Category: Animals

I’m no entomologist, but even if I were, this guy would freak me out. The name itself is the stuff of science fiction, as this book cover suggests. The devil’s coach-horse is a beetle one hopes does not really exist.

The troubling thing is that this thing really does exist; I collected this specimen just outside my office door.

I thought at first this was a large ant. After closer inspection, I realized for that to be true, it would have to be an ant on The Mother of All Steroids. It measured fully one inch long, with jaws that could disassemble a Tonka Toy model dump truck with a single chomp.

I gingerly tried to gather the specimen in an empty plastic jar that used to contain Folgers coffee crystals. Suddenly, my mini-monster raised its tail straight into the air, as if to strike like a scorpion. At its end gleamed two white menacing tips, looking as though they could launch some sort of secret weaponry. Its mouth opened up like a Vise-Grip pliers, ready to sink into its next meal: me.

Dropping the Folgers jar, I clawed for the wall behind me, like a child clinging to its mother’s skirt; this one-inch mystery monster had me cornered. Pulse throbbing, I grabbed the disassembled Folgers lid and jar and did what any red-blooded male would do: I prepared to tromp him, leaving nothing behind but beetle pudding, a set of giant mandibles, and a tail full of venom or puss or poisonous juice that he would have injected into a vein. I imagined my death to be slow and painful, the poison probably first paralyzing my vocal cords as a precautionary measure, so that I could not squeal for help.

Then the unexpected happened. The cold-blooded vermin dropped his tail, turned, and attempted to retreat. It was now or never, life or death. I sprang at him, Folgers lid and jar in hand, and, mercifully, in his confusion, he did not kill me. He was my prisoner.

I kept my captive overnight, wondering just what chemical or radiation exposure had created my monster beetle.

What on earth was this miniature monster all about??

The Google search began. Eventually, I found him out:

“The other popular name for this beetle is ‘cocktail’, because of its habit of raising its tail like a scorpion when it feels threatened. It cannot sting like a scorpion, but it does have another, rather bizarre defense mechanism. At the end of its abdomen are a pair of white glands which can emit a foul smell. It can also squirt a stinking brown fluid from its mouth and anus.

“The ‘devil’s coach-horse’ name came from Irish mythology where this particular beetle was considered a symbol of corruption. It was believed to have the power to kill on sight, and that it would eat sinners. When the beetle raised its tail, it was thought to be casting a curse. The foul smelling fluid emitted added to the effect.”

Mystery solved, but no more comforted, I nervously peered into his big, cold, expressionless bug-eyes. I wondered what that beetle-brain thought about the kind of creature that was staring back at him.

And still, I pondered how he yet planned to end my life.

A heavy rainstorm pounded our neighborhood overnight. The next morning, worms covered the concrete and asphalt walkways like limp brown overcooked spaghetti.

It’s as if the alarms on their microscopic iSlimes all rang at once, simultaneously summoning their squirming bodies to the earth’s surface. Worms, in various states of consciousness, were everywhere. The writhing traffic jam extended for miles in every direction.

Whoever claimed that worms all look alike didn’t closely examine their wriggling bodies after a rainstorm. Some worms resembled the wet strings from mop heads, shorn from the mop and flung afar, strewn in lazy curls. Others crawled in straight lines, apparently driven by invisible GPS devices to arrive at pre-calculated destinations by the most efficient route possible.

Some fat ones had those mysterious wide and extravagant pink bands that apparently house organs that make cocoons for the eggs they lay. Somehow, they just look pregnant. There’s no worm quite so beautiful as a pregnant worm.

But why all the sudden worm traffic hubbub? How absurd was this night crawl in the rain!

Had they imagined they heard the Last Trumpet sound and hoped to not be left behind? Imagine if the entire human race imitated the behavior of these worms!

Even though worms are bi-sexual, they have to mate with other winsome worms. So, perhaps rainy weather proclaims Date Night in Wormtown, complete with a slimy pre-dawn happy hour to promote prenuptial courtships?

Some believe that the worm crawling is panic-driven. A worm in a burrow in a tsunami-intense rainstorm is a worm tangled in a knot and drowned. They’ve got to crawl out—and quickly—to stay alive.

These reasons for worms squirming from their burrows during rain are all conjectures.

Scientists tell us that the real reason worms locomote in the rain is to move to new lodgings. Since worms have to stay moist to stay alive, it’s the only safe time to crawl long distances—for a worm, that is—to explore new “digs,” so to speak. Digesting all those issues of House Beautiful magazine apparently persuades worms that the dirt must be browner on the other side of the ditch. They scurry over to check it out.

So what’s the real “skinny” on wormy wandering after a rain? There’s much conjecture, that much is certain.

It’s possible they are anxious for the future, their slimy stampede driven by disquiet and fright.

Maybe they actually do perform impassioned courtship rituals along quiet moonlight-splashed streets.

Who knows if they are panicked by fears of events unknown and the “what ifs” that could wash their lives away.

And maybe they do yearn to find that perfect life that extends just beyond their own ditch.

Perhaps the reason we try to understand these strange wormy behaviors is because, in some ways, there may just be a bit of worm in each of us.

The pier in Cayucos, California, six miles north of Morro Bay, juts 953 feet into the Pacific Ocean. The usual population of surf fishermen and their fish bait, pelicans, seagulls and pigeons share its heavy wooden planks. Visitors such as myself wander and gaze into fishermen’s plastic buckets, which are never full enough of today’s catch. We stare down a pelican perched on the railing, gaping at our presence. He reluctantly leaves, heaving himself into the air, working hard to gain altitude. Airborne, he will gain a perspective I will never know. Beating his wings against the rushing air, he will cruise and glide, unaware of my envy and also unaware of his gift of flight.

He will peer down on the beach and observe those in the yoga class beneath him who, through mental and physical discipline, seek a greater state of enlightenment. They pursue a way to break the limitations of physical bonds and a way to purify their minds from unworthy appetites. This platoon of practitioners sits in a sea of sand for long minutes, eyes closed, legs folded tightly. Intermittently, ever thoughtful, ever meditating, they arise, bend, and stretch one arm to the sand and one to the sky….

It is the same sky where, under watchful and wondering eye, our pelican hovers. The pelican above, the yoga practitioners below—the steadfast subjects of his interest. Sitting quietly and reflectively, then moving and stretching together, their bodies create a puzzling pattern to his eye.

His eye, however, is an empty one, staring to comprehend these earthbound mortals, while he, oblivious of their quest to be free, soars high and away.

Which is worthy of greater admiration—the driver who had the confidence to leave the dog in the Mini convertible with the top down (!) while grocery shopping, or the dog that trained its master to do the shopping?

When Blossom hears the bag rustle, she knows it can mean only one thing: almonds.

This is the last picture I have of her, taken on the final day that I saw her. She had dangled below a light fixture on an invisible trapeze of spun web. Each morning, she was there as I trudged to meet my Monday to Friday train to work. I chose to greet her from a short distance.

I have other pictures of her, but I prefer this one because it displays the bright hour glass on her abdomen warning unsuspecting bugs: “Your time is up!”

In human years, our relationship was brief. But in spider years—black widows can live up to 1-½ years—she would consider our association lengthy, if not intimate.

I knew nothing of her mate, the black widower. I doubt that she ate him. The fearsome reputation of a black widow dining at her mate’s ultimate expense is generally undeserved. More likely, she consumed most of her recent offspring, 750 eggs laid in a sack. Cannibalism thrives, allowing only one or two of the baby spiders to survive.

Now she is gone, and she has no memory of our daily rendezvous—no memory of me, even when I blew on her web, seeing which way she would scurry. It was always up, up into the safety of the light fixture.

• 

• 

The pre-dawn light left much to the imagination as I headed to work, trudging the two miles for my daily appointment with the 6:26 train. Headphones turned up, I heard little else. Until, that is, a bush suddenly — incredibly — hissed and snarled so loudly at me that it broke me mid-stride as I leaped away. The hissing, snarling, fierce bush spun me half around. I stared, disbelieving. Was there a mountain lion or bobcat lying in wait for me, hidden by the green growth?

I retreated, yanking the earphones out. What could this mean?

I hastened on my way, puzzled, and a bit shaken by the bush’s exploding ruckus. Where had I heard that ungodly sound before? Then I recalled — outside my back door one night, I exited to deposit garbage in the trash can. I had evoked that same hiss by shocking an opossum in mid-stride, rummaging for his dinner.

No, I had not discovered the burning, speaking bush that had appeared to Moses with the voice of God. Instead, I had been ambushed by an aroused and angry opossum, which I had interrupted from a deep slumber within the bush.

I thought back to an interaction with another opossum I had several weeks ago, while undertaking the same early morning walk to the train. I had come across an opossum, wounded, in the road, having been struck by a car. Largely incapacitated, he remained standing as best he could, staggering, jaw dislocated and face distorted from the impact with the car. I felt helpless, wondering what I should do.

At that moment, a pickup truck stopped. Out bounded a landscape worker on his way to the day’s first appointment. He asked about the condition of the unlucky marsupial. I drew a blank, over both his concern for the creature and his presumption that I should have a diagnosis.

Without hesitation, he carefully lifted the animal by the tail with one hand and gently cradled its chest with the other, as if this were his daily routine. He placed it, lovingly and out of harm’s way, by the trunk of a large palm tree. There, gravely wounded, it unsuccessfully attempted to climb the tree for protection.

Disappointed over my own indecision and lack of response, I had hurried onward toward my train, wondering all the while at the worker who had given his best to help the animal, for which I had no solution or comfort.

The lives of two opossums had invaded mine on two distinct and separate occasions. Several weeks ago, I had briefly met a dying opossum in the street for which I had no remedy. And today, the opossum-bearing bush had hissed angrily, scolding me, I imagined, over the demise of his brother. Their dying whimper and angry hiss are poor prophetic utterances compared with the awesome burning bush and the voice that spoke to Moses.

What do we make of such things? God had punctuated my workaday world with Mystery. If I could be so numb in understanding the workings of the world around me, how out of touch might I be to the world of people, and in responding to His concerns for each of us?

Life’s occurrences  can seem mundane. But beneath, there is that Mystery – the message within, if we pause long enough to search it out. The events are markers, meant for our ears to hear.