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How Spiders Work · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: This episode is brought to Welcome to Stuff You Should
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Know from House Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and welcome
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. Yeah, there's Charles W.
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: Chuck Bryant. Jerry's over there. Uh and this is Stuff
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: you Should Know the podcast. That's right. How are you doing?
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: I'm doing great? Man? Good? How are you doing? Jerry? Jerry?
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: Oh goodness me. Good to be back in one A. Yeah,
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: it's been fighters and stuff twenty four hours. Yes, last
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: I saw one thing, um when I was watching a
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: documentary on spiders that they said, there's never You're never
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: more than an arm linked away from lots of spiders.
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: And I wondered, because I've done you. I finally did
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: your little trick with the flashlight. Did it work? Oh yeah, dude,
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: it's horrifying. They are everywhere. But I wonder about like
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: in this room and this it feels like hermetically sealed
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: concrete vault. Are there spiders in here? There's one dangling
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: above your head right now? I see No, they are pretty,
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: they're good at hiding, they're small. So you're saying they're
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: in here, I would guess, So, I mean, like, why
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: why would they not be in here, like the one
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  Speaker 1: place in the world and they've been around for what
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: four million years? Yeah, they're pretty durable. They've spread everywhere everywhere,
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: and um, one of the ways that they have adapted
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: is by generating new species. Yeah, like to the tune
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: of forty thousand that we know about, and they're like,
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: there may be thousands of more species, not just spiders
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: species exactly. Um. They have a tendency to kind of
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: take over an area because they're actually in their realm
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: of existence, they're frequently apex predators. Yeah, I mean they're
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: they're the uh, they're they've been lined the sharks and
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: that they are robots that kill and eat and make
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: baby spiders and sort of what they do in life. Yes,
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: but they also do some pretty neat geometric designs. Their
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: spiders are pretty fascinating, super creepy things. Yeah. That thing
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: you sent the how they take over that? Um like
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: that building? Yeah, the it was Baltimore's wastewater treatment plant.
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: They took over four acres of it. It was abandoned, right,
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: No oh really, Yeah, they just got a foothold in there.
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: That happened while dudes were working in the building. Yeah,
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: they said no, they noticed, but like they what are
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: these guys gonna do? They're like wastewater treatment guys, not exterminators,
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: So they didn't know what to doator, but they well
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: they did. The Baltimore UM City was like, can anybody
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: help with this week have something of a spider problem,
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: and actually brought in some academics who determined that something
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: like there were thirty five thousand spiders per cubic meter
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: in that building. That is a ton of spiders, they
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: were saying, and in this article, I think it was
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: on why points out that these are mid career entomologists
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: who um like have seen stuff before? Did they say? Etomologists? Entomologists? Right, yeah,
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: yeah yeah, um. And they were like, I've never seen
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: anything like this before my life. So they brought in
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: the spider version of Quint from Jaws. Probably seems like
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: you're gonna have to move, you have to kill the queen. Yeah,
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: now I speak even he was like, where you guys
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: gotta go? No, there's not a queen. Because I didn't
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: realize this, but it makes sense when I hear it.
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: Spiders lead solitary lives. They bow down to no one.
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: They just do what they want to do yes, and
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: spiders are not insects. They are arachnids in the class Arachneita,
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: the order um arena. Even got told how to pronounce those.
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: I think I think it's just a didn't that what
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: the lady said. I think she said, like it it's
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: pronounced like it looks okay, so it would be aaron a. Well,
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: it's the same order as ticks that we've talked about
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: in scorpions, which I would like to cover at some point.
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: Scorpions and my what was that my scorpion? I thought
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: you were gonna sing rocky like a hurricane. I've probably
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: seen winds of change instead. Really, yeah, it's a good
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: song man. I like a little harder. I like it
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: all all scorpions, all the time. Alright. So spiders, because
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: there are forty thousand species um, they obviously differ from
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: the tiniest little thing to the the goliath bird eater
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  Speaker 1: of Australia, which is can be as big as a
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: dinner plate. I think that's actually from South America. Oh
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: is it? Uh huh? I thought those were Australian. Australia
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  Speaker 1: has plenty of spiders scary ones too, but the goliath
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  Speaker 1: bird eaters. Yeah, and it's called a bird eater because
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: it can actually eat small birds. It does. It frequently
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: eats some little baby birds, but those are still birds.
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: And it's a spider eating a bird. There's a there's
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: a video that we have on the podcast page um
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  Speaker 1: for this episode of a goliath spider eating a mouse
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: and it it's it's remarkable. Yeah, dude, I saw one
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  Speaker 1: of a spider eating a viper snake what like the
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: snake went into the hole and the tarantula one what
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: And I mean they'll eat fish, they eat frogs and lizards.
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: Insects obviously, Yeah, but they'll eat whatever. Yeah. Yeah, they
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: do make it into a soup down it goes. Okay,
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: So I think we've kind of laid the ground where
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: care spiders are extraordinarily fascinating. You said they are arachnids um,
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: which means that they're not actually insects. And the thing
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: that differentiates them from insects is pretty simple. They don't
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: have and a true thorax. They have a cephalothorax, right,
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: which is the head and the thorax fused together, and
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: then they have the abdomen. So spiders have two segments. Yeah,
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: that's that's what makes them different. Yeah. And the the
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: segments to me seemed what they housed seemed a little backward,
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: like that rear segment the abdomen. I would have thought like, oh,
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: that's where the stomach is and all that stuff. The stomach,
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: the brain, the eyes, and the mouth are actually in
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: the front cephalothorax, and the abdomen is where the heart
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: and lungs, reproductive organs and digestive tract are. It seems
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: so a little flip floppy to me. It's like a
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: Ferrari where like the trunk is in the front and
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: the engines in the back. Yeah, or a Volkswagen the
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: same thing. Yeah. Yeah, well not all Volkswagons, but my
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: old Beadle had the rear engine. It makes them go
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: go go, yeah. Or it's air cold, so if it's
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: super hot, it makes it stop stop stop. Yeah. Another
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: thing that spiders have in common is they all have
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: eight legs, although some of them it looks like they
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: have ten pairs of legs. Oh no, I'm sorry, ten legs,
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: five pair of legs, And what that is is actually
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: they have something called petty palps. Oh yeah. Some of
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: them are longer and look leggy. Right, So it looks
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: like they have five pair of legs, but really it's
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: four pair of legs and a pair of petty palps.
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  Speaker 1: And these things are basically it's like um, their four arms,
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: their arms, it's like a squirrel. Imagine a squirrel, spidery
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: little tiny little front arms. Yeah, eating a nut or
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: a mouse or a viper um what else? All spiders
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: spin silk, right yeah, but not all of them spin webs,
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: right yeah, but they all of them are capable of
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: creating silk, which we'll talk about. To me, that's the
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: gold that's just amazing, and other there are other insects
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: that can spin silk like silkworms. Nothing in nature is
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: like spider silk, though it's strong, it's elastic. Um. For example, well,
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: if you are a spider and you build a web,
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: you can trap a bumblebee, a big old bumblebee at
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: full speed, and your your um web will be able
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: to withstand the impact. It's it's a huge, huge, massive
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: impact and you're the tensile strength of your web is
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: going to take it like nothing. Yeah. I think I
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: saw one thing that said it was a hundred times
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: stronger than a human ligament. That's strong. Yeah, stronger than
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: steel even that's strong. But again that's a tease. We're
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: gonna cover silk here in full. Um. But back to
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  Speaker 1: the body, my friend. Uh, Spiders breathe in a very
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  Speaker 1: basic way but fascinating. They have a trachea and what
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: are called booklongs. Uh. Most of the species have both,
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: some just have one. Um, but it's really a different thing.
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  Speaker 1: What what they do is air flows in uh through
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  Speaker 1: these basically slits and the exoskeleton, which is the trachea,
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  Speaker 1: and then there's just a lot of osmosis but diffusion
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: bass exchange. Yeah, but it's not like I'm breathing in air.
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  Speaker 1: It's just air is being diffused in and CEO two
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  Speaker 1: is diffused out right, and the movement of the spider
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  Speaker 1: actually pushes air through these trichia. Yeah, it's not like
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  Speaker 1: a lung that breathes quote unquote. And then they do
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  Speaker 1: have most species have both trichia and booklongs. Um. But
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: the booklung kind of is like an extra well, it's
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: an extra lung. It's an extra place where gas exchange
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: takes place. And um, they're called book lungs because it
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  Speaker 1: looks like an open book that's being flopped open, So
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: there's different leads and um. Those leaves are filled with blood,
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  Speaker 1: but the exterior of them become in contact with air,
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: so that's where the gas exchange takes place. Yeah. And
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: speaking of the blood, it's called hemo lymph and it
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: circulates O two and nutrients and hormones at all. But
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: um again and sort of a fascinating way. It has
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  Speaker 1: a simple heart that's just like uh, pump in, pump out,
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  Speaker 1: and it basically just saturates all the organs and blood
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  Speaker 1: and that's where they get their oxygen. Yeah. It's not
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: a closed system where like your your your arm is
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: getting blood because blood vessels are are carrying or carrying
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  Speaker 1: blood to it. It's like your entire arm, everything beneath
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: your skin would be full of blood. Yeah, and so
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: everything in there that needs oxygen or hormones or whatever
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: it is getting them just from being bathed in this stuff. Yeah,
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: it's pretty remarkable. It is brains, they've got them. Yeah,
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: they are tiny little brains, and some spiders are smarter
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  Speaker 1: than others, but in general, spiders, the way I read
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: it was, are sort of like little chemically signaled robots
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: it's just chemical signals flying all over the place that
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: operate everything. I think the jumping spiders are the smartest one.
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: Well yeah, and it's kind of making it's puzzling science.
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: So there's they have ganglia. They don't even have true
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: brains spiders exactly, and they're like little nerve bundles and
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: that's where all their impulses are originate, and that transfers
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: the signals to the rest of their body. Um. And
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: in a jumping spider, the ganglia amounts to about a
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  Speaker 1: hundred thousand neurons, just tiny, tiny, tiny amount of brain power,
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  Speaker 1: and yet their vision is about on par with human vision.
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: The jumping spider jumper, yes, the great They have eight
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: eyes with almost three hundred and sixty degree vision um
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: and they can see very clearly their surroundings. But again
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: they're doing this with a hundred thousand neurons. So roboticists
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: and a lot of other smart people are looking into
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: this to see like where this sufficiency is taking place,
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: Like how you can generate that level of clarity and
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: information from just a hundred thousand neurons. Yeah, they think, um,
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: they don't think. They know that. They like to drink
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: human blood jumping spiders, but from mosquitoes, and supposedly by
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: looking at a mosquito they can tell if it has
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: blood in it or not, just from vision. Um and
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: I don't think they figured that out either, but they've
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: seen clearly that every experiment they go to the mosquito
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: with the blood, which is remarkable, jumping like fifty times
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: their body length to to pounce on whatever it is. Yeah,
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: So imagine being a human and jumping even one time
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: your own body length, your height, you know, like a
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: standing broad jump. Yeah, but right, that's not gonna happen.
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: These guys can do fifty times, and they do it
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: quick to super fast. Spiders are amazing. Hey, maybe that's
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: why they called the comic the Amazing Spider Man. Oh maybe.
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: And it's funny. When I was reading all this stuff,
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: every like ten seconds, I was like, oh, just like
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: Spider Man, so clearly stand like to this research. Well,
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: what's funny is like this this article by old Tom Harris.
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: Um old Man Harris tries to like it compares like
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: spiders to humans throughout the whole thing. Yeah, just like
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: human spiders have a brain, but not really Yeah. Um And,
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: speaking of Spider Man, I guess spidy sense is sort
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: of what's uh really going on. They do have those
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: eyes and while this jumping spider can see really well,
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: most spiders it's a secondary sense and they use that
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: spidy sense that can feel vibrations like remarkably well feel it,
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: feel it is that good vibrations. Um. So they can
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: sense anything from like a long way away and sort
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: of know what it is, even especially if something's in
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: the web. So they've got hairs all over their body right, Um.
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: They also have additional hairs called trick of both for you. Yeah,
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: and those the the hairs um the rest of their
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: body or basically like, um, it's touching the ground, so
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: we can sense like movement on the ground or vibration
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: of the ground or in their web or something like that.
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: But the trick of both the hair can sense movement
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: in the air. Like. That's how sensitive this is. And
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: this is how spiders really sense their environment. Yeah. And
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: they can also taste, unlike snakes um the one that
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: we just released, um and smell. Yeah, so they pretty
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: well defined senses and they they really enjoy the taste
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: of mouse brains, like they really save for it mouse
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: brain soup. Uh, speaking of feet and legs, I had
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: no idea this was the case. Um, they have this adaptation.
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: Like we said, there are lots of thick hairs on
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: the legs and um, at the bottom of each hair
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: on the feet, well our feet. Yeah, so at the
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: end of tons of hair at the end of each
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: leg and they have eight legs, but on the end
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: of each hair or a bunch of feet like you say, yeah,
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: a little feet and then they can drip onto like anything, Yeah,
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: except the bathtub. Was that a joke or something? Or
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: is that like a well known thing about spiders that
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: they can't walk on bathtubs, because I don't know what
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: that means. I think bathtubs are a place where you
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: find spiders a lot of times because they can't get out.
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: So you'll be like, oh, there's a spider in the bathtub,
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: and you see it just going near and sliding back down.
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: So I think that was a bit of a joke,
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: and that's my guess. Have you ever had one come
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: out of the faucet the bathtub faucet? No, huh, that's
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: always fun. I was terrified for a brief time as
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: a kid because I went to turn on my bath
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: water and like put my hand down and like a
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: spider came out. And so for several years afterward, I
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: was petrified. Yeah, I was just a stinky little boy.
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: And that was last year. All right, So let's take
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: a break and then after that we will talk about
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: the malting process and a little it about spider silk.
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: All right, are we at the skeleton? I think we
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: are man exoskeleton. Yes, spiders have skeleton just like humans,
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: except it's on the outside exactly. Um, and they move
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: using muscles, right, but strangely they only half moved using muscles. Yeah,
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: this was just so interesting to me. It seems like
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: a mal adaptation. Oh yeah, yeah, like something they should
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: be able to do. Yeah. Um, spiders are able to
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: contract their muscles right, so they can move their legs inward,
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: and that's how they take a step and then to
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: complete the step. Rather than having muscles expand to move
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: the legs outward, again, they don't. They all have those
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: muscles for some reason. Instead, they pump hemo lymph into
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: their legs using hydraulic pressure to force them back out.
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: So muscles hydraulic pressure, muscles hydraulic pressure. It's so strange
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: it is really strange, but it clearly works well. It works.
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: Sometimes there's a spider can suffer from dehydration basically to
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: where it doesn't have enough hemo lymph to um which
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: is blood again to pump in to create the hydraulic
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: pressure necessary to make its legs move out. So if
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: you ever see a spider on its back with its
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: legs all curved inward, that's a dehydrated spider right there,
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: may handsome caterade. It may not be dead yet, basically
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: right right, and he'll tell you too, not dead yet,
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: Just poke it and then give him a drink and
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: send him along his way. The exoskeleton itself is um
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: made of cuticle, and it's basically proteins like kitan and
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: sugars like polysaccharides, and they're just stretched out and layered
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: upon each other to make it super strong. It's like
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: a really strong shell. It is for protection, obviously, but
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: the problem is that shell, once it's hardened, it doesn't
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: keep growing, although the spider does so. Much like snakes
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: and lots of other animals, spiders have adapted revolved to
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: mold to get rid of their old exoskeleton and um
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: a bunch of hormones trigger this. When it's time to
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: start growing. Uh, the spider will, I think, just like
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: a snake, start to absorb some of the inner layer
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: of the exoskeleton, right, and it becomes a little liquefied,
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: and they create this um, this fluid barrier between the
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: old exoskeleton and the new exo skeleton that they're growing. Yeah,
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: just like a little gap, basically a liquid gap, right exactly.
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: And the as the new exoskeleton starts to get grow
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: a little more and a little more, eventually absorbs that
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: fluid and then now there's like a a gap, a
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: real gap in between the all exo skeleton and the
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: new one. Yeah, and then it's um it's basically trapped
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: inside this old skeleton and does a little incredible hulk
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: move where it pumps that the blood again the hemo
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: lymph and expands the cephalothorax and it just like bust
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: out of it and then just keeps wriggling around until
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: it's completely out of it. But it's pants never fully
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: rip off. That always bugged me. It's just so unlikely
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: that a guy in like a thirty two ways can
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: become this like tin foot giant, right, it just is
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: like the lower calves and ankles were big enough to
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: rip his pants into tatters down there? What about the
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: waist and the thighs. No pulks would be naked, you know, technically, yes,
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: And again Stanley really studied spiders, so you'd think he
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: would know that about the hulks pants. But all right,
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: so after they have molted um, this is when they
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: do most of their growing because their new exoskeleton is um.
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: It's not quite fully hard yet. It can expand a
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: little bit at this point, but they're super vulnerable because
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: it's not as hard at that point as well. Right,
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: so they'll just kind of go off and be like,
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: let me alone, let me alone, let me alone. I
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: know him, the apex predator, but I've made a lot
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: of enemies along the way. They are looking for me
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: right now. So Chuck, we can't really put it off
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: any longer. And I don't know why we would. Time
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: to get silky. Yeah, we're gonna talk about spider silk. Uh.
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: It's amazing. We talked already a little bit about its
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: tensil strength, stronger than steel or kevlar um. And here's
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: the neat thing is that it's actually a liquid when
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: it comes out until you start stretching it and then
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: it becomes a solid. Right, it's extruded from spiggott and
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: the spiders um spinnerets. Right, So the spinnerets are um
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: these little pairs of almost like arms or whatever that
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: the spiders like this kind of yeah, As the silk
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: is the silk which is made up of amino acids
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: in like a water solution, like you said, when it's extruded,
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: the spider can do all sorts of different things with this.
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: And depending on how much um like pressure it applies
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: that the spigot or whatever, it could be a really
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: thin strand, it can be a thicker strand, it can
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: be short long, it could be a thin strand encased
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: in the thicker strand. They can do all sorts of
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: really neat stuff with their um their silk, so much
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: so that that researchers still aren't a hundred percent sure
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: what the heck is going on here, but they just
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: know that the spiders can do tons of different stuff
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: with just the silk proteins alone and the extrusion. Once
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: they come out, the spider can weed these things together
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: to create even stronger thread and again, this is stuff
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: that apparently it's uh several times stronger wait for weight
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: than steel. Yeah, and kevlar. So it's five times as
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: strong as an equal massive steel and twice as strong
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: as an equal massive kevlar. And remember with them the
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: bulletproof vest episode, we talked about using goat's milk to
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: produce spider silk. Yeah, they're doing it. Yeah, they definitely are.
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: They're not using it for uh, they haven't applied it yet,
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: but they do have um goat farms. They basically found, uh,
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: the genetic code specifically that creates the drag line. And
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: the drag line is the um that's sort of the
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: most common silk that it will spin. It's like a line.
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: It's like a mountain climber's rope they'll leave behind them
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: and in case it needs to like retreat quickly, it'll
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: have a little rope to pull itself along. So that's
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: the drag line. So they isolated the genetic code for
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: this drag line, put that in the goat embryo implanet
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: and a mama goat and the goat came out like
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: why they don't even know? That's the beauty of it.
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: They milk the goat and then from that point it's
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: a little bit like making cheese um from what I saw,
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: like they separate the they skim the fat off, and
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: it's like separating curds from way and then potentially we
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: could have like ligament replacement with spider or heart. Yeah,
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: they're looking to regrow human hearts with this stuff. Can
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: you imagine having a new heart grown from spider silk
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: made from goat's milk pumping in your chest. It's pretty neat. Yeah,
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: I think i'd tell people about that, be like, let
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: me tell you about my new heart exactly. That's ado
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: with spiders, goats and my poor diet a lot of
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: steak um, which is not true. What do you mean
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: misteak is not bad for you? Oh right right? Too
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: much medic myth? Is that the deal? Yeah, fats and
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: stuff like that. Uh. They think that the silk glands
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: originally started out as just ways to mark territory, like
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: a scent gland, and then they realize, I'm actually can
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: leave a substance behind that's super strong. As it turns
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: out super strong, and again also pound for pound, it's
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: as flexible as um rubber, natural rubber. Yeah. So it's
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: pretty amazing stuff. And again, the spider can do all
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: sorts of different things with it. And one of the
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: things you said is create the drag line, which is
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: like a trail of bread crumbs for an emergency. Yeah,
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: most spiders, that's the most common use of spider silk,
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: I believe, across species. Right, just like I'm gonna go
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: fifteen feet that way, and I'm gonna leave my little
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: drag line behind in case I need to hide. Tell
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: it out of there. Yep. They also have other glands
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: that can produce substances to put onto the spider silk,
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: like sticky stuff, which is very useful in creating webs
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: or water resistant materials. Yep. Um, basically like spray net
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: with what's this stuff? Just blank? When like for gortex
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: he spray uh Scotch card, Scotch card. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Um.
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: Female spiders will use uh, they'll make protective cocoons. Sometimes.
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: If you're in your basement and you see a big
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: looks like a cotton ball full of eggs, that's a
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: spider's sack. Yeah, it's a cocoon they've they've woven to
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: help out their little little guys and gals survive. And
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: then did you see the net cast? No, I'm I
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: ran across in this article, but I haven't seen one. Yeah,
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: you can just google on YouTube or whatever net casting
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: spider And it's basically like a little uh fishing net
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: that they'll weave between and hold it between their legs
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: like a sheet, and then something walks by and they
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: just throw it over their head real quick and like
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: wrap them up in it. You can throw it in
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: the van and drive off. Basically, So the probably the
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: most famous and I can't believe I even just said probably,
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: but the most famous you of spider silk in nature
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: is to spider webs. Yeah, the most amazing thing you
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: will see is an orb weaved web. And there's a
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: lot of the orb weaved. Is the good one that's
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: the geometric looking. They clearly care about it. There are
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: plenty of other spiders that really don't care what their
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: webs look like the right. Yeah, they drink out of
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: mugs that they're like, I hate mondays and stuff. They
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: just don't care about their web. Like black widows actually
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: make terrible stupid webs. Yeah, and you would think like
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: they're sleek, they're they're vicious symbol. Yeah, but they don't
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: care what their web looks like. And what are you
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: gonna do. I'll bite you, yeah that's what they say.
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: Or I'll mate with you and kill you. Right. Either way,
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: you're getting bit. Have you ever seen you see a
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: lot of them in your apartment or a house or
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: what do you implying? No? Well, I mean well you
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: don't have a basement. No, see, I go on my basement, dude.
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: They're everywhere. Man, it's creepy. It is creepy because you know,
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: they am brown reclusives, which we'll talk about too. They're
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: very reclusive, hence the name for the brown recluse. But
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: black waidows are the same. They don't want to have
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: anything to do with you, and when you come near them,
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: they want to get away from you. So having them
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: in your house is not really much of an issue
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: for you. It is for the insects in your house,
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: but for you it doesn't really matter. But just seeing
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: them and just knowing that it just makes you kind
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: of shudder, right. Well, that that shiny red hourglass is
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: just like creepy. Look they look really deadly. Yeah, and
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: I have an unfinished basement, so there are spiders everywhere
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: in my basement, dude, everywhere? Is it like the Baltimore
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: Wastewater treatment plant down there? It almost is like I won't, um,
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: I won't reach into any uh darkened area of my
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: basement to get a tool or something. That's probably smart
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: because they would want to get away from your arm.
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: But if you really scare them or something that they
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: feel threatened, they'll come at you. Like It's not like
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: they won't bite you, So I think that's that's very
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: a good chuck. I'm going to get you shoulder length
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: um leather gloves for Christmas. I've got some, do you yet?
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: Not for that, but sure you should wear them when
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: you go to reach of the well. I worry about
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: my animals sometimes, but I read that um spider venom
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: and we're jumping ahead a little bit, but it's not
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: harmful to animals. Like the most deadly spider in the
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: world is the funnel uh Sydney funnel weaver fun funnel
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: web in Australia, of course Sydney and um they I
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: saw a video of a cat like playing with one
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: and it said for some reason, it like doesn't affect
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: any animal, any mammal but humans. That's really weird, and
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: they have no idea why because humans came along way
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: after spiders did so then no one can figure that
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: part out. It's really odd. Yeah, I don't think you
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: have to worry about your pets with spider bites. That's
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: a good ps right thing. All right, So we're back
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: at the web. I would advise everyone at some point,
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: I'd like you to follow along if you're at home,
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: but go to the House Supports article on spiders. That
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: little graphic. It's so helpful. The flash animation. Yeah, yeah,
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: and it works not on Android devices, but it just
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: you just go to your desktop. Desktop version of the
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: site has this the little flash where you just click
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: next and it shows you exactly what it takes to
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: build a spider web. Yeah, but we'll we'll talk you
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: through it here. Um. The first thing that happens is
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: the spider gets up on someplace high up, like a
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: tree branch, and fires that one it's called a bridge,
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: that one starting point down and just hope the wind
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: attaches it to something else below it, and if it attaches,
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: then it cinches it up really tight. And he's like,
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: I've got this sort of like the foundation that's the baseline.
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: The baseline, Yeah, very nice. And uh, the spider crawls
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: across that baseline, which I think it's a bridge is
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: what it's called. Like baseline, all right. It crawls across
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: the base and as it does, it releases another line
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: of silk that's um much looser, sort of dangles below it,
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: and it attaches it at each end where the baseline
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: is attached to those two branches to right, and like
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: you said, it dangles below it, forming is kind of
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: a lazy V. And the spider crawls down to the
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: lowest point of that V and then drops another line
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: from that point down to say another anchor point, so
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: that forms like a tighter y. Yeah, it sort of
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: looks like an upside down coat hanger. If the if
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: the if the hook was straightened out exactly or why
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: you know, a why with a line crossing the two
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: points at top exactly. So now it's got this and again, um,
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: it tightens everything up along the way if everything is
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: going as planned, and then you have it has to
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: lay out frame threads and this is when it starts
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: going in Uh not I guess a circle, but a
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: circle made up of straight lines. Uh, yeah, that kind
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: of Yeah. I want to say octagon. But it's more
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: than eight sides. It's a polygon, is it. Yeah, there's
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: more more than one gone, so it's a polygon. I
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: thought poly meant five. No, No, I think that's a
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: I don't think so hectagon pentagon? I think so, man, no, man,
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: we get killed. But it's it's a it's several rhombus
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: is put together, all right? With that? So there's a structure.
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: Now there's like the outer structure, there's an inner structure.
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: And the thing is getting stronger and stronger, and the
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: spider will create um. It will start at the middle
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: and basically create like a circular like a Nautilus motion,
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: laying silk all around. Most people think of spiderwebs is
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: fairly sticky. It is not sticky at this point, and
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: for one very good reason. The spider has to move
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: along it, so it hasn't laid down any sticky silk yet.
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: But once it creates this um, this circular pattern, and
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: knows where it's gonna go, it goes back around it
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: and eats the old stuff while it lays down a silky,
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: sticky silk in its place. Yeah, it's it's a spiral.
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: We keep saying circle. I think spiral makes a little
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: more sense. It's the word. So yeah, like you said,
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: it'll it'll eat the previous one, laid down the sticky one,
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: but it also still has an auxiliary spiral to get
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: around on. It just knows where to walk basically, Yeah,
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: like I'm not gonna walk on the sticky one. I'm
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: gonna walk on the other one. Right. It was pretty
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: amazing in itself. Yeah, and then it's web is is
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: created and that's again it's called an orb web. A
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: lot of spiders and it's mostly from garden spiders that
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: create orb webs in an elevated area. Beautiful. Um, Charlotte
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: must have been a garden spider and it's clearly an
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: orb web. The thing definitely have more than a hundred
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: thousand neurons because it could spell Yeah. We had a
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: big garden spider um we've won last year on our
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: side deck attaching to our house and was in a
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: great place that the dogs wouldn't hit it and we
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: wouldn't hit it, and we would just go out every
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: day and be like, you know, check it out and
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: see how it was doing. How was it doing. It
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: was doing great lots of lots of flies and stuff,
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: and it was fattening up while they're not there for long. Yeah. Um,
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: So generally they'll hang out in the middle of that
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: web wait for the vibrations. And like we said, they
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: can even tell the difference between like a wasp getting caught,
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: which is not so great sometimes, or uh, butterfly, let's say,
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: and which they want to eat. So they love butterfly
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: delicious flight tastes like frog legs to them. Uh. Some
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: other spiders will be like, I'm not waiting in the
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: middle of this web. It's raining out. I'm gonna go
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: hang out in my nest. And they'll they'll leave like
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: a drag line that in this case is considered a
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: signal line, and it's just attached to the web. So
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: they're looking for signals like vibrations from the web. Yeah.
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: It's like, uh, it's like being the laziest fisherman, the
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: one that just throws out the thing with the bomber
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: and then just start drinking beer and reading their outdoor
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: readers readers digests, and then when they feel something, they're like,
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: oh man, i'm fishing exactly. Yeah, it's that kind of spider.
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: Uh here's the other neat thing. When a web is
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: no longer useful, many times the spider will eat it
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: and recycle that silk. Yeah, which is amazing. It breaks
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: down the proteins and it uses it again later. Yeah,
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: a little recyclers. Pretty smart things. All right, Well, let's
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: take our final break here and then we will talk
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: about some other hunting methods that spiders use right after this.
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: All right, so we're back and we're talking about other
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: hunting methods. Um As, I said, this great documentary I
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: watched said that spiders or some of the maybe the
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: best most efficient, fully realized predator on the planet. Dude,
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: like as well as a shark. Yeah, as good as
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: a shark. Spider would kill a shark in a second,
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: that he was the size of a shark. You might, definitely.
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: And by the way we did our little p s
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: a with snakes, you shouldn't kill spiders either, or no,
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: I mean, like you want to leave them around because
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: they're like taking care of a lot of pests that
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: you don't want. I talked about mosquitoes. I hate mosquitoes.
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: Who doesn't. I'll kill a mosquito. So a spider will
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: eat a mosquito in a second. It's like frog legs
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: to them. Again, nothing but rock legs. Uh. So let's
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: talk about some of the other ways that spiders can hunt. Um,
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: some have venom, Like they're waiting a little trap door
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: that they've made a little hole in the ground. They
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: build a little web web door on a hinge like
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: a tiger pit, and they'll jump out and you can
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: see video of this online too, or they'll let you
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: fall into the hole and then they're on you. Like
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: that snake. Yeah, this tarantula ate a viper man. That's crazy.
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: And when I say ate, it like it's not like
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: a snake eat something and it's just not there anymore. Like, uh,
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: you know, it sucked out whatever it could eat from
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: the snake after paralyzing it with its venom, which is
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: where we are. Um. Wolf spiders, Yeah, they're land spider.
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: They don't hunt with the web. They stalk their prey.
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: Uh huh yeah, which is terrifying. Yeah, jumping spiders do
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: that too. Yeah. The difference, So jumping spiders stalk their
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: prey kind of like a cat. But when a cat
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: is ready to pounce, it will pounce and run. A
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: jumping spider just pounces and it lands to work. Yeah,
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: and your toast. You ever seen the wolf spider when
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: it has all the babies on its back, No jump
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: off and run around. That's something that I think is
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: is worth meant in here. Yeah, it's terrifying. So you said,
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: a lot of a lot of spiders. Um, a lot
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: of spiders will create like a cocoon for their spider
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: lyings with silk, and a lot of spider species will
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: just like there you go, kids, you're have a good life,
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: and the spider mom goes off. Wolf spiders carry their
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: cocoons around with them and then, like you're saying, even
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: after the spiderlings hatch, the spiderlings just hit your ride
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: on the back of their mom for a while until
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: they're old enough to start taking care of themselves, and
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: then they spread out, which is really unusual for spiders
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: as far as reproduction goes. It's crazy looking. I've seen
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: wolf spiders that, um maybe it was a noise that
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: frightened them or something, but all of a sudden they're
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: you know, did you see uh that vine that that
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: dude posted from Mexico and the beginning of two thousand
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: and fourteen that became really famous. It looks like a
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: little to pay on like a blue plastic bin. I
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: don't like where this is going. And he goes up
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: in like poke, and all of a sudden, the two
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: pages turns into about ten thousand spiders. But it's not
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: actually spiders. They're harvestment like Daddy long legs. Daddy long
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: legs aren't actually spiders there arachnids. Oh, is that the deal? Um?
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: And one of the things that differentiates them is this
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: packing clumping um instinct that they'll four. It looks like
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: just this bad tube page just sitting there, but it's
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: really a bunch of spiders or a bunch of harvestment
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: and what no terrible toothpage. And what they're doing is, um,
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: they're maintaining moisture in like a hot, dry environment by
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: by clumping together and kind of pooling their moisture. And
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: then as the sun goes down, they'll like spread out again.
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: But if you go up and touch them like this
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: guy did on vine so it's just like this ninth
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: second loop over and over again. Um, they just separate
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: and scatter everywhere. It's pretty neat. Have you done it?
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: Don't be dumb on the Granddaddy long Legs supposedly being
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: the most poisonous. I looked into it. No, I kind
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: of ran into a wall because it's like, so this
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: is what I found. Yes, that they they the old
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: wives tale is that they are the most poisonous around,
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: but their mouths are too small to puncture human skin.
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: But if they could, they could kill you. I don't
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: believe that. So if it's a harvestman, that's and apparently
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: there's a bunch of different arachnids that are called Granddaddy
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: long legs. But if it's the harvestman, then it's completely
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: false because not only do they not have venom, they
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: don't even have fangs because they couldn't bite you. But
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: another caveat to that is is that although they can
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: survive if like they lose a leg, and this is
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: an adaptation to where like, if a predator has their leg,
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: they'll just pull it off themselves and run off. And
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: the guy's like, oh man, they can't regrow their legs.
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: They can survive without them, they can't regrow them, so
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: they'll have like just whatever seven legs. Yes, so you
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: don't want to pull the legs off a granddaddy long
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: legs because it's not growing back. Kids. Yeah, it's not
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: cool to do. Yeah, the torture insects. Don't listen to Ricky,
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: your Billy, you're Tommy or whoever is telling you that
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: their legs are going to grow back. Now, they're going nowhere, nowhere. Um,
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: all right, So we were talking about venom. Um. Most
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: spiders have pretty much the same procedure when killing prey.
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: They have um. The weapon is these a pair of
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: jointed jaws called calorisari. I think, are you're gonna go
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: with that? I'm going with cellisari? All right? Um? Cellisari, calorisari,
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: cellis celli Sara Man. Some people like this stuff. Some
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: people think it's some people are like, I'm done with
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: these guys forever. But each part of this jaw has
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: two parts of the basil segment, which is the bulk
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: of it, and then these fangs, and just like snakes,
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: these fangs act as little needles, and they have a
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: venom duct that they'll squeeze the venom through the fang,
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: just a snake. Yeah, it's pretty remarkable, and the venom
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: is very frequently a neurotoxin. Paralyzes the prey like a snake,
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: and then um, I think you're really funky with the
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: spider after that point. So it's it's taken down a mouse,
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: it's paralyzed it. The mouse is like, oh god, I'm
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: locked in. I can experience everything, but I can't move.
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: And this is horrible because now I'm being killed by
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: a spider. It's like the anesthesia awareness exactly, you know,
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: but even worse than that. But there's not a doctor.
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: It's a spider. You're being operated on by a spider,
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: and um, the spider is now injecting you know that
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: you're paralyzed. Now it's injecting you with digestive enzymes, and
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: you will be liquefied from the inside out because, like
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: we said, spiders eat nothing but soup essentially, yeah, their
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: entire life. But the soup that they eat doesn't start
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: out as a soup. Instead, it starts out as must
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: will in tissue and all that kind of stuff inside
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: a mouse, and then once it liquefies, the spider will
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: suck all that stuff out and then that's its food
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: and it takes like frog legs to it. The actual
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: fangs themselves, Um can work a couple of different ways.
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: In the case of a tarantulas, um, it works like
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: an axe the fangs swing down, and uh Irannium morphs,
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: which are the most dominant suborder, they act as little pinchers,
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: which is better, Yeah, because I think the tarantules need
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: to actually pin something against something to swing those little
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: fang axes down. Yeah, Whereas if you're an rannium morph like,
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: your pinchers are just using the pressure created by the
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: other pincher to puncture right your prey. So what does
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: this mean for us? Dude, you get bit by a
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: spider venomous spider, are you going to die? Uh? No,
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: the chances are pretty high that you're not going to
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: die as in a healthy adult human. Yeah. I think
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: that the across the entire world, the morbidity rate of
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: a spider bite is like ten. But even for ones
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: that we think are so deadly, like um, the brown
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: recluse spider, morbidity rates were at five percent before we
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: discovered an evenin so I'm gonna feel good. No, And
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: there's actually some nasty, nasty videos on YouTube. There's a
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: guy the video the worst one. He basically created a
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: video diary of like him just filming his foot with
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: the brown recluse bite and just talking about like how
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: nasty it is, and he stopped because he thought no
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: one wanted to see it. And everybody's like, where's more videos?
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: What's going on now? So we started like posting him
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: all the time. But I think it says um brown
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: recluse spider bite disturbing video. After three months, put those
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: words into YouTube and it will bring up this dude's
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: foot and it looks like a giant cabbage patch kid
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: and there's a it looks like have you ever seen
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: um Requiem for a Dream? Remember the end where he's
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: got that mess that on the top of a cabbage
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: patch kid's foot And people wanted more, more, more, Yeah,
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: which proves my theory that the internet is thunder dumb.
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: But this guy is like it's so gross, like you
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: could easily fit two fingers into this spider bite. And
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: the reason why is because this guy's suffered necrosis, which
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: is a a side effect of the brown recluses toxins
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: uh and if untreated, you're probably again you're not gonna die,
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: it's gonna hurt like crazy. He was going to a
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: doctor through all this though, right, Yeah, he had to.
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: You'd have to be just totally psychotic to have your
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: foot look like this and not go seek medical. It's
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: looking better today Thursday. Yeah. Um, but the the the
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: you can suffer severe like scarring and tissue damage, but
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: you're probably dobably not gonna die. But it hurts because
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: they affect our ion channels, right yeah. Um. Kristen Conger,
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: I think had wrote a great side article about how
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: um deadly spiders work, on how stuff works, and for
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: instance that the Sydney funnel web venom it's a delta
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: um atrocotoxin and it is an amino acid chain that
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: uh causes damage to nerve cells. Yeah, it makes our
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: nerves cells like fire, uh excitedly, like constantly. I think
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: it's I think some toxins, when they affect our nerve cells,
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: it just makes them fire over and over and over again,
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: which affects their performance. It's not what you want. And uh,
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: as far as no susceptor cells, you are just experiencing
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: tremendous amounts of pain. Right or before nineteen eighty when
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: they discovered the funnel web anti vennon, you could die
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: from it. But since then they say no one has
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: died from it. No, and the the funnel web. This
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: is the one that's routinely pointed out as the world's
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: deadliest spider, although Kristen points out there's no real scientific
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: consensus on that because there's not that many spiders that
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: really even have a chance to be considered deadly to humans. Um.
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: But the funnel the Sydney funnel web, which lives in
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: the mile radius around Sydney, Australia, right in the city right,
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: Um is is I guess if you really pressed uh science, science,
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: almost said scientologists, he pressed a spider researcher, Um, they
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: would probably say the Sydney funnel Web. And one of
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: the reasons why is because it's fangs, it's pincers can
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: pierce human toenail. Yeah, and they're aggressive, like if you
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: want to get out of here, they may not get
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: out of there. They may say, oh, yeah, I'm coming. Yeah,
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: they like eat a can of spinach and come at you. Scary.
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: I think there's one in Brazil too, called the wandering
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: spider Brazilian wandering and it is um has been cited
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: as the deadliest as well because it can inject up
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: to two milligrams of venom, which is just that's a
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: lot of venom for a spider. So it is a
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: hunting spider as well, and it is also aggressive. So
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: I'm glad that most venomous are the most aggressive. Yeah,
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: it's fine how that works out. Uh, so how do
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: we get spiders, chuck, Where do they come from? Well?
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: They they have sex, Yes, they do. Spider sex is
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: pretty fascinating. Not as interesting as snake sex. Maybe maybe
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: it is. I no, no, I don't think so let's
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: talk about it. Okay, So what we said that spiders
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: are almost exclusively solitary hunters. Yeah, they don't hang out
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: with their families. So if you're a male and you're like,
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: I gotta reproduce, I gotta pass these jeans along. Um,
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: you're going to seek out a female spider. But it's
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: not the easiest thing in the world to do. Now,
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: only do you have to find a female spider, you
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: have to find one of reproductive age and ready to reproduce. Yeah,
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: and not eat you. But that's a big that's a
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: big point. But in the case of the black widow,
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: you're gonna get eaten anyway. But um, females are way
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: bigger than the males, which is one way that males
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: get eaten. Yeah. I saw a video of a black
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: widows mating and it looked like a little baby spider
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: trying to mate with a big, big spider. But it's
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: just a male and a female, so they the female
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: when it decides. All right, I guess I have to
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: do this. I have to be defiled. I'm gonna lay
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: down a drag line sort of like a snake does,
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: covered in pheromones wherever I go. I'm just gonna leave
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: this scented trail behind me on this drag line. Or
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: if it's a web based spider, they may lay pheromones
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: over the web right and just let the wind do
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: its work. Yeah. Either way, these spiders are going to
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: pick up on us and be like, Okay, I'm heading
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: that direction. Yeah, I'm gonna follow this drag line. Who's
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: pull a little self down this drag line and finally
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: I get to the female. Uh. Although we should point
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: out another creepy thing that spiders will do is they're
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: so desperate to mate that they'll hang around females that
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: are too young until they get to the right age,
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: Like they'll hang around the playground and it's so creepy
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: and predatory. They'll be like, oh, she's she's close. Let
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: me wait a few weeks. So yeah, they're like, I
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: don't feel like searching. I'm just gonna wait. So, um,
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: when when they find the female, that's just step one.
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: Step two is convincing her that you're not in dinner
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: and that you're not trying to encroach on your territory. Right,
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: You're like, I just wanted mate. Uh. And there's some
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: different ways that spiders do this. So, like with a
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: jumping spider and species that have like good vision, they
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: may do a little dance, Yeah, a little look at me,
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: look at me over here. Yeah, well spiders will do that. Uh.
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: And then spiders again that are web based, the male
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: may come up and like play a little a little
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: tune on the web. Yeah, like plucking a guitar string,
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: exactly for the female to be like, oh, I see
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: what you're after. She's like, is that Jose Feliciano. I'm
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: such a sucker for Jose Feliciano. So once they have
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: convinced the female spider that they are there to have
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: some fun, they're not food, they're not a threat. They
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: like the tune of my guitar or the way I dance.
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: There's a lot of work that goes into it. The
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: female finally is like, all right, well, let me just
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: get into position here and send you the right signal
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: that I'm ready to go. And I might shake my
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: web or something um if I don't like you, or
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: I might just crawl away, but otherwise here I am. Um,
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: let's do this right. And so, like any other animal
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: on the planet, they copulate by putting their reproductive organs together.
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: They don't couple. What you're being awaite, they don't couple
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: like snakes even do. Um. The male deposits sperm onto
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: a little web and then picks it up. It's basically
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: like ivf yes, but with um petted palps the little
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: forearms that the spider has. Yeah, he deposits that sperm
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: onto the general opening of the female, and I guess
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: the female stores it there near the ovaries. Yeah. She's like,
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: smell you later. Yeah, if he's lucky. If he's not lucky,
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: she turns around and eats him afterwards, right, which the
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: male spider is fine with because all it wants to
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: do is reproduce. But then at some point later on,
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: the female will be like, oh, yeah, that's right, I've
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: got that sperm stored away. I'll fertilize these eggs and
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: there you have it. Yeah. And then they lay like
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: we said, either um, hundreds or thousands of eggs in
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: one go. And they may encase them like we said.
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: They may carry him around, they may abandon the eggs
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: entirely and just say good luck. What's crazy to me? Spiders?
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: So they live, um, months, up to years. Apparently tarantulas
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: can live up to twenty years, like a pet tarantula.
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: But one thing I found was that a lot of
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: spiders can go up to a year between feeding. Yeah,
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: between feeding, Yes, and that's surprising. Yeah, spiders fascinating. Yeah.
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: And Um, as I said in the Snakes one, I
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: don't kill spiders. But nothing would terrify me more than
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: a tarantula crawling up my arm. And that's funny too,
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: because tarantulas are not poisonous to humans. You can have
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: an allergic reaction to a tarantula, but in most people
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: who are allergic to tarantulas, you're allergic to their hair.
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: So crawling on you would would create maybe like a
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: skin rash or something. The venom is probably not going
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: to do much more than you might not even have
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: a reaction to it. You could feel pain from their
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: their fangs puncturing your skin, just like if I took
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: like a sewing needle and puncture just gonna be that
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: same kind of sensation. Um, I think it'd more just
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: be being freaked out that a tarantula is attacking you
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: would be the biggest setback from being attacked by a tarantula. Yeah,
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: I wouldn't even need to be attacked just you know,
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: you see movies where actors have to do that or
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: let one call over their face or something. There's no way,
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: no way, I could never ever ever do it. There's
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: I have a great Umi story when she was a kid.
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: She was at um one of the Smithsonians or whatever,
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: and they brought in like a thing full of tarantulas
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: and set them down. I think they actually dumped them
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: in the center of the kids or whatever. You just
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: got up and started really ran out of the room,
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: and her teacher had to run after her to catch
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: her again. She's like, you guys are idiots for sitting
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: here and thinking. I mean, I'm definitely in a rachnophobe
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: um oh, are you like died in the woold really
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: genuine to a certain degree, Like when I see a spider,
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: I'm not I'm I don't run away screaming, but if
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: it's proximity, if like one was on me, I would
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: not enjoy that experience of any size. And uh yeah,
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: so I'm I'm a bit of an anaphobe. What about
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: you? You You don't care? I mean, yeah, it's more like
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: when I can see they're the features and everything that
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: I'm really like because they're freaky creatures. Yeah, but I
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: loved my garden or weaver. I wasn't like that's you know,
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: it's someone are just beautiful, like the ones that are
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: like bright yellow and black, and like there's a lot
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: of really fascinating spiders. But no, I don't. I don't
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: want to be the focus of one's attention. I guess
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: is what it comes down to. Yeah, like when I'm
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: hiking through the woods and you walk your face walks
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: through a spider web, that is like, yeah, I did
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: not react. Well, yeah, like a little little girl. What
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: about the movie Rechnaphobia like that one? Yeah it was
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: good first time. I think I think so too. Yeah,
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: I'll sign off on that one. Was it Bill Pullman? Uh?
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: Was he in that or just annuals? Which one? Jeff,
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: Jeff Daniels and John Goodman. No, he was seeing that.
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah he was the external. Oh yeah, yeah, that's right. Yeah,
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: good flick. So that spiders everybody, Uh, if you want
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: to know more about them, Oh, chuck, we didn't talk
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: about the diving spider, one of the most fascinating spiders
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: of all. Yeah, we gotta, we gotta put that in. Yeah,
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: it's segues with our diving bell episode because they basically,
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: we've a little ceiling of spider web at the surface
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: of the water. No, underneath the water. Oh is it
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: underneath a little bit? Totally? Okay, So they'll we've a
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: little like ceiling, like a little parachute, and then they'll
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: take air bubbles under the air, one by one until
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: it's a little diving bell, right, And these spiders breathe
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: like any other spider above land, but they live underwater
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: almost all of their life, in this little pocket of
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: air that it builds for itself. And those are the
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: ones that will eat fish man. That's crazy awesome. Yeah,
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: there's all kinds of great documentaries online about spiders. They all,
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: unfortunately are sort of salacious, you know, with the music
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: and all this stuff. Um, it's fascinating, I think. Uh,
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: if you want to know more about spiders, you can
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: type those words or well that word into the search
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: part how stuff works dot com. And you can also
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: go check out the podcast page on Stuff you Should
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: Know dot com for this episode. It's got linked so
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: most of the stuff we've talked about. Uh. And since
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: I said, uh, search bars somewhere, it's time for listener mail.
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna call this dog blood donation. Remember in our
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: blood Types episode, I was surprised to know that animals
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: could donate blood as well, even though it makes perfect sense.
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: This is from Kara um or Carra. Hey, guys, I've
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: been listening for about four years and you guys keep
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: me company on my long commute and when I have
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: to drive the tractor. Uh. One year ago, we got
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: a call from some acquaintances of ours asking how much
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: our dog weighed. We didn't know them super well, but
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: being open minded, we said fifty six pounds and asked, uh.
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: They asked if we would be willing to let our
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  Speaker 1: dog be a blood donor for their dog because as
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: their area was out of dog blood. Their dog had
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: been battling in a cute autoimmune issue for several days
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: and needed a dog over fifty pounds to be a
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: donor to get just through the night. Being animal lovers
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: and knowing my dog was healthy and fit, I didn't hesitate.
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  Speaker 1: So we brought Hatchet in and they did a quick
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: test to see if the bloods were compatible, which was
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: basically swirling them together. They were a match, and we
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: proceeded with the transfusion. We didn't get to watch the process,
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: but Hatch came out about an hour later, a little drowsy,
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  Speaker 1: but still his regular self to me exactly. He was
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: a little lazy the next day or two, but made
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: a fine recovery, and the other dog ended up making
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: a full recovery despite a bleak diagnosis. UM, if you
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: have a dog, I suggest finding friends with dogs fifty
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: pounds or more would be willing to be blood donors
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: in case of an emergency. Dog blood is often scarce.
• 57:53
  Speaker 1: So thanks guys, you've made me a champ at the
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: trivia table. That is Kara in Lexington, Kentucky. Thanks a
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: lot care. That's a great p s A yeah, and
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: she sent a little picture of Hatchet, and Hatchet looks
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: like a fine, fine dog. It was great. If you
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: want to let us know how your dog saved a life,
• 58:12
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• 58:22
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• 58:23
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• 58:31
  Speaker 1: this and thousands of other topics, visit how stuff Works
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