
Speaker 1: That's why I was referring too earlier, Like as a kid,
17:02
Speaker 1: I remember touching one and just being like, oh my god,
17:05
Speaker 1: what what just happened? And it hurt very badly, I
17:09
Speaker 1: remember distinctly, but I still love caterpillars after that.
17:14
Speaker 3: I remember there was one kind and someone will know
17:17
Speaker 3: what kind ofness is, but I think it was sort
17:20
Speaker 3: of yellow and black, and we would, you know, put
17:24
Speaker 3: our finger on the ground and the caterpillar would crawl
17:28
Speaker 3: up our hand and then we would like get a
17:31
Speaker 3: leaf and have it crawl off. So I don't think
17:33
Speaker 3: we harmed the caterpillar. We were just sitting it kind
17:35
Speaker 3: of crawl on us for a minute. But and I
17:37
Speaker 3: wasn't touching the spine, so I never got that irritation.
17:40
Speaker 3: But I used to love doing that, and I just
17:43
Speaker 3: thought that was so cool that they I guess now
17:46
Speaker 3: knowing that they're blind, that there's like crawling on a stick,
17:49
Speaker 3: and it's like, now I'm crawling on a finger.
17:51
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah that's cute.
17:54
Speaker 2: But yeah, you wouldn't stick like kid fingers.
17:56
Speaker 1: You wouldn't have been touching the hair like structures, so
17:58
Speaker 1: it wouldn't have stung you. It's not like I don't
18:00
Speaker 1: think it's an active process. I think it's a passive
18:02
Speaker 1: thing where you just touch it and they're not like
18:04
Speaker 1: die die die. It's just like, right, you just touched
18:07
Speaker 1: it and it did its Thingah.
18:10
Speaker 2: Yeah, I get the feeling.
18:11
Speaker 3: The caterpillars even like, sorry, man, and you know it
18:14
Speaker 3: shouldn't touch me, but sorry.
18:16
Speaker 1: Most caterpillars seem rather chill, but not all of them are.
18:20
Speaker 1: I was not happy to find this out. I find
18:22
Speaker 1: this rather unpleasant. But there's some species of caterpillars in
18:27
Speaker 1: Hawaii that are actually carnivores. Far and away, most species
18:32
Speaker 1: of caterpillars, and hence butterflies are are herbivores. They just
18:38
Speaker 1: eat leaves, That's what they do. They eat leaves and shoots. Wait,
18:41
Speaker 1: eat shoots and leaves. So there's the ones in Hawaii, though,
18:47
Speaker 1: they'll eat snails. And not only do they eat snails,
18:51
Speaker 1: it's really awful. They tie the snails to, say, like
18:55
Speaker 1: a twig or a leaf or something, using spinnerets. They
18:58
Speaker 1: have silk producing organs, and they'll tie the snail, the
19:01
Speaker 1: whole shell and all to like a twig so the
19:03
Speaker 1: snail can't get away, and then they climb into the
19:06
Speaker 1: shell and eat the snail alive.
19:09
Speaker 2: It is horrifying.
19:10
Speaker 1: I don't like that particular kind of caterpillar, but I
19:13
Speaker 1: like all the rest.
19:14
Speaker 2: Yeah, they tie it down and eat it.
19:17
Speaker 1: So awful. Imagine it just coming into your house too,
19:20
Speaker 1: and you're like, please know, and you have no escape.
19:22
Speaker 1: And that's that.
19:24
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was pretty horrifying to read that and frankly disappointing.
19:28
Speaker 3: But there's also a brand, a brand in Australia brand Hey.
19:36
Speaker 3: They lay their eggs and ant hills and when they
19:38
Speaker 3: come out, they will eat those ants. But aside from that,
19:41
Speaker 3: in the Hawaiian they, like you said, are strictly herbivores
19:46
Speaker 3: and they are using those leaves also to camouflage themselves.
19:51
Speaker 3: They have a lot of great mechanisms to keep this
19:54
Speaker 3: not quite octopus level, but they seem like they're you know,
19:58
Speaker 3: I don't know if it's wrong to use words smart,
20:00
Speaker 3: but they know to feed under leaves so birds can't
20:04
Speaker 3: see them. They also have some natural camouflage, like sometimes
20:09
Speaker 3: those eyes can look like the fake eyes can look
20:13
Speaker 3: like snakes.
20:13
Speaker 1: Did you see that one?
20:15
Speaker 2: Yeah, it looks like a snake.
20:16
Speaker 1: Yeah, it looks like a bright green snake. And apparently
20:19
Speaker 1: they'll arrange themselves sometimes to make it look like a
20:22
Speaker 1: long snake, Like three hundred caterpillars will get together and
20:26
Speaker 1: line up and it's like Wow, there's a snake. No,
20:28
Speaker 1: it's a line of caterpillars.
20:30
Speaker 3: Yeah, like a lot of them are solitary caterpillars, but
20:33
Speaker 3: there is what was the one in particular that traveling.
20:37
Speaker 1: Groups gregarious caterpillars.
20:41
Speaker 3: Yeah, I get the feeling. Those are the ones that
20:42
Speaker 3: might do the old snake one too.
20:45
Speaker 1: Yes, I think those are swallow tails and they might
20:48
Speaker 1: be gregarious. Yeah. So I say we take a break, Chuck,
20:51
Speaker 1: and then we'll come back, and I propose that we
20:53
Speaker 1: talked more about caterpillars.
20:56
Speaker 2: Let's do it.
21:07
Speaker 1: Softly jaw. Okay, So you mentioned a couple of things
21:20
Speaker 1: that they do to protect themselves, camouflage, just eating a
21:22
Speaker 1: little bit on the underside of a leaf. There's a
21:25
Speaker 1: lot of other things that they can do too. There's
21:28
Speaker 1: there's so many different species of caterpillar because again we're
21:32
Speaker 1: talking about moths and butterflies, they're not just all the
21:34
Speaker 1: same thing. That they've developed all sorts of really interesting
21:38
Speaker 1: means of defense. One of the ways they say the
21:42
Speaker 1: best defense is shooting your poop out, and there's a
21:47
Speaker 1: type of caterpillar that does that. I think it's the
21:50
Speaker 1: it's the silver spotted skipper and skipper is basically a
21:54
Speaker 1: type of butterfly, and it shoots its waist called frast
21:59
Speaker 1: it's poop as far as five feet from itself in
22:03
Speaker 1: order to keep predators from being able to track it
22:06
Speaker 1: back to its source.
22:08
Speaker 3: That explains that old saying, you ain't nothing but caterpillar frass.
22:14
Speaker 2: M I never knew what they mean.
22:16
Speaker 1: You're really good at jumping, that's what they say to you.
22:20
Speaker 3: Yeah, and that's one of the things they do, like
22:21
Speaker 3: several other things, which is it all sort of falls
22:24
Speaker 3: to the umbrella of I don't want anyone to know
22:28
Speaker 3: I'm like even here, So a poop will be a
22:31
Speaker 3: big giveaway obviously.
22:32
Speaker 2: Another as if, like they love to eat.
22:35
Speaker 3: If if a predator sees a ton of chewed up
22:38
Speaker 3: leaves everywhere, they're gonna be like, ooh, the caterpillars nearby.
22:41
Speaker 3: I love to eat those things. So as much as
22:44
Speaker 3: those caterpillars love to eat, it is their singular purpose
22:47
Speaker 3: in life. They will many times just eat little bits
22:52
Speaker 3: off of many, many leaves to kind of disguise the fact, like,
22:55
Speaker 3: no caterpillar here. There's just a few nibbles here and there,
22:58
Speaker 3: yeah leaf rather than just yeah, rather than just like
23:01
Speaker 3: taking a leaf down to its spine.
23:04
Speaker 1: Yeah, which any even the dumbest of birds can be Like,
23:07
Speaker 1: there's a caterpillar around here.
23:09
Speaker 2: And you know they want to do that, but they
23:10
Speaker 2: still don't do it.
23:11
Speaker 1: I know. Caterpillars have tremendous self control, you doo. We
23:16
Speaker 1: mentioned that they have spinnerets so that they can spin silk,
23:19
Speaker 1: and they use it to great effect in all sorts
23:21
Speaker 1: of different ways, including defense. Apparently some kinds of caterpillars
23:28
Speaker 1: will like spin a little thing of silk that they'll
23:31
Speaker 1: attach to the leaf they're on, and when a predator comes,
23:33
Speaker 1: they just jump off, basically like John McClean and die Hard,
23:37
Speaker 1: and they're attached to the silk, so they swing into
23:40
Speaker 1: you know, a window in the Knokotomi building and then
23:43
Speaker 1: climb back up when the bird goes away. But they
23:45
Speaker 1: just jump off the leaf to get away. I'll bet
23:49
Speaker 1: that's pretty neat to see.
23:50
Speaker 2: That's right. And to combat jet lag, they make fists
23:53
Speaker 2: with their toes.
23:54
Speaker 1: Yeah, what do you know.
23:56
Speaker 3: I wonder if they leap. I'd like to see that
23:58
Speaker 3: in slow motion. I wonder if all of those legs
24:00
Speaker 3: and pro legs at once do that in concert that
24:04
Speaker 3: would be pretty cool.
24:05
Speaker 1: Or if they inch, they just shoot themselves up. They
24:07
Speaker 1: inch so quickly that shoots them right off of the leaf.
24:10
Speaker 2: Yeah.
24:12
Speaker 3: So yeah, that's one use of the silk is like
24:14
Speaker 3: literal climbing rope. And like we said, like the solo caterpillar,
24:20
Speaker 3: which is many of the I want to say, brands,
24:23
Speaker 3: what a dummy varieties species.
24:26
Speaker 2: Here you go.
24:28
Speaker 3: You know, there's going around, they're eating, they're they're laying
24:31
Speaker 3: an egg. They're using the silk as as like a lasso.
24:35
Speaker 3: Or maybe they might make a little nest. Like we
24:38
Speaker 3: said earlier, maybe they might restrain that that snail. But
24:42
Speaker 3: those gregarious kinds that live in big groups, they really
24:45
Speaker 3: get going with the silk production. They make big nests
24:49
Speaker 3: in trees and around tree trunks.
24:51
Speaker 1: You've probably seen them before.
24:53
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, they're like big tents.
24:54
Speaker 3: Basically, if you've seen big you know, it looks like
24:59
Speaker 3: sort of a real dense spider web. I guess sometimes
25:02
Speaker 3: those are spiders, right.
25:03
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's some kinds of spiders that do that, but
25:05
Speaker 1: I think probably more often than not what you're seeing
25:07
Speaker 1: or gregarious caterpillars getting together.
25:10
Speaker 3: Yeah, but they also use their little spinnerets as like
25:15
Speaker 3: a trail, like, hey, we're all going this way and
25:18
Speaker 3: we're gonna lay this little trail and we know that.
25:21
Speaker 3: You know, if you want to get home, this is
25:22
Speaker 3: how you get home.
25:23
Speaker 1: What's neat is those trails are often intergenerational and so
25:26
Speaker 1: like an older generation will leave there that that silk
25:31
Speaker 1: for the next generation to use, and that next generation
25:34
Speaker 1: then can grow bigger and stronger because they didn't have
25:36
Speaker 1: to use that energy to create the silk for that
25:40
Speaker 1: that leads to the to the food source. I thought
25:42
Speaker 1: that was pretty nice.
25:44
Speaker 2: Yeah, like handy down silk, Yeah exactly, or like you
25:48
Speaker 2: know link of rope that grandpa gave.
25:50
Speaker 1: You, Yeah, same thing, hand me down silk, length of
25:54
Speaker 1: rope from grandpa.
25:56
Speaker 4: What else?
25:57
Speaker 1: There's another thing too that we haven't quite figured it out,
26:00
Speaker 1: and we I mean the entomology world, and by we
26:03
Speaker 1: also mean them that it may or may not be
26:08
Speaker 1: advantageous to live in a gregarious community as opposed to
26:12
Speaker 1: being solitary. Because yes, it's easier to build a big
26:16
Speaker 1: shelter for yourself if you have a bunch of other
26:18
Speaker 1: friends helping you. It's easier to find food if you
26:22
Speaker 1: have other people looking at the same time you are
26:24
Speaker 1: and then telling you what they found. But at the
26:27
Speaker 1: same time you're also competing with those same people or
26:30
Speaker 1: those same caterpillars. I should say, yeah, and that's a
26:33
Speaker 1: big that can be a big problem too. I like it.
26:35
Speaker 3: Caterpillars are people too, exactly, and if there's a disease,
26:39
Speaker 3: you know it's gonna spread pretty readily within that population
26:43
Speaker 3: if they're all living together. But I think you know,
26:46
Speaker 3: we've held off long enough. We should we should talk
26:48
Speaker 3: about that metamorphosis, which is what everyone wants to know about,
26:53
Speaker 3: and that is basically a caterpillar is doing its thing.
26:56
Speaker 3: It's going through those molts. It's that fifth molt, and
26:59
Speaker 3: they say, you know what, it's been great, But I
27:03
Speaker 3: think I'm tired of eating. Finally, m I'm gonna go
27:05
Speaker 3: off and wander off into the woods and find a
27:08
Speaker 3: safe spot and I'm going to pupeate everybody, and when
27:12
Speaker 3: you see me again, I will be the most beautiful
27:16
Speaker 3: thing you've ever seen.
27:17
Speaker 1: Yeah, pretty neat. And this is where the terminology gets
27:21
Speaker 1: really confusing. If you do any research on.
27:25
Speaker 2: This, yeah, I can for sure.
27:27
Speaker 1: So the pupa is often referred to as the form
27:31
Speaker 1: the body form that the centipede that the caterpillar is
27:38
Speaker 1: in as it enters the transformation. Right, Yes, it's actually
27:44
Speaker 1: the life stage, like the caterpillar is the larval life stage,
27:47
Speaker 1: the butterfly or the moth is the adult. The pupa
27:50
Speaker 1: is the life stage in between. But for all intents
27:53
Speaker 1: and purposes, you can also say that's a butterfly pupa,
27:56
Speaker 1: although or that's a moth pupa. Right, that's the easiest,
28:01
Speaker 1: most understandable part of it. It starts to get really
28:04
Speaker 1: strange from there because the butterfly caterpillar when it emerges
28:09
Speaker 1: from that fifth mold, it has a special kind of
28:12
Speaker 1: skin on it, and over time, when it turns upside
28:16
Speaker 1: down and hangs from a leaf and begins its transformation,
28:20
Speaker 1: that skin hardens and it forms basically the protective layer
28:23
Speaker 1: that's going to protect that caterpillar turned butterfly as it
28:27
Speaker 1: undergoes its transformation, and that's called the crystalis But just
28:32
Speaker 1: butterfly caterpillars do that, right, not moths.
28:36
Speaker 2: I think that's right.
28:38
Speaker 1: And then I think it's just moths because they don't
28:41
Speaker 1: form chrysalis or crysalie. They are the only ones to
28:46
Speaker 1: spin a cocoon to protect themselves.
28:48
Speaker 3: Correct, right, and that cocoon starts talk kind of soft,
28:51
Speaker 3: but that eventually hardens as well. But I think that's right.
28:56
Speaker 3: But the chrysalis itself is not some like shell they
29:00
Speaker 3: build like it.
29:01
Speaker 2: It is. It is the thing.
29:03
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's the outer layer of skin.
29:05
Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, because it can actually twitch and move as
29:08
Speaker 3: a defense. Yeah, like it's it's a thinking sentient, well
29:13
Speaker 3: not thinking necessarily, but it is a shell that is
29:16
Speaker 3: a living thing. It's not like let me build this,
29:19
Speaker 3: you know, this thing to get into. It is the
29:22
Speaker 3: thing that it is in.
29:23
Speaker 1: Right, So imagine if you underwent this transformation, you probably
29:26
Speaker 1: go off into a corner and kind of ball up,
29:29
Speaker 1: maybe in a bit of a fetal position. But then
29:32
Speaker 1: imagine as part of this process, all of your skin
29:35
Speaker 1: fused together and turned into like an outer shell rather
29:39
Speaker 1: than you know this this you know, this thing covering you.
29:43
Speaker 1: It's it's like this now this big ball that you're
29:46
Speaker 1: now kind of separated from inside and you're doing your
29:49
Speaker 1: thing inside. That's kind of like what the chrysalis is like.
29:53
Speaker 3: Yeah, And so we mentioned the silk, like the uses
29:56
Speaker 3: as like a climbing rope.
29:57
Speaker 2: And stuff like that, and to build little nests.
30:00
Speaker 3: It really comes in handy when it's time to pupate
30:04
Speaker 3: because they use this silk in a variety of ways.
30:06
Speaker 3: There's more than one way to skin a cat, and
30:08
Speaker 3: there's more than one way for a caterpillar to metamorphosize. Sometimes,
30:12
Speaker 3: like you said, they hang upside down from that leaf,
30:14
Speaker 3: so they've spun like a little silk pad that attaches
30:18
Speaker 3: to something. Sometimes they create like a little hammock. Sometimes
30:22
Speaker 3: they make like a little sling in concert with a stick.
30:26
Speaker 3: There are different ways that they can do this, but
30:28
Speaker 3: it always involves using silk to sort of stabilize itself,
30:32
Speaker 3: either upside down or right side up or sideways or whatever. Right,
30:35
Speaker 3: and then they start to do that thing, whether it's
30:38
Speaker 3: a moth spinning that cocoon or just the gradual transformation
30:42
Speaker 3: of caterpillar into chrysalis.
30:45
Speaker 1: Right. And then so once that happens, once the cocoon
30:48
Speaker 1: is full or the crysalis is hardened, this and one
30:54
Speaker 1: of the most amazing things that on Earth happens in there.
30:58
Speaker 1: And it's neat because we've gotten to the point where
31:00
Speaker 1: we have photography that can peer inside of this without
31:05
Speaker 1: harming the caterpillar, and they have like time lapse videos
31:09
Speaker 1: of this transformation. And as the thing turns more and
31:13
Speaker 1: more into what's obviously like a butterfly or moth, and
31:16
Speaker 1: you see it hanging upside down just forming it. It
31:21
Speaker 1: looks like a cross between an hr Geiger painting and
31:27
Speaker 1: Michael Crichton's Coma, the movie version. It's really neat, but
31:32
Speaker 1: it also gives you this. It has this kind of
31:35
Speaker 1: regal and majestic feel to it as well. I produced
31:39
Speaker 1: a lot of emotions in me apparently.
31:42
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it's.
31:45
Speaker 3: This isn't the science y explanation, but it's almost as
31:48
Speaker 3: if you can take a tray of put a bunch
31:53
Speaker 3: of spaghetti and meatballs in a dish and cover it
31:57
Speaker 3: up and then when you open it up it's a lasagna. Yeah,
32:01
Speaker 3: and you're like, how did that happen?
32:03
Speaker 2: Like how did that even happen?
32:05
Speaker 1: So this is how it happens. The caterpillar breaks itself
32:10
Speaker 1: down into a soup of cells, like it's basically like
32:15
Speaker 1: a caterpillar soup for a while, and some of the
32:18
Speaker 1: cells keep their form generally, or at least stay attached
32:22
Speaker 1: to one another. So those leg cells, yeah, they change.
32:26
Speaker 1: They look different, like a caterpillar's actual true legs look
32:29
Speaker 1: different from the butterfly's true legs, but they're still the
32:32
Speaker 1: same cells. They're just they rearrange themselves a little bit.
32:36
Speaker 1: Most of the other cells just completely come apart, turn
32:40
Speaker 1: into imaginal cells, which are analogous to our stem cells,
32:44
Speaker 1: and that they can turn into any kind of cell.
32:46
Speaker 1: And then it reconfigures itself using the same cells, same amount,
32:51
Speaker 1: same everything into a butterfly. It reconfigures itself over the
32:57
Speaker 1: course of about two weeks.
32:59
Speaker 3: It's un Yeah, it really is, Like my brain breaks
33:03
Speaker 3: every time I try to make sense, especially when you
33:05
Speaker 3: see what comes out, you know, And I mean if
33:08
Speaker 3: it came out looking like a dung beetle like that
33:11
Speaker 3: would still be awesome. But to come out looking like
33:14
Speaker 3: a butterfly with those iridescent wings, yeah, and the little
33:17
Speaker 3: faces on those wings, it's just unbelievable. And I guess
33:21
Speaker 3: I mean, evolutionarily speaking, this is all to eventually get
33:24
Speaker 3: to like a pollinator.
33:26
Speaker 1: I don't understand it. This is where I think they
33:29
Speaker 1: that science has kind of thrown off. They're like, the
33:32
Speaker 1: best explanation I saw is that it's better than having
33:36
Speaker 1: two things compete for the same food source, but that
33:40
Speaker 1: that doesn't really make any sense, you know, because that
33:44
Speaker 1: doesn't make any sense to me at all. I don't
33:46
Speaker 1: understand that. But that was the best explanation I saw,
33:48
Speaker 1: and I didn't even understand it.
33:50
Speaker 2: So as to the why, yeah, yeah, Like.
33:53
Speaker 1: It's just so strange. It's I just don't understand it.
33:58
Speaker 1: And everything goes through life like stages. We go through puberty,
34:02
Speaker 1: we become adults, we go from infant babies to grown adults.
34:07
Speaker 1: But there's not a period where we stop and over
34:10
Speaker 1: the course of two weeks to completely reconfigure ourselves into
34:14
Speaker 1: a new form. There's not that many things out there
34:16
Speaker 1: that do do that, and we just don't fully understand
34:19
Speaker 1: why it happens, and maybe we never will, and I
34:22
Speaker 1: think that'd be just fine.
34:24
Speaker 3: Although I would argue that the Josh Clark I knew
34:27
Speaker 3: fifteen years ago his caterpillar like has now emerged as
34:30
Speaker 3: a beautiful butterfly.
34:31
Speaker 1: Thank you. I remember reading when Christopher Hitchins became a conservative,
34:37
Speaker 1: one of the Liberal members of parliament said that this
34:41
Speaker 1: is one of the rare instances where the butterfly turns
34:43
Speaker 1: back on lug Oh no, yeah.
34:46
Speaker 2: Wow, I'd like to hear what that exit.
34:48
Speaker 1: I think I read that in two thousand and seven
34:50
Speaker 1: and it still stuck with me.
34:51
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a good one. We didn't take our second break,
34:54
Speaker 2: did we.
34:54
Speaker 1: Nope, it's time.
34:55
Speaker 2: All right, Well let's take our second break.
34:57
Speaker 3: We'll probably still be talking about this metamorphosis, you know,
35:00
Speaker 3: when we come back, So just be.
35:01
Speaker 4: Prepared softly, jaws.
35:18
Speaker 2: Soft all right.
35:24
Speaker 3: I mean, I guess we're done talking about metamorphosis. It's
35:28
Speaker 3: called holo metabolism. Yeah, that full transformation. And I don't
35:33
Speaker 3: think he said it takes a couple of weeks generally.
35:36
Speaker 1: Yeah, I saw about two weeks something like that on average.
35:39
Speaker 1: It can be more or less depending on the weather
35:41
Speaker 1: and stuff.
35:42
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I took it as depending on the weather.
35:44
Speaker 3: Meaning is that they don't want to do this in
35:46
Speaker 3: the middle of winter. So if they get started and
35:50
Speaker 3: like winter comes early, maybe it'll they'll just stay in
35:53
Speaker 3: there for a few months.
35:54
Speaker 1: Is that right? There are some species that over winter
35:56
Speaker 1: in their cocoon or in their chrysalis, and that's part
36:00
Speaker 1: of their thing. But I saw that there's that the
36:02
Speaker 1: ideal there's an ideal temperature. That's what I took it
36:04
Speaker 1: to mean, oh, okay, and that the ideal temperature is
36:07
Speaker 1: twenty one degrees celsius. And get this, buddy, I converted
36:10
Speaker 1: to farent height. You s we talked about the other day.
36:13
Speaker 2: So you did it yourself.
36:14
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like, uh, I love it down. I could
36:17
Speaker 1: do it again if I wanted to. But I'm just
36:19
Speaker 1: gonna find what I wrote down. I think it's like
36:21
Speaker 1: eighty eight eighty nine degrees.
36:22
Speaker 3: Fahrenheits all right, I love it when after all these
36:27
Speaker 3: eighty one it's eighty one, you're still brave enough to
36:29
Speaker 3: put yourself out there with math.
36:31
Speaker 1: Here, I'll just do this, okay. So here we find
36:34
Speaker 1: fahrenheit from twenty one degree celsius. So it's twenty one
36:37
Speaker 1: plus thirty two. Okay, we're getting everything back equal again.
36:41
Speaker 1: So what is that fifty six times one point eight
36:45
Speaker 1: I believe comes to eighty one.
36:48
Speaker 3: When was the last time you did sort of written
36:52
Speaker 3: down long division or something like that.
36:55
Speaker 1: Oh it's been a long time. By the way, it's
36:57
Speaker 1: eighty four point.
36:58
Speaker 2: Six eighty four point six. Can you still do that stuff?
37:02
Speaker 1: I don't know. Probably if I gave enough time to it. Sure,
37:05
Speaker 1: I just did just it's not a part of my life.
37:08
Speaker 1: Yeah anymore.
37:09
Speaker 3: I actually don't know if I remember how to do
37:11
Speaker 3: long division. I recently because Ruby is starting, you know,
37:16
Speaker 3: like this past year started like multiplication and stuff and
37:21
Speaker 3: came at me with like three digit times of two
37:23
Speaker 3: digit and I was like, oh, you know what it was.
37:26
Speaker 2: Like, I got it. I got it.
37:27
Speaker 3: I remember, and I remember how to do that and
37:29
Speaker 3: to carry the stuff. But I definitely don't think I
37:34
Speaker 3: could do long division anymore.
37:35
Speaker 2: I don't.
37:35
Speaker 3: I sort of remember, but I don't think I would
37:38
Speaker 3: fully be able to complete a problem.
37:40
Speaker 1: By the way. I I know, I brushed past it
37:42
Speaker 1: because I don't handle compliments that well. But I do
37:44
Speaker 1: appreciate the comment about me metamorphosizing into a butterfly.
37:49
Speaker 2: That was a joke. I'm just kidding.
37:51
Speaker 1: Well, definitely edit this part.
37:53
Speaker 2: No, it was for sure true. I appreciate you appreciating that.
37:56
Speaker 1: So did we just come back from from a break?
37:59
Speaker 1: Is that here?
38:01
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's what's going on.
38:02
Speaker 3: But we can wrap it up and talk about caterpillar management,
38:06
Speaker 3: because here's the deal. Caterpillars eat leaves, and you know
38:13
Speaker 3: they can they can eat garden stuff. If you have
38:16
Speaker 3: a garden that you're planting, but it's not that big
38:19
Speaker 3: a deal. Like, individual caterpillars are not gonna ravage your
38:23
Speaker 3: garden and spoil your garden. If you have big groups
38:27
Speaker 3: of those gregarious caterpillars, they can cause problems. But you know,
38:33
Speaker 3: if you see caterpillars in your garden, don't like, don't
38:36
Speaker 3: overreact and be like, I gotta, I gotta start killing
38:38
Speaker 3: all these caterpillars. You know, take a breath, assess your problem.
38:44
Speaker 3: Are they ravaging your garden or do you just have
38:46
Speaker 3: some caterpillars here and there, like because you want those
38:48
Speaker 3: butterflies later on, don't you.
38:50
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, definitely, that's a big part. And it's not
38:53
Speaker 1: just for their beauty either. Caterpillars and butterflies alike are
38:56
Speaker 1: food source for birds, which is sad, but it's part
39:00
Speaker 1: of the circle of life, I guess. So that's one
39:03
Speaker 1: reason alone. They're also probably even more important for your garden. Pollinators, yeah,
39:08
Speaker 1: big time pollinators. There was a dead milkman joke in there.
39:12
Speaker 1: I couldn't quite I couldn't quite make it. But so
39:16
Speaker 1: they pollinate their food source, and most caterpillars, although all
39:21
Speaker 1: of them eat leaves and again like we said they're
39:23
Speaker 1: eating machines. The amount of damage they're doing is really
39:27
Speaker 1: kind of pales in comparison to the benefits you get
39:31
Speaker 1: from having them in your ecosystem. So for the most part,
39:33
Speaker 1: you want to just leave them alone.
39:34
Speaker 2: Yeah.
39:35
Speaker 3: I mean, there's a whole section if you're interested on
39:37
Speaker 3: how to kill and get rid of caterpillars at HowStuffWorks
39:41
Speaker 3: dot com in this article, but I don't even feel
39:43
Speaker 3: like talking about it, to be honest.
39:46
Speaker 1: Well, let's talk about gregarious caterpillars, because those are the
39:49
Speaker 1: ones that really are problematic. They can on a bad
39:53
Speaker 1: year or a good year for the gregarious caterpillars, they
39:56
Speaker 1: can consume up to a quarter of the leaves in
40:00
Speaker 1: a forest. Yeah, and they if they attack the same
40:05
Speaker 1: tree enough times, they'll kill a tree. So gypsy moth
40:08
Speaker 1: caterpillars are gregarious, and they're well known for killing trees
40:11
Speaker 1: just from eating the leaves off of it. That's how
40:13
Speaker 1: much damage they can do. And they can also harm
40:16
Speaker 1: crops too, So gregarious caterpillars you actually probably do want
40:21
Speaker 1: to get rid of if you come across it. But
40:23
Speaker 1: the key is prevention. Like you look for the eggs
40:25
Speaker 1: which form a ring around like a tree branch and
40:29
Speaker 1: take care of those then, like, don't try to deal
40:31
Speaker 1: with them later, it's going to be too late. You
40:33
Speaker 1: want to be proactive. They say the best defense is
40:38
Speaker 1: shooting your poop five feet away from you.
40:41
Speaker 2: Yeah.
40:41
Speaker 3: I mean, I guess if you're in forest management or
40:43
Speaker 3: if you're a farmer and it has like a literal
40:46
Speaker 3: effect on your crops and your forests and stuff like that,
40:48
Speaker 3: they're out there, you know, burning tents and nests and
40:52
Speaker 3: things like that. But that's not something you should go
40:55
Speaker 3: out and try to do because that's you don't want
40:57
Speaker 3: to catch something on a tree on fire.
41:01
Speaker 2: Just not a good idea.
41:02
Speaker 1: But can you just see somebody trying to get rid
41:04
Speaker 1: of caterpillars and be like, yeah, oh and you just
41:06
Speaker 1: started a wildfire?
41:08
Speaker 2: Yes I can't, I really can.
41:12
Speaker 1: It's hilarious if you think about it. It's so doode
41:15
Speaker 1: it is.
41:17
Speaker 2: Should we finish up with the assassin caterpillar?
41:19
Speaker 3: Well?
41:19
Speaker 1: Can I talk about one more thing you don't want
41:21
Speaker 1: to talk about just for a second, because I think
41:23
Speaker 1: it's kind of nuts as well. Okay, there's a bacterium
41:26
Speaker 1: called Basillis thrying inis. I believe et for short, this
41:31
Speaker 1: is a bacteria that people purposely introduce as a as
41:34
Speaker 1: a caterpillar control measure, and it goes in and created
41:38
Speaker 1: produces holes in the caterpillars gut and leads to sepsis,
41:41
Speaker 1: and it dies a painful death a few days after
41:43
Speaker 1: being infected. This is considered organic gardening. The problem is
41:48
Speaker 1: it doesn't just target caterpillars you don't want it. It
41:51
Speaker 1: targets all caterpillars. And it's also a pretty terrible way
41:55
Speaker 1: to die. So I'm I think I'm with you, Chuck Man.
41:58
Speaker 1: I think you just you say the caterpillars are here
42:01
Speaker 1: to stay as long as they're not gregarious. I'm just
42:03
Speaker 1: gonna let them live and let live. Yeah, Okay, I
42:06
Speaker 1: just wanted to get on that soapbox for a sing.
42:08
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm with you. So I mentioned the assassin caterpillar.
42:12
Speaker 3: This is the Linomia obliqua, or the giant silkworm moth,
42:18
Speaker 3: or the assassin caterpillar. It is the deadliest caterpillar in
42:21
Speaker 3: the world and there have been supposedly several hundred people
42:27
Speaker 3: in South America that have died from the toxin injected
42:32
Speaker 3: from this caterpillar.
42:33
Speaker 1: Quills from the sette.
42:35
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think it takes a lot, like even if
42:38
Speaker 3: one of them, you know, injected some toxin into you,
42:42
Speaker 3: you're going to be uncomfortable and it probably won't feel great.
42:44
Speaker 3: But I think you need to get like, you know,
42:48
Speaker 3: twenty to one hundred times that to actually kill you.
42:51
Speaker 3: Yet it still happens, Yeah, it does.
42:52
Speaker 1: Apparently it's responsible for five hundred deaths around South America
42:57
Speaker 1: I think total, like in all time as far as
43:00
Speaker 1: documented goes. Yeah, it takes a lot, like I think
43:03
Speaker 1: twenty to one hundred times to kill you. But the
43:06
Speaker 1: way that it kills you is it's an anticoagulant, a
43:08
Speaker 1: very powerful one, and you die of internal bleeding essentially.
43:12
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's a blood thinner.
43:15
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's that actually is being studied, the toxins
43:19
Speaker 1: in that particular caterpillar being studied for its usefulness in biomedicine.
43:24
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think they're only what is it, there's like
43:26
Speaker 3: thirty two species of Linomia, but only two of those
43:32
Speaker 3: have that blood thinner venom, the obliqua and then the achillis.
43:37
Speaker 1: But the rest will still sting you. It's just not
43:39
Speaker 1: going to kill you. It'll still hurt that's South America.
43:42
Speaker 1: In North America, the biggest one we have is the
43:44
Speaker 1: puss caterpillar. Puss megalopige upper cularis the southern flannel moth,
43:53
Speaker 1: and just accidentally brushing it can cause excruciating pain I've seen.
43:58
Speaker 1: So just be careful. Admire caterpillars with your eyes, not
44:02
Speaker 1: with your hands.
44:03
Speaker 2: Yeah. I guess I got lucky as a kid by
44:06
Speaker 2: just letting them crawl on me for a minute. But yeah,
44:08
Speaker 2: I I never felt that sting.
44:11
Speaker 1: There's one other thing too, The eastern tent caterpillars are problematic,
44:14
Speaker 1: especially in places like Kentucky, because they cause what's called
44:18
Speaker 1: mayor reproductive loss syndrome, where just I think fifty grams
44:23
Speaker 1: which is a tenth of a pound of these caterpillars
44:27
Speaker 1: ingested by a horse while it's foraging can cause it
44:29
Speaker 1: to lose its fetus, have a stillborn berth, all sorts
44:36
Speaker 1: of crazy stuff, so much so that it has a
44:37
Speaker 1: whole syndrome named after and it's just for eating these caterpillars.
44:41
Speaker 1: Oh wow, isn't that crazy?
44:43
Speaker 2: That is this is a good one.
44:44
Speaker 1: I thought you'd like that. Yeah, caterpillars are great. I
44:47
Speaker 1: think we should do a two parter with butterflies.
44:50
Speaker 2: Oh should we sure? I think Tracy wrote that one too.
44:55
Speaker 1: Okay, I say we get on a bench.
44:57
Speaker 2: I was going to suggest that, but then I thought,
44:59
Speaker 2: is that too much?
45:00
Speaker 1: I don't know, I don't know. I guess they don't
45:03
Speaker 1: have to come out back to back. They can be
45:04
Speaker 1: companion pieces.
45:05
Speaker 3: How about that we're back to back and then we
45:07
Speaker 3: can skip the metamorphosis marsa.
45:10
Speaker 1: Well, while we're figuring that out, I say, everybody, it's
45:13
Speaker 1: time for listener mail.
45:16
Speaker 3: I'm going to call this stuff you should know acrossy.
45:19
Speaker 3: I was very excited because one of our listeners, well,
45:22
Speaker 3: I'll just read it.
45:23
Speaker 2: I'll let you hang on that.
45:24
Speaker 1: For a second.
45:25
Speaker 3: Hey, guys, When my wife Katie and I were dating,
45:28
Speaker 3: we would meet up at lunch to do the daily
45:31
Speaker 3: crossword together.
45:32
Speaker 2: I proposed to her twenty years ago using a.
45:34
Speaker 3: Crossword I constructed myself, and years later, it's not only crosswords,
45:38
Speaker 3: but stuff you should know. It keeps our marriage life vibrant,
45:41
Speaker 3: it gives us something to talk about every week, and
45:43
Speaker 3: needless to say, your recent episode on crossword puzzles brought
45:46
Speaker 3: our life together full circle. About ten years after we married,
45:51
Speaker 3: I became a published crossword constructor and have been. I've
45:55
Speaker 3: continued ever since with puzzles in La Times, Wall Street Journal,
45:58
Speaker 3: New York Times, among others.
46:00
Speaker 2: So, Jeff is pretty experience is across the maker.
46:05
Speaker 3: As a thank you for a wonderful episode, I'm sending
46:07
Speaker 3: you an original puzzle the stuff you should.
46:10
Speaker 1: Know theme Wow, you do enjoyed Wow.
46:13
Speaker 2: And I haven't done it yet. It is printed out
46:15
Speaker 2: in my office. He sent me just a you know,
46:20
Speaker 2: send us. It's not a digital version, so I can't.
46:24
Speaker 2: I can't do it on my phone.
46:25
Speaker 3: I got to get out the old pencil nice, which
46:27
Speaker 3: would be kind of fun, and I can't wait to
46:29
Speaker 3: tackle it. I've just been waiting for the right window
46:31
Speaker 3: of time. And that is from Jeff Stillman and big
46:35
Speaker 3: shout out to Jeff and his wife Katie.
46:38
Speaker 1: I don't know how I missed that one, but I'm
46:40
Speaker 1: glad you called it out because I can't wait to
46:41
Speaker 1: do that puzzle too. So thanks Jeff.
46:43
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, got Jeff Stillman, go look at your emails
46:46
Speaker 2: and print.
46:47
Speaker 1: That sucker out. Yes. Well, thank you to you both
46:50
Speaker 1: Jeff and Katie. And if you want to be like
46:52
Speaker 1: Jeff and send us some amazing thing that's fine with us.
46:55
Speaker 1: You can send it via email to stuff podcast at iHeartRadio.
47:04
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47:07
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