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It’s time for another Good Growing Halloween Spooktacular! We’re all dressed up again this year to talk about some creepy crawlies that have had or are still having an impact on humans or have a lot of lore behind them, including black widow and brown recluse spiders, stinging caterpillars, oriental rat fleas, lice, and more!
Watch us on YouTube: https://youtu.be/DGbFkgEs2ZE
Skip to what you want to know:
00:41 – Welcome, Ken. What are our costumes this year?
02:50 – Black widow spiders
11:30 – Brown recluse spider
15:50 – Identifying brown recluse spiders
18:30 – Venomous vs poisonous
19:20 – Stinging caterpillars
22:40 - Saddleback caterpillar
24:55 - Puss caterpillar
28:30 – Oriental rat flea and plague
35:47 – Lice
36:25 – Body lice
39:30 – Head lice
41:30 – Pubic lice
45:22 – Wrap-up, thank yous, what’s up next week, and goodbye!
Southern black widow (University of Florida) - https://entnemdept.ufl.edu/creatures/urban/spiders/black_widow_spider.htm
Brown recluse (Colorado State University) - https://extension.colostate.edu/topic-areas/insects/brown-recluse-spiders-in-colorado-recognition-and-spiders-of-similar-appearance-5-607/
CDC lice guidelines - https://www.cdc.gov/lice/caring-head/index.html
Contact us!
Chris Enroth: cenroth@illinois.edu
Ken Johnson: kjohnso@illinois.edu
Check out the Good Growing Blog: https://go.illinois.edu/goodgrowing
Subscribe to the weekly Good Growing email: https://go.illinois.edu/goodgrowingsubscribe
Any products or companies mentioned during the podcast are in no way a promotion or endorsement of these products or companies.
Barnyard Bash: freesfx.co.uk
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Creators & Guests
What is Good Growing?
Talking all things horticulture, ecology, and design.
00:00:04:17 - 00:00:28:16
Unknown
Welcome to the Good Growing Podcast. I am Chris Enroth, horticulture educator with University of Illinois Extension, coming to you from Macomb, Illinois. And we have got a great show for you today. It is r o leucine a spooktacular where we are going to be talking about creepy crawlies. We'll look back at the history of some kind of nasty insects.
00:00:28:16 - 00:00:48:08
Unknown
I suppose that maybe have had an impact on, humans in the past. And maybe even still today. Either have are still having an impact or have quite a bit of lore behind them. And if that is true or not, and you know, I'm not doing this by myself, I am joined, as always, every single week by horticulture educator Ken Johnson and Jacksonville.
00:00:48:13 - 00:00:49:21
Unknown
Hey, Ken.
00:00:49:21 - 00:01:22:17
Unknown
Hello, Chris. We got some spiders too. So we're going to we're going to head over Colby College today. Yes yes I, I sorry, sorry I can, I forgot to say yes. We're insects and arachnids. Insects and French. Yes. Insects and friends. And, being our Halloween spooktacular, of course, we're dressed up. So, I suppose, listeners, if you want to see what we're what we're wearing, or who we're wearing today, we'll leave a link below to the YouTube video.
00:01:22:19 - 00:01:44:15
Unknown
You can check that out, but, I guess, Ken, you look like you've just popped right out of the garden. With your bright red, pointy garden gnome cap. Yes. Like it just kind of emerged out of the ground like that. You have your your nice kind of, collared shirt, which looks like you're you're working hard in the garden.
00:01:44:15 - 00:01:59:07
Unknown
Which? The blue collared shirt. Oh, yeah. You look very, very gnomish, so I like it there. Thank you for the idea. Yes. And the red beard compliments are too. So otherwise it's just going to be you can't Cornelius again.
00:01:59:09 - 00:02:24:07
Unknown
Well, it's Yukon, but with a pointy hat this time. Yes. So then I guess we should describe your outfit. It's. It's rather colorful. Yep. You know, there's some nice rainbow hair and a stethoscope. Lab coat. But I am a I'm a doctor today as a doctor. Doctor clown to you sir. So yes, I have a clown wig on.
00:02:24:09 - 00:02:46:22
Unknown
And I have a, I borrowed by wife's, stethoscope and her lab coat from her work, and, so. Yeah, I'm. I'm a doctor. And prescription today is fun. So, I can't take myself seriously, you know, even one bit. So. Yeah, it's probably as close as I'll ever get to with the PhD doctor esque type atmosphere.
00:02:46:22 - 00:03:12:20
Unknown
So, I'm ready to diagnose some some spooky, spooky insects today. Let's let's do it right here. The first ones we get for spiders. Everybody's favorite. Oh that's right. The one that has all the story in the law behind it. You know all of the all of the Halloween decorations have this particular one. Yeah. So the first one either black widow spider.
00:03:12:20 - 00:03:21:21
Unknown
So these are all venomous. So these are of, of human health concern. At times. Well they're typically not, not usually much from. So,
00:03:22:12 - 00:03:34:11
Unknown
I think when I, I guess misnomer with these is the widows. So they're, you know, it's believed that females kill and consume their mates, after they, after they mate. So the females will eat the males after they mate.
00:03:34:13 - 00:03:54:14
Unknown
Kind of like with, praying mantis. At least that's the lifestyle. And but like praying mantis, this typically really only happens in laboratory settings out in the wild. It's not nearly as often, as people believe. And I think that the kind of prevailing thought is that the consumed is more because they can't escape quick enough than the females actually actively
00:03:55:03 - 00:03:59:06
Unknown
hunting them and, and trying to eat them.
00:03:59:06 - 00:04:01:09
Unknown
It's more, you're too slow,
00:04:01:09 - 00:04:03:02
Unknown
know you're going to get eaten.
00:04:03:02 - 00:04:11:21
Unknown
I was going to eat you anyway, but, I suppose I'll will mate first. And then if you can get away fast enough, I'll. I'll eat you. Then.
00:04:12:03 - 00:04:45:09
Unknown
So when it comes to our, our black widow, it looks like we have a lot of self-reported black widow bites. In 2010, there was over 2000 self-reported black widow bites in the U.S. It sounds like when you someone says self-reported, you know, we don't have a confirmation. We don't have a we don't have a black widow in our hand or in a jar, hopefully to actually say like, this is what created this, this thing on me.
00:04:45:09 - 00:05:09:04
Unknown
So whether it's a wound or a rash or a, necrotic spot in your flesh, it, it so I suppose, and we might get more into this on our next, next spider, but, I wonder if there's a lot of misdiagnosis, even with Black Widow. I think probably a lot of these are are self reported. Yeah.
00:05:09:04 - 00:05:10:14
Unknown
Unless you have the,
00:05:10:14 - 00:05:20:00
Unknown
the, the spider in this case where you actually see it, I think a lot of times spiders get blamed, for any kind of.
00:05:20:00 - 00:05:27:17
Unknown
I guess necrotic or, pick or something in there. The may have a couple of holes. I think spiders get a lot of the blame. And this.
00:05:27:19 - 00:05:50:01
Unknown
And I think even in the literature, that's not necessarily the case. For lots of. I don't know about maybe not as much of a with black widows, but next spider in particular. Yeah. I think and that's the issue. Like I know people say, well, if you get bit by a snake in the wild, you don't know it is, just grab it and bring it into the E.R. when you come in, it's like, well, I don't know if I'm in a grip.
00:05:50:06 - 00:06:09:24
Unknown
I don't know if I'm going to correct the snake. I think how excited they be. Yeah. So if it's already biting me, it's probably going to be really hard to get that snake. So. So anyway. Yes. Confirmation of what we're talking about. Yeah. That's a it's a big thing. So. All right, Ken, I guess continue about the tale of the Black Widow.
00:06:10:07 - 00:06:26:22
Unknown
Yeah. So, so these are, again, they are venomous. They're of human concern, but I think death is exceedingly rare. It does happen, but it's it's the exception, not the not the rule for that. From my right, you know, typically people recover within 24 hours,
00:06:26:22 - 00:06:34:15
Unknown
or if they receive treatment 3 to 5 days, if they don't, you know, they just tough it out, so to speak, out at home.
00:06:34:17 - 00:06:56:15
Unknown
And that can be, you know, when you go into getting, you know, pain relief, cleaning it out, things like that. People that are sensitive, there, there's an anti-venom, that is produced, with antibodies in the serum from horses. So horses are exposed to low levels of the black widow venom. And then they get that anti-venom from that?
00:06:56:17 - 00:06:57:24
Unknown
Yes, from an article from
00:06:58:19 - 00:07:20:13
Unknown
University of Florida, because they have lots of widows down there. When to administer properly by a licensed medical practitioner. It has been shown to be highly effective, especially if patients receive or treated within the first three hours after a bite. So that's right. Again, you know, 2020 a 21, 2200 self-reported bites in the entire United States.
00:07:20:13 - 00:07:41:08
Unknown
So again, it's not particularly common. It's a they're they're kind of I was I think they're usually described as reluctant biters. You know, they're living out, you know, brush piles out and then some kind of hidden areas. And I think the first year typically they try to run, before they bite. It's like a lot of things, once they get trapped,
00:07:41:21 - 00:07:46:03
Unknown
there's no more of a resort to biting.
00:07:46:05 - 00:08:12:13
Unknown
So in you mentioned Florida in Illinois, we would encounter would we encounter a, maybe a northern species of this spider out outside, or, perhaps spared from, from being encountered, encountering the, the dreaded black widow here. So we do have black widows and we have a northern, black widow. So southern black widow is one we typically think of.
00:08:12:13 - 00:08:27:02
Unknown
It's got that our red hourglass on the outside the abdomen to the females. And usually they, they go up into Illinois, for southern black widow. So they also have northern black widow. They kind of have that hourglass shape is broken in the middle section where they have two red dots.
00:08:27:02 - 00:08:30:00
Unknown
We can throw pictures of those,
00:08:30:00 - 00:08:49:20
Unknown
right now so you can see those if you're not trained. They're black. So what kind of a shiny black spider? Bear? The, you know, if they're in homes, they probably would be looking in crawl spaces, or sheds. Corners or sheds, you know, areas that you don't frequent. If you got a lot of people moving around, they're probably not going to be, not gonna be out in the open.
00:08:49:22 - 00:09:10:09
Unknown
And I guess for pretty much any spider that's going to be in a house or something like that, your cobwebs fighters and you find those in basements or in the corner of rooms, if you don't knock the web down and stuff like that. So. And their webs aren't very pretty or intricate, they're, they're pretty random strands of, of webbing.
00:09:10:09 - 00:09:35:13
Unknown
And, and then the spider sort of hangs out there, waiting for its prey. It's not like Charlotte from Charlotte's Web. You know. Charlotte, she's. She designed very nice web. I wonder what type of spider Charlotte was. We should get a spider. We should get Cathy back here. Talk about Charlotte. Must have been like an orb weaver or something, but she didn't look like an orb weaver on the cartoon that I watched.
00:09:35:15 - 00:09:59:13
Unknown
Oh, but that would be a deep dive. Yes. Deep dive into Charlotte's Web. So, yeah. So I would say, you know, as often as they're, they're vilified, don't frequently come into contact with them. I know when I was in Florida, when I was working at Disney World, we get them in the banana plants a lot. So one of my jobs as the entomology intern was go out and pick, egg sacks and collect.
00:09:59:15 - 00:10:19:04
Unknown
We had, brown widows in the greenhouses, which, look, some of the black, they're just brown. And go out and collect those before the, the ride opened up stuff and so one time when we were living down there, and grad school, apparently get some egg sacks on our stroller, put it in the trunk of a car.
00:10:19:04 - 00:10:37:13
Unknown
I was there for a week or two. Open up the trunk, and there's hundreds of widow spider lings running around it. Cool, I thought cool, I was not so much, but. Well, you had a baby. Yeah. Okay. I've got the shop back out that can move all up. And that was the end of that. We'll say the stroller was not stored outside anymore after that.
00:10:37:16 - 00:11:00:18
Unknown
Yeah. So yeah, that's interesting too, that you're finding them. And then the banana tree. So, Harry Belafonte is saying about, tarantulas being in a bunch of bananas. So. But instead you're finding black widows, in your banana bunches down in Florida. Yeah, there's this one skin my little jar. Pop them in there with alcohol and gone to them.
00:11:00:20 - 00:11:03:11
Unknown
Cool. Oh, neat.
00:11:03:11 - 00:11:16:14
Unknown
yeah, I guess we have another spider that. Are we done with Black Widow, I think. Yeah, I think we're done. Okay. Don't worry about it. Well, I worry about them for a bit, but they're not enough to get you and
00:11:16:18 - 00:11:22:18
Unknown
you don't see them very often. So yes. It's not like arachnophobia. They are not actively trying to bite you.
00:11:22:18 - 00:11:31:19
Unknown
They don't want to bite you. They, they want to stay away from you. To most wildlife humans equal death. So they don't want to be around us.
00:11:31:19 - 00:11:46:06
Unknown
But there isn't another spider that we have next, the brown recluse. Now, this one I think is very interesting in that, kind of like what we said with the Black Widow.
00:11:46:09 - 00:12:09:02
Unknown
There is a lot of self-diagnosed, but there's also. So when I, when, he's now retired. But entomologist Phil Nixon, when he worked with extension, he would talk about, insects and spiders and he would people would inevitably ask about brown recluse. And he would say one statistic, I don't know the numbers. He had numbers and stuff to go along with this.
00:12:09:02 - 00:12:32:19
Unknown
But he would say there are more brown recluse bites that are diagnosed by doctors like me. In Idaho, than confirmed sightings of brown recluse in that state which have yet to be found there. Now, I don't know. This was a couple of years ago. So between then and now, maybe there are some brown recluse, in Idaho.
00:12:32:21 - 00:13:06:17
Unknown
And so that that that is entirely possible. But considering that they've never found them, they're in that state. Yet every year, several, diagnoses from, you know, qualified physicians, more qualified than myself, I guess. But, they, they still diagnosed those as, brown recluse bite. So I yeah, I think it's we we all kind of want to blame the spider, where in fact, it probably wasn't that particular species, maybe was a different species or wasn't a spider at all.
00:13:06:19 - 00:13:19:04
Unknown
Yeah. I found a, an article from Colorado State, extension, and I'll just I'll just read the paragraph they have on, on bites. So despite the near total lack of blacks actually switched to the recluse spiders.
00:13:19:14 - 00:13:20:16
Unknown
In Colorado,
00:13:20:16 - 00:13:29:18
Unknown
dermal necrotic lesions are commonly, diagnosed parentheses misdiagnosed as spider bites, more specifically as resulting from the bites of recluse spiders.
00:13:29:20 - 00:13:37:06
Unknown
Other, more likely causes for general necrotic lesions and causes that have been misdiagnosed as spider bites include bacterial infections from,
00:13:37:18 - 00:13:46:13
Unknown
staph or strep strains. Viral infections, particularly herpes or shingles. Fungal infections, lymphoma,
00:13:46:13 - 00:14:08:24
Unknown
Lyme disease, diabetic ulcers, poison ivy, just to name a few. So I think a lot of cases, if it's you got some necrosis or rashes or, you know, stuff on skin, a lot of people would want to jump immediately to spiders, particularly, brown with like good Mersa and stuff in there, as well.
00:14:09:01 - 00:14:36:01
Unknown
Yeah. Well, I think people are just scared of this. They hear necrotic flesh. That's just. This terrifies them, you know? Oh, my skin's rotting. That they don't like hearing that. I don't like hearing that. And I'm a doctor today, at least for this hour that we're doing this. So, Oh, the. There is one thing. So I think why they're so rare in our parts of the world is because they really can't survive our colder winters as well.
00:14:36:01 - 00:15:08:11
Unknown
In the outdoors. They're not as hardy. They're more of a southern species. However, when this kind of goes into, well, where they might be popping up in the north is through the movement and sale of of goods from home. So, like, garage sales, yard sales, if you buy something at an auction, you know, you they can survive, perhaps in a basement, in a home and then get moved from house to house through household goods or furniture or something like that.
00:15:08:15 - 00:15:31:22
Unknown
I actually have a colleague, Andrew Holsinger, whose office is infested with brown recluse and, I think he says he sees them quite frequently. I guess can when we are looking at a brown recluse spider, it's not just any brown spider. I mean, are we looking for a fiddle on the back? What? But is there some some eyed things we can think of?
00:15:31:22 - 00:15:47:17
Unknown
Or is the fiddle not always consistent? Yeah. So the recluse, my particular brown recluse. So go back to that kind of that range. You know, I think your area, maybe Quad Cities is kind of like the northern limit you see on the map. So in Illinois, we're going into the kind of the northern limit of brown recluse. Most of them are in the southern.
00:15:47:17 - 00:16:01:19
Unknown
There's several different species there. In the southern states, we have a brown recluse. You know, commonly people talk about and we're we're identifying them. They have that, that fiddle shaped, so these are of kind of a tan spider, but they have dark or darker brown,
00:16:01:19 - 00:16:06:08
Unknown
fiddle shaped pattern on that several thorax, that head, thorax area.
00:16:06:08 - 00:16:10:24
Unknown
And that's usually how people identify them. But that's not necessarily the best way to do it. There are other spiders
00:16:11:10 - 00:16:30:00
Unknown
that have somewhat similar markings, and can be misidentified as some of the smaller spiders, even like grass spiders, have brown markings, lines and stuff on their thorax and stuff. So that's not, as foolproof as people like to think.
00:16:30:02 - 00:16:36:12
Unknown
The best way to identify them is to look at the eyes. So Brown recluse have three pairs.
00:16:36:12 - 00:16:40:07
Unknown
sets of two eyes and three pairs. See that? Three clusters of two eyes,
00:16:40:18 - 00:16:44:24
Unknown
on that head that that's distinctive to, the recluses and stuff. So that's,
00:16:44:24 - 00:16:46:15
Unknown
you know, if you've got one,
00:16:46:15 - 00:16:50:15
Unknown
you probably want to make sure it's dead before you doing this or put in a container.
00:16:50:17 - 00:16:55:10
Unknown
You can take it to your local extension office. I'm sure our colleagues will love this for this.
00:16:55:22 - 00:17:08:16
Unknown
Oh, yeah. They're going to love us. Yes, now. But we can look at that. And you look at those eyes and that that those clusters of, you know, two pair of eyes and three clusters, is diagnostic for the recluse spiders.
00:17:08:16 - 00:17:25:12
Unknown
That is the way we should be identifying them to, to confirm that it is a recluse spider. Yes. Yeah. We can we'll try to find a picture and pop it up in here. If we can find the one that's okay to use, ask Andrew to catch a couple, see if he can send them our way. No, don't send him our way.
00:17:25:12 - 00:17:53:01
Unknown
We don't want them up here. But, Take a picture. Andrew. Yeah. So. Well, so I hope that maybe eases people's fears about spiders. I very often find myself, talking to my, spiders in my house. Especially the the kind of more hairy kind of jumping spiders. I find them just fascinating to watch. Very interesting.
00:17:53:01 - 00:18:21:03
Unknown
They seem almost intelligent to that point. I know some people have even kind of trained them to to hop on their hands and stuff. And so, and I think there was it was a car thief who had had also said, mentioned that, like, you know, all spiders contain some type of venom, but not all spiders have the have the capability to bite you or to, to puncture your skin.
00:18:21:05 - 00:18:40:15
Unknown
So yeah, spiders are our friends. Yeah. For the venom is strong enough to, I think to say, oh yes, all spiders are venomous. They take, you know, venom and poisonous also get interchanged. Quite a bit. And there is a difference. So venom is something you're injecting whether it be a spider injecting it in their bites, a snake bite or wash.
00:18:40:15 - 00:19:01:17
Unknown
When they sting you, they're injecting that venom where it's poisonous. You have to consume that organism. So, like, yeah, monarch caterpillars. I guess we poison it now. Yeah. Probably poisonous. And make you sick. Maybe not the best example, but you have to consume it for that. If it's poisonous for that to work as venom is injected by fangs or something like that.
00:19:01:19 - 00:19:17:04
Unknown
Yes. Yeah. So, the, the whole natural world is trying to kill us at all times. So, just another reminder as we celebrate spooky season here and old, old horticulture podcast land.
00:19:17:06 - 00:19:39:05
Unknown
Well, can I think, we could move on to maybe another group of insects, the, healed Lepidoptera type, you know, the guys with the complete life cycle, you know, from caterpillar to whatever else they, they morph into, whether it's a moth or a butterfly or whatever it is they're going to become. And so let's talk stinging caterpillars.
00:19:39:07 - 00:19:54:16
Unknown
Now, you shared a book with me. And we kind of help use that book as has kind of a, you know, what do we want to talk about when it comes to creepy crawlies? What was the name of that particular book that is Wicked Books? Yeah, that's
00:19:54:16 - 00:19:56:06
Unknown
the inspiration for
00:19:56:06 - 00:19:57:15
Unknown
today's podcast,
00:19:57:15 - 00:20:03:01
Unknown
Wicked Bugs. Yes. Amy Stewart, she, she wrote Wicked Plants and those of The Drunken Botanist.
00:20:03:07 - 00:20:27:04
Unknown
She's written several books on, this type of stuff. Well, it is a very interesting book. And I, we were able to mine just a couple stories from these, one of the story, especially with stinging caterpillars, I found very, the and in this light of Halloween seasons, very spooky. So, here, a 22 year old woman, she's from Canada.
00:20:27:04 - 00:20:47:03
Unknown
She is going on vacation in Peru. And as she returns back to Canada, she finds strange bruises on her legs over the next few days, as the bruises get larger and larger, she starts to feel pain and it hurts. As she recalled. While in Peru, she stepped on some caterpillars when she was barefoot. Now it hurt when she stepped on them, but the next day she felt fine.
00:20:47:03 - 00:21:12:11
Unknown
So really just sort of wrote it off. When she was admitted to the hospital, though, the doctors determined it was a stinging caterpillar from Brazil, so they had to order anti-venom in this case. And unfortunately, though the antivenom was coming from Brazil, it was two days away and it did not arrive in time. Her organs started shutting down and she died before she got the antivenom.
00:21:12:13 - 00:21:44:08
Unknown
Now everyone watching or listening. This is a very rare situation. This does not usually happen in North America. We don't have, especially Illinois. This is South America, where it's very scary. Halloween all year. And. No, I'm kidding. It's it's not. But Illinois is definitely is is not very common. But we do have stinging caterpillars or caterpillars that can, can create some type of a skin reaction in people that might handle them.
00:21:44:10 - 00:22:07:19
Unknown
Just recently, a friend of ours, they had a daughter that was handling, White Tussock moth caterpillar. And as she was handling it, she noticed well, a lot of the hairs. The caterpillar is not as hairy as it was when I was handling it. Didn't really think much of it. Later that night, she started woke up and kind of with these painful rashes, which just grew and grew and got worse and worse.
00:22:07:21 - 00:22:32:20
Unknown
And they figured out it was from that her handling that, particular caterpillar. And so it happens here in Illinois. So I think it is a we try to tell people, you know, especially hairy caterpillars, caterpillars, really in general, we don't want to handle them. Yes. Neither do as I say. Neither do I am very bad about picking up caterpillars and other insects with my bare hands.
00:22:32:20 - 00:22:51:13
Unknown
We have it's hairy or has spines on it. There's a reason that those are there. Yeah. Don't pick them up. Yeah. So two so two we picked out from the book and these are just two examples. And we do have these in Illinois. They're not particularly prevalent. But they do okay. So I think these are see them a little more often in the South.
00:22:51:13 - 00:23:14:12
Unknown
But even then they're not it's it's not like, where worms and stuff, where they're all over the place. These are occasionally, interact with them. So one is Saddleback caterpillar. And I think this one is this has been described as having the most painful sting. Of caterpillars we can pop up a at least for in North America, pop up a picture that's a screen caterpillar.
00:23:14:15 - 00:23:16:15
Unknown
the front and back are kind of brown. They have these
00:23:16:15 - 00:23:20:12
Unknown
humps on them. They've got spines coming out of them on either end. And in the very middle.
00:23:20:12 - 00:23:24:00
Unknown
They have this brownish patch surrounded in white that kind of looks like a saddle bus.
00:23:24:00 - 00:23:25:06
Unknown
The saddleback caterpillar.
00:23:25:06 - 00:23:33:03
Unknown
So again and then they have those bumps with the spines coming out of their, and usually, you know, if you brush up with these, you have, you get a rash.
00:23:33:05 - 00:23:44:00
Unknown
And then they make contact in the skin. Those spines are hollow, and they have, poison glands attached to them. They usually have a burning sensation and inflammation.
00:23:44:00 - 00:23:52:17
Unknown
They've been described as painful as a bee sting. When you brush up against these, the irritation can last for several days. In some cases, maybe a week or two.
00:23:52:19 - 00:23:54:15
Unknown
If you're particularly sensitive to it,
00:23:54:15 - 00:23:57:17
Unknown
you get redness and swelling of the area. I think it's similar to,
00:23:57:17 - 00:23:59:01
Unknown
a bee stings. So
00:23:59:01 - 00:24:07:16
Unknown
this one, you know, if you, you know, you brush up against it, you want to try to remove those hairs, put a tape or something on it so you can pull them out.
00:24:07:22 - 00:24:14:24
Unknown
You know, wash the affected area, soap and water. Put an ice pack on there, help reduce the swelling and stuff. And then you do,
00:24:15:09 - 00:24:17:18
Unknown
recommendations or commonly,
00:24:17:18 - 00:24:21:12
Unknown
antihistamines or pain relievers, something like that, to help
00:24:21:12 - 00:24:25:24
Unknown
with pain. Headache, stuff like that. Antihistamine can help with the itching and burning
00:24:25:24 - 00:24:27:01
Unknown
as well.
00:24:27:03 - 00:24:50:24
Unknown
So you people that are particularly sensitive may need medical attention now. So. Yep. That's what I was going to say. Like there you once that thing really starts blooming bothering you and and again your sensitivity everyone's it differs. Be a good idea to talk to a doctor. Preferably one without a clown wig off, but, Hey, Patch Adams did it.
00:24:51:01 - 00:24:53:07
Unknown
Yeah, unless it's Halloween. Yeah.
00:24:53:07 - 00:24:54:10
Unknown
Henry in their office?
00:24:54:10 - 00:24:55:06
Unknown
Yes.
00:24:55:06 - 00:25:13:04
Unknown
So we had the Saddleback caterpillar. But then this one is. Is also kind of gross sounding. The caterpillar. Look, what kind of skin reaction does that create? By chance, with our. Well, with our pus caterpillar
00:25:13:04 - 00:25:16:17
Unknown
pus. Captain, that's not what we can up a picture of this one actually have pictures of.
00:25:16:17 - 00:25:19:13
Unknown
We saw some one of these last summer in Florida,
00:25:19:13 - 00:25:38:11
Unknown
and I resisted the urge to touch it just to find out how to see what happens. I don't like it, I, I learn by doing. And I think it's similar. So this is, caterpillars of eastern North America. If few hundred caterpillars, this is a really good, feel good.
00:25:38:13 - 00:25:46:08
Unknown
So I'm gonna read a description from here. This is sort of the white flannel moth, which is related, to the pest caterpillar, also called the southern flannel moth
00:25:46:08 - 00:25:50:06
Unknown
now, but it's according to them, the symptoms are fairly similar.
00:25:50:06 - 00:25:53:19
Unknown
So this is a descriptive specimen. The guy who collected it said it stung him.
00:25:53:19 - 00:25:56:12
Unknown
But I picked it up with my fingertips and did not get stung.
00:25:56:12 - 00:25:57:06
Unknown
So perhaps
00:25:57:06 - 00:26:01:09
Unknown
for that, I am. I gently rub the inside the the inside of my wrist over it.
00:26:01:09 - 00:26:02:07
Unknown
It took probably a minute
00:26:02:07 - 00:26:06:02
Unknown
and a half or two minutes, but it started with an itchy burning,
00:26:06:02 - 00:26:17:01
Unknown
that within five minutes turned to a red spot the size of a quarter. After about 15 minutes, three white blisters appeared and lasted for about two hours, burning the whole time but gradually diminishing in intensity,
00:26:17:01 - 00:26:17:19
Unknown
and
00:26:17:19 - 00:26:19:20
Unknown
blisters also shrank to nothing in that time.
00:26:20:11 - 00:26:27:11
Unknown
After the blisters disappeared, the itching lasted another several hours, and the redness until the next morning. So,
00:26:28:00 - 00:26:39:19
Unknown
were these they this this pus moth? It looks kind of like a hairpiece. It's just this fuzzy little blob, that's got a little, fuzzy tail. Hairy tail. At the end there. And there's a couple different species of.
00:26:39:19 - 00:26:40:10
Unknown
Look,
00:26:40:10 - 00:26:50:11
Unknown
the galaxy, these little hairy blobs come and stuff. And again, the this underneath that here, they've got these decaying spines that can cause irritation and stuff. So
00:26:50:11 - 00:27:03:23
Unknown
moral of the story is, if you see something that's got spines or is hairy and it's a caterpillar weevil, and I think both of these, both Saddleback and plus caterpillar, feed on a wide ostrich so that they feed on all kinds of different things.
00:27:03:23 - 00:27:27:16
Unknown
So, I think they can be found in know I've never seen them in these in Illinois, but they they do exist here, potentially. Yeah. Well, and it seems like every when I look these guys up, each one, it seems to be associated with multiple news stories about school children. When they are out on the playground, they'll find this caterpillar and then they start messing around with it.
00:27:27:20 - 00:27:49:20
Unknown
Like, that's what like that was like the top internet search results was a news story. Schoolchildren, a series of rashes from a caterpillar. And so I done that history. And then it also seems like spongy moth is another one of those that causes rashes, which I learned about through a news story when schoolchildren were playing with a spongy moth caterpillar.
00:27:49:23 - 00:28:08:04
Unknown
So I think some of this probably depends a little bit on how sensitive people are and stuff like white tussock moths. I've picked those up and not really had, any issues. Maybe I'm just lucky, maybe to find one, to play with it again and see what happens. Well, I think this young girl was was holding it for quite a while.
00:28:08:06 - 00:28:39:15
Unknown
Like this. This caterpillar had plenty of time to really release its hairs. And there was, you know, it had a warning hairs and stuff. And that all. Yeah. So, they said the caterpillar was quite bald by the time the girl let it go. So, Yeah, let me do it. Yeah, I think so. Well, Ken, let us change gears once more to perhaps one of not the I think maybe a future show we can talk about the deadliest insect, the mosquito.
00:28:39:15 - 00:28:49:10
Unknown
But that's that's some, some, some other future episode. But let's talk about the Oriental rat flea. So in 1907,
00:28:49:10 - 00:29:04:06
Unknown
two boys out on the West coast, they found a dead rat. Now, their father was an undertaker. So they decided to find a nice makeshift coffin and bury it, just like their dead. You know? So they brought it home, and it was dinner time.
00:29:04:08 - 00:29:06:00
Unknown
As they're preparing, it's burial.
00:29:06:00 - 00:29:08:17
Unknown
And along with that dead rat they brought home
00:29:08:17 - 00:29:31:08
Unknown
the fleas that infested that rat. And these fleas were infected with the plague. Within a month, the plague had claimed the lives of the boy's parents, but had spared the boys, leaving them orphans. Oh, this is such a sad story, but a very common story.
00:29:31:08 - 00:29:45:06
Unknown
Through the history of humans, of plague riddled rats spreading, the disease throughout human settlements, cities, towns, even farms.
00:29:45:06 - 00:30:06:12
Unknown
we are talking about the Oriental rat flea, which is also a carrier of plague. So I believe that is a bacterium. It's, so it's one that we can treat better. These days with antibiotics. But, it is still here on the world today.
00:30:06:14 - 00:30:17:04
Unknown
So I tell us about the Oriental rat Li. Yeah. So it carries so many different types of fleas can carry,
00:30:17:04 - 00:30:25:05
Unknown
Yersinia pestis, which is what causes bubonic plague. Pneumonic plague, the plague, and stuff. So,
00:30:25:05 - 00:30:32:05
Unknown
The. So the Justinian's plague killed about 40 million people in the sixth century. And we you learn about school, black death.
00:30:32:07 - 00:31:04:06
Unknown
In Europe that killed was a third of Europe or something like that. The 25 million people who's been plague outbreaks across the world. Egypt, Africa. Yes, Egypt is in Africa, but other parts of Africa, China, India, even in the US, there's been outbreaks of, of plague here, and stuff. So this, these rats carry, this bacteria, and with this, the, the, the bacteria kind of plugs up the gut, of the flea as it's feeding, so it can't feed us.
00:31:04:08 - 00:31:05:11
Unknown
Search. Regurgitating
00:31:05:21 - 00:31:24:12
Unknown
that blood meal when it regurgitates that blood meal and regurgitates that bacteria. And people can get infected. And I think it was a, What was the stat? 200 million people have died of plague, you know, throughout the history of mankind, which is more than all wars combined, throughout history. So,
00:31:24:12 - 00:31:30:20
Unknown
yeah, but it is a bacteria, so we can treat this nowadays, it's not nearly the concern.
00:31:30:22 - 00:31:54:14
Unknown
Once it is, we do have plague, in the United States and in the western US, was a prairie dogs. Some other, rodents can carry it and stuff it. And there are cases that pop up every year, you know that. But again, if you, you know, if it's recognized, you get treated, people are I think again, you know, people will still die but not you know, we're not a
00:31:54:14 - 00:31:55:22
Unknown
handful of people a year,
00:31:56:08 - 00:31:57:00
Unknown
something like that.
00:31:57:00 - 00:32:00:07
Unknown
We're not getting thousands or millions of people dying from this anymore.
00:32:00:07 - 00:32:22:23
Unknown
Right. I think it's also important to note, like specifically the Oriental rat flea, the one that was dealt with in the story, it does not want to feed on a human. It really doesn't want to feed on a cat or a dog or a pet. It is very specific to rats, but in the absence of rats, it will try to change hosts to avoid starving to death.
00:32:23:00 - 00:32:54:16
Unknown
And and very often that is not successful. And it might feed on a human, but it's still, like you said it. It can't. It's guts plugged up, still winds up, dying. So I think it's interesting in history when when the bubonic plague and all of these diseases were being spread through these rats, the other thing happening is that people associated cats over Europe with witches, and they would actively try to eliminate cats from areas where the cats could probably have helped.
00:32:54:19 - 00:33:16:21
Unknown
And the control of this. And so I just think that's just an interesting little tidbit of history, that witchcraft, played a role in the plague, but not in the way you think. The witches aren't are making people sick. People thought the cats were witches or part of the witches coven or whatever, and. Yeah, so they.
00:33:17:01 - 00:33:21:23
Unknown
There was active, campaigns to eliminate cats
00:33:22:15 - 00:33:28:06
Unknown
from entire countries because they thought witches, I don't know, but, yeah,
00:33:28:24 - 00:33:30:07
Unknown
I think it was a do they,
00:33:30:07 - 00:33:33:07
Unknown
you know, back in the 13 hours or 14. Yeah. For 1300s.
00:33:33:15 - 00:33:34:05
Unknown
Yeah.
00:33:34:05 - 00:33:39:07
Unknown
Close up your houses. You know, the bad air is what carried it and don't bathe and stuff like that, which
00:33:39:19 - 00:33:46:00
Unknown
I would assume you probably want your, your windows closed because, you know, people were dying faster than they could be buried and probably smelled.
00:33:46:02 - 00:33:47:20
Unknown
I can't imagine how bad that would have smelled. But
00:33:48:08 - 00:33:50:04
Unknown
you're not bathing and stuff again.
00:33:50:04 - 00:33:52:02
Unknown
Yeah, these unsanitary conditions and
00:33:53:06 - 00:33:53:21
Unknown
just
00:33:54:01 - 00:33:54:10
Unknown
you
00:33:54:10 - 00:34:10:21
Unknown
lot, probably lots of, things happening and lots of, you know, if they had lots of spider bites, misdiagnosed their, all kinds of rashes and necrotic flesh from not bathing. Oh, yeah. Ooh. Yeah.
00:34:10:22 - 00:34:11:24
Unknown
The plague
00:34:11:24 - 00:34:20:00
Unknown
spread by rats. So. And I think, you know, I think it was a I think the cat fleas can also spread it, and I don't think it does as well as you oriented or so usually
00:34:21:02 - 00:34:22:04
Unknown
most people probably don't
00:34:22:04 - 00:34:29:00
Unknown
try to identify fleas. But usually when we talk about fleas, talk about they have the, the combs on the front of their, on their head, kind of like a mustache.
00:34:29:02 - 00:34:31:21
Unknown
Oriental actually doesn't have that. So
00:34:31:21 - 00:34:33:13
Unknown
if you wanted to tell them apart,
00:34:33:13 - 00:34:52:12
Unknown
they don't have the the mustache typically. See, they're typically talked about when you're identifying, fleas. Interesting. Yeah. The fleas do. Most fleas look very nice. You know, they look very dapper. But the oriental wrestling here lacking that mustache. All
00:34:52:12 - 00:34:54:09
Unknown
right, we won't talk about symptoms.
00:34:56:06 - 00:35:18:12
Unknown
If you don't remember from your history in high school or middle school, at least for the the bubonic plague, usually, headache. Fever, weakness, fatigue. Then you get those poor, swollen, painful lymph nodes, the buboes, and stuff like the sacs in the armpits. And there's also pneumonic plague, which gets into the lungs and stuff.
00:35:18:18 - 00:35:23:18
Unknown
But again, with antibiotics nowadays it can't be treated. So it's
00:35:24:04 - 00:35:28:01
Unknown
not in Illinois. It's just more, out west,
00:35:28:01 - 00:35:39:10
Unknown
So it's usually people who are doing a lot of outdoors activities and coming into close proximity with the wild birds. So it's ground squirrels, prairie dogs, rock squirrels, things like that.
00:35:39:10 - 00:35:46:23
Unknown
I'm glad we stopped blaming witches, and we use science to think about a treatment for this stuff.
00:35:47:02 - 00:36:05:07
Unknown
Well, Ken, our our last, creepy crawly for today is one that can seem to pop up here and there. I know, in hushed tones. Parents will talk about this, from, stories in the school yard. Lice.
00:36:05:07 - 00:36:11:21
Unknown
we have three different types of lice that can affect humans. As it is like like all insects.
00:36:11:21 - 00:36:37:00
Unknown
There's many species out there, but the three that that affect humans are going to be your, your hair slash head lice. See it called the different things your body lice. And then your pubic lice. Now I know you had we talked about before the show. There is some debate whether hair lice and body lice are maybe different. Some species instead of different species.
00:36:37:02 - 00:37:07:00
Unknown
But it is body lice that is known to transmit diseases and actually, while while Napoleon might credit a cold winter, with, defeating his army as he invaded Russia, probably the body louse is one of the main culprits when it comes to that. So as Napoleon's army was invading into Russia, his, his was, I think it was like half a million troops.
00:37:07:00 - 00:37:35:02
Unknown
They needed supplies. And so they would raid, villages and farms and towns, and they would take people's items and clothing, for warmth. And then it turned out a lot of this clothing was infested with body lice. And one soldier wrote in his journal that, he awoke one night to find his skin tingling and itching, and he found his clothing that he had gotten, to to be infested with, with, insects, with vermin, he said.
00:37:35:04 - 00:37:49:16
Unknown
So he threw it into the fire. And unfortunately, that was like one of the coldest winters. Then, that then followed that. So he probably wished he had thrown his clothing in the fire. I wonder how many other soldiers threw their clothing in the fire. But the body louse, it can spread,
00:37:49:16 - 00:37:59:17
Unknown
different diseases. So there's, louse borne typhus, trench fever, and louse borne relapsing fever.
00:37:59:19 - 00:38:25:10
Unknown
And so it is believed that in addition, with the the cold weather, the the the lice, the body lice contributed, quite heavily to the defeat of Napoleon's army. As don't they lay their eggs on the clothing. They're not laying it on what they used to play on the clothing. The body lice will lay their eggs on the clothing.
00:38:25:10 - 00:38:52:14
Unknown
They do not lay it on the hosts themselves. So, But that makes it difficult then, because if we wash our clothes regularly, then we would be destroying those eggs where body lice typically pop up. We don't really see them much here in the US, where they typically pop up are people who might be homeless, people in refugee camps, you know, people in situations where they can't wash their clothes routinely.
00:38:52:17 - 00:39:16:01
Unknown
They're wearing the same outfit days and weeks at a time that gives, the body louse time for it to lay its eggs in the clothing and then just continue to reinvest its host. So, yeah, those are usual situations when that happens. So, like, yeah, when the bubonic plague is happening and they're telling you, don't wash yourself, you're probably wearing the same clothes over and over again.
00:39:16:01 - 00:39:24:04
Unknown
Do you get the plague? Maybe not, but you might get one of those these body lice diseases. So. Yeah, there's there's all. Yeah.
00:39:24:04 - 00:39:36:18
Unknown
So the, the body louse that is more associated with kind of like cleanliness. And so that can be remedied with that. The head head lice or head lice plural.
00:39:36:20 - 00:39:55:14
Unknown
That is not really associated with filth. Head lice is something that is, is very commonly talked about among school children. It can be shared. You know, so if I had someone who had head lice were in my, my clown wig before me, well, guess what? I just kind of introduced that to my head.
00:39:55:14 - 00:40:37:06
Unknown
Or a hat, comb, you know, hair products, things like hair, brushes. You know, that's how hair lice spreads. It can be somewhat easy to control. However, there's some resistance developing in, head lice and so that has had to change some of the chemistry of what people are using. However, the nits, which are the eggs that are laid in the hair, you can remove those, with a very fine toothed comb and usually coating the hair in like, vegetable oil, and combing out the nits from the hair kind of one by one.
00:40:37:08 - 00:40:55:22
Unknown
When some of those medications fail, I'd say the eggs are usually near the base of the scalp. The sound like a hair on the tips. So see how you get in there. Yeah. And I guess I think and then CDC came out with some new guidance for the, if you have a kid at school that has LA head lice, you do not need to send them home right away.
00:40:55:22 - 00:40:57:17
Unknown
They can finish the day
00:40:57:17 - 00:41:19:17
Unknown
and then send them home. And then they can come back once the treatment is done. Correct? Yeah. Because it really it's managed through avoiding, again, contact with something that is going from like head to head, you know. So don't they, you know, they can manage that in the school. Probably better than, than sometimes at home.
00:41:19:22 - 00:41:33:12
Unknown
So they, you know, just avoiding contact with anything from their head to another students head. That's how it spreads. It's not going to they don't jump, they cling. They don't jump. So they they're not flying. They're not jumping. They're they cling to things.
00:41:33:12 - 00:41:33:20
Unknown
00:41:33:22 - 00:41:58:04
Unknown
Well, I guess, you know, if we have our head lice, we have our body lice. That leaves the pubic lice. So the pubic lice is, is a very different in its morphology or its shape. It's very crab like. And it's it's closely related to gorilla lice. And I'm going to read this quote, just directly from the book here.
00:41:58:06 - 00:42:28:10
Unknown
Just, just because I, I just want to make sure I say it accurately. And so it is so head lice and body lice, these are things that were transferred to humans from 100,000 to over a million years ago. So that, you know, it's been a while. But when it comes to the transfer of pubic lice, I believe they are transferred to humans through some sort of intimate physical contact with gorillas because they closely resemble gorilla lice.
00:42:28:12 - 00:42:54:02
Unknown
So the precise details of which remain a mystery and, quote. And listeners, viewers, we'll let your your minds make up whatever, imagery you care to from here on. Yes. But they're very crab like. I think the interesting thing is that they have these almost these claw like appendages. And because of this, because, like, you know, pubic hair is more coarser than than your hair on your head.
00:42:54:04 - 00:43:12:19
Unknown
They have to have better grip strength. They have to be able to hold on tight. And wherever they grip on, they feed their forever. And so very often you can see where their fecal droppings are. Frass is located there. It would begin to accumulate, build up. And so that that's a very good way to see them.
00:43:12:19 - 00:43:27:00
Unknown
And then the other thing is because they're crab like that's why they're also known as crabs. And so, that's that's good. You know, lots of lots of good jokes here, that I'm not going to make. So.
00:43:27:09 - 00:43:31:15
Unknown
Now, say you have a theory. Your head and body like lice, they're more
00:43:31:15 - 00:43:37:23
Unknown
more slender, more and angular. Looking. Really? Other pubic crab legs are much.
00:43:37:23 - 00:43:51:01
Unknown
they're broader. And. Yeah, like like a crab. We can fly crabs. You pop up pictures, too? Yes. Of just the louse. Not not, not where they feed.
00:43:51:03 - 00:44:19:19
Unknown
So the other thing is, people often say rumors of like, oh, well, if I use a public toilet, I'm going to get crabs or hotel beds. Now, theoretically, this is true or not true. This is possible. But they do not survive very long at all when they are off of their host. So it is very unlikely that you would get crabs from a toilet or from, bedsheets or anything like that.
00:44:19:21 - 00:44:44:13
Unknown
The known transmission of this is through sexual contact. And this is also why the French they call, pubic lice. Excuse my pronunciation. Papillion de amour, or the butterflies of love. And so that we can I think they describe it so much better. It's better than crabs. So maybe we should just call it Butterflies of Love from now on.
00:44:44:13 - 00:44:47:02
Unknown
Ken, maybe
00:44:47:02 - 00:44:48:06
Unknown
you could start that.
00:44:48:06 - 00:45:11:10
Unknown
People would know what I was talking like. Oh, yeah. I like Butterflies of Love. Oh, yeah. We we, Yes. So, Yeah, that's, so that that's our slate of creepy crawlies. And if you want to know more about that, you can learn about that through that book. Wicked, wicked insects.
00:45:11:10 - 00:45:23:12
Unknown
So it's a good book. Wicked bugs. Wicked studs. It was a good read. It was a lot of interesting stories in there. I like the stories behind things. So, helps me learn about them, though.
00:45:23:12 - 00:45:41:13
Unknown
Well, that was a lot of great information about the creepy crawlies that with the lure behind them or, perhaps some of the impacts that they still continue to have on humans to this day? Well, the Good Growing podcast is a production of University of Illinois Extension, edited this week by Ken Johnson.
00:45:41:15 - 00:46:04:04
Unknown
Okay. Thank you. Can, Thanks, Ken. Well, I, after talking about head lice and wearing this wig, I am, I'm just itching. I got to get this thing off of me, so, But, Ken, thank you for editing and for hanging out this week, chatting about, all of the creepy crawlies that are a part of our lives and that fascinate and terrify us.
00:46:04:04 - 00:46:05:21
Unknown
The spooky season.
00:46:05:21 - 00:46:08:22
Unknown
Yes. Thank you. Hopefully that wasn't a used wig.
00:46:08:22 - 00:46:16:16
Unknown
Oh. Heavily. Heavily used. I got it off a clown on the side of the road.
00:46:16:18 - 00:46:38:07
Unknown
And let's do this again next week. Oh, we shall do this again next week. It's gotten cold, which means it is really fall now. So we will be chatting about cold weather things. Now, what do we do in the garden when it's cold? Sip hot tea, cocoa, coffee, whatever it is. And enjoy the cool, crisp mornings.
00:46:38:07 - 00:47:03:07
Unknown
Well, listeners, thank you for doing what you do best. And that is listening. Or if you're watching on YouTube, I'm sorry in advance. Or not in advance. This is a post after the fact. After the fact. Thank you for doing this. Thank you for enduring our Nomad clown doctor. Get up. Oh, thank you for watching. And as always, keep on growing.
00:47:03:07 - 00:47:07:09
Unknown
To.
00:47:07:11 - 00:47:08:07
Unknown
Another.
00:47:13:05 - 00:47:15:13
Unknown
Recording started.
00:47:16:00 - 00:47:33:06
Unknown
All right, here we go. The to this I colored clown hair in my mouth okay. Okay. Here we go.