Listener Q's: Butterfly Goo

I answer your questions, from what happens in a cocoon to the evolutionary history of bird bones! 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
Welcome to Creature Future production of iHeartRadio. I'm your host
of Many Parasites, Katie Golden, and today on the show,
it's another listener Questions episode. You can write to me
your questions and I answer them. If you don't have
any questions that you would like to hear answered on
the show, or maybe I'll answer them by email, you

(00:28):
can send them to me at Creature Feature Pod at
gmail dot com. I got some really good questions this week,
so let's get right into them. Here we go. This
is from a friend of the show, Lydia Bug. She writes,
I'm not sure if you've ever covered this in detail before,
but I would love to hear more about the process

(00:49):
of butterflies going from worm to pile of goo to
pretty bug. So thanks, Lydia. The transformation from a butterfly
to well known the other way, doesn't it. The transformation
from a caterpillar to a butterfly is really fascinating and
a little disgusting. So caterpillars are butterfly larva. Their essential

(01:12):
purpose is to eat as much as possible to get
fat and to fuel the transformation into a butterfly. So
caterpillars typically eat plant matter. Although large blue butterfly caterpillars
eat meat, specifically ant larva, by tricking their way into
ant nests. If you are curious to hear about these

(01:34):
little carnivore caterpillars, we discuss this more detail on the
recent episode called Animal Lecter. So caterpillars will eat and
eat and eat until they are all fueled up for
their transformation. They will build a cocoon if they are
a moth species, or a chrysalis if they are a

(01:56):
butterfly species. So a cocoon is typically made out of
silk that the moth has excreted. It is in fact
where we get silk from via silk moths. So chrysalises
are actually made out of the top layer of skin
of the caterpillar. So the caterpillar will attach itself to
a branch via a bit of silk and then wiggle

(02:18):
out of its top layer of skin, which hardens into
a chrysalis. So inside the cocoon or the crysalis, the
larva will actually completely dissolve into goo, so it is
essentially digesting itself into a sort of soup ready to

(02:39):
be rearranged into its final form. So the way it
does This is by preserving groups of blueprint cells called
imaginal discs, which have DNA instructions for growing into body
parts fueled and built by the dissolved soup that it
turned its old body into. So is this a transformation

(03:01):
or is it more of like a death and rebirth. So,
after all, it has turned itself almost entirely into goop.
Like if you cut open a cocoon or chrysalis at
the right time, all you'll find is this zesty paste.
I guess I don't know if it's zesty because I've
never tried it. Anyways, Researchers have found that adult moths

(03:23):
can retain the memories of their former larval cells. So
caterpillars were taught to fear an odor by pairing it
with a mild electric shock. Then, after the caterpillars metamorphosized
in two months, the researchers tested to see if they
still feared the smell that they were trained to hate
as caterpillars, and in fact, they found that they did so.

(03:46):
The theory is that some of the cells preserved during
the sort of supefication that the larva goes through are
actually neural cells that retain the same structures, or possibly
there's some kind of epigenetic change that carries on into
its adult form. Still, it's an incredibly weird process that

(04:07):
I think we've just kind of grown up to think
it's normal because butterflies are everywhere. They're beautiful, innocent looking creatures,
and we kind of don't think about how they turn
themselves into goo and get reborn and are haunted by
their old memories. Kind of a nightmarish ship of theseus situation.

(04:29):
Onto the next listener question, what's going on with bees?
We're terrified about them disappearing, but I haven't heard anything
about them recently. This is from feminist Killjoy on Twitter.
So bees, I love bees, I love honey, and I
love all the variety of bee species out there. I

(04:51):
don't like getting stung by bees, but to be honest,
it's only happened to me once, and that was my fault.
I felt a bee land on my head, so I
trying to like get whatever it was off my head,
and the bee felt like I was attacking it and
stungy entirely my bad. So bees. Starting around two thousand

(05:12):
and seven, people started to freak out about colony collapse
disorder which is the strange phenomenon where bees abandon a
colony and its queen. So it's become an increasing problem
and the cause is mysterious, but it's thought to maybe
have something to do with pesticides, pathogens, maybe parasites, or

(05:32):
malnutrition or habitat loss. So this is an unfortunate phenomenon
that has been occurring in domesticated honeybees. While there have
been increased cases of colony collapse disorder, an important note
is that honeybees are kind of like the cows of
the insect world. We have selected honeybees for their increased

(05:54):
honey production and decreased aggression. They are not actually name
to North America, and they are likely originally from Africa
or Asia from tens of thousands of years ago when
we first started domesticating them. And so while I do
love honey bees and I love honey, they are technically

(06:17):
invasive species in many parts of the world, given that
we have domesticated them, and they are only a small
fraction of the number of bee species out in the
world and a fraction of a fraction of the pollinators
who help our crops and plants and planet. So I'm
not saying that colony collapse disorder is not a problem.

(06:38):
I mean it is especially for beekeepers and if you
like honey but there is a distinction between there being
a problem with honeybees who are essentially tiny flying cows
and their important agricultural pollinators as well as honey producers,
but still their populations are probably gonna be fine. Meanwhile,

(06:59):
we have we have problems that we are facing with
wild native bees, who are both important pollinators for agriculture
as well as for native plants, and their populations are
much more under threat. So firstly, honey bees are not
endangered at the moment. Colony collapse disorder is alarming and

(07:19):
very troublesome for apiari's and you know, if you like bees,
but their populations are doing alright. I think it is
important to find out why exactly colony collapse disorder is happening,
because that is good information to know and that could
be important for conservation for not just domesticated bees, but
for wild bees as well. But speaking of wild native bees,

(07:43):
they are critical for protecting ecosystems and their populations are
in far more danger than honey bees. So there are
over three five hundred species of wild bees in North America,
and they are much more likely to face extinction than
the honey bee. Pollution, pesticides, light pollution, habitat destruction, all

(08:05):
of these things really do threaten these native bee species.
Uh So there is if you're interested right in the
health of native bees. There is a particularly adorable citizen
science action you can take part in if you are
concerned about wildbepopulations. Bumblebewatch dot org is where you can

(08:27):
upload images of bumblebees that you found and the location
and date to help conservationists keep track of bumblebee populations.
There are certain species of bumblebees who are endangered, such
as the rusty patched bumblebee, and by providing photos as
well as location and date information, you are giving researchers

(08:49):
new locations to survey for possible bumblebee populations to keep
track of. And honestly, who doesn't love watching bumblebees. They
are easily one of my favorite types of bees. They
are so fumbly and bumbly, just like their name implies.
According to all known laws of aviation, there is no

(09:11):
way that a bumblebee should be able to fly. Its
wings are too small to get its fat little body
off the ground. The bumblebee, of course flies anyways. Okay,
now that's actually just the first few lines of the
famous movie be Movie starring Seinfeld. It's not actually scientifically accurate.
Bumblebees as well as bees can certainly fly according to

(09:35):
every law of aviation or aerodynamics and biology. They're just
very around and very cute, and I love them. Next
listener question, how did birds develop hollow bones? Did their
ancestors adapt that way before they flew or afterwards? According

(09:55):
to the fossil records, and this is from L. S. Griegor,
this is a great question. The short answer is that
they did evolve before flight. These hollow bones evolved before flight.
But to understand why, let's first talk about what we
mean by hollow bones. Are they just tubes with nothing inside?

(10:19):
So first let's talk about mammalian bones, like the bones
that we have in our body. Our mammalian bones are
full of bone marrow. It is a tissue with blood
vessels that produces red and white blood cells. Surrounding the
bone marrow is a layer of spongy bone called cancelss bone,

(10:40):
and layered over that is a tough outer layer of
compact bone. So birds have bones that are not entirely hollow,
but are in fact full of air pockets. So imagine
a really bubbly sour dough bread, you know, the kind
that's really delicious, but you can't really make a sandwich

(11:02):
out up because it's got too many holes in it.
So the cross section of a bird bone looks almost
exactly like that, with struts and air pockets inside. These
are called pneumatized and they allow the bird's bones to
be lightweight and don't contain bone marrow. But if you
think about it, this makes them actually very structurally stable,

(11:24):
because if it was just a hollow tube, you could
crush that quite easily. But because it's just full of
sort of these bubbles and then these struts of bone,
it is much more structurally stable. But birds do need
bone marrow for blood cell production, so some of their
bones are not entire are not hollow, and actually contain

(11:49):
bone marrow. In some species of birds, none of their
bones are hollow, like all of their bones contain marrow,
such as penguins or some diving birds like ox, who
actually can fly. Penguins, of course can't fly. Ox can fly,
but they can also swim. Some flightless birds like ostriches

(12:12):
still have some hollow bones, such as their femurs. Even
though these bones contain air pockets, the struts inside of
the bones actually make them really strong, and that's how
they can support the ostrich's weight. Also, hollow bones are
not just useful for flight, but also for thermoregulation, meaning

(12:34):
keeping your temperature at a something that is suitable for you,
as well as respiration, which sounds really weird. Why would
bones help one breathe better? But we'll talk about that.
So hollow or maybe a more scientific term, pneumatized bones,

(12:55):
are actually connected to the bird's respiration Systems have multiple
air sacks in addition to their lungs, and these air
sacks are connected to the bird's hollow bones and the bones.
These hollow spaces and the bones can actually increase their
air intake capacity. So, given that pneumatized or hollow bones

(13:19):
have multiple benefits outside of just helping with flying, it
then makes more sense that these hollow bones evolved before flight,
just as feathers had evolved before flight. So Alosaurus, which
was a large t rex like dinosaur, had some hollow
bones long before dinosaurs had any aspirations. Of flight. They

(13:42):
had hollow bones along their neck, vertebrae, and back, and
they were thought to help aid in respiration with that
handy extra air space. So like the dinosaur breathe in
fill these air sacks, and then some of the air
could be in these air pockets in the bone, increasing
the volume of air that it could take in, which

(14:04):
might be really important to give this dinosauran edge in
terms of being able to chase after prey without having
to catch its breath, or to just function as a
large animal that needs a lot of oxygen. So evolution
is a really amazing roller coaster ride with twists and turns.

(14:25):
Sometimes you start out with one adaptation that's for a
specific purpose, but then it can later be used for
an even more fantastic purpose like flight. Next listener question,
what do you think of ancient folks mistaking elephants spools
for monsters and coming up with stories of the cyclops?

(14:47):
I always thought that was neat. Do you have a favorite?
This real animal was probably the inspiration for this mythical
beast sort of thing from Blake Rogers. So I love
this story. I have I seen an elephant skull in
a museum. I actually remember thinking exactly that it looks
like a cyclops skull. The hole that looks like an

(15:08):
eye socket is actually its large nasal cavity that it's
trunk connects to. But it's so huge, and it really
does look like a big hole for an eye. The
actual eye sockets are really small and they're harder to notice.
So it makes sense that we would see this one

(15:29):
big hole and think, oh, this is where a giant
eye would go on this giant skull. So I can
see that Greek sailors might think this was a monster
that wanted to eat them. But I have many favorite
kind of like oopsies, we got this animal wrong, or
like taking a part of another animal or real animal

(15:52):
and thinking that it was a monster or a mythical creature.
So one example of a bonar reconstruction go terribly wrong
is the Mageburg unicorn, which was made in the seventeenth
century and Feach is featured at the Museum for Netrikunde Maigeburg, Germany.

(16:13):
I'm I'm really sorry Germany if I'm pronouncing Mageburg wrong.
Maybe it's Magburg anyways, So this reconstruction has a long tail,
two legs, no arms, and a skull with a giant
horn on its forehead. It is the goofiest looking fossil
recreation ever made, just like Google Mageburg unicorn. It's amazing. Yeah,

(16:38):
I can imagine that this was probably made by someone
like after eating ergot infested bread, huffing mercury laden makeup.
I don't know, it doesn't it makes no sense. It
has the skull of an actual wooly rhino, which was
a real animal that is extinct. It has the horn
of a narwalal, So the horn of a narwall is

(16:59):
act actually a tusk. It's a long tooth, not a horn,
and it has the legs of a wooly mammoth. So
three unfortunate dead animals who did not deserve to be
so disrespected. So, speaking of narwal teeth, that long pointed
tooth that has been mistaken for horns, which you know,

(17:23):
it's easy to see why that mistake is made. It's
something that's coming out of the Narwal's head. It does
not look like a long tooth or a tusk. These
tusks were often thought to be unicorn horns. Before the
eighteenth century. These unicorn horns were sold to royalty because
of their supposed jurative properties. They would shave off small

(17:46):
pieces of the horns and mix them with drinks or
use them to protect themselves against being poisoned. So there's
no science to Narwal tusks being useful to prevent poisonings.
So please don't just try to like chew on a
Narwald tusk to cure yourself after you ate some urga
and huff some mercury. But you know, Europeans had no idea,

(18:10):
and Narwal tusks came from traders who were only too
happy to capitalize on their mystical reputation. So that'll do
it for our quick little listener questions episode no animal
sound of the week. I will save that for next
week when I have a guest, but just a refresher

(18:32):
for last week's mystery animal sound. The hint was that
this is a bird who is often plagiarized, and here
is the sound. So if you think you know who
is making that sound, you can write to me at
Creature feature Pod at gmail dot com. You can also

(18:56):
write to me your questions and I will try my
best to answer them either through email or on the
show like I did this time. Thank you guys so much,
for listening. If you're enjoying the show and you leave
a rating or review, I read all of them and
I appreciate every rating. It really does help me out,
helps the show out, and makes me feel good. And

(19:19):
thank you to the Space Cossics for their super awesome song. Exolumina.
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