By the way

The bug came out from under the bed this morning, and I quickly put clothes on and took it outside on an envelope, so I didn't quite freak out as much, although then I started to go to work without my dentures in, so I was, indeed distracted. But I turned the car around and came back.

Ugh.

Okay, I like bugs more than most people

I loved entymology as a kid, did a whole project for 4-H on bugs, let mud daubers crawl on me when the other kids ran away, and won't even kill a spider.

But...

I can startle just as easily as the next person. I was getting ready to blog and was sitting on the bed with the study pillow behind me, when I looked down and a three-inch beetle was crawling up my Capris, obviously brought in from being outside a few minutes before.

I am embarrassed to say I freaked out totally, screaming bloody murder, for one. The computer, which was on a lap desk and pillow in front of me, almost went flying across the room, saved only at the last minute by some presence of mind that kept me from throwing the pillow and I managed to catch the laptop before it went crashing to the floor. Then I jumped up, spun around a few times, brushing at my pants, then took them off. Nothing. Nowhere. I examined the pants. I examined the floor. (Yes, I know, it's a bit like Hemingway's Old Man and the Sea, which I hated in school, one of the few books I've despised. Actually, I think it's the only one.)

Then I began to take the bed apart. It wasn't on the pillows, blanket, my bookbag, the study pillow, a stuffed animal. Finally I saw it on the sheet--and it crawled down behind the bed. So now it's lurking down there. It's about three-quarters to an inch deep, three inches long, and about an inch wide. Huge. Huge bug. And it's lurking behind my bed. Not good.

I am so glad no one saw me do this. Now, I'd better go retrieve my pants. I guess the only thing that would have made it worse was if it had been on my head or face, but still. *Shudder*

I think it was a Prionus laticollis or Broad-necked Root Borer. They're here in Kentucky and the females are huge. I do hope she doesn't lay any eggs inside!

Now that's a great movie premiss, giant winged ants sweeping down on humans

Okay, maybe not giant, because a hummingbird is fairly small, but for an ant, a hummingbird is 'ginormous'.

Hummingbird-Sized Ants Once Roamed Wyoming

It’s not a bird or a plane, but it is an ant the size of a hummingbird.

A winged ant queen fossilized in 49.5-million-year-old Wyoming rock ranks as the first body of a giant ant from the Western Hemisphere, says paleoentomologist Bruce Archibald of Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, British Columbia.

The new species, Titanomyrma lubei, is related to giant ants previously found in German fossils. These long-distance relatives bolster the notion that the climate of the time had hot blips that allowed warmth-loving giant insects to spread from continent to continent, Archibald and a U.S.-Canada team propose online May 4 in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

An ancient ant wing from Tennessee had hinted that big ants lived in North America during this time, says Torsten Wappler of the University of Bonn in Germany. “But complete preserved specimens were not known until Bruce came up with this beautiful preserved fossil.”

I want to be a paleoentomologist when I grow up. I love bugs. I love fossils. I love history. Where do I sign up?