Did You Collect Bugs, Too?

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Hasn’t modern civilized life come to be little else than a fight for life against bugs? ~Dorothy Scarborough, American writer from the Southwest

My late dad loved insects and often pondered why he hadn’t chosen entomology as his profession.

How, then, did he end up with two daughters who aren’t fans of bugs, especially flies, mosquitoes, wasps, roaches, and most beetles?

Daddy would’ve had a field day with the recent emergence of all those red-eyed cicadas. A big old bug like that, with its ability to drown out everyday household noises — and the fact that its urine stream is amazingly strong for its size — well, Daddy would’ve found that fascinating.

When I was in school, we had to make an insect collection, and Daddy was eager to be included as my “assistant.” I’d have gladly turned the entire thing over to him if I hadn’t feared I’d be caught cheating!

That didn’t stop him from giving me regular pointers. Stuff like, Don’t worry about the far-off goal of getting it done by the following spring. Rather, work now while the bugs are available. Eventually, they’ll go into hiding, and you won’t be able to find them.

Did I listen?

Right. What kid listens to wise advice like that?

I think this is a Black Swallowtail Butterfly feasting on my Lantana flowers — he’s one of the good bugs!

So I caught a few bugs, chloroformed them as our teacher instructed, then stuck a pin through them, labeled them, and inserted them into a foam layer in a cigar box.

Yuck.

I didn’t want to touch them, didn’t like the smell of the “poisoning” agent, had trouble downsizing my huge script so it would fit on those tiny ID labels, and caught myself apologizing for sticking pins in the poor creatures’ already-dead middles.

And as the weather turned colder, I panicked when I realized I hadn’t caught near enough bugs. All I could hope for was an early, buggy Spring!

Today’s kids probably don’t do insect collections like we did. Shoot, if they don’t do leaf collections, why would they mess with bugs??

But even though I wasn’t enamored of the project, I must confess I learned a LOT. How to identify our area’s common insects, where to find them, how to preserve them. And I got a pretty good grade, despite whining over the task from the day it was announced until the day I turned in my cigar boxes.

How about you? Did you do an insect collection, or was there another school project you found objectionable?

Note: Happy Father’s Day to all the dads out there!

25 thoughts on “Did You Collect Bugs, Too?”

  1. I don’t remember having to collect bugs for a school project. But I did learn a lot about bugs from my grandmother, who was an amateur entomologist. Mostly she photographed butterflies in all four life stages from egg, larva, pupa to adult, and we would watch her slide show presentations. But any bug captivated her attention. The school project I found objectionable was dissecting a frog in the new middle school lab. Sometimes I have ‘flashbacks’ when I’m cutting up meat to cook for dinner.

    • What a fascinating grandmother you had, Barbara! I suspect she passed along her love of photography to you, too, right? Dissecting a frog in middle school? We did that as well, and while I found it interesting, I can see where you’d have flashbacks while preparing meat for dinner. It’s all kind of sad, realizing how many froggies gave their short lives so students could open them up (but I guess seeing pictures of their innards online isn’t the same as poking around inside, huh?!)

  2. Debbie, I had no idea about cicadas and their urine stream?! Interesting article!

    “…and inserted them into a foam layer in a cigar box.”

    Yes, I clearly remember using those cigar boxes to store the collection.

    Like you, I was not enamored of the project but learned a LOT.

    My two least favorite bugs are roaches and spiders. They creep me out like you have no idea. That’s one of the things I DO NOT miss about living in Florida. It’s the buggiest state I’ve ever lived. It’s all that humidity and moisture. Yuck!

    Great Father’s Day memory post, my friend!

    P.S. Do you know what I had as a kid? Remember those “Ant Farms” that you could buy in stores? I had several of those growing up.

    • Ron, you crack me up — Florida being such a buggy state! I imagine every state along the Gulf Coast is like that. I know I wasn’t enamored of the scorpions and (flying!) roaches I found in Texas!

      Yes, I remember “Ant Farms,” but you know, I never knew a single girl who had one. Boys, yes, definitely. How thankful I am that Domer didn’t want one when he was little — I’d have passed out completely, just thinking about the thing breaking and my home being overrun with ants!

      Stay cool this week. We’re sending the heat and humidity we’ve been having your way, and it’s been dreadful. Poor Monk, with his heavy coat. He’s drawn like a magnet to fans and A/C vents. XX

      • Debbie, we’ll be getting all that heat and humidity this week. It starts on Wednesday. Friday it reaches 99 degrees. Pray for me…LOL!

  3. Luckily, our science projects did not include collecting insects! Although I might have liked collecting butterflies. 🙂
    It wasn’t until I started blogging and following other nature photographers, that I began to find insects fascinating. Looking at a really good close up, one can’t help but marvel at the amazing perfection and diversity of their world, God’s hand in all.

    • Butterflies aren’t “bad” bugs to me and back then, it seemed like we had more of them available. Maybe I’m not planting the right flowers, or maybe my neighbors are attracting them better. I was delighted to find this one flitting around my plants — such marvelous creatures!

    • Lucky you, Dawn. I still remember stuff like this. Of course, since many of my “tangible” memories like scrapbooks were destroyed in the storage shed fiasco, I have to trust my mind and heart to remember what they can.

  5. I do remember collecting leaves for school, but not insects. I’m not sure how well I would have done with that. Bugs fall into several categories for me (as in like, dislike, terrifying!) and I can’t think of many I’d actually want to touch.

    As for apologizing… I tell every wolf spider I kill in my house how sorry I am to do it! If it were up to me, I’d leave them be (they eat other insects!), but everyone doesn’t feel that way.

    • Butterflies, moths, lacewings, lightning bugs, and the like are fine; it’s nasties like wasps, ants, flies, roaches, stink bugs, and such that I don’t want to be near. Spiders, of course, aren’t insects, so they don’t count (but it’s nice that you have a soft spot in your heart for the wolf spiders who eat bugs!)

    • Oh, dear. A fetal pig? That must have been dreadful. The frog we dissected was bad enough. My late mom had to dissect a dog when she was in college, and I remember her telling me about that. No way. Not after having had dogs all these years! Happy Father’s Day, John!

  7. What a touching post. It reminded me of my dad, who taught bio, and helped us make terrariums as kids. That said, like you I hated bugs, too. And now I can kick myself that I never retained any of what he taught me about types of plants, trees, birds & wildlife. However, I did remember how to shoot a perfect jump shot! ha ha

    • Well, Pat, since you made a career of shooting those perfect jump shots, it’s probably a good thing you concentrated your focus there, rather than on bugs and such!

  8. We did have to make an insect collection. It was part of the 10th grade biology curriculum. It was ghastly, but mostly because I hated my teacher more than I hated the bugs. I still remember her name. I may have mentioned her to you before. In my eyes, she was ten feet tall and had eyes like bunsen burners. We had to pin our specimens on a board and label them properly; no cigar boxes for us.

    There can be a purpose to dissections. I was amazed when I learned that Audubon often dissected the species he was illustrating; apparently the accuracy of his portrayal of birds and such comes from an intimate knowledge of exactly how they’re put together.

    • I’m sorry if my story dredged up some unpleasant memories for you, Linda. However, I’m glad I’m not the only one who had to suffer through projects that seemed distasteful (but were actually beneficial … at least in some way). I find it interesting how I remember the “bad” as well as the “good” teachers I had, while the majority (who were at best, average) don’t stick with me at all.

      What an interesting tidbit about Audubon. It makes complete sense to me, actually. We had to learn to code by hand when I was studying web design, even though now there are gazillions of programs that make the process faster and easier. But understanding the inner workings makes one a better designer — and I suspect Audubon found that to be true, too!

  9. I didn’t do a leaf or bug collection for my school, but my daughter had to do a section on insects and naturally I got roped in on helping with that. Like you, I’m not really a fan…..

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