Mystery Bug 2: in the Office

I got into work early this morning. At the doorway to the bathroom I frequent, I beheld an amazing sight. There was a sizeable, light-coloured insect in a state of disassemblage on the floor in front of the door. Picking through the wreckage was a slightly smaller dark insect with a chitanous carapace.

I wanted to stay and watch, but I also had to use the bathroom. After I finished my business, they were still right there on the floor. I hopped back into my office (next to the bathrooms), grabbed a piece of paper, and scooped them up for closer examination on my desk.

Of course, once they were placed on the desk, the still-living insect bolted for the nearest cover (a Compaq Presario v5000). I played hide and seek with it for about 6 minutes, but quickly tired of its survival instincts. What I wanted to see was its gluttony so that I could capture the feeding on camera, so I proferred the remnants of its meal, still on the paper, to the scurrier but to little avail.

Clearly it was not comfortable eating in plain sight where it preceived imminent danger. So I relocated them to the floor under my desk. Under relatively darker evirons, the black bug was content to return to feeding. I filmed it with a point-and-shoot camera (Casio Exilim Z55) that was woefully ill-equipped to handle dark and close-up work. Nonetheless, I faithfully captured the moment the best I could, partially lying on the floor of my room while some automated processes were running.

Fig. 1: Video of Feeding

Naturally, the mystery of the identities of the insects began to draw my attention after the novelty of watching one insect dig through the innards of another, less fortunate insect lost its appeal. For posterity, I took a few snapshots. Again, it must be reiterated that my camera is not built for close-up work, so sadly, the quality leaves a lot to be desired.


Fig. 2: Feeding in the Dark


Fig. 3: Really getting in there


Fig. 4: Nom nom nom nom

During the course of the composition of this post, I did some research into the insects I observed. The living one was easy enough to identify, as I had a specimen that had been stepped on, but remained largely intact (COD: thoracic rupture). It looked like a black beetle that lived on the ground; this was verified by a quick Google Image Search for "Black Ground Beetle".

The edible one proved to be more difficult, owing to several of its body parts being detached and likely missing. Its most striking feature, apart from its ability to separate into pieces, was the pair of filament-like structures protuding from its abdomen. Such a feature is fairly rare in the insect world, allowing me to rule out about 90% of them right away. From this point, I just had to look up pictures for known insects with tail-like structures.

At first, it seemed like Bristletails fit the bill, but closer inspection revealed that bristletails did not have the same kind of long legs seen in the photos. I've finally settled on Mayfly. Mayflies have the filamentous tails and long-ish legs seen in the photographs.

The ground beetle was likely scavenging the remains of a dead mayfly, as beetles generally have a tough time tackling airborne prey. Adult mayflies live only a couple of days, devoting all that time to reproduction. The wings were likely bitten off at the first opportunity to reduce dragging weight.

Approach at the Plate

When stepping up to the plate for an at bat, many things go through a hitter's mind; for the most part, the hitter will be thinking of what kind of pitch to look for and where to try to place the hit.

Successful hitters will not go up to the plate aiming for a home run every time. When a hitter starts to think home run, things fall apart. He will swing harder and more often, becoming very susceptible to deceptive pitches.

Instead, successful hitters focus on simply making good contact, and not try to force the ball into any particular direction. Strikeouts and bad pop-flies happen when hitters overthink at the plate, and try to swing for the fences. It takes a lot of patience and maturity to hold back that eagerness to go for one glorious swing. It is all about making the right swing at the right time.

I've been looking for a softball bat for next season. Knowing very little about bats, and having little opportunity to try different ones out makes it very difficult to find the right one. I've been researching and reading reviews to try to determine the best choice at my price range. Initially, I searched only with my eyes, focusing on things like the design, the colour scheme and how cool the name was -- shallow things.

There is more to a bat than that though. The reputation of the maker, the feel of the grip, the balance of the weight, the flex of the barrel and the durability of the construction are all important factors -- factors that must be tested through experience. The reviews only tell you as much as the reviewers know to tell, and even then, it is only their opinion. All the discernment and wisdom in the world cannot tell you how the bat will fare until you take the risk, pay the price and live with it.

On Tuesday, I found the one that I had been eying. It's not a very well recognized model, but those that know it recommend it highly. I gave it a good hefting, but decided to put it back on the rack in the end. It felt very nice, and the price was reasonable (20% off), but the timing wasn't right.

The softball season just finished, and every year, a new class of bats are forbidden. How silly would I feel if I ponied up the cash for something I thought was right, only to be told I cannot use it come game time? Not only that, I would have spent this year babying it, playing with it and growing attached to it, only to have it taken away from me in the end.

So I will continue to wait. Summer will come around again; by that time, the signs will be very clear about which bats are allowed. If it is still on the market, that bat might go up in price as more people discover how good it is. I'm not worried; I will likely have more income down the road.

Now You Know: Words I Didn't Know How to Say When I was 5

Well, there are a lot of words I didn't know when I was 5, but that was because I was ignorant of their existence. Instead, I will just give a short list of the words that I thought I knew how to say, but did not. Let's see if you can determine their real-world analogs.

Make-Be-Leaf

Bagina

You know how I'm right all the time?

Yeah, I hate it too.

Now You Know: Bats

Through the course of conversation at dinner with my family last night, I uncovered a few glaring misconceptions that some of my family members had. This is through no fault of their own; not everyone watches the Discovery Channel. Below is the only one I care to address today.

Misconception: Bats are blind.
Fact: Bats are not blind. Misconception #1 is a common one. It is a reasonable assumption to make for cave dwelling creatures with echolocation capabilities. By that same token of logic, dolphins also ought to be blind because they live in the dark ocean and also have echolocation. The truth is that not all bats echolocate. There is a suborder of the bat family, informally referred to as Megabats (how cool is that?), that relies on visual acuity to identify their food -- primarily inanimate fruits and flower nectar. The echolocating suborder, Microbats, are also capable of seeing, but rely more on sound than sight when targeting highly mobile prey in the darkness of night. There is a species in Belize that actually catches fish (video).

We had a bat in our garage for a few nights.