I was witness to some pretty weird/interesting/cool (all
wrapped into one) nature activity going on as I both walked into work on
Wednesday morning and left work on Wednesday evening. As I walked from the
parking lot in Conway Regional Medical Center, where I’m a cashier in the
hospital cafeteria, I witnessed what I thought to be a rather large bee
feasting on an upside down, deceased locust, with another dead locust close by
its side. I found it both unique and horrifying at the same time, but didn’t
really have time to stick around and watch as I stepped to the side of the
flying insect’s meal in an attempt not to attract it to myself from its current
prey.
Immediately upon seeing this I felt it would be a bad omen
for the day at work. The day turned out to be extremely busy and long and
certainly wasn't one of my favorite days ever at work, but it really wasn’t as
bad as I expected. I figured that I was going to be the dead locust and the hospital
would be the hungry bee; you know, because I think of allegorical shit like
that when I’m sleepwalking into work.
After clocking out from the long day’s occupation I made the
long trek to the very end of the parking lot and much to my amazement right in
front of my eyes was a bee again (maybe the same one, maybe not) in flight with
its dead locust prey attached to it, which was quite an impressive feat
considering that the dead insect body was bigger than its hunter.
These images stuck with me and interested me enough to look
this up when I got home. The primary thing bothering me about the entire thing
was that I didn’t realize bees were carnivorous. Turns out bees aren’t
carnivorous. After doing some Googling I found an entomologist who answered
another person’s question (who must’ve been witness to similar strange sights
as I) on Yahoo! Answers. The insect that I thought was a bee was actually a type
of wasp simply called the cicada killing wasp (do you realize how much of badass
you must be of a creature to be named after what you do/kill?). Oh, by the way,
the dead insect wasn’t a locust either, but a cicada, which proves that I’m
certainly no expert on insect life forms.
According to this entomologist the cicada killing wasp is a
real bastard (OK, that’s my word, not his). He said: “The wasps dig a burrow in
the ground, go off and sting and paralyze a cicada noisily strumming away high
in the trees [this is what I witnessed before work] and then bodily fly it back
[this is what I witnessed after work] to the burrow and carry it down in
inside. The burrow has several chambers and several paralyzed cicadas are
placed into each chamber (sounds like the serial killer of the insect world).
One egg is laid on the last cicada placed in the chamber and the chamber is
sealed.”
The relationship between the cicada and the cicada killing
wasp is one that I think really represents life for myself and probably most of
us in this world we live in. Some days you’re the cicada killing wasp
conquering all and nothing can stop you and some days you’re the cicada being
stung and paralyzed by all that surrounds you in life. Unfortunately, for me
(and I’m sure most people I know) there are a lot more days that leave me
feeling like the cicada than the cicada killing wasp.
 |
| Some days you're the cicada killing wasp, but most you're the cicada. |
No comments:
Post a Comment