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Invasive Species · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

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  Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
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  Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild. Our world is full of
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  Speaker 1: the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all
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  Speaker 1: of these amazing tales are right there on display, just
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  Speaker 1: waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.
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  Speaker 1: Ah the butterfly, the fashion icon of the insect world,
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  Speaker 1: is one of nature's most fascinating shape shifters. From early childhood,
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  Speaker 1: we marvel at this creature's transformative abilities, changing from lowly
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  Speaker 1: crawling caterpillars into winged beauties in the space of just
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  Speaker 1: a few weeks. In addition to being easy on the eyes,
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  Speaker 1: butterflies lack the drawbacks that make so many other insects
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  Speaker 1: frustrating pests. They don't bite or sting or carry malaria.
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  Speaker 1: They can even be good for our gardens. You hardly
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  Speaker 1: ever hear anyone complain about a butterfly infestation, so when
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  Speaker 1: researchers released a flock of the insects on a remote
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  Speaker 1: island in the nineteen nineties, they did not expect any downside.
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  Speaker 1: Their goal was to study population bottlenecks. That's a term
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  Speaker 1: for mass casualty events like a natural disaster or a plague.
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  Speaker 1: If enough members of species die out, these survivors might
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  Speaker 1: not have enough genetic diversity to go on, but pinpointing
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  Speaker 1: exactly how much diversity is needed can be tricky. In
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  Speaker 1: this case, the scientists were going to take a small
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  Speaker 1: population of butterflies and release them somewhere that they couldn't
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  Speaker 1: bump into others of their kind. Whether they died out
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  Speaker 1: or thrived would tell scientists a lot about the impacts
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  Speaker 1: of their limited gene pool, but they had to be careful.
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  Speaker 1: Introducing invasive species to a new area can be unpredictable
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  Speaker 1: at best. Even a small chain to an existing food
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  Speaker 1: chain can wreak havoc on an ecosystem. So to limit
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  Speaker 1: the impact of their experiment, the scientists selected a tiny
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  Speaker 1: island in the Finnish Archipelago. There was little life there
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  Speaker 1: besides grass and flowers, and the butterflies they'd be using
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  Speaker 1: were too weak to reach the neighboring islands. It was
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  Speaker 1: as close to laboratory conditions as you could get in nature,
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  Speaker 1: with no chance of affecting the surrounding area, or so
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  Speaker 1: they thought. The scientists released the young caterpillars on the
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  Speaker 1: island and then departed, planning to check back in at
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  Speaker 1: regular intervals. At first, everything proceeded as expected. The caterpillars
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  Speaker 1: spread across the island, chewing through the grass and the flowers.
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  Speaker 1: But just as they were getting ready to pupate, something
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  Speaker 1: strange happened. Some of the caterpillars began to curl and twist,
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  Speaker 1: convulsing as something wriggled beneath their skin. Then dagger like
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  Speaker 1: mandibles burst from their flesh, ripping and tearing. The creature
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  Speaker 1: tore its way free of the caterpillar's body and took
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  Speaker 1: to the sky. When the scientists returned to the island,
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  Speaker 1: they found it swarming with insects. Not beautiful butterflies, though,
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  Speaker 1: but ugly stinging wasps. A large number of the caterpillars
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  Speaker 1: had been infected with these parasite wasps. The eggs had
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  Speaker 1: hatched inside the caterpillars' bodies, and the wasps had eaten
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  Speaker 1: their way free, killing their hosts in the process. Naturally,
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  Speaker 1: the researchers were horrified they had botched the experiment and
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  Speaker 1: released an invasive insect into the Finnish countryside. These wasps
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  Speaker 1: were much stronger than the butterflies and had already spread
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  Speaker 1: beyond the island. And it wasn't just one species that
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  Speaker 1: they had to worry about. You see, many of the
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  Speaker 1: wasps also contained an even smaller, more rare parasite wasp,
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  Speaker 1: which in turn carried a rare form of bacteria that
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  Speaker 1: hadn't previously existed in the area. Like a horrific set
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  Speaker 1: of Russian nesting dolls, The tiny aliens would eventually burst
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  Speaker 1: from their host's bodies. At this point, there was very
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  Speaker 1: little that could be done. The cat was out of
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  Speaker 1: the bag, or the wasp was out of the caterpillar,
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  Speaker 1: so to speak. The researchers did eventually publish their findings,
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  Speaker 1: offering their experiment as a warning about the risks of
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  Speaker 1: working with invasive species. There is a silver lining, though,
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  Speaker 1: The few caterpillars that didn't get eaten from the inside
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  Speaker 1: out thrived thirty years later. They're still on the island
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  Speaker 1: along with those wasps. If you visit in the early summer,
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  Speaker 1: you'll be greeted by a kaleidoscope of beautiful winged survivors.
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  Speaker 1: Just be careful not to get stung. The whole problem
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  Speaker 1: started back in seventeen oh eight off the coast of Cartania, Columbia,
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  Speaker 1: where a massive ship docked in the harbor, one hundred
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  Speaker 1: and twenty eight feet long, sporting three decks, three masts,
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  Speaker 1: and sixty four guns. The san Jose was one of
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  Speaker 1: Spain's largest galleons, and it was preparing to set sail
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  Speaker 1: for the Motherland, laden with new world treasure. At the time,
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  Speaker 1: Spain was in shambles. The King of Spain had died
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  Speaker 1: without an air in seventeen hundred, launching the War of
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  Speaker 1: Spanish Secession. On one side was the French. On the other,
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  Speaker 1: the Austrians, Dutch, and the Holy Roman Empire, as well
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  Speaker 1: as the British. Whoever controlled the Spanish Crown controlled the
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  Speaker 1: seas and the flow of commerce from the Americas, which
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  Speaker 1: is why just before the san Jose set sail, a
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  Speaker 1: dark shadow appeared on the horizon. It was a squadron
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  Speaker 1: of British ships, there to capture the san Jose's treasure
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  Speaker 1: for their own. In the ensuing shootouts, a cannon ball
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  Speaker 1: accidentally hit the san Jose's store of powder and ammunitions.
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  Speaker 1: The ship exploded, sending the San Jose twenty billion dollars
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  Speaker 1: worth of gold and jewels and six hundred souls to
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  Speaker 1: the bottom of the sea. For decades, the San Jose
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  Speaker 1: sat forgotten under the waves. Its billion dollar treasure of gold, silver,
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  Speaker 1: and precious emeralds lay in wait for whoever was brave
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  Speaker 1: enough to seek it out. At least that's how a
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  Speaker 1: treasure hunt hill normally goes, But the story of the
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  Speaker 1: San Jose doesn't end with some intrepid adventurers getting the
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  Speaker 1: payday of their lives. Instead, the discovery of the San
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  Speaker 1: Jose set off an international custody battle that's still raging today.
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  Speaker 1: In nineteen eighty one, a US salvage company called Glacamora
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  Speaker 1: made the discovery of a lifetime. There, resting on the
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  Speaker 1: seafloor outside Cartana was the remains of a massive Spanish galleon.
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  Speaker 1: It was the San Jose, undisturbed for more than three
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  Speaker 1: hundred years, with all its treasure inside. They quickly approached
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  Speaker 1: the Colombian government to strike a deal. They would work
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  Speaker 1: together to raise the wreck and then split the treasure
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  Speaker 1: fifty to fifty. But the Colombians were not exactly happy
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  Speaker 1: about the deal, and it quickly devolved into a drawn
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  Speaker 1: out legal battle. In twenty fifteen, thirty five years after
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  Speaker 1: the Glacamora's initial discovery, the Colombian government made announcement it
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  Speaker 1: was them, and not the Americans, who had discovered the
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  Speaker 1: San Jose without any knowledge gleaned from the American expedition.
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  Speaker 1: They had found the sunken ship on a different part
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  Speaker 1: of the seafloor. The Colombians sent down a quake robots
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  Speaker 1: to make images and confirm that it was the ship
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  Speaker 1: in question. In their considered legal opinion, the Glacamora expedition
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  Speaker 1: had no claim to the treasure. Now, if you're thinking
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  Speaker 1: that this sounds like a convenient way to avoid sharing
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  Speaker 1: the treasure, you would be right. But while this sneaky
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  Speaker 1: move may have targeted the Americans, it also made way
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  Speaker 1: for other entities to lay claim to the ship. First
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  Speaker 1: of all, there's Spain, the country who owned the galleon. Today,
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  Speaker 1: they argue that if the British hadn't sunk the San
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  Speaker 1: Jose in seventeen oh eight, all of that gold and
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  Speaker 1: jewels would be sitting in the Royal treasury. So the
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  Speaker 1: least that Colombia could do would be to return it.
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  Speaker 1: But if they did that then they would interfere with
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  Speaker 1: the indigenous people's claim. Native groups from Peru and Bolivia
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  Speaker 1: argue that the treasure was stolen from their land by
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  Speaker 1: the Spanish. It should be returned to its place of
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  Speaker 1: origin as reparations for colonization. Colombia wanted to keep the
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  Speaker 1: ship and its treasures, not to enrich the country, as
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  Speaker 1: they say, but to educate the public. They plan to
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  Speaker 1: raise the ship and house it in a museum. And
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  Speaker 1: all of these plans you see, to raise the ship
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  Speaker 1: and redistribute its wealth go against what the archaeologists and
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  Speaker 1: the historians want. In their eyes, the wreck should be
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  Speaker 1: left as it is. The treasure and artifacts on board
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  Speaker 1: give context to the ship as an archaeological site. Not
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  Speaker 1: to mention the wreck is also a graveyard. Archaeologists argue
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  Speaker 1: that six hundred souls who died in the sinking should
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  Speaker 1: be left undisturbed where they are. Altogether, there's no easy
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  Speaker 1: answer for what should happen to the San Jose. The
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  Speaker 1: court case between the American salvage company and the Colombian
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  Speaker 1: government has made its way to the International Court of
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  Speaker 1: Justice in the Hague. Between unclear maritime laws and confusion
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  Speaker 1: over international jurisdiction, there's honestly no easy answer for who
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  Speaker 1: gets the twenty billion dollar hoard. When it comes to
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  Speaker 1: buried treasure, it turns out that long John Silver was wrong.
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  Speaker 1: X may mark the spot, but it doesn't win in court.
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  Speaker 1: I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet
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  Speaker 1: of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn
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  Speaker 1: more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com.
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  Speaker 1: The show was created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership
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  Speaker 1: with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show
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  Speaker 1: called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show,
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  Speaker 1: and you can learn all about it over at the
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  Speaker 1: Worldoflore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.