LETTER FROM BOBOLINK FARM
GONE BUGGY
By Barbara Tatham Johnson
I lift the bit of lichen the size of my little fingernail from the floor
where it has fallen from the firewood my husband has just brought inside to
prepare the evening fire in the woodstove. These nuisance pieces of bark,
lichen, and wood chips, ‘wood dandruff,’ are usually swept up and burned.
Oops, this bit of lichen moves! I look closely to see a small insect waving
its legs slowly as it thaws from its semi-frozen state in the garage
woodpile. My deep interest in insects aroused, I examine the bug through my
10x magnification loupe, which I keep at hand for close looks at the
occasional insect visitor.
This creature presents a stunning likeness to a scrap of gray lichen. It
bears the delicate mottled patterns and has the irregular edging of a piece
of lichen broken from its grip on tree bark. It is paper-thin.
I welcome this small but interesting distraction on a winter afternoon too
ferociously cold to go outdoors. I place my tiny guest in a little glass
and brass watchmaker’s case for safekeeping and gather my small library of
insect keys, insect guidebooks, and old college entomology texts. With
increasing excitement, I begin to sort out the physical attributes of this
visitor. Wings are not apparent, and my insect key directs me to a page
where I find a picture of a bug very similar to the one in hand. My bug is
appropriately named a ‘flat bug.’ I read that flat bugs live under bark and
sip the juices of lichen on dead wood through slender beak-like mouthparts.
I notice the flat bug is a distant relative of the bed bug, but I should not
be alarmed. My lichen imitator is interested in fungi not my blood. The
guidebook tells me that a good way to collect flat bugs is to knock dead
sticks together over a white sheet. This jars off insects for easy viewing.
Satisfied that the insect is not vermin, I am not so overcome with cabin
fever that I want to spend time outside clapping sticks of wood together. I
return the little visitor to a cool corner of the garage where it can wait
out the winter.
I recall another insect I found among the firewood a few years back. This
creature also wore camouflage colors that resembled rough bark. Measuring
almost three quarters of an inch, the insect, which I identified with my key
and guides as a ‘darkling beetle,’ looked grotesque with its knobby,
rough-edged armored back. This insect, too, lived, fed and bred among fungi
on decaying wood. I read that the darkling beetle family has many members.
One is the mealworm, a larval stage, sold in pet stores as food for birds,
lizards and the like. Mealworms are pests in pantry grain stores as well. In
the western deserts of the United States, there is a darkling beetle that
stands on its head and spritzes stinky mist on predators.
Another winter day I found a tiny iridescent fly on the windowsill. This
creature, a humpbacked fly, sports amidst the wood fungi as well. Some of
its related fly species live in and around ant colonies where their larvae
share the food of their hosts by curling around the neck of the ant larvae
and eating the food brought to them.
I puzzle over my absorbing delight in insects. I grew up in a home where
members of the phylum Insecta were encountered with fly swatters, poisonous
mists with names like ‘Flit’ and ‘Bug-be Gone,’ and a precisely directed
footstep. Somewhere and at some point, I moved beyond acquaintance with
houseflies and cockroaches and discovered the big, wide wonderful world of
insects.
I am, of course, a part of the vast audience fascinated with the grotesque
and revolting. We find entertainment in films such as Alien. We watch
America’s Funniest Home Videos. Animated movies of insect adventures
delight us.
Yet, the gross and repulsive are not the only aspects of insect lives I find
engrossing. The complexity of the natural world presents interactions of
invertebrates with plants and animals that surpass human imagination. I need
to know the details of insect scenarios of relentless pursuit and stunning
trickery. I want explanations for the unbelievable feats of strength and
perseverance that I witness.
I am a giantess in the Lilliputian insect world. I can explore vast
territories (from insect perspectives) in hours, and I can extract myself
from unpleasant sights and smells. My curiosity, more that of an amateur
naturalist than of a voyeur, is audacious. My winter interludes with
assorted wood fungi insects are light fare. I am ready for the snow to melt.
Let the wild rumpus begin!
