Friday Creature Feature
Banded Net-winged Beetle.
One of those beasties I’ve identified only to have folks in the nature hike etc. ask “but what GOOD is it?” You can’t eat’em. You can’t smoke’em. So what good are they? Your answer would be: _______
And this caterpillar is unidentified only because I don’t have the time this morning to do it. So if anybody knows or is curious to explore for a name, please share.
Fred First holds masters degrees in Vertebrate Zoology and physical therapy, and has been a biology teacher and physical therapist by profession. He moved to southwest Virginia in 1975 and to Floyd County in 1997. He maintains a daily photo-blog, broadcasts essays on the Roanoke NPR station, and contributes regular columns for the Floyd Press and Roanoke's Star Sentinel. His two non-fiction books, Slow Road Home and his recent What We Hold in Our Hands, celebrate the riches that we possess in our families and communities, our natural bounty, social capital and Appalachian cultures old and new. He has served on the Jacksonville Center Board of Directors and is newly active in the Sustain Floyd organization. He lives in northeastern Floyd County on the headwaters of the Roanoke River.
We don’t have ’em in the West, most likely, but they sure are pretty (and I am sure their ecosystem would miss ’em if they were gone.)
What good are humans that ask questions like that. You can’t eat them or smoke them either, and they have overpopulated their ecosystem.