Mosh Pit

boot packing, do you have to give it directions? Joining me today is Friend of the Pod, the audio genius behind Fake Doctor's Real Friends, Boss Level and One Upmanship. DJ Daniel Welcome. Happy to be here, Katie, A thrilling, a thrilling proposition, as always to be here on Creature Feature. Yes, I'm very excited about this one because it's about mash pits, and I know you're always getting in those all the time.

You know, me always thrashing my arms around, getting sweaty and flicking that sweat upon all of my fellow concert goers. You like a sprinkler, It's great they call you Dandle the sprinkler, the human sprinkler. At least this, at least this, this, this family flop sweat is good for something. Sure, So tell me about these bugs? Yeah, stoked. Yeah, so we're talking about a lot of bugs. Some of them are not insects, but we'll call them all bugs. Uh and sorry,

that's that's misnomber for sure. I mean, I don't know. I think you can call anything a bug. In my opinion, I don't think that bug is a scientific term. So like, if you feel like it's a bug and you want to call it a bug, I think that's fine. Insect is a scientific term, so you can't like go throwing that around. But bugs, you know, if something's like buggy to me, I'm like, that's a bug. I feel like crabs have bug energy. I know that most people don't

call them, but they've got bug energy. Sea bugs, sky bugs, land bugs. Yeah exactly. So these are called snow fleas. So imagine you are digging up some snowballs and suddenly you dig up a writhing, squirming mass of tiny black dots that jump around so quickly they almost seemed to flick in and out of existence. I think I would I think my snow day would be over at that

point I would be. I would run screaming back to my cabin for a cup of hot cocoa and a scalding hot shower, dual wheeled a couple of hair dryers and go outside. Yeah, I mean I sent you a video of someone just digging into a black hole of these riving little black dots. Yeah, just having them els

a scoop. Yeah. Really, And you know this is something that I It's one of those things where in my head I'm like, this is a totally fine, like the the bugs or these these creatures are not trying to hurt you, and in fact, you may not even be hurting them. Similar to um, there's a there's a person on TikTok who is who takes care of bees and the way that she just scoops bees up and puts them into you know, new uh whatever you call the little boxes that they hold honeycombs in. Like the way

she just like handles bees. I'm always like, there's there's no way, how do you even do that? But yeah, I can't get past the heart part of this. That's like hand in bug, No, no thank you. I don't suggest the layman go out and scoop up a ball of bees. I think that I think that's done you. I think like the hive is probably calmed down. I think sometimes they even like very gingerly hold a queen in their hand so that the when the bees cluster

around there smelling the pheromones of the queen there. Um. Anyway, it's very specialized handling abilities. I can't do it. I don't suggest anyone try to do that. Um. But with these snow fleas, uh, they really don't have too much to worry about. So despite the moniker snow fleas, the only one that really has to worry about an infestation is a snowman because these are not really fleas, even though they do look like them from our perspective. These

are instead spring tales. So spring tales are a subclass of arthropod UH known as columbola UH. They are technically not insects, but they are hexapods. So it's it gets weird with taxonomy with sometimes some of these like bug like things, and it's like it's technically not an insect, but you know it is a bug. Can you remind me what a hexapod is again? Or what? What? What? What?

What makes a hexapod yeah, I mean it's it's basically insects plus Columbola plus a couple of other classes of things, uh, pro Tura and dip lura, which are other kind of weird non insect things, but they are pretty much very bug like. Uh. It's it's a biologeny taxonomy thing. Uh. It's just based on sort of the evolutionary branching genetic linking things like that. Yeah, so they're they're related to insects, they're related to things like, uh, fleas and flies and

so on, but they aren't insects themselves. Um so. Uh the snow fleas uh so. Uh springtails are a uh subclass that they are a large grouping of different species. They live all over the world. Uh. Snow fleas are a species of springtail that live in seasonally cold climates in North America. Uh. And they are teeny tiny. They're usually less than a millimater long. They really do just look like little black jumping grains of sand. Very small, very small, very small, very but still very scary. Yeah.

I mean it's the it's the multitude of them. Like you have one of them, you're like you're just a little buddy, and then he invites like a thousand of his friends and it's like, oh, yeah, you could cover my face. I didn't ask for this. Yeah, I feel like the scariness of bugs is based on how much of your face they can cover. Wow, that is such a good metric, because you're absolutely right. Yeah, it's the

other golden rule. Uh. It is like spider covers only a freckle on your face, and not so scary covers the eyeball or get we're getting somewhere with that one. Oh god, eyeballs by I'll be I'll be working all day to get that image on my head. So, in the warmer months, snow fleas like to live in leaf

litter and eat decaying matter or things like algae. But in colder times they are actually able to survive the freezing snow because they have an anti freeze like protein in their bodies, and this protein prevents ice crystals from forming in their cells, which protects the cells from exploding. And when your cells explode, it's generally bad for you.

So I hear that is really cool though, that that I mean just one of those like adjustments, kind of like the sea bugs that can live near an underwater volcano because they've just you know, been been or maybe not a volcano, but like a thermal vent where it's like, oh yeah, you're just strong enough to withstand all sorts of crazy heats and yet you're a bug the producing anti freeze to survive out in the frigid cold Like, damn science, how do you how you do that? Yeah?

Those are called like extremophiles, things that can live like in the really really cold environments, are really really hot, really extreme environments, and yeah, it is. It's shocking when they have things like this uh this protein in their blood. There's also the wood frog, which can also do something similar. It also has an anti freeze like substance in their blood that prevents uh cells from getting icicles in them

getting these ice crystals, which is bad for the body. Actually, when you're when you're frozen, the freezing process doesn't necessarily hurt you. It's typically the thawing out that does the damage. Like when you start to thaw and you have this expansion of you know, these ice crystals and then you

get cell explosion. M h yeah. Yeah. So it's like so like you could potentially all these rich people cryogenically freezing themselves like I guess if they are able to store themselves long enough, the hope is that you would

find a futuristic society that could unthaw them safely. But also I kind of think probably not, Like it's probably something where you'd need to have this anti freeze in you before you undergo the cryogenic process, and probably they're just going to be like popsicles for post apocalyptic cannibals. That's popsicles for cannibals. That's a great that's a great band name, right, popsicles for cannibals. I like that a lot. Damn.

I really didn't think about that process though, that it would be the thawing that would be the damaging process. You think of it's just like, well, I'm just unfrozen now. It's like no, no, no no, no, but where's all that water going? Yeah exactly, Oh God, that's really scary. Exactly, um, but not for these guys. So the anti the protein prevents these ice crystals from forming in their cells, which

protects their cells. And researchers are very interested in the snow flea's natural anti freeze and how it can be applied to like the storage of donor organs, but much more importantly ice cream. Uh. Of course, the Spring Tales anti freeze is um actually similar to a non toxic

compound that you can create. Uh. There's this professor of food chemistry, uh shriny Vas and de Morderin at the University of Wisconsin Madison who is seeking to perfect ice cream science with a synthetic, edible anti freeze similar to what is found in Spring Tales. M hmm. Interesting. I mean I wonder, well, yeah, you don't want ice crystals on your ice cream, but so like it's it's supposed

to be. I don't know, well no, because if you have it's like when you know, like how your ice cream gets freezer burn and ice get ice cream and you get it, don't it. Nobody likes like that. No, nobody likes it. Right Yeah, I mean this, you know this, This is important. No, this is this is worth it, This is worth the time in the science. I'm with us. Actually, I think preserving organs is a good stepping off point for perfecting ice cream. The true goal. This is what

we all really need, right exactly. I mean it's all, it is all all everything we do, all of our scientific advancements. If we can make ice cream, a little more delicious, a little more melt in your mouthing it. It's all worth it, let's go off. So this is not the only superpower that spring tails have. They can also, of course spring so they can jump at incredible heights and speeds relative to their body size and rotate five

hundred times a second while in the air. What yeah, And sometimes I mean often when they are springing, like, they are in the air less than a second, So they're not always rotating five hundred times, but they are like so fast in their jumps. Sometimes their jumps are

measured in nanoseconds. Okay, more questions because of that. So rotation wise, are we talking like barrel roll style rotation or like spinning around like mostly you can't see this, but he just punished m really kind of committing to the springtale life. I think it's more it's more of a barrel roll. So they actually like curl up into a U shape, although I have seen some of them, some of the like slow mo videos, and some of

them do twirl like a ballerina sometimes. I think it kind of depends on the jump how they execute it. But to understand how they do that, we kind of have to zoom in on this springtail because to our naked eye they look like little jumping black grains of sand. Uh. But their bodies really don't look anything like fleas, even though to our naked eye it's like, oh, this is like a flea um. Instead, they have this like salindrical segmented body, a forked tail called a fercula, and like

a little round head and antenna and six legs. I think they're actually a little bit cute. It is kind of cute. Yeah, I mean, you know, they're they're definitely like, you know, adorable. That's that's that's my that's my least and most favorite thing about a lot of bugs is like you zoom in on them to a certain degree and it's like, oh, you know, they're just cute little guys. And then you do one of those really hyper close ups on their face and it's like this is a

horrifying monster. Yeah, but there's there's definitely a middle ground where they're absolutely adorable. Exactly. It's like tartar grades, the yes, oh my gosh, yes, moss piglets, water bears. Like you zoom in zoom out too much, you can't really see them not cute. You zoom in enough and they're like, you're like a chubby, little little gum drop. You're so cute, truly, little chubby gum drop, a bunch of little legs, cute, little like dot mouth, little oh mouth. Yeah, exactly, very cute.

And then you zoom in more and it's this like horrifying sandworm from Dune. Yeah, very very much a garbage disposal mouth where it's like, I don't want to get anywhere near that horrifying. It's the optimal zoom. Uh. We need scientists need to look into like the optimal zoom ratio for all of these small critters, you know, people, people on TikTok and small critters. Optimal zoom is a feature that we all need. How close is too close to your face for both humans posting content on the

internet and bugs. This is the other other golden rule about zoom, like one first one about bugs is how much of your face it covers is directly proportional to how scary it is. And secondly the zoom principle, there is a ratio of zoom for each bug oh that determines how cute it is horrifying. So to jump these spring tails use their whole body like a spring, including that forked tail called the ferculate, and they will like smack their tail against the ground or snow or even

the surface of water. Because they're so small, the surface tension of the water is like it's hard enough for them to like spring off of it like a trampoline, and they will launch themselves into the air while curled in a U shape like an acrobat. And interestingly, there is this tube on the underside of the springtail's abdomen called a color four whose function is kind of confusing

and debated for a long time. UM Earlier scientists thought it was like it excreted a sticky thing that helped them grab onto flat surfaces, but that's been relatively debunked, and it may have something to do with excretion and fluid regulation. It's this like mystery tube in the middle of this thing's stomach, which is really funny because it's like it like sticks outside of them like a little hose. Uh and uh, there's hose hose hose shame shame, thank

you was trying to shame. Uh yeah, I mean that sounds very Canadian hose shaming. So uh. Some research suggests that this coloform can actually help balance the spring tails jump when there's a water droplet attached to the coloforce. So again like water at this scale, like water tension, they can hold like a little droplet of water quite securely.

And and they like did some research where they found like the spring tails that had a little water droplet there were much more balanced and could like jump and land on their feet really quickly and really easily, whereas dry spring tails were not able to do that as much. So potentially it acts like a tight rope walker's pulse when they have a water droplet there, it helps them balance for more optimal jumps. Yeah, so in that video, I would imagine that one question you might have is

why are they all together like that? I mean, yes, I am curious about why they are together like that? Pardon me, thinks that's I mean, well, they have the anti freeze, so they're not going to freeze. But maybe something about being altogether, maybe some sort of closeness promotes some more warmth. Maybe I had to guess it's a very good guess. And how actually hold onto that gift

for a surprise later in the podcast. Um, but actually the reason that they cluster together and like these huge piles of like moving sand is for food or sex, you know, the universal motivators. So during the winter, food is more scarce, and snow fleas will cluster in or on top of the snow where there's food available, usually some decaying plant matter or maybe even algae um. But

they may also gather together during their reproductive cycles. So an interesting thing about spring tails and snow fleas is

that they continue to molt throughout their life. So something like say a butterfly or a moth or a wasp, they will go through these molting from egg to these larva, and sometimes they will go through numerous what are called in stars, which are like you, you start out as you know, a larva, and then you molten into something else and then into something else, and then you're in

your adult form um and something. Some of insects have much more straightforward sort of processes, like caterpillar going from like caterpillar to the pupae to the butterfly or moth. Some animals have more complex ones, like from a caterpillar stage to sort of a juvenile in star that eventually

molds into its adult form. But these spring tails actually continually mold throughout their entire life, and they will alternate between a reproductive in star and a non reproductive in star, and the reproductive in star doesn't eat, whereas the non reproductive one does. So they like transform into reproductive mode for a while and then transform back into no sex only eating mode. Sounds like me and my twenties, am I right? So how how quickly did these modes shift? Like? How?

You know, how what's the cycle of this? If you happen to it's I think it's like over over months or weeks. I don't think it's like that quickly. Um, So these bugs survived for a little while. Yeah. Yeah, And when females are in a reproductive in star, they actually release a pheromone that attracts both male and female spring tales that all common cluster together, and the more females that come who are also releasing pheromone makes even more coming. So they formed this giant sex mosh pit,

which is you know, they're having a good time. I love that. I hope that, and you know what, I hope everybody's having fun. That's really the most my main concern. As long as in the pheromone induced sex mosh pit. Everybody's having a good time. That's my main concern. Yeah, I think they're they're probably having a good time in these mash it's I imagine. I mean, like their lives do you seem kind of fun because they just go through cycles of eating stuff, hanging out together, eating stuff,

hanging out together, having sex. I think they've got things figured out. They really nailed it. I think they got down to the base, the base what we all need to survive. And um, they're just doing it right. And they're not really hurting anyone because they're eating decaying matter, they're eating algae um. They're they're called fleas, which I think is kind of insulting to them because they don't they don't bite your dog right now, they're not hurting

no doggies. No, no, that's right. The only time I really get mad at insects is when they hurt my doggie or any any kind of like bug creature like I got. I get really mad at fleas or ticks or round worms when they affect my doggie. I'm like, it's just it's just an anger. Usually I don't have towards the bug and insect Kingdom. It's unfair. Look, doggies don't have a usable thumbs. They can't get these little buggies off of them. Often it's a pain in the butt.

And um, it's not fair. It's not fairly leave them dogs. But these guys snow Fleas are dog's best friend. Well, I mean, he's got a best friend. But they're at least cool acquaintances, exactly, exactly, cool acquaintances, not mortal enemies. If we stand exactly, that's what we gotta have. Warn that there's a link in it that has watched this video, so if you could have that video open as well. Yeah. Also, I'll say this also something of my nightmares. If I'm

being real, it's odd. It's definitely odd. The movement of the worms aren't great. Have you been playing like the Dead Space remake remuk? No, I have not, but I'm very familiar with the with the with the series. I'm too scared. This is embarrassing. I love of horror games, but I don't handle stress well, so I'm too scared to play them myself. But I love watching other people play them. So right now I'm watching my husband play it. I watched the whole play through of the original, so

it's fun to see the updated graphics. And so I feel like I feel like these things squiggle and wiggle in a way that reminds me of some of the monsters and dead Space. Yeah, well that that'll turn you off the real quick. This is just this is just the kind of thing that even though I know that well, I mean you actually you're probably about to tell me how fine it is that these these little squiggly wormy

things are in the water. But I just know that if I saw this, I would be like, I have to get out of here immediately before one of these crawls into my ear and eats my brain out. So maybe that fear is unfounded and we'll find out shortly, but I can't stop myself from thinking that whenever I look at this video, I would I definitely feel that. I think that when I see warm in the water, I think definitely parasite. But fortunately these are not parasites,

but they are very weird. So these are called pololo worms, and they are you know, they're just kind of squiggly worms here in this video that I've used to kind of traumatize Danial. Uh. They are never going in again. They're just they like look like, you know, maybe thin, thinner, a little bit longer. Earthworms. They're they're different colors, they're more pale, and they're moving around undulating, very weird jerky motions. When you say, yeah, very jerky. I'm also gonna give

our our viewers a little context for this video. So this is someone who is in what looks to be the ocean at night with a with a underwater flashlight and their first filming from above the water. So you're like, oh, I can see some little squiggly wormies in the water. And then they submerge the camera and reveal that throughout the water, through probably five or six feet of solid depth of water, there are little squiggly worms everywhere. To be honest with you, this is a horror movie level

reveal that happens in this video. And another note about this video is that the description simply says God provides and that's and that's big facts right there. God provides some of our most horrifying things. When the camera goes into the dark water and you see you guys, oh

my god. I mean so a lot of people would look at this and get really excited and happy and I'll tell you why in a little bit, but first I will introduce this warm by saying that palolo worms reproduced by timing a mass gathering with the moon cycle and then explode like a two stage rocket, releasing sperm and eggs. What Yeah, so okay, yeah poalolo worms. Um, I guess the shorter version is they detached their butts to have a giant rave at the surface of the

sea and a mass reproductive orgy. Wow. Yeah, okay, yes, so they are found is just processing. I can see like the like the wheels spinning. Yeah, that's I mean that sounds I don't know. I mean, I gotta see it, but I just know that if I don't know, I have to put myself in the shoes of the person taking the video. Being if I was in the water and I saw these worms, first of all, I'll be

getting the hell out of there. But if all of a sudden their butts started exploding and shooting seed into the surface of the water, I'll be like, I'm about to turn into a last of a zombie right now, Like this this is it. This is how I become a clicker and it's over. Yeah anyway, Sorry, please your face is just an error message. I am enjoying that. Yeah, I have one of those little rotate I have on my face right now that windows like sounding windows like,

but we're experiencing problem. Yeah. So they are found in the oceans near the Pacific Islands and Indonesia, and they are a species of marine worm. They are a polykeet in the same class as bristle worms, bobbit worms, and certain deep sea tube worms. Now bobbit worms we've talked

about before on the podcast. They are those horrifying mixture between like a really long sarlac pit because they hide in the sand on the seabed and then we'll burrow down because they can be quite long, and then they pop out, grab fish and pull them down into their burrows. So um, horrifying. And you know, cousins to the pololo worms, so their cousins can be pretty weird and wild too. But pololo worms have a very bizarre life cycle, one

of the weirdest ones that I know about. Uh. They start off as tiny planktonic larva, which is not unusual for marine life. Lots of marine life starts out as zooplankton, little little tiny guys that just bhoop around the ocean. But then they develop into an adult. They grow into a long segmented worm with a weird claw like head. Uh. And they are not small. They can grow to be

around sixteen inches or forty centimeters long. Yeah, they're pretty. Yeah, they're they seem significant in terms of their like size that they're definitely not tiny little guys. You will you would not miss them, You absolutely would not miss them. They like to settle into the crevices of a coral reef, So they go head first into like a little sort of nook or cranny in the coral reef and kind of burrowed in there. All right. So there, so the coral is their home or is that just a okay, cool?

It's their home. I mean it's it's sort of typical weird marine war warm lifestyle so far, Like they're they're weird looking, kind of creepy. They're in coral all standard for the ocean. Are they mostly found in places like Australia where there's a lot of coral reef? Um? Are they kind of all over? Yeah, they're mostly found so like they're found uh, near the Polynesian Islands, they're near Indonesia. They're I think they some of them are sort of

in uh the ocean somewhat near Australia. So yeah, it's it's like in these warmer coral uh corally areas. I don't know if coraly is a word, but yeah, none, yeah, poorly coral lue, coral line. I'm with you. So this is where stuff gets weird. After they are adults and then they want to reproduce, they go into another stage of their lives, uh and kind of transform into their

reproductive form. So their muscles and heads start to atrophy a little bit, and there in segments which contain reproductive organs grow, and their legs become more paddle like, and eventually these in segments detached from the head and are able to swim on their own. So this free swimming butt section is called the epitope, and it will alone without the head, swim up to the surface of the ocean to reproduce. So it what So the reproductive organ is a kind of like its own creature? Yes, what

is it? Does it? WHOA? Okay? Does it? So? Is it just the reproductive organs or does it like is it kind of like a like a cell? Splitting where like you're getting some you know, does it have it? Does it Does it have its own like brain nervous system or something like that, or is it just it has Yeah, it's got its own like nerves. It's got a bunch of legs. Um. I think it even has some like sensory light sensing cells. Uh. And so I don't think it has like a central brain. No, but

it has like neurons um and some connections happening there. Right. It's like as if you basically like detached your lower half like belly button down, and it ran off and went to go mate, yeah, without you having to be involved. So fun. Well that's I mean, you know, that's that's the part I don't never want to experience, the actual reproduction part. I kind of just wanted to happen. So if I could take all the more fun for me, I could say in my computer looking at memes, it's

it's a waste of time and boring. So the uh, the head part doesn't always die typically it actually can regrow a new in segment. Um. Yeah. So the but as this like as this posterior segment goes off on its own like like nice now and you see, it goes to the surface, it will meet up with a bunch of other posterior segments all there for the same reason, and they like kind of explode, They sort of disintegrate

and like just kind of fault. These segments kind of like pop apart, and there's this mass soup of sperm and eggs that just kind of mingles together to form the new babies m soup. Yeah. In fact, okay, so the palolo worm is on a very precise and consistent time schedule following moon fade. This is after apparently October eighth, during the third quarter moon, for just a couple hours. Oh my god, that is so specific. Yes, and because of this, people who live in the area have recognized

the habits of the pololo warm over centuries. And apparently, I know you grimaced when I called this a soup, but apparently these epitopes, the butt segments are quite delicious. So people will go out during this special time and catch them with nuts and so you are kind of eating like, um, you know, reproductive organs. But we eat caviar in row all the time, and those are reproduct those are eggs. You know, you're you're right, You're right.

I shouldn't be so young yucky with my interpretation of these things, because at first, when you said they're delicious, I was expecting, like, yes, delicious to fish or to other creatures of the seed that might you know, just be just be out there snacking. Um. But wow, we'd be eating this stuff. Okay? Is it is it a m Is it like a delicacy to any particular region? Is there a chance that I've eaten this before and I just didn't know. I don't know. I think it's

more in the Polynesian Islands area. Uh so there, Yes, it is very much delicacy. It's like it's because it only happens like you know, this rare time every year. Uh that it's like and you know, you can collect quite a bit over this period of time. Uh, And I think that they do. They go with every third moon cycle after October eight, so there might be like a a few periods of time before they stop. But still it's like very rare. It only happens like a couple of hours when they come up and do this.

You gotta catch them while you can. And apparently they're very very rich in protein. I mean, like an egg. It's very high in protein, so I imagine they have a very like ummmy flavor, very rich protein flavor, and are apparently extremely good. I've never tried any. Don't tempt me with a good time. I mean, I'm into it. Look, you know your food. You've got to have an open mind. And once I once I learned something might might be delicious and might be food, you gotta go ship. I'm down.

Who didn't look at salmon Roe for the first time, look at a little a little kora and be like, I don't know about that, and then you put it in your mouth and you're like, damn. Actually, these little explosions of flavor are incredible, right, Yeah, I mean all our all our food, so much of our food is very weird, and our understanding, our understanding of weirdness is very cultural. I mean, like with milk, it's like, yeah, this is coming out of a cow nipple. I'm going

to drink that, you know it. In fact, I'm just going to start eating the cow's ass. You're just gonna eat that booty. There's there's there's so many things that I have to like, credit are our for our ancestors for for having the gall and the bravery to be like, let me do this thing, because like, without them, we

wouldn't have literally anything today. Think about sandwiches, Think about how many steps we have to go through to get to bread and then if you want to go, if you want to go really quote unquote science with me right here, I think about how many steps it took for us to get to like bonds, how much how much work do we have to do to get to Okay? But then what about this, this and this? Yeah we had there's a lot of cultivation, their understanding of glass, lots of lots of things that had to to to

lock into place. But yeah, we'll stick with We'll stick with food and sandwiches for now and not go too deep down the stone or rabbit hole of can you believe they did this to make this thing? Bro? Dude? Sand think about glass? What do anyway? You just think about sand and how many of them there are? Well that is awesome. Now I'm hungry, So I want to talk about larval conveyor belts. Are you ready? Belts? Larval conveyor belts another cool sounding thing. So uh, first I

gotta tell you what a soft fly is. So soft flies aren't flies? Or bees or wasps, even though they kind of look like all three of those things somehow, weirdly, they are actually a distinct suborder of Hymenoptera, and they are named after the saw like ovipositor. So an ovipositor is like this tube on the butt of female that is used to deposit eggs um. And so she uses that sali like ovipositor to saw into a plant and lay her eggs um. And there are many different species

of soft flies all over the world. But the reason I want to talk about soft flies is that their larva are often very social. Now, their larva look like caterpillars, uh, and they are usually quite social and they tend to stick together and it's cute and horrible at the same time, which is my favorite feeling. I love that they look like an enemy popping out of a tree. Yes, yes, So what you are looking at right now is a fascinating thing because this is it looks like one organism

right like an m or a living fleshy flower. And it's like twitching, it's like jumping, like unfurling in this like coordinated pulsating movement. This is actually a cluster of soft fly larva uh moving in Unison, and the thought is that by moving in Unison, they are a warding off potential attackers. Interesting. Interesting, I mean, I'll tell you this, I'm certainly warded off by seeing this. I would not

be going over there being like touch thing. Absolutely not. Yeah, I know that I would have to drag my dog Kelly away from it, though I'd be like, yeah, you're not with that right now. Dogs find the weirdest, most disgusting, probably most dangerous thing in their perimeter and immediately put it in their mouth like that, Oh, this thing looks fun Like my dog found a turd with a cigarette stuck into it like a birthday candle and immediately like

it like dove for it. I had to like nank her back because she's like, that's it's my birthday to the happy birthday in the cookie. Time for me to eat that thing. That's so funny and disgusting. But yeah, I support you, a fellow dog on her I support you, yes, um, But yeah no, this absolutely looks like a see an enemy um but on a tree. But it's also made up of a bunch of these individual larva um and and again they're like they're kind of they're chunky like

they're like caterpillars. They're not tiny guys, um very much like a yellow caterpillar. And again imagine four our view our listeners at home, imagine truly like a kind of a cluster of small yellow caterpillars sticking out long ways out of a tree in a little group, and like a handwave near them makes them all go Like if you can imagine what that noise sounds like in terms of wiggling action. That is the scientific term for that movement. It's spelled with a lot of ohs and a lot

of uh gotta yeah. So they will form what is known as a rolling swarm where they crawl all over each other and it protects them from attacks by predators. Um. And it is really interesting to see both when it is sped up and also in real time movement, both pretty horrifying looking but also there. To me, it's cute because it's just a bunch of a little guys crawling all over each other trying to go forward. It's yeah,

I mean, there's there's a there's a group. A group think elements to their to their movements and whatnot, but um, yeah, I can't can't get over the I need to can't get over the demon back away from me. Kind of

a thing I'm thinking right here. I think, honestly my theme or not my theme, but there's a trope of me on this show that is like, I'm so scared of bugs, and like, in truth, I don't think I am that's scared of bugs, but I do stray away from interaction with bugs as much as possible, and that's just unfortunately factual. I think it's not a bad idea.

I think it's worse if you're like me and you like have this compulsion to pick up every weird bug you see, and then later find out that this was, oh this is a kissing beetle, or this is a kissing bug. This could have actually really hurt me. I should not have touched that. I just kind of like, I kind of like I want to touch everything. I want to pick everything up. So I guess me and my dog are not so different, are we? Maybe not? But you know what we need people like you do.

If people like me survive long enough, touching bugs protects Katie at all costs. Um. But yeah, by moving in unison kind of I'm trying to think I feel like it reminds me a lot of Miyazaki movies where he does this kind of thing. I think he's done it in a few of his movies in Howel's Moving Castle and Princess Mononoke, where it's like a bunch of like little slugs kind of like coming coalescing together and moving

in Unison. Yes, it's a little stomach turning. It is, most certainly especially in monok when it's like the writhing disease on Htuka's arm. Not my favorite. No, it's a little gross looking, but in this case it's effective because they are able to make themselves seem like a larger organism also probably make it difficult for a predator to pick out anyone individual. Um. There's also remember earlier when you were speculating that maybe those snow fleas gathered together

for heat. Indeed, that was not a stupid guest, because there is research on these guys on the soft fly larva that they do gather together to benefit from each other's body heat. So I was just a little early with my predictions, that's right, that's right, accurate, but early. So there was some speculation. When I say some speculation, it's really just kind of one guy on YouTube, YouTuber named Dustin who that's speculation, nonetheless, that is that is speculation, nonetheless,

and there's a lot of it. People are saying, um, well, really it's just one people on YouTube. And he did this experiment with like moving legos because he saw like these larva as this sort of like living conveyor belt, and he speculates that maybe they're able to move faster like that because basically they are moving on top of each other and then the bottom ones also moving, but then they rotate and so they're kind of like it's like when you're you know, like at the airport, when

you're walking on the flat escalator. I don't know what those are called people mover. I guess okay, wow, we didn't think of anything more creative than that. Huh. People move all right, but where it's like you're walking, usually for me, I'm walking on the people mover because it's the airport, and I'm always in a rush and always straight, keep going right. But you're walking, but the thing under you is also moving, so you're going very fast compared

to your normal walking speed. And so the idea is the same here Unfortunately, I haven't seen any real like research studies on the actual larva, just this one YouTubers like Lego experiment, which is cool. I'm not like, I'm not saying it's not cool. It's very cool. But it's at this point just this one ded speculation, which I think is great. That's where stuff starts, that's where research starts. So I'm hoping to see hoping to see more research

on it because that would be that would be great. Yeah, well definitely it definitely want to see. Definitely want to see more. Um. I just like seeing you know, things working together. That that's what I'm about, all about mutual aid here and all of that community and seeing these things, you know, crawl over each other to get forward, but still move as a group. It's very it feels very anti capitalist. It's not so much it's not so much

I use you to get further up top. It's we moved together as a unit and that's we like that team makes the dream warm. Wow, nailed it. Technically I guess these aren't worms though, so I'm sorry. Please don't email me the the you know, some some some Twitter nerds might might get in your d ms. But these ones are too busy working together to make progress for

their own group. So think about that. Twitter. I've actually found that my audience is very very sweet and their corrections are often extremely extremely kind, and it's nice and not like, you know, not the actually genre. So that's really wonderful. Well, shout out, shot out, shout out. Fans of Creature feature, thank guys for like when you do get on your when you do get on my case, it's in a very nice way, very cordial, very cordial. I think that's all we can ask for with our

podcast communities, is that you you foster community that is cordial. Yeah, because I ain't perfect, and you guys know that, and that's that's great. Who lives among us? Who among us? But he who is without? You know, worm sin cast the first rolling worm Rock perfect BEAUTI fo you perfectly executed well. Before we go, we gotta play a little

game called Guests Who's Squawk? And the Mtery Animal Sound Game. Uh. This is a game where I play Mry animal Sound and you the listener, and you're the guests try to guess his squawken. It can be any animals, uh, not just birds, not just bees, anything anything in the earth or on the earth or slightly above the earth. So, uh, the hint for this week's mtery animal sound is this baby sure likes to make a point. Can you guess who is making that sound? All right? So my immediate

thinking was bird. My immediate thinking is bird sounds like bird? Um, this baby sure likes to make a point. Yes, that is the hint. This baby shorts to make a point. I can't tell if it. So here's here give you

all my thinking. I can't tell if the hint is in the is in the hint of like sure likes to make a point, like it is arguing, like it's a lawyer or something, or if it's like an actually kind of like sure likes to make a point, get its point across, or or if it's or if it's a more straightforward hint of like this baby sure likes to make a point, like something pointed is part of

its physiology, like maybe it is a baby woodpecker or something. Um, I did like where you're going with like the lawyer the animal that is a baby lawyer right, the boss of the boss baby of animals. Um, I think I'm gonna go. I think I'm gonna go with baby woodpecker. I'm gonna go with baby woodpecker. That is a fantastic guess. It is wrong though, that this is a baby hedgehog. Is baby hedgehog? Congratulations to Joey P and Auntie B

who gets correctly that this is a baby hedgehog. So it is a baby who likes to make a point, likes to make lots of points. So a baby hedgehog also known as a hoglute what they're called? Yeah, this is very cute. They come out pink, They come out pink, and like little little spiky jellybeans. Um, they will squeak to communicate to their mother that they are hungry, just

kind of like kittens. Um. Down. In terms of baby hedgehogs, a question I imagine a lot of people have about baby hedgehogs is that if they are born with spines, how do you give birth to one without getting impaled by the spines? And nobody having a good time with that? Yeah. Um, so they are worn with spines, but they are born covered in a protective skin like membrane when they are born. Huh, And these spikes emerge after the membrane dries and shrinks

and the spikes start poking out from the membrane. Um. Kind of like that X Man from the X Men. Uh, and he had spikes coming out of his face, except that there was an X Man that had spikes that would come out of his body. Uh, you know, I don't remember he was from No, he was from one of the Bad Want movies. Um, Okay, you know what I think, I know what you're talking about. Spikeman, Spikeman, Spikeman. Um, it's kind of like that, except it's a tiny pink

baby hedgehog. And it's sort of like they kind of are born like with extra puffy skin, and the natskin kind of dries and then shrinks down and then the spikes come out. Um. Also the spines, the spines of a newborn are softer than an adults, and they will eventually be shed and replaced by harder adult spines. Got it, Okay? And and with the and with the skin, like the the the protective layering does it when it starts to

poke through, does it eventually like fall off? Is it like molted off of them or or is it like it becomes just like a part of their skin layer. I mean, I think it just kind of shrinks down to their skin layer, but like all skin, it will sort of fall off sort of like I mean, yeah, like our our skin is always you know, sort of like the dead layer is falling off all the time. So I think it might it might kind of slough

off a little bit faster than other skin though. I would imagine, Hey, the listeners out there, take care of your skin. Where all right, get that SPF going. Did you know that like your outer most layer of skin is like dead essentially? Yeah, Like why is skin such

a good defense against pathogens? And it's like this It actually looks a lot like uh, if you've seen these old stone walls that they used to make with like smaller rocks, like these kind of thin and flat rocks, and they used to kind of jam them together, like the Romans would do this. And we actually have some of these still in Italy and they just have a bunch of like sort of small thin rocks all stuck together.

It's like this technique that like we don't know how to do anymore really, um, but like skin is kind of like that. These they're these like small flat dead cells that are kind of squished together, and these like you know, sort of like almost like like these these old walls with all these rocks kind of interwoven with each other and it forms it's very like tough to

penetrate layer. Cool. Yeah, wow, Well, shout out the Italians for for figuring out how the skin can be turned into rock or how the skin is can be trans transitioned into rock. Um that's cool. Yeah, but yeah, yeah, our skin, all all the skin that we see, what we're looking at is death. It's very it's very Werner Herzog. Yeah, constantly observing our own demise. Exactly that you strive to protect is simply your mortal coil exposure itself and then

like it's like unsatisfy, you should buy it. Can protect a multra hydro hydro salasinic acid your eyes in this episode is a Mandaloria and sponsored by Salery. Protect your skin, Embrace your death. Onto this week's Mr Animal Sound. The hint this is one unhappy noodle. If you think you know the answer to this week's Mystery animal sound, you can email me at Creature Feature Pod at gmail dot com.

That is Creature Feature Pod at gmail dot com and make your gifts and if you've gifts correctly, you might hear your name on the podcast. Well, Daniel, thank you so much for being here, or can on people find you? Well, it's my pleasure to be here, Katie, thank you so much for having me love the show so much. Um. You can find me all over the internet at DJ Underscore Daniel d A n L on all the platforms, um.

I'm mostly on Twitter, Instagram, and Twitch. I also have a TikTok, regrettably for all the content that I forced myself to post to try and stay relevant in this ever more cringe universe of posting. Um. But yeah, I'm on Twitch three times a week Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. We play a lot of games to tell a lot of stories, and you know, it's just it's just about

Twitch community. I also have a lot of channel point rewards that you can use to make fun of me or surprise me with jump scares and whatnot, which is truly the most fun part of the stream is how you can interact with it and make me miserable. So come on, it's a lot of fun. Go harass Danial, Go harass Daniel. That's the whole point. Yeah, and you mentioned you like the show, but I should also mention you helped me started early on, so you credit for that. Yeah. Absolutely,

it's all it's all you. I mean, it's me and other people. Fair, okay, fair always, it's always a team. But but it has to has someone needs to be the captain to write the ship. And that's all you. We form a rolling swarm. Swarm kind of ride around and then make podcasts and that's the way of the world. Am well, Thank you guys so much for listening. If you're enjoying the show and you leave me a writing or review, I will read it. I will add it to this wall in my house where I post up

all my views. And my husband is getting very nervous about it, getting quite alarmed. Uh. He shouldn't worry, because I do it out of love and obsession. Uh. And thanks to the Space Cossacks for their super awesome song Exo Lumina. For more podcasts like the one you just heard, was that the I Heart Radio app Apple podcast? Or Hey guess what where have you listen to your favorite shows? See you next Wednesday.