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I am reading a really cool book by Thomas Eisner, an entomologist. "For Love of Insects" is a well-written chronicle of his work with stinky arthropods. He worked with bug chemistry to discover how insects make certain noxious chemicals to deter their predators. Did you know that stinky bugs can AIM their spray?
I have found this book soooo fascinating. I wish I'd been an entomologist. I want to write this guy a fan letter.
Anyone else read any good bug books lately? Also, does anyone else find themselves fascinated by insects or other invertebrates?
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I'm fascinated by insects, but then I'm fascinated by just about everything. I'll definitely be picking up For Love of Insects.
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Scorpians are cool. They detect their prey through vibrations in the sand that the sense through their front legs. They triangulate the location of the prey using the differences in this detection between the two legs.
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I love praying mantises and butterflies, dragon flies and things like that Hate wasps and bees but at least bees make honey Does anyone know how I could raise butterflies and moths indoors?
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Something that I read about years ago, and have always found fascinating, is that the muscles that control bee's wings are the most metabolically active tissues in existance, and can generate tremendous amounts of heat. There is a species of wasp that preys on bees, and one way that bees combat this wasp is by having a cluster of workers cover it and start beating their wings. The wasp, which can't withstand the heat that is generated, is killed. Isn't that fascinating? I wish I could remember the exact species of bee and wasp involved in all of that.
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Syn - check out an "educational" store, or a teacher's supply website. You can buy kits now that come with a huge vertical cage of netting, and they'll supply the eggs/caterpillars too! Comes with directions and everything. Teachers use these in their classrooms. I don't have a link at the moment, but I bet they're not too hard to find.
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I'm actually quite fond of wasps and bees. They are great pollinators, and wasps eat pests. They are beautiful. Most of them won't bother you unless you molest them.
Insects amaze me because their body structures are so unlike ours, and many of them synthesize and use chemicals in complex ways.
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well, they are kind of cute... but they sting you... and if one gets in here I have to smash it wearing full armour but it always makes me feel so guilty Posts: 9942 | Registered: Mar 2003
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Or you could just leave an open package of grain-based food or bird food sunflower seeds in your cupboard for a while. There'll be lots of moths. Posts: 1379 | Registered: Feb 2002
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The most amazing insect/creature event is when the digger wasp lays an egg into a living tarantula, buries it, and when the egg hatches, the baby wasp eats the tarantula alive.
The most amazing part is that, despite the tarantulas usual attack response to having its hairs stimulated, it stands comparatively still to let the wasp check it out, even before the wasp paralyzes it. No one knows why...it's pretty awesome.
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If you want to catch an insect without risking harm to it or yourself, here is my favorite method: cup or bowl upended over the insect, slide a folder or thick index card below, transport outside, lift off cup and jump back.
Yes, grain moths are quite easy to raise... As are cockroaches and fruit flies.
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Jenny: And black widows and scorpions, in Tucson. Just leave your shoes out overnight, and then put your bare foot into it. Voila! A colony!
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I agree about the wasps and bees, but we had a very traumatic experience with wasps in Oregon. They made a nest in our wall. Many of them got lost or fell out, leading them through an opening into our ventilation system. Then they came into our apartment. Most of them were half dead so they only crawled. This is how my baby got acquainted with them. A few of them flew around and were basically angry. All of us experienced stings and we had a jar half full of dead wasps before the problem was taken care of by the apartment managers. It took two visits by pest control plus the liberal use of wasp killer inside. Don't ask me why I started putting them in the jar.
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Are you sure no one knows why? I bet there's somebody doing research on tarantulas and digger wasps right now...
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Eek, Amka! How awful! Poor baby, poor family, and poor wasps...
We have wasps that hibernate under our brick landscaping. I always know when spring is here because they come crawling out. At my house, I have a truce with the wasps. I don't bother them or their homes, and they don't bother me or mine. Now, last year, my husband did break the truce by tearing down one of their homes in the sanctuary. That was the only year a little girl got stung at my house. Coincidence?
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By the way, any writers out there with insects in your stories, run them by me. I HATE it when a perfectly good story has its believability ruined by unbelievable insect behavior.
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When I was a kid, there was an old cast iron bath tub upside down near the edge of my family's property line. A friend of mine and I wanted to turn it over, fill it with water, and play in it, but it was too heavy for us. My dad came out to give us a hand, but when he lifted it, a swarm of hornets poured out. My dog took off, followed shortly thereafter by my friend and my father. I just stood there and watched the hornets flow around me and after them. They ended up with many, many stings, and had to be taken to the emergency room, but I was completely unhurt by them. Anybody know if hornets are attracted to movement, or if my knack for getting along well with stinging insects just happens to extend to hornets?
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Interesting! Were you completely still? I have found that if you move in non-threatening ways, and don't exude fear pheromones, stinging insects will leave you alone. Perhaps some of us are "bee charmers", I don't know.
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Hey, Jenny! I bet you'd love reading Nausicaa of the Valley of Winds! It's this great manga and it has a girl in it that befriends these giant insects and it's so cool and should be in the graphic novel section of Barnes and Nobels or Borders... You'll love it, it's wonderful!
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I wasn't frozen in fear or anything, I just wasn't tearing all over the yard like they were. I wasn't afraid at all, merely interested, so I wouldn't be surprised if it were the pheremones I wasn't emitting that were the cause of their lack of interest. I can still remember looking down and seeing them streaming around my legs. It was really cool.
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Yes, that's what I meant - interested and curious rather than fearful. You intended no harm, and your body spoke in that way. Most insects are highly sensitive to chemical signals, in ways that scientists are only beginning to discover. I try to keep my mind as calm as possible around insects, and I find that they seem to appreciate that.
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See, I have this thing about bugs. I'm fascinated and creeped out by them at the same time. I have a lot of trouble with bees (mostly because they seem to aim for my eyes for some reason), but I love them around the garden.
My funniest bug story is that Tom bought me this cute little bee kids painted ring that I wore every day until I happened to be eating lunch with a friend and swatted a bee away, hurling the ring into a patch of ivy. We searched and searched, but couldn't find the ring. My friend was very disappointed because she had thought that I lost my WEDDING ring. *laugh*
A memorable moment in bug experience: At an Entemology fest, I held one of the largest bugs I had ever seen -- about eight inches long and two wide. I forget now whether it was some kind of beetle or not, but they keep them as pets in South America, I think. It was really cool to hold this harmless bug, but it took a lot of courage.
Syn -- I'm pretty sure you can't keep actual butterflies in your house unless you have a lot of flowering plants. You can raise the caterpillars and release the butterflies, or get a greenhouse where the butterflies can be happy. A lot of nature centers are now getting butterfly conservatories, which are neat places to visit. We visited one in Niagara Falls and it was really cool to see rare butterfly species. I've had a lot of fun making a butterfly garden as well with pretty good results.
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*giggle* Noemon, I could've done that study two summers ago!
I had a water sampler out in the field with a piece of tubing that ran from my machine around to and out the back of the little hut it was protected in. The water sampler apparently was a good breeding nest for ants and after a two-week period, there were seriously about a million ants. I'm not sure what they were doing with the eggs, but the ants would travel along the tubing in a clear highway carrying the eggs, and there was a vertical highway along the door to the hut as well, but it was more chaotic than the tubing highway. It was really fascinating. They are amazing with pheremones as well and as soon as we opened the door, they began to swarm up our legs. They would all bite at the same time once enough were on you. It was a terrible mess to clean out of the sampler, though.
*shudder* I felt like I was crawling for days.
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That's really interesting Christy. They really bit in a synchronized fashion? I've never heard of that. I'd love to have seen the whole thing (preferably floating in a little bubble so that they couldn't get at me).
What is the name of the short story or novella that is oftened assigned to late grade school students that deals with army ants on the move? Anybody know what I'm talking about? I loved that story when I was a kid.
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I used to work as a bug trapper for the Oregon Dept. of Ag. Saw some really weird things, like an incredible black and yellow banded wasp that has an ovipositor about three inches long. It looks really wicked, but it doesn't sting. It inserts the ovipositor under the bark of a tree and searches around until it finds a larva to lay its eggs in. I think National Geographic had a photo of it a year or two ago.
On another note, I have a (noncommercial) website devoted to bringing Monarch butterflies back to Oregon: The Oregon Milkweed Project
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Jenny, I loved bugs as a kid! When I was 5-6 years old, I would come home with pockets full of tent caterpillars (much to my mom's horror). I was always the one putting grasshoppers in my friends hair in elementary school and petting bumblebees. I had an insect book that listed all these different kinds of bugs and the geographic area where they lived. I also loved frogs, lizards, and snakes. Still do. The bugs kinda creep me out now that I am older. I hate killing them though--unless they bite one of my kids. Then they are DEAD.
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Should I start another "Mommy Bugga Bugga" thread?
Christy - I think you could keep butterflies in your house, but you have to provide for their needs. Some sort of nectar or nectar substitute would be essential.
Ants are really cool. I think it's amazing that you had such a great setup to observe them! The ants may have been moving the eggs to different places for a variety of reasons, a few of which follow: moving them from the queen to an egg chamber, moving them from an egg chamber to a larval chamber, moving different stages of their babies to other areas, etc.
Ants do use pheremones to communicate, and it doesn't surprise me that they were effective at trying to ward you off! You must be one bad-ass predator to keep going!
MoonRabbit - what you observed was an ichneumon. Once I learned what they were, I found them wonderful!
beverly - Why do bugs creep you out a bit now that you're older? Also, to avoid negative bug-child interactions, try teaching your children about the habits and nature of insects. Make sure the kids know that insects perceive them as big mean predators, and that their behavior will be defensive. Teach them not to handle bugs they don't know. But also model how to respect the critters without being afraid of them. When it comes to wasps and bees, the best thing to do is remain still around them and not get panicky. Walk, don't run, away.
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Jenny, I thought this was so cool. I have been learning about crows, lately, and I came across this ant-crow cross reference. Crows will sit on an anthill and let the ants bite them. Some scientists think that the formic acid gives them a buzz. This site does not mention if there is a mutualistic relationship on the ants' side. What do you think?
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Jenny, there's a french SF writer Bernard Werber who wrote a trilogy on ants: Empire of the Ants , Day of The Ants and Revolution of The Ants. The titles for the second and the third book are word to word translations of mine from French (they have yet to be printed in English). I've read all three of them and they're veeery interesting ! If you want to know how an ant sees you, you should definitely read them Posts: 4519 | Registered: Sep 2003
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Jenny, mostly, it depends on the bug. I guess I am a "cutist" (predjudiced towards cuteness, against repulsiveness). I will always love butterflies and caterpillars. I don't mind grasshoppers at all. Pill bugs are great. I adore praying manti (plural?). Snails are adorable, slugs I think are cool to look at but I would never touch. Spiders creep me out the most. Cockroaches--I won't go there. Silverfish and earwigs wig me out too. I hate the way if you smash a silverfish it just turns into dust.
I guess when I was younger, I thought more of bugs as having "feelings" and more complex thoughts. I have always loved miniatures, and I thought of them as miniature people. Now I look at them as little robots, fascinating, but not very endearing. Overall, bugs do creep me out more, and I can't figure out a rational reason why.
On a more humorus note, when I was a kid and loved bugs, FLOWERS creeped me out. I really can't explain this, it is about as irrational as fears get! I hated to touch them. In fact, I would go so far as to say I was terrified of them. My two older brothers would chase me around the house with a flower threatening to touch my cheek with it, and I would run screaming! My mother would bring back a lei from Hawaii for us girls to wear to church. I did so with great reluctance, making sure the vile things were set far out on my shoulders, and would move very, very carefully. When my mother would place fresh flowers on the table, the smell would sicken me. I would take the centerpiece and personally remove it at dinnertime. My brothers had a great time wondering what would happen the first time an admiring boy brought me a bouquet!!
Incidentally, I have mostly overcome my revulsion to flowers. I love receiving them as a gift very much, for they are lovely. If a petal falls to the floor, I still feel the stirrings of the old revulsion as I go to pick it up and throw it away. Yet I still have fond memories of shucking the corn grown in my father's garden and hoping to find a cute little worm to play with! I don't quite feel that way anymore.... xP
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Noemon, I too remember that story, although not its name. I am almost positive that it contained the main character's name in its title. Aarghh.
Also, his name started with an 'L'.
Getting a bit more on topic... Did anyone else have to do an insect collection for school? I think I did that in either the fifth or sixth grade, and it was a lot of fun.
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I did insect collections for 4-H. My dad helped me learn how to arrange the legs, antennae, and wings artfully. I had to write in teeny-tiny handwriting for the labels. I won Grand Champion ribbons two years, just beating out a boy, who was the only other worthy competitor. I had three boxes of bugs before I was done.
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CT: I really do like receiving flowers as a gift. Ever since the first sweet, dewy-eyed boy gave them to me, they have had nothing but positive feelings associated with them.
I find the smell of most flowers pleasant now, though the stench of my geraniums just about keels me over. My initial issue with flowers mostly had to do with the texture of the petals. Something about that still creeps me out a little.
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Scott, there's a new kids series of books we found at the library that is really good. My daughter picked up the "Tick" one, and we learned all sorts of interesting facts. After reading it to me, she started pretending she was a little tick. "I'm putting my hypostome in you now!" Cutest darn tick I ever saw.
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Horsefly eyes are beautiful. But look out for those mouthparts! Also, check out lacewings. They are so delicate and lovely.
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You know me pretty well CT! That was fascinating, and I've been having a blast exploring that site this afternoon (when I haven't been putting out fires--my network isn't humming along at its finely tuned best today, I'm afraid).
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I wonder if perhaps the crows were self-innoculating. What if the ant bites help kill some sort of crow diseases?
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Actually, I researched a bit more. It seems there are two types of "anting," active and passive. Active anting is when they rub the ants into their skin. It seems many types of birds do this. Crows are passive anters. They sit there and let them bite them. From what I can tell, the scientists are not really sure why they ant at all. There never seems to be a site that is definite about the whole thing.
Crows are just amazing. (sorry to get off the bug topic, Jenny G) They are highly intelligent, and are very social. Like wolves, almost. They leave the adolescents to care for the young, they even have funerals.(did you read that, Noemon? Or are you into the ant part?)
Liz
[ March 08, 2004, 05:41 PM: Message edited by: Elizabeth ]
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And black widows and scorpions, in Tucson. Just leave your shoes out overnight, and then put your bare foot into it. Voila! A colony!
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I really do like receiving flowers as a gift. Ever since the first sweet, dewy-eyed boy gave them to me, they have had nothing but positive feelings associated with them. ![[Blushing]](graemlins/blushing.gif)
The texture always reminded me of the clammy skin of a corpse. Morbid, I know.
