I Don't Know About That - Monarch Butterflies

Episode Date: October 31, 2023

Think you know everything about Monarch butterflies? Well, now you’re about to thanks to our expert Mark Garland of the Cape May Point Science Center (www.capemaypointsciencecenter.org). Download the Project Monarch app for Apple and Android today! ADS: BetterHelp: BETTER HELP: Visit www.betterhelp.com/IDK today to get 10% off your first month.

This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. Do you feel like your brain is getting its own way? Like you know what you should do, what's good for you, but you just can't do it? Therapy helps you figure out what's holding you back so you can work on yourself instead of working against yourself. Make your brain your friend with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com slash idk today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash IDK. Jack-O-Lanterns. Forrester-Lanterns. What's the correct

pronunciation? Well, you might find out. And I don't know about that. It took me a second to get that. With Jim Jefferies. I wasn't even realising. I didn't even put the that. It took me a second to get that. With Jim Jeffries. Yeah. I wasn't even realizing. I didn't even put the Jack. Jack-o'-lanterns.

I know, because Jack-o'-lanterns just sounds better. Forrest-o'-lanterns. Yeah, I got it. Jim-o'-lanterns. That was pretty good. Jim-o'-lanterns. I'm forward thinking, because this is coming out of Halloween. We're not recording on Halloween, but it's coming out of Halloween.

That's kind of a spooky shirt. Woo! It's a shirt. It's a shirt. It doesn't fit. I'm actually a bit thinner than I normally am at the moment. And this one makes me look fat. It's a fat person's shirt. It just doesn't sit on me right.

I don't know why. What is it? It's like a devil skull? It's like a skull. John Bovardis, I think. It was just like them trying to be fashionable or something. I don't know. I bought it.

I don't really like it. But it wasn't a cheap T-shirt, so I still wear it. Would you prefer that or the ant T-shirt you have? I don't even bring up the ant T-shirt. The ant T-shirt's no good. The ant T-shirt's no good. The ant T-shirt feels better. It makes me look slimmer. The skull doesn't know what the fuck it's doing.

The skull's all right under a jacket, but it can't live out on its own. There's skulls on the ant shirt? This skull. I'm wearing a skull right now. under a jacket, but it can't live out on its own. There's skulls on the animal shirt? This skull. I'm wearing a skull right now. Fucking hell. Don't know why I bother sometimes. He didn't even pick up on me Forrest Allantan joke. I got it.

It was just for you. I got it. You were kind of wearing a Halloween-themed hat. Yeah. Am I? I like it. It's orange and black. Orange and black.

It's like you're trying to support San Francisco and the Dodgers at the same time. Questionable behavior. Yeah. Questionable. This does come out of home. I didn't believe you. I'm looking at your shows, Jim. You got The Beacon this week.

Two shows. Hello, Ween. Hello, Ween. If I had a friend called Ween, I would do that all day. I'd make sure he stood on the other side of the road and I'd yell out, hello, Ween. Should November 1st be goodbye, Ween? Yeah, but I don't like that band. You don't like Ween?

Push your little daisies and make them come up. No, I don't like them. Seems like you know the song. I know that song. I don't know any other. I didn't even know that song from Ween. As soon as I said Ween, I'm like, I don't know a song. Push your little daisies And make him come out

And then people who like Ween Are fucking mad for Ween Yeah one of those bands Yeah yeah yeah One of those bands Where the people are like You Dude

I used to tour around You'd like them if you listened to them Yeah I like them Of course I don't like the daisy song Yeah That's what they would say It's like

You've got to listen to it like ten times It's like me with Oasis I always have to skip past Wonderwall You don't get it. Not about Wonderwall. It's about the other ones. Deep cuts. November 2nd and 3rd this week you'll be at the Beacon Theatre.

Love it. New York, New York. So nice. They named it twice. If I can make it there, I'll buy a big sandwich and say, Gabagool. If you can't see me in the meatpacking district, then I'll be down in the mid-city.

Hell's Kitchen. I'll be in Hell's Kitchen. Me growing up in Hell's Kitchen, it wasn't as easy as it used to be. Me and Mickey, me and Forrest, we were pretty tight back in the old town. I know what you're doing right now. I'm convinced. You're doing the beginning of Jersey Boys, but making it to New York. That's what you're doing.

Oh, Jersey Boys, that bugged me. It was like, if you grew up here, if you grew up here in Jersey, there was only two things you could do. You could either join the mob, but to get out of Jersey, you had to join the mob or become an entertainer. The only way to get out of Jersey, which is just a bridge to New York, by the way. Culturally very different. Yeah, yeah.

There was no way for us to get out. We were stuck in Jersey. for us to get out. We were stuck in Jersey. In this country that, you know, you can have the American dream, but you could never get out of Jersey.

That's the fact. That frustrating, that opening bit of that movie made me almost walk out. To get it, there's no way to get out of Jersey. It's a short drive,

can't wake up. And even that, you don't even have to get out to fucking pump your gas. You're fine. Also, Newark, pretty big airport delaware's right there ah i've been drunk and ended up in jersey and got out when you were

drunk drunk oops wrong train yeah yeah if you want to get it the only way to get out of jersey is to become an entertainer or get on the f train so november 2nd or 3rd, you'll be at the Beacon. November 4th, Hershey, Pennsylvania. November 16th, Austin, Texas. I am very excited about playing New York. I'm only teasing. Yeah, of course. For all you East Coast people that are like,

ba-da! That theater is one of the best theaters in the country. In the world. And you don't even need a microphone. It's so well designed. It's acoustically beautiful. It's awesome. And in the elevator, it's all these legendary bands and artists and stuff.

Very crowded. And they're all in there. November 4th, Hershey, Pennsylvania. November 16th, Austin, Texas at Austin City Limits Live, which is another. Austin in Austin. Yeah, Austin. Looking for the food. November 17th, you've got two shows in Dallas, Texas at the Majestic Theater.

And November 18th in Catoosa, Oklahoma, right near Tulsa at the Hard Rock Hotel Casino. And then December 1st and 2nd. December 1st, my birthday. Tyson's, Virginia, both those, which is basically D.C., Washington, D.C., if you're in the area. Come out and see them. And then Vegas, 8th and 9th at the Mirage. And then a bunch of states. My brother's coming out to Vegas with me.

We're going to have a good time. We're going to have a good time. My last gig's before Christmas. Boom. Woo. So go to jimjeffries.com for all that information. And new tour dates. All your 2024 tour dates.

And there's loads of them. LA's back on sale. That's the one that I always remember. There's loads of different things across the area. Kansas City, Des Moines, Bocaine, Denver, South Carolina, Fort Lauderdale, San Francisco, more Vegas states. They're all there under the touring thing there.

What are you up to first? Oh, you know what? When we do Austin, Texas, the night before you perform, I'm going to do a small room there at the Cap City Comedy Club. I'm going to be in the red room there just doing a show.

So if you're in Austin and you're coming out to the show in Austin, come out to my show too. The day before. Are the Doohickeys touring anyway? We would have played Pioneertown this past weekend. So nothing on the books right now. If you went to Pioneertown?

Yeah. Yeah, by Joshua Tree. Oh, okay. Oh, yeah, that's where we had my... I like that. Yeah, it's cool. We were performing right next to that. For the bachelor party.

That was my bachelor party. We went to Pioneertown. Yeah. We had ribs. Did we ever. The had ribs did we ever the biggest ribs you'll ever have eaten they were good

baby back ribs had a good time and so good IDCAT podcast on Instagram follow us on there there's way more people listening to us

and following us on there so follow us on there you can see clips and announcements all sorts of things look we'll stop using these fucking cameras because 90 something percent

of the listeners are just listening if you don't if you don't see me facial expressions oh you're missing out there's a lot of stuff uh and then follow us all on instagram jim me jack aaron are you on instagram aaron yeah follow aaron don't know what your handle is all right give me a head all right well no they're not doing ads yet we're no we have to meet our guests first have to meet our guest first. Let's meet our guest. Please welcome our guest, Mark Garland. Oh, hello, Mark. Now it's time to play.

Yes, no. Yes, no. Yes, no. Yes, no. Yes, no. Judging a book by its cover. Maybe. Mark Garland, I'm going to say it's the life and time of your niece, Judy Garland.

Well, you and me, your auntie. It would go the other way. Sorry, that was very insulting, Mark. Is it the life and times of your auntie slash grandmother, Judy Garland? That's a wonderful guess, but it's not correct. Write that down. I want to know more about Judy Garland. I didn't listen to the list. Somewhere over the rainbow episode. We're ready

to go. Is it entertainment based? I would not say so, no. I can't tell. You've got two sort of statues next to you. I don't know what those are. They're either like tribal type of masks or they're like, I don't know quite what they are, but I don't think they're giving me anything. I'm gonna help you.

It's not entertainment based. Is it? Is it? We never do sports very much anymore. Is it a sport related thing? We hockey recently. I've done sports. No, no. Okay. Human body. No. a sport related thing we did hockey recently didn't we i've done sports no no okay human body

no is it uh uh the human mind oh all right forest well what isn't but but no i wouldn't say so don't don't give me clues don't give me clues okay uh uh people who are interested in this topic um uh and people who just showed jack what it is so we'll see if you get it people people people who are interested in this topic are they known to be cool like is it like oh wow there's a i know a bloke who's interested in this topic i invite him over right now. Is it like a cool person thing? Well, in my opinion, of course, but I think the average person would say no. No. Okay.

Children might. Children. Children might think it's cool? I think so. Right, Jack? Yeah. Is it the history of Nickelodeon? No.

Yeah. The movie cinemas, the Nickelodeons. No, no. I'm going to give you a hint. We're talking about an animal. Oh, we're talking about an animal. No. Yeah. The movie cinemas, the Nickelodeons. No, no. I'm going to give you a hint. Back during Vaudel. We're talking about an animal. Oh, we're talking about an animal. Okay.

Yeah. And very specific. You know, sometimes we've done birds, but we didn't do specific birds. It's not any birds. But birds don't... There's going to be something we've already done. Don't let it throw you off. Because birds, there's something similar to birds that they do.

But... Penguins. Penguins are birds. You said similar to birds. I said it's not a bird, though. Yeah. He's slightly messing you up with the term animal. Yeah.

Oh. No, no, no, no, no. That's legit. It's an animal. It's an animal. It's true, but he won't... He'll go down the wrong path. Oh, yeah, yeah.

You don't know, Jim, that he will consider this not, yeah, yeah. You don't know, Jim, yet. He will consider this not an animal, maybe. I don't know. I think it's... Is it a bloody dolphin? No, no, no. The dolphins are way... How is a dolphin not an animal?

The dolphin's not an animal. He said it's not a mammal. It's not a fish, and it's not a mammal. It's nothing. They're make-believe. I would say that you've been to a garden of one of these in your life, probably. Octopuses. We've done octopus and squid.

That was a stretch for the podcast when we tried to do a squid as a separate episode. What do you mean? Squid and octopus, they were very different. I can't remember either. Well, they were very different. I can't remember either. Well, they were very different. Still doesn't know about that. There's a blank garden. You might have taken your son to one of these. A butterfly garden.

Yeah, there you go. We're talking about monarch butterflies. In fact, did the young person click? It's a jazz clap. My wife started doing that. Really? She started doing improv classes and now when I say something funny, she goes, uh-oh. Alright, Jim, just so you're on point here, we're talking about specifically monarch butterflies.

All right. Do you know what that is? I know. Okay. Mark Garland. I know there are butterflies called monarch butterflies, but I don't know. Have we done butterflies before?

No. Why don't we just do butterflies in general? Why just the monarch butterflies? Because it's interesting. Can I show him what a monarch butterfly looks like? No, not yet. Not yet. We'll show him.

Mark Garland has a degree in resource management, his bachelor's and his master's in environmental education. He's interested in all aspects of natural history and developed a particular interest in butterflies early on. And he learned about tagging monarchs in the late 1980s. And if you want to donate to his program, and he'll talk a little bit more about that you can go to cape may points science center.org uh yeah you can talk a

little bit about what they would be donating to in that program and what led you to this world of monarch butterflies um how much do you want me to give away now for us yeah i honestly if you said it right now by the time i get to the question, Jim might not remember. A brand new car. Why don't we say we're doing some research related to monarch butterflies that is sponsored by the Cape Maypoint Science Center, and we'll be talking more about what that research entails. Does that work, Forrest? That works great.

We'll talk a little bit more about it at the end. All right. Jim, what does a monarch butterfly look like? Okay, monarch coming from the word monarchy, meaning the king of all butterflies. It comes from the... Yeah, coming from the word king. So I would imagine that it's wings.

You might call them something else, but the wings of the butterfly. You're not confident at all. We'll have black stripes on them like Elvis's sideburns because he was the king going back to the monarch. Okay, black stripes like Elvis's sideburns. From the Latin to be king. I did not, Jim.

Jack, thank you for bringing that up for i don't know anything about i know but we have to do as part of the show i've never even caught i've never been someone to catch a butterfly i like a butterfly yeah there you go if i see a butterfly i go good on you i'll tell you what i'll tell you what they're they don't cause you any harm i've never had one come by and went fuck this thing. And there's so many other things. There's so many other things that fly around. You're happy to see a butterfly.

Happy to see a butterfly. The moth, very closely related to a butterfly. Yet disgusting. Not doing too much different in activity. And it can go fuck itself. Do you know, just as a side question, the difference between a moth and a butterfly? Butterflies aren't fascinated by flying up towards light so i'm going to say it's vision also it's brownness also a butterfly is a bit okay all that a butterfly is is a sexy moth right and we all know with the good looking that you have to sort of you can't make too many sudden

movements or they or they dart away, right? Where the ugly will hang out with you all day. What are you up to? I don't know. I want to go do something. Keep swatting me away. Yeah, the ugly just need attention, right? So because the butterfly is beautiful, they're hard to get moths.

Yeah, hard to get moths. Okay. Sexy moths. Sexy moths, man. Sexy moths. Mark likes it. I can hear him laughing um i forgot to do the category so at the end of me asking all these questions mark on the monarch butterfly you're going to grade them on his accuracy zero through 10 10 being the best jackson grade him on confidence i'm going to grade him on how hungry i am and uh if you score um uh 21 through 30 you're a democratically elected president butterfly 11 through 20

prime minister butterfly 0 through 10 dictator butterfly yeah but a monarchy and a dictatorship is two different things don't worry about it

that's the whole point these are all different alright what is the lifespan of a monarch the queen got to 96 did she

96 she was like a year old and her mother who wasn't a monarch got to 100. Did she? She was 96 or something. She was over 10 years old. I don't know. I'll have to go by that. And her mother, who wasn't a monarch, got to 100. But then her father,

who, he liked the fags, right? Cigarettes, for you American people. Yeah. He liked them, and so he died younger

of the lung cancer. So the butterfly, what's the lifespan? Oh, the monarch butterfly. Yeah, that's what we're talking about today. Oh. I'm going to say two weeks. So the butterfly, what's the lifespan? Oh, the butterfly. Yeah, that's what we're talking about today.

I'm going to say two weeks, three weeks. Two to three weeks. Four weeks. Two to four weeks? Two to four weeks. Okay, two to five weeks. Do you want to describe its life cycle or do you just want to move on? It woke up.

It would come out as some type of like, oh, it's a worm. A worm? A worm. It starts off as a worm. It starts off as a caterpillar. It starts as a caterpillar. Caterpillar is a different thing, right? And the caterpillar goes,

and then it goes into a cocoon. And then the cocoon, it sits there, and you think, like a caterpillar is ugly enough, right? Eating bits of leaves and stuff like that, leaving holes in things, being a nuisance, right? Being a nuisance, right? But it's like the girl at school who, you know, she's no good and then she takes the glasses off in the movie

and you'll go, what? That's what happens after the cocoon. The cocoon is the glasses of the nerdy girl at school. Every one of those movies, they're always like, oh, I reckon you can reckon you can't like she's all that you can't make that girl hot what the hot girl in glasses yeah because she's just tripped over and dropped some books um caterpillar cocoon butterfly they never do it with the fat is what i'm telling you saying they never they always pick someone with a banging body and just like a bad haircut and go you can never turn this around so makeover shows where are they gone i would love them um so the caterpillar cocoon butterfly is what you're saying

there's more to it so what happened is you know that though no no there's silk involved um silk okay anyway no there's not so that's a silkworm so anyway so what happens what happens is the the caterpillar then goes into a cocoon and the cocoon looks ugly in the caterpillar because before there is light there is darkness and the cocoon the thing in there and then it breaks out like this breaks out and then probably in its head the song i'm coming. I want the world to know. And then it comes up. And I think I'm okay with saying this. Probably most butterflies are glamorous homosexuals.

I think I'm okay with saying that. I think so. I don't know. I think so. I wouldn't be surprised if they're all men. The next question was describe their courtship and mating. So we already have that down right then, they're if that if that's your answer all anal how many eggs does a female lay ah the female or as we like to call them the moths the ugly butterfly

i'm just gonna skip to the end the female lays the eggs to make the caterpillars. How many eggs? The caterpillars make the cocoon. How many eggs? 47. 47. Nice. Where are the eggs laid?

Wherever she wants to lay them, man. I don't restrict her and her body. Her body, her choice. Put your eggs out where you want, darling. I'm not going to abort them. Okay. Unless you want to abort them your body your choice what do the adults eat i'd eat them in a sushi restaurant what do the adults eat um what do

the adults eat they eat uh leaves man any specific kind green green leaves where do you find monarch butterflies where in the world jim is pointing to the air if you're uh listening to this in the sky where do you fucking find them how fast do they fly oh they don't fly away from me when they see me I have a good rapport with animals man they just come and land on your house come and land on me I was like I just you know I went to one of those weddings you know when they have them in the butterfly gardens and everyone likes it because all the butterflies land on the bride and the dress and all that type of stuff it's like a beautiful thing so people want to do that for the butterflies they all landed on me didn't they they all landed on me how fast did they fly i was i was trying to wear a black suit so that people didn't see me but then i was

i was like i was like joseph you know he's amazing technicolor dream kate and the people didn't get married but they all had a good time because they got to see me covered in butterflies true story right so how fast did they fly yeah and then my wife had um anthrax said to the house okay true story next question we're gonna just say no answer there um how much does a monarch butterfly weigh okay so I know how to do this because I once had a butterfly land on me while I was on a scale and so I was 207 pounds and then I was two and there was a bit more up but then I did a poo and that would have taken a bit of weight away plus I was

dehydrated do it in grams I'm gonna'm going to say, oh, grams, okay. I don't know what that right is. What should you do it in? What should you do it in? Mark grams? No, I know how to figure it out in grams. All right, so if you cut a butterfly up into lines. Yeah.

Yeah, with your credit card, I assume, yeah. I'm going to skip this one. I'm going to say, I reckon, out of a good, because a Monarch pie out of a butterfly is a big one, because really a gram of Coke, you get 11 beefy lines or about 20-something small lines. I'm going to say you get a nine. I'm going to say it's one gram.

Okay, one gram. 11 lines of butterfly. Here's what I'm going to do. You don't know the answer to any of these. Get frustrated and grumpy? No, no, I'm not frustrated. But I feel like instead of going through all these questions and then asking Mark, how did he do?

Keep asking, keep asking. No, no, no, I'm going to ask you all the questions, but we'll do them one at a time. We're going to go back and answer the ones we've already done. Were we doing a multiple at once, were we? No, I just, I know you don't know any of the body parts what they have a relationship where they migrate antennae feet the ovis yeah i shit about fucking butterflies if you don't know what the ovis is uh uh we're gonna go back to

this we're gonna to do, Mark. He clearly got a zero here, I think, right? Did he get anything right, Mark? I give him one. Yeah. I knew about caterpillars, man. Right. That's three points right there.

Like, I have children. I pass them on information. So he gets a one. Confidence is pretty good. Like, I don't know. I was like a three yeah he doesn't said ovis uh i'm pretty hungry to give him the two um dictator butterfly i got hungry because i said ovis so what does what mark what does a monarch butterfly look like uh jim said because of the monarchy, it's going to have black lines and Elvis sideburns. Black lines, black lines,

Elvis sideburns. It's mostly orange there. This is what a monarch butterfly looks like. Indeed, there are some black lines on the top and a broad black fringe. The base color is this orange and on the body there's a lot of little white spots as well as white spots

in the black rim around the butterfly so i don't know how well the people who are listening to the podcast can see this but um yeah i think people know this butterfly it's a it's one of the big ones you've seen that one right for now do they do they exist in australia uh there's not uh they aren't native to australia but there is an introduced population that does exist in Australia? They aren't native to Australia, but there is an introduced population that does exist in Australia. Right. Because I'm a purist, I only deal with what's native to Australia, so I choose not to.

So no dingoes? Until the indigenous people acknowledge the monarch as one of them, I don't acknowledge them either, so I didn't get to see I didn't get to see the The dingoes aren't native. The dingoes aren't native. That blew my mind, man. When I found out

dingoes weren't native to Australia where the fuck did they come from? They were like Chinese or some shit. They were from China I'm pretty sure and then they basically killed all of the Tasmanian tigers

and they took over their incidentally my son started watching my little boy he started watching the movie Extinct this is on Netflix where I play the Tasmanian Tigers and they took over their name. Incidentally, my son started watching, my little boy started watching the movie Extinct. This is on Netflix where I play the Tasmanian Tiger. I showed him a little bit of it and he's addicted to it now. And I don't think he knows it's me and I'm trying to go,

it's me, but he doesn't buy it. He's like, sure, it's just an Australian guy. Mark, why are they called Monarch Butterflies, do you know? Because Brian Monarch. called monarch butterflies do you know just brian monarch um uh it's an obscure term that goes way back to them just being uh prominent and uh revered why are they revered because because they're big they're big they're colorful uh they're abundant in many areas and you know it's kind of hard to say exactly why they've captured the imagination and the interest of so many people but um you could talk to a lot of folks and and the metamorphosis of butterflies that you described has caused a lot of people to have a spiritual connection to them i know a lot of people when they see it, especially on Monarch, and I'm not sure why that versus other butterflies,

see it as sort of a message from a lost loved one. And so it's really a very revered creature. And that's kind of hard to pin down. If a butterfly comes and visits them, they go, oh, that must be my Aunty Jackie coming to see me because why would a butterfly is that is that what we're saying yeah there's a little of that and i don't know that people really believe that or they just enjoy the symbolism of it i had this mosquito that kept

on biting me the other day might have been your mom depending on your relationship with her yeah i think that's plausible it was a 300 pound mosquito i you know what though is i i had an i had an aunt and she asked for her ashes to be spread around a the the the tree that they would lay the eggs on was the milkweed. And so the butterflies would come there and land on there. And so then they'd be like that. Oh, so you went to hang out with butterflies? Yeah, I guess or something like that. What is the lifespan for a monarch, Jim said, two to four weeks?

This is a complicated one because there's multiple generations in the year. And for most monarchs during spring, summer, early fall, about six weeks is the maximum lifespan. So we're going terribly far off. But I was talking about the live fast, die young, the cool ones, the rock and roll monarchs. I wasn't talking about these ones that go to the bloody gym and they fucking take care of themselves.

I was talking about the real ones but you talk about those ones well that's part of the reason you got one point um they can't uh survive the winter in cold climates so they undertake an amazing migration where most of the monarchs that are found in canada uh and the united states make a thousand two thousand mile migration to the mountains west of mexico city and they go dormant all winter long and that generation can live six to eight months oh being done how long does it take to fly down that distance that's a question later on we'll get there uh yeah yeah we'll get there we didn't get through all the questions yeah we can jump there though

you want to talk about migration we can jump to migration oh heaven forbid i get one question how far how far how far do they fly and what are their migratory routes you know jim they fly down they go away from the cold but from where to where from the coldest place to the warmest place from canada you just said it man okay well let's talk about their great Canada down to Argentina yeah like why do they migrate and how far do they migrate and there you're gonna tell me the Argentina Mexico two different places this show is sponsored by better help I've been going through it a little bit of late. Back in the therapy, back in there, just a few personal reasons. I had a tragedy in my life and plus, you know, life gets you down.

But I'm coming out the other side. I really am. And I'm doing it without any depressants or nothing at the moment. I'm doing it strictly through therapy at the present moment. And if you're on any of the therapy, right, ask yourself, would it hurt? You know, maybe it's not for you, but I doubt it. Who of us doesn't want someone to listen to them? I don't know. The only people that don't want to do therapy are the people

who have never tried it. Yeah. And once you try it, you realize that it is effective and helpful and, yeah. Like, if you feel like your brain's getting its own way you're meant to control your brain your brain's not meant to control you like like do you ever feel like you should know what you do what's good for you but you just can't do it therapy helps you figure out what's holding you back so you can work on yourself instead of against yourself i've benefited uh through therapy, through trauma that I've had in my life, both childhood and recent. And I've worked through just standard, like, you know,

stupid things, career things, mistakes that I've made that I have to talk through, not feeling good enough and all that type of stuff. There's so many reasons, and we all have these things. Unless you're walking around this world right now going, I'm perfect and I feel good about myself, which kudos to you if you can. That's awesome. But most of us aren't. If you're thinking of starting therapy,

give BetterHelp a try. It's entirely online, designed to be convenient, flexible, and suited to your schedule. Just fill out a brief questionnaire and get matched with a licensed therapist and switch therapists anytime at no additional charge. See, a lot of people worry, oh, I'll start with this person. What if I don't like this person?

Then I'm locked in or anything like that. You're not. You're not. You're not. You can switch to a therapist whenever you want. Make your brain your friend with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com slash idk today and get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp.com slash IDK and get 10% off your first month. Why do they migrate? You mentioned a little bit and then how far do they migrate? Yeah, they migrate because they have no adaptation to survive

the prolonged freezes of winter and from wherever they may go through the first life stages the the egg which jim didn't mention uh that moves into the caterpillar the pupa stage which in a butterfly is actually called a chrysalis not a cocoon cocoon is um just for moths and there are more significant differences than wait a minute. Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. So the butterfly fucks or inserts the egg into the caterpillar? No, no, no, no. The caterpillar hatches from the egg. Yeah.

Oh, that was different. I thought the caterpillars were different things. They were just getting abused by butterflies. And they were having an egg put into them. And then the egg was taken over and bursting their body. And they were just vessels. Oh, that's good. How accurate is the book The Hungry, Hungry Caterpillar?

Because I've read that several times. Yeah, and it's biologically inaccurate to say that the butterfly goes through a cocoon it's it's uh something different a cocoon actually does have silk you were headed there and that's what moths do uh chrysalis is just the outer skin hardening into a case in which the metamorphosis occurs and the caterpillar turns into a butterfly but chrysalis is too hard of a word for them to put in a children's book probably well i just i just know that he ate way too much well a monarch caterpillar i don't think this is one of the questions i'm giving away later on but it spends about two weeks in a caterpillar stage and in that time it gains a little over

three thousand times its initial weight um so if an eight pound baby grew like that in two weeks, it would weigh 25,000 pounds. Oh, wow. Okay. And then the migratory route is what then? So they can move up to, in some cases, 3,000 miles. And there's not a specific route they take. Really, they flood all across the continent. There are certain places where the wind currents allow them to get more of a free ride, so many will fly along mountain ridges and along coastlines, but really anywhere across the country you can see monarchs migrating. Most of the ones that head to Mexico are east of the Rocky Mountains. A lot of the ones west head to mexico are east of the rocky mountains a lot of

the ones west of the rocky mountains actually go to uh forest groves along the california coast to spend the winter but that's a real minority of the whole continental population do you dream of a day where we build the wall tall enough that they won't be able to do this anymore that would be very sad yeah they'd fly over it i think one would hope i've been to some of those spots there's one one in um santa cruz right where they maybe gather and right san luis obispo i think or something like that um right and pacific pacific grove right by monterey uh is a well-known spot and they celebrate the monarchs.

They have a big festival, and it's sort of the logo of the town. So, yeah, a number of spots on the California coast. And do they mix with other butterflies? Like, do other butterflies, can other butterflies live in the cold, or is this a general butterfly thing, they hate the cold? Almost all of our butterflies are able to survive winter cold in one of their life stages or another only a few overwinter as adults and they they hunker down during the coldest weather but most butterflies overwinter in one of those earlier stages and

they are adapted to survive those temperatures but the monarch has no such adaptation okay we'll go back up to these questions here now so the life cycle you described it a little bit they start as well i don't know they don't start as a caterpillar right they start they start they start as an egg yeah egg the female is an egg uh in about three days that egg hatches and a tiny little caterpillar comes out it feeds on the leaves of milkweed you were right about that forest um milkweeds are the only only plants that the caterpillars feed on a couple weeks of eating uh that they transform into the chrysalis that takes a couple more weeks

and the transformation occurs inside the chrysalis uh and what bursts out is the adult butterfly okay and the courtship and mating jim said know, he said he thought it was all anal. So I think that's wrong. I think it's all anal because they're all like drag queen type characters, right? Butterflies? They couldn't. Am I wrong? You're wrong.

Correct me if I'm wrong. I don't know the right answer, but you're wrong. Yeah, it's not very complicated. The males do the chasing around. They will actually have territorial battles and will try and set up territory over a nice flower garden. And when the female comes, he will try and spread a little bit of good cheer in terms of some special sense he produces called pheromones. But monarchs don't use that as much as most butterflies and moths do. Basically, he just grabs on, and if she's receptive, it's tip of abdomen to tip of abdomen, so there's no looking in their eyes.

Docking. No looking in their eyes, yeah. With the docking that goes on between the two butterflies, because both men, can butterflies crossbreed? Can a monarch go take on another one? It's not known to have ever occurred. And how many eggs is a female? So you could say they're a bigoted bunch, the butterfly community, eh?

That they don't mix with others. That's kind of harsh, but yeah, they stick to their own species. Without saying what we're going to say, we know which way they'd vote. You have sex outside of your species, Jim? My life's my life? Do we want to hear the answer? No, that's not the species. Because other butterflies are the same species.

Yeah, they are. No. Oh, come on now, Forrest. Come on now. Come on now, Forrest. You're telling me that two butterflies are a different species, so that would be the equivalent...

If two butterflies fucked, that would be the equivalent of me fucking a dog. No. Or maybe something a little closer, like an orangutan. Yeah. Oh. And that's a problem.

I don't know why. I don't know why. This part, that can be done. Yeah, sure. Okay. That's what they always told us that AIDS came about, wasn't it?

They said someone fucked a monkey or something. Yeah, well, same thing as a bat with COVID. It's probably been a bat and that's not how it happened. It's all bullshit. You just say, someone ate this and someone ate that. And how many eggs does a female lay? Jim said 47. Is he close?

200 to 400. Oh, wow. Not too bad. Yeah. And he said they lay the eggs wherever her body, it's her body, her choice, wherever each one's laying eggs. Her body, her choice. They'll exclusively lay the eggs on the milkweed plant,

which is the only plant their caterpillars can feed on. Oh, yeah. Well, that's a podcast for another day. What's a milkweed? What's a milkweed? What's a milkweed? It's a type of plant. Yeah, there are actually a number of different kinds of milkweed that they're all in the same genus

and monarchs can use any of them. Are they around this time or are they really rare, the milkweed? Do I see milkweeds in the constant? I don't know if there are any in eurasia or africa or australia they're they're widespread in the americas north south central america there's pictures right there jack's showing on some pictures right we have we have butterflies in australia you could have

them here in la milkweed would grow here so you could say it could be oh yeah people plant it in their yards to attract butterflies so like because each butterfly, and I don't know a lot about, but each butterfly eats, like the caterpillars will eat different plants, right? So. Of different kinds of butterflies and moths, yes. Yeah. So people plant those plants. Many of them have very specific relationships with certain plants that are known as the

host plant for that particular butterfly or moth. Yeah. So people like that want butterflies in their yard, they will plant the specific plants for the butterflies they want to see, and they'll come there. Why do moths not come out during the day? It feels like... There are a few that do.

Because they get so excited by a light bulb at night, you feel like the day would be like... They're just flying at the sun the whole time. Like they'd just be outside like this. No one told me about the day I've been asleep the whole time. This is so fucking good. Idiots. Do you want Mark to answer that?

Yeah, why do they... He said some of them do. Yeah, some of them do, but birds eat a lot of moths and uh being out in the daytime would be quite dangerous for most moths oh that answer the ones that gave it the ones that gave it a try they're gone yeah there was one guy's like you idiots i go out in the day dead um uh how fast do monarch butterflies fly jim didn't have an answer for that he had a thing about a wedding i was at a wedding i was at a wedding i'm telling you animals love me how could they not i once i once had a caterpillar go in between my scrotum and my thigh it could make a cocoon a chrysalis wow yeah but i took the underwear off and a butterfly just went

jim if you're gonna do it right say right it's a chrysalis no no it didn't look like that to me okay so how fast do they fly mark um not counting any wind because they can uh be assisted by the wind but in still conditions anywhere from four to about a maximum of 12 miles an hour oh i run faster than that don't i I? Yeah, you've seen butterflies. They're not specifically really fast. I thought they'd be faster than me. I don't think you run faster than 12, no. I think I run faster than 12 miles an hour, don't I?

Absolutely not, no. I don't think so. If I'm really going for it. Yeah, what if he's running downhill? That's his edge. What if he's downhill? No, because don't you walk at five miles an hour? If you're going really fast. If that's walking walk at five miles an hour? If you're going really fast.

If that's walking, walking five miles an hour, I'm definitely going more than double me walk. All day I can run 12 miles an hour. I'm putting it out there. How fast can humans run? The fastest anyone's run is 27 miles an hour. Yeah, so I'm running. That's Usain Bolt.

Yeah, yeah. Hold on, hold on. Hold on, hold on. They're not Usain Bolts. Hold on. If I raced against Usain Bolt, I'd yeah. Hold on, hold on. Hold on, hold on. They're not Usain Bolts. Hold on, hold on. If I raced against Usain Bolt, I'd be up to the 40-meter mark. The average human male runs 8 miles an hour and female 6 1⁄2. Then I'd definitely run 12.

Yeah, he's above average. Look at that, he's above average. All right, all right. I'm above average. He's a Peloton in his house. Yeah, I got a Peloton. Yeah, and it says that I'm above average. The Peloton says now that I'm above average.

It says, good work, Jim. Yeah, against like women in their 70s with osteoporosis. I'm kicking their ass. So they fly 4 to 12 miles an hour. And how far are these migratory routes? You said like 3,000 miles. The maximum is about 3,000 miles. From where we are here in southern New Jersey,

it's about 2,000 miles to where they're headed. What's their main predator? They are actually poisonous to vertebrates because of some chemicals they get out of the milkweed plants. So birds cannot eat them. Mammals cannot eat them. Reptiles, amphibians cannot eat them. Their predators are invertebrates so spiders are a big deal uh praying mantids um some big assassin bugs things like that can uh be the

predators for monarchs and what what good slash bad do they do for our society are they helpful because it always feels like you know when they say if we lose the bees then we're all going to die and if this animal does this and this animal does that, how do they help us in any way? Or are they just putting... Well, like many insects, they are pollinators. When we talk about the relationship with monarchs and milkweed, that's just the caterpillars.

I don't know if I'm giving away another answer if I go further. It's okay. We're all over the place. I don't know anything. You don't know anything. I don't know if i'm giving away another answer if i if i go further it's okay we're all over the place i don't know anything nothing yeah the adult monarch butterflies feed on the nectar from flowers um and lots of different flowers they'll feed on and in the process of doing that they're moving pollen from one to another and of course most of our agricultural crops rely on insect pollinators so they're one of of a number of insects that help our agricultural crops grow successfully uh can they like so so a lot of uh problems with the australian ecosystem is introduced animals

um the domestic cat the cane toad etc the, the rabbit, when they're introduced into another country like Australia, are they a problem then or are they always just doing good? I don't know of any harm they would cause in a couple of parts of the world where they've been either intentionally or inadvertently introduced. We don't know how they got to some of these other places. But there's nothing I can imagine that would be really harmful to the environment. Yeah, unless you're a bird eating it. That's gross.

That's it, right? No, it's... But that's their defense mechanism, so yeah. Yeah, it's just... Yeah, actually... Is that good? Actually, the birds aren't necessarily poisoned because the monarchs also seem to be incredibly bitter and distasteful.

And before the birds can stomach enough to really be poisoned, they spit them out. Actually, there was a wonderful experiment done years ago where they raised a bird in a laboratory. It was a blue jay. And every day of its life it got fed by the graduate students. It was very trusting. And when they gave it a monarch, it ate it down and immediately started vomiting. They're just like hot chicks, aren't they? They're very pretty. If you go near them, you hate yourself. I understand who they are. They don't achieve much. They act like they're doing everything all the time. No, they't pollinators. They don't achieve much. They act like they're doing everything all the time.

No, they're pollinators. It's important. You wouldn't have your fruits, vegetables, things like that. You can pollinate with a hot chick. It's just difficult to do it. Yeah, true. How much does a monarch butterfly weigh? Jim says a gram.

Yeah, it's not too far away, about half a gram. Half a gram. Yeah, well, not if you stretch it out. Not if you cut it with some paracetamol and how can you tell a male from a female female monarch is it like to the eye can you tell or uh yeah it's not a dramatic difference but the dark lines the part of the monarch that jim got right uh the dark lines are much thicker and much more prominent on a female. And also there's a little raised gland.

It's also black on black on one of the hind wings on the top side of the males only. And that's the scent producing gland. So only males have that. But with one quick look, thick lines looking fairly dark is a female and thinner lines with the orange color more prominent is a male in the monarch butterfly community uh do you have a group that you hang out with that you come and see um you're talking about me or the monarch you you like is there because whenever there's someone passionate about a unique subject especially with how the internet is now, there's always a community of people that have gotten together.

Do you have monarch butterfly conventions? Do you have a group that you chat with online? If people are interested in being fascinated by monarch butterflies, what do they do? Who do they reach out to? Oh, there's all of that. There's a number of different social media groups related to monarch butterflies uh there are scientific conferences held periodically about them um frankly i'm not too plugged into all of that i mean i've been involved

with a couple scientific papers but mostly i i work here in our own community which is a major major uh concentration point for monarch butterflies because of the geography and we have a lot of people that come here during the fall when the monarchs are are migrating and some are good friends of mine and and others i meet each year and end up answering a lot of questions and uh trying not to disappoint them when they're interested in seeing monarch butterflies if it happens to be a day when the weather's wrong and we don't see very many is it bad to keep them in captivity does it hurt the animal i guess they only live for a short amount of time so why would you ever keep one but like

you know butterfly nets these great big nets with a little tiny hoop and the long bit at the back like they've got to be used for some purpose. What's the point of ever catching one? Well, there's a couple different points. In the old days, a lot of people would actually kill the butterflies and put them in a collection. And happily, that's not so much of a hobby as it once was. Those ones in the glass where they look like they're alive, how do they do that? Because I remember that from school.

They had those ones that they bring you and they're in the glass and the wings were up and everything. is that just like taxidermy like they obviously they're not stuffed do they spray him with something or what do they do there yeah it's not actually hard to preserve one they're uh they're laid flat uh and frankly those really pristine ones and the great big ones are tropical ones that are actually raised to be killed immediately after they emerge from the chrysalis as an adult so they're perfect and then they're just spread out as they dry they're they're intact like that and they're usually put inside of a glass case sometimes with just a touch of insecticide in there that will keep

little tiny beetles and other things that might get in there and want to eat them up so that they become these beautiful specimens it's not something i have around my house no no it's it's inhumane i think to do things like that uh all right so so what so the other reason the catch went in a butterfly net would be what then um i just happen to have one here because for my research purposes, I catch monarch butterflies. Where's Curious George?

And then after we do the work that we do that I'm not going to give away quite yet, I release them back into the wild. Well, let's talk about that work then. So let me ask you this, Jim. How would you study a monarch migration? They're little butterflies flying. How would you do that?

How would you study it? You would tag the animal and then you would follow it on radar, similar to that of Find My Phone or anything like that. How do you tag a butterfly that's so small and light? If you don't know this, Forrest, I don't need to tell you. It's pretty obvious because he tags them and then they follow the migration. So how much do the transmitters weigh then? Well, if the butterfly is a gram.

Half a gram. Half a gram. So I would say one hundredth of a gram. It would be a little speck say one hundredth of a gram it'd be a little spec one hundredth okay uh otherwise the thing's not taken off if you give it something one eighth of a gram how much body weight why don't you talk about this mark like how do you guys study monarch migration and the tagging and all that yeah yeah cool um for many years actually the tagging and and you know jim's spot on with that but traditionally it's been done with just little stickers that have a unique uh alphanumeric code on them letters and numbers

uh each one different sticker goes on the wing it's it's really light but that depends on somebody finding that butterfly somewhere along the migration route um and from our our work here we've been tagging monarchs that way for over 30 years, and maybe about one out of every 300 or 400 ever gets found again. But brand new this year are these tiny little transmitters that we are attaching to some monarch butterflies, and it weighs 0.05 grams so um five one hundredths of a gram not one one hundredth um and it's the equivalent maybe of you having a 10 pound backpack on your back uh it doesn't seem to affect the way they fly at all and what's really

cool is something this small is not going to have a super powerful transmitter, right? So if it can't transmit very far, what's the solution to that? That's to fill the world with receivers. And these transmitters send out signals on Bluetooth, and there's a free app that anyone interested in monarch migration can download. And running that app, it will detect any of these monarchs that are within maybe 100 yards of your location. Oh, I might get that.

That would be something I'd really enjoy because you know what I'd do, right? If I found one, I'd fucking catch it and then I'd put it in my car and I'd drive as fast as I can. So someone's watching on the side and they're going, oh no, it's eaten some berry, it's gotten super strength. It's flying faster than that gym guy can run yeah yeah yeah it's going faster just make sure you take it to mexico yeah yeah yeah don't go up somewhere cold no no santa barbara lovely little trip there and back just a day trip introduce it to a spot prawn so these transmitters

how do you how do they get attached to the butterfly uh this is really cool uh the uh the body parts of a butterfly which jim had some of them right but the actual body consists of the head in the front of the thorax in the middle which is the muscular section where the wings and the legs are attached and then the abdomen And these get attached with an adhesive to the back of the abdomen, and that little antenna runs over top of the abdomen. So they're attached to the thorax, and we use an adhesive that many people are surprised to learn what adhesive we use. Do you want to make a guess? I would say it's Blu-Tack.

It's that stuff you put posters up in your room before you can buy real artwork as you're older. Reasonable guess, but not the right one. It's a glue stick. Another reasonable guess, but not the right one. A post-it note that you've folded in half. There's post-it bits on both sides, and then you've stapled it together, so it's a double- A post-it note that you've folded in half. So there's posty bits on both sides, and then you've stapled it together, so it's a double-sided post-it note. A less reasonable guess, but I'll accept it as incorrect. Come.

All right. Eyelash glue. The glue that people use to put their false eyelashes on um i don't have mine handy right now but uh so you're telling me all those women i've dated in hollywood who have those great big eyelashes they're not real just let me take that in for a minute so sorry you had to find out i i don't know these individual women myself but i don't even truly know themselves mate and wait that's waterproof eyelash glue like in the rain and stuff

well yeah i mean you know trust me that stuff will kick those eyelashes on through tears or whatever you want but yeah it dries very quickly um and and it's it's known to be safe to be put on human skin so it's uh it's shown to be safe on the butterflies uh and it's easy to attain you don't have to go to the biological supply store and spend a hundred dollars or some fancy uh adhesive uh you just go to the drugstore and uh we use the quick set. So it dries within just a couple minutes. And so now that you guys have these transmitters on them and stuff you've this is you've been tracking them or you've just beginning to do this and then what do you guys hope to find

out about it? That this is brand new technology. In fact, as recently as August, we didn't know if this would be ready this fall. This is one of those remarkable projects that is both ahead of schedule and without major glitches. So we're really be ready this fall. This is one of those remarkable projects that is both ahead of schedule and without major glitches. So we're real excited. It's all testing this year to see if it works. We've put these transmitters now on 58 monarch butterflies. We're going to do a few more tomorrow over the course of this migration season, which has a couple more weeks left.

We're hoping to do about 100. We're just getting the word out about the app so we're getting more and more people uh working to to track them we've um here we are in southern new jersey their next stop is in delaware and then uh name the app again name the app again so people know what the app this is because this is worth plugging because this is a brand new thing we can all go through what's the name of the app again yeah it's project monarch and it's sponsored by the cape maypoint science center and the company that developed these uh which is called cellular tracking technologies and uh just on on either the ios platform or the android platform it's available free a free free download, and Project Monarch.

And the more people that download it, the better, because that's how you guys are going to get the data, right? It's through this app. Yeah, that's right. It's a very simple regulation process. You don't have to pay. You don't have to click coins or anything to make your butterfly bigger as you go along. I've been caught by a lot of games like that.

You have a chrysalis you have to protect. No, it's absolutely free, but, you know, these really brilliant people If I see a butterfly on there that I don't like, can I swipe left? I think you're on a different app. But they did put a leaderboard on here. So you can get on the leaderboard if you've had the most detections of monarchs. And there's, honest to gosh, there's someone that lives near here who, when you're near one of these monarchs with the transmitter, if you have the app running, you get another detection every few seconds. transmitter uh if you have the app running you get another detection every few seconds and we have someone that when we released a number of them and they stick stick around one garden he

stayed in that garden for hours just running up his numbers um and he's now number two on our leaderboard oh wow that's kind of cool so it's a little bit like like pokemon go yeah pokemon like i'm being i know i'm saying a bit flippant, but that... Okay, so when are they going to be coming to California? They should be arriving now, and by early November, they should be starting to gather in those sites that Forrest was talking about. You're going to see me on the leaderboard. You can plant some milkweed in your backyard. I won't get that far, but I'll sit in the backyard of someone else who has milkweed

or you can just find flowers the nectar yeah yeah you got to find the nectar the milkweeds only get the caterpillars and we have not put these on caterpillars and i don't think we're planning to because the caterpillars uh may be lucky if they travel about 50 yards in their lives you need some nectar plants nectar plants and flowers Right. Here's one other quick. I'm sorry. Keep going, Mark. Oh, I was just going to say you'll be a pretty disappointed this fall, Jim, because this is in the testing stage and they're only being deployed here near where they're made in southern New Jersey. But we already have some monarch biologists working on the West Coast who are planning to deploy many of them next year. So you got to wait till next year to get on the West Coast who are planning to deploy many of them next year. So you've got to wait until next year to get on the leaderboard.

And I know they're going to wipe it clean after this season, so it's a fresh start next year. You've got a chance to go way up. It must be sad when there's one of the ones, the detectors that it's on, and then that one just stops flying and you're like, that one's dead. Wow. Can you disengage its little thing when it passes away, or do we always find just a little pile of them underneath someone's stairs or something? We don't know yet.

How expensive are those little followers? They seem like they wouldn't be cheap, right? They're so small. How expensive is it to have them? Well, right now, again, we're in the experimental stage. A lot of the assembly of this is done by hand. There's been a lot of expense in terms of researching, developing it, you know, the R&D cost. So we don't know what the actual cost is going to be.

If you want to buy one right now, they are for sale for $125 each. But over the course of the next year, I'm sure we're going to find ways to mass produce them the cost should come way way down and like i say there's some people on the west coast who are eager to get them and deploy them next year and so that's when you're going to get up on the leaderboard do you believe that you're going to find like if they're 120 each they're worth something right don't send them here to la the homeless will take them rip rip off their wings and bloody start selling them. Me?

You'll buy them. Yeah, I'll buy them. Isn't there a fear that people will start wanting, because it's $125 flying past you all the time. Isn't there an eBay you could sell these things off? Well, like I say, I think

as the product gets refined and some mass production techniques go into place um i anticipate the price coming way down yeah it'll be cheaper when it's not handmade and you gotta go so it's a shocker to no one there's no tags detected where we are right yeah well you still download to get save the app for next season start next year but i'll tell you what mark next next year when when the west coast starts going on at any time this this gears up just let us know we'll make a another announcement download your app start counting them um real quick i got one cool one other question i didn't ask on here jim d what relation do the monarchs have to the viceroy butterfly uh viceroy yeah um the vice what relation do they have second it's a different type of butterfly. Second cousins.

Second cousins? Yeah. Okay. Mark? That's not too far away. They're in the same family of butterflies, but they're not terribly closely related. However, the viceroy is a well-known mimic of the monarch. It looks very, very much like a monarch butterfly. And since the monarch is something that birds and mammals can't eat, the viceroy gains protection by looking like a monarch.

Is that like when I go, I'm the queen? Yes. I don't know. Hello. You know, think of a food you really, really hate. You know, think of a food you really, really hate. And imagine if someone disguised something you love, a bowl of ice cream, to look like, I don't know,

a place of overcooked Brussels sprouts or something. You might avoid it for that reason. I don't know. Maybe you love overcooked Brussels sprouts. No, he doesn't like bananas. Bananas would be the one for Jim. My husband and I. Butterfly. Mark, this is a part of our podcast called Dinner Party Facts.

We ask our expert to give us a fact, something obscure, interesting to impress people about the subject. What do you got for us from monarch butterflies? All right. We talked about how monarchs can't be eaten by birds. They gather in huge numbers down in Mexico for the winter though and there's one specific type of bird called the black-backed oriole that has figured out it can dissect the body of a monarch butterfly and has learned which parts don't have the toxin and it it picks and chooses the non-toxic parts and is able to eat some of monarch butterflies that no other bird can really eat yeah it's the hand of electric wow birds yes fava beans all right um well uh is that what he

is fava i don't know um visit cape may points science center.org if you want to contribute to uh uh if you want to donate to some of the research that's going on or learn more about it and also the app again i'm sorry because I didn't write it down here, Mark, is what? Project Monarch. Project Monarch. Download that app. If you're on the East Coast this year, you can start loading up your numbers and tracking them.

And next year we'll have them on the West Coast and we'll just be getting more and more. The leaderboard's pretty high right now. The leaderboard? Who's seen the most Monarchs? I'll tell you, someone named Space Needle. They have 17,021 detections. What?

What? That's the same. It's the same one. Is that the guy? Is that the guy, Mark? Yeah, that's the COO of the company that makes these things. I swear he got all those detections in the lab. Oh, so he's walking around just near the monitors.

Go to the next category to the right. Go to the next toggle on the top. That's the individual number of monarchs. Mark Garland, 56 individuals. Who's that? That's 56 of the 58 and that's because I've been involved with deploying all of these. A lot of nepotism.

A lot of nepotism here, Mark. I'm beginning to think this is happening as a real thing here, Mark. You're going to wipe me off the leaderboard, too. Space Needle has 40, so he's catching on. Space Needle, Space Needle. Well, thanks a lot for being here, Mark. Thanks for being on the podcast, Mark. We appreciate it, mate.

It's awesome. I've had a great time. Thank you. I'm going to download the app when it comes to LA. I'm not going to waste space on my phone now. Next year, Doug. Yeah, next year, I'm all over that. Ladies and gentlemen, if you're ever at a bar or you're at a dinner party

and someone walks up to you and goes, hey, you know, the Monarch Butterfly, it has no black stripes. Go, well, I don't know about that and walk away. Good night, Australia.