Butterflies: Caterpillars with Wings!

If you thought caterpillars were awesome, just wait until you see them with colorful, iridescent wings! See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:04Josh Clark?

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• 1:42Speaker 03

  Hey, everybody. Chuck here. Happy spring. And of course, this is episode number two in our Think Spring playlist, Spring Edition, because it's spring. And so these are all spring-centric because we love spring. And you guys, today, the episode is butterflies, colon, caterpillars with wings. And there's nothing more spring, I think we can agree, than butterflies. So please enjoy.

• 2:17Speaker 00

  Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.

• 2:26Josh Clark?

  Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh and there's Chuck and Jerry's here too. And this is Stuff You Should Know, um, part two of a one-two punch of insect goodness.

• 2:37Speaker 03

  Yeah, caterpillars, uh, hopefully you just listened to. Uh, if you didn't, you might want to cause it really, you know, without caterpillar, there is no butterfly episode.

• 2:48Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I feel like they could stand on their own. Like, I don't think you have to have listened to one to understand what we're going to talk about here.

• 2:55Speaker 03

  No, no, no. But, you know, we're probably going to say, when it comes time to talk about how the caterpillar turns into a butterfly, just go back in time to two days ago and listen to that one.

• 3:05Josh Clark?

  Right. We'll be like, doo-doo, doo-doo, doo-doo.

• 3:09Speaker 03

  Uh, and once again, we have to thank, uh, howstuffworks.com and our former and current colleague, Tracy Wilson, uh, as well as our former colleague, not current, uh, Jennifer Horton, uh, wrote a fun piece about butterfly gardens that we're going to talk about at the end. But I forgot about Jennifer. You remember her?

• 3:27Josh Clark?

  Oh yeah. She was great. She wrote lots of great stuff. She's a good person.

• 3:30Speaker 03

  So Jennifer, I don't know if you're out there and listen, but hi.

• 3:33Josh Clark?

  Hi.

• 3:34Speaker 03

  It's been a while.

• 3:35Josh Clark?

  Yeah. Since like 2008 or nine or something crazy.

• 3:38Speaker 03

  Been a long while.

• 3:39Josh Clark?

  Well, so we're talking about butterflies and we should probably kind of pick up, not where we left off, because we talked, I think about caterpillars being pests at the end, or considered pests, but they're not really.

• 3:50Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 3:51Josh Clark?

  We should pick up, um, after the, the caterpillar emerges from its chrysalis, because we're talking specifically about butterflies. So it's the chrysalis, not a cocoon that it metamorphosizes within. And once it emerges, uh, it is a beautiful creature that resembles the caterpillar that it was, almost not at all. But it's the same exact creature. It's got the same mind. It can remember smells and all that. But whereas the caterpillar was built for eating, I think we said it in the last episode too, the butterfly is built for sex, sex, sex.

• 4:27Speaker 03

  Yeah, they're built for reproducing.

• 4:33Speaker 03

  Should we talk, I mean, should we go back in time just a little bit and talk about the fact that, like, the distinction between moths and butterflies and stuff like that?

• 4:41Josh Clark?

  Sure.

• 4:44Speaker 03

  Well, what's the deal? Wasn't it, uh, aren't moths and butterflies basically mostly the same, except moths are, uh, they, they do their sex at night and butterflies do their sex in the day?

• 4:54Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I mean, there's, there's not many distinctions between them, other than like the obvious ones. But that's the biggest one. And the reason why butterflies are diurnal and moths are nocturnal is because all butterflies, I think, what is there, like 15,000, 20,000 species of butterflies?

• 5:12Speaker 03

  There's a lot of them, yeah.

• 5:13Josh Clark?

  All of them are descended from moths. And these were just moths that started to do their thing in the daytime rather than the nighttime. And over time, they evolved to fit in in the daytime rather than the nighttime, which is how moths evolved. So a moth's camouflage is meant to, to blend in with like a tree where it's sleeping during the day.

• 5:35Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 5:36Josh Clark?

  Whereas a butterfly is bright colored because it's out in the daytime and it needs to blend in with the big colorful, um, flowers that it, it likes to hang out on.

• 5:46Speaker 03

  Do you know why I meant to look this up and didn't? Why then a moth is so attracted to light?

• 5:53Josh Clark?

  I saw that they think that it is attracted to the moon for navigation.

• 5:57Speaker 03

  Oh, okay.

• 5:58Josh Clark?

  And that butterflies aren't attracted to light because they don't navigate by the moon. They lost that ability or that need.

• 6:04Speaker 03

  Well, butterflies navigate by the sun. That's one of the, one of my amazing facts about butterflies.

• 6:09Josh Clark?

  Yeah, but then that's weird that they don't fly to light, but they, they are not attracted to flames or light bulbs.

• 6:15Speaker 03

  Yeah, oh, well, maybe they know sun is death.

• 6:18Josh Clark?

  Yeah, whereas the moon is nice and cool.

• 6:21Speaker 03

  Should we talk about their, their bodies a little bit? Cause that's where we like to start off usually with our insect, uh, casts.

• 6:27Josh Clark?

  One more thing, let's talk about where the word butterfly came from, eh?

• 6:31Speaker 03

  Where'd it come from?

• 6:32Josh Clark?

  Oh, well, it's very Old English and it means butter and fly, right? No real mystery there.

• 6:39Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 6:40Josh Clark?

  But the reason they think, there's two reasons why they are named butterflies in the Old English. And they think it's either because some of them are a pale yellow in color, so they resemble butter. We can pretty much discard that one. The other one is that there was a folk belief that they stole butter. That they were just kind of some sort of supernatural spirit in a butterfly form to come and steal your milk and your butter. And there's evidence of that in other nearby languages. I think the Germans called butterflies milk thieves.

• 7:13Speaker 03

  Hmm, like a butterfly almost.

• 7:14Josh Clark?

  Yes, and then the Dutch and the Germans have a word for butterfly that means butter witch. So that's probably why butterflies are called that because they used to think that they stole butter.

• 7:25Speaker 03

  Well, you knew who it was the whole time. It was grandpa.

• 7:29Speaker 03

  Doing his night eating.

• 7:31Josh Clark?

  Yeah, he could get one cc of blood through those arteries. They were so clogged. He was, he was on Ambien.

• 7:38Speaker 03

  Uh, does it, does it say when the name morphed for my wife into flutterfly?

• 7:45Josh Clark?

  Uh, they actually used to think or some like it's, it's a pretty strange idea that they're called butterflies rather than flutterbys because that makes more sense. So Emily's kind of taking it in a much smarter direction, but

• 7:57Speaker 03

  That's interesting.

• 7:58Josh Clark?

  She probably just doesn't know the fact that they're actually witches in disguise who are out to steal butter and milk.

• 8:04Speaker 03

  Yeah, she's always, she still calls them flutterflies, just for fun.

• 8:07Josh Clark?

  Does she call spaghetti pescetti?

• 8:09Speaker 03

  No, no, just flutterflies. Uh, can we talk about their, their bodies now?

• 8:15Josh Clark?

  Yes, yes, thank you for indulging me. I feel so indulged.

• 8:19Speaker 03

  Sure, um, so like we mentioned, uh, the head, the thorax and the abdomen of the butterfly will look a lot like a caterpillar in some ways if you hold them up next to each other. And, and that's about it. For one, a butterfly can see a lot better than a caterpillar can. I get the idea that it still doesn't have like, you know, like great vision. But caterpillars, remember, were essentially blind. Butterflies at least have these compound eyes and they can detect color. And I think we said the caterpillar could only see in black and white. They can detect movement as well.

• 8:57Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 8:58Speaker 03

  Uh, but when it comes to like the star of the show, as far as butterfly parts go, it's those antennae.

• 9:04Josh Clark?

  Well, hold on, before we move on, I've got one about the eyes too. You know, the monarch butterfly, like basically the quintessential butterfly?

• 9:13Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 9:14Josh Clark?

  They have 12,000 eyes, both compound and simple, and they go basically all the way around their head.

• 9:20Speaker 03

  It's a lot of eyes.

• 9:21Josh Clark?

  They can see into your soul.

• 9:23Speaker 03

  And that's why they, uh, maybe that's why they're so great at migrating every year in such large numbers.

• 9:30Josh Clark?

  Possibly. I think we talked about in our animal migration episode, we talked about monarch butterfly migration. And I think we said one of the reasons why they're able to make it from eastern Canada all the way down to northwest Mexico is because they are, they navigate using UV. They see in the UV.

• 9:47Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's that, it's that sun. And that's kind of brings me back around to antennae.

• 9:52Josh Clark?

  Oh, good.

• 9:53Speaker 03

  These things are amazing. They, uh, they get their sense of direction from the position of the sun. So they are literally navigating by the position of the sun. The antennae also act as light receptors.

• 10:06Josh Clark?

  Nice.

• 10:07Speaker 03

  Obviously to track the sun. They're highly attuned to odors. Those antennae are great smellers. They sense pheromones during times of mating and they can even sense these antennae, the beat of wings of butterflies of the same species during mating season.

• 10:25Josh Clark?

  That's amazing. Just the antennae?

• 10:27Speaker 03

  Just the antennae.

• 10:28Josh Clark?

  Wow. Uh, how about the labial palps?

• 10:32Speaker 03

  Well, yeah, those are, if you, if you look at a close up of a butterfly and they can take kind of different positions, but usually I've seen them, they look like kind of little hairy tusks.

• 10:42Josh Clark?

  Mm-hmm.

• 10:42Speaker 03

  Coming out.

• 10:43Josh Clark?

  Coming out of what, Chuck?

• 10:45Speaker 03

  Coming out of their, their head. Well, near their mouth parts.

• 10:48Josh Clark?

  Yep. Ding ding.

• 10:49Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 10:50Josh Clark?

  It's now officially a Tracy Wilson article.

• 10:52Speaker 03

  That's right.

• 10:53Josh Clark?

  So, um, they apparently are like, this is food, this isn't food, this is food. But they don't eat with the labial palps. It's just a way of sensing food. What they eat with is their proboscis and that's the, um, long kind of tongue-like appendage that they suck nectar with.

• 11:13Speaker 03

  That's right. I got one more thing on the labial palps though.

• 11:15Josh Clark?

  Oh, okay.

• 11:16Speaker 03

  They, uh, they've kind of surmised that it detects food, that the function was, is fairly unknown, but, uh, I think they've learned, I'm not sure how recently, that they can, those labial palps detect, uh, CO2 in the air.

• 11:30Josh Clark?

  Oh, neat.

• 11:31Speaker 03

  As well. And they think that might be the main function.

• 11:33Josh Clark?

  Oh, that's really cool.

• 11:35Speaker 03

  Who knows?

• 11:36Josh Clark?

  So instead of seeing red or green, they have the labial palps that detect.

• 11:40Speaker 03

  I guess.

• 11:41Josh Clark?

  CO2. That was a reference to our reality episode.

• 11:45Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah. So what part did you move to?

• 11:47Josh Clark?

  I moved on to their proboscis.

• 11:50Speaker 03

  Oh, everyone loves a good proboscis. And the butterfly proboscis is interesting because when the butterfly comes out, and we'll talk about this more in a second, it's almost like it should have a label that says some assembly required. Because they gotta do some stuff before they can really do their butterfly thing. And one of those things is literally almost like screwing together their proboscis.

• 12:15Josh Clark?

  Mm-hmm. Yeah, they have two parts of their proboscis that they have to connect in order to start eating. So that's one of the first things that they do when they eat clothes from their chrysalis.

• 12:26Speaker 03

  Eat clothes. That's a great name.

• 12:28Josh Clark?

  No, it sounds like Apple has trademarked it or something.

• 12:32Speaker 03

  And we'll talk more about the proboscis as we go, but we do need to mention their legs. If you remember, the caterpillars have six real legs and then a bunch of pro legs. The butterfly says, "I don't need those pro legs anymore because I'm flying," basically. But I've still got those six legs. I've got a set of forelegs, some middle legs, and some hind legs. And these things are pretty... They're more than just legs as well because they will land on something and they're looking for dissolving sugars, basically, to eat. And they're looking for that with their legs.

• 13:07Josh Clark?

  Yeah. And also, you'll probably see fairly commonly that there are some butterfly species that only have two pairs of legs, and that's not true. They actually have six, but one pair is basically shriveled almost to nothingness.

• 13:21Speaker 03

  Oh. And by the way, I should clear up. When I say their legs are looking for dissolving sugars, they're not doing it by feel. Like, they are taste organs in their feet.

• 13:31Josh Clark?

  Yeah, they can taste through all sorts of different organs. It's pretty cool. Apparently, when they step in like some dissolving sugar, their proboscis uncoils involuntarily, like yo-yo-yoing, and it just starts sipping nectar immediately.

• 13:46Speaker 03

  Oh, man.

• 13:47Josh Clark?

  So you better hope that your legs are finely attuned to sugar and you don't accidentally suck up some really gross stuff. You know, like, "Oh, it was pus."

• 13:57Speaker 03

  Right. Oh, my God.

• 14:00Speaker 03

  Oh, the worst word. It's the worst.

• 14:04Josh Clark?

  It's pretty bad.

• 14:05Speaker 03

  And it's one of the worst things, too.

• 14:07Josh Clark?

  It's not as bad as a hygienic utensil, though.

• 14:08Speaker 03

  Like, what are the odds that one of the grossest things has the grossest word?

• 14:13Josh Clark?

  I don't know. I wonder if that was intentional.

• 14:17Speaker 03

  Yeah, like, what is that? Ugh, pus.

• 14:19Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 14:20Speaker 03

  Does that sound gross enough? Sure, let's go with it.

• 14:22Josh Clark?

  Can we please stop talking about pus?

• 14:25Speaker 03

  Sure, Webster. Um, the wings, we're gonna talk about a lot. We did a whole episode on, uh, the iridescence of butterfly wings. So, we're not gonna really get into it here, but if you wanna learn about iridescence, it's very complex and complicated and deserved its own episode many years ago.

• 14:42Josh Clark?

  Yeah, but the upshot is the structure of the scales. They're transparent, multi-layered, and they reflect and amplify light multiple times. It's, uh, that was a really cool episode, if I remember correctly.

• 14:53Speaker 03

  It was, and it was a tough one, uh, if I remember, to, like, absorb.

• 14:57Josh Clark?

  Yes, but we did such a great job of it. I would like to say we probably just knocked it out of the park, really.

• 15:02Speaker 03

  I think so, too. Uh, but the butterfly wings are made of, uh, it's transparent, it's called chitin. Uh, if you've heard of chitin, you're, you're probably just alive on the earth, because it is, uh, one of the most abundant, uh, polysaccharides in nature. It's, I think, the second most abundant. Uh, it's all over the place. Uh, it's ma- uh, their wings are made of that chitin, and they have those sort of, uh, vein-like structures that you can, uh, if you look at their wings closely, um, don't touch them, though, please.

• 15:32Josh Clark?

  No.

• 15:33Speaker 03

  Uh, we talked about that in that episode. Uh, but they have those forewings, um, that are obviously toward the front, and they're basically triangular, and then the hind wings toward the butt, and they kinda look like little seashells.

• 15:44Josh Clark?

  Yes, and they're, like you said, don't touch them. They're very, very delicate, and those veins are species-specific. So, that's one of the ways that they, uh, use to recognize one another when they're mating as well.

• 15:57Speaker 03

  Yeah, and I think butterflies cannot repair their wings, isn't that correct?

• 16:01Josh Clark?

  Yes, they have no means of doing that. They have no car shield for wings.

• 16:06Speaker 03

  But I don't think it kills them, but if a butterfly can't fly, that's probably ultimately a death sentence, right?

• 16:11Josh Clark?

  That's my guess. It would make them easy prey at the very least.

• 16:15Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think that's kind of the deal when they say a butterfly will die if you touch their wings.

• 16:18Josh Clark?

  Yes.

• 16:19Speaker 03

  It will die quicker.

• 16:21Josh Clark?

  There's something that a butterfly that's recently e-closed and a baby that's just been born have in common. Do you know what it is?

• 16:31Speaker 03

  Hmm, maybe, but go ahead.

• 16:34Josh Clark?

  They both poop out in a meconium.

• 16:38Speaker 03

  Oh, sure, a human baby.

• 16:40Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 16:41Speaker 03

  Yeah. Yeah, meconium is that first poop that they take. In this case, the butterfly's pooping what it last ate as a caterpillar.

• 16:51Josh Clark?

  That's so cool.

• 16:52Speaker 03

  It is really cool.

• 16:53Josh Clark?

  It's usually red, bright red, almost looks like blood. The butterfly poops that out. It's one of the first things it does. It has to clean off all of its organs, its feet, to make sure it's sugar finding, not pus finding, clean off its antennas, put its proboscis together again.

• 17:10Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 17:10Josh Clark?

  Let its wings dry out.

• 17:12Speaker 03

  That's cool.

• 17:13Josh Clark?

  I saw, and I don't think we mentioned in the caterpillar episode, that in its last instar, it has wings already. They're just folded up under its skin, but they develop even further in the chrysalis. But when they come out, they're soaking wet because the butterfly was goo not too long ago.

• 17:32Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 17:33Josh Clark?

  And they have to spread them out and let them dry in the sun before they can fly. So they're doing all of this like self-care, basically a morning at the spa right after they're born.

• 17:43Speaker 03

  Yeah, but they can't just like flop their wings open immediately. They actually have to pump them up, almost like an air pump inflating a raft or something.

• 17:53Josh Clark?

  Or some high tops.

• 17:54Speaker 03

  Yeah. Oh, man, remember those. That's so funny. What a scam.

• 18:00Speaker 03

  That was a scam, right?

• 18:02Josh Clark?

  I'm quite sure you could break your ankle in that just as easily as any other shoe, sure.

• 18:06Speaker 03

  Yeah, it may give you like a little tighter fit or something. I don't know about that. Uh, and for people that are younger listeners, if you don't know who Milli Vanilli was, or pump up basketball shoes, they were, I think Reebok, right?

• 18:20Josh Clark?

  Pretty sure it was Reebok.

• 18:21Speaker 03

  Had basketball shoes that on the tongue had a little basketball that was a little pump. And you would put on your shoes, tie them up, and then press that pump a bunch of times. And it would fill some cavities with air, I guess, and make your shoes tighter.

• 18:35Josh Clark?

  Yeah, especially around your ankle. It was meant to give you extra ankle support so you could donk easier, even though you've never donked in your life.

• 18:42Speaker 03

  That's right. But they had Spud Webb repping them, so.

• 18:46Josh Clark?

  Oh, yeah?

• 18:47Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think he, I think he was one of their pitch guys for a little while.

• 18:50Josh Clark?

  Okay, cool.

• 18:52Speaker 03

  Uh, but anyway, the butterfly.

• 18:54Josh Clark?

  Wait, wait, should we explain who Spud Webb was?

• 18:57Speaker 03

  He was a diminutive NBA player.

• 18:59Josh Clark?

  Yeah, for the Hawks.

• 19:00Speaker 03

  And I stood in line to get his autograph one time, yeah.

• 19:01Josh Clark?

  Nice.

• 19:03Speaker 03

  Uh, they pump their wings out, but not with air. There's a fluid that they pump through these, uh, those tube-like veins we were talking about.

• 19:10Josh Clark?

  Mm-hmm.

• 19:10Speaker 03

  And just sort of inflate them out. And like you said, they just get all cleaned up and ready to fly.

• 19:16Josh Clark?

  Yes. And then, once they're all ready, they start flying and they realize very quickly, oh, it's not a very good day to fly. And I say we take a break and come back and explain just what in the holy heck I'm talking about.

• 19:41Speaker 04

  First thought is like, wow, how are we gonna do all this? Hey, this is Josh and Chuck from Stuff You Should Know.

• 19:47Speaker 03

  That's Alan Goya, planning engineer at AT&T, and he's talking about Intuit Dome, home of the Los Angeles Clippers, where every seat, screen, phone, and transaction is connected with AT&T fiber and 5G, redefining the fan's experience. And Alan's master plan made it all possible.

• 20:03Speaker 04

  It was gonna rival anything that was already built. And that takes quite a bit of people and different teams to all be on the same page.

• 20:11Josh Clark?

  That includes field services manager Drexel Jones. His team made sure it all came together and held up on game day.

• 20:17Speaker 05

  Through what Alan's whole crew designed, we connected the event visitors to the world.

• 20:22Speaker 03

  And after years of hard work and collaboration, it was opening night.

• 20:26Speaker 05

  To actually see the whole stadium light up and data's flowing is a beautiful thing. What the fans experience is incredible. It gave me a lot of pride.

• 20:34Josh Clark?

  AT&T, connecting fans to what they love.

• 20:37Speaker 06

  Connecting changes everything. AT&T.

• 20:44Speaker 03

  You know, you're never done decorating your home. You know what I mean?

• 20:46Josh Clark?

  Sure.

• 20:47Speaker 03

  Yeah, because it's a process. There's always something you could do or buy or update. The only question is, what's next? For us, our animals just wear out our rugs so quickly, it's usually a new rug.

• 20:57Josh Clark?

  Well, Chuck, whether you need a rug or whatever is next for you, you can go to Wayfair. It's the smart place to get it.

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• 21:16Josh Clark?

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• 21:42Josh Clark?

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• 22:18Josh Clark?

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• 22:43Speaker 03

  All right. What in the holy heck are you talking about?

• 22:45Josh Clark?

  Oh, well, let me explain Chuck. It turns out that butterflies, while being pretty hardy individuals, at least as far as insects are concerned on that level, they're also very delicate, like we talked about with their wings. And even beyond their wings, getting like a raindrop driving through it, that can happen. Or say like, strong wind tattering it, that's a big problem for a butterfly. Just the temperature, the ambient temperature, has a tremendous effect on them. Not just because they're ectotherms, meaning they're like a lizard, they rely on the ambient temperature to warm themselves or cool themselves off. Their muscles just simply will not function when it drops below a certain temperature.

• 23:29Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think Tracy points out, they work best when their internal temperature is about 82 Fahrenheit, 28 Celsius. And, you know, they use these wings for flying, which is great. But you might think like, oh, it's no big deal if it's cold, they just kind of hunker down. But they also use these wings to do all kinds of like, cool things, like, namely to scare away predators. They can do all sorts of, like, they can make eyes where it looks like a scary face. Kind of like their little caterpillar former selves can look like snakes. They can flash these bright colors that a lot of times say getaway predator. And if they can't move their wings, it's not just that they can't fly, but they

• 24:11Speaker 03

  can't defend themselves or disguise themselves. So it means that when it's cold outside, or when it's too windy or rainy or something, then they're way more vulnerable to prey.

• 24:21Josh Clark?

  For sure.

• 24:22Speaker 03

  Or as prey.

• 24:24Josh Clark?

  Right. But even prey could probably get them. That's how vulnerable they are.

• 24:28Speaker 03

  For sure.

• 24:29Josh Clark?

  So you'll often see like butterflies is kind of basking in the sun. And I've always wondered what they're doing. Like, they just seem like they're... They don't know what to do next. That's how it's always struck me for some reason. They're thinking of their next move, but in, in reality, they're just sitting there getting warmed up by the sun so they can fly to another spot. And if you stop and think about it, the next time you see a butterfly basking in the sun, I'll bet it's below 80 degrees out and the butterfly's having to warm itself so it can fly on to the next flower to eat or rest or whatever.

• 25:04Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's a good point. They do take shelter at night when it gets chilly. That's why you don't see butterflies flying around at night mainly. And like you said, they're, what are daytime dwellers called?

• 25:17Josh Clark?

  Diurnal.

• 25:18Speaker 03

  Diurnal.

• 25:19Josh Clark?

  Diurnal.

• 25:20Speaker 03

  Yeah, diurnal? Is that how you remember it?

• 25:24Josh Clark?

  Um, now it is.

• 25:26Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 25:28Speaker 03

  You do remember it. That's how I need to remember it.

• 25:29Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 25:30Speaker 03

  Uh, but yeah, they bask those wings. They'll sit around on rocks. Uh, they, they shelter at night. Sometimes that they will actually do like a, kind of like human shiver to warm up. They can kind of shake their butterfly wings to get their muscles warmed up to, to fly. That's just, they just can't go out cold. They gotta do a little warm up first.

• 25:48Josh Clark?

  It's like that, um, that knee hike thing. Where you lift your knees really, really high, like in, in place a bunch of times.

• 25:56Speaker 03

  Yeah, like, like soccer players do.

• 25:59Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 25:59Speaker 03

  Like that Ted Lasso guy.

• 26:01Josh Clark?

  Right. And there's a name for that, but don't bother emailing us with it. We can figure it out ourselves.

• 26:07Speaker 03

  Um, they also can use those wings as little reflectors. Like you know how in the 1950s and 60s, people would sit out in the sun with those reflectors under their neck to reflect sun back on their faces? They can use their wings to do that to their, to their body and warm it up.

• 26:22Josh Clark?

  Right. Which is pretty cool. Um, they can also, they can also keep the sun from warming them up when it's too hot out. They'll fold their wings together and just present like the edge, the outer edge of their wings to the sun. So there's much less surface area.

• 26:39Speaker 03

  Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And they, like you said, when you see them sitting, they're probably not sitting for long. They're probably sitting just so they can get it going to fly again very shortly.

• 26:52Josh Clark?

  Exactly. So even though they're sitting there warming themselves up to move from flower to flower even, and that's typically what you see, there's a lot of species, I see at least 200, that migrate over very long distances. And monarchs are the ones that they're like the money, the money butterfly that everybody knows about. But one of the reasons why is because they migrate so far. Again, they migrate from eastern Canada to northwest Mexico. It takes eight months and not a single butterfly that starts that journey is alive at the end. So it's like you look at the butterfly, by the way, the butterfly flock or a group of butterflies is called the kaleidoscope.

• 27:34Speaker 03

  Hmm, I love that.

• 27:36Josh Clark?

  Also, that's the official one. They're also called flutter, shimmer, and rainbow of butterflies.

• 27:42Speaker 03

  Okay, a flutter of butterflies.

• 27:44Josh Clark?

  Yep. But you look at the kaleidoscope of butterflies, it's like a single organism in each individual butterfly that lives and dies and reproduces, not necessarily in that order, as kind of like cells that function and make up the larger whole. But it's really a bunch of individual butterflies flying together but migrating as a whole down from eastern Canada to northwest Mexico.

• 28:07Speaker 03

  Yeah. And I guess since we're there, there was a, a big deforestation, illegal deforestation, logging operation in Mexico at the Butterfly Biosphere Reserve in 2015. And it, they got like, I can't remember, like 30 or 40 acres of land just cut down before anyone knew what was going on. And since then, and we can't get into it here because it's really complex, but they have this very involved plan that they've been enacting since then of reforestation, including something called assisted migration that I don't fully understand yet, but I'm going to look into it more.

• 28:45Josh Clark?

  They just drive slowly by some butterflies and swipe them into the car and drive them halfway?

• 28:51Speaker 03

  Well, things are better now, but there were a billion butterflies in that migration in 1996. And in, I think, 2016, that was down to 35 million from a billion. And I think it's since gone up due to these efforts, but.

• 29:05Josh Clark?

  That's good.

• 29:06Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 29:08Speaker 03

  Butterflies, if you take down where they're trying to get to, then they're gonna die.

• 29:13Josh Clark?

  Yeah, and that's that Biosphere Reserve is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and you can go visit it, but apparently when the the number of butterflies that show up are in the billions, the the branches that they're sitting on bend under the weight of butterflies. That's how many butterflies there are sometimes. But yes, it's a very problematic that there's fewer and fewer. I'm glad to hear that it's kind of bounced back a little bit, but they're still under. I don't know if they're endangered or just critical right now, but there's there's something to keep an eye on, as we'll see, because they're an indicator species.

• 29:53Speaker 03

  They are, and they're also pollinators. They're not, you know, the best pollinators, but they're pretty good. They're not like bees. I mean, bees were made to pollinate.

• 30:03Josh Clark?

  They wear t-shirts that say that.

• 30:05Speaker 03

  They do. They wear bee shirts. But the some butterflies, some butterflies don't spread pollen at all. They just love that nectar. But generally butterflies are looked at as pollinators. And they have that proboscis, like you said, that's just it's made for for diving deep into those flowers and getting all that sweet stuff. But butterflies have lots of dietary needs. They can't just get by on that sweet, sweet sugar. They need minerals and stuff, and they get this in a variety of interesting ways, right?

• 30:37Josh Clark?

  Yeah, one is puddles. They'll just descend on a puddle that's bare dirt, not I don't think asphalt would work. So yeah, it's kind of gross to think about. But the minerals from the dirt in the soil leach into the puddle, and the butterflies suck up those minerals through the puddle. And apparently, if there's not enough minerals for their liking, they'll actually flutter off real quick and then come back to the puddle. And just that little butterfly movement is enough disturbance of the water to bring some extra minerals to the surface of the puddle for them to drink and to create a hurricane in Belize.

• 31:18Speaker 03

  If there's no water, it's pretty gross. If it gets pretty bad, they will resort to puking onto the soil and then drinking that mineral puke.

• 31:30Josh Clark?

  I took it more as spit.

• 31:32Speaker 03

  Hey, one man spit, other man spooked.

• 31:35Josh Clark?

  That's right. But yeah, they need the minerals, the nutrients, and it's not, it's just not enough for the nectar.

• 31:41Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly. They've done some studies though, because they'll, they'll eat fruit. They'll eat rotten fruit on the ground, or they will get on a piece of fruit. They will stomp on it with their little feet.

• 31:50Josh Clark?

  Oh, yeah.

• 31:50Speaker 03

  To try and tenderize it a little bit and then jab it with that proboscis and drink it up. And they've done studies that have found that the fruit eaters live longer and are better at reproducing in studies, because they, I think it was the monarchs even. They fed them either mashed banana or sugar. And the ones that ate the mashed banana laid almost two times as many eggs. And those eggs were, were bigger and like more robust and vital as well.

• 32:25Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I also read that they tend to be easier going in social situations and are more well liked by their peers.

• 32:32Speaker 03

  The fruit eaters?

• 32:33Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 32:34Speaker 03

  Oh, wow.

• 32:35Josh Clark?

  So there's a couple of other places that they can get nutrients and minerals. Dung in urine. Butterflies are not above that, especially if they need it really badly. But the, when they're getting it from a puddle, it's called puddling. There's just so many great words around butterflies. And there's a specific word for butterflies pollinating plants. It's called psychophily, like psycho Philly, but with one L.

• 33:01Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 33:02Josh Clark?

  Specifically butterflies pollinating plants is psychophily.

• 33:06Speaker 03

  I love that.

• 33:07Josh Clark?

  I thought you would. I found that and I was like, Chuck's gonna love this.

• 33:11Speaker 03

  The sexy stuff you mentioned, butterflies love to try and reproduce. And they reproduce like a lot of animals. They join themselves, they join end to end at the abdomen. I think the male has a, like, he clasps down on the female to make sure they stay together. And there is sperm from the male that is eventually going to fertilize the eggs of a female.

• 33:38Josh Clark?

  Sure.

• 33:39Speaker 03

  But not like you would think. It's pretty remarkable because what they do is, they, well, first of all, they have to recognize each other. Like I said, using those antennae. They recognize themselves as the same species or whatever. And through their pheromones as well, which is also the antennae. And then the male delivers a spermatophore. So it's like, hey, I don't just have sperm for you. I've packaged it up in a little package for you. And it's got all these other minerals and nutrients that you love that'll help you in this fertilization process. And they will take extra time to get an extra good spermatophore package ready to be an extra attractive mate.

• 34:21Josh Clark?

  The good ones will.

• 34:23Speaker 03

  Well, sure.

• 34:25Josh Clark?

  So, I guess the female butterflies, when they fertilize their eggs, they use the last sperm that was inserted to them, the last spermatophore package.

• 34:39Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 34:40Josh Clark?

  So there are some species where the male will basically close up shop after he's inserted a spermatophore with kind of like a sticky substance that prevents more sperm from going in. So his sperm is the most recent sperm.

• 34:55Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's not very cool at all. But I guess that guy's also like, you know, what am I doing giving you my spermatophore? If you're just going to use the latest spermatophore that you got.

• 35:04Josh Clark?

  Exactly. I went to a lot of trouble combining the spermatophore.

• 35:08Speaker 03

  Yeah, like, look at this stuff. Look at all these minerals. I also saw that some of the males in some species will spray them with an off-putting scent. So no other butterflies will want them. There are mating dances that they'll do. And they, you know, when the female gets this spermatophore, they put it in their bursa. And then they wait until they're ready to lay their eggs. And they actually lay the eggs first. And then use the sperm to fertilize them once they have laid the eggs, which is also, I think, pretty unusual in the insect kingdom, right?

• 35:43Josh Clark?

  I don't know. For some reason, I had the impression that they were fertilizing each egg as they were coming out, kind of like a Pez dispenser.

• 35:52Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, that's what I mean, though. But they're not like, they're not fertilized in the body.

• 35:57Josh Clark?

  I see what you're saying. They're fertilized externally.

• 36:00Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 36:00Josh Clark?

  Sure.

• 36:01Speaker 03

  That's the word.

• 36:03Josh Clark?

  One other thing, you talked about terrible smells. It turned up that there are some pheromones are pleasant smelling to humans. Specifically, let me tell you about the green-veined white butterfly.

• 36:17Speaker 03

  Let's hear it.

• 36:18Josh Clark?

  It puts together lemon oil. For all intents and purposes, it has the same chemical composition as lemon oil. But it's the pheromone it produces to attract a mate. And I got to tell you, lemon oil is a pretty great smell. It would attract meat, too.

• 36:30Speaker 03

  I love it.

• 36:31Josh Clark?

  So if you ever smell a great-veined white during mating season, you're going to smell some lemon oil.

• 36:38Speaker 03

  The gestation period's about three days, and they lay anywhere from 10 to 300 eggs in clusters over a two to four week period.

• 36:48Josh Clark?

  Oh, wow. It's that long?

• 36:50Speaker 03

  Yeah, it can't, yeah, two to four weeks. And these eggs, you know, they they lay that many because it's tough for these eggs to survive into adulthood. They got to be, the temperature's got to be just right. Humidity's got to be just right. They can rot very easily if it's too wet. If it's not wet enough, they're going to dry out. And then, of course, there's all those predators that are just dying to eat those butterfly eggs.

• 37:14Josh Clark?

  They need to find the Goldilocks zone with the humidity for the eggs.

• 37:18Speaker 03

  That's right, they do.

• 37:20Josh Clark?

  So, they also make sure that they put the eggs on their baby's favorite food, which is a certain kind of plant. Butterflies are very frequently indiscriminate pollinators. They just go from plant to plant. But there are also plenty of species that are very plant-specific. And those are the ones where they will not only eat that plant while they're caterpillars, they were probably born on that same plant as well.

• 37:44Speaker 03

  We used to have a butterfly bush in our yard that was... Those things get really big and out of control.

• 37:51Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 37:51Speaker 03

  Kind of in a... We have sort of a wild garden anyway. It's not like a, you know, super manicured, like, English-type garden. It's kind of a crazy fun garden. So it fit in the garden, and we had tons and tons of butterflies. But it went away, and I don't know if it was because... I think some people... Well, I think it could be an invasive species, and a lot of people say, like, "Don't plant the butterfly bush."

• 38:12Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 38:13Speaker 03

  We had one for a while, but don't now. So Emily may have taken it down for that reason.

• 38:17Josh Clark?

  So the reason it's considered invasive and harmful, the butterflies, is it produces tons of nectar, but it has no value in supporting eggs or the life cycle of it, other than nectar for adults. And so it's a distraction from native plants that do provide not just nectar, but also shelter and a place to lay their eggs. So it actually disrupts the life cycle of local butterflies, even though it's a butterfly bush and they love it. It's actually bad for them. So I have to go cut down mine after this.

• 38:50Speaker 03

  Even if you have a lot of those natives nearby, like, as a whole, it's still bad?

• 38:53Josh Clark?

  Yes, because it's a distraction. Because it's so chock-full of nectar that they go to that one instead and just die off.

• 39:01Speaker 03

  Well, some distractions are okay, right? Like television?

• 39:04Josh Clark?

  Sure. You can put a TV with an extension cord out in your butterfly garden. That's not going to harm them. If you have a butterfly bush, you have to chop it down. I command you.

• 39:14Speaker 03

  All right. They're really pretty, though, and it's fun to see all the butterflies. But yeah, I get you.

• 39:19Josh Clark?

  But wait until you've planted other plants, which we'll talk about, and then you can chop down your butterfly bush.

• 39:26Speaker 03

  All right. Well, let's take a break, our second break, and we'll talk a little bit more about what's going on with the butterfly population and butterfly gardens, right after this.

• 39:51Josh Clark?

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• 42:25Speaker 03

  Okay, well, we talked already about the monarchs and how they had been hit hard from the illegal logging going on in Mexico in the mid 2010s.

• 42:36Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 42:37Speaker 03

  And in general, butterflies are doing okay, but there are some pesticides and things like that. I think one of the other big reasons, besides the logging for that migration of the monarchs, I think pesticides has killed a lot of milkweed, which I think the monarchs love. So pesticides are a big threat. And it's not like, I'm just gonna spray this one little part of my garden. Like pesticides in your garden, in one part of your garden, generally means it's in most parts of your garden.

• 43:07Josh Clark?

  Yeah, it travels very easily, but on top of that, butterflies are extremely sensitive to pesticides. So I don't know about herbicides, but definitely pesticides. So if you're going to plant a butterfly garden, you want to use natural pest defenses. But that's a big thing that's killing off butterflies and bees, too.

• 43:24Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 43:26Josh Clark?

  And then also, we talked about it in the last episode, a lot of people think of caterpillars as pests. It's like, oh, you ate some of my lettuce, I'm gonna kill all of you. That kills butterflies, too. They never make it to be adult butterflies, and you've just disrupted generations of butterflies that could have been. So when you put all that together, humans have not been super good for butterflies. Did you mention urbanization in roads, too?

• 43:52Speaker 03

  No.

• 43:53Josh Clark?

  Those are a problem. Like anytime we build somewhere, we destroy plants and those often have butterflies or that's a butterfly habitat. And then the roads that we have, um, the marginal land alongside of the roads are often like great places for butterfly centric, um, plants to grow. But that means that the butterflies are very close to cars that are going 70, 80 miles an hour, which is never good for the butterfly when they come in contact with them. So, yeah, like I was saying, humans have been kind of bad for butterflies, but fortunately, we're starting to wake up and, and see the value in butterflies goes beyond like, let's put that thing on a stamp. Like there's, there's more value to the butterfly than just its aesthetic beauty, but that makes it plenty valuable in and of itself.

• 44:38Speaker 03

  I wonder if butterflies and other insects would ever, uh, if natural selection would be such that they would learn to fly higher than the height of an average car.

• 44:50Josh Clark?

  Sure, I could see that. But then they run into semis and there's like, it's gonna take millions more years to get higher than a semi.

• 44:58Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's a good point.

• 45:00Josh Clark?

  Maybe they'll figure out how to fly under cars very quickly.

• 45:04Speaker 03

  Oh, okay.

• 45:04Josh Clark?

  That'd be something.

• 45:05Speaker 03

  Sure, but sure.

• 45:06Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 45:06Speaker 03

  Uh, collecting butterflies is, believe it or not, another thing that has hit the butterfly population. Butterfly, collecting butterflies is a thing. Uh, hunting butterflies and, uh, putting them behind glass in your office, uh, is a thing that some people are really into. And I don't know a lot about that. Um, but I do know that, um, that there are certain species that are endangered and part of the problem is over collecting.

• 45:35Josh Clark?

  Yeah. And the more rare a butterfly species gets, the more desirable it is for collectors and the more collecting harms that population because it's so small. So Ouroboros, but the worst kind.

• 45:49Speaker 03

  Yeah. And I imagine we'll hear from some collectors who. Who can tell us that there are responsible ways of doing this? I really don't know enough about it to speak to it, but I'm not going to collect butterflies. That's all I'm going to say.

• 46:01Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I wonder if it's one of those things like ivory where it's like, okay, this happened. This is done, like these things are are out there.

• 46:10Josh Clark?

  And we're not just going to throw them away. That's an even bigger waste.

• 46:14Speaker 03

  Oh, right.

• 46:15Josh Clark?

  So like antique ivory or antique taxidermy butterflies are legal, but anything new is illegal. I wonder if it's treated like that or what, but I get the impression that butterflies don't have that much legal protection. I think they do on paper, but it's very rarely enforced.

• 46:32Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 46:34Speaker 03

  I guess if you find one in the ground or something, that's, you know, that for your collection.

• 46:38Josh Clark?

  Sure.

• 46:39Speaker 03

  Not sunning on a rock, but you know, dead.

• 46:41Josh Clark?

  Right, sure. It just fell over of old age.

• 46:45Speaker 03

  Uh huh.

• 46:47Speaker 03

  Should we talk about butterfly gardens here at the end?

• 46:49Josh Clark?

  Yeah, because one of the things people are doing or saying like, hey, butterflies, we got to save these butterflies. If we don't, things are going to go pear shaped even more. And so people are starting to plant butterfly gardens.

• 47:01Speaker 03

  Yeah, because I think you said they're a big indicator of like, if butterflies are dying off all around you, that's a big indicator of how your local ecosystem is doing.

• 47:09Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 47:10Speaker 03

  In large part.

• 47:10Josh Clark?

  They're the canary in the coal mine.

• 47:12Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly. And butterfly gardens are beautiful and it doesn't take a lot. You need some, some plants and you're going to want plants. Well, you're going to want to find out what kind of butterflies you have around you.

• 47:23Josh Clark?

  That's a big one.

• 47:24Speaker 03

  You can look with your eyeballs and then cross reference, or you can just look it up on the internet. And then you want to find out what kind of plants those butterflies love that are native to your area. And plant those.

• 47:35Josh Clark?

  Chuck, when I was researching this, all I wanted to do was be done with this episode so I can go garden.

• 47:41Speaker 03

  Oh, I love that. Emily's gardening. I'm looking at her right now.

• 47:44Josh Clark?

  Man.

• 47:45Speaker 03

  She's gardening outside.

• 47:46Josh Clark?

  Well, pound on your window and tell her I'm jealous of her.

• 47:49Speaker 03

  We got, I, I put it on my Instagram. I don't know if you saw it, but you, we, I saw a huge, well, it's not that big, but a hornet's nest in our backyard yesterday that is the coolest, most beautiful thing, kind of tucked in a magnolia branch about only four feet off the ground. And I'm glad I saw it because I was about to go do some trimming of my boxwoods right behind it in a few days. And it is, I would have bumped right into that thing. So now we're just going to steer clear of it until it is out of season and then hopefully try and preserve it. But hornet's nests are so cool looking. And I just love that we have one back there. We got a crazy backyard full of all kinds of critters.

• 48:31Josh Clark?

  Does it look like a mummy's head? Sometimes they do.

• 48:33Speaker 03

  It looks, it looks like a, sort of a mummy's head, but if it was an alien mummy, because it's sort of like top heavy. And it looks like it has a little mouth at the bottom, you know, their little door. I'll send you the picture. It's cool.

• 48:46Josh Clark?

  Yeah. Or I can just go on Instagram like everybody else.

• 48:49Speaker 03

  No, you get text privies.

• 48:51Josh Clark?

  Thanks, man.

• 48:54Speaker 03

  What else about the butterfly garden? You need water, right?

• 48:56Josh Clark?

  Yeah, remember they like to drink minerals from puddles. So if you have a little bit of water dripping that forms a puddle in the soil, that's definitely going to help them. You want rocks for them to sun on.

• 49:08Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 49:08Josh Clark?

  A big one Chuck is you want to use native plants. I know you and Emily are like big into that. And I feel like people, including myself, are really waking up to just how bad for the local ecosystem, like non-native plants are. And to use native plants whenever you can, when you're, when you're building a butterfly garden, it's crucial. Because even plants within the same species can be harmful to butterflies. And I have an example, if you'll allow me.

• 49:37Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 49:38Josh Clark?

  So butterflies in Florida and Georgia, in the Southeast in general, I think, are very, very keen on what's called butterfly weed. It's what monarchs love. It's that very tiny, multi-flowered, orange flowered weed. It's a type of milkweed.

• 49:56Josh Clark?

  Okay.

• 49:57Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 49:57Josh Clark?

  That's native. Yes. There's another kind of milkweed called tropical milkweed that does just fine in Florida and Georgia and the southeast too, but it's not native. And the problem with putting that in your butterfly garden in the southeast is that it blooms so late into the season that butterflies will keep reproducing and entire parts of the population will freeze to death because they've gone beyond their natural reproductive window. And then furthermore, when the temperature drops a little bit, they're more susceptible to a specific kind of protozoan parasite called OT or OE, I can't remember, that they wouldn't otherwise be if they were just on the native milkweed rather than the tropical milkweed.

• 50:42Josh Clark?

  So like, that's how much attention you really should be paying to your butterfly garden because you can inadvertently harm them while you're doing something you think is good for them, like putting a butterfly bush out there. Everybody would think like, that's great. I'm gonna put a butterfly bush out and I can pretty much call myself Gandhi from here on out. Gandhi of the butterflies. But it turns out you're harming them. So it's definitely something that you need to take some research for, but it's the kind of research that it's like an invitation to go like immerse yourself in the natural world in all of the best ways.

• 51:13Speaker 03

  Yeah. Boy, that butterfly weed is beautiful.

• 51:16Josh Clark?

  Yes, it is. And it's native to Georgia, so you just plant it all you like.

• 51:21Speaker 03

  You know what? I'm gonna go tell Emily like, oh, this butterfly milkweed. And she's gonna be like, it's right behind you, dummy.

• 51:25Josh Clark?

  Right. But it's not only a food source, it's like a place where monarchs lay their eggs. So you will have butterflies like living in your garden. I mean, they'll fly to Mexico eventually, but they'll hang out there for a while.

• 51:38Speaker 03

  Yeah. I mean, that's the cool thing about the butterfly garden too. If you, if you do it right, then you're gonna have butterflies in your yard. And not only that, but butterflies are gonna like, word gets around and it'll become a place for butterflies. It'll become like a haven for butterflies and they don't, they don't generally, I mean, the ones who migrate migrate, but other than that, you could have, you could have butterflies, families living their whole life back there in your backyard.

• 52:04Josh Clark?

  Yeah. And speaking of backyards, I've got a backyard, a lower part of my backyard is. Kind of wild. I keep it wild. Like, I don't mow it very often and there's lots of weeds and like little clovers and stuff growing. So I've left it there for the bees, the birds and the bees and all that and the butterflies. But I'm going full on, man. I'm going to let, oh, yes, it's gonna be all butterfly, like up to your hips butterfly stuff. I cannot wait to go plant it. It's, I'm really looking forward to it. Cause it's, it goes right up to the edge of some woods too. So it's gonna be amazing.

• 52:39Speaker 03

  Yeah, there's something, uh, we really love, like, leaving green spaces and making it an invitation for animals. You know, like I got my camp up there in North Georgia and like, all of North Georgia is just being torn down for neighborhoods and, and or, and you know, if you're a hunter, let's find that that's your thing. I'm not into it. And we love that we have this acreage where we're just like, tell your dear buddies this to come to our land, set up shop here. No one will be shooting you. And spread the word, everybody. We have, we have a safe space for all you critters out here.

• 53:15Josh Clark?

  Yes, except for humans, because it's also a most dangerous game type setup you got going there, huh?

• 53:21Speaker 03

  Well, sure. On the weekends.

• 53:25Josh Clark?

  Let's see, one more thing about butterflies. There's an amazing fact that I think we can end on. How about that?

• 53:30Speaker 03

  Let's do it.

• 53:31Josh Clark?

  They're frequently cited as inspiring the discovery of the RH blood factor, which is a type of, a subtype of blood types. And it actually cured what's known as Rhesus hemolytic disease, which is where a baby has a positive RH blood type and is born from a mother with a negative RH blood type and its immune system starts attacking its blood. Not good. But the discoverer of the RH blood factor, his name is Sir Cyril Clark, and he was big time into butterflies. And he was inspired by the butterfly's ability to mimic other butterflies, genetically, that they had these what are called super genes, these big clusters of

• 54:13Josh Clark?

  genes that all produce this mimicry and that were refined by smaller genes over time. And he was like, I wonder if that has to do with blood types and diseases. And in fact, it was.

• 54:24Speaker 03

  Oh, wow.

• 54:24Josh Clark?

  Yeah. So butterflies, super useful, super beautiful. Go cut down your butterfly bush today.

• 54:31Speaker 03

  Amazing.

• 54:32Josh Clark?

  Uh, Chuck said amazing. So that means it's time for listener mail, everybody.

• 54:38Speaker 03

  I'm gonna call this, um, our influence on Spotify, perhaps. Hey, guys, I was wondering, uh, wondering if you're aware of your potential impact on Spotify searches. On the Milli Vanilli episode, Josh mentioned the song Owner of a Lonely Heart by Yes being the best song of the 80s. And in my head, I'm like, I'm not sure what that song is, but I said it out loud and immediately the chorus popped into my head. So I go over to listen to it later on Spotify. I seen a ton of covers for it and I see Milli Vanilli is also in the search results, which was gonna be my next search. So I think you guys may have had enough people searching Owner of a Lonely Heart and Milli Vanilli close together so that the algorithm associated those two.

• 55:23Josh Clark?

  That's awesome.

• 55:24Speaker 03

  Cause other than the time period, it's not similar music, you know?

• 55:27Josh Clark?

  No, I would say not.

• 55:29Speaker 03

  Uh, maybe do a test and mention two unrelated songs or something to see what happens. Oh, boy. Uh, should we try it?

• 55:37Josh Clark?

  Yeah, let's mix Sabbath and you pick the other one.

• 55:42Speaker 03

  Okay, so Black Sabbath, name a song specifically.

• 55:45Josh Clark?

  War Pigs.

• 55:46Speaker 03

  Okay, War Pigs. Hey, everybody, if you haven't heard War Pigs, you should go search it on Spotify. Give it a listen. It's a great song. And while you're at it, uh, I don't know if you've ever heard Barry Manilow's-

• 56:00Josh Clark?

  Oh, Chuck, I was going to suggest Barry Manilow.

• 56:04Speaker 03

  I did, well, had a 50/50 chance there. Uh, I don't know if you've ever heard the Barry Manilow song, uh, Even Now, but it's a classic Barry Manilow song and, uh, everyone should just go search those two on Spotify.

• 56:17Josh Clark?

  So War Pigs and Even Now by Black Sabbath and Barry Manilow. Let's see what happens.

• 56:22Speaker 03

  Let's see what happens.

• 56:23Josh Clark?

  That was a great experiment. Who was that from?

• 56:25Speaker 03

  That was, uh, from, uh, Corey and, uh, I just wanted to give Corey his due, um, side note, saw you guys, uh, for the Andre the Giant Live in Chicago episode. Um, I also saw, uh, saw Josh's End of the World Live in Chicago. Uh, when you toured that, your, uh, your short series, it was so great. Um, and I really enjoyed that. Uh, Josh walked by on his way in when we were outside and patted my friend Sam on the shoulder. And he has definitely mentioned that several times since then.

• 56:54Josh Clark?

  Oh, that's awesome.

• 56:56Speaker 03

  So that's from Corey and, uh, you patted Sam on the shoulder and I think, uh, that meant lots to Sam.

• 57:00Josh Clark?

  Yeah, thanks for coming to see me, Sam and Corey. It was a fun show, actually.

• 57:05Josh Clark?

  Uh, let's see. If you wanna let us know how this experiment pans out, Cory's Experiment is what we're gonna call it. Uh, Cory's Choice, how about that? Love it. Um, no, let's call it Cory's Song, rather than Brian's Song. Oh, okay. Okay? Uh, no, Cory Can Wait. Uh, perfect. Okay, um, so- Oh, no, but how about Cory's in Charge? Okay, that's a good one. That's perfect. We're gonna end on that. Uh, if you wanna let us know how the Cory's in Charge experiment goes, we'd love to hear from you, you can send us an email to [email protected].

• 57:46Speaker 00

  Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts, iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

• 57:56Josh Clark?

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