Honey, I lost the Trox

I was a bit too cavalier the other day in allowing a hide beetle, Trox sp., to relax on the lid of the vial I had it in, on the table while I was taking images of a couple of wolf spiders in a casserole dish we have sacrificed for "studio shots" of various small creatures. Wow, that one sentence says a lot, doesn't it? Well, naturally, when I turned back for the beetle, it was nowhere to be found. It got me thinking about what kinds of things the spouse of an entomologist never wants to hear.

Have you seen me? Trox beetle

Hide beetles, members of the family Trogidae, are innocuous enough. They want nothing to do with us until we are dead. No, really dead. Dried-up dead. Mummified dead. Extra crispy with a few tufts of hair remaining. They come to carcasses after pretty much every other insect has left the scene convinced that nothing of any nutritional value remains. Still, having a normally outdoor insect crawling or flying around the house can be disconcerting. It is certainly not part of most people's "normal" experience.

There is going to be no finding it again unless it raises its profile significantly, which Trox beetles are not prone to do. No amount of "Have you seen me?" posters in every room is going to help, even though it is an adult insect. I understand you cannot even report one missing until it has been gone for a minimum of twenty-four hours. Juvenile insects are even worse. You have to do age progression drawings because metamorphosis changes them so drastically that they become unrecognizable after only a few weeks, sometimes a few days.

Age progression of mosquitoes, also known as "life cycle"

Luckily, the beetle is harmless. I suppose even the most tolerant of roommates and spouses would blow a gasket if their arachnologically-inclined cohabitant suddenly asked "Have you seen my black widow?" This kind of announcement is usually followed by something like "Hey, Where is everybody going (at such a high rate of speed)?" The kids losing a gerbil probably warrants an eye-roll, but just one little venomous organism on the loose and you'd think it was grounds for divorce.

I am fortunate. My wife hardly bats an eye whenever I confess to mishandling some bug that results in it suddenly roaming freely, usually in the vicinity of the kitchen. On more than one occasion she has yelled over to me "Hey, I found your (insert name of fugitive spider or insect here)!" There are also times when she assumes the critter on the counter is something that escaped captivity. If that is not the case then we are both surprised, and not usually in a good way.

Lynx spider on the stove: Nope, not mine

One word of advice to others like myself: It is w-a-a-a-y better to admit your negligence before she is suddenly confronted with the vagrant creature without prior knowledge of its escape. You know that skillet that is always on the stovetop? Yeah? Ok, then you understand that it can be used against both you and the spider.

The worst reception I ever received from my wife was when I enthusiastically related to her over the phone that "the lab guy we met the other day came over with a jar full of bed bugs....in all life stages!" Hello?....The life of an entomological blogger is fraught with exactly these kinds of dilemmas. You need to do that post on bed bugs, and you need images to go with it. I mean, they can't climb out of the porcelain casserole dish....Can they?

Grand Larsony

Four years ago, almost to the day, I shared some of my cartoons on this blog. I promised I would share more, and apologize that it has taken so long to do so.

"I got you a gig at Al's Produce and a world tour with Union Carbide"

I freely admit that when Gary Larson debuted The Far Side, I finally felt that my own strange sense of humor had been validated. He inspired me to take up a pen and pencil myself and see what I could do.

Butterfly fun with "Crazy Proboscis"

There have been many other cartoonists who have capitalized on Larson’s style of single-panel cartoons, and that has eased the pain of Larson’s retirement from the funny papers. Should I ever get syndicated myself, and that would take a lot more work before that happened, I would name my strip “Grand Larsony” because while I haven’t stolen any ideas outright, Mr. Larson deserves full credit for getting me started.

"I swear it's just sex, sex, sex, especially in those pheromone ads!"

So far, I have been scanning old cartoons that I did from about 1987-1989, and touching them up a bit using Paint software on my PC. I welcome suggestions on how to grow beyond this primitive approach, and maybe even initiate new works on the computer instead of on paper.

"#@!$! termites!"

Were I to be doing something other than entomology and writing, this would probably be it. I do enjoy preaching the gospel of arthropod appreciation, but I love making people laugh, too. You can find these cartoons, and more, on my Facebook page under "Photos: Albums: Cartoons."

Weird Bug News

I try to make a habit of picking up our local alternative newspaper, the Tucson Weekly; if only for my guilty pleasure, the “News of the Weird” by Chuck Shepherd. His column sometimes has me laughing out loud. Not surprisingly, some of the stories revolve around an entomology theme, as did one this week.

The first entry in his column is entitled “Bejeweled Beetle,” and reads thus:

”In January, U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers confiscated a live, jeweled beetle that a woman was wearing as an ‘accessory’ on her sweater as she crossed into Brownsville, Texas, from Mexico. Blue jewels were glued onto the beetle’s back, which had been painted gold, and the mobile brooch was tethered by a gold chain attached to a safety pin. Even though the woman orally ‘declared’ the animal, the beetle was confiscated, because she had not completed the bureau’s PPQ Form 526, which is necessary to bring insects into the country. Reportedly, such jewelry is not that rare in Mexico. A spokesperson for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals was, of course, appalled.”

There you have it, folks, your tax dollars at work. I only wish that we were collectively so vigilant when it comes to agricultural and forest pests. There is certainly nothing to fear from the beetle species employed as a living ornament. That would be Zopherus chilensis, an “ironclad beetle” in the family Zopheridae. They are scavengers that feed on organic debris and pose no known threat to the health of humans, pets, livestock, crops, or garden plants. I only wish I could say the same about most of the human characters in “News of the Weird.”

Sunday Funnies

When Gary Larson debuted “The Far Side,” I was thrilled to see that I was not the only person on the planet with a bent sense of humor. That someone could actually combine their knowledge of natural history with a cynical view of human nature was even more astounding. That is when I decided to try my own hand at cartooning.

Insects are obviously a great source of comedic fodder because of the crazy things they do, but I’ve done cartoons about other forms of wildlife, and people, too. I started making personalized greeting cards for Christmas, Valentine’s Day, Earth Day, and other occasions.

A handful of my creations actually made it into print. The American Entomologist, magazine of the Entomological Society of America, published this one along with the several other “Insectoons” by other entomologists/cartoonists in the spring, 1991 issue (volume 37, number 1):

I got solo appearances in the summer, 1991, winter, 1992, and spring, 1992 issues before the editor found other ways to fill space (advertisers, I presume).

This cartoon made it overseas into the publication Lucanus, a Swedish journal of entomology, in 2004. Funny to see the punchline in Swedish, of course.

Thanks to editor Bengt Andersson for making the effort to publish it.

I’d like to do more of this kind of thing, but I need to take a course or something to learn how to do it on the computer, or a combination of both freehand and digital renderings. Meanwhile, I’ll try and get my scanner up and running and share more of these. Don’t hold your breath, though.

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Another day in Entomology Land

Once I finished sorting the pitfall trap samples by order (beetles separate from flies, wasps, spiders, etc), then I set about trying to identify the Hymenoptera (ants, wasps, bees) more specifically. Mind you, I am used to dealing with insects over five millimeters long. In the world of pitfall traps, anything that big is absolutely gigantic. Most of what I’m coming across are minute parasitic wasps and a few ants. The following is a typical sort from order to family level or below in terms of classification.

I start by dumping the vial into a watchglass. The specimens usually stick to the vial, so I have to wash them out with alcohol. Some are very stubborn indeed. Then I stick the watchglass under the microscope and start sorting. A sample may contain anywhere from one to twenty or so specimens, hopefully all of them belonging to the same order (Hymenoptera in this case).

I segregate them by the most specific classification I am able. This often requires the use of scientific documents called “dichotomous keys.” A key is a series of couplets, each couplet describing one or more characters of external anatomy of the insect before you. You find the character(s) that match your specimen, then proceed to the next couplet and so on, until you arrive at a family, genus, or species name. If I am keying out an insect from Massachusetts, and I arrive at a family of insects found only in Sumatra, well, guess who made a boo-boo? This can be no fault of your own, though. I once keyed out a wasp to a genus found only in Japan because my specimen was missing one tarsal (foot) spine that had broken off. Sure enough, the other leg had the full complement of spines. Yes, it is enough to drive you crazy.

The microscope I am using is a binocular stereo “zoom” model that, near as I can tell, takes me up to fifty power (fifty times the size of the insect you are viewing). Even this is not always enough. I had to laugh when I came across one couplet in a key that was illustrated with an SEM! Sure, I’ll jut bop on over to my neighborhood scanning electron microscope, no problem. The University of Massachusetts does have one, but you can’t just barge in with your bug. It is a major exercise to render images of anything under one of those machines, including coating the specimen in a thin layer of gold.

Fortunately, my friend Jeff Boettner was able to rustle-up another key that is much more user-friendly. Got to credit Agriculture Canada for producing such fine works, eh?

Now, if it were only still in print….

It is very gratifying to find that your specimen matches the illustrations in the key, like the sculpturing on the propodeum (hindmost part of the thorax) of this cynipid gall wasp (figure "aa" on the page of the book shown here). Yes, the specimen is standing on its head in this imge.

I am truly learning as much doing this work as I am producing for the university, but then, isn’t that what life should be about? Soon I will share more images of some of the spectacular little insects I’m finding in these samples.

For Whom the Bell Tolls

I have to relate a funny story. Lately I have been going out at night, looking for moths and other insects that fly to the meager outdoor lights here in South Deerfield, Massachusetts. Ok, I have two funny stories, now that I think about it.

The first night I went out looking, I stopped at two banks to prowl around their well-lit ATM and drive-through areas respectively. Naturally, I was stopped by the cops who had received reports of someone with a camera taking pictures of the banks. I eased their fears, and after a computer check I was on my way….Hey, can I help it if banks and the post office are the best-lit buildings in town? Geesh, you don’t have to make a federal case out of it. Well, come to think of it, I guess you do!

Last night I got a start of a different sort. Yet another nicely-lit building is our local library, located right next to a church complete with a bell tower. The library has a wonderful bright light, not one of those non-insect-attracting-good-for-nothing yellow sodium fixtures. Unfortunately, it is located about twenty feet up the side of the building. Thank goodness for the twenty power zoom on my Canon PowerShot SX10 IS.

I had found a neat moth to take an image of, which was apparently at precisely 11:30 PM because, just as I was about to press the shutter…DONG!!! Once my head quit rattling and my heart started again, I got the shot. I guess that will teach me to stay up so late on a work day.

More moth fashions

While some moths came to the “Moth Ball” all gussied-up in their best black and white, or subtle and elegant pastels (please see the initial entry in my companion blog Sense of Misplaced), others sported complex patterns that rendered them virtual wall flowers, easily camouflaged on the bark of a tree, if not the wood siding on David Small’s shed.

Chief among these was this amazing tufted thyatrin, Pseudothyatira cymatophoroides, a member of the family Drepanidae that includes the hooktip moths and false owlet moths. It was one of the specimens to draw real oohs-and-ahs from the human spectators mingling among the winged wonders.

A wonderful salt-and-pepper pattern was displayed by this aptly-named “oak beauty,” Nacophora quernaria, one of the inchworm moths in the family Geometridae.

A chip off the old tree branch was what this “white-headed prominent” in the genus Symmerista resembled, its lovely white accent line adding to its disguise by imitating an exposed shard of underlying wood.

Perhaps the ultimate in obscurity was this slender little owlet moth in the subfamily Acontiinae that came incognito as, of all things, a bird dropping. Even more stunning, it is only one of over eighty species in that group, the majority of which are also bird-dropping mimics. Well, there is no accounting for taste, I suppose. More to come….

The "Moth Ball"

The evening of Saturday, June 13, 2009 I had the pleasure of attending a delightfully informal event christened the “Moth Ball” by host David Small and his wife, Shelley. The site of this outdoor gala was their home in Athol, Worcester County, Massachusetts. I was among several honored human guests, all anxious to meet the nocturnal Lepidoptera that we hoped would be dancing under the blacklights.

Unfortunately, the weather was patently awful, raining incessantly all night long and into the following morning. No worries, though, as many moths, and other intriguing insects, showed up anyway, and all the people found plenty of entertainment indoors getting to know one another, perusing David’s library, looking at online moth websites and photo galleries, drinking, eating, and occasionally braving the elements to see new arrivals at the lights.

David has a great sense of humor, is laid back, and was always looking to make his guests comfortable. Shelley must have stocked the place with every beverage known to man, and then made strawberry shortcake. We were all well fed and watered. David and most of the guests are “amateur” naturalists, each with their own specialty and command of that group of organisms. Most of them knew far more about moth identification than myself, and I learned a great deal.

Some folks stayed overnight and were treated to comfortable sleeping accommodations and a fantastic breakfast the next morning. Many of the moths apparently liked the place well enough to hang around themselves, or else they had hangovers and were sleeping it off.

Someone made a rough tally of the lepidopterans seen over the prior evening and that morning and it totaled over sixty species, bad weather and all.

For a peek at the more interesting moths snapped by the paparazzi, please visit my companion blog, Sense of Misplaced, and keep an eye out here for additional items related to the Moth Ball. Better yet, hold your own event. It is a sure cure for the summer doldrums.

My Favorite Typos

My “day job” was as a keywording specialist for an internet company that sells images online, and one of the duties was to correct the errors of my predecessors. Additionally, I volunteer to identify “mystery bugs” at AllExperts.com. Both of these activities have occasionally generated some hilarious typographical errors.

Our company once outsourced some keywording to workers outside the U.S. This made for some intriguing interpretations of spelling. Among my favorites: the “Ladder Day Saints.” Gee, talk about being high and mighty. “Pungent Sound, Washington.” Well, there goes the travel and tourism industry. “Neckless.” Well, it is pretty hard to wear a necklace if you have no neck, don’t you think?! “Glasswear.” Be careful, dear, you don’t want to fall down in that garment…and you might want to put on some underwear.

Over on AllExperts, too many people who ask me questions disregard spelling and punctuation entirely. A few, however, go to great lengths to explain their situation, and to describe the insect or spider that is plaguing them. I always ask that they please include the location where the creature was found, but in one case I couldn’t find “Californai” on the map.

Far and away my most favorite error, bless this woman’s heart, had to do with an infestation of something in her attic. I know that she meant to write “fecal” matter as one of the clues to her pest problem, but in what has to be one of the most unfortunate typos ever, it came out “fetal” matter. I laughed so hard I was almost in the fetal position. Once I regained my composure I told her that she needed to contact the local authorities to evict the underground abortion clinic in her attic. Oh, my. Keep those cards and letters coming, folks.