Animalia Fake! - Insects

[bell dinging] And be prepared, it gets very weird very quick.

Let's take it away, Chet and Cap.

[tense music] Chicka is Animalia Fake chicka A? [bell dinging] A species of mantis called the Mongolian scissor mantis uses their especially long and strong raptorial forelegs, the legs that look like arms, not only to catch prey, but also to swing from plant to plant like a monkey.

Chicka or is it chicka B? [bell dinging] Female Pacific beetle cockroaches produce a yellow milk that scientists think could be harnessed as a super food.

Chicka or is it chicka C? [bell dinging] You may have heard of how ants can lift around 10 to 50 times their own body weight, or around the equivalent of a human lifting a car, but the horned dung beetle is who takes the crown in terms of insect strength, capable of pulling up to 1,141 times their own body weight, the equivalent of a human pulling two 18-wheeler trucks.

Chicka or is it chicka D? [bell dinging] Large blue butterfly caterpillars trick ants into raising them.

A large blue caterpillar will intentionally drop from the plant they hatched on to the ground near red ant colonies and pretend to be a grub so the ants bring them in.

Once in, the caterpillar mimics the ant's queen, using this as a cover to eat the ant's larvae until they're ready to metamorphosize into a butterfly.

All right.

To recap, A is mantises swinging like monkeys, B is cockroach milk, C is strong dung beetles, and D is caterpillars pretending to be ants.

I'll give you the Animalia Fake trademark 15 seconds to think of your final answer.

Your time starts now.

[clock ticking] [upbeat music]Time's up.

It's time for the reveal.

The Animalia Fake of round one was [drum roll] A, a species of mantis called the Mongolian scissor mantis uses their especially long and strong raptorial forelegs to swing from plant to plant like a monkey.

[bell dings] [upbeat music] There are no known species of mantis that swing like monkeys.

However, juvenile mantises are very skilled jumpers.

You can learn more about that in our orchid mantis episode, which you can find earlier in the feed, and I also put a link in the show notes.

So that means that female Pacific beetle cockroaches do produce milk.

This is because, unlike most insects, these roaches give birth to live young instead of laying eggs.

Unlike mammal milk, though, this yellow milk is fed to the roach baby while it's still developing inside the mother.

Scientists have found that this milk is one of the most nutritious substances in the world.

It's three times more calorie-rich than buffalo milk, the previous dairy top dog.

This cockroach milk thing has gotten a lot of press.

There was even an editorial in a scientific journal that contains the quote, "In this editorial, light is shed on cockroach milk as a potential new superfood." I love science.