‽Bros

When I point the camera at him, he says “Is this going to end up in Hollywood?”

At the dinner table, he argues forcibly that spiders have too long been a medical scapegoat for mysterious bites and infections. Many bites that are blamed on spiders, he says, are not in fact the work of spiders. Rose thorns are an overlooked threat–the prick of a rose thorn can allow bacteria such as staphylococcus to enter the body. Another possible culprit known as the “Kissing Bug” defecates immediately after biting its victim; when the bite is scratched, the waste is rubbed into the wound, causing infection and irritation.

Once, he says, he was “investigating a case” in which a woman claimed to have been bitten by a Brown Recluse spider. After inspecting the huge wound, he called the woman’s doctor and asked how the man had determined that a Brown Recluse was to blame. The doctor said “I guessed.”

In his study, he pointed out a type of beetle that resembles a stone in appearance and that plays dead for a remarkable amount of time when jostled. We waited and wait for his specimen to start moving again, but we soon began to accuse him of killing it.
When we checked again an hour later, the beetle had climbed out of its plastic cup and was roaming freely on the desk.

He points to a tupperware on his table–”I got all those last month without even trying,” he says. Inside there are dozens of vials of mayflies suspended in formaldehyde. There are live specimens too, beetles and a jerusalem cricket who hides from the light.

In the kitchen, a banana sits on the counter going all to brown spots. The entomologist takes up the banana and carries it from room to room, interrogating his guests:

Is this your banana?
Then whose banana is it?
See this label? Shouldn’t this be yours?
…By default, this is your banana.

Mystery solved.