Speaker 1: Welcome to Creature future production of iHeartRadio. I'm your host
Speaker 1: of Many Parasites, Katie Golden. I studied psychology and evolutionary biology,
Speaker 1: and today on the show brood X. There's often generational battles,
Speaker 1: boomers complaining about millennials, gen X complaining about zoomers, Zoomers
Speaker 1: duking it out with boomers in the thunderdome. But perhaps
Speaker 1: as we have our petty generational fights, we should stop
Speaker 1: to consider what's happening under our feet. Something is stirring.
Speaker 1: In fact, millions of somethings are stirring. Rude X is
Speaker 1: about to emerge, and we should put aside our petty
Speaker 1: squabbles about whether millennials eat too many avocados or zoomers
Speaker 1: do too many tiktoks about avocados and prepare ourselves for
Speaker 1: brood X that has been waiting seventeen years to emerge
Speaker 1: from the ground. What is brood X? Should we panic?
Speaker 1: Must we accept brood X is our new leaders? And
Speaker 1: how might we ingratiate ourselves to them? Discover this and
Speaker 1: more to we answer to the age old question, how
Speaker 1: is it fair that swarms of baby turtles are considered cute?
Speaker 1: But swarms of bugs are considered quote horrifying. Joining me
Speaker 1: today to discuss brood X and other mass spawning events
Speaker 1: is author of the book Where Am I Now? Actress
Speaker 1: and unofficial President of All Millennials.
Speaker 2: Mara Wilson. Welcome, Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 2: I'm very excited to talk about this brood X. It
Speaker 2: sounds a lot scarier than it actually is, I think.
Speaker 1: Or is it. No, you're right, that's true. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: sounds scary. It sounds like this is our come upance
Speaker 1: as a specia and we're about to face the music,
Speaker 1: the very loud music. But no, it is it is
Speaker 1: actually very very interesting thing in evolutionary biology. So this
Speaker 1: brood X is a mass cicada blue. First, I want
Speaker 1: to ask you, mar how's your feelings towards cicadas.
Speaker 2: You know, I don't think they have them where I
Speaker 2: grew up, or at least not in the ways that
Speaker 2: they do on the East Coast because they so seventeen
Speaker 2: years so they were, because I do remember hearing about
Speaker 2: them when I was a teenager. Yeah, so probably when
Speaker 2: I was That was two thousand and four, so I
Speaker 2: would have been sixteen or seventeen, and I do remember
Speaker 2: spending my summer on the East Coast and I think
Speaker 2: that was the first time I'd ever heard cicadas.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I think we do get So I grew
Speaker 1: up in San Diego, and I think we get some
Speaker 1: cicadas there, yeah, but definitely we don't get the mass
Speaker 1: burning events that happens on the East Coast.
Speaker 2: I think, like, maybe i'd heard them before, but I
Speaker 2: didn't know what they were where, Whereas when I lived
Speaker 2: on the East Coast, like I definitely i'd heard cicadas
Speaker 2: and I knew what they sounded like, and I think, yeah,
Speaker 2: I was.
Speaker 3: I was like visiting family on the East Coast in two.
Speaker 2: Thousand and four, and I was like, what's this weird
Speaker 2: noise in the tree that seems to be everywhere? And
Speaker 2: what are these like dead bodies littered on the ground.
Speaker 2: So uh so yeah, so yeah, so I'm kind of
Speaker 2: indifferent to them. I don't think that they're They're like
Speaker 2: I I like the sounds of crickets chirping. I don't
Speaker 2: mind the sounds of cicadas so much. It is a
Speaker 2: bit overwhelming and it is a bit gross when like
Speaker 2: their corpses littered the streets. But again, I haven't had
Speaker 2: to deal with that as much, so, so it's it's
Speaker 2: not you know, it's not as much of an annoyance
Speaker 2: as like as like coyotes are to me, or like
Speaker 2: or or like snails or things like that where I'm
Speaker 2: like gross, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, good, then you missed the Giant Snail episode that was.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm oh God, snails draws me out so much.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, Katie, but I'm gonna have to skip that
Speaker 2: episode because I think they're I think they're the grossest
Speaker 2: things ever.
Speaker 1: My friend Bridget also she's been on the show, also
Speaker 1: disgusted by snails. Yeah, so I won't tell you the
Speaker 1: story about when I was a toddler, I used to
Speaker 1: just eat garden snails.
Speaker 3: Whoa, I mean that's that's you know, that's that's French.
Speaker 3: That's it it is.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's gourmet, very bask Yeah exactly, now I would.
Speaker 1: I can't eat I can't eat escargo. Maybe it's because
Speaker 1: I like, as a kid, it's just like, you know what,
Speaker 1: I've eaten enough snails. I'm good.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've heard it's also not very good unless it's
Speaker 2: prepared a certain way. So it's like it's like one
Speaker 2: of those things that turns out kind of rubbery and and.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I don't know how I managed. The reason, uh,
Speaker 1: I know I ate snails because I barely remember anything
Speaker 1: from that age is that my mom said that I
Speaker 1: would come, I'd go out in the yard and then
Speaker 1: come back and I had like snailshell in my face. Oh,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I'm sorry, Mark, I can't too.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm gagging.
Speaker 1: I don't I haven't done that in quite a while.
Speaker 3: I know, I know. But just the idea is.
Speaker 1: Is, yeah, well, that's that's your gross out of the episode.
Speaker 1: Than Yeah, for I figured there would be one. So yeah,
Speaker 1: so cicadas maybe not that gross, but maybe a little intimidating.
Speaker 1: So this spring in the US, we are welcoming millions
Speaker 1: of cicadas into the world in a mass hatching event.
Speaker 1: So yay, Yeah, I guess, like before we talk about
Speaker 1: the mass s bonding, let's talk about like, what what
Speaker 1: even is a cicada?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 1: They are a very loud bug. They are a true bug.
Speaker 1: They're like we call a lot of insects bugs, but
Speaker 1: there are just a few species that are known as
Speaker 1: like true bugs. Yeah, and others that I guess are
Speaker 1: wanna be bugs.
Speaker 2: I don't know, but is it like how there's no
Speaker 2: such thing as a fish Like I always thought like
Speaker 2: bug was kind of like a fake name that was
Speaker 2: just sort of grouping a bunch of different creatures together.
Speaker 1: There's actually there there is, actually there is such a thing.
Speaker 1: There is actually true bugs. Yeah, I mean taxonomy gets
Speaker 1: very I don't know, there's a lot of gray areas.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of like you know, like with you
Speaker 1: mentioned with fish, there are like reef and fish and
Speaker 1: then but a lot of things that aren't fish are
Speaker 1: called fish, like jellyfish are not fish. They're nidarians. We're
Speaker 1: actually going to talk about some more Nigerians at the
Speaker 1: end of the episode, which will be very strange. But yeah,
Speaker 1: so so cicadas true bugs. And they're actually related to
Speaker 1: leaf hoppers, those cute little leaf shaped bugs that are
Speaker 1: really good jumpers yea, and they come in really interesting shapes.
Speaker 1: So I think we did an episode on leafhoppers before.
Speaker 1: But yeah, they are very interesting bugs, very beautiful they are.
Speaker 2: That's like one of the things that like blows. It's
Speaker 2: like like if you ever want to blow like a
Speaker 2: four year old's mind, you know, show them a picture
Speaker 2: of a leaf hopper. Yes, I remember, like I remember
Speaker 2: being in like preschool, in kindergarten and going to I
Speaker 2: don't know if it was a nature preserve or what,
Speaker 2: seeing leaf hoppers and stick bugs and just losing my.
Speaker 3: Like what how does this exist?
Speaker 2: Does?
Speaker 3: How is this a thing? Yeah?
Speaker 1: It looks Yeah, they look like made up bugs that
Speaker 1: someone like paper machade together.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: It was like, yeah, I'm just gonna make a bug
Speaker 1: that's a leaf.
Speaker 3: But I never would have thought they were related to cicadas.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, Like leaf hoppers have that sort of triangular shape,
Speaker 1: so they're different. So there's there's leaf bugs that have
Speaker 1: the sort of flat leaf, and then there's leaf hoppers
Speaker 1: where they still look like leaves but they're like kind
Speaker 1: of folded up leaves where they have that triangular shape,
Speaker 1: and they're really good jumpers. If you've ever like you
Speaker 1: may see something that looks like a little leaf, but
Speaker 1: then it has like little legs, and then you try
Speaker 1: to pick it up and then it just almost disappears
Speaker 1: by how quickly it can jump. That's a leaf hopper.
Speaker 1: And cicadas are sort of like bigger versions of this,
Speaker 1: except they don't they don't typically camouflage as leaves. They
Speaker 1: have wings in a thick, triangular body. There are many
Speaker 1: species of cicadas, and they come in a variety of colors,
Speaker 1: from black to brown to green. There's even orange and
Speaker 1: blue hues. And they are fairly decently sized. So the
Speaker 1: smaller species are about zero point seventy five inches or
Speaker 1: about two centimeters, and the largest species can be over
Speaker 1: two and a fourth inches long or five point seven centimeters,
Speaker 1: so you know big.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've seen them before and they are pretty big.
Speaker 3: The ones that I've seen were pretty big. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like you don't want to get hit in the face,
Speaker 1: like when you're when you're on your bike, just for example,
Speaker 1: no reason.
Speaker 2: I mean, I haven't had that happen, but I have had.
Speaker 2: What are the Jerusalem beatles or not Jerusalem?
Speaker 1: They're like, oh yeah, what are Erusalem crickets?
Speaker 3: What are It's not Jerusalem crickets? What am I thinking of?
Speaker 3: They're like the big flying there's these big flying things
Speaker 3: that are like big and lou they look like giant bees.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, those are I.
Speaker 3: Don't know what they're called. We have them in southern California.
Speaker 1: I think they're June. Are you thinking about June June bugs.
Speaker 2: No, they're not June bugs because they're they're like they
Speaker 2: like fooled in on themselves. They they like roll up
Speaker 2: and they fly and they're like brightly colored and they
Speaker 2: look like they're like some kind of flying beetle. And
Speaker 2: but I've gotten one in my hair before. Oh yeah,
Speaker 2: I was like by my friend's pool and one got
Speaker 2: caught in my hair. I've also I've also found multiple
Speaker 2: spiders in my hair before, which I think, which I
Speaker 2: think means or only one at a time, but like
Speaker 2: I've found a spider in my hair once and then
Speaker 2: like I can't even remember it happening. But just last year,
Speaker 2: I found a spider in my hair and I was like,
Speaker 2: oh no.
Speaker 3: Not again.
Speaker 2: And I was like, wow, that's a weird thing to think.
Speaker 2: I'm just croving my goth side like up spider. I
Speaker 2: got a spider in my hair again.
Speaker 1: Oh no, yeah, oh gosh, yeah, I have I have
Speaker 1: bad like luck with things getting in my hair too.
Speaker 1: I was at well, I won't name the restaurant so
Speaker 1: I won't get sued, but it's that a burger restaurant,
Speaker 1: and I felt something land on my head and I
Speaker 1: was like well that's strange. And I just sort of
Speaker 1: mindlessly reach up and pick it up and it's a
Speaker 1: giant cock crouch.
Speaker 3: Oh god.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And I was like, waiter, there's a cock crouch.
Speaker 1: Uh that fell on me? And he was just like, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. I was like, you might you might want
Speaker 1: to look into that, like check it out.
Speaker 3: I don't.
Speaker 1: I generally don't mind bugs. Like if a spider gets
Speaker 1: on me, there's an initial startle reflex. But it's something
Speaker 1: about it being in the hair yea that I hate,
Speaker 1: like like emerging from your hair, because you're like, it.
Speaker 3: Wasn't emerging in my hair.
Speaker 2: I just and it was a tiny spider, but yeah,
Speaker 2: the idea of it emerging from your hair feels like
Speaker 2: a like a creepy urban legend.
Speaker 1: Right, yeah, exactly, like the oh oh what's that the
Speaker 1: grudge you know? Yes, exactly, the fingers cut.
Speaker 3: The tiny spider. I looked at it. It might have been
Speaker 3: a fig eater beetle.
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, because it was big and iridescent and that
Speaker 2: getting caught in my hair. I did mind that. I
Speaker 2: was like, you are too big. Get out of my
Speaker 2: hair right now?
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, no, no, I've I've been smacked by it
Speaker 1: by Yeah, those.
Speaker 3: Are annoying and they just they just it's just like,
Speaker 3: you are so big, how can you fly?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Exactly. I mean like that's how I feel about
Speaker 1: cicadas too. They look too eaty to fly, but they are.
Speaker 1: They are lighter than they look, and they have big wings.
Speaker 1: Even though like maybe getting smacked in the face or
Speaker 1: having them land in your hair might be unpleasant, you
Speaker 1: don't really have anything to worry about because they are
Speaker 1: vegetarian vampires. They will not suck on human blood. They
Speaker 1: only suck on tree blood or sap out of roots
Speaker 1: and tree twigs, so they thankfully they are not out
Speaker 1: for human blood. That's good to know.
Speaker 3: It is good. If they were, we would all be screwed.
Speaker 1: We would definite Oh we'd be so dead. Uh So,
Speaker 1: the extremely loud calls they make are due to their
Speaker 1: bodies basically being designed like an instrument. So males sing
Speaker 1: to attract females. So that loud, droning buzz you hear
Speaker 1: in the summer that can be ear splitting at times.
Speaker 1: Is males going come on and get some of this
Speaker 1: to all the females trying to attract them.
Speaker 2: It's kind of like a rising and falling sound, right
Speaker 2: like do do.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it kind of sounds like a little
Speaker 1: tiny buzz saw that like little little forest gnomes are
Speaker 1: doing some serious high rises in the forests with the
Speaker 1: little teeny tiny buzzsaws. But yeah, it gets very loud,
Speaker 1: I mean gets as loud as a buzzsaw. Like it's
Speaker 1: very very loud.
Speaker 3: Well, because there are thousands of them right.
Speaker 1: Well, even a single one can produce a very loud call,
Speaker 1: and then when you combine them it, yeah, it can
Speaker 1: be deafening because one cicada can produce a sound that
Speaker 1: is about almost as loud as a chainsaw. Wow. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So crickets and other loud sound making bugs and other like,
Speaker 1: there are lots of animals that can make loud sounds.
Speaker 1: Often use a technique called stridulation to produce their call.
Speaker 1: That's where they rub their wings or legs over a
Speaker 1: ribbed body structure and kind of like play themselves like
Speaker 1: one of those wood scraper instruments.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Remember in school when they made you sit in this
Speaker 1: circle and you're like here, you get this wood block
Speaker 1: that you d you get this like ribbed wood thing
Speaker 1: that you like scrape back and forth you get the triangle,
Speaker 1: and like they would only entrust the triangle to the
Speaker 1: non annoying kids, yeacause like otherwise the situation would get
Speaker 1: out of control.
Speaker 3: That was a privilege, Yeah, that was, yes.
Speaker 1: Definitely, because otherwise it was just like clin clan clan, cling,
Speaker 1: clang and pandemonium. Yeah, like that that wooden thing that
Speaker 1: has like the grooves in it and you like rub
Speaker 1: the stick on it. It makes that like noise and
Speaker 1: it's like kind of the lame instrument that you get
Speaker 1: and you don't really love it. But that is how
Speaker 1: a lot of crickets, and that's how other animals will
Speaker 1: produce that loud noise through stridulation. But cicadas don't use
Speaker 1: this technique, like they are actually different. They don't use stridulation.
Speaker 1: They instead have specialized structures in their exoskeleton called timbals.
Speaker 1: So timballs are these membranes that are connected to muscles
Speaker 1: that can vibrate them rapidly, producing a very loud sound.
Speaker 1: In fact, cicadas are the loudest insect in the world.
Speaker 1: So it's kind of like you know those like big
Speaker 1: metal sheets that you shake to make it sound like
Speaker 1: it's thunder.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, I've seen that happen, like like I
Speaker 2: was on I worked on I remember where on a
Speaker 2: movie once and we we were on this this lot
Speaker 2: that used to be like an air force base I think,
Speaker 2: and there was a pool in there and they made
Speaker 2: thunder sounds by putting a giant sheet.
Speaker 3: Of metal in the pool. Oh wow, and it's like
Speaker 3: really scary echo.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I was always amazed by that.
Speaker 1: That's interesting. I didn't realize they actually put it in
Speaker 1: submerged it like in water though.
Speaker 3: Oh it wasn't in water. It was an empty pool.
Speaker 1: Oh I see, so it would would like the resonance
Speaker 1: of it. Yeah, that's cool.
Speaker 2: It was really cool. I you know, it was one
Speaker 2: of those like oh that's how they do that kind
Speaker 2: of thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that would be I feel like that would
Speaker 1: be spooky though too. There's something about like big empty
Speaker 1: rooms and then like loud sounds in them.
Speaker 3: It was very spooky.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it spooky. It's like the idea of like
Speaker 1: going to a an abandoned theme park and then all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, like the the carousel just starts up
Speaker 1: and it's just music and an empty and then you're
Speaker 1: like uh oh well, zombies aren't gonna come now.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly, exactly. You know, what have you done?
Speaker 1: Yeah? But yeah, so so that these timbals kind of
Speaker 1: work like those big metal sheets and but they're there.
Speaker 1: They're smaller and they vibrate them much more quickly, and
Speaker 1: so you get that. I don't know if you'd call
Speaker 1: it high pitched, but sort of medium pitched, like buzzing
Speaker 1: humming sound. Yeah, and uh, and I provided you with
Speaker 1: lovely images of cicadas and like a little a little
Speaker 1: animated textbook illustration. That shit, I don't know how helpful.
Speaker 1: This animation is all included in the show notes so
Speaker 1: everyone can see it. But basically it's showing like, look,
Speaker 1: it's this membrane and it goes it like sort of
Speaker 1: wobbles in and out.
Speaker 2: I think I find it really interesting. Also, I love
Speaker 2: that it's from a site called cicadamania dot com.
Speaker 1: Everybody has subscription. Everybody love Yeah, I'm actually subscribed to
Speaker 1: Cicada bi weekly. But yeah, it's it looks and it's
Speaker 1: interesting because it's it's kind of ribbed structure, looks mechanical,
Speaker 1: it looks like a machine part. In fact, the whole
Speaker 1: cicada looks very robot like today. It's like an alien machine,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of like a mixture between organic and machine,
Speaker 1: which I find pretty cool. But yeah, so that's how
Speaker 1: that that sound is produced. And just just for fun,
Speaker 1: I will play a really loud cicada. I'll make sure
Speaker 1: it doesn't it's not gonna blow out your ears because
Speaker 1: I'm going to control the volume, so don't worry. But
Speaker 1: you know this, it's it sounds like construction work. Here
Speaker 1: is what it sounds like.
Speaker 2: It to me, it sounds almost like somebody revving up
Speaker 2: a motorcycle engine. Yeah, because it kind of it kind
Speaker 2: of goes like, yeah, there's like sort of a rise
Speaker 2: and fall.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, exactly. Yeah, it's like little again, little forest
Speaker 1: gnomes on their massive hogs, just like reving around, yeah.
Speaker 2: Trying to get women's attention, which like was probably yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean probably what a lot of.
Speaker 3: Dudes on motorcycles are trying to do.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're right, you're right. Cecanas are very much like
Speaker 1: like dudes on motorcycles going.
Speaker 2: Yeah, just making some noise. Yeah that's yeah, that's that's
Speaker 2: what it seems like to me.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So, so fellas and ladies out there, if you're
Speaker 1: trying to seduce someone. Uh yeah, just like make really
Speaker 1: loud buzzing noises. I think it'll work. You've got the
Speaker 1: creature feature guaranteed that that'll that'll get you some phone numbers.
Speaker 3: By a motorcycle it. It'll definitely attract some people, for sure.
Speaker 1: Or a buzzsaw, yeah, or.
Speaker 2: A buzzsaw well, yeah, if you just stand around with
Speaker 2: a buzz said, I don't know, yeah, I do know
Speaker 2: how many people that'll attract to you.
Speaker 1: But but very special people, Yes, it'll be. It'll be
Speaker 1: a match made having once you find someone who appreciates
Speaker 1: you do. Yeah, in a forest, maybe then it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: you're a lumberjacket in the middle of it, in the
Speaker 1: middle of the street. Maybe not.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm not gonna make not gonna make friends.
Speaker 1: So now we know what cicadas are, and so we
Speaker 1: are ready to welcome millions and millions of new cicadas
Speaker 1: into the world this spring. It's like, you know, spring
Speaker 1: is always associated with cute little bunnies and cute little
Speaker 1: baby chicks, but why not cute little cicadas. So the
Speaker 1: spring is very special because the periodical cicadas are having
Speaker 1: their moment. So there are a few species of cicada
Speaker 1: that have periodical bruits, so a mass brood that stays
Speaker 1: in stasis underground, often for over a decade, and will
Speaker 1: emerge altogether in one big party. So right now in
Speaker 1: eastern and Central US, cicadas that have been resting and
Speaker 1: developing underground for seventeen years will emerge fully grown and
Speaker 1: ready to mate. So if you're seventeen years old and
Speaker 1: listening to this podcast, like, these cicadas are the same
Speaker 1: age as you, They've just been your entire life, have
Speaker 1: been waiting underground to emerge.
Speaker 3: Oh so maybe so maybe I was born in a
Speaker 3: cicada year.
Speaker 1: You could have been, Yeah, because I think.
Speaker 3: I turned seventeen the last time.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, So yeah, maybe so maybe you're cicada baby exactly.
Speaker 1: So, this group of emerging periodical cicadas this spring are
Speaker 1: called broodex, which I love how menacing, Like I love
Speaker 1: how scientists don't shy away from naming things like menacingly
Speaker 1: do they don't.
Speaker 3: I mean, of course, you have to.
Speaker 1: Lean into it, you know. Yes, I love the book
Speaker 1: lean In by a Cicada, And it's just like on
Speaker 1: the cover, looking professional. So this group of emerging periodical
Speaker 1: cicadas will emerge around May of this year in Delaware, Illinois, Georgia, Indiana,
Speaker 1: New York, Kentucky, Maryland, North Carolina, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia,
Speaker 1: West Virginia, Michigan, Washington, d C. So if you live
Speaker 1: in any of those places, congratulations.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 1: There'll be millions of cicadas coming out this spring, and
Speaker 1: they will be extremely loud because they are looking for mates. Basically,
Speaker 1: what happens is they'll pop out of the ground, mate,
Speaker 1: lay their eggs, and then die in a few weeks.
Speaker 1: So the males will make their characteristic buzzes and the
Speaker 1: females will flick their wings, which makes us kind of
Speaker 1: like snapping sound like a fingersnap, much louder, and that
Speaker 1: is signaling to the male that they are enticed by
Speaker 1: their revving sounds. And then they go and mate, and
Speaker 1: then the female will lay the eggs in the branches
Speaker 1: of trees, and shortly after that, the adult cicadas die
Speaker 1: because that's that's it, like that that's their They've had
Speaker 1: their big party and then they're like, well, I'm out here,
Speaker 1: and then they die and that's why there's a bunch
Speaker 1: of Mario were mentioning you found a bunch of cicada corpses. Yeah,
Speaker 1: now you'll also find often like a bunch of uh
Speaker 1: they're not necessarily corpses, but the final molting. So it's
Speaker 1: like they molt out of their various life stages. And
Speaker 1: so if you find sort of a hollow sort of
Speaker 1: kind of like amber colored, like it looks like sort
Speaker 1: of a yeah casing.
Speaker 2: I remember what they look like because of the game
Speaker 2: Niko at Sume the Cat collecton game. One of the cats,
Speaker 2: like the cats will give you little treats and it'll
Speaker 2: be stuff like a broken collar.
Speaker 3: It's the kind of stuff cats will bring you, like
Speaker 3: like a a.
Speaker 2: You know, an old an old you know, a shoelace
Speaker 2: or a broke half a mouse and yeah, exactly. And
Speaker 2: and one of them is actually a cicada MOLTI oh
Speaker 2: wow over cicada morting. And I remember I saw that.
Speaker 2: When I first saw it, like brought back so many memories.
Speaker 2: I was like, oh my gosh, I haven't seen one
Speaker 2: of these in years, but I know exactly what it is.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, so they they they you need to connect
Speaker 1: me with this game. Because I need to play any
Speaker 1: game that makes a cicada reference.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's the nico atsume. It's the cat collector game
Speaker 3: for I love this. It's very cute.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I gotta, I gotta check it out. Yeah, this
Speaker 1: episode is not sponsored by this, but if you want
Speaker 1: to sponsor us, get at me. So you'll find both
Speaker 1: the cicada corpses, which you can tell if they're they're
Speaker 1: the corpse because they are actually they have the full
Speaker 1: wings and I think the ones in the US are
Speaker 1: sort of blackish blue color and then their wings are
Speaker 1: are lined in a bright orange and so that's that's
Speaker 1: the adult form of the cicada, whereas the casings, like
Speaker 1: the molted cicadas, is sort of it'll be this like
Speaker 1: kind of translucent amber color. And the wings are clearly
Speaker 1: not fully developed on these because in their earlier stages
Speaker 1: of formation, the wings are little and they're not functional
Speaker 1: yet because they get bigger and bigger with each molting.
Speaker 3: So they they traveling.
Speaker 2: They don't travel in groups, but they like live in groups,
Speaker 2: right yeah swarms, yeah, because they I remember hearing them altogether.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, I mean like this is the this is
Speaker 1: sort of the entire point of this mass emergence from
Speaker 1: the ground is that they emerge all at the same time,
Speaker 1: basically millions of them, and then all mate at the
Speaker 1: same time, lay their eggs at the same time, and
Speaker 1: then that'll start the process again.
Speaker 2: So yeah, because because I bet like females probably aren't
Speaker 2: that discriminating when it comes to Yeah.
Speaker 1: They can't actually be because they have the they have
Speaker 1: the luxury to be discriminating because they're so many males, right, So,
Speaker 1: like they'll listen to these these calls and if they
Speaker 1: like the song, like if it's it's like, yeah, that's
Speaker 1: a that's a nice that's a nice uh motor reving sound. Uh,
Speaker 1: they'll invite the mail over with the wing flicks and
Speaker 1: then they'll mate.
Speaker 2: So I just feel like, if you, if you do
Speaker 2: your wing flick at like a group of guys, who's
Speaker 2: gonna know how do they know who it is? No?
Speaker 3: Not you, that guy, that guy, No, that one, No,
Speaker 3: that one over there, No, not you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a really good question. I'm not sure. I
Speaker 1: would imagine it may have something to do with timing,
Speaker 1: Like they hear a call and then they sort of
Speaker 1: do a wing flick at them right after their call.
Speaker 1: But yeah, you're right, like there must be some that's
Speaker 1: a really good question. I wonder if there's any research
Speaker 1: onto like how they are able to like directionally locate
Speaker 1: where the stuff is coming from. I'm sure they probably
Speaker 1: have some a very interesting auditory system.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: There, their auditory system actually also works as a resonance chamber.
Speaker 1: So it's like they they have this very complex little
Speaker 1: machine apparatus. So I wouldn't be surprised if they have
Speaker 1: some very complex way of being able to differentiate the
Speaker 1: direction of sounds so that that would make it easier.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's yeah, that's a really good question.
Speaker 2: I went to theater school and very familiar with resonators,
Speaker 2: with using your vocal resonators and so so.
Speaker 1: Yes, but what now what you call me?
Speaker 2: Just let the the using, Yeah, using using the different parts. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's that's Resonance is something that you know, I admire
Speaker 2: and other creatures.
Speaker 1: They're natural born actors, but they yeah, but especially.
Speaker 3: When they live and die on the stage. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Uh. And also with like how many of them are
Speaker 1: trying to.
Speaker 3: Exact part Yeah, yeah, it's true.
Speaker 1: It's true when the female lays the eggs will actually
Speaker 1: lay them in the branches of trees and then again
Speaker 1: the adults kid was like, well, we had our big party,
Speaker 1: now now we're out, and they die. And then when
Speaker 1: the eggs hatch with this little teeny nymph like a
Speaker 1: baby cicada, the nymphs will fall to the ground and
Speaker 1: burrowed down a couple feet near the tree roots, near
Speaker 1: the plant roots, and then they will wait another seventeen
Speaker 1: years before they emerge again. Underground, they live off the
Speaker 1: juices of the tree roots, which is called xylum. Basically,
Speaker 1: like I said, they are tree vampires and they take
Speaker 1: years to fully mature. So they go through many stages
Speaker 1: of molting and transformations from the nymph form, which is
Speaker 1: the young wingless stage after hatching two adults where they
Speaker 1: have the full wings and they're ready to party. So
Speaker 1: they slowly develop those wings which with each molting, and
Speaker 1: then once they've reached their final stage of maturation, which
Speaker 1: is about at the same time. Because again they were
Speaker 1: all the eggs were laid at the same time, they
Speaker 1: all went underground at the same time. They're all synchronized,
Speaker 1: which is incredible. Yeah, they will start to burrow upwards
Speaker 1: and they test the temperature of the earth and once
Speaker 1: it is above about sixty four degrees fahrenheit or eighteen
Speaker 1: degrees celsius, they're like, yep, temperature's right out. We come.
Speaker 1: And then it happens again and they actually leave a
Speaker 1: bunch of holes in the ground, which for me, that's
Speaker 1: like the spookiest part. It's not seeing all the cicadas.
Speaker 1: It's like seeing the holes. Like do you ever have
Speaker 1: you ever read a ging Eto like his horror comics.
Speaker 3: No, I don't think I have, But I mean that
Speaker 3: does sound creepy.
Speaker 1: There's a horror manga where it's like all these human
Speaker 1: shaped holes in a cliff face and like people like
Speaker 1: go inside and just get sucked up. It's kind of
Speaker 1: it's just like all these like little cicada holes. It's
Speaker 1: just it's a little creepy. That's I don't know why,
Speaker 1: but that's the part that kind of creeps me out.
Speaker 1: And it's not it's not tripephobia. I don't have that.
Speaker 3: That's the the hear of holes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's not really that. I think it's just
Speaker 1: the knowing what they are. Like that's where like this
Speaker 1: brood comes out from I don't know. Yeah, it gives
Speaker 1: me the shivers.
Speaker 2: I mean, I feel like if you grew up in
Speaker 2: southern California or or you know, anywhere in the Southwest,
Speaker 2: you probably holes in.
Speaker 3: The ground mean snakes.
Speaker 2: So I always, you know, my dad would always say,
Speaker 2: never put your your your hand or foot somewhere you
Speaker 2: can't see.
Speaker 1: Yeah. No, that's a good point. Yeah, because like I
Speaker 1: remember when I was a little kid and I was
Speaker 1: like digging around in the dirt. I found a hole.
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, I'll dig down in this hole. Scorpion, scorpion. Yeah,
Speaker 1: don't you.
Speaker 3: Yea, yeah, don't do that. That's I have.
Speaker 2: I have family that live in the desert and they're
Speaker 2: just kind of like, well, the cat killed another scorpion today, Yeah,
Speaker 2: And scorpions are so common to them, and I'm like,
Speaker 2: I'm like, I'm like, that's a bit overwhelming for me.
Speaker 3: Scorpions are. I think they're fascinating and cool, but but
Speaker 3: I'm I want them. I wouldn't want them to be
Speaker 3: doing battle with my cats or me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're great parents. Scorpions are, but they I don't
Speaker 1: want them in my room. I've I'm like in my parents'
Speaker 1: house where I grew up, where actually I am right
Speaker 1: now because I'm visiting my parents because the vaccine. Hooray.
Speaker 1: We're right next to sort of this arid canyon area.
Speaker 1: And so for whatever reason that bugs loved my room.
Speaker 1: Maybe they could sense a kindred spirit. But I would
Speaker 1: get like scorpions would get in there, and it's like
Speaker 1: it would only be my room for some reason, or
Speaker 1: maybe I was the only one looking around for scorpions.
Speaker 1: But it's scorpions. I got, like a pleinarian once. It's
Speaker 1: like weird sort of warm thing. And I got the
Speaker 1: you mentioned. I think it was a misnom where you
Speaker 1: were talking about the fig beetles. But yeah, but Jerusalem
Speaker 1: crickets are around here as well, so I got got
Speaker 1: one of those those are creepy their faces, something about
Speaker 1: I don't know, but yeah, so I got a bunch
Speaker 1: of weird bugs, including scorpions. Never a cicada though only
Speaker 1: heard them from a distance. Speaking of bugs and them
Speaker 1: encroaching on us, you may be asking, why do they
Speaker 1: do this mass brooding event? Is it just to scare us?
Speaker 1: What's going Is it an intimidation thing? Oh god, why
Speaker 1: are they doing this? So it's interesting because most cicada
Speaker 1: species aren't like this. They don't lay in wait for
Speaker 1: seventeen years and then emerge on mass like they live
Speaker 1: for a few years, and they have like annual mating cycles,
Speaker 1: just typical stuff. The periodical brooding cicadas are interestingly different,
Speaker 1: Like their whole name is based on this brooding habit.
Speaker 1: They're called magic cicada, which sounds like it's like magic cicada,
Speaker 1: which is I love, But it actually comes from the
Speaker 1: Latin maygui or magi. I think it's magi, yeah, which
Speaker 1: means to a great extent. So it's basically saying like,
Speaker 1: there's a bunch of them, But I also like to
Speaker 1: think that it's because they're magic, just like magic cicada.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: But the purpose of this huge brood emergence is probably
Speaker 1: safety in numbers, right, there are so many of them.
Speaker 1: As an individual cicada, you're statistically unlikely to be preyed
Speaker 1: upon in such a huge mass of others, And it
Speaker 1: makes mating easier because you just have one big meet
Speaker 1: and Greek party with millions of sexy singles in your area.
Speaker 3: Exactly.
Speaker 2: It's what everybody everybody like, you know what people be like,
Speaker 2: you know, me and my homies. Once we get the vaccine, yes,
Speaker 2: of course it's not going to be like that. It's
Speaker 2: much more going to be like you know, us, us slowly,
Speaker 2: you know, climbing out of.
Speaker 3: Arcade where we've been hibernating.
Speaker 2: Yes, it's probably not going to be as fun and
Speaker 2: sexy as the cicadas.
Speaker 3: You know what.
Speaker 1: I didn't make that connection until now, but you're absolutely right.
Speaker 1: Now it's like a metaphor for emerging from quarantine. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're coming out of our holes that we've been in
Speaker 1: for which feels like seventeen years, but it's been over
Speaker 1: a year. And then we'll probably have a mass meeting
Speaker 1: of it. And we should definitely call like all the
Speaker 1: babies that happens because of like after the quarantine, Yes,
Speaker 1: one like mating, we should call them brute as.
Speaker 3: They should be brute as.
Speaker 2: Yes, that would be That would be a great and
Speaker 2: and yeah, that would be a great, a great name
Speaker 2: for them, I think, the babies.
Speaker 1: And they would share, they'll share. Oh and oh my god,
Speaker 1: this is so perfect. It's like when nature is just poetic,
Speaker 1: because you're going to share a birthday with millions of cicadas. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I have a bunch of cicada babies were born like well,
Speaker 1: I guess not exactly, because they'll be conceived now, they'll
Speaker 1: they'll there's gonna be like, n enough delay.
Speaker 2: Quarantine has been long enough that there are you know,
Speaker 2: conceived in quarantine babies.
Speaker 1: That's true. That it's true. I thought there wasn't, like
Speaker 1: there was expected a baby boom, but there wasn't because
Speaker 1: people didn't feel like having a child. There the thunk
Speaker 1: there might still be.
Speaker 2: There might still be in the next but yeah, but
Speaker 2: probably it was. It was a bit too depressing.
Speaker 1: I think there's good. I think the celebratory we're out
Speaker 1: of quarantine baby boom is gonna be much bigger. I
Speaker 1: mean also because I think probably a lot of people
Speaker 1: wanted to have children and then we're waiting until after
Speaker 1: quarantine had so like I imagine a lot of them are
Speaker 1: going to be planned pregnancies of like, hey, we're out
Speaker 1: of quarantine now we can start our families. Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: and so they're gonna be Yeah, it's it's beautiful. Your
Speaker 1: babies are going to share a special a special year
Speaker 1: with the millions of cicadas that are also going to
Speaker 1: breathe this year. Yeah, Cicada generation a wonderful It's just
Speaker 1: it's beautiful. It's it's like a poem.
Speaker 3: It's it's Yeah. They're synchronized, you know, much like the
Speaker 3: cicadas themselves.
Speaker 1: Now synchronized with the cicadas. So we're just gonna slowly
Speaker 1: become more and more cicada like, uh so going. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Another proposed theory for why they have such a long
Speaker 1: brooding cycle is that it makes it hard for predators
Speaker 1: to adapt to your weird intervals. So like, if you
Speaker 1: are only like you only emerge every seventeen years, evolutionarily,
Speaker 1: it's kind of difficult for predators to have, Like they
Speaker 1: don't have a lot of predators don't have a lifespan
Speaker 1: of seventeen years, so matching up with that and being
Speaker 1: able to develop specific evolutionary traits to be able to
Speaker 1: prey upon you is harder. Although some biologists disagree with
Speaker 1: this theory, They say, like, well, there's actually a fungus
Speaker 1: that has developed that can specifically prey upon these periodical cicadas,
Speaker 1: So obviously there's you know, but I still think that like, yeah,
Speaker 1: obviously fungus like probably because it's under the ground and.
Speaker 3: Guy are terrifying.
Speaker 1: They are, yeah, they they there's no defeating fung guy,
Speaker 1: Like that's the final boss. Like we'd like to We're like, oh,
Speaker 1: no cicadas, no cicadas, we don't have to worry about them.
Speaker 1: Fungi that's what we got to worry about. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: what's that's the zombie virus is not gonna be a virus.
Speaker 1: It's gonna be a fungus.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like the most terrifying.
Speaker 2: Like I think about how I'll walk outside and I'll
Speaker 2: see mushrooms pop up out of nowhere one morning, and
Speaker 2: then the next day they'll be gone, and I'm.
Speaker 3: Like, how did you do that? How did you pop
Speaker 3: up and then go away?
Speaker 2: How? It's it's I I do not understand them. I
Speaker 2: have respect for them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm not. I'm not a fung guy expert as
Speaker 1: much as I wish I was, But yeah, they they
Speaker 1: there's something about them that spooks me because they're not
Speaker 1: they're not an animal, but they're not really a plant either. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're in that in between zone of spookiness and yeah,
Speaker 1: so especially the parasitic fungus like cordyceps. Yeah, spooky because
Speaker 1: that goes inside an ant's brain or other insects make
Speaker 1: uh like takes over their brain makes some climb up
Speaker 1: of tree brands and then sprouts spores like right out
Speaker 1: of their brain. That's what the Last of Us that game,
Speaker 1: the video game about zombie apocalypse like that that the
Speaker 1: Last of the Space there zombie infection on the cordyceps.
Speaker 3: Oh really, Oh that makes sense.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've heard about about the Last of Us, but
Speaker 2: nobody has has told me that that that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that sounds really cool.
Speaker 1: Yeah it is. I really loved that aspect of the game.
Speaker 1: It's like the biological meshing sort of these biological facts. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're they're the science fiction.
Speaker 2: We we we kind of understand bacteria. We we kind
Speaker 2: of understand viruses, but yeah, like fungi and like what
Speaker 2: are they those things.
Speaker 3: Are those things are?
Speaker 2: Are?
Speaker 1: Those are the misfolded proteins that that just like, yeah,
Speaker 1: causes a ruckets in your brain.
Speaker 3: They don't like that.
Speaker 1: But I do think, like, aside from from fun Guy,
Speaker 1: which are not a fun guy get uh you know,
Speaker 1: I think that that strategy of like if you lay
Speaker 1: in wait for like seventeen years, yeah, like birds aren't
Speaker 1: going to know what to do about you, Like their
Speaker 1: live spans are typically not seventeen years. Long, so they're
Speaker 1: not going to have any memory of these brooding events.
Speaker 1: They're not going to know like when to come and
Speaker 1: pray on you. So I think that maybe that is
Speaker 1: part of the strategy. Interestingly, sometimes there are stragglers who
Speaker 1: either come too early or too late to the big
Speaker 1: brooding party. So it's not perfect. You know, nobody's perfect,
Speaker 1: pobody's nerfect. And that applies to cicadas too.
Speaker 2: I feel like i've heard them before. I've heard like
Speaker 2: like a soul. Yeah, yeah, I feel like we get that.
Speaker 2: Like we used to get the they're not actually June bugs,
Speaker 2: but we call them June bugs in yeah, in California,
Speaker 2: and like once or twice we would get a June
Speaker 2: bug that was late.
Speaker 3: My mom was like, oh sorry, dude, you're late.
Speaker 2: It's not June anymore. And yeah, kaidas eat here. Sometime
Speaker 2: you'd hear like one and it was just like, oh,
Speaker 2: that's so sad.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, it's like anybody is still out here. Yeah yeah.
Speaker 1: But what's interesting is if there's enough stragglers, because there's
Speaker 1: so many of them, even if you're a straggler, the
Speaker 1: chance that there's going to be another straggler is pretty high,
Speaker 1: so sometimes there are enough of them that they actually
Speaker 1: successfully mate like a group of them, and then they
Speaker 1: can get off sinc a little bit from the rest
Speaker 1: of them, and that can actually start a new brood
Speaker 1: that also they still have like the seventeen year cycle,
Speaker 1: but because they're like off sync just a little bit,
Speaker 1: they start like a different brood that will actually hatch
Speaker 1: different years. So there are many different cicada broods, so
Speaker 1: broodex is not the only one. There are cicada broods
Speaker 1: that emerge every seventeen years. There are some that also
Speaker 1: emerge every thirteen years, so slightly different species.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because I know.
Speaker 2: I've heard cicadas at times that weren't just that wasn't
Speaker 2: just seventeen years ago.
Speaker 1: Yes, because well, first of all, there's the cicadas that
Speaker 1: aren't periodical bruders. So they there are around every year,
Speaker 1: and they they don't do this behavior of waiting seventeen years.
Speaker 1: They have like a yearly reproductive cycle. But you may
Speaker 1: be saying, like, well, I've seen like mass emergence of
Speaker 1: cicadas and it hasn't been seventeen years since I've seen it,
Speaker 1: And that's because like they're they're on these different cycles.
Speaker 1: So this is not it's not that this event only
Speaker 1: happens every second seventeen years. This brood X is only
Speaker 1: gonna happen every seventeen years because their population is on
Speaker 1: this schedule. But there are gonna be other staggered populations
Speaker 1: of cicadas that are on different schedules. Yeah, so we
Speaker 1: see these mass brewed emergence events every few years, and
Speaker 1: so it's yeah, so if you're like, uh, oh, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna miss this mass brood emergence, don't panic. There will
Speaker 1: be another one and you won't have to wait seventeen years.
Speaker 1: But if you want to see this specific brute event, yeah,
Speaker 1: will have to wait another seventeen years. There's enough cicadas
Speaker 1: for everyone, don't worry. Speaking of which, actually apparently I
Speaker 1: read that cicadas tastes like canned asparagus really, which I
Speaker 1: don't know what, like the the like Vinn diagram of
Speaker 1: like people who have eaten cand asparagus and people who
Speaker 1: have eaten cicadas. Who has both eaten cand asparagus yuck
Speaker 1: and cicadas like, yeah, people have eaten both of them.
Speaker 1: That they're like, oh, yeah, this is like the cand
Speaker 1: asparagus that I eat like what.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean liking asparagus is like a very specific
Speaker 2: thing anyway, Like I think asparagus is Okay, it's not
Speaker 2: my favorite. My sister loves it and she cooks it
Speaker 2: a lot, and you know, sometimes they'll eat it if
Speaker 2: she cooks it.
Speaker 3: But but yeah, but I've never had it canned.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: No, no, I I'm like you, like, I'll have like
Speaker 1: roasted asparagus. I don't love it. It's a little too
Speaker 1: fibrous for me. Yeah, also making your piecemeal weird, I'm
Speaker 1: not Yeah, but like, but the but can't I couldn't
Speaker 1: like eat it. Something about cannix asparagus just does not
Speaker 1: peel to me at all. But then it's like, who's
Speaker 1: eat Like I well, actually, you know what, I guess
Speaker 1: it makes sense. The kind of person who would regularly
Speaker 1: eat cand asparagus probably would eat a cicada just out
Speaker 1: of curiosity.
Speaker 3: They're already eating eating weird stuff, so yeah, right, why not?
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like, what, look, once you've stooped to the
Speaker 1: level of eating canned asparagus, why not just try a cicada?
Speaker 3: I'm thinking, is it like army rations or something?
Speaker 2: Because or like survivalists because I do feel like, yeah, because.
Speaker 3: That seems like like the kind of people who would
Speaker 3: do it.
Speaker 2: They'll be like, yeah, we eat bugs, We've also eaten
Speaker 2: you know, these canned vegetables.
Speaker 1: Yeah, of course, like bugs are going to be the
Speaker 1: meat of the future.
Speaker 2: Yeah, which I mean, like, yes, it grosses me out
Speaker 2: to think about, Like I I it both I both
Speaker 2: am like, oh, that's actually like a really good idea
Speaker 2: to like make cricket flower or something like that, because
Speaker 2: it's more readily available and it's you know, probably eat
Speaker 2: safer and maybe even than probably more humane than like
Speaker 2: factory farming and such.
Speaker 3: But right, but also like the idea gross.
Speaker 1: No, I'm with you, Like I'm like, yeah, no, we
Speaker 1: should be probably eating more insects that would be more
Speaker 1: ecologically good for the planet. Ah but yeah gross icky No.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I'm like I.
Speaker 1: I and I think it's entirely cultural. I don't think
Speaker 1: there's any real logic to it. There are places where
Speaker 1: people do eat insects and like it's totally normal and fine,
Speaker 1: and they probably like are they probably look at our
Speaker 1: food like they'd probably look at like a Carl's Junior
Speaker 1: like burger and be like, what the hell, Like, yeah.
Speaker 3: Exactly, No, it totally is cultural.
Speaker 2: And I feel like there's yeah and and people and
Speaker 2: you can like survive pretty well off of that.
Speaker 1: Yeah. But there's a Yeah, there's a guy that was
Speaker 1: accidentally got stranded I think somewhere in Australia, like in
Speaker 1: the desert brush area, and he survived by eating wichety grubs,
Speaker 1: which are these big like sort of you know how
Speaker 1: on The Lion King there's a scene where they like
Speaker 1: teach them to eat big grubs. It's they're huge grubs
Speaker 1: and they just look not super appealing to eat. But
Speaker 1: people have been eat like for centuries. Uh, people have
Speaker 1: been eating the witchity grubs as as a part of
Speaker 1: like their diet, and they're they're perfectly good to eat.
Speaker 1: And this guy survived by eating them. Uh And yeah,
Speaker 1: I just it's it's totally cultural that we've we've been
Speaker 1: brainwashed to reject insects as food. Yeah, but somehow be
Speaker 1: okay with factory farming, which is a little messed up.
Speaker 3: Yeah, which is which is even grosser r.
Speaker 1: Right exactly, Yes, it's way gross I think.
Speaker 2: But like I don't like eating, Like I I eat meat.
Speaker 2: Sometimes I don't eat a lot of meat. But like,
Speaker 2: but like when I do, like, I don't like, I
Speaker 2: don't think I would like to eat a cricket if
Speaker 2: it looked like a cricket. Yeah, it could, But I
Speaker 2: also don't like to eat meat that looks like the
Speaker 2: animal that it is.
Speaker 3: Like I feel like yeah, and I feel like for me,
Speaker 3: that's a psychological thing, you know.
Speaker 1: I'm kind of the opposite. I almost like want to
Speaker 1: know I'm just eating a buz glad.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I feel like if it's if you're like this cookie
Speaker 1: was made out of ground up crickets, that's here, I've
Speaker 1: roasted this cricket and it's like prepared it, and you know,
Speaker 1: I'm like, Okay, at least this is being honest with me.
Speaker 3: That's true. I wouldn't want to be tricked into eating
Speaker 3: it or anything.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, I think I would rather. Also, I think
Speaker 1: I'd rather eat a prepared bug than I would to
Speaker 1: eat candasparagus. Absolutely, I'm not eating candasparagus.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I can't canned no or canned mushrooms too. I'd rather
Speaker 1: eat a freshly prepared insect. Yeah. In terms of the Cicada,
Speaker 1: the Cicada broodex, like, should we be concerned about this, like,
Speaker 1: are you in imminent danger of having your face covered
Speaker 1: in cicadas and then like you know, skeletonizing you. No,
Speaker 1: cicadas are harmless to humans. They don't sting or bite.
Speaker 1: They are allowed, So if you live near where this happening,
Speaker 1: you might have some tough nights, but you know, they're
Speaker 1: not They don't hurt humans. They also don't hurt they
Speaker 1: don't really hurt the trees or crops or anything. They're
Speaker 1: not like locusts. They don't destroy crops. They will suck
Speaker 1: the juice out of tree twigs, which also doesn't really
Speaker 1: hurt the trees that much. Like it seems actually to
Speaker 1: just kind of like prune the trees. They don't really
Speaker 1: do lasting damage to the trees. There are even some
Speaker 1: arguments with that. Because they burst out these holes, it
Speaker 1: helps aerate the soil and is actually good for the trees.
Speaker 1: I feel like it's probably a net neutral because they
Speaker 1: do suck some of the juices out of the roots,
Speaker 1: and when they lay their eggs they actually like kind
Speaker 1: of cut into the tree a little bit to like
Speaker 1: stuff the eggs in, so they're secure there. So I
Speaker 1: think it's probably just a neutral effect. On the trees.
Speaker 1: But I have seen some arguments that it's actually beneficial,
Speaker 1: so maybe. But either way, they're not harmful, So just
Speaker 1: enjoy the big cicada party that happens only once every
Speaker 1: seventeen years.
Speaker 2: They're kind of the musical theater kids of the insect world,
Speaker 2: which I mean I relate to as a musical theater kid.
Speaker 2: They're they're really annoying, but they're harmless.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2: Yeah, don't don't like, don't hate on them too much.
Speaker 2: Just let them do their thing, you know. Yeah, like like,
Speaker 2: you know, you can find them annoying, but they're just.
Speaker 1: You know, yeah, they might be cosplaying as vampires, but
Speaker 1: it's exactly like tomato juice.
Speaker 2: So yeah, they just want to hook up at the
Speaker 2: cast party. You know, they just want to hook up
Speaker 2: at the cast party. So let them have their little
Speaker 2: their party full of you know, massage trains and.
Speaker 1: And do you know, go back underground soon enough.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly exactly. They'll they'll grow out of it, you know,
Speaker 2: just as theater kids. Yeah, kind of kind of grow
Speaker 2: out of the Yeah that's what they are. Cicadas are
Speaker 2: the theater kids.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm sure theater kids are going to be okay
Speaker 1: with that comparison.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm okay with it. And I'm a theater kid.
Speaker 1: Yeah exactly. You're the president of theater kidd.
Speaker 3: Oh God.
Speaker 1: So we've talked about cicadas and their mass brooding events,
Speaker 1: but they are not the only animal that does this.
Speaker 1: Mar Are you familiar with sea turtle mass hatching events?
Speaker 3: No, I'm not, but please tell me because I love turtles.
Speaker 1: Yes, So, thousands of female sea turtles have this uncanny
Speaker 1: ability to emerge from the ocean all at once to
Speaker 1: lay their eggs at specific beaches. So there are all
Speaker 1: of Ridley's sea turtles are one such species who will
Speaker 1: emerge by the thousands to lay their eggs at select beaches, like, uh,
Speaker 1: there's a beach called O'steonal in Costa Rica, and they
Speaker 1: seem to specific select particular beaches to all come and
Speaker 1: lay their eggs on mass. And because they're all coming
Speaker 1: at the same time to lay their eggs, that means
Speaker 1: the eggs will all hatch around the same time as well.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 1: And so when these eggs hatch, they'll come out because
Speaker 1: like they bury them in the sand and they have
Speaker 1: each one has a clutch of I think a couple
Speaker 1: dozen eggs, and then they'll all come out at the
Speaker 1: same time, and the hatchlings will instinctively go towards the ocean,
Speaker 1: possibly guided by light reflecting off of the water. Some
Speaker 1: of them, like they'll come out during night and like
Speaker 1: the moonlight reflecting off the water seems to be a
Speaker 1: beacon for them. These turtles, even though there are so
Speaker 1: many of them, actually surprisingly few will reach adulthood because
Speaker 1: they're small and delicious, like little cinnamon buns, and so like,
Speaker 1: there are lots of scabs and predators who wait for
Speaker 1: these events. They know it's happening, and these are very
Speaker 1: tasty treats for them because they're so defenseless and there
Speaker 1: they don't they can't move that quickly, so when they emerge,
Speaker 1: they have this very dangerous trek to the ocean. And
Speaker 1: so having this mass hatching event again gives you safety
Speaker 1: in numbers like you are, you know, you may not
Speaker 1: make it to the ocean, but like you're much have
Speaker 1: a much better chance if you're one of like thousands
Speaker 1: and thousands of individuals. Then if it's just you coming out,
Speaker 1: and then like a seagull's gonna immediately see you and
Speaker 1: just snatch you up. So, yeah, these these mass turtle hatchings,
Speaker 1: they happen all over the world, but like often these
Speaker 1: populations of sea turtles prefer specific beaches, so they're often
Speaker 1: these events that that people wait for these turtles to
Speaker 1: hatch and watch them or like sometimes do that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, turtles.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's quite something. I mean, the babies are
Speaker 1: so cute. It's hard though, because like you know, a
Speaker 1: lot of them aren't gonna make it so and you
Speaker 1: can't you shouldn't interfere. Sometimes there are rescue groups that
Speaker 1: will like h kind of try to help protect them
Speaker 1: from like poaching and stuff. So but yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: it is. It is quite something though. So you know,
Speaker 1: watching a video of just like thousands of these turtles
Speaker 1: just like kind of like ambling because they can't move
Speaker 1: very well. Uh, they just kind of like use their
Speaker 1: little flippers to like kind of push themselves forward, and
Speaker 1: it's just.
Speaker 2: Like, yeah, I like the little patterns that they leave
Speaker 2: in the ground. Yeah, I'm looking at the little patterns
Speaker 2: they leave, and it it does look like they're just
Speaker 2: moving forward very very slowly, just pinching.
Speaker 3: It's very cute.
Speaker 1: I mean, they're hustling you can tell they're hustling as
Speaker 1: fast as they can. Unfortunately that's just not very fast. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but yeah, they really, they really try to gun it
Speaker 1: to the ocean, but they can they can only move
Speaker 1: so fast because they're these little, tiny, little, tiny like
Speaker 1: sand dollar size things, and they yeah, it's but yeah,
Speaker 1: you're right. The patterns they leave behind are quite beautiful.
Speaker 1: But you may have heard of these sea turtle mass hatchings,
Speaker 1: but there are also mass river turtle hatchings. Yeah, in
Speaker 1: the Amazon rainforest. So in Brazil, on the Perus River
Speaker 1: in the Amazon Rainforest, tens of thousands of baby array turtles,
Speaker 1: also known as the giant South American river turtles will
Speaker 1: hatch and make their way to the river. So similar
Speaker 1: to the sea turtles, they are buried in the sand,
Speaker 1: which keeps the eggs safe. Right, So if you're wondering, well,
Speaker 1: why don't they just lay them in the ocean or
Speaker 1: in the river, the eggs are gonna be just sitting
Speaker 1: ducks or sitting eggs for anything to eat, So burying
Speaker 1: them and the sand keeps them safe. And so once
Speaker 1: they hatch, that is when the real trouble starts.
Speaker 3: So they say, giant, how giant, are they.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So as adults the babies are small, obviously cute
Speaker 1: little babies, but as adults they get up to about
Speaker 1: two hundred pounds or ninety kilograms in weight. Those are
Speaker 1: the larger I think on average they don't reach that weight,
Speaker 1: but like those are some of the larger individuals, and
Speaker 1: their shells can grow to be over three feet longer
Speaker 1: over one meters long. So I think typically they're a
Speaker 1: little smaller, so more around like one hundred two hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty pounds and a little smaller shells, but they
Speaker 1: can get quite big. They're also I think as adults
Speaker 1: very cute. They have these long necks, and they have
Speaker 1: these little piggy noses, like little little piggy snouts. And
Speaker 1: then they also often like algae will grow on their shells,
Speaker 1: so I think they're really cool. Sometimes they get like
Speaker 1: these mohawks of algae growing on them. They're they're really
Speaker 1: interesting looking, very cool. And then the babies are adorable,
Speaker 1: but they face a very unfortunate odds. So in a
Speaker 1: protected area of the Peruse River, these turtles will hatch
Speaker 1: en mass. So in twenty twenty, ninety thousand baby turtles
Speaker 1: hatch just within a few days of each other. And
Speaker 1: if you think that's going to look like a huge
Speaker 1: pile of baby turtles, that is what it looks like.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 1: Unfortunately, even though there's just so many of them, you'd
Speaker 1: think like, well, god, there must be like huge numbers
Speaker 1: of these turtles. Unfortunately, only about one percent of them
Speaker 1: will reach adulthood. So it truly is just a law
Speaker 1: of large numbers. Like you want to make as many
Speaker 1: babies as you can because their odds are so slim,
Speaker 1: and you just want to make sure that some of
Speaker 1: them will make it to adulthood.
Speaker 3: What are their predators, do you know? I mean there's
Speaker 3: a lot.
Speaker 1: Of different Yeah, for the sea turtles, there are a
Speaker 1: lot of like birds are a big one, but there
Speaker 1: are also plenty of small sharks like in the ocean
Speaker 1: that are really good predators. What about the river ones
Speaker 1: and the river ones again, I mean, there are a
Speaker 1: lot of skin averaging birds that fresh water birds that
Speaker 1: will pray for them. And then I'm pretty sure, uh,
Speaker 1: I mean, there are a lot of big fish in
Speaker 1: these rivers that are would be happy enough to eat them.
Speaker 1: There's also otters river otters I believe that live in
Speaker 1: the area.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, river otters are scary, Like I like, I
Speaker 2: like otters, but river otters are scary.
Speaker 3: They're they're yeah, they're serious.
Speaker 1: They're serious. Like you you think of the cute little
Speaker 1: sea otters. No, yeah, river otters are huge. They're like
Speaker 1: almost as tall, like they're as an adult man, and
Speaker 1: they they're long, they have huge teeth. They can take
Speaker 1: on crocodiles. They can like literally take on on gators
Speaker 1: and crocodiles and hold their own. So they're serious business.
Speaker 1: But yeah, so that that is perhaps one of the
Speaker 1: cutest mass spawnings. But in terms of the biggest mass spawning,
Speaker 1: you have to go to the Great Barrier Reef. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the Great Barrier Reef is home to the largest mass
Speaker 1: spawning events in the world of coral. So, I know,
Speaker 1: coral looks like a plant or a rock, but they
Speaker 1: are living animals, which is mind blowing. They just don't
Speaker 1: they don't look like they should be alive. They look
Speaker 1: like a you know, they look like set dressing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, my grandmother had a coral ring and it's weird
Speaker 2: to me now because I'm like that's almost like that's
Speaker 2: like closer to fur than.
Speaker 1: It is to like, you know, diamonds skeleton gems.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly, and it was a very pretty ring. But yeah,
Speaker 3: I think about it now and I'm like, oh, so
Speaker 3: weird that that was alive once.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, and so coral are very much alive. They
Speaker 1: are Nigerians, which is the same philum as jellyfish and
Speaker 1: seeing enemies. So yeah, they're actually related to jellyfish and
Speaker 1: seeing enemies. They are often colonials, so that means they
Speaker 1: form these huge groups of many individual polyps. So a
Speaker 1: polyp is like just like one individual like you see
Speaker 1: if you see a big branching thing of coral, chance,
Speaker 1: are there like thousands of individual polyps or hundreds of
Speaker 1: individual polyps like on this piece of coral. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: a polyp generally speaking for coral is like a sort
Speaker 1: of oval structure. For some coral they look more like
Speaker 1: sort of a long flower with a stem. Some of
Speaker 1: them are more squat, some of them look sort of
Speaker 1: like a flower bulb. Some of them look more like
Speaker 1: pine cone shaped. But it's this is a living it's
Speaker 1: got it's a living animal with like living tissue and
Speaker 1: it eats. They'll they'll filter feed and they like will
Speaker 1: come out of this. These corals and like, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: use use their flowering organs to like catch prey and
Speaker 1: filter feed and just whatever is floating around. So, colonial
Speaker 1: polyps will often share sort of a base either formed
Speaker 1: by fibrous proteins or calcified materials. Uh, and so that
Speaker 1: will form these big, beautiful structures that you see in
Speaker 1: the barrier reef. There are two main types of coral.
Speaker 1: There are soft corals and stony corals. Soft coral you
Speaker 1: may not even realize their coral because they look they
Speaker 1: don't look hard. They are visibly soft. They look sort
Speaker 1: of like a bunch of sea an enemies or flowers.
Speaker 3: Is that this?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, you have a picture of yellow ones and yeah,
Speaker 2: they look like they look like those.
Speaker 3: Bottle brush tree you know. Yeah things. Yeah they look
Speaker 3: like spiny but they look soft.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes they are. They are softer. They don't generally
Speaker 1: have that like hard calcified skeletal structure. They're held together
Speaker 1: by jelly like tissues and they but they also do
Speaker 1: have some spiny structures that will support them.
Speaker 3: I was gonna say, do they feel soft to touch?
Speaker 1: Yeah, so part of them would feel soft to touch,
Speaker 1: But the part of them that is the sort of
Speaker 1: like base that's holding them together is going to be
Speaker 1: a little more firm, sort of like spiny, like like
Speaker 1: tree branches. Right, but yeah, like the definitely the polyps
Speaker 1: themselves is going to be softer but hard. Coral is
Speaker 1: to feel hard. So the stony coral is the stuff
Speaker 1: that you probably think of when you think of coral.
Speaker 1: They look like mineral, more like a mineral than an animal,
Speaker 1: but they are alive. So there are a bunch of
Speaker 1: tiny polyps on stony coral skeletal structures. And like these
Speaker 1: polyps are, they're less sort of like flowery looking than
Speaker 1: soft corals. They're more a little more conical shaped, and
Speaker 1: they give like these stony corals a sort of harder,
Speaker 1: more rocky appearance.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: And because often like these these polyps are very tiny,
Speaker 1: only like one to three millimeters, you can barely see
Speaker 1: each individual. It just looks like this rocky texture on
Speaker 1: like this coral. It doesn't look like there's a bunch
Speaker 1: of individuals. But if you zoom in, those little little
Speaker 1: bumps are actually like living polyps. And if you ever
Speaker 1: I have a visual eight formara here, you guys can
Speaker 1: check out the show notes and and see pictures of this,
Speaker 1: but I actually found because like I mentioned, I'm actually
Speaker 1: at my parents' house right now and I found this
Speaker 1: in the bathroom as a decoration. It's actually a a
Speaker 1: coral skeleton. So this is uh the uh, this is
Speaker 1: a stony coral and this is the calcified hard base
Speaker 1: of the skeleton that would home a bunch of little polyps.
Speaker 1: And I'm gonna hold it up. Oh yeah, so you
Speaker 1: can see each of these little like they look like
Speaker 1: little holes or little divots. I don't know how much
Speaker 1: detail you can get from the camera.
Speaker 3: It was like little stars on it, Like they're not
Speaker 3: they're like little stars.
Speaker 1: Right, because that the little time like that was home
Speaker 1: to each of these polyps that had this like radial
Speaker 1: sort of branching structure. So each of those little like
Speaker 1: like feathery kind of star structures is where that that
Speaker 1: little polyp would have grown and have that like radial
Speaker 1: symmetry like a sea an enemy or like a jellyfish.
Speaker 1: But it was like a little individ and of course
Speaker 1: all that's left now is the hard calcified structure or
Speaker 1: the skeleton. So if you have decorative coral, that is
Speaker 1: a skeleton that you have basically, yeah, I think.
Speaker 2: We used to have I like because when you when
Speaker 2: I as soon as I saw that, I was like,
Speaker 2: that looks familiar. And I feel like we might have
Speaker 2: had that in my bathroom when we were little.
Speaker 1: Or like it's a common bathroom decoration, yeah, or like
Speaker 1: like on on in like a little display on top
Speaker 1: of the back, when we had like you had like
Speaker 1: the TV cabinet.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I feel like we had we had like.
Speaker 2: We had like potpourrie on one part of it, and
Speaker 2: we have but we had like pretty rocks and coral
Speaker 2: on there too, yeah, or maybe like my grandparents had it. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I feel like that was that was a very kind
Speaker 2: of seventies eighties decoration exactly.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. And so it's it was kind of fun
Speaker 1: neat because I was like thinking about this episode and
Speaker 1: like and I was just like, you know, doing my
Speaker 1: business in the bathroom. We don't need to go in
Speaker 1: detail there. But I saw this like on a shelf,
Speaker 1: and it's like, oh, hey, yeah, That's what I'm talking
Speaker 1: about today.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So, because corals are often huge colonies with hundreds
Speaker 1: of thousands of individual polyps, and the Great Barrier Reef
Speaker 1: is one of the world's largest coral systems with over
Speaker 1: six hundred distinct coral species. There are millions and millions
Speaker 1: of individual polyps in the Great Barrier Reef by my
Speaker 1: rough calculation. When it is a coral species time to spawn,
Speaker 1: it gets buck wild in the ocean. So coral are sessile,
Speaker 1: which is just a way of saying they're immobile. They
Speaker 1: spend their whole time just kind of staying still, you know,
Speaker 1: just like we've been on quarantine. We've been sessile on
Speaker 1: our couches. And so having sex is a problem because
Speaker 1: how do you have sex and reproduce when you can't
Speaker 1: really move. So they will release sperm and egg packets
Speaker 1: into the water, and if these sperm and egg packets
Speaker 1: just happen to bonk into each other, they will fertilize
Speaker 1: and form an embryo. So in order to maximize the
Speaker 1: chance of successful fertilization, they have to synchronize because like
Speaker 1: if you just like send out your egg or your
Speaker 1: sperm packet and then it's like nobody else is doing it,
Speaker 1: maybe one person like way far away is doing it,
Speaker 1: the chances are going to bunk into each other is
Speaker 1: like pretty minimal if everyone's doing it. It's a blizzard
Speaker 1: of sperm and egg packets, and the chance that you're
Speaker 1: going to bunk into something and get it fertilized is
Speaker 1: very high, and so that's what they do. It's this
Speaker 1: blizzard of coral sperm and eggs, and it's super colorful.
Speaker 1: So uh, like coral, as you know, are very pretty,
Speaker 1: very colorful, and so you wouldn't even guess that it's
Speaker 1: such a such dirty business going on here because it
Speaker 1: comes in these colors of like yellows and pinks. Uh,
Speaker 1: and it's like this flurry. Uh, it looks like a
Speaker 1: magical enchanted blizzard, but you know that's a it's coral
Speaker 1: sex junk happening.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: There's a photo that I'm looking at here where there's
Speaker 2: like there's like coral spawning and it looks it's like
Speaker 2: like it's like really beautiful. You could put it up
Speaker 2: as like a photograph like in your home as as
Speaker 2: a decoration. And then there's another one and there's a
Speaker 2: diver in the middle of it and he looks a
Speaker 2: little like, Okay, what did I get in the middle
Speaker 2: of here?
Speaker 1: Y'es? Oh? Oh you guys, yeah, guys, just come on. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like it's like a snow globe. Like you turn
Speaker 1: in the snow globe and you see all these like
Speaker 1: big sort of like things of snow, except like it's
Speaker 1: pink and yellow and it's you know, coral sex goo. Yeah,
Speaker 1: once they fertilize, says, we'll create new coral polyps. You
Speaker 1: can actually look like there's an aerial photo too, like
Speaker 1: that shows these like mass coral embryos that creates like
Speaker 1: this pink film on the ocean and look like someone
Speaker 1: just like spilled a bunch of pink ink in the oation.
Speaker 1: It's beautiful. Uh, it's just but it also like shows
Speaker 1: you the scale of this event. It's just huge, huge
Speaker 1: number of uh any coral just making babies.
Speaker 3: And how often does this happen?
Speaker 1: I think this is a yearly event. I'm not sure
Speaker 1: if like every species does it every year, but they
Speaker 1: like it's staggered enough that this happens relatively often. So
Speaker 1: should we be worried about this? Not really? I mean
Speaker 1: unless you are a fish in a lagoon during an
Speaker 1: unfortunately timed weather storm that causes coral sex goop to
Speaker 1: rain down in your home and literally suffocate you, which
Speaker 1: actually happened nine years ago in a lagoon and an
Speaker 1: atoll in the Cocos Island in the Indian Ocean, a
Speaker 1: fluke storm blew a bunch of coral spawn into a
Speaker 1: lagoon system, which consumed oxygen, and then the decaying coral
Speaker 1: polyps released methane, which made the water unbreathable by the fish,
Speaker 1: who suffocated and died on mass. So sometimes, hey, coral
Speaker 1: sex does kill.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's like getting caught up in like somebody else's drama.
Speaker 3: Oh jeez, yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, someone like it shows you a text, like
Speaker 1: between them and someone they're singing, and it's like they
Speaker 1: expect you to resolve the drama. It's like, no, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to be a fish in your coral right.
Speaker 3: That's a great way to tell them. Now, I'm not
Speaker 3: fish in your coral sex lagoon. Okay, they'll know what
Speaker 3: you mean you, they'll know, they'll know they should If
Speaker 3: they don't, you don't want to be their friend.
Speaker 1: Anyway, exactly exactly. I mean, like if they're if they're
Speaker 1: making you be a fish in their coral sex agon,
Speaker 1: that's to get out of there. You got those toxic ties. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: I think we've covered probably as many mass spawning events
Speaker 1: as I can tolerate in one episode. But yeah, it's
Speaker 1: it's a it's look, it's the beautiful cycle of life
Speaker 1: which sometimes happens. And buy the millions. But before we go,
Speaker 1: I do want to do a listener email that was
Speaker 1: in response to last week's episode, which is about bunnies.
Speaker 1: Mar you missed the bunnies, miss the bunnies by one
Speaker 1: by one week, so instead you had the mass cicada
Speaker 1: sex episode.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's it's still interesting to me and I
Speaker 2: and I got turtles, which I like.
Speaker 3: So that's true. That's true too.
Speaker 1: Massive baby turtles. Yes, a lot of them are gonna die,
Speaker 1: but hey, it's.
Speaker 3: But they're cute while they last. Yeah, it's it's an
Speaker 3: ephemeral thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, you know, yeah, enjoy, enjoy the turtles every moment.
Speaker 1: Don't think about the turtles of the future, think about
Speaker 1: the baby turtles of the now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's like that those those you know what
Speaker 2: are those like the mandalas that they'll make in sand?
Speaker 3: Yeah, think about think about the beautiful patterns that the
Speaker 3: turtles making sand and.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and enjoy and yeah yeah, yeah that's that's you know,
Speaker 1: so it goes, yeah, well, here is this very nice,
Speaker 1: uh not deadly email. Hi Katie, I'm a longtime listener
Speaker 1: and I really enjoyed your lagomorph episode. I am a
Speaker 1: bunny owner and an ecologist and really appreciated the love
Speaker 1: you give to these underappreciated fluff balls. I just wanted
Speaker 1: to tell you a few cool things that I've learned
Speaker 1: about pet domestic rabbits. First, they can be letterbox trained
Speaker 1: fairly easily and successfully, especially if they're a spade or neutered.
Speaker 1: I think in the show I threw a little bit
Speaker 1: of shade at bunnies. I said that you can try
Speaker 1: to litter box train them, but I think it's sort
Speaker 1: of on whether they want, whether they feel like it
Speaker 1: or not. Yeah, but apparently it's look Maya Kolpa. Apparently
Speaker 1: bunnies will fairly readily poop in a litter box. That's
Speaker 1: good to know.
Speaker 2: They seem very stubborn domestic. Every domestic bunny I've met
Speaker 2: has has been like I have a mind of mind.
Speaker 3: Like people think cats are hard to control. Bunnies yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: Oh but yeah, but it's a whole new Like cats
Speaker 1: are sort of like a little bit but they're they're
Speaker 1: coy and playful about it, where they're like, oh maybe
Speaker 1: will I won't I but they do. They do love
Speaker 1: you and they but like bunnies. Yeah, they're like, no, no,
Speaker 1: you think you're gonna get me to do something? Uh
Speaker 1: uh yeah, I'll kick you in the face and pee
Speaker 1: on you. Yes, exact exactly. Although although the listener does
Speaker 1: admit that there will be an occasional misplaced bunny poop,
Speaker 1: so hey yeah, she writes that the secret is to
Speaker 1: put hay in or next to the litter box so
Speaker 1: they can eat while they poop or pete luxury luxurious living.
Speaker 1: Once litter trained, the bunnies can roam in an area
Speaker 1: of the house freely after some bunny proofing. The House
Speaker 1: Rabbit Society has lots of information on how to do this.
Speaker 1: I also just wanted to mention a few other super
Speaker 1: cute bunny behaviors. When they are very excited, bunnies will
Speaker 1: do a jump and a shake their bodi's mid air,
Speaker 1: which is called a binkie, And when they are very relaxed,
Speaker 1: they will dramatically flop over on their side.
Speaker 3: Wow, so cute.
Speaker 1: I actually had a cat named Binkie and he was
Speaker 1: he was pretty rabbit like because he was very scared.
Speaker 1: He never killed anything and would run away. And one time,
Speaker 1: this is in high school, and I came home and
Speaker 1: I was, you know, frustrated with school, so drop my
Speaker 1: books on the floor and across the room. I didn't
Speaker 1: realize the cat was there, and so he jumped like
Speaker 1: a like three meters into the areas. It's so funny,
Speaker 1: poor thing. And then then the listener shared some beautiful
Speaker 1: pictures of the bunnies which are just for me, So
Speaker 1: sorry about that. But oh and then and then she writes,
Speaker 1: I also especially appreciated your bee episode. I did my
Speaker 1: master's degree studying native bees in Ontario, so I appreciate
Speaker 1: it when bee species other than honey bees get a mention.
Speaker 1: And this is from Emma. Thank you so much, Emma
Speaker 1: for your kind words and for your bunny facts. So
Speaker 1: I take it back. Bunnies can be litterbox trained, but again, hey,
Speaker 1: look when they want to, like if they there may
Speaker 1: be a poop once in a while, You're just gonna
Speaker 1: have to deal with it, right.
Speaker 3: Don't pretend like you can control the bunnies.
Speaker 1: No, you can't control a bunny.
Speaker 3: Control the bunnies no, no, they are.
Speaker 1: They are those strong back legs they can they can
Speaker 1: slap you.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I have a friend who has bunnies, and she says
Speaker 2: that they they when they're pissed off at you, they'll
Speaker 2: turn their back on you and kick with their back legs.
Speaker 3: They'll kick you. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, which, which.
Speaker 3: I love you is is I love that about them.
Speaker 2: It's just like I love you bunnies for being for
Speaker 2: being like they hey, screw you with their back legs.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean I like that they stand up for
Speaker 1: themselves because like we have the sense of like, oh,
Speaker 1: they're just a little floppy bunnies. They don't they're helpless
Speaker 1: frightened rabbits. Yeah yeah, no, I mean it's more like
Speaker 1: the Peter Rabbit level of like defiance.
Speaker 3: They Yeah. My sister was bitten by a bunny once oof.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: They got strong teeth, they do.
Speaker 3: Yeah. She said she had to get a Titanish shot
Speaker 3: after oof.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because oh yeah, because their teeth are so long.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 3: She said the shot hurt more than the bite, but
Speaker 3: it was still very very strange.
Speaker 1: But I mean, basically the bunny is responsible for the
Speaker 1: shot too, exactly. Insult and injury to injury. Yeah, yeah, no,
Speaker 1: bunny is a serious Like I know, bunnies are cute.
Speaker 1: I don't necessarily discourage having bunnies as a pet, but
Speaker 1: if you want one, definitely look into it because I
Speaker 1: would say they are one of the harder pets, Like
Speaker 1: they're harder than a cat or a dog. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: would say, so, yeah, just just check it out because
Speaker 1: because there's a lot of special care you have to do.
Speaker 1: Uh My, I had a friend who had a bunny
Speaker 1: and again, like I would pet it and then when
Speaker 1: it wanted me to stop, it would kick me and
Speaker 1: pee on me like it was a mail And I
Speaker 1: think they like to flick urine, so they so he
Speaker 1: would kick me and flick you on me. And I
Speaker 1: was like, you know, I think I'll stick with cats
Speaker 1: and dogs.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you can predict they're more productive.
Speaker 1: I only sometimes get kicked by my dog, and that's
Speaker 1: usually on Yeah, my.
Speaker 2: Cat will will you know, they'll go away or maybe
Speaker 2: they'll hit me or bite me lightly if I'm annoying them.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm like, okay, all right, we'll stop petting you.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. My dog loves belly rubs, but like once
Speaker 1: it's like she's got a very specific. You have to
Speaker 1: pet her very specifically, and if you stop, like she
Speaker 1: she looks so sweet and angelic. But then if you
Speaker 1: pet her wrong, like suddenly the little Chihuahua demon face
Speaker 1: comes into play and it's oh my god, she's like,
Speaker 1: it's really funny. Satan takes over. Yeah. Well, Mara, thank
Speaker 1: you so so much for joining me. It's truly been
Speaker 1: a pleasure to have you on. Big thank you, big
Speaker 1: fan of you, big fan of your your Twitter and
Speaker 1: and your articles, and so I am you know, trying
Speaker 1: to keep the fangirling.
Speaker 3: To a minute.
Speaker 2: No, I mean, I I love your stuff, and I
Speaker 2: feel like and I love learning about things that that
Speaker 2: I don't know a lot about.
Speaker 3: So this is really cool to me. This is really fascinating.
Speaker 1: I'm so glad that you could learn about. And I'm
Speaker 1: sorry about all the about all the coral perversion.
Speaker 2: It's it's fine, it's fine. I'll give them their space.
Speaker 2: You know, I'm not gonna king shame them.
Speaker 1: I mean, if they if if you're like in a
Speaker 1: lagoon and they foist their kink upon you in the
Speaker 1: that's a yeah, but it is problematic.
Speaker 3: You were wandering into their space.
Speaker 1: Yes, but that was like that. I just there's like
Speaker 1: a freak storm that dispensed all of this coral sexcw
Speaker 1: on these poor fish. It's like it's like the like
Speaker 1: a disaster movie, except a lot of corel coral eggs
Speaker 1: and sperm. Attack of the killer coral, attack of the
Speaker 1: killer coral coral baby's attack sounds like there might be
Speaker 1: a plane, Yeah there is? Or is it a storm
Speaker 1: of coral stuff?
Speaker 3: We've angered the coral. We've angered the coral guards. Gods.
Speaker 1: Yeah, now there's just gonna be a cyclone of like
Speaker 1: coral sperm. Sorry.
Speaker 3: Yeah, oh well, well.
Speaker 1: Thank you again for coming on. Where can people find you?
Speaker 3: Thanks? They can find me at Mara Wilson on Instagram
Speaker 3: and Twitter. I also have a cameo.
Speaker 2: I I do videos where I will talk about you
Speaker 2: know anything, my cats or cookie recipes or cicadas what I.
Speaker 3: Know about Yeah, and those are really fun to make.
Speaker 3: I have a newsletter at Mara.
Speaker 2: Dot substock dot com called chet We Tell the Vicar
Speaker 2: because I come up with.
Speaker 3: Names for fake British TV shows. Nice them every time.
Speaker 1: I don't want to put you on the spot, but
Speaker 1: can you can you?
Speaker 3: I can? I can?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I can there's uh, I'm just here to do
Speaker 2: the hoovering. There's that one the mission quigly bubble and squeak.
Speaker 1: You know that's perfect.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's uh, it's and and sometimes it's kind of
Speaker 2: hard to tell which ones are real and which ones.
Speaker 1: Are Oh yeah, no, I would believe it. If it's
Speaker 1: like like I'm just here to do the hoovering, I
Speaker 1: would totally think it was one real one. That's great
Speaker 1: And you can find the show on the internet at
Speaker 1: Creature Feature Pod on Instagram at Creature feet Pod on Twitter.
Speaker 1: That's f e A T, not f e E T.
Speaker 1: That is something very different. You can also send me
Speaker 1: an email at Creature Featurepod at gmail dot com with
Speaker 1: all your questions, bunny pictures, choral questions. If you have
Speaker 1: a problem with cicadas making loud sex noises, just let
Speaker 1: me know send me an email. Uh, And I'm Katie Golden.
Speaker 1: You can find me at Katie Goolden on Twitter, where
Speaker 1: I just post all my Katie thoughts and as always
Speaker 1: I'm also pro bird rights or is pro bird rights?
Speaker 3: Me?
Speaker 1: Am I birds? We'll find out on Twitter. Thank you
Speaker 1: so much for listening. If you enjoyed the show, and
Speaker 1: you leave me your rating and review, I will read
Speaker 1: it and it'll make my day. I'll be floating on
Speaker 1: Cloud nine all day long. When you leave nice reviews.
Speaker 1: I really appreciate them. And thanks to the Space Classics
Speaker 1: for their super awesome song. Ex Alumina. Creature features a
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Speaker 1: Hey Guess what. However, you listen to your favorite shows,
Speaker 1: I don't judge, even if you're listening it in like
Speaker 1: a choral sex lagoon. That's fine. Not here to judge you,
Speaker 1: here to provide you with entertainment. See you next Wednesday.