True Facts: Electric Nematodes and Flying Spiders

Nematodes don't look like much. Worm-like. They're not worms, though. But they must be doing something right, because there's a crapload of them. About 60 billion for every human. Luckily, most of them are quite small, wriggling around in the dirter sediment eating all sorts of micro-crap, including actual crap. You got some of them that'll eat other nematodes. You can't blame them. It's like spaghetti, but you gotta work for it. Quite a few of them, though, are parasitic. They like to feed on what's inside an orgasm. Organism. Jerry, check the typos. And depending on what they eat, they might need some special adaptations. You got the ones that are in the plants, especially the roots. They've got some fancy mouthparts to get through those hard cell walls. Like this one here, you can see it has a needle-like stylet. Jerry, that's the picture you chose? Looks like a dirty drawing a middle schooler carved into a desk. Just show an illustration or something. God, that's worse. They even put some shine on those testes. Anyways, they use that to poke right through. You can't say anything, can you? And then they suck up all those sweet juices. Others are into the meats. You can see a whole bunch of them attacking the larva of this midge. Now these nematodes don't have those naughty bits in their mouths. But they do have a hardened tip, shush, which they use a bit more like a rasp or a drill bit. Of course, you can always take the shortcut like this one did, right through the anus and chew through the gut wall instead. Not gonna be showing this episode in classrooms, are they, Jerry? Once inside, the nematodes keep the host alive, but they feed and grow until they're ready to bore out again. Now some nematodes got a taste for the poultry of the insect world, and by that I mean adult flying insects. Of course, they had to figure out how to get onto adult flying insects. The first thing they do is nictate, or stand up, and they can even stand on surfaces like glass by doing what a cartoon would imagine, turning their little backsides into a sort of foot. Then they get all bendy-bendy, creating what is referred to as a reversible kink. This kink creates a muscular spring, and this spring is held in place by a latch made of the capillary forces from a bit of water. Overcome the latch, and you jump. Now you gotta make sure that you're not holding onto the ground too tight. This one's still learning. But if they get it right, some of them can jump up to 25 times their body length. Now that's a good start, but timing a jump so that you hit a flying insect without the use of eyes or ears presents a bit of a challenge. But for this, they take advantage of something that almost seems like magic. Here's what's going on. When insects fly, they bump into molecules and particles that make up the air. Some of the things they bump into, like aerosols, water vapor, and oxygen, will steal electrons if you're not holding onto them tightly. So because of this, it's thought that many insects, like bees and flies, shed electrons as they fly, and as a result have a net positive charge relative to their environment. You're doing something similar when you rub a balloon against your hair. In this case, your hair is stealing electrons from the balloon. And the resulting difference between your negatively charged hair and the positively charged balloon creates an attractive force between them. And you can see that force act even when they're not touching. So when one of these positively charged insects comes close to one of these standing nematodes, electrons are sort of pulled up the nematode towards the insect, and positive charges are pushed down. Now the top of the nematode has a negative charge, enough for those attractive forces to pull the nematode towards the insect. Now most of the time, the insects aren't close enough to just pull the nematode up. But the nematodes seem to sense when they're being polarized by an electric field, and they jump into it. And that brings them close enough to be pulled right in. If a nematode jumps towards an insect that isn't charged, it just falls right back down again. Disappointing. Some nematodes aren't even parasitic and they do this. Hitch a ride on a bumblebee to better food like it's an error. And it's not just them. Other animals are wise to this technique as well. You probably won't be excited to hear that ticks do it. So do flower mites. Here's one reenacting the Lars von Trier film Melancholia. It's a niche joke. They do this to attach to hummingbird beaks. Gotta get to another flower, there's work to be done. But it's likely that it's the flowers that get the most value out of these electric forces. If you're as amazed by the natural world as I am, you might be wondering how you can help protect it. Well, one thing you can do is join Planet Wild. Planet Wild is like crowdfunding for conservation. Each month, Planet Wild picks a project to help fund that either protects endangered species, supports aquatic life, or helps rewild landscapes. And those funds come from the memberships of the Planet Wild community, and hopefully you. My favorite part is that you get to see the impact of your membership within 30 days. Planet Wild posts monthly videos on YouTube that document their missions. And this isn't a do-it-alone operation either. They work with local partners to find innovative solutions. Since we're on the topic of electricity, in one of their projects, they transformed the unused land below power lines into thriving ecosystems by creating insect highways aiming to reconnect fragmented habitats. Cool, right? If you want to join a growing community that makes a difference in nature, join Planet Wild. You can give what you want. Every dollar counts. The first 100 people to sign up using my code ZAYFRANK11 will get their first month free. Just scan this QR code or click the link in the description. And remember, you'll get to see your impact in less than 30 days here on YouTube. And you can cancel anytime. Where were we? Oh, right. Most plants have a negative charge, partially because they're connected to the Earth. And the Earth has a negative charge. You can sort of feel it these days. The ground keeps pulling positive charges towards it, and that leaves some extra electrons up in the flowers. But those negative charges aren't evenly distributed. When the science hippies break out their crafting kits and sprinkle positively charged colored powders on flowers, as they do, you can see which parts attract the dust more. And the flower feels pretty. I've got some blush on. So each type of flower has its own signature invisible electric field around it. Now, some pollinating insects can sense those electrical fields. They have these tiny little positively charged hairs that bend as they come closer to the flower. And they seem to be able to feel the shape of these fields. Along with color and smell, they can use this to remember which flowers have the sweets. But also, when a pollinator interacts with a flower, it temporarily changes the flower's charge. And because of that, the next pollinator can tell that the flower has been recently visited and is as empty as a pizza box after a 10-year-old's birthday party. Now, I bet you've already guessed it. Pollen, that stuff that's in flowers that they use to have sexy time with other plants, is negatively charged as well. Now, pollen is quite sticky as it is. But being as a bee is positively charged, you also have those electric forces. So it sticks all over them. Like those little styrofoam noodles on Christmas morning. That's what we used to get for Christmas. And we loved them. Anyway, just having a little sip of nectar can turn out to be a real b****. Get that sh** all over you. Gotta spend half the time cleaning it all off. You know what that is right there? That's a bee's eye. And that's got hairs on it too. It's a real mess. It's a nuisance, but bees have a use for this stuff. They collect it and mainly feed it to their larvae. Here you can see one dropping a little pellet of wax and pollen right into that baby hole. The flowers don't mind. I mean, they think it's a little perverted. But in the end, it helps them pollinate other flowers. Now, sometimes the pollen's out in the open. And bees have a number of techniques to pick it up, depending on where they want it. Some of them rub their face right in it. Or get it all over their tum-tums. You got sort of a twerking motion going on here. But there are some flowers that keep their pollen all hidden up in tubes. In case you're wondering, we call this one Nineball. She hates it. Now, Nineball's using a trick. She's grabbing onto those anthers and vibrating her wings in a special way. And it works. Look at that. She's also doing some biting, which seems to transfer more of that vibration. All of this to shake the pollen loose and have it fall out. Once in the air, those pollen grains can act a bit like those jumping nematodes, attaching themselves to the bee through electrical forces. And it turns out that pollinators, like butterflies, for example, can collect pollen without ever touching the flower. And that's the thing. If there's something out there in nature like these electrical forces that can help you eat or make babies or not get killed, evolution's gonna find a way to use it. Caterpillars like this one have little hairs that can respond to the electric fields of wasps, the kind that try to lay eggs inside their body. Even spiderwebs, like the ones made by orb weavers, seem to take advantage of electrical charges. If you look close, those spirals have these little gluey drops on them. And all those droplets are connected together by liquid bridges. And within this liquid, electrons can move around. You'll have to excuse the sh** job this one did. That right there is a Friday afternoon web. You know what I'm talking about. So when something that has a charge approaches the web, a similar thing happens to those standing nematodes. If the charged object is positive, for example, then electrons in the web move to the side that's closest. And that creates attractive forces. You can see what happens when a positively charged drop of water approaches the web. Now since the droplet touched the web, the web now has a positive charge. And the next droplet will repel the web. Now these movements are fairly small, around a millimeter or two. All right, that didn't work. But these threads are only about two millimeters apart. So if an insect tries to fly through them, that millimeter counts. Crap, that one got through too. But you can see the web trying to reach out and grab it. But spiders have a... Sorry. But spiders have a flashier way of using electric fields. When spider bebbies are born dead, there's a crap load of them. Don't mind Mom, she's dead. But it behooves these bebbies to get some distance from the pack. Competition between siblings and all. So what many spiderlings do is they travel by air. They release these silk threads. Not just one, a bunch of them. Each one sometimes up to nine feet long. And then they're off. Now you might think that they're just using the wind. But spiders tend to do this when there's only a gentle breeze. Instead, what they're doing is much more elegant. As we've seen, the earth and the atmosphere are all part of a big-ass electric field. The earth tends negative and the atmosphere tends positive. But it's all constantly shifting and changing. Spiders have these little sensory hairs, mainly on their legs. Those hairs will move if the electric field around them strengthens. A lot like that spider web did. When this happens, they start to stand on their tippy toes. They have a lot of them. And then they start to release those threads into the air. Now in the process of making these threads, they end up with more electrons and a negative charge. Voltage on! Whee! This charge is useful in two ways. For one, it means those threads will repel one another. And kind of fan out so they don't get tangled. And two, it means they interact with the electric field of the atmosphere. Which pulls the threads up. And those forces can be strong enough for an adult spider to do this. Now it's nice to have a little wind to assist with the takeoff. So in order to wait until the conditions are just right, they set an anchor line. And only when the forces are strong enough to break that anchor line do they take off and gently travel to who knows the f*** where. Kind of a discount airline. You don't know where you're gonna end up. Could be 10 feet if you s*** the bed. And that's embarrassing. With everyone watching and all. But some of them end up a mile high in the sky. And that's got to be a head trip for the birds. I'll tell you what. Or a snack. See that bee? It's electric. See that tree? It's electric. Even the sun. It's electric. Everyone is electric. By the way, if you want to see Planet Wild in action, check out their mission Turning Power Lines into Insect Highways here.