Here is the end result of a conversation that started with our CEO asking, "Can you buy some more bubble wrap:"

Life Cycle of the Packing Material
or, How to be a Peanut Farmer without getting your hands dirty
   The curious life cycle of the Packing Material (vesicus folium) begins with the humble "Biodegradable Packing Peanut." Long believed to be wheat-based, this egg-stage of the folium is the most delicate. We have not yet determined the evolutionary reason for the eggs' being water soluable, but the reason for the similarity to the larval stage is clear. The delicate egg can blend in with the soft larvae, thus generally avoiding harm. After a gestation period of eight to ten days, the folium hatch into the very similar but more muscular larval stage.
   During this stage, commonly called the "Styrofoam Packing Peanut," the folium is more mobile, able to fly short distnces (in fact, this "flight" is a sustained jump aided by the folium's light construction), and with a tenacious clinging system, thus enabling it to travel from the spawning grounds and disperse to areas with more food.
   The question, of course, came down to this: what conditions does the folium prefer, and why? The answers, as nearly as our research can uncover, are dust and dark. The "Styrofoam Packing Peanuts" tend to try to drift into darker areas where dust collects. Of the twelve folium spawning grounds we inspected, all had at least one larva and at least one adult behind each piece of furniture and in at least one corner.
   The adult folium, from which stage the species takes its name, begins as a sheet of diaphanous material, with gas-filled cists. The juvenile adult stage is often highly prized by poachers, as it can fetch up to $1/square foot on the open market, particularly within the antiques shipping community. For a time, the folium was thought to be endangered, until the fabled Office Depot spawning grounds were discovered and the herds replenished.
   The mature adult folium is similair to the juvenile, but the main body sheet is thicker, and the cists larger. Once the folium reaches full adulthood, the sheets join together into long mating strips, exchanging DNA along a line of up to several hundred yards. This brings us to the curious discovery that the folium are, in fact, hermaphroditic, as each individual produces spores and fertilizes its neighbors.
   When the spores are fertilized, the cists are ready to be burst. However, here a curious relationship exists between the folium and the homo sapien: the primate bursts the fertilized cists, and in return seems to derive pleasure and delight from the popping sound. As far as we can tell, this is the extent of the "reward,"although we are still observing, and some of our researchers postulate that the folium may release some mild opiate, although this has not been established.
With the bursting of the cists, the airborn spores are released, and drift through the air until they come to a dark, enclosed place. They latch on, often to the insides of boxes, and there they grow into eggs.