Short Stuff: Mexican Jumping Beans

Mexican jumping beans are a real thing and they really do move around. It’s not magic, it’s nature!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hey, and welcome to the Short Stuff. I'm Josh. There's Chuck.
There's other Josh over there, and this is short stuff.
Getty up down, Mexico Away, Chuck. Yeah, if you're wondering
where Jerry is, she's fine. We just she's out for
a couple of weeks, and we happen to be recording
a lot those couple of weeks. So in podcasts years,
it probably feels like Jerry's has been out for months

(00:27):
and months. Yeah, not true. It's not the case. Just
two months. No, she's doing great. But really, everyone pray
for her. Right, that's a pretty good check. That was
very nice to think. Jerry's gonna appreciate this if she
ever hears it. Not a chance. So when you were
a kid, did you were you aware of the idea

(00:48):
of something called Mexican jumping beans? Yes, okay, so was.
I think probably from like cartoons or something like that.
And I'm not sure if I assume that they actually existed.
Did did you think they existed? I don't remember when
I first saw them. Oh wow, you still never seen them,
have you? No? I never had. I've seen them on
the YouTube, so that's it. Yeah, I've seen him in

(01:08):
person at some point, And I don't know if it
was just because you know, you can buy them in
a little uh souvenir packs and stuff like that. So
I don't know if I saw him when I was
a kid or when I was an adult and finally
went to Mexico. I don't know, but I've seen him before. Well,
there was like a glory day in the in the sixties,
I think, where you could walk into like a KB

(01:29):
toy store in the United States and find Mexican jumping
beans for sale, the golden Age of Mexican jumping beans.
That's right, But I guess we just kind of spoiled
it if you were, you know, aware of Mexican jumping
beans and thought they were just kind of made up
like snipe ponting or jackalopes or whatever. No, they're actually
for real. Chuck can verify that. But the thing about

(01:50):
them is they're not actually beans um their seeds, but
they do actually move and kind of jump a little bit,
move around at least on their own. And for a
while at first, no one really had any idea what
the heck was going on. We just knew that it
was kind of cool to watch and a little thrilling,
especially before the television and even really before radio. This

(02:13):
is what people did. They stood around and watch being
roll around on their own or like ant farms or
police circuses. Yeah, simpler people. So they should have just
called them Mexican jumping seeds, because that's just as good
to me. I don't know why the bean made it
more marketable. Necessarily, maybe because they look like beans. I
don't know, I don't know. I mean their seeds. They

(02:34):
should just call them that. Hey, asqua Keene Hernandez, the
jumping being king, he could tell you. We'll get to him.
But they are seed pods. They're from a plant called
the Yerba de Fletcher or the Sebastiana pabo Nanna, very nice,
it's all right, you said Latin and Spanish in the
same breath. That was really great. That means herb of

(02:55):
the arrow, which it was taken from the fact that
the poison from the shrub sap was used sometimes to
tip the poison for their arrow tips from local tribes.
I think I looked it up. I think it might
be the Yaqui who did that. All right, well, it's
a deciduous shrub. It's got leathery leaves that it's dark

(03:18):
green but then turn red in the winter. I bet
it's beautiful. It is. I think I looked up pictures.
It looked nice to me. I've never seen them. I've
never been to the to the Rio Mio. I hadn't
even heard of it. But it sounds creamy and delicious. Yea, well,
that's the region where they're found in Sonora and Chihuahua.

(03:38):
I can't even get a good laugh out of you
with my dad jokes anymore. They're that bad. Uh. That
one was okay, all right. I wasn't sure if you
were serious or not. So they grow on these rocky slopes,
and back in the nineteen twenties is when they first
started to kind of hit the States. That's when they
came state side in San Francisco. San Francisco, and there

(04:02):
was an article in the chronicle about the little freakish
brown seeds that just basically delighted people of all ages. Yeah,
Mental Flaws had a pretty good article on this. Um.
He said that these beans cavorted about to the edification
and delight of children and grown ups. Yeah, well, actually
they said seeds, Yeah they did. They call it seeds correctly, right,
because this was pre Joaquin Hernandez, right, so I guess he.

(04:25):
I wonder if he really was the one who changed
it over to beans. Who knows that he's a smart kid.
Maybe take a break. I think we're at the halfway point. Sure,
all right, okay, chuck, enough enough dilly dallying. Let's get

(04:56):
to Joaquin Hernandez. Please. Who is he? He is a
I who in the forties was twelve years old and
was aware of Mexican jumping beans, although they weren't called
that at the time, he knew they were kind of interesting,
but he thought, maybe if you marketed these things just right,
you could really have like a novelty on your hands.
Joke shops will go bonkers for these things. And he

(05:17):
was absolutely right. He's like, kids are dumb, Yeah, kids
like me. Yeah. I mean, it's amazing. This guy was
twelve years old and he became the literal jumping bean
king right over the following decades. I think Alamos and Sonora,
where he lived, is now the capital, the jumping mean
capital of the world. It will probably never give up

(05:40):
that title. Why would it so? Um? Early on, like
people did not know what was going on with these things.
They were just delighted by them. Some people were kind
of curious, some people had an idea. But there were
early theories before it was widely understood, things like, um,
that there was a static charge or something like that
maybe making bounce, or there was gas trapped inside that

(06:03):
was somehow exploding. Who knows. It turns out that botanists
and biologists are anomologists, I should say, figured it out.
Maybe the all three Linda hand, yeah, they all. It
was a joint effort, but they the entomologist that's who
I'm going with, said, you know what, you know what's
in there. There's a live, living moth larvae in there,

(06:25):
and that is what's making these seeds bounce. That's right.
The jumping bean moth lay this little eggs and the
flower of that plant, and then of course the eggs
are then in the seeds. Starts to rain in the springtime,
and that seed develops and matures and it splits into
three little guys. Uh, they fall on the ground and

(06:46):
then those they don't always but usually those little smaller
parts have the martha larvae inside larvae larvae, and that's
you know, they're in there. Screaming help. Well, they're doing
all sorts of things. For one that they they um
burrow or they make their um there cocoon, I guess

(07:09):
in the in the um these seeds, because they eat
the seed from the inside out as they're kind of
going through this metamorphosis into a moth. And if you
have Mexican jumping beans you can get them. Still. If
you have them and you take care of them, you
could actually witness the moth emerging from the seed eventually.
But in the meantime it's eating the seed from the

(07:29):
inside out, which causes movement um. And then also they
weave their cocoon. They spend their cocoon inside and they
suspend it from the interior walls of the seed. And
so when they move about, their movements are telegraphed through
the cocoon and the silk that's like attached to the seed,

(07:51):
which is it creates enough energy or enough force to
actually move the seed pod. Yeah, and I think, uh,
where did you get this? Was some of this from
the mental flaws article? I know there was a um
There was another thing that I will mention in a second,
if you will keep talking, Okay, I'm not stalling him.

(08:12):
I not know. The cool thing that they mentioned is
that if it was just a little larvae inside, it
would in order to move that being like it moves,
it would smush itself. If it was just like slam
dancing against the walls. That one was all josh, oh,
that was all you all right, Well, the fact that
it those silk cables from the cocoon are attached is

(08:34):
what makes it move because uh, and then the the
example of the whip makes a lot of sense. You know,
when you use a whip, the whip crack at the
end is has way more force than what you're doing
with the handle of the whip, right exactly. It's the
same principle basically, right. Um. And the this the stuff
that I based that on came from Wayne's word. It's

(08:58):
an online textbook of natural history. Nice. Yeah, check it out, everybody. Yeah,
that's one of the cooler facts of this one. I
think the other one that shot that stuck out to
me or shot out like a little uh jumping bean moth.
Are you saying you like the fact that I made
up out of whole cloth the most that's your favorite one.
It finally happened, Thank you. Chuck. The other one I

(09:19):
thought was really interesting is you expose these things to
heat to get them to jump around, and the they
think that that might be a an adaptation basically that
when these beans are out there baking in the hot sun,
they're like trying to scooch over into a shady spot
by making those movements. Yeah, and that amazing. That's pretty remarkable.

(09:40):
It really is. So if if you have Mexican jumping
beans and you want to make them jump for your friends,
and they don't actually jump is not quite the right word.
They move about. They kind of shimmy, they'll roll, tumble
that kind of really catch air exactly. Well, put dude
in a very eighties gleaming the cube way that's right. Um.
But to make them really move, you just expose them

(10:02):
to heat. Put him out in the sun, and so
they try to move out of the sun. Well, if
you can kind of keep them in the sun, they're
really going to start moving. The problem is is this
can kill the larvae inside. Yeah, the problem is it's
super mean, It really is. So like if this happens
out in nature, you know, if the the the larvae
can't move the seed pod to a shady spot and

(10:23):
actually dehydrates and dies from the heat. That's that circle
of life kind of stuff, right. Yeah, But if you
believe that every living thing deserves respect and to be
treated well, then do not give these to your children, no,
because if you do kill them and it's just for
humans amusement, that is that's a little mean. Yeah. I mean,
just think of the kid where this being, if the

(10:44):
adaptation theory is correct, is desperately trying to get to
shade and little Timmy keeps just shoving it right back
in the sun with a magnifying glass on it. It
makes you want to shove little Timmy, that's right, as
if he were the kind of kid who would squish
a lady ug or something. Good. Point. So, um, there
are people who say, hey, you can keep these things

(11:05):
as pets if you want everybody. In fact, there's a
website called jban dot com okay and jbing dot com
says you can keep them cameround in your pocket and
the body heat will make them wiggle. If you actually
want to let them, um actually come to fruition, you
want to keep them in a cool place so that
they don't have to wiggle. They can use their energy

(11:27):
for eating um. But you want to keep them wet,
so you missed them once a week and eventually if
you take care of when you can see a moth
come out sometimes amazing, It is amazing. Mexican jumping beans
are chuck. Amazing. That's right. Well, that's it. You got
anything else? Got anything else? I don't either, So this
is short stuff Audios. Stuff you Should Know is a

(11:50):
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