Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the Short Stuff. I'm Josh, and
Speaker 1: there's Chuck and Jerri's here too, and it's short Stuff
Speaker 1: Cute Cute Little Bug edition.
Speaker 2: That's right, we're talking about pill bugs or potato bugs
Speaker 2: or wood lice what or for our English friends, chicky pigs,
Speaker 2: penny sows or cheesy bugs.
Speaker 1: I have no idea what we're talking about, Chuck, we're.
Speaker 2: Talking about here in the American South, at least police.
Speaker 1: Oh, roly police.
Speaker 2: Is that what you call them?
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what I've always called them. It's funny. I
Speaker 1: was trying to look up a map of their range
Speaker 1: in the United States, and all I could find was
Speaker 1: dialect maps of what people called them around the United States.
Speaker 1: So I have no idea what their actual range is,
Speaker 1: but I can tell you in the South everybody calls
Speaker 1: them roly polies.
Speaker 2: Well, if they call them something, that probably means they
Speaker 2: have them, right, Yeah.
Speaker 1: For sure, I mean we have them. I've seen them before.
Speaker 2: With that kind of shows you the range I got.
Speaker 2: If it's named.
Speaker 1: Boy Chuck, I think I'm getting dumber by the month.
Speaker 2: But you never know. They might be like, Hey, they
Speaker 2: don't exist in Washington State, but we still call them grungers.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we like to say the word chigi picks.
Speaker 2: But we're talking about the little round uh well not
Speaker 2: round round if they're threatened, we'll get to that. But
Speaker 2: the little thing that you probably think is an insect
Speaker 2: that looks like a little uh prawn or an armadillo
Speaker 2: with legs. And in fact, the scientific name is Armadillium
Speaker 2: arma no arma dilidium bulgary. Very nice, geez uh.
Speaker 1: That's shortened it to chigi picks.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's a roly bully.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And actually, strangely enough, even though, like I said,
Speaker 1: I've seen them with my own two eyes in Georgia.
Speaker 1: They are from the Mediterranean initially, but they spread all
Speaker 1: over the world. You can find them all over the
Speaker 1: place because they were basically carried over through the plant trade.
Speaker 1: International plant trade.
Speaker 2: That's right. You want some plants, they're going to come
Speaker 2: with some well, they're going to come with insects. But
Speaker 2: I keep saying insect they're not insects. Should we go
Speaker 2: ahead and spoil what these things are?
Speaker 1: Yeah, totally. It's one of the facts of the short stuff.
Speaker 2: You take it.
Speaker 1: Oh, thank you. So they're not insects, chuck, they're not mammals,
Speaker 1: they're not birds, they're crustaceans.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mentioned shrimp.
Speaker 1: Cousins to crabs and lobsters and shrimp.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right. And there are twelve species in the
Speaker 2: United States alone, it says northern and central parts of
Speaker 2: the country. But maybe they don't dwell in like the
Speaker 2: deep deserts. Who knows, but I know I see them
Speaker 2: all over the place here. They're the only crustacean that
Speaker 2: has adapted to live entirely on land, and they breathe
Speaker 2: through gills, which is remarkable.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So the fact that they have adapted to live
Speaker 1: on land, the only crustaceans that did. That's another fact
Speaker 1: of the podcast. Just amazing stuff, right, But technically it's
Speaker 1: a sub fact of the fact that their crustaceans. I guess.
Speaker 1: Another fact of the podcast, though, is there's a word
Speaker 1: for them turning into roly Polyi's a tight little ball,
Speaker 1: which uh, which well, I guess marine biologists have have
Speaker 1: determined was an evolutionary response to predators or to keep
Speaker 1: their gills moist. They curl up into low ball, hence
Speaker 1: the name roly poly. But there's a term for that,
Speaker 1: and I think you should tell everybody what that is?
Speaker 2: Hmm, all right, it is conglobation.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Now I had I said it, I would have
Speaker 1: said conglobulation, but that's not correct. It's the better way
Speaker 1: to say it, but it's just not right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you love adding things.
Speaker 1: Conglobation, fancying up a word.
Speaker 2: That's Josh Clark, the Josh Clark way for sure. So
Speaker 2: there's a lot of remarkable things here. We're gonna check
Speaker 2: off a couple of them and then take a ke.
Speaker 2: But one of them is they do not urinate. They
Speaker 2: have a very high tolerance for ammonia, so they don't urinate.
Speaker 2: They excreete waste through the shells. They eat all kinds
Speaker 2: of things in the garden, but one thing that they
Speaker 2: eat is their own poopoo, which is a practice called
Speaker 2: self car profigy caprofhagy. Self caprofagy, didn't I Yeah, they're
Speaker 2: poop eaters.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they eat their own poop. And it's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's gross, but it also makes sense because you don't
Speaker 1: necessarily get all the nutrients out of your pea, so
Speaker 1: if you eat your poop, you have another shot at
Speaker 1: extracting more of the nutrients that were left over.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like you missed something. Try again.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a piece of shrimp in there.
Speaker 2: Ironically, they can drink from their mouth or they can
Speaker 2: drink from their hind And they have a little tube
Speaker 2: shaped structure in the back and so it doesn't matter
Speaker 2: if the parties in the front ear in their ear.
Speaker 2: They can still get their drink on.
Speaker 1: That's funny. Did jo I came up with is that
Speaker 1: they could use them both at the same time and
Speaker 1: share a milkshake with themselves.
Speaker 2: Oh that's even better.
Speaker 1: Well I think they're equally good.
Speaker 2: Well I just thought of mine. It's not as good.
Speaker 1: Well, mine's written down so technical years is better because
Speaker 1: it's off the cup.
Speaker 2: Well, you just made yours up to You just wrote
Speaker 2: it down, true, dad, unless did you work shop it
Speaker 2: over a couple of days.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you've me so tired of hearing that joke.
Speaker 2: You're like, which one you mean? Shut up?
Speaker 1: Should I say milkshake or shit?
Speaker 2: Right? How about one more factoid and then we'll take
Speaker 2: a break.
Speaker 1: Okay, Yeah, they're crustaceans, but they also have a marsupial
Speaker 1: pouch essentially.
Speaker 2: Yeah, those mamas carry their little eggs around for two
Speaker 2: to three months in their marsupium they hatch, and then
Speaker 2: sometimes even those little young'ins will go back in that
Speaker 2: pouch and say, Mama, I still want to stick around
Speaker 2: for a little while until I'm ready.
Speaker 1: Hey, mama, like Elvis. Uh Okay, now it's time for
Speaker 1: a break, because the facts are coming so fast and
Speaker 1: hard that I'm crying tears out of my eyes right now.
Speaker 2: Joy, all right, we'll be right back. All right, We're
Speaker 2: back with some more amazing facts. These little guys are arthropods,
Speaker 2: so they're gonna molt. And if you ever see a
Speaker 2: little cheesy wog what do they call them in England, cheesy.
Speaker 1: Wig, chiggy pigs.
Speaker 2: Chicky pigs, chugs, cheesy bug. And if you find one
Speaker 2: that's like, hey, that thing looks funny, looks like it's
Speaker 2: got half a shell, it's because their shells are in
Speaker 2: two pieces. There's a front and the back. They drop
Speaker 2: that back when first, so you may see one missing
Speaker 2: its back, and you just got to be just leave
Speaker 2: that little little fellow alone.
Speaker 1: Yeah he's porky pigan it, yeah, exactly. There's some other
Speaker 1: things you should know about him. Another reason to leave
Speaker 1: them alone, and even to invite them into your garden.
Speaker 1: As you'll see, they don't sting, they don't bite, they
Speaker 1: don't carry diseases, and not only do they not mess
Speaker 1: up your plants, they actually help your garden grow even
Speaker 1: better because these guys are soil maniacs.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're champions of your composting efforts because they get
Speaker 2: in there. They have what's called a detritivorous diet. Is
Speaker 2: that how you'd say it.
Speaker 1: Well, I would say detritativit forest diet.
Speaker 2: That it means that they basically take anything that's from
Speaker 2: a decomposting plant or if there's a dead animal or
Speaker 2: other poop. They can absorb all those nutrients, poop it
Speaker 2: out themselves, and they're just little composting machines, which is
Speaker 2: pretty amazing. But to me, one of the most amazing
Speaker 2: facts is that they're into heavy metal.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like big time.
Speaker 2: Like Crocus, Sabbath, Dio, Docin Maiden, White Lion. Ohoo, God,
Speaker 2: what if we just named metal bands for the next
Speaker 2: six minutes?
Speaker 1: Quite right? Oh man, bang your head.
Speaker 2: That's hair metal.
Speaker 1: It's still metal, all right. It's their most metal of
Speaker 1: hair metal. I would say, quite right, it is, at
Speaker 1: least some of their songs.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I like quite right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're great.
Speaker 2: That's good stuff.
Speaker 1: Uh what about Testament, the other Christian metal band.
Speaker 2: I don't think I knew about them. Yeah, there's Testament
Speaker 2: that sounds familiar, though.
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure they were Christian. They talked a lot
Speaker 1: about Christianity.
Speaker 2: Did they rock hard for Jesus?
Speaker 1: Oh? Do they rock super hard? They were like the
Speaker 1: kind where you could be like, not at all religious,
Speaker 1: but I still like Testament. Yeah, kind of like My
Speaker 1: Boys and Striper Queen's Reke. They were weird, but they
Speaker 1: were still metal all right.
Speaker 2: So they love heavy metal. They love all those bands
Speaker 2: except for White Lion. But what we really mean is
Speaker 2: they are They have a very unique ability to eat
Speaker 2: zinc and lead and copper and any other kind of
Speaker 2: like awful heavy metal that might be out in the
Speaker 2: wild and crystallize it in their bodies and thrive in
Speaker 2: these heavily polluted awful areas. They crystallize it in their
Speaker 2: guts and can remediate it essentially.
Speaker 1: Yeah, if you crystallize something, you're essentially encasing it in
Speaker 1: glass and it becomes inert as far as I can tell,
Speaker 1: So I don't know if they poop it out afterward
Speaker 1: and it's inert because it's been encased. But how whatever
Speaker 1: they're doing, they're they're they're Yeah, they're remediating. Essentially super
Speaker 1: fun sights of heavy met if you just got a
Speaker 1: handful of them and said I'll see you in fifty years.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely. So, like you mentioned, they're great for your garden.
Speaker 2: They may I mean that the damage that they might
Speaker 2: be do is pretty minimal. They might try and drink
Speaker 2: and get moisture from your plants and things, but they're
Speaker 2: not the kind of land crustacean that's just gonna eat
Speaker 2: through all of your garden vegetables.
Speaker 1: Right, there are no land crabs.
Speaker 2: No, not on land crab at all.
Speaker 1: You got anything else about roly polies?
Speaker 2: No, this is a short and sweet.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm glad that we did a pretty good psa
Speaker 1: to everybody. Know, leave the roly polies alone and short
Speaker 1: stuff is out. Stuff you should know is a production
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