On November 14th, NASA launched the Space Shuttle Endeavour for a flight to the international space station in order to bring parts for remodeling the living area of that orbiting outpost. As a boy, I was fascinated by the prospect of such futuristic projects as the space station. I would pour through Omni magazine hatching dreams of life as an adult living is such a world as the stories printed therein promised.
Times and interests change. I have long since lost interest in science fiction and the pseudo science fiction of the futurists who wrote for publications like Omni. The natural terrestrial world has become my primary focus of interest. And it is upon each occasion of the launch of the space shuttle, as well as a host of other very expensive extra-terrestrial explorations, that my usual rant can be heard throughout the house. “We don’t even have the most basic of understandings of things here on Earth, why are we so interested in exploring space?”
Don’t get me wrong – I’m fully cognizant of the benefits to us all (well… “all” being inhabitants of nations with economies at least temporarily developed to a sufficient level) from communication and weather satellites. I’m also more than impressed with what’s been discovered from the various probes shot out into the darkness of space that have brought us images of Saturn’s rings, the great anti-cyclone of Jupiter, and so forth. However even with all this technology generated from the exploration of space under our collective belts, we still can’t identify this bug.
“What does one have to do with the other” I hear you ask. Simple; this is a perfectly identifiable insect, boldly colored and patterned, and seemingly easy to locate (I saw and photographed this one as well as another exactly like it not more than twenty feet from the back door of the Frontera Audubon Society’s headquarters in Weslaco, Texas). Yet after searching reference book upon reference book, as well as submitting the image to one of the largest Internet collectives of entomological expertise, Bug Guide, where the time from submission to identification is usually measured in minutes, it has yet to have a name applied to it.
Kaufman, in his Field Guide to Insects of North America shows a picture of what appears to be this very insect identified as Dysdercus sp. There seem to be ten members of this genus:
Dysdercus albofasciatus
Dysdercus andreae
Dysdercus bimaculatus
Dysdercus concinnus
Dysdercus mimulus
Dysdercus mimus
Dysdercus obliquus
Dysdercus obscuratus
Dysdercus peruvianus
Dysdercus suturellus
If it is indeed Dysdercus, which one is it? More to the point, why don’t we pay equivalent attention to the creatures and other natural phenomena right by our very feet as we do to the things half-way across the solar system? (I know, I know, because space exploration is linked to military applications and other technologies that generate copious piles of money for private firms, and natural history isn’t, but humor me please – my point here is philosophical not pragmatic.)
Perhaps it’s in the fact that our most promising budding minds tend to lean toward science fiction rather than nature stories. Perhaps it’s because parents push their children to study computer science and physics in hope of a lucrative job rather than to study biology and botany, field that are generally less financially remunerative. Perhaps it’s because the human mind repeatedly proves that familiarity breeds contempt – we see the birds, bugs, and other terrestrial forms of life so frequently that we too often hold their worth cheap or simply cease to see them at all. (Birders – ever heard the terms “trash birds” or “invisible birds?”) Whatever the reason, it is incumbent upon all of us “nature nuts” whenever we see a front page story about shooting yet another projectile out of the atmosphere to ask, preferably out loud to anyone close at hand, “Yes, but what was that bug anyway?”
Peace and good bird watching.
