Dancing Naked in the Mind Field by Mullis Kary

Author:Mullis, Kary [Mullis, Kary]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Vintage
Published: 2010-11-17T06:00:00+00:00

12

THE ATTACK OF THE LOXOSCELES RECLUSAE

I LEARNED WHAT would happen if I put my hand on top of a red ant hill. I was curious to know how it felt. I knew that if I kept my hand very still, the ants wouldn’t react. Ants don’t bite just for the hell of it. I neglected to consider how I would go about getting them off my hand. I should have had a bucket of water nearby to put my hand into when I was through with my experiment. Ants will float when immersed. Instead, I started scraping them off. Every ant on my hand decided it was time to bite. When I got home that afternoon, my hand was painfully swollen. My mother’s advice: “Don’t play with ants, Kary.”

After that, I was more careful, but I never stopped playing with ants.

My brother Robert and I would put insects together in a mason jar to see what would happen. We found out that if you put a black widow spider and a hornet in an enclosed jar, they go at it right away, and the hornet wins. If there is no lid on the jar, the hornet flies away.

A praying mantis is a fascinating pet and easy to catch. It is fun to watch her creep up on a fly and eat it. The praying mantis is delicate and masterful and quick. The fly scarcely knows what’s got him. The mantis starts with the head so as to enjoy the meal without distraction and ends with the wings. Probably the dry, scaly wings are the worst part. But maybe, considering the flourish with which she finishes them—stuffing them in her rotating mandibles like a Frenchman savoring the last of a good Cognac—I wonder whether the wings aren’t possibly the best part.

She then cleans her mouth parts with her legs, and her leg parts with her mouth. Very civil.

I’ve heard, but never observed, that a female mantis will do something similar to a male mantis whom she has lured to her side. She starts with the head. The decapitated male body, in spite of losing his head, still does what all male bodies will do if given the chance. Secure in the knowledge that she will lay fertile eggs, she finishes off the libidinal feast.

Once I gave a caged mantis a huge South Carolina moth. I opened the cage door when they started banging around against the cardboard. The moth flew, towing the mantis under its belly like a 747 taking the shuttle back to Cape Canaveral. The mantis swelled up like a balloon and looked like it might burst. It was eating the moth. I captured the moth again in one of its low swoops and pulled the mantis off. I put it back in the box, and the next day it was dead. Probably of frustration.

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