WEBVTT - Do ants make traps? 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:05.280 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, the production of 0:00:05.360 --> 0:00:14.400 My Heart Radio. Hey are you welcome to Stuff to 0:00:14.440 --> 0:00:17.320 Blow your Mind? My name is Robert Lamb, and I'm 0:00:17.400 --> 0:00:21.160 Joe McCormick, and today we're gonna be talking about traps. 0:00:22.000 --> 0:00:25.160 I think I've mentioned this in some Weird House Cinema episodes, 0:00:25.200 --> 0:00:28.120 But for some reason, ever since I was a little kid, 0:00:28.640 --> 0:00:33.479 I have always loved movie scenes where the protagonists build 0:00:33.520 --> 0:00:36.360 a trap to use against the villain or the monster. 0:00:36.479 --> 0:00:39.520 I remember, like Home Alone, when I was a little kid, 0:00:39.560 --> 0:00:42.080 that that that whole sequence was a great It's sort 0:00:42.080 --> 0:00:45.440 of expands to fill my whole childhood impression of what 0:00:45.479 --> 0:00:48.080 the movie was. And if you go back and watch 0:00:48.080 --> 0:00:49.919 it as an adult, it's kind of weird that it's 0:00:49.960 --> 0:00:52.519 only like fifteen or twenty minutes of the runtime in 0:00:52.840 --> 0:00:55.760 in Home Alone. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it does seem like 0:00:56.040 --> 0:00:58.640 that's the main thing I remember. Yeah, they the traps, 0:00:58.720 --> 0:01:03.840 the traps, and and certainly people feel certain nostalgia for them. 0:01:03.840 --> 0:01:06.560 My heart swells at the thought of a nail going 0:01:06.600 --> 0:01:10.360 into Daniel Stearn's foot. Um. But but also, yeah, I 0:01:10.400 --> 0:01:13.440 remember other ones, like you know, Arnold Schwarzenegger builds a 0:01:13.480 --> 0:01:17.080 bunch of traps in Predator. Um and but like this 0:01:17.200 --> 0:01:19.399 wasn't just when I was a kid. It still works 0:01:19.440 --> 0:01:22.240 on me. I remember there was a sequence I just 0:01:22.400 --> 0:01:25.760 loved in the more recent horror movie It follows where 0:01:25.760 --> 0:01:28.920 the characters build a trap for the monster. Yeah, that's right. 0:01:29.319 --> 0:01:31.560 They that is very they have a very, very much 0:01:31.560 --> 0:01:34.760 a kind of home alone's setup that they do there. 0:01:35.000 --> 0:01:37.520 Of course, it's not only the heroes that that have traps. 0:01:37.560 --> 0:01:39.920 I always love a good villain trap as well, especially 0:01:40.319 --> 0:01:44.440 the trap door ump. Trap door sequence is always a 0:01:44.440 --> 0:01:47.200 lot of fun. Um uh you know, be it something 0:01:47.240 --> 0:01:50.080 like in in Lynn Labyrinth. I love the trap when 0:01:50.080 --> 0:01:53.640 the trap door springs on our hero and that. But 0:01:54.560 --> 0:01:57.320 actually Tomorrow's Weird House Cinema also has a fun trap 0:01:57.360 --> 0:02:01.520 door sequence. Uh oh yeah, so look forward to that. 0:02:01.760 --> 0:02:05.520 Well yeah, on the side of the protagonists getting through 0:02:05.640 --> 0:02:08.520 traps set for them. Another one of my favorite movie 0:02:08.520 --> 0:02:11.079 sequences as a child was the beginning of Raiders the 0:02:11.160 --> 0:02:13.960 Lost Art. Oh yeah, and when Indians going through all 0:02:14.000 --> 0:02:16.480 the traps. Something about it is just like deep in 0:02:16.520 --> 0:02:21.840 the brain, it's very satisfying. Wall to wall traps. Yeah, 0:02:22.040 --> 0:02:25.400 that's that's a great sequence as well. Um, and all 0:02:25.440 --> 0:02:27.519 of these are great sequences in spite of the fact 0:02:27.600 --> 0:02:30.680 that when you when you can, when you really think 0:02:30.880 --> 0:02:33.760 long and hard about any of these scenarios, uh, you know, 0:02:33.800 --> 0:02:37.480 the cracks definitely show would would all of these traps 0:02:37.520 --> 0:02:40.880 still be working in this ancient ruin that Indiana Jones 0:02:40.919 --> 0:02:43.560 finds himself in. I don't know, it's it's a hard 0:02:43.639 --> 0:02:46.720 argument to make their right, How did the spring trap 0:02:46.800 --> 0:02:49.640 operate by you sticking your hand through a shaft of 0:02:49.720 --> 0:02:53.760 light when it was made like thousands of years ago? Yeah? 0:02:53.960 --> 0:02:56.680 Or you know, if it's duke and predator, like, how 0:02:56.720 --> 0:02:59.720 does he um? How does he make this super powerful 0:02:59.760 --> 0:03:02.800 calm pound bow just in the space of a few 0:03:02.840 --> 0:03:05.560 hours on an afternoon in the jungle? That's just standard 0:03:05.639 --> 0:03:10.480 survival training and all these other various ewok traps that 0:03:10.520 --> 0:03:13.480 he builds didn't didn't you go to that camp? Did 0:03:13.480 --> 0:03:15.560 I build a bow like that at a camp? Now? 0:03:16.360 --> 0:03:18.720 I think we sharpened sticks, you know, that would be 0:03:18.800 --> 0:03:20.919 that would be more believable. Right, he makes a spear 0:03:21.520 --> 0:03:24.920 to battle, that's the way there. Yeah, but you know, 0:03:25.000 --> 0:03:27.600 I think it probably speaks volumes for humans to be 0:03:27.720 --> 0:03:29.600 you know, to be saying all of this about traps, 0:03:29.600 --> 0:03:32.760 and especially about you know, loving these cinematic treatments of traps, 0:03:32.800 --> 0:03:37.080 because because what are traps? Ultimately, very broadly speaking, they're clever, 0:03:37.160 --> 0:03:41.120 tactical and or technological innovations that level the playing field 0:03:41.160 --> 0:03:45.240 against predators, against prey, and even against fellow humans. Traps 0:03:45.240 --> 0:03:47.320 are the sort of things that humans have been up 0:03:47.360 --> 0:03:50.360 to since prehistory. So of course we love traps, and 0:03:50.400 --> 0:03:53.720 of course we admire things like traps that we find 0:03:53.760 --> 0:03:57.240 another species. Right, So today we're going to be focusing 0:03:57.280 --> 0:04:02.680 on some allegations of insects with the ability to build traps, 0:04:02.720 --> 0:04:06.440 specifically ants that do things that may in fact be 0:04:07.040 --> 0:04:12.040 biological evolutions that allow them to trap prey. Uh. Now, 0:04:12.080 --> 0:04:14.640 there are some other animals that I think we could 0:04:14.640 --> 0:04:18.240 say more more clearly and and famously create traps. I 0:04:18.279 --> 0:04:22.760 think the obvious example here would be spiders. Yes, yes, 0:04:22.839 --> 0:04:26.080 spiders are the trap builders par excellence. Uh. You know, 0:04:26.120 --> 0:04:28.640 there are no finer trap builders in the animal kingdom. 0:04:28.680 --> 0:04:32.680 Maybe you could make a case for human beings, um, 0:04:32.680 --> 0:04:35.280 but personally I'm not in favor of that. I think, 0:04:35.279 --> 0:04:38.960 you know, well, building spiders especially are just such highly 0:04:39.000 --> 0:04:43.120 evolved trap masters. Every detail of their anatomy and behavior 0:04:43.279 --> 0:04:46.640 enhances their trapping ability, and the trap is very much 0:04:46.680 --> 0:04:49.400 an extension of their own bodies in so many ways. 0:04:49.800 --> 0:04:52.280 And we've covered this, and we've covered spiders in general 0:04:52.360 --> 0:04:54.760 numerous times in the show before, and we'll likely keep 0:04:54.800 --> 0:04:57.240 coming back to them. But yeah, that the spider, the 0:04:57.279 --> 0:05:00.520 spider is the trap maker. There's nothing else that the 0:05:00.520 --> 0:05:04.440 spider really does. Um in anything else it does, the 0:05:04.480 --> 0:05:07.440 web building spider is going to do in close proximity 0:05:07.480 --> 0:05:11.440 to the web that it has built. Yeah. Another example 0:05:11.480 --> 0:05:14.880 that's come up before, I think in our Sarlac episodes 0:05:15.080 --> 0:05:19.560 was the ant lion. Yes, yeah, uh. This is a 0:05:19.600 --> 0:05:23.440 case where we have predatory larvae that in some species 0:05:23.480 --> 0:05:26.080 of antline anyway, set up at the bottom of sand 0:05:26.120 --> 0:05:29.360 pits that they dig, ready to lash out at anything 0:05:29.480 --> 0:05:32.640 that disturbs their grains and you know, ventures down into 0:05:32.640 --> 0:05:36.320 the trap. Um. Again, not all ant lion species dig 0:05:36.360 --> 0:05:39.080 trap pits, but some of the most famous ones do. 0:05:39.680 --> 0:05:42.240 I remember. One of the great things we learned about 0:05:42.320 --> 0:05:45.760 the ant lion was that, like you say, the it 0:05:45.880 --> 0:05:48.440 is the ones that make traps. It is just the 0:05:48.640 --> 0:05:52.680 larval period of their lifespan, their life cycle that they 0:05:52.680 --> 0:05:56.679 make the traps. Then they later metamorphos into into another form. 0:05:57.279 --> 0:05:59.320 But while they're in that larval stage, I think at 0:05:59.400 --> 0:06:05.040 least some of them never poop. Oh yeah, catching ants 0:06:05.080 --> 0:06:07.279 and eating them and just like waiting, and it's like 0:06:07.480 --> 0:06:09.640 if you had to wait until you turned eighteen to poop. 0:06:12.320 --> 0:06:14.359 We'll go back and listen to that Sarlac episode if 0:06:14.400 --> 0:06:16.360 you'd like to hear more about the ant lion. There's 0:06:16.400 --> 0:06:20.600 also um the species of creature known as the worm lion, 0:06:20.760 --> 0:06:23.680 and this is this is unrelated to the ant lion. 0:06:24.240 --> 0:06:27.120 It's just a matter of convergent evolution that ends up 0:06:27.200 --> 0:06:31.920 utilizing largely the exact same method again when it's a larva. 0:06:32.360 --> 0:06:34.960 Uh though the pit itself in this case is generated 0:06:35.040 --> 0:06:38.840 via site a slightly different method, so it digs its 0:06:38.880 --> 0:06:42.320 pit in a slightly different method, but it's still consumes 0:06:42.400 --> 0:06:44.839 its prey in the same manner. But for me, at least, 0:06:45.440 --> 0:06:48.080 if you ask me to make a list of non 0:06:48.200 --> 0:06:51.320 human animals that make traps, I could obviously go spiders. 0:06:51.360 --> 0:06:53.600 I would have thought of the ant lion, maybe by 0:06:53.640 --> 0:06:57.960 association the worm lion. But there before I was reading 0:06:58.040 --> 0:07:00.000 up for this episode, I think I would have drawn 0:07:00.000 --> 0:07:03.520 on a blank I wouldn't know what to go to next. Yeah, 0:07:03.600 --> 0:07:05.960 and part of it comes down to just how are 0:07:06.000 --> 0:07:10.320 you going to going to define a trap? Uh? For example, 0:07:10.400 --> 0:07:14.920 here's here's an interesting potential example. Uh. We can discuss 0:07:15.480 --> 0:07:17.520 that I read across read read about when I was 0:07:17.600 --> 0:07:22.320 reading Gilbert Wald Bowlers How Not to Be Eaten, which 0:07:22.520 --> 0:07:25.280 which is largely about insects, but there's a part where 0:07:25.560 --> 0:07:29.080 the author is discussing the burrowing owl. So these are 0:07:29.120 --> 0:07:33.400 small birds native to the Great Plains in southern Florida. Um, 0:07:33.960 --> 0:07:35.560 I think they're about the size of a robin. I'm 0:07:35.600 --> 0:07:37.600 to understand that. You know, they're small, little little guys, 0:07:38.360 --> 0:07:41.800 but they make their home in burrows that they did themselves. 0:07:42.480 --> 0:07:45.240 And one of the interesting things that they do in 0:07:45.280 --> 0:07:49.400 addition to this, if this wasn't you know interesting enough already, 0:07:49.680 --> 0:07:53.080 is the burrowing owl will scatter horse or cow dung 0:07:53.200 --> 0:07:56.440 around the entrance to their burrows. And in you know, 0:07:56.520 --> 0:08:00.240 times before European contact, this would have probably been bison dung. 0:08:01.240 --> 0:08:04.280 And the dung does seem to be important because if 0:08:04.480 --> 0:08:07.920 if researchers remove the dung from the vicinity, the birds 0:08:08.000 --> 0:08:10.040 will just the bird will just go out and obtain 0:08:10.080 --> 0:08:13.240 more dung and place it in the vicinity. So it's 0:08:13.440 --> 0:08:16.680 it seems to be doing this intentionally. The theory is 0:08:16.720 --> 0:08:20.840 that they place the dung to bait dung beetles, So 0:08:20.880 --> 0:08:23.520 they put the dung out dung beetles come, And indeed, 0:08:24.400 --> 0:08:27.200 researchers have been able to tell that the owls eat 0:08:27.280 --> 0:08:30.520 ten times more dung beetles than usual when the dung 0:08:30.640 --> 0:08:33.400 is out. Well, this will in fact mirror one of 0:08:33.400 --> 0:08:37.480 the two examples of potential aunt trap making that I 0:08:37.480 --> 0:08:40.000 want to talk about later. Yeah, I mean it's but 0:08:40.000 --> 0:08:42.199 but this is a great example. It's certainly clever. I 0:08:42.679 --> 0:08:45.800 like it. But it kind of forces us to ask 0:08:46.440 --> 0:08:48.360 the question of a trap, like what is a trap? 0:08:48.480 --> 0:08:52.560 Is just merely baiting a trap? Um? That is a 0:08:52.559 --> 0:08:56.200 good question, Yeah, because and um, how much does the 0:08:56.240 --> 0:08:59.520 trap structure have to be separate from your body in 0:08:59.600 --> 0:09:02.080 order on as a as a constructed trap? And how 0:09:02.200 --> 0:09:03.960 much does it have to how much work does it 0:09:04.000 --> 0:09:06.960 have to do for you? Yeah? And at what point 0:09:07.200 --> 0:09:11.360 does an animal's behavior stop being a trap and just 0:09:11.440 --> 0:09:16.640 become sneaky behavior, sneaky tactics, or or simply ambush predation. 0:09:17.040 --> 0:09:20.359 Because obviously there are plenty of examples of ambush predators 0:09:20.400 --> 0:09:23.200 on land and in the sea, and these include everything 0:09:23.280 --> 0:09:25.800 from well, the trap door spider for one, which I 0:09:25.800 --> 0:09:28.920 think is is definitely a case of of trap building 0:09:28.960 --> 0:09:32.160 because it's it's an ambush predator, but it builds a 0:09:32.240 --> 0:09:35.920 silk hinge trap door to aid in those ambushes, right, 0:09:35.960 --> 0:09:38.600 so the trapdoor hides it. I think you could count 0:09:38.640 --> 0:09:42.600 that as like infrastructure necessary to constitute a trap. Yeah, yeah, 0:09:42.720 --> 0:09:45.800 I think that, Yeah, definitely with the trapdoor spider. But 0:09:45.840 --> 0:09:49.240 then you also have just various camouflage predators, including things 0:09:49.280 --> 0:09:53.720 like frog fish, praying mantis is, chameleons, and more, which 0:09:54.200 --> 0:09:57.920 are not building anything. They're not altering their environment, but 0:09:58.080 --> 0:10:01.400 they've evolved to look like a part of or environment. Uh, 0:10:01.440 --> 0:10:04.720 and they have you know, often tremendous abilities of camouflage 0:10:04.920 --> 0:10:08.200 that enable them to quickly ambush something that they want 0:10:08.240 --> 0:10:11.679 to eat. Okay, that probably doesn't that doesn't really seem 0:10:11.720 --> 0:10:14.440 like a trap to me, because they're just evolved to 0:10:14.520 --> 0:10:19.360 look that way and they do the actual hunting themselves, right. 0:10:19.400 --> 0:10:21.640 And then of course we have various birds and cats 0:10:21.679 --> 0:10:24.680 and big cats even, uh that are just very stealthy 0:10:25.240 --> 0:10:28.400 that are just very good at not being observed by 0:10:28.400 --> 0:10:31.200 the things they want to kill. So I was reading 0:10:31.240 --> 0:10:34.760 a little bit about this in Douglas j Imland's excellent 0:10:34.760 --> 0:10:37.120 book Animal Weapons that have Referenced on the Show before, 0:10:37.800 --> 0:10:40.600 and he points out that creatures such as this generally 0:10:40.600 --> 0:10:44.079 depend on quote, a quick strike weapon that immediately incapacitates 0:10:44.080 --> 0:10:48.200 its victim. And of course these bioweapons might be enhanced 0:10:48.200 --> 0:10:51.480 by special features, such as in various deep sea ambush 0:10:51.520 --> 0:10:55.120 predators a bioluminescent lure, which again is not something they 0:10:55.120 --> 0:10:57.840 have created or engineered out of their environment, but it 0:10:57.880 --> 0:10:59.840 is a part of their body. So when we come 0:10:59.840 --> 0:11:01.400 back of this idea that what needs to be something 0:11:01.400 --> 0:11:04.000 that's built, it needs to be something that's engineered, or 0:11:04.040 --> 0:11:07.160 just a whole dug in the in the ground. Even um, 0:11:07.400 --> 0:11:09.480 we come back to that same question, well, why don't 0:11:09.480 --> 0:11:12.280 we find more of this? And I actually found an 0:11:12.320 --> 0:11:15.720 interesting paper title out there, why are pitfall Traps so 0:11:15.840 --> 0:11:20.400 rare in the natural World? By G. D Ruxton and M. H. Hansel, 0:11:20.800 --> 0:11:23.880 And it appeared in Evolutionary Ecology in two thousand and nine. 0:11:24.840 --> 0:11:28.200 Interesting question. Yeah, So the authors here point out that 0:11:28.240 --> 0:11:30.440 in order to lay a trap, you generally need either 0:11:30.559 --> 0:11:35.200 advanced cognitive powers as with humans obviously, or you need 0:11:35.360 --> 0:11:40.800 specialists self secreted materials as with spiders and catis fly 0:11:41.000 --> 0:11:45.800 larvae thing which the Catasta catass fly larvae use that 0:11:45.880 --> 0:11:48.920 their their secretions to create a net like even meshed 0:11:49.080 --> 0:11:53.480 trap like a silk um trap in order to like 0:11:53.600 --> 0:11:57.800 filter catch their prey. That makes sense. So humans can 0:11:57.840 --> 0:12:00.440 create all kinds of traps because we have of you know, 0:12:00.520 --> 0:12:04.079 cognitive powers that allow us to imagine what could be done. 0:12:04.480 --> 0:12:06.800 How you know, other materials in the environment could be 0:12:06.880 --> 0:12:12.120 repurposed to uh, to passively ensnare or kill prey, animals 0:12:12.160 --> 0:12:14.599 and spiders and stuff. That that's just the trap you 0:12:14.640 --> 0:12:16.640 could almost say, is a part of their body. Even 0:12:16.640 --> 0:12:19.400 though the web is a built thing. They're evolved to 0:12:19.520 --> 0:12:22.560 secrete the silk for the web out of their bodies, 0:12:22.880 --> 0:12:26.559 and they have very instinctually driven behaviors for how they 0:12:26.559 --> 0:12:30.839 extrude that silk where and in what patterns. Right, So 0:12:31.120 --> 0:12:36.200 Ruxton enhansl here ultimately point out that, okay, we have 0:12:36.240 --> 0:12:39.640 the ant lion though, and of course the worm lion. Uh, 0:12:39.679 --> 0:12:42.839 these are exceptions to the rule. Um they make use 0:12:42.920 --> 0:12:45.640 of a pitfall trap, and so the authors asked, why 0:12:45.720 --> 0:12:49.840 is this basic tactic not more common in the animal world? 0:12:49.880 --> 0:12:52.160 How hard is it, after all to dig a hole? 0:12:52.600 --> 0:12:56.600 They're easy, they're cheap um, And yet you don't see 0:12:56.600 --> 0:13:00.319 this technique used by virtually anything outside of and of 0:13:00.480 --> 0:13:04.280 some ant lions and worm lions. Apparently, the lack of 0:13:04.360 --> 0:13:06.960 more pitfall traps in nature was something of a mystery, 0:13:07.080 --> 0:13:09.760 or and remains something of a mystery. Yeah, that that 0:13:09.920 --> 0:13:12.240 is interesting, Okay, so I it took me a second 0:13:12.240 --> 0:13:14.240 to get the distinction they're making. But they're saying that 0:13:14.280 --> 0:13:16.840 the ant lion and the wormline would be kind of 0:13:16.840 --> 0:13:21.000 an outlier because they don't have complex intelligence and imagination 0:13:21.040 --> 0:13:24.760 like humans, so they're not inventing traps with cognitive powers. 0:13:25.480 --> 0:13:29.040 But they also don't secrete a material that constitutes the 0:13:29.040 --> 0:13:31.840 basis of the trap like a spider. They're literally just 0:13:31.960 --> 0:13:34.520 building a trap out of the dead environment around of 0:13:34.559 --> 0:13:37.520 them by digging a conically shaped hole in such a 0:13:37.559 --> 0:13:39.880 pattern that that ants get stuck in it when they 0:13:39.880 --> 0:13:42.960 fall down the side. But and and why is that 0:13:43.080 --> 0:13:45.200 so rare, because it would seem like that that should 0:13:45.200 --> 0:13:49.959 be a strategy that lots of animals could easily employ. Right, Yeah, again, 0:13:50.480 --> 0:13:55.400 holes are ultimately easy to make, low energy? Why not? Why? Why? 0:13:55.520 --> 0:13:57.440 Why is? Why is this cat not making a hole 0:13:57.480 --> 0:14:00.480 and using that as part of its hunting tactics? So what? What? 0:14:00.480 --> 0:14:02.880 What are their thoughts on this? Like, why would why 0:14:02.920 --> 0:14:06.160 wouldn't we see this more often? Well, they proposed to 0:14:06.480 --> 0:14:09.320 speculative reasons for the lack of pitfall traps in nature. 0:14:09.600 --> 0:14:13.120 The first one is pitfall traps may require a specialist 0:14:13.200 --> 0:14:16.360 micro habitat. In other words, you can't do this just anywhere. 0:14:16.640 --> 0:14:19.640 Conditions have to be just right, uh, such as you know, 0:14:19.720 --> 0:14:21.160 we can look at the ant lions, they have to 0:14:21.200 --> 0:14:22.920 be kind of sandy conditions, you know, you have to 0:14:22.920 --> 0:14:26.680 have that kind of granular environment. Um. So it's the 0:14:26.760 --> 0:14:30.960 kind of tactic that a potential trap builder would not 0:14:31.040 --> 0:14:33.200 necessarily be able to employ all over the place. You 0:14:33.240 --> 0:14:35.920 would have to depend on us, again, on a specialist 0:14:35.920 --> 0:14:39.000 micro habitat. I think I recall from our Starlac episode 0:14:39.000 --> 0:14:41.760 where we had a segment about the ant lion that 0:14:41.800 --> 0:14:43.960 they needed the grains of soil to be of a 0:14:44.000 --> 0:14:48.880 particular size, like the sandy grains above or below a 0:14:48.880 --> 0:14:52.480 certain diameter threshold would not work very well for making 0:14:52.480 --> 0:14:56.600 the traps. Yeah. Yeah. Now, the second point is that 0:14:56.600 --> 0:15:00.280 with the ant lion in particular, the trap targets small prey, 0:15:00.440 --> 0:15:02.800 and since they may be more functionally tied to their 0:15:02.840 --> 0:15:05.720 trapped and spiders are traps of this nature, could serve 0:15:05.760 --> 0:15:09.080 as like basically a major bull's eye for potential predators. 0:15:09.080 --> 0:15:11.600 And indeed the main predators of ant lions and worm 0:15:11.680 --> 0:15:15.360 lions are birds who know what to look for. That's 0:15:15.360 --> 0:15:17.520 a really good point. So by building a trap and 0:15:17.560 --> 0:15:19.760 then sitting in it and waiting for your prey to 0:15:19.840 --> 0:15:22.600 fall in, you were also usually going to be making 0:15:22.640 --> 0:15:25.720 a structure that makes it easy for things that want 0:15:25.720 --> 0:15:28.040 to eat you too, I defind where you are. You know, 0:15:28.080 --> 0:15:29.760 they don't have to look too hard because you've made 0:15:29.760 --> 0:15:32.360 a big hole in the ground, right and uh, and 0:15:32.440 --> 0:15:34.760 spiders just have a little more leeway with the situation. Now, 0:15:34.760 --> 0:15:37.600 I should point out Hansel also wrote an entire book 0:15:37.720 --> 0:15:39.800 which I'm gonna reference here in a minute. He spends 0:15:39.840 --> 0:15:43.160 a lot of time in that book talking about spiders 0:15:43.280 --> 0:15:46.440 and how you know, some sometimes spider webs are very visible, 0:15:47.000 --> 0:15:50.440 h in other times they're not, and how that plays 0:15:50.480 --> 0:15:53.160 into the you know, the ultimately kind of complex relationship 0:15:53.240 --> 0:15:58.680 between spiders and uh, and the creatures that would eat spiders. Um. 0:15:58.880 --> 0:16:02.440 But but just thinking about this as the trap being 0:16:02.480 --> 0:16:05.280 this conspicuous thing. This we actually see this in a 0:16:05.280 --> 0:16:08.160 lot of our fantastic trap fiction. You know that moment 0:16:08.200 --> 0:16:11.640 when the target of the clever cinematic trap, especially if 0:16:11.640 --> 0:16:15.680 it's laid by the protagonists. Uh, the the enemy almost 0:16:15.720 --> 0:16:19.720 sets it off, right, like the predator almost triggers the 0:16:19.760 --> 0:16:24.200 trip line you've prepared. But then something happens right the uh, 0:16:24.240 --> 0:16:26.880 the monster deduces that the trap is there, or it 0:16:26.920 --> 0:16:29.920 suspects that something is a little off. Oh and maybe 0:16:29.920 --> 0:16:33.680 even the presence of a trap is how the hero 0:16:33.840 --> 0:16:36.640 knows that they have stumbled across the bad guys hideout. 0:16:37.040 --> 0:16:40.800 Yeah yeah, um. It even reminds me a bit of 0:16:40.800 --> 0:16:43.240 our recent weird house selection the Lift. This was the 0:16:43.320 --> 0:16:46.800 killer elevator movie. Uh, the killer elevator in this or 0:16:47.000 --> 0:16:50.440 I guess you were more specifically the weird bio brain 0:16:50.520 --> 0:16:54.600 that's been installed in the elevator shaft to power these elevators. 0:16:54.800 --> 0:16:58.600 It's kind of an obligate trap predator. Um. But it's 0:16:58.640 --> 0:17:01.960 so tied to that in ironment that it's a little tricky. 0:17:02.000 --> 0:17:03.920 Like it it's not able to pull off every kill, 0:17:04.359 --> 0:17:07.359 and it's eventually destroyed by prey that is too clever 0:17:07.480 --> 0:17:11.919 for it. Brilliant analogy. This this is true. The killer 0:17:11.960 --> 0:17:16.200 Elevator is an obligate trap predator. I also have to 0:17:16.240 --> 0:17:18.399 point out, speaking of the Star Lack, is that recent 0:17:18.640 --> 0:17:22.159 Mandalorian episodes have also, you know, sort of played with 0:17:22.200 --> 0:17:24.159 this idea. Yeah. Yeah, the Mighty Star, like the Star 0:17:24.240 --> 0:17:26.640 looks pretty impressive, but they make it clear that even 0:17:26.640 --> 0:17:29.320 these great trap predators can be a consumed by the 0:17:29.400 --> 0:17:32.320 mighty crate dragon that lives in the deserts of Tate 0:17:32.400 --> 0:17:36.439 wein uh, so knowing you're there being you know, this 0:17:36.520 --> 0:17:39.520 identifiable organism in the sand that can have a huge 0:17:39.520 --> 0:17:41.639 downside to it. Now, I was trying to think of 0:17:41.680 --> 0:17:45.280 counterpoints to the idea that okay, so, uh sitting at 0:17:45.280 --> 0:17:47.840 the bottom of a pitfall trap and waiting for prey 0:17:47.920 --> 0:17:50.120 to fall into you and then eating that that makes 0:17:50.160 --> 0:17:54.840 you vulnerable to two predators that want to find you. Well, well, 0:17:54.840 --> 0:17:57.080 what if you just make pitfall traps and then you 0:17:57.119 --> 0:17:59.440 go away and then you you know, leave them there 0:17:59.440 --> 0:18:01.359 and then come act like a human hunter might do 0:18:01.480 --> 0:18:02.920 you know, leave a trap out in the woods and 0:18:02.960 --> 0:18:06.040 then come and see what it collected, lobster traps or something. 0:18:07.119 --> 0:18:09.360 But but I can see downsides to that as well, 0:18:09.400 --> 0:18:12.359 because if it's just a pit trap, you could imagine that, well, 0:18:12.480 --> 0:18:14.880 something might fall in there, but then something else might 0:18:14.920 --> 0:18:18.400 eat it before you get to it, um so or 0:18:18.520 --> 0:18:20.320 it might you know, if you have to make these 0:18:20.359 --> 0:18:22.080 all over the place, you might spend a lot of 0:18:22.240 --> 0:18:24.760 energy going around from one to the other. So is 0:18:24.800 --> 0:18:27.880 that really all that much better than just hunting? Well, 0:18:27.920 --> 0:18:29.760 and then it kind of comes back to this idea 0:18:29.840 --> 0:18:34.440 that that the trap laid by an animal, especially um 0:18:34.600 --> 0:18:37.560 still requires the lethal mechanism, and in the case of 0:18:37.560 --> 0:18:40.439 the ant line, the lethal lethal mechanism is itself. It 0:18:40.520 --> 0:18:45.080 is still essentially uh an ambush predator like again, like 0:18:45.119 --> 0:18:48.360 Emlyn says, quote a quick strike weapon that immediately incapacitates 0:18:48.400 --> 0:18:50.520 its victim. That, yeah, that I can't believe. I didn't 0:18:50.520 --> 0:18:51.879 think of that. That's of course a good point. You 0:18:51.920 --> 0:18:55.640 have to find a way to kill the prey. So 0:18:55.840 --> 0:18:57.960 I mentioned that that Hanzel has a has a whole 0:18:58.000 --> 0:19:00.359 book that deals with with with some of this a 0:19:00.359 --> 0:19:02.320 little bit, but just sort of the broader picture of 0:19:02.400 --> 0:19:06.800 animals building things it's titled animal architecture, and I was 0:19:06.840 --> 0:19:09.160 reading through this a bit. He contends that we're not 0:19:09.200 --> 0:19:11.639 looking at traps when we're looking at cases of an 0:19:11.680 --> 0:19:15.320 animal baiting another animal, because traps are a kind of 0:19:15.400 --> 0:19:21.439 subset of animal architecture, an engineered space that aids and capture. Okay, so, 0:19:21.520 --> 0:19:25.720 by his metric here, what the burrowing owl does by 0:19:25.720 --> 0:19:28.919 by leaving dung out around its nest and having this 0:19:29.000 --> 0:19:32.080 attract insects to it, that would not count as a 0:19:32.119 --> 0:19:34.560 trap because it is not a structure that in any 0:19:34.560 --> 0:19:38.680 way aids and capture. It just attracts prey to a site. Oh, 0:19:38.720 --> 0:19:40.520 by the way, I want to also speak speaking of 0:19:40.560 --> 0:19:42.960 the burrowing owl again, I want to throw in that 0:19:43.400 --> 0:19:46.440 that while some burrowing owls do build their own burrows, 0:19:46.440 --> 0:19:51.520 they're also burrowing owls that acquire the burrows of other creatures. Anyway, 0:19:51.560 --> 0:19:53.639 I want to read this quote from Hansel here. I 0:19:53.680 --> 0:19:57.600 think he puts it rather well, uh, concerning the animal 0:19:57.680 --> 0:20:01.320 architecture and traps quote. Whereas a house can just be 0:20:01.359 --> 0:20:04.199 a barrier between the builder and the outside world, a 0:20:04.280 --> 0:20:08.600 trap has a dynamic relationship between itself and the prey. 0:20:08.680 --> 0:20:11.160 The prey needs to approach the trap in a particular 0:20:11.240 --> 0:20:14.720 orientation to it, and then needs to be restrained by it. 0:20:15.160 --> 0:20:18.359 Traps are therefore more complex than homes and need to 0:20:18.400 --> 0:20:21.520 be more precisely engineered, and then he goes on to 0:20:21.600 --> 0:20:24.000 point out the quote among the vertebrates, trap builders were 0:20:24.040 --> 0:20:27.720 apparently absent until the recent history of man. Now he 0:20:27.760 --> 0:20:31.320 cites human mental capacity once more for the construction of 0:20:31.359 --> 0:20:35.440 such traps, noting quote, Virtually all non human trap builders 0:20:35.680 --> 0:20:39.880 use self secreted materials, and the capture principle they adopt 0:20:40.240 --> 0:20:44.119 is the net. The exceptions are simple in design and operation, 0:20:44.240 --> 0:20:46.840 as well as rare, and then he goes on to 0:20:47.000 --> 0:20:52.400 specifically mentioned ant lions, uh, worm lions um and larval 0:20:52.560 --> 0:21:01.800 dip tira. But anyway, a large takeaway here is that 0:21:01.960 --> 0:21:06.639 trap building is not as widespread in the animal kingdom 0:21:06.640 --> 0:21:09.080 as you might expect. Humans make a lot of traps. 0:21:09.400 --> 0:21:13.199 There are some very specialized animals, especially some invertebrates, that 0:21:13.320 --> 0:21:16.800 use traps made of materials that they secrete from their 0:21:16.840 --> 0:21:21.520 own bodies, but generally, trap building is not a very 0:21:21.560 --> 0:21:26.000 widespread hunting strategy among animals of planet Earth, in which 0:21:26.000 --> 0:21:28.480 case it would be very interesting to find examples of 0:21:28.560 --> 0:21:31.760 animals such as ants that make traps in order to 0:21:31.760 --> 0:21:34.600 get their nutrition. And I guess that's a good segue 0:21:34.680 --> 0:21:37.920 to what I to the main focus of today's episode, 0:21:37.920 --> 0:21:39.919 which was a couple of examples I came across of 0:21:40.480 --> 0:21:45.280 ants that do something that could be interpreted as building 0:21:45.359 --> 0:21:48.439 traps as a hunting strategy. Yeah, and I mean it 0:21:48.480 --> 0:21:51.040 it would make sense that we might find something like 0:21:51.080 --> 0:21:54.800 this in the ant world because ants are masters of 0:21:55.119 --> 0:22:00.240 construction there, they alter their environment. They're capable of of 0:22:00.320 --> 0:22:04.760 practicing um agriculture. Uh. They as we've discussed in previous 0:22:04.760 --> 0:22:08.439 episode the show, Uh, they engage in complex conflicts that 0:22:08.520 --> 0:22:12.320 we may might well compare to warfare. They can solve 0:22:12.440 --> 0:22:15.399 problems there. I mean, the list goes on and on. 0:22:15.440 --> 0:22:19.560 Ants are amazing um as as of course, as as 0:22:19.600 --> 0:22:23.840