Bugapalooza! LIVE! Jumping spiders, hissing roaches, and more
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Terrestrials is supported by the John Templeton Foundation, funding research and catalyzing conversations that inspire people with awe and wonder. Learn about the latest discoveries in the science of well-being, complexity, forgiveness, and free will at templeton.org. Three, two, one. Imagine you're growing hair all over your body. Zzzz.

And your two eyes, they multiply into eight. And you are wicked tough. You can survive in the brutal cold of Mount Everest. But the coolest thing about you is that your legs are now growing super strong.

You can jump way far. I mean, 30 to 40 times the length of your body far. You have become a jumping spider. Now is the part of the show where I make you all guess how our little theme song ends. Terrestrials, terrestrials. We are not the worst, we are the worst.

Yeah, you got it. Terrestrials is a show about the strangeness waiting right here on Earth. I am your host, Lili Miller, and you may notice that we sound a little different today because we are bringing you the first ever episode that we taped in front of a live audience. OK, so picture me up on a stage in New York City standing next to a table that is literally crawling with jumping spiders.

and huge cockroaches and scorpions and tarantulas and many other things in cages, but cages whose doors will soon be flung open by our special guest, entomologist... Dr. Sebastian Echeverry! Hey, everybody! Who traveled all the way from his underground lair full of spiders in Pittsburgh to tell us about the lesser-known groovy side of the jumping spider.

Well, actually, most of us live in spider lairs because spiders are basically everywhere on this planet. But my room does have more spiders, I would say, than the average room. Okay, well, as I understand, you have brought some of your friends here on the stage. Several friends, yes. Okay, welcome the friends. Yeah. All right, strap in.

Dr. Sebastian is introducing us to his friends. These Madagascar hissing roaches. There's four of them, kind of shiny amber-ish color, each one about the size of a cookie. Crustaceans, like roly-polies. Rolling around in a tiny jar. I've got centipedes. Lots of legs. Millipedes. Even more legs. I've got a flat rock scorpion. With huge claws. A whip spider. Long skinny legs like, you guessed it,

Whips. One of my favorite tarantulas. Massive, with rose-tinted hair. And of course, the star of the show, the jumping spiders. These jumping spiders are actually teensy, but Dr. Sebastian holds a special camera up to one of them, and suddenly behind us on a screen, we see it magnified.

It's furry with black and pink striped legs and huge, adorable black eyes. Like they almost look like teddy bear eyes. Is that what's going on with the eyes? Their eyes are spectacular. Should we try to get a closer look at them on my camera? Dr. Sebastian zooms in even more. And we can see there are actually eight eyes in total. There are a bunch of smaller ones arranged behind the big eyes, kind of crowned.

a crown of eyes all around its head. - Really cool! - But then he focuses in on just those two big eyes in the frame. - There we go, okay. So now you can see the huge eyes of a jumping spider.

Those two big eyes right there, those are actually some of the first telescopes on the planet Earth. What do you mean? What? The reason that they can see so well, even though they're tiny, is because they evolved telescopes inside of their eyes. He explained that inside each of those big eyes, there are two lenses that magnify the world in a really similar way to how the telescopes humans invented do it.

giving these spiders, similar to when you look through a telescope, this kind of zoomed-in tunnel vision. It's like if you were walking around with binoculars strapped to your face, you could see really well, but only in a little part right in front of you. Normally, that'd be a problem.

But jumping spiders have six other eyes to work with. Now he points to the rest of the eyes, which apparently see things way more blurry, but are really good at detecting motion. So those other eyes evolve to see all around them. They can also see behind themselves and on top of themselves at the same time.

Next we inspect those striped legs, those haunches really, that can power the jumping spiders on their famous jumps to up to 40 times their body length. But that's not even what you love about spiders the most. That is one of the very many things I love about spiders. But the thing that I love the most about jumping spiders and what got me to be interested in these animals in the first place

is the way that they dance. Okay. There was a point in my life before I ever saw a jumping spider dance. And then there's the rest of my life.

Because the moment that I saw that, I stood up in a chair in a meeting with a professor at a university being like, "Tell me everything you know about this. Tell me more. I need to see more. I need to know more." And now I study jumping spiders and I did my PhD on their dances. - How many, okay, can we see a little, can we see a little footage of this? You're not- - Please. - Okay. Now Dr. Sebastian pulls up a video of a very colorful looking spider, orange legs, maroon face, that has begun to dance.

you

So this is real. It's waving its two front arms, almost like it's trying to get the attention of another spider right in front of it. So what's happening here? Here's our dancer at top left. He's getting the crowd hyped. He's getting attention. He's waving his arms. Okay. He's going to move in closer and he's going to change his type of dance. Okay, so now what happens next is the arms stay up, waving, but then it starts lifting some of its back legs one at a time. Left, right, left, right. Almost like it's marching in place.

so he's showing off those fancy knees okay and then right now he's doing the whole dance keeps going and it is wild it looks like a cross between a dorky parent doing kind of slow-mo disco moves and maybe a break dancer and as dr sebastian gets the crowd to their feet to dance along you can actually see this on the video we have

We learned that the male spider will do these dances to try to impress a female spider, to show her he's got the moves, he's got the mojo, and he will sometimes dance right in her face for up to an hour. The more Dr. Sebastian has looked at how the spiders dance and how the female spiders respond, he's come to realize that the dancing, it's really a kind of communication. ♪

Okay, okay, so now we've got to shift gears. So in preparation for today, we were talking to Dr. Sebastian, and you told me something that completely blew my mind, which is that, yes, most spiders use their webs to catch flies. And so webs are kind of a spooky place of death and cruelty. If you're a bug. If you're a bug. But there are some species that use the web in a really different way, which is that apparently, what? What?

So for spiders, especially web building spiders, their webs are the way that they talk to each other. It's their connection to the world and to other individuals. They will actually play songs to each other on their webs to say hello and to talk. So they're strumming the web like an instrument. They're playing different notes to try to let a mate know that they're a friend, not a foe. And so...

sit and think about that we have a little special treat here which is that the wonderful musician Miss Aviva J is here we asked her to compose a song on her harp to reflect the fact that these spiders are also playing their webs like a harp and she's gonna play us a little song and we can just think about that I don't know if I will ever forget this fact

When I walk through the forest, I think about this now, that there could be spiders out there strumming, making a music I'll never hear, but music all the same. And it turns out this isn't the only other secret way that spiders use their webs. Dr. Sebastian told me about spiders that will wrap a web of silk around them like a sleeping bag and curl up inside all winter long to stay warm.

There are spiders that use silk to make balloons that can carry them through the air, sometimes for over 100 miles. There are silk hammocks in which spiders will swing and silk decoys that spiders will throw to confuse predators. That was truly web-tacular. That was gorgeous. When we come back, we are flinging open the cages.

Terrestrials is back. We are talking about nature's friendliest looking spider, the very cute, very fuzzy jumping spider. And when we left off, we were learning about all the cool ways that other spiders can use their webs as instruments, as hammocks. But the wildest thing about jumping spiders in particular, our scientist, Dr. Sebastian, told me is that most jumping spiders are not.

do not make webs. They don't make webs, which means they got to catch their prey, ambush style. And oddly, Dr. Sebastian thinks this lack of web making is the key to jumping spiders' power because while other spiders can just sit there and let their food get caught in their web, their flies, their bees let their food come to them, over time that's meant that they don't have to have great eyesight.

or wild jumping ambushing abilities. But jumping spiders, since they don't make webs, have had to rely on and develop other powers like that ability to jump 40 times their body length and that incredible eyesight, which helps them catch other spiders. That's right. They are spider-eating spiders. Anyway, on with the show.

I think it's probably time to step it up a notch here. Bug Petting Zoo was promised in the publicity materials. So what I wonder is if we could have a volunteer. And the room filled up with hands. Oh my gosh, so many volunteers. We're just going to start with one to come touch a... And a boy in a blue sweatshirt and green pants walks up. Can you tell me your name? Felix. Felix. And how old are you? Seven. Okay. And how do you feel about bugs?

They're kind of creepy, but I really like to learn about them. Oh, nice. We got them. I believe you've got a choice. Dr. Sebastian, head on over. Sebastian's going to give you a choice. So there's two bugs that we can meet today. Felix chooses the huge hissing cockroach. Okay, so this is a hissing roach, Felix. Can you put your hand out? And then Dr. S just plops the roach onto Felix's palm. There we go. Look at that. Oh, my gosh.

- It feels a little bit tickly. - Okay, so I'm gonna pet him and he might hiss, all right? He's just telling me to, hey, give me some space. Give me some space, okay? I'm walking here.

His head looks like a big piece of rubber a little bit. And the body looks like some big scales like here. Yeah, so those are the segments on his abdomen. His body is built up in little chunks. That's one of the cool things about bugs. Their bodies are made out of little chunks all fit together and they do different things. Let's put him back. I think his show time is over. Okay, we'll put him back. Green Jump Felix!

Thank you, Felix. Okay, so does anyone want to touch the tarantula? Yes, right here. Lady, come on up, please. Okay. A little girl wearing the shiniest pink sneakers. Oh, wait, can you show off those shoes? Walks up on stage. What is your name? Eden. Eden, and how old are you? Five and a half. Okay, and how do you feel about spiders?

I want to learn about them. Yes! All right. So what we're going to do, we're going to meet Isabel. Isabel the tarantula is also wearing pink. She's got rose-tinted hairs all over her massive body. She's going to walk across your hands like that, okay? And it'll take a little bit. Here she comes. And then leg by leg by leg by leg by leg by leg by leg by leg, Isabel crawls over Eden's palms. Look at that. You're doing great.

Wow. Do you see her little mohawk at the top of her head? Her eyes are right there, like a little ball at the very top of her head, and she's got a mohawk of hair that goes right through. It tickled a little. Do you want to hold her again? Okay, well, that sound means it's time to take it up the next notch. We have got the next level in the Bugapalooza.

There's looking at bugs. That's great. There's touching bugs. Now we're going to kick it up to the level of eating bugs. That's what bugs do. They're all about eating bugs. Okay, so may I please welcome the lovely Noor Shikari to the stage. Out walks a woman with long dark hair, hold up a tray with three tacos on it from her restaurant. Yes, so the restaurant is Citrico. It's in Brooklyn. And each taco...

has tiny legs coming out of it. It's called the chapulines taco. Chapulines are grasshoppers. We cook them with black beans, a little bit of jalapeno, and some onion. Got it. Okay, so... Roundup.

Why, but like for the people out there who are like yucky, why, why? - It's very common in a variety of different cultures to eat insects. They have a high nutritional value. They have a lot of protein. And then obviously they're much more friendly to the environment than other sources of protein that we consider more common. - Huh. - And they taste good. - And they taste good. - They taste good. - They really taste good. The way that I describe them to our guests when they're having them for the first time is almost like an earthy almond.

- Great, brave volunteer. Anyone wanna come up and eat us? Grasshopper taco, grasshopper taco.

Okay, so can you tell us your name? Maxine. Okay, and have you ever eaten bugs before? No. And how old are you? Nine. Dr. Sebastian, do you want one too? Oh, I would love to. I've actually never eaten bugs, and this is something a lot closer to what my bugs eat than my regular food. So I kind of want to know what it's like for them. And with that, Dr. Sebastian, our kid volunteer Maxine, and I each hold up a taco. You ready? Can we get like a group bon appetit? Three, two, one.

And then I crunch down. I let the legs and wings dissolve on my tongue in the swirl of cilantro and pepper and avocado. It's totally awesome. So good. How would you describe the taste, Maxine? Crunchy. Can confirm crunchy. I like the taste of the avocado with it. Yeah, it's great.

Well, thank you, Norton. Thank you so much. And there is nothing else cool about to happen. What's that? Excuse me. I have a question. Me too. Me three. Me four. The badgers. Audience members with badgering questions for the expert. Howl, there is a spider. Oh.

- Oh! - Ooh, that's a great question. - How old are your spiders? - There are so many different types of spiders. Some of them only live for a short amount of time. Jumping spiders like this one, this one's probably about a year old and they can live up to three or four years, while tarantulas can live up to 30 or 40 years. - Okay, we got one over here.

- Do jumping spiders bite and are they venomous? - Ooh, that's a really good question. So, like most spiders in the world, they have venom. But that venom has evolved to catch the things that they eat. And there are no spiders in the world that eat humans, like zero. Out of all 50,000 spiders in the world, zero of them eat us. - If a human was small enough, would it eat us? - Yes. - Okay.

We are saved by our size. Okay, got it. Where do they live? Oh, that's such a good question. Where do jumping spiders live? So jumping spiders live all around the world. There are 10,000 species, 10,000 types of jumping spiders in our world. Like this species here, you can find this right here in New York City, and they're all throughout North America.

There are other species of jumping spiders that live on Mount Everest, 22,000 feet above sea level. They are the animals closest to space at any point in time. Oh, that's so beautiful. And that is where to leave it. Twinkle, twinkle, little spider. Uh,

I wanted to tell you that if you enjoyed this live show, we have a live show coming up this summer in New York City. We will be performing a brand new Terrestrials episode about something that you probably love. And it's free. It's free. August 6th and 7th, we're doing two evening shows at 5 p.m. We also have fun events each morning at this place called Little Island. It's right on the river. It's gorgeous. And again, it's free.

To learn more about the show, visit littleisland.org or click the link in our show notes. I want to give so many thanks to so many people for this episode. First and foremost, Dr. Sebastian, who you can find on social media at spiderdaynightlive.com.

He also recently just wrote a book, a spider field guide called Spiders of the United States and Canada, which you can get for just $10. It is linked here in the liner notes. And you can find that online also to our harpist Aviva J. You can find her on SoundCloud. Just look for Aviva J. J-A-Y-E.

Also to the Green Space, WNYC's live event space, to their whole team for helping us put on this show, and to the wonderful Noor for preparing over 150 grasshopper tacos. Go check out her restaurant, Citrico, on Washington Avenue in Brooklyn. It is so, so, so good.

so very tasty. And to the Terrestrials team past and present who helped on this episode, Susie Lechtenberg, Ana Gonzalez, Alan Gofinski, Natalia Ramirez, Sarah Sandbach, Mira Birtwintonic, and Tanya Chawla.

If you do want to see a video of this show, just go on YouTube and look for Terrestrials Live at the Green Space and you will find it. You'll see the dances we did. At one point, Dr. Sebastian and I made a spider out of the both of us. You'll see all the kids bravely touching these tarantulas and cockroaches. You'll see Miss Aviva Jay doing her thing. Anyway, thank you.

thank you. Thank you for listening. We are hard at work this summer with a brand new season of terrestrials coming out in the fall and there'll be some treats on the feet over the summer. So, so listen up. See you in a couple spins of this dirty old planet of ours. Bye. Bye.