WEBVTT - The Big Sting: Wasps vs. Bees 0:00:03.800 --> 0:00:06.680 Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:06.680 --> 0:00:13.720 Works dot com. Hey, you're welcome to stuff to blow 0:00:13.760 --> 0:00:17.160 your mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie Douglas. Julie. 0:00:17.200 --> 0:00:21.720 What is it with the with the bees versus the wasp? Uh? 0:00:21.760 --> 0:00:24.320 We we talked about this twice on our Facebook page 0:00:24.640 --> 0:00:27.880 to blow the mind on Facebook, find it that way 0:00:27.960 --> 0:00:29.880 and interact and share your own thoughts on this. But 0:00:30.280 --> 0:00:33.839 if we brought up bees versus wasp twice uh and 0:00:33.880 --> 0:00:36.360 basically just asked for people's gut reaction, like who are 0:00:36.360 --> 0:00:39.960 you gonna side with? And this this classic rivalry between 0:00:40.479 --> 0:00:45.120 the the wasps and their stingers and their nests and 0:00:45.159 --> 0:00:48.080 their stingers and then the bees with their hives and 0:00:48.080 --> 0:00:50.800 their honey and their their fancy culture, Like which which 0:00:50.800 --> 0:00:53.400 side do you you go for? And and everyone seems 0:00:53.440 --> 0:00:55.920 to go for the bees. I mean right, I'm probing. 0:00:56.000 --> 0:00:58.360 It's not just because I'm a lady and I'm like, oh, 0:00:58.400 --> 0:01:01.640 they're so cute and fuzzy, but they're going yeah, but 0:01:01.680 --> 0:01:03.800 they do get buying cute, you have to admit, yes 0:01:03.880 --> 0:01:06.479 they are. Whereas the wasp. I'm actually pro wasp because 0:01:07.120 --> 0:01:09.840 even though they tried to kill my sister. They are sleek. 0:01:10.480 --> 0:01:13.360 Um they are they are deadly. They have this like 0:01:13.600 --> 0:01:17.280 totally sci fi horror book kind of lifestyle going on. 0:01:17.840 --> 0:01:19.880 Um so they really speak to the nine year old 0:01:19.880 --> 0:01:23.520 in me. Um and uh yeah. So I'm gonna side 0:01:23.520 --> 0:01:25.880 with the wasp every time, I think, even though there 0:01:25.959 --> 0:01:29.800 is no such thing as delicious wasp honey. Uh and 0:01:29.800 --> 0:01:32.800 and I can't think of a single wasp cartoon character, 0:01:32.800 --> 0:01:36.320 whereas cartoon bees, they're everywhere. They're stinging Donald Duck there. 0:01:36.360 --> 0:01:39.280 You know, they're they're the centerpiece of whole motion pictures. 0:01:39.520 --> 0:01:42.440 Yeah yeah, I don't know. I mean yet they are 0:01:42.720 --> 0:01:46.200 you sometimes as sports mascots, right, which makes sense because 0:01:46.200 --> 0:01:51.480 they are aggressive jerks. Well that's the thing you want 0:01:51.480 --> 0:01:53.960 to you want your your mask got to be an 0:01:54.000 --> 0:01:55.600 aggressive jersey. I mean, you don't want to be a 0:01:55.640 --> 0:01:57.840 big fuzzy bumble bee. Fuzzy bumble bee. It's like the 0:01:57.920 --> 0:02:01.840 Cleveland Bumblebees. They're gonna becoming the whole audience starts going 0:02:02.680 --> 0:02:04.600 which and that's not menacing at all. Right, we might 0:02:04.640 --> 0:02:07.720 sting you, but we'll eviscerate ourselves in the process, I mean, 0:02:08.000 --> 0:02:10.120 which we'll get into later. It's it's just not as 0:02:10.160 --> 0:02:13.840 as as fearful a prospect as the wasps coming at 0:02:13.880 --> 0:02:16.680 you know. But it's interesting to look at these creatures 0:02:16.760 --> 0:02:21.040 side by side because they have a shared history. Yeah, 0:02:21.480 --> 0:02:23.800 it's not just an arbitrary pairing, like what would win 0:02:23.840 --> 0:02:26.520 in a fight a grizzly bearer a bull shark. I mean, 0:02:27.120 --> 0:02:30.960 these two species share a common history and evolved from 0:02:31.000 --> 0:02:34.280 a common form in the far far far ancient past. 0:02:34.360 --> 0:02:37.160 If you were to go back about a hundred million 0:02:37.280 --> 0:02:40.800 years back to the Cretaceous period, you would find a 0:02:40.880 --> 0:02:44.480 very interesting world. A very green world, all right, if 0:02:44.480 --> 0:02:46.720 you call it. Take us back. Yeah, it's a very 0:02:46.760 --> 0:02:49.280 green world. But there you know, you're not gonna find 0:02:49.320 --> 0:02:52.280 You're not gonna find any flowering plants. It's occupied mostly 0:02:52.400 --> 0:02:55.920 by conifers. So we have a lot of pine cones, 0:02:55.960 --> 0:02:58.280 a lot of pine cones, of greenery, a lot of greenery. 0:02:58.520 --> 0:03:01.200 And the whole way that these plants that spread their 0:03:01.240 --> 0:03:04.320 seeds are via the wind um or you know, or 0:03:04.400 --> 0:03:06.600 just sort of letting them fall and letting them just 0:03:06.760 --> 0:03:08.400 casting the dice and let them go where they will. 0:03:09.200 --> 0:03:13.120 So on top of this green world, you already have 0:03:13.240 --> 0:03:16.519 a thriving insect community things. I mean, just like like 0:03:16.600 --> 0:03:20.799 the insect world is today, it's just a NonStop brawl 0:03:21.120 --> 0:03:25.919 of species eating each other, um, you know, mating with 0:03:26.000 --> 0:03:29.120 each other, warring against each other, forming these little uh 0:03:29.639 --> 0:03:32.760 you know, hives and nests. It's it's already the original 0:03:32.880 --> 0:03:37.560 brave hearts. Yes, and you have carnivorous wasps in this time. 0:03:37.800 --> 0:03:40.000 And these these are wasps that are going around they're 0:03:40.040 --> 0:03:45.400 hunting generally, they're hunting spiders, and spiders remain another classic 0:03:45.480 --> 0:03:47.480 enemy of the wasp. Uh, the kind of kind of 0:03:47.520 --> 0:03:50.600 the whipping boy for the wasp really. Um, and these 0:03:50.680 --> 0:03:53.000 waspers are pretty much owning everything like that. They're just 0:03:53.040 --> 0:03:55.400 going around there eating what they need and their and there, 0:03:55.680 --> 0:03:57.920 and they're using the meat that they gather to feed 0:03:57.960 --> 0:04:00.960 their their young. It's a you know, it's a perfect world, right, 0:04:01.520 --> 0:04:05.080 Like what what could change? M You see pine cones, 0:04:05.440 --> 0:04:10.120 no flowers, oh those romancers the flowers, right, the flowers emerge. 0:04:10.160 --> 0:04:14.280 And basically the idea here is that I'm gonna probably 0:04:14.320 --> 0:04:17.200 inevitably personify evolution a little bit here. We're going to 0:04:17.279 --> 0:04:19.840 do that a bit here. So you have this plant world, 0:04:19.920 --> 0:04:22.480 you have all these insects warring each other on its surface. 0:04:22.720 --> 0:04:26.880 The plants eventually come to exploit all that traffic. You 0:04:26.960 --> 0:04:29.280 need to get some genetic material from plant A to 0:04:29.400 --> 0:04:32.240 plant B. Say, well, let's put it on the back 0:04:32.320 --> 0:04:34.760 of this, uh, this creature that is waging a war 0:04:34.920 --> 0:04:37.600 across several different plants. So what we have here is 0:04:37.640 --> 0:04:40.400 the rise of the angiosperms, plants that depend on insects 0:04:40.480 --> 0:04:43.640 to spread genetic material and pollen from male up plant 0:04:43.720 --> 0:04:47.680 parts called anthers to female plant parts called stigmas. Okay, 0:04:48.480 --> 0:04:52.480 so uh, they start to they start producing this delicious 0:04:52.600 --> 0:04:56.599 nectar and pollen uh, and sweetens the deal for the insects, 0:04:56.600 --> 0:04:59.120 and it gives them specific reasons to traffic the parts 0:04:59.200 --> 0:05:01.920 of plants where Holland is produced because now they have 0:05:02.000 --> 0:05:04.600 a food source. Yeah, and so suddenly these wasps who 0:05:04.640 --> 0:05:07.720 were all into you know, they're killing and brutalizing and 0:05:07.720 --> 0:05:10.760 they're eating and the spiders. Suddenly there's all this sweet 0:05:10.839 --> 0:05:14.120 duff food stuff available right there, and it's easier to get. 0:05:14.200 --> 0:05:16.440 It's just there for the taking. It's dripping you know, 0:05:16.560 --> 0:05:19.880 off the off the flour. You don't have to engage 0:05:19.920 --> 0:05:23.040 in Mortal Kombat with an eight legged horror to get it, 0:05:23.880 --> 0:05:27.200 so it becomes the predominant food source for the wasp, 0:05:27.360 --> 0:05:30.680 and the carnivorous wasp, the wasp that goes out and 0:05:30.920 --> 0:05:35.960 kills and eats another animal that steadily fades away, and 0:05:37.200 --> 0:05:39.800 the wasp that emerges the kind of the and there, 0:05:39.839 --> 0:05:42.920 of course thousands of different types of wasp, but but 0:05:43.080 --> 0:05:45.400 this strain of wasp that remains with us today. They 0:05:45.800 --> 0:05:50.080 do not eat other insects. No, they don't. They don't. 0:05:50.240 --> 0:05:53.480 They've completely removed it from their diet. What they do 0:05:53.680 --> 0:05:57.480 eat is the the nectar and carrying the pollen from 0:05:57.520 --> 0:06:00.279 plant to plant. But the kids are a different store, Yeah, 0:06:00.279 --> 0:06:01.640 the kids, and we'll get to that in a bit. 0:06:01.800 --> 0:06:05.560 So what we have evolving from this is basically bees. Right, 0:06:05.839 --> 0:06:08.080 So we've got bees and wasps because bees now are 0:06:08.080 --> 0:06:10.520 a bit different from wasps, but they're coming from the 0:06:10.560 --> 0:06:14.560 same genetic material, right, bees and wasps are both both 0:06:14.600 --> 0:06:17.320 of them share a common descendant in these carniverse. Wasps. Yeah, 0:06:18.040 --> 0:06:20.000 and youve got these bees who are sort of hipped 0:06:20.040 --> 0:06:23.320 to the whole flower gig, right, because they're like, okay, 0:06:23.400 --> 0:06:26.320 let's let's start really exploring this in earnest or being 0:06:26.440 --> 0:06:29.640 exploited by flowers and earniest depending on who you look 0:06:29.680 --> 0:06:33.560 at it. And you get these these uh bees versus 0:06:33.640 --> 0:06:36.320 wasps where we are right now? Yeah, and of course 0:06:36.440 --> 0:06:39.119 this this leads to a difference in their body types. 0:06:39.200 --> 0:06:41.800 To write, one has the body of befager and one 0:06:41.920 --> 0:06:44.000 has the body of a predator. Because we're gonna get 0:06:44.000 --> 0:06:45.800 into this a little more, but it's essential to to 0:06:45.880 --> 0:06:49.080 note that even though the the wasp no longer eats 0:06:49.240 --> 0:06:53.000 prey itself, it still has to hunt prey to feed 0:06:53.040 --> 0:06:56.080 it's young. It's kind of yeah, you have this a 0:06:56.160 --> 0:06:58.480 great article on this how wasps were and I think 0:06:58.680 --> 0:07:02.799 you're what was the analogy of the vegan parents bringing 0:07:02.839 --> 0:07:05.720 home a pepperoni pizza for their young ones because they 0:07:05.760 --> 0:07:08.080 refused to eat anything else. Yeah, it's kind of like that, which, 0:07:09.000 --> 0:07:13.000 uh they never quite that. The wasp world never was 0:07:13.080 --> 0:07:16.920 able to completely remove meat from its diet, whereas the 0:07:17.000 --> 0:07:21.680 bees do. Okay, I see that's where all this the 0:07:22.280 --> 0:07:27.080 like a tree hugging vegetarian type of lovey dovey bee 0:07:27.120 --> 0:07:29.640 comes in, right exactly. It's the bees are more of 0:07:29.800 --> 0:07:33.200 a tree hugger. And then the wasps are out there killings. 0:07:33.480 --> 0:07:35.360 They're out there you know, harvesting their meat. Even though 0:07:35.360 --> 0:07:36.760 they're not gonna need it themselves, they need it for 0:07:36.800 --> 0:07:39.720 they're young. So the wasp has to has to retain 0:07:39.800 --> 0:07:42.880 the body of a killer. It has to sleep design 0:07:43.400 --> 0:07:46.080 um stinger that's that that has some generally has some 0:07:46.120 --> 0:07:48.360 sort of powerful venom involved. The beat is this kind 0:07:48.400 --> 0:07:55.400 of fat, doughy guy with I think rotund instead of 0:07:55.440 --> 0:07:58.840 fat and hairy with bristly flat legs. Those are good 0:07:58.920 --> 0:08:01.800 for gathering honey. And of course, as you said, the 0:08:01.880 --> 0:08:04.960 wasp havethers, thin waist, and they're very sleek and they've 0:08:05.040 --> 0:08:09.120 got smooth shettles. And then if you look at these two, 0:08:09.200 --> 0:08:13.800 they've got um and and whilst they have ovipositors to yes, 0:08:14.400 --> 0:08:17.240 no ova positor is pretty interesting. Of course, only the 0:08:17.280 --> 0:08:21.080 females have this because it is avi for overm over 0:08:21.280 --> 0:08:24.560 eggs exactly. It is an instrument for the laying of eggs. 0:08:25.640 --> 0:08:29.640 So travel back againto that carnivorous wasp. How's it depositing? 0:08:29.840 --> 0:08:32.240 It needs to deposit eggs with that oppositive, but where 0:08:32.280 --> 0:08:35.120 is it gonna put it? It started laying eggs on 0:08:35.600 --> 0:08:39.559 other creatures, so it's it's like, now I'm going to 0:08:39.679 --> 0:08:42.920 lay eggs on you. Yeah, right, okay, And eventually they 0:08:42.960 --> 0:08:46.280 were like, well, laying laying my young on a caterpillar 0:08:46.360 --> 0:08:48.040 is one thing, but I want them to I want 0:08:48.120 --> 0:08:49.880 them to stay warm, I want them to have a 0:08:50.000 --> 0:08:52.160 nice meal when they wake up. I'm gonna to lay 0:08:52.200 --> 0:08:54.839 them inside the caterpillar. Now, of course, the wasp doesn't 0:08:54.840 --> 0:08:57.040 ask the caterpillar what it thinks of this. Uh, it 0:08:57.160 --> 0:09:00.440 just starts doing it. So the ovipositor become not only 0:09:00.480 --> 0:09:02.880 an instrument to lay eggs, it becomes a surgical instrument 0:09:03.280 --> 0:09:08.080 for the implantation of eggs inside the body of another insect. Right, 0:09:08.120 --> 0:09:11.440 this ovipositor is is literally like a blade, right right, 0:09:11.520 --> 0:09:13.920 it's it's fashion like this just so that it can 0:09:14.000 --> 0:09:16.559 do that, right, And and then they begin to evolve 0:09:16.600 --> 0:09:20.520 these different chemicals, you know, because you're performing this crude 0:09:20.679 --> 0:09:23.680 surgery in the insect world to lay your eggs inside 0:09:23.720 --> 0:09:26.079 this caterpillar. You know, the caligory baby moving around a 0:09:26.120 --> 0:09:29.040 little too much. So uh so, yeah, they begin to 0:09:29.440 --> 0:09:32.000 develop venoms as well. They end up paralyzing the prey 0:09:32.559 --> 0:09:36.160 or or in in some way impacting it to facilitate 0:09:36.200 --> 0:09:41.360 the surgery. So wasps continue to use this in many cases. 0:09:41.640 --> 0:09:45.120 There are plenty of parasitic wasps today, as we'll get into, 0:09:45.440 --> 0:09:48.920 that still lay their eggs inside or on other animals. 0:09:49.440 --> 0:09:51.640 Then there are other they're they're ones that don't they're 0:09:51.640 --> 0:09:55.760 ones that that build nests, lay their their eggs in there, 0:09:55.760 --> 0:09:58.400 and then bring the food back for they're young. And 0:09:58.440 --> 0:10:01.120 we're talking about whilest talking start in generalities because do 0:10:01.440 --> 0:10:04.840 recall that it's like species for both bees and loss. 0:10:04.880 --> 0:10:06.439 There's a ton of them, and they all have a 0:10:06.480 --> 0:10:10.439 little bit different uh behavior to them or um a 0:10:10.520 --> 0:10:13.000 bit you know, this and that going on in times 0:10:13.080 --> 0:10:15.439 of where they lay, where they lay eggs, and what 0:10:15.520 --> 0:10:18.120 they do. And these are even further removed from the 0:10:18.200 --> 0:10:21.880 prospect of laying eggs inside another creature, but they still 0:10:21.920 --> 0:10:24.720 have the oppositor, the stinger, and it retains the sting 0:10:25.240 --> 0:10:28.200 uh they have. They have kept that because it ends 0:10:28.280 --> 0:10:30.800 up being very useful as a defensive weapon. And we're 0:10:30.800 --> 0:10:32.880 gonna talk about weapons in a moment here after the break, 0:10:33.080 --> 0:10:35.240 we're gonna talk about some brawling, right so the battle 0:10:35.280 --> 0:10:39.920 continue right after this. This podcast is brought to you 0:10:40.000 --> 0:10:43.480 by Intel, the sponsors of Tomorrow and the Discovery Channel 0:10:44.200 --> 0:10:48.080 at Intel we believe curiosity is the spark which drives innovation. 0:10:48.840 --> 0:10:52.040 Join us at curiosity dot com and explore the answers 0:10:52.200 --> 0:10:58.599 to life's questions. And we're back. We we rejoined the 0:10:58.640 --> 0:11:01.319 battle between bees and all right, we've talked about the 0:11:01.320 --> 0:11:07.160 oppositor and stinging. Let's talk about the big sting. The sting. Yeah, 0:11:07.480 --> 0:11:10.280 what happens here? Do they all of them die after 0:11:10.360 --> 0:11:12.960 they sting you? Just some of them? Oh? Well, of course, 0:11:13.000 --> 0:11:16.280 wasps generally can can stain multiple yeah, over and over again. 0:11:16.320 --> 0:11:19.960 They've got smooth stingers. But the one that I'm thinking 0:11:20.000 --> 0:11:22.800 about is the honey bee stinger, which is actually barbed 0:11:22.880 --> 0:11:25.599 and it sticks in your flesh. Um, And when the 0:11:25.640 --> 0:11:28.840 honey bee tries actually fly away, her stinger won't budge. 0:11:28.960 --> 0:11:31.880 So it's very sad. Actually, um, it RiPPs from her 0:11:31.920 --> 0:11:36.520 body and essentially disembowels her when it stings human. Now, 0:11:36.559 --> 0:11:38.880 there's some sometimes they can use these against other insects, 0:11:39.240 --> 0:11:42.360 and it not if this rate the user, because it's 0:11:42.400 --> 0:11:45.160 not getting stuck in there. Yeah, but but in humans, Yeah, 0:11:45.200 --> 0:11:46.920 that's always the thing. It's like the the honey beetle 0:11:46.960 --> 0:11:48.839 stingy once and then it did die. Stinging, which I 0:11:48.880 --> 0:11:51.000 think also adds to It's like, oh, it's stung me, 0:11:51.120 --> 0:11:53.079 but it died, so I can't hate it. Where's the 0:11:53.120 --> 0:11:55.560 wasp comes along? There's no bar. The wasp can sting 0:11:55.679 --> 0:11:58.199 you all day and it doesn't care for the be 0:11:58.320 --> 0:12:00.199 It's sort of like a noble death. Is that we're Yeah, 0:12:00.360 --> 0:12:02.199 it's like a noble desk in the wasp, Like, I 0:12:02.320 --> 0:12:05.400 use this all the time. I'll sing again. Can we 0:12:05.440 --> 0:12:08.320 do this again tomorrow eight am? You know, yeah, we'll 0:12:08.360 --> 0:12:09.920 set a day. I like the little voice you're doing 0:12:09.960 --> 0:12:13.400 for the wasp pair. I I know I should be 0:12:13.400 --> 0:12:15.199 able to do more of an Italian like, you know, 0:12:15.280 --> 0:12:17.679 stereotypical thug kind of a thing. Yeah. I don't know 0:12:17.679 --> 0:12:20.640 what you were going there now. It's uh. It's interesting 0:12:20.679 --> 0:12:23.240 to note that even though the honey base this is 0:12:23.600 --> 0:12:26.920 something I found in Tracy V. Wilson's article Pies on 0:12:26.960 --> 0:12:29.520 the website, the males don't have stingers that break off 0:12:29.559 --> 0:12:32.679 in people's flesh, but they do have endo fouls's uh. 0:12:33.320 --> 0:12:36.040 When they mate with the female honeybees, it breaks off 0:12:36.280 --> 0:12:39.439 inside the female's body, with the queen, of course, fatally 0:12:39.520 --> 0:12:42.439 injuring the mail in the process. So oh yeah, We've 0:12:42.480 --> 0:12:45.280 talked about this before too, and in another podcast about 0:12:45.360 --> 0:12:49.520 this sort of very scary proposition sometimes of mating in 0:12:49.600 --> 0:12:53.440 the insect world, decapitation and all sorts of fun stuff. Yeah, 0:12:53.760 --> 0:12:55.440 wasp and bees. When we're talking about the war here, 0:12:55.440 --> 0:12:58.360 we're talking about a war between females, because the females 0:12:58.360 --> 0:13:01.319 are the species and the male are just there to 0:13:02.080 --> 0:13:05.000 facilitate mating. And in some cases I believe it was 0:13:05.040 --> 0:13:06.559 there's a type of bee where when the when the 0:13:06.640 --> 0:13:08.600 males are no longer necessary, they go and just kick 0:13:08.640 --> 0:13:10.960 them out. Because you're wondering, the bumblebee sting is one 0:13:11.000 --> 0:13:14.040 of the most painful stings, is it. Yes, you get 0:13:14.120 --> 0:13:16.959 a lot of swelling and the irritation. And I just 0:13:17.040 --> 0:13:21.000 wanted to also mention Africanized honey bees, also known as 0:13:21.120 --> 0:13:25.000 killer bees, that live in South America and southern United States. 0:13:25.080 --> 0:13:27.040 They have been known to chase people for over a 0:13:27.160 --> 0:13:30.800 quarter of a mile once they get excited and aggressive. 0:13:30.840 --> 0:13:32.640 And the reason why they're called killer bees is not 0:13:32.720 --> 0:13:36.360 necessarily because they kill people so much, is that their venom. 0:13:36.480 --> 0:13:38.960 Their venom is uh, you know, no more dangerous than 0:13:39.080 --> 0:13:42.520 any other honeybee. It's because their attacks are more harmful 0:13:42.559 --> 0:13:46.560 because they attack in greater numbers. So um, that can 0:13:46.600 --> 0:13:49.880 really increase increase your chance of having a severe allergic reaction. 0:13:51.360 --> 0:13:53.920 That's why they're scary. So let's let's talk a little 0:13:53.960 --> 0:13:57.320 bit about some of the abilities of these particular creatures. 0:13:57.600 --> 0:14:00.160 I'm gonna come back again to the parasitic wasp, which 0:14:00.200 --> 0:14:01.959 is a concept I love. You know, it's something about 0:14:02.160 --> 0:14:05.360 you know, you grow up watching Alien and uh and 0:14:05.559 --> 0:14:07.880 and and I mean that's basically the concept of the 0:14:07.960 --> 0:14:12.360 wasp taken into a sci fi human world. Is this 0:14:12.480 --> 0:14:15.599 the ladybug bummits for that? You that's what you call it? 0:14:15.679 --> 0:14:18.160 Oh yeah, yeah, I'll get to get to that. Yeah, 0:14:18.240 --> 0:14:21.320 for sure. Growing up grew up in like rural Tennessee, 0:14:21.400 --> 0:14:23.800 and so they're they're dirt dapper nest everywhere that the 0:14:24.480 --> 0:14:27.120 or mud dappers if they're known in some areas. And uh, 0:14:27.360 --> 0:14:29.160 if you've ever broken one of these open, it's really 0:14:29.200 --> 0:14:31.400 neat you'll find it. There are these little cylinders, right 0:14:31.720 --> 0:14:33.720 and that's where the eggle will be in. The larva 0:14:33.760 --> 0:14:36.120 will grow and they'll just the the wasp will just 0:14:36.200 --> 0:14:40.320 stuff these things with with paralyzed or dead spiders. So 0:14:40.480 --> 0:14:42.280 that so when the young wakes up, it'll have a meal. 0:14:42.440 --> 0:14:45.960 And so if anyone out there is just completely anti wasp, 0:14:46.080 --> 0:14:48.320 I think it's important to note these things kill the 0:14:48.400 --> 0:14:51.280 heck out of some spiders. So and a lot of 0:14:51.320 --> 0:14:53.200 the spiders that they go after it things like brown 0:14:53.240 --> 0:14:56.360 reclusives or black widows, things that you definitely don't want 0:14:56.400 --> 0:14:59.760 a round uh and and and definitely don't want crawling 0:14:59.840 --> 0:15:02.360 on you or in any coming into any kind of 0:15:02.400 --> 0:15:04.880 contact with you or your the people you love. And 0:15:04.880 --> 0:15:07.040 in these cases, they'll fill a cylinder with like upwards 0:15:07.080 --> 0:15:09.160 of forty spiders. I'm not talking just like a few 0:15:09.240 --> 0:15:12.240 forty spiders. Then you have washp like the Pepsis wasps 0:15:12.440 --> 0:15:15.800 also known as tarantula hawks, and they will each lay 0:15:15.840 --> 0:15:18.920 an egg inside a single paralyzed tarantula, and then the 0:15:19.040 --> 0:15:22.480 emerging larva proceeds to eat the imprisoned spider from the 0:15:22.520 --> 0:15:25.120 inside out, which is pretty that's pretty greesome. I like it. 0:15:25.680 --> 0:15:28.120 One of my my favorites, though, is a particular parasitic 0:15:28.200 --> 0:15:32.840 wasp known as the dino campus uh Cosinella, which what 0:15:33.000 --> 0:15:35.360 is called the dino campus so that the dino campus 0:15:35.640 --> 0:15:37.840 when it's when it hatches from the egg like a 0:15:37.880 --> 0:15:40.600 lot of wasps, it finds that it is inside another creature. 0:15:40.760 --> 0:15:43.440 In this case, it is inside a ladybug, all right, 0:15:43.720 --> 0:15:48.120 and it was of course deposited there by an adult. 0:15:48.680 --> 0:15:51.600 And then and then it grows to larvahood and then 0:15:51.640 --> 0:15:54.080 it emerges in something that I am going to to 0:15:54.240 --> 0:15:59.240 try and coin a celebration of chess bursts burst mitzvah 0:15:59.800 --> 0:16:02.440 who it burst from the chest of this ladybug. And 0:16:02.560 --> 0:16:05.080 then it's they're squirming as a as a larva doesn't 0:16:05.120 --> 0:16:08.600 emerge fully grown in this case. Um, so it's it's 0:16:08.600 --> 0:16:11.520 still you know, it's it's not completely ready to fend 0:16:11.560 --> 0:16:14.440 for itself. So you would normally think, all right, so 0:16:14.520 --> 0:16:19.320 the ladybug has been uh surgically impregnated with this foreign entity. 0:16:19.640 --> 0:16:23.240 This foreign entity has burst forth from its stomach. Uh, 0:16:23.400 --> 0:16:26.440 now the ladybug is gonna dimmersefull death, right right, like, 0:16:26.640 --> 0:16:28.880 please put her out of her misery? Yeah? Not not 0:16:29.520 --> 0:16:32.840 not so. In this case, not only does the ladybug live, 0:16:33.200 --> 0:16:36.840 but there's a little behavior modification involved in the the 0:16:36.960 --> 0:16:40.240 implantation process that forces it to hang around and guard 0:16:40.800 --> 0:16:44.720 it's parasite baby as it grows to adulthood. Yeah. So 0:16:45.200 --> 0:16:48.120 the larva is smaller than the ladybugs. So you'll see 0:16:48.120 --> 0:16:50.680 pictures of this where the ladybug just continues to hang around, 0:16:51.080 --> 0:16:54.160 like hunched over the larva to protect it. And scientists 0:16:54.200 --> 0:16:56.760 believe that this has caused by secretions left by the 0:16:56.880 --> 0:17:01.240 larva when it bursts out. It essentially reprograms the host 0:17:01.480 --> 0:17:05.400 to stick around. Alright, so so the wasp grows to maturity, 0:17:05.520 --> 0:17:07.960 right then what happens, Well, it doesn't need to to 0:17:08.080 --> 0:17:11.960 eat this uh, this ladybug because it doesn't eat ladybugs. 0:17:12.080 --> 0:17:14.680 As an adult, it doesn't depend on other animals for 0:17:14.760 --> 0:17:17.000 its food. But once it reaches this uh, this point, 0:17:17.200 --> 0:17:23.000 researchers found that of the manipulated ladybugs recovered normal behavior 0:17:23.160 --> 0:17:24.439 following the word a deal. So a lot of them 0:17:24.480 --> 0:17:26.440 just did eventually die, but but some of them didn't. 0:17:26.480 --> 0:17:29.159 Some of them like went on, like that's how cruel 0:17:29.320 --> 0:17:32.239 the insect world is. But then how resilient the insects are. 0:17:32.359 --> 0:17:34.959 It's like you could go through this kind of catastrophics 0:17:35.200 --> 0:17:38.000 u situation in your life as a ladybug, and then 0:17:38.040 --> 0:17:40.280 you eventually move on. And now I'm just wondering if 0:17:40.320 --> 0:17:43.440 there's any sort of like memory racing enzymes that were 0:17:43.560 --> 0:17:46.640 involved with that, because you know that's of course we're 0:17:46.720 --> 0:17:49.000 humans and so we can't help. But thinking human terms, 0:17:49.080 --> 0:17:52.840 but imagine your body being occupied by this alien larva 0:17:53.440 --> 0:17:57.200 which you then are reprogrammed to to not just host 0:17:57.320 --> 0:18:01.920 but um protect. And then and then imagine the ladybug 0:18:02.000 --> 0:18:03.480 is out like walking around on a leaf and it 0:18:03.560 --> 0:18:06.399 looks over and sees this this wasp and she doesn't remember. 0:18:06.480 --> 0:18:09.200 She looks and she's like, oh, he's so cute. Yeah, 0:18:09.840 --> 0:18:12.480 or maybe's like Stockholm syndrome. You know, it's like, oh, 0:18:12.680 --> 0:18:15.400 I remember you. You you fed off of me. Yeah, 0:18:16.119 --> 0:18:18.320 we were a little larva. Then the wasp says, come 0:18:18.440 --> 0:18:20.359 come here, I have something to give you, and it 0:18:20.480 --> 0:18:22.720 all begins again. I don't know if they could survive 0:18:22.760 --> 0:18:26.920 a second I would yeah, yeah, that would be cool. 0:18:27.440 --> 0:18:29.600 Um and then there but then there are other interesting 0:18:29.760 --> 0:18:32.840 uh moments of jerk them in the Lost World, such 0:18:32.840 --> 0:18:35.440 as with cuckoo wasps. And these are wasps that figured 0:18:35.440 --> 0:18:37.119 out long ago that the best source of food for 0:18:37.160 --> 0:18:41.120 their larva was other wasp larva. Uh, and what better 0:18:41.160 --> 0:18:43.160 way to feed them than by leaving the larva their 0:18:43.240 --> 0:18:46.600 larva in another wasp nest to begin with. Um so, 0:18:46.760 --> 0:18:49.080 it just kind of like dead beat moms of the world. 0:18:49.480 --> 0:18:51.639 Um and when so when the cuckoo larva hatch, they 0:18:51.720 --> 0:18:55.120 feed on the larva and food left in the cylinder 0:18:55.240 --> 0:18:58.760 of the actual nest builder. Okay, all right, well I 0:18:58.840 --> 0:19:03.360 have a couple of stories for you, sir, about how 0:19:03.520 --> 0:19:06.520 they are. They're pretty kicking themselves, Okay, okay, if they 0:19:06.560 --> 0:19:09.360 can do more than just make delicious honey and yeah 0:19:09.480 --> 0:19:15.359 and save the environment. Okay, So small hive beetles huge pests, right, 0:19:15.560 --> 0:19:18.440 they like to invade the hives of bees and eat 0:19:18.480 --> 0:19:20.760 their stored food which they've worked so hard to make. 0:19:21.280 --> 0:19:23.600 Oh you make it sound like the like this beetle 0:19:23.640 --> 0:19:25.840 as a jurich When it's doing the same thing with humans. 0:19:26.000 --> 0:19:28.040 I know it's doing what it's programmed to do. When 0:19:28.040 --> 0:19:30.560 it's completely fine, and I'm just saying, and kill the 0:19:30.600 --> 0:19:33.719 bees young. Um So in Africa where the beetles come from, 0:19:33.800 --> 0:19:36.360 honey bees wait until the beetles are in a confined 0:19:36.440 --> 0:19:39.639 space and then they imprison them within the tomb of resin. 0:19:40.000 --> 0:19:42.639 Oh wow, like that Ed Groland post story. Yes, the 0:19:43.680 --> 0:19:48.080 uh I can't remember Montague No, not anyway, I'm sure 0:19:48.160 --> 0:19:51.159 someone out there listening can let us know what that 0:19:51.400 --> 0:19:54.000 what that is? Um? But yes, just like the girl 0:19:54.160 --> 0:19:58.560 and post story, but they can also mummify. Okay, that 0:19:58.720 --> 0:20:02.240 is pretty cool. Ye Stings bees, which are native to Australia, 0:20:02.359 --> 0:20:06.480 uses this this tactic. The worker bees immediately start coating 0:20:06.920 --> 0:20:10.440 the beatles with bathroomen, which is a mixture of wax 0:20:10.520 --> 0:20:12.800 and resin that they used to build their nest entrances with, 0:20:13.480 --> 0:20:17.320 and all the while their hive mates attack continuously. So 0:20:17.600 --> 0:20:19.440 not only are they just kind of stopping the beetle 0:20:19.720 --> 0:20:24.119 in its tracks, but you know, putting them into this batoman. 0:20:24.440 --> 0:20:26.360 But now all of them are like, hey, let's start 0:20:26.400 --> 0:20:29.960 pummeling on pa, pa, pa pa, and they're coming at them. Okay, 0:20:30.440 --> 0:20:32.440 Now I get it that it's maybe not as cool 0:20:32.440 --> 0:20:34.159 because they're all doing this as a group as opposed 0:20:34.160 --> 0:20:37.200 to having these individual abilities or abilities as an individual. 0:20:37.320 --> 0:20:40.080 But still, this is amazing that they're they have these 0:20:40.119 --> 0:20:43.840 sort of defense tactics, aren't able to act on them, um, 0:20:44.680 --> 0:20:47.200 and they're mommifying this beetle. It's kind of like you 0:20:47.280 --> 0:20:50.960 watch Fraggle Rock, right, I have seen it, I don't 0:20:50.960 --> 0:20:56.800 currently watch it every time. You come home from work. Yeah, well, 0:20:56.840 --> 0:20:59.520 well now you put it like that, but it would 0:20:59.560 --> 0:21:02.920 remember the dozers, the little guys who built all these things. 0:21:03.000 --> 0:21:05.439 They're like, they build all these little bridges and towns, 0:21:05.560 --> 0:21:07.920 and then the fraggles will come around and eat their 0:21:08.200 --> 0:21:10.879 their their constructions. But it would be like if the 0:21:10.920 --> 0:21:14.159 fraggles came to eat the dozers constructions and the and 0:21:14.280 --> 0:21:17.320 the dozers built something around the fraggle and entombed it 0:21:17.400 --> 0:21:20.560 to death underground. Yeah, you know, you're seeing it. You're 0:21:20.560 --> 0:21:23.640