[RADIOLAB INTRO]

LULU MILLER: Three. Two. [Whispering.] One!

SY MONTGOMERY: Imagine you are a liquid creature.

(A thumping dance beat plays. If it were playing through your speakers, you could feel it vibrate! Then, as if to join the party, a bucket of bubbles float past.)

SY MONTGOMERY: No bones, and you are so pliable, you can literally pour your body through a tiny opening. 

(Someone slurps through a straw over the music. Picture an octopus whizzing by!)

LULU: You can change colors!

SY MONTGOMERY: Blue and green and red and yellow, and even metallic!

(Sparkles shine by.)

LULU: You can taste—with your skin. 

SY MONTGOMERY: And you have blue blood. And you have three hearts.

(A person pretends to make the sound of a heart beating: zha-zhoom, zha-zhoom, zha-zhoom.)

SY MONTGOMERY: And if you're threatened—if you feel scared—you can shoot ink!

(Still over the music, the sound—fwoo—rushes by. That’s the ink.)

LULU: Into a silhouette in the shape of you!

SY MONTGOMERY: So the predator is fooled into believing you're still there. 

LULU: Now, look down at your arms and watch them slowly sprouting into eight. 

SY MONTGOMERY: (Quietly.) You are an octopus now. 

LULU: From Radiolab, we are bringing you a special hour of our family-friendly, occasionally musical series all about nature, Terrestrials. I'm Lulu Miller.

LATIF NASSER: And I'm Latif Nasser. And Lulu, we're sharing this today because Terrestrials is back, right?

LULU: Yes. I'm so happy to say we are releasing a second season right now. Tons of new episodes over on Radiolab for Kids feed. And so we're celebrating with a little nature walk through two of my favorite Terrestrials episodes we've put out so far.

LATIF: Okay. So what's the itinerary? Where are headed in this nature walk? What wild things do we get to meet?

LULU: Well, first up as you heard, we're going into the ocean to meet an octopus who does something pretty fantastic out in the world. And in so doing, challenges some beliefs about the hierarchy of animal intelligence.

LATIF: Okay.

LULU: And after that, we'll leap out of the water, soar into the air to get up close and personal with a creature that most humans on Earth try literally to sprint away from, to get some tips on how to solve problems at the personal and the planetary level.

LATIF: Okay, I'm excited.

LULU: Yeah. And so again, this is made to be family friendly. There is some occasional singing, but there's also stuff in here for adults. You know, the real hope of the show is to show that when you look close, you see strangeness, you see possibilities, you see the world not working as you thought it might. And hopefully, that's helpful for anyone. So anyway, first up is our octopus story. And we will pick back up with the moment I force on all unsuspecting guests.

LULU: Okay, now is where I make you sing the theme song with me.

SY MONTGOMERY: Okay.

(The theme song plays, and Lulu and Sy sing with it: “Terrestrials, terrestrials! We’re not the worst—we are the …” But then the song pauses and waits for Sy to say:)

SY MONTGOMERY: (A little unsure.) Best-rials!

(Almost like it agrees, the song finishes with the same word: “Best-rials!”)

LULU: (Excitedly.) You got it!

SY MONTGOMERY: (Laughing.) I dunno, man.

LULU: Terrestrials is a show where we uncover the strangeness waiting right here on Earth and, sometimes, break out into song.

(The rest of the theme song plays, and Lulu keeps singing with it: “There’s so much to discover when you dive down deep. Terrestrials, terrestrials! So come on and plunge into the sea! Terrestrials, terrestrials.” The song ends with a splash. Literally.)

LULU: Good voices not required!  I am your host Lulu Miller, joined, as always, by my songbud ...

ALAN GOFFINSKI: Hoo hoo!

LULU: —Alan!

ALAN: (Using Autotune, Alan’s voice sounds like a computer, singing a bunch of chords all at once.) Hello everybody! (Sy laughs in response.)

LULU: Today we’re joined by special guest Sy Montgomery who is gonna tell about a devious little octopus who outsmarted his human captors.

LULU: Hi, Sy!

SY MONTGOMERY: Hi Lulu!

LULU: Um, what do you [Pausing to look for the right word.] do for a living? What is your job?

SY MONTGOMERY: Um, I’m an author, and I write about animals.

LULU: And what are some of the animals you've written about? 

SY MONTGOMERY: Oh boy …

(Bouncy, goofy music lets us know this is going to be a long list.)

SY MONTGOMERY: Gorillas, tarantulas, garter snakes, wildebeests, pink dolphins in the Amazon, hyenas, orangutans, man-eating tigers. Um, of course I'm a woman, so I knew I was safe, but, um …

LULU: Ba-dum-tsch! (Sy laughs at her own joke with Lulu.)

(A dolphin says “Ee-ee-ee!” and cuts the song off.)

LULU: Alright. So let’s head out on this octopus journey, where does it all start?

SY MONTGOMERY: Um, it was likely in 2014 …

(Waves wash in.)

SY MONTGOMERY: Deep in the ocean off the coast of New Zealand.

LULU: And a little baby octopus is born.

(A metallic sound rings out. We’re going underwater.)

SY MONTGOMERY: … The size of a grain of rice. 

LULU: In a stretch of ocean called Hawk’s Bay.

(A marimba plays an echoey song, an orchestra under the waves.)

SY MONTGOMERY: He hatched out with hundreds of other octopuses.

LULU: And then he began floating away. Little grain of rice with eight little arms. Not so great at swimming, very low chance of surviving. Only able to eat whatever little scraps of tiny crustaceans and shrimp happen to come his way.

SY MONTGOMERY: An octopus actually grows faster than almost any other animal. They could double their size in a matter of days.

(“Ruuurp” grows the octopus! Up and up!)

LULU: So this little guy [“Ruuurp!”] is getting bigger [“Ruuurp!” again.] and longer [“Ruuurp!” one more time.] and heavier [Just kidding—“Ruuurp!” again, but lower this time.] and as he did, he started being able to eat …

SY MONTGOMERY: Bigger things, like crabs and fish!

(The music fades out.)

LULU: How does it catch—how does an octopus catch a crab? There's something so confusing about something so soft being able to catch something so sharp. I always think the crab would win.

SY MONTGOMERY: Of course you think that.

(New music wanders all up and down a xylophone, curious and exploratory and a little magical.)

LULU: Sy explained that, like thousands of people who came before me, I was assuming that because an octopus was a kind of creature called a mollusk—basically a lumpy bug in the same family as slugs and clams—it just couldn’t be all that brainy.

SY MONTGOMERY: We don't think of clams as very, uh, “brainy,” ‘cause they don't have any. (Lulu laughs.)

(A pause.)

LULU: But all along, under their slimy skin, unnoticed by humans, octopuses have had huge brains—brains so big they spill down into each of their arms and allow them to catch all kinds of things. 

SY MONTGOMERY: Oh, they'll eat fish. Um, they've been known to even eat sharks. 

LULU: (Unbelieving.) No!

SY MONTGOMERY: Yes.

LULU: (Gently, but definitely, in shock.) Wow!

SY MONTGOMERY: They will eat birds. 

LULU: (Almost whispering.) What?

(Another Alan song, this time with harmony, no instruments, and lots of snapping: “Let's take a break to consider that an octopus can eat a bird. Let’s take a break to consider that an octopus [Each word moving more slowly than the last.] can eat a bird!” Then, as the song ends, a human voice says “Tweet tweet!” before a splashing sound and then a distinct gulp.)

LULU: How does an octopus catch a bird?

SY MONTGOMERY: Well, you’ve got certain birds that float on the ocean. And when they’re doing that, their little feet are below the water.

LULU: (Realizing what Sy means.) Oh no!

SY MONTGOMERY: And that would be an opportunity for an octopus to reach up and grab them.

LULU: And then what? Can you take me over home plate there, so they grab ‘em and pull ‘em in the water … ?

SY MONTGOMERY: They grab them and they wrap them in their arms and …

LULU: Hug ‘em! ’Til they …

SY MONTGOMERY: Drown.

LULU: All right.

LULU: Moving on. So our little octopus is now a few weeks old and he's getting better and better at hunting. But he also has to quickly master how to hide from the things that wanna eat him.

(The song arrives, a plinking, plunking synthesizer medley that echoes like it was recorded in an underwater cave.)

LULU: Things like sharks, and whales and humans and other octopuses.

SY MONTGOMERY: They will eat each other.

LULU: So they’re—they’re cannibals, they'll eat each other?

SY MONTGOMERY: Yeah. 

LULU: And …

SY MONTGOMERY: The most dangerous predator to an octopus is a moray eel. Big, long green fish. They have two rows of teeth: Another row in their throat. 

LULU: Ugh!

(As a keyboard plays a little flourish, accordions enter in, in an under-the-sea musical ballet.)

LULU: So to hide in that giant clear ocean, our little red octopus can turn a deep purple, or white, or yellow so that it looks like … 

SY MONTGOMERY: A piece of coral or a bunch of algae or rock or the sea floor.

LULU: And it can also ...

SY MONTGOMERY: —Turn into spots all of a sudden, or stripes, or they can stripe just one part of their body. Some octopuses even make themselves look like poisonous sea snakes! 

LULU: Hmm!

SY MONTGOMERY: Or poisonous flounders.

LULU: They can grow horns.

SY MONTGOMERY: Which, sometimes, can be two inches tall! They can even do a display called “passing cloud,” which … You know how when a cloud passes over something, it—it—it—it looks like, you know, a darkness sweeping across the land?

LULU: Yeah.

SY MONTGOMERY: They can make a darkness sweep across their bodies. 

LULU: (Laughing.) What!?

SY MONTGOMERY: And this confuses fish into believing— 

LULU: (A gasp!) Woah!

SY MONTGOMERY: A bigger fish is swimming.

LULU: (Guessing what Sy is about to say.) Is above them?

SY MONTGOMERY: Maybe!

LULU: That is so clever!

SY MONTGOMERY: It's really great. 

(The music plays one final flourish, and then out.)

LULU: So our little octopus, his days are busy, as he’s practicing throwing punches with his arms [Fshoo-fshoo go the punches.], and changing colors, and flexing each of his hundreds of suckers, which have grown so strong they can [With a click of the tongue.] crack open clam shells. [A whispered “Snap!” opens a shell.] And every now and then, he conks out to take a nap.

SY MONTGOMERY: They also appear to dream because when they're sleeping, sometimes they change color. 

(An atmosphere of calm and currents plays up.)

LULU: Hmm. Hm!

SY MONTGOMERY: The same way, you know, a puppy or kitten might [Lulu laughs at the thought—it’s goofy!] run in its sleep.

SY MONTGOMERY: Or bark or meow in its sleep.

(The music shifts a little, becoming serious, less light.)

LULU: And then one day as he's moving through the world, transforming into eels and clouds and sand, something [A pause.] attacks him.

(A tiny roar rings out. An animal attack!)

LULU: It snaps off one of his arms.

(The octopus gives a tiny, high-pitched “Ow!”)

LULU: And though he fights back with all seven of the other ones—

(The sounds of a struggle, not too intense, but quite tense, follow.)

LULU: —whatever predator it is manages to gnaw—

(Another roar and another squeaking sound of pain.)

LULU: —pieces out of a bunch of the others. 

SY MONTGOMERY: So this octopus was pretty beat up.

LULU: But eventually he is able to wriggle away, and finds a spot to lay down and rest inside a mysterious metal box.

LULU: Picture a lobsterman, in his boat …

(We must be out to sea! Seagulls caw as they fly around us.)

LULU: Bobbing along the water. One morning he is pulling up lobster traps and what does he find inside but our little octopus.

(The fisherman seems confused: “Wrr?”)

LULU: And while he could have sold him—for, like, 30 bucks—to a fish market, to someone who wanted to eat him, instead, he thought he'd bring the octopus to the aquarium. 

The National Aquarium of New Zealand, they gladly take him in, plunk him in a tank. They give him the name “Inky”—because, like, ink? Inky?) And, by all accounts, he was a huge hit!

SY MONTGOMERY: He was a total sweetie. [Lulu chuckles at the thought.] Um, he was a super friendly octopus. Everybody knew him. He delighted everybody.

(Alan and the backups launch into a new song, this one over a circus-y soundtrack: “Well step right up and see our little seven-armed squirmy little friend dance the seven legged cancan—“ The music halts, realizing just how many cans a seven-legged octopus would can if a seven-legged octopus could cancan, before picking back up: “Can-can-can-can-can! An amazing little creature, yes—a marvel in our midst—watch him dance his little hearts out with a kick-kick, kick-kick. Ha!” Then the music starts to fade down.)

SY MONTGOMERY: So they had them in a tank and there was plenty for him to do. He had toys to play with. 

LULU: He was given a Mr. Potato Head doll and he would rearrange the eyes and ears. They gave him puzzles and locks to unlock.

LULU: And you were saying an octopus can even take thread and tie a knot?

SY MONTGOMERY: It can also do what’s harder, and that is untie a knot.

LULU: Wow!

SY MONTGOMERY: Even though they don't have hands and they don't have fingers.

LULU: But perhaps the most amazing feat was that this seven-armed octopus—or [Questioningly.] septipus—was that, eventually, he was able to …

SY MONTGOMERY: Grow a new one!

(The song continues, “Watch him play and watch him swim and regenerate a missing limb. Come on and all, young and old—it’s quite a sight to behold!”)

LULU: Month after month Inky lived out his life inside that tank: Changing colors and charming the aquarium keepers by playing with their toys, slowly growing healthier, those suckers regenerating and growing stronger and stronger until, about two years into his captivity …

SY MONTGOMERY: One morning the keepers came in and Inky wasn't there! 

(The music suddenly winds down.)

SY MONTGOMERY: And they saw a slime track going from his tank eight feet across the floor, which led to a drain pipe. And this drain pipe was 164 feet long. And it dropped directly into Hawk’s Bay, which is where he came from!

LULU: So it looks like Inky went home.

(Soft marimba music plays over waves, signaling Inky’s journey home.)

LULU: Wow. And no human has ever seen him again.

[NEWS CLIP: It is time now for the mix. This octopus, Inky, actually made a break for it.]

LULU: The world freaked out when they heard about Inky’s story.

[NEWS CLIP: Inky the octopus, making a break for it. Slipping out of a New Zealand Aquarium …]

[NEWS CLIP: It’s the Shaw-tank Redemption…]

[NEWS CLIP: (Over party music.) Inky is having a party right now!]

LULU: But Sy says the most incredible thing about Inky’s escape is that it's not incredible. 

SY MONTGOMERY: There are many, many instances of octopuses that have gotten out of their tanks.

LULU: The more that Sy researched octopuses, the more she came across tales of amazing escapes. There was the octopus that escaped out of a cigar box that was nailed shut, the octopus that leapt out of an ice tray at a fish market and crawled [Laughs lightly] back into the ocean. And, in aquariums …

SY MONTGOMERY: There were so many accounts of octopuses that get out of their tank at night, eat the fish in the neighboring tank, and then return to their own tank.

LULU: So—so they’re really like … This isn't, this—Inky is not fluke-y? Like, octopuses are sort of known for being escape artists when—when forced into captivity? Is that, like …

SY MONTGOMERY: Yeah. Yes. And octopuses will climb out of the ocean!

LULU: Really? And do what?

SY MONTGOMERY: Oh, they just kind of walk around on land for a little while, and then they go back in. 

LULU: Are you serious?

SY MONTGOMERY: They're looking for food or they’re—and there’s tons of videos of this. You should see it!

LULU: And do they just—they walk on their legs? Like, do they walk on all eight, or … ? (Chuckles.)

SY MONTGOMERY: Well, they kind of slime around. [Lulu laughs at the thought.] I mean, it's not particularly easy. And they don't go far, but they will spend time out of the water, looking for new things to eat or escaping predators.

LULU: Or as was recently observed, grabbing two halves of a coconut and bringing them together to [A click sound.] hide inside as a kind of coconut fort. (A clonk sound—the coconuts bumping against each other.)

(The music gives way to sound from a video: a child calling out to their dad.)

LULU: And, as more and more videos of behavior like this have been captured around the world—

(More video audio: “That’s a pretty good-sized octopus, no?”)

LULU: —Octopuses making tools or unlocking locks or catching eagles—

(“That’s nature at its best!” Father and child let out a chuckle of wonder.)

LULU: —Videos sometimes filmed by kids just looking out at the water—

(More scattered conversation from the same video.)

LULU: Scientists have come together and scratched their fancy scientist chins and largely agreed that they can’t deny it anymore. Octopuses are:

SY MONTGOMERY: Intelligent.

(Ringing notes overlap with one another, floating up and down so slowly, like jellyfish riding the current.)

SY MONTGOMERY: It turns out that their intelligence is quite like ours in a way that their bodies are not, and that is surprising and delightful, that somebody who looks so unlike you and has senses so unlike yours … 

LULU: Can solve such similar problems.

SY MONTGOMERY: That is mind-blowing!

(A moment with just music.)

LULU: And while some people certainly noticed how amazing the octopus was long ago …

SY MONTGOMERY: People in Mo’orea, which is part of Polynesia, were so impressed with octopuses, that they built a church with eight sides just to remind them of how special octopuses were. (Lulu reacts softly.)

LULU: Sy thinks that scientists largely missed their intelligence … because of their intelligence. Octopuses were always darting out of our eyesight, [A sneaky sound—fwoo—plays as the octopus darts away.] flashing into whatever color hid them from us, and escaping our tanks when we were able to catch them—which made it hard to ever fully see them.

SY MONTGOMERY: Oh, yeah.

LULU: Oh, and one other reason. 

(A pause for a breath.)

SY MONTGOMERY: I think that most people who are looking for intelligence like ours, was looking for it and animals that were more like us. So we didn't look in the right place.

(Bubbles rush past alongside the music.)

LULU: Before Sy could move onto her next animal—her next book—she knew she had to do one last thing. She wanted to touch an octopus. She had read an account by a famous scientist who described the feel of the octopuses’ slimy arms as one of the grossest things on Earth, like plunging your hand into a pit of snakes. But she wanted to find out for herself. So one morning, she showed up to the New England Aquarium, and was led to the tank which housed a giant Pacific octopus.

SY MONTGOMERY: (Speaking with gentle wonder.) She was bright red …

LULU: Five feet long.

SY MONTGOMERY: And she was hiding in her lair.

LULU: An aquarium worker named Scott popped the lid.

SY MONTGOMERY: I saw her eye swivel in its socket and lock on mine. And then she came jetting out of there!

(A bright red octopus arm jumps out of the water, like air escaping from a balloon.)

LULU: And she reached a few of her arms up over the edge of the tank.

SY MONTGOMERY: And I asked Scott, “Can I touch her?” And he said, “Sure.” And so I plunged [A splash.] my hands and arms into the freezing cold water to meet the octopus. And instantly my flesh was covered with …

(The sound of suction—shoop, shoop, shoop, shoop—as Sy’s arm is covered with more and more suckers.)

SY MONTGOMERY: Dozens of these soft suckers. 

LULU: Oof. ‘Kay …

SY MONTGOMERY: And then I began to stroke her head, and I noticed that she was beginning to turn white beneath my touch, right where my fingers were. And I later learned that that is a color of a relaxed octopus.

LULU: Hm.

SY MONTGOMERY: And that she was enjoying that. 

(The music fades away slowly as Lulu speaks.)

LULU: And when she was—as you were stroking her and, like, she was turning white where—what were her arms like? I'm picturing them just, like, coiled around your wrists, and was it disgusting? I mean, were they slithering and wrestling all around?

SY MONTGOMERY: Well, they were all wrestling around. But it was like thousands of—of, well, not thousands, I guess—

(A drum beat starts, steady and heavy.)

SY MONTGOMERY: —Under 2,000, but, um … 1,800 little kisses.

(Alan’s band is back with a ‘90s alt-rock-styled song, with electric guitars and all: “1800 little kisses, 1800 octopus kisses! 1800 octopus sucker kisses! I’m thinkin’ about all the octopus kissin’ we’ve been missing. 1800 little smooches, 1800 octopus hugs and smooches!”)

LULU: Sing it, Alan!

(Alan continues: “1800 itty-bitty octopus sucker smooches! Why did it take so long to learn about this cuteness?” 

A drum moment cuts out the rock guitars for just a second. “This friendly little octopus is smarter than we thought, and now we know to pucker up when they kiss us with their suction cups. It’s hard to understand a thing if we don’t give it a chance! If we didn’t search, we’d never learn about this funny mollusk romance.” 

Lulu joins in as they take the song from the top. “1800 little kisses!”)

LULU: Everybody!

(Alan and Lulu are joined by a chorus of kids: “1800 octopus sucker kisses! I’m thinkin’ about all the octopus kissin’ we’ve been missing.” As they reach the end of the chorus, Lulu gives one last “Ducka ducka ducka” drum sound.)

LULU: Alan Goffinski, everybody! Yup, it's science reporting plus singing. You know this has been missing from your life. Coming up, more from Radiolab's ever-so-slightly musical nature show, Terrestrials.

LATIF: Radiolab is back. I'm Latif Nasser.

LULU: I'm Lulu Miller.

LATIF: And you are listening to a special hour of Radiolab's family-friendly, ever-so-occasionally musical series about nature, Terrestrials.

LULU: Mm-hmm.

LATIF: And we just heard the story of an octopus. It's kind of a heist movie, where an octopus stolen from the ocean, caged in a aquarium, broke free and returned via drainpipe to the ocean, thus proving that intelligence is not always where you expect it to be.

LULU: Yeah. Maybe even, like, convergent evolution instead of, you know, wings evolving on—through different pathways on bats and birds, we see intelligence arising in surprising ways and surprising places.

LATIF: Yeah! All right, so where we going next, Lulu?

LULU: All right. Well, so that story was about what you can find when you look close at a creature that has historically been discounted or kind of ignored, not taken seriously. This next one is about what happens when you look close at a creature that your instincts will tell you to sprint away from as fast as you can at all costs.

LATIF: Okay, and what is that creature?

LULU: Well, it is a little airborne bloodsucker known as ...

[ARCHIVE CLIP: The tsetse fly. Or tsetse fly as some say.]

SAMMY RAMSEY: I don't think there's actually a right way to pronounce it.

LULU: [laughs]

SAMMY RAMSEY: [laughs]

LULU: And to tell us all about it is world-class entomologist, National Geographic explorer and official Terrestrials bug correspondent Dr. Sammy Ramsey.

SAMMY RAMSEY: Oh, yeah!

LULU: Now to call Sammy Ramsey a bug lover doesn't do justice to the amount of affection he has for these creatures. He’s got beetles hanging on his wall. He has been known to wear a giant millipede around his neck.

SAMMY RAMSEY: Like a necklace! And he would just run around in circles around my neck very slowly.

LULU: Hmm!

LULU: (Questioningly, like she doesn’t get the appeal.) He routinely sticks his hand into beehives …

(Over the music, the hum of a beehive.)

SAMMY RAMSEY: They can get a little uh, rowdy because they've got a pretty important thing they need to protect. They need to protect their babies. They got to protect all this honey …

LULU: And even that time …

SAMMY RAMSEY: I forgot my smoker. 

LULU: (A quiet explanation.) A tool that blows smoke on the bees to distract them.

SAMMY RAMSEY: And I thought, “Oh, these—this particular colony is just so cranky.”

(A little bee voice says a grumpy, “Buzz off!”)

LULU: And cranky bees mean they might sting you, right?

SAMMY RAMSEY: They might sting me!

(The same bee from before, menacing but also cute, threatens, “I’ll sting you!”)

LULU: Instead of, you know, not sticking his hand into the beehive that day … ?

SAMMY RAMSEY: I just started singing!

(The music hits a beat and stops.)

LULU: ‘Kay. What song?

SAMMY RAMSEY: I think it was a Beyonce song. [Singing. Really well.] “How you doing honey baby? I know I don’t ask for much but for a guy spending time alone …”

(The jazzy music bubbles back up.)

LULU: And he says …

SAMMY RAMSEY: (Singing with drama.) Hey, yeah!

LULU: The bees?

SAMMY RAMSEY: Really mellowed out!

LULU: (Not bee-lieving.) No!

SAMMY RAMSEY: (Excitedly.) Yeah, yeah, yeah! Not a single sting, no smoke, no nothing.

LULU: Woah.

LULU: (In a lawyer voice, quick and serious.) Listeners, do not try the Bee-yoncé technique at home!

(Once again, the bubbly jazzy music pops, and then goes quiet.)

SAMMY RAMSEY: It was pretty cool!

LULU: And Sammy has found a way to make this love his day job. He works in a special bug unit of the U.S. government.

SAMMY RAMSEY: Mm-hmm!

LULU: Where he constantly handling bugs and photographing bugs.

LULU: Have you ever eaten a bug?

SAMMY RAMSEY: Oh yeah. Yeah, definitely. I have had silkworm caterpillars, dried and fried.

LULU: (Groaning in disgust.) Why!? Oh, okay. Okay. I'm sorry. I'm so … I’m—I’m—[Sighing.] I’m trying to expand my mind. 

SAMMY RAMSEY: Me 15 years ago would have been just as judgmental of the whole thing—[Lulu laughs.]—but I've learned that so many cultures around the rest of the world do consume bugs. They're a great source of nutrition and they contribute a lot less to climate change than the organisms that we factory-farm all the time to feed people. So … just sayin’!

LULU: Touché! 

(Plucky string music bounces up and down.)

LULU: Uh, please continue.

SAMMY RAMSEY: I’ve had cookies with crickets in them

LULU: Okay.

SAMMY RAMSEY: Banana-nut muffins where the nuts were actually mealworms.

LULU: Mm-hmm.

SAMMY RAMSEY: I had larvae of red ants!

LULU: Oh!

SAMMY RAMSEY: They have, like, this citrusy taste. [Fading under.] Uh, probably the formic acid in them …

LULU: And while I would love to keep listening to Sammy talk—

SAMMY RAMSEY: I’ve had cicadas as well.

LULU: —In extensive culinary detail—

SAMMY RAMSEY: They've got sort of like a shrimpy, nutty thing going on.

LULU: —About all the bugs that we can eat …

SAMMY RAMSEY: Oh, I’ve had giant waterbugs.

(Crunch!)

LULU: … Sammy has come here to tell us about this bug that eats us!

(A bug buzzes and buzzes, gets caught, and is gone—and so is the music.)

SAMMY RAMSEY: The tsetse fly, or “set-see flies” as some say. I don't think there's actually a right way to pronounce it. (Both chuckle lightly.)

LULU: So, our story about the tsetse fly—this creature that today is only found in certain forested, swampy parts of Africa—begins over 34 million years ago, when an ancient fly crawled its way out of the dirt, brushed itself off and—

(An electronic buzzing plays alongside actual buzzing for just a moment.)

LULU: —Took off. Tummy rumbling. Looking for food. 

SAMMY RAMSEY: We're not sure what the range of snacks was for the original tsetse fly.

LULU: Sammy explains that, at first, the tsetse fly likely used its handy-dandy straw mouth to suck up nectar from flowers or juice from fruit. But, at a certain point, it figured out it could get way more nutrients, if it used that straw to suck blood from other creatures. Making tsetses—and other blood-feeding flies like it … 

SAMMY RAMSEY: Parasites. 

(Twangy country-styled music plays before distant horns enter in, almost like they are playing out of an old radio in a car on the other side of a parking lot.)

LULU: And particularly skilled parasites.

SAMMY RAMSEY: They had these really sharp straw mouthparts that are actually made up of different [A chainsaw buzzes as Sammy continues to talk.] The needle-like parts they're able to use to ratchet through the skin, even of things like crocodiles, which have really, really tough skin. 

LULU: So throughout history these hungry flies sawed through the thick scales of crocs—grr!—and tortoises—rrr!—until eventually much easier meals started showing up. 

(The music ends.)

PAUL MIREJI: And the bite from this tsetse fly is excruciatingly painful.

LULU: This is Dr. Paul Mireji, a scientist who studies tsetse flies—and a human who grew up alongside them in Western Kenya.

PAUL MIREJI: What they have in their mouth is like, uh—like a saw.

(A light scratchy-scratch.)

PAUL MIREJI: So they’re—they're pool feeders.

LULU: Wait, sorry. They're what—they’re what-feeders?

PAUL MIREJI: Pool feeders.

LULU: (Shocked.) Pool feeders!? Wait. Okay. So you're saying instead of a—kind of like a needle that goes in, they have a saw that just scrapes it open and makes like a giant pool of blood that they just slurp up?

(A pause.)

PAUL MIREJI: Yes.

(The twangy parasite music reprises. It’s back!)

LULU: Ow!

LULU: And, unlike a mosquito that you can, you know. defend yourself against with a nice little—

(Smack!)

SAMMY RAMSEY: So tsetse flies are pretty flat, and you pressing down on it is not gonna make it much flatter. 

LULU: Ugh!

LULU: And as that hard-to-squash little body is filling up with three times its own body weight in your blood ...

(That cute, tiny, menacing voice from before says, “Glug, glug, glug.”)

LULU: … To be light enough to fly away …

SAMMY RAMSEY: The tsetse fly has to void some of its, um, digestive …

LULU: (Starting to understand. It’s gross.) Uh …

SAMMY RAMSEY: … System …

LULU: And when you are using that lovely word, “void,” [Sammy laughs.] what do you mean?

SAMMY RAMSEY: It poops on ya. [Lulu groans.] Yeah.

LULU: But it’s shortly before that moment that the tsetse fly turns from gnarly to deadly. Because, as it bites thru your skin, it can pass along—

SAMMY RAMSEY: —Parasites from the tsetse fly into the body of the host.

LULU: Wait, so there can be parasites inside parasites?

(Soft, heavenly music plays. It sounds like a long empty hallway filled with just a little bit of water at the bottom. It would probably echo if you spoke.)

SAMMY RAMSEY: Oh, yeah! And sometimes there are parasites that live in parasites that live in parasites that live in parasites. 

LULU: Whoa!

LULU: And the stowaway parasites inside the tsetse fly are really bad news, because they carry a disease known as …

SAMMY RAMSEY: Sleeping sickness.

(The music gets darker. A solemn percussive melody begins to play.)

SAMMY RAMSEY: It’s pretty debilitating and some people die from it.

PAUL MIREJI: It’s very terrifying, because they are—they are everywhere. They are surrounding.

LULU: Paul explains that he spent a lot of his childhood trying to hide from the tsetse fly. 

PAUL MIREJI: Just to avoid being bitten.

LULU: So he’d never go down to the river in the morning, because that’s when the flies tended to be more active. 

PAUL MIREJI: So that kept us away from the river in the morning.

LULU: And if a wave of flies rolled in when he was driving in the car with his family, he’d have to …

(A needly little sound spirals down into a cascading crystal-clear synthesizer.)

PAUL MIREJI: … Close the windows. And so you are inside the car, it’s extremely hot, you can’t open the windows because the swarms of tsetse flies will get in the car.

LULU: Mmm.

LULU: And beyond that, there were entire places around him—beautiful hilltops or fields of orange flowers—where Paul and his friends were forbidden from going. 

PAUL MIREJI: Because whenever you go there, you come back dozing off, sick.

LULU: Huh.

PAUL MIREJI: Bad omen: That was how we described those areas. 

LULU: “Bad omen,” like bad luck?  

PAUL MIREJI: Yeah. Bad omen.  

(With a western-movie-style whistle, the music quiets.)

LULU: Now, because of how tsetse flies appeared to us, they have not been historically well-loved. In fact, back in the 1800s, when scientists went around ranking all creatures on a scale of “Goodness,” they placed tsetse flies and other parasites way down at the bottom. 

(Bumpy, bouncy string music plays for a minute before percussion enters in.

LULU: They reasoned that, because of the way these creatures behaved, biting into our skin, lazily freeloading off our blood, and—people assumed for a long time—neglecting their babies by just laying a bunch of eggs and flying off … All of this made the creatures objectively, scientifically, bad news for the planet.

(With a xylophone flourish, the curious music plays out.)

LULU: For a long time, this was how Paul—

PAUL MIREJI: Yes!

LULU: And even Sammy—

SAMMY RAMSEY: Oh yeah.

LULU: —Saw tsetse flies—

SAMMY RAMSEY: Mhm.

LULU: —And pretty much all bugs

SAMMY RAMSEY: Uh, let me tell you, when I say that I was afraid of bugs, it's truly an understatement.

LULU: Wait, really?

SAMMY RAMSEY: I was absolutely terrified. I thought the insects were out for my ill. I thought that they were intentionally trying to hurt me. [Buzzing.] I thought bees were looking for a person to sting. [A mosquito buzzes, lightly.] I thought that mosquitoes were intentionally trying to make me itchy. [Crickets play up.]Uh, I thought that crickets were trying to keep me up at night with all of that loud racket that they're making. 

LULU: He didn't want to go outside for recess, because they’re might be bugs out there. And when his sister realized he was scared of bugs, she would sometimes grab beetles or ants.

SAMMY RAMSEY: (In a high-pitched, mock-sister voice.) “Hey, Sammy, there's a bug on you!”

LULU: And throw them at him.

SAMMY RAMSEY: Uh. So I—I lost my mind in panic. Rather than brushing the insect off, I would just run around in circles.

LULU: Screaming, [“Ahh!”] and then he’d feel embarrassed for being so scared.

SAMMY RAMSEY: Oh man.

LULU: And his fears of bugs began crawling their way into his dreams.

(Mysterious, dark music begins. A flute plays a mystical melody for a moment, whisking us away to a world of dreams.)

SAMMY RAMSEY: I was always the smallest person in class, and I used to dream that the bugs were strong enough to carry me away. So, like, just a swarm of ants would come to my bed at night and carry me out of my house, down into their ant hill where they would, uh, divide me up and consume me. It's a scary, scary little world to live in.

LULU: Maybe it would have gone that way forever had his mom not pulled him inside one day and said, “Sammy, you gotta stop running.”

SAMMY RAMSEY: She said, “Sammy, people fear what they don't understand. If you understood them, then you wouldn't fear them.”

LULU: So cautiously, Sammy headed toward the “Entomology” section of the library, and began taking out books on ants and crickets and mosquitoes and termites.

(Looping marimba notes move back and forth, each individual note and phrase swaying in time to the rhythm of something bigger, something greater.)

SAMMY RAMSEY: I kept seeing all of these cool pictures really close-up of these creatures that had never bothered to really, really look at, and seeing all these cool— 

LULU: Hmm.

SAMMY RAMSEY: —Extra appendages and things that they had and all this interesting stuff that they could do.

LULU: Like building cities and regrowing limbs and surviving the most extreme conditions. These weren’t monsters. They're inventors and musicians and protectors, looking for food and family.

SAMMY RAMSEY: They also became something I identified with. I was always the smallest kid in class. I was the shortest, I was the skinniest. But to find that these creatures—these really, really, really tiny organisms—they can build structures that are visible from space. [Laughs in wonder.] They can do awesome stuff at an incredibly small size. And that was inspiring to me.

(An expansion: The world—and the music—opens up before it fades into the sky.)

LULU: And, by the time he hit high school, he had become so unafraid of bugs that he began wearing his giant, 14-inch millipede—

SAMMY RAMSEY: (Excitedly.) Leroy, my millipede!

(For a moment, the jazzy cafe music returns.)

LULU: —Around his neck.

LULU: Was it kinda like a—a showing off to your classmates?

SAMMY RAMSEY: Uh huh. Yeah, we call it a flex.

(And then, just as quickly, the music is gone again.)

PAUL MIREJI: (Shaking.) You can see now the tsetse flies!

LULU: Speaking of flexes.

LULU: Oh my gosh. Wait, are those actual tsetse flies right there?

PAUL MIREJI: Yes. Yes, and we have them here, as you can see.

LULU: In the middle of our interview, Paul over in Kenya pulls out a tambourine-looking thing, that was filled with living tsetse flies.

LULU: You know, it looks like you have almost 20 or so of them. And they're in this cage flying around. 

PAUL MIREJI: Yeah. (Laughs.)

LULU: Does that make you nervous to have them so close to you? Like, they’re—they’re—they … Right now, they look like they're swarming. They look like they're trying to get out of that little cage. Like, I feel nervous. Do you feel nervous?

PAUL MIREJI: No!

(Gentle, lush music unfolds for a breath. Then, plucky strings come back.)

LULU: And the reason why not is that Paul used the same magic trick as Sammy. At a certain point he began looking closer at the thing he feared. He became a scientist, specializing in the tsetse fly—as he puts it, because he wanted to gain control over the bug.

PAUL MIREJI: Because from the time I was a small boy, the bugs were controlling me. They were deciding when I should go to the river. They were deciding when I could go to the forest, they were deciding when I could play out with my friends. And now I decided that the best thing for me was go back and control the bugs. Make the bugs play by my rules.

LULU: How one man tries to make millions of bugs play by his rules after this short break.

LATIF: Latif.

LULU: Lulu.

LATIF: Radiolab.

LULU: Today we are playing a special hour of Terrestrials, our ever-so-occasionally musical, family-friendly series all about nature. [buzzes] Speaking of which, we are picking right back up with a whole lot of tsetse flies and a man named Paul who has just set out to ...

PAUL MIREJI: (In a distorted, low voice, like Darth Vader.) Control the bugs.

LULU: So the way that people usually control fly populations—like, mosquitos, say—is that they—well, they kill their babies. They target the places where they are likely to lay their eggs—stagnant water or dense brush—and then they’ll clear that stuff away [Wff! It’s gone!] and voila! No more adults.

(A refreshing silence.)

LULU: But Paul learned that, for some frustrating reason, this technique [Wff! Again.] would not work with tsetse flies! So he began looking closer at the creature—

(The buzzing restarts, but this time it’s joined by light piano notes, gently wavering up and then back down again, over and over.)

LULU: —Through microscopes and in obscure studies in books, and that’s when he learned this totally shocking thing which completely stunned Sammy, too.

(The buzzing cuts out from the music.)

SAMMY RAMSEY: With tsetse flies, the weird thing about it is their egg hatches inside of their body. And they actually—

LULU: Wait. What do you mean? I thought insects laid thousands of eggs out in the world and that’s just—that’s just how insects do it.

SAMMY RAMSEY: That’s actually not how the tsetse fly does it.

LULU: Wait! Meaning, they don’t lay eggs, so they … They don’t get pregnant, do they?

SAMMY RAMSEY: Yeah, yeah, yeah! They've got this really thin back-end: The abdomen. That’s the place where the baby would normally be. But after they start developing this child, it swells to ridiculous size—multiple times the size of what it was before.

LULU: Also, are you saying that the baby bump is on the booty?

(An abrupt stop to the music.)

SAMMY RAMSEY: Yeah. The baby bump is on the … It’s—it’s a booty baby bump. [JOKE SFX]

(An Alan song! A funky drumline plays over a spoken-word song, light vocals over a low, percussive voice, both saying the same words: 

“It’s a booty baby bump!

It’s a booty baby bump!

Is that junk in your trunk?

No, it’s a little tsetse punk!”)

LULU: But the strangeness does not stop there, because, as scientists looked closer, they realized that those tsetse moms ...

SAMMY RAMSEY: They actually will keep their baby fed on milk [Lulu gasps lightly.] that they produce inside of their body and feed to their offspring, which is crazy!

LULU: Wait, but, okay … What do you mean, “milk”? Like, not … milk? [Sammy laughs.] Like, we're talking about a bug. Bugs don't have milk. Do they?

SAMMY RAMSEY: Oh, bugs do have milk! [Taking on a fake fancy voice.] And I take exception with your skepticism!

LULU: With my tone here? [Both laugh.] I’m being judgy again? No, but, like, okay. Aren’t mammals—which humans are and, you know, cuddly little dogs and elephants—like, aren't we, the only things that do milk? Isn’t that what makes us special?

SAMMY RAMSEY: So we are not the only things that do milk. 

LULU: And we nurse–and it's like that science-y thing? We nurse our babies. We tend to them. 

SAMMY RAMSEY: We nurse them, yeah.

LULU: We don't just lay eggs and leave them. Like, we’re—I feel like that's what makes us think we're in the caring class of animal.

SAMMY RAMSEY: We are in the caring class, but we're not the only game in town.

(Inspiring, sustained piano music plays over long, stretched-out strings.)

LULU: Sammy explains that if you wanna rank animals by how well they care for their babies, tsetse flies arguably score even higher than us because they incubate those babies in their bellies for proportionally longer to their lives than we do.

SAMMY RAMSEY: Well, the tsetse flies keep that child inside of them [Lulu laughs.] until it's pretty much the day before it’s an adult.

LULU: That’s so weird, to picture being inside the womb until you’re, like, in high school.

SAMMY RAMSEY: Like, you’re basically born with a briefcase and a car. [Both laughing at the idea.] It’s time for you to get a job.

LULU: And because they come into the world so fully developed, some scientists even guess that the survival rate of tsetse babies is better than ours

SAMMY RAMSEY: Oh yeah, for sure! 

LULU: That is—that’s humbling. (Laughs gently.)

LULU: And, to further shake our sense of specialness, Sammy pointed out that tsetse flies aren't even that much of an outlier. They aren’t even the only bugs that make milk. 

SAMMY RAMSEY: There's even roach milk.

(Wait, what? The music ends, as if in reaction to roach milk.)

LULU: Blegh! Cockroaches?

SAMMY RAMSEY: Oh yeah! Yeah yeah yeah. Like—like, cockroaches, cockroaches.

LULU: Ugh!

SAMMY RAMSEY: It is some of the most nutritious milk that we know of. 

LULU: Sammy told me there are even labs looking into how to bottle the stuff.

LULU: (Over a big ripping sound.) Okay, I am opening this package from Omaha, Nebraska. 

LULU: Shortly after our interview, we talked our way into getting one of these labs to send us some cockroach milk for Sammy and me to taste.

LULU: Oh my god, there are two little vials here. [Laughing at herself, like she’s losing it for doing this.] It looks kinda maple syrup-y, but white, with, like, darker grains. Am I really gonna do this?

(A pause.)

LULU: Do you think this is our future? Like, are we gonna have roach milk in the supermarket alongside goat milk and rice milk and … ?

SAMMY RAMSEY: Oh, I hope so. I hope so. And that might sound like a really weird thing for a human being to say. 

(Clip-clopping exploratory music enters in.)

LULU: But, Sammy reasons, with so many cockroaches scurrying around all over the planet—[The skittering sounds of so many cockroaches.]—harvesting their milk just might be better for the environment than milk from big—[Moo!]—gassy cows—[Moo number two!]—[Lulu’s voice speeds up, like a lawyer’s disclaimer.] who are constantly belching out tons of methane gas which is a significant contributor to climate change … (The cows burp, changing the climate right then and there.)

(The music plays out.)

LULU: I can’t believe I’m about to try roach milk … [Sammy laughs.] Alright. No, but seriously, any little, like—can you give me a jingle to get me into the zone here?

SAMMY RAMSEY: Okay!

[A harp plays a flourish. Then, singing, with keyboard accompaniment.] You’ve tried the cow, you’ve tried the goat! [A goat bleats.] So how ‘bout now, you milk a roach? [One more harp strum ends the jingle. Both laugh.]

How ‘bout that?

LULU: Okay! Let’s just do it! Bottoms up!

SAMMY RAMSEY: Cheers!

(They both take a big sip.)

SAMMY RAMSEY: Oh!

LULU: I’m, like, shaking.

SAMMY RAMSEY: I kinda like that!

LULU: There’s, like, a cucumber-y …

SAMMY RAMSEY: Surprisingly salty.

LULU: Acrid … [Sammy laughs.] Ruined dreams of sunshine? (Sammy breaks into deeper laughter.)

LULU: Woo! Okay! So, speculative dairy scenarios aside. Back to Paul, with the real problem of real people being hurt by real tsetse flies—right now. 

PAUL MIREJI: Yeah.

LULU: Once Paul learned that there were no tsetse fly eggs out there in the world for him to ambush, he realized that, to control the tsetse fly population, he was going to have to find a way to make the adults …

(Electric guitar chords bump on up. It’s tsetse fly time!)

LULU: Come to him.

PAUL MIREJI: Exactly! 

LULU: So he learned their favorite color.

PAUL MIREJI: Tsetse flies like people who dress in blue and black. Blue, like in jeans.

LULU: Wait, what? They like the color blue?

PAUL MIREJI: Yes. Blue and black.

LULU: Its favorite animal … 

PAUL MIREJI: The buffalo. 

(A buffalo sound.)

LULU: (Whispering, an aside.) Nothin’ like a big, wet, stinky water buffalo.

LULU: Its favorite place?

 PAUL MIREJI: The river.

(Water rushes over a cool river.)

LULU: And then Paul deviously combined all three of these things—the river, the buffalo, and the colors black and blue—into the perfect …

PAUL MIREJI: Trap!

LULU: (Echoing.) Trap.

LULU: He hung a big black cloth near the blue river and he smothered the cloth in a liquid that smelled like …

(The music stops for a beat.)

PAUL MIREJI: The urine of the buffalo.

LULU: Wooo!

(One last flourish of the music.)

LULU: He added a little poison …

(Spray spray!)

LULU: And then he waited.

PAUL MIREJI: A little bit far away with the binoculars.

LULU: Until …

(Buzzing sounds.)

LULU: I've never heard of someone looking at insects with binoculars. Can you actually see flies with binoculars?

PAUL MIREJI: Yes, you can see from a distance …

LULU: And through his binoculars, he watched as one tsetse fly landed on the cloth ...

LULU: Dipped its little straw in the poison … [Slurp!] Began to fly away …

PAUL MIREJI: And then collapse and fall down.

(Twang! The fly falls down.)

LULU: Where it lay on the forest floor until, eventually …

PAUL MIREJI: It is taken away by ants.

(Sammy’s ant nightmare song returns.)

LULU: Wow. I'm picturing you watching through your binoculars as the ants come and eat it. Like, carry it off and eat it!

PAUL MIREJI: Yeah. (Chuckles lightly.)

(The music ends.)

LULU: Do you feel victorious? Do you feel, like, “Ha ha ha!” [Chuckles.] Like, “I—I got you!”?

PAUL MIREJI: A very big sense of relief. Because from every tsetse fly that is eaten away is one bite less—guaranteed one bite less—for me and for everyone around me. 

(Spacey music plays up, peaceful and calm, like a success story playing out the credits.)

LULU: These days, sleeping sickness is very well-controlled in Kenya. Thanks to new medicines. And, thanks to Paul’s work, bites themselves have even gone down.

LULU: If you could just snap your fingers and make all the tsetse flies go away on planet Earth, would you do it?

PAUL MIREJI: No, I wouldn’t. Because it would upset … (Fades under and out.)

LULU: Paul explains that, when he looks at the creature biting his skin—sure, he sees a gnarly little bugger that he is literally in the business of trying to kill—but when he zooms out, when he looks at a map of the national parks in Africa, he can’t help but to wonder if many of those green spots on the map were able to stay protected because of the tsetse fly, or, you know, our human fear of it.

PAUL MIREJI: Bad omen. We described as a bad omen.

LULU: Which kept not just Paul and his neighbors away from certain mountains and parts of the savannah, but outsiders, like colonists and loggers and developers who might otherwise have long ago destroyed the nature in those parks. Which is why, these days, in Paul’s community …

PAUL MIREJI: Tsetse fly is considered the guardian of the savannah.

LULU: The—the guardian?

PAUL MIREJI: Yes.

LULU: Huh.

(The music rings up and shimmers—magic.)

LULU: The closer scientists like Paul and Sammy look at the tsetse fly, the more they realize how much they had been missing by looking away.

SAMMY RAMSEY: Oh yeah!

LULU: For instance, Sammy got all dazzled about how the tsetse fly filters out toxins from our blood because he figured, if we could learn how they do it, it could help us decontaminate water supplies—or who knows!

SAMMY RAMSEY: Like, these creatures have had to solve some really complicated situations and we have some big, scary, hairy problems to solve ourselves. Things like world hunger and global warming are going to require us to really, really think. And I think a lot of these answers are going to come from creatures that have used their creativity to solve all kinds of problems themselves. Unfortunately, those may be creatures that can test the boundaries of our ability to wonder, but I hope that we'll push those boundaries more and keep the wonder going. 

(A new Alan song!)

LULU: Uh oh! Someone’s got a triangle!

(A funky triangle beat, played with rhythmic clapping, signals the start of the song.)

Alan: (Singing with a chorus of voices.) If you’re feeling stale or stuck, 

scared, bored or out of luck,

Try a new point of view. To get yourself unstuck 

You gotta yum your yuck! [A whip cracks.]

(A bouncy synthesizer gives the song a pop-music texture.)

LULU: (Singing.) Help me! I don’t know what I’m gonna find.

I try to have an open mind

But you are crunching on something disgusting! [Spoken.] Yuck!

Alan: (Singing with autotune.) I just want to say it’s okay. Yeah, it’s fine

to change your mind anytime and redefine what you like!

I know that you’re brave, yeah!

And I know that you can change, yeah!

But don’t bug me with your yuck! [The new voice says, “Hey!”]

You better suck it up like a tsetse fly!

(A brief instrumental moment.)

Alan: Hey Dr. Sammy!

SAMMY RAMSEY: Yo?

Alan: You got anything you wanna put on this track?

SAMMY RAMSEY: Oh, I got you! I didn’t choose the bug life. The bug life chose me!

Alan: (Laughing.) Alright, boss. What’s on the menu?

SAMMY RAMSEY: Here we go!

[Singing.] I’ve had silkworm caterpillars dried and fried.

A little bit of sugar makes the flavor come alive.

Banana nut muffins with worms inside.

The crunchier the better, now open wide!

The thing about bugs is they’re just another critter.

They all evolved because they were fitter.

[Harmonizing with Alan.] Better, smarter, stronger, quicker

So we can get a lot from them besides dinner.

Alan: If you’re feeling stale or stuck, 

scared, bored, or out of luck,

Try a new point of view to get yourself unstuck 

You gotta yum your yuck!

 

Spread your gross on jam like toast 

And yum the thing that makes you yuck the most.

Take a whiff of something new

Even if it smells like—pretty roses! [Another whip!]

 

Watch out! We got an appetite

To take a bite

For giving something new a try.

LULU: (Singing.) Hurry up before I change my mind!

Alan: 3, 2, 1.

LULU: Gulp! (One more whip crack!)

Alan: If you’re feeling stale or stuck,

Scared, bored, and out of luck

Try a new point of view!

To get yourself unstuck,

You gotta yum your yuck!

LULU: The one and only Alan Goffinski! With vocal stylings from Dr. Sammy Ramsey—and me. All right, and that's it for Terrestrials. There's nothing else cool about to happen, you should—[hic]?

BADGER: Excuse me, I have a question.

BADGER: Me too.

BADGER: Me three.

BADGER: Me four.

LULU: The Badgers! Listeners with badgering questions for the expert.

LULU: Are you ready?

SAMMY RAMSEY: Yeah.

AIDEN: Hi, my name is Aiden and I’m 12. [Giggles.] Is there anything that makes a mosquito bite you instead of somebody else?

SAMMY RAMSEY: So mosquitoes really like people who are sweating and people who are exhaling a lot. So if you happen to be doing a lot of exercising outdoors, you will attract more mosquitoes.

LULU: Oh!

SAMMY RAMSEY: There's been some research around this and bananas actually do have some components in them that seem to, in some people, make them more attractive [Lulu gasps.] to mosquitoes. 

LULU: That is bananas.

JAD: My name is Jad and here’s my question: If a mosquito is biting your arm and you flex your arm muscles right at the moment that its little proboscis is going into your arm and it’s drawing out the blood—if you flex your arm right at that moment, will it explode or is that just an urban myth?

SAMMY RAMSEY: Is that Jad Abumrad?

LULU: Yeah!

SAMMY RAMSEY: [laughs] Oh, that makes me very happy. Mosquitoes have been around for a long time. Evolutionarily, they've got all kinds of pumps and mechanisms in place to prevent the backflow system that would allow for an influx of blood to make them blow up.

LULU: Myth—unlike the mosquito—busted. (Explosion noise!)

JUDE: Hi my name is Jude (Lulu whispers to Jude, “And how old are you?”). Three. Do ants make sounds? 

SAMMY RAMSEY: Hey Jude! Ants do make sounds. Um, some of the most famous ants that make sounds are the queens. So queen ants have a special sound that only they make in the colony …

(A scritchy-scratchy sound plays: It’s the queen!)

(At the same time, the music changes to become big and spaced-out.)

SAMMY RAMSEY: The queen’s saying, [In a royal voice.] “I’m your queen. Give me your food.” 

But there are some butterflies that have gotten into ant colonies and have figured out how to hijack that system. They lay an egg, their baby hatches from the egg, and the caterpillar walks around the colony, making the same sound as the queen!

(The same sound echoes, just a little lower than the queen’s sound!)

SAMMY RAMSEY: (Making another silly, fancy voice.) “I am your queen! Feed me!” And the ants feed them and raise them like they're queens.

LULU: Ohh! Sneaky! 

LULU: All right. I’m gonna leave it there with the parasitic butterfly waiting in the wings. And before we wrap up for good, let's sic the badgers on Sy Montgomery, our octopus expert. Sy, are you ready?

SY: Ready!

RUBY: Hi, my name is Ruby, and my question is: how many species of octopus are there?

SY: Over two hundred.

EVANGELINE: Hello my named is Evangeline, and I was wondering: What is the biggest octopus ever found?

SY: Six hundred pounds.

LULU: Wow!

LEO: Hi, Lulu! My name is Leo. [Speaking French] Est-ce qu’une pieuvre mange des oeufs?

LULU: Huh! [Saying the French word for “French”!] Francais!

Leo’s Parent: Can you say “Does …”?

LEO: (Translating from French to English with help from a grown-up.) Does …

Leo’s Parent: Does an octopus eat eggs?

LEO: “Does an octopus eat eggs?”

SY: I think it would.

CLARA: My name is Clara. What is one of the biggest mistakes you have ever made?

SY: Well, just last week, I was working at the Turtle Rescue League and I was moving an old turtle. I lifted a turtle, my finger was too close to her mouth, and she bit me.

LULU: Ow!

ELLIOT: Hi, my name is Elliot: Why do octopuses squirt their ink? Is it smelly? And can you write with it?

SY: You can write with it, actually! I bet it is smelly to the predators that it bothers. It is chemically very complex. And some people even think that the ink actually drugs the predator into believing that they’ve already had enough to eat.

LULU: So cool!

TEO: Hi! My name is Teo. Do their arms move in unison? Or can they move independently of each other?

SY: Yes they can move independently of each other. And in fact, if a predator bites off one of your arms, for a while, that arm can still go off and do stuff.

LULU: Whoa!

SY: It's almost as though the animal has nine brains! And sometimes it appears the octopus has shy arms and some bold arms.

LULU: [laughs] It’s, like, got different personalities?

SY: Yeah! Imagine that! What is that like? What is the self like if you have nine brains?

LULU: Fabulous questions, Badgers. Thank you. I’m gonna leave it here to let you ponder that little mind-bender. And I'm definitely not gonna tell you about the claims that octopuses, when eaten alive, have been said to crawl out of the throats of the whales, dolphins and occasionally humans [Coughs.] that try to consume them. I'm not gonna tell you that, 'cause I’m nice.

LULU: Before we let you go, teachers: we wanted to let you know that we have made free—free free free free free teaching materials for both of these stories. We worked with professional educators at PBS Learning Media to make all kinds of handouts and fun activities, discussion prompts that align with national standards. Ooh la la! Free free free. Different ones for grades K through eight. You can find all that on our website, RadiolabForKids.org.

LULU: And again, there is a whole new season of Terrestrials out now. Just head on over to the Radiolab for Kids feed and look for Terrestrials. We've got new stuff coming your way every other week.

LULU: Terrestrials was created by me, Lulu Miller with WNYC Studios. The talented songbud who writes and sings all of the original songs is Alan Goffinski. This episode was produced by Ana Gonzalez, Alan Goffinsky, Mira Bertwin Tonic and me. With help from Tanya Chawla, Val Powers, Suzie Lechtenberg, Sarah Sandbach, Natalia Ramirez, Sarita Bhatt, Diane Kelly, Joe Plourd and Arianne Wack.

LATIF: In addition to her adult-y book, Sy Montgomery also has a beautiful picture book out about the octopus Inky's amazing escape, called Inky's Amazing Escape. And if you or your kiddos dig what you heard today, we got great news for you, because season two of Terrestrials has just launched. Here is a sneak peek.

LULU: Imagine ...

MAN: And your arms break off and your flesh turns to poison.

LULU: And your body begins turning strange colors.

WOMAN: Bright yellow and tangerine orange.

MAN: And you suddenly get really good at math.

LULU: Bugs can do math?

MAN: Uh-huh.

LULU: There is a whole new season of Terrestrials coming. Radiolab's family-friendly, ever-so-occasionally musical series about nature. On each episode we tell you a story about a creature that may seem fantastical ...

MAN: It was like unbelievable.

LULU: ... but is entirely true.

MAN: Oh my goodness.

LULU: And this season, we scoured high and low all over the globe.

MAN: Underwater.

WOMAN: In the desert.

WOMAN: In the wind.

WOMAN: Underground.

LULU: Up to the Arctic.

LULU: [laughs] Oh, it is cold!

LULU: Braving, dangerous terrain.

MAN: All right. Mud's getting deeper down here, guys.

LULU: Wild beasts.

WOMAN: It bit me several times.

LULU: And our own confusion.

LULU: So honey doesn't come out of bees?

MAN: No! It doesn't come out of bees.

LULU: To uncover ...

MAN: Wow!

LULU: ... the overlooked.

MAN: Look at them!

LULU: ... overlooked creatures.

WOMAN: It's like a fur ball the size of a grapefruit.

MAN: They are dancing on the comb, which is really cool.

LULU: And overlooked storytellers, waiting quietly beneath our noses.

WOMAN: I didn't really speak much. Or really at all. I didn't speak at all.

MAN: There's moments where you are made to feel different.

LULU: Who have life-changing secrets to share.

WOMAN: It totally upended everything we know about what we think of as an organism.

LULU: [laughs] What a witchy little ritual!

LULU: Join us for a nature walk that just might get you to fall in love with this planet again.

MAN: Woo! This hippo's barely up to my waist.

LULU: I mean, how realistic is it that we could get humans hibernating in, like, 20 years?

WOMAN: I think that it would be possible.

MAN: Ooh!

LULU: Come hang out with us.

SONGBUD: [singing] Oh, oh! Grow together better than alone. Together better than alone!

LULU: Terrestrials. Radiolab's ever-so-occasionally musical series all about nature, hosted by me, Lulu Miller. Kids and adults welcome.

LULU: It's like fencing. Booty fencing. [laughs]

MAN: Booty fencing is the best phrase that I've heard all week.

LULU: All new episodes coming in September. Terrestrials, on the Radiolab for Kids feed, wherever you cast your pots.

MAN: Yeah, it sounds like a whole little party. [laughs]

LULU: Bye!

LATIF: So that's season two launching this week. Just head on over to the Radiolab for Kids podcast feed or TerrestrialsPodcast.org, where new episodes will drop every other week.

[LULU: Support for Terrestrials is provided by the Simons Foundation, the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations, the Calliopea Foundation and the John Templeton Foundation. Thank you!]

 

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