Aeroplankton

They're in the air! There's billions of them! And they're tiny! We're talking about aeroplankton, what they're doing up there, and what happens when they get in your nose. 

Guest: Soren Bowie

Last week's mystery animal sound source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8Phip5U-Wo

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Welcome to Creature future production of iHeartRadio. I'm your host
of Many Parasites, Katie Golden. I studied psychology and evolutionary biology,
and today on the show we are talking about aeroplankton.
That's right, there's life all around us. We are breathing
it in, don't cough it out. It's probably fine. From

(00:25):
tiny animals to bacteria to who knows what. There are
so many little guys just floating on the wind, surprisingly
sometimes on purpose. Discover this and more as we answer
the age old question, isn't raining viruses? And do you
need an umbrella? Joining me today is friend of the show,
my good old buddy, writer for American Dad, Sora and

(00:50):
wait No, also co host of Quick Question with Soren
and Daniel or Daniel and Sorn. I don't know what
sorry and Daniel ddice, she got first? You got first?
Is that an argument? No?

Speaker 2 (01:02):
In fact, Daniel gave that up. It was Daniel's idea
because Daniel will always pitch it that way as the
other person in the hopes that the other person says no, no, no,
no no no.

Speaker 1 (01:11):
She should have known better. But yeah, your name is
Soran Booy. Welcome to the show.

Speaker 2 (01:18):
Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure to be
here again. Oh to stretch my legs in the world
of the floor and fauna feels good.

Speaker 1 (01:25):
Feels good to be back getting all those floor in fauna,
you know, uh, stretching your legs and that that makes
total sense.

Speaker 2 (01:34):
I just put them on, put them on, get slip
into something more comfortable, like a megafauna, like a moose. Yeah,
I imagine comfortable b to be in a moose. You'd
have so much room.

Speaker 1 (01:44):
Wow. Yeah, just kind of like you know, I guess
you have to slice that sucker open like a ton ton,
but imagine how warm would be in there.

Speaker 2 (01:54):
Now, are you? I assume that when you started this podcast,
like the first things you did were the megafauna, like
those were all the ones. Those are like the fun
animals to talk.

Speaker 1 (02:02):
I don't think so. Actually, you know what sort of
I think one of the first ones I talked about
was a parasite, uh, the Tia gandhia because it was
so interesting. I mean, I love a parasite like that's
they're my favorites because they're so sneaky, uh, and they
do so they're like they're pranksters, they're they love fun pranks,

(02:23):
like making a rat fall in love with a cat urine.
That's like a fun.

Speaker 2 (02:28):
Prank attracted the cats.

Speaker 1 (02:31):
Yeah, like theyry.

Speaker 2 (02:32):
The cats look very sexy too.

Speaker 1 (02:34):
They're turned on by the smell of cat urine. And
I feel like it's that is a sick joke, and
I'm and I'm all for sick jokes.

Speaker 2 (02:42):
I was just gonna say, I I I never picked.
When you say do you want to call on the
podcasts or anything you want to talk about I I'm like,
what are the things that I'm very interested in? And
I always scratch like all the big animals off the
list because I'm like, no, she's probably she's probably like, oh,
I know what we'll do Area plank did We'll do it.

Speaker 1 (03:01):
It's perfect. I love this topic so much. I'm so
happy you suggested it. I actually, you know what I
would this If you suggested something like let's do whales,
I would panic because honestly, whales are not very well
studied and there's so many things that we don't know
about them, and I personally am you know, It's like

(03:22):
when I try to research whales, like how do they mate?
And it's like, we don't know you think we know that,
we don't know that.

Speaker 2 (03:28):
It's mystery, it's none of our business.

Speaker 1 (03:30):
We're business. Uh so yeah, no, this is this is
very cool. So we're talking about aeroplankton. So aeroplankton is
it's basically just stuff that uses instead of oceanic currents,
it uses wind currents to get around. So we all
we all know and love oceanic plankton. They're tiny micro organism,
including both zooplankton like coral larva or even like crab

(03:54):
or fish larva. Those count as a zooplankton. There's also
phytoplankton like tiny algae. These are like diatoms, so yeah,
like animals, plants, even prokaryotic plankton like bacteria, these are
all things that count as plankton. They're using oceanic currents
to travel, and so skyplankton aeroplankton is basically the same.

(04:18):
These are little, teeny tiny things that use the currents
of the air to get around, and so it is.
It is really interesting because like oceanic plankton is a
relatively like stable population of stuff. They do do like
a mass migration every day and night cycle, which is

(04:41):
really cool. But more or less, they're like supposed to
be there, whereas with aeroplankton, it ranges from stuff that
is like intentionally like on the wind, to stuff that
like probably doesn't know why or how it got up there.

Speaker 2 (04:59):
That's almost exciting about I'm excited forout Like spiders that
end up in the stratosphere.

Speaker 1 (05:04):
Well, you know, it's interesting they do, but they are
not the confused ones.

Speaker 2 (05:10):
They're supposed to be there.

Speaker 1 (05:10):
They're supposed to be there often. So, yeah, aeroplankton, there
are microorganisms that live in the air, well, not live
in the air. They happen to wind up in the
air from clouds to wind currents. H And just like
oceanic plankton, there are animal organisms. There's plants, fungi, unicellular organisms,

(05:31):
and prokaryotic organisms that make up aeroplankton. I Actually, so
this is kind of exciting timing because I recently recorded
a podcast with Alex Schmidt. It's a podcast called Secretly
Incredibly Fascinating. We talked about clouds, and Alex just yeah,
he taught me all about clouds, uh. And he told

(05:52):
me about how like clouds are formed usually by like
a seed. It's like a little mote of something. It
could be silica, like a piece of sand, but it's
like these little microscopic seeds and then cloud sort of
water droplet forms around it. It's like the nucleus of
the cloud. Yeah, so like the cloud has all these

(06:13):
little nuclei, but this thing exactly. But these little, these
little microscopic bits of stuff can often be things like microorganisms.
They can be dead or alive bacteria, microorganisms, algae that
also form these nuclei and clouds. So that's really cool.

(06:35):
Clouds can have a bunch of like dead or alive
microorganisms that actually help the cloud form.

Speaker 2 (06:43):
Wow, that I did not know that that Every cloud. Yeah,
every cloud is built around something that was once on
the ground.

Speaker 1 (06:51):
Pretty much. Pretty No, that's I mean, that's accurate. Yeah.
Like I'm not going to talk anymore. Well maybe a
little bit, but not much more about cloud So if
you want to learn all about the clouds, you can
check out Secretly Incredibly Fascinating. I host it with Alex Schmid.

Speaker 2 (07:06):
Do you ever have Alex Schmidt on this podcast? I do, Yes, Okay,
A really fun bit would be would be to only
let him talk about clams every time he comes over.

Speaker 1 (07:17):
Yeah, you know what is disclams. I don't know that
we have talked about clams. I should do that. He's
not going to listen to this one probably, so I'm
going to do that. Don't tell him.

Speaker 2 (07:29):
Yeah, insist on it. And ever since time, like we
just got to go back to malus. I'm so sorry
because molis is like wide ranging because it goes all
the way from clams to octopy.

Speaker 1 (07:37):
So like he actually does not like he does not
he see life upsets him. He has a slight fear
of aquatic animals. So perfect, yeah? Perfect? Uh So who
is erow plankton? Right?

Speaker 2 (07:53):
Like?

Speaker 1 (07:53):
Who who is this stuff? I do? First want to
talk about maybe the most famous of the arrow planktonic members, pollen,
which I think right now everyone hates, or at least
everyone with allergies hates. I also have. I actually never
used to get seasonal allergies too badly until they moved

(08:16):
to Italy and somehow the Italian flowers non mi piace
ifiori italiani because they I get really bad allergies here really.

Speaker 2 (08:30):
Yeah, oh no, what do they have? They figured outamines over?

Speaker 1 (08:35):
Oh yeah, I'm on them.

Speaker 2 (08:37):
The caves that you live in.

Speaker 1 (08:38):
I am currently high on some kind of yani histamine.
I don't know if you can be, but you know
it is. It's making life a little better. But I'm
still sniffling a little bit. But yeah, it hits me
like a train every year. Yeah. And I've heard like, oh,
just eat honey that is made out of the local
like flowers, and maybe it helps. I don't know, because

(09:00):
like I don't have the patience to just keep eating honey.
I usually like take the antihistamy. But it sure is good.
The honey's delicious. I don't know if it has any
real effect. Do you get allergy storing?

Speaker 2 (09:12):
Yeah, I get them pretty badly. I didn't when I
was really young, and my brother did and I was
always like, ah, sex with you. Yeah, and then as
I got older, my immune system just changed. Yeah, I
get terrible seasonal allergies. And the same way somebody was like, oh, hey,
try this bee pollen, which is like not the honey.
It's like, I don't know how they're collecting it, and
like you just get these spoonfuls of the baskets.

Speaker 1 (09:34):
On their legs.

Speaker 2 (09:34):
Pieces.

Speaker 1 (09:35):
Oh you mean, how are the humans collecting it? Baskets
on their.

Speaker 2 (09:38):
Legs just off the leg and I'll put it in
my basket. I I tried that. I tried taking take
a tablespoon on this bee pollen every day, and so
I started doing that. I was like, oh, my throat's
closing because of the I'm just consuming now, So I
stopped doing that. Now I'm just back on Claarton.

Speaker 1 (10:01):
That's yeah. I had b pollen chocolate bar once. It
did not close my throat, but it also did not
taste good. So the thing is like, if you give
me some kind of BSD remedy but it tastes good,
I'll be all about it. I'm like, yeah, this honey
is helping my allergies. It's not, but it tastes good,

(10:23):
so I won't.

Speaker 2 (10:24):
I'm drinking it.

Speaker 1 (10:25):
Yeah, I'm drinking it. Like don't like they're like, oh,
you know red wine, you know does something positive. It's
like great. I won't listen to any other news or
study about it. No more. Yeah. So pollen, they are
they count as aeroplankton as a bio aerosol. They are
microscopic grains that contain male sperm cells of plants. That's right,

(10:46):
plants are having sex. Get over it. So they are
part of a plant sexual reproduction cycle, and they need
to land on the female part of the plant.

Speaker 2 (10:56):
Yeah, it turns out my new system it's just very prude.

Speaker 1 (10:59):
It's very it's it's very puritan. Yeah, it's like, get
this out of here. Yeah, get this sky stauge away
from me. I'm not sure if I can say sky
sponge on my own show, but we'll see. So. Yeah.
They plants can accomplish pollination through highly effective and precise

(11:19):
pollinators like bees, flies, bats, and birds, or through the
less precise and more promiscuous method of just blasting it
out into the air and hoping it lands where it
needs to go. I mean, I say, how are babies made?

(11:40):
So uh yeah. The plants that rely on wind transport
are called anmophylus, which means wind loving, and so these
are the plants that typically are behind seasonal allergies. So
they're pollen is designed to be bountiful and travel by air.

(12:02):
Like have you ever like bated a pine branch and
just a cloud of menacing yellow comes out of it?

Speaker 2 (12:11):
You're asking me, Yeah, of course. My car right now
is I have a pine tree in my yard and
it is just a film of yeng dust. All over it.

Speaker 1 (12:19):
Yeah, that's because the pine, the pine trees. Whole plan
is to just produce a huge amount of pollen. Some
of it's gonna wind up on your car, but by god,
some of it will land on a female cone somewhere. Yeah,
just with a hope and a prayer. So, yes, why
is pollen an allergen? So airborne pollen is easily inhaled.

(12:43):
It can be microscopic. I mean you can see sometimes
heavy coating of pollen, but it can get up in
your nose and interface with your mucosal membrane of the
nose and sinuses. Our mucosal membranes are very important part
of our immune system because they contain not only mucus,

(13:05):
but immune cells, which is part of our passive immune system.
Immune cells can either be part of the adaptive immune response,
which is like the precise thing where they have wanted
posters out of a specific pathogen, where they're like, yeah,
that's the guy, get them, or the passive immune system
where they are just checking essentially passports for invasive cells

(13:29):
and stuff. It's like do you belong here? No, Well
you're gonna get it. And so they will sometimes misidentify
something as harmful when it's really just kind of inert.
Pollen is not really that harmful intrinsically, and not everyone
is allergic to it, but for many people, the immune

(13:50):
system just accidentally identifies it as a dangerous pathogen, so
like it is sensitive to civic pollen proteins. That's actually
one of the reasons that it can change over time, Right,
like your immune system change. You can actually become sensitized
to pollen, and like your immune system accidentally learns to

(14:15):
identify this as a pathogen, and then you start getting
sneezes and wheezes with the rest of us sad sex.

Speaker 2 (14:24):
That's what happened to me. I think you can go
the other direction too, Like I have a I was
allergic to cats for a very long time and then
we got a cat, and I was taking medication and
then ran out and then felt like five days without
taking it and realized, oh, you know what, Yeah, cats
are fine. It turns out, I mean no, I'm my
immune system has.

Speaker 1 (14:42):
Adapted that cat trained you with just the pure power
of will. No, I mean that that is true. So
like you can also your allergies can calm down, either
with age or just sort of environmental factors, because you know,
your immune system might no longer be reactive to it.
I'm not going to pretend like I understand exactly how

(15:04):
that works, and in fact, yeah, it is something that
is even complex to experts, the exact way in which
the immune system and allergies precisely work in that situation.
But yeah, I mean it's probably it's like a combination
of genetics and environmental exposure that determines whether you will
be allergic to pollen. I don't know. I would not

(15:26):
necessarily recommend uh, eating spoonfuls of bee pollen to try
to cure, because.

Speaker 2 (15:33):
That end up like the kid and stand by no
in my girl.

Speaker 1 (15:37):
Oh yeah, wait, you're right, it's my girl. That's mcaulay Culkin. Uh. Yeah,
he's I've met him. He's nice.

Speaker 2 (15:49):
I mean the kid in the movie who Dies. Oh yeah,
Macaulay Culkin himself, I'm sure is a wonderful boy.

Speaker 1 (15:55):
Yeah he's Uh. I I don't know if he's actually
allergic to bees in real life, but I don't want to.
I don't want to try it.

Speaker 2 (16:04):
You know what we should call?

Speaker 1 (16:06):
We should call? Yeah he does. There's no way he
remembers who I am. But anyways, we are going to
take a quick break and when we get back, we
are actually going to talk about animal aeroplankton. Yes, I
guess like zoo aeroplankton, which is gonna be fun. All right,

(16:28):
so we're gonna talk about animal aeroplankton. These are aeroplanktonic
particles that are in fact little tiny animals. So there
are a lot of animals that fly or glide, and
we don't really count those as aeroplanktons. So like the

(16:50):
things like gnats or flies that like just fly or birds,
like we don't count birds as aeroplankton. That would bediculous.
Uh it is. The definition seems to be both things
that are tiny, but also just like it has to
be passively carried by a wind currents. It can't really
be an autonomous flying animal, right like a gnat or

(17:15):
a fly that actually like you know, it can be
really small. There are some wasps that are really really tiny,
but they can they're flying like they are showing sort
of a they have an autonomous ability to fly around
aeroplankton exactly. Aeroplankton, for the most part, are passively being

(17:36):
carried by wind currents. So one example is aphis. They
can be found thousands of feet up in the air,
just like, I don't know that they expected that to happen,
to be honest, they might benefit from from from some dispersal,
but yeah, it is that must be wild. One minute,

(17:58):
you're you're being farm by ants sipping on plant juices.
In the next you're just like getting sucked into a
airplane turbine.

Speaker 2 (18:07):
Yeah, you're over at the top of a storm.

Speaker 1 (18:09):
Yeah, I want to.

Speaker 2 (18:11):
I mean, we can all stand to be a little
bit more like those aphits that we just sort of
like let it carry you, don't try to control everything
getting if you get lifted up into the sky, just
see what happens.

Speaker 1 (18:23):
Man. Like, the other option is staying and getting farmed
by ants and having them like suck juices out of
your butt. So you know what, Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2 (18:33):
Wouldn't you rather be hit by a plane?

Speaker 1 (18:35):
I would, Well, everyone has their own taste sore, and
so I wouldn't judge. But you know, one famous little
member of the Aeroplankton family are indeed spiders, baby spiders.
So do you know about how baby spiders use strands
of silk to fly around? Like little eight legged Mary Poppins's.

Speaker 2 (19:00):
I don't totally understand this. I'm vaguely familiar with the
fact that spiders could occasionally just land on you, yes,
from the sky usually.

Speaker 1 (19:10):
So if you for like large adult spiders, that's usually
because they're probably like in a tree or somewhere nearby
and then they kind of like accidentally went airborne and
landed on you. But if it's a teeny tiny baby spider,
there's a good chance that was entirely intentional. Where this
baby spider, what they do is they they kind of

(19:35):
walk on their little tippy toes. They're anty bitty, adorable
baby spider tippy toes. They stick their butts in the air,
and they should shoot out a strand of silk, and
that silk helps them get picked up by the wind.
It's kind of like a parachute but or paragliding, but
it's called ballooning, so they can be picked up by winds.

(19:58):
And there's a massive amount of these baby spiders, so
much so that there are animals that completely depend on
them as part of their diet, like swifts. Swifts are
birds who are migratory. They spend like most of their
life in the air. Very little time roosting, and they
do not like to be on the ground. Their feet

(20:20):
actually have turned into just like basically hooks. They can't
really walk, and so most of the time they're spending
in the air and a huge part of their diet
are these baby spiders that they snack up. Because the
baby spiders, there's just so many of them, they kind

(20:41):
of expect. I don't know if expect is something a
spider can do, but the survival strategy is that, yeah,
they a lot of them are going to get eaten,
a lot of them are going to die, But then
there's just so many of them that some of them
will land somewhere good and do spider stuff.

Speaker 2 (21:01):
So it's called ballooning.

Speaker 1 (21:02):
Ballooning, yes, I love that term.

Speaker 2 (21:05):
And they but they just sort of like depend on
the wind to carry them somewhere hopeful and promising.

Speaker 1 (21:12):
Yeah, hopefully not into the mouth of a hungry swift,
but that does happen. But yeah, they they hopefully will
land somewhere and then they can go on and grow
into adult spiders and do spider stuff. Sometimes they land
in less ideal places, like boats in the middle of
the ocean, because they can they can fly like three

(21:35):
miles up, which is about five kilometers up into the atmosphere,
and they can wind up miles away off of land
and on boats and stuff. So that's that's not great
for them, but a lot of them do wind up
in good places and establish themselves as you know, an

(21:56):
adult spider that really you know, is a contributing member
of spider siety.

Speaker 2 (22:01):
Five miles up? Do you know how far?

Speaker 1 (22:03):
Like they three miles five kilometers.

Speaker 2 (22:06):
But I mean, oh that's up, But how then how
how far can they go? Like can you get? Are
they these international spiders?

Speaker 1 (22:14):
These are you know what? It depends on the nation, right,
Like I think in Europe they could probably be international.
Could a spider make a transatlantic flight? Probably not unless
it lands on a boat and then that boat goes
into port. Usually though usually those spiders that invade areas

(22:38):
by boat are gonna wind up there just because they're
like hiding out in some bananas or something.

Speaker 2 (22:44):
Yeah, this is a cool new way though.

Speaker 1 (22:46):
It's fun. It's more fun than like just sitting on
a banana. I feel like it's more like you know, adventurous.

Speaker 2 (22:54):
Yeah, pretty amazing, Yeah, because at that point it's really
in Fate's hands, Like the fact that a spider was
in the middle of the ocean would land on a
boat is like, okay, that was supposed to happen.

Speaker 1 (23:05):
It's gonna be so confusing though, right, Like you're like,
well this is this is like Earth but smaller and
full of ocean nerds. Yeah, my dad would always tell
me these stories of like the various things that would
like land on the boats. And it's usually some kind
of sea bird, and usually it's fine, this is a

(23:28):
little bit of a tangent, but it's just such a
messed up story. But there are these like what I
think there's storm petrels and they would land on the boat,
which would be okay, but like when the boat is
in these like cold water. I mean it's it's a
research ship. It's a huge ship. But they would land
on these like these sort of like I guess they're

(23:51):
not really smoke stacks. Man, I'm bad for being the
daughter of someone who does this for a living. But
it is the part of the boat that generates some heat, right,
Like they are there, there's this warmth that comes out
of them because it is sort of like somewhere where
there is like an exhaling of some of where you know,

(24:13):
how the boat go forward with power, it's you know,
maybe it's starboard or something. Anyways, these birds really like
the warmth of these areas, and so they'll sit and
kind of buy just like the warm air that is
generated by these these the kind of chimney things. And

(24:35):
but the problem is like they sit there for too
long and then they like don't have the energy to
fly because they need to like be eating and fly,
like it's kind of ruling for them. They have to
be constantly like getting you know, fishing and flying and stuff.
And then they just don't want to leave, so they
sit there until they like just keel over and die

(24:56):
because they have not been and they don't have the
energy and they don't like it's it's it's like so
creepy right where it's like these it's kind of like
the the ship is like a siren that has lured
these birds to their death, just sort of in the
opposite way, like instead of going off the boat to

(25:16):
like kiss a mermaid, they're going on a boat because
it's warm, and then they just die. It's really sad.

Speaker 2 (25:23):
I tell another lesson for all of us. I told
you stop grinding. That's what Katie always says. She's grindcore
mentality she loves. She believes that everybody should be grinding
at all times.

Speaker 1 (25:34):
Yeah, I have a I have a grind set for sure,
where it's like, if you're not, if you don't have
five jobs going all at once, what are you why?
What are you even doing?

Speaker 2 (25:47):
You're just a bird on a smokestack.

Speaker 1 (25:49):
Man. If you're not generating multiple revenues of bitcoin, ape,
ape coin, whatever, whatever, the newest thing is all my
apes gone. But I told him that what they should
build is like a bird trebuche, so like kind of

(26:11):
like a springboard, so that every time a bird tries
to land there, it triggers like a mechanism that flings
the bird back into the.

Speaker 2 (26:19):
Air, ye back up there.

Speaker 1 (26:22):
He didn't seem to take that suggestion seriously, but I
think it might actually help. Uh so, uh, you know,
I'll keep trying to petition and sort of a workshop
the bird Flinger invention to save storm petrels from their
own desire to be cozy. So we're gonna oh wait, no,

(26:43):
there's one more thing about spiders I wanted to tell
you about. It's not just wind that actually helps baby
spiders travel by silk butt parachutes. So there are actually
electric fields that may be aiding these spiders. In laboratory settings,
they were able to generate electrics, and not only did
that seem to trigger spider ballooning behavior, these electric fields

(27:06):
could actually lift these tiny, itty bitty spiders up. And
so this sort of laboratory experiment seems to indicate that
in nature's my spiders may be able to travel by
the Earth's electromagnetic fields. So that's neat.

Speaker 2 (27:22):
WHOA, Yeah, they're using like magnets essentially.

Speaker 1 (27:28):
To fly through the air electric fields.

Speaker 2 (27:32):
Yeah, I don't understand what that means.

Speaker 1 (27:34):
Well, there are electrostatic forces that Okay, so there's a
different podcast that I'm on called Daniel Njorge Explains the Ears.
I feel like I'm just sort of like making it
other people's problems to explain these things. Now, I do
a guest host on that one, Daniel Lightsen. He understands

(27:59):
things like electric static forces much better than I do.
But it's you know, it's like how uh gosh, It's
it's like magnetism, but it's electromagnetism.

Speaker 2 (28:12):
Okay for me, You know how a balloon.

Speaker 1 (28:15):
Sticks to your head if if you rub it there
a lot. Yes, is like that, but with a tiny
spider in his little butt silk parachute, and it's.

Speaker 2 (28:26):
Just electromagnetism that's in the air.

Speaker 1 (28:28):
Yes, because the Earth has electric fields generated by.

Speaker 2 (28:31):
The Yes, Okay, I'll accept that as an answer, thank you.
Does it can? But do electromagnetic fields travel or do
they just sort of stay stationary you just sort of
wait for the Earth to turn underneath you these dumb questions.

Speaker 1 (28:47):
No, they're not dumb questions. I just may not be
able to completely answer. Yes, I think there are electrical
currents that do move around the Earth. I think also
it's like there's probably a number of things that are
happening right like where the spider there may be some
kind of like difference in the strength of the electrical current,

(29:11):
like the higher you get up, right, so maybe it
can carry the spider up. I am reaching the limits
of my knowledge because we're talking about electricity. I routinely
shocked myself unplugging my laptops, so I'm not an expert,
but I would guess it is something. It's probably something

(29:31):
to do with, you know how, like lightning. Happens because
there is this difference in terms of the like electrostatic
you know, balance between like the clouds and the ground.
You know, I would imagine that you could probably lift
something up, like a tiny spider based on the sort
of like there there is a difference in the density

(29:55):
of ions up in thesphere. Ions there you go. It's
all snapping into place because of the ions. You just
forgot about the ions. But you know, the charge, the charge,
it's the difference in charge, and they're probably riding that
sick charge differential wave. Definitely check out uh physics podcasts

(30:20):
like Daniel Jorge Explain the Universe if you want to
learn more about electric magnetic currents, because you know, I'm
going to tell you stuff that's maybe not exactly right.
It is fun though, It's like it's like jazz. It's
about the things you don't learn. Yeah, all right, Well

(30:42):
we're going to take another quick break, but then when
we get back, we're going to talk about other things
that are floating around there that you can't even see,
but they're all around you, watching you at every hour
of the day. There's nothing you can do about it.
I'll be right back, all right, we're back. We're talking

(31:05):
about more stuff that's just around in the air, traveling
in the clouds, in the air currents, and there's you know,
you just kind of have to accept it.

Speaker 2 (31:20):
Well, I when I talk to you about this podcast
and what we were going to be talking about, I
asked you a very specific question, and I'm curious if
you buy the answer you're going to be answered to
answer for me.

Speaker 1 (31:32):
I'm going to say probably not how many, because I
think your question was like how much stuff is above
me right now?

Speaker 2 (31:38):
I want to specifically like, yeah, any animals that I
don't care about, the ones that fly, I don't care
about the ones that have like a way to get
from A to B. I mean the ones that like
either get picked up accidentally or are just riding the currents.
How many, say, like spiders and small animals are right
over my head right now?

Speaker 1 (31:56):
So sorry, I could not find an official answer to this.
I did look count I Well, this is what I'm
gonna say. Let's say there is like there's a Soren's
head shaped column that goes from the top of your
head up until outer space, right and we're are we
counting bacteria or just animals?

Speaker 2 (32:18):
I just want animals. Bacteria. I assume bacteria is I
assume there I am surrounded at all.

Speaker 1 (32:24):
Times by millions bacteria envirus millions. Uh. If it's just animals,
I'm gonna say my estimate would be hundreds of thousands.
So if this, like if this came down, if this
like rained down on you in like a column of stuff, yeah,

(32:45):
probably probably thousands to hundreds of thousands.

Speaker 2 (32:50):
I was gonna say, like ten.

Speaker 1 (32:54):
It's probably more than that because okay, so uh and
and if we're including like bacteria and viruses, it's more
than you'd like for sure.

Speaker 2 (33:06):
Well yeah, I mean I assume I'm ratio wise, I'm
more bacteria than man.

Speaker 1 (33:11):
That's true.

Speaker 2 (33:12):
My bacteria out number myselves like ten to one or
something like that. So bacteria, I've just I've made my
peace with bacteria. Yeah, that is the world is more
bacteria than anything else. And what I'm really what I
what really startles me is, yeah, I'm doing that column.
It's just me and like a vacuum, and then all
of a sudden, I'm going to create extra gravitational pull

(33:33):
on every single one of those animals. It's in the air,
and they all come down on me.

Speaker 1 (33:36):
I mean they're very tiny, so you probably get like
a look again, this is coming out of my butt University,
Katie's but University, which is an accredited online university that
you can sign up for ninety nine a month. But
I would say, be a maybe like a thickish film,
like you wouldn't die, but it'd be a film, a

(33:58):
thick film, That's what I was.

Speaker 2 (34:00):
Yeah, that's still pretty pretty substantial.

Speaker 1 (34:04):
Well, so the kinds of animals that can be wind
borne includes rotifers, columbulans, tartar grades, mites, thrips, and nematods.

Speaker 2 (34:16):
So I know two of those things.

Speaker 1 (34:18):
I know.

Speaker 2 (34:18):
Those are two nematods and tartar grades.

Speaker 1 (34:22):
Good job, what are they? Soren poplin toads.

Speaker 2 (34:26):
Okay, nematodes are there are flatworms, nematodes, roundworms. Roundworms are nematodes. Yes, okay,
all right.

Speaker 1 (34:36):
You got the flats, you got the rounds, you got
the square worms.

Speaker 2 (34:41):
And the tartar grades are like very microscopic looking. They
kind of almost look like beetles.

Speaker 1 (34:45):
Right, Yeah, they're the chubby ones. They're also called moss
piglets or water bears. They have eight legs and they
they kind of look like chubby cattog pillars, but with
very stubby eight legs.

Speaker 2 (34:59):
Yeah, they survive super well in space.

Speaker 1 (35:01):
Yes they I mean, I wouldn't say super well, but
they better better than us, much better than us. They
can survive desiccation, extreme temperatures both hot and cold, and
so yes, they are very hearty. It's not much of
a surprise that they can survive a little bit of
wind travel. And they're teeny tiny, their microscopic and yes,

(35:25):
absolutely so. And nematodes are round worms. They range in size,
but many species are microscopic or very very tiny, and
they're found all over the world, and unsurprisingly, they can
take advantage of wind currents to distribute themselves. They are
often parasitic, but not necessarily parasitic. But they are so

(35:49):
ubiquitous that there are like sixty billion nematodes per human being,
and it is unfathomable what the world would be like
without them, just because there are so many of them
that they are very likely to be an integral part
of every ecosystem. I saw this really sickening description of

(36:13):
nema toads where it was like if we took away
everything that wasn't Nema toad there would still just be
sort of like a ghost of everything made out of
Nema toads, which I think is also largely true of
like bacteria.

Speaker 2 (36:28):
So are they in my drinking water? Like if I
could get a microscope and like look at my drinking water,
what I see little worms rather than around?

Speaker 1 (36:36):
Potentially, Yes, I mean that can actually be a problem.
I think that it depends on sort of the level
of purification of your drinking water. Obviously there's drinking water
that can like you know, like if the tap water
is not that clean, it can make you sick, and
Nema toads can be behind that. But like you know,

(36:59):
I think that if you have like water does go
through sort of water sanitation, that probably kills most of
the nematodes off. But you know, there could be some
dead ones in there.

Speaker 2 (37:15):
I don't My goal is not to kill them. I
just want to sterilize them. I want like spade and
neuter them.

Speaker 1 (37:19):
Oh you mean, like you know, Bob Barker, but for nematodes, right.

Speaker 2 (37:25):
Don't forget the spade. Neuter your nematodes. Thank you for watching,
just because that's that's the issue, right, is like them
breeding inside you. The nema toad itself by on its own.

Speaker 1 (37:35):
Yeah, not doing much to me, right, Yeah, So like you,
I think you could probably find some microscopic nematodes in
your drinking water that are probably not doing anything, and
they might you might drink them up, and it's probably okay, okay,
So don't worry about it, don't think about it.

Speaker 2 (37:56):
And there's just a bunch floating right on my head
at this moment. Yeah, well I'm inside. I'm inside, so
it's different. But like walking around outside.

Speaker 1 (38:04):
There's probably a lot. Yeah, Like if you walk on
the ground, there's a lot. If your head brushes against
a leaf, probably gonna smear them on you. You know,
there's just a lot of nematodes around, and yeah, they
are probably in your drinking water. They probably aren't hurting you,
uh if bacteria, like I think often like the problem

(38:25):
with a lot of nematodes, the non parasitic nematodes is
if they have uh like bacteria on them, which is
also harmful to humans. But again that's not very likely.
Intreated drinking water, which might kill a lot of the nematodes,
but a lot of them are probably still alive and
hanging out and just then you drink them and they
hang out in your body and they don't do anything,

(38:46):
and it's you know, just don't worry about it.

Speaker 2 (38:50):
Making piece of it right now.

Speaker 1 (38:51):
Yeah, I mean, you've got much grosser looking stuff everywhere.
I don't mean this personally against you, so are I'm
just saying, you know, like you can't.

Speaker 2 (39:03):
See where I'm recording right now, we are watching each
other on video. That is a little hurtful.

Speaker 1 (39:08):
It is, guys. When I was saying the film it
was not a hypothetical.

Speaker 2 (39:13):
No, I am recording out of a garage where there
is not a single flat surface.

Speaker 1 (39:24):
I mean, you've got a couple of cardboard boxes there.
It's probably full of stuff nematodes, sorry, keeping nematodes. So
uh yeah. They are also something that can be carried
around and distributed by the wind. And they're the like
research where they surveyed sort of like samples of stuff

(39:49):
collected by like rain water and stuff. And yeah, nematodes
just they get around that way. They're tiny. What do
you want They like to use the wind to get around.
There are other things that I had listed there that
may be less recognizable, like rotifers, columbulands. I mean mites

(40:09):
and thrips. You may have heard of.

Speaker 2 (40:12):
I know, mites, not thrips. That's new to me.

Speaker 1 (40:14):
Yeah, So mites are they're tiny ratnets. They've got eight legs.
You might have seen like velvet mites. These like tiny
red mites. Mites can be parasitic. They often are, but
they don't have to be. They are not necessarily parasites.
And yeah, those can get picked up by wind and
carried around and it's not you know, sometimes that might

(40:35):
be beneficial to the mites to distribute them, and sometimes
could just be confusing. So the other ones I mentioned
rotifers are actually typically zooplankton that inhabit freshwater habitats. They
can be found in saltwater, but most of the species

(40:56):
are in freshwater. They're also known as wheel animals. They
are called wheel animals because their mouth kind of looks
like a spinning wheel. It doesn't actually spin, but it
has these cilia that kind of undulate in a pattern
that makes it look like it's spinning. It's kind of
an optical illusion. Let me see if I can. I

(41:19):
doubt maybe I should have looked this up before, but
I want to see if there's a gift of it. Man,
have you noticed that it's like really hard to just
find good. Yeah, like everything takes you to another thing. Yes,
that's full of skaties, googles. Google's broken, It's broken, Okay,

(41:42):
send it to you. So're in the human.

Speaker 2 (41:45):
Oh they got chainsaws on the front of them. Yeah, right,
just spin and spin. Yeah, it looks like a heart.

Speaker 1 (41:53):
Hmmm, no, but you know close enough, I don't.

Speaker 2 (42:00):
Yeah, there's just something like beating inside of it.

Speaker 1 (42:04):
It's you know, it's got tiny organs for sure. That
is probably not like that thing that's moving. I would
guess it's some kind of like food distribution.

Speaker 2 (42:17):
Yeah, thing that's the tube within the tube.

Speaker 1 (42:21):
It's a tube inside of the tube sort of smooshing
stuff down deeper into the tube. So but yeah, the Yeah,
you can see why it's called an wheel animal because
it looks like it has these two wheels that are
like spinning on its head. But yeah, really, it's just
the cilia are like moving in sort of a wave
and that makes it look like it's spinning, and that's

(42:41):
how they collect food.

Speaker 2 (42:46):
It looks like, I mean, this is a tangent as well,
and it probably not super helpful for on audio podcast,
but we're not.

Speaker 1 (42:52):
Trying to We're not trying to be helpful here.

Speaker 2 (42:55):
In this gift. There's also something that starts out at
looking like an egg and then transforms into a worm
up in the corner, and I want to know what
that thing is too. It's just like, oh, no, I
could do whatever shape I want.

Speaker 1 (43:09):
Yeah, I don't know what that is.

Speaker 2 (43:10):
Man, No, I'm a chili pepper.

Speaker 1 (43:13):
Sometimes small stuff just does weird things. You can quote
me on that. Sometimes small stuff it just does weird things.
But yeah, so that's those guys get picked up, you know,
in evaporation cycles by winds, and they wind up in
the air and they're probably super confused because they are
not supposed to be in there. They're supposed to be

(43:35):
a fresh water going around. It's been in their little
face wheels.

Speaker 2 (43:42):
I like those wheels.

Speaker 1 (43:43):
I like them too. It's like I feel like there's
a specific tool that is used. I'm gonna say in
woodworking where it's like or maybe it's dentistry. Look, I
have two successful side businesses, Katie's Backyard Dentistry in Katie's
Backyard Carpentry, and I get them confused sometimes, but yeah,

(44:06):
it's like it's like it just it does look like
a power tool, an organic power tool.

Speaker 2 (44:10):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (44:12):
So, uh yeah they are. They're one of these uh
air aeroplankton uh columbu colum Boland's, also known as springtails,
are a type of teeny, tiny, indy beaty hexapod that
like moist conditions and feeding onto king matter. In fact,
one type of these springtails is the snow flea, which

(44:33):
I thought, I'm trying to remember. I thought that you
were on the show when we talked about snow fleas
or was it ice worms?

Speaker 2 (44:41):
We talked about ice worms.

Speaker 1 (44:42):
Damn it.

Speaker 2 (44:44):
Wow, snowflea sounds cool though snow snow.

Speaker 1 (44:48):
It's tiny and little and lives in the snow. Yes,
so they are uh yeah, these little springtails they can
of can kind of jump around it and there's they
can get so tiny that they can get picked up
by the wind and carried around. Yes. And then thrips

(45:08):
are tiny insects that are under a millimeter long that
can be winged or wingless. Now, I think earlier I
talked about how like we don't generally classify winged insects
as aeroplankton, but The thing is they suck at flying,
so like their wings are pretty useless over long distances.
They actually have a specific way of flying that's called

(45:32):
clap and fling, which like they clap their wings together.
It generates these little wind vorgicias that kind of gives
them some lift, but it is not very efficient, not
very good over distances. So to travel long distances, they
depend on wind currents, so they count.

Speaker 2 (45:48):
It's just to get them up there. Yeah, yeah, I like,
I mean, I really like that type of animal, the
animals that like they they kind of can fly, but
really it's everything's dictated by mother nature.

Speaker 1 (46:02):
Doesn't really count, you know, yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2 (46:05):
My butterflies, I feel like, are the same. Like you
put butterfly in a vacuum, it can fly straight. But
the butterflies in your everyday life look like they're drunk
because they're just being like they are being thrown around.

Speaker 1 (46:14):
Yeah, uh it is they. I I do love that
and I think that, like it'd be interesting though to see,
like if you get a butterfly drunk, does it fly good?

Speaker 2 (46:30):
Yeah? Is it better?

Speaker 1 (46:32):
Is it better? They they like zip in nectar. They've
got to sometimes sip nectar that's a little fermented. It
probably just kills them, though, it probably just instantly kills.

Speaker 2 (46:43):
Yeah, everything kills butterflies.

Speaker 1 (46:45):
Yeah, you breathe funny and it just butterflies.

Speaker 2 (46:49):
Like, oh no, am my scales, my scales.

Speaker 1 (46:53):
Yeah. I once hit a small butterfly with a hose
when I was a kid, and I thought I killed it.
I picked it up, I put it on like a
paper towel. I guess that dried it out, and it
flew away, and it was such a good feeling that like,
I kind of tried to hit another butterfly with a
hose so I could just like be its savior again.
And then I had this realization as I was doing it,

(47:14):
like this might be wrong. So I didn't end up.
I didn't end up as like Kathy Baits in Misery
or what's her name, But I almost developed a munch
housing by butterfly proxy.

Speaker 2 (47:29):
Yeah. I had a very simle experience where I would
My brother had taught me that you can revive a fly,
round a fly and then put it in a pile
of sugar. You can revive a fly, but it's never
really the same.

Speaker 1 (47:43):
How do you know it's not the same, Like it's
like personality.

Speaker 2 (47:48):
Yeah, Mountain sugar is like pet cemetery for a fly,
like it'll come back, but it's like it's a weird version.

Speaker 1 (48:00):
Used to do that.

Speaker 2 (48:00):
And I do remember like catching house lies in the
in the house and like how much they didn't want
to be caught, and thinking that's probably fair, but I
don't think i'd want this.

Speaker 1 (48:09):
Yeah, it's like this. It's like this because I think
a lot of children go through that experimentation phase of
like doing weird stuffed insects, and then it's like and
then you get to a point where you're like, like
I remember putting an ant on some ice to see
if it could ice skate, and it was just flopping
around helplessly. I was like, maybe that sucks for the ant.

(48:31):
Maybe I'm a cruel god.

Speaker 2 (48:33):
Right right before you move on to mammals, yeah, and
your serial killer people.

Speaker 1 (48:38):
I think most children stop before mammals. I certainly I
certainly stopped at ants and butterflies, and then I was like,
you know, I feel bad about this, I'm gonna stop. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (48:50):
So there's like that moment, that flickering.

Speaker 1 (48:52):
That realization. It's like, what is this feeling? Is it empathy. Empathy.

Speaker 2 (49:00):
Yeah, So we would take ants and put them in
a dish with water, and then we would jump on
the trail like get on Tramplin where there's a lot
of static electromagnetic currents, and then we would put a
finger in the dish and then touch a spring on
the trampoline and just get that shock. And as soon
as they went to the water, because the ants are
writhing around the water because they're dying, they're they're they

(49:20):
just they'll stop moving and then they come back in
a little bit and they keep moving. But that shock
really puts them out for a minute.

Speaker 1 (49:27):
I mean that is very cool, you know, pretty dark. Look,
you know what like ants, I don't a lot of them.
There's a lot of them. I don't. I don't relish
killing them, but I'm not going to pretend like I
don't eat chicken and a fish. So you know, and
ants and ants, I have tried them. They have a

(49:49):
nice peppery flavor.

Speaker 2 (49:50):
So the ones you get, I think, what the ones
some type of ants you get?

Speaker 1 (49:56):
You mean, like they only serve you the peppery ones,
like there's other ones. It just tastes like ass that
they don't they don't they.

Speaker 2 (50:04):
When they when the restaurant orders their ants, I see
go through and they set out the ones that are
peppery because they're just not good.

Speaker 1 (50:13):
I mean I when I was a kid, I just
eat them off the ground. But they always taste peppery
to me. So I don't you got lucky? Yeh, lucky.
I was like the Gordon Ramsey of of the inside eating.
I have a friend who's visiting a cricket farm where
they're they're doing sort of like they're trying to mask.

(50:34):
It's very good. It's for ecological and humanitarian reasons, but
they're trying to sort of make a cricket farming a
sort of doable on this like Maus scale. And it's
just like I'm just imagining a bunch of little crickets
and paddocks, you know, just like rows and rows of them.

(50:54):
I know it's not that, but That's how I'm thinking
about it. Uh So. Yeah. Aeroplankton also includes some non
animal microorganisms, such as fungal spores, you know, same kind
of like principle as pollen. There's also bacteria viruses. In fact,

(51:15):
clouds that have been studied can have anywhere from three
hundred to thirty thousand bacteria per millimeter of water. It
is unclear whether clouds can successfully transport bacteria in an
effective way, because most kind of just die under cloud conditions.
It's not particularly hospitable to bacteria. But wind, like when

(51:38):
they have sort of a substrate to be on, like topsoil,
wind can transport this top soil containing bacteria. The bacteria
can like survive on this these like tiny particles of
top soil, and they can be transported from like one
area to another fairly effectively through wind.

Speaker 2 (52:00):
Okay, I have another question for you, and I'm not
sure you can answer this.

Speaker 1 (52:04):
I'll make something up, don't worry.

Speaker 2 (52:07):
I have a bad understanding of how high up is
the sky, and so I am. I'm curious if like
there's an animal that could potentially get picked up by
a wind current get carried higher and higher, like like
curious George and the kite, and just higher and hire
to the point where it just leaves the atmosphere, Like,

(52:28):
are we sending animals unto space by accident every day?

Speaker 1 (52:34):
Potentially? I think that, you know, I I think like
a few there are few that would survive the trip
to say Mars, right like that could just flow on
their own, wind up on Mars and start like a
little colony of guys I mean some microscopic like I

(52:56):
mean bacteria. There are extremophiles like bacteria. I mean, we
talked about tartar grades who can survive quite a bit
of abuse. Even then, being able to survive space for
long enough to say, like hit the Moon would be
pretty tough without some kind of like yeah, good chunk

(53:17):
of a substrate. Like, there's ideas that back here it
could like maybe survive on say like an asteroid for
a while, right like, but just free floating in space.
I don't think they would last very long.

Speaker 2 (53:27):
I don't need them to survive. I just like the
idea that there's a spider that in its last moments
leaves the pull of.

Speaker 1 (53:33):
Earth mage to ground control. Yeah, I think, you know what,
I think it could happen. I don't know how much
we have in terms of records of that, right Like,
I don't know that we've got satellites scooping up scooping
up microorganisms, but I think that there certainly could be

(53:57):
some like you know, maybe like a storm or something
that kicks them up even higher and you know. The
thing is the problem with that happening a lot is
that you need a lot of like velocity to escape
the Earth's gravity. Oh right, so like you know, you

(54:18):
could I could imagine something like getting kicked up maybe
by a storm and then like tinking into like a
satellite or something. But to really like get to shoot
something out into space, it's a really good question. I
don't know. I don't know if there would be enough.
I mean, they're light, right, so it doesn't take as

(54:40):
much force as like a spaceship because the spaceship is
a big mass, and so you need a lot a
ton of energy to escape the Earth's gravitational pull something
that's tiny. Yeah, that's a that's a that's like a question.
You know what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna ask Ai
assists whether.

Speaker 2 (55:02):
I'm going to make a note to talk to Nessa
about putting a cup a look up on the next
satellite so that I can see if it's collecting uh targets.

Speaker 1 (55:14):
That's a great question. I'm gonna I am going to
uh keep looking into this and if I find a
satisfying answer, I will do a follow up on the
show and I will tell you about it, Soren.

Speaker 2 (55:27):
Because what a journey. I mean, obviously it ends in death,
but what a what an exciting journey for Yeah, I
mean little comrade spiders seems fun.

Speaker 1 (55:37):
The the atmosphere, you know, like they're probably there's probably
like a special heaven for animals that die in space,
like like Ika is there. It's like lots of chimpanzees there.

Speaker 2 (55:48):
You're past heaven at that point, like you are.

Speaker 1 (55:52):
You're I do like that. You have you subscribe to
the belief that there is a heaven, but it is
lies at a certain it's at a certain it's like
sort of like above the eye on a sphere, but
below the stratosphere. I don't know how.

Speaker 2 (56:07):
Sometimes in a plane you can you can see it.

Speaker 1 (56:10):
I try. I try to wink at God when I'm
on a plane, you know, like, hey there, God, how's
the hanging Jesus. I'm sure you guys are up here
doing stuff.

Speaker 2 (56:18):
One of the engines goes out. Okay, I'm sorry.

Speaker 1 (56:23):
Yeah, you know you know what is up there though.
Viruses uh so. Viruses can also travel by wind and
be found in clouds, and they can rain down on
us in actual literal rain. But don't worry. Most of
these are fine. In fact, pretty much all the viruses

(56:44):
that you're gonna find that are aeroplankt in uh. There's
millions and millions of them, and we're breathing them in
all the time. But they actually uh are only pathanogenic
uh for bacteria, So they infect bacteria maybe other microorganisms,
but they can't infect humans. And so it is not

(57:07):
really thought that viruses flying around in the wind is
particularly driving infection in humans. It's it is like theoretically possible, right.
It's just that a sneeze is gonna be a much
more efficient deliverer of viruses than like one virus lands

(57:30):
on your nose from two thousand miles away.

Speaker 2 (57:34):
Okay, And if I'm drinking rainwater, am I getting all
this stuff in there as well?

Speaker 1 (57:40):
I think there are different reasons not to drink rainwater,
like I mean, sometimes it depends on like the bodies
of water near you, where the water is evaporating from.
I don't think you have anything to worry about in
terms of viruses from drinking rainwater. It's just we're breathing
in like literally millions of viruses all the time, and

(58:03):
they just don't do anything to us.

Speaker 2 (58:06):
Yeah, makes me feel a little stronger.

Speaker 1 (58:08):
Right. Yeah, it's like it's it's kind of like you know,
I mean, it's like our bodies a city and these
viruses are just passing through, you know what I mean.
They're just drifters system. Yeah. But yeah, so don't don't
worry about it. We're constantly surrounded by viruses, bacteria. Little

(58:32):
guys probably breathe them, breathing them in, uh, taste in them.
You'd stick your tongue out. It's probably like just a
bunch of stuff landing on there. But don't worry about it.
It's good. It's like, you know, like when you stick
out your tongue to catch snow on your on your tongue,
but then you're getting viruses.

Speaker 2 (58:50):
Snowflaces.

Speaker 1 (58:51):
Yeah, makes it feel better. Anyways, before we go, we
do got to play a little game. This game is
called Guests Who's Squawking mysteryil sound game. Every week we
play a mystery an I'll sound in you the listener,
and you the guest, trying to guess who.

Speaker 2 (59:06):
I'm so mad that.

Speaker 1 (59:07):
I don't remember that you did.

Speaker 2 (59:11):
Yeah, there I was. I shouldn't know because we maybe
I can't remember the last time a time before, but
it was Cassawary, and Cassewary is like one of my
favorite games.

Speaker 1 (59:19):
Oh yeah, yeah, that was so embarrassing. Everyone was disappointed
in you.

Speaker 2 (59:28):
One more than myself.

Speaker 1 (59:32):
It's okay, I I'm sure if someone like turn this
around on me, I would lose so much because, like
it's easy for me to pick out these sounds and
be like, oh, I know what it is because I
looked it up. I looked it up. But yeah I
would I would not. I I don't want people to
think that I would actually have a really high success

(59:54):
rate with this, because I probably would not. Okay, But
that being said, let's do this all right. So the
hint is this. It gets its name from the sound
it makes, not for sitting at the cool kids stable.
It gets its name from the sound it makes, not

(01:00:15):
from sitting at the cool kids table in high school.
Could you hear that?

Speaker 2 (01:00:28):
Is it the little popping noise?

Speaker 1 (01:00:30):
Yes?

Speaker 2 (01:00:35):
Well, I mean I was gonna say the manta shrimp,
but or that shrimp that makes that noise. But then
I hear a bunch of birds and ship in the background.
So is this something? Is it the manta shrimp?

Speaker 1 (01:00:48):
No, it's not you're you're, you're, You're correct to be skeptical,
given that there is birds and wind.

Speaker 2 (01:00:53):
Okay, because sometimes you can even say, put your you're
the surface of the water. And it sounds like soda
popping with manta shrimp. But let's see, let's see, it's.

Speaker 1 (01:01:00):
A good guess. It's a good guess.

Speaker 2 (01:01:03):
Is that popping noise? It's gonna be something weird. Isn't
a clam?

Speaker 1 (01:01:16):
No, it's not Alex Schmidt snapping his fingers doing.

Speaker 2 (01:01:21):
Doing try not find out until next one.

Speaker 1 (01:01:23):
Doing the no. No, you're gonna find out. You're gonna
find out right now, because this is last week's No,
it's not it's not Alex Smint snapping his fingers. Uh,
it's not a clam Uh. This is the click beetle.
It is a beetle that basically folds its body in
half and makes this clicking sound, and it actually can

(01:01:48):
rapidly contract its muscles, and it has like a peg
and slot mechanism uh that allows it to like it
can unhinge this and then sna app it back into place,
and it both makes a clicking sound and basically launches
it in a sort of jump. So this is an
evasive tactic for it to like, I don't know, I'm

(01:02:13):
trying to think of it. It looks kind of funny
because it's just it's basically just this beetle. It's kind
of I don't know, it's like about the length of
your thumb, and it's sort of oblong, just kind of
a flat beetle. But then it like if it's on
its back or being held, it like kind of folds
itself where it's like kind of belly up and folds

(01:02:37):
itself like in a upside down V and then just
like snaps back together and then kind of flings itself
and makes that snapping sound.

Speaker 2 (01:02:47):
That's pretty cool.

Speaker 1 (01:02:48):
It's fun. It's a fun little party trick.

Speaker 2 (01:02:52):
I didn't know this thing existed.

Speaker 1 (01:02:54):
Well, now you do, all.

Speaker 2 (01:02:56):
Right, give me the next one. I get another one, right,
you do.

Speaker 1 (01:02:58):
Get another one? Okay, all right, here's a hint. This
bearded fellow is the bell of the ball, all right,

(01:03:28):
got of guesses.

Speaker 2 (01:03:30):
Yes, before I heard your clue, it's like bird. Definitely
a bird.

Speaker 3 (01:03:37):
You gave me another clue that was this bearded fellow.
So I'm gonna even though the habitat in the background
sounds too jungly or tropical for this, I'm gonna guess
the bearded readling.

Speaker 1 (01:03:55):
Ooh, interesting, interesting, very interesting.

Speaker 2 (01:03:59):
Guess it's not right.

Speaker 1 (01:04:02):
It's not right, no, because otherwise I would have bleeped
you out. But maybe you're on the right track. Anyways,
you'll find out the real answer to this little, my
tricky little riddle. Next time you're.

Speaker 2 (01:04:19):
Playing a home give yourself. Give yourself the extra context
of the background noises always with this game. That's like,
you know Habitat right away, and I disregarded that this time.
I shouldn't have done that. But you get Habitat almost immediately,
and that's gonna give like that's gonna zero down your
search and then you can win this game of katies
that if you do win, you give a million dollars, right,

(01:04:41):
you give a million dollars the person who gets it.

Speaker 1 (01:04:44):
Yeah, no, well, Sarren, that is a great guess, and
he is on the right track. I will say that,
but yes, not quite uh anything that you know the answer.

(01:05:06):
You can write to me a Creature feature pod at
gmail dot com. You can also write to me your questions,
pictures of your pets. Please stop sending me requests for
millions of dollars. I don't have it. I don't have it.
Uh so sorry, where can the people find you? And also, hey,

(01:05:27):
thank you for coming on.

Speaker 2 (01:05:29):
Oh yeah, my pleasure. Thank you for having me. I'm
no longer on Twitter, but you can find me on
blue Sky. I'm like one of the Blue Sky.

Speaker 1 (01:05:37):
No, no, no, it's the other thing. I don't know where you.
I don't know where you're x x X.

Speaker 2 (01:05:42):
Gonna give it to you. Yeah, I'm not on that anymore.
I'm on Blue Sky. If you go there, I'm one
of only like six people there, so it's very easy
to find me. Just it's a room full of folks
and you just go others.

Speaker 1 (01:05:53):
I'm I'll follow you, I'll give you a follow. I'm
never there, but I guess I kind of want to
go on there, and I want to share super recipes
on blue Sky, you know what I mean?

Speaker 2 (01:06:02):
Just oh, reinvent yourself. It's like going to high school
after middle school. It's a whole new opportunity.

Speaker 1 (01:06:07):
I feel like it. We could definitely swing it in
the direction of just being a recipe sharing site, and
we should try to do that. Like this is the
time at which the culture is being established and if
it's just like, this is a website to share fun
recipes without any stories, just like I like this being
super recipe here it is.

Speaker 2 (01:06:27):
I'm doing jokes over there right now, but I'm happy
to switch over to Soups Soups.

Speaker 1 (01:06:33):
I think it's a good use for it as much
as anything else. But that's good.

Speaker 2 (01:06:39):
You also listen to my podcast with the US It's
called Quick Question with Thorn and Daniel. Yeah, it's a
fun little podcast we do. Yeah, and check it out.

Speaker 1 (01:06:48):
Check that out. Please. I beg of you and thank
you so much listeners for doing that thing you do,
which is listening. If you're enjoying the show and you
leave it right review. I read every single review, all
of them all at once. It hurts my head, but
I love them. And thank you to the Space Cossics

(01:07:10):
for their super awesome song. Exo Lumina Creature feature is
a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts like the one
you just heard, visit the Arheart Radio ap Apple podcast
or Hey guess what where are you listening to your
favorite shows? I don't judge you. I'm not your mom.
I can't tell you where to listen to your gosh
durn podcasts. That's not my job. See you next Wednesday.