Caterpillars: Nature's Magicians

Caterpillars are simply the best. Don't think so? Well listen in and you'll soon agree. 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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• 1:06Speaker 02

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• 1:41Josh Clark?

  Hey, and welcome to the playlist. The Stuff You Should Know: Think Spring playlist, to be exact. Chuck, Jerry, and I figured it was high time that winter got the heck on, so we're tapping into all of our wishful thinking and getting the crocuses to sprout and the air to warm up and the chipmunks to come out. For our first episode, we're going with caterpillars, colon, nature's magicians, because we can't think of a more poetic way to kick things off. So enjoy this episode and enjoy the playlist, and don't forget to think spring with all your might.

• 2:22Speaker 00

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

• 2:31Josh Clark?

  Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck, and there's Jerry. The three of us just inching along in life together, trying to make do, making our way in the world today. It takes everything we've got.

• 2:46Josh Clark?

  Oh, yeah, and this is Stuff You Should Know.

• 2:49Speaker 03

  Cheers.

• 2:50Josh Clark?

  Cheers, Chuck.

• 2:51Speaker 03

  Cheers. You know, if it's an episode where we say mouthparts.

• 2:59Josh Clark?

  I knew you were gonna say this.

• 3:00Speaker 03

  Then we're going back to the old school from our, I was about to say former colleague. Tracy's still our colleague. We just never see anyone anymore.

• 3:10Josh Clark?

  Right, fully our colleague.

• 3:12Speaker 03

  Tracy Wilson, co-host of the Stuff You Missed in History Class, along with Holly. They're wonderful. They've been around for years. They're icons of podcasting. Tracy used to write a bunch of insect articles for HowStuffWorks.com back in the day.

• 3:26Josh Clark?

  She very legendarily stayed up for 72 straight hours and wrote like more than two dozen insect articles in that time. They just got weirder and weirder as the time went on.

• 3:37Speaker 03

  I almost believed that for a second. But Tracy always does a great job with those, or did a great job, and most of the insect articles we've ever used have been Tracy's original, like the ticks and the fleas, and I don't think ants, but bees probably, wasps.

• 3:57Josh Clark?

  She's a master of it, for sure.

• 3:59Speaker 03

  I mean, she wrote a lot of them, and this one about caterpillars was from Tracy, along with stuff from World Atlas, Indie88, and BreedingButterflies.com. But I just realized today, when I was researching this some more, that we haven't done butterflies yet.

• 4:14Josh Clark?

  No.

• 4:14Speaker 03

  Which is shocking.

• 4:16Josh Clark?

  We've done one.

• 4:18Speaker 03

  We did the wings, like the iridescent.

• 4:20Josh Clark?

  Okay, that's what it was. Yeah, and we talked about them in the animal migration episode, too.

• 4:24Speaker 03

  Yeah, but not a standalone on butterflies, so we're gonna talk about their counterpart. And one of the facts of the episode already for me is that caterpillars that eventually turn into butterflies, it's the same species. It's still the same thing.

• 4:40Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 4:41Speaker 03

  Never knew that.

• 4:42Josh Clark?

  We should do a two. You didn't?

• 4:44Speaker 03

  I I just figured it like, well, now it's something else like entirely.

• 4:48Josh Clark?

  Huh. But did you know about the transformation in the chrysalis or cocoon and everything? Did you know?

• 4:54Speaker 03

  Oh, sure.

• 4:54Josh Clark?

  Okay.

• 4:55Speaker 03

  I knew how it happened, but I thought it was like presto changeo. Now you're you're not whatever Latin name you are, you're a new Latin.

• 5:02Josh Clark?

  Oh, gotcha. So like they just became a completely different animal, basically, or a different insect.

• 5:07Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 5:08Josh Clark?

  Okay, I got you. Yeah, no, they're the same thing. They're just configured differently.

• 5:12Speaker 03

  Yeah, they got wings.

• 5:13Josh Clark?

  Like a transformer, like they go from boombox to robot with a gun.

• 5:17Speaker 03

  That's right.

• 5:18Josh Clark?

  You know, but in a much more organic soupy way, as we'll see.

• 5:22Speaker 03

  You.

• 5:23Josh Clark?

  I love this one, Chuck. Like I'm, every kid knows about caterpillars. You go look at them in the garden and everything and they're super cute and weird looking and you learn the hard way not to touch some of them. But I did not know a lot of this stuff either, and it's endlessly fascinating to me, especially if you step back and think about a life stage where an organism undergoes such a complete transformation that they their cells, they break themselves down to their their cells and then are rebuilt into a new version. Not that many animals do that, and scientists aren't exactly sure how or even why that evolved, although why is kind of teleological, but how that evolved.

• 6:06Josh Clark?

  It it's just this really bizarre thing that we're so aware of, we kind of just take for granted until you really stop and think about it. I love caterpillars, I guess is what I'm trying to say.

• 6:17Speaker 03

  Yeah, and it was also one of those where I just I kept looking and kept looking. I was like, how is this been sitting here under our noses all this time?

• 6:24Josh Clark?

  I don't know.

• 6:25Speaker 03

  Uh, because it's right up our alley to talk about something like.

• 6:30Speaker 03

  No.

• 6:31Josh Clark?

  Yeah, one of the reasons why they are so different and they're configured differently is that a caterpillar's life it is the larval stage of an adult moth or butterfly. That's probably the best easy definition of a caterpillar.

• 6:48Josh Clark?

  The, the reason that it's configured differently than its adult form is because in the larval stage, its entire life is pooping, eating, pooping, molting, eating, pooping, molting. That's what I, I saw the caterpillar's life described as over the course of five different molts, as we'll see. That's all it does. That's all it wants to do. It just wants to eat. So it's designed essentially as an eating machine.

• 7:11Speaker 03

  Yeah, kind of shark-like. And as Tracy points out, like, it's a very singular purpose. And, and that same butterfly has a singular purpose later on, which is propagating the species.

• 7:22Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 7:23Speaker 03

  If you know, if you know what I'm saying. But the caterpillar, yeah, it's very shark-like. All it does is eat and store food and poop it out. And they eat so much that apparently they say that they can eat as much as 27 times their body size in their fairly short life.

• 7:39Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 7:40Speaker 03

  And they can end up being about 100 times bigger at the, by the time they go to pupate, which is when they, you know, hole up and turn into the butterfly, is when they pop out of that little egg that they also eat.

• 7:52Josh Clark?

  That's amazing. And if you want to see something just astounding, go look up a caterpillar egg or butterfly egg. I don't know which one you'd call it, but they look like little, have you ever seen vaseline glass?

• 8:06Speaker 03

  Uh huh.

• 8:07Josh Clark?

  They look like little, like ornate vaseline glass vases.

• 8:11Speaker 03

  Yeah, they're very pretty.

• 8:12Josh Clark?

  Yeah. I mean, everything about butterflies are just great. Okay, I'm on board with them fully.

• 8:19Speaker 03

  Uh, but yeah, that, that thing, I mean, it starts eating, it eats its way out of the egg. Then it says, well, I'll just eat the rest of the egg. And you know what?

• 8:28Josh Clark?

  That's how it starts.

• 8:30Speaker 03

  I'm gonna go ahead and eat this leaf that the egg is sitting on as well while I'm at it. And they said, wow, I really like eating. Maybe I should just keep eating for the rest of my life.

• 8:38Josh Clark?

  Yeah. Each one suddenly turns into Augustus Gloop and just keeps going from there.

• 8:43Speaker 03

  That's exactly right.

• 8:45Josh Clark?

  So I said that it molts. Apparently it molts five different times. And the reason why it molts is because it eats so much, it outgrows its skin.

• 8:54Speaker 03

  It's amazing.

• 8:55Josh Clark?

  It has a mechanism where it releases an enzyme. There's a hormone that says, hey, you're getting a little, these, your clothes are getting a little tight. Maybe it's time to mold. And so that releases an enzyme that, that basically dissolves its attachment to the exoskeleton. And then the new, bigger version pops out of the old exoskeleton, walks away. And guess what it does immediately after? It starts eating again.

• 9:18Speaker 03

  Yeah, it tries to outgrow that suit that it's wearing.

• 9:21Josh Clark?

  And it does that five times in its larval stage as a caterpillar.

• 9:25Speaker 03

  Yeah, these molts are called instars. Did you say that?

• 9:28Josh Clark?

  That's the, that's the period of its life between molts.

• 9:32Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah. So five instars. Uh, in between molts, like you said, all it's doing is just eating, trying to get a larger suit size. But here's a very, another cool fact is they believe that not only, do caterpillars have a memory that lasts like a molt or two, but they even think there are researchers at Georgetown that have sort of proven that, uh, I don't know how you sort of prove something, but they feel pretty good about the fact that they think that a butterfly remembers being a caterpillar.

• 10:06Josh Clark?

  Yeah, they've done this, at least one study that showed that if they trained it to avoid certain smells as one of its last instars, it will remember that as an adult butterfly, that it'll avoid those same smells. That's pretty cool because as you'll see, what happens in the chrysalis is so mind bending and nuts that the idea that it can remember anything is, it's pretty, pretty amazing.

• 10:32Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah, for sure. I didn't even consider that. That's, that is really hard to process.

• 10:37Josh Clark?

  So let's talk about the body. Like you said, it has mouth parts. Very important because it eats, eats, eats. And the rest of its body is essentially a storage facility for that food that it eats and that it breaks down and, and stores essentially is fat. They're very fatty.

• 10:57Speaker 03

  Yeah, I get the idea that the the inner body movement through that body tube never stops. It's just a conveyor belt almost of food coming in and poop leaving.

• 11:10Josh Clark?

  That's that's my impression, too.

• 11:13Speaker 03

  Yeah, um, the caterpillar is six legged. Uh, if you're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, Chuck, I've seen a caterpillar or two in my day. And they have tons of little legs. Uh, those are not real legs. They only have six genuine legs, meaning uh, that they have uh, segments and joints. Uh, the rest of those are called prolegs. And there are a lot of those and they move all up the length of the abdomen of the caterpillar. And at the end of those little prolegs, they have little uh, suction cups, little hooks, basically. Uh, is it a, is it a crochette, you think?

• 11:45Josh Clark?

  I think so, yeah.

• 11:46Speaker 03

  Or a crochet?

• 11:46Josh Clark?

  I'm going with crochette.

• 11:48Speaker 03

  Yeah, they're called crochets.

• 11:49Josh Clark?

  Or crotches.

• 11:50Speaker 03

  And, yeah, crotches. A crotch rocket?

• 11:55Speaker 03

  Isn't that what those uh, really fast motorcycles are called?

• 11:58Josh Clark?

  Sure.

• 11:58Speaker 03

  Okay. I didn't know if that was, you know, a dirty thing to say or not.

• 12:03Josh Clark?

  No, no, that's all over. It's like douchebag now. It was at one time like not very nice, but now everybody says it, so. It even shows up in like PG 13 movies.

• 12:13Speaker 03

  Oh, I thought you meant it was okay to say. Like, you're a real douchebag, okay.

• 12:16Josh Clark?

  Oh, no, no, no, it's not, it's still not nice to say, but it's not like, you know, a horrid thing to say like it used to be.

• 12:23Speaker 03

  I gotcha, cuz someone called me one the other day in a car and I was like, oh, thank you.

• 12:26Josh Clark?

  Did they really?

• 12:27Speaker 03

  No, no.

• 12:28Josh Clark?

  Oh, okay.

• 12:30Speaker 03

  Um, they don't have bones, uh, of course, but they do have lots, they're very muscly. Uh, if you compare them to a human, uh, we have about 629 muscles. Caterpillars have 4,000 muscles. Because those muscles, that's the way they're moving, you know? They, they move in a little wave from front to back. Front to back? Yes, front to back.

• 12:51Josh Clark?

  Back to front?

• 12:52Speaker 03

  Back to front. How did I mess that up?

• 12:55Josh Clark?

  Well, it depends on which direction they're going, I guess.

• 12:57Speaker 03

  Well, I guess so. Uh, and they move in, in a couple of ways. One of two ways is sometimes they're crawling, which means they're moving all of those prolegs and legs at the same time in sequence. Uh, or they do what it sounds like an inchworm does, right?

• 13:11Josh Clark?

  Yeah. I don't know why they didn't identify them as inchworms, but that's what they're talking about. They can move in little arches where they, um, bring their, their front to their back and their back together, making a mound out of their middle, their abdomen. And then they stretch the front out and then they bring the back up and then they stretch the front out. And that's what an inchworm does. And that's basically one of two ways. The other way, um, for a caterpillar to move. Either as a wave undulating. There's a lot of like really cool videos of caterpillars moving or inching along.

• 13:42Speaker 03

  Yeah, and I never looked close enough at an inchworm to figure out why they move that way. And I feel like a dummy now because it seems obvious. They move that way because their middle section doesn't have legs.

• 13:55Josh Clark?

  Right. It's pretty cool.

• 13:57Speaker 03

  Pulls the back because those are where the legs are and the legs go, let me catch up. It's like a little cute accordion.

• 14:02Josh Clark?

  And it's really neat to see when you, um, watch a close up of a centipede, um, I keep wanting to say centipede, but that's definitely a different animal. Um, a caterpillar's prolegs moving, um, as they, they attach themselves. Like you said, they have a suction cup. They just attach themselves to like the branch or whatever that they're walking on. And if you watch it in, in close enough, um.

• 14:27Speaker 03

  Detail?

• 14:27Josh Clark?

  Yes. Excellent, Chuck. Um, you can really see those suction cups working and it's pretty cool.

• 14:33Speaker 03

  It's awesome. Um, most things on a caterpillar are small, obviously, including their little eyelets. Uh, they have 12 of those. They're called stomata. And they, if you do look closely though, it's really cool looking. They have, they're arranged in a semicircle, um, sort of wrapping around the head.

• 14:49Josh Clark?

  Like, um, what's his name from Reading Rainbow, but on Star Trek, The Next Generation?

• 14:53Speaker 03

  Oh, uh, yeah, LeVar Burton. Like his eyewear?

• 14:57Josh Clark?

  Yes.

• 14:58Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 14:59Josh Clark?

  That's what I think.

• 14:59Speaker 03

  Except it would be on top of his head though, right? Like a, like a headband?

• 15:02Josh Clark?

  No, I think it's.

• 15:03Speaker 03

  Is it more on the front? I thought it was more on top.

• 15:05Josh Clark?

  I thought it was on the front, but you could be right. It could be on top.

• 15:09Speaker 03

  It's kind of hard to tell with a caterpillar head.

• 15:11Josh Clark?

  Right, exactly. You don't really know what's what. It's kind of like a Studebaker. You can't tell which way it's going.

• 15:17Speaker 03

  Right.

• 15:18Josh Clark?

  That joke was for our aged listeners.

• 15:21Speaker 03

  That's right.

• 15:22Josh Clark?

  Love a good Studebaker joke.

• 15:24Speaker 03

  Yeah, there's one little guy that's like, damn, Skippy!

• 15:28Speaker 03

  Uh, so those stomata, they can identify light and darkness, but caterpillars are, are basically blind. Uh, they're for sure colorblind. Um, and they just, like I said, they can see sort of light and dark and shadow and stuff like that. But they are not like, um, they're not crawling around seeing things. They're kind of feeling their way around with those antennae that they have. Um, but although those antennae only handle taste and smell, so I don't even know why I said that.

• 15:53Josh Clark?

  So they also breathe in a really interesting way. They breathe through spiracles, which are holes in the side of the caterpillar. And they breathe in oxygen. It goes directly to the trachea and they breathe out carbon dioxide. And as they move, it's kind of like breathing in and breathing out. That's like a byproduct of their movement. Um, and it all goes to that trachea, like I said, and the trachea just diffuses it to the tissue throughout the body. They have blood. It's called hemolymph, like most insects' blood, but it doesn't, it's not used to transport oxygen. It transports things like hormones that trigger molting and things like that, but the oxygen just diffuses throughout the body.

• 16:32Speaker 03

  Yeah, you know, an inchworm, it is like a little accordion. And if you could figure out how to build and insert a tiny little like wooden reed in each spiracle, that little thing might sound like an accordion as it moved.

• 16:47Josh Clark?

  That'd be pretty neat.

• 16:49Speaker 03

  Kind of cruel too, I imagine.

• 16:50Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I, I mean, probably if you're sticking wood in the tiny breathing holes of a, a caterpillar. I don't think it would appreciate it. By the way Chuck, did I tell you that caterpillar is from the old French chatapello, which means shaggy cat?

• 17:06Speaker 03

  Oh, like the actor Timothy Chatapellos?

• 17:09Josh Clark?

  Is that?

• 17:10Speaker 03

  No, that's Timothy Chalamet, sorry.

• 17:12Josh Clark?

  Right. Yeah, Timothy Shaggy Cat would be that, that name.

• 17:16Speaker 03

  Kinda looks like a shaggy cat.

• 17:17Josh Clark?

  But apparently they think it was the, um, the, is it the woolly bully caterpillar? That, that inspired that?

• 17:23Speaker 03

  I love those.

• 17:24Josh Clark?

  Yeah, they, they think that that was the original shaggy cat. And it just kinda caught on from there. But that's where caterpillar comes from.

• 17:30Speaker 03

  Yeah. And speaking of woolly bully, uh, you notice on caterpillars, a lot of times those little hairs, uh, or little quills or spines, uh, those are called, uh, oh man, we've even had scientists tell us how to pronounce that A E. Is it sate?

• 17:45Josh Clark?

  That's what I think it is, yeah.

• 17:47Speaker 03

  It's either that or we've been getting it wrong. I can't remember, but everyone is like in science, guys, anytime it's A E, you pronounce the blank, and I can't remember which one it is.

• 17:58Josh Clark?

  Satee?

• 17:59Speaker 03

  Oh, it's either satee or satee. And then we're gonna get more emails and maybe I should just put a sticky note on my laptop. So I'll always remember that. Uh, but that's what they're called and they have a lot of functions. Um, they can deter things that wanna eat caterpillars, uh, because a lot of times these things carry little irritants and toxins, uh, and you just put a pin in that for our, our very final segment at the end, but, um, like you said.

• 18:23Josh Clark?

  Put a satee in there.

• 18:24Speaker 03

  Yeah, you put, you can get a, you know, a little, little irritated bump sometimes if you handle the wrong caterpillar.

• 18:31Josh Clark?

  Oh, yeah.

• 18:32Speaker 03

  You shouldn't handle a caterpillar.

• 18:33Josh Clark?

  It can get much worse than that, too. Yeah, if you've ever touched a caterpillar, I, that's what I was referring to earlier. Like as a kid, I remember touching one and just being like, oh my God, what, what just happened? Um, and it hurt very badly, I remember distinctly, but I still love caterpillars after that.

• 18:50Speaker 03

  I remember there was one kind, and someone will know what kind this is, but I think it was sort of yellow and black. And we would, you know, put our fingey on the ground and the caterpillar would crawl up our hand. And then we would like get a leaf and have it crawl off. So I don't think we harmed the caterpillar. We were just letting it kind of crawl on us for a minute. But, and I wasn't touching the spine. So I never got that irritation. But I used to love doing that. And I just thought that was so cool that they, I guess now knowing that they're blind, there's like crawling on a stick. And it's like, now I'm crawling on a finger.

• 19:28Josh Clark?

  Right. Yeah, that's cute. But yeah, you wouldn't

• 19:31Speaker 03

  Stick like kid fingers.

• 19:32Josh Clark?

  You wouldn't have been touching the hair like structures. So it would have stung you. It's not like, I don't think it's an active process. I think it's a passive thing where you just touch it. And they're not like, die, die, die. It's just like, you just touched it and it did its thing passively.

• 19:46Speaker 03

  Yeah. Yeah, I get the feeling the caterpillar is even like, sorry, man. And you know, shouldn't touch me, but sorry.

• 19:53Josh Clark?

  Most caterpillars seem rather chill, but not all of them are. I was not happy to find this out. I find this rather unpleasant. But there's, there's some species of caterpillars in Hawaii that are actually carnivores. Far and away, most species of caterpillars and hence butterflies are are herbivores. They just eat leaves. That's what they do. They eat leaves and shoots. Wait, eat shoots and leaves.

• 20:20Speaker 03

  Shoots and leaves.

• 20:21Josh Clark?

  So there's the, the ones in Hawaii, though, they'll eat snails. And not only do they eat snails, it's really awful. They tie the snails to say like a twig or a leaf or something using spinnerets. They have silk producing organs. And they'll tie the snail, the whole shell and all to like a twig. So the snail can't get away. And then they climb into the shell and eat the snail alive.

• 20:45Speaker 03

  It is horrifying.

• 20:47Josh Clark?

  I don't like that particular kind of caterpillar, but I like all the rest.

• 20:51Speaker 03

  Yeah, they tie it down and eat it.

• 20:54Josh Clark?

  So awful. Imagine it just coming into your house too, and you're like, please no, and you have no escape. And that's that.

• 21:01Speaker 03

  Yeah, it was pretty horrifying to read that and frankly disappointing, but there's also a a brand, a brand in Australia.

• 21:10Josh Clark?

  A brand of caterpillars.

• 21:12Speaker 03

  They, they lay their eggs in anthills and when they come out, they will eat those ants. But aside from that, in the, in the Hawaiian, they, like you said, are strictly herbivores. And they are using those leaves also to camouflage themselves. They have a lot of great mechanisms to keep this not quite octopus level, but they, they seem like they're, you know, I don't know if it's wrong to use the word smart, but they know to, to like feed under leaves. So birds can't see them. They also have some natural camouflage, like sometimes those eyes can look like, the fake eyes can look like snakes.

• 21:50Josh Clark?

  Did you see that one?

• 21:51Speaker 03

  Yeah, it looks like a snake.

• 21:53Josh Clark?

  Yeah, it looks like a bright green snake and apparently they'll arrange themselves sometimes to make it look like a long snake. Like 300 caterpillars will get together and line up and it's like, wow, there's a snake. No, it's a line of caterpillars.

• 22:07Speaker 03

  Yeah, like a lot of them are solitary caterpillars, but there is, what, what was the one in particular that, uh, travel in groups?

• 22:15Josh Clark?

  The gregarious caterpillars.

• 22:17Speaker 03

  Yeah, I get the feeling those are the ones that might do the old snake one too.

• 22:22Josh Clark?

  Yes. I think those are swallow tails and they might be gregarious. Yeah. So I say we take a break Chuck and then we'll come back and I, I propose that we talk some more about caterpillars.

• 22:33Speaker 03

  Let's do it.

• 22:42Speaker 04

  First thought is like, wow, how are we gonna do all this?

• 22:45Josh Clark?

  Hey, this is Josh and Chuck from Stuff You Should Know.

• 22:48Speaker 05

  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.

• 23:04Speaker 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.

• 23:12Josh Clark?

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

• 23:18Speaker 06

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

• 23:24Speaker 05

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

• 23:27Speaker 06

  To actually see the whole stadium light up and data's flowing is a beautiful thing.

• 23:31Speaker 04

  What the fans experience is incredible. It gave me a lot of pride.

• 23:35Josh Clark?

  AT&T, connecting fans to what they love.

• 23:39Speaker 07

  Connecting changes everything. AT&T.

• 23:45Speaker 05

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

• 23:48Josh Clark?

  Sure.

• 23:48Speaker 05

  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.

• 23:59Josh 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.

• 24:05Speaker 05

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• 24:17Josh Clark?

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• 24:43Josh Clark?

  Everyone has a story to tell. What's yours? The moment you met your partner, landed that promotion? For people living with a rare disease, life can feel divided into before the diagnosis and all the after moments that follow. On Voices of Vivgart, Vivgart is also known as its generic name, F. gartigimod alpha F-Cab. You'll hear powerful stories from people facing challenges and embracing a life with a rare disease.

• 25:06Speaker 05

  Join host Andra Stratten as she guides listeners through honest conversations about life after diagnosis. You'll hear how each guest worked with her care team on their treatment plan, as well as their personal challenges, setbacks, progress, and moments of connection.

• 25:19Josh Clark?

  These stories reveal that life is bigger than a moment, a condition, or a tough day. Listen to Voices of Vivgart on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 25:45Josh Clark?

  Okay, so you mentioned a couple of things that they do to protect themselves: camouflage, just eating a little bit on the underside of a leaf. There's a lot of other things that they can do, too. There's so many different species of caterpillar. Because again, we're talking about moths and butterflies. They're not just all the same thing. That they've developed all sorts of really interesting means of defense. One of the ways that they say the best defense is shooting your poop out. And there's a type of caterpillar that does that. I think it's the silver-spotted skipper. And skipper is basically a type of butterfly. And it shoots its waste, called frass, its poop, as far as five feet from itself

• 26:30Josh Clark?

  in order to keep predators from being able to track it back to its source.

• 26:35Speaker 03

  That explains that old saying, uh, you ain't nothing but caterpillar for ass.

• 26:42Josh Clark?

  Mm hmm.

• 26:43Speaker 03

  I never knew what they meant.

• 26:43Josh Clark?

  If you're really good at jumping, that's what they say to you.

• 26:47Speaker 03

  Uh, yeah, and that's one of the things they do, like several other things, which is it all sort of falls in the umbrella of, I don't want, uh, anyone to know I'm like even here. So a poop will be a big giveaway, obviously. Another is if, um, like they love to eat if, if a predator sees a ton of chewed up leaves everywhere, they're gonna be like, ooh, the caterpillar's nearby. I love to eat those things. So as much as those caterpillars love to eat, it is their singular purpose in life. They will many times just eat little bits

• 27:19Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 27:19Speaker 03

  off of many, many leaves to kind of disguise the fact like no caterpillar here. There's just a few nibbles here and there.

• 27:26Josh Clark?

  Yeah, just leaf.

• 27:26Speaker 03

  Rather than just, yeah, rather than just like taking a, a leaf down to its, uh, spine.

• 27:31Josh Clark?

  Yeah, which any, even the dumbest of birds can be like, there's a caterpillar around here.

• 27:36Speaker 03

  And you know, they want to do that, but they still don't do it.

• 27:39Josh Clark?

  I know caterpillars have tremendous self-control.

• 27:42Speaker 03

  They do.

• 27:43Josh Clark?

  Um, we mentioned that they have spinnerets that they can spin silk and they use it to great effect in all sorts of different ways, including defense. Um, apparently some kinds of, um, of caterpillars will like spin a little thing of silk that they'll attach to the leaf they're on. And when a predator comes, they just jump off.

• 28:02Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 28:02Josh Clark?

  Basically like John McClane in Die Hard.

• 28:04Speaker 03

  Uh huh.

• 28:05Josh Clark?

  And they're attached to the, to the silk. So they swing into, you know, a window in the Nakatomi building.

• 28:10Speaker 03

  Right.

• 28:10Josh Clark?

  And then climb back up when the bird goes away, but they just jump off the leaf to get away. It's, I'll bet that's pretty neat to see.

• 28:18Speaker 03

  That's right. And to combat, uh, jet lag, they make fists with their toes.

• 28:22Josh Clark?

  Yeah. What do you know?

• 28:23Speaker 03

  Uh, I wonder if they leap. I'd like to see that in slow motion. I wonder if all those legs and pro legs at once, uh, do that in concert. That would be pretty cool.

• 28:32Josh Clark?

  Or if they inch, they just shoot themselves off. They inch so quickly it, that shoots them right off of the leaf.

• 28:38Speaker 03

  Yeah. Uh, so yeah, that's one use of the silk is like literal climbing rope. Um, and like we said, like the, the, the solo caterpillar, which is many of the, uh, I keep on saying brands. What a dummy. Varieties, species, there you go. Uh, you know, there's going around, they're eating, they're, they're laying an egg. They're using the silk as, uh, as like a, a lasso, or maybe they might make a little nest. Um, like we said earlier, maybe they might restrain that, that snail. Uh, but those gregarious kinds that live in big groups, they, they really get going with the silk production. Uh, they make big nests, uh, in trees and around tree trunks.

• 29:19Josh Clark?

  You've probably seen them before.

• 29:21Speaker 03

  Oh yeah, they're like big tents, basically. Uh, if you've seen big, you know, it looks like, um, sort of a really dense spider web. I guess sometimes those are spiders, right?

• 29:30Josh Clark?

  Yeah, there's some kinds of spiders that do that, but I think probably more often than not, what you're seeing are gregarious caterpillars getting together.

• 29:38Speaker 03

  Yeah, uh, but they also use their little, uh, spinnerets as like a trail, like, hey, we're all going this way and we're going to lay this little trail. And we know that, you know, if you want to get home, this is how you get home.

• 29:50Josh Clark?

  What's neat is those trails are often intergenerational and so like, uh,

• 29:54Speaker 03

  Oh, cool.

• 29:55Josh Clark?

  An older, an older generation will leave their, that, that silk for the next generation to use. And that next generation then can grow bigger and stronger because they didn't have to use that energy to create the silk for that, that leads to the, um, to the food source. I thought that was pretty nice.

• 30:11Speaker 03

  Yeah, like hand me down, uh, silk.

• 30:14Josh Clark?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 30:15Speaker 03

  Or like, you know, a length of rope that grandpa gave you.

• 30:18Josh Clark?

  Yeah, same thing. Hand me down silk, length of rope from grandpa.

• 30:23Speaker 03

  What else?

• 30:25Josh Clark?

  There's another thing too, that, um, we haven't quite figured out, and we, I mean, the entomology world, and by we also mean them.

• 30:34Josh Clark?

  That it, it may or may not be advantageous to live in a gregarious community.

• 30:38Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 30:39Josh Clark?

  As opposed to being solitary. Because yes, it's easier to build a big shelter for yourself if you have a bunch of other friends helping you. It's easier to find food if you have other people looking at the same time you are and then telling you what they found. But at the same time, you're also competing with those same people. Or those same caterpillars, I should say.

• 30:59Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 31:00Josh Clark?

  And that's a big, that can be a big problem too.

• 31:02Speaker 03

  Yeah, I like it. Caterpillars are people too.

• 31:04Josh Clark?

  Exactly.

• 31:05Speaker 03

  And if there's a disease, you know, it's going to spread pretty readily within that population if they're all living together. But I think, you know, we've held off long enough, we should, we should talk about that metamorphosis.

• 31:17Josh Clark?

  Okay.

• 31:18Speaker 03

  Which is what everyone wants to know about. And that is basically a caterpillar is doing its thing. It's going through those molts, hits that fifth molt, and they say, you know what? This has been great, but I think I'm tired of eating finally.

• 31:32Josh Clark?

  Mm-hmm.

• 31:33Speaker 03

  I'm gonna go off and wander off into the woods, and find a safe spot, and I'm going to pupate everybody, and when you see me again, I will be the most beautiful thing you've ever seen.

• 31:45Josh Clark?

  Yeah, pretty neat. And this is where the terminology gets really confusing if you

• 31:50Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 31:51Josh Clark?

  do any research on this.

• 31:53Speaker 03

  Yeah, I can, for sure.

• 31:54Josh Clark?

  So the pupa is often referred to as the form, the body form, that the centipede, that the caterpillar is in as it enters the transformation, right?

• 32:10Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 32:11Josh Clark?

  It's actually the life stage, like the caterpillar is the larval life stage, the butterfly or the moth is the adult, the pupa is the life stage in between. But for all intents and purposes, you can also say that's a butterfly pupa, although, or that's a moth pupa, right?

• 32:26Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 32:27Josh Clark?

  That's the easiest, most understandable part of it. It starts to get really strange from there because the butterfly caterpillar, when it emerges from that fifth molt, it has a special kind of skin on it. And over time, when it turns upside down and hangs from a leaf and begins its transformation, that skin hardens and it forms basically the protective layer that's going to protect that caterpillar turned butterfly as it undergoes its transformation. And that's called a chrysalis, but just butterfly caterpillars do that, right? Not moths?

• 33:04Speaker 03

  I think that's right.

• 33:06Josh Clark?

  And then I think it's just moths because they don't form chrysalis or chrysalis. They are the only ones to spin a cocoon to protect themselves, correct?

• 33:16Speaker 03

  Right, and that cocoon starts out kind of soft, but that eventually hardens as well. But I think that's right. But the chrysalis itself is is not some like shell they build, like it is it is the thing.

• 33:30Josh Clark?

  Yeah, it's the outer layer of skin.

• 33:33Speaker 03

  Yeah, cuz it can actually twitch and move as a defense.

• 33:37Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 33:38Speaker 03

  Like it's a thinking sentient, well, not thinking necessarily, but it is a shell that is a living thing. It's not like, let me build this, you know, this thing to get into. It is the thing that it is in.

• 33:50Josh Clark?

  Right, so imagine if you underwent this transformation, you would probably go off into a corner.

• 33:55Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 33:56Josh Clark?

  And kind of ball up, maybe in a bit of a fetal position.

• 33:59Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 33:59Josh Clark?

  But then imagine as part of this process, all of your skin fused together.

• 34:03Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 34:04Josh Clark?

  And turned into like an outer shell rather than, you know, this, this, you know, this thing covering you, it's like this now, this big ball that you're now kind of separated from inside. And you're doing your thing inside.

• 34:17Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 34:18Josh Clark?

  That's kind of like what the chrysalis is like.

• 34:21Speaker 03

  Yeah, and so we mentioned the silk, like the uses as like a climbing rope and stuff like that and to build little nests. It really comes in handy when it's time to to pupate. Because they use this silk in a variety of ways. There's there's more than one way to skin a cat and there's more than one way for a caterpillar to metamorphosize. Sometimes, like you said, they hang upside down from that leaf. So they've they've spun like a little silk pad that attaches to something. Sometimes they create like a little hammock. Sometimes they make like a little sling in concert with a stick. There are different ways that they can do this, but it always involves using silk to sort of stabilize itself, either upside down or right side up or sideways or whatever.

• 35:02Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 35:02Speaker 03

  And then they start to do that thing, whether it's a moth spinning that cocoon or just the gradual transformation of caterpillar into chrysalis.

• 35:13Josh Clark?

  Right. And then so, once that happens, once the cocoon is full or the chrysalis is hardened, this in one of the most amazing things that on earth happens in there. And it's neat because we've gotten to the point where we have photography that can peer inside of this without harming the caterpillar. And and they have like time lapse videos of this transformation. And as the thing turns more and more into what's obviously like a butterfly or a moth, and you see it hanging upside down, just forming, it looks, it looks like a cross between an H. R. Geiger painting and Michael Crichton's Coma, the movie version.

• 35:58Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 35:59Josh Clark?

  It's really neat and but it also gives you this, it has this kind of regal and majestic feel to it as well. I produced a lot of emotions in me, apparently.

• 36:09Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, it's,

• 36:12Speaker 03

  this isn't the sciency explanation, but it's it's almost as if you can take a tray of, put a bunch of spaghetti and meatballs in a dish and cover it up. And then when you open it up, it's a lasagna.

• 36:28Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 36:29Speaker 03

  And you're like, how did that happen? Like,

• 36:32Speaker 03

  how did that even happen?

• 36:33Josh Clark?

  So this is how it happens. The caterpillar breaks itself down into a soup of cells. Like, it's basically like a caterpillar soup for a while. And some of the cells keep their form generally, or at least stay attached to one another. So those leg cells.

• 36:52Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 36:52Josh Clark?

  They they change, they look different, like a caterpillar's actual true legs look different from the butterfly's true legs, but they're still the same cells. They're just, they rearrange themselves a little bit. Most of the other cells just completely come apart, turn into imaginal cells, which are analogous to our stem cells, and that they can turn into any kind of cell. And then it reconfigures itself using the same cells, same amount, same everything, into a butterfly. It reconfigures itself over the course of about two weeks.

• 37:27Speaker 03

  It's unbelievable.

• 37:28Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 37:29Speaker 03

  It really is. Like, my brain breaks every time I try to make sense, especially when you see what comes out. You know, and I mean, if it came out looking like a dung beetle, like, that would still be awesome. But to come out looking like a butterfly with those iridescent wings. And the little faces on those wings is just unbelievable. And I guess, I mean, evolutionarily speaking, this is all to eventually get to like a pollinator?

• 37:54Josh Clark?

  I don't understand it. This is where I think that science is kind of thrown off. They're like, the best explanation I saw is that it's better than having two, two things compete for the same food source. But that doesn't really make any sense, you know, because that doesn't make any sense to me at all. I don't understand that. But that was the best explanation I saw, and I didn't even understand it. So.

• 38:17Speaker 03

  As to, as to the why?

• 38:19Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 38:20Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 38:21Josh Clark?

  Like, it's just so strange. It's, I just don't understand. And everything goes through life, life stages. We go through puberty. We become adults. We go from infant babies to grown adults. But there's not a period where we stop and over the course of two weeks, completely reconfigure ourselves into a new form. There's not that many things out there that do do that. And we just don't fully understand why it happens. And maybe we never will. And I think that'd be just fine.

• 38:51Speaker 03

  Although I would argue that the Josh Clark I knew 15 years ago has caterpillar-like has now emerged as a beautiful butterfly.

• 38:58Josh Clark?

  Thank you. I remember reading when Christopher Hitchens became a conservative, one of the, the liberal members of parliament said that this is one of the rare instances where the butterfly turns back into the slug.

• 39:12Speaker 03

  Oh, no.

• 39:13Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 39:14Speaker 03

  Wow. I'd like to hear that exit.

• 39:16Josh Clark?

  I think I read that in 2007, and it still stuck with me.

• 39:19Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's a good one. We didn't take our second break, did we?

• 39:22Josh Clark?

  Nope, it's time.

• 39:23Speaker 03

  All right. Well, let's take our second break. We'll probably still be talking about this metamorphosis, you know, when we come back. So just be prepared.

• 39:41Josh Clark?

  Everyone has a story to tell. What's yours? The moment you met your partner, landed that promotion? For people living with a rare disease, life can feel divided into before the diagnosis and all the after moments that follow. On Voices of Vivgard, Vivgard is also known as its generic name, Fgart Tigamod Alpha F Cab. You'll hear powerful stories from people facing challenges and embracing a life with a rare disease.

• 40:05Speaker 05

  Join host Andra Stratten as she guides listeners through honest conversations about life after diagnosis. You'll hear how each guest worked with her care team on their treatment plan, as well as their personal challenges, setbacks, progress, and moments of connection.

• 40:18Josh Clark?

  These stories reveal that life is bigger than a moment, a condition, or a tough day. Listen to Voices of Vivgard on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 40:34Josh Clark?

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• 40:57Josh Clark?

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• 41:12Speaker 05

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• 42:17Speaker 03

  All right. I mean, I guess we're done talking about metamorphosis. It's called holometabolism.

• 42:24Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 42:24Speaker 03

  That full transformation. And I don't think we... I mean, you said it takes a couple of weeks generally?

• 42:29Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I saw about two weeks. Something like that on average. It can be more or less, depending on the weather and stuff.

• 42:35Speaker 03

  Yeah, and I took it as depending on the weather, meaning is that they don't want to do this in the middle of winter. So if they get started and like, winter comes early, maybe it'll... they'll just stay in there for a few months? Is that right?

• 42:48Josh Clark?

  There are some species that overwinter in their cocoon or in their chrysalis. And that's just part of their thing. But I saw that there's that the ideal... there's an ideal temperature. That's what I took it to mean.

• 42:58Speaker 03

  Oh, okay.

• 42:59Josh Clark?

  And that the ideal temperature is 21 degrees Celsius. And get this, buddy. I converted it to Fahrenheit using a formula we talked about the other day.

• 43:06Speaker 03

  So you did it yourself?

• 43:07Josh Clark?

  Yeah, it's like, uh, I wrote it down. I could do it again if I wanted to, but I'm just gonna find what I wrote down. I think it's like 88, 89 degrees Fahrenheit.

• 43:17Speaker 03

  All right. I love it when, after all these years...

• 43:20Josh Clark?

  81. It's 81.

• 43:22Speaker 03

  You're still brave enough to put yourself out there with math.

• 43:24Josh Clark?

  Here, I'll just do this. Okay, so we're trying to find Fahrenheit from 21 degrees Celsius. So it's 21 plus 32. Okay, we're getting everything back equal again. So what is that, 56? Times 1.8, I believe, comes to 81.

• 43:41Speaker 03

  When was the last time you did, uh, sort of, uh, written down long division or something like that?

• 43:49Josh Clark?

  Oh, it's been a long time. By the way, it's 84.6.

• 43:51Speaker 03

  84.6. Can you still do that stuff?

• 43:55Josh Clark?

  I don't know, probably if I gave enough time to it, sure. I just, it's not a part of my life.

• 44:01Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 44:02Josh Clark?

  Anymore.

• 44:02Speaker 03

  I actually don't know if I remember how to do long division. I recently, because Ruby is starting, you know, like this past year, started like multiplication and stuff and came at me with like a three-digit times a two-digit. And I was like, oh, you know what? I was like, I got it, I got it, I remember. And I remembered how to do that and to carry the stuff.

• 44:24Josh Clark?

  Mm-hmm.

• 44:24Speaker 03

  Uh, but I definitely don't think I could do long division anymore. I don't, I sort of remember, but I don't think I would fully be able to complete a problem.

• 44:33Josh Clark?

  By the way, I, I know I brushed past it because I don't handle compliments that well, but I do appreciate the comment about me metamorphosizing into a butterfly.

• 44:42Speaker 03

  That was a joke. I'm just kidding.

• 44:45Josh Clark?

  We'll definitely edit this part out.

• 44:46Speaker 03

  No, it was for sure true. I appreciate you, appreciating that.

• 44:50Josh Clark?

  So, did we just come back from, from ad break? Is that really what's going on here?

• 44:55Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's what's going on. Uh, but we can wrap it up and talk about caterpillar management because here's the deal. Caterpillars eat leaves and, um, you know, they can, they can eat garden stuff if you have a garden that you're planting. But it's not that big a deal. Like individual caterpillars are not gonna ravage your garden and spoil your garden. Um, if you have big groups of those gregarious caterpillars, they can cause problems. Uh, but you know, if you see caterpillars in your garden, don't like, don't overreact and be like, I gotta, I gotta start killing all these caterpillars. Um, you know, take a breath, assess your problem. Are they ravaging your garden?

• 45:39Speaker 03

  Or do you just have some caterpillars here and there? Like, cause you want those butterflies later on, don't you?

• 45:44Josh Clark?

  Right, yeah, definitely. It's a big part. And it's not just for their beauty either. Um, caterpillars and butterflies alike are a food source for birds, which is sad. But it, that's part of the circle of life, I guess. So that's one reason alone. They're also probably even more important for your garden, pollinators.

• 46:01Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 46:01Josh Clark?

  Um, big time pollinators. Um, there was a dead milkman joke in there I couldn't quite. Couldn't quite make it, but they so they pollinate their food source and most caterpillars, although all of them eat leaves. And again, like we said, they're eating machines. The amount of damage they're doing is really kind of pales in comparison to the the benefits you get from having them in your ecosystem. So for the most part, you want to just leave them alone.

• 46:28Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, there's a whole section, if you're interested, on how to kill and get rid of caterpillars at howstuffworks.com in this article, but I don't even feel like talking about it, to be honest.

• 46:39Josh Clark?

  Well, let's talk about gregarious caterpillars because those are the ones that really are problematic. They're they can on a bad year or a good year for the gregarious caterpillars, they can consume up to a quarter of the leaves in a forest.

• 46:55Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 46:56Josh Clark?

  And they they if they attack the same tree enough times, they'll kill a tree. So gypsy moth caterpillars are gregarious and they're well known for killing trees just from eating the leaves off of it. That's how much damage they can do. And they can also harm crops, too. So gregarious caterpillars, you actually probably do want to get rid of if you come across it. But the key is prevention, like you look for the eggs, which form a ring around like a tree branch and take care of those then like, don't don't try to deal with them later. It's going to be too late. You want to be proactive. They say the best defense is is shooting your poop five feet away from you.

• 47:34Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, I guess if you're in forest management or if you're a farmer and it has like a literal effect on your crops and your forests and stuff like that, they're out there, you know, burning tents and nests and things like that. But that's that's not something you should go out and try to do because it's you don't want to catch something on a tree on fire.

• 47:55Speaker 03

  Just not a good idea, but.

• 47:56Josh Clark?

  Can't you just see somebody trying to get rid of caterpillars and be like, oh, and they just started a wildfire?

• 48:01Speaker 03

  Yes, I can. I really can.

• 48:06Josh Clark?

  It's hilarious if you think about it. It's so dumb.

• 48:08Speaker 03

  It is. Uh, should we finish up with the assassin caterpillar?

• 48:13Josh Clark?

  Well, can I talk about one more thing you don't want to talk about just for a second?

• 48:16Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 48:16Josh Clark?

  Cause I think it's kind of nuts as well.

• 48:18Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 48:19Josh Clark?

  There's a bacterium called Bacillus thuringiensis, I believe.

• 48:22Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 48:23Josh Clark?

  BT for short. This is a bacteria that people purposely introduce as a, as a caterpillar control measure. And it goes in and create, it produces holes in the caterpillar's gut and leads to sepsis and it dies a painful death a few days after being infected.

• 48:38Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 48:38Josh Clark?

  This is considered organic gardening. The problem is it doesn't just target caterpillars you don't want. It, it targets all caterpillars and it's also a pretty terrible way to die. So I'm, I think, I'm with you Chuck, man. I think you just, you say the caterpillars are here to stay as long as they're not gregarious. I'm just gonna let them live and let live.

• 48:58Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 48:59Josh Clark?

  Okay. I just wanted to get on that soapbox for a second.

• 49:02Speaker 03

  Yeah, I'm with you. Uh, so I mentioned the assassin caterpillar. Uh, this is the Linomia obliqua, uh, or the silk, giant silkworm moth, uh, or the assassin caterpillar. Uh, it is the deadliest caterpillar in the world and, uh, there have been supposedly several hundred people in South America that have died from the, the toxin injected from this caterpillar quills.

• 49:27Josh Clark?

  From the setay.

• 49:28Speaker 03

  Yeah. I think it takes a lot, like, uh, even if one of them, um, you know, injected some toxin into you, you're gonna be uncomfortable and it probably won't feel great, but I think you need to get like, you know, uh, 20 to a hundred times that to actually kill you. Yet it still happens.

• 49:45Josh Clark?

  Yeah, it does. Apparently it's responsible for 500 deaths around South America, I think total, like in all time, as, as far as documented goes.

• 49:54Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 49:54Josh Clark?

  It takes a lot, like I think 20 to a hundred times to kill you, but the way that it kills you is it's an anticoagulant, a very powerful one, and you die of internal bleeding essentially.

• 50:06Speaker 03

  Yeah. It's a, it's a blood thinner.

• 50:08Josh Clark?

  Yeah, and that's that actually is being studied. The toxins in that particular caterpillar are being studied for its usefulness in bio medicine.

• 50:17Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think there are only, what is it, there's like 32 species of Linomia, but only two of those have that blood thinner venom, the obliqua, and then the acelus.

• 50:30Josh Clark?

  But the rest will still sting you, it's just not gonna kill you. It'll still hurt. That's South America. In North America, the biggest one we have is the puss caterpillar, P U S S. Megalopage uppercularis, the southern flannel moth. And just accidentally brushing it can cause excruciating pain, I've seen. So just be careful, like admire caterpillars with your eyes, not with your hands.

• 50:56Speaker 03

  Yeah, I guess I got lucky as a kid by just letting them crawl on me for a minute, but I never, I never felt that sting.

• 51:04Josh Clark?

  There's one other thing, too. The eastern tint caterpillars are problematic, especially in places like Kentucky, because they cause what's called mare reproductive loss syndrome, where just, I think, 50 grams, which is a tenth of a pound, of these caterpillars ingested by a horse while it's foraging can cause it to lose its fetus, have a stillborn birth,

• 51:29Josh Clark?

  all sorts of crazy stuff, so much so that it has a whole syndrome named after, and it's just from eating these caterpillars.

• 51:35Speaker 03

  Oh, wow.

• 51:35Josh Clark?

  Isn't that crazy?

• 51:36Speaker 03

  That is, this is a good one.

• 51:38Josh Clark?

  I thought you'd like that. Yeah, caterpillars are great. I think we should do a two-parter with butterflies.

• 51:43Speaker 03

  Oh, should we?

• 51:45Josh Clark?

  Sure.

• 51:46Speaker 03

  I think Tracy wrote that one, too.

• 51:49Josh Clark?

  Okay, I say we get on it then, Chuck.

• 51:50Speaker 03

  I was gonna suggest that, but then I thought, is that too much?

• 51:53Josh Clark?

  I don't know, I don't know. I guess they don't have to come out back to back, they can be companion pieces, how about that?

• 51:59Speaker 03

  No, or back to back, and then we can skip the metamorphosis part.

• 52:03Josh Clark?

  Well, while we're figuring that out, I say, everybody, it's time for listener mail.

• 52:09Speaker 03

  I'm gonna call this Stuff You Should Know Crossy. I was very excited because one of our listeners, well, I'll just read it. I'll let you hang on that for a second. Hey, guys. When my wife, Katie and I, were dating, we would meet up at lunch to do the daily crossword together. I proposed to her 20 years ago using a crossword I constructed myself. And years later, it's not only crosswords, but Stuff You Should Know. It keeps our marriage life vibrant. It gives us something to talk about every week. And needless to say, your recent episode on crossword puzzles brought our life together full circle. About 10 years after we married, I became a published crossword constructor and have been, I've continued ever since with puzzles in the LA Times,

• 52:51Speaker 03

  Wall Street Journal, New York Times, among others. So Jeff is pretty experienced as a crossy maker. As a thank you for a wonderful episode, I'm sending you an original puzzle with a Stuff You Should Know theme for you to enjoy.

• 53:05Josh Clark?

  Wow.

• 53:06Speaker 03

  And I haven't done it yet. It is printed out in my office. He sent me just to, you know, said it's not a digital version, so I can't do it on my phone. I gotta get out the old pencil, which would be kind of fun. And I can't wait to tackle it. I've just been waiting for the right window of time. And that is from Jeff Stillman. And a big shout out to Jeff and his wife Katie.

• 53:31Josh Clark?

  I don't know how I missed that one, but I'm glad you called it out because I can't wait to do that puzzle, too. So thanks, Jeff.

• 53:37Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah. Jeff Stillman, go look through your emails and print that sucker out.

• 53:41Josh Clark?

  Yes. Well, thank you to you both, Jeff and Katie. And if you want to be like Jeff and send us some amazing thing, that's fine with us. You can send it via email to [email protected].

• 53:58Speaker 08

  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.

• 54:13Josh Clark?

  Buy smart, drive for less and trade for more. That's Toyota affordability and it starts with a great deal on an off-road ready Tacoma or half-ton Tundra, two of Toyota's longest lasting trucks, combining power for work, tech for adventures and style in between. And they're built on a reputation for quality and reliability, which is why Toyota trucks are known for holding their value, which could mean big savings when it's time for your next Toyota. So get a great deal today and a great value tomorrow. Shop toyota.com for more. Toyota, let's go places. Introducing Voices of Vivgard. Vivgard is also known as its generic name, F-Gar Tegamod Alpha F-Cab. And this new show features firsthand stories from people living with a rare disease.

• 54:55Josh Clark?

  Hosted by Andrew Stratton, these perspectives highlight that life is more than a moment, a condition, or a tough day. Living with a rare disease can be challenging, but it does not define the Voices of Vivgard. In these episodes, they share their stories, from diagnosis to working with their care team on their treatment plan. Listen to Voices of Vivgard on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey everybody, I am here to talk to you about Dude Wipes, who offer fragrance-free wipes that are made with 99% water and plant-based ingredients. So they're gentle enough for sensitive skin, but they're tough enough for even the worst messes. Water cleans better and Dude Wipes flushable wipes deliver textbook freshness and ultimate clean.

• 55:36Josh Clark?

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