0:06

Welcome to Creature Future production of iHeartRadio.

0:09

I'm your host of Many Parasites, Katie

0:11

Golden. I studied psychology and

0:13

evolutionary biology, and today on the show

0:16

you Yes, you can be a citizen

0:18

scientist this spring and summer.

0:21

There are things to look out for in your own

0:24

backyards. I am talking

0:26

about special events that are current,

0:28

that are happening now or in a few weeks,

0:31

that you can keep alert to in

0:33

your backyard. Well, if you live in North

0:36

America, in certain locations, but

0:38

in general, you can be a citizen

0:41

scientist. That means observing animals

0:43

and then making reports to various

0:46

research institutions, to things

0:48

like eye naturalists, and this actually

0:51

really helps researchers. So

0:53

we are gonna be talking about new

0:55

birds. We're gonna be talking about incredible

0:59

broods. We're going to talk about

1:01

something that was discovered by citizen

1:03

scientists that sounds like it came out of

1:06

the horror game Slash

1:08

TV show The Last of Us Discover

1:11

This and more as we

1:14

answer the age old question when

1:16

is it a good time for your butt

1:18

to be a fun guy? Joining me today

1:21

is voice actress, host of the JV

1:23

Club and a ton of other podcasts.

1:26

Janet Varney welcome.

1:28

Thank you so much. I wasn't sure

1:30

if I was allowed to laugh when you said can you be a

1:32

fun guy and win? And so last

1:35

that giggle.

1:36

Laughter is not allowed, not permitted.

1:38

This is a very serious.

1:41

Very serious.

1:41

I'm reaching our contract.

1:43

Yeah, it's a very serious science show. No laughter,

1:45

no fun, everything's really dry.

1:51

I'm so excited to have you suggested.

1:54

I really liked your topic suggestion, which is

1:56

talking about like the kinds of animals

1:59

that you can find sort of in your own

2:01

city, in your own backyard. And

2:04

I really love this concept,

2:06

and I love the way in which that people

2:10

like you and me can engage in science.

2:12

Because I am a science communicator.

2:14

I'm not a scientist. I don't do research,

2:17

but do I take photos

2:19

of animals and then send them to

2:23

a naturalist or to researchers

2:25

who I know are looking for these

2:27

photos. I don't send them randomly to people

2:29

who don't know what's going on, but

2:32

yes I do. And it's really fun, it's

2:35

really exciting. Like once I

2:37

snapped a photo of alligator lizards

2:39

mating, so I sent it to Greg

2:42

Pauley. He's a herpetologist at the

2:45

the LA Natural

2:47

History Museum, and you know, it's

2:50

it's amazing. It's it's so cool

2:52

to be able to interact with scientists and

2:54

with science and research this way and it's actually

2:56

really helpful.

2:58

Yeah, that's totally awesome. We have in

3:01

our I live right near Griffith Park in Los

3:03

Angeles, and there's like

3:06

a ton of, you know, kind of public facing

3:08

stuff that you can do to get involved in. One of the things

3:10

that we do, not just in Griffith Park but in

3:12

my own neighborhood is Raptor Watch,

3:15

is you know, keeping your eyes

3:17

on searchin raptors' nests and reporting

3:20

back. I'm gone a lot, so I

3:22

haven't been able to sign up because the last thing I want to do is

3:24

like not show up for something that

3:27

wonderful and important raptor d I don't want to fail

3:29

rapt duty. But but you're

3:31

right, the feeling of knowing that,

3:33

like you're engaging with your environment and

3:35

you're even helping us better understand

3:38

our environment and respect it and all that kind of stuff

3:40

is like the coolest.

3:42

Well, so I have exciting news for you

3:44

because this is something that is actually

3:46

in your neck of the woods. This is

3:48

a a new

3:51

bird just dropped in southern

3:53

California.

3:54

They dropped a new bird.

3:55

They they released a new bird. Kind

3:58

of literally, I'll ex plane. So

4:00

there is a small bird called swin Hoe's

4:03

White Eye. It is a

4:05

little little guy. It's like smaller than

4:07

a playing card. It's

4:10

got this cute little tan belly, this

4:12

chartreuse head, wings

4:14

and butt, and then this beautiful,

4:16

vague, glamorous white eyeliner.

4:20

So it does it is. These are

4:22

cute little guys and they are killing

4:24

it with that eyeliner.

4:27

They really are. This is this is a this is a

4:29

hot look. I love it. These I

4:32

did not really, you know, from just thinking about scale,

4:34

from looking at the photo initially, I did not realize

4:36

they were that tiny? Are they? They look sort of goldfinchy,

4:39

but not is there? Yeah? Is that

4:42

that? Maybe that's what I because we have with tons

4:44

of goldfinches, so hopefully I won't

4:46

mistake, uh, this little guy for a goldfinch

4:48

and then not not appreciate

4:51

how special it is.

4:52

I mean it's that I think that greeny tinge

4:55

and that white around the eye is

4:57

yea yeah, yeah,

5:00

I've tried before using white eyeliner.

5:02

I did it, did not work for me.

5:04

Oh me, neither.

5:06

I think it's like, I mean, you

5:08

know, I think both of our complexions are

5:11

you know, easily washed out by

5:13

say like hey, it's like I'm

5:15

already very pale. If

5:17

I add white eye learner to it, it doesn't

5:19

work. But if our skin was shartruths like

5:22

this, yeah, I think it would work.

5:25

I've never wanted your true skin more or

5:28

at all, now I do, so.

5:31

Yeah.

5:31

I love this little critter.

5:32

They're very, very pretty, and if you are

5:34

a bird watcher or backyard birder,

5:36

or just general bird appreciator

5:39

in southern California, you

5:41

may spot them, especially

5:43

in a tree that has flowers

5:47

or berries. They often

5:49

like to sip nectar or eat berries.

5:52

Even like hunting bird feeders, if you have them,

5:54

you might catch one of them.

5:55

Sort of, that was my next question.

5:57

Okay, And they don't

5:59

have that really long beak that

6:01

the hummingbird has, so they can't get quite as

6:03

deep, but they

6:05

still do have a bit of a beak, and it's a little

6:08

curb so they can get in there a little bit.

6:10

You can kind of It's interesting because you can see

6:12

these nectivorous birds

6:14

like this one that sip nectar, and you can

6:16

see the beak it's like kind of long, a little

6:18

bit pointy, but many

6:21

stages away from the hummingbird.

6:23

But you can see that like

6:25

maybe evolutionary path of this bird could

6:27

have been maybe similar to a

6:29

hummingbird's ancestor, with a shorter beak

6:31

but still zipping nectar.

6:34

Sure, and just because I don't

6:37

want anyone to worry that you have an

6:39

expert by any means in any way on

6:41

the show, I'm happy to represent the

6:44

most rudimentary of enthusiasts.

6:49

But so a bird like this, like with a

6:51

hummingbird, they don't don't they have like a little tongue

6:53

that was also involved in the beak. But

6:55

this with this little character, is

6:58

he or she uh sip with

7:00

like is a tongue in play or is it mostly

7:02

beak action?

7:03

Okay, yes, yes, that tongue is going to help

7:05

them sip. It's not not quite as long in fancy

7:08

as the hummingbird, but that

7:10

narrow beak a little bit curved and then

7:12

a little bit of tongue action is going to help them

7:15

draw up nectar into their beak. Cool

7:18

and so, but they're unlike

7:20

hummingbirds, they can also they can diversify,

7:23

so they can eat berries, which you know, can

7:25

open and close their mouth pretty easily and

7:28

snap up a berry. And

7:30

so yeah, if you have like a lot of

7:32

like flowering lush plants in your

7:34

area, you may spot one of

7:36

these. But here's the catch.

7:40

They are not really supposed to be in

7:42

southern California. They are from

7:44

East and Southeast Asia,

7:46

completely across the world. So,

7:49

Janet, I want you to guess how

7:51

they might have gotten to southern California.

7:55

Well, I'm

7:58

gonna say, not, Migraine, I'm

8:02

gonna say brought

8:04

over to ce commercially,

8:07

perhaps like seeing

8:09

that there was some incentive there.

8:12

It's harder for me to imagine somehow

8:14

these ending up on like a cargo ship just

8:16

randomly and like building a nest and hanging out

8:19

there. So I guess that's my

8:21

That will be my guess. That is absolutely correct,

8:24

all right.

8:24

These little guys. The thought it's not

8:27

exactly known, but the

8:29

leading theory is that they escaped

8:31

from the pet trade in Orange

8:33

County, California. And

8:36

so we actually have another bird, the

8:39

Chevron parakeep, that also

8:41

escaped the pet trade, and you can see it all

8:43

over southern California,

8:46

but this one is much

8:49

more recent, So this came around

8:52

two thousand and six, and

8:54

they've been in southern California since

8:57

and six. But recently

8:59

they're population seems to have a

9:01

big boom. There's been

9:04

many more reported sightings. It seems

9:06

like they are finding their niche

9:08

and reproducing

9:11

quite a bit. So there's

9:13

always like, so they are an invasive species,

9:16

but invasive species can range

9:18

in terms of how bad

9:20

they are right in terms of like how much

9:23

they impact local

9:25

flora fauna, how they impact the plants,

9:28

how they impact other

9:30

birds, other animals, because like they

9:33

can either directly, you

9:35

know, safe overfeed on berries

9:37

or overfeed on plants and then cause

9:40

damage to native plants, or they can

9:42

outcompete native birds,

9:45

other or insects or something. So

9:47

there are a lot of factors in terms

9:49

of how they could have an effect,

9:51

but so far we don't actually know if

9:54

they are having a negative effect on the

9:58

local native plants

10:00

and animals.

10:01

So they are like a kind of the opposite

10:04

end of the known spectrum at this time

10:06

than say the feral cat in Australia,

10:09

which I was just reading about and feeling

10:11

very bad for the Bilby's.

10:13

Yeah, the Bilby's.

10:15

So cute in

10:18

the side, But boy, oh boy, are they cute.

10:20

I judge an animal in terms

10:22

of their cuteness mostly by the nose. The

10:25

snoop is a very important factor

10:27

in the cuteness.

10:28

I would say, ears and snoop, and this

10:30

one has both very adorable

10:32

ears, very adorable snoop.

10:33

They did you see the whole thing of like

10:36

they do the Bilby, the

10:38

Easter Bilby instead of the Easter bunny

10:40

because no, yeah, so

10:43

rabbits are also invasive, also

10:45

bad for Bilby's and other animals,

10:47

not because of predation, but because

10:49

they are competing with them, right and

10:52

so, and they're bad for the local

10:54

vegetation and so there they

10:56

are, just as they're at war with

10:58

feral cats there at war or with feral

11:01

rabbits, and so sort

11:03

of as a branding thing of like, hey, we don't actually

11:05

want rabbits here, they did

11:07

the whole like Easter Bilby, get.

11:09

A chant bil so doing that here.

11:11

I'm a love

11:14

that you can get a chocolate Easter

11:16

Bilby. I don't know how expensive the shipping

11:18

would be from Australia, but

11:21

you know, probably a lot worth it.

11:23

But yeah, so so so far, these

11:27

little little white eyed birds.

11:29

Uh, it is unknown what impact

11:32

they have and in fact it's unknown

11:34

how big their population is. There's

11:36

been more reports of sightings.

11:38

It seems like their population is on the rise,

11:40

but researchers need more

11:43

data. So that is something

11:45

that people can do from their backyards

11:48

right or on your walk or whatever.

11:50

If you see one of these birds and you can look

11:52

up pictures of the

11:55

swin Hoe white eye bird,

11:58

and if you see one of these you can snap

12:00

a photo or make

12:02

a report of where you see it. You

12:04

can go through like a naturalist is

12:07

the main one. And

12:09

so yeah, I mean there's an article

12:12

called on the Brink of Explosion

12:14

identifying the source and potential spread of

12:17

introduced Zosterops white

12:19

eyes in North America. Also

12:22

an article in The LAist by

12:25

Jacob Margolis that has

12:27

more information. But yeah, generally, just if

12:30

you're if you're a bird enthusiast

12:32

and you see one of these guys and you take a photo

12:35

or observed just like where it is where

12:37

you saw it, you can

12:39

you can actually add a data point to the

12:42

research that is going on about the spread of these

12:44

little guys.

12:46

There it is, I'm looking at it right now. Okay,

12:48

So zaster Ops that's that's

12:51

it sounds like a disease spelling. I

12:53

know. It's actually his name.

12:56

Is the full scientific name

12:58

is Zosterops simplex, which which make it

13:00

makes it sound like a.

13:01

Mouth sounds like easily. Yeah it really does.

13:03

Yeah, it really does. Zoster Ops

13:05

white eyes. I have a really bad cases astro ops white

13:07

eyes.

13:08

No. I know, it's like, oh, I don't want to be around you. I don't

13:10

want to catch your z aster op white eyes.

13:13

It's interesting too, because when you talk about, yeah, when you were

13:15

talking about the population boom, but also

13:18

that it if that's relative to

13:21

getting more engagement from the public. You

13:23

know, my first thought was like, gosh, how do

13:25

you I guess you can look at overall the kind

13:27

of data that you're getting in from the public

13:30

to see if there's an increase in general

13:32

and not just about these birds in particular, because that

13:34

seems like such a challenge to

13:37

go yeah, or people just seeing the more for like,

13:39

what are all the reasons that people are a seeing

13:41

the more and b reporting the more and is it truly

13:43

a population boomers or something else going on that we

13:45

have to isolate and identify.

13:46

You are thinking exactly like a biologist,

13:50

like a scientist, because that is that

13:52

is one of the issues with things like

13:55

this, because if you get

13:57

a like if you encourage more observations,

14:00

you're gonna get more observations, and

14:02

then that might make it look like there's a big

14:04

population boom, like people are more aware

14:07

of it, so they're making observations. But

14:09

there are ways to like kind of overcome

14:12

that, right because you maybe you start

14:14

the clock at the point at which it's like, well, we

14:16

made had this awareness at this point,

14:19

so then we look at the growth from that point

14:21

onwards. You can

14:23

also do things like, okay, we made

14:25

this made you know, all of sort

14:28

of California or something south southern

14:30

California reads this newspaper

14:32

or whatever and has this this thing and then

14:35

so they're all making these observations and

14:37

then seeing if you see like a

14:39

change right like in the observations,

14:41

like maybe they start more in southern California.

14:44

Do they move you know, to the north, do they

14:46

move to the east? You know? So

14:49

it's you're absolutely right, it's

14:51

really important to separate out like, oh,

14:53

we just have a bunch of new observations. Well is

14:55

that because people are noticing it more sort

14:58

of like how you know, we may suddenly

15:00

get a bunch of diagnoses for, say,

15:02

like a disease that we've now

15:05

become more aware of, and it's like, oh, everyone

15:07

has this now. It's like, well, because

15:10

now we're aware of it. Same thing

15:12

with this bird. I'm so mean to this bird.

15:14

I keep like comparing it

15:16

to a disease.

15:19

I mean, that's just what's going to happen if you're

15:21

an invasive species. It's not these guys

15:23

fault. But I will say side note.

15:25

When I tucked

15:28

this into Duc dug O and I looked up Zostrops

15:30

white I you know how it gives you like

15:32

a suggestion of what you might be looking for.

15:34

It was very eager to fill in for

15:36

me. Zostrops white eyes

15:39

for sale.

15:40

Oh wow, really.

15:41

Seems telling, right, I mean, it thinks

15:43

that that must be what I came onto

15:46

a search engine for. Yeah, so I find

15:48

that very interesting.

15:49

This is one of the problems with the exotic

15:51

pet trade. I am you

15:54

know, I am a big fan of people keeping

15:56

pets, and I understand

15:58

that a lot of pets that we can keep are not going

16:00

to be native to the region. In which we live,

16:03

and that's often not a problem,

16:05

but it can often be a problem,

16:08

especially for a pet that can easily

16:11

escape, right, Like there are types of

16:13

like snakes, birds, you know, rodents

16:16

like these are pets that can fairly

16:18

easily escape, and especially

16:20

animals that have a high fecundity can reproduce

16:23

fairly quickly. You know, that

16:25

can be a big problem. So yeah,

16:28

I mean, right now, it doesn't seem

16:30

like maybe they're a problem, but it's also we don't

16:33

there just hasn't been a lot of research, so there

16:35

could be problems that this adorable

16:37

little bird causes. I mean, it's not so c

16:40

it's so cute. It's not its fault, right, Like

16:42

they are adorable. They did they didn't

16:44

choose to be sold in the pet trade, and you

16:47

know they're just trying to make it work. But yeah,

16:49

when we I mean, I think it's funny because like when we think

16:51

of invasive species, we think of something menacing

16:53

and you know, like the pythons

16:56

in Florida, But really

16:58

it's it

17:00

can be an adorable little bunny rabbit in

17:03

Australia or an adorable

17:05

bird. But yeah, so far we

17:07

don't know, because like I think the chevron

17:09

parakeets are relatively benign

17:12

in southern California. Yeah,

17:15

so hopefully this bird will be

17:17

benign and it'll just be another cute

17:19

little bird to see. But

17:22

for instance, in Hawaii, a

17:25

similar species, a bird not exactly this

17:27

one, but a similar species, has

17:30

reaped tavoc there because it

17:33

out competes from the native birds,

17:35

and you know, it can cause these

17:38

these native birds to become endangered,

17:40

and it's you know, can be really

17:42

bad.

17:43

Well, the smaller the ecosystem and the

17:46

more like you know, island

17:49

bound or whatever, I'm sure the higher

17:52

the chances are that something kind

17:54

of severe could happen. I mean, it's interesting. I'm like wondering

17:57

if these guys build their nests,

18:00

you know, in the same kind

18:02

of safe areas that like a goldfinch would, because

18:04

you also wonder, like could a predatory

18:07

species adapt to I

18:09

mean, listen, I'm not excited about

18:11

you know, aphex predators eating

18:14

these little birds eggs or eating these little birds.

18:16

But I also wonder, because there

18:18

are so many predators in southern

18:20

California, if you know, there

18:22

could be some sort of like accidental

18:25

population control that happens just as those

18:27

predatory species adapt to having

18:29

the availability of these little

18:32

qts that I don't want anyone to eat, but you

18:34

know, got to keep the system going.

18:36

I mean, you could say, uh, the

18:39

general rule is that the more similar the species

18:41

behavior is to the other native species,

18:44

then yeah, the predators are just gonna be like another

18:46

thing on the menu. Great if it has special

18:48

adaptations, which I don't. I don't

18:50

know of any special adaptations that this

18:53

bird has that would be particularly

18:55

effective against snakes and

18:57

other predators in southern

19:00

California, So I think I think it will just

19:02

be on the menu with the other birds, but maybe

19:05

not. You know. It's

19:07

another thing is that it is in an

19:09

environment that is very different from

19:12

its original home in East

19:14

and Southeast Asia, where it's very very lush.

19:16

This sort of kind of semi tropical

19:19

area California, Southern California

19:22

is a desert. But the reason it's able to

19:24

thrive here is because human

19:26

beings don't necessarily want

19:28

to live without flowers and

19:31

cool plants, and so we plant things that are not

19:33

native that have lush

19:35

flowering fruits

19:38

and or lush flowers

19:40

and fruits and berries, and so then these

19:42

birds will join us

19:44

in the suburbs and urban areas

19:47

and basically exploit the

19:50

setup that we have created, this like fake

19:52

lushness in what is a desert.

19:56

Yeah, well, I

19:58

feel like we've I mean, I'm I

20:01

feel good yet nervous about

20:04

these these little Zostrup simplexes.

20:07

I'm gonna keep my eyes peeled. I got to tell you, I'm

20:09

looking at the picture right underneath, very

20:13

different kind of a

20:15

look from this other winged

20:18

creature I'm trying

20:20

to have. I mean, it's beautiful and

20:23

a little unsetting, little creepy. We well,

20:26

maybe a little creepy.

20:27

We're going to take a quick break and then we

20:29

are going to talk about this mystery

20:31

winged creature that has Janet unsure

20:35

how to feel.

20:38

Perfect.

20:39

All right, so we are back and Janet, you

20:42

have spotted our next little member

20:44

of the mystery

20:47

crew of creatures that people should keep

20:49

an eye out for. And what are you looking

20:51

at here? How would you describe this interesting

20:55

little guy?

20:55

Okay, where do I start? First

20:57

of all, I don't know, I mean, again, a

21:00

biologists, not a

21:02

zoologist, not a I

21:04

mean, I just so I'm really trying to

21:06

get creative here. I'm

21:09

gonna say the first thing that catches

21:11

your eye. About this, aside from

21:13

this creature's eyes, which I'll talk about in just a second,

21:16

is this really beautiful wing

21:19

that is mostly transparent,

21:22

but it has it's

21:24

almost like I mean, it's almost

21:26

like a piece like the top part of

21:29

you know, if you look, I think about the a quarter

21:31

of a butterfly wing. If you're sort of thinking about

21:33

looking straight on at a butterfly, you imagine

21:36

the upper left or the upper right piece of that.

21:38

Imagine that that has more transparency

21:40

like you would maybe imagine from a fly's wing

21:42

or something. But it's very but it is very

21:44

pretty. So there's some white and kind of I mean, is

21:46

there some kind of gold or yellow coloration,

21:48

looks like there's a little orange in there, lots of

21:51

black, kind of like a black lining

21:53

that creates these little segments of

21:55

the uh, the wing. And then I

21:58

want what I want you to do is then

22:00

I want you to imagine that it's on a tiny

22:03

catfish. Because

22:05

it's a body, I can't see most

22:07

of its body. I feel like I'm only looking at its sort

22:09

of head and right past

22:11

its head, but there's something sort of fish like

22:13

about it. And then I want you to go ahead and just

22:15

stick to bright large

22:18

red orbs on for

22:20

eyes, and then just throw on

22:22

some little crab

22:24

claws for uh,

22:27

not claws, but the but the legs, crab legs,

22:29

not their claws, but some little crab legs

22:31

for it's it's uh, it's so

22:34

so that it can land, get around and scuttle

22:36

around on stuff. That's my that's

22:38

my best attempt to describe this.

22:41

How did I do you have painted a beautiful

22:43

brain picture?

22:45

Uh?

22:45

This is the way I would describe

22:48

it is like if you took a giant fly

22:50

and mashed it together with like

22:53

a grasshopper, and then made

22:55

it look surprised at

22:58

all.

23:00

Yeah, definitely grasshop er. I guess I could have gone that

23:02

route. I decided to go with a more shocking

23:04

fish.

23:05

Well, it's it is. It is chunky

23:07

though, it's shiny and chunky, so it does

23:09

have I can totally see sort

23:11

of that crustaceany look to it,

23:14

which is yeah, keep that in mind for later.

23:16

Stick a little pin on that. So

23:21

this is a cicada.

23:23

A oh, it's just as after all that it's

23:25

a cicada.

23:26

It is a cicada. It's you probably

23:28

heard it, but have you like seen one up close

23:30

like this.

23:32

I mean I thought I had. I mean, I feel

23:34

like I've seen cicadas, but I guess I haven't seen

23:36

or do they all have like bright red

23:38

bead eyes.

23:40

There are different species, but

23:43

I.

23:43

Think the ones in Okay. I

23:45

mean, I've had one land on me, much to

23:47

my chagrin, in Arizona,

23:50

and for sure in Arizona. You

23:52

know, the thing you're going to see more than the cicadas

23:55

is the little crispy shells that they leave when

23:57

they shed their skin, which are very fun

23:59

too petchy off of of yeah,

24:01

to kind of crunch into a dust after

24:03

you pick them up off of off of a

24:05

nice piece of bark. But I

24:08

did not. I mean, I guess if you made me guess,

24:11

I should have come to Cicada, especially when you gave

24:13

me the grasshopper hint.

24:15

Well, I think, out of context,

24:17

it's surprising to see cicadas. I always

24:19

like, I hear their sound and I'm like,

24:22

I don't know, I'm thinking of some kind of like

24:25

grasshopper like thing or something,

24:27

and.

24:27

They have a just an evil tiny robot.

24:29

Yeah, a little old tiny robots a metallic

24:32

sound.

24:33

It does make a very metallic sound shocking.

24:36

But the reason I bring up cicadas is

24:38

that if you live in

24:40

North America, in

24:43

the Midwest and southeast

24:45

United States, you are in for a treat

24:47

that rivals the total

24:50

eclipse that just happened, because

24:52

there is going to be a double

24:55

brewed emergence this spring,

24:58

so it

25:00

is gonna be a very special event.

25:03

So cicadas do emerge

25:07

every year, right like we have this yearly

25:09

emergence of cicadas. Their

25:14

life cycle is essentially, the females

25:16

will lay eggs into trees. They

25:18

cut a little slice into the tree, lay

25:21

their eggs there. The eggs hatch into nymphs,

25:24

little tiny babies. They drop down

25:26

to the ground, burrow under

25:28

the ground. They can go as far as around two

25:30

feet under the ground. And then they stay

25:33

there for at least a year, and

25:35

then all at once they all come out.

25:38

The males make this incredibly loud

25:42

buzzing sound to attract the females.

25:44

There's a mad dash to get the mating done,

25:47

to lay the eggs, and then they all die in a few weeks.

25:50

So they but this

25:52

is the thing is life, I know, amazing, right

25:55

Like, So you spend most of your time as a juvenile,

25:57

just hanging out underground, sipping

26:00

on the sap from tree roots. Uh,

26:02

and then you have like three to

26:04

six weeks of total madness of

26:06

just trying to mate as fast as you

26:09

can, and then you drop dead.

26:12

Wow.

26:12

Yeah, I mean listen,

26:14

you get you get to some underground, you get some above

26:17

ground by being in the trees, and

26:19

you get to drive people crazy

26:22

with how incredibly loud you are. I mean, this

26:24

is uh, this is an insect

26:26

that was linked as a possible

26:29

cause of I hate to use the term

26:31

Vana syndrome because I think that I know that that's

26:33

like very hurtful to the Cuban people who

26:35

are like, please don't put the name of our city

26:38

into this thing that you think is like a

26:41

sonic weapon. But

26:43

you know, it's when I've

26:45

listened to a great podcast about it, actually,

26:48

which I wish I could remember the name of. It's really

26:50

good about the that

26:52

phenomena, and when

26:55

they first played like that, you know, the whole

26:57

sort of like misunderstanding which

26:59

was kind of debunked as like no, no, no, this isn't

27:02

actually what this was, and it's

27:04

not even what the people who had

27:06

this thought it was. It's just sort

27:09

of an Uh, it's just an unfortunate

27:11

like, it's just an unfortunate

27:14

situation where there happened to be a bunch of really loud

27:16

cicadas. Yeah that they were like, could

27:18

this have anything to do with why we're having these symptoms? And

27:20

it was like, no, it doesn't, and the symptoms still happened.

27:23

But but the first time I heard I was

27:25

like, well that's cicadas. Yeah, like that sound

27:27

that you know, feels like and it's it's an

27:30

assault to your ears, cicada.

27:33

It's a complete sensory experience.

27:37

Bless them.

27:38

Well, how do we know that the cicadas aren't

27:41

in league with the Cuban government to

27:43

undermine I

27:47

have nothing?

27:47

So a double brood? So double brood?

27:50

How did that happen? How was there

27:52

a double set coming?

27:53

So this is really this is very interesting.

27:55

So there are some species that they go

27:57

through a yearly life cycle. There

28:00

are others and those are called annual cicadia,

28:02

sick annual cicadas. There

28:05

are other cicadas who are

28:07

periodical cicadas, and

28:09

they have a life cycle that can range from two

28:11

years to seventeen years.

28:14

And so that means that

28:17

when the nymphs pop out of the trees

28:19

burrow underground. They can spend up

28:21

to seventeen years of their life just

28:24

waiting underground, sipping on tree

28:26

root juices, and then at

28:28

the seventeen year mark, all

28:30

of them all at once emerge

28:34

and do the crazy mating

28:37

just orgy fest for a few weeks. And

28:40

the double brood is because there is a brood,

28:42

a thirteen year cyclical

28:46

sorry, a thirteen year periodical cicada

28:50

brood, and a seventeen year

28:52

periodical cicada brood that have

28:54

a lined so they are emerging at the same

28:57

time. And this is something

28:59

that hasn't happened

29:01

for two hundred years. So

29:04

yeah, because it think the just the

29:06

synchronicity of it, the last

29:08

time this happened was two hundred years ago. The

29:11

next time this happened, it's

29:13

gonna be another like two hundred years, is gonna be in

29:15

like twenty twenty

29:18

forty five, so it

29:23

is. It is really incredible.

29:26

And so there are going

29:28

to be anywhere from like billions

29:31

to potentially like a trillion cicadas

29:34

just like which seems made up? That

29:36

does that seems like too many that are

29:38

going to emerge.

29:40

And so if

29:43

you are near the cicada

29:45

geddon, which is happening in

29:47

you know, the nor in the Midwest

29:49

and southeast United States, you

29:51

will start to notice holes

29:54

popping out of the ground. And

29:56

then you're gonna notice just a deafening

30:00

cock cacophony of cicadas

30:03

making an incredible sound. It is not the end

30:05

times, uh,

30:08

you are not. You're not about to be raptured. These

30:10

are cicadas and they

30:13

will made over the course of a few weeks.

30:15

Then they'll die. And yeah, you're gonna

30:17

find all those like crunchy little shells

30:19

everywhere. It's uh,

30:22

they look intimidating sometimes

30:24

because they're they're pretty big. They're you

30:27

know, like bigger than my thumb

30:29

a little bit. But they

30:31

are totally harmless. They don't want to they

30:33

don't want to mess with you. They don't want to bite you. They're

30:35

not like venomous.

30:36

They don't want to have sex with you. Again,

30:38

they do not want to have sex

30:41

with you.

30:42

Not with you, with

30:44

uh, with anything vaguely

30:47

cicada shaped yet.

30:49

Uh.

30:51

So you can celebrate

30:54

cicada get in by just observing

30:57

all the cicadas, by enjoying the

30:59

train quality of like a

31:01

billion cicadas all screaming.

31:04

I wonder if there's going to be more ear plug purchases

31:08

than in past years. Really

31:10

in those areas.

31:11

I'd be interesting to track. My husband

31:14

is an economist. I'm going to suggest that to him as

31:16

a research topic. Like ear plugs

31:18

and cicadas, is there a connection?

31:20

It just doesn't seem possible, Like, and

31:22

it's the same with crickets. I guess, you know, you just sort

31:24

of we all take for grant. I mean I

31:26

think I did as a kid. I feel like

31:29

I was a fairly curious kid. But you

31:31

also when you're younger, there are some things that you just

31:33

kind of take it face value.

31:35

And I guess I just I hadn't.

31:37

I didn't spend as much time as maybe I

31:39

should have thinking about the immense

31:43

noise that comes from this tiny

31:45

thing.

31:45

Well it's so interesting because well, crickets

31:48

are you know, they can

31:50

project for sure, but

31:53

cicadas are particularly

31:56

loud. Cicadas

31:58

are a little bit different, uh

32:00

from stridulators like crickets,

32:03

So they do produce

32:06

sound mechanically, not through like

32:08

a voice, but they actually have

32:11

these Instead of just rubbing

32:13

one body part against another, they

32:16

have these what

32:18

are called timbles. They are these

32:20

like structures, these kind of membraneous structures,

32:23

you know, like like what's it.

32:25

Called like symbol like symbols, Like

32:27

symbols rhymes with timbles.

32:28

It does rhyme with timbles. But you know, like the monkey

32:30

that slaps the symbols

32:33

together. These are timbles. So they are connected

32:36

to muscles. They vibrate them really rapidly.

32:39

Vibration, yeah, vibration

32:42

that is very very rapid. And

32:44

they also have sort of a resonance

32:46

chamber. Uh and so

32:49

like basically you know how like you can

32:51

like wiggle a metal sheet and make

32:53

a thunder sound. It's like that, but we have a bunch

32:55

of these little membranes. H if you

32:57

actually like, if you like like this. This

33:00

is what's interesting about cicadas is they

33:02

kind of have this like mechanical look. If you sort

33:04

of look at this timble

33:07

structure, it looks sort of like a bunch

33:09

of layers of metal together. But these

33:11

are actually just like these sort of thin membranes.

33:14

They vibrate and then their bodies are

33:16

designed as a resonance chamber.

33:18

And it's just it's such a rapid force that

33:21

they can actually produce from this this

33:23

thing that's relatively small, they can produce

33:25

a sound that's nearly as loud as

33:27

like a chainsaw.

33:29

I mean that is nuts

33:31

and so okay. So the little critters

33:33

that are coming out of the ground that they're male

33:36

and female, that both in the broods

33:38

that are coming out, and the females you

33:41

are, they're just going somewhere too,

33:44

I mean, are they just kind of like in the trees also they

33:46

are, and they're just sort of like, yeah, they're looking

33:49

whoever's yeah, depends on the species.

33:51

Some of them like they're both mobile and

33:53

they're looking for each other, and the

33:55

males making this sound and the female's going

33:57

for it. But in so

34:00

species, it's like the

34:02

males stay put and then the females

34:04

have to come to them because the males are

34:06

lazy, and you know, it's like, well, you have to come

34:08

over here.

34:09

They're like, baby, I'm exhausted, I'm a

34:11

listen, I'm in a band. If you want to hang

34:13

out with me, you got to come to my band's

34:15

shows. I'm too busy. I'm either rehearsing

34:18

my band, or I'm performing with my band, or I'm

34:20

traveling with my band. Baby, you want to be with me, come

34:22

to where the band is. You know what I'm talking about.

34:24

Girl, exactly. We've all been through this. We've

34:26

all had a cicada in our life.

34:31

But one interesting thing about these

34:34

is that you would think you'd wonder, like, well,

34:36

why why do they need seventeen or thirteen

34:38

years underground? That seems excessive,

34:40

Like they don't need a lot of time to develop.

34:43

A lot of about being a brooding teenager.

34:47

You never come out of your room. You're two, You dug

34:49

yourself two feet underground.

34:51

Yeah, come on, they are a whold They

34:53

are a whole teenager by the time

34:55

they emerge. Yeah, and so no

34:57

wonders.

34:58

They're so horny.

35:01

Oh man, I just it's so

35:03

good. They don't have internet, these cicadas,

35:06

I know, can you imagine.

35:08

Well, some trees talk to trees, tree roots talk to

35:11

each other. I don't know they can kind they

35:13

could they could be Yeah, a little internet

35:15

there.

35:16

But yeah, no, I mean the reason for the

35:18

law, I mean, it's still not exactly

35:20

known why they do this, but one the

35:23

leading theory is that it

35:25

is a way to kind of like

35:27

create an unpredictability about

35:30

like when they emerged. The reason that they

35:32

all emerge at once is fairly straightforward

35:35

safety in numbers. If you are part of

35:37

a huge brood, then

35:40

it is just statistically

35:42

less likely you get eaten, even

35:44

though a lot of you are going to get eaten. But

35:47

to emerge at such a like weird

35:49

like periodical thing of like every

35:52

thirteen years, every seventeen years. There are other

35:54

broods that do it at different intervals.

35:57

That is potentially to

35:59

make difficult for predators,

36:01

parasites and other and like pathogens

36:04

the three piece from

36:07

adapting to you essentially

36:09

like if they adapt to your life

36:11

cycle, like you emerge every year, maybe

36:14

a pathogen or a predator or

36:16

a parasite will learn like, hey, they

36:18

come out every year, and so I adapt

36:20

in order to exploit this yearly emergence.

36:23

But if you're only coming out every thirteen

36:25

years or seventeen years, this is an

36:28

irregularity and it's

36:30

a long period of time. So you

36:32

may be going beyond the life cycle

36:35

of a lot of predators, of a lot of things that would

36:37

exploit you, and so it is harder

36:39

for them to specifically

36:42

adapt strategies against you

36:44

to either exploit you as a parasite or

36:46

as a predator. That doesn't

36:48

mean that predators don't eat these. They do.

36:50

They eat them a lot of them. But the

36:52

point is like having like a special adaptation

36:55

that makes you just a master at

36:58

a cicada munch or

37:00

cicada parasitizing, or

37:03

even like a virus or a pathogen

37:06

that could adapt to it, like with this like

37:08

weird interval, like it actually makes them

37:10

kind of a hard target to adapt

37:12

to, except for when they're underground, and

37:14

there are actually things like fungal

37:17

infections and nematods and things underground

37:20

that can parasitize them while

37:22

they are in that period, which

37:25

is really interesting.

37:26

But you know, is that

37:28

is that kind of the only thing that can happen to you when you're

37:30

down there, or can like some

37:32

sort of burrowing critter

37:35

find you, just stumble across you and go, hey,

37:38

I'm a off hand. I can't

37:40

think of a single one hole. I don't think they.

37:43

Oh absolutely yeah no, if they're they

37:45

can be definitely preyed upon underground

37:48

by burrowing animals. It's

37:50

just that it is not as exploited

37:52

a region as say the surface, right,

37:55

Like burrowing animals they have to put in work

37:57

to do their tunnels and so you

37:59

know the excavation, uh

38:02

is you can only excavate so much of

38:04

the ground, and so yeah,

38:06

they will still be preyed upon, they will still have issues

38:08

underground, but it is safer than the surface.

38:12

And is speaking of eating these guys, uh,

38:15

they are edible for people. We

38:17

can eat them and if you

38:20

I mean, I have never had a cicada,

38:22

but I have heard that they actually

38:25

taste fairly good, similar

38:27

to like say seafood,

38:29

kind of like the kind of

38:31

look like crustaceane.

38:33

Yeah.

38:34

I don't know if that's true, but

38:37

because I have never tried it. But if you

38:39

live in one of these areas where there's

38:42

going to be this mass emergence, check

38:44

out like your local rest if you're if you're adventurous,

38:47

if this sounds interesting to you, Sometimes

38:49

like local restaurants will start offering

38:52

cickeda meals, so like essentially

38:54

collect they collect the cicadas, they prepare

38:56

them, cook them, and you can eat them.

38:59

Good source of protein like a cricket, like yeah,

39:01

absolute protein powder and stuff.

39:03

Yeah. Yeah, their meat, they're bug

39:05

meat.

39:06

I think you'd have to char that baby pretty

39:09

black for me to I need

39:11

to get like what I taste is the taste of

39:13

of just like burnt wood needs

39:17

to be sure, I need a grasshopper.

39:18

But Billy, what'd you think? You

39:21

know what?

39:22

I'm sure? I think it was like a chocolate cover grasshopper.

39:24

So it was one of those things where you're like, oh, you've

39:26

done everything you can to disguise

39:29

and and and sort of you

39:31

know, nullify whatever bug eating

39:33

experience you're supposed to have, Like I definitely haven't had,

39:36

like, hey, here's a you know, yeah,

39:38

here's a baked here's a baked grasshopper.

39:40

Nothing a grasshopper, here's

39:43

a here's a a tart with

39:46

grasshoppers all lined up like pecans.

39:49

Yeah, I exactly.

39:51

I I'm not much of an insectivore

39:54

myself. I want to be, like,

39:56

I think it would be cool, and

39:59

I wish I did not have the

40:01

sort of uh like revulsion towards

40:04

eating insects that I have, like because

40:06

it's just like, well, now there's this whole cuisine

40:08

that I can't have because I have this

40:10

cultural notion that bugs. Bugs

40:13

is gross. I'm not supposed to eat them. I've eaten

40:15

ants the same, and I think

40:17

I had a cricket once. But yeah,

40:19

uh, it's just it's hard for me to

40:22

get past that, and I wish I could, because

40:24

hey, you know what, like food's

40:27

food, and I don't want to be yeah, I don't

40:30

want to be so picky, but yeah,

40:32

let me.

40:32

Ask you this cool question, and please tell me if we're getting off

40:34

topic, because you know, I could tasks six hours about

40:36

almost any subject. But so with

40:38

something like that, how much

40:42

of that revulsion. You don't have to know the answer to

40:44

this, but I'm interested if you have any speculation

40:46

on it. How much of something like that is,

40:49

like, because you know, for example, when

40:51

you when you find that you're afraid of a certain type

40:53

of creature, and and you know,

40:55

we you can have a conversation about that. Most

40:57

people sort of understand like, well, you

40:59

know, to have a sort of genetic predisposition

41:01

towards fearing spiders, or towards fearing rats,

41:04

or towards fearing snakes. Like there's reasons

41:06

for those predispositions to exist,

41:09

and some of them may be happening at the genetic

41:11

level, like at the cellular level. I

41:13

wonder I'm wondering with you

41:15

know, the sort of revulsion around insects, like had

41:17

you and I been raised

41:19

in a similar environment except

41:22

for our parents, or our small community

41:24

or our city or our state or whatever

41:27

embraced eating insects more. Do

41:30

you think that, you know, we

41:32

would just completely be fine with it. Do you think that

41:34

there would be like some level of a version that we couldn't

41:36

put our finger on? Like, what are your thoughts on that?

41:38

I've actually thought about this a lot? This is a great question,

41:41

Okay. I mean there are absolutely

41:43

certain versions we have that

41:46

may be innate in terms of like like things

41:48

that are like spider shaped, snake shaped. We

41:50

have sort of this like innate kind of

41:52

like the reflex, which can be overridden

41:55

by say learning about

41:57

them or culturally overridden

42:00

people because I mean people keep snakes as pets,

42:02

people keep tarantulas as pets.

42:04

These kinds of fears can be overwritten

42:07

by new information eating

42:09

insects. It's hard to say

42:13

whether we have an innate revulsion to

42:15

insects in terms of a food source.

42:18

My suspicion is that maybe

42:22

for some insects we might things that

42:24

are pests, right that, like,

42:26

are things

42:28

that we may see as like unsanitary

42:31

or pests like parasites. Yeah,

42:33

perhaps there is grubs

42:38

exactly exactly and so we

42:40

we do have an evolutionary

42:42

history of being insectivorous.

42:45

And you know, even even with parasites,

42:48

right, like you pick mites and ticks

42:50

and stuff and fleas off of your friend

42:52

and you eat it. And so in

42:56

terms of what

42:58

we do know is there are a lot of human

43:00

cultures that exist today where

43:03

insect eating is not taboo,

43:05

it is not considered gross, and people enjoy

43:08

eating insects, and so

43:10

it is clearly something that answer

43:13

to your question of like, if we had been raised different would

43:15

we find would

43:17

we find insects gross to eat?

43:19

No?

43:19

I don't think so. I think if we had been raised

43:21

that we eat cicadas,

43:23

you know, every year in a big cicada

43:26

eating festival, I think we would not find that gross.

43:28

Just I agree with you. It's kind of a bummer if you look

43:30

a bumer opportunity exactly.

43:32

This is how I feel. It's like I want to

43:35

if I have children, I want to figure

43:37

out a way to not make them feel

43:39

grossed out by the concept of eating

43:41

bugs, you know, just in case, like

43:43

you know, the meat industry

43:46

collapses in the future, and you know

43:48

what, like give them more options. But

43:51

no, but I mean it's also like bugs are kind of

43:53

pretty, and some of them sort of look like candy.

43:55

I don't know, Like, if I look at a bug,

43:57

I'm like, that might be kind of fun

44:00

to eat, But then when I think about

44:02

eating it with all the little legs and the segments

44:04

that, I'm like, no, that seems bad.

44:07

I don't want to do that. But then part of me is like, ah,

44:09

but I'm curious. Yeah,

44:11

it's hard to override the the

44:14

revulsion, but I want to. But yeah,

44:16

I think so there's two options.

44:18

I think one is that we could have an innate aversion

44:20

to it, but one that is

44:22

overridden by culture, or

44:25

we do not have an innate aversion

44:27

to it. And so depending on your culture,

44:29

you're even you're either taught in aversion

44:32

to insects or you are not taught it, And

44:34

I suspect it's the latter.

44:37

I don't think we're born with

44:39

an aversion to eating insects,

44:43

unless maybe there's a very specific kind of like maybe

44:45

we're we have an aversion to spiders. That

44:47

would make sense, Yeah, but eating

44:50

any insect I don't know, because like something

44:52

like what is really the difference between say,

44:54

like a shrimp and a

44:56

cricket in terms of like their looks,

45:00

you know, when I was This is a fun story,

45:02

but like when I was a and I think

45:04

I've told it on the show probably like a million times,

45:06

so sorry for repeating myself. But when I was a

45:09

toddler, I would eat snails

45:11

like a baby, like baby toddler, like crawling

45:14

around kind of in the yard. I would pick up snails

45:16

and eat them. And somehow

45:19

I as an adult, like I

45:21

am grossed out by snails. But

45:24

then there's a lot of like right now I'm living

45:26

in Northern Italy,

45:29

like escargoes on the

45:31

menu all the time, and a lot of people like it, and

45:33

it's like I can't eat it now because

45:35

I'm grossed out. But when I was a baby, I

45:38

would eat raw snails out of the garden. So

45:41

yeah, so I feel like I really do think

45:43

the the general aversion

45:45

to all insects, I don't

45:48

think that that's innate. I think we learned

45:50

that maybe there's specific

45:52

insects that may be, you

45:54

know, like spiders that we have.

45:59

So it just and I know you

46:01

need to move on, but just to put a button on this

46:03

and to bring it back around to to like your

46:05

own backyard like one's own backyard.

46:08

One of the things that's been kind of running in the background has we've

46:10

been talking about this for me is like, when

46:12

I think about the insects I see in my own yard,

46:14

if I had to eat one of them, I'm going

46:16

to take snails off the menu, because I feel like I do

46:19

have tons of snails and I'm gonna take I'm

46:21

gonna take like grasshoppers, snails, and crickets

46:23

off the menu because I feel like I've already been given

46:25

permission to eat those, right. I

46:28

have an idea. I know what I categorically

46:30

would one hundred percent avoid, and I include spiders

46:33

and I and I am afraid of spiders, but I've

46:36

really come a long way. I feel much

46:38

more friendly with them now. Now. When

46:40

I am gardening and I pull up a rock and there's a giant

46:42

wolf spider that, you know, hunkers and

46:44

sort of proud, just trying not to be seen,

46:47

I'm like, hey, buddy, I'm not gonna hurt you.

46:49

Like that's okay, I'm sorry, I interrupted. Whereas

46:52

like when I was younger, I would have squealed and run

46:54

away and not been in the garden. And when I say younger,

46:56

I mean like twenty I mean like

46:58

twenty five. I don't mean like I've

47:01

gotten much better about that. I've gotten much better about

47:03

ore weavers. Now I can stand right next

47:05

to them as they're building a web and look at how

47:07

crazy and scary they look, and really

47:09

say, wow, you're working so hard on that.

47:12

And the chances are fair that this is gonna

47:14

get broken before you're even done, because someone's gonna

47:16

walk into it or bird's gonna fly. So,

47:19

but I definitely don't want to eat them. I do

47:21

not want to eat spiders. I've decided

47:24

that I would like some roly pulleys. They

47:26

can go ahead and roll up into a perfect

47:28

circle, perfect sphere will fry

47:30

them up and then they'll just be like these nice little

47:32

crunchy bits. Yeah, and that feels

47:34

that feels doable to me. Like that feels

47:37

even more doable to me in some cases than like,

47:39

you know, even just thinking about like crickets or snails,

47:41

like somehow just because it becomes

47:43

an like a shape instead of

47:45

a creature. Yes, if you want

47:47

to roll yourself up, we could turn them into dippin' dots,

47:49

like, there are options. We have a cereal we

47:52

have options for those tiny little roly pulleys, which

47:54

are also very cute, and I don't mind crawling on me. So I

47:56

feel kind of guilty saying that. But I'm

47:59

and what I know I won't Another thing I know I won't eat

48:01

is I forget what their actual

48:03

name. They're like Latin name or their scientific name is,

48:05

but what we call mustache bugs. I

48:08

don't need to eat a bug that it

48:10

has all of those legs, like you were saying, I mean,

48:12

those are like it's like eating a little

48:14

brush. It's like eating I mean, I

48:16

guess. But when I when I was growing up, I thought

48:18

of a millipede and a centipede as being these sort.

48:20

Of how centipede

48:23

is how I know them.

48:24

Okay, So I mean those things they

48:27

are like. I mean, mustache bug makes a lot of sense

48:29

because they have this bushy look,

48:31

like a walking mustache. And the

48:33

idea of having to get those little hairy legs

48:35

down is just on a puke.

48:38

The mouthfeel on. That can't be good. The

48:40

interesting thing about the roly

48:42

pully is those are terrestrial

48:45

isopods. They are actually, that's right.

48:47

They are related to the like

48:49

fossils.

48:50

Yes, they are related to marine isopods.

48:52

So they are kind of like surf

48:54

and turf. I guess, all in one, all

48:56

in one.

48:57

Yeah, I feel guilty. I'm sorry, Little roly Poly.

49:00

Sorry.

49:00

Potato bugs are always fine, It's

49:02

fine. The great thing about the

49:05

pill bugs is you can just take them with a glass

49:07

of water. If you don't like the mouthfeel of the

49:09

crunching, you know,

49:11

that's me. I mean, I feel

49:13

like ants is kind of cheating. I've eaten ants.

49:16

It's they just taste like eating a little graine

49:18

of pepper.

49:20

Yeah, they're very spicy.

49:21

They're very spicy. But

49:23

yeah, I don't like grubs. Grubs

49:26

isn't something I want to eat. That's

49:29

the scene in the Lion King has always

49:31

grossed me out. My

49:34

gosh, you know it's hard, Like, man,

49:37

I don't like anything that has like a

49:39

pop to it, like a like a gusher

49:41

sort of thing. So spiders. Spider's

49:44

definitely not I

49:46

don't you know,

49:49

like anything where you bite down on it and there's

49:51

like a pop and like a no, I

49:54

don't want.

49:55

To you got me? Yeah, No,

49:57

you're so right.

49:58

Yes, that's not a situation I want. So it's

50:00

like, oh, yeah, so what

50:03

what isn't like that. I don't know. I'm

50:05

trying to think, oh

50:08

man, because I was gonna say butterfly, but I feel

50:10

like their bodies. No, that wouldn't be

50:12

good. That would not be good.

50:15

No, I mean I honestly, like,

50:18

what.

50:18

About like a little beetle, Oh, poor beetle.

50:20

Little beetle, like if it's really small

50:23

though, Yeah, I feel like crunchy

50:25

bugs are better than squishy Yeah,

50:27

but bugs that pop in your mouth,

50:29

like that's not like I'm even dressed

50:31

out like I used to have.

50:36

I don't like killing spiders once in

50:38

a while. It's like a kind of a

50:40

necessity situation, especially

50:43

like if it's a venomous species. It's like I'm

50:45

sorry, you know, I gotta I.

50:46

Know, I'm not. I'm okay killing and

50:49

I feel I feel bad about.

50:50

It, like I don't want to, but

50:52

I will do it. And then but the popping sound

50:54

that they make, like when I hate it, I

50:57

feel it's like I feel guilty and it's

50:59

disgusting.

51:00

Put in your cicada at earplugs.

51:03

Just like please scream in my ears.

51:04

And wear a boot with a big,

51:07

like a really chunky feel, so that you not

51:09

your foot is experiencing.

51:11

No, I hate it. It's like it's like popping, is is

51:13

it? But it's it's but it's a spider.

51:15

It's so right. No, it's so

51:18

with any spider that I do not have to like that

51:20

is not venomous, I like leave

51:22

alone, or like

51:24

like transfer outside or something.

51:27

Jumping spiders are adorable and I love

51:29

them, and they can stay in the house because they

51:31

are really cute.

51:33

I've never I don't know what jumping spider you're talking

51:35

about, but unfortunately, the only most

51:37

recent jumping spider I had discussed

51:39

with anyone is like the Huntsman spider in

51:41

Australia, which sounds like the stuff of

51:43

nightmares. Oh no, so so jumping

51:45

really big, Yeah, but you're talking

51:48

about small.

51:48

This is yeah, this is a These are it's not

51:51

just these are not just spiders that jump. There's a

51:53

whole range of species of these, these

51:55

spiders called jumping spiders, and they're tiny

51:57

and they're cute. And

52:00

I'm going to find a picture for you actually, because this is

52:02

very important.

52:02

I mean, does it look like just so your average

52:05

little house spider that's kind of just really

52:07

small and doing it doing its own thing.

52:09

Really like they are. They're like to me, they

52:11

are actively cute. Let

52:13

me see if I can find like a

52:16

good representation

52:19

of why I find them cute.

52:21

I mean, they are not a good sign that you're having to come

52:23

through multiple photos.

52:27

I'm just saying, put one of your best eight feet

52:29

forward. It's uh, here

52:33

we go. This one's this is a good one

52:35

because he's waving.

52:38

Oh yeah, give me a wave. I'll take the wave.

52:40

Here we go.

52:41

You know, I'm sorry, the scope

52:43

of my whole day feels like it changed.

52:45

But think about that pop it's a terrible

52:48

thing.

52:48

Oh yeah, yeah, well that looks like a tarantula

52:50

kind of kind But they're teen, But

52:53

those are I don't know if I've seen.

52:56

I mean, I guess if I haven't seen, I'm

52:58

gonna have to look. I mean, I show.

53:00

You just a photo of what it looks like on something

53:03

like so you can see, yeah, what it looks

53:05

like without the close because this is like close

53:07

up photography. And then this is

53:09

just what it looks like on someone's

53:11

hand.

53:13

All right, let's have a look at.

53:14

This or fingers.

53:15

Oh yeah, I mean I'm sure I've seen those little

53:17

guys. Yeah, those little guys. Yeah,

53:19

I don't have a problem with those at all. Well, I see

53:22

those one except yeah,

53:24

for sure. I mean, can they also like dangle

53:26

down on via a web or do they just jump?

53:28

Like do they do you see them floating

53:31

kind of like on your range

53:33

top. I'll look and be like, what are you doing?

53:35

Most of you doing this aren't really so

53:38

much gonna do that, Like most of them just

53:40

kind of walk around. They do produce webs

53:43

to some extent. Some of them are a little bigger. I actually

53:45

still find the bigger ones cute, like.

53:48

Are they eating gnats and stuff?

53:50

Like?

53:50

Are they eating?

53:51

Like, yeah, they kind of like

53:53

cut down there.

53:55

Quite large. You look like a little fairy kind

53:58

of you look like a hairy Harry

54:00

fairy fairy.

54:03

But he's got like a little mustache, which

54:05

is actually just it's petipalps, the little

54:08

things on its face.

54:09

Extremely cute. Yeah, I mean again,

54:12

you're kind of getting into like something that yeah, sort

54:14

of cartoonish looking exactly. I like

54:16

tarantula's and wolf spiders because I like

54:18

their little their fur, because fur

54:20

it feels less threatening to me than the

54:23

hard what's that called precipice,

54:25

crep escape? What is it?

54:28

I look carapace is

54:30

I think carapace.

54:32

But I love I don't need to say

54:34

a hard yeah, I love

54:36

that.

54:37

Those are great words. Even if I can just.

54:39

Get some of the syllables or any

54:41

of the letters. They don't even have to be an order.

54:44

Yeah, I don't need that shiny. I

54:47

mean, boy, if ever there was

54:49

a that a creature that

54:51

looked venomous, it's a black widow. I mean, all power

54:53

to them again, I will kill them. But it's

54:56

very impressive. How macabre

54:59

and bo do they?

55:00

They're very much they they

55:03

they as as the kids say,

55:05

they read the assignment, they

55:07

read the assignment. But

55:10

the funny thing about the funny

55:12

thing now I'm doing the tangent. But the funny thing about

55:14

the hairs. Like liking the fuzzy spiders,

55:16

which I agree with, I think they're cute. A lot of these

55:19

fuzzy spiders have what are called irridicating

55:21

hairs. They are actually irritating

55:23

hairs that are meant to like kind of come

55:25

out like a lot of tarantulas, Like if you pet them,

55:27

you can actually kind of get a rash. Because

55:29

they are meant to be protective parents.

55:32

It's like yeah, where it's like, don't pet

55:34

me. Like, but some of them you can actually

55:36

pet because they're not they're not gonna hurt you. But a

55:38

lot of tarantulas you pet them and then their hairs

55:40

like kind of come off, and then now you've got a rash

55:43

on your whoops.

55:44

But thank you. Yeah.

55:45

Before before we take a break and move

55:48

on to the next section, UH, if you

55:50

want to join sort of these

55:52

cicada tracker community,

55:56

you can go to cicadasafari

55:58

dot org uh and kind

56:00

of submit the photos

56:02

or observations you make for cicada

56:05

Gadden twenty twenty four. I don't

56:07

know if they're calling it cicada gaeddin. I'm

56:09

trying to make that happen. I

56:13

think they even have like an iPhone app. So yeah,

56:15

cicadasafari dot org

56:18

and you can you too, can

56:21

join in on the cicada

56:24

adventure. So we are

56:27

going to take a quick break and when we come back, we're

56:29

gonna have one more short story about citizen

56:32

sciences discovering something really

56:34

weird. All

56:37

right, right, so we are back.

56:39

Citizen science does not just occur

56:42

in the US. It is an international

56:44

phenomenon. And so

56:48

in UH, in India,

56:50

in the Western Ghats, there

56:54

was a group of herpetology

56:57

frog enthusiasts just kind of going

57:00

around making observations, taking photos,

57:04

and they found a frog

57:07

with a mushroom growing out of

57:09

it's But.

57:11

Wow, I've I

57:13

don't know what I would have needed to do to get ready for this.

57:16

I know I didn't do it, and I'm not ready for it. And I'm

57:18

looking at a picture and I think I

57:20

know which thing was a reference

57:22

to the last of us.

57:24

It's this. It's definitely this. Yeah,

57:26

So, to be a little

57:28

more honest, it's coming out of its rear

57:30

flank. I don't know if you can

57:32

call out it's but I'm gonna

57:36

I'm gonna say it. But and

57:39

it's like a literal tiny I'm

57:41

not talking about a fungal infection like

57:43

oh, you know athletes. But it's a

57:45

literal mushroom, little mushroom

57:48

like a little a white stem and a white

57:50

little cap. It's a tiny mushroom

57:52

growing out of this poor, cute, little

57:55

innocent frog.

57:56

Yeah.

57:57

Yeah, so, uh,

57:59

this frog is a

58:01

h it is called I

58:05

forgot its name. I wrote it down. The frog

58:07

is a rouse golden black

58:10

rows golden backed frog. Actually

58:12

the full name is like rouse intermediate golden

58:15

backed frog, which is a mouthful I'm

58:17

just gonna call it a little cutie.

58:19

Uh. So it's it is alive, and

58:23

so it's not like a situation where it's dead

58:25

and then the mushroom's growing out of its dead

58:28

body. That wouldn't be as interesting.

58:30

No, it's alive and it has this tiny, perfect

58:33

little mushroom growing out of its

58:36

rump. These hobbyists,

58:38

these these herpetology

58:41

hobbyists like snapped a picture. They

58:44

didn't capture the frog because they were being

58:46

respectful. They didn't want to like, you

58:48

know, mess with the environment

58:50

at all. They but they

58:53

they took a couple of pictures and they

58:55

published their picture in the Journal of Reptiles

58:57

and Amphibians and then frog

59:00

that picture. Even more nature enthusiasts,

59:03

like my cologists and like mushroom

59:05

hobbyists like looked at this mushroom like trying

59:07

to identify will what is the

59:09

mushroom? You know, what the frog is? What's the mushroom?

59:12

The most likely candidate that they came up

59:14

with is the bonnet mushroom,

59:17

which is a Mycena fungus that typically

59:20

lives on rotting wood and not It

59:22

is not known to like be a

59:25

parasite of frogs. So

59:28

this is really interesting.

59:30

Wow, so

59:33

what do we what do we do with this?

59:34

Right? Like, is this like the start of sort

59:36

of a last of Us frog apocalypse?

59:40

I mean probably not right, Like

59:43

it could just be a fluke somehow.

59:46

There's this thing where sometimes

59:48

a it's actually in I

59:50

don't know if you'd call it my isis when

59:52

it comes to fungus, But when it comes

59:55

to say, like like larvae that

59:57

accidentally become parasites, it's

59:59

called my assis where

1:00:02

it's like, say you get like a fly larvae in

1:00:04

your in your gut, and it's like living there.

1:00:06

It's not an obligate parasite.

1:00:08

It doesn't need to be a parasite. But

1:00:10

then it has found its way inside a yeah,

1:00:13

and it's making the best out of a bad situation.

1:00:16

That is what I would guess is going

1:00:18

on with this this mushroom,

1:00:21

like a spore somehow got under

1:00:24

this frog's skin or inside of this frog.

1:00:26

Yeah, and then it managed to sprout its

1:00:28

way out of the frog. But

1:00:32

yeah, it's still it's like extreme. Like.

1:00:34

The other option could be that there is a

1:00:37

type of fungal infection. There's

1:00:39

that fungus it is actually the fungus

1:00:41

that the Last of Us game and TV

1:00:44

show is based on. It's called ophio cordyceps

1:00:46

and that does actually yeah,

1:00:49

that does actually infect insects like ants,

1:00:51

grasshopper, spiders and then

1:00:53

grows out of like it kills them, but

1:00:55

then it like grows sprouts out of their body.

1:00:59

One of the all time great reality

1:01:01

based yes, like versions

1:01:04

of Armageddon.

1:01:06

Yeah, no, I I I appre I very much appreciate

1:01:09

the the sort of I mean so

1:01:11

I did a whole You can probably look back in

1:01:14

the show's history. We did an episode on

1:01:16

the Last of Us like mostly I

1:01:18

really love it. There was one like one

1:01:20

line where it was like they in the show saying

1:01:23

like, oh, there's no treatment for fungus,

1:01:26

Like we've got antibiotics, but we don't have

1:01:28

anything.

1:01:28

Wait what that's not true. It's not true at all.

1:01:31

We have anti fungals in any way. Have you heard

1:01:33

of athletes heard, Yes,

1:01:35

we have. Have you heard of yea?

1:01:37

And even for like brain like

1:01:40

fungus, like there are there are fungi

1:01:43

you know that can infect the brain. We

1:01:46

have treatments for that too, and

1:01:49

it's very books. Well yeah,

1:01:51

but you know you have to have some kind of dramatic thing

1:01:54

going on, I guess. Anyways, so this

1:01:56

poor frog, it's got a little mushroom growing on

1:01:58

us. But actually we don't know.

1:02:00

Cute frog, it's a cute mushroom. They're

1:02:02

both cute.

1:02:03

Maybe they're working together. We don't know.

1:02:06

If this frog is upset

1:02:09

with this mushroom. Maybe it doesn't even notice it. Maybe

1:02:11

they're friends. Who knows.

1:02:13

Because, like, frogs can be infected

1:02:15

with fungus, but again, similar to athlete's

1:02:17

foot, it's not like a whole mushroom,

1:02:20

like a whole ass mushroom growing out of the ass

1:02:23

of the frog. That's not like generally

1:02:25

how fungal infections work in frogs. It's

1:02:27

like a fungal infection and a human, you know, you

1:02:31

might see like a film or something on their

1:02:33

skin, but it's not going to be like, hey,

1:02:36

I'm a mushroom. I'm growing out

1:02:38

of this frog. So

1:02:41

if you find if you live

1:02:44

in Indian and you live in

1:02:46

the western guts, and you find a frog

1:02:48

with a mushroom growing out of its butt, do take

1:02:50

a photo. I mean, if you live anywhere

1:02:52

and you find a mushroom growing.

1:02:54

Out of a yeah, frog, fair, fair enough.

1:02:56

Or anywhere out of the frog take a photo, you

1:02:59

know, because that might be interesting. Uh,

1:03:03

who knows. Maybe this is a one time deal. Maybe

1:03:06

it's a new trend, maybe it's a new sort

1:03:08

of frog fashion. We'll

1:03:11

only know if we all join together

1:03:13

to try to find more

1:03:15

mushroom frogs.

1:03:17

I mean, it's very interesting. It's interesting in the sense

1:03:19

that, of course, like I mean, you were of course you're talking

1:03:21

about the idea of you know, something being

1:03:23

more incidentally parasitic than

1:03:26

being you know, intentionally. So but

1:03:29

when I see something like this, like what does jump

1:03:31

into my mind is the sort of

1:03:34

more I mean, I guess it's everything that's that spreads

1:03:36

seeds through. But like thinking about you know, my

1:03:38

dog picking up you know, briers

1:03:41

or picking up you know, little thistles

1:03:43

and stuff like that, it is intentionally

1:03:45

going into his hair so that it can

1:03:48

spread to a location that it couldn't get

1:03:50

to otherwise. So yeah, it's

1:03:52

funny because like obviously this isn't

1:03:54

necessarily that, but it does feel like you

1:03:56

could, in that way imagine somehow

1:03:58

the mushroom.

1:03:59

Is like I'd like to try, you know what I mean, I just think,

1:04:02

yeah, dispersal is very important for

1:04:04

a lot of sort of immobile

1:04:07

organisms, and so in a way, like it's

1:04:10

that's what Opeo Cordyceps is doing with

1:04:12

the insects. So one could imagine

1:04:14

that this could adapt in order

1:04:16

to use the frogs and in a lot

1:04:18

of cases like an adaptation maybe

1:04:21

sort of, you know, it is

1:04:23

like a random thing that can happen, either a

1:04:25

random mutation or something that

1:04:27

happens, right like maybe

1:04:30

originally with the opiod Cordyceps, like a

1:04:32

curious ant eats it, you know,

1:04:34

they eat these spores and then this starts

1:04:37

to happen, and then the the

1:04:39

fungus adapts more and more in

1:04:42

order to exploit this situation. So you

1:04:44

know, like even if this is an accident,

1:04:47

right, it could the

1:04:49

course of evolution could make it less and less

1:04:51

of an accident. Where this special is like, actually,

1:04:54

I've got a pretty sweet deal here

1:04:56

growing out of this frog. I got I got

1:04:58

free transportation.

1:05:00

Yeah, are you kidding me? Absolutely? And

1:05:02

as far as that poor little aunt, listen,

1:05:05

we like curiosity. Don't feel like you can't

1:05:07

be curious, but maybe just don't eat something

1:05:09

in the wild.

1:05:12

You can be curious and learn you don't

1:05:15

have to learn by eating a fungus you're

1:05:17

not sure about spores.

1:05:18

And you just say no. The

1:05:22

their program for ants did not work.

1:05:25

H Nancy reag Ant

1:05:27

was not to not to write on this

1:05:29

issue. So

1:05:32

wo before we go, we do got

1:05:34

to play a little game. It is called

1:05:37

the guess who squawk and Mystery animal sound

1:05:39

game. Every week I play a mystery animal

1:05:41

sound and you the listener, and you the guests,

1:05:43

try to guess who is making that sound.

1:05:47

The hint last week was this,

1:05:49

this bearded fellow is the bell

1:05:51

of the ball.

1:06:03

WHOA?

1:06:06

All right? So Janet, whoa?

1:06:09

What happened at the end?

1:06:10

It's an same animal, new

1:06:13

sound, same animal.

1:06:15

That was It dropped a sick beat at the end.

1:06:18

Yeah, okay,

1:06:21

this bearded beauty is the bearded

1:06:24

beauty.

1:06:24

This bearded beard fellow is the

1:06:26

bearded fellow. Who's

1:06:28

to say he's not beautiful? Though?

1:06:29

Okay, so it's

1:06:32

so bearded. The thing that is confusing

1:06:35

for me is like I'm realizing that I don't

1:06:37

know if we use the word beard across

1:06:40

like a bunch of difference fauna, or

1:06:43

if it because I feel like when I think of beard, I

1:06:46

feel like, Okay, well I know that the people

1:06:48

talk about bearded lizards. I know people

1:06:50

will talk about, like, you know, bearded primates,

1:06:54

people talk about, you know, bearded dogs.

1:06:57

Have I heard a beard describe?

1:07:00

Like, who's is there a bird out there that's

1:07:02

being described as being bearded? I

1:07:05

don't know so, but

1:07:07

probably, I mean, I guess probably, But beard

1:07:10

is funny to imagine with something with a beak,

1:07:14

so I guess. So the problem was is

1:07:16

that my first inclination when I heard that sound

1:07:18

was to go monkey, because

1:07:20

I because I heard bearded And immediately

1:07:23

it was like, oh, okay, well, you know that's a

1:07:25

chitterer chirp that could maybe be a

1:07:27

bird and maybe be a monkey. Again as a total

1:07:29

a person who has no idea about anything. Um,

1:07:33

then you hit me with the sounds at the end,

1:07:35

and now I feel even more confused. That

1:07:38

feels like again I could

1:07:40

not know less about animals. The

1:07:42

something about the rhythmic nature of that

1:07:45

almost felt more like well,

1:07:47

it felt like it was coming from the chest or throat

1:07:50

somehow, more like the sort of pulse of like right,

1:07:53

like it's this kind of explanation of

1:07:55

sound more than like up

1:07:57

in the front of the mouth or the beak, and I don't

1:07:59

know if that again, I'm basically this is not absolutely

1:08:01

nothing, but that kind of freaked

1:08:03

me out because it was so consistent for so long

1:08:06

that felt like maybe more of a bird sound.

1:08:09

So I guess what I'm trying to say is I'm completely

1:08:11

and totally stumped. And it may be none

1:08:13

of the things I've mentioned and be a totally different

1:08:15

creature, and I have no idea.

1:08:17

You for someone who keeps saying like, oh, I

1:08:19

don't know anything about animals, you

1:08:22

your ability to zero in on the right

1:08:24

questions is very impressive because you.

1:08:26

Are right, this is a bird, okay.

1:08:29

And it is coming from the throat,

1:08:32

and you're right that this is a bearded

1:08:34

bird. This is the bearded

1:08:36

bell bird, so a

1:08:38

bell of the ball.

1:08:39

There was even more information packed into that clue

1:08:41

than I realized.

1:08:42

Yes, the clues, it's all,

1:08:46

mister policeman. I've left all the clues.

1:08:48

I don't remember them. But

1:08:51

yeah, this is a bird found in

1:08:55

South America. It is found in Venezuela,

1:08:57

Trinidad, Tobago and northern Brazil.

1:09:00

It lives in humid forests. They

1:09:02

are forgiven there.

1:09:03

You are. Oh my goodness, you really have a

1:09:05

beard.

1:09:05

They really have a beard.

1:09:07

You look like you hung it or you hung it around

1:09:09

your neck.

1:09:10

It is these are it kind of looks

1:09:12

like feathers, but these are not feathers.

1:09:14

These are actually wattles. So

1:09:16

these are fleshy projections. Wow,

1:09:20

coming off of their chin.

1:09:23

They are Otherwise you know, they're they're nice looking.

1:09:25

They have sort of like a brown head, a white body,

1:09:28

and black wings. But it's that

1:09:30

beard that is so unique about them.

1:09:33

I have to say, it's clearly wattles. I mean,

1:09:35

to me, it doesn't look like feathers. You really can

1:09:37

see that. It has the consistency of like almost

1:09:40

like rubber. Like yes, if you're tapped against

1:09:42

them, they would be like, yeah they

1:09:46

Why did they need that for?

1:09:47

That is to track the ladies to

1:09:49

be as sexy as possible. They're

1:09:54

not. You don't find that, you don't

1:09:56

find that handsome.

1:09:57

I love it. I'm just so amazed

1:09:59

because it's just one of those times

1:10:01

where you know, look, I know we're not supposed

1:10:03

to anthropomorphize, and I know that you know, we

1:10:05

can't relate everything to humanity,

1:10:09

but that being said, it's just so funny

1:10:12

that you know, that's a real aesthetic choice,

1:10:14

like like like a strap

1:10:16

and dude with like a big, great lumberjack

1:10:19

beard, you know. I mean that's a look, and that's a look

1:10:21

that you know, some people call like the Portland,

1:10:23

Oregon look. You

1:10:25

know, also like being bald and having a

1:10:27

big beard. Like I have several friends who

1:10:30

sort of are rocking that look and they wear it

1:10:32

well, and I like them better with beards.

1:10:34

I like my friends who have those beards. I

1:10:37

like them better with them. And so it's

1:10:39

amazing to me. Again, no shade

1:10:41

to this bird unless it wants it, which

1:10:43

it does because it's a venezuela so it's a lot of

1:10:45

green, So some shade

1:10:48

as a gift. It's just

1:10:50

very funny that it's like, oh, I get it. Yeah,

1:10:53

facial hair looks. Yeah, it's a good

1:10:55

look for some people.

1:10:56

You mentioned that it's like not good to anthropomorphize,

1:10:58

but I would say it's okay some

1:11:00

situations, especially when it comes to birds

1:11:02

aesthetic choice, because a lot of these

1:11:04

choices are complete, they seem to be

1:11:07

pretty subjective

1:11:09

and with no real like practical

1:11:13

purpose, right like does this model actually

1:11:15

do anything? Well, not necessarily. It

1:11:17

could just be that the females are like that looks

1:11:19

good. I like that as

1:11:22

is the call. The call is to attract the females

1:11:24

over and it's very very loud. It's one

1:11:26

of the loudest bird calls. Uh. And

1:11:29

that is in order to get females

1:11:31

to come over from great

1:11:33

distances. And then once they get there,

1:11:35

he will show off his amazing

1:11:38

bird, his amazing beard,

1:11:40

his plumage and hope that she is

1:11:42

impressed. H And so

1:11:44

yeah, I mean it kind

1:11:46

of like to kind of like people.

1:11:49

And I have to say too, I mean, as part of that, like

1:11:51

you hear that. And I was thinking about that in

1:11:54

terms of some of the little froggies in Hawaii,

1:11:56

for example, like part

1:11:58

of being living inside kind of a jungle environment,

1:12:01

it seems like everybody's trying to be louder than

1:12:03

everybody else. So it must make everyone so

1:12:05

loud because there are so many sounds

1:12:08

and calls happening in a really lush

1:12:10

landscape like that that no wonder everybody

1:12:12

has to play their music a little bit louder than everybody else,

1:12:14

you know. Also, yes, exactly this

1:12:17

led me to it also offered me up.

1:12:19

There's lots of wonderful pictures of the bearded bell bird,

1:12:22

but it also offered me up the three the

1:12:24

three wattled bell birds. I don't know if you've

1:12:26

seen this. I mean that is an amazing,

1:12:28

like sort of Fu Manchu mustache. Yes,

1:12:31

and it is very special. Indeed,

1:12:33

so I have two new favorite birds there.

1:12:35

Yeah, the bill birds are

1:12:38

quite ostentatious. I highly

1:12:40

encourage you to explore them all. But

1:12:43

yeah, their their facial business is

1:12:46

incredible and in

1:12:48

diverse and yeah, absolutely they are competing

1:12:51

for yes.

1:12:51

No, this maating moment of

1:12:54

what she's sitting nearby going

1:12:56

yes, yes, more please seek

1:13:00

me.

1:13:00

Uh. Yeah, it's it's amazing. Uh.

1:13:03

It is very cute and kind of pathetic

1:13:06

the way males to suit a lens

1:13:08

to you across the females. No

1:13:10

kidding, so sorry,

1:13:14

So onto the next mister annimal

1:13:17

sound the hint is

1:13:19

this, Well, I've already given you a

1:13:21

hint this episode, so no more hints. All

1:13:31

right, you got any guesses?

1:13:34

I mean, based on the hint

1:13:36

about the hint, I guess I would say it sounds

1:13:38

like it could be. And

1:13:42

God, that's an irritating sense between

1:13:45

that and the sound of drones in the park

1:13:47

when you're just like wanting to have a nice walk

1:13:49

you don't want to hear and the sound

1:13:51

of a mosquito in your ear. I mean those are there's

1:13:54

metallic, Yeah, those metallic,

1:13:57

multi level metallic person

1:14:00

distant buzzes. Unfortunately

1:14:02

to me, if

1:14:05

you wanted to make a horror movie about people going

1:14:07

crazy, not unlike you know, the sort of like

1:14:09

great, you know, great and good rabid

1:14:12

zombie, you know, sort of like oh this is

1:14:14

like Raby's it makes it wants to spread by blah blah blah.

1:14:16

If there's some incentive to having

1:14:19

a sound that makes people want to hurt each other. I

1:14:22

mean, I just feel like my temper

1:14:24

is so much shortened by being

1:14:26

in that noise for a length of time.

1:14:28

I wish you had written bird box because I

1:14:31

think you could have made it. There you go, Yeah,

1:14:34

you are absolutely correct, so

1:14:36

which means I'm going to bleep out

1:14:39

just your correct answer so other

1:14:41

people can guess. But the

1:14:44

people do know, they will know that you are

1:14:46

correct, and so you can you

1:14:49

have won the prize, which is a

1:14:52

thumbs up.

1:14:56

I'm a painful pleaser. Just give me that. Just

1:14:58

give me that.

1:14:59

A A plus

1:15:01

with a little thunderful. Well it's scratch

1:15:03

and sifts you know like a little Oh, you can

1:15:06

better bundle of grapes or an orange

1:15:08

or something. Man, I love it.

1:15:09

Yeah.

1:15:10

Well, Janet, thank you so much for joining me today.

1:15:12

We're Katie.

1:15:15

They can find me, I guess mostly on Instagram.

1:15:17

I'm decent on

1:15:19

Instagram. Blow please don't DM me. Find me at my

1:15:21

website Janetvarney dot com. I

1:15:23

never check my dms, but on Instagram,

1:15:26

at the JV Club, and you

1:15:28

can listen to my podcast on Maximum fund the JV

1:15:30

Club. You can also listen to my podcast about

1:15:32

Avatar the Last Airbender and the Legend of Cora that

1:15:34

I do for Nickelodeon Paramount, which is called

1:15:37

Braving the Elements. And if

1:15:39

for some reason you're a true crime buff

1:15:41

in addition to being a fan of

1:15:44

all things natural and wonderful,

1:15:47

you can also find me on Truth and Justice, which

1:15:49

is a wrongful convictions podcast.

1:15:51

Amazing.

1:15:53

Yeah, thanks for having me. This was I would

1:15:55

do this every day. This is so fun. I love your podcast.

1:15:58

If Janet's voice sounds familiar

1:16:00

and you're an Avatar the Last Airbender fan,

1:16:03

she is the voice of Cora, and

1:16:06

I'm you've done other

1:16:09

voices as well. It's I have

1:16:12

this thing that happens when, like, you

1:16:14

know, I watched a lot of cartoons

1:16:16

because I refuse to grow up. And

1:16:19

if I

1:16:21

hear a voice actor or actress

1:16:23

and I'm like,

1:16:25

how do I know you? Like, where do I know

1:16:27

you from?

1:16:28

Right?

1:16:28

Because your voice is I do the same, yeah, where

1:16:30

it's like your voice is a little different from

1:16:33

the character your voice because you're

1:16:36

you're an actress, you do an actual character.

1:16:38

Then it's like, man, where do I know you from?

1:16:41

Yeah? That's well. I always like to

1:16:43

say Korra is just kind of stays

1:16:45

at a more consistent, less cartoonish

1:16:47

level, which is sort of ironic that like the

1:16:49

cartoon I'm best known for is just the

1:16:52

most kind of cool version of

1:16:54

my voice, and then I'm more of a

1:16:56

cartoon than she is. So that's kind of how

1:16:58

that panned out.

1:16:59

But it's like it's but yeah, the NPR

1:17:01

voice, But that's right fantasy,

1:17:04

Yes, that's right. Well, thank

1:17:06

you so much for joining me today. And if

1:17:08

you are enjoying the podcast and you leave

1:17:10

a review. I read all of them, every single

1:17:12

one. I print them out and I

1:17:15

just kind of stack them up and

1:17:17

then you know, I you know, like

1:17:19

in the movies, where they put a bunch of money and

1:17:22

then roll around on it. For some reason, I

1:17:24

do that with reviews. Podcast reviews wonderful

1:17:26

and thank you so much for the space

1:17:29

cssics for their super awesome song XO.

1:17:31

Lumina Creature features a production of iHeartRadio.

1:17:33

For more podcasts like the one you just heard,

1:17:36

visit the iHeart Radio app Apple Podcasts, or Hey,

1:17:38

guess what where have you listened to your favorite

1:17:40

shows? I don't I don't judge it. I'm

1:17:43

not your mother. I can't tell you what to do. You got

1:17:45

to make these decisions for yourself. Fly,

1:17:47

baby birds, you fly on your own.

1:17:49

Now it's time. See

1:17:52

you next Wednesday.