S5E2 - Misunderstood Magueys

Virginia Thomas introduces the red maguey worm; a caterpillar often mistakenly called the "tequila worm.” She explores their biology and ethical implications of using these metamorphosing creatures as novelty ‘items’ in alcoholic beverages.

Recorded: 18 September 2023 

 Featured: 

• Cosmopolitanism with Angie Pepper on The Animal Turn.
• Perdido Street Station by China Melville.
• The Life Cycle of Butterflies and Moths by Butterfly Conservation.
• Cosmopolitan 'Worms' by Virginia Thomas.

Virginia Thomas is an environmental social scientist with a PhD in Sociology. She is interested in people’s interactions with their environment and with other animals. Virginia’s work explores the social and ethical questions in human-animal relationships. She is currently a research fellow on the Wellcome Trust funded project ‘From Feed the Birds to Do Not Feed the Animals’ which examines the drivers and consequences of animal feeding. This leads on from her previous research which examined human-animal relations in the media (as part of zoonotic disease framing) and in rewilding projects (in relation to biopolitics and human-animal coexistence). You can connect with Virginia via Twitter (@ArbitrioHumano).

Credits:

• Claudia Hirtenfelder, executive producer, editor and co-host 
• Virginia Thomas, script write, narrator and co-host
• Rebecca Shen, content producer and designer (logo and episode artwork)
• Gordon Clarke, bed music composer
• Sound clips taken from: BBC Sound Effects, Pixabay, Internet Archive
• Learn more about the team here. 

Support the podcast via: 

• Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/join/TheAnimalTurn 
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• Buzzsprout: https://theanimalturn.buzzsprout.com/ 

A.P.P.L.E
Animals in Politics, Law, and Ethics researches how we live in interspecies societies and polities.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Animals and Politics
• 1:19 The Truth About Tequila Worms
• 3:31 Life Cycle and Metamorphosis
• 6:22 Insects, Size, and Human Perception
• 10:30 Insect Consumption and Cultural Context
• 15:08 Episode Closing and Credits

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

This is another iRaw podcast. We podcast to make the world a better place for animals.

Claudia Hirtenfelder: 0:16

Welcome back to season five of the Animal Highlights, where we're focused on animals and politics. All the content from this season has been extracted from season six of the Animal Turn podcast, which is a season of the same name animals and politics. This season, my co-host will be Virginia Thomas, who's an environmental social scientist. She was previously also a research fellow with the Wellcome Trust funded project from Feed the Birds to Do Not Feed the Animals. In this episode, we talk all about maguey worms. Virginia speaks a little bit about the name and confusion around these caterpillars, as well as their history and how this insect became entangled with tequila drinking cultures. Enjoy, hi, virginia. Welcome back to the Animal Highlight, hi good to be here again.

Claudia Hirtenfelder: 1:09

And who are we talking about today?

Virginia Thomas: 1:11

Well, we are going to be a bit playful this time. We're going to talk about a caterpillar with an interesting name. You and Angie spent a long time discussing what being cosmopolitan means, and you were very honest in saying that, prior to encountering cosmopolitics, your personal understanding of cosmopolitanism related to those who live in cities and I have my own association of the cosmopolitan with cocktails. So the cosmopolitan's a famous cocktail and I wanted to be a bit playful with this animal highlight by thinking about an animal in relation to an alcoholic drink and then, more seriously, relate this to what Angie was talking about with respect to cosmopolitanism and multi-species justice. So I want to talk about the tequila worm, the worm that's sometimes found in a bottle of tequila, and there's so much to say here, but definitely the first thing to say is that the tequila worm isn't a worm.

Speaker 1: 2:17

What, what did you say?

Virginia Thomas: 2:21

The tequila also isn't tequila, but we're not here to do a drinks highlight, we're here to do an animal highlight. So we won't go into the tequila also isn't tequila, but we're not here to do a drinks highlight, we're here to do an animal highlight. So we won't go into the tequila mezcal question and focus on the worm, or rather the caterpillar, because what people are actually referring to when they refer to the worm is a caterpillar. But just to be even more confusing, the caterpillars are called red maguey worms. Using the caterpillars are called red maguey worms. So something which we might usually think of as a caterpillar, because it's the larvae of a moth, we actually call a worm. But I just wanted to make it clear that when I say red maguey worm, I don't want people to think of what they might usually think of when they think of a worm. I want them to think of a caterpillar. Got you so a worm?

Claudia Hirtenfelder: 3:02

I want them to think of a caterpillar Got you. So a worm and a caterpillar are not the same thing.

Virginia Thomas: 3:06

No, they're actually different species. Okay, worms are invertebrates and there are lots of different kinds, including earthworms and parasitic worms like roundworms and flatworms. Caterpillars are insects, but the maguey worm isn't the only caterpillar to be called a worm. There are quite a few others, and a common one is the inchworm. But going back to the red maguey worm, it feeds exclusively on the agave plant, from which tequila or mezcal is made. And there's another caterpillar which eats this agave plant, the white maguey worm.

Virginia Thomas: 3:49

But while maguey worms eat the agave plant, they in turn are eaten by people, and if we think about the idea of cosmopolitanism and anti-species justice, which you and Angie were discussing, we might think of this as the first breach of justice in relation to the red maguey worm. People consider them a food animal and turn them into a commodity. We might think about justice for the red maguey worm as involving moving from a system where they're eaten to one where they're granted rights to not be exploited by humans. Angie pointed out, however, that when considering multi-species justice, in some cases where people are reliant on animals for their subsistence, either for food or labour, a transition period might have to be considered where human exploitation of animals is phased out gradually rather than stopped abruptly, since a sudden change could result in considerable disadvantage to people, possibly even constituting a breach of their rights. But the red maguey worm isn't only exploited as a food source. In a case of metamorphosis and we'll come on to its life cycle in a minute it's morphed from a valuable food source into the tequila worm, and this changes a further commodification of the red maguey worm, and one that's even harder to defend, since, through its role in the drinks trade, it's exploited purely to gratify human wants rather than needs, both for financial gain for the drinks trade and as a statement for those who participate in the drinking culture surrounding the tequila worm.

Virginia Thomas: 5:28

But I wanted to talk about the life cycle of red maguey worms and the incredible metamorphosis which they and other caterpillars like them undergo. I've mentioned that the red maguey worm lives on and eats agave plants. They grow and develop for up to a year until they're ready to make a silk cocoon. They then pupate for about six weeks, after which they emerge as a moth. Then the moth lives only a few days, during which time the female lays her eggs on agave plants, which will hatch into caterpillars. For the process to begin again, and, given the potential of the caterpillar, something which is utterly different from any human capabilities. We might consider a cosmopolitics which recognises the right of the caterpillar to pupate and metamorphose into a moth, rather than ending up at the bottom of a bottle for human gratification yeah, totally.

Claudia Hirtenfelder: 6:24

I mean it's, it's a, it's a life stage. It's like cutting someone off before puberty and saying you know that whole part of your life is is unimportant. I mean and this is putting aside the idea of killing and consuming the animals I think, like you say, the potential to become something in the the. What kind of moths can they become or do they become?

Virginia Thomas: 6:44

so I could only find the, I think, latin name for it. They're a small gray moth and I believe it's pronounced or something like comadia red tin baccari that's not better than what I was gonna say.

Claudia Hirtenfelder: 6:57

I was gonna say comadia, red tin, oh no, I was gonna say red tin, baccari, so baccari, I think sounds much more professional because I just looked them up now they're quite beautiful, really like. For me it looks like a quintessential moth, right with those four. I think sounds much more professional because I just looked them up now they're quite beautiful really. For me it looks like a quintessential moth, right with those four gray-white type wings and they're quite fuzzy and fluffy.

Virginia Thomas: 7:17

Yeah, I probably was a bit dismissive calling them gray, perhaps silvery. They look really velvety.

Claudia Hirtenfelder: 7:25

Yeah, they do, and soft and they're kind of small. I was reading that they're about 12 to 15 millimeters. Maybe that's big for a moth actually. Yeah, that's not insignificant actually if you think about it for a moth 12 millimeters although I'm really bad with math, so I don't know if what I'm doing with my fingers is actually a good indicator of the size of the moth, isn't it interesting?

Virginia Thomas: 7:47

that you know we was it Heard who said that. You know we recognize animals when they're big, like us. So we're talking about whether the size of a moth makes it significant or not On an entirely human scale. You know, if it was 12 centimeters, we, you know, we might consider acknowledging it more than if it's 12 millimeters.

Claudia Hirtenfelder: 8:10

That's a really good point and I'm happy you brought insects into the animal highlights so early on in the season, because I think insects are often neglected when we speak about animal highlights. And just the other day I was speaking to my husband, oliver, about when you think about the physiology of an insect, how much is going on in something that tiny. And again I know, and again I'm bringing in size, but I think it just blows my mind to realize that you've got a whole system and a whole body working and a brain and everything happening at a scale that we can't quite comprehend, which I think is pretty remarkable.

Virginia Thomas: 8:42

Well, and the fact that they metamorphose. You know something we tend to have, that we have that tendency to measure things by human standards, don't we? Oh, can they use tools? Can they communicate verbally or with language? And if an unhuman animal can't do that, then we dismiss it. Animal can't do that, then we dismiss it. But it's just the benchmark we're using. If we used a moth benchmark and said well, can other animals go through this process of metamorphosis? Humans would fail badly on that test.

Claudia Hirtenfelder: 9:19

But it's interesting because metamorphosis is a kind of physiological change, right? And I think all animals do go through certain physiological changes, but their whole bodies don't change, they don't cocoon themselves up and come out from being a crawling being to being a flying being, which is pretty darn radical. And then isn't it okay? I think I'm getting my science here from Pedido Street Station, which is a fictional book, so if it's wrong I apologize, but if I'm not mistaken, when they're in the cocoons their whole bodies they actually become really like their whole bodies, like they become almost like liquefied. That's gonna be. I have to double check all of this and put it in the show notes. But they because they have to, actually they tear themselves apart to come together again, right, like it's incredible what goes on. I need to check that. I should have thought that, said that before saying it on a podcast, but I'm pretty certain that this is what happens when you learn from fictional books, so don't quote me on that.

Virginia Thomas: 10:17

I learn all my best, best history from fiction.

Claudia Hirtenfelder: 10:21

I love. I really, really love reading fiction like fictional history. I've gotten super into that recently. Coming back to insects, though, I just wanted to say that I'm really delighted that you brought them up, also because I think the consumption of insects is a really important matter that's being discussed increasingly now. A lot of people concerned with climate change, for example, are saying well, we need to look into how we can make use of insects to create food and food to feed human populations in the future, and on the other hand, you've got a whole bunch of philosophers and ethicists coming forward and saying hang on, what do we really know about the social lives of insects and their sentience? Can we do this in a way that is ethical and responsible, or are we just creating a whole host of more exploitative industries?

Virginia Thomas: 11:05

That's a really good point because because, yeah, I think there is a real rush to towards insect protein as we try to move away from a more carbon intensive agricultural system.

Virginia Thomas: 11:21

But there's there's huge amounts of work now on the sentience of insects and I think we dismiss them too readily. As we were saying, they're small and from a human perspective perhaps insignificant. So I mean, the moth we're talking about today and the caterpillar we're talking about today perhaps even aren't the best examples, because they're still quite charismatic from an insect perspective. If we think of ladybirds or ladybugs, whatever people like to call them, we tend to like them, but just because they're charismatic and they appear in children's storybooks. And we like moths and butterflies because they're beautiful. But we have very different attitudes to other forms of insects. I think the ones that are commonly considered as potential for food are ones that we wouldn't consider charismatic and would be very or potentially comfortable to eat if we were comfortable with the idea of them being edible which I think you were pointing to here about the tequila worm or the misnamed tequila worm, is how much it's attached to different like the consumption of insects is also attached squarely to quite different cultures, different heritages.

Claudia Hirtenfelder: 12:46

You travel across Asia. You are encountering insects in a wide range of cuisines. So sometimes I think in the West we have this idea that the consumption of insects is like this new and novel thing that's happening right now, same thing with, I think, protein, alternative protein and meat consumption. Generally. People are like, wow, it's so new. You're like, hang on, they've been, you know, in China they've been creating fake meats for a long, long, long time and across Asia there's been consumptions of a variety of insects. So it's interesting to think how the animals are kind of positioned within food systems historically. But still, I think what you're talking about with the worm and what we're talking about here with the insects is this kind of industrialization of eating insects.

Claudia Hirtenfelder: 13:27

And these worms in the tequila are well, not in the tequila, it's in the mes. What is it called Mescave, mescal? Yeah, mescal, mescal, mescal. Tequila can be Mescal, mescal can't be tequila. The worms in Mescal, you know we were just looking before the show that it's a billion, like it's a $97 billion industry the tequila industry. So how are the worms kind of caught up in this? Or how are the caterpillars caught up in this? Are they just accidentally harvested, or are they actively inserted into bottles? Do you know?

Virginia Thomas: 13:59

No, they're actively inserted. It's not something I've ever seen, but you know you will have a bottle of mezcal and there will be a caterpillar at the bottom of it and the idea is you're supposed to drink it and apparently it's a relatively new thing. It's not as if this is something that's you know, embedded in cultural histories, and I don't know enough about it in Mexico, where it originated, but certainly in the West. You know there's a lot of machismo in the drinking culture around this, which is associated with tequila more broadly anyway, and the kind of drinking culture that we have.

Claudia Hirtenfelder: 14:39

Yeah, no, like it's interesting to think about how these different animals kind of get caught up in consumption and the variety of consumption. Anyway, I'm getting sidetracked with thinking about insects and consumption and really incredible caterpillars and for anyone interested in metamorphosis and how caterpillars become butterflies and moths, maybe you can give me a lesson on how it happens. But I'm going to go and do some reading about it now. Maybe you should too. Thanks so much, Virginia. Great Thank you. Thank you so much to Virginia Thomas for being an incredible co-host and to Rebecca Shen for her work on the logo and all the artwork done with the animal highlight. The show was edited and produced by myself. This is the Animal Highlight, with me, Claudia Hüttenfelder.

Speaker 1: 15:49

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