Welcome to Creature feature production of iHeartRadio.
I'm your host of.
Many Parasites, Katie Golden. I studied psychology and evolutionary biology, and today on this show, we're stealing our meals. We're like that guy from now One Musical Lay Miss Robbs, who he stole loaf of bread, and so do these animals. We're talking about klepto parasites who will steal their food, just like your coworker who takes your lunch all the time. Call tell me he's a klepto parasite. I'm sure that'll
go well. Discover this and more as we answer the asi old question if someone's not gonna eat their own bar? Is that fair? Scoop it up? Is that too gross to have on a podcast? Joining me today is proprietress of the website How to Eat La and host the smart Mouth podcast, Catherine Spires. Welcome.
Thank you so much.
It is always a delight to be here.
Yeah, I We're we're off to a good start. I'm already talking about eating vomit. And yeah, yeah, why don't you tell I have had you on the show before, but just to refresh people's memories. Oh, you're you are a food expert tress.
Yes, yes, everything I do is extremely feminine. Yeah. I am a food writer, food journalist, super interested in food history. So smart Mouth is about food history, and that's that's what I focus on. I like knowing where things come from. And then you mentioned how to Eat La, which is also my new life's work. Some can you call something your life's work if you've only spent a year on it? Yes, I think so.
Yeah, yeah, and that's just restaurant reviews.
And I like to think that I'm better at it than everybody else, so you know, it's not a reindorsement, you know myself.
I think I like that attitude because too many people are like, well, I'm starting this website. I don't actually know anything, but I thought i'd start a website, and so it is refreshing to have someone who starts a website because you truly do know more than say, someone like me, which is honestly true. I like food, but do I know the origin of the humble Hamachi fish?
No?
I don't. Well.
The other thing, too, is I think even if I have my moments where I don't think I'm good at things, I think when I'm talking to people, and I want them to consume the things I prey. I have to at least pretend, right. Yeah, I don't like it when people, you know, post here's a thing. No, that hasn't inspired me to consume it at all.
Non confidence, even if it's not well deserved. That's the thing, exactly.
No.
But antically in your case, Catherine, it is well deserved, and.
Oh my gosh, thank you so much.
As it is for me because I'm the best at animals. What does it mean to be best at animals? I won't explain, It's self evident. So we are talking about klepto parasites today. Klepto parasites are animals who like to steal their food, and it is incredible. I do. Okay. We were having a conversation before we start recording that I just feel like is too good to leave out of the show. We were talking about Vespertine. It is
a restaurant in Los Angeles which is incredibly expensive. I don't remember how expensive it is, but it is pricier than your average you know, Burger shack, and it presents you with food that's supposed to be extremely creative and artistic. But it's stuff like food stuck onto branches of driftwood, and like a tiny little smear of something, or what appears to be a cannonball with some cream on it, and the cannonball is not edible. You just lick the
cream off of the cannonball. And I feel that this is sort of a reverse klepto parasitism, where you are the one getting fed, but at the same time, I feel like stolen from in some way.
Yeah. Yeah, I feel like restaurants like that maybe just need to call themselves an interactive art project. Yes, because that's what it is more than it's dinner and people want to come and they want to have dinner and maybe say, erase that from your mind.
That's not what we're about.
Yeah, this is art. Yeah, maybe they I don't know, maybe they'd be more successful.
I would respect them. I would respect them so much with that where this is art, because I think I have once you if you say do something weird and I ask you, what are you doing? That's very strange. You have just picked up you a piece of garbage and put it on your head. But if you say it's art, I'm gonna believe you and I'm gonna be like, yeah, this is very symbolic of our current capitalistic society.
I get it. There you go, yeah, see exactly. It's like, here, come to this art show and we'll feed you. It's like a better deal than like sit here for three hours, are tedious?
Yeah, come to this art show and you know, suck some I guess caviar from this mannequin's butt.
Yeah, yeah, I don't eat. Sex will be provided.
Yeah, that would be if I was gonna open a fancy restaurant, I would I would do stuff like that, put caviar on a mannequin and be like, you gotta look it off. This mannequin. Isn't that artistic? Yeah?
And then it becomes a thing where the actual art project is seeing how far you can push.
Right right exactly, Like here's a leaf with a snail on it. You're supposed to smell it, not eat it, and see if people accept that.
You know, yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, Well I mean we've got a million dollar idea, right right, well so yes, And honestly, animals have already figured all this stuff out.
They know how to make the food experience artistic and exciting through the can you call Theft an art I think so, right, the art absolutely, such as the artful Dodger exactly.
Yes, I think I love a heist movie. I like seeing how they get it done.
There's a lot of Oceans, yes, one through eleven, so you know that. I think indeed theft is an art and these animals are artists.
Don't sleep on Oceans eight Oceans eight, just saying, just saying, I don't actually yeah, I don't actually know. I've never seen a single Oceans movie, and I don't know what the numbering system means or is. Yeah, it's the number of people involved in the hests.
Like chronological numbers.
Well, they did it first, and then you know they made a woman version and that had to have fewer people obviously. Okay, eight, you know eight, like how a lady is shaped with boobs in butt. So cuckoo bees, Catherine, let's start talking about animal biology.
Okay, you've heard of cuckoo birds. There's also cuckoo bees. So cuckoo bees is a type of bee. And there are many types of bees right outside of honeybees. In fact, you know tons of species. Most species of bees are not necessarily use social bees like honeybees, they can be independent. So cuckoo bees lay their eggs in the nurseries or hives of other bees. So there are a few different species of cuckoo bees with different strategies allowing their newborns
to steal their meals. But bees in the nomadine family lay their eggs in the nests of bee species that have a like they form sort of a cell. Maybe it's in a piece of wood. Maybe they you know, create a nest out of like some material like mud, and then they put their little larvae in and seal it off and then it's like I've done it. And they usually they also put some food in there for
their larva to feed on. So it's like crap creating a crib and then sealing your baby in it with all the food they'll need, and then they grow into an adult and burst their way out of the crib.
Humans aren't allowed to do that, no, which is.
You know, I think if you put food in there, it's technically not an effect, right right, yeah, yeah.
Totally fine.
So many rules helicopter parents.
I know, right, you gotta like feed your child every day.
These cuckoo bees are real seventies parents.
No, well, no, so the cuckoo bees are worse. I'm just describing. This is the the life of a solitary bee where they put their their larvae inside this little like that they're actually exhibiting a good parenting for a bee because they create.
Oh okay, so right right, Solitary bees are the ones who do this.
Yeah, So, like, there are many species of bees who do this, and these are they're just different from say, honey bees, where it's like a single bee queen who is the one giving birth. These are bees who are solitary. So all of the females will try to produce offspring, and they put their larva in this little crib that they've created for them, a little nest. And so the
cuckoo bees are even lazier. So the cuckoo bees will go to this nest and they lay their egg inside the wall of the nest, and as that egg hatches and the larva hatches, it will drill its way into the nest and then feed on both the larva and whatever food that the host bee had left for its
own offs bring. So it's like if you have like a nursery and a demon puts a baby, it's it's demon baby in the wall, and that demon baby crawls out of the wall into your nursery and eats your baby and all your baby's food.
Hate it when that happens.
I hate it when that happens. I you know, man, I thought my insurance policy would cover such an event. No, man, that's an that's an unnatural disaster, supernatural disaster. We do not cover supernatural disasters.
So uh okay. And then for both kinds, like the parasite version in the non or the less parasite version, do when the bees hatch or when they when they become bees, do they just fly off?
Yeah, they chew their way out of the nest and they fly off.
Okay, But these cuckoo bees, first they eat everything in sight, and then they take eggs.
They eat both the hosts, the host's own baby, and also the food, usually like a pollen ball that was left behind for the baby. So yeah, it's you know, it's it's similar to how cuckoo birds work. Cuckoo birds will lay their eggs in the nests of a host
bird species. The cuckoo bird egg hatches, and often the cuckoo baby will push the other chicks out of the nest, or at least they will steal food because basically they're big, they are demanding of the other birds, and the birds will try to feed this cuckoo baby at the expense of their own offspring because they've been tricked.
Okay, So the birds don't know that this egg did not come out of them, that's right, okay. And and then so how do the other animals feel about cuckoo birds and cuckoo bees.
I mean, if they unders stand what's going on, I don't think they appreciate it. So with birds, at least when it comes to cuckoo birds, a lot of bird species have evolved counter strategies to prevent cuckoos from invading their nests. There's even a bird species I don't remember the name of it. It may actually be multiple species where the birds will start to sing sort of songs around their eggs, so the chicks will learn sort of
this code. And then when the chicks hatch, the mother listens for this code, and if there's a baby who doesn't know it, that baby gets kicked out of the nest because it's more most likely a brood parasite, which is what these are called brood parasites. Huh. Interesting, And cuckoos aren't the only brood parasitic bird. There's also cowbirds which can be brood parasites. So yeah, it's in very loo gritive, I guess evolutionary strategy to be able to
steal the parental care of others. And so you do see it in a lot of species and a lot of different families of animals. It's so rude, it's very rude, you know. It's it's like someone I don't have kids, but I imagine it would be like if you have a kid and you have a neighbor who has a kid their age, and they're always dropping that kid off at your house and they're like, yeah, just so they
can have a playdate. But then now you're feeding this kid and you're making two peanut butter sandwiches, and it's a real it's a real, real situation.
I think that's that's an occurrence. I've heard of such things. Yeah, happening among humans for sure. But you're not allowed to you're still not allowed to like kick the parasite kid.
Yeah, you can't, Like you can't throw the kid out the window, because as humans we do sort of have this pesky morality where we do not want to harm other people, especially small little children people.
Yeah, which I'm not sold but whatever.
But that's a but that's the where the term cuckold comes from in you know, in English language, like a cuckoo, a cuckold someone who is unwittingly raising the offspring of another.
So I did not know.
Yeah, there you go from cuckoo birds to cuckoo bees us.
Wow.
Yeah, well I love this little inell vocabulary, don't.
I do hope in cels are not listening to this show because uh, I don't want to give them more weird evolutionary psychology stuff to latch onto. Perhaps even more devious than the cuckoo bird or cuckoo bee is the cuckoo catfish. It's a yes. It's a species of spotted catfish that are usually around the length of your hand. They can grow to be under a about like a little under a foot long, but usually they're smaller than that.
They can actually be kept as pets in the aquarium trade, and they're kind of cute looking, but they have this sinister side. So wild cuckoo catfish come from Lake Tanganika, which is one of the largest lakes in the world found in East Africa. The cucka catfish take advantage of another lake inhabitant, the mouth brooding cicklid fish. So this mouth brooding ciclid is a fish who keeps their eggs in their own mouth to allow them to hatch within
the safety of their own jaws. So ciclid. There are a bunch of different species of cyclids, and there are different species of mouth brooding cicklids. So some of these species even allow the fry, like the little baby fish to stay in their mouth a little while after they've hatched, until they're big enough to have a better chance of survival. So it's like, you know how kangaroos keep their Joey's
in their pouch. It's like that, but with fish, they typically don't have a pouch, although seahorses do have a pouch, but these mouth brooding fish they don't have a pouch, so they keep them in their mouths and they generally don't eat any of these offspring. They just keep them safe in their mouth and they actually don't feed much during this time. So it's a great sacrifice. And yeah,
so already very interesting behavior. But then the cuckoo catfish takes it another step further, and they are attracted to the smell of these freshly laid mouth brooding cicklet eggs, and the catfish will sneak up and lay her own eggs. Like So what happens is the mouth brooder. It's this great motherfish who lays her eggs and then she'll slurp them all up, but leave them in her mouth. She doesn't swallow them, so they don't get digested. They're just
in her mouth. And so the cuckoo catfish sneaks in lays her eggs on top of this other pile of eggs. So the sicklid, unwittingly also consumes these cuckoo eggs. Right, these catfish eggs. You're making faces.
I'm really worried about what's coming next.
I'm terrified.
You have good instincts. You would if you would be a good you would be a good fish because you have good instincts.
This is about to be very gross and upsetting.
Okay, it suns you know, it's similar to what we've already been talking about. So the the uh, the these cuckoo catfish eggs will hatch actually more quickly than the uh, the eggs of the ciclid, And so the young catfish will eat the eggs of the cicklid while enjoying the safety of its hoast's mouth, and they just hang out. They eat all the eggs and then they hatch, and
it's a total loss for this poor ciclid. It's like if some I mean to put it in human terms, is perhaps a little upsetting, but it be like if some kind of parasite could invade your womb, eat your baby, and then you give birth to this thing, and it's like, anyways, I'm out of here. See, oh god, that's upsetting.
Yeah, yeah, I did think you were gonna say they ate their way out of the host. That happens a lot, yes, oh my god, but not for these guys, not for catfish.
The catfish just it's just baby eating. It's just innocent eating of eggs, not eating out of the host. But that does happen a lot with a lot of parasites where they do eat their way out of hosts.
Yuck, yuck. Everything is so gross.
It is nature's disgusting. And whenever someone's like, well it's natural, it's like, have you seen nature. Don't look to nature as a moral guide. It's messed up.
No, nature's messed up.
They're real grody.
We are going to take a quick break and when we get back, we are gonna talk about how to steal food right from someone's mouth and maybe the grossest way you could possibly imagine. Okay, we're back. So, Catherine, if someone is stuffing their face with fries and you are thinking, I would really like a fry, what would you do in that situation?
I would I would just take one from the plate. If you act like it's casual, then everyone will be like, okay, this is a casual stealing of the French fry, and that is it.
Okay. I think all of us have partaken in the casual French fry theft, which is I think there is a social contract in place where it is okay to steal a fry if you're talking to someone, yeah, one or two is okay.
Yeah.
If you're taking like half of them and you didn't pay for them, then no.
I suppose.
But then that gets into that tricky situation where if you take half of them, that's one thing, But if the person comments and was like, wow, you ate half my fries, then they're actually the rude one.
So I agree to disagree. I think I think that the fry rule is that it needs to be less than a fourth of the fries the fry total. Otherwise it's like, what are we on a date?
Well maybe this is like a cute and fun way of turning something into a date.
Right, it's like kissing, but through fry theft. Anyways, we're gonna that's a lot nicer than what the skua does. So askua would harass you until you throw up your fries and then eat the fries. That just is a level of harassment that I can't even fathom. I mean, what what form does that take? How do they make you grow up? Well, they're seabirds, so just being very annoying.
So Skua's a lot of seabirds actually are kleptoparasites. If you have interacted with any kind of goal, any kind of seagull, you probably have already observed this phenomenon of seagulls being incredibly bold and sometimes stealing food out of people's hands. Yeah and yes, yeah, I have any seagull experience.
Well maybe not me personally, but I grew up in Seattle and there's ferry boats and Puget Sound and lots of times people think it's funny to sort of like hold their ice cream cone or whatever up in the air because seagull's going to get it, which is funny if you're doing it on purpose. But the thing is seagulls will come and grab food out of anybody's hand, whether it's for them or not. And it really starts as people, it really does.
Yeah, in general, it's not good to train animals to become more of a problem.
No. And yeah, speaking Seattle, when I was up there last summer. The summer before I went to Olympic National Park, which is on the peninsula in Washington State, and we had to like chase deer away from our picnic table, I mean really aggressively. The deer were not scared, and I was like, I don't want.
To touch a wild animal.
But no, I feel like like if I shoved it maybe that would be most effective.
And you gotta Sometimes you gotta spank a deer. It's okay, We've all had to do it. No, don't spank. Don't spank deer. It might kick you. Also, you shouldn't do that that's mean to the deer. But no, it is a big problem. People should not be feeding deer and getting them acclimated to people. It's not good for the people. It's not good for the deer. Deer have deer ticks. Yes, you can spread lime disease, which you do not want. Yes,
and also it's unhealthy for the deer. Deer should be avoidance of human civilization for their own safety as well. And also there is a problem when you have like big congregation points of like a lot of deer in one area trying to all mooch off of people, because that can spread chronic wasting disease. It's a problem. So ignore the deer, yeah, no matter how cute they are.
It's like a little bit of a tangent. But just coyotes in La are not afraid of humans anymore. Squirrels are certainly not afraid of humans.
And actually worlds are friends or something aggressively friendly. Frighteningly friendly. Yeah, frighteningly friendly.
I like that.
And up in the Pasadena area, all the bears are just like walking down the streets and stuff, and it really it it freaks me out, and I think it's not good and I don't it's I.
Don't know, they're not snow white. It's a bad sign, like a bad snow white. Yeah, and you're singing a song and all the wild animals are coming towards you. Fine, But in typical circumstances, no, the habituation of animals to humans is not good unless they are, you know, domesticated, in which case it's typically okay. But yeah, it's just
not good. It's not that you can't appreciate animals and nature and want to be closer to them, but the way to be closer to them is to you know, visit respectfully and watch them at a respectful distance, versus feeding them food that's bad for them and that will make them form habits that could end up being really harmful for themselves.
Yeah.
So yeah, But with seagulls, they don't care. They don't care about harmony or anything at all. But seagulls are actually not the worst offender in terms of being aquatic birds that steal food. I would say that skuas are the biggest bullies of the aquatic bird, the waterfowl. So skuas kind of look like a seagull, but they are They can be brown or white with some brown and black spots or not spots but like a black head.
And some have seasonal plumage that can change. But yeah, they all share one thing in common, which is that they are professional buttholes. They are incredibly aggressively mean, and they will be they'll essentially, uh, pretty much all Skewus species tend to be very vicious kleptoparasites, if not outright predators of other birds. They are incredibly bold. They lack all boundaries. They will steal and eat the chicks of
other bird species, including penguins. They'll even steal milk from elephant seals by like sneaking in to a nursing elephant seal mother and like, you know, sippin' at a.
Nip oh that.
I don't care for that at all.
No, that's that's perverted. That's a criminal perversion.
I don't like that.
It's like if at the ending of Grapes of Wrath, instead of this woman feeding the old guy, it was like this very annoying bird comes over and helps itself less poetic, less poetic exactly. I feel like the consensual, you know, it felt more consensual in grapes of wrath. This is just this is just a pervert bird. And so they will harass other aquatic birds, even those larger than themselves, until their victims are so stressed they will
regurgitate their recent meals. So a reaction to extreme stress and fear can be to vomit or to regurgitate your meal. This is something common in animals. I mean some people might have experienced that before. So these poor birds that get harassed by the skewas'll regurgitate their hard earned catch a fish or whatever they've been eating, and then the
skuas will just start eating that regurgitation. And they also will do really heinous crimes, like they'll go right into penguin colonies, ignore all these angry penguins and then steal their eggs and chicks, and sometimes just like right in front of the parents, like just you know, a few meters away, they will just start eating the chicks and the eggs. And yeah, they are they'll even like go right under the butts of the penguins and steal their
eggs or their chicks. They are so they're like the most chaotically evil animal in the world.
I don't like these guys.
They are a little mean, but I kind of in a weird way, I admire how just you know, I guess both they are. They're they're a holes and they're not shy about it.
It just is this like.
The best use of their own energy. They could be hunting, but instead they're distressing other creatures out well.
I mean, that's the thing, is that all most aquatic birds do some form of kleptoparasitism and will steal from each other. It just turns out that these birds are particularly aggressive. They will hunt for themselves. But you know, if they are able to successfully steal from others then and it works, then it works, right.
Yeah.
And there's a lot of really interesting things in terms of evolutionary biology and these the concept of like cheating and stealing and stuff in the ways in which there's evolutionary arms races in terms of trying to combat thieves combating cheats. But the harsh truth is that your thief in your cheat in nature, and it works. There's no consequences for you.
Hey, I know, I'm certain you've talked about this on the show before, but just real quick, do you think that when the you know, the recent spate of orca's going after boats. Are they do we have any sense of are they having fun doing that?
M This is a great question, and that actually leads us into the next animal, which is that there are actually we see this behavior of ramming and bullying to get another animal to regurgitate its food in pilot whales and Riso's dolphins, who are actually they are both dolphins, but they actually look more like I would say, more like a killer whale and orca than they do a dolphin. These are medium sized dissetaceans who are both in the
dolphin family. They have blunt heads and look a little bit like belugas, but they are a grayish black and Arisa, so the pilot whales are a grayish black whares. The Resa's dolphins are a modeled gray, and both of these species have been observed charging and harassing sperm whales. So
sperm whales are huge. There are a whale many times the size of these guys, but these smaller whales, these smaller dolphins will ram them and the especially like right into the mouth of the sperm whale, and the sperm whale will get stressed and regurgitate its food, which these little bullies will just like help themselves to so in terms of your question about the orcas, I mean orcas may I'm wondering if this is a similar behavior, Like maybe the orcas do ram whales or other animals in
order to either bully them by like to get out of their territory, or to get them to regurgitate food. And maybe they've started doing this to boats, either because it's fun and it's a behavior they already know how to do, or or because they're annoyed by the boats, or because they're hoping the boats will regurgitate some food for them.
Hm hmm. Yeah, I guess it could be any of the above or all of the above.
Yeah, or all of the above. Yeah, you know, uh, orcas aren't always polite, but that's okay. We still love them.
Do you love dolphins like standard dolphins, bottlenose dolphins?
You mean, like yeah, I mean I think that they get they get a bad rap sometimes because they have behaviors that seem a little bit psychopathic. But when you look at their behavior, these kind of like you know, it's hard to judge an animal by human morality because it is they have like a fundamentally different sort of sense of the world, So it's hard for me to judge the dolphins. I think that they're also they're interesting because their behavior is very diverse depending on the individual.
Like there be some real real jerk dolphins, and there can be much more nice, like sweeter, nicer dolphins. They're not just it's not like the skuas who sort of like basically all of them are jerks. Oh but you know, because they need to be. But you know, with some like and some jerk behaviors that dolphins do actually serve
a purpose. Like they've been seen they like will torment octopuses by slamming them against the water, and you think, like that seems like a jerk move, but it turns out that if they're to eat an octopus, octopuses can, like as they're swallowing them, those limbs can like kind of suction onto their throats, so if they don't fully
kill them, they can actually choke on the octopuses. So they will slam these octopuses over and over again, pulverizing them basically until they are absolutely sure they're dead so they don't choke. So sometimes cruel seeming behavior on the part of the dolphins is actually just survival.
Wow, the animal kingdom is like even and wilder than we are.
Let's believe as children.
It's rough, it's it's a it's a tough world out there. Well, we're gonna take a quick break and then when we get back, we are going to talk about some little, itty bitty klepto parasites who are much braver than their size would seem to indicate. Okay, so this is one of my favorite animal names, and it's a real it's you know, they're I guess official name, uh, freeloader flies as described, Yes, pretty much. They're also known as jackal flies,
but I like freeloader flies better. Yeah, and which they it is? They are a family of teeny tiny klepto parasites who are very very bold. They rarely grow to be bigger than three millimeters, So like, these are little, teen tiny flies. Like multiple freeloader flies can fit on a single bee wing, so you know they're they're little guys.
Yeah.
And so at such a small size, you would think that these flies would steer clear of predators like spiders, but instead observers can find these little flies dancing on the recently killed prey of a spider or other predatory insect, like right next to the spiders, so it is they are I mean, I guess you could describe them as kind of like, I mean, the way that Disney portrays
hyenas is unfair to hyaenas. It doesn't really work that way, but the kind of stereotypical way in which people think of hyenas where they go and they crowd around a lion's kill or something, but really it's more with hyenas and lions. The stealing goes both ways for them also, like lions will steal from hyaenas and hyenas will steal from lions, and it's kind of a you know, it is not this unequal relationship where the hyenas are just
always scavenging. The hyenas also hunt, but they'll scavenge and lions also scavenge, so okay. But with these flies, they seem to be pretty dependent on these spiders in terms of getting food from their recent kills. So the flies seem to be attracted to the smell of recently killed insects, and sometimes they are incredibly specific. So some species of freeloader flies specifically fixate on the smell of freshly killed bees, and that's it. They're like on a bee diet.
Only bees, only bees, any kind of bee.
I it can be different types of members of the heminopteras order, so like, yeah, it can be different types of bees, different species of bees, but bees or wasps. Yeah, And so they appear to lick and consume fluids from the dead insect, which has already been injected with digestive enzymes by the spiders. So essentially what spiders do is they you know, pump their victims full of these digestive enzymes, turned them into like a smoothie, and the spider can
slurp it up. But then these little freeloader flies also you know, take the little sip themselves and allow the spider to do the hard work of capturing the prey prepping it into a smoothie, and then they just slurp it up and the spider doesn't seem to either be the wiser or attack them, which is really really interesting.
Oh wow, Yeah, I think I like this thought of the spider sort of marinating its meat and having a cookout for the neighbors and they all get to eat this delicious marinated meat.
Yeah.
Also I've decided I don't I think I'm afraid of spiders.
That's good.
What are people afraid of spiders? Just because of the way they look? They are disconcerting looking.
There's some evidence that like a fear of spiders and snakes may be somewhat innate, so that maybe spider bites and snake bites can't can be or have been in our history dangerous enough that we have some instinctive fear.
But you know, for me, I went through like an arachnophobic phase as a kid and then just sort of flipped on it because I was so scared of them that I would be interested in them because I've always been kind of interested in the things that I'm scared of, and then I started loving them and then no longer being scared of them. I think they startle me right, like if one is like on me, Yeah, it's very startling, but I would like if I see one, I'm not like.
Afraid of it.
So but I think, yeah, I think that's the I think there's there may be some kind of instinctive fear. And then also they are very like the their movements are interesting because they're very fast, and they are they move in a way that is I guess uncomfortable. And then also they can they can bite you. And most spider bites are harmless, but the I guess there's a fear of the venomous spider bites, which are very rare.
But yeah, yeahallid.
I I think I have a reasonable fear of bees.
But just this.
Morning, I walked out my front door to water my plants and I saw that there was a wasp nest or hornet's nest. I couldn't tell, right, a boat, Oh no, my door, which is not good. So I googled to try and find out is this the yellowjacket or what? And I found out about something called a thistle down velvet ant.
Oh, yeah, that's that's a species of uh there, it's a yeah, it's a wasp.
Yeah yeah.
And they they're like it's because of the flightless ones or the reason that they're called these velvet ants because they look kind of like a giant ant.
But yeah, just the yeah, and the thistle down one in particular is fuzzy and white and it's just about the cutest thing I've ever seen.
Yeah, that's adorable. What are you gonna do about it?
Though? Well, I think that, I mean, tell me if I'm wrong. The only thing I know to do is an exterminator, because I know that if I try to knock it down myself, they'll try and kill me. So yeah, is there something else that I should do?
No, I think that it's really difficult when you have a wasp nest that close to you, because I think that as much as I love, you know, insects and stuff, I don't have any objections to getting rid of insects that are you know you are in danger of getting stung by. I don't know much about the thistle down velvet ants. If they are particularly aggressive they are, okay, well, then yeah, I think you're making the right call.
I don't, honestly, fortunately, okay, unfortunately, slast fortunately I don't.
This is not what they are.
I kind of wish they were, except for it's good that they're not, because I would try to keep them as my own and name them and think that they're.
Oh, I see hippies.
But yeah, but they're also called cow killer wasps.
That's how strong they are.
Yeah, No, you want an exterminator for that, So yeah, I don't I have no problem with that because I think it's your safety. Like if they're bees, sometimes you can call a local apiary or apiarist beekeeper, I guess is what it's called, and they will come and they will instead of killing the bees, they will come and they will take the bees and they will relocate them. So like honey bees are the ones that sometimes colonize your house, and so a beekeeper might come and relocate
the bees. Wasps aren't civil enough before that happen. It's I don't. I think most times with the wasps, they just they just have to kind of like you know, uh kill them or somehow move the nest and you know it's a but yeah, I know, no shame in that because you don't want to get stung. A bunch of times.
I don't.
I don't.
I've had that happen before.
I did not care for it, yeah at all. And my garden is actually full of bees and I feel, God, do you think that I have to tell the guys to like keep their poison to this one very specific area.
I mean, it depends on the quality of the exterminator. I guess, like a good exterminator should be careful, not to like completely blasted everywhere. But you know, I mean just like, uh, yeah, it should it should be Okay, usually I think that it is very localized to the actual nest. They shouldn't like, I don't think they're going to like drop a drop a wasp bomb down on it. But yeah, no, I mean it's also like, honestly, sometimes wasps.
I again, I don't know that much about the thistledown velvet aunts, but yeah, they can be predatory towards bees. So if you're worried about the bees, I wouldn't worry too much about these wasps.
Okay, Well I like that, and I'm going to keep that in mind to assuage my guilt.
Yeah, I don't know. I don't know if these specific wasps are bee predators, but there are certainly a lot of wasps that are.
Okay, yeah, and then so these are two and that yeah, that's blah blah blah. We'll just assume that, yes, exactly so. But yeah, and speaking of killing bees, yeah, so these there are species of these freeloader flies that love to suck on dead bees, and they rely on these spiders to kill the bees for them, and sometimes their relationship
to spiders is even closer and more intimate. So some freeloader fly species have been observed feeding around the mouth and but of spiders many times larger than the flies. So and it seems that rather than killing the fly, the spider allows this. So there is speculation that the fly may be providing a cleaning service to the spider, like both a spider dentist and proctologist, I suppose. Yeah, I know proctologists, their job isn't just to clean the
butt that I know that, I understand that. But still, so basically the fly is grooming the spider maybe and getting nutrition from it, sort of like have you seen those like cleaner wrasts, those little fish that clean other fish. Yeah, they're these little slender fish who pick off parasites of
larger fish. And so yeah, it seems like based on these observations, these spiders have this symbiotic relationship with these these freeloader flies who and they may even like open their sort of mouth parts to allow the fly better
access without actually eating them. So maybe the calculation might be between these flies and these spiders where the spider if they eat the fly, sure, that's like a quick meal but then maybe this these flies like avoid this spider or get spooked off, and letting them clean them instead of eating them might benefit them more than just eating this tiny little spider or tiny little fly.
What if?
What if it is a romantic and sexual relationship though it's unlikely, but you know, I think that I can't be against it isn't unlikely, just kind they're different species.
Yeah, there's not a lot of so you can have You could I could imagine something where there could be some like if the fly is cleaning around the spider's genitals, it could be that the spider is like there's some reward pathway right to the sensation there where the spider is fine with it, and so in that way, you could think of it as a sexual relationship if that's
the case, which I don't know romance. I can't imagine an insect having a concept of romance, although there are some spiders who like jumping spiders who do these really cute, colorful displays for their partners, So I don't know. Maybe I shouldn't be too hasty there. Interspecific sexual relations sexual relation, really, interspecific sexual relationships are very rare, just because you know, it's not something that generally works out, and.
The breakups are rough.
The breakups are rough, and especially if the species are really different from each other, that doesn't mean it does not happen. Especially they're like, there can be weird things with birds because birds baby birds sometimes have this imprinting things. So like birds who imprint on humans may actually be sexually attracted to humans and try to have sex with humans, which doesn't work because the birds just basically flying into your face and you're like, what is happening with this bird?
So yeah, so that's a hopefully unrequited love situation with the birds and the humans. And there are sometimes sexual relationships between closely related species, like say a polar bear and a grizzly bear, and you know, on occasion they can actually result in offspring, like a roller roller bear or pisley, and so yeah, you can't have that. But a fly and a spider, I just I think they're
too different. I don't know that it's gonna work out. Okay, okay, fair enough, but you could you could write that book. I was gonna say, Yeah, the spider and the fly and the fly cotton, the spiders webs and it's basically like fifty shades of gray, but this spider stuff.
Yeah, basically, you know exactly.
Yeah. On that wonderful note, before we go, we got to play a little game called the Mystery Animal Sound Game. Every week I play Mystery Animal Sound in you the listener, and you the guests, try to guess who is making that sound. So last week's episode was a rerun because I was having some technical difficulties. But just to make sure you're not left hanging if you're listening to these episodes in sequence, the mystery animal sound was a pigeon
cooing happily. So there you go. Anyways, onto the actual mystery animals sound of the well the week before last week and time, ain't she a fickle mistress? Sometimes it's last week, sometimes it's week before last week. Okay, so this is the most recent new Mystery Animal sound guessing game entry.
Here we go.
This was the one from the Fallout episode. The mystery animal sound was this A picture is worth a thousand words, but this critter paints a clear picture with its call. All right, Catherine, you got any guesses as to who might be making this sound?
Oh? Gosh?
Uh? It was very Disney esque I feel like, no, I feel like I can't narrow it down because I'm thinking bird, I'm thinking some sort of frog or toad. But I'm also thinking like any kind of baby animal.
So this one gets me stumped.
Well, this is actually an African painted dog dogs is like, yes, this is a canine a cannon. So African painted dogs are adorable wild canids who have spotty, patchy coats that look like you spilled a bunch of brown and white paint on it. They're pretty, though, it's very very pretty. They live in sub Saharan Africa, and there are five
species of these types of African painted dogs. They are highly social, but unlike most social species of predators, females are the ones who will go off and disperse to new packs. So like what you see with say lions or something, is that you'll have a male born in a pride and then the male goes off to start a new pride or find a new new pride, and in these ones, that's actually the males that stay sort of at their natal packs, and it's the females who
go off to find a new pack. They are also they do have hierarchies with like a domin breeding pair. But they're relatively easy going with each other, and they've actually been known to vote on whether they depart for a hunt by account of social sneezing. So social sneezing is like a fake huffing sneeze, and it is something that the dog is using to communicate that it wants
to go on a hunt. And there's like, as these dogs get together, when there's sort of a plurality of sneezes, they all decide to go off on the hunt.
They're so that's so smart, and they're they're puppies with mouse ears.
How can this be?
They do have mouse ears? Yes, Oh they're adorable.
Oh my gosh. Did has anyone tried to domesticate them?
You know, I don't know for sure. I would imagine they might be difficult to domesticate, just as it would be difficult to domesticate a hyena or a wolf.
Yeah.
I see that there's a zoo that gave them a Golden retriever mom, But I know that's different.
That's so cute. They do that with cheetahs as well, where like they'll raise a cheetah with like a companion dog, because cheetahs are really shy, but they like to have buddies, so like having a dog helps them with stress. But yeah, no, I mean these are they're they're really beautiful dogs. They uh so the even though they're canines, they are not It's not like dogs were domesticated from these dogs. They
are dogs were domesticated. It's more or less agreed upon that all of our domesticated dogs, like our pet dogs, came from wolves, not from these African painted dogs.
Yeah. I just think that if any canine wants to domesticate, we should let it. Oh my god, they're really cute.
They are extremely cute. Ye, So onto this week's mystery animals sound. The hint is this they can be victims of thieves or thieves themselves. May the most punning rogues win? All right, Katherine, you got any guesses?
Some sort of chicken, some sort of chicken.
Usually safe with that. It is a good, very good guess when it comes to animal calls or to food. So, Katherine, thank you so much for joining me today.
Where can people find you? Well, let's see, I oh, I'm on TikTok at Catherine Spires. You'll have to look at the show notes to see how to spell my first and last names, and on Instagram at Katherine Underscore Spires, and then howdoeatla dot com.
Yes, I highly recommend How to Eat La because LA food is amazing, but you need a guide book, like absolutely it is. It is like it's a labyrinth where one haul leads you to the most divine food you've ever had and the other corridor leads you to snakes and spiders.
Yeah. Yeah, that's the absolute truth. That's how it is here, That's.
How it is. Thank you guys so much for listening to the show. If you're enjoying it and you leave a rating and review, it actually tangibly helps me. It's like giving me a high five, but also a high five to the algorithm, which makes the algorithm like me better. I don't really know how it works, but it does actually help me. And thank you to the Space Classics for their super awesome song Exo Alumina. Oh wait, I
almost forgot. If you know the answer to the mystery animal sound game, you can write to me at Creature featurepot at gmail dot com. You can also write to me any kind of animal questions. I occasionally do listener questions episodes where I try to answer your animal biology evolutionary biology related questions. AH Creature Feature is a production of iHeartRadio or more podcasts like the ones you just heard. Visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or Hey Guess what.
Wherever you listen to your favorite shows wherever, literally wherever. I'm not gonna care, don't worry about it. See you next Wednesday.