More than 30 years ago I arrived in Florida, a transplant from rural Maine. I had grown up in a place where mosquitoes were as big as dimes, horseflies would slice you open with alarming precision, and a sea of crickets bounced as I walked through the knee-high grass pastures. The fireflies showed up every summer, and I took my share in glass Mason jars, saddened the next day when I found them dead at the bottom of the glass. Our horses dexterously swatted away flies with their tails, and my mother covered her whole body in Raid and Off mosquito repellent to ward off every biting creature.
Coming to suburban Florida from the backwoods of New England was a mild shock. Actually it was more like an oppressive, heavy weight that pulled me to the earth, making it hard to breathe, move, or talk without excessively sweating and fogging up my glasses. I’m referring to the infamous humidity of Florida.
It truly isn’t the heat that kills you. It IS the humidity. My first year in Florida was brutal. I feared I’d never go outside and play again. I was doomed to a life indoors (cue the dramatically mournful music)!
That was not going to happen, at least not on my mom’s watch. She was from Central America (not a particularly humid region, but warm and sunny), and she was loving our new tropical home. Her kids were going to be outdoors whether they liked it or not. My brother spent his time on his BMX or motocross bike and I did my usual regimen of wandering and discovering. That’s pretty much what I’ve always done. My routine was to wander the woods, find some trails, investigate some lichen, stare at a spider, watch wild rabbits, search for snakes. Nothing I did was terribly productive. I didn’t collect specimens because I found EVERYTHING interesting. My room would’ve been full of insect wings, clam shells, leaves for making rubbings, bird feathers, or anything else that might be slightly unusual.
The nice thing about Florida was that there was plenty to look at. Banana spiders, aka silk orb weavers, were everywhere. Grasshoppers, especially the huge Southern Lubbers, would hang out wherever they wanted. I saw ladybugs, monarch and swallowtail butterflies, cicadas, fire ants (an invasive species if ever there was one!), katydids, and mantises. I was astounded at how much life there was, and it was present almost all year round. It was a perfect place for a curious person like myself.
Fast forward 35 years, and I am still in Florida. I consider myself a Floridian now. I have finally become accustomed to the sweltering humidity. I don’t like it, but I can tolerate it. I still enjoy hiking trails, finding odd creatures, and I especially love photographing these finds. For many years I was an avid avian photographer. It was all about the birds.
I’m now a homeowner with my husband. We have a slightly larger than average property with a pond and a wooded trail. And the thing I notice the most about this place is… nothing. There is nothing here. That’s not entirely true. There are wild turkeys, a fox or two, wild rabbits, possums, and some bluebirds and crows. But there are almost no insects. When you walk through the grass or on the trail, nothing moves. No buzzing sounds. No flitting wings. No banana spiders.
Where did everyone go?
There are at least 2 reasons that I don’t hear any buzzing. First, every neighborhood HOA has a “mosquito” pesticide service application regularly. No matter what spin the pesticide services put on it, there’s no such thing as just a “mosquito” pesticide. If it can kill a mosquito, it can kill a katydid or a gulf fritillary butterfly. On top of the many HOA’s application of pesticides, about 50% of homes in just my subdivision have their own pesticide applications done regularly. It’s little wonder that there are no buzzing insects! They haven’t got a chance. The second reason is the fact that there are no plants for the insects to use as food or as host plants for larvae. Everyone here has meticulously beautiful lawns with dwarf azaleas, French roses, bottle brush trees, and crepe myrtles. Not one of those serves as a proper insect host or food plant. The crepe myrtles are pretty, but birds don’t nest in them and I’ve never seen an insect on one. They’re sterile. The bottle brush do seem to attract bees and hummingbirds, but why not use a native shrub that local insects have evolved with over the course of millions of years?
So, I write all of this because I’m concerned. I’m not a scientist and I can’t speak to the intricacies of the insect apocalypse, however, I am a lifelong naturalist as anyone who knows me will attest. I think that maybe the scientists need some help from those of us who are more generalists. Scientists focus on a tiny sliver of the ecological pie, whereas I think naturalists are looking at the bigger picture. Many naturalists do not have the educational background to discuss the minutiae of, let’s say, the effect of light pollution on the Anageshna primordialis, a cute little moth. But a naturalist could potentially share her observations of the species, including photos and detailed records of sightings, and help form a bridge. This bridge must connect the people who, for example, have never heard of or seen an Anageshna primordialis to the people who know everything about this moth.
I’m using the Anageshna primordialis as an example here. Feel free to insert any insect of interest in my thoughts above.
As a concerned naturalist, I feel I can no longer sit by and watch as the creatures around me dwindle away. If the insects are disappearing (they are), then I need to document what’s here now before they’re gone. And I need to find a way to make these insects palatable to those who don’t exactly care about them in the first place. So that’s my mission. Make bugs cool again! Except for the fire ants. They just make me angry.
Buzzing Blossoms 