A Mexican jumping bean is an occurrence native to Mexico, where it is known as Frijoles saltarines . Physically, Mexican jumping beans resemble small beans, tan to brown in colour. They are a seed pod through which the larva of a small moth has chewed (Cydia deshaisiana). The bean "jumps" because when it gets in a hot place the larva snaps its body hoping to roll to a cooler place. The beans are from a shrub often referred to as the jumping bean.
After the egg hatches, the larva eats away the inside of the bean, making a hollow place for itself. It attaches itself to the bean with many silk threads.
The larva may live for months inside the bean with varying periods of dormancy. If the larva has adequate conditions of moisture and temperature, it will live long enough to go into a pupal stage. Normally, in the spring, the moth will force its way out of the bean through a round "trap door", leaving behind the pupal casing. The small, silver and gray-colored moth will live for only a few days.
The larvae jump as a survival measure in order to protect themselves from heat, which can cause them to dry out. The heat from the sun stimulates them to jump, even in cool temperatures. Leaving the beans in the sun for extended periods, however, will dehydrate and kill them.
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When the bean is abruptly warmed (by being held in the palm of the hand, for example) the larva twitches and spasms, pulling on the threads and causing the characteristic hop. "Jump" is often an exaggeration, but the bean does noticeably move around.
The beans should become active if one holds them in the hand (out of the box) for a few minutes. The beans should also appear to be a very slight shade of green on the side. If the bean starts to turn brown, that indicates it is dying. If one shakes a bean near one's ear and hears a rattle inside, the larva inside has either died or entered the pupal stage where its hardened shell makes a softer rattle.
Jumping beans are still available for sale in the United States. In the UK, they were a common novelty item in the 1950s.
A plastic toy under this name was manufactured and sold in packages containing several devices in the 1960s. It resembled a "time release" capsule and had a metal ball inside. When the surface on which the capsule was laid was tilted, the ball would roll to the other end and make the capsule twitch.
To rehydrate the beans, they need to be soaked, but not submerged, for a three-hour period in chlorine-free water once or twice a month. The chlorine found in tap water in some locales will kill them. Alternatively, one may let chlorinated tap water stand in an uncovered glass for about six hours before using to let the chlorine dissipate. Just spraying the beans with a little water is ineffective in maintaining the larvae's lifespan. Beans should be stored in a cool, dry place, but freezing will kill them.
If beans are shaken too hard, they will sometimes stop movement for a short amount of time as a defense mechanism.
The Mexican jumping bean comes from the mountains in the states of Sonora, Sinaloa, and Chihuahua; indeed, Álamos, Sonora styles itself the "Jumping Bean Capital of the World". They can be found in an area approximately 30 by 100 miles where the Sebastiana pavoniana host tree grows. During the spring, moths emerge from last year's beans and deposit their eggs on the flower of the host tree. Legend says that they fell from the sky one day.
Jumping beans were used as a recurring gag in many cartoons from the 1930s to the 1950s, wherein eating the beans would cause a character's whole body to bounce out of control and land on something painful.[1]
Jumping Beans are accidentally eaten by Scooby in the Scooby Doo, Where Are You! episode "Which Witch is Which?", first aired in 1969.
In the fourth episode of An Idiot Abroad, "Mexico", Karl Pilkington spends much of his time in the country unsuccessfully searching for Mexican jumping beans after having seen them as a child on Sesame Street. Frustratingly for Karl, the Mexican locals that he approaches seem to have never heard of the beans. In the last scene of the episode, Karl expresses his relative (compared to other episodes) appreciation of Mexico, but also his one regret: that he couldn't obtain a Mexican jumping bean.[2]
In the South Park episode "Cartoon Wars Part II", Eric Cartman states that the endless waves of suicide bombers in his story are like Mexican Jumping Beans.
Also in an Episode of "Abel the Story of a Boy."
In the episode "Bubble Bites" of the children's television program Bubble Guppies, jumping beans are used as part of a running gag during the show's "It's Time For Lunch" segment in which one of the characters receives something comical and inedible for lunch, often in line with the theme of the current episode. The charater Nonny, after being told by his classmates that they have cans of baked and green beans, reveals that he has been given a can of jumping beans. The can then jumps out of his lunchbox and hops away.