- Cultural Entomology!

How insects have
affected humans,

throughout history
and across the world.

So why a fascination,

why an obsession with insects?

Why am I not talking about
frogs or birds today?

I'll focus on the question

of why insects have so
profoundly affected humans.

In different
traditional cultures

and modern societies
across the globe.

The why!

Why insects?

First thing we could look
at is their ubiquity.

They're almost everywhere!

Anybody know where
insects do not exist

on planet earth?

I have a book on the
insects of Antarctica,

so no, they do
exist in Antarctica.

Good guess.

Others?

Where can you not
find an insect?

There are whole studies
on aquatic entomology.

Close!

They're all
freshwater, generally.

So, pelagic zones, deep
oceanic environments,

you're not going
to find insects.

But you are going to find
their close relatives.

So, insects are recently
discovered to be,

one lineage within Crustacea.

The crabs, the shrimp,
the arthropods.

Jointed legged, exoskeleton
bearing organisms,

of which insects are the
most speciose lineage.

So, aside from deeper
oceanic realms,

insects are all over the place.

So, ubiquity.

If we look at this pie chart,

literal pie chart of
the diversity of life

that I created.

What is the biggest piece
or slice of the pie?

Insects.

And if this spider web is
representing arachnids,

and this, the rest
of crustaceans,

then arthropods, this
one phylum of animals,

represents a huge
swath of the diversity,

of life on the planet.

At least of described
species on the planet.

So they're everywhere.

And if insects are
all over the place,

we're going to run
into them all the time.

And what is the expectation,
the consequence of that?

They're going to
permeate our culture.

Whether it be war,
politics, literature,

music, art, food.

List goes on.

So, we can start with
insects as symbols.

So Mormons, have
adopted the honey bee,

as a major symbol
throughout their religion.

And then Egyptians
use the honey bee,

scarab beetle within
their hieroglyphics.

And if you've ever
driven through,

and I've only met a
couple people who have,

but if you ever driven
through Enterprise, Alabama,

then you may find this
Hellenic sculpture,

holding aloft,
believe it or not,

a crop pest insect,
a boll weevil.

So, once this boll weevil
had eradicated crops,

what did this town
of Enterprise do?

In an enterprising fashion,

they moved to different
crops and technologies,

and that saved them.

So, the symbol of success?

Was their crop
destroying boll weevil.

Insects appear on our currency,

and this is just a
shabby, teeny, selection

and I've got others up here,

of paper bills and coins
some millennia old,

like the bee on my
ring, 2000 years old.

In which insects serve
as symbols in currency.

And postal stamps!

Including this popular
insects and spiders series.

From around the world again,

featuring our friendly
neighborhood insects
and arachnids,

within phylum Arthropoda.

(suspenseful music)

And what we wear!

Now, I cheated a little bit.

This robotic spider dress,

represents an
order of arachnids,

a different group of arthropods.

But all the others,

including Corrie
Moreau's tattoos

in the lower right,

with ants adorning her body

because she's a curator of ants

at The Field Museum.

Victoria Rivers took
a shot of that shawl,

a Vietnamese shawl that includes

buprestidae, metallic,
boring beetle elytron.

Those sheath-like forewings

that can be iridescent metallic.

And then modern wears.

Like these dresses that
reflect moth and butterflies.

And anybody recognize
the feature film here

in the lower left?

My mother is raising her hand.

Yeah, what?

No, over there.

Yeah, that's not my son.

Hunger Games.

And yes, that is my
son in a bee outfit.

And up above, upper-left,

these are molas, fabriqué
and reverse fabriqué works

by the Kuna of the
San Blas Islands in Panama.

And often times, they feature
natural history subjects.

Including insects and
their folklore tales.

This is a human-headed fly.

So, even on what we wear.

So ubiquity, can
serve as one mechanism

for inspiring us to have
insects affect our culture.

Next, we can thing of
negative consequences.

So, here's a beautiful
illustration by?

Anybody know?

Yes, Robert Hooke!

One of the earliest
microscopists,

and this was presented
in Bubonic Plague time,

Black Plague times.

And so Samuel Pepys diary,

mentions seeing
things like this.

And, you have to believe

that this might have
affected people's hygiene,

seeing the giant
organisms that are

in your clothing.

So, impacts can include disease.

Where insects can serve
as vectors of disease.

Or destroyers of crops.

And simply, causing pain.

And I'll start with pain.

So, a colleague Justin Schmidt
just published this book,

The Sting of the Wild.

And here's his famous
hymenopteran pain index scale

on the left.

So if there is a member
of the wasps, bees, ants,

order of insects that sting,

and all a stinger is,

is a modified egg laying device.

So no males will sting,

only females deliver
the potent venoms.

So, instead of laying an egg,

Schwoop!

They're laying something
else in your body.

And so, the pain index ranges

from this one, two, three, four.

And, the most severe
includes Paraponera clavata,

the bullet ant.

Or a pepsis tarantula hawk wasp.

Now, my other
colleague Michael Smith

at Cornell University,

decided to do his
own pain index scale,

with just the honey bee.

And subject, yes
was Michael Smith.

And, you can imagine
what were some

of the more sensitive regions

of the Michael Smith bow plan.

But, I was surprised
to learn that the tip

of the nose was ridiculously
painful for him.

So, these two
gentlemen together,

shared the Ig Nobel
Prize this past year,

for this insightful work.

So, beyond pain,

far more serious
than short term pain,

is vectoring of disease.

So, here's an image
of a man with a flea

and we can talk about
how Europe collapsed

population wise.

In some regions half
the population lost,

to the flea bearing the pathogen

that causes the Black Plague.

We can also look at Napoleon
down there, defeated!

At least, visually
in this display

in Bern, Switzerland,

by a louse.

So, lice can serve
as vectors of typhus.

And Napoleon's march on Russia,

failed partly due to
the freezing cold,

but as a consequence
of the cold,

soldiers that dropped dead,

had valuable clothing to
keep their compatriots warm.

So what do you do?

You grab a coat, with lice,

potentially bearing typhus,

on your own body.

And so Napoleon famously,

retreated in defeat.

Probably at the
tarsi of a louse.

Who is the greatest
killer of all animals

on the planet?

Let's not blame Anopheles
mosquitoes directly,

because they suffer
the consequences

of plasmodium single-cell
eukaryotes in their bodies.

But, this genus
of mosquito serves

as the vector of malaria,

and some are more
potent than others.

Like Plasmodium falciparum,

the deadliest of the
mosquito malaria parasites.

So, biggest killer
vectored by a mosquito.

And you have others,

Yellow fever, Dengue fever

or breakbone virus.

So, Dengue, the virus
that causes Dengue,

is very similar, same group,

as the one that struck
us very recently,

and you've probably
been reading accounts

of the Zika virus.

So this has swept through,

it was in the Old World,

but it's swept
through from Brazil,

all the way north
through Mexico,

and will certainly
pose a problem

in the southern United States.

It has been definitively linked

to microcephaly now.

Condition with a smaller brain,

and other complications
prenatally.

And who's the vector?

The same mosquito
that vectors Dengue

and some others, Aedes aegypti.

So we can go past the negative,

and enter the more positive.

So, what do insects offer?

Because, actually I
should pause there.

I highlighted some nefarious,

hexapod foes of humans.

But they're a tiny,
tiny, tiny minority.

If there are say a million,

or close to a million
described species

of insects on the planet.

How many actually
vector diseases

of consequence to humans?

Very, very few.

So, even within mosquitoes,

some of them don't suck blood

to feed their young.

Some of them are carnivorous
on other mosquito species.

And no male will
suck your blood,

they might suck
nectar from flowers,

but I guess there's
a theme here,

females causing some issue.

Alright, so here
we've got an image

that I adapted from
a cave painting

near Valencia, Spain,

of a honey robber.

Some say she's a human female,

that has climbed up and
grabbed comb for the honey.

Stealing, and this was produced,

probably about 8,000 years ago.

So, our association with
insects are pretty ancient,

and here is physical
evidence of this association.

And yes, it was made
into a Spanish stamp.

Let's look at couple of
other attributes of insects.

From a human perspective.

Pollination.

If you like almonds,

so many other nuts and fruits,

a variety of crops,

that humans tend to
embrace or even require.

Bees, and specifically
Apis mellifera honey bees,

can be responsible for
the efficient pollination

from male parts to female parts.

They're the sexual agents.

So, aside from honey bees,

which of course have
great ancient ancestry,

several thousand years.

There are bee keeping relics

from Israel and certainly Egypt,

that show this association
of aphid culture.

But you also have native bees.

Because the honey bee's been
called the white man's fly,

because it's only
about 500 years ago

that it was introduced
to the New World.

We had eight families of bees,

there are over 6,000 described
species on the planet.

We had a wealth,

and we still have a wealth
of bees, native bees,

that aren't Apis mellifera.

And these little straws
and sticks and bricks,

offer holes that you can set up

in your front and back yard,

that attract these native bees,

which are also really
valuable pollinators.

So not only do you have
the pollination of plants,

but bees can offer honey,

if they're honey bees proper.

Wax, propolis, and other
beneficial products.

Another product inspired
by insects, paper.

All these books aren't
made of linen anymore,

these books are made of paper.

Ground up pulp from trees.

And it was Réaumur
who first was inspired

by Polistes paper wasps

that build their own
paper nests, right?

So all of this is from,

not Polistes paper wasps

but closely related
vespid wasps.

And so the paper,
is simply masticated

or chewed up, dead wood.

You find a log, chew it up,

add salivary agents,

and then lay layer after layer,

sometimes you'll see
multiple colors in the paper.

So, they make that as the basis

for holding
their young, their offspring,

holding food,

and sometimes as a
protective envelope.

Well, this gentleman looked

at this a couple
of centuries ago,

and said hey, we
can learn from that.

And that was the
inspiration, years later,

but the inspiration
for using paper.

Food!

So, in some parts of the
world this is a staple.

If you think of,

some of you eat beef and pork.

Inefficiency, I yell!

Because the amount of
protein per dry mass,

is ridiculously low.

Some cases 16 percent or so.

But dry up, pulverize a
cricket or a grasshopper,

or a giant water bug?

You might have 40,
60 percent protein.

And if you have termites,

and I've got some up here,

if you'd like to check them out.

You've got a lot of
lipids and fatty acids,

that could be great calorically,

if you're in a
desert for example.

So, food can be super important,

from a human perspective
looking at insects.

So, this Man Eating Bugs

is a couple that travels
around the world,

and looks at the
different dishes,

traditionally
incorporating insects.

And this runs through
the beneficial,

nutrients, micronutrients,
protein counts

of different insect groups.

This is a real thing!

So, future prospects of looking
at worldwide consumption.

Their sustainable, potentially.

And they can feed communities

that can't afford other
Proteinus sources of food.

So there are movements
around the world,

for creating mass
product of ground up

or pulverized insects as food.

And I have to ask,

who here has eaten an insect?

Raise your hand high.

Okay, now all of you
raise your hands,

'cause you've all eaten insects

whether you know it or not!

If you've drunken glass of
orange juice for example,

the Food and Drug Administration
allows a certain parts

of fruit flies and the rest,

within that respected
glass of orange juice.

And that's the same
across the board,

you've all eaten insects.

Vegans, carnivores alike
have eaten insects.

And, that can include not
just the little random bits,

but the natural coloring agents.

If you look at the
final ingredient,

of something that looks scarlet.

It may be carmine,

or cochineal, or
cochineal extract.

And I've got a lot of it here.

Cochineal extract,

is simply the pulverized
bodies of true bugs

that feed in Sonora, Mexico

on opuntia, prickly pear cacti.

So, they feed and the females
are just basically blobs.

You don't see legs,
you don't see ey--

they're almost nothing.

So people for centuries
thought they were worms,

that are called
vermes or kermes,

or seeds.

Until someone saw oh
there's a winged male,

that's flying and
mating with a female.

So you've got these
little gloppy insects,

that if you crush just
with your fingers,

you'll get this
bright-reddish scarlet.

And that's been used to
dye a number of things.

The Navajo rugs for example,

have extracted
tinctured fabrics,

for their rugs.

So, Mauna La'i,

Ruby Red grapefruit drink,

a lot of beverages can
include cochineal extract,

and we'll come back to
cochineal in a moment.

My mother's here,

as a gift to my wife,

she gave the Game of
Thrones recipe cookbook.

And what is one page?

Locusts, as he seized the bowl

and began to crunch
them by the handful!

So, even in this
fictitious realm,

insects are being consumed.

Other products.

Cochineal coupled with lac,

as in shellac from lac bugs.

So you can find
on certain plants,

these true bugs,

that will exude this
protective layer of lac.

Scrape that off, you can use it.

Traditionally anyway,

now shellac is made
of different things,

but that's what made
these albums, the LP.

There is some cochineal,

dying sausage,
cosmetics, lacquers,

all manner of things.

Traditionally, the
British Redcoats.

Red, because of this
rare organic dye

from the New World.

There was something
far less potent

in root feeding true
bugs in the Old World.

So, to capitalize
on this royal red,

it was very expensive.

And upon penalty of death,

no one could
extract the secrets,

let alone the physical bodies,

the manifestations
of this scarlet.

It was only until 1777,

that a Frenchman snuck out some

of these cochineal
with a Puntia.

And he tried to place
them in different areas,

and it only stuck in
the Canary Islands.

So you'll find some cochineal
being reared elsewhere.

Medicines, whether
folk remedies,

or tried and true remedies.

Here are some supposed
anti-cancer medicines,

based on insects.

At least anti-bacterials.

Then you can co-opt
the very sensitive,

sensory modalities of insects,

to your favor.

So, for example in this case,

you can use honey bees
that smell so well,

that they can be trained
to detect anything

from gasses emitted
by landmines,

to in this case the
presence of tuberculosis.

There has been a German
airport that has boxes

with three honey bees,

used to sniff out
bomb making material

that comes through
the luggage security.

You could invest
in the VASOR 136,

in order to have 34 cartridges
filled with honeybees,

to find whatever
you train them to.

And it's pretty
easy to train a bee.

Basically, you give
them sugar water,

tap it to their antenna,

they'll extend their tongue.

Now, couple that with an odor,

what do you have?

You've got a Pavlovian
response eventually,

when you remove the sugar water

and just present the odor,

and bloop!

Instead of drooling,

they stick out their tongues.

Well, if you see a bee
stick out her tongue,

if you trained it
to a landmine odor,

and you present it
with landmine odor,

ding ding!

It's a good indicator that
you've got a landmine.

Aw, man!

This is just a, really
a teeny short list.

We could focus the entire
time on biomimetics,

engineering inspiration,

from insect morphology
and physiology.

In the upper right,

you've got
micro-flying machines,

hexapodal robots
out of Georgia Tech

and other places.

To the left you've
got forensics,

say detectives basing the
age of a decomposing body

on what arthropod
stages are found present

on or in that body.

This has helped
solve many a crime.

And then, you've got
on the lower right,

a means of staving off elephants

from tromping through villages.

Set up a honey bee colony.

And that buzz,

the sound of the bees,

keeps the elephants away.

Next, look at these
freshwater dwelling,

immature insects.

These can be really
excellent indicators,

as for the quality
of the waterways.

How about sports?

Recreation.

Warfare, defense.

In this case,

legend has it an Asian prince,

witnessed a mantid with
the speed and strength

grabbing a cicada and
then consuming it.

So, he adopted that
speed and strength

in a martial art,

and there are different forms

of mantis style kung-fu.

Now, the legs on a
mantis are thin and weak,

so he added monkey style legs.

So mantis style kung-fu,

is really fasc--

You wanna come up, I'll
show you what to say.

You sure?

On mantis style kung-fu?

Come on up here.

Come on up and punch me.

You know you wanted to.

You sure?

You wanna come up?

Alright, come on.

Okay.

So, if you're practicing
monkey style legs,

it'll be very different
from what I'll show,

so I'll just stand up straight.

But if you punch me,

so one thing I can do is
just parry that, right?

And I can grab that
and pull forward.

So this raptorial foreleg,

is incapacitating this arm,

and then you can do all
kinds of things, right?

So it's this first sparring,

and this grab that
mimics that mantid.

Now, you're on TV.

(laughing)

So, mantis style kung-fu,

just one of many ways
that insects have affected

how we physically behave.

Here's one of my favorites.

So, founded the Boy Scouts,

famous individual.

Here's a book, My
Adventures As A Spy.

So during war-times,

what did Sir Powell do?

He would collect butterflies,

he would collect insects.

Nobody thought twice
about it, right?

Even if he approached
fortresses.

So his sketches in his notebook,

innocuous sketches
of Lepidoptera,

the order of moths
and butterflies.

Were actually quite precise

ground plans of
different fortresses.

With symbols representing
fortress guns,

field guns, machine guns.

So he could very easily exit,

even if his field
notebooks were examined,

with all their beautiful
insect drawings.

Humans using insects for evil.

Well, maybe not evil.

Then we can think about
lessons of social insects.

If you look at,

say tens of millions
of years of evolution,

honing the traffic
plans of ants,

the foraging plans of bees,

the swarming behavior
and efficiency

of finding a new hole
in a distant tree

to start a home.

Then maybe we can
better understand

how to more efficiently
organize our cities,

our traffic plans.

And so you've got a number
of papers that do this,

Ant traffic rules, above.

And these are models based
on natural, empirical data.

Then you've got
Thomas Seeley's book,

Honeybee Democracy,

which the final chapter,

cleverly examines,

not only how honeybees operate,

but how humans operate
in certain respects,

and what are the similarities
in decision making.

Wisdom of Bees, can we
learn from social insects?

Okay.

Why insects?

The final category,

I'm sure we could all come up

with many more categories,

is the aesthetic sense,

the beauty that
comes with insects

inspiring us.

So, I'm gonna take a
biologist's approach

to this beauty.

So, why do flowers exist?

It's not for humans.

It's to attract pollinators.

Opportunistically
we love flowers,

we tend to breed flowers

because we really are attracted,

to what has evolved,

to attract different species.

Well, if we look at
gorgeous insects out there,

iridescent wings of
a Morpho butterfly,

the multiple colors
of a grasshopper,

the orange, black, white
banded Monarch butterfly.

What are we looking at?

We're looking at
either something,

that is display for courtship,

for sexual selection purposes.

We could be looking at
camouflage, crypsis.

Looking like your environment,

so you look like a leaf
or something like that.

Or, aposematism,
warning coloration.

You'll remember
yellow-black bands,

or red, or high
contrast patterns.

If you take a nibble
and it tastes awful.

So, if you sequester noxious
chemicals in your body,

and you can just display
that willy-nilly,

you can potentially be safe,

if organisms that would
serve as potential predators,

avoid you and your kin,

or at least those
belonging to a similar ilk.

You can procure benefits,

by looking like others that
are chemically defended,

even if you're not
chemically defended yourself.

And we can find beauty

in these patterns
and these colors.

So, do you confer benefits?

Let's look at a couple
of human derived examples

inspired by insects.

Anybody guess what that
insect is on the left?

This is from a thousands
year old petroglyph.

So think four bigger legs,

and raptorial teeny forelegs.

What do you think those
circles represent?

They're not wings,

at least by some
interpretations.

Ripples on the water?

Maybe Gerridae, family
of water striders.

So this is really ancient,

on the right you've got
Joan Miro's le crayon,

The Cricket.

An abstract piece
based on the cricket.

And we happen to
be fortunate enough

to have the world's
greatest artist in the room,

happens to be my
mother right there.

And she produced
this mars beetle.

So inspired thinking cosmically,

with respect to
insects as symbols.

Then you've got Max
Ernst and Salvador Dali.

Thinking in terms of
surrealism and dreams,

and how influences from insects,

can permeate a dream.

So I don't know if
you can spot it,

but right above that
pomegranate on the lower right

of that Salvador Dali image,

what do you have?

You've got a little honey bee,

which purportedly
inspired her whole dream.

So an artist can
have great impact

in a variety of ways.

Cornelia Hesse-Honegger,

from Switzerland,

is an artist,

she's an environmentalist,

she's an activist,

and she's become
somewhat of a scientist,

at least an amateur scientist.

What she looks for,

is mutated insects primarily.

Sometimes leaves of oaks,

but primarily mutant insects.

That had been
distorted physically,

by radiation output
according to her studies,

produced by nuclear
power plants.

Even the cleanest ones,

as in Switzerland.

But she's gone to Three
Mile Island, Chernobyl,

and collected insects and shown

that you've got
a number of them,

that have been
affected adversely.

What does that say about humans?

So she makes claims,

to try to affect
our decision making

in terms of sustainability
in our energy choices.

Bill Logan in New Jersey,

produces these
exquisite fly ties.

When I first saw one,

a friend of mine just said,
"Here, look at these photos.

You gotta go to
this art exhibit."

And I looked and said, "Well,
these are beautiful photos

of stone flies."

And I thought there must
be something more to it.

And I looked through the photos,

and then one showed
a ventral view

with a big hook.

So he'll spend over
a hundred hours,

traditional fly tying methods

to produce these hyper
realistic fly ties.

And he'll make them
look really realistic

in terms of some damage.

Like that circus,

that posterior
appendage on the right,

broken off as you
might see in nature.

Conscious choice.

Kazuo Kadonaga,

Japanese artist who
looks at sericulture,

traditional methods
of producing silk

and in this case he
produced 110,000 cocoons

that he heat treated or killed,

after moving those
crates all around

so they'd be evenly distributed

to make commentary
about sericulture,

and human culture.

Then you've got Steven
Kutcher in California,

and he'll dip the
tarsi of beetles

and other insects in paints,

and he'll collaborate
with his insect friends.

And create these canvases
of abstract works,

that he can somewhat
manipulate by presenting light

and other things.

One of my favorites
Harry or Henry Dalton,

was a Victorian microscopist.

And what he did,

was he'd take a pig bristle,

and pick individual scales,

these are modified, seedy,
hair-like structures

on another insect
that form the scales

that form the color
patterns on butterfly wings.

He'd take individual
scales with a pig bristle

and arrange them with
diatoms and still lives

with no adhesive on slides.

And some of these
exist in the world,

they were shown at the
Museum of Jurassic Technology

and here are some of those
still lives close up,

and far away.

Jan Fabre produces these
works made of entire insects.

So instead of just the paint
tracings by Steven Kutcher

or the individual scales
as in Harry Dalton's work.

Here, Jan Fabre will
take entire beetles

and form these
exquisite displays.

Jennifer Angus at UW-Madison,

produces geometric displays

with entire insects as well.

And she has a present display

in the Smithsonian right now.

Catherine Chalmers.

When this was published

this painted American cockroach,

Periplaneta americana
on the right,

as the cover of Art in America,

I thought oh, this
is interesting,

well, let's see what letters
come up in the next issue.

And all the letters that
were published were like

how could you do
that to a cockroach?

I thought, wow probably people
who wouldn't think twice

about crushing the
same cockroach.

But, something about her work,

brings a humanity,

to these very distant relatives,

these cockroaches.

Such that whether or not
she's painting an insect

or creating faux
executions of cockroaches,

no cockroach was harmed
in any of these exhibits,

she switches it out
at the last minute

with a carcass of an insect.

But, people respond really
strongly, viscerally.

Because they see a
humanity in an insect.

And if you fear
honeybees for example,

it's a different
scene if you put a dab

of paint on one,

and watch that individual.

Then it becomes more
of a soap opera.

And then there's Hubret
Duprat in France,

and he takes individual
caddisfly larvae

that often times build,

depending on the species,

these protective cases
around their bodies.

Sometimes out of pebble,

sometimes out of sticks,

and what he'll do

is he'll take the back end off,

and poke the posterior
end of the larva.

She'll wiggle out,

ditch that case,

and now offer gold
spangles and pearls.

I know it's a tough
collaboration,

because as you can
see in the upper left,

they can be really finicky.

So, uhh forget that one.

Ugh, forget that one,

and then maybe this one.

I'll incorporate with
cephalic silk glands

to glue it essentially,

or sew it on my
cloak, on my case.

Hubert Duprat.

The Stouts in the U.S.
do a similar operation

out of their garage
producing earrings.

And Yukinori Yanagi,

World Flag Ant Farm
and other projects,

are linked ant farms,

made with colored sands,

to form flags.

The ants will distribute,

the colors of those flags.

Breaking down the
political boundaries,

that we've artificially
imposed upon ourselves,

in the world.

You also have insects
inspiring music,

dance, literature.

And in a moment,

you're going to hear a
traditional folk song,

by the Dong in China.

(singing in foreign language)

Okay.

What insects do you
think they're mimicking?

The heat of the
summer in the trees.

Cicadas.

(singing in foreign language)

Males calling with
tymbals, females.

Lower right, modern
dance in China.

Center, a theatrical performance

of Kafka's Metamorphosis.

On the left, made into a
film directed by Teshigahara

is Kobo Abe's
Woman of the Dunes,

one of my favorites.

An entomologist roams
the deserts in Japan.

I won't send any
spoilers your way.

And then music Syd Barrett.

(singing in foreign language)

Graeme Revell actually
incorporating insect songs

in his electronic music.

And then I put that up,

just because one of
my favorite artists.

You've got Tessa Farmer,

with her little fairies
made out of insect wings

and vine roots,

forming these spear wielding,

tirade or hoard,

atop other insects or animals.

(singing in foreign language)

(classical music)

Film!

There are hundreds of films

that feature insects
central role.

Ladislas Starevich,

a Russian who produced
these beautiful,

stop-motion animations.

So imagine insects
with wire armatures,

he moved them do-do-do-do-do,

frame-by-frame-by-frame.

And he'd have
these little scenes

like this grasshopper
painting a scene,

and these tragic
tales at Christmas,

you can find all of
these on YouTube.

(crickets chirping)

I'll only show a bit of
Isabella Rossellini's

Green Porno.

- A queen bee.

I would be very fat,

and do nothing
else but lay eggs.

(eggs bouncing)

The unfertilized eggs,

will hatch my sons.

The fertilized eggs,

will hatch my daughters.

If I were a daughter,

I will be sterile

and I would do all the work.

- She has a whole series of
these inspired by insects.

We can also think
about how insects

have affected education.

How can you use insects
to talk about behavior,

ecology, evolution,

principles in a
generalizable way.

So, a field guide I
illustrated with John Abbot.

Looking at bees' knees,
orchid bees' knees,

to distinguish you can educate,

using insect models.

Lorenzo Possenti in Italy,

produces these exquisite
gigantic insects,

he devotes his life to this.

In order to teach about
insect not only morphology,

but diversity and sometimes
in ecological contexts.

Science!

Insects as model organisms.

Of course there's
drosophila melanogaster,

the fruit fly.

That has been the staple

for better
understanding genetics,

including in humans,

because so many of our
genes have been conserved.

Alright, it's time to focus
on the Driftless zone,

to bring the relevance locally.

So how are insects
really relevant,

right around this area.

And I just picked a
handful of examples,

I could've included a lot more.

The first, we talk
about bee products.

So, bees are kept all around
the Driftless zone area.

Pollination is very important,

honey is very important,

wax can be very important,

and even deodorant
can be very important.

This is a local company

that includes bee
products like wax.

And it comes in an
unscented variety.

Sports, taking on
the image of a swarm

because who wants to face
a swarm of anything, right?

And, this national lacrosse
team outside of St. Paul,

existed from 2004 to 2015.

But, obviously they
swarmed off to Georgia.

So, we no longer have that
in the Driftless zone.

But we do have mayflies.

And I've been snapping
my fingers in dismay,

every summer I'm
doing work in Panama

and people write me and said,

have you seen this it
appears on a radar,

there's so many mayflies.

And I snapped photos of
them filling gas stations.

Piles and piles of mayflies.

Order Ephemeroptera,

short-lived, winged insects.

Because in some cases
while they may live weeks,

months, as immatures.

It can be as short as a day,

as an adult.

So, they better reproduce
and reproduce fast.

So, I looked up through the
National Weather Service,

what they say about
mayflies and I love it.

They show the mayfly,
they talk about it,

and I put a star here,

mayflies are sensitive to
gross organic pollution,

and their presence is
good news ecologically

because it means that
pollution such as sewage,

is not present in large amounts.

So, again here's an insect
serving as a bio-indicator,

and kudos to the
National Weather Service

to point out the attributes,

even it's from a human
perspective of insects.

So what does that affect?

Well local recreation, fishing.

So, some of you may
have passed this nearby,

the Driftless Angler.

You can hire people
to take you on tours

in the Driftless
zone for fishing.

And this culminates in
a beautiful piece of art

in the form of both a
science and an art book,

based on mayflies of
the Driftless zone.

So, before I totally wrap up,

a project that I'm
really excited about,

and it's a long term project,

involves a database on
cultural entomology.

So students of mine
are helping me build

what I hope will be the
largest resource online,

focusing on all these
different categories

of how insects affect humans

and have throughout history
and across the world.

The idea is,

that maybe an historian,

a student, a teacher,
a scientist, an artist,

can search by insect.

Popular common name
or scientific name,

region of the world.

Maybe you wanna
look up mosquito,

Africa, World War II
and see what comes up.

Either in art or politics.

The idea is you'll have
this potential Wiki,

where people can
contribute en masse someday

in the future.

So, that's what
we're working on now

to bring all this together.

So, at the end after questions,

you're more than welcome,

I'd love to give
you a little tour

of a teeny sample of tangible,

cultural entomology
items I've brought.

But I'd love to take questions,

and your thoughts
about how insects

have affected your lives.

Thanks a lot for
coming, first of all.

Really appreciate it.

(applause)