Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to another episode of the Ologies Podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm your host, Ali Ward, and my name is Ali Ward.
Speaker 1: This is the Ologies podcast. So last week I did
Speaker 1: not put up an episode. I just took a week
Speaker 1: off and kind of caught up from holiday break and
Speaker 1: squirreled away some more episodes for the future, like lit
Speaker 1: Winter Acorns. So thank you guys for being patient, and
Speaker 1: also for anyone in the LA area. I'll be doing
Speaker 1: a really really quick, short live show. I'm just doing
Speaker 1: a storytelling show for public school on Wednesday, December sixth
Speaker 1: and RSVP at Public school Show dot Com. It's at
Speaker 1: the Virgil and I'll just be doing a quick storytelling
Speaker 1: show just like five minutes. But they just asked me
Speaker 1: to do it and I said sounds fun. So if
Speaker 1: you're in La Wednesday night, then Public school Show dot
Speaker 1: Com has more information on that. Come say hi. Perhaps
Speaker 1: you'll meet some fellows Angelino Ologites. I have no idea
Speaker 1: what story I'm gonna tell because I said yes about
Speaker 1: two minutes ago, so we'll see how it goes. Anyway,
Speaker 1: that's Wednesday, December sixth. Okay on the episode. In this episode, mom, dad,
Speaker 1: don't listen. We're gonna talk about bug mating and it
Speaker 1: gets real candid. Okay, cool, see you next week. Okay, bugs,
Speaker 1: bugs bu bugs. Bugs. So you may not know yet,
Speaker 1: I'm really nuts about bucks. I love them. I had
Speaker 1: a fascination as a kid, and I got bug books
Speaker 1: for every holiday, every birthday, and my walls are covered
Speaker 1: in bug posters and dead things. So this week's topic
Speaker 1: is one of my favorite ologies, of course, But more importantly,
Speaker 1: this particular ologist honestly changed the.
Speaker 2: Course of my life.
Speaker 1: She was just a friend of a friend at one
Speaker 1: point a few years ago, and she invited me one
Speaker 1: day to the merry bowels of the Elli County Natural
Speaker 1: History Museum. In this lab that was off line to
Speaker 1: the public, it was an insectory. Now, okay, this room
Speaker 1: is like a really well lit silence of a lamps set.
Speaker 1: It's a bug lover's dream. There are terrariums of millipedes
Speaker 1: and cockroaches. There's butterfly chrysalisses hanging like these tiny chandeliers.
Speaker 1: There's dragonfly naiads and gurgling tanks. There's a freezer full
Speaker 1: of sadly passed tarantula's. And I was going through a
Speaker 1: really rough time in my life. A couple of years ago,
Speaker 1: my dad was just diagnosed with multiple myeloma. I was
Speaker 1: going through a breakup that was just the saddest thing ever,
Speaker 1: and not knowing any of this this, Entomologists casually suggested
Speaker 1: that I volunteer at the museum, and I did, which
Speaker 1: is so weird because I could never commit to anything,
Speaker 1: but I just wanted to find some way to cheer
Speaker 1: the fuck up, and volunteering for zero dollars an hour,
Speaker 1: no stakes, talking to kids about bugs one morning a
Speaker 1: week is the only thing that seemed to help. It
Speaker 1: totally changed my life, no joke. After doing it for
Speaker 1: a few months, I somehow was offered a job as
Speaker 1: a science correspondent for CBS. I'm doing exactly what I
Speaker 1: wanted to do since I was twelve, all because I
Speaker 1: took this tour, it and in sectory. So I recorded
Speaker 1: this episode of Ologies first. This is the first one
Speaker 1: I ever recorded in a sound studio with mics that
Speaker 1: were like a little too good. I wanted her to
Speaker 1: be my first ologist because it was so special to me,
Speaker 1: and now I'm having her on. I think this is
Speaker 1: like the tenth episode. I kept holding it because I
Speaker 1: just was afraid the episode wouldn't honor her enough. And honestly,
Speaker 1: I hadn't re listened to this since we recorded it
Speaker 1: months ago. At the time we recorded it in this
Speaker 1: sound booth, drinking like celebratory terrible champagne. Listening back, I
Speaker 1: realized I loved this interview. It's one of my favorites.
Speaker 1: And I can also tell I was trying to sound
Speaker 1: like a little more cool than I felt inside. Now
Speaker 1: that we're a few so it's in like I just
Speaker 1: I don't play it cool. So you're welcome, and I'm sorry. Now.
Speaker 1: Entomology study of bugs, sometimes called bugology, but come on,
Speaker 1: no one calls it that. The etymology of entomology is Greek.
Speaker 1: It means to cut up into little pieces, which is
Speaker 1: not what you do when you find a bug in
Speaker 1: your face, but rather it's a reference to insect's body
Speaker 1: being cut or segmented, so having a notch at the waist.
Speaker 1: There you go. This guest is an entomologist. She's now
Speaker 1: the manager of Citizen Science at the Natural History Museum
Speaker 1: in Los Angeles. So get ready to hear about bugs.
Speaker 1: Hari Krishna's we'll talk about some terrible mating behaviors licking cockroaches,
Speaker 1: what is citizens science, how to be an amateur scientist,
Speaker 1: and why bugs should be your friends?
Speaker 2: So please ready.
Speaker 1: Your heart and your ears for Leela Higgins. If someone
Speaker 1: at a cocktail party were like, what, what's your deal?
Speaker 1: What would you tell them?
Speaker 2: Hmmm? Well it depends on how many cocktails I'd had
Speaker 2: at said cocktail partty. But usually I, you know, I'm like,
Speaker 2: I'm bug geek. Usually there's no children at cocktail parties,
Speaker 2: but sometimes there are, and then they're like, oh, I'm
Speaker 2: gonna go hang out with the children now and talk
Speaker 2: all about bugs for the next you know, a couple
Speaker 2: of hours.
Speaker 1: That's actually a good question I have. I just complimented
Speaker 1: my own question. This is an important question I have.
Speaker 1: Why are kids owing to bugs and adults are like
Speaker 1: kill it with fire? What's that? What happens?
Speaker 2: I think? I mean, I was really into bugs as
Speaker 2: a kid. I grew up on a farm in England
Speaker 2: and I dug up ant nests trying to find the queen.
Speaker 2: I like, would put glasses over bumblebees to observe them.
Speaker 2: I would try to follow the butterflies down the lane
Speaker 2: and see where they were going.
Speaker 1: And then so that sounds idyllic. It's fun like following
Speaker 1: a butterfly down a lane in England? Are you kidding?
Speaker 2: To the woods? Basically, not the scary woods. There were
Speaker 2: badges down there.
Speaker 1: Say your biggest child predator were badgers in England? Basically, yes,
Speaker 1: No clowns.
Speaker 2: I don't think I ever saw a clown.
Speaker 1: So what happens? Do people go through puberty and they
Speaker 1: decide that they hate spiders?
Speaker 2: I think some people do. I was thinking a lot
Speaker 2: about my kind of trajectory and I totally kind of
Speaker 2: fell off the wagon in high school. I was trying
Speaker 2: to remember if I had any memories of insects from
Speaker 2: high school, and the only things I could think of
Speaker 2: were like the hip hop.
Speaker 1: So Leela was really into this band called Diggable Planets
Speaker 1: and they had members who were called Butterfly, lady Bug, Doodlebug.
Speaker 1: She also liked wood tangs, killer bees.
Speaker 2: And that's like, literally the only things I can remember
Speaker 2: from high school to do with insects.
Speaker 1: You didn't listen to the Beatles or the Scorpions or anything.
Speaker 1: At what point do you remember being like, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: be an entomologist.
Speaker 2: I didn't even know that was a thing. I really kid. Nope,
Speaker 2: did not have I mean neither of my parents. My
Speaker 2: dad went to like agricultural college for like a hot second.
Speaker 2: I'm sure he got kicked out for doing naughty things.
Speaker 2: My parents were Harry Christna's what uh yeah, what for
Speaker 2: how long? Undetermined? Because I think my dad still's partly
Speaker 2: you know, involved. What does that mean to be a
Speaker 2: Harry Krishna. I feel like there's just a lot of
Speaker 2: brown rice in singing, but I don't know. I've never
Speaker 2: i brown rice through Harry Christnas. I always always a
Speaker 2: white rice to Harry Christna's, so well, then I'm wrong.
Speaker 2: But there's a lot of really good food. There is
Speaker 2: a lot of like singing and symbol little mini symbol
Speaker 2: finger symbols and incense and worship and chanting. But my
Speaker 2: mother was like, no, I want you to go to
Speaker 2: regular school. And I'm like, thank you, mommy.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I was gonna say, it sounds more like a
Speaker 1: lifestyle than a religion. It sounds aromatic.
Speaker 2: People ask me a lot of questions about, well, what
Speaker 2: are the tenets of the religion. I'm like, I don't
Speaker 2: really know.
Speaker 1: I know some things I knew nothing about Harry Krishna's nothing.
Speaker 1: So I googled what are Harry Krishna's Okay, so I'm
Speaker 1: going to give you a rundown. It's the International Society
Speaker 1: for Krishna Consciousness. The other thing is called it's a
Speaker 1: type of Hinduism, and it was founded in the mid
Speaker 1: sixties in this exotic place called New York City. And
Speaker 1: it has four regulative principles. Number one, no meat eating,
Speaker 1: including fish or eggs, No gambling, no intoxicants, No illicit sex,
Speaker 1: including that which is not for the procreation of children,
Speaker 1: including in marriage. So it sounds like a party. I
Speaker 1: was still convinced that Harry Krishnas eat a lot of
Speaker 1: brown rice, and I looked it up and the first
Speaker 1: search return was brown rice is for the animals, So, okay,
Speaker 1: I was off the mark there. Ps George Harrison went
Speaker 1: to their temple.
Speaker 2: Okay, I was a teenager and I didn't want to
Speaker 2: be there, and I was really annoyed at my dad.
Speaker 2: You know, typical teenager crap.
Speaker 1: So I'm I think most teenagers get annoyed that their
Speaker 1: dads are Harry Christian. I think it's really common. So wait,
Speaker 1: at what point were you at?
Speaker 2: What?
Speaker 1: At what point? Did did you decide to take this path?
Speaker 1: And also if your parents were kind of like in
Speaker 1: this old religion, was it weird to be a science kid?
Speaker 2: Imber So I remember when I was like, I'm going
Speaker 2: to be a scientist. But at that point, again, I
Speaker 2: didn't realize the entomology was an option. I had this
Speaker 2: this teacher in high school in England, and high school
Speaker 2: starts a little earlier than it does here in America.
Speaker 1: Because you have nine hours ahead. It starts nine hours,
Speaker 1: eight hours.
Speaker 2: And I forgot his name, but he had kind of
Speaker 2: like crazy Einsteinian hair that was like all over the place.
Speaker 2: He would wear like a big velvet purple bloat bow tie.
Speaker 2: He had the you know, the shorts coat that had
Speaker 2: the corduroy elbow patches. One day he took me aside
Speaker 2: and he's like, Leila, you're good at science. You need
Speaker 2: to study science. And I was like, oh yeah, I do.
Speaker 2: I love science. I love dissecting daffodils.
Speaker 1: Quick question, was he Willy Wonka? Was he actually really Wonka?
Speaker 2: Literally looks like Willy Wonka in my head, but he
Speaker 2: looks a tiny bit different because he wasn't. He's not
Speaker 2: Gene Wilder.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you were touched by the hand of a
Speaker 1: science angel. Yes, and he said you're good at this,
Speaker 1: and you're like, you're right, I'm amazing.
Speaker 2: I don't think I said that, but it was at
Speaker 2: the same right around the same time when they're telling
Speaker 2: us that we had to pick Koreas and I had
Speaker 2: literally been looking at being a hotel manager.
Speaker 1: Oh fuck that. I mean, it's good if.
Speaker 2: You can do it, but I'm pretty happy with where
Speaker 2: I am in my career, and if I was a
Speaker 2: hotel manager, I think it would be I don't know,
Speaker 2: I don't think it would be as fulfilling for me.
Speaker 1: Right then, when Lea went to college, she got back
Speaker 1: into entomology and she ended up at UC Riverside and
Speaker 1: found out that they have a really great program where
Speaker 1: she could study bugs for four years. And she was like, oh, dude,
Speaker 1: it is on What is the most fulfilling thing about
Speaker 1: being having studied bugs?
Speaker 2: Well, getting to work at the Naturist Museum and being
Speaker 2: around other bug geeks and getting to go into the
Speaker 2: collection and pull out drawers and see just these spectacular
Speaker 2: specimens from all over the world, whether they're you know,
Speaker 2: the big showy things that the crowd pleases, or whether
Speaker 2: it's the hundreds of tiny little wasps or tiny little flies.
Speaker 1: Is it like being like when you see bad rom
Speaker 1: coms about women in jewelry stores drilling? Do you feel
Speaker 1: like that when with bug collections?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I definitely would not be sitting in a jewelry
Speaker 2: shop looking at rows of diamond rings and being like
Speaker 2: I want that one or that one. I'm definitely looking
Speaker 2: at the bugs. I'm like, oh my gosh, look at
Speaker 2: this beetle.
Speaker 1: Look at this mother beetle, whether it's elytra eleikra being.
Speaker 2: The hardened sheath like wing coverings the outer wings of
Speaker 2: a beetle.
Speaker 1: I have a question, what's a show stopping bug? When
Speaker 1: you say like the showstoppers, what are you talking about?
Speaker 2: So like goliath beetles or hercules beetles, Like some of
Speaker 2: these beetles that are almost the size of our fist,
Speaker 2: huge giant And then when holding one of those large
Speaker 2: beetles in your hand, it's you're just like, oh my god,
Speaker 2: it's so much stronger than I thought it was gonna
Speaker 2: be a little bit scary stronger, Like have any.
Speaker 1: Tried to use their huge jaws powerful jaws to say.
Speaker 2: Hello, I'm pretty good about not touching that end. Okay,
Speaker 2: ones that have large mandibles, especially large slicy mandibles.
Speaker 1: Slicy mandibles, keep away from that.
Speaker 2: Hold them in the the well because you were saying
Speaker 2: the endem thin waisted. So beetles don't really have a
Speaker 2: thin waist. They're pretty fat around the waist.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they got a badonka.
Speaker 2: So you hold hold them on that fat beIN you're like, oh,
Speaker 2: keeping far away from many manibals that you might have
Speaker 2: them might want to bite me.
Speaker 1: I have a question about insects. Are what half of
Speaker 1: all species of living animals on earth? Something like that.
Speaker 2: I just know that there's about a million described species,
Speaker 2: but they estimate that could be up to like ten million.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so they outnumber mammals and fish, way and birds
Speaker 1: and birds, yeah, etcetera, et cetera. So in nineteen forty nine,
Speaker 1: John Burdon Sanderson Haldane was a British evolutionary biologist, and
Speaker 1: he was credited as noting that God, if one exists,
Speaker 1: has an inordinate fondness for beetles. He actually like laid
Speaker 1: it out, said the creator would appear as endowed with
Speaker 1: a passion for stars on the one hand, and for
Speaker 1: beetles on the other, God is just in a shack
Speaker 1: in the backyard, tinkering over and over, being like, man
Speaker 1: cannot get enough of these beetles, can't stop making them.
Speaker 1: I can't stop so much. I guess I should stop
Speaker 1: wars from happening. But it's gonna keep making these beetles.
Speaker 1: So how do you go about studying that? If there's
Speaker 1: so if there's such biodiversity with insects, there's so many
Speaker 1: different kinds, they have so many different habitats. How do
Speaker 1: you tackle that when you're studying it?
Speaker 2: It's hard because there's only so many scientists, and there's
Speaker 2: only only so many scientists who end up going into
Speaker 2: entomology or choosing that as a koreer. We don't have
Speaker 2: that many people doing it. We need more people studying
Speaker 2: bugs to help figure out what's here. And if we
Speaker 2: don't know what's here, how can you like work to
Speaker 2: protect it? Right, we have again amazing entomology department at
Speaker 2: the museum and our curator, doctor Bran Brown. He's a
Speaker 2: fly expert and one of the leading fly experts in
Speaker 2: the World's right, it's pretty amazing.
Speaker 1: Okay, So doctor Brian Brown studies this type of humpback
Speaker 1: fly that hardly anyone else studies. So during his career
Speaker 1: path he was like, you know what, I'm gonna look
Speaker 1: at flies. This is kind of a way for me
Speaker 1: to distinguish myself. And now he's one of the leading
Speaker 1: fly experts and has discovered forty three forty two forty
Speaker 1: three new species of forward flies here in Los Angeles,
Speaker 1: which is a big deal.
Speaker 2: That was through citizens science having traps in people's backyards
Speaker 2: that were said, yeah, sure, we'll have this trap. We'll
Speaker 2: host this trap in our backyard. It's called a Malaise trap,
Speaker 2: not because anyone's in a bad mood or anything, but
Speaker 2: the guy's name was Malaise.
Speaker 1: So Renee Malaise was Swedish, and in the nineteen thirties
Speaker 1: he invented a death chamber for bugs, but an important
Speaker 1: tool for fellow entomologists. So a Malays trap. I've seen them.
Speaker 1: They look like a really shitty tent, like they have
Speaker 1: netty sides and kind of a white canopy and bugs
Speaker 1: get trapped and they try to fly out the top,
Speaker 1: but they're funneled into a trap which is usually are
Speaker 1: filled with ethanol, which is a scientific term forever clear,
Speaker 1: so they die in the worst version of college jungle
Speaker 1: juice possible. Also, I just looked up ever clear, not
Speaker 1: pure ethanol. It's ninety five percent alcohol by volume, and
Speaker 1: it's illegal in a bunch of places because it's probably
Speaker 1: very dangerous. But in some states you can buy ninety
Speaker 1: four point five percent alcohol, which is totally fine.
Speaker 2: So it's a capital M. You always see malays trap
Speaker 2: with a capital M.
Speaker 1: That's a terrible last name, and especially if your legacy
Speaker 1: on Earth is that you invented a trap that kills
Speaker 1: and collects insects and it's a Malay Like it's so
Speaker 1: perfectly named.
Speaker 2: I think it's amazing. I love I love explaining the name.
Speaker 1: I wish it were called like a womp womp trap,
Speaker 1: like it's such as set. It sounds like such a bummer. No,
Speaker 1: going a little bit back to school, like what are
Speaker 1: some of the first things that an entomologist learns, Like,
Speaker 1: let's saying you're gonna be one. Do you start with
Speaker 1: with chemistry? Do you start with ecology?
Speaker 2: There was a lot of chemistry, a lot of biology,
Speaker 2: a lot of physics.
Speaker 1: Do you do you gravitate more towards science? That with
Speaker 1: living things, it's like you can look at behavior and
Speaker 1: patterns you yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah. That's part of what appeals to me about entomology
Speaker 2: is that I can talk about really uh inappropriate things,
Speaker 2: but it's science, So it's okay.
Speaker 1: When you're gravitating toward a certain bug to study, do
Speaker 1: you go for like really gossipy behaviors? Like do you
Speaker 1: are you like, oh my god, this wasp is such
Speaker 1: a dick? Like why are wasps such dicks? They they're parasites.
Speaker 1: They infect people like zombies, They sting people. They don't
Speaker 1: even make Connie like, what's the deal with wasps?
Speaker 2: Well, the wasps that I actually studied and worked on
Speaker 2: right after I graduated from UC Riverside, So that's my
Speaker 2: Ala Mata UC river Side entomology program. Uh. I studied
Speaker 2: biological control, and I think that I was really into
Speaker 2: that because it was, oh, we don't have to use
Speaker 2: so much pesticides out in the world. We can use insects.
Speaker 2: I mean, there are other creatures you can use for biocontrol,
Speaker 2: but I was obviously focusing on insects as biocontrol agents.
Speaker 1: And biocontrol is when you release an insect to kill
Speaker 1: another insect instead of sprang everything with like agent orange
Speaker 1: or something.
Speaker 2: Basically, Okay, that's a that's a great way lay definition
Speaker 2: for sure. So I worked for the California Department of
Speaker 2: Food and Agriculture and worked on the glossy wing shop.
Speaker 2: She's a project which is a tiny little plant hopper,
Speaker 2: you know, about two centimeters? Oh what is that? In inches?
Speaker 1: Don't worry about it. Yeah, okay, are you guys ready
Speaker 1: for some serious insect gossip?
Speaker 2: I hope.
Speaker 1: So. So she was working on this project with the
Speaker 1: glassy winged sharpshooter. They're not native to southern California. They
Speaker 1: come from the southeastern United States. But they love to
Speaker 1: hang out on citrus and grapes, which is annoying because
Speaker 1: they poop everywhere. But also they spread this bacterium, and
Speaker 1: this bacterium is bad news. It causes diseases such as
Speaker 1: you ready for this sweet gum die back, cherry plum
Speaker 1: leaf scorch, and phony peach disease. These are awesome names.
Speaker 1: Glassy wing sharpshooter is already badass anyway, So it spreads
Speaker 1: all these diseases. So what do they do? Well? Leela
Speaker 1: was working on this project where she was helping introduce
Speaker 1: a wasp that would eat the eggs of the glassy
Speaker 1: wing sharpshooter so that the glassy wing sharpshooter wouldn't spread
Speaker 1: the bacterium. Pretty cool. Also, these wasps have the cutest
Speaker 1: name ever. They're like little tiny superheroes.
Speaker 2: And they're called fairy wasps. Oh, and they're tiny. They're
Speaker 2: like like one to two millimeters long babies there, and
Speaker 2: they're some of them are kind of golden. So it's
Speaker 2: like these little literally like with these really beautiful gosml
Speaker 2: wings and so they sound really beautiful and amazing, right,
Speaker 2: And the only problem was I was literally collecting these
Speaker 2: wasps on a daily basis. And they're tiny, and you
Speaker 2: use a little thing called an aspirita. So you've got
Speaker 2: like a little like tube that goes into your mouth
Speaker 2: and then you suck on it and then and then
Speaker 2: the little wasps go into into the vial and there's
Speaker 2: a little screen so it doesn't then you don't suck
Speaker 2: them into your own mouth.
Speaker 1: So it's like a proboscis for humans, because now a
Speaker 1: proboscis is a tubular mouth part like if a crazy
Speaker 1: straw grew out of your face, like a yeah, that's
Speaker 1: that's a prosthetic proboscis.
Speaker 2: But we did have ones that you could hook up
Speaker 2: to a vacuum cleaner so that you didn't even have
Speaker 2: to use your own sucking power.
Speaker 1: That's all due respect. That's so weird too, that you
Speaker 1: had like a two that you would suck over.
Speaker 2: And as as an entomologist, you carry them around your
Speaker 2: neck and it's almost like you're wearing a necklace. So
Speaker 2: I had to aspirate hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of
Speaker 2: these tiny wasps. So I would wake up in my
Speaker 2: I'd have dreams and then wake up in the middle
Speaker 2: of the night being like one, two, three before and
Speaker 2: it was like, oh my gosh, no, I could don't well,
Speaker 2: I love insects, but I'm hating them right now.
Speaker 1: That used to happen to me when I played Magic
Speaker 1: the Gathering a lot.
Speaker 2: I would like be.
Speaker 1: Falling asleep and I'd be like, how much manner do
Speaker 1: I have to tell to rush my teeth? You're just
Speaker 1: like used to it. How much of your career has
Speaker 1: been spent in the field versus like in a lab.
Speaker 2: So that's a great question. So not long after that
Speaker 2: that repetitive nature of the asperating the fairy wasps and
Speaker 2: then going to the same field sites every month.
Speaker 1: So the fieldwork was starting to wear on her, so
Speaker 1: Leila decided to take a little bit of a detour.
Speaker 2: And I'd also kind of had figured out right before
Speaker 2: that that I was better at communicating about science and
Speaker 2: and getting other people excited about insects. And I got
Speaker 2: my first job at a museum, and my whole life changed.
Speaker 1: Really Yeah, so now you work in museums and you
Speaker 1: kind of facilitate people getting stoked about bugs.
Speaker 2: I mean the bug stuff. I just I get so
Speaker 2: excited when I get to have someone send me a
Speaker 2: bug picture.
Speaker 1: How does that happen? Do you get text at like
Speaker 1: two in the morning being like, what the fuck is
Speaker 1: thisst and it's a potato buger.
Speaker 2: Suff I totally have texts from people at all times
Speaker 2: of the day and night, from different time zones, different places.
Speaker 2: And it's not just text message. It's like Facebook messages,
Speaker 2: Instagram messages, a few ones through Twitter, but like that's
Speaker 2: my favorite thing. I'm like, more people send me all
Speaker 2: your bug pictures. I get so so excited.
Speaker 1: Leela and I have also attended again on a Friday
Speaker 1: night a bug meet up called the Lorquin Entomological Society,
Speaker 1: which is a bug society. The bug Society is legit.
Speaker 1: It's not like your aunt's book club that met twice.
Speaker 1: These people have been meeting every Friday night for like
Speaker 1: one hundred years. It literally turned one hundred a few
Speaker 1: years ago, and they meet now in the back of
Speaker 1: a bug warehouse in Compton. It's called bioquip. It rules.
Speaker 1: The first time I went, I went completely alone by
Speaker 1: myself on a Friday night, and I sat down and
Speaker 1: someone turned around and introduced themselves as Jeff. I'm a
Speaker 1: kind of a Katie did guy, and I was like,
Speaker 1: these are my people, and bioquip is my heaven.
Speaker 2: The best bug warehouse where you can buy the best
Speaker 2: bug geeky equipment and books and everything that you could
Speaker 2: ever ever want.
Speaker 1: They have bug socks, they have butterfly nets, they have
Speaker 1: books about bugs, they have framed bugs, VHS tapes. It's
Speaker 1: they have ties with bugs on them that like you
Speaker 1: know that you have like a weird uncle to give
Speaker 1: it to. Okay, quick shift from bug socks to something grosser.
Speaker 1: I have a question. How many bugs live on our person?
Speaker 1: How many bugs are living on me right now? Mm
Speaker 1: like not me. I did not wash my hair today,
Speaker 1: So that's it for the average person.
Speaker 2: I don't know. I know that there's like the the
Speaker 2: mites which aren't technically insects, uh in our eyelashes and
Speaker 2: places and eyebrows. I'm non expert. I like literally don't know.
Speaker 1: Okay, so check this out. About ninety percent of the
Speaker 1: cells that are walking around that you call you and
Speaker 1: that share your Social Security number are actually other creatures.
Speaker 1: They're microbes, mites, et cetera. Now we're going to cover
Speaker 1: this in more detail when I have a microbiologist on,
Speaker 1: but I just want you to know that you're covered
Speaker 1: and full of organisms, so you're never alone. Feel free
Speaker 1: to use the second person plural from now on as
Speaker 1: the royal we refers to trillions of other persons who
Speaker 1: have hopes and goals and dreams, such as to live
Speaker 1: in a poor near your nose. Do you hate this podcast?
Speaker 1: I hope not.
Speaker 2: I remember when I was a teenager moving to America.
Speaker 2: On the way here, I was in the Philippines. This
Speaker 2: is a gross story, but I'm gonna tell it anyway.
Speaker 2: I was in the Philippines and I was like, oh
Speaker 2: my god, I've got pubiic lice. And I'm like, oh wait,
Speaker 2: it's an ant. I'm like, how did an ant get
Speaker 2: in my crotch?
Speaker 1: Can I tell you a secret? What an ant bit
Speaker 1: my butt? Crack? Once? So I get it? What is
Speaker 1: it with What is it with ants?
Speaker 2: Where?
Speaker 1: Why are they so social? Maybe they were lonely? What
Speaker 1: is the deal with with like bees, ants being social
Speaker 1: insects and the rest of them being like fuck all, y'all,
Speaker 1: this apple core is mine?
Speaker 2: Well, okay, so there's some uh, wasps, bees, ants and
Speaker 2: wasps right, the hymenoptra. There are many of them that
Speaker 2: are social insects, but there are wasps uh and bees
Speaker 2: who are not so like carpenter bees are more like
Speaker 2: solitary bees. And you see the black ones flying around,
Speaker 2: which are the females, and the like kind of tan
Speaker 2: colored ones, and the males. We call them teddy bear bees, but.
Speaker 1: They're huge, they're so pretty. I once didn't know what
Speaker 1: it was and I tried to kill one, which I
Speaker 1: shouldn't have, and I and but the joke is on me. Excite.
Speaker 1: I used to roll up magazine and I blew out
Speaker 1: a window and then I had to pay for the
Speaker 1: window in college.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so they're solitary. So a lot of people expect
Speaker 2: that most bees and wasps are social, but there are
Speaker 2: some that are solitary and don't do the whole social thing.
Speaker 1: So to determine if an insect is social or solitary,
Speaker 1: what a lot of researchers do is administer this test,
Speaker 1: the specimen and it's called this awkward small talk quiz
Speaker 1: will reveal your introvert type, which is available at BuzzFeed
Speaker 1: dot com.
Speaker 2: But there are obviously benefits to having that kind of
Speaker 2: social life because they protect their sisters.
Speaker 1: But they're usually ladies though, like when you see a
Speaker 1: huge colony, they're usually sterilely right.
Speaker 2: So if we're talking about the bee hives, like the
Speaker 2: the European honey bees, which are the bees that we
Speaker 2: see like all around here. Again, not a species that
Speaker 2: is from North America. They're from Europe. It's mostly females.
Speaker 2: But then there are the drones, and but you know
Speaker 2: they're they're not doing as much work as the women are, right.
Speaker 1: They're just flying around trying to have a gang bang
Speaker 1: with the queen.
Speaker 2: Right, I was gonna bring that back.
Speaker 1: But their their job is to fly as fast as
Speaker 1: they can in the air, get a quick noogie with
Speaker 1: the queen, try and have one million babies with her,
Speaker 1: and then die. Is that correct or is that wrong?
Speaker 1: I'm paraphrasing.
Speaker 2: Paraphrasing. I think that's you know, fairly again, it works
Speaker 2: for the lay audience, right, okay, But they are but
Speaker 2: they don't.
Speaker 1: Drones don't sting. Males don't sting.
Speaker 2: No, they because it's a modified ovipositor. That is what
Speaker 2: the stinger is for a bee.
Speaker 1: So an ovipositor is kind of like this point tube
Speaker 1: structure at the end of a lady insect butt and
Speaker 1: she uses it to lay eggs. It's kind of like
Speaker 1: a T shirt gun, but for your babies.
Speaker 2: So the males cannot do it, but they do. They
Speaker 2: they do the trickery. They do the trickery. So of
Speaker 2: a male bee could like land on you and then
Speaker 2: still like pump his abdomen, not in a sexual way,
Speaker 2: but in a in a like oh I could sting you.
Speaker 2: But unless you're looking really closely, you know, most people
Speaker 2: don't really they're like, ah, right, but if you know
Speaker 2: it's a if you can see that it's a drone
Speaker 2: you're like, oh, you can't actually do anything.
Speaker 1: And drones have bigger eyes. So drones do, in fact
Speaker 1: have larger eyes, and they don't gather nectar or pollen
Speaker 1: or do really any work. Their primary goal is to
Speaker 1: mate and die. They are Nature's No, i'd jigglow. This
Speaker 1: is literally all of my knowledge of drones. But so
Speaker 1: I but I didn't know that. I didn't know that
Speaker 1: a beastinger was a mod fight ovipositive. Yes, So let's
Speaker 1: get back to Leela's job at the NHM. Citizens science
Speaker 1: is essentially non scientists helping collect data and observations for research.
Speaker 1: And if you're like, I'm not qualified for that, just
Speaker 1: know that scientists are like, either you help me or
Speaker 1: this shit never gets done, so please thank you. Also, no,
Speaker 1: you don't have to be like a citizen of anywhere.
Speaker 1: That's a bit of a misnomer.
Speaker 2: Some people call it community science, some people call it
Speaker 2: civic science. Some people call it public participation in scientific
Speaker 2: research PPSR. That's not exactly like one of those things
Speaker 2: that's going to be like I want to be be
Speaker 2: a PPSR.
Speaker 1: Yeah, No, that does not bring to it.
Speaker 2: So, and you know, there's a lot of other countries
Speaker 2: that do citizens science besides just North America, and in
Speaker 2: some of those are the places the word citizen isn't
Speaker 2: quite so polarizing. But I get that that's a thing,
Speaker 2: So I just want to make sure that that is
Speaker 2: lost in the in the scheme of things. But ultimately,
Speaker 2: citizen science is a way democratize science. Who owned the
Speaker 2: data isn't just large corporations in the government anymore. People
Speaker 2: of the community, people, citizens of the country of the
Speaker 2: world can own that data.
Speaker 1: And so do you think, as we were coming upon
Speaker 1: we'll just call it a post truth era, Like, what
Speaker 1: do you feel like your role is someone who advocates
Speaker 1: for citizens science could be in kind of keeping science
Speaker 1: alive and respected.
Speaker 2: Again, I think there's a lot of people who don't
Speaker 2: really understand how science works because it has been a
Speaker 2: bit of a black box. And citizens science is a
Speaker 2: way to get people involved in the actual scientific process
Speaker 2: and so can help to then demystify science. Isn't that complicated?
Speaker 1: How do people get involved in citizen science? Like, let's
Speaker 1: say you've got really shitty karma, you cheated on your
Speaker 1: saxes or your wife, Like, how can you get involved
Speaker 1: in citizen science? And redeem yourself.
Speaker 2: So obviously there's citizens science that we do at the museum,
Speaker 2: and you can get involved in those projects that are
Speaker 2: very LA and South Southern California centric, and they're obviously
Speaker 2: focused on mostly right now, the kind of urban terrestrial
Speaker 2: fauna that lives around here. So we've got a snail
Speaker 2: and slug project called slime Nice, We've got a reptile
Speaker 2: amphibian project called Rascals, and we've got a squirrel project
Speaker 2: which is squirrels and chipmunks because they're all in the
Speaker 2: same group. And so you can take pictures of any
Speaker 2: of those creatures snails, slugs, reptiles, amphibians, turtles, newts, squirrels,
Speaker 2: chipmunks anywhere in Southern California and submit them to the
Speaker 2: I Naturalist website, which is also free app on your phone.
Speaker 2: Anyone can join.
Speaker 1: Okay, what if you don't live in LA like most
Speaker 1: people on the planet who can afford housing and don't
Speaker 1: wear SPF seventy in the winter, But and then across
Speaker 1: the country people can maybe what like just.
Speaker 2: So many different projects and you go to you can
Speaker 2: go to a website called starter dot com and you
Speaker 2: can then find a project that is in your area
Speaker 2: and that you'd be interested in. There's projects, really cool
Speaker 2: projects online where you can literally sit in your pajamas
Speaker 2: and do human computing using your free time to help
Speaker 2: a project on this platform called the zooniverse, and you
Speaker 2: can go to a project and like literally like code
Speaker 2: the different galaxies.
Speaker 1: Coding galaxies. I have no idea what you're talking about.
Speaker 1: Is it cool? Okay, this has absolutely nothing to do
Speaker 1: with bugs, but it's awesome. Go to galaxzoo dot org.
Speaker 2: So you go to the zoooniverse website and I think
Speaker 2: it's called galaxy Quest and you literally look up pictures
Speaker 2: of galaxies because you imagine a telescope taking all the
Speaker 2: pictures of galaxies hundreds, right, and hundreds and maybe the
Speaker 2: scientist doesn't have an algorithm that it can go through
Speaker 2: a computer yet to figure out what it's looking at.
Speaker 2: And the human I plus our human brain together we
Speaker 2: just have this ability to like recognize patterns that computers
Speaker 2: we can teach it how to do that based on
Speaker 2: what humans do. But at first, like if you don't
Speaker 2: know there's no pattern, how can you teach a computer
Speaker 2: to do it? So we can have humans do that,
Speaker 2: So that's called human computing, and you know, there's how
Speaker 2: much time do people use on things like angry birds
Speaker 2: or whatever, the new candy crush saga. I don't even
Speaker 2: know what the new one is. There's probably a new one,
Speaker 2: but hundreds of thousands of hours people use on these things.
Speaker 2: And some people decide to instead of doing angry words
Speaker 2: or you know, candy crush saga, decide to go on
Speaker 2: to galaxy quest and to look at different galaxies and
Speaker 2: code them and so and then literally people have found
Speaker 2: like new galaxies. Citizen scientists have found new galaxies.
Speaker 1: Are you allowed to brag about that?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 1: Do they send you an email? Like, yo, hey Roger,
Speaker 1: you found a new galaxy?
Speaker 2: Like I believe there was this woman called Hanni and
Speaker 2: she found this thing called a I'm gonna fuck up
Speaker 2: the name like vor veldt or something. Vorverb. I think
Speaker 2: I think it's the word for thingy in Scandinavian language.
Speaker 1: Okay, so I look this up. It's called Hannie's vor
Speaker 1: verb warwerp vor verb and it means vorverb just means
Speaker 1: object aka thingy vorverp is my everything.
Speaker 2: Now, So Hannie's thingy not a dirty thing, a galic
Speaker 2: seal thingy and it was something that she was like,
Speaker 2: she'd been doing it so much. She's like, that's a
Speaker 2: weird thing right there. It's a thingy. It's a weird thingy.
Speaker 2: Maybe it's something significant. And then the scientists looked at
Speaker 2: it like, oh my gosh, this is a whole new
Speaker 2: thingy that we never knew about. Also, I love that
Speaker 2: in Britain and like Europe, people are like, yeah, thingy,
Speaker 2: that's totally good word. We're gonna use it. Anything with
Speaker 2: a y on the end thingy.
Speaker 1: Americans don't use thingy or the metric system enough. Both
Speaker 1: of those things are sorely lacking them.
Speaker 2: Right, make us at a little bit happy of people.
Speaker 1: I think I have some questions that people wrote in
Speaker 1: that they can I rapid fire question you.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh. Yes.
Speaker 1: But before we take questions from you, our beloved listeners,
Speaker 1: we're going to take a quick break for sponsors of
Speaker 1: the show. Sponsors. Why sponsors? You know what they do?
Speaker 1: They help us give money to different charities every week.
Speaker 1: So if you want to know where Ologies gives our money,
Speaker 1: you can go to Aliward dot com and look for
Speaker 1: the tab Ologies gives back. There's like one hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty different charities that we've given to already, with more
Speaker 1: every single week. So if you need a place to go,
Speaker 1: donate a little bit of money but you're not sure
Speaker 1: where to go. Those are all picked biologists who work
Speaker 1: in those fields, and this ad break allows us to
Speaker 1: give a ton of money to them. So thanks for
Speaker 1: listening and thank sponsors. Okay, your questions, I'm just gonna
Speaker 1: rap it fire. Just whatever answer you. If you don't know,
Speaker 1: you can just be like pass Sean Paul called wants
Speaker 1: to know what's the visible difference between dragonflies and damselflies.
Speaker 2: So dragonflies usually hold their wings out to the side
Speaker 2: of their body, whereas damselflies hold them. I'm doing it.
Speaker 2: No one can see this, I feely podcast.
Speaker 1: That's a yoga pose that I don't know the name.
Speaker 2: Yeah, No, damselflies hold them together over the back of
Speaker 2: their body. Also, dragonflies have eyes that usually meet in
Speaker 2: the middle to some extent, and damselflies have more have
Speaker 2: eyes that are more out to the side, a little
Speaker 2: bit like hammerhead sharks, and damselflies are very petite and slender. Sometimes.
Speaker 2: There's a scientist called John Acorn, the nature Nut from Canada.
Speaker 2: He calls them flying neon toothpicks because they're very slender,
Speaker 2: whereas dragonflies are more stout bodied.
Speaker 1: Nice way to go, Canadian bug guy. Yes, okay, Dave
Speaker 1: Long wants to know what's with all the legs.
Speaker 2: The six legs to three pairs of legs. Well, they're
Speaker 2: in the arthropod groups, which is jointed legged creatures and
Speaker 2: insects have six versus like their racknets that have eight versus.
Speaker 2: Some of the other creatures like crustaceans that have seven
Speaker 2: pairs and whatnot. Why do they have six versus? I
Speaker 2: don't know the answer to that, but obviously those legs
Speaker 2: help them to get around, and some insects don't have wings,
Speaker 2: they've de evolved wings like madagascan hiss and cockroaches per se.
Speaker 2: But those legs are this method of locomotion on on
Speaker 2: land that works really well for them, so.
Speaker 1: It gets them around crawling crawling wise.
Speaker 2: Some of them what they have. Some of them have
Speaker 2: saltorial legs which are for jumping. Good for jumping. Some
Speaker 2: of them have for sorial legs which are good for digging.
Speaker 2: What are some of the other modified legs? Going back
Speaker 2: to all my undergraduate classes.
Speaker 1: Are story ELPs are petopalps in the on the front
Speaker 1: that they look.
Speaker 2: So that's uh, that's more of the arachnids have the
Speaker 2: pet like the scorpions have petitpalps. Oh my gosh, I
Speaker 2: can't believe. I don't remember another.
Speaker 1: It's okay, it's rapid fire. We got more for you also, Okay,
Speaker 1: is it true that and that exoskeleton rigidity is why
Speaker 1: insects could not maintain their massive prehistoric sizing? Brandy Demora
Speaker 1: wants to know that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so the largest the largest insects we have right
Speaker 2: now in our current climate with our current like pressure
Speaker 2: on the planet is about the size of a fist,
Speaker 2: which are the those giant amazing beetles. But back in
Speaker 2: the day, when there were different climate conditions and pressure
Speaker 2: conditions on the planet, Uh, there were some giant oh
Speaker 2: my gosh, I wish I could go back in time,
Speaker 2: giant dragonflies that had like a foot long wingspan. What fossils?
Speaker 1: How loud were they? Do you think?
Speaker 2: I can only imagine, you know, when a dragonfly, sorry,
Speaker 2: a hummingbird comes like right behind your head, if you're
Speaker 2: imagine that multiplied by ten. So I don't know, I mean,
Speaker 2: that's an extrapolation.
Speaker 1: Who knows and well why? Davidaka wants to know why
Speaker 1: flees exist.
Speaker 2: The same reason that humans exist. They just want to
Speaker 2: carva a living. They want to find food, shelter, water, space,
Speaker 2: pass on their genetic material. How are they any better
Speaker 2: or worse than us?
Speaker 1: They're just they're just living their lives. Let them bite
Speaker 1: you and live their life. Can't if we make a living?
Speaker 2: I mean, you could compare compare some fleas to certain
Speaker 2: human beings in the world right now, parasitic human beings. Yeah,
Speaker 2: aren't we all just parasites of something like consumerism?
Speaker 1: Or I mean, aren't we.
Speaker 2: All God Friday Night in Los Angeles?
Speaker 1: Aren't we all? I mean, but I feel like bugs
Speaker 1: are no more terrible than a human being. Everyone's just
Speaker 1: trying to fuck and eat and die. Like I just said, food, water, shelter, space,
Speaker 1: pass on your genetic material. Uh, how what we human beings?
Speaker 1: We've got a lot of judgments about things we do.
Speaker 1: Eric Martin wants to know what the white goo is
Speaker 1: that comes out of a bug when you squish them.
Speaker 2: White goo or yellow goo because when you okay, so
Speaker 2: you know, when you have a driving down the road
Speaker 2: in your windshield and a bug splats on it. Yeah,
Speaker 2: if it's a lot of yellow, that's usually the fat
Speaker 2: body of a female insect that maybe was like got
Speaker 2: all this stuff ready for her eggs. I don't know
Speaker 2: about the white stuff though.
Speaker 1: Maybe they mean the yellow like you know when you
Speaker 1: smash a thing and it's like and it looks like
Speaker 1: Twinkie filling comes out, you.
Speaker 2: Know what I mean, I know about the whole white thing,
Speaker 2: like I've definitely I haven't squished that many bugs. Surprisingly,
Speaker 2: I think he.
Speaker 1: Must be talking about fat. Okay, sorry, storytime, quick diversion
Speaker 1: from the rapid fire. This one time I was in
Speaker 1: when I was taking an animal bioclass, I had to
Speaker 1: dissect a cockroach and we had dissected all kinds of stuff.
Speaker 1: We had dissected pigeons and fetal pigs that were like
Speaker 1: the size of a puppy and incredibly heartbreaking. But it
Speaker 1: was time to kill a cockroach. You had to go
Speaker 1: to this tank full of cockages. Who cared about Nobody
Speaker 1: cares about? I mean, it was there's they set up
Speaker 1: a terrarium and it's full of like empty toilet paper
Speaker 1: rolls and like apple cores and like some sad carroage shavings,
Speaker 1: and it's just like a it's like a essentially, it's
Speaker 1: like a skid row for cockroaches. And so you had
Speaker 1: to go in and pick one up, and then you
Speaker 1: had to kill it in alcohol, and then you had
Speaker 1: to dissect it. And I had this lab partner who
Speaker 1: I had been eyeing all Semester's name is Ted. He
Speaker 1: was he had he was very heid. He had like
Speaker 1: this really cheapist, like sheepish adorableness and like messy hair.
Speaker 1: But I thought he was really cute. And he asked
Speaker 1: me to be his lab partner for this one, and
Speaker 1: I said yes. So I got my dead cockroach and
Speaker 1: we started dissecting it, and it something happened where it
Speaker 1: wasn't quite dead yet or or the nervouses and reacted
Speaker 1: to a scalpel and it grabbed onto my hand and
Speaker 1: then I moved my hand up and I hit Ted
Speaker 1: in the faith with the cockroach.
Speaker 2: On my finger. There was this an American cockroach.
Speaker 1: This no, I think it was the Asian cockroaches, the
Speaker 1: wingless ones. I think. I don't know, maybe it wasn't American.
Speaker 1: I can't remember. All I remember is that like Ted
Speaker 1: and I never worked together, and I had to look
Speaker 1: at him from the back of the room, but I
Speaker 1: remember slicing it open and a lot of like these
Speaker 1: feathery fat deposits came out.
Speaker 2: Well. Because this is so the spiracles inside of an insect.
Speaker 2: So they insects do not breathe the same way as
Speaker 2: humans do. We don't. They don't breathe through their mouth
Speaker 2: and then the oxygen goes through the lungs into the
Speaker 2: circulatory system. Instead, insects have these things called spiracles along
Speaker 2: the side of their body which will tie holes, and
Speaker 2: then oxygen is brought in through those holes through these
Speaker 2: like very white and I've dissected some insects they like
Speaker 2: those tubes kind of like white, nopalescent kind of pop out.
Speaker 2: So I again, i'd have to see with your eyes,
Speaker 2: which I can't mind meld and get inside your mind
Speaker 2: and be there with Ted and maybe Ted and I
Speaker 2: had a thing, who knows, But yeah, so they just
Speaker 2: breathe in this whole different way. And also if it
Speaker 2: was a metacasting, hissing cockroach, those spiracles are the same
Speaker 2: things that when they breathe out when they exhale air,
Speaker 2: exhale again, not with the same terminology as thus humans.
Speaker 2: When air is let out through those holes fast come
Speaker 2: like when you're blowing through a strawberry fast, it makes
Speaker 2: that hissing sound.
Speaker 1: And that is that's to say, yo, back off.
Speaker 2: Jerks doesn't. Well, they can also be doing it for
Speaker 2: like hey ladies. Really there's multiple communications for the hissing.
Speaker 1: It's like, hey, you hissed it me. Do you want
Speaker 1: to have ten thousand babies in the dirt?
Speaker 2: I mean obviously, Like as a handler of hissing cockroaches,
Speaker 2: a lot of times are like, dude, stop touching me.
Speaker 1: But don't I've heard that if you have a hissing
Speaker 1: cockroaches a pet, after a while, it gets used to
Speaker 1: you and stops hissing because it's like, oh it's you totally.
Speaker 2: Really that happens. Yeah, our live animal keepers and the
Speaker 2: people who look after the insects of the museum. Yeah,
Speaker 2: the cockroach is like, oh, there's no threat here. Why
Speaker 2: would I bother hissing at you?
Speaker 1: What if you came in with a Freddy Krueger mask
Speaker 1: or something else?
Speaker 2: Scary?
Speaker 1: No cloud someone named Cloudburst asked if they're a legit
Speaker 1: not lethal. Ways to keep common bugs away from their
Speaker 1: spray happy dad. This person says, I'm a Buddhist, I
Speaker 1: don't want anything dead, and they think that this person's
Speaker 1: dad thinks that spraying them with soapy water and plainwater
Speaker 1: is friendly. But how would you get rid of crickets,
Speaker 1: ants and roaches without being like too big of a jerk?
Speaker 2: I know, yeah, I mean personally, I'm all about integrated
Speaker 2: pest management IPM. So what of the cultural and mechanical
Speaker 2: methods of excluding them from getting into your house in
Speaker 2: the first place? Amidley, if you get into gardening, it's
Speaker 2: a whole other thing. I've been a gardener, and you know, so,
Speaker 2: like if they're for coming into your house. Obviously, we
Speaker 2: talk about this in the museum field, a lot IPM
Speaker 2: is a big deal. You don't want bugs coming in
Speaker 2: and eating your collections that are in your care, and
Speaker 2: we're supposed to be keeping imperpetuity. Obviously things are going
Speaker 2: to degrade over time, But you don't want insects coming
Speaker 2: in and eating your mammal.
Speaker 1: Collection, right, Like a carpet beetle will just chew the
Speaker 1: hell out of a hide, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, those carpet beetles. Domestids are amazing and that's the
Speaker 2: same beetle that is used to basically skeletonize specimens.
Speaker 1: So carpet beetles are great when you need to clean
Speaker 1: flesh off of bones. Say, let's say in a museum setting.
Speaker 1: Please you don't want to sit there with tweezers and
Speaker 1: two brush and bleach and Q tips trying to get
Speaker 1: every bit of flesh off of say a skull. So
Speaker 1: you jump it in a bucket full of a bunch
Speaker 1: of carpet beetles and they are like, yeah, yumyam yum,
Speaker 1: and they eat off all of the flesh and they
Speaker 1: give you in return poop but they love it. Now,
Speaker 1: that's great when you need a skull cleaned, but it
Speaker 1: really sucks when they get into hides or fur or
Speaker 1: leather or whatever in your specimen collections. So museums do
Speaker 1: not like carpet beetles getting in where they're not supposed
Speaker 1: to be. And if you listen to the Ornithology episode,
Speaker 1: and you remember I asked the ornithologists the worst thing
Speaker 1: about his job, the worst, and he said carpet beetles.
Speaker 1: And this is a man who's been held up a
Speaker 1: gunpoint on the job.
Speaker 2: So carpet beetles and those a museum collections equals very
Speaker 2: freaking bad news. So yeah, in your home, I would
Speaker 2: go around and make sure that you have sealed up
Speaker 2: every single entrance point. Where are those ants coming in?
Speaker 2: Where are those corproaches coming in?
Speaker 1: I have a Do you have any bugs that you're
Speaker 1: afraid of?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 1: Are there? Like for me? I love bugs. I'm wearing
Speaker 1: a shirt this is bugs on it that was made
Speaker 1: for me. But like a cockroach is no friend of
Speaker 1: mine and I and I can't really explain it, like
Speaker 1: if I see a cockroach in my house or especially inside,
Speaker 1: I get terrified. But I can hold up like a
Speaker 1: spider on my face and not care.
Speaker 2: Like what you wouldn't hold a cockroach.
Speaker 1: I could hold a cockroach.
Speaker 2: Sorry, I'm just laughing because I've licked a cockroach in
Speaker 2: front of children before to show me it's not dirty.
Speaker 2: I was like, you know how people think cockroaches are dirty? Kids?
Speaker 2: This was literally in a museum program many a number
Speaker 2: of years ago. Cockroach is on dirty. This cockroach lives
Speaker 2: in the jungle and from Madagasca, and and I was like,
Speaker 2: they're not dirty. And I literally licked it in front
Speaker 2: of children, had that go over. They thought it was amazing.
Speaker 2: They thought it was the coolest person that ever existed
Speaker 2: until they went home. Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I know that they're really fastidious, right, They're really like
Speaker 1: they're in depth groomers.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they having particles on their body isn't necessarily something
Speaker 2: that's gonna feel great to them. So, yeah, I've see cockroach.
Speaker 2: Are cockroaches like really going to town clean room? Right? Yeah?
Speaker 2: And I mean they live the so the madagas and
Speaker 2: cockroaches we have at the museum, they live in these
Speaker 2: amazing little habitats that we create for them, and we
Speaker 2: feed them all these little vegetables and sweet potato and
Speaker 2: a little bits of mushroom and corn and all of
Speaker 2: this other stuff.
Speaker 1: And honestly, they eat better than they live better lives
Speaker 1: than I do. Like, let's talk about debunking some flint flam.
Speaker 1: Is there any myth about insects or entomology in general
Speaker 1: that you just you wish that you could debunk?
Speaker 2: Oh, myths, myths.
Speaker 1: All spiders are venomous. People do say poisonous spiders, but
Speaker 1: really it's venomous right.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, so okay, the whole poison versus venom thing.
Speaker 2: We like to debunk that as a as a thing. So, yeah,
Speaker 2: poison is something you ingest versus venom is something where
Speaker 2: you are like getting injected or venomated by a spider.
Speaker 2: So yeah, you could literally eat a black widowed spider,
Speaker 2: and because it's going through your digestive system and the
Speaker 2: digestive juices or breaking down the proteins that are in
Speaker 2: the venom, it's not gonna affect you the same way
Speaker 2: as if it's going into your blood. So there's a
Speaker 2: whole different root of action.
Speaker 1: So if you eat something and it kills you, it's poisonous.
Speaker 1: If it's something stings you or bite you, it's venomous exactly.
Speaker 2: And things that have venom that you would eat sometimes
Speaker 2: may not affect you at all. And other creatures can
Speaker 2: can also be be stung or bitten by something that's
Speaker 2: venomous and it not affect them the same way as
Speaker 2: it affects humans. Oh okay, yeah, so I from what
Speaker 2: I remember, dogs really black widow bites not a big deal.
Speaker 1: Really, but they can't eat chocolate. Get it together, dogs,
Speaker 1: think up your mind? Should we be eating bugs?
Speaker 2: Oh and some maphagi? Yeah, that's what eating bugs? Is
Speaker 2: I love eating bugs? I know I've invited you to
Speaker 2: the museum and you've eaten bugs there with me, and
Speaker 2: then you are an official judge of the thirtieth Annual
Speaker 2: Bug Fair this last year.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I ate a tarantula. I felt bad because tarantula
Speaker 1: is like it takes a while for them to get
Speaker 1: to that size, So I felt bad about that. But
Speaker 1: I ate crickets and some mealworms I think, with.
Speaker 2: A grasshoppers too. And then I think you also ate
Speaker 2: a toe biter.
Speaker 1: I ate a toe biter, and I'm just a toe
Speaker 1: biter is like a really big water bug, right, Yes?
Speaker 2: And then also I think you ate some odnate or dirves,
Speaker 2: so some dragonfly temper about dragonflies.
Speaker 1: Yes, this is all coming back to me kind of
Speaker 1: like a bad dream. You know what's weirder to me though,
Speaker 1: really quick on the topic of eating before we wrap up,
Speaker 1: is its honey's weirder to eat because it's bee Vomit
Speaker 1: isn't that weirder to eat than the actual cricket? Are
Speaker 1: they actual bee?
Speaker 2: Right? So well, this is the whole vegan thing, where
Speaker 2: like we're not gonna eat honey because we're subjugating bees,
Speaker 2: and with commercial hives because there's a whole bunch of
Speaker 2: shit there too. Hives are taken out of hibernation early
Speaker 2: or are like put into hibernation early, trucked across the
Speaker 2: country on flatbeds, fed corn syrup, all this stuff. So
Speaker 2: like there's a whole bunch of research that people can
Speaker 2: do in that. I think that there's so many feral
Speaker 2: colonies of bees, and then there's beekeepers who are collecting
Speaker 2: those feral colonies and then keeping them in their own
Speaker 2: backyard and taking some honey and trying to be responsible
Speaker 2: beekeepers and not taking too much and leaving enough for
Speaker 2: the bees to be able to sustain themselves over a winter.
Speaker 1: But we're going to be eating bugs in the future
Speaker 1: because they're easier to farm, right, So, well, there's a lot.
Speaker 2: Of great protein. There's a lot of great vitamins and
Speaker 2: minerals ands and vitamins and minerals in bugs. And meat
Speaker 2: production is hard on the planet, you know. I think
Speaker 2: this is gonna have to be some like reduction of meat. Again.
Speaker 2: My parents were Harry Christnas, so I grew up vegetarian.
Speaker 2: I eat a little bit of meat now and then,
Speaker 2: oh god, hope my Dad doesn't hear this, You'll be like,
Speaker 2: I did not know that, sorry Dad. So yeah, I
Speaker 2: definitely eat bugs. I am more than happy to eat. Uh.
Speaker 2: You know, protein bars and other things that have insect
Speaker 2: flour in it, like cricket.
Speaker 1: Cricket flour is a thing.
Speaker 2: Cricket flour is a thing. And you know, again, you
Speaker 2: can have use up so much less space than you
Speaker 2: would need to obviously raise a cow, right, So get
Speaker 2: used to it.
Speaker 1: World. So do you have any closing advice, like if
Speaker 1: someone wants to be common entomologist, if someone's interested in
Speaker 1: the field, Like what advice would you give to a
Speaker 1: future entomologist, Like find your niche like study this study
Speaker 1: the unglamorous flies no one cares about.
Speaker 2: Uh. Well, first of all, there's just not that many
Speaker 2: entomologists in the world. There's just not that many out
Speaker 2: there who have the entomology focused in background. And I've
Speaker 2: literally worked at so many different places and I'm the
Speaker 2: only entomology expert there, and at the museum there's a
Speaker 2: bunch of other entomology experts, which is awesome because I
Speaker 2: get to hang out with all these bug geeks. But yes,
Speaker 2: if you are going to be an entomologist and be
Speaker 2: a research scientist. Focus in on something that is a
Speaker 2: little bit less studied.
Speaker 1: I hope one day there's there's some kind of insect
Speaker 1: named after you, Leila, because I feel like you deserve it.
Speaker 1: I feel like you deserve it. Thank you for talking
Speaker 1: bugs with it. So what did we learn? Pick weird
Speaker 1: bugs to study, don't inhale them, and never ever ever
Speaker 1: feel alone. Also, volunteer somewhere you love if you're bummed out,
Speaker 1: and google Leela Higgins and follow her on social media.
Speaker 1: She just did it to head x talk that came
Speaker 1: out a week ago. She killed it. So if you
Speaker 1: have eighteen minutes, look that up. Learning to love nature
Speaker 1: in a big city.
Speaker 2: So good.
Speaker 1: Ologies is on Instagram and Twitter at just ologies now
Speaker 1: thanks to the wonderful Sarah Hamilton. Now she had been
Speaker 1: sitting on the ologies handle on Twitter, so I had
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Speaker 2: I love them.
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Speaker 1: Bonnie Dutch for helping me so much with merch, Hannah
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Speaker 1: was production helped by Jason Scartamaliat and the theme song
Speaker 1: was written and performed by Nick Thorburn, who is of
Speaker 1: the band Islands, so check out his music too. And
Speaker 1: stay tuned for next week's episode with another smart person
Speaker 1: who I will barrage with sometimes dumb questions because that's
Speaker 1: that's how I'd do it. Okay, Bye, Pacodermatology, hobiology or
Speaker 1: do zoology, lithology, zoology, meteorology and pertology, ethnology, seriology, celinology,