This Little Bug of Mine
Lessons from entomology forums on how to "do the work" locally
In a recent post on one of the entomology forums I follow, a fellow shared a photo of a bug he’d found in the library, which was on his hand at the time. He was asking the brain trust of Reddit (hold your jokes) to help him identify a tiny reddish-brown critter with a dark splotch on its abdomen, the lowest segment of an insect’s body.
For one blissful moment, he thought he’d made a cute new bug friend, which he was happy to share with the community.
The community, however, was quick to inform him:
“My dude, that is a bed bug.”
But there was no great chortling from this group at the poster’s ignorance. Instead, comments were filled with important contextual details, to help this person out in their difficult situation. Commenters noted that this one was in a nymph stage (not yet an adult), so the library was probably riddled with them, and he should let the staff know right away. They warned him that it wasn’t enough to check one’s clothes and gear on sight; one had to travel home carefully so as not to spread them, and immediately quarantine all those clothes and materials on arrival. More information followed about what would and wouldn’t work to kill them, with recommendations to visit a forum expressly designed to help people with bed-bug infestations.
This is one of my happy places on the internet.
Entomology forums are spaces where nature nerds share gloriously cool insects and other bug friends, so that we can deepen in an appreciation for the natural world and help each other learn more about related behaviours. We don’t get too many jerks, if someone is simply asking for identification of a critter that isn’t actually an insect (plenty of other arthropods in the sea… and the sky, and the trees!). Sometimes people share photos of their personal finds. Sometimes, people will ask the community to explain what they’re seeing in a weird video elsewhere. When there’s a major natural event, like this year’s cicada cycle, everyone is eager to record their participation in it.
Recently, someone shared a tattoo of a beautiful glitter beetle, and one of the commenters was delighted to realize that their photos of an Ecuadorian Compsus benoisti had served as the point of inspiration for this body art.
But for all that joy is shared on such forums, there are also two types of posts that pop up more consistently than the rest:
“Is this a bed bug?”
And
“Is this a cockroach?”
Or, more accurately, most of those posts (along with the occasional termite or lice sighting) contain some form of “Please tell me this isn’t what I think it is…”
The poster has a sinking feeling, after checking their mattress or being surprised in their kitchen, and now they’ve come a-begging the internet to reassure them that this Blattodea specimen, say, is from some other order in the insect world entirely.
By the way: Your North American cucaracha is probably a Periplaneta americana, but you might also have a Blattella germanica, or—in lower parts of the US, maybe the Panchlora nivea: the green banana cockroach. There are around 4,600 species of cockroach in the world, some 30 of which like to hang out with us, and around four we consider major pests. Some are quite cool, and I for one marvel at this elegant species that’s been around for 140 million years—longer, if you count the ones that go back to the Late Jurassic, absent a modern ovipositor. Blatta comes from Latin, and was used in early definitions for insects like cockroaches and moths that “shun the light”—which should tell you how unenlightened we were at the time, because moths and some cockroaches don’t shun the light at all. TMYK!
…But I promise, there are no cockroach (or termite, lice, or bed-bug) pictures in this post, because some people really can’t stand to look at them!
What strikes me most, though, isn’t the state of denial among novices to the world of entomology—or their fear, or frustration, or disgust with a “pest” in their midst.
It’s how the community responds to the everyday onslaught of “Please tell me this isn’t…” posts—even though, 98% of the time, the critter in the image is exactly what the poster fears, and what the community has seen a thousand times before.
Even though some of us might look at those photos and think the answer thuddingly obvious, commenters dutifully help their fellow human beings gain the confirmation and resources needed to go forward from their initial confusion, disgust, and despair.
They share links to sites of relevance to pest removal.
They share personal stories, to help the poster not feel overwhelmed.
They offer firm, clear counsel on next steps.
And not just for these critters, either! Sometimes a newer user shares an insect that looks quite beautiful, and the poster is sure that they’ve struck upon a rare, delightful find… only for fellow commenters to have to burst their bubble: Sorry, kiddo—that spotted lanternfly is pretty, but Lycorma deliculata is an invasive species and the best thing you can do for its arboreal neighbours is to squish it on sight and report it.
Day after day, week after week, these forums never flag. Sure, most members would love nothing more than to share the simple joys of a whole whack of really cool bug friends with their fellow nerds—but the vast majority of posts are still basic pest identification tasks, and they are dutifully addressed by the community every time.
Do you see where I’m going with this?
In the last few weeks, post-US election, there have been plenty of articles and discussions on social media about next steps: how to go forward, and what to lean into.
A lot of folks, myself included, have encouraged people to think about local need, and how to make themselves useful therein. Every region will be different, of course: some folks are going to need more assistance with food and diaper banks, along with other necessities of life for families with small children and elderly dependants amid coming price hikes. Others are going to need to be connected with medical networks that can help them find essential healthcare even as state officials target certain demographics for denial of coverage and gut the quality of medical access writ large.
There will be legal resource needs, too, to advocate for neighbours in detention: whether from immigration pressures, after participation in protests, or because the state has criminalized aspects of one’s existence. And social needs, for everyday neighbours worrying about emboldened hate groups on the streets. Access to robust educational materials, insurance coverage after environmental disasters, and financial support in the wake of a job loss are also imperilled. In general, workarounds will have to be found, amid lower household incomes (from lack of overtime protections), rising prices (from tariffs), and further deteriorating news networks (from overall attacks on regulatory bodies, if not direct intimidation of journalists), to break the cycles of desperation and ignorance that drive people even further to hateful extremes.
In short, there will be a lot of work to do in the coming months and years—and it will often be very frustrating work, especially when one remembers that we could have been spending our time building on other, more wonderful dreams instead.
But it’s also not that different from the work we have to do in any community we love.
It’s not that different from how bug-nerds act, for instance, every day on their forums.
So this Monday, to get our “vibes right” for the work week ahead, here, are three core action principles from the world of online entomology, for you to figure out how best to apply to your local spheres:
Remember that the vast majority of your work will not be glorious. There is always a quality of repetitive, tedious labour to the most essential, everyday tasks that your action group will do, to keep your community connected and heard.
Honesty with bad news is part of how we get on to proactive next steps. Don’t sugarcoat or try to deny awful things when they’re happening. Rather, prepare and share the resources necessary to help people move from despair to action.
Celebrate joy whenever it happens, however rarely it does. There will be moments in the work that don’t feel like work at all, because of how rewarding they are. Cherish these. Use them to rebuild energy for all the other tasks ahead.
Maybe you’re not the sort to stop and talk to a bee on a routine basis.
Maybe insects in general aren’t your “thing”.
But whatever you do enjoy, you’ll probably have noticed that people in your niche communities have already naturally fallen into workflows that allow you to aggregate and effectively disseminate resources around core topics, and to answer novice questions quickly and effectively, as they arise.
The skills we might be called upon to use to help our neighbours in tough times ahead are no different, really. Yes, some of us might be coming as newcomers to worlds of outreach that existed long before us, but at the end of the day, everyone’s had that moment when they first had to ask a group of experts: “Please tell me this isn’t what I think it is…” (e.g., authoritarianism, cascading environmental collapse, the end of X social program or protected right under the law). And when the answer came, however brutal it might have been to hear what we were really hoping we wouldn’t…?
That’s when the real work began—together, with others who’ve been here before.
So it does again, here and now.
Be well, be kind, and seek justice where you can.
ML