Subject: LEP BITES MAN! ;-)

From: [email-masked] (Doug Yanega)
Date: 27 Jan 1995 22:05:35 GMT

I recently posted this elsewhere, but thought folks here might enjoy a
tale of terror to tell around the campfire - one of the funniest things
that ever happened to me while watching insects.
    My calling in life, it has seemed at times, is to watch ground-nesting
bees. This has entailed over 2500 hours remaining motionless and observant.
This sometimes includes not flinching when something lands or crawls on you
- you learn to be patient, otherwise you'd spend more time brushing flies
away and whatever than you'd spend observing. At any rate, as I sat in a
blazing hot field of sand in Kansas, watching nests of the sunflower bee
Dieunomia triangulifera, I noticed a fuzzy caterpillar dashing madly across
the hot sand straight towards me. I knew it *had* to be a tiger moth larva
(no other type of caterpillar scampers quite the same way), and as it came
closer I could see it was a Salt-marsh Caterpillar (Estigmene acraea). It
took a little while, but it eventually reached me, scooted straight onto my
bare foot, and bit me.
        I yelped more out of surprise than pain, as I reflexively flung the
berzerker worm off into the shrubbery, and proceeded to laugh for a good
several minutes, as I had this sudden, hilarious vision of some demonic
possession driving this cute fuzzy critter to gallop across the sand,
hell-bent on chomping my foot.
Heck, it might *still* be out there...waiting...so BEWARE ;-)
-- 
Doug Yanega
Illinois Natural History Survey, Center for Biodiversity
607 E. Peabody Dr. Champaign, IL 61820  USA
"There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness is
    the true method" - Herman Melville, Moby Dick

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From: [email-masked] (Julie "Mudgie" Stahlhut)
Date: Tue, 31 Jan 1995 12:25 est

> Heck, it might *still* be out there...waiting...so BEWARE ;-)
 
Well, last summer we found five or six cute little pale-yellow arctiids -- 
I think they were yellow woolly bears, but I think it's also possible 
for E. acrea to be that color -- in a clover patch in our wildflower garden.
My husband scooped them up and put them into my hand so he could take some
photos of me with them.  And, the little frassbuckets started chomping
on my fingers!  They then proceeded to crawl up my arm, nipping all the
way, while I kept giggling, "Hey, they're BITING me!", my husband tried
to maintain his composure long enough to focus his camera, and our next-
door neighbor watched from his porch, wondering whether to call the
nearest home for the bewildered!
     
One of the li'l chompers left me with a tiny welt on my wrist, which 
itched for about 15 minutes.  A few weeks later, I had the occasion to
chat on the phone with Prof. Dale Habeck at the University of Florida,
on matters relating to my masters' work at Western Michigan.  Since we
were talking about arctiids, I mentioned this story to him, and he 
chuckled and said, "Wow, a new host!"
    
Maybe next summer we'll make a sign for our yard:  THIS PROPERTY PROTECTED
BY ATTACK LARVAE.   

Julie K. Stahlhut, Hellgrammite Tamer   [email-masked]
"May your life be full of immature activities."
   -- My Immature Insects prof's inscription in my copy of his text.

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From: [email-masked] (THE MOON IS FULL AND THE SILVERWOLF IS HOWLING.....)
Date: 2 Feb 95 10:08:49 +1000

> Maybe next summer we'll make a sign for our yard:  THIS PROPERTY PROTECTED

You know....there could me a market in "attack larvae". :)

Paul.

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~ Paul A. Farrell - M.Sc. Student {Entomology}                   ~        
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