The Wild Quiet

What happens when you plant milkweed for monarchs—and discover an entire tiny world living there? What started as a few volunteer milkweed plants in my front yard became a miniature neighborhood full of ant farmers, aphid mummies, four-eyed beetles, chemical warfare, disappearing caterpillars, strange pollination tricks, and conversations happening through the stems that I can’t even hear. In this companion episode, we’re looking past the monarchs to explore some of the other lives tangled up in a milkweed patch—and the surprisingly complicated relationships happening on one ordinary plant. We get into monarch caterpillars stealing milkweed’s chemical defenses, ants farming aphids, parasitoid wasps growing inside their hosts, red milkweed beetles flirting and fighting through vibrations, insects getting caught in milkweed flowers, and my own inability to remain emotionally detached from a caterpillar once I’ve found it. Turns out, I planted milkweed for the monarchs. The drama is what made me keep looking. GO DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE Companion Guide — Insects, Milkweed & Tiny Dramas : https://thewildquietco.substack.com/ Photos, research, books, insect art, milkweed residents, and a few more strange things worth getting curious about. LISTENER ASSIGNMENT Find one plant you pass all the time—a tree in your yard, a weed growing beside the sidewalk, something in your garden—and give it a few minutes. Don’t just look at the plant. Look underneath the leaves. Check the stems. Watch the flowers. Notice what lands, crawls, eats, hides, hunts, or just hangs out there. How many lives can you find using one plant? You don’t have to know what any of them are yet. Just notice them. Then, if something makes you curious, go down the rabbit hole. The Wild Quiet is a podcast about nature—and our place within it. https://thewildquietco.substack.com/ Instagram and Facebook: @thewildquietco

What happens when we stop sorting insects into beautiful, useful, annoying, disgusting, or terrifying—and actually look at them? Biologist, artist, and author Barrett Klein joins me to explore what can happen when we start paying closer attention to the tiny lives around us. We get into sleeping bees, monarch mysteries, mud-dauber architecture, childhood encounters with dead butterflies, insect-made art, milkweed beetles, the strange ways insects are woven into human culture, and whether understanding something can actually change the way we feel about it. We also assemble a three-creature team for an insect bank heist. For science. ABOUT BARRETT Barrett Klein is a biologist, entomologist, artist, professor at the University of Wisconsin–La Crosse, and author of The Insect Epiphany: How Our Six-Legged Allies Shape Human Culture . His work explores insect behavior, sleep biology, cultural entomology, and the intersection of science and art. Barrett Klein + The Pupating Lab: https://www.pupating.org/ Find The Insect Epiphany : https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/barrett-klein/the-insect-epiphany/9781643261362/ GO DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE Companion Guide — Insects, Milkweed & Tiny Dramas : https://thewildquietco.substack.com/ A deeper dive into some of the insects and ideas from this conversation, plus books, research, insect art, milkweed drama, and a few more things worth getting curious about. The Pupating Lab: https://www.pupating.org/people/ Learn more about Barrett’s research into insect behavior, sleep biology, cultural entomology, and the intersection of science and art—including current research into monarch butterfly sleep. LISTENER ASSIGNMENT The next time you notice an insect, don’t worry about identifying it right away. Just watch it for a minute. What is it actually doing? Where is it going? Is it eating something? Building something? Hiding? Hunting? Resting? What is it interacting with? And maybe pay attention to your own reaction, too. Did you immediately decide it was beautiful? Gross? Scary? Annoying? What changes when you give it another minute? Then, if you want to know its name, go down the rabbit hole. The Wild Quiet is a podcast about nature—and our place within it. https://thewildquietco.substack.com/ Instagram and Facebook: @thewildquietco

The Wild Quiet is a new podcast about nature—and our place within it. Every Tuesday, Bre Harris follows a new curiosity about animals, plants, landscapes, and the complicated ways humans live alongside them. Sometimes through conversations with people who have spent years paying attention. Sometimes straight down the rabbit hole. The Wild Quiet launches September 15. Follow the show now so the first episodes are waiting for you.