Expecting Entomophagy

Tonight, the second lecture in the Secret Science Club North series at Symphony Space on Manhattan's Upper West Side. Today's lecture will be by Secret Science Club alumnus Dr Mark Siddall of the American Museum of Natural History. Regular readers of my blog may recall that Dr Siddall presented a lecture on leeches (one of my awesome cousins was able to attend that particular lecture with me that time).

Judging from the teaser post at the SSC Blog, there will be lecture-appropriate munchies available:


In this gourmet talk, Dr. Siddall turns the food chain upside-down and inside-out and asks: What are you eating/what’s eating you? What invertebrates are incredible AND edible? Bring your appetite for science!


My (heh heh) spider sense tells me that the snacks in question won't be lobster or oysters. I'm cool with eating bugs, having dabbled in entomophagy on occasion. Back in 2010, having been nominated for the "Honest Scrap" challenge by all-around good guy and basenji fancier Johnny Pez, I offered this little tidbit:


I have knowingly and willing engaged in entomophagy. The first insect I knowingly ate was a hapless cicada that happened to be resting on a friend's screen door. A bunch of us had been drinking in the backyard. As soon as I said, "Hey, I've read that these things are edible" my friend divined my intention. Anyone familiar with cicadas knows what a racket they can make. Well, this one made a racket, until I bit its head off. I refrained from eating the wings. I would compare the experience to eating a huge celery-flavored M&M, crunchy on the outside, gooey goodness within. Subsequently, I have tried crickets, katydids, and ants (which are tangy). It goes without saying, eating the caterpillar in the mezcal bottle is a no-brainer. If I ever get my ass to the not-so-drouthy antipodes, I will refrain from throwing a weta in the deep-fryer for fear of legal sanction. To anyone "squicked out" by the prospect of eating bugs... you have accidentally done it on a fairly regular basis.


To anyone who scoffs at the idea of eating insects, I'd point out that, if a shrimp crawled out from under your radiator, most people would likely smash it, but because it lives in the ocean, they're willing to pay twenty bucks a pound for it, and it would be delicious. Also, a significant proportion of the world's population consume insects with gusto. I can say with authority that carpenter ants have a not-unpleasant tangy flavor, and crickets a pleasant nuttiness. Bugs ain't bad... though I have yet to start chomping on the stink bugs that I have been known to smash with reckless abandon.

Disaster, or Opportunity?

A study of adult grasshopper populations in several midwestern states has led to a forecast of a plague of locusts this coming summer. Costs of millions of dollars are projected by the states which will likely be affected. Having dabbled in entomophagy at times, I have come to the conclusion that this onslaught of grasshoppers may be a boon... if only a fast-food chain would hop on the chapulines bandwagon. Maybe local megachurches can do their part to stave off the entomological menace by holding locust and wild honey suppers.

As they say, when life hands you a lemon plague of locusts, make lemonade fried locusts.

Tagged, I Tells Ya... Tagged!

So, I've been tagged for the "Honest Scrap" project by Johnny Pez, the go-to guy for public-domain speculative fiction of the early 20th Century, and a compelling "alternate history" narrative. So, I am now compelled to reveal ten facts about myself. Here goes nothing:

1. In my twenties, I spent many productive hours having the crap beaten out of me by this gentleman. He had a knack for making you laugh, even as he was putting you in the hurtbox. Shockingly, he succumbed to cancer in 2006. Eight hundred people attended his memorial service- fittingly, we laughed as much as we cried.

2. On my 25th birthday, I ran around the block naked, not even footgear, on a dare. On my 30th birthday, some friends of mine took me to the Maison du Sade on 23rd St, where they bought me a public spanking- I went for a thirty-mile bike ride the next day, much to Mistress Bianca's chagrin.

3. I am an experienced stage electrician, although I have never been paid for such work. For many years, I did electrical rigging for the Village Light Opera Group, though I am not a big Gilbert and Sullivan fan. While in college, I constructed a stage for The Jesus and Mary Chain from platforms and 2x4's. I tested the solidity of the stage by jumping up and down on each platform, as I was a lot more... substantial... than the gracile members of the band. The stupid radio station staff, rather than comping me a concert ticket, expected me to work crowd control in the Loge section.

4. I have knowingly and willing engaged in entomophagy. The first insect I knowingly ate was a hapless cicada that happened to be resting on a friend's screen door. A bunch of us had been drinking in the backyard. As soon as I said, "Hey, I've read that these things are edible" my friend divined my intention. Anyone familiar with cicadas knows what a racket they can make. Well, this one made a racket, until I bit its head off. I refrained from eating the wings. I would compare the experience to eating a huge celery-flavored M&M, crunchy on the outside, gooey goodness within. Subsequently, I have tried crickets, katydids, and ants (which are tangy). It goes without saying, eating the caterpillar in the mezcal bottle is a no-brainer. If I ever get my ass to the not-so-drouthy antipodes, I will refrain from throwing a weta in the deep-fryer for fear of legal sanction. To anyone "squicked out" by the prospect of eating bugs... you have accidentally done it on a fairly regular basis.

6. In 1993, I swam across the Rio Grande on two separate occasions. On both occasions, I was visiting the hot springs at Big Bend National Park.

7. Among the bizarre things I have done for a living, I: spent some time on a client's roof in the Bronx, quipped with a video camera, trying to catch a jerk who was taking potshots with a pellet gun at staff members during shift change; drove a forklift in Central Park at night in January for the Gates Project; assisted in the delivery of a lamb.

8. Been in a palace (Versaille), been in a jail (North Hampden County Correctional Facility near Springfield, MA- had to drive up there to interview a guy named Junior about a car accident he claimed to have been involved in in Brooklyn... he was as inept in auto insurance fraud as he was in drug trafficking. I made him draw a diagram of the "accident site" while he was wearing shackles). I just don't want to be reborn a snail.

9. I can play music on my ***REDACTED-FUTURE POST*** and have done so at the company picnic talent show every year.

10. Like Elvis, I met Richard Nixon (at a black-tie fundraiser for St. Vincent's Hospital back in the early 90's). I was polite and formal. Last year, I was told I met Taylor Swift (at a fundraiser for the non-profit I work for part-time). I was polite and formal. Not being up on my current pop culture, I did not recognize the young woman, but was informed the following day by a co-worker, who said, "I thought she looked like Taylor Swift, but I don't like Taylor Swift, so I didn't say anything." In no way would I compare Taylor Swift to Richard Nixon, beyond their both being bipedal mammals.

I am going to add a number eleven... I am very shy when it comes to forwarding things like this, so I will put it out there that I'd think it would be a hoot if any commenters would follow up on this.

Edit: My original number four was a self-evident no-brainer, so I changed it to something more interesting

Second Edit: I totally forgot a number five... I also love all the responses. You folks are great!

Edit of the Second Edit: Looking at the list, I realize that my original number five was accidentally "typed over" when I expanded item four- I originally had "I am a member of NOW" as item five.

They're the Meatmen and They Suck

 The latest salvo in the stupid right wing culture war is an assertion that Joe Biden would limit Americans' red meat consumption to four pounds a year.  This bullshit story originated with the UK tabloid The Daily Mail.in a poorly sourced story which also claims that Biden would force car buyers to spend money on electric cars.

The idea that the Democrats would limit Americans' hamburger consumption is a hoary trope, by which I mean tripe, among conservatives, as this old clip from Sebastian 'Blimphead' Gorka reveals:

Naturally, it also played into hatred of AOC.

The funny thing is that meat was difficult to come by a year ago, when the Trump Pandemic disrupted supply lines.  Personally, I subsisted on bean dishes cooked with a bit of chorizo or ham hock for flavor.  Trump limited burger consumption more than Biden ever will.

I take my omnivory seriously, even engaging in occasional entomophagy.  That being said, I have been endeavoring to cut back on my meat consumption for health as well as environmental reasons... I also embrace the rooter-to-tooter model of meat-eating, and actually prefer cuts like shanks to more expensive 'normie' cuts.  I firmly reject the weird performative masculinity that conservatives attach to meat-eating, with it's weird pseudoscience about plant estrogens.  I suspect that the rumors that Biden is trying to make everybody a near-vegetarian has some roots in right-wing fear of emasculation.

Post title taken from this nastily transgressive cultural artifact.

Secret Science Club North: Entomophagy Expectations Exceeded

Last night, I headed down to the scintillating Symphony Space to attend the second-ever Secret Science Club North lecture, featuring the American Museum of Natural History's parasitologist and curator of invertebrates Dr Mark Siddall. Dr Siddall's topic was the consumption of various invertebrates for the good of the consumer and the good of the planet. Dr Siddall had delivered a previous Secret Science Club lecture about leeches back in December 2012. Before the lecture, Secret Science Goddesses Margaret Mittelbach and Dorian Devins were giving out samples of gummy worms and, more importantly, delicious mealworms and crickets:

The cocktail of the evening was the deliciously "swampy" Spineless Wonder, a blend of Bailey's, vodka, and Coca-Cola- the acidity of the cola partially curdled the Bailey's, making for a slightly chunky drink.

Dr Siddall's lecture last night was largely a travelogue/epicurean exploration. Think of a night spent listening to a very funny, very intelligent friend talking about their travels to interesting locations in the developing world and you'll get an idea about last night's lecture. Dr Siddall began by asking the audience if any members were vegans or vegetarians, moving to to asking attendees where they drew the line regarding consuming animals... would any of us eat gorilla? How about dolphins? They're relatively closely related to cows, which many of us eat. He displayed a mammalian cladogram and asked us to pick out which animals we'd eat- would any of us eat an opossum but not a wallaby? He then showed a cladogram of all known animal taxa and asked us which of these animals we would eat. He reminisced about taking university students on a tour of tidal zones and exhorting them to add taste to the other sense they used to explore the environment, serving them mussels and (at the tides ebb) sea urchin gonads. He noted that barnacles were tasty, being basically stationary shrimp encased in a stony shell, but eating the typical Atlantic barnacles was too difficult to be practical- likening barnacles to the "celery of the sea", one would burn more calories rendering them edible than one would obtain by eating. He then told of his "barnacle epiphany", trying the giant picoroco barnacle in Chile and finding it delicious. This was the first of many times in the course of the lecture in which he averred that, if in doubt about the palatability of any foodstuff, you should eat it served in a spicy broth. In an aside, he quipped that you should eat with a parasitologist if you want to know what bugs you.

To determine how squeamish the audience members were, Dr Siddall showed us a slide of huitlacoche, then he passed around a bag of tortilla chips and a container of delicious corn smut for the audience to sample. Que sabor rico!

The bulk of the lecture was occupied by a slide show of Dr Siddall in various markets in various nations, eating various invertebrates. Interspersed with pictures of Dr Siddall munching on grubs and grasshoppers, there were pictures of vultures scavenging the leavings at an outdoor market, of a jolly African matron laughing because the Americans wanted to eat mopane "worms" (in a spicy broth, of course), giant Hercules beetle grubs roasted on a stick (tastes like buttered popcorn! he quipped). He told us a funny story about the run-up to a trip to Oaxaca, when he enthusiastically told his young daughter that they would be eating chapulines, so that she was eager to be eating them in a taco with a spicy sauce and guacamole. In a picture of a bucket in a market in Korea, he remarked, "There are five phyla in that bucket!"

He advised us, if you want to know what's safe to eat, you ask the locals and you eat what the locals eat. In Madagascar, he joked about how the staple was rice- rice for dinner every day, occasionally a meal of beans, and if you were lucky, rice and beans. He then quizzed us about water safety, showing pictures of two glasses of water and asking whether one should drink the cloudy water or the clear water- answer: the cloudy water was boiled in the pot in which the rice was cooked to loosen the rice from the pot, and was safe to drink. He then showed a picture of Secret Science Club lecturer and all-around great person Evon Hekkala laid up with a bad illness she got from the water in Madagascar. He also talked about cultural savvy in the field- you should eat whatever is placed in front of you because it represents an act of hospitality from someone who can little afford it. If you are a vegan and your host or guide offers you their last chicken, eat the chicken. It's less of a sacrifice than the one made by your host.

Being the leech guy, Dr Siddall digressed on the topic of edible leeches, pronouncing the blood-suckers kinda flaccid and tasteless. The leeches to eat are the muscular carnivorous ones, like the giant earthworm eating red leeches. He showed us a portrait of himself eating a leech while a grad student working in the field- the booze bottles photoshopped out because he had shown the lecture to a bunch of grammar school students.

Another aside dealt with the "medicinal" uses of certain foods- snake is sold in the markets of Taiwan to improve virility, scorpions are sold in the winter because they are considered "hot". He then mentioned English naturalist Thomas Muffet, whose writings on the medicinal virtues of eating spiders may have inspired the nursery rhyme Little Miss Muffet.

Dr Liddall then went into a lengthy digression about the blister beetle Lytta vesicatoria, the infamous Spanish fly, the source of the blistering agent Cantharone- he related an anecdote about a pediatrician wishing to topically apply Cantharone to his daughter's arm, but he wouldn't allow the treatment until he swabbed himself with it. After much resistance, he liberally applied it to his arm, resulting in three-inch blisters- the pediatrician told him that the merest touch would be applied to his daughter's arm. He then related a tale about the Marquis De Sade giving Spanish fly laced sweets to women because the irritating agent is concentrated in the urogenital system and the "stimulation" was thought to be an aphrodesiac. He also told of a unit of the French Foreign Legion that had been laid up with painful priapism from eating the legs of frogs that had consumed Lytta vesicatoria. Frogs have a knack for accumulating insect toxins- the wickedly poisonous golden poison frog accumulates beetle toxins in its flesh. This led to a bit of advice about avoiding bright bugs- they are aposematic, they advertise their toxic status by standing out.

Another funny topic was drunken elephants- Dr Siddall noted that it would take three trailer loads of fermented marula fruits to get an elephant drunk, and that the intoxicated elephants of legend are probably tripping on poisonous insects consumed with tree bark. Another slide showed a slug happily munching on an Amanita muscaria.

Regarding locust "plagues", Dr Siddall advised us to eat the locusts, noting that it was sad that Laura Ingalls Wilder's dad didn't know that. He showed a newsreel of an African locust plague and noted that the gentleman walking through the cloud of grasshoppers ate one.

The home stretch of the lecture dealt with the nutritive value of insects. Dr Siddall noted that the worst features of malnutrition resulted from an underconsumption of protein and a lack of protein and fat diversity. Starches are easier to come by. After an strong exhortation not to eat bats, which carry ebola, Dr Siddall started to show us "nutritional labels" for various insects. To produce a pound of beef, it requires 12 pounds of feed, 5,000 gallons of water, and 31 kilowatt-hours. For a pound of chicken, it requires 2 pounds of feed, 815 gallons of water, and 4 kilowatt hours. By comparison, a pound of crickets requires 2 pounds of feed, one gallon of water, and 2 kilowatt hours.

2.5 acres can produce enough beef to feed one person, while the same land can produce a plethora of crickets. Dr Siddall exhorted us to eat more insects. Currently, three pounds of cricket "flour" typically costs around sixty dollars. Demand for edible insect products will drive costs down.

The whole lecture involved a lot of audience participation. In one exchange, a lucky bastard was able to say he ate a bug because he took advantage of the periodic influx of brown marmorated stink bugs at his workplace... and to think that earlier that day he'd only eaten cicadas among the real "bugs". Besides huitlacoche, Dr Siddall passed around figs so we could eat the tiny wasps that inhabit the inflorescenses. It was a very fun lecture with a serious takeaway- eat insects, preferably in a spicy broth.

In the Q&A, some bastard asked Dr Siddall a question in his capacity as the leech guy. Given the number of (relatively) unrelated taxa that consume blood, were the anticoagulants used by, or example, leeches and mosquitos, similar? Dr Siddall indicated that there are many factors in the coagulation cascade that can be targeted. Hirudin, the anticoagulant in the saliva of the medicinal leech, is an anti-thrombin. Different sanquivorous taxa target different parts of the coagulation cascade, some anti-coagulants attack thromin, some attack pre-thrombin, some attack platelets. There are also anticoagulants that are A-pyrases, they destroy free ATP (after the lecture, I asked Dr Siddall if any of these pyrases were proposed as anti-cancer drugs, but they are large proteins that cannot penetrate the cell walls, making them unlikely to be used against tumors).

Another audience member, who suffers from ulcerative colitis, asked Dr Siddall about nematode therapy. After briefly discussing the hygiene hypothesis, Dr Siddall emphatically stated, "People in wormy areas would rather have your allergies than their parasitic worms." He then noted that pig whipworms, which cannot reproduce in a human host, can be used with some success. He then commented on the near eradication of the hideous Guinea worm, a meter-long worm that burrows beneath the skin- last year, there were only 83 recorded cases of Guinea worm, all in South Sudan.

A funny question by an audience member regarded squeamishness- what does it take to make the bug-eating Leech Guy puke? His answer was that vomit makes him want to vomit, and that this has a really good evolutionary basis. We are descended from individuals who ate together, so if one of them ate something that made them sick, the others would be safer if they threw up as well. Those individuals who were non-pukers died off, leaving no descendents.

Asked about parasites, Dr Siddall noted that, while we are co-evolved with them, we don't need them. He then brought up toxoplasmosis, which is caused by a protozoan related to the malaria pathogen. The definitive hosts of toxoplasmosis are cats, though all mammals can act as vectors. Mice infected with toxoplasmosis tend to engage in risky behaviors- they don't fear cat urine and they are more active in the daytime... perfect behaviors to make it more likely that they will be eaten by cats. All mammals can act as hosts for toxoplasmosis- the organism tends to go through different stages in different hosts. In the bloodstream, the parasites reproduce quickly- they are "tachyzoids". In pregnant females, the tachyzoids can cross the fetal barrier in the placenta and cause birth defects (the process is known as teratogenesis). Never change kitty litter when you're pregnant- make someone else do it. Dr Siddall then joked that mosquitoes are the primary hosts of malaria, and that humans are vectoring the parasite for those poor mosquitoes.

After the lecture, Dr Siddall hung out with the crowd, fielding any and all questions. I asked him if he'd ever eaten trepang, which led to a digression on contact between Indonesia and Australia before Europeans "discovered" the continent. A young woman was asking about the feasibility of raising crickets in a community garden, and Dr Siddall noted that the insect market was unregulated but that insect producers, leery of onerous USDA crackdowns, tend to autoclave their product to forestall any scares. Some bastard joked that we should all pool our resources and start an "artisanal" cricket market and sell crickets to hipsters. That led to digressions about Brooklyn crickets (brickets- rub them with the same spices you rub on briskets) and pickled crickets- pricklets. Yeah, there was beer involved.

All told, it was a very fun night with a very engaging lecturer and some unusual snacks. Kudos to Dr Siddall, Dorian, Margaret, and the staff of the Symphony Space.

Secret Science Club Post Lecture Recap: Big Bug Summer Continues

On Tuesday night, I headed down to the beautiful Bell House, in the Gowanus section of Brooklyn, for this month's Secret Science Club lecture, featuring Dr Jessica Ware, entomologist and evolutionary biologist at Rutgers University, who earlier this year received the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers. The official title of Dr Ware's presentation was 'Insect Divergence: The Evolution of Termite, Dragonflies, and Damselflies.

Dr Ware began her lecture with an autobiographical note, joking that she and her twin sister, a performance artist, diverged early on. Her interest in science was sparked by her grandparents, residents of Northern Ontario, who 'tossed snakes and frogs' at their granddaughters. As a child, she engaged in the activities she now performs as a field biologist: hiking, collecting, asking questions, and indulging her natural curiosity. She decided to study insects because of sheer numbers... she can catch ten dragonflies in a shorter period of time than it would take to see one whale.

Dr Ware noted that there are approximately 5,500 mammal species on Earth, about 391,000 plant species, and approximately one million insect species. Insects are incredibly diverse- they run the gamut from herbivores to predators. Dr Ware said that, whatever humans have done, insects have done it before them. Insects wage war, take slaves, farm, and developed flight. One of Dr Ware's areas of research is determining how the various insect orders are related, and when they diversified. She is specifically interested in termites (which she described as 'fancy social cockroaches') and the dragonflies and their sister group the damselflies. She contrasted the key innovations of the termites (being sociality) and the dragon-and-damselflies (flight).

Before tackling insect diversity, Dr Ware gave us an overview of systematics, describing the 'family trees' of Earth's organisms. Using a familiar example, she noted that cats and dogs form a sister group while sheep are more distantly related. Dr Ware is a member of 1KITE, the One Thousand Insect Transcriptome Evolution project, which studies insect phylogenetics, how the different insect orders are related, and when they diversified.

The Odonata are basal insects, they are probably the earliest winged insects to evolve. There are approximately three thousand dragonfly species and about three thousand damselfly species... there is also an intermediate group, the Anisozygoptera, represented by a single genus found in Nepal, China, and Japan.

Dr Ware described the Odonata as pretty and showy, and have been used as decorative motifs by Tiffany and other designers. She launched into a very funny tangent, "Is your tattoo a dragonfly or an ant lion?" She conceded that the Neuroptera are also cool before noting that dragonflies have no antennae while ant lions have big antennae. She then joked that nobody has a tattoo of an aquatic dragonfly baby unless they are a top level entomologist. She noted that the aquatic dragonfly nymphs are voracious predators.

Dr Ware posed the question, who flew first? Was it the Odonata, the mayflies, or another insect lineage? What was flying around in the early days of insect evolution? What were the reasons why dragonflies evolved flight early on? Perhaps it was due to sexual selection- dragonfly mating involves indirect sperm transfer. Females mate with multiple males, and the males have a secondary 'penis'- they scrape the sperm of other males out of the female with which they are mating and use a 'secondary penis' in which sperm is stored to transfer the sperm after rivals' sperm is scraped out. Other basal insects use sperm packets to inseminate their mates.

Most Odonata systematics, Dr Ware explained, is based on wing venation- the degree of venation in an insect's wing (sparse vs high) is strongly correlated with flight syles, with the amout of veins determining the stiffness of a wing.

In the Carboniferous period, about 350 million years ago, a sister group to the Odonata, colloquially know as griffinflies, attained giant sizes, with wingspans up to two feet (Dr Ware quipped that, as a Canadian and a scientist, converting from metric units didn't come naturally to her). True Odonata appeared in the Permian, about 250 million years ago. The earliest branching lineage of the extant Odonata is the critically endangered Tasmanian damselfly Hemiphlebia mirabilis. Dr Ware somberly noted, "They may be extinct by the time you get home." The females use their abdomens to fling eggs haphazardly across the bogs which form their dwindling habitat. DNA sequencing revealed that they are a sister group to all other Odonata.

Dr Ware paused to inform us that she prefers dragonflies to damselflies before continuing with the lecture. She then went on to note that most of the organisms which prey on Odonata evolved after the Odonata did- frogs evolved in the Jurassic period, modern birds evolved in the Cretaceous period. She took a moment to joke: "Predators are jerks!"

Odonata have two egg-laying strategies: exophytic species lay their eggs outside of plants while endophytic species lay their eggs inside plants. Dr Ware amusingly described exophytic species as 'squirting their eggs out like ketchup', noting that they sometimes lay their eggs on cars, mistaking their reflective surfaces for bodies of water. The endophytic strategy may have been ancestral- in a case of convergent evolution, the Gomphidae (clubtails) and Libellulidae (skimmers) employ an exophytic strategy. They are not very closely related, so 'egg squirting' evolved twice, probably as a means to avoid predators.

Despite her preference for dragonflies, Dr Ware singled out a specific damselfly species for special consideration- the giant helicopter damselfly (Megaloprepus caerulatus) has evolved to eat spiders, plucking them right out of their webs. Some of the males have white, waxy patches on their wings, which are probably used in territorial displays to warn other males away from the water-filled tree holes which are necessary for mating. There is a geographical distribution between white patch dominant and no patch dominant populations.

Getting the coolest damselfly out of the way, Dr Ware then proceeded to her preferred Odonata, the dragonflies. The Aeshnidae (darners) are represented by 453 species of large, colorful dragonflies. Some of them can change color as the temperature changes, with pigment particles migrating to and from the surface of the abdomen, changing from blue to purple. Some of the darners are migratory- in one experiment, researchers glued tiny radio transmitters to the dragonflies with eyelash adhesive, but the transmitters interfered with the insects' flight, and most of the overburdened insects were eaten by predators.

The next family of dragonflies introduced by Dr Ware were the Petaluridae (petaltails), which are large dragonflies. Dr Ware then recounted the bizarre tale of one Perry Turner (PDF link), a student at Berkeley University who had borrowed a large collection of Petaluridae from various museums, including several type specimens. Turner was also a big believer in Sasquatch, and believed that Sasquatch ate Petaluridae. Turner disappeared without paying the rent on a storage locker, and his purloined Petaluridae ended up in an antiques shop.

Dr Ware then returned to the GomphidaeGomphidae (clubtails). which are exophytic egg-layers, their eggs being coated and weighted to they sink quickly to reduce predation by fish. There are over 900 species in the Gomphidae.

The Libellulidae (skimmers) are exophytic egg layers and some of the species are migratory. Dr Ware singled out the genus Pantala, which includes two species- Pantala hymenaea is a migratory species which ranges throughout the New World, and Pantala flavescens, which has a global (excepting Antarctica) distribution. Dr Ware joked that Pantala flavescens was her first dragonfly catch in Canada, Africa, and Australia. Pantala can thrive in areas which aren't hospitable to other dragonflies because their nymphs can develop in five weeks, which means that they can survive in temporary or transient bodies of water. Most dragonfly nymphs take one to five years to develop. Pantala also has a morphology conducive to gliding, with banded wing bases which can catch the wind. Pantala flavescens can be found also exhibits adaptive behaviors on windy islands, such as Easter Island, 'crouching' to avoid high winds so they aren't blown out to sea.

Dr Ware described a project in which the genomes of 700 Pantala flavescens specimens were sequenced to find shared genetic patterns, and to note where genetic outliers were found. A colleague of hers collected a Pantala flavescens while on a cruise, another colleague encountered a Pantala flavescens while on conducting research 100 miles out to sea. The origin of a particular Pantala flavescens can be determined through isotope analysis- since the nymphs develop in the water, they pick up the isotopes found in their native waters, which gets deposited in their wing chitin. Pantala flavescens in the Andes tended to have a local origin, while Pantala flavescens populations in Queensland and West Africa tended to have hydrogen signatures indicating that they originated elsewhere.

Dr Ware then shifted the focus of her lecture to termites (which I doubt anybody has a tattoo of). She described termites as fancy, myopic, dark-dwelling social roaches. They were formerly classified in their own order, the Isoptera, but they have recently been reclassified as Blattodea, along with the cockroaches. There are are approximately 4,500 species of roach and 3,100 species of termites. Most termite species are not pests, nor are all termites wood eaters- many termites consume fungi or grasses. Termite sociality probably evolved because termites need symbiotic bacteria to help them digest cellulose. These gut bacteria are lost as individual termites molt, and must be replenished by termites consuming probiotic anal secretions from other termites. Most termite studies involve the approximately 2% of termite species which are pests, though Dr Ware singled out termites which explode to defend their nest (if my beery brain recalls correctly, she recounted the discovery with a colleague, of an Amitermes species that "explodes like Mr Creosote" to defend the colony).

Dr Ware indicated that termite evolution is probably tied to the evolution of the flowering plants, the angiosperms, in the Cretaceous period. Determining the age at which insect lineages evolved can be complicated by flaws in molecular data and the difficulty of non-paleontologists in calibrating the age of fossils. It's generally believed that the first insects may have evolved around 450 million years ago, with roaches evolving around 250 million years ago. Piecing together the divergence of insect life does involve some cautious optimism.

Dr Ware ended her talk by discussing the future of entomology, stressing the need for public outreach, especially the need to get children involved. She discussed the role that her two children play in her fieldwork, displaying a picture with the funny caption: "Relax, my mom is an entomologist!" She talked about her early career, when women were often derided as 'net-holders', and said that she was the only woman in her entomological group in 2003. She disavowed the notion that women had to choose between fieldwork and child-rearing, noting that children are extremely good at collecting insects. She finished her lecture by stating the New Jersey has a particularly rich and diverse Odonata population, with 188 species inhabiting the Garden State.

The lecture was followed by a Q&A session. The first question involved dragonfly mortality- while predators take their toll on dragonflies, there are other dangers... dragonflies store fat in their tails, and there is a danger that they might run out of energy reserves. Another danger is that their wings get to wet to sustain lift, so they might drown. Mating is dangerous for dragonflies, the males have claspers on their tails with which they grasp females (or, by mistake, other males). The claspers can hurt the other dragonflies, and mating can be a violent affair. Dragonflies also eat other dragonflies. Another question involved polluted waters- dragonflies can sequester pollutants such as mercury and other heavy metals. The relative hardiness of dragonfly nymphs can be used to determine water quality. Another question involved dragonfly hunting strategies- dragonflies have spines on their tibia with which they catch prey on the wing (this is commonly known as 'hawking'), much of their food can be likened to 'aerial plankton'.

Some Bastard in the audience asked about the evolution of aquatic development in the Odonata. Aquatic development has evolved in numerous insect lineages, but the ancestral condition was terrestrial. Griffinfly nymphs are unknown, and there are some Odonata nymphs which aren't aquatic, with some species even found in trees.

A question involving the diet of early fliers elicited a grimly funny response from Dr Ware... "They probably ate each other." High atmospheric oxygen content allowed some griffinflies to reach their huge size. During the Jurassic period, an adaptation allowing twisting and bending of the wings evolved, which resulted in improved flight. During the Jurassic, though, there were more predators. Regarding Pantela flavescens, the species is a young one, perhaps a million years old, and small nucleotide differences among populations suggest numerous repeated colonization events on islands.

Regarding climate change, temperature in lab settings does effect viability, with many species operating optimally at a temperature of 25C. At 30C, mortality sets in, with temperature particularly effecting the behavior of aquatic juveniles.

Dr Ware was asked about the possibility of an impending Insect Apocalypse- yearly collections are used to determine biomass. There has been no difference in dragonfly biomass, but there is a difference in species distribution. Dragonflies are highly mobile, they can leave areas when conditions change for the worse. In one particular case, a dragonfly formerly limited in northerly range to North Africa can now be found in Sweden, and Arctic dragonflies now range above the treeline.

Another attendee asked about dragonfly longevity- the adults last for one hot summer, they have two to three months to 'get their business done'. Nymphs can range in lifespan from five weeks to five years, depending on the species.

Regarding the skinny abdomens of damselflies, Dr Ware noted that all damselflies are endophytic, and narrow abdomens are probably a result of this egg-laying strategy. Dragonflies, being more active, have invested more resources in a muscular thorax and a fat-storing abdomen. The need for heat dispersal might also affect abdomen size. Another question involved edibility- there are no venomous or poisonous dragonflies, and the thorax, being muscle, is pure protein.

There was a question regarding fear of insects. Dr Ware stated that it is learned behavior- her older child accompanied her in the lab much of the time, and has no fear of insects. Her younger child spent time in daycare with entomophobes while she was working on her doctorate, and is less comfortable with insects. She quipped that this was only a sample size of two.

Regarding aggregating behavior, aggregations occur around suitable mating sites, and sites where food is plentiful. Exophytic dragonflies produce large egg masses, which is good for the first nymphs to hatch, because they can eat their smaller siblings.

The final question of the night involved the exploding termites, about which not a lot is known. Dr Ware was collecting termites with a colleague using aspirators. While collecting termites from a strange-looking mound, they noticed that the aspirator was getting clogged with 'gooey' termites. Closer observation revealed that some of the termites had ruptured abdomens, but they noted that this might have been a result of collection methods. They didn't think it was enough to change the focus of their research, so they put the specimens in ethanol, and brought them back to New Jersey. They noted the explosions, which probably evolved to seal colony walls, later.

There's a concept which I call the 'Secret Science Sweet Spot', that particular combination of hard science fact, entertainment factor, and advocacy. I'm an entomophile, as longtime readers will know, and this has been a BIG BUG SUMMER for me, so this was a paricularly fantastic lecture. Dr Ware knocked it out of the park, with fascinating information, gorgeous photographs, engaging autobiography, and earnest advocacy for education, inclusion, and environmentalism. I only had one beef with her... I am firmly on team damselfly (I mean, I've never had a dragonfly interact with me like this), and jocularly chided her for her damselfly deprecation. All was well when she revealed her first Odonata tattoo, a male ebony jewelwing like the one that so patiently allowed me to relocate- she didn't want to subject the tattoo artist to having to depict wing venation, so she chose the Odonate with opaque wings. All is forgiven, good doctor! There were some other highlights- one of Dr Ware's old mentors brought a bunch of live insects to the beautiful Bell House, including Madagascar hissing roaches, a leaf-mimicking mantis, and a grasshopper-ish critter that was about four inches long. Also in attendance was entomophagy advocate chef Joseph Yoon. NJIT sent a contingent, notably Dr Phil Barden, who indicated that having a damselfly land on your fishing pole is good luck.

Kudos to Dr Ware, Margaret (who has pulling solo duty as Dorian was out of town being awesome elsewhere), and the staff of the beautiful Bell House. While I enjoy all of the lectures, I have to confess my bio-bias, and this month's lecture was TOP TIER. High fives all around! Here's a video of Dr Ware leading some students in fieldwork in a park in Newark, New Jersey:





Pour yourself a nice beverage and soak in that SCIENCE!