Bug Eric

I am not sure that I have ever had less enthusiasm for an incoming new year than I have for this one. It seems rather silly, though, that I don’t have more excitement and positive anticipation. I already have virtual and in-person presentations on the horizon (book me now!), plus a Coldplay concert to look forward to. I even have a new passport, so can leave the country if I want.

What is the future of Bug Eric blog? I am seriously entertaining the idea of moving it to either Substack or Patreon. I will need to take my writing more seriously, if so, posting with definite regularity to meet the expectations of paying subscribers. Would I even have subscribers?

While I would prefer not to charge my readership, I must increase my income. This is especially true now that Social Security and Medicare are under attack from the incoming presidential administration. I may not have the “entitled” income and health benefits that I was expecting at my advancing age. I also need to value my work in the economic sense.

As for other projects, I have ideas for at least three more major works. One of those is a fictional piece that seems to want to be a play or screenplay. I keep “seeing” it as being performed, anyway. I would like to collaborate with others, as the current storyboard looks like an exploding star. It is not even linear. Ha! If done right, it could win all the things, including hearts and minds, I think.

None of my future book ideas have anything to do with insects except, perhaps, tangentially. This represents a huge risk since I am the “bug guy” by reputation. I cannot, however, ignore the greater problems surrounding how human beings impact the natural world, and each other. That isn’t a calling as much as a demand for my perspectives and experiences to be shared.

From the aspect of my mental and social health, I am becoming progressively more isolated. There is hardly anyone in my small town that I have even remote interest in spending time with. There are too many people older than I am, politically conservative, religious, unhappy, unhealthy, or all of the above. When I do venture out of the house, it is for an exercise walk, to run an errand or two, or hike by myself in a nearby wooded park. That is it. I thrive on the company of younger people, and that seems impossible here.

Even social media has lost most of its appeal. I left Twitter/X in the end-of-the-year mass exodus, and opted for Bluesky, the popular new alternative. I have enjoyed it so far. Facebook is in decline, with its near total emphasis on commercialization, and a newly-announced commitment to more AI (Artificial Intelligence) content, including artificial users. Actual, human Meta users are aging, and there is simply not the energy there used to be. I may have to learn Tik Tok if I want to stay relevant, and if that China-based platform is not outlawed.

There is no way I can continue suffering a lack of in-person contact, though. I am not suicidal, but as one Bluesky account put it, some days “I can’t life anymore.” The bigger cities of Kansas City and Overland Park are so close, yet so far away, and not really affordable.

Please let me know if you would pay to read more regular posts on Patreon or Substack, and under what circumstances/incentives. If you have suffered social isolation, how have you overcome it?

Thank you, as always, for your loyalty in following me, donating to this Blogger blog, and otherwise lending your support….Now, if I can just turn myself into a cat, I could lounge all day long, and have thousands more followers on Bluesky. Goals!

About the Calendar Photo: This calendar was purchased from melbry//arts. Melissa Bryant does brilliant and important work. Please support her efforts. Thank you.

Visitors to this blog need to know that Blogger will no longer allow me to reply to your comments and questions on my posts, or even make my own comments. I understand your frustration, as it is mine, also. I can sometimes reply in a different browser than I normally use (Mozilla Firefox), but even that seems unreliable. Eventually, I want to have a dedicated author and writer website, where I can transfer this blog. Until then, I appreciate your understanding and patience. Let me address a few recurring themes, though.

I am forced to moderate comments because of a ridiculous amount of spam, mostly attempts at self-promotion by pest control companies, but many are other business interests that have no relation to the subject matter of this blog. I try and go through pending comments at least once per week. I will only delete comments if they contain profanity or defamatory content. If people have stories they want to share, good or bad, I am happy to entertain them. I appreciate what are mostly kind and appreciative comments. Thank you.

"Does it bite?" and "Will it hurt me/my pets/plants, etc?" are recurring queries. If I do not mention that the creature is threatening, then it is not, provided you do not handle it or try to kill it. There is always the possibility that you do not see the insect or arachnid and squash it accidentally, or it gets trapped in clothing...The more aware you are, the less likely you will have negative encounters with any animal.

"Can I post a picture...?" is also a query I receive routinely. I wish I was able to allow that, but the potential of hidden malware, even in links to images, prohibits this. What I can recommend instead is sharing your images on a website like iNaturalist or Bugguide. Both websites (and a complementary app in the case of iNaturalist) are free to join. The only danger is in getting addicted to everyone else's observations. Even Facebook interest groups, like "Insect ID," and Twitter (X), and Instagram are viable avenues for learning what your mystery creature is. The beauty of those other paths of inquiry is that you can receive multiple opinions, from professional entomologists and amateur naturalists alike.

I am using Google-generated advertising here for a meager revenue stream. I apologize for the intrusion of that advertising, but my former company sponsors no longer exist. I welcome alternatives to those ads.

Thank you again for your loyalty, and for tolerating the imperfections of this blog. I do plan on retaining the archive of posts at this URL for the forseeable future.

Friends, I am still unable to reply to comments, even using a different browser. I am so sorry. I can do so "anonymously," in M.S. Edge, but then I have to approve my own comment! If anyone knows how to resolve this and can explain in as non-technical a manner as possible, please let me know. No answers in online forums are terribly helpful, nor current. Thank you.

I want to apologize to anyone who has left comments on any of my posts within the last few months. I don't always remember to "approve" them regularly, but a different issue has also cropped up....

Blogger is no longer allowing me to REPLY to comments, nor even post my own comments. If any of you have had similar issues and found a way to resolve them, please let me know. In the meantime, please understand that I would reply to comments if I was able. It is quite possible I will have to resurrect this blog on some other platform, though I would keep the current posts archived here. I welcome suggestions for other platforms besides WordPress, which I found not to be very intuititve for people who are not tech-savvy to begin with. Thank you.

EDIT: Strangely, I am able to answer comments if I use a different browser than Firefox. I am going to leave this post up if only to remind me to start using Edge as my browser when I moderate and reply to comments.

It occurs to me that my vision for this blog, and audience expectations, may be somewhat divergent, and neither as easy to meet and execute as I would like. The world is changing rapidly, and, if anything, I feel myself slowing down. Allow me to posit some ideas for how to solve all of this.

Most days, it is a struggle to do much of anything, least of all writing. I find a “what’s the use?” mentality creep in. There is no question, in my mind, that insect abundance and diversity has markedly declined in the last decade. In the field I have to work harder just to find species that were once common. Consequently, I do not have photos of many species I would like to write blog posts about. Even supposedly common household pests like spider beetles, Cigarette Beetle, and Drugstore Beetle, I have yet to see. I have encountered a grand total of one (1) Blacklegged (deer) Tick, and got horrible photos.

My first ask is whether those of you who are photographers would be willing to share your images with me to build stories around. Not only is it a matter of simply depicting a given species, but also illustrating its behavior. Looking at posts on social media, many of my friends and followers have captured some truly unique species and various aspects of their life histories. Do not be shy. Please contact me (see below) if you want to share your work through this blog.

My e-mail often receives unsolicited offers to “guest post” on my blog, and I always turn those away. On occasion I have asked colleagues for permission to re-post something they have written in social media, a publication, or their own blog. My standards are pretty high, and this blog is a promotional device for no one. I am now re-thinking this a little.

Entomology has historically been inextricably entangled with colonialism, sexism, and racism. What we know of tropical species has been a product of white explorers, missionaries, and others who exploited indigenous peoples without giving fair credit and compensation. The specimens collected were deposited almost exclusively in museums in Europe, and later in the U.S. and Canada. Meanwhile, female entomologists, and non-Caucasian entomologists, have suffered for proper recognition, funding, and academic promotions.

This blog can be a vehicle for changing some of this. I hereby extend an invitation to women, indigenous persons, and all other non-white persons in entomology, to propose one or more guest posts for the Bug Eric blog. You need not be employed as an entomologist. You can be an enthusiastic amateur, a general naturalist, or someone who simply witnessed or recorded some arthropod-related experience that stuck with you. Maybe it is your child who is crazy about “bugs.” Let me hear about it. I still reserve the right of refusal, but I assure you I am serious about broadcasting voices previously muted by establishment authority figures. Op-ed pieces are also welcome.

Lastly, this blog is in dire need of solution-oriented content. How do we avert an “insect apocalypse?” How do we overcome the inertia of the lawnscape to craft a quilted landscape of native or near-native habitat on our own properties? What approaches are working already? Why are they working (in the political or economic sense)? Also, why does it seem that every positive suggestion eventually meets with stiff resistance or is undermined in some way? Bee condos, bee blocks, and insect hotels are suddenly a no-no, for example. How does this happen? How do we separate true experts from corporate hacks and trolls?

It is hard for me to believe that this blog began in over a decade ago. I simply and selfishly wanted to share my experiences and knowledge with no purpose other than entertainment and validation. Now it is a true community of “followers” who deserve something more, including a voice in the future direction of Bug Eric. Entomology encompasses so much, from science to art, that there is no shortage of material. Indeed, the greatest challenge may be that of focus, like seeing a single mayfly in the swarm.

Contact: bugeric247ATgmailDOTcom.

Having just completed one book manuscript, with another one due at the end of this year, I don’t have time for the angst and depression that grips me currently. The global pandemic has impacted all of us in a myriad of ways, only to be compounded by personal challenges that each of us face. What does this have to do with entomology? Nothing. Everything.

While I am not cavalier in my approach to covid-19, the virus has not, by itself, caused me panic nor worry. It is not the reason I stay indoors. More on that later. I am in a very privileged place compared to many people and can weather at least a degree of economic upheaval. I am relatively healthy physically, though that does not necessarily mean I would have a mild case if I contracted the virus. Many patients that “recover” still have chronic, debilitating illnesses that may last the rest of their lives. The press has not emphasized this.

What is most stressful is the selfish reaction of so many to a catastrophe that impacts everyone regardless of race, sex, economic status, religion, or politics. The best analogy I can make for my own experience is the movie Invasion of the Body Snatchers. I feel like I walk today among pod people who have no understanding of science, no empathy for anyone else, and who devote all their energy to shaming those who do possess those qualities. I have decreasing patience daily.

Also in the current social pot is simmering racism, and the complementary intolerance of that continued bigotry. The cauldron reached the boiling point in May with the murder of George Floyd by police officers. Much like our collective reactions to coronavirus, the Black Lives Matter protests have revealed a schizophrenic socio-political divide where monuments to confederate figures are held more sacred than the lives of contemporary humans suffering from systemic, institutionalized oppression, if not outright violence.

Let me make this clear, at the least: white privilege deserves to be challenged, to be eroded, to be leveled. As events unfold, I ask myself consistently whether this is a sacrifice I am willing to make. So far, the answer has been an unequivocal “yes.” I can live without the statues, even if they are works of art. I would rather have a celebration of indigenous peoples than recognize Columbus Day. I love football, but the Redskins must change their name. I am willing to be educated about the racist flaws of all historical “heroes.”

Until last month, I would make a daily walk through my neighborhood. Some days I would go to the top of the hill, a vast former landfill that had metamorphosed into a degraded semblance of shortgrass prairie, and look for insects, birds, and other wildlife. I lost the fight to preserve it, and now bulldozers have rendered it a denuded plot for a housing development. I have not been on a walk since I first encountered the machines. It is too painful.

I am left without a refuge now, and given that my spouse can no longer carpool to work, I also have no way to escape to another nature spot. Even if I did, I would encounter far more people than I did up the hill. It matters less and less to me as I feel resigned to the continued burning of the world. I just don’t want to watch it any more. My daily walk is now limited to getting the mail.

Were it not for my wife, and my current obligations to publishers, I’m not sure I’d be making the feeble efforts at survival and routine that I somehow manage. My short-term memory is fading, to the point that today I could not recall, in the space of even twenty seconds, whether I had taken my allergy medication. Why can’t that phenomenon apply to memories and situations I want to forget? Why must any of us be tortured that way?

Friends recommend taking a break from social media as one way to limit negative input, but then you also limit positive stimuli. Ignoring reality is not a healthy way to navigate your life, either, but the human race in general has never been even adequate at coping skills. My message to myself is to accept that you are going to have slumps in productivity, fall into bad habits, and otherwise be a wreck periodically. It won’t last forever.

On February 4 I was prepared to sacrifice this blog in protest of the desecration about to take place at the National Butterfly Center, Bentsen-Rio Grande Valley State Park, and all the refuges, sanctuaries, places of worship, private properties, sacred lands, historical lands, and current livelihoods in the Lower Rio Grande Valley.

I was about to engage in an indefinite "blog-out" as my own hunger strike against the current U.S. presidential administration, the newly-elected (if democracy even applies) leaders of Brazil and Madagascar, and the announcement of a new highway that will likely spell the end of rainforests on the island of New Guinea.

When I feel like I am being punished, pummeled....bullied, as I do now watching everything I hold dear being dismantled and destroyed by our current government and those who support it, my impulse is to hit back. My desire is to make tangible the psychological anguish I feel. It is the same behavior seen in toddlers and entirely too many men who throw things, break things, inflict violence on the innocent. They want you to feel physically the emotional pain they suffer from, but their methods of doing so simply compound our collective societal problems.

So, my warped reasoning was that if I cannot have nice things like wildlife refuges, the right to the opportunity to experience wild places abroad, etc, then I will deprive you of my knowledge of entomology, my skills as a writer, and my thought-provoking ideas and opinions. You do not deserve them if you are silent about things that matter more than money.

Then I read the following post on Facebook, by a writer, conservationist, historian, and activist who I have come to consider a mentor. Dr. J. Drew Lanham (pictured above) is an Alumni Distinguished Professor of Wildlife Ecology at Clemson University, and an award-winning author. He penned this on Facebook before turning in for the night:

Insomniac's Lament

For far too many in these times, the hours fall by as joyless days. We worry and fret over everything. EVERY. THING. Each word is a transgression every thought a crime waiting to be committed. I try hardest to be my best but I know at some point soon I will fail. Isn't it inevitable? What if in my earnest attempts to be human, my imperfectionz somehow mar the perfect person I never was? Who will report my wrongs and send me to ruin? Will I show up here or on the six o'clock news? We are overwrought and wrung out with angst waiting for the worst to happen because we'll be better off in some other end. It all has my head hurting and my heart sore. Is there some cure?

Hate has found its way into my soul for people I don't even know beyond what they "tweet, or what the headlines tell me to believe -- and I cannot find the switch to flip and make it stop. Perhaps if I could only learn to somehow ignore-- but then I cannot deny or turn a blind eye to so much going wrong. There are far too many "ist's" and "isms" still with us. Fighting them all at once is like an eternal career in uphill stone rolling. Just call me Sisyphus. The stress keeps me up late into the night and makes me want to sleep midday even more. Withdrawing seems the easy answer -- just closest family and a few treasured friends --sometimes; and always wildness and birds. Wildness. and Birds.

I guess tomorrow (which has just become. now) is another day.

I'll be okay. If I just read the right books and watch the right things. Somewhere some thought police will allow me clearance. Won't they?

Anyway, sleep mercifully calls. I'll wake soon from a brief nap to wren chatter and roll the rock upslope again. I'll just think of it as job security. Sanity slips in the witching hour but for a few moments soon after the sun comes up, I'll steal away --out there, where joy comes in the form of feathers -- and I can be a movement of one before the hamster wheel spins again-- for just a few moments I'll be hashtagged to a singular cause. Just Being.

Thank you, Drew, for expressing exactly how I feel, and compelling me to soldier on, resisting not just injustice and greed and arrogance and ignorance, but my own compulsions to pull the plug on what I do best.

Several new posts will be coming to this blog in October. You can look forward to a diversity of topics aimed at a variety of audiences. It is easier for me to write during the colder months of the calendar year without the distracting urge to be outdoors observing insects and spiders, so expect a few more posts in general through the winter.

"Don't Try This at Home" will feature the drawbacks of do-it-yourself pest control using over-the-counter products.

"Why I No Longer Collect" will discuss my personal reasons for not collecting insect and spider specimens, which may give aspiring young scientists and hobbyists reasons to pause.

"A Couple of Weirdos" will highlight some surprising species discovered by accident during the past summer.

"Remembering National Moth Week" will revisit the excitement of putting out blacklights in various locations in Colorado this past July.

There will be other posts that spotlight the few trips we took close to home and far away this year in search of insects and other wildlife. Additionally, I plan to feature posts that offer tips on circumstances and situations that are not to be missed if you want to find unique insects; and how to get images of insects and spiders engaged in various behaviors.

So, grab that pumpkin spice beverage and prepare to be engrossed next month. That's different from just "grossed." It means "captivated," "enthralled." I'll do my best to live up to your anticipation.

Circumstances have conspired lately in both positive and negative ways to derail my intended schedule of posts here. No excuses, just realities that are in some ways beyond my control.

My father passed away on Tuesday, May 15, and I have been dealing with normal legal and logistical challenges since then. It may be awhile before that abates entirely. The emotional issues are there as well, and if you are so inclined you can read about them in this post on my Sense of Misplaced blog. I appreciate your understanding and respect.

I also continue to devote more attention to Sense of Misplaced because I firmly believe the "bigger picture" impacts every aspect of my life, your life, and our society in general. We have to start thinking way outside the box and I believe my true calling is to help achieve that. Consequently, more content is being provided there at this time.

Lastly, I am writing once again for my major client, for their Insectlopedia blog. The demand for content there is seasonal, so I have to write when the client requests it. My goal remains to write mostly during the winter so that I can be afield at this time of year, but we do not always get our way in the working world.

I may have more exciting news to share in the coming weeks, so stay tuned. Thank you as always for your continued loyalty.

This blog may be written by me, but it is a team effort that keeps it going. For example, were it not for the recent donation of a new camera, I would not have the ability to take images with a flash. It is thanks to such in-kind donations, as well as monetary gifts through my Paypal donation button, that I can continue to provide content here without going broke.

Debbie Barnes-Shankster, a truly professional nature photographer, had a "spare" Canon PowerShot SX50 that she was not using, and so graciously turned it over to me. I had exhausted the lifespan of the pop-up flash on my other two cameras, so was not able to take images in low light, let alone at night at a moth sheet. I am very grateful to Debbie for the rescue.

Besides equipment, I periodically receive review copies of books, which reminds me that I am behind in my reading more than I would like to admit. I get to keep the books, which then provide additional, newer sources of research for later blog posts. Many of these books are well beyond my budget, and so I am very thankful for those as well.

Sometimes, I have the ammunition to write a post, but not the images to illustrate it. I often solicit photographers for permission to use theirs, and I have rarely been turned down. I don't believe I have ever been turned away, in fact. I am not what I would call even an amateur photographer, but I do assign value to my own work, and am highly respectful of the effort and expense it takes others to get quality images. At some point I would like to be able to compensate photographers for the privilege of using their work here.

Meanwhile, I have huge investments looming on the horizon. I need another vehicle after a minor accident totaled our old Saturn. My HP desktop computer is ancient by today's standards, probably at least seven years old and nearing capacity thanks to photos and videos eating up memory. Before I can even dream of replacing either of those, I still owe a substantial sum to a publisher for a contract that we mutually decided to dissolve, after I had received the advance.

I rarely go begging to anyone for donations, and I am not going to do that now. My goal with this post is to communicate my deep appreciation for what I already receive, and to let you know that your monetary contributions are well spent in feeding the content at this blog.

All my readers are entitled to request blog topics, and I will do my best to honor those queries. We have a global community of participants here at Bug Eric, one that is growing all the time. I value each and every one of you, and thank you whole-heartedly for your patronage.

Casual visitors to my blog often seek pest control advice in the comments of posts about insects or spiders they themselves have encountered. There are several reasons why I do not discuss pest control, and it is probably high time I outlined them here.

Commercial insecticide manufacturers and pest control companies ("exterminators") have entire teams of lawyers to prevent, fight, and settle litigation filed against them when customers misuse or fail to fully understand their products or services. Indeed, the public regularly misapplies over-the-counter products resulting in poisoning of family members or pets or, in the case of foggers ("bug bombs"), fail to extinguish a pilot light and set fire to their property or blow their house up. Besides the injuries and/or damage, misapplication of insecticides is a federal offense.

Meanwhile, there are also the pest control equivalents of snake oil salesmen who promise "organic" controls that are ineffective at best, or outright fraudulent at worst. Products such as ultrasonic repellent devices are known by entomologists to be useless; and "bug zappers" kill far more beneficial insects with next to no impact on mosquitoes.

As a writer who is essentially a sole proprietor volunteering factual information, there is no way I can possibly absorb the financial impact of a lawsuit should someone misinterpret pest control advice or product endorsement.

Those who follow this blog know and understand that the entire purpose of the content here is to educate the public and foster an appreciation and tolerance of insects, spiders, and other arthropods. Focusing only on the negative impacts some species sometimes have on humanity would not accomplish that goal. There is enough misinformation and media sensationalism already. It is a tide I can barely swim against. Some people I will never "convert" or even reach, but I like the idea that I can provide ammunition for others to argue the overwhelming benefits of arthropod diversity and healthy ecosystems, be they natural, agricultural, or urban or suburban.

Those rare posts I devote to household and garden pests usually include tips for preventing pest issues. Pests are largely our own creation. We provide them with their favorite foods. We give them shelter. We collectively import them accidentally or intentionally from other parts of the world in commerce, including nursery stock (plants). We apply pesticides to which they develop resistance. We compromise native habitats and ecosystems through use of non-native plants in landscaping, overuse of herbicides that destroy food plants for beneficial insects, and insist on large areas of sterile lawns.

It is only by altering our own mindset, or at least our behaviors, that we can coexist with other organisms, and discourage visits by species that can cause us harm. Prevention is the act of executing those proactive, low-cost or no-cost strategies, in contrast to being reactive, at a high financial and emotional cost, when a population of insects or arachnids gets out of control.

The smart consumer looks to unbiased sources of information for pest control, as they do when purchasing any product or service. Online, you should be consulting ".edu" websites that originate at colleges and universities. They have no stake in the stock of a company, and because they are educational institutions, they are mandated to provide information to the public. The Cooperative Extension Service has long been a leader in urban and agricultural pest management, but has fallen on hard times with funding cutbacks from the government. Still, pursue that option. There is usually an extension agent office located in whatever town serves as your county seat.

Remember the public health department is a valuable resource for control of insects that affect public health, such as mosquitoes, other biting insects, filth flies, and cockroaches. Contact them, and take them a specimen of the organism that is problematic for you.

Pest control technicians are the last people you should trust for making an accurate identification of a troublesome insect. I cut them a little slack because their first, and often only, priority is to comply with state and federal regulations in chemical pesticide application. Few technicians are properly schooled in entomology, and that is a disservice to the consumer.

Social media outlets vary widely (and wildly) in terms of legitimate, educated advice and identification of insects and spiders. Some Facebook groups are better moderated than others.

You are certainly welcome to click on the "forum" tab at the top of this page and ask questions and upload images of your mystery "bugs." I'll do the best I can to identify your creature, and direct you to additional informative resources. Thank you.

I have the "moderate comments" option on this blog fully operational, to eliminate spam, profanity, and other rude comments. Overwhelmingly, the offenders whose comments I swat most often are representatives of pest control companies that are seeking free advertising by including a link to their website and, maybe, a token compliment on a given post. I have a few words for these folks.

Those kind souls who actually take the time to read my blog understand that I never give pest control advice, for many reasons. Number one, the whole intention of this blog is to create a better understanding and appreciation of arthropods, and change attitudes from a "kill first, ask questions later" mentality to one of tolerance and pest prevention. Number two, I must reduce my own liability and vulnerability to legal action for dispensing advice that could go horribly wrong. My own financial protection has to be a concern, though I wish it was not necessary. Pest control companies have this as their number one priority, or they should. Lastly, my goal is to save my readers from unnecessary expenditures for pest control professionals, over-the-counter chemical treatments, and bogus products like "ultrasonic" repellent devices. They are largely a waste of money.

Another tactic that pest control companies have is to contact me suggesting that "your readers may be interested in x-subject or y-product or z-service," can you please post what amounts to a guest blog post on our company's behalf. No thank you. Pest control companies that are truly responsible, more customer-centered and less profit-crazed, and that honestly care about the environmental consequences of pest control, are welcome to e-mail me to discuss potential advertising on my blog. Advertising they would pay for, demonstrating their like-minded commitment to an educated consumer base. You better come armed with an A+ Better Business Bureau rating, and a host of customer recommendations, too. Naturally, I would be doing my own background checks to make sure our philosophies mesh.

Please note that my current blog sponsors are BioQuip Products and After Bite products, both of which are independent businesses that are pro-outdoor recreation and discovery and education. "Bug Eric" is all about encouraging readers to at least periodically unplug and go out and observe the natural world, be it their own backyard or a jungle, desert, or savanna overseas, or somewhere between those two extremes. This blog is also about understanding how the natural world works, understanding the place of all organisms in it, including Homo sapiens, and to encourage a more peaceful relationship with other creatures.

You are welcome to approach me for consideration of advertising space if your business reflects the values and intentions I have just described. Otherwise, please spare me your spam comments and requests for guest blogs. I would appreciate having more time to address legitimate topics and concerns here. Thank you.

Note: This is what you must know about me at this point in my life. I appreciate your respect of that.

There is no such thing as an identity crisis; or if there is, then it is precipitated by a long history of identity denial. Failure to embrace who one truly is inevitably results in resentment, and even hostility toward others. How to reinvent oneself is then the challenge.

I am a writer, a communicator. There was a time I thought I wanted to be a scientist because I felt that was the only path to achieving credibility. The non-fiction writers I admired were also scientists, so it seemed the logical course of action was to enroll in college with a scientific major. So, off to Oregon State University I went, where there was comfort in already knowing some of the faculty and staff who were my mentors earlier in life. Since I honestly do have an affinity for insects and related creatures, I declared entomology as my major.

There were immediate signs that this was not a good idea. I failed mathematics courses. I floundered in chemistry, and avoided physics and statistics. Academia does not reward you for simply having an interest in science. In fact, it punishes you. Higher education tries to break you of empathy and sentimentality for other organisms. Anthropomorphism, the assignment of human emotions to other animals, is banished from the lab, and even from field observations. Ecosystems are abstracted into "models," poor paper substitutes for flesh and blood. Entire landscapes are reduced to soil profiles.

I should have left the sciences for an English or communications major right then and there. Instead I moved over to the School of Forestry where I majored in Recreation Resource Management, where park naturalists earn their cred. I retained entomology as a minor. I excelled at natural history interpretation, but only tolerated, if not struggled with, other subjects. That fourth year was my last. I dropped out with a feeling of emptiness, and certainly an empty bank account.

Despite my lack of an academic degree, I have held professional positions as an entomologist. The Oregon Zoo and Cincinnati Zoo both employed me in their insect exhibits. I worked on a private contract at the Smithsonian Institution, helping catalog the national butterfly collection for a month in 1986. Subsequently, I have had other contracts with the University of Massachusetts (Amherst), and the West Virginia Department of Natural Resources. These jobs paid adequately, if not handsomely, but were mostly unfulfilling in every other regard. Today, there are enough rules and roadblocks that it is impossible for me to be employed this way again anyway. The job application process in general, for almost any position, is so weighted toward exclusion that it is demoralizing and not worth the effort to apply for many of the best potential candidates.

Meanwhile, I persisted in my own efforts to cultivate credibility, and build a following as a trusted expert in the world of popular entomology. At this I have succeeded too well. Actors call it typecasting: Having performed one role so well that they can no longer find work for any other role. Convincing people that I can write about topics other than "bugs" is an excruciatingly slow process, and as I age the sense of urgency only magnifies, and the sense of resentment at my own previous denial of who I am intensifies. Naturally, this expresses itself inappropriately, and I now find myself sighing heavily whenever a stranger asks "Hey, aren't you that 'bug guy'?" At times I want to slap them upside the head.

I will always have an interest in insects, and always be willing to help people educate themselves about the "smaller majority," as entomologist Piotr Naskrecki calls them. However, that is not the sole aspect of my identity and I ask you kindly to respect that. Should you want to follow my Sense of Misplaced blog, even better; and if you can help me find paying markets for my personal essays and social commentary, then you have my eternal appreciation. Thank you.

I was a bit too cavalier the other day in allowing a hide beetle, Trox sp., to relax on the lid of the vial I had it in, on the table while I was taking images of a couple of wolf spiders in a casserole dish we have sacrificed for "studio shots" of various small creatures. Wow, that one sentence says a lot, doesn't it? Well, naturally, when I turned back for the beetle, it was nowhere to be found. It got me thinking about what kinds of things the spouse of an entomologist never wants to hear.

Hide beetles, members of the family Trogidae, are innocuous enough. They want nothing to do with us until we are dead. No, really dead. Dried-up dead. Mummified dead. Extra crispy with a few tufts of hair remaining. They come to carcasses after pretty much every other insect has left the scene convinced that nothing of any nutritional value remains. Still, having a normally outdoor insect crawling or flying around the house can be disconcerting. It is certainly not part of most people's "normal" experience.

There is going to be no finding it again unless it raises its profile significantly, which Trox beetles are not prone to do. No amount of "Have you seen me?" posters in every room is going to help, even though it is an adult insect. I understand you cannot even report one missing until it has been gone for a minimum of twenty-four hours. Juvenile insects are even worse. You have to do age progression drawings because metamorphosis changes them so drastically that they become unrecognizable after only a few weeks, sometimes a few days.

Luckily, the beetle is harmless. I suppose even the most tolerant of roommates and spouses would blow a gasket if their arachnologically-inclined cohabitant suddenly asked "Have you seen my black widow?" This kind of announcement is usually followed by something like "Hey, Where is everybody going (at such a high rate of speed)?" The kids losing a gerbil probably warrants an eye-roll, but just one little venomous organism on the loose and you'd think it was grounds for divorce.

I am fortunate. My wife hardly bats an eye whenever I confess to mishandling some bug that results in it suddenly roaming freely, usually in the vicinity of the kitchen. On more than one occasion she has yelled over to me "Hey, I found your (insert name of fugitive spider or insect here)!" There are also times when she assumes the critter on the counter is something that escaped captivity. If that is not the case then we are both surprised, and not usually in a good way.

One word of advice to others like myself: It is w-a-a-a-y better to admit your negligence before she is suddenly confronted with the vagrant creature without prior knowledge of its escape. You know that skillet that is always on the stovetop? Yeah? Ok, then you understand that it can be used against both you and the spider.

The worst reception I ever received from my wife was when I enthusiastically related to her over the phone that "the lab guy we met the other day came over with a jar full of bed bugs....in all life stages!" Hello?....The life of an entomological blogger is fraught with exactly these kinds of dilemmas. You need to do that post on bed bugs, and you need images to go with it. I mean, they can't climb out of the porcelain casserole dish....Can they?

The new year ahead promises to be challenging in many ways, but hopefully rewarding, too, as I continue in my attempt to bring you topics of relevance to your lives and captivating to your minds, through this blog. I am embarking on a couple of new ventures, and will continue to take my writing in directions away from entomology. I hope you will follow. Resolutions? I have plenty, and I will start with being more grateful for my patrons.

So, first of all I want to again thank those of you who are "following" this blog, those who have donated to it via the PayPal button in the sidebar, those who have paid for advertising here (with my blessing), those who have "shared," re-tweeted, and otherwise expanded my audience, and those who have actively participated by leaving comments, asking questions, and sharing stories of your own. A community like this is a rare thing, and would not exist without all of you.

This blog also caught the attention of a company overseas, and they have invited me to join them in their quest to provide a unique "pest alert" service that will eventually be able to give advanced warning to gardeners of the likelihood that a certain pest will soon be emerging in their geographic area. The Big Bug Hunt is one project of Growing Interactive, a company that produces a variety of apps and other software to aid gardeners all over the northern hemisphere. I will be doing a more thorough write-up about this venture in the coming months.

My current clients appear to be happy with what I am doing for them, so I expect I will be doing "the usual" for the After Bite Insectlopedia, and SpiderID.com, as well as various magazines and other publications. I also have two speaking engagements already on the calendar for January. Really hoping that I will be invited to nature festivals so that I can actually get people out in the field looking at "bugs."

Locally, as president of the Mile High Bug Club, I will be helping to organize events and outings aimed at furthering the club's mission of education about, and conservation of, Colorado arthropods. The club's founder, Bell Mead, originally formed the group in 2008 as a network of people in the arthropod pet "hobby," facilitating care and ethical trade in tarantulas, scorpions, tropical insects, and other exotics. As members moved, lost interest, and otherwise no longer participated, the focus shifted to its current mandate. Thanks to Bell's persistence and diligence, we achieved non-profit status a few months ago.

Among MHBC activities in the coming year will be field trips in search of tiger beetles, dragonflies, grasshoppers, and maybe fireflies and lampshade weavers (a kind of spider). Also on the horizon are the annual National Moth Week events we create and document, plus a series of bioblitz events in celebration of the twentieth anniversary of the Trails, Open Spaces, and Parks (TOPS) in Colorado Springs. We also intend to have a booth in the exhibit hall for the national meetings of the Entomological Society of America, to be held in Denver from November 5-8, 2017. The Big Bug Hunt may share table space with us.

Beyond expressing gratitude more regularly, my personal resolutions include reading more (so look for reviews here and over at Sense of Misplaced), generating more book-length work of my own, and integrating myself into a larger network of other writers. My current network is almost all entomologists and naturalists. My philosophy and goals revolve around empowering others to think differently, act to help make the world a better place, and have fun doing it. I have no interest in amassing personal wealth, accumulating more material goods, or chasing fame and celebrity. I do insist on having my skills, intellect, time, and expenditures valued to the point that I am at least breaking even. More to the point, I will aggressively defend the rights of others to be able to make a living doing what they are best suited to do.

Thank you for continuing on this journey with me. Remember, I am always receptive to topic ideas, recurring themes, and other improvements to this blog. I hope I have been responsive to you thus far. Happy New Year to all of you.

Friends, I want to thank you for your continued patronage of this blog over the years. It has been, and continues to be, a privilege to serve you. At present, and for the foreseeable future, I find my life trending in different directions, and you will probably find fewer pieces of new content from now on. Please allow me to explain.

Most of the work I do to inform, educate, and fascinate is now done through social media, namely Facebook. I doubt I will ever indulge much in Twitter, or any of the other platforms, since I do not interact well with mobile devices (I am almost literally "all thumbs" on a tablet or smartphone). These platforms do, however, reflect something important that I must be cognizant of, and responsive to.

We are at a point where "instant gratification" is now possible through texting, internet messaging, and social media. The era of the blog may even be slowly coming to a close. No one wants to wait for a blog post when they are having a panic attack now over the spider crossing the kitchen floor. They can take a picture of it with their phone and send it over the airwaves to me or another expert immediately. This is the new 9-1-1, and 4-1-1, all wrapped up into one thing.

I honestly can't fault people for demanding information faster; and I would rather have it be me giving them a correct answer and advice than someone who does not know a brown recluse from a harmless wolf spider. Heck, I myself am "guilty" of using social media to get specimen identifications from authorities I trust. This is today's reality, and one must adapt or lose their impact and relevance.

Second, recent major expenses dictate that I must seek paying writing assignments and related work. I may even need to secure a traditional job outside the home, though I do not relish that prospect. Those who know me understand that I am not "greedy" or materialistic. Far from it. Still, even basic expenditures must be paid, and my income has increasingly stagnated. Doctor visits become more frequent as I age, with corresponding increases for medical bills. You get the idea.

Lastly, I have found increasing satisfaction from writing about topics completely unrelated to insects and spiders. So far, the outlet for this has been my other blog, Sense of Misplaced, but I am on the verge of seeking paying markets for personal essays and social commentary. I have loyal readers of that blog to thank for giving me the confidence and courage to believe that I can reach a far larger audience, and perhaps even influence cultural change and regulatory policies.

Our country, indeed the world, is in such a state of crisis that we need every voice to be heard. Every innovation, every idea, needs to gain an audience from those in places where those suggestions can be evaluated and implemented. I aim to be one of those voices for positive change, empathy, and leadership. I hope my audience here can transfer to my other blog, and on into mainstream media.

Meanwhile, I have enough posts in the Bug Eric archives that I feel it is still a sustainable resource. I continue to get positive, non-spam comments from new "recruits" delighted to find here the answer to that "mystery bug." I will still blog here periodically, at the very least to promote the work of others. Thank you again for your support.

I feel the need to apologize for the relative lack of content here lately, but several circumstances are conspiring to reduce the frequency with which I have been posting. Some are beyond my control, others a function of having differing current priorities. For once, these are valid explanations, not merely excuses.

It literally snowed here yesterday, April 29, and the high temperature was 35° F. You can choose your own expletive for "F." Today is cool and very windy. This is not unexpected for this time of year, but is incredibly frustrating. It is simply useless to go out looking for insects or arachnids, or much of any wildlife, actually. Last year we had a snowstorm on Mother's Day weekend, so....(sigh).

Those few insects I am finding have been posted more frequently on Facebook than here in this blog. Look me up on Facebook under "Bug Eric," and also the "Arthropods Colorado" group.

I continue to accrue more paying assignments at other websites and publications, so while this is a very good thing from an income standpoint, it means that I have less time to devote to this blog. Watch this space, though, for announcements of where else my work is appearing. Most of it is going to the After Bite Insectlopedia blog, under my name. I share billing with the anonymous "Professor Bugsbee."

Meanwhile, a brand new website on spiders will be making its debut shortly, and I will be contributing content in the form of articles. Our goal is to produce at least one new article each week, and by the time summer gets here I suspect that site will be getting most of my attention.

Lastly, I am hoping to do more editing and "style consulting" for other writers and their work, especially pertaining to natural history. Please contact me if you or someone you know is looking for helpful criticism and/or help in getting published. I had the good fortune of going over a couple of e-books, one on notable insects and other arthropods of Zion National Park, and another on the same subject for Cedar Breaks National Monument. I very much enjoy the process of book production and helping others.

I have already told my wife that I want us to book a vacation in Florida or somewhere else down south next April! I am not going to go six or seven months between out-of-state destinations. Thankfully, we will soon be going away to what we hope are literally greener pastures to the east. That should provide a little more blog fodder, I hope. Meanwhile, I am available for nature festivals, insect identification workshops, speaking engagements, and other events. After expenses are paid for, I am negotiable for honorariums.

Take care friends, enjoy your own explorations and observations!

Gratitude is something I need to be expressing more often, so let me start there. It was an unusual and sometimes trial-filled year, but there is plenty I am grateful for. Much thanks to all who clicked the "donate" button, it is always a joyful surprise when I get a notification. Thank you also to BioQuip Products for continuing to sponsor this blog with their advertising here. Thanks, Google Adsense, for the twice-yearly supplemental revenue. Thank you to all the fellow bloggers who see fit to include my blog in their own "blog roll." I very much appreciate the respect, and your willingness to voluntarily direct traffic my way. Last, but certainly not least, thank you, dear readers, for continuing to "follow" me, and for your patience between posts.

The start of the year found me in Portland, Oregon, planning the celebration of life in the wake of my mother's passing in December, 2014. Thankfully, Heidi came out and helped me finish packing up mom's apartment, and offering moral support. My best friend from high school, Carl Robertson, also helped immensely. His sense of humor is priceless, like his devotion to his family and friends.

By March, I was helping review signage for exhibits at the newly-opened Missoula Insectarium in Montana, USA. My friends Jen and Glenn Marangelo have worked incredibly long and hard to see this facility come to fruition, and they still have a long road ahead to build the butterfly house of their dreams. Please support them in any way you can.

I was also approached by Tender Corporation to contribute blog posts to the Insectlopedia website. This has been challenging but rewarding, and my editors, Emily Snayd and Kristin Hathaway, have been an absolute joy to work with. It looks like we will have another go at it in 2016.

This year I started remembering to take videos of insect and spider behavior, too, and this is a trend that I expect will continue as opportunities present themselves. I am going to need a bigger computer, though, as movie files take a lot of megabytes!

Another goal this year was to introduce more generic posts addressing how entomologists and the public can interact more constructively; and clarifying general principles such as the myth of "good" bugs and "bad" bugs. These posts began in June, 2015, and I hope to continue them.

Year 2015 also saw more discoveries of "new" local insect species. For the second year in a row I scored a state record for a dragonfly species. This year it was a Red Rock Skimmer at Cheyenne Mountain State Park. I also collected a foreign rove beetle that turned out to be a state record. Most astoundingly, I documented in photos and videos the arrival of the Pipe Organ Mud Dauber in Colorado. At least I am pretty sure it is new to the state. I have more research to do to clarify that finding.

Perhaps my biggest failure of the year was our effort to document the mass emergence of Brood IV periodical cicadas. Heavy rains prior to our visit to northeast Kansas and adjacent Missouri delayed the spectacle until a week after we returned home. At least we got to see Heidi's parents, and visit our dear friend Shelly Cox.

In June I began working two days each week at Songbird Supplies, LLC, a wonderful store inside of Summerland Gardens nursery. One of the many benefits of this employment opportunity was the chance to observe birds, insects, and spiders on the property. By December, I had documented nearly 260 species of animals, from earthworms to Homo sapiens. Many thanks to Julie McIntyre for her tolerance of wasps and other insects on the property.

The most difficult challenge I faced this year concerning this blog was the discovery that my work had been copied wholesale by someone else. Text and images were being cloned without my authorization. So began my adventures with Google and the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA). One of my friends from Facebook, a lawyer, volunteered to write the takedown notices, one for each blog post! I did not realize the full extent of the work involved until a second incident, for which I wrote my own takedown notices. The DMCA is clearly in need of great modification, and vastly better enforcement. The continuing devaluation of web content created by writers and photographers should be considered intolerable, but short of a "digital union" of content providers, I am unsure that the tide can be turned. I fully expect to have to repeat this process a number of times in coming years.

I was privileged to go on several wonderful adventures this year, including a tarantula hunt, a grasshopper hunt, National Moth Week events, and a dragonfly and damselfly hunt. There is nothing better than enjoying one's interests with others of like mind. Many thanks to all who made these adventures possible and memorable!

One of my blog-writing resolutions for the new year is to be more proactive in responding to news stories related to entomology, like the recent report on Chagas disease in the U.S. I welcome suggestions from my readers at all times concerning stories they would like for me to address. Meanwhile, I will do my best to be more in touch with current events.

Thank you again for your continued support. May 2016 be generous to you, your family, and friends. Cheers to more entomological excitement for all of us!

Well, the peace didn't last long. Tuesday, August 25, I learned of yet another website hijacking my blog post content. This time is different, and may be next to impossible to stop. Thank you, "EntomoplanetDOTcom," for at least not stripping my blog title from what you have stolen, but you still do not have my permission.

The problem this time is that the website host is in Poland of all places. It makes it a lot harder to shut down something like this when it is literally an international incident. It appears the best we can do is to alert Google so that they can boot the website to the bottom of their search engine "results," or banish the scammers from appearing in Google at all.

I was tipped off when I received an e-mail asking me to "moderate" one of my recent blog posts, the one celebrating victory over the other thief, ironically enough. I never get e-mail notifications that look like that, and so I began investigating.

This website is classified as a "news aggregator," and indeed it is not only "aggregating" content from my blog, but also lifting posts from "Entomology Today" (the blog of the Entomological Society of America), and the "Living With Insects" blog. I have notified both parties via e-mail.

This kind of thing is demoralizing, as I am sure you can imagine, and it means I have to learn how to write my own DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) takedown notices and what not. Alex Wild, a talented photographer who has his images stolen all the time, devotes much of his time now to addressing such legal problems. He informs me that "85% of internet marketing is done by criminals." How comforting.

For now, I am in the process of taking in advice on what to do next. Your suggestions are welcome, too, of course. Thank you all for your continued patience and policing on my behalf.

Last week an innocent e-mail from one of my blog followers alerting me to a potential typographical error revealed a much greater travesty. It turns out that my blog content, from images to text (word-for-word) has been stolen wholesale and used to produce another blog, "Beauty of Insect." My blog has essentially been cloned, with no way to contact the anonymous administrator of the imposter blog, no comment feature enabled, nothing. The other blog is clearly just out to accrue advertising revenue. This has led me to incredible frustration with the Google Support Team that oversees violations on Blogger; and also raised personal and ethical questions for me.

Until the time this case is resolved, I do not foresee posting any further content. I'm sorry. I hate to do this. I have some really neat stories pending, but I am not going to "feed the thief."

I do not know how long "Beauty of Insect" has been doing this. I have "Google Alerts" on my name and blog title, but not on individual content, and I'm not sure how to do that, or if it is even possible. Online content thievery and replication is rampant, and many of my colleagues have simply given up trying to overcome it. Others have had to all but abandon their regular business to devote the energy required to prosecute offenders. Chief among these superheroes is Alex Wild, a leading macro photographer who even started a Facebook group devoted to photo thievery and how to stop it (or at least slow it down).

I went immediately to my own Facebook friends upon discovery of this crime, and received advice and links within hours. One friend, an attorney, even began the process of writing a DMCA takedown notice, only to find Google requires one to file a takedown notice for each post for which there is plagiarism. That is well over sixty-five (65) notices at last count.

"DMCA" stands for the "Digital Millennium Copyright Act," and is meant to protect original online content from unauthorized duplication (copyright infringement); but your content does not even need to be copyrighted in the usual legal sense, to be able to invoke a takedown notice.

The Google Support Team has at best been slow as molasses to respond to my attorney's requests, and compliance with Google's requirements. She is working for me pro bono, no less, and I have an incredible amount of guilt and humiliation considering what she has gotten herself into.....with no obvious light at the end of this tunnel to date.

Should the DMCA takedown notice ever be honored, the perpetrator will be required to remove their blog, or have it done for them by their ISP (Internet Service Provider). What a waste of server space it is currently.

Meanwhile, I struggle with competing sentiments and ethical boundaries. On the one hand it is incredibly flattering to think that my creations are so coveted by others that they are willing to take the risk of using them without my consent. Maybe one indication of your "arrival" as a blogging superstar is this kind of criminal enterprise at your expense.

On the other hand, and perhaps this is what I most object to, is that they are accruing revenue with stolen content. This is revenue (or at least potential revenue), that I will never see, but have more than earned in time, my own money, effort, sweat, and tears. This is then a financial crime, not "merely" plagiarism.

One interesting point was brought up in conversation with some of my incredibly intelligent, worldly, and observant colleagues on Facebook is that there are cultural differences in the perception of what exactly is infringement. Many overseas cultures do not interpret this behavior as being wrong, let alone criminal; but the bulk of traffic on the internet streams through the U.S.A., where we definitely do frown on copyright violations. How do we resolve these differences? There is an increasing movement to segregate the 'net, such that each nation is able to establish its own rules, and hide from what is perceived to be the "prying eyes" and bullying policing of America.

I already owe my followers here a great deal for their loyalty, and support through donations. I have one last request of you all. Should you ever, ever see my content elsewhere on the web, disassociated from my name, my blogs, my Facebook pages, or Flickr photostream, please contact me immediately with the offending URL!. I will do the same for you. Thank you for your patience and understanding.