Many benign and useful insects, spiders and arthropods do exist in the world, but you will not find them in this adaptation of Wicked Bugs: The Louse that Conquered Napoleon’s Army & Other Diabolical Insects for young readers. Local author Amy Stewart is intrigued by the dark side of the bug universe; the dangerous, destructive […]
bugs
Posted inLife + Outdoors
HumBug: Look What the Sun Brought Out
I for one have had enough rain to last me a while. Many insects don’t have very long to get down to the business of procreation and continually postponing it due to rain can be worse than deadly. In nature, insects only live for one purpose: reproduce, that’s it. So, now the weather has turned, […]
Posted inNews
HumBug: An Inordinate Fondness for Beetles
The great geneticist and evolutionary biologist J.B.S. Haldane once said, “The creator, if he exists, has an inordinate fondness for stars and beetles.” It is believed there are more species of beetles than any other order of animals on the planet. They fill so many niches in the environment it is no surprise to happen […]
Posted inNews
HumBug: The Devil’s Coach Horse
It is a rare event that I go out looking for a particular species of insect and find it. Well, for once I succeeded. A week ago on one of those sunny-ish days I took a walk down the Van Duzen River and noted dozens of tiny flying insects. I chased a couple down and […]
Posted inNews
HumBug: All Aglow
The other day I received my new ultraviolet (black light) 51 LED flashlight from Amazon.com ($9.99). A significant upgrade from my old one. I discovered that some millipedes glow brilliantly under UV. Outside in the dark it’s like a different dimension in a sci-fi story — the trees are in the same places but everything […]
Posted inNews
HumBug: No Bugs Today
Last week, for the first time in several hundred excursions along the Van Duzen River spanning over 20 years, I saw no bugs. Only the sad remnants of a few abandoned spider webs and a bit of residual leaf damage testified to their existence. Despite a lifetime of experience at picking out tiny critters and […]
Posted inNews
HumBug: Great Beginnings
A great way to start the New Year! Astronomically, meterologically and biologically, winter solstice marks the end/beginning of our annual cycle. My year is starting off most auspiciously. About 1 a.m. on December 21st I counted eight glow work rms in the little grove, a record for the year. The day started sunny and bright […]
Posted inNews
HumBug: Rainy Day Critters
As the song says, “It’s raining again/ Oh no, it’s raining again.” So what does an entomological photographer do when it’s been raining for days and days? He gets wet. Today, taking stuff out to the compost, I noted the rosemary is blooming. At first I couldn’t see anything moving, then bit by little bit […]
Posted inNews
HumBug: I Gotta Get Out More
Confined to my house for some weeks by illness, I missed my usual walks along the Van Duzen River. Fortunately for me there is seldom a shortage of insects wherever I go. While I was more or less bedridden an inordinate number of tiny flying bugs had invaded my home. Although I had no fruit rotting in […]
Posted inNews
HumBug: Uninvited Guests
The black lights of my “light trap” don’t make for a regular trap; the insects are free to come and go as they please. That’s the trick, though — the lights are irresistible. Moths, of course, come by the dozens, but there are others. An opportunistic praying mantis seeks an easy dinner. A burying beetle […]
Posted inNews
HumBug: Like Moths to a Black Light
Last week I wrote about setting up a light trap in my backyard with only limited success. At the suggestion of some folks in an entomological chat room, I tried it with black compact fluorescent lights rather than Coleman lanterns. The old gas lanterns give off a great deal of heat and frequencies in the […]
Posted inNews
HumBug: Missing Giants
The last couple of nights I’ve been running an experiment to answer a question. When I was a kid, I could leave the porch light on almost any night and there’d be a bunch of insects around it in an hour or so. Lately, I’ve been noticing that there don’t seem to be nearly as […]