Dytiscidae and a bit of poetry and art

Simply stated, I caught three Western pond turtles this week after five days of work and last month, I captured nine turtles in three days. I reflected on this as Kate and I were preparing to pull the traps out of the water I was not sanguine about the results from today. Alas, as one my favorite bards John Donne would write, I ardently bemoaned my sorry state - after all he is a biologist's poet. After all, he did write a sonnet about a flea - only a biologist with a heart could do such a grand job! Of course, Burns did write of a louse.

THE FLEA 

by John Doone

MARK but this flea, and mark in this,

How little that which thou deniest me is ;

It suck'd me first, and now sucks thee,

And in this flea our two bloods mingled be.

Thou know'st that this cannot be said

A sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead ;

Yet this enjoys before it woo,

And pamper'd swells with one blood made of two ;

And this, alas ! is more than we would do.

O stay, three lives in one flea spare,

Where we almost, yea, more than married are.

This flea is you and I, and this

Our marriage bed, and marriage temple is.

"The Scream" by Edvard Munch.

Summarily I was chastised after my dramatic statement by Kate as she began offering repeated reminders of why natural systems will not respond to my focus on my goal and yield to my prevailing production “mentality”. Further, she said because each of the turtles we did catch are new to this year’s survey, the results this week something to rejoice. 

It is vexing to have a brilliant and able colleague to remind me of the obvious facts I overlooked. Chagrined over my behavior and my line of thinking, the image of Edvard Munch’s painting “The Scream” came to mind. Then I set about sliding down the steep bank and into the water to retrieve the hoop traps and the activity traps I set out yesterday. 

Alas, there was something to celebrate even though I or really “we” caught no turtles today. We caught “Giant Green Predacious Water Beetles” (Dytiscus marginicollis) in the activity traps.  These large, dark green, elegant beetles are exciting to watch and finding them was unexpected. However, because they do need to breathe air regularly all four we caught had expired. It would be much nicer to net them and then photograph and video them, and later release them. 

“Giant Green Predacious Water Beetles” (Dytiscus marginicollis)    

Note the musculature and appendages of this female - clearly, this powerful swimmer is adapted to 
grasping and holding prey. Like a large mammal, its muscles contracted after death making it necessary to use pins to hold the legs apart. 

 

However, I will honor my two specimens by examining them in detail and photographing them. Yes, honor them! Some organisms are particularly amazing and elegant AND even a biologist like me, who is accustomed to collecting specimens, can be struck by the miracle of a living creature - and wax sentimental. 

Oh, by the way, I am stuck in this mode of speaking, thinking, and writing because of my addiction to the BBC, English, Scottish, Welch, and Irish literature, and films. 

During my next academic life my goal is to visit the United Kingdom, spend days if not months walking the streets, all the while thinking the biologists and bards who preceded me (i.e., Charles Darwin and John Donne).