Bugs of Japan

Spring is upon us here in Ito, so I thought it would be fitting to dust off this old proposal for a blog and make it an actual entry. For the most part, Japan's pests are quite similar to those found in the rest of the world. There are a few exceptions, however, which I will illustrate here. (Make sure you click on the pictures to enlarge them.)

When Lisa first came to Japan, she would call home to me and anxiously warn me about the bugs that lived in our apartment. As I listened to her fearful explanations, I silently vowed that when I arrived in Japan, I would learn everything I could about the critters, and then exterminate every last mother-freaking one of them. No one makes my girl cry, NO ONE!

Fortunately, when I arrived in actuality, I found that we were not as infested as I had feared, but I was amazed at the kinds of bugs that showed up around the joint. I almost had second thoughts about killing them--almost. Their forms reminded me of the selctive processes I studied in college that made their body shapes and appendages what they are. I marvelled at them almost as much as I loathed them.

My very first encounter with Japanese bugs was auditory rather than visual.

This is a video clip I took outside our apartment to capture the sound of the Japanese cicada-Magicicada septendecim ( Turn up your speaker volume when you play it). The sound was so very different from the American cicadas that I just had to save it for posterity. We didn't kill these, as they are fairly polite. They only sing during the daytime. If you enjoy Anime films, you will know that these sounds end up in a lot of Hayao Miyazaki's stories. They are almost characteristic of Japan's summertime, and I imagine that many people here associate the song of the cicada with the relaxing days of summer. In contrast to our next arthropod exhibit, the cicada is quite pleasant.

On my first morning in Japan, I woke at 4:30 am due to jet lag. I read for a while, and watched the sun rise at 5 am. At around 6:30, Lisa got up to start our day. I remember vividly the look on her face when she came running around the corner from our living room to the bedroom. She had a mission for me--KILL IT! I walked around the corner and found something I had never seen before outside of dreams and horror movies. I was face to face with a terrifying Jungian archetype!

The Geji-Geji
Scutigera coleoptrata
This little guy is a small sample of what I saw in our living room that day. I was in awe at the number of legs it had. I chuckled to myself when most of them came off after I smashed it with a shoe. You would think that the geji-geji was fast, but it seems that in actuality, all the extra legs get in the way. When you plug "geji-geji" into a digital Japanese dictionary, the phrase "house centpede" comes up. I am damn sure that when I am finished here, they will want to change their names. I kill them with extreme prejudice. This little guy was my first step into the surreal world of Japanese bugs. Before I get to the geji-geji's bigger cousin, I'd like to share with you what lives in the bushes outside our apartment, and above every driveway, and in every tree, and between every tree's lowest branches and the shrubs underneath it, and inside of phone booths, and pretty much everywhere there are mosquitoes, moths and other flying insects for it to eat.

The Japanese Golden Orb Weaver

Nephila pilipes
Japanese custom says that it is good luck to see a spider in the daytime, but bad luck to see one at night. Considering the unbelievable abundance of spiders in the country, I imagine that the luck pretty much balances out. Another frightening fact comes to you when you consider that their enromous population hints at an even greater population--their food. Most of my friends and family know that I have a love-hate relationship with spiders. I used to have awful nightmares about them as a child. As I grew older, I realized that they actually eat many of the disease vectors, and so I gained some respect for them. As long as they stay outside, I am content to let them be, unless of course I have to be outside in nature for an extended period, in which case I usually find myself killing them with extreme prejudice. The golden orb weaver in Japan is pretty similar to the "banana spider" common to the southeastern U.S., so it wasn't a shocking sight for me. What is interesting, however is their abundance in such close proximity to civilization here. They spin their webs on power lines, between buildings, under guard rails on the highway, in shrubs, inside telephone booths, and generally anywhere that a person hasn't walked in the last 45 minutes. here's a shot of the golden silk for which they are named:
I took this photo at a park near Okuno Dam in Ito. These webs are so prolific that pretty much anywhere you go, you are looking through one at something. As I said earlier, they are usually not a problem, as they stay mainly outside, but I pitty the foolish spider that makes her web above my head in the house. We had, at one point in the summer, 8 of these that I could count living in the bushes in front of our apartment. They string their webs between the azaleas and the large tree that shades them. Nothing, however, had prepared me for the legendary 8-eyed relative of the orb weaver that had caused Lisa to call me from Japan upset about bugs in the first place.

The Huntsman Spider

Heteropoda venatoria

Their scientific names comes from the fact that these spiders have their legs oriented more like a crab than a normal spider. This orientation makes them able to hoist themselves up into the corners of rooms quite well and wait there for long periods of time. The principal diet of these rather large spiders consists mainly of cockroaches. I am glad for their help in killing the roaches (gokiburi as they are called here), but when I think about the fact that thousands of roaches can be managed by 10 or 12 of these huntsmen, I can't help but immediately jump to the conclusion that no roaches equals no huntsmen, so I rush out to the home center and buy the strongest chemical insecticide avaialable. "Kill 'em all, and let God sort 'em out!" When Lisa first arrived at the apartment, one of these was waiting for her in the bathroom. Luckily, another ALT was present to help her, but the girl didn't kill the blasted thing. She shooed it outside! Of course, it came back, but by that time, I was there to exact furious vengeance and rightous anger upon it, like in the book of Ezekiel. That's enough about spiders, let's return to the geji-geji family, to have a look at his much more dangerous cousin.

One morning, I got up (near 4:30, as I was still jet-lagging) and decided to cook breakfast for Lisa. I went into the kitchen to put on a pot of water for coffee. As I was filling the kettle, I swear I remember hearing the shrill, chopping violin sounds that they always play in horror movies when the killer, or giant bug, comes onto the screen. Out of the corner of my eye, the drain cover on our sink began to move with undulating, hair-like appendages. The running water had disturbed an overnight resident of the drain sump:

The Centipede
Scolopendra sp.

I will spare you the other photo of this specimen that I took. It exposes the enormous chelicerae (fang-like teeth) of this stinging arthropod. Of all the bugs we have mentioned here, the centipede is the most malicious because it has a nasty bite. I have never experienced it, knock on wood, but I have heard that small children and the elderly can end up in the hospital after being bitten by a centipede. To date, I have found two of these inside the house, but I have since taken measures to prevent their reappearance. When I killed the one I found in the sink, I talked smack to it for about 5 minutes before finally flushing it down the toilet. Despite what you might think, running out of the kitchen to the backyard to escape the centipede may not be the best plan.

The Praying Mantis
Tenodera angustipennis

This 4 inch long back yard predator would often keep me company while I was hanging laundry. They don't shoo when you swat at them with a broom either. I think I heard it laughing at me one day when I tried that. I ended up having to physically push it off the railing. I actually grew fond of the praying mantis, just because it would sit and watch me with its head cocked to the side. It seemed to want to understand why I was hanging clothes (I always hanghe laundry, because Lisa doesn't like going out on the back porch). It surpised me one day when I tried to get it off the clothesline by flying to the other side of the porch. Fortunately, Lisa wasn't there to see that, as I think it might have been too much to bear.

There are a couple of other entries in bug log that are not offensive to my eyes, but I did think they were quite interesting to look at:

This is a 3 inch long caterpillar that I found on a walk to downtown Ito one day. I have not been able to identify it or the moth into which it transforms, but it has a cute little antenna on top of it's head. That, combined with it s size, made it photo-worthy.

This is a garden snail that I found after I parked the car on a rainy day outside the apartment. It's about 3 inches long also. I never saw more than just this one, so I had to run back outside with the camera before it went away.

That about wraps it up for the bugs of Japan. I waited until our friends and family had already booked flights to Japan before revealing this little tidbit. Hope they don't cancel their flights. Speaking of which, we are really looking forward to Bryan, John, and Amy's visit, followed by Lisa's mom and her sister Marcie. Anybody else who wants to come see us this spring or summer (if you can overcome your fear after reading this post) is more than welcome!