![\"hemiptera.jpg\"](\"https:\/\/mainecourse.com\/mt\/archives\/hemiptera.jpg\")
<\/p>\nby Adam S. Kibbe<\/p>\n
Yes, this expands mightily on Mike\u00c3\u00ads 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.<\/p>\n
First, I\u00c3\u00add 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:<\/p>\n
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Lastly, I\u00c3\u00add 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., they\u00c3\u00adve now shown up in states coast-to-coast, and have even hopped some vector or other over to Europe.<\/p>\n
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 daren\u00c3\u00adt imagine.<\/p>\n
This critter (allow me the presumed thread of singular continuity) shows up — usually just after you\u00c3\u00adve decided it\u00c3\u00ads finally died — just about everywhere (luckily not yet in our bed). It\u00c3\u00adll just be sitting there on the edge of a molding, propped up on those stilt legs, looking like it\u00c3\u00ads thinking through its next move. Sometimes it flies. We\u00c3\u00adre startled (for the umpteenth time), it\u00c3\u00ads usually all but inert. One could infer despondency, but I tend to anthropomorphosize too much (I had to edit every \u00c3\u00acit\u00c3\u00ae in this piece from \u00c3\u00ache\u00c3\u00ae, 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.<\/p>\n
I figure our guest\u00c3\u00ads current pace has a lot to do with the air temperature. We keep our house at about 68 when we\u00c3\u00adre in and awake, 60 otherwise (unless we\u00c3\u00adre staving off potentially frozen pipes). But its kin didn\u00c3\u00adt 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 can\u00c3\u00adt say for sure. And once inside, it\u00c3\u00ads fast enough to avoid spiders, too, one would surmise.<\/p>\n
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 it\u00c3\u00ads a great deal due to my own inattention that they\u00c3\u00adve strayed into my artificially insectless environment anyway (that or plain osmotic pressure). I finally decided mosquitoes\u00c3\u00ad ill intent merited the death penalty, though, so I\u00c3\u00adm not completely bonkers.<\/p>\n
But the idea of squishing this stalwart individual is too alien, too arbitrarily cruel. Not only can\u00c3\u00adt I, I can\u00c3\u00adt even think of why I should. Oh, I can construct arguments, though they wouldn\u00c3\u00adt involve dread or disease. How about ending its pointless existence, curtailing its arguably prolonged suffering? It\u00c3\u00ads not \u00c3\u00acnatural\u00c3\u00ae for it to be alive, indoors, in winter, after all. It should be burrowed deep in the soil, hibernating. But it IS here, and I\u00c3\u00adm not sure enough of its \u00c3\u00acshoulds\u00c3\u00ae to go dig it a hole. Besides, it\u00c3\u00add likely be a lethally abrupt transition.<\/p>\n
And then there\u00c3\u00ads the \u00c3\u00aclife\u00c3\u00ae thing. I mean, look at it. Up close (if you can). Don\u00c3\u00adt worry, it won\u00c3\u00adt bite you — when warm, it\u00c3\u00adll 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 it\u00c3\u00ads 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.<\/p>\n
Yeah, there\u00c3\u00ads that word. Bug. For many, that\u00c3\u00ads all it takes, their bigotry an easily assumed mantle just before they drop its final curtain, without so much as a \u00c3\u00acsay goodnight, Gracie\u00c3\u00ae. And this isn\u00c3\u00adt just a bug. It\u00c3\u00ads in the family Hemiptera, one of the \u00c3\u00actrue bugs\u00c3\u00ae, faithful to all attributes that place it in the categorized scale we\u00c3\u00adve designed from our desire to place things in a scale that helps us \u00c3\u00acunderstand\u00c3\u00ae things. A true bug. There\u00c3\u00ads a phrase that gives one pause.<\/p>\n
But not me. It\u00c3\u00ads still marvelous despite that. I\u00c3\u00adll 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 I\u00c3\u00adll leave the cheap shots at that. This critter truly has my admiration. Maybe you\u00c3\u00add feel similarly if you accorded it its full title:<\/p>\n
Western Conifer Seed Bug
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u00a0
\nHemiptera:<\/p>\n
Coreidae (Heteroptera: Pentatomomorpha)<\/p>\n
Leptoglossus occidentalis, var. Heidemann.<\/p>\n
![\"LeptoAdult.jpg\"](\"https:\/\/mainecourse.com\/mt\/archives\/LeptoAdult.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Well, I was impressed…….. And so we sidle around each other, each quite sure we don\u00c3\u00adt belong together, but neither prepared to do anything about it. Will it make it to Spring? I can\u00c3\u00adt imagine how. But it won\u00c3\u00adt surprise me if I accidentally let it out a door some warmish day months from now, just as it might\u00c3\u00adve gotten in months before. I won\u00c3\u00adt be sorry to see it go, but I\u00c3\u00adm not sorry it gave me food for thought this winter. However, if they\u00c3\u00adre back in redoubled numbers next year — they say they have no natural predators here — we may yet get more intimately acquainted…….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
by Adam S. Kibbe Yes, this expands mightily on Mike\u00c3\u00ads 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 … Continue reading