Preying Mantis

For my "Integrated Management of Plant Pests" class this semester, I have to have a bug collection.

This means literal insects, dead and dried out and pinned in neat rows and categories on a sheet of styrofoam.

And how am I to get these insects all nice and neat on my board? Well, I am supposed to catch them and dunk them in alcohol, of course! How else? Now, bug catching is a fairly simple affair. It involves running around like a crazy person after insects, swinging a net, and then looking in, hoping beyond all hope that you've got something worth pinning. Then you fish 'em out and dump 'em in your killing jar (technical term, you know. I'm a real scientist.) After being plunged into a pool of 90% pure alcohol, none of them last long. And that's when the real fun begins. Carefully holding your dead bug up by his fairly delicate body, you find the thorax. That's the middle section: head-thorax-abdomen, you see. Just slightly right off of center, you hold your pin perpendicular to the pathetic little thing. And then you apply just the gentlest of pressure... and nothing happens. So, take a deep breath, and try again. A little more pressure this time... possibly some turning of the pin to get a drill-sort of action out of it... just a bit harder... and you're in! You've stuck your first bug! Slide him halfway up the pin, stick it into some spare foam and repeat the process, lining up your kill as though they're puzzle pieces trying to be pieced together. Once your scrap of foam is full, or you're out of bugs, it's time for more alcohol. Just float those little beauties upside down in more of the strong stuff for about two weeks and they'll be as dead as dead can be! You breathe a sigh of relief...ahh! And then you remember. The grasshoppers. And the moths. These lovely gems in your collection aren't as easy as the beetle and assassin bug were. These need to be spread wing for your collection. Go to the butterflies and moths first- they're easy. Just pin their furry little bodies (it's amazing how many insects are furry) into the center of a spreading board, pull their wings down flat and pin a scrap of paper down over them. Done. Easy. The grasshoppers, not so easy. Them, you have to convince to be spread. Once they're pinned in between the boards, you ever so gently peel back their forewing... and then, even more gently the back wing... and then you very, very carefully pull the back wing out, so it extends as fully as possible, mimicking flight. Get the wings to both, simultaneously, lie down on your board and pin a paper scrap very tightly over top of them, and hopefully by next week they'll have dried that way, so that at that point you can float them upside down in a jar of alcohol until they're dead and dry and staying that way. Eventually, everyone will be ready, perfectly preserved, and you can pin their carcassas in neat rows, with smart labels, down the length of your bug box. And there they will be asked a question: was your untimely demise worth it? Are you a high enough quality bug to get the grade? Because missing legs, feet, antennae, etc. are unacceptable. Order Thysonoptera: check. Order Hemiptera: check. Order Lepidoptera: check.

So far, I have bugs from 8 different orders. Some of them might not pass inspection, though. I think I'm all set on Coleoptera, the beetles, but every one of my Orthoptera bugs is missing something; one of my grasshoppers has 1 1/2 antenna, the other is without a foot. My gorgeous 3 1/2 inch long preying mantis has no left antenna. Oh, but he's a beautiful bug!

I caught him rather on accident. Just walking up the stairs to campus, minding my own business, when there he was, sitting regal and majestic on the branch of some juniper. As soon as I tried to catch him, he started scrambling, of course, but one can only be stately in some situations. Anyway, some boy walking down the stairs had a good laugh at me as I tried to simultaneously catch my mantis and explain to him why I was attempting to catch him in the first place. Well, we cornered him, scooped him up and dumped him into a tupperware container with an alcohol-soaked cotton ball in it polluting the air, where he struggled for life until, always royalty, he succumbed nobly, folding his legs neatly beneath him in a beautiful show of the appreciation of symmetry. He truly is a beautiful bug. I've studied him, you see. All of them, in fact. And the details are astounding. These insects are beautiful! Intricate and delicate and potentially very scary, were you smaller than them. We've got a lovely world here. Even in the frightful things, there is beauty.