Behavioral Ecology Symposium ’96: Sivinski 119

Behavioral Ecology Symposium ’96: Sivinski 119 THE ROLE OF THE NATURALIST IN ENTOMOLOGY AND A DEFENSE OF “CURIOSITIES” JOHN SIVINSKI USDA, ARS, Center for Medical, Agricultural and Veterinary Entomology Gainesville, Florida, 32604 Entomology has always looked outward and attempted to apply its knowledge for the public good. In many ways we believe ourselves to belong to a “service science”, standing in relationship to Zoology as Engineering does to Physics or Education to Psychology. A “pragmatic”, medical or agricultural application is in the back or fore- front of many of our minds as we pursue our interests in ion exchange across mem- branes or the relationship between light intensity and pheromone emissions. I would like to mention a neglected set of consumers of insect information, a grow- ing and urbanized population increasingly alienated from nature. One that only elec- tronically experiences the once familiar, but now rapidly disappearing or impossibly remote “ice-age fauna” it evolved with. It is my belief that we are “innately” interested in the things that have been important to us through our evolutionary history. There is an appetite for watching animals, uncovering the patterns of their activity, the se- crets of their lives. This appetite was critical to predicting the times and places deer could be hunted and where bear-wolves were likely to be hunting our ancestors (could our love of horror films be due to the pleasure of honing ancient anti-predator skills?— “You damn fool! Don’t go in that door!”). Many of us, myself included, spend freely to fulfill an emotional design and catch (and then release) unneeded fish. However, I would suggest that our appetites are not specific for the great mammals and birds of the Pleistocene’s prairies or any particular animals of any other place and time. And what animals are better suited for contemporary “hands on” natural history than insects? The pleasures of discovery are much more available to an insect observer than to a tourist watching a patch of elk hair disappear into a stand of pines. Some of us already devote some of our energies to “public” education, and while I can’t know other’s motives, it is my impression that much of it is done to explain our “business”. I would like to propose that we at least consider a change of heart; that we grant as much respect to the fulfillment of our culture’s emotional-spiritual needs as we do to the patent of an attractant or the publication of scholarly work. The natural historian, a person with a net, a flower press and a curiosity about the colors of beetles and the poses of flies, should not strike us as eccentric but as profoundly purposeful. The participants in this year’s Behavioral Ecology Symposium would all admit to being naturalists. In general, their topics concern themselves with “adaptive colora- tion” defined in its broadest sense. I will address the often fantastic ornaments used by flies to intimidate sexual rivals and woo mates. There will be a number of peculiar curiosities discussed, obscure insects of no economic importance, some described by bemused 19th century travelers and then forgotten. In light of the contemporary con- cerns of entomology, I would like to briefly defend “curiosities” and offer you a reason to spend your time pondering insects that will never take a bite from a cabbage or in- ject a spirochete. I perceive the sexual ornaments of flies to send a special message to human receiv- ers. They bring to us news of intellectual liberation. By that I mean that their combi- nation of the marvelous and the mundane reminds us that the world is a “very strange place.” Rare curiosities are not trite, but points where that strangeness has come to the surface—as we see the surface. In my studies I sometimes find myself falling into a pitfall that Darwin warned against, that I base my hypotheses on what seems plau- 120 Florida Entomologist 80(2) June, 1997 sible. Occasionally this model or that interpretation is dismissed, not on its merits, but because it is too challenging to the imagination. It is easy to become overly skep- tical and stodgy. If I catch myself, I turn to a specimen of the truly bizarre Achias (Diptera) I keep on my desk. Here is an animal I couldn’t even make up! Achias is discussed in the following, as are a number of other illuminating peculiarities. I hope that in addition to its other merits this symposium can serve, like a Zen parable, as an aspirin to treat a swollen and painful “common sense.” ♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦ 120 Florida Entomologist 80(2) June, 1997 ON RESEARCH AND ENTOMOLOGICAL EDUCATION, AND A DIFFERENT LIGHT IN THE LIVES OF FIREFLIES (COLEOPTERA: LAMPYRIDAE; PYRACTOMENA) JAMES E. LLOYD Department of Entomology and Nematology University of Florida, Gainesville ABSTRACT Research at institutions of higher education could be restored to at least a shadow of its original role through publication in a manner appropriate for immediate classroom use, with questions that pique and direct the interests and activities of students. Studies on basic natural history may be good candidates for such publication and an example is drawn from fireflies: Two woodland species show directional orientation in their pupation sites on the trunks of trees; one uses southerly exposure and the other occurs on the north side of smaller trees, and much lower on the trunks. These con- trasting positions have different thermal consequences, as demonstrated with a phys- ical model, which possibly have a role in reducing interspecific sexual contact or prey competition. Key Words: fireflies, behavior, life history, orientation, ecology RESUMEN La investigación en instituciones de educación avanzada podría ser restaurada parcialmente a su rol original a traves de publicaciones, de manera tal que las mismas puedan ser usadas para enseñar, con preguntas que atraigan el interés de estudiantes y que se relacionen con sus actividades. Los estudios de historia natural básica pue- den ser buenos candidatos para ese tipo de publicaciones, y un ejemplo del mismo se puede obtener con luciérnagas: Dos especies de luciérnagas muestran diferencias en la ubicación de sus pupas en los troncos de los árboles; una especie las ubica expuestas hacia el sur y la otra usa el lado norte de árboles mas pequeños y en la zona mas baja del tronco. Estas posiciones contrastantes tienen diferentes consecuencias térmicas, como se demuestra con un modelo físico, las cuales podrían tener un papel en reducir el contacto sexual o la competencia por alimento entre las dos especies. Behavioral Ecology Symposium ’96: Lloyd 121 In times past it went without question that the connection between research and teaching was that professors who did basic research maintained their intellectual in- terest in scholarship and passed on to their students an inquisitive attitude and love of the pursuit of knowledge as the essence of life and a life-sustaining spirit. Students thus became living repositories of what was then acknowledged to be a civilizing Ideal of western culture. An academician of the time translated the expression “publish or perish” as meaning that if he did not publish he had mentally perished, and in doing so was failing in his professional responsibilities to his students and his civilization. Over the past 30 years this fundamental understanding and connection has been eroded and forgotten, and a great deal of what is now done as “scholarly publication” has little direct bearing on a “civilizing education.” The essence of scholarly research is discovery and originality. In my experience, good students find it more interesting to actively participate in doing something that relates to discovery than to see someone else do it on TV. It is worth exploring to de- termine whether some primary publications in science could be written directly for the classroom, rather than for the narrow and generally disinterested “readership” of a scientific journal, even leaving some obvious refinements for students to manage. Original research papers could be used as texts, and beginning students have direct contact with researchers themselves—who could speak directly to them in their papers, and then perhaps personally through the internet, thus achieving a quasi-oral tradition of wide dimensions! Students would use an original publication as a source of information and to stimulate their imaginations for initiating their own school-time and life-time pass-time research. What once might have been a scarcely read, esoteric and expensive “contribution to . .” could be an informative introduction and back- ground with suggestions and questions for personal projects and class discussion. Though it pains me to admit it, fans of electronic publication may be the first to see the desirability and simplicity of doing this. There is another twist to this notion. Since I have chased fireflies for about a third of a century, I am often asked by citizens and reporters, by letter and phone, “what is happening to the fireflies, I don’t see them anymore?” Only people who once knew and pursued fireflies can ask such a question, because those who have never known them cannot miss them. Similarly, might not students who learn by reading and doing original research and see it in connection with their personal education, understand and care more about what we have long considered to be the intellectual values and strengths of an enlightened civilization? The irony, the flip side of this is that here I address this notion to many who have never seen a firefly. Obviously, some research subjects lend themselves to such instruction better than others, because of technical complexity and expense, but there are many available sources of inspiration.

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