Who likes bugs?
Dear_one
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Location: Where the Great Plains meet the Northern Pines
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Everyone loves lady bugs and butterflies.
And I love dragonflies and their cousins: the damsel flies. The fast sportscars of the insect world. Its very soothing to watch them fly over a pond in the woods- kinda like watching hawks circling.
Not only are they aesthetically pleasing but they are predators that eat up gnats and mosquitos.
But I wont deny the truth...I don't have much love for the aforementioned gnats and mosquitos, nor for roaches, or bedbugs.
I like watching dragonflies around ferns, because that's what the first dinosaurs saw.
Can anybody tell me why I don't get notifications of replies now?
Nobody gets notifications anymore. That function in the site is apparently broken. There are threads of folks complaining about it in the "WrongPlanet.net" subforum. I don't get the notifications because I haven't clicked that option in years anyway.
Last edited by naturalplastic on 23 May 2020, 7:11 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Everyone loves lady bugs and butterflies.
And I love dragonflies and their cousins: the damsel flies. The fast sportscars of the insect world. Its very soothing to watch them fly over a pond in the woods- kinda like watching hawks circling.
Not only are they aesthetically pleasing but they are predators that eat up gnats and mosquitos.
But I wont deny the truth...I don't have much love for the aforementioned gnats and mosquitos, nor for roaches, or bedbugs.
I like watching dragonflies around ferns, because that's what the first dinosaurs saw.
Can anybody tell me why I don't get notifications of replies now?
Yes. Both ferns and dragonflies are ancient, and were around in the days of dinosaurs.
There were giant dragonflies, with two foot wingspans, at one time. But those giant ones were long extinct by the time of the dinosaurs.
Sweetleaf
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Teach51
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Location: Where angels do not fear to tread.
Next on my list would have to be the Cairns Birdwing...
Love those tropical butterflies!
My favorite from the other side of earth, are the Morpho butterflies. I actually got to see some on the Rio Pacuare in Costa Rica. They looked like sparkling blue jewels sprinkled over the river.
[url=[url=https://imgur.com/4luoo57][/url]]BlueMorpho[/url]
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The river is the melody
And sky is the refrain - Gordon Lightfoot
My Mum told me why wasps ans bees have stings and flies don't. Wasps and bees have specific homes to return to and it is important that they get back to them. Flies don't. They can move and not worry where they go.
The conversation came up because a wasp flew into the house and into our living room, had a little explore and flew back out knowing exactly which way to go. Flies fly in and can't get back out as they have no real sense of direction.
It is interesting.
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My interest in them has become jaundiced since spending a lot of time in Arkansas and "enjoying" the risks of being bitten or stung by Lyme-infested Lone Star deer ticks, brown recluse spiders, mosquitos, fleas, and whatever else is lurking about waiting to mess up my life for me. I should probably study the lives of those particular species with a view to finding out how to keep them away from me without using toxic chemicals. The nearest I've got to that is to use 2% dish soap as a killing spray and as a material to use in moats round the kitchen waste bin and the cat's food bowl - quite effective against ants at least. Beyond that I do find insects quite interesting, though I've never made an extensive study of them.
When I was a young teenager I went through a phase of trying to make realistic-looking imitation insects from whatever materials were to hand. A little later on I tried to put ants into suspended animation by freezing them, and that seemed to be working for times of a few minutes, but sadly I found out that it was only immobilising them and that if they were in the freezer long enough to freeze solid, they just died. I gather insects don't have the nervous system required to experience pain or mental anguish, so I guess my tomfoolery wasn't doing any harm, though in the case of ticks etc. I sometimes wish I could hurt them.
I've always liked butterflies and ladybirds, and am quite fond of moths. I enjoyed reading about the bizarre insects in Alice Through The Looking-Glass.
dragonsanddemons
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When I was a young teenager I went through a phase of trying to make realistic-looking imitation insects from whatever materials were to hand. A little later on I tried to put ants into suspended animation by freezing them, and that seemed to be working for times of a few minutes, but sadly I found out that it was only immobilising them and that if they were in the freezer long enough to freeze solid, they just died. I gather insects don't have the nervous system required to experience pain or mental anguish, so I guess my tomfoolery wasn't doing any harm, though in the case of ticks etc. I sometimes wish I could hurt them.
I've always liked butterflies and ladybirds, and am quite fond of moths. I enjoyed reading about the bizarre insects in Alice Through The Looking-Glass.
Lone star ticks actually are different from deer ticks and are unlikely to carry Lyme disease (I got bitten by one at summer camp last year and looked them up, since they’re pretty easy to identify). But yeah, my mom’s parents live in Arkansas, and there are a ton of ticks there (quite possibly literally, if they were all gathered up and weighed together). My grandma got some sort of tick-transmitted disease (I think it was ehrlichthiosis) and had to go to the hospital (she and my grandpa were visiting my uncle and his family in the Chicago area at the time symptoms started and ticks are far less prevalent there, so it took a while for her to get a proper diagnosis). My brother also got a tick in his ear (yes, inside his ear) once, but didn’t have any problems once it was out. If we visit them again this year and my service dog comes along (which we’ve been considering doing), I’ll have to make absolutely sure he doesn’t miss his flea and tick prevention that month (it works well enough that one time my parents and I took him along on a nature walk, and the dog was the only one who didn’t come back with any hitchhikers, the humans each had at least one tick). I can say I have no great love for the blood-suckers like ticks and fleas.
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Yet in my new wildness and freedom I almost welcome the bitterness of alienage. For although nepenthe has calmed me, I know always that I am an outsider; a stranger in this century and among those who are still men.
-H. P. Lovecraft, "The Outsider"
Once at holidays there were lots of deer flys in the woods. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lipoptena_cervi
Didn't even knew them before. Did kill more then hundred once I felt any of them one my arms or legs. They had no chance to bite me but I can't say that I need their companionship.
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I am as I am. Life has to be an adventure!
Sounds interesting. How have you made a career of it if you don't mind my asking?
I like anything that flies, swims, creeps or crawls, or gets around by any other form of locomotion for that matter.
Well, I started as a student researcher while an undergrad in an entomology lab. Then right out of getting my BS I got a job at an entomology museum. After working that job 3 years I went back to grad school and got my PhD. Now I'm a postdoctoral research associate, negotiating a possible (fingers crossed) assistant professorship at a university near my hometown. I mostly do research, but every now and again I get to teach a field course. It's a lot of fun!