By FRANK MCKINNEY
Before I started keeping tropical fish, I
began with creatures further down on
the evolutionary chain, although not
necessarily always lower on the food chain.
BUGS! Insects, spiders, creepy crawlers and swimmers, you name it.
To a 10-year-old boy, only dinosaurs rival
the appeal of bugs. And in Florida — where
I grew up — there are a LOT of bugs. Just
ask anyone who’s ever held or attended
a picnic or barbeque on southern summers.
The fifth grade found my appetite for
dinosaurs dwindling and so my newest
career choice at 10 years of age became
life as an entomologist. Studying insects,
and arachnids was my newest passion
which would help develop my enjoyment
and fascination with the natural world.
Every kid has their favorites, but for my money there were only three types worth keeping
and collecting; social insects like ants, predatory insects and arachnids such as mantids
and spiders, and underwater bugs, those marvels of ingenuity.
My uncle, another “Frank McKinney” in the family, kindly introduced me to the
art of collecting ants with a jar, some dirt, patience, a few stings, and some sugar for
food. The stings (from the ants, not my uncle!) were a reminder that we were trespassers
in the anthill by my grandmother’s house. I spent two weeks out of every summer at my
Grandma Beeson’s, where gorgeous Camellias and an orange grove dominated the
scenery. But my mind, like my eyes, was on the ground, collecting ants back in the field
behind the grove.
The ants only lasted a few weeks, since they had no queen to populate the colony.
However the glass jar held my attention during that time as the ants made the jar into
their new construction project. By wrapping dark paper around the jar below the soil level
for a few days after first capturing them, we encouraged them to build tunnels right up to
the glass so I could watch a cutaway of the nest.
Once they had settled in for a day or so, they set about doing what ants do. Work, work.
It never ceased. I think about that while I sit in my cubicle now. Electric bill, rent,
mortgage, food. Work, work. We’re not so different when you think about it.
By the way, my only real advice if you know someone who truly wants an ant farm, don’t
go the route of buying one for a Christmas gift. The ants have to be ordered with a
certificate included in the box, and they won’t ship until the weather changes in the
spring. That’s a long time to watch nothing happen.
My next venture into the insect world was a praying mantis which my brother and I found
in the bushes of our backyard that same summer. Typically, I had to know everything I
could about them. And the internet wasn’t even on the horizon then. I was amazed to
learn that some people around the world actually kept them as pets! They would tie the
mantis to a bedpost by a string to snatch away other insect pests like mosquitoes. A fine
idea, but that certainly didn’t happen in my room. A little plastic terrarium with a plastic
branch and a steady supply of crickets, flies and grasshoppers kept that praying mantis
happy. And it gave me a pet that I could actually carry around on my shoulder in the
house. As long as mom didn’t wander by.
One of my all-time favorite critters have always been spiders. Even to this day, I still
hesitate to carelessly end the life of an invading spider. If one happens to make its way
into my home, it usually gets swept into a cup and escorted outside.
In the swampy areas of Florida, spiders were everywhere. Hanging from tree limbs, over
waterways, on the ground. Everywhere.
There are really two kinds of spiders: those who wait for their food, and those who go
looking for it. The hunters. When I was a kid, I used to collect the hunters: wolf spiders
and jumping spiders fascinated me. The look of them through a magnifying glass was
worth the time invested looking under landscaping rocks in the backyard and bushes
around the house.
Before summer was over, my terrarium would house plenty of wolf spiders and lots of
very nervous crickets. Just the sound of the name, wolf spider, struck me as exciting. Hey,
I was still a pre-teen.
A couple of large jars would hold my other treasures: jumping spiders and some unlucky
flying lunch for them.
Jumping spiders interested me because of the great distances they can jump (relative to
a spider that is) and the great sight they have to find prey. A jumping spider can jump 40-
times its own length. Imagine if humans could do that? That would mean a
six-foot man could jump 240-feet in distance, almost a football field.
Tarantulas, by the way, were never an option in our house. I figured asking my mom for
one was pointless. You pick your battles, and that one was dead on arrival. And there
were a few kinds of spiders I personally wanted nothing to do with: the ones that can kill
you, and those Banana spiders which can grow about as big as your hand. The thought
of a Banana spider climbing up my arm literally creeped me out. Not to mention, their
bite REALLY hurts.
Of all of the types of insects I collected, probably the most fun were water bugs. Water
beetles, water boatman, whirligigs, and skimmers were all part of my collections held in
buckets and a small aquarium. This was a transition into becoming a tropical fish
hobbyist.
I collected waterbugs from mostly two spots: either around neighborhood street lamps
which attracted flying water bugs at night, and from my friend Billy’s aboveground pool.
Billy’s pool was the perfect hunting ground for water insects because it was never
maintained and even in winter it was thick with insects and a dark green algae tint that
obscured the bottom, a mere three-and-a-half feet below the surface.
The surface was always moving with whirligigs frantically spinning in circles on the
surface and sticklike waterskimmers defying gravity walking on their widely splayed feet
taking advantage of the water tension to stay above the surface. Billy’s mom hated that I
came over to collect bugs. Not that it had anything to me. It was just a nagging reminder
that her pool was unclean.
Luckily every pool in Florida has a net on a long pole for skimming out leaves. It was a
perfect tool for 10-year-old boys collecting water creatures.
Did you know that whirligigs see above and below the surface? That’s because a
separate part of their eyes are above the surface looking up while another part are set
looking down. Wise, considering danger for them lurks both above and below.
Below the surface of Billy’s pool was a flurry of hidden insect activity that periodically rose
to the surface as each of the insects came up for air before diving back down out of sight.
Many air-breathing water bugs that live below the surface have developed clever ways of
breathing. Either breathing through a natural snorkel or
carrying pockets of air with them on their travels.
Water Beetles trap air underneath the hard shell cases which cover their wings, allowing
them to root around on the bottom looking for food. Water Boatman trap the air on their
bellies with little hairs as they travel upside down, underwater, propelled by their long
back legs shaped like tiny oars. Some of the scariest-looking watercreatures are Giant
Water Bugs and Water Scorpions.
I mention scary because both types have pinchers on the front and have been known to
catch and eat small fish such as minnows, and scare kids standing at street lights.
However, despite the name, they do not have a stinging tail, but a snorkel made from two
compressed filaments that extends from their body to breech the surface allowing them
to breathe while submerged.
And before you think I had no friends except me, Billy and the bugs, just know that
collecting insects was actually a “chick magnet” for fifth grade girls. My mom told me
many years later of all the girls who periodically came to the door, offering up “bugs for
Frank.”
Of course, I was too busy with my head in an insect jar to know.
Before I started keeping tropical fish, I
began with creatures further down on
the evolutionary chain, although not
necessarily always lower on the food chain.
BUGS! Insects, spiders, creepy crawlers and swimmers, you name it.
To a 10-year-old boy, only dinosaurs rival
the appeal of bugs. And in Florida — where
I grew up — there are a LOT of bugs. Just
ask anyone who’s ever held or attended
a picnic or barbeque on southern summers.
The fifth grade found my appetite for
dinosaurs dwindling and so my newest
career choice at 10 years of age became
life as an entomologist. Studying insects,
and arachnids was my newest passion
which would help develop my enjoyment
and fascination with the natural world.
Every kid has their favorites, but for my money there were only three types worth keeping
and collecting; social insects like ants, predatory insects and arachnids such as mantids
and spiders, and underwater bugs, those marvels of ingenuity.
My uncle, another “Frank McKinney” in the family, kindly introduced me to the
art of collecting ants with a jar, some dirt, patience, a few stings, and some sugar for
food. The stings (from the ants, not my uncle!) were a reminder that we were trespassers
in the anthill by my grandmother’s house. I spent two weeks out of every summer at my
Grandma Beeson’s, where gorgeous Camellias and an orange grove dominated the
scenery. But my mind, like my eyes, was on the ground, collecting ants back in the field
behind the grove.
The ants only lasted a few weeks, since they had no queen to populate the colony.
However the glass jar held my attention during that time as the ants made the jar into
their new construction project. By wrapping dark paper around the jar below the soil level
for a few days after first capturing them, we encouraged them to build tunnels right up to
the glass so I could watch a cutaway of the nest.
Once they had settled in for a day or so, they set about doing what ants do. Work, work.
It never ceased. I think about that while I sit in my cubicle now. Electric bill, rent,
mortgage, food. Work, work. We’re not so different when you think about it.
By the way, my only real advice if you know someone who truly wants an ant farm, don’t
go the route of buying one for a Christmas gift. The ants have to be ordered with a
certificate included in the box, and they won’t ship until the weather changes in the
spring. That’s a long time to watch nothing happen.
My next venture into the insect world was a praying mantis which my brother and I found
in the bushes of our backyard that same summer. Typically, I had to know everything I
could about them. And the internet wasn’t even on the horizon then. I was amazed to
learn that some people around the world actually kept them as pets! They would tie the
mantis to a bedpost by a string to snatch away other insect pests like mosquitoes. A fine
idea, but that certainly didn’t happen in my room. A little plastic terrarium with a plastic
branch and a steady supply of crickets, flies and grasshoppers kept that praying mantis
happy. And it gave me a pet that I could actually carry around on my shoulder in the
house. As long as mom didn’t wander by.
One of my all-time favorite critters have always been spiders. Even to this day, I still
hesitate to carelessly end the life of an invading spider. If one happens to make its way
into my home, it usually gets swept into a cup and escorted outside.
In the swampy areas of Florida, spiders were everywhere. Hanging from tree limbs, over
waterways, on the ground. Everywhere.
There are really two kinds of spiders: those who wait for their food, and those who go
looking for it. The hunters. When I was a kid, I used to collect the hunters: wolf spiders
and jumping spiders fascinated me. The look of them through a magnifying glass was
worth the time invested looking under landscaping rocks in the backyard and bushes
around the house.
Before summer was over, my terrarium would house plenty of wolf spiders and lots of
very nervous crickets. Just the sound of the name, wolf spider, struck me as exciting. Hey,
I was still a pre-teen.
A couple of large jars would hold my other treasures: jumping spiders and some unlucky
flying lunch for them.
Jumping spiders interested me because of the great distances they can jump (relative to
a spider that is) and the great sight they have to find prey. A jumping spider can jump 40-
times its own length. Imagine if humans could do that? That would mean a
six-foot man could jump 240-feet in distance, almost a football field.
Tarantulas, by the way, were never an option in our house. I figured asking my mom for
one was pointless. You pick your battles, and that one was dead on arrival. And there
were a few kinds of spiders I personally wanted nothing to do with: the ones that can kill
you, and those Banana spiders which can grow about as big as your hand. The thought
of a Banana spider climbing up my arm literally creeped me out. Not to mention, their
bite REALLY hurts.
Of all of the types of insects I collected, probably the most fun were water bugs. Water
beetles, water boatman, whirligigs, and skimmers were all part of my collections held in
buckets and a small aquarium. This was a transition into becoming a tropical fish
hobbyist.
I collected waterbugs from mostly two spots: either around neighborhood street lamps
which attracted flying water bugs at night, and from my friend Billy’s aboveground pool.
Billy’s pool was the perfect hunting ground for water insects because it was never
maintained and even in winter it was thick with insects and a dark green algae tint that
obscured the bottom, a mere three-and-a-half feet below the surface.
The surface was always moving with whirligigs frantically spinning in circles on the
surface and sticklike waterskimmers defying gravity walking on their widely splayed feet
taking advantage of the water tension to stay above the surface. Billy’s mom hated that I
came over to collect bugs. Not that it had anything to me. It was just a nagging reminder
that her pool was unclean.
Luckily every pool in Florida has a net on a long pole for skimming out leaves. It was a
perfect tool for 10-year-old boys collecting water creatures.
Did you know that whirligigs see above and below the surface? That’s because a
separate part of their eyes are above the surface looking up while another part are set
looking down. Wise, considering danger for them lurks both above and below.
Below the surface of Billy’s pool was a flurry of hidden insect activity that periodically rose
to the surface as each of the insects came up for air before diving back down out of sight.
Many air-breathing water bugs that live below the surface have developed clever ways of
breathing. Either breathing through a natural snorkel or
carrying pockets of air with them on their travels.
Water Beetles trap air underneath the hard shell cases which cover their wings, allowing
them to root around on the bottom looking for food. Water Boatman trap the air on their
bellies with little hairs as they travel upside down, underwater, propelled by their long
back legs shaped like tiny oars. Some of the scariest-looking watercreatures are Giant
Water Bugs and Water Scorpions.
I mention scary because both types have pinchers on the front and have been known to
catch and eat small fish such as minnows, and scare kids standing at street lights.
However, despite the name, they do not have a stinging tail, but a snorkel made from two
compressed filaments that extends from their body to breech the surface allowing them
to breathe while submerged.
And before you think I had no friends except me, Billy and the bugs, just know that
collecting insects was actually a “chick magnet” for fifth grade girls. My mom told me
many years later of all the girls who periodically came to the door, offering up “bugs for
Frank.”
Of course, I was too busy with my head in an insect jar to know.
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