Speaker 1: Welcome to Creature feature, a production of I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: I'm your host of Many Parasites, Katie Golden. I studied
Speaker 1: psychology and evolutionary biology, and I've never been stung by
Speaker 1: a bee. I guess that's why my blood type is
Speaker 1: A being negative. Yep. Okay. Anyways, today on the show,
Speaker 1: Invasion of the murder Hornets and More Invasive Species. That's right,
Speaker 1: I've looked into this whole murder hornet business to see
Speaker 1: if it's a big deal. You know, all the murders
Speaker 1: these hornets do. And I'll also be talking about two
Speaker 1: of the world's other most notorious invasive species, a big
Speaker 1: toad with a bad attitude and an adorable little fuzzy
Speaker 1: noodle who just loves to kill things. Discover this and
Speaker 1: more as we answer the age old question how many
Speaker 1: decapitations a minute can the murder hornet? It do more
Speaker 1: than is necessary? Probably, so, murder hornets are they bad? Well,
Speaker 1: first of all, let's call them by their real name,
Speaker 1: Vespa Mandarinia, their giant hornets, and when they're in their
Speaker 1: natural range, I wouldn't say they're bad anymore than any
Speaker 1: other insect or animal. They've simply carved out their evolutionary
Speaker 1: niche by being the biggest, baddest, most murdery hornet out there.
Speaker 1: But when a non native species invades a new region,
Speaker 1: either by accidentally hitching a ride on some cargo or
Speaker 1: because humans are a bunch of power craze primates who
Speaker 1: like to pluck an animal from one side of the
Speaker 1: globe and drop it down on the other, this can
Speaker 1: spell trouble for the local ecology. So should you be
Speaker 1: afraid of murder hornets, Well, let's go on a learning
Speaker 1: journey to turn that fear into education. Joining me today
Speaker 1: is my friend, host of the Cracked podcast and also
Speaker 1: host of the new podcast mini series One Way to
Speaker 1: Make an Emoji, Alec Schmidt. Katie, thank you so much
Speaker 1: for having me. This is awesome. Yeah, welcome back to
Speaker 1: the pod, Alex, and you you just described, you just
Speaker 1: described two podcasts that you're excellent on, so people should
Speaker 1: go here those. Yeah. I got to be a guest
Speaker 1: on Well, I've been a guest on the crac podcast,
Speaker 1: and I got to be a guest on One Way
Speaker 1: to Make an Emoji, which was excellently talked about bison. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if people want to check it out, it's it's a
Speaker 1: very special mini series to me. There's a lot of
Speaker 1: personal stuff to it and the last stuff I've never
Speaker 1: really done before and as a podcast or anything, but
Speaker 1: it's about creating the Bison emoji. Any any citizen. Any
Speaker 1: person can propose I don't know why I said citizen.
Speaker 1: You don't have to be from anywhere. Anyone can propose
Speaker 1: a citizen of the planet Earth exactly. Anybody can propose
Speaker 1: a new emoji. And I proposed to Bison emoji and
Speaker 1: they said yes. So sometime let's fall your your device.
Speaker 1: Everybody's device will have a Bison and the emoji keyboard.
Speaker 1: I think that's wonderful. And I love the podcast. It's
Speaker 1: emotional and sweet and full advice and what more could
Speaker 1: you want from a podcast? Spice and soup for the soul.
Speaker 1: You made it really special, so thanks again for doing it.
Speaker 1: Of course, Well today we're gonna do something a little
Speaker 1: less heartwarming or I don't know, we'll find the heartwarming
Speaker 1: somewhere because we're talking about murder hornets. I'm sure you've
Speaker 1: probably heard of murder hornets. Alex. I'm pretty I'm pretty
Speaker 1: excited because I, like you know, found out a few
Speaker 1: seconds ago that that's the topic, and I have like
Speaker 1: seen the phrase in trending topics on Twitter and don't
Speaker 1: really know anything else, So that was great. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: like find out what's going on. Yeah. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: a lot of people are a little scared right now
Speaker 1: because it's it sounds very apocalyptic. We've been hearing things
Speaker 1: about murder hornets have invaded the US, and the question
Speaker 1: is should we panic And the answer is maybe a little. Okay, Yeah,
Speaker 1: So want to get down to the facts about murder hornets?
Speaker 1: What are they? Why are they called murder hornets? Are
Speaker 1: they deadly to humans? Are they deadly to native honeybee populations?
Speaker 1: How do we find them off? And what are they?
Speaker 1: What's their story? How did they become so murdering? Yeah,
Speaker 1: when you say we should panic a little, I'm glad.
Speaker 1: I have so little else that I'm panicking about right now,
Speaker 1: you know, like everything else is super chill, so I
Speaker 1: have the bandwidth to everything. I mean, we've got our
Speaker 1: plates are clear, it's you know, blue skies, and then
Speaker 1: it's like we could handle this one bad thing in
Speaker 1: the world happening. Murder hornets. That's fine. Yeah, Yeah, tomorrow
Speaker 1: in the news I'm just gonna wake up and it's
Speaker 1: like fire rain rain made out of deadly fire. But yeah, okay, cool.
Speaker 1: So what is a murder hornet? First? So, so this
Speaker 1: is the Vespa Andarinia, which are Asian giant hornets. They
Speaker 1: are native to East, South and Southeast Asia as well
Speaker 1: as parts of Russia, and they are the largest hornet
Speaker 1: in the world. Mandarinia sounds like an Italian motorcycle. Are
Speaker 1: you sure this is the right That's that's my bad
Speaker 1: Italian accent. I'm sorry. I apologize for that, um, but yeah,
Speaker 1: it does. It does sound. It kind of looks like
Speaker 1: one too. They're very sleek, almost a motorcycle personified or
Speaker 1: bugsonified into a horrible insane So what are hornets? So?
Speaker 1: Hornets are a type of large youth social wasp, meaning
Speaker 1: that they work together for a hive and a queen.
Speaker 1: Because there are a lot of wasps that are actually
Speaker 1: solitary they just kind of do their own thing murder
Speaker 1: on their own time. But these are team murderers. So
Speaker 1: that's neat. I mean, yeah, they're they're working together. At
Speaker 1: least they're not having some kind of civil war or something.
Speaker 1: That's good meant it it's a lot of team building
Speaker 1: murders happening with with these hornets. And did you did
Speaker 1: you say they're you social? Is that right? You social?
Speaker 1: That's right, just like honey bees are you social? Oh yeah, sorry, yeah,
Speaker 1: I was gonna say I've heard about that with ants
Speaker 1: and humans. Yes, ants, humans arguably a little bit maybe ants, termites,
Speaker 1: honey bees, other other bee species. And yeah, it basically
Speaker 1: means you work for a colony and for a queen,
Speaker 1: and it's this social structure where you are basically the work.
Speaker 1: It's a it's a hierarchy where workers are all working
Speaker 1: towards the common goal of the hive and the queen,
Speaker 1: which is you know that cool? Because I I am
Speaker 1: not an entomologist or an expert or anything, but I
Speaker 1: read a book once by E. O. Wilson and and
Speaker 1: the super short gist of it is basically that ants
Speaker 1: and humans have spread across the earth because those two
Speaker 1: species are very use social compared to other ones. Like
Speaker 1: they work together and they see a greater purpose to
Speaker 1: their group, whether it's instinctual or conscious or not. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean that is true. I think that humans like
Speaker 1: ants are and some bees. It's like our successfu lies
Speaker 1: in our society and our ability to make a lot
Speaker 1: of hexagons. So so these hornets, the murder hornets, they
Speaker 1: apply those same ideas of teamwork, but towards murder, which
Speaker 1: is neat. So they're about two inches long, about four centimeters.
Speaker 1: They have a wingspan of three inches about seven and
Speaker 1: a half centimeters, and they have a fourth inch long
Speaker 1: stinger that can inject a large amount of venom. So
Speaker 1: they're they're you know, they're they're big girls. These are
Speaker 1: these are some some large ladies coming around to sting
Speaker 1: you with a lot of vintage. Each one of them
Speaker 1: is two inches long, Yeah, just a lot. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a little bigger than can you'd imagine. Right, that's good.
Speaker 1: It's cool. It's good. It's cool. So they have been
Speaker 1: recently spotted in North America, which is you know cool
Speaker 1: and yeah, yeah, I'm in North America too. The first
Speaker 1: sighting was in Washington State last December, so a fun
Speaker 1: Christmas surprise. They are a big threat to the honeybee
Speaker 1: population that lives in North America, the APIs mellifera, and
Speaker 1: also you know, a threat to basically a lot of
Speaker 1: different insects, a lot of different like the wild bee
Speaker 1: ease and bumble bees, and you know, probably us to
Speaker 1: a little bit not not. I think the biggest concern
Speaker 1: right now is the b population. Actually, so let's talk
Speaker 1: a little bit about the honeybee in North America. The
Speaker 1: APIs mellifera, so it's actually not native to North America.
Speaker 1: It was introduced by European colonizers, and it is not
Speaker 1: commonly called an invasive species because we don't consider it
Speaker 1: to be harmful. But they kind of can be like
Speaker 1: they can harm wild native bee species when they have
Speaker 1: to compete for food. But on the other hand, they
Speaker 1: have become incredibly important pollinators and honey producers for our society,
Speaker 1: so they are responsible for a lot of pollination that
Speaker 1: happens in our agriculture. So yeah, it's kind of it's
Speaker 1: one of the cases where this is actually an introduced species.
Speaker 1: But we're okay with a although maybe some of our
Speaker 1: wild bees aren't as cool with it. I mean, if
Speaker 1: anybody's gonna come to me and say, hey, that honey
Speaker 1: bee on the honey nut cheerios box is some form
Speaker 1: of invader, I'm gonna push back on that way into
Speaker 1: that be he's very friendly he provides a delicious serial
Speaker 1: like that. What's his name? Is his name? What's his name?
Speaker 1: So he probably has a name. I don't know, is
Speaker 1: it buzz or something. It's probably buzz. It's probably buzz.
Speaker 1: It's probably buzz. I'm gonna say it's buzz. I'm not
Speaker 1: even gonna bother googling it because I'm certain it's got
Speaker 1: to be that. Yeah, I remember I got a I
Speaker 1: got a buzz doll in a honey nut cheerio box
Speaker 1: once and it was I thought it was going to
Speaker 1: look a lot more like the thing on the box.
Speaker 1: That's all I'm going to say about that. It was
Speaker 1: like clearly made for b movie or something. But they
Speaker 1: just made an error. And Joel Joel just wrote to
Speaker 1: us Joel as a producer of the show. She just
Speaker 1: told us Buzzby is the name of the v Thank you.
Speaker 1: What like Buzzby, like Buzzby, like Buzby Berkeley or something
Speaker 1: like the US b y. Yeah, but but no, no,
Speaker 1: be you z z buz Buzzby. Yeah, Buzzby co Coruel
Speaker 1: trivia fact about about the b on the honeynut cheero box.
Speaker 1: Thanks for joining me on This Animal's podcast. So let's
Speaker 1: go back to talking about murder hornets. Yeah, so murder
Speaker 1: hornets are called murder hornets on account of all the
Speaker 1: murders they do. So the worker hornets are all female.
Speaker 1: So Alex, I want you to imagine a gang of
Speaker 1: bloodthirsty women on motorcycles raising the countryside, going around with
Speaker 1: huge machetes and decapitating entire cities, because that's basically what
Speaker 1: murder hornets do. I feel like, I feel like you
Speaker 1: would see like a double feature of at a drive in,
Speaker 1: and like it's both movies are about the gang of ladies. God, yes,
Speaker 1: I'd love to see that. They all for some reason,
Speaker 1: they're all wearing impeccable makeup too, and perfect hair does
Speaker 1: but they're just going around on their motorcycle gangs and
Speaker 1: like and it's like, and this is what cannabis does
Speaker 1: to women. So the murder hornet has gigantic mandibles that
Speaker 1: can easily decapitate a honeybee. They can kill forty honey
Speaker 1: bees a minute, which is bad or honey bees. Because
Speaker 1: I I am not a super expert on bees and
Speaker 1: hornets and stuff, but I feel like people associate hornets
Speaker 1: with honey just because bees do that. But it seems
Speaker 1: like these hornets just murder and that's how they get food,
Speaker 1: Like they're just eating all these bees all this, yes, exactly,
Speaker 1: so they are carnivorous and they feed these well, essentially,
Speaker 1: they will take over these hives and then plunder it
Speaker 1: for meat and then feed that to their young, whereas
Speaker 1: honey bees will eat nectar and then you know the
Speaker 1: whole process of making honey and royal jelly, and that's
Speaker 1: how they feed their colony. So so these hornets are
Speaker 1: like a tiny wolf for hyena or other pack animal
Speaker 1: basically in terms of the exactly yeah, ok, yeah, no,
Speaker 1: that's a very good way to think of it. Exactly.
Speaker 1: So they work in groups to raid and destroy entire
Speaker 1: honey bee hives. So what will happen is one of
Speaker 1: the hornets will place a pheromone marker on a honey
Speaker 1: bee hive, which will invite her sisters to participate in
Speaker 1: a gold old fashion pillage. In so they efficiently kill
Speaker 1: all the worker bees and queen, ripping their heads off,
Speaker 1: and then they use the hive as a buffet, eating
Speaker 1: the honey bee larva and pup a right out of
Speaker 1: their little honeycomb cribs. So you know, just killing all
Speaker 1: the babies and eating them, even the pupe combined, even
Speaker 1: the pupe. They don't even spare the pupe monsters. So
Speaker 1: in Japan, where the murder hornet is actually this is
Speaker 1: its native range, the Japanese honey bees. I didn't I
Speaker 1: didn't realize that was gonna rhyme until I said. The
Speaker 1: Japanese honey bee, which lives in the murder hornets native range,
Speaker 1: has developed a unique strategy to defend themselves from these invaders.
Speaker 1: So when a honeybee in Japan senses the hornet pheromones,
Speaker 1: it goes first oh, and then it forms a b ball,
Speaker 1: so it sends its own messaging to the rest of
Speaker 1: the hive to create a giant ball of angry vibrating bees,
Speaker 1: and they beat their wings and dogpile on the invading hornet.
Speaker 1: So what they're doing is they're vibrating their wings and
Speaker 1: flight muscles and generating body heat in this giant dog pile,
Speaker 1: and combined, a bee ball can create a core temperature
Speaker 1: of over a hundred and fifteen degrees fahrenheit, which is
Speaker 1: forty six degrees celsius, and also creates a chamber of
Speaker 1: increased carbon dioxide so this will actually cook and suffocate
Speaker 1: the hornet that is trapped inside this giant bee mosh pit.
Speaker 1: I love how like each time I learned about an
Speaker 1: organized society of animals, it's because they're doing something like that,
Speaker 1: you know, like doing a mosh pit essentially. I mean,
Speaker 1: have you ever found a society that doesn't include involved
Speaker 1: mosh pits? I don't think so. The dawn of time
Speaker 1: that the enderthal mash is on cave walls, oh yes,
Speaker 1: I've seen it. So you might think that this would
Speaker 1: be a self sacrificial thing that the bees do, but
Speaker 1: they're actually much more adept at surviving this giant mosh
Speaker 1: pit because they can withstand higher temperatures and the higher
Speaker 1: levels of c O two. Although you know, some of
Speaker 1: them may die in the line of mosh pit duty,
Speaker 1: but you know there that's it's an honor. It's an
Speaker 1: honor to die in the bee mosh pit, I think.
Speaker 1: And this this thing with Japan's bees knowing how to
Speaker 1: mash the hornets, like, is this like a centuries and
Speaker 1: centuries old war between bees and hornets in their country
Speaker 1: and then just the hornets came here and RBS are
Speaker 1: like we we don't know any mashing, what do we do? Yes, sadly, Alex,
Speaker 1: You're exactly right about that. So this is when you
Speaker 1: have a predator and a prey species, you often have
Speaker 1: these arms races where the predator evolves the strategy to
Speaker 1: take advantage of the prey, and then the prey will
Speaker 1: evolve the strategy to defend itself. And so you see
Speaker 1: this like increasing complexity of attacks and defenses. Unfortunately, when
Speaker 1: you have an invasive species, the native species have not
Speaker 1: developed any of these strategy GE's, they are caught completely
Speaker 1: off guard. So the honey bees who live in North
Speaker 1: America have not developed this defense strategy, so they are
Speaker 1: vulnerable to the murder hornets, which is why a lot
Speaker 1: of conservationists are very very concerned. And if the murder
Speaker 1: hornets are allowed to spread, they might decimate the already
Speaker 1: struggling bee populations here in North America, which is not great.
Speaker 1: I like I like bees. I like our honey bees. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because I like all plants, and as I understand it,
Speaker 1: they're important for that. I'm right. And and even if
Speaker 1: you're like, oh, well, the honey bee itself is not
Speaker 1: is you know, not native, It's an introduced species and
Speaker 1: somehow you don't care about that. I mean, they're also
Speaker 1: these murder hornets are also going to be really bad
Speaker 1: for the wild bee populations and for bumble bees. And basically,
Speaker 1: you know, it's whenever you I've described the ecosystem like
Speaker 1: a Jenga tower before, it's like whenever you fuss around
Speaker 1: with one piece, you're not going to know like at
Speaker 1: what point, like everything's gonna crumble down. So, yeah, it's bad.
Speaker 1: It's not great to have have this this murder hornet. Surprisingly,
Speaker 1: I know it doesn't sound like a big deal to
Speaker 1: have a murder hornet invade the US or not the US,
Speaker 1: a murder hornet invade North America, but it is shockingly bad. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because when I saw that name murder hornet coming up
Speaker 1: on Twitter, for one thing, I thought, just like everybody
Speaker 1: had seen the same Nature documentary. I was just laughing
Speaker 1: about it because you know, everybody, especially in quarantine, will
Speaker 1: like I'll see tiger king at the same time, and
Speaker 1: suddenly there's memes I don't know about. But oh god,
Speaker 1: I wish there was a Netflix special called like murder
Speaker 1: Hornet and it's just about beekeepers and all of their drama,
Speaker 1: like like, I want to see in an apiary that's
Speaker 1: actually a cult, Please Netflix deliver. Yeah, But and it
Speaker 1: turns out with this one like, no, it's just a
Speaker 1: news event going on. And I feel like everyone like
Speaker 1: found the name murder Hornets so funny. They didn't talk about, Hey,
Speaker 1: there's like a new invader that's a two inch long
Speaker 1: sky wolf you know, sky Wolf. Yeah, Skywolf is cool.
Speaker 1: I like that. It's just just a pilot about an
Speaker 1: airplane I'm working on. To worry about it. It's cool, Alex,
Speaker 1: I told you can't pitch your pilots on this episode. Okay,
Speaker 1: so it's like air Wolf, but I changed the name
Speaker 1: forget it forget So yeah, I mean there's actually a
Speaker 1: little bit of debate about naming the murder hornets. Some
Speaker 1: biologists are saying like, ah, but you don't, you know,
Speaker 1: this stigmatizes animals. You don't want it to be like,
Speaker 1: you know, to dramatized. But other biologists are like, no,
Speaker 1: this is a big deal, Like we it's good that
Speaker 1: people are scared of this, this terrible hornet. So it's
Speaker 1: interesting to see that back and forth of now now
Speaker 1: everybody calmed down and like some biologists are going like, no,
Speaker 1: they have to panic, Yeah, wow, because isn't that isn't
Speaker 1: that a story with especially the movie Jaws, but kind
Speaker 1: of the book to or suddenly people needed sharks, even
Speaker 1: though sharks have like a positive role in the overall ecosystem. Like,
Speaker 1: I guess they're worried about that with hornets, huh, right, exactly,
Speaker 1: because you know, hornets are not I don't want everyone
Speaker 1: to hate hornets or even hate murder hornets when they're
Speaker 1: you know, not invading North America. That sounds weird, But
Speaker 1: let me be clear, I don't hate the murder hornets.
Speaker 1: I'm concerned because they have been introduced to a region
Speaker 1: that they are not native to, which is really bad
Speaker 1: for the populations of other insects in that region, so
Speaker 1: that you know, it's they have their place, Yeah exactly.
Speaker 1: And like if it takes a sensationalist name to get
Speaker 1: people interested, like maybe that's good. Maybe it's like I
Speaker 1: don't know, maybe it's a bad strategy in the long run,
Speaker 1: Like we need to be able to be interested in
Speaker 1: stuff without having a super metal name applied to to
Speaker 1: the insect. But I don't know, I mean, yeah, I
Speaker 1: kind of I'm okay with the name murder hornets personally
Speaker 1: because I think it does make people interested in what
Speaker 1: what is happening and so that yeah, which is good. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I never would have heard about it otherwise. Right, And
Speaker 1: they do murder, it's accurate. I mean they murder a
Speaker 1: lot of bees. Yeah, I guess. I wonder if we're
Speaker 1: going there. But have they ever murdered a person in
Speaker 1: the United States? Not? Not in North America as far
Speaker 1: as I know. They have killed people in their native
Speaker 1: range unfortunately, So they are actually pretty nasty to humans.
Speaker 1: I want to preface this with the main problem of
Speaker 1: them being in the US is not that they're going
Speaker 1: to kill us all, but it is they are actually
Speaker 1: somewhat dangerous to people. So with these murder hornets, about
Speaker 1: fifty stings can kill you due to kidney damage, even
Speaker 1: if you're not allergic. Fatal encounters are more likely to
Speaker 1: happen if you stumble upon or disturb a hornet hive.
Speaker 1: So if one kind of flies on you and stings
Speaker 1: you once, it's unlikely unless you have an allergy, that
Speaker 1: it's going to really harm you. It'll it'll give you
Speaker 1: like I could give you a nasty well, but in
Speaker 1: Japan about fifty people die a year from murder hornet stings,
Speaker 1: which I don't want to realize that that's it's horrible,
Speaker 1: but it's you know, it's not like five zero people
Speaker 1: die a year in Japan from murder hornet stings. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, like that's about the it's a little bit
Speaker 1: more than people die a year of just wasp and
Speaker 1: be stings in the US per year. So but that
Speaker 1: again it's like a it's I think there's about I
Speaker 1: think about thirty to forty people die per year in
Speaker 1: the US from wasp and beastings, so it's about on
Speaker 1: the same scale. But again it's just one species doing
Speaker 1: all of that damage. So they are they are more
Speaker 1: dangerous than bees in and other wasps. So it's like
Speaker 1: I would say, it's something where it's concerning and it'll
Speaker 1: it's really sad that it hurts people. I don't want
Speaker 1: to trivialize that. But it's also not like it's not like, oh,
Speaker 1: we're all going this is going to kill us all like,
Speaker 1: it's not. It's this is not the the final male
Speaker 1: and humanity's coffin. Wow, that sounded grim, But because when
Speaker 1: because when they're scary things going on. You wanna as
Speaker 1: a person know which things are less scary like these
Speaker 1: these a problem, but not not something to panic about. It, right,
Speaker 1: a problem, and I understand people's concern about it, and
Speaker 1: I think it is worrisome, but I think like the
Speaker 1: main worrisomething about it is the impact to the ecology
Speaker 1: in North America, which is a it's a big deal.
Speaker 1: And of course, I mean, I don't think it's silly
Speaker 1: to be concerned about something that can hurt a person.
Speaker 1: I think that's always concerning, Like it's concerning, But it's
Speaker 1: not like these bees aren't going to like raid a
Speaker 1: human town and decapitate everyone. That's just what they're going
Speaker 1: to do to the honey bees. Yeah, just because you
Speaker 1: saw ladies do that in the nineteen fifties Motorcycle Woman
Speaker 1: movie franchise does not mean that these Japanese hornets will
Speaker 1: do that. It's very different, Right, So you might be wondering, like,
Speaker 1: how should we get rid of these murder hornets, Like
Speaker 1: maybe we should introduce a species that murders the murder hornets.
Speaker 1: But we are in the next section going to talk
Speaker 1: about why this logic is not great because when we
Speaker 1: return after a break, we're actually going to talk about
Speaker 1: the cane toad story. That this is not a bug
Speaker 1: at all, very exciting. I mentioned earlier that honeybee populations
Speaker 1: are already struggling. Over the past decade or so, beekeepers
Speaker 1: have reported higher and higher loss of honey bees, either
Speaker 1: due to colony collapse disorder where worker bees abandoned a colony,
Speaker 1: or due to winter deaths. Currently, colony collapse disorder is
Speaker 1: not as much of an issue, but increased bee deaths continue.
Speaker 1: This is estimated to be due to the combined factors
Speaker 1: of agricultural growth reducing the amount of diversity of flowering
Speaker 1: plants for bees to eat, pesticides killing the bees, and
Speaker 1: parasites such as veroa destructor a tiny mite that wedges
Speaker 1: itself into a bees exoskeleton, spits out digestive juices into
Speaker 1: the bee and drinks up the bee smoothie yum. So,
Speaker 1: as you can see, there are a lot of things
Speaker 1: that bees are struggling with, not to mention the possible
Speaker 1: introduction of a giant murder hornet. But as humans were
Speaker 1: not helpless when it comes to helping the bees, we
Speaker 1: could reduce agricultural growths much that there are more areas
Speaker 1: of diverse wildflowers and vegetation to feed the bees. We
Speaker 1: could reduce pesticide usage and use less dangerous pesticides, which
Speaker 1: will allow bees to be healthier and more able to
Speaker 1: fight off things like parasites and disease. As for the
Speaker 1: murder hornets, beekeepers can set traps for the hornets to
Speaker 1: hopefully slow their spread. So we can't just give up
Speaker 1: every time a new murder hornet comes to town. We
Speaker 1: gotta fight, fight for the bees. Be a hero like
Speaker 1: buzz All drin. I'm sorry, Okay, no more bee puns.
Speaker 1: I'll behaved. Sorry, okay, just that one, No more, no
Speaker 1: more starting now, will be right back. I'm sorry, I
Speaker 1: have to. I'm sorry. Imagine you're minding your own business,
Speaker 1: eating bugs or whatever you like to do on a Wednesday.
Speaker 1: I don't judge oft In the distance, you hear a
Speaker 1: strange sound. You've never heard such a sound before. Often
Speaker 1: the horizon, you see a large group of strange, huge,
Speaker 1: bumpy skinned aliens approach. They crawled towards you on stubby legs.
Speaker 1: They lose poison out of their shoulder blades, and they
Speaker 1: are opening their huge hungry mounths and shooting out their long,
Speaker 1: disgusting tongues to eat you. So, Alex, have you heard
Speaker 1: of the Kane toad in Australia story? I think it
Speaker 1: rings a bell and the only thing I thought of
Speaker 1: beyond when you said Kane toad, that rang a bell
Speaker 1: and I thought of Australia maybe, And that's that's about
Speaker 1: all I know. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Well this will
Speaker 1: be a refresher course for you, and I think this
Speaker 1: is one of my well, I don't want to say
Speaker 1: favorite stories of invasive species because it sounds like I'm
Speaker 1: happy about it, but it is a really interesting story
Speaker 1: about an invasive species. So little background on the cane
Speaker 1: toad first, So it is a big, old terrestrial toad
Speaker 1: that uses toxins from a gland on its shoulders. So
Speaker 1: it is from South and Central America. These are beefy
Speaker 1: toads that can grow around five to six inches long,
Speaker 1: which is about ten to fifteen centimeters. But they've been
Speaker 1: known to be able to reach a length of nine
Speaker 1: inches centimeters, which is I don't know, too big. Maybe
Speaker 1: I don't want to I don't want to judge. But
Speaker 1: when you gave those inches honestly, I thought of it
Speaker 1: in hornets. It was like, oh, three to four and
Speaker 1: a half hornets of measurement. The murder hornet m H
Speaker 1: is Yeah, so, like I mentioned earlier, it excretes toxins
Speaker 1: from the glands near its shoulders, so its skin is
Speaker 1: highly toxic and will kill animals that try to eat it,
Speaker 1: which you know, I mean, that's that's a good idea.
Speaker 1: I guess if you're a cane toade and you don't
Speaker 1: want to be eaten, to just make yourself deadly. I
Speaker 1: feel like what I learned about poison dart frogs as
Speaker 1: a kid, I was like, oh, any colorful amphibian is
Speaker 1: probably full of murder. That's probably what's going on. It
Speaker 1: seems like this is kind of one of those Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's not even colorful. It's like it barely even warns you.
Speaker 1: It's just kind of a sandy color, brownish, yellowish, all
Speaker 1: of sandy color. It seems pretty innocuous. But nope, it
Speaker 1: is full of ooz eating poison. It's more of more
Speaker 1: of a low key hit man kind of guy. I
Speaker 1: get it. Cool. Yeah, yeah, it's it's less of a
Speaker 1: less of a man. It's less of a mad Max
Speaker 1: and more of a Liam Neeson. Are those two murder
Speaker 1: people in the media. I'm trying to think of different
Speaker 1: styles of murder people in movies, and I feel like
Speaker 1: Mad Max versus Liam Neeson makes sense to me in
Speaker 1: this moment. Yeah, that works. Like, isn't John Wick generally
Speaker 1: dressed pretty conservatively? You know, like maybe it's a John Wick. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess I think of John Wick as being flamboyant
Speaker 1: just because the movies are kind of in your face.
Speaker 1: But yeah, yeah, like I'm thinking of like a really
Speaker 1: drab murderer, like I'm here to kill you. Don't mind me,
Speaker 1: I'm here to kill you. So they have a lifespan
Speaker 1: of about ten to fifteen years, but one individual was
Speaker 1: recorded as having lived to thirty five years, which is
Speaker 1: older than Jesus. Not to brag, not to brag. Listen,
Speaker 1: we measure lengths in hornets that we measure ages in Jesus.
Speaker 1: And that's how we do it. Okay, Like like, hop
Speaker 1: off if it's not for you. Yeah, this is like
Speaker 1: one point zero zero five Jesus about Yeah, please don't
Speaker 1: check my math on that, because I can assure you
Speaker 1: it's wrong. So they have warty all of brownish skin,
Speaker 1: and they are great at reproducing, which is fun to know.
Speaker 1: So females lay thousands of eggs at once which come
Speaker 1: out in jelly like strings, kind of like remember nerds ropes, nerds,
Speaker 1: nerds ropes, whereas like those like uh, ropes of candy
Speaker 1: covered in nerds in this case, unfortunately I do remember, yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: but imagine that except toad eggs. So it is an
Speaker 1: absolutely unstoppable monster that can replicate itself almost infinitely. So
Speaker 1: of course Australia decided they had to have it. Australia,
Speaker 1: don't you have enough crazy animals, you scamps over there.
Speaker 1: So in ninety five Australian farmers were having a problem
Speaker 1: with cane beetles which were destroying their sugarcane crops in Queensland,
Speaker 1: and they saw that prayer to Rico introduced the cane
Speaker 1: toad to their sugarcane crops and had some success in
Speaker 1: finding back the sugarcane beetles there. And the cane toad
Speaker 1: was known to have a voracious appetite and eat basically
Speaker 1: anything alive or dead. So what could possibly go wrong?
Speaker 1: I don't, I don't know if anyone knows this, but
Speaker 1: like the toad is called the cane toad because it
Speaker 1: likes hanging out in sugarcane and generally being around that
Speaker 1: crop or something that's fun. Yeah, because the other thing
Speaker 1: I think that is the frog and toad books where
Speaker 1: they're both dressed pretty fancy and maybe they would have
Speaker 1: a cane like a gentleman. You know. That's the only
Speaker 1: other reason I could pick or that or that Looney
Speaker 1: Tunes the Looney Tunes puts on the little top hat. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Oh it's a frog. Yeah yeah, hello by hello Ma Darland,
Speaker 1: gonna poison all your native species. So yeah, like let's
Speaker 1: just introduce this unstoppable like insatiable poi is in this toad.
Speaker 1: What could go wrong? Well a lot. So the toad
Speaker 1: was introduced, and first of all, it didn't actually help
Speaker 1: at all with the cane beetle problem. So the cane
Speaker 1: beetles in Australia, as opposed to elsewhere, like to live
Speaker 1: at the top of the cane plant. So the toad,
Speaker 1: which is not a good climber or a good jumper,
Speaker 1: could not reach its prey, so it can't actually eat
Speaker 1: the beetles it was supposed to eat, and the cane
Speaker 1: fields in Australia did not provide enough cover for the
Speaker 1: toads to hunt undetected. But the toads are like, yeah,
Speaker 1: but I'm voracious. I'll eat basically anything, So yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna go do that somewhere else. And they turned their
Speaker 1: attention to the rest of northern Australia. So when they
Speaker 1: were introduced, they were about I've seen different numbers. I've
Speaker 1: also read that they were like contained within two suitcases
Speaker 1: or something. I think there was like under a thousand possibly,
Speaker 1: And now there are over two hundred million Kane toads
Speaker 1: in Australia, two million, two hundred million, over two hundred million.
Speaker 1: How do they How does that island fit people? Now?
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't. I want to know, Like it's
Speaker 1: more toads than island now, yeah, I mean like there
Speaker 1: are a lot of them and they will sometimes just
Speaker 1: like be out on these roads and a bunch of
Speaker 1: them get flattened by traffic. There there are these like
Speaker 1: huge groups of them. Yeah, it's it's, you know, kind
Speaker 1: of horror. I'm imagining that, like if I watched the
Speaker 1: making of about Crocodiles and just out of frame they're
Speaker 1: stepping on toads everywhere they go, every scene, you know,
Speaker 1: like that's that's obviously what's happening. The gaffer is a
Speaker 1: toad toad get dangling off the microphone. Yeah, it's full.
Speaker 1: It's full of toads, apparently in northern Australia. So they
Speaker 1: are slowly taking over Australia, killing native animals and plant
Speaker 1: species as they go, threatening their native populations of biodiversity.
Speaker 1: So they are advancing towards the west at to thirty
Speaker 1: seven miles per year, which is forty to sixty kilometers
Speaker 1: per year, which may not seem very fast, but it
Speaker 1: means that in like sixty to seventy years they could
Speaker 1: go from one coast and expand all the way to
Speaker 1: the other coast. And they've already started so unless that
Speaker 1: time they could reach the western coast of Australia. So
Speaker 1: they are voracious omnivores. Basically they'll eat anything they can
Speaker 1: work their mouth around. According to the Australian Museum website,
Speaker 1: they will eat beetles, honey bees, ants, wing termites, crickets,
Speaker 1: marine snails, smaller toads and native frogs, small snakes, small mammals,
Speaker 1: carrion and pet food that's been left outside. Hey, leave
Speaker 1: some of that for me. Toads, So the pet food
Speaker 1: or the carrion, all of it, you know, oh, Alex.
Speaker 1: So they have no predators or diseases specialized to take
Speaker 1: them out in Australia, given that they are and introduced
Speaker 1: species and they are highly poisonous and Australian predators have
Speaker 1: had little success with them. In fact, they are very
Speaker 1: dangerous to domesticated dogs, which is probably not news to
Speaker 1: people who live in Northern Australia who have dogs like
Speaker 1: that is a big concern often because if a dog
Speaker 1: eats cane toad, that's a trip to the vet for sure. Yeah. So,
Speaker 1: not only do they kill off price species, but they
Speaker 1: actually kill off other predators, either by poisoning them or
Speaker 1: out competing with them or destroying their nests. So here's
Speaker 1: an example. There's the Northern qual, which is a cute
Speaker 1: little marsupial who looks a bit like a giant mouse
Speaker 1: with brown fur and white spots. Oh hey, hey, buddy,
Speaker 1: I wish I'd didn't see you in the context of
Speaker 1: this story. You look so cute. It's a quality qual
Speaker 1: quality quals. Yeah, so they are very very cute. It
Speaker 1: is a carnivore who eats small mammals, reptiles, insects, and birds,
Speaker 1: and they they are populations have been completely decimated in
Speaker 1: cane toad controlled regions because when it tries to eat
Speaker 1: the cane toad, it is poison and killed. And it
Speaker 1: doesn't it hasn't evolved with the cane toad, so it
Speaker 1: doesn't really you know, it has no idea. It's like
Speaker 1: I'll put this tode in my mouth. Whoops. Oh problem. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think I think the main upshot of this is
Speaker 1: to not be a small mammal, reptile, insect or bird
Speaker 1: in Australia. There are way too many species coming, don't
Speaker 1: do it. Yeah, generally, most of the times I talk
Speaker 1: about animals on this podcast, it's going to be bad
Speaker 1: news for small mammals, reptiles, insects and birds in Australia.
Speaker 1: It's always bad news for those guys. I'm sorry if
Speaker 1: you're if you're a mouse, build a disneys the rescuers
Speaker 1: playing and get out of there. Just just don't be
Speaker 1: there anymore. But yeah, it is. It is actually very
Speaker 1: very concerning because it is threatening the northern qual populations
Speaker 1: and that's you know, and it's these these poor quals.
Speaker 1: You know, they're just trying to do their jobs as
Speaker 1: a small predator, but they either get out competed or
Speaker 1: poisoned by this insane toad. So it sounds like this
Speaker 1: has been building for a while, right, because the toads
Speaker 1: showed up in the nineteen thirties and now into the
Speaker 1: modern day they are bothering species. Yeah, yeah, it's still
Speaker 1: a big problem. We have not solved the cane toad problem,
Speaker 1: although there have been attempts. In two thousand and four
Speaker 1: there was the Great Cane Toad Trap Competition that was
Speaker 1: run by Australia's Northern Territory local government, so just trying
Speaker 1: to like award money to people who could come up
Speaker 1: with the best cane toad trap because it's a big problem.
Speaker 1: Researchers are also trying to control the cane toad population
Speaker 1: because yeah, they're not They're not just threatening the qual,
Speaker 1: although I think the qual is cute enough for that
Speaker 1: to be the main reason to be concerned. But yeah,
Speaker 1: there are They are also threatening crocodiles, freshwater turtles, tortoises, lizards, birds,
Speaker 1: and anyone who wants to walk barefoot in a field.
Speaker 1: At night because you will just probably step on one
Speaker 1: of these toads. And that's an icky experience. I mean,
Speaker 1: because these these toads sound like just a bag of
Speaker 1: poison walking around, right Like, that's basically the situation. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're big, hungry bags of poison pretty much. That's yeah.
Speaker 1: But there may be some hope and it comes in
Speaker 1: the form of the Australian water rat. Da da da. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it looks like it looks to me like a woodchuck,
Speaker 1: but with like some kind of duck boots on, like
Speaker 1: if you could get duck feet. It's a boot from
Speaker 1: a store and then put that on so you can
Speaker 1: fight toads. That's what this looks like. Yeah, exactly, that's
Speaker 1: exactly what it is. I and I subtitled this this
Speaker 1: picture featured hero because these are these are little heroes.
Speaker 1: So the Australian water rat is also known as the racali,
Speaker 1: is a large aquatic rodent who looks a bit like
Speaker 1: a mix between an otter and a rat with duck feet,
Speaker 1: and they have learned how to slice open cane toads
Speaker 1: with surgical precision and eat their hearts out and other
Speaker 1: internal organs, avoiding the poison skin and glands, which is
Speaker 1: a little serial killery. But I guess like when it
Speaker 1: comes to the cane toad, that's what you have to do. Yeah.
Speaker 1: If the cane toes didn't want that to happen, they
Speaker 1: should have been made of less poison. I think I
Speaker 1: think it's their fall. Ultimately. I feel like this is
Speaker 1: very silence of the lambs, where you you can't like
Speaker 1: you're like, oh, we gotta take down this kane tone.
Speaker 1: It's like, well, hello, Clarice, I know how to vivisector
Speaker 1: toad if you'll just please letally out of my confinement
Speaker 1: I'm around. And then because it's captors are Australians, they're
Speaker 1: just like all right and just like immediately, no worried, no,
Speaker 1: nothing wrong. Yeah. So but these are these are actually
Speaker 1: native species. So it's it's good that they're murdering the toads,
Speaker 1: is what I'm saying. And so these smart little murderous
Speaker 1: water rats will even remove the gall bladder which contains toxins,
Speaker 1: and they just eat the good stuff inside the toad
Speaker 1: that isn't covered in poison. So Dr Morrissa Parrot, reproductive
Speaker 1: biologist and conservationist, said this of the water rats habits
Speaker 1: quote the rats appeared to hold the toad on its
Speaker 1: back and then inside the thoracic cavity to consume organs
Speaker 1: while the toad was still alive. And he does that.
Speaker 1: If I'm looking at the thumbnail of that article, right,
Speaker 1: it has like a picture of the toad after that happened. Wow. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I put that in there just for for you to
Speaker 1: look at. This is just a fun little image of
Speaker 1: a toad that's been dissected, probably while still alive, so
Speaker 1: it's organs could be eaten by a giant water roadent
Speaker 1: I mean this, this arms race has to stop at
Speaker 1: some point, right, like like the road and gets hunted
Speaker 1: by an eagle with a gun or something like it.
Speaker 1: Where where does it go? Where does it end? A
Speaker 1: bunch of murder hornets riding vespas holding machete. Oh and
Speaker 1: just just um, I know I've been really mean to
Speaker 1: these toads. So just a fun fact I want to
Speaker 1: just toss out like a fun fact about toads in general,
Speaker 1: just because like it's true that there are an invasive
Speaker 1: species and that's not great in Australia. But I don't
Speaker 1: want people to hate toads. I think they're cool and
Speaker 1: I here's a here's a fun fact about toads. In general,
Speaker 1: males have something that is called a bitters organ, which
Speaker 1: regulates sex hormones, and if the male toads testes are
Speaker 1: injured or removed, the bitters organ will develop ovaries. So
Speaker 1: that's pretty cool, right, So so male toads, if their
Speaker 1: genitals are injured, can generate female sex organs. Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: guess how we know that, alex Uh, we asked them, Oh,
Speaker 1: it's only no. We researchers cut off their dusties. See
Speaker 1: what would happen. I'm I'm very much for research and science.
Speaker 1: Sometimes once in a while I'm like, how did why
Speaker 1: did okay? But why did you think? How did you
Speaker 1: think of this idea? Though? Like were you just like
Speaker 1: sitting there and me like, I want to see what
Speaker 1: happens if we cut off some tote testicles, like you know,
Speaker 1: I'm just I'm just a little concerned. Yeah, I assume
Speaker 1: when the scientists had their press conference, at least one
Speaker 1: of them was in the middle of drinking a Foster's
Speaker 1: as they shared this information, Like this is crazy. Why
Speaker 1: are you doing this? Think that to be wild? Listen,
Speaker 1: we're gonna cut off now listen, cut off its bowls
Speaker 1: and see what hapens. That's not that's not an Australian
Speaker 1: next at all. No, that didn't do it. That wasn't good.
Speaker 1: Just decided to drinking a fosters and smoking like science
Speaker 1: science science? Like why science? Science don't seem professional if
Speaker 1: it's bulls all. I don't know if these were Australian
Speaker 1: researchers either, so, but I imagine they must be. They
Speaker 1: must be. Sorry, sorry my Australian listeners, but you gotta
Speaker 1: admit they have to be right. Yeah, I mean it
Speaker 1: could be them, but it's them. Yeah it is. I
Speaker 1: love you Australia, I truly do. Cane toads aren't the
Speaker 1: only type of frog wreaking havoc on the world. And
Speaker 1: by the way, toads are a subset of frogs. Sorry, kermit,
Speaker 1: your cousins are monsters. The North American bullfrog is fine
Speaker 1: and dandy when it's hopping and swimming around east of
Speaker 1: the Rocky Mountains in North America, but it's decided to
Speaker 1: invade the rest of the world as well. It's been
Speaker 1: found further south in America, decimating the chericho, who leopard
Speaker 1: frog and Mexican garter snake populations in Arizona. They've invaded
Speaker 1: west in North America, South America, Europe, and Asia. And
Speaker 1: let's not be too hard on these little guys. Humans
Speaker 1: imported the frogs to California and other parts of the
Speaker 1: world for frog leg culinary purposes. And oops, now they've
Speaker 1: escaped and are unstoppable. And wait, did I say little guys?
Speaker 1: They can actually grow to be around eight inches long,
Speaker 1: the size of a dessert plate, and way up to
Speaker 1: one and a half pounds. Normally, in their natural habitat, alligators,
Speaker 1: snapping turtles, and other predators prevent their populations from exploding,
Speaker 1: but when introduced to a new environment, they can propagate
Speaker 1: without natural predators, devouring all sorts of little animals in
Speaker 1: their path, including other frogs and smaller bull frogs. They
Speaker 1: also may be immune carriers of the katrid fungus that
Speaker 1: is deadly to other frog populations. So when you introduce
Speaker 1: a non native species to a new area, there are
Speaker 1: all sorts of deadly surprises, the worst kind of surprise.
Speaker 1: When we return, we'll talk out an adorable animal with
Speaker 1: a not so adorable ambition of global domination. Remember riky
Speaker 1: Tiki Tavi, the adorable mongoose sidekick that protected people from snakes.
Speaker 1: Mongooses are a family of carnivorous, weasel shaped mammals. Mere Cats,
Speaker 1: by the way, are a species of mongoose. While mongooses
Speaker 1: look similar to a weasel, they're actually more closely related
Speaker 1: to cats and hyenas. Many mongoose species are prose at
Speaker 1: eating venomous critters like scorpions and snakes. They can tear
Speaker 1: off the poisonous stinger of a scorpion, and they're thick
Speaker 1: fur protects them from stings and bites. They even have
Speaker 1: specialized neurotransmitter receptors that don't bind to snake venom, providing
Speaker 1: resistance to neurotoxins. So these are some incredible little fur noodles,
Speaker 1: but sometimes they have a dastardly side on a global scale. So, Alex,
Speaker 1: I think that often we judge animals based on their looks.
Speaker 1: So I've talked about a murder hornet and a poison
Speaker 1: cain toad, and they're both a little scary looking, and
Speaker 1: so I think it's easy for us to naturally think like, oh,
Speaker 1: look at these scary, murderous, decapitating poisoning animals. How awful.
Speaker 1: But I want people to understand that it's not just
Speaker 1: the ugly ones that are people in nature. So sometimes
Speaker 1: a little animal that is super cute and very gregarious
Speaker 1: looking is actually a horrible murderer who is destroying the plant.
Speaker 1: So the small Indian mongoose, also known as the job
Speaker 1: in mongoose, is a cute little fella who doesn't seem
Speaker 1: like it would be a big deal if it invaded.
Speaker 1: I have a picture of that for you. I mean,
Speaker 1: look at his little fingkule faith it's like almost I'm
Speaker 1: thinking of that c g I Stuart Little movie where
Speaker 1: Stuart Little is very cute in it, like it kind
Speaker 1: of it kind of has that facial expression. It's like
Speaker 1: I'm a rodent and sentient and I just want to
Speaker 1: love you. I just want to love you. It is
Speaker 1: a brown long mammal with nubby little ears, a pink nose,
Speaker 1: and a long furry tail. So you know he's all
Speaker 1: he's kill at noodle boy. It's cute, ki little furry noodle. Well,
Speaker 1: I'm sure that's all I need to know about it. Anyway,
Speaker 1: go on. It's also one of the worst invasive species
Speaker 1: in the world. Oh what a scamper noodles. So it
Speaker 1: is native to the Middle East, South Asia, and Southeast Asia,
Speaker 1: and it's you know, I love I love mongooses. They
Speaker 1: are champions, they love to kill venomous snakes and scorpions,
Speaker 1: and love love a ricky tiki tavi. They're they're awesome animals.
Speaker 1: So unfortunately though, it has traveled extensively, including to Hawaii,
Speaker 1: the Bahamas, Cuba, Jamaica, Croatia, Puerto Rica, Honduras, Panama, Colombia,
Speaker 1: Venezuela and more places. But I ran out of breath,
Speaker 1: so yeah, a lot. It's it's in a lot of places. Now,
Speaker 1: So did mongooses just like hop on a boat to
Speaker 1: explore the rest of the world after college, you know,
Speaker 1: just of their own volition. Why no Royal Caribbean had
Speaker 1: a deal. So there you go. Yeah, I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: I think one important thing to point out is a
Speaker 1: lot of invasive species is actually anthropogenic, so meaning like humans,
Speaker 1: we did it because we introduced them willfully. The murder hornets,
Speaker 1: I think that was I think they were unwitting hitchhikers,
Speaker 1: probably did some hitchhiking on some cargo or something, and
Speaker 1: that's how it got to North America. But the mongooses
Speaker 1: are a different story, because apparently we've been trying this
Speaker 1: whole You know, the little lady who swallowed a fly,
Speaker 1: swallowed a frog, who swalled a cat, and then then
Speaker 1: a dog, and then eventually a horse, because a horse
Speaker 1: somehow helps I don't know. She ate a mongoose and
Speaker 1: brought it here, that lady a little exactly little ladies
Speaker 1: swallow the snake and ate a mongoose and just basically
Speaker 1: she was dead as soon as she ate the snake,
Speaker 1: but we kept trying to shove more mongooses in her.
Speaker 1: That's the situation, is what I'm saying. So the mongooses
Speaker 1: were introduced to these new regions by humans, and Alex,
Speaker 1: can you guess why we would do something like that?
Speaker 1: Probably a really well thought out plan about some some
Speaker 1: past we're trying to deal with. Yeah, and is it what?
Speaker 1: Trying to think? What could it be? What could have? All? Right,
Speaker 1: it's sugar cane again. So apparently we tried the old
Speaker 1: introduced a new species to protect our precious sugarcane from
Speaker 1: pest trek back in the late eighteen hundreds. But with mongooses,
Speaker 1: that's right, Australia. We already tried it. It was bad then,
Speaker 1: and then you tried it again with toads. Why do
Speaker 1: we keep doing I guess everyone wants to eat sugarcane,
Speaker 1: like everyone is me looking at a package of cookies.
Speaker 1: It is true, sugar is the best tasting thing in
Speaker 1: the world. So it kind of makes sense that we
Speaker 1: are willing to introduce murder beasts to our various countries
Speaker 1: to protect our sugar cane. So in this case, the mongoose,
Speaker 1: who is a voracious predator who eats small mammals, reptiles, insects, crabs, frog, spiders, scorpions, snakes, birds,
Speaker 1: and eggs, was introduced to help kill off pests in
Speaker 1: sugarcane plantations in Hawaii and other regions. So while it
Speaker 1: did help kill off some of the rats, mice, and
Speaker 1: insects around the sugarcane plantation, so you know, at least
Speaker 1: fulfilled some of its purpose more than the cane toad.
Speaker 1: It's not like it dusted off. It's a little positives
Speaker 1: like job well done, Time to go home. I did
Speaker 1: did what I came here to do. They just kept
Speaker 1: killing things, you know, because that's what they do. They're like,
Speaker 1: all right, I murdered. I murdered these things around these
Speaker 1: sugarcane crops. Now I'm gonna go murder other things because
Speaker 1: that's what I do. I told you, I told you
Speaker 1: I'm a murder noodle, and you invited me here, and
Speaker 1: I'm murdering things now right. The police can't let Dexter
Speaker 1: get one guy, He's gonna get more guys. That's the
Speaker 1: way it is, like Texter anymore. I thought it was
Speaker 1: apted anyway. Yeah, I think I'd like Dexter if it
Speaker 1: was a like played by a mongoose though, like Ricky Ticky, Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: And the mongoose is like, I have a code and
Speaker 1: then it just like devours an endangered bird and it's
Speaker 1: like that wasn't part of my code. So these mongooses
Speaker 1: have threatened bird species and sea turtles by eating their
Speaker 1: eggs in Hawaii. They've harmed the green iguana population. In
Speaker 1: the Caribbean. They have wiped out the St. Quaix St. Quax.
Speaker 1: I always stumble over that because now I think of
Speaker 1: laqua the drink, but the St. St. Quaix ground lizard
Speaker 1: from the island of Saint Quix. So like the lizard
Speaker 1: has its own Ding Island, and the mongoosees took it
Speaker 1: from him. It's not called Mongoose Island. It's called Saint
Speaker 1: Quis Island, but still now it's mongoose Island, I guess.
Speaker 1: So it was introduced to Okinawa Island in Japan in
Speaker 1: nineteen ten and two amani Oshima Island in nineteen seventy
Speaker 1: nine to try to control the venomous snake populations there.
Speaker 1: Guess what they were trying to protect on those islands,
Speaker 1: alex sugar cane. Well, I what is it with us
Speaker 1: in sugarcane? Guys? You know, fool me four times about
Speaker 1: sugar cane chain on you, But we have to calm
Speaker 1: down about this sugar not so yeah, So we introduced
Speaker 1: the mongooses to these islands to try to protect people
Speaker 1: who worked around the sugarcane crops and other residents on
Speaker 1: the island from these venomous snakes. Unfortunately, the venomous snakes
Speaker 1: were nocturnal and the mongooses are diurnal, so it didn't
Speaker 1: actually work to control the snake population, and now they
Speaker 1: are threatening endangered species on Okinawa Island and the locals
Speaker 1: have been trying to stop them with traps and fences,
Speaker 1: which is like when is awake during the day and
Speaker 1: then the others awake at night, and they just are
Speaker 1: on like a shift schedule for terrorizing everyone, right, exactly exactly, yes,
Speaker 1: exactly exactly. So diurnal means they at night and are
Speaker 1: awake during the day, so as humans were diurnal, Nocturnal
Speaker 1: means you sleep during the day and are awake at night.
Speaker 1: And so the snakes like clock in for their night shift.
Speaker 1: It's like another day of terrorizing the population. And then
Speaker 1: the mongooses clocking in the morning, they're like, hey, Jeff,
Speaker 1: I'm just coming in to terrorize the human population and animals, sorry,
Speaker 1: human and animal populations. And then and then they don't
Speaker 1: like catch each other sleeping because that would be like uncool,
Speaker 1: Like there's your code, right, like you don't you don't
Speaker 1: get them sleeping and then you get them awake otherwise
Speaker 1: forget it, right, well, right, I mean they do. They
Speaker 1: sleep in burrows, which protects them, so everything. So I
Speaker 1: want to veer into the part of the show where
Speaker 1: I talk about military propaganda on an animals show. So
Speaker 1: there was an article on Stars and Stripes dot com,
Speaker 1: which is a military publication that was titled quote Marines
Speaker 1: helping Oka Nolan's fight the mongoose, And I just like
Speaker 1: imagined all these like military guys, all heavily armed, like
Speaker 1: trying to shoot down mongooses. Now it actually looks like
Speaker 1: it's just that the military is allowing Okanawans to put
Speaker 1: traps around their military base, which seems like saying like
Speaker 1: we're helping them fight the mongooses, like overstating slightly what
Speaker 1: they're doing. It's not quite like Heart of Darkness but
Speaker 1: with mongooses. But you know, what do I know? I
Speaker 1: don't know anything about military tactics. It's not the it's
Speaker 1: not the like third act of an Avengers movie where
Speaker 1: everybody finally teams up and gets down to business. They're
Speaker 1: just letting up set up traps. Man. That would that
Speaker 1: movie would have ended differently if it was the Avengers
Speaker 1: versus a bunch of angry mongooses, like that would be
Speaker 1: immediate defeat, just like they like done Da Da Da
Speaker 1: Dune and they stepped through portals like oh they're in
Speaker 1: my life. Oh God. Sadly, the mongooses are suspected of
Speaker 1: being responsible for the extinction of four species of Haitians.
Speaker 1: Shrews endangering the Cuban souland on which is a long
Speaker 1: nose true like mammal, the extinction of the dwarf Kutia
Speaker 1: in Cuba, which is a guinea pig like rodent, or
Speaker 1: was a guinea pig like rodent. They are also threatening
Speaker 1: the endangered Ammani rabbit population on amani Oshima Island, and
Speaker 1: Amani rabbits are these really cool black, stubby eared wild
Speaker 1: bunnies there. I think they're really neat looking very cute
Speaker 1: as well. Oh I'm sorry, I just saw it. It
Speaker 1: looks so cute. It is very cute. It's got like
Speaker 1: it looks like you were creating a rabbit and then
Speaker 1: you ran out of material, so you just kind of
Speaker 1: like made the ears real short, yeah, and left it
Speaker 1: black for like, you know, like like the reason the
Speaker 1: model t was black. Like it's just basic. It's good.
Speaker 1: Leave it black. It's it's a it's a sleek redesign
Speaker 1: of the rabbit. So the mongooses can also carry leptospirosis, rabies,
Speaker 1: and antibiotic resistance strains of eat Coli neat. So we've
Speaker 1: really been hoisted by our own mongooses here by trying
Speaker 1: to bus around with nature and introduce them to regions
Speaker 1: where they are not from and off of that ecol
Speaker 1: I think, folks, this is why I do not let
Speaker 1: mongooses work at my restaurant. I've taken a lot of
Speaker 1: flak for this, taking a lot of negative comments about it,
Speaker 1: but that's how we're keeping it. It's people only and
Speaker 1: certain other species. No mongooses. No more letters. Please again,
Speaker 1: I don't want to come off as an anti mongoose podcast.
Speaker 1: Despite Alex just saying he would discriminate against mongooses is great,
Speaker 1: but yeah, it's not. I think mongooses are even this
Speaker 1: spe she's the small Indian mongoose. They're wonderful animals and
Speaker 1: they are an important part of their habitat where they're indigenous.
Speaker 1: But the problem is when humans are like, oh, we
Speaker 1: got a problem with snakes, Well, let's just throw some
Speaker 1: mongooses on the snake fire. That'll be fine. You gotta
Speaker 1: fight snake fire with mongoose fire, and then that's that's
Speaker 1: where the problem happens. And so I would say, when
Speaker 1: we are looking at all of these extinctions and endangerments
Speaker 1: of other species, this is not really the mongoose is fault.
Speaker 1: The mongoose is just gonna mongoose. You can't like say, hey, mongoose,
Speaker 1: stop doing mongoose things. It's like, but I'm a mongoose.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna keep doing mongoose stuff. So yeah, it's like
Speaker 1: again it's this is this is our fault as people
Speaker 1: not understanding the consequences of introducing this animal to an area.
Speaker 1: It's also why things like the exotic pet trade isn't
Speaker 1: great because like if you take a species of animal
Speaker 1: that is not native to a region and then you
Speaker 1: accidentally release it, the same thing with plants as well,
Speaker 1: it can cause all of these problems. So yeah, again,
Speaker 1: like I don't want this to come off as like, ah,
Speaker 1: let's hate these animals. It's like, yeah, you know, the
Speaker 1: the ecosystem is very delicate thing, and then when we
Speaker 1: just try to like shove a mongoose shaped peg in
Speaker 1: a snake shaped hole, it's not gonna necessarily be good. Yeah,
Speaker 1: when you when you said the name mongoose, I thought
Speaker 1: of going to our local library where my grandma worked
Speaker 1: in the VHS section and getting that animated movie about
Speaker 1: Ricky Tiki Tavy and watching it a whole bunch and
Speaker 1: like that's basically all I know the Chuck Jones animated.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, and like that's pretty much all I really
Speaker 1: know about mongoose is. But I think a lot of
Speaker 1: community leaders maybe know about that much too, and just
Speaker 1: brought a bunch of mongooses in any way, Like that's bad.
Speaker 1: Don't do that, Like no more than I did, you
Speaker 1: know going in? Yeah, yeah, I mean yeah, mongooses are
Speaker 1: I love them. When I was a kid, I loved
Speaker 1: Ricky Tiki Tavi. I absolutely love mongooses. It's just like
Speaker 1: it's like a cute little animal that like is able
Speaker 1: to spar with scorpions and snakes. That's super awesome, and
Speaker 1: they are really awesome animals. Yeah, it's just again, like
Speaker 1: we can't just like throw a mongoose on every problem
Speaker 1: and expect that to work out. Yeah yeah, be more
Speaker 1: judicious in your moose. So I'm saying, right, if if
Speaker 1: you think that we should bring in a bunch of
Speaker 1: mongooses to fight the murder hornets, you are misguided. Although
Speaker 1: I would I would definitely pay per view to see
Speaker 1: that like this Sunday Sunday Sunday Murder Hornets versus murder mongoose.
Speaker 1: Just a very confusing way in trying to trying to
Speaker 1: get him on the scale. Well what do we do? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: but but but don't but don't do that, guys, learn
Speaker 1: learn from the mistakes that we repeatedly made without learning from. Yeah,
Speaker 1: any any of us, at any time can be the
Speaker 1: time humanity finally wises up. You know, it's great. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: Maybe we'll we'll just stop, We'll stop trying the like. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know it is. It is funny that we like
Speaker 1: have not learned from the wisdom of the little lady
Speaker 1: who swallowed a fly, because like, remember, she dies in
Speaker 1: the end because she eats a horse and that's bad
Speaker 1: and that's basically our planet. It's a metaphor for our planet. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she ate a horse, So you don't have to exactly
Speaker 1: exactly learn from learn from the old old ladies are
Speaker 1: eating horses, so we can learn how to take care
Speaker 1: of our environment. Is that the lesson? Did you learn
Speaker 1: that lesson today? Alex? I learned that precise lesson? Yes, great, good,
Speaker 1: so I've done my job as a science educator. All right, Well,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for joining me today. Alex. Did
Speaker 1: you learn? Did you laugh? Did you you know, hopefully
Speaker 1: not murder. Hopefully I was about to say yes to everything,
Speaker 1: no murder, but yes, right, no, that's amazing. Now I
Speaker 1: now I know what's going on, especially with with these
Speaker 1: murder hornets that are like an emergence than going on,
Speaker 1: because there's there's like past invaders kind of all the time,
Speaker 1: and a lot of ecosystems. Like when I was growing
Speaker 1: up around Chicago, there were Asian kerp in the like
Speaker 1: Great Lakes and in the water system, and we would
Speaker 1: just hear the name and be told to be worried.
Speaker 1: But you have to like actually find out stuff to
Speaker 1: know what's going on. And now I now I know
Speaker 1: exactly how to feel about the murder hornets exactly. I mean, like,
Speaker 1: you know, to feel a little wary, but also to
Speaker 1: realize that they're not it's not they're not bad because
Speaker 1: they're scary looking and an insect that we typically aren't
Speaker 1: fond of. Their they're bad for native populations in the
Speaker 1: North America because of the way that it messes up
Speaker 1: with the indigenous ecosystem in the same way that the adorable,
Speaker 1: lovable little noodlely mongoose is bad. Like it's cute, it's lovable,
Speaker 1: but it's still killing off a lot of species of animals,
Speaker 1: which is really bad. Yeah, so you know, don't judge.
Speaker 1: Don't judge an invasive species by its covered. Judged invasive
Speaker 1: species by how many creatures it murders. That's lesson number two. Well, Alex,
Speaker 1: do you wanna plug anything? And I know you want to,
Speaker 1: so you gotta do it. Caught me a good Uh,
Speaker 1: there's a wonderful and uh, if folks want to hear
Speaker 1: the Cracks podcast, Katie Golden is on a recent episode
Speaker 1: and as amazing. Uh And and then I'm also I'm
Speaker 1: proud of that. And I'm also very very proud of
Speaker 1: this new mini series it's called One Way to Make
Speaker 1: an Emoji, which also features Katie Golden an episode three
Speaker 1: out of four, just four episodes, so you can get
Speaker 1: them all at once and do the whole story. And
Speaker 1: I think it's great. Us we talked about bison. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we talked about bison, and I learned you are as
Speaker 1: zoo tour guided. My mind was blown. Yeah. I I
Speaker 1: am finding more and more that I need to tell
Speaker 1: people that early on, but especially someone like you should
Speaker 1: have known immediately, like I should have sent you a letter. Yeah,
Speaker 1: when we met, you should have should you know, shook
Speaker 1: my hand and said, Alex former Zoo tour guys, you
Speaker 1: know that should should just be you should have hand
Speaker 1: out a little car basically. Yeah. And where can people
Speaker 1: find you online? I'm at Alex Smitty on Twitter and
Speaker 1: then Alex meitty dot com is my website wonderful and
Speaker 1: you can find us online at Creature Future Pod on Instagram,
Speaker 1: at Creature Feet Pod on Twitter. That's f e a T.
Speaker 1: That not feet, that's one point, very different. You can
Speaker 1: find me on Twitter at Katie Golden if you want
Speaker 1: to see my Katie thoughts, not necessarily related to the show,
Speaker 1: just random Katie thoughts. Uh. And as always, I am
Speaker 1: also at pro bird Writes, where I am taking none
Speaker 1: of the lessons that I we should have learned from
Speaker 1: this podcast in saying that birds should take over the world,
Speaker 1: just because that is a simple fact. And um yeah,
Speaker 1: thank you guys so much for listening. If you guys
Speaker 1: want to leave a rating or review or download, subscribe,
Speaker 1: those things actually really help. I know you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: what could pressing buttons from thousands of miles away do
Speaker 1: for Katie? Not true? In fact, I I can sense it.
Speaker 1: I have the sense like you pressed five stars and
Speaker 1: like I'm like, oh my god, someone just pressed five
Speaker 1: stars on my podcast. That's amazing, and it teaches the
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Speaker 1: Tete