Speaker 1: Welcome to Creature, feature production of iHeartRadio. I'm your host
Speaker 1: of Many Parasites, Katie Golden. I studied psychology and evolutionary biology,
Speaker 1: and Tipday on the show plants. Plants are often faced
Speaker 1: with a variety of ferocious predators, which is, you know,
Speaker 1: us animals, we love eating plants, but plants don't always
Speaker 1: love being eaten. Now, sometimes they do, but sometimes they don't.
Speaker 1: And being a plant can be hard because you got
Speaker 1: no mouth, you got no eyes. How are you going
Speaker 1: to protect yourself without the handy ability to punch someone. Well,
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about the creative ways in which
Speaker 1: plants defend themselves, which can be surprisingly clever. Joining me
Speaker 1: today is host of the Planthropology podcast, Professor of horticulture,
Speaker 1: doctor Vicram Buligo.
Speaker 2: Welcome.
Speaker 1: I'm so excited to have you me too.
Speaker 2: I was so happy you reached out and I am
Speaker 2: thrilled to talk to you today.
Speaker 1: I am excited to talk about plants being devious because
Speaker 1: I think that people have this concept that plants just
Speaker 1: kind of sit there and then they casually take all
Speaker 1: the abuse that you know, US animals dole out on them.
Speaker 1: But no, no, they are out there protecting themselves, making plans,
Speaker 1: well maybe not making plans, but you know they are
Speaker 1: they have defenses. They are not damsels in distress.
Speaker 2: That's right, for sure. Yeah, and it's it's funny because
Speaker 2: they do all these things, and I'm sure they find
Speaker 2: us very confusing, you know, weird hairless apes like this
Speaker 2: is here to kill anything that eats me, and we're like, ooh, spicy.
Speaker 1: Yes, exactly. So first I want to talk about the
Speaker 1: wonderful world of plant toxins, which are something that you know. Obviously,
Speaker 1: there are plenty of plants that are toxic to humans,
Speaker 1: whether we eat them or get them on our bodies.
Speaker 1: It can be painful or even deadly. But there are
Speaker 1: some plant toxins that make human life better. It enhances
Speaker 1: our culinary cultures, and so yeah, a lot of plants
Speaker 1: produce toxins, and of course toxins can help defend them
Speaker 1: from herbivores, including insect, larvae and mammals. It's also a
Speaker 1: defense against pathogens. But I want to talk about some
Speaker 1: of the tastiest toxins in plants. So I'm not saying
Speaker 1: that you should pick the nearest, devious looking flour and
Speaker 1: put it in your mouth. That can be bad, but
Speaker 1: some plant toxins are actually pretty delicious, kind of tasty.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's funny because it's funny you bring that
Speaker 2: up because recently I posted something on Instagram and TikTok
Speaker 2: about how we shouldn't eat, you know, incredible toxic plants.
Speaker 2: Apparently that's controversial if you can imagine, because apparently people
Speaker 2: like eating their plant toxin sometimes, so you know, we
Speaker 2: should definitely be careful. I think a lot about the
Speaker 2: first guy who decided to eat a given plant and
Speaker 2: all his buddies standing around taking notes. Yeah, right, you're up,
Speaker 2: Carl Ford, eat the weird berry.
Speaker 1: See if he vomits, and if not, we can eat
Speaker 1: those berries. Yeah, that was being a chef meant something
Speaker 1: very different back in the day. Well, what's what's an
Speaker 1: example of a toxic plant that people try to eat
Speaker 1: that they shouldn't.
Speaker 2: I think my favorite is the coffee tree. I am,
Speaker 2: you know at this point about seventy three percent caffeine.
Speaker 2: A friend, a friend of mine likes to say that
Speaker 2: I died years ago and it's just the caffeine keeping
Speaker 2: me animated like a zombie. But so, yeah, caffeine is
Speaker 2: an insecticide. It was developed by the plant to try
Speaker 2: to keep herbivores off of it, you know, so the
Speaker 2: leaves to the berries and everything else. It's a strategy
Speaker 2: to make sure that the seeds survive undigested long enough
Speaker 2: to go germinate somewhere else. It just turns out it
Speaker 2: makes us go fast. Yes, and it's probably the most
Speaker 2: popular plant toxin in the world, which is a weird
Speaker 2: way to look at it, but it's also true.
Speaker 1: Yes, I mean I live in Italy and it's definitely
Speaker 1: a big hit here. Gosh, they love their coffee caffeine.
Speaker 1: I actually I can have a little bit of caffeine
Speaker 1: usually I have a little bit of tea, but espresso
Speaker 1: is something that does terrible things to me. I cannot
Speaker 1: handle it. I turn into a jittery mess. My heart
Speaker 1: feels like it's having some kind of break dancing competition
Speaker 1: in my chest. It's not a good situation. But yeah,
Speaker 1: for a lot of people, caffeine is a lot of
Speaker 1: a high dose of caffeine is what they need to
Speaker 1: get through the day.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And I don't know if that was grad school
Speaker 2: that did that to me that I became you know,
Speaker 2: so it's kind of it's probably not good, and people
Speaker 2: do have, like you mentioned, different tolerances to it. Like
Speaker 2: I can drink a coffee and go straight to bed,
Speaker 2: which is probably not good in the grand scheme of things.
Speaker 2: I should probably worry about that. But I can't drink
Speaker 2: like energy drinks. I don't know if it's the sugar
Speaker 2: in them or what, but those definitely make me jittery.
Speaker 2: But like just coffee, it just sort of levels me
Speaker 2: off at this point.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's interesting because some people can't handle tea as well.
Speaker 1: For me, like tea is fine and coffee doesn't work
Speaker 1: for me. For other people, like tea is actually the
Speaker 1: things that make them dittery, whereas coffee doesn't. I think
Speaker 1: everyone's metabolism is different. But in general, humans tolerate caffeine
Speaker 1: fairly well. It doesn't kill us. I mean, I'm sure
Speaker 1: there's a level at which it could kill us, but
Speaker 1: that would be like and it's a lot, that'd be
Speaker 1: a lot, yes, But yeah, in humans, it impacts our
Speaker 1: nervous system. It raises our heart rate, and it can
Speaker 1: you know, kind of it acts as a stimulant, a
Speaker 1: mild stimulant. It is a drug. It in that way
Speaker 1: like it is something that physiologically impacts our body's nervous system,
Speaker 1: but it's relatively safe. And so you have some caffeine,
Speaker 1: your heart rate increases, your breathing increases, and for a
Speaker 1: lot of people that helps them think, maybe that helps
Speaker 1: them feel less sleepy. It's stimulating. For some people it
Speaker 1: just makes you gitterate and you can't focus at all.
Speaker 1: But you know, depending on who you are, it impacts
Speaker 1: you potentially in a positive way. But what is a
Speaker 1: moderate effect in humans is devastating to insects that want
Speaker 1: to eat the plant. Like you mentioned, this is highly
Speaker 1: toxic to insects, and it also impacts their central nervous system,
Speaker 1: but in a much more dramatic way, where as we
Speaker 1: would get like a little bit of a buzz with insects,
Speaker 1: they can be paralyzed, they can even be killed. But
Speaker 1: there are some insects that can tolerate a cup of joe.
Speaker 1: In Some caffeine producing plants, like the nectar has a
Speaker 1: little bit of caffeine in it, and when bees drink
Speaker 1: that nectar, there's some evidence that it actually enhances their
Speaker 1: ability to remember that plant's location because it's stimulating the
Speaker 1: bee a little bit it's giving them, you know, mild
Speaker 1: buzz pun intended.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, No, I like it. We need more of that. Actually,
Speaker 2: the more puns the better.
Speaker 1: Yes, well you've come to the right podcast for better
Speaker 1: or worse. But yeah, so it helps these bees kind
Speaker 1: of remember where the plants are. But for a lot
Speaker 1: of insects that are actually trying to eat the plant.
Speaker 1: You know, they're not just sipping nectar. They're trying to
Speaker 1: directly eat the fruit of the plant. It is causing
Speaker 1: this very bad reaction in this their system where it
Speaker 1: is actually potentially killing them. And an added benefit to
Speaker 1: caffeine in TA plants and other caffeine producing plants is
Speaker 1: that it can kill off parasitic fungus. So it is
Speaker 1: not just something that's wonderful in our coffee. Even though
Speaker 1: it seems like the plants made this for us to drink,
Speaker 1: like hey, thanks plants, thanks for thinking of us, It
Speaker 1: was actually meant for the plants the whole time.
Speaker 2: And I think these coevolutionary relationships are so fascinating, and
Speaker 2: I think that'll come up quite a bit today. But
Speaker 2: the fact that it's good for bees to a certain
Speaker 2: extent or the parts of the plant that bees interact
Speaker 2: with are relatively safe for them. The concentrations are different,
Speaker 2: but through herbivaly it's like nope, nope, do not passco
Speaker 2: you know, you know, klay ten hundred dollars. Just like
Speaker 2: again that plant I posted about, the angel's trumpet, which
Speaker 2: is in the Brigmansia genus. For most mammals and most
Speaker 2: insects like it is incredibly toxic, incredibly toxic. But for
Speaker 2: their adapted pollinators, they can go in and drink the
Speaker 2: nectar and they're totally fine. They have the you know,
Speaker 2: evolutionary basis they need to keep themselves safe from those toxins.
Speaker 2: And then they go when they spread the pollen and
Speaker 2: the seeds and all that stuff, and just the the
Speaker 2: mechanisms that govern some of these relationships are just so
Speaker 2: fascinating me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the specificity of it is really interesting to me.
Speaker 1: I did see that post that you made, So the
Speaker 1: Angel's trumpet, it's a beautiful flowers, this beautiful yellow trumpet
Speaker 1: like flower. I just want to like stick my nose
Speaker 1: in there and smell it. Is that a good idea?
Speaker 2: Not not great? It's it's not great all parts of
Speaker 2: the plant. Some people argue that the nectar is not toxic,
Speaker 2: but I wouldn't risk that all parts of the plane
Speaker 2: are toxic. There was a creator online a couple of
Speaker 2: years ago that made this whole video of carrying a
Speaker 2: couple of flowers around and spending the whole night smelling them.
Speaker 2: I guess because somebody had told them that was you know,
Speaker 2: it's toxic, you can't do that, and they're like, I'm
Speaker 2: going to do it for the cloud, and then they
Speaker 2: ended up in the hospital because it can definitely get
Speaker 2: into your brain that way too, but definitely ingestion is
Speaker 2: the worst. Yeah. Sure, so they do smell good. They're
Speaker 2: a beautiful plant. But I tell people, maybe smell them
Speaker 2: from a distance. Now, a couple feet away, you can
Speaker 2: still smell it. Probably don't stick your face in it
Speaker 2: or blow it like a trumpet, which some people do
Speaker 2: and kind of explains a lot.
Speaker 1: Maybe wafft it from two feet away, you know, Like
Speaker 1: in chemistry class, you're supposed to wash things because if
Speaker 1: you stick your nose in the test tube, it could
Speaker 1: be bad. That was a lesson I learned in chemistry
Speaker 1: after I stuck my nose into test tube and it
Speaker 1: made my nose tickle. In a bad way. But yeah,
Speaker 1: so there are definitely toxic plants we got to watch
Speaker 1: out for. But yeah, like what you were saying, the
Speaker 1: specificity of these plant animal interactions really interesting. And that
Speaker 1: kind of brings me to talking about spice. So spice,
Speaker 1: like hot spice, is another delicious plant offering that is
Speaker 1: actually meant as a deadly defense. Like, how do you
Speaker 1: tolerate spice seafood? Pretty well? Do you like spicy food?
Speaker 2: I do? I do. So my parents are from India,
Speaker 2: so I'm an Indian guy and we eat all the spices.
Speaker 2: And I also live in Texas and so we eat
Speaker 2: all the other different kinds of spices here. So I've
Speaker 2: grown up eating spicy food and I really like it.
Speaker 2: My wife, however, like completely just completely out on that,
Speaker 2: not tolerant at all. So we have to sort of
Speaker 2: try to meet in the middle sometimes, or I'll just
Speaker 2: add like spicy stuff to my own food because I
Speaker 2: don't want her to explode burst into flame.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, no, I also like spice, and I have
Speaker 1: thought that I've had a pretty high spice tolerance. But
Speaker 1: I did once order like this super spicy drink that
Speaker 1: they were like warning me, Hey, this is actually really spicy.
Speaker 1: It was a I think it was a mango almost
Speaker 1: like a mango smoothie, but they added some spice to it.
Speaker 1: I was like, well, I've had spicy drinks before. It
Speaker 1: sounds great, it sounds refreshing. That was a mistake. It
Speaker 1: was a mistake I made. That was hubris.
Speaker 2: Uh. Too close to the sun there.
Speaker 1: Too close to the sun. I was like, four little
Speaker 1: chili peppers on your menu. I'm sure that's fine. Uh,
Speaker 1: it wasn't. It wasn't fine, folks, And it's not fine
Speaker 1: for a lot of things that want to prey on
Speaker 1: wild chilies. So spices are relatively well tolerated by humans,
Speaker 1: and we have grown to actually cultivate spicy plants, like
Speaker 1: the peppers that we have. They're not usually just stuff
Speaker 1: we pluck from the wild. We've domesticated them, We've grown them,
Speaker 1: so they have these lovely large fruit that are very
Speaker 1: hot and very delicious. But the seeds of wild chilies
Speaker 1: are also laced with this very spicy substance called kepsasin,
Speaker 1: which is something that you don't necessarily want in your
Speaker 1: eyes or your sensitive membranes, but it is something. It
Speaker 1: is that thing that you know like when you have
Speaker 1: a spicy food. It's tasty and a little bit or
Speaker 1: a lot if you're used to it can cause a
Speaker 1: pleasant feeling, right that like sort of burning to a
Speaker 1: certain extent is good. But if you're not as tolerant
Speaker 1: of it, or you have too much, maybe hypothetically, it's
Speaker 1: actually quite an unpleasant experience. You start weeping. You have
Speaker 1: all these responses to it that you know because it
Speaker 1: is It is irritating your tongue, it is irritating your
Speaker 1: mucous membranes in your mouth, and in plants, it is
Speaker 1: a way to help defend themselves against herbivores who do
Speaker 1: not like that sensation at all. It can also protect
Speaker 1: them against insectivores, and interestingly, if they do get bitten
Speaker 1: by an insect, it leaves them vulnerable to things like fungus.
Speaker 1: And then that spice that kept sayesin actually acts as
Speaker 1: a weight an anti fungal the world's most delicious anti
Speaker 1: fungal treatment.
Speaker 2: And more of them should be delicious. Yeah, And I
Speaker 2: think it's interesting because you mentioned that we have bread
Speaker 2: and developed peppers of different kinds to be hotter or
Speaker 2: less hot, or of different flavor. But some of those
Speaker 2: wild ones, like the tiny little bush chilis and stuff
Speaker 2: that are out there that are tiny and like bright purple,
Speaker 2: will absolutely like take the roof off your mouth like
Speaker 2: they're nuclear hot, and it'll taste very good. So we
Speaker 2: have done a lot of work on a lot of
Speaker 2: our plants. And that's something I think that's important to
Speaker 2: realize too, is that the wild types of a lot
Speaker 2: of these things, the you know, ancestral sort of plants
Speaker 2: that led to what we have in our market now
Speaker 2: are not what we see. We've worked so much to
Speaker 2: select for things that we want and improve, like you said,
Speaker 2: fruit size and flavor and color and all this stuff,
Speaker 2: that there's some plants out there there, you know, genetically
Speaker 2: very similar that would not be recognizable to most like
Speaker 2: most consumers.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, Like you look at a wild banana, it
Speaker 1: is not oh yeah, the comfortable handheld banana of today.
Speaker 1: It's full of these large seeds that it is tiny,
Speaker 1: and there's like hardly any fruit flesh in there that
Speaker 1: you would eat without getting also a mouthful of seeds,
Speaker 1: because the banana doesn't really just want to be eaten.
Speaker 1: It wants its seeds to be distributed, so it wants
Speaker 1: you to eat the fruit and the seeds, and then
Speaker 1: what happens later, well, pody times and hey, you've planted
Speaker 1: a new banana plant.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know now we clone most of them
Speaker 2: to be seedless. And so the big curved yellow fruit
Speaker 2: everyone knows and loves, like you said, doesn't really exist
Speaker 2: in nature that way. A point I wanted to make
Speaker 2: too about since we're talking about peppers. So many plants
Speaker 2: in the sulinacy family are just incredibly toxic in one
Speaker 2: way or the other. It's just that we've happened to
Speaker 2: find a few that will work for us, like tomatoes,
Speaker 2: and well, the tubers of potato plants, you know, they're great.
Speaker 2: The berries onto amato plants are not great. We call
Speaker 2: them night shades for a reason. You know, you eat
Speaker 2: the fruit and you eat the toxins, and then it
Speaker 2: pulls the shades down and you go to sleep for
Speaker 2: a while nighttime, maybe a long while. So yeah, but
Speaker 2: all of the plants in that genus to a certain
Speaker 2: or in that family to a certain extent. You know again, tomatoes, potatoes, eggplants, peppers, tomatillos,
Speaker 2: and even the angel's trumpet that we were talking about
Speaker 2: earlier is in the same family, and I think in
Speaker 2: belladonna and several others. It's like all these plants that
Speaker 2: are incredibly toxic all kind of hang out in this
Speaker 2: same family, in the same genus. And then again, poor Carl,
Speaker 2: the product tester, each product tester was out there eating
Speaker 2: sulinaceous berries and like, oh, the tomatoes are okay, those
Speaker 2: ones are okay, those didn't. Like Carl's not.
Speaker 1: Asleep, Yes, sleeping, Carl was yes, long na, very long
Speaker 1: long time now exactly. Yeah, no, it is so interesting.
Speaker 1: And yeah, the the fact that it, of course, you know,
Speaker 1: we can't we would have to like depend on other
Speaker 1: humans to know if something is deadly to us, because
Speaker 1: things that are deadly to humans may not be deadly
Speaker 1: to some animals or vice versa. Like we might be
Speaker 1: able to tolerate things other animals or insects might perish from.
Speaker 1: And what's interesting to me like that that specificity of selecting, uh,
Speaker 1: the the animals that the plant might actually benefit from.
Speaker 1: So in the case of wild chilis and plants that
Speaker 1: have capt sation, it actually is something that doesn't impact birds,
Speaker 1: which is really interesting, Like any like if that bird
Speaker 1: had my mango slushy it would drink that down, no problem.
Speaker 1: It would laugh in my face because birds are not
Speaker 1: really impacted that spice, the hot spice. They lack the
Speaker 1: receptors that would cause that reaction, and while it would
Speaker 1: cause pain to another herb before the bird's okay. And
Speaker 1: the reason it's thought that plants have developed this relationship
Speaker 1: with birds where the birds can eat something no problem,
Speaker 1: and the plants have never really tried, well tried, they've
Speaker 1: never really evolved. A defense mechanism against the birds is
Speaker 1: that the birds are a great vehicle for distribution for
Speaker 1: their seeds. The birds, they don't really have gnashing teeth, right,
Speaker 1: so if they eat a fruit, they're going to swallow
Speaker 1: it hole. To a certain extent, there's a little bit
Speaker 1: of you know, rolling around in their gizzard and mashing
Speaker 1: it up with stones. But like you know, they are
Speaker 1: great for picking up seeds, eating the fruit. They digest
Speaker 1: the fruit, but the seeds survive through their digestive tract
Speaker 1: and then they fly off somewhere far away and they
Speaker 1: poop them out. And a great thing about that delivery
Speaker 1: mechanism is that a plant doesn't necessarily want all its
Speaker 1: babies all in the same location because they are all
Speaker 1: competing for the sun, they're all competing for nutrients. You
Speaker 1: want some dispersion of plants, otherwise they're not as likely
Speaker 1: to survive.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, and we see that with a lot of plants.
Speaker 2: There is a native plant in my area called the
Speaker 2: Yopon holly and the leaves actually we were talking about
Speaker 2: caffeine earlier, have caffeine in them, and so the native
Speaker 2: indigenous people of my area as well as cowboys that
Speaker 2: lived in this area would make tea and coffee like
Speaker 2: they call the cowboy coffee that they would make out
Speaker 2: of the leaves and it was mildly caffeinated. And urbamate
Speaker 2: comes from a similar plant. But the scientific name of
Speaker 2: this plant is Ilex vomitoria for a reason. Has these
Speaker 2: bright red pretty berries that are you know, colorful through
Speaker 2: the winter. So a lot of people would try to
Speaker 2: forage on them because it was the only thing that
Speaker 2: was you know, ripe during the winter months in this area.
Speaker 2: And they will ruin your day. Won't kill you, but
Speaker 2: you'll have a bad couple of days. Yeah. But birds,
Speaker 2: their metabolism is immune, and so they'll spread those seeds
Speaker 2: far and wide, and you know, those relationships are really
Speaker 2: just again very very interesting and reproductive strategies and plants
Speaker 2: and dispersal strategies and plants are so weird in a
Speaker 2: lot of ways, and they've evolved to be so bizarre
Speaker 2: from like a animal perspective that they don't look like
Speaker 2: I think a lot of us think they should sometimes
Speaker 2: but it's like no bird, please eat this, please fly away,
Speaker 2: go somewhere else.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, the sort of I mean, obviously, a single
Speaker 1: plant is not making a plan, it's not deciding to
Speaker 1: have these things happen. But I think it's it's really
Speaker 1: interesting when you think about, like the almost like the
Speaker 1: fact that plants have developed these evolutionary strategies that are
Speaker 1: actually really clever. It's it kind of shifts your perspective
Speaker 1: on like, plants aren't just like these inert, passive things
Speaker 1: when it comes to evolution. They are responding to their environment,
Speaker 1: albeit slowly, right Like an individual plant may take along
Speaker 1: a lot longer than you know an animal to respond
Speaker 1: to its environment. Although some plants do have the ability
Speaker 1: to like clam closed or flick something off, kick something
Speaker 1: with a little trigger, which I always find fun to
Speaker 1: see these plants that have those sort of like explosive triggers.
Speaker 1: But yeah, it over a really long time scale. In
Speaker 1: terms of evolution, they're very actively they're very actively adapting
Speaker 1: to their environment, and they are interacting with animals, sometimes
Speaker 1: aggressively and sometimes cooperatively for sure.
Speaker 2: And just as a quick sidebar, and I just thought
Speaker 2: of this as we were talking. We were talking about
Speaker 2: breeding efforts and all that, and solinaceous plants and plants
Speaker 2: in the Sulinacy genus in dealing with climate change. We're
Speaker 2: noticing that some of our staple crops like tomatoes and
Speaker 2: egg plants and a few other things are struggling a
Speaker 2: lot more. The pollen grains d nature over a certain
Speaker 2: temperature and so we don't set fruit as well all that,
Speaker 2: so we're trying to figure out how to make them
Speaker 2: more heat tolerant. There is a closely related plant in
Speaker 2: the same genus, the Solanum genus, called silver leaf night shade.
Speaker 2: It's like a common weed around here. It's a perennial
Speaker 2: weed with like super poisonous little berries, so good, but
Speaker 2: it'll take incredibly extreme temperatures like one hundred and fifty
Speaker 2: degrees fahrenheit. It'll still set flowers and fruit like credible temperatures.
Speaker 2: So they're trying to breed some of that heat tolerance
Speaker 2: back into eggplants, just as you know, some trials. Uh,
Speaker 2: and they keep just coming up with poisonous egg plants. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's what I thought might which is, you know, objectively
Speaker 2: pretty funny.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Uh, not great in terms of what we're trying to do,
Speaker 2: but uh, some of these efforts take time, and there's
Speaker 2: so many like specific things, and like passing on some
Speaker 2: of these traits can be so difficult. Like I think
Speaker 2: we'll get there, uh, but we just need to make
Speaker 2: sure we don't put out a whole bunch of poisonous plants.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, it's a tall order, I think, to try
Speaker 1: to quickly adapt plants for our broken planet when it
Speaker 1: took us so many years just to like make an
Speaker 1: edible broccoli. You know, you don't. You don't turn a
Speaker 1: wolf into a dog in like a day. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it takes a minute. It's I mean, it's
Speaker 1: not impossible, but it's tricky for sure. Uh, And there's
Speaker 1: gonna you know, there's always these unexpected consequences of fiddling
Speaker 1: with a sort of these selective adaptations, which are always
Speaker 1: fun for Carl to discover when he has to taste
Speaker 1: the egg plant.
Speaker 2: Yep, yep for Carl or Carl.
Speaker 1: Well, we're going to take a quick break, but when
Speaker 1: we get back, we're going to talk about plants out
Speaker 1: smarting their enemies. So we are back, and like we
Speaker 1: kind of were talking about before, it's sort of hard
Speaker 1: to imagine a plant being clever or smart due to
Speaker 1: the lack of brains or central nervous system, Like, is
Speaker 1: there any is there really like anything to plants that
Speaker 1: is sensory? Can they respond to their environment in any way?
Speaker 2: They respond to their environment in a lot of ways,
Speaker 2: and we're finding out through more and more research that
Speaker 2: they respond in ways that we didn't really like attribute
Speaker 2: to them. So you know, the biggest one is light. Right,
Speaker 2: Like light, it drives the way that they grow, the
Speaker 2: directions they grow. They respond to gravity, they respond to temperature,
Speaker 2: and they can sort of adjust their metabolism in response
Speaker 2: to that. For example, when it starts getting towards fall
Speaker 2: and the days get shorter, they get less sunlight, the
Speaker 2: temperatures get cooler, they'll change some of the chemical structure
Speaker 2: in the sugars that they're putting out to help winerize themselves,
Speaker 2: or the chlorophyll will drain out of the leaves and
Speaker 2: we see these other pigments that give us like pretty
Speaker 2: fall colors, and so that's definitely a response to the environment.
Speaker 2: We also see something interesting when plants are grown in competition.
Speaker 2: Have you ever heard the term crown shyness?
Speaker 1: No, I haven't.
Speaker 2: So if you look at so if you were to
Speaker 2: stand in a mature forest, a deciduous forest, and look up,
Speaker 2: you know where you would think that all the trees
Speaker 2: would grow together, you'll actually see gaps between them where
Speaker 2: the crowns of these trees are trying not to touch
Speaker 2: each other, and it looks really cool from above. I've
Speaker 2: seen some like drone and aerial footage of like gaps
Speaker 2: like lines and gaps between trees. And some of the
Speaker 2: mechanisms for that is they you know, blow into each
Speaker 2: other and little twigs get broken off and they grow
Speaker 2: in different directions and things like that. But there have
Speaker 2: been a couple studies that suggest that while like leaves
Speaker 2: on trees or leaves on plants mostly absorb red and
Speaker 2: blue light, a little bit of yellow and reflect mostly green,
Speaker 2: they still do have receptors in some of these pigments
Speaker 2: that will absorb green light, and it's thought, and again
Speaker 2: this is a little bit hard to prove that they
Speaker 2: can quote unquote sort of see each other. And so
Speaker 2: green light reflecting off the leaves of one plant bounce
Speaker 2: into the receptors of another plant at a certain like frequency,
Speaker 2: as certain intensity, and the plant can kind of detect, oh,
Speaker 2: there's another plant over here, I should put more into
Speaker 2: growing away from it. And so there's these complex mechanisms
Speaker 2: that they respond to each other. But then also things
Speaker 2: like organic compounds floating in the air. Tomatoes tomatoes, if
Speaker 2: you've ever grown tomatoes, they have a really really specific smell,
Speaker 2: like they nothing really smells like a tomato plant.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's not tomatoes or tomato sauce doesn't really smell
Speaker 1: like a tomato plant. Tomato plant. I really love the
Speaker 1: smell of a tomato plant, by the way, but it
Speaker 1: is different. It's like it is.
Speaker 2: It's really and it's really an interesting, unique smell. But
Speaker 2: they have these little hairs on them called tricomes that
Speaker 2: have a little bulb on the end, and when you
Speaker 2: brush against them, those bulbs explode and releases release these
Speaker 2: volatile organic compounds into the air, which other tomato plants
Speaker 2: can detect and start producing defense compounds against herbivory. So like,
Speaker 2: if a caterpillar is chewing on tomato plant A, it'll
Speaker 2: release these compounds into the air that other plants in
Speaker 2: the community can detect, and they'll start sort of like
Speaker 2: circling the wagons, so to speak, before they're preyed upon. Also,
Speaker 2: some of the predators of caterpillars and herbivores can detect
Speaker 2: these compounds, so like wasps will come in and start
Speaker 2: feeding on caterpillars or some birds I believe can detect it,
Speaker 2: and they'll come and start picking things off.
Speaker 1: So these are the evolutionary snitch technique.
Speaker 2: That's exactly right. They call in reinforcements, they cry for help,
Speaker 2: and it's again this complex sort of communication web, which
Speaker 2: we don't really attribute to plants very often. Yeah, because
Speaker 2: they're not, like, they don't have mouths, which I think
Speaker 2: I'm happy about. I don't really want to know what.
Speaker 1: They have to say, but I just don't want to
Speaker 1: see a pair of lips on a plant, honestly. But no,
Speaker 1: I mean, I agree, I think that we underestimate plants.
Speaker 1: You know, obviously a lot of These reactions are not
Speaker 1: you know, an indivi plant thinking it through, but when
Speaker 1: you zoom out on an evolutionary scale, it's really really clever.
Speaker 1: What these plants have, you know, over many years of
Speaker 1: evolution come up with so speaking of being mean to
Speaker 1: caterpillars because hey, I love plants, so I love bullying
Speaker 1: a caterpillar. Because caterpillars are sure, they're cute. I mean,
Speaker 1: some are a little bit gross, but they are a
Speaker 1: larva and their whole thing is to eat as much
Speaker 1: as they possibly can. They are just like tubes with
Speaker 1: a mouth and a butt and a desire to consume
Speaker 1: the world because they need I mean pretty much just
Speaker 1: with extra details. So they need all of that energy
Speaker 1: to fuel a transformation from the caterpillar form into a
Speaker 1: moth or butterfly. It's a costly transformation, so they need
Speaker 1: to consume a lot of food and they can absolutely
Speaker 1: decimate a plant. And what's especially obnoxious for plants is
Speaker 1: the fact that butterflies and moths will often intentionally lay
Speaker 1: their eggs on their plant of choice to set up
Speaker 1: they're young with basically a plant trust fund. So they
Speaker 1: hatched and it's like great, I'm already sitting on food
Speaker 1: and then they eat that whole plant. So some plants
Speaker 1: have developed a very clever defense. So the passion flower
Speaker 1: is like, it's actually a whole genus of beautiful flowers.
Speaker 1: They're almost like hypnotizingly beautiful.
Speaker 2: Strange.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, they look like they are some kind of
Speaker 1: alien eyeball. It's really beautiful. It's just like wavy sunbursts.
Speaker 1: Some are like this vibrant purple, some are these bright reds.
Speaker 1: They're mostly found in Central and South America. They're also
Speaker 1: found in Mexico and the US. And the Heliconis butterfly
Speaker 1: genus is just as beautiful. It's got these beautiful black,
Speaker 1: yellow and orange wings and it is also found in
Speaker 1: the passion flowers territory. So we've got a little bit
Speaker 1: of conflict, a little bit of tension here. So these butterflies,
Speaker 1: despite being vicious plant murderers, are actually really good parents.
Speaker 1: They want their babies set up for a good future.
Speaker 1: So if they spot a plant that's already laden with
Speaker 1: butterfly eggs, they'll actually move on because they don't want
Speaker 1: their babies to have to compete with other caterpillars. It's
Speaker 1: kind of like how plants like to disperse their seeds
Speaker 1: because they don't want their I mean want quote unquote,
Speaker 1: it is not advantageous for their offspring to have to
Speaker 1: compete with other plants. In the same way, it's not
Speaker 1: advantageous for these butterfly offspring to have to compete with
Speaker 1: other offsprings. So the better strategy is to wait until
Speaker 1: you find a plant that doesn't have these eggs. So
Speaker 1: some species of fash and flower have developed a strategy
Speaker 1: of mimicking the presence of butterfly eggs with bumps on
Speaker 1: their leaves. So from what I can tell, it seems
Speaker 1: like these are essentially like these sort of swollen glands
Speaker 1: that are on the leaves and they they're like they're
Speaker 1: three dimensional bumps that kind of look like an egg
Speaker 1: has been laid there, and.
Speaker 2: It's yeah, and it's if you look at it, it
Speaker 2: really does look like little clusters of butterfly eggs or
Speaker 2: you know, caterpillar eggs. However, you want to kind of
Speaker 2: cut that, and they tend to lay them these neat
Speaker 2: little rows in these little clusters, and that is what
Speaker 2: the plant has figured. I mean, again, we talk about
Speaker 2: we anthropomorphize a lot when it's hard.
Speaker 1: Not to it is, it's really hard not to. I
Speaker 1: even do it with my houseplants. I like talk to them.
Speaker 1: I know that talking to them isn't actually helping them,
Speaker 1: Like there's that whole thing of like, oh, you talk
Speaker 1: to your plants, it's good for them. It's that's not exactly.
Speaker 1: You'd have to be huffing on them a whole lot
Speaker 1: for them to notice the co two you're producing. But
Speaker 1: I still do it because I love them. It's just
Speaker 1: so hard not to anthropomorphize plants, especially when they're so
Speaker 1: smart like this one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know, and I actually have a theory
Speaker 2: about the talking year plants thing. I think, you know,
Speaker 2: as humans will pack bond with literally anything. Yes, Like
Speaker 2: I've got googly eyes on all like half of my
Speaker 2: plants back here so I can talk to them. But
Speaker 2: I think subconsciously we probably care for things better when
Speaker 2: we anthropomorphize them a little bit, when we give them
Speaker 2: personalities and names and stuff, and so that's you know,
Speaker 2: I think it's more in us thing than the plants thing,
Speaker 2: which is to me kind of fascinating.
Speaker 1: We're projecting onto them probably like all my plants personalities
Speaker 1: are probably my untreated issues that I have but anyways, moving.
Speaker 2: On anyway, Yeah, but now there are just really ingenious,
Speaker 2: clever strategies, and I think that you know, over time
Speaker 2: we discover more and more and more of these, and
Speaker 2: as our world sort of changes around them, we see
Speaker 2: new things popping up and new responses to things that
Speaker 2: we put into the environment and all of that, and
Speaker 2: that it kind of blows my mind that, yes, plants
Speaker 2: do adapt on a grand scale fairly slowly, but when
Speaker 2: we really push them evolutionarily, like, they'll adapt pretty quick.
Speaker 2: Their genomes are so flexible. They have you know, every
Speaker 2: single plant cell has all its DNA, so it can
Speaker 2: be any plant cell. And because of that, they have
Speaker 2: this really swift adaptation at times to different things. And
Speaker 2: again they just need the right push and they kind
Speaker 2: of start figuring things out, so to speak.
Speaker 1: Can you think of an example of plants adapting to
Speaker 1: sort of human influence and not like not our sort
Speaker 1: of selective unnatural selection of plants, but a wild plant
Speaker 1: sort of I know, I don't want to put you
Speaker 1: on the spot, but like a wild plant adapting to
Speaker 1: sort of human influence environmental changes, so.
Speaker 2: You know, evolutionarily, I don't know specifically, but I think
Speaker 2: often of plants that if even if they're not like
Speaker 2: actively adapting the things, they're taking advantage of human intervention.
Speaker 2: So a great example is a plant called kudzuo, which
Speaker 2: is this super aggressive vining plant that they planted throughout
Speaker 2: the southeastern US and I believe it's I'm probably going
Speaker 2: to be wrong about this. It's I believe it's native
Speaker 2: to parts of South America. Really aggressive, grows on hillsides,
Speaker 2: and they planted it throughout Georgia and the American southeast
Speaker 2: for soil conservation. So they were like, oh, this grows fast,
Speaker 2: it grows lots of roots. We can plant it on
Speaker 2: a hillside. The hillsides won't slide into our cities anymore,
Speaker 2: which is if you are someone who enjoys cities, having
Speaker 2: mountains not end up in the middle of it is
Speaker 2: usually useful. But this, yeah, this plant though, is so
Speaker 2: aggressive outside of its native habitat, where you know it
Speaker 2: has some checks and balances from herbivy and different things
Speaker 2: that like you can look at six month time lapses
Speaker 2: of like houses disappearing and like telephone poles just looking
Speaker 2: like trees just covered in kudzoo, and they're so adept
Speaker 2: to growing on anything like even porous like brick, or
Speaker 2: like they grow on trees natively, so they'll grow up
Speaker 2: telephone poles and cover wires. So you know, it's not
Speaker 2: necessarily that they have evolved that rapidly to overcome some things.
Speaker 2: But they're just so well adapted to some of the
Speaker 2: regions where we throw them that they're like, oh, yeah, no,
Speaker 2: this is great. I'll grow everywhere and you can't stop me.
Speaker 1: The unstoppable plant. I wonder why we haven't had a
Speaker 1: horror movie about Kadzoo.
Speaker 2: It seems like other should be.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, I mean like winds, because we did have
Speaker 1: We had the happening, but I feel like that wasn't
Speaker 1: as exciting as like a vine that grows so fast
Speaker 1: it can just devour you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, if your dog stands still too long. Yeah, you know.
Speaker 2: Actually a better example probably in it's not something that
Speaker 2: we have purposefully selected for, but we're seeing wild populations
Speaker 2: of plants developing lots of herbicide resistance in agricultural lands,
Speaker 2: so where we go out and we spray herbicides to
Speaker 2: like control weeds in our field, keep our fields clean
Speaker 2: and all of that. You know, any kind of chemical
Speaker 2: intervention selects for resistant populations. Right, if you're not getting
Speaker 2: rid of every individual, the ones that survive in general
Speaker 2: have resistance, and that's why we have or can develop resistance.
Speaker 2: Like that's where we're seeing like you know, antibiotic resistant
Speaker 2: staphylococcus and all these other things. So we have an
Speaker 2: amaranth it's called palmer amaranth that's a really common like
Speaker 2: agricultural weed out in our part of the country here
Speaker 2: in the US, and some of the common herbicides that
Speaker 2: have been used over the past thirty years through like
Speaker 2: bad application practice, overuse, all of these things, we have
Speaker 2: populations of this weed now or this plant weed is
Speaker 2: sort of a loaded, you know, stigmatized subjective kind of term. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but we've got populations of this plant that are almost
Speaker 2: completely resistant to these herbicides that just worked a decade ago,
Speaker 2: and now you can't control them in a lot of
Speaker 2: our fields, and they're crossing out with wild populations. And
Speaker 2: we're seeing a lot of those types of problems with
Speaker 2: really aggressive plants, maybe introduced plants that are starting to
Speaker 2: move into and cause problems in native ecosystems. And so
Speaker 2: that is I mean, that's pretty rapid adaptation and evolution
Speaker 2: over ten twenty years of just hard selecting for resistant populations.
Speaker 1: So what you're saying is we are breeding an army
Speaker 1: of unstoppable superplants that should have a grudge against us
Speaker 1: because we did try to kill them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, no, and yeah. And they'll play you know,
Speaker 2: ads for chemical companies as propaganda if they ever become sentient,
Speaker 2: that'll just be in a loop somewhere.
Speaker 1: Well, we're going to take a quick break and when
Speaker 1: we get back, we're going to kind of change gears
Speaker 1: to friendship. So we are back, and you know, this
Speaker 1: podcast we talk about a lot of grim stuff. We
Speaker 1: talk about a lot of you know, animals eating animals,
Speaker 1: plants eating animals, animals eating plants. But what about friendship?
Speaker 1: Is their room for friendship? Absolutely yes, So I think
Speaker 1: that sometimes the best defense is good friendship. And for plants,
Speaker 1: this makes a lot of sense because they don't have jaws,
Speaker 1: they don't have legs, they don't have arms, they can't
Speaker 1: just like punch a goat in the face. So who
Speaker 1: can protect them? Well, they can make friends with an
Speaker 1: animal perhaps who has something in it for them, Right,
Speaker 1: Like in most cases when you have a friendship between
Speaker 1: one species and another, even if it crosses kingdoms, you
Speaker 1: need to provide some benefit for the other. So some
Speaker 1: plants will team up with ants who can protect their
Speaker 1: new plant friend from herbivorous insects and even even herbivorous mammals.
Speaker 1: So the deal works like this. So the plant will
Speaker 1: offer the ant some tasty nectar, and so the ants
Speaker 1: they're happy they have a good thing going here and
Speaker 1: will defensively attack any insects trying to bite their sugar planty.
Speaker 1: And basically the plants will pay the ants in nectar
Speaker 1: maybe refuge in exchange for protection, which is you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's a little bit like the ants are
Speaker 1: a mafia, but it's also you know, kind of a
Speaker 1: fun mafia situation.
Speaker 2: Acute yeah, yeah, acute mafia. And that is such a
Speaker 2: fascinating relationship because I mean, ants are intelligent, organized little insects,
Speaker 2: at least at a sort of you know, population level,
Speaker 2: a colony kind of works together, and I mean, it's
Speaker 2: amazing what ants will do. But we see this a
Speaker 2: lot on like acacia trees. We see it on mesquite trees,
Speaker 2: which your native to Texas where I live. And so
Speaker 2: you'll be walking around and you'll just see these trees
Speaker 2: covered with ants, and the ants are going after these
Speaker 2: extra floral nectaries which come out of leaves in different places,
Speaker 2: and yeah, the plant pays them in in sugar water essentially.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love acacia trees actually, so like bullhorn Acacia trees,
Speaker 1: which are found mostly in Central America, have definitely developed
Speaker 1: a strong friendship with ants. So they attract ant queens
Speaker 1: with their scent, and ant queen will take up residents.
Speaker 1: Actually inside the it's called bullhorn because it has like
Speaker 1: these two little like double horn thorns. They're not they're
Speaker 1: not little thorns. They're like big gnarly horns like you
Speaker 1: could you could die if you fall on one, but
Speaker 1: they're actually hollow and inside of these horns the ants
Speaker 1: can take up residents. And so it's like these little
Speaker 1: barracks for all these ants to live in, and throughout
Speaker 1: the tree there's all sorts of sets of these horns.
Speaker 1: It's very metal to like house your army inside bullhorns
Speaker 1: that are also very pointy and sharp and.
Speaker 2: Stabby, giant hollow needles full of ants. That's a there's
Speaker 2: another nightmare for you.
Speaker 1: And so these ants will protect the acacia bullhorn acacia,
Speaker 1: and they will actually attack other plants that try to
Speaker 1: grow over the acacia. So sometimes you have plants versus animals,
Speaker 1: but sometimes you have plants versus plants like vines. Invasive
Speaker 1: vines like the kudzu that you talked about, can be
Speaker 1: bad news for a plant. It's actually sort of a
Speaker 1: parasitic relationship because the vine will climb the plant, use
Speaker 1: the plant as a structure to get sunlight, to get
Speaker 1: more resources. Some plants actually like directly steal nutrients from
Speaker 1: their host plant, so it's a bad situation. But the
Speaker 1: ants will actually attack any vines trying to grow on
Speaker 1: their beloved acacia tree. They will also sting herbivorous mammals
Speaker 1: these huge things, right, Like, what can you do as
Speaker 1: a plant against a big mammal trying to eat you. Well,
Speaker 1: you got a little lant, buddy, and it's got a
Speaker 1: very very painful sting, and it'll attack anything trying to
Speaker 1: chomp down on it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, just so fascinating. And I've always thought it's interesting
Speaker 2: that ants will do that with aphids too. So on
Speaker 2: the other side of this relationship, they'll protect a fids.
Speaker 2: They farm aphids, which is the weirdest thing to think of.
Speaker 1: So cute I think it is. I mean, like it's
Speaker 1: a little gross, right, because aphids like instead of melking them,
Speaker 1: they sort of like squeeze out sugary substance called honeydew
Speaker 1: from their butts and the ants slurp it up. But
Speaker 1: you know, it's kind of cute. It's a little bit
Speaker 1: cute because basically ants are farmers. They have these little
Speaker 1: little a fids. They also farm scale insects. Those scale
Speaker 1: insects are these peny tiny insects that look like little
Speaker 1: barnacles almost. They're actually not great for plants or like
Speaker 1: the Bulbornicacia, because they'll stick on to the leaves or
Speaker 1: the you know, twigs, and they will suck out sap.
Speaker 1: But the ants will actually milk the scale insects for
Speaker 1: their honey, do that sugary substance and will protect the
Speaker 1: scale insects. So it's kind of something where the ants
Speaker 1: may be simultaneously protecting this tree but also doing a
Speaker 1: little farming, and that farming of the scale insects isn't
Speaker 1: great for the tree, but on average, the ants do
Speaker 1: more benefit for the tree then they harm the tree,
Speaker 1: So it works out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, industrious little things, aren't they.
Speaker 1: Yes, I like though that they you know, because farming,
Speaker 1: you could do farming where you're protecting the land and
Speaker 1: respet afecting your environment, which is not something that humans
Speaker 1: often have in modern history. Were not great at that.
Speaker 1: But you know, these little ants they've got it figured out.
Speaker 1: They can farm on the tree but also protect the tree.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's pretty cool.
Speaker 1: It's very cool. I really love these relationships between the
Speaker 1: plants and these ants. It's just it's like, I imagine them
Speaker 1: having this beautiful friendship, this little ant society that loves
Speaker 1: their tree. Uh. There was that movie about it. I
Speaker 1: think it was called Avatar, and it was all about
Speaker 1: the ant colony. But they were big and they were blue,
Speaker 1: and they lived in a magical tree and yeah.
Speaker 2: They controlled like sky dragons with their hair. I don't know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was it was very accurate to the.
Speaker 2: World of ants. Yeah, I think it was a documentary.
Speaker 1: Actually, Yeah, I do feel somewhat cheated out of getting
Speaker 1: a really good ant movie that first of all, all
Speaker 1: the ants that do anything are always dudes, which sucks,
Speaker 1: it's not true. Yeah, and also like the just showing
Speaker 1: ants at like a realistic movie showing them like farming
Speaker 1: and cultivating and protecting trees, and that would be great.
Speaker 2: Come on, guys, yeah, I would watch that. I want
Speaker 2: to see that.
Speaker 1: I yes, see, you've already got two viewers, Hollywood, get
Speaker 1: on that.
Speaker 2: That's all you need, right.
Speaker 1: I I completely agree. Well, is there anything else that
Speaker 1: you want people to know about plants and how they
Speaker 1: are not as helpless as we think?
Speaker 2: Oh gosh, so many things you know, from like we
Speaker 2: were talking about different types of thorns and spines and
Speaker 2: like physical defenses, and sometimes they combine the two. Sometimes
Speaker 2: they fill their spines with ants. You know. I just
Speaker 2: think that, you know, plants are nothing if not survivors
Speaker 2: on this planet. They sort of form and I like
Speaker 2: to think about it that plants are both at the
Speaker 2: bottom end at the top of our food webs. You know,
Speaker 2: they are food for, either directly or indirectly pretty much
Speaker 2: all life on the planet. But then at the end
Speaker 2: of the day, they're nutrient cyclers as well. They're just
Speaker 2: really patient. As things break down in the soil, they
Speaker 2: turn them into more plants, and you know, the cycle continues.
Speaker 2: And I think that I like to say that plants
Speaker 2: always win in the end, they just they just have
Speaker 2: a lot of patients one way or the other.
Speaker 1: That seems menacing. It sounds like when the super plant
Speaker 1: uprising that we have inadvertently bred with our herbicides.
Speaker 2: You're gonna be on they're ready for us.
Speaker 1: You're going to be on the plant side, Like are
Speaker 1: you a plant? Are you a plant? Plant?
Speaker 2: You'll never know. I'll never tell, But no, I think
Speaker 2: it's it's just for me. It's just such a cool
Speaker 2: picture of you know, all these relations just we've been
Speaker 2: talking about, plus so many more positive ones of you know,
Speaker 2: how plants respond to different insects, both in a friendly
Speaker 2: sort of way and in a defensive sort of way.
Speaker 2: It it shows me pictures of things that are fascinating
Speaker 2: and worth protecting and worth maintaining. So I think the
Speaker 2: more people learn about how complicated these relationships are and
Speaker 2: how susceptible they can be to you know, climate change
Speaker 2: and things like that should be encouragement for us to
Speaker 2: do better and keep finding new things and keep protecting
Speaker 2: these things.
Speaker 1: I absolutely agree. I think that plants are sometimes overlooked
Speaker 1: when we think about like protecting the environment, because a
Speaker 1: panda bear that's really cute and cuddly, and we want
Speaker 1: to protect it. A koala, Hey that's huggable. It's really not.
Speaker 1: It would rip your face off, but we think it's
Speaker 1: We think it's huggable.
Speaker 2: They look cuddly, they.
Speaker 1: Do cuddly until you hear them scream. But yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean it is something I think that is really important
Speaker 1: to you know, really appreciate plants as Hey, we would
Speaker 1: not be here without plants at It's just what it
Speaker 1: wouldn't happen. It's where we live, it's how we eat,
Speaker 1: it's how we breathe, it's everything. And they're not They're
Speaker 1: not just passively sitting there. They are actively adapting. They
Speaker 1: have amazing adaptations. They respond to their environments. So even
Speaker 1: though this podcast is typically animal themed, I am very
Speaker 1: much pro plant and I will immediately surrender the plant uprising.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah no, I'm not fighting them. I'll just I'll
Speaker 2: welcome our new overlords.
Speaker 1: Well, on that note, before we go, we've got to
Speaker 1: play a little game, and that game is called Gifts.
Speaker 1: Who's Squawking the Mystery Animal Sound Game? Every week I
Speaker 1: play a mystery animal sound and you the listener, and
Speaker 1: you the gifts, try to guess who is making that sound.
Speaker 1: Last week hint was this this little guy isn't happy
Speaker 1: about being put in the discount beIN.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna be real bad at this.
Speaker 1: To be fair, I don't think I would get this
Speaker 1: one if I hadn't, if I didn't do this myself.
Speaker 2: Uh all right, I'm gonna guess, did you said discount Ben,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna say, hamster.
Speaker 1: You're close, sort of close. This is actually budgets frog.
Speaker 1: Congratulations to Auntie Bee, Joey P, and Violta F who
Speaker 1: all guess correctly. It is a species of frog that
Speaker 1: is often kept as a pet, and it is notable
Speaker 1: or being a squat little guy who's very weird looking.
Speaker 2: I identify strongly with that squat little guy who's weird
Speaker 2: looking now in my head because you said I was close.
Speaker 2: Like hamsters are just amphibious frog or like frogs are
Speaker 2: amphibious hamsters, Yeah, pretty much for me.
Speaker 1: I mean hamsters. They have these cheek pouches where they
Speaker 1: can stick anything in their mouth indiscriminately, and frogs will
Speaker 1: also put anything in their mouths indiscriminately. It's you know,
Speaker 1: they could be friends if probably they didn't try like
Speaker 1: eating each other, which I show. I imagine a frog
Speaker 1: comes up to a hamster and is trying to get
Speaker 1: that hamster into its mouth, while the hamster is trying
Speaker 1: to get the frog into its mouth in sort of
Speaker 1: a oraboros type fashion. But yeah, this is found in Bolivia, Argentina, Paraguay.
Speaker 1: But yeah, it is kept as pets, which you know,
Speaker 1: I don't think this is the worst of the pets,
Speaker 1: of the exotic pets, but I'm something of the opinion
Speaker 1: that it's it's tricky. I think to keep a frog
Speaker 1: make it happy. It's also called the Freddy Krueger frog.
Speaker 1: I think that's because its skin is kind of pale
Speaker 1: and it screams. I'm not really sure why it's called that,
Speaker 1: how many people even call it that, or if it's
Speaker 1: just like fans of the frog.
Speaker 2: See I'm having the oh wow, that is not what
Speaker 2: I expected this guy to look like. It is Wednesday,
Speaker 2: my dudes.
Speaker 1: It is the Wednesday my Dude's frog. Okay, okay, there
Speaker 1: is a meme call it It's Wednesday, my dudes, and
Speaker 1: it's a little frog saying it's Wednesday, my dudes. You
Speaker 1: know Internet humor.
Speaker 2: I'm glad to know that this guy exists.
Speaker 1: But yeah, they will just pretty much eat anything they want.
Speaker 1: They will. They're quite aggressive, thus the extremely shrill and
Speaker 1: angry squeaking they will. They will puff themselves up. They
Speaker 1: will eat other frogs if they can fit them in
Speaker 1: their mouths. Pretty much anything that goes in their mouths
Speaker 1: they will eat. Even as tadpoles. They will try to
Speaker 1: eat each other. They're kind of baby cannibals, so that's fun.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I.
Speaker 1: Always love a baby cannibal. On to this week's mystery
Speaker 1: animal sound. This hollering little fella may not sniff so
Speaker 1: many butts, but it does love digging. Hello, so it
Speaker 1: is not the man saying hello, good morning.
Speaker 2: That's Carl.
Speaker 1: That's Carl. Hi, Carl, thanks for writing all those deadly
Speaker 1: nightshade plans for us. Do you have any guesses?
Speaker 2: I think I actually know what this is. I think
Speaker 2: that is a praank.
Speaker 1: You are absolutely correct. Unfortunately, I'm gonna have to bleep
Speaker 1: out your answers so our listeners can't cheat, but they
Speaker 1: will know that you guess correctly. Congratulations, it's as I
Speaker 1: think you know who was making that adorable little You
Speaker 1: can write to me at Creature feature Pod at gmail
Speaker 1: dot com uh, doctor Boliga, where can people find you?
Speaker 1: You were so lovely to have on the show.
Speaker 2: Oh it was so much fun. I really enjoyed this.
Speaker 2: I am all over the internet for better or worse.
Speaker 2: You can find me at the Plant prof on Instagram, Twitter,
Speaker 2: or TikTok, and you can also find my podcast Planthropology
Speaker 2: on Instagram, in Twitter and Facebook.
Speaker 1: I try so hard to avoid TikTok, but I have
Speaker 1: to admit your plant videos are one of the only
Speaker 1: things I do not avoid that I must consume. I
Speaker 1: love I love them so much. I also love the
Speaker 1: debunking of DIY plants. Thanks.
Speaker 2: I will never know case on the internet.
Speaker 1: So you mean, if like I hack up a plant
Speaker 1: and then shove that plant inside a banana peel, I
Speaker 1: won't get a beautiful bush.
Speaker 2: You know you'll get something probably fruitflies.
Speaker 1: Well at least I'm growing somebody. Well, thank you so
Speaker 1: much for joining me today, and thank you so much
Speaker 1: for listening. And hey, thanks to the Space Classics for
Speaker 1: their super awesome song Exo Lumina. Creature features a production
Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts like the one you just heard,
Speaker 1: visit the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcasts.
Speaker 2: Or Hey guess what.
Speaker 1: Wherever you listen to your favorite shows. I don't judge you.
Speaker 1: See you next Wednesday. M