“BUG-HUNTING”

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLIII, Issue 20925, 3 January 1938, Page 16

“BUG-HUNTING”

NEW WORLD OPENS ENTOMOLOGIST SPEAKS To the average man perhaps the term "entomology” does not mean much. If he knows what it does mean, he vaguely dismisses it with a wave of the hand as something to do with bugs, or bug-hunting, or, more staidly, the entomologist, and to hear him talk of his work in the unassuming w’ay in which men of science talk, to realise what new worlds of interest might thus be opened. Does the layman know, for instance, that there are organisms entirely without eyes and without colour of any sort? Does he know that there are centipedes and millipedes and crawfish and spiders which have no eye structure at all? Does he know how these creatures are compensated for their lack of sense? New Zealand’s Cave Beetles These were the topics spoken of to-day. with the cautious reserve which characterises the man of science, by Dr. J. M. Valentine, at present visiting New Zealand on a travelling fellowship from the Bishop Museum, Honolulu, and Yale University, America. Dr. Valentine, accompanied by his wife, is in the Dominion until January 10, studying eyeless beetles which live in caves. He has followed this research for years, and his wanderings have led him all over America, all over Europe and into North Africa. His primary object, he said, was to collect beetles with a view to working out a theory of evolution and the way in which those organisations adapted themselves to their environment. "It is purely an academic research.” he said. “It has no commercial bearing.” Generalising on his subject. Dr. Valentine said that there were many organisms living in America that were eyeless. living in depths where no light penetrated, not even infra red. In this class there were fish, and the other creatures mentioned previously, centipedes. spiders and a great variety of smaller insects and Crustacea belonging perhaps to half a dozen species. Perhaps these fish, he said, might live in underground rivers or in the depths of the ocean. Spiders might live in the deepest caves. Compensatory Organs Though eyeless, he said, beetles had other compensatory faculties. Their sense of touch and smell became much keener. Beetles, he said, had hairs growing out from different parts of their bodies, which supplied the tactile sense. In the eyeless kinds, those hairs were much longer. He would be interested, he said, to see the cave crickets in New Zealand, or, as people in New Zealand know them better, the wetas. When he was told of the extreme distaste with which the ordinary men regarded such “monsters” he smilingly replied that he himself had never become used to a spider craw-ling on him, while he had an absolute horror of wasps. “I just can’t help it,” he explained. Dr. Valentine had an interesting story to tell of cave exploration in many parts of the world. While in South France, in the Alps, he had seen the drawings on the walls of the CroMagnon man. These were done in charcoal or chalk, and depicted fearsome mammoths and bison. Though crude and formalised, they had an extraordinary air of vitality. He had also seen the footprints of these prehistoric men. They were similar to those of the modern man. Then there was the Carlsbad caves in New Mexico, in the “lunch room” of which, 735 ft vertically below’ the ground, 1000 people would congregate, and then, if they liked, walk seven miles along the great cathedral rooms of the cave. Some of these had a ceiling 300 ft high. In Alabama w r as a cave which was entered by descending sheerly down a 300 ft well. Below were bones of some long forgotten animal. The American Government had supplied the money for a windlass to be fixed to the top to permit scientists to go down. Dr. Valentine is looking forward to doing cave exploration in New Zealand and even the knowledge of masses of blind wetas crawling about the roofs and walls did not deter him. He even spoke enthusiastically about the trapping he was going to do. He leaves tomorrow by motor car for the Waitomo Caves and he will travel about the Dominion until January 10, when he leaves Auckland by the Mariposa.