Brittany & Cara: Week 12

Cara’s update

#TheStruggleIsReal
This week I thought I’d highlight how people generally think of arthropods / insects.
Side note: Arthropods is the larger container “group” (a phylum in the Linnaean system) and includes animals with jointed appendages, segmented bodies and an exoskeleton. Insects (a class in the Linnaean system) is a narrower group that includes animals with an exoskeleton, three part bodies and six jointed legs.
 
I’m presenting here a selection of posts taken from a Facebook group where people share odd things they’ve seen in or around Tucson. This past summer there were A LOT of “bug” posts - so many that someone finally posted this:

The posts I wanted to share are about a mother scorpion (they brood their young on their backs! Cool, eh?), a robber fly (excellent garden predators) and a firefly larva (a baby beetle that when it ecloses as an adult everyone is ready to love ‘em! Though I admit as a juveniles they are reminiscent of that guy from Star Trek, Khan’s brain-eating worms -- ​Reading through the threads you get a sense that most folks are rather intolerant of these forms of life.

What to do? Can better science communications fix this? I’m always looking for inspiring examples and I got a bit excited about Melittobia digitata, parasitic wasps, that lay eggs on the exoskeleton of larvae or pupae of other insects. They are often used for flesh fly control and also for STEM education. I was delighted to learn that they had been commonly named WOWbugs TM! And thought, ‘Wow! What a great idea!’ Then I watched the video and felt that there could have been a bit more follow through on that wow.

What about you? Could you love a WOWbug? Other arthropod/insect stories you’d like to share?