By Pauline Tom
Until Saturday night, a rhinocerous beetle claimed “most interesting bug of the week in Mountain City.”
RonTom called out, “This bug has a Mohawk!” when he captured a wheel bug near our bed on Saturday night. What a bizarre bug. What an odd cog-like feature.
Oh my! What a fascinating find. Its very presence pays a compliment. Wikipedia quotes Dr. Michael J. Raupp, an entomologist, “They’re the lion or the eagle of your food web … They sit on top. When you have these big, ferocious predators in your landscape that tells me that this is a very healthy landscape, because all these other levels in your food web are intact.”
The Mohawk’d “wheel bug” definitely belongs outside where it will consume a variety of pest insects.
I couldn’t wait to share with you Bill Hilton’s explanation (www.hiltonpond.com) of how it assassinates.
“When it encounters a prey item – usually some adult insect or caterpillar – it typically lunges forward in its own slow way, grabs onto the prey with its front legs, and buries its hypodermic beak into some soft body part of the hapless prey. The Wheel Bug then injects enzyme-laden saliva – which immobilizes the prey within 30 seconds and turns its parts into porridge – after which the predatory bug sucks out all the victim’s bodily fluids. This activity, of course, kills the prey item, which is why the Wheel Bug is classified in the Reduviidae – the Assassin Bug Family.”
How fascinating. How amazing that God put together such a plan.
Plan to gently brush the wheel bug away, should one land on your body. If slapped, it’s likely to bury that “hypodermic beak” into your skin and inject “enzyme-laden saliva”. It’s shy and slow, so such an encounter is not likely.
The bite is said to be ten times worse than the sting of a wasp.
Guess who wins in a video YouTube’d “fight to the death” between a scorpion and a wheel bug. If you guessed “wheel bug” … you guessed wrong.
Guess who wins in a video YouTube’d “fight to the death’s” between a roadrunner and a rattlesnake. If you guessed roadrunner, you guessed right.
Yikes! I sure hope the baby birds KissMe recently brought into the kitchen were not roadrunners. What a Great White Hunter with Red Spots he is. Maybe KissMe would have won the battle with the rattlesnake on Memorial Day Weekend, had Ron’s “Retreat!!” not distracted him.
Mr. Green can say along with Mark Twain, “The report of my death was an exaggeration.” Such was word on the street late last week. On Friday, along came Mr. (Howard) Green with his big yellow garbage truck. He told James Polk of his personal problems. Mr. Green is part of the color and flavor of this “little slice of paradise”.
What else is happening here? Please send tidbits to ptom5678@gmail.com (subject: TIDBIT) or 512 268 5678.
