Ruud Kleinpaste: Disruptors and invaders

My dear darling sister (with the beautiful name of Roos) sent me a picture from the Netherlands; it was a pretty orange slug hiding inside her robotic lawn mower named Albertus. It came out of the mower to show itself in all its glory. 

Roos immediately linked this slug to a complete disaster when she came home from Holidays in France: Albertus had failed to keep up with his task as the grass was a couple of feet from touching the Matariki stars. 

Investigation of the inner workings of Albertus showed a heap of soft, sticky and shredded plant material, covered in sloppy slug slime.  

It’s a great habitat for the mollusc pests in the garden and at the same time a magnificent form of transport to your favourite plants. 

In such a wonderful, sheltered spot slugs and snails can have a great theatre for reproduction: eggs will be stuck to all surfaces, and they’ll hatch as soon as temperatures are becoming a bit milder… 

Photo / Supplied

But that was not all that Roos found. 

How about a rather large and active ants-nest full of white “eggs” around the battery and other electric wiring! By the way, those white “eggs” are actually the larvae and pupae of the ants; when you disturb an ants-nest they’ll run around to save as many babies as they can. 

Photo / Supplied

These ants may well be the electrical disruptors of your technology. I’ve seen them short-circuiting a switch in the wall of my old house in Auckland: an ant (accidentally?) touching both switch plates and getting fried in 240 volt, while releasing a “panic smell” of formic acid. This acid also works as a defence mechanism and deterrent against predators (not very effective when you are battling the 240 volts!). The nearby ants respond immediately to this SOS call for help and are also electrocuted. 

In the switch you can hear the massacre taking place with each ant increasing the formic acid cloud. 

In my wall we vacuumed up hundreds and hundreds of fried ants. The smell was amazing! 

You can also imagine that these kind of disruptors can cause the beginning of a fire. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07):
You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack Teams podcast
from News Talks.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
I'd be eight to eleven nine News Talks.

Speaker 3 (00:14):
He'd be here. He is the hero of the hour.
Rude climb past our man in the garden. Go and
get a bird feeder, he said, it'll perk you up.
My goodness, has it added a bit of a bit
of life to my backyard?

Speaker 4 (00:26):
I know this. It was absolutely lovely to hear you.
It was so gorgeous because this is what I do
with the kids as well as school, and it is
exactly what it's about.

Speaker 3 (00:34):
I love. My wife is she's got she's become concerned
that there's too much. There are too many birds, like
they're all squabbling to be over there the whole time.
So the silver eyes will come down. There'll be like
six or eight of them, you know, all on the
little platform, and then a couple of two you will
sweep down and push them out of the way. And
then she's concerned that there are you know that it's
kind of standing room only for the silver eyes and

(00:55):
they can you know, there are a couple who are
getting squeezed off to the sides the runts of the
of the flock perhaps aren't getting a feed. It's that popular.

Speaker 4 (01:02):
As my point, and I've got I've got a very
quick idea for you're here. Instead of giving the silver
eyes that particular sweet stuff, get a ball from the
mad butcher, a big meat ball. Hang that up just
a bit further up and the toois won't eat that,
but the silver ice won't have their own. Good. There
you go, good and something else that's really cool. You

(01:23):
were talking about the aggression of Toui. Well, Gerald and
Katie and they're in great Berry. They've got a market
garden there. They've got trouble with kraka.

Speaker 2 (01:31):
Yeah, of course.

Speaker 4 (01:32):
Eating eat, you know, pushing everything away. But Toui when
they when they get Toui there with flex, for instance,
they will chase the kraka away. Do not underestimate the
Teish sense of humor. They go through your skin and
it hurts.

Speaker 2 (01:49):
That's amazing. We will take out the kraka.

Speaker 3 (01:52):
Yep. I've got a real soft spot for caraca because
I think that they are the most dinosaury of New
Zealand birds. They just look the way they There's something
about their posture and the way, especially when when they're
on the hudder, kickie. You know, they just they can't
of and the way if they spin around one hundred
and eighty degrees at a time when the standard gun.

Speaker 2 (02:10):
Anyway, Yeah, we are talking about disruptors this morning.

Speaker 4 (02:13):
Yeah, disruptors. Well, look, my sister sent me a wonderful
photograph of a big slug coming out of her robotic
lawn mower, which she named Elbetta's, probably after my brother
or our brother, but that's another story. And it came
out there and it sort of showed itself there that
was amazing. And and she immediately linked this to a
disaster because when she came back from holiday in South

(02:36):
I think South Francis was something Albetta's had not mowed
a blade of grass, and so yeah, she thought the
slugs had been you know, I don't know, done something, sister, yeah,
taken over. And then she says, and then so so,
because she's a handy little little girl, she is, or
old girl really, but anyway, handy girls, she had a

(02:58):
look and she found that inside the thing were not
just slugs, but also amazing amounts of ants. They had
literally it literally made a nest there. Yeah, absolutely, and
so she's she basically got rid of these ants, and
the thing winked again, and that reminded me of a
little trick that ants play sometimes, and I've headed a

(03:19):
couple of times myself, and that ants go inside your
house and sometimes crawl into let's say a light switch
and when yeah, that happens, that happens quite a lot,
and these things then basically they do calistenics or something.
They do this I don't know whatever, and they actually
short cut the whole light switch by going from the

(03:42):
positive to the negative pole. And as soon as you
like just switched the lights on you and the spikes everywhere.
It's amazing.

Speaker 3 (03:53):
But then they then they because they released their scenes
when they're freaking out.

Speaker 4 (03:58):
Yeah, yeah, that's right, the asset and that means help me,
help me, so all the other.

Speaker 2 (04:06):
Reaction.

Speaker 4 (04:07):
Yeah, I just want to say, this is what happens
in the wind, to be careful for ants in your switchbox.

Speaker 2 (04:11):
That is a little bit of advice. I didn't know that.
I mean, they do you get everywhere.

Speaker 3 (04:15):
They're one of those like I always look at ants
and just go, man, you are so incredibly well adapted.

Speaker 2 (04:21):
You would remarkably well adapted, and yet so annoying, so annoying. Hey,
thank you so much, rude, and go well, I love,
I love.

Speaker 4 (04:29):
The story is brilliant.

Speaker 3 (04:31):
Yeah, thank you so much for the for the bird
feeder recommendation that has been amazing. And of course the
Great Bird Survey Household bird Survey is currently underway at
the moment, So if you want to take a little
bit of time in your afternoon go count the native
birds at your place. That would be a wonderful thing
to help our biodiversity.

Speaker 1 (04:48):
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