"Bird Food"

Recently, in certain circles, insects have come to be defined as “bird food.” I was going to devote this post to describing why this is offensive, because it is, but it also occurred to me how hilarious this is, because it is that, too. Let us begin.

Western Meadowlark with sphinx moth caterpillar

The first question that may come to mind is, “What is not bird food?” Like pretty much all animals, birds need protein matter to grow, and fats and carbohydrates to burn for energy. Berries, seeds, insects, and small vertebrates are all on the menu for at least some birds. There is obviously the need for resource partitioning among them all in any given habitat or ecosystem.

Spiders. Insects are spider food, but we do not want to bring those arachnids center stage, because they are even more revolting than “bugs.”

Heck, back in the day, we were probably bird food. Some five hundred years ago, the now-extinct Haas Eagle, known in legends of the Maori as te Hokioi or Pouakai, is thought to have been capable of killing human children. It was a real bird, but there are obviously no firsthand accounts of its predatory behavior. At least we did not encounter the giant, flightless “terror birds,” members of the long-extinct family Phorusrhacidae, which ruled parts of modern-day South America during the Cenozoic era, pre-dating humans by a wide margin.

Turkey Vultures

According to the old cinematic and television westerns, dead people were frequently bird food. If old Festus hadn’t been seen for a while, the other cowboys would go looking for him. The next camera shot would be of vultures wheeling high above, and you knew that, sadly, they had found him. Today, we understand that vultures circling overhead means they are riding thermal updrafts. If they start descending, you know that they spotted poor Skippy.

Furthermore, insects are food for nearly every other organism. They are, arguably, more important to bats than birds. More important to anteaters, the aardvark, aardwolf, certain bears, marmosets….You get the picture, it is a complex network. Spiders. Insects are spider food, but we do not want to bring those arachnids center stage, because they are even more revolting than “bugs.” Please.

A crab spider female, Misumena vatia, with an arctic butterfly, Oenis sp.

The basic message I am sending is that to single out insects in particular as “bird food” is silly at best, and misleading at worst. Framing insects as bird food is, however, easily converted into memes, and other over-simplified media services. We are doing the natural world a disservice by dumbing-down its complexities, and certainly by turning other organisms into one-dimensional entities. We do not approve when other humans are racially-profiled, stereotyped, and pigeon-holed. Right?

Whatever it is that birds do for you, in visceral and emotional terms, is what insects do for me.

I get it. The bird food message is an attempt to convince homeowners and gardeners to landscape with native plants to feed the caterpillars and other insects that in turn feed the birds. That works on those who already understand the way nature works. Most people do not. Will they tolerate insects more now because “my [bugs] bring all the [birds] to the yard*?” Maybe, but not likely, and any necessary application nuances for their particular biome will be lost on them.

A much better message would be one lodged in economics. The average household can save an enormous amount of money in maintenance, and possibly water use, by replacing lawnscapes and ornamental plants with native grasses, forbs, shrubs, trees, and vines. Everyone can comprehend that dispensing with the mower, fuel or electricity for it, and expenditures on fertilizers and pesticides is a “win” for their pocketbook as well as the planet.

Chipping Sparrow and queen Western Yellowjacket

The overriding problem, from my perspective, is that categorizing insects as bird food demeans any other human interest in insects. It prioritizes “your birds” over “my insects.” That air of superiority is what is offensive. Whatever it is that birds do for you, in visceral and emotional terms, is what insects do for me. Please understand that, and respect that my passion for insects is no less admirable and valid than your enjoyment of birding.

* Modification of the lyric “milkshakes bring all the boys to the yard,” from “Milkshake,” a song by Kelis.

The Entomologist on the Internet

Interviewing with Alie Ward on her wildly popular Ologies podcast got me thinking about the internet from the perspective of entomologists, both professional and aspiring amateur. You simply cannot take anything too seriously. You must laugh at yourself when you do. Here are some broad categories of fun and frustration for your entertainment.

Memes

One enduring complaint of professional entomologists is memes. They are nearly always an oversimplification, if not outright misinformation, intended to be the last word on the subject. Memes are sometimes insulting, insinuating that anyone holding a different view is illiterate or worthy only of ridicule. Mostly, memes reveal more about their creator or re-tweeter than they do about the audience, let alone the subject. Those memes that are obviously humorous are the ones I like best. I have even created a few of my own.

(Object) for Scale

One of my favorite scenarios is when someone who wants a particularly large insect or arachnid identified places some object next to it “for scale.” The object is frequently monetary currency, a coin for smaller creatures, and some paper denomination for larger organisms. I cannot resist retorts like “This just in, spiders begging for money, film at eleven,” or “Please do not give them money, they will only use it to buy pheromones.”

Other objects include pocket knives, car keys or fobs, disposable cigarette lighters….Terrific. The insect isn’t scary enough, we have to give it a weapon, too? “That one looks like it is going to kill you with fire!” “What you have there is a nymph, it’s not old enough to drive!” I try to provide legitimate identifications for people making those requests, but I enjoy having a little fun, too.

Fishfly, © WhatsThatBug.com

At least this giant water bug got some lip balm out of the deal (© WhatsThatBug.com)

Wasted Appreciation?

A truly agonizing situation is when some random individual posts images of an insect or arachnid I have been dying to see myself and never found. Why? Why?! (grimaces skyward, shakes fists in air). In fairness, the person posting had to have some degree of curiosity to bother photographing the thing, but too often I still convince myself that true appreciation of the animal has been wasted on this dude at his barbecue.Someday I’ll see a living Rainbow Scarab beetle, or a California Horntail wasp. Right?

My only glimpse so far of a Cottonwood Borer, Plectrodera scalator, in Salina, Kansas

Stop This Meme

Here at Bug Eric, I have better things to do with my time than constantly fight wave after wave of misinformation, superstition, and outright hoaxes. The latest is this one purporting that a "new" and "deadly" spider has invaded North America. Utter nonsense!

The spider depicted in the images is the very much harmless Woodlouse Hunter, Dysdera crocata. This spider is originally from the Mediterranean region of Europe, but made its way to North America ages ago, not recently. Yes, it has wicked-looking jaws and fangs, which are used solely to turn over its roly-poly and sowbug prey so that it can inflict a lethal bite on its food, not on human beings. The venom of this spider has not been scientifically proven to be the least bit dangerous to the average, healthy person.

"But, but...." you say, citing the watermark on one of the images in the meme as being from the University of Nebraska. Surely we can trust our institutes of higher learning, right? Yes, but not if their image has been stolen by some malicious individual out for hits on his or her own website. The university should consider filing suit against whoever is using this image. There are laws against copyright infringement, which is what is happening here. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) exists to protect our "works" from unscrupulous individuals who seek to profit from our efforts at education and enlightenment.

By sharing this meme, and others like it, without doing due diligence of fact-checking (a quick check on Snopes would have yielded the truth about this one), serves only to perpetuate ignorance at best, and participate in crimes of "fake news" and, in this case, copyright violation. Stop it.

© Jenn Rose #jennrosefx

Bee vs. Wasp Memes Perpetuate Ignorance

Social media is both a blessing and a curse to entomologists. It can inform and illuminate, but also circulate misinformation and irrationality at light speed. Perhaps nothing better illustrates this dilemma than the proliferation of bee versus wasp memes.

My friend Devon Henderson posted the above meme on Facebook today to solicit reactions from her colleagues in entomology. Note that I have heavily edited the captions to make the meme "family-friendly." The overwhelming consensus was that such simplistic and inciting graphics are more devastating to public education than they even are "amusing" to people who know better. As one respondent replied,

" The fact people keep posting them in naturalist forums (without your critical comment) annoys me, as if everyone will find it hilarious and haven't seen them a thousand times before. People seem very bad at judging audiences. Also, bad language doesn't bother me personally, but it is bad manners to post it on general forums."

Memes are at best a shortcut to express an opinion. Usually, they are insulting to the subject or hurtful to better-informed members of the intended audience. One respondent to the top meme responded:

" I reali[z]e this is the entomological equivalent of racism: stereotypes, false assumptions on these different species mostly coming out of ignorance and fear. 'Ha ha, wasps are assholes! Ha ha!'"

Indeed, one overriding theme in the comment thread of the Facebook post was that people are uneducated enough already, without adding to their false assumptions with such nonsensical memes. Devon comments:

" It bothers me that people actually think that wasps are vindictive and seek people out. They can't rationalize and reason like a human. They act solely on instinct. But people still choose to ignore this fact and continue to accuse wasps of being the 'bad guys.' It's extremely ignorant to assume that a wasp is conscious of its actions and stings people for the sake of unprovoked 'revenge.'"

That's a female bumble bee, but....

As far as I am concerned, memes like this are the equivalent of war propaganda that dehumanizes the "enemy," and spam that pollutes one's e-mail and social media accounts. Perhaps it is fitting that I am posting this during the U.S. Presidential campaign season, when vitriol is spewing from the mouths of most all of the candidates and their ill-informed supporters. There is little difference between wasps and Republicans if you subscribe to the meme agenda.

I suppose pest control companies and insecticide manufacturers are in no hurry to discourage anti-wasp memes, but thankfully there are those of us with a good "following" of proactive students of entomology and ecology who are spreading the facts. I have the good folks at Ask an Entomologist for initially posting on this very subject, back in 2014 no less. Even beekeepers like Dave Green recognize wasps have their positive attributes:

"The public is finally beginning to realize how important bees are, as our primary pollinators; the next step is to become aware of how vital the wasps are as our primary pest controls. I judge the health of a garden by the number of paper wasps that are working though the plants hunting (pest) prey."

Maybe we even need to start flooding the internet with our own counterattack of memes, as Joe Ballenger has done. He deftly incorporates wasp biology into his memes making female wasps oddly empathetic to the plight of our struggling American middle class.

I thank each of you in advance for calling out the idiocy of memes that paint wasps in a villainous light; and who consistently share their own experiences, knowledge, and imagery that demonstrates the positive aspects and fascinating behaviors of wasps. If all else fails, though, I am certain that Devon would gladly permit you to post her own artistic meme in response to the bad ones.