Speaker 1: Welcome to Creature Future production of iHeartRadio. I'm your host
Speaker 1: of Many Parasites, Katie Golden, and today on the show,
Speaker 1: it's another listener Questions episode. You can write to me
Speaker 1: your questions and I answer them. If you don't have
Speaker 1: any questions that you would like to hear answered on
Speaker 1: the show, or maybe I'll answer them by email, you
Speaker 1: can send them to me at Creature Feature Pod at
Speaker 1: gmail dot com. I got some really good questions this week,
Speaker 1: so let's get right into them. Here we go. This
Speaker 1: is from a friend of the show, Lydia Bug. She writes,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure if you've ever covered this in detail before,
Speaker 1: but I would love to hear more about the process
Speaker 1: of butterflies going from worm to pile of goo to
Speaker 1: pretty bug. So thanks, Lydia. The transformation from a butterfly
Speaker 1: to well known the other way, doesn't it. The transformation
Speaker 1: from a caterpillar to a butterfly is really fascinating and
Speaker 1: a little disgusting. So caterpillars are butterfly larva. Their essential
Speaker 1: purpose is to eat as much as possible to get
Speaker 1: fat and to fuel the transformation into a butterfly. So
Speaker 1: caterpillars typically eat plant matter. Although large blue butterfly caterpillars
Speaker 1: eat meat, specifically ant larva, by tricking their way into
Speaker 1: ant nests. If you are curious to hear about these
Speaker 1: little carnivore caterpillars, we discuss this more detail on the
Speaker 1: recent episode called Animal Lecter. So caterpillars will eat and
Speaker 1: eat and eat until they are all fueled up for
Speaker 1: their transformation. They will build a cocoon if they are
Speaker 1: a moth species, or a chrysalis if they are a
Speaker 1: butterfly species. So a cocoon is typically made out of
Speaker 1: silk that the moth has excreted. It is in fact
Speaker 1: where we get silk from via silk moths. So chrysalises
Speaker 1: are actually made out of the top layer of skin
Speaker 1: of the caterpillar. So the caterpillar will attach itself to
Speaker 1: a branch via a bit of silk and then wiggle
Speaker 1: out of its top layer of skin, which hardens into
Speaker 1: a chrysalis. So inside the cocoon or the crysalis, the
Speaker 1: larva will actually completely dissolve into goo, so it is
Speaker 1: essentially digesting itself into a sort of soup ready to
Speaker 1: be rearranged into its final form. So the way it
Speaker 1: does This is by preserving groups of blueprint cells called
Speaker 1: imaginal discs, which have DNA instructions for growing into body
Speaker 1: parts fueled and built by the dissolved soup that it
Speaker 1: turned its old body into. So is this a transformation
Speaker 1: or is it more of like a death and rebirth. So,
Speaker 1: after all, it has turned itself almost entirely into goop.
Speaker 1: Like if you cut open a cocoon or chrysalis at
Speaker 1: the right time, all you'll find is this zesty paste.
Speaker 1: I guess I don't know if it's zesty because I've
Speaker 1: never tried it. Anyways, Researchers have found that adult moths
Speaker 1: can retain the memories of their former larval cells. So
Speaker 1: caterpillars were taught to fear an odor by pairing it
Speaker 1: with a mild electric shock. Then, after the caterpillars metamorphosized
Speaker 1: in two months, the researchers tested to see if they
Speaker 1: still feared the smell that they were trained to hate
Speaker 1: as caterpillars, and in fact, they found that they did so.
Speaker 1: The theory is that some of the cells preserved during
Speaker 1: the sort of supefication that the larva goes through are
Speaker 1: actually neural cells that retain the same structures, or possibly
Speaker 1: there's some kind of epigenetic change that carries on into
Speaker 1: its adult form. Still, it's an incredibly weird process that
Speaker 1: I think we've just kind of grown up to think
Speaker 1: it's normal because butterflies are everywhere. They're beautiful, innocent looking creatures,
Speaker 1: and we kind of don't think about how they turn
Speaker 1: themselves into goo and get reborn and are haunted by
Speaker 1: their old memories. Kind of a nightmarish ship of theseus situation.
Speaker 1: Onto the next listener question, what's going on with bees?
Speaker 1: We're terrified about them disappearing, but I haven't heard anything
Speaker 1: about them recently. This is from feminist Killjoy on Twitter.
Speaker 1: So bees, I love bees, I love honey, and I
Speaker 1: love all the variety of bee species out there. I
Speaker 1: don't like getting stung by bees, but to be honest,
Speaker 1: it's only happened to me once, and that was my fault.
Speaker 1: I felt a bee land on my head, so I
Speaker 1: trying to like get whatever it was off my head,
Speaker 1: and the bee felt like I was attacking it and
Speaker 1: stungy entirely my bad. So bees. Starting around two thousand
Speaker 1: and seven, people started to freak out about colony collapse
Speaker 1: disorder which is the strange phenomenon where bees abandon a
Speaker 1: colony and its queen. So it's become an increasing problem
Speaker 1: and the cause is mysterious, but it's thought to maybe
Speaker 1: have something to do with pesticides, pathogens, maybe parasites, or
Speaker 1: malnutrition or habitat loss. So this is an unfortunate phenomenon
Speaker 1: that has been occurring in domesticated honeybees. While there have
Speaker 1: been increased cases of colony collapse disorder, an important note
Speaker 1: is that honeybees are kind of like the cows of
Speaker 1: the insect world. We have selected honeybees for their increased
Speaker 1: honey production and decreased aggression. They are not actually name
Speaker 1: to North America, and they are likely originally from Africa
Speaker 1: or Asia from tens of thousands of years ago when
Speaker 1: we first started domesticating them. And so while I do
Speaker 1: love honey bees and I love honey, they are technically
Speaker 1: invasive species in many parts of the world, given that
Speaker 1: we have domesticated them, and they are only a small
Speaker 1: fraction of the number of bee species out in the
Speaker 1: world and a fraction of a fraction of the pollinators
Speaker 1: who help our crops and plants and planet. So I'm
Speaker 1: not saying that colony collapse disorder is not a problem.
Speaker 1: I mean it is especially for beekeepers and if you
Speaker 1: like honey but there is a distinction between there being
Speaker 1: a problem with honeybees who are essentially tiny flying cows
Speaker 1: and their important agricultural pollinators as well as honey producers,
Speaker 1: but still their populations are probably gonna be fine. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: we have we have problems that we are facing with
Speaker 1: wild native bees, who are both important pollinators for agriculture
Speaker 1: as well as for native plants, and their populations are
Speaker 1: much more under threat. So firstly, honey bees are not
Speaker 1: endangered at the moment. Colony collapse disorder is alarming and
Speaker 1: very troublesome for apiari's and you know, if you like bees,
Speaker 1: but their populations are doing alright. I think it is
Speaker 1: important to find out why exactly colony collapse disorder is happening,
Speaker 1: because that is good information to know and that could
Speaker 1: be important for conservation for not just domesticated bees, but
Speaker 1: for wild bees as well. But speaking of wild native bees,
Speaker 1: they are critical for protecting ecosystems and their populations are
Speaker 1: in far more danger than honey bees. So there are
Speaker 1: over three five hundred species of wild bees in North America,
Speaker 1: and they are much more likely to face extinction than
Speaker 1: the honey bee. Pollution, pesticides, light pollution, habitat destruction, all
Speaker 1: of these things really do threaten these native bee species.
Speaker 1: Uh So there is if you're interested right in the
Speaker 1: health of native bees. There is a particularly adorable citizen
Speaker 1: science action you can take part in if you are
Speaker 1: concerned about wildbepopulations. Bumblebewatch dot org is where you can
Speaker 1: upload images of bumblebees that you found and the location
Speaker 1: and date to help conservationists keep track of bumblebee populations.
Speaker 1: There are certain species of bumblebees who are endangered, such
Speaker 1: as the rusty patched bumblebee, and by providing photos as
Speaker 1: well as location and date information, you are giving researchers
Speaker 1: new locations to survey for possible bumblebee populations to keep
Speaker 1: track of. And honestly, who doesn't love watching bumblebees. They
Speaker 1: are easily one of my favorite types of bees. They
Speaker 1: are so fumbly and bumbly, just like their name implies.
Speaker 1: According to all known laws of aviation, there is no
Speaker 1: way that a bumblebee should be able to fly. Its
Speaker 1: wings are too small to get its fat little body
Speaker 1: off the ground. The bumblebee, of course flies anyways. Okay,
Speaker 1: now that's actually just the first few lines of the
Speaker 1: famous movie be Movie starring Seinfeld. It's not actually scientifically accurate.
Speaker 1: Bumblebees as well as bees can certainly fly according to
Speaker 1: every law of aviation or aerodynamics and biology. They're just
Speaker 1: very around and very cute, and I love them. Next
Speaker 1: listener question, how did birds develop hollow bones? Did their
Speaker 1: ancestors adapt that way before they flew or afterwards? According
Speaker 1: to the fossil records, and this is from L. S. Griegor,
Speaker 1: this is a great question. The short answer is that
Speaker 1: they did evolve before flight. These hollow bones evolved before flight.
Speaker 1: But to understand why, let's first talk about what we
Speaker 1: mean by hollow bones. Are they just tubes with nothing inside?
Speaker 1: So first let's talk about mammalian bones, like the bones
Speaker 1: that we have in our body. Our mammalian bones are
Speaker 1: full of bone marrow. It is a tissue with blood
Speaker 1: vessels that produces red and white blood cells. Surrounding the
Speaker 1: bone marrow is a layer of spongy bone called cancelss bone,
Speaker 1: and layered over that is a tough outer layer of
Speaker 1: compact bone. So birds have bones that are not entirely hollow,
Speaker 1: but are in fact full of air pockets. So imagine
Speaker 1: a really bubbly sour dough bread, you know, the kind
Speaker 1: that's really delicious, but you can't really make a sandwich
Speaker 1: out up because it's got too many holes in it.
Speaker 1: So the cross section of a bird bone looks almost
Speaker 1: exactly like that, with struts and air pockets inside. These
Speaker 1: are called pneumatized and they allow the bird's bones to
Speaker 1: be lightweight and don't contain bone marrow. But if you
Speaker 1: think about it, this makes them actually very structurally stable,
Speaker 1: because if it was just a hollow tube, you could
Speaker 1: crush that quite easily. But because it's just full of
Speaker 1: sort of these bubbles and then these struts of bone,
Speaker 1: it is much more structurally stable. But birds do need
Speaker 1: bone marrow for blood cell production, so some of their
Speaker 1: bones are not entire are not hollow, and actually contain
Speaker 1: bone marrow. In some species of birds, none of their
Speaker 1: bones are hollow, like all of their bones contain marrow,
Speaker 1: such as penguins or some diving birds like ox, who
Speaker 1: actually can fly. Penguins, of course can't fly. Ox can fly,
Speaker 1: but they can also swim. Some flightless birds like ostriches
Speaker 1: still have some hollow bones, such as their femurs. Even
Speaker 1: though these bones contain air pockets, the struts inside of
Speaker 1: the bones actually make them really strong, and that's how
Speaker 1: they can support the ostrich's weight. Also, hollow bones are
Speaker 1: not just useful for flight, but also for thermoregulation, meaning
Speaker 1: keeping your temperature at a something that is suitable for you,
Speaker 1: as well as respiration, which sounds really weird. Why would
Speaker 1: bones help one breathe better? But we'll talk about that.
Speaker 1: So hollow or maybe a more scientific term, pneumatized bones,
Speaker 1: are actually connected to the bird's respiration Systems have multiple
Speaker 1: air sacks in addition to their lungs, and these air
Speaker 1: sacks are connected to the bird's hollow bones and the bones.
Speaker 1: These hollow spaces and the bones can actually increase their
Speaker 1: air intake capacity. So, given that pneumatized or hollow bones
Speaker 1: have multiple benefits outside of just helping with flying, it
Speaker 1: then makes more sense that these hollow bones evolved before flight,
Speaker 1: just as feathers had evolved before flight. So Alosaurus, which
Speaker 1: was a large t rex like dinosaur, had some hollow
Speaker 1: bones long before dinosaurs had any aspirations. Of flight. They
Speaker 1: had hollow bones along their neck, vertebrae, and back, and
Speaker 1: they were thought to help aid in respiration with that
Speaker 1: handy extra air space. So like the dinosaur breathe in
Speaker 1: fill these air sacks, and then some of the air
Speaker 1: could be in these air pockets in the bone, increasing
Speaker 1: the volume of air that it could take in, which
Speaker 1: might be really important to give this dinosauran edge in
Speaker 1: terms of being able to chase after prey without having
Speaker 1: to catch its breath, or to just function as a
Speaker 1: large animal that needs a lot of oxygen. So evolution
Speaker 1: is a really amazing roller coaster ride with twists and turns.
Speaker 1: Sometimes you start out with one adaptation that's for a
Speaker 1: specific purpose, but then it can later be used for
Speaker 1: an even more fantastic purpose like flight. Next listener question,
Speaker 1: what do you think of ancient folks mistaking elephants spools
Speaker 1: for monsters and coming up with stories of the cyclops?
Speaker 1: I always thought that was neat. Do you have a favorite?
Speaker 1: This real animal was probably the inspiration for this mythical
Speaker 1: beast sort of thing from Blake Rogers. So I love
Speaker 1: this story. I have I seen an elephant skull in
Speaker 1: a museum. I actually remember thinking exactly that it looks
Speaker 1: like a cyclops skull. The hole that looks like an
Speaker 1: eye socket is actually its large nasal cavity that it's
Speaker 1: trunk connects to. But it's so huge, and it really
Speaker 1: does look like a big hole for an eye. The
Speaker 1: actual eye sockets are really small and they're harder to notice.
Speaker 1: So it makes sense that we would see this one
Speaker 1: big hole and think, oh, this is where a giant
Speaker 1: eye would go on this giant skull. So I can
Speaker 1: see that Greek sailors might think this was a monster
Speaker 1: that wanted to eat them. But I have many favorite
Speaker 1: kind of like oopsies, we got this animal wrong, or
Speaker 1: like taking a part of another animal or real animal
Speaker 1: and thinking that it was a monster or a mythical creature.
Speaker 1: So one example of a bonar reconstruction go terribly wrong
Speaker 1: is the Mageburg unicorn, which was made in the seventeenth
Speaker 1: century and Feach is featured at the Museum for Netrikunde Maigeburg, Germany.
Speaker 1: I'm I'm really sorry Germany if I'm pronouncing Mageburg wrong.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's Magburg anyways, So this reconstruction has a long tail,
Speaker 1: two legs, no arms, and a skull with a giant
Speaker 1: horn on its forehead. It is the goofiest looking fossil
Speaker 1: recreation ever made, just like Google Mageburg unicorn. It's amazing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I can imagine that this was probably made by someone
Speaker 1: like after eating ergot infested bread, huffing mercury laden makeup.
Speaker 1: I don't know, it doesn't it makes no sense. It
Speaker 1: has the skull of an actual wooly rhino, which was
Speaker 1: a real animal that is extinct. It has the horn
Speaker 1: of a narwalal, So the horn of a narwall is
Speaker 1: act actually a tusk. It's a long tooth, not a horn,
Speaker 1: and it has the legs of a wooly mammoth. So
Speaker 1: three unfortunate dead animals who did not deserve to be
Speaker 1: so disrespected. So, speaking of narwal teeth, that long pointed
Speaker 1: tooth that has been mistaken for horns, which you know,
Speaker 1: it's easy to see why that mistake is made. It's
Speaker 1: something that's coming out of the Narwal's head. It does
Speaker 1: not look like a long tooth or a tusk. These
Speaker 1: tusks were often thought to be unicorn horns. Before the
Speaker 1: eighteenth century. These unicorn horns were sold to royalty because
Speaker 1: of their supposed jurative properties. They would shave off small
Speaker 1: pieces of the horns and mix them with drinks or
Speaker 1: use them to protect themselves against being poisoned. So there's
Speaker 1: no science to Narwal tusks being useful to prevent poisonings.
Speaker 1: So please don't just try to like chew on a
Speaker 1: Narwald tusk to cure yourself after you ate some urga
Speaker 1: and huff some mercury. But you know, Europeans had no idea,
Speaker 1: and Narwal tusks came from traders who were only too
Speaker 1: happy to capitalize on their mystical reputation. So that'll do
Speaker 1: it for our quick little listener questions episode no animal
Speaker 1: sound of the week. I will save that for next
Speaker 1: week when I have a guest, but just a refresher
Speaker 1: for last week's mystery animal sound. The hint was that
Speaker 1: this is a bird who is often plagiarized, and here
Speaker 1: is the sound. So if you think you know who
Speaker 1: is making that sound, you can write to me at
Speaker 1: Creature feature Pod at gmail dot com. You can also
Speaker 1: write to me your questions and I will try my
Speaker 1: best to answer them either through email or on the
Speaker 1: show like I did this time. Thank you guys so much,
Speaker 1: for listening. If you're enjoying the show and you leave
Speaker 1: a rating or review, I read all of them and
Speaker 1: I appreciate every rating. It really does help me out,
Speaker 1: helps the show out, and makes me feel good. And
Speaker 1: thank you to the Space Cossics for their super awesome song. Exolumina.
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Speaker 1: do You See you next Wednesday.