A beetle is sitting on the wall behind me. How it got this far into the house without being shooed or squashed is difficult to say, but there it is.
It is a small black beetle, not a friendly ladybug or a spider. Perhaps it has come to investigate why humans lay such store in constructed shelter.
After all, one can escape storms and strife by crawling under a rock, so why invest huge sums in concrete, sawn lumber and asphalt shingles?
Since it has chosen our abode I’ll have to check on its intentions. Does it plan to stay and become part of our family? Is it hiding out from some bully beetle that has threatened to pluck its feelers? If female, will it lay eggs and raise litters of beetles?
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Soon, many will look at practices such as seeding marginal acres to forage, growing cover crops and livestock integration and ask why they didn’t do this sooner.
Perhaps it is the bug that will enable politicians to listen in on how we are leaning.
Maybe it is seeking a rug in which to be snug.
On the other hand, we may have brought it in with bedding plants during the cold spring so perhaps it belongs where things are in a vegetative state.
If that is the case, how come it ended up in my computer room?
Should said beetle be forcibly evicted from our house? There is always the danger that it will then commence to munch and trees and shrubs will be dropping left and right.
Probably the safest route would be to capture the insect and present it to an entomologist. Who knows? It may be something rare, about which a bug specialist can produce the most thrilling of scientific papers.
