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Further Adventures of a Field and Museum Biologist [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']

Date: 2025-06-05

Being a field biologist does allow one to partake in interesting events. When I graduated from the University of Florida with a shiny new Ph.D. I was ready to settle in as a professor in some small university or college, teach zoology or entomology, and have a rather pleasant life with my new wife and perhaps children. I found the going pretty rough. Initially I was hired as a postdoctoral student by the late Willard Whitcomb, one of the most knowledgeable researchers in the use of native natural enemies of insect pests in the world. I was glad that I had the foresight to take a number of courses in entomology, knowing full well that jobs in pure biological science might not be easily available. However, money ran out and I scrambled to get work. I could have papered my bathroom with rejection notices, some even insulting! I was desperate. By this time my wife was pregnant with our first daughter and I really needed employment. Finally I got a note from our Department Head, the late Fowden Maxwell, that the late Ellis Huddleston, the head of the Department of Entomology, Plant Pathology and Weed Science at New Mexico State University, was looking for a postdoc for work on rangeland biocontrol. I called, was hired, and soon my wife and I were in Lovington, New Mexico, where I was to do research on a native range weed, Broom Snakeweed, which was considered a pest species. The cause of the problem was to some extent due to something I found few ranchers liked to acknowledge, i.e. historical overgrazing, which gave these plants disturbed habitats where they do quite nicely, thank you. In fact, if given half a chance, snakeweed can, in my opinion, be controlled by careful grazing and the encouragement of native herbivores, such as the root-boring long-horned beetle, Crossidius pulchellus, and the snakeweed grasshopper, Hesperotettix viridis. As I noted in an earlier diary, the USDA often sprayed for any grasshopper infestation that exceeded nine or so grasshoppers per square meter and as far as I know they did not make distinctions between grasshopper species.

Of course I was involved in many other activities and I have written about my work in the museum and outreach. But I had several other duties which included teaching, identification of arthropods for the public and government entities, and cooperation with other researchers by loaning materials to taxonomists who were working on some specific group of which we had specimens. Identification of specimens for the public and Cooperative Extension sometimes led to some interesting events. A woman brought a live insect that she had found on her bed and presented to the Extension Entomologist at the time. I happened to be near to his office and we both examined the creature. It was a Crab Louse! The woman was embarrassed and said that several people sat on her bed while they were using her computer. The Extension Entomologist and I both said that we only could identify the insect, not pass judgement.

A National Park employee sent me a very large specimen of Kissing Bug, which I identified as Triatoma gerstaeckeri, unfortunately a major vector of Chagas Disease, more common in Texas. I identified the first Red Imported Fire Ants and Japanese Beetles to enter the state, but I could not have identified the first Africanized Honey Bees because morphologically they are pretty much the same as the normal Italian Honey Bees. The USDA had the ability to tell the bees apart, but I didn’t.

I was brought numerous specimens by the public and Extension Agents that someone thought might be a Violin Spider or a Black Widow. Most were neither. On one or two occasions out of dozens the spider was indeed one or the other. However, most were Wolf Spiders, Southern House Spiders (Kukulcania sp. — with males being mistaken for Violin Spiders and females for Black Widows!), Squint-eyed Spiders (Pholcidae), and various others. I was, however, as far as I know, the only person in New Mexico who could identify the species of Violin Spiders in the Southwest (at least three in New Mexico and an additional three in Arizona.) Although I’m retired, I still get several request for identifications from people, especially for spiders, every year. I assume that task may be taken up by AI some day, but the results so far have been mixed at best.

While I was at the university I heard various stories about mishaps of various sorts. One was of a man who had some business in an old abandoned building. He went up to the second floor, as I understand it, walked around, but then heard an ominous loud buzzing. He peeked through a knot hole in the floor only to be horrified by what he saw- a very large colony of Honey Bees that were almost certainly Africanized! He found a container of pesticide and poured the whole container down the knot hole and than ran. The next day the building was surrounded by thousands of dead bees!

Early in the invasion by Africanized Honey Bees there were some fatalities of humans, and in one case, horses, but things seem to have settled down. Not long after the invasion, on a trip down the Camino del Diablo along the US-Mexico border in Arizona, our group ran into a large swarm, probably Afranized, that apparently had built a comb in a water tank. The bees were swarming around a watering vessel. We quickly left without disturbing them.

One humorous story I heard from the State Cooperative Extension Entomologist had nothing to do with insects or other arthropods, but involved a couple who wanted a beautiful lawn and so imported (apparently without fumigation! A definite no-no!) soil from their home state. Unfortunately, while the soil was very fertile, it also contained numerous spores and perhaps mycelium of the fungus Phallus impudicus. After a lot of watering, their entire lawn was festooned with what appeared to be numerous erect penises!

There were many more experiences that I had during my stint as a field biologist specializing in biocontrol of pest insects and weeds, but some have faded and are no longer with me and others would only be of interest to biology nerds like myself.

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