bout de papier, Vol. 7, No. 3 (1990), pp. 10–11
by Laurel Pardy
With its iridescent carapace glinting in the African sunshine, the ungainly beetle lumbered unhesitatingly over the edge of the concrete staircase. The fall tumbled it onto its back and stunned it into temporary immobility. Slowly it began waving its legs, clawing at the air in a random excess of energy that eventually tipped it over onto its belly again. Unerringly and unhesitatingly, it resumed its journey to the edge of the next step.
There were seventeen more steps leading down to the lawns below and another hundred metres of tough sawgrass before the beetle could regain its natural habitat on the sparse savannah. As a gesture of interspecies generosity, I picked up the beetle and carried it down to the lawn where it promptly turned around and tackled the staircase from the other direction. Some beings find it impossible to accept a helping hand.
Over the years, other than people, beetles have provided me more entertainment than any other creature I have encountered In many respects the two species are not dissimilar.
Beetles are the quintessential straight line thinker. If it is possible to climb over a mountain, they will not go around. If their pathway lies across the autoroute, they will not alter their journey. Not for them the unpredictable existence of the lighthearted creators, they belong to the group of dogged doers.
Beetles can fly, but not gracefully; beetles can crawl, but not with the aerial precision of a mantis. If bees had not already commandeered the adjective “bumble” ’, beetles would have. Lack of finesse by no means implies lack of effectiveness. Indeed, just the opposite is true. Beetles are most effective at finding and maintaining their special niches in the most adverse of conditions.
Often solitary, they usually pursue their daily routine with neither encouragement nor distraction from their fellow beetles. However, in the right conditions, they sometimes congregate in masses of millions.
My first encounter with beetles en masse occurred during a rainy season safari to Meru Melika Lodge in northern Kenya. It was evening by the time we had arrived and the dense African night hid all but the most prominent features. Our cabin was a darker shadow among the bushes and we trod carefully along the crushed gravel path, ears alert for ominous rustlings and slitherings.
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A night bird screeched but the crunch of the stone underfoot drowned out other sounds. The bearer turned on the porch light and I looked over my shoulder to check on the others. As I did so, the gravelstones stood up and started to walk toward me.
Tan and black, shoulder to shoulder, hundreds of thousands of thumbnail-sized beetles were on the march — and the lodge was in their path.
Guided by an invisible internal map, they were undeterred in their progression through the dining room, across the grounds and through the cluster of cabins. We dined by match light as candles inspired them to flight and they would swan dive into the beer or half gainer into the stew. Needless to say, drinks were sieved through one’s teeth and food crunchier than custard was put back onto the plate. Once back in the cabin, the problem was no simpler — how to get them out of the bed and me into it.
Smug and snug an hour later, I thought I had succeeded. In the morning, between the mosquito netting and the mattress were exactly the correct number of beetles to make one single line, head to tail, around the bed with no extras and no spaces.
Solitary beetles can create their own excitement, too. Prior to dinner at Keekorock Lodge, it was the custom for guests to gather in front of the fireplace for a little aperitif. Guests at safari lodges are a varied assortment of beings from hardened voyeurs to eager neophytes, but always among the collection are several for whom nature in the buff is a shock.
Rhino beetles are stubby horned beetles, fascinating for their habits but lousy fliers. Like all nocturnal insects they are drawn to lights. I had chosen a seat from which I could watch the edges of the lawns through the window as game often came close at night. However, it was not lions that captured my interest, instead, I watched a straying rhino beetle climb cumbrously up the curtains, across the arm of the sofa and up the sweater of a lady with hair combed out like a lion’s mane.
When it reached her hair, the climbing became more difficult and little tugs were necessary before it could proceed. At first she merely moved her head a little, then she twitched her shoulders and tugged her sweater tighter thinking it was the breeze through the open window. Gradually it became obvious to her that breezes do not caress one’s head like a lover’s finger and she reached up to smooth away the distracting itch.
The smoothing hand encountered the beetle which instinctively wrapped its legs around her finger and tightened its grip. Unwanted advances from a stranger she could have managed, but from a two inch beetle it was too much. Her gin and tonic flew in one direction and the beetle in the other, straight into the face of an amused companion for whom the humour of the situation rapidly dissipated. In the general confusion, the beetle escaped into the night, probably to write beetle books on the irrational reactions of human beings.
My reassurances that the beetle was harmless did little to calm the situation and we all ended up eating dinner in a stifling dining room with the windows firmly shut. However, there were many smiling waiters.
This is not to imply that I was born with beetle cool; on the contrary. first diplomatic dinners, beetles played a prominent role. We had been welcomed with warmth and cold juices in the elegant drawing room of a wealthy Indian. During this hour of conviviality, beetles with sticky coats barged into lamps and guests, apparently unremarked by everyone except me. Dinner was served in near darkness out on the lawn. It was impossible to see what was on the plate and eating was done mostly by feel.
Seated in honour beside my hostess, I munched along determinedly. However, I had not forgotten the beetles and when I bit down on a walnut-sized piece with an exterior shell it was too much. There was no way I was going to swallow it, yet I did not feel that expelling it precipitously onto the lawn would be in good taste.
Some time later I came across the spice, black cardamom, and realized that it must have been that and not a beetle that I had coughed into the serviette and secreted under my chair. To this day, I do not like crunchy surprises in my food.
Laurel Pardy, a regular contributor to bout de papier, is a frequent writer on issues of international mobility, basing her observations on both research and personal experience.
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Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 7, No. 3 (1990), pp. 10–11. Read the rest of this issue →
