A Beetle By Any Other Name

99% Invisible

SiriusXM Podcasts and Roman Mars

Design, Arts

4.8 • 27.5K Ratings

🗓️ 4 March 2025

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

A tiny, unremarkable beetle hiding in the caves of Slovenia has an infamously unfortunate name—one that has sparked heated debates in the scientific world.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is 99% Invisible.
0:03.1	I'm Roman Mars.
0:05.5	In a valley in central Slovenia, there's a giant limestone cave called Pekyll, which means hell in Slovene.
0:13.6	If you look hard at the rocks above the entrance, you can just make out the shape of the devil,
0:19.2	which is one explanation of how the cave got its name.
0:22.2	That is British expat and 99PI's Slovenia correspondent, Will Aspinall.
0:27.8	I recently met up with Andrei Kapler from the Slovenian National Institute of Biology.
0:33.6	André studies the ecology of caves, and today he is taking me spolunking.
0:38.8	I'm not naturally inclined to go into caves.
0:42.4	Is it safe?
0:44.2	It's completely safe.
0:46.1	But there's one caveat in this case, because it was very, very rainy these days, and hopefully it didn't flood.
0:57.4	But if it did flood, then we're in trouble.
1:01.6	Okay. We're in the cave.
1:05.6	The cave is narrow, only about a meter wide in places,
1:09.5	but it's like 15 meters high. It's a chasm, and
1:13.6	it's flooded.
1:14.6	Oh, it's beautiful. Yeah, it is. But wet. You want scared of caves.
1:21.6	Never was. Actually, I'm more comfortable in a cave than with people.
1:29.3	André and I are not exploring a cave called Hell just for fun.
1:33.3	We're on a mission to catch an elusive insect that Andre studies.
1:38.3	A week earlier, he left seven traps inside the cave and baited them with a special recipe.
	...

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