Bugthebard - Its Ya Boi Bug - Tumblr Blog

A little guy flies by to say hello.

do you have any reading recs for someone who wants to learn about bugs?

Oh absolutely! There are so many lovely popular science entomology books. I'll name a few, but there are tons more for specific bugs you might be interested in if you search around! I've got four in mind that I've read that I think provide some nice variety.

Buzz, Sting, Bite by Anne Sverdrup-Thygeson

I so enjoyed this book. It's not about any specific insect, but it's a delightful tour of a bunch of cool adaptations and the like in the arthropod world. I think it'd be a good choice if you're new to the whole thing as it's fun, light, and has lots of different groups represented. I learned about a wild interaction between ground-nesting bees and blister beetles from this one that I ended up making a little video on.

Never Home Alone by Rob Dunn

I love the household ecosystem! This book isn't just arthropods — it also covers bacteria and other organisms you might find in your home. But it's so neat! And tonally it's refreshing because it doesn't attempt to scare you about what's in your house. Rather, it invites you to engage with your fellow home inhabitants.

Honeybee Democracy by Thomas D. Seeley

This is such an interesting deep dive into honey bee behavior. I think a lot of people know bees are smart but don't quite realize how complex their social behavior gets. I also am charmed by any book that includes a chapter on incorporating another animal's behavior as a lesson to our own human society (the last chapter is basically "what can we learn from the voting system of honey bees?", an adorable thought).

The Sting of the Wild by Justin O. Schmidt

The Schmidt pain scale is a bit infamous. Dr. Schmidt made a whole collection of insects sting him, and rated them on a scale based on the pain he felt. With descriptions like "someone has fired a staple into your cheek," it's definitely not the most objective, but it is a good time. And following his journey getting stung by everything (including his grad students that followed in his footsteps in some very funny ways) is entertaining.

Potential application for Mastigoproctus giganteus, the giant vinegaroon. 

Vinegaroons are a lesser known order of arachnids, the Thelyponida. They don’t have venom but they can spray acetic acid, the main component of vinegar! Though these funny little critters may look intimidating to some, they’re harmless unless you’re a small prey insect (or you can’t stand the smell of pickles).

A couple of tags on my previous comic about Opiliones were talking about other daddy longlegs - that’s the trouble with common names!

(Deleting and reposting because I realized I uploaded it wrong - sorry to anyone who commented, I’m still getting used to Tumblr again and very much enjoying it!)

References:

Dunlop, J. A., Anderson, L. I., Kerp, H., & Hass, H. (2003). Preserved organs of Devonian harvestmen. Nature, 425(6961), 916–916. https://doi.org/10.1038/425916a  

Machado, G., & Raimundo, R. L. G. (2001). Parental investment and the evolution of subsocial behaviour in harvestmen (Arachnida Opiliones). Ethology Ecology & Evolution, 13(2), 133–150. https://doi.org/10.1080/08927014.2001.9522780

Martens, J. (1993). Further cases of paternal care in Opiliones (Arachnida). Tropical Zoology, 6(1), 97–107. https://doi.org/10.1080/03946975.1993.10539212

Mora, G. (1990). Paternal care in a neotropical harvestman, Zygopachylus albomarginis (Arachnida, Opiliones: Gonyleptidae). Animal Behaviour, 39, 582-593.

Nazareth, T. M., & Machado, G. (2009). Reproductive behavior of Chavesincola inexpectabilis (Opiliones, Gonyleptidae) with description of a new and independently evolved case of paternal care in harvestmen. Journal of Arachnology, 37(2), 127–134. https://doi.org/10.1636/ST08-32.1

Shear, W. (2009). Harvestmen: Opiliones—Which include daddy-long-legs—Are as exotic as they are familiar. American Scientist, 97(6), 468-475.

My vampire cleric and doctor, Silas Wood! I’m playing him in our most recently started D&D campaign. Man’s trying to find a cure for his sick kid and not kill anyone. I will admit I’m a sucker (ha) for a good edgy vampire.

Also a fellow player pointed out vampire doctor is basically Morbius so now I have to live with that.

Here are a couple of my lil bug OCs! Clover is a European honey bee and Dandy is a common Eastern velvet ant (which are not ants, but actually wasps!). They end up on a misadventure when Clover gets lost and needs Dandy's help to find her hive again.

My research partner (the house centipede - Scutigera coleoptrata) with my favorite flower. House centipedes pay rent with labor, eating cockroaches and any other bugs they might find. They’re also clean little houseguests - they carefully groom themselves, one leg at a time.

Little Alien is a character I drew some comics for a while ago - thinking of returning to them! They're a tiny alien scientist investigating different bugs.

Dungeons and Dragons is a fun game.

The rather large (by mosquito standards) elephant mosquito, Toxorhynchites rutilus, with jack-in-the-pulpit plants. Designed for a fellow lab member that works with mosquitoes. Though you may not be a mosquito fan, you might like this one - as larvae, they eat other mosquito larvae. As adults, they don't bite but instead both males and females feed on sugary substances.

When you were a malicious pirate named Zephyr and then a crewmate murdered you and threw you in the ocean and you made a deal with an otherworldy sea god to come back to life as a fish person that has magic and a brand new name.

My admittedly-kind-of-a-jerk D&D character (she’s working on it), Lunulata the warlock.

neon house centipedes in your house at night (but it's okay because they eat neon cockroaches)

The ground nesting bees have decided the weather is good enough to make an appearance. If you see these lil gals, please let them be(e)! They’re very unlikely to sting (I’ve bothered them so much, no stings) and are great for native plants! iNaturalist suggests to me these particular bees are the unequal cellophane bee, Colletes inaequalis.

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