Darwinian Staying Power
by Adam S. Kibbe
Yes, this expands mightily on MikeÃs ever-so-succinct, essentially contentless entry of 12-29-03, Hemiptera — but redundancy is an inappropriate attribute to assign my effort, as neither rhyme nor reason was given at the time. Really, an absence of any information at all.
First, IÃd like to thank Mike for doing the research — presumably on my behalf — and congratulate him on a successful (if superficial) identification. Second, I laud the image he found, better than these here. For instance:
Lastly, IÃd like to give him additional grief for the lack of content or context in his post. But I can let that go……. I spent a clumsy hour on the Net myself to come up with my own mere smattering of data. From what I now understand, the appearance of these stolid little insects is a nationally unifying aspect of the past fall season — with a provenance said to be the western U.S., theyÃve now shown up in states coast-to-coast, and have even hopped some vector or other over to Europe.
I write, not just because they were for the first time in my awareness notably everywhere here in Massachusetts this fall, hiding in warm corners and dangling in disconcerting numbers from trees, but because even now, several months into an acutely cold winter, at least one still circulates in slow, six-legged deliberation around our house. Eating what, I darenÃt imagine.
This critter (allow me the presumed thread of singular continuity) shows up — usually just after youÃve decided itÃs finally died — just about everywhere (luckily not yet in our bed). ItÃll just be sitting there on the edge of a molding, propped up on those stilt legs, looking like itÃs thinking through its next move. Sometimes it flies. WeÃre startled (for the umpteenth time), itÃs usually all but inert. One could infer despondency, but I tend to anthropomorphosize too much (I had to edit every ìitî in this piece from ìheî, for instance). Besides, there are many opportunities to off itself if it were of a mind — walk into a web, roll in poisonous chemicals, fall in the toilet. No, I think it has an enduring perseverance which is at odds with despondency.
I figure our guestÃs current pace has a lot to do with the air temperature. We keep our house at about 68 when weÃre in and awake, 60 otherwise (unless weÃre staving off potentially frozen pipes). But its kin didnÃt move fast even in the comparatively balmy days of early October. Fast enough to get inside, somehow, though their chunky solidity would give the impression it would take open doors, not mere cracks. How this [one?] got in is probably not a mystery, though I canÃt say for sure. And once inside, itÃs fast enough to avoid spiders, too, one would surmise.
Some may be asking why it would have to perish of natural causes or suicide, when most homeowners would long ago have mixed its insides with its outsides — squished it. Well, yours truly regularly evicts flies and bees by catching them against a wall or window with a glass or jar and sheet of paper. Not only am I a vegetarian who can barely contemplate the deaths of any creature (other than willfully, the more annoying members of my own species), but I figure itÃs a great deal due to my own inattention that theyÃve strayed into my artificially insectless environment anyway (that or plain osmotic pressure). I finally decided mosquitoesà ill intent merited the death penalty, though, so IÃm not completely bonkers.
But the idea of squishing this stalwart individual is too alien, too arbitrarily cruel. Not only canÃt I, I canÃt even think of why I should. Oh, I can construct arguments, though they wouldnÃt involve dread or disease. How about ending its pointless existence, curtailing its arguably prolonged suffering? ItÃs not ìnaturalî for it to be alive, indoors, in winter, after all. It should be burrowed deep in the soil, hibernating. But it IS here, and IÃm not sure enough of its ìshouldsî to go dig it a hole. Besides, itÃd likely be a lethally abrupt transition.
And then thereÃs the ìlifeî thing. I mean, look at it. Up close (if you can). DonÃt worry, it wonÃt bite you — when warm, itÃll actually react aversely to your proximity (though with zero alacrity — no predator faster than a sleeping sloth could fail to catch one). So check out the details. Little sporty black back leg accessories. Jaunty antennae. Folded wing shields that give a bowtie quality to its back. Some even have nice color contrasts going on. And itÃs alive. It moves. Apparently with intent. Incomprehensibly tiny leg muscles extending limbs in efficient concert to advance across surfaces boasting no apparent traction. Up walls and windows, across ceilings. Presumably it breathes, air coming and going through the tubes that serve bugs as lungs.
Yeah, thereÃs that word. Bug. For many, thatÃs all it takes, their bigotry an easily assumed mantle just before they drop its final curtain, without so much as a ìsay goodnight, Gracieî. And this isnÃt just a bug. ItÃs in the family Hemiptera, one of the ìtrue bugsî, faithful to all attributes that place it in the categorized scale weÃve designed from our desire to place things in a scale that helps us ìunderstandî things. A true bug. ThereÃs a phrase that gives one pause.
But not me. ItÃs still marvelous despite that. IÃll confess that even for me, the alienness of insects is pretty much unparalleled by any other species of the planet outside the Plant and Fungi kingdoms. And Republicans. But like the latter, their mere existence and bewildering variety is a constant source of wonder, and IÃll leave the cheap shots at that. This critter truly has my admiration. Maybe youÃd feel similarly if you accorded it its full title:
Western Conifer Seed Bug
â€
Hemiptera:
Coreidae (Heteroptera: Pentatomomorpha)
Leptoglossus occidentalis, var. Heidemann.
Well, I was impressed…….. And so we sidle around each other, each quite sure we donÃt belong together, but neither prepared to do anything about it. Will it make it to Spring? I canÃt imagine how. But it wonÃt surprise me if I accidentally let it out a door some warmish day months from now, just as it mightÃve gotten in months before. I wonÃt be sorry to see it go, but IÃm not sorry it gave me food for thought this winter. However, if theyÃre back in redoubled numbers next year — they say they have no natural predators here — we may yet get more intimately acquainted…….
My guess, after reading this, is that someone is laying eggs that hatch in the fall. I suppose I could look it up, after all, Dan says there is no longer a good excuse not to know the answer to absolutely everything. But, the size of those slow moving insects means they either arrive in a motherÃs belly, or in an ordered platoon, when the front door has been left wide open. Lady Bugs I can understand .. .
Two more things:
You probably donÃt want to know how Chris has been dealing with these prehistoric looking critters.
IÃm quite thankful no one has applied that gold standard, ìhow about ending itÃs pointless existence,î to me.
Content and photos, well done.
Comment by Tom Sawyer — February 4, 2004 @ 9:08 pm
I say kill, Kill, KILL. I too was inundated with these hideous bugs. I don’t kill bugs, not due to any sense of wonder about them, but because I am a wuss. So I enlisted my 7 year old to get rid of them and I am sure to your horror actually gave him an allowance for doing so (we throw them away in the trash, vs. letting them outside where it gives them a chance to return or if they are really sleepy, I vacuum them). He became quite the pro, even getting to high places with a napkin to grab them and trash them. I’m very proud. My spouse kept putting them outside (as did Michael who threatened to put one in my soup that I was making). That will not take care of the problem. They need to be annihilated so they cannot return. They are also called “Stink” bugs as they emit an awful odor if squished. They are also part glycerin which prevents them from freezing in the winter. I know this because I called an exterminator who informed me that there is no pesticide that gets rid of them. They are particularly fond of pumkins and squash and others of that ilk. They are also fond of my kitchen window. When they fly they are particularly startling. All this being said, I admire your “vegetarian” sensibilities. I don’t understand it to save my life (or a bugs life) but I like the fact that there are people like you who can value a bugs life as much as any other. I am not that sort. If it doesn’t belong indoors, it best not be there. And for the record, I’m not a republican.
Comment by bughater — February 4, 2004 @ 10:09 pm
That would be her son, Michael, although it sounds like something I’d do.
Comment by Michael — February 5, 2004 @ 5:51 am
I’m sure I know some very nice Republicans (though I only suspect one person). But the jab just popped off my fingertips, somehow. I wasn’t even in that frame of mind (though the eithics of killing are a pretty obvious and valid segue). It was more a timing thing, that Plants and Fungi had implied another shoe to drop. Rhythm demanded………
Comment by Thomas — February 5, 2004 @ 7:04 am
Michael, I meant you, not my Michael. When you put the new storm door on one appeared in the kitchen as I was making soup. I called upon you to remove the creature. That memory thing.
Comment by bughater — February 5, 2004 @ 7:19 am
bughater, you would be surprised at how few of my own comments I’ll ever lay claim to. So many times I’ll say, “Not polite, reserved, always-needing-to-please, me.” It’s the Mr Hyde thing, I think.
Comment by Michael — February 5, 2004 @ 7:33 am
By “Hyde”, you mean the what’ll-happen-if-I-rattle-this-stick-around-in-that-bee’s-nest you…?
Comment by stung — February 5, 2004 @ 8:35 am
I have been living with these little critters in my room for some time now. I have not killed one yet, and i dont plan on it. We live quite peacefully, with the ocasionally flick to get them off my mouse or keyboard. I have come pretty close to naming them to….. soon they will be doing my biddings, im sure of it.
Comment by livinginpeace — February 5, 2004 @ 9:16 am
I can’t live peacefully with something I can put a saddle on.
Comment by bughater — February 5, 2004 @ 10:10 am
A true bug. I had been wondering what those critters are. We haven’t seen any around here in MD recently–maybe they like our relatively warm (15-30 F) Jan-Feb temperatures down here in the deep south, so they stay outside the house?
For the record, Beth and I are omnivores, but we still use the glass and cardboard method for moving the insects outside.
As Edward O. Wilson said,
“Humans would not survive more than a few months if all the insects and other land-dwelling arthropods were all to disappear.”
Comment by rakkitty — February 5, 2004 @ 10:22 am
Alas, you shall all reach Nirvana before I do. I seem to have hit a little nerve here on the blog. That you can live as one with these creatures in your house is admirable. For me, ridding my home of ugly large insects that fly (and for whatever reason terrify me) thus keeping them from further infestation, is a good thing. I don’t think about it anymore than I think about the millions of mites that live in my eyelashes that I kill everytime I blink. I don’t mind spiders, I don’t even mind crickets that jump (okay I sort of mind them, but those we let outside), but I truly despise these things.
Comment by bughater — February 5, 2004 @ 3:02 pm
Did you know that at the core of Jainism is a doctrine which prohibits killing, or injury to any living thing. Certain Jain monks and nuns demonstrate this reverence for all life by wearing cloth masks over their faces to prevent them from accidentally inhaling tiny flying insects. And, they sweep the ground as they walk to avoid crushing any living organism under their feet.
As bughater alludes to, IÃm thinking this religion would have had a tough time developing in the age of electron microscopes.
Comment by Tom Sawyer — February 5, 2004 @ 3:22 pm
…you can bet none of them had an asthmatic child for whom dustmites wreaked all kinds of havoc.
Comment by bughater — February 5, 2004 @ 3:47 pm
Whether the preservation of all life in all situations is de facto admirable or not is debatable. Maybe bughater’s contracting out insect deaths to her seven-year-old is illustrative of some of the motives of those of us who spare them: squeamishness. Which is often, I think, sublimated principle, which might bear consideration.
No Jainist, I do watch for ants (and earthworms) when I walk, but as a species, we’re not so inherently devastating as all that. The eyelash mites survive our blinking (and showers), the bed mites sleepless human tossing and turning (not to mention sex), and the Escherischia Coli in our intestines even survive tequila and Thai sriracha chili sauce. But my car puts many a bug to imploded/exploded death, yet still I drive. Principles are a human artifice, and we observe them with a wide range of individual difference, our lines drawn in some tension with our desires, rationalizations, and apathies.
Comment by bugtolerator — February 5, 2004 @ 3:59 pm
Good Lord! For the record, said 7 year old doesn’t kill the bug. He rids me of them, puts them in the trash. Far less cruel then squishing. As for the ones I vacuum, well they can live in peace with the dustmites. A win-win if you will. And now Bughater is signing off so I can re-read the 10 commandments and the Buddhist precepts and see if I’m breaking any others of them. I’ll skip the Jainism as I’ve already gotten that lesson today. Blog getting too intense for bughater. I think I prefer the pictures without commentary!
Comment by bughater — February 5, 2004 @ 4:35 pm