Posted by Sheila Connolly

Inspired by Lorraine's last post, I thought I'd follow the bug thread. This makes some sense, because my husband is an entomologist (that's the bug person, not the one who worries about where words came from). He's a research scientist, and he works for the federal government, for one of those agencies known best by its initials. He's worked for several of them, and I always have to remind myself which one is current (APHIS, ARS, USDA, USFS, etc.). He currently specializes in invasive species–the nasty critters who piggyback a ride into this country on imported plants, or packing materials, or that load of wood for your fireplace that you just had to bring over the border. They arrive in this country, and they look around and find no competition, and they proceed to have a wonderful time eating their way through their favorite plant, which may be a tree or a food crop or your pretty garden flowers. Since they have no local enemies, they can do a lot of damage very quickly. (You may well have some in your own back yard, and even New York's Central Park has its share.)

Group_2_030 Spouse is devoted to finding natural enemies to combat these pests. I salute that in principle: we certainly don't need to spray nasty pesticides indiscriminately, which often ends up killing the "good" bugs (and birds and animals), while the "nasty" bugs just laugh and keep on munching. So Spouse goes off on jaunts around the world–Korea, South Africa, Australia, China (in the picture, the scientists are looking for bugs in an Australian pine forest, wearing hard hats--those critters can play rough!)–looking for natural enemies of the pests we have already imported. Sometimes he finds some, although then there are hassles convincing the government to let him bring them back to this country, to study in a carefully controlled quarantine environment (this is after the same government let the bad pests in through the back door, right?). If he's very lucky, the natural enemies do their job well in the lab, and don't decide that some other local bug is much tastier, and after much negotiating of state and local permits, the good bugs are released into the wild to do their job.

My husband, bug wrangler. But he doesn't do household pests.

When neighbors hear that he is an insect specialist, they come to him, bearing little jars filled with dead bugs, begging him to tell them what to do about their infestation. Usually he doesn't know. If it's not an exotic species, it's not on his radar. Give Spouse an ant infestation in the bathroom, and his first response is, they shouldn't be there. His second is, don't spray them. His third response is, let's just wait and see; maybe they'll go away. Funny thing–often they do. (And if they don't, I haul out my can of Raid and blast them when he's not looking.) I can't tell you how many times we have been through this routine. Ants, large and small. Powder post beetles–don't get me started (his routine there: oh, no, see the holes! We must have powder post beetles! (Much gnashing of teeth and pulling of hair.) Alas, the house will tumble down about our ears! My response: what're you going to do about them? His response: gosh, I don't know–I'd better ask someone at work. Action taken: zip, nada. Mind you, I've yet to see a live powder post beetle, although I've seen lots of holes. The house is still standing, as is the one before it. And then there are termites, although luckily we've been spared there, at least in the house. Not so in the back yard, where one fine day an old tree stump disgorged clouds of the creatures. Me: should we be worried about this? Those are termites, right? Him: Huh? Oh. I don't know. Happily for us the termites just kept going...somewhere else.

When my daughter was in elementary school, she wrote in an essay that we kept bugs in the freezer next to the pork chops (doesn't everyone?), which caught her teacher's notice. Guess what: there are still bugs in the freezer. But they're foreign invaders, a long way from home.

We still have ants in the bathroom.

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Comment by Jackie Houchin on August 8, 2007 at 12:55am
Sheila, what an interesting husband and amusing blog. Somewhere, in the essay on what your husband does, is a mystery or spy story. Just replace the "bugs" with "terrorists" (good and bad), and your hubby could be a secret agent or government uppity-up...and you have a story. Fighting bad with good! Wow!

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