At Least I'm Not A Beetle
Unfortunately for everyone else, I
begin most of my conversations these days stating, “So I was listening to this
podcast…” at which point I’ll bring up a generalized talking point regarding
mirror touch synesthesia or Limetown or surrogacy in Israel. Naturally, once I’ve opened a topic for
discussion on which I am only marginally informed, the sad soul listening to me
will ask a question clarifying Lizzie Borden’s motives for slaughtering her
father and step-mother, at which point I’ll have to admit that don’t remember
all the details, just the gory or inappropriate ones.
I have my favorite podcasts – The Moth, The Memory Palace, Invisibilia, Modern Love, This American Life, and Stuff You Should Know, but in the last several months, I’ve begun listening to
Radio Lab with increased consistency. Their
Valentine’s Day episode, which I only recently got to a month late, was about
beetles, of all things. Romantic, I
know. But I was surprisingly fascinated
by the discussion.
These beetles, Deathwatch Beetles,
have a pretty bleak life ahead of them.
About 1/4 of an inch long at full maturity, they are relatively
insignificant and don’t venture far or experience much in their limited
lifespans. After spending up to a DECADE
eating themselves free from the wooden timber surroundings in which they are
hatched, these beetles will pupate (a
truly abhorrent word) and emerge as mature beetles. At this point, the beetles’ sole purpose is
to mate, and like all living organisms, pass on their genes. These male beetles have a startlingly short life
as an “adult” and as they do not eat at this stage, they will starve to death
within a matter of weeks. (Again, the
perfect Valentine’s tale.) To add insult to injury, they are also mostly
blind. In order to locate a female
beetle in the nearby vicinity, male beetles will knock their head against the
timber on which they reside in a quick succession of five or six taps. If a female is near, she will respond with
five or six taps of her own, and they’ll play this coy little hot-and-cold
tapping game until they locate each other. Again, the female's main purpose at this stage is to lay eggs and pass on her genes.
However, scientists have found that the female beetles can be quite
selective in terms of with which beetles they will choose to mate, even when
there are no other options available.
Sometimes the female beetles will even die without passing on their
genes if the current candidate(s) are unimpressive and too scrawny. I mean, dramatic much?
But also...how embarrassingly
relevant is this? The parallels between
the mating of the Deathwatch beetles and dating as a human did not escape me.
Limited prospects? Check.
Females remaining staunchly selective despite limited prospects? Check.
Selective females willing to die without mating because of limited prospects? Check.
However, I am (fortunately) not a
Rita Skeeter beetle, and for that I am grateful. So while dating may be dumb and frustrating
and positively bleak, I’m not blind, I didn’t have to pupate, and I’m allowed to eat as an adult.
So, to sum up: no matter how bleak
my your dating situation may appear, perhaps it helps to remember that someone
(or more appropriately, something)
probably has it worse than you. #perspective
(But also don’t be surprised if I
talk about beetles on my next date. Or
polyamory. Or medieval treatments of
staph infections. There’s obviously more
quasi-formulated discussion topics where this comes from.)
PS. FLIRTING:
I'll have to look into some of those podcasts!
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