Stuff You Should Know - Termites: They Bore But They Aren't Boring

Episode Date: February 25, 2014

Their soft white bodies look creepy and, to be sure, they are, but termites are pretty amazing bugs. They build ventilation systems into their mounds, poop on their enemies and grow mushrooms. Learn all the neat stuff you didn't know about termites here. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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sexy teen crush boy band or each week to guide you through life. Tell everybody everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen. So we'll never ever have to say bye bye bye. Listen to frosted tips with Lance Bass on the I heart radio app Apple podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts. Welcome to stuff you should know from house of works.com. Hey, welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant and there's Jerry. So it's stuff you should know how D. Hey, Hey, this is a fan recommendation. Really? Yes. Aaron Mullins from the Max Funcon cruise that I went on last year. Yeah. Works with termites. I believe like a termite circus. Yeah, he runs a termite circus. No, but he said, he said, dude, you

got it. You should do termites. He said, they're really fascinating. They are pretty fascinating. And I said, yeah, we'll get to it, buddy. And here we are. So Aaron Mullins, this one's for you. Way to go Mullins. Yeah, this is a good suggestion. I mean, it's termites. I can't tell you how many people went. I'm not listening to that one. Well, mistake. They just lost out and all of you, dear listeners, the ones who are hearing our voices talk about termites, you are very blessed. Yeah, it was, you know, the fact of the podcast thing that we like to do. I had a hard time picking out like five or six. I don't know. Don't give them away. Let's just take them in stride, huh? Okay. So Chuck. Yes. Are you familiar with termites? I am. This one's not gonna have a good

intro. I got a good intro. Okay. As a matter of fact, this is a Tracy Wilson joint. Yeah. She had a pretty good intro. She points out that termites are kind of paradoxes. Sure. Or the concept of termites is a paradox in that they are extremely vulnerable to changes in temperature, changes in humidity. They can dry out and die. They dive like dehydration pretty easy. Yeah, they're not super hardy. Right. But they can be. They can be. Yeah. They can also like fell an entire house given enough time. Yeah. They develop wings, some of them do, but they're not really good at flying. Yeah. Which is a lot like cicadas. Oh, yeah. You remember? Like we saw those things firsthand, just flying terribly. Yeah. And then soldier termites, for example. Yeah. Very strong. Huge

mandibles and pincers. Yeah. Yeah. They can't even feed themselves. They're like big babies. Yeah. There's just a lot of things going on with termites. You think you understand them? Oh, but what about this part? Bam. Right. That's kind of what happens when you look into them. That's why they're fascinating. That's why Aaron Mullins. Mullins recommended it. Yeah. Yeah. I agree. Should we get into it? You know what's sad is there's just going to be an awkward pause in the podcast because people couldn't see me looking at you like, what's the guy's name? That's right. We can tighten that up with the magic of editing. Jerry, will you tighten that up? No, says Jerry. Alrighty. So yes, let's get into this, Chuck. Let's talk termites.

All right. I guess usually when we do these, we've done kaka roaches and fleas and do we do fleas? We did ticks. Yeah. We've done ticks. We've done bees. Have we not done fleas? We need to do that. Are you sure? Yeah. Remember, ticks was like the most boring episode we've ever done. No, but people went crazy for it. It's because of the t-shirt offer. Remember, if you made it all the way through that one, you got a free t-shirt. Incentive. Anyway, we usually start with anatomy, and that's a good place for termites, obviously. They are insects, and you're going to find them. You can really find them anywhere where it doesn't, you don't go into a hard freeze in the winter. Right. But they are most common in tropical environments or most abundant, I guess.

Well, they make their range all the way into temperate climates though, too. Yeah. I mean, we've got them here, of course. Sure. And we freeze in the winter. Yeah, but like the ground doesn't freeze all the way through. No, no, no. And not for prolonged periods, either. They look like ants a lot of times. But they're not even that closely related to ants. Well, no, they're more closely related to cockroaches. Right. I think that's where they came from. Yeah. And they've been around for about 50 million years, and there are nearly 3,000 species of termites. Yeah. So that's just a little background. We should also say termites are extraordinarily social insects. That's how they survive. Like one termite is, like we said,

an extremely vulnerable organism. But if you put hundreds of thousands or millions upon millions of these things together in a single colony, they get the job done. Yeah, they're social, and they're very structured. Some similarities to bees in that there is a definite social ladder in there. It's called a cast, actually, for termites. And they all have little jobs that they do, and they all have their distinct physical features, one from another, which is kind of neat. So I guess we can start with the reproducers. Or reproductives. The egg layers. Right. In any colony, you have one king and one queen, and they're easily distinguishable from the rest, because they're the only ones who are really dark in color. Yeah. The reason they're the only ones

that are dark in color is because they're the only ones that are fully mature in the entire colony. The only ones. It's crazy. That's one of the facts of the show for me. Bam. Yeah. But the king and queen aren't the only ones who can lay eggs. Soldiers and workers, which we'll talk about in a second, they're both sterile. They got nothing going on with the sexy stuff. Nothing. But the king and queen have kind of backup support with laying eggs. They're secondary and tertiary reproducers. Yeah. Tertiary, by the way, is like one of the great overlooked wonderful words. I love that word. Me too. Yeah. Here's, to me, another fact of the podcast. Okay. The king and the queen have eyes, and the rest of them are blind. Okay. Not all of them are blind though,

because I'd read somewhere else that that wasn't quite right. Yeah. I did too, man. That basically, if you develop wings, what is it, an ally? Yeah. When you develop those wings, you also develop eyes. Okay. You're like, holy cow, I can see now, because I got these wings. I guess if you're going to fly, you're going to see. Right. So I guess at the point where there's just a king and queen, there's no allates. Yeah. The king and queen may be the only ones with eyes. I think you're right. And it's also possible that Tracy was talking about specific species, like there's 3,000 species. Sure. It's possible. Some species, only the king and queen have eyes that they can't have in time. True. The blind ones that navigate with smell, descent, and with

moisture trails, and moisture in saliva is big in the termite world, as we will find throughout the podcast. There's a lot of regurgitating and spitting out to accomplish their needs. Yeah. There's a lot of it's kind of magical. Yeah. Not only do they use it to keep their eggs moist, they salivate on their eggs. They also use it for things like building. Yeah. Shoring up the interior of their little caves and tunnels. Yeah. Building their entire mounds. Yeah. They use their spit for that too. It's magic stuff. It is magic. So that's the reproductives. Yeah. Oh, and you also, you mentioned that they navigate, the ones that can't see navigate through scent using pheromones. Yeah. And the king and queen produce a certain type of

pheromone that kind of controls how the colony's population is at any given time. Yeah. It's really amazing. Like if they need, and bees are sort of like this too, if they need more soldiers, then they deposit the pheromone that makes more soldiers. They need more workers, then they're going to use the pheromone that makes more workers. Right. The awesome difference, though, was with bees, they went through and either laid an egg that had been fertilized with sperm to make a male, or else they laid an egg that wasn't fertilized to make a female, and that's how they made different kinds of bees. With termites, a termite might actually regress in development, go back to the starting point to become a nymph again, or a larva, I think,

and then start over and then go from maybe being a worker to a soldier or something. It's pretty cool. It's all carried out by pheromones. Yeah. So let's talk about soldiers. Yeah. They are obviously named so because they are the defenders of the nest and they're invaders. And when I say defenders, they're not going to fight off a bat or an aardvark. They're going to lose that battle. But they can defend against other termites and ants and things like that. And what's his name? Aaron Mullins. Mullins was right to say that termites are fascinating because there's some stuff that wasn't in this article about soldiers. So we said that termites are extremely social. Yeah.

They're so social that they actually display suicidal behavior that benefits the colony. So some workers in some species develop this blue sack filled with this blue toxic fluid. And as they age, they kind of lose their purpose socially speaking. They can't harvest as much stuff like everybody. The big difference is that when we age, we don't come across an attacker and kill ourselves by blowing the sack up and spraying the attacker with toxic chemicals. So when they don't have their purpose anymore, they could like fall on the sword for the sake of the colony? Exactly. Wow. And there's another kind that's a soldier that's really good at pooping. Yeah. And they shoot their poop on the enemies, which is a pretty amazing. You're going to be

hard pressed to find too many other bugs that can accurately aim and shoot their poop and ward off other enemies. Wow. Those are termites. All right. That's pretty fantastic. Was that a fact of the podcast? It ranks. So aside from pooping on other ones, they have the largest mandibles, which are the little pincers to battle the ants and other termites. And their heads might be a little darker than their bodies, but they're not going to be dark like the king and queen. Yeah, just the heads. Yeah. And we talked about the spittle and the regurgitation. It can be toxic and sticky like a trap for another termite, or just flat out kill them with a toxicity. It burns. It's like you're coming into my joint. I'm going to either poop on you

or vomit on you this toxic acid or explode my blue sack on you. You know? That's right. So then we have the workers. Yeah. And sadly, the workers are exactly what you think. They are blind. They're probably the ones you see most often if you get like a rotten log or something. Yeah. The little milky, creamy looking dudes that just work. And that's all they do. They eat wood and they poop it back out. They do have mandibles, but they're not as big as the soldiers. And they dig tunnels. They gather food. They care. They babysit. The king and queen and soldiers can't even feed themselves. The workers have to feed the other termites above them. And what's cool is termites can't even eat their own food. They need help from microorganisms for that.

Yeah. So cellulose, which is the glucose polymer, very tight glucose polymer that provides structure to all plants. Yeah. You like that treat? Thank you. Yeah. That's so you can thank cellulose. It would be a big lump if it wasn't for cellulose. Grass is another one. Yeah. It's got cellulose. And the termites can't eat. They can eat the cellulose, but they can't break it out just like we can't. We can eat sucrose. Sure. Because our bodies produce sucrose, which breaks sucrose down into glucose, which we use for energy. Sure. Same thing with the termites. Their bodies don't produce cellulose, which breaks down cellulose. We don't either. You can sit there and eat wood all day long. And it's just going to come out the other end

exactly that same way. I've done it. Give you splinters on the way. Yeah, it's not nice. And it's the same thing with the termites, but the big difference between us and the termites, the termites have this hind gut that contains microorganisms that break down the cellulose into glucose that it can use. That's right. And that's the only thing in here I thought was a decent band name. Hind gut? Yeah. That's pretty good. It's not bad. So the organisms are bacteria and protozoans, and they can't live without one another, like the protozoans and bacteria can't live without the termite either. Yeah, that's another cool thing about termites. And it's not just these micro bacteria that they have a symbiotic relationship with. Some

termites have symbiotic relationship with the fungus that we'll see. Yeah. I mean, they're harmonious folks. That's a good way to say it. I like that about them. Mostly they're categorized by where they live. They can be subterranean if they nest underground. They are primitive if they are kind of like the ones you find in the rotten log. Those are primitive. Yeah, the three quarters of all termite species are higher termites. And it's not just their physical evolution, but also their behavioral evolution. The higher ones are the mound builders, whereas primitive termites are the ones that make a nest where they're eating, like in a hollowed out log. The big problem with that, and this is why they're not as highly evolved, is that when the log runs

out, the colony's like, oh, we're dead. Yeah, I was surprised that they didn't move on to another log or something. It's why they're primitive. Yeah, I guess so. In the sense, primitive equals dumb. That's true. One thing we didn't mention about the king and queen that I thought was kind of neat, too, is that they are monogamous and the queen can store sperm in her body enough to keep reproducing without sex, but she still throws the old man a bone, even though she doesn't need to. She's like, I have enough sperm, but come on. Let's go do it. Right, right. That's probably what she said. And the king is just, I imagine, very appreciative of that. Sure. I think that's cute about them. It's good to be the king. They're very social.

So let's see. When we're talking about reproduction, right? Well, yeah, I guess we might as well go at it. It was a pretty good segue, Chuck. Thank you. So you've got an egg. Let's just look at one individual termite. The termite is born an egg and out of the egg emerges a larva. And from the larval stage, a couple of molts go on and you enter the nymph stage. And I believe it's the nymph stage that's the real, like this is where it's like the stem cell stage. Like any termite, there's no determination whatsoever. Any termite can become any member of the cast. Yeah. Like once you're born, that can be a worker or a soldier. Right. Or even a reproductive. Yeah, that's true. So in the nymph stage, they go through a few more

molts. Say if they're going to become a worker, they'll molt maybe once. Yeah. If they molt another time after that, they can become a soldier. Yeah. I'm not quite sure exactly what process takes place for them to become a reproductive because obviously some sort of sexual emergence has to take place. Yeah, probably a screen test. Maybe so. And those are the three casts. And then from the reproductives, depending on, you know, what takes place, they can become secondary or tertiary or the king and the queen. Yeah. And like you said earlier, which is I think one of the facts of the show for sure, is that they can go backward and they don't like reverse aging or anything, but it is a reverse molt where a regressive molt where they

can go from soldier back to worker. Right. They would go soldier back to nymph, I think, and then to worker. Oh, is that how it works? Yeah, you have to go two steps back to go one step forward. You gotta go to home base. Pretty much. Okay. So there's, like we said, every colony has one king and one queen. But sometimes it's not enough. Like the colony may get too big. Yeah. And so when that happens, some of the reproductives, the secondary or tertiary reproductives will start to grow wings and possibly eyes as well. And that's probably pretty freaky. I'm sure it's kind of weird to see that certain way. And all of a sudden they're like, Whoa, yeah, this thing's coming out of my bag. It's like the fly. Right. You know, what's happening to you? The movie,

the fly. Right. Um, yeah, I knew it's your thing. Okay. Just intuitively, I did. Yeah, we did one of flies too, didn't we? Yes, we did. Okay. That one's pretty interesting. The insect suite. Right. So as the, as your friend is starting to grow wings and eyes and you're not right. You're like, well, I guess I'll stay here. Yeah. We can't see it though, at least. All right. You can hear it though. Are you growing wings? I'm not growing wings. I can hear you. It sounds like wings. No, don't worry about it. But the other difference with your friend is that he or she is suddenly attracted to light, which is unusual with termites. Yeah. Light equals dried out. So they're, they're normally like away from the light. They're not big on the light. Yeah. Now they are

attracted to light, which means that they all start to kind of hang out around the entrance of the colony. Yeah, like what's out there? Yep. And then maybe one warm day, a humid day, possibly after a rain, a day that they're not going to dry out, maybe after sundown, they all stumble out of the colony, do some terrible flying and try to go find other mates. Yeah. And that's called a swarm. And that is called a nuptial flight. And for obvious reasons that we will see here in a second. Right. And that's their only flight. And it's not like they just fly around like that's it. The only reason they have those wings is to kind of get from the nest to another termite. Right. And apparently the vast majority of them are going to be eaten. Bat food, or frog food,

or whatever. Right. Lots of things eat termites, including people. Some do survive. Yeah. And the other interesting thing is one colony will swarm at the same time another colony way far away will swarm. And scientists think that this is a way that they keep the gene pool deep and wide. Makes total sense. Yeah. So like you just mate with someone from another colony. Right. And you know, it's like a tea party. Right. Yeah. It's like a social, like a speed dating. Yeah. Ice cream social. Ice cream social. So speed dating. You find a little mate, a male goes out, he sees a female, a late that he likes. Yeah. I don't think we said a late is Latin for wing. And they land, they break their wings off. So now they're called delights.

And they say, Hey, you're kind of cute. You want to go like, see if we can make a go of this. And she says, Sure, let's go found a colony. Exactly. So they look for a shelter, they dig into a hole. And then they seal it with like the set the mood. They don't want like light coming in there. They seal it with poop and saliva. Yeah. Their poop is also their poop and their saliva are really handy. Super handy. He's just like, let me take care of this. Right. Like it's windy. Let me go poop and seal up my door. Right with my mix it with my spit. Yeah. Maybe some wood and soil. Yeah. And then they have a little love nest and they mate and the new queen lays her eggs. What's cute is like this, this and now they're the new king and the new queen. Yeah. Of this colony that they

just founded. That's right. The first generation, they're going to kind of not really. No, it's kind of like the opposite of Jamestown. There's a lot of birth. Yes. So the king and the queen will take care of this first generation until they have enough workers to take over the duties. Yeah. Then they get lazy. And then they just, yeah, they go back and the queen, the queen doesn't exactly get lazy. She's laying thousands of eggs every day. Yeah. The most prolific, that's like the high end for sure. But yeah, it can happen. Well, and it takes about two to four years for a colony to become fully mature. Yeah. And depending on whether it's a primitive or a higher termite species, there can be tens of

thousands or millions of individuals in this mature colony. Yeah. And then eventually, it becomes clear that they need to swarm again and the whole process just takes over again. Yeah. And the king and queen will find out later they live in the deepest, safest part of their nest, whatever it may be. Right. And here, I think to me is finally the fact of the podcast. What? Queens can live to be 25 years old. Okay, buddy. If you thought that was the fact of the podcast. 25 years old for an insect? I saw elsewhere, 60 to 70 years old. Really? Yes. Wow. Yeah. Man, that is crazy. Yeah. So that's for the queen only. But even the workers can live two to five years, which is pretty impressive. Yeah. In the insect world?

Yeah, for sure. Yeah. And that's of course, barring accident and, you know, well, bats and frogs. It'll be the same thing with us. Once we overcome aging, you'll still be able to die from an accident. Yeah. And I keep saying people eat them. I didn't look into it that much, but it's, they're definitely on the menu in a lot of countries. I think, is it the United States and Europe and Canada are the only countries that don't eat insects? I think so. In the world. Yeah. And if you're, need to survive, I know if you've watched Survivorman, a termite nest is like a really great thing to happen upon. If you're like trapped in the woods, a lot of protein. Yeah. And if you're an arvark or an anteater, same deal.

Exactly. So you've got your colony and they need a place to live. They don't just wander around. They're not bedowins. Right. They've built a nest, but they haven't really built their home yet. Their shelter. They've got the house, but they haven't made it a home. Kind of. Okay. But they haven't expanded it into a city. Okay. They've established a house. Right. It's on the mill and nowhere. Yeah. Now they need to build the infrastructure. Yeah. And a society basically. Exactly. And once they raise that first generation of workers, then it starts to take over and the colony grows exponentially from there. Yeah. Their nests are going to be called, they all build nests no matter what species.

They're called the termitaries or a termitaria. And even though they all build nests, they can be quite different depending on what the species is and where you find them. Yeah. Like we said, the primitives are going to be living in the wood that they're consuming until it's gone and then they die. And they are categorized according to the wood that they like to eat, which is kind of cool. Yeah. Like a damp, dry or rotten. Yeah. They probably love that stuff. Sure. The rotten stuff. And then you talked earlier about the fungi that they share their home with and bacteria, which is pretty cool. That's very much symbiosis as well. Well, actually it's not. No, it is. So the fungi can't live without the termites?

There is a, yeah. Okay. There's a, there's a specific type of termite, macroterminite, macroterminite. You sound like an islander. Yeah. Yeah. I got it though. I got it. So they actually grow mushrooms. Like they garden. That was one of the facts of the podcast too. Isn't that neat? Yeah. They grow these specific types of mushrooms that eventually grow out of the termite mound. The termites grow these. And the reason the termites grow them is because this fungus helps to break down the cellulosic material that the mound is built against. So they're, they're growing these mushrooms to help them break this stuff down so they can in turn eat it more efficiently. Yeah. They're actually gardening. It's really amazing. Yeah, it is.

What's his name? Aaron Mullins. He was right. They are fascinating. So we'll get to the mounds in a second, but we'll cover subterranean now. They are the ones underground, obviously. And it's sort of like when you've looked at like the little ant farms that you buy, all the little series of tubes and caves and tunnels. That's what they're building down there. Some, they have galleries for storage and for classroom education and raising the young. Right. And then they have, they obviously live down there as well. And then they connect it all together. Sometimes they connect it to their food source. Like they'll build a nest near a tree root that connects right to it and they can just tap right into it. Yeah. And then I guess,

does that kill the tree eventually? Well, it just disintegrates the tree. It's not there any longer. Yeah. But it's already dead tree. They eat rotting wood or dead wood. I don't think they eat live wood. Okay. So this is just like an old root, I guess. Yeah. Okay. And they'll build their, their, their nests such that if it's cold out, yeah, they'll, it'll be deep enough that they can all migrate down to a warmer spot in the earth. Yeah. There's like different areas within the colony that they'll take root. Right. And if it's, if it's hot out or something, they'll, they'll maybe go to like part of the colony that's under the shade of a tree or something like that. I mean, they're pretty complex. Yeah. And if they are building their nest underground and they

come upon a big slab of rock or something, they build little, what's called shelter tubes about the size of a pencil in diameter. And they, they're basically just little alternate highways like detours. Well, yeah, it's like, it's an extension of the nest that protects the termites from exposure to sunlight or the air or anything like that. Well, yeah. But a lot of times it's to get around something too. Right. But rather than having to like crawl up over the rock and be exposed, they build this, this basically like a tunnel. The tunnel. It's like, it's like the opposite of a tunnel. It's exposed. It's above ground. So like, let's say you have a subterranean colony, Chuck. Yeah. And here's the ground and an inch above the ground is your house, but between the ground

in your house is cement, the slab that your house is built on. They may build a, what's it called? A shelter tube? Yeah. From the ground, from their nest to your house. And it's just like an extension of their, their colony of their subterranean nest. Okay. So those are the subs. They're also mounds. I encourage you to Google giant termite mound and see some of these things that are like 20 feet tall. Some of them are uncannily like houses. They look like human houses. Yeah. It's really neat. Like you'll find these in Africa. You're not going to find these in Georgia or anything like that. No, not this tall, but they are domed towered structures. And they are made up of soil and excrement and poop and saliva and all the moisture that glue

like moisture they can secrete, I guess. Right. And some of them are little nests like on the side of stumps or trees, but some of them were just freestanding out in the middle of nowhere. Yeah. And like freestanding and structurally sound. Oh, like, yeah, they'll survive longer than the termites will. Yeah. They can survive brush fires. I've seen pictures of brush fires that just went past the termite mound. Yeah. Floods. The flood will kill the termite colony, but the mound itself will remain intact. And they also have a built-in heating and cooling system, a ventilation system where they build chimneys into the mounds. And there's ventilation shafts coming in the other way and it forces heat out and cool air in. And there's actually a mixed use development in

Harare Zimbabwe called Eastgate Center. And it has no central HVAC. It uses termite-inspired chimney ducts for heating and cooling of this place. It's pretty cool. Wow. So they just got their idea from like how they do their work. Yeah. It's like biomimicry. Oh, yeah. We talked about that before. Yeah. I don't think we ever did an episode on it. No. Add it to the list, my friend. So another way that termites, you know, they're going to get eaten a lot, but that is another way that they benefit the ecosystem. If you are part of the food chain and other animals are going to eat you and poop you out, then you're doing your job. Right. Sadly. But termites also eat other animals poop. Yeah. They eat herbivores poop because there's frequently cellulosic material

left over and the termites eat that. If they're cellulose, they're going to eat it. They don't care if it's poop. Yeah. And they play a really vital role to their ecosystems. In some places, termites are the only things breaking down cellulosic material. Yeah. Like a fallen tree. Sure. Yeah. Or animal poop that would build up otherwise if the termites didn't eat it. Yeah. So they have a really bad, they get a bad rap among humans, but apparently 90% of the species are beneficial. Yeah. That's true. And I guess this is the point where we should get into the sad part, which is if you want to prevent termites from coming to where you live or get rid of them if they are there. But right after this message break.

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Seriously, I swear. And you won't have to send an SOS because I'll be there for you. Oh man. And so my husband, Michael. Um, hey, that's me. Yep, we know that Michael and a different hot sexy teen crush boy band are each week to guide you through life step by step. Oh, not another one. Kids, relationships, life in general can get messy. You may be thinking this is the story of my life. Just stop now. If so, tell everybody, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen. So we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. If you have a woodhouse, the termite doesn't know that it's not just a fallen log. Right.

It's dead wood as far as they're concerned. And it's on the menu, especially if that wood is making direct contact with the ground. Yeah, it's always a good thing not to have a good starting point for a termite though. So around the world where termites are really, really bad, you might even see a house with on stilts with like metal posts. So the termites can't get up in there. It's not nearly like that around here, but it sounds like Africa and Australia have like some serious, serious problems with termites. Right. Australia? Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, those are the places where you will see like a stilt with metal around it because of termites, which makes sense because if there's enough termites, there's not a lot you can do. No. So

you just take preventative measures and live with it. Yeah. Like before you build your house, these days they will treat the ground before they even break ground. Yeah. But that stuff is pretty toxic and it only lasts about five years. Yeah. If you're not into that, you can say no, thank you for the toxic treatment. I would just like to do this every few years. It's still probably pretty toxic though. Yeah. Like the way they, like I have this stuff. I have these little, they're not traps, they're built into the ground all around my house. And the termite guy, the only reason I know he's been there is because he leaves a little note on my door. So to check your traps, but they're not traps. It's probably just leaching nasty stuff into my soil is what it's doing.

Probably. Yeah. Which is no good. But it works. Yeah, you don't have termites. That's true. And like we said, you don't want your wood coming into direct contact with the soil. That's going to be a basically an open invite for termites to come in there. You don't want. But I mean, termite prevention can be as simple as that. Yeah. If you put like a moisture barrier in your basement, yeah, just keep it dry. It's going to keep your basement dry and that will kill termites just in and of itself. And then if you don't have any dirt up against any wood part of your house, every once in a while, you just walk around your house and make sure there's no shelter tubes crawling up to your, the wood on your house. You should be fine. Yeah. And before you buy your

house, you're going to get a termite inspection. That's like one of the big things that you should do. Right. If you live in an area prone to termites, that is. But let's say, let's say you do suspect that there's been a termite infestation. What are some of the signs? Well, seeing termites in your house. That's the one that means you're screwed because they're already through the wood, especially if you see a swarm. Oh yeah. You're super screwed because that means there's so many already in your house that they have to go form another colony elsewhere in your house. Yeah. That's when it's time to call it a termite professional. That's right. They might look like ants. So if you think you have an ant problem, you want to like look extra close and. Yeah, flying ants. Yeah,

at their waist. Ants have a narrower waist than termites do. Yeah. Ants front wings are a lot longer than the back wings, whereas termites wings are the same length. So that's another good way to tell. And they fold over one another to make like a straight line. Yeah. That's a big giveaway. They're sleek. Yes. And then the antenna and an ant's antenna is bent and a termite is straight and looks like little round pearls. Yeah. So yeah. Look closely. Yeah. Catch one. Yeah. Hold it gently. Look closely and then release. Oh yeah, you could do that. There might also be other signs, less obvious signs. Yeah. Like you might find little tiny wings. Yeah. They look like flying ant wings around your windows in your lights. That's a sign that termites have been there and have

already swarmed because they went from allates to D allates. Yeah. Do you have decayed wood? If you tap your wood with a hammer, does the hammer go right through it? If so, that's a pretty good sign you have termites. You sound like a bad infomercial. Yeah. I pretty much do in every episode. No you don't. But it can also get confused with like water damage and things. The way you can tell the difference is termite damage follows the grain of the wood and it's also lined with wood and soil. Right. And that's obviously not the case with water damage. Yeah. And then like you said, just look for the shelter tubes. That's a pretty dead giveaway too. Like pick up a cinder block and do you see tubes and termites? Yeah. What's great though is if you see this, you don't

need to panic. No. Like it takes many, many, many years for termites to really do significant damage to your house. Yeah. But on the flip side though, it's often invisible until it's too late. Right. You know? So like you got to get on. For sure. If you see a couple of swarms in your house then yeah, you need to handle that immediately. You should handle it immediately no matter what. Yeah. But if you spotted a shelter tube for the first time and you just also looked last week, right, you're not necessarily in any danger. And the point is, is since it takes a while, you want to take a while in finding the right exterminator because they're going to, you're going to make friends with this person because they have some serious work to do. Yeah. And you

need an exterminator. This isn't the kind of problem you can get rid of on your own. Right. It's not for civilians. Right. To tackle. And we're not shields for exterminators either. We're really saying this. So you don't want to tackle it on your own. Right. You want to hire your exterminator. The first thing they're going to do is obviously verify that it is in fact termites and not water damage or something. They're going to hit the wood in your house with a hammer. Yeah, pretty much. They have all kinds of things though, like heat sensors and little tiny infrared cameras. They'll stick into your walls and stethoscopes. Like I can hear them. Do they? They have sound sensors. Oh, okay. Yeah. It's just like a high-tech stethoscope.

One of the things they can do is baits, use baits, which is basically, unfortunately, wood soaked in pesticide. It's poison food. And they say, hey, come here and eat this. And they eat it. And then they take it back to their colony and kill everybody. It's exactly like snow white. Yeah. It's awful though. Like I've grown, I had grown to love termites by the end of this. And then I started reading about how they kill them. I'm like, that's awful. Can't you just relocate them? I feel very much the same way. Yeah. You can't though. No, you can't. You can't relocate them. You have to kill them. Or you could move. Just leave them the house. Kind of. Why not?

Repellence is another thing they can use, my friend. Oh, yeah. And that's just like any kind of insect repellent that keeps them from, like if you see a swarm near your house, you're going to use repellent. That means they're not at the house yet and you can keep them away. Is that what you're guys doing with the little trap thing or whatever? It's probably using a repellent. Yeah. It's some sort of, yeah. I don't think it's killing. Like an ultrasonic wave that just shatters their heads. I don't know what it is. It's so weird. These little round, you just, when you walk by, it looks like a little round disc, green disc. And then I've seen them pull it up though and it goes like, you know, six inches into the ground.

I think that's probably repellent. Yeah. I think it's got to be. And the cool thing about repellents too is the ones that are already inside are trapped inside. Yeah. And they're cut off from the rest of the, uh, their safe colony, which means that they probably die of dehydration pretty soon. So that's cool and very sad. All right. Well, I'm just saying like, yeah, they called me out. The final thing that they can do is just kill them with a termaticide. And that means pumping sometimes hundreds of gallons of poison crazy into their nest and killing them into your house. Yeah. Which is a thing. That's why you just move and leave them the house. You tell the bank like, sorry guys, I'm not paying on this anymore.

Go hit the termites up for your monthly payment. If you're brave. On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're going to use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it. And now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. It's a podcast packed with interviews, co stars, friends and nonstop references to the best decade ever. Do you remember going to blockbuster? Do you remember Nintendo 64? Do you remember getting frosted tips? Was that a cereal? No, it was hair. Do you remember AOL instant messenger and the

dial up sound like poltergeist? So leave a code on your best friends beeper because you'll want to be there when the nostalgia starts flowing. Each episode will rival the feeling of taking out the cartridge from your Game Boy, blowing on it and popping it back in as we take you back to the 90s. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s called on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast frosted tips with Lance Bass. The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough, or you're at the end of the road. Ah, okay, I see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do,

you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. This I promise you. Oh god. Seriously, I swear. And you won't have to send an SOS because I'll be there for you. Oh man. And so will my husband Michael. Um, hey, that's me. Yep, we know that Michael and a different hot sexy teen crush boy band are each week to guide you through life step by step. Oh, not another one. Kids, relationships, life in general can get messy. You may be thinking this is the story of my life. Just stop now. If so, tell everybody, yeah, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen. So we'll never ever have to say bye bye bye. Listen to frosted tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You got anything else?

No, no, Peter doubt. Yeah, I did kind of who are hanging on by our fingernails there. I wish we had one more like great fact. Let's just make one up. And then at the end, they turn into carrot top. That's pretty good. Good going back to the show. I've got one. Oh, we didn't cover the Formosan. So you're going to talk about no, okay. I didn't even highlight that one. Oh yeah. The termite poop is called frass, F-R-A-S-S. And frass is rich in magnesium. So when they poop, they enrich the soil. They're just pretty much perfect in every way except for when they're eating your house. Right. That's a great way to end it. Frass. No, your carrot top one is the best way to end it. So let's see. If you want to learn more about termites, right? Yeah. You go type that

word in the search bar at housestuffworks.com. And as I said, search bar, it's time for listener mail. I'm going to call this bird killer in our show on myth busting common misconceptions. Oh, yeah. I told the story about killing a bird and Josh told the story about Yumi microwaving a bird. Yeah. But you say not killing, right? It eventually died. She didn't kill it in the microwave. It just died later from microwave internal complications. I think it just died of being over treated. Okay. So we got a letter from Matt about that. Hi, guys. You broke my heart this morning. I was listening to your myth busting podcast on the drive in. I don't like this one. I read this one. I don't like it. Should I not read it? Yeah, you can if you want. It's just, oh,

God. You can excuse yourself if you want to leave. No, I'll sit through it. You started talking about the mama bird baby bird myth and it brought tears to my eyes. You see, when I was in the fourth grade, my friend John and I were playing in the woods in the beautiful south hills of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. We encountered a baby bird and I being an animal lover picked it up because it was so cute. As soon as I did, I remembered that I had just doomed it to a slow death of lonely starvation because his mother would never care for it again. For some reason, even though I was an am an animal person, neither John nor I thought of raising it ourselves. Instead, we thought we would spare it a horrible slow death by smashing it with the cinder block, which we did. Just so you know, guys, I haven't

killed an animal since and I am not a serial killer currently until this morning. I actually thought that we did the right thing. So this dude from the fourth grade until last week thought that he had like spared this bird. Euthanasia. Yep. Now I can't stop thinking about the mama bird watching from high in a tree as we smashed her baby with the cinder block. So thanks for that. Also, I have an anti-joke. We got a lot of anti-jokes, by the way. We did. Apparently, there's some like established anti-jokes. Yeah, the rabbits in the bathtub. I didn't see that one. Two rabbits in the bathtub. One said, hey, pass me the soap. And the other one said, what do I look like? A typewriter? That one didn't do it. I like this one, though.

A man walks into a bar. He's an alcoholic and is destroying his family. Oh, yeah. I saw that one, too. Yeah. I love it. Yeah. In all seriousness, though, guys, thanks for the best podcast around. And that is from Matt. Thanks, Matt. Appreciate that. Sorry to burst your bubble, my friend. Actually, I don't appreciate that one at all. No. If you want to send something that traumatizes Chuck or me, you can tweet to us at SYSKpodcast. You can join us on facebook.com slash stuff you should know. You can send us an email to stuffpodcastthediscovery.com. And as always, you can hang out with us at our home on the web, stuffyoushouldknow.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit howstuffworks.com.

Hey, Netflix streams, TV shows, and movies directly to your TV, computer, wireless device, or game console. You can get a 30 day free trial membership. Go to www.netflix.com slash stuff and sign up now. Attention Bachelor Nation. He's back. The host of some of America's most dramatic TV moments returns with the most dramatic podcast ever with Chris Harrison. During two decades in reality TV, Chris saw it all. And now he's telling all it's going to be difficult at times. It'll be funny. We'll push the envelope. We have a lot to talk about. Listen to the most dramatic podcast ever with Chris Harrison on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called David

Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're going to use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.