Japan: the land of entomologists

Thirty-foot telescopic nets, bug-collecting video games, and beetle pets: Entomology in modern Japan.
Akito Y. Kawahara
American Entomologist
Volume 53 Number 3 Fall 2007

Insects form a large part of the culture in Japan. Traditional Japanese and Chinese artwork has incorporated insects since before 600 AD.

Insects are also a big part of childhood. In many western societies a child may keep a pet mouse growing up, but in Japan, especially with boys, a stag beetle or horned rhinoceros beetles are more popular. These are often raised from the grub stage and can be bought in pet shops, petting zoos or from vending machines! Another insect pet is Susu-mushi an orthoptera, popular because the males make a nice sound. Rearing of insects is encouraged by zoos as part of conservation programmes. Children will be given a pair of insects to breed and any eggs laid will be given back to the zoo.

Insects are a big part of Japanese education. There are many entomological books written for children, both educational and fictional (where the insect is rarely the villain), they are featured in educational and cartoon television programmes and are taught about in the science classroom. Many of the most popular videogames are based around insects.

Insects also feature as fancy-dress costumes, toys (including a stuffed, talking hat), on lolly wrappers and at one stage to promote a soft drink you could get a free model of an insect that featured in a popular book.

Insect collectingis taken very seriously in Japan. Most of the equipment available is standerdised. These include envelope carry cases which ome with straps attatched to hold vials and killing jars, net shaft which range in lengths from the very short to the rediculously long for canopy collecting. Nets are also available in different sizes and colours, depending on the variety of insect you desire to catch.

Entomology in Japan is regarded as a hobby as it does not pay well and most have a day job. Most published taxonimists are self taught and work from home. As full time jobs do not provide many holidays, enthusiasts look foward to retirement so they can spend their days finishing off their collections or adding different specimins to ones that they have specialised in.

The Behaviour of an Drunk Ant

Right-handed ants
Mary Berenbaum
American Entomologist Volume 54 Number 1 spring 2008

In this article the author delves into the urban legend that "an ant always falls to the right when intoxicated" which she found on the website http://www.greatfacts.com/ which is full of "the most interesting and unusual facts on the net" which also notes that all the swans in England belong to Her Majesty the Queen. Her first pit-stop was a colleague who apparently knows "everything worth knowing about ants". However, he did not know the answer. Further research had to be carried out

The research began with a quick scan of the World Wide Web where she found that this fact was pretty well known. It featured in the facts link on http://www.answerbag.com/ (which also told me that snakes don't have arms and that is why they dont wear vests), http://www.britneyisdead.com/, a spoof site claiming the poptart Britney Spears was decapitated when she crashed her car during a joyride in 1998 and clues to her death can be found in the lyrics to songs performed by a lookalike who has replaced her, http://www.unsolvedmysteries.com/ which contains "a multitude of weird thing that you probably didn't know" including that the emu and the kangaroo are on the Australian caot of arms because they can't walk backwards and on http://www.ka5cvh.com/fun_stuff/jokes/worthles.htm under "worthless information" along with you can't die by holding your breath.

In a search of the more reliable library, the author happened across a book by First Baron Avebury Sir John Lubbock a scientist and naturalist, Ants, Bees and Wasps. A Record of Observations on the Habits of the Social Hymenoptera. published in 1884. This book contained and experiment involving ants and alcohol but focussed on how the sober ants treated their drunk fellows rather than how the tipsy ones behaved. Incidently 32 of the 41 intoxicated ants were carried back to the nest whilst the other nine were tossed into a pool of water possibly to sober up by their presumably disgusted mates.

Well the author never did discover which way an ant would fall after a hard night on the booze, but she found some videos on YouTube of university students that are enclined to eat the picked worms at the bottom of miscal after drinking the stuff.

Update: here are a couple of videos thanks to YouTube for your viewing pleasure. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oux_AvN3uww, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2P-qnufs0SA&feature=related.

Spider internet hoax article review

Oh, what a tangled web we weave: the anatomy of an internet spider hoax.

Richard S Vetter and P Kirk Visscher

American Entomologist Volume 46 Number 4 winter 2000

This article is about how a man, Steve Heard craftily created and internet hoax and how this was revealed to be so.

In 1999 Steve Heard created an e-mail written in the style of a newspaper article warning the recipients of the South American Blush spider (named after its red colouration). To give the article an extra boost of “credibility” Heard created a scientific name for his imaginary spider; Arachnius gluteus. The article claimed that this spider had somehow found its way into the women’s toilets at a restaurant and hid under the rim and bit people on the bottom when they sat down to relieve themselves. The e-mail also noted that five women who were bitten died after all showing the same symptoms.

Although Heard had written in a lot of clues that should have given away that the story was a complete farce. For example the airport, medical journal, restaurant and aviation authority do not exist and the scientific name loosely translates to bottom spider. Gluteus is the Latin word for the muscles in the bottom and arachnius is derived from the word arachnid the class which the spiders belong to.

This hoax was very successful, although Heard was surprised, as he played to peoples fears and weaknesses; arachnophobia, fear for their health and others and ignorance.