Comments on: No place to sit down (or, why do the Efe let some insects live?) https://gregladen.com/blog/2013/01/13/no-place-to-sit-down-or-why-do-the-efe-let-some-insects-live/ Tue, 05 May 2015 18:08:55 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.8 By: The Truth About The Brown Recluse Spider – Greg Laden's Blog https://gregladen.com/blog/2013/01/13/no-place-to-sit-down-or-why-do-the-efe-let-some-insects-live/#comment-485485 Tue, 05 May 2015 18:08:55 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/?p=15468#comment-485485 […] There are definitely dangerous spiders, and the Brown Recluse is one of them. But the human reaction to spiders in general, and even to the species that do have a nasty bite, is almost always overblown, as least in Western culture. (See this for a discussion of attitudes towards invertebrates in a non-Western culture: No place to sit down; or, why do the Efe let some insects live?) […]

]]> By: Greg Laden https://gregladen.com/blog/2013/01/13/no-place-to-sit-down-or-why-do-the-efe-let-some-insects-live/#comment-485484 Wed, 16 Jan 2013 16:21:42 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/?p=15468#comment-485484 I was referring to swarms of flies, mosquitoes, etc. Ants are a whole different story.

I don’t know of something called fire ants in the Congo, but there certainly are “army ants” and there is a whole other discussion one can have about them. I put one small story about them in my novel (not work safe)

No, the guy put the insect off in the forest. I saw stuff that could not be easily identified all the time. I was mostly not doing insect research so it was not possible for me to report everything.

I brought a person from a musuem with insect skills to a site where I knew of a possible “new species” and it was., At another time, I helped a colleague collect night flying insects for the NYS museum. That was easy! I’m sure a few interesting things came up in that.

Finding a new species there is not hard. Knowing it is a new species, then describing it, requires expertise I don’t have!

]]> By: StevoR https://gregladen.com/blog/2013/01/13/no-place-to-sit-down-or-why-do-the-efe-let-some-insects-live/#comment-485483 Wed, 16 Jan 2013 02:48:18 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/?p=15468#comment-485483

“If any insect tried out the strategy of being in a horde some other insect would come up with the strategy of eating the entire horde, ..”

Um, fire ants? Pretty sure I recall seeing in a doco or three that you get swarms of ants that devastate areas they pass through in the rainforest although I guess I could be mistaken.

Ants are insects too I’m fairly sure.

Did you ever find out what the strange insect was – could have missed a chance to discover a new species and get it named for you! Were you able to photograph and record its details at all?

]]> By: Doug Alder https://gregladen.com/blog/2013/01/13/no-place-to-sit-down-or-why-do-the-efe-let-some-insects-live/#comment-485482 Tue, 15 Jan 2013 21:55:41 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/?p=15468#comment-485482 The part on why winter climes have swarms and tropical ones do not was very interesting. makes sense – thanks

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