WEBVTT - The Dexter of Parasites 0:00:03.080 --> 0:00:06.000 Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:06.000 --> 0:00:14.400 Works dot com. Hey you, welcome to Stuff to Blow 0:00:14.440 --> 0:00:16.480 your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb. My name is 0:00:16.560 --> 0:00:19.079 Julie Douglas. Julie, I want to pitch a movie idea 0:00:19.160 --> 0:00:21.079 to you here. All right, this is a good summer movie. 0:00:21.120 --> 0:00:23.400 Hold on, hold, I'm putting in my mouth. All right, 0:00:23.440 --> 0:00:25.360 go ahead, all right, here's my elevator pitch. All right, 0:00:25.440 --> 0:00:27.479 all right, that the kids love parasites, they love movies 0:00:27.480 --> 0:00:30.600 about parasites. How about this, No one do a sequel. 0:00:30.680 --> 0:00:34.160 We call it parasite to hyper parasite, and it's about 0:00:34.200 --> 0:00:38.319 parasites that prey on parasites. M go on, kids, tell 0:00:38.320 --> 0:00:41.599 me more about it. Well, it's actually real. It's not 0:00:41.680 --> 0:00:43.880 just an item of science pic. It sounds like hyper 0:00:43.880 --> 0:00:46.239 parasite does, sound like it would be the sequel to 0:00:46.360 --> 0:00:49.200 a parasitic movie. But it comes down to an interesting 0:00:49.280 --> 0:00:52.680 question parasites. All right, there's a simple view of looking 0:00:52.680 --> 0:00:54.960 at the world of parasites. You have us, normal organisms, 0:00:54.960 --> 0:00:56.720 and then you have the organisms that prey on us, 0:00:56.960 --> 0:01:00.960 the criminal element in the world right there. Speak Yeah, 0:01:01.000 --> 0:01:04.000 they're stuck in our blood. They're they're they're getting into 0:01:04.040 --> 0:01:08.119 our cells. All these various heinous acts out there. Are 0:01:08.120 --> 0:01:12.039 they getting away scott free or are the other parasites 0:01:12.040 --> 0:01:14.120 that prey on them? And then and then how would 0:01:14.160 --> 0:01:16.680 that work? Do those parasites have parasites as well, So 0:01:16.800 --> 0:01:21.120 it's kind of like a parasite. This hyper parasite is 0:01:21.160 --> 0:01:24.959 sort of like Dexter, the serial killer of serial killers, 0:01:24.959 --> 0:01:29.760 though instead of killing to fulfill a need for I 0:01:29.760 --> 0:01:33.360 guess sating the impulse to destroy and exacting a kind 0:01:33.360 --> 0:01:36.039 of justice at the same time, these hyper parasites, I'm 0:01:36.040 --> 0:01:41.039 gonna guess are doing this all for the energy force. Yes. Yeah, 0:01:41.080 --> 0:01:43.800 it's it's easy to sort of to go to like 0:01:43.840 --> 0:01:47.039 the Dexter example or like a roman Hood example or 0:01:47.440 --> 0:01:50.240 Omar little example from the Wire where it's like, all right, 0:01:50.760 --> 0:01:53.600 these are the thieves, but this guy's thieving from the thief. Uh, 0:01:53.720 --> 0:01:56.240 these are the serial killers. This guy's killing the serial killers. 0:01:56.640 --> 0:01:58.480 But but really, when you get get down to you 0:01:58.480 --> 0:02:00.760 really look at the the economy aspect that we've talked 0:02:00.760 --> 0:02:03.280 about this before, and cannibalism and animals where it all 0:02:03.280 --> 0:02:06.680 comes down to the energy. All right, there's in nature 0:02:06.720 --> 0:02:10.000 we have this this ecological pyramid at the bottom, the 0:02:10.120 --> 0:02:14.040 very bottom level of the pyramid, you have vegetation that's growing, 0:02:14.240 --> 0:02:18.280 depending largely upon solar energy. And then every level moving 0:02:18.360 --> 0:02:21.040 up from that bottom level of the pyramid is some 0:02:21.080 --> 0:02:24.239 sort of organism eating another. You eat, something's eating the grass, 0:02:24.280 --> 0:02:26.680 something's eating that, and something else is eating Matt swooping 0:02:26.680 --> 0:02:29.840 in until at the very top, enthroned on this mountain 0:02:29.880 --> 0:02:33.520 of bone and flesh, you have the apex predators, who 0:02:33.600 --> 0:02:36.120 are just fortunate enough to to be above all of that, 0:02:36.200 --> 0:02:38.160 at least until they, you know, get old or break 0:02:38.160 --> 0:02:40.239 a leg and topple down the pyramid to where a 0:02:40.760 --> 0:02:43.720 scavenger can rip them apart. So, I mean, it really 0:02:43.760 --> 0:02:46.000 comes down. All this comes under the fact that nature 0:02:46.520 --> 0:02:49.800 is this this hellish world of competition, and it's all 0:02:49.840 --> 0:02:53.000 about the economy of energy, the energy required to pass 0:02:53.040 --> 0:02:57.520 on your genes, and anybody and everybody in this pyramid 0:02:58.040 --> 0:03:01.960 will eat another, one will steal energy if they are 0:03:02.000 --> 0:03:05.080 able to, if there is any opportunity, and that's just 0:03:05.200 --> 0:03:07.280 the brutal truth of it. It's like a it's like 0:03:07.320 --> 0:03:09.640 some sort of a crime movie where there's like a 0:03:09.760 --> 0:03:12.320 gym or a you know, a suitcase full of gold 0:03:12.440 --> 0:03:15.640 or something and every criminal in the picture is uh 0:03:15.800 --> 0:03:17.680 is screwing over the next one to get it, until 0:03:17.720 --> 0:03:21.840 there's just nobody actually has possession of the football anymore. Well, 0:03:22.080 --> 0:03:25.040 it's interesting as humans. On top of that, the heap 0:03:25.120 --> 0:03:27.600 of bones. You know, we tend to look at parasites 0:03:27.720 --> 0:03:30.400 is this, you know, it's this thing that might be 0:03:30.560 --> 0:03:33.639 invading me and causing disease. And I'm a host for this, 0:03:34.120 --> 0:03:36.320 I'm at the top, I'm at the apex. How can 0:03:36.360 --> 0:03:39.000 this be? And so when you hear about these hyper parasites, 0:03:39.040 --> 0:03:42.600 is parasite on parasite action going on? You tend to 0:03:42.640 --> 0:03:44.040 think of them, as you say, it's sort of like 0:03:44.080 --> 0:03:49.200 these avengers. Yes, this robin hood bacteria is is on 0:03:49.240 --> 0:03:51.480 my side. He's going after the thing that's after me. 0:03:51.560 --> 0:03:53.760 So the enemy of my enemy is my friend, right right. 0:03:53.880 --> 0:03:57.480 But in fact, these hyper parasites are just these sort 0:03:57.520 --> 0:04:00.839 of brilliant criminal minds, because what the doing is they're 0:04:00.960 --> 0:04:04.480 looking at, uh, these instances in nature in which other 0:04:04.520 --> 0:04:07.320 parasites are really successful, and they're sort of riding on 0:04:07.360 --> 0:04:10.040 the coattails of this. And as you say, they're going 0:04:10.120 --> 0:04:12.800 for the big energy leap here. It doesn't happen anything 0:04:12.800 --> 0:04:16.320 to do with avenging the host of that that the 0:04:16.360 --> 0:04:18.640 parasite is taking advantage of. Yeah, I mean, it's an 0:04:18.640 --> 0:04:21.800 old adage that for successful criminal their biggest enemy isn't 0:04:22.000 --> 0:04:24.719 law enforcement but other criminals. You know, if you have 0:04:24.839 --> 0:04:28.840 like an amazing grow house operation going, like somewhere in 0:04:28.880 --> 0:04:31.400 Canada was reading les about, then you do. Uh, we're 0:04:31.440 --> 0:04:34.440 reading articles about this a while back, and um, you know, 0:04:34.600 --> 0:04:36.000 they get to the point where they don't have to 0:04:36.000 --> 0:04:38.440 worry about about law enforcement. They've got that figured out. 0:04:38.560 --> 0:04:40.480 But it's the it's the other criminals that are gonna 0:04:40.480 --> 0:04:43.560 come and snatch your crops or or steal your money 0:04:43.640 --> 0:04:46.720 or or something like that, and use your underground tunnels. Yes, 0:04:46.800 --> 0:04:49.320 use your underground tunnels for whatever you use it for. 0:04:49.520 --> 0:04:52.320 And if you're not smuggling through drugs and money, it's 0:04:52.320 --> 0:04:55.960 just kind of it's annoying sometimes, That's all I'm saying. Uh, yeah, no, 0:04:56.080 --> 0:04:58.919 I mean, I kid, but this is this parasite on 0:04:58.960 --> 0:05:03.400 parasite examples that we see in nature. Fascinating stuff and 0:05:03.560 --> 0:05:05.960 it's very chilling too at the same time. Can't help 0:05:06.000 --> 0:05:08.680 but ant morphies it. Um, So we're gonna take a 0:05:08.720 --> 0:05:12.520 look at a couple of examples here in nature. All right, 0:05:12.600 --> 0:05:15.000 First up, we're gonna talk a little about wasps. Now, 0:05:15.600 --> 0:05:20.039 we've talked about wasps a lot, especially parasitic wasps. I'm 0:05:20.080 --> 0:05:22.360 always talking about them. I wrote an article about how 0:05:22.400 --> 0:05:25.279 wasps work on How Stuff Work several years ago, and 0:05:25.279 --> 0:05:27.880 and I can't stop thinking about them ever since. I 0:05:28.440 --> 0:05:30.160 hate to kill them, even if they're even if they're 0:05:30.160 --> 0:05:32.120 a nuisance in the house, do you really respect them? 0:05:32.320 --> 0:05:35.200 I respect them. They're they're brutal, but they're they're they're 0:05:35.240 --> 0:05:37.960 honest in their brutality. And you know, and they haven't 0:05:37.960 --> 0:05:40.440 sold out like the honeybee and taken on this, uh, 0:05:40.520 --> 0:05:43.800 this sigrarian lifestyle. They are still out there living a 0:05:43.920 --> 0:05:46.400 life more or less. Yeah, but the honey bees all like, yeah, 0:05:46.440 --> 0:05:49.200 everything would collapse without me. You guys are just being 0:05:49.320 --> 0:05:51.960 jerks out there and showing off. Well, all right, well 0:05:51.960 --> 0:05:54.680 that's an argument for another day. Yeah, Okay, let's not 0:05:54.760 --> 0:05:57.720 reignite that. Let's not reignite that. Believe we have an 0:05:57.720 --> 0:06:00.760 episode on that, So go back and study that if 0:06:00.760 --> 0:06:05.400 you want more on that particular debate. But parasitic wasps, Uh, 0:06:05.600 --> 0:06:08.560 basically we're talking about the ultimate deadbeat moms. In a sense. 0:06:08.960 --> 0:06:12.400 They don't want to raise that larva that raise that 0:06:12.400 --> 0:06:13.760 egg as their own. So what do they do? They 0:06:13.760 --> 0:06:16.760 plant inside another critter. It wakes up inside of its 0:06:16.800 --> 0:06:20.159 food source, it's living food source. They suppress the host 0:06:20.200 --> 0:06:23.039 immune system, they control its growth, it's metabolism, all for 0:06:23.040 --> 0:06:26.560 their own benefit. Sometimes they even hijack the host organism, 0:06:26.600 --> 0:06:30.080 such as the particular parasitic wass that we saw where 0:06:30.120 --> 0:06:33.159 the larva takes over the ladybug. It makes it it's 0:06:33.320 --> 0:06:37.960 zombie master while it grows into maturity. Um. But there's 0:06:38.000 --> 0:06:41.200 even more to that. There are parasitic wasps that are 0:06:41.560 --> 0:06:45.080 hyper parasitic. Yeah, and it all starts with g l vs. 0:06:45.080 --> 0:06:47.920 We've talked about this before, which are green leaf volatiles. 0:06:47.960 --> 0:06:50.799 That's the chemical produced by a leaf that is munched 0:06:50.839 --> 0:06:56.080 on by a caterpillar. Right, releases a signal to predators. Uh, 0:06:56.160 --> 0:07:00.040 and says, hey, you know there's there's a there's a 0:07:00.040 --> 0:07:03.360 caterpillar on me and he's eating me lunch. Yeah, it 0:07:03.360 --> 0:07:05.920 would be great if some some wasps were to come 0:07:05.960 --> 0:07:09.320 by and plant some larva inside of this moocher y. 0:07:09.440 --> 0:07:13.520 That's right, And so the caterpillar, you know, unbeknownst has 0:07:14.040 --> 0:07:17.400 limited time here because pretty soon one of two different 0:07:17.440 --> 0:07:20.400 types of wasps we're talking about the cotes at Rubicla 0:07:20.920 --> 0:07:24.600 and the Cocheesia glomarata will heed that call from those 0:07:24.680 --> 0:07:28.280 g l V chemicals and swoop down on the caterpillar. 0:07:29.120 --> 0:07:33.400 Now that's where the stinging and the implanting comes into play. 0:07:33.760 --> 0:07:37.760 The eggs are deposited using that ovipositor as a stinger, 0:07:37.800 --> 0:07:40.760 which of course is an egg laying organ. All wasps 0:07:40.760 --> 0:07:44.000 that are out there stinging those are female wasps. And 0:07:44.080 --> 0:07:45.960 so what you have is you have a caterpillar which 0:07:46.000 --> 0:07:49.320 is now reduced to the status of a wasp incubator. 0:07:49.720 --> 0:07:53.600 Now that in itself is sort of Ninja level waspery. Yeah, 0:07:53.800 --> 0:07:55.400 if that's worried, but I'm gonna go ahead use it. 0:07:55.760 --> 0:08:00.400 But that's that's nothing compared to this hyper paris sidic 0:08:01.160 --> 0:08:03.760 wasp that comes into play. Yes, this particular wasp was 0:08:03.760 --> 0:08:06.760 studied by Eric Polman of Waganagan University in the Netherlands, 0:08:07.040 --> 0:08:12.120 and that this particular hyper parasoid uh Lazibia Nana or 0:08:12.400 --> 0:08:15.160 l Nana as we shall henceforth college, which I'm now 0:08:15.240 --> 0:08:19.360 thinking about a Nana like nana wasp. Yeah, well, in 0:08:19.360 --> 0:08:21.800 a sense, you know that the nana is bringing the larva. 0:08:22.200 --> 0:08:24.520 So what l nana does is it sniffs out the 0:08:24.560 --> 0:08:28.560 particular distress calls of the plant that is being chewed 0:08:28.560 --> 0:08:32.079 on by larva that are hijacked by these particular These 0:08:32.080 --> 0:08:35.040 are two particular wasps. That's right, because now that chemical 0:08:35.480 --> 0:08:39.360 uh signal has been changed yet again because is different 0:08:39.520 --> 0:08:43.840 in inside the caterpillar that has been hijacked. So the 0:08:43.880 --> 0:08:45.960 signal that is going out from the plant is no 0:08:46.040 --> 0:08:48.800 longer saying hell if I'm under attack from caterpillars, that's 0:08:48.840 --> 0:08:51.280 saying help, I'm under attack from a caterpillar that has 0:08:51.320 --> 0:08:55.079 also been hijacked by a wasp. Yeah, so al nana 0:08:55.120 --> 0:08:56.959 comes along and says, well, don't mind if I do. 0:08:57.400 --> 0:08:59.960 They're here. This daycare center has already been a stabbed 0:09:00.000 --> 0:09:02.559 wished saves me the trouble. So what I'm gonna do 0:09:02.559 --> 0:09:04.040 is in the lay one of these eggs in every 0:09:04.040 --> 0:09:07.040 wasp grubber pupil I can find, and when they hatch, 0:09:07.559 --> 0:09:10.240 they're not only going to eat the host caterpillar, They're 0:09:10.240 --> 0:09:15.199 also gonna eat any other daycare attendees inside of that organism. 0:09:15.200 --> 0:09:17.840 It's really brilliant right, because, as you say, the other 0:09:18.000 --> 0:09:20.120 wasps have done the work. All they have to do 0:09:20.240 --> 0:09:24.120 is swoop in deposit and it's a very successful way 0:09:24.240 --> 0:09:27.560 of trying to get that food source easily. Of course, 0:09:27.600 --> 0:09:32.480 they do have an enemy, these hyper parasites, these wasps, 0:09:32.880 --> 0:09:37.240 and that would be another hyper parasitoid. Usually this is 0:09:37.280 --> 0:09:41.319 other females of the same species. And sometimes a caterpillar 0:09:41.440 --> 0:09:46.959 may host two, three, maybe even four tiers parasites within it. 0:09:46.960 --> 0:09:50.040 It's tough. It's tough being a caterpillar. Uh And but 0:09:50.080 --> 0:09:53.800 again this really drives home just what a violent battle 0:09:53.880 --> 0:09:58.280 royal life on Earth really is. It's just any anybody 0:09:58.320 --> 0:10:01.559 who can will try and get larva inside of that caterpillar. 0:10:02.280 --> 0:10:04.200 It's kind of like with the whole the l like 0:10:04.280 --> 0:10:06.920 spying thing that came out, you know recently, we're you know, 0:10:06.960 --> 0:10:11.160 talking about the US eavesdropping on phone calls over the world, 0:10:11.200 --> 0:10:13.240 and people are outraged by it. And you know, I'm 0:10:13.280 --> 0:10:16.680 not saying that there's not a certain amount of acceptable outrage, 0:10:16.720 --> 0:10:18.560 but I couldn't help to think, well, you know, this 0:10:18.600 --> 0:10:22.240 is what countries do. Countries are kind of awful and spying. Everybody, 0:10:23.160 --> 0:10:25.880 hasn't everyone been reading the same books and seeing the 0:10:25.880 --> 0:10:28.120 same James Bond films that I have over the years, 0:10:28.160 --> 0:10:29.719 they would know that. So it's kind of the same 0:10:29.760 --> 0:10:33.480 thing in the animal world. Anybody that can and has 0:10:33.520 --> 0:10:35.800 the ability to will get in there and steal some energy, 0:10:35.840 --> 0:10:38.200 steal the opportunity and wasper grade at this. I mean, 0:10:38.240 --> 0:10:40.160 there are other species of wasps that will also slip 0:10:40.200 --> 0:10:45.000 their young into a into another wasp nest and let 0:10:45.040 --> 0:10:46.920 it to grow to maturity there, and then the same thing. 0:10:46.960 --> 0:10:50.760 It'll it'll jump, it'll leap frog over the other young 0:10:51.040 --> 0:10:53.600 and then eat them and then emerge from the washing. There. 0:10:53.640 --> 0:10:58.719 There's just wonderful evil creatures on nature. It's beautiful. It 0:10:58.880 --> 0:11:00.560 is all right, let's take a quick break and when 0:11:00.600 --> 0:11:02.360 we get back, we are going to talk about the 0:11:02.440 --> 0:11:12.960 zombie And all right, we're back. Now you've heard us 0:11:13.000 --> 0:11:15.640 talk about court a steps before. Um, these are the 0:11:16.120 --> 0:11:18.800 fun guy that we discussed in our Zombie Outbreak episode. 0:11:19.080 --> 0:11:21.680 This is one where we we pretended we put on 0:11:21.720 --> 0:11:25.600 a little radio play here in which Atlanta was was 0:11:25.840 --> 0:11:29.400 taken over by a zombie outbreak zombie apocalypse, and we 0:11:29.720 --> 0:11:32.640 uh decided in this particular episode that we were gonna 0:11:32.760 --> 0:11:36.480 pin the zombie hood on a court a step. This 0:11:36.600 --> 0:11:40.720 is a fungus that takes over a creature uh, generally 0:11:40.720 --> 0:11:44.480 an insect uh. And while I'm exclusively insects, and it 0:11:44.720 --> 0:11:47.600 takes over their bodies, turns them essentially into a zombie 0:11:47.679 --> 0:11:49.800 and and hijacks their responses and what makes them do 0:11:49.840 --> 0:11:51.600 something like go to a particular area, climbed to the 0:11:51.600 --> 0:11:55.160 top of a leaf, or or go into and form 0:11:55.200 --> 0:11:58.600 a mass grave somewhere so that they can continue to grow. Yeah, 0:11:58.640 --> 0:12:03.200 and it also creates very clumsy movements by that insect. 0:12:03.240 --> 0:12:06.520 Because again, what they're talking about here with the Cortceps 0:12:06.679 --> 0:12:09.960 is this toxin which is taking over from the body 0:12:10.000 --> 0:12:15.720 and creating this sort of strange machinations. Now, um, largely 0:12:15.800 --> 0:12:19.960 this the zombie ant fungus is a story of Afio Cortceps, 0:12:19.960 --> 0:12:23.520 this parasitic fungus, and the campo and a tiny carpenter 0:12:23.559 --> 0:12:26.240 ants that infects. But of course there's another player in here, 0:12:26.240 --> 0:12:28.640 and we'll talk about that in a moment. But what 0:12:28.679 --> 0:12:31.880 we're talking about here is, you know, one day, nearing noon, 0:12:32.120 --> 0:12:35.199 you have this carpenter ant, let's say, in the rainforest 0:12:35.240 --> 0:12:39.880 in Brazil, veering off course, right, Um, it's leaving the 0:12:39.960 --> 0:12:42.600 dry tree canopy and then it descends into the humid 0:12:42.679 --> 0:12:46.920 force floor and it's staggering over debris and plants, and 0:12:47.000 --> 0:12:50.080 David Hughes, he's an assistant professor of entomology and biology 0:12:50.240 --> 0:12:54.400 at Penn State, describes it as a kind of drunkard swalk. Okay, again, 0:12:54.400 --> 0:12:58.680 we're talking about this toxins taking over the brain here, 0:12:58.840 --> 0:13:05.079 and even convulsion occurring. And then the ants, by the way, 0:13:05.120 --> 0:13:07.720 who have been dissected at the stage of infection, reveal 0:13:07.840 --> 0:13:12.120 heads already full of these fungal cells. Okay. Then the 0:13:12.160 --> 0:13:14.480 ant clumsling makes its way to the main vein of 0:13:14.480 --> 0:13:17.120 a leaf and it chops down, which is just weird. 0:13:17.400 --> 0:13:20.880 Ants don't normally do this, they don't chop onto leaves, 0:13:20.920 --> 0:13:24.240 but unfortunately here it does this, and it's mandible walk 0:13:24.280 --> 0:13:28.320 into place as the ant dies, because now what's also 0:13:28.400 --> 0:13:31.920 happening is that it's beginning to atrophy, like smuscles are 0:13:31.960 --> 0:13:34.280 beginning to atrophy within the ant, and so that means 0:13:34.320 --> 0:13:37.000 that those mandibles are not going to pry themselves open 0:13:37.160 --> 0:13:40.680 at all. It's locked into place, and the death grip 0:13:40.760 --> 0:13:43.720 is there, and a couple of days later this ant 0:13:43.800 --> 0:13:48.120 actually dies, and what happens The fungus sprouts out of 0:13:48.160 --> 0:13:52.440 its head and deliver spores down onto the ground. Yeah, 0:13:52.480 --> 0:13:55.000 and it's a it's a real killer. You know, this 0:13:55.080 --> 0:13:56.440 is the kind of thing that can wipe out an 0:13:56.480 --> 0:13:59.200 ant colony. The ants, of course there have to have 0:13:59.280 --> 0:14:02.319 evolved respond wants to this if they see signs that happening, 0:14:02.320 --> 0:14:06.040 and they kind of a d rigorous grooming regime takes 0:14:06.040 --> 0:14:08.560 place where they're just they're taking extra care of who's 0:14:08.559 --> 0:14:10.720 who's acting a little funny, exact and weird get him 0:14:10.760 --> 0:14:13.120 out of there. Yeah, I mean, it's it's a very 0:14:13.200 --> 0:14:16.120 dramatic thing playing out here. If you if you look 0:14:16.160 --> 0:14:17.760 at it like this, you know, I mean, if this 0:14:17.840 --> 0:14:21.960 happened among our population, Um, can you imagine us trying 0:14:22.000 --> 0:14:24.720 to actually take that person out of the group, or 0:14:24.840 --> 0:14:27.000 the ways in which it would behave we'd say, why 0:14:27.080 --> 0:14:30.840 why do you keep wandering into traffic? That's weird behavior, right. Yeah. So, 0:14:30.920 --> 0:14:33.600 as it turns out, as Hughes in a two thousand 0:14:33.600 --> 0:14:38.000 and twelve study highlighted, there is a high preparasite involved here. 0:14:38.720 --> 0:14:41.320 There's not just a matter of this particular court to 0:14:41.400 --> 0:14:44.920 set wiping out these different ant colonies looking at examples 0:14:44.960 --> 0:14:47.600 of it, and found that some of these colonies actually 0:14:47.640 --> 0:14:49.800 survived rather well. There were still a lot of dead bodies, 0:14:50.000 --> 0:14:52.400 a lot of dead soldiers, a lot of carnage, but 0:14:52.880 --> 0:14:56.160 they but in some cases they had a much better 0:14:56.560 --> 0:15:01.640 uh survival rate. And the reason he discovered is a 0:15:01.720 --> 0:15:06.400 hyper parasitic fungus that effectively castrates the courtist fungus. It 0:15:06.680 --> 0:15:09.360 reduces the viability of its sport producing organs to six 0:15:09.400 --> 0:15:12.480 point five. Yeah, this is amazing because you have this 0:15:12.600 --> 0:15:16.800 other fungus that's basically taking notes and stalking the opio 0:15:17.000 --> 0:15:20.480 court asps. And according to Katherine Harmon writing for Nature, 0:15:21.040 --> 0:15:24.240 Sandra Anderson, a researcher at the University of Copenhagen, they 0:15:24.320 --> 0:15:28.480 found a different breed of that fungi growing over the 0:15:28.560 --> 0:15:32.800 ant corpse in the emerging fungus stock, and by covering 0:15:33.000 --> 0:15:38.480 that fungus in the stock, it effectively sort of sterilized it. Yeah, 0:15:38.840 --> 0:15:41.880 that basically, this hyper parasitic fungus comes in and says, hey, 0:15:41.880 --> 0:15:43.280 what you got going there? It seems like a pretty 0:15:43.320 --> 0:15:46.640 good operation. I just want enough to to wep my beak, 0:15:46.840 --> 0:15:49.280 so let me let me take over this particular ant 0:15:49.320 --> 0:15:51.880 this particular pile of ants, and oh, yeah, you're not 0:15:51.880 --> 0:15:54.200 gonna be spreading your franchise anymore because this is my 0:15:54.280 --> 0:15:56.440 business now. Is that kind of your good guys a 0:15:56.480 --> 0:16:01.000 little bit fellas? Yeah, I like it. Yeah, it's good. Um. Yeah. 0:16:01.040 --> 0:16:04.520 So it is a good example of how the waste 0:16:04.520 --> 0:16:07.000 management guys kind of come in and say, I like 0:16:07.040 --> 0:16:10.240 what you're doing here. Yeah, all right, we're going to 0:16:10.280 --> 0:16:13.560 look at a five tier example of hyper parasites in 0:16:13.640 --> 0:16:18.200 action from Vanderbilt microbiologists Seth borden Stein, who may sound 0:16:18.200 --> 0:16:20.400 familiar because we just did an episode on the Hall 0:16:20.400 --> 0:16:23.040 of Genome and borden Stein was very much involved in 0:16:23.360 --> 0:16:25.200 one of the studies there. Yeah, because he was looking 0:16:25.200 --> 0:16:28.160 at the sony a wasp, which were featured here as well, 0:16:28.200 --> 0:16:31.240 and he was looking more at their microbiota, their gut 0:16:31.760 --> 0:16:35.480 microbes and how they made it. But here he's looking 0:16:35.520 --> 0:16:37.760 really at what I think of as the tree Ducan 0:16:38.320 --> 0:16:41.920 of the hiper parasite world. Because, as you said, this 0:16:42.000 --> 0:16:45.520 is a five tier operation going on. Yeah, and it's 0:16:45.600 --> 0:16:47.480 and it's again it's very much in a sort of 0:16:47.520 --> 0:16:49.600 a like a like a no Country for Old Man 0:16:49.720 --> 0:16:52.600 kind of scenario where one guy's got some money. Somebody 0:16:52.640 --> 0:16:54.240 else comes and kills them all and takes the money, 0:16:54.240 --> 0:16:55.760 and then somebody else is trying to kill him, and 0:16:55.800 --> 0:16:58.840 everybody's trying to get that get that commodity, get that energy, 0:16:58.880 --> 0:17:01.760 get that money, and the case. This is how it goes. First, 0:17:01.800 --> 0:17:05.840 blowflies infest a bird's underside with blood sucking larva. Next 0:17:06.080 --> 0:17:09.520 larva drop off, they fall to prey to parasitic wasps. 0:17:10.119 --> 0:17:14.639 Then these wasps carry a parasitic bacterium called Wabaccia, which 0:17:14.800 --> 0:17:18.000 has evolved to modify its host reproductive system. And then 0:17:18.280 --> 0:17:21.720 the bacteria in turn are subject to their own invasion 0:17:22.119 --> 0:17:24.800 from a tiny virus is known as bacteria phages, which 0:17:24.880 --> 0:17:34.640 hijack Walbackia is cellular machinery to expand their own population. Okay, bird, blowfly, wasp, Wolbachia, 0:17:35.600 --> 0:17:38.879 and then the bacterio fage. Just you can see how 0:17:38.920 --> 0:17:41.360 it gets smaller, is it as it goes down? Right? Yeah? 0:17:41.640 --> 0:17:44.600 As we go down that list. Yeah, And Wolbachia is 0:17:44.640 --> 0:17:47.000 really interesting on its own, right because it hijacks the 0:17:47.000 --> 0:17:50.119 wasp immune system and it's still being studied. But that 0:17:50.720 --> 0:17:52.680 it all breaks down along these lines, all right. It 0:17:52.960 --> 0:17:56.679 kills infected males. It feminizes infected males as they develop 0:17:56.720 --> 0:18:01.880 as females or infertile pseudo females, and induces partheo genesis 0:18:02.160 --> 0:18:05.280 the reproduction of infected females without males, and it makes 0:18:05.320 --> 0:18:08.000 the sperm of uninfected males incompatible with the eggs of 0:18:08.080 --> 0:18:12.520 uninfected females or females infected with a different Wolbachia strain. Yeah, 0:18:12.520 --> 0:18:14.920 Wolbachia is serious stuff. We talked about it and river 0:18:14.960 --> 0:18:17.720 Blindness our episode on that and and humans. I thought 0:18:17.800 --> 0:18:22.800 this was fascinating nematodes that that when humans contract these nematodes. 0:18:23.359 --> 0:18:26.800 The nemotodes actually contain the Wolbachia bacteria and they have 0:18:26.920 --> 0:18:30.040 something called neutrophills, and these are specialized white blood cells 0:18:30.080 --> 0:18:32.560 that are unable to attach to the worm itself, but 0:18:32.640 --> 0:18:36.320 it forms a ring around the bacteria and it tacks it. 0:18:36.800 --> 0:18:40.720 So then you have something called eosinophils, which is basically 0:18:40.840 --> 0:18:43.159 like a cleanup crew that would come in. You know, 0:18:43.200 --> 0:18:46.880 if you have this this nematode and it can't get 0:18:46.920 --> 0:18:50.560 to the worm because these neutrophiles are essentially cloaking it. 0:18:51.359 --> 0:18:53.680 I mean it has I think that's a fascinating sort 0:18:53.680 --> 0:18:57.760 of power that this has, this wolbachia, because then it's 0:18:57.840 --> 0:19:01.440 modulating the host immune system response. It's just sitting there 0:19:01.440 --> 0:19:04.760 in the body, undetected at least in humans. Yeah, and 0:19:04.840 --> 0:19:06.880 borden Stein is really interested in wall back here because 0:19:06.880 --> 0:19:08.520 he believes that one day we might be able to 0:19:08.520 --> 0:19:11.840 add some genes to the wall back here and use 0:19:11.920 --> 0:19:14.639 it to control insects the vector human disease diseases like 0:19:14.880 --> 0:19:17.280 malaria and den gay fever. Yeah, and this is really 0:19:17.280 --> 0:19:19.720 important because it really is one of the most successful 0:19:19.760 --> 0:19:23.280 parasites in the animal kingdom um in It evolved one 0:19:23.680 --> 0:19:26.800 million years ago, so this is a pretty significant presence. 0:19:27.400 --> 0:19:30.240 So you're probably thinking, that's it, right, It can't get 0:19:30.240 --> 0:19:32.840 any nuttier than this. Yeah, we surely we've reached the 0:19:32.920 --> 0:19:37.399 tiniest Russian doll and this uh, this parasitic relationship, Oh no, 0:19:37.560 --> 0:19:41.680 because there's one single parasitic gene that exists out there. 0:19:41.680 --> 0:19:48.920 We're talking about transposon, yes, transposable elements TE or retro transposons. 0:19:48.960 --> 0:19:51.920 It's a DNA sequence that can change its position within 0:19:51.960 --> 0:19:55.879 the genome, sometimes creating or reversing mutations in altering the 0:19:55.920 --> 0:19:59.840 cell's genome size, Yeah, they have been. These transposones have 0:19:59.880 --> 0:20:03.560 been and discovered inside viruses that infect other viruses, which 0:20:03.560 --> 0:20:07.320 in turn affect ambas that in fact human beings and 0:20:07.400 --> 0:20:09.400 borde Stein says, I think it's difficult to see where 0:20:09.400 --> 0:20:12.240 one organism begins and another one ends. We are only 0:20:12.280 --> 0:20:15.800 beginning to appreciate how intertwine these layers of organisms are 0:20:15.880 --> 0:20:18.840 in large flora and fauna, which again we come back 0:20:18.880 --> 0:20:22.119 to that whole holo genome sort of question, like where 0:20:22.160 --> 0:20:25.040 what is what is the barrier between one organism and 0:20:25.040 --> 0:20:28.159 then in the next to what extent are all organisms? 0:20:28.160 --> 0:20:31.200 As we think that all individuals really just a ship 0:20:31.240 --> 0:20:34.960 with a crew, right, Yeah, you've got your mitochondrial DNA, 0:20:35.160 --> 0:20:38.359 you've got genes, you've got bacteria, you've got have a 0:20:38.440 --> 0:20:42.920 genetics going on, Just conglomerates of organisms just walking about 0:20:43.000 --> 0:20:46.240 and going about their business and then trying to consume 0:20:46.359 --> 0:20:49.040 other organisms in the process. It makes me feel like 0:20:49.080 --> 0:20:52.359 I'm dripping like some sort of genetic material off of me, 0:20:52.480 --> 0:20:57.000 or actually I am sumping little microbes off myself right now. Yeah, 0:20:57.240 --> 0:21:00.320 I mean, really, this whole episode should dry of home 0:21:00.440 --> 0:21:04.120 the fact that we're all kind of gross. We're called 0:21:04.119 --> 0:21:06.880 these big piles of bacteria, and then the whole world 0:21:07.000 --> 0:21:11.159 is just this nasty battle royal of parasites engaging with 0:21:11.200 --> 0:21:15.359 each other, parasites and predators. And then pray actually makes 0:21:15.400 --> 0:21:18.040 you feel a little bit good about the human species sometimes, 0:21:18.040 --> 0:21:19.879 I mean just a little right, Yeah, too cous to 0:21:19.960 --> 0:21:22.000 a certain extent, we kind of rise above that, or 0:21:22.000 --> 0:21:24.960 at least tell ourselves that we've risen above it. Yeah, 0:21:25.160 --> 0:21:29.360 all right, why don't you take us on out, Robert Lamb, 0:21:29.400 --> 0:21:31.000 I think you got something for us. Yeah. This is 0:21:31.000 --> 0:21:33.679 just a little bit from Victorian mathematician August de Morgan 0:21:33.760 --> 0:21:36.520 which ties in nicely with today's topic. He said, great 0:21:36.520 --> 0:21:38.919 fleas have little fleas upon their backs to bitem, and 0:21:38.960 --> 0:21:41.959 little fleas have lesser fleas, and so ad infinitem. And 0:21:42.000 --> 0:21:44.560 the great fleas themselves, in turn have greater fleas to 0:21:44.600 --> 0:21:47.240 go on, while these again have greater still and greater 0:21:47.320 --> 0:21:49.600 still to go on. Here you go, so that you 0:21:49.640 --> 0:21:54.240 have it. Parasites, hyper parasites, hot parasite on parasite action 0:21:54.320 --> 0:21:57.240 as promised, have something you'd like to throw in on 0:21:57.280 --> 0:21:59.879