Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, Chuck here, Happy Spring.
Speaker 2: And of course this is episode number two in our
Speaker 2: Think Spring Playlist Spring edition because of Spring, and so
Speaker 2: these are all spring centric because we love spring and
Speaker 2: you guys today the episode is Butterflies poland Caterpillars with
Speaker 2: Wings and there's nothing more spring I think we can
Speaker 2: agree than butterflies.
Speaker 1: So please enjoy cool.
Speaker 2: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 3: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's
Speaker 3: Chuck and Jerry's here too, and this is Stuff you
Speaker 3: Should Know, Part two of a one two punch of
Speaker 3: insect goodness.
Speaker 1: Yeah, caterpillars, hopefully you just listen to. If you didn't,
Speaker 1: you might want to because it really, you know, without caterpillar,
Speaker 1: there is no butterfly episode.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I feel like they could stand on their own, Like,
Speaker 3: I don't think you have to have listened to one
Speaker 3: to understand what we're going to talk about here.
Speaker 1: No, no, no, but you know we're probably gonna say
Speaker 1: when it comes time to talk about how the caterpillar
Speaker 1: turns into a butterfly, just go back in time to
Speaker 1: two days ago and listen to that one.
Speaker 3: Right, we'll be like.
Speaker 1: And Once again, we have to thank HowStuffWorks dot Com
Speaker 1: and our former and current colleague Tracy Wilson, as well
Speaker 1: as our former colleague not current, Jennifer Horton, wrote a
Speaker 1: fun piece about butterfly gardens that we're going to talk
Speaker 1: about at the end. But I forgot about Jennifer. You
Speaker 1: remember her?
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, she was great. She wrote lots of great stuff.
Speaker 3: She's a good person.
Speaker 1: So, Jennifer, I don't know if you're out there and listen,
Speaker 1: but Hi, Hi, it's been a while.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is like two thousand and eight or while. Well,
Speaker 3: So we're talking about butterflies and we should probably kind
Speaker 3: of pick up not where we left off, because we
Speaker 3: talked I think about caterpillars being pests at the end,
Speaker 3: or considered pests, but they're not really. Yeah, we should
Speaker 3: pick up after the caterpillar emerges from its chrysalis, because
Speaker 3: we're talking specifically about butterflies. So it's the chrysalis, not
Speaker 3: a cocoon that it metamorphosizes within, and once it emerges,
Speaker 3: it is a beautiful creature that resembles the caterpillar that
Speaker 3: it was almost not at all, but it's the same
Speaker 3: exact creature. It's got the same mind. It can remember
Speaker 3: smells and all that. But whereas the caterpillar was built
Speaker 3: for eating, I think we said it in the last
Speaker 3: episode too, the butterfly is built for sex, sex, sex.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're built for reproducing. Should we talk, I mean,
Speaker 1: should we go back in time just a little bit
Speaker 1: and talk about the fact that, like the distinction between
Speaker 1: moths and butterflies and stuff like that. Sure, well, what's
Speaker 1: the deal, wasn't it aren't moths and butterflies basically mostly
Speaker 1: the same except moths are they do their sex at
Speaker 1: night and butterflies do their sex in the day.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, there's there's not many distinctions between them
Speaker 3: other than like the obvious ones. But that's the biggest one.
Speaker 3: And the reason why butterflies are diurnal and moths are
Speaker 3: nocturnal is because all butterflies, I think, what is there
Speaker 3: like fifteen twenty thousand species of butterflies, A lot of them, Yeah,
Speaker 3: all of them are descended from moths. And these were
Speaker 3: just moths that started to do their thing in the
Speaker 3: daytime rather than the nighttime, and over time they evolved
Speaker 3: to fit in in the daytime rather than the nighttime,
Speaker 3: which is how moths evolved, So a moth's camouflage is
Speaker 3: meant to blend in with like a tree where it's
Speaker 3: sleeping during the day. Yeah, whereas a butterfly bright colored
Speaker 3: because it's out in the daytime and it needs to
Speaker 3: blend in with the big colorful flowers that it likes
Speaker 3: to hang out on.
Speaker 1: Do you know why I'm meant to look this up
Speaker 1: and didn't. Why then a moth is so attracted to light?
Speaker 3: I saw that they think that it is attracted to
Speaker 3: the moon for navigation. Oh okay, and that butterflies aren't
Speaker 3: attracted to light because they don't navigate by the moon.
Speaker 3: They lost that ability or that need.
Speaker 1: Well, butterflies navigate by the sun. That's one of the
Speaker 1: one of my amazing facts about butterflies.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but then that's weird that they don't fly to light,
Speaker 3: but they are not attracted to flames or light bulbs.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Oh, well, maybe they know sun is death.
Speaker 3: Yeah, whereas the moon is nice and cool.
Speaker 1: Should we talk about their bodies a little bit, because
Speaker 1: that's where we like to start off usually with our
Speaker 1: insect casts.
Speaker 3: One more thing, let's talk about where the word butterfly
Speaker 3: came from?
Speaker 1: Eh, where to come from Oh.
Speaker 3: Well, it's very old English and it means butter and
Speaker 3: f right. No real mystery there, but the reason they
Speaker 3: think there's two reasons why they are named butterflies in
Speaker 3: the Old English. And they think it's either because some
Speaker 3: of them are a pale yellow in color, so they
Speaker 3: resemble butter. We can pretty much discard that one. The
Speaker 3: other one is that there was a folk belief that
Speaker 3: they stole butter, that they were just kind of some
Speaker 3: sort of supernatural spirit in a butterfly form to come
Speaker 3: and steal your milk in your butter. And there's evidence
Speaker 3: of that in other nearby languages. I think the Germans
Speaker 3: called butterflies milk thieves.
Speaker 1: And butterfairy almost.
Speaker 3: Yes, And then the Dutch and the Germans have a
Speaker 3: word for butterfly that means butter witch. So that's probably
Speaker 3: why butterflies are called that, because they used to think
Speaker 3: that they stole butter.
Speaker 1: Well, you knew who it was the whole time. It
Speaker 1: was Grandpa Night eating.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he could get one cc of blood through those arteries.
Speaker 3: They were so clogged he was, he was on a.
Speaker 1: Does it does it say when the name morphed for
Speaker 1: my wife into flutterfly.
Speaker 3: Uh, they actually used to think or something like, it's
Speaker 3: a pretty strange idea that they're called butterflies rather than flutterbys,
Speaker 3: because that makes more sense. So Emily's kind of taking
Speaker 3: it in a much smarter direction. But it's interesting. She
Speaker 3: probably just doesn't know the fact that they're actually witches
Speaker 3: in disguise who are out to steal butter and milk.
Speaker 1: Yeah, she's always she still calls them butterflies.
Speaker 3: Just does she call spaghetti pasquetti?
Speaker 1: No? No, just fluterflies. Can we talk about their their
Speaker 1: bodies now?
Speaker 3: Yes? Yes, thank you for indulging me. I feel so indulged.
Speaker 1: Sure. So, like we mentioned, the head, the thorax, and
Speaker 1: the abdomen of the butterfly will look a lot like
Speaker 1: a caterpillar in some ways if you hold them up
Speaker 1: next to each other, and that's about it. For one,
Speaker 1: A butterfly can see a lot better then a caterpillar. Can.
Speaker 1: I get the idea that it still doesn't have like,
Speaker 1: you know, like great vision, but caterpillars, remember, we're essentially blind.
Speaker 1: Butterflies at least have these compound eyes and they can
Speaker 1: detect color. And I think we said the caterpillar could
Speaker 1: only see in black and white. They can detect movement
Speaker 1: as well. Right, But when it comes to like the
Speaker 1: star of the show, as far as butterfly parts go,
Speaker 1: it's those antennae.
Speaker 3: Well, hold on, before we move on, I've got one
Speaker 3: about the eyes too. Do you know the monarch butterfly
Speaker 3: like basically the quintessential butterfly. Sure, they have twelve thousand eyes,
Speaker 3: both compound and simple, and they go basically all the
Speaker 3: way around their head.
Speaker 1: It's a lot of eyes.
Speaker 3: They can see into your soul.
Speaker 1: And that's why they Maybe that's why they're so great,
Speaker 1: migrating every year such large numbers.
Speaker 3: Possibly. I think we talked about in our Animal Migration episode.
Speaker 3: We talked about monarch butterfly migration, and I think we
Speaker 3: said one of the reasons why they're able to make
Speaker 3: it from eastern Canada all the way down to northwest
Speaker 3: Mexico is because they are they navigate using UV they
Speaker 3: see in the UV.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's that it's that sun And that's kind of
Speaker 1: brings me back around to antennae. These things are amazing.
Speaker 1: They they get their sense of direction from the position
Speaker 1: of the sun, so they are literally navigating by the
Speaker 1: position of the sun at The antennae also act as
Speaker 1: light receptors, obviously to tract the sun. They're highly attuned
Speaker 1: to odors. Those antenna are great smellers. They sense pheromones
Speaker 1: during times of mating, and they can even sense these
Speaker 1: antennae the beat of wings of butterflies of the same
Speaker 1: species during amazing.
Speaker 3: Just the antennae, Just the antennae. How about the labial palps.
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, those are if you if you look at
Speaker 1: a close up of a butterfly, and they can take
Speaker 1: different positions, but usually I've seen them they look like
Speaker 1: kind of little hairy tusks coming out.
Speaker 3: Coming out of what chuck coming out of their their.
Speaker 1: Head well near the mouth parts.
Speaker 3: Yeaping thing. Okay, it's now officially a Tracy Wilson article.
Speaker 1: That's right.
Speaker 3: So they apparently are like this is food. This isn't food.
Speaker 3: This is food. But they don't eat with the labial palps.
Speaker 3: It's just a way of sensing food. What they eat
Speaker 3: with is their proboscis and that's the long kind of
Speaker 3: tongue like appendage that they suck nectar with.
Speaker 1: That's right, I got one more thing on the labial palps.
Speaker 3: So oh, okay, they.
Speaker 1: They've kind of surmised that it detects food. That the
Speaker 1: function was is fairly unknown, but I think they've learned
Speaker 1: I'm not sure how recently, that they can those labial
Speaker 1: palps detect CO two in the air. Oh, neat as well,
Speaker 1: and they think that might be the main function.
Speaker 3: Oh that's really cool.
Speaker 1: Who knows?
Speaker 3: So instead of seeing D or green, they have the
Speaker 3: labial palps that detect I guess CO two. That was
Speaker 3: a reference to our reality episode.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, So what part did you move to?
Speaker 3: I moved on to their proboscis.
Speaker 1: Oh, everyone loves a good prescos and the uh, the
Speaker 1: butterfly proboscos is interesting because when the butterfly comes out,
Speaker 1: and we'll talk about this morn in a second, it's
Speaker 1: almost like it should have a label that says some
Speaker 1: assembly required. Yeah, because they got to do some stuff
Speaker 1: before they can really do their butterfly thing. And one
Speaker 1: of those things is literally almost like screwing together their proboscis.
Speaker 3: Mm hmmm. Yeah. They have two parts of the proboscis
Speaker 3: that they have to connect in order to start eating.
Speaker 3: So that's one of the first things that they do
Speaker 3: when they e close from their.
Speaker 1: Chrysalis e close. It's a great name.
Speaker 3: Now it sounds like Apple has trademarked it or something.
Speaker 1: And we'll talk more about the proboscos as we go,
Speaker 1: but we do need to mention their leg If you remember,
Speaker 1: the caterpillars have six real legs and then a bunch
Speaker 1: of pro legs. The butterfly says, I don't need those
Speaker 1: pro legs anymore because I'm flying basically, but I've still
Speaker 1: got those six legs. I've got a set of four legs,
Speaker 1: some middle legs and some hind legs. And these things
Speaker 1: are pretty they're more than just legs as well, because
Speaker 1: they will land on something and they're looking for dissolving
Speaker 1: sugars basically to eat, and they're looking for that with
Speaker 1: their legs.
Speaker 3: Yeah. And also you'll probably see fairly commonly that there
Speaker 3: are some butterfly species that only have two pairs of legs,
Speaker 3: and that's not true. They actually have six, but one
Speaker 3: pair is basically shriveled almost to nothingness.
Speaker 1: And by the way, I should clear up when I
Speaker 1: say their legs are looking for dissolving sugars, they're not
Speaker 1: doing it by feel like they are taste organs in
Speaker 1: their feet.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they can taste through all sorts of different organs.
Speaker 3: It's pretty cool. They apparently when they're they step in
Speaker 3: some dissolving sugar, their proboscis uncoils involuntarily, like and it
Speaker 3: just starts sipping nectar immediately. Oh man, So you better
Speaker 3: hope that your your legs are finely attuned to sugar
Speaker 3: and you don't accidentally suck up some really gross stuff. Yeah,
Speaker 3: you know, like, oh it was puss, right.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, Oh, the worst word. It's the worst.
Speaker 3: It's pretty bad and hygenic utensil though.
Speaker 1: Like, what are the odds that one of the grossest
Speaker 1: things has the grossest word.
Speaker 3: I don't know. I wonder if that was intentional?
Speaker 1: Yeah, like, what is that?
Speaker 2: Ugh?
Speaker 1: Puss?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 1: Does that sound gross enough? Sure, let's go with it.
Speaker 3: Can we please stop talking about puss?
Speaker 1: Sure? Webster. The wings, We're going to talk about a lot.
Speaker 1: We did a whole episode on the iridescence of butterfly wings,
Speaker 1: so we're not going to really get into it here,
Speaker 1: but if you want to learn about yourridescence, it's very
Speaker 1: complex and complicated and deserved its own episode many years ago.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but the opshot is the structure of the scales.
Speaker 3: They're transparent, multi layered, and they reflect and amplify light
Speaker 3: multiple times. That was a really cool episode if I
Speaker 3: remember correctly.
Speaker 1: It was, and it was a tough one if I
Speaker 1: remember to absorb.
Speaker 3: Yes, but we did such a great job of it.
Speaker 3: I would like to say we probably just knocked it
Speaker 3: out the park. Really.
Speaker 1: I think so too. But the butterfly wings are made
Speaker 1: of it's transparents called kitan. If you've heard of kitenre,
Speaker 1: you're probably just alive on the earth because it is
Speaker 1: one of the most abundant polysaccharrides in nature. It's I
Speaker 1: think the second most abundant. It's all over the place.
Speaker 1: Their wings are made of that kitan, and they have
Speaker 1: those sort of vein like structures that you can if
Speaker 1: you look at their wings closely. Don't touch them though,
Speaker 1: please no, we talked about that in that episode. But
Speaker 1: they have those four wings that are obviously toward the
Speaker 1: front and they are basically triangular, and then the hind
Speaker 1: wings toward the butt, and they kind of look like
Speaker 1: little seashells.
Speaker 3: Yes, And they're like you said, don't touch them. They're
Speaker 3: very very delicate, and those veins are species specific, so
Speaker 3: that's one of the ways that they use to recognize
Speaker 3: one another when they're mating as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think butterflies cannot repair their wings, isn't
Speaker 1: that correct?
Speaker 3: Yes, they have no means of doing that. They have
Speaker 3: no car shield for wings.
Speaker 1: But I don't think it kills them. But if a
Speaker 1: butterfly can't fly, that's probably ultimately a death sentence, right.
Speaker 3: That's my guess. It would make them easy prey at
Speaker 3: the very least.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's kind of the deal. When they
Speaker 1: say a butterfly will die if you touch their wings, yes,
Speaker 1: it will die quicker.
Speaker 3: There's something that a butterfly that's recently e closed and
Speaker 3: a baby that's just been born have in common. Do
Speaker 3: you know what it is? Mmmm?
Speaker 1: Maybe? But go ahead.
Speaker 3: They both poop out in a meek oh.
Speaker 1: Sure a human baby? Yeah, yeah, yeah, maconium? Is that
Speaker 1: that first poop that they take. And in this case,
Speaker 1: the butterfly is pooping what it last eight as a caterpillar.
Speaker 3: That's so cool.
Speaker 1: It is really cool.
Speaker 3: It's usually red bright red, almost looks like blood. But
Speaker 3: the butterfly poops that out. That's one of the first
Speaker 3: things it does. It has to clean off all of
Speaker 3: its organs, its feet to make sure it's sugar finding,
Speaker 3: not puss finding. Clean off its antennas, put its proboscis
Speaker 3: together again, let its wings dry out. I saw, and
Speaker 3: I don't think we mentioned in the Caterpillar episode that
Speaker 3: in its last in star it has wings already. They're
Speaker 3: just folded up under its skin. That they develop even
Speaker 3: further in the chrysalis. But when they they're when they
Speaker 3: come out, they're soaking wet because the butterfly was goo
Speaker 3: not too long ago, and they have to spread them
Speaker 3: out and let them dry in the sun before they
Speaker 3: can fly. So they're doing all this like self care,
Speaker 3: basically a morning at the spa right after they're born.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but they can't just like flop their wings open immediately.
Speaker 1: They actually have to pump them up, almost like an
Speaker 1: air pump inflating a raft or something. Or some high tops, yeah,
Speaker 1: or some oh man, remember those. That's so funny. What
Speaker 1: a scam. That was a scam.
Speaker 3: Right, I'm quite sure you could break your ankle in
Speaker 3: that just as easily as any other shoe.
Speaker 1: Sure. Yeah, it may give you like a little tighter
Speaker 1: fit or something. I don't know about that, Uh, and
Speaker 1: for people that are our young our younger listeners. If
Speaker 1: you don't know who Millie Vanilli was, or pump up
Speaker 1: basketball shoes, there were I think Rebock.
Speaker 3: Right, pretty sure it was Rebock.
Speaker 1: Had basketball shoes that on the tongue had a little
Speaker 1: basketball that was a little pump, and you would put
Speaker 1: on your shoes, tie them up, and then press that
Speaker 1: pump a bunch of times and it would fill some
Speaker 1: cavities with air, I guess, and make your shoes tighter.
Speaker 3: Yeah, especially around your ank clothes to give you extra
Speaker 3: ankle support so you could daunt easier, even though you've
Speaker 3: never donked in your life.
Speaker 1: That's right. But they had Spudweb repping them, so oh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think I think he was one of their pitch
Speaker 1: guys for a little while. Okay, cool, but anyway, the
Speaker 1: butterfly Wait.
Speaker 3: Wait, should we explain who spud Web?
Speaker 1: He was a diminutive NBA player. Yeah, for these good
Speaker 1: line to get his autograph one time. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Nice.
Speaker 1: They pump their wings out, but not with air. There's
Speaker 1: a fluid that they pump through these those two black
Speaker 1: veins we were talking about and just sort of inflate
Speaker 1: them out and like you said, they just get all
Speaker 1: cleaned up and ready to fly.
Speaker 3: Yes, And then once they're all ready, they start flying
Speaker 3: and they realize very quickly, up it's not a very
Speaker 3: good day to fly. And I say we take a
Speaker 3: break and come back and explain just what in the
Speaker 3: holy heck I'm talking about?
Speaker 1: All right, what in the holy heck are you talking about?
Speaker 3: Oh well, let me explain, Chuck. It turns out that butterflies,
Speaker 3: while being pretty hardy individuals at least as far as
Speaker 3: insects are concerned, on that level, they're also very delicate,
Speaker 3: like we talked about with their wings, and even beyond
Speaker 3: their wings, getting like a rain drop driving through it
Speaker 3: that can happen, or say like strong wind pattering it.
Speaker 3: That's a big problem for a butterfly. Just the temperature,
Speaker 3: the ambient temperature has a tremendous effect on them, not
Speaker 3: just because they're ectotherms, meaning they're like a lizard. They
Speaker 3: rely on the ambient temperature to warm themselves or cool
Speaker 3: themselves off. Their muscles just simply will not function when
Speaker 3: it drops below a certain temperature.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think Tracy points out they work best when
Speaker 1: their internal temperature is about eighty two fahrenheit twenty eight celsius.
Speaker 1: And you know, they use these wings for flying, which
Speaker 1: is great, but you might think like, oh, it's no
Speaker 1: big deal. If it's cold, they just kind of hunker down.
Speaker 1: But they also use these wings to do all kinds
Speaker 1: of like cool things, like, namely to scare away predators.
Speaker 1: They can do all sorts of like they can make
Speaker 1: eyes where it looks like a scary face, kind of
Speaker 1: like their little caterpillar former selves can look like snakes.
Speaker 1: They can flash these bright colors that a lot of
Speaker 1: times say get away predator. And if they can't move
Speaker 1: their wings, it's not just that they can't fly, but
Speaker 1: they can't defend themselves or disguise themselves. So it means
Speaker 1: that when it's cold outside, or when it's two windy
Speaker 1: or rainy or something, then they're way more vulnerable to
Speaker 1: prey for sure, or as prey.
Speaker 3: Right, but even prey could probably get them. That's how
Speaker 3: yeah lable they are so for sure. So you'll often
Speaker 3: see like butterflies is kind of basking in the sun.
Speaker 3: I've always wondered what they're doing, Like they just seem
Speaker 3: like they're they don't know what to do next. That's
Speaker 3: how it's always struck me. For some reason, they're thinking
Speaker 3: of their next move, but in reality, they're just sitting
Speaker 3: there getting warmed up by the sun so they can
Speaker 3: fly to another spot. And if you stop and think
Speaker 3: about it, the next time you see a butterfly basking
Speaker 3: in the sun, I'll bet it's below eighty degrees out
Speaker 3: and the butterflies having to warm itself so it can
Speaker 3: fly on to the next flower to eat or rest
Speaker 3: or whatever.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a good point. They do take shelter at
Speaker 1: night when it gets chilly. That's why you don't see
Speaker 1: butterflies flying around at night mainly. And like you said,
Speaker 1: they're what are daytime dwellers called diurnal diurnal day urinal? Yeah,
Speaker 1: day ernal? Is that how you remember it?
Speaker 3: Now? It is?
Speaker 1: Okay, you do remember it. That's how I need to
Speaker 1: remember it, right. But yeah, they bass those wings. They'll
Speaker 1: sit around on rocks, they shelter at night sometimes that
Speaker 1: they will actually do like a kind of like human
Speaker 1: shiver to warm up. They can kind of shake their
Speaker 1: butterfly wings to get their muscles warmed up to fly.
Speaker 1: They just can't go out cold. They gotta do a
Speaker 1: little warm up first.
Speaker 3: It's like that knee hike thing, their knees really really high,
Speaker 3: like in place a bunch of times.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that soccer players do. Yeah, like that ted Lasso guy.
Speaker 3: Right, then there's a name for that. But don't bother
Speaker 3: emailing us with it. We can figure it out ourselves.
Speaker 1: They also can use those wings as little reflectors, like
Speaker 1: you know how in the nineteen fifties and sixties people
Speaker 1: would sit out in the sun with those reflectors under
Speaker 1: their neck to reflect sun back on their faces. They
Speaker 1: can use their wings to do that to their body
Speaker 1: and warm.
Speaker 3: It up, right, which is pretty cool. They can also
Speaker 3: they can also keep the sun from warming them up
Speaker 3: when it's too hot out. They'll fold their wings together
Speaker 3: and just present like the edge, the outer edge of
Speaker 3: their wings to the sun, so there's much less surface area.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And they, like
Speaker 1: you said, when you see them sitting, they're probably not
Speaker 1: sitting for long. They're probably sitting just so they can
Speaker 1: get it going to fly again very shortly.
Speaker 3: Exactly, so, even though they're sitting there warming themselves up
Speaker 3: to move from flower to flower even and that's typically
Speaker 3: what you see. There's a lot of species I see
Speaker 3: at least two hundred that migrate over very long distances,
Speaker 3: and monarchs are the ones that they're like the money,
Speaker 3: the money butterfly that everybody knows about. But one of
Speaker 3: the reasons why is because they migrate so far. Again,
Speaker 3: they migrate from eastern Canada to northwest Mexico. It takes
Speaker 3: eight months, and not a single butterfly that starts that
Speaker 3: journey is alive at the end. So it's like you
Speaker 3: look at the butterfly. By the way, the butterfly flock
Speaker 3: or a group of butterflies is called the kaleidoscope. Mm
Speaker 3: I love that also, that's the official one. They're also
Speaker 3: called flutter, shimmer, and rainbow of butterflies.
Speaker 1: Okay, a flutter of butterflies, yep.
Speaker 3: But you look at the kaleidoscope of butterflies, it's like
Speaker 3: a single organism in each individual butterfly that lives and
Speaker 3: dies and reproduces, not necessarily in that order, as kind
Speaker 3: of like cells that function and make up the larger hole.
Speaker 3: But it's really a bunch of individual butterflies flying together,
Speaker 3: but migrating as a whole down from eastern Canada to
Speaker 3: northwest Mexico.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I guess since we're there. There was a
Speaker 1: big deforestation, illegal deforestation, logging operation in Mexico at the
Speaker 1: Butterfly Biosphere Reserve in twenty fifteen and they got like
Speaker 1: I can't remember, like thirty or forty acres of land
Speaker 1: just down before anyone knew what was going on. And
Speaker 1: since then, and we can't get into it here because
Speaker 1: it's really complex, but they have this very involved plan
Speaker 1: that they've been enacting since then of reforestation, including something
Speaker 1: called assisted migration that I don't fully understand yet, but
Speaker 1: I'm going to look into it more.
Speaker 3: They just drive slowly by some butterflies, swipe them into
Speaker 3: the car and drive them halfway.
Speaker 1: Well, things are better now, but there were a billion
Speaker 1: butterflies in that migration in nineteen ninety six, and in
Speaker 1: I think twenty sixteen that was down to thirty five
Speaker 1: million from a billion, and I think has since gone
Speaker 1: up due to these efforts.
Speaker 3: But that's good.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Then, you know, butterflies, if you take down where
Speaker 1: they're trying to get to, then they're.
Speaker 3: Going to die. Yeah, And that's that Biosphere Reserve is
Speaker 3: a UNESCO World Heritage Site and you can go visit it.
Speaker 3: But apparently when the number of butterflies that show up
Speaker 3: are in the billions. The branch is that they're sitting
Speaker 3: on bend under the weight of butterflies. That's how many
Speaker 3: butterflies there are sometimes. But yes, it's very problematic that
Speaker 3: there's fewer and fewer. I'm glad to hear that it's
Speaker 3: kind of bounced back a little bit, but they're still
Speaker 3: under I don't know if they're endangered or just critical
Speaker 3: right now, but there's there's something to keep an eye on,
Speaker 3: as we'll see, because they're an indicator species.
Speaker 1: They are, and they're also pollinators. They're not, you know,
Speaker 1: the best pollinators, but they're pretty good. They're not like bees.
Speaker 1: I mean, bees were made to pollinate.
Speaker 3: They wear shirts that they do.
Speaker 1: They wear be shirts. But the some butterflies, some butterflies
Speaker 1: don't spread pollen at all. They just love that nectar.
Speaker 1: But generally butterflies are looked at as polleners, and they
Speaker 1: have that proboscis like you said, that's just it's made
Speaker 1: for diving deep into those flowers and getting all that
Speaker 1: sweet stuff. But butterflies have lots of dietary needs. They
Speaker 1: can't just get bynd that sweet, sweet sugar. They need
Speaker 1: minerals and stuff, and they get this in a variety
Speaker 1: of interesting ways.
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, one is puddles. They'll just descend on a
Speaker 3: puddle that's bare dirt. I don't think asphalt would work, So, yeah,
Speaker 3: it's kind of gross to think about. But the minerals
Speaker 3: from the dirt and the soil leach into the puddle,
Speaker 3: and the butterflies suck up those minerals through the puddle,
Speaker 3: and apparently if there's not enough minerals for their liking,
Speaker 3: they'll actually flutter off real quick and then come back
Speaker 3: to the puddle, and just that little butterfly movement is
Speaker 3: enough disturbance of the water to bring some extra minerals
Speaker 3: to the surface of the puddle for them to drink
Speaker 3: and to create a hurricane in Belize.
Speaker 1: Right, if there's no water, it's pretty gross. If it
Speaker 1: gets pretty bad, they will resort to puking onto the
Speaker 1: soil and then drinking that mineral puke.
Speaker 3: I took it more as spit.
Speaker 1: Hey one man's man's that's right.
Speaker 3: But yeah, they need the minerals, the nutrients, and it's
Speaker 3: just not enough for the nectar.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, They've done some studies because they'll they'll eat fruit.
Speaker 1: They'll eat rotten fruit on the ground, or they will
Speaker 1: get on a piece of fruit. They will stomp on
Speaker 1: it with their little feet to try and tenderize it
Speaker 1: a little bit and then jab it with that proboscis
Speaker 1: and drink it up. And they've done studies that have
Speaker 1: found that the fruit eaters live longer and are better
Speaker 1: at reproducing in studies because they I think it was
Speaker 1: the monarchs, even they fed them either mash banana or sugar,
Speaker 1: and the ones that ate the mash banana laid almost
Speaker 1: two times as many eggs, and those eggs were bigger
Speaker 1: and like more robust and vital as well.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I also read that they tend to be easier
Speaker 3: going in social situations and are more well liked by their.
Speaker 1: Peers, the fruit eaters. Yeah, oh wow.
Speaker 3: So there's a couple other places that they can get
Speaker 3: nutrients and minerals, dung and urine. Butterflies are not above that,
Speaker 3: especially if they need it really badly. But when they're
Speaker 3: getting it from a puddle, it's called puddling. There's just
Speaker 3: so many great words around butterflies, and there's a specific
Speaker 3: word for butterflies pollinating plants. It's called psychophily like psychophillly,
Speaker 3: but with one l Okay, specifically, butterflies pollinating plants is psychophily.
Speaker 1: I love that.
Speaker 3: I thought you would. I found that and I was like,
Speaker 3: fuck's gonna love this.
Speaker 1: The sexy stuff you mentioned. They you know, butterflies love
Speaker 1: to try and reproduce, and they reproduce like a lot
Speaker 1: of animals. They they join themselves, they join end to
Speaker 1: end at the abdomen. I think the male has a
Speaker 1: like class clasps down on the female to make sure
Speaker 1: they stay together. And there is sperm from the male
Speaker 1: that is eventually going to fertilize the eggs of a female.
Speaker 1: But not like you would think. It's pretty remarkable because
Speaker 1: what they do is they well, first of all, they
Speaker 1: have to recognize each other, like I said, using those antennae,
Speaker 1: they recognize themselves as the same species or whatever, and
Speaker 1: through their pheromones as well, which is also the antennae.
Speaker 1: And then the male delivers a spermatophor. So it's like, hey,
Speaker 1: I don't just have sperm for you. I've packaged it
Speaker 1: up in a little package for you, and it's got
Speaker 1: all these other minerals and nutrients that you love. That
Speaker 1: will help you in this fertilization process, and they will
Speaker 1: take extra time to get an extra good spermatophore package
Speaker 1: ready to be an extra attractive mate to the good
Speaker 1: ones will well, sure.
Speaker 3: So the the I guess the female butterflies when they
Speaker 3: fertilize their eggs, they use the last sperm that was
Speaker 3: inserted to them, the last spermatophor package.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So there are some species where the male will basically
Speaker 3: close up shop after he's inserted a spermataphor with kind
Speaker 3: of like a sticky substance that prevents more sperm from
Speaker 3: going in. So his sperm is the most recent sperm.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's not very cool at all. But I guess
Speaker 1: that guy's also like, you know what am I doing
Speaker 1: giving you my spermataphor if you're just gonna use the
Speaker 1: latest spermataphor that.
Speaker 3: You got Exactly, I went to a lot of trouble
Speaker 3: combining the spermatophoor.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like, look at this stuff, Look at all these minerals.
Speaker 1: I also saw that some of the males in some
Speaker 1: species will spray them with an off putting scent. Huh,
Speaker 1: so no other butterflies will want them. There are mating
Speaker 1: dances that they'll do, and they, you know, when the
Speaker 1: female gets this super metaphor, they put it in their
Speaker 1: bursa and then they wait until they're ready to lay
Speaker 1: their eggs, and they actually lay the eggs first and
Speaker 1: then use the sperm to fertilize them once they have
Speaker 1: laid the eggs, which is also I think pretty unusual
Speaker 1: in the insect kingdom, right.
Speaker 3: I don't know. For some reason, I had the impression
Speaker 3: that they were fertilizing each egg as they were coming out,
Speaker 3: kind of like a pez dispenser. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what I mean though, But they're not like,
Speaker 1: they're not fertilized in the body.
Speaker 3: I see what you're saying. They're fertilized externally.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, sure, that's the word.
Speaker 3: One other thing you talked about terrible smells. I turned
Speaker 3: up that there some pheromones are pleasant smelling to humans. Specifically,
Speaker 3: let me tell you about the green vein white butterfly.
Speaker 1: Let's hear it.
Speaker 3: It puts together lemon oil for all intents and purposes.
Speaker 3: It has the same chemical composition as lemon oil, but
Speaker 3: it's the pheromone it produces to attract a mate. And
Speaker 3: I got to tell you, lemon old is a pretty
Speaker 3: great smell. It would attract me too.
Speaker 1: I love it.
Speaker 3: So if you ever smell a great veined white during
Speaker 3: mating season, you're going to smell some lemon oil.
Speaker 1: The gestation periods about three days, and they lay anywhere
Speaker 1: from ten to three hundred eggs in clusters over a
Speaker 1: two to four week period.
Speaker 3: Oh wow, it's that long.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it can't. Yeah, two to four weeks and these eggs,
Speaker 1: you know, they lay that many because it's tough for
Speaker 1: these eggs to survive into adulthood. They got to be
Speaker 1: The temperature's got to be just right, humidity's got to
Speaker 1: be just right. They can rot very easily if it's
Speaker 1: too wet. If it's not wet enough, they're going to
Speaker 1: dry out. And then of course there's all those predators
Speaker 1: that are just dying to eat those butterfly eggs.
Speaker 3: They need to find the goldilock zone with the humidity.
Speaker 1: For the eggs, that's right. They do so.
Speaker 3: They also make sure that they put the eggs on
Speaker 3: their baby's favorite food, which is a certain kind of plant.
Speaker 3: Their butterflies are very frequently indiscriminate pollinators. They just go
Speaker 3: from plant to plant but there are also plenty of
Speaker 3: species that are very plant specific, and those are the
Speaker 3: ones where they will not only eat that plant while
Speaker 3: they're caterpillars, they were probably born on that same plant
Speaker 3: as well.
Speaker 1: We used to have a butterfly bush in our yard
Speaker 1: that was those things get really big and out of control,
Speaker 1: kind of in a we have sort of a wild
Speaker 1: garden anyway. It's not like a you know, super manicure
Speaker 1: like English type garden. It's kind of a crazy, fun garden.
Speaker 1: So it fit in the garden and we had tons
Speaker 1: and tons of butterflies, but it went away, and I
Speaker 1: don't know if it was because I think some people,
Speaker 1: well I think it could be an invasive species, and
Speaker 1: a lot of people say, like they'll plant the butterfly bush,
Speaker 1: but we had one for a while but don't now,
Speaker 1: so Emily may have taken it down for that reason.
Speaker 3: So the reason it's considered invasive and harmful the butterflies
Speaker 3: is it produces tons of nectar, but it has no
Speaker 3: value in supporting eggs or the life stylele of it
Speaker 3: other than nectar for adults. And so it's a distraction
Speaker 3: from native plants that do provide not just nectar but
Speaker 3: also shelter and a place to lay their eggs. So
Speaker 3: it actually disrupts the life cycle of local butterflies. Even
Speaker 3: though it's a butterfly bush and they love it, it's
Speaker 3: actually bad for them. So I have to go cut
Speaker 3: down mine after this.
Speaker 1: Even if you have a lot of those natives nearby,
Speaker 1: like as a whole, it's still bad.
Speaker 3: Yes, because it's a distraction, because it's so chuck full
Speaker 3: of nectar that they go to that one instead and
Speaker 3: just die off.
Speaker 1: Well, some distractions are okay, right, like television.
Speaker 3: Sure, you could put a TV with an extension cord
Speaker 3: out in your butterfly garden. That's not going to harm them.
Speaker 3: If you have a butterfly bush, you have to chop
Speaker 3: it down. I command you, all right.
Speaker 1: They're really pretty though, and it's fun to see other butterflies,
Speaker 1: but yeah, I get you in.
Speaker 3: But wait until you've planted other plants, which we'll talk about,
Speaker 3: and then you can chop down your butterfly bush.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, let's take a break or second break,
Speaker 1: and we'll talk a little bit more about what's going
Speaker 1: on with a butterfly population and butterfly gardens right after this. Okay, Well,
Speaker 1: we talked already about the Monarchs and how they had
Speaker 1: been hit hard from the illegal logging going on in
Speaker 1: Mexico in the mid twenty tens. And in general, butterflies
Speaker 1: are doing okay, but there are some you know, pesticides
Speaker 1: and things like that. I think one of the other
Speaker 1: big reasons besides the logging for that migration of the monarchs,
Speaker 1: I think pesticides has killed a lot of milkweed, which
Speaker 1: I think the monarchs love. So pesticides are a big threat.
Speaker 1: And it's not like I'm just going to spray this
Speaker 1: one little part of my garden, Like pesticides in your
Speaker 1: garden in one part of your garden generally means it's
Speaker 1: in most parts of your garden.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it travels very easily. But on top of that,
Speaker 3: butterflies are extremely sensitive to pesticides, So I don't know
Speaker 3: about herbicides, but definitely pesticides. So if you're going to
Speaker 3: plan a butterfly garden, you want to use natural pest defenses.
Speaker 3: But that's a big thing that's killing off butterflies and
Speaker 3: bees too. Yeah, and then also we talked about it
Speaker 3: in the last episode. A lot of people think of
Speaker 3: caterpillars as pests. It's like, oh, you ate some of them,
Speaker 3: I lettuce, I'm going to kill all of you. That
Speaker 3: kills butterflies too. They never make it to be adult butterflies,
Speaker 3: and you've just disrupted generations of butterflies that could have
Speaker 3: been So when you put all that together, humans have
Speaker 3: not been super good for butterflies. Did you mention urbanization
Speaker 3: and rhodes too, No, those are a problem. Like anytime
Speaker 3: we build somewhere, we destroy plants, and those often are
Speaker 3: butterflies or that's a butterfly habitat. And then the roads
Speaker 3: that we have, the marginal land alongside of the roads
Speaker 3: are often like great places for butterfly centric plants to grow.
Speaker 3: But that means that the butterflies are very close to
Speaker 3: cars that are going seventy eighty miles an hour, which
Speaker 3: is never good for the butterfly when they come in
Speaker 3: contact with them. So yeah, like I was saying, humans
Speaker 3: have been kind of bad for butterflies. But fortunately we're
Speaker 3: starting to wake up and see the value in butterflies
Speaker 3: goes beyond like let's put that thing on a stamp,
Speaker 3: Like there's there's more value to the butterfly than just
Speaker 3: its esthetic beauty. But that makes it plenty valuable in
Speaker 3: and of itself.
Speaker 1: I wonder if butterflies and other insects would ever if
Speaker 1: natural selection would be such that they would learn to
Speaker 1: fly higher than the height of an average car.
Speaker 3: Sure, I could see that, but then they run into
Speaker 3: semis and there's like it's going to take millions more
Speaker 3: years to get higher than a semi.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a good point.
Speaker 3: Maybe they'll figure out how to fly undercrs very quickly.
Speaker 1: Okay, that collecting butterflies is, believe it or not, another
Speaker 1: thing that has hit the butterfly population. Butterfly collecting butterflies
Speaker 1: is a thing. Hunting butterflies and putting them behind glass
Speaker 1: in your office is a thing that some people are
Speaker 1: really into. And I don't know a lot about that,
Speaker 1: but I do know that that there are certain species
Speaker 1: that are endangered, and part of the problem is over collecting.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and the more rare a butterfly species gets, the
Speaker 3: more desirable it is for collectors, and the more collecting
Speaker 3: harms that population because it's so small. So or a
Speaker 3: Burroughs but the worst kind.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I imagine we'll hear from some collectors who
Speaker 1: who can tell us that there are responsible ways of
Speaker 1: doing this. I really don't know enough about it to
Speaker 1: speak to it, but I'm not going to click butterflies,
Speaker 1: That's all I'm gonna say.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I wonder if it's one of those things like ivory,
Speaker 3: where it's like, Okay, this happened, this is done, Like
Speaker 3: these things are out there and we're not just gonna
Speaker 3: throw them away. That's an even bigger waste. Right, So,
Speaker 3: like antique ivory or antique taxidermy, butterflies are legal, but
Speaker 3: anything new is illegal. I wonder if it's treated like
Speaker 3: that or what. But I get the impression that butterflies
Speaker 3: don't have that much legal protection. I think they do
Speaker 3: on paper, but it's very rarely enforced.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I guess if you find one in the ground
Speaker 1: or something that's uh you know that for your collection.
Speaker 1: Sure not sunning on a rock, but you know dead right.
Speaker 3: Sure it just fell over of old age.
Speaker 1: Uh Huh. Should we talk about butterfly gardens here at
Speaker 1: the end.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because one of the things people are doing or saying, like, hey, butterflies,
Speaker 3: we got to save these butter flies. If we don't,
Speaker 3: things are gonna go pear shaped even more. And so
Speaker 3: people are starting to plant butterfly gardens.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because I think you said they're a big indicator
Speaker 1: of like, if butterflies are dying off all around you,
Speaker 1: that's a big indicator of how your local ecosystem is
Speaker 1: doing in.
Speaker 3: The larch part, the canari and the coal mine.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. And butterfly gardens are beautiful and it doesn't
Speaker 1: take a lot. You need some plants, and you're gonna
Speaker 1: want plants. Well, you're gonna want to find out what
Speaker 1: kind of butterflies you have around you.
Speaker 3: That's a big one.
Speaker 1: You can look with your eyeballs and then cross reference,
Speaker 1: or you can just look it up on the internet,
Speaker 1: and then you want to find out what kind of
Speaker 1: plants those butterflies love that are native to your area,
Speaker 1: and plant those.
Speaker 3: Chuck. When I was researching this, all I wanted to
Speaker 3: do was be done with this episode so I can
Speaker 3: go garden.
Speaker 1: Oh. I love that Emily's gardening. I'm looking at it
Speaker 1: right now, is gardening outside?
Speaker 3: Well, pound on your window and tell her I'm jealous
Speaker 3: of her.
Speaker 1: We got I put it on my Instagram. I don't
Speaker 1: know if you saw it, but you I saw a
Speaker 1: huge well it's not that big, but a hornet's nest
Speaker 1: in our backyard yesterday. That is the coolest, most beautiful thing.
Speaker 1: I'm kind of tucked in a magnolia branch about only
Speaker 1: four feet off the ground, And I'm glad I saw
Speaker 1: it because I was about to go do some trimming
Speaker 1: of my box woods right behind it in a few
Speaker 1: days and I would have bumped right into that thing.
Speaker 1: So boy, now we're just going to steer clear of
Speaker 1: it until it is out of season and then hopefully
Speaker 1: try and preserve it. But hornets nests are so cool looking,
Speaker 1: and I just love that we have one back there.
Speaker 1: We got a crazy backyard full of all kinds of critters.
Speaker 3: Does it look like a mummy's head? Sometimes it looks.
Speaker 1: It looks like a sort of a mummy's head, but
Speaker 1: if it was an alien mummy, because it's like top
Speaker 1: heavy and it looks like it has a little mouth
Speaker 1: at the bottom, you know, their little door. Yeah, I'll
Speaker 1: send you the picture, it's cool.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Or I can just go on Instagram like everybody else.
Speaker 1: Now you get text privies, thanks man. What else about
Speaker 1: the butterfly garden? You need water? Right?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Remember they like to drink minerals from puddles. So
Speaker 3: if you have a little bit of water dripping that
Speaker 3: forms a puddle in the soil, that's definitely going to
Speaker 3: help them. You want rocks for them to sun on.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: A big one, Chuck is you want to use native plants.
Speaker 3: I know you and Emily are like big into that,
Speaker 3: and I feel like people, including myself, are really waking
Speaker 3: up to just how bad for the local ecosystem like
Speaker 3: non native plants are, and to use native plants whenever
Speaker 3: you can. When you're building a butterfly garden, it's crucial
Speaker 3: because even plants within the same species can be harmful
Speaker 3: to butterflies. Yeah, and I have an example if you'll
Speaker 3: allow me. Sure, So, butterflies in Florida and Georgia in
Speaker 3: the Southeast in general, I think are very very keen
Speaker 3: on what's called butterfly weed. It's what monarchs love. It's
Speaker 3: that very tiny, multi flowered, orange flowered weed. It's a
Speaker 3: type of milkweed. Okay, yeah, that's native. Yes, there's another
Speaker 3: kind of milkweed called tropical milkweed that does just fine
Speaker 3: in Florida and Georgia in the southeast too, but it's
Speaker 3: not native. And the problem with putting that in your
Speaker 3: butterfly garden into the southeast is that it blooms so
Speaker 3: late into the season that butterflies will keep reproducing and
Speaker 3: entire parts of the population will freeze to death because
Speaker 3: they've gone beyond their natural reproductive window. And then furthermore,
Speaker 3: when the temperature drops a little bit, they're more susceptible
Speaker 3: to a specific kind of protozoan parasite called ot or
Speaker 3: oe I. Can't remember that they wouldn't otherwise be if
Speaker 3: they were just on the native milkweed rather than the
Speaker 3: tropical milkweed. So like, that's how much attention you really
Speaker 3: should be paying to your butterfly garden, because you can
Speaker 3: inadvertently harm them while you're doing something you think is
Speaker 3: good for them, like putting a butterfly bush out there.
Speaker 3: Everybody like, that's great, I'm gonna put a butterfly bush
Speaker 3: out and I can pretty much call myself Gandhi from
Speaker 3: here on out, Gandhi the butterflies. But it turns out
Speaker 3: you're harming them. So it's definitely something that you need
Speaker 3: to take some research for. But it's the kind of
Speaker 3: research that it's like an invitation to go, like immerse
Speaker 3: yourself in the natural world in all of the best ways.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Boy, that butterfly weed is beautiful, Yes.
Speaker 3: It is, and it's native to Georgia. So you just
Speaker 3: plan it all you.
Speaker 1: Like, you know what, I'm gonna go tell Emily like, oh,
Speaker 1: this butterfly milkweed and shes gonna be like it's right
Speaker 1: behind you, coming right.
Speaker 3: But it's not only a food source, it's it's like
Speaker 3: a place where monarchs lay their eggs. So you will
Speaker 3: have butterflies like living in your garden. I mean they'll
Speaker 3: fly to Mexico eventually, but they'll hang out there for
Speaker 3: a while. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean that's the cool thing about the butterfly garden too.
Speaker 1: If you if you do it right, then you're you're
Speaker 1: gonna have butterflies in your yard. And not only that,
Speaker 1: but butterflies are gonna like word gets around and it'll
Speaker 1: become a place for butterflies. It'll become like haven for butterflies.
Speaker 1: And they don't they don't generally, I mean the ones
Speaker 1: who migrate migrate. But other than that, you could have
Speaker 1: you could have butterflies families living their whole life back
Speaker 1: there in your backyard.
Speaker 3: Yeah. And speaking of backyards, I've got a backyard. A
Speaker 3: lower part of my backyard is kind of wild. I
Speaker 3: keep it wild, like I don't know it very often,
Speaker 3: and there's lots of weeds and like little clovers and
Speaker 3: stuff growing. So I've left it there for the beads,
Speaker 3: the birds and the bees and all that, and the butterflies.
Speaker 3: But I'm going full on, man, I'm going to let
Speaker 3: Oh yes, it's gonna be all butterflies, like up to
Speaker 3: your hips butterfly stuff. I cannot wait to go plan it.
Speaker 3: It's I'm really looking forward to it because it's really
Speaker 3: goes right up to the edge of some woods too,
Speaker 3: so it's gonna be amazing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's something we really love like leading green spaces
Speaker 1: and making it an invitation for animals. You know, like
Speaker 1: I got my camp up there in North Georgia, and
Speaker 1: like all of North Georgia is just being torn down
Speaker 1: for neighborhoods and or and you know, if you're a hunter,
Speaker 1: let's find that that's your thing. I'm not into it.
Speaker 1: And we love that we have this acreage where we're
Speaker 1: just like, tell your dear buddies this to come to
Speaker 1: our land setup shop here. No one will be shooting
Speaker 1: you and spread the word, everybody. We have we have
Speaker 1: a safe space for all you critters out here.
Speaker 3: Yes, except for humans, because it's also a most dangerous
Speaker 3: game type setup. You got going there?
Speaker 1: Huh well sure by the weekends.
Speaker 3: Right. Let's see one more thing about butterflies. There is
Speaker 3: an amazing fact that I think we can end on.
Speaker 1: How about that, Let's do it.
Speaker 3: They're frequently cited as inspiring the discovery of the RH
Speaker 3: blood factor, which is a type of subtype of blood types,
Speaker 3: and it actually cured what's known as Rhese's hemolytic disease,
Speaker 3: which is where a baby has a positive RH blood
Speaker 3: type and is born from a mother with a negative
Speaker 3: RH blood type, and it's immune systems starts attacking its blood.
Speaker 3: Not good. But the discoverer of the RH blood factor,
Speaker 3: his name is Sir Cyril Clark, and he was big
Speaker 3: time in the butterflies, and he was inspired by the
Speaker 3: butterfly's ability to mimic other butterflies genetically, that they had
Speaker 3: these what are called super genes, these big clusters of
Speaker 3: genes that all produce this mimicry, and that we're refined
Speaker 3: by smaller genes over time. And he was like, I
Speaker 3: wonder if that has to do with blood types and diseases,
Speaker 3: and in fact, it was, oh wow, yeah, so butterflies,
Speaker 3: super useful, super beautiful. Go cut down your butterfly bush today. Amazing,
Speaker 3: Chuck said, amazing. So that means it's time for listener
Speaker 3: mail everybody.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna call this our influence on Spotify. Perhaps, Hey, guys,
Speaker 1: I was wondering, wondering if you were aware of your
Speaker 1: potential impact on Spotify searches. On the Milli Vanilli episode,
Speaker 1: Josh mentioned the song Owner of a Lonely Heart by
Speaker 1: Yes being the best song of the eighties, and in
Speaker 1: my head, I'm like, I'm not sure what that song is,
Speaker 1: but I set it out loud and immediately the chorus
Speaker 1: popped into my head. So I go over to listen
Speaker 1: to it later on Spotify. I see a ton of
Speaker 1: covers for it, and I see Milli Vanilli is also
Speaker 1: in the search results, which was going to be my
Speaker 1: next search. So I think you guys may have had
Speaker 1: enough people searching Owner of a Lonely Heart and Millie
Speaker 1: Vanilly close together so that the algorithm associated those two.
Speaker 1: That's awesome because other than the time period, it's not
Speaker 1: similar music.
Speaker 3: You know no, I would say not.
Speaker 1: Maybe do a test to mention two unrelated songs for
Speaker 1: something to see what happens. Oh boy, should we try it?
Speaker 3: Yeah, let's mix Sabbath and you pick the other one.
Speaker 1: Okay, So Black Sabbath, you name a song specifically, Warpigs. Okay, Warpigs. Hey, everybody,
Speaker 1: if you haven't heard Warpigs, you should go search it
Speaker 1: on Spotify. Give it a listen. It's a great song.
Speaker 1: And while you're at it, I don't know if you've
Speaker 1: ever heard Barry Manilow's Chuck.
Speaker 3: I was going to suggest Barry Manilo I had it.
Speaker 1: Well, I had a fifty to fifty chance there. I
Speaker 1: don't know if you've ever heard the Barry Manilo song
Speaker 1: even now, but it's a classic Barry Manilo song. And
Speaker 1: everyone should just go search those two on Spotify.
Speaker 3: So war Pigs and even now by Black Sabbath and
Speaker 3: Barry Manilo, Let's see what happens. Let's see what happened.
Speaker 3: That was a great experiment. Who was that from?
Speaker 1: That was from Cory and I just want to give
Speaker 1: Corey's to side notes, saw you guys for the Andre
Speaker 1: the Giant Live in Chicago episode. I also saw Josh's
Speaker 1: Into the World live in Chicago when you tour that
Speaker 1: your short series. That was so great and I really
Speaker 1: enjoy that. Josh walked by on his way in when
Speaker 1: we were outside and patted my friend Sam on the shoulder,
Speaker 1: and he's definitely mentioned that several times since then.
Speaker 3: That's awesome.
Speaker 1: So that's from Corey and you patted Sam on the shoulder,
Speaker 1: and I think that.
Speaker 3: Men lunch to say, yeah, thanks for coming to see me,
Speaker 3: Sam and Corey. It was a fun show. Actually, let's
Speaker 3: see if you wanna let us know how this experiment
Speaker 3: pans out. Corey's Experiment is what we're gonna call it,
Speaker 3: Corey's Choice. How about that love it? No, let's call
Speaker 3: it a Corey's song rather than Brian's song. Oh okay, okay, no,
Speaker 3: Corey can wait?
Speaker 1: Perfect okay, so oh no, but how about Corey's in Charge.
Speaker 3: Okay, that's a good one. That's perfect. We're gonna end
Speaker 3: on that. If you want to let us know how
Speaker 3: the Corey's in Charge experiment goes, but we'd love to
Speaker 3: hear from you, you can send us an email to
Speaker 3: Stuff Podcast at iHeartRadio dot com.
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