The Monstrefact: Mothra
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Get the Colgate Total Active Prevention System today so you can be dentist ready. Shop now by visiting shop.colgate.com slash total. Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio. Hi, my name is Robert Lamb and this is The Monster Fact, a short-form series from Stuff to Blow Your Mind focusing on mythical creatures, ideas, and monsters in time.

This week on Weird House Cinema, we'll be discussing the classic 1964 kaiju movie Mothra vs. Godzilla, in which the great divine moth comes to humanity's defense despite humanity's obvious greed and corruption. Originally introduced in her own self-titled 1961 movie, Mothra has continued to serve as a mainstay in the Godzilla franchise.

In the 1964 film, we see that Mothra's physical form continually experiences death and rebirth via the hatching of an enormous egg. In fact, the egg hatches to reveal twins, providing the great kaiju protector with a strategic advantage over Godzilla in their final fight, despite the larval forms that she is restricted to.

Now, this led me to wonder if natural world moths ever hatch twins. Well, insects do on rare occasions produce genetic twins, but there are also accounts of double cocoons among silk moths.

As pointed out by Wang et al. in the 2003 paper Analysis of the Movement of Two Silkworms During the Construction of Double Cocoons, published in the Journal of Insect Biotechnology and Cericology, that's the study of silk, two mature larvae sometimes jointly spin a large cocoon called a double cocoon in which they both develop into adults. Furthermore, the practice seems to be more common in certain genetic strains of silkworms.

Environmental factors such as crowded confines also seem to play a factor. Double cocoons are not ideal for silk production, but one can easily imagine why these occurrences might stand out as interesting curios. The emergence of twin larvae in Mothra vs. Godzilla, of course, mirrors the kaiju's twin fairy priestesses, the Shobijin.

Though the main reason for the incorporation of human twins here was apparently to capitalize on the international popularity of identical twin Japanese singers, the Peanuts, Emi and Yumi Ito. The original screenplay draft for 1961's Mothra apparently called for no fewer than four fairies, but it ended up being these two lovely twins instead.

When Mothra battles Godzilla, we see her make use of an incapacitating dust attack on the King of Monsters. It's a great sequence that seems to play on the common observation of fine dust on the wings of natural world moths.

As pointed out by Louis Villazon for BBC Science Focus, these are actually tiny scales made from modified hairs. As with butterflies, if handled roughly, the scales on these wings will rub off on your fingers and appear as some manner of fine powder. Perhaps Mothra really is making use of some otherworldly dust, but it could also be the power of her shed wing scales. Look, she's a goddess. She can do what she wants.

And of course, the silk attacks used by her offspring in the film closely match up with the silk production of silkworms, Bombix mori, which clearly served as the major biological inspiration for Mothra, queen of the monsters. Tune in for additional episodes of The Monster Fact, The Artifact, or Animalia Stupendium each week. As always, you can email us at contact at stufftoblowyourmind.com.

Stuff to Blow Your Mind is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app. Apple Podcasts are wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Colgate Total may make your favorite toothpaste, but it's also a science innovator committed to oral health. For instance, the Colgate Total Active Prevention System, with

With a cutting-edge toothbrush, refreshing antibacterial mouthwash, and a reformulated toothpaste, with a technology so innovative it won the 2024 Edison Patent Award, the Colgate Total Active Prevention System is 15 times more effective at reducing bacteria buildup to fight the root cause of oral health problems in six weeks, starting from week one, compared to a non-antibacterial fluoride toothpaste and flat-trimmed toothbrush. Talk about science.

Get the Colgate Total Active Prevention System today so you can be dentist ready. Shop now by visiting shop.colgate.com slash total. This is an iHeart Podcast.