Selects: Wasps: Not as cute as bees

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2:06But they're still keeping their distance, hopefully still masking up. And hopefully listening to this episode at the time, wasps, you know what's coming. Colin, not as cute as bees. And you can check that out right now. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of I Heart Radio. Hey and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant. Jerry's out there somewhere, which makes this stuff you shouldn't necessarily know. Yeah, old-school insected dish from Robert Lam. I know. It's gotten me into this. Yeah, old-school insected dish from Robert Lam. I know. It's got mouth parts in it, but it's no Tracy Wilson joint. Yeah, it's Tracy. But it's still good. It's super charming. Robert starts this article out from the perspective of a spider who has been dragged into a wasps nest and is about to be eaten alive by a wasp larva.

3:06Yeah. It's pretty interesting. Yeah. It's a good article, I guess is what I'm trying to say. And if you are not familiar with Robert Lam, then friends you are missing out on not one, but two, no, three. Really great podcast that that guy has put out. What is it, Stuffed Blow Your Mind? Of course, the stalwart science tech, well not tech. Sort of science plus show. Yes, yeah, yeah. In depth, like super deep rabbit hole interesting stuff. And then he did one called Transhuman. Yeah, that's a fiction scripted sci-fi. Very cool. Yeah. And then also he and Joe, who he does Stuffed Blow Your Mind with also do invention too, which is kind of in depth rabbit hole thing about invention. So check all those out everybody. Yeah, it was fun to kind of get back to basics with a nice little insect cast on wasps. And dude, I went outside today on my side deck to let the dogs out and low and behold, I looked.

4:06What? I was you said who let the dogs out. Sorry. You said let the dogs out. So I had to I had to wait, wait, wait, wait. No, no, I was saying, boom, boom, boom, boom. Oh boy, that was a wasp nest on the ground. Okay, good. All right. Sorry. Did I knock the legs out from under that story? Yeah, this is just a wasp nest, but it was, you know, the timing. Was it live? Well, I didn't poke it to see it was, it was not attached. I think it had fallen. So my guess is that it did not have any more wasps residing in it. Man, that's kind of to be a real letdown because it's the middle of summer right now. So they're, they're wanting to like grow. There was probably larva in there. Huh. Yeah. That's, that's really weird. They must have abandoned it then. Yeah. And wasp are, you know, I think, you know, everyone loves the bees now. Sure. Because they should because bees are awesome and bees produce honey and we want bees to stick around.

5:07But I think wasps and hornets, which are a type of wasps, are still just so maligned. And they're the ones that people will reach for their can of raid to spray. No qualm. Yeah. And you shouldn't, don't do it. Let the wasp live. I'll go ahead and say it now. We're going to say it a bunch. Yeah. But let them live. Totally, Chuck. Thank you. Yeah. We're here to open everyone's eyes to the function and purpose of wasps existence. They're not like mosquitoes. Remember in the mosquitoes episode we basically concluded that there's no reason for mosquitoes to come around. Kill them all. And they just are terrible. Uh-huh. Wasps are not like that. And I think Robert does a really good job of basically pinning down why wasps get such a bad rap. One is that their stings pack such a wallop compared to other stinging insects. Yeah. It hurts. And we'll talk about their stings in the venom that goes along with it. Which is so, okay, that's fair. Like nobody wants to be stung by a wasp. It's really a can ruin your day.

6:08And then also the other thing is that if you pay attention to wasps, you realize that they live these really brutal, grizzled existences. They're predators. And in fact, in their habitats, they're apex predators. They're like sharks and lions. But for the bugs and sometimes small animals that live around there, like I didn't watch any of the videos that I could have. Because I'm just really over animal death, even if it's nature. Oh, really? Yeah. When I was doing the end of the world with Josh Clark, like I went into it just feeling fine about that. That's just nature. That's the way things work. And then one of the guys I talked to is David Pierce, who you and I talked to actually first in our super stuff guide to happiness. Oh, yeah. But I went back and interviewed him. And his whole jam is like we could actually eventually engineer the biosphere so that there isn't any suffering among animals.

7:08And like what we take as natural isn't necessarily have to be that way. And it's really changed how I view like violence even among animals. So anyway, the upshot is I didn't watch any videos, but one of the ones that I saw the title was Wasp Kills Baby Bird. So that video is out there if you want to see that. But I just can't. I don't like to see that stuff anymore, you know? Yeah. I mean, I didn't really like enjoy it before, but now it just downright bothers me. Yeah. I get it. That's I live with a person who can't watch anything like that. So I get it. Yeah. So there are more than 20,000 species of wasp. And like I said, hornets are a kind of wasp. So if you hear, I mean, you would call a hornet a hornet, but you can't necessarily use them interchangeably. But a hornet is a wasp. And there's a lot of, you know, over that 20,000 species, there are a lot of different kinds and a lot of variety. As far as what they look like and what they're shaped like and what color they are and how they'd like to live their life.

8:11But as with every insect cast, we're going to go over those body parts. Sure. And it starts with that exoskeleton, just like all the little insect buddies have that Kighten exoskeleton. And in the case of the wasp, they are very segmented out. They have three segments that get your head, which has got those antennae, the sensory antennae. You got those mouth parts because they lick and they bite. And then you have the very cool looking compound eyes and simple eyes, these sort of kidney-shaped eyes of a wasp that are very sort of signature. Where do they known as in your Italian accent? Ocele. So in the Italian, if a vowel follows a C, a makes a sure. Yeah, it makes a sure sound. If a C is followed by an H, it makes a cuss sound. So is this really pronounced, Ocele?

9:11Yeah. Okay. I think in, like among biologists, they probably say Ocele, but since you're doing the accent, sure. I wanted to set you up for a lesson in Italian. I appreciate that. Okay, so you've got the head, has some eyes, also has a brain chuck, which I saw supposedly wasps are among the smarter insects out there. They can recognize each other by face, by facial markings. Did you know that? Yeah. Hey, Steve, how you doing? Sting anyone? I'm doing okay, Ted, thanks for asking. Just killed the baby bird. Some weirdo was filming it and put it on the internet. Well, actually, Steve would say no, I didn't sting anyone because I'm a man and I don't sting. Oh, yeah, that's a really great point, Chuck, which we'll talk more about later. You'd find the stinger in the abdomen, which is the third part, the lowest part of the wasp body, but only in a female. Which I think this is true for bees too, if I'm not mistaken. Yeah, don't remember, we've done a lot of good bee stuff.

10:14And then in between those things, you've got the thorax, which has the six little legs, and then those really quick flapping wings. Yeah, so in between the thorax and the abdomen, you have a very narrow waist, which usually is what gives away a wasp. You can look at it and be like, that's a wasp. It's like it's got a corset on. Unless it's a hornet, hornets are much chunkier, more robe-tund. Yeah. But they are, like you said, a kind of wasp. And actually, I think the genus that hornets fall under is called Vespa. And Vespa in Italian means wasp. So hornets are wasps in Italian. Okay. Okay. So I think one of the coolest thing about the wasp is the history and the evolution of this thing, along with some pretty horrific stuff that's going to follow. But about, in the Cretaceous period, about 100 million years ago, you had to kind of take a snapshot of planet Earth to understand how the wasps performs.

11:21And back then, they didn't have all these flowering plants like we have now. There were a lot of conifers and these evergreens depended on the wind to spread their seed around. They weren't counting on the insects to do this kind of thing at this point. And we should also mention that ants are a cousin of the wasp, which makes sense. They look kind of ant-like. Yeah, I think they finally figured out that ants evolved out of mud dobers. They're their closest relative. It's kind of makes sense. I think they have some ant-like behavior. Yeah, ant-like. So the age of the during the Cretaceous period, these wasps were carnivores. And they preyed on spiders and other insects. And as plants started to evolve, they realized that, hey, there's a lot of insects flying around going back and forth. Like, we're just using the wind to carry our seed around. Why don't we get these insects to work for us, basically, and they can do the job?

12:25Yeah, so that was the rise of the angiosperms, which is whenever you think of a flower that the bee visits and moves from place to place carrying pollen, that's what an angiosperm is. Rather than having to just depend on the wind, you can depend on the insects. And so eventually over time, these wasps, these early predators, that used to feed exclusively on other insects, said, well, you know what? This whole nectar thing and the pollen thing, I can get with this. So they started to change their diet from insects to pollen and nectar. But the weird thing is, is rather than developing a way to feed their young from pollen and nectar, like honey bees, which I think is another reason people like bees and don't really realize it, realize it, is that they're little vegetarian vegan animals. Yeah, maybe. They don't hurt anybody. They'll still defend themselves, but they don't want to go hurt anybody. They're very peaceful.

13:28Wasps are not like that because even though they generally, most species of wasps, adults, eat nectar and pollen, they still kill other insects to drag back to their nest to feed their young, to raise their young on. So wasps are technically omnivores. At the beginning of their life, they're carnivores, and then later in life, they grow into herbivores. Yeah, isn't that amazing? It is. Wasps are way more amazing than I realized. Should we take a break and talk about their stinger? Yes. Alright, we'll be right back for Stinger Talk. Music Warning. The following song has been rated dangerously catchy and may not be suitable for grownups. One, two, three, four, one, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. 5, 6, who is it? 5, 6, who is it?

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16:33I'm Chuck. I'm Josh. I'm waiting. No, I'm Ted. I guess it makes me Steve. Yeah. Wash stings are tough. You kind of mentioned early on, you get a yellow jacket and that doesn't feel great. And obviously we're talking about if you're non-allergic and it's not like a legitimate threat to your health and it's just the pain of the sting that we're rating here. Yellow jacket sting isn't great, but a wash sting and a hornet sting is really something else. It feels like it hurts more and for longer. And for good reason because it actually does. Like B venom is its own thing. It shares a lot in common with was venom. Was venom seems to be this extraordinarily highly developed like biological weapon that is this cocktail of different kinds of compounds that all come together to produce a horrible

17:34pain sensation that lasts longer and has a greater impact on your body than anything the actual sting produces. And that's apparently the whole reason behind it is it makes the wasps seem way less vulnerable than they actually are. It seems like they're way more powerful. And for all intents and purposes they are. But like if you if you could take the venom out of the sting, the sting would do basically nothing to you. But because that the venom is introduced by that sting that venom is so potent, it's like one of the worst things in the world that gets stung by a wasp. Yeah. And the actual stinger itself is it has a pretty remarkable evolutionary story. So here's what happens in the prehistoric times is parasitic wasp would use this ovipositor that's actually you know the egg laying organ. They would use this pointy thing to lay the egg on a living insect like they would lay the egg on the caterpillar. Then these little larvae would hatch out and then they would eat that caterpillar, the

18:35larvae would. So at some point as things are evolving along, mother nature says you know what would be even better than this is if you could saw open that caterpillar with this ovipositor and lay eggs inside of this thing. And that's exactly what happened. Right. Which made a lot of sense and I think there's a lot of wasp species. There's at least some that still do this like rather than build a nest they just go find an insect host and lay some eggs on it or lay some eggs in it and then just let the larvae eat the inside out. But most I think have evolved to kind of use some different techniques which we'll talk about in a little bit. But the the stinger itself stuck around even after it stopped being used to actually deposit eggs into the insects directly. That's right. And you talked about the venom that's obviously produced in the venom gland stored in a little venom sack, a little burlap sack inside the wasp body.

19:38And then it seeps out. It's got it's a barbless stinger. It's just like a straight little pointy thing. But it seeps out through these little valves and coats the entire stinger. And so they store this stinger inside of a sheath and are always kind of ready to use it. And so they said it's only the females because it was an ovipositor but the males can pretend like they'll rare their little butt your way and say stay away from me. You don't know if I'm a male or a female, right? You don't want to look too closely, right? Right, which is just hilarious. But it also didn't that show like a certain level of intelligence as well. I think so. Or at the very least there's some. To bluff. Yeah, to bluff. Yeah. That takes intelligence, which is I think another indicator that wasps are amazing. Yeah. And like you sort of hinted at the reason this venom is so powerful is it has a couple of functions is one is just the simple function of paralyzing those insects. And the other is as a defense like it's meant to sting something much, much larger and

20:44have that thing hurt so bad that it thinks it's hurt a lot worse than it is. And like just wants to get out of there basically. Right. And then that combined with their very usually very bright colorings because you know usually the more colorful and animal is the more toxic it is. Yeah. It's just kind of a universal symbol in nature to just steer clear. And hornets and wasps typically are fairly colorful as far as insects go. So those two things combined can teach a larger animal pretty quickly to just leave them alone. And that's kind of how wasps have made it this long. I mean, they've been around for more than 100 million years, you know. Yeah. That's a pretty successful species or family of insects. Yeah. And that includes humans obviously. If you go poking around a hornet's nest or a wasp nest and you get stung, you're not going to finish the job. You're probably just going to get out of there. Yeah. Yeah. Hopefully.

21:45You can learn your lesson that first time, you know. Yeah. Or maybe you don't even have to learn it directly. You can just know to stay away from the wasps. So what's in that venom? Oh, some really good stuff. I actually found even more stuff than Robert included here. There's some peptides and some enzymes. Some of the enzymes include phospholipase, AMB, phospholipase, AMB. And these actually break down the membrane and lipid coating of cells in your body to basically spill their guts into your bloodstream. And that includes neurons. Neural cells can be spilled into your bloodstream when they encounter this peptide, which sends a excruciating pain notification to your brain saying alert, alert. You're in a tremendous amount of pain. That's just like step one. Yeah. They also have norapinephrine in there, which stops the blood flow temporarily.

22:47And that's why like that, when I said it feels like it lasts longer, I feel like that's the norapinephrine at work. Because it just sort of sits in one place. And eventually the bloodstream is going to kind of dilute it away, but it kind of hangs out there for a little while. Yeah. That's just mean. There's also acetylcholine, which actually goes to your pain receptors and stimulates them. Right? And there's also histamines. And histamines are released by your body. They're responsible for the inflammatory response. But they also, the venom in a wasps venom includes histamines directly too, just to make sure that it gets that inflammation good and primed. Yeah. And there's, I was hoping you would take this part because of that word, you want to try it? Hyaluronidase? Oh, well. Well, I use hyaluronic acid under my eyes. Oh, do you really? Sure. What's that?

23:49It's like a, it's an acid. It looks at the end of your eyes. I don't know. I think for bags and just generally keep, yeah, yeah, yeah, just to keep your eyes looking sharp. Oh, well, I noticed your eyes look always look so sharp. I thought you'd notice eventually. So that thing that you just talked about and then something's on. Hyaluronidase. MCDP, mass cell degrading peptide. This stuff actually melts through the connective tissue between cells. And basically just sort of it destroys those membranes and allows the venom to move a little more freely than it would ordinarily. Yeah. The mass cell degrading peptide, degrading means that it basically goes to your mass cells and squeezes the histamines out of them. So not only does it contain histamines already, not only does it trigger a histamine response or release, it goes and gets it out of the cells that normally carry it around in your

24:49immune system. So it's just really mean nasty stuff. One of the other things I saw that they've just started to kind of pay attention to is called Brady, Brady Kinen. And it's associated with chronic pain. So on top of acute pain production, they're like, how about a little dose of what it feels like to have chronic pain too in the mix of all of this stuff. And then Chuck, tell me this is an astounding. I got a couple more. One thing is just called antigen five, which is as cryptic as it comes. They don't know exactly what role it plays, but they know it's a very powerful thing. It's a very powerful allergen. And then there's a couple of peptides that are antimicrobial, which prevent the wasp from contracting an infection from a prey that puts its stinger in. Wow. Yeah. And then amazing. Like, this is some amazing stuff. Yeah. And I didn't see. I saw that hornets can sting again and again and again. But I don't know about the wasp in general.

25:50Is that the case? Yes, definitely. Okay. And there's a hornet is just a type of wasp. So you've got like mud dobers, a kind of wasp, a hornet is a kind of wasp. And there's like many types of hornets, but they're all wasps. And that's right. You know? So yeah, they can sting again and again and again. Which apparently is another reason why they're sting hurts so bad. They can do this to you and inject this venom into you. I saw one expert interviewed on a different host of works article that said in average of 10 times. Like if you get stung by wasp, usually you're going to get stung more than once. And it can be 10 times, I guess, on average. I don't know if they just pulled that out of the air, but they were a wasp expert. So hopefully not. Well, you know, those murder hornets that are making the news these days in the states, those things can kill small rodents with a full charge of a sting. Right. The Asian giant hornet, which they found, I think, I think three of them in the Pacific Northwest that they thought they got rid of last year, but it turns out they survived

26:53the winter acquended. Yeah. And you know, they call them murder hornets because they kill bees. And those I didn't know this. So it was a big because it was just sort of a back page thing. But in 2016, a package of murder hornets was intercepted at San Francisco International Airport. Mm-hmm. And they destroyed that so it didn't become a thing. But they're a real threat to bees. So that's why people are sort of writing about murder hornets now invading as an invasive species here in the US. Yeah. And I mean, like, it's really doing it in justice to the hornets, unfortunately, because calling a murder hornets, like if you read some of the articles on it, like people will say outright, like, you know, they'll, they can kill people very easily. And that's just absolutely not true. And it makes it sound like they're a threat to humans. Like you said, the big threat is to honey bees. And specifically, it's to European honey bees because they haven't evolved around murder hornets or Asian giant hornets.

27:54Asian honey bees have, and they actually have a defense to where when the giant hornets show up, like you were saying they just, like murder hornet is a good term if you're a honey bee, because just a few of them showing up at a hive can just destroy a colony in a few hours. And they do it in a really brutal way. They decapitate the bees and just kill an entire colony in a few hours. And they do it because they're one of the few species that, that they're omnivorous, but most of their food comes from meat. They're mostly carnivores. So they're eating human babies. They follow these bees, basically. They, yeah, they just carry your baby right off out of its crib. But they can wipe out a whole colony like this. If they run into an Asian honey bee colony, those bees have developed a response where they'll swarm around one of the Asian giant hornets and they'll flap their wings a bunch and generate heat and they'll cook the hornet alive inside the swarm.

28:58That's their defense. European honey bees, which make up a lot of the honey bees, most of the honey bees in the United States, they don't have that defense. So it's a big problem if the Asian giant hornet gets a foothold here. Yeah, and it will pack a lot more of a punch too. They have about seven times potency as a honey bee's venom. And as far as the pain scale, they like in it. Getting stung by a murder hornet is, they like in it to like between three and ten. Like if you were to be stung by three to ten yellow jackets all at once. So awful. Yeah. Because the yellow jacket's thing is nothing to sneeze at either. That's kind of a wasp, you know? Yeah. It hasn't been stung in a long, long time, knock wood. Knock on wood. I got stung a couple summers ago. I'm not allergic or anything, but you know, my story, I told it back with the bee thing was when I was hiking that time and I got tagged eleven times in the face and neck. Oh, man. When I stumbled, it was one of those underground hives that I just walked over and you

30:02know, you see two or three bees, you're like, oh, what's going on? Then you see ten and then all of a sudden, they're everywhere and you're just running like a moron through the woods toward the river basically. But yeah, I got hit eleven times and you know, that could have killed me if I was allergic out in the middle of nowhere like that. Sure. I thought you were allergic. So we just lied on the episode of The Stubborn's Maintaining Show. Yeah. Huh. Yeah, it was painful that there was one, I think that got the deepest on my eyebrow bone, my orbital bone. Straight through and I could almost feel it on my bone and that's the one, like at a hard time getting it out, it was so embedded and it felt like somebody and I know I used the same analogy back then, but it felt like somebody had a tiny little, you know, little nails you hang pictures with. It felt like somebody had that poking that bone and they were just tapping it with a hammer in this like regular beat. It is awful. It was terrible.

31:03Man alive. Yeah, it sounds like you stepped on a yellow jacket nest because they nest in the ground. And they follow you too, like they were going to come out. They were going until I got it. Are you going, huh? I think we should take a break maybe and talk about nesting right after this. Yeah. Mom, are we there yet? 10 more minutes. Only 10 minutes. Can you drive slower? What's up with them today? Lingo Kids. That app we downloaded last week? They love it. The games, oh, this funny baby bot character. Kids were almost there. No. No. With more than 4,000 interactive games, songs and shows little ones can't get enough of. Lingo Kids is the number one entertainment platform for young kids. Why didn't we download this sooner? Lingo Kids. Everything Kids love.

32:03Good for free. You know, the cost of a bad night's sleep and waking up too hot might be the worst. You don't feel like yourself the next day. With a Tiammi mattress, guess where it goes away? Five layers of foam and pocketed coils create a naturally cool supportive mattress finished with a 90% organic cotton top layer. You use your bed every day. Give yourself sleep you love with Tiammi. You can have 100 nights to decide. Plus 35% up a $1,000 value. Exclusively at tiami.com slash better sleep. T-I-A-M-I beautifully designed for better sleep. Hey everybody, with fall fast approaching, Whole Foods Market has you covered for game day watch parties, long weekends and cozy nights with seasonal fall flavors all made with better ingredients. Yeah, start stocking up for the season with pantry and freezer favorites. No antibiotics ever meets for game day and limited time suites. Back up for your whole season at Whole Foods Market. That's right.

33:03You can also get of course oats, cereal and granola to start the day, maybe some canned vegetables. For how about this, we love this stuff, sustainably sourced, tend fish. All their can tuna is single line pole call everybody. Pretty impressive. And if fall is anything, it is the season of comfort. How about some comforting soups or frozen breakfast sausages for hearty breakfasts on a cool, crisp day. Over there, 365 brand limited time treats like new maple leaf cookies or pumpkin chocolate squares or pumpkin pie ice cream bars all made with no high fructose corn syrup or artificial sweeteners like sucralose. So stock up on your favorite fall flavors at Whole Foods Market. Okay, Chuck, so we're moving on from Venom. I think we made our point, Venom from Wasps is pretty serious. And if you want to avoid getting injected with Venom from Wasps, you want to learn to know

34:08what a wasp nest looks like. So you can avoid the wasp nest altogether. Because some wasps are more aggressive than others. And if you get anywhere near their nest, they're going to be like, let me just give you a little lesson about getting close to my nest. And they'll sting you, right? Yes. You want to get away. So, the kinds of nests that you see hanging from trees, that's a kind of wasp nest, that's a paper wasp nest. There's mud dog bird nests. There's nests in the ground that are yellowjacket nests. Wasps make a bunch of different kinds of nests. And for you to survive in the world, you have to know what each one looks like and be able to sense them out with your nose. Yeah, when I think of wasp nest in Georgia, at least, I think of that honeycomb style, where it's just a bunch of little tiny holes. And it looks like it's made out of paper because it kind of is in a way. Yeah, I think those are bald-faced hornets or wasps.

35:12I can't remember which one. I think those are the wasps. And they actually chew up wood fragments that they'll get from, say, like your deck or if your kid only has those old-timey wood toys, they might chew those up if they're in the yard. And then they take that and turn it into actual pulp, like paper, and they spit it out and make basically a paper mishae nest, which is pretty impressive. And that's why those things look like they're paper mishae because they basically are. Yeah, and they're light-like paper mishae. And they're fairly intricate if you look at them. They have some of them have what look like little roof eaves. They can be, like I said, super light so they can be dangling from a really small sort of thread-like, I don't even know what you would call it, just a thread? Yeah, sort of like thread, I guess. Suspension cable? Yeah, suspension cable, exactly. We'll go with that because it sounds like it's a little sturdier. Although is that the kind that you found in your yard today? Yeah, I found one of those laying on the ground.

36:13When I was a kid, you know, the big hornets nest that are the big sort of, also sort of looks like paper mishae, but it's more gray and it doesn't have the little holes, which has got one central entry point. And it's about as big as a football. Yeah, those were sort of like country decor. Did you ever know anyone who had one of those in their house? Yes, murder or serial killers. We had one. My dad climbed up a tree to get one of these. It was emptied, thank goodness. And we had that thing mounted on a log above our fireplace for years. Really? Yeah, that was weird. Wow, that's fascinating. I don't remember which kind that is. And I mean, I've looked at so much stuff about wasps. I think it was the white face torn it. If I'm not mistaken. OK, is that who it is? All right. The very aggressive. You get pretty big. Yes. And they're big. Like you said, the size of a football, their nests can get pretty big. But yeah, that's a good one to avoid.

37:14I didn't realize that they were aggressive. Yeah. You don't want to mess around with one of those nests. You don't want to go poking it. From what I saw, the mud dovers, which actually make theirs out of mud, they're the ones that, you know, those tubes that you actually come down from the ceiling down the wall. Those are actually mud tubes that the mud dober has made. And mud dobers, we should say, they're basically two kinds of wasps in the world, wasps in Hornets. Social and solitary. And solitary is exactly what it sounds like. They, it's just a single wasp, a female living on her own. She'll mate with some male wasp and then go off, make her own nest, either burrowing into the ground. Or if she's a mud dober, she'll make a mud nest. So when you see a mud dober's nest, like stop and be like, I respect that because that was made by one single wasp on her own with zero help whatsoever. She made that nest, which I just find extremely impressive by chewing up mud and just slowly but surely building it, spinning mud out under the wall.

38:16Yeah. And if you're a social wasp, you are, it's sort of be like in that they're working for the queen. Maybe more than one queen even, but you have these male drones that are there to mate. And you have these female workers who build the nest and they hunt for food and tend to these little larvae. But it's basically all about getting the queen to live through the winter to the next season. Like they will all leave the nest. And I think, I think the queen is the only thing that overwinter's in that right? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, if they raise queen larvae, the queen will live until the next winter and start over again, basically creating eggs of sterile female workers to help her to hatch and then help her build up the hive, raise male drones. Or no, is it a drone the worker? No, drones of male that's just used for reproduction, right? Yeah. And then eventually raise little queens. So it's pretty interesting, especially as far as like social insects go, there are very

39:20few species of social wasps and hornets, but the ones they are that are pretty, they're highly social, even among like social insects. They have pretty intricate, complex societies. Like some of these, the social wasps nests, I think including yellow jackets, will have multiple queens and there's one head queen who is basically beaten up other queens to establish her dominance. And then she'll have the most eggs and then the next layer down will have the second most eggs and so on and so forth. And that takes like a certain amount of cooperation to maintain and respect that type of hierarchy to keep that society functioning the way it should, especially considering you have to reinvent the wheel every year after winter comes and goes. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And they talk to each other too in a way, they communicate, especially if there's a threat via pheromones. So that's why you were more likely to get swarmed rather than just like if you're an actual

40:25threat to a nest, they can send a signal that says, hey everybody, this jerk over here has got a, this kid has got a stick and he's coming at us. Yeah. Let's get him. They die actually. They release that. It's like a byproduct of their death is releasing that same pheromone. Yeah, man down basically they turn into like Harry Dean Stanton and Red Dawn where they're like, a vange may. I guess you didn't see the video then of the tarantula hawk. So you're not into those. No, but I've seen one in person actually. Yeah, the pepsis wasp is known as the tarantula hawk because they lay eggs inside of a paralyzed tarantula and the larvae eat the tarantula from the inside out. And I was like, I got to see this. And of course on YouTube, there is a pepsis wasp battling it out with a tarantula and it's no match. And it paralyzes this tarantula and drags him back like a great distance.

41:30Yeah, this one thing. Pulling this tarantula across the ground. Which is much, much, much larger, but the tarantula, like you said, is no match. And even among humans, I think the tarantula hawk's sting is like a four out of four on the Schmidt pain scale. Like it's as bad as it gets. Because you know why I have to ask Mr. Schmidt how bad is it hurt? And he's like, oh my gosh, it's terrible. He said, yeah. Yeah. And they're very bright blue and orange too, which is another indicator like stay away. If you see anything, it's really colorful. Just assume it can, it can mess you up pretty good. Yeah, don't lick that tarantula hawk. That's the case. Don't lick that colorful frog. So but even if they, even if it's not a wasp taking down a tarantula and laying eggs inside it that eat the tarantula from the inside out, almost all wasp species, if not 100% of wasp species, like we said, they raised their young by paralyzing other insects,

42:34dragging them to their nest and laying the eggs nearby, leaving the bug to be paralyzed, and still alive when the egg hatches in larvae crawls over and starts eating that bug alive. And this is one reason why wasps have such a bad wrap because it's just such a brutal circle of life. It's like a horror movie. It's like a horror movie. Especially for the perspective of the insect. And apparently Charles Darwin said when he witnessed this happening to a cute little caterpillar that it made it difficult for him to believe in an omnipresent and beneficent god, because what kind of god would allow a cute little caterpillar to do that? The thing is, Charles Darwin, I mean, he liked to putts around in the garden, but he was not a farmer. If you're a farmer, you're probably kind of happy to see a wasp larva eating a caterpillar because caterpillars eat your crops. And if you ask me, this is where we get to the part about the roles that wasps play in the ecosystem, and why you shouldn't just go willy-nilly killing them. Yeah, I mean, they'll bring in wasps, farmers will sometimes, if they have like insect

43:40issue, because the wasps was going to take care of that naturally, and you won't have to use insecticide and stuff like that. No, it's great. Also, bees are usually kind of finicky, I saw, as far as what they'll pollinate and what they won't. Wasps are not at all finicky. They'll pollinate whatever. So they're non-selected pollinators, which makes them, like you can use them to pollinate any kind of crop, which makes them pretty helpful. And so they control other crop destroying insects, and they also pollinate crops too. So they are pretty useful. So that means that you shouldn't just go around killing them. I think we should say it again. No, you shouldn't kill anything except mosquitoes, fleas, and ticks. And you also can't say, well, they're a threat to humans, because I looked up some stats, Chuck. You ready for this? Yeah, you're not going to get killed from a wasp, are you? No, I mean, yeah, but no, you're not. So combined, bees, wasps, and hornets, and hornets are just another type of wasps. Is that so?

44:41Yeah. I hadn't heard. They kill about 62 Americans every year from anaphylactic shock, right? Oh, wow. By contrast, 300 Americans die from falling off of ladders every year. In the UK, get this. Between 2006 and 2007, eight people died from bees, wasps, or hornets, things. I'm including bees here, by the way. And then in Australia, where you would guess that half the human population is killed off every year by bees and wasps, then has to regenerate every spring. Now, between 2000 and 2013, there are only 27 deaths total for the 13 years from bees, wasps, and hornets, things, which is pretty astounding. But it all goes to say, like, don't listen to the murder hornet rap. The hornets and the wasps are now to kill you. They don't want you anywhere near their nests, but they're not like trying to wipe out your family. They just want to be left alone, basically. The murder hornet rap.

45:41Yeah. Now here is a hornet, and it's here to say, I come to kill for bees. A little for bees. A little for bees. A little for bees. I think I can't wait to relisten to this one, because I'm pretty sure you said that they kill 62 million Americans every year. No. I think you did. I might have been hearing things. I might have been a computer glitch. Just 62. Okay. Six to the two. I really am curious on, if you said million, so. We'll find out. That'll be an easter egg for us only. So yeah, don't kill the wasps. If you have what you think is a wasp problem at your house, you really don't, unless it's, you know, I mean, if you have a really big wasps nest, like right above your front door or something, I could see maybe a case being made for removing it, having it professionally removed. Or if your kids are playing out back, and there's a sinkhole from a yellow jacket's underground mask, hundreds of yellow jacket. And if you're allergic.

46:41And if you're allergic, getting that removed too. But in general, like wasps aren't after you. They don't want anything to do with you. They're not aggressive toward humans unless you come poking their thing with a stick. I love this rubber siss, and this takes like nerves of steel. And he's like, if one lands on you, don't panic. Avoid swatting it or making swift movements. Just kind of sit there and it'll quickly fly off. Like I don't want to kill a wasp, but if a wasp lands on my arm, I'm not going to be like, all right, little fella, you're just going to give you some time. I'm going to move you along. No, I would freak out and flail. I wouldn't swat at it because I feel like I would get stung for sure, but I would definitely do a, you know, you know, ah! Right. You got to try not to do that. You have to listen to Robert and don't panic. Good luck. Every time I see don't panic in the wild, I just assume that it's a reference to the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Don't you? I think so. So there's standing still, that's one thing when one lands on you.

47:45Okay, that's great. Things you can do to keep them from landing on you though, or to not wear white and yellow outdoors. Yeah. Okay. I would like white and yellow. The yellow doesn't look good on me anyway, but those colors attract insects. You don't want to wear perfume because you may confuse them into thinking you're a flower. Sure. If you have your garbage can uncovered, don't stay next to it. You want to cover your garbage can. Yeah, especially if you're us. We got a stink. I always call it the stinkiest garbage can in Atlanta. I think so nasty. This is pretty bad too. It's a lot of yours with cat litter. Oh, yeah, that's a stink. Dog poop. And then you, you, you can take down nests yourself if it's below 60 degrees Fahrenheit or 15.5 degrees Celsius because they're probably dead in there anyway. So it's a good time to take it down. But for the most part, we're just going to go ahead and say, don't take down a wasm

48:50nests that you want out of your yard by yourself. Just don't do it. Yeah. Higher a professional. There are people who will take money in exchange for coming to get a nest out of your yard. You can give them money for that and they know what they're doing. So you can feel good about that, about hiring them. And it also supports local business too. Yeah. And don't get that wasp ray that sprays from like 20 feet away and just go home and like attack these nests with poison. Just don't do it. No, stop killing things. What else you got? I got one more thing. You have anything else? Nope. Okay. It always circles back to Japan, doesn't it, Chuck? Yeah. If it's quality and good. Including the Asian giant wasp as well as yellow jackets and some other types of wasps. Japanese culture or culinary culture loves wasp larvae.

49:52But to get wasp larvae, you have to go out in the wild, find a wasp nest in the summer and then take it back home without getting stung and raise the larva yourself. And then when they're ready to go, you harvest them and eat them in the fall, which is pretty interesting in and of itself, right? Yes. It gets even more interesting than that because to find a wasp nest in the woods, what they do is they take raw fish, Japanese love raw fish, but they share some of theirs with wasps and they leave it out as bait and then when a wasp shows up, they'll take chopsticks and a little hunk of this fish meat. They have a string tied to and they'll hand it to the wasp and the wasp will fly off with the hunk of fish to take back to its larva, its eggs, with the string dangling, which makes it easier to follow back to the nest. And after doing this a few times, they're probably successful enough that they trek the wasp all the way back, they don't lose it and they find the nest and then that's when they take it home and tend to the larva and then they eat it in the fall.

50:53That sounds familiar for some reason, I might have heard that before. Isn't that cool? It's amazing. Amazing. Well, that's all I've got for wasp chuck. Wasp out. So since chuck say wasp out, that means it's time for the listener mail. I'm going to call this Adam. I think you were wrong and Josh was referencing they might be giants. It's a long-winded title. Okay. As in your episode, how we almost got rid of polio, you read a listener mail that referred to how flame thrower's work episode. However, I'm somewhat sad that the reference was it made for the they might be giants song is Stan Bull, not Constantinople. Josh made the statement and it was a wonderful way to do that opportunity. Well, that's exactly what you're talking about, right? Yeah, I said not Constantinople. Yeah, that you were talking about that they might be giants song, right? Yeah, of course. You just didn't get me. He just didn't say, hey, by the way, that's what they might be giants song.

51:54Hey, everybody, open up for the spoon feeding. Just thought I'd drop you both a line. I love the show and enjoy listening to it daily to and from work, especially the wit and dry humor. Yeah, I know it goes over your hand. Yeah, right. He said it's very much my style so much so that you aren't sure if there was a joke even told. Wow, this is getting very meta. You both make my commute tolerable and enjoyable. Thanks, guys. Adam P and Gulfport, Mrs. Sip. Nice. Adam, for you from now on whenever I make a joke, I'm going to add Wakawaka at the end. It'll do. It'll be just for Adam. Thanks a lot, Adam. We appreciate that. Thank you for listening to us and for letting us rag on you. We do it lovingly and jokingly. We hope you know. Of course. If you want us to rag on you, well, you send us an email and see what you get. Look up and see what you get. We can send it to stuffpodcast.com.

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