Book of the Week: Wicked Bugs

27 Oct 2013

For a Halloween themed book, I picked Wicked Bugs by Amy Stewart. It covers things you hope to never encounter. The book is a bit about being grossed out while learning a thing or two. I learned that Brazilian wandering spider venom can cause priapism. There are stories about each the bugs to keep it interesting. It is amazing how the lifecycles of different organisms are linked. Toward the middle of the book, I became very appreciative of sanitation. I was distracted and frustrated by the book quoting itself. It makes it harder to read. This might be more of a problem in the eBook. Bot Fly [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23eimVLAQ2c&w;=420&h;=315] Mosquitos

Monkeys in Venezuela search for a four-inch-long millipede called Orthoprous dorsovittatus so that they can rub the millipedes into their fur and use their secretions to keep mosquitoes away.

I put mosquitos near the top of the list of horrible insects. Besides spreading botflies, they are a vector for diseases such as malaria. Julius Wagner-Jauregg is probably the only person who liked malaria. He got a nobel prize for treating syphilis with malaria. Monkeys have developed mechanisms against mosquitos. CSI and Cocaine If you’ve watched CSI or some another forensics show, there is probably a scene where the forensics person identifies how long the body has been dead by the stage of the maggots feeding on the body. They may throw in a twist about how the temperature affected the progression of the maggots. Apparently, cocaine makes the maggots grow faster. Haven’t seen that added to any plots yet. Grasshopper and Locust **Locust are just grasshoppers.