This chapter from In Your Nature by James Colbert, originally titled "Bugs and Snakes,"

is reprinted with the permission of the author and Hog Press.

​

 

“Two roads diverged in a yellow wood” 

—Robert Frost

 

Like many young humans, I was fascinated by the world around me, especially the many creatures that were not humans. Watching huge flocks of small birds flying around as the fall migration began. Reading about the incredibly large blue whales (Balaenoptera musculus) in my family’s set of children’s encyclopedias. Noticing that the two apple trees (Malus domestica) in our backyard, while both being apple trees, produced fruits that looked and tasted quite different. I was amazed by the diversity that I was surrounded by, though I certainly didn’t know the word biodiversity. I might not even have known the word biology, as science was seen as a rather low priority in the Catholic school I attended.

 

One summer, I started noticing “bugs,” mostly insects (Class Insecta), with a few spiders (Class Arachnida) and isopods (Class Malacostraca) thrown in for good measure. I fashioned a bug net from a forked stick and a pillowcase I borrowed from the linen drawer. I spent much of the summer catching butterflies (Order Lepidoptera), which, when you think about it, really should be called “flutter bys,” beetles (Order Coleoptera), and bees and wasps (Order Hymenoptera), which was a more high-stakes endeavor. 

 

I wasn’t yet familiar with collections-based research, so as I recall, all of these creatures were returned to the wild after inspection. Using a book about insects that I repeatedly checked out from the bookmobile, which parked once a week on the street corner west of our house, I was able to identify a few of the bugs I captured. My most impressive and memorable catches were an eastern tiger swallowtail butterfly (Papilio glaucus) and a huge cecropia moth (Hyalophora cecropia). But most of the creatures I caught could be identified, with the experience and resources available, only as a beetle, a moth, or a spider. 

 

Later in life, my daughter and I spent an entire summer making an insect collection. We were able to put names on many more of the creatures we captured, and we kept them in boxes to amaze grandparents and friends. My daughter did not grow up to be a biologist, but she doesn’t say eeeww every time she sees an insect either. Experience and knowledge of the natural world can often lead to interest and respect.

 

With all due respect to bugs, my true passion became reptiles and amphibians. Interacting with amphibians was easy. There was a pond nearby that my friends and I would walk to with the express intention of catching frogs. We didn’t do anything with the frogs; we just released them back to the pond. The point was to learn to catch them and be able to look closely at them as they blinked their large eyes. The frogs in question were mostly northern leopard frogs (Lithobates pipiens). 

 

My reflexes may be insufficient today, but I still remember the approach. Spot a frog’s head poking up out of the water. Get down on hands and knees along the very edge of the pond and approach the frog slowly. Slowly point one arm straight out, low, above the pond water, and then, very slowly, bend your elbow to bring that hand up behind the frog. Just before you think the frog is going to dip beneath the surface of the water and be gone forever, grab the frog as quickly as possible. The approach was not always successful but worked often enough to keep us entertained for hours. I’m guessing the frogs felt rather differently.

 

Interacting with reptiles was a different matter. Iowa does not have a great diversity of reptiles, and they are generally well concealed and considerably feistier than frogs. One of our most common turtles was the snapping turtle (Chelydra serpentina), a species that, in general, we actively tried to avoid, although we did find some hatchlings emerging from their nest on a sandbar one time that we examined closely. We focused on snakes. Most of Iowa’s snakes are non-venomous, and the venomous species are very rare. I have never seen a venomous snake in Iowa. 

 

Snakes are hard to find, so we’d walk around a lot in the summer woodlands and grassy areas of our part of Iowa seeking them out. By “them” I mean the one species of snake we could actually find: the common garter snake (Thamnophis sirtalis). We would occasionally catch one and began to develop a sense of what constituted good garter snake habitat. Sometimes, we’d bring one home and keep it in captivity for a while to share its awesomeness with family and friends. We’d also put sacrificial field crickets (members of the Family Gryllidae) into the cage to observe the feeding behavior of the snake. My father made me a snake cage with a latch on top. If one forgets to fasten the latch and the snake ends up in a laundry basket, one’s mother forbids any further captive snakes in the basement.

 

Sadly, I did not grow up to be a herpetologist. The road not taken. But my fascination with snakes continued. I have had the opportunity to hold a few species of snakes, including western fox snakes (Pantherophis ramspotti), northern water snakes (Nerodia sipedon), ring-necked snakes (Diadophis punctatus), western ribbon snakes (Thamnophis proximus), and tiny brown snakes (Storeria dekayi). I also was fortunate enough to observe a large prairie rattlesnake (Crotalus viridis) crawl slowly across a trail in the low elevation foothills of Colorado. Once my three-year-old son was safely perched on my shoulders, I was much more comfortable. But I had no desire to hold the rattlesnake. Still, there is something very engaging about being in close proximity to animals that could seriously injure or kill you.