Selects: Chiggers: The Phantom Menace

I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles w Chuck Bryant. Jerry's over there, so you should know Jerry's head Chiggers. Yeah, me too, I have not. I'm really glad I was like Chigger. It seems like Tracy is making a pretty big deal out of the in this article. Yeah. Tracy Wilson of Stuff You Miss in History Class wrote this, who recently got married? Congratulations Tracy? Yeah. And she wrote if you've ever heard her say the word mouth parts in the show, Tracy wrote it, chances heart she wrote it. She wrote

ticks and mosquitoes. H did you write bees? She did a whole insect? Sweet? She spent a lot of time knee deep in insects. Yeah, and this, well, this isn't even an insect spoiler. Oh, you just removed the fact of the podcast. You think I think. So, I don't think you did. I'm just teasing. Okay, I'll bet I know what you think it is because I think the same thing. All right, Well we'll see. Okay, I challenge you. I challenge you back. We throw down the gauntlet, which

is glove. So Tracy did make a big deal out of checkers, but apparently it's a big deal, right well, sure like if you ever had them, they're no fun. No the deeper I got into the article the where I was like, oh, yeah, this does sound really kind of off. Yeah, and it's uh, this is just one everyone, there's another itch inducing episode. And speaking of I got my first little bow to poison ivy. Congratulations. Yeah. I was clearing out stuff over the weekend and I was

in poison ivy and I knew it. I was like, you know, I've never had it before. This sounds very familiar and um, but I was still I'm no dummy. I know how Murphy's law works. So I said, I just said that out loud. Well, you just said that out loud, or you just said I said, I'm not allergic to I thought you were saying like that. I'm no dummy. I said that too. Um, And I said, so you know what I'm gonna I'm gonna be careful and I'm gonna go take a shower pretty soon afterwards. Um.

And so it's not bad. But there are probably five or six little, tiny little sets of bumps on each leg pustules. Yeah, they're not bad though. And I looked at him and said, you know what, that's freaking poison ivy after all these years, finally got you. Yep, but not too bad. Like my dad always said, poison I will gets everybody one day. That his big saying. Uh So, anyway, speaking of itching, that's my itch story of the day. And this will make you itch because it made me

itch while reading it. I think you're right. So um, it's actually it's funny. It didn't make me itch, maybe because I've never had it. You're scratching yourself, right, I'm pointing to myself in a weird place. I'm pointing my finger to my skin and moving it around. But I'm not scratching curiously. So, Um, everybody knows that chiggers are insects that burrow into your skin and suck your blood. Um, And I'm sorry you're being coy, my friend, I am

because you just lied three times. Burrow and oh, insects that burrow in your skin, that suck your blood. That's right, those are there's three lies in there. This is like a highlights We have to go pick out what's wrong with this picture. Chiggers are not insects. They are arachnets. They are the larvae of the harvest mite. They do not burrow into your skin and suck your blood. But

they're still what are the bumps? Well, you're being coy again, but what they are actually doing is maybe even grosser than sucking your blood. They are liquefying your cells into a slurry that they can drink from a straw made of your body. It's pretty Is that the fact for you? Yeah? Alright, but we'll get there. Were the same one first one, first of one. The first time we've ever high fives in an episode? Is that right? Sure? I I would have imagined that you could make like a video montage

of us like high fiving during episodes. I guess not. No, so you said that, Um, these things are the larva of harvest mites, right, and harvest harvest mites are arachnids. They're related to spiders, so they're not insects. But you can understand why people would think that um chiggers are or our insects because chiggers have chiggers. The larva of the harvest might have six legs, so you'd be like, well, it's an insect. No, they haven't grown their adult legs yet. Apparently, Yeah,

I guess they get those two more legs at some point. Um, they the adults are red and the little um larvae are red. But um, you're not gonna see. That's one of the problems with chiggers is you're not gonna see like a mosquito landing on you or a flea, even like you think a flea is small, a chigger is like a tiny little dot that you will would never notice and you may not even be able to see

at all with your eyeballs. All right, but sometimes you can see several of them together basically forming a clump. Yeah party together, yeah with one of them has Kid from Kid and plays haircut or Aman Schumpert's more contemporaneously. Oh yeah, that is a total kid and play haircut. Did you know that Amman Schumpert delivered his own child in his apartment purpose accidentally. The kid just came very quickly and like he the nine one one dispatch had

to talk him through how to do it. But he delivered his own child and his wife or girlfriend right there and there and everything was good, totally great. Wow, that's great news. He's a basketball player, by the way, people, Oh yeah, people are, who's amunch Shopper. He plays for the boom, for the calves Boom. So if you're an adult harvest mite and you've grown up from a sugar

into an adult, you're gonna eat. It's actually a beneficial little arachneed to have around because they're gonna eat the eggs of other pests like mosquitoes, right, so you want the adults around as an adult or um as the second step the nymphs right after the larva. It's the larva that suck. They don't suck, well, yeah, but the larva. You know, you gotta have them, but you know, hopefully

they just stay in the yard. Although these things are holy terrors to see if you are on their scale, Like, if that thing's coming after you and your eggs, I'll bet it's just really terrifying. They are parasitic though, Um, they don't. The larva are. Yeah, they don't eat the blood though, like we pointed out, like the fleas and the ticks and the mosquitoes. No, they eat your skin cells. Right,

So here's what happens. Larva hatch um. Apparently an adult female harvest might will go into the dirt and be like, there's a bunch of eggs, champert is there to an for them to hatch, so we can hasten their birth um, And then the eggs do hatch and the harvest might

female tends to layer eggs all in one place. So, if you are familiar with chiggers, if you've ever had them in your yard, like one little patch of grass can be totally overrun with chiggers, but then you just turn a few degrees to your left, there's another patch of grass that is totally devoid of them. Yeah. I get the feeling. They don't get around too quickly either. You know, they know they're pretty stupid low level animals

if you ask me. So, the eggs are laid in one place, they hatch and the little larva come out and they're like, blood meal, Give me a blood meal that's not actually made of blood. That's basically what they say. Okay, Uh. They hatch pretty much anytime during the year except for the hard winters, and um, like you said, they want that first meal. And the reason they want that first

meal is not just because they're ravenous little jerks. Um. They actually cannot progress to that nimph stage, which and then grow up to be adults unless they have a complete first meal. They can have, they can have half a first meal, they have three quarters and get and get scratched off the body or brushed off the body, and that's pretty much it. They generally will not go back and finish that meal, so there's no starting over. They're just like, well that's it. That's the end of millhouse,

my one chance and um. So it's like a complete lose lose situation when a chigger bites a person, because once you start itching as a person, you go to scratch the area and there goes the chigger. They don't latch onto your skin, they don't burrow into your skin, so the moment your your finger makes contact with them, they're gone. Um the well they leave behind is there and persists for a while, but they didn't finish their their meal and they die. But you still get the

scratch or the horrible itch. It's lose loose. They need to stay away from humans. Well they do because there are a lot of animals that don't mind the chigger on their body, so they can get their full meal deal there and go on to live a great and healthy life without getting scratched off. So, um, they don't. They don't want to be on a human And I mean you would think like how long does could their

meal possibly last? We're talking like buffet level length of time? Uh, four days, four days to four days, I think about it. That's time for us. Like how long is four days to a harvest? Might larva? You could probably do the math. It's like seven eight days. Figure out chigger years or probably it's probably most of their life. Yeah, you know. So, Um, there's a bunch of different kinds of chiggers around the world. Um, and they're actually I mean they are pests, they are parasites.

But um, there's only like at least one as far as this article says that is really problematic for humans. The lepo Trobidium deliens nice might. It's common to Asian and it can carry typhus, a form of typhus which can kill you if it's untreated. Yeah, it's cured with antibotics pretty easily. But um, if you're out in the middle of nowhere, it can kill you. But don't worry unless you um or in certain parts of Asia. Not a problem, right, chigger, We'll just annoy you. Yeah, that's it.

They're basically just a total annoyance. And by annoying humans, they die. It's stupid. All right, Well, let's take a little break here and we will come back and talk about some of the wonders of the jigger. All right, we've covered Do we cover fleas? Yeah? I want to say yes, they definitely need a blood meal. We've covered fleas, ticks, mosquitoes, spiders, scabies. Did we Oh? Yeah? Man, I just it's really getting

a little too much to try and remember now. Yeah, you know, I mean there's like lost episodes just because we forgot them. It's officially especially getting out of hand. I guess we should stop. No, we keep going, my friend, um brain heart, so bad chuck. Alright, So what I was talking about was the wonders of the chigger. They have a lot of little things that they have about them that make it um and make them able to perform this uh surgery on your skin. Well put, it

is kind of like surgery. It is um. But again they aren't latching on. They're just kind of hanging around. And when you get a chigger on your skin, it actually will spend usually hours looking for a good place to go try to get a meal because, um, they have these little tiny mouth parts. There's the word that makes the appearance which lets you know it's a Tracy Wilson joint. Right. Um, but they don't pure skin very easily, at least not human skin. Uh, tough skin that you

would find most on most places of your body. Chigger can't bite through. But which is why you will get chigger bites in play. Is like the back of your knee, like in your armpit, places where the chigger can can get its mouth parts. What are they called celisera celiserai clisserai clissari clisser I explains it all, Um, that's why you'll get those bites in those areas because that's where

they can get their clisser I into. That's right. They're light sensitive, which means they're gonna hang out in the shade mostly if it was up to them at least um it's uh, the sun is gonna dry out their body, so that's why they head towards the shade. I mean you can like kill them basically. Uh. And so also when a host um comes near, there's like your dog casting a shadow, the chiggers go, we'll over there. I think that's pretty clever. There's a shadow. Let's that means

something is alive with skin. That means that, in some weird way, chiggers are aware of shadows. That's right. I mean, like some dogs aren't aware of shadows or don't understand them. I think probably most dogs. Have you ever seen that? Like baby two three year old toddler um who sees her shadow for the first time. He just starts f freaking out trying to get away from it. It's really really cute. So it was a possessed baby kind of. That's sad, it's cute. I saw that movie that was

The Exorcist. That's what I'm talking about. Uh. They are very temperature sensitive. As well. So when they coming to contact with a host, and the host is the thing that it's gonna feed on. Um, it's gonna detect that has like you know, it's not infra red, but it's gonna detect that body heat, right and say, all right, there's something I can try and latch onto. So it's like predator in that respect. Yeah, a little bit kind of No dreadlocks, No, those are those are a nice edition.

If you ask me what else, Um, I think it's hilarious. Tracy called it upward mobility. They like to climb to the tops of stuff. And I remember this one from Ticks. Remember that the ticks were just like grasp things, like little tiny lobsters, just stand there and wait for something to pass by, and as it does, they grab it. Um. They don't stand there with their arms outstretched the whole time. Now that's a stress position. Um. There's something called the

questing response, which is another hilarious term. They're questing. Yeah, they get up on their tippy toes. They're they're standing up with their their arms raised up towards the heavens. Yeah, imagine for a meal of human cell imagine John Cusack can say anything but take away the boombox, right, that's a questing position. Yeah, the chickers are there in their little overcoat and their spiky hair and their bad attitudes. Um, I just saw you know John Roderick, a friend of

the show, John Roderick, Yeah, great Seattle musician. He tweeted the other day about silverfish, you know, the little insects. He said, why don't we call silverfish what they were clearly meant to be called? Sink lobsters. It really struck me as funny. They don't look fishy at all. Still, ver sure, sink clapster. That's a great one. Right. And finally, they are touch sensitive. They have these little hair like sensory organs on their body to help basically to help

them find everything from hosts to each other. There. Yeah, you know they're like, let's get together and really do some damage on this guy's arn't pit. Yeah, or you see that waist band. It's a great place to hide Underpant's band. Yeah, Underpant's band. Yeah what is said in here? No, that's what I said. Uh, but that is a great place to hide because, like we said a few times, you'll easily scratch them off. So they want to go somewhere where you may not be thinking about scratching. Yeah,

I was surprised that they go. I could see kind of the outside of the armpit, back of the knee, the waist band, underpant's band. Um, they're protected there, they are, but at the same time, it's warm there and their temperature sensitive. So you sure who think since they're seeking shade, they would go to a cooler spot. But there's probably not too many cool spots on the human body that are protected. Not really, I just said a bunch of

contradictory stuff. So all these things help the chiggers find their host. But as Tracy points out, that's that's half the battle. Yeah, and when you find a chigger on you, it's probably sorry that it chose you as it's one four day meal. Because they don't like humans, they'll they'll climb onto anything just about any vertebrate animal, snakes, turtles, birds,

for little birds, chipmunks. They don't like us because we take hot showers every day, that's right, And a lot of these animals don't have any kind of response to being bitten by a chigger, So the likelihood of the chigger being undisturbed for four days while it's having its meal. Fourth meal is what we're gonna call it, Like taco bell. Do you remember that they try to invent another meal. Um, they're they're so they're not gonna get brushed off on

these things. Humans almost invariably brush chiggers off because right when we start scratching again, it removes the chigger. Um, So they're there. They don't seek us out as prey. It's just it's just total happenstance. Yeah. And like you said, since they need that thin skin, um, little kids are more likely to get bitten by a chigger than an old, leathery old sea captain. Let's say. Yeah, and little kids who can't take being teased really are vulnerable to chigger

buttons because they're thin skin, very nice. You know, the ones who were like shorts with knee socks pull all the way up here. Those kids, Yeah, and their all their nose are always running because they're crying. They just stopped crying, those kind of kids. Uh. So, like I said, a hot shower, uh is a is a great way to kill. It's it's great for a lot of reasons. A great way to kill chiggers. It's a great way

to keep your body clean. It's a great way to unwind at the end of a long day working in the yard, because that's where you're gonna get your chicker bites most likely. Yeah, and the yard, Yeah, especially if you are the type of gets like letters from the neighborhood association saying mow your lawn you might have chickers. I will never live where there is a neighborhood association. No way, no way. Now, you know, in some place, because it's not my thing. In some places, a neighborhood

covenant supersedes local law. Yeah, unbelievable. Like your mailbox has got to be like this. You can't paint your house that color, not not for me, and you gotta pay us a certain amount of money to boss you around every month. Nope, yep, that's why I have a stack of car batteries aside my house with like old wood that I haven't used still in it's like Sandford and sun out there, and then like and paint with a brush.

It says, welcome children on beside your Alright, So, uh, should we take another break and talk a little bit more about the weird fact of the day. Yes, all right, buddy, we talked about the mouth parts. So what they do is they get that calissar i and they make a hole in your skin normal enough, They inject saliva, which contains digestive enzymes that make a slurry of your skin cells.

We talked about other insects that do similar things like this, so it's still pretty like, all right, no big deal. Then it gets weird. It does. And I don't know if it's because they have specific enzymes or something, but I didn't see this happening with anything else, did you know? But no, you drop it on him, you refuse, all right.

So what happens is they have in these secretions. What happens is they break your They break your skin cells down, which makes that slurry, which is good, slurp it up. But then the surrounding tissue hardens and it actually creates a tube, a little hard straw in your skin in the wound. Yeah, called a style of stme. What do they do with that? They drink out of it. They use a straw to slurp up your wrecked cells. Yeah, And the longer they're in there, the longer the straw

is the style of dome the style of dome. Yeah. I saw a paper from two thousand four and in the abstract that said it's something like it seems that style iss domes form as a reaction to chiggers. So I don't know if they thought like maybe this was part of a chigger or something like that, but I guess it's a recent finding that that stylist domes form and that's how chiggers actually eat because they don't have any probiscus or anything like that. They're pretty much really

weak proboscis one of those. Um, they're just not great insects or arachnets at all. Yeah, they're not. They can't bite very easily, they can't suck anything out. They um, they're just they're useless. But your body just happens to help them out. Well, they have that that magic juice, I guess, so that's pretty cool, you know. Yeah, uh so with that magic juice, that's gonna be one of the two reasons you're gonna be itching a lot. Some

people react quite adversely to that juice. Other people it's not that bad, um, but it's still going to itch no matter what. And it's not just the juice. You're reacting to. I think that's probably what first gets your attention.

But the thing that causes the persistent itch is that stylist dome your body's own reaction, which seems to be forming basically a hollow tube of temporary scar tissue in this wound area, and then that actually causes some sort of itch reaction as your skin heels, and that can take a very long time to heal. This is the point where I was like, oh, having chiggers actually does suck terribly. Yeah. I think if you had a chigger that was able to complete its full four day meal,

your toast means you haven't showered for four days. Yeah. Uh, that's when your style of stomb is going to be at its peak of hardness and length, right, and it's gonna have the worst reaction, right, So what can you do? Uh? There are home remedies you've heard, maybe like painting over chigger bites with a clear nail polish, right, or any kind of nail polish. Really, I think, well, yeah, sure, if you got flair, some sparkly gold, I'll get to put some dots on my armpit, and then why not,

I'll put them around my eye as well. So what's the deal there. You're just choking it out. Um. A lot of people would say, yes, you're covering up this the chigger that's burrowed into your skin and it is now suffocating to death. It's like choke on, choke on your meal. But that's wrong because again, chiggers don't burrow into your skin, right, and Tracy points out very acutely, by the time you even notice it, it's very likely

the chigger is not there any longer. Right, So if you're painting something over your skin, um, really, what you're doing is protecting the wound area from um, the air contact with the air, which can aggravate it. So it does help. But Tracy says, just use anti itch cream. It's way better. Yeah, like cortisone or something. So what it is? Yeah, yeah, Um, don't try to I don't know why she felt the need to put this in here, but we might as well say it. Don't try to

remove the style of dome. I can see people doing that, trying to dig it out. Yeah, no, you don't need to know. I can definitely see people doing that. I think that was worth it. Um. She also says, don't use turpentine you, I've never heard that. Yeah, people do all sorts of dumb stuff. Yeah, I mean, I guess if you could soak in a tub of gasoline and that would probably kill it. Lighted on fire problems. Yeah, most of these home remedies odd you should just shy

away from. I think, yes, only use remedies approved by modern Western medicine. Modern Western medicine. It's the only treatment you need. Um, the name chigger, they believe you ever heard of sand fleas huh, like in Florida or anywhere? Yeah, these those are chico fleas c h I G O e um. And another name for that is the jigger flee. And they think that chigger came from just sort of mashing those two names together, even though it's not the

same thing. No, it's not. Those actually do burrow into your skin and they lay eggs there, and then the eggs like to feast on you. So not good. But I guess there's just nothing but confusion surrounding chiggers. Yeah, nothing, so chuck. If you want to protect yourself against sugar invasions in your armpits and your underpants bands, what do you do well? If you're working? If you work in your yard and your garden a lot. Um you wear long sleeves, wear pants to you know, cover up as

much body as you can physically. Um, you can wear deet if you want, or any other kind of insect repellent. This says you can also use sulfur. I've never heard of that. I haven't either. I wonder if you, like, you just burned incense near you or something. I don't know. It would smell like bathing egg water. Yeah, oh god, your bathe in like you know what? Just I will never ever try because I hate pickled things anyway. But pickled eggs they're they're not bad. They're usually a little

too sweet. Uh. There's see those things floating in a jar and it's like I feel like I'm in a hospital, the like where you found the head. Yeah, the the I think it's the Chinese, probably Japanese and Korean too. There's a type of pickled legs where they soak them in a brine like and it's the saltiest thing you will ever eat, and they're mucky and brown. Those are those are not good. The other ones are fine. They're just not they don't taste that great. I think I

don't want food soaked in liquid. I think pickled stuff is really good for you. I mean, I hate pickled things, but just love pickled every period. Like soaking something in a solution, I just don't want. I don't even like marinades. I'm a dry rub guy. Are you really? Yeah? You know I didn't know that about you. Yeah? Yeah, you know, like sauces of any kind or is it the pre soaking, like pre cooking, soaking that well, pre marinating, I don't like.

I mean, if you're if you have a quality French saucier at your disposal, I'll take a little, alright, but put it on the side in a plastic cup. But I don't. I don't like. There was this place near Emily Shop that was it's now closed. I kind of feel bad for saying this, but I think I know why. Because they used too much sauce. Dude. They had this delicious crispy, crispy fried chicken that they dumped this gravy

sauce on top. They never just put it on the side, No, and by the time it got to the table, it wasn't crispy fried chicken anymore. I just don't get it, huh. But yeah, I'll I'll eat a sauce if it's yeah, what you're describing as smothered chicken, that's totally different. But it was fried. Huh, fried and smother can't do that.

Those two things are never supposed to come together. Um, if you want to see if you have chiggers on your property, um, Tracy says, you can take a piece of black paper, black construction paper, maybe from your child, right, give me that, stupid kid, and go out and lay it on the ground, uh, near where you think there might be chiggers, and you might see little tiny, tiny red things. She doesn't just say that. She says to take a piece of paper and defy physics by standing

it up on its edge. Is that what she says? And then the chiggers will follow their natural urges and climb to the top of the paper. Like what world does Tracy living? Well? And I mean you're you know, you're in the grass. You can stand a piece of paper up in the grass. Maybe, yeah, not if you take care of your grass. This isn't like that Twilight Zone episode where Darren from the Which like flips the coin and it lands on its side. Oh man, you

know what happened in Pe in college. One time my pe teacher basketball teacher threw a pen, remember the paper mate pens that had the the cap with the just sort of flat top. Yes, he just flipped it up in the air, meant to catch it, didn't. It hit the ground, bounce and landed completely straight up and down on its cap. That's exactly like that Twilight Zone episode. He could hear everyone's thoughts after that point. Now, well I dropped that class immediately. That's smart. Come out of here,

very smart. Where you like which ran out the door and you're doing Satan's work? Oh man, all right, well that's chiggers. Oh we didn't say if you really want to control chiggers in your yard, just take care of your yard. They will go away. They won't want to hang out there. Yeah, there won't be long stalks of grass for them to climb up to. In quest from that's right. Uh. If you want to know more about chiggers, horrible, horrible little things, you can type that word into the

search bar how stuff works dot com. And since I said search bar, it's time for a listener. Hey guys, I'm a new fan. I must admit I'm getting addicted. Recently listened to the Anesthesia podcast, and I heard the listener mail the Harvard student and needed five numbing injections to the nasal cavity to breaking her nose. She thinks she can win up it here. It's not bad. I know. I'm sorry. Uh. In one in college, one of my

molars became infected. I need a root canal. The day of the procedure that Dennis gave me shots in the gum, which Chuck said was the worst thing ever in life. After a few numbing shots, he got to work drilling uh into the infected tooth. Unfortunately he didn't give me enough. Once he got down to the root, I felt it and it felt awful, so I said to the dentist, Hey,

I learned the dentist. He then pulled out what must have been the largest needle in existence and gave me a shot directly into the infected root of my school. Oh man, I think that has the nose beat O. Uh. This made me. She said that she takes pain well, she said, but this made me sob uncontrollably. It was ten years ago, and I can still vividly recall the flash of blinding pain when the needle made contact. To make matters worse. That evening, my gum swelled dislodged the

temporary crown. I had to go back the next day to have it refitted. So that's my injection story. Like I said, I'm not sure if it's worse than the five in the nose. I'd say both were pretty terrible. I hope you enjoyed the read Julie yeaste from Honno Lulu Oaii. It's a lot for that, Julie. Man, I'm making air quotes when I say thanks. That's like scarring, you know, but she'll remember that for the rest of her life. Well, way to go. Uh. If you want to try to gross this out, it's gonna be tough

to top that one. But let's keep it going, shall we. You can send us an email send it off to stuff podcast at iHeart radio dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeart Radio. For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.