Have you ever felt stuck in a bad situation that you couldn’t get out of, through no fault of your own, and all you could do is just make the best of it?

Such is the life of the Devils Hole pupfish.

This small, iridescent blue-or-green fish swims in the hot waters of an inhospitable fishbowl made of rock in a Nevada section of Death Valley National Park, where it somehow got trapped thousands of years ago.

The deep cavern that is this fish’s only home is surrounded by a chain-link fence, razor wire, and other security measures designed to protect this incredibly rare endangered species.

In 2013, its population hit a low of only 35 fish. But over the last couple of years, the Devils Hole pupfish has bounced back, thrilling and somewhat baffling wildlife managers who still are trying to figure out how this tough little fish manages to make a go of it.

Last year, in the spring, they counted 175 observable fish. This spring, the count was the same, which means that the population has been holding steady.

A wild population of just 175 fish doesn’t sound like a lot. But this is the best the Devils Hole pupfish has been doing in about two decades.

“Times are good now with Devils Hole pupfish, compared to how they’ve been in the past,” says Jenny Gumm, a fish biologist with the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Exactly how the pupfish have recovered to this point is a bit of a mystery.

“The question that I receive and my colleagues receive is, ‘Why?’ And you know, we’re trying to answer that,” says Kevin Wilson, an aquatic ecologist at the National Park Service.

A fish that’s able to cope

Wilson first learned of this iconic fish as a kid back in the 1970s, when he tagged along with his geologist mom on a field trip that stopped by Devils Hole.

“I just remember as a young lad just laying down on this wooden observation deck, looking down into this immense hole in the ground and was fascinated,” says Wilson.At the bottom of the hole is the pool where the fish swim. No one knows how deep it is — scuba divers have explored to a depth of over 400 feet.

The pupfish, which are only about an inch long, have no natural predators. Without fear, they’ll curiously swim up to inspect divers or anything else that enters their isolated world.

The fish tend to hang out near the top of the pool, swimming around in the shallow water that covers a rocky ledge. There, they feed on algae and spawn.

The water isn’t exactly cozy. “It’s 93 degrees fahrenheit all the time,” says Wilson, and its oxygen levels are low.

Plus, for about four months in winter, the pool remains entirely in shadow, which is not good for the tiny plants that the fish eat.

“It’s not a great place to live if you’re a fish, that’s for sure,” says Gumm.

The reduced amount of food in winter is thought to be why spring counts of this fish have historically been lower than counts done in the fall. Last fall, researchers observed 263 fish. The next count will come in September.

“I’m hoping that we cross the threshold of 300,” says Wilson.

Earthquakes and flash floods

Part of this fish’s recent revival may be due to some dramatic events that have shaken up life in Devils Hole.

In July of 2021, a rare flash flood poured in an enormous amount of muddy water.

“The volume of water that went into the habitat was just so much,” says Gumm, who worried the fish would die from a change in water chemistry — or even just the sheer violence of the flood and its churning debris.

It was the first time Gumm felt like these fish really might go extinct on her watch. She recalls going to the hole just after the flood.

“Walking into it, we just weren’t sure what was going to be there,” she recalls. “And the water looked like chocolate milk. You couldn’t see any fish.”

She mentally prepared for the worst. But then she saw a few fish, and then a few more the next day.

It turns out that the flood may ultimately have helped the species, by bringing new nutrients into their environment.

And a couple of days after that flood, the fish got hit by another unusual whammy.

A magnitude 8.2 earthquake struck Alaska. Even though the epicenter was more than 2,000 miles away, it created a mini-tsunami inside Devils Hole.

Video cameras caught the water sloshing around. All that sloshing may have helpfully redistributed materials brought in by the flooding.

Another mini-tsunami happened last year, when a magnitude 7.6 earthquake in Mexico caused 4-foot waves inside Devils Hole.

Wilson says that these kinds of disturbance events can clean off the precious rocky shelf that the fish depend on, benefiting the fish by basically hitting the reset button for the whole system.

Video from one earthquake shows pupfish streaming past the camera, as if the fish knew what was happening and where to go to be safe, says Gumm.

“They’ve been living here for a lot longer than we really comprehend,” she says, with the best estimates suggesting they’ve been in the hole for about ten thousand years.

“They are used to it. And they know what to do.”

‘It’s had a huge impact’

The fish have gotten some help from humans. Wilson says they’re now fed supplemental food, since at one point they looked emaciated.

“It was somewhat controversial to start feeding the fish,” says Wilson.

The pupfish also enjoy the extra shelter of some plant material that wildlife managers attached to their rocky ledge, to give them increased shade and more options for hiding — because the older fish aren’t above eating the young’uns.

“I think society has a duty to protect species that humankind has negatively impacted,” says Wilson. He points out that groundwater pumping lowered the water level in Devils Hole, and the top of the pool is about six or eight inches below the historical pre-pumping level.

The Devils Hole pupfish is famous in conservation circles. It was one of the first species to be listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act. After nearby development threatened to siphon water away from its lonely refuge, lawsuits aimed at saving it went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

“It’s had a huge impact on water conservation and water rights throughout the western United States,” says Steve Beissinger, a conservation biologist with the University of California, Berkeley.

Over the decades, several efforts have been made to set up a captive population of these fish in a separate tank, as a back-up insurance policy in case the wild fish met an untimely end. Past attempts all failed for various reasons, such as mechanical issues.

“The approach that we take now for the refuge population is a much larger scale,” says Gumm, who manages a fish conservation facility located near Devils Hole. There, its unique ecosystem has essentially been recreated in a 100,000-gallon tank.

“Most of it is actually underground, simulating that cave environment of Devils Hole,” she says.

The fish’s all-important rocky shelf was faithfully copied by the tank’s designers. “They actually went out and 3-D scanned the shallow shelf of Devils Hole and carved it out of styrofoam,” she says. “It is an exact replica of the habitat at Devils Hole.”

The refuge tank has a population of about 300, created from eggs taken from the wild. An additional 100 or so fish live in smaller tanks that are kept for breeding.

Climate change could make Devils Hole even hotter, and that’s a concern for the future. Still, Beissinger thinks the fish could keep on keeping on, as long as they continue to get help.

“You can never relax with a small population like that,” he says.

Not everyone thinks that so much time and money should go into safeguarding these fish. Once someone told Wilson that “they should just drown those fish.”

Drown the fish?

“I had to shake my head,” he recalls. “You know, it’s tough, and it’s about water.”

But love them or hate them, Beissinger thinks everyone should at least respect the tenacity of these beleaguered fish.

“It’s certainly, in many ways, an inspiring story of survival,” says Beissinger. “You’ve got to admire that, something that can cling on and adapt to such a difficult environment — with nowhere to go.”

Go clamber around the tide pools at Asilomar State Beach this summer and you might notice something odd: Some of the rocks look like someone haphazardly glued twisty scraps of old macaroni to them. Nature enrolled in a kindergarten art class, you might think.

But if you watch one of those noodle-like tubes closely, after a few seconds a squishy, speckled, black-and-orange creature may peep out from the opening. You’ve just found a scaled wormsnail — a curious marine animal that built this tube out of calcium carbonate secreted from its body.

It might look tiny and fragile, but looks can deceive: As climate change fuels marine heat waves that threaten countless ocean species, this odd little mollusk could prove to be a survivor. Its strength may stem, at least in part, from an adaptable diet of marine detritus, which it plucks from the current with a net made of its own mucus.

A Fishing Net ‘Like Snot in Seawater’

The scaled wormsnail is a snail, not a worm. It gets its confounding name because it resembles marine worms that also live in tubes. But while other snails carry their houses around on their backs, this one doesn’t move at all. It anchors itself to a rock and never leaves, its tube home protecting it from the crashing surf.

The wormsnail’s cloistered lifestyle brings with it a major drawback, though.

“It can’t do the normal thing other gastropods would do, which is crawl around and search for food,” says Peter Macht, aquarium curator at the Seymour Marine Discovery Center at UC Santa Cruz.

So how can it find anything to eat?

In a process that Macht sees every day at the Seymour Center’s aquarium, wormsnails fish for their dinner by casting a net. But instead of fashioning it from rope or thread like human fishers, they use something all snails have plenty of: mucus.

“It’s going to look like snot in seawater,” Macht says.

The snail releases mucus from a gland just below its mouth. But, unlike its more mobile relatives, which leave a trail of the slimy substance, the wormsnail sends mucus down the tentacles on either side of its head, forming it into strings like some invertebrate Spiderman slinging a web. The mucus strands ride the tides, spreading out into the water to create a miniature fishing net. It can cover more than 7 square inches in a matter of minutes, an impressive feat for a snail living in a tube the width of a pencil.

Reeling in the Catch With a Monstrous Mouth

Once it casts its net, the snail simply sits and waits for goodies to drift by and get caught — a tiny crustacean here, a savory mote of algae there. As it gathers particles, the net gradually becomes visible to the human eye, like a fresh spiderweb gathering dust. And by snatching random organic detritus from the water, the snail acts as a recycler, similar to a hungry earthworm breaking down meal scraps.

When it’s time to eat, the wormsnail uses its radula — an undulating conveyor belt of jagged teeth — to snag and pull the mucus net down the hatch. Seen up close, a feeding wormsnail looks a bit like the Sarlacc, the tentacled desert monster from “Return of the Jedi,” as it drags struggling prey down its gaping maw.

With no way of disentangling its catch from the net, the wormsnail swallows the entire bundle, mucus and all. This way, it recoups the calories it spent to make the net in the first place.

But a wormsnail has to stay alert if it wants to keep all that phlegmy goodness for itself.

“Often, their mucus nets fuse,” says biologist Michael Hadfield, who has studied wormsnails extensively at the University of Hawai’i at Manoa. “When one of them starts to pull it in, the others sense it, and they all pull in to make sure they get their share.”

Scourge of the Aquarium

In the Indian and Pacific oceans, the scaled wormsnail’s cousins antagonize other creatures, too. Tropical species of wormsnail sometimes coat corals with their mucus nets, making it harder for those corals to grow and survive. Researchers aren’t sure why, but some suggest wormsnails’ nets hog food particles or alter the balance of chemicals around the surfaces of corals.

“There’s always this death zone around the vermetids,” says Rüdiger Bieler of Chicago’s Field Museum, referring to the name given to the family of wormsnail species around the world. This can make them a pest to saltwater aquarium keepers.

“I’ve talked to a lot of aquarium folks,” Bieler says, “and it took me a while to realize how much they hate these things.”

In Warming Waters, a Varied Menu Goes a Long Way

Along the California coast, the scaled wormsnail may be gaining a competitive advantage over its neighbors, as climate change heats up ocean habitats.

Biologists at UC Santa Barbara found that the 2014-15 marine heat wave known as the “Blob” gave a boost to scaled wormsnails living along the coast near the university’s campus. By contrast, invertebrates like sea stars, which eat wormsnails, perished during the event.

“That freed up a lot of space that the wormsnail could colonize,” says marine ecologist Bob Miller, senior author on the 2022 study.

As a result, wormsnails spread to occupy over 80 times more space than before the Blob — from less than one-fifth of a square foot at each study site to over 16 square feet per site, on average.

Miller believes the scaled wormsnail may be able to withstand heat waves along the California coast because it has evolved within a range that extends south to Baja California, Mexico, where waters are already warmer to begin with.

Not being a picky eater may help, too, the researchers noted. When a heat wave makes nutritious plankton hard to come by, for instance, shreds of kelp and other floating food bits can fill the snails’ phlegmy nets instead.

Whatever may end up in their nets, wormsnails will continue to perform an important job: As their nets filter the water, they keep coastal habitats clean for everyone.

“They’re doing their part in recycling dead plant material,” biologist Hadfield says. “If there were no recyclers except bacteria and fungi in the sea, there would be huge piles of decaying detritus.” Those piles would suck oxygen from the environment as they decomposed, potentially harming other marine animals.

So next time you’re exploring the tide pools, peering through clean, clear water at anemones, crabs and nudibranchs, just remember — among many other creatures, you’ve got a sedentary little snail and its mucus to thank.

Trash from humans is constantly spilling into the ocean — so much so that there are five gigantic garbage patches in the seas. They hang out at the nexus of the world’s ocean currents, changing shape with the waves. The largest is the North Pacific Garbage Patch, known colloquially as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

These areas were long thought to have been uninhabited, the plastics and fishing gear too harmful to marine life. But researchers have recently uncovered a whole ecosystem of life in this largest collection of trash. “This research has shown me that there is more life than we expected there … a whole ecosystem that are in the middle of the patch,” says marine biologist Fiona Chong.

Fiona is part of a team of researchers that published a paper in PLOS Biology documenting the inhabitants of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch earlier this year. Their most common inhabitants include: Porpita (also called “blue button”), a small disc-like animal with “tentacles” radiating outward, closely related to jellyfish; Velella (also called the “by-the-wind-sailor”), which looks like a flat disc with a kind of “sail” running across the top; and Janthina a violet sea snail that traps bubbles to stay afloat. These and other organisms that float freely atop the water are called neuston.

Neuston form an ecosystem and food web amongst themselves. Janthina are known to eat both Velella and Porpita. Glaucus atlanticus, another neuston observed in very small quantities in the patch, is another predator. Known as the “blue sea dragon,” it prefers to snack on the Portuguese man o’war but has been known to chomp on both Porpita and Velella.

These marine animals are also are part of a larger ecosystem. Fiona notes that Porpita are known to sometimes form symbiotic partnerships with small, juvenile fish that are stressed when removed from their individual Porpita. Plus, animals like the ocean sunfish, seabirds and sea turtles are known to munch on neuston.

“It’s a shame that us humans have such large impacts in the ocean that, you know, our footprint is so far out,” she laments. “Plastic being in the patch could be harmful for other marine organisms.”

For Fiona, the realization that animals call the Great Pacific Garbage Patch home has made her reconsider efforts aim at indiscriminately cleaning up the trash. She also hopes that the findings will make people and the fishing industry more aware of their footprint and lead to better waste management systems. That’s because for her, one of the most ideal solutions to the ocean debris problem is curbing plastic use. If less is used in the first place, less will eventually make its way to the ocean.

“That is probably quite difficult, but we should try it,” she says.

Read Fiona and her collaborators’ paper, High concentrations of floating neustonic life in the plastic-rich North Pacific Garbage Patch

Listen to Short Wave on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts.

This episode was produced by Carly Rubin and Berly McCoy. It was edited by Rebecca Ramirez. The audio engineer was Maggie Luthar.

Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

A “bee fly” looks a bit like a bee, but it’s a freeloader that takes advantage of a bindweed turret bee’s hard work. The bees dig underground nests and fill them with pollen they collect in the form of stylish “pollen pants.” As the bees are toiling on their nests, the flies drop their *own* eggs into them from the air. But the bees employ a tricky defense against the flies.

TRANSCRIPT

Life for bindweed turret bees is violent and unfair.

It’s spring in California, and these male bees are in an all-out brawl, desperate to mate with the female trapped at the bottom of this pile.

Sometimes the fight is so intense that the female they’re going after gets crushed to death.

But if she survives, she and the winner steal away and mate … until another male wants in. Buzz kill!

Now she starts an epic dig, prepping a place to lay her eggs underground.

She tirelessly scoops earth with her mandibles, dousing it with nectar she collected earlier to soften it.

The majority of the world’s bee species – 70% – nest in the ground. These ones chose a dirt parking lot. Some nice folks cordoned it off to protect the bees.

Females work side by side. Each is “queen” of her own funky little castle.

They build turrets, but only some of them are vertical.

Many are tunnel-like, with a sideways entrance.

Others curve down.

You’ll see why that’s important in a bit.

Once the bees are done digging, they head off on another mission. They gather pollen from one plant only: morning glories, also known as bindweeds.

She rubs her shaggy legs all over that pollen.

And down she goes with her haul.

Pollen pants!

Inside her nest, she packs the pollen into neat balls – each one in its own chamber – and lays an egg on top.

When the egg hatches into a larva, it will live off the pollen.

As she toils, freeloaders show up.

They look like a bee, but their huge eyes give them away.

They’re called … wait for it … bee flies.

The fly doesn’t dig or gather pollen for her young. She just hovers over a bee’s nest and … yup, she’s dropping her own eggs in there.

She’ll drop 200 eggs over her lifetime.

This is where those tunnels and curved turrets are useful. They make it harder for the flies to drop their eggs in from the air.

But when the fly does succeed, the fly’s egg hatches into a larva that digs tiny hooks into the bee larva.

As the bee eats the pollen and grows, the fly larva sucks it dry.

Sometimes the flies are so successful, they can nearly wipe out a population of bees.

But these bees don’t give up. Two or three months of mating, foraging and warding off parasites come to an end when they seal up their nests with dirt.

Below ground, babies will grow.

The following spring, if the bees are lucky, a new tiny city will burst to life, full of bees persevering just as their mothers did before them.

Let’s talk about yellowjackets. It’s true: These ladies have a special taste for flesh. But they don’t eat it themselves. They bring it to their young. How? By crashing your cookout and carving your burgers and dogs into teeny-tiny meatballs. Enjoy!

Every year during the summer or fall, shore waves across the Bay Area are lit up with flashes of beautiful blue light.

This beautiful blue light is caused by millions of tiny bioluminescent plankton called dinoflagellates. But how do these minuscule organisms produce such a dazzling display?

Keep reading for the facts about the science behind bioluminescence, and where you can see it for yourself in the Bay Area.

• Jump straight to: How you can see bioluminescence for yourself in the Bay Area

How do organisms make light?

Bioluminescence is a chemical reaction that happens inside many organisms, from bacteria to squid, shrimp, fungus, fireflies and even starfish.

This is all thanks to a light-emitting molecule in their cells called luciferin, combined with a photo protein called luciferase. This protein creates the chemical reaction between luciferin and oxygen, making these organisms glow.

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Different forms of luciferin can produce different colors of light. Fireflies, for example, have a form of luciferin in their cells that emit green light, whereas marine organisms like the dinoflagellates found around the shores of the San Francisco Bay emit blue light.

Why do some organisms produce bioluminescence?

Some species of bioluminescent sea creatures, like some jellyfish, have evolved to become bioluminescent due to their diet. When they eat other bioluminescent organisms, they borrow that chemical that allows them to produce light within their bodies.

Other sea creatures, like angler fish that have that ball of light that glows and lures in prey, and flashes light to repel predators, get their bioluminescence from a certain bacteria called photobacterium.

“And the standard rule of thumb is that, what glows in the ocean attracts and what flashes repel,” said Steve Haddock, a senior scientist at Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute who researches bioluminescence organisms. He also runs a citizen science website, JellyWatch.org.

Bioluminescence is a terrific deterrent against predators that would eat these organisms. It also functions like a flashlight for finding and attracting prey. Some organisms use their glowing abilities as camouflage — they turn light on to block out their silhouette, a kind of cloaking device — hiding them from potential predators.

What are dinoflagellates? And how are they related to red tides?

Dinoflagellates are single-celled phytoplankton that are usually invisible to the naked eye. But when they are present in high numbers, they can turn the water a hazy green or even orange, depending on the pigments present in cells of that species. When left alone, dinoflagellates won’t produce any light, but when things like ocean waves, wind, and sea creatures disturb them at night, they become bioluminescent, dazzling with a blue light.When water temperatures and conditions are just right, blooms of dinoflagellates can grow rapidly and accumulate in high concentrations, causing an event known as a red tide. Red tide is a term generally used to describe when phytoplankton or algae becomes so abundant that it discolors the water, sometimes appearing orange or red.

“So you get a red tide in the daytime and blue tide in the nighttime,” said Haddock.

Can I swim or kayak in bioluminescent waters caused by a dinoflagellate red tide?

A red tide of dinoflagellates is not to be mistaken with the harmful red tides that killed many fish across the Bay Area recently. The species that caused that red tide is called Heterosigma akashiwo, and although classified as not dangerous to humans, this species can suck up all the oxygen that fish need in the water, causing them to die.

Most of the bioluminescent species of dinoflagellates are not dangerous to humans. And it should be fine to kayak or swim in bioluminescent waters, says Haddock. But during a red tide, when the water is murky brown, multiple species of different organisms may be present, including the ones that release toxins that might be harmful to humans and animals.

Some species of dinoflagellates can produce various toxins, and their decomposition releases the toxin into the water, and it can even enter the air and become a problem for marine animals and humans, according to Peter Roopnarine, a curator of geology at California Academy of Sciences.

“Pay attention to your local advisories about water quality, and things like shellfish poisoning,” Haddock advised.

The rule of thumb is: If the water is a murky brown instead of the usual green or blue, it’s best to stay out of the water. Read more about the algal blooms during the red tide in the Bay Area here.

When can I see bioluminescence around the Bay Area?

Johnny Chien, a hobbyist photographer and Bay Area resident recently captured bioluminescence at Seacliff State Beach and Manresa State Beach in Santa Cruz County. He says that when looking for bioluminescence, patience is key.

“It’s one of those natural [phenomena] that is kind of like the Northern Lights,” said Chien. Chien says that because the wind and tide play important roles in the movement of these bioluminescent planktons, it’s worth it to walk around and explore the beaches when you’re out looking for them. “You could have combinations where there are blotches or certain parts of the beach that are active, certain parts are not,” said Chien.

What time of year is best to see bioluminescence?

Bioluminescent planktons are around all year long in our California waters. But it’s only when there’s a high concentration of them that makes for a big bioluminescence event, says Haddock. And the best time to see one of those is usually from June until October.

Predicting a big bioluminescent event is not easy. It depends on many factors like temperature, the weather, wind, and tide. So with that in mind…

Tip #1: Watch the weather

Phytoplanktons like dinoflagellates can reproduce significantly in optimal warm temperatures. Very often, these warm temperatures can cause an increase in dinoflagellate populations, said Roopnarine.Haddock says that spotting bioluminescence is “best in the fall,” especially on a balmy day in late summer, “where it’s been relatively warm and calm.”

Sometimes conditions occur that lead to massive increases in abundance. These can be seasonal causes, when currents concentrate them in some areas, or when nutrient conditions become very favorable for population increase among bioluminescent planktons, said Roopnarine.

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A rainy or windy day followed by a calm day can kick off the sequence of events leading to a bloom. Rainy days will bring nutrients like phosphate and nitrate found in fertilizers used on land into the watershed and eventually into the sea. Wind will cause the mixing of deeper water, which has more nutrients, up to the surface, said Haddock.

Calm waters in a bay where the area is more enclosed and unaffected by the wind, could be a great spot to look for them after a windy or rainy day, said Haddock.

Tip #2: Look for red tides around surf zones

Shreenivasan Manievannan, a professional photographer in the Bay Area, captured a video of the bioluminescence last year in Pacifica when he noticed the red tide event earlier in the day.

“I noticed a distinct change in [color in] the waves in the surf zone,” said Manievannan.

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Tip #3: Track those dinoflagellates (or follow those who do)

You might also be able to track dinoflagellates on iNaturalist, a crowdsourced species-identification system.

Also, stay tuned to local aquariums like the Monterey Bay Aquarium and social media updates on bioluminescence events.

Tip #4: Consider the visibility

For the best visibility, catch the bioluminescence on a moonless night or a night during a new moon.

“The darker the night, the better,” said Haddock.

https://www.instagram.com/p/Cuw1w37LlYl/

Where can I see bioluminescence around the Bay Area?

Haddock says that if the bioluminescence is very bright, you can see it really well on the shore or on the bluffs overlooking the shore.

But one of his best experiences seeing bioluminescence was on a rowboat in a bay.

“Every drip of water from the paddle would create this concentric ring of lights that went out,” he said. “It’s just amazing.”The two most common spots to check out bioluminescence are Tomales Bay in Marin County and Moss Landing in Monterey Bay where you can take advantage of a number of bioluminescent tours organized by kayaking companies.

In Santa Cruz county, residents have spotted bioluminescence on the shores of Manresa State Beach in Aptos, Seacliff State Beach, Rio Del Mar State Beach, Shark Fin Cove in Davenport, Platforms Beach and Sumner Beach in Aptos. Big Sur near Bixby Bridge has been known to produce bioluminescence in 2018.

For folks who want to experience this event with others, Haddock advises checking out kayaking companies that offer bioluminescence tours. Bay Area kayak companies like Kayak Connection and Blue Waters Kayaking offer bioluminescence tours every year from June until around November.

What’s it like to go on one of these bioluminescence tours via kayak — especially if you’re already a science lover? Bay Area scientist Nuur Shaikh, who majored in biology in college, recently accompanied almost 20 other friends on a bioluminescence tour in Moss Landing, Santa Cruz, where the tour guides brought them to the bioluminescent hot spots in Elkhorn Slough.

“The current was basically pulling us toward the hot spots. We didn’t really have to row or anything,” she said.

On the way to the bioluminescent hot spots, Shaikh and her group passed by patches of algae. “So you could pick up a piece of algae and you can kind of see the [bioluminescent] plankton that’s stuck on those strands,” she said.

When she twirled her fingers in the water, she said the water would light up for a microsecond, making it look like glitter.

“They kind of sparkle a little,” she said. “They look like fairy dust.”

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Covered in a shiny bubble, the alkali fly scuba dives into the harsh waters of California’s Mono Lake. Thanks to an abundance of hair and water-repellent wax, this remarkable insect remains dry while embarking on a quest for tasty algae and a place to lay its eggs.

TRANSCRIPT

This fly is the Jacques Cousteau of flies. It dives where no other insect dares, in its very own scuba gear.

It risks it all for food and a place to lay its eggs.

The alkali fly thrives in waters three times saltier than the ocean, here in California’s Mono Lake. 

It lives among these otherworldly towers of limestone deposits called tufas. 

Those same minerals make the water inhospitable for almost every other form of life. Like if someone made a soup of table salt, baking soda, and soda ash, an abrasive stain remover. 

But the alkali fly? It loves it. Scientists call this kind of creature an extremophile. It survives in an extreme environment.

As a larva, it spends all its time underwater. It gets oxygen through its skin.

These special kidneys, called lime glands, pump excess salts out of its body. It’s a process called osmoregulation.

When it grows up, it gets its wings, but it loses those lime glands and can’t breathe under the surface.

So this extremophile employs an extreme solution: a shimmering bubble shield enclosing its entire body. 

The only things sticking out are its eyes … and its claws.

As it dives from the surface, it captures air between its body and hairs, like its very own oxygen tank. And the fly isn’t actually getting wet.

It can do this thanks to its charming looks. It’s far hairier than your average fly. 

Check out its shaggy wings, fluffy legs, and bristly abdomen. 

These hairs, and the fly’s body, are covered in water-repellent wax. It’s a lot of product, but these waxy hairs are crucial to the fly’s survival. 

Here’s an animal that doesn’t have as many hairs: This red ant wandered too close to the lake’s edge. Now, it can handle some amount of freshwater, but the mineral-rich Mono Lake water bogs it down.

Mono Lake’s water is some of the wettest water in the world. Yeah, you heard me right.

You see, all water sticks to itself; that’s why rain comes down in neat droplets. But the minerals in Mono Lake water make it even stickier. It feels slippery and soapy.

Check out the wing of this house fly when it touches a droplet of pure water. The wing pulls away from the drop easily. But when it touches water with the same compounds as Mono Lake? It sticks.

So your standard fly, frog, even fish avoids the lake at all costs.

The only other life down here is brine shrimp and one type of microscopic worm. That leaves nearly all the delicious algae for the alkali fly. 

The fly sticks out its proboscis and slurps it up where the algae collects on tufas. 

But this diving fly is not invincible. The water levels of Mono Lake are getting lower. We divert water from the streams that feed the lake, and rising temperatures mean it’s drying up faster than before. 

This makes the lake more salty, and those larvae that spend their days underwater can only handle so much. Fewer of them are growing into adults.

Maybe you’re thinking, “So what, it’s just a few flies!” But these swarms help feed millions of birds as they migrate across the Americas.

While the alkali fly may seem audacious, even indestructible, it still relies on a delicate balance to survive. 

Hey, Deep peeps, want to learn more about Mono Lake’s world-famous tufa towers? 

Head over to PBS Terra’s new science show, Untold Earth. You’ll uncover the lake’s primordial secrets, and meet the people working to save it for future generations. See you there!

Do cockroaches — those daring, disgusting disease vectors — have anything at all to offer us? Scientists think so. They compressed American roaches with a hydraulic press, subjecting them to the force of 900 times their body weight. Don’t worry (or do): They survived! How exactly do they do it?

TRANSCRIPT

The cockroach.

You know ‘em, you hate ‘em.

And with good reason.

They carry bacteria like salmonella on their legs.

Roaches can cause asthma and allergies as they spread their saliva and poop around your home.

And when you try to take one out …

… it always seems to get away.

What makes the roach so indestructible?

The American cockroach is one of the fastest insects on the planet.

It can run up to 3.4 miles per hour.

That’d be like a human knocking out eight marathons over their lunch break.

It uses hooks, called tarsal claws, to flip over ledges.

And not even a wall can stop it.

Better to keep up the momentum and figure it out as you go.

The roach is both tough and flexible.

Its exoskeleton isn’t one large piece of armor, but many shield-like plates made of a tough material called chitin.

They’re held together by lots of pliable joints.

And they use all those bendy joints to fold up, origami-style, and push through impossibly small cracks …

…like that gap you never knew existed in your kitchen cupboard.

The cockroach can army-crawl through a space a quarter of its normal standing height.

That’s one reason it’s so good at surviving your thwack.

So how much pressure can the cockroach take?

Scientists at UC Berkeley found it can withstand a thwack equivalent to 900 times its body weight …

… and walk away unscathed.

Why are researchers so interested in all this?

They think the roach, despite its ability to make us sick, can teach us to save lives.

One of those researchers is now building robots the size of insects to squeeze into places you and I cannot.

Like piles of rubble left by major earthquakes or hurricanes.

And maybe down the line, much smaller versions of these robots could even enter our bodies to perform life-saving tasks!

So, on the one hand, we want to keep these creatures out – by sealing cracks, caulking windows and storing food in airtight containers …

… but we also want to learn from them.

The cockroach teaches us that the key to overcoming adversity isn’t just toughness, it’s also flexibility.

Well, that was lovely. But not all roaches are pests, some are pets. And pretty good ones at that.

Check out our episode on the Madagascar hissing cockroach. It even comes with its own cleaning crew of hungry mites.

Ladybugs may be the cutest insects around, but they don’t start off that way. Also called lady beetles or ladybirds, they pop out of their eggs as prickly mini-monsters with an insatiable hunger for aphids. Once they’ve bulked up, they transform, shedding their terrifying looks, but keeping their killer vibes.

TRANSCRIPT

What is prickly … ferocious … and also one of the most beloved insects around?

A ladybug.

Well, a teenage one.

And this ladybug larva has something to teach us about appearances.

Menacing or cute, the ladybug is a stone cold killer.

There are about 6,000 species of ladybugs.

Also called lady beetles or ladybirds, they come in varying shades and with different numbers of spots.

Sometimes even no spots.

It’s a myth that ladybugs gain a spot every year, but those markings are a useful way to tell different species apart.

Whatever they are, they all start out here.

As eggs laid in neat clusters by their mom.

About a week later these mini-alligators crawl free.

These larvae have an insatiable hunger for aphid insides.

The larvae stalk their unsuspecting prey, feeling around with their sensitive legs.

Though to be honest, the plump little aphids aren’t exactly a challenge to bring down.

Their main defense is to make lots of aphids.

And I mean a lot.

Sometimes, the ladybug larva starts on one end of the aphid and eats it alive.

Other times, it’ll just treat the aphid like a juice box – ditch what’s left and bail.

In the roughly three weeks it takes the larva to grow up, it’ll eat hundreds of these scrumptious treats.

It needs to bulk up for what comes next

The larva finds a cozy spot close to its favorite snacks.

It exudes a sticky liquid from its backside and cements itself in place.

Then, it hunches over and squirms in rhythmic convulsions.

The larva’s about to say goodbye to its old goth look and reinvent itself.

It sheds its outer layer, legs and all, to reveal a ladybug pupa.

An in-between stage where it can spend some time alone figuring out who it really wants to be.

It spends the next week going through a major metamorphosis.

When it’s ready to do some adulting, the full-grown ladybug emerges.

Take that, butterflies!

You’re not the only ones that create an all new persona for yourselves.

Once it’s free, the ladybug’s armored forewings, called elytra, harden and develop their color and spots.

Not that spots are required.

The elytra protect the ladybug’s delicate hindwings, which it now stretches out for the very first time.

Those wings open whole new worlds to a grown ladybug.

Not only can the adults fly from plant to plant looking for food and mates,

but the wings also allow the ladybug to migrate huge distances.

It’ll eat up to 5,000 aphids in its adventurous life.

That makes them a true ally to us, protecting our farms and gardens from harmful pests.

So don’t be fooled by that candy-apple coating.

Under the hood, the ladybug is still the same wild, relentless hunter it’s always been.

Hi Deep Peeps …

Check out this episode about how aphid moms give birth to babies that are … already pregnant!

It’s an aphid onslaught!

Every year, up to half the honeybee colonies in the U.S. die. Varroa mites, the bees’ ghastly parasites, are one of the main culprits. After hitching a ride into a hive, a mite mom hides in a honeycomb cell, where she and her offspring feed on a growing bee. But beekeepers and scientists are helping honeybees fight back.

TRANSCRIPT

Here’s a go-to recipe for beekeepers. It’s called a “sugar shake.”

Take a half-cup of bees. That’s about 300.

Put them in a jar and cover them with a mesh lid.

Add two tablespoons confectioners’ sugar.

Shake for 30 seconds. We’re going for a nice, even coat.

Empty the sugar onto a tray. And there you have it: frosted varroa mites, aka Varroa destructor. They’re a honeybee’s worst enemy.

The fine-powdered sugar made them lose the grip they had on their hosts.

A minute ago, the mites were on the bees in the hive.

It’s as if you were carrying around a tick the size of a dinner plate.

Every year, up to half the managed honeybee hives in the United States die from hazards like pesticide exposure, lack of flowers to forage on year-round, and varroa mites.

To feed, a varroa mite nestles between the bees’ protective plates.

It digs in with its gnarly mouth, the gnathosoma. The mite sinks it into a crucial organ called the fat body. It’s a layer of tissue that lines the abdomen.

Sort of like the human liver, the fat body helps the bee break down harmful stuff, including pesticides. And it maintains the bee’s immune system. So, when varroa mites attack the fat body, they seriously weaken the bee.

The mites can also transmit a virus that causes a bee to be born with deformed wings, no good for flying.

Let’s go back to the “sugar shake.” Beekeepers use them to monitor the varroa mites in their hives.

As few as three mites per half-cup of bees could kill a hive within the year. That’s because varroa mites are great at sneaking into hives, hiding, and reproducing like mad.

The first mite gets into a hive by hitching a ride on a bee from another colony. Maybe the bee’s own colony wasn’t doing well and it was looking for a new home.

The mite sniffs around for a bee larva and sneaks in right before the bees cover the cell with wax.

The defenseless larva is now trapped with its enemy, which begins to feed.

As the larva grows into a pupa, the mite, called a foundress, starts her family. Take a look underneath this bee pupa.

The mite’s firstborn is always a son. The rest are daughters. They’re hard to tell apart when they’re young.

When the siblings come of age inside the cell, they’ll meet up on this pile of mite poop – maybe they’re guided by the scent. And they’ll mate … with each other.

Sometimes two foundresses make it into a cell. Then their offspring get to mate with someone they’re not related to.

The mites live off the bee pupa, but they don’t kill it.

When the bee is all grown up, it chews its way out of the cell.

The mite slips onto its next victim.

So, why don’t the bees just pick those mites off themselves?

Well, we didn’t start seeing varroa mites in the U.S. until the 1980s. They evolved on eastern honeybees, in Asia. That’s why the western honeybees in the Americas and Europe aren’t yet good at defending against them.

When beekeepers find mites in a sugar shake, they treat a hive with pesticide strips that kill the mites. But mites are becoming resistant.

So, researchers are selectively breeding honeybees to fight back.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture and private companies are breeding bees that can sniff out varroa mites. When the bees find some, they uncap the cells and interrupt reproduction. The bees then, um, “recycle” the unlucky pupa. Yep, they’re eating it.

At Purdue and Central State universities, scientists breed honeybees known as “mite-biters.”

After collecting sperm from a male bee, they inseminate a queen.

Both the queen and the male come from colonies that are particularly good at killing mites by chewing off their legs.

It’s a grisly end for these tormentors and – just maybe – a fair shake for the honeybees.

Hey sugar, what’s shakin’? We’ve got more bee stories for you. Bindweed turret bees fill their underground nests with pollen. See those “pollen pants”? But freeloading flies drop their own eggs into the nests … from the air!

Also, PBS Digital Studios wants to know what you enjoy on YouTube and what you want more of. Follow the link in the description to take their annual survey. You even get to vote on new show ideas. Thanks for representing, and please tell them Deep Look sent you.

This fuzzy acorn weevil can’t crack open acorns like a woodpecker or chomp through them like a squirrel. Instead, she uses her incredibly long snout, called a rostrum, to power-drill through an acorn’s tough and resilient shell. And it’s not just lunch on her mind – she’s also making a nursery for her babies.

TRANSCRIPT

The acorn weevil is fuzzy, tenacious and hungry. But what stands out the most is its supersized, skillful snout.

It’s called a rostrum, and it’s perfect for digging into the acorns brimming from these California oak trees.

See the acorn weevil right there? It blends right in.

She uses her sensitive antennae to sniff and taste her way to the perfect acorn.

She goes for the soft green ones. This one is too hard. This one’s too bitter! This one’s just right.

Her antennae don’t stick out right from her head; they would never reach the acorn. Instead they’re down here.

Her razor-sharp mouth sits at the very tip. She makes tiny cuts in the acorn’s surface to break through the hardest part of the nut. Once it’s weakened, she punches through.

The rostrum’s downward curve lets her bite into the acorn directly beneath her. She often digs in under the cap. Maybe it’s easier to grab on there, or softer underneath it.

Then, she bores in. Rotating her head and using her snout as a drill. She chows down as she goes.

When her antennae start to get in the way, no problem. She just tucks half of each one into these side channels called scrobes.

Inside, she creates an arrow-straight tunnel. The naturally arched rostrum straightens as it drills.

It can do this because the rostrum has two layers: a hard and thin outer cover, called the exocuticle, and a flexible and thick inside, the endocuticle.

You might be wondering: Where are the males? They’re here too. You’ll know them by their short rostrum. But that’s OK. They’re only tunneling into acorns for food. A female sports a rostrum as long as her body. Because she isn’t just eating. She’s building a nursery.

The deeper she digs, the safer her babies will be. After she’s done carving, she turns around and extends an egg-laying organ, her ovipositor. But it doesn’t just drop eggs. Its tip can smell and taste to make sure the environment will be suitable for her growing babies. Once she’s convinced, she deposits her eggs one by one.

But she still has more eggs to lay. And she can’t put them all in one basket. She lays her eggs all over the oak to increase the chance they’ll survive, drilling into dozens of acorns. But that’s exhausting. So sometimes, she tries to nab another weevil’s tunnel for her own babies.

This is mom vs. mom! Not this time! Go find your own acorn!

Over the next few weeks, the larva eats and grows. Once the acorns have darkened and matured, they fall to the ground. Using its powerful mandibles, the larva chews its way out of its safe home. That’s a tight squeeze!

Immediately, it burrows into the soil for protection. It will emerge in a coming season, waking up just as the new green acorns grow in the canopy above.

And then, the weevil will travel up the tree in search of its own perfect acorn, one that’s just right for its growing family.

Hey Deep Peeps! We’ve got more weevils for you. South American palm weevils are ready for their close-up, but their arrival could mean the end for California’s iconic palm trees. And PBS Terra has an awesome new insect series called — wait for it — Insectarium! Join invertebrate zoologist Dr. Jessica Ware as she explores insect habitats, meets bug enthusiasts, and visits incredible collections. Tell them Deep Look sent you!

Like its name suggests, the brown dog tick dines on dog blood. But as temperatures rise, they’re more likely to feast on you, too. That’s a problem, because the brown dog tick is a vector for Rocky Mountain spotted fever, a disease that’s deadly to both dogs and humans.

TRANSCRIPT

To pet a dog is to know peace.

But who’s this interloper?

That’s a brown dog tick.

They’re the most widespread tick in the world, and the most adapted to living among us.

Brown dog ticks are thought to have evolved alongside burrowing carnivores like foxes and weasels – and came indoors when we domesticated dogs.

They can be found in and around homes.

And what’s worse, they spread bacteria that can be deadly.

They aren’t the ticks known for carrying Lyme disease. Those are blacklegged ticks.

The brown dog tick has grooves along its back, and they’re a solid, reddish brown. See the difference?

No matter what kind of tick they are, they want one thing: blood.

And to find that blood, they use what’s called the Haller’s organ, one near the tip of each foreleg.

Ticks use them to pick up chemical signals from the air: carbon dioxide, pheromones and humidity.

Scientists believe the Haller’s organ even lets ticks detect the body heat of their prey.

All ticks have them, but they use them differently.

The blacklegged tick “quests” – it stays put, waving its forelegs to sense when it can hop aboard a host.

The brown dog tick hunts, using that Haller’s organ to home in on a potential target.

As its name suggests, a brown dog tick is happy to take all its meals from dogs.

But in the right conditions, the brown dog tick will dine on you, too.

That’s a problem, because they can transmit bacteria that cause Rocky Mountain spotted fever, a terrible disease that can kill both dogs and humans.

Rocky Mountain spotted fever usually occurs in small clusters in the United States and is relatively rare. But outbreaks in northern Mexico have killed hundreds of people.

And rising temperatures due to climate change are sparking some troubling tick behavior.

When it’s particularly hot out, brown dog ticks start craving human blood.

To investigate this, University of California, Davis researchers put a very good dog in a box and a very good human in another, connected by a plastic tube with hungry brown dog ticks inside.

Don’t worry – there’s a screen here and here. The ticks can’t actually get them.

At room temperature, the ticks preferred dogs. But when researchers heated up the tube, to 100 degrees Fahrenheit, brown dog ticks preferred – you guessed it – us.

Scientists are still trying to determine why. In the meantime, researchers are developing vaccines to protect us from the disease.

Tick treatments can keep the pests off of dogs. But they’re expensive.

In the Sonoran Desert, in Southern California, volunteers remove ticks by putting their tweezers right up against a dog’s skin and pulling straight up.

This one is full of dog blood.

And they give the dogs oral medicine for free.

Look at these happy pals!

And then it’s back to the petting frenzy you both deserve.

Hi, it’s Laura. Wanna know more about those blacklegged ticks? Zoom in with us to see just how they dig in with a gnarly mouth covered in hooks.

Also, please don’t forget to subscribe and click that little notification bell. Thanks for watching!

When grown-up jellyfish love each other very much, they make huge numbers of teeny-tiny potato-shaped larvae. Those larvae grow into little polyps that cling to rocks and catch prey with their stinging tentacles. But their best trick is when they clone themselves by morphing into a stack of squirming jellyfish pancakes.

TRANSCRIPT

There’s a reason the ocean is full of jellyfish.

These creatures have mastered the ability to multiply themselves again and again.

Adult moon jellies grow to the size of dinner plates.

A mature jellyfish like this is called a medusa for its resemblance to the ancient Greek monster with snakes for hair.

But instead of snakes, this medusa has stinging tentacles that paralyze its prey.

It’s hard to tell by looking at them but there are male and female moon jellies.

The males release sperm into the water.

And the females collect it to fertilize their eggs.

Those eggs turn into larvae called planulae that mom sends out into the world.

They look like fuzzy little potatoes.

Each planula does its best to settle on something solid — like rock – and develops into this, a polyp the size of a pea.

The polyp clings to the rock with a sticky foot, like a miniature version of its colorful cousin, the sea anemone.

Its stinging tentacles catch prey that float by, like these tiny crustaceans.

With each mouthful it grows.

See that budding out of its side?

It’s a little clone!

After a few days the clone pops off, and settles in right next door.

The polyps make more polyps.

And more …

Until they form a whole neighborhood of clones …

So how do they go from tiny polyp stuck on a rock to giant medusa gliding through the open ocean?

When the water begins to cool at the end of summer, they go through yet another change.

They slow down, stop hunting and develop these ridges along their sides.

Over a few weeks, the ridges get more and more pronounced, until the polyp looks like a stack of pancakes.

Each individual pancake, called an ephyra, is a clone with the potential to grow into an adult.

That’s right, it’s a whole extra round of cloning called strobilation.

It begins with a twitch.

The ephyrae flex and convulse.

They impatiently work to free themselves … from themselves.

The next ones in line can’t wait for their turn either.

So they help push things along.

After all that effort, the ephyra on the very end finally breaks free.

Sometimes jellyfish are so successful that they explode in number, creating a jellyfish bloom.

That’s great for predators like barnacles that snatch them up when they’re young … and for sea turtles that scarf down the grown-ups.

That’s why moon jellies play the odds.

By making babies that clone themselves, and clone themselves again, jellies multiply their chances that some will make it all the way.

Hey, it’s Laura.

We hope you enjoy Deep Look as much as we love making it.

We rely on you, our audience, to make this show possible.

Join us on Patreon today and get access to exclusive show updates, behind-the-scenes footage, digital art, cool swag and more.

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Ever wonder how those tiny, jumpy flies got onto your bathroom wall? Well, they came out of your sink drain after growing up down in the pipes. A goofy, long “mustache,” fuzzy wings and some aquabatics help them survive in that soggy environment.

TRANSCRIPT

Ever wonder where those little insects crawling around your bathroom came from? Bad news: your drain.

With all that fluffy hair, it looks like a tiny moth. And some do call it a moth fly. But a fly it is … a drain fly.

It’s called Clogmia – how appropriate.

It grew up over several weeks, out of sight, among things you thought you’d washed away.

Drain flies sneak in from the outside, through a crack in an old pipe, for example, to sip some water they sensed with this long mustache – their maxillary palps.

And here, on the plentiful gunk in your pipes, they’ll grow a family.

Welcome, little one! The larva is the length of an eyelash.

That gunk it lives in? Those are bits of you: hair, saliva and food. They make a nice meal for bacteria and fungi, which form this dark, living slime called a biofilm. This is what the larvae feed on. It also keeps them well moisturized.

If the larva ends up submerged, it can still chow down. It sweeps slime particles out of the water with a hairy mouthpart called the labrum and rakes them in with its mandibles.

Underwater, it breathes with a bubble on its backside that it collected at the surface.

This allows it to venture through deep pools in your pipes.

When larvae, or the more grown-up pupae, like this guy here, end up in a toilet bowl, it can be a shock. You might think the squigglers came out of you. Ew! Don’t worry – they can’t live inside us.

And even though the drain flies in your bathroom muck around in bacteria, they don’t really spread it to humans. They’re not interested in landing on us. Or even leaving the bathroom.

They’re in their happy place. When you wash your hands? They protect themselves from the water with their hairy wings. Each hair has ridges that trap air so the drops roll right off.

And if they’re caught off-guard by a sudden surge, the flies skate across.

But they’re not invincible: When they get trapped underwater long enough, they can drown.

If you find you really need to get rid of them, drain cleaner helps, but it won’t keep them away forever. There’ll always be some slime left behind, deep in your pipes, that could attract the flies again. So, if they want it, why not let ‘em have it?

Hi. Laura here. Did you know that flies have a secret set of limbs beneath their wings? No? It’s one reason they’re so hard to swat. Watch that episode next! See you there.

When the moon, sun and ocean temperatures all align, an underwater “snowstorm” occurs. Corals put on a massive spawning spectacle by sending tiny white spheres floating up the water column all at once.

TRANSCRIPT

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Once a year, something astounding happens at Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. It lasts barely half an hour.

If you jumped into the water at this very moment, it’d be like swimming through a snow globe, hundreds of kilometers across.

But these “snowflakes” are actually packets of eggs and sperm of coral. Corals might look like colorful rocks or undersea gardens, but they’re actually animals. A coral is a colony of hundreds of thousands of tiny individual animals called polyps.

Each of these flower-shaped polyps has a mouth and tentacles. Polyps secrete calcium carbonate that creates their skeleton. It gives them structure and anchors them to a rock or the seafloor.

Since they can’t move to find a partner and mix up the gene pool, most warm-water corals practice “broadcast spawning.”

But with such a short window to meet up, they have to sync it just right. The warming summer waters cue the right month. The light from a waning moon cues the right day, and the setting sun cues the exact minute. Good luck out there!

These bundles contain the coral’s gametes — its sperm and eggs. But the gametes don’t mix in there. The bundles float to the surface and burst open.

Sperm search out a new egg. Only one of these guys will get in. Look familiar?

Once fertilized, it starts dividing and transforms into this adventurous larva called a planula. The planula swims through the sea, searching for a place to settle down.

Chemical and light sensors on its backside guide the planula to the perfect spot. It wants what we want: a stable foundation, plenty of sunlight, and room to grow. The planula cements itself into place and morphs into a polyp.

As it grows, it absorbs algae called zooxanthellae from the surrounding water. See these green dots? They live inside the polyps.

The algae give the coral nutrition and its brilliant colors. Then something curious happens: The polyp clones itself. It grows copies right out of its side, that then bud their own clones. Through broadcast spawning and cloning, corals create the massive reefs we’re familiar with.

But reefs are in danger, and that’s not just a problem for the corals.They’re vital ecosystems that provide food and shelter for a quarter of marine life, like fish, crustaceans and sea turtles. Climate change is the main culprit.

When ocean waters warm up too much, stressed polyps expel their colorful and nutritious algae. This is coral bleaching.

When reefs die and spawning season comes, it’s harder and harder for the eggs and sperm to find each other.

So, researchers at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco have replicated the delicate spawning conditions in a lab.

Lights mimic moon cycles, and heaters simulate the change of seasons. Their goal is to discover the best ways to grow corals, so more scientists can help restore them to the oceans.

An underwater blizzard is a thing of beauty, even more so when you consider how this snowstorm can replenish a delicate and threatened ecosystem.

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Sharpshooters survive by guzzling a lot of plant sap. But drinking all of that liquid nutrition presents a problem for these tiny insects: how do you move it all out? They’ve perfected a super-propulsive urination technique using a special catapult in their butt.

TRANSCRIPT

Not a cloud in the sky. So how is it raining under this grapevine?

That’s not rain … that’s pee!

It comes from this insect, a sharpshooter.

And flinging pee rapid-fire like this is crucial to its survival.

The sharpshooter gets all its nutrition from the thin, watery liquid inside a plant, called xylem sap, which it sucks out with this tube-shaped stylet.

Both the brilliant blue adults and their translucent nymphs feed on the sap in grapevines and other plants.

The sap has so little nutrition that sharpshooters need to guzzle nonstop.

They consume more than 300 times their body weight a day.

That’d be like you downing over 80 bathtubs of cucumber water.

Yummmmmm.

The sharpshooter uses massive muscles in its head to suck out the liquid.

Taking all that liquid in presents a problem – how to move it out.

When you’re this small, gravity won’t just roll this effluent away.

Instead, surface tension makes the drops stick to the sharpshooter.

Gah!

And if it can’t remove those drops, the sharpshooter could get sick … or rot.

So, best to send that pee flying away as fast as possible.

And the sharpshooter has evolved the perfect tool for the job: an anal stylus – or butt flicker, if you will.

As the pee flows out of the sharpshooter, it accumulates. When enough of it collects, kapow! The flicker catapults the drop away with tremendous power.

They even do it while doing it.

Here’s something incredible: Each drop of pee actually travels faster than the speed at which the butt flicker launched it.

It’s called superpropulsion.

Scientists at Georgia Tech filmed sharpshooters peeing in slo-mo.

The researchers noticed that after the sharpshooter forms a pee droplet, it gets compressed.

Like what happens to a water balloon that hits the ground and flattens.

A force builds in that compression, which then springs the balloon back into shape and away from the surface.

The same goes for the drop of pee!

It picks up speed as it returns to its orb shape.

So, why would researchers want to study insect urination?

Learning how sharpshooters eject liquid could help our own tiny devices do the same and be more reliable. Things like hearing aids or phones.

Everyone has something they’re good at, right?

The sharpshooter, it’s a whiz at whizzing.

Hey Deep Look! It’s Laura. Check out our recent weevil episode, these furry insects with stupendous snoots.

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Tiny marine flatworms called acoels hunt for prey in coral reefs. They’re referred to as “plant-animals” because they’ve got a partnership with photosynthetic algae that live inside of them. But this acoel’s real superpower is its ability to regenerate any part of their body!

TRANSCRIPT

Those aren’t cornflakes.

This rock is absolutely covered with tiny marine flatworms, called acoels.

They’re not just an animal.

They’re also kind of a plant.

And they’re practically immortal.

They use simple eyes called ocelli to seek out the sunniest spots on tropical coral reefs.

Where they spread themselves out like beach blankets.

But they don’t just lay around sunbathing all day.

Acoels are also skilled hunters.

They catch prey by engulfing them with their body and jamming them into their mouth.

You can see their meal trying in vain to escape.

Also, they don’t have a butt.

Their poop just goes right back out through their mouth.

So you wouldn’t want to kiss one.

They aren’t just hunters.

These acoels are gardeners, too.

See those green dots?

Those are algae.

And those reddish cells belong to the acoel itself.

When the sun hits our flatworm friend, the algae inside produce sugars through photosynthesis.

Researchers think they share those sugars with their host.

In return, the acoel provides its, um, waste, which is kind of like fertilizer for the algae.

And the acoel protects its house guests.

Researchers think the acoels pack toxic chemicals in those reddish cells.

So predators tend to leave them alone.

Without its algae, the acoel would eventually die, even if it had plenty of prey to eat.

Scientists call a creature like this a holobiont, a single being made up of two or more completely different species.

In this case, a solar-powered predator.

But that’s not even the weirdest thing about them.

Researchers at Stanford University and the University of San Francisco are studying acoels, because of how they regenerate.

And to do that …

It’ll be OK, I promise.

You’d think getting cut in half would be a bad thing, but within minutes, the wounded front half seals up.

In a couple days, it’ll have a whole new tail.

And the back side?

It doesn’t just make a new head.

It makes two!

But it’s hard to share one body with two heads.

So each half eventually pulls away from the other.

Where there was once one acoel, now there are three!

What seemed like a moment of doom was actually one of rebirth.

But they don’t need the researcher’s scalpel; acoels can drop their tail and clone themselves on their own.

The acoel and their algae can multiply themselves like this over and over indefinitely, making them functionally immortal.

Acoels can do this because they’re packed with stem cells which morph into any body part the acoel needs to regrow.

And since they can’t hunt until they grow new heads, they’re extra reliant on the energy they get from their algae.

In these desperate times, the acoels even eat some of their algae.

Sorry!

Every relationship has its challenges.

But the acoel and its algae have a deal:

By taking advantage of each one’s abilities, they’re greater than the sum of their parts.

Hi. It’s Laura.

Guess who else could be considered a holobiont?

You!

You’ve got a whole zoo of bacteria and other living things inside your gut that are vital to a healthy immune system, digestion and even mood!

And, if you want to keep Deep Look healthy, support our show on Patreon.

For a very limited time, if you become a $10 a month Patreon supporter, you’ll get a fabulous Deep Look pint glass.

And at $5 a month, a special Deep Look sticker.

We can’t make these videos without you.

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See you there!

Look at the underside of a fern leaf. Those rows of orange clusters aren’t tiny insects; they’re spores waiting to be catapulted away. Once a spore lands, it grows into a tiny plant, from which fern sperm swim away, searching for an egg to fertilize. Think of that next time you’re hiking in the forest.

TRANSCRIPT

The undersides of ferns have many looks.

But all these intricate structures do the same thing. They hold – and then launch – the fern’s spores.

Spores are the main way ferns make more ferns, but they’re not the eggs or sperm. Those come later.

Since before the dinosaurs roamed … and plants grew sex organs called flowers … ferns have been “doing it” through flying spores and swimming sperm.

When the spores mature, a fern leaf comes alive.

Look how things are moving under there.

Each of these clusters is called a sorus. And every worm-like thingy is a sporangium full of spores.

The sporangium has an outer ring filled with water. When it’s warm outside, that water starts to evaporate. The ring shrinks, making the sporangium crack open. The ring bends farther and farther back. The sporangium jerks forward … and catapults the spores out.

A single fern launches millions of spores.

Each one grows into a gametophyte. But these pea-sized plants aren’t baby ferns. Where their fern parent was asexual, the gametophytes make eggs and sperm in specialized organs.

Yep, fern sperm. It’s a thing. Look at these little curlicues.

When the rains come, sperm swim away from the gametophyte that made them – a tiny puddle will do. They follow a trail of pheromones to find eggs stored in nearby gametophytes.

When sperm meets egg, ta-da! A fern sprouts right out of its gametophyte mother, which it feeds on. Now, this is a baby fern. Finally. Awww.

Ferns don’t need to wait around for some insect to help them with pollination.

They can go it alone, as long as there’s water.

So, next time you go on a walk through a damp forest, think of the ferns getting busy all around you.

Happy Earth Month, everybody! Ferns aren’t the only ones that go it alone. Jellyfish can go through a “stack-of-pancakes” phase to clone themselves. You gotta see it to believe it.

All this month PBS is dropping new videos celebrating our amazing planet, like this episode of “Reactions,” which takes a deep look at geoengineering one of the deepest places on Earth: the ocean. Links to that video and the full Earth Month playlist in the description.

The cochineal is a tiny insect deeply rooted in the history of Oaxaca, Mexico. Female cochineals spend most of their lives with their heads buried in juicy cactus pads, eating and growing. After cochineals die, their legacy lives on in the brilliant red hue produced by their hemolymph. Dyes made from cochineal have been used in textiles, paintings, and even in your food!

TRANSCRIPT

You’ve seen this brilliant red before. In textiles, world-renowned paintings, even in the red coats once worn by the British army. In fact, you’ve probably even tasted this color. And it all comes from an insect deeply rooted in the history of Oaxaca, Mexico: cochineal.

Instead of blood, most insects and arachnids have hemolymph, which is clear. But the cochineal’s hemolymph is a rich crimson.

Despite the vibrant color they produce, their life isn’t exactly adventurous. They begin as a pinhead-sized nymph, also called a crawler, for obvious reasons.

It wanders around juicy cactus pads looking for a place to dig in. The nymph starts bright red, but within hours of hatching, it’s coated in fluffy white wax.

Filaments of wax ooze out of these pores and grow longer than the nymph’s own body. This coating prevents the insects from drying out in the hot sun.

When a female finds the perfect place to dine, she uses her mouth to hook in and hold on. She’ll stay here for the rest of her life, eating, ballooning in size and making even more wax.

Males, when they’re a few weeks old, encase themselves in cocoons. When they emerge, butt first, they’ve grown wings.

These can help them glide to other nearby cactus pads in search of a mate. But usually a female is just steps away. They get busy.

A few weeks after mating, female cochineals lay their eggs. Within minutes, bright red nymphs hatch, often before the eggs have even dropped!

So what’s responsible for the cochineal’s deep, dark red? Carminic acid, a bitter substance that deters nearly all predators. But not this hungry beetle larva. It gulps down so many cochineals it turns red itself.

No hiding what you had for lunch!

Carminic acid is most concentrated in female cochineals, which live three to four months. To harvest female cochineals, people gently brush them off cacti and dry them in the sun. Indigenous people in Mexico cultivated cochineal long before Spain made it a global commodity. In the 1700s, the insect was as valuable as silver. Not only was its pigment beautiful, it was also fade-resistant.

In Teotitlán del Valle, a Zapotec town outside Oaxaca city, weaver Marina González grinds dried cochineal on a metate. She dissolves the powder into large tubs of boiling water to dye wool. Next, her son Juan Carlos removes the wool, cleans it and dries it. Juan Carlos’ brother Alejandro uses a loom to transform the colored wool into stunning designs. It takes about 5,000 dried cochineals to dye this medium-sized tapestry.

Cochineal shows up in other places too, like your food. Manufacturers often use it as an alternative to artificial dyes. But it may cause allergies, and it is definitely not vegetarian.

The cochineal’s lasting, vibrant color may be the closest the natural world has come to making a perfect red. This insect may only live a few months. But its legacy will live on for generations.

Hey, it’s Laura! In food, cochineal is labeled “carmine,” “cochineal extract,” “E120” or “natural red 4.”
And speaking of red, let’s talk ladybugs! They fly huge distances to gather by the thousands – in a big ole cuddle puddle. Enjoy!

Dozens of malnourished and injured brown pelicans are turning up along the Northern California coastline.

Russ Curtis, a spokesperson for the nonprofit organization International Bird Rescue, said the organization has also recovered sick pelicans in Southern California. Since April 20, the organization has cared for more than 235 pelicans at its wildlife rescue centers in Fairfield in the Bay Area and San Pedro in Los Angeles.

“They’re in really poor physical shape. They’re starving, and they haven’t gotten enough nutrition,” Curtis said in an interview with KQED. Some of the injuries are from fishing lines and hooks.

“When there’s not the fishing stock that they can find, they take chances around fishing piers and fishing boats and places where there are people with fishing tackle,” he continued.

Sick birds have been spotted off Alameda Point in the Bay Area, which is a roosting ground for brown pelicans. But many were found where people usually don’t find these stocky, large seabirds. On city streets and parking lots, for example. One bird in Santa Cruz attempted to walk into a bar, Curtis said. The majority of pelicans at the Fairfield center came from the Monterey and Santa Cruz areas.

It’s not clear why the birds are having trouble finding food.

“It’s still a mystery,” Curtis said. “We haven’t had any conclusive proof of what’s really going out in the wild right now.”

The Los Angeles Times reported there was a similar spike in malnourished brown pelicans along California’s coast in 2022, with no clear cause. International Bird Rescue reported other spikes in starving brown pelicans in 2010 and 2012.

During these prior incidents, International Bird Rescue cared for pelicans for weeks.

“We’re not going to release them back out to an area where there is not proper fish stock for them to feed on,” Curtis said. “They would just rebound and probably come back into care at some point.”

While they wait for more information, Curtis said wildlife rescue centers like theirs — which rely on public donations — are feeling a financial squeeze.

“At this point, we’re going through about 500 pounds of fish a day just at this center, and that’s about $1,000 a day,” he said.

Curtis said the public can help by keeping an eye out for unwell brown pelicans.

“As you enjoy the warm weather and you’re at the beach or along the coast, if you see a pelican that’s out of place or might have a fishing line injury, if you see something, say something,” Curtis said. “Let your local animal control know that there’s a bird in distress, and let’s get it into care as soon as we can.”

If you see an injured or unwell pelican, you can reach International Bird Rescue’s Bird HelpLine at 866-SOS-BIRD or get help by calling your local animal control.

The honeybee that sweetened your tea isn’t the only kind of bee that makes the sweet stuff. More than 600 bee species across Mexico, Central and South America and tropical regions worldwide do too. But they don’t have stingers to defend their precious product. So, how do they keep thieves away? And what does their honey taste like?

TRANSCRIPT

At the break of dawn, in Oaxaca, Mexico, bees are tearing down the barrier they built last night to cover their nest entrance.

Another successful night protecting their honey and babies from thieving ants.

They make this lattice out of a blend of wax and a potent ant repellent. More on that later.

They’re not eating the waxy material – they’re stashing it to reuse tonight.

Just like the honeybees that sweeten your tea, these honeymakers live in a colony.

But they’re smaller and don’t have stingers to protect the sweet stuff.

That’s why they’re known as stingless bees.

There are more than 600 species of them in the tropics around the world, mostly in the Americas. And they’ve been around twice as long as honeybees.

No bee stingers? No bee suits needed!

Emilio Pérez is a stingless beekeeper in the highlands of Oaxaca, land inhabited by the Chinantec people.

This is Melipona beecheii, one of the four bee species he keeps. He only raises native bees. Scientists say moving species around can spread diseases that harm them.

So, how do these teensy bees without stingers protect their honey?

By annoying you. Some tangle in your hair … or eyebrow … and give you a bite.

It only feels like a pinprick. But they could summon a whole swarm of their sisters by releasing pheromones.

In any case, for these bees, the best offense is a good defense.

Guard bees stand watch at the nest entrance. Melipona beecheii has just one imposing guard, stationed on this ledge shaped like a flower.

Other species employ as many as 15 guards. They cover the perimeter of trumpet-shaped entrances.

If an outsider tries to come in – like this bee from another colony – the guards sniff it out and kill it.

These peculiar structures also make great runways, as bees go off to work in the flowers.

They’re not picky. They collect nectar and pollen from dozens of plants, which they pollinate in the process.

Stingless bees also collect resin.

It’s the sticky stuff that plants like this cedar make to keep out burrowing insects.

See how she stows the drops on her back legs?

Different plants have different hues of resin: yellow, white, red.

They mix the resin with wax to make a pliable building material called cerumen. Your average honeybee just uses wax.

Stingless bees shape cerumen into little capsules for their offspring, and stack them like a tiered cake.

They also use the material to make their honey pots … these orbs. Yum!

It’s a freewheeling architectural style, compared to honeybees’ hexagonal cells.

Now, remember this protective barrier? It’s made of cerumen. The resin mixed in with the wax is what keeps the ants away. They hate the resin’s smell and stickiness.

Once a year, Emilio and his daughter Salustia collect honey from their nests.

Stingless bee colonies are smaller and usually make less honey than honeybees.

Each of their Melipona beecheii colonies makes about 9 pounds a year, just one seventh of what a honeybee hive produces.

Salustia: We’re having a honey tasting.

The Deep Look team got to sample it.

Gabriela: A strong fermented flavor.

Josh: It tastes like SweeTarts.

Stingless bee honey is sold as a health product to treat things like sore throats.

All honeys contain hydrogen peroxide, which is antimicrobial.

Stingless bees visit a variety of plants, many in the rainforest. So, scientists are studying their honey and resins for chemicals that might have medicinal properties.

As the sun goes down, bees head in for the night and cover their nest entrance once again.

No effort is too great to protect the riches everyone is after.

Hi, I’m Deep Look producer Gabriela Quirós. Thank you to our Patreon supporters, who funded our trip to Mexico to film this episode and our video about cochineal, the brilliant red insects you might be eating. Go watch, and join our Patreon today. Links in the description.

Six-rayed sea stars make great moms! Unlike most sea stars, mama six-rayed sea stars are VERY involved in their kids’ lives, caressing and protecting their babies for months. When they’re big enough, the youngsters venture out on their own to ruthlessly hunt down their tiny prey.

TRANSCRIPT

This little starfish has a secret.

She’s hiding something precious beneath her …

Her babies.

These chubby globes are her embryos, and these are her larvae that have already hatched.

Right now, they look nothing like her, but over the next couple of months, they’ll take after her in more ways than one.

She’s called a six-rayed sea star.

That’s one arm more than most sea stars.

And she’s way smaller, about the size of a bottle cap.

She lives in Northern California’s intertidal zone — where the land and sea collide.

The crashing waves and hungry predators make it a rough neighborhood to raise kids in.

So she protects them under that baby bump.

Scientists call this brooding, which is an unusual behavior for this type of sea creature.

Most sea stars and their cousins, like sand dollars … and sea urchins … take a sort of free-range approach to raising their kids.

They’re broadcast spawners.

Adults release enormous numbers of eggs … and sperm … right into the water.

They meet and develop into young.

They grow up all on their own.

Only the luckiest make it to adulthood.

Six-rayed sea star moms take the opposite approach.

They have fewer babies and are extremely involved in their kids’ lives.

She carefully cleans and caresses her growing brood with her delicate feet.

Tending to these cuties means their mom doesn’t eat for three whole months.

Because she cares so much … and because the babies are literally right in front of her mouth.

The growing kids hold onto her and their siblings with these three stubby, temporary limbs, called brachiolar arms.

As the larvae develop they don’t eat either.

They don’t even have a mouth!

Instead, they survive off of stored energy already inside them.

After about a month, six brand new arms start to pop out.

And, they grow their very first tube feet.

Awww.

They reabsorb those brachiolar arms.

And finally begin to resemble mini-versions of their mom.

When they’re big enough, the precious snowflakes venture out on their own.

You can’t stay with mom forever.

With their long, gangly tube feet, the baby sea stars are like puppies that haven’t grown into their oversized paws yet.

It’s time to track down their first meal.

Adult sea stars eat shellfish like barnacles and snails.

Baby sea stars go after the baby versions.

It’s a baby-eat-baby world out here!

The tiny sea star wraps its arms around its prey …

… and extends its stomach into the snail’s shell, digesting it alive.

Some may say they’re coddled, but all that extra attention during those crucial early months gives these little six-rayed sea stars a better chance of making it big.

Hey!

Deep Look could use some coddling too.

Join us on Patreon so we can keep making tiny ocean stories for you.

Like how sea urchins have a tumultuous youth.

Or how sand dollars munch on metal to keep from getting swept away.

Enjoy!

Within the sprawling metropolis of Los Angeles, not far from West Hollywood and Beverly Hills, paleontologists are hard at work sorting through one of the richest collections of ice age fossils in the world.

Today, the La Brea Tar Pits, a public park and museum, lie between shopping centers and apartment buildings. But the sticky, black asphalt that fills the pits was oozing up from the ground long before people turned this land into a bustling city.

Across millenia, the tar pits captured over ten thousand mammals, creating a remarkably detailed record of the area’s natural history. But not every creature present in the asphalt is stuck in the past.

Any tourist who goes to watch scientists dig up the bones of saber-toothed cats and dire wolves should also keep an eye out for the plucky survivor whose ancestors likely watched those big mammals die: the petroleum fly.

There’s still a lot of mystery surrounding the petroleum fly, but one thing is clear: It has figured out how to make the most of a bad situation. Pools of asphalt are hell for most animals, but petroleum flies have turned them into a bountiful habitat.

“That’s their personal paradise,” says entomologist Martin Hauser, with the California Department of Food and Agriculture. “They have no competition in there because no one else can deal with it.”

Adult petroleum flies are fairly unassuming. They’re small and flecked like fruit flies. Though scientists don’t know exactly how, they are able to skate – and mate – on the asphalt pools. Their feet don’t get stuck, but if any other body part touches the sticky liquid, they’re out of luck.

The translucent maggots, on the other hand, are truly in their element – they can fully submerge in the dark, viscous liquid.

“This is something that kills everything else,” says Kenneth Nickerson, a microbiologist at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, who has studied petroleum flies.

Pools of natural asphalt form when petroleum from subterranean reservoirs seeps out of the ground. Most of the small molecules that make petroleum toxic to us quickly evaporate, but the asphalt that’s left behind is incredibly sticky.

Few animals that wade into a pool of asphalt manage to extricate themselves from it. In fact, the thick liquid keeps holding on even after an animal has succumbed to exhaustion or exposure, and its body has wasted away to bones. That’s why asphalt deposits around the world are particularly interesting to paleontologists.

“It just so happens that this extremophile organism lives in the medium that I dig fossils out of,” says Sean Campbell, a paleontologist with the Natural History Museums of Los Angeles County, which include the La Brea Tar Pits.

Scientists have also found petroleum flies in oil fields in Santa Paula and Ojai, south of Santa Barbara, as well as in seeps in Cuba and Trinidad, in the Caribbean.

By studying the flies in the La Brea Tar Pits, researchers are beginning to understand how their maggots are able to survive in this environment.

“They have multiple tricks,” says Hauser.

When Hauser examined petroleum fly maggots under a microscope, he noticed they’re a little more prickly than other fly larvae. He believes their rough skin keeps the asphalt away from their bodies.

Surprisingly, the maggots actually need a bit of asphalt on their backside to survive.

“They would dry out if they can’t get in contact with oil,” says Hauser.

As it turns out, the asphalt is also an essential moisturizer. While most insects are covered in a waxy layer that keeps moisture in, petroleum flies seem to lack this protection – likely because wax dissolves in asphalt.

As they swim in the asphalt, maggots breathe through snorkel-like tubes on their rear ends, ringed with hairs that keep them afloat.

“When the snorkel breaks the surface, the hairs just fold out,” says Hauser. “It’s a little bit like an umbrella.”

Maggots feed on insects that have been caught in the asphalt. Dragonflies and other insects that spend their lives near ponds often mistake shiny pools of asphalt for water. When they try to skim the surface or land on it, the sticky substance pulls them down, into the maggots’ domain. Without snorkels like the ones petroleum fly larvae breathe through, those other insects quickly drown.

Petroleum fly larvae aren’t picky: They’ll turn any dying insect into a meal. When the maggots sense an insect sinking into their home, they wriggle over to it. Then, they scrape at its hard exoskeleton with their two black mouth hooks, probing for an exposed bit of soft tissue. When they find one, they make a hole and crawl inside the dying insect’s body.

As they eat, petroleum fly maggots incidentally consume some asphalt. You can see it darkening their digestive tract through their translucent skin. It looks like their guts are filled with the black substance.

“That’s one of the big mysteries,” says Hauser. “How they can deal with this.”

Humans can handle eating a little bit of asphalt – medieval Persian doctors used to prescribe it for stomach ulcers. But the stuff would overwhelm our systems if we ate as much as a petroleum fly maggot. And even a little bit would expose us to carcinogens that short-lived insects don’t have to worry about.

Petroleum fly larvae eat asphalt regularly enough that scientists once thought they derived nourishment from it. Now, they know that’s not the case.

But it’s apparent that something happens to the asphalt as it passes through a maggot’s digestive tract. Between the mouth and the anus, the dark, viscous substance thins out and clears up. Whatever is responsible for that process could point to a better method for cleaning up oil spills.

That possibility piqued the interest of University of Nebraska-Lincoln microbiologist Nickerson. He had a hunch that bacteria inside the maggots might be breaking the asphalt down. So, he asked a paleontologist to collect some petroleum fly larvae from the La Brea Tar Pits and ship them to his lab in Lincoln.

First, Nickerson’s team identified the types of bacteria growing inside the maggots’ guts. Then, they tried growing the microorganisms in Petri dishes.

“Our goal at the time was to find microbes that would be good at degrading some of these complex hydrocarbons that you would find in the tar,” says Nickerson.

None of the bacteria that grew on Petri dishes proved capable of that feat. But Nickerson’s team found plenty of microbes that they couldn’t grow at the time, and he hopes more scientists will investigate them in the future.

Until then, the petroleum fly larva will continue to live in the present, swimming contentedly in its asphalt paradise.

Insects called burying beetles haul mouse carcasses down into the dirt and prep them to feed their future offspring. Also known as carrion beetles, they have some stiff competition … and some help from tiny traveling mites.

TRANSCRIPT

Why is this dead mouse moving?!

Well, death is a magnet for life. And there’s something down there. It’s a yellow-bellied burying beetle, hustling to hide this mouse, before, say, a raccoon gets it.

It also has to work faster than these ants, which are here for bits of mouse to feed their larvae.

And there’s this fly, too, looking for a place to lay her eggs. More on that later.

The beetle, also known as a carrion beetle, doesn’t do the killing. It just profits off creatures whose time has run out, here on the California coast.

Just as small carcasses begin to get fragrant, the beetle sniffs them out with its sensitive clubbed antennae.

Over the next few hours, it digs up dirt from below the mouse. It pushes and pulls.

Yes, that is just one beetle doing the hauling, moving that carcass safely underground.

This carcass is about to become a nursery and a buffet.

Now it’s time to get something else done. The beetle hooks up with a partner. Underground, they roll the carcass into a ball. This reduces the amount of flesh exposed to bacteria … and decay. That’s one way to bond on a date!

The mouse takes on the color of dirt. The beetles dab the ball with microbes, from their butts, that work like a preservative, slowing down the rotting. The meal has to keep so they can feed their offspring. See that?

A few days later, larvae hatch from the eggs mom laid right next to the carcass. They’re hungry and mom feeds them bits of prechewed mouse into their mouths. When they’re big enough, the larvae crawl right into that “pantry” and help themselves. It’s a party in here!

Meanwhile, some other creatures are also flourishing on this mouse carcass: mites that rode in on the beetles. They’re called “phoretic,” which means they’re piggybackers. They reproduce like mad and look like a huge nuisance to their carriers.

“What? Do I have something on my face?”

But the mites actually help the beetles.

Remember the fly that laid her eggs on the carcass? Well, the mites devour fly eggs, which would otherwise grow into maggots hungry for this delicacy.

The mites also eat a few beetle eggs from time to time. It’s the price the beetles pay so their larvae have the mouse to themselves.

But if a beetle family is large, a carcass sometimes isn’t enough to feed all the hungry mouths. So, mom gets rid of a few of her larvae … by eating them.

She eats some so that others can thrive … continuing that strange dance between life and death.

Hi, it’s Laura. If you love learning about animals and nature, subscribe to our free Deep Look weekly newsletter, called “Nature Unseen.” Link in the description. You know what other animals perform great feats to survive? Red fire ants. During hurricane season, when floodwater flows into their nest, they build a raft with their own bodies. And they use their larvae as giant floaties. Stay dry!

Sightings of sperm whales are rare in Monterey Bay. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t nearby, deep under the surface of the ocean.

Scientists at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute analyzed a trove of acoustic data recorded with a deep-sea hydrophone there and discovered that these endangered species are more common than they previously thought.

“To see a sperm whale or its unique sideways spout, we must be nearby on a boat. But underwater, we can hear the unique sound of a sperm whale’s echolocation from a hundred miles away,” explained John Ryan, a biological oceanographer who led MBARI’s ocean soundscape team and coauthored the recent study.

Sperm whales are the loudest animals on the planet. That might be a little surprising if you are just listening to the recordings, clicks that sound like a combination of Morse code and popping popcorn.

What do those sounds tell us about their behavior and ecosystems?

Ryan’s group analyzed millions of whale sounds recorded over seven years in the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary, working along with collaborators from the Naval Postgraduate School and the University of Washington’s Center for Ecosystem Sentinels.

The interval between echolocation clicks sperm whales produce can indicate the age and sex of individual whales. These sounds can also reveal whether the whales are actively hunting or have successfully captured their meal.

Researchers also learned that these animals are more present in Monterey Bay in the winter, providing strong evidence that sperm whales migrate seasonally in the Northeast Pacific Ocean.
Scientists used to think the opposite, based on research from further north in the Gulf of Alaska that found a summer peak in whale vocalizations.

These patterns suggest seasonal migrations previously unrecognized in sperm whales that likely align with the shifts of the North Pacific Transition Zone — a biologically rich region where cooler and warmer ocean waters meet.

“What we’re hearing actually is a really unique seasonal migration in this top predator of the deep sea,” said William Oestreich, MBARI Postdoctoral Fellow, who led the research.

These findings reinforce the idea that deep-sea environments experience seasonal changes, with top predators like sperm whales playing a critical role in maintaining the health of oceanic ecosystems.

Sperm whales are the largest-toothed predators with the biggest brains in the animal kingdom. They can grow up to 52 feet in length and weigh up to 45 tons. They remain largely enigmatic despite their size. “These animals are just very cryptic. They are very deep-diving animals,” Oestreich said.

They dive hundreds or even thousands of meters below the ocean’s surface to hunt for squid and fish, using echolocation to find prey in the darkness of the deep sea. Their distinctive clicks provide scientists with valuable information about their behaviors.

“Animal sounds contain such rich information about who these animals are and what they’re doing. It’s just up to us as researchers to decipher that meaning,” Oestreich said.

Through acoustic data analysis, MBARI researchers aim to support conservation efforts for sperm whales and other endangered species. This research provides crucial insights for decision-makers working to protect these vital marine environments and their inhabitants.

“There’s a lot of value here in just understanding the lives of these animals a little bit deeper for the pure fascination and appreciation of it, but also hopefully so we can better protect the ecosystem that they’re dependent on,” Oestreich said.

Chances are you’ve got one of these bloodsuckers lurking nearby. Mosquitoes, ticks, lice, kissing bugs and tsetse flies are all looking to grab a bite … of you. See exactly how they do it and what you can do to stop them.

TRANSCRIPT

Watch out … you might not always see these five tiny creatures coming for you, but chances are you’ve got one lurking nearby ready to suck your blood.

We show you how they do it and how you can get rid of them. Enjoy!

How Mosquitoes Use Six Needles to Suck Your Blood

This is the deadliest animal in the world.

Mosquitoes kill hundreds of thousands of people each year … the most vulnerable people: children, pregnant women.

No other bite kills more humans … or makes more of us sick.

So what makes a mosquito’s bite so effective?

For starters, they’re motivated. Only females bite us. They need blood to make eggs … and a pool of water for their babies to hatch in.

Even a piece of trash can hold enough.

At first glance, it looks simple — this mosquito digging her proboscis into us.

But the tools she’s using here are sophisticated.

First, a protective sheath retracts – see it bending back?

If you look at a mosquito’s head under a microscope, you can see what that sheath protects.

And inside there are six needles!

Two of them have tiny teeth. She uses those to saw through the skin. They’re so sharp you can barely feel her pushing.

These other two needles hold the tissues apart while she works.

From under the skin, you can see her probing, looking for a blood vessel.

Receptors on the tip of one of her other needles pick up on chemicals that our blood vessels exude naturally and guide her to it.

Then she uses this same needle like a straw.

As her gut fills up, she separates water from the blood and squeezes it out. See that drop?

That frees up space to stuff herself with more nutritious red blood cells.

With another needle, she spits chemicals into us. They get our blood flowing more easily and give us itchy welts afterwards.

And sometimes, before she pries herself away, she leaves a parting gift in her saliva: a virus or a parasite that can sicken or kill us.

There’s nothing in it for her. The viruses and parasites are just hitching a ride.

But this is what makes mortal enemies out of us and mosquitoes.

They take our blood. Sometimes we take theirs. But often, not soon enough.

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On to our next miniature vampire. Let’s see how ticks dig into you with a mouth full of hooks, and the best way to pry them loose.

How Ticks Dig In With a Mouth Full of Hooks

The hills are alive … with silent, waiting ticks.

Their bites can transmit bacteria that cause Lyme disease, and other things that can make us very sick.

Protected by these palps is a menacing mouth covered in hooks.

First she has to find a host.

She can sense animals like us by the carbon dioxide we give off.

She reaches out with her front legs. Scientists call this questing. It will use that claw to latch onto something … like your sleeve. Now you see her, now you don’t.

Once aboard, she searches out a nice spot to bite into … for blood.

She lives three years, but in that time she only eats three meals.

A tick needs enough blood to grow from larva to nymph, nymph to adult, and then for females to lay their eggs. Gross.

Let’s check out a nymph, a young tick. It’s tiny, smaller than a freckle.

To grow into an adult, it needs one blood meal, a big one.

The front of its body is all mouth.

It digs into us using two sets of hooks. The hooks wriggle into the skin.

They pull our flesh out of the way and push in this mouthpart: the hypostome.

Those hooks anchor the tick to us for the long haul, like mini-harpoons.

While the speedy mosquito digs in, sucks our blood and splits, all within seconds, a tick nymph stays on for days. Three days, if we don’t find it before then.

Compounds in their saliva help blood pool under the surface of our skin.

The nymph sips it through its mouthparts, like drinking from a straw.

When a tick is full – and I mean completely full – it falls off wherever it may be. Maybe onto your bed.

That’s if you don’t nab it first.

You might have heard that you should twist or burn the tick. Not true. Grab the tick close to your skin and just pull straight out. That’s how you win the fight against those tenacious hooks.

If that didn’t make your skin crawl, this will definitely make your scalp itch. It’s time to find out how lice turn your hair into their personal jungle gym.

How Lice Turn Your Hair Into Their Jungle Gym

It can start as an itch. Maybe a tickle on your scalp.

It’s head lice. Tiny and tenacious.

Thanks to millions of years of evolution, these suckers are not easy to get rid of.

You might end up in a salon, but not the kind for haircuts.

Young lice are so small they’re almost impossible to see with the naked eye.

Our scalp is their buffet.

They feed on our blood. You can see it inside this adult louse. It’s that brownish stuff that’s moving.

The secret to their success?

Their claws – called tarsal claws – and this little part, called a spine. A pair on each of its six legs. They’ve evolved to fit perfectly around a human hair.

They make lice into speedy little acrobats, using our hair like a tightrope.

They can’t jump or fly, but they get around.

Say two kids – one blond, one brunette – touch heads. The louse just scoots right over.

It’s been one long game of hopscotch, from human head to human head.

And it has to be us. Our head lice can’t live on other animals.

In fact, other primates have their own species of lice, adapted to their unique hair.

Birds have lice that hide in their feathers. Ooh. Cozy.

And we all want them gone.

Common insecticides won’t kill our head lice anymore. They’ve become resistant to them.

Even their eggs have serious staying power, glued to individual strands of hair.

But lice do have a weakness. They can’t survive away from our moist, warm scalp. Head lice cannot even live on other hairy parts of our body.

So if you – or a professional – painstakingly comb them out, they’ll starve, and die within hours.

OK, it’s not fun. But it’s just a temporary encounter with a tiny hitchhiker that is biologically destined just for you.

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These beauties are kissing bugs, but you wouldn’t want to kiss one – because pretty quickly they swell into a balloon full of your blood.

How a Kissing Bug Becomes a Balloon Full of Your Blood

This kissing bug isn’t going to give you a loving peck when it sticks you with that tucked-away proboscis.

It could actually make you really sick, even kill you.

It makes its move at night, while you’re sleeping. It likes your warm body.

Kissing bugs get their name because they often bite near the lips or eyes, but they’ll dig in anywhere you’ve left uncovered.

A little anesthetic guarantees you won’t wake up while they feed on you for 10,
20, even 30 minutes.

Every kissing bug needs several huge meals during the year or two it lives.

As it gulps, its exoskeleton stretches like a balloon, to fit up to 12 times its weight in blood.

This pliability is called plasticization.

How it started.

How it’s going.

All that hot liquid could stress an insect’s body and stunt its growth.

So the kissing bug cools it down – inside its head.

Your warm blood flows in.

The cool insect blood, called hemolymph, absorbs the heat and releases it through the top of the bug’s long head.

In this infrared video, you can see the blood cool down by more than 10 degrees Fahrenheit before it reaches the bug’s abdomen.

So the bug is safe. You, on the other hand, are not.

It injects saliva as it sucks your blood.

Here’s a scientist squeezing some out. The saliva has proteins that can give people a deadly allergic reaction called anaphylaxis.

And it gets much, much worse. OK. This is super gross.

After eating – sometimes while it’s eating – the bug poops.

And that poop – and urine – might contain the parasite that causes Chagas disease.

If the bug’s victim rubs these feces and urine into the bite wound or their eyes, the parasite can infect them.

Years later, as many as one third of the people who got the parasite develop heart disease that can kill them, sometimes suddenly.

Pregnant women can even pass the parasite onto their babies.

Few contract the parasite in the U.S., even though kissing bugs live here.

But in Latin America, millions of people have become infected.

There, kissing bugs are known by many different names: chinche besucona …
chinche … pito … vinchuca … barbeiro.

In rural areas, these kissing bug species live in people’s homes, in the cracks of the walls. And in animal coops.

Spraying has helped bring down infections.

But hundreds of thousands of people have left their home countries for the U.S., not knowing the bug gave them the parasite. A simple blood test can find it and medications can often kill it.

In the American Southwest, the bugs live in the nests of wild animals, like this pack rat den in Arizona, where biologists Anita and Chuck Kristensen collect them.

Chuck Kristensen (off camera): Kissing bug, kissing bug!

Chuck Kristensen (off camera): Genuine kissing bug.

For the most part, they feed on the pack rats.

But in late spring and summer, the bugs sometimes travel from these nests into someone’s home.

So sealing off your house, with screens on your windows – and even vents –, is one way to keep out these stealthy bloodsuckers.

When they feed on your blood, tsetse flies can spread disease. But their motherly instincts are surprisingly familiar to us.

A Tsetse Fly Births One Enormous Milk-Fed Baby

We mammals like to think we’re pretty special, right? We don’t lay eggs. We feed our babies milk. Well, this very pregnant fly is about to prove us wrong.

Yep, this tsetse fly is in labor. And that emerging bundle of joy is her larva.

While other insects can lay hundreds of eggs, she grows one baby at a time inside her, just like us.

Congratulations!

Scientists think tsetse flies started growing their young like this long ago to guard them from parasites.

For that same reason, the larva doesn’t stick around. It burrows into the dirt for protection.

It’s already gotten all the nutrition it needs from its mom’s milk. That’s right, this fly makes milk.

Here’s a drop of it under the microscope. It’s made up of protein and fat, a lot like breast milk.

The fly doesn’t exactly breastfeed, though.

Inside its mom, the larva got milk through these tubes … which it drank with this pair of straw-like mouthparts on its head.

A female tsetse fly needs a lot of fuel, because over her 10-day pregnancy she produces her own body weight in milk.

And that fuel comes from us. Tsetses feed exclusively on blood … from humans and other animals.

That’s bad news because where the flies live in Africa they spread a debilitating disease called sleeping sickness in humans and nagana in livestock.

Tsetses make cattle so sick that they can’t be raised efficiently in a region of Africa the size of the United States.

Geoff Attardo (off-camera): All right. Coming back to the first trap we set.

People are trying to control them with things like baited traps.

Geoff Attardo (off-camera): It looks like it has a lot of tsetse flies.

Man (off-camera): Tsetse.

Geoff Attardo (off-camera): Holy cow! That’s a lot of flies.

Man (off-camera): Tsetse flies.

They’re effective, but more defenses are needed.

That’s where Geoff Attardo, at the University of California, Davis, hopes to help. He’s trying to stop tsetse flies from making babies in the first place.

A female only mates once in her life, enough to make the 10 or so babies she’ll have.

The male makes sure she doesn’t mate again by delivering a substance that makes her lose interest in sex. Scientists are trying to figure out what it is. If they could bottle it and spray it, female tsetse flies may never get busy at all. No more tsetse offspring to worry about.

After spending about a month below ground in a hard shell, the fly emerges as an adult and unfurls its wings.

Like us, tsetse flies ensure the next generation by investing a lot in a few offspring, instead of investing very little in a lot of them.

They grow up so fast, don’t they?

If you liked this video, please consider supporting us by becoming a Deep Look Patreon member. You’ll get exclusive show updates, behind-the-scenes footage, merch, and more.

And watch more Deep Look videos in this playlist of our most creepy crawly animals or this one all about busy bees. See you there!

To bring all the bees to the yard! These pollinators love warm, bright blooms early in the morning. But how did these plants end up facing east? It turns out they spend their whole life getting in just the right position.

TRANSCRIPT

See how all these sunflowers are facing the same direction?

They’ve been preparing for this moment their entire lives – to be pointing towards the sun just as the bee flies by.

Attracted by the warm, bright blossoms, the bee loads up on pollen and sugary nectar, pollinating the flowers as it goes.

So, how did the sunflowers position themselves so perfectly?

It all started way before the plants even bloomed.

Young sunflower plants start each morning facing east to greet the sunrise.

They follow the sun all day, angling themselves towards it as it travels across the sky.

It’s a behavior called heliotropism, after the Greek word for the sun: helios

More exposure to sunlight means more photosynthesis … and more growth.

When the sun sets, sunflower plants do something curious: They spend all night growing back towards the east, in anticipation of the sun’s return the next morning.

Scientists think the first rays of sun activate a morning crew of genes.

They signal cells on the plant’s east side to swell and elongate faster than those on the west side.

The afternoon genes keep them growing in the same direction.

But then, after sunset, the night shift takes over and signals the cells on the other side to swell, resetting the plant to face east.

Sunflowers follow this rhythm day after day until it becomes a habit.

Researchers at University of California, Berkeley and University of California, Davis took sunflowers grown outside and placed them inside under constant overhead light.

The sunflowers kept up their back-and-forth movement for a few days.

That’s because plants have an internal rhythm called a circadian clock.

We have one too.

Ours tells us when to wake up and when to go to sleep.

Scientists think the sunflowers’ 24-hour clock tells them when and in which direction to grow.

When the plant is ready to bloom, it gives up all that back and forth and fixes itself in place facing east … for the rest of its days.

Why east?

Because bees are out working first thing in the morning. And they like warm, bright flowers lit up by the sun.

So, the flowers need to be in place before the bees arrive.

Researchers found that if they rotated sunflowers to face west they got way fewer visitors.

The bees are after the bright pollen on these tiny things called anthers.

Each sunflower blossom, called an inflorescence, is actually a collection of hundreds or thousands of individual flowers … called florets.

Just before dawn, the plant’s internal clock signals florets at the outside edge to bloom.

They push pollen from deep inside, out to the tips.

Later in the day, another part called the style extends up and out of the floret.

Its end splits open, ready to receive pollen from other plants.

This is why the bees are so essential.

As they fly from flower to flower, they move pollen into those curled-back styles.

Each pollinated floret grows into a seed.

When all the florets have blossomed, the sunflower hangs its head and dries out.

Those seeds aren’t just a snack. They’re an important source of cooking oil grown in huge quantities.

And growers are always breeding new varieties to maximize their yield. But sometimes they accidentally mess with the sunflower’s biological clock, and throw it out of sync with the sunrise.

By learning what makes sunflowers tick, researchers want to ensure new varieties show up right on time.

Before you go we want to tell you about “Weathered: Earth’s Extremes.” If you’re familiar with the YouTube series on PBS Terra, you’ll be excited to know that it’s expanding into a TV miniseries which tells the definitive story about our changing weather and climate. Link in the description

You know honeybees make honey, but did you know they make bread too? And four other types of bees are also dedicated chefs! Alfalfa leafcutting bees take a punch from a flower for your ice cream. Blue orchard bees bring you almonds and sweet cherries. Plus, stingless bees protect their tasty honey in creative ways. And bindweed bees’ way of gathering pollen deserves a fashion award.

TRANSCRIPT

There are over 20 thousand species of bees on the planet, and each one is full of surprises.

These bees prove there’s more to bees than just honey and stingers …

Like, did you know that honeybees turn the pollen they collect into a special food called bee bread?

Check it out!

Honeybees Make Honey … and Bread?

OK, time to head to work.

But before this honeybee starts her commute, she’s prepping her tools.

Because honeybees collect pollen. You knew that.

But it’s not as simple as you might think.

Plants want the bees to carry the pollen away and spread it to other flowers. That’s pollination, how plants reproduce.

But bees also need to carry lots of it home – pollen is a protein-packed food for the hive.

Luckily, they have the right gear.

They’re hairy, like tiny flying teddy bears. She’s covered in 3 million hairs for trapping pollen. They’re even on her eyes.

Here on her legs, they’re shaped into spiky brushes and flat combs.

When she lands on a bloom, she really gets in there.

Nibbling on the flower’s anthers detaches the pollen.

Time to pack up her haul.

She cleans it off her eyes and antennae with those brushes on her front legs, like windshield wipers.

Here it is up close.

That leg wipes the pollen right off her eye.

Then she moves the pollen from leg to leg, like a conveyor belt – front to middle to back.

The bee does this super fast, while she flies from bloom to bloom, moving the pollen into special baskets on her back legs called corbiculae.

She bends her leg, using it to squish the pollen into a ball, packing it together with a little saliva and nectar.

She can get as many as 160,000 pollen grains into each ball. She’s hauling as much as one-third of her weight.

Back at the hive, meal prep is about to start.

But the pollen isn’t for making honey.

The honey, under this wax, is made from nectar. They eat it for its sugar.

Bees turn pollen into something completely different: bee bread.

That’s their source of protein.

Step one: Find an open spot.

Step two: Deposit your goods and pack them neatly.

Step three: Let the pollen “marinate” with a hint of honey.

And voilà! It’s ready.

The pantry is stocked – both for adult bees and the babies that are growing in the cells next door.

The adults pop in to drop off a special bee bread snack … a little home cooking for the hive’s future hardworking flyers.

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Next time you enjoy an ice cream cone, thank an alfalfa leafcutting bee.

These bees are so tough, they get punched in the face by flowers.

This Bee Gets Punched by Flowers For Your Ice Cream

OK, this bee seems confused.

That leaf she’s gnawing on is no flower.

But this is an alfalfa leafcutting bee.

She needs hunks of leaves to build her nest.

A lot of them.

All this is her lacy handiwork.

She hauls the pieces back home.

Leafcutters use them to line the inside of their nest.

In nature, she might use a nook and cranny in a log.

But here, her nest is in what’s basically a bee apartment building. A high-rise made of Styrofoam.

These markings help the bee find her way back to her personal condo. You know, like, 7B.

And furnishing it takes a while, because, see that pile? These are the pieces they dropped.

The bees are here to work in this alfalfa field in California.

They’re from Europe originally, but farmers here use them because they have a real knack for pollinating alfalfa flowers, which grow tiny seeds inside these curly pods.

Farmers use the seeds to plant new fields of alfalfa … which is grown to make hay … to feed these gals.

So, really, your glass of milk comes courtesy of these bees.

But pollinating alfalfa flowers is a lot trickier than it looks.

Even honeybees can’t really hack it.

Here’s why.

Alfalfa keeps its pollen locked away inside its flowers.

To get it, the bees have to step on a spring-loaded petal called a keel petal.

Here’s how it works.

Pop! It releases this column that has the pollen at the end.

It’s called “tripping” the flower.

Here it is again.

The column has some force – the bee might get a good thwack in the face.

Leafcutting bees just don’t care; they can take a punch.

Pop.

Pop.

Honeybees don’t really like to tangle with that. They’ll usually step around gingerly, trying to sip nectar from the side without setting it off.

Leafcutting bees get coated in pollen and bring it back home to their nest so they can pack it in there to feed their growing babies.

Each one is bundled in a little leaf-wrapped bassinet.

Aw, there they are. The siblings all lined up together.

A new generation of the toughest little bees around.

Why would these bees be digging into the dirt?

Well, building your nest underground is a great way to protect it from invaders.

Unless, of course, freeloading flies torpedo the nest.

This Fly Torpedoes a Bindweed Bee’s Nest

Life for bindweed turret bees is violent and unfair.

It’s spring in California, and these male bees are in an all-out brawl, desperate to mate with the female trapped at the bottom of this pile.

Sometimes the fight is so intense that the female they’re going after gets crushed to death.

But if she survives … she and the winner steal away and mate.

Until another male wants in. Buzz kill!

Now she starts an epic dig, prepping a place to lay her eggs underground.

She tirelessly scoops earth with her mandibles, dousing it with nectar she collected earlier to soften it.

The majority of the world’s bee species – 70 percent – nest in the ground. These ones chose a dirt parking lot. Some nice folks cordoned it off to protect the bees.

Females work side by side. Each is “queen” of her own funky little castle.

They build turrets, but only some of them are vertical.

Many are tunnel-like, with a sideways entrance.

Others curve down.

You’ll see why that’s important in a bit.

Once the bees are done digging, they head off on another mission. They gather pollen from one plant only: morning glories, also known as bindweeds.

She rubs her shaggy legs all over that pollen.

And down she goes with her haul.

Pollen pants!

Inside her nest, she packs the pollen into neat balls – each one in its own chamber – and lays an egg on top.

When the egg hatches into a larva, it will live off the pollen.

As she toils, freeloaders show up.

They look like a bee, but their huge eyes give them away.

They’re called … wait for it … bee flies.

The fly doesn’t dig or gather pollen for her young. She just hovers over a bee’s nest and … yup, she’s dropping her own eggs in there. She’ll drop 200 eggs over her lifetime.

This is where those tunnels and curved turrets are useful. They make it harder for the flies to drop their eggs in from the air.

But when the fly does succeed, the fly’s egg hatches into a larva that digs tiny hooks into the bee larva.

As the bee eats the pollen and grows, the fly larva sucks it dry.

Sometimes the flies are so successful, they can nearly wipe out a population of bees.

But these bees don’t give up.

Two or three months of mating, foraging and warding off parasites come to an end when they seal up their nests with dirt.

Below ground, babies will grow.

The following spring, if the bees are lucky, a new tiny city will burst to life, full of bees persevering just as their mothers did before them.

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It’s free!

Link in the description.

Bees may be famous for their sting, but these stingless bees defend their delicious honey with barricades, bouncers and bites.

Take a look!

Stingless Bees Guard Tasty Honey With Barricades, Bouncers and Bites

At the break of dawn, in Oaxaca, Mexico, bees are tearing down the barrier they built last night to cover their nest entrance.

Another successful night protecting their honey and babies from thieving ants.

They make this lattice out of a blend of wax and a potent ant repellent.

More on that later.

They’re not eating the waxy material – they’re stashing it to reuse tonight.

Just like the honeybees that sweeten your tea, these honeymakers live in a colony.

But they’re smaller and don’t have stingers to protect the sweet stuff.

That’s why they’re known as stingless bees.

There are more than 600 species of them in the tropics around the world, mostly in the Americas.

And they’ve been around twice as long as honeybees.

No bee stingers? No bee suits needed!

Emilio Pérez is a stingless beekeeper in the highlands of Oaxaca, land inhabited by the Chinantec people.

This is Melipona beecheii, one of the four bee species he keeps.

He only raises native bees.

Scientists say moving species around can spread diseases that harm them.

So, how do these teensy bees without stingers protect their honey?

By annoying you.

Some tangle in your hair … or eyebrow … and give you a bite.

It only feels like a pinprick. But they could summon a whole swarm of their sisters by releasing pheromones.

In any case, for these bees, the best offense is a good defense.

Guard bees stand watch at the nest entrance.

Melipona beecheii has just one imposing guard, stationed on this ledge shaped like a flower.

Other species employ as many as 15 guards.

They cover the perimeter of trumpet-shaped entrances.

If an outsider tries to come in – like this bee from another colony – the guards sniff it out and kill it.

These peculiar structures also make great runways, as bees go off to work in the flowers.

They’re not picky.

They collect nectar and pollen from dozens of plants, which they pollinate in the process.

Stingless bees also collect resin.

It’s the sticky stuff that plants like this cedar make to keep out burrowing insects.

See how she stows the drops on her back legs?

Different plants have different hues of resin: yellow … white … red.

They mix the resin with wax to make a pliable building material called cerumen.

Your average honeybee just uses wax.

Stingless bees shape cerumen into little capsules for their offspring, and stack them like a tiered cake.

They also use the material to make their honey pots … these orbs. Yum!

It’s a freewheeling architectural style, compared to honeybees’ hexagonal cells.

Now, remember this protective barrier?

It’s made of cerumen.

The resin mixed in with the wax is what keeps the ants away. They hate the resin’s smell and stickiness.

Once a year, Emilio and his daughter Salustia collect honey from their nests.

Stingless bee colonies are smaller and usually make less honey than honeybees.

Each of their Melipona beecheii colonies makes about nine pounds a year, just one seventh of what a honeybee hive produces.

Salustia: We’re having a honey tasting.

The Deep Look team got to sample it.

Gabriela: A strong fermented flavor.

Josh: It tastes like SweeTarts. Yeah. Really good.

Stingless bee honey is sold as a health product to treat things like sore throats.

All honeys contain hydrogen peroxide, which is antimicrobial.

Stingless bees visit a variety of plants, many in the rainforest.

So, scientists are studying their honey and resins for chemicals that might have medicinal properties.

As the sun goes down, bees head in for the night and cover their nest entrance once again.

No effort is too great to protect the riches everyone is after.

These bees build nests out of mud that they pack with purple pollen for their young.

And in the process, they help us grow nuts and fruits.

Watch This Bee Build Her Bee-jeweled Nest

What’s this bee up to digging around in the mud?

This blue orchard bee is a mason, a builder. Her material is – you guessed it – mud.

And she works alone.

In fact, unlike those honeybee hives you might think of, most of the 4,000 types of bees in North America are solitary.

See how she scrapes the wet earth? She collects it with two huge pincerlike tools on her face called mandibles.

She’s gathering mud to make her nest.

The nest is long and thin. In nature, she goes into places like hollow twigs.

At the University of California, Davis, she uses a six-inch-long paper straw provided by researchers.

In this nest without a straw you can see how she builds a wall of mud.

Then she gathers food from spring flowers, but not only to feed herself.

See the pretty purple pollen on the anther of this flower?

She grabs the anthers with her legs and rubs the pollen onto hairs on her abdomen called scopa.

And while she’s at it, she sips a little nectar from the blooms.

When she climbs back into her nest, she turns the pollen and nectar into a sweet morsel next to the mud wall.

On this purple ball she lays a single egg.

She repeats this several times in her narrow nest. Egg. Wall. Egg. Wall.

When she’s done, she seals it all up with more mud.

A cross section of the nest shows her incredible craftsmanship: It looks like a piece of jewelry.

Soon, the eggs hatch.

The hungry larvae feed on their pollen provision, the purple lunchbox their mom packed for them.

Still in the safety of the nest, the well-fed larva spins a cocoon.

The following spring, the adult bee chews its way out.

Just like their name says, blue orchard bees love orchards: fields of almonds and sweet cherries.

And they’re really good at pollinating them.

A few hundred females can pollinate as many almonds as thousands of honeybees.

And their tube nest means they’re portable.

That makes it easy to distribute them to farmers.

So why haven’t they taken over the fields?

Well, they reproduce slowly. They only have 15 babies a year.

A queen honeybee has 500 … a day.

So there just aren’t that many blue orchard bees around.

But some farmers are enlisting them anyway, hoping they can provide some relief to their struggling honeybee cousins.

If you look carefully, you might just spot a blue orchard bee foraging out in a field, helping keep fruits and nuts on our plates.

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Or see if you can survive these five bloodsuckers.

Monterey Bay researchers have discovered a remarkable new species of sea slug that lives in the deep sea. The glowing nudibranch swims through the ocean’s midnight zone with a large gelatinous hood and paddle-like tail and lights up with brilliant bioluminescence.

This transparent sea slug has a bright red stomach that looks like a raspberry. It captures tiny, fast-swimming shrimp and other prey with a cavernous hood. When threatened, it can emit bioluminescence — a light produced by a chemical reaction that is uncommon in sea slugs — and shed a glowing “decoy” piece of its tail as a distraction.

What’s unique about this newly discovered family of sea slugs, also known as Bathydevius caudactylus, is that it’s one of the first known species living in the deepest parts of the ocean — what researchers call the midnight zone because of its perpetual darkness — an expansive environment of open water 3,300 to 13,100 feet below the surface.

Most sea slugs live on the sea floor and in shallow water, in tide pools, kelp forests and on coral reefs. “To find one out in the deep water column, living entirely away from the sea floor, was a big surprise,” said Bruce Robison, a senior scientist with the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute who led efforts to describe the new nudibranch species.

Researchers first identified this fascinating animal in 2000 during a deep-sea dive in Monterey Bay with a remote-driven underwater vehicle at a depth of over 8,500 feet. After reviewing more than 150 sightings from MBARI’s vehicles over the past twenty years, researchers were finally able to publish a detailed description of this animal.

Their genetic makeup and anatomy make them different from other sea slugs we know, Robison said. With a gelatinous hood on one end and a flat paddle-like tail with “fingers” at the other and colorful internal organs in between, researchers initially struggled to categorize this animal in a group. “The way it looks is also quite different from all of the other known species. It’s a funny-looking critter,” he added.

Because the animal also has a bottom like a snail, they nicknamed this the “mystery mollusc.”

After gently collecting a specimen, MBARI researchers were able to take a closer look at this mystery sea slug in the lab. “For the most part, we did all of our investigations in the animal’s natural habitat without disturbing them, which is a more natural approach to studying deep-sea animals like this,” Robison explained.

The mollusc is currently known to live in the waters offshore of the Pacific coast of North America, from Oregon to Southern California. A similar sighting by NOAA researchers in the Mariana Trench, which is located in the western Pacific Ocean, suggests it may have a broader range.

Through detailed investigations of anatomy and genetics, they began to solve the mystery, finally confirming that this incredible animal was a nudibranch.

Unlike most other sea slugs with “teeth” on their tongues to help break down food, the Bathydevious lacks that raspy tongue, also known as a radula. “It appears that they just engulf their food whole. They get it inside that big hood and down the gullet and into the stomach directly without breaking it up,” Robison said, adding that this species relies on chemical means to digest the food rather than chewing or breaking it up, similar to how a Venus fly trap would capture food, a technique seen in some other deep-sea creatures like jellies, anemones and tunicates.

“And that brings up one of the most perplexing aspects of what we’ve learned and haven’t learned about these animals,” he added.

The mystery mollusc is just one of many fascinating discoveries MBARI has made in the midnight zone. The institute has documented over 250 new deep-sea species previously unknown to science.

“We’ve been working here in Monterey Bay for more than 30 years, and we’re still making significant discoveries. But think what else is out there in the rest of the world’s oceans. It’s staggering to imagine what’s out there yet waiting to be discovered,” Robison said.

“Deep-sea animals capture the imagination. These are our neighbors that share our blue planet. Each new discovery is an opportunity to raise awareness about the deep sea and inspire the public to protect the amazing animals and environments found deep beneath the surface.”

Lacewings have babies that are prized as pest control. But before they can mate, they have to vibrate their bodies and sing to each other, making noises like purring cats or growling stomachs.

TRANSCRIPT

A mating call that pulses like a heartbeat. An alfalfa field full of potential. In the search for green lacewing love, which romances will bloom and which will wither?

Here in California’s Central Valley, this lacewing bachelor is single and ready to mingle. Sure, he’s a looker with those glassy wings and shimmering eyes. But it’s his vibes that really matter. Which we can hear because scientists have amplified them.

He shakes his abdomen to announce he’s on the market. His vibration travels through the plant he’s perched on. But no one’s around to appreciate it. He tries again on a different leaf. This time, she’s feeling it.

“Will you accept this vibration?”

“I will.”

But even when they find each other, their songs don’t guarantee they’re a match. Is she here for the right reasons? To find out, they enter this leafy fantasy suite. They touch antennae and taste each other. They’re headed for their most intimate moment yet. That escalated quickly!

But sometimes more than one lacewing responds to a call, and the drama heats up. With two ladies here, one is certainly going home. Please take a moment to say your goodbyes.

Male and female lacewings of the same species sing each other essentially the same romantic song. It’s encoded in their DNA. One lacewing species sounds a bit like a purring cat, another one more like a growling stomach.

A few weeks later, we catch up with the family. Look who’s arrived, a baby! Yes, it is theirs. It’s so cute? And so hungry. Each lacewing larva devours hundreds of aphids and other orchard pests each week. It liquefies their insides and slurps them up.

That’s why gardeners and growers love these babies born of romantic vibrations. The larva will need that energy to transform into a beautiful adult, that will put its own heart, and vibration, on the line.

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Known as sand piranhas, Excirolana chiltoni are tiny crustaceans that nibble at your feet – and draw blood – if you hang out on the wet sand at the beach. They live on the Pacific coast of the U.S. and Canada, and the shorelines of Japan. Here’s how to keep them from ruining your vacation!

TRANSCRIPT

Narrator:
What is this creature taking a bite out of your toe?

Beachgoer:
-Ow!

Narrator:
And ruining your day at the beach?

Some people call them sand piranhas.

Scientific name: Excirolana chiltoni.

These tiny crustaceans are on the prowl for protein, and they don’t care where they get it.

From dead animals – like this pipefish – that washed up on the shore, to beachgoers’ flesh … in this case, your ankle.

One bite feels like the nick of a razor blade – sharp and then stinging.

But with enough time, a large group could likely clean the flesh straight off ya.

Here’s one, biting away at a foot, spinning in a full circle to get as much of you as it can.

They’re relatives of roly polies, which actually evolved from ocean animals.

Excirolana chiltoni are found in shallow waters on the coasts of places like Canada, the United States, Japan, Taiwan and Hong Kong.

But because they’re tiny, travel in small groups and have sand-colored camouflage, they’re pretty easy to miss.

Sand piranhas live in the swash zone, where saturated sand is washed over by waves.

Out of the whole wide beach, they stay in a band about the width of a car.

Once in a while they get stuck in a tidepool, but mostly these crustaceans burrow in wet sand between waves, taking cover from predators like these shore birds.

The sand piranha digs in with some fearsome tools.

It holds steady with these hooks on its legs, then deploys this pair of mandibles. They scrape away at their meal.

And these front legs, called maxillipeds, sweep food into its piehole.

And right now, you’re on the menu.

It doesn’t even try to ease your pain with anesthetic.

How rude!

And once it’s down the hatch, there’s no hiding what it had for lunch.

Don’t worry! That’s not human blood.

This sand piranha is chowing down on something called a bloodworm, named for its bright red worm blood.

Sand piranhas travel up and down the beach as the tides change.

Few creatures can survive the rough-and-tumble life here in the swash zone.

So these crustaceans get priority access to whatever washes up.

They help clean up all kinds of wayward corpses … like this sea pickle.

Keeping your favorite beach a little less stinky.

Now, you don’t have to wait ‘til one of these tiny piranhas starts chomping on your foot to know they’re around.

Watch out for these distinctive scribbles in the sand.

If you see them, keep moving your feet through that swash zone.

Or better yet – dive in.

Wanna meet some bloodsuckers that are kind enough to numb you before they dine? Watch our episode about how exactly mosquitoes, ticks, lice, kissing bugs and tsetse flies feed on us. And how you can keep them away. Also, join our community on Patreon to get sneak peeks of our new episodes.