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Speaker 1: Welcome to stuff to blow your mind from how Stuff

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Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey, are you welcome to stuff to

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Speaker 1: blow your mind? My name is Robert Land and Joe McCormick. Robert,

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Speaker 1: Let's have a reading from our holy book The Daily Mail. Shelly, Yes,

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Speaker 1: let's do headline June crazy ants that feast on electronics

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Speaker 1: and are invading the US cannot be killed with normal insecticide.

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Speaker 1: Oh wow, I love I love everything about that headline

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Speaker 1: because it just implies that these ants are coming to

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Speaker 1: eat your precious xbox and there's nothing you can do

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Speaker 1: to penetrate its exo skeleton. It's just gonna laugh at you.

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Speaker 1: They feast on electronics, They're crazy, cannot be killed, cannot

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Speaker 1: as capitalized. Um, they've got the little subheads here. Since

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Speaker 1: it was first spotted in Houston in two thousand two,

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Speaker 1: it's spread to some twenty one counties in Texas, twenty

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Speaker 1: counties in Florida, and a few locations in Mississippi and Louisiana.

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Speaker 1: The omnivorous and attacks and kills other species, as well

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Speaker 1: as monopolizing food sources to the detriment of the entire ecosystem.

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Speaker 1: It also attacks electrical wiring causing millions of dollars worth

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Speaker 1: of damage. So it's just an unstoppable force. It's like

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Speaker 1: an invasion. I'm imagining those ants from Indiana Jones and

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Speaker 1: The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Did you watch there?

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Speaker 1: You didn't watch it? No, you know that the buzz

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Speaker 1: wasn't all that great, so I just never got around

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Speaker 1: to it. Robert, I get mad when people haven't watched

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Speaker 1: the same bad movies I have. You've got to go

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Speaker 1: subject yourself to this. Have you heard about the gopher? No,

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Speaker 1: there's a gopher like in Caddyshack Gopher. Yeah, this is

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Speaker 1: like a c g I gopher in it. And there's

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Speaker 1: also c g I ants marching through the forest and

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Speaker 1: attacking people. M I should probably check it out at

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Speaker 1: some point. No, don't waste your time. It's the best

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Speaker 1: part of it is Cape Blanchet, who's the best part

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Speaker 1: of everything she does. But there are crazy ants. They're

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Speaker 1: essentially crazy ants or their giant crazy ants. Is that

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Speaker 1: what you're saying. No, I think it's actually not a

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Speaker 1: very good point of comparison once we get into the

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Speaker 1: details on crazy ants. But man, so I I put

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Speaker 1: this up here because I hate the Daily Mail. That's

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Speaker 1: I shouldn't say I hate things, but uh, yeah, I

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Speaker 1: I kind of hate the way their their headlines work.

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Speaker 1: But I also can't resist that they just go for it.

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Speaker 1: They say, cannot be killed and feast on electronics. But

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Speaker 1: of course we are talking about a real organism here, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: one that's not quite as outlandish as this. Uh, these

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Speaker 1: headlines and subheads make it sound. No, And while the

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Speaker 1: idea of feasting on electronics is not quite exactly right,

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Speaker 1: it's not as far off as you might imagine based

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Speaker 1: on I don't know, you know, whatever you found out

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Speaker 1: when you clicked on that Daily Mail article about the

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Speaker 1: Longness monster washing up on the beach, you know. And

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Speaker 1: I also have to point out that I have I

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Speaker 1: have heard versions of this where people think that the

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Speaker 1: crazy ants eat electricity, which is also not true. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: like their RoboCop they need to charge up at not right, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: they're seeking out your electronics so that they can they

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Speaker 1: can they just jagg onto that that that precious juice.

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Speaker 1: Did you ever see that mid career West Craven movie Shocker? No,

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Speaker 1: but this is one that that you've been telling me

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Speaker 1: about for years. Yeah, it's so it's West Craven at

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Speaker 1: at the height of his I don't care, and he

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Speaker 1: makes a movie with the Oh what's a Mitch Pelegie,

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Speaker 1: the boss from the X Files. Yeah, he plays like

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Speaker 1: a murderer who gets sent to the electric chair, and

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Speaker 1: then he turns into an electricity killer who like can

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Speaker 1: fly through TVs, and he can go through power lines,

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Speaker 1: and he when he gets hurt, he can heal himself

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Speaker 1: by sticking his fingers in an electrical He's basically the

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Speaker 1: electricity gremlin from Gremlins to the New Batch. You know,

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Speaker 1: I've never seen Grimlin's too. How many people hate me? Now?

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Speaker 1: Uh no, So let's explain. Are a little bit more

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Speaker 1: anecdotes about what the deal with this crazy aunt is

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Speaker 1: and why people say it feasts on electricity, even if

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Speaker 1: that's not exactly true. So there is a New York

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Speaker 1: Times story on crazy ants by the writer John Muallam,

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Speaker 1: and it tells stories of people with crazy ant nightmares

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Speaker 1: in their homes, specifically with the ants attacking their electronics.

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Speaker 1: So there's one story about a man named Mike who

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Speaker 1: had his house infested to an unbelievable degree. Quote one day,

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Speaker 1: his air conditioning stopped working. A musty smell seeped from

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Speaker 1: the vents in his living room floor, so he powered

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Speaker 1: up his shop back to clear them. By the time

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Speaker 1: he was done, he had sucked out five gallons of ants.

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Speaker 1: Soon he and his wife were waking up to find

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Speaker 1: vast frantic networks of ants zipping around the kitchen floor

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Speaker 1: in all directions. When the picture on their fifty inch

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Speaker 1: box television started flickering, Mike took off the back panel

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Speaker 1: and found the guts throbbing with ants. Oh that's that's lovely.

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Speaker 1: I mean that just sounds like like Tales from the

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Speaker 1: Dark Side episode. Yeah, you can't, well there, what's in

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Speaker 1: the Tales from the Crypt movie? There's a guy who

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Speaker 1: gets flooded with It's not ants. I think it's cockroaches,

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Speaker 1: isn't it? Oh, are you thinking about Stephen King's creep show?

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Speaker 1: Not Tales from the Crypt creep show? But you know

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Speaker 1: the Tales from the Crypt. I'm sure it has an

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Speaker 1: insect horror episode that I'm forgetting. Yeah. Another story from

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Speaker 1: that New York Times article, there's a man named strom Duke.

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Speaker 1: The story of strom Duke quote, one evening his iron

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Speaker 1: stopped working, Then sparks shot from the appliance, and a

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Speaker 1: tide of crazy ants came rushing out. Other Dukes lived

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Speaker 1: in neighboring houses, and they all had similar stories. The

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Speaker 1: ants had caused six dollars of electrical damage to one

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Speaker 1: woman's car, infiltrated the glass break detector of one house's

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Speaker 1: alarm system, causing the alarm to blare, and just the

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Speaker 1: previous night, shut off the water at Strom's brother Melvin's

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Speaker 1: house by disabling the pressure switch on his well. It

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Speaker 1: really sounds like it could be a horror movie. I

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Speaker 1: can imagine all these essentially the movie Squirm, except instead

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Speaker 1: of screaming earthworms, you have ants just streaming out of

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Speaker 1: telephones in various household gadgets. Yeah, and if you don't

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Speaker 1: dig too deep, if somebody just says it, it sounds

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Speaker 1: like it could be plausible. Right. The answer eating electricity.

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Speaker 1: You keep finding them inside the TV, inside the iron,

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Speaker 1: inside the sensor, the air conditioner, compressor, the gas pump.

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Speaker 1: They're everywhere the wires are, So why why wouldn't we

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Speaker 1: assume they're eating electricity? Yeah? I mean, the mere idea

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Speaker 1: of ants being drowned electricity isn't that crazy? I mean

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Speaker 1: eating electronics? Yes, that's nuts. But organisms are inherently bioelectric,

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Speaker 1: even in the know the mighty electric eel. It's nothing

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Speaker 1: compared to lightning or the lethal volts coiled inside your

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Speaker 1: household electric outlets, but it's there. It's it's really not

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Speaker 1: that grandiose to think of it as as a sparkle

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Speaker 1: of life. Even so. Yeah, just the mere connection between

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Speaker 1: electricity organisms, uh, you know, one can easily buy into that. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: you can easily imagine they're trying to power up right,

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Speaker 1: or at least that Yeah, there's maybe some kind of

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Speaker 1: electromagnetic field being omitted, and that field tends to draw

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Speaker 1: in insects of a certain sort. It makes me think of, um, Robert,

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Speaker 1: did you ever see that ants circling the iPhone viral video?

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Speaker 1: I don't think I ever did, know, Well, allow me

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Speaker 1: to show you something. Oh wow, So it's just a

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Speaker 1: phone looks like it's receiving a call, and ants are

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Speaker 1: just circling around it like uh, like they're they're intending

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Speaker 1: to invade it where they was sieging it, corralling it

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Speaker 1: even yea. As I look at this video now, it's

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Speaker 1: got almost five million views. It obviously was a viral

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Speaker 1: hit and It was published by something on YouTube called

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Speaker 1: Viral Video Lab. I'm pretty sure it's fake. I looked

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Speaker 1: at the Snopes thing on it. The Snopes article is like, well,

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Speaker 1: you know, we haven't proven it's real. It's hard to

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Speaker 1: prove a video like that is fake. But a lot

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Speaker 1: of the people who have been analyzing it, you know,

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Speaker 1: their Reddit threads on it and stuff, and people are like,

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Speaker 1: you know, if you look at certain parts of it,

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Speaker 1: it really looks like the ants are blurry kind of

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Speaker 1: animations that have been edited into the to the picture.

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Speaker 1: But yet again, it doesn't seem impossible that a phone

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Speaker 1: which puts out an electromagnetic field could cause something like

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Speaker 1: ants to circle around it. I mean, we know that

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Speaker 1: certain animals like birds use a certain amount of magnetic

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Speaker 1: kind of path finding to orient themselves for migration. We

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Speaker 1: know that there are electromagnetically sensitive animals that live in

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Speaker 1: the water. Sharks and rays have a certain amount of

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Speaker 1: electromagnetic sensitivity. So you kind of might assume, even though

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Speaker 1: this video turns out to be fake, that there could

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Speaker 1: be things like that there's some kind of field being

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Speaker 1: put out that sucks in all the insects around it.

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Speaker 1: But with crazy ants. Uh, that does not appear to

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Speaker 1: be the case. But the answer, that answer is still

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Speaker 1: quite fascinating, right it is. So there is more than

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Speaker 1: one kind of crazy ant. Actually, the kind we're talking

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Speaker 1: about is Nylandria Fulva, commonly known as the Raspberry crazy

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Speaker 1: aunt Raspberry without a P because it's named after a

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Speaker 1: guy named Raspberry r A S B E r r Y,

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Speaker 1: or also known as the Tawny crazy ant. Maybe we

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Speaker 1: can mostly call it Nylanderia Fulva or something, because who

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Speaker 1: wants to say raspberry or tawny when you're talking about ants?

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Speaker 1: They sound delicious, though, Yeah, this is it a flavor

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Speaker 1: of ants? Yeah? I think so. It's kind of I'm

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Speaker 1: imagining ice cream cone crawling and crazy ants. Well, I'm

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Speaker 1: sure there are ice cream cones like that. Another point

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Speaker 1: of comparison I should make is that when reading about

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Speaker 1: how these ants pile up, you know they're these massive

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Speaker 1: volumes of ants. The guy talked about sucking five gallons

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Speaker 1: of ants out of his air conditioner with a vacuum cleaner.

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Speaker 1: The people who have really bad infestations of Nyland Area

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Speaker 1: Fulva in Texas and stuff say that the ants will

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Speaker 1: sort of like pile up head against the sides of

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Speaker 1: their house like snow drifts, and if you don't know

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Speaker 1: what you're looking at, it can look like huge piles

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Speaker 1: of coffee grounds or something, suggesting there could be a flavor.

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Speaker 1: It sounds like the zombies and war Zy right where

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Speaker 1: they're just kind of piling up against the wall. Well,

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Speaker 1: that's a that's a kind of interesting thing, the way

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Speaker 1: that ants can behave a little bit like the zombies

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Speaker 1: in the World War Z movie if you haven't seen

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Speaker 1: the movie, zombies are getting over a barrier by just

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Speaker 1: like piling their bodies up against it and eventually forming

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Speaker 1: a staircase made out of other zombies to get to

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Speaker 1: the top of the wall. Yeah, they're really just playing

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Speaker 1: ant like behavior in that in that in that film,

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Speaker 1: because I'm instantly reminded of cases that we've talked about

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Speaker 1: in the past of uh, you know, I believe the

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Speaker 1: fire ants in particular forming a raft, Yes, exactly. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: they'll they'll make a raft for themselves when it floods,

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Speaker 1: a raft made out of ants for ants to survive

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Speaker 1: a flood. I want to see zombies do that. Maybe

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Speaker 1: the zombies have done that in a in a film

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Speaker 1: or a TV show I just haven't seen it. It's

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Speaker 1: kind of a reminder of the bizarre, deep, almost kind

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Speaker 1: of group intelligence that you see in use social insects

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Speaker 1: like ants and bees. But anyway, as we were saying,

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Speaker 1: there's more than one kind of crazy ant. Crazy ants

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Speaker 1: are native to South America, specifically northern Argentina and southern Brazil,

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Speaker 1: so picture kind of middle Middle region in South America.

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Speaker 1: And they were first discovered in Texas by an exterminator

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Speaker 1: named Tom Raspberry in two thousand two, and since then

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Speaker 1: they've been spreading throughout the Gulf Coast. They're now in

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Speaker 1: Louisiana and Florida and Mississippi. And people thought in those

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Speaker 1: regions that the red fire ant was pretty bad. They

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Speaker 1: thought it was a troubling invasive species. But the crazy

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Speaker 1: ant has actually been replacing the red fire ant for

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Speaker 1: many years there Now it's also displacing other arthropods like

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Speaker 1: spiders and centipedes, which can destabilize the food chain because

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Speaker 1: larger predators like birds need to be able to eat

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Speaker 1: things like spiders and centipedes. They're not so keen on

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Speaker 1: a crazy ants. All right, hold that thought. We're gonna

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Speaker 1: take a quick break and when we come back, we

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Speaker 1: will jump back into the swarm of crazy ants. Than alright,

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Speaker 1: we're back. So we mentioned that the crazy ants are

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Speaker 1: of the genus Nyland area. Um, you might wonder how

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Speaker 1: do they get the name crazy ants? Is it because

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Speaker 1: they're crazy because they want to get into your TV?

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Speaker 1: That doesn't really seem like how a name would come about.

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Speaker 1: Apparently they get this name from just descriptions of their

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Speaker 1: foraging behavior. And if you've never seen what this looks like,

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Speaker 1: you should go to YouTube and you should look up

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Speaker 1: videos of crazy ants foraging because it's it's kind of

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Speaker 1: hard to describe. It's this frantic, erratic, extremely fast movement.

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Speaker 1: Uh to me, crazy ants moving around in a swarm.

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Speaker 1: It almost looks like a swarm of gnats zipping around

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Speaker 1: in the air, except the movement is confined to a

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Speaker 1: flat surface on the ground. Yeah, if you're used to

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Speaker 1: sing and you know ants embarking on journeys generally like

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Speaker 1: a path from one place to another, you look at

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Speaker 1: this and it just looks like they're just a scramble.

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Speaker 1: They're just a mess. Yeah, it's just a mindless swarm. Well,

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Speaker 1: you think it's a different kind of foraging strategy based

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Speaker 1: on different mathematics. Right, when you've got a single line

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Speaker 1: between two things, you're maximizing efficiency there, Like the ants

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Speaker 1: are not expending any more energy than they need to

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Speaker 1: to get from one place to another in order to

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Speaker 1: transport goods and seek out new stuff and all that.

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Speaker 1: But when you see these these ants moving around, you

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Speaker 1: get a very different idea. It's almost as if they're

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Speaker 1: going for a different type of investment bet payoff matrix,

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Speaker 1: Like they're betting more on random movement leading to possible

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Speaker 1: discoveries of things leading to potential payoffs in in a

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Speaker 1: kind of like cloud type movement. Yeah, they're just scouring

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Speaker 1: the terrain to see what they can find. Now, I

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Speaker 1: listened to an interview with a U. T. Austin researcher

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Speaker 1: named Dr Edward Lebrun, who is an expert on crazy

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Speaker 1: antswer who studies invasive ants in general and um, one

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Speaker 1: of the things you're saying is that they're very successful

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Speaker 1: invasive species because they share traits with other successful invasive ants,

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Speaker 1: one of which is that the crazy ants are what

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Speaker 1: he calls super colonial, meaning you've got no divisions between

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Speaker 1: colonies of the same species. So some other ants might

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Speaker 1: set up a colony here and then a colony over

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Speaker 1: in the neighbor's yard. And if the ants of those

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Speaker 1: two colonies come into contact with another, they're going to

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Speaker 1: fight it out right, like rival kingdoms exactly. They're in

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Speaker 1: competition for the same resources. It's like, you know, you

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Speaker 1: and your neighbor fighting over I don't know what you

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Speaker 1: would fight over with your neighbor. You found treasure, yeah,

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Speaker 1: buried treasure right on the property line, and you say,

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Speaker 1: I'm getting my sword, that's my treasure. But the crazy

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Speaker 1: ants don't necessarily behave that way. Crazy ants from different

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Speaker 1: colonies apparently treat one another with deference in respect. They

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Speaker 1: come across members of another colony, and they treat them

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Speaker 1: basically as if they were members of the same colony. So,

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Speaker 1: con specifics, members of the same crazy aunt species don't

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Speaker 1: tend to antagonize one another. They team up. And from

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Speaker 1: that New York Times article I mentioned earlier by Mullum Lebroun,

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Speaker 1: the researchers says that he believes there's a single super

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Speaker 1: colony of crazy ants that occupies quote as many as

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Speaker 1: four thousand, two hundred acres in Iowa Colony, which is

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Speaker 1: a place in Texas strangely enough, uh, and is spreading

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Speaker 1: two hundred meters a year in all directions. It's basically

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Speaker 1: just this one giant organism because in many ways a

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Speaker 1: colony of ants or a colony of any youth social

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Speaker 1: insects kind of does behave like a single organism split

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Speaker 1: across multiple bodies. Wow. So yeah, this is they're essentially

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Speaker 1: the the the Tyrannids from Warhammer forty thousand. There just

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Speaker 1: this invading superorganism. Well you've mentioned the Tyrannids before, but

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Speaker 1: you've got to tell me a little more about him, Robert. Basically,

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Speaker 1: it's an army of xenomorph inspired sort of biohr is

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Speaker 1: also very inspired by the the alien antagonists from Starship Troopers,

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Speaker 1: so that kind of adversary and the ideas that they

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Speaker 1: just come and they just lay waste two entire planets.

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Speaker 1: You know, it's funny you should mention Starship Troopers because

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Speaker 1: we were just talking about the World War Z kinda

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Speaker 1: and aunt. What what World War Z zombies and ants

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Speaker 1: have in common is that they'll make mega structures out

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Speaker 1: of their own bodies to climb over things and stuff.

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Speaker 1: The bugs in Starship Troopers do the same thing. Yeah, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's right. They did in the film version. Yeah. Oh,

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Speaker 1: I don't know if they do in the book. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I've I've read the book, but I don't I don't recall. Well,

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Speaker 1: I think it's time we've got to address this question.

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Speaker 1: Why do the crazy ants keep invading electronics? Why do

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Speaker 1: you find them in the TV and the iron in

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Speaker 1: the detector and the all that stuff. Well, part of

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Speaker 1: the answer, of course, is based on the way they

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Speaker 1: hunt for food and resources. They are simply going to

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Speaker 1: come across electronics, right, I mean, they are going to

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Speaker 1: find them because that's they're They're just scouring everywhere. They're

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Speaker 1: gonna scour your home and they're going to run across

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Speaker 1: your various electronic gadgets. Yeah, you're exactly right. I Mean

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Speaker 1: one of the things that comes through in the stories

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Speaker 1: about crazy and infestations is that that they they become

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Speaker 1: so pervasive in everywhere. You know, if you've got an

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Speaker 1: infestation in your house, they're gonna be all over the place,

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Speaker 1: and so they will be scouting out all kinds of things.

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Speaker 1: And this actually leads to one thing that Edward Lebrun

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Speaker 1: said that I thought was pretty interesting. He didn't use

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Speaker 1: these words, but he said essentially that there's got to

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Speaker 1: be some selection bias in the characterization of them, mainly

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Speaker 1: invading electronics. And his exact quote was quote, when your

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Speaker 1: power goes out, you want to know why you find

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Speaker 1: a bunch of ants. That's a good reason to get

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Speaker 1: your video camera. Which is a very good point about

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Speaker 1: the way that we tend to notice things, right, We

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Speaker 1: tend to notice something when it's an unusual problem. You're

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Speaker 1: much less likely to get the camera out if it's

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Speaker 1: you know, not turning off something that you might be

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Speaker 1: trying to use. That's right. And then of course the

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Speaker 1: reason that that that they wind up in your electronics,

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Speaker 1: the reason why it becomes a problem has a lot

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Speaker 1: to do with not so much the certainly not the

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Speaker 1: electronic components there, but just the case itself. Like if

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Speaker 1: if they end up in your computer tower for your

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Speaker 1: your PC, it's not because there's a you know, there's

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Speaker 1: an active battery in there or anything, right, it's the

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Speaker 1: it's it's the tower itself is an ideal container for

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Speaker 1: the ants exactly. So crazy ants are different than many

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Speaker 1: other types of ants. If you've got a group of

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Speaker 1: red fire ants, Solenopsis invicta, which they've got a great

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Speaker 1: Latin name, Solenopsis in victa. They're gonna build a colony, right,

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Speaker 1: They're gonna dig, and they're gonna build a mound, and

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Speaker 1: they're gonna dig tunnels in the mound. Their their ecosystem engineers, right,

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Speaker 1: like we were talking about in the City Evolution episode.

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Speaker 1: They build their own ecosystem and then they guard it

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Speaker 1: to the death. Crazy ants are different. They don't dig

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Speaker 1: very much. They dig a little bit and not much.

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Speaker 1: They prefer to nest in existing cavities they come across

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Speaker 1: in the environment. So the insides of boxes containing electronics

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Speaker 1: tend to be an eye deal type of enclosed protected

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Speaker 1: space that's perfect for them to climb into and form

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Speaker 1: a nest inside. Yeah, enclosed spaces with with space in

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Speaker 1: there and a limited numbers of of entrances and exits, right,

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Speaker 1: and very small entrances and exits, so predators, it's gonna

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Speaker 1: be hard for them to get in there. When was

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Speaker 1: the last time an ant eater got inside your TV? Rightly,

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Speaker 1: it's it's true, it's it's it's it's pretty safe from

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Speaker 1: less than five times. It's got to be. But also

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Speaker 1: Lebron and other experts have pointed out another reason why

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Speaker 1: you might tend to find tons of ants and the

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Speaker 1: guts of your TV, or tons of crazy ants pouring

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Speaker 1: out of a compressor box or something. Lebron says that

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Speaker 1: when the crazy ants get agitated, they released something known

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Speaker 1: as an alarm pheromone. Now we know that a lot

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Speaker 1: of the communication between ants who share a colony is

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Speaker 1: pheromone base. They release chemical signals that are distributed through

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Speaker 1: the air that can essentially smell messages from one another,

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Speaker 1: and the alarm pheromone is a chemical that has a

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Speaker 1: smell that alerts conspecific ants to danger or trouble. Now

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Speaker 1: you can imagine that this could work several different ways

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Speaker 1: in the wild. Right, one way an animal might use

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Speaker 1: an alarm pheromone would be to say, Hey, I'm in danger.

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Speaker 1: There's something dangerous here, you better stay away. But not

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Speaker 1: so with the crazy ants. You know, I feel like

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Speaker 1: this sort of pheromone based behavior you often see this

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Speaker 1: pop up in monster movies, is a way to outsmart

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Speaker 1: or defeat the adversary. Blade too comes to mind. There's

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Speaker 1: the end up like mimicking the pheromones of the reaper

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Speaker 1: vampires and you know, directing where they swarm. But I

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Speaker 1: feel like it's rarely explored as that the prime motivator.

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Speaker 1: Is there a monster movie out there where the whole

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Speaker 1: crazy interspecies conflict comes down to a misunderstanding over alarm pheromone?

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Speaker 1: May be interesting. I've never heard of that, but you

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Speaker 1: could easily see how, especially given what I'm about to say,

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Speaker 1: that that things could get mixed up and go bad.

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Speaker 1: So another what Lebron says is, actually, it's not the

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Speaker 1: way that I just mentioned. It's not that they put

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Speaker 1: out an alarm pheromone that says I'm in danger, stay away.

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Speaker 1: When you put crazy ants in a vial, he says,

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Speaker 1: they get very agitated, and they get mad, they release

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Speaker 1: their alarm pheromone. And if you take a vial of

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Speaker 1: these really angry agitated ants and you put it next

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Speaker 1: to a trail of other crazy ants, instead of avoiding

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Speaker 1: the vial, the ants are going to swarm all over it.

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Speaker 1: They're actually attracted to the alarm pheromone. And this kind

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Speaker 1: of makes sense for ants because being used social insects,

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Speaker 1: this is how they defend nests. Like if you've got

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Speaker 1: a nest and something's in the nest. Attacking the nest,

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Speaker 1: what you want to do is bring all of your

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Speaker 1: family members in to fight the attacker off. So basically

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00:21:43,600 --> 00:21:46,760
Speaker 1: they're there. Their whole way about doing things is if

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Speaker 1: you mess with one crazy ant, you're messing with all

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00:21:49,240 --> 00:21:52,119
Speaker 1: the crazy ants, right, I mean, one crazy ant doesn't

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Speaker 1: stand much of a chance right there. They're they're very small.

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00:21:54,800 --> 00:21:58,720
Speaker 1: Crazy antswer tiny, especially compared to some other AUNT competitors

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Speaker 1: of theirs, which are bigger and have powerful venom glands

404
00:22:01,280 --> 00:22:04,359
Speaker 1: and stingers and stuff. Crazy an'ts are little things. But

405
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Speaker 1: of course the problem here is someone with an invaded xbox.

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Speaker 1: They're they're not intentionally messing with the crazy ants. They're

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Speaker 1: not trying to eat crazy ants. They're not They're not

408
00:22:14,800 --> 00:22:18,320
Speaker 1: they're not trying to do the uh, the colony's harm.

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Speaker 1: But what happens if, if, if a if a single

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00:22:21,359 --> 00:22:24,600
Speaker 1: crazy ant comes to harm within your xbox. That's exactly

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Speaker 1: the problem. So it has been hypothesized by Lebron and

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Speaker 1: others that what may be going on here is you've

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Speaker 1: got an electronic device, or an electrical power box or

414
00:22:34,280 --> 00:22:38,560
Speaker 1: something crazy ant comes in, maybe multiple crazy ants come in,

415
00:22:38,600 --> 00:22:41,200
Speaker 1: either one ant or a group of ants touching one

416
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Speaker 1: another create a short circuit. They touched the wrong contact points,

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00:22:45,760 --> 00:22:49,640
Speaker 1: they close a circuit and get electrocuted or burned because

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00:22:49,680 --> 00:22:51,040
Speaker 1: they don't know what they're doing. They don't know how

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00:22:51,040 --> 00:22:54,199
Speaker 1: circuits work. No, they're like Indiana Jones's buddy wandering through

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00:22:54,240 --> 00:22:56,439
Speaker 1: the temple. They don't know there are traps here. They

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00:22:56,440 --> 00:22:58,000
Speaker 1: don't know to stay out of the light, so that

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Speaker 1: so they they just get burned or get electrocuted. And

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Speaker 1: then when there's trauma, they release the alarm pheromone, and

424
00:23:06,280 --> 00:23:09,560
Speaker 1: of course this draws in more ants, and maybe more

425
00:23:09,600 --> 00:23:12,560
Speaker 1: ants get electrocuted or burned or something like that, and

426
00:23:12,560 --> 00:23:15,560
Speaker 1: they release more alarm pheromone, and it draws in even

427
00:23:15,600 --> 00:23:18,719
Speaker 1: more ants, until you've just got a TV sagging with ants.

428
00:23:19,720 --> 00:23:22,000
Speaker 1: And this again, this could work wonderfully. And say a

429
00:23:22,080 --> 00:23:24,359
Speaker 1: zombie movie, what if the whole reason the zombies are

430
00:23:24,359 --> 00:23:27,440
Speaker 1: attacking the the house all odd night of the Living

431
00:23:27,480 --> 00:23:30,840
Speaker 1: Dead is because one zombie happened to, uh, you know,

432
00:23:30,880 --> 00:23:32,960
Speaker 1: burn up in a toaster. I feel like there's got

433
00:23:32,960 --> 00:23:34,760
Speaker 1: to be a good monster movie that already has a

434
00:23:34,760 --> 00:23:38,240
Speaker 1: treatment of this. It must exist. I can't call anything

435
00:23:38,280 --> 00:23:41,520
Speaker 1: to mind right now. Yeah, like I say, it seems

436
00:23:41,560 --> 00:23:44,439
Speaker 1: like you see the pheromone angle used as a as

437
00:23:44,480 --> 00:23:48,760
Speaker 1: a brilliant scientific, you know, tactic against the monsters, but

438
00:23:48,800 --> 00:23:51,600
Speaker 1: it's rarely the uh, the the actual cause of the

439
00:23:51,960 --> 00:23:54,760
Speaker 1: of the encounter. Now, if you don't already live within

440
00:23:54,920 --> 00:23:57,879
Speaker 1: range of Nylondaria fulva, I'm sure you're wondering when can

441
00:23:57,920 --> 00:24:01,520
Speaker 1: I get them in my EXAs well. The fortunate thing

442
00:24:01,640 --> 00:24:04,760
Speaker 1: is that they don't tend to travel very far on

443
00:24:04,800 --> 00:24:07,840
Speaker 1: their own because they don't have wing dispersal, so they

444
00:24:07,840 --> 00:24:11,000
Speaker 1: don't you know, fly off new queens to set up

445
00:24:11,040 --> 00:24:13,760
Speaker 1: new colonies far away. They move very slowly. I've seen

446
00:24:13,760 --> 00:24:16,760
Speaker 1: it characterized as on average about two hundred meters per

447
00:24:16,840 --> 00:24:20,240
Speaker 1: year is about as far as they go unless somebody

448
00:24:20,280 --> 00:24:24,880
Speaker 1: moves them. And you can imagine how somebody might move

449
00:24:24,960 --> 00:24:28,680
Speaker 1: them by accident if they tend to inhabit cavities. So

450
00:24:28,840 --> 00:24:32,639
Speaker 1: say one of these things gets inside your car or

451
00:24:32,720 --> 00:24:35,680
Speaker 1: gets inside your TV and you move houses, or gets

452
00:24:35,680 --> 00:24:38,520
Speaker 1: inside something else, and that is how these things can

453
00:24:38,560 --> 00:24:43,200
Speaker 1: be transported to new places. Now, there are some questions

454
00:24:43,200 --> 00:24:46,080
Speaker 1: that haven't been fully answered yet about what's the up

455
00:24:46,359 --> 00:24:49,920
Speaker 1: upwards northern end of their possible range. How how far

456
00:24:50,040 --> 00:24:53,880
Speaker 1: north could they go before, for example, of freezes hard

457
00:24:53,920 --> 00:24:56,840
Speaker 1: freezes in the winter would prevent them from surviving. And

458
00:24:56,920 --> 00:24:59,480
Speaker 1: we don't fully know the answers tell those questions yet.

459
00:24:59,640 --> 00:25:02,240
Speaker 1: But once we answer those questions, then of course who

460
00:25:02,240 --> 00:25:04,800
Speaker 1: knows if climate change is gonna affect that over the

461
00:25:04,840 --> 00:25:07,720
Speaker 1: coming decades anyway, So right, there's gonna that's changing the

462
00:25:07,720 --> 00:25:10,760
Speaker 1: playing field for so many different organisms. Yeah, so what

463
00:25:10,920 --> 00:25:13,919
Speaker 1: ultimately is at steak here with the crazy ants? I mean,

464
00:25:13,960 --> 00:25:17,240
Speaker 1: it truly goes beyond just the the average, the the

465
00:25:17,240 --> 00:25:20,600
Speaker 1: the odds shorted out xbox right right. Well, the the

466
00:25:20,680 --> 00:25:25,040
Speaker 1: damage is mainly not too human electronics. It's mainly going

467
00:25:25,080 --> 00:25:29,080
Speaker 1: to be too ecosystems. Because they can out compete native insects.

468
00:25:29,200 --> 00:25:33,440
Speaker 1: They can destroy beehives and other ant colonies. Um, I've

469
00:25:33,440 --> 00:25:37,040
Speaker 1: read that they can even sometimes they're so thick, they swarm,

470
00:25:37,119 --> 00:25:41,920
Speaker 1: so thick that they can smother and suffocate ground dwelling birds.

471
00:25:42,359 --> 00:25:45,359
Speaker 1: It's horrible to picture, but yeah, they just get into

472
00:25:45,359 --> 00:25:48,439
Speaker 1: the nasal cavities of chickens and other ground dwelling birds

473
00:25:48,440 --> 00:25:51,439
Speaker 1: and asphyxiate them. U they can get in the eyes

474
00:25:51,560 --> 00:25:55,840
Speaker 1: of live stock. It's really gross as far as damage goes,

475
00:25:55,880 --> 00:25:58,080
Speaker 1: I actually have read that there was at least one

476
00:25:58,119 --> 00:26:02,000
Speaker 1: time when they shut down a chemical plant by getting

477
00:26:02,040 --> 00:26:05,440
Speaker 1: into electronics. So we've been saying, okay, here are these

478
00:26:05,600 --> 00:26:08,880
Speaker 1: these more reasonable explanations. Is not that they eat electricity,

479
00:26:09,280 --> 00:26:11,879
Speaker 1: it's that there's this pheromone and here's what happens to

480
00:26:11,920 --> 00:26:14,439
Speaker 1: get them inside your electronics. I should note that in

481
00:26:14,480 --> 00:26:17,160
Speaker 1: that New York Times story I mentioned earlier, Dr David Oi,

482
00:26:17,320 --> 00:26:20,359
Speaker 1: an entomologist with the U. S Department of Agriculture. He

483
00:26:20,520 --> 00:26:22,440
Speaker 1: according to him, he said, you know, we can't rule

484
00:26:22,480 --> 00:26:24,720
Speaker 1: out the possibility that the ants are in some way

485
00:26:24,720 --> 00:26:27,760
Speaker 1: actually attracted to electromagnetic fields and get in there. For

486
00:26:27,800 --> 00:26:30,399
Speaker 1: that reason, that just hasn't been you know, we haven't

487
00:26:30,400 --> 00:26:32,639
Speaker 1: demonstrated that, but you can't rule it out as an

488
00:26:32,680 --> 00:26:36,199
Speaker 1: influencing factor. So who knows. Maybe they are, maybe they

489
00:26:36,200 --> 00:26:39,920
Speaker 1: are shocker material. But anyway, as as far as their

490
00:26:39,960 --> 00:26:42,840
Speaker 1: effect on humans goes, I mean, I think a lot

491
00:26:42,880 --> 00:26:48,000
Speaker 1: of it is actually more psychological than material damage. When

492
00:26:48,040 --> 00:26:50,400
Speaker 1: you read about people who live in the places where

493
00:26:50,400 --> 00:26:53,679
Speaker 1: they're dealing with infestations of these ants, they they they

494
00:26:53,720 --> 00:26:57,760
Speaker 1: hate them, They're they are freaking out. I mean, I'm

495
00:26:57,800 --> 00:27:00,280
Speaker 1: sure not everybody is like that, but there there are

496
00:27:00,280 --> 00:27:03,840
Speaker 1: some people who are really distressed. I can't at a

497
00:27:03,920 --> 00:27:07,800
Speaker 1: voluminous the antsw are I can't imagine anyone not freaking

498
00:27:07,800 --> 00:27:10,240
Speaker 1: out like we. We don't really want our homes to

499
00:27:10,359 --> 00:27:17,639
Speaker 1: be um habitats for anything besides ourselves and our sanctioned pets. Nobody,

500
00:27:17,680 --> 00:27:19,920
Speaker 1: nobody wants to see ants in their house. That is

501
00:27:19,960 --> 00:27:22,679
Speaker 1: always a problem. You know that John Muellam article in

502
00:27:22,720 --> 00:27:26,439
Speaker 1: The Times, It takes a dark turn when he quotes uh.

503
00:27:26,520 --> 00:27:30,159
Speaker 1: He quotes the American psychologist James Hillman and says that

504
00:27:30,280 --> 00:27:34,600
Speaker 1: Hillman argued, an endless swarm of bugs flattens your perception

505
00:27:34,640 --> 00:27:38,760
Speaker 1: of yourself as precious and meaningful. It instantly reduces your

506
00:27:38,800 --> 00:27:43,880
Speaker 1: individual consciousness to a merely numerical or statistical level. Well,

507
00:27:43,960 --> 00:27:46,480
Speaker 1: I can't say that's exactly how I think about it.

508
00:27:46,520 --> 00:27:48,720
Speaker 1: When I encounter ants in the house. Usually I'm I

509
00:27:49,119 --> 00:27:52,720
Speaker 1: think more, Oh, well, we left something out, the ants

510
00:27:52,760 --> 00:27:54,280
Speaker 1: came in and are trying to eat it, and now

511
00:27:54,320 --> 00:27:56,800
Speaker 1: I've got to set out some of these grotesque traps

512
00:27:56,800 --> 00:27:59,760
Speaker 1: to try and kill them. Everyone loses, the ants lose,

513
00:27:59,840 --> 00:28:02,600
Speaker 1: I lose. Nobody wants this situation. You know, I I

514
00:28:02,680 --> 00:28:06,360
Speaker 1: don't like killing bugs and wildlife, but when I've had

515
00:28:06,400 --> 00:28:09,399
Speaker 1: aunt infestations in my house, I've noticed that, like I

516
00:28:09,480 --> 00:28:13,640
Speaker 1: just turned into a cold hearted murderer. I'm just like, yeah,

517
00:28:13,680 --> 00:28:16,520
Speaker 1: I'm gonna kill you all it. It does something to

518
00:28:16,600 --> 00:28:19,520
Speaker 1: my brain. Well, they're they're just they're out of place.

519
00:28:19,560 --> 00:28:21,439
Speaker 1: They're not supposed to be here. That's not what the

520
00:28:21,440 --> 00:28:23,600
Speaker 1: house is for. I feel like I should learn to

521
00:28:23,640 --> 00:28:27,199
Speaker 1: be a better person. It's it's easy to do that

522
00:28:27,240 --> 00:28:29,280
Speaker 1: when you were out and about and encounter the ants

523
00:28:29,680 --> 00:28:31,680
Speaker 1: in the yard, But it's just in the house that

524
00:28:31,800 --> 00:28:33,840
Speaker 1: changes everything. Now, one of the things that a lot

525
00:28:33,840 --> 00:28:37,000
Speaker 1: of the conversation on crazy ants has centered on has

526
00:28:37,040 --> 00:28:42,120
Speaker 1: actually been like bureaucratic, scientific and government response to them.

527
00:28:42,320 --> 00:28:44,320
Speaker 1: Like a lot of that New York Times article I mentioned.

528
00:28:44,360 --> 00:28:46,440
Speaker 1: While it's got some great anecdotes and stuff in it,

529
00:28:46,720 --> 00:28:48,720
Speaker 1: a lot of the article is actually focused on the

530
00:28:48,760 --> 00:28:52,840
Speaker 1: scientific community and the government's alleged slowness to identify the

531
00:28:52,880 --> 00:28:55,640
Speaker 1: species and respond to its spread in a way that

532
00:28:55,760 --> 00:28:58,840
Speaker 1: might not be fair. Right. Yeah. I found an interesting

533
00:28:58,920 --> 00:29:02,160
Speaker 1: response to this particular New York Times article by a

534
00:29:02,400 --> 00:29:06,640
Speaker 1: research scientist, Alex Wilde and he offered this critique. He said, quote,

535
00:29:06,880 --> 00:29:09,680
Speaker 1: this is not accurate. Scientists did not, in fact, quote

536
00:29:09,720 --> 00:29:14,720
Speaker 1: swarm into debate unquote. The slow response to identifying in

537
00:29:14,840 --> 00:29:18,680
Speaker 1: fullva was exactly the opposite. The trouble is that figuring

538
00:29:18,760 --> 00:29:22,560
Speaker 1: out the origin and invasive ants isn't anyone's job, at

539
00:29:22,600 --> 00:29:25,400
Speaker 1: least not in the United States. What happened was that

540
00:29:25,440 --> 00:29:28,640
Speaker 1: a few ants scientists, in their spare time from whatever

541
00:29:28,680 --> 00:29:32,600
Speaker 1: their official duties were, have occasionally offered an opinion about

542
00:29:32,640 --> 00:29:36,600
Speaker 1: these new invaders. And he goes on to summarize further

543
00:29:36,640 --> 00:29:38,920
Speaker 1: and said, and he says, I don't see the point

544
00:29:38,960 --> 00:29:42,000
Speaker 1: of singling out the egghead scientists for being slow to

545
00:29:42,040 --> 00:29:47,040
Speaker 1: identify Nylanderia fulva when the real trouble is bigger and structural.

546
00:29:47,080 --> 00:29:50,160
Speaker 1: Americans simply don't value basic research enough to support a

547
00:29:50,200 --> 00:29:54,000
Speaker 1: system that rapidly pinpoints emerging pest problems. If we want

548
00:29:54,040 --> 00:29:57,720
Speaker 1: to quickly identify new pests, we need to salary thousands

549
00:29:57,720 --> 00:30:01,640
Speaker 1: of positions for taxonomists where afpid response to emerging threats

550
00:30:01,720 --> 00:30:04,560
Speaker 1: is part of the job. I think that's a good

551
00:30:04,560 --> 00:30:07,480
Speaker 1: point to make. I mean, uh, maybe we should have

552
00:30:07,600 --> 00:30:09,640
Speaker 1: made it more clear that one of the things in

553
00:30:09,640 --> 00:30:12,360
Speaker 1: the article is that you get this idea that these

554
00:30:12,440 --> 00:30:15,720
Speaker 1: like exterminators and people have to be the ones to

555
00:30:15,800 --> 00:30:19,280
Speaker 1: step in and really push forward on identifying the species

556
00:30:19,320 --> 00:30:23,320
Speaker 1: because the scientists are dropping the ball. It really basically

557
00:30:23,360 --> 00:30:25,560
Speaker 1: the horror movie just writes itself again because you can

558
00:30:25,600 --> 00:30:30,720
Speaker 1: imagine the poor exterminate. Yea, the exterminator character dies in

559
00:30:30,720 --> 00:30:33,440
Speaker 1: the opening scene. Then the scientist comes in and it

560
00:30:33,480 --> 00:30:37,800
Speaker 1: is all and trying to interpret it but ultimately can't

561
00:30:37,800 --> 00:30:39,920
Speaker 1: get a handle on the monsters, and the monsters eat him.

562
00:30:40,240 --> 00:30:43,480
Speaker 1: But the reality is rather different. There's no crack team

563
00:30:43,480 --> 00:30:47,360
Speaker 1: of egghead scientists to show up to deal with with

564
00:30:47,480 --> 00:30:50,040
Speaker 1: with different outbreaks of ants. Yeah, and especially with the

565
00:30:50,080 --> 00:30:52,080
Speaker 1: world we live in right now. I mean we live

566
00:30:52,080 --> 00:30:55,040
Speaker 1: in a world that is number one globally connected through

567
00:30:55,080 --> 00:30:58,200
Speaker 1: commerce and travel, so things can get back and forth

568
00:30:58,320 --> 00:31:01,600
Speaker 1: between places really easy. And number two, we live in

569
00:31:01,640 --> 00:31:04,320
Speaker 1: an era of changing climate where it's going to be

570
00:31:04,560 --> 00:31:07,800
Speaker 1: we're always going to be altering ecosystems and changing the

571
00:31:07,840 --> 00:31:10,760
Speaker 1: types of life forms they can support. We're getting into

572
00:31:10,840 --> 00:31:14,120
Speaker 1: an invasive species. What would you call it the dead zone?

573
00:31:14,400 --> 00:31:17,560
Speaker 1: Not the dead zone, a life zone. Actually that's the opposite.

574
00:31:17,840 --> 00:31:22,160
Speaker 1: A zone that is just rife for infestations of all types. Now,

575
00:31:22,600 --> 00:31:27,840
Speaker 1: I want to be careful not to overly demonize invasive species,

576
00:31:27,840 --> 00:31:30,840
Speaker 1: because you can sometimes see people get into this mindset

577
00:31:30,880 --> 00:31:33,560
Speaker 1: of like, oh, this species from South America or something.

578
00:31:33,560 --> 00:31:37,080
Speaker 1: They're just these horrible pests. It's not that the animals

579
00:31:37,120 --> 00:31:39,880
Speaker 1: themselves are horrible. I mean, they didn't do anything wrong.

580
00:31:40,200 --> 00:31:43,280
Speaker 1: They're just trying to live. The problem is they're suddenly

581
00:31:43,360 --> 00:31:46,600
Speaker 1: living in an ecosystem that was not prepared for them,

582
00:31:47,000 --> 00:31:51,400
Speaker 1: and they're they're disrupting that ecosystem and causing rapid change

583
00:31:51,440 --> 00:31:54,560
Speaker 1: within it. Yeah, we're the ones who disrupted the balance.

584
00:31:54,840 --> 00:31:57,280
Speaker 1: So you can't. You can't getting mad at the weights

585
00:31:57,320 --> 00:31:59,960
Speaker 1: when you're the one who switched them around on the scales. Yeah.

586
00:32:00,120 --> 00:32:03,040
Speaker 1: That being said, you you can try to exterminate the

587
00:32:03,080 --> 00:32:05,680
Speaker 1: weights in this case of the ants. All Right, we're

588
00:32:05,680 --> 00:32:07,640
Speaker 1: gonna take one more break, and when we come back,

589
00:32:07,800 --> 00:32:12,440
Speaker 1: we'll discuss the ant on ant action, the ant war

590
00:32:12,960 --> 00:32:19,360
Speaker 1: between the fire ants and the crazy ants. Alright, we're back.

591
00:32:19,520 --> 00:32:22,320
Speaker 1: It's fire ants versus crazy ants. How does this epic

592
00:32:22,360 --> 00:32:25,240
Speaker 1: war go down? Robert, You've got to tell me. Is

593
00:32:25,320 --> 00:32:28,960
Speaker 1: there a fire ant or any kind of ant Mexican

594
00:32:29,000 --> 00:32:33,160
Speaker 1: wrestler or Japanese wrestler. Oh, well, there are some. There

595
00:32:33,160 --> 00:32:36,000
Speaker 1: are some sort of uh, there are some ant based

596
00:32:36,000 --> 00:32:39,320
Speaker 1: wrestlers out of believe it's with Chakara, which is a

597
00:32:39,440 --> 00:32:42,480
Speaker 1: US independent pro wrestling group, and they have a whole

598
00:32:42,800 --> 00:32:45,360
Speaker 1: slew of ants. There's like fire ant soldier AUNT and

599
00:32:45,400 --> 00:32:47,600
Speaker 1: they're all mass wrestlers. Yeah, how did I guess this?

600
00:32:48,120 --> 00:32:50,600
Speaker 1: It just it it rights itself. You would just assume

601
00:32:50,640 --> 00:32:52,480
Speaker 1: there would be AUNT wrestlers, and there are. I bet

602
00:32:52,480 --> 00:32:55,160
Speaker 1: they're a good tag team, right, because answer great team players,

603
00:32:55,280 --> 00:32:57,520
Speaker 1: I believe. So. I'm not a I'm not a big

604
00:32:57,920 --> 00:33:02,200
Speaker 1: Chakara viewer, but my understanding is they have uh they're

605
00:33:02,360 --> 00:33:07,320
Speaker 1: like like tag team and six man tag team specialist. Yes, well,

606
00:33:07,360 --> 00:33:10,080
Speaker 1: let's imagine that the team they're going up against is

607
00:33:10,120 --> 00:33:11,960
Speaker 1: a team of fire ants. You've got a team of

608
00:33:12,000 --> 00:33:15,560
Speaker 1: crazy ants, crazy ant wrestlers going up against fire ant wrestlers.

609
00:33:16,120 --> 00:33:19,280
Speaker 1: Who's gonna win this battle? Turns out the crazy ants,

610
00:33:19,320 --> 00:33:22,080
Speaker 1: the crazy ants are gonna win even though the crazy

611
00:33:22,120 --> 00:33:25,760
Speaker 1: ants they're small, Uh that they don't have this powerful

612
00:33:26,000 --> 00:33:28,320
Speaker 1: scary sting like the fire ants do. Like you get

613
00:33:28,360 --> 00:33:30,760
Speaker 1: some fire ants on you sting you. That is a

614
00:33:30,920 --> 00:33:33,480
Speaker 1: that's a bad day, and it's gonna be some bad

615
00:33:33,560 --> 00:33:37,040
Speaker 1: days like that. That hurts. Uh. The crazy ants, while

616
00:33:37,080 --> 00:33:40,680
Speaker 1: they can be incredibly irritating if you've got an infestation

617
00:33:40,720 --> 00:33:44,720
Speaker 1: in your home, their bite has been described as barely noticeable.

618
00:33:44,800 --> 00:33:48,120
Speaker 1: It's it's not too painful to humans. Yeah, by humans,

619
00:33:48,120 --> 00:33:51,360
Speaker 1: always important to know when we're dealing with miniscule species.

620
00:33:51,440 --> 00:33:53,520
Speaker 1: But then again, it speaks to the power of the

621
00:33:53,800 --> 00:33:56,480
Speaker 1: fire ant that we're all aware of what a fire

622
00:33:56,520 --> 00:33:58,360
Speaker 1: ant can do, so much so that we all know

623
00:33:58,400 --> 00:34:00,760
Speaker 1: what it means when EO. Wilson j M's his hand

624
00:34:00,800 --> 00:34:02,920
Speaker 1: into the fire ant nest and you see them just

625
00:34:03,720 --> 00:34:07,800
Speaker 1: joyfully beaming with the ant pain. But anyway, Yeah, you've

626
00:34:07,800 --> 00:34:11,839
Speaker 1: got these competitors red fire ants or Solenopsis invicta and

627
00:34:12,000 --> 00:34:15,279
Speaker 1: the crazy ants or Nylon diarya fulva. And when they

628
00:34:15,320 --> 00:34:18,400
Speaker 1: come together, the crazy ants apparently win. So how do

629
00:34:18,480 --> 00:34:22,600
Speaker 1: the crazy ants generally protect themselves? Well, there's a good

630
00:34:22,719 --> 00:34:27,080
Speaker 1: article by Dina Fine marin inteen called the Rise of

631
00:34:27,080 --> 00:34:30,799
Speaker 1: the Crazy Ants and Scientific American UH, and it profiles

632
00:34:30,880 --> 00:34:36,200
Speaker 1: some good research in science from by Lebron, Jones and

633
00:34:36,239 --> 00:34:40,960
Speaker 1: Gilbert about chemical warfare between crazy ants and fire ants,

634
00:34:41,480 --> 00:34:44,120
Speaker 1: And so one of the first things you would observe

635
00:34:44,239 --> 00:34:46,560
Speaker 1: is that if you've got equal numbers of fire ants

636
00:34:46,560 --> 00:34:48,800
Speaker 1: and crazy ants that show up, they've got equally matched

637
00:34:48,880 --> 00:34:51,720
Speaker 1: tag teams, and they show up to fight, the crazy

638
00:34:51,760 --> 00:34:55,600
Speaker 1: ants win about ninety three percent of the time. That's

639
00:34:55,600 --> 00:34:57,960
Speaker 1: a really good record. Yeah, that is that they are.

640
00:34:58,560 --> 00:35:01,320
Speaker 1: They are the victors by far. Does any wrestler win

641
00:35:02,000 --> 00:35:05,719
Speaker 1: of the time stone cold? Um? Well, I I don't know,

642
00:35:05,800 --> 00:35:09,600
Speaker 1: you know, some some have phenomenally high, you know, win

643
00:35:09,920 --> 00:35:12,160
Speaker 1: win records. You know. It's just it depends who's the

644
00:35:13,200 --> 00:35:15,239
Speaker 1: top character in a promotion, I guess, and that would

645
00:35:15,280 --> 00:35:17,719
Speaker 1: definitely be the crazy ant here, probably because they would

646
00:35:17,719 --> 00:35:20,200
Speaker 1: be the most popular. Fans love the crazy ant. Yeah.

647
00:35:20,400 --> 00:35:23,760
Speaker 1: And it's not just these in vivo matchups. Uh, there's

648
00:35:23,840 --> 00:35:28,960
Speaker 1: colony snatching. Sometimes crazy ant colonies are found inside fire

649
00:35:28,960 --> 00:35:32,520
Speaker 1: ant mounds that still have some fire ants in them alive,

650
00:35:33,320 --> 00:35:36,680
Speaker 1: meaning that these nests were not abandoned by fire ants

651
00:35:36,719 --> 00:35:40,120
Speaker 1: and then ex appropriated by crazy ants. They were actively

652
00:35:40,280 --> 00:35:43,600
Speaker 1: invaded while the fire ants were still there and the

653
00:35:43,600 --> 00:35:46,359
Speaker 1: crazy ants took over. So the way the crazy ants

654
00:35:46,360 --> 00:35:49,239
Speaker 1: are able to do this is that they can secrete

655
00:35:49,320 --> 00:35:53,600
Speaker 1: substances from their glands, one of which is formic acid

656
00:35:54,239 --> 00:35:56,120
Speaker 1: that was already shown to be a weapon that could

657
00:35:56,120 --> 00:35:59,400
Speaker 1: be sprayed at attackers. There's a study in Toxicon in

658
00:35:59,440 --> 00:36:03,960
Speaker 1: teen by gian Chin. It all called Defensive Chemicals of

659
00:36:04,000 --> 00:36:07,640
Speaker 1: Tawny crazy Ants Nyland Area Fulva. Actually it's got a

660
00:36:07,640 --> 00:36:09,360
Speaker 1: long title. I'm not gonna read the whole thing, but

661
00:36:10,000 --> 00:36:13,440
Speaker 1: basically it says that Nyland Area Fulva they produce formic

662
00:36:13,480 --> 00:36:16,840
Speaker 1: acid in their poison glands and then two keytones and

663
00:36:16,920 --> 00:36:20,960
Speaker 1: alkanes in their dufes glands, all of which are used

664
00:36:20,960 --> 00:36:23,719
Speaker 1: as toxic weapons against fire ants. So they've got these

665
00:36:23,760 --> 00:36:27,359
Speaker 1: poisons they use. The DeFord Land compounds are used more

666
00:36:27,400 --> 00:36:31,440
Speaker 1: as contact poisons. They're more potent if you like dab

667
00:36:31,560 --> 00:36:34,360
Speaker 1: some on the enemy, whereas the formic acid has a

668
00:36:34,440 --> 00:36:38,719
Speaker 1: higher fumigation toxicity, so that's like gassing your enemy. So

669
00:36:38,760 --> 00:36:42,600
Speaker 1: they have both melee and ranged weapons at their disposal. Basically,

670
00:36:42,719 --> 00:36:45,960
Speaker 1: it is true, and in a high enough concentration, formic

671
00:36:46,000 --> 00:36:48,960
Speaker 1: acid can even be an inhalation hazard to humans, causing

672
00:36:49,000 --> 00:36:51,440
Speaker 1: like lung edema, you know, fluid in the lungs. But

673
00:36:51,840 --> 00:36:54,480
Speaker 1: fortunately you don't have to worry about ants producing it

674
00:36:54,520 --> 00:36:56,799
Speaker 1: in a high enough concentration that's going to hurt you,

675
00:36:57,160 --> 00:37:00,520
Speaker 1: but they could hurt other ants. I was a little

676
00:37:00,520 --> 00:37:03,200
Speaker 1: bit interested in formic acid because I was reading about

677
00:37:03,280 --> 00:37:05,480
Speaker 1: it and I found you know, okay, so it seems

678
00:37:05,480 --> 00:37:07,640
Speaker 1: like this has been known about for a while and

679
00:37:07,760 --> 00:37:12,040
Speaker 1: it's actually been used in in in some human industry. Well,

680
00:37:12,080 --> 00:37:15,279
Speaker 1: I found an extract of a letter about the discovery

681
00:37:15,320 --> 00:37:19,000
Speaker 1: of formic acid in ants in the seventeenth century that

682
00:37:19,120 --> 00:37:21,759
Speaker 1: was written by a guy named John Ray to the

683
00:37:21,800 --> 00:37:26,879
Speaker 1: publisher of Philosophical Transactions in sixteen seventy. It was called

684
00:37:26,920 --> 00:37:31,960
Speaker 1: concerning some uncommon observations and experiments made with acid juice

685
00:37:32,080 --> 00:37:35,040
Speaker 1: to be found in ants juice spelled ju y c e.

686
00:37:35,400 --> 00:37:37,480
Speaker 1: And I gotta be honest. The main reason I wanted

687
00:37:37,480 --> 00:37:39,400
Speaker 1: to explore this is because I learned a new word.

688
00:37:40,200 --> 00:37:43,879
Speaker 1: It's a note quote concerning the juice of piss myres

689
00:37:44,440 --> 00:37:47,120
Speaker 1: piss myers. What's a pismire? Well, I did not know

690
00:37:47,200 --> 00:37:50,319
Speaker 1: this word before. Piss Myers means ants, and yes, it

691
00:37:50,440 --> 00:37:53,319
Speaker 1: is pronounced piss mere, and it comes from the route

692
00:37:53,360 --> 00:37:57,160
Speaker 1: you're wondering about right now, named after the supposed smell

693
00:37:57,320 --> 00:38:00,560
Speaker 1: of ant hills at the time. So my is meant

694
00:38:00,640 --> 00:38:05,160
Speaker 1: ants an ant hill smell like urine. That was the idea. Huh,

695
00:38:05,320 --> 00:38:07,560
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't know that I've ever really stopped

696
00:38:07,560 --> 00:38:10,040
Speaker 1: and smelled the ant hills. Maybe I should. I'm not

697
00:38:10,120 --> 00:38:13,160
Speaker 1: enjoying life enough. Apparently, now it makes sense where the

698
00:38:13,160 --> 00:38:16,320
Speaker 1: phrase piss aunt comes from. Yeah, okay, it means piss.

699
00:38:16,320 --> 00:38:18,480
Speaker 1: Myers always ant. I always thought it was just the

700
00:38:18,600 --> 00:38:22,760
Speaker 1: random combination of two things, like, oh that that guy's

701
00:38:22,800 --> 00:38:25,719
Speaker 1: really a poop duck. You know, there's nothing, there's not

702
00:38:25,800 --> 00:38:28,640
Speaker 1: necessarily connection there, but you you put two things together

703
00:38:28,640 --> 00:38:30,840
Speaker 1: and it sounds like an insult. What's you know? So

704
00:38:31,160 --> 00:38:33,360
Speaker 1: I assume piss aunt was the same thing. No, but

705
00:38:33,400 --> 00:38:36,040
Speaker 1: apparently this is not vulgar phrase at all. This is

706
00:38:36,120 --> 00:38:41,000
Speaker 1: seventeenth century scientific journal stuff. There you go. But anyway,

707
00:38:41,080 --> 00:38:44,040
Speaker 1: A Ray considers the the author of this letter, he's

708
00:38:44,080 --> 00:38:47,040
Speaker 1: been writing about this experiment he read about where somebody

709
00:38:47,040 --> 00:38:50,279
Speaker 1: would drop chickory leaves among an ant hill and it

710
00:38:50,320 --> 00:38:53,600
Speaker 1: would cause the chickery leaves to change color, indicating some

711
00:38:53,680 --> 00:38:56,719
Speaker 1: kind of chemical reaction. And he's wondering what's going on there,

712
00:38:56,760 --> 00:39:00,920
Speaker 1: and he discovers that the juice of Pissmire's is an acid,

713
00:39:01,040 --> 00:39:05,560
Speaker 1: causing similar effects to oil of vitriol, which means sulfuric acid.

714
00:39:06,080 --> 00:39:08,320
Speaker 1: And in the end of his letter he writes, quote, Indeed,

715
00:39:08,360 --> 00:39:11,360
Speaker 1: it seems strange that nature should prepare and separate in

716
00:39:11,400 --> 00:39:14,719
Speaker 1: the body of this insect without and sensible heat, and

717
00:39:14,760 --> 00:39:18,040
Speaker 1: that in good quantity, considering the bulk of the animal

718
00:39:18,320 --> 00:39:22,120
Speaker 1: a liquor. The same for kind with those acid spirits

719
00:39:22,440 --> 00:39:25,480
Speaker 1: which are by art extracted out of some mimeralds, not

720
00:39:25,640 --> 00:39:29,120
Speaker 1: without great force of fire. So I like that he's marveling, Like,

721
00:39:29,560 --> 00:39:31,680
Speaker 1: you know, how is it that ants can produce this

722
00:39:31,840 --> 00:39:35,200
Speaker 1: powerful poison? But we can't do make anything that's powerful

723
00:39:35,239 --> 00:39:39,839
Speaker 1: without some kind of serious alchemy. But another interesting little

724
00:39:39,880 --> 00:39:42,439
Speaker 1: hidbit I came across is that formic acid is used

725
00:39:42,480 --> 00:39:44,400
Speaker 1: by humans and things. Of course, it's used as an

726
00:39:44,440 --> 00:39:48,919
Speaker 1: antibacterial preservative for things like livestock feed. But I've also

727
00:39:48,960 --> 00:39:51,560
Speaker 1: read some stories just in recent months about how formic

728
00:39:51,600 --> 00:39:55,880
Speaker 1: acid could be used as a liquid hydrogen carrier for

729
00:39:55,960 --> 00:40:00,480
Speaker 1: fuel cell technology. So what if the electronics of future

730
00:40:00,719 --> 00:40:05,360
Speaker 1: are powered by fuel cells containing the same defensive poisons

731
00:40:05,480 --> 00:40:09,000
Speaker 1: used by Pissmires that shored out an invade current day

732
00:40:09,040 --> 00:40:13,319
Speaker 1: electronics in the Gulf States. Oh my goodness. Yeah, you're

733
00:40:13,320 --> 00:40:17,239
Speaker 1: imagining a future in which the uh, the engine itself

734
00:40:17,320 --> 00:40:20,040
Speaker 1: is a is a colony of some sort of crazy ants.

735
00:40:20,640 --> 00:40:23,000
Speaker 1: I like it. It's like back to the future, except

736
00:40:23,040 --> 00:40:28,680
Speaker 1: instead of the the garbage disposal that powers the futuristic

737
00:40:28,920 --> 00:40:31,279
Speaker 1: to lorient, it's just he needs to dock has to

738
00:40:31,280 --> 00:40:34,160
Speaker 1: find another crazy ant colony to shovin there. I think

739
00:40:34,160 --> 00:40:36,800
Speaker 1: they really sad thing is that they're not like milking

740
00:40:36,840 --> 00:40:39,360
Speaker 1: ants to get the formic acid. I think they. I

741
00:40:39,400 --> 00:40:42,399
Speaker 1: think they make it in an industrial process, but how

742
00:40:42,480 --> 00:40:45,640
Speaker 1: how disappointing. Man, I can still dream. But who knows,

743
00:40:45,680 --> 00:40:48,280
Speaker 1: Maybe maybe we could change all that if somebody invents

744
00:40:48,280 --> 00:40:52,960
Speaker 1: a really efficient ant milking machine. Anyway, Anyway, anyway, getting

745
00:40:53,000 --> 00:40:55,520
Speaker 1: back to the role of the formic acid in the

746
00:40:55,560 --> 00:40:57,319
Speaker 1: ants defense. So we know they can use it as

747
00:40:57,360 --> 00:41:01,160
Speaker 1: an offensive weapon against enemies like the at the red

748
00:41:01,320 --> 00:41:06,400
Speaker 1: fire ant. But this Lebron paper from what it found

749
00:41:06,480 --> 00:41:08,839
Speaker 1: was really interesting. So they found that when crazy ants

750
00:41:08,840 --> 00:41:11,160
Speaker 1: get into battles with red fire ants, they do this

751
00:41:11,360 --> 00:41:15,799
Speaker 1: really weird series of behaviors. The crazy ant encounters red

752
00:41:15,840 --> 00:41:19,399
Speaker 1: fire ant, then the crazy ant rears up on its

753
00:41:19,520 --> 00:41:23,440
Speaker 1: hind and middle legs. Then it does this unbelievable body

754
00:41:23,480 --> 00:41:26,600
Speaker 1: contortion where it curls its body all the way around

755
00:41:26,960 --> 00:41:29,960
Speaker 1: to touch its mandibles to the tip of its abdomen.

756
00:41:31,520 --> 00:41:34,520
Speaker 1: Then it starts doing something that looks like self grooming,

757
00:41:35,040 --> 00:41:39,000
Speaker 1: rubbing a secretion around on its body. So what's going

758
00:41:39,040 --> 00:41:43,520
Speaker 1: on there? Well, researchers experimented by placing a tiny dab

759
00:41:43,520 --> 00:41:47,200
Speaker 1: of nail polish on the crazy ants glandular opening on

760
00:41:47,239 --> 00:41:50,560
Speaker 1: the abdomen, and this would block the opening and prevent

761
00:41:50,680 --> 00:41:53,960
Speaker 1: it from secreting whatever it normally secretes, and so this

762
00:41:54,080 --> 00:41:57,080
Speaker 1: was the test group. They also placed a small dab

763
00:41:57,080 --> 00:41:59,880
Speaker 1: of nail polish on the sides of the abdomen of

764
00:42:00,080 --> 00:42:03,360
Speaker 1: control group. This dab would not block any secretions. And

765
00:42:03,400 --> 00:42:06,839
Speaker 1: then of course you've got ant fight, right, crazy ants

766
00:42:06,920 --> 00:42:09,960
Speaker 1: versus fire ants. So in the control group that just

767
00:42:10,040 --> 00:42:12,440
Speaker 1: had the just had the nail polish on the sides

768
00:42:12,520 --> 00:42:15,120
Speaker 1: and they could still secrete from the abdomen. The control

769
00:42:15,160 --> 00:42:18,520
Speaker 1: group survived fire ant attacks almost a hundred percent of

770
00:42:18,520 --> 00:42:21,400
Speaker 1: the time the crazy ants were just killing it. But

771
00:42:21,440 --> 00:42:25,040
Speaker 1: in the experimental group, roughly half of the crazy ants

772
00:42:25,160 --> 00:42:27,719
Speaker 1: were killed by fire ants, and among the ones that

773
00:42:27,800 --> 00:42:29,960
Speaker 1: survived it may have been because the nail polish didn't

774
00:42:29,960 --> 00:42:33,480
Speaker 1: completely cover the opening, so some secretions got through. So

775
00:42:33,520 --> 00:42:36,440
Speaker 1: apparently the formic acid is not just a weapon, it

776
00:42:36,560 --> 00:42:40,479
Speaker 1: is a defensive body shield as well, protecting the ant

777
00:42:40,680 --> 00:42:45,240
Speaker 1: from the venomous attacks of its competitors. And so also

778
00:42:45,320 --> 00:42:48,560
Speaker 1: from the labrun study, the researchers tested whether the formic

779
00:42:48,600 --> 00:42:51,319
Speaker 1: acid would protect another ant species from the venom of

780
00:42:51,320 --> 00:42:54,000
Speaker 1: the fire ant, and they found yep. Among a third

781
00:42:54,120 --> 00:42:57,239
Speaker 1: ant species, those given a placebo were killed by fire

782
00:42:57,320 --> 00:42:59,960
Speaker 1: ants about eighty percent of the time, while those treated

783
00:43:00,200 --> 00:43:03,799
Speaker 1: with the crazy ants formic acid secretions almost all of

784
00:43:03,840 --> 00:43:08,319
Speaker 1: them survived. So how does the formic acid produce this

785
00:43:08,400 --> 00:43:11,239
Speaker 1: sort of body shield that protects the ant. We don't

786
00:43:11,239 --> 00:43:14,600
Speaker 1: really know yet the secrets of ant warfare. There's always

787
00:43:14,600 --> 00:43:19,960
Speaker 1: more to discover, you know. It makes me think about, um,

788
00:43:20,120 --> 00:43:24,359
Speaker 1: how two different kinds of animals they live in a

789
00:43:24,440 --> 00:43:29,360
Speaker 1: in a different arena of competition. And now, obviously fighting

790
00:43:29,400 --> 00:43:32,640
Speaker 1: between ants will involve some kind of like mechanical action

791
00:43:32,760 --> 00:43:35,160
Speaker 1: and shearing, pressure and pushing and all the kind of

792
00:43:35,160 --> 00:43:38,160
Speaker 1: stuff we imagine when we're fighting. But when we imagine

793
00:43:38,239 --> 00:43:42,680
Speaker 1: big mammals fighting, it's all like force. You're delivering energy

794
00:43:42,800 --> 00:43:46,200
Speaker 1: to one another. You're biting and twisting and cutting and stuff,

795
00:43:46,239 --> 00:43:49,760
Speaker 1: and and that's how animals like us fight And because

796
00:43:49,760 --> 00:43:52,640
Speaker 1: of that, I think a lot of our fighting perception

797
00:43:53,360 --> 00:43:56,960
Speaker 1: is based on things like movement and distance. You know,

798
00:43:57,000 --> 00:43:59,359
Speaker 1: we're trying to see like how far something is from

799
00:43:59,440 --> 00:44:01,640
Speaker 1: us and how asked it's moving. And when you're on

800
00:44:01,640 --> 00:44:05,640
Speaker 1: the scale of an ant, the theater of perception and

801
00:44:05,760 --> 00:44:09,400
Speaker 1: conflict is so much more chemical. It's all about what

802
00:44:09,520 --> 00:44:13,120
Speaker 1: chemicals are present in the immediate area, what pheromones are

803
00:44:13,160 --> 00:44:16,680
Speaker 1: telling you about what's going on around you, what pheromones

804
00:44:16,800 --> 00:44:19,080
Speaker 1: you can put out that will do, you know and like?

805
00:44:19,239 --> 00:44:22,400
Speaker 1: And because you're so small and the conflict itself is

806
00:44:22,480 --> 00:44:25,799
Speaker 1: so largely venomous and chemical in nature. Yeah, But then

807
00:44:25,800 --> 00:44:28,960
Speaker 1: on the other hand, you are they. You know, we

808
00:44:29,080 --> 00:44:31,960
Speaker 1: want to think about the individual ant, but you have

809
00:44:32,040 --> 00:44:36,360
Speaker 1: such a use social organization here with an aunt colony

810
00:44:36,400 --> 00:44:39,400
Speaker 1: that it's uh, it's far from a one from one

811
00:44:39,480 --> 00:44:41,440
Speaker 1: for one you you'd have to think of yourself as

812
00:44:41,480 --> 00:44:45,000
Speaker 1: the colony really, I think to get anywhere close to

813
00:44:45,160 --> 00:44:47,960
Speaker 1: imagining what it is to be ant, Yeah, that's a

814
00:44:47,960 --> 00:44:50,680
Speaker 1: good point to remind us. It's like it might actually,

815
00:44:50,840 --> 00:44:52,920
Speaker 1: if you could understand the mind of an ant, to

816
00:44:52,960 --> 00:44:54,960
Speaker 1: whatever extent there is such a thing as the mind

817
00:44:55,000 --> 00:44:57,520
Speaker 1: of an ant, it might not make sense to be

818
00:44:57,640 --> 00:45:02,359
Speaker 1: the mind of an individual aunt. It might maybe there

819
00:45:02,360 --> 00:45:05,560
Speaker 1: really is no such thing as an individual aunt. I mean,

820
00:45:05,600 --> 00:45:08,840
Speaker 1: of course, there is the object of a single aunt body,

821
00:45:08,880 --> 00:45:12,360
Speaker 1: but that doesn't really that's not really a biological unit

822
00:45:12,719 --> 00:45:15,640
Speaker 1: as much as the colony is the unit. Yeah, Like,

823
00:45:16,320 --> 00:45:18,520
Speaker 1: we fall into traps two of our our language I've

824
00:45:18,560 --> 00:45:23,320
Speaker 1: I've read before regarding bees. Another famous youth social insect,

825
00:45:23,360 --> 00:45:26,440
Speaker 1: of course, is that we we we know the Queen

826
00:45:26,480 --> 00:45:29,759
Speaker 1: Bee is not an actual queen, and yet just by

827
00:45:29,800 --> 00:45:33,520
Speaker 1: referring to her as such, by approaching bees with with

828
00:45:33,600 --> 00:45:36,600
Speaker 1: human models in our mind, we think of her as

829
00:45:36,640 --> 00:45:38,879
Speaker 1: being some sort of an authority figure. We can't. It's

830
00:45:38,880 --> 00:45:41,440
Speaker 1: so easy to fall into that trap when really she

831
00:45:41,719 --> 00:45:46,440
Speaker 1: is another cog in the machine. Yeah, I propose we

832
00:45:46,480 --> 00:45:50,040
Speaker 1: replaced the phrase queen be with gene b. It's the

833
00:45:50,080 --> 00:45:53,640
Speaker 1: b who's the vehicle for genes for the next generation. Yeah,

834
00:45:53,680 --> 00:45:56,440
Speaker 1: I like that we should push through that gene b

835
00:45:56,760 --> 00:46:00,839
Speaker 1: gene b. But not like not like the name is gene.

836
00:46:00,880 --> 00:46:03,080
Speaker 1: Well maybe it's j E A and it's you know,

837
00:46:03,280 --> 00:46:06,080
Speaker 1: the feminine gene that will work. That'll work all right,

838
00:46:06,160 --> 00:46:08,520
Speaker 1: So there you have it. Uh As always, head on

839
00:46:08,520 --> 00:46:10,080
Speaker 1: over to stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. That's

840
00:46:10,120 --> 00:46:13,120
Speaker 1: where we'll find all the episodes, as well as links

841
00:46:13,120 --> 00:46:16,880
Speaker 1: out to our various social media accounts such as Twitter, Instagram,

842
00:46:16,960 --> 00:46:20,799
Speaker 1: and Facebook. If you're on Facebook, go find the discussion

843
00:46:20,840 --> 00:46:22,920
Speaker 1: module the Stuff to Blow in My discussion module That

844
00:46:23,040 --> 00:46:26,080
Speaker 1: is the official Facebook group for this podcast. Is a

845
00:46:26,080 --> 00:46:29,680
Speaker 1: great place to discuss episodes and related topics with other listeners,

846
00:46:30,000 --> 00:46:32,719
Speaker 1: as well as with your humble hosts here. If you

847
00:46:32,719 --> 00:46:35,400
Speaker 1: would like to support the show, I always urge you

848
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Speaker 1: Big thanks as always to our wonderful audio producers Alex

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Speaker 1: how stuff works. Dot Com, the biggest U