Future of entomology could be secure

I’m not a fan of spiders. I know spiders are essential to our environment. I know I’m much bigger than the average spider and I know most spiders don’t hurt people. I still am not a fan of spiders.
Being afraid of spiders is a common thing among girls. I remember children’s stories when I was small and the spider was always the bad guy, sneaking around and scaring children in the woods. Spiders are silent creatures and good at sneaking andpopping out when you least expect them.
There is one person I know who is not afraid of spiders, my four-year-old, budding entomologist granddaughter Wren. Wren revels in anything creepy, crawly, slimy or jumpy. Spiders rank right up there with fairies in Wren’s world. And fairies rank pretty high.
I had the chance to view the world from Wren’s eyes this past weekend when she and my sister Linda came to visit. Our first adventure was taking Wren for a tour of our new farm.
We started in the back yard and proceeded through the woods to the creek, looking for frogs. Our frog hunt presented only one find, a dead frog lying belly up on the creek bed. Most children would shy away from such a stinky, slimy specimen, but not Wren. Wren reverently sniffed the dead frog and touched the smooth skin, then allowed us to give it a final resting place near a rock.
Our next find was a slug, crawling on a leaf in the tall weeds. Wren picked the entire leaf, and carried it and the slug along until we got back to the house. The slug was given a new home in an old pickle jar, along with the leaf.
On Saturday, Wren, Linda and I packed into my car to enjoy the South Shore Pottery Tour. Wren’s first experience on the ferry to Madeline Island seemed fun for her, but there weren’t any creepy things involved. However later that day, Wren found the black cricket which had been living in my car for several days. It took her only a few minutes to catch the cricket and deposit it into an empty water bottle, also with a leaf to feed on. Wren carried her cricket through the rest of the pottery tour.
At home, the slug and the cricket took up residence, each in their own jars, in the kitchen. I’m not sure where the dead bee Wren picked up later ended up and I’m not asking.
My husband came to me that evening and asked, “how long do they need to stay in the house?”
“Until Wren goes home,” I said.
Luckily, we didn’t find any of Wren’s recent favorite spider, the Black and Yellow Garden Spider. She has them near her house and revels in seeing these patterned beauties which can grow to be over an inch long. The most we could come up with were a few Daddy Longlegs, and a small house spider making a web on my hedgehog fruit (which is supposed to repel insects.)
Luckily, Wren took her slug and her cricket home and my kitchen is now bugfree once more. It was probably a better deal for the cricket who would have ultimately died of starvation or heat stroke in my car.
For Wren, entomology isn’t a chosen profession yet. She doesn’t even know the meaning of the word, though we are trying to teach it to her. At present, entomology is more like an obsession for Wren, or a lifestyle. Her house is filled with bug boxes, jars and a dead bug collection. She’s been known to carry dead crickets in her pockets.
Hopefully, entomology is an obsession she will continue to foster as she gets older. I see her studying everything that moves, crawls, or slithers. She is a bright child, and if she continues to enjoy the world of bugs, she may grow up to be an internationally renown expert on these smaller specimens of wildlife.
I would be glad if this happened, because even though I know insects and bugs are an important part of our ecosystems, and need to be cherished and preserved, I still don’t like spiders. So, I’m glad there is someone out there who does, even if she’s only four years old.