February 8, 2023 • 56 mins
These animals enjoy a good moshpit, and have secret powers!
Guest: Danl Goodman
Footnotes: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1mxjuqCMmHt8wY53h-nJME9NfQmdZQXbCynuqcvej5wI/edit?usp=sharing
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Welcome to Creature Future production of I Heart Radio. I'm
your host of Many Parasites, Katie Golden. I studied psychology
and evolutionary biology, and today on this show, we're talking
about mash pits, animals who prefer to stick together or
get sticky together. We're looking at three of the world's
weirdest creepy Crawley's who think three is a crowd and
(00:27):
a hundred is a party. Discover this and more as
we answer the age old question if you send your
boot packing, do you have to give it directions? Joining
me today is Friend of the Pod, the audio genius
behind Fake Doctor's Real Friends, Boss Level and One Upmanship.
DJ Daniel Welcome. Happy to be here, Katie, A thrilling,
(00:49):
a thrilling proposition, as always to be here on Creature Feature. Yes,
I'm very excited about this one because it's about mash pits,
and I know you're always getting in those all the time.
You know, me always thrashing my arms around, getting sweaty
and flicking that sweat upon all of my fellow concert goers.
You like a sprinkler, It's great they call you Dandle
(01:11):
the sprinkler, the human sprinkler. At least this, at least this, this,
this family flop sweat is good for something. Sure, So
tell me about these bugs? Yeah, stoked. Yeah, so we're
talking about a lot of bugs. Some of them are
not insects, but we'll call them all bugs. Uh and sorry,
(01:34):
that's that's misnomber for sure. I mean, I don't know.
I think you can call anything a bug. In my opinion,
I don't think that bug is a scientific term. So like,
if you feel like it's a bug and you want
to call it a bug, I think that's fine. Insect
is a scientific term, so you can't like go throwing
that around. But bugs, you know, if something's like buggy
to me, I'm like, that's a bug. I feel like
(01:58):
crabs have bug energy. I know that most people don't
call them, but they've got bug energy. Sea bugs, sky bugs,
land bugs. Yeah exactly. So these are called snow fleas.
So imagine you are digging up some snowballs and suddenly
(02:20):
you dig up a writhing, squirming mass of tiny black
dots that jump around so quickly they almost seemed to
flick in and out of existence. I think I would
I think my snow day would be over at that
point I would be. I would run screaming back to
my cabin for a cup of hot cocoa and a
scalding hot shower, dual wheeled a couple of hair dryers
(02:44):
and go outside. Yeah, I mean I sent you a
video of someone just digging into a black hole of
these riving little black dots. Yeah, just having them els
a scoop. Yeah. Really, And you know this is something
(03:04):
that I It's one of those things where in my
head I'm like, this is a totally fine, like the
the bugs or these these creatures are not trying to
hurt you, and in fact, you may not even be
hurting them. Similar to um, there's a there's a person
on TikTok who is who takes care of bees and
the way that she just scoops bees up and puts
(03:25):
them into you know, new uh whatever you call the
little boxes that they hold honeycombs in. Like the way
she just like handles bees. I'm always like, there's there's
no way, how do you even do that? But yeah,
I can't get past the heart part of this. That's
like hand in bug, No, no thank you. I don't
suggest the layman go out and scoop up a ball
(03:47):
of bees. I think that I think that's done you.
I think like the hive is probably calmed down. I
think sometimes they even like very gingerly hold a queen
in their hand so that the when the bees cluster
around there smelling the pheromones of the queen there. Um. Anyway,
it's very specialized handling abilities. I can't do it. I
(04:11):
don't suggest anyone try to do that. Um. But with
these snow fleas, uh, they really don't have too much
to worry about. So despite the moniker snow fleas, the
only one that really has to worry about an infestation
is a snowman because these are not really fleas, even
though they do look like them from our perspective. These
(04:34):
are instead spring tales. So spring tales are a subclass
of arthropod UH known as columbola UH. They are technically
not insects, but they are hexapods. So it's it gets
weird with taxonomy with sometimes some of these like bug
like things, and it's like it's technically not an insect,
(04:57):
but you know it is a bug. Can you remind
me what a hexapod is again? Or what? What? What? What?
What makes a hexapod yeah, I mean it's it's basically
insects plus Columbola plus a couple of other classes of things, uh,
pro Tura and dip lura, which are other kind of
(05:17):
weird non insect things, but they are pretty much very
bug like. Uh. It's it's a biologeny taxonomy thing. Uh.
It's just based on sort of the evolutionary branching genetic
linking things like that. Yeah, so they're they're related to insects,
they're related to things like, uh, fleas and flies and
(05:40):
so on, but they aren't insects themselves. Um so. Uh
the snow fleas uh so. Uh springtails are a uh
subclass that they are a large grouping of different species.
They live all over the world. Uh. Snow fleas are
a species of springtail that live in seasonally cold climates
(06:03):
in North America. Uh. And they are teeny tiny. They're
usually less than a millimater long. They really do just
look like little black jumping grains of sand. Very small,
very small, very small, very but still very scary. Yeah.
I mean it's the it's the multitude of them. Like
(06:24):
you have one of them, you're like you're just a
little buddy, and then he invites like a thousand of
his friends and it's like, oh, yeah, you could cover
my face. I didn't ask for this. Yeah, I feel
like the scariness of bugs is based on how much
of your face they can cover. Wow, that is such
a good metric, because you're absolutely right. Yeah, it's the
(06:47):
other golden rule. Uh. It is like spider covers only
a freckle on your face, and not so scary covers
the eyeball or get we're getting somewhere with that one.
Oh god, eyeballs by I'll be I'll be working all
day to get that image on my head. So, in
the warmer months, snow fleas like to live in leaf
(07:08):
litter and eat decaying matter or things like algae. But
in colder times they are actually able to survive the
freezing snow because they have an anti freeze like protein
in their bodies, and this protein prevents ice crystals from
forming in their cells, which protects the cells from exploding.
(07:31):
And when your cells explode, it's generally bad for you.
So I hear that is really cool though, that that
I mean just one of those like adjustments, kind of
like the sea bugs that can live near an underwater
volcano because they've just you know, been been or maybe
not a volcano, but like a thermal vent where it's like,
(07:52):
oh yeah, you're just strong enough to withstand all sorts
of crazy heats and yet you're a bug the producing
anti freeze to survive out in the frigid cold Like,
damn science, how do you how you do that? Yeah?
Those are called like extremophiles, things that can live like
in the really really cold environments, are really really hot,
really extreme environments, and yeah, it is. It's shocking when
(08:14):
they have things like this uh this protein in their blood.
There's also the wood frog, which can also do something similar.
It also has an anti freeze like substance in their
blood that prevents uh cells from getting icicles in them
getting these ice crystals, which is bad for the body. Actually,
(08:36):
when you're when you're frozen, the freezing process doesn't necessarily
hurt you. It's typically the thawing out that does the damage.
Like when you start to thaw and you have this
expansion of you know, these ice crystals and then you
get cell explosion. M h yeah. Yeah. So it's like
(08:59):
so like you could potentially all these rich people cryogenically
freezing themselves like I guess if they are able to
store themselves long enough, the hope is that you would
find a futuristic society that could unthaw them safely. But
also I kind of think probably not, Like it's probably
something where you'd need to have this anti freeze in
(09:21):
you before you undergo the cryogenic process, and probably they're
just going to be like popsicles for post apocalyptic cannibals.
That's popsicles for cannibals. That's a great that's a great
band name, right, popsicles for cannibals. I like that a lot. Damn.
(09:46):
I really didn't think about that process though, that it
would be the thawing that would be the damaging process.
You think of it's just like, well, I'm just unfrozen now.
It's like no, no, no no, no, but where's all that
water going? Yeah exactly, Oh God, that's really scary. Exactly, um,
but not for these guys. So the anti the protein
(10:07):
prevents these ice crystals from forming in their cells, which
protects their cells. And researchers are very interested in the
snow flea's natural anti freeze and how it can be
applied to like the storage of donor organs, but much
more importantly ice cream. Uh. Of course, the Spring Tales
(10:28):
anti freeze is um actually similar to a non toxic
compound that you can create. Uh. There's this professor of
food chemistry, uh shriny Vas and de Morderin at the
University of Wisconsin Madison who is seeking to perfect ice
cream science with a synthetic, edible anti freeze similar to
(10:51):
what is found in Spring Tales. M hmm. Interesting. I
mean I wonder, well, yeah, you don't want ice crystals
on your ice cream, but so like it's it's supposed
to be. I don't know, well no, because if you
have it's like when you know, like how your ice
cream gets freezer burn and ice get ice cream and
you get it, don't it. Nobody likes like that. No,
(11:12):
nobody likes it. Right Yeah, I mean this, you know this,
This is important. No, this is this is worth it,
This is worth the time in the science. I'm with us. Actually,
I think preserving organs is a good stepping off point
for perfecting ice cream. The true goal. This is what
(11:34):
we all really need, right exactly. I mean it's all,
it is all all everything we do, all of our
scientific advancements. If we can make ice cream, a little
more delicious, a little more melt in your mouthing it.
It's all worth it, let's go off. So this is
not the only superpower that spring tails have. They can also,
(11:54):
of course spring so they can jump at incredible heights
and speeds relative to their body size and rotate five
hundred times a second while in the air. What yeah,
And sometimes I mean often when they are springing, like,
they are in the air less than a second, So
they're not always rotating five hundred times, but they are
(12:18):
like so fast in their jumps. Sometimes their jumps are
measured in nanoseconds. Okay, more questions because of that. So
rotation wise, are we talking like barrel roll style rotation
or like spinning around like mostly you can't see this,
but he just punished m really kind of committing to
(12:41):
the springtale life. I think it's more it's more of
a barrel roll. So they actually like curl up into
a U shape, although I have seen some of them,
some of the like slow mo videos, and some of
them do twirl like a ballerina sometimes. I think it
kind of depends on the jump how they execute it.
(13:01):
But to understand how they do that, we kind of
have to zoom in on this springtail because to our
naked eye they look like little jumping black grains of sand. Uh.
But their bodies really don't look anything like fleas, even
though to our naked eye it's like, oh, this is
like a flea um. Instead, they have this like salindrical
segmented body, a forked tail called a fercula, and like
(13:25):
a little round head and antenna and six legs. I
think they're actually a little bit cute. It is kind
of cute. Yeah, I mean, you know, they're they're definitely like,
you know, adorable. That's that's that's my that's my least
and most favorite thing about a lot of bugs is
like you zoom in on them to a certain degree
and it's like, oh, you know, they're just cute little guys.
(13:45):
And then you do one of those really hyper close
ups on their face and it's like this is a
horrifying monster. Yeah, but there's there's definitely a middle ground
where they're absolutely adorable. Exactly. It's like tartar grades, the yes,
oh my gosh, yes, moss piglets, water bears. Like you
zoom in zoom out too much, you can't really see
them not cute. You zoom in enough and they're like,
(14:06):
you're like a chubby, little little gum drop. You're so cute, truly,
little chubby gum drop, a bunch of little legs, cute,
little like dot mouth, little oh mouth. Yeah, exactly, very cute.
And then you zoom in more and it's this like
horrifying sandworm from Dune. Yeah, very very much a garbage
(14:28):
disposal mouth where it's like, I don't want to get
anywhere near that horrifying. It's the optimal zoom. Uh. We
need scientists need to look into like the optimal zoom
ratio for all of these small critters, you know, people,
people on TikTok and small critters. Optimal zoom is a
(14:48):
feature that we all need. How close is too close
to your face for both humans posting content on the
internet and bugs. This is the other other golden rule
about zoom, like one first one about bugs is how
much of your face it covers is directly proportional to
how scary it is. And secondly the zoom principle, there
(15:11):
is a ratio of zoom for each bug oh that
determines how cute it is horrifying. So to jump these
spring tails use their whole body like a spring, including
that forked tail called the ferculate, and they will like
smack their tail against the ground or snow or even
(15:34):
the surface of water. Because they're so small, the surface
tension of the water is like it's hard enough for
them to like spring off of it like a trampoline,
and they will launch themselves into the air while curled
in a U shape like an acrobat. And interestingly, there
is this tube on the underside of the springtail's abdomen
(15:55):
called a color four whose function is kind of confusing
and debated for a long time. UM Earlier scientists thought
it was like it excreted a sticky thing that helped
them grab onto flat surfaces, but that's been relatively debunked,
and it may have something to do with excretion and
(16:16):
fluid regulation. It's this like mystery tube in the middle
of this thing's stomach, which is really funny because it's
like it like sticks outside of them like a little hose.
Uh and uh, there's hose hose hose shame shame, thank
(16:37):
you was trying to shame. Uh yeah, I mean that
sounds very Canadian hose shaming. So uh. Some research suggests
that this coloform can actually help balance the spring tails
jump when there's a water droplet attached to the coloforce.
(16:58):
So again like water at this scale, like water tension,
they can hold like a little droplet of water quite securely.
And and they like did some research where they found
like the spring tails that had a little water droplet
there were much more balanced and could like jump and
land on their feet really quickly and really easily, whereas
dry spring tails were not able to do that as much.
(17:21):
So potentially it acts like a tight rope walker's pulse
when they have a water droplet there, it helps them
balance for more optimal jumps. Yeah, so in that video,
I would imagine that one question you might have is
why are they all together like that? I mean, yes,
(17:43):
I am curious about why they are together like that?
Pardon me, thinks that's I mean, well, they have the
anti freeze, so they're not going to freeze. But maybe
something about being altogether, maybe some sort of closeness promotes
some more warmth. Maybe I had to guess it's a
very good guess. And how actually hold onto that gift
for a surprise later in the podcast. Um, but actually
(18:07):
the reason that they cluster together and like these huge
piles of like moving sand is for food or sex,
you know, the universal motivators. So during the winter, food
is more scarce, and snow fleas will cluster in or
on top of the snow where there's food available, usually
(18:29):
some decaying plant matter or maybe even algae um. But
they may also gather together during their reproductive cycles. So
an interesting thing about spring tails and snow fleas is
that they continue to molt throughout their life. So something
like say a butterfly or a moth or a wasp,
(18:49):
they will go through these molting from egg to these larva,
and sometimes they will go through numerous what are called
in stars, which are like you, you start out as
you know, a larva, and then you molten into something
else and then into something else, and then you're in
your adult form um and something. Some of insects have
(19:12):
much more straightforward sort of processes, like caterpillar going from
like caterpillar to the pupae to the butterfly or moth.
Some animals have more complex ones, like from a caterpillar
stage to sort of a juvenile in star that eventually
molds into its adult form. But these spring tails actually
(19:35):
continually mold throughout their entire life, and they will alternate
between a reproductive in star and a non reproductive in star,
and the reproductive in star doesn't eat, whereas the non
reproductive one does. So they like transform into reproductive mode
for a while and then transform back into no sex
(19:57):
only eating mode. Sounds like me and my twenties, am
I right? So how how quickly did these modes shift? Like? How?
You know, how what's the cycle of this? If you
happen to it's I think it's like over over months
or weeks. I don't think it's like that quickly. Um,
(20:19):
So these bugs survived for a little while. Yeah. Yeah,
And when females are in a reproductive in star, they
actually release a pheromone that attracts both male and female
spring tales that all common cluster together, and the more
females that come who are also releasing pheromone makes even
more coming. So they formed this giant sex mosh pit,
(20:42):
which is you know, they're having a good time. I
love that. I hope that, and you know what, I
hope everybody's having fun. That's really the most my main concern.
As long as in the pheromone induced sex mosh pit.
Everybody's having a good time. That's my main concern. Yeah,
I think they're they're probably having a good time in
these mash it's I imagine. I mean, like their lives
(21:03):
do you seem kind of fun because they just go
through cycles of eating stuff, hanging out together, eating stuff,
hanging out together, having sex. I think they've got things
figured out. They really nailed it. I think they got
down to the base, the base what we all need
to survive. And um, they're just doing it right. And
they're not really hurting anyone because they're eating decaying matter,
they're eating algae um. They're they're called fleas, which I
(21:26):
think is kind of insulting to them because they don't
they don't bite your dog right now, they're not hurting
no doggies. No, no, that's right. The only time I
really get mad at insects is when they hurt my
doggie or any any kind of like bug creature like
I got. I get really mad at fleas or ticks
(21:46):
or round worms when they affect my doggie. I'm like,
it's just it's just an anger. Usually I don't have
towards the bug and insect Kingdom. It's unfair. Look, doggies
don't have a usable thumbs. They can't get these little
buggies off of them. Often it's a pain in the butt.
And um, it's not fair. It's not fairly leave them dogs.
(22:11):
But these guys snow Fleas are dog's best friend. Well,
I mean, he's got a best friend. But they're at
least cool acquaintances, exactly, exactly, cool acquaintances, not mortal enemies.
If we stand exactly, that's what we gotta have. Warn
that there's a link in it that has watched this video,
(22:34):
so if you could have that video open as well. Yeah. Also,
I'll say this also something of my nightmares. If I'm
being real, it's odd. It's definitely odd. The movement of
the worms aren't great. Have you been playing like the
Dead Space remake remuk? No, I have not, but I'm
very familiar with the with the with the series. I'm
(22:57):
too scared. This is embarrassing. I love of horror games,
but I don't handle stress well, so I'm too scared
to play them myself. But I love watching other people
play them. So right now I'm watching my husband play it.
I watched the whole play through of the original, so
it's fun to see the updated graphics. And so I
(23:17):
feel like I feel like these things squiggle and wiggle
in a way that reminds me of some of the
monsters and dead Space. Yeah, well that that'll turn you
off the real quick. This is just this is just
the kind of thing that even though I know that well,
I mean you actually you're probably about to tell me
(23:38):
how fine it is that these these little squiggly wormy
things are in the water. But I just know that
if I saw this, I would be like, I have
to get out of here immediately before one of these
crawls into my ear and eats my brain out. So
maybe that fear is unfounded and we'll find out shortly,
but I can't stop myself from thinking that whenever I
look at this video, I would I definitely feel that.
I think that when I see warm in the water,
(24:01):
I think definitely parasite. But fortunately these are not parasites,
but they are very weird. So these are called pololo worms,
and they are you know, they're just kind of squiggly
worms here in this video that I've used to kind
(24:21):
of traumatize Danial. Uh. They are never going in again.
They're just they like look like, you know, maybe thin, thinner,
a little bit longer. Earthworms. They're they're different colors, they're
more pale, and they're moving around undulating, very weird jerky motions.
When you say, yeah, very jerky. I'm also gonna give
(24:44):
our our viewers a little context for this video. So
this is someone who is in what looks to be
the ocean at night with a with a underwater flashlight
and their first filming from above the water. So you're like, oh,
I can see some little squiggly wormies in the water.
And then they submerge the camera and reveal that throughout
the water, through probably five or six feet of solid
(25:07):
depth of water, there are little squiggly worms everywhere. To
be honest with you, this is a horror movie level
reveal that happens in this video. And another note about
this video is that the description simply says God provides
and that's and that's big facts right there. God provides
some of our most horrifying things. When the camera goes
(25:28):
into the dark water and you see you guys, oh
my god. I mean so a lot of people would
look at this and get really excited and happy and
I'll tell you why in a little bit, but first
I will introduce this warm by saying that palolo worms
(25:48):
reproduced by timing a mass gathering with the moon cycle
and then explode like a two stage rocket, releasing sperm
and eggs. What Yeah, so okay, yeah poalolo worms. Um,
I guess the shorter version is they detached their butts
to have a giant rave at the surface of the
(26:10):
sea and a mass reproductive orgy. Wow. Yeah, okay, yes,
so they are found is just processing. I can see
like the like the wheels spinning. Yeah, that's I mean
that sounds I don't know. I mean, I gotta see it,
but I just know that if I don't know, I
(26:32):
have to put myself in the shoes of the person
taking the video. Being if I was in the water
and I saw these worms, first of all, I'll be
getting the hell out of there. But if all of
a sudden their butts started exploding and shooting seed into
the surface of the water, I'll be like, I'm about
to turn into a last of a zombie right now,
Like this this is it. This is how I become
a clicker and it's over. Yeah anyway, Sorry, please your
(26:54):
face is just an error message. I am enjoying that. Yeah,
I have one of those little rotate I have on
my face right now that windows like sounding windows like,
but we're experiencing problem. Yeah. So they are found in
the oceans near the Pacific Islands and Indonesia, and they
are a species of marine worm. They are a polykeet
(27:18):
in the same class as bristle worms, bobbit worms, and
certain deep sea tube worms. Now bobbit worms we've talked
about before on the podcast. They are those horrifying mixture
between like a really long sarlac pit because they hide
in the sand on the seabed and then we'll burrow
(27:40):
down because they can be quite long, and then they
pop out, grab fish and pull them down into their burrows.
So um, horrifying. And you know, cousins to the pololo worms,
so their cousins can be pretty weird and wild too.
But pololo worms have a very bizarre life cycle, one
of the weirdest ones that I know about. Uh. They
(28:03):
start off as tiny planktonic larva, which is not unusual
for marine life. Lots of marine life starts out as zooplankton,
little little tiny guys that just bhoop around the ocean.
But then they develop into an adult. They grow into
a long segmented worm with a weird claw like head. Uh.
(28:24):
And they are not small. They can grow to be
around sixteen inches or forty centimeters long. Yeah, they're pretty. Yeah,
they're they seem significant in terms of their like size
that they're definitely not tiny little guys. You will you
would not miss them, You absolutely would not miss them.
They like to settle into the crevices of a coral reef,
(28:45):
So they go head first into like a little sort
of nook or cranny in the coral reef and kind
of burrowed in there. All right. So there, so the
coral is their home or is that just a okay, cool?
It's their home. I mean it's it's sort of typical
weird marine war warm lifestyle so far, Like they're they're
(29:07):
weird looking, kind of creepy. They're in coral all standard
for the ocean. Are they mostly found in places like
Australia where there's a lot of coral reef? Um? Are
they kind of all over? Yeah, they're mostly found so
like they're found uh, near the Polynesian Islands, they're near Indonesia.
(29:28):
They're I think they some of them are sort of
in uh the ocean somewhat near Australia. So yeah, it's
it's like in these warmer coral uh corally areas. I
don't know if coraly is a word, but yeah, none, yeah,
poorly coral lue, coral line. I'm with you. So this
(29:50):
is where stuff gets weird. After they are adults and
then they want to reproduce, they go into another stage
of their lives, uh and kind of transform into their
reproductive form. So their muscles and heads start to atrophy
a little bit, and there in segments which contain reproductive
(30:11):
organs grow, and their legs become more paddle like, and
eventually these in segments detached from the head and are
able to swim on their own. So this free swimming
butt section is called the epitope, and it will alone
without the head, swim up to the surface of the
(30:32):
ocean to reproduce. So it what So the reproductive organ
is a kind of like its own creature? Yes, what
is it? Does it? WHOA? Okay? Does it? So? Is
it just the reproductive organs or does it like is
it kind of like a like a cell? Splitting where
(30:54):
like you're getting some you know, does it have it?
Does it Does it have its own like brain nervous
system or something like that, or is it just it
has Yeah, it's got its own like nerves. It's got
a bunch of legs. Um. I think it even has
some like sensory light sensing cells. Uh. And so I
(31:14):
don't think it has like a central brain. No, but
it has like neurons um and some connections happening there. Right.
It's like as if you basically like detached your lower
half like belly button down, and it ran off and
went to go mate, yeah, without you having to be involved.
(31:36):
So fun. Well that's I mean, you know, that's that's
the part I don't never want to experience, the actual
reproduction part. I kind of just wanted to happen. So
if I could take all the more fun for me,
I could say in my computer looking at memes, it's
it's a waste of time and boring. So the uh,
(32:00):
the head part doesn't always die typically it actually can
regrow a new in segment. Um. Yeah. So the but
as this like as this posterior segment goes off on
its own like like nice now and you see, it
goes to the surface, it will meet up with a
(32:23):
bunch of other posterior segments all there for the same reason,
and they like kind of explode, They sort of disintegrate
and like just kind of fault. These segments kind of
like pop apart, and there's this mass soup of sperm
and eggs that just kind of mingles together to form
(32:46):
the new babies m soup. Yeah. In fact, okay, so
the palolo worm is on a very precise and consistent
time schedule following moon fade. This is after apparently October eighth,
during the third quarter moon, for just a couple hours.
(33:08):
Oh my god, that is so specific. Yes, and because
of this, people who live in the area have recognized
the habits of the pololo warm over centuries. And apparently,
I know you grimaced when I called this a soup,
but apparently these epitopes, the butt segments are quite delicious.
(33:29):
So people will go out during this special time and
catch them with nuts and so you are kind of
eating like, um, you know, reproductive organs. But we eat
caviar in row all the time, and those are reproduct
those are eggs. You know, you're you're right, You're right.
(33:51):
I shouldn't be so young yucky with my interpretation of
these things, because at first, when you said they're delicious,
I was expecting, like, yes, delicious to fish or to
other creatures of the seed that might you know, just
be just be out there snacking. Um. But wow, we'd
be eating this stuff. Okay? Is it is it a
m Is it like a delicacy to any particular region?
Is there a chance that I've eaten this before and
(34:12):
I just didn't know. I don't know. I think it's
more in the Polynesian Islands area. Uh so there, Yes,
it is very much delicacy. It's like it's because it
only happens like you know, this rare time every year.
Uh that it's like and you know, you can collect
quite a bit over this period of time. Uh, And
(34:35):
I think that they do. They go with every third
moon cycle after October eight, so there might be like
a a few periods of time before they stop. But
still it's like very rare. It only happens like a
couple of hours when they come up and do this.
You gotta catch them while you can. And apparently they're
very very rich in protein. I mean, like an egg.
(34:55):
It's very high in protein, so I imagine they have
a very like ummmy flavor, very rich protein flavor, and
are apparently extremely good. I've never tried any. Don't tempt
me with a good time. I mean, I'm into it. Look,
you know your food. You've got to have an open mind.
And once I once I learned something might might be
delicious and might be food, you gotta go ship. I'm down.
(35:18):
Who didn't look at salmon Roe for the first time,
look at a little a little kora and be like,
I don't know about that, and then you put it
in your mouth and you're like, damn. Actually, these little
explosions of flavor are incredible, right, Yeah, I mean all
our all our food, so much of our food is
very weird, and our understanding, our understanding of weirdness is
(35:42):
very cultural. I mean, like with milk, it's like, yeah,
this is coming out of a cow nipple. I'm going
to drink that, you know it. In fact, I'm just
going to start eating the cow's ass. You're just gonna
eat that booty. There's there's there's so many things that
I have to like, credit are our for our ancestors
(36:02):
for for having the gall and the bravery to be like,
let me do this thing, because like, without them, we
wouldn't have literally anything today. Think about sandwiches, Think about
how many steps we have to go through to get
to bread and then if you want to go, if
you want to go really quote unquote science with me
right here, I think about how many steps it took
for us to get to like bonds, how much how
(36:23):
much work do we have to do to get to Okay?
But then what about this, this and this? Yeah we
had there's a lot of cultivation, their understanding of glass,
lots of lots of things that had to to to
lock into place. But yeah, we'll stick with We'll stick
with food and sandwiches for now and not go too
deep down the stone or rabbit hole of can you
believe they did this to make this thing? Bro? Dude?
(36:46):
Sand think about glass? What do anyway? You just think
about sand and how many of them there are? Well
that is awesome. Now I'm hungry, So I want to
talk about larval conveyor belts. Are you ready? Belts? Larval
(37:13):
conveyor belts another cool sounding thing. So uh, first I
gotta tell you what a soft fly is. So soft
flies aren't flies? Or bees or wasps, even though they
kind of look like all three of those things somehow, weirdly,
they are actually a distinct suborder of Hymenoptera, and they
are named after the saw like ovipositor. So an ovipositor
(37:37):
is like this tube on the butt of female that
is used to deposit eggs um. And so she uses
that sali like ovipositor to saw into a plant and
lay her eggs um. And there are many different species
of soft flies all over the world. But the reason
I want to talk about soft flies is that their
(37:59):
larva are often very social. Now, their larva look like caterpillars, uh,
and they are usually quite social and they tend to
stick together and it's cute and horrible at the same time,
which is my favorite feeling. I love that they look
like an enemy popping out of a tree. Yes, yes,
(38:21):
So what you are looking at right now is a
fascinating thing because this is it looks like one organism
right like an m or a living fleshy flower. And
it's like twitching, it's like jumping, like unfurling in this
like coordinated pulsating movement. This is actually a cluster of
soft fly larva uh moving in Unison, and the thought
(38:46):
is that by moving in Unison, they are a warding
off potential attackers. Interesting. Interesting, I mean, I'll tell you this,
I'm certainly warded off by seeing this. I would not
be going over there being like touch thing. Absolutely not. Yeah,
I know that I would have to drag my dog
Kelly away from it, though I'd be like, yeah, you're
not with that right now. Dogs find the weirdest, most disgusting,
(39:09):
probably most dangerous thing in their perimeter and immediately put
it in their mouth like that, Oh, this thing looks
fun Like my dog found a turd with a cigarette
stuck into it like a birthday candle and immediately like
it like dove for it. I had to like nank
her back because she's like, that's it's my birthday to
(39:32):
the happy birthday in the cookie. Time for me to
eat that thing. That's so funny and disgusting. But yeah,
I support you, a fellow dog on her I support you, yes, um,
But yeah no, this absolutely looks like a see an
enemy um but on a tree. But it's also made
up of a bunch of these individual larva um and
(39:55):
and again they're like they're kind of they're chunky like
they're like caterpillars. They're not tiny guys, um very much
like a yellow caterpillar. And again imagine four our view
our listeners at home, imagine truly like a kind of
a cluster of small yellow caterpillars sticking out long ways
out of a tree in a little group, and like
(40:15):
a handwave near them makes them all go Like if
you can imagine what that noise sounds like in terms
of wiggling action. That is the scientific term for that movement.
It's spelled with a lot of ohs and a lot
of uh gotta yeah. So they will form what is
(40:37):
known as a rolling swarm where they crawl all over
each other and it protects them from attacks by predators. Um.
And it is really interesting to see both when it
is sped up and also in real time movement, both
pretty horrifying looking but also there. To me, it's cute
(40:58):
because it's just a bunch of a little guys crawling
all over each other trying to go forward. It's yeah,
I mean, there's there's a there's a group. A group
think elements to their to their movements and whatnot, but um, yeah,
I can't can't get over the I need to can't
get over the demon back away from me. Kind of
a thing I'm thinking right here. I think, honestly my
(41:20):
theme or not my theme, but there's a trope of
me on this show that is like, I'm so scared
of bugs, and like, in truth, I don't think I
am that's scared of bugs, but I do stray away
from interaction with bugs as much as possible, and that's
just unfortunately factual. I think it's not a bad idea.
I think it's worse if you're like me and you
(41:42):
like have this compulsion to pick up every weird bug
you see, and then later find out that this was,
oh this is a kissing beetle, or this is a
kissing bug. This could have actually really hurt me. I
should not have touched that. I just kind of like,
I kind of like I want to touch everything. I
(42:02):
want to pick everything up. So I guess me and
my dog are not so different, are we? Maybe not?
But you know what we need people like you do.
If people like me survive long enough, touching bugs protects
Katie at all costs. Um. But yeah, by moving in
(42:22):
unison kind of I'm trying to think I feel like
it reminds me a lot of Miyazaki movies where he
does this kind of thing. I think he's done it
in a few of his movies in Howel's Moving Castle
and Princess Mononoke, where it's like a bunch of like
little slugs kind of like coming coalescing together and moving
(42:43):
in Unison. Yes, it's a little stomach turning. It is,
most certainly especially in monok when it's like the writhing
disease on Htuka's arm. Not my favorite. No, it's a
little gross looking, but in this case it's effective because
they are able to make themselves seem like a larger
organism also probably make it difficult for a predator to
(43:07):
pick out anyone individual. Um. There's also remember earlier when
you were speculating that maybe those snow fleas gathered together
for heat. Indeed, that was not a stupid guest, because
there is research on these guys on the soft fly
larva that they do gather together to benefit from each
(43:27):
other's body heat. So I was just a little early
with my predictions, that's right, that's right, accurate, but early.
So there was some speculation. When I say some speculation,
it's really just kind of one guy on YouTube, YouTuber
named Dustin who that's speculation, nonetheless, that is that is speculation, nonetheless,
(43:51):
and there's a lot of it. People are saying, um, well,
really it's just one people on YouTube. And he did
this experiment with like moving legos because he saw like
these larva as this sort of like living conveyor belt,
and he speculates that maybe they're able to move faster
like that because basically they are moving on top of
(44:13):
each other and then the bottom ones also moving, but
then they rotate and so they're kind of like it's
like when you're you know, like at the airport, when
you're walking on the flat escalator. I don't know what
those are called people mover. I guess okay, wow, we
didn't think of anything more creative than that. Huh. People
move all right, but where it's like you're walking, usually
(44:35):
for me, I'm walking on the people mover because it's
the airport, and I'm always in a rush and always straight,
keep going right. But you're walking, but the thing under
you is also moving, so you're going very fast compared
to your normal walking speed. And so the idea is
the same here Unfortunately, I haven't seen any real like
research studies on the actual larva, just this one YouTubers
(44:57):
like Lego experiment, which is cool. I'm not like, I'm
not saying it's not cool. It's very cool. But it's
at this point just this one ded speculation, which I
think is great. That's where stuff starts, that's where research starts.
So I'm hoping to see hoping to see more research
on it because that would be that would be great. Yeah,
(45:17):
well definitely it definitely want to see. Definitely want to
see more. Um. I just like seeing you know, things
working together. That that's what I'm about, all about mutual
aid here and all of that community and seeing these things,
you know, crawl over each other to get forward, but
still move as a group. It's very it feels very
anti capitalist. It's not so much it's not so much
I use you to get further up top. It's we
(45:39):
moved together as a unit and that's we like that
team makes the dream warm. Wow, nailed it. Technically I
guess these aren't worms though, so I'm sorry. Please don't
email me the the you know, some some some Twitter
(45:59):
nerds might might get in your d ms. But these
ones are too busy working together to make progress for
their own group. So think about that. Twitter. I've actually
found that my audience is very very sweet and their
corrections are often extremely extremely kind, and it's nice and
not like, you know, not the actually genre. So that's
(46:25):
really wonderful. Well, shout out, shot out, shout out. Fans
of Creature feature, thank guys for like when you do
get on your when you do get on my case,
it's in a very nice way, very cordial, very cordial.
I think that's all we can ask for with our
podcast communities, is that you you foster community that is cordial. Yeah,
because I ain't perfect, and you guys know that, and
(46:46):
that's that's great. Who lives among us? Who among us?
But he who is without? You know, worm sin cast
the first rolling worm Rock perfect BEAUTI fo you perfectly
executed well. Before we go, we gotta play a little
game called Guests Who's Squawk? And the Mtery Animal Sound Game. Uh.
(47:09):
This is a game where I play Mry animal Sound
and you the listener, and you're the guests try to
guess his squawken. It can be any animals, uh, not
just birds, not just bees, anything anything in the earth
or on the earth or slightly above the earth. So, uh,
the hint for this week's mtery animal sound is this
(47:32):
baby sure likes to make a point. Can you guess
who is making that sound? All right? So my immediate
thinking was bird. My immediate thinking is bird sounds like bird? Um,
(47:53):
this baby sure likes to make a point. Yes, that
is the hint. This baby shorts to make a point.
I can't tell if it. So here's here give you
all my thinking. I can't tell if the hint is
in the is in the hint of like sure likes
(48:14):
to make a point, like it is arguing, like it's
a lawyer or something, or if it's like an actually
kind of like sure likes to make a point, get
its point across, or or if it's or if it's
a more straightforward hint of like this baby sure likes
to make a point, like something pointed is part of
(48:34):
its physiology, like maybe it is a baby woodpecker or something. Um,
I did like where you're going with like the lawyer
the animal that is a baby lawyer right, the boss
of the boss baby of animals. Um, I think I'm
gonna go. I think I'm gonna go with baby woodpecker.
I'm gonna go with baby woodpecker. That is a fantastic guess.
(48:57):
It is wrong though, that this is a baby hedgehog.
Is baby hedgehog? Congratulations to Joey P and Auntie B
who gets correctly that this is a baby hedgehog. So
it is a baby who likes to make a point,
(49:18):
likes to make lots of points. So a baby hedgehog
also known as a hoglute what they're called? Yeah, this
is very cute. They come out pink, They come out pink,
and like little little spiky jellybeans. Um, they will squeak
(49:38):
to communicate to their mother that they are hungry, just
kind of like kittens. Um. Down. In terms of baby hedgehogs,
a question I imagine a lot of people have about
baby hedgehogs is that if they are born with spines,
how do you give birth to one without getting impaled
by the spines? And nobody having a good time with that? Yeah. Um,
(49:59):
so they are worn with spines, but they are born
covered in a protective skin like membrane when they are born. Huh,
And these spikes emerge after the membrane dries and shrinks
and the spikes start poking out from the membrane. Um.
Kind of like that X Man from the X Men. Uh,
(50:22):
and he had spikes coming out of his face, except
that there was an X Man that had spikes that
would come out of his body. Uh, you know, I
don't remember he was from No, he was from one
of the Bad Want movies. Um, Okay, you know what
I think, I know what you're talking about. Spikeman, Spikeman, Spikeman. Um,
(50:48):
it's kind of like that, except it's a tiny pink
baby hedgehog. And it's sort of like they kind of
are born like with extra puffy skin, and the natskin
kind of dries and then shrinks down and then the
spikes come out. Um. Also the spines, the spines of
a newborn are softer than an adults, and they will
eventually be shed and replaced by harder adult spines. Got it, Okay?
(51:13):
And and with the and with the skin, like the
the the protective layering does it when it starts to
poke through, does it eventually like fall off? Is it
like molted off of them or or is it like
it becomes just like a part of their skin layer.
I mean, I think it just kind of shrinks down
to their skin layer, but like all skin, it will
(51:34):
sort of fall off sort of like I mean, yeah,
like our our skin is always you know, sort of
like the dead layer is falling off all the time.
So I think it might it might kind of slough
off a little bit faster than other skin though. I
would imagine, Hey, the listeners out there, take care of
your skin. Where all right, get that SPF going. Did
(51:58):
you know that like your outer most layer of skin
is like dead essentially? Yeah, Like why is skin such
a good defense against pathogens? And it's like this It
actually looks a lot like uh, if you've seen these
old stone walls that they used to make with like
smaller rocks, like these kind of thin and flat rocks,
(52:20):
and they used to kind of jam them together, like
the Romans would do this. And we actually have some
of these still in Italy and they just have a
bunch of like sort of small thin rocks all stuck together.
It's like this technique that like we don't know how
to do anymore really, um, but like skin is kind
of like that. These they're these like small flat dead
cells that are kind of squished together, and these like
(52:43):
you know, sort of like almost like like these these
old walls with all these rocks kind of interwoven with
each other and it forms it's very like tough to
penetrate layer. Cool. Yeah, wow, Well, shout out the Italians
for for figuring out how the skin can be turned
into rock or how the skin is can be trans
(53:04):
transitioned into rock. Um that's cool. Yeah, but yeah, yeah,
our skin, all all the skin that we see, what
we're looking at is death. It's very it's very Werner Herzog. Yeah,
constantly observing our own demise. Exactly that you strive to
protect is simply your mortal coil exposure itself and then
(53:27):
like it's like unsatisfy, you should buy it. Can protect
a multra hydro hydro salasinic acid your eyes in this
episode is a Mandaloria and sponsored by Salery. Protect your skin,
(53:47):
Embrace your death. Onto this week's Mr Animal Sound. The
hint this is one unhappy noodle. If you think you
know the answer to this week's Mystery animal sound, you
(54:10):
can email me at Creature Feature Pod at gmail dot com.
That is Creature Feature Pod at gmail dot com and
make your gifts and if you've gifts correctly, you might
hear your name on the podcast. Well, Daniel, thank you
so much for being here, or can on people find you? Well,
it's my pleasure to be here, Katie, thank you so
(54:31):
much for having me love the show so much. Um.
You can find me all over the internet at DJ
Underscore Daniel d A n L on all the platforms, um.
I'm mostly on Twitter, Instagram, and Twitch. I also have
a TikTok, regrettably for all the content that I forced
myself to post to try and stay relevant in this
ever more cringe universe of posting. Um. But yeah, I'm
(54:54):
on Twitch three times a week Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays.
We play a lot of games to tell a lot
of stories, and you know, it's just it's just about
Twitch community. I also have a lot of channel point
rewards that you can use to make fun of me
or surprise me with jump scares and whatnot, which is
truly the most fun part of the stream is how
you can interact with it and make me miserable. So
come on, it's a lot of fun. Go harass Danial,
(55:15):
Go harass Daniel. That's the whole point. Yeah, and you
mentioned you like the show, but I should also mention
you helped me started early on, so you credit for that. Yeah. Absolutely,
it's all it's all you. I mean, it's me and
other people. Fair, okay, fair always, it's always a team.
But but it has to has someone needs to be
the captain to write the ship. And that's all you.
(55:37):
We form a rolling swarm. Swarm kind of ride around
and then make podcasts and that's the way of the world.
Am well, Thank you guys so much for listening. If
you're enjoying the show and you leave me a writing
or review, I will read it. I will add it
to this wall in my house where I post up
(55:59):
all my views. And my husband is getting very nervous
about it, getting quite alarmed. Uh. He shouldn't worry, because
I do it out of love and obsession. Uh. And
thanks to the Space Cossacks for their super awesome song
Exo Lumina. For more podcasts like the one you just heard,
was that the I Heart Radio app Apple podcast? Or
Hey guess what where have you listen to your favorite shows?
(56:21):
See you next Wednesday.
Welcome to Creature Future production of I Heart Radio. I'm
your host of Many Parasites, Katie Golden. I studied psychology
and evolutionary biology, and today on this show, we're talking
about mash pits, animals who prefer to stick together or
get sticky together. We're looking at three of the world's
weirdest creepy Crawley's who think three is a crowd and
(00:27):
a hundred is a party. Discover this and more as
we answer the age old question if you send your
boot packing, do you have to give it directions? Joining
me today is Friend of the Pod, the audio genius
behind Fake Doctor's Real Friends, Boss Level and One Upmanship.
DJ Daniel Welcome. Happy to be here, Katie, A thrilling,
(00:49):
a thrilling proposition, as always to be here on Creature Feature. Yes,
I'm very excited about this one because it's about mash pits,
and I know you're always getting in those all the time.
You know, me always thrashing my arms around, getting sweaty
and flicking that sweat upon all of my fellow concert goers.
You like a sprinkler, It's great they call you Dandle
(01:11):
the sprinkler, the human sprinkler. At least this, at least this, this,
this family flop sweat is good for something. Sure, So
tell me about these bugs? Yeah, stoked. Yeah, so we're
talking about a lot of bugs. Some of them are
not insects, but we'll call them all bugs. Uh and sorry,
(01:34):
that's that's misnomber for sure. I mean, I don't know.
I think you can call anything a bug. In my opinion,
I don't think that bug is a scientific term. So like,
if you feel like it's a bug and you want
to call it a bug, I think that's fine. Insect
is a scientific term, so you can't like go throwing
that around. But bugs, you know, if something's like buggy
to me, I'm like, that's a bug. I feel like
(01:58):
crabs have bug energy. I know that most people don't
call them, but they've got bug energy. Sea bugs, sky bugs,
land bugs. Yeah exactly. So these are called snow fleas.
So imagine you are digging up some snowballs and suddenly
(02:20):
you dig up a writhing, squirming mass of tiny black
dots that jump around so quickly they almost seemed to
flick in and out of existence. I think I would
I think my snow day would be over at that
point I would be. I would run screaming back to
my cabin for a cup of hot cocoa and a
scalding hot shower, dual wheeled a couple of hair dryers
(02:44):
and go outside. Yeah, I mean I sent you a
video of someone just digging into a black hole of
these riving little black dots. Yeah, just having them els
a scoop. Yeah. Really, And you know this is something
(03:04):
that I It's one of those things where in my
head I'm like, this is a totally fine, like the
the bugs or these these creatures are not trying to
hurt you, and in fact, you may not even be
hurting them. Similar to um, there's a there's a person
on TikTok who is who takes care of bees and
the way that she just scoops bees up and puts
(03:25):
them into you know, new uh whatever you call the
little boxes that they hold honeycombs in. Like the way
she just like handles bees. I'm always like, there's there's
no way, how do you even do that? But yeah,
I can't get past the heart part of this. That's
like hand in bug, No, no thank you. I don't
suggest the layman go out and scoop up a ball
(03:47):
of bees. I think that I think that's done you.
I think like the hive is probably calmed down. I
think sometimes they even like very gingerly hold a queen
in their hand so that the when the bees cluster
around there smelling the pheromones of the queen there. Um. Anyway,
it's very specialized handling abilities. I can't do it. I
(04:11):
don't suggest anyone try to do that. Um. But with
these snow fleas, uh, they really don't have too much
to worry about. So despite the moniker snow fleas, the
only one that really has to worry about an infestation
is a snowman because these are not really fleas, even
though they do look like them from our perspective. These
(04:34):
are instead spring tales. So spring tales are a subclass
of arthropod UH known as columbola UH. They are technically
not insects, but they are hexapods. So it's it gets
weird with taxonomy with sometimes some of these like bug
like things, and it's like it's technically not an insect,
(04:57):
but you know it is a bug. Can you remind
me what a hexapod is again? Or what? What? What? What?
What makes a hexapod yeah, I mean it's it's basically
insects plus Columbola plus a couple of other classes of things, uh,
pro Tura and dip lura, which are other kind of
(05:17):
weird non insect things, but they are pretty much very
bug like. Uh. It's it's a biologeny taxonomy thing. Uh.
It's just based on sort of the evolutionary branching genetic
linking things like that. Yeah, so they're they're related to insects,
they're related to things like, uh, fleas and flies and
(05:40):
so on, but they aren't insects themselves. Um so. Uh
the snow fleas uh so. Uh springtails are a uh
subclass that they are a large grouping of different species.
They live all over the world. Uh. Snow fleas are
a species of springtail that live in seasonally cold climates
(06:03):
in North America. Uh. And they are teeny tiny. They're
usually less than a millimater long. They really do just
look like little black jumping grains of sand. Very small,
very small, very small, very but still very scary. Yeah.
I mean it's the it's the multitude of them. Like
(06:24):
you have one of them, you're like you're just a
little buddy, and then he invites like a thousand of
his friends and it's like, oh, yeah, you could cover
my face. I didn't ask for this. Yeah, I feel
like the scariness of bugs is based on how much
of your face they can cover. Wow, that is such
a good metric, because you're absolutely right. Yeah, it's the
(06:47):
other golden rule. Uh. It is like spider covers only
a freckle on your face, and not so scary covers
the eyeball or get we're getting somewhere with that one.
Oh god, eyeballs by I'll be I'll be working all
day to get that image on my head. So, in
the warmer months, snow fleas like to live in leaf
(07:08):
litter and eat decaying matter or things like algae. But
in colder times they are actually able to survive the
freezing snow because they have an anti freeze like protein
in their bodies, and this protein prevents ice crystals from
forming in their cells, which protects the cells from exploding.
(07:31):
And when your cells explode, it's generally bad for you.
So I hear that is really cool though, that that
I mean just one of those like adjustments, kind of
like the sea bugs that can live near an underwater
volcano because they've just you know, been been or maybe
not a volcano, but like a thermal vent where it's like,
(07:52):
oh yeah, you're just strong enough to withstand all sorts
of crazy heats and yet you're a bug the producing
anti freeze to survive out in the frigid cold Like,
damn science, how do you how you do that? Yeah?
Those are called like extremophiles, things that can live like
in the really really cold environments, are really really hot,
really extreme environments, and yeah, it is. It's shocking when
(08:14):
they have things like this uh this protein in their blood.
There's also the wood frog, which can also do something similar.
It also has an anti freeze like substance in their
blood that prevents uh cells from getting icicles in them
getting these ice crystals, which is bad for the body. Actually,
(08:36):
when you're when you're frozen, the freezing process doesn't necessarily
hurt you. It's typically the thawing out that does the damage.
Like when you start to thaw and you have this
expansion of you know, these ice crystals and then you
get cell explosion. M h yeah. Yeah. So it's like
(08:59):
so like you could potentially all these rich people cryogenically
freezing themselves like I guess if they are able to
store themselves long enough, the hope is that you would
find a futuristic society that could unthaw them safely. But
also I kind of think probably not, Like it's probably
something where you'd need to have this anti freeze in
(09:21):
you before you undergo the cryogenic process, and probably they're
just going to be like popsicles for post apocalyptic cannibals.
That's popsicles for cannibals. That's a great that's a great
band name, right, popsicles for cannibals. I like that a lot. Damn.
(09:46):
I really didn't think about that process though, that it
would be the thawing that would be the damaging process.
You think of it's just like, well, I'm just unfrozen now.
It's like no, no, no no, no, but where's all that
water going? Yeah exactly, Oh God, that's really scary. Exactly, um,
but not for these guys. So the anti the protein
(10:07):
prevents these ice crystals from forming in their cells, which
protects their cells. And researchers are very interested in the
snow flea's natural anti freeze and how it can be
applied to like the storage of donor organs, but much
more importantly ice cream. Uh. Of course, the Spring Tales
(10:28):
anti freeze is um actually similar to a non toxic
compound that you can create. Uh. There's this professor of
food chemistry, uh shriny Vas and de Morderin at the
University of Wisconsin Madison who is seeking to perfect ice
cream science with a synthetic, edible anti freeze similar to
(10:51):
what is found in Spring Tales. M hmm. Interesting. I
mean I wonder, well, yeah, you don't want ice crystals
on your ice cream, but so like it's it's supposed
to be. I don't know, well no, because if you
have it's like when you know, like how your ice
cream gets freezer burn and ice get ice cream and
you get it, don't it. Nobody likes like that. No,
(11:12):
nobody likes it. Right Yeah, I mean this, you know this,
This is important. No, this is this is worth it,
This is worth the time in the science. I'm with us. Actually,
I think preserving organs is a good stepping off point
for perfecting ice cream. The true goal. This is what
(11:34):
we all really need, right exactly. I mean it's all,
it is all all everything we do, all of our
scientific advancements. If we can make ice cream, a little
more delicious, a little more melt in your mouthing it.
It's all worth it, let's go off. So this is
not the only superpower that spring tails have. They can also,
(11:54):
of course spring so they can jump at incredible heights
and speeds relative to their body size and rotate five
hundred times a second while in the air. What yeah,
And sometimes I mean often when they are springing, like,
they are in the air less than a second, So
they're not always rotating five hundred times, but they are
(12:18):
like so fast in their jumps. Sometimes their jumps are
measured in nanoseconds. Okay, more questions because of that. So
rotation wise, are we talking like barrel roll style rotation
or like spinning around like mostly you can't see this,
but he just punished m really kind of committing to
(12:41):
the springtale life. I think it's more it's more of
a barrel roll. So they actually like curl up into
a U shape, although I have seen some of them,
some of the like slow mo videos, and some of
them do twirl like a ballerina sometimes. I think it
kind of depends on the jump how they execute it.
(13:01):
But to understand how they do that, we kind of
have to zoom in on this springtail because to our
naked eye they look like little jumping black grains of sand. Uh.
But their bodies really don't look anything like fleas, even
though to our naked eye it's like, oh, this is
like a flea um. Instead, they have this like salindrical
segmented body, a forked tail called a fercula, and like
(13:25):
a little round head and antenna and six legs. I
think they're actually a little bit cute. It is kind
of cute. Yeah, I mean, you know, they're they're definitely like,
you know, adorable. That's that's that's my that's my least
and most favorite thing about a lot of bugs is
like you zoom in on them to a certain degree
and it's like, oh, you know, they're just cute little guys.
(13:45):
And then you do one of those really hyper close
ups on their face and it's like this is a
horrifying monster. Yeah, but there's there's definitely a middle ground
where they're absolutely adorable. Exactly. It's like tartar grades, the yes,
oh my gosh, yes, moss piglets, water bears. Like you
zoom in zoom out too much, you can't really see
them not cute. You zoom in enough and they're like,
(14:06):
you're like a chubby, little little gum drop. You're so cute, truly,
little chubby gum drop, a bunch of little legs, cute,
little like dot mouth, little oh mouth. Yeah, exactly, very cute.
And then you zoom in more and it's this like
horrifying sandworm from Dune. Yeah, very very much a garbage
(14:28):
disposal mouth where it's like, I don't want to get
anywhere near that horrifying. It's the optimal zoom. Uh. We
need scientists need to look into like the optimal zoom
ratio for all of these small critters, you know, people,
people on TikTok and small critters. Optimal zoom is a
(14:48):
feature that we all need. How close is too close
to your face for both humans posting content on the
internet and bugs. This is the other other golden rule
about zoom, like one first one about bugs is how
much of your face it covers is directly proportional to
how scary it is. And secondly the zoom principle, there
(15:11):
is a ratio of zoom for each bug oh that
determines how cute it is horrifying. So to jump these
spring tails use their whole body like a spring, including
that forked tail called the ferculate, and they will like
smack their tail against the ground or snow or even
(15:34):
the surface of water. Because they're so small, the surface
tension of the water is like it's hard enough for
them to like spring off of it like a trampoline,
and they will launch themselves into the air while curled
in a U shape like an acrobat. And interestingly, there
is this tube on the underside of the springtail's abdomen
(15:55):
called a color four whose function is kind of confusing
and debated for a long time. UM Earlier scientists thought
it was like it excreted a sticky thing that helped
them grab onto flat surfaces, but that's been relatively debunked,
and it may have something to do with excretion and
(16:16):
fluid regulation. It's this like mystery tube in the middle
of this thing's stomach, which is really funny because it's
like it like sticks outside of them like a little hose.
Uh and uh, there's hose hose hose shame shame, thank
(16:37):
you was trying to shame. Uh yeah, I mean that
sounds very Canadian hose shaming. So uh. Some research suggests
that this coloform can actually help balance the spring tails
jump when there's a water droplet attached to the coloforce.
(16:58):
So again like water at this scale, like water tension,
they can hold like a little droplet of water quite securely.
And and they like did some research where they found
like the spring tails that had a little water droplet
there were much more balanced and could like jump and
land on their feet really quickly and really easily, whereas
dry spring tails were not able to do that as much.
(17:21):
So potentially it acts like a tight rope walker's pulse
when they have a water droplet there, it helps them
balance for more optimal jumps. Yeah, so in that video,
I would imagine that one question you might have is
why are they all together like that? I mean, yes,
(17:43):
I am curious about why they are together like that?
Pardon me, thinks that's I mean, well, they have the
anti freeze, so they're not going to freeze. But maybe
something about being altogether, maybe some sort of closeness promotes
some more warmth. Maybe I had to guess it's a
very good guess. And how actually hold onto that gift
for a surprise later in the podcast. Um, but actually
(18:07):
the reason that they cluster together and like these huge
piles of like moving sand is for food or sex,
you know, the universal motivators. So during the winter, food
is more scarce, and snow fleas will cluster in or
on top of the snow where there's food available, usually
(18:29):
some decaying plant matter or maybe even algae um. But
they may also gather together during their reproductive cycles. So
an interesting thing about spring tails and snow fleas is
that they continue to molt throughout their life. So something
like say a butterfly or a moth or a wasp,
(18:49):
they will go through these molting from egg to these larva,
and sometimes they will go through numerous what are called
in stars, which are like you, you start out as
you know, a larva, and then you molten into something
else and then into something else, and then you're in
your adult form um and something. Some of insects have
(19:12):
much more straightforward sort of processes, like caterpillar going from
like caterpillar to the pupae to the butterfly or moth.
Some animals have more complex ones, like from a caterpillar
stage to sort of a juvenile in star that eventually
molds into its adult form. But these spring tails actually
(19:35):
continually mold throughout their entire life, and they will alternate
between a reproductive in star and a non reproductive in star,
and the reproductive in star doesn't eat, whereas the non
reproductive one does. So they like transform into reproductive mode
for a while and then transform back into no sex
(19:57):
only eating mode. Sounds like me and my twenties, am
I right? So how how quickly did these modes shift? Like? How?
You know, how what's the cycle of this? If you
happen to it's I think it's like over over months
or weeks. I don't think it's like that quickly. Um,
(20:19):
So these bugs survived for a little while. Yeah. Yeah,
And when females are in a reproductive in star, they
actually release a pheromone that attracts both male and female
spring tales that all common cluster together, and the more
females that come who are also releasing pheromone makes even
more coming. So they formed this giant sex mosh pit,
(20:42):
which is you know, they're having a good time. I
love that. I hope that, and you know what, I
hope everybody's having fun. That's really the most my main concern.
As long as in the pheromone induced sex mosh pit.
Everybody's having a good time. That's my main concern. Yeah,
I think they're they're probably having a good time in
these mash it's I imagine. I mean, like their lives
(21:03):
do you seem kind of fun because they just go
through cycles of eating stuff, hanging out together, eating stuff,
hanging out together, having sex. I think they've got things
figured out. They really nailed it. I think they got
down to the base, the base what we all need
to survive. And um, they're just doing it right. And
they're not really hurting anyone because they're eating decaying matter,
they're eating algae um. They're they're called fleas, which I
(21:26):
think is kind of insulting to them because they don't
they don't bite your dog right now, they're not hurting
no doggies. No, no, that's right. The only time I
really get mad at insects is when they hurt my
doggie or any any kind of like bug creature like
I got. I get really mad at fleas or ticks
(21:46):
or round worms when they affect my doggie. I'm like,
it's just it's just an anger. Usually I don't have
towards the bug and insect Kingdom. It's unfair. Look, doggies
don't have a usable thumbs. They can't get these little
buggies off of them. Often it's a pain in the butt.
And um, it's not fair. It's not fairly leave them dogs.
(22:11):
But these guys snow Fleas are dog's best friend. Well,
I mean, he's got a best friend. But they're at
least cool acquaintances, exactly, exactly, cool acquaintances, not mortal enemies.
If we stand exactly, that's what we gotta have. Warn
that there's a link in it that has watched this video,
(22:34):
so if you could have that video open as well. Yeah. Also,
I'll say this also something of my nightmares. If I'm
being real, it's odd. It's definitely odd. The movement of
the worms aren't great. Have you been playing like the
Dead Space remake remuk? No, I have not, but I'm
very familiar with the with the with the series. I'm
(22:57):
too scared. This is embarrassing. I love of horror games,
but I don't handle stress well, so I'm too scared
to play them myself. But I love watching other people
play them. So right now I'm watching my husband play it.
I watched the whole play through of the original, so
it's fun to see the updated graphics. And so I
(23:17):
feel like I feel like these things squiggle and wiggle
in a way that reminds me of some of the
monsters and dead Space. Yeah, well that that'll turn you
off the real quick. This is just this is just
the kind of thing that even though I know that well,
I mean you actually you're probably about to tell me
(23:38):
how fine it is that these these little squiggly wormy
things are in the water. But I just know that
if I saw this, I would be like, I have
to get out of here immediately before one of these
crawls into my ear and eats my brain out. So
maybe that fear is unfounded and we'll find out shortly,
but I can't stop myself from thinking that whenever I
look at this video, I would I definitely feel that.
I think that when I see warm in the water,
(24:01):
I think definitely parasite. But fortunately these are not parasites,
but they are very weird. So these are called pololo worms,
and they are you know, they're just kind of squiggly
worms here in this video that I've used to kind
(24:21):
of traumatize Danial. Uh. They are never going in again.
They're just they like look like, you know, maybe thin, thinner,
a little bit longer. Earthworms. They're they're different colors, they're
more pale, and they're moving around undulating, very weird jerky motions.
When you say, yeah, very jerky. I'm also gonna give
(24:44):
our our viewers a little context for this video. So
this is someone who is in what looks to be
the ocean at night with a with a underwater flashlight
and their first filming from above the water. So you're like, oh,
I can see some little squiggly wormies in the water.
And then they submerge the camera and reveal that throughout
the water, through probably five or six feet of solid
(25:07):
depth of water, there are little squiggly worms everywhere. To
be honest with you, this is a horror movie level
reveal that happens in this video. And another note about
this video is that the description simply says God provides
and that's and that's big facts right there. God provides
some of our most horrifying things. When the camera goes
(25:28):
into the dark water and you see you guys, oh
my god. I mean so a lot of people would
look at this and get really excited and happy and
I'll tell you why in a little bit, but first
I will introduce this warm by saying that palolo worms
(25:48):
reproduced by timing a mass gathering with the moon cycle
and then explode like a two stage rocket, releasing sperm
and eggs. What Yeah, so okay, yeah poalolo worms. Um,
I guess the shorter version is they detached their butts
to have a giant rave at the surface of the
(26:10):
sea and a mass reproductive orgy. Wow. Yeah, okay, yes,
so they are found is just processing. I can see
like the like the wheels spinning. Yeah, that's I mean
that sounds I don't know. I mean, I gotta see it,
but I just know that if I don't know, I
(26:32):
have to put myself in the shoes of the person
taking the video. Being if I was in the water
and I saw these worms, first of all, I'll be
getting the hell out of there. But if all of
a sudden their butts started exploding and shooting seed into
the surface of the water, I'll be like, I'm about
to turn into a last of a zombie right now,
Like this this is it. This is how I become
a clicker and it's over. Yeah anyway, Sorry, please your
(26:54):
face is just an error message. I am enjoying that. Yeah,
I have one of those little rotate I have on
my face right now that windows like sounding windows like,
but we're experiencing problem. Yeah. So they are found in
the oceans near the Pacific Islands and Indonesia, and they
are a species of marine worm. They are a polykeet
(27:18):
in the same class as bristle worms, bobbit worms, and
certain deep sea tube worms. Now bobbit worms we've talked
about before on the podcast. They are those horrifying mixture
between like a really long sarlac pit because they hide
in the sand on the seabed and then we'll burrow
(27:40):
down because they can be quite long, and then they
pop out, grab fish and pull them down into their burrows.
So um, horrifying. And you know, cousins to the pololo worms,
so their cousins can be pretty weird and wild too.
But pololo worms have a very bizarre life cycle, one
of the weirdest ones that I know about. Uh. They
(28:03):
start off as tiny planktonic larva, which is not unusual
for marine life. Lots of marine life starts out as zooplankton,
little little tiny guys that just bhoop around the ocean.
But then they develop into an adult. They grow into
a long segmented worm with a weird claw like head. Uh.
(28:24):
And they are not small. They can grow to be
around sixteen inches or forty centimeters long. Yeah, they're pretty. Yeah,
they're they seem significant in terms of their like size
that they're definitely not tiny little guys. You will you
would not miss them, You absolutely would not miss them.
They like to settle into the crevices of a coral reef,
(28:45):
So they go head first into like a little sort
of nook or cranny in the coral reef and kind
of burrowed in there. All right. So there, so the
coral is their home or is that just a okay, cool?
It's their home. I mean it's it's sort of typical
weird marine war warm lifestyle so far, Like they're they're
(29:07):
weird looking, kind of creepy. They're in coral all standard
for the ocean. Are they mostly found in places like
Australia where there's a lot of coral reef? Um? Are
they kind of all over? Yeah, they're mostly found so
like they're found uh, near the Polynesian Islands, they're near Indonesia.
(29:28):
They're I think they some of them are sort of
in uh the ocean somewhat near Australia. So yeah, it's
it's like in these warmer coral uh corally areas. I
don't know if coraly is a word, but yeah, none, yeah,
poorly coral lue, coral line. I'm with you. So this
(29:50):
is where stuff gets weird. After they are adults and
then they want to reproduce, they go into another stage
of their lives, uh and kind of transform into their
reproductive form. So their muscles and heads start to atrophy
a little bit, and there in segments which contain reproductive
(30:11):
organs grow, and their legs become more paddle like, and
eventually these in segments detached from the head and are
able to swim on their own. So this free swimming
butt section is called the epitope, and it will alone
without the head, swim up to the surface of the
(30:32):
ocean to reproduce. So it what So the reproductive organ
is a kind of like its own creature? Yes, what
is it? Does it? WHOA? Okay? Does it? So? Is
it just the reproductive organs or does it like is
it kind of like a like a cell? Splitting where
(30:54):
like you're getting some you know, does it have it?
Does it Does it have its own like brain nervous
system or something like that, or is it just it
has Yeah, it's got its own like nerves. It's got
a bunch of legs. Um. I think it even has
some like sensory light sensing cells. Uh. And so I
(31:14):
don't think it has like a central brain. No, but
it has like neurons um and some connections happening there. Right.
It's like as if you basically like detached your lower
half like belly button down, and it ran off and
went to go mate, yeah, without you having to be involved.
(31:36):
So fun. Well that's I mean, you know, that's that's
the part I don't never want to experience, the actual
reproduction part. I kind of just wanted to happen. So
if I could take all the more fun for me,
I could say in my computer looking at memes, it's
it's a waste of time and boring. So the uh,
(32:00):
the head part doesn't always die typically it actually can
regrow a new in segment. Um. Yeah. So the but
as this like as this posterior segment goes off on
its own like like nice now and you see, it
goes to the surface, it will meet up with a
(32:23):
bunch of other posterior segments all there for the same reason,
and they like kind of explode, They sort of disintegrate
and like just kind of fault. These segments kind of
like pop apart, and there's this mass soup of sperm
and eggs that just kind of mingles together to form
(32:46):
the new babies m soup. Yeah. In fact, okay, so
the palolo worm is on a very precise and consistent
time schedule following moon fade. This is after apparently October eighth,
during the third quarter moon, for just a couple hours.
(33:08):
Oh my god, that is so specific. Yes, and because
of this, people who live in the area have recognized
the habits of the pololo warm over centuries. And apparently,
I know you grimaced when I called this a soup,
but apparently these epitopes, the butt segments are quite delicious.
(33:29):
So people will go out during this special time and
catch them with nuts and so you are kind of
eating like, um, you know, reproductive organs. But we eat
caviar in row all the time, and those are reproduct
those are eggs. You know, you're you're right, You're right.
(33:51):
I shouldn't be so young yucky with my interpretation of
these things, because at first, when you said they're delicious,
I was expecting, like, yes, delicious to fish or to
other creatures of the seed that might you know, just
be just be out there snacking. Um. But wow, we'd
be eating this stuff. Okay? Is it is it a
m Is it like a delicacy to any particular region?
Is there a chance that I've eaten this before and
(34:12):
I just didn't know. I don't know. I think it's
more in the Polynesian Islands area. Uh so there, Yes,
it is very much delicacy. It's like it's because it
only happens like you know, this rare time every year.
Uh that it's like and you know, you can collect
quite a bit over this period of time. Uh, And
(34:35):
I think that they do. They go with every third
moon cycle after October eight, so there might be like
a a few periods of time before they stop. But
still it's like very rare. It only happens like a
couple of hours when they come up and do this.
You gotta catch them while you can. And apparently they're
very very rich in protein. I mean, like an egg.
(34:55):
It's very high in protein, so I imagine they have
a very like ummmy flavor, very rich protein flavor, and
are apparently extremely good. I've never tried any. Don't tempt
me with a good time. I mean, I'm into it. Look,
you know your food. You've got to have an open mind.
And once I once I learned something might might be
delicious and might be food, you gotta go ship. I'm down.
(35:18):
Who didn't look at salmon Roe for the first time,
look at a little a little kora and be like,
I don't know about that, and then you put it
in your mouth and you're like, damn. Actually, these little
explosions of flavor are incredible, right, Yeah, I mean all
our all our food, so much of our food is
very weird, and our understanding, our understanding of weirdness is
(35:42):
very cultural. I mean, like with milk, it's like, yeah,
this is coming out of a cow nipple. I'm going
to drink that, you know it. In fact, I'm just
going to start eating the cow's ass. You're just gonna
eat that booty. There's there's there's so many things that
I have to like, credit are our for our ancestors
(36:02):
for for having the gall and the bravery to be like,
let me do this thing, because like, without them, we
wouldn't have literally anything today. Think about sandwiches, Think about
how many steps we have to go through to get
to bread and then if you want to go, if
you want to go really quote unquote science with me
right here, I think about how many steps it took
for us to get to like bonds, how much how
(36:23):
much work do we have to do to get to Okay?
But then what about this, this and this? Yeah we
had there's a lot of cultivation, their understanding of glass,
lots of lots of things that had to to to
lock into place. But yeah, we'll stick with We'll stick
with food and sandwiches for now and not go too
deep down the stone or rabbit hole of can you
believe they did this to make this thing? Bro? Dude?
(36:46):
Sand think about glass? What do anyway? You just think
about sand and how many of them there are? Well
that is awesome. Now I'm hungry, So I want to
talk about larval conveyor belts. Are you ready? Belts? Larval
(37:13):
conveyor belts another cool sounding thing. So uh, first I
gotta tell you what a soft fly is. So soft
flies aren't flies? Or bees or wasps, even though they
kind of look like all three of those things somehow, weirdly,
they are actually a distinct suborder of Hymenoptera, and they
are named after the saw like ovipositor. So an ovipositor
(37:37):
is like this tube on the butt of female that
is used to deposit eggs um. And so she uses
that sali like ovipositor to saw into a plant and
lay her eggs um. And there are many different species
of soft flies all over the world. But the reason
I want to talk about soft flies is that their
(37:59):
larva are often very social. Now, their larva look like caterpillars, uh,
and they are usually quite social and they tend to
stick together and it's cute and horrible at the same time,
which is my favorite feeling. I love that they look
like an enemy popping out of a tree. Yes, yes,
(38:21):
So what you are looking at right now is a
fascinating thing because this is it looks like one organism
right like an m or a living fleshy flower. And
it's like twitching, it's like jumping, like unfurling in this
like coordinated pulsating movement. This is actually a cluster of
soft fly larva uh moving in Unison, and the thought
(38:46):
is that by moving in Unison, they are a warding
off potential attackers. Interesting. Interesting, I mean, I'll tell you this,
I'm certainly warded off by seeing this. I would not
be going over there being like touch thing. Absolutely not. Yeah,
I know that I would have to drag my dog
Kelly away from it, though I'd be like, yeah, you're
not with that right now. Dogs find the weirdest, most disgusting,
(39:09):
probably most dangerous thing in their perimeter and immediately put
it in their mouth like that, Oh, this thing looks
fun Like my dog found a turd with a cigarette
stuck into it like a birthday candle and immediately like
it like dove for it. I had to like nank
her back because she's like, that's it's my birthday to
(39:32):
the happy birthday in the cookie. Time for me to
eat that thing. That's so funny and disgusting. But yeah,
I support you, a fellow dog on her I support you, yes, um,
But yeah no, this absolutely looks like a see an
enemy um but on a tree. But it's also made
up of a bunch of these individual larva um and
(39:55):
and again they're like they're kind of they're chunky like
they're like caterpillars. They're not tiny guys, um very much
like a yellow caterpillar. And again imagine four our view
our listeners at home, imagine truly like a kind of
a cluster of small yellow caterpillars sticking out long ways
out of a tree in a little group, and like
(40:15):
a handwave near them makes them all go Like if
you can imagine what that noise sounds like in terms
of wiggling action. That is the scientific term for that movement.
It's spelled with a lot of ohs and a lot
of uh gotta yeah. So they will form what is
(40:37):
known as a rolling swarm where they crawl all over
each other and it protects them from attacks by predators. Um.
And it is really interesting to see both when it
is sped up and also in real time movement, both
pretty horrifying looking but also there. To me, it's cute
(40:58):
because it's just a bunch of a little guys crawling
all over each other trying to go forward. It's yeah,
I mean, there's there's a there's a group. A group
think elements to their to their movements and whatnot, but um, yeah,
I can't can't get over the I need to can't
get over the demon back away from me. Kind of
a thing I'm thinking right here. I think, honestly my
(41:20):
theme or not my theme, but there's a trope of
me on this show that is like, I'm so scared
of bugs, and like, in truth, I don't think I
am that's scared of bugs, but I do stray away
from interaction with bugs as much as possible, and that's
just unfortunately factual. I think it's not a bad idea.
I think it's worse if you're like me and you
(41:42):
like have this compulsion to pick up every weird bug
you see, and then later find out that this was,
oh this is a kissing beetle, or this is a
kissing bug. This could have actually really hurt me. I
should not have touched that. I just kind of like,
I kind of like I want to touch everything. I
(42:02):
want to pick everything up. So I guess me and
my dog are not so different, are we? Maybe not?
But you know what we need people like you do.
If people like me survive long enough, touching bugs protects
Katie at all costs. Um. But yeah, by moving in
(42:22):
unison kind of I'm trying to think I feel like
it reminds me a lot of Miyazaki movies where he
does this kind of thing. I think he's done it
in a few of his movies in Howel's Moving Castle
and Princess Mononoke, where it's like a bunch of like
little slugs kind of like coming coalescing together and moving
(42:43):
in Unison. Yes, it's a little stomach turning. It is,
most certainly especially in monok when it's like the writhing
disease on Htuka's arm. Not my favorite. No, it's a
little gross looking, but in this case it's effective because
they are able to make themselves seem like a larger
organism also probably make it difficult for a predator to
(43:07):
pick out anyone individual. Um. There's also remember earlier when
you were speculating that maybe those snow fleas gathered together
for heat. Indeed, that was not a stupid guest, because
there is research on these guys on the soft fly
larva that they do gather together to benefit from each
(43:27):
other's body heat. So I was just a little early
with my predictions, that's right, that's right, accurate, but early.
So there was some speculation. When I say some speculation,
it's really just kind of one guy on YouTube, YouTuber
named Dustin who that's speculation, nonetheless, that is that is speculation, nonetheless,
(43:51):
and there's a lot of it. People are saying, um, well,
really it's just one people on YouTube. And he did
this experiment with like moving legos because he saw like
these larva as this sort of like living conveyor belt,
and he speculates that maybe they're able to move faster
like that because basically they are moving on top of
(44:13):
each other and then the bottom ones also moving, but
then they rotate and so they're kind of like it's
like when you're you know, like at the airport, when
you're walking on the flat escalator. I don't know what
those are called people mover. I guess okay, wow, we
didn't think of anything more creative than that. Huh. People
move all right, but where it's like you're walking, usually
(44:35):
for me, I'm walking on the people mover because it's
the airport, and I'm always in a rush and always straight,
keep going right. But you're walking, but the thing under
you is also moving, so you're going very fast compared
to your normal walking speed. And so the idea is
the same here Unfortunately, I haven't seen any real like
research studies on the actual larva, just this one YouTubers
(44:57):
like Lego experiment, which is cool. I'm not like, I'm
not saying it's not cool. It's very cool. But it's
at this point just this one ded speculation, which I
think is great. That's where stuff starts, that's where research starts.
So I'm hoping to see hoping to see more research
on it because that would be that would be great. Yeah,
(45:17):
well definitely it definitely want to see. Definitely want to
see more. Um. I just like seeing you know, things
working together. That that's what I'm about, all about mutual
aid here and all of that community and seeing these things,
you know, crawl over each other to get forward, but
still move as a group. It's very it feels very
anti capitalist. It's not so much it's not so much
I use you to get further up top. It's we
(45:39):
moved together as a unit and that's we like that
team makes the dream warm. Wow, nailed it. Technically I
guess these aren't worms though, so I'm sorry. Please don't
email me the the you know, some some some Twitter
(45:59):
nerds might might get in your d ms. But these
ones are too busy working together to make progress for
their own group. So think about that. Twitter. I've actually
found that my audience is very very sweet and their
corrections are often extremely extremely kind, and it's nice and
not like, you know, not the actually genre. So that's
(46:25):
really wonderful. Well, shout out, shot out, shout out. Fans
of Creature feature, thank guys for like when you do
get on your when you do get on my case,
it's in a very nice way, very cordial, very cordial.
I think that's all we can ask for with our
podcast communities, is that you you foster community that is cordial. Yeah,
because I ain't perfect, and you guys know that, and
(46:46):
that's that's great. Who lives among us? Who among us?
But he who is without? You know, worm sin cast
the first rolling worm Rock perfect BEAUTI fo you perfectly
executed well. Before we go, we gotta play a little
game called Guests Who's Squawk? And the Mtery Animal Sound Game. Uh.
(47:09):
This is a game where I play Mry animal Sound
and you the listener, and you're the guests try to
guess his squawken. It can be any animals, uh, not
just birds, not just bees, anything anything in the earth
or on the earth or slightly above the earth. So, uh,
the hint for this week's mtery animal sound is this
(47:32):
baby sure likes to make a point. Can you guess
who is making that sound? All right? So my immediate
thinking was bird. My immediate thinking is bird sounds like bird? Um,
(47:53):
this baby sure likes to make a point. Yes, that
is the hint. This baby shorts to make a point.
I can't tell if it. So here's here give you
all my thinking. I can't tell if the hint is
in the is in the hint of like sure likes
(48:14):
to make a point, like it is arguing, like it's
a lawyer or something, or if it's like an actually
kind of like sure likes to make a point, get
its point across, or or if it's or if it's
a more straightforward hint of like this baby sure likes
to make a point, like something pointed is part of
(48:34):
its physiology, like maybe it is a baby woodpecker or something. Um,
I did like where you're going with like the lawyer
the animal that is a baby lawyer right, the boss
of the boss baby of animals. Um, I think I'm
gonna go. I think I'm gonna go with baby woodpecker.
I'm gonna go with baby woodpecker. That is a fantastic guess.
(48:57):
It is wrong though, that this is a baby hedgehog.
Is baby hedgehog? Congratulations to Joey P and Auntie B
who gets correctly that this is a baby hedgehog. So
it is a baby who likes to make a point,
(49:18):
likes to make lots of points. So a baby hedgehog
also known as a hoglute what they're called? Yeah, this
is very cute. They come out pink, They come out pink,
and like little little spiky jellybeans. Um, they will squeak
(49:38):
to communicate to their mother that they are hungry, just
kind of like kittens. Um. Down. In terms of baby hedgehogs,
a question I imagine a lot of people have about
baby hedgehogs is that if they are born with spines,
how do you give birth to one without getting impaled
by the spines? And nobody having a good time with that? Yeah. Um,
(49:59):
so they are worn with spines, but they are born
covered in a protective skin like membrane when they are born. Huh,
And these spikes emerge after the membrane dries and shrinks
and the spikes start poking out from the membrane. Um.
Kind of like that X Man from the X Men. Uh,
(50:22):
and he had spikes coming out of his face, except
that there was an X Man that had spikes that
would come out of his body. Uh, you know, I
don't remember he was from No, he was from one
of the Bad Want movies. Um, Okay, you know what
I think, I know what you're talking about. Spikeman, Spikeman, Spikeman. Um,
(50:48):
it's kind of like that, except it's a tiny pink
baby hedgehog. And it's sort of like they kind of
are born like with extra puffy skin, and the natskin
kind of dries and then shrinks down and then the
spikes come out. Um. Also the spines, the spines of
a newborn are softer than an adults, and they will
eventually be shed and replaced by harder adult spines. Got it, Okay?
(51:13):
And and with the and with the skin, like the
the the protective layering does it when it starts to
poke through, does it eventually like fall off? Is it
like molted off of them or or is it like
it becomes just like a part of their skin layer.
I mean, I think it just kind of shrinks down
to their skin layer, but like all skin, it will
(51:34):
sort of fall off sort of like I mean, yeah,
like our our skin is always you know, sort of
like the dead layer is falling off all the time.
So I think it might it might kind of slough
off a little bit faster than other skin though. I
would imagine, Hey, the listeners out there, take care of
your skin. Where all right, get that SPF going. Did
(51:58):
you know that like your outer most layer of skin
is like dead essentially? Yeah, Like why is skin such
a good defense against pathogens? And it's like this It
actually looks a lot like uh, if you've seen these
old stone walls that they used to make with like
smaller rocks, like these kind of thin and flat rocks,
(52:20):
and they used to kind of jam them together, like
the Romans would do this. And we actually have some
of these still in Italy and they just have a
bunch of like sort of small thin rocks all stuck together.
It's like this technique that like we don't know how
to do anymore really, um, but like skin is kind
of like that. These they're these like small flat dead
cells that are kind of squished together, and these like
(52:43):
you know, sort of like almost like like these these
old walls with all these rocks kind of interwoven with
each other and it forms it's very like tough to
penetrate layer. Cool. Yeah, wow, Well, shout out the Italians
for for figuring out how the skin can be turned
into rock or how the skin is can be trans
(53:04):
transitioned into rock. Um that's cool. Yeah, but yeah, yeah,
our skin, all all the skin that we see, what
we're looking at is death. It's very it's very Werner Herzog. Yeah,
constantly observing our own demise. Exactly that you strive to
protect is simply your mortal coil exposure itself and then
(53:27):
like it's like unsatisfy, you should buy it. Can protect
a multra hydro hydro salasinic acid your eyes in this
episode is a Mandaloria and sponsored by Salery. Protect your skin,
(53:47):
Embrace your death. Onto this week's Mr Animal Sound. The
hint this is one unhappy noodle. If you think you
know the answer to this week's Mystery animal sound, you
(54:10):
can email me at Creature Feature Pod at gmail dot com.
That is Creature Feature Pod at gmail dot com and
make your gifts and if you've gifts correctly, you might
hear your name on the podcast. Well, Daniel, thank you
so much for being here, or can on people find you? Well,
it's my pleasure to be here, Katie, thank you so
(54:31):
much for having me love the show so much. Um.
You can find me all over the internet at DJ
Underscore Daniel d A n L on all the platforms, um.
I'm mostly on Twitter, Instagram, and Twitch. I also have
a TikTok, regrettably for all the content that I forced
myself to post to try and stay relevant in this
ever more cringe universe of posting. Um. But yeah, I'm
(54:54):
on Twitch three times a week Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays.
We play a lot of games to tell a lot
of stories, and you know, it's just it's just about
Twitch community. I also have a lot of channel point
rewards that you can use to make fun of me
or surprise me with jump scares and whatnot, which is
truly the most fun part of the stream is how
you can interact with it and make me miserable. So
come on, it's a lot of fun. Go harass Danial,
(55:15):
Go harass Daniel. That's the whole point. Yeah, and you
mentioned you like the show, but I should also mention
you helped me started early on, so you credit for that. Yeah. Absolutely,
it's all it's all you. I mean, it's me and
other people. Fair, okay, fair always, it's always a team.
But but it has to has someone needs to be
the captain to write the ship. And that's all you.
(55:37):
We form a rolling swarm. Swarm kind of ride around
and then make podcasts and that's the way of the world.
Am well, Thank you guys so much for listening. If
you're enjoying the show and you leave me a writing
or review, I will read it. I will add it
to this wall in my house where I post up
(55:59):
all my views. And my husband is getting very nervous
about it, getting quite alarmed. Uh. He shouldn't worry, because
I do it out of love and obsession. Uh. And
thanks to the Space Cossacks for their super awesome song
Exo Lumina. For more podcasts like the one you just heard,
was that the I Heart Radio app Apple podcast? Or
Hey guess what where have you listen to your favorite shows?
(56:21):
See you next Wednesday.
Creature Feature News
Host
Katie Goldin
Show Links
RSSAbout Creature FeatureTheme SongPopular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Therapy Gecko
An unlicensed lizard psychologist travels the universe talking to strangers about absolutely nothing. TO CALL THE GECKO: follow me on https://www.twitch.tv/lyleforever to get a notification for when I am taking calls. I am usually live Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but lately a lot of other times too. I am a gecko.