Speaker 1: Welcome to Creature Future production of iHeartRadio. I'm your host
Speaker 1: of Many Parasites, Katie Golden. I studied psychology and evolutionary biology,
Speaker 1: and today on the show you Yes, you can be
Speaker 1: a citizen scientist this spring and summer. There are things
Speaker 1: to look out for in your own backyards. I am
Speaker 1: talking about special events that are current, that are happening
Speaker 1: now or in a few weeks, that you can keep
Speaker 1: alert to in your backyard. Well, if you live in
Speaker 1: North America, in certain locations, but in general, you can
Speaker 1: be a citizen scientist. That means observing animals and then
Speaker 1: making reports to various research institutions, to things like eye naturalists,
Speaker 1: and this actually really helps researchers. So we are going
Speaker 1: to be talking about new birds. We're gonna be talking
Speaker 1: about incredible broods. We are going to talk about something
Speaker 1: that was discovered by citizen scientists that sounds like it
Speaker 1: came out of the horror game Slash TV show The
Speaker 1: Last of Us Discover This and more as we answered
Speaker 1: the age old question what is it a good time
Speaker 1: for your butt to be a fun guy? Joining me
Speaker 1: today is voice actress, host of the JV Club and
Speaker 1: a ton of other podcasts. Janet Varney welcome.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much. I wasn't sure if I was
Speaker 2: allowed to laugh when you said can you be a
Speaker 2: fun guy and win? And so last giggle.
Speaker 1: Laughter is not allowed, not permitted.
Speaker 2: This is a very serious, very serious I'm b reaching
Speaker 2: our contract.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a very serious science show. No laughter, no fun,
Speaker 1: everything's really dry. No, I'm so excited to have you suggested.
Speaker 1: I really liked your topic suggestion, which is talking about
Speaker 1: like the kinds of animals that you can find sort
Speaker 1: of in your own city, in your own backyard. And
Speaker 1: I really love this concept, and I love the way
Speaker 1: in which that people like you and me can engage
Speaker 1: in science. Because I am a science communicator. I'm not
Speaker 1: a scientist. I don't do research, but do I take
Speaker 1: photos of animals and then send them to a naturalist
Speaker 1: or to researchers who I know are looking for these photos.
Speaker 1: I don't send them randomly to people who don't know
Speaker 1: what's going on, but yes I do, and it's really fun,
Speaker 1: it's really exciting. Like once I snapped a photo of
Speaker 1: alligator lizards mating, so I sent it to Greg Pauley.
Speaker 1: He's a herpetologist at the the LA Natural History Museum,
Speaker 1: and you know, it's it's amazing. It's it's so cool
Speaker 1: to be able to interact with scientists and with science
Speaker 1: and research this way, and it's actually really helpful.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's totally awesome. We have in our I live
Speaker 2: right near Griffith Park in Los Angeles, and there's like
Speaker 2: a ton of you know, kind of public facing stuff
Speaker 2: that you can do to get involved in. One of
Speaker 2: the things that we do, not just in Griffith Park
Speaker 2: but in my own neighborhood is Raptor Watch, is you know,
Speaker 2: keeping your eyes on certain raptors' nests and reporting back.
Speaker 2: I'm gone a lot, so I haven't been able to
Speaker 2: sign up because the last thing I want to do
Speaker 2: is like not show up for something that wonderful and
Speaker 2: important raptor do. I don't want to fail raptor duty.
Speaker 2: But but you're right, the feeling of knowing that like
Speaker 2: you're engaging with your environment and you're even helping us
Speaker 2: better understand our environment and respect it and all that
Speaker 2: kind of stuff is like the coolest.
Speaker 1: Well, so I have exciting news for you because this
Speaker 1: is something that is actually in your neck of the woods.
Speaker 1: This is a a new bird just dropped in southern California.
Speaker 2: They rapped a bird.
Speaker 1: They they released a new bird. Kind of literally, I'll
Speaker 1: ex plane. So there is a small bird called Swinhoe's
Speaker 1: White Eye. It is a little little guy. It's like
Speaker 1: smaller than a playing card. It's got this cute little
Speaker 1: tan belly, this chartreuse head, wings and butt, and then
Speaker 1: this beautiful, vague, glamorous white eyeliner. So it does it
Speaker 1: is these are cute little guys and they are killing
Speaker 1: it with that eyeliner.
Speaker 2: They really are. This is this is a this is
Speaker 2: a hot look. I love it. The use I did
Speaker 2: not really, you know, from just thinking about scale, from
Speaker 2: looking at the photo initially, I did not realize they
Speaker 2: were that tiny? Are they? They look sort of goldfinchy,
Speaker 2: but not is there?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Is that that? Maybe that's what I because we have
Speaker 2: with tons of goldfinches, so hopefully I won't mistake, uh,
Speaker 2: this little guy for a goldfinch and then not not
Speaker 2: appreciate how special it is.
Speaker 1: I mean it's that I think that greeny tinge and
Speaker 1: that white around the eye is yeah, yeah, yeah, I've
Speaker 1: tried before using white eyeliner. I did it, did not
Speaker 1: work for me.
Speaker 2: Oh me, neither.
Speaker 1: I think it's like, I mean, you know, I think
Speaker 1: both of our complexions are you know, easily washed out
Speaker 1: by say like hey, it's like I'm already very pale.
Speaker 1: If I add white eye learner to it, it doesn't work.
Speaker 1: But if our skin was shartruths like this, yeah, I
Speaker 1: think it would work.
Speaker 2: I've never wanted your true skin more or at all, No,
Speaker 2: I do, so, Yeah, I love this little critter.
Speaker 1: They're very, very pretty, and if you are a bird
Speaker 1: watcher or backyard birder, or just general bird appreciator in
Speaker 1: southern California, you may spot them, especially in a tree
Speaker 1: that has flowers or berries. They often like to sip
Speaker 1: nectar or eat berries. Even like hummingbird feeders, if you
Speaker 1: have them, you might catch one of them sort of.
Speaker 2: That was my next question.
Speaker 1: Okay, And they don't have that really long beak that
Speaker 1: the hummingbird has, so they can't get quite as deep,
Speaker 1: but they still do have a bit of a beak,
Speaker 1: and it's a little curb so they can get in
Speaker 1: there a little bit, you can cut. It's interesting because
Speaker 1: you can see these nectivorous birds like this one that
Speaker 1: sip nectar, and you can see the beak it's like
Speaker 1: kind of long, a little bit pointy, but many stages
Speaker 1: away from the hummingbird. But you can see that like
Speaker 1: maybe evolutionary path of this bird could have been maybe
Speaker 1: similar to a hummingbird's ancestor, with a shorter beak but
Speaker 1: still zipping nectar.
Speaker 2: Sure, and just because I don't want anyone to worry
Speaker 2: that you have an expert by any means in any
Speaker 2: way on the show, I'm happy to represent the most
Speaker 2: rudimentary of enthusiasts. But so a bird like this, like
Speaker 2: with a hummingbird, they don't don't they have like a
Speaker 2: little tongue that was also involved in the beak. But
Speaker 2: this with this little character, is he or she uh
Speaker 2: sip with like is a tongue in play or is
Speaker 2: it mostly beak action?
Speaker 1: Okay, yes, yes, that tongue is going to help them sip.
Speaker 1: It's not not quite as long in fancy as the hummingbird,
Speaker 1: but that narrow beak a little bit curved and then
Speaker 1: a little bit of tongue action is going to help
Speaker 1: them draw up nectar into their beak. Cool and so,
Speaker 1: but they're unlike hummingbirds, they can also they can diversify,
Speaker 1: so they can eat berries, which you know, can open
Speaker 1: and close their mouth pretty easily and snap up a berry.
Speaker 1: And so yeah, if you have like a lot of
Speaker 1: like flowering lush plants in your area, you may spot
Speaker 1: one of these. But here's the catch. They are not
Speaker 1: really supposed to be in southern California. They are from
Speaker 1: East and Southeast Asia, completely across the world. So Janet,
Speaker 1: I want you to guess how they might have gotten
Speaker 1: to southern California.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm gonna say, not, Migraine, I'm gonna say brought
Speaker 2: over to ce commercially, perhaps like seeing that there was
Speaker 2: some incentive there. It's harder for me to imagine somehow
Speaker 2: these ending up on like a cargo ship just randomly
Speaker 2: and like building a nest and hanging out there. So
Speaker 2: I guess that's my That will be my guess. That
Speaker 2: is absolutely correct, all right, these little guys.
Speaker 1: The thought that it's not exactly known, but the leading
Speaker 1: theory is that they escaped from the pet trade in
Speaker 1: Orange County, California. And so we actually have another bird,
Speaker 1: the Chevron parakeep, that also escaped the pet trade, and
Speaker 1: you can see it all over southern California, but this
Speaker 1: one is much more recent, So this came around two
Speaker 1: thousand and six, and they've been in southern California since
Speaker 1: and six. But recently they're population seems to have a
Speaker 1: big boom. There's been many more reported sightings. It seems
Speaker 1: like they are finding their niche and reproducing quite a bit.
Speaker 1: So there's always like, so they are an invasive species,
Speaker 1: but invasive species can range in terms of how bad
Speaker 1: they are right in terms of like how much they
Speaker 1: impact local flora fauna, how they impact the plants, how
Speaker 1: they impact other birds, other animals, because like they can
Speaker 1: either directly, you know, safe overfeed on berries or overfeed
Speaker 1: on plants and then cause damage to native plants, or
Speaker 1: they can out compete native birds or other or insects
Speaker 1: or something. So there are a lot of factors in
Speaker 1: terms of how they could have an effect, but so
Speaker 1: far we don't actually know if they are having a
Speaker 1: negative effect on the local native plants and animals.
Speaker 2: So they are like a kind of the opposite end
Speaker 2: of the known spectrum at this time than say the
Speaker 2: feral cat in Australia, which I was just reading about
Speaker 2: and feeling very bad for the Bilby's.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the Bilby's.
Speaker 2: So cute in the side, but boy, oh boy, are
Speaker 2: they cute.
Speaker 1: I judge an animal in terms of their cuteness mostly
Speaker 1: by the nose. The snoop is a very important factor
Speaker 1: in the cuteness.
Speaker 2: I would say, ears and snoop, and this one has
Speaker 2: both very adorable ears, very durable snoop.
Speaker 1: They did, you see the whole thing of like they
Speaker 1: do the Bilby the Easter Bilby instead of the Easter
Speaker 1: Bunny because no. Yeah, so rabbits are also invasive, also
Speaker 1: bad for Bilby's and other animals, not because of predation,
Speaker 1: but because they are competing with them, right and so,
Speaker 1: and they're bad for the local vegetation and so there
Speaker 1: they are, just as they're at war with feral cats,
Speaker 1: there at war with feral rabbits and so sort of
Speaker 1: as a branding thing of like, hey, we don't actually
Speaker 1: want rabbits here, they did the whole Like Easter Bilby get.
Speaker 2: A giant build, so doing that here.
Speaker 1: I love that you can get a chocolate Easter Bilby.
Speaker 1: I don't know how expensive the shipping would be from Australia,
Speaker 1: but you know, probably a lot worth it. But yeah,
Speaker 1: so so so far these little little white eyed birds, uh,
Speaker 1: it is unknown what impact they have and in fact
Speaker 1: it's unknown how big their population is. There's been more
Speaker 1: reports of sightings. It seems like their population is on
Speaker 1: the rise, but researchers need more data. So that is
Speaker 1: something that people can do from their backyards right or
Speaker 1: on your walk or whatever. If you see one of
Speaker 1: these birds and you can look up pictures of the
Speaker 1: swin Hoe white eye bird, and if you see one
Speaker 1: of these you can snap a photo or make a
Speaker 1: report of where you see it. You can go through
Speaker 1: like a naturalist is the main one. And so yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean there's an article called on the Brink of
Speaker 1: Explosion identifying the source and potential spread of introduced Zosterops
Speaker 1: white eyes in North America. Also an article in The
Speaker 1: LAist by Jacob Margolis that has more information. But yeah, generally,
Speaker 1: just if you're if you're a bird enthusiast and you
Speaker 1: see one of these guys and you take a photo
Speaker 1: or observed just like where it is, where you saw it,
Speaker 1: you can you can actually add a data point to
Speaker 1: the research that is going on about the spread of
Speaker 1: these little guys.
Speaker 2: There it is I'm looking at it right now. Okay,
Speaker 2: so zaster ops that's that's it sounds like a disease spelling.
Speaker 2: I know it's actually there is.
Speaker 1: His name is the full scientific name is Zosterops simplex,
Speaker 1: which which make it makes it sound like a mouth.
Speaker 2: Sounds like yeah it really does. Yeah, it really does.
Speaker 2: Zoster Ops white eyes. I have a really bad cases
Speaker 2: astro ops white eyes. No.
Speaker 1: I know, it's like, oh, I don't want to be
Speaker 1: around you. I don't want to catch your Zosterop white eyes.
Speaker 2: It's interesting too, because when you talk about, yeah, when
Speaker 2: you were talking about the population boom, but also that
Speaker 2: it if that's relative to getting more engagement from the public.
Speaker 2: You know, my first thought was like, gosh, how do
Speaker 2: you I guess you can look at overall the kind
Speaker 2: of data that you're getting in from the public to
Speaker 2: see if there's an increase in general and not just
Speaker 2: about these birds in particular, because that seems like such
Speaker 2: a challenge to go yeah, or people just seeing the more, Like,
Speaker 2: what are all the reasons that people are a seeing
Speaker 2: the more and b reporting the more and is it
Speaker 2: truly a population boomer is or something else going on
Speaker 2: that we have to isolate and identify.
Speaker 1: You are thinking exactly like a biologist, like a scientist,
Speaker 1: because that is that is one of the issues with
Speaker 1: things like this, because uh, if you get a like
Speaker 1: if you encourage more observations, you're gonna get more observations,
Speaker 1: and then that might make it look like there's a
Speaker 1: big population boom, like people are more aware of it,
Speaker 1: so they're making observations. But there are ways to like
Speaker 1: kind of overcome that, right because you maybe you start
Speaker 1: the clock at the point at which it's like, well,
Speaker 1: we made had this awareness at this point, so then
Speaker 1: we look at the growth from that point onwards. You
Speaker 1: can also do things like, okay, we made this made
Speaker 1: you know, all of sort of California or something south
Speaker 1: southern California reads this newspaper or whatever and has this
Speaker 1: this thing, and then so they're all making these observations
Speaker 1: and then seeing if you see like a change right
Speaker 1: like in the observations, like maybe they start more in
Speaker 1: southern California. Do they move you know, to the north,
Speaker 1: do they move to the east? You know, So it's
Speaker 1: you're absolutely right, it's really important to separate out like, oh,
Speaker 1: we just have a bunch of new observations. Well is
Speaker 1: that because people are noticing it more sort of like
Speaker 1: how you know, we may suddenly get a bunch of
Speaker 1: diagnoses for say, like a disease that we've now become
Speaker 1: more aware of, and it's like, oh, everyone has this now.
Speaker 1: It's like, well, it's because now we're aware of it.
Speaker 1: Same thing with this bird. I'm so mean to this bird.
Speaker 1: I keep like comparing it to a disease.
Speaker 2: I mean, that's just what's going to happen if you're
Speaker 2: an invasive species. It's not these guys fault. But I
Speaker 2: will say side note. When I tucked this into Duc
Speaker 2: dug o and I looked up Zostrops white I you
Speaker 2: know how it gives you like a suggestion of what
Speaker 2: you might be looking for. It was very eager to
Speaker 2: fill in for me. Zostrops white eyes for sale.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, really.
Speaker 2: Seems telling, right, I mean, it thinks that that must
Speaker 2: be what I came onto a search engine for. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so I find that very interesting.
Speaker 1: This is one of the problems with the exotic pet trade.
Speaker 1: I am you know, I am a big fan of
Speaker 1: people keeping pets, and I understand that a lot of
Speaker 1: pets that we can pep are not going to be
Speaker 1: native to the region in which we live, and that's
Speaker 1: often not a problem, but it can often be a problem,
Speaker 1: especially for a pet that can easily escape, right, Like
Speaker 1: there are types of like snakes, birds, you know, rodents
Speaker 1: like these are pets that can fairly easily escape, and
Speaker 1: especially animals that have a high fecundity can reproduce fairly quickly.
Speaker 1: You know, that can be a big problem. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, right now, it doesn't seem like maybe they're
Speaker 1: a problem, but it's also we don't there just hasn't
Speaker 1: been a lot of research, so there could be problems
Speaker 1: that this adorable little bird causes. I mean, it's not
Speaker 1: so c it's so cute. It's not its fault, right, Like,
Speaker 1: they are adorable. They did they didn't choose to be
Speaker 1: sold in the pet trade, and you know, they're just
Speaker 1: trying to make it work. But yeah, when we I mean,
Speaker 1: I think it's funny because like when we think of
Speaker 1: invasive species, we think of something menacing and you know,
Speaker 1: like the pythons in Florida, But really it's it can
Speaker 1: be an adorable little bunny rabbit in Australia or an
Speaker 1: adorable bird. But yeah, so far we don't know, because,
Speaker 1: like I think, the Chevron parakeets are relatively benign in
Speaker 1: southern California. Yeah, so hopefully this bird will be benign
Speaker 1: and it'll just be another cute little bird to see.
Speaker 1: But for instance, in Hawaii, a similar species, a bird
Speaker 1: not exactly this one, but a similar species, has reapedtavoc
Speaker 1: there because it out competes from the native birds, and
Speaker 1: you know, it can cause these these native birds to
Speaker 1: become endangered, and it's you know, can be really bad.
Speaker 2: Well, the smaller the ecosystem and the more like you know,
Speaker 2: island bound or whatever, I'm sure the higher the chances
Speaker 2: are that something kind of severe could happen. I mean,
Speaker 2: it's interesting. I'm like wondering if these guys build their nests,
Speaker 2: you know, in the same kind of safe areas that
Speaker 2: like a goldfinch would, because you also wonder, like could
Speaker 2: a predatory species adapt to I mean, listen, I'm not
Speaker 2: excited about you know, apex predators eating these little birds
Speaker 2: eggs or eating these little birds, but I also wonder,
Speaker 2: because there are so many predators in southern California, if
Speaker 2: you know, there could be some sort of like accidental
Speaker 2: population control that happens just as those predatory species adapt
Speaker 2: to having the availability of these little qts that I
Speaker 2: don't want anyone to eat, but you know, got to
Speaker 2: keep the system going over, I mean, I keep it say.
Speaker 1: Uh. The general rule is that the more similar the
Speaker 1: species behavior is to the other native species, then yeah,
Speaker 1: the predators are just gonna be like another thing on
Speaker 1: the menu. Great if it has special adaptations, which I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't know of any special adaptations that this bird
Speaker 1: has that would be particularly effective against snakes and other
Speaker 1: predators in southern California, So I think I think it
Speaker 1: will just be on the menu with the other birds,
Speaker 1: but maybe not. You know. It's another thing is that
Speaker 1: it is in an environment that is very different from
Speaker 1: its original home in East and Southeast Asia, where it's
Speaker 1: very very lush. This sort of kind of semi tropical
Speaker 1: area California, Southern California is a desert. But the reason
Speaker 1: it's able to thrive here is because human beings don't
Speaker 1: necessarily want to live without flowers and cool plants, and
Speaker 1: so we plant things that are not native that have
Speaker 1: lush flowering fruits and or lush flowers and fruits and berries,
Speaker 1: and so then these birds will join us in the
Speaker 1: suburbs and urban areas and basically exploit the setup that
Speaker 1: we have created. This like fake lushness in what is
Speaker 1: a desert.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I feel like we've I mean, I'm I
Speaker 2: feel good yet nervous about these these little Zostrup simplexes.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna keep my eyes peeled. I got to tell you,
Speaker 2: I'm looking at the picture right underneath, very different kind
Speaker 2: of a look from this other winged creature. I'm trying
Speaker 2: to I mean, it's beautiful and a little un suddenly
Speaker 2: little creepy. We are, well, maybe a little creepy.
Speaker 1: We're going to take a quick break and then we
Speaker 1: are going to talk about this mystery winged creature that
Speaker 1: has Janet unsure how to feel.
Speaker 2: Perfect.
Speaker 1: All right, so we are back, and Janet, you have
Speaker 1: spotted our next little member of the mystery crew of
Speaker 1: creatures that people should keep an eye out for. And
Speaker 1: what are you looking at here? How would you describe
Speaker 1: this interesting little guy?
Speaker 2: Okay, where do I start? First of all, I don't know,
Speaker 2: I mean, again, not a biologists, uh, not a zoologist,
Speaker 2: not a I mean, I just so I'm really trying
Speaker 2: to get creative here. I'm gonna say, the first thing
Speaker 2: that catches your eye about this, aside from this creature's eyes,
Speaker 2: which i'll talk about in just a second, is this
Speaker 2: really beautiful wing that is mostly transparent, but it has
Speaker 2: it's almost like I mean, it's almost like a piece
Speaker 2: like the top part of you know, if you look,
Speaker 2: I think about the a quarter of a butterfly wing.
Speaker 2: If you're sort of thinking about looking straight on at
Speaker 2: a butterfly, you imagine the upper left or the upper
Speaker 2: right piece of that. Imagine that that has more transparency
Speaker 2: like you would maybe imagine from a fly's wing or something.
Speaker 2: But it's very but it is very pretty. So there's
Speaker 2: some white and kind of I mean is there's some
Speaker 2: kind of gold or yellow coloration, looks like there's a
Speaker 2: little orange in there, lots of black, kind of like
Speaker 2: a black lining that creates these little segments of the uh,
Speaker 2: the wing. And then I want what I want you
Speaker 2: to do is then I want you to imagine that
Speaker 2: it's on a tiny catfish. Because it's a body, I
Speaker 2: can't see most of its body. I feel like I'm
Speaker 2: only looking at its sort of head and right past
Speaker 2: its head. But there's something sort of fish like about it.
Speaker 2: And then I want you to go ahead and just
Speaker 2: stick to bright large red orbs on for eyes, and
Speaker 2: then just throw on some little crab claws for uh,
Speaker 2: not claws, but the but the legs, crab legs, not
Speaker 2: their claws, but some little crab legs for it's it's uh,
Speaker 2: it's so so that it can land, get around and
Speaker 2: scuttle around on stuff. That's my that's my best attempt
Speaker 2: to describe this.
Speaker 1: How did I do you have painted a beautiful brain picture? Uh?
Speaker 1: This is the way I would describe it is like
Speaker 1: if you took a giant fly and mashed it together
Speaker 1: with like a grasshopper and then made it look surprised
Speaker 1: at all.
Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely grasshop er. I guess I could have gone
Speaker 2: that route. I decided to go with a more shocking fish.
Speaker 1: Well, it's it is. It is chunky though, it's shiny
Speaker 1: and chunky, so it does have I can totally see
Speaker 1: sort of that crustaceany look to it, which is yeah,
Speaker 1: keep that in mind for later. Stick a little pin
Speaker 1: on that way. So this is a cicada.
Speaker 2: A oh, it's just as after all that it's a cicada.
Speaker 1: It is a cicada. It's you probably heard it, but
Speaker 1: have you like seen one up close like this?
Speaker 2: I mean I thought I had. I mean, I feel
Speaker 2: like I've seen cicadas, but I guess I haven't seen
Speaker 2: or do they all have like bright red bead eyes
Speaker 2: all of them?
Speaker 1: There are different species, but I.
Speaker 2: Think the ones in Okay. I mean, I've had one
Speaker 2: land on me, much to my chagrin, in Arizona, and
Speaker 2: for sure in Arizona. You know, the thing you're going
Speaker 2: to see more than the cicadas is the little crispy
Speaker 2: shells that they leave when they shed their skin, which
Speaker 2: are very fun too petchy off of yeah, to kind
Speaker 2: of crunch into a dust after you pick them up
Speaker 2: off of off of a nice piece of bark. But
Speaker 2: I did not. I mean, I guess if you made
Speaker 2: me guess I should have come to cicada, especially when
Speaker 2: you gave me the grasshopper hint.
Speaker 1: Well, I think, out of context, it's surprising to see cicadas.
Speaker 1: I always like, I hear their sound and I'm like,
Speaker 1: I don't know, I'm thinking of some kind of like
Speaker 1: grasshopper like thing or something.
Speaker 2: And they have a just an evil tiny robot. Yeah,
Speaker 2: a little old tiny robot a metallic sound.
Speaker 1: It does make a very metallic sound, shocking. But the
Speaker 1: reason I bring up cicadas is that if you live
Speaker 1: in North America, in the Midwest and southeast United States,
Speaker 1: you are in for a treat that rivals the total
Speaker 1: eclipse that just happened, because there is going to be
Speaker 1: a double brewed emergence this spring, so it is gonna
Speaker 1: be a very special event. So cicadas do emerge every year,
Speaker 1: right like we have this yearly emergence of cicadas. Their
Speaker 1: life cycle is essentially, the females will lay eggs into trees.
Speaker 1: They cut a little slice into the tree, lay their
Speaker 1: eggs there. The eggs hatch into nymphs, the little tiny babies.
Speaker 1: They drop down to the ground, burrow under the ground.
Speaker 1: They can go as far as around two feet under
Speaker 1: the ground, and then they stay there for at least
Speaker 1: a year, and then all at once they all come out.
Speaker 1: The males make this incredibly loud buzzing sound to attract
Speaker 1: the females. There's a mad dash to get the mating done,
Speaker 1: to lay the eggs, and then they all die in
Speaker 1: a few weeks. So they but this is the thing
Speaker 1: is life, I know, amazing, right, Like, so you spend
Speaker 1: most of your time as a juvenile just hanging out underground,
Speaker 1: sipping on the sap from tree roots. Uh, and then
Speaker 1: you have like three to six weeks of total madness
Speaker 1: of just trying to mate as fast as you can,
Speaker 1: and then you drop dead.
Speaker 2: Wow. Yeah, I mean listen, you get you get to
Speaker 2: some underground, you get some above ground by being in
Speaker 2: the trees, and you get to drive people crazy with
Speaker 2: how incredibly loud you are. I mean, this is uh,
Speaker 2: this is an insect that was linked as a possible
Speaker 2: cause of I hate to use the term of Vana
Speaker 2: syndrome because I think that I know that that's like
Speaker 2: very hurtful to the Cuban people who are like, please
Speaker 2: don't put the name of oursity into this thing that
Speaker 2: you think is like a sonic weapon. But you know,
Speaker 2: it's when I when I've listened to a great podcast
Speaker 2: about it, actually, which I wish I could remember the
Speaker 2: name of. It's really good about the that phenomena, And
Speaker 2: when they first played like that, you know, the whole
Speaker 2: sort of like misunderstanding which was kind of debunked as
Speaker 2: like no, no, no, this isn't actually what this was
Speaker 2: and it's not even what the people who had this
Speaker 2: thought it was. It's just sort of an uh, it's
Speaker 2: just an unfortunate like, it's just an unfortunate situation where
Speaker 2: there happened to be a bunch of really loud cicadas.
Speaker 2: Yeah that they were like, could this have anything to
Speaker 2: do with why we're having these symptoms? And it was like, no,
Speaker 2: it doesn't, and the symptoms still happened. But but the
Speaker 2: first time I heard I was like, well that's cicadas. Yeah,
Speaker 2: Like that sound that you know, feels like and it's
Speaker 2: it's an assault to your ears is cicada.
Speaker 1: It's a complete sensory experience.
Speaker 2: Bless them.
Speaker 1: Well, how do we know that these cicadas aren't in
Speaker 1: league with the Cuban government to undermine America? I have nothing?
Speaker 2: So double brood, So double brood? How did that happen?
Speaker 2: How was there a double set coming?
Speaker 1: So this is really this is very interesting. So there
Speaker 1: are some species that they go through a yearly life cycle.
Speaker 1: There are others and those are called annual cicaia sick
Speaker 1: annual cicadas. There are other cicadas who are periodical cicadas
Speaker 1: and they have a life cycle that can range from
Speaker 1: two years to seventeen years, and so that means that
Speaker 1: when the nymphs pop out of the trees burrow underground,
Speaker 1: they can spend up to seventeen years of their life
Speaker 1: just waiting underground, sipping on tree root juices, and then
Speaker 1: at the seventeen year mark, all of them all at
Speaker 1: once emerge and do the crazy mating just orgy fest
Speaker 1: for a few weeks. And the double brood is because
Speaker 1: there is a brood, a thirteen year cyclical sorry, a
Speaker 1: thirteen year periodical cicada brood, and a seventeen year periodical
Speaker 1: cicada brood that have a ligned so they are emerging
Speaker 1: at the same time. And this is something that hasn't
Speaker 1: happened for two hundred years. So yeah, because it think
Speaker 1: the just the synchronicity of it, The last time this
Speaker 1: happened was two hundred years ago. The next time this happened,
Speaker 1: it's gonna be another like two hundred years. It's gonna
Speaker 1: be in like twenty twenty forty five, so it is.
Speaker 1: It is really incredible. And so there are going to
Speaker 1: be anywhere from like billions to potentially like a trillion
Speaker 1: cicadas just like which seems made up. That does that
Speaker 1: seems like too many that are going to emerge. And
Speaker 1: so if you are near the cicada geddon which is
Speaker 1: happening in you know, the in the Midwest and southeast
Speaker 1: United States, you will start to notice holes popping out
Speaker 1: of the ground. And then you're gonna notice just a
Speaker 1: deafening cock cacophony of cicadas making an incredible sound. It
Speaker 1: is not the end times, uh, you are not. You're
Speaker 1: not about to be raptured. These are cicadas and they
Speaker 1: will made over the course of a few weeks. Then
Speaker 1: they'll die and yeah, you're gonna find all those like
Speaker 1: crunchy little shells everywhere. It's uh, they look intimidating sometimes
Speaker 1: because they're they're pretty big. They're you know, like bigger
Speaker 1: than my thumb a little bit. But they are totally harmless.
Speaker 1: They don't want to they don't want to mess with you.
Speaker 1: They don't want to bite you. They're not like venomous.
Speaker 2: They don't want to have sex with you. Again, they
Speaker 2: do not want to have sex with you.
Speaker 1: Not with you, with uh, with anything vaguely cicada shaped yet. Uh,
Speaker 1: So you can celebrate cicada getting by just observing all
Speaker 1: the cicadas, by enjoying the train quality of like a
Speaker 1: billion cicadas all screaming.
Speaker 2: I wonder if there's going to be more ear plug
Speaker 2: purchases than in past years, really in those areas.
Speaker 1: I'd be interesting to track. My husband is an economist.
Speaker 1: I'm going to suggest that to him as a research topic.
Speaker 1: Like ear plugs and cicadas, is there a connection?
Speaker 2: It just doesn't seem possible. And this is the same
Speaker 2: with crickets. I guess, you know, you just sort of
Speaker 2: we all take for grant. I mean, I think I
Speaker 2: did as a kid. I feel like I was a
Speaker 2: fairly curious kid. But you also when you're younger, there
Speaker 2: are some things that you just kind of take it
Speaker 2: face value. And I guess I just I hadn't. I
Speaker 2: didn't spend as much time as maybe I should have
Speaker 2: thinking about the immense noise that comes from this tiny thing.
Speaker 1: Well it's so interesting because well, crickets are you know,
Speaker 1: they can project for sure, but cicadas are particularly loud.
Speaker 1: Cicadas are a little bit different, uh from stridulators like crickets,
Speaker 1: so they do produce sound mechanically, not through like a voice,
Speaker 1: but they actually have these Instead of just rubbing one
Speaker 1: body part against another, they have these what are called timbles.
Speaker 1: They are these like structures, these kind of membranous structures.
Speaker 1: You know, like like.
Speaker 2: What's it called like symbol like symbols, Like symbols rhymes
Speaker 2: with timbles.
Speaker 1: It does rhyme with timbles. But you know, like the
Speaker 1: monkey that slaps the symbols together. These are timbles. So
Speaker 1: they are connected to muscles. They vibrate them really rapidly. Vibration, yeah,
Speaker 1: vibration that is very very rapid. And they also have
Speaker 1: sort of a resonance chamber. Uh. And so like basically
Speaker 1: you know how like you can like wiggle a metal
Speaker 1: sheet and make a thunder sound.
Speaker 2: It's like that, but we have a.
Speaker 1: Bunch of these little membranes. Uh. If you actually like,
Speaker 1: if you like like this. This is what's interesting about
Speaker 1: cicadas is they kind of have this like mechanical look.
Speaker 1: If you sort of look at this timble structure, it
Speaker 1: looks sort of like a bunch of layers of metal together.
Speaker 1: But these are actually just like these sort of thin membranes.
Speaker 1: They vibrate and then their bodies are designed as a
Speaker 1: resonance chamber, and it's just it's such a rapid force
Speaker 1: that they can actually produce from this this thing that's
Speaker 1: relatively small, they can produce a sound that's nearly as
Speaker 1: loud as like a chainsaw.
Speaker 2: I mean that is nuts and so okay. So the
Speaker 2: little critters that are coming out of the ground that
Speaker 2: they're male and female, that both in the broods that
Speaker 2: are coming out, and the females you are, they're just
Speaker 2: going somewhere too, I mean, are they just kind of
Speaker 2: like in the trees also they are, and they're just
Speaker 2: sort of like, yeah, they're looking whoever's yeah.
Speaker 1: Depends on the species. Some of them, like they're both
Speaker 1: mobile and they're looking for each other and the males
Speaker 1: making this sound and the female's going for it. But
Speaker 1: in some species it's like the males stay put and
Speaker 1: then the females have to come to them because the
Speaker 1: males are lazy, and you know, it's like, well, you
Speaker 1: have to come over here.
Speaker 2: They're like, baby, I'm exhausted, I'm a listen, I'm in
Speaker 2: a band. If you want to hang out with me,
Speaker 2: you got to come to my band's shows. I'm too busy.
Speaker 2: I'm either rehearsing my band, or I'm performing with my band,
Speaker 2: or I'm traveling with her band. Baby, you want to
Speaker 2: be with me? Come to where the band is. You
Speaker 2: know what I'm talking about, girl, exactly.
Speaker 1: We've all been through this, We've all had a cicada
Speaker 1: in our life. But one interesting thing about these is
Speaker 1: that you would think you'd wonder, like, well, why why
Speaker 1: do they need seventeen or thirteen years underground? That seems excessive,
Speaker 1: Like they don't need a lot of time to develop.
Speaker 2: A lot of about being a brooding teenager, pended you
Speaker 2: never come out of your room. You're two, You dug
Speaker 2: yourself two feet underground?
Speaker 1: Yeah, come on, they are a whold They are a
Speaker 1: whole teenager by the time they emerge.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and so no wonder they're so horny.
Speaker 1: Oh man, I just it's so good. They don't have internet,
Speaker 1: these cicadas, I know, can you imagine.
Speaker 2: Well, some trees talks to trees, tree roots talk to
Speaker 2: each other. I don't know, they can be they could
Speaker 2: they could be. Yeah, a little internet there.
Speaker 1: But yeah, no, I mean the reason for the law,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's still not exactly known why they do this,
Speaker 1: but one the leading theory is that it is a
Speaker 1: way to kind of like create an unpredictability about like
Speaker 1: when they emerged. The reason that they all emerge at
Speaker 1: once is fairly straightforward safety in numbers. If you are
Speaker 1: a part of a huge brood, then it is just
Speaker 1: statistically less likely you get eaten, even though a lot
Speaker 1: of you are going to get eaten. But to emerge
Speaker 1: at such a like weird like periodical thing of like
Speaker 1: every thirteen years, every seventeen years. There are other birds
Speaker 1: that do it at different intervals. That is potentially to
Speaker 1: make difficult for predators, parasites and other like pathogens. The
Speaker 1: three piece from adapting to you essentially like if they
Speaker 1: adapt to your life cycle, like you emerge every year,
Speaker 1: maybe a pathogen or a predator or a parasite will
Speaker 1: learn like, hey, they come out every year, and so
Speaker 1: I adapt in order to exploit this yearly emergence. But
Speaker 1: if you're only coming out every thirteen years or seventeen years,
Speaker 1: this is an irregularity and it's a long period of time.
Speaker 1: So you may be going beyond the life cycle of
Speaker 1: a lot of predators, of a lot of things that
Speaker 1: would exploit you, and so it is harder for them
Speaker 1: to specifically adapt strategies against you to either exploit you
Speaker 1: as a parasite or as a predator. That doesn't mean
Speaker 1: that predators don't eat these. They do. They eat them
Speaker 1: a lot of them. But the point is, like having
Speaker 1: like a special adaptation that makes you just a master
Speaker 1: at a cicada munchie or cicada parasitizing or even like
Speaker 1: a virus or a pathogen that could adapt to it,
Speaker 1: like with this like weird interval, like it actually makes
Speaker 1: them kind of a hard target to adapt to, except
Speaker 1: for when they're underground, and there are actually things like
Speaker 1: fungal infections and nematodes and things underground that can parasitize
Speaker 1: them while they are in that period, which is really interesting.
Speaker 2: But you know, is that is that kind of the
Speaker 2: only thing that can happen to you when you're down there,
Speaker 2: or can like some sort of burrowing critter find you,
Speaker 2: just stumble across you and go, hey, I'm a off hand.
Speaker 2: I can't think of a single one hole. I don't
Speaker 2: do they.
Speaker 1: Oh absolutely yeah no, if they're they can be definitely
Speaker 1: preyed upon underground by burrowing animals. It's just that it
Speaker 1: is not as exploited a region as say the surface, right,
Speaker 1: like burrowing animals. They have to put in work to
Speaker 1: do their tunnels and so uh, you know the the
Speaker 1: excavation uh is you can only excavate so much of
Speaker 1: the ground, and so yeah, they will still be preyed upon,
Speaker 1: they will still have issues underground, but it is safer
Speaker 1: than the surface. And is speaking of eating these guys, uh,
Speaker 1: they are edible for people. We can eat them and
Speaker 1: if you I mean, I have never had a cicada,
Speaker 1: but I have heard that they actually taste fairly good,
Speaker 1: similar to like say, seafood, kind of like the kind
Speaker 1: of look at crustaceane. Yeah, I don't know if that's true,
Speaker 1: but because I have never tried it. But if you
Speaker 1: live in one of these areas where there's gonna be
Speaker 1: this mass emergence, check out like your local rest if
Speaker 1: you're if you're adventurous, if this sounds interesting to you,
Speaker 1: sometimes like local restaurants will start offering cicicada meals. So
Speaker 1: like essentially collect they collect the cicadas, they prepare them,
Speaker 1: cook them, and you can eat them.
Speaker 2: Good source of rote like a cricket, like protein powder
Speaker 2: and stuff.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, there meat, they're bug meat, and I.
Speaker 2: Think you'd have to charge that baby pretty black for
Speaker 2: me to I need to get like, what I taste
Speaker 2: is the taste of of just like burnt wood needs
Speaker 2: to be sure, I mean a grasshopper.
Speaker 1: But Billy, what do you think you know what?
Speaker 2: I'm sure? I think it was like a chocolate cover grasshopper.
Speaker 2: So it was one of those things where you're like, oh,
Speaker 2: you have done everything you can to disguise and and
Speaker 2: and sort of you know, nullify whatever bug eating experience
Speaker 2: you're supposed to have, Like I definitely haven't had, Like, hey,
Speaker 2: here's a you know, yeah, here's a baked here's a
Speaker 2: baked grasshopper, not them a grasshopper.
Speaker 1: Here's a here's a tart with grasshoppers all lined up
Speaker 1: like pecans. Yeah, I exactly. I I'm not much of
Speaker 1: an insectivore myself. I want to be, like, I think
Speaker 1: it would be cool, And I wish I did not
Speaker 1: have the sort of uh like revulsion towards eating insects
Speaker 1: that I have, like because it's just like, well, now
Speaker 1: there's this whole cuisine that I can't have because I
Speaker 1: have this cultural notion that bugs. Bugs is gross. I'm
Speaker 1: not supposed to eat them I've eaten ants the same
Speaker 1: and I think I had a cricket once. But yeah, uh,
Speaker 1: it's just it's hard for me to get past that,
Speaker 1: and I wish I could, because hey, you know what,
Speaker 1: like food's food and I don't. Yeah, I don't want
Speaker 1: to be so picky, but yeah.
Speaker 2: Let me ask you this cool question, and please tell
Speaker 2: me if we're getting off topic, because you know, I
Speaker 2: could get six hours about almost any subject. But so
Speaker 2: with something like that, how much of that revulsion? I'm
Speaker 2: you don't have to know the answer to this, but
Speaker 2: I'm interested if you have any speculation on it. How
Speaker 2: much of something like that is? Like, because you know,
Speaker 2: for example, when you when you find that you're afraid
Speaker 2: of a certain type of creature, and and you know,
Speaker 2: we you can have a conversation about that. Most people
Speaker 2: sort of understand, like, well, you know, to have a
Speaker 2: sort of genetic predisposition towards fearing spiders or towards fearing rats,
Speaker 2: or towards fearing snakes, Like there's reasons for those predispositions
Speaker 2: to exist, and some of them may be happening at
Speaker 2: the genetic level, like at the cellular level. I wonder
Speaker 2: I'm wondering with you know, the sort of revulsion around insects, Like,
Speaker 2: had you and I been raised in a similar environment
Speaker 2: except for our parents or our small community or our
Speaker 2: city or our state or whatever embraced eating insects more,
Speaker 2: do you think that, you know, we would just completely
Speaker 2: be fine with it. Do you think that there would
Speaker 2: be like some level of a version that we couldn't
Speaker 2: put our finger on? Like, what are your thoughts on that?
Speaker 1: I've actually thought about this a lot. This is a
Speaker 1: great question, Okay, I mean there are absolutely certain versions
Speaker 1: we have that maybe innate in terms of like like
Speaker 1: things that are like spider shaped, snake shaped. We have
Speaker 1: sort of this like innate kind of like the reflex
Speaker 1: which can be overridden by say learning about them or
Speaker 1: culturally overridden people because I mean people keep snakes as pets,
Speaker 1: people keep tarantulas as pets. These kinds of fears can
Speaker 1: be overwritten by new information eating insects. It's hard to
Speaker 1: say whether we have an innate revulsion to insects in
Speaker 1: terms of a food source. My suspicion is that maybe
Speaker 1: for some insects we might things that are pests, right
Speaker 1: that like are things that we may see as like
Speaker 1: unsanitary or pests like parasites. Yeah, perhaps there is a
Speaker 1: grubs exactly exactly, and so we we do have an
Speaker 1: evolutionary history of being insectivorous, and you know, even even
Speaker 1: with parasites, right, like you pick mites and ticks and
Speaker 1: stuff and fleas off of your friend and you eat it.
Speaker 1: And so in terms of what we do know is
Speaker 1: there are a lot of human cultures that exist today
Speaker 1: where insect eating is not taboo, it is not considered gross,
Speaker 1: and people enjoy eating insects, and so it is clearly
Speaker 1: something that answer to your question of like, if we
Speaker 1: had been raised different would we find would we find
Speaker 1: insects gross to eat? No, I don't think so. I
Speaker 1: think if we had been raised that we eat cicadas,
Speaker 1: you know, every year in a big cicada eating festival,
Speaker 1: I think we would not find that gross.
Speaker 2: Just I agree with you. It's kind of a bummer,
Speaker 2: like a bummer opportunity exactly.
Speaker 1: This is how I feel. It's like I want to
Speaker 1: if I have children, I want to figure out a
Speaker 1: way to not make them feel grossed out by the
Speaker 1: concept of eating bugs, you know, just in case, like
Speaker 1: you know, the meat industry collapses in the future and
Speaker 1: you know what, like give them more options. But no,
Speaker 1: But I mean it's also like bugs are kind of pretty,
Speaker 1: and some of them sort of look like candy. I
Speaker 1: don't know, Like if I look at a bug, I'm like,
Speaker 1: that might be kind of fun to eat. But then
Speaker 1: when I think about eating it with all the little
Speaker 1: legs and the segments that I'm like, no, that seems bad.
Speaker 1: I don't want to do that. But then part of
Speaker 1: me is like, ah, but I'm curious. Yeah, it's hard
Speaker 1: to override the the revulsion, but I want to. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I think so there's two options. I think one is
Speaker 1: that we could have an innate aversion to it, but
Speaker 1: one that is overridden by culture, or we do not
Speaker 1: have an innate aversion to it. And so depending on
Speaker 1: your culture, you're even you're either taught in aversion to
Speaker 1: insects or you are not taught it, and I suspect
Speaker 1: it's the latter. I don't think we're born with an
Speaker 1: aversion to eating insects, unless maybe there's a very specific
Speaker 1: kind of like maybe we're we have an aversion to spiders.
Speaker 1: That would make sense. Yeah, but eating any insect I
Speaker 1: don't know because like something like what is really the
Speaker 1: difference between say, like a shrimp and a cricket in
Speaker 1: terms of like their looks, you know, when I was
Speaker 1: This is a fun story, but like when I was
Speaker 1: a and I think I've told it on the show
Speaker 1: probably like a million times, so sorry for repeating myself.
Speaker 1: But when I was a toddler, I would eat snails
Speaker 1: like a baby, like baby toddler, like crawling around kind
Speaker 1: of in the yard, I would pick up snails and
Speaker 1: eat them. And somehow I as an adult, like I
Speaker 1: am grossed out by snails. But then there's a lot
Speaker 1: of like right now I'm living in Northern Italy, like
Speaker 1: escargoes on the menu all the time, and a lot
Speaker 1: of people like it, and it's like I can't eat
Speaker 1: it now because I'm grossed out. But when I was
Speaker 1: a baby, I would eat raw snails out of the garden.
Speaker 1: So yeah, So I feel like I really do think
Speaker 1: the the general aversion to all insects, I don't think
Speaker 1: that that's innate. I think we learned that maybe there's
Speaker 1: specific insects that may be you know, like spiders that
Speaker 1: we have.
Speaker 2: So it just and I know we need to move on,
Speaker 2: but just to put a button on this and to
Speaker 2: bring it back around to to like your own backyard,
Speaker 2: like one's own backyard. One of the things that's been
Speaker 2: kind of running in the background as we've been talking
Speaker 2: about this for me is like, when I think about
Speaker 2: the insects I see in my own yard, if I
Speaker 2: had to eat one of them, I'm going to take
Speaker 2: snails off the menu, because I feel like I do
Speaker 2: have tons of snails and I'm gonna take I'm gonna
Speaker 2: take like grasshoppers, snails, and crickets off the menu because
Speaker 2: I feel like I've already been given permission to eat those, right.
Speaker 2: I have an idea. I know what I categorically would
Speaker 2: one hundred percent avoid, and that include spiders and I
Speaker 2: and I am afraid of spiders, but I've really come
Speaker 2: a long way. I feel much more friendly with them now. Now.
Speaker 2: When I am gardening and I pull up a rock
Speaker 2: and there's a giant wolf spider that you know, hunkers
Speaker 2: and sort of crops just trying not to be seen,
Speaker 2: I'm like, hey, buddy, I'm not gonna hurt you. Like
Speaker 2: that's okay, I'm sorry, I interrupted. Whereas like when I
Speaker 2: was younger, I would have squealed and run away and
Speaker 2: not been in the garden. And when I say younger,
Speaker 2: I mean like twenty I mean like twenty five. I
Speaker 2: don't mean like I've gotten much better about that. I've
Speaker 2: gotten much better about ore weavers. Now I can stand
Speaker 2: right next to them as they're building a web and
Speaker 2: look at how crazy and scary they look, and really say, Wow,
Speaker 2: you're working so hard on that. And the chances are
Speaker 2: fair that this is gonna get broken before you're even done,
Speaker 2: because someone's gonna walk into it or bird's gonna fly. So,
Speaker 2: but I definitely don't want to eat them. I do
Speaker 2: not want to eat spiders. I've decided that I would
Speaker 2: like some roly pulleys. They can go ahead and roll
Speaker 2: up into a perfect circle, perfect sphere will fry them
Speaker 2: up and then they'll just be like these nice little
Speaker 2: crunchy bits. Yeah, And that feels that feels doable to me.
Speaker 2: Like that feels even more doable to me in some
Speaker 2: cases than like, you know, even just thinking about like
Speaker 2: crickets or snails like somehow, just because it becomes an
Speaker 2: like a shape instead of a creature. Yes, if you
Speaker 2: want to roll yourself up. We could turn them into dippin' dots,
Speaker 2: like there are options. We have a cereal, we have
Speaker 2: options for those tiny little roly pulleys, which are also
Speaker 2: very cute. And I don't mind crawling on me. So
Speaker 2: I feel kind of guilty saying that. But I'm and
Speaker 2: what I know I won't Another thing I know I
Speaker 2: won't eat is I forget what their actual name. They're
Speaker 2: like Latin name or their scientific name is, but what
Speaker 2: we call mustache bugs. I don't need to eat a
Speaker 2: bug that it has all of those legs, like you
Speaker 2: were saying, I mean, those are like it's like eating
Speaker 2: a little brush. It's like eating I mean, I guess.
Speaker 2: But when I when I was growing up, I thought
Speaker 2: of a millipede and a centipede as being these.
Speaker 1: Sort of house centipede is how I know them.
Speaker 2: Okay, So I mean those things they are like I mean,
Speaker 2: mustache bug makes a lot of sense because they have
Speaker 2: the doushy look like a walking mustache, and the idea
Speaker 2: of having to get those little hairy legs down is
Speaker 2: just makes me on.
Speaker 1: A puke the mouthfeel on. That can't be good. The
Speaker 1: interesting thing about the roly pully is those are terrestrial isopods.
Speaker 1: They are actually, that's right.
Speaker 2: They are related to fossils.
Speaker 1: Yes, they are related to marine isopods. So they are
Speaker 1: kind of like surf and turf. I guess, all in one,
Speaker 1: all in one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I feel guilty. I'm sorry, Little roly Poly. Sorry.
Speaker 1: Potato bugs are always fine, It's fine. The great thing
Speaker 1: about the pill bugs is you can just take them
Speaker 1: with a glass of water. If you don't like the
Speaker 1: mouthfeel of the crunching, you know, that's mean. I mean,
Speaker 1: I feel like ants is kind of cheating. I've eaten ants.
Speaker 1: It's they just taste like eating a little grain of pepper. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're very spicy, they're very spicy. But yeah, I don't
Speaker 1: like grubs. Grubs isn't something I want to eat. That's
Speaker 1: the scene in The Lion King has always grossed me out.
Speaker 1: My gosh, you know, it's hard, Like, man, I don't
Speaker 1: like anything that has like a pop to it, like
Speaker 1: a like a gusher sort of thing. So spiders Spider's
Speaker 1: definitely not. I don't you know, like anything where you
Speaker 1: bite down on it and there's like a pop and
Speaker 1: like a No, I don't want to do you got me? Yeah? No,
Speaker 1: you're so right, Yes, that's not a situation I want.
Speaker 1: So it's like, oh yeah, so what what isn't like that?
Speaker 1: I don't know. I'm trying to think, oh man, because
Speaker 1: I was gonna say butterfly, but I feel like their bodies. No,
Speaker 1: that wouldn't be good. That would not be good. No,
Speaker 1: I mean I honestly, like.
Speaker 2: What about like a little beetle, Oh, poor beetle, little beetle,
Speaker 2: like if it's really small though, Yeah, I feel like
Speaker 2: crunchy bugs are better than squishy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, bugs that pop in your mouth, like that's not
Speaker 1: like I'm even dressed out like I used to have.
Speaker 1: I don't like killing spiders once in a while. It's
Speaker 1: like a kind of a necessity situation, especially like if
Speaker 1: it's a venomous species. It's like, I'm sorry, you know, I.
Speaker 2: Gotta I know, I'm not I'm okay killing and I
Speaker 2: feel bad about I feel bad.
Speaker 1: About it, like I don't want to, but I will
Speaker 1: do it. And then but the popping sound that they make,
Speaker 1: like when I hate it, I feel it's like I
Speaker 1: feel guilty and it's disgusting.
Speaker 2: Put in your cicada at.
Speaker 1: Ear plugs just like please scream in my ears and wear.
Speaker 2: A boot with a big, like a really chunky feel,
Speaker 2: so that you're not your experiencing that.
Speaker 1: No, I hate it. It's like it's like popping is
Speaker 1: z but it's it's but it's a spider. It's so right,
Speaker 1: you know. It's so with any spider that I do
Speaker 1: not have to like that is not venomous, I like
Speaker 1: leave alone, or like like transfer outside or something. Jumping
Speaker 1: spiders are adorable and I love them, and they can
Speaker 1: stay in the house because they are really cute.
Speaker 2: I've never I don't know what jumping spider you're talking about,
Speaker 2: but unfortunately, the only most recent jumping spider I had
Speaker 2: discussed with anyone is like the Huntsman spider in Australia,
Speaker 2: which sounds like the stuff of nightmares.
Speaker 1: Oh no, so so jumping really big.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but you're talking about small.
Speaker 1: This is yeah, this is a These are it's not
Speaker 1: just these are not just spiders that jump. There's a
Speaker 1: whole range of species of these, these spiders called spiders,
Speaker 1: and they're tiny and they're cute. And I'm gonna find
Speaker 1: a picture for you actually, because this is very important.
Speaker 2: I mean, does it look like just so your average
Speaker 2: little house spider that's kind of just really small and
Speaker 2: doing it, doing its own thing real.
Speaker 1: Like they are. They're like, to me, they are actively cute.
Speaker 1: Let me see if I can find like a good
Speaker 1: representation of why I find them cute.
Speaker 2: I mean, they are not a good sign that you're
Speaker 2: having to come through multiple photos.
Speaker 1: Uh, I'm just saying, put one of your best eight
Speaker 1: feet forward. It's uh, here we go. This one's this
Speaker 1: is a good one because he's waving.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, give me a wave. I'll take the wave.
Speaker 1: Here we go. I'm sorry, the.
Speaker 2: Scope of my whole day feels like you've changed thinking
Speaker 2: about that pop.
Speaker 1: It's a terrible thing.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, well that looks like a tarantula kind
Speaker 2: of kind But they're those are I don't know if
Speaker 2: I've seen. I mean, I guess if I haven't seen,
Speaker 2: I'm night have to look. I mean, I show you.
Speaker 1: Just a photo of what it looks like on something
Speaker 1: like so you can see, yeah, what it looks like
Speaker 1: without the close because this is like close up photography,
Speaker 1: and then this is just what it looks like on
Speaker 1: someone's hand.
Speaker 2: All right, let's have a look at this or fingers.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I mean I'm sure I've seen those little guys. Yeah,
Speaker 2: those little guys. Yeah, I don't have a problem with
Speaker 2: those at all. Well I see those one except yeah
Speaker 2: for sure. I mean, can they also like dangle down
Speaker 2: on via a web or do they just jump? Like?
Speaker 2: Do they do? You see them floating kind of like
Speaker 2: like on your range top. I'll look and be like,
Speaker 2: what are you doing?
Speaker 1: Most of you doing this aren't really so much gonna
Speaker 1: do that. Like most of them just kind of walk around.
Speaker 1: They do produce webs to some extent. Some of them
Speaker 1: are a little bigger. I actually still find the bigger
Speaker 1: ones cute, like.
Speaker 2: Are they eating gnats and stuff? Like? Are they eating?
Speaker 1: Like, yeah, they kind of like down they're quite large.
Speaker 2: You look like a little fairy kind of it's like
Speaker 2: a hairy, very fairy fairy.
Speaker 1: But he's got like a little mustache, which is actually
Speaker 1: just it's petipalps, the little things on its face.
Speaker 2: Extremely cute. Yeah, I mean again, you're kind of getting
Speaker 2: into like something that yeah, sort of cartoonish looking exactly.
Speaker 2: I like tarantula's and wolf spiders because I like their
Speaker 2: little their fur, because fur it feels less threatening to
Speaker 2: me than the hard what's that called precipice, crep escape.
Speaker 1: What is it the I love carapace is I think carapace?
Speaker 2: But I love I don't need to say it hard.
Speaker 1: I love that. Those are great words.
Speaker 2: Even if I can just get some of the syllables
Speaker 2: or any of the letters, they don't even have to
Speaker 2: be at Yeah, I don't need that shiny. I mean, boy,
Speaker 2: if ever there was a that a creature that looked venomous,
Speaker 2: it's a black widow. I mean, all power to them again,
Speaker 2: I will kill them. But it's very impressive. How macabre
Speaker 2: and for bo do.
Speaker 1: They They're very much they they they as as the
Speaker 1: kids say, they read the assignment, they.
Speaker 2: Read the assignment.
Speaker 1: But the funny thing about the funny thing now I'm
Speaker 1: doing the tangent, But the funny thing about the hairs.
Speaker 1: Like liking the fuzzy spiders, which I agree with, I
Speaker 1: think they're cute. A lot of these fuzzy spiders have
Speaker 1: what are called irridicating hairs. They are actually irritating hairs
Speaker 1: that are meant to like kind of come out like
Speaker 1: a lot of tarantulas, like if you pet them, you
Speaker 1: actually kind of get a rash because they are meant
Speaker 1: to be protective parents are it's like, yeah, where it's like,
Speaker 1: don't pet me, like, but some of them you can
Speaker 1: actually pet because they're not they're not gonna hurt you.
Speaker 1: But a lot of tarantulas you pet them and then
Speaker 1: their hairs like kind of come off and then now
Speaker 1: you've got a rash on your whoops.
Speaker 2: But thank you.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Before before we take a break and move on
Speaker 1: to the next section, Uh, if you want to join
Speaker 1: sort of these cicada tracker community, you can go to
Speaker 1: cicadasafari dot org uh and kind of submit the photos
Speaker 1: or observations you make for cicada Gadden twenty twenty four.
Speaker 1: I don't know if they're calling it cicada gaeddin. I'm
Speaker 1: trying to make that happen. I think they even have
Speaker 1: like an iPhone app. So, yeah, cicadasafari dot org and
Speaker 1: you can you too, can join in on the cicada adventure.
Speaker 1: So we are going to take a quick break and
Speaker 1: when we come back, we're gonna have one more short
Speaker 1: story about citizen sciencests discovering something really weird. All right, right,
Speaker 1: so we are back. Citizen science does not just occur
Speaker 1: in the US. It is an international phenomenon, and so
Speaker 1: in uh In India, in the Western Ghats, there was
Speaker 1: a group of herpetology frog enthusiasts just kind of going
Speaker 1: around making observations, taking photos, and they found a frog
Speaker 1: with a mushroom growing out of it's But.
Speaker 2: Wow, I've I don't know what I would have needed
Speaker 2: to do to get ready for this. I know I
Speaker 2: didn't do it, and I'm not ready for it. And
Speaker 2: I'm looking at a picture and I think I know
Speaker 2: which thing was a reference to the last of us.
Speaker 1: It's this. It's definitely this. So to be a little
Speaker 1: more honest, it's coming out of its rear flank. I
Speaker 1: don't know if you can call that it's but I'm
Speaker 1: gonna I'm gonna say it. But and it's like a
Speaker 1: literal tiny I'm not talking about a fungal infection like oh,
Speaker 1: you know athletes. But it's a literal mushroom, little mushroom
Speaker 1: like a little a white stem and a white little cap.
Speaker 1: It's a tiny mushroom growing out of this poor, cute,
Speaker 1: little innocent frog. Yeah yeah, so, uh, this frog is
Speaker 1: a h It is called I forgot its name. I
Speaker 1: wrote it down. The frog is a rouse golden black
Speaker 1: rows golden backed frog. Actually the full name is like
Speaker 1: rouse intermediate golden backed frog, which is a mouthful. I'm
Speaker 1: just gonna call it a little cutie. Uh. So it's
Speaker 1: it is alive, and so it's not like a situation
Speaker 1: where it's dead and then the mushroom's growing out of
Speaker 1: its dead body. That wouldn't be as interesting. No, it's
Speaker 1: alive and it has this tiny, perfect little mushroom growing
Speaker 1: out of its rump. These hobbyists, these these herpetology hobbyists
Speaker 1: like snapped a picture. They didn't capture the frog because
Speaker 1: they were being respectful. They didn't want to like, you know,
Speaker 1: mess with the environment at all. They but they they
Speaker 1: took a couple of pictures and they published their picture
Speaker 1: in the Journal of Reptiles and Amphibians and then frog
Speaker 1: that picture. Even more nature enthusiasts, like my cologists and
Speaker 1: like mushroom hobbyists like looked at this mushroom like trying
Speaker 1: to identify, will what is the mushroom? You know, what
Speaker 1: the frog is? What's the mushroom? The most likely candidate
Speaker 1: that they came up with is the bonnet mushroom, which
Speaker 1: is a mycena fungus that typically lives on rotting wood
Speaker 1: and not it is not known to like be a
Speaker 1: parasite of frogs. So this is really interesting.
Speaker 2: Wow, so what do we what do we do with this?
Speaker 1: Right? Like, is this like the start of sort of
Speaker 1: a last of Us frog apocalypse? I mean probably not, right,
Speaker 1: Like it could just be a fluke somehow. There there's
Speaker 1: this thing where sometimes a it's actually in I don't
Speaker 1: know if you'd call it my isis when it comes
Speaker 1: to fungus, but when it comes to say like like
Speaker 1: larvae that accidentally become parasites, it's called my asis where
Speaker 1: it's like say, you get like a fly larvae in
Speaker 1: your in your gut, and it's like living there. It's
Speaker 1: not an obligate parasite. It doesn't need to be a parasite.
Speaker 1: But then it has found its way inside a yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's making the best out of a bad situation.
Speaker 1: That is what I would guess is going on with
Speaker 1: this this mushroom, like a spore somehow got under this
Speaker 1: frog's skin or inside of this frog. Yeah, then it
Speaker 1: managed to sprout its way out of the frog. But yeah,
Speaker 1: it's still it's like extreme like the other option could
Speaker 1: be that there is a type of fungal infection. There's
Speaker 1: that fungus. It is actually the fungus that the Last
Speaker 1: of Us game and a TV show is based on.
Speaker 1: It's called ophio cordisceps. And that does actually yeah, that
Speaker 1: does actually infect insects like ants, grasshopper, spiders and then
Speaker 1: grows out of like it kills them, but then it
Speaker 1: like grows sprouts out of their body.
Speaker 2: One of the all time great reality based yes, like
Speaker 2: versions of Armageddon.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I I I appre I very much appreciate
Speaker 1: the the sort of I mean, so I did a
Speaker 1: whole You can probably look back in the show's history.
Speaker 1: We did an episode on the Last of Us like
Speaker 1: mostly I really love it. There was one like one
Speaker 1: line where it was like they in the show saying like, oh,
Speaker 1: there's no treatment for fungus, Like we've got antibiotics, but
Speaker 1: we don't have anything.
Speaker 2: Wait what that's not true.
Speaker 1: It's not true at all. We have anti fungals.
Speaker 2: In any way. Have you heard of athletes? We heard, yes,
Speaker 2: have you heard of yeah.
Speaker 1: And even for like brain like fungus, like there are
Speaker 1: there are fungi you know that can infect the brain.
Speaker 1: We have treatments for that too, and it's very books.
Speaker 1: Well yeah, but you know, you have to have some
Speaker 1: kind of dramatic thing going on, I guess. Anyways, So
Speaker 1: this poor frog, it's got a little mushroom gering on it.
Speaker 1: But actually we don't it's a cute frog.
Speaker 2: It's a cute mushroom. They're both cute.
Speaker 1: Maybe they're working together. We don't know. If this frog
Speaker 1: is upset with this mushroom. Maybe it doesn't even notice it.
Speaker 1: Maybe they're friends. Who knows. Because like, frogs can be
Speaker 1: infected with fungus, but again, similar to athlete's foot, it's
Speaker 1: not like a whole mushroom, like a whole ass mushroom
Speaker 1: growing out of the ass of the frog. That's not
Speaker 1: like generally how fungal infections work in frogs. It's like
Speaker 1: a fungal infection and a human, you know, you might
Speaker 1: see like a film or something on their skin, but
Speaker 1: it's not going to be like, hey, I'm a mushroom,
Speaker 1: I'm growing out of this frog. So if you find
Speaker 1: if you live in Indian and you live in the
Speaker 1: western guts, and you find a frog with a mushroom
Speaker 1: growing out of its butt, do take a photo. I mean,
Speaker 1: if you live anywhere and you find a mushroom.
Speaker 2: Growing out of a yeah frog, fair fair enough.
Speaker 1: Or anywhere out of the frog, take a photo, you know,
Speaker 1: because that might be interesting. Uh, who knows, Maybe this
Speaker 1: is a one time deal, Maybe it's a new trend,
Speaker 1: maybe it's a new sort of frog fashion. We'll only
Speaker 1: know if we all join together to try to find
Speaker 1: more mushroom frogs.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's very interesting. It's interesting in the sense that,
Speaker 2: of course, like I mean, you were of course you're
Speaker 2: talking about the idea of you know, something being more
Speaker 2: incidentally parasitic than being you know, intentionally. So, but when
Speaker 2: I see something like this, like what does jump into
Speaker 2: my mind is the sort of more I mean, I
Speaker 2: guess it's everything that's that spreads seeds through. But like
Speaker 2: thinking about you know, my dog picking up you know,
Speaker 2: briers or picking up you know, little thistles and stuff
Speaker 2: like that is intentionally going into his hair so that
Speaker 2: it can spread to a location that it couldn't get
Speaker 2: to otherwise. So, yeah, it's funny because like obviously this
Speaker 2: isn't necessarily that, but it does feel like you could,
Speaker 2: in that way imagine somehow the mushroom is.
Speaker 1: Like I'd like to try, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: I just yeah, dispersal is very important for a lot
Speaker 1: of sort of immobile organisms, and so in a way,
Speaker 1: like it's that's what ophiod cordyceps is doing with the insects.
Speaker 1: So one could imagine that this could adapt in order
Speaker 1: to use the frogs and in a lot of cases
Speaker 1: like an adaptation maybe sort of, you know, it is
Speaker 1: like a random thing that can happen, either a random
Speaker 1: mutation or something that happens right like maybe originally with
Speaker 1: the opiod cordyceps, like a curious ant eats it, you know,
Speaker 1: they eat these spores and then this starts to happen,
Speaker 1: and then the the fungus adapts more and more in
Speaker 1: order to exploit this situation. So you know, like even
Speaker 1: if this is an accident, right, it could the course
Speaker 1: of evolution could make it less and less of an accident.
Speaker 1: Where this smush is like, actually, I've got a pretty
Speaker 1: sweet deal here growing out of this frog, I got
Speaker 1: I got free transportation.
Speaker 2: Yeah, are you kidding me? Absolutely? And as far as
Speaker 2: that poor little aunt, listen, we like curiosity. Don't feel
Speaker 2: like you can't be curious, but maybe just don't eat
Speaker 2: something in the wild. You can be curious and learn.
Speaker 2: You don't have to learn by eating a fungus. You're
Speaker 2: not sure about.
Speaker 1: Spores, and you just say no. The DARE program for
Speaker 1: ants did not work. H Nancy rag Ant was not
Speaker 1: to not to write.
Speaker 2: On this issue.
Speaker 1: So before we go, we do got to play a
Speaker 1: little game. It is called the Guess who squawk and
Speaker 1: Mystery Animal Sound game. Every week I play a mystery
Speaker 1: animal sound and you the listener, and you the guests,
Speaker 1: try to guess who is making that sound. The hint
Speaker 1: last week was this, this bearded fellow is the bell
Speaker 1: of the ball.
Speaker 2: WHOA?
Speaker 1: All right? So Janet, whoa?
Speaker 2: What happened at the end.
Speaker 1: It's an same animal, new sound, same animal.
Speaker 2: That was It dropped a sick beat at the end. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 2: this bearded beauty is the bearded beauty.
Speaker 1: This bearded beard fellow is the bearded fellow. Who's to
Speaker 1: say he's not beautiful? Though?
Speaker 2: Okay, so it's so bearded. The thing that is confusing
Speaker 2: for me is like I'm realizing that I don't know
Speaker 2: if we use the word beard across like a bunch
Speaker 2: of difference fauna or if it because I feel like
Speaker 2: when I think of beard, I feel like, okay, well,
Speaker 2: I know that the people talk about bearded lizards. I
Speaker 2: know people talk about like, you know, bearded primates, people
Speaker 2: talk about, you know, bearded dogs. Have I heard a
Speaker 2: beard describe?
Speaker 1: Like?
Speaker 2: Who's is there a bird out there that's being described
Speaker 2: as being bearded? I don't know so, but probably, I mean,
Speaker 2: I guess probably, But beard is funny to imagine with
Speaker 2: something with a beak, so I guess. So the problem
Speaker 2: was is that my first inclination when I heard that
Speaker 2: sound was to go monkey, because I because I heard bearded,
Speaker 2: and immediately it was like, oh, okay, well you know
Speaker 2: that's a chitterer chirp that could maybe be a bird
Speaker 2: and maybe be a monkey. Again as a total a
Speaker 2: person who has no idea about anything, um, then you
Speaker 2: hit me with the sounds at the end, and now
Speaker 2: I feel even more confused. That feels like again could
Speaker 2: not know less about animals. The something about the rhythmic
Speaker 2: nature of that almost felt more like well, it felt
Speaker 2: like it was coming from the chest or throat somehow,
Speaker 2: more like the sort of pulse of like right, like
Speaker 2: it's this kind of explanation of sound more than like
Speaker 2: up in the front of the mouth or the beak.
Speaker 2: And I don't know if I again I'm basing this
Speaker 2: absolutely nothing, but that kind of freaked me out because
Speaker 2: it was so consistent for so long that felt like
Speaker 2: maybe more of a bird sound. So I guess what
Speaker 2: I'm trying to say is I'm completely and totally stumped,
Speaker 2: and it may be none of the things I've mentioned
Speaker 2: and be a totally different creature and I have no idea.
Speaker 1: You for someone who keeps saying like, oh, I don't
Speaker 1: know anything about animals, you your ability to zero in
Speaker 1: on the right questions is very impressive because you are right,
Speaker 1: this is a bird, okay, and it is coming from
Speaker 1: the throat, and you're right that this is a bearded bird.
Speaker 1: This is the bearded bell bird.
Speaker 2: So a bell of the ball. There was even more
Speaker 2: information packed into that clue than I realized.
Speaker 1: Yes, the clues, it's all, mister policeman. I've left all
Speaker 1: the clues. I don't remember them, but yeah, this is
Speaker 1: a bird found in South America. It is found in Venezuela, Trinidad, Tobago,
Speaker 1: and northern Brazil. It lives in humid forests. They are forgiven.
Speaker 1: There you are. Oh my goodness, you really have a beard.
Speaker 1: They really have a beard.
Speaker 2: You look like you hung it or you hung it
Speaker 2: around your neck.
Speaker 1: It is these are It kind of listens like feathers,
Speaker 1: but these are not feathers. These are actually wattles. So
Speaker 1: these are fleshy projections. Wow, coming off of their chin.
Speaker 1: They are Otherwise you know, they're they're nice looking. They
Speaker 1: have sort of like a brown head, a white body,
Speaker 1: and black wings. But it's that beard that is so
Speaker 1: unique about them.
Speaker 2: I have to say, it's clearly wattles. I mean, to me,
Speaker 2: it doesn't look like feathers. You really can see that.
Speaker 2: It has the consistency of like almost like rubber. Like Yes,
Speaker 2: if you're tapped against them, they would be like they
Speaker 2: why did they need that for?
Speaker 1: That is to track the ladies to be as sexy
Speaker 1: as possible. They're not. You don't find that, you don't
Speaker 1: find that handsome.
Speaker 2: I love it. I'm just so amazed because it's just
Speaker 2: one of those times where you know, look, I know
Speaker 2: we're not supposed to anthropomorphize, and I know that you know,
Speaker 2: we can't relate everything to humanity, but that being said,
Speaker 2: it's just so funny that you know, that's a real
Speaker 2: aesthetic choice, like like a like a strap and dude
Speaker 2: with like a big, great lumberjack beard, you know. I
Speaker 2: mean that's a look, and that's a look that you know,
Speaker 2: some people call like the Portland, Oregon look. You know,
Speaker 2: also like being bald and having a big beard. Like
Speaker 2: I have several friends who sort of are rocking that
Speaker 2: look and they wear it well, and I like them
Speaker 2: better with beards. I like my friends who have those beards.
Speaker 2: I like them better with them. And so it's amazing
Speaker 2: to me. Again, no shade to this bird unless it
Speaker 2: wants it, which it does because it's a venezuela. So
Speaker 2: it's a lot of greed. So some shade as a gift.
Speaker 2: It's just very funny that it's like, oh, I get it. Yeah,
Speaker 2: facial hair looks. Yeah, it's a good look for some people.
Speaker 1: You mentioned that it's like not good to anthropomorphize, but
Speaker 1: I would say it's okay some situations, especially when it
Speaker 1: comes to birds aesthetic choice, because a lot of these
Speaker 1: choices are complete, they seem to be pretty subjective and
Speaker 1: with no real like practical purpose, right, Like does this
Speaker 1: model actually do anything. Well, not necessarily. It could just
Speaker 1: be that the females are like that looks good. I
Speaker 1: like that as is the call. The call is to
Speaker 1: attract the females over and it's very very loud. It's
Speaker 1: one of the loudest bird calls.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: And that is in order to get females to come
Speaker 1: over from great distances. And then once they get there,
Speaker 1: he will show off his amazing bird, his amazing beard,
Speaker 1: his plumage and hope that she is impressed. H And
Speaker 1: so yeah, I mean it kind of like to kind
Speaker 1: of like people.
Speaker 2: And I have to say too, I mean, as part
Speaker 2: of that, like you hear that. And I was thinking
Speaker 2: about that in terms of some of the little froggies
Speaker 2: in Hawaii, for example, like part of being living inside
Speaker 2: kind of a jungle environment. It seems like everybody's trying
Speaker 2: to be louder than everybody else. So it must make
Speaker 2: everyone so loud, Yeah, because there are so many sounds
Speaker 2: and calls happening in a really lush landscape like that
Speaker 2: that no wonder everybody has to play their music a
Speaker 2: little bit louder than everybody else, you know it Also, yes, exactly,
Speaker 2: this led me to it also offered me up. There's
Speaker 2: lots of wonderful pictures of the bearded bell bird, but
Speaker 2: it also offered me up the three the three wattle
Speaker 2: bell birds. I don't know if you've seen this. I mean,
Speaker 2: that is an amazing, like sort of Fu Manchu mustache. Yes,
Speaker 2: and it is very special. Indeed, so I have two
Speaker 2: new favorite birds there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the the billbirds are quite ostentatious. I highly encourage
Speaker 1: you to explore them all. But yeah, their their facial
Speaker 1: business is incredible, uh and in diverse and yeah, absolutely
Speaker 1: they are competing for yes.
Speaker 2: No, this maating moment of like she's sitting nearby going yes, yes,
Speaker 2: more please see.
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, it's it's amazing. Uh. It is very cute
Speaker 1: and kind of pathetic the way males go to such
Speaker 1: a lenks you across the females. No kidding, so sorry,
Speaker 1: So onto the next mister animal sound. The hint is this, Well,
Speaker 1: I've already given you a hint this episode, so no
Speaker 1: more hint. All right, you got any guesses?
Speaker 2: I mean, based on the hint about the hint, I
Speaker 2: guess I would say it sounds like it could be
Speaker 2: a and God, that's an irritating sound between that and
Speaker 2: the sound of drones in the park when you're just like.
Speaker 1: Wanting to have a nice walk you don't want to hear.
Speaker 2: And the sound of a mosquito in your ear. I
Speaker 2: mean those are there's metallic, Yeah, those metallic multi level
Speaker 2: metallic person distant buzzes. Unfortunately to me, if you wanted
Speaker 2: to make a horror movie about people going crazy, not
Speaker 2: unlike you know, the sort of like great you know,
Speaker 2: great and good rabid zombie, you know, sort of like, oh,
Speaker 2: this is like Raby's it makes it wants to spread
Speaker 2: by blah blah blah. If there's some incentive to having
Speaker 2: a sound that makes people want to hurt each other.
Speaker 2: I mean, I just feel like my temper is so
Speaker 2: much shortened by being in that noise for a length
Speaker 2: of time.
Speaker 1: I wish you had written bird Box, because I think
Speaker 1: you could have made it.
Speaker 2: There.
Speaker 1: You go, Yeah, you are absolutely correct, so which means
Speaker 1: I'm going to bleep out just your correct answer so
Speaker 1: other people can guess. But the people do know, they
Speaker 1: will know that you are correct, and so you can
Speaker 1: you have won the prize, which is a thumbs up.
Speaker 1: I'm a painful pleaser. Just give me that.
Speaker 2: Just give me that.
Speaker 1: A A plus with a little wonderful. Well, it's scratch
Speaker 1: and sifts, you know, like a little Oh, you can
Speaker 1: better bundle of grapes or an orange or something. Man,
Speaker 1: I love it.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, Janet, thank you so much for joining me today.
Speaker 2: We're people, Katie. They can find me, I guess mostly
Speaker 2: on Instagram. I'm decent on Instagram. Low Please don't DM me.
Speaker 2: Find me at my website Janetbarney dot com. I never
Speaker 2: check my dms, but on Instagram, at the JV Club,
Speaker 2: and you can listen to my podcast on Maximum Fund
Speaker 2: the JV Club. You can also listen to my podcast
Speaker 2: about Avatar the Last Airbender and the Legend of Korra
Speaker 2: that I do for Nickelodeon Paramount, which is called Braving
Speaker 2: the Elements. And if for some reason you're a true
Speaker 2: crime buff in addition to being a fan of all
Speaker 2: things natural and wonderful, you can also find me on
Speaker 2: Truth and Justice, which is a wrongful convictions podcast.
Speaker 1: Amazing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, thanks for having me. This was I would do
Speaker 2: this every day. This is so fun. I love your podcast.
Speaker 1: If Janet's voice sounds familiar and you're an Avatar the
Speaker 1: Last Airbender fan, she is the voice of Cora uh
Speaker 1: and I'm you've done other voices as well. It's I
Speaker 1: I have this thing that happens when, like, you know,
Speaker 1: I watched a lot of cartoons because I refuse to
Speaker 1: grow up, and if I hear a voice actor or
Speaker 1: actress in I'm like, how do I know you?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 1: Where do I know you from? Right?
Speaker 2: Because your voice is I do the same?
Speaker 1: Yeah, where it's like your voice is a little different
Speaker 1: from the character your voice because you're you're an actress,
Speaker 1: you do an actual character. Then it's like, man, where
Speaker 1: do I know you from?
Speaker 2: Yeah? That's well. I always like to say Korra is
Speaker 2: just kind of stays at a more consistent, less cartoonish level,
Speaker 2: which is sort of ironic that like the cartoon I'm
Speaker 2: best known for is just the most kind of cool
Speaker 2: version of my voice, and then I'm more of a
Speaker 2: cartoon than she is. So that's kind of how that
Speaker 2: panned out.
Speaker 1: But it's like, but yeah, the NPR voice, But that's right, fantasy, Yes,
Speaker 1: that's right. Well, thank you so much for joining me today.
Speaker 1: And if you are enjoying the podcast and you leave
Speaker 1: a review, I read all of them, every single one.
Speaker 1: I print them out and I just kind of stack
Speaker 1: them up and then you know, I you know, like
Speaker 1: in the movies where they put a bunch of money
Speaker 1: and then roll around on it. For some reason, I
Speaker 1: do that with review its podcast reviews wonderful and thank
Speaker 1: you so much for the Space Cossics for There's super
Speaker 1: awesome song XO. Lumina Creature features a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts like the one you just heard, visit
Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcasts, or Hey, guess what where
Speaker 1: have you listened to your favorite shows? I don't I
Speaker 1: don't judge it. I'm not your mother. I can't tell
Speaker 1: you what to do. You got to make these decisions
Speaker 1: for yourself. Fly, baby birds, You fly on your own.
Speaker 1: Now it's time. See you next Wednesday.