WEBVTT - How Spiders Work 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:03.800 This episode is brought to Welcome to Stuff You Should 0:00:03.880 --> 0:00:12.640 Know from House Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and welcome 0:00:12.680 --> 0:00:16.720 to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. Yeah, there's Charles W. 0:00:16.840 --> 0:00:20.160 Chuck Bryant. Jerry's over there. Uh and this is Stuff 0:00:20.160 --> 0:00:23.000 you Should Know the podcast. That's right. How are you doing? 0:00:23.400 --> 0:00:26.960 I'm doing great? Man? Good? How are you doing? Jerry? Jerry? 0:00:29.480 --> 0:00:33.000 Oh goodness me. Good to be back in one A. Yeah, 0:00:33.600 --> 0:00:37.600 it's been fighters and stuff twenty four hours. Yes, last 0:00:38.320 --> 0:00:41.000 I saw one thing, um when I was watching a 0:00:41.040 --> 0:00:44.080 documentary on spiders that they said, there's never You're never 0:00:44.120 --> 0:00:47.000 more than an arm linked away from lots of spiders. 0:00:48.159 --> 0:00:49.960 And I wondered, because I've done you. I finally did 0:00:49.960 --> 0:00:52.640 your little trick with the flashlight. Did it work? Oh yeah, dude, 0:00:52.680 --> 0:00:56.680 it's horrifying. They are everywhere. But I wonder about like 0:00:56.720 --> 0:00:59.520 in this room and this it feels like hermetically sealed 0:00:59.520 --> 0:01:03.320 concrete vault. Are there spiders in here? There's one dangling 0:01:03.360 --> 0:01:07.039 above your head right now? I see No, they are pretty, 0:01:07.360 --> 0:01:10.240 they're good at hiding, they're small. So you're saying they're 0:01:10.240 --> 0:01:12.080 in here, I would guess, So, I mean, like, why 0:01:12.120 --> 0:01:13.960 why would they not be in here, like the one 0:01:13.959 --> 0:01:16.800 place in the world and they've been around for what 0:01:16.959 --> 0:01:22.080 four million years? Yeah, they're pretty durable. They've spread everywhere everywhere, 0:01:22.640 --> 0:01:25.680 and um, one of the ways that they have adapted 0:01:26.360 --> 0:01:31.679 is by generating new species. Yeah, like to the tune 0:01:31.680 --> 0:01:35.520 of forty thousand that we know about, and they're like, 0:01:35.800 --> 0:01:40.080 there may be thousands of more species, not just spiders 0:01:40.080 --> 0:01:43.240 species exactly. Um. They have a tendency to kind of 0:01:43.280 --> 0:01:46.319 take over an area because they're actually in their realm 0:01:46.400 --> 0:01:52.040 of existence, they're frequently apex predators. Yeah, I mean they're 0:01:52.080 --> 0:01:55.120 they're the uh, they're they've been lined the sharks and 0:01:55.160 --> 0:01:58.200 that they are robots that kill and eat and make 0:01:58.240 --> 0:02:01.360 baby spiders and sort of what they do in life. Yes, 0:02:01.480 --> 0:02:06.640 but they also do some pretty neat geometric designs. Their 0:02:06.680 --> 0:02:12.040 spiders are pretty fascinating, super creepy things. Yeah. That thing 0:02:12.120 --> 0:02:14.680 you sent the how they take over that? Um like 0:02:14.720 --> 0:02:19.680 that building? Yeah, the it was Baltimore's wastewater treatment plant. 0:02:20.000 --> 0:02:22.440 They took over four acres of it. It was abandoned, right, 0:02:22.600 --> 0:02:26.000 No oh really, Yeah, they just got a foothold in there. 0:02:26.320 --> 0:02:29.520 That happened while dudes were working in the building. Yeah, 0:02:29.560 --> 0:02:32.800 they said no, they noticed, but like they what are 0:02:32.800 --> 0:02:35.760 these guys gonna do? They're like wastewater treatment guys, not exterminators, 0:02:35.760 --> 0:02:38.519 So they didn't know what to doator, but they well 0:02:38.560 --> 0:02:43.040 they did. The Baltimore UM City was like, can anybody 0:02:43.040 --> 0:02:45.320 help with this week have something of a spider problem, 0:02:45.600 --> 0:02:49.560 and actually brought in some academics who determined that something 0:02:49.639 --> 0:02:54.200 like there were thirty five thousand spiders per cubic meter 0:02:54.600 --> 0:02:57.640 in that building. That is a ton of spiders, they 0:02:57.639 --> 0:02:59.640 were saying, and in this article, I think it was 0:02:59.680 --> 0:03:04.840 on why points out that these are mid career entomologists 0:03:05.400 --> 0:03:12.280 who um like have seen stuff before? Did they say? Etomologists? Entomologists? Right, yeah, 0:03:12.360 --> 0:03:15.520 yeah yeah, um. And they were like, I've never seen 0:03:15.600 --> 0:03:18.000 anything like this before my life. So they brought in 0:03:18.040 --> 0:03:21.720 the spider version of Quint from Jaws. Probably seems like 0:03:21.880 --> 0:03:25.400 you're gonna have to move, you have to kill the queen. Yeah, 0:03:25.639 --> 0:03:27.800 now I speak even he was like, where you guys 0:03:27.800 --> 0:03:29.960 gotta go? No, there's not a queen. Because I didn't 0:03:30.000 --> 0:03:31.840 realize this, but it makes sense when I hear it. 0:03:32.080 --> 0:03:35.680 Spiders lead solitary lives. They bow down to no one. 0:03:35.960 --> 0:03:38.000 They just do what they want to do yes, and 0:03:38.040 --> 0:03:43.960 spiders are not insects. They are arachnids in the class Arachneita, 0:03:44.880 --> 0:03:50.440 the order um arena. Even got told how to pronounce those. 0:03:50.480 --> 0:03:55.160 I think I think it's just a didn't that what 0:03:55.200 --> 0:03:58.440 the lady said. I think she said, like it it's 0:03:58.600 --> 0:04:02.839 pronounced like it looks okay, so it would be aaron a. Well, 0:04:02.880 --> 0:04:06.040 it's the same order as ticks that we've talked about 0:04:06.080 --> 0:04:08.960 in scorpions, which I would like to cover at some point. 0:04:09.080 --> 0:04:15.080 Scorpions and my what was that my scorpion? I thought 0:04:15.080 --> 0:04:18.920 you were gonna sing rocky like a hurricane. I've probably 0:04:18.920 --> 0:04:26.200 seen winds of change instead. Really, yeah, it's a good 0:04:26.200 --> 0:04:30.839 song man. I like a little harder. I like it 0:04:30.880 --> 0:04:37.360 all all scorpions, all the time. Alright. So spiders, because 0:04:37.400 --> 0:04:41.280 there are forty thousand species um, they obviously differ from 0:04:41.640 --> 0:04:44.920 the tiniest little thing to the the goliath bird eater 0:04:45.600 --> 0:04:48.120 of Australia, which is can be as big as a 0:04:48.160 --> 0:04:51.200 dinner plate. I think that's actually from South America. Oh 0:04:51.320 --> 0:04:55.120 is it? Uh huh? I thought those were Australian. Australia 0:04:55.160 --> 0:04:58.200 has plenty of spiders scary ones too, but the goliath 0:04:58.240 --> 0:05:01.599 bird eaters. Yeah, and it's called a bird eater because 0:05:01.640 --> 0:05:05.000 it can actually eat small birds. It does. It frequently 0:05:05.000 --> 0:05:08.880 eats some little baby birds, but those are still birds. 0:05:09.400 --> 0:05:12.080 And it's a spider eating a bird. There's a there's 0:05:12.120 --> 0:05:15.000 a video that we have on the podcast page um 0:05:15.040 --> 0:05:20.000 for this episode of a goliath spider eating a mouse 0:05:21.200 --> 0:05:24.560 and it it's it's remarkable. Yeah, dude, I saw one 0:05:24.720 --> 0:05:28.680 of a spider eating a viper snake what like the 0:05:28.720 --> 0:05:32.000 snake went into the hole and the tarantula one what 0:05:32.320 --> 0:05:36.400 And I mean they'll eat fish, they eat frogs and lizards. 0:05:37.360 --> 0:05:42.839 Insects obviously, Yeah, but they'll eat whatever. Yeah. Yeah, they 0:05:42.880 --> 0:05:45.159 do make it into a soup down it goes. Okay, 0:05:45.240 --> 0:05:47.120 So I think we've kind of laid the ground where 0:05:47.200 --> 0:05:53.440 care spiders are extraordinarily fascinating. You said they are arachnids um, 0:05:53.680 --> 0:05:56.520 which means that they're not actually insects. And the thing 0:05:56.560 --> 0:05:59.880 that differentiates them from insects is pretty simple. They don't 0:06:00.080 --> 0:06:03.680 have and a true thorax. They have a cephalothorax, right, 0:06:04.000 --> 0:06:06.760 which is the head and the thorax fused together, and 0:06:06.760 --> 0:06:10.680 then they have the abdomen. So spiders have two segments. Yeah, 0:06:10.920 --> 0:06:14.719 that's that's what makes them different. Yeah. And the the 0:06:14.760 --> 0:06:18.520 segments to me seemed what they housed seemed a little backward, 0:06:19.320 --> 0:06:22.520 like that rear segment the abdomen. I would have thought like, oh, 0:06:22.720 --> 0:06:25.600 that's where the stomach is and all that stuff. The stomach, 0:06:25.720 --> 0:06:27.640 the brain, the eyes, and the mouth are actually in 0:06:27.680 --> 0:06:31.200 the front cephalothorax, and the abdomen is where the heart 0:06:31.839 --> 0:06:36.360 and lungs, reproductive organs and digestive tract are. It seems 0:06:36.360 --> 0:06:38.080 so a little flip floppy to me. It's like a 0:06:38.120 --> 0:06:40.599 Ferrari where like the trunk is in the front and 0:06:40.640 --> 0:06:43.919 the engines in the back. Yeah, or a Volkswagen the 0:06:43.920 --> 0:06:46.640 same thing. Yeah. Yeah, well not all Volkswagons, but my 0:06:46.680 --> 0:06:49.479 old Beadle had the rear engine. It makes them go 0:06:49.480 --> 0:06:53.000 go go, yeah. Or it's air cold, so if it's 0:06:53.000 --> 0:06:57.359 super hot, it makes it stop stop stop. Yeah. Another 0:06:57.480 --> 0:07:00.120 thing that spiders have in common is they all have 0:07:00.200 --> 0:07:03.160 eight legs, although some of them it looks like they 0:07:03.160 --> 0:07:08.719 have ten pairs of legs. Oh no, I'm sorry, ten legs, 0:07:08.760 --> 0:07:11.720 five pair of legs, And what that is is actually 0:07:11.720 --> 0:07:14.480 they have something called petty palps. Oh yeah. Some of 0:07:14.480 --> 0:07:16.840 them are longer and look leggy. Right, So it looks 0:07:16.880 --> 0:07:18.920 like they have five pair of legs, but really it's 0:07:19.000 --> 0:07:21.280 four pair of legs and a pair of petty palps. 0:07:21.280 --> 0:07:24.360 And these things are basically it's like um, their four arms, 0:07:24.360 --> 0:07:28.000 their arms, it's like a squirrel. Imagine a squirrel, spidery 0:07:28.280 --> 0:07:31.400 little tiny little front arms. Yeah, eating a nut or 0:07:31.640 --> 0:07:36.480 a mouse or a viper um what else? All spiders 0:07:36.520 --> 0:07:39.679 spin silk, right yeah, but not all of them spin webs, 0:07:40.080 --> 0:07:42.000 right yeah, but they all of them are capable of 0:07:42.040 --> 0:07:44.920 creating silk, which we'll talk about. To me, that's the 0:07:44.960 --> 0:07:48.720 gold that's just amazing, and other there are other insects 0:07:48.720 --> 0:07:53.680 that can spin silk like silkworms. Nothing in nature is 0:07:53.800 --> 0:08:00.160 like spider silk, though it's strong, it's elastic. Um. For example, well, 0:08:00.200 --> 0:08:02.400 if you are a spider and you build a web, 0:08:02.760 --> 0:08:06.320 you can trap a bumblebee, a big old bumblebee at 0:08:06.360 --> 0:08:10.600 full speed, and your your um web will be able 0:08:10.640 --> 0:08:14.120 to withstand the impact. It's it's a huge, huge, massive 0:08:14.160 --> 0:08:17.960 impact and you're the tensile strength of your web is 0:08:18.000 --> 0:08:20.720 going to take it like nothing. Yeah. I think I 0:08:20.720 --> 0:08:23.160 saw one thing that said it was a hundred times 0:08:23.200 --> 0:08:27.360 stronger than a human ligament. That's strong. Yeah, stronger than 0:08:27.440 --> 0:08:32.400 steel even that's strong. But again that's a tease. We're 0:08:32.400 --> 0:08:35.560 gonna cover silk here in full. Um. But back to 0:08:35.640 --> 0:08:39.160 the body, my friend. Uh, Spiders breathe in a very 0:08:39.200 --> 0:08:42.880 basic way but fascinating. They have a trachea and what 0:08:42.920 --> 0:08:46.560 are called booklongs. Uh. Most of the species have both, 0:08:46.600 --> 0:08:50.760 some just have one. Um, but it's really a different thing. 0:08:50.880 --> 0:08:53.960 What what they do is air flows in uh through 0:08:54.040 --> 0:08:57.720 these basically slits and the exoskeleton, which is the trachea, 0:08:58.200 --> 0:09:01.360 and then there's just a lot of osmosis but diffusion 0:09:01.400 --> 0:09:04.760 bass exchange. Yeah, but it's not like I'm breathing in air. 0:09:04.880 --> 0:09:07.640 It's just air is being diffused in and CEO two 0:09:07.760 --> 0:09:10.319 is diffused out right, and the movement of the spider 0:09:10.360 --> 0:09:13.160 actually pushes air through these trichia. Yeah, it's not like 0:09:13.160 --> 0:09:15.640 a lung that breathes quote unquote. And then they do 0:09:15.760 --> 0:09:20.719 have most species have both trichia and booklongs. Um. But 0:09:21.440 --> 0:09:24.600 the booklung kind of is like an extra well, it's 0:09:24.600 --> 0:09:27.120 an extra lung. It's an extra place where gas exchange 0:09:27.160 --> 0:09:30.920 takes place. And um, they're called book lungs because it 0:09:30.960 --> 0:09:34.600 looks like an open book that's being flopped open, So 0:09:34.679 --> 0:09:39.439 there's different leads and um. Those leaves are filled with blood, 0:09:39.960 --> 0:09:42.800 but the exterior of them become in contact with air, 0:09:43.200 --> 0:09:45.920 so that's where the gas exchange takes place. Yeah. And 0:09:46.040 --> 0:09:50.600 speaking of the blood, it's called hemo lymph and it 0:09:50.720 --> 0:09:54.120 circulates O two and nutrients and hormones at all. But 0:09:54.320 --> 0:09:58.520 um again and sort of a fascinating way. It has 0:09:58.559 --> 0:10:02.080 a simple heart that's just like uh, pump in, pump out, 0:10:02.559 --> 0:10:05.320 and it basically just saturates all the organs and blood 0:10:05.559 --> 0:10:08.000 and that's where they get their oxygen. Yeah. It's not 0:10:08.040 --> 0:10:13.199 a closed system where like your your your arm is 0:10:13.240 --> 0:10:17.800 getting blood because blood vessels are are carrying or carrying 0:10:17.800 --> 0:10:21.240 blood to it. It's like your entire arm, everything beneath 0:10:21.280 --> 0:10:23.320 your skin would be full of blood. Yeah, and so 0:10:23.400 --> 0:10:26.360 everything in there that needs oxygen or hormones or whatever 0:10:26.360 --> 0:10:28.760 it is getting them just from being bathed in this stuff. Yeah, 0:10:28.840 --> 0:10:34.240 it's pretty remarkable. It is brains, they've got them. Yeah, 0:10:34.320 --> 0:10:38.800 they are tiny little brains, and some spiders are smarter 0:10:39.480 --> 0:10:43.840 than others, but in general, spiders, the way I read 0:10:43.840 --> 0:10:47.960 it was, are sort of like little chemically signaled robots 0:10:48.520 --> 0:10:50.719 it's just chemical signals flying all over the place that 0:10:50.800 --> 0:10:54.520 operate everything. I think the jumping spiders are the smartest one. 0:10:54.840 --> 0:10:58.680 Well yeah, and it's kind of making it's puzzling science. 0:10:58.760 --> 0:11:03.360 So there's they have ganglia. They don't even have true 0:11:03.360 --> 0:11:07.280 brains spiders exactly, and they're like little nerve bundles and 0:11:07.280 --> 0:11:11.360 that's where all their impulses are originate, and that transfers 0:11:11.360 --> 0:11:14.960 the signals to the rest of their body. Um. And 0:11:15.200 --> 0:11:20.040 in a jumping spider, the ganglia amounts to about a 0:11:20.120 --> 0:11:25.600 hundred thousand neurons, just tiny, tiny, tiny amount of brain power, 0:11:26.240 --> 0:11:29.360 and yet their vision is about on par with human vision. 0:11:31.200 --> 0:11:35.320 The jumping spider jumper, yes, the great They have eight 0:11:35.320 --> 0:11:40.040 eyes with almost three hundred and sixty degree vision um 0:11:40.120 --> 0:11:44.760 and they can see very clearly their surroundings. But again 0:11:44.840 --> 0:11:47.720 they're doing this with a hundred thousand neurons. So roboticists 0:11:47.760 --> 0:11:49.880 and a lot of other smart people are looking into 0:11:49.920 --> 0:11:52.520 this to see like where this sufficiency is taking place, 0:11:52.600 --> 0:11:56.080 Like how you can generate that level of clarity and 0:11:56.120 --> 0:12:00.000 information from just a hundred thousand neurons. Yeah, they think, um, 0:12:00.200 --> 0:12:02.840 they don't think. They know that. They like to drink 0:12:02.920 --> 0:12:09.199 human blood jumping spiders, but from mosquitoes, and supposedly by 0:12:09.280 --> 0:12:12.240 looking at a mosquito they can tell if it has 0:12:12.280 --> 0:12:16.719 blood in it or not, just from vision. Um and 0:12:16.720 --> 0:12:18.600 I don't think they figured that out either, but they've 0:12:18.600 --> 0:12:21.840 seen clearly that every experiment they go to the mosquito 0:12:21.880 --> 0:12:25.959 with the blood, which is remarkable, jumping like fifty times 0:12:26.000 --> 0:12:30.000 their body length to to pounce on whatever it is. Yeah, 0:12:30.120 --> 0:12:33.040 So imagine being a human and jumping even one time 0:12:33.120 --> 0:12:36.120 your own body length, your height, you know, like a 0:12:36.200 --> 0:12:41.320 standing broad jump. Yeah, but right, that's not gonna happen. 0:12:41.360 --> 0:12:44.000 These guys can do fifty times, and they do it 0:12:44.120 --> 0:12:49.920 quick to super fast. Spiders are amazing. Hey, maybe that's 0:12:49.920 --> 0:12:52.880 why they called the comic the Amazing Spider Man. Oh maybe. 0:12:53.040 --> 0:12:54.959 And it's funny. When I was reading all this stuff, 0:12:55.160 --> 0:12:57.760 every like ten seconds, I was like, oh, just like 0:12:57.840 --> 0:13:01.160 Spider Man, so clearly stand like to this research. Well, 0:13:01.200 --> 0:13:05.360 what's funny is like this this article by old Tom Harris. 0:13:06.000 --> 0:13:09.200 Um old Man Harris tries to like it compares like 0:13:09.320 --> 0:13:12.480 spiders to humans throughout the whole thing. Yeah, just like 0:13:12.559 --> 0:13:17.720 human spiders have a brain, but not really Yeah. Um And, 0:13:17.800 --> 0:13:20.600 speaking of Spider Man, I guess spidy sense is sort 0:13:20.600 --> 0:13:23.480 of what's uh really going on. They do have those 0:13:23.520 --> 0:13:26.959 eyes and while this jumping spider can see really well, 0:13:27.280 --> 0:13:31.080 most spiders it's a secondary sense and they use that 0:13:31.120 --> 0:13:35.000 spidy sense that can feel vibrations like remarkably well feel it, 0:13:35.120 --> 0:13:40.880 feel it is that good vibrations. Um. So they can 0:13:40.920 --> 0:13:45.040 sense anything from like a long way away and sort 0:13:45.080 --> 0:13:47.520 of know what it is, even especially if something's in 0:13:47.520 --> 0:13:51.040 the web. So they've got hairs all over their body right, Um. 0:13:51.080 --> 0:13:55.920 They also have additional hairs called trick of both for you. Yeah, 0:13:56.120 --> 0:13:59.960 and those the the hairs um the rest of their 0:14:00.040 --> 0:14:03.360 body or basically like, um, it's touching the ground, so 0:14:03.360 --> 0:14:05.920 we can sense like movement on the ground or vibration 0:14:05.960 --> 0:14:08.280 of the ground or in their web or something like that. 0:14:08.640 --> 0:14:13.240 But the trick of both the hair can sense movement 0:14:13.320 --> 0:14:15.920 in the air. Like. That's how sensitive this is. And 0:14:15.920 --> 0:14:20.240 this is how spiders really sense their environment. Yeah. And 0:14:20.360 --> 0:14:23.960 they can also taste, unlike snakes um the one that 0:14:24.000 --> 0:14:28.040 we just released, um and smell. Yeah, so they pretty 0:14:28.040 --> 0:14:31.800 well defined senses and they they really enjoy the taste 0:14:31.800 --> 0:14:35.400 of mouse brains, like they really save for it mouse 0:14:35.480 --> 0:14:40.080 brain soup. Uh, speaking of feet and legs, I had 0:14:40.120 --> 0:14:43.680 no idea this was the case. Um, they have this adaptation. 0:14:44.080 --> 0:14:46.760 Like we said, there are lots of thick hairs on 0:14:46.800 --> 0:14:50.560 the legs and um, at the bottom of each hair 0:14:51.600 --> 0:14:54.800 on the feet, well our feet. Yeah, so at the 0:14:54.920 --> 0:14:57.440 end of tons of hair at the end of each 0:14:57.520 --> 0:15:00.160 leg and they have eight legs, but on the end 0:15:00.160 --> 0:15:02.400 of each hair or a bunch of feet like you say, yeah, 0:15:02.400 --> 0:15:05.080 a little feet and then they can drip onto like anything, Yeah, 0:15:05.120 --> 0:15:08.120 except the bathtub. Was that a joke or something? Or 0:15:08.160 --> 0:15:10.120 is that like a well known thing about spiders that 0:15:10.160 --> 0:15:12.800 they can't walk on bathtubs, because I don't know what 0:15:12.840 --> 0:15:16.440 that means. I think bathtubs are a place where you 0:15:16.480 --> 0:15:19.160 find spiders a lot of times because they can't get out. 0:15:20.800 --> 0:15:22.680 So you'll be like, oh, there's a spider in the bathtub, 0:15:22.720 --> 0:15:25.440 and you see it just going near and sliding back down. 0:15:26.080 --> 0:15:27.280 So I think that was a bit of a joke, 0:15:28.600 --> 0:15:30.200 and that's my guess. Have you ever had one come 0:15:30.200 --> 0:15:33.720 out of the faucet the bathtub faucet? No, huh, that's 0:15:33.720 --> 0:15:37.360 always fun. I was terrified for a brief time as 0:15:37.360 --> 0:15:39.640 a kid because I went to turn on my bath 0:15:39.680 --> 0:15:41.480 water and like put my hand down and like a 0:15:41.520 --> 0:15:45.360 spider came out. And so for several years afterward, I 0:15:45.480 --> 0:15:49.200 was petrified. Yeah, I was just a stinky little boy. 0:15:51.000 --> 0:15:54.200 And that was last year. All right, So let's take 0:15:54.240 --> 0:15:57.160 a break and then after that we will talk about 0:15:58.200 --> 0:16:07.359 the malting process and a little it about spider silk. 0:16:17.680 --> 0:16:19.480 All right, are we at the skeleton? I think we 0:16:19.560 --> 0:16:23.560 are man exoskeleton. Yes, spiders have skeleton just like humans, 0:16:24.120 --> 0:16:27.320 except it's on the outside exactly. Um, and they move 0:16:28.120 --> 0:16:34.120 using muscles, right, but strangely they only half moved using muscles. Yeah, 0:16:34.160 --> 0:16:36.160 this was just so interesting to me. It seems like 0:16:36.160 --> 0:16:39.920 a mal adaptation. Oh yeah, yeah, like something they should 0:16:39.920 --> 0:16:44.280 be able to do. Yeah. Um, spiders are able to 0:16:44.320 --> 0:16:49.520 contract their muscles right, so they can move their legs inward, 0:16:50.480 --> 0:16:54.120 and that's how they take a step and then to 0:16:54.200 --> 0:16:58.160 complete the step. Rather than having muscles expand to move 0:16:58.200 --> 0:17:01.320 the legs outward, again, they don't. They all have those 0:17:01.400 --> 0:17:06.200 muscles for some reason. Instead, they pump hemo lymph into 0:17:06.240 --> 0:17:10.200 their legs using hydraulic pressure to force them back out. 0:17:10.480 --> 0:17:15.200 So muscles hydraulic pressure, muscles hydraulic pressure. It's so strange 0:17:15.359 --> 0:17:19.040 it is really strange, but it clearly works well. It works. 0:17:19.119 --> 0:17:24.680 Sometimes there's a spider can suffer from dehydration basically to 0:17:24.800 --> 0:17:29.160 where it doesn't have enough hemo lymph to um which 0:17:29.200 --> 0:17:32.840 is blood again to pump in to create the hydraulic 0:17:32.880 --> 0:17:35.840 pressure necessary to make its legs move out. So if 0:17:35.880 --> 0:17:37.359 you ever see a spider on its back with its 0:17:37.440 --> 0:17:41.160 legs all curved inward, that's a dehydrated spider right there, 0:17:41.480 --> 0:17:44.760 may handsome caterade. It may not be dead yet, basically 0:17:45.440 --> 0:17:48.680 right right, and he'll tell you too, not dead yet, 0:17:48.760 --> 0:17:51.439 Just poke it and then give him a drink and 0:17:51.480 --> 0:17:56.800 send him along his way. The exoskeleton itself is um 0:17:56.880 --> 0:18:02.239 made of cuticle, and it's basically proteins like kitan and 0:18:02.359 --> 0:18:07.040 sugars like polysaccharides, and they're just stretched out and layered 0:18:07.119 --> 0:18:10.000 upon each other to make it super strong. It's like 0:18:10.040 --> 0:18:13.399 a really strong shell. It is for protection, obviously, but 0:18:13.440 --> 0:18:17.840 the problem is that shell, once it's hardened, it doesn't 0:18:17.920 --> 0:18:22.920 keep growing, although the spider does so. Much like snakes 0:18:22.960 --> 0:18:27.440 and lots of other animals, spiders have adapted revolved to 0:18:28.119 --> 0:18:32.200 mold to get rid of their old exoskeleton and um 0:18:32.240 --> 0:18:35.159 a bunch of hormones trigger this. When it's time to 0:18:35.200 --> 0:18:39.879 start growing. Uh, the spider will, I think, just like 0:18:39.920 --> 0:18:44.399 a snake, start to absorb some of the inner layer 0:18:44.440 --> 0:18:47.719 of the exoskeleton, right, and it becomes a little liquefied, 0:18:47.920 --> 0:18:53.320 and they create this um, this fluid barrier between the 0:18:53.320 --> 0:18:57.720 old exoskeleton and the new exo skeleton that they're growing. Yeah, 0:18:57.840 --> 0:19:02.320 just like a little gap, basically a liquid gap, right exactly. 0:19:02.680 --> 0:19:07.440 And the as the new exoskeleton starts to get grow 0:19:07.480 --> 0:19:10.240 a little more and a little more, eventually absorbs that 0:19:10.440 --> 0:19:14.159 fluid and then now there's like a a gap, a 0:19:14.200 --> 0:19:16.960 real gap in between the all exo skeleton and the 0:19:16.960 --> 0:19:20.119 new one. Yeah, and then it's um it's basically trapped 0:19:20.160 --> 0:19:24.040 inside this old skeleton and does a little incredible hulk 0:19:24.160 --> 0:19:28.359 move where it pumps that the blood again the hemo 0:19:28.440 --> 0:19:32.520 lymph and expands the cephalothorax and it just like bust 0:19:32.560 --> 0:19:35.639 out of it and then just keeps wriggling around until 0:19:35.640 --> 0:19:38.960 it's completely out of it. But it's pants never fully 0:19:39.040 --> 0:19:45.040 rip off. That always bugged me. It's just so unlikely 0:19:45.080 --> 0:19:48.320 that a guy in like a thirty two ways can 0:19:48.400 --> 0:19:51.560 become this like tin foot giant, right, it just is 0:19:51.640 --> 0:19:54.240 like the lower calves and ankles were big enough to 0:19:54.359 --> 0:19:57.280 rip his pants into tatters down there? What about the 0:19:57.280 --> 0:20:03.080 waist and the thighs. No pulks would be naked, you know, technically, yes, 0:20:04.520 --> 0:20:07.600 And again Stanley really studied spiders, so you'd think he 0:20:07.640 --> 0:20:10.399 would know that about the hulks pants. But all right, 0:20:10.480 --> 0:20:12.959 so after they have molted um, this is when they 0:20:13.000 --> 0:20:16.920 do most of their growing because their new exoskeleton is um. 0:20:16.960 --> 0:20:19.560 It's not quite fully hard yet. It can expand a 0:20:19.560 --> 0:20:23.119 little bit at this point, but they're super vulnerable because 0:20:23.160 --> 0:20:24.960 it's not as hard at that point as well. Right, 0:20:24.960 --> 0:20:26.560 so they'll just kind of go off and be like, 0:20:26.640 --> 0:20:28.760 let me alone, let me alone, let me alone. I 0:20:28.840 --> 0:20:31.280 know him, the apex predator, but I've made a lot 0:20:31.320 --> 0:20:34.240 of enemies along the way. They are looking for me 0:20:34.359 --> 0:20:36.560 right now. So Chuck, we can't really put it off 0:20:36.560 --> 0:20:39.080 any longer. And I don't know why we would. Time 0:20:39.080 --> 0:20:42.960 to get silky. Yeah, we're gonna talk about spider silk. Uh. 0:20:43.000 --> 0:20:45.200 It's amazing. We talked already a little bit about its 0:20:45.400 --> 0:20:50.200 tensil strength, stronger than steel or kevlar um. And here's 0:20:50.240 --> 0:20:54.080 the neat thing is that it's actually a liquid when 0:20:54.080 --> 0:20:56.600 it comes out until you start stretching it and then 0:20:56.680 --> 0:21:00.359 it becomes a solid. Right, it's extruded from spiggott and 0:21:00.440 --> 0:21:05.199 the spiders um spinnerets. Right, So the spinnerets are um 0:21:05.920 --> 0:21:09.639 these little pairs of almost like arms or whatever that 0:21:09.720 --> 0:21:14.919 the spiders like this kind of yeah, As the silk 0:21:15.160 --> 0:21:19.120 is the silk which is made up of amino acids 0:21:19.160 --> 0:21:22.480 in like a water solution, like you said, when it's extruded, 0:21:22.880 --> 0:21:25.359 the spider can do all sorts of different things with this. 0:21:25.440 --> 0:21:30.080 And depending on how much um like pressure it applies 0:21:30.119 --> 0:21:31.879 that the spigot or whatever, it could be a really 0:21:31.920 --> 0:21:34.800 thin strand, it can be a thicker strand, it can 0:21:34.840 --> 0:21:37.680 be short long, it could be a thin strand encased 0:21:37.720 --> 0:21:40.240 in the thicker strand. They can do all sorts of 0:21:40.280 --> 0:21:43.880 really neat stuff with their um their silk, so much 0:21:43.920 --> 0:21:47.000 so that that researchers still aren't a hundred percent sure 0:21:47.480 --> 0:21:49.800 what the heck is going on here, but they just 0:21:49.920 --> 0:21:52.399 know that the spiders can do tons of different stuff 0:21:52.560 --> 0:21:56.040 with just the silk proteins alone and the extrusion. Once 0:21:56.119 --> 0:21:59.160 they come out, the spider can weed these things together 0:21:59.480 --> 0:22:03.000 to create even stronger thread and again, this is stuff 0:22:03.040 --> 0:22:09.119 that apparently it's uh several times stronger wait for weight 0:22:09.160 --> 0:22:13.920 than steel. Yeah, and kevlar. So it's five times as 0:22:13.920 --> 0:22:16.520 strong as an equal massive steel and twice as strong 0:22:16.520 --> 0:22:20.639 as an equal massive kevlar. And remember with them the 0:22:20.680 --> 0:22:25.520 bulletproof vest episode, we talked about using goat's milk to 0:22:25.560 --> 0:22:28.480 produce spider silk. Yeah, they're doing it. Yeah, they definitely are. 0:22:28.640 --> 0:22:32.000 They're not using it for uh, they haven't applied it yet, 0:22:32.520 --> 0:22:37.080 but they do have um goat farms. They basically found, uh, 0:22:37.160 --> 0:22:41.480 the genetic code specifically that creates the drag line. And 0:22:41.520 --> 0:22:44.320 the drag line is the um that's sort of the 0:22:44.359 --> 0:22:47.399 most common silk that it will spin. It's like a line. 0:22:48.040 --> 0:22:50.240 It's like a mountain climber's rope they'll leave behind them 0:22:50.680 --> 0:22:52.760 and in case it needs to like retreat quickly, it'll 0:22:52.760 --> 0:22:55.080 have a little rope to pull itself along. So that's 0:22:55.119 --> 0:22:59.520 the drag line. So they isolated the genetic code for 0:22:59.560 --> 0:23:02.800 this drag line, put that in the goat embryo implanet 0:23:02.840 --> 0:23:05.760 and a mama goat and the goat came out like 0:23:05.960 --> 0:23:09.080 why they don't even know? That's the beauty of it. 0:23:09.440 --> 0:23:11.520 They milk the goat and then from that point it's 0:23:11.520 --> 0:23:14.120 a little bit like making cheese um from what I saw, 0:23:14.720 --> 0:23:16.960 like they separate the they skim the fat off, and 0:23:16.960 --> 0:23:21.280 it's like separating curds from way and then potentially we 0:23:21.320 --> 0:23:25.920 could have like ligament replacement with spider or heart. Yeah, 0:23:26.000 --> 0:23:29.600 they're looking to regrow human hearts with this stuff. Can 0:23:29.600 --> 0:23:33.840 you imagine having a new heart grown from spider silk 0:23:34.040 --> 0:23:39.040 made from goat's milk pumping in your chest. It's pretty neat. Yeah, 0:23:39.359 --> 0:23:42.040 I think i'd tell people about that, be like, let 0:23:42.040 --> 0:23:45.200 me tell you about my new heart exactly. That's ado 0:23:45.320 --> 0:23:50.800 with spiders, goats and my poor diet a lot of 0:23:50.840 --> 0:23:53.840 steak um, which is not true. What do you mean 0:23:53.920 --> 0:23:56.639 misteak is not bad for you? Oh right right? Too 0:23:56.920 --> 0:24:00.639 much medic myth? Is that the deal? Yeah, fats and 0:24:00.680 --> 0:24:04.760 stuff like that. Uh. They think that the silk glands 0:24:04.760 --> 0:24:08.520 originally started out as just ways to mark territory, like 0:24:08.560 --> 0:24:11.840 a scent gland, and then they realize, I'm actually can 0:24:11.920 --> 0:24:15.600 leave a substance behind that's super strong. As it turns 0:24:15.600 --> 0:24:18.320 out super strong, and again also pound for pound, it's 0:24:18.359 --> 0:24:23.240 as flexible as um rubber, natural rubber. Yeah. So it's 0:24:23.240 --> 0:24:26.520 pretty amazing stuff. And again, the spider can do all 0:24:26.520 --> 0:24:28.080 sorts of different things with it. And one of the 0:24:28.080 --> 0:24:30.080 things you said is create the drag line, which is 0:24:30.119 --> 0:24:32.680 like a trail of bread crumbs for an emergency. Yeah, 0:24:33.040 --> 0:24:36.160 most spiders, that's the most common use of spider silk, 0:24:36.200 --> 0:24:38.800 I believe, across species. Right, just like I'm gonna go 0:24:39.080 --> 0:24:41.640 fifteen feet that way, and I'm gonna leave my little 0:24:41.680 --> 0:24:43.960 drag line behind in case I need to hide. Tell 0:24:43.960 --> 0:24:46.480