
This Valentine's Day, a mysterious tap tap tapping leads us into a world of sex, death, and head-banging. Biologist Dave Goulson introduces us to the lonely yearnings of an especially pathetic beetle and snatches a sound back from the hands of the devil himself. Featuring rapping about rapping from extra special guests Lin-Manuel Miranda, Utkarsh Ambudkar and Freestyle Love Supreme. Produced by Simon Adler. We had engineering help from Rick Kwan.
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Robert Krulwich
Limu Emu and Doug, here we have the Limu Emu in its natural habitat, helping people customize their car insurance and save hundreds with Liberty Mutual. Fascinating. It's accompanied by his natural ally, Doug.
Utkarsh Ambudkar
Uh, Limu is that guy with the binoculars watching us.
Robert Krulwich
Cut the camera. They see us. Only pay for what you need@libertymutual.com Liberty Liberty.
Lin-Manuel Miranda
Liberty.
Robert Krulwich
Liberty Savings vary unwritten by Liberty Mutual Insurance Company and affiliates. Excludes Massachusetts.
Utkarsh Ambudkar
If your small business is booming, you.
Robert Krulwich
Might say cha Ching.
Utkarsh Ambudkar
But you should say, like a good.
David Goulson
Neighbor, State Farm is there and we'll.
Utkarsh Ambudkar
Help your growing business. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.
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Female Listener/Interviewer
Wait, you're listening.
Radiolab Announcer
Okay.
Robert Krulwich
All right. Okay. All right.
David Goulson
You're listening.
Robert Krulwich
Listening to Radiolab Radio Lab from wnyc. I'm Robert Krulwich.
Molly Webster
I'm Molly Webster.
Robert Krulwich
This is Radiolab.
Molly Webster
And this week, Jad is off, nestled into his office, working on the next episode, which will play with a lot of the ideas that came up in our last Gary Hart podcast. But like with pop stars and music.
Robert Krulwich
Meantime, we've decided to offer you guys a little Valentine's treat. It's gonna be part prose, part musical in a hip hop sort of way, with some extremely cool guests.
Molly Webster
Really?
Robert Krulwich
Oh, I promise you, yes. At the end of the show. And it all grows out of a tale we heard about a very small animal, which begins appropriately with a very small noise.
David Goulson
Yeah. So in days gone by, people tended to die at home. This is go back a couple of hundred years, before there were hospitals and so on.
Robert Krulwich
This, by the way, is David Gulson.
David Goulson
I'm a professor of biology at the University of Sussex in the uk.
Robert Krulwich
And he told this tale to producer Latif Nasser and I.
David Goulson
So you imagine that, you know, grandpa's and looks like he might die soon. So I don't know why that's funny, but. And so he'd be lying in bed upstairs and everyone would be, out of respect, would be very quiet. You know, they'd be creeping around the house. It was a time called the death watch. And when everyone Was really quiet. They'd hear these faint drumming noises coming from the timbers of the house. I can try and do an impression of the noise actually.
Robert Krulwich
Yeah, I'd love to hear you.
David Goulson
May not work very well, but. But bear with me.
Robert Krulwich
Yeah.
David Goulson
Do you get that?
Robert Krulwich
Yeah, yeah.
David Goulson
So five or six identical beats and legend has it that this was the devil drumming his fingers impatiently, waiting for the soul to depart the body so that he could claim it. But turns out actually it's the mating call of a tiny little beetle. The death watch beetle. That's where it gets its name.
Robert Krulwich
So Dave became a kind of a fan of these beetles.
David Goulson
Oh yeah. It's a widespread species and in fact.
Robert Krulwich
He'S got a house that's full of them.
David Goulson
It's pretty decrepit, it's slightly falling down, the roof leaks and whatever, but it's home to a whole host of these little beetles.
Robert Krulwich
And in the quiet he can hear them. So a while ago he found himself wondering, what's this noise really all about?
David Goulson
Which you might not think would be a great mystery, but what he discovered.
Robert Krulwich
Is it's all about love. Or at least sex. So today, a story that reminds us how difficult. Lonely, how hard the mating game can be.
Molly Webster
Perfect. Valentine's Day.
Robert Krulwich
No, no, it'll get better. So we will begin at the beginning, the life cycle.
David Goulson
Yeah. So the female bee lays an egg on a piece of dead wood.
Robert Krulwich
And Dave said he would watch them and the moms would just, you know, drop their babies randomly, some here, some there, usually into a hole in a log or into a wood beam.
David Goulson
And it hatches into the little tiny white grub. So you imagine this little thing, pitch black, you know, in its own little tunnel, on its own. And it starts chewing, it chews away at the wood very, very slowly. And eventually about 10 or 15 years later.
Robert Krulwich
Years. It's going to chew for 10 to 15 years?
David Goulson
Yeah, for a decade or more, poor things. And eventually it reaches the magnificent size of about a quarter of an inch, at which point it pupates. So it turns into a little chrysalis and a few months later the adult beetle hatches out of that.
Robert Krulwich
And so finally it crawls out of the log and onto the surface.
Female Listener/Interviewer
Is that the first time they see light?
David Goulson
Yeah, yeah, that would be it.
Robert Krulwich
Oh, wow.
David Goulson
So it's only the adults that you ever really see. And they're possibly the most boring looking insects you could imagine, really. They're about a quarter of an inch long, bullet shaped, dull brown. They're really easily mistaken for mouse droppings, actually and the adult only has really one job and that's to mate. So the male beetle has to find himself a female. So he's got his work cut out for one thing.
Robert Krulwich
As an adult, he doesn't eat, he.
David Goulson
Can'T feed, so he's going to starve to death in a couple of weeks or so.
Robert Krulwich
On top of that, he's nearly blind.
David Goulson
Yeah. And that's where this strange drumming noise comes in. That's their way of finding each other in the usually rather dark places where they live.
Robert Krulwich
That's your way of saying hello. Hello.
David Goulson
Yeah. And they make it by drumming their head. So the male beetle, he kind of braces himself and then he whacks his head five, six times.
Robert Krulwich
Oh, you say drumming the head, you mean banging the head?
David Goulson
Yeah, it's like headbutts the timber he's sitting on with his kind of forehead, if you like. So that's what makes the drumming noise. He's basically whacking his head against the wood.
Robert Krulwich
So he comes out of his hole.
David Goulson
Just wanders about and does his little drumming noise.
Robert Krulwich
Now, if a human happens to hear.
David Goulson
Him, people these days, they tend to spray their houses with insecticides and that's the end of the beetles.
Robert Krulwich
Oh, but let's assume. Yes, let's assume that he doesn't get fumigated, okay.
David Goulson
He just keeps wandering about, banging his head, and then he pauses for a second, kind of listening to see if anyone replies. And if there's no reply, he wanders on.
Robert Krulwich
Unfortunately, according to David, deathwatch beetles are.
David Goulson
Quite rare these days. So there is a distinct chance the poor male will never find a female.
Female Listener/Interviewer
Oh, this just gets more and more depressing.
David Goulson
Well, they preach. Sorry, I'm laughing again.
Female Listener/Interviewer
And can you tell the same story from the female's perspective? So she just sort of is. She just waits in silence for three weeks and if no one comes, she.
David Goulson
Just sort of keels over and dies. Yeah.
Female Listener/Interviewer
Oh, God.
David Goulson
She wanders around a little bit, I suppose, in the hope that she might encounter a male, but that is all she does. Tedious life, I'm afraid.
Robert Krulwich
But let's imagine again, for the sake of argument, that after the 15 years of chewing and no fumigations for them at all, let's then think, wow, they get really lucky.
David Goulson
He gets a reply.
Robert Krulwich
They find each other.
David Goulson
She makes the noise immediately after she hears the cry of a male. And he then gets very excited because he may have been wondering about banging his head for days. And this little duet gets going. He starts to run around banging his.
Robert Krulwich
Head over and over again, you know.
David Goulson
This is his moment and eventually by a lot of trial and error and occasionally they got it wrong and fell off the edge and were never seen again. But more often than not he would eventually find the female and the males will immediately jump on top of her and he then continues to drum his head. But this time he's not headbutting the timber, he's whacking her, which I mean each to their own, you know, presumably that works for a female deathwatch beetle, but because they're very short sighted, they will often jump on the wrong way round and that's not so good because the females can actually control, he can't force them to mate. So he has to persuade her to cooperate or else he's going nowhere.
Robert Krulwich
Can humans tell if it's going well?
David Goulson
Well so usually she carries on replying. So he's banging her in the back of the head and she's then drumming her head on the wood underneath and that's usually a good sign that if she carries on banging her head on the timber that means she's probably gonna make with him within the next minute or two.
Robert Krulwich
But Dave says when he has watched this happen, he's noticed that quite often.
David Goulson
The females wouldn't mate even though, you know, they'd maybe been sitting there for days waiting for a partner to come along. And then when one finally does and he finally gets to them, they're not interested, you know, it's not good.
Robert Krulwich
I thought that they were, they only have three weeks.
Female Listener/Interviewer
That is so shocking to me.
Robert Krulwich
This is a very discerning lady that she chooses death over an ugly mate.
David Goulson
Well, I guess she's not actually. She's hoping that she'll get a better mate. There's another fish in the sea.
Robert Krulwich
Another fish in the sea, hopefully.
David Goulson
But I thought what's the difference? Why are some males successful and some not? And it quickly became clear that the heavier the male, the more likely he was to, to be successful.
Robert Krulwich
So is there some explanation for why?
David Goulson
So actually these things, they, they produce quite staggering amounts of sperm, it turns out.
Female Listener/Interviewer
What is stag? What do you mean by staggering?
David Goulson
The average was 13% of his body weight.
Robert Krulwich
13%. If that were us, like what would that be like?
David Goulson
We were talking about three or four gallons. So you know, think about that for a bit. It's best not to think about that too much really. But. Cause that's just so gross. It's a slightly disturbing.
Robert Krulwich
So the deep tragedy here would be to be a member of this species and to Be born scrawny. Scrawny, Yeah. I mean, just out of curiosity, how big are you?
David Goulson
I'm moderately skinny, so if I was a moderately skinny, I'd be in trouble. Anyway, so what I really wanted to know, were the females actually just weighing the males or was it something that was correlated with being a big male? You know, maybe they were stronger or made a louder noise or something. And so the obvious way to try and find out was to artificially change the weight of the males to make.
Female Listener/Interviewer
Tiny fat suits for the.
David Goulson
Well, exactly, yeah. Not quite, but I wish this worked for people, it would be hilarious, but I don't think it does. So we have this stuff called Blu Tack in the uk. Do you have Blu Tack over there?
Female Listener/Interviewer
I don't know, but it's like Sticky Tack.
David Goulson
Sticky Tack. I guess you use it to stick posters on the wall.
Robert Krulwich
So Dave went to the store, bought some of this stuff and then just beat it up into little bits and.
David Goulson
Stuck them on the back of males to make them a little bit heavier. And for the skinny males, it worked an absolute treat. These males, I do feel slightly mean that those poor females obviously were getting a bit short changed, but hopefully they managed to produce some eggs anyway, because.
Robert Krulwich
In the end, Dave finds these beetles, the males and the females, surprisingly charming. And after all, he does live with them. A lot of them.
David Goulson
They're still in my house, they're still chewing away at the beans. I've been. I'm torn. You know, part of me knows that if I don't spray them with some insecticide, then eventually the roof will start to collapse, but it's going to take decades and I kind of quite like having them there. So for the moment, they've been spared and I kind of quite like listening to them tapping away in the springtime.
Robert Krulwich
So you're sitting in bed at dawn or dusk and you hear the quiet banging and you think, yeah, yeah.
David Goulson
It's funny, isn't it, that people thought this was a sinister noise and actually, it's all about love.
Molly Webster
Thank you to Dave Goulson, who wrote a book all about these bugs, A Buzz in the the Natural History Of.
Robert Krulwich
A French Farm and. Oh, I didn't mention to you it's a French farm. He has this little place in France that he goes to one month a year and that's where he communes with.
Molly Webster
His beetle friends and has one of the saddest months thinking about this drug.
Robert Krulwich
Did you find it terribly sad?
Molly Webster
I found it. It made me think that dating in New York was pretty easy all Right.
Robert Krulwich
For people who are feeling. If you're feeling sad, we want to end that problem right away. In the next part of this show, we're going to revisit this story in such a crazily new way for us, the guys from Hamilton, the hot Broadway show, I told some of them this story that you just heard, and they have decided to musicalize the tale. And they will do that right after this brief pause. But, oh, before, while, during the pause, you know how raunchy this story is. Well, it only gets more so when it's in the musical tale. So you might want to ask your. Your little ones to leave the room around now and then you should, by all means, stay for the after party.
Molly Webster
This is Melanie calling from Durham, North Carolina. Radiolab is supported in part by the Alfred P. Sloan foundation, enhancing public understanding of science and technology in the modern world. More information about Sloan@www.sloan.org.
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Molly Webster
Hey, I'm Molly Webster, and this is an ad by BetterHelp. So it happens every year. The seasons are changing, the days are getting shorter, and basically, once it becomes dark outside of my window, I feel like the rest of the world disappears and I'm just alone and there's nothing left to do but watch television. This November, Better Help is asking everyone to reach out to our people that could be your family, your friends, your neighbors, and to resist this call of the cocoon. And yeah, reaching out can take some courage. I've got text messages from January I haven't responded to. And you know what? I'm gonna write them back right now. Hi, sorry I've been missing. How are you? Why don't we all do this sooner? Therapy is the same way. BetterHelp makes it easier to take that first step. You just fill out a short questionnaire and they find a licensed therapist who they think you'll like Our listeners get 10% off their first month at betterhelp.com Radiolab that's betterhelp.com Radiolab.
Female Listener/Interviewer
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Robert Krulwich
I'm Robert Krulwich.
Molly Webster
I'm Molly Webster.
Robert Krulwich
This is Act 2 in which when I put together any story, as you know, I just wander around and tell it to every single person I know. It's how you do it. So yeah, it could be strangers. So I was talking to a friend of mine who's in the theater, a guy named Tommy Kail. And I'm talking to him and I'm saying I'm wondering what's going on in the minds of these little assuming that they have minds, these little animals. Cause it seems so unfair. 15 years of chewing and then this. So he said, you know, we could be those Beatles.
Molly Webster
Wait, who's the We.
Robert Krulwich
Well, we is an improvisational freestyle group called Freestyle Love Supreme. And it's now this. I should tell you. Tommy goes to Lin Manuel Miranda, who's no joke, who is Hamilton in the hit musical Hamilton. And he writes. He says, I'll be one of the Beatles. And then they go to Utar Ambudkar, who was in a movie called Pitch Perfect, where he played a rapper. Oh, yeah, and by the way, this is all. Guys, this is like. You have to think of yourself as in an Elizabethan Beatle situation.
Molly Webster
This is Shakespearean death Watch Beatle.
Robert Krulwich
That's right. All the lady parts will be played by males. So Lyn's gonna be the woman, and Utkarsh is gonna be the man. So here is the male Beetle being the beetle that he hopes he can be.
Utkarsh Ambudkar
Hey, ladies, I said the wait is over. Get ready for the beautiful beat to Casanova. He is I and I am him. The most masculine beetle by the name of Slim. Now evolution made me small so I could slip through the cracks I'll be the first one to jump on a lady beetle's back but it's hard out here and I'm not playing the human beings hear me and then they get this praying they think that I'm the devil so they get to fumigatin they don't understand that I'm only procreating But I'm slimmer so I'm a winner I finally see the sun peep a shorty and I know that she the one so I'm like beetle, baby doll, let's get involved I want to give it to you all right here on this log I've been chewing through that wood for my entire life and it feels so good to finally find a wife yeah, I guarantee I'm your chosen but can you remind me which end it goes in?
Molly Webster
This is hard yeah, it's hard out there for a Beatle but for the.
Robert Krulwich
Female, played by Lin Miranda, I mean, she's gonna have her own agenda. She needs to find a guy. It has to be. She hopes it will Best guy.
Lin-Manuel Miranda
But I don't know Somebody's knocking Could this be the beetle I've been waiting for? Somebody's knocking baby is this a mate worth waiting for? My mama told me to never settle I always did as I was told I'm looking for a hottie With a body full of sperm and deep down a heart of gold but when you hear that knocking and it's a sound so rare Is the grass always greener? Is there a heavier beetle Somewhere, somebody's knocking. But I am a beetle worth waiting for. Somebody's knocking. I'm gonna wait for something more.
Molly Webster
The power of the female and the.
Robert Krulwich
Sadness for the guy. But this is a Valentine's Day.
Molly Webster
You never feel sad for the lady. What if she gets some lame dude and she's like, oh, my God, I've waited 15 years for this, and I can't do it with. And she has to move on and fall off the table.
Robert Krulwich
Okay, okay. But now you know that Professor Gulson is our cupid here after a fact, right?
Molly Webster
He's gonna save both of our sad souls.
Robert Krulwich
Yes, with the sticky tack. So here is the this is kind of a lame Valentina card when I'm thinking about it. But here is our finish to our own Valentine's tale. Little Romeo and Juliet.
Alex Hondel
Ish.
Robert Krulwich
Actually.
Utkarsh Ambudkar
Against all odds, I'm gonna make.
Lin-Manuel Miranda
You mine at the end of the day.
Utkarsh Ambudkar
Wait, I'm half blind. Where are you?
Lin-Manuel Miranda
Fine.
Utkarsh Ambudkar
Oh, there you are. I've been chewing all my life long trying to put the work in beetle. Baby doll, don't let me die a virgin I'm certain I love will burn like embers I'll be the one and only love you remember Keep banging your head on that timber. I agree, it'd be easier with Tinder, but let me loose inside your caboose so I could give you some of my beetle juice.
Lin-Manuel Miranda
Somebody's knocking.
Utkarsh Ambudkar
Okay, I know I was playing it cool before, but seriously, I got no clue what I'm doing. So if you could help me out, you'd be doing me a real solid. Little did she know Before I beat it, the doctor helped me. I cheated. Slim wins a. I'm dead, but what.
Robert Krulwich
A way to go. Okay, it is time, of course, for us to go. Thanks especially to Freestyle Love supreme. And to Utkosh Amudkar, otherwise known as utk. To Thomas Kahle and to Lin Manuel Miranda.
Molly Webster
And to our producers on this episode, Soren Wheeler and Simon Adler. Thank you. Thank you.
Robert Krulwich
I'm Robert Krulwich.
Molly Webster
I'm Molly Webster.
Robert Krulwich
And happy Valentine's Day.
Molly Webster
Happy Valentine's Day, Robert.
Robert Krulwich
Yeah, you too.
David Goulson
You too.
Dave Goulson (closing message)
Message one. Hi, this is Dave Galfen leaving a message. This is the credits for the show. Radiolab is produced by Jad Abumrad, if that's pronounced correctly. Our staff includes Simon Adler, Brenna Farrell, David Gable, Dylan Keefe, Matt Kielty, Robert Crawich, Andy Mills, Latif Nasser, Kelsey Padgett, Ariane Wack, Molly Webster, Thorin Wheeler, and Jamie York. With help from Alexandra B. Young. Tracy Hunt. Stepnahy. It says here Tam. That must be Stephanie. Tam and Mika Lowinger. Our fact checkers are Eva Dasher and Michelle Harris. And I'm Dave Gorson. Good night. End of message.
Original Air Date: February 12, 2016
Hosts: Robert Krulwich, Molly Webster
Featured Guests: David Goulson, Freestyle Love Supreme (with Lin-Manuel Miranda, Utkarsh Ambudkar, Tommy Kail)
This playful and poignant Radiolab episode, "Hard Knock Life," explores the curious and surprisingly tragic love lives of deathwatch beetles—a tiny insect whose mating ritual involves headbutting wood to send out love calls that might go entirely unanswered. The show weaves together biology, history, and musical comedy, culminating in a hip-hop musical retelling of beetle romance with the cast of Hamilton.
[02:12–04:07]
Professor David Goulson introduces the legend of the "deathwatch beetle," historically associated with superstitious fears about death due to the tapping sounds heard in old, quiet houses—sounds people once attributed to the devil, but which are, in fact, beetle courtship.
Goulson, a professor of biology with personal experience living among beetles, explores how the “drumming” is a unique love call in the insect world, performed by beetle headbutting.
[04:34–06:22]
[06:16–10:19]
Males drum their heads on timber to send out a “hello,” hoping for a female's reply. If none comes, they keep wandering, often dying alone.
The episode emphasizes the sheer unlikelihood of successful mating, especially in modern times due to pesticide use and human interference.
The female’s life is just as difficult: if no mate responds, she too dies alone after weeks of waiting.
Quote:
"So he just keeps wandering about, banging his head, and then he pauses for a second, kind of listening to see if anyone replies. And if there’s no reply, he wanders on."
— David Goulson [07:28]
[08:28–10:25]
If a male and female finally make contact, a rhythmic duet begins with both beetles drumming. Mating still isn’t guaranteed—the female remains choosy and may reject even the only available male.
The female's choice appears to favor heavier males, who produce more sperm (sometimes upwards of 13% of their body weight).
Goulson experimented with adding sticky tack (Blu Tack) to lighter males, finding they became more successful—suggesting females may select by weight, or what comes with it.
[12:28–13:08]
Goulson expresses a fondness for his beetle housemates, grappling with whether to remove them or simply enjoy their seasonal tapping.
Hosts reflect on how the beetles’ grim odds make modern dating look easy by comparison.
[18:32–23:12]
Utkarsh Ambudkar / Male Beetle:
“Hey, ladies, I said the wait is over. Get ready for the beautiful beat to Casanova. He is I and I am him, the most masculine beetle by the name of Slim...I guarantee I’m your chosen but can you remind me which end it goes in?”
[19:47–20:34]
Lin-Manuel Miranda / Female Beetle:
“But when you hear that knocking and it’s a sound so rare...Is there a heavier beetle somewhere, somebody’s knocking. But I am a beetle worth waiting for.”
[20:45–21:28]
Finale ("Valentine's Tale")
“I agree, it’d be easier with Tinder, but let me loose inside your caboose so I could give you some of my beetle juice.”
— Utkarsh Ambudkar [22:17–22:40]
(with Lin-Manuel echoing “Somebody’s knocking” in a comedic, longing tone)
David Goulson (on the beetle’s drumming):
"But turns out, actually it’s the mating call of a tiny little beetle. The deathwatch beetle. That’s where it gets its name." [03:08]
Robert Krulwich:
"So he comes out of his hole, just wanders about and does his little drumming noise." [06:56]
Molly Webster:
"It made me think that dating in New York was pretty easy all right." [13:52]
Lin-Manuel Miranda (as female beetle):
"Somebody's knocking, baby is this a mate worth waiting for?" [20:45]
The episode balances scientific curiosity and empathy with a playful, often wry tone. The musical segment leans into comedy and wordplay, spotlighting the absurdity and universality of longing—even for a beetle.
The story of the deathwatch beetle, as told by Goulson, Krulwich, and Webster—and then re-imagined by Broadway talent—serves as both fascinating natural history and winking commentary on the trials of courtship. What sounds like a sinister omen becomes, thanks to Radiolab’s inventive storytelling and sound design, a touching (and hilarious) parable about love’s struggles for even the smallest among us.