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.

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