Hello, my friends, and welcome to episode 136 of Just the Zoo of Us. This week, I am joined by a fellow

animal science podcaster and certified cool bug appreciator to talk about the spectacular and

delectably devious cuckoo wasps and what makes these glittering jewels of the insect world such perfectly crafted

little menaces terrorizing a wasp nest near you. This episode is an exhilarating expose

of espionage, exploitation, and exoskeletons. Just the Zoo of Us presents cuckoo wasps with

Katie Golden. Hey everybody. This is Ellen Weatherford. I'm here with just the zoo of us. This is your favorite animal review podcast. This week we have, this is a new friend to y'all, but this is not a new friend to me. This is Katie Golden. Say hi, Katie. Hello. I am so happy. You know, you may not be a new friend to a lot of people listening because I have heard from quite a few people that they have come to me through you.

That's right.

Because we have met in the past virtually. I was over on your podcast, Creature Feature.

Katie, can you let our friends listening know a little bit about creature feature

and what it is? Yeah, it's an evolutionary biology podcast where I talk about all the creatures

and the weirdest things that they do, the strangest animal behaviors out there, and then find out

it's not really that strange and it's pretty

relatable actually when you think about it i think we're going to have no shortage of from the

human perspective strange things to talk about with our animal today yeah it's one of my favorites

before we talk about our insect friends let's's talk about Katie a little bit. Can

you let our friends at home know? Like, what got you into this like science podcasting world?

What has your journey been like to get you here? It's been a really circuitous journey, I would

say. In college, I used to study psychology and evolutionary biology.

I really was interested in the behaviors of humans and animals.

Of course, we are also an animal, so often those behaviors will intersect.

And then after that, I sort of roamed the world as a lone nomad no actually I had like a desk

job and then I got interested in comedy and then when I got interested in podcasting I decided to

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