This week’s non-fiction book of the week is Eat the Beetles!: An Exploration into Our Conflicted Relationship with Insects, by David Waltner-Toews. For lesson #2, click here.
Lesson #1: Entomology etymology
Insects make up approximately 80 per cent of all described living species; about a million of those creepy crawlers have been formally named, but some researchers say another several million still await minting worldwide.
Swimming in so big a pond, it’s hard to blame scientists who’ve taken a liberal approach to branding the things: Pieza kake, a fly, begs saying aloud; waspTinkerbella nana offers a more obvious nod; Aegrotocatellus jaggeri comes courtesy of a Rolling Stones lover; and Heerz Lukenatcha is just for you, kid.
Ellen DeGeneres, John Stewart, Stephen Colbert and Beethoven have all landed a hand on the insect walk of fame thanks to some creative entomologists’ etymology.
Tomorrow’s lesson: Nature’s helpers