March 20, 2026 • 47 mins
Caterpillars are simply the best. Don't think so? Well listen in and you'll soon agree.
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hey, and welcome to the playlist. The Stuff You Should
Know Think Spring playlist to be exact, Chuck, Jerry and
I figured it was high time that winner got the
heck on, So we're tapping into all of our wishful
thinking and getting the crocuses to sprout and the air
to warm up and the chipmunks to come out. For
our first episode, we're going with caterpillars colon Nature's Magicians
(00:26):
because we can't think of a more poetic way to
kick things off. So enjoy this episode, and enjoy the playlist,
and don't forget to think Spring with all your might.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Cool. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh and there's
Chuck and there's Jerry. The three of us just inchin
along in life together, trying to make do, making our
way in the world today. It takes everything a cop
Oh yeah, and this is stuff you should.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
Cheers.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
Cheers, Chuck cheers. Uh.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
You know, if it's an episode where we say mouth parts.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
I knew you're gonna say.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
This, then we're going back to the old school from
our let's say, former colleague Tracy is still our colleague.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
We just never see anyone anymore, right fully.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
But Tracy Wilson, a co host of The Stuff You
Missed in History Class along with Holly. They're wonderful. They've
been around for years. They're icons of podcasting. Tracy used
to write a bunch of insect articles for HowStuffWorks dot
com back in the day.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
She very legendarily stayed up for seventy two straight hours
and wrote like more than two dozen insect articles in
that time. They just got weirder and as the time
went on.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
I almost believe that for a second. But Tracy always
does a great job with those, or did a great job,
And most of most of the insect articles we've ever
used have been Tracy's original, like the ticks and the
fleas and I don't think ants, but bees probably was.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
She's the master of it for sure.
Speaker 3 (02:23):
I mean she wrote a lot of them, and this
one about caterpillars was from Tracy, along with stuff from
World at List in the eighty eight and rereading butterflies
dot com. But I just realized today when I was
researching this some more, that we haven't done butterflies yet no,
which is shocking.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
We've done one we.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
Did the wings like that, you're desk Okay.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
That's what it was. Yeah, And we talked about them
in the Animal Migration episode two.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
Yeah, but not a standalone on butterflies. So we're going
to talk about their their counterpart. And one of the
facts of the episode already for me is that but
caterpillars that eventually turned into butterflies.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
It's it's the same species. It's still the same thing.
Speaker 4 (03:03):
Right.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
We should never knew that we should do it too,
You didn't.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
I just figured it like, well, now it's something else,
like entirely huh.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
But did you know about the transformation and the chrysalis
or cocoon and everything? Did you know that was sure?
Speaker 3 (03:17):
Okay, I knew how it happened, but I thought it
was like presto chaninjo. Now you're you're not whatever Latin
name you are, you're a new Latin name.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
Oh gotcha. So like they just became a completely different
animal basically, or a different insect. Yeah, okay, I gotcha. Yeah, No,
they're the same thing, they're just configured differently. Yeah, they
got wings like a transformer, like they go box to
robot with the gun. That's right, you know, But in
a much more organic, soupy way, as we'll see you.
(03:46):
I love this one, Chuck. Like every kid knows about
caterpillars to go look at them in the garden and everything,
and they're super cute and weird looking, and you learn
the hard way not to touch some of them. But
I did not know a lot of this stuff either,
and it's endlessly fascinating to me, especially if you step
back and think about a life stage where an organism
(04:08):
undergoes such a complete transformation that their cells, they break
themselves down to their cells and then are rebuilt into
a new version. Not that many animals do that, and
scientists aren't exactly sure how or even why that evolved.
Although why it's kind of teleological, but how that evolved.
(04:29):
It's just this really bizarre thing that we're so aware of,
we kind of just take for granted until you really
stop and think about it. I love caterpillars, I guess,
is what I'm trying to say.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
Yeah, And it was also one of those where I
just I kept looking and kept looking. I was like,
how has just this been sitting here under our noses
all this time? I don't know, because it's right up
our Alley to talk about something like cat.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
No.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
Yeah. One of the reasons why they are so different
and they're configured differently, is that a caterpillar's life it
is the larval stage of an adult moth or butterfly.
That's probably the best easy definition of a caterpillar. The
reason that it's configured differently than its adult form is
(05:15):
because in the larval stage, its entire life is pooping, eating, pooping, molting, eating,
pooping molting. That's what I saw the caterpillar's life described
as over the course of five different molts. As we'll see,
that's all it does. That's all it wants to do.
It just wants to eat. So it's designed essentially as
an eating machine.
Speaker 3 (05:34):
Yeah, kind of shark like. And as Tracy points out,
like it's a very singular purpose. And the same butterfly
has a singular purpose later on, which is propagating the species,
if you know what I'm saying. But the caterpillar, yeah,
it's very shark like.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
All it does is eat.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
And store food and poop it out. And they eat
so much that apparently they say that they can eat
as much as twenty seven times they're body size in
their fairly short life. Yeah, and they can end up
being about one hundred times bigger at the by the
time they go to pupe et, which is when they
you know, hole up and turn into the butterfly as
(06:12):
when they.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
Pop out of that little egg that they also eat.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
That's amazing. And if you want to see something just astounding,
go look up a caterpillar egg or butterfly egg. I
don't know which one you'd call it, but they look
like little have you ever seen vasaline glass Huh? They
look like little like ornate vasaline glass vases.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
Yeah, they're very pretty.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
Yeah, I mean everything about butterflies are just great. Okay,
I'm on board with them fully.
Speaker 3 (06:42):
But yeah, that thing, I mean, it starts eating, It
eats its way out of the egg.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
Then it says, well, I'll just eat the rest of
the egg.
Speaker 3 (06:50):
And you know, I'm gonna I'm gonna go ahead and
eat this leaf that the egg is sitting on as well.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
While I'm at it.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
Uh huh.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
And they said, wow, I really like eating. Maybe I
should just keep eating for the rest of my life.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
Yeah, each one suddenly turns into Augustus glop and just
keeps going from there.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
That's exactly right.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
So I said that at molts. Apparently it molts five
different times, and the reason why it molts is because
it eats so much it outgrows its skin.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
It's amazing.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
It has a mechanism where it releases an enzyme. There's
a hormone that says, hey, you're getting a little your
clothes are getting a little tight. Maybe it's time to bolt.
And so that releases an enzyme that basically dissolves its
attachment to the exoskeleton. And then the new, bigger version
pops out of the old exoskeleton, walks away, and guess
what it does immediately after it starts eating again.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
Yeah, it tries to outgrow that suit.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
And it does that five times in its larval stage
as a caterpillar.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
Yeah, these molts are called in stars. Did you say.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
That that's the period of its life between molts.
Speaker 3 (07:55):
Yeah, yeah, so five in stars and between molts. Like
you said, all it's doing is just eating, trying to
get a larger suit size. But here's another cool fact
is they believe that not only do caterpillars have a
memory that lasts like a molt or two, but they
even think there are researchers at Georgetown that have sort
(08:20):
of proven that. I'm not how you sort of prove something,
but they feel pretty good about the fact that they
think that a butterfly remembers being a caterpillar.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
Yeah, they've done this at least one study that showed
that if they trained it to avoid certain smells as
one of its last in stars, it will remember that
as an adult butterfly, that it will avoid those same smells.
That's pretty cool because, as you'll see, what happens in
the chrysalis is so mind bending and nuts that the
(08:50):
idea that it can remember anything is it's pretty pretty amazing.
Speaker 3 (08:55):
Oh yeah, for sure, I didn't even consider that. That
is really hard to process.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
So let's talk about the body. Like you said, it
has mouth parts very important because it eats, eats, eats,
and the rest of its body is essentially a storage
facility for that food that it eats and that it
breaks down and stores. Essentially is fat. They're very fatty.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (09:21):
I get the idea that the inner body movement through
that body tube never stops. It's just a conveyor belt
almost of food coming in and poop leaving.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
That's my impression too.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
Yeah, the caterpillar is six legged. If you're like Pho Chuck.
I've seen a caterpillar or two in my day, and
they have tons of little legs.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
Those are not real legs.
Speaker 3 (09:48):
They only have six genuine legs, meaning that they have
segments and joints. The rest of those are called pro legs,
and there are a lot of those, and they move
all up the length of the abdomened the caterpillar, and
at the end of those little pro legs they have
little suction cups, little hooks. Basically, is it is it
a crochette? Do you think I think crochet?
Speaker 1 (10:09):
I'm going with crochet.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
Yeah, they're called crouschettes. And the yachts a crack rocket.
Speaker 3 (10:18):
Isn't that what those really fast motorcycles are called. Sure, okay,
I didn't know if that was, you know, a dirty
thing to say or not.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
No, no, that's all over. It's like douchebag. It was
it one time, like not very nice, but now everybody
says it, so even PG. Thirteen Movies.
Speaker 3 (10:36):
Oh I thought you meant it was okay to say, yes,
you're a real douchebag.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
Okay, Oh no, no, no, it's not. Still not, but
it's not like, you know, a horrid thing to say
like it used to.
Speaker 3 (10:46):
I gotcha because someone called me one the other day
in the car and I was like, oh, I thank you.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
Did they really No? No, they don't have bones, of course,
but they do have lots. They're very muscly.
Speaker 3 (10:59):
If you compare them to a human, we have about
six hundred and twenty nine muscles. Caterpillars have four thousand muscles.
Because those muscles, that's the way they're moving, you know.
They move in a little wave from front to back,
front to back. Yes, front to back, back to front,
back to front. How did I mess that up?
Speaker 1 (11:18):
Well, it depends on which the direction they're going.
Speaker 3 (11:20):
I guess, well, I guess so, And they move in
a couple of ways. One of two ways is sometimes
they're crawling, which means they're moving all of those pro
legs and legs at the same time in sequence. Or
they do what it sounds like an inch worm does.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
Right.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
Yeah, I don't know why they didn't identify them as inchorms,
but that's what they're talking about. They can move in
little arches where they bring their their front to their
back and their back together, making a mound. Out of
their middle their abdomen, and then they stretch the front
out and they bring the back up and then they
stretch the front up. That's what an inch worm does.
And that's basically one of two ways. The other way
(11:57):
for a caterpillar to move, either as a wave under.
There's a lot of like really cool videos of caterpillars
moving or inching along.
Speaker 3 (12:05):
Yeah, and I never looked close enough at an inch
worm to figure out why they move that way. And
I feel like a dummy now because it seems obvious
they move that way because their middle section doesn't have legs, right,
it's pretty The front pulls the back because those are
where the legs are, and the legs go, let me
catch up.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
It's like a little cute accordion.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
And it's really neat to see. When you watch a
close up of a centipeder, I keep wanting to say centipede,
but that's definitely a different animal. Caterpillars pro legs moving
as they they attach themselves. Like you said, they have
a suction cup. They just attach themselves to like the
branch or whatever that they're walking on. And if you
(12:46):
watch it and close enough detail, yes, excellent, Chuck, you
can really see those suction cups working and it's pretty cool.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
It's awesome.
Speaker 3 (12:57):
Most things on a caterpillar are small, obviouslycluding their little eyelets.
They have twelve of those are called stemata, and they
if you do look closely, though, it's really cool looking.
They have their arrange in a semi circle, sort of
wrapping around the head.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
Like what's his name from Reading Rainbow but on Star
Trek the next generation.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
Yeah, LeVar Burton.
Speaker 3 (13:19):
Like his eyewear, Yes, yeah, that's what I said. It
would be on top of his head though, right, like
like a headband. I think is it more on the front?
I thought it was more on top.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
I thought it was on the front, but you could
be right, it could be on top.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
It's kind of hard to tell with the caterpillar head
right exactly.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
You don't really know what's what. It's kind of like
a studio baker. You can't tell which way it's going,
right for our aged listeners love a good STUDI baker, Joe.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
Yeah, there's one little guys like Damn Skippy.
Speaker 3 (13:51):
Uh So those stamata they can identify light in darkness,
but caterpillars are are basically blind. They're for sure color blind,
and they just like I said, they can see sort
of light and dark and shadow and stuff like that,
but they are not like they're not crawling around seeing things.
They're kind of feeling their way around with those antennae
that they have. But although those antennae only handle taste
(14:14):
and smell, so I don't even know why I said that.
Speaker 1 (14:16):
So they also breathe in a really interesting way. They
breathe through spiracles, which are holes in the side of
the caterpillar, and they breathe in oxygen. It goes directly
to the trachea, and they breathe out carbon dioxide and
as they move, it's kind of like breathing in and
breathing out. That's like a byproduct of their movement, and
it all goes to that trichia, like I said, and
(14:38):
the trachia just diffuses it to the tissue throughout the body.
They have blood. It's called hemolymph like most insects blood,
but it doesn't it's not used to transport oxygen. It
transports things like hormones that trigger molting and things like that,
but the oxygen just diffuses throughout the body.
Speaker 3 (14:55):
Yeah, you know, an inch worm, it is like a
little accordion, And if you could figure out how to
build and insert a tiny little like wooden reed in
each spiracle, that little thing might sound like an accordion
as it moved.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
That'd be pretty neat, kind of cruel to I imagine.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
Yeah, I mean probably if you're sticking wood in the
tiny breathing holes of a caterpillar. I don't think it would.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
Don't try that.
Speaker 1 (15:22):
By the way, Chuck, did I tell you that caterpillar
is from the old French chateapellos, which means shaggy cat.
Speaker 3 (15:30):
Oh, like the actor Timothy Chatapellos? Is that you know
that's Timothy Shallomey?
Speaker 1 (15:35):
Sorry, right, Yeah, Timothy. Shaggy cat would be that name.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
Kind of looks like a shaggy cat.
Speaker 1 (15:40):
But apparently they think it was the the is it
the wooly bully caterpillar that? Yeah, they think that that
was the original shaggy cat and it's just kind of
caught on from there, But that's where caterpillar comes from.
Speaker 3 (15:54):
Yeah, And speaking of wily bully, you notice on caterpillars
a lot of times those little hairs or little quills
or spines those are called Oh man, we've even had
scientists tell us how to pronounce that ae.
Speaker 2 (16:07):
Is it? Stay?
Speaker 1 (16:09):
That's what I think it is.
Speaker 3 (16:10):
Yeah, it's either that or we've been getting it wrong.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
I can't remember.
Speaker 3 (16:14):
But everyone is like in science guys, anytimes it's AE,
you pronounce the blank and I can't remember which one
it is. Oh, it's either set or SETAE. And now
we're gonna get more emails. And maybe I should just
put a sticky note on my laptop so i'll always
remember that. But that's what they're called, and they have
a lot of functions. They can deter things that want
(16:36):
to eat caterpillars because a lot of times these things
carry little irritants and toxins. And you just put a
pin in that for our very final segment at the end.
But like you said, yeah, but you can get, you know,
little little irritated bumps sometimes if you handle the wrong caterpillar.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
Oh yeah, and you shouldn't handle a category get much
worse than that too. Yeah, if you've ever touched the caterpillar,
That's why I was referring too earlier, Like as a kid,
I remember touching one and just being like, oh my god,
what what just happened? And it hurt very badly, I
remember distinctly, but I still love caterpillars after that.
Speaker 3 (17:14):
I remember there was one kind and someone will know
what kind ofness is, but I think it was sort
of yellow and black, and we would, you know, put
our finger on the ground and the caterpillar would crawl
up our hand and then we would like get a
leaf and have it crawl off. So I don't think
we harmed the caterpillar. We were just sitting it kind
(17:35):
of crawl on us for a minute. But and I
wasn't touching the spine, so I never got that irritation.
But I used to love doing that, and I just
thought that was so cool that they I guess now
knowing that they're blind, that there's like crawling on a stick,
and it's like, now I'm crawling on a finger.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
Right, Yeah that's cute.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
But yeah, you wouldn't stick like kid fingers.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
You wouldn't have been touching the hair like structures, so
it wouldn't have stung you. It's not like I don't
think it's an active process. I think it's a passive
thing where you just touch it and they're not like
die die die. It's just like, right, you just touched
it and it did its Thingah.
Speaker 2 (18:10):
Yeah, I get the feeling.
Speaker 3 (18:11):
The caterpillars even like, sorry, man, and you know it
shouldn't touch me, but sorry.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
Most caterpillars seem rather chill, but not all of them are.
I was not happy to find this out. I find
this rather unpleasant. But there's some species of caterpillars in
Hawaii that are actually carnivores. Far and away, most species
of caterpillars, and hence butterflies are are herbivores. They just
(18:38):
eat leaves, That's what they do. They eat leaves and shoots. Wait,
eat shoots and leaves. So there's the ones in Hawaii, though,
they'll eat snails. And not only do they eat snails,
it's really awful. They tie the snails to, say, like
a twig or a leaf or something, using spinnerets. They
have silk producing organs, and they'll tie the snail, the
(19:01):
whole shell and all to like a twig so the
snail can't get away, and then they climb into the
shell and eat the snail alive.
Speaker 2 (19:09):
It is horrifying.
Speaker 1 (19:10):
I don't like that particular kind of caterpillar, but I
like all the rest.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
Yeah, they tie it down and eat it.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
So awful. Imagine it just coming into your house too,
and you're like, please know, and you have no escape.
And that's that.
Speaker 3 (19:24):
Yeah, it was pretty horrifying to read that and frankly disappointing.
But there's also a brand, a brand in Australia brand Hey.
They lay their eggs and ant hills and when they
come out, they will eat those ants. But aside from that,
in the Hawaiian they, like you said, are strictly herbivores
(19:46):
and they are using those leaves also to camouflage themselves.
They have a lot of great mechanisms to keep this
not quite octopus level, but they seem like they're you know,
I don't know if it's wrong to use words smart,
but they know to feed under leaves so birds can't
see them. They also have some natural camouflage, like sometimes
(20:09):
those eyes can look like the fake eyes can look
like snakes.
Speaker 1 (20:13):
Did you see that one?
Speaker 2 (20:15):
Yeah, it looks like a snake.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
Yeah, it looks like a bright green snake. And apparently
they'll arrange themselves sometimes to make it look like a
long snake, Like three hundred caterpillars will get together and
line up and it's like Wow, there's a snake. No,
it's a line of caterpillars.
Speaker 3 (20:30):
Yeah, like a lot of them are solitary caterpillars, but
there is what was the one in particular that traveling.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
Groups gregarious caterpillars.
Speaker 3 (20:41):
Yeah, I get the feeling. Those are the ones that
might do the old snake one too.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
Yes, I think those are swallow tails and they might
be gregarious. Yeah. So I say we take a break, Chuck,
and then we'll come back, and I propose that we
talked more about caterpillars.
Speaker 2 (20:56):
Let's do it.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
Softly jaw. Okay, So you mentioned a couple of things
that they do to protect themselves, camouflage, just eating a
little bit on the underside of a leaf. There's a
lot of other things that they can do too. There's
(21:28):
there's so many different species of caterpillar because again we're
talking about moths and butterflies, they're not just all the
same thing. That they've developed all sorts of really interesting
means of defense. One of the ways they say the
best defense is shooting your poop out, and there's a
type of caterpillar that does that. I think it's the
(21:50):
it's the silver spotted skipper and skipper is basically a
type of butterfly, and it shoots its waist called frast
it's poop as far as five feet from itself in
order to keep predators from being able to track it
back to its source.
Speaker 3 (22:08):
That explains that old saying, you ain't nothing but caterpillar frass.
Speaker 2 (22:14):
M I never knew what they mean.
Speaker 1 (22:16):
You're really good at jumping, that's what they say to you.
Speaker 3 (22:20):
Yeah, and that's one of the things they do, like
several other things, which is it all sort of falls
to the umbrella of I don't want anyone to know
I'm like even here, So a poop will be a
big giveaway obviously.
Speaker 2 (22:32):
Another as if, like they love to eat.
Speaker 3 (22:35):
If if a predator sees a ton of chewed up
leaves everywhere, they're gonna be like, ooh, the caterpillars nearby.
I love to eat those things. So as much as
those caterpillars love to eat, it is their singular purpose
in life. They will many times just eat little bits
off of many, many leaves to kind of disguise the fact, like,
(22:55):
no caterpillar here. There's just a few nibbles here and there,
yeah leaf rather than just yeah, rather than just like
taking a leaf down to its spine.
Speaker 1 (23:04):
Yeah, which any even the dumbest of birds can be Like,
there's a caterpillar around here.
Speaker 2 (23:09):
And you know they want to do that, but they
still don't do it.
Speaker 1 (23:11):
I know. Caterpillars have tremendous self control, you doo. We
mentioned that they have spinnerets so that they can spin silk,
and they use it to great effect in all sorts
of different ways, including defense. Apparently some kinds of caterpillars
will like spin a little thing of silk that they'll
attach to the leaf they're on, and when a predator comes,
(23:33):
they just jump off, basically like John McClean and die Hard,
and they're attached to the silk, so they swing into
you know, a window in the Knokotomi building and then
climb back up when the bird goes away. But they
just jump off the leaf to get away. I'll bet
that's pretty neat to see.
Speaker 2 (23:50):
That's right. And to combat jet lag, they make fists
with their toes.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
Yeah, what do you know.
Speaker 3 (23:56):
I wonder if they leap. I'd like to see that
in slow motion. I wonder if all of those legs
and pro legs at once do that in concert that
would be pretty cool.
Speaker 1 (24:05):
Or if they inch, they just shoot themselves up. They
inch so quickly that shoots them right off of the leaf.
Speaker 2 (24:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (24:12):
So yeah, that's one use of the silk is like
literal climbing rope. And like we said, like the solo caterpillar,
which is many of the I want to say, brands,
what a dummy varieties species.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
Here you go.
Speaker 3 (24:28):
You know, there's going around, they're eating, they're they're laying
an egg. They're using the silk as as like a lasso.
Or maybe they might make a little nest. Like we
said earlier, maybe they might restrain that that snail. But
those gregarious kinds that live in big groups, they really
get going with the silk production. They make big nests
(24:49):
in trees and around tree trunks.
Speaker 1 (24:51):
You've probably seen them before.
Speaker 2 (24:53):
Oh yeah, they're like big tents.
Speaker 3 (24:54):
Basically, if you've seen big you know, it looks like
sort of a real dense spider web. I guess sometimes
those are spiders, right.
Speaker 1 (25:03):
Yeah, there's some kinds of spiders that do that, but
I think probably more often than not what you're seeing
or gregarious caterpillars getting together.
Speaker 3 (25:10):
Yeah, but they also use their little spinnerets as like
a trail, like, hey, we're all going this way and
we're gonna lay this little trail and we know that.
You know, if you want to get home, this is
how you get home.
Speaker 1 (25:23):
What's neat is those trails are often intergenerational and so
like an older generation will leave there that that silk
for the next generation to use, and that next generation
then can grow bigger and stronger because they didn't have
to use that energy to create the silk for that
that leads to the to the food source. I thought
that was pretty nice.
Speaker 2 (25:44):
Yeah, like handy down silk, Yeah exactly, or like you
know link of rope that grandpa gave.
Speaker 1 (25:50):
You, Yeah, same thing, hand me down silk, length of
rope from grandpa.
Speaker 4 (25:56):
What else?
Speaker 1 (25:57):
There's another thing too that we haven't quite figured it out,
and we I mean the entomology world, and by we
also mean them that it may or may not be
advantageous to live in a gregarious community as opposed to
being solitary. Because yes, it's easier to build a big
shelter for yourself if you have a bunch of other
(26:18):
friends helping you. It's easier to find food if you
have other people looking at the same time you are
and then telling you what they found. But at the
same time you're also competing with those same people or
those same caterpillars. I should say, yeah, and that's a
big that can be a big problem too. I like it.
Speaker 3 (26:35):
Caterpillars are people too, exactly, and if there's a disease,
you know it's gonna spread pretty readily within that population
if they're all living together. But I think you know,
we've held off long enough. We should we should talk
about that metamorphosis, which is what everyone wants to know about,
and that is basically a caterpillar is doing its thing.
(26:56):
It's going through those molts. It's that fifth molt, and
they say, you know what, it's been great, But I
think I'm tired of eating. Finally, m I'm gonna go
off and wander off into the woods and find a
safe spot and I'm going to pupeate everybody, and when
you see me again, I will be the most beautiful
thing you've ever seen.
Speaker 1 (27:17):
Yeah, pretty neat. And this is where the terminology gets
really confusing. If you do any research on.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
This, yeah, I can for sure.
Speaker 1 (27:27):
So the pupa is often referred to as the form
the body form that the centipede that the caterpillar is
in as it enters the transformation. Right, Yes, it's actually
the life stage, like the caterpillar is the larval life stage,
(27:47):
the butterfly or the moth is the adult. The pupa
is the life stage in between. But for all intents
and purposes, you can also say that's a butterfly pupa,
although or that's a moth pupa. Right, that's the easiest,
most understandable part of it. It starts to get really
strange from there because the butterfly caterpillar when it emerges
(28:09):
from that fifth mold, it has a special kind of
skin on it, and over time, when it turns upside
down and hangs from a leaf and begins its transformation,
that skin hardens and it forms basically the protective layer
that's going to protect that caterpillar turned butterfly as it
undergoes its transformation, and that's called the crystalis But just
(28:32):
butterfly caterpillars do that, right, not moths.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
I think that's right.
Speaker 1 (28:38):
And then I think it's just moths because they don't
form chrysalis or crysalie. They are the only ones to
spin a cocoon to protect themselves.
Speaker 3 (28:48):
Correct, right, and that cocoon starts talk kind of soft,
but that eventually hardens as well. But I think that's right.
But the chrysalis itself is not some like shell they
build like it.
Speaker 2 (29:01):
It is. It is the thing.
Speaker 1 (29:03):
Yeah, it's the outer layer of skin.
Speaker 3 (29:05):
Okay, yeah, because it can actually twitch and move as
a defense. Yeah, like it's it's a thinking sentient, well
not thinking necessarily, but it is a shell that is
a living thing. It's not like let me build this,
you know, this thing to get into. It is the
thing that it is in.
Speaker 1 (29:23):
Right, So imagine if you underwent this transformation, you probably
go off into a corner and kind of ball up,
maybe in a bit of a fetal position. But then
imagine as part of this process, all of your skin
fused together and turned into like an outer shell rather
than you know this this you know, this thing covering you.
(29:43):
It's it's like this now this big ball that you're
now kind of separated from inside and you're doing your
thing inside. That's kind of like what the chrysalis is like.
Speaker 3 (29:53):
Yeah, And so we mentioned the silk, like the uses
as like a climbing rope.
Speaker 2 (29:57):
And stuff like that, and to build little nests.
Speaker 3 (30:00):
It really comes in handy when it's time to pupate
because they use this silk in a variety of ways.
There's more than one way to skin a cat, and
there's more than one way for a caterpillar to metamorphosize. Sometimes,
like you said, they hang upside down from that leaf,
so they've spun like a little silk pad that attaches
to something. Sometimes they create like a little hammock. Sometimes
(30:22):
they make like a little sling in concert with a stick.
There are different ways that they can do this, but
it always involves using silk to sort of stabilize itself,
either upside down or right side up or sideways or whatever. Right,
and then they start to do that thing, whether it's
a moth spinning that cocoon or just the gradual transformation
(30:42):
of caterpillar into chrysalis.
Speaker 1 (30:45):
Right. And then so once that happens, once the cocoon
is full or the crysalis is hardened, this and one
of the most amazing things that on Earth happens in there.
And it's neat because we've gotten to the point where
we have photography that can peer inside of this without
harming the caterpillar, and they have like time lapse videos
(31:09):
of this transformation. And as the thing turns more and
more into what's obviously like a butterfly or moth, and
you see it hanging upside down just forming it. It
looks like a cross between an hr Geiger painting and
Michael Crichton's Coma, the movie version. It's really neat, but
(31:32):
it also gives you this. It has this kind of
regal and majestic feel to it as well. I produced
a lot of emotions in me apparently.
Speaker 2 (31:42):
Yeah, I mean it's.
Speaker 3 (31:45):
This isn't the science y explanation, but it's almost as
if you can take a tray of put a bunch
of spaghetti and meatballs in a dish and cover it
up and then when you open it up it's a lasagna. Yeah,
and you're like, how did that happen?
Speaker 2 (32:03):
Like how did that even happen?
Speaker 1 (32:05):
So this is how it happens. The caterpillar breaks itself
down into a soup of cells, like it's basically like
a caterpillar soup for a while, and some of the
cells keep their form generally, or at least stay attached
to one another. So those leg cells, yeah, they change.
(32:26):
They look different, like a caterpillar's actual true legs look
different from the butterfly's true legs, but they're still the
same cells. They're just they rearrange themselves a little bit.
Most of the other cells just completely come apart, turn
into imaginal cells, which are analogous to our stem cells,
and that they can turn into any kind of cell.
(32:46):
And then it reconfigures itself using the same cells, same amount,
same everything into a butterfly. It reconfigures itself over the
course of about two weeks.
Speaker 3 (32:59):
It's un Yeah, it really is, Like my brain breaks
every time I try to make sense, especially when you
see what comes out, you know, And I mean if
it came out looking like a dung beetle like that
would still be awesome. But to come out looking like
a butterfly with those iridescent wings, yeah, and the little
faces on those wings, it's just unbelievable. And I guess
(33:21):
I mean, evolutionarily speaking, this is all to eventually get
to like a pollinator.
Speaker 1 (33:26):
I don't understand it. This is where I think they
that science has kind of thrown off. They're like, the
best explanation I saw is that it's better than having
two things compete for the same food source, but that
that doesn't really make any sense, you know, because that
doesn't make any sense to me at all. I don't
understand that. But that was the best explanation I saw,
(33:48):
and I didn't even understand it.
Speaker 2 (33:50):
So as to the why, yeah, yeah, Like.
Speaker 1 (33:53):
It's just so strange. It's I just don't understand it.
And everything goes through life like stages. We go through puberty,
we become adults, we go from infant babies to grown adults.
But there's not a period where we stop and over
the course of two weeks to completely reconfigure ourselves into
(34:14):
a new form. There's not that many things out there
that do do that, and we just don't fully understand
why it happens, and maybe we never will, and I
think that'd be just fine.
Speaker 3 (34:24):
Although I would argue that the Josh Clark I knew
fifteen years ago his caterpillar like has now emerged as
a beautiful butterfly.
Speaker 1 (34:31):
Thank you. I remember reading when Christopher Hitchins became a conservative,
one of the Liberal members of parliament said that this
is one of the rare instances where the butterfly turns
back on lug Oh no, yeah.
Speaker 2 (34:46):
Wow, I'd like to hear what that exit.
Speaker 1 (34:48):
I think I read that in two thousand and seven
and it still stuck with me.
Speaker 2 (34:51):
Yeah, that's a good one. We didn't take our second break,
did we.
Speaker 1 (34:54):
Nope, it's time.
Speaker 2 (34:55):
All right, Well let's take our second break.
Speaker 3 (34:57):
We'll probably still be talking about this metamorphosis, you know,
when we come back, So just be.
Speaker 4 (35:01):
Prepared softly, jaws.
Speaker 2 (35:18):
Soft all right.
Speaker 3 (35:24):
I mean, I guess we're done talking about metamorphosis. It's
called holo metabolism. Yeah, that full transformation. And I don't
think he said it takes a couple of weeks generally.
Speaker 1 (35:36):
Yeah, I saw about two weeks something like that on average.
It can be more or less depending on the weather
and stuff.
Speaker 3 (35:42):
Yeah, and I took it as depending on the weather.
Meaning is that they don't want to do this in
the middle of winter. So if they get started and
like winter comes early, maybe it'll they'll just stay in
there for a few months.
Speaker 1 (35:54):
Is that right? There are some species that over winter
in their cocoon or in their chrysalis, and that's part
of their thing. But I saw that there's that the
ideal there's an ideal temperature. That's what I took it
to mean, oh, okay, and that the ideal temperature is
twenty one degrees celsius. And get this, buddy, I converted
to farent height. You s we talked about the other day.
Speaker 2 (36:13):
So you did it yourself.
Speaker 1 (36:14):
Yeah, it's like, uh, I love it down. I could
do it again if I wanted to. But I'm just
gonna find what I wrote down. I think it's like
eighty eight eighty nine degrees.
Speaker 3 (36:22):
Fahrenheits all right, I love it when after all these
eighty one it's eighty one, you're still brave enough to
put yourself out there with math.
Speaker 1 (36:31):
Here, I'll just do this, okay. So here we find
fahrenheit from twenty one degree celsius. So it's twenty one
plus thirty two. Okay, we're getting everything back equal again.
So what is that fifty six times one point eight
I believe comes to eighty one.
Speaker 3 (36:48):
When was the last time you did sort of written
down long division or something like that.
Speaker 1 (36:55):
Oh it's been a long time. By the way, it's
eighty four point.
Speaker 2 (36:58):
Six eighty four point six. Can you still do that stuff?
Speaker 1 (37:02):
I don't know. Probably if I gave enough time to it. Sure,
I just did just it's not a part of my life.
Yeah anymore.
Speaker 3 (37:09):
I actually don't know if I remember how to do
long division. I recently because Ruby is starting, you know,
like this past year started like multiplication and stuff and
came at me with like three digit times of two
digit and I was like, oh, you know what it was.
Speaker 2 (37:26):
Like, I got it. I got it.
Speaker 3 (37:27):
I remember, and I remember how to do that and
to carry the stuff. But I definitely don't think I
could do long division anymore.
Speaker 2 (37:35):
I don't.
Speaker 3 (37:35):
I sort of remember, but I don't think I would
fully be able to complete a problem.
Speaker 1 (37:40):
By the way. I I know, I brushed past it
because I don't handle compliments that well. But I do
appreciate the comment about me metamorphosizing into a butterfly.
Speaker 2 (37:49):
That was a joke. I'm just kidding.
Speaker 1 (37:51):
Well, definitely edit this part.
Speaker 2 (37:53):
No, it was for sure true. I appreciate you appreciating that.
Speaker 1 (37:56):
So did we just come back from from a break?
Is that here?
Speaker 2 (38:01):
Yeah, that's what's going on.
Speaker 3 (38:02):
But we can wrap it up and talk about caterpillar management,
because here's the deal. Caterpillars eat leaves, and you know
they can they can eat garden stuff. If you have
a garden that you're planting, but it's not that big
a deal. Like, individual caterpillars are not gonna ravage your
(38:23):
garden and spoil your garden. If you have big groups
of those gregarious caterpillars, they can cause problems. But you know,
if you see caterpillars in your garden, don't like, don't
overreact and be like, I gotta, I gotta start killing
all these caterpillars. You know, take a breath, assess your problem.
(38:44):
Are they ravaging your garden or do you just have
some caterpillars here and there, like because you want those
butterflies later on, don't you.
Speaker 1 (38:50):
Right, Yeah, definitely, that's a big part. And it's not
just for their beauty either. Caterpillars and butterflies alike are
food source for birds, which is sad, but it's part
of the circle of life, I guess. So that's one
reason alone. They're also probably even more important for your garden. Pollinators, yeah,
big time pollinators. There was a dead milkman joke in there.
(39:12):
I couldn't quite I couldn't quite make it. But so
they pollinate their food source, and most caterpillars, although all
of them eat leaves and again like we said they're
eating machines. The amount of damage they're doing is really
kind of pales in comparison to the benefits you get
from having them in your ecosystem. So for the most part,
(39:33):
you want to just leave them alone.
Speaker 2 (39:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (39:35):
I mean, there's a whole section if you're interested on
how to kill and get rid of caterpillars at HowStuffWorks
dot com in this article, but I don't even feel
like talking about it, to be honest.
Speaker 1 (39:46):
Well, let's talk about gregarious caterpillars, because those are the
ones that really are problematic. They can on a bad
year or a good year for the gregarious caterpillars, they
can consume up to a quarter of the leaves in
a forest. Yeah, and they if they attack the same
tree enough times, they'll kill a tree. So gypsy moth
(40:08):
caterpillars are gregarious, and they're well known for killing trees
just from eating the leaves off of it. That's how
much damage they can do. And they can also harm
crops too, So gregarious caterpillars you actually probably do want
to get rid of if you come across it. But
the key is prevention. Like you look for the eggs
which form a ring around like a tree branch and
(40:29):
take care of those then, like, don't try to deal
with them later, it's going to be too late. You
want to be proactive. They say the best defense is
shooting your poop five feet away from you.
Speaker 2 (40:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (40:41):
I mean, I guess if you're in forest management or
if you're a farmer and it has like a literal
effect on your crops and your forests and stuff like that,
they're out there, you know, burning tents and nests and
things like that. But that's not something you should go
out and try to do because that's you don't want
to catch something on a tree on fire.
Speaker 2 (41:01):
Just not a good idea.
Speaker 1 (41:02):
But can you just see somebody trying to get rid
of caterpillars and be like, yeah, oh and you just
started a wildfire?
Speaker 2 (41:08):
Yes I can't, I really can.
Speaker 1 (41:12):
It's hilarious if you think about it. It's so doode
it is.
Speaker 2 (41:17):
Should we finish up with the assassin caterpillar?
Speaker 3 (41:19):
Well?
Speaker 1 (41:19):
Can I talk about one more thing you don't want
to talk about just for a second, because I think
it's kind of nuts as well. Okay, there's a bacterium
called Basillis thrying inis. I believe et for short, this
is a bacteria that people purposely introduce as a as
a caterpillar control measure, and it goes in and created
produces holes in the caterpillars gut and leads to sepsis,
(41:41):
and it dies a painful death a few days after
being infected. This is considered organic gardening. The problem is
it doesn't just target caterpillars you don't want it. It
targets all caterpillars. And it's also a pretty terrible way
to die. So I'm I think I'm with you, Chuck Man.
I think you just you say the caterpillars are here
to stay as long as they're not gregarious. I'm just
(42:03):
gonna let them live and let live. Yeah, Okay, I
just wanted to get on that soapbox for a sing.
Speaker 3 (42:08):
Yeah, I'm with you. So I mentioned the assassin caterpillar.
This is the Linomia obliqua, or the giant silkworm moth,
or the assassin caterpillar. It is the deadliest caterpillar in
the world and there have been supposedly several hundred people
in South America that have died from the toxin injected
(42:32):
from this caterpillar.
Speaker 1 (42:33):
Quills from the sette.
Speaker 3 (42:35):
Yeah, I think it takes a lot, like even if
one of them, you know, injected some toxin into you,
you're going to be uncomfortable and it probably won't feel great.
But I think you need to get like, you know,
twenty to one hundred times that to actually kill you.
Yet it still happens, Yeah, it does.
Speaker 1 (42:52):
Apparently it's responsible for five hundred deaths around South America
I think total, like in all time as far as
documented goes. Yeah, it takes a lot, like I think
twenty to one hundred times to kill you. But the
way that it kills you is it's an anticoagulant, a
very powerful one, and you die of internal bleeding essentially.
Speaker 2 (43:12):
Yeah, it's it's a blood thinner.
Speaker 1 (43:15):
Yeah, and that's that actually is being studied, the toxins
in that particular caterpillar being studied for its usefulness in biomedicine.
Speaker 3 (43:24):
Yeah, I think they're only what is it, there's like
thirty two species of Linomia, but only two of those
have that blood thinner venom, the obliqua and then the achillis.
Speaker 1 (43:37):
But the rest will still sting you. It's just not
going to kill you. It'll still hurt that's South America.
In North America, the biggest one we have is the
puss caterpillar. Puss megalopige upper cularis the southern flannel moth,
and just accidentally brushing it can cause excruciating pain I've seen.
(43:58):
So just be careful. Admire caterpillars with your eyes, not
with your hands.
Speaker 2 (44:03):
Yeah. I guess I got lucky as a kid by
just letting them crawl on me for a minute. But yeah,
I I never felt that sting.
Speaker 1 (44:11):
There's one other thing too, The eastern tent caterpillars are problematic,
especially in places like Kentucky, because they cause what's called
mayor reproductive loss syndrome, where just I think fifty grams
which is a tenth of a pound of these caterpillars
ingested by a horse while it's foraging can cause it
to lose its fetus, have a stillborn berth, all sorts
(44:36):
of crazy stuff, so much so that it has a
whole syndrome named after and it's just for eating these caterpillars.
Oh wow, isn't that crazy?
Speaker 2 (44:43):
That is this is a good one.
Speaker 1 (44:44):
I thought you'd like that. Yeah, caterpillars are great. I
think we should do a two parter with butterflies.
Speaker 2 (44:50):
Oh should we sure? I think Tracy wrote that one too.
Speaker 1 (44:55):
Okay, I say we get on a bench.
Speaker 2 (44:57):
I was going to suggest that, but then I thought,
is that too much?
Speaker 1 (45:00):
I don't know, I don't know. I guess they don't
have to come out back to back. They can be
companion pieces.
Speaker 3 (45:05):
How about that we're back to back and then we
can skip the metamorphosis marsa.
Speaker 1 (45:10):
Well, while we're figuring that out, I say, everybody, it's
time for listener mail.
Speaker 3 (45:16):
I'm going to call this stuff you should know acrossy.
I was very excited because one of our listeners, well,
I'll just read it.
Speaker 2 (45:23):
I'll let you hang on that.
Speaker 1 (45:24):
For a second.
Speaker 3 (45:25):
Hey, guys, When my wife Katie and I were dating,
we would meet up at lunch to do the daily
crossword together.
Speaker 2 (45:32):
I proposed to her twenty years ago using a.
Speaker 3 (45:34):
Crossword I constructed myself, and years later, it's not only crosswords,
but stuff you should know. It keeps our marriage life vibrant,
it gives us something to talk about every week, and
needless to say, your recent episode on crossword puzzles brought
our life together full circle. About ten years after we married,
I became a published crossword constructor and have been. I've
(45:55):
continued ever since with puzzles in La Times, Wall Street Journal,
New York Times, among others.
Speaker 2 (46:00):
So, Jeff is pretty experience is across the maker.
Speaker 3 (46:05):
As a thank you for a wonderful episode, I'm sending
you an original puzzle the stuff you should.
Speaker 1 (46:10):
Know theme Wow, you do enjoyed Wow.
Speaker 2 (46:13):
And I haven't done it yet. It is printed out
in my office. He sent me just a you know,
send us. It's not a digital version, so I can't.
I can't do it on my phone.
Speaker 3 (46:25):
I got to get out the old pencil nice, which
would be kind of fun, and I can't wait to
tackle it. I've just been waiting for the right window
of time. And that is from Jeff Stillman and big
shout out to Jeff and his wife Katie.
Speaker 1 (46:38):
I don't know how I missed that one, but I'm
glad you called it out because I can't wait to
do that puzzle too. So thanks Jeff.
Speaker 2 (46:43):
Yeah, yeah, got Jeff Stillman, go look at your emails
and print.
Speaker 1 (46:47):
That sucker out. Yes. Well, thank you to you both
Jeff and Katie. And if you want to be like
Jeff and send us some amazing thing that's fine with us.
You can send it via email to stuff podcast at iHeartRadio.
Speaker 4 (47:04):
Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Hey, and welcome to the playlist. The Stuff You Should
Know Think Spring playlist to be exact, Chuck, Jerry and
I figured it was high time that winner got the
heck on, So we're tapping into all of our wishful
thinking and getting the crocuses to sprout and the air
to warm up and the chipmunks to come out. For
our first episode, we're going with caterpillars colon Nature's Magicians
(00:26):
because we can't think of a more poetic way to
kick things off. So enjoy this episode, and enjoy the playlist,
and don't forget to think Spring with all your might.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Cool. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh and there's
Chuck and there's Jerry. The three of us just inchin
along in life together, trying to make do, making our
way in the world today. It takes everything a cop
Oh yeah, and this is stuff you should.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
Cheers.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
Cheers, Chuck cheers. Uh.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
You know, if it's an episode where we say mouth parts.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
I knew you're gonna say.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
This, then we're going back to the old school from
our let's say, former colleague Tracy is still our colleague.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
We just never see anyone anymore, right fully.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
But Tracy Wilson, a co host of The Stuff You
Missed in History Class along with Holly. They're wonderful. They've
been around for years. They're icons of podcasting. Tracy used
to write a bunch of insect articles for HowStuffWorks dot
com back in the day.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
She very legendarily stayed up for seventy two straight hours
and wrote like more than two dozen insect articles in
that time. They just got weirder and as the time
went on.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
I almost believe that for a second. But Tracy always
does a great job with those, or did a great job,
And most of most of the insect articles we've ever
used have been Tracy's original, like the ticks and the
fleas and I don't think ants, but bees probably was.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
She's the master of it for sure.
Speaker 3 (02:23):
I mean she wrote a lot of them, and this
one about caterpillars was from Tracy, along with stuff from
World at List in the eighty eight and rereading butterflies
dot com. But I just realized today when I was
researching this some more, that we haven't done butterflies yet no,
which is shocking.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
We've done one we.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
Did the wings like that, you're desk Okay.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
That's what it was. Yeah, And we talked about them
in the Animal Migration episode two.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
Yeah, but not a standalone on butterflies. So we're going
to talk about their their counterpart. And one of the
facts of the episode already for me is that but
caterpillars that eventually turned into butterflies.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
It's it's the same species. It's still the same thing.
Speaker 4 (03:03):
Right.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
We should never knew that we should do it too,
You didn't.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
I just figured it like, well, now it's something else,
like entirely huh.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
But did you know about the transformation and the chrysalis
or cocoon and everything? Did you know that was sure?
Speaker 3 (03:17):
Okay, I knew how it happened, but I thought it
was like presto chaninjo. Now you're you're not whatever Latin
name you are, you're a new Latin name.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
Oh gotcha. So like they just became a completely different
animal basically, or a different insect. Yeah, okay, I gotcha. Yeah, No,
they're the same thing, they're just configured differently. Yeah, they
got wings like a transformer, like they go box to
robot with the gun. That's right, you know, But in
a much more organic, soupy way, as we'll see you.
(03:46):
I love this one, Chuck. Like every kid knows about
caterpillars to go look at them in the garden and everything,
and they're super cute and weird looking, and you learn
the hard way not to touch some of them. But
I did not know a lot of this stuff either,
and it's endlessly fascinating to me, especially if you step
back and think about a life stage where an organism
(04:08):
undergoes such a complete transformation that their cells, they break
themselves down to their cells and then are rebuilt into
a new version. Not that many animals do that, and
scientists aren't exactly sure how or even why that evolved.
Although why it's kind of teleological, but how that evolved.
(04:29):
It's just this really bizarre thing that we're so aware of,
we kind of just take for granted until you really
stop and think about it. I love caterpillars, I guess,
is what I'm trying to say.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
Yeah, And it was also one of those where I
just I kept looking and kept looking. I was like,
how has just this been sitting here under our noses
all this time? I don't know, because it's right up
our Alley to talk about something like cat.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
No.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
Yeah. One of the reasons why they are so different
and they're configured differently, is that a caterpillar's life it
is the larval stage of an adult moth or butterfly.
That's probably the best easy definition of a caterpillar. The
reason that it's configured differently than its adult form is
(05:15):
because in the larval stage, its entire life is pooping, eating, pooping, molting, eating,
pooping molting. That's what I saw the caterpillar's life described
as over the course of five different molts. As we'll see,
that's all it does. That's all it wants to do.
It just wants to eat. So it's designed essentially as
an eating machine.
Speaker 3 (05:34):
Yeah, kind of shark like. And as Tracy points out,
like it's a very singular purpose. And the same butterfly
has a singular purpose later on, which is propagating the species,
if you know what I'm saying. But the caterpillar, yeah,
it's very shark like.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
All it does is eat.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
And store food and poop it out. And they eat
so much that apparently they say that they can eat
as much as twenty seven times they're body size in
their fairly short life. Yeah, and they can end up
being about one hundred times bigger at the by the
time they go to pupe et, which is when they
you know, hole up and turn into the butterfly as
(06:12):
when they.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
Pop out of that little egg that they also eat.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
That's amazing. And if you want to see something just astounding,
go look up a caterpillar egg or butterfly egg. I
don't know which one you'd call it, but they look
like little have you ever seen vasaline glass Huh? They
look like little like ornate vasaline glass vases.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
Yeah, they're very pretty.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
Yeah, I mean everything about butterflies are just great. Okay,
I'm on board with them fully.
Speaker 3 (06:42):
But yeah, that thing, I mean, it starts eating, It
eats its way out of the egg.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
Then it says, well, I'll just eat the rest of
the egg.
Speaker 3 (06:50):
And you know, I'm gonna I'm gonna go ahead and
eat this leaf that the egg is sitting on as well.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
While I'm at it.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
Uh huh.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
And they said, wow, I really like eating. Maybe I
should just keep eating for the rest of my life.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
Yeah, each one suddenly turns into Augustus glop and just
keeps going from there.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
That's exactly right.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
So I said that at molts. Apparently it molts five
different times, and the reason why it molts is because
it eats so much it outgrows its skin.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
It's amazing.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
It has a mechanism where it releases an enzyme. There's
a hormone that says, hey, you're getting a little your
clothes are getting a little tight. Maybe it's time to bolt.
And so that releases an enzyme that basically dissolves its
attachment to the exoskeleton. And then the new, bigger version
pops out of the old exoskeleton, walks away, and guess
what it does immediately after it starts eating again.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
Yeah, it tries to outgrow that suit.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
And it does that five times in its larval stage
as a caterpillar.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
Yeah, these molts are called in stars. Did you say.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
That that's the period of its life between molts.
Speaker 3 (07:55):
Yeah, yeah, so five in stars and between molts. Like
you said, all it's doing is just eating, trying to
get a larger suit size. But here's another cool fact
is they believe that not only do caterpillars have a
memory that lasts like a molt or two, but they
even think there are researchers at Georgetown that have sort
(08:20):
of proven that. I'm not how you sort of prove something,
but they feel pretty good about the fact that they
think that a butterfly remembers being a caterpillar.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
Yeah, they've done this at least one study that showed
that if they trained it to avoid certain smells as
one of its last in stars, it will remember that
as an adult butterfly, that it will avoid those same smells.
That's pretty cool because, as you'll see, what happens in
the chrysalis is so mind bending and nuts that the
(08:50):
idea that it can remember anything is it's pretty pretty amazing.
Speaker 3 (08:55):
Oh yeah, for sure, I didn't even consider that. That
is really hard to process.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
So let's talk about the body. Like you said, it
has mouth parts very important because it eats, eats, eats,
and the rest of its body is essentially a storage
facility for that food that it eats and that it
breaks down and stores. Essentially is fat. They're very fatty.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (09:21):
I get the idea that the inner body movement through
that body tube never stops. It's just a conveyor belt
almost of food coming in and poop leaving.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
That's my impression too.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
Yeah, the caterpillar is six legged. If you're like Pho Chuck.
I've seen a caterpillar or two in my day, and
they have tons of little legs.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
Those are not real legs.
Speaker 3 (09:48):
They only have six genuine legs, meaning that they have
segments and joints. The rest of those are called pro legs,
and there are a lot of those, and they move
all up the length of the abdomened the caterpillar, and
at the end of those little pro legs they have
little suction cups, little hooks. Basically, is it is it
a crochette? Do you think I think crochet?
Speaker 1 (10:09):
I'm going with crochet.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
Yeah, they're called crouschettes. And the yachts a crack rocket.
Speaker 3 (10:18):
Isn't that what those really fast motorcycles are called. Sure, okay,
I didn't know if that was, you know, a dirty
thing to say or not.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
No, no, that's all over. It's like douchebag. It was
it one time, like not very nice, but now everybody
says it, so even PG. Thirteen Movies.
Speaker 3 (10:36):
Oh I thought you meant it was okay to say, yes,
you're a real douchebag.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
Okay, Oh no, no, no, it's not. Still not, but
it's not like, you know, a horrid thing to say
like it used to.
Speaker 3 (10:46):
I gotcha because someone called me one the other day
in the car and I was like, oh, I thank you.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
Did they really No? No, they don't have bones, of course,
but they do have lots. They're very muscly.
Speaker 3 (10:59):
If you compare them to a human, we have about
six hundred and twenty nine muscles. Caterpillars have four thousand muscles.
Because those muscles, that's the way they're moving, you know.
They move in a little wave from front to back,
front to back. Yes, front to back, back to front,
back to front. How did I mess that up?
Speaker 1 (11:18):
Well, it depends on which the direction they're going.
Speaker 3 (11:20):
I guess, well, I guess so, And they move in
a couple of ways. One of two ways is sometimes
they're crawling, which means they're moving all of those pro
legs and legs at the same time in sequence. Or
they do what it sounds like an inch worm does.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
Right.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
Yeah, I don't know why they didn't identify them as inchorms,
but that's what they're talking about. They can move in
little arches where they bring their their front to their
back and their back together, making a mound. Out of
their middle their abdomen, and then they stretch the front
out and they bring the back up and then they
stretch the front up. That's what an inch worm does.
And that's basically one of two ways. The other way
(11:57):
for a caterpillar to move, either as a wave under.
There's a lot of like really cool videos of caterpillars
moving or inching along.
Speaker 3 (12:05):
Yeah, and I never looked close enough at an inch
worm to figure out why they move that way. And
I feel like a dummy now because it seems obvious
they move that way because their middle section doesn't have legs, right,
it's pretty The front pulls the back because those are
where the legs are, and the legs go, let me
catch up.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
It's like a little cute accordion.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
And it's really neat to see. When you watch a
close up of a centipeder, I keep wanting to say centipede,
but that's definitely a different animal. Caterpillars pro legs moving
as they they attach themselves. Like you said, they have
a suction cup. They just attach themselves to like the
branch or whatever that they're walking on. And if you
(12:46):
watch it and close enough detail, yes, excellent, Chuck, you
can really see those suction cups working and it's pretty cool.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
It's awesome.
Speaker 3 (12:57):
Most things on a caterpillar are small, obviouslycluding their little eyelets.
They have twelve of those are called stemata, and they
if you do look closely, though, it's really cool looking.
They have their arrange in a semi circle, sort of
wrapping around the head.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
Like what's his name from Reading Rainbow but on Star
Trek the next generation.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
Yeah, LeVar Burton.
Speaker 3 (13:19):
Like his eyewear, Yes, yeah, that's what I said. It
would be on top of his head though, right, like
like a headband. I think is it more on the front?
I thought it was more on top.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
I thought it was on the front, but you could
be right, it could be on top.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
It's kind of hard to tell with the caterpillar head
right exactly.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
You don't really know what's what. It's kind of like
a studio baker. You can't tell which way it's going,
right for our aged listeners love a good STUDI baker, Joe.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
Yeah, there's one little guys like Damn Skippy.
Speaker 3 (13:51):
Uh So those stamata they can identify light in darkness,
but caterpillars are are basically blind. They're for sure color blind,
and they just like I said, they can see sort
of light and dark and shadow and stuff like that,
but they are not like they're not crawling around seeing things.
They're kind of feeling their way around with those antennae
that they have. But although those antennae only handle taste
(14:14):
and smell, so I don't even know why I said that.
Speaker 1 (14:16):
So they also breathe in a really interesting way. They
breathe through spiracles, which are holes in the side of
the caterpillar, and they breathe in oxygen. It goes directly
to the trachea, and they breathe out carbon dioxide and
as they move, it's kind of like breathing in and
breathing out. That's like a byproduct of their movement, and
it all goes to that trichia, like I said, and
(14:38):
the trachia just diffuses it to the tissue throughout the body.
They have blood. It's called hemolymph like most insects blood,
but it doesn't it's not used to transport oxygen. It
transports things like hormones that trigger molting and things like that,
but the oxygen just diffuses throughout the body.
Speaker 3 (14:55):
Yeah, you know, an inch worm, it is like a
little accordion, And if you could figure out how to
build and insert a tiny little like wooden reed in
each spiracle, that little thing might sound like an accordion
as it moved.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
That'd be pretty neat, kind of cruel to I imagine.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
Yeah, I mean probably if you're sticking wood in the
tiny breathing holes of a caterpillar. I don't think it would.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
Don't try that.
Speaker 1 (15:22):
By the way, Chuck, did I tell you that caterpillar
is from the old French chateapellos, which means shaggy cat.
Speaker 3 (15:30):
Oh, like the actor Timothy Chatapellos? Is that you know
that's Timothy Shallomey?
Speaker 1 (15:35):
Sorry, right, Yeah, Timothy. Shaggy cat would be that name.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
Kind of looks like a shaggy cat.
Speaker 1 (15:40):
But apparently they think it was the the is it
the wooly bully caterpillar that? Yeah, they think that that
was the original shaggy cat and it's just kind of
caught on from there, But that's where caterpillar comes from.
Speaker 3 (15:54):
Yeah, And speaking of wily bully, you notice on caterpillars
a lot of times those little hairs or little quills
or spines those are called Oh man, we've even had
scientists tell us how to pronounce that ae.
Speaker 2 (16:07):
Is it? Stay?
Speaker 1 (16:09):
That's what I think it is.
Speaker 3 (16:10):
Yeah, it's either that or we've been getting it wrong.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
I can't remember.
Speaker 3 (16:14):
But everyone is like in science guys, anytimes it's AE,
you pronounce the blank and I can't remember which one
it is. Oh, it's either set or SETAE. And now
we're gonna get more emails. And maybe I should just
put a sticky note on my laptop so i'll always
remember that. But that's what they're called, and they have
a lot of functions. They can deter things that want
(16:36):
to eat caterpillars because a lot of times these things
carry little irritants and toxins. And you just put a
pin in that for our very final segment at the end.
But like you said, yeah, but you can get, you know,
little little irritated bumps sometimes if you handle the wrong caterpillar.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
Oh yeah, and you shouldn't handle a category get much
worse than that too. Yeah, if you've ever touched the caterpillar,
That's why I was referring too earlier, Like as a kid,
I remember touching one and just being like, oh my god,
what what just happened? And it hurt very badly, I
remember distinctly, but I still love caterpillars after that.
Speaker 3 (17:14):
I remember there was one kind and someone will know
what kind ofness is, but I think it was sort
of yellow and black, and we would, you know, put
our finger on the ground and the caterpillar would crawl
up our hand and then we would like get a
leaf and have it crawl off. So I don't think
we harmed the caterpillar. We were just sitting it kind
(17:35):
of crawl on us for a minute. But and I
wasn't touching the spine, so I never got that irritation.
But I used to love doing that, and I just
thought that was so cool that they I guess now
knowing that they're blind, that there's like crawling on a stick,
and it's like, now I'm crawling on a finger.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
Right, Yeah that's cute.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
But yeah, you wouldn't stick like kid fingers.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
You wouldn't have been touching the hair like structures, so
it wouldn't have stung you. It's not like I don't
think it's an active process. I think it's a passive
thing where you just touch it and they're not like
die die die. It's just like, right, you just touched
it and it did its Thingah.
Speaker 2 (18:10):
Yeah, I get the feeling.
Speaker 3 (18:11):
The caterpillars even like, sorry, man, and you know it
shouldn't touch me, but sorry.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
Most caterpillars seem rather chill, but not all of them are.
I was not happy to find this out. I find
this rather unpleasant. But there's some species of caterpillars in
Hawaii that are actually carnivores. Far and away, most species
of caterpillars, and hence butterflies are are herbivores. They just
(18:38):
eat leaves, That's what they do. They eat leaves and shoots. Wait,
eat shoots and leaves. So there's the ones in Hawaii, though,
they'll eat snails. And not only do they eat snails,
it's really awful. They tie the snails to, say, like
a twig or a leaf or something, using spinnerets. They
have silk producing organs, and they'll tie the snail, the
(19:01):
whole shell and all to like a twig so the
snail can't get away, and then they climb into the
shell and eat the snail alive.
Speaker 2 (19:09):
It is horrifying.
Speaker 1 (19:10):
I don't like that particular kind of caterpillar, but I
like all the rest.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
Yeah, they tie it down and eat it.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
So awful. Imagine it just coming into your house too,
and you're like, please know, and you have no escape.
And that's that.
Speaker 3 (19:24):
Yeah, it was pretty horrifying to read that and frankly disappointing.
But there's also a brand, a brand in Australia brand Hey.
They lay their eggs and ant hills and when they
come out, they will eat those ants. But aside from that,
in the Hawaiian they, like you said, are strictly herbivores
(19:46):
and they are using those leaves also to camouflage themselves.
They have a lot of great mechanisms to keep this
not quite octopus level, but they seem like they're you know,
I don't know if it's wrong to use words smart,
but they know to feed under leaves so birds can't
see them. They also have some natural camouflage, like sometimes
(20:09):
those eyes can look like the fake eyes can look
like snakes.
Speaker 1 (20:13):
Did you see that one?
Speaker 2 (20:15):
Yeah, it looks like a snake.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
Yeah, it looks like a bright green snake. And apparently
they'll arrange themselves sometimes to make it look like a
long snake, Like three hundred caterpillars will get together and
line up and it's like Wow, there's a snake. No,
it's a line of caterpillars.
Speaker 3 (20:30):
Yeah, like a lot of them are solitary caterpillars, but
there is what was the one in particular that traveling.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
Groups gregarious caterpillars.
Speaker 3 (20:41):
Yeah, I get the feeling. Those are the ones that
might do the old snake one too.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
Yes, I think those are swallow tails and they might
be gregarious. Yeah. So I say we take a break, Chuck,
and then we'll come back, and I propose that we
talked more about caterpillars.
Speaker 2 (20:56):
Let's do it.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
Softly jaw. Okay, So you mentioned a couple of things
that they do to protect themselves, camouflage, just eating a
little bit on the underside of a leaf. There's a
lot of other things that they can do too. There's
(21:28):
there's so many different species of caterpillar because again we're
talking about moths and butterflies, they're not just all the
same thing. That they've developed all sorts of really interesting
means of defense. One of the ways they say the
best defense is shooting your poop out, and there's a
type of caterpillar that does that. I think it's the
(21:50):
it's the silver spotted skipper and skipper is basically a
type of butterfly, and it shoots its waist called frast
it's poop as far as five feet from itself in
order to keep predators from being able to track it
back to its source.
Speaker 3 (22:08):
That explains that old saying, you ain't nothing but caterpillar frass.
Speaker 2 (22:14):
M I never knew what they mean.
Speaker 1 (22:16):
You're really good at jumping, that's what they say to you.
Speaker 3 (22:20):
Yeah, and that's one of the things they do, like
several other things, which is it all sort of falls
to the umbrella of I don't want anyone to know
I'm like even here, So a poop will be a
big giveaway obviously.
Speaker 2 (22:32):
Another as if, like they love to eat.
Speaker 3 (22:35):
If if a predator sees a ton of chewed up
leaves everywhere, they're gonna be like, ooh, the caterpillars nearby.
I love to eat those things. So as much as
those caterpillars love to eat, it is their singular purpose
in life. They will many times just eat little bits
off of many, many leaves to kind of disguise the fact, like,
(22:55):
no caterpillar here. There's just a few nibbles here and there,
yeah leaf rather than just yeah, rather than just like
taking a leaf down to its spine.
Speaker 1 (23:04):
Yeah, which any even the dumbest of birds can be Like,
there's a caterpillar around here.
Speaker 2 (23:09):
And you know they want to do that, but they
still don't do it.
Speaker 1 (23:11):
I know. Caterpillars have tremendous self control, you doo. We
mentioned that they have spinnerets so that they can spin silk,
and they use it to great effect in all sorts
of different ways, including defense. Apparently some kinds of caterpillars
will like spin a little thing of silk that they'll
attach to the leaf they're on, and when a predator comes,
(23:33):
they just jump off, basically like John McClean and die Hard,
and they're attached to the silk, so they swing into
you know, a window in the Knokotomi building and then
climb back up when the bird goes away. But they
just jump off the leaf to get away. I'll bet
that's pretty neat to see.
Speaker 2 (23:50):
That's right. And to combat jet lag, they make fists
with their toes.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
Yeah, what do you know.
Speaker 3 (23:56):
I wonder if they leap. I'd like to see that
in slow motion. I wonder if all of those legs
and pro legs at once do that in concert that
would be pretty cool.
Speaker 1 (24:05):
Or if they inch, they just shoot themselves up. They
inch so quickly that shoots them right off of the leaf.
Speaker 2 (24:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (24:12):
So yeah, that's one use of the silk is like
literal climbing rope. And like we said, like the solo caterpillar,
which is many of the I want to say, brands,
what a dummy varieties species.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
Here you go.
Speaker 3 (24:28):
You know, there's going around, they're eating, they're they're laying
an egg. They're using the silk as as like a lasso.
Or maybe they might make a little nest. Like we
said earlier, maybe they might restrain that that snail. But
those gregarious kinds that live in big groups, they really
get going with the silk production. They make big nests
(24:49):
in trees and around tree trunks.
Speaker 1 (24:51):
You've probably seen them before.
Speaker 2 (24:53):
Oh yeah, they're like big tents.
Speaker 3 (24:54):
Basically, if you've seen big you know, it looks like
sort of a real dense spider web. I guess sometimes
those are spiders, right.
Speaker 1 (25:03):
Yeah, there's some kinds of spiders that do that, but
I think probably more often than not what you're seeing
or gregarious caterpillars getting together.
Speaker 3 (25:10):
Yeah, but they also use their little spinnerets as like
a trail, like, hey, we're all going this way and
we're gonna lay this little trail and we know that.
You know, if you want to get home, this is
how you get home.
Speaker 1 (25:23):
What's neat is those trails are often intergenerational and so
like an older generation will leave there that that silk
for the next generation to use, and that next generation
then can grow bigger and stronger because they didn't have
to use that energy to create the silk for that
that leads to the to the food source. I thought
that was pretty nice.
Speaker 2 (25:44):
Yeah, like handy down silk, Yeah exactly, or like you
know link of rope that grandpa gave.
Speaker 1 (25:50):
You, Yeah, same thing, hand me down silk, length of
rope from grandpa.
Speaker 4 (25:56):
What else?
Speaker 1 (25:57):
There's another thing too that we haven't quite figured it out,
and we I mean the entomology world, and by we
also mean them that it may or may not be
advantageous to live in a gregarious community as opposed to
being solitary. Because yes, it's easier to build a big
shelter for yourself if you have a bunch of other
(26:18):
friends helping you. It's easier to find food if you
have other people looking at the same time you are
and then telling you what they found. But at the
same time you're also competing with those same people or
those same caterpillars. I should say, yeah, and that's a
big that can be a big problem too. I like it.
Speaker 3 (26:35):
Caterpillars are people too, exactly, and if there's a disease,
you know it's gonna spread pretty readily within that population
if they're all living together. But I think you know,
we've held off long enough. We should we should talk
about that metamorphosis, which is what everyone wants to know about,
and that is basically a caterpillar is doing its thing.
(26:56):
It's going through those molts. It's that fifth molt, and
they say, you know what, it's been great, But I
think I'm tired of eating. Finally, m I'm gonna go
off and wander off into the woods and find a
safe spot and I'm going to pupeate everybody, and when
you see me again, I will be the most beautiful
thing you've ever seen.
Speaker 1 (27:17):
Yeah, pretty neat. And this is where the terminology gets
really confusing. If you do any research on.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
This, yeah, I can for sure.
Speaker 1 (27:27):
So the pupa is often referred to as the form
the body form that the centipede that the caterpillar is
in as it enters the transformation. Right, Yes, it's actually
the life stage, like the caterpillar is the larval life stage,
(27:47):
the butterfly or the moth is the adult. The pupa
is the life stage in between. But for all intents
and purposes, you can also say that's a butterfly pupa,
although or that's a moth pupa. Right, that's the easiest,
most understandable part of it. It starts to get really
strange from there because the butterfly caterpillar when it emerges
(28:09):
from that fifth mold, it has a special kind of
skin on it, and over time, when it turns upside
down and hangs from a leaf and begins its transformation,
that skin hardens and it forms basically the protective layer
that's going to protect that caterpillar turned butterfly as it
undergoes its transformation, and that's called the crystalis But just
(28:32):
butterfly caterpillars do that, right, not moths.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
I think that's right.
Speaker 1 (28:38):
And then I think it's just moths because they don't
form chrysalis or crysalie. They are the only ones to
spin a cocoon to protect themselves.
Speaker 3 (28:48):
Correct, right, and that cocoon starts talk kind of soft,
but that eventually hardens as well. But I think that's right.
But the chrysalis itself is not some like shell they
build like it.
Speaker 2 (29:01):
It is. It is the thing.
Speaker 1 (29:03):
Yeah, it's the outer layer of skin.
Speaker 3 (29:05):
Okay, yeah, because it can actually twitch and move as
a defense. Yeah, like it's it's a thinking sentient, well
not thinking necessarily, but it is a shell that is
a living thing. It's not like let me build this,
you know, this thing to get into. It is the
thing that it is in.
Speaker 1 (29:23):
Right, So imagine if you underwent this transformation, you probably
go off into a corner and kind of ball up,
maybe in a bit of a fetal position. But then
imagine as part of this process, all of your skin
fused together and turned into like an outer shell rather
than you know this this you know, this thing covering you.
(29:43):
It's it's like this now this big ball that you're
now kind of separated from inside and you're doing your
thing inside. That's kind of like what the chrysalis is like.
Speaker 3 (29:53):
Yeah, And so we mentioned the silk, like the uses
as like a climbing rope.
Speaker 2 (29:57):
And stuff like that, and to build little nests.
Speaker 3 (30:00):
It really comes in handy when it's time to pupate
because they use this silk in a variety of ways.
There's more than one way to skin a cat, and
there's more than one way for a caterpillar to metamorphosize. Sometimes,
like you said, they hang upside down from that leaf,
so they've spun like a little silk pad that attaches
to something. Sometimes they create like a little hammock. Sometimes
(30:22):
they make like a little sling in concert with a stick.
There are different ways that they can do this, but
it always involves using silk to sort of stabilize itself,
either upside down or right side up or sideways or whatever. Right,
and then they start to do that thing, whether it's
a moth spinning that cocoon or just the gradual transformation
(30:42):
of caterpillar into chrysalis.
Speaker 1 (30:45):
Right. And then so once that happens, once the cocoon
is full or the crysalis is hardened, this and one
of the most amazing things that on Earth happens in there.
And it's neat because we've gotten to the point where
we have photography that can peer inside of this without
harming the caterpillar, and they have like time lapse videos
(31:09):
of this transformation. And as the thing turns more and
more into what's obviously like a butterfly or moth, and
you see it hanging upside down just forming it. It
looks like a cross between an hr Geiger painting and
Michael Crichton's Coma, the movie version. It's really neat, but
(31:32):
it also gives you this. It has this kind of
regal and majestic feel to it as well. I produced
a lot of emotions in me apparently.
Speaker 2 (31:42):
Yeah, I mean it's.
Speaker 3 (31:45):
This isn't the science y explanation, but it's almost as
if you can take a tray of put a bunch
of spaghetti and meatballs in a dish and cover it
up and then when you open it up it's a lasagna. Yeah,
and you're like, how did that happen?
Speaker 2 (32:03):
Like how did that even happen?
Speaker 1 (32:05):
So this is how it happens. The caterpillar breaks itself
down into a soup of cells, like it's basically like
a caterpillar soup for a while, and some of the
cells keep their form generally, or at least stay attached
to one another. So those leg cells, yeah, they change.
(32:26):
They look different, like a caterpillar's actual true legs look
different from the butterfly's true legs, but they're still the
same cells. They're just they rearrange themselves a little bit.
Most of the other cells just completely come apart, turn
into imaginal cells, which are analogous to our stem cells,
and that they can turn into any kind of cell.
(32:46):
And then it reconfigures itself using the same cells, same amount,
same everything into a butterfly. It reconfigures itself over the
course of about two weeks.
Speaker 3 (32:59):
It's un Yeah, it really is, Like my brain breaks
every time I try to make sense, especially when you
see what comes out, you know, And I mean if
it came out looking like a dung beetle like that
would still be awesome. But to come out looking like
a butterfly with those iridescent wings, yeah, and the little
faces on those wings, it's just unbelievable. And I guess
(33:21):
I mean, evolutionarily speaking, this is all to eventually get
to like a pollinator.
Speaker 1 (33:26):
I don't understand it. This is where I think they
that science has kind of thrown off. They're like, the
best explanation I saw is that it's better than having
two things compete for the same food source, but that
that doesn't really make any sense, you know, because that
doesn't make any sense to me at all. I don't
understand that. But that was the best explanation I saw,
(33:48):
and I didn't even understand it.
Speaker 2 (33:50):
So as to the why, yeah, yeah, Like.
Speaker 1 (33:53):
It's just so strange. It's I just don't understand it.
And everything goes through life like stages. We go through puberty,
we become adults, we go from infant babies to grown adults.
But there's not a period where we stop and over
the course of two weeks to completely reconfigure ourselves into
(34:14):
a new form. There's not that many things out there
that do do that, and we just don't fully understand
why it happens, and maybe we never will, and I
think that'd be just fine.
Speaker 3 (34:24):
Although I would argue that the Josh Clark I knew
fifteen years ago his caterpillar like has now emerged as
a beautiful butterfly.
Speaker 1 (34:31):
Thank you. I remember reading when Christopher Hitchins became a conservative,
one of the Liberal members of parliament said that this
is one of the rare instances where the butterfly turns
back on lug Oh no, yeah.
Speaker 2 (34:46):
Wow, I'd like to hear what that exit.
Speaker 1 (34:48):
I think I read that in two thousand and seven
and it still stuck with me.
Speaker 2 (34:51):
Yeah, that's a good one. We didn't take our second break,
did we.
Speaker 1 (34:54):
Nope, it's time.
Speaker 2 (34:55):
All right, Well let's take our second break.
Speaker 3 (34:57):
We'll probably still be talking about this metamorphosis, you know,
when we come back, So just be.
Speaker 4 (35:01):
Prepared softly, jaws.
Speaker 2 (35:18):
Soft all right.
Speaker 3 (35:24):
I mean, I guess we're done talking about metamorphosis. It's
called holo metabolism. Yeah, that full transformation. And I don't
think he said it takes a couple of weeks generally.
Speaker 1 (35:36):
Yeah, I saw about two weeks something like that on average.
It can be more or less depending on the weather
and stuff.
Speaker 3 (35:42):
Yeah, and I took it as depending on the weather.
Meaning is that they don't want to do this in
the middle of winter. So if they get started and
like winter comes early, maybe it'll they'll just stay in
there for a few months.
Speaker 1 (35:54):
Is that right? There are some species that over winter
in their cocoon or in their chrysalis, and that's part
of their thing. But I saw that there's that the
ideal there's an ideal temperature. That's what I took it
to mean, oh, okay, and that the ideal temperature is
twenty one degrees celsius. And get this, buddy, I converted
to farent height. You s we talked about the other day.
Speaker 2 (36:13):
So you did it yourself.
Speaker 1 (36:14):
Yeah, it's like, uh, I love it down. I could
do it again if I wanted to. But I'm just
gonna find what I wrote down. I think it's like
eighty eight eighty nine degrees.
Speaker 3 (36:22):
Fahrenheits all right, I love it when after all these
eighty one it's eighty one, you're still brave enough to
put yourself out there with math.
Speaker 1 (36:31):
Here, I'll just do this, okay. So here we find
fahrenheit from twenty one degree celsius. So it's twenty one
plus thirty two. Okay, we're getting everything back equal again.
So what is that fifty six times one point eight
I believe comes to eighty one.
Speaker 3 (36:48):
When was the last time you did sort of written
down long division or something like that.
Speaker 1 (36:55):
Oh it's been a long time. By the way, it's
eighty four point.
Speaker 2 (36:58):
Six eighty four point six. Can you still do that stuff?
Speaker 1 (37:02):
I don't know. Probably if I gave enough time to it. Sure,
I just did just it's not a part of my life.
Yeah anymore.
Speaker 3 (37:09):
I actually don't know if I remember how to do
long division. I recently because Ruby is starting, you know,
like this past year started like multiplication and stuff and
came at me with like three digit times of two
digit and I was like, oh, you know what it was.
Speaker 2 (37:26):
Like, I got it. I got it.
Speaker 3 (37:27):
I remember, and I remember how to do that and
to carry the stuff. But I definitely don't think I
could do long division anymore.
Speaker 2 (37:35):
I don't.
Speaker 3 (37:35):
I sort of remember, but I don't think I would
fully be able to complete a problem.
Speaker 1 (37:40):
By the way. I I know, I brushed past it
because I don't handle compliments that well. But I do
appreciate the comment about me metamorphosizing into a butterfly.
Speaker 2 (37:49):
That was a joke. I'm just kidding.
Speaker 1 (37:51):
Well, definitely edit this part.
Speaker 2 (37:53):
No, it was for sure true. I appreciate you appreciating that.
Speaker 1 (37:56):
So did we just come back from from a break?
Is that here?
Speaker 2 (38:01):
Yeah, that's what's going on.
Speaker 3 (38:02):
But we can wrap it up and talk about caterpillar management,
because here's the deal. Caterpillars eat leaves, and you know
they can they can eat garden stuff. If you have
a garden that you're planting, but it's not that big
a deal. Like, individual caterpillars are not gonna ravage your
(38:23):
garden and spoil your garden. If you have big groups
of those gregarious caterpillars, they can cause problems. But you know,
if you see caterpillars in your garden, don't like, don't
overreact and be like, I gotta, I gotta start killing
all these caterpillars. You know, take a breath, assess your problem.
(38:44):
Are they ravaging your garden or do you just have
some caterpillars here and there, like because you want those
butterflies later on, don't you.
Speaker 1 (38:50):
Right, Yeah, definitely, that's a big part. And it's not
just for their beauty either. Caterpillars and butterflies alike are
food source for birds, which is sad, but it's part
of the circle of life, I guess. So that's one
reason alone. They're also probably even more important for your garden. Pollinators, yeah,
big time pollinators. There was a dead milkman joke in there.
(39:12):
I couldn't quite I couldn't quite make it. But so
they pollinate their food source, and most caterpillars, although all
of them eat leaves and again like we said they're
eating machines. The amount of damage they're doing is really
kind of pales in comparison to the benefits you get
from having them in your ecosystem. So for the most part,
(39:33):
you want to just leave them alone.
Speaker 2 (39:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (39:35):
I mean, there's a whole section if you're interested on
how to kill and get rid of caterpillars at HowStuffWorks
dot com in this article, but I don't even feel
like talking about it, to be honest.
Speaker 1 (39:46):
Well, let's talk about gregarious caterpillars, because those are the
ones that really are problematic. They can on a bad
year or a good year for the gregarious caterpillars, they
can consume up to a quarter of the leaves in
a forest. Yeah, and they if they attack the same
tree enough times, they'll kill a tree. So gypsy moth
(40:08):
caterpillars are gregarious, and they're well known for killing trees
just from eating the leaves off of it. That's how
much damage they can do. And they can also harm
crops too, So gregarious caterpillars you actually probably do want
to get rid of if you come across it. But
the key is prevention. Like you look for the eggs
which form a ring around like a tree branch and
(40:29):
take care of those then, like, don't try to deal
with them later, it's going to be too late. You
want to be proactive. They say the best defense is
shooting your poop five feet away from you.
Speaker 2 (40:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (40:41):
I mean, I guess if you're in forest management or
if you're a farmer and it has like a literal
effect on your crops and your forests and stuff like that,
they're out there, you know, burning tents and nests and
things like that. But that's not something you should go
out and try to do because that's you don't want
to catch something on a tree on fire.
Speaker 2 (41:01):
Just not a good idea.
Speaker 1 (41:02):
But can you just see somebody trying to get rid
of caterpillars and be like, yeah, oh and you just
started a wildfire?
Speaker 2 (41:08):
Yes I can't, I really can.
Speaker 1 (41:12):
It's hilarious if you think about it. It's so doode
it is.
Speaker 2 (41:17):
Should we finish up with the assassin caterpillar?
Speaker 3 (41:19):
Well?
Speaker 1 (41:19):
Can I talk about one more thing you don't want
to talk about just for a second, because I think
it's kind of nuts as well. Okay, there's a bacterium
called Basillis thrying inis. I believe et for short, this
is a bacteria that people purposely introduce as a as
a caterpillar control measure, and it goes in and created
produces holes in the caterpillars gut and leads to sepsis,
(41:41):
and it dies a painful death a few days after
being infected. This is considered organic gardening. The problem is
it doesn't just target caterpillars you don't want it. It
targets all caterpillars. And it's also a pretty terrible way
to die. So I'm I think I'm with you, Chuck Man.
I think you just you say the caterpillars are here
to stay as long as they're not gregarious. I'm just
(42:03):
gonna let them live and let live. Yeah, Okay, I
just wanted to get on that soapbox for a sing.
Speaker 3 (42:08):
Yeah, I'm with you. So I mentioned the assassin caterpillar.
This is the Linomia obliqua, or the giant silkworm moth,
or the assassin caterpillar. It is the deadliest caterpillar in
the world and there have been supposedly several hundred people
in South America that have died from the toxin injected
(42:32):
from this caterpillar.
Speaker 1 (42:33):
Quills from the sette.
Speaker 3 (42:35):
Yeah, I think it takes a lot, like even if
one of them, you know, injected some toxin into you,
you're going to be uncomfortable and it probably won't feel great.
But I think you need to get like, you know,
twenty to one hundred times that to actually kill you.
Yet it still happens, Yeah, it does.
Speaker 1 (42:52):
Apparently it's responsible for five hundred deaths around South America
I think total, like in all time as far as
documented goes. Yeah, it takes a lot, like I think
twenty to one hundred times to kill you. But the
way that it kills you is it's an anticoagulant, a
very powerful one, and you die of internal bleeding essentially.
Speaker 2 (43:12):
Yeah, it's it's a blood thinner.
Speaker 1 (43:15):
Yeah, and that's that actually is being studied, the toxins
in that particular caterpillar being studied for its usefulness in biomedicine.
Speaker 3 (43:24):
Yeah, I think they're only what is it, there's like
thirty two species of Linomia, but only two of those
have that blood thinner venom, the obliqua and then the achillis.
Speaker 1 (43:37):
But the rest will still sting you. It's just not
going to kill you. It'll still hurt that's South America.
In North America, the biggest one we have is the
puss caterpillar. Puss megalopige upper cularis the southern flannel moth,
and just accidentally brushing it can cause excruciating pain I've seen.
(43:58):
So just be careful. Admire caterpillars with your eyes, not
with your hands.
Speaker 2 (44:03):
Yeah. I guess I got lucky as a kid by
just letting them crawl on me for a minute. But yeah,
I I never felt that sting.
Speaker 1 (44:11):
There's one other thing too, The eastern tent caterpillars are problematic,
especially in places like Kentucky, because they cause what's called
mayor reproductive loss syndrome, where just I think fifty grams
which is a tenth of a pound of these caterpillars
ingested by a horse while it's foraging can cause it
to lose its fetus, have a stillborn berth, all sorts
(44:36):
of crazy stuff, so much so that it has a
whole syndrome named after and it's just for eating these caterpillars.
Oh wow, isn't that crazy?
Speaker 2 (44:43):
That is this is a good one.
Speaker 1 (44:44):
I thought you'd like that. Yeah, caterpillars are great. I
think we should do a two parter with butterflies.
Speaker 2 (44:50):
Oh should we sure? I think Tracy wrote that one too.
Speaker 1 (44:55):
Okay, I say we get on a bench.
Speaker 2 (44:57):
I was going to suggest that, but then I thought,
is that too much?
Speaker 1 (45:00):
I don't know, I don't know. I guess they don't
have to come out back to back. They can be
companion pieces.
Speaker 3 (45:05):
How about that we're back to back and then we
can skip the metamorphosis marsa.
Speaker 1 (45:10):
Well, while we're figuring that out, I say, everybody, it's
time for listener mail.
Speaker 3 (45:16):
I'm going to call this stuff you should know acrossy.
I was very excited because one of our listeners, well,
I'll just read it.
Speaker 2 (45:23):
I'll let you hang on that.
Speaker 1 (45:24):
For a second.
Speaker 3 (45:25):
Hey, guys, When my wife Katie and I were dating,
we would meet up at lunch to do the daily
crossword together.
Speaker 2 (45:32):
I proposed to her twenty years ago using a.
Speaker 3 (45:34):
Crossword I constructed myself, and years later, it's not only crosswords,
but stuff you should know. It keeps our marriage life vibrant,
it gives us something to talk about every week, and
needless to say, your recent episode on crossword puzzles brought
our life together full circle. About ten years after we married,
I became a published crossword constructor and have been. I've
(45:55):
continued ever since with puzzles in La Times, Wall Street Journal,
New York Times, among others.
Speaker 2 (46:00):
So, Jeff is pretty experience is across the maker.
Speaker 3 (46:05):
As a thank you for a wonderful episode, I'm sending
you an original puzzle the stuff you should.
Speaker 1 (46:10):
Know theme Wow, you do enjoyed Wow.
Speaker 2 (46:13):
And I haven't done it yet. It is printed out
in my office. He sent me just a you know,
send us. It's not a digital version, so I can't.
I can't do it on my phone.
Speaker 3 (46:25):
I got to get out the old pencil nice, which
would be kind of fun, and I can't wait to
tackle it. I've just been waiting for the right window
of time. And that is from Jeff Stillman and big
shout out to Jeff and his wife Katie.
Speaker 1 (46:38):
I don't know how I missed that one, but I'm
glad you called it out because I can't wait to
do that puzzle too. So thanks Jeff.
Speaker 2 (46:43):
Yeah, yeah, got Jeff Stillman, go look at your emails
and print.
Speaker 1 (46:47):
That sucker out. Yes. Well, thank you to you both
Jeff and Katie. And if you want to be like
Jeff and send us some amazing thing that's fine with us.
You can send it via email to stuff podcast at iHeartRadio.
Speaker 4 (47:04):
Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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