Professor Michael Breed was no Ant Bully.
His interests in bugs didn’t spring from childhood exploits of frying them with a magnifying glass, kicking their homes into oblivion or chopping their bodies in half to see if their heads and legs still moved.
He respects the bug and wants you to do so too. An entomology class he took as an undergraduate at Grinnell College hooked him when he discovered how much the basic insect body had transformed and modified itself over the millennia to help it adapt to changing environments.
It blows his mind to know that the original insect, which looked a lot like today’s cockroach, evolved into the myriad colorful and diverse bugs that populate the Earth today. “(Insects) are great examples of evolutionary adaptation,” says Breed, 55, who has worked at the University of Colorado since 1977.
Breed knows most bugs are misunderstood. Many interactions shared between human and insect tend to end with painful stings and bites or body parts mercilessly stomped under a shoe.
“But I want people to appreciate that insects play positive ecological roles and aren’t just pests and nuisances,” he says.
His 30-year career spent decoding the behaviors of social insects and shedding a more positive light on the creepier, crawlier species of the world netted him a lifetime achievement this summer.
The Entomological Society of America elected Breed a fellow for his contributions to the study of insects. Breed was one of six scholars nationwide to receive the prestigious award.
The society specifically acknowledged Breed’s research on social insects such as bees, ants, cockroaches, termites and some wasps. Social insects live in communities ruled by kings or queens, in which individual workers complete tasks to help the rulers create more young.
Breed has spent many years deciphering how kin and nest mates recognize one another – a behavior the entomological society believes is key to the overall evolution of insects.
Turns out social bugs often communicate through scent.
In his research, Breed discovered ants in Costa Rica that lay an odor trail along tree trunks and across the branches of neighboring trees. As ants weave from the top of one tree to the bottom of the next in search of food, an intricate odor map leads the lost back home to the nest at the base of a rain forest tree.
Among bees, guard bees protect the entrance to the hive by using their sense of smell to detect enemy bees. Many lazy bees would rather steal nectar from a neighboring honeycomb than spend all day collecting it from flowers.
The infiltration would likely work, too. But each colony produces a different chemical mixture made up of fatty acids and wax that clings to the bee’s body while inside the honeycomb. Guard bees can then sniff out and attack any imposter bee sporting the wrong eau de toilette.
“Humans tend to think about communication by talking or body language, but for insects, it’s by odor and contact,” he said. “There are a lot of mysteries there for us to unravel.”
Staff writer Sheba R. Wheeler can be reached at 303-954-1283 or swheeler@denverpost.com.
A GUIDE TO SPECIES
Between his classes at CU and shepherding his own daughter off to college, Breed gave us the skinny on some of his favorite bugs found in Colorado, what’s so cool about them and where to look for them.
HARVESTER ANTS
PERSONALITY: Hands off! These little red ants are only about l-inch long, but they pack a fierce sting, so don’t try to pick them up.
LIVING SITUATION: Their homes are often mistaken for prairie dog mounds. They like to build gravel mounds that stand 1 or 2 feet high in the middle of a circular area cleared of all vegetation. The gravel collects heat to keep the nest underneath
warm.
FAVORITE HANGOUTS: Scope them out at Legion Park, east of Boulder on Arapahoe Road about a
half-mile west of 75th Street. The best spot to spy their nests is in the yucca and grass that lead down from the parking lot at the top of the hill. You can also check them out along the Cherry Creek bike path as you get past Quebec
Street, heading east.
TURN-ONS: Buckwheat and other small seeds
BUMBLEBEES
PERSONALITY: Crafty and independent, bumblebee colonies usually start out with a lone queen who leaves the safety
of her swarm in the spring to start a new nest on her own. Bumblebees are bigger than honeybees – about 1/2-inch long – and are fuzzy black insects with yellowish markings.
LIVING SITUATION: The bumblebee queen is the Martha Stewart of the insect world, taking up residence inside abandoned rodent burrows and transforming bits and pieces of leftover grass and hair into a comfy, insulated home.
FAVORITE HANGOUTS: During mid- to late summer, see bumblebees flying around the meadows in areas around Brainard Lake Recreation Area, west of Ward on Forest Road 112.
TURN-ONS: Fireweed, Indian paintbrush and other flowers found at high elevations.
GRASSHOPPERS
PERSONALITY: Grasshoppers are flashy extroverts. They routinely make popping, snapping sounds as they fly to attract mates or warn enemies away from their territory. They also like to expose themselves, whipping out brightly colored
wings in shades of brown, red or yellow.
LIVING SITUATION: Loners, not social groupies, who like high-elevation grassy areas.
FAVORITE HANGOUTS: Trek the long hiking trails at Caribou Ranch Open Space, northwest of Nederland on Boulder County Road 126, to watch these creatures in mid-hop.
TURN-ONS: It’s not the size of the instrument, that matters but how the grasshopper uses it. Male grasshoppers use their wings to sing to females, rubbing a leg up against the back of a wing to cause noises that make her feel amorous.
WASPS
PERSONALITY: These annoying insects are bothersome and known for ruining summer picnics.
LIVING SITUATIONS: One queen starts a nest in the spring. By late summer, that one queen can translate into a nest the size of a basketball, holding thousands of wasps inside. Breed says don’t wait until summer to buy a wasp trap. Put
the traps out in the spring and kill the queen first when the colony is most vulnerable.
FAVORITE HANGOUTS: Your backyard.
TURN-ONS: The greasy fragrance of hot dogs and hamburgers cooking up on the grill, which wasps interpret as rotting meat.
DRAGON- and DAMSELFLIES
PERSONALITY: Protective males set up territories around the edges of a pond. Then they fight invaders by dive bombing and knocking them out of the air.
LIVING SITUATIONS: Their young live in the muck at the bottom of a pond.
FAVORITE HANGOUTS: Barr Lake State Park, off of Interstate 76 southeast of Brighton, is a good place to spot them, or try Sawhill Ponds, a city-managed wildlife refuge area at 63rd Street and Valmont Road east of Boulder.
TURN-ONS: Mid-air copulation.
