Butterflies: Caterpillars with Wings!

If you thought caterpillars were awesome, just wait until you see them with colorful, iridescent wings!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, everybody, Chuck here, Happy Spring.

Speaker 2 (00:08):
And of course this is episode number two in our
Think Spring Playlist Spring edition because of Spring, and so
these are all spring centric because we love spring and
you guys today the episode is Butterflies poland Caterpillars with
Wings and there's nothing more spring I think we can
agree than butterflies.

Speaker 1 (00:27):
So please enjoy cool.

Speaker 2 (00:39):
Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.

Speaker 3 (00:49):
Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's
Chuck and Jerry's here too, and this is Stuff you
Should Know, Part two of a one two punch of
insect goodness.

Speaker 1 (01:00):
Yeah, caterpillars, hopefully you just listen to. If you didn't,
you might want to because it really, you know, without caterpillar,
there is no butterfly episode.

Speaker 3 (01:11):
Yeah, I feel like they could stand on their own, Like,
I don't think you have to have listened to one
to understand what we're going to talk about here.

Speaker 1 (01:18):
No, no, no, but you know we're probably gonna say
when it comes time to talk about how the caterpillar
turns into a butterfly, just go back in time to
two days ago and listen to that one.

Speaker 3 (01:28):
Right, we'll be like.

Speaker 1 (01:32):
And Once again, we have to thank HowStuffWorks dot Com
and our former and current colleague Tracy Wilson, as well
as our former colleague not current, Jennifer Horton, wrote a
fun piece about butterfly gardens that we're going to talk
about at the end. But I forgot about Jennifer. You
remember her?

Speaker 3 (01:49):
Oh yeah, she was great. She wrote lots of great stuff.
She's a good person.

Speaker 1 (01:53):
So, Jennifer, I don't know if you're out there and listen,
but Hi, Hi, it's been a while.

Speaker 3 (01:58):
Yeah, this is like two thousand and eight or while. Well,
So we're talking about butterflies and we should probably kind
of pick up not where we left off, because we
talked I think about caterpillars being pests at the end,
or considered pests, but they're not really. Yeah, we should
pick up after the caterpillar emerges from its chrysalis, because

(02:21):
we're talking specifically about butterflies. So it's the chrysalis, not
a cocoon that it metamorphosizes within, and once it emerges,
it is a beautiful creature that resembles the caterpillar that
it was almost not at all, but it's the same
exact creature. It's got the same mind. It can remember
smells and all that. But whereas the caterpillar was built

(02:43):
for eating, I think we said it in the last
episode too, the butterfly is built for sex, sex, sex.

Speaker 1 (02:50):
Yeah, they're built for reproducing. Should we talk, I mean,
should we go back in time just a little bit
and talk about the fact that, like the distinction between
moths and butterflies and stuff like that. Sure, well, what's
the deal, wasn't it aren't moths and butterflies basically mostly

(03:12):
the same except moths are they do their sex at
night and butterflies do their sex in the day.

Speaker 3 (03:17):
Yeah, I mean, there's there's not many distinctions between them
other than like the obvious ones. But that's the biggest one.
And the reason why butterflies are diurnal and moths are
nocturnal is because all butterflies, I think, what is there
like fifteen twenty thousand species of butterflies, A lot of them, Yeah,
all of them are descended from moths. And these were

(03:39):
just moths that started to do their thing in the
daytime rather than the nighttime, and over time they evolved
to fit in in the daytime rather than the nighttime,
which is how moths evolved, So a moth's camouflage is
meant to blend in with like a tree where it's
sleeping during the day. Yeah, whereas a butterfly bright colored

(04:01):
because it's out in the daytime and it needs to
blend in with the big colorful flowers that it likes
to hang out on.

Speaker 1 (04:09):
Do you know why I'm meant to look this up
and didn't. Why then a moth is so attracted to light?

Speaker 3 (04:16):
I saw that they think that it is attracted to
the moon for navigation. Oh okay, and that butterflies aren't
attracted to light because they don't navigate by the moon.
They lost that ability or that need.

Speaker 1 (04:27):
Well, butterflies navigate by the sun. That's one of the
one of my amazing facts about butterflies.

Speaker 3 (04:32):
Yeah, but then that's weird that they don't fly to light,
but they are not attracted to flames or light bulbs.

Speaker 1 (04:38):
Yeah. Oh, well, maybe they know sun is death.

Speaker 3 (04:41):
Yeah, whereas the moon is nice and cool.

Speaker 1 (04:44):
Should we talk about their bodies a little bit, because
that's where we like to start off usually with our
insect casts.

Speaker 3 (04:50):
One more thing, let's talk about where the word butterfly
came from?

Speaker 1 (04:53):
Eh, where to come from Oh.

Speaker 3 (04:56):
Well, it's very old English and it means butter and
f right. No real mystery there, but the reason they
think there's two reasons why they are named butterflies in
the Old English. And they think it's either because some
of them are a pale yellow in color, so they
resemble butter. We can pretty much discard that one. The

(05:16):
other one is that there was a folk belief that
they stole butter, that they were just kind of some
sort of supernatural spirit in a butterfly form to come
and steal your milk in your butter. And there's evidence
of that in other nearby languages. I think the Germans
called butterflies milk thieves.

Speaker 1 (05:36):
And butterfairy almost.

Speaker 3 (05:37):
Yes, And then the Dutch and the Germans have a
word for butterfly that means butter witch. So that's probably
why butterflies are called that, because they used to think
that they stole butter.

Speaker 1 (05:48):
Well, you knew who it was the whole time. It
was Grandpa Night eating.

Speaker 3 (05:54):
Yeah, he could get one cc of blood through those arteries.
They were so clogged he was, he was on a.

Speaker 1 (06:01):
Does it does it say when the name morphed for
my wife into flutterfly.

Speaker 3 (06:08):
Uh, they actually used to think or something like, it's
a pretty strange idea that they're called butterflies rather than flutterbys,
because that makes more sense. So Emily's kind of taking
it in a much smarter direction. But it's interesting. She
probably just doesn't know the fact that they're actually witches
in disguise who are out to steal butter and milk.

Speaker 1 (06:27):
Yeah, she's always she still calls them butterflies.

Speaker 3 (06:30):
Just does she call spaghetti pasquetti?

Speaker 1 (06:32):
No? No, just fluterflies. Can we talk about their their
bodies now?

Speaker 3 (06:38):
Yes? Yes, thank you for indulging me. I feel so indulged.

Speaker 1 (06:42):
Sure. So, like we mentioned, the head, the thorax, and
the abdomen of the butterfly will look a lot like
a caterpillar in some ways if you hold them up
next to each other, and that's about it. For one,
A butterfly can see a lot better then a caterpillar. Can.

(07:02):
I get the idea that it still doesn't have like,
you know, like great vision, but caterpillars, remember, we're essentially blind.
Butterflies at least have these compound eyes and they can
detect color. And I think we said the caterpillar could
only see in black and white. They can detect movement
as well. Right, But when it comes to like the

(07:22):
star of the show, as far as butterfly parts go,
it's those antennae.

Speaker 3 (07:27):
Well, hold on, before we move on, I've got one
about the eyes too. Do you know the monarch butterfly
like basically the quintessential butterfly. Sure, they have twelve thousand eyes,
both compound and simple, and they go basically all the
way around their head.

Speaker 1 (07:42):
It's a lot of eyes.

Speaker 3 (07:43):
They can see into your soul.

Speaker 1 (07:46):
And that's why they Maybe that's why they're so great,
migrating every year such large numbers.

Speaker 3 (07:52):
Possibly. I think we talked about in our Animal Migration episode.
We talked about monarch butterfly migration, and I think we
said one of the reasons why they're able to make
it from eastern Canada all the way down to northwest
Mexico is because they are they navigate using UV they
see in the UV.

Speaker 1 (08:10):
Yeah, it's that it's that sun And that's kind of
brings me back around to antennae. These things are amazing.
They they get their sense of direction from the position
of the sun, so they are literally navigating by the
position of the sun at The antennae also act as
light receptors, obviously to tract the sun. They're highly attuned

(08:34):
to odors. Those antenna are great smellers. They sense pheromones
during times of mating, and they can even sense these
antennae the beat of wings of butterflies of the same
species during amazing.

Speaker 3 (08:49):
Just the antennae, Just the antennae. How about the labial palps.

Speaker 1 (08:55):
Well, yeah, those are if you if you look at
a close up of a butterfly, and they can take
different positions, but usually I've seen them they look like
kind of little hairy tusks coming out.

Speaker 3 (09:06):
Coming out of what chuck coming out of their their.

Speaker 1 (09:09):
Head well near the mouth parts.

Speaker 3 (09:11):
Yeaping thing. Okay, it's now officially a Tracy Wilson article.

Speaker 1 (09:15):
That's right.

Speaker 3 (09:16):
So they apparently are like this is food. This isn't food.
This is food. But they don't eat with the labial palps.
It's just a way of sensing food. What they eat
with is their proboscis and that's the long kind of
tongue like appendage that they suck nectar with.

Speaker 1 (09:36):
That's right, I got one more thing on the labial palps.

Speaker 3 (09:38):
So oh, okay, they.

Speaker 1 (09:41):
They've kind of surmised that it detects food. That the
function was is fairly unknown, but I think they've learned
I'm not sure how recently, that they can those labial
palps detect CO two in the air. Oh, neat as well,
and they think that might be the main function.

Speaker 3 (09:56):
Oh that's really cool.

Speaker 1 (09:57):
Who knows?

Speaker 3 (09:58):
So instead of seeing D or green, they have the
labial palps that detect I guess CO two. That was
a reference to our reality episode.

Speaker 1 (10:07):
Yeah, yeah, So what part did you move to?

Speaker 3 (10:10):
I moved on to their proboscis.

Speaker 1 (10:13):
Oh, everyone loves a good prescos and the uh, the
butterfly proboscos is interesting because when the butterfly comes out,
and we'll talk about this morn in a second, it's
almost like it should have a label that says some
assembly required. Yeah, because they got to do some stuff
before they can really do their butterfly thing. And one
of those things is literally almost like screwing together their proboscis.

Speaker 3 (10:38):
Mm hmmm. Yeah. They have two parts of the proboscis
that they have to connect in order to start eating.
So that's one of the first things that they do
when they e close from their.

Speaker 1 (10:48):
Chrysalis e close. It's a great name.

Speaker 3 (10:51):
Now it sounds like Apple has trademarked it or something.

Speaker 1 (10:55):
And we'll talk more about the proboscos as we go,
but we do need to mention their leg If you remember,
the caterpillars have six real legs and then a bunch
of pro legs. The butterfly says, I don't need those
pro legs anymore because I'm flying basically, but I've still
got those six legs. I've got a set of four legs,
some middle legs and some hind legs. And these things

(11:18):
are pretty they're more than just legs as well, because
they will land on something and they're looking for dissolving
sugars basically to eat, and they're looking for that with
their legs.

Speaker 3 (11:30):
Yeah. And also you'll probably see fairly commonly that there
are some butterfly species that only have two pairs of legs,
and that's not true. They actually have six, but one
pair is basically shriveled almost to nothingness.

Speaker 1 (11:44):
And by the way, I should clear up when I
say their legs are looking for dissolving sugars, they're not
doing it by feel like they are taste organs in
their feet.

Speaker 3 (11:54):
Yeah, they can taste through all sorts of different organs.
It's pretty cool. They apparently when they're they step in
some dissolving sugar, their proboscis uncoils involuntarily, like and it
just starts sipping nectar immediately. Oh man, So you better
hope that your your legs are finely attuned to sugar

(12:14):
and you don't accidentally suck up some really gross stuff. Yeah,
you know, like, oh it was puss, right.

Speaker 1 (12:20):
Oh my god, Oh, the worst word. It's the worst.

Speaker 3 (12:27):
It's pretty bad and hygenic utensil though.

Speaker 1 (12:31):
Like, what are the odds that one of the grossest
things has the grossest word.

Speaker 3 (12:36):
I don't know. I wonder if that was intentional?

Speaker 1 (12:39):
Yeah, like, what is that?

Speaker 2 (12:41):
Ugh?

Speaker 1 (12:41):
Puss?

Speaker 3 (12:42):
Right?

Speaker 1 (12:42):
Does that sound gross enough? Sure, let's go with it.

Speaker 3 (12:45):
Can we please stop talking about puss?

Speaker 1 (12:47):
Sure? Webster. The wings, We're going to talk about a lot.
We did a whole episode on the iridescence of butterfly wings,
so we're not going to really get into it here,
but if you want to learn about yourridescence, it's very
complex and complicated and deserved its own episode many years ago.

Speaker 3 (13:05):
Yeah, but the opshot is the structure of the scales.
They're transparent, multi layered, and they reflect and amplify light
multiple times. That was a really cool episode if I
remember correctly.

Speaker 1 (13:15):
It was, and it was a tough one if I
remember to absorb.

Speaker 3 (13:20):
Yes, but we did such a great job of it.
I would like to say we probably just knocked it
out the park. Really.

Speaker 1 (13:25):
I think so too. But the butterfly wings are made
of it's transparents called kitan. If you've heard of kitenre,
you're probably just alive on the earth because it is
one of the most abundant polysaccharrides in nature. It's I
think the second most abundant. It's all over the place.

(13:45):
Their wings are made of that kitan, and they have
those sort of vein like structures that you can if
you look at their wings closely. Don't touch them though,
please no, we talked about that in that episode. But
they have those four wings that are obviously toward the
front and they are basically triangular, and then the hind
wings toward the butt, and they kind of look like

(14:06):
little seashells.

Speaker 3 (14:07):
Yes, And they're like you said, don't touch them. They're
very very delicate, and those veins are species specific, so
that's one of the ways that they use to recognize
one another when they're mating as well.

Speaker 1 (14:20):
Yeah, and I think butterflies cannot repair their wings, isn't
that correct?

Speaker 3 (14:24):
Yes, they have no means of doing that. They have
no car shield for wings.

Speaker 1 (14:29):
But I don't think it kills them. But if a
butterfly can't fly, that's probably ultimately a death sentence, right.

Speaker 3 (14:34):
That's my guess. It would make them easy prey at
the very least.

Speaker 1 (14:38):
Yeah, I think that's kind of the deal. When they
say a butterfly will die if you touch their wings, yes,
it will die quicker.

Speaker 3 (14:44):
There's something that a butterfly that's recently e closed and
a baby that's just been born have in common. Do
you know what it is? Mmmm?

Speaker 1 (14:56):
Maybe? But go ahead.

Speaker 3 (14:57):
They both poop out in a meek oh.

Speaker 1 (15:01):
Sure a human baby? Yeah, yeah, yeah, maconium? Is that
that first poop that they take. And in this case,
the butterfly is pooping what it last eight as a caterpillar.

Speaker 3 (15:14):
That's so cool.

Speaker 1 (15:15):
It is really cool.

Speaker 3 (15:16):
It's usually red bright red, almost looks like blood. But
the butterfly poops that out. That's one of the first
things it does. It has to clean off all of
its organs, its feet to make sure it's sugar finding,
not puss finding. Clean off its antennas, put its proboscis
together again, let its wings dry out. I saw, and

(15:36):
I don't think we mentioned in the Caterpillar episode that
in its last in star it has wings already. They're
just folded up under its skin. That they develop even
further in the chrysalis. But when they they're when they
come out, they're soaking wet because the butterfly was goo
not too long ago, and they have to spread them

(15:57):
out and let them dry in the sun before they
can fly. So they're doing all this like self care,
basically a morning at the spa right after they're born.

Speaker 1 (16:06):
Yeah, but they can't just like flop their wings open immediately.
They actually have to pump them up, almost like an
air pump inflating a raft or something. Or some high tops, yeah,
or some oh man, remember those. That's so funny. What
a scam. That was a scam.

Speaker 3 (16:24):
Right, I'm quite sure you could break your ankle in
that just as easily as any other shoe.

Speaker 1 (16:28):
Sure. Yeah, it may give you like a little tighter
fit or something. I don't know about that, Uh, and
for people that are our young our younger listeners. If
you don't know who Millie Vanilli was, or pump up
basketball shoes, there were I think Rebock.

Speaker 3 (16:42):
Right, pretty sure it was Rebock.

Speaker 1 (16:44):
Had basketball shoes that on the tongue had a little
basketball that was a little pump, and you would put
on your shoes, tie them up, and then press that
pump a bunch of times and it would fill some
cavities with air, I guess, and make your shoes tighter.

Speaker 3 (16:58):
Yeah, especially around your ank clothes to give you extra
ankle support so you could daunt easier, even though you've
never donked in your life.

Speaker 1 (17:05):
That's right. But they had Spudweb repping them, so oh yeah, yeah,
I think I think he was one of their pitch
guys for a little while. Okay, cool, but anyway, the
butterfly Wait.

Speaker 3 (17:17):
Wait, should we explain who spud Web?

Speaker 1 (17:20):
He was a diminutive NBA player. Yeah, for these good
line to get his autograph one time. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (17:24):
Nice.

Speaker 1 (17:27):
They pump their wings out, but not with air. There's
a fluid that they pump through these those two black
veins we were talking about and just sort of inflate
them out and like you said, they just get all
cleaned up and ready to fly.

Speaker 3 (17:39):
Yes, And then once they're all ready, they start flying
and they realize very quickly, up it's not a very
good day to fly. And I say we take a
break and come back and explain just what in the
holy heck I'm talking about?

Speaker 1 (18:15):
All right, what in the holy heck are you talking about?

Speaker 3 (18:17):
Oh well, let me explain, Chuck. It turns out that butterflies,
while being pretty hardy individuals at least as far as
insects are concerned, on that level, they're also very delicate,
like we talked about with their wings, and even beyond
their wings, getting like a rain drop driving through it
that can happen, or say like strong wind pattering it.

(18:39):
That's a big problem for a butterfly. Just the temperature,
the ambient temperature has a tremendous effect on them, not
just because they're ectotherms, meaning they're like a lizard. They
rely on the ambient temperature to warm themselves or cool
themselves off. Their muscles just simply will not function when
it drops below a certain temperature.

Speaker 1 (19:01):
Yeah, I think Tracy points out they work best when
their internal temperature is about eighty two fahrenheit twenty eight celsius.
And you know, they use these wings for flying, which
is great, but you might think like, oh, it's no
big deal. If it's cold, they just kind of hunker down.
But they also use these wings to do all kinds
of like cool things, like, namely to scare away predators.

(19:25):
They can do all sorts of like they can make
eyes where it looks like a scary face, kind of
like their little caterpillar former selves can look like snakes.
They can flash these bright colors that a lot of
times say get away predator. And if they can't move
their wings, it's not just that they can't fly, but
they can't defend themselves or disguise themselves. So it means

(19:47):
that when it's cold outside, or when it's two windy
or rainy or something, then they're way more vulnerable to
prey for sure, or as prey.

Speaker 3 (19:56):
Right, but even prey could probably get them. That's how
yeah lable they are so for sure. So you'll often
see like butterflies is kind of basking in the sun.
I've always wondered what they're doing, Like they just seem
like they're they don't know what to do next. That's
how it's always struck me. For some reason, they're thinking
of their next move, but in reality, they're just sitting

(20:17):
there getting warmed up by the sun so they can
fly to another spot. And if you stop and think
about it, the next time you see a butterfly basking
in the sun, I'll bet it's below eighty degrees out
and the butterflies having to warm itself so it can
fly on to the next flower to eat or rest
or whatever.

Speaker 1 (20:36):
Yeah, that's a good point. They do take shelter at
night when it gets chilly. That's why you don't see
butterflies flying around at night mainly. And like you said,
they're what are daytime dwellers called diurnal diurnal day urinal? Yeah,
day ernal? Is that how you remember it?

Speaker 3 (20:57):
Now? It is?

Speaker 1 (20:58):
Okay, you do remember it. That's how I need to
remember it, right. But yeah, they bass those wings. They'll
sit around on rocks, they shelter at night sometimes that
they will actually do like a kind of like human
shiver to warm up. They can kind of shake their
butterfly wings to get their muscles warmed up to fly.
They just can't go out cold. They gotta do a

(21:19):
little warm up first.

Speaker 3 (21:21):
It's like that knee hike thing, their knees really really high,
like in place a bunch of times.

Speaker 1 (21:28):
Yeah, that soccer players do. Yeah, like that ted Lasso guy.

Speaker 3 (21:33):
Right, then there's a name for that. But don't bother
emailing us with it. We can figure it out ourselves.

Speaker 1 (21:39):
They also can use those wings as little reflectors, like
you know how in the nineteen fifties and sixties people
would sit out in the sun with those reflectors under
their neck to reflect sun back on their faces. They
can use their wings to do that to their body
and warm.

Speaker 3 (21:54):
It up, right, which is pretty cool. They can also
they can also keep the sun from warming them up
when it's too hot out. They'll fold their wings together
and just present like the edge, the outer edge of
their wings to the sun, so there's much less surface area.

Speaker 1 (22:11):
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And they, like
you said, when you see them sitting, they're probably not
sitting for long. They're probably sitting just so they can
get it going to fly again very shortly.

Speaker 3 (22:25):
Exactly, so, even though they're sitting there warming themselves up
to move from flower to flower even and that's typically
what you see. There's a lot of species I see
at least two hundred that migrate over very long distances,
and monarchs are the ones that they're like the money,
the money butterfly that everybody knows about. But one of

(22:45):
the reasons why is because they migrate so far. Again,
they migrate from eastern Canada to northwest Mexico. It takes
eight months, and not a single butterfly that starts that
journey is alive at the end. So it's like you
look at the butterfly. By the way, the butterfly flock
or a group of butterflies is called the kaleidoscope. Mm

(23:08):
I love that also, that's the official one. They're also
called flutter, shimmer, and rainbow of butterflies.

Speaker 1 (23:14):
Okay, a flutter of butterflies, yep.

Speaker 3 (23:17):
But you look at the kaleidoscope of butterflies, it's like
a single organism in each individual butterfly that lives and
dies and reproduces, not necessarily in that order, as kind
of like cells that function and make up the larger hole.
But it's really a bunch of individual butterflies flying together,
but migrating as a whole down from eastern Canada to

(23:38):
northwest Mexico.

Speaker 1 (23:40):
Yeah, and I guess since we're there. There was a
big deforestation, illegal deforestation, logging operation in Mexico at the
Butterfly Biosphere Reserve in twenty fifteen and they got like
I can't remember, like thirty or forty acres of land
just down before anyone knew what was going on. And

(24:03):
since then, and we can't get into it here because
it's really complex, but they have this very involved plan
that they've been enacting since then of reforestation, including something
called assisted migration that I don't fully understand yet, but
I'm going to look into it more.

Speaker 3 (24:18):
They just drive slowly by some butterflies, swipe them into
the car and drive them halfway.

Speaker 1 (24:23):
Well, things are better now, but there were a billion
butterflies in that migration in nineteen ninety six, and in
I think twenty sixteen that was down to thirty five
million from a billion, and I think has since gone
up due to these efforts.

Speaker 3 (24:37):
But that's good.

Speaker 1 (24:38):
Yeah. Then, you know, butterflies, if you take down where
they're trying to get to, then they're.

Speaker 3 (24:44):
Going to die. Yeah, And that's that Biosphere Reserve is
a UNESCO World Heritage Site and you can go visit it.
But apparently when the number of butterflies that show up
are in the billions. The branch is that they're sitting
on bend under the weight of butterflies. That's how many
butterflies there are sometimes. But yes, it's very problematic that

(25:08):
there's fewer and fewer. I'm glad to hear that it's
kind of bounced back a little bit, but they're still
under I don't know if they're endangered or just critical
right now, but there's there's something to keep an eye on,
as we'll see, because they're an indicator species.

Speaker 1 (25:25):
They are, and they're also pollinators. They're not, you know,
the best pollinators, but they're pretty good. They're not like bees.
I mean, bees were made to pollinate.

Speaker 3 (25:36):
They wear shirts that they do.

Speaker 1 (25:39):
They wear be shirts. But the some butterflies, some butterflies
don't spread pollen at all. They just love that nectar.
But generally butterflies are looked at as polleners, and they
have that proboscis like you said, that's just it's made
for diving deep into those flowers and getting all that
sweet stuff. But butterflies have lots of dietary needs. They

(26:02):
can't just get bynd that sweet, sweet sugar. They need
minerals and stuff, and they get this in a variety
of interesting ways.

Speaker 3 (26:08):
Right, Yeah, one is puddles. They'll just descend on a
puddle that's bare dirt. I don't think asphalt would work, So, yeah,
it's kind of gross to think about. But the minerals
from the dirt and the soil leach into the puddle,
and the butterflies suck up those minerals through the puddle,
and apparently if there's not enough minerals for their liking,

(26:30):
they'll actually flutter off real quick and then come back
to the puddle, and just that little butterfly movement is
enough disturbance of the water to bring some extra minerals
to the surface of the puddle for them to drink
and to create a hurricane in Belize.

Speaker 1 (26:48):
Right, if there's no water, it's pretty gross. If it
gets pretty bad, they will resort to puking onto the
soil and then drinking that mineral puke.

Speaker 3 (27:02):
I took it more as spit.

Speaker 1 (27:05):
Hey one man's man's that's right.

Speaker 3 (27:08):
But yeah, they need the minerals, the nutrients, and it's
just not enough for the nectar.

Speaker 1 (27:13):
Yeah, exactly, They've done some studies because they'll they'll eat fruit.
They'll eat rotten fruit on the ground, or they will
get on a piece of fruit. They will stomp on
it with their little feet to try and tenderize it
a little bit and then jab it with that proboscis
and drink it up. And they've done studies that have
found that the fruit eaters live longer and are better

(27:35):
at reproducing in studies because they I think it was
the monarchs, even they fed them either mash banana or sugar,
and the ones that ate the mash banana laid almost
two times as many eggs, and those eggs were bigger
and like more robust and vital as well.

Speaker 3 (27:57):
Yeah. I also read that they tend to be easier
going in social situations and are more well liked by their.

Speaker 1 (28:03):
Peers, the fruit eaters. Yeah, oh wow.

Speaker 3 (28:07):
So there's a couple other places that they can get
nutrients and minerals, dung and urine. Butterflies are not above that,
especially if they need it really badly. But when they're
getting it from a puddle, it's called puddling. There's just
so many great words around butterflies, and there's a specific
word for butterflies pollinating plants. It's called psychophily like psychophillly,

(28:32):
but with one l Okay, specifically, butterflies pollinating plants is psychophily.

Speaker 1 (28:38):
I love that.

Speaker 3 (28:39):
I thought you would. I found that and I was like,
fuck's gonna love this.

Speaker 1 (28:43):
The sexy stuff you mentioned. They you know, butterflies love
to try and reproduce, and they reproduce like a lot
of animals. They they join themselves, they join end to
end at the abdomen. I think the male has a
like class clasps down on the female to make sure

(29:03):
they stay together. And there is sperm from the male
that is eventually going to fertilize the eggs of a female.
But not like you would think. It's pretty remarkable because
what they do is they well, first of all, they
have to recognize each other, like I said, using those antennae,
they recognize themselves as the same species or whatever, and

(29:25):
through their pheromones as well, which is also the antennae.
And then the male delivers a spermatophor. So it's like, hey,
I don't just have sperm for you. I've packaged it
up in a little package for you, and it's got
all these other minerals and nutrients that you love. That
will help you in this fertilization process, and they will

(29:46):
take extra time to get an extra good spermatophore package
ready to be an extra attractive mate to the good
ones will well, sure.

Speaker 3 (29:57):
So the the I guess the female butterflies when they
fertilize their eggs, they use the last sperm that was
inserted to them, the last spermatophor package.

Speaker 1 (30:11):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (30:12):
So there are some species where the male will basically
close up shop after he's inserted a spermataphor with kind
of like a sticky substance that prevents more sperm from
going in. So his sperm is the most recent sperm.

Speaker 1 (30:27):
Yeah, that's not very cool at all. But I guess
that guy's also like, you know what am I doing
giving you my spermataphor if you're just gonna use the
latest spermataphor that.

Speaker 3 (30:36):
You got Exactly, I went to a lot of trouble
combining the spermatophoor.

Speaker 1 (30:40):
Yeah, like, look at this stuff, Look at all these minerals.
I also saw that some of the males in some
species will spray them with an off putting scent. Huh,
so no other butterflies will want them. There are mating
dances that they'll do, and they, you know, when the
female gets this super metaphor, they put it in their

(31:01):
bursa and then they wait until they're ready to lay
their eggs, and they actually lay the eggs first and
then use the sperm to fertilize them once they have
laid the eggs, which is also I think pretty unusual
in the insect kingdom, right.

Speaker 3 (31:15):
I don't know. For some reason, I had the impression
that they were fertilizing each egg as they were coming out,
kind of like a pez dispenser. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (31:25):
Yeah, that's what I mean though, But they're not like,
they're not fertilized in the body.

Speaker 3 (31:29):
I see what you're saying. They're fertilized externally.

Speaker 1 (31:32):
Yeah, yeah, sure, that's the word.

Speaker 3 (31:35):
One other thing you talked about terrible smells. I turned
up that there some pheromones are pleasant smelling to humans. Specifically,
let me tell you about the green vein white butterfly.

Speaker 1 (31:49):
Let's hear it.

Speaker 3 (31:50):
It puts together lemon oil for all intents and purposes.
It has the same chemical composition as lemon oil, but
it's the pheromone it produces to attract a mate. And
I got to tell you, lemon old is a pretty
great smell. It would attract me too.

Speaker 1 (32:02):
I love it.

Speaker 3 (32:03):
So if you ever smell a great veined white during
mating season, you're going to smell some lemon oil.

Speaker 1 (32:10):
The gestation periods about three days, and they lay anywhere
from ten to three hundred eggs in clusters over a
two to four week period.

Speaker 3 (32:20):
Oh wow, it's that long.

Speaker 1 (32:22):
Yeah, it can't. Yeah, two to four weeks and these eggs,
you know, they lay that many because it's tough for
these eggs to survive into adulthood. They got to be
The temperature's got to be just right, humidity's got to
be just right. They can rot very easily if it's
too wet. If it's not wet enough, they're going to
dry out. And then of course there's all those predators

(32:44):
that are just dying to eat those butterfly eggs.

Speaker 3 (32:46):
They need to find the goldilock zone with the humidity.

Speaker 1 (32:49):
For the eggs, that's right. They do so.

Speaker 3 (32:52):
They also make sure that they put the eggs on
their baby's favorite food, which is a certain kind of plant.
Their butterflies are very frequently indiscriminate pollinators. They just go
from plant to plant but there are also plenty of
species that are very plant specific, and those are the
ones where they will not only eat that plant while

(33:12):
they're caterpillars, they were probably born on that same plant
as well.

Speaker 1 (33:16):
We used to have a butterfly bush in our yard
that was those things get really big and out of control,
kind of in a we have sort of a wild
garden anyway. It's not like a you know, super manicure
like English type garden. It's kind of a crazy, fun garden.
So it fit in the garden and we had tons
and tons of butterflies, but it went away, and I

(33:37):
don't know if it was because I think some people,
well I think it could be an invasive species, and
a lot of people say, like they'll plant the butterfly bush,
but we had one for a while but don't now,
so Emily may have taken it down for that reason.

Speaker 3 (33:49):
So the reason it's considered invasive and harmful the butterflies
is it produces tons of nectar, but it has no
value in supporting eggs or the life stylele of it
other than nectar for adults. And so it's a distraction
from native plants that do provide not just nectar but
also shelter and a place to lay their eggs. So

(34:12):
it actually disrupts the life cycle of local butterflies. Even
though it's a butterfly bush and they love it, it's
actually bad for them. So I have to go cut
down mine after this.

Speaker 1 (34:22):
Even if you have a lot of those natives nearby,
like as a whole, it's still bad.

Speaker 3 (34:26):
Yes, because it's a distraction, because it's so chuck full
of nectar that they go to that one instead and
just die off.

Speaker 1 (34:33):
Well, some distractions are okay, right, like television.

Speaker 3 (34:36):
Sure, you could put a TV with an extension cord
out in your butterfly garden. That's not going to harm them.
If you have a butterfly bush, you have to chop
it down. I command you, all right.

Speaker 1 (34:47):
They're really pretty though, and it's fun to see other butterflies,
but yeah, I get you in.

Speaker 3 (34:51):
But wait until you've planted other plants, which we'll talk about,
and then you can chop down your butterfly bush.

Speaker 1 (34:58):
All right, Well, let's take a break or second break,
and we'll talk a little bit more about what's going
on with a butterfly population and butterfly gardens right after this. Okay, Well,

(35:32):
we talked already about the Monarchs and how they had
been hit hard from the illegal logging going on in
Mexico in the mid twenty tens. And in general, butterflies
are doing okay, but there are some you know, pesticides
and things like that. I think one of the other

(35:52):
big reasons besides the logging for that migration of the monarchs,
I think pesticides has killed a lot of milkweed, which
I think the monarchs love. So pesticides are a big threat.
And it's not like I'm just going to spray this
one little part of my garden, Like pesticides in your
garden in one part of your garden generally means it's
in most parts of your garden.

Speaker 3 (36:13):
Yeah, it travels very easily. But on top of that,
butterflies are extremely sensitive to pesticides, So I don't know
about herbicides, but definitely pesticides. So if you're going to
plan a butterfly garden, you want to use natural pest defenses.
But that's a big thing that's killing off butterflies and
bees too. Yeah, and then also we talked about it

(36:33):
in the last episode. A lot of people think of
caterpillars as pests. It's like, oh, you ate some of them,
I lettuce, I'm going to kill all of you. That
kills butterflies too. They never make it to be adult butterflies,
and you've just disrupted generations of butterflies that could have
been So when you put all that together, humans have
not been super good for butterflies. Did you mention urbanization

(36:56):
and rhodes too, No, those are a problem. Like anytime
we build somewhere, we destroy plants, and those often are
butterflies or that's a butterfly habitat. And then the roads
that we have, the marginal land alongside of the roads
are often like great places for butterfly centric plants to grow.

(37:17):
But that means that the butterflies are very close to
cars that are going seventy eighty miles an hour, which
is never good for the butterfly when they come in
contact with them. So yeah, like I was saying, humans
have been kind of bad for butterflies. But fortunately we're
starting to wake up and see the value in butterflies
goes beyond like let's put that thing on a stamp,
Like there's there's more value to the butterfly than just

(37:39):
its esthetic beauty. But that makes it plenty valuable in
and of itself.

Speaker 1 (37:44):
I wonder if butterflies and other insects would ever if
natural selection would be such that they would learn to
fly higher than the height of an average car.

Speaker 3 (37:56):
Sure, I could see that, but then they run into
semis and there's like it's going to take millions more
years to get higher than a semi.

Speaker 1 (38:05):
Yeah, that's a good point.

Speaker 3 (38:06):
Maybe they'll figure out how to fly undercrs very quickly.

Speaker 1 (38:10):
Okay, that collecting butterflies is, believe it or not, another
thing that has hit the butterfly population. Butterfly collecting butterflies
is a thing. Hunting butterflies and putting them behind glass
in your office is a thing that some people are
really into. And I don't know a lot about that,

(38:33):
but I do know that that there are certain species
that are endangered, and part of the problem is over collecting.

Speaker 3 (38:42):
Yeah, and the more rare a butterfly species gets, the
more desirable it is for collectors, and the more collecting
harms that population because it's so small. So or a
Burroughs but the worst kind.

Speaker 1 (38:55):
Yeah, And I imagine we'll hear from some collectors who
who can tell us that there are responsible ways of
doing this. I really don't know enough about it to
speak to it, but I'm not going to click butterflies,
That's all I'm gonna say.

Speaker 3 (39:07):
Yeah, I wonder if it's one of those things like ivory,
where it's like, Okay, this happened, this is done, Like
these things are out there and we're not just gonna
throw them away. That's an even bigger waste. Right, So,
like antique ivory or antique taxidermy, butterflies are legal, but
anything new is illegal. I wonder if it's treated like

(39:30):
that or what. But I get the impression that butterflies
don't have that much legal protection. I think they do
on paper, but it's very rarely enforced.

Speaker 1 (39:38):
Yeah. I guess if you find one in the ground
or something that's uh you know that for your collection.
Sure not sunning on a rock, but you know dead right.

Speaker 3 (39:48):
Sure it just fell over of old age.

Speaker 1 (39:51):
Uh Huh. Should we talk about butterfly gardens here at
the end.

Speaker 3 (39:55):
Yeah, because one of the things people are doing or saying, like, hey, butterflies,
we got to save these butter flies. If we don't,
things are gonna go pear shaped even more. And so
people are starting to plant butterfly gardens.

Speaker 1 (40:07):
Yeah, because I think you said they're a big indicator
of like, if butterflies are dying off all around you,
that's a big indicator of how your local ecosystem is
doing in.

Speaker 3 (40:16):
The larch part, the canari and the coal mine.

Speaker 1 (40:18):
Yeah, exactly. And butterfly gardens are beautiful and it doesn't
take a lot. You need some plants, and you're gonna
want plants. Well, you're gonna want to find out what
kind of butterflies you have around you.

Speaker 3 (40:29):
That's a big one.

Speaker 1 (40:30):
You can look with your eyeballs and then cross reference,
or you can just look it up on the internet,
and then you want to find out what kind of
plants those butterflies love that are native to your area,
and plant those.

Speaker 3 (40:41):
Chuck. When I was researching this, all I wanted to
do was be done with this episode so I can
go garden.

Speaker 1 (40:47):
Oh. I love that Emily's gardening. I'm looking at it
right now, is gardening outside?

Speaker 3 (40:52):
Well, pound on your window and tell her I'm jealous
of her.

Speaker 1 (40:55):
We got I put it on my Instagram. I don't
know if you saw it, but you I saw a
huge well it's not that big, but a hornet's nest
in our backyard yesterday. That is the coolest, most beautiful thing.
I'm kind of tucked in a magnolia branch about only
four feet off the ground, And I'm glad I saw
it because I was about to go do some trimming

(41:17):
of my box woods right behind it in a few
days and I would have bumped right into that thing.
So boy, now we're just going to steer clear of
it until it is out of season and then hopefully
try and preserve it. But hornets nests are so cool looking,
and I just love that we have one back there.
We got a crazy backyard full of all kinds of critters.

Speaker 3 (41:37):
Does it look like a mummy's head? Sometimes it looks.

Speaker 1 (41:40):
It looks like a sort of a mummy's head, but
if it was an alien mummy, because it's like top
heavy and it looks like it has a little mouth
at the bottom, you know, their little door. Yeah, I'll
send you the picture, it's cool.

Speaker 3 (41:52):
Yeah, Or I can just go on Instagram like everybody else.

Speaker 1 (41:55):
Now you get text privies, thanks man. What else about
the butterfly garden? You need water? Right?

Speaker 3 (42:02):
Yeah? Remember they like to drink minerals from puddles. So
if you have a little bit of water dripping that
forms a puddle in the soil, that's definitely going to
help them. You want rocks for them to sun on.

Speaker 1 (42:14):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (42:14):
A big one, Chuck is you want to use native plants.
I know you and Emily are like big into that,
and I feel like people, including myself, are really waking
up to just how bad for the local ecosystem like
non native plants are, and to use native plants whenever
you can. When you're building a butterfly garden, it's crucial

(42:36):
because even plants within the same species can be harmful
to butterflies. Yeah, and I have an example if you'll
allow me. Sure, So, butterflies in Florida and Georgia in
the Southeast in general, I think are very very keen
on what's called butterfly weed. It's what monarchs love. It's
that very tiny, multi flowered, orange flowered weed. It's a

(43:00):
type of milkweed. Okay, yeah, that's native. Yes, there's another
kind of milkweed called tropical milkweed that does just fine
in Florida and Georgia in the southeast too, but it's
not native. And the problem with putting that in your
butterfly garden into the southeast is that it blooms so
late into the season that butterflies will keep reproducing and

(43:24):
entire parts of the population will freeze to death because
they've gone beyond their natural reproductive window. And then furthermore,
when the temperature drops a little bit, they're more susceptible
to a specific kind of protozoan parasite called ot or
oe I. Can't remember that they wouldn't otherwise be if

(43:45):
they were just on the native milkweed rather than the
tropical milkweed. So like, that's how much attention you really
should be paying to your butterfly garden, because you can
inadvertently harm them while you're doing something you think is
good for them, like putting a butterfly bush out there.
Everybody like, that's great, I'm gonna put a butterfly bush
out and I can pretty much call myself Gandhi from
here on out, Gandhi the butterflies. But it turns out

(44:08):
you're harming them. So it's definitely something that you need
to take some research for. But it's the kind of
research that it's like an invitation to go, like immerse
yourself in the natural world in all of the best ways.

Speaker 1 (44:19):
Yeah. Boy, that butterfly weed is beautiful, Yes.

Speaker 3 (44:23):
It is, and it's native to Georgia. So you just
plan it all you.

Speaker 1 (44:26):
Like, you know what, I'm gonna go tell Emily like, oh,
this butterfly milkweed and shes gonna be like it's right
behind you, coming right.

Speaker 3 (44:32):
But it's not only a food source, it's it's like
a place where monarchs lay their eggs. So you will
have butterflies like living in your garden. I mean they'll
fly to Mexico eventually, but they'll hang out there for
a while. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (44:44):
I mean that's the cool thing about the butterfly garden too.
If you if you do it right, then you're you're
gonna have butterflies in your yard. And not only that,
but butterflies are gonna like word gets around and it'll
become a place for butterflies. It'll become like haven for butterflies.
And they don't they don't generally, I mean the ones
who migrate migrate. But other than that, you could have

(45:06):
you could have butterflies families living their whole life back
there in your backyard.

Speaker 3 (45:10):
Yeah. And speaking of backyards, I've got a backyard. A
lower part of my backyard is kind of wild. I
keep it wild, like I don't know it very often,
and there's lots of weeds and like little clovers and
stuff growing. So I've left it there for the beads,
the birds and the bees and all that, and the butterflies.
But I'm going full on, man, I'm going to let
Oh yes, it's gonna be all butterflies, like up to

(45:33):
your hips butterfly stuff. I cannot wait to go plan it.
It's I'm really looking forward to it because it's really
goes right up to the edge of some woods too,
so it's gonna be amazing.

Speaker 1 (45:45):
Yeah, there's something we really love like leading green spaces
and making it an invitation for animals. You know, like
I got my camp up there in North Georgia, and
like all of North Georgia is just being torn down
for neighborhoods and or and you know, if you're a hunter,
let's find that that's your thing. I'm not into it.

(46:05):
And we love that we have this acreage where we're
just like, tell your dear buddies this to come to
our land setup shop here. No one will be shooting
you and spread the word, everybody. We have we have
a safe space for all you critters out here.

Speaker 3 (46:21):
Yes, except for humans, because it's also a most dangerous
game type setup. You got going there?

Speaker 1 (46:26):
Huh well sure by the weekends.

Speaker 3 (46:30):
Right. Let's see one more thing about butterflies. There is
an amazing fact that I think we can end on.

Speaker 1 (46:35):
How about that, Let's do it.

Speaker 3 (46:38):
They're frequently cited as inspiring the discovery of the RH
blood factor, which is a type of subtype of blood types,
and it actually cured what's known as Rhese's hemolytic disease,
which is where a baby has a positive RH blood
type and is born from a mother with a negative
RH blood type, and it's immune systems starts attacking its blood.

(47:01):
Not good. But the discoverer of the RH blood factor,
his name is Sir Cyril Clark, and he was big
time in the butterflies, and he was inspired by the
butterfly's ability to mimic other butterflies genetically, that they had
these what are called super genes, these big clusters of
genes that all produce this mimicry, and that we're refined

(47:22):
by smaller genes over time. And he was like, I
wonder if that has to do with blood types and diseases,
and in fact, it was, oh wow, yeah, so butterflies,
super useful, super beautiful. Go cut down your butterfly bush today. Amazing,
Chuck said, amazing. So that means it's time for listener
mail everybody.

Speaker 1 (47:45):
I'm gonna call this our influence on Spotify. Perhaps, Hey, guys,
I was wondering, wondering if you were aware of your
potential impact on Spotify searches. On the Milli Vanilli episode,
Josh mentioned the song Owner of a Lonely Heart by
Yes being the best song of the eighties, and in
my head, I'm like, I'm not sure what that song is,

(48:05):
but I set it out loud and immediately the chorus
popped into my head. So I go over to listen
to it later on Spotify. I see a ton of
covers for it, and I see Milli Vanilli is also
in the search results, which was going to be my
next search. So I think you guys may have had
enough people searching Owner of a Lonely Heart and Millie
Vanilly close together so that the algorithm associated those two.

(48:29):
That's awesome because other than the time period, it's not
similar music.

Speaker 3 (48:33):
You know no, I would say not.

Speaker 1 (48:36):
Maybe do a test to mention two unrelated songs for
something to see what happens. Oh boy, should we try it?

Speaker 3 (48:45):
Yeah, let's mix Sabbath and you pick the other one.

Speaker 1 (48:49):
Okay, So Black Sabbath, you name a song specifically, Warpigs. Okay, Warpigs. Hey, everybody,
if you haven't heard Warpigs, you should go search it
on Spotify. Give it a listen. It's a great song.
And while you're at it, I don't know if you've
ever heard Barry Manilow's Chuck.

Speaker 3 (49:07):
I was going to suggest Barry Manilo I had it.

Speaker 1 (49:11):
Well, I had a fifty to fifty chance there. I
don't know if you've ever heard the Barry Manilo song
even now, but it's a classic Barry Manilo song. And
everyone should just go search those two on Spotify.

Speaker 3 (49:23):
So war Pigs and even now by Black Sabbath and
Barry Manilo, Let's see what happens. Let's see what happened.
That was a great experiment. Who was that from?

Speaker 1 (49:32):
That was from Cory and I just want to give
Corey's to side notes, saw you guys for the Andre
the Giant Live in Chicago episode. I also saw Josh's
Into the World live in Chicago when you tour that
your short series. That was so great and I really
enjoy that. Josh walked by on his way in when

(49:52):
we were outside and patted my friend Sam on the shoulder,
and he's definitely mentioned that several times since then.

Speaker 3 (50:01):
That's awesome.

Speaker 1 (50:02):
So that's from Corey and you patted Sam on the shoulder,
and I think that.

Speaker 3 (50:05):
Men lunch to say, yeah, thanks for coming to see me,
Sam and Corey. It was a fun show. Actually, let's
see if you wanna let us know how this experiment
pans out. Corey's Experiment is what we're gonna call it,
Corey's Choice. How about that love it? No, let's call
it a Corey's song rather than Brian's song. Oh okay, okay, no,

(50:30):
Corey can wait?

Speaker 1 (50:32):
Perfect okay, so oh no, but how about Corey's in Charge.

Speaker 3 (50:36):
Okay, that's a good one. That's perfect. We're gonna end
on that. If you want to let us know how
the Corey's in Charge experiment goes, but we'd love to
hear from you, you can send us an email to
Stuff Podcast at iHeartRadio dot com.

Speaker 2 (50:52):
Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
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or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.