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Hey, everybody chuck here, happy spring.
And of course, this is episode number two in our think spring playlist, spring edition, because it's spring, and so these are all spring centric, because we love spring.
And you guys today uh, the episode is butterflies, colon caterpillars with wings, and there's nothing more spring, i think, we can agree, than butterflies, so please enjoy.
Welcome to Stuff.
You Should Know.
A production of iHeartRadio.
Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Josh, and there's Chuck and Jerry's here too, and this is Stuff You Should Know.
Part two of a one-two punch of insect goodness.
Yeah, caterpillars, hopefully you just listened to.
If you didn't, you might want to, because it really, you know, without Caterpillar there is no butterfly episode.
Yeah, I feel like they could stand on their own.
Like I don't think you have to have listened to one to understand what we're going to talk about here.
No, no, no.
But you know, we're probably going to say, when it comes time to talk about how the caterpillar turns into a butterfly, just go back in time to two days ago and listen to that one.
Right.
We'll be like, do-do-do, do-do-do, do-do-do.
And once again we have to thank HowStuffWorkscom and our former and current colleague Tracy Wilson, as well as our former colleague not current Jennifer Horton wrote a fun piece about butterfly gardens that we're going to talk about at the end.
But I forgot about Jennifer.
You remember her?
Oh, yeah.
She was great.
She wrote lots of great stuff.
She's a good person.
So, Jennifer, I don't know if you're out there and listening, but hi.
Hi.
It's been a while.
Yeah.
This is like 2008 or 2009 or something crazy.
I know.
It's been a long while.
Well, so we're talking about butterflies and we should probably kind of pick up not where we left off, because we talked, I think, about caterpillars being pests at the end, or considered pests, but they're not really.
Yeah.
We should pick up after the caterpillar emerges from its chrysalis, because we're talking specifically about butterflies.
So it's the chrysalis, not a cocoon, that it metamorphosizes within.
And once it emerges...
It is a beautiful creature that resembles the caterpillar that it was.
Almost not at all.
But it's the same exact creature.
It's got the same mind.
It can remember smells and all that.
But whereas the caterpillar was built for eating, I think we said it in the last episode, too.
The butterfly is built for sex, sex, sex.
Yeah, they're built for reproducing.
Should we talk?
I mean, should we go back in time just a little bit and talk about the fact that, like the distinction between moths and butterflies and stuff like that?
Sure.
Well, what's the deal?
Aren't, moths and butterflies.
Basically mostly the same, except moths they do their sex at night and butterflies do their sex in the day.
Yeah.
I mean, there's not many distinctions between them other than like the obvious ones.
But that's the biggest one.
And the reason why butterflies are diurnal and moths are nocturnal is because all butterflies, I think what is there like 15000, 20000 species of butterflies.
There's a lot of them, yeah. all of them are descended from moths.
And these were just moths that started to do their thing in the daytime rather than the nighttime.
And over time they evolved to fit in in the daytime rather than the nighttime, which is how moths evolved.
So a moth's camouflage is meant to blend in with like a tree where it's sleeping during the day.
Yeah.
Whereas a butterfly is bright colored because it's out in the daytime and it needs to blend in with the big colorful flowers that it likes to hang out on.
Do you know why I meant to look this up and didn't?
Why then a moth is so attracted to light?
I saw that they think that it is attracted to the moon for navigation.
Oh, okay.
And that butterflies aren't attracted to light because they don't navigate by the moon.
They lost that ability or that need.
Well, butterflies navigate by the sun.
That's one of my amazing facts about butterflies.
Yeah, but then that's weird that they don't fly to light.
They are not attracted to flames or light bulbs.
Yeah.
Well, maybe they know sun is death.
Yeah, whereas the moon is nice and cool.
Should we talk about their bodies a little bit?
Because that's where we like to start off usually with our insect casts.
One more thing.
Let's talk about where the word butterfly came from, eh?
Where'd it come from?
Oh.
Well, it's very old English, and it means butter and fly, right?
No real mystery there.
But the reason they think, there's two reasons why they are named butterflies in the old English.
And they think it's either because some of them are a pale yellow in color, so they resemble butter.
We can pretty much discard that one.
The other one is that there was a folk belief that they stole butter, that they were just kind of some sort of supernatural spirit in a butterfly form to come and steal your milk and your butter.
And there's evidence of that in other nearby languages.
I think the Germans call butterflies milk thieves.
Like a butter fairy almost.
Yes.
And then the Dutch and the Germans have a word for butterfly that means butter witch.
So that's probably why butterflies are called that because they used to think that they stole butter.
Well, you knew who it was the whole time.
It was Grandpa doing his night eating.
Yeah.
He could get one cc of blood through those arteries.
They were so clogged.
He was on Ambien.
Does it say when the name morphed for my wife into Flutterfly?
Yeah.
They actually used to think or something like.
It's a pretty strange idea that they're called butterflies rather than flutterbys, because that makes more sense.
So Emily's kind of taking it in a much smarter direction.
But it's interesting.
She probably just doesn't know the fact that they're actually witches in disguise who are out to steal butter and milk.
Yeah, she's always she still calls them flutterflies.
Does she call spaghetti paschetti?
No, no.
Just flutter flies.
Can we talk about their bodies now?
Yes, yes.
Thank you for indulging me.
I feel so indulged.
Sure.
So...
Like we mentioned, the head, the thorax and the abdomen of the butterfly will look a lot like a caterpillar in some ways if you hold them up next to each other.
And that's about it.
For one, a butterfly can see a lot better than a caterpillar can.
I get the idea that it still doesn't have like, you know, like great vision.
But caterpillars, remember, were essentially blind.
Butterflies at least have these compound eyes and they can detect color.
And I think we said the caterpillar could only see in black and white.
They can detect movement as well.
Right.
But when it comes to like the star of the show, as far as butterfly parts go, it's those antennae.
Well, hold on.
Before we move on, I've got one about the eyes, too.
You know the monarch butterfly, like basically the quintessential butterfly?
Sure.
They have 12000 eyes, both compound and simple, and they go basically all the way around their head.
That's a lot of eyes.
They can see into your soul.
And maybe that's why they're so great at migrating every year in such large numbers.
Possibly.
I think we talked about in our animal migration episode.
We talked about monarch butterfly migration.
And I think we said, one of the reasons why they're able to make it from eastern Canada all the way down to northwest Mexico is because they navigate using UV.
They see in the UV.
Yeah, it's that sun.
And that kind of brings me back around to antennae.
Oh, good.
These things are amazing.
They get their sense of direction from the position of the sun.
So they are literally navigating by the position of the sun.
The antennae also act as light receptors.
Nice. obviously to track the sun.
They're highly attuned to odors.
Those antennae are great smellers.
They sense pheromones during times of mating.
And they can even sense these antennae, the beat of wings of butterflies of the same species during mating season.
Wow, that's amazing.
Just the antennae?
Just the antennae.
Wow.
How about the labial palps?
Well...
Yeah, those are if you look at a close-up of a butterfly, and they can take kind of different positions, but usually I've seen them they look like kind of little hairy tusks coming out.
Coming out of what, Chuck?
Coming out of their head, well, near their mouth parts.
Yep, ding, ding.
Okay.
It's now officially a Tracy Wilson article.
That's right.
So they apparently are like, this is food, this isn't food, this is food.
But they don't eat with the labial palps.
It's just a way of sensing food.
What they eat with is their proboscis.
And that's the long kind of tongue-like appendage that they suck nectar with.
That's right.
I got one more thing on the labial palps, though.
Oh, okay.
They...
They've kind of surmised that it detects food, that the function is fairly unknown.
But I think they've learned I'm not sure how recently that they can those labial palps detect CO2 in the air?
Oh, neat.
And they think that might be the main function.
Oh, that's really cool.
Who knows?
So instead of seeing red or green, they have the labial palps that detect CO2.
I guess.
That was a reference to a reality episode.
Yeah, yeah.
So what part did you move to?
I moved on to their proboscis.
Oh, everyone loves a good proboscis.
And the butterfly proboscis is interesting because when the butterfly comes out and we'll talk about this more in a second it's almost like it should have a label that says some assembly required.
Because they got to do some stuff before they can really do their butterfly thing.
And one of those things is literally almost like screwing together their proboscis.
Yeah, they have two parts of their proboscis that they have to connect in order to start eating.
So that's one of the first things that they do when they e-close from their chrysalis.
E-close, that's a great name.
No, it sounds like Apple has trademarked it or something.
And we'll talk more about the proboscis as we go, but we do need to mention their legs.
If you remember, the caterpillars have six real legs and then a bunch of pro legs.
The butterfly says, I don't need those pro legs anymore because I'm flying, basically.
But I've still got those six legs.
I've got a set of four legs, some middle legs, and some hind legs.
And these things are pretty – they're more than just legs as well, because they will land on something and they're looking for dissolving sugars, basically to eat.
And they're looking for that with their legs.
Yeah.
And also you'll probably see fairly commonly that there are some butterfly species that only have two pairs of legs, and that's not true.
They actually have six, but one pair is basically shriveled almost to nothingness.
Oh.
And by the way, I should clear up.
When I say their legs are looking for dissolving sugars, they're not doing it by feel.
Like they are taste organs in their feet.
Yeah, they can taste through all sorts of different organs.
It's pretty cool.
Apparently, when they step in some dissolving sugar, their proboscis uncoils involuntarily like boing boing and it just starts sipping nectar immediately.
Oh, man.
So you better hope that your legs are finely attuned to sugar and you don't accidentally suck up some really gross stuff.
You know, like, oh, it was pus.
Right.
Oh, my God.
Oh, the worst word.
It's the worst.
It's pretty bad.
And it's one of the worst things, too.
It's not as bad as hygienic utensil, though.
Like, what are the odds that one of the grossest things has the grossest word?
I don't know.
I wonder if that was intentional.
Yeah.
Like, what is that?
Ugh, pus.
Right.
Does that sound gross enough?
Sure.
Let's go with it.
Can we please stop talking about pus?
Sure, Webster.
The wings we're going to talk about a lot.
We did a whole episode on the iridescence of butterfly wings.
So we're not going to really get into it here.
But if you want to learn about iridescence, it's very complex and complicated and deserved its own episode many years ago.
Yeah, but the upshot is the structure of the scales.
They're transparent, multilayered, and they reflect and amplify light multiple times.
That was a really cool episode, if I remember correctly.
It was, and it was a tough one, if I remember, to absorb.
Yes, but we did such a great job of it.
I would like to say we probably just knocked it out of the park, really.
Yeah.
I think so, too.
But the butterfly wings are made of this transparent, it's called chitin.
If you've heard of chitin, you're probably just alive on the earth, because it is one of the most abundant polysaccharides in nature.
It's, I think, the second most abundant polysaccharide.
It's all over the place.
Their wings are made of that chitin and they have those sort of vein-like structures that you can if you look at their wings closely.
Don't touch them, though, please.
No.
We talked about that in that episode.
But they have those four wings that are obviously toward the front and they are basically triangular, and then the hind wings toward the butt and they kind of look like little seashells.
Yes.
And they're, like you said, don't touch them.
They're very, very delicate.
And those veins are species specific.
So that's one of the ways that they use to recognize one another when they're mating as well.
Yeah.
And I think butterflies cannot repair their wings.
Isn't that correct?
Yes.
They have no means of doing that.
They have no car shield for wings.
But I don't think it kills them.
But if a butterfly can't fly, that's probably ultimately a death sentence, right?
That's my guess.
It would make them easy prey at the very least.
Yeah, I think that's kind of the deal when they say a butterfly will die if you touch their wings.
Yes.
It will die quicker.
There's something that a butterfly that's recently eclosed and a baby that's just been born have in common.
Do you know what it is?
Maybe, but go ahead.
They both poop out in a meconium.
Oh, sure, a human baby.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, meconium is that first poop that they take.
In this case, the butterfly is pooping what it last ate as a caterpillar.
That's so cool.
It is really cool.
It's usually red, bright red, almost looks like blood.
But the butterfly poops that out.
That's one of the first things it does.
It has to clean off all of its organs, its feet, to make sure it's sugar-finding, not pus-finding.
Clean off its antennas, put its proboscis together again.
Let its wings dry out.
That's cool.
I saw, and I don't think we mentioned in the caterpillar episode that in its last instar it has wings already.
They're just folded up under its skin.
But they develop even further in the chrysalis.
But when they come out, they're soaking wet because the butterfly was goo not too long ago.
And they have to spread them out and let them dry in the sun before they can fly.
So they're doing all of this like self-care, basically a morning at the spa right after they're born.
Yeah, but they can't just like flop their wings open immediately.
They actually have to pump them up almost like an air pump inflating a raft or something.
Or some high tops.
Yeah.
Oh, man, remember those?
That's so funny.
What a scam.
That was a scam, right?
I'm quite sure you could break your ankle in that just as easily as any other shoe, sure.
Yeah, it may give you like a little tighter fit or something.
I don't know about that.
And for people that are younger listeners, if you don't know who Milli Vanilli was, or Pump Up Basketball Shoes, they were, I think Reebok, right.
Pretty sure it was Reebok.
Had basketball shoes that on the tongue had a little basketball, that was a little pump, and you would
Put on your shoes, tie them up and then press that pump a bunch of times and it would fill some cavities with air, I guess, and make your shoes tighter.
Yeah, especially around your ankle.
It was meant to give you extra ankle support so you could donk easier, even though you've never donked in your life.
That's right.
But they had Spudweb repping them, so, you know.
Oh, yeah?
Yeah, I think he was one of their pitch guys for a little while.
Okay, cool.
But anyway, the butterfly— Wait, wait.
Should we explain who Bud Webb was?
He was a diminutive NBA player.
Yeah, for the Hawks.
I stood in line to get his autograph one time.
Yeah.
Nice.
They pump their wings out, but not with air.
There's a fluid that they pump through those tube-like veins we were talking about and just sort of inflate them out.
And like you said, they just get all cleaned up and ready to fly.
Yes.
Yes.
And then, once they're all ready, they start flying and they realize very quickly oh, it's not a very good day to fly.
And I say we take a break and come back and explain just what in the holy heck I'm talking about.
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All right.
What in the holy heck are you talking about?
Oh, well, let me explain, Chuck.
It turns out that butterflies, while being pretty hardy individuals, at least as far as insects are concerned on that level they're also very delicate, like we talked about, with their wings.
And even beyond their wings, getting like a raindrop driving through it.
That can happen.
Or say, like strong wind tattering it, that's a big problem for a butterfly.
Just the temperature, the ambient temperature has a tremendous effect on them.
Not just because they're ectotherms, meaning they're like a lizard.
They rely on the ambient temperature to warm themselves or cool themselves off.
Their muscles just simply will not function when it drops below a certain temperature.
Yeah, I think Tracy points out they work best when their internal temperature is about 82 Fahrenheit 28 Celsius.
And, you know, they use these wings for flying, which is great.
But you might think like, oh, it's no big deal if it's cold.
They just kind of hunker down.
But they also use these wings to do all kinds of like cool things, like namely to scare away predators.
They can do all sorts of like.
They can make eyes where it looks like a scary face, kind of like their little caterpillar.
Former selves can look like snakes.
They can flash these bright colors that a lot of times say getaway predator.
And if they can't move their wings, it's not just that they can't fly, but they can't defend themselves or disguise themselves.
So it means that when it's cold outside or when it's too windy or rainy or something, then they're way more vulnerable to prey.
For sure.
Or as prey.
Right.
But even prey could probably get them.
That's how vulnerable they are.
For sure.
So you'll often see like butterflies is kind of basking in the sun.
I've always wondered what they're doing.
Like they just seem like they're.
They don't know what to do next.
That's how it's always struck me for some reason.
They're thinking of their next move.
But in reality they're just sitting there getting warmed up by the sun so they can fly to another spot.
And if you stop and think about it, the next time you see a butterfly basking in the sun, I'll bet it's below 80 degrees out.
And the butterfly is having to warm itself so it can fly on to the next flower to eat or rest or whatever.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's a good point.
They do take shelter at night when it gets chilly.
That's why you don't see butterflies flying around at night, mainly.
And like you said, they're, what are daytime dwellers called?
Diurnal.
Diurnal.
Diurnal.
Yeah, diurnal.
Is that how you remember it?
Now it is.
Okay.
You do remember it.
That's how I need to remember it.
Right.
But yeah, they bask those wings.
They'll sit around on rocks.
They shelter at night.
Sometimes they will actually do like a kind of like human shiver to warm up.
They can kind of shake their butterfly wings to get their muscles warmed up to fly.
They just can't go out cold.
They got to do a little warm up first.
It's like that knee hike thing where you lift your knees really high like in place a bunch of times.
Yeah, like soccer players do.
Yeah.
Like that Ted Lasso guy.
Right.
And there's a name for that, but don't bother emailing us with it.
We can figure it out ourselves.
They also can use those wings as little reflectors.
Like you know how, in the 1950s and 60s, people would sit out in the sun with those reflectors under their neck to reflect sun back on their faces.
They can use their wings to do that to their body and warm it up.
Right, which is pretty cool.
They can also keep the sun from warming them up when it's too hot out.
They'll fold their wings together and just present, like the edge, the outer edge of their wings to the sun.
So there's much less surface area.
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
And they, like you said, when you see them sitting, they're probably not sitting for long.
They're probably sitting just so they can get it going to fly again very shortly.
Exactly.
So even though they're sitting there warming themselves up to move from flower to flower even that's typically what you see.
There's a lot of species I see at least 200 that migrate over very long distances.
And monarchs are the ones that they're like the money butterfly that everybody knows about.
But one of the reasons why is because they migrate so far.
Again, they migrate from eastern Canada to northwest Mexico.
It takes eight months.
And not a single butterfly that starts that journey is alive at the end.
So it's like you look at the butterfly.
By the way, the butterfly flock or a group of butterflies is called the kaleidoscope.
Mmm.
I love that.
Also, that's the official one.
They're also called Flutter, Shimmer, and Rainbow of Butterflies.
Okay, a flutter of butterflies.
Yep, but you look at the kaleidoscope of butterflies as like a single organism and each individual butterfly that lives and dies and reproduces, not necessarily in that order, as kind of like cells that function and make up the larger whole.
But it's really a bunch of individual butterflies flying together but migrating as a whole down from eastern Canada to northwest Mexico.
Yeah, and I guess since we're there, there was a big deforestation, illegal deforestation logging operation in Mexico at the Butterfly Biosphere Reserve in 2015.
And they got like I can't remember like 30 or 40 acres of land just cut down, before anyone knew what was going on.
And since then and we can't get into it here because it's really complex, but they have this very involved plan that they've been enacting since then of reforestation, including something called assisted migration.
That I don't fully understand yet, but I'm going to look into it more.
They just drive slowly by some butterflies and swipe them into the car and drive them halfway.
Well, things are better now, but there were a billion butterflies in that migration in 1996.
And in, I think, 2016, that was down to 35 million from a billion.
And I think it's since gone up due to these efforts.
That's good.
Yeah.
Butterflies, if you take down where they're trying to get to, then they're going to die.
Yeah, and that biosphere reserve is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and you can go visit it.
But apparently, when the number of butterflies that show up are in the billions, the branches that they're sitting on bend.
Under the weight of butterflies.
That's how many butterflies there are sometimes.
But yes, it's very problematic that there's fewer and fewer.
I'm glad to hear that it's kind of bounced back a little bit, but they're still under.
I don't know if they're endangered or just critical right now, but there's something to keep an eye on, as we'll see, because they're an indicator species.
They are, and they're also pollinators.
They're not, you know, the best pollinators, but they're pretty good.
They're not like bees.
I mean, bees were made to pollinate.
They wear T-shirts that say that.
They do.
They wear bee shirts.
But some butterflies don't spread pollen at all.
They just love that nectar.
But generally, butterflies are looked at as pollinators.
And they have that proboscis.
Like you said, It's made for diving deep into those flowers and getting all that sweet stuff.
But butterflies have lots of dietary needs.
They can't just get by on that sweet, sweet sugar.
They need minerals and stuff, and they get this in a variety of interesting ways, right?
Yeah, one is puddles.
They'll just descend on a puddle that's bare dirt.
I don't think asphalt would work, so it's kind of gross to think about.
But the minerals from the dirt in the soil leach into the puddle and the butterflies suck up those minerals through the puddle.
And apparently, if there's not enough minerals for their liking—
They'll actually flutter off real quick and then come back to the puddle.
And just that little butterfly movement is enough disturbance of the water to bring some extra minerals to the surface of the puddle for them to drink and to create a hurricane in Belize.
Right.
If there's no water, it's pretty gross.
If it gets pretty bad, they will resort to puking onto the soil and then drinking that mineral puke.
I took it more as spit.
Hey, one man spits, another man spukes.
That's right.
But yeah, they need the minerals, the nutrients, and it's just not enough for the nectar.
Sure.
Yeah, exactly.
They've done some studies, though, because they'll eat fruit.
They'll eat rotten fruit on the ground, or they will get on a piece of fruit.
They will stomp on it with their little feet to try and tenderize it a little bit, and then jab it with that proboscis.
And drink it up.
And they've done studies that have found that the fruit eaters live longer and are better at reproducing.
In studies because they I think it was the monarchs even they fed them either mashed banana or sugar.
And the ones that ate the mashed banana laid almost two times as many eggs.
And those eggs were bigger and like more robust and vital as well.
Yeah.
I also read that they tend to be easier going in social situations and are more well liked by their peers.
The fruit eaters?
Yeah.
Oh, wow.
So there's a couple other places that they can get nutrients and minerals.
Dung and urine.
Butterflies are not above that, especially if they need it really badly.
But when they're getting it from a puddle, it's called puddling.
There's just so many great words around butterflies.
And there's a specific word for butterflies pollinating plants.
It's called psychophily, like psychophily but with one L.
Okay.
Specifically, butterflies pollinating plants is psychophily.
I love that.
I thought you would.
I found that and I was like, Chuck's going to love this.
The sexy stuff you mentioned, you know, butterflies love to try and reproduce.
And they reproduce like a lot of animals.
They join themselves.
They join end to end at the abdomen.
I think the male has a – like he clasps down on the female to make sure they stay together.
And there is sperm from the male that is eventually going to fertilize the eggs of a female.
Sure.
Not like you would think.
It's pretty remarkable, because what they do, is they?
Well, first of all, they have to recognize each other.
Like I said, using those antennae, they recognize themselves as the same species or whatever.
And through their pheromones as well, which is also the antennae.
And then the male delivers a spermatophore.
So it's like, hey, I don't just have sperm for you.
I've packaged it up in a little package for you.
And it's got all these other minerals and nutrients that you love that will help you in this fertilization process.
And they will take extra time to get an extra good spermatophore package ready to be an extra attractive mate.
The good ones will.
Well, sure.
So I guess the female butterflies, when they fertilize their eggs they use the last sperm that was inserted to them, the last spermatophore package.
Yeah.
So there are some species where the male will basically close up shop After he's inserted a spermatophore with kind of like a sticky substance that prevents more sperm from going in.
So his sperm is the most recent sperm.
Yeah, that's not very cool at all.
But I guess that guy's also like you know what am I doing, giving you my spermatophore, if you're just going to use the latest spermatophore that you got?
Exactly.
I went to a lot of trouble combining the spermatophore.
Yeah, like look at this stuff.
Look at all these minerals.
I also saw that some of the males in some species will spray them with an off-putting scent.
Huh.
So no other butterflies will want them.
There are mating dances that they'll do.
And they.
You know, when the female gets this spermatophore, they put it in their bursa and then they wait until they're ready to lay their eggs.
And they actually lay the eggs first and then use the sperm to fertilize them once they have laid the eggs, which is also, I think, pretty unusual in the insect kingdom right.
I don't know.
For some reason I had the impression that they were fertilizing each egg, as they were coming out kind of like a PEZ dispenser.
Yeah, yeah, that's what I mean, though.
But they're not fertilized in the body.
I see what you're saying.
They're fertilized externally.
Yeah, yeah.
Sure.
That's the word.
One other thing.
You talked about terrible smells.
It turned up that some pheromones are pleasant smelling to humans.
Specifically, let me tell you about the green vein white butterfly.
Let's hear it.
It puts together lemon oil.
For all intents and purposes, it has the same chemical composition as lemon oil, but it's the pheromone it produces to attract a mate.
And I got to tell you, lemon oil is a pretty great smell.
It would attract me too.
I love it.
So if you ever smell a great veined white during mating season, you're going to smell some lemon oil.
So the gestation period is about three days and they lay anywhere from 10 to 300 eggs in clusters over a two to four week period.
Oh, wow.
It's that long?
Yeah, two to four weeks.
And these eggs, they lay that many because it's tough for these eggs to survive into adulthood.
The temperature's got to be just right.
Humidity's got to be just right.
They can rot very easily if it's too wet.
If it's not wet enough, they're going to dry out.
And then, of course, there's all those predators that are just dying to eat those butterfly eggs.
They need to find the Goldilocks zone with the humidity for the eggs.
That's right, they do.
So they also make sure that they put the eggs on their baby's favorite food, which is a certain kind of plant.
Butterflies are very frequently indiscriminate pollinators.
They just go from plant to plant.
But there are also plenty of species that are very plant-specific.
And those are the ones where they will not only eat that plant.
While they're caterpillars, they were probably born on that same plant as well.
We used to have a butterfly bush in our yard, that was – those things get really big and out of control.
Yeah.
Kind of in a – we have sort of a wild garden anyway.
It's not like a, you know, super manicured, like, English-type garden.
It's kind of a crazy, fun garden.
So it fit in the garden, and we had tons and tons of butterflies.
But it went away, and I don't know if it was because I think some people –
Well, I think it could be an invasive species and a lot of people say like, don't plant the butterfly bush.
But we had one for a while but don't now, so Emily may have taken it down for that reason.
So the reason it's considered invasive and harmful to butterflies is it produces tons of nectar, but it has no value in supporting eggs or the life cycle of it, other than nectar for adults.
And so it's a distraction from native plants that do provide not just nectar, but also shelter and a place to lay their eggs.
So it actually disrupts the life cycle of local butterflies.
Even though it's a butterfly bush and they love it, it's actually bad for them.
So I have to go cut down mine after this.
Even if you have a lot of those natives nearby, like as a whole, it's still bad?
Yes, because it's a distraction.
Because it's so chock full of nectar that they go to that one instead and just die off.
Well, some distractions are okay, right?
Like television?
Sure.
You can put a TV with an extension cord out in your butterfly garden.
That's not going to harm them.
If you have a butterfly bush, you have to chop it down.
I command you.
All right.
They're really pretty, though, and it's fun to see all the butterflies.
But, yeah, I get you.
But wait until you've planted other plants, which we'll talk about, and then you can chop down your butterfly, bush.
All right.
Well, let's take a break, our second break, and we'll talk a little bit more about what's going on with the butterfly population and butterfly gardens right after this.
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OK well, we talked already about the monarchs and how they had been hit hard from the illegal logging going on in Mexico in the mid 2010s.
Yeah.
And in general, butterflies are doing OK, but there are some, you know, pesticides and things like that.
I think one of the other big reasons besides the logging is.
For that migration of the monarchs.
I think pesticides has killed a lot of milkweed which I think the monarchs love.
So pesticides are a big threat.
And it's not like I'm just going to spray this one little part of my garden.
Like pesticides in your garden in one part of your garden generally means it's in most parts of your garden.
Yeah, it travels very easily.
But on top of that, butterflies are extremely sensitive to pesticides.
So I don't know about herbicides, but definitely pesticides.
So if you're going to plant a butterfly garden, you want to use natural pest defenses.
But that's a big thing that's killing off butterflies and bees, too.
Yeah.
And then also we talked about it in the last episode.
A lot of people think of caterpillars as pests.
It's like, oh, you ate some of my lettuce.
I'm going to kill all of you.
That kills butterflies, too.
They never make it to be adult butterflies and you've just disrupted generations of butterflies that could have been.
So when you put all that together, humans have not been super good for butterflies.
Did you mention urbanization in roads, too?
No.
Those are a problem.
Like anytime we build somewhere, we destroy plants, and those often are butterflies or that's a butterfly habitat.
And then the roads that we have.
The marginal land alongside of the roads are often like great places for butterfly centric plants to grow, but that means that the butterflies are very close to cars that are going 70 80 miles an hour, which is never good for the butterfly when they come in contact with them.
Like I was saying, humans have been kind of bad for butterflies but fortunately We're starting to wake up and see the value in butterflies goes beyond like let's put that thing on a stamp.
Like there's more value to the butterfly than just its aesthetic beauty.
But that makes it plenty valuable in and of itself.
I wonder if butterflies and other insects would ever, if natural selection would be such that they would learn to fly higher than the height of an average car.
Sure, I could see that.
But then they run into semis and it's like it's going to take millions more years to get higher than a semi.
Yeah, that's a good point.
Maybe they'll figure out how to fly under cars very quickly.
Oh, okay.
That'd be something to see.
Collecting butterflies is, believe it or not, another thing that has hit the butterfly population recently.
Butterfly collecting butterflies is a thing.
Hunting butterflies and putting them behind glass in your office is a thing that some people are really into.
And I don't know a lot about that.
But I do know that that there are certain species that are endangered.
And part of the problem is overcollecting.
Yeah, and the more rare a butterfly species gets, the more desirable it is for collectors and the more collecting harms that population because it's so small.
It's an Ouroboros, but the worst kind.
Yeah, and I imagine we'll hear from some collectors who can tell us that there are responsible ways of doing this.
I really don't know enough about it to speak to it, but I'm not going to collect butterflies.
That's all I'm going to say.
Yeah, I wonder if it's one of those things like ivory, where it's like OK, this happened, this is done, like these things are out there and we're not just going to throw them away.
That's an even bigger waste.
Oh, right.
So like antique ivory or antique taxidermied butterflies are legal, but anything new is illegal.
I wonder if it's treated like that or what.
But I get the impression that butterflies don't have that much legal protection.
I think they do on paper, but it's very rarely enforced.
Yeah.
I guess if you find one on the ground or something, you'd have that for your collection.
Sure.
Not sunning on a rock, but, you know, dead.
Right, sure.
It just fell over of old age.
Uh-huh.
Should we talk about butterfly gardens here at the end?
Yeah, because one of the things people are doing are saying like hey butterflies, we got to save these butterflies.
If we don't, things are going to go pear-shaped even more.
And so people are starting to plant butterfly gardens.
Yeah, because I think you said they're a big indicator of like.
If butterflies are dying off all around you, that's a big indicator of how your local ecosystem is doing in large part.
Yeah, they're the canary in the coal mine.
Yeah, exactly.
And butterfly gardens are beautiful, and it doesn't take a lot.
You need some plants, and you're going to want plants.
You're going to want to find out what kind of butterflies you have around you.
That's a big one.
You can look with your eyeballs and then cross-reference, or you can just look it up on the Internet.
And then you want to find out what kind of plants those butterflies love, that are native to your area, and plant those.
Chuck, when I was researching this, all I wanted to do was be done with this episode so I can go garden.
Oh, I love that.
Emily's gardening.
I'm looking at her right now.
She's gardening outside.
Well, pound on your window and tell her I'm jealous of her.
I put it on my Instagram.
I don't know if you saw it, but I saw a huge well, it's not that big, but a hornet's nest in our backyard yesterday.
That is the coolest, most beautiful thing, kind of tucked in a magnolia branch about only four feet off the ground.
Wow.
And I'm glad I saw it because I was about to go do some trimming of my boxwoods right behind it in a few days
And I would have bumped right into that thing.
Oh, boy.
Now we're just going to steer clear of it until it is out of season and then hopefully, try and preserve it.
But hornet's nests are so cool looking.
And I just love that we have one back there.
We've got a crazy backyard full of all kinds of critters.
Does it look like a mummy's head?
Sometimes they do.
It looks –
It looks like a sort of a mummy's head.
But if it was an alien mummy, because it's like top heavy and it looks like it has a little mouth at the bottom.
You know their little door.
Yeah.
I'll send you the picture.
It's cool.
Yeah.
Or I can just go on Instagram like everybody else.
No, you get text privies.
Thanks, man.
What else about the butterfly garden?
You need water, right?
Yeah, remember, they like to drink minerals from puddles.
So if you have a little bit of water dripping that forms a puddle in the soil, that's definitely going to help them.
You want rocks for them to sun on.
A big one, Chuck, is you want to use native plants.
I know you and Emily are like big into that.
And I feel like people including myself are really waking up to just how bad for the local ecosystem like non-native plants are.
And to use native plants whenever you can.
When you're building a butterfly garden, it's crucial.
Yeah.
Because even plants within the same species can be harmful to butterflies.
Yeah.
And I have an example, if you'll allow me.
Sure.
So butterflies in Florida and Georgia in the southeast in general, I think, are very, very keen on what's called butterfly weed.
It's what monarchs love.
It's that very tiny, multi-flowered, orange-flowered weed.
It's a type of milkweed.
Okay?
Okay.
Yeah, which they love.
Yes.
There's another kind of milkweed called tropical milkweed that does just fine in Florida and Georgia and the southeast too, but it's not native.
And the problem with putting that in your butterfly garden in the southeast is that it blooms so late into the season that butterflies will keep reproducing and entire parts of the population will freeze to death because they've gone beyond their natural reproductive window.
And then furthermore, when the temperature drops a little bit, they're more susceptible to a specific kind of protozoan parasite called OT or OE.
I can't remember that.
They wouldn't otherwise be if they were just on the native milkweed rather than the tropical milkweed.
So that's how much attention you really should be paying to your butterfly garden, because you can inadvertently harm them while you're doing something you think is good for them, like putting a butterfly bush out there.
Everybody would think like, that's great.
I'm going to put a butterfly bush out and I can pretty much call myself Gandhi from here on out.
Gandhi of the butterflies.
But it turns out you're harming them.
So it's definitely something that you need to take some research for.
But it's the kind of research that it's like an invitation to go like immerse yourself in the natural world in all of the best ways.
Yeah.
Boy, that butterfly weed is beautiful.
Yes, it is.
And it's native to Georgia.
So you just plant it all you like.
You know what?
I'm going to go tell Emily, like, oh, there's butterfly milkweed.
And she's going to be like, it's right behind you, dummy.
Right.
But it's not only a food source.
It's like a place where monarchs lay their eggs.
So you will have butterflies, like, living in your garden.
I mean, they'll fly to Mexico eventually, but they'll hang out there for a while.
Yeah.
I mean, that's the cool thing about the butterfly garden, too.
If you do it right, then you're going to have butterflies in your yard.
And not only that, but butterflies are going to, like –
Word gets around, and it'll become a place for butterflies.
It'll become like a haven for butterflies, and they don't generally – I mean the ones who migrate, migrate.
But other than that you could have butterflies families living their whole life back there in your backyard.
Yeah, and speaking of backyards, I've got a backyard – a lower part of my backyard is – kind of wild.
I keep it wild.
Like I don't mow it very often and there's lots of weeds and like little clovers and stuff growing.
So I've left it there for the bees, the birds and the bees and all that and the butterflies.
But I'm going full on, man.
I'm going to let, oh yes, it's going to be all butterfly, like up to your hips, butterfly stuff.
I cannot wait to go plant it.
I'm really looking forward to it.
Because it goes right up to the edge of some woods, too.
So it's going to be amazing.
Yeah, there's something we really love like leaving green spaces and making it an invitation for animals.
You know, like I got my camp up there in North Georgia and like all of North Georgia is just being torn down for neighborhoods.
And, you know, if you're a hunter, it's fine that that's your thing.
I'm not into it.
And we love that we have this acreage where we're just like –
Tell your dear buddies to come to our land, set up shop here.
No one will be shooting you.
And spread the word, everybody.
We have a safe space for all you critters out here.
Yes, except for humans because it's also a most dangerous game type setup you got going there, huh?
Well, sure.
I suspect.
On the weekends.
Right.
Let's see.
One more thing about butterflies.
There's an amazing fact that I think we can end on.
How about that?
Let's do it.
They're frequently cited as inspiring the discovery of the Rh blood factor, which is a subtype of blood types.
And it actually cured what's known as rhesus hemolytic disease, which is where a baby has a positive Rh blood type and is born from a mother with a negative Rh blood type and its immune system starts attacking its blood.
Not good.
But the discoverer of the RH blood factor.
His name is Sir Cyril Clark and he was big time into butterflies and he was inspired by the butterfly's ability to mimic other butterflies genetically, that they had these what are called super genes, these big clusters of genes that all produce this mimicry and that were refined by smaller genes over time.
And he was like, I wonder if that has to do with blood types and diseases.
And in fact, it was.
Oh, wow.
Yeah.
So butterflies, super useful, super beautiful.
Go cut down your butterfly bush today.
Amazing.
Chuck said amazing.
So that means it's time for listener mail, everybody.
I'm going to call this our influence on Spotify, perhaps.
Hey, guys, I was wondering if you were aware of your potential impact on Spotify searches.
On the Milli Vanilli episode, Josh mentioned the song Owner of a Lonely Heart by Yes being the best song of the 80s.
And in my head, I'm like, I'm not sure what that song is.
But I said it out loud, and immediately the chorus popped into my head.
So I go over to listen to it later on Spotify.
I see a ton of covers for it.
And I see Milli Vanilli is also in the search results. which was going to be my next search.
So I think you guys may have had enough people searching owner of a lonely heart and Milli Vanilli close together so that the algorithm associated those two.
That's awesome.
Because other than the time period, it's not similar music, you know?
No, I would say not.
Maybe do a test and mention two unrelated songs or something to see what happens.
Oh, boy.
Should we try it?
Yeah, let's mix Sabbath and you pick the other one.
Okay, so Black Sabbath.
Name a song specifically.
War Pigs.
Okay, War Pigs.
Hey, everybody, if you haven't heard War Pigs, you should go search it on Spotify.
Give it a listen.
It's a great song.
And while you're at it, I don't know if you've ever heard Barry Manilow's song.
Chuck, I was going to suggest Barry Manilow.
Well, I had a 50-50 chance there.
I don't know if you've ever heard the Barry Manilow song Even Now, but it's a classic Barry Manilow song and everyone should just go search those two on Spotify.
So War Pigs and Even Now by Black Sabbath and Barry Manilow.
Let's see what happens.
Let's see what happens.
That was a great experiment.
Who was that from?
That was from Corey, and I just want to give Corey's due.
Side note, saw you guys for the Andre the Giant live in Chicago episode.
I also saw Josh's End of the World live in Chicago.
When you toured that, your short series, it was so great.
And I really enjoyed that.
Josh walked by on his way in when we were outside and patted my friend Sam on the shoulder.
And he's definitely mentioned that several times since then.
Oh, that's awesome.
So that's from Corey, and you patted Sam on the shoulder, and I think that meant a lot to Sam.
Yeah, thanks for coming to see me, Sam and Corey.
It was a fun show, actually.
Let's see.
If you want to let us know how this experiment pans out.
Corey's experiment is what we're going to call it.
Corey's choice.
How about that?
Love it.
No, let's call it...
Corey's song rather than Brian's song.
Oh, okay.
Okay?
No, Corey can wait.
Perfect.
Okay.
Oh, no, but how about Corey's in Charge?
Okay, that's a good one.
That's perfect.
We're going to end on that.
If you want to let us know how the Corey's in Charge experiment goes, we'd love to hear from you.
You can send us an email to stuffpodcasts at iheartradio.com.
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