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Caterpillars: Nature's Magicians · Stuff You Should Know

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