You’re Bugging Me
Sunday
Calling an excellent thing “the bee’s knees” was one of many youthful terms for impressive things that began during the American Roaring Twenties. Many of them were animal related, such as “the cat’s pygamas,” “the cat’s meow,” and “the snake’s hips.” An earlier 18th century use of the term indicated something that doesn’t actually exist. However, if you don’t mind calling the joints between bee leg segments “knees,” then bees’ knees exist in great quantity. A honeybee has six legs, each with many joined segments.
Monday
You may not want a “nitpicker” around to criticize your minor faults, but you might if you had lice. The word literally means one who picks off nits, the tiny eggs of lice, fleas, and other insects.
Tuesday
The black widow spider gets its name because the much-larger female of the species sometimes eats her partner after mating.
Wednesday
The word “mantis” comes from the Greek word for prophet, because many ancient religions thought the bugs had supernatural powers. Praying mantises, in addition to their pious appearance, can camouflage remarkably well, are amazingly agile, can prey on bats, birds, and reptiles, and move their head 180 degrees. Females often decapitate and devour their lovers (who don’t need their heads to finish up), and in at least two cases, also ate birds during copulation. Seeing a mantis is either good or bad fortune, depending on the culture. Some Christians believe seeing this prayerful insect in your house means angels are watching over you, but seeing one in Japan may warn of your death.
Thursday
Think there’s a lot of insects around? There are. By one estimate, there are 10,000,000,000,000,000,000 (ten quintillion) total individuals, and that’s just insects, excluding spiders, mites, and other arthropods. Fewer than one million species have been described by scientists, and that’s out of an estimated 2-30 million total species total. Throw spiders and all other “bugs” in the pot, and we’re talking about up to 80% of the species on this planet being insects and arthropods.
Friday
Butterfly wings are far larger than needed just to fly, and their erratic-looking flight is partially a tactic to keep predators from predicting their flight path. The insects generate extra turbulence with their wingbeats as they tip, rotate, and shift their center of gravity around. However, species which are more poisonous to predators don’t need all this trickery and fly straighter than their tastier relatives.
Saturday
Despite being around for about 300 million years, dragonflies put most modern flying critters to shame. They can travel up to 34 mph, can fly forward, backward, sideways, upside down, hover, turn almost immediately, nab prey in mid-flight, and at least one species can cross oceans (yes, oceans) of 11,000 miles for the record of longest-migrating insect.