So, in case you’re wondering, I got the bad photo software uninstalled, and the good photo software installed, and then I was too tired to fuck around with pictures of the Gang of Two.
They’re still cute.
Anway, I saw a bug. This is not, like, a major event. It was very small; so small it was hard to tell what it was. It was black and somewhat ovoid and it hopped a little like a flea, only it wasn’t a flea because if it was a flea I wouldn’t be calming describing it, I’d be FREAKING OUT.
It was, as I said, miniscule, and hoppy. And in my bathroom, showing very black indeed against the cream tile. So I tried to kill it. (And if you have a soft heart for this sort of thing, keep in mind, in my bathroom. This is a home invasion and I have a right to defend myself. Just saying.)
I reach out with my foot. Hop away. Reach again. Hoppity. Try with my thumb this time. Hop hop hoppity disappear.
So now this is interesting. It knows I’m after it. How does it know? Does it see a shadow? Sense temperature or movement? It’s the size of a pencil erasing, where does it store this sensory system?
Obviously, entymologists know all about these things. I don’t. I have never studied or, indeed, been remotely interested in, little bug brains. But now I am. Because the little bug is outsmarting me. And his little outsmarty brain takes up very little room and in fact is small enough to hide under my tile. Necessitating a future engagement with its little bug brain.
Insects’ skin is their skeleton and it’s made of a protein akin to fingernail, but thinner. While that material’s not especially sensitive to stuff, arising through it are hairs with movement-sensitive nerves attached to their bases. Those hairs, plus even more such on their antennae, are highly sensitive to things like vibrations moving through the floor (your approaching footsteps), and air movements (most especially those produced by your moving finger(s) as it approaches to squish it). Even something as slight as a moving finger necessarily displaces air as it moves through the air to get where it’s going. Unless you move slowly insects are thus well aware of your finger (insofar as they are aware) before it touches them. Their sensory systems have sensed both the approximate size of the approaching object, how rapidly it’s moving towards them, and from which direction it’s coming.
To squish a bug one must compensate for this by moving slowly enough to make the air disturbances not so strong nor so systematic as to trigger the insect’s alarm systems. It can be done, but it requires patience.
Btw, I suspect you saw a beetle. There are small, ovoid, black shiny beetles that hop quite well. Not surprisingly they’re called “flea beetles”. If that’s what it is it doesn’t really want to be inside your house anyway. Its food is outside (some plant or other).
This sensory system is also why cockroaches are so difficult to squish. It’s true insect brains are miniscule, but large chunks of them are devoted to coordinating responses to matters like imminent squishing (no different than imminent getting eaten).
I try not to kill bugs in the house but I will squish mosquitoes. I don’t like bloodsuckers. And I will actually go to the trouble to move spiders outside. I’ve moved scorpions outside as well, but if they sting me (and one did recently — it was in my shoe) they’re dead meat. 🙂
I try not to kill anything either….not even bees, wasps etc. I found an effective way to remove them without inflicting pain on either of us. Cut flowers. If you hold a cut flower up to a bee or wasp (trust me, I’ve done this), they will climb on and be so intoxicated by the pollen, that they don’t even realize that you’re throwing them out a second story window! 🙂