All right.
Hello, everyone, and welcome to Invertecast.
I am Leah with, obviously, you know me from Invertecast, and Tredge Leah.
And we have Simon from the Mantis Garden and wonderful special guest, Jackie Below, who
is a master of science and an entomologist with the butterfly pavilion.
And yeah, like...
A bunch of other stuff.
Yeah, just wonderful.
She's actually even a doctorate candidate at the Colorado State University.
So welcome.
Thank you.
Ah, we're so happy to have you.
This is great to be here.
I love...
Any chance someone gives me to just, you know, go off about spiders?
I'm totally okay with that.
Absolutely.
Well, and this is definitely that place.
So...
Yeah, it's so much...
We love chatting about it.
I love having guests on the show just because it's, you know, it kind of diversifies our
show a bit and helps kind of, you know, people understand what we do and what we love.
And so that's kind of why we're here.
Excuse my voice.
I am a little froggy.
There's been...
I'm sure you know, like there's been that cold and cough stuff going around.
So I'm a little...
But I have a voice, so we're going.
Keep going for it.
It's fine.
No, I go to three different college and university campuses, plus the Butterfly Pavilion throughout
the week.
I'm like, I'm surprised I'm not sick all the time.
So...
Oh, wow.
Every cold that's going on, I'm like, oh yeah, I'm aware there's a cold here.
So...
You sound fine.
So, okay.
So my first question is how did you first become interested in entomology and like how
did you decide that that was your field of study?
Oh, I thought it was like bugs.
I was that kid that like collected bugs.
I felt personally attacked by season four of Stranger Things.
We were watching it and I like turned to my partner like really slowly and he's like,
that's weird.
I was like, I feel personally attacked.
Because I was that kid.
My grandfather owned like a restaurant.
He was like a truck stop.
But they had, you know, they get these big things of Mayo and ketchup every week.
And when they were done with them, he'd rinse them out and I'd go outside and collect bugs
and keep them until my mom found them and get rid of them.
So I would kind of, you know, was that kid.
And then I actually had another career before I went to college.
I was a non-traditional student.
Or yes, I am a non-traditional student.
I worked in film and television for years as a writer and a producer.
He swung the other way.
Yeah.
I worked in writing and so like that for television and then when I was three five, I was like,
I don't want to do this anymore.
So I went to school and I was like, I don't know what I want to do.
And I always loved biology.
So I started that and I did my internship during undergrad at the coroner's office and
did my capesan thesis on MAGID activity.
Oh, wow.
In Chidavar.
That's incredible.
If you like weird crap, come talk to me.
I like it.
I think that's fascinating.
Yeah.
So I want to do my masters.
I worked with wasps and then I was like, I want to do spider stuff now.
So that's pretty much it.
Awesome.
That is so cool.
I've always been really fascinated with like how or what kinds of insects break down, you
know, corpses and like how that kind of happens.
And I know, I don't know if you're aware of the show, Bones, but they have, you know,
I love his character.
I think he's like one of the best characters on that show.
The entomologist, you know, he always finds the specific bug and then they're like, oh,
this body came from here.
And it's just, it's so cool.
So cool.
So kudos.
Actually, we have, so I did some dissection with the Denver Museum, Dr.
McMaster's like as a volunteer because I can feel dress a squirrel really quickly.
And like I can get a squirrel real fast.
And I worked with domestic beetles a lot.
And actually I'm co-parenting some domestic beetles right now with my friend.
He keeps some in his house.
You have some?
Do you have domestic?
Yeah.
Cause everybody, how to take a flesh eating beetles in their house.
You keep them when you keep roaches or crickets and they eat the dead bodies.
Oh yeah.
We keep them with the roaches too.
Yeah.
They'll clean up after them and we don't have to worry about them then.
It's super helpful.
And then we were doing it, we're like once we have now, I'm like, I just want to get
the colony going so I can also swap them out with my roach colony because they were getting
a little inbred in the roach colony.
Oh, well.
Yeah.
I was like, oh, I had them all else.
I probably should get some new genetics in there.
And yeah, we would like cleaning it.
I was like, I don't work with vertebrates, but if you find vertebrate stuff, let's clean
it.
So I've kind of been venturing into beetles.
Oh, that's cool.
I mean, beetles are fascinating.
They're one of the largest and most diverse genera or classification of insects.
So that's like one in, what is it, one in four insect is a beetle?
Yeah.
If you want to watch entomologists fight, find a hymenopterus and find one of these beetles.
Yeah.
Watch for that.
So I think, you're like, I think.
You're like, you're watching a fight.
It's funny.
That's great.
Simon, did you, did you have a question you wanted to ask Jackie?
Who me?
Yeah.
Oh, right.
No, I didn't.
I was going to let you two walk along and then I was just going to, you know, tell you
how much I didn't like spiders in between.
Like spiders.
That's all right.
So I said, I'm just going to ring it.
And when you come up with a subject that, you know, I'm okay with, I don't quite aptly
jump in.
I think that's a question about butterflies, but she's already said that she prefers the
spiders.
So I'm out of questions with spiders.
They're creepy.
They've got eight legs.
And I've got loads of them over there and I like them over there.
It's actually pretty funny because I keep teasing Simon like, Hey, so did you ever find
that, you know, chromatist that got running around your house?
I actually haven't got, I've got my feet off the floor right now.
Just in case.
Just in preparation.
Probably the best of one thing for a couple of months and we've not seen it.
Hopefully one of my mantises got it.
But if they haven't, then still is somewhere.
Could be anything because he's all sorts of things escaping here.
You know, he's able to start to get there.
Yeah, like in the spider room, we have the, what I call the free range spiders.
They're the wild ones.
We're like, great.
I guess get away from us while we're feeding.
Yeah.
They get caught in the corner and get eaten by the spider.
Cause absolutely.
Absolutely.
I actually have, I think there's, I still have a, I have a, what in my versicolor's
enclosure, there's like this tiny little, I don't know what kind of spider it is right
now, but it looks like a little yellow spack spider, but it's just hanging out on the total
opposite end of, of my tarantulas, like web and everything.
So he's got a little buddy.
It's kind of fun.
Roommate.
I've been trying to, housing is so expensive these days.
You know, how can you afford friends?
Yeah.
Talking about this, the spider side of things, like, are you into two spiders or are you into
the horrible ones with the ass?
Like, yeah.
So most of my research right now is with tarantulas.
So I look at it kind of all, hey, there's a lot of, look, they can hear you.
We don't want to discourage them.
Yeah.
I won't show you the stirremies cause they're like 11 inches.
Oh, they're beautiful.
They're gorgeous.
They're very velvety looking.
Could you explain the difference between a true spider and a tarantula?
Yes.
So one of the major differences is how their fangs can move.
So if you want to, like, picture it, tarantulas, their fangs kind of move this way.
And then two spiders, their fangs move like a hinge.
There's also their webs.
So tarantulas can't make the variety of silks that true spiders can.
We, you know, we say primitive, meaning like closer to the ancestral source.
So it kind of looks more like the ancestral species.
So mygalomorphs, which includes tarantulas, are more primitive.
They look more like early spiders would have looked where true spiders.
I mean, you don't want to say more evolved because you're just in there just as evolved
as everything currently arrived right now.
Yes.
We all made it.
It's kind of a misnomer with evolution.
These are like, oh, it's more evolved.
I mean, it's more, you know, changed since the original basal species.
But, okay.
They're just a little bit more primitive, I guess.
They have fewer silks.
They aren't just terrestrial.
They don't only live on the ground.
There are arboreal tarantulas, but they're not going to build like an orb weaver would
with those, you know, big webs and use that as their primary source of catching food,
essentially.
So yeah, the big difference is, you know, just how primitive they are and then their
fangs and those hairs, the set they have are for newer ones.
So, I think that's really how we talk about Western hemisphere, trying to get that started.
I know, nobody knows New World, Old World anymore.
I don't think that's really how we talk.
Yeah, I'm on to who?
Yeah.
Good point.
It's like us and entomology and anthropology still say that.
And that's it.
Yeah.
You know, with the Western hemisphere species, they do have those, those urticating hairs.
Urtica is just hives and they do cause hives.
I have been hered by a molt.
I know better than they start kicking and like, nope.
Yeah.
Oh yeah.
And I had a beautiful rash for two months.
I've had a couple of those from my, from my Rocky pelmas.
They are masters at hair kicking.
Yeah, I had to run it for my wife, my wife keeps tarantulas.
Well, where's your wife?
She took out a molt and left it on my table and I cuddlingly, she thought the isopods might
eat it.
I just picked up the molt and put it in the isopods and then after that I was, my hand
was driving me nuts.
So yeah, the hair.
Yeah.
And they look so cool.
There's a, I love finding papers on them.
A lot of papers on urticating hairs are actually from ophthalmologists.
Oh wow.
Because people get them in their eyes and they have a great case study.
But what's actually about the tarantulas, they'll get really great like electron scanning
microscope images of them and they look like harpoons.
There's various types and subtypes, but in general, they're, you know, like this long
shaft and this barbed end.
To see that you're like, oh, that's why.
And that's how I explain them also to my friends.
They're saying, well, what's an urticating hair?
I said, if they're like tiny little harpoons that the tarantulas kick and it's a defense
mechanism, you know, so yeah, that makes sense.
That's cool.
It's cool to look at them.
It's not cool to have.
When I did have that high, like those highs, I was like, oh, this looks number one, like
I have a skin disease.
I would imagine it would be really painful to get them in your eyes or, you know, that
doesn't sound fun at all.
I've avoided that so far.
So that's my goal in life to die having never had that happen.
Right.
I'm with you.
So, okay.
So speaking of your favorite arthropods and inverts and stuff, do you have like a favorite
one to study?
To study?
Yeah.
I don't want any of them to feel bad.
So right now I live in Colorado.
We're CSU, obviously is, and Butterfly Pavilion.
Go Rams.
Oh yeah.
Yeah, they keep telling me like, do you want to go to football game?
I'm like, not really.
A lot of football games as a kid.
It's just cold.
Don't know what I'm like.
But we are doing a lot of work with the Afonipoma hensies here in Colorado.
So Colorado does have two species.
One's on the eastern side of the mountains.
The one's on the western side of the mountains because that's a perfect, you know, biological
barrier.
This is like giant Rockies.
Yeah.
Oh yeah, we get to go to the prairie and I know like the short grass prairie isn't everybody's
cup of tea.
It's very hot or very cold and it does kind of have this like deslits, but it's kind of
this like, this like gorgeous deslits kind of, you know, it's just very bare and sparse.
And I've had a really great time being out in the prairie with them and seeing the, like
getting to see wild tarantulas, which is something like a lot of people that even keep them don't
get the opportunity to do.
So yeah, I've really enjoyed that.
I keep like a running list of things.
I'm like, oh, that's a great, because we get master students in and stuff at the bottom
of the line pavilion.
And I'll be like, oh, that's a good idea for a master's student to research project on.
So I kind of jumps around on what species I'm obsessing over at the moment.
Definitely doing work with the Pematolica's has been awesome.
We're doing some conservation work.
In fact, if anybody is interested in donating Pematolica molts to get sequenced.
Oh, that's amazing.
Yeah, I can give out my email.
I'll let you get me an email.
Yeah.
I have one Pematolica and I'm actually waiting for him or hurdle.
I don't even know if mine is a male or a female, but I'm actually suspicious that mine might
be a female just because she's taking forever and a day to get like to her adult size, which
is weird.
Yeah.
So I'm kind of.
Yeah, we're trying to look at assurance populations for them.
They do have number one, just a limited range of species.
And that is one thing that can put you on the endangered species list.
Anyways, they are critically endangered.
And obviously I keep trying to realize all of these spiders are the descendants of spiders
that were taken from the wild.
I'm not naive in that.
They didn't wander into, you know, I realize that that is what happened here.
But of course, yeah, with the metallica, they've been really affected by our cultural activity
in the area like for oil plantations, but also with poaching and an assurance population
for invertebrates is challenging because where with like a rhino breeding program, you bring
a rhino, you have a baby rhino, you raise the rhino.
Right.
And with invertebrates, you have tons of babies, and it's hard to get facilities on board with
that because they don't want 100 baby spiders to take care of.
They have to individually feed, you know, like they're not on board.
So what we're trying to do is build a system where accredited facilities like that are
AZA accredited like butterfly pavilion or Denver Zoo or the university can work with
private keepers and just have a organized breeding program to keep the genes moving and
stir in the pot, not getting too much deliverance activity and breeding going on to keep them
healthy and also provide a healthy, sustainable supply of captive bred spiders.
Best thing to do to drive down, you know, poaching and yeah, it's just provide them
cheaper captive bred.
So that's part of my research too.
So I've had a lot of fun working with them and being like, oh, these are, these are really
cool and nobody really does that much about them and, you know, kind of seeing and doing
the genetics on it's always fun.
But yeah, no, I think that's fascinating.
So you said there's two species of tarantula that are native here in Colorado.
I know of the aphonopelma hensi, but what's the other one?
Is the onyx is the A N A X.
I like saying that right.
Yeah.
I never pronounce that right.
I have a very Midwestern accent.
I figured out I was saying when I was talking to my students, I was saying mitosis and meosis
and my Midwestern accent made it impossible to tell the difference.
So now I have to say mitosis.
Am I?
That's really, I didn't know that the aphonopelma A N X came all the way up here.
That's fascinating.
Yeah.
They're in this like Sky Island areas.
Okay.
Southwestern Colorado.
They're very reclusive and like I would love to do research with them, but apparently
even like tracking them down is challenging.
Brett Hendrickson.
Yeah.
Brett Hendrickson is a researcher in Missouri, but he did his PhD here in Colorado and he
like did some work with them, but it was challenging to track them down.
It's a lot harder to find them where with the aphonopelma hensis, I can go out in the
prairie and kind of wander around for a little bit.
They're usually at the same kind of, yeah.
That's fascinating.
That's amazing.
Okay.
So, well, my next question is, and you kind of answered it is, has have you been involved
in any expeditions or discoveries or new descriptions of any kind of inference or?
Well, so most of my work isn't taxonomic.
So I don't do a lot of like descriptions, but hopefully, hopefully soon get the paper
out.
So I think except with the hensis, there's just not a lot of information on them.
I've had to, it's kind of funny when you're like trying to see like what's the oldest
paper I could cite.
Yeah.
The oldest paper I'd cited for with the hensis is like in the 70s.
I was like, well, there's one paper about them and then the thing, and there's like
1999, what there was a paper.
Wow.
And then like nothing.
Wow.
Yeah.
It's kind of an empty whole of information about them.
I guess there's a.
Reclassification 2016, I guess that counts as a paper.
But we are working with like looking at borough architecture.
Oh, looking at, yeah, seeing like how, how they're living there.
It's not fun in the prairie all the time.
It is pretty rough.
Yeah.
It's hot and cold.
And there's no shade.
There's no shade.
No shade.
No.
Yeah.
The prairie is notional at all.
No, not at all.
Not at all.
I will say like the first time I went out in the field, I was with one of my advisors
and I didn't drink enough water in front of my advisor.
Yeah.
That's classy.
And that's, that's one thing, you know, I, I preach to people who are going to, you
know, come and visit Denver, come and visit Colorado, like make sure you're drinking lots
of water because the elevation will like zap you.
Oh yeah.
And like the, the prairie in the summer, when we usually go, it will start out freezing.
In the morning.
It's just so cold.
And it just escalates so fast.
And by 11, you know, it's over 100 degrees and you're sweating and there's, you know,
trying to get away from the sun.
So that, that is one thing that we were looking at is like, they're surviving there all year
round.
Yeah.
There was one cold weather paper about tarantulas that was in South America and the Andes.
And then they showed like they weren't, so some, some invertebrates will produce like
glycogen.
They'll produce like sugars.
They'll produce antitrees in their, in their heme lifts.
Oh wow.
It equates to blood.
Yeah.
And it will keep them from freezing solid.
They looked at that with this species in the Andes and didn't appear, they were doing
that, but they were still okay at cold temperatures.
And we were like, oh, maybe there's something with their burrows.
Also what do their burrows look like?
So we did a plaster Paris mold and dug them out last year.
And I'm kind of working through that paper and trying to use blend, had to learn to use
blunder for a while.
So cool.
Yeah.
It's been really neat.
Like looking at how, so I was shocked because they were like two feet deep.
Oh wow.
Yeah.
Wow.
That was probably the coolest thing I've found so far.
For sure.
Cause I mean, I know like fissorial species will, they burrow very, very deep.
So it's interesting that even our terrestrial fauna pelmas are like, oh, we're just going
to keep burrowing.
Oh yeah.
I was, we were digging and I'm like, it can't be like, we're pouring the plaster in
and I'm like, why is this not filling up all the way?
And then it kept going and going.
And then I'm like, okay.
And the first time we dug one out, it took about seven hours.
Wow.
I know what we were doing.
And yeah, it just was crazy because it was so deep.
And then we found like, there seems to be two models.
Like it's like track homes.
Okay.
So one's really long and, and you know, those are the deep ones.
And then there's sort of the shorter ones and the longer ones.
There was a lot of like remnants of egg sacks.
So I'm wondering if those aren't the females that are deep ones.
Yeah.
That makes sense.
It might be for the humidity.
Yeah.
It might be for the humidity or it is like a thousand degrees on the surface.
That's fascinating.
Yeah.
Right.
That's really cool though.
Like, that's, that's just incredible.
Like I can't imagine that the males would, would burrow very deeply, you know, so that
it kind of makes sense that the females have the deeper burrows.
Yeah.
They have more time to expand on their home.
For sure.
Right.
That's cool.
Okay.
So do, how challenging would you say it is to be a female in your, in your line of study
or in your line of work?
I will have to say for a rachnology, I am very proud because at last, last I heard 61% of
the AAS, so the American Rachnological Society is female.
Oh, that killer.
So it's female.
Yeah.
It's, it's awesome to, it's kind of like, sure.
Like shark researchers are mainly people that identify as female.
So it's like, oh, this is fantastic.
Like we get to, we get to have one area.
I don't know, I don't know, sharks, I have even less of an idea, but with Trent, there
is kind of a riot girl feel with, I will give them that.
I agree.
Yeah.
Totally.
But alternative punk chicks, you know, it's a little bit that, that is true.
I was at the pavilion one time and like a guest came in and they were with the curatorial
head and I was just in the office and she's like, oh, this is Jackie.
Didn't say what I did there or anything.
And the lady's like, oh, you're the one that studies spiders.
And she left it like, yeah, they clocked that real fast.
Like, yeah.
Yeah.
Oh, that's awesome.
You know, thinking about it, you're saying that about females.
I obviously sell books and my, the majority of my customers are women.
That's fascinating.
So that just sort of like goes along with what you're saying is like, it seems as though
more women are interested in books than men in reality.
Yeah.
And you wouldn't think that, you know, because of people with a crawling up, you know, everything
woman is supposed to not like.
And yet they are the thing that, you know, like I say, majority of my customers are female.
I think that's fantastic.
The majority of the like the YouTubers, for instance, are male.
So it's had a, these females need to stop being so bloody shy.
I agree.
That's just a problem they've got.
It's like, they've just been shy and not speaking up, not starting groups, not doing
their side.
So the men are end up with, with like, you know, look at the top of the pile.
All the credit.
So they're selling them.
It's definitely women.
And I'd say it's a good 80% women who are buying books and totally 20% men.
Wow.
So there you go.
Unless it's just my books, you know, because I don't, I don't sell the horrible ones like
tarantulas.
Yeah, I suppose, and sex, classmates, and playing mantis, women tend to have cracked
it.
Well, I mean, in recent years, in recent years, there has kind of been a big push for women
and females to, or female identifying to, to kind of join in the STEM, you know, studies
and what, what do we call that?
Yeah, like the, and professions, you know, because young ladies and stuff like that,
they've noticed that there's kind of this disparage between men and women in the science,
technology, engineering, mathematics.
So there has kind of been a big decent push.
Sorry about him.
Yeah, I love it.
Like, I want a cat.
Yeah.
But there has been kind of a decent push for, for young women or females to, to, you know,
join in on the science fund.
So I think that's, that's fascinating.
And I'm really glad to have you on the podcast, because then it kind of helps those young
ladies say, you know, this isn't something that you can just dream of.
You can definitely do it like this is something you can do.
So yeah.
When I think to like, and I, I still see this sometimes like, you know, with, I don't have
kids, I don't want kids.
I have a room full of spiders.
Right.
That's enough.
Yeah, like this is great.
And I can leave them alone for, you know, all day and the state won't mind.
I can only feed them once a week and the state won't mind.
And with young students that we have come in or kids that are talking to my friends,
kids, a lot of the time, you know, like their daughters are just as interested and, you
know, they think it's, it's just as cool and they want to go out and like hunt for spiders
outside and like for bugs.
And then there is sort of this kind of cultural, I don't want to say cultural, but like cultural
culture is just a community you're in where like older women will sometimes be like, oh
no, that's gross or they'll be like, oh, I don't want to touch it.
That's gross.
And they'll kind of act grossed out by it.
Yeah.
And then they'll act that way.
And it's like, oh, I think this might be learned.
This might be a learned behavior that gets off that interest.
I was lucky.
Well, my mom certainly didn't want to plug in the house.
She didn't like snakes either.
And one time I asked her why and she said, because they're slimy.
And I said, okay, clearly never touched a snake.
Right.
It's not slimy.
And I was like, you know, that's, I think you were touched a snake.
Well, they look slimy, but they certainly are not.
She never investigated enough to figure out if that was true.
That's funny.
Oh, I love it.
That's so funny.
Yeah.
But I think with, with the bugs, like as long as there isn't a kind of pushback from other
people, like, oh, that's gross.
That's weird.
Right.
But if they're not acting repulsed, that won't really develop as frequently.
I'm sure there is some, because I, with primates and snakes, like primates and snakes seem to
mess with each other a lot.
So yeah, we just harass other animals, I don't know.
Humans are the worst animal.
Yeah, absolutely legit.
But with snakes, like there is some kind of built in shape thing, like you'll kind of
train towards it, but right.
Some of my research is on that, like why are people afraid of spiders?
And we don't really know why.
But some of it definitely possibly could be like, they're just learning to be afraid of
them.
There are other primates that we know will, even if they're trying to be quiet to avoid
predation, they could kill after the predator's gone, they'll act scared in front of their
offspring to train them to be scared of that thing.
So it might be that you learn to do that and you go, oh, well, everyone else is afraid.
So I should be afraid.
And you just kind of not like them.
But if that never keeps in, yeah, it's really weird.
It's such a, I could have a soapbox.
No, that's, I love it.
And I actually do feel, I do feel that it is kind of a, like ancestral, what do they
call it, generational knowledge, if you will.
Yeah.
That we just kind of pass down to one another, like, oh, okay, you know, because we do know
that there are some pretty deadly spiders in the world.
Obviously, you know, one of the most dangerous here in Colorado, we all know is the black
widow.
So anytime anybody sees black widows, they freak out and they think, oh my God, my life's
in danger.
This black widow is going to kill me in the middle of the night.
It's like, well, no, not necessarily.
They're actually pretty docile.
And the only reason they would ever bite you is because they felt threatened in some way.
And so, yeah, I mean, but I think that that probably comes from that, like I said, that
generational knowledge of somebody somewhere.
And it happened enough.
Somebody somewhere got bit by a spider and then they, they had a huge infection or they
died or something.
And so just over through the years, we just kept telling our kids, like, stay away from
the spiders.
Right.
You know,
And even with the widows, they're not that bad.
There's something that sounds, what's I say?
You're like, well, but there was there has been a death.
There hasn't been a death or one since like 2011.
I don't want to.
Was it 20?
I see.
I read somewhere it was 1984.
Oh, was it?
Yeah.
Why isn't the US?
Not in Colorado.
I'll double check.
Yeah.
I'll double check.
But like with that, like they're the biggest question I get people is like, how, you know,
how do I not get bit?
Like, I think I'd crawl in my bed.
I'm like, well, don't go in your garage and stick your ungloved hand into a dark hole.
You have right.
I make that a general rule to not stick my hand into dark holes.
I don't know what's in there.
And you'll probably be okay.
Fine.
Yeah.
I'm sorry.
Go ahead.
Oh no, I was going to say, same thing.
Dark holes here.
You'll be fine.
But as much as you won't close your eyes, it's fine.
Nothing here.
Nothing.
Yeah.
You guys, you guys have the cutest spiders in the world though.
You guys have little velvet guys.
The irises.
Ladybirds.
Yeah.
And they're, they're cute.
I would, you know, I'm one of those.
I'm tempted.
I would want to touch them very badly.
The car actually, it's actually illegal to touch them.
Yeah.
So there you go.
You can, you can protect it.
So.
But they should look so adorable.
Right.
Come on.
If it's not a friend, why is it friendship?
I don't like spiders.
It's just translate.
I don't like.
Yeah.
Everyone said that topsy-turvy cell.
I translate.
No, they're easier.
And they're not as fast and scary and venomous.
But I prefer the true spiders to translate.
I think tracers just look creepy.
And I got, I got to often when I was a kid, I got part of
translate and never liked them.
But the other spiders by, I saw cake.
I mean, you saw a great big pot of like cellar spiders.
Oh, you call daddy long legs.
Is it something?
Yeah, daddy long cellar spiders.
Yeah.
I used to have a big part of them there to, to, because I had some
mantis that actually like spiders, which is cool.
I'm just breathing jumping spiders now.
So I can feed the babies to the mantis.
Oh, you can't, I don't tell you that.
I don't know how to feel about that.
Also the meat is made to live.
So I feel weird.
Don't they have to eat and why not?
Yeah.
Why not?
I don't know.
I don't know how to use the snakes.
It's not really, it's not really a problem.
But with the snakes,
we like how can you feed them mice?
Number one,
the mice are dead and we feed them to the snakes because we don't
want them to kill the snakes.
And number two,
like snakes gotta eat too.
Right.
Yeah.
Everything's got to eat.
Right?
That's how it is.
Okay.
So I don't think jumping spiders are cute and fluffy.
and also obviously tasted.
But Chomea, they're not that bad.
And they do get eaten by a lot of things.
Like they don't, I mean, they really,
if they bit us, jumpers bit us,
there's nothing they're really, it's gonna do
because their fangs aren't long enough
to really get through our thick human skin.
Right.
They're kind of, aside from jumping away,
a little bit on the defensive of the time in the wild.
They're kind of, yeah, they can kind of jump away.
They can kind of wave around and try to look bigger.
We're actually working on like a project as,
I'm working on with one of the MESS students
with mimicry with them.
Like maybe they're trying to mimic other in more
or less approachable.
Art de Boz, because they themselves
aren't going to have the protections of like larger spiders
or even orb weavers.
Smaller orb weavers might not have as bad a venom,
but they have the big web and they can shake the web
and make themselves look big,
where jumpers are kind of on their own.
So they are cute, but I also understand like,
I like prairie dogs too, but I understand
prairie dogs are just like lunchables for most of nature.
They're fuzzy and I see coyotes kill them all the time.
Okay, so this is actually a pretty good segue.
We were talking about, you know,
people being afraid of spiders,
but my question is, what would you,
what do you wish that non-invert people
or non entomologists or non arachnophiles like us,
what do you wish that they knew about insects?
I mean, there's a few things I encounter a lot.
Is one of them is the more pervasive problem
in conservation, where humans like, oh, look at us.
I got a shirt that's like easily distracted by bugs.
Look at her.
Oh, beautiful.
Beautiful. Thank you Simon.
Thank you.
She's been there all the time.
We didn't even know.
Oh, no, you can look right in there
and then you can't see the mantis sometimes.
It freaks me out.
I must like try to find them in the tanks of the pavilion.
I'm like, where are they?
And they're just like right in front of me.
Right.
Yeah.
So amazing.
But yeah, with conservation in general.
Oh, wow.
Is that focused?
I can't see it.
Yeah, I don't know, but I probably should be
close to the camera.
I watched the images.
No, right there.
Right there is perfect.
She's got a nice, like, beautiful.
She just actually lives on my ring light.
Oh, that's cool.
And she thinks my thumb is large.
She don't want to get off now because she's annoyed.
But yeah, I'll leave that.
Romantic.
Yeah.
It kind of what romances now.
Oh my God.
I know.
Absolutely.
I mean, the actresses are so cool.
Free roaming.
It's like you, wherever you stand in here,
you can go that far and you're going to be at Pickle Romantic.
Like a little box.
A lot of species.
Okay.
Hi, I'm sorry.
Sorry.
Yeah, with conservation, people tend to pick winners and losers.
It's kind of, that is what non care.
So it's not my work deals with like non charismatic fauna.
And that's basically animals.
People don't like where charismatic fauna would be.
People like them.
Some of it is hikers.
Yeah.
Pandas.
Pandas are kind of an evolutionary dead end of my opinion.
We've already had a large mammal that only ate bamboo.
And it went extinct.
But pandas are cute.
Right.
Like it's kind of chaos when they're little and they,
yeah,
and everyone loves them.
So people tend to invest more.
Either either just getting the word out or,
or financially or however,
in their conservation and,
and in trying to promote saving those species where with invertebrates,
there's kind of this feeling like, well, they're bugs.
Why don't I want to bugle around?
I don't know if you say like a spider is going extinct.
Yeah.
People are like, okay.
Okay.
Not realizing.
Yeah.
Right.
No, they'll be like, great.
Cause I'm going to eat it when I'm sleeping.
Number one,
you do not eat spiders while you sleep.
Cause the number of things that would have to occur for that to happen
are astronomically impossible.
Number one, you have to take your mouth.
Oh yeah.
You'd have to sleep with your mouth open all the time.
Number one.
I mean,
I know a few people who do, but.
You know, I just, I don't know.
And then you'd have to like lack a reflex.
If something's in the back of your throat to like gag and to want to vomit
or to choke.
Oh, okay.
Yeah.
I've, I've,
I've focused myself up like snoring before.
So pretty sure.
Yeah.
That makes a lot of sense.
But if you're, if you know,
if something gets in your throat,
you're going to, yeah.
Yeah.
I just wouldn't be appropriate.
Yeah.
No, keep that.
Keep that.
Just stop.
Please.
You're so silly.
I had to give it.
I got to, I got to give a talk for Valentine's Day.
The Pavilion about arachnid production.
It was super fun.
And.
That's actually where I got your information.
I got it.
That's actually where I got your information.
I hate to sound like crazy stalker,
but I was like, Hey,
and it's because they were doing a cool talk and I wanted to be there
really bad.
But yeah.
So then I, I was like,
Hey,
they want to be on the invertecas.
But yeah,
go ahead and tell us about that.
Cause that,
that was really cool.
So Harvest Men,
which are daddy long lines,
they're not spiders.
They,
they were own little group.
They made in the most awkward way.
I can't fully to just Google it.
And then whatever targeted advertising is trying to preach,
she's going to have to do it.
Those keywords.
But they just have some very interesting.
So there is some, there, that was pretty funny explaining to a
room full of people.
Unless it was an 18 and up talk.
Yeah.
Like,
exactly how that goes down cause it's a little awkward for like
some of the species that have an actual gifts.
That would be the clue in it.
Oh, that's interesting.
Spiders do that.
Species of Harvest Men here.
Some believable.
You're not going to want to look them in the eye out of this.
Certain, like some places that just in one town,
you'll find this particular Harvest Men species.
And they say it's like,
wow.
There's loads of them here.
There's so many different ones that I have seen what you're
suggesting.
It is weird.
Do they just clump together?
Is that what it is?
Yeah.
Cause I've seen them do that.
Some do.
And some don't.
It's some of,
like solitary.
Some just,
and they're great people who love it.
Oh, yeah.
They do really well with like,
like cooler, wetter environments.
So where there isn't going to be, you know,
larger other arachnids,
you'll have, they can move in and they can really,
you know, thrive there so they can kind of fill that,
that niche.
They could fill that job.
Sure.
Yeah.
They do mate in a way where if, once you, yeah,
once you know you can't look them in the eye again.
I know I get to talk to like,
enjoy your ride home.
I'm looking at you in the car.
Yeah, right.
I just told you.
Yeah.
Sorry, but I definitely have ADHD.
But yeah,
with the conservation,
that is one thing within Birdwood,
so I wish people knew also, you know,
there is a lot of,
I want to say,
I do see this being a keeper and then also being a researcher.
There's a lot of kind of division on that.
Number one in the US,
conservation laws was the least enforced laws.
So no,
it was going to come take your bugs.
You probably shouldn't have animals that you shouldn't have.
We recently learned that in Colorado very well,
didn't we?
I don't know.
Did you not hear about that?
No.
What?
In Lakewood,
I got bit by his,
by his Gila monster that was not supposed to,
he's not supposed to have any died.
Oh my goodness.
Yeah.
Holy cow.
It was the best US death from a Gila monster since
1930.
Oh my gosh.
I, yeah,
I didn't know I'm going to have to look that up because that
sounds crazy.
It was.
It was weird.
I know that they,
I knew they were venomous,
but I didn't know like how venomous they are.
But that's,
that's wild.
Okay.
Yeah.
It was really weird.
I was like,
Oh,
that was like when I heard about it,
that was kind of the thing.
In the back of my mind,
I'm also thinking at least it wasn't a venomous snake like.
We had, he knew like they,
they do have ornaments and if you're just,
you know,
it's possible and check and make sure you're okay.
Like I love hog noses.
I would have to have a hog nose.
We can't have them.
We can't breed them here in Colorado.
And so I don't want to take a wild one.
So, you know,
I just,
I'm going to go enjoy them when I see them aside and then that
will be it.
Yeah.
So the,
uh,
heal monsters are similar.
They're venom similar where they have to kind of like fight and
then like grind it in.
So apparently you got a hold of them could pretty good.
It must have.
Oh yeah.
It's like down in Mexico.
Yeah.
I think,
look,
they're exact range.
I have to be,
I have to be that early.
Do you next,
go next to Texas in it in the round light area?
Yeah.
They are of animal where like,
if you see them,
they're very bright.
And if any animal is that okay with you seeing it,
like the,
they should probably be like, maybe don't touch it.
That's nature's cue of like, I am really dangerous.
You know what?
Not going to touch it.
It's probably fine.
Uh, yeah.
Where is the distribution?
So yeah, they are.
Yeah.
You're right.
So they're in Southwest United States,
Mexico across ranges of the Sonora,
Arizona and parts of California,
Nevada,
Utah and New Mexico.
Wow.
I didn't think they came out far up, but you know,
I knew it was a Utah.
Yeah.
I think they're going to be like,
I don't know if it's, you know, I knew it was a Utah.
Yeah.
They're not here.
Yeah.
They're not really here that we,
do you have part of the Sonora in Colorado?
Yeah.
Right.
The very top north part.
Uh, they're not native here.
And we don't want people to have them in their house.
Cause we don't.
Yeah.
Uh,
there's that thing with like this division with like research
and,
and keepers and,
uh,
kind of a feeling like, oh, well,
if you're doing conservation,
you're going to make it so I can't have these things.
And that is something I don't like.
Cause I feel like this is the best way to get more people
interested in them is for them to see them.
We call our house discount zoo.
I've had friends like,
it's a discount zoo.
They'll bring their kids here.
They're like, can we see your spider room?
Like they don't want to hang out with us.
Like our friends.
Oh, I, you know,
I do the same thing with my,
my red tail,
uh,
my,
you know,
red tail boa.
And I'm like, oh, yes, I do.
And I bust him out and he is just the most sweet and charming
little guy.
Well, not little, but you know,
um,
but he's sweet and charming and everybody loves him.
Once, once they get to see just how.
You know, calm and really like cool.
He is.
Um, and so yeah, I,
I agree with you on that.
Like discounts you like that's,
like,
I'm not sure what you're going to do with that.
But like a little,
like a little bit like,
I'm not sure if I want to do that or not.
So she doesn't want anything.
She doesn't have it.
We don't want to go in the house and just like for like a minute
and a half and a half.
We don't want to get a little bit too high on you on that.
Like discounts you like that.
That's my house too.
Absolutely.
I, and.
You know us like we're happy to bring people in the house and be
like, oh, look at this one.
Dude, this one is really cool.
And then we want to tell them all about it.
So yeah.
That is it.
That's awesome.
I,
And she's like, I'll put up with it.
This is okay.
I was like, put up with that.
I was like, when I can see the spires, like absolutely not.
I was like, but the dead body that we were cutting up,
that you were okay with.
Okay.
Go figure.
She put up with that.
No, it is kind of cool to see, you know,
we'll have people come over or, you know,
actually the Beatles that I'm co-parenting,
the person I'm co-parenting them with,
was someone that we met that had come over
to take care of our dogs.
And they saw the spiders and like the spiders.
And I don't know if they were that interested
in the bugs before they were vet.
So I don't know, but they got into it.
So I'm like, great, I got somebody into bugs.
But we'll have, you know, we'll have people that,
you know, my partner works with or I work with
that aren't bug people.
We'll get a show on pictures and stuff.
So this is a great way to get people involved.
And it's a great way to get, you know,
them close to them without that apprehension of like,
oh, okay, there's a bug in my, there's a spider in my garage.
And I'm gonna go look at the spider in my garage.
And it could run at me.
I mean, here they're in enclosures.
The closures are decorated as nice as the tarantulas.
We'll let them stay decorated because they don't.
Right.
Yeah, totally.
Yeah.
Sorry.
You know, it's that, it's a positive experience
for them too.
So you're kind of like instilling that positive interaction.
So I think that's, that's really killer.
Yeah.
It's a good way to get people to,
like I said, to get people to see them
and to get people engaged with them and talking about it
and seeing they're not gonna like,
you know, pull a knife on you or something.
Right.
They're not gonna.
I'm totally for people being able to keep them.
I like keeping them.
I think it's a good way for us to see them.
It's, keepers have a lot of information about them
that we could use in research.
Tons of information.
They're around them all the time.
You know, they watch them, they are caring for them.
And that goes for really any invertebrate.
If you're breeding, keeping them,
you probably have seen breeding behaviors
that researchers have not.
That probably with the mantis, that's definitely true.
Right.
You probably like, oh, that was interesting.
And the people that are doing these things
are passionate about these animals.
They don't hate these animals.
Right.
And yeah, I had to put that in like both of you obviously
have them and you know, if you're breeding them
and the mantis are very, sometimes very challenging to breed,
I've seen that.
Cause the eating does happen sometimes a lot.
Mm-hmm.
I mean, give her a, you know, give her a flight to eat
and hope that it's a rough thing on Tinder
for a lot of invertebrates is kind of the,
Sure.
I have actually put females on Tinder.
I actually got the answer.
I thought it was a part of the,
you know,
I can't even taste what the mantis got
and it's very natural.
Last one was, you know, and it was just like
looking for male, you know,
maybe a broad nightstand, that sort of thing.
Yeah.
They're a good time.
Not a great time afterwards.
Yeah.
Oh, that's awesome.
And that's the thing is like,
if you talk to people that have invertebrates,
they'll tell, you know,
they'll report things that we won't be able to see.
Cause in the wild, it's hard to find them sometimes.
Right.
And then like standing around being like,
okay, I'm gonna wait for the spire to walk by and me
and then I'm gonna try to record
and not scare the hell out of them.
Right.
It's hard.
We will go down there for breeding season,
down to like La Junta.
La Junta actually has a tarantula festival,
which I definitely recommend everyone go to.
Yeah.
It's super fun.
It's so much fun.
I'm trying to really push a lot of time on everyone.
But if you're like, oh yeah,
like I'm gonna try to go down there.
And the males will still court females
when you're kind of standing over them.
You.
Yeah.
And but if you're like, you know, you're also giant.
Right.
So I mean, that's very scary for that, I'm sure.
Yeah.
Where if you're,
we've seen invertebrates in captivity
act similar to the way they do in the wild.
You get to see sort of their rearing habits more,
how they're gonna take care of their young,
where they want to lay eggs,
sort of those micro habitat selections,
how they grow.
It's, you're not gonna keep finding the same
invertebrate in the wild probably.
It was,
tarantulas are a little bit easier,
but for the most part,
you're not gonna keep finding the same one
to track them their whole lives.
So you can't really tell like, what are they eating?
What are they not eating?
What is their nutritional needs?
We can't do that in the wild.
So this is a way for us to have so many eyes
on these animals,
where otherwise that would possibly be the case.
We can't all like try to recruit a ton of students
to like, you know, stare at them all the time.
Some people are willing to do that.
So,
Right?
And I really,
yeah, right, I wanna encourage the keepers and breeders
to like, share that information.
And also for researchers to accept that information.
Yeah, it's not, I'm okay, it's not here.
That's a hard part,
getting the researchers to accept information
of people who spend 24 hours a day with them,
seven days a week, 365 days a year,
the researchers won't accept that.
They are more interested in what they found
in the control group in or out.
It doesn't matter if you've read this a hundred times,
they're not interested.
And that's something I really, really,
really annoys me greatly about.
Because I've read so many papers
that are actually incorrect.
And I can't fix them.
I'm not allowed to sort of do anything about that.
So this is like, you can type it in Google,
or you can read an official scientific paper
and they're both wrong.
So where does that lead people about knowledge?
Yeah, oh, a hundred percent.
That's actually why I started doing my PhD research
with the transphalos,
I was a big little scientist,
I was keeping them and I wanted to,
oh, we have to let me do one, do it,
and then years later, we'll let you do it.
But I was gonna be a good little scientist,
so I was gonna look them up
and make sure I was keeping them correctly.
And there wasn't any research.
No one had anything.
And I was like, okay.
So much like conflicting information online.
And so it's very, it's difficult
to really know solid information.
I love that idea because I think that the hobby
and the research should definitely be collaborative.
Oh yeah.
Because we know, we know,
we've been doing it for a while.
You know, we've been, like,
I've noticed with a lot of like my salmopis and metapes,
or tapinoquinas, they tend to,
because we call them arboreal,
but they love to burrow.
Like they love to just dig dirt
and use that dirt in their webs and everything,
which leads me to believe
that they actually are living on the very base
of the tree in the wild rather than like up high.
Oh, my joke is like, if someone says it's semi-arboreal,
I mean, somebody saw it on a tree one time.
Right?
Like me.
Somebody saw it on a tree one time.
That's amazing.
Which, yeah, that doesn't necessarily mean it's arboreal.
He saw it, it's great.
I was also saw like, you know,
a couple of like a person in a tree
and we are not arboreal anymore.
Yeah, yeah.
Right.
That's the thing with a lot of them,
like when I'm trying to do this conservation breeding program
is provide incentive number one,
because for facilities,
and we've had this problem at Pavilion,
especially when we're kind of in between groups of interns
and stuff, I do a lot of breeding for them.
I've been fairly successful, like no one's gotten hurt.
So, no one's gotten hurt.
Yeah, so I'm like, okay, we have,
this is slightly, we bought this dollar tree spoon,
we call it sex spoon.
Just to keep him away.
It's special.
It's special on the spoon, it's really helpful.
But like they do produce a lot of offspring.
I tend to leave the exact with the mom,
because she has all day to put your soap on it
and rotate it and find the right humidity.
I don't.
And she might call some of them, that does happen,
just because you don't have 200, 300 babies,
because they're all top quality.
It's just gonna happen.
So, she might call some of them, but we get them out
and after she kind of opens them up and lets them out.
And we can have all of them in the facility,
but now there's 175 individually housed babies
that we're gonna have to put fruit flies in the refrigerator,
have them go to Topper, bring them back out,
kind of give who we can before the flies wake up again
and like rotate out flies.
And that's the thing is there are people
who are willing and have the passion, not willing,
they have the passion to do that of their own volition.
Nobody's paying them, like outright to do it.
Nobody, there's other ways to make money.
Then like, you can make money.
Yeah, you could make money getting on Etsy
and selling other things.
Or you could just wait for the bugs to die
and pin them and probably make a lot of money.
Absolutely, right?
Yeah.
And sitting there like reading them and finding the mates
and finding timing them so that you have males
and females around at the same time
because of that like the poor separation.
That's somebody who is willing to record data for you.
That is citizen science at its peak is someone willing
to passionately look after what you are researching
and be part of your research group and record data
and share that with you and discuss the topic with you
and come up with new hypotheses
and new observations to bring in
and to build that information
where if you're like, oh, if you're keeping them,
you're contributing to them being brown box,
you're contributing to them being taken out of the wild.
Number one, if you're breeding them, you're not.
You're not contributing to that at all.
Right, right.
Yeah, and if you're keeping them
and you're getting them, giving them to people
and helping record all this information.
I don't, I mean, that is one thing I'm very confused by.
It's like, I don't see that enough where,
and I'd love to talk to both of you actually,
if you're interested, let me know.
Because I'm always trying to get these projects started.
Yeah, projects are the main thing too.
It'd be really interesting.
Just to see, because of the number,
you have a good number.
You have a good experimental group.
Yeah.
And you have that number to be like, okay,
yeah, I can record what I see.
I can film them doing things.
I can, you know, and we don't see that.
It's like, why would you not be like,
hey, do you want a partner?
And I can provide sort of the facility or,
and there is something to be said about,
like, yeah, I can tell you the biochemistry and stuff.
Yeah.
And I'm, someone else who's also passionate about it.
And like, you know, we can buddy up with that
and then have a group of people that are,
I mean, I have a whole slow box about this.
No, I actually, I love this because I do think
that we partnered actually a couple of years ago,
possibly with it, Avicularia, Avicularia.
And I've let you my female.
Yeah.
Yeah, I remember that.
I think she was, you know, kind of an older female
and she just wasn't having it.
So.
They have about a 20% what I've noticed is about 20%
success rate for breeding,
which is actually slightly better than humans.
Kind of unaccumbered.
Unaccumbered humans, every time humans copulate,
it would lead to offspring about 15% of the time.
Wow.
So just, yeah, unaccumbered, that would happen.
The picture.
Yeah, it's kind of, I mean, it's,
I mean, it's also like, well, it's only 50% of the time.
Yeah, but it's also 15% of the time.
Right.
It's like, oh, that's it.
It's like, well, yeah, but, you know,
that's a lot actually.
They don't run that for this.
I don't know what that is, though.
Like, I was like, I was like,
maybe don't spin that wheel too much.
Yeah.
But with like the spiders, it's about 20% of the time,
which does mean, you know, you do need to,
to get babies, pair them a lot,
but these five times, you know,
other males and females,
but like once you have the offspring
or even if they're mating,
you still get to observe that.
Right.
Yeah.
And one of the things I would love to do is like,
with breeders, just for a variety of invertebrates,
we have, when you're doing research,
you can kind of share equipment more
within the university and everything.
And looking at, you know, supplying people
that are breeders and keepers,
with the equipment to get really good data recordings,
to get, you know, very curious.
And I was like, what does it sound like?
Yeah.
No, I think that's really,
I think it's important work.
I think that, you know, having, you know,
people in the hobby and stuff,
that's actually, I was told by a friend of mine
who works at Denver Zoo,
that through those conservation efforts
and through like, you know, programs like that,
that there are a few species who have been saved
from the brink of extinction,
thanks to like private keepers.
Thanks to private keepers who were willing to collaborate
with the Zoological Society and the researchers
and, you know, that scientific community.
And I think that's, there's something to be said about that.
That's huge.
Well, yeah.
And even with like,
when you're trying to run experiments,
I mean, people don't want you throwing other animals.
If you're doing things, and I tried to,
and with invertebrates, it's weird.
There's not, except, unless you're an octopus in Europe,
sure, there's no, there's no standard of care.
Right.
Research.
Yeah.
So like mice, they have to be kept in like,
there's only this many mice per this size of cage.
They're fed this often, is cleaned this often.
There's a lot of rules.
And there should be to maintain the most humane conditions
given the experiment for that animal.
If you're an invertebrate, no such thing.
Unless you're an octopus in Europe.
That's why.
Just because you're an octopus,
we're gonna make sure they're treated okay.
But when you have, you know,
questions about like ecology of, you know,
how is a different feeding or nutritional needs
going to affect these animals?
How could that, how could inbreeding affect them?
How could, as we see that a lot with invertebrates,
especially with human activity kind of splicing up
their habitat, you end up with these islands.
And some of them are more productive than others,
but they can't cross in between.
So you end up with isolated populations.
We saw that with vertebrates too,
but you know, these questions,
or even in prey selection, like how are they hunting?
What are they hunting?
When are they hunting?
Are they doing anything specific with their food?
Are they selecting certain prey over others?
Like you have people that are like,
yeah, I'm gonna feed them.
I'll just like, yeah.
Yeah, right.
And if you're like, okay.
Yeah, if you're like, hey, here's how you have to like do it.
So everybody can analyze it correctly.
I've never, ever encountered keepers or breeders
who've told me, oh, I don't wanna do that.
They're always like, yeah, absolutely.
And they're like totally on board.
And I'm like, why, who is not standing out there?
Like anybody wanna help out?
Anybody?
Yeah, I find that that's definitely
something in the Invert World that is really great
is that a lot of us are really happy to help
with that research.
But I hate to say it, but we've come to the hour mark
of our podcast.
I'm a little bit of a talker.
No, you're wonderful.
We're gonna have to have you back on because,
Thank you.
Like you have been a fantastic guest for sure.
We're so grateful that you came.
But let's do our shameless plugs.
So this is basically the, at the end,
we just promote something like whatever you've got going
on this week or upcoming in the future,
you could just go ahead and give it a shout out here
and have at it.
Can I have two shameless plugs?
Cause one's for people, one's for people might join.
So May 11th, May 11th, if you're in Denver
or well technically with Mr.
I'm doing a, I mean, I'll zoom in, Simon, I'll zoom in.
I'm doing a talk at Butterfly Pavilion for Mother's Day
about invertebrate mothers.
So there's definitely gonna be mantis talk.
Oh, cool.
So please, please talk about the website,
go to Butterfly Pavilion's website, speduplives.org.
But you can get tickets there.
It's about like an hour and a half in the morning.
We're trying to see about like doing like a mommy's
and a moses thing, but it's from Mother's Day
about invert parents.
And then also if you go to,
there's no other Jackie Bellottis on the planet, luckily.
But I don't know if you could put my email up somewhere.
If you are someone that has a piece of,
oh, I need to do more May, for real though, Simon,
we should talk because I think this would be a very cool.
Yeah, I'll trade you.
May the new.
Oh wow.
Oh, that's so cool.
I'll be sure to trade,
I'll give you guys both each other's information.
And then of course I will link the Butterfly Pavilion
down in the description.
And then you guys can check that out.
Yeah, and if you have a piece of theory on Metallica though,
I do.
If anyone has one, let me know.
You can send it in, just email me
and I'll send you instructions on like collecting it.
And you can also see who your spiders relatives are.
Oh wow.
From other donated vaults.
So we're gonna try to do microsatellite sequencing
to build a family tree to see the genetic diversity
that we have available in captivity currently.
And it builds out a family tree for them.
So.
That's cool.
I'm excited about that.
You can see her relatives.
Right?
So yeah, definitely if anyone's interested
in donating a vault, email me
and I'll send you instructions.
And you're not to atomize unless you don't wanna be,
if you don't want anyone know your name or anything,
it's given a number.
It's not like we're gonna know
where you live or anything like that.
If you are a business and you do want to be acknowledged
in the paper though, or in future talks.
Right?
I know.
I got you.
Yes, I did.
Yeah.
Actually for real though, no, let me know.
For real.
Because they also love the Mantis over at Pavilion
and they're always, you know,
Oh yeah.
They got unicorn mantis recently and I'm in love with them.
Oh, that's cool.
Suitability.
Yeah, Simon, what are you going on this week?
Do you have a shameless plug?
I'm going to spend the entire week breeding I think.
Are you running out of the mood to chase around?
Awesome.
I'm gonna have a look, see what's going on in here.
No, yeah, I'm gonna spend in the week breeding,
or parrying, or attempting to pair,
quite a lot of different species.
And hopefully I'm going to be potting up
lots of devil's flower mantis.
Oh, cool.
Sack in a pot next to me.
And I'm now melting, because I put this on,
and the heat is there.
I miss my, really.
Jackie, you're excited.
Oh no, I'm like,
I'm like, no, I wanna learn more about Mantis.
Yeah, see, we're gonna,
I'm telling you, we're gonna have to have you
as a guest again, for sure.
That's so cool.
Jackie, you speak so fast,
and your accent is a real struggle for me.
I spent most of this pup gas, I think.
Sorry.
That's not concentrating on what you're saying,
because I was struggling so much together.
Sorry, sorry, I spent 37 years trying to slow down in it.
I can see you're so attracted
about the subject, so it's like,
na na na na na, oh my God, slow down.
Well, I'm very excited about the Mantis you're breeding.
I hope that I'm back on through.
No, you have to come back.
We can definitely chat Mantis.
Definitely chat Native American Mantis,
because we don't see many over a year.
I've had Sudavati, which is your unique Mantis.
I've actually, I've done here,
but we don't really see any more than that.
And I'd really like to know more about your native Mantis.
I'm gonna say native, I don't mean European or Chinese.
You know, the other stuff.
I'd like to hear about that.
So yeah, please come back on and tell us
about what you've got there.
Absolutely.
Oh yeah, I'm glad you're having me.
That YouTube channel, that's it.
Done.
That's it.
Y'all, and you know what, by the way,
Bugs Glor says, I understand every word.
So Jackie, I think it's just Simon.
He's the outline, okay?
Oh, I know I talk fast.
My students, during COVID,
they were recorded lectures.
And I was like, and every student
was watching every lecture at like two times.
I was like, good luck if you do that to me.
You're not gonna understand a word.
I was like, you got to sit for the whole hour
and listen to the lecture, buddy.
You ain't listening to that on two speeds.
Right.
Cause they were doing that all the time.
I was like, oh no, you are spending an hour on that.
That's beautiful.
I love it.
All right.
That's all I've got.
So thank you guys.
You know, guys, like and subscribe to InvertiCast.
Check us out on Spotify and do Amazon music,
iHeartRadio, we're everywhere.
If you are in Colorado, Denver area,
definitely check out Butterfly Pavilion.
It is like my favorite Invert Utopia to visit ever.
And yeah, that's it.
Thank you again so much, Jackie, for being here
and being a part of this episode and this podcast.
And yeah, hope to see you again.
We'll get to it again.
Anytime.
This is awesome.
Thank you guys.
I appreciate it.
I'll have to lend you some of my mails, you know.
Oh, absolutely.
Yeah.
I've got a couple.
I've got a pairing going on.
Interim's also like to watch Spiders Mate.
I don't.
College interns like to watch Spiders Mate.
College interns like to watch.
Okay.
I'm sorry.
That's it.
And on that note.
Yeah, no, thank you so much.
Have a great day, you guys.
Thank you for watching.
You too.
All the love.
Are we ready?
Yeah.
Thank you.
See you later.
See ya.