Regional
(2009-09-28)
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FT. COLLINS, CO
(KUNC) -
The changing of Aspen leaves in the high country is associated with the start of hunting season in Colorado - but it's not big game that KUNC commentator Laura Bridgwater goes after during this time of the year.
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This is the perfect time to hunt insects because the creepy crawlies have had all summer to grow. And judging by how many bugs I inadvertently swallowed while biking this summer, it's been a good year for them.
I've bagged some big bugs over the years.
In my collection, maintained with the belief that pinning insects is acceptable for scientific study, I have a Tiger Swallowtail butterfly, a long-horned beetle, and a black and red velvet ant. The velvet ant is also called a cow killer for its painful sting.
I also have a lubber grasshopper. It is two and a half inches of chunky insect that thuds when it jumps. The spikes on its hind legs look as if they could scrub the rust off an old Chevy.
Like all collections, I take donations, too. There's the cockroach that my mom mailed us from Alabama and the male rhinoceros beetle a friend found floating in a pool in Florida. Its horn looks uncannily like a rhinoceros's horn--only smaller.
Nothing is too little to be considered game. There's the engorged tic I removed with pointy tweezers from an unmentionable body part. There's also the head lice from when our kids came home from school itching. Of course we kept a few. We preserved them between two pieces of Scotch tape.
In the slightly vindictive department, I even have the fat bumblebee that stung my then two-year-old daughter Elizabeth under her fingernail. Who knew insect collecting could be better at keeping memories than scrapbooking?
I didn't have to roam far to build this collection that ranges from Coleoptera to Lepidoptera. Insects are everywhere--in the inner cities and in nearly all environments worldwide. They are the most diverse group of animals on the planet and represent more than half of all known living organisms. If you can't find an arthropod, you're not looking.
You don't even have to leave your home to hunt them. You can be an Accidental Biologist. Bugs are in your house, in your bed, and even in your food.
I've captured a black widow near the sliding glass door, a ubiquitous Miller moth in a window, and a bagworm building a case on the door frame.
Wild things are also in your backyard. But, according to Richard Louv, the author of the best-selling book Last Child in the Woods, kids these days don't know that.
Louv's book has spurred a national conversation about the disconnection between children and nature. It has also inspired Leave No Child Inside initiatives. Apparently the only bugs children ever see are the computer kind.
I know that stalking dragonflies, trailing hawk moths and even tracking mosquitoes has helped me develop a deeper appreciation for nature. Among other things, I no longer consider ladybugs cute after watching them devour aphids, and I have a healthy respect for cow killers after learning the hard way that their stinger works through plastic bags.
I think if we want people children and adults alike to get outside more often, to be more green, to care about the big issues facing the environment, I think we need accessible ways to develop nature appreciation. And what could be more accessible than our six-legged friends?
For the record, I started my collection as a requirement for a college entomology class. I don't pin insects any more because I'm done taking those courses. I'm an Ex-Exterminator.
But just because I'm no longer armed and dangerous doesn't mean I've given up bug hunting. These days I'm with the "Catch and Release" program. Hunting with butterfly nets gets my family away from Facebook and football games on the television. Children aren't the only ones left inside these days.
So get out and hunt some tiny game before the first hard frost. You don't need any fancy scientific equipment just a few plastic bags will do. But avoid the cow killers let that be the one that gets away.
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