Short Wave - FACT SMACK: Spider Edition

Episode Date: January 29, 2021

With the help of spider scientist Sebastian Echeverri, Maddie presents the case for why spiders are the best and coolest animal. Spoiler alert: some travel thousands of kilometers by "ballooning," while others live part time underwater. Are you a scientist who thinks Sebastian is wrong and that the animal you study is superior? Let us know! You can email us at [e-mail]. We'd love to hear the case for your critter.See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

That's bad. Hey, everybody. Maddie Safai here with shortwave reporter Emily Kwong. Hey, Kwong. Hi, Maddie. What do you got for us today? Okay, Emily, I've got an episode that combines the two things I love most. Is that being efficient and the sister act movies?

Honestly, very good guesses. Too good. But no. Smack Talk, which you know I love. And Critter Fax. Oh, of course. All right. Into it.

In an episode, I'm calling. animal fact smack, in which we bring on a scientist to talk smack using facts to prove once and for all that their favorite animal is the best animal. I mean, look, this is going to be me laying down the reasons why spiders are the best. And there are many of them. That is Sebastian Etiari. He got his Ph.D. studying jumping spiders at the University of Pittsburgh. But Kwong, he is a fan of all spiders. I mean, these animals have been around for 300 or more million years. They are older than the dinosaurs.

They have survived multiple mass extinctions. They are everywhere. I cannot believe that you found someone to do this nonsense with you, Maddie. Oh, Kwong, it's not hard. Scientists who study critters often think their critters are the best. They're fighting on Twitter about it. Hashtag team fish, by the way. Hashtag team bird.

Okay, or, you know, before the pandemic, in person. I've done this informally with many scientists at conferences, and I've heard some cool things. I've seen some really cool animals. I've found some really cool animal research. But to get the breadth of behavior, diversity of habitat, of shape of, like way of living, that you get in spiders, that can't be beat. I have no skin in this game at all.

But everyone wins when we talk about critters, right? Especially our listeners. Yeah, sure. So today on the show, our first ever round of animal fact smack. We'll talk about spiders who live in unbelievable places, move in wild ways, and are altogether amazing. This is Shortwave, the Daily Science podcast from NPR. Okay, Kwong, here's how this is going to work. All right.

Sebastian gets roughly 10 minutes of facts. to prove that his critter of choice, spiders, are the coolest critters. Okay, got it. Now, these are general spider facts, so Sebastian gets to call on any spider he wants, which gives him a lot to choose from. There are like roughly 45,000 species of spiders. And to give you a sense of context, think about an animal that we see all the time, or type of animal, mammals, right?

There are only about 6,000 or so species of mammals, and that covers literally everything from shrews to whales to rhinos. Compared to the 45,000 species of spiders. That is so many spiders. I mean, mammals, like, it's just not where it's at. It's not where it's at. Okay, so here's a thing, Kwong. It's not just how many of them there are. It's also where they live.

Spiders are out here, Kwong. And here is pretty much everything. See, this is one of my favorite things about planet Earth is basically wherever I go, I can find a spider. Because there are spiders living everywhere from the intertidal zone right at the ocean's edge to forests, to driest deserts where they build these sand tunnels under the sand, up on mountains, not just regular mountains, but all the way up to the slopes of Mount Everest and everything in between. Hold on. He just said there are spiders that live on Mount Everest. Oh, yeah, Kwong. There's a famous one up there called the Himalayan Jumping Spider.

They live up to 22,000 feet or 6,700 meters above sea level. They are the spider, the animal, that is arguably the highest permanent resident on Earth. They are living in the penthouse on our planet. That's incredible. I wouldn't have thought, I wouldn't have thought Spider. I would have thought something else. Yeah, I know, me neither. But I love this because even its species name, Omni Superstess,

is kind of perfect for talking smack. The Omni Superstess means stands above everything. Because it is literally above us at all points of the day of the night of the year, watching down amongst all the lower animals. I identify as a lower animal. You know what I mean? I don't know about that. This spider may be your soulmate.

All right. What else do you got, Sophia? Okay. So the one that sent me over the spider edge, Kwong, did you know that there are multiple types of spiders who live at least part-time underwater? Like, I'm talking seawater, fresh water. They're out there.

I mean, you must find that amazing because you can barely swim. Wow. Wow, wow, wow, Emily. Everyone else was getting to talk smack. It's my turn. Honestly, fair but hurtful. Fair but hurtful. Okay, okay.

So anyways, there's this spider that lives underwater called the diving bell spider. And they basically make a sci-fi, like underwater dome of air. That's their air pocket. they go there when they need to breathe, and then the rest of the time they just go out and they bring a little bubble of air around their lungs, which on a spider are on the bottom of the abdomen,

they just bring a bubble of air around them with that, and they're just walking around underwater. They are catching food under there, they're catching fish, they're catching small insects, and their entire life, everything, every part of their lifespan, from birth to reproduction to death. Okay, even I, a person who doesn't think,

about spiders, we'll admit this is incredibly cool, that spiders are really living all over the place. Spiders got range, Kwong. They got range. And I don't mean like as a group of species, I mean some spiders legit have range. In fact, many spiders can fly. I mean like technically it's called ballooning, but they're flying. Get out. What they'll do is they basically will just release silk into the wind and it just like goes up and it basically turns into like a kite. What? But when you're light enough to be a spider, something that's like a kite is basically like an air balloon. Get out of here. Okay, here's the thing, though.

It's not just them catching the wind. There's evidence that spiders can sense Earth's electric field and take advantage of that to shoot up into the sky. This is too much. Electrostatic spider flight? Yes. Like, how far are we talking here? How far are these critters flying? I mean, the best of them, the ones that are out there showing off, we're talking hundreds or even

thousands of kilometers. So far that scientists like Sebastian have to take spider ballooning into account when they're trying to determine where a species evolved. Like, has it always been here or did it balloon here in its free time? Like, we don't know. Spiders out here confusing scientists. I love it. I think that's what they do most of the time, honestly.

And scientists don't just have to worry about spiders showing up in places because they balloon there. We got other types of transportation going on Kwong. Like maybe you're tired, maybe you don't want to fly yourself. Because spiders don't just fly. They take boats. And by boats, I mean they take rafts of kelp and seaweed. So spiders that live by the ocean shore have actually traveled around the world to new places

by following clumps of seaweed out to sea, surviving on the open ocean, and then arriving at a new part of the world. So there's one group that originally evolves in South Africa, and then you can follow them with the currents over evolutionary time. First they go to Australia, and then New Zealand, and then from New Zealand to Chile. And they're following that ocean current arriving in new places and then evolving into new species there as they adapt. I think of spiders as creatures that just hang out,

in the corner in the attic, right? But no, spiders are... Open your mind. Spiders are hanging out in mountains, underwater, they're flying, they're boating. This is a strong first statement about which animal might be best in a strong first episode of whatever this is. Animal Fack Smack. We're scientists use facts to talk smack. Facts smack.

And you were right earlier, Emily. Technically, everybody wins. Even Sebastian agrees. I bet there are many scientists out there that know these things about their animals, and I want to know them. And so please come on and tell me, you're not going to be cool than spiders. Like, that's okay. But we'll all learn something really cool, and that is very much worthwhile. What a beguiling invitation.

Who can turn that down? I know it. Smack talk down to the last minute. Oh, you don't even know how much smack Sebastian can talk. And if you try to step to spiders, they have eight legs, they can dance, they will. will step back to you. And you better be ready with cool facts because honestly, I don't know if you can get to this level.

Gauntlet thrown into the critter arena. Fantastic. Thank you, baby. All right. That is it for us. Thank you so much to Sebastian, who wants you all to know that spider legs are actually kind of attached to their head, not their abdomen. So stop drawing them wrong, people.

I promised him I would say that on the air quang. Understood. If you're a scientist who thinks. that your critter is actually the best if you can take on Sebastian and his army of spiders, give us your best shot, email us some critter facts and why you should be on the show to shortwave at npr.org. And remember, we are interested in all kinds of critters. Especially the ones that don't normally get any love like invertebrates. Yes, yes. You ain't got to have a backbone to play this game.

Nope. That's again, shortwave at npr.orgie. This episode was produced by Rebecca Ramirez, edited by Viet Le, and fact-checked by Rasha Airedi. Special thanks to Jeff Brumfield, who actually wanted to name Shortwave this whole podcast, FaxMack. Sorry, bud, this is what you get. I'm Maddie, so spider, so fia. And I'm Emily, learning something every day. Quank.

Thanks for listening to Shortwave from NPR.