SciShow Tangents - Bug Bites

Episode Date: August 6, 2024

Some are itchy, some are painful, some go totally unnoticed by us every single day...bugs have such variety in the ways they chomp, some chomps aren't even from bug mouths, but from bug butts! Join us while we debate, query, and learn all we can about the wide world of bug bites.SciShow Tangents is on YouTube! Go to www.youtube.com/scishowtangents to check out this episode with the added bonus of seeing our faces! Head to www.patreon.com/SciShowTangents to find out how you can help support SciShow Tangents, and see all the cool perks you’ll get in return, like bonus episodes and a monthly newsletter! A big thank you to Patreon subscriber Garth Riley for helping to make the show possible!And go to https://store.dftba.com/collections/scishow-tangents to buy some great Tangents merch!Follow us on Twitter @SciShowTangents, where we’ll tweet out topics for upcoming episodes and you can ask the science couch questions! While you're at it, check out the Tangents crew on Twitter: Ceri: @ceriley Sam: @im_sam_schultz Hank: @hankgreen[This, That, or the Other: These Ouches Are No Slouches]https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/cla.12103https://www.press.jhu.edu/books/title/10878/sting-wild[Trivia Question]Size of giant toe-biting water bugs found in Cyprushttps://travaux.pensoft.net/article/94457/https://www.livescience.com/animals/insects/giant-toe-biter-water-bugs-discovered-in-cyprus-for-the-1st-timehttps://blog.abchomeandcommercial.com/do-water-bugs-bite/https://cyprus-mail.com/2024/03/20/massive-bug-sighted-keep-your-toes-out-of-the-water/[Fact Off]Epomis beetle larvae and adults eat frogs as role-reversal predatorshttps://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0025161Bumble bees bite plant leaves to make them flower earlyhttps://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aay0496https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/bumblebees-bite-plants-to-force-them-to-flower-seriously/https://wisconsinbumblebees.entomology.wisc.edu/about-bumble-bees/life-cycle-and-development/https://academic.oup.com/jxb/article/67/17/4925/2197656[Ask the Science Couch]Causes of itchiness and how calamine lotion / zinc oxide workshttps://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4862869/https://www.cuimc.columbia.edu/news/how-stop-bug-bites-itchinghttps://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9532860/https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/immunology/articles/10.3389/fimmu.2019.02090/fullhttps://jsstd.org/calamine-lotion/https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4120804/Patreon bonus: Bugs with big mandibles or bite marks (even if they rarely bite humans)https://pukaha.org.nz/the-wacky-world-of-new-zealand-weta/https://newzealandecology.org/nzje/2995https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/stag-beetles.htmlhttps://journals.biologists.com/jeb/article/217/7/1065/13119/Biomechanical-determinants-of-bite-forcehttps://www.nps.gov/articles/giant-water-bug.htm[Butt One More Thing]Beaded lacewing (Lomamyia latipennis) larvae paralyze termites with farts before eating themhttps://www.wired.com/2015/06/silent-deadly-fatal-farts-immobilize-prey/https://www.nature.com/articles/289506a0

You're listening to a Complexly Podcast. Hello and welcome to SciShow Tangents, the lightly competitive science knowledge showcase. I'm your host Hank Green and joining me this week as always is science expert and 30 under 30 education luminary, Sari Reilly. Ahoy. And more importantly, he's still a clone. We're not sure where the real Sam is. It's Sam Schultz.

Hello, he's gone. He's gone forever? What did you do to him? I didn't do anything to him. He just went off to live a different life, you know? Okay. Maybe someday you'll be sitting a different life, you know? Okay. Maybe someday he'll be sitting at a cafe and you'll see somebody across

and you'll think that's Sam, not anymore. Where would, like, if you were that Sam, where would you run to? I think I'd learn how to be a bush pilot. Oh, nice. And, you know, Alaska. Or I would be, I would live like Jimmy Buffett lifestyle down in the Florida Keys or something like that I think that's that's probably where I am if I had to guess here's the thing about bush pilot is you could like

I don't I don't know that they test test those guys. I don't know if they're licensed I feel like you just like fly around with bush pilots enough. They're like you count. You're a bush pilot now I see what you're saying. Sure. You're too far up there for anybody to bother checking your license. I've told this story somewhere before, but I was talking to a friend of mine who used to work for an organization in Alaska, and she got flown around by bush pilots all the time.

She was once in the air in a plane, like a little bush pilot plane. Oh boy. And the pilot said, uh-oh, like out loud, uh-oh. No. Like he was like visibly got nervous and looked scared. little bush pilot plane. Oh boy. And the pilot said, uh-oh, like out loud. Uh-oh. Ooh. No. Like he was like visibly got nervous and looked scared.

And she was like, what? And he was like, it's not a problem, but I have to go this other way. And he changed the direction of the plane and went to a different place and landed the plane and picked up a person he had forgotten for a week. For a week? No!

That's a good punchline, but I feel so bad. Like the idea that you're like, I guess I'll die here? I guess I won't leave. Like, I'm not gonna walk out. There is no better thing to say when you realize that than uh-oh though. Uh-oh. Uh-oh. Just had the thought. There is no better thing to say when you realize that then Just had the thought I told Craig I was gonna go pick him up I sent him a little passenger pigeon and then forgot word. Where would you go?

Sarah where'd you where'd you bug out to? Okay. I also have I feel like two very different answers Okay, one of them is I just read this very good article about people who maintain the cables that carry the internet on the bottom of the ocean. Oh, wow. So there is a fleet of like 40, I think 40 boats that just trawl the ocean floors and whenever something breaks, then they all like go find the site of the breakage of the cable and pull it up and splice it back together.

And apparently it's a bunch of like old men right now because they don't have young people who are interested in doing this kind of maintenance electrical engineering work and living on boats. It sounds in another life. In another life, I am out on a boat. The ocean is my family. You still have time.

You still have time here. Yeah, you go back to port. You see your family every once in a while and whatnot, but I'm maintaining the thing that makes the internet run instead of making content on the internet. Yeah, the deep sea wires from getting bit by sperm whales. Earthquakes is a lot of the damage. So when the tectonic plates shift or when there's a landslide, then that can snap the cables.

And you got to pull it up, add a bunch of extra length, and then drop it back down on the floor. You're a salty old sea dog. Somebody sees you on a pier. They say, aren't you Sarah Riley from podcasts? And you say, I used to be. I used to be. I used to be.

I used to be. We can't podcast out here. We don't have internet. We just fix internet. Yeah, we don't have internet. We just fix it. And what a sentence that is. Yeah, I mean, they probably have Starlink now.

Nowadays, everybody can get internet anytime. Even my phone. My phone has this little thing where I'm stuck in the woods And I don't have service. It's like there's like an emergency SOS signal I can send oh Amazing where would you go Hank? I don't know I asked you guys and I didn't I love being on it I feel like a boat full of internet patcher guys is like prime time for like some some guys who've lived some lives. Just some real lives been lived.

A lot of like maybe like stories to get told, but some stories that they can't tell. There's not like a particular like like idealistic profession. Like I don't want to be a surf instructor. You know, like that doesn't appeal to me at all. But I would love to be like a I guess guess, like a tour guide, maybe, in South America, or like a fixer. Like my job is like when a movie has to go film in South America, like I go and I help them do it and I know all of the ways.

Or if like a mafia boss needs to, needs to like have a nice vacation, but be safe. But how are you, you got to go learn this. But how are you gonna go learn this stuff? How are you gonna do that part? You know, I have a lot of skills. Okay. I think it would be very hard for me to hide is maybe part of the problem I'm having. I think I'm at the point in my career where it might be a little tricky to blend into to anywhere.

And you could go hang out with some old men on a boat and they wouldn't have a fucking clue where you were. Heck yeah. Heck yeah. That would be fine. Every week here on Slash Your Tangents we get together to try to one-up a maze and delight each other with science facts while also trying to stay on topic. Our panelists are playing for glory and for Hank bucks, which I'll be awarding as we play.

At the end of the episode, one of us will be crowned the winner. But first, to start off, we have to introduce this week's topic with the traditional science poem this week from Sam. You do your best throughout the day to mind your own business and be on your way. But while you're busy doing that, what you don't notice is that gnat giving you a nibble upon the leg until later that day when it's Swelly and red or that little tick under your hair latched right on though You're unaware until much later on when that little bud is all engorged on your sweet sweet blood

But that spider creeping under your sheet that gives you a bite when you're asleep I don't know why they do it, but they do. Then sometimes nasty symptoms can ensue. Yes, every minute of every day, you're covered in bugs that are gnawing away, but it's best not to think about it, my friend, all those creepy crawlies making a meal of your skin. The topic for today is bug bites, and now I'm grossed out.

It's true though, kind of, right, they're on us now. Yeah, they're eating your dead skin, I think. Well, or your blood. Like, a mosquito bite counts as a bug bite, yeah? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. Before we dive in and figure out what the heck a bug bite is, though, we're gonna take a short break, then we'll be back to Define Our Term. I feel like Bug Bite is definable, because Bug is fairly specific.

Well, now we're going to find ourselves in a corner because bugs are weird. But, Sari, what's a bug bite? Can you tell me? You know, when you see it or when you feel it, you're like, that's a bug bite. Probably. It's kind of a catchall term. Yeah, it doesn't have to be a bite. Doesn't have to be a bite.

It doesn't have to be a bug either because a spider is not a bug. Doesn't have to be. Yeah. Yeah, there are there are true bugs, which is a number of different insects. I think that mosquitoes are also not true bugs. But there is a colloquial term of bug, which is just like land dwelling arthropod. And I'm happy to have any land dwelling arthropod

be the line at which we draw it. You've been, they're somehow, they've got a bit of you, somehow. They did an ouch to you. They did an ouchy to you. And it crabs doesn't, don't count. Oh, well. Cause they're in the ocean. A crab pinching you doesn't count.

That's not a bug bite. Sometimes. Okay, so if they can't go in the ocean, then they're exempt from bug bite. But what about a water bug? Like some of their, they're a little water, some of them swim? That's a terrestrial, that's a terrestrial arthropod, water bug. Still terrestrial?

Yeah, it's a lineage thing. It's a taxonomic thing. It's not like a... Oh, okay, gotcha. Yeah, I mean, that's pretty much it. I feel like arthropods, if they bite or sting you, and then... Hey, hey, scorpion, scorpion?

I think so. I think that's a Bug Bite kind of scorpion sting is a bug bite I think you have to do it with your mouth, but bees do it with their butt wasps do it with it I was like wait, is that a bug bite is this is a lot closer? That's a lot closer to a bug bite than a scorpion sting I feel like scorpion sting gets to be its own thing separate. They're both bug, but bites. They're both bug butt bites. They're both bug butts bites. Yeah. Okay.

Well we can draw the line. Bug can bite with butt. Bug can bite with butt for sure. Can you bite with your butt? Yes, bug can. Bug can? Sam can't. Sam can't bite with butt.

Bug can bite with butt. Try as I might. I can put some dentures down there and give it the old college try. Sam can bite with butt. But you're not a bug then. But I'm not a bug. Because you're not a bug, so it doesn't matter. That's a sand bite.

I can go in the ocean in a half. If Sam put dentures in his butt and bit me, would that be a sand bite? Yes. Yes. You could use the mouth or the butt, but that's not a bug, so irrelevant to this episode. So, no, it doesn't matter. I think it's relevant to the conversation though. That's the next episode. Yeah, it doesn't matter. I think it's relevant to the conversation, though.

That's the next episode. Yeah. And if you're considering arthropods, so centipedes, their mouthpieces are modified legs. They're modified appendages. Oh, sure. That are going to bite you. Right. So can you bite someone with leg mouth?

Is that a bug bite? It doesn't have to be the mouth. Yeah, like that about like mouth. It's it doesn't have to be the mouth. It has to be the front end or the butt end or sometimes the. But I don't think a beast is a bug bite. OK, I might agree. OK, I think I agree now. I'm going to ask on Twitter, everybody. Well, OK, so I think it is the pre definition or the post definition. Are you looking at the appendage of the bug that is doing the biting,

or are you looking at the thing on your skin and you're like, I have a bug bite on me, at which point you don't know whether it was the mouth or the butt that did it to you. It's true. In many cases. Sometimes with the sting. There's a thing on your body and you're like, that's a bug bite, but you don't know

if it was a bug bite, but it is still a bug bite. And you can deduce sometimes whether it was a sting or not, if they left part of their butt behind in it. But sometimes it's a sting and you don't know. But you'd still call it a bug bite. Everything that appears on my skin is a bug bite. Because a bug bite isn't the act of a bug biting. It is the thing that is left over from some kind of interaction with a bug.

And sometimes mistakenly, it's something else. It's like a skin condition, a rash, a poison ivy rash, and someone's like, oh, I got a bug bite, but it's something totally different. Well, that's a good point though, because if you get poison ivy and you think it's a bug bite, it's not a bug bite. And so if you get a bee sting

and you think that's a bug bite, it's not a bug bite. Well, but you don't know that. I know I don't know that. Only the good Lord above knows that. I'm just saying. It's a Schrodinger's cat situation where when you've got a weird rash or swelling on your skin until you can confirm or deny or until you can know what end of a bug or potentially a plant, another thing got you, ouched you, then it can't be confirmed a bug bite.

It's just a nebulous injury. 86% of people agree a bee sting is not a bug bite. Okay. Wait, people already voted that fast on your tweet? What do you mean? Who do you think I am? You're famous. Bug man Hank Green. Forgot you're famous.

Do you have any etymological things to share, Sarie? So the first time the phrase bug bite was used was in 1739 as a part of a venereal disease paper that said, whenever any person shows you a dot dot dot, flee or bug bite above his eyebrow or anywhere else dot dot dot, insist upon they are poxed. So I think it was just this guy being like, don't trust them. If someone says that they've got a bug bite,

they probably have the pox. Above my eyebrow? Yeah, he's warning against the medical condition of bug bite above eyebrow. I mean, smallpox was such a such a big deal Yeah, and and also people were always lying about it. So if someone comes to you in 1739 saying they got a bug bite Probably not a bug bite probably the pox. I mean, that's basically what we were saying that everything is a bug bite until proven otherwise

Yeah, but the words bug and bite both are from relatively unknown origin. So bug has been that word for since Middle English, since before that meaning something frightening, not just an insect or a beetle, but it was used in the sense of like bugbear or bugaboo, like something that scares people, especially children. And then bite, we've been biting things, animals have been biting things. It just looked, we sometimes it was spelled like bit. We just use bit for everything.

And then we lengthen to the I sometime in middle English to make it a bite instead of a bit. I just looked up bugbear and the, an imaginary being invoked to frighten children, typically a sort of hobgoblin supposed to devour them. What were we doing? Maybe kids were really, really bad back then. I know that kids are so spoiled these days,

but I can't imagine being like, all right, do your work or like literally this animal, I made up, but you don't know I made it up. I will eat your body. You can give him a power. You will turn you into food the way we do with cows. Do you think they found out? They must have found out bug bears were fake at some point, just like Santa Claus.

I hope you do find out that bug bears are not real. Yeah, Santa Claus. We're not sure. Oh, yeah, sorry. All the children listening. The jury's still out. The science is an in. And I think that we roughly know what bug bites are. So now it's time to move on to the quiz portion of our show.

Most insect stings hurt in some way, but some definitely hurt worse than others. In the early 1980s, entomologist Justin Schmidt began documenting exactly how agonizing each one was. He allowed insects from all over the world to sting him, and then he rated the pain from one to four in what became known as the Schmidt Sting Pain Index. I think limiting this to four is such a remarkable act of self-control. Cause I would have been like, scale one to a hundred and then be like confused the whole time. But he was like, no, no, no, no, no.

There's a one, a two, a three and a four. And that's the whole. So, Schmidt eventually won the Ig Nobel prize for his work. So today we're gonna be talking about a few insects that he studied. Your job is to guess which insect belongs in each category, starting with the least painful. Starting out with pain level one.

So giving this sting one of the lowest sting ratings, Schmitt described the pain as sharp, sudden, mildly alarming, like walking across a shag carpet and reaching for a light switch. Is that the velvet ant, the western honeybee, or the red fire ant? Bzzz. Ah. Like walking across a shag carpet? That's not painful at all.

No, no. Like the little shock you get when you touch the light bulb. And touching the light switch. The light bulb. Give you a little buzz. Okay. I think velvet ants hurt real bad. I feel like I've heard that, but maybe I'm wrong.

I feel like fire ants hurt a lot. I feel like a honeybee is maybe just a boo Yeah, getting bit by a fire ant. I can't remember what feels like it's been a long time But it has fire in its name. I feel like there's a yeah, I feel like there's a bit more piquant, you know By the fire and it's a little bit more of a by the fire ants. Gives a little bit more of a jalapeno burn. I would actually think this would be kind of fun, right? Would you do this? Getting bit by things?

No, I do not think this would be kind of fun. Well, aren't you curious? I have been bitten by enough insects in my life already. Thank you. But you're in a controlled environment. You're just going, here you go, bud. I mean, definitely. I do not think it would be fun because I have I have heard about what fours are like.

Okay. Okay. Yes. Because one is like getting shot by a bullet or something like that. And that's pretty bad. I would do it just to experience it once. So he's going to get shot by a bullet. No problem.

I would do it. I think knowing that I would be okay afterward. Yes. You would also live on a ship and repair internet. So yeah, I know you were talking more than thinking about the more I'm like, let's go Last episode yeah, I Think it's the I think it's the the B. I'm gonna agree with the B. Yeah, I think it's the B also it is in fact the red fire ant, native to South America. It's the red imported fire ant is what we call it here. It's an invasive species in North America and Australia,

but all fire ants, there's a bunch of them, all of them got scores of one from Schmidt. I have been bitten by fire ants and I disagree. I wouldn't call it a one. I guess I would if I knew what all the other things felt like, but I find it to be a lot less pleasant than a shock from a doorknob. That's why it's not the Hank Green pain scale.

Okay, this is good for level setting though. Yeah. Fire ants are level one. We gotta ramp it up. Because honeybee must be zero at that point. I think a honeybee could hurt worse, but we'll... We'll find out, we'll find out. Let's go.

All right, pain level two, Schmidt referred to this sting as rich, hearty, slightly crunchy, similar to getting your hand smashed in a revolving door. Outchers. This is level two, you guys. Is it the suturing army ant, the bald-faced hornet, or the water-walking wasp?

Oh, the suturing fire ant sounds too helpful. He wouldn't hurt you. Yeah. That feels like you pinch your hand in the door right there. I feel like that's, now I'm meta-gaming the game. A pinch, a suture. The bald-faced hornet. I feel strongly in my heart that it's Alan.

Crushing your hand in the door. I'll do the water walking wasp. Great description. Well, found in North America, the bald-faced hornet is not a true hornet. That honor is limited to wasps in the genus Vespa. It is rather a yellow jacket. So at least the warning colors will help you avoid

learning what a level two sting feels like. It was indeed the bald-faced hornet. Congratulations on your points, Sam. Vespa means hornet? Vespa means wasp. That's because that's the noise that Vespas make. That's true, they do. Okay, Bay level three.

Schmidt described this sting as caustic and burning with a distinctly bitter aftertaste, like spilling a beaker of hydrochloric acid on a paper cut, which I've never done and think would not hurt this bad. I have had hydrochloric acid on my skin a number of times. Never had it on an open wound, but it's not that. I think getting your hand crunched sounds worse than-

Way worse. Oof, I can feel that so viscerally though. I guess I can't. I can feel like an acid burn because I suppose I've also been burned by stuff like that a little, little bit. Yeah, but it lingers. Maybe the lingeringness of it.

It certainly lingers. Oh, it could be. It could be any of these three. It could be the red paper wasp. It could be the Asian needle ant or the nocturnal hornet. I mean, that's how I would have described getting stung by, or getting bit by a red ant, like acidy more. So I guess I'm leaning towards the ants in this one, due to that fact, but maybe I'm feeling different stuff than this guy is, I don't know. Yeah, I mean, the needle of the needle ant also feels a little bit like,

they're all injecting stuff in you though, as they bite, they all got their own toxins and acids and whatnot. I'm gonna go, we haven't had a wasp yet, red paper wasp. Well, the red paper wasp is found in Central and South America, and researchers believe that the The genus of them might have originated in Southeast Asia before dispersing via South America

They're not sure how the wasps made it across the Pacific Ocean though, which is pretty cool But they are a level 3 burn Hmm. Do you think maybe he never had hydrochloric acids built in an open wound? So he was just guessing. I definitely don't think he's ever got his hand caught in a revolving door. Like that. That seems very specific. Don't like break your hand into a billion pieces, I feel like. Yeah, I feel like it just keeps going.

All right. With the highest possible pain rating, this sting was, quote, torture. You are chained in the flow of an active volcano, why did I start this list? Is what he wrote in his note. Is it the ferocious Polybea wasp, the trap jaw ant, or the warrior wasp? He has definitely not been chained in a volcano. So he is getting a lot of poetic license at these things, Justin Schmidt.

We can say for sure that now, and now I believe even less that he's ever had his hand crushed in a door. That means I have to go get bit by all these bugs and get hurt in a lot of different ways so I can figure out what's really going on here. We need a stunt person, like someone who has actively done a lot of things

to redefine the index based on all the injuries they've had over the course of their career. That'd be a great TV show, you know? Just a guy getting bit by bugs. To redefine the index based on all the injuries they've had over the course of their career I'll be a great TV show, you know, just a guy getting bit by bugs and yeah. Yeah Steve Owen complexly present We gotta get the jackass guys turn to science. They have to have humanity I accidentally walked into the jackass movie one time cuz I was Intending to go to another movie and I just walked in and there was a man with no shirt with like baby alligators hanging off of his nipples. And I was like, well, I will now go to the movie I was intending to go to.

I thought you meant in the theater. Like sitting there watching it. He was cosplaying. I don't remember any of the answers, so I'll just say it's whatever the ant was. A trap-jaw ant, or the ferocious Polybea wasp or the warrior wasp. I think it's a trap-jaw ant too. I feel like I remember reading something

how they have one of the strongest bites of critters. I think it may have a very strong bite, but apparently not as powerful a pain, because the warrior wasp receives the highest rating of any wasp on Schmidt's list. It's found in Central and South America, seemingly a nexus for painfully stinging hymenopterans. The highest scoring ant was the Bullet Ant, as we indicated earlier, but you would have guessed that one because it's out there. Everybody knows that guy.

I think the Jackass guys maybe have been bit by bullet ants. I mean, if they could figure it out, I'm sure they would. We got to get these guys bit by more stuff. He put his hand in a glove full of ants in Brazil once. Well, that could be any ant. You could put that in a common level zero ant babies play. The nicest ant of all. Yeah, the level zero ant. Babies play. The nicest ant of all. Yeah, the cuddle ant, you know.

It's like the Gomjabar butt ass. Oh yeah, so that's what I would do the Gomjabar and I would fail and they would kill me, but I would still put it in. I'd still put my hand in there just to see what's going on. Yeah. I think that Sari doesn't know what a Gomjabar is. It's the dune thing, right?

Oh, okay, she does. It's the box, it's the secret box. Yeah. I think that Sarah doesn't know what a Gamjavar is. It's the dune thing, right? Oh, okay. It does. It's the box. It's the secret box. Yeah. But it's not the same thing as the popcorn worm. No, no, no. It does not look like the popcorn worm bit.

That's shy-hoo of the popcorn man. The famous popcorn worms of dune. Yeah. I kind of know. I've absorbed. Like dinterongs. The spice truly smells of buttered popcorn. They never say that out loud, but it does.

Next up, we're going to take another short break. Then it'll be time for the fact-off. Our panelists have brought in science facts to present to me in an attempt to blow my mind and after they've presented their facts, I will judge them and one of these people will win. Because right now they're tied. Trivia question, though, to decide who goes first. Breaking news. Invasion of the giant toe-biting water bugs is what I wish I had a clip of a panicked newscaster on Cyprus saying in 2021, when specimens of one of the world's biggest biting bugs, the giant water bug, mysteriously appeared on the island for the first time.

These bugs are very aptly named. They are true bugs. They hunt prey, including human toes, in shallow freshwater, and they are distressingly large. But just how large? That is for you to guess. How big is the bug? Yeah, how big is the bug?

How big is the giant toe biting water bug? I feel like I've seen them in Animal Crossing. They're pretty big. You can see them, they swim around. But I don't know. That's the thing about Animal Crossing. Every time you hold up the thing, it becomes very large. It's very large.

It does become very large. And you're quite small too. I don't know. How big is a bug? How big would you say, that's a big bug? It's very large. It does become very small. And it's quite small, too. Yeah. I don't know. How big is a bug? How big would you say, that's a big bug? I mean... I think where our fingers are at the same...

That's a big bug. That's a big bug. If I saw that, I'd be like, ooh, why are you on my toe? I'm getting out of there. That's not a bug that could possibly exist, is it? Yeah, this feels too big. This is like the giant beetles on Animal Crossing, which I think are enlarged beyond their real size.

How big is this? Five inches. Five inches. I would say like two inches. It is over 12 centimeters, which is almost five inches. Sam. Oh, I know bugs. Wow.

I can imagine a bug. It's really messed with Sari. Yeah, Sari's all screwed up. Yeah, I overthought it. I, you said they were big and then I was like, I gotta reduce my expectations. Holy crap, I hate it. Oh, I hate it so much.

Some bugs should be smaller, but Sam, you get to go first. When you think of a biting bug, you might not think of beetle larva. For my part, at least, I think of Timon and Pumbaa slurping up some suspiciously shiny-looking little bugs and larvas in the Lion King. And, you know, I would just hazard to guess that these squishy little babies are probably more likely to be bitten than bite, as they're

preyed upon by bigger animals like fish and birds and frogs and pretty much anything in the whole world because they are larva but they have chompers just like you know almost any other bug you could think of and some of them really know how to use them to disturbing effect. In 2007 a scientist as is so often the case with scientists, was walking around the forest looking at frogs when he noticed something kind of weird. There was a number of frogs that had the larva of the Epomis beetle latched onto them. Upon further inspection, these beetles were, it turned out, eating the frogs, leaving behind, in some cases, nothing but a pile of bones. That ain't right, I assume the scientists thought,

since, as we just established, frogs are supposed to eat larvae, not the other way around. So now it was known that these beetles ate frogs, but wasn't known, which was how these larvae, which pretty much look just like any other larvae that you care to see, could get the drop on frogs that were way bigger than them and basically designed by evolution to eat larva. So naturally the scientists and a team put some frogs and some larva in some tanks to see what happened.

And what happened was a lot of really gross stuff. So first the larva puts on a very convincing, helpless little food guy show, wriggling around as much as it can to try to get the attention of a frog. And when the frog sees what they think is just an easy meal wiggling around on the ground, it lunges in for the kill only to have the larva basically just like dodge roll the attack and then bite the frog back right on the face. So then these larvae have like two hooks on each of their their jaws instead of just one so

they basically can just hold on really tight as the frog is freaking out and then they crawl on to the back of the body they chomp down and they start sucking frog juice out of the frog so sometimes at this point after some some some suck in the frog can dislodge the the larva and go on its way basically okay, but just with a big nasty scar and with a lot less frog juice inside of it. But other times, after sucking on the frog for a little bit, the larva moves on to just straight up eating the frog alive, reducing it to bones as previously mentioned. The scientists also recorded a few instances where the frog successfully ate the larva, but then they puked the larvae back up a little

while later and then the larvae crawled on top of them and ate them right back. What? Oh my gosh. So these larvae only eat amphibians, at least according to what these scientists saw in the lab. They have a hunting success rate in like the 90th percentile. So a frog really can't win with an epimus larva. And it turns out that they can't win with epimus beetles either, because once they grow up, these beetles, they eat a lot of stuff, but amphibians are still on their menu.

So in this case, the adult beetle climbs onto the frogs back and bites them in a way that seems to like sever the muscles that go to the frog's legs. So the frog is paralyzed and then the beetles eat them alive. So I guess turnabout is fair play because lots of larva and beetles have met their death at the hands of frogs.

At least the frogs weren't eating the larvae alive over like the course of hours and hours. Yeah, I mean, I also just in general feel less bad for beetle larvae. I don't know if I should, but I do. I hate this. I am, it's terrible. It's really so upsetting.

I looked up pictures of it while you were talking and it's very, very bad. And they're scary little guys. They're really, really scary and gross looking. Yeah. And they found that like, they did it 400 times. They had four, this is also horrible. You killin' 400 frogs, I guess.

They had 400 frogs in the tank, and there was only like four times total that the frog even got the beetle in its mouth. And every other time, it rolled out of the way. And then I think of all of the ones that even got the beetle in its mouth. And every other time it rolled out of the way. And then I think of all of the ones that actually ate the beetle, all of them puked it up and eventually ended up getting eaten by the beetle. So there's something about it too

that that's like makes it unappetizing for some. I guess so, yeah. This would be very bad if it happened to humans. If like chickens figured out how to dodge and then latch onto our backs. Yeah, that was really I'm really pulling for that. And that happens. No chickens makes a lot more sense because my brain jumped to like, what's the equivalent of a beetle larva to me, like a chicken nugget

just rolling out of the way, jumping for my throat and then sucking all the juice out of it. And you're like, that's gross. And you puke it up and then it's like, ha ha ha. Yeah, that's the new like B horror movie of our modern era. Uh-huh, like gremlins, but it's nuggets. Yeah, nuggets with a Z.

You aren't prepared for nuggets. You can't get them wet. Don't dip them, don't dip them. Don't dunk. And you can't do something to them after midnight either. Which I can't remember what. Is it getting wet? You can't get them wet after midnight? Alright Hank, don't make me bust an owl out. Yeah, you can't feed them after midnight. You can't show them bright lights.

Well, it doesn't matter if you show them bright lights. They just don't like it. And you can't get them wet or else they multiply. What can't you do to a chicken nugget lest it become a Evil little punk rock a human attacker. I don't know the only thing I think of is eat all the skin off of it You can't eat all the skin off of it. You can't dunk it in a red wine That's the one forbidden dip If you dip it in the blood of a virgin then it comes to life You can't dip it in a frog. That's also not allowed. All right, well now we know. So far no one's ever dipped a ticket nugget into red wine. So

don't do it. We're warning you. So far we're safe. Yeah. But just one person tries to experiment a little much. You know, I bet someone has. I'm sure. Absolutely sure. Because I would say after midnight and when you're drunk is one of the main times to eat nuggets. So you're dipping them in anything you got on hand. There's that thing that people figured out where if you dip your fries in frosty, that's really good. And once that happens, people are dipping anything in anything.

It's only a matter of time before the nugget uprising when someone dips the forbidden combination of nugget. We don't know what it is yet, but I'm sure that we'll find it. Yeah. All right, Sarah, what do you got? So bumblebees are known for their stings more than their bites.

And we've established that stings are not bug bites, but they do have- I also did a poll on Twitter and I said, are fire ant bites, bug bites? Note they are actually stings that they do with their butts and it's about 50-50 right now. Oh, interesting. So apparently people really are sort of

in the bug bite mode where it's like, it feels like a bug bite because it looks like a bug bite. I guess we don't have another, well, fire ant, we do have a word sting for them. Very confusing. We won't get to the bottom of it with my fact or otherwise. But so bumblebees have their stingers on their butts, but they also have little mandibles. They have a little crunchy mouth that

they occasionally use. They like to bite their way out of their cocoons once they've grown from larvae to adults, or sometimes to help grip onto a flower while they shake loose pollen in what's called buzz pollination. So like many species of bees, bumblebee workers need to collect lots of highly nutritious pollen to help feed their larvae and grow their colonies during the spring and summer. So it can be a challenge if their colony is not near any blooming flowers, or if the timing of the flowers blooming doesn't line up with bees emerging. But in a paper published in May, 2020 in the journal Science,

a team of researchers documented a super neat, never before seen as far as we know behavior. When bumblebee colonies are hungry for pollen and can't find any around, they will bite holes in the leaves of plants, which significantly speeds up when their flowers will bloom. And they just stumbled upon this, not walking through the forest, but they

were doing a separate experiment on bumblebees in the lab and then noticed that they were crunching on the plants and so then dug into studying them. And the two plants that they tested were tomatoes, Solanum lycopersicum and black mustard brassica nigra. And then the tomatoes, the bee-bitten plants flowered on average 30 days earlier than the un-bitten plants and 25 days earlier than plants that the researchers damaged in the same sort of bite pattern with tweezers and a razor. So they tried to mimic the bee bites. And then in the black mustard, the bee-bitten plants flowered on average 16 days earlier

than un-bitten plants and eight days earlier than the researcher damaged plants. And in other experiments, they found that pollen-deprived colonies of bumblebees were more likely to start chomping on leaves than bees that had enough pollen. So it seems to be some sort of behavioral trigger based on needing pollen. And they also did longer tests outside of the lab in 2018 and 2019 in rooftop gardens with hives of bumblebees and wildflowers. And this biting behavior still happened in this external rooftop garden environment. And before the study, we kind of knew that various stressors on plants like temperature or light or

nutrition or mechanical damage could either promote or inhibit flowering, which you can also see based on that like researcher cutting the leaves condition in their trials. But the fact that bee bites accelerate flowering so much, like up to a month earlier, is absolutely wild. And they don't know the reason why they're so powerful. They assume there's some sort of bee chemical at play, but this paper didn't isolate that mechanism. But bee bites, something fancy about them. They crunch a leaf and the flowers bloom. They give it a little kiss.

Yeah. Thank you. Is this like a mutualism thing where the flowers need the bees to be around to make their flowers? And so like, they don't want to make their flowers until the bees are around. And so there's like a signal that they get and they're like, oh, now is a good time to make flowers or is it or is it

just some like we have any idea just like is an effect or if there's actually an evolutionary reason for this? So we don't know they in good scientists behavior they were like we don't have we haven't studied this adaptation enough we didn't know it existed before now and so we want more evidence before we start making claims about it being mutually beneficial or not. I think there are bumblebees and some species of solitary bees that are the only species that can successfully pollinate tomato plants because they need this buzz pollination. Like the pollen is so jammed in the flower that they need a strong vibration. They can't just have an

insect brush up against it. So it's possible because there's already some sort of mutualism evolved between bees and some of these plants. Yeah, I mean, the question is like, why wouldn't the plant just know to be out at the same time? Why would it have to have the signal from the bee? But like, maybe because they need bees, they're like, I'm not going to make a flower until I know for sure there's bees around. It's a waste of time. Yeah, and the bees aren't doing anything

with the leaf fragments. They're just chomping. It takes a couple, like a second, and then they chomp a couple of times and then they fly away. So they're not using the leaf pieces in any way. Hey buddy, I need you. I need you now.

Yeah, yeah, it's like, wake up. Just like elbowing the person next to your bed. It's your turn to take out the trash. Why do you have to wake up in the middle of the night? Before the trash. Oh, before the trash man comes. Well, you got to you got to get your shit together enough to take it out the night before. Look, look, if you hear the trash doing

what you're best out here, sometimes we forget that I before. If you hear the trash truck coming out of the thing, you really messed up. It's too late. Yeah, that's next week's problem. All right. Uh, there's so I got to choose between this very bizarre set of adaptations. Sari, I think is once again held back by her need to have interesting science stories

that are nonetheless not at all exaggerated. No, okay. You saw the videos. This is a dangerous narrative that you're inventing about me. No, I'm not saying you exaggerate. You're just dragging my name through the mud. You could have told Sari's story in a way, one could have, not Sam would have,

one could have in such a way where it was like, and so the plants don't need the bees, and so we don't know, and so we're stuck with it, we don't know, but still drink. I understand what you're saying. Yeah, and you're right. So he's saying that I'm worse at telling stories

than you, Sam, because I'm too bombed down in the science? You're better at communicating science. But I think ultimately, the more dramatic story by far is not the one where the bugs are biting leaves, but where the one where the bugs are saying, did you think I was food? In fact, you're gonna die a slow and. Yeah. So Sam's what for the episode. And that means that it's time to ask the science couch where we ask some listener questions for our finely honed couch of scientific minds.

I have a finely honed couch because it is it's a normal couch. But whatever, you keep going. It's a sharp couch. Ouch. Ouch. Keep going. It's a sharp couch. Ouch, ouch. Luca Luke on Discord asked, what is itchiness and why does calamine lotion help? What does it do to the itchiness?

Itchiness is so weird. It turns out, I think, and I'm going to be very curious to hear Zari's more complete answer to this, but that it is a whole other feeling. So we have like pressure and we have like pain, but itch is its own whole thing. And we have special itch receptors and, and it is apparently important enough. Just maybe not just as, but, but similarly important to pain where like we need to have a feeling that it's not like,

ow, I don't wanna touch that, but is instead I need to brush out my arm. I need to move whatever is on my arm off of my arm. And that is the itch receptor. And this somehow gets really over amplified and hyped up by inflammation, like allergic reactions in the skin to bug venom.

How did I do, Sari? I'm not sure if we have pinpointed an itch receptor specifically. I think a lot of the receptors that deal with itch also do a lot of other things, which is probably true for a lot of our nerves in general, but it is its own category of sensation like pain or like heat or other things that is very poorly

understood. But yeah, that's our best guess is that it guards against a specific kind of threat to our body. The creepy crawly is doing something weird and we want to brush it off or respond with a scratch as opposed to just like pain, if you touch a hot stove, it's get away, but an itch is like, I gotta brush myself or get something off me. I have to focus on this area of my body for some reason, physically.

Know that something exists. And we have to be at peace with this to some extent, but we do not understand how we sense our world, and they're very often times complete mysteries. Like there was a case study of a woman who had like this like terrible persistent itch, and so they severed all of the nerves to that area of her body, and the itch got worse.

And that's just like, surprise, we don't understand what the heck's going on. Are we always itchy? And the exception is not. I tell you what, I'm always a little like, like more. My headphones are like touching my scalp right now. That's a little itchy. Oh, and I think too hard.

Yeah. So scientists are trying to categorize things more. And so I think itchy things are prurinergic. Like pruritus is the Latin word for itchiness. So that's just like the word that they call it. Prurinergic is like an itchy thing. Is an itchy thing or a purito gin. It's a hard word to say.

They should have chosen a better word. Itch is a good word. Purito sounds too much like burrito or the way I'm saying it badly. Purrito definitely sounds like there's a cat in a burrito. Oh, yes. It's really cute. A purritogen is something that makes you itchy. Some of these things can be like chemical stimuli.

A lot of the ones that we point to are related to immune responses. So like histamine, for example, histamine we know activates a subset of sensory neurons and using antihistamines blocks itchiness generally. So histamines are both in bug saliva or bug sting, so in a bee sting venom, in a wasp sting venom, in mosquito saliva, as they bite or sting you. Generally, those toxins have some histamines in there already, so that's partially what causes the itchiness.

But there's also just a lot of other proteins and junk in the bug bite, spit, or venom. And those can activate an immune response. So your body sends more histamines there to swell things up, along with other immune system responses to protect yourself, but it also causes this itchiness sensation as part of it. And then there are also physical stimuli. So like some plants have little spines on them that just rubbing up against them, it

doesn't have anything to do with histamine, but it just makes you feel itchy. And I imagine those physical stimuli also a butt up against psychological stimuli where you like think about being itchy and then you're itchy. But this paper didn't have any of that involved in it. So yeah, there's different components. And basically I think our best methods to counteract the itch is to distract ourselves from it.

Their antihistamines, I guess, kind of block those histamine receptors because we've identified that as a molecule that seems to be related to itchiness but we don't have a lot of chemical treatments like that. You can cut nerves and someone still feels itchy, then that is something that's pretty persistent. So, calamine lotion is basically any lotion is just medication suspended in water or alcohol or something liquid. Yeah. Mix the medication, and then you can slather it on topically.

And so calamine is metals. So it's zinc oxide. It's mostly zinc oxide. It's like 98% or something. And then it's pink because it has a tiny bit of ferric oxide or iron 3 oxide, which is just rust, which is very weird that that is the pink part of calamine lotion. And so we either think it works. We

also don't know why it stops itching because of these things. So it either works because you like slather it on and then the water part evaporates kind of like how sweat evaporates from the heat in your body. So it cools the area a little bit, which prevents itch a little bit. And then the zinc oxide forms this kind of like inorganic powdery layer on top. And zinc oxide is in a lot of things. It's in like sunscreens, it's in paints, it's in, I don't know. Our bodies need zinc naturally, but for some reason it either reduces the secretion of histamine a little bit. So again, like counteracting that histamine or just secretion of histamine a little bit, so again, like counteracting that histamine, or just like dries your skin out a little bit.

So it's providing a different sensation other than the itch for you to focus on. I had shingles a number of times, and so many times that I developed strategies for dealing with it, and it can be very itchy. And when it was very bad, I would put a heating pad on it, and that would help not feel itchy, it would just feel more hot. And then I would put cold pad on it. I'd like put like ice pad on it,

and like sort of go back and forth just to like make my body be like, I can't feel the itch because all this other stuff is going on is what it felt like. And it did help. I just had to be careful to not get it too hot or too cold. You ever do the oatmeal bath? Like when you had chicken pox?

Never tried an oatmeal bath. Oh yeah, I don't know. Is that a real thing or did my mom make that up? It would feel nice. I think it is a real thing. I don't know what. The problem is, is if you look into a lot of these anti-itch things, it's just people saying,

yeah, it worked for me, or it didn't really work for me. And there's not a lot of science because we don't understand what itching is. We don't understand why it's soothing. But I imagine that there's some sort of like reason why people recommend oatmeal baths. And it's probably like some compound in the oatmeal, just like there's aloe and aloe vera or other things that cool or suck something out of your skin or it just feels nice to have like a warm goopy thing on you. Mm-hmm. And now I feel like I know the answer to that question.

We also are going to have for our listeners on Patreon a bonus science couch question that we're going to do now if you're listening to that. Sam, what's the second question at care bear ritual on Twitter? Asked what's the biggest bite on a bug like mosquito bites are so small Spider bites are pretty big Is there a mega chomper out there if you want to hear the answer to that question as well as enjoy all of our new? Episodes totally ad free you can head over to Patreon. That's patreon.com slash SciShow Tangents. At our $8 a month tier, you can get new episodes ad-free and

extended shenanigans as we answer a bonus Science Couch question every episode. You'll also get the link to our private Discord server and maybe also some goodies in the future. Who knows? Our patrons are the best and we are so grateful for their support of the show If you want to ask the science couch your question You can follow us on Twitter at size show tangents or check out our YouTube community tab where we will send out upcoming Topics for every episode every week or you can join the size show tangents patreon and ask us on our discord Thank you to at strobs on Twitter at Shane the goosey garden gnome on YouTube and everybody else Who asked us your questions

for this episode. Thank you to Shane most of all though. It's nice to have a Goosey Garden Gnome with me. It just feels safer. If you like this show and you wanna help us out, there's a bunch of ways to do that. First, again, our Patreon, patreon.com slash SciShow Tangents.

Become a patron, get access to those ad free episodes. Also shout out to patron Les Aker for their support. Second, leave us a review wherever you listen. That helps us know what you like about the show, and also it helps other people know what you like about the show. And finally, if you want to show your love for SciShow Tangents, just tell people about us. Tell people about us. Thank you for joining us. I've been Hank Green.

I've been Sari Reilly. And I've been Sam Schultz. SciShow Tangents is created by all of us and produced by Jess Stempert. Our associate producer is Eve Schmidt. Our editor is Seth Blixman. Our social media organizer is Julia Buzz-Bazio. Our editorial assistants are Debuki Trucker Vardy and Alex Billo. Our sound design is by Joseph Tuna-Medish.

Our executive producers are Nicole Swee and me, Hank Green. And we couldn't make any of this, of course, without our patrons on Patreon. Thank you and remember, the mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be lighted. [♪ Music Plays And Ends [♪ But, one more thing. One species of beaded lacewing Loma maia latipennis starts out super tiny after it hatches around 0.07 milligrams in mass. But according to a 1981 paper, its prey of choice is subterranean termites that are around 35 times larger on average, around 2.5 milligrams in mass.

To hunt, a baby lacewing will point its butt at a termite and wave it around, releasing some sort of gas or aerosol. And this powerful toxic heart paralyzes the termite after a couple minutes. And then it's time for the larva to chow down And after about three hours the termite dies whether or not it was bitten and eaten So precursor to the beetle larva another terrible thing that chicken nuggets might do to us. Yeah Part and paralyze us and then decide whether or not to eat us either way we die. We are dead.

This is why you can't dunk them in red wine. Don't. If I see a bunch of you dunking nuggets in the red wine on Twitter, I'm going to have a conniption. I'm going to be so mad. You better not hashtag it. Listen to tangents. You better not hashtag SciShow Tangents.

SciShow Tangents. SciShow Tangents challenge. SciShow Tangents hashtag. Yeah. Tangents, show tangents. Size show tangents challenge. Size show tangents hashtag. Yeah. Tangents, tangents, red wine nugget challenge. I'll do it. I'll do it. Heck, I'll do it.

I could take a nugget. I could squish it. No, the human race is gonna be over. That's what the frog thought. That's what the frog thought. That's what the termite thought. If I was one of those frogs, I would eat the bug, no problem.

Ow. It would be simple for me to do it. Uh-huh. I always think I'm invincible as well, Sam. And then we see what happens. Yeah, we're proving correct. I have not yet experienced one in death.