The Bugs in the Backyard: Primed

I've been reading a book called Jane on the Brain, by Wendy Jones, which is an explanation of the neuroscience behind social intelligence, as illustrated by the characters in Jane Austen's novels. As sort of an aside, the author mentions something neuroscientists call priming, which is where you are thinking about something and suddenly you see signs of it everywhere; you learn a about something you've never heard of before, and suddenly it's in everything you read. This happens to me a lot, mostly relating to crossword puzzles, but in another instance, I once stayed for a night in the town of Elko, Nevada while on a road trip. I had never heard of Elko before I stayed there, but after that trip I kept seeing references to Elko, Nevada all over the place. It's a really small town, and suddenly, I kept seeing news stories about it. According to the book, "If you're thinking about a subject, the neurons that form ideas related to this subject are prepared to fire should you encounter it in the environment; they're 'on the lookout' for what you have been thinking about." So, before I stayed in Elko, before I ever heard about it, there were probably news stories that I just didn't pay attention to because I had no personal interest in the place; it was just another small town in the middle of nowhere in America, and didn't concern me. But one I had been there, and it was part of my life history, my brain pinged every time the name showed up in the newspaper.

So, what does this have to do with bugs, you're now wondering? Probably the most common question people as me about bugs (other than showing me pictures and asking me, "What is this?", a question I rarely have an answer to, because I still have very limited insect identification skills), is "How do you find these things?" The implication of the question is that they (the askers) go outside and don't see all of these tiny wonders, but I go outside and find tiny creatures that are blending in to their environment. My answer to the question is always, "Because I am looking for them." Which is true, obviously, I find them because I am trying to find them, and other people don't because they're not looking for them. But sometimes I amaze even myself by spotting things that are so small, and blending in so well, or so well hidden that I can't believe I found them. It's a bit of chance, really, because I can't look at EVERY tiny spot in my backyard. And I have trained myself to check out things that kind of look like nothing. But I had an "AHA!" moment when I read about priming in the book, because I think that's what's happening. I am primed to find the bugs. It's not just, "I'm looking for them," it's that my brain is ready to ping me when something that could be something falls under my view. Still, you don't even come close to realizing how incredible this is just from looking at the pictures on this blog. There is no way for me to show you how amazing it is to see a speck of something out of the corner of my eye and realize it's a bug the size of a pinhead. And I am not bragging when I say this, it's just a fact that I have trained myself and my brain for this (and I am fully aware I am probably walking past a million bugs every day without noticing them), but I find things most days that I think most people would walk right by without even registering there is a speck on that leaf, on that tree. And yet, in the grand scheme of things, what I hope for every day, the reason I do a bug walk every day, is because I am hoping to find something I am not expecting to see. I am primed to find it, but that doesn't mean I really think it's there.

And that brings us to Backyard Bug of the Day:

This is a tiny caterpillar. When I spotted it, it was dangling from a plant, but it was curled up in a ball, so it didn't look like a caterpillar, it just looked like a speck of... something. It was getting kind of dark, heading towards dusk with the clouds building, and yet, I saw this tiny thing, and knew it was something I had to look at closer.

For reference, this is how small it is.

I assume it's a caterpillar, but it's hard to tell how many prolegs it has, it is so small. It could be a case bearing caterpillar without its case (in which case technically it has been BBotD already recently, but it still qualifies again because it is in a different state, being caseless), but it could be something else. The head looks different, but that could just be because it is so small.