BROADCASTS.com

Thanks to Lorenzo and Page for suggestions used in this week's episode, and a belated thanks to Ethan for last week's episode! Let's learn about some of the cutest invertebrates out there!\n\nFurther reading:\n\nPhotosynthesis-like process found in insects\n\nMystery of the Venezuelan Poodle Moth\n\nFurther viewing:\n\nDr. Arthur Anker's photos from his Venezuela trip, including the poodle moth\n\nThe pea aphid, red morph and regular green\n\n\n\nSo many ladybugs:\n\n \n\nThe sea bunny is a real animal, but it's not a real bunny:\n\n \n\nA larval sea bunny is SO TINY that fingertip looks like it's the size of a BUILDING:\n\n\n\nThe bobtail squid not hiding (left) and hiding (right):\n\n \n\nThe bobtail squid is SO CUTE I MIGHT DIE:\n\n\n\nThe Venezuelan poodle moth:\n\n\n\nNot a Venezuelan poodle moth--it's a female muslin moth from Eurasia:\n\n\n\nNot a Venezuelan poodle moth--it's a silkworm moth from Asia:\n\n\n\nThe dot-lined white moth:\n\n \n\nShow transcript:\n\nWelcome to Strange Animals Podcast. I\u2019m your host, Kate Shaw.\n\nThis week I promised we\u2019d cover a cute, happy animal to make up for last week\u2019s extinction event episode, but instead of mammals let\u2019s look at some cute invertebrates! One of them is even a mystery animal. Thanks to Page and Lorenzo for suggesting two of the animals we\u2019re going to cover today!\n\nWe\u2019ll start with Lorenzo\u2019s suggestion, the pea aphid. Years and years ago I spent a slow day at work making a list of cute foods with a coworker, and peas were at the top of the list. Blueberries were second and I don\u2019t remember the rest of the list. Generally, cuteness depended on how small the food was and how round. Aphids are really small and peas are round, so the pea aphid has to be adorable.\n\nThe pea aphid, however, is not round. It\u2019s shaped sort of like a tiny pale-green teardrop with long legs, long antennae, and teeny black dots for eyes. It\u2019s actually kind of big for an aphid, not that that\u2019s saying much since it only grows 4 mm long at most. It\u2019s called the pea aphid because it likes to live on pea plants, although it\u2019s also happy on plants related to peas, such as beans, clover, and alfalfa. Cute as it is, farmers and gardeners do not like the pea aphid because it eats the sap of the plants it lives on, which can weaken the plant and can spread plant diseases.\n\nDuring most of the year, all pea aphids are females. Each adult produces eggs that don\u2019t need to be fertilized to hatch, but instead of laying her eggs like most insects, they develop inside her and she gives birth to live babies, all of them female. An aphid can have up to 12 babies a day, called nymphs, and the nymphs grow up in about a week or a little longer. Then they too start having babies. Even though lots of other insects and other animals eat aphids, as you can see, they will always be numerous.\n\nAs the summer turns to fall and the days become shorter, some of the baby aphids are born with wings. Some are also born male, and sometimes the males also have wings, although they might not have mouths. These males and winged females mate and the females fly off to lay their eggs on clover and alfalfa plants, assuming they aren\u2019t already on clover or alfalfa plants. The eggs don\u2019t hatch until spring, and all the resulting nymphs are female.\n\nSometimes winged females are born if the plants where the aphids live get too crowded. The winged females can fly away and find new plants.\n\nIf you\u2019ve ever had a garden, you\u2019re probably familiar with aphids. They spend most of the time on the undersides of leaves, drinking sap through specialized mouthparts called stylets. You may also have noticed that when you try to smush the aphids, all of them immediately drop to the ground. This protects them not just from being smooshed by a gardener\u2019s thumb, but from being eaten along with the leaves when a deer or other animal browses on the plants where they live.\n\nSometimes, instead of being leaf green,