Human Insect Interactions

It was the middle of July when my family threw me a circus-themed seventh birthday party in our backyard. All of my elementary school class was there and everyone was running around and enjoying themselves. There were large piano boxes painted to look like photo props that you stick your head in, and games that my family and I created, along with a ticket system for winning prizes. We had just started to cut the cake when disaster struck; paper wasps erupted from the ground as a chorus of children's screams rang out through the yard. Everyone scattered and made their way back towards the safety of indoors, though no one came out unscathed. This was the foundation of my first memorable experience with insects: fear and an instinct of avoidance. I mean, imagine you’re seven and you see a bunch of little finger sized hornets spring out of the ground and fly towards you - it was utterly terrifying!

Far into the future, maybe when I was around ten or so, on a hot summer day my mother decided to take me to the town's local farm so that I could help her pick flowers for her next arrangement for her gardening club meeting. I remember walking past towering sunflowers that seemed to block out the sun, and buzzing bees zipping from one flower to the next. Prior to this, I had been so frightened by the sight of most bugs that could sting after the birthday party fiasco, but my mother seemed to be very unbothered by them. She bent down next to a flower with a bee on it, and to my surprise it merely flew away when she went to cut it. It was at this moment that I went from being anxious around bugs to being utterly fascinated by them. Bugs were no longer something to fear for me, they’re not all out to harm you. There are some exceptions, and the more you know about bugs, the more you know how to interact with them safely.

Human and insect interactions take place in different ways: some insects are considered pests, others bite, sting, and carry diseases; they plague crops and eat them away, and some insects lay their eggs on newly dead animals and carrion (Gaensslen) to allow for further decomposition. Even though bugs are feared and often avoided, they are critical to the way our world functions often without us even realising it. It was said by Rachel Dummond in their article about the inner workings and requirements of becoming a forensic entomologist that: “Insects play a crucial, yet often overlooked role in forensics. Just as food crops cannot pollinate without honey bees, murder mysteries would go unsolved without bow flies, maggots, and flesh-eating beetles'' (Dummond). 

This past summer I returned to Land’s Sake to intern as a camp counsellor working with five to seven year olds. It was there I demonstrated my new knowledge of insects by showing the kids I was working with the difference between hoverflies and bees. Just as some butterflies mimic the appearance of the monarch butterfly, some types of flies can mimic the appearance of bees, as most things will avoid them even though they cannot sting. I would point out the difference in behaviour and flight patterns to show how to tell them apart, and while I now understand that bees do not often sting, I believe the kids at work found the knowledge to be calming, as they now knew which bugs to avoid, and which were safe. Like forensic entomologists, I used my knowledge of insects to help others.

I never fully knew what exact branch of entomology I wanted to pursue until the Covid-19 pandemic. It was then when I began to listen to a true crime podcast called Morbid. It was in one of their earlier episodes when they covered a case where the perpetrator was caught mainly due to the help of a forensic entomologist, and while I forget the content of the case and episode, I remember then realising that I could do both something that interested me (forensics) and something I’m fascinated by (entomology). 

The study of forensics is a very broad study with up to eighteen distinct branches (Bates) each mastering a different field so that they (scientists) can help to solve cases in their own ways. To zone in on forensic entomology in specific, we must first go to the middle of eighteenth century Europe and take a look at Louis Francois Etinne Bergerets work, as he was one of “the first recorded [people to] use… insect evidence to establish a postmortem interval (PMI)” (Rivers). As stated by David B. Rivers in the book The Science of Forensic Entomology: “[i]t was merely one aspect he used along with other approaches to determine time of death” (Rivers 19). This means that while Bergerets only used forensic entomology for one part of the case he was solving, he opened a new window to determine the PMI of a person too decomposed to use other means. This is important, as in certain cases “forensic entomologists can be the only ones with the right tools to discover a PMI” (Gaensslen). Without many even realising it, bugs play an impactful and large role in many things that we need, including solving homicide cases.

With forensic entomology, insects will come in succession, and each species makes a (deceased human) body appealing to the next succession through their time in and on the body, and as a result, they will make it appealing to other bugs (bugs that remove the flesh off of the body will make it attractive for insects that eat tissue or muscle). What they leave behind makes the body appealing for other insects which will come and alter the body, and make it enticing to the next succession. This is all a natural process of decomposition. By doing this, they are assisting humans in two ways: they are creating data that humans use for legal forensic purposes, and they alter the body to return and become nutrition for the soil. While you might not think about it all that much, without insects, it would make everyone's life much harder; from plants to people, everyone needs bugs.

With my newfound dream occupation, I turned to the world of books and online courses to help to fuel my passion. I would sit in my shared room at school at my small desk with my petite light pink book, where I’ve been collecting notes from onlines classes and books that I checked out from the school Library, and my small light pink sticker printer to allow me to put pictures in my notes. I thought I would dislike reading a thick textbook just for fun, but there I was, bouncing between reading and jotting down quick bullet points about what the text said in order to help future me avoid having to reread chapters. It was a project fueled by my passion just for myself and my own enjoyment. I found that doing a project for myself with no pressure of grades or how it might end to only fuel my ambitions and dreams. 

When we find bugs in a human space, it is usually unsettling, because they are not expected nor invited, even though more often than not humans are the creators of these environments. When bugs find these environments that are inviting, they make themselves at home. We consider this an intrusion, and think of them as “nasty.” It is a human cause that leads this environment to be appealing to insects in the first place. Even though most people believe insects to be disturbing or gross, they pollinate and contribute to your everyday life. They pollinated the plants that lead to the food you eat, and bring closure to families by bringing perpetrators to justice. Bugs can assist people to do things in a way no one else can. 

Works Cited

Bates, Roderick. Introduction to Forensic Science. Coursera, 2023. online course.

Dummond, Rachel. “BECOMING A FORENSIC ENTOMOLOGIST – EDUCATION, CAREER & SALARY.” Forensic Colleges, 18 November 2020, https://www.forensicscolleges.com/careers/forensic-entomologist. Accessed 9 November 2023.

Gaensslen, Robert E. Blood, Bugs, and Plants. Facts On File, 2009.

Rivers, David, et al. The Science of Forensic Entomology. Wiley, 2014.