Wicked Bugs Read online

  WICKED BUGS

  ALSO BY AMY STEWART

  From the Ground Up: The Story of a First Garden

  The Earth Moved: On the Remarkable Achievements of Earthworms

  Flower Confidential: The Good, the Bad, and the Beautiful in the Business of Flowers

  Wicked Plants: The Weed That Killed Lincoln’s Mother & Other Botanical Atrocities

  Wicked Bugs

  THE LOUSE THAT CONQUERED NAPOLEON’S ARMY & OTHER DIABOLICAL INSECTS

  Amy Stewart

  ETCHINGS AND DRAWINGS BY

  Briony Morrow-Cribbs

  Published by

  ALGONQUIN BOOKS OF CHAPEL HILL

  Post Office Box 2225

  Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27515-2225

  a division of

  WORKMAN PUBLISHING

  225 Varick Street

  New York, New York 10014

  © 2011 by Amy Stewart. All rights reserved.

  Printed in the United States of America.

  Published simultaneously in Canada by Thomas Allen & Son Limited.

  Design by Anne Winslow, with thanks to Jean-Marc Troadec.

  Reproduction of the Schmidt Pain Index (pages 137–138) reprinted by permission of Justin O. Schmidt.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Stewart, Amy.

  Wicked bugs : the louse that conquered Napoleon’s army & other

  diabolical insects / Amy Stewart ; etchings and drawings by

  Briony Morrow-Cribbs.—1st ed

  p. cm.

  Includes bibliographical references and index.

  ISBN 978-1-56512-960-3

  1. Insect pests. 2. Arachnida. I. Morrow-Cribbs, Briony. II. Title.

  SB931.S83 2011

  632′.7—dc22 2011003629

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  First Edition

  To PSB

  CONTENTS

  Warning: We Are Seriously Outnumbered

  African Bat Bug

  She’s Just Not That Into You

  Asian Giant Hornet

  Assassin Bug

  Bugs of War

  Bed Bug

  Biting Midge

  Black Fly

  Black Widow

  Stinging Caterpillars

  Bombardier Beetle

  Brazilian Wandering Spider

  Curse of the Scorpion

  Brown Marmorated Stink Bug

  Brown Recluse

  Chigger Mite

  Chigoe Flea

  Have No Fear

  Cockroach

  Colorado Potato Beetle

  The Gardener’s Dirty Dozen

  Corn Rootworm

  Death-Watch Beetle

  Bookworms

  Deer Tick

  Filth Fly

  I’ve Got You Under My Skin

  Formosan Subterranean Termite

  The Ants Go Marching

  Giant Centipede

  Mediterranean Fruit Fly

  Millipede

  Arrow Poisons

  Mosquito

  Mountain Pine Beetle

  Nightcrawler

  The Enemy Within

  Oriental Rat Flea

  Paederus Beetle

  Corpse-Eaters

  Phylloxera

  Rocky Mountain Locust

  Fear No Weevils

  Sand Fly

  Scabies Mite

  What’s Eating You?

  Spanish Fly

  Tarantula

  Tsetse fly

  Zombies

  END NOTES

  About the Artist

  Resources

  Bibliography

  Index

  INTRODUCTION

  WARNING: We Are Seriously Outnumbered

  In 1909, the Chicago Daily Tribune ran an article titled “If Bugs Were the Size of Men.” It began with this ominous statement: “All the powers of destruction that were ever invented by man are puerile and absurd compared with those with which nature has invested insects.” The reporter went on to ask what would happen “if some mighty magician’s wand should be waved over the world tomorrow and mankind be reduced to the size of insects, while these tiny creatures should reach the size of men.”

  Chicagoans must have read with alarm of the calamities that would befall them if they were to trade places with bugs: the giant Hercules beetle was not just formidable, but immoral, with a taste for drinking and brawling; bark beetles would mow down massive fortresses; armies would be helpless against the artillery of the bombardier beetle; and spiders would “destroy elephants . . . a man’s only possible salvation would be that he was too insignificant to attack.” Even lions would cower in fear against these new winged and multilegged enemies.

  The reporter’s intent was, undoubtedly, to make the point that insects are powerful in their own way and to suggest that only their diminutive size keeps them from conquering the world.

  If only that were true. In fact, insects have changed the course of history. They have halted soldiers in their tracks. They have driven farmers off their land. They have devoured cities and forests, and inflicted pain, suffering, and death upon hundreds of millions.

  This is not to say that they don’t do good as well. They pollinate the plants that feed us, and they are themselves food for creatures up and down the food chain. They do the vital work of decomposition, returning everything from fallen leaves to fallen heroes back to the earth. Any number of insects, from the blow fly to the blister beetle, have proven useful in medicine. And they prey on one another, keeping pests in check. We could not live without them. In fact, indiscriminate pesticide use and destruction of insect habitats is far more harmful than simply learning to live alongside them and to appreciate their finer qualities.

  BUT THIS IS NOT a book celebrating their virtues. As with Wicked Plants, I have devoted myself exclusively to the dark side of the relationship between nature and humans. Some might say that people already harbor enough hatred of insects and need no further encouragement. And those of us who are staunchly on the side of bugs, sweeping them gently out of the house with a word of kindness and refusing to allow chemical sprays into our gardens for fear of disturbing their dinner, might be disinclined to explore their criminal history.

  However, our affections can be as misleading as our phobias. The common garden spider on your windowsill deserves applause for her good deeds, but the bloodsucking assassin bug you encounter on a South American vacation should be given a wide berth. Learning to make such distinctions doesn’t require an entomology degree; a little common sense and an open-minded curiosity is all you need. I hope that Wicked Bugs inspires both—and delivers a few spine-tingling thrills along the way.

  I am not a scientist or doctor. I’m a writer who is fascinated by the natural world. Within each chapter, I set out to tell a deliciously frightening story and to offer just enough information about the habits and lifestyles of each creature to make them easier to recognize. This is by no means a comprehensive field guide or a medical reference book; please do not rely upon it to definitively identify a bug or diagnose an ailment. For that, there is a list of recommended reading and resources at the end of the book.

  Of the thousands of species I could have included, I chose those that intrigued me the most. I use the word wicked rather broadly, encompassing the world’s most painful insects, such as the bullet ant, which gets its name from the fact that its bite feels like a gunshot wound; its most destructive insects, like the Formosan subterranean termite quietly chewing away at the seams of the floodwalls around New Orleans; and disease vectors like the Oriental rat flea that brought the Black Death to Europe. Insects that destroy crops, drive people from their homes, or simply drive people mad all found a place within these pages. Some of the stories are grotesque
, and some are tragic, but in every case, I was left awestruck by the power and intricacy of these tiny creatures.

  Entomologists will be quick to protest that the term bug is misleading, and they are quite right. Most of us use the word to describe any number of tiny slithering and crawling creatures; we deploy it with even less precision when we use it to refer to an illness like the stomach flu, a flaw in a computer program, or a listening device hidden in a lampshade. None of these are, from a scientific perspective, accurate. Strictly speaking, an insect is a creature with six legs, a three-segmented body, and usually two sets of wings. A true bug is a subset of insect in the order Hemiptera that has piercing and sucking mouthparts. An aphid, therefore, is a type of insect that we can properly call a bug; an ant is not. Spiders, worms, centipedes, slugs, and scorpions are not insects at all but arachnids and other classes of creatures that are only distantly related to insects. I could not resist including a few of them in this book and beg the forgiveness of scientists for employing the amateur’s definition of the term bug to refer to them all.

  TO DATE, OVER ONE MILLION species of insects have been described worldwide. It is estimated that there are ten quintillion insects alive on the planet right now, which means that for each one of us, there are two hundred million of them. If you arranged all living creatures on earth into a pyramid, almost all of it would be made up of insects, spiders, and the like. Other animals — including people — would form only the smallest section in one corner of the pyramid. We are seriously outnumbered.

  To insects and their squirming, wriggling, and crawling compatriots, I offer my wary respect and unabashed awe. After all I’ve learned, I still can’t bring myself to squash a bug. But I watch them now with more amazement — and alarm — than ever.

  WICKED BUGS

  HORRIBLE

  African Bat Bug

  AFROCIMEX CONSTRICTUS

  When a North Carolina family discovered tiny, bloodsucking parasites resembling bed bugs in their home, they had no idea that there was worse news still to come. The bugs were a sign that bats had taken up residence in the attic.

  Bat bugs are parasites that favor bats but seek out other warm-blooded creatures when they get exceedingly hungry. They don’t need to eat often — an adult bat bug can survive on one blood meal per year — but in order to have the energy to reproduce, they dine repeatedly on the blood of live bats. The bugs don’t live on the bats themselves; they hide in the warm, dry crevices of an attic or a hollow tree where bats also dwell, and they eat when the bats come home to roost in the early morning hours.

  SIZE:

  5 mm

  FAMILY:

  Cimicidae

  HABITAT:

  Close proximity to bat colonies, usually trees or caves, sometimes the eaves and attics of houses

  DISTRIBUTION:

  The African bat bug is native to East Africa, but other species of bat bugs are found worldwide wherever there are large populations of bats, including the American Midwest

  Alarmed by the presence of these bugs and the bats they feed upon, the family contacted an exterminator, who advised them to wait until fall, when the young bats would be old enough to fly out of the attic on their own. Then the cracks and crevices around the roof could be patched while the bats were away. Using this method, they eventually succeeded in ridding their home of bats. Unfortunately, the bat bugs were not so easily evicted.

  Once their hosts have left, bat bugs will wander the house and feed on humans. Signs of an infestation include flesh-colored welts on the skin, often in groups of two or three, and itching. The bites are generally harmless, although they could become inflamed or infected from too much scratching. The bugs themselves are rarely spotted as they typically feed while the host is sleeping. At only one-eighth of an inch long, oval-shaped, and dark red in color, they are almost indistinguishable from their close relative, the bed bug.

  In laboratories, colonies of bat bugs quickly go extinct because the females simply cannot escape the painful and destructive attentions of the males.

  While it may be uncomfortable for humans to share a house with these creatures, it’s nothing compared to what female bat bugs experience when they engage in that most intimate of acts with a member of the opposite sex. All species of bat bugs participate in a form of lovemaking called traumatic insemination, in which the male bypasses the female’s vagina altogether and pierces her abdomen with his horribly sharp little penis. The sperm goes straight into the bloodstream, where some of it makes its way to her reproductive organs and the rest is simply absorbed and eliminated.

  This is not at all an agreeable arrangement for female bat bugs. In laboratories, colonies of bat bugs quickly go extinct because the females simply cannot escape the painful and destructive attentions of the males long enough to heal and safely give birth. To get around this problem, the female of one subspecies, the African Afrocimex constrictus, developed an entirely new receptacle called a spermalege that is designed to redirect the male’s repeated stabbings to one particular location in the abdomen where they can be more easily accommodated.

  To further complicate matters, amorous males will also pierce the bodies of male bat bugs. The males, being even more displeased by this behavior than the females, have developed tougher versions of the spermalege in the hopes of protecting themselves against their sex-crazed brethren. This has worked so well that females have taken notice. They are beginning to copy the males, imitating the sturdier version of this false genitalia that the females invented in the first place. This extraordinary case of females-imitating-males-imitating-females has resulted in what one befuddled scientist called “a hotbed of deception” in the twisted world of bat bug romance.

  Meet the Relatives The bat bug is closely related to bed bugs and a few other insects that make their living through hematophagy, the practice of feeding on the blood of warm-blooded animals.

  HORRIBLE

  SHE’S JUST NOT THAT INTO YOU

  African bat bugs aren’t the only creatures that suffer for love. Aggressive and adversarial mating practices are surprisingly common, making for some truly terrible dates. Here are just a few horror stories from the war between the sexes.

  BANANA SLUG

  Ariolimax californicus

  These slugs are an astonishing sight on the forest floor: they are longer than a finger and bright yellow, the precise color of a banana. They’re found all along the West Coast, particularly in California, where they are prized as a kind of strange local treasure. The University of California at Santa Cruz has even adopted the slug as its school mascot.

  For such seemingly peaceable creatures, they engage in very violent sex. Banana slugs are hermaphrodites — possessing both male and female sexual organs — and when they are ready to mate, they leave a trail of slime that acts as a signal to potential partners. As a kind of foreplay, two slugs will eat each other’s slime. Then they size each other up — literally. Because the slugs penetrate each other simultaneously, they try to find partners of roughly the same length to avoid getting stuck. As they get closer to each other, wrapping into an S shape to facilitate mating, they often bite one another. This is normal premating behavior for a slug, but it leaves them both gouged and battered.

  The slugs may remain intertwined for several hours. When they finally begin to disengage, it is not uncommon for them to find that they’ve become hopelessly stuck to one another, leaving a slug with no choice but to chew off its partner’s penis. This behavior, known as apophallation, might seem like an evolutionary dead end. But in fact, the slug survives and can go on to mate again, playing only the part of the female.

  FIREFLY

  Photuris versicolor

  Fireflies use their charming display of lights to signal to one another during summer courtship rituals. The males fly around at night, flashing their lights and hoping to attract a female. Each species communicates with its own distinct pattern of long and short flashes so that it won’t attract a female of the w
rong species. The females respond with a flash of light of their own, and their reply is species-specific, too: the length of time that passes between the male’s signal and the female’s response is different for every species, and it is this small difference in signals that allows compatible fireflies to find one another.

  That system works fairly well until a femme fatale firefly belonging to the species Photuris versicolor gets involved. She sends out one pattern of light to attract a mate, but also emits a deceptive signal to attract the male of another species, Photinus ignites. If she can convince him to come near her, she attacks and eats him. But the male of this species is more than just dinner for her — in eating him, she takes on some of the defensive chemicals that he uses to keep predators away. Those chemicals protect not just her, but her young as well.

  PRAYING MANTID

  Tenodera aridifolia sinensis

  A female praying mantid doesn’t always eat her mate, but it happens often enough to make male mantids nervous. Males approach with caution, first assessing whether the female has had anything to eat lately. If she looks well fed, the male has some hope of getting through the ordeal alive. If she’s hungry, he might look for another partner or jump on her from a greater distance to avoid getting grabbed.

  Despite the male’s best efforts, females do tend to turn around and bite their partner’s heads off during copulation. When this happens, he continues to mate with her, completing the act just as she finishes her dinner. By the end of their date there is nothing left of him but his wings.

  The lucky male mantid that survives an encounter with a female is often seen perched on top of her for a few moments afterward. This is not a sign of affection; it’s something more like fear. Males who have made it this far know better than to make any sudden movements. They dismount slowly, with great caution, in hopes of making a safe and quiet escape.