Listener Q's: Ear Mite Poetry

Today I answer your questions, about everything from the weirdest self-inflicted ear mite study, to starfish parasite piñatas! If you have a question you'd like to ask, you can email me at [e-mail]

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
Welcome to Creature Feature production of iHeartRadio. I'm your host
of Many Parasites, Katie Golden. I studied psychology and evolutionary biology,
and today on the show, it's a listener Questions episode.
Happy New Year, guys. It is twenty twenty five. Staying

(00:27):
alive in twenty twenty five. I'm gonna answer some questions
I have. I've got a bit of a backlog, so
I'm gonna keep doing some of these. I think next
week will probably be a normal episode, but I might
have yet another listener Questions episode to do in the future.
Do keep sending them to me, though, I will keep

(00:48):
answering them. If you have your very own questions you
would like me to answer, either through email or on
the show, you can write to me at Creature Feature
Pod at gmail dot com. So let's get right into it.
I had some really really interesting questions this time, so
I'm super excited. Hi, Katie. I came across this Reddit

(01:11):
thread on dinosaur ants. I find this fascinating and have
the mental imagery of an ant in their finery being
stripped down, thrown in a sackcloth smock, then tossed in
the dungeon. I thought you might enjoy it too. Hope
you're all in good health. Give Cookie a treat for
me or regards Ronnie. So thank you so much for
sharing this with me. The reddit post says, today I

(01:33):
learned a high ranking dinosaur ant who challenges her queen
but fails will be immobilized, publicly chastised for several days,
join the working class, and lose all hope of ever
ruling or reproducing. So this is really interesting. I believe
that this probably comes from the study with the catchy

(01:55):
title functional Morphology of the dufour gland and the queenless
Ant Dinopone Nara quadriceps. Dinosaur Ants are a queenless species,
meaning that they technically don't have a specific morphological queen
that is born to be queen. However, there is a
dominant alpha female who essentially acts as the queen of

(02:16):
the small colony. She's the only one officially permitted to reproduce.
The ants immediately ranked under her will sometimes be able
to become the dominant female and reproduce themselves. It's actually
quite similar to the social structure of say a meerkat colony,
where you have sort of this quasi usocial situation so

(02:38):
the worker ants can reproduce and are really only kept
in line by the alpha females enforcers. Worker ants who
can reproduce are called gammer gates, not to be confused
with gamergate, the stupidest controversy to ever happen. So yeah,
these are gammer gates. The dinosaur ant colonies are pretty

(02:59):
small to other ant species, having tens instead of hundreds
of individuals, so some of these individuals will try to
reor surp the dominant female. Sometimes this is successful, like
the female's ranks just below the alpha might stage a
successful coup or take over her duties when she gets older.

(03:21):
But occasionally the female's rank just below the alpha will
try to lay an unfertilized egg that will hatch and
become a male, and typically enforce her aunts will try
to find these eggs and remove them before they hatch.
If the alpha detects this behavior or encounters a challenger directly,

(03:41):
she will mark the cheater with a pheromone sort of
like an APB on this female who is trying to
lay eggs, which triggers the female enforcers to immobilize the culprit.
So it's interesting because she's kind of acting like a
mob boss. The alpha does not need to directly engage

(04:02):
in violence, but has her mobster like enforcers do the
dirty work for her. So she's got a bunch of
goons who goes and they will yeah, as the posts
suggests that they'll physically restrain the female and discourage this behavior.
So it is really interesting to see these dinosaur ants

(04:25):
kind of behaving like an organized crime family. It's very fun.
I would definitely watch a version of A Bugs Life
where we see mob ants. I please make that happen.
Next listener question, Hey Katie, I am training to become

(04:45):
a groomer of dogs and right now I'm studying hard
for my written exam. Well not right now, because I'm
writing this email. And the chapter about parasites on dogs,
there was a casual mention of a veterinarian who infected
himself with Odecti's cinotus, or spider like ear mites. I
tried to find his original journal on the subject, but

(05:06):
unfortunately I don't have access to it. I think his
name is R. A. Lopez and the title of the
article is hilariously of mites and men. I thought the
story might interest you. The host of many parasites. This
is true. I would love to learn more about mites
if you're ever interested to do an episode on them.

(05:27):
I'm also hearing about dog's coats going through visible changes
after neutering. I have seen cases of it in real
life too. I know that it has something to do
with hormonal changes, but I don't understand what the exact
cause is. Is there any chance you could explain it
a little. Thanks. I love your show and I recommend
it to others all the time. Oh well, thank you,
and this is from Meryl also shared a silly photo

(05:49):
of their dog Candy for my enjoyment, and I did
enjoy it, so thank you. Thank you so much for
sharing this with me. Of Mites and Men was an
article written for the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical
Association in nineteen ninety three by Ari Lopez and documents
his incredible dedication to first hand research on spider like

(06:10):
ear mites. So he was a veterinarian who intentionally infected
himself with ear mites from a cat to see if
they would take to a human ear He was inspired
to do this when one of his clients brought in
their ear mite infected cats that had very severe MTE infection,
and the daughter of this family complained of feeling itchy,

(06:32):
which went away after the cats were treated. So these
are direct quotes from Ari Lopez about what he did
to himself. So quote, I decided to be a human
guinea pig. Immediately I heard scratching sounds, then moving sounds
as the mites began to explore my ear canal. Itching

(06:54):
sensations then started, and all three sensations merged into a
weird cacophony of sound and pain that intensified from that
moment on and on. At first, I thought this wouldn't
and couldn't last very long. However, as the day and
evening wore on, I began to worry the paritis, which
means itching, was increasing. The sounds in my ear, fortunately

(07:19):
I had chosen only one ear were becoming louder as
the mites traveled deeper towards my ear trump So that's
quite a colorful description. He apparently repeated the experiment three times,
and for his forays into the field of very masochistic entomology,

(07:42):
he received an Ignoble Prize, which is sort of a
joke award for not necessarily bad studies, but very weird studies.
And so he apparently read a poem about ear mites
at the ceremony and then passed around dead bug samples
to the audience. I was not able to find the

(08:06):
poem about ear mites. If anyone knows where I can
get a copy of that, please do send it to me.
Would love that. His of mites and man paper has
been cited numerous times in the entomology literature, so he
is a true hero of entomology. He has since passed away,

(08:27):
so otherwise I would definitely have him on the show,
because man, what a fantastic idea. Just put some cat
ear mites in your ear because you're brave and you're
doing it for veterinary science. Incredible. All right, onto your
next question about why dog coats might change after neutering.

(08:50):
So dog coats going through changes due to hormone levels
post neutering. Hormones also have a huge effect on hair
and humans. Actually, so testosterone can both help grow body
hair but also cause you to lose hair on your head. Likewise,
androgen and estrogen levels can affect hair growth or cause

(09:11):
disorders such as hair loss or alopecious. So it's really
interesting because you can't necessarily say, like a hormone causes
hair loss or causes hair growth. It's the levels of
these hormones and the amount the hormonal cycles that can
cause both hair gain and hair loss. And of course

(09:31):
it also depends on the type of hormone determines where
on the body you'll also get hair growth. So for dogs,
what does the evidence tell us regarding neutering. It's a
bit unclear actually, so that doesn't mean it's not a
real phenomenon, but just that there's a lack of strong research.

(09:53):
So coat changes, Okay, I did read this, which is
coat changes in Castrated Bitches, a review of the literature,
which is what it's actually called, because a bitch is
a female dog. This is an actual term. I'm not
being naughty here, So this is this review of literature

(10:17):
failed to find strong evidence of coat changes following spaying
due to a lack of research. However, there is a
great deal of anecdotal accounts about coat changes following spaying
or neutering, so vets that were surveyed in the UK
do report coat changes to be a potential negative consequence

(10:38):
to neutering. I still think neutering and spaying is worth it,
because controlling the dog population is way more humane than
trying to preserve coate integrity. I would say that I
can't really find great research documenting this change, though. My

(11:01):
guess is the reason it's really hard to find a
pattern in dogs in terms of coat changes following neutering
or spang is that breed and genetics means that the
dog's response to neutering or spain is highly heterogeneous. Uh so,
meaning that there are probably plenty of dogs who do
not encounter cooat changes and plenty who do, depending on

(11:24):
their breed, depending on their specific genetic makeup, maybe even
depending on when the spang or neutering is done, what
point in their life it's done. So, and the type
of coat change may be different, so it's really hard
to document a clear pattern. Like some dogs may experience
some coat thinning, some might experience like a change in
the code of change in the texture of their fur. Yeah,

(11:47):
so like being able to document a clear pattern is
probably quite difficult. But given the role that hormones play
in hair growth in humans and other mammals, I think
it is reasonable to assume that neutering or spain may
have an effect on coat depending on the individual, and
that it's likely due to the change in hormone production.

(12:09):
Just as some individual humans may go bald, or have alopecia,
or have thicker or thinner hair, or go gray earlier
or later, which can all be affected by hormones, So
hormones can have an effect on hair follicle size, and
hair follicles can become smaller due to say, if there's

(12:31):
like a high level of androgens or in men, or
lower levels of estrogen and higher androgens in women, and
those smaller hair follicles can then cause eventual thinning and
then total loss of hair and some individuals. So yeah,
it's I think it's definitely possible. Like if you notice

(12:54):
a pattern of dogs coats changing after neutering, I think
that that there really might be something there. But it's
also kind of difficult because it could just be a
change that would happen as the dog matures anyways, which
you know, like it's sort of a timing thing, right,
like you notter the dog and then later you notice
this hair change. Maybe that was inevitable, but yeah, that's

(13:17):
one of the difficulties of being able to prove that causality.
But maybe there will be more studies in the future.
I'll keep my eyes open for them. But yeah, I
mean and certainly, like there's a lot of things you
can do for your dog's coat if you want, if
you're concerned about it. There's a lot of like nice
sort of treats and things like fish skin and oils

(13:40):
that you can give your dog that can improve coat quality,
help reduce shedding, things like that. But again, it's going
to be highly individualized, like some dogs respond differently. It's
just you know, we have such a huge variety of
types of dog coats that it's really hard to predict
what's going to go on with your dog's coat. But yeah,

(14:01):
you could always always look up resources for your specific breeder.
If you've got a mutt like I do, just try
in different treats, trying different diets and stuff and seeing
what they like best and what makes them the softest
and the happy. Hi Katie. Not a huge question. But
on today's episode, you played the sound of a frigatebird

(14:22):
and it sounded like one of those giant corrugated plastic
tubes that they had in the eighties that you'd spin
and they'd whistle. Worly tubes. I didn't know that's what
they were called, but I remember them. But if you
bent them, they had that hollow popping sound. Man, I
loved those so much. I'm someone who likes to crack
my knuckles, so like those little tubes, like bending and
around cracking. Ugh, so good, now I want one. Anyways, Once,

(14:45):
while paddleboarding on the Washington Coast, I saw a bunch
of cormorants on a big booie. I could hear a
very similar noise to the frigatebird, but only saw cormorants.
Do cormorants always make also make that noise? It's very cool?
Love the sh Anna, Thank you so much for this email. Anna,
first of all, reminding me of that thing from the

(15:06):
eighties and nineties, I used to play with those two.
And also I love cormorants. They are one of my
favorite birds to see all bird watching. Their names are
really cool because they come from a Latin portmanteau for
sea raven, which is just the coolest thing. They look
really cool, they sound really cool. As you've observed, they

(15:29):
do that wonderful behavior where they hold their wings out
so to me, they look like goth ducks kind of
combined with penguins, with long necks and those nice, long,
slightly hooked beaks. They're usually sort of a either a
dark brown or black. Sometimes they have like a white belly.
They look really prehistoric to me, especially the great cormorant,

(15:54):
which I highly encourage you to google a picture of.
They're absolutely gorgeous. They look like these mohas wearing dinosaurs.
I really love them. And they do that lovely basking behavior.
They spread out their wings and the sun. Most likely
it's to help them dry their feathers after diving, and
it's really beautiful. It's one of those things like often

(16:16):
when I'm bird watching aquatic birds, they may be quite
far away and it's kind of hard to identify them,
But when I see a bunch of sort of prehistoric
birds out there with their wings unfurled, just kind of
basking in the sun, then I know it's probably a cormorant,
all right. So on to the sound. So, given that
you're on the Washington coast, you probably ran into a

(16:38):
branch cormorant who developed these beautiful blue goler pouches. That's
the pouch right below their beaks during mating season only,
so if it's not their mating season, they won't have
these pouches. But during their mating season they do have
those blue pouches, and they do indeed sound a bit
like one of those corrugated plass stick tubes. So here

(17:02):
is what they sound like. So yeah, a plus plus identification. Anna,
I think you're you're spot on. Those are cormorants. You
heard their calls. Uh. I. I don't know necessarily if
they're brands cormorants. I would need a little more information,
but very likely there's there might be a few other

(17:24):
species on the Washington coast. But yeah, that fantastic find.
If there are any other bird watchers out there and
you are curious about what you have seen or heard,
maybe I can help. Just send me an email at
Creature feature Pod at gmail dot com and I'll try
to help you identify your birds, solve you solve your
bird mysteries if you have them. Onto The next listener

(17:48):
question starts with this, dendarro gastridians. Have you seen this?
This doesn't seem real. I have heard of the parasitic
bartacles that take over crabs, but have you've heard of
crabs that are parasites of starfish and look like corals.
This blew my mind best Asher, and they linked to
a YouTube video about the dendro Gestrata parasites. So thank

(18:16):
you so much for this question. It is a really
fascinating topic. I love parasites, as you all probably know
quite well at this point. So dendro Gstrata is indeed real,
so let's talk about it. It is an order of crustaceans,
so it is in the same subphylum as crabs, but
also lobsters, shrimps, woodlouses, so those are actually terrestrial isopods, copapods,

(18:45):
and barnacles. That's right, So barnacles are also crustaceans, and
Asher refers to the barnacle that is a parasite to crabs.
This is sacculina. These are barnacles that parasitize crab altalia
and cause males to start showing female behavior. So yeah,
the bartacles are also crustaceans. They're very very distant cousins

(19:09):
to the crabs that they target. Being cousins in the
animal kingdom does not always get you special treatment. So
dendro Gastrita are an order of animals remember it goes
kingdom phylum class order, family, genus species. You can remember
this as King phil came over for good soup. That's

(19:32):
it's kind of a bad pneumonic but that's what I learned.
I don't know why dendro Gaster is a genus of
this order of parasitic crustaceans that have a branch like
symmetrical structure and use c stars as hosts, so they
take over the main body cavity of the sea star.

(19:53):
If you dissected an infected c star, you might just
assume that the structure was a weird organ or vein
structure because it looks it does not look really like
an animal. It looks like maybe a starfish's veins or something.
But it's actually another animal taking advantage of the seastar

(20:13):
as a home and feeding off of its nutrient supply.
So yes, it's a very real animal. It's understudied, but
it is really interesting. I would not say that dendro
gasters are crabs, given that they are just as related
to barnacles and copapods. Actually, when you look at some

(20:34):
of the weirder copapod anatomy, who you know, these like
a lot of copapods are also parasites. It makes a
lot more sense that dendro gasters are also crustaceans. But yeah, still,
dendro gasters are super, super weird. They do not look
like animals. They look like some kind of weird organ

(20:54):
and it's creepy to me how little we actually know
about them. It's just really hard to study aquatic parasites,
especially those who are hiding inside of starfish like little
prizes inside living pinatas. Isn't that Isn't that fun? Good
image there? Anyways, Guys, I really appreciate all these questions.

(21:15):
They're fantastic. They force me to do research and look
into things that even I might not know all that
much about. So I really appreciate that helps me learn.
I hope I've helped you learn. So yeah, send any
question about evolutionary biology and animals to me at Creature
Featurepod at gmail dot com. And I believe next week

(21:38):
will be a regular episode. If not, it'll just be
another listener questions episode while I do a little bit
of twenty twenty five catch up here. But yeah, welcome
to the new year, everyone, New year, New Critters, got
to keep going on exploring the Natural World with you
guys getting infected with ear mites. Maybe don't do that.

(22:00):
As cool as that guy was, I cannot end good
conscience tell you to pour cat ear mites down your ear.
It's not a great idea. We've already got that contribution
to science. So pour something else down your ear, don't.
I'm please. Your ears are so delicate and sensitive. Don't

(22:21):
put anything in there except for this podcast. This podcast
is very healthy to put in your ears, so keep
doing that. Send me your questions to Creature Feature Pod
at gmail dot com. I will be back next Wednesday
with more show on. Thank you guys so much for listening.
If you're enjoying the show, you leave a radio review.

(22:41):
I appreciate every single one of them. They truly do
health the show. And thanks to the Space Classics for
their super awesome song x so Lumina. Create Your Features
a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts like the ones
you just heard, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
I Guess what where you you listen to your favorite shows.
I don't judge you. I'm not your mother. I can't

(23:02):
tell you what to do, except please don't put ear
mites down your ear. It's gonna have a very predictable effect. Yeah. Anyways,
see you next Wednesday.