Wait, Save That Bumblebee For Me!
03.15.06 By Collin DavidI’m probably the worst bug collector that’s ever walked the Earth.
Many amateur entomologists channel their love of bugs into formaldehyde jars and carefully prepared Riker mounts and pins and tiny labels, but I’m just not that meticulous. You can find my large collection of insects in a 50-drawer trinket chest, various old spice jars, tupperware containers and ring boxes. All of this is kind of cluttered into one corner of my room, which I’ve dubbed the ‘Anti-Girl Zone’. For some reason, this is absolutely repellant to many fine young ladies, but when forced to make the choice between a thousand enthralling insects or hearing about the wonders that a good pedicure can do, I choose the bugs.
The trinket chest is labeled, each drawer with a different kind of insect. Of course, my knowledge of insects is once again tested and mocked, while bug collectors everywhere cringe at my ignorance. I’ve been able to identify some of the bugs, and have white labels affixed to the drawers with the scientific names, like ‘nicrophorus tomentosus’, but those are fairly interspersed with labels like ‘mystery attack beetle!’ with a little picture of a beetle holding a knife, because that beetle was a total jerk. Labels like ‘probably not a ham’ and ‘WTF?’ don’t really serve anyone but me. Websites like What’s That Bug? and, surprisingly, the Entomology community on Livejournal are extremely helpful. How else would I have known that a toxic Yellow Sac Spider was living in my hallway? I didn’t need those hours of nervously lost sleep anyhow.
My collection is an eclectic one, as my moral code prevents me from killing anything. I can’t spy a beautiful insect in nature, capture it, rob it of its life and keep it around just to ogle. Something about that doesn’t sit right with me. I don’t do that with women, I’m not gonna do it with bugs. So, what I’ve collected comes from sun-baked windowsills and floating in backyard pools. I’ve also found a few acquaintances who have learned to regard bugs as ‘collectibles’ and help me along by saving what they find. Of course, these bugs are certainly not in the same good condition they’d be in if I stole them from the green grasses of the wide world, little circulatory systems still churning along, and popped them into my collection. I’ll take what I can get, though.
The bugs often get incorporated into artworks, which is the main reason for collecting them, even though the science is also pretty enthralling. They’re excellent models for photographs, since they don’t squirm around and you don’t have to pay them, and they’re also very interesting additions to still life drawings and paintings. There’s something about their little exoskeletons and jointed appendages that also appeals to my love of all things robotic.
I’ve collected the enormous cecropia moth, cicadas of both the green and black varieties (as well as cicada-killer wasps), the greater part of a mantis, countless moths, beautiful ebony beetles, cockroaches, spiders and anything that lives in the lower-upstate NY area. I appreciate carefully prepared collections of butterflies, pressed under glass, and maybe one day I’ll make the effort to properly preserve these little guys before the dreaded dermestid beetle gets to them. Bug lovers everywhere probably hate me.
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Article Tags: beetles, bug, butterfly, collection, entomologists, entomology, insect, moths, preservation, riker mounts, spider, wasps================
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