Are You Cold, or Is It Just Me?

This blog is often an outlet for my wonderings, because the more I look around me at the tiny world, the more questions I have about the whys and hows of it. Though I ostensibly live in the same world as all of the bugs in my backyard, it feels like their world is completely foreign to me, because the way they live is so different from the way I live. So, I wonder about things. I have heard tell that reading this blog has a contagious wonderment effect, that after reading about the things I wonder about, other people begin to wonder about them, too, which is a good thing, I think, because wonder is... umm... wonderful. But hey, my readers don't just wonder about the same things I wonder about, they wonder about their own stuff, and sometimes ask me questions about it, which, of course, I don't have answers to, because I am not an entomologist, but they are good questions.

So, my sister's question is, do bugs feel cold? And my answer is, I have no idea. I guess it depends on what it means to feel cold, beyond the biological of having nerve endings that send messages to your brain (small as that organ is in a bug) telling it that's what's going on. But do bugs feel cold the way we do? Do they say, "Ooh, I wish I knew how to knit, because I could really use a sweater"? No, probably not. But do they, like certain people I know who live in much warmer states, find it unpleasant when the temperature drops below 70ºF? Or below 60ºF? Or 50ºF? How cold does it have to get before a bug thinks it's cold? Their behavior obviously changes as it gets colder - they go looking for shelter, but it is that because they feel the cold? Or are they, as might be the case, responding to the length of the days, with shorter days telling them that it's time to go deep under something to get away from frost? The cold weather may slow them down and make them lethargic - does that tell them to go for shelter, even though they don't feel cold as cold? I don't know. There are obviously bugs that are just hanging out somewhere only superficially sheltering, because they are still coming out every day.

Where was I going with this... Oh, so what I have read about luna moths is that they overwinter as pupae, and then emerge in the spring/summer after there have been a solid two weeks of warm enough days/nights to show that the winter is past and that they will not get caught out by a frost if they eclose. So that certainly seems like they respond to temperature. And we once found a caterpillar doing a frantic, spastic dance on the hot roof of our car one sunny summer day; it had probably dropped from a tree, and the roof was too hot for it (our car is a dark color). That was definitely the dance of a caterpillar in pain - we lifted him to safety when we realized what was going on. But what I wonder about in that case is, why should a caterpillar have a sensitivity to heat like that? There is nothing in the natural world that it is going to encounter that will give it such pain... well, maybe a hot rock? I don't know, but it was obvious that the caterpillar was in distress from the hot car surface.

So then, how do we know what bugs are feeling, if they are feeling heat, or cold, or any other sensation? How would you even test that? I mean, I am not going to start running heat and cold experiments on the bugs in the backyard, but I wonder how scientists would know what they are feeling?

'Tis a puzzlement, as the king said.

I don't have any pictures of bugs today. Today was not That Day, because I certainly saw bugs, but they didn't want their pictures taken, so I didn't get any pictures (except of Rain Gauge Spider, which I'll post at the end). I could have taken a picture of The Cricket Under the Board, or the other creatures that also live under there, but even though I checked under there, I didn't really want to disturb them. I have been wondering if I am effecting their chance of survival by lifting up the piece of wood, and exposing them when it is protecting them, so I am thinking I shouldn't do it every day. Cricket is still awake, though. But there were a few flies around, and those swarming bugs, so life goes on. I am beginning to develop a hypothesis that the backyard bug life never does go completely dormant. That even when it gets its coldest, there are some bugs hiding somewhere just out of sight and out of the cold, but they are awake, and ready to come out as soon as the sun warms the surface of wherever they are hidden. Some bugs check out for the winter, but I think maybe some don't.

So, I took a picture of a tiny feather instead:

The one unexpected - and unwelcome, because ew - sign of life in the backyard today was a trail of slug slime. I didn't look for the slug, though, because... ew.

I hope you have a wonderful weekend.

Sooo... Arachnid Appreciation:
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