Want to hear some crazy ant shit? We got the craziest of the crazy ant shit you’ll hear all year fatheads! Join us for an ant-tastic episode of edutainment! ANTS! ANTS! ANTS! 🐜
Want to hear some crazy ant shit? We got the craziest of the crazy ant shit you’ll hear all year fatheads! Join us for an ant-tastic episode of edutainment! ANTS! ANTS! ANTS! 🐜
REFERENCES
Ant milling/death spiral :
Ant Rafts:
Exploding Ants:
Zombie Fungus:
Anting (birds):
Speaker 1 0:00
So Jamie, I feel like you and I have our friends are very active with memes. So I don't remember like if you sent this to me or like who did, but I keep getting videos from this fucking weirdo named the Singing Salesman. And in case the listener listeners haven't heard of him, he's a car salesman that sings this religious song to everyone when they like close a deal. So I thought we could listen to that together. Hell yeah! I'm so excited. I've been getting these a lot too.
Speaker 2 0:38
This car, and make His face shine upon everyone who rides along, and may He give you peace and bring you joy for the journey on every road that leads you home.
Speaker 1 1:25
See the guy smiling. I don't know if he's just trying not to laugh or just like what. Some of the people, I feel like they look so fucking uncomfortable, but then other ones seem kind of into it, or some of them are indifferent. I don't know if somebody was like, "Hey, let's do this for Instagram, I'd be like, "We're ripping up my contract. Fuck you.
Speaker 3 1:48
Like, oh yeah, why don't you give my car a baptism while you're at it too? Just go ahead and dunk
Speaker 1 1:53
it. Gosh, it's just
Speaker 3 1:55
oh, that is so funny.
Speaker 1 1:56
There's just so that about that guy. Like, I do think that it's funny. Like, every time those videos come up, I'll watch him. But at the same time, I know if I met that man in real life, I'd be like, "Fuck you! Shut up! No one wants to hear what you have to say. Like, I don't know.
Speaker 3 2:15
Go sing somewhere else, please.
Speaker 1 2:17
Yeah,
Speaker 3 2:18
I wonder if they have to pay extra for the blessing, or if they just do that automatically,
Speaker 1 2:24
he said no. And in one comment, he was like, "I charge more if they don't listen to it, which I think was a joke, but still. And then I saw a funny comment today. Somebody was like, "Well, you should read the Bible because I don't. In the Bible, it says like, if you lend someone a debt, then you shouldn't collect interest or something. And the singing car salesman was like, "That's Old Testament. So sometimes he says some funny shit, and I think he's he knows it's kind of stupid, but also I feel like he thinks he's a good singer, and you know he's
Speaker 3 3:13
he just wanted to find a way to show off.
Speaker 1 3:15
He did. He wanted to make a spectacle. There's this one where a girl is sitting on a bunch of those like like rented rent scooter type of things. I forget what they're called here, and she's singing that song, and like he do edited and was singing along with her. So ridiculous. Oh,
Speaker 3 3:38
yeah, I. I I think I sent that to the group chat, so I I don't know if I should apologize or if it's just fine.
Speaker 1 3:49
I I enjoy watching it. It's just it's so fucking stupid. Like since I don't know him in real life, I think it's funny. If that was my coworker, I would hate his guts. Oh God, it's like beyond hate. Damn it! He closed a
Speaker 3 4:05
deal again.
Speaker 1 4:06
You hear that song? But I'm glad you sent it. Thank you.
Speaker 3 4:15
Yeah. Okay. Okay. I was like, I don't know if I should apologize. No,
Speaker 1 4:19
it gets stuck in my head all the time, even though I don't really know the words, like the melody or whatever gets stuck in my head.
Speaker 3 4:28
I felt like Dick Rash in particular would appreciate
Speaker 1 4:32
yeah
Speaker 3 4:33
those videos.
Speaker 1 4:34
I was gonna try to come up with a little song to sing you, but that's too much pressure here on the Nervous Laughter Podcast. Welcome, everyone. Yeah, I'm Jamie. I'm Alyssa. One quick little thing before we move on. I was looking at the website. For an animal shelter, and they had a section for other animals, and so I decided to look. And they had like a parrot, they had a bunny, and they had several turtles. And one of their names was Turt Reynolds. That is cute. That's my favorite name for the animal ever now. So I just wanted everyone to hear that.
Speaker 3 5:25
Just picture him with a little mustache. So cute, Turt Raynolds. Well, speaking of animals, animals that have four legs, ants, ants, ants, ants, and for anyone that's mad right now, that was a joke. Ants have six legs. I do know that. That was just a ha ha funny.
Speaker 1 5:48
Jamie said they had four legs before the podcast, and I did not disagree with her. I was like, sure,
Speaker 4 5:55
of course,
Speaker 1 5:58
because I try not to well, actually, people.
Speaker 3 6:02
Well, I do try not to, but also
Speaker 1 6:06
I didn't. I just go along with what people say because I'm like they're telling the truth. I don't know.
Speaker 3 6:11
Sometimes I do too. I'm like, who am I to say they're wrong? I
Speaker 1 6:15
don't know.
Speaker 3 6:17
Um, but yeah, no, I I used to be like pretty into insects whenever I was a child, but I stopped being super into them because I got kind of like paranoid of them being just like around me a lot.
Speaker 4 6:34
Oh, you know what I mean?
Speaker 3 6:35
Because it's be I'd be like, is okay? Is is there a bug under my spoon as I'm eating cereal, like with each bite, and I was like, "Okay, this is too much. I can't.
Speaker 1 6:44
Became like aware of how they're everywhere.
Speaker 3 6:48
Yeah, yeah, or just thinking that they would just always be like, you know, just sneaking up on me and getting in my mouth or something. So, which I guess I still have a little bit of a fear of, if you remember the the wasps when the wasp got in the house, and I
Speaker 4 7:06
oh
Speaker 3 7:06
slept with a mask one night just because like oh I'm scared to say because
Speaker 1 7:11
of the hibachi thing last week the fucking roach skin and the I felt like I forgot about that it's
Speaker 3 7:21
okay I was just like hibachi. Hardly no cheese. But yeah. So yeah, insects gonna be talking about just some cool ant stuff today. I guess I'm kind of returning to my childhood roots of going down insect rabbit holes.
Speaker 1 7:48
Hell yeah!
Speaker 3 7:48
But um, but yeah. So first, I'm gonna start off talking about the ant death spiral. Do you know about that?
Speaker 1 7:57
No.
Speaker 4 7:59
So
Speaker 3 7:59
it's sometimes also called an ant mill, and it looks fucking crazy. It's just like a bunch of ants circling nonstop. Like if if like a mosh. If I would not have seen this before AI, I would have just thought it was AI. But yes, like a mosh pit when they do the whatever the circling. Yeah, the circle pit. It's exactly what it looks like. Yeah. Whoa. Let me see if I can just show you a quick video. Man, I wish I would have written down like what date this was. But in some of the resources I was reading, it like it was like this was first found in like 19 blah blah blah by this person, and had like their journal entry that was talking about about the spiral that they found.
Speaker 5 8:44
Animal psychologist T. C. Schneider observed in 1936 lasted a full day, and many were dead the next morning. A rain didn't even save many of the ants from this fate, unfortunately.
Speaker 3 8:56
So this is seen mostly in species of ants that are blind, like army ants, which is the ones that I found most of the information on.
Speaker 1 9:05
I didn't know that some ants were blind.
Speaker 3 9:08
Yeah, I I didn't either until like you know I started reading about the the death the death spiral on fucking metal. Um, and yeah, these ants also do not live in a single place, since they're always searching for food. They navigate by following pheromone trails left from the ants in front of them. So this will cause an issue if the lead ant takes a turn into the trail and kind of like turns back into
Speaker 6 9:39
the thing. Yeah, that's sad. And
Speaker 3 9:42
so then that will create an endless circle.
Speaker 4 9:45
Oh,
Speaker 3 9:46
and they just keep circling and will work until they have diaphragm exhaustion.
Speaker 1 9:51
Oh, that's sad.
Speaker 3 9:53
Yeah. So
Speaker 1 9:56
damn, that sucks.
Speaker 3 9:58
It yeah, it does. Dumbass is
Speaker 1 10:01
such a dumb response. No, no, no.
Speaker 3 10:03
Um, and the only way out of it is if something breaks the pheromone trail, so something like you know, water or something that will just like wash it away. So they say if you ever see one, just like put water on it. Oh, okay,
Speaker 1 10:18
and then they'll disperse.
Speaker 3 10:21
But I guess it hasn't affected it too bad. If you know they're not like a what's the word for almost 16 endangered species or you know anything like that. So oh, and I will be posting links to all of my resources in the notes. I kind of have like, I think one for most of them, but I think this one I grabbed like three resources and things like that. Lots of like science journals or like NPR articles and stuff. Oh yeah. And speaking of water rafting, some ants. I mostly read this about fire ants. Will create rafts of ants to survive in floods. Have you ever heard or seen any? Oh, like
Speaker 1 11:15
they'll use each other's bodies. Yeah, like they make
Speaker 3 11:19
like a big like giant blob, and then they-is
Speaker 1 11:24
it like corpses or living ants? No, they're
Speaker 4 11:26
living. Yeah. Whoa. Yeah, yeah. It's it's
Speaker 3 11:29
really cool. It's um. So I feel like
Speaker 4 11:33
okay.
Speaker 3 11:33
I'll say this. I know you guys already know this. I'm not a biologist, so I feel like I'm like here's all this cool information that I'm not qualified to share, but I read it from science journals and stuff. So hell yeah! And yeah, this one I had a had a really good science article. They had like pictures and videos and stuff as well. So if it's something that you fatheads want to see, definitely go check out the show notes. It's really cool. They have some nice close-ups and stuff. So what it looks like basically is just like a ball of ants that flatten out into more of a disc shape, and they can protect the queen and yeah, walk on each other and stuff. Kind of like you were asking about. Damn. The study I got most of this information from used raft size sized up to 8000 ants.
Speaker 1 12:30
Whoa! Yeah, did it say that's like two inches, or you know, like how big that would be?
Speaker 3 12:36
Oh no! But I I have to the video. I wonder if the video actually has like a ruler or form of measurement in order to show how big it's getting.
Speaker 1 12:44
Because I could see it being like 8000 ants being like two inches, or I don't know, maybe like six. I'm like, it's 20 feet. I was just like, it's not. I just have it's 300,000
Speaker 3 13:01
feet. And then when you look at the you know pictures and stuff, it's like of course it's like closed up, so everybody just has it like they're huge. But let me scroll so you can kind of see what they look like.
Speaker 1 13:17
It looks like a pile of dirt got possessed. Yeah,
Speaker 3 13:21
I think yeah. This is a close-up that kind of shows you more. Oh,
Speaker 1 13:26
that's so fucking weird. So they have to keep walking in order to keep the raft together.
Speaker 3 13:31
Uh, I I don't think necessarily they have to keep it moving. Yeah, I think a lot of them just are moving because also, uh, the study, uh, fro. froze the ant rafts in liquid nitrogen, so they could see how they linked together. And they found that quote ants grip each other by using a combination of mandibles, tarsal claws, and adhesive pads located at the end of their tarsi or tarsi, which is just their their feet. Ants are mildly hydrophobic, and well, sorry. I guess I shouldn't say feet technically because they don't have feet. They have little like ankle things that happen. So what I don't know. Maybe I could rage bait someone for engagement. Yeah, there you go. And ants are mildly hydrophobic, and when they connect together, that increases quote surface rendered water repellent by cooperative behavior. If you want to read more about how that works, look up the Cassie Baxter Law of Wedding, or check out, yeah, the paper length and notes. From what I kind of understood of it, if I understood it correctly, it's basically like the surface. If you have like a drop of water on a flat surface, you know it'll spread on the surface. But if the surface has a bunch of like maybe little. Caps or holes, then the water will spread further because it can't. I guess like count those gaps. I don't know. I it it had pictures and explanations, and I thought I understood it, but now as I'm talking out loud, I'm like I I don't know, but but I understood from it, and they have equations and everything in the paper that prove it, and I just yeah I. this isn't a physics podcast.
Speaker 1 15:26
Well, I can see when you started talking, I thought that you were gonna say like this is how my brain thought about it. Like maybe instead of it spreading out since they're hydrophobic, maybe their little bodies are able to like repel it like through the cracks between them. I don't know. That's just how my brain figured it out. Kind
Speaker 3 15:47
of like the idea of it. Yeah, since there's like more cracks, it repels more. I think, or just to quote the paper: surface rendered water repellent by cooperative behavior. Which, I mean, yeah, that sounds like exactly what you said. Pretty much water.
Speaker 1 16:10
That's the explanation. The scientific. There's just one ant
Speaker 3 16:13
that's like, "Oh no, I'm getting all wet. Oh no, guys, help me. Oh yeah, so I called it a raft maxing. Raft maxing works best in cleaner. The cleaner the water is, for instance, soapy water prevents the layer of air that gets built around their bodies, so they will struggle in sync. There is a lot more in the paper that's like really cool. Just again, I guess like I was talking before, there's lots of videos if you're interested in like the science or formula, like the mathematical equations and the physics and everything-it's in the paper. And yeah, it's it's pretty wild looking. So yeah, you should check it out if you would like. And I also just wanted to mention in the segment too, there wasn't anything in the paper about it, but ants will also build like towers and bridges to reach higher areas.
Speaker 1 17:20
That's kind of scary. Yeah,
Speaker 3 17:22
it's it just kind of looks like a moving like rope almost. I'll show you in a second. It's so weird. But yeah, they pretty much just kind of link together. I would assume in the same fashion that they do for raft maxing. And yeah, they'll climb up, you know, climb up the ant-made bridge, or yeah, you can find examples of that if you Google ants, ants building towers. Here, I'll show you that
Speaker 1 17:54
tower maxing.
Speaker 4 17:55
Yeah, tower maxing. That is
Speaker 1 17:59
way thicker than I thought. That's what she said. Oh, then they can tiptoe max. If they're worried about their height, they can tiptoe max.
Speaker 3 18:09
Yeah, they'll tiptoe max. Um, and I think that would be helpful on the raft too, so they don't hurt the other ants. Yes,
Speaker 1 18:18
that's fucking nuts. I didn't. When you said that, I pictured kind of like a thin little thing,
Speaker 3 18:26
thin little link. Yeah, no, it's like a
Speaker 1 18:28
it's like a tree stump,
Speaker 3 18:29
fucking dog pile of ants. And another cool ant thing is from the ant species colobsis. explodens, which has a very punny name, because it has gland sacs that have toxic yellow goo that apparently smells like curry or spice-like. Interestingly enough, um, but minor workers in this colony are able to tear their body apart, essentially exploding and rupturing those glands, releasing the toxin. This is, of course, a self-sacrifice in efforts to help the colony from a threat. Oh, so yeah, that's fucking crazy. Yeah, it's cool. Just like I don't know, they're just they're you just have like baked in like
Speaker 1 19:27
yeah
Speaker 3 19:30
living bomb things like yeah they're just that's crazy.
Speaker 1 19:36
This might be so stupid of me, but I'm just thinking about like if we were ants and there was a problem and you were just like, it's my time, Alyssa, just sacrifice myself and you just fucking rip your head off or whatever. Like that must be so crazy for them.
Speaker 3 19:54
Ah, yeah, and especially if like I wonder if like when they're born. If they know if this is like for their purpose, or if the time comes and they're just like,
Speaker 1 20:04
yeah, and I mean, again, I feel like I sound like a fucking idiot, but like, do you think that the the little ant brain like conscious consciously like decides, or is it like a biological response where they don't think about it and they just like explode? You know what I mean?
Speaker 3 20:32
Yeah, I feel like I would need to, I guess, know more about ants to get that because they
Speaker 1 20:37
have thoughts. Yeah, initially
Speaker 3 20:39
I was like, oh, I guess that they just would self kind of know to do it, but I think they operate more as a unit or a colony. So maybe he just gets some kind of like smell signal from somewhere that just tells his body to explode, or I don't know. It's fucking crazy. It
Speaker 1 21:04
is crazy. I've I've never thought about what it's like to be an ant until today. Yeah, me neither. But I
Speaker 3 21:11
have well, not in that sense. I have kind of like compared it to just like people before because it's like, oh, you know, we're all like, I mean, sadly, like working ants, providing for the the wealthy, whatever, and um, but also, you know, there's ants that do different tasks, and that's kind of like how people are, you know. We have our um, our mechanics, we have our dentists, our doctors. Everyone kind of like has a role to make the community keep going. So it's kind of we should
Speaker 1 21:49
we should take a take advice from ants though, because I feel like self explode. I was just thinking when you were like everyone has a role and we all like work together. I was like, yeah, until like COVID happened and you like ask someone to wear a mask and they're like, no, fuck everyone else. Yeah,
Speaker 3 22:14
yeah. I don't know why I just like cough had to
Speaker 1 22:18
go. It's not right to cough all over this target of an American. Mine's
Speaker 3 22:24
a little bit like I keep seeing the video of like this lady. I guess she was being interviewed by the news, and she was just like, "Yeah, and they're saying that we can't like drink and drive anymore, and they're trying to tell us like when we can drink, and they're trying to tell us wear seatbelts, and it's like, bitch, you could kill someone.
Speaker 1 22:45
Yeah, people are so fucking weird. Like we should be more like ants and think about
Speaker 3 22:53
the community. Yeah, how our actions
Speaker 1 22:55
would affect other people. Yeah, sorry, I felt like I took that in a sad way. No, but I just I just pictured a bunch of ants wearing masks. I mean, it's
Speaker 3 23:06
a yeah, it's a sad comparison
Speaker 7 23:07
too.
Speaker 3 23:08
Like cool, but also sad comparison because yeah, again, it is like
Speaker 1 23:11
hey, the
Speaker 3 23:12
queen is like 1% of the colony, maybe, and you know, as true for
Speaker 4 23:20
us, the
Speaker 3 23:21
1% percent.
Speaker 1 23:22
That is true too.
Speaker 3 23:27
Okay, so the next thing I'm going to talk about is this parasitic fungus called Ophio Cordyceps. Unilaterals relis. It can basically hijack and control an ant's body. It's commonly referred to as the zombie ant fungus.
Speaker 1 23:48
Oh yeah, I have heard of it. Yeah, I don't know much pictures of it. I don't think so.
Speaker 3 23:53
It's um. I'll kind of hold on. Where do I describe it? At I describe it in a second. So sorry, I'm getting ahead of myself, and she's like, "Ah. So National Geographic says, "Quotes researchers think the fungus found in tropical forest begins its life cycle by infecting a foraging ant through fungal spores that attach to that attach and penetrate the exoskeleton. As the infection advances, the fungus compels the ant to leave its nest for a more humid microclimate that's favorable to the fungus's growth. Oh, weird. Yeah, and at that point, the ant will descends to a vantage point about 10 inches off the ground, where it sinks its jaw into a leaf vein on the north side of the plant, assuming a death grip, which they basically just call because it's grabbing onto something just before it dies. Meanwhile, the cordyceps fungus feeds on its victim's innards until it's ready for the final stage. Yummy! Several days after the ant has died, the fungus sends a flirting body out through the base of its out through the base of the ant's head, turning the shriveled corpse into a launch pad from which the fungus sends very like colorful. colorfully worded, a launchpad from which the fungus can jettison its spores
Speaker 4 25:30
and infect new ants. Whoa,
Speaker 1 25:33
friggin' ants! Last of
Speaker 3 25:37
us. Yeah, I mean, pretty much. It's fucking terrifying. They think it controls it by releasing bioactive compounds that affect the ant's nervous system and control the muscle fibers. And let me show you a picture because it looks pretty cool. Basically, just looks like an ant with like a big mushroom coming out of his head, like a or I shouldn't say big, a tall
Speaker 4 25:59
mushroom. mushrooms
Speaker 1 26:03
are fucking weird. Like I don't know a lot about them, but whenever I read stuff, I'm like, that sounds made up, but it's an actual fact.
Speaker 3 26:14
Yeah, mushrooms are fucking weird too. I got a book, but about them, but I'm just like, I.
Speaker 1 26:19
It's kind of scary. Like, what if this happens to people? Ew, that's fucking weird. Holy shit!
Speaker 3 26:31
I know, right? It's so weird.
Speaker 1 26:33
Do you happen to know how long they live like that?
Speaker 4 26:37
Uh, I'm not
Speaker 3 26:39
sure. Maybe it's like it
Speaker 1 26:42
seems like it would take a little bit for that to grow. I would think. Yeah, it's like
Speaker 4 26:47
grows like a few days after it dies, but I don't know how long it lives with the fungus. I would say like it's a pretty short lived process.
Speaker 1 27:00
Oh, I just realized I was thinking about it as like the ant was alive for part of that, but I guess like is the first step actually killing the ant?
Speaker 3 27:13
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it'll make it go like up to a like environmentally like optimal spot for it, and then it'll latch on and then just die, and then a few days later, a nice little mushroom
Speaker 4 27:30
looking bear grows out of its head. Ah, man, nature is wild. I know.
Speaker 1 27:38
Now I'm kind of nervous that I'm going to see some creepy ant and be like,
Speaker 3 27:42
I think a lot of these weirder things happen in species that are not in America. I mean, fire ants in America, yeah, not fire ant, but you know. Um, and then the last thing I have, it involves ants, but I guess it's more about birds.
Speaker 4 28:00
It's called um anting, so
Speaker 1 28:04
sounds like a dumb prank or something.
Speaker 3 28:06
Bitch, you just got anted. Wait, what's what's his name? Oh yeah, this is Ashton Kutcher. You just
Speaker 1 28:13
got anted. Exactly.
Speaker 3 28:14
Um, birds engage in activity called anting, where they will let ants crawl all over them and assumedly bite them. Now squirrels have also been known to partake in this. There are two types of anting: active, where a bird rubs ants through its feathers, and passive, where it sprawls out on an ant hill and lets the ants just swarm over it and through it. The best theory scientists have so far as to why the birds do this is to soothe irritated skin, especially when molting feathers. They have been known to do this with other high acid things such as orange juice, coffee, beer. Hell yeah, brother, and lots more, including Alyssa, your favorite cigarette butts. Ah, yeah, I would love just to walk up on a bird like rubbing itself all up. Yeah, I mean, at first I would
Speaker 4 29:13
have been sad, but now that I know about this, I'm like, rock on, bird, rock the fuck on. Yeah, you go. Hope you feel better. Hope your skin gets less irritated. Um, but yeah, maybe that's something you can do too. Oh, sorry, I heard that written in my happiest day of my life.
Speaker 3 29:36
Uh, and then I wrote, "LOL, I didn't know cigarettes had butts. I am glad that you're
Speaker 1 29:45
reading this because, like you said, if I were to see a bird in cigarettes, I'd be like, "Man, the world fucking sucks! Yeah, somebody say this, and someone'd
Speaker 3 29:55
be like, "No, you shouldn't have touched it. It's trying to heal itself.
Speaker 1 29:59
Dude, that's fucking. Wild, yeah.
Speaker 3 30:03
That's all I have for ants. Weird.
Speaker 1 30:04
So I do have one question, and I think it's ants. I I can't remember for sure, but as if you've listened to the podcast for a while, you might know that I'm like terrified of tarantulas, like other bugs, even other spiders. I'm kind of like whatevs. That's fine. Tarantulas, no. But I feel like I remember seeing something when I was in school, like some scientific little video about how some insect would basically take over a tarantula and like lay their eggs in it, and then the little eggs would like feed off of it, and they would basically like consume the tarantula and use it as a source. And I can't remember if it was ants or something else, but I'm too scared to look it up. Do
Speaker 3 30:57
you want me to look it up, or if you're okay with that? Okay, okay. Are you saying you don't know if it's an ant that takes over the body? Yeah. Okay. I
Speaker 1 31:06
but some insect will do some weird shit to some type of tarantula.
Speaker 3 31:12
Well, you can't spell tarantula without ant.
Speaker 1 31:16
Oh, that's good point.
Speaker 3 31:19
Um. Let's see.
Speaker 1 31:22
What if I just literally dreamed it up and that doesn't exist?
Speaker 3 31:26
Oh no, it's a
Speaker 1 31:27
wasp. Oh okay. A
Speaker 3 31:28
spider wasp.
Speaker 1 31:31
Oh oh. Okay, based on your reaction, I don't think I'm gonna be brave and try to look. So
Speaker 4 31:40
I don't think the pictures are like scary. It's just crazy to see a fucking wasp like take on a tarantula.
Speaker 1 31:50
So, do they kill it first and then like lay their eggs on it, in it, on
Speaker 3 31:56
it? Let me see. So, this was just from the AI response. The grim process unfolds in a few brutal steps. The female wasp stings the tarantula in a soft in the soft its soft underbelly injecting bitch and paralyzes the spider completely, but keeps it alive. The living nursery. The wasp drags the helpless tarantula into a burrow and lays a single egg directly into the spider for one fucking egg.
Speaker 1 32:27
Oh wow! You fucking
Speaker 3 32:29
bitch! Wasteful. Yeah. Overconsumption for yeah. You could put at least five fucking spider eggs in there or wasp eggs in there. Um, the bower alive when the egg hatches, the wasp larva, burrows into the tarantula, and eats it slowly from the inside out.
Speaker 1 32:45
Ooh!
Speaker 3 32:47
Intentionally avoiding vital organs so the spider remains fresh as a food source. Oh my god!
Speaker 6 32:54
Ew! I thought it
Speaker 3 32:58
died. It's like some Jeffrey Dahmer venom
Speaker 1 33:05
insects. That's
Speaker 3 33:06
insane. Ew, they're like fucking serial killers. Let's just-it's like yeah, to just dodge all the vital organs and just eat the fucking the meat and the fat so it lives.
Speaker 1 33:18
Ew! Oh, that's so weird.
Speaker 3 33:20
It just makes me think of fucking Jeffrey Dahmer putting acid in people's screens, and oh my god, oh that is. I mean, it's so weird and gross, but I'm just like, oh, it's so cool too. Yeah,
Speaker 6 33:35
I mean,
Speaker 1 33:36
I wonder what happens to the spider after. I mean, does it just suffer for like a month, or can it like crawl away from that? You know what I mean?
Speaker 3 33:48
Yeah. Let me see.
Speaker 1 33:51
Thank you for being my research assistant. There's literally no way I could ever Google this on my own.
Speaker 3 33:57
I can look when your eyes can. Yes.
Speaker 6 33:59
Thank you.
Speaker 3 34:01
Here's exactly what happens next. The fully grown larva spins a silk cocoon around itself inside the dark burrow next to the hollowed out remains of the spider. So it sounds like it it just dies after it probably eats a certain amount of it. Puppetation inside the protective skilt casing. The larva pupates gradually changing its entire body structure from a maggot-like creature into a flying insect. Then it emerges as an adult, and then, oh, interesting! Its diet will shift, abandoning meat to feed harmlessly on flower, nectar, and fermenting fruit. Well, damn! Why'd you have to start off like
Speaker 1 34:45
that? Had a rocket start, but now I'm a vegan. Oh my god! I just had the thought when. If reincarnation is real and it ends up that I was a bad person in this life, and I get reincarnated as one of those, and then I have to like be around tarantulas and like eat their dead bodies, that would be awful. I
Speaker 3 35:14
think it'd be worse to be the tarantula and then have it have your body like eaten slowly from the inside.
Speaker 1 35:20
Yeah, you're right.
Speaker 3 35:21
It's also pretty metal, though. That's pretty fucking
Speaker 1 35:24
yeah, right. Man, I've definitely had a fucking week hearing about tarantulas because a friend of the pod, Derek, that I do the Nightmare Signal podcast with, he has tarantulas because he's a fucking psycho, and he started talking about them, and just like the whole time, I'm like, just because it does fascinate me, but it terrifies me. It's like a real life horror for me. Did you know they shoot their hairs? Oh my! I feel like he mentioned that when we were talking. So weird, so weird. Yeah, I I learned about New World tarantulas and Old World.
Speaker 3 36:11
What does that even mean? Like New Testament, Old Testament.
Speaker 6 36:15
Yes, I think it means like where. they're from. Like old world is like European. The breed has been around for a while, and maybe
Speaker 1 36:32
like new world is maybe different
Speaker 3 36:36
breeds traveled and shit.
Speaker 1 36:38
Yeah, I don't know if they're necessarily like newer, but I think that I think it was something about how they kind of evolved to be less poisonous. So maybe it's like the same type of spider, but but I guess like one of them that he has is like technically a new world one, but it's like the like the aggression level of like an old world one. I'm like, ew, disgusting. I
Speaker 3 37:06
don't want to hear aggression level.
Speaker 1 37:11
Oh my god! He was telling me about like different videos that he's seen that even scared him because of like how quick they move. Oh, and you know, people have like huge ones, and they'll like
Speaker 4 37:24
Australia.
Speaker 3 37:24
Yeah, and the he said he's watched videos where you can like hear their feet, and like nobody like scamper. Yeah. Oh, do you mind if I describe just like a picture of one. Okay, okay. Yeah, there was this check at work that she has all kinds of insects and stuff. And yeah, she one day she she would post pictures of it a couple times, but one day she was like, she was like, yeah, I had to like I don't know, clean its cage or something. So like I let it out in the bathroom, and it was just like completely like spread out as big as it could be on like the shower wall and I was just like fuck that she was like she hates me so much but I love her and I'm like
Speaker 4 38:14
ah how do you think it was you but ah
Speaker 3 38:18
I mean it looked fucking like like it's like your hand are bigger, probably bigger. At least like fully spread out with like you know little shoulders or whatever they have elbows like fully trained.
Speaker 1 38:33
That was the one on me right now.
Speaker 3 38:36
That's why I can't. Oh, that's why I had to abandon my insect studies as a child.
Speaker 1 38:42
Understand. They're on me. I was kind of like that with snakes in a way for a while. I really love snakes, and I was like, when I'm an adult, I'm gonna have a snake. But then they kind of start creeping me out. Like I can see them, and that's fine. But I don't think I would ever want to hold one. They just the way they move is kind of unsettling. I don't like it. Yeah, I
Speaker 3 39:09
don't trust their little heads. Yeah, they striked really fast. Yeah, all looking around. Oh,
Speaker 8 39:16
what's going
Speaker 5 39:16
on? And
Speaker 4 39:17
boom,
Speaker 3 39:17
they fucking get
Speaker 1 39:18
you. Yeah, I feel like if a snake bit me, I would be so fucking traumatized. I'd be like, I don't want the snake work,
Speaker 3 39:26
dude. Yeah. You ever watch any of those people on YouTube that like will get bit by like spiders and sex and stuff? Oh god. No way. God, I hate that shit. I still watch it, but I ah, it's like I was watching one. I think it was a spider, and um, they he like it. It had like um, I don't know if it was just like the type of hair it had, or if it had some kind of oils or something. But it made it to where it's like hard to hold, so it was like a little slippy. So he went to grab it with his little like insect tweezers, and it just slipped right away and started like crawling away. And everyone was like, they were trying to get it. I was just like, ah, just just let it go. But of course, like they caught it and let it bite them and stuff. But the good thing with that though is usually it always takes like a lot of effort for them to get a lot of those insects, especially spiders, to to bite them. Oh, so and it usually ends up being, unless it's like an insanely poisonous thing, it ends up being something that like yeah, it hurts, but it's like you yeah you're not gonna die or like have to go to the hospital or whatever. And some of them, it's like one guy. I can't remember what what spider it was, but it was like a huge bite, and he was like, "Yeah, this is about like the third day that I can't fill my my arm. But you know what? It's it could be worse, and you know, I'd give this one like on the pain scale, like a like it wasn't that bad. I'd give it like a five out of 10, or I'm like,
Speaker 1 41:00
you're not adjusting for it being multiple days. Yeah, like what?
Speaker 3 41:06
But I don't know. He does that stuff all the time, so maybe he's. I don't think his scale is equivalent to what ours would be.
Speaker 6 41:13
Yeah, but
Speaker 3 41:15
that's yeah. Anyway, I
Speaker 1 41:17
kind of did that with ants as a kid. Like I didn't try to get them to bite me, but I thought they were cool, and so sometimes I would pick them up and just let them like crawl over my hand. Oh, my tickle! And then I'd be like, "Oh shit, my hand! You know, it hurt, but I was like, "Well, I kind of want to look close up at it, so whatever. People just like, "Yes, the pain bite me. Bugs are weird. Yeah,
Speaker 3 41:53
they're interesting, weird little freaks.
Speaker 1 41:56
Oh yeah, one cool thing that I found, and I think I sent it to you in Hope. It is bees. They will if they have an intruder, like I think in the video it was a yellow jacket or a wasp or something. Try to get into their hive, and they surround
Speaker 4 42:18
it. Oh yeah!
Speaker 1 42:19
Basically, their body heat fucking cooks it and kills it, and
Speaker 3 42:24
that shit is cool.
Speaker 1 42:26
Yeah, that's fucking
Speaker 3 42:27
cool. It's like, hey, bitches, get over here. We gotta boil this wasp real quick.
Speaker 1 42:33
And I also saw something really gross with bees, but really cool. Like, if a rodent tries to get into their hive. They'll basically like build a wall around it so that it can't contaminate. So it'll be like dead on the outside, the rat or mouse or whatever. But they've built the structure so that it can't contaminate as it's like dying.
Speaker 3 43:01
Oh, so they build the structure kind of like around the body. I have an awareness. I
Speaker 1 43:06
actually saved it because I wanted to talk about it on the podcast sometime. But yeah, it's kind of sad looking for the little mouse, but it's one of those things, and it's like nature's so cool.
Speaker 3 43:20
You shouldn't have fucked around. Yeah, you
Speaker 1 43:21
you found out. You definitely found out. It's
Speaker 3 43:25
like a mr. Ballen video, like places that people were supposed to go and went there anyway.
Speaker 1 43:33
So sometimes a mouse can enter the beehive, attracted by the warmth and smell of honey.
Speaker 3 43:38
Oh, okay, that makes sense.
Speaker 1 43:40
The bees react immediately, defending their nest. They attack the intruder until it stops moving. However, a problem arises that cannot be solved with force. The dead body is too large to be carried out. If left there, it would begin to rot, and they would put the entire colony at risk. Bees have their own method. They cover the body in a layer of propolis, a substance collected from tree resins and enriched with enzymes produced by the bees themselves. The propolis has antibacterial, antifungal, and preservative properties. This isolates the intruder's body, preventing odors and decomposition, protecting the inside. It's one of the most extraordinary examples of hygiene
Speaker 3 44:30
in the insect world. That's fucking cool. Imagine if like a serial killer found out about
Speaker 4 44:35
that. They're like,
Speaker 3 44:38
"Whoa, that looks insane! Right? Isn't that nuts? Whoa! It's like a mummified rat, and like half its body is honeycomb. Whoa! That looks crazy. That's like art. Yeah, that's fucking wild. Hell yeah. Insects are a fucking crazy.
Speaker 1 45:05
They are that great idea to talk about them.
Speaker 3 45:08
Yeah, for sure. Yeah, maybe we'll have to do like a bee be so sometime or something.
Speaker 1 45:16
That would be cool. Yeah, bees are up to some crazy shit. I feel like mice and rats, or they get up to some weird shit too. So, oh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3 45:28
and yeah, there's been some like weird experiments and shit too, which I feel like is a whole nother can of worms. Like, I didn't include it in my notes because I didn't like read about it a ton because I didn't feel like it super fit. But I guess there was one science experiment where they like took legs off some ants or something else and like gave it basically as stilts to other ants, basically for some reason. I don't. I don't remember why. I'd have to like look it up and read it again. But I was just like, that seems fucking weird and fucked up and crazy. Yeah,
Speaker 1 46:01
I'm
Speaker 4 46:01
epical.
Speaker 3 46:03
Like, let me just cut off this person's legs and just like put them on the bottom line. Talk about tiptoe maxing,
Speaker 1 46:14
man. Don't let Clav hear about that. He'll be like, "Hey, homeless guy, can I cut off your legs for your $200 I want to fucking put them on the bottom of my legs. I
Speaker 3 46:26
wouldn't put it past them for real. He recently got
Speaker 4 46:30
the leg, like the lengthening, yeah, surgery, yeah,
Speaker 3 46:37
and the rhinoplasty. So he was like, "I just covered the rhinoplasty. Yeah,
Speaker 6 46:42
damn. Damn.
Speaker 4 46:43
Yeah.
Speaker 1 46:44
Oh, he's gonna end up looking like such a fucking freak.
Speaker 4 46:47
Oh yeah.
Speaker 1 46:48
He's just gonna go wild. And I heard he's
Speaker 3 46:52
trying to fix his testosterone issues too, or whatever his fertility issues. I'm ready to have a baby, everyone. Yeah, it's like whoa, slow, slow down there a minute. He's so ew, ew.
Speaker 1 47:12
Yeah, maybe he'll try to put his hand in a beehive, and then the bees will do the honeycomb thing to him.
Speaker 3 47:19
Yeah, maybe eventually it'll be like how all the bees swarm the intruder and like boil him alive. Maybe that'll happen in the human way.
Speaker 6 47:31
Yes, it's
Speaker 3 47:32
like ladies circle around, breathe your hot air. A
Speaker 1 47:38
bunch of girls. I would join.
Speaker 3 47:46
Well, fatheads, let us know if you want to join in that. Yeah, we'll
Speaker 1 47:52
breathe on dudes. You'll have to
Speaker 3 47:54
follow us and like first
Speaker 3 47:58
before you're allowed.
Speaker 1 48:00
Yes, that's true. We're sticking by that, and send us emails if you want to nervouslaughterpodcast@gmail.com If you have any weird nature things you want to hear about, or just anything, if you like shit your pants recently, let us know. We we want to hear about it.
Speaker 3 48:19
Yeah, tell us about some weird shit insects are doing. D Rock, if you know you're an insect dude, you fucking gross weirdo.
Speaker 1 48:27
Yeah,
Speaker 3 48:30
but I know that they also know biologists. I guess I technically know the biologists too. I just I think that they see them more. Oh, but like I don't know if there's any biologists listening, please, please send us something cool.
Speaker 1 48:45
Yeah, we do like weird animal stuff, like Peter the Dolphin. Shout out to him, R.I.P.
Speaker 4 48:52
And yeah, I guess with that, I am
Speaker 1 49:02
party on. Party on.