Tuesday, June 8, 2010

June It Is

Yesterday was a typical day except ...
The severe thunderstorm warnings started in late afternoon.
The tornado warnings started in early evening
Blogger had troubles that prevented posting and/or commenting

In any case, Molly and I headed out for our walk after the storms passed at 9pm. And then it became clear that this was indeed June. Every patch of lighted ground we walked on was covered with spastic june bugs, natures proof of concept that intelligence is not needed for survival. For those unfamiliar with these beetles, they look like this:
They spend the first couple of years of their life as grubs underground looking like this:

Then they emerge from the ground in June as beetles to feed and mate.

June bugs are really stupid. They and fly to any lighted area and make amazingly loud buzzing sounds as they try to use their wings while laying upside on the sidewalk or up against your window screen. They are so dumb that they often crash on landing and end up upside down, buzzing like mad as they try to get turned back over.

Likewise they like to mate on the ground under lights. Exhibitionist? Maybe. Stupid? For sure. Every bug eater around gorges on them to the point that they won't touch them any more. And so the rest are safe to mate and propagate the species, continuing on with no evidence any intelligence. They make bugs like cockroaches look like tiny Albert Einsteins.

But the real reason I dislike them, beyond the fact that they fly directly into your hair and face, is the the horrible crunching sound they make as they sit on the sidewalk and you walk on them. They are so dumb they make no attempt to flee - they just sit there and get crunched. At least Molly dog is smart enough not to eat them. Our previous dog, a Basset hound, used to snuffle them up and come home with his jowls full of beetles. Nothing worse than a dog laying on the floor with beetles crawling out of the mouth. Ugh.

Time to listen to some music to get that horrible crunching sound out of my head.

3 comments:

  1. I hate June bugs. However down here they are a light brown. They don't look much like the picture you posted at all.

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  2. I only like my "beetles" if their names are John, Paul, George, and Ringo. LOL.

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  3. Ugh, I hate June bugs. Thankfully, I've only encountered them twice and both times when I was working on a major science project where we were building things outdoors in the evening. They really liked the lights that we put up and got in the way of us working. I'll never forget the horrible crunching and buzzing noise. Ick.

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