Entomology (Bugs!) with Ralph Washington Jr.

Hello, and welcome to Golden State naturalist, a podcast for anyone who's ever tried to take picture of a butterfly. But then it flew away too fast and you ended up with a picture of the ground. I'm Michelle Fullner. And today I'll be talking with Ralph Washington Jr. about insects and all kinds of little invertebrates before your like, bugs gross and you shut the episode off, stop. Let me tell you a little bit about our conversation because it is 100% worth your time. And you'll think it's interesting, even if you've never cared about bugs before. This is because Ralph is passionate, hilarious and brilliant. But also just listen to this list of things. We talked about cultivating curiosity, an insect that can see above and below the surface of the water. At the same time, the limitations of the scientific method of fire detecting California native beetle, how racial justice and insects are related mosquitoes roll in ecosystems, the very unfair, bad, rapid urban insect skid, we talked about bug myths, a very self compassionate approach to overcoming a fear of insects, how to help native bees and how caring about things that are different from us helps cultivate empathy. We're going to dig into that conversation in just a minute. But before we do, can you do me a solid, take a second and think about two people you think would enjoy this podcast, maybe it's your neighbor who just replaced their lawn with native plants or your buddy from college who was always backpacking on the weekend, or maybe your entire Facebook hiking group or the geology subreddit that you follow, then when you finish this episode, if you liked it, it would help so so much if you can hit that person or that group up and let them know about the podcast as a completely independent podcaster that would mean a lot to me. And you get to be the cool friend who found something new right before it got insanely popular see me manifesting this future. Also ratings and reviews are the absolute business, they help more people find the podcast and if you do go to leave a rating review, double check to make sure that you're subscribed while you're there. That helps a ton to and if you want even more golden state naturalist, you can become a patron for as little as $4 a month. With that membership. You get audio and video extras from my interviews in the field behind the scenes information about how the podcast is made. And what's coming up next and more. There were a couple of really hilarious moments in this episode that I just couldn't fit in because I tried to fit everything in and it became really long. One of those moments is a story about an entomologist who got a tick in a very sensitive location and my conversation with Ralph about all of the bugs I've ever eaten, those audio extras will go up in the next few days. Some of you who are listening right now helped me reach my first goal on Patreon of $100 a month because you're amazing. The next goal is to cover the cost of making the podcast which averages out to about $250 a month. If you want to help out with that and gain access to all those cool extras. You can find me on Patreon at patreon.com/michelle Fullner. That's Michelle with two L's Fullner is fu ll en er you can also find me on social media at Golden State naturalist on both Instagram and Tiktok. My website is www dot Golden State naturalist.com. But now let's get to the episode because you shouldn't have to wait any longer to hear from Ralph who not only has his master's degree in entomology from UC Davis, but who is also a three time national and international champion of intim illogical Natural History trivia and has his own TED talk called Science, poverty and the human imagination because he's that cool. Also, I was a little star struck when I talked to him because I've never talked to anyone with a TED talk before. So without further ado, let's hear from gem of a human walking encyclopedia and entomologist extraordinaire Ralph Washington Jr. On Golden State naturalist.

R

They're most well known for having split eyes, Four Eyes, eyes that can look up above the waterline and eyes it look below because they often float at the water lines for around on.

What you're hearing here is from my conversation with Ralph when we met up at the Yolo bypass, which you've seen if you've ever driven between Sacramento and Davis. It's that big wetland right below the causeway Ralph and I met up there back in April and went down to the water's edge to see what kinds of insects we could find. And just a quick note here that this was my first time recording in a wetland and I was trying to keep our mic cords from dangling in the water which caused a few audio issues at the beginning but I didn't want to cut this section out because Ralph had such good things to say just know that the audio quality gets better in a few minutes once we sit down for the full interview. Anyway, the insect Ralph is describing here is one you may have seen before. It's a water beetle from the gyro FINITY family usually known as a whirly egg beetle because of the way it glides around and around in circles in the water and it needs those unusual eyes split top and bottom because a lot of things want to eat it to the

R

dive in response to if something bothers them. The technical term is molestation by predator

So what what is it birds? Is it frogs? Is it everybody?

R

Rocks might Yeah, birds probably wouldn't because they're generally pretty small. It's often other aquatic insects as well. Okay, okay. Yeah, don't worry about that are a lot of aquatic predators. So things sometimes I like to do, I find really peaceful and calming to aquatic environment that's full of insects like to sit real close instead of taking the tool and dipping in which you know, someone might do if they were stream ecologists or even like a pond ecologist, I can find it a lot more satisfying, just to observe and then if I want to try and catch something even use my hands. I like to think about what it must have been like for people who expressed their curiosity before the advent of the scientific method, right? You know, there are all kinds of systems of knowledge in the world and in history. And despite the utility that science provides for calibrating our critical thinking, and helping us avoid various cognitive biases, is often associated with a certain kind of cultural outlook, and emotional association with the subjects of our interest. They can prevent us from really indulging the curiosity as genuinely as we might

make no mistake, Ralph is a big fan of science. He's not saying that scientific thinking is bad. But it does seem that sometimes all of the trappings that can sometimes go with it can get us stuck in a mindset that takes all of the genuine joy, enthusiasm, curiosity and love out of the thing we're studying. As he was saying this, Ralph had a hand cupped in the water waiting patiently for an insect to pass, he exhibits such a sense of calm here, such stillness and presence that I found myself matching his tone, slowing down and letting the world around, open up right in front of us. We stayed this way for a while noticing things taking it in and Ralph shared both knowledge and insight. As we crouched beside the water.

R

More like this, you often find a lot of insects that live on the surface, or they breathe through a plaster on you know, a plaster on it's like a two, it's a it can be a tube, what it is, is it's a series of hairs, any hydrophobic interface that allows the insect to keep a bubble of air around their body, in the water. And so a lot of aquatic beetles will have hydrophobic hairs on their abdomen.

That's how they do that.

R

I've seen the bubble. That's called a plaster on that's cool,

because I was I was literally thinking the other day in the vernal pools episode. Oh, yeah. The naturalist talks about wonderful being the aquatic invertebrates and majestic. And there's one with a plaster on talks about and it's the pack swimmer. No, is it a boatman? The

R

water belt water Bowman and back swimmers.

They both have them, okay. And I was just sitting there thinking like, is probably the stupidest question. But I was like, why can't I do that? Like, why can't I go? scuba tank, but now you've explained it, you've explained it that makes

R

sense. Set it up. I mean, people have done some research to try and see how they can make that happen. Right. But the thing is, you need to have some means by which you can extract air from the boat, right? Sure. And so the classrooms are always oriented over a spherical, so spherical, the apertures and the trachea holes of breeding tubes. And so it's a connected system wherein you have the hydrophobic hairs which keep a bubble of air above a spherical so that periodically an insect can open their spherical, a spherical, and inhale some air. And then the bubble will gradually shrink.

Oh my goodness, that as well. So they have to just go back up to the surface every once in awhile and refresh their little air bubble. So another creature from the vernal pools episode, which you might remember if you had a chance to listen to that one is mosquito larvae, and those guys breathe through a little tube that's on their backside, and it sticks up to the surface of the water. Ralph's gonna explain a little bit more about how that works.

R

And the tube is connected to the surface to their hairs at close automatically as they come down and prevent water. Spread out just the surface and penetrate the surface membrane in the water.

This is why mosquitoes are so successful.

R

Mosquitoes are great. A lot of people don't appreciate the interesting aspects of their biology. We're often so focused on how they beleaguered us how they annoy us, at least in this country. Although malaria and yellow fever, and many other mosquito borne diseases are really prominent the past and they still are some to a certain extent. West Nile virus, Eastern Equine Encephalitis, St. Louis encephalitis, they aren't the same public health concern as they were before. And so for the most part, people are irritated by it right? Sure. They're annoyed or mutated mosquitoes are annoyed by them. We don't have to deal with the same problems as someone living in Sub Saharan Africa, for example. Yeah. The problem I have though, is that it's kind of a Have an anthropocentric perspective on a really interesting creature. We think they're passed many passes subjective designation, right? We're so used to killing them swatting them, and destroying them when we see them. But we don't take time to appreciate the interesting things about them. They're mosquitoes that don't feed on blood at all, only feed on flowers, I mean, all mosquitoes, you know, flowers, like both males and females feed on either flowers or extra floral nectaries because they need sugar in addition to blood, and it's only females that feed on blood, produce brood. But there are some that never feed on blood at all, no feed on microbes. And they regulate the diversity of microbes that are present in these environments. The larvae do the larvae do? Yeah, they're often the most important determinant of what microbial diversity you find in certain environments. And the reason why that's important ecologically is most global nutrient cycling happens through microbes. So mosquitoes play an important part in making sure that carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus is transmitted around the globe, and the ratios that are needed for all life. And we ignore them because they might be brown and drab, and we don't like the sound,

bite us sometimes so dismissive of them

R

exactly. Find it a bit troubling. We're so focused on on these transient irritations,

thanks for making it through the audio issues on that we're almost through the problems with audio. But I wanted to keep that in there. Because I've actually heard before that mosquitoes don't really matter, or don't really play an important role in the ecosystem. And I think it's really interesting, because if something exists in an ecosystem, naturally, it probably has an important role to play there. And just because we don't necessarily know what that role is, it doesn't mean that that role isn't being played anyway. So this was a great reminder to have respect for every living creature around us, because we don't always know everything that they do, and all of the ways that they contribute. I mean, think people think of plants just getting nutrients from the soil, you know, not necessarily thinking about how those nutrients get there. Exactly. What the building blocks are for that. Yeah, it

R

was involved. I think for a lot of people, they have their way. Only butterflies would exist.

Well, maybe ladybugs, too. And maybe ladybugs, yeah.

R

And all other insects will be dead. Gone. Forgotten. So bad.

There's so many coins out.

R

There inspiring. Beautiful, entertaining, confusing. So my favorite thing about insects is that they provide so many opportunities to reflect on the things that matter to us.

One of my favorite things about talking to Ralph was that he knew his facts, he had the data, but he didn't stop there. He also extrapolated and thought about the meaning of things. And he goes a little bit more into that concept here,

R

about a million identified species of insects. And most you know, estimates in the past are sometimes like 50 60 million more conservative estimates or something like five or 6 million. If you think about the number, how much time people have put into finding and identifying insects at this point, there are five times as many that still haven't been identified. That's an incredible amount of diversity. And some people think etymology is like stamp collecting, right? It's just a rote tasks you perform without actually thinking about it. And, you know, we don't reach these organic syntheses of insight, without putting the pieces together in the first place. You can't build a building without getting a bunch of bricks together.

R

So there's so many bricks, there's so many bricks, kind of building, you want to build that the bricks aren't the end? That's right,

R

exactly. The bricks aren't the end, the building is the end.

I think that's what we should be thinking about. When we consider nature.

I was tempted at first to compare this idea to collecting the pieces of a massive puzzle, and finally putting them all together and stepping back to see the big picture. And then I realized that that metaphor isn't correct, because it suggests a single correct way to put all of the pieces together. What Ralph says about bricks is much better. We gain all of these blocks of information of data of observable fact, and we can endlessly rearrange them to glean new insights and find new meaning. And as we rearrange, we learn more about what arrangements make the most sense and show us the greatest truths. I love that Ralph takes something like insects that most of us dismiss and sees their profound importance. We're going to get more into what makes insects so important, why they're vital to each of our existence. When we sit down for the full interview. You're also going to see why is it Ralph is hilarious in the intro that's coming up right after a short break.

Now on to the full interview.

R

What's the technical definition of entomology? Being Awesome.

You just have to own that. Yes. Right.

R

Exactly. Sometimes we try and talk about insects and nightclubs. How does that go? It can go well, depending on how you say, you know, yeah. You bring up. Yeah. For sure. You know, by going there with the nets, right? Yes. And I think if, if my, what I'm suggesting is, I'm too excited about it, you know, you gotta get the right vibe, right? You gotta leave the way. Exactly right. You gotta dress for the occasion. And you oftentimes want to ask what people are interested in? If they have a butterfly on them, ask them about? Sure. Yeah, then you can talk about butterflies. But I mean, if you go in there and be like, Hey, I learned about this incredibly cool beetle. You want to know about it? People are probably like, why

are you talking about cockroaches?

R

Oh, my God. I'm gonna talk about cockroaches.

I'm so excited about but yeah, curious.

R

Yeah, we'll leave that for now. Okay.

You didn't think you were gonna get free dating advice here on Golden State naturalist today, did you? But that's just the kind of value that's offered here. Anyways, how did Ralph first become interested in insects,

R

I was a little kid. And a neighborhood called Oak Park in Sacramento. And neighborhoods like that are pretty neglected in terms of certain opportunities for natural experiences, right? Whether as a consequence of class, or proximity. Often the case is if you grow up and economically challenged urban circumstances, and you can't really see a lot of nature, at least in the kind you see National Geographic talking about.

Okay, I know you came here for nature and not history. But if you're not from Sacramento, or if you're not familiar with this story, you might need a little bit more context to understand the neighborhood where Ralph grew up. So I found this PDF by the city of Sacramento. I'll link it in the show notes. But it gives a good overview of the history of this region, which used to be a middle class neighborhood before World War Two and the Great Depression. I'm just going to read you a section of this after the Depression and World War Two, many of oak parks middle class families and businesses relocated to automobile suburbs. farther from the city center. The migration of middle class residents opened the door to African American residents who are being pushed out of their previous homes in the West End by redevelopment projects and prohibited from settling in other neighborhoods by discriminatory housing covenants. So basically redlining as a result, Oak Park developed a new cultural identity as an African American neighborhood. It goes on to say the end of streetcar service in 1946. Combined with the reconstruction of US Highway 50, and highway 99 in the 50s and 60s, cut Oak Park off from the rest of the city and exacerbated growing social issues caused by increasing levels of poverty in 1968. The State Fair relocated to its current location at Cal Expo removing another major economic driver from the area social tensions erupted in confrontations between local residents and the police first 1969 Oak Park riots and again in 1970, after the shooting of a police officer resulted in the arrest of four Black Panther Party members. After the riots, several oak Park's long standing businesses including Steen's bar and Clarence as a vetoes clothing store closed down and never reopened. Meanwhile, urban renewal projects led to the demolition of most of oak parks historic business district along 35th Street by the 1990s When Ralph was a kid, Oak Park was known for higher crime rates and economic depression. Just a note that this is not a complete history of Oak Park. So definitely check it out. If you're interested to learn more. I bring all this up not only because it's relevant to Ralph's story, but also because I think it illustrates a wider issue and demonstrates a lack of access to the outdoors and nature experienced by many kids in similar circumstances across the country.

R

I did have some cool experiences later on people taking me hiking and stuff like that. But initially, I kind of felt as though what is there out there for me to see. I found Essex in a vacant lot. So I still have a soft spot a penchant for urban ecology because there are many vacant lots and all kinds of places and in neighborhoods like Oak Park, in particular in neglected environments, so you find a lot of lots that remain vacant for a while, and then weeds will grow up and what are weeds other than plants we don't like? And when you find a lot that isn't disturbed by human activity other than like, I know some furniture or appliances if people drop there. You can find a lot of insects. Yeah, it's really amazing. I found insects in a context where I think I was unconsciously desperate for something to distract me from some of the circumstances. And I was also curious, it was a curious child. And since I was very little as most children are, and I was really fortunate that I found something to stimulate my curiosity, and I stuck with it. Yeah.

How old? were you when you would explore these vacant lots?

R

Hey, I was eight when I first found them. I thought to myself, well, these are amazing creatures. And I pursued them more.

So did you just kind of like flip things over and look at them? Or?

R

Yeah, I mean, I think I was, let's be honest, you think about things in retrospect, and your childhood behaviors are more noble, or directed than they probably are? Right? In reality, I was probably reading around a lot with my brothers because it was something to do, right. And we were squatting on the ground and looking at an old refrigerator. And I was like, Whoa, what's that? And it was probably cricket. And I was like, looking this up. And my grandmother asked me what it was doing one day, a few months after that, and I was like, Hey, I was looking at these insects, and she bought me a bug bottle and brought me a tomato hornworm. Yeah. And I raised it to a mosque.

That's great. Okay, okay. Helps to have an adult who can Kindle your curiosity?

R

Yeah, indeed. I agree not to be alone on that. Absolutely. I think it's really important. Yeah, for sure. I think that children can be incredibly resourceful, and exploring their own curiosity. However, with the support of knowledgeable conscientious adults, children can have more meaningful experiences, and their lives can change in profound ways. So I think it underscores the fact that it doesn't really matter what you do for kids as long as you pay attention to them, and you indulge their interests. So we often become obsessed as adults with providing a plethora of opportunities for kids that are really meaningful, culturally, or that are challenging to acquire. And the truth is, you can grow up pretty well. And you can learn to be a good thinker. If you have somebody that pays attention to you and encourages you to explore the things that you enjoy.

I for 1am super grateful that Ralph had somebody to encourage him in his curiosity. Otherwise, he might never have developed and pursued that curiosity. And he might not be out there communicating all of this cool stuff about insects to all of us, but this conversation made me think that we also need a full episode on access to the outdoors. What do you think? Okay, but for now, let's get back to insects. I think we need to talk about a definition for animal okay, I'm wondering like, does it include just insects or like arachnids, like how does what does it include What does entomology kind of encompass

R

Well technically refers to the study of insects into mon is the word for insect Logie a study of right or science of so

you guys, he gave an etymology of entomology that just made my day.

R

entomology is technically specifically just the study of the species in the class Insecta. However, oftentimes, functionally, entomologists either are interested in or required to know about most terrestrial arthropods, so that includes the other non insect hexapods that collembola the pro tour and a die flora. That includes millipedes and centipedes, spiders include sometimes even the only kafir right sugar, the velvet worms are these interesting, soft bodied moist predators that secrete a paralytic toxic, sticky substance. You find them in rainforest so cool. Yeah, they're interesting, but it's the most most terrestrial arthropods including Eisah pods, right, which are just, you know, terrestrial crustaceans, you find you find sowbugs pillbugs. Many other arthropods, like that entomologist need to know about

the key term to catch out of all of that is arthropod. And if you don't know what an arthropod is, that's okay. Oxford languages says the arthropod is an invertebrate animal of the large phylum arthropoda, such as an insect spider or crustacean and the Smithsonian Institute has this charming two and a half minute long video about arthropods and says that they include insects, arachnids, crustaceans, millipedes, and centipedes. And if you're like, Hold on centipedes and millipedes, aren't insects, no. And that's because insects technically have six legs and often one or two pairs of wings. Whereas centipedes and millipedes have bunches and bunches of legs. A lot of people like bigger animals or vertebrates, like you said, yeah, they like the either the reptiles or the mammals or the birds. So when that happens, why should those people who care about these bigger animals, why should they care about

R

insects? Yeah, well, I often think about it this way. We notice the things that are really big, and we pay attention to things that are easy to see. Yet the big things often disguise Things that have an outsized influence on the environment and might really matter to us. There is a lot of research that goes into studying vertebrates, because we're so closely related to them. And we like how they look. And they're fluffy. And they have eyes. And it seems like they have traits and experiences that are analogous to human experiences. Right? Like, technically, even if dogs, there's even other primates do have emotions like ours, they're only like ours, they're not ours. It's erroneous to suggest that they're truly the same. We can empathize with them. But we are anthropomorphizing them. If we suggest that say for a dog when it yelps in pain, right, it's experiencing anguish, human anguish, it's not, it might be experiencing the dog analog of anguish, that's fine. And that can be valid. And it's important for us to care about them, but it's not the same. And so as a consequence, it's important to orient your mind to appreciate the experiences of creatures is necessarily different than your own. And oftentimes, we're looking for things that allow us to treat them like their people. The issue there is we limit our empathy to things that are like people, I think, the more we are obsessed with relating to creatures that seem as close as possible to human beings, the less we're willing to go out on a limb to relate to things that aren't human are distinctly inhuman, or far away from human. And I think that also influences how we treat other people. So the real reason why I think that people should appreciate insects is that they're creatures that seem so alien to us, yet, they live around this all the time. And they heavily influenced everything that happens for us in the world, the food we have access to where we live, the structure of our homes, the kinds of clothes we wear, how things disintegrate, whether or not, there's carrying in our environment, there's so many things in the sounds we hear at night that can be so pleasant and evoke memories of our childhood, southeastern countryside, whatever it is, insects contribute to our sensory experience, and are the meaningful economic experiences we have as people in this global environment. We don't care about them. And the more we practice empathy for the creatures, the more inclined we are to practice empathy for people that are unlike us. So that's that's really why I think that people should care about insects, because if they do, they might care about each other more

like that. You touched a little bit on all of the roles that insects play, too. I mean, and this is maybe way too huge of a question we'll see. But I just wanted to hear about some of the roles that insects play in ecosystems, maybe like maybe like, what are some of the most common roles that they play in ecosystems.

R

So everyone talks about pollination services provided by insects, huge number of crops are pollinated by insects, they're also lots of plants that we don't eat, that are pollinated by insects have these important relationships with insects, insects live in the soil. So they're very important contributors to the processing of debris, and the nutrients that go into a soil that keep it sturdy, and started to keep it healthy, keep it fertile, and useful to the plants around, they structure it physically. So insects provide a number of different ecosystem services, I want to use the technical term, so some of them will alter environment, so that is more suitable for other species, some of them will move nutrients around, contribute to nutrient cycling, some of them will function by providing food to other species, some of them will control the populations of other organisms such that the diversity in an environment is sufficient for to meet a certain standard. So if we think about diversity and environment that can be represented by the abundance for the species count, right? It can be, you know, we can think of it in terms of the number of species that are present, or the relative number within each species. And that'll be influenced by what if individuals are present with species at present, right. So insects are contributing to all of that, depending upon the environment, they might have a larger or smaller influence. Things that insects provide that we find useful, right, and six provide silk they provide honey, beeswax, and sex. I mentioned sounds, artistic motifs, they're inspiring in that way.

People can basically like building designs off of insect creations,

R

right? Yeah, I mean, like with robotics, and a number of other novel materials, or new devices through biome and nesis harvester ants, collecting seeds, off the floor, germinating in a warm environment and soil, then distributing them elsewhere because the seeds have germinated and so that can Be helpful. A lot

of those insects live far away from high density human population centers. But my listener Mo was curious about urban insects and wanted to know Ralph's thoughts about them.

R

So there was a study that came out about the participation of ants and cockroaches and dealing with urban debris in New York City. Because we often think that, hey, this is annoying. We don't want the insects around, right in many urban environments, including a Sacramento, right, but New York City is a potent example. And so that's why the study was performed there. They were evaluating how much debris, the ants and the cockroaches clean up on the streets. And that's a considerable amount of, yeah, so it's an analogous function to insects in a forest or a natural environment might be cleaning up the carrion right, because there's tons of animals that are dying all the time, right? Otherwise, it'd be all over the place. They also clean up feces, right? There's tons of feces produced by animals. So the world would be smelly and full of deet on are decomp slowly decomposing corpses if we didn't have insects to deal with them, right. So we can be grateful in that regard. But yeah, in an urban environment, people are dropping crap. Yeah, all the time. Yes, whatever, this here or there, and the insects often consume it. So the funny thing is, that's a less appreciated contribution. And it points to an aspect of their inclinations that leads to a misunderstanding a bit about their biology and what they want, like so when we see ants in our house, we see cockroaches in our house, people are often annoyed, right? They're like, why are they coming out? hate this, right? I gotta get rid of them. I want to put a bunch of poison down. I want to kill all of them. I'm so upset. It's likely that if there are ants and cockroaches in your house, you have left crumbs around that they want to eat, and you're probably not going to eat those crumbs. So if you drop some cookies behind the counter, are you going to eat the cookies? Now you're probably not going to clean up the cookies either. Nobody goes beyond a counterclaim cookies or crackers. But the cockroaches will grill on the cookies. Why not? Right? You're not going to eat? I mean, I gotta clean it. So what's the problem? You just don't like seeing them? And

there's a stigma? Yeah, I think ultimately, a lot of it comes back to a stigma Right? Like, people think you're dirty. Cockroaches or whatever.

R

I find it quite unfortunate because cockroaches are very clean. There are no cockroaches that spread disease. There are a few demonstrated cases of one cockroach species that Turkistan cockroach spreading the bacterium that causes dysentery. But that's it. Cockroaches are often meticulously clean. If you notice many cockroaches after you handle them, they'll clean themselves. Yeah, we gotta we gotta wheels. You touched me. Yes. Right. Oh, that's ironic in their legs and things like that, right? And they don't like I mean, like, if if you are eating a sandwich in a dirty bathroom, and you're holding the sandwich on the ground, and the cockroach claw crawls off the toilet onto your sandwich, and then you immediately the sandwich, then you're probably going to get sick as a consequence of a cockroach mechanically vectoring some bacterium from the toilet, right. But otherwise, it's extremely unlikely to cockroaches will cause any problem for you. They also don't track dirt into your house, right? It's not happening. If they're there. They're there as a consequence of something that you've left behind because they like to eat similar things to us. They have a very robust organ, and this is the fat body is their organ of detoxification and immunity. It's really robust in cockroaches, and it helps them digest many things and deal with a lot of competence, and also allows them to store nitrogen. So four times a nutrient scarce. So many times cockroaches will store their urine, right? They'll store that insects produced uric acid, right? They're the most terrestrial insects will excrete their nitrogenous waste as uric acid as opposed to ammonia for mainly aquatic insects. But the uric acid crystals are stored up in their fat body and Uranus sites, specialized cells to store the uric acid and then when they don't have enough protein, enough nitrogen, they'll just metabolize the uric acid. Yeah, that's incredible. It's genius. Yeah, I know. Right?

Like, why can't we do that?

R

Why can't we do that? I mean, I want to store my pee for more conveniently better for car rides. Find

a bathroom all

R

right, exactly. Especially Hey, protein, why not?

Yeah, it would make San Francisco daytrips a lot more. Yeah.

R

That's right. I got the best thing with kids. You can hold it for at least two weeks. Okay. I know this.

Should have gone before we left the city. Yeah.

R

You know, you talked about stigma. And I really think that's it is a misplaced association between filth and certain creatures. And I find it really unfortunate, especially because most people interact with maybe five or 10 species of cockroaches. And there are like 5000 in the world. Wow. Especially if you're counting termites, which are just derived cockroaches. I was just gonna say something related. Yeah, they're just specialized cockroaches. But um, yeah, if you think about that, right, that's, that's so few with cockroaches. This The other thing I want to say about them is that they, we interact with such a small percentage of all the cockroach diversity in the world. And our negative sentiments about them are so heavily influenced by that and that seems to me a lot like how we stereotype other people. And we consider that to be completely objectionable. So why is it okay to act this way towards these creatures that are around us all the time?

Right. But then it's it's, we make it palatable to stereotype other people by putting it on the blog.

R

Yeah. I think it's definitely reinforced. Yeah, for sure. I think yeah, I'm not sure if Golden State naturalist is going to be a podcast about racial dynamics as well. But I definitely think there's an association there. certain pests are more heavily prominent in racially or economically oppressed contexts. And that association has led to people disliking them a lot as well. So if you see rats and cockroaches, there's a there's an entomologist, she wrote a book called pests in the city. About the dawn Beeler. Yeah. So this is a book about the disproportionate burden of pests experienced by people in neglected urban environments. So a lot of that can be a public health crisis in particular, like because asthma, the rates of asthma are much higher among Black people. And so cockroach dander, pieces of debris, right, are there exuviae they're there. frass can irritate people's respiratory passages. And so yeah, you have higher rates of asthma among Black people. And then you have more black people living in impoverished urban circumstances where there are more cockroaches, so it means that they're experiencing more severe symptoms, the consequence. So yeah.

Wow, yeah, I'm sure that the car exhaust and all that kind of stuff in urban environments.

R

Yes, you're right. Yeah, definitely contributes.

So it gets a little bit off the topic of insects. But if you're curious about that topic, go and watch the TED Talk. Climate Justice can't happen without racial justice. It's only 10 minutes long. It's by David Lammy, definitely go check it out. One of the things that he discusses in the talk is how black Americans experience and breathe in more pollution than they produce, whereas white Americans breathe in less pollution than they produce only to bring it to specifically California and thinking about how we have this Mediterranean climate here. That's gonna impact what kind of insects we find here. What's the impact, they're

R

gonna have a really cool insect. So there's a, the B prestudy, are the metallic wood boring beetles, this particular species is not metallic, or generally metallic is an adult, it's often called the Black Fire beetle. And the reason why is they have abdominal organs. So long since fire, they gotta hear fire. So the way it works is they have these fluid filled vesicles that are sensitive to infrared radiation. And so just infrared or heat, right will cause fluid to expand because the fluid in the vesicle to expand, and when it expands, it triggers a nerve impulse of touches and cillum. And then they get a nerve impulse, right. And it's kind of like infect hearing. And so it's analogous to them hearing fire. The interesting thing about is that some of them are so sensitive, that they can hear fire 60 kilometers away, wow. Yeah. So the Lytec, the infrared radiation, what they're detecting or orienting to is recent fires. So because they lay their eggs in their larvae feed on dying insects, and debris that are left around after a fire has occurred, so need it they need it isn't as an important part of their lifecycle. And so they need to hear these fires, while they are so sensitive to the, they're so keen at detecting the presence of these fires, or the residual infrared radiation from a fire that has just died, that sometimes they're able to detect the presence of fire that is in detectable to our most sensitive infrared detection equipment. So sometimes, yeah, we might be monitoring an environment. And we're not capable of recognizing, and that's just, of course, a consequence of where the technology is right now. And that's necessarily just, it's amazing to me, that this Beetle was so keenly adapted to perceiving infrared radiation at that distance at such a low intensity, that to us, it just seems indistinguishable from background radiation. Wow. Yeah. It's incredible.

That is super cool. And I think that, you know, knowing kind of the fire history of California, right, and how now we have these mega fires, but previously, before intervention from the forest practices that we have now, yes. Previously, there were so many smaller fires, right? A lot of these smaller fires were either just allowed to burn from lightning strikes and things like that, because no one was suppressing fire on the landscape, or they were controlled burns that were lit by California Native people in a very intentional way to get specific desired results from the landscape. And so these insects would have been really well adapted to those kinds of forest environments. That's really cool. Yeah, that's really cool.

R

So we see that right. There also really like wet lush environments. Yeah, and because sometimes rains are so infrequent. In California. You see members of a family play a comedy or these little beetles scare relatives that are known as rain beetles because they A emerged to mate in response to seasonal rains. And some populations are so or respond to such specific cues that they only emerge a single day a year. So we're in this climate where the rains are relatively infrequent. And we have beetles that only come out when it rains and a single rainstorm every year.

And they all just know like, they're taking the same cues. Yeah. And so they find

R

each it's incredible. I mean, there's differences in humidity, right. And there's differences in pressure, and they are responding to those things now emerge from the ground.

And is that like, throughout the state are different different

R

areas and places and sustains? Yeah, I don't think you're gonna find them in San Diego, you usually find often that northern forests, okay, there's a forest preserve where I found them the first time on the field class.

Did they merge? You saw them emerging? Yes. Wow. That's like, really lucky.

That is very cool.

R

She can find some in Southern California, but I don't think they find you trying to Yeah, there's more northern generally in the mountains.

Do we have any endemic insects here than

R

we do? We have a lot of endemic insects are with the count with last time. So California has the greatest number of insects of any state in the country? Yeah, because of you know, the different geographic regions, different biological zones.

According to the critical ecosystem Partnership Fund, California is home to an estimated 28,000 species of insects, about 32% of which are endemic. These species represent about 30% of all known insects in the United States and Canada. And I mentioned this when talking about native plants with Shalaka a couple of episodes ago, but endemic means only found in a particular area. So those endemic insects are only in California. Do you have a favorite California native or endemic insect? Oh,

R

okay, cool. Yeah. So there's a genus metri. Octopus, so metri octopus, Edward zine, is image. Oh, yeah, so non biting Midge, the family Kira nominee, and it lives in darling Tonia, California, aka the California pitcher plant.

This plant is beautiful. It's a carnivorous plant. And it's found in certain parts of northern California and Oregon. And it's also called a cobra plant sometimes because it actually looks like the rearing up ahead of a cobra complete with forked tongue definitely recommend googling a picture of this thing. Yeah. So

R

I very much enjoy learning about insects that live in phyto tomato pools of water collected by plants or plant containers. Right. So have you ever been to a bog or a fin in Northern California, Northeastern California, okay, so there's a there's a native pitcher plant called darling Tony in California is a little tiny pitcher plant comes up and was curved right? And it lives in fins. fins have a different main difference between a bug in a fin is that a fin has slow moving water going through it. And it's usually Alpines like snow melt. So it's typically cooler water flowing through, right. So a fin might feel kind of like a marsh and a bog might be a little more subtle, right? And it's usually not on a slope. Okay, but the difference is kind of challenging to tell, especially when you're when you're seeing it up close. But anyway, there are many fins in California where you can find some darn Antonia Z unique endemic plant. And inside of that plant is a little Midge metri Optimus Edwards i. So I think it's really interesting whenever insects are living within the digestive fluid secreted by another creature, yeah, that aids them in there,

and it's not digesting them. So do they have do they need that plant? Is that

R

like, yeah, it's their obligate inqua line. And Anquan is like a living inside of the nest or the structure inside of a planet. So yeah, that's that's their entire habitat living in this Fisher plant.

So if that pitcher plant is gone, that insect is gone. Absolutely. Yeah. That's fascinating. Yeah. Okay, so that plant and that insect are ones that we want to stay. But what about ones that we want to leave? Like from our garden? What should we do about them?

R

So most of the things that people are dealing with in the garden can be dealt with or soapy water. A lot of people complain about aphids, babies have a very thin cuticle. And a lot of insects are super vulnerable to degradation of the wax layer on their cuticle, because it leads to them dehydrating the spray. So if we want around them, it's probably not going to harm the plants, and it's definitely on the insects. So if you really want to kill all the insects, soapy water can help. Generally I think that people make a much bigger deal out of the insects being present in the two, right? They'll see one caterpillar in are really upset. tomato hornworms can eat your entire tomato crop makes sense that you're worried about that. Not all insects are going to completely destroy everything you have there. So sometimes it's fine. If you pick them or you leave them alone. You really need to attend to them. Yeah, there are a means of doing it. You don't have to use chemicals, if you really want to some of them are pretty safe. I mean, the truth is that despite a lot of concerns about GE The general problems associated with ingestion of chemicals, the regulations that are in place to control the toxicity of the pesticides that we're allowed to use, especially in a home context, the quantity of them, especially people using it based on a label, those regulations are robust. We're not out there, willy nilly Wild West, just shooting whatever we want into the soil, 30 days, and it's not the case, it's not the case. Those rules, those guidelines are informed by a lot of careful entomology and toxicology. And that's why it's always really important to pay attention to the instruction manuals, any device you're using, it's particularly important to pay attention to the guidelines and the use of a pesticide. And also, because we're in California, and there's the land grant institutions, there's UC agricultural natural resources, there's Cooperative Extension, there are lots of people that people can talk to and ask for advice.

There's little pest management. Yes, master gardeners, right,

R

is entomologist and intimate files out there, you can tell you what you need to know in order to be careful. So there are a lot of options in which you can avoid introducing something dangerous in the soil in your environment. Also, they might suggest a means by which you can deal with your problem without you having to go to Home Depot and buying a jug of a chemical. So yeah, I'd say that when people see an insect that they don't like, the first thing I suggest is, I want you to think about why you don't like it. And I think if it's really a big deal, then if you've decided that okay, you need to have horror, the sense that you need to get rid of it. I bet there are a bunch of options available that don't require you to effectively slash and burn, right? Yeah, I think there's a lot we can do to live in harmony with them. Even eating them, I think is a better alternative than in orientation. We want to kill them every time we see them. So

for sure, I mean, like, I've definitely grown broccoli and not gotten all the aphids off before. Oh, yeah. And like I'm fine.

R

Also, just so everybody knows, everyone's eating insects all the time. Very ground spices. If you've ever eaten pasta, if you've ever eaten grain, it was likely the case that there's some insect that's been incorporated into it. And for the most part, insects that are in things that are reconstituted powder. They are reconstituted powder themselves. Grain weevils are made mostly from grain, right, they feed in the grain eat the grain. They're just grain. Transformed grain. Exactly. So the squeamishness is the problem. The weevils aren't actually the problem,

right? No, that makes sense. Yeah, that's for sure. Do you have any good tips for people who are maybe like, they're like, Oh, I know that insects are good, and I should appreciate them. But like, they freak me out. I like the way move like, what should people do to like maybe become more comfortable? Or to learn to appreciate insects a little bit more?

R

Well, I think the first thing is to acknowledge their own feelings. And look, if they want help from someone, find someone who respects their own emotional integrity, right? I think we all learn and experience new things within a certain comfort, right. And in order to grow past those limits, we need something to be emotionally salient. And we need the patience and compassion of other people.

I find this to be an incredibly empathetic answer coming from someone who seems to have no detectable fear of insects whatsoever, especially as he picked two ticks off of me during the course of this interview, I should clarify that they were not attached to me, they were just crawling on my clothes. But still, he just picked up a tick, no problem. And yet, he's not like people should just get over their fear of insects, he's actually really nice and understanding about it.

R

So I'd say if you want to accommodate more, a greater appreciation for insects go to a place like the bohart Museum, UC Davis, go to a place like the California Academy of Sciences, right? There are a lot of places you can go even local, local places where you can find insects, somebody has insects or just call a museum and entomologist and say, Hey, can you help me get more comfortable with insects? I guarantee that if anyone listening to this, we're at a call. And intima they find out about an entomologist, and they call this into contact them however, and they say, I'm afraid of insects, but I don't want to be afraid of it anymore. Can you help me? They will definitely help. Yes. If you say Hey, can you bring insects to me and help me get more excited about insects? I don't I can't think of any entomologist that will say no, honestly. So there are people who devote their lives to their curiosity and delight about insects. And if you would like to build that in yourself, people will help you so but the first step, of course, is to make sure that you feel safe, right? Because that's how you're going to build the comfortable experiences.

You don't want to just traumatize yourself further. Right, exactly. Yeah,

R

don't do it. And there are a lot of insects available that you can do even just sitting on the ground and watching the insects move around. I might be okay. Yeah. Because you might notice oh, wait a minute, they're all around me. I'd say this the most harmless insect, you see all the time that you're afraid of, and you don't need to be as a crane fly. People call them mosquito eaters. I think they're drowning mosquitoes to know that larvae living off in grass. And then in the springtime, you see them fly around, their legs detach when they fly in the spiderwebs. Or when you touch them and stuff like that. But the adults don't feed at all. They can't bite you. They're they're innocuous. You can grab them in your hand, take them outside, and they look scary because their legs are moving around. They're really big, right? But I'd suggest if you're able to approach a crane fly and maybe take it outside, it's gonna make you a lot more comfortable with a lot of other insects.

Nothing that guy can do to you. Nothing. That's cool. Yep. Any myths you would like to debunk? Oh, yeah. Insects Sure.

R

Are arthropods. Sure. Yeah. So here's a funny one. People often say that I heard every year. People don't average 1314. Spiders. Yeah. So let's think about that for a minute. On average, people eat 14 or 15 Spiders, a lot of spiders that are being eaten in people's sleep. The first time I heard that, I was like, reflecting on the circumstances required for that to happen, not just once, but multiple times. Right? Right. So you need to be sleeping, probably on your back. Right? Maybe not. But to say that you need to sleeping with your mouth open, right? Because I don't think that people have a general sleepy reflex where if something gets in their lips, they immediately try and eat it. turned into a frog. Yeah. People, right. So I think it's gonna crawl in your mouth somehow, until the spider has to crawl over your bed for some reason. And then he across your face, and then into your mouth and the you gotta swallow it. Yeah, right. All of that has to happen. And that for that to happen, knowing about it, yes, without you knowing about it. And you don't wake up for that to happen 15 times a year, once more than once a month. That just seems absurd to me, like all of that together. So it's either that or there's one guy. Right? And I'm assuming I'm not trying to make a play on gender stereotypes here. Just as one person who's eating Okay, 15 times 780 5 billion spiders a year. Nobody's eating any. Sleep. The average Right? Or maybe not that extreme. Happens to breed spider. Yes, that's right. Some people were eating a lot in their sleep inadvertently and nobody's interviewed. I mean, come on, when maybe it's bimodal. Right? Who knows? Right. But I think that's a myth. It definitely should be. Well, we can throw out That's absurd. Also, of course, crane flies aren't gonna hurt you that there aren't really no insects that will lay eggs in your skin. There are insects that I mean, like Bosch flies and things like that happen in certain very specific places.

Okay, so I'm not generally squeamish about insects at all. But this next part, not my favorite. So if you are squeamish about insects, I recommend skipping forward about 30 seconds, and then you'll be good.

R

Cockroaches won't like get in your ear and lay eggs there. That's generally not going to happen. Sometimes people get problems a cockroaches get trapped in their ear canal. Yeah, but that'll mostly happen in tropical, warmer tropical environments, where your ears really moist and people haven't cleaned it. Or you're laying on the ground or something like that. So there's often more of an issue for people living in particular circumstances. Not everywhere, right? Yeah. Oh, yeah. How about this? Most spider bites? Aren't spider bites. Oh, something else? Yeah, people say their spider bites. But spiders aren't biting people all the time. Right? That's not happening.

They're not just like, aggressive.

R

They're not sitting on the couch. And the spider comes up and just bites you. It doesn't happen. It doesn't make any sense. Like Screw you, man. Yes, exactly. Yes. Not

there. Me. Yes.

R

It's not it's not the dude staying away from you. Right? They don't want to get smashed and not just randomly moving around inadvertently getting up on you, and they bump into you and they bite you. Right? And so in that notion, or in the topic of spider bites, there are brown recruit relatives in California, but there are no brown recluse is in California that Yeah, interesting. So you're probably not going to find brown mooses. Let's see west of Kansas. Oh,

wow. Probably Black Widows the only ones that we need to really worry about here. Yeah,

R

yeah. And even black widows you need to worry about that much. If you're immunocompromised. If you're young, you're old, you're particularly vulnerable. Most people may get hit by a black widow, it's probably going to be a problem. You can also generally tell if it's a black widow is wet, because it kind of sounds like crackling fire and make really stiff web lines. Yeah, because they they feed on cursorial Insects, insects that run around and walk on the ground. So they have their web lines right or stiff. And if you if you try and like pull the webbing from a black widow Amelia, this crackling sound All connections are breaking in stuff like that. It was in World War Two, I think they used Blackwidow webbing to help with the crosshairs on bomber sites sometimes because there's a stiff, exactly stretched across it. But yeah, so black widows, so you're gonna find recluse spiders but you won't find any brown recluse is. And also, brown recluse is do not cause extensive neck authorization of your leg, that extensive necrosis, that doesn't happen, right? If your leg is inflamed, and it seems like it's going to die because it's all infected. That's not because some brown includes bit you. That might be because a spider bit you and you got a secondary infection with Mersa, or some other kinds of antibiotic resistant bacterium, right. And so spider bites can sometimes get infected, right? Despite the fact they don't happen very often, if they were to occur, right? You could get injured various different ways and get infected with a an antibiotic resistant bacterium that will then cause your leg to look like it's gonna fall off, right? Cause

like a paper cut, and you know, people aren't freaked out about the paper cut, even though it can have the same result. That's

R

exactly right. So yeah, a brown recluse fighter or will cause necrotic lesion that's maybe a quarter or a half dollar in size, it's not as extensive. Okay, systemic, right. That's not an issue. Yeah. And as a person who's been around lots of Brambleclaw spiders, when I was consulting in Kansas a few years ago, I had a lot of boxes in this garage in a barn. And I forgot that this is within the range and distribution of brown recluse spiders. So I went back a few weeks after I had stored these boxes to take things out of them. Right. And there were tons of brown recluse spiders. Oh, my gosh, right. I was so surprised. Yeah. Because I mean, I'm not dealing with records they hide, right? Yeah. But they hide in barns. They hide in barns and dark places and boxes. Yeah. And I had left a perfect environment where I basically had made you create a pitfall traps. Yes, exactly. And I forgotten, I could have done things differently. I should have.

Okay. Is there like a one or two top tips for how people can help native insects around their homes?

R

Sure. around their homes, don't spray pesticides. Okay.

Yep. Because those are gonna just generally kill everything. nontarget effects?

R

Yeah, okay, yeah, great, you're likely not skilled enough to apply them in a way that will not cause non target effects. And also, it's generally not the case that we collectively have been so skilled in producing chemical agents that will not have non target effects. So this isn't like, hey, everybody's dumb, except for entomologist it is. It's a challenging thing to avoid these things. So in certain circumstances, with the right pesticide, when you're aware of what's around, you can avoid that you can mitigate nontarget effects, but you can't really eliminate them, right. So the best thing you can do is just on spraying around, okay,

don't spray pesticides, good. Listener question listener wanted to know if you have a favorite urban bug, oh,

R

now on this might be really leaning on people's willingness to empathize with the creatures they load. But there are mosquitoes in the genus culas, Sita, which are very large, and they often fly slow, they look pretty big. They often feed in nature, they'll feed on ungulates on deer, large animals like that. And then they'll feed on us. And we usually notice them smaller, more quickly moving, human adapted, or primate adapted into mosquitoes, or ones we don't notice. And so we don't kill, but we often notice the killer seed and we kill them. They fed on large megafauna in the past. So they're a relic in a way. And I find it incredibly charming whenever I see them, because they fit on giant ground sloths, which we will never see. And they're still around. And they're adapted to where they had they in the past, you know, they fed on them, right? They acquired the means by which they could feed successfully from these grounds logs. And we are very different from giant grounds laws.

If you're like, What is a giant ground sloth, please do yourself a favor and Google a picture of this animal. It went extinct about 11,000 years ago, but it lived in North America. And it was basically a giant sloth and the biggest one was nine to 10 feet long and weighed 2200 pounds. So yes, very different from humans.

R

So it brings into relief for me that these are a reminder of the taxa that were present in this environment before we were here. And so you know, as much as I'm empathetic towards mosquitoes, I find it particularly useful to think about the culus Sita and that they're it's challenging for them to feed on us. Because everything that they said on the past is gone.

It's like Tuck Everlasting. Oh, yeah. It's like a children's book, but this one family lives forever. And so like yeah, when else dies But like they have to see the world changing.

R

Right? Yes. Left around. Yeah, exactly. So, hey, like, Yeah, I mean, I like cavemen on wings. So yeah, that's a

side note on Tuck Everlasting. One of my good friends directed a youth theatre production of Tuck Everlasting. And I went into this thing, thinking, I don't know, I knew she was talented, but I just didn't think that kids could act this well. And I wasn't prepared emotionally for what that show was going to do to me. So I was crying in my seat for probably 20 minutes after the show ended, it was very hard for me to pull myself together and walk out with dignity after everyone else had already left. Look, I'm a sensitive person. I also don't like loud noises or bright lights or crowds, or scratchy clothing. It's all bad. Okay, but let's get to a listener question. This one is from I believe it's pronounced Noah Jelle. Thoughts on declining native insect populations? Or if there are any specific families of insects that we should be aware of, like native is aware of?

R

Yeah, some native bees? Yeah, I mean, there's a family APD. So a lot of solitary bees, you can find that we should be aware of. So people are worried about bees, right one because they got to make sure you got food, too, because the losses of honey bees over the past 20 years is something that people have talked about more, I'm glad that there has been more attention in the past decade, 15 years to the absence of certain solitary bees or native bees, in part because it's much easier to maintain the populations of European honeybees. And for the most part, we have many more bees than we had before. We saw the declines. The European honeybees in large part are in demand for pollinating almonds, right in February, and they're trucked across the United States, or producing honey sometimes, but there are problems with beekeeping. That leads to certain losses in the hives in the colonies. However, the solitary bees people aren't seeing, they're not living in large hives, they're not contributing a lot directly to an individual's economic situation in ways they can perceive. And so they're not being cultivated. And they are often in places that will get developed, right, they're living in little like roadside fields. And so then those are getting tilled, or they're getting destroyed in the course of putting up a housing development or something like that. And then you get forgotten. So I think that although people know about the bees, it would probably be more helpful. If people knew specific things about the bees, then we got to save the bees. So if we want to be effective in participating in this endeavor to care for these bees, you really should know things about them. You should know the context where they occur some things about their biology, ways that you can help in that regard, as opposed to just noting that bees are in decline. Sure,

sure. Do those little native bee houses work?

R

They can? Yeah, I mean, it depends. Yeah.

Does it have to be like, for the proper, like kinds of bees that you have in your areas? That sort of Yes,

R

exactly. Yeah. Like, you're not going to find the same bees everywhere. So it can help to provide them with other means. I think if you want to care for solitary bees, specially ground nesting bees, you would invest more of your time in influencing the policymakers, you're in contact with the care about him as well. Michigan medicine, it's a collective endeavor. Sure. Right. If nobody says anything, where is their evidence that their constituency cares about this? So speak up about it. Exactly.

Put it in there. Yeah. And and I've also heard, like, as you know, not so much a systemic thing, but an individual thing. Maybe not cleaning up your garden to earlier, like, stems or things like that. Yeah. Leave

R

debris for them to feed on. Yeah. And I mean, yeah, I'd say a garden is a lush habitat for lots of different native insects, right, they're gonna come in there and they're gonna colonize it. Take the things that you need, leave the rest behind. If you take the fruit and leave everything behind and then deal with the other debris later. I think it'll be okay.

Yeah, my HOA hates me for that. Oh, my gosh, you know what, they're just calm down.

R

These these Christine, prune, green manicure. Yeah. collections of plants that we have around their homes. That yeah, I think that definitely causes some problems. Yeah, for sure. But I mean, the insects are pretty resilient, right? They're resilient and they're, they are resourceful. So as long as you do what you can to avoid lingering residues of certain things, they'll probably be okay. That's good.

Last question that I asked everyone. What about either insects or your work? Still either just blows your mind or takes your breath away?

R

Okay. You know, a lot of entomologist talk about the fact that insect diversity, so insect biology, right? The their habits, their behavior, their life history, life histories is so variable that you can learn new things about them your whole life and always be surprised. And I think that is a wonderful thing, the thing that takes my breath away about entomology touches on, or what we discussed earlier, this notion of how insight and empathy is an organic consequence of you assembling these small pieces. So the thing I'm constantly surprised by is the fact that I haven't gotten bored of insects. I think that's an amazing thing. I think it's easy to take certain things for granted. And I think there are aspects of the pursuit of entomology that are necessarily not present when you're pursuing other creatures. There's wolves, certain other animals, you can learn new things about them. And you can be surprised for the most part, I think it's much easier to take them for granted. Yeah, I don't think that there is the same degree and magnitude of variation, surprise, and also relative ignorance, because insects are so apparently alien to us. It is very challenging for us to think that we know exactly what they're like. And although we take them for granted, sometimes they give them justice automatons. I find that when you are deliberate about being curious about, you experienced this perpetual interest in what's going on with them, that can lead to a lot of curiosity and empathy for other people or other circumstances. And I'm always really grateful for that.

That's very cool. All right, Rob. Thank you. You're welcome. It's

R

been so good chat. It's been a great pleasure. I really enjoyed it. Yeah, thanks for doing anytime

hanging out with Ralph poking around in the water and talking insects was just an absolute joy. I want to do it again. But with waiters or water shoes, so I can go out into the water and see more bugs, make sure to check out my Instagram in the next few days because I'm going to be posting a video of Ralph demonstrating how to use an insect net. So that's at Golden State naturalist on Instagram. Something interesting from my week is that I was gone for almost the entire thing. We took our kids on their very first Disneyland trip and then we went up to Sequoia National Park, which is amazing, by the way, and a very common listener recommended to cope of falls, which was the perfect hike to do with a three year old and four year old. So thanks Dave. We've only been back for two full days from that trip and I've been working on this episode pretty much nonstop both days. It's the fastest I've ever turned an episode around and I really hope I'm coherent at this point because it's 1248 in the morning as I say this and the episode releases in roughly three hours the last thing is just a quick reminder that this is episode nine out of 12 in season one so just three more episodes before the season break and did you like the episode if you did don't forget to go tell those friends you thought about at the beginning of the episode. Okay, thanks so much for joining me and for sticking around to the very end of the episode i'll see you next time on Golden State naturalist bye.

The song is called Ida know by grapes and you can find the link to that as well as the Creative Commons license in the show notes