Ask An Entomologist: What Are They Good For?
November 18th, 2006 by Kelley
K. Downz (a.k.a., my baby sister):
Why the heck do we have bugs? They’re gross, they’re hairy, they’re ugly, and they are just plain annoying!!!!
Haha, well unfortunately a lot of people share the same sentiment towards insects. A lot of our ill-conceived notions and even phobias of insects come from 3 main reasons.
- 1. Cultural repulsion. We grow up being taught, purposely or not, that insects are bad, that they are filthy, and are often representative of third-world status (diseases such as malaria, sleeping sickness, etc.) or homelessness (lice, etc.). Insects are headliners in the media and almost exclusively for negative reasons (i.e., West Nile, agricultural pests, bed bugs in hotels).
- 2. Inadequate information. Again, the news media doesn’t help. And several television and movie shows don’t paint a pretty picture either. Take for example the television show Fear Factor, where the series is based on peoples’ fears of insects, among other things. There are several movies that are based off of arthropod fears, one of the most famous ones being Arachnophobia.
- 3. Personal experience. Lice, bees, wasps, mosquitoes, ticks, spiders…our interactions and experiences with them effect how we view them. If you have been stung by a bee or wasp and happen to be allergic, or had a bad reaction to a spider, horse fly, or tick bite, it changes how we feel about a lot of insects, often unfairly and for the worse. It changes our behaviors as a result, we don’t go to the beach because we are afraid of being bit by the horse flies, we avoid hiking in the woods because of the mosquitoes and ticks, and we avoid the basement because of the spiders and feeling of walking into webs.
Are insects all that bad and deserve the reputation they have?? Nope. At least not in my opinion. They are hairy and “ugly” for functional purposes, not as a scare tactic, per se. The hairs are actually sensilla, or sense organs, and help relay information from the environment (tactile, olfactory, auditory) to the insect’s central nervous system. I don’t know that I have ever seen an ugly bug, but the big eyes, big jaws, the spines and horns…all functionally based (i.e., better hunting, protection, and camouflage).
As far as insects being annoying and pesty, well, they are just going about their business. Trust me, they waste no time playing…each day is about finding food, finding a mate, producing offspring, and making it to the next day. Most insects really can’t even harm you. We would be very much out of luck without insects carrying about their daily routines as pollinators of most of our crops and plants or decomposers of decaying animal and plant matter. Insects serve as food for many animals and even many human cultures, past and present. So without them, many food chains would collapse.
We need insects, despite whatever fears they evoke in us.