Pop Culture Alternative Insect Identification Website for the Layman

bugman

July 24th, 2007 at 12:00 am

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fanmail

just a little fan mail, for now
I am the kind of person who, when I find a bug in my house, scours the internet for hours, looking for the animal in question. But the Internet, with regard to bugs, is good at identifying a handful of nasty pests (roaches, bedbugs, ants, etc.), and good at providing giant webs of super-scientific information that are impossible for a layman to navigate. Your site is, therefore, a revelation, and totally a thrill. It is also a public service, for both the human and insect publics. In the past hour, for example, I have gone from thinking I had silverfish to knowing I have house centipedes (and wishing I hadn’t squashed one), and from thinking I might maybe have bedbugs (sort of, though I don’t have a big bite problem, which confused me, but now makes sense) to thinking I probably have carpet beetles. I wish that instead of bringing my yogurt container full of dead bugs – which I keep in the freezer – to the exterminator for inspection, I had taken pictures and sent them to you. I will do this from now on, though I don’t have a good digital camera. In any case, this is one of the best sites I’ve seen on the internet, and I will be a frequent visitor and sometime user from here on out, till the internet stops working (and the bugs keep on keeping on). Many thanks,
Judd

Hi Judd,
Thank you so much for your thoughful letter. We haven’t posted a letter to our fanmail page in over a month. That is strictly for letters about insects generally and without accompanying images. We have always though of ourselves as a pop culture alternative to the heavily scientific insect sites. We have art degrees, and do not have backgrounds in science, but there is a wealth of knowledge available on the internet if one knows how to search effectively.

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