Well, I can now fully understand why Ruud Kleinpaste does what he does, acting as an advocate and ambassador for the insect world. People are incredibly stupid when it comes to bugs. I can sort of understand the woman who’d lived for over fifty years in Texas and did not know that of the nine hundred-plus species of spider found there, only five have medically significant venom, and fishing spiders do look a little imposing even though they are not dangerous. This morning, though, I got a double dose of the stupids from some “moran” in Georgia who is:

a. Convinced that a robber fly deposited eggs behind her ear, causing swelling and infection, and;
b. Convinced that a caterpillar of a prominent moth in the genus Datana is, and I quote, “…the acid spraying kind found on our hazelnut tree.”

Robber flies are predators, and they certainly can deliver a painful bite if they are mishandled, but they don’t bite “just because”, and they absolutely, positively do not, not, NOT lay eggs under the skin of any animal at all, and that of course does include mammals such as Homo sapiens sapiens. The females lay eggs in earth or plants, and the larvae are in no way parasitic.

There are caterpillars that have toxins in their spines, but they certainly do not “spray acid”. Not here, not in Georgia, not even in South America or Australia, home of some of the world’s most dangerous insects. Spray acid…Jesus wept. I didn’t bother correcting that one because I didn’t want to deal with the ensuing anecdote about how a “friend of a friend” was horribly burnt by gallons of caterpillar acid and had to be airlifted to a trauma centre in Atlanta.

Holy Christ, how do people get so stupid? It’s got to be wilful ignorance because it definitely defies common sense. Acid-flinging caterpillars and parasitic robber fly larvae? Most people are indeed ignorant of the finer points of insect development and may not know the habits of specific groups, but goddamn, that’s amazingly stupid, even for Georgia!