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Speaker 2: Oh hey, it's old that word von podcast at the mic, Hey,
Speaker 2: what's up? Hi?
Speaker 3: Hi?
Speaker 2: It's Ali Ward. So me and my hair were back
Speaker 2: for another episode. This one is way less about drain clocks,
Speaker 2: almost no drain clocks in this way. More butterflies involved.
Speaker 2: Oh and their friend moths. I feel like moths are
Speaker 2: very much like the hot character's dork here friend in
Speaker 2: a teen movie who you're like, no one is ever
Speaker 2: going to kiss them, but in real life they're probably
Speaker 2: the cooler ones anyway. But anyway, lipidopterrology, it just it
Speaker 2: flutters by you. We're going to talk about it. We're
Speaker 2: also going to discuss its butt and how its nose
Speaker 2: is on sticks jutting out from its head. They're weird.
Speaker 2: Butterflies are weird. But first, a big, big thank you
Speaker 2: to all the patrons for supporting the show. As always,
Speaker 2: they contribute questions to the ologists, so if you want
Speaker 2: to ask ologises cool questions, you can join that very
Speaker 2: cool click. There's no prison tattoos, no avant garde hairstyles required.
Speaker 2: It's Patreon dot com slash Ologies. Twenty five cents an
Speaker 2: episode gets you in. You can also find other ologites
Speaker 2: in the wild by sporting ologies Merch. We've got a
Speaker 2: bunch of stuff up at ologiesmirch dot com, which also
Speaker 2: helps support the show. If you're like I spent all
Speaker 2: my money on pinball and alcoholic strawberry milk, I get it.
Speaker 2: You can always support for zero dollars. You can just
Speaker 2: tell a friend about the show. It costs nothing. You
Speaker 2: can tweet Instagram. Also rating, reviewing and making sure you're
Speaker 2: subscribed keeps the show up in iTunes. I think we're
Speaker 2: like number twenty right now in science Charts ever, which
Speaker 2: is crazy. So if you've listened to ologies before, you
Speaker 2: know that I creep your reviews. I'm just like a harmless,
Speaker 2: besotted lover in your hedges and I read them all shamelessly.
Speaker 2: This week, Lakota Blaine said, this podcast is gonna blow
Speaker 2: your mother friending mind on how this world works. Ali
Speaker 2: is like Albert Einstein, wrapped in the curiosity of a
Speaker 2: child and has the wisdom of a well experienced grandmother.
Speaker 2: I just pictured my bosoms being so pendulous and just
Speaker 2: some chin whiskers. But I'm cool with it, Okay. Lepidopterology
Speaker 2: what a word, so many syllables. You gotta remember, you
Speaker 2: gotta not mess up. But it's a study of butterflies
Speaker 2: and moths of the order Lepidoptera, which comes from Greek
Speaker 2: words for scale and wing. Very sexy. So this ologist
Speaker 2: I've known for almost five years, I think, which is crazy.
Speaker 2: But as a bug nerd, I saw some of his
Speaker 2: insect photos on Instagram and he's such a really, really
Speaker 2: good photographer. So I forced him to be my internet
Speaker 2: friend and then my in real life friend, and then
Speaker 2: we introduced each other to our other science friends and
Speaker 2: now we're all on a WhatsApp thread called Scorpions on
Speaker 2: our Faces. We are the ones who fueled everyone's bug
Speaker 2: questions and my only aim in life is to deliver
Speaker 2: insect ideas faster than him, and it only works sometimes,
Speaker 2: and that's just because he's on a plane or he's
Speaker 2: shooting one of his several TV shows he works on,
Speaker 2: and i'mybe able to get in before him, and I
Speaker 2: look like a hero. You may have seen him on
Speaker 2: Animal Planet, Al Jazeera America's show Techno. He's been on
Speaker 2: the Discovery Channel and others. He's working on a new show.
Speaker 2: He also has a YouTube series called aptly Jungle Diaries.
Speaker 2: So we sat down in LA while he was on
Speaker 2: the West Coast, and I lobbed one million butterfly questions
Speaker 2: at his face, and we talked about the differences between
Speaker 2: mops and butterflies, the most butterflies he's ever seen in
Speaker 2: one place, and what children's toys are in his field kit,
Speaker 2: and why he sniffs butterflies, and the truly disgusting behaviors
Speaker 2: and preferences of the world's most fond over and respected insects.
Speaker 2: They are disgusting. We talk about sex and mating. So
Speaker 2: slow down, perch on a flower and open your ears
Speaker 2: for some delightful facts and harrowing jungle tales from one
Speaker 2: of my favorite entomologists, a guy I call Philly t
Speaker 2: Exoskeletorres lepidopterologist Phil Tarres.
Speaker 3: Butterflies are the best.
Speaker 2: It appears this is your micro Ooh, I feel like
Speaker 2: it's karaoke night. I know, it really is great. Just
Speaker 2: you just hold it like you're doing a stand up bit.
Speaker 3: Okay, so you point it at your face.
Speaker 2: Pointed at your face, Philly t exoskeleatorist, thank you for
Speaker 2: being here, happy to be here. Okay, So you are,
Speaker 2: by all accounts a lepidopterologist.
Speaker 3: Let's go with that. Yes, backgrounds and entomology, and I
Speaker 3: focus a lot of my work on butterflies because they're
Speaker 3: kind of the best.
Speaker 2: Why are they the best? I'm getting right into it.
Speaker 3: I mean a lot of it has to do with
Speaker 3: going way back for me. So when I was a kid,
Speaker 3: I was out there bringing home bones and snakes and
Speaker 3: bugs and anything I could find from the local state park.
Speaker 3: And then I started taking these butterfly classes as a
Speaker 3: kid when I was seven years old. And this guy,
Speaker 3: doctor Andy Warren, who's now the collections manager at University
Speaker 3: of Florida. He's like amazing butterfly researcher. He taught these
Speaker 3: classes and he was in high school at the time.
Speaker 3: I was seven years old, and I was learning about
Speaker 3: how to collect them, how to mount them, how to
Speaker 3: identify them, how to collect like store the right data.
Speaker 3: And it was a blest and we were out there.
Speaker 3: I remember when I was eight, me and this kid
Speaker 3: next to me were running after this thing, the golf ertilary.
Speaker 2: The gulf fritillary, by the way, is this cute little
Speaker 2: orange umber and dark brown butterfly. And the underside of
Speaker 2: its wings have these crazy gorgeous metallic silvery patches. So
Speaker 2: from the top it looks like the palette for a
Speaker 2: Thanksgiving tablescape, but on the underside it has markings like
Speaker 2: a Lady Gaga Super Bowl costume for the future. Anyway,
Speaker 2: golf fritillary.
Speaker 3: And he caught it. I missed it, but it was
Speaker 3: like the first state record ever recorded in Colorado. And
Speaker 3: I'm like, okay, if we can do that at this age,
Speaker 3: imagine what we can do when I'm like a real
Speaker 3: human and an adult.
Speaker 2: The eight year olds are not real.
Speaker 3: They're not Let's be honest.
Speaker 2: Here, what happened when he caught it? Were you like, oh,
Speaker 2: congratulations out?
Speaker 3: I mean, I think it was just it was all excitement.
Speaker 3: It was. It was pretty There's probably some high fives.
Speaker 3: You know, I don't know what the cool word was
Speaker 3: back then, but.
Speaker 2: It's probably rad.
Speaker 3: Probably rad. I don't know, I was eight.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, probably a big word. Bition is a big word. Yeah,
Speaker 2: does doctor Andy Andy Warren?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Do you are you guys still? Are you pals?
Speaker 3: Totally? We're totally palced still And it's great.
Speaker 2: So you too can digitally befriend Andy Warren, the lepidopterologist
Speaker 2: who inspired Phil. He is at Andy bug Guy on Twitter,
Speaker 2: so you can have at it. Andy will probably be
Speaker 2: confused about the sudden spike in his timeline, but it
Speaker 2: is a lovely buffet of butterfly and moth photos. Totally
Speaker 2: worth it. Gently stock him.
Speaker 3: But yeah, actually I talked to him about getting on Twitter,
Speaker 3: and now he's just like killing the game. And if
Speaker 3: you have any butterfly questions, he just he knows it.
Speaker 3: He knows everything. So he's like the grand master and
Speaker 3: I'm like his understudy.
Speaker 2: And so I know, because I know that you answer
Speaker 2: a lot of questions when it comes to butterfly, I do.
Speaker 3: I can't help it.
Speaker 2: I mean, is it harder for you to answer a
Speaker 2: question of like what is this caterpillar? Versus what is
Speaker 2: this butterfly?
Speaker 3: It is? I mean you you tend to spend more
Speaker 3: time working on at least for me, working on the
Speaker 3: adult and memorizing the different species and on where they're
Speaker 3: found and all that kind of thing. And the caterpillars
Speaker 3: can be a little trickier. Some are more obvious than others.
Speaker 3: You know that if it looks like bird poop, then
Speaker 3: it's probably a swallowtail caterpillar.
Speaker 2: Is that true?
Speaker 3: That is true. Yeah, a lot of the younger in
Speaker 3: stars they will mimic bird poop, so well, oh, that's
Speaker 3: so smart on a citrus tree especially, So if you
Speaker 3: are like smelling a nice orange and you see some
Speaker 3: bird poop crawling around, you'd be like, wait a second,
Speaker 3: that might be a swallowtail butterfly.
Speaker 2: What's worse than roving bird poop? And they're like, surprise,
Speaker 2: how jubby caterpillar? Side note, if you are like what
Speaker 2: is this in star business, don't worry. As much. As
Speaker 2: I have been a bug lover for the years, I
Speaker 2: just learned this word recently. I didn't know it. It
Speaker 2: just means the different stages, like in this case caterpillars,
Speaker 2: So they just keep molting into a larger size until
Speaker 2: they're ready to pupate. So imagine kind of like a
Speaker 2: Russian nesting doll situation, but squishy, and at the very
Speaker 2: last stage they turn into a purse and then out
Speaker 2: of the purse pops a kite or a drone, and
Speaker 2: you're like, what kind of crazy witchcraft magic is this?
Speaker 2: Speaking of progressions, so let's talk about your path. Okay,
Speaker 2: at what point did you decide you were going to
Speaker 2: study entomology and butterflies.
Speaker 3: I was eleven years old and I had to write
Speaker 3: a paper in middle school saying what do you want
Speaker 3: to do when you grow up? And I was like,
Speaker 3: I want to study entomology at Cornell And that's what
Speaker 3: because that's where Andy went to study as well, and
Speaker 3: it's just the best undergrad program that i'd found, and
Speaker 3: it was it was amazing, and I was just like,
Speaker 3: this is what I want to do, because he would
Speaker 3: tell these stories of you know, he just came back
Speaker 3: from South Africa and discovered species a month in Brazil
Speaker 3: and all these places around the world. So I was like, Okay,
Speaker 3: there was a job out there. You get to chase
Speaker 3: after things with a butterfly nets, make real discoveries and
Speaker 3: explore the world, and that just sounds like a blast,
Speaker 3: not to mention you get to like have fun doing it,
Speaker 3: Like you make bait traps that smell terrible, and it
Speaker 3: just like stuff that kids love. And I was like,
Speaker 3: I just want to stick with this for forever.
Speaker 2: How many countries do you think you've been to in
Speaker 2: a quest to look at butterflies and bugs and snakes,
Speaker 2: sticks and bones.
Speaker 3: I don't know, maybe like fifteen or so.
Speaker 2: Phil has traveled through most of Latin America, Mongolia, He's
Speaker 2: done work in Europe. The dude has some frequent flyer miles.
Speaker 3: You get around, and that's that's really what drew me
Speaker 3: to science in general, is just this idea that I mean,
Speaker 3: it's been a really nice career that I think. I
Speaker 3: did my first expedition when I was nineteen years old
Speaker 3: and worked with the grad student. We spent three and
Speaker 3: a half weeks in Venezuela and found thirty five new species.
Speaker 2: When you were you were not twenty yet, you could
Speaker 2: not rent a car, you were six years from un
Speaker 2: here across and you discovered how many new species.
Speaker 3: Thirty five on this trip. I mean, it was he
Speaker 3: was like, really, the guy who could look at it.
Speaker 3: We were studying aquatic beetles at the time, as you do,
Speaker 3: and it was so cool, and a lot of them
Speaker 3: were there's in Venezuela a lot of these beetles. This
Speaker 3: one genus uh Cyclist lives on the side of waterfalls
Speaker 3: and that's where it specializes. So like, imagine being nineteen
Speaker 3: and being like, Okay, I guess we're gonna have to
Speaker 3: travel throughout this beautiful country looking for waterfalls to discover things.
Speaker 3: And I had so many moments when I was young there.
Speaker 3: I was like, Yes, this was the right choice, because
Speaker 3: the experiences I got, not just with nature and discovery,
Speaker 3: but also the humans you meet in these places were amazing.
Speaker 2: Phil had an experience growing up that always stuck with him,
Speaker 2: and I'm going to say right up top, it involved
Speaker 2: travel and butterflies, which you're going to find is a
Speaker 2: recurring theme in Phil's life in US this episode. By
Speaker 2: the time it's over, I'm just going to warn you
Speaker 2: you're going to be cramming a butterfly net and a
Speaker 2: steamer trunk and flipping your boss off on your way
Speaker 2: out the door, like bye bye, I'm off gone to
Speaker 2: the janga. This episode will inspire you to wreck your life.
Speaker 2: It's gonna be great anyway.
Speaker 3: Okay, So my dad's family's from Nicaragua. And when I
Speaker 3: was thirteen, I can't remember if I was thirteen or
Speaker 3: fifteen at the times, we did two trips. As a kid.
Speaker 3: I reached out to the lead entomologist in Nicodagua saying, Hey,
Speaker 3: I'm coming down. I kind of know what i'm doing.
Speaker 3: Can I get a permit to collect butterflies and I'll
Speaker 3: send you photos and kind of we can id them together.
Speaker 3: And he was like sure, and I was like, sweet,
Speaker 3: let's go find some butterflies. So we were there visiting family.
Speaker 3: But then I was like, okay, we have to go
Speaker 3: to this really remote rainforest in one area down by
Speaker 3: the border of Costa Rica. Then we went up into
Speaker 3: this volcano called Mumbaco for one point too, and I
Speaker 3: caught this one butterfly. They're called glass wing butterflies, and
Speaker 3: they're beautiful because they're kind of transparent and just really interesting.
Speaker 2: Just a note to say that a glass wing is
Speaker 2: super weird to look at. It's just as it sounds.
Speaker 2: Most of the wings are totally see through, like it's
Speaker 2: wearing an invisibility cloak. You can see right through its body.
Speaker 2: It looks like it exists, but it doesn't. And whenever
Speaker 2: I see photos of them, and I was just looking
Speaker 2: at a bunch of them, I always get like these
Speaker 2: weird kind of goosebumps and like a squeaky feeling in
Speaker 2: my tummers, like a vertigo, Like how are you a
Speaker 2: mostly transparent animal? Anyway? So Phil found a really cool one.
Speaker 3: Butterfly usually find a higher elevation or shadier areas in
Speaker 3: the tropics, and I went home mounted this butterfly, put
Speaker 3: the location data, all that kind of thing. And then
Speaker 3: a few months later, my uncle who lives down there,
Speaker 3: sent us a newspaper article saying, hey, new species of
Speaker 3: butterfly has been collected on this volcano, Mombacho, and there's
Speaker 3: only three specimens that have ever been found. And then
Speaker 3: I looked at my collection. I was like, oh my gosh,
Speaker 3: I have the fourth one. And I was like a teenager,
Speaker 3: and I was on this family trip, and so it
Speaker 3: was another one of those moments where I'm like, holy, Like,
Speaker 3: if I just did this right now, because there's so
Speaker 3: few people out there appreciating these things, imagine what else
Speaker 3: I can do if I make a career out of this.
Speaker 3: And it's called not Biogenes to loso mumbachuenses. So that
Speaker 3: quite a mouthful umbacho part. That's the subspecies found on
Speaker 3: that volcan mumbacho.
Speaker 2: What does the whole name mean? Do you know?
Speaker 3: I don't know. Not Bogenes to loso mumbatuenzis Tolosa's my guess. Uh,
Speaker 3: I don't know. I don't know. Yeah, let's look it up.
Speaker 3: We can dig into this. I wonder we get the truth.
Speaker 2: I want you to know the year old dad tried
Speaker 2: real hard to find the meaning of this scientific name,
Speaker 2: and I just plumb struck out, kiddos. It was named
Speaker 2: in eighteen fifty one by an entomologist, and I just
Speaker 2: I have no idea what it means. Spam, I have
Speaker 2: no idea, you know what. Let's back up. Let's just
Speaker 2: back up. Let's get to some easier questions first. Okay,
Speaker 2: so let's define a butterfly. Okay, so I I know
Speaker 2: what a butterfly looks like. But what's the difference between
Speaker 2: a butterfly and a moth? What's the difference between a
Speaker 2: butterfly and another winged insect? What makes it a lepidopterrology.
Speaker 3: So lepidoptera translates as like scaly wing. Okay, so that's
Speaker 3: one of the number one things. You look at those
Speaker 3: wings and they're covered in little tiny scales and that's
Speaker 3: how they get their color. Oh, and that color can
Speaker 3: be really brilliant and colorful or it can be drabbing brown,
Speaker 3: and it kind of depends on the thing. So butterflies
Speaker 3: get a lot of the glory because we see them
Speaker 3: more often because they're diurnal.
Speaker 2: Wait what is that word again? Diurnal?
Speaker 3: Fy.
Speaker 2: I avoid this word a lot because I'm afraid of
Speaker 2: saying it wrong, and also it sounds like a pea toilet,
Speaker 2: but it just means not nocturnal. So butterflies awake during
Speaker 2: the day, which is more than I can say for
Speaker 2: myself sometimes, and they're just prettier.
Speaker 3: But really, butterflies are a type of day flying moth.
Speaker 2: That's so weird.
Speaker 3: So when we look at the family tree, there's like
Speaker 3: moth moth, moth, butterfly and moth moth moth, and they're
Speaker 3: kind of considered and you know amongst most people as
Speaker 3: like butterflies on the left and moths on the right.
Speaker 3: But really it's this branch of moths that evolved into
Speaker 3: this superfamily papillion idea that has really done well during
Speaker 3: the day. And that's why it has all these bright colors,
Speaker 3: because those colors help it camouflage or identify a mate,
Speaker 3: or to show that it's poisonous if it has like
Speaker 3: bright orange and yellow and black colors, or to mimic
Speaker 3: something that is poisonous and it's they were great. So
Speaker 3: to tell the difference between moth and butterfly color is
Speaker 3: one thing. Also, look at the way they rest. So
Speaker 3: a moth generally has its wings folded down when it's resting,
Speaker 3: and a butterfly generally has its wings folded up tucked
Speaker 3: behind it when it's resting.
Speaker 2: All right, So it's like a stealth fighter versus a sailboat.
Speaker 3: Yes, okay, that is great. I'm going to use that.
Speaker 2: You are welcome. Please cite me in all you got it.
Speaker 2: Flies are up.
Speaker 3: Typically, typically there are some that break the rules. The
Speaker 3: rule that basically is never broken is looking at the antenna. Okay,
Speaker 3: so a butterfly, imagine, you know you have these too
Speaker 3: long stalks at the top are too long, you know,
Speaker 3: things sticking out, and then at the very end it
Speaker 3: gets a little thick, a little club. If it's got
Speaker 3: like a club at the end, you were talking about
Speaker 3: a butterfly. Here, if it's straight or feathery, we're talking
Speaker 3: about a moth, okay.
Speaker 2: And do they have wildly different eyesight or wildly different
Speaker 2: like olfactory senses.
Speaker 3: Eyesight for sure. Butterflies fly anything that's flying by day.
Speaker 3: There are moths that fly by day as well. They're
Speaker 3: going to be very visual, so they're looking for brightly
Speaker 3: colored flowers that are telling them, hey, we've got some
Speaker 3: nectar for you. They're looking for conspecifics, others of the
Speaker 3: same species to figure out if they want to mate
Speaker 3: or chase them out of their territory. They're looking for
Speaker 3: predators flying around. They have pretty decent vision to look
Speaker 3: for anything swooping at them, and you learn that when
Speaker 3: you're trying to catch them with a butterfly net. They're
Speaker 3: very tricky. Sometimes exercise it is. It is very good exercise. Yes,
Speaker 3: it's the real jungle gym. When you're out there in
Speaker 3: the rainforest and you're swinging these things, it's tricky. Some
Speaker 3: species are way easier to catch, and they're kind of
Speaker 3: low flying and just flopping around and then others are
Speaker 3: just they're like jet fighters. They're really tough, really agile,
Speaker 3: and they're really tricky, which is why sometimes bait traps
Speaker 3: do the trick.
Speaker 2: Oh, because I've seen a video of you in your
Speaker 2: YouTube series of Jungle Diaries where you have the world's
Speaker 2: longest butterfly net.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, how long is it?
Speaker 2: And how heavy is that? Because you've got to get
Speaker 2: up in the canopy?
Speaker 3: Right. Yes, I was working with my friend doctor Susan Finkbeiner.
Speaker 2: Pil and doctor fink Biner went to Cornell together, and
Speaker 2: she's now one of the top butterfly researchers ever in
Speaker 2: the world. She's super tough, she works deep in the jungle,
Speaker 2: and she uses this nuts the longest butterfly net available
Speaker 2: possibly on the open market, to catch butterflies in the
Speaker 2: rainforest canopy. It extends thirty five feet. It's a thirty
Speaker 2: five foot long net. I looked all over for on
Speaker 2: the internet. I couldn't even find one to see how
Speaker 2: much they cost. I think she had to build it herself. Anyway,
Speaker 2: Phil was like, I'm a buff dude, I can do that. Also, No,
Speaker 2: this was not his verbatim thoughts. I just editorialized them anyway.
Speaker 2: He was like, I got this, teach me how to
Speaker 2: use it. I'm gonna look just like you.
Speaker 3: It didn't pan out that way. We have to like
Speaker 3: hike up this crazy stream. And I mean it was
Speaker 3: amazing place to work, like that's her office every day.
Speaker 3: Pretty great. But then you open up the butterfly net
Speaker 3: and I couldn't even I could barely hold the thing.
Speaker 3: It looks so heavy.
Speaker 2: It just keeps It's like a clown car. You just
Speaker 2: keep extending and extending, like extending it.
Speaker 3: My arm got tired. I was like, can we is
Speaker 3: there like a button we and breast that this thing happens,
Speaker 3: And so yeah, holding it you have to kind of
Speaker 3: stabilize with your foot and then swinging it and swinging
Speaker 3: accurately was a whole other level. But it was. It
Speaker 3: was a blest And every time I do something like that,
Speaker 3: I'm like, this is such a fun job, Like studying butterflies.
Speaker 3: You just get to do these crazy things like swing
Speaker 3: thirty five foot nets in the middle of the jungle.
Speaker 2: But what about the bait traps? If you're like, my
Speaker 2: arm is too tired, Yeah, I'm going to put out
Speaker 2: a pile of dung, and see what happens. Is that
Speaker 2: what happens because you mentioned they were smelly.
Speaker 3: They are smelly. So bait traps you get creative. And
Speaker 3: so sometimes you will use a banana bait trap, and
Speaker 3: this is pretty typical throughout the Tropic because you get bananas,
Speaker 3: You add some water, maybe some sugar, maybe some beer,
Speaker 3: and then you close it up and you let it
Speaker 3: ferment for a few days. You open it up if
Speaker 3: it smells nives in a ripe and like you don't
Speaker 3: want to be anywhere near it. Then you got some
Speaker 3: good bait and then you set it in a little
Speaker 3: cup and in this kind of like cylinder net thing
Speaker 3: at floating you know, it'll be floating below the cylinder
Speaker 3: net thing. And so the butterfly feeds on the bait
Speaker 3: and then flies up, and when they fly up, they
Speaker 3: get caught in that net.
Speaker 2: Ah.
Speaker 3: So that's like the most PG thirteen version of a
Speaker 3: butterfly bait. Okay, But then you get a little interesting
Speaker 3: and we will use rotten fish, so we will ferment
Speaker 3: like tunic cans, and that was horrible. We will add
Speaker 3: human urine to it. Hell, yeah, and that doesn't make
Speaker 3: it any better. And then you can also use.
Speaker 2: Yeah, poop anything, in particular carnivore poop.
Speaker 3: So if you're a vegan, I'm sorry, but your poop
Speaker 3: probably won't cut it. If you are a carnivore, you
Speaker 3: have enough. You've got some like good sodium and maybe
Speaker 3: even some nitrogen they might be going for in there, Okay,
Speaker 3: And so I always joke that, I mean, seeing a
Speaker 3: jaguar in the wild is an amazing thing, and knowing
Speaker 3: that they're around, finding images of them on camera traps
Speaker 3: is great. But what I'm after is jaguar poop, because
Speaker 3: when you find jaguar poop, you will see some of
Speaker 3: the rarest butterflies that generally are only found way upon
Speaker 3: the canopy, but they will come down to the ground
Speaker 3: to feed on that steamy pile of goods. And that's
Speaker 3: just it. There's all these rare resources out there, and
Speaker 3: so if you make a bait that smells like a
Speaker 3: rare resource like pea or rotten fish or rotten fruit,
Speaker 3: then the butterflies will come.
Speaker 2: I love that The most PG. Thirteen version of this
Speaker 2: is something that has to do with beer, Like it
Speaker 2: gets so gross from there that the most innocent thing
Speaker 2: is putting out beer for.
Speaker 3: Butterfly, it is. And you're fermenting this fruit, right, which
Speaker 3: is how you make alcohol in the first place, so
Speaker 3: it becomes slightly alcoholic. And you actually kind of see
Speaker 3: that these butterflies get a little drunk.
Speaker 2: Is that true?
Speaker 3: It is very true.
Speaker 2: How can you tell?
Speaker 3: They're just like getting in bar fights and stuff there.
Speaker 2: Now you can actually discern which butterflies become a kneeb
Speaker 2: on fermenting fruit if you look super closely, because on
Speaker 2: some specimens you can see a really small tattoo of
Speaker 2: a human on the lower back of the butterfly. So
Speaker 2: the love is very mutual. They love us too. Ps.
Speaker 2: If you'd like a rabbit hole to go down, type
Speaker 2: in drunk butterflies on YouTube, and you're gonna find some
Speaker 2: gems like this one from ann a girl mpath. His
Speaker 2: tongue's all curled again, so he's not eating. He's just
Speaker 2: kind of chilling. So we may both be suckers for
Speaker 2: getting shmammren on a hooch. But a butterfly brain is
Speaker 2: a little different than ours. They have a lump of
Speaker 2: ganglia and the head to control the eyes and the
Speaker 2: antennae and the coiled birthday party horn of a proboscis,
Speaker 2: but it also extends down their body. Their brain goes
Speaker 2: all the way down their body to help their back
Speaker 2: end make decisions, which honestly would be very helpful in humans,
Speaker 2: especially drunk ones.
Speaker 3: But yes, they can get a little drunk like us.
Speaker 2: What okay, Well, this brings me to a question if
Speaker 2: they can drink and eat? How many moths? How many
Speaker 2: butterflies actually eat as adults, because don't a lot of
Speaker 2: them just chub it up when they're bibis and they're done.
Speaker 2: They're like, I'm an adult. All I want to do
Speaker 2: is mate.
Speaker 3: Caterpillars are just big feeding tubes, okay, And they just
Speaker 3: eat and eat and eat, and they just try to
Speaker 3: grow into a thing that will then turn into a
Speaker 3: chrystalis or a cocon and then turn into an adult.
Speaker 2: So some species feed as adults and live a little
Speaker 2: longer so that they can have a better chance of
Speaker 2: finding a mate, maybe a few mates. Hey. Other species
Speaker 2: don't live as long, and thus they don't even bother
Speaker 2: growing mouths, which is like hello, American horror story, butterfly season.
Speaker 3: They don't have mouthparts because they eat a bunch as
Speaker 3: a shelby caterpillar and now they're like, I just got
Speaker 3: a mate. So with them, it is a pheromona. Now,
Speaker 3: butterflies will have pheromones too, but with moths it can
Speaker 3: be way stronger. So if you take a female soiak moth,
Speaker 3: a big let's say, lou a moth, and you stick
Speaker 3: it in you know, kind of a mesh whatever, a
Speaker 3: mesh bag, she will release this pheromone out into the world.
Speaker 3: And if you wait all night, that thing will have
Speaker 3: like a dozen males that have tracked it down. And
Speaker 3: the way they do it is they have the males
Speaker 3: have these big feathery antenna that are super super sensitive.
Speaker 3: They can detect like a single molecule from like two
Speaker 3: miles away, and they'll be like, there is a female
Speaker 3: around here, let's find her. And they do kind of
Speaker 3: a zigzag pattern to triangulate and to figure out where
Speaker 3: she is. And then when they find her, they they
Speaker 3: know that they got something to do and they try
Speaker 3: to mate.
Speaker 2: How pissed were they that she was in a mesh bag?
Speaker 3: They were so pissed, Like I came in this whole way.
Speaker 2: She's like, sorry, I'm in a bag tonight maybe tomorrow. Now,
Speaker 2: how is it different for butterflies. How do they find
Speaker 2: each other just by peeping each other on a flower? Like, Hey,
Speaker 2: I saw you on the flower back there. You look
Speaker 2: pretty good.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it'll be a visual thing usually because they have
Speaker 3: colors that we can see and also UV colors as well.
Speaker 3: And then from a close distance, it will oftentimes be
Speaker 3: a mix of behavior and smell. Okay, so certain species,
Speaker 3: males will defend a territory and wait for a female
Speaker 3: to come by. Other times they'll be cruising around looking
Speaker 3: for a female. Sleep baby. Maybe you want to roll
Speaker 3: my windows down and close, so that kind of makes
Speaker 3: a difference. But then up close, butterflies too have a pheromone,
Speaker 3: and the best thing about butterfly mating is that their
Speaker 3: pheromones smell really really good, super good.
Speaker 2: Is this just a personal fetish from a lepidopterologist or
Speaker 2: would you say so a little bit?
Speaker 3: But so, when I was in Peru a couple of
Speaker 3: months ago, we found this one butterfly and it was on.
Speaker 3: Butterflies sleep underneath leaves in the tropics, So if you're
Speaker 3: walking around at night and you shine lights underneath leaves,
Speaker 3: you'll see a little butterfly tucked in, and so you
Speaker 3: can catch them in a way that they're they're totally
Speaker 3: not harmed, open up their wings and give it a sniff,
Speaker 3: and if it's a male. In certain groups, I pass
Speaker 3: this around ten out of ten people, where like, this
Speaker 3: smells exactly like brownie batter?
Speaker 2: Why brownie batter?
Speaker 3: Like not even cooked brownies, we're talking the batter. This
Speaker 3: is so different, and I think it's just it's a
Speaker 3: mix of incidental that it smells like that. And also
Speaker 3: this group is known to feed on plants like banana
Speaker 3: and certain plants that may have some chemicals in them
Speaker 3: that are volatile and smell nice. And so when the
Speaker 3: caterpillar eats, it gets into the adult, and so these
Speaker 3: chemicals have taken a long journey and they have components
Speaker 3: in them that are kind of like fruit like or
Speaker 3: food like, and it's it's delicious. And so there's some
Speaker 3: that smell like that, there's some that smell exactly like
Speaker 3: maple syrup, some that smell like cake, some that smell
Speaker 3: like barbecue potato chips.
Speaker 2: That's so specific.
Speaker 3: So if you guys ever catch a butterfly, please please
Speaker 3: smell it and let me know. The black swallowtails that
Speaker 3: you get around here actually the tiger swallowtails as well.
Speaker 3: The males in the US smell like fruit loops, exactly
Speaker 3: like fruit loops.
Speaker 2: How did you discover this? Is this the thing that
Speaker 2: lepidopterologists know about.
Speaker 3: They know and they kind of pass on. I think
Speaker 3: I probably sniff more than other lipidopterologies, but I just
Speaker 3: like using my nose. I think it's it is when
Speaker 3: you work a lot with animals, or when you work
Speaker 3: a lot in the jungle, you start to use your
Speaker 3: senses a lot more, and not in like like b
Speaker 3: one with the earth way. It's just like you do
Speaker 3: because you notice, Okay, if you want to find monkeys
Speaker 3: in the jungle, you don't crane your neck looking up,
Speaker 3: use your ears and you'll hear a little crash and
Speaker 3: you know, okay, that's a big crash, that's a capuchin.
Speaker 3: If it's like a running crash, then that might be
Speaker 3: a spider monkey or something. You start to use your
Speaker 3: ears different and then also your nose because those resources
Speaker 3: like fermented fruit, if you are near a fruiting tree
Speaker 3: and you smell fermented fruit, you'd be like, oh, there
Speaker 3: could be good butterflies over here, or dead animals too
Speaker 3: can attract certain things, or maybe you find a really
Speaker 3: cool dead animal that just died of natural causes, like
Speaker 3: I found my first sleep was a sloth with a
Speaker 3: big bite out of it from like an ocelot or something.
Speaker 3: But I was like, how cool is this? And so
Speaker 3: we used the machete and cut off its head and
Speaker 3: then preserved its head in a way that we got
Speaker 3: the skull, and then we were able to take that
Speaker 3: around the local schools and ecuadornge show them a slow
Speaker 3: skull and teach them about it. And sloth teeth do
Speaker 3: not mess around. They may be slow, but they got
Speaker 3: sharp teeth for cutting through. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I just want to interject to tell you that sloth skulls.
Speaker 2: I just looked it up. They look kind of like
Speaker 2: a softball wearing dentures plus plastic Halloween vampire teeth, and
Speaker 2: they are cute as hell. What's the grossest thing that's
Speaker 2: happened to you in the jungle? You just talked about
Speaker 2: beheading a dead rotting sloth? Yeah, which I can't imagine,
Speaker 2: like the whack with a machete that must have been.
Speaker 3: I've done it with a dead puma too, which I
Speaker 3: don't know. It's it's pretty gross. But you start to
Speaker 3: get a little It's like sad to see the dead things,
Speaker 3: for sure, but you kind of realize like, oh, we
Speaker 3: can take this death and make something out of it.
Speaker 3: And I think skulls and bones are great educational tools,
Speaker 3: and so you just do what you gotta do.
Speaker 2: Have you ever been really really scared in the field.
Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure. I definitely do get scared sometimes, and
Speaker 3: I think that's okay. And one thing that helps is
Speaker 3: basically just to focus on my work. If I'm out
Speaker 3: there at night, sometimes I'll hike a long which you
Speaker 3: probably shouldn't do. I just really focus on, Okay, what
Speaker 3: is my target that I'm looking for, if it's a
Speaker 3: spider or sleeping butterfly or anything like that. The main thing,
Speaker 3: I don't know. We called the jungle scareds okay. That
Speaker 3: is like our term that we created where if you're
Speaker 3: out there, especially at night in the jungle, even if
Speaker 3: you're with a group during a survey, sometimes you just
Speaker 3: get this creepy feeling that like you could turn and
Speaker 3: your headlamp would look out and there'd be a jaguar
Speaker 3: just like glaring backy with glowing eyes, and that would
Speaker 3: be really scary. So we call that the jungle scared,
Speaker 3: where like your mind kind of gets away from you.
Speaker 2: Uh huh, okay, But feel's greatest fear in the jungle
Speaker 2: just shocked the socks off me. This is not what
Speaker 2: I was expecting. Wait till you hear this. I just
Speaker 2: click baited you in my own podcast. But seriously, you
Speaker 2: won't believe what this entomologist fears most in the rainforest.
Speaker 3: Ooh, click click. My biggest fear in the jungle is trees.
Speaker 3: What trees? Why? Because they weigh so much? That's true,
Speaker 3: and tree falls are a very natural part of the
Speaker 3: cycle of the rainforest. About two to three percent of
Speaker 3: the rainforest is in the tree fall zone at any moment,
Speaker 3: and every single day when you're in the jungle, you
Speaker 3: were here at some point a big s and like
Speaker 3: sometimes you feel that you earth shake because a tree
Speaker 3: that could weigh you know, a few thousand pounds just fell,
Speaker 3: and not only did it fall, but there's vines everywhere,
Speaker 3: so it took a bunch of trees next to it down.
Speaker 3: And you can have this huge area cleared out that
Speaker 3: if you are anywhere near, there's not a whole lot
Speaker 3: you can do. And there was one time in Peru
Speaker 3: that I was out hiking. I was about a mile
Speaker 3: from base camp and I hear this crazy loud storm
Speaker 3: come in. I mean it sounded like a train was coming.
Speaker 3: I've never heard anything like that. And then the wind started,
Speaker 3: and that is your biggest danger when it comes to trees,
Speaker 3: it's rain and wind, because that's what will take them down.
Speaker 3: And I just started, I mean I started hearing trees
Speaker 3: come down, branches started falling, so I turn and sprint
Speaker 3: it back. I've never sprinted a full mile, probably did
Speaker 3: like a four minute fifty five second mile. And there
Speaker 3: was literally, I mean we're talking six four hundred pound
Speaker 3: branches falling to my left and right a giant tree
Speaker 3: started falling, falling in the trail in front of me,
Speaker 3: and I had to kind of stop, and then I
Speaker 3: ran underneath it, and it was like crazy Indiana Jones movement,
Speaker 3: where I was like, where's my hat that I dropped?
Speaker 3: I got a grab and yeah, I got back, and
Speaker 3: I just you don't mess around with that kind of thing.
Speaker 3: And so there's a lot of times that I've had
Speaker 3: to cancel hikes if rain is too high or wind
Speaker 3: is too high, because you just don't want to risk it.
Speaker 3: And I've had friends that have left their bag somewhere
Speaker 3: and they come back, you know, an hour later, and
Speaker 3: that bag is smashed by a giant branch that fell
Speaker 3: from the sky, And so it can just happen and
Speaker 3: never knew.
Speaker 2: I never considered this.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I never.
Speaker 2: I thought maybe you could fall into a pit of alligators,
Speaker 2: but I never for sure. Trees.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, the animals, at least in the New
Speaker 3: World tropics, so central South America, generally you're you're pretty
Speaker 3: okay with most of the things that are down there.
Speaker 3: There are some other tropics where you have other animals
Speaker 3: you need to be concerned about, but usually where I work,
Speaker 3: you're you're pretty good. Just don't get hit by a tree.
Speaker 2: Oh I have a question about gifts. Oh yeah, okay,
Speaker 2: So I know that if you, let's say that you
Speaker 2: really like pigs or dragons or or yachting or something,
Speaker 2: you get a lot of gifts with that. Do you
Speaker 2: get a lot of butterfly and moth gifts?
Speaker 3: I do? I do, And I'm okay with it because
Speaker 3: I remember somebody got me like a little kitty, you know,
Speaker 3: is one of those like bug chamber things like a
Speaker 3: little fold out thing that is aimed at judgeing by
Speaker 3: the font, probably aimed at like seven eight year olds. OK,
Speaker 3: And I was like, this thing's dope. And I carried
Speaker 3: it around my backpack in the field for like two years,
Speaker 3: and I use it all the time when I found
Speaker 3: something cool, when I wanted to stick it in there,
Speaker 3: I'd be like, this thing's collapsible. How great is this?
Speaker 3: I need to make this for adults too.
Speaker 2: I look this up and they're like five bucks on
Speaker 2: the internet, ear in a toy store, and they look
Speaker 2: like tiny mesh collapsible laundry hampers. The zip down flat,
Speaker 2: so you can keep a bug catcher in your purse
Speaker 2: or pocket at all times, like a six year old
Speaker 2: who might just need to hang out with a cricket
Speaker 2: or a firefly for a little bit. It's chill.
Speaker 3: And also my favorite thing about gifts and butterflies are
Speaker 3: the gifts that butterflies give each other, such as, for example,
Speaker 3: so it's called a nuptial gift.
Speaker 2: Oh you're God.
Speaker 3: When let's say you love you love a female butterfly
Speaker 3: and you're like, what do I do to impress her?
Speaker 2: Oh? No?
Speaker 3: So sometimes that tactic will be finding a source of sodium,
Speaker 3: whether that be in mud or you know, piss or
Speaker 3: that animal or jaguar boopy. You get that sodium innium.
Speaker 3: And then you make a sperm packet this thing called
Speaker 3: a spermatophore, and you inject the whole thing into there.
Speaker 3: So you're giving her sperm and salt.
Speaker 2: Wait a second, so you're giving her like a gift basket. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that has your geas and then also just like.
Speaker 3: A salt a salt junk. You're serious, yes, And it's
Speaker 3: because salt is generally pretty rare out there. Plants don't
Speaker 3: have a lot of salt because it's poisonous to them,
Speaker 3: and so the males kind of say, hey, you're going
Speaker 3: to need this to make some nice eggs and for
Speaker 3: our babies to be happy together, so they give her
Speaker 3: some salt. But there's also my favorite nuptial gift is poison. What, Yes, that.
Speaker 2: Sucks, although I guess when you buy someone or drink
Speaker 2: at a bar, you're technically giving them poison, that's right. Yeah,
Speaker 2: Like here's the poison.
Speaker 3: So there's this group, the glass wing butterflies, and they
Speaker 3: are naturally chemically defended by the what they eat. As
Speaker 3: a caterpillar, so they have a certain type of I
Speaker 3: think it's a cardentolided toxin in them that makes them
Speaker 3: toxic to most things like birds, but spiders can still
Speaker 3: eat them, and some other predators can still eat them.
Speaker 3: So they need to get another toxin as an adult,
Speaker 3: but only the males do it. So there's certain flowers
Speaker 3: out there that you will very rarely find. So when
Speaker 3: you do find them, you will find a swarm of
Speaker 3: like thirty males of a bunch of different species, all
Speaker 3: drinking up this nectar of these rare flowers to become
Speaker 3: poisonous themselves.
Speaker 2: Oh my god.
Speaker 3: And they hold onto that poison until they mate. And
Speaker 3: then when they're poisonous, that means that they're defended from
Speaker 3: things that would try to eat them and people. Scientists
Speaker 3: have done tests and found that spiders will reject eating
Speaker 3: them if they have drank from these flowers.
Speaker 2: They take a chomp and they're like, oh hell no.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the spiders somehow detect it, and other predators somehow
Speaker 3: detect it or they've learned and yeah, and so they
Speaker 3: hold onto it until they mate. Because the female doesn't
Speaker 3: go for those flowers. She's busy just being a female
Speaker 3: flying around, and so when he mates, he gives her sperm,
Speaker 3: but he also gives her that poison. I think he
Speaker 3: gives about fifty percent of what he has to the female. Yea,
Speaker 3: And then he says, here's the gift of poison. Ps.
Speaker 3: Now you're protected for life. And it's like, it sounds
Speaker 3: kind of crazy to give that, But it doesn't even
Speaker 3: stop there, because then the eggs that she lays have
Speaker 3: like a thin layer of this poison on them too,
Speaker 3: and protects them from things like parasitoids that would inject,
Speaker 3: you know, eggs into those eggs. And so there it's
Speaker 3: pretty cool thing that you can watch these butterflies swarm
Speaker 3: around this flower knowing there after single chemical here that
Speaker 3: is going to go into a female when the mates,
Speaker 3: and then into an egg when she lays eggs.
Speaker 2: That's so romantic, it is.
Speaker 3: I do not recommend giving the gift of poison. The
Speaker 3: public disclaimer right now.
Speaker 2: Alcohol and perfume both poisonous.
Speaker 3: That is true. Sure, that is true.
Speaker 2: You've told me before, and I would like you to
Speaker 2: expound upon this, but that butterflies are disgusting. They are
Speaker 2: horribly disgusting in what way because they're so beautiful.
Speaker 3: They are beautiful, but they're disgusting, you guys, And you
Speaker 3: find this out when you just spend enough time with them,
Speaker 3: and it's I find it hilarious. Every time I see
Speaker 3: them do something even grosser, I'm just like, wow, you
Speaker 3: do not stop. So let's talk about we're on the
Speaker 3: topic of mating. Let's talk about mating. They do things
Speaker 3: like they have sperm plugs and when they mate with
Speaker 3: the female they plug her up and say, no more
Speaker 3: males inside you. It's it's kind of gross. They also
Speaker 3: have some hooks sometimes that will like hook out the
Speaker 3: sperm from the previous male and stick their own sperm
Speaker 3: in there.
Speaker 2: They'll clean you out like a.
Speaker 3: Clean like a pime cleaner. It's it is messy. Yeah,
Speaker 3: insect Genitalia can be pretty crazy. They feed on dead animals.
Speaker 3: I've seen some of the rarest butterflies feeding on dead
Speaker 3: animals that smell horrible.
Speaker 2: Those pictures don't make it because, like a butterflies is
Speaker 2: a thing that's like on a Mother's Day card. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but it's also on a rotten carcass.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we need to make some new Mother's Day cards
Speaker 3: to be like, I love you Mom, here's a dead animal,
Speaker 3: but look at the beautiful butterfly in that little corner.
Speaker 3: It's there nuggets. Yes, So they feed on dead animals.
Speaker 3: They love poop, all sorts of poop, especially if you
Speaker 3: eat some meat in there, they will get drunk. Another
Speaker 3: thing I've seen so a lot of it is to
Speaker 3: get rare resources. So when it comes to sodium. One
Speaker 3: time had a butterfly that landed on my finger and
Speaker 3: I was like, oh, this is really nice. And I
Speaker 3: was looking at what it was doing, and it was
Speaker 3: drinking the sweat off my finger, and I was like, fingers, sweaty,
Speaker 3: sweaty fingers. When you're out there, trust me, your fingers
Speaker 3: get sweaty. I don't want to. Yeah, it's gross. But
Speaker 3: after a while my sweat dried, but the butterflies still
Speaker 3: wanted to get that salt that was on my finger.
Speaker 3: So what did it do. It would pee on my
Speaker 3: finger and then turn around and drink up that peak
Speaker 3: because that basically that pea, that liquid would absorb the
Speaker 3: little salt crystals and make it into a salty solution,
Speaker 3: and then it would turn around and drink it up.
Speaker 3: So I would just watch it. Basically, Pete turn around,
Speaker 3: drink Pete, turn around, drink on my finger, and I
Speaker 3: was like, you disgusting creature. You're lucky, you're beautiful, so
Speaker 3: that's a given.
Speaker 2: Mountain dew dried and you're like, I know one way
Speaker 2: to rehydriddy.
Speaker 3: So gross, super gross.
Speaker 2: You like that about butterflies, that they have such a
Speaker 2: beautiful public image but are like secretly super nasty.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, there's so much more interesting than people
Speaker 3: give them credit for. And in the entomology world, people
Speaker 3: like to give each other a little bit of crap
Speaker 3: depending on what you study, and they'll be like, oh,
Speaker 3: you study micro moths, you must be weird, but butterflies
Speaker 3: seem like the easiest, most approachable insect to most people.
Speaker 3: So I think some entomologists will be like just kind
Speaker 3: of like dog on people who study butterflies, because they're like, oh, like,
Speaker 3: of course you stare them because they're so pretty. I
Speaker 3: study these things that are horrible looking, yeah, like.
Speaker 2: Weird botflies, and yeah, like many toothed saber maggots.
Speaker 3: Exactly, I love those saber maggots.
Speaker 2: So Okay, saber maggots are not real, but botflies are
Speaker 2: very real, and they will lay a baby in your skin,
Speaker 2: which hatches out like a little wormy surprise jumping out
Speaker 2: of a birthday cake. And entomologists they brag about getting
Speaker 2: bot flied, like Phil has expressed to me before his
Speaker 2: chagrin and dismay and never having had one of these little, moist,
Speaker 2: miniature alien esque beings burst from his flesh. But one day, Phil,
Speaker 2: one day you'll get one.
Speaker 3: And so we came up with an expression when I
Speaker 3: was working in Ecuador, we said, only tough guys catch butterflies,
Speaker 3: because there's like they're just very complicated. They do gross things,
Speaker 3: they have really interesting behaviors. They're a really good model
Speaker 3: to study, and they Yeah, you have to be really
Speaker 3: tough to get out there and study these things.
Speaker 2: Uh yeah, you can fall into a volcano chasing an
Speaker 2: invisible butterfly, and then the jungle is a tangle of
Speaker 2: dangers and beauty and mystery. Not to mention, there is
Speaker 2: the ever present mystery of transformation that I feel like
Speaker 2: that is one thing that just boggles everyone about butterflies,
Speaker 2: that they are capable of such an extreme makeover. Yeah,
Speaker 2: such a rebranding. Yea, what is happening when you have
Speaker 2: a chubby caterpillar. You have a tube of guts and
Speaker 2: then it pieces out, is like catch it later gone fishing,
Speaker 2: and then it comes out as a different creature. I've
Speaker 2: heard that they have the same memories and the same aversions.
Speaker 3: I think there have been some studies that have showed that, yes,
Speaker 3: some of those memories and aversions can last into an adult.
Speaker 3: Some people think that they entirely turn to goo inside
Speaker 3: and then just reform. They don't entirely. There are still
Speaker 3: some parts that remain, these things called imaginal discs that
Speaker 3: have been with them for a long time and actually
Speaker 3: inside some late in star caterpillars, meaning they're very mature
Speaker 3: caterpillars about to pupate, you will actually have little bits
Speaker 3: of butterfly in them. So they're already starting to change
Speaker 3: before they get in there. Okay, and then they get
Speaker 3: in there, a lot of them goes down, but the
Speaker 3: imaginal disc will turn into things like their eyes or
Speaker 3: their wings and that kind of thing. And so it's
Speaker 3: it is a lot of work, and it is really amazing.
Speaker 3: But there's some people out there. Our friend Aaron palm
Speaker 3: Rantz is an example of somebody who has figured out
Speaker 3: a way to cut a little window into a pupa
Speaker 3: what and then you can actually watch what happens on
Speaker 3: the inside.
Speaker 2: That's crazy. How the hell does he do that?
Speaker 3: Just a very tiny knife and a lot of patience,
Speaker 3: some soran rap, yes, and so you can actually see
Speaker 3: what's going on inside. So scientists have a pretty cool idea.
Speaker 3: They've done like MRIs or crazy scans on them to
Speaker 3: watch this transfer over time. But it is I mean,
Speaker 3: there are a lot of things in nature that just
Speaker 3: blow your mind. And that is something that is happening
Speaker 3: every day around the world. And every kid has done.
Speaker 3: You know, a lot of kids grow caterpillars into adult
Speaker 3: butterflies in that stage is truly impressive and really wild.
Speaker 2: Now the DNA is the same, right is a DNA
Speaker 2: expression changing? Like how does I just have no idea
Speaker 2: how it works?
Speaker 3: Yeah, so yeah, there will be genes that get expressed differently.
Speaker 3: It is fascinating how some of the genes will turn
Speaker 3: on at different times of their life or turn off
Speaker 3: at different times of their life. And it's it's all
Speaker 3: stored in that same nucleus. I mean, their DNA has
Speaker 3: all the information to do all of these things throughout
Speaker 3: its life and now can.
Speaker 2: You tell me the difference between a cocoon and a chrysalist,
Speaker 2: because I know that those things get used a lot wrongly.
Speaker 2: And does it piss you off?
Speaker 3: It doesn't piss me off because I mess it up
Speaker 3: sometimes too, Okay, but just don't do it. Okay, if
Speaker 3: you're listening at home, it's going to start to piss
Speaker 3: me off now because you've heard me explain it. So
Speaker 3: chrystalis is what a butterfly creates, okay. And it's just
Speaker 3: a single little wrapping on the outside, and they're right
Speaker 3: on the inside there, so you can actually see their
Speaker 3: abdomen still. You can kind of see the wings a
Speaker 3: little bit in there, and you can if you poke it,
Speaker 3: it'll wriggle a little bit. And so that is a chrysalis.
Speaker 3: A cocoon has a pupa inside, Okay, So that pupa
Speaker 3: is basically equivalent to the chrysalis, where it is everything
Speaker 3: self contained right there. But the cocoon is this silky
Speaker 3: thing wrapped around the pupa. And that's what a lot
Speaker 3: of moths will do is they make a cocoon and
Speaker 3: they take they make little silk, or they'll use their
Speaker 3: hairs on their body and they make a little protective thing,
Speaker 3: and then inside that protective thing they will pupe eate.
Speaker 3: They will spend the winter as a cocoon and then
Speaker 3: hatch in the spring. And so that layer of protection
Speaker 3: that the cocoon creates allows them to survive, and you know,
Speaker 3: withstand the elements and that kind of thing.
Speaker 2: And a lot of times when they change from one
Speaker 2: instar to the when they upgrade their insta and they
Speaker 2: get a little chubbier, they don't they eatin I seem
Speaker 2: to remember that when I was volunteering at the butterfly
Speaker 2: and they.
Speaker 3: Will, especially when the hats, they'll eat their egg.
Speaker 2: Remember when I was talking about those in stars, those
Speaker 2: like Russian nesting dolls. So caterpillars will molt into the
Speaker 2: bigger size, kind of like they're unzipping their skin like
Speaker 2: a sleeping bag, and then unlike a sleeping bag, they'll
Speaker 2: eat it. After they'll just nom nomina because it's made
Speaker 2: out of them and they need to make more of themselves,
Speaker 2: so they just use that raw material. I was so
Speaker 2: enthused to learn this fact in a museum volunteer seminar
Speaker 2: about butterflies, but quite frankly, I was more amused to
Speaker 2: look up at the presenter's power point and see that
Speaker 2: on their computer desktop they labeled the butterfly keynote folder
Speaker 2: but stuff. Also, speaking of skin, before we get to
Speaker 2: the rapid fire around, I wanted to tell you about
Speaker 2: another podcast that's real, real good if you're into skin,
Speaker 2: things on human beings, such as, for example, your own.
Speaker 2: So I'm doing a little ad swap. This is my
Speaker 2: first ever with my friends Dory and Kate of the
Speaker 2: Forever thirty five podcast. If you haven't listened, it's great.
Speaker 2: It's a great show that deals with self care from
Speaker 2: topics like beauty and skincare and sleep habits and meal
Speaker 2: planning and working out. They talk about fashion. It's just
Speaker 2: good stuff that you want to listen to make yourself
Speaker 2: feel better. And their episodes come out on Thursdays and
Speaker 2: they also host weekly mini episodes on Mondays with reader emails.
Speaker 2: I was just listening to one earlier today about work
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Speaker 2: this is a good topic. So it's a really great podcast.
Speaker 2: It's not necessarily for people who are thirty five. It's
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Speaker 2: five as a podcast you may want to listen to.
Speaker 2: And they are fans of Ologies. So we're doing a
Speaker 2: little swap, all right, So let's answer some friggin' questions.
Speaker 2: Thanks patrons for sending these in.
Speaker 3: You ready?
Speaker 2: Why am I singing? I'm just excited? Are you ready
Speaker 2: for a rapid fire around?
Speaker 3: Oh goodness? Hit me.
Speaker 2: But before we take questions from you, our beloved listeners,
Speaker 2: we're going to take a quick break for sponsors of
Speaker 2: the show. Sponsors. Why sponsors? You know what they do?
Speaker 2: They help us give money to different charities every week.
Speaker 2: So if you want to know where Ologies gives our money,
Speaker 2: you can go to Aliward dot com and look for
Speaker 2: the tab Ologies gives back. There's like one hundred and
Speaker 2: fifty different charities that we've given to already, with more
Speaker 2: every single week. So if you need a place to go.
Speaker 2: Donate a little bit of money, but you're not sure
Speaker 2: where to go. Those are all picked biologists who work
Speaker 2: in those fields, and this ad break allows us to
Speaker 2: give a ton of money to them. So thanks for
Speaker 2: listening and thank sponsors.
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Speaker 2: Okay, your questions, I got so many questions. Okay, over forty,
Speaker 2: but I'm going to try and blaze through. You don't
Speaker 2: have to do rapid fire.
Speaker 3: But we got a lot, so just challenge accepted. Ready,
Speaker 3: let's it go.
Speaker 2: His butterfly time, Branag wants to know why are they
Speaker 2: not called flutterbys?
Speaker 3: You know, let's start a public campaign and change this.
Speaker 2: Let's do it all, right, flutterbys should just be what
Speaker 2: they're called.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I think the name butterfly comes from. There's
Speaker 3: a few theories, but supposedly this came from like year
Speaker 3: or the or England or something where one of the
Speaker 3: common butterflies around there is a sulfur which is kind
Speaker 3: of yellowee and it looks like butterflying. But that might
Speaker 3: just be people these days being like this makes sense.
Speaker 3: Let's say that that's the case. But it's so yeah,
Speaker 3: that is why.
Speaker 2: Okay, I'm gonna look into that. Yeah, because that's really cute.
Speaker 2: It is very cute.
Speaker 3: They're just gonna Butterflying's a butterfly.
Speaker 2: Damn cute. So quick fact check on this. It's split.
Speaker 2: Some folks think butterfly came from buttaflow gu meaning to
Speaker 2: beatfly as the wings beat, but honestly I prefer the
Speaker 2: alternate entomology, which is that they're named after floating paths
Speaker 2: of fat. Also, the German word for butterfly translates to
Speaker 2: thief of dairy protein or butter liquor or People also
Speaker 2: think it could be because they excrete, a yellowish substance
Speaker 2: that looks like melted butter. The Dutch for butterfly translates
Speaker 2: to butter crapper between milk liquor and butterpooper. You now
Speaker 2: have so many friendly, low key insults in your arsenal.
Speaker 2: No are intended there, Clarkreek wants to know. Growing up,
Speaker 2: it seemed like there was an abundance of butterflies through
Speaker 2: the summers. Monarchs especially these days, I'm lucky to spot
Speaker 2: even one through the summers. Is this just a drop
Speaker 2: is it my region Ontario? Or is there a real
Speaker 2: population decline?
Speaker 3: There is a real population decline. And when it comes
Speaker 3: to conservation in the US, I always think that the
Speaker 3: minimum standard we should have is that future generations of
Speaker 3: kids get to see butterflies flying around their backyard like
Speaker 3: that should happen. That was something that in my backyard
Speaker 3: was happening all the time, and I loved it. And
Speaker 3: if we've messed up our ecosystem so much that we
Speaker 3: don't have butterflies for our future generations to see, we've
Speaker 3: made a big mistake. And we're certainly on the way there.
Speaker 3: And that's a good observation that people are actually seeing
Speaker 3: less and a lot of that has to do with
Speaker 3: things like monarchs their migration along the way. There aren't
Speaker 3: as many flowers for them to drink from. There aren't
Speaker 3: as many milkweed plants for them to lay eggs on.
Speaker 3: Has to do a lot with our agriculture with we've
Speaker 3: done a lot of habitat destruction when it comes to developments.
Speaker 3: The best thing you can do, everybody can do this
Speaker 3: if you have a yard or a patio or anything,
Speaker 3: is to plant native plants. So there's a great website
Speaker 3: Xerxes Society x e r CES. They will have great
Speaker 3: listings to show what you should plant there. And it
Speaker 3: makes a big difference because if you're putting out any plant,
Speaker 3: any flour, and you see butterflies come there and drink
Speaker 3: from it or lay eggs on there, that means that
Speaker 3: that was previously missing from the ecosystem there. We need
Speaker 3: more and more and more to help boost those populations
Speaker 3: and help them sustain what we've done to our area.
Speaker 2: So make sure that you plant something native. Yes, and
Speaker 2: you can check on the website and be like a
Speaker 2: huh for.
Speaker 3: Sure, Yes. Something for the adults so some really nice.
Speaker 3: Some of the cone flowers are great, butterflies love drinking
Speaker 3: those for the nectar, and then something for the caterpillars
Speaker 3: too is a lot and like the carrot family, that
Speaker 3: will be really good for some caterpillars. There's a lot
Speaker 3: of options out there.
Speaker 2: Okay, oh killer. Also it's just like party at my patio.
Speaker 2: Yea butterflies for sure invited. I got what you like
Speaker 2: to drink, Please do come over. So once again, that
Speaker 2: is the Xerxes Society for Invertebrate Conservation and they're at
Speaker 2: xerxes dot org. This site is great. I just poked
Speaker 2: all around it. You can click on your part of
Speaker 2: the country and a whole list of region specific pollinator
Speaker 2: plants come up, so you don't have to worry like
Speaker 2: what if I plant did the wrong thing. It'll tell
Speaker 2: you what to plant. And the name Xerxes is in
Speaker 2: honor of the first North American butterfly to go extinct,
Speaker 2: wamp wamp because of human activity. But the nonprofit was
Speaker 2: started by a doctor, Robert Michael Pyle, who was a
Speaker 2: butterfly biologist and author. He still is, he's very much alive.
Speaker 2: I looked up a photo of him and I found
Speaker 2: one where he has these bright blue eyes that peer
Speaker 2: out from around a halo of white, wiry hair, all
Speaker 2: framed by this snowy bush of a beard and over
Speaker 2: his shoulders. In this one, photo. He's wearing a cloak
Speaker 2: of pea green moss from a nearby fallen tree, and
Speaker 2: I just like, I want to kick back and drink
Speaker 2: rotten nectar with this dude. I want to be his friend.
Speaker 3: Phil hook it up.
Speaker 2: Sarah Wright wants to know are there any moths or
Speaker 2: butterflies that will actually eat you? Or is my fear
Speaker 2: of them completely irrational?
Speaker 3: I'm sorry to tell you, but your fear is rational. No.
Speaker 3: So there is a real thing called a vampire moth.
Speaker 2: This is such a lie.
Speaker 3: This is this is absolutely real. I think the genus
Speaker 3: is called Calyptera, and they have a piercing mouth part
Speaker 3: and a lot of times they they'll find them like
Speaker 3: on cattle or something out there. But I think they
Speaker 3: have landed on humans and like pierced to them and
Speaker 3: then drank their blood.
Speaker 2: This does not feel like a real story. Phil to Horras,
Speaker 2: please tell me if this is If this is this
Speaker 2: is totally real? What? What? This cannot be real?
Speaker 3: And what I love about it is the way that
Speaker 3: they think it evolved is from previously feeding on fruit.
Speaker 3: So if you feed on fruit, you need to be
Speaker 3: able to pierce that skin of the fruit, right, So
Speaker 3: they've evolved this proboscis that's kind of pointing at the end.
Speaker 2: Oh my god.
Speaker 3: And then imagine this scenario where one of these butterflies
Speaker 3: that was feeding on fruit landed on some mammal and
Speaker 3: maybe was drinking its salt or something like that, and
Speaker 3: then accidentally pierced through the skin and then they got
Speaker 3: a mouthful of blood. And then that one was like, wow,
Speaker 3: I have like super powers and can lay a million
Speaker 3: eggs and maye with a million females, so they had
Speaker 3: higher reproductive success, and then that gene and that behavior
Speaker 3: just evolved into them. And so it all came from
Speaker 3: piercing fruit. And what in my science fiction future of
Speaker 3: the world in like a million years, that's going to
Speaker 3: be more commonplace because there are butterflies, especially in the
Speaker 3: tracks in a subfamily that will feed on fruit all
Speaker 3: the time, and they have very sharp proboscuses and so
Speaker 3: they can pierce right through a fruit to drink it,
Speaker 3: and so they basically have the right scenario set to
Speaker 3: evolve into drinking human blood. So I would just love to, like,
Speaker 3: you know, you like go into the future in a
Speaker 3: time machine, you come out and be like, where are
Speaker 3: all the humans? Then all of a sudden, you're just
Speaker 3: like surrounded by butterflies that are beautiful and landing on
Speaker 3: you and piercing your skin and drinking your blood dry.
Speaker 2: Oh the future sucks so naturally. I looked up the
Speaker 2: vampire moth, and despite its hell and death metal habits,
Speaker 2: it looks very bige, very unassuming, very normcore. So is
Speaker 2: that the most goth moth I'm feeling like no, I
Speaker 2: think that the climbing moth might take it. Hear me out.
Speaker 2: It's this lily white moth with a black velvety upside
Speaker 2: down cross on its wings, and it looks very much
Speaker 2: like it would fly into a hot topic and try
Speaker 2: to eat a wool cape. But then, in a quest
Speaker 2: to find the Gothis moth, I have to land, perhaps
Speaker 2: on the legendary Lepidoptera from Silence of the Lamps, Agent
Speaker 2: Starling meets mister Akarantia sticks Weird, better known to his
Speaker 2: friends as the Death's Head moth. So death heead moth.
Speaker 2: It's got a skull on his face. It's named after
Speaker 2: a river and hell, and it tricks bees and eats
Speaker 2: their honey. It's this is a clear winner of the
Speaker 2: Gothis moth pageant. Thank you for taking this journey with me.
Speaker 2: No wait, really quick diversion. Speaking of movies, do you
Speaker 2: have a favorite butterfly movie? How do you feel about
Speaker 2: the butterfly effect? Is there any any movies that get
Speaker 2: butterflies right or wrong?
Speaker 3: Uh, there's a lot to get them wrong. Bugs Life
Speaker 3: is like still one of my favorite movies ever. It's
Speaker 3: pretty great that make some mistakes, but I like it.
Speaker 3: When I was in college, we had an entomology club
Speaker 3: that we started, and we would get together and we
Speaker 3: would watch like really bad movies with insect themes. Oh
Speaker 3: my god, and like we would watch Erectrophobe and be like, oh,
Speaker 3: that butterfly isn't found on that continent, and like make
Speaker 3: all these like snarky remarks, and so most people get
Speaker 3: it wrong. But the butterfly affect the movie that is
Speaker 3: one hundred percent accurate. Every butterfly flap that happens that
Speaker 3: changes the entire world. That's so it's not true.
Speaker 2: It's not Well, you've you got me with the vampire butterfly. Yes,
Speaker 2: for a minute there. So Julie wants to know how
Speaker 2: long do butterflies live and what does a day in
Speaker 2: the life of a butterfly look like.
Speaker 3: Oh, it's a good question. So most butterflies will live
Speaker 3: maybe around two weeks, you could say, and their life
Speaker 3: if they're male, it'll be you know, getting some good resources.
Speaker 3: Lots of times it'll be defending a territory. Some will
Speaker 3: just kind of hang out in a patch of flowers
Speaker 3: or hang out on the side of a tree and
Speaker 3: kind of defend that and waiting for a female to
Speaker 3: come by, and for female, same thing, she's gonna drinking nectar.
Speaker 3: But then like floating around a little bit easier, and
Speaker 3: you can actually usually tell the difference between a male
Speaker 3: and female butterfly and flight just by kind of watching
Speaker 3: the speed and the males kind of fly around like
Speaker 3: they got somewhere to go, and they're a little bit
Speaker 3: more rapid and jittery and like, hey, are you a male?
Speaker 3: Get out of here and that kind of thing.
Speaker 2: So wait, they have like a horny swagger.
Speaker 3: Basically, it's like they spray too much axon in the
Speaker 3: morning and they're like, I got this and espresso. Who
Speaker 3: wants to do it?
Speaker 2: Who wants to do it?
Speaker 3: And then the females kind of just float around. They're
Speaker 3: like these beautiful little things that are just a little
Speaker 3: bit floppier up in the air, a little bit more
Speaker 3: like a cartoon butterfly you would see. And generally they're
Speaker 3: just kind of saying, okay, is there a male that's
Speaker 3: going to approach me? Or let's say I'm readul lay eggs.
Speaker 3: They're smelling the air with their antennae to figure out
Speaker 3: where is the host plant that I need that specific
Speaker 3: type of plant to lay an egg. So they're just
Speaker 3: kind of cruising, sniffing the air and enjoying the day.
Speaker 2: And for two weeks.
Speaker 3: They have a lifespan two generally two weeks, and then
Speaker 3: you have some exceptions, especially migratory species like the monarch,
Speaker 3: the ones that overwinter in Mexico. They live for months
Speaker 3: and they can travel super far, and it's it's pretty cool.
Speaker 2: I just went there and you post a video and
Speaker 2: there were millions of monarchs. So look for the video
Speaker 2: called the butterfly Migration on Phil's YouTube channel, The Jungle Diaries.
Speaker 2: So did Phil loose his mind? Spoiler alert, I.
Speaker 3: Lost my mind. I think it's about ten million monarchs
Speaker 3: per acre, okay, something like that, and it was insane.
Speaker 2: That's crazy. Ten million monarchs per acre.
Speaker 3: It was so there's so many butterflies around that it
Speaker 3: was loud. You would hear this like like this, this
Speaker 3: rustling of you know, a single butterfly flies by you
Speaker 3: and flaps its wing, you won't hear that. But if
Speaker 3: you put ten million around you, all of a sudden,
Speaker 3: all those micro noises add up into like filling the
Speaker 3: entire forest with this like whispering sound. You can hear it,
Speaker 3: but that's no wind. That is the sound of millions
Speaker 3: of butterflies flying around right now, and it's probably my
Speaker 3: favorite sound ever. It was just one of the most
Speaker 3: magical things, and it really solidifies our need for conservation
Speaker 3: in the US and our need to put more native
Speaker 3: plants out there. Because growing up, when I first learned
Speaker 3: about these monarchs migrating down to this forest in Mexico,
Speaker 3: we were always taught like, oh, the Mexicans better protect
Speaker 3: this forest because if they don't, then the butterflies won't
Speaker 3: have any place to overwinter, and it's going to be
Speaker 3: their fault. And they've done a pretty good job actually
Speaker 3: protecting the forest. It's not perfect, but they've incorporated it
Speaker 3: into their local tourism, so it's providing good income and
Speaker 3: more motivation not to cut down the forest. But the
Speaker 3: reason why butterfly populations have been dropping now the monarchs,
Speaker 3: is because of what we've done here in the US.
Speaker 3: We've decimated their migration routes. We have used certain herbicides
Speaker 3: that have killed out all the milkweed in certain areas,
Speaker 3: so they don't have anywhere to lay their eggs. So
Speaker 3: it was very interesting when you're down there and you
Speaker 3: look around at these butterflies and say, you could have
Speaker 3: flown here from Canada, you could have flown here from Montana,
Speaker 3: you could have flown here from South Carolina. Each one
Speaker 3: has a different story behind it, and you can imagine
Speaker 3: how many times it could have died or needed a flower,
Speaker 3: had all these things happened to it. And then they
Speaker 3: end up right there in this forest. And it's really.
Speaker 2: Something now is that all those are during the winter
Speaker 2: months or right before springing.
Speaker 3: Okay, winter months, so basically November two February is the peak.
Speaker 2: I would say, so like get your tickets for the
Speaker 2: Mexican Butterfly Forest, like now.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So I'm actually going to be leading trips out
Speaker 3: there next year. So if you guys want to come,
Speaker 3: just follow me and I'll be posting about it.
Speaker 2: So Phil and another friend of ours, doctor Jason Goldman,
Speaker 2: lead trips through Atlas Obscura. So follow Phil on social media,
Speaker 2: go to his website in the show notes, or check
Speaker 2: Atlas Obscura. It may not be booking yet, but keep
Speaker 2: checking back. They'll announce it. Heather Crowther wants to know.
Speaker 2: I know touching butterfly rings can really hurt them, but
Speaker 2: why what's happening? Is it the oils on our hands
Speaker 2: reacting with something? What's happening when you touch a butterfly
Speaker 2: without consent?
Speaker 3: Not a whole lot? What So a lot of people
Speaker 3: out there will, you know, if they see an image
Speaker 3: of me, like holding a butterfly by its wings or something,
Speaker 3: they'll be like, oh, you're killing it, and that's that's
Speaker 3: not the case. Now. There are very specific ways to
Speaker 3: hold a butterfly that I'm good at where you minimize
Speaker 3: the amount of damage because generally, if you're touching it wrong,
Speaker 3: you're rubbing all the scales off of it, or you
Speaker 3: might tear its wing a little bit, because their wings
Speaker 3: are pretty sensitive, so you definitely don't want to damage
Speaker 3: the wing. I do not recommend anybody touching a butterfly,
Speaker 3: but you probably won't kill it unless you like really
Speaker 3: get into there. And so yeah, they're they're tougher than
Speaker 3: they look. I didn't know that.
Speaker 2: I always felt like it was like if you touch
Speaker 2: a butterfly, like it will find a corner, it will
Speaker 2: be like see you later, you've killed it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, not true, not true.
Speaker 2: Jason Shirley wants to know what's the largest butterfly ever recorded.
Speaker 3: The Queen Alexandra's birdwing okay is found down in like
Speaker 3: Papua New Guinea in certain areas there, and I want
Speaker 3: to say it's the females have like a eleven inch
Speaker 3: wingspan something like that. It's huge. And the first entomologist
Speaker 3: who went down there to collect this thing, they didn't
Speaker 3: have giant butterfly nets because they fly way up high.
Speaker 3: So the only way they could collect them is with
Speaker 3: the shotgun. So they would take a shotgun, aim it
Speaker 3: up and then bang, shoot this thing out of the
Speaker 3: sky and they'd be like, whoa, there's a butterfly. And
Speaker 3: so some of the oldest specimens I'm sure in like
Speaker 3: the London Museum and that kind of thing have shotgun
Speaker 3: holes in them. Oh my god. A Queen Queen Alexandra's birdwing,
Speaker 3: Oh my god, which is a very endangered species, and
Speaker 3: it's one of the few that collecting it has made
Speaker 3: it endangered. Generally, there's so many butterflies that go around
Speaker 3: habitat destruction is the big thing, and collecting it is
Speaker 3: not really a big deal. But some of those they
Speaker 3: are protected species. A lot of the bird wings because
Speaker 3: there's so big and really beautiful. The females look different
Speaker 3: than the males, really gorgeous, incredible species, and so sometimes
Speaker 3: people will collect them just to for art or just
Speaker 3: to own them, rather than collect them for data or
Speaker 3: for science to be done.
Speaker 2: So there caterpillars, Are they the size of hot talks?
Speaker 3: Uh? Yeah, probably brought worst, Okay, Like, I'm sure they
Speaker 3: are huge. There are some big caterpillars out there.
Speaker 2: That brings me to a personal question about our own collection.
Speaker 2: Is it bad that I have a butterfly collection and
Speaker 2: dead butterflies that I have purchased?
Speaker 3: It's not, Okay, It depends on you want to make
Speaker 3: sure it's the right species. There are some that are protected,
Speaker 3: some that are endangered in the wild. You definitely don't
Speaker 3: want to have those for that. I think if you're
Speaker 3: doing it right and you're spreading appreciation. Okay, that is okay.
Speaker 3: A lot of these are actually bread in facilities and
Speaker 3: they're not like collected in the wild, because while butterflies,
Speaker 3: they get pretty pretty beat up pretty quick if you
Speaker 3: can actually tell the age butterfly, depending on how beat
Speaker 3: up it is generally, and only a couple of days
Speaker 3: in they'll have some clips on their wings, or they'll
Speaker 3: have some dusty spots, and so that that's not going
Speaker 3: to be nice to displayin a home. So people will
Speaker 3: breathe them, and that provides a good income for people
Speaker 3: and motivates them to protect the forest and protects the
Speaker 3: native plants in some corner of the world. So I
Speaker 3: think it's like it's a cool product that can come
Speaker 3: out of these places and can be done in a
Speaker 3: ethical and sustainable and conservation minded way.
Speaker 2: Okay. Lexiefetter says, I've heard the butterfly bushes are now
Speaker 2: considered invasive and are bad for butterflies. Why is this
Speaker 2: ps I live in Michigan.
Speaker 3: So she's talking about bootleo, which is a butterfly bush,
Speaker 3: and that was the one maybe you know in the nineties,
Speaker 3: early two thousands everybody was like, plant this plant because
Speaker 3: it's a big bush. It has these really big flowers
Speaker 3: on it that are just really pretty colored. And I
Speaker 3: planted a lot when I was a kid. And that's
Speaker 3: a tricky one because they are not native. There are
Speaker 3: native options that you can go for that do a
Speaker 3: similar effect. And generally when you plant non native things,
Speaker 3: you're slightly sterilizing your environment because yes, it may attract
Speaker 3: things that will feed on the nectar, but there's no
Speaker 3: caterpillars that are going to feed on the leaves. And
Speaker 3: if there's no caterpillars on the leaves, then there's no
Speaker 3: birds feeding on those caterpillars or spider's crawing on that,
Speaker 3: and so it basically takes away this opportunity for life.
Speaker 3: It's a tricky thing. It's a personal decision. If you
Speaker 3: had the time and just google what's the best native
Speaker 3: thing to plant here instead, that would clearly be the winner.
Speaker 2: John Worster in case the handler, I want to know, essentially,
Speaker 2: how do some butterflies fly so long? Are they just
Speaker 2: on the wind currents or are they really that bad ass?
Speaker 3: It's a little bit of wind current a little bit
Speaker 3: of bad ass, okay, And every butterfly, the thor x
Speaker 3: will be a little bit different. So the thorax is
Speaker 3: where they keep all their big muscles for flight and
Speaker 3: for walking around. So some butterflies you grab their thoraction,
Speaker 3: you're like that thing is buff, like they like they
Speaker 3: work out and you'll really feel the strength of these
Speaker 3: flight muscles. And some insects, like beetles, the big ones
Speaker 3: that when they fly and you feel the thorax, it's
Speaker 3: actually like warm from the friction really from like all
Speaker 3: that exothermic stuff going on. Like they're they're very their
Speaker 3: muscles do some work. So there's some butterflies that are
Speaker 3: pretty buff, and so they're able to fly a long time.
Speaker 3: And then they do take advantage of the currents. I
Speaker 3: think modern butterflies have been recorded at eleven thousand feet
Speaker 3: oh my god, and they just kind of go where
Speaker 3: the windows and they take advantage of that. And so
Speaker 3: there have been times where if there's a big hurricane
Speaker 3: in the Caribbean, in Florida somewhere, people will be like, wow,
Speaker 3: I just found a butterfly that is native to Guatemala
Speaker 3: that is flying around my backyard right now, and it
Speaker 3: didn't belong here. So they can go really far sometimes
Speaker 3: and storms will push them that way.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, maybe they had some plant nectar and
Speaker 2: then they're like, I mean, you'll fly a couple thousand
Speaker 2: miles by.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's so bad. It's pretty cool how they're able
Speaker 3: to pull all this off, Like evolution is crazy because
Speaker 3: like predators put so much pressure on things and just
Speaker 3: freak accidents put so much pressure on things to be
Speaker 3: a really efficient machine as an organism. So butterflies they
Speaker 3: may look pretty, but like they they're efficient, and they're
Speaker 3: good flyers and they got they got a lot of
Speaker 3: interesting things about them.
Speaker 2: Have you taken anything away existentially or philosophically from butterflies,
Speaker 2: like about change or about about not being ashamed to
Speaker 2: smelp who I don't know anything you know, but.
Speaker 3: I think you know the metamorphosis analogy or metaphor. That's
Speaker 3: not my thing. But for me, it's it's all about
Speaker 3: like keeping that curiosity enjoy that I had as a
Speaker 3: seven year old catching butterflies, and like being like not
Speaker 3: ashamed at all to have that same excitement as a
Speaker 3: full grown adult and sure in high school and a
Speaker 3: little bit in college, like it wasn't like the cool
Speaker 3: thing to do to show off your butterfly collection. But
Speaker 3: I was just like, it doesn't matter, Like I love
Speaker 3: this stuff and nature is so cool and there's so
Speaker 3: much to learn, Like we know probably the most about
Speaker 3: the monarch butterfly and the cabbage white, but we still
Speaker 3: have so many questions about those two species, and imagine
Speaker 3: all the other eighteen thousand that are out there. So
Speaker 3: I just think, if anything, I've just learned, like just
Speaker 3: keep that joy alive and that curiosity alive, because nature
Speaker 3: really has some magnificent things, even if they happen to
Speaker 3: be really pretty, Like I don't care, they're awesome.
Speaker 2: What about what's the crappiest thing about your job? What's
Speaker 2: the hardest or most disappointing or most arduous.
Speaker 3: Uh, it's a mix because I used to be more
Speaker 3: like official scientist and now a more science communicator and
Speaker 3: so part of it. The travel is amazing, But there
Speaker 3: was a point where after living two years in the
Speaker 3: jungle where I was like, I should probably be around
Speaker 3: other humans again, and so finding that balance and I've
Speaker 3: seen something biologists who go a little bit too far
Speaker 3: and end up because it's kind of addicting. You have
Speaker 3: this adrenaline rush this idea that you can make a
Speaker 3: discovery and it's really exciting out there, but you need
Speaker 3: to have a real life too, and you need to
Speaker 3: have relationships. And that's how that is a successful life.
Speaker 3: To me, it has to be meaningful both in work
Speaker 3: and discovery, but also in relationships with friends and loved
Speaker 3: ones and family and all that. So balancing that took
Speaker 3: a little bit of work. And still sometimes I'm traveling
Speaker 3: quite a bit. That can be challenging. I'm sure you
Speaker 3: know what I'm talking about. What other is tough about
Speaker 3: my job?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 3: Yeah? And then also just like freelance life, I think
Speaker 3: that's the only other thing a lot of people have.
Speaker 3: More There are not a lot of jobs and science,
Speaker 3: and so I saw a lot of people going for
Speaker 3: the same thing of going to be a professor or
Speaker 3: research scientist, and I was like, Okay, I'm going to
Speaker 3: take a little left turn here and still have my
Speaker 3: mind stimulated, still get the same opportunities to travel for science,
Speaker 3: but work more on the communication side and storytelling side.
Speaker 3: Because when I was I would do these expeditions when
Speaker 3: I was young, and we would do the craziest things,
Speaker 3: like we got held a gunpoint twice in Venezuela, I
Speaker 3: got lost in a forceful of quick scent of Mongolia.
Speaker 3: I would like sing under the stars of these Mongolians
Speaker 3: drink and fermented horse milk, and that's how we communicated
Speaker 3: because they didn't speak English, I didn't speak Mongolian, and
Speaker 3: we would just sing each other songs. And I was like, this,
Speaker 3: there's a side of science that people aren't hearing, and
Speaker 3: maybe if they heard those stories more, they would care
Speaker 3: more about what we're studying here. Because sure, some of
Speaker 3: the insects out there aren't innately appealing to the average person,
Speaker 3: but when you tell a story around it, then it
Speaker 3: really starts to shine and people start to attach appreciation
Speaker 3: to them. I love that.
Speaker 2: I asked you the scariest thing in the jungle was,
Speaker 2: and you neglected to tell me that you've been held
Speaker 2: up at gunpoint twice.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, humans are also very scary in the jungle too. Generally,
Speaker 3: you just as long as you communicate and don't go
Speaker 3: in there. As like American savior, conservation is about working
Speaker 3: with the people. That it's not about working just with
Speaker 3: the animal, like it's all about working with the people
Speaker 3: and so building good relationships and using what they figured
Speaker 3: out over a long time.
Speaker 2: Were you able to negotiate your way out of that?
Speaker 3: Yeah, we were. One time. It was the government Venezuela.
Speaker 3: I was under Jabez. They weren't very friendly. They stopped
Speaker 3: our bus, took the three of us off. There's like
Speaker 3: two or three truck folds of dudes with machine guns
Speaker 3: and they like put us against the bus and patted
Speaker 3: us down. And I think it was kind of just
Speaker 3: a bluff because they track your every move there, like
Speaker 3: everything you do you have to put in your passport
Speaker 3: information and they weren't very fond of Americans back then.
Speaker 3: But I mean, that would be a good cover for
Speaker 3: spy because there have been Lepidoptera studying researcher spies in
Speaker 3: the past. The founder of the Scouts would work in
Speaker 3: North Africa, I think this is during World War One,
Speaker 3: and he would draw maps of enemy locations and butterfly
Speaker 3: wings and then send it back to the collections.
Speaker 2: Heck, yeah, so Robert Baden Powell did indeed found the
Speaker 2: Boy Scouts and was indeed all up in some espionage,
Speaker 2: as detailed in his book My Adventures of a Spy.
Speaker 2: That's just straight up he was straight up a spy,
Speaker 2: so he wrote, quote, carrying this book and a butterfly
Speaker 2: net in my hand, I was above all suspicion to
Speaker 2: anyone who met me on the lonely mountain side. So
Speaker 2: thanks for the advice, Ma, dude, I will go do that.
Speaker 1: What.
Speaker 3: No, I don't recommend people doing it now, because I'm
Speaker 3: not like ruined scientists access to these places that we
Speaker 3: want to go and study, So don't mess with science.
Speaker 3: Let's just yeah, let that be in the past. And
Speaker 3: then the other guys, they were just kind of really
Speaker 3: drunk and that was challenging, but we figured it out.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, what's the best thing about what you do?
Speaker 2: What do you love the most about butterflies? About your work? Uh?
Speaker 3: I Mean, one part that I love is just being
Speaker 3: able to go to places enough access to things that
Speaker 3: there's no other job that gives you that opportunity to
Speaker 3: some really weird places. You really get to go behind
Speaker 3: the scenes and areas, and that's irreplaceable. I mean, I've
Speaker 3: pretty much never had an office job my entire life,
Speaker 3: and that's great and I love that. And then the
Speaker 3: other part is what it does to your brain, Like
Speaker 3: you get this brain tingle. I like to call it
Speaker 3: as a scientist, and many people can relate to this
Speaker 3: where there's something out there that you're trying to figure out,
Speaker 3: and some of these things that I've studied and published
Speaker 3: papers on, it's like a puzzle out there that you're like, Okay,
Speaker 3: I see this part over here, this part over there,
Speaker 3: this part down there, how do they relate? How does
Speaker 3: this thing make sense? And I would lose sleep over
Speaker 3: it sometimes, but your brain has this feeling that you
Speaker 3: just can't there's nothing out there like it. It's like
Speaker 3: the best crossword puzzle ever. We like, I nailed it,
Speaker 3: And that is a really exciting part of my job
Speaker 3: because it's super super fulfilling because you're not just doing
Speaker 3: it for yourself. I'm sure some people may be more
Speaker 3: kind of ego driven, but one thing I was noticed,
Speaker 3: like explorers, who people call themselves explorers oftentimes would go
Speaker 3: to just be like I've done it, plant a flag
Speaker 3: and say they've done it. Now. Many are doing it
Speaker 3: for conservation reasons, which is great, but I was like,
Speaker 3: what if you could explore and contribute knowledge to the
Speaker 3: world the things you find as a scientist and studying butterflies,
Speaker 3: Like some of these papers have published. Nobody knew this before,
Speaker 3: and that's a really cool feeling to be like, guess what,
Speaker 3: world drop some knowledge on you that now, for the
Speaker 3: rest of history of humanity, they're going to know this
Speaker 3: thing that they didn't know before. It's exciting, I mean.
Speaker 2: And to start helping discover species at nineteen, like, that's
Speaker 2: got to be a little bit addictive too, probably right.
Speaker 3: For sure, for sure, And I have huge respect for
Speaker 3: the people out there who dedicate their entire career to that.
Speaker 3: People kind of forget that we still need a catalog
Speaker 3: what life is out there. We have so much work
Speaker 3: to do. Insects alone, there's probably at least another million,
Speaker 3: if not nine million species out there to be discovered,
Speaker 3: millions left to be done, and they're everywhere, and so
Speaker 3: we need people to do those jobs. And it's not
Speaker 3: even though it sounds cool, when it comes to getting
Speaker 3: funding for that kind of work, you don't always get
Speaker 3: the biggest budget.
Speaker 2: And now you're getting married this year, I am. Are
Speaker 2: you going to have butterflies be represented at all during
Speaker 2: your wedding?
Speaker 3: Definitely, So we're gonna instead of flower girls, we're having
Speaker 3: butterfly girls. A little butterfly wings everywhere, and then for
Speaker 3: our place settings, we're gonna do some cool stuff with
Speaker 3: like giving on native seeds, get people oriented. Yeah, there's
Speaker 3: so many ways you can you can in corporate this
Speaker 3: stuff into your life, and so we just kind of
Speaker 3: want to show people like this is what's important to us.
Speaker 2: Oh that makes me so habby. I was wondering. I
Speaker 2: was like, I wonder if those weddings getting involved Bucks
Speaker 2: at all.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I kind of want to get some shoes with
Speaker 3: bugs on them.
Speaker 2: I know, I think you should. I think you deserve it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we'll see some butterfly slippers. Yeah, why not.
Speaker 2: I did look up some fly shoes for Phil and
Speaker 2: I found some cool Gucci bug loafers that cost a grand,
Speaker 2: and then also some swayed butterfly loafers on eBay for
Speaker 2: like one hundred bucks. So if anyone has a Gucci
Speaker 2: hookup for these loafers, holler at Phil online. Wouldn't that
Speaker 2: be great? Come on, come on someone right, thank you
Speaker 2: so much for doing this.
Speaker 3: Only there's a blast.
Speaker 2: So please do continue to ask smart people awkward, sometimes
Speaker 2: not smart questions because that's the only way any of
Speaker 2: us learn, and they secretly love it. So to see
Speaker 2: some of Phil's gorgeous photography and it's really amazing. Check
Speaker 2: out his Instagram at Phil underscore Torres. His Twitter is
Speaker 2: also Phil underscore Torres, and he's at the Jungle Diaries
Speaker 2: on YouTube or his website is Phil Dashturus dot com.
Speaker 2: I'll put links to those at aliword dot com, slash
Speaker 2: ologies and in the show notes. You can find the
Speaker 2: show at Ologies on Twitter or Instagram, where I post
Speaker 2: some visuals from the show all week and I'm at
Speaker 2: ali Word just one l on both Twitter and Instagram.
Speaker 2: You can join the question club on Patreon dot com
Speaker 2: slash Ologies. You can lob your queries at upcoming ologists
Speaker 2: and also support the show that way. For merch, you
Speaker 2: can go to ologiesmerch dot com. You can tag your
Speaker 2: photos online with Ologies merch and I'll repost them on
Speaker 2: merch Mondays. Thank you Shannon Felts and Bonnie Dutch, very
Speaker 2: very cool Portland sisters for helping manage all the merch.
Speaker 2: You can join the discussion on the Facebook Ologies podcast group.
Speaker 2: Thank you Hannah Lippo and Aaron Talbert my good friends
Speaker 2: for admitting that. And thanks as always to the very
Speaker 2: very wonderful Stephen Ray Morris for editing this all together
Speaker 2: and just being the coolest dude, Just the coolest dude.
Speaker 2: Also side note, Happy birthday, Sarah Basco. We've known each
Speaker 2: other since we were twelve. Happy birthday. If you stick
Speaker 2: around to the very very end of the show, you know,
Speaker 2: I tell you a secret, and this week's is fresh.
Speaker 2: It's fresh off the griddle. So two hours ago, I
Speaker 2: was leaving my friend Catherine's house and she has a
Speaker 2: bowl of peanut butter ginger chews. Have you had them?
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 2: They're so good. They're right next to her, and I
Speaker 2: grabbed two and I ate the first one as I
Speaker 2: was leaving her house. I was like, oh, so good.
Speaker 2: And then I unwrapped a second one before I even
Speaker 2: got to my car, and I dropped it on the sidewalk,
Speaker 2: very public sidewalk, and I just picked it up and
Speaker 2: dusted it off, and I ate it anyway because I
Speaker 2: was alone and so wet and I'm still alive. Okay,
Speaker 2: Bye bye Pacodermatology, hobbiology, rypdo zoology, lithology, technology, meteorology and pathology, anthology, zeriology, selenology.
Speaker 3: There's a butterfly time