One post wedding highlight was the discovery of a large insect similar to the one above, but with bigger mandibles and a longer, more swollen abdomen, that Scott bravely caught in Uncle Tom's garage. This bug was massive. Tom said he'd never seen one like it in 20 years living and working outside in Central Texas. No one knew what it was, but termite or ant queen were thrown out there.
It looks like it may have been a female dobsonfly, but we'll never know for sure.
Amid all the excitement about the bug arose the question, "What do we do with it?" About half the crew (not to generalize, but they tended to be vegetarian, with the exception of the overly emotional one who was moreso after a half dozen drinks) wanted to let go back to its business.
Ian and I were in the camp that wanted to keep it not just for posterity, but also for research and art. Ian grew up with a fascination of bugs and bug collections, and Troy introduced me to the study of entomology back in college. We wanted to pin it to a cork board and frame it for Julian's room.
Ian felt particularly strong about keeping it, so he put the argument to rest by pulling the groom card. We all went back to the party. No less than 20 minutes later, we discovered the sabotage that had been had on the bug container. The glasses that had been holding the creature were in the sink; the insect long gone. It quickly turned into a Clue style game of whodunit, with one clear pro-bug-life perpetrator who we'd thought had passed out in her grief-stricken state.
Now all we have are some crappy pictures we took and a memory of the biggest, gnarliest flying bug any of us had seen.
Top photo by kaleidoscope, via flickr.
2 comments:
"It looks like it may have been a female dobsonfly, but we'll never know for sure."
Really? you aren't sure? come on, it was clearly a female dobsonfly, end of story.
The Troy comment was spot on. I remember sitting in garages identifying bugs like it was yesterday. Congrats on the wedding Addie!
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