Love Bugs!

it's eight fuzzy arms. So today let's show some bugs some love. As I tell you about some of my favorite invertebrate mates. Mates isn't friends, I'm not. This is platonic bug love. As humans, our relationship with warmy, squirmy creatures has been complex. They're creepy and slimy, but sometimes useful.

We used to use leeches in medical contexts, used in blood litting, because back then doctors sometimes thought that you just had too much blood floating around in you and that was an imbalance of your humors and you gotta, you know, gotta let out some blood. Sometimes today, Leeches are still sometimes used in medicine. The herodo medicanalys a K, the European medical leech, can be used to help reattach fingers. It helps drain the reattached digits of stagnating blood and

promotes the flow of new blood into the finger. Maggots, as gross as it sounds, can also be used in medicine. Medical maggots are used to debride necrotic tissue. That's polite medical speech for saying they'll munch on your dead skin. This can help clean wounds and keep them from getting infected. Obviously, don't go pouring leeches or maggots on yourself, because I'm pretty sure doctors are better at selecting where and when

to put worms on your body. Earthworms, another wiggly wonder, helped create fertile soil by processing large chunks of organic matter into human Not the delicious chickpe dip, but that dark brown, nearly black soil that is rich and nutritious for plants to grow. Even parasitic worms can sometimes be heroes in disguise. Certain types of parasitic worms can protect the developing babies of pregnant routes from developing brain inflammation. So see, you guys, having lots of worms can be

good for you and normal and good. So even though worms are gross and squiggly, I think we should appreciate some of the cool things they do for us. But I don't want you to just appreciate squirmy bugs. I want you to fall in love with them. So I'm about to talk about a worm who technically isn't even a real worm, but its own brand of adorable wormy animal. So joining me today is director, writer, comedian and all around great Gale Carmen Angelica. Man, I was trying my

heart is not to laugh during that and interrupted. I think it was leaning very far from the my That was delightful, our. I'm so I'm so excited. I'm just like, I love insects so much, and I am about to talk about some of my absolute favorite bugs in the whole world. I say bugs because we will also talk about a bug that's not an insect but an arthropod. And so first I want to talk to you about

velvet worms. I am I've been recently getting into these guys more because in Australia we know about the fires and it's terrible and in New South Wales there is a species of velvet worm that is in danger. And I really want people to appreciate because we all love Koala's, we all love the animals that are more iconic, and we often forget about bugs that get caught in these ecological disasters. So I want everyone to fall in love

with velvet worms. So first I'm just gonna show you some pictures of these guys, because I think once you see them, oh, oh my god, I didn't think I could fall in love with a worm so fat love at first sight. Oh it's little face is so perfect, is it? The face? Is that a little mouth? So kind of described to the audience what you're seeing. I mean, it's got it really is velvet like you do get. I was like about to ask, is this velvet worm velvety? And it sure is. It looks soft to the touch.

It's got little teeny nubby legs, a little little nubbins blue blue like yeah. And then they're actually the scientific term for them, Carmen, the fancy scientific term is stubb legs. The stubble. Well, they're perfect in every way, uh, those little stuff. And then they also have antennas. But those antennas are thick and velvety. Yeah, they're little there they can extend a little more, you know, like with snails how their their eyes stocks can kind of like get extend.

Sometimes they can be longer and more inquisitive, but they are they're pudgy. And then there's there's a picture where it's almost like curly curly, yeah, doing a little little head tilt. They so basically think about it's like a long caterpillar, almost like a really long caterpillar with these two, these two little little antenna that they're just so cute because they looked so they're they're like little fingers coming out of their head. They're expressive. They're very expressive. They're

very in their velvety. They're they're very soft looking. And they have a bunch of these chubby little legs, so not like not tiny tiny legs, but kind of chubby legs, the little legs, the ones that you feel like you could take one and just kind of shake it, like I meet you, but like times a bunch like nice to meet you, Nice to meet you, Nice to meet you. You know, I would spend hours shaking yeah, yeah, and shake this one and this one. Yeah, and they have

that their little face it does. It looks very cute. And that thing in the sin here of it that looks like it's doing a cute little smile. That is its mouth. It is the mouth. And but those little bulbs on the side that look like cute little eyes that are closed, not not quite eyes, but they are. They are great and we'll talk about those soon. It's

gonna be a fun surprise. So, first of all, these velvet worms are a phylum of soft body animals with a velvety texture and many stubby legs, so it contains many different species. They've been around for about five hundred million years, so these are they've got some staying power. This brand, the velvet worm brand. They're in the clayd paranthropa wait, no, didn't do that right, pan Arthropoda. That's it. I was about to say. Car was about like, hey, hey, you.

So this contains velvet worms, tartar grades, which you may have heard of water bears as little microscopic cutie's. Have you seen those before? Yeah, they're they're adorable. It also contains arthropods and those are a bunch of but other bugs like a bunch of insects, you know, like all all everything else that you might consider bugs and more. They're they're not actually a type of insect. They're their own phylum, which is really interesting, and it's actually thought

that they are. They are potentially a relative or a descendent of of hallucin Genia, which is that bizarre Cambrian warm like marine animal that had It was like a had all these feet on the bottom and all these spikes on its back, and it completely baffled evolutionary biologists for years, and they're like, well, which way does it turn? Like does it walk with the spikes or does it walk with the feet? They didn't know like what which way it went. So there are over two hundred species

of velvet worms. What all of them are are super adorable, they all, I mean, and they come in so many different colors and flavors. They range in size from under an inch long too up to eight inches so they don't get very big. They can go from being teeny tiny to tiny, regular regular tiny. So they're found over a pretty wide area in terms of like which countries they're found in, but they are usually specialized to very small like kind of ecoregions. So they're found in South America, Africa,

Southeast Asia, Australia, and New Zealand. Uh. And they they, like I said, they come in all these different colors, so from purple to orange, white, black, brown, red blue with yellow spots. So they're all in my opinion, they're all really cute and some of them are really pretty too. Uh. They have a soft outer skin uh called a cute ocula, so which is some are to the cuticles at your

nail bed. Uh. And it's highly flexible water repellent, although they can lose water through the skin because they actually also breathe through the skin and so they have these open pores on the skin that they used to breathe and they can they experience water loss through that uh. And so they have to live in these humid, moist

environments otherwise they'll get too dried out. But because the skin is water repellent, and it's also covered in tiny papillae, which are these little bumps which are also they themselves are covered in microscopic scales, it gives them a very They aren't slimy, they're dry and velvet ea. So it feels like if you pet one. If you have the privilege of petting one, it feels like stroking velvet. I hope, so I really, I mean I literally said, it's like

your cuticles. And I've been like feeling my cuticles, being like, is this like pet am I petting one? Right, It's like no, it's I bet it's better. Oh, it is absolutely better. It's like it's like stroking velvet. So, uh, those cute. One of their keytest features are their little stubby legs, which just looks like they look like little nubbins, and they are called stubbed feet like bi biologists. So they have between thirteen to forty three of these appendages.

Each lag has a teeny tiny set of retractable kit and claws which you can't really see. And you're not gonna they aren't gonna hurt you. They wouldn't. No, no, no, no, they're they're they they're they're they're cool. Velvet doesn't suddenly get dangerous, does danger velvet? No? No, And there these little there, these little baggy appendages that don't have any joints, and they're moved using hydrostatic water or fluid pressure and

the contraction of internal muscles. So it's kind of like little garden hose legs that just like you know, flippity flop around, and they have some muscle controls that help them move around. And that little pair of chubby antenna that looks so cute and curls like a little little love bug on the shape of a heart, like I love you. Uh. There are their main sensory organs, and they have a little mouth that has it does have a pair of mandibles, but it's deep inside the mouth

so you don't see it. Like they're they're not showers there, m they're not even growers. They just are they're they're not showers at all. They're shot, they're not they're never nudes, but they're they're yeah, they're never mandibles, never minible. And they have a pair of really simple eye dots. And then the things that kind of look like their eyes, not Mr Mystery nozzles, are slime guns. A pair of

slime guns. So the two bulbs at the side of their heads shoot twin streams of glue at their prey so their praise typically even smaller insects um or bugs or whatever, and they just like shoot out this glue spray. The glue sticks to their prey and then they're just stuck there and then they can take their time just kind of just like like scooty, scoot, scoot, I'm gonna eat your butt. Is what a terrifyingly adorable day. It's like it would be scary if you were a prey,

but as huge people, it is really cute. Let me show you this in action. That's a greyhound. That's not recognize that greyhound eating a sandwich. That's not quite the video we want, all right, see it kind of looking I think I see the prey. Yeah, it's thinking. It's it's squirting the goo. It squirts it on on the bug and now the bug stuck. No, oh man, that

bag is gonna get stuck. It's like it's like a it's like Spider Man with no like self control, just like like with like these wacky, wacky arms and they're like Spider Man, I've got you bill, no no cool hand gesture, just like just like like coming to my same and they're like, oh boy, I guess I am stuck. It's like it's the and they're these strands of slime, so it kind of like looks like double Dutch. Roping, But with slime, it's like you're playing my slime and

I'm going to eat your butt. And then you just see that like the bug is just stuck and like it's like wiggling over being like, oh man, I hope you're ready, hope you enjoyed my slime. He's just like it's like, looks like you're not going anywhere, and I've got a captivodience. I'm gonna eat your butt. What a

sick what's sick jokes? But I do love it because the velvet worm is so cute, Like all of these behaviors, like if the it does speak to a sort of bias we have with animals, like the cute the animals. The more of this kind of behavior, I think we'll permit, because if this was like a gross like wasp or something and be like, oh, how would you. But because he's got those cute little stubbly bubbly legs and that

cute little face is like, oh you cute. You did like to torture your preak dogget, and I guess you got to survive so to produce that impressive spray of glue. Their slime producing glands actually extend all the way through their bodies like a wormy super soaker filled with glue. Oh my god. They also this is great. So if you thought that was the weirdest thing they did, I've got news for you. So they have really curious mating rituals.

Some species are glares, but a lot of them are actually live bearing, and so they will give birth to little baby velvet worms that look exactly like the adult velvet worms, only teeny tiny, even teenier and tinier. And in some species, mating is basically how you would expect it to go. The males put their spermatophore into the female's genitals, you know, as you do, as as one does, as procreation generally happens, generally, I'm not saying all that right.

And actually, a spermatophoor is a capsule that contains sperm. Sometimes it contains like other nutrients and stuff that will help nourish the female um. But it's it's basically like a capsule full of your your baby beans, you know what. That's a nice tidy way of exactly. It's just a little little care package full of sperm. So other species

will actually this is insane, it's crazy. So they will deposit the spermatophor any place on the female, just like anywhere, like put just put on that like the worst Amazon delivery driver, just like here you go. And then what happens is that cuticle that skin actually collapse under the spermatophor and like absorb it in and it will migrate over to the which is hilarious. But also why are the males so lazy making it just like here you

get just checking it over there? There, you just go the extra mile, like, well, I guess I got to move it over here in the right place. That's so cause I imagine like they are like here you go, and it lands on their head and then their head has to absorb it and take it all the way

down to their generos. I'd be so, I'd be like, come on, well, it's funny you say that, because in some species the males just it's not it's they've got to go through a fancy stuff that you know, they deposit their own spermatophor onto their own heads, but pulled it into place, usually with like these soft spines or little dents, and then they hold it there and then

he rubs his head against the female's genital opening. Uh, it's just I love how round about they're They're like trying to do these trick shots with their spermatophor like and put it on the head and under their arm shot.

And I made a sperm hat excited about it. I know. Um. And there's one species that who can blame them, has decided to get rid of all the males and they just reproduce vi parthenogenesis, which is a sexual reproduction where it's just an all female species basically having clonal female. So they're just like, you know what, screw it, I do not accept your sperm hat coming over with a

sperm hat. That's it. I am done. Uh. And actually sometimes they have these really complex social structures which you wouldn't typically see in in worms. Well these aren't actually, like I said earlier, these aren't technically worms. There their own like phylum. But yeah, it's still kind of surprising to see outside of what we think of as social

insects like termites, ants and bees. But um, the uh you Perry pat twites Raleigh, which is found in New South Wales limps and groups of up to fifteen wormis led by a dominant female and they hunt together and feed together, and they have this hierarchy where the dominant female gets the first nibble, followed by the other females,

and then the males, and then finally the young. Uh So it's kind of, you know, it's a little bit of a lady's first policy, but it's kind of a little rude because the hierarchy is maintained by them kicking each other with their little stubby legs. Really, that's how you find out who I'm in charge. Well, well, tank Karate kicks like little, tiny nubble legs. And because he said they were like little, said no, they're like yeah,

they're like little. They're little little wibbly hose. They don't have joint so they're just just like they're kind of jingling at each other, just aggressive jelly wing. I love it. Oh my god, I want to get into that fight. And you know, I love these worms so much. I actually converted my my Twitter account into a velvet worm stand account, ye, because I'm just a huge fan of them.

They are adorable, they're fascinating. They have incredible hunting strategies and incredible mating strategies, so it's just they're the whole package. There the whole package and sperm hats, the sperm hats fashion and fashion high fashion. Oh man, these velvet worms are totally charming. But could you charm a worm? I'm talking about charming earthworms. Worm charming, otherwise known as worm grunting or worm fiddle ng, is a traditional technique of

coaxing earthworms out of the ground. Originally done to get worms for fishing, it became something of a competitive sport. Devon, England hosts the Worm Charming Festival, and there's a worm Charming Championship and Festival in Ontario, Canada. And Florida holds the American Worm grunt and Festival. And yes, it's officially grunting with an apostrophe. How do these worm charmers cast a spell on their wiggly quarry? You'll want to vibrate

the ground, which coaxes the worms to the surface. Worm charmers typically drive a wooden steak into the ground, which they vibrate using a metal rod or saw. Some play music or strike garden fork. Interestingly, these techniques are also used in the animal Kingdom by warm meeting birds who

stamp on the ground with their feet. It's thought that these vibration caused the worms to emerge because the worms associate them with the sensation of an oncoming mole or approaching rain, both of which means a bad time for the worm if they stay in the ground, either getting eaten or flooded. So when they're tricked by worm charming, it's out of the fire and into the frying pan. What you've never heard of? A worm? Amlet a wallet?

When we return? What has beautifully colored fuzz, shimmering, adorable eyes and ate fluffy legs. It's spiders. It's spiders times. I'm going to try to convince you to love spiders. The calling everybody who has a period, I want to talk to you about Lola. Lola is a female founded company offering a line of organic cotton tampons, past liners, and all natural cleansing wipes. I like to know, you

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trips to the store. So I can have my cramps and listen to David Attenborough talk about chill birds and just relax. For thirty percent off your first month's subscription. Visit my Lola dot com an inter creature when you subscribe. That's my Lola dot com, an inter creature when you subscribe. Now, I'm going to go back to listening to David Attenborgh talking about chillbirds. Do we have an innate fear of spiders?

Researchers in Germany and Sweden looked at rachnophobia to ask maybe we're born with it, or maybe it's maybe learned. They found that infants as young as six months old responded to pictures of spiders and snakes with increased dilation of their pupils, a sign of increased stress or attention. Perhaps this makes sense to be pre programmed in our baby brains. Mistakenly handle the wrong eight legged buddy or cute little ground noodle and you can get a nasty

or even fatal bite. But just because we may be born with a bias against spiders doesn't mean we have to remain that way. Sure it's great to avoid black widows, brown recluses, and other misanthropic and venomous spiders, but most spiders are harmless and do us a great service by eating up other more pesky bugs. So I want to present to you the world's cutest and most charismatic spider,

the peacock jumping spider. Even if you don't get over your fear of spiders, I'm hoping you'll make an exception for this cute, little leggy friend. So have you ever seen a peacock spider. I don't think I've ever seen a peacock spider. And I loved spiders growing. Oh that's great, I am excited. This is good. You're gonna love it. Oh my god, at the spider. It's beautiful. And look

at the little face, a little face. So jumping spiders I think have the cutest faces of spiders because they have these eyes they've got They've got four of them that are front facing, four big, big old eyes. They're really cute because they have the proportion of the eye to the face makes them look like they look like babies. They look like a Pixar character, Like a Pixar character. In fact, I think there is a YouTube series that it's like, there's this little spider, this little jumping spider

that's animated and it's adorable. But they don't even have to change it from the reality, Like it's pretty realistic looking. I don't think they alter their proportions that much. Maybe a little bit, but barely, yeah, barely. And it's got the those little little leg the little armies right in

front that are really fluffing cute. Those are called petal palps, and they're just these like most spiders have them, but they're not usually so cutely proportioned and fluffy, and they sometimes it makes it look like they have a little fancy mustache when they hold them up to their face when they're thinking, they're looking at they're pensive when they're having a moment. It's like like if I if I no miss marfatt, so am I the tough it? When the rain comes down, do I go up the drain

or out of the drain? So so the genus Maraudas, which is the peacock jumping spider genus contains many species of peacock spiders, but I first wanna explore the Maraudas volans, which is the Australian peacock spider. Again, Australia, you have so many amazing insects and bugs. This is not an insect, sorry, but it is a bug. You have amazing spiders. I know that Australia gets mocked a lot for having all

the poisonous, scary animals, which is true. They do. They do have, they do have great but they also have the cutest, most amazing animals as well. So this this little guy, uh is about the size of a grain of rice, like many of his fellow peacock jock peink spiders. Yes, is teeny tiny. He has a beautiful, vibrant blue, red and yellow back fancy like a peacock. And that's one of the first photos that I showed you. He's got

those fluffy little pet of palps. The male's job is to impress the female long enough to mate with her without getting eaten. Uh. It's a tough world out there. The dating scene, the spider dating scene has its pitfalls that are a little more extreme. I think, yeah, we complain about tender but at the end of the day, kind of like the dating scene in l a. So let's go through his his technique to seduce a lady spider. It is a multi state like he obviously peacocks because

he's stop preaty because he's so pretty. So first he unfolds his little back flap, which is a colorful white fringed or black fringed flap that forms a fan like and that's kind of why they're I mean, that is literally why they're called peacock spiders, because with a peacock, they unfurled that tail fan. With the peacock spider are they unfold their little back flap that looks like this

colorful fan. And he sticks his little legs up behind him and starts to clap them together, the little clap and dance, and he vibrates his fan for attention and does once he's got the female's attention, he does a little dance. And here's the thing is it's a risky proposition because if he dances and the female is not interested, she might just eat them. She's she's tougher than you know,

she's like, am I honey or hungry? You know. It's like it's like America's got talent, got Simon cow you know, and they you know, I don't. Reality TV is not my star, and I like, how many points frankly, this is a reality reality this is but this was but if this was Spider's talent, Spider's got talent, it would just be instead of getting voted out with the red ex dis you just get eaten. Spider's Scott's talent. That's

that's talent. That's a real risk. That's being like, yeah, I kind of think she's cute, but she could eat me if she doesn't find me. You know, that would be it's like that would be cool for like dating apps, like you know, like it would really reduce the amount of I think that like sort of foul exchanges with people and rude people. If it's just like, well, she has the option of just eating me, so I guess I'll be polite if she's not into it, not going

to ask for nudes if she can eat me. So if the mail wins her over, she'll allow him to mate with her and she'll either let him go or eat them. You know. Tends on me if she's hungry. Yeah, I would have if I was that male, I would have throw a snack. Here's the snickers. And also, I hope you like milky way. That's that's funny because there are some not these spiders, but there are some species

of spiders that give nuptial gifts to the females. So the females will be eating something as they're mating, which reduces the chance of them getting eaten. So Carmen, your joke is very scientifically. Oh my god, I am a smart spider. You're a smart spider, doctor spider, Carmen Angelic. Ready with snacks. I mean that's who I am now, I'm always ready with snacks. So I would definitely survive as a spider. So these mating dances can be as quick as a few minutes or as long as a

little under an hour. So let me show you this. Oh my god, I love how far away he is from her too. As he's dancing, He's like, please, don't, please, don't eat me. But also look, it is funny because sometimes there is a little bit of that cat mouse where he'll stick out his little fan TOI. She hold his little legs that do a little and then like she jumps at him, he like leaps back and he's like, oh god, don't eat me. But here's what is good. But if you're still interested in card, okay, I see

you didn't like that. I see you kind of want to eat me now, but what about this move? Not like that? If I'm gonna just give me a little bit of space here, Now, what about a little bit of a buch of shimmy, No, oh god, alright, what of my cloud? Three times cloud? Looking he's looking through these flash cards. He's like, I don't know if you're coming at me with hunger or with like because I'm done for what is that drooling? Like you're you find me attractive? Or is it okay you're put you got

a little salt chake out? Is that like a little kinky thing or okay? All right? The barbecue sauce coming out up? I gotta I you know what I'm done? So they have several dance moves, and they do. If they're attentive, they can actually see if the female's interested or not, because the female will actually wave her abdomen back and forth and like a little no gesture. If they're not interested and attentive, males can either escape with their life or adjust their dance a little bit, sort

of use it up, so if they're persistent. If they're persistent, So there several dance moves. So there's the the opposite themal Wait, no, that's not it opathosomal bobbing, which is

butt bobbing. Uh, there's the third leg wave. So first I want to say, actually, there's a researcher, Madeline Gerard at Berkeley who has been studying these peacock spiders, and she published a paper along with her cohorts where they recorded peacock spiders and their dance rituals and broke it down for us so we can see what was going on. So first there's the opposite, themal bobbing, which is but bobbing basically just like a little buckle like a boom

boom boom boom. And then there's the third leg wave, which is not it's it's not the quote third leg. It's actually their third set of legs wave, not a sweener. So um, there's that would be inappropriate for this, it's inappropriate. And there's the fan raise and expansion. That's that when they like pop out there beautiful backflap and wave it around. Uh, there's the I'm not making this one up. It's called

the rumble rumps. That's that's where they vibrate the fan and the fan dance and third leg dance where they like wave their legs, clap their legs together and like like rustle the fan around and moved from side to side. Um, and if that all goes well, and they're not eaten. Uh, there's the premunt display and crunch rolls where it's like wiggling its butt and like like it starts extending its arms out like like lee, hug me, hug me, please,

hug me, please, hug me, and um. Of the sixty four males that they studied, only sixteen were successful in mating. It's suggests that females have ex eatingly high standards, which means that probably they're trying to select just the absolute best, boldest, fittest males of the bunch. You really do, That's what

it's about. In the spider life, it kind of makes sense because peacock spiders only live for about a year and most of the females don't remate, and then they'll often die after their first set of eggs because they'll

guard their eggs for weeks on end without eating. So being extra choosy about their mate is important because they basically have one shot at it, and they starve themselves because yeah, because if they go out hunting, the risk is that something is going to come eat their eggs, so they stay with their eggs, sacrifice at all for their eggs. So it makes sense for them to be

choosy when it comes to their males. Also makes sense for them to eat the males after after because like all that extra nutrition is really going to help them. So there are of course many other species of peacock spiders, all with their own unique dance and coloration and rhythm, and it's really funny. They back in Madeline's Gerard's lab at you see Berkeley, they made a video of these various dances, and I just want to show you a few and and have you listened to some of the

rhythms that they make. So that's one one of the spiders. Let's get another. One's moves in pre kind of leans to the side. This one's uh, that one doing that weird sideling dance is actually called the sparkle muffin uh spider, and it's nearly discovered one. This one is that I love that one to the black one because it just it basically it's a little butt fan just because like tick talk talk like a little metronome. Uh. It's it's

it's incredible. They have their unique vibration, their unique rhythm and dances and kind of colors and butt shakes and it's beautiful. It's absolutely beautiful. And even though spiders don't hear like we do, we don't have they don't have ears like humans do, they can feel vibrations with sensory organs and hairs on their legs, and so it's like they just get this full spectacle of movement, color and music. Basically, wow wow spiders. I know, I thought I loved them before,

but I love them even more. Yeah, it's it's I think it's one of those things where we we think of them as being sort of, I guess, soulless little murderers, but look at this. They've got they've got heart. I mean, they are still they will still engage in the murdering part, but at least I don't know very many animals that don't write exactly. At least they spruce it up with a little bit of dance moves before the horror. And

they truly are very pretty beautiful, beautiful. I really I will include some links to them in the show notes, but I really encourage you guys to look up photos of peacock spiders because they're adorable and absolutely gorgeous. Spiders get a bad rap and there are a few myths that I Katie Golden Spider, Attorney at law, would like to clear up for my clients slanderous myth Number one, you will swallow around eight spiders a year. This is just completely untrue. Spiders don't want to get in your

big gross smells no offense. In fact, this myth was created specifically to show how galible people could be when it comes to quote unquote facts written on the Internet. It originates from PC Professionals. Article writer Lisa Holst wrote a list of ridiculous facts to prove her point about what people would be willing to believe, including the eight mouth spiders a year thing. Admitted it in writing Huna, Lisa, I'm about to issue as spider subpoena, which is basically

a cluster of dead flies and some sticky webbing. Anyways, Another slanderous smith is that spiders can lay their eggs under your skin. Now, there are plenty of bugs who like to do this, but spiders ain't one of them. In fact, spiders are often victims of parasites such as parasitoid wasps parasitic hare worms. So if you think about it, team human and team spiders are on the same side when it comes to parasites. Now slanderous item number three.

Thousands of spiders work together to spend giant webs that can cover trees, sometimes extending over twenty five ft long. Well, all right, you got us on this one. It's true. Communal spiders can actually do this, but I promise my clients have no current plans to capture humans and eat them when we return. What's round, fuzzy, buzzy and flies. It's not what you think. We know that pollinators are important.

It's how a lot of plants do. Set Bees are renowned for their pollinating abilities, as they should be, tiny be sized awards all around, but there are many other insects and animals who are pollinators as well. Ants and even mosquitoes can help pollinate. Hummingbirds, sunbirds, and honey eaters dip into flowers with their long beaks, carrying bits of pollen with them as they fly around from flower to flower.

Those little pollen covered teases. Bats are fantastic pollinators. Nectar slurping bats, such as the lesser long nose bat, can sometimes imbibe so much flower juice their entire furry bodies become yellow with a dusting of pollen. It's kind of like when you eat too many cheetahs and you become marked with that sweet, sweet orange powder. Now I want to talk about one of the cutest and most prodigious pollinators in the world who's also got a bit of

a dirty secret. So, Carmen, have you ever heard of a bee fly? Well, come on, silly, they fly all the time. Now I'm just kidding you. Well, the bee fly our family flies who look stunningly like bees. And I got a couple of photos of them. Oh my god, they're so cute, right, These are a lot of cute little guys. I know. These are the cutest buggies in the world. Look at that moving a little nuggy buggy, so cute, just a little nugget. So yeah, these are

one of my favorites. Are the Anna stoke Acus. Yeah, it's a genus a very fuzzy bee flies that look like pokemon. And that that's like what I showed you just now. They look like CUTEI fly the pokemon. They have these round fuzzy bodies that look like pussy willow buds. Have you ever seen that? Like the little pustle willle buzz They're just like little poofs of buzz and they have a long, black pointed proboscis that looks like a nose and a little black eyes and wings, and that

little proboscis is not for stinging, doesn't sting anything. It just is for dipping into nectar. And in England they're also known as bee walls like narwalls because of their little tusk like proboscis and uh they hum when they fly and because of that long beak like proboscis, they look a little bit like hummingbirds as they feed on nectar. And they're they're fantastic pollinators. They're harmless to humans. They

are found all over the world. The anastokic Us barbados is also known as the bearded beefly, is found in North America. Hey, yeah, there you go, And yeah, they're they're totally friendly to humans. They won't hurt us. They're not quite as friendly to beetles, wasps and solitary bees who nest on the ground because they have a little

bit of a sneaky, sneaky nesting strategy. So the beefly will lay her eggs in the nest of one of these insects, usually without even needing the land, she can shake her abdomen and basically dive bomb it with eggs. It's kind of like like if you just like we're giving birth to a baby and you're just like you're like flying around and just like bombs away like babies,

bab babies, babies for everyone, Babies for you, babies for you. Uh. These bomber flies actually have a sand chamber in their abdomen that they fill up with sand and then like use it to coat the eggs and sand so that they're more aerodynamic, because you know, these are little their little b sized flies, and so their eggs are pretty small and to overcome that wind resistance, if you coat

them in sand, it makes them better projectiles. And it also helps camouflage them so the their host targets don't know what's up. Then the larva will once they hatch and they are deposited inside these burrows of Usually it's like a wasp or a solitary bee or a beetle of some kind that burrows into the ground to lay their own larva, but the bee fly shoots their babies

in there. Their babies hatch into larva, and then once they're and once they've infiltrated these nests, they'll eat all the pollen provisions that were laid out for their hosts babies, and then they'll also eat the host babel. I felt like this wasn't going somewhere good, and I was right.

Then they used the burrow as their own nursery until they grow up into fully grown, fuzzy adults, a little bad babies, well bad babies babies, And despite this brutal act of forced babysitting, they're actually really wonderful pollinators, sometimes even outpacing their be competitors when it comes to pollinating flowers. Yeah, and the appearance of bee flies. You know, obviously they're called bee flies because they resemble bees, and there there's

a wide variety. My favorite are just those those fuzzy ones. But there's a wide variety of different kinds of beeflies. Some aren't so fuzzy, some look exactly like a bee, some kind of look almost wasp like. Now it could be Baitsian mimicry. That's when an animal who is harmless mimics a more scary animal to defend itself from potential predators. So that's like the caterpillar who pretends to look like a snake or the moth who has like eye spots

on its wings, so it looks like an owl. Uh, And so it could be trying to mimic a bee so that it's potential predators leaves it alone. Because when it's uh, when it's both kind of laying eggs and laying low to the ground and when it is born at it or not born, but when it comes out of the burrow that it's stolen, it's vulnerable because it has to like allow its wings to dry in the air and such, just kind of sitting there like a lame. So if it's camouflaged in some way either by looking

like a bee. There's also the theory that this is kind of convergent evolution where their their coloration is either trying to blend in with the ground to avoid detection. Like there's some of the bees that are kind of spotty or buff colored um, but the ones with stripes, it could be that they're just using the same strategy of bees where they're using disruptive coloration. So like these these banded stripes make it harder to for predators to

pick out the shape of the bee. Yeah, it's a really interesting life they lead, and they're also extremely cute. It's all bees, the bad baby be baby bees. You know that that Hollywood trope of like the the evil but cute cute, cute evilness, like a lot of like I'm trying to think of what's like the most famous famous example of like the evil cute, adorable, adorable using their adorable nous to like sneak into your life and destroy you. Man, boss Baby, No, No, I'm just kidding. Yeah,

boss Baby. Boss Baby is always the right an allergen to make. It's it's an iconic film that you can be used in all situations. Oh god, but yeah, I think I feel like this, this has potential in a future. I could see it in an animated film where it's like the the b fly can a bee fly? Yeah? Yeah, there we go. I now I know that. Yeah the first time and not again now because I know about it.

I kind of wish for all of these little buggies that we've talked about, the velvet worm, the peacock spider, and the bee fly kind of I don't normally say this about bugs, but I wish there was a giant version version I do, especially the elvet worm. If I could just have a big, old, pudgy velvet worm, I could carry like a baby and have as a little baby what a pet, and then you could just have it go like sick them and have them like shoot glue at people you don't like and then slowly approach

towards them. But a peacock spider pet friend would also be adorable and cute so beautiful. Man, I would just like give me a bunch of giant bugs. All right, we'll get started work. I'll work on it. I'll work on and see what I can do. I'll see what I can do. Do you have a favorite bug? Or if I convinced you adopt one of these, is your favorite bus? I mean I really love I mean that worm with velvet worm so dank cute, it's so cute. I favorite bug. I'm trying to think if there's a

favorite book. Before this, I will say I was obsessed with spiders as a child, and it sort of hasn't gone away. That's unusual, you know, usually, like even I was scared of of spiders when I was a kid, younger kid, and like it was actually because I was scared of them that I really tried to learn more about them to kind of get over it. And so it's interesting to hear when someone isn't like, how young were you when you I think I did like a

project on spiders when I was in first grade. Oh wow, so yeah you started you got in the spider trade and young, and then I was like really into them. And then I think there was like a personal pride with being like and I'm not afraid of it. But then one day I did get bitten by a spider when I was like a teenager, and then I developed fear because I was like, oh, they do hurt, they do by what do you know what spider you were bitten by? I think it was like it wasn't poisonous,

but it was. It was in my shoe, and I feel bad because like I had, you know, it was like imagine a giant foot entering the place you were just hanging out right like a little rude to be like you're you're just like you found a nice little cozy area taking a little now, but a giant but it just comes on in trying to evade your personal space. So it like bit my foot and I think it

was I don't know but it was pretty. It was like, um, I'd say it was as big as like the tip of my finger, So it wasn't like teeny right, um, but the spider itself was big enough. But it hurt. Yeah, I remember, I was like like yeah, and I got like a little yeah. Yeah, I've had a spider bite before and it's not fun. I got like a good juicy welt. But yeah, I don't know. I mean, I'm not I wouldn't say I'm afraid of them now. I think I have a healthy respect for spiders where I

see that they're not one I want to be bitten by. Yeah, but I don't, so I don't like go and pick them up like a lunatic, unless unless it's a jumping spider. I will actually very very gingerly pick up jumping spiders because they're so I mean, they're very tiny, so you have to be incredibly careful of handling them. You don't want to hurt them. But they are so cute, like to hold them on. They're tiny, they're so teeny. What was your favorite spider growing up? I really I really

liked the I thought the Black Widow was really cool. Yeah, and very famous obviously, did you live somewhere where there were black widows around? No, I lived in Minnesota. Yeah, so they weren't actually well there, I'm sure there were a fair amount of spiders, but I think only during certain seasons, like it's very cold, and imagine that makes

it hard for spiders. Yeah. I think it's an interesting kind of difference because like where I grew up in San Diego, there were black widows everywhere, and so I you know, I would say I'm maybe not super afraid of them because of being exposed to them a lot, but I don't like them. As a little kid, you're digging around trying to find treasure and then you find a black widow instead, and you're like, well, now I've got to leave this whole area. Yeah, because they're very,

very pleasonous. It's like you're digging around in the where I was like, you're looking for treasure. Huh, treasures spiders and spiders and pain. I mean, I I just thought they were so cool. They are cool, and I never saw it in person. So maybe you know, yea, you lived,

we lived with them? Yeah? Yeah, I live my my year living with spi Now, Yeah, I mean it's it's interesting I think sort of the different responses to two spiders, and it's I think it is interesting that we have that innate response that like a fear response to snakes and spiders, but that a lot of people can overcome them, and I think especially children, I think when they are I know that Actually there's another study that study that

shows that when you show young children positive representations of spiders and snakes, even like showing them like superheroes and stuff, it can change their attitude towards these animals, which I think is great because like, of course you want to teach children not to put snakes in their mouths, but you know, because it's rude, did the snake. But on the other hand, I think that if people were less afraid of these animals, they would get more positive attention.

And especially now that we have all of these climate crises and and dangers to our environment, it's important to you also remember the animals that are not not so cuddly. Yeah, all the time, although I would say velvet worms count as being extremely, very excessively cuddly. Are they your favorite at this point? Yeah? Favorite, They're my new favorite. I mean, of course, like there's room in my heart for all sorts of bugs, all sorts of worms and insects to

crawl up inside and live there. So I know, heart warming, love it. It's a beautiful Patu. Well, thank you so much for joining me today. You got anything to plug? Um during anything to plug? Plug my heart with more bugs, more bugs your heart, That's what I'd like to plug. No, I guess if you wanna see my stuff, you can check my website Kerman Angelica doctor um. But otherwise, yeah, is it dot com dot car car Com? Oh my god,

that would be amazing. If it was dot Corman Angelica dot com would be amazing, but I don't think I have access to that, So it's dot com. Yeah, and yeah, if you want to see my work, but otherwise, yeah, more bugs for your heart is really what I'd like to plug. Thank you. You can find us at Creature feature Pod on Instagram, at Creature feet Pod on Twitter, and you can find us on the I Heart Radio website.

You can find me on Twitter and check out my Velvet worm stand account at Katie Golden that's g O L D I N. And also I fight for bird rights on Twitter, the rights of birds which seems can't like sort of like I'm at a conflict of interest with my pro bird Rights account and my belt at worms Down account, given that there might be some conflict of interest there, but I've cleared it with a bunch of lawyers. Yes, yes, no quid pro quote pro quo bro.

Thanks to the Space Classics for their super wormy song ex Alumina. Creature features a production of I Heart Radio. To listen to more podcasts like this one, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. See you next Worm's Day.