One of the most interesting parts of college is getting to take classes you didn’t even know existed. Now I’m a computer science major, and one of the requirements for being a computer science major is taking actual science classes. This was devastating news to me as I did not like Chemistry, Biology, or Physics in high school and knew having to take those classes in college would be a struggle. Thankfully, if you don’t want to take actual Biology, Insect Biology works as a great alternative.
Insect Biology is one of the coolest classes I have taken so far. The entire class was spent learning about bugs, which is already awesome, but the lab you had to take with it took it to another level. When I took the class in the fall, one of the requirements of the lab was creating an insect collection. We went on trips to capture bugs, spent lab time pinning bugs, and post lab time was spent showing off the bugs you collected to different classmates. It was great.
A fun side effect of the insect collection assignment was roping everyone you knew into collecting bugs for you. I’d ask friends and family to catch bugs for me, then have them stick those bugs in the freezer to kill/preserve them. It turns out that one of the greatest gifts you can receive from your parents in college is a frozen tupperware box filled with dead insects that were caught a month prior. By the end of the project, I had about five different wasps, six different moths, and a bunch of leaf-footed bugs, cockroaches, grasshoppers, beetles, and one dragonfly nymph. It ended up being one of my favorite projects I’ve completed in college so far.
It’s been months since I’ve taken this class but my love of bugs has not faded. This has caused significant distress to some of my family members, and by some of my family members I mean my sister.
A couple of weeks ago, I was laying in bed when I saw a sudden movement right next to my face. After jolting upright, I noticed that the movement was a result of a tiny spider. (Spiders are not technically insects, but I’m roping them in the bug group for the sake of this story). Now, even before I took Insect Biology I was always the designated spider-catcher, so naturally I scooped the little guy up into my hands and went to deposit it outside.
My sister saw me leaving the room and asked what I was doing. I responded that I had caught a little spider friend and was just removing it from the house. She asked to see it and I obliged.
I have never seen the color drain from someone’s face so quickly. She immediately told me that my new friend was not small and that she was going to have nightmares about it for the next two weeks. She was going to have to check her bedsheets to “make sure another Godzilla didn’t sneak in”. The spider was approximately the size of my thumb. This was also not the largest spider that I held bare-handed in the past two months. I have no idea whether my idea of a small spider is in fact small, or if my sister just can not handle the idea of a bug larger than an ant.
In any case, I still remain on spider-catching duty, but I do not foresee my sister asking to see what I am holding cupped in my hands in the future.
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