WEBVTT - Far Below: The London Underground Mosquito 0:00:03.080 --> 0:00:05.920 Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:05.920 --> 0:00:14.320 Works dot com. Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow 0:00:14.360 --> 0:00:16.960 your Mind. My name is Robert Land. I'm Joe McCormick. 0:00:17.120 --> 0:00:19.880 You know Joe. I've I've long held a fascination with 0:00:20.120 --> 0:00:24.040 underground transit system. Yeah, I like him too, Yeah, I 0:00:24.040 --> 0:00:27.560 mean there are a totally unique space they are, and 0:00:27.560 --> 0:00:29.000 it's you know, and it's one of those things that 0:00:29.120 --> 0:00:31.960 I grew up in a more of a rural environment 0:00:32.280 --> 0:00:35.120 and later in my life moved into urban environments where 0:00:35.120 --> 0:00:38.960 I actually have and have had access to these various 0:00:39.040 --> 0:00:42.360 underground train systems and have traveled to places, you know, 0:00:42.440 --> 0:00:44.760 such as such as New York and London where they 0:00:44.760 --> 0:00:48.040 have the most famous examples of the underground transit system. 0:00:48.080 --> 0:00:51.160 But no matter where I am in that timeline, they're 0:00:51.200 --> 0:00:53.960 always just as fascinating to me, whether there's something that 0:00:54.000 --> 0:00:56.680 I only see in a horror movie or something that 0:00:56.840 --> 0:00:58.760 is a part of my day to day life just 0:00:58.960 --> 0:01:02.680 getting to and on work. They are such a unique 0:01:02.840 --> 0:01:05.679 environment and such a cool thing. I'm the same way. 0:01:05.680 --> 0:01:09.039 I'm kind of fascinated with them when I so, I 0:01:09.240 --> 0:01:11.200 made it this far in my life without ever going 0:01:11.240 --> 0:01:13.920 to New York until this past year. I went to 0:01:13.959 --> 0:01:17.119 New York for the first time, and when I came back, 0:01:17.240 --> 0:01:19.440 like the main thing I wanted to talk to everybody 0:01:19.480 --> 0:01:22.440 about was the subway. I know. I was like, it's amazing. 0:01:22.520 --> 0:01:26.120 There's stations everywhere you you know, just just around the corner, 0:01:26.160 --> 0:01:28.080 you can go right in get to wherever you're going. 0:01:28.160 --> 0:01:30.640 It's it's like, this is how a city should work. Yeah, 0:01:30.680 --> 0:01:32.479 And it's also one of those cases where you grow 0:01:32.560 --> 0:01:35.120 up watching all these movies. It's such as such a 0:01:35.160 --> 0:01:39.040 location a fitting location for not only you know, horror 0:01:39.040 --> 0:01:42.440 and monsters and mutants and chuds, but but also just 0:01:42.720 --> 0:01:46.080 intrigued like interesting characters going places, and they do so 0:01:46.160 --> 0:01:49.360 by traversing the underworld. Who's that woman in the overcoat 0:01:49.400 --> 0:01:51.320 with the collar up at the other end of the station? 0:01:51.360 --> 0:01:53.280 Did she just look at me? What's going on? Am 0:01:53.280 --> 0:01:56.600 I being followed? But yeah, I like that you mentioned 0:01:56.640 --> 0:01:59.960 the chud's because that is another aspect of what's great 0:02:00.120 --> 0:02:05.280 about subway systems generally any underground transportation. Are there other 0:02:05.480 --> 0:02:08.359 underground ground I said that, as if there's like underground 0:02:08.400 --> 0:02:12.440 buses or canals. I'm not sure if there are, but yeah, 0:02:12.480 --> 0:02:16.280 so the the underground trains, the tunnels, the tube, all 0:02:16.320 --> 0:02:19.360 this stuff. When you go down into these spaces, it 0:02:19.520 --> 0:02:24.280 is that you're literally entering a sub world where there 0:02:24.400 --> 0:02:27.799 is a whole infrastructure. There's like a city under the city, 0:02:28.040 --> 0:02:30.880 and in many of the big stations, there are things 0:02:30.880 --> 0:02:33.800 in the stations underneath the city. Right, it's not just 0:02:33.880 --> 0:02:36.280 like the train comes by, but there's like little shops 0:02:36.320 --> 0:02:41.079 and encounters and stuff like that. Um, and it's uh, 0:02:41.320 --> 0:02:44.160 it's this whole other world that's divorced from the sun. 0:02:44.840 --> 0:02:49.280 It's separated by this solid barrier, and it's this alien 0:02:49.440 --> 0:02:53.360 environment where it seems like unnatural things could happen. Yeah, 0:02:53.400 --> 0:02:56.560 it's a true underworld. And we mis cycles around the 0:02:56.560 --> 0:03:01.080 world for for ages have have had tails of underworlds 0:03:01.120 --> 0:03:05.400 and uh and people that live underground, races that live underground, 0:03:05.800 --> 0:03:09.640 and it wasn't until relatively modern times that we made 0:03:09.680 --> 0:03:14.040 that truly possible. And they still have the mythic allure 0:03:14.360 --> 0:03:16.440 that they had, you know, back when they were just 0:03:16.480 --> 0:03:18.560 a dream. So is that what we're gonna be talking 0:03:18.560 --> 0:03:23.560 about today morelocks? Well in a sense because uh, because 0:03:23.560 --> 0:03:24.880 we are going to be taught, because we are going 0:03:24.960 --> 0:03:26.720 to bring this back around to science. We are going 0:03:26.760 --> 0:03:29.799 to talk about the the about the question what if 0:03:30.080 --> 0:03:34.760 a species becomes trapped in the underworld, what happens over time? 0:03:35.200 --> 0:03:39.440 Can it become a different species altogether? Can it become 0:03:39.560 --> 0:03:43.640 a subspecies? And we have one very interesting example of 0:03:43.720 --> 0:03:45.680 that current. All right, Well, one of the ways we 0:03:45.720 --> 0:03:47.960 know you can create a new species or a new 0:03:48.000 --> 0:03:52.560 subspecies is to significantly alter the environment in which you live, 0:03:52.720 --> 0:03:55.600 right And so this is, I guess, is why we're 0:03:55.640 --> 0:03:59.160 emphasizing this this alien world quality to the you know 0:03:59.240 --> 0:04:03.480 there are a natural underground systems. Yeah, indeed, and it's 0:04:03.640 --> 0:04:06.120 it's something that again we continue to read into it. 0:04:06.320 --> 0:04:08.280 We create these worlds and then when we stand back, 0:04:08.320 --> 0:04:10.680 when we say, wow, these are this is really strange 0:04:10.680 --> 0:04:13.800 what we've done here with this completely artificial environment underground. 0:04:14.400 --> 0:04:19.200 And countless writers and dreamers filmmakers have have taken that 0:04:19.320 --> 0:04:23.000 and explored that territory. Two examples that come to mind 0:04:23.160 --> 0:04:27.279 or Robert Barbara Johnson's a short story Far Below, which 0:04:27.279 --> 0:04:30.720 is about ghouls in the tunnels beneath us, beneath New 0:04:30.760 --> 0:04:33.440 York City. But when is that written? That was like 0:04:33.480 --> 0:04:35.800 a weird tale, like a classic weird tales story. I 0:04:35.800 --> 0:04:37.960 can't remember the publication date off hand, but it's like, 0:04:38.240 --> 0:04:42.480 you know, classic twentieth century marriagery weird fiction. Yeah. Cool. 0:04:43.080 --> 0:04:44.920 So that's a great one if anyone wants to check 0:04:44.920 --> 0:04:47.240 that out. And then if anyone out there, and I'm 0:04:47.279 --> 0:04:50.440 sure a lot of you are fans of Neil Gaiman's work, um, 0:04:50.960 --> 0:04:53.440 he has explored this as well, the idea that the 0:04:53.440 --> 0:04:58.640 the London Underground specifically is a gateway to a mystical 0:04:58.720 --> 0:05:02.039 fairy world. Yeah, why wouldn't it be? Yeah, And uh, 0:05:02.120 --> 0:05:04.719 you know a lot of this spills over into reality 0:05:04.760 --> 0:05:08.000 too and interesting ways. Uh you know. The author of 0:05:08.040 --> 0:05:11.279 Peter Ackroyd has is a wonderful book about London titled 0:05:11.320 --> 0:05:15.080 London a Biography, and he points out several different, just 0:05:15.240 --> 0:05:20.240 really weird, fascinating facts about the London Underground. Um. This 0:05:20.279 --> 0:05:21.880 is one of my favorite quotes that I always think 0:05:21.880 --> 0:05:24.240 about when I think about the Tube. He says, it 0:05:24.360 --> 0:05:28.279 is a strange city beneath the ground, perhaps best exemplified 0:05:28.600 --> 0:05:33.120 by worn man hole covers which, instead of reading self locking, 0:05:33.520 --> 0:05:37.920 spell out elf king, which is great. I just I 0:05:37.960 --> 0:05:40.440 can't shake that image of like looking down here's this 0:05:40.800 --> 0:05:43.680 man made portal into the underworld, and it says elf 0:05:43.800 --> 0:05:48.040 king like it literally, you know, names the it spells 0:05:48.080 --> 0:05:51.919 out the dominion of of this ancient fairy lord that's 0:05:51.960 --> 0:05:54.960 surely ruling over everything down below. I thought of just 0:05:55.040 --> 0:05:58.120 one more reason why subway tunnels are so intriguing. It's 0:05:58.120 --> 0:06:00.599 because you travel through them, but you don't get to 0:06:00.680 --> 0:06:03.720 explore them. You can't go on foot. Yeah, all you 0:06:03.760 --> 0:06:05.240 can do is look out. That's one of the things 0:06:05.279 --> 0:06:08.280 I love about traveling by underground train is you look 0:06:08.279 --> 0:06:10.960 out and inevitably there's like a forking tunnel, or there's 0:06:11.000 --> 0:06:14.280 some sort of strange door or work area, or wait, 0:06:14.320 --> 0:06:17.280 what's that? Yeah, what is that? Uh, that's that space 0:06:17.320 --> 0:06:19.320 off to the left here. And then you read about 0:06:19.360 --> 0:06:22.600 things such as ghost stations, of which there are several 0:06:22.880 --> 0:06:24.920 in in London, there are a few in New York. 0:06:24.960 --> 0:06:27.000 And what is that? It's a station that just isn't 0:06:27.080 --> 0:06:30.279 used anymore, just an empty station. Uh. And these occur 0:06:30.920 --> 0:06:33.000 with any train system also above the ground. But just 0:06:33.040 --> 0:06:36.760 the idea of going through this old place occupied now 0:06:36.800 --> 0:06:40.640 only by ghosts and maybe fading posters. It's just it's 0:06:40.680 --> 0:06:44.960 just so rich. Or maybe some insect more locks, that's true. 0:06:45.000 --> 0:06:48.320 That's true. We'll get to that now. One film in 0:06:48.360 --> 0:06:51.880 particular that comes to mind on this topic is a 0:06:52.240 --> 0:06:55.159 nineteen seventy two film by the name of Death Line, 0:06:55.240 --> 0:06:57.400 and in the US it came out under the title 0:06:57.560 --> 0:07:02.120 Raw Meat. And it's it's an interesting film. It's a 0:07:02.240 --> 0:07:06.400 it's about a family of cannibals descended from Victorian railway 0:07:06.480 --> 0:07:10.360 workers who wind up buried alive in the tunnels beneath London. 0:07:11.000 --> 0:07:14.080 And uh. And I know that sounds incredible, but believe 0:07:14.080 --> 0:07:15.880 it or not, the best part of the film, or 0:07:15.880 --> 0:07:18.160 at least as far as I'm concerned, is that Donald 0:07:18.200 --> 0:07:20.400 Pleasants is in it. And he plays instead of playing 0:07:20.480 --> 0:07:25.400 like a stuffy academic or some sort of nefarious egghead 0:07:25.920 --> 0:07:28.480 as he was wont to do. Uh, he plays a 0:07:28.480 --> 0:07:33.400 blue collar police inspector named Inspector Calhoun. I don't believe you. 0:07:33.400 --> 0:07:35.240 You know, you've got to check it out, he pleasant says. 0:07:35.280 --> 0:07:37.240 Blue collar. Like he goes and gets a pint of 0:07:37.280 --> 0:07:39.800 beer at the pub. There's like is I recall there's 0:07:39.840 --> 0:07:42.640 an extended sequence in which he and his friend go 0:07:42.720 --> 0:07:45.160 and get a get a beer at at the pub, 0:07:45.640 --> 0:07:48.240 and it seems to go on for a very long time, 0:07:48.240 --> 0:07:50.320 and I don't remember how it connects really to the 0:07:50.320 --> 0:07:52.720 plot of the film, but at the time it felt 0:07:52.840 --> 0:07:55.720 it felt as if the director was saying, Hey, this, 0:07:55.720 --> 0:07:57.920 this guy is more interesting than all this cannibal stuff. 0:07:58.080 --> 0:08:00.360 Let's just follow him for a while and then we'll 0:08:00.360 --> 0:08:03.160 come back to the to the to the weird cannibal dude. 0:08:03.200 --> 0:08:05.960 But with that voice back keep and now that pint 0:08:06.040 --> 0:08:08.040 of ale. How that he didn't he didn't talk like. 0:08:08.080 --> 0:08:10.240 That's one of the wonderful things about this. It's this, uh, 0:08:10.320 --> 0:08:14.040 this more lively pleasants, more lively than than pretty much 0:08:14.080 --> 0:08:16.800 any anything else I've seen him in. Okay, but he's 0:08:16.840 --> 0:08:20.120 not an underground cannibal. No, he's just the police inspector. 0:08:20.160 --> 0:08:23.240 All right, So where did the underground cannibals come in? Well, 0:08:23.720 --> 0:08:26.680 it's the Victorian workers, the guys, the people who got 0:08:26.720 --> 0:08:31.440 trapped underground. They have turned into a different subspecies of 0:08:31.520 --> 0:08:34.280 human down there, and essentially they look like caveman, so 0:08:34.320 --> 0:08:37.560 they haven't gotten full the descent here and turned into 0:08:38.040 --> 0:08:41.800 more ghoulish characters. But there's basically one of these guys left. 0:08:41.840 --> 0:08:44.679 He's the shaggy caveman of a dude, and he just 0:08:45.280 --> 0:08:50.880 goes about um kind of oozing from sores and growling 0:08:51.040 --> 0:08:55.120 and screaming and then attacking people and eating people. So 0:08:55.240 --> 0:08:59.319 if this is from Victorian times, obviously this would not 0:08:59.480 --> 0:09:02.680 be an enough time or enough generations to produce a 0:09:02.720 --> 0:09:08.839 true human subspecies adapted to underground tunnels to produce cannibalistic morlocks. 0:09:09.559 --> 0:09:13.000 Since Victorian times to the nineteen seventies, what would you 0:09:13.000 --> 0:09:17.440 have had a few generations? Yeah, And into the movie's credit, Yeah, 0:09:17.440 --> 0:09:21.440 they don't look like alien monsters. They look like shaggy humans, 0:09:21.920 --> 0:09:23.920 or the one that we see looks like a shaggy human. 0:09:24.400 --> 0:09:27.280 And uh, yeah, he goes about causing all this chaos. 0:09:27.280 --> 0:09:31.360 And it's a fair warning. It's a disturbingly violent film 0:09:31.360 --> 0:09:33.439 at times. It's a bit icky to watch. So you're 0:09:33.440 --> 0:09:36.080 not necessarily saying go out and watch it. Not necessarily, 0:09:36.080 --> 0:09:37.840 I mean, go go watch the trailer and if you 0:09:37.880 --> 0:09:40.400 can see a scene with pleasants in it, and if 0:09:41.800 --> 0:09:45.199 you know dark, violent, seventies hard is your thing, then 0:09:45.200 --> 0:09:47.800 do check it out. But but I bring it up 0:09:47.800 --> 0:09:52.199 because this ties directly into the real world science we're 0:09:52.200 --> 0:09:56.320 talking about today. The question you have a creature is 0:09:56.360 --> 0:10:00.280 locked away buried in the tubes beneath London, and it 0:10:00.360 --> 0:10:04.880 has time to undergo generation after generation of of change 0:10:05.000 --> 0:10:08.319 and adaptation. Can it become a different species? Can it 0:10:08.360 --> 0:10:12.800 become a subspecies? What happens when the dark underworld gets 0:10:12.800 --> 0:10:16.680 to do its work on natural world creatures? All right, 0:10:16.720 --> 0:10:18.280 well we should take a quick break and when we 0:10:18.320 --> 0:10:27.640 come back we will discuss the London Underground Mosquito. Okay, 0:10:27.679 --> 0:10:30.760 we're back. So the London Underground Mosquito is going to 0:10:30.840 --> 0:10:33.880 be what we're talking about today. You can probably guess 0:10:33.920 --> 0:10:36.760 from the name that it lives in the London underground. 0:10:37.040 --> 0:10:39.800 So what's the deal with the London underground Robert? Yeah, 0:10:39.800 --> 0:10:41.800 I suppose we should just back up a few steps 0:10:41.800 --> 0:10:44.760 and just talk about the tube itself, the environment and 0:10:44.880 --> 0:10:48.199 which it dwells. Indeed, this is uh, this was the 0:10:48.440 --> 0:10:52.240 world's first underground railway, opening in eighteen sixty three. Man, 0:10:52.320 --> 0:10:55.120 that's early. Yeah, I would not have believed that it's 0:10:55.160 --> 0:10:58.960 a It's grown and expanded significantly ever since then. And 0:10:59.000 --> 0:11:01.480 so today you've got to eleven lines collected and they 0:11:01.520 --> 0:11:05.080 collectively handle about four point eight million passengers a day 0:11:05.120 --> 0:11:08.200 through two hundred seventy stations and two hundred and fifty 0:11:08.240 --> 0:11:11.280 miles or four dred kilometers of track. Now, despite the name, 0:11:11.320 --> 0:11:14.520 it's worth keeping in mind that only fort of that 0:11:14.679 --> 0:11:17.960 is actually underground. There's plenty, plenty of plenty of track 0:11:18.040 --> 0:11:21.080 that goes above ground. But still that's a lot of 0:11:21.200 --> 0:11:24.600 underground track. Okay, So the London underground mosquito, that's the 0:11:24.640 --> 0:11:29.160 London underground part mosquito part. Okay, Yeah, let's talk about 0:11:29.200 --> 0:11:33.000 mosquitoes for a second. So what are they? Are they? 0:11:33.679 --> 0:11:36.559 That's some kind of elephant I can't remember. Well, it's 0:11:36.600 --> 0:11:39.920 interesting because the mosquito. We all know what the mosquito is. 0:11:40.080 --> 0:11:43.880 We all have a very close relationship with it. It is, 0:11:44.559 --> 0:11:46.520 or at least we have a very close relationship with 0:11:46.559 --> 0:11:49.040 a few types of mosquito. And that's key because the 0:11:49.040 --> 0:11:52.520 world is currently home to some thirty five hundred named 0:11:52.559 --> 0:11:56.680 species of mosquitoes, and of those thirty five hundred, only 0:11:56.840 --> 0:12:01.000 two hundred or so actually bother humans. But you know, 0:12:01.040 --> 0:12:04.120 we're kind of irresistible, right, like the mosquito. We thrive 0:12:04.200 --> 0:12:06.720 with these throughout most of the world, and we offer 0:12:07.000 --> 0:12:10.840 large expanses of relatively hairless skin, all of it coursing 0:12:10.920 --> 0:12:13.839 with delicious blood. Oh man, you don't usually think about 0:12:13.920 --> 0:12:18.640 hair as being such a protective mechanism against parasitism like that. 0:12:18.720 --> 0:12:20.560 But yeah, I mean, like, if you're a mosquito and 0:12:20.559 --> 0:12:22.599 you come up against something really hairy, that's almost like 0:12:22.640 --> 0:12:25.520 trying to get through barbed wire. And we're we're large 0:12:25.600 --> 0:12:28.920 organisms compared to you know, most organisms. We're we're large, 0:12:28.960 --> 0:12:32.320 relatively hairless, and we're everywhere, and so the mosquitoes everywhere. 0:12:33.000 --> 0:12:36.200 Now the most common genera here are going to be 0:12:36.480 --> 0:12:42.360 the awful ease Kulicks and the eighties mosquitoes. Now, mosquitoes 0:12:42.360 --> 0:12:45.400 obviously are accomplished flyers, and anyone who's ever tried to 0:12:45.480 --> 0:12:48.800 kill a mosquito can testify this. I had a as 0:12:49.040 --> 0:12:52.319 a tangent here when I was recently um in Barbados. 0:12:52.880 --> 0:12:58.040 I we largely didn't encounter mosquitoes at all, but we had, 0:12:58.200 --> 0:13:00.200 you know, the Zico virus in our minds that we 0:13:00.200 --> 0:13:02.600 were always on the lookout. And I was trapped in 0:13:02.640 --> 0:13:05.719 the room by myself at one point with one mosquito 0:13:06.200 --> 0:13:08.240 and it seems like it took forever for me to 0:13:08.240 --> 0:13:09.880 to kill it. I finally had to do that trick 0:13:09.920 --> 0:13:11.760 where you're like, all right, I'm gonna let you land 0:13:11.800 --> 0:13:14.559 on me. I'm gonna let I'm gonna I'm gonna let 0:13:14.559 --> 0:13:17.800 you feed or almost feed on me, and and I'll 0:13:17.800 --> 0:13:20.600 do it to protect my family from from me. I'll 0:13:20.640 --> 0:13:23.000 offer myself up as a sacrifice and then I will 0:13:23.080 --> 0:13:25.280 kill you. But that's that's often the only way you 0:13:25.320 --> 0:13:30.440 can get them. They're so surprisingly h skilled at at 0:13:30.440 --> 0:13:33.959 getting out of the way of our our slaps and snacks. Well, 0:13:34.000 --> 0:13:37.480 thanks for exposing me to Zeke and now Robert, that's 0:13:37.480 --> 0:13:40.040 all right. I was not infected, so maybe I killed it. 0:13:41.360 --> 0:13:44.520 It was one of you know, it was not infected itself. Well, 0:13:44.640 --> 0:13:48.560 you know, you do hear about how these mosquito species 0:13:48.600 --> 0:13:51.480 can traverse these long distances that you wouldn't expect In 0:13:51.559 --> 0:13:53.199 one of the things we were reading today, it was 0:13:53.240 --> 0:13:56.560 an exerpt from a book by a biologist named David Resnick, 0:13:56.559 --> 0:13:59.560 who will get into more detail about later, but he 0:13:59.640 --> 0:14:01.480 mentioned is the fact that you know, it used to 0:14:01.480 --> 0:14:04.600 be that Hawaii didn't have mosquitoes that would bite humans. 0:14:04.920 --> 0:14:08.400 Oh yeah, they got imported, not on purpose, I think, 0:14:09.000 --> 0:14:10.880 wouldn't that be a great thing. No, No, But they're 0:14:10.960 --> 0:14:13.920 like a lot of species. They they have a tremendous 0:14:13.920 --> 0:14:18.240 ability to hitch rides on human transports, so they've managed 0:14:18.280 --> 0:14:22.480 to invade whole new continents, uh, such as the invasive 0:14:22.560 --> 0:14:25.800 yellow fever carrying eighties at jip Di that you find 0:14:25.840 --> 0:14:29.160 in South America, which has been quite a problem. Um. 0:14:29.240 --> 0:14:31.440 They also the cool thing to keep in mind about 0:14:31.400 --> 0:14:34.960 mosquitoes is they benefit from an incredibly fast reproductive cycle. Now, 0:14:35.080 --> 0:14:37.640 this is going to be important once we start talking 0:14:37.680 --> 0:14:41.120 about the rates of evolution. That's right, Yeah, just how 0:14:41.560 --> 0:14:45.640 because for the rate of evolution to to really be visible, 0:14:45.760 --> 0:14:48.480 you have to have short periods, you have short lifespans 0:14:48.520 --> 0:14:52.280 and fast reproduction cycle. And uh yeah, indeed that's the 0:14:52.320 --> 0:14:54.160 case here. All they need is the tiniest bit of 0:14:54.200 --> 0:14:57.640 standing water, uh, you know, abandoned swimming pools, bird baths 0:14:57.680 --> 0:14:59.800 are great, but they'll also do just fine with a 0:15:00.000 --> 0:15:02.960 at bowl, even a candy wrapper, a small puddle, or 0:15:03.000 --> 0:15:05.680 even just a damp spot in the earth. They go 0:15:05.760 --> 0:15:10.320 through four stages, adults, water, surface eggs, subsurface larvae. They 0:15:10.360 --> 0:15:13.480 breathe through a kind of snorkele that pokes up through 0:15:13.480 --> 0:15:16.280 the surface of the water, and a pupa stage. Now 0:15:16.320 --> 0:15:20.400 they've been around roughly one million years. Isn't that great 0:15:20.440 --> 0:15:22.960 to think about? Well, actually, it's not all that unusual 0:15:23.080 --> 0:15:25.720 because we've all seen Jurassic Park. But had we not, 0:15:26.480 --> 0:15:29.680 wouldn't it be fascinating to think about these little insects 0:15:29.680 --> 0:15:32.800 biting dinosaurs? Yeah? You had just to think that this 0:15:32.800 --> 0:15:35.520 this is something that uh, they've been so good at 0:15:35.560 --> 0:15:39.600 for so long, and they're gonna they're not going away. Uh. 0:15:39.720 --> 0:15:42.920 The oldest evidence we have for blood feeding mosquitoes comes 0:15:42.960 --> 0:15:46.400 from a fossil that's known as proto mosquito, and this 0:15:46.480 --> 0:15:49.880 is from the Triassic period about two million years ago, 0:15:50.560 --> 0:15:53.760 so there were no flowering plants. So the elongated probiscus 0:15:53.880 --> 0:15:56.920 is thought to have functioned like modern mosquitoes, you know, 0:15:57.160 --> 0:15:59.320 for the drinking of blood. Oh you mean, so it's 0:15:59.360 --> 0:16:02.160 like sin. There weren't plants, It didn't it couldn't be 0:16:02.160 --> 0:16:05.840 like a hummingbird sticking its nose into something. If it's 0:16:05.840 --> 0:16:08.560 sticking its nose into something, it was probably something that 0:16:08.560 --> 0:16:11.040 had blood in it, right, that's the that's the theory. 0:16:11.560 --> 0:16:14.400 Now you'll find mosquitoes now and every continent except Antarctica. 0:16:14.520 --> 0:16:17.560 They thrive, and even our most exhaustive steps to eradicate 0:16:17.600 --> 0:16:20.560 them often only work in the short term because again 0:16:20.600 --> 0:16:24.040 they they're just so adapted, moving into new environments taking 0:16:24.040 --> 0:16:27.600 advantage of the smallest quantities of water. Okay, so we've 0:16:27.600 --> 0:16:31.040 got the two things there, the London underground the mosquito. 0:16:31.320 --> 0:16:35.600 Let's let's make these great tastes taste nasty together. Yeah, So, 0:16:35.600 --> 0:16:38.000 first of all, let's talk about the surface mosquito before 0:16:38.000 --> 0:16:41.520 we talk about the you know, subsurface variant. All right, 0:16:41.560 --> 0:16:45.520 So the species we're talking about is Coolex pipians and 0:16:45.560 --> 0:16:48.640 according to biologist David Resnick, who I'll cite more deeply, 0:16:48.800 --> 0:16:51.960 especially towards the end of this episode, uh pippians is 0:16:52.000 --> 0:16:55.200 the single most widespread mosquito in the world. It's all 0:16:55.240 --> 0:16:58.360 over the place. It is a disease vector known to 0:16:58.360 --> 0:17:01.640 spread Westnile virus as well as some forms of encephalitis 0:17:01.640 --> 0:17:05.520 and meningitis. And it mates in these big swarms that 0:17:05.600 --> 0:17:08.560 take place out in open areas, and then it deposits 0:17:08.560 --> 0:17:11.680 its fertilized eggs in the form of a floating raft 0:17:11.760 --> 0:17:15.760 of eggs on still water. Resinic rather elegantly, I think 0:17:15.880 --> 0:17:20.520 lists quote untended bird baths, forgotten buckets in the backyard, 0:17:20.920 --> 0:17:26.640 discarded automobile tires, clogged, rain gutters, or wherever else. Fetid, stagnant, 0:17:26.640 --> 0:17:31.080 water accumulates. I love that. One of my favorite words 0:17:31.160 --> 0:17:35.359 is fetted. That's really good. Now, once these rafts of 0:17:35.520 --> 0:17:38.199 eggs start to hatch, they turn into, as you mentioned 0:17:38.240 --> 0:17:41.359 in the general mosquito life cycle earlier, the water dwelling 0:17:41.440 --> 0:17:45.120 larva stage. And these larva eat these eat small things 0:17:45.119 --> 0:17:47.880 that live in the water, you know, eat microbes for sustenance. 0:17:48.240 --> 0:17:51.520 And then about ten days into the larval stage and 0:17:51.560 --> 0:17:53.880 they come out of the water as adults begin feeding 0:17:54.119 --> 0:17:58.080 and being the breeding process. So the females seek out 0:17:58.080 --> 0:18:02.040 a blood meal, which in wholes pipians almost always comes 0:18:02.080 --> 0:18:05.720 from a bird. Why well, because bird blood is good stuff. 0:18:05.800 --> 0:18:08.200 Don't be a food snob at the cool ex Pippians. 0:18:08.600 --> 0:18:10.760 After you've got a blood meal from a bird, you've 0:18:10.760 --> 0:18:13.600 got enough nutrition to invest in forming some eggs. And 0:18:13.640 --> 0:18:16.920 this is important because it goes blood meal then eggs. 0:18:17.000 --> 0:18:20.200 You need the blood in order to make the eggs. Uh. 0:18:20.240 --> 0:18:22.160 And then once you've got the eggs, you can start 0:18:22.200 --> 0:18:25.480 the whole process over again with a mating swarm or 0:18:25.520 --> 0:18:28.760 what I think should be called a swargy. I like 0:18:28.880 --> 0:18:33.159 that swargy and it is it is worth noting the 0:18:33.200 --> 0:18:36.920 whole male female mosquito thing here, right, because the females 0:18:37.119 --> 0:18:40.399 are the ones that that feed on blood. The males 0:18:40.440 --> 0:18:42.480 do not. And you're one, what are the males that 0:18:42.520 --> 0:18:45.080 if they don't eat blood, well, they depend they feed 0:18:45.119 --> 0:18:50.000 on flowers and plants, many many, A beautiful swamp orchid 0:18:50.400 --> 0:18:54.640 depends on mosquitoes for the pollination, so that the blood 0:18:54.840 --> 0:18:59.200 is directly tied to the reproductive cycle of the female. Right. 0:18:59.280 --> 0:19:02.240 So now in London there appears to be a totally 0:19:02.280 --> 0:19:05.360 normal form of this species found on the surface doing 0:19:05.400 --> 0:19:08.800 all the normal stuff, feeding on birds, getting the blood 0:19:08.840 --> 0:19:13.760 meal before reproducing, and that's standard Koulex pippions pippions, But 0:19:13.920 --> 0:19:18.600 they're also appears to be a subterranean variant of this 0:19:18.720 --> 0:19:23.840 species in the London underground, that's right. And londoners uh 0:19:24.119 --> 0:19:28.359 supposedly first discovered them during the blitz of World War two. 0:19:28.920 --> 0:19:32.400 So German bombers terrorized the night skies and and roughly 0:19:32.480 --> 0:19:35.439 one roughly one hundred and eighty thousand people sheltered in 0:19:35.440 --> 0:19:38.120 the tunnels, just as they had during World War One. 0:19:38.240 --> 0:19:41.600 Can you imagine that It's like you're you're fleeing bombing 0:19:41.680 --> 0:19:44.879 of your city, and the last thing you want is 0:19:44.920 --> 0:19:47.320 to be swarmed with mosquitoes in the dark, I know. 0:19:47.440 --> 0:19:49.359 And that's what happened. They had to contend with not 0:19:49.400 --> 0:19:52.440 only some mosquitoes, but apparently lies and ticks. Uh. And 0:19:52.720 --> 0:19:56.080 everyone knows about rats in the subways and sewers to 0:19:56.119 --> 0:19:59.920 go back to my perhaps h you know, childish and 0:20:00.040 --> 0:20:04.040 enthusiasm for underground transportation. I always get a little excited 0:20:04.040 --> 0:20:06.639 when I see a subway rat, even though I know 0:20:06.760 --> 0:20:09.040 you're not supposed to see one, and it's bad, it's 0:20:09.119 --> 0:20:11.840 you know, it's it's an infectious road and and all that. 0:20:12.000 --> 0:20:14.280 But I still get excited because it's like, it's it's 0:20:14.280 --> 0:20:16.800 like seeing a unicorn. I don't know what. So, I 0:20:17.119 --> 0:20:18.919 don't like to see a rat in my house, but 0:20:19.040 --> 0:20:22.640 when I see a rat scamper across the marta tracks like. 0:20:22.800 --> 0:20:25.400 I love that feeling of seeing it dart out from 0:20:25.440 --> 0:20:27.959 cover and go to somewhere else, I'm like, yeah, go buddy. 0:20:28.280 --> 0:20:30.840 It's like that scene in in the Last Unicorn. You 0:20:30.840 --> 0:20:32.879 remember at the beginning where the the old man and 0:20:32.880 --> 0:20:35.639 the younger hunter glimpse the unicorn in the distance and 0:20:35.680 --> 0:20:38.680 the the old man like takes the man the kid 0:20:38.720 --> 0:20:42.000 aside and says, you've seen something special today. There are 0:20:42.040 --> 0:20:43.840 not many of them left in the world, you know. 0:20:44.119 --> 0:20:48.360 It's that's how I feel about the subway rat. Now. 0:20:48.400 --> 0:20:51.680 So you say, people notice these mosquitoes in the underground 0:20:51.760 --> 0:20:54.240 in World War two? But is that when they were 0:20:54.240 --> 0:20:57.119 first there or were they there before? Then the mosquitoes 0:20:57.119 --> 0:20:59.640 are the people the mosquitoes? Okay, because it is because 0:20:59.680 --> 0:21:01.480 again I I do want to point out that world 0:21:01.480 --> 0:21:04.760 War One you saw similar to the tune of a 0:21:04.800 --> 0:21:07.960 third of a million Londoners going down there. And there's 0:21:07.960 --> 0:21:12.240 a wonderful quote here that I ran across from from 0:21:12.240 --> 0:21:15.240 Ackroyd's book. But he points out that Philip Ziegler in 0:21:15.320 --> 0:21:18.600 the book London at War related that quote. One of 0:21:18.600 --> 0:21:21.720 the principal fears of the authorities is that a deep 0:21:21.840 --> 0:21:25.879 shelter mentality might grow up and result in paralysis of 0:21:25.920 --> 0:21:28.600 the will among those who succumbed to it. It was 0:21:28.640 --> 0:21:32.399 also suggested that the underground Londoners would grow hysterical with 0:21:32.480 --> 0:21:35.159 fear and would never surface to perform their duties. So 0:21:35.200 --> 0:21:38.080 they were actually afraid of something sort of like the 0:21:38.160 --> 0:21:41.760 raw meat scenario, like death line that that people would 0:21:41.760 --> 0:21:45.160 go down there to take shelter and that they would 0:21:45.160 --> 0:21:47.439 just not be able to come back up. Yeah. And 0:21:47.440 --> 0:21:49.760 I think this it's important to note in looking at 0:21:49.760 --> 0:21:52.280 a film like like Death Line. Uh. And it feeds 0:21:52.320 --> 0:21:58.360 into just sort of the the industrial age paranoia of 0:21:57.760 --> 0:22:01.520 of of of the English and and really modern Western life, 0:22:01.560 --> 0:22:04.800 the idea that we're we're changing our world through this 0:22:04.880 --> 0:22:08.880 industrial movement, our cities are becoming these inhuman places, and 0:22:09.280 --> 0:22:12.840