Ep 61: James Khoo – Bug-eyed wonder

For many people, a close encounter with an insect leads to a quick departure by one or both or a summary execution, most often of the non-human party. If you recognise these scenarios from your own life, you may find this interview transformative. Insects have a powerful advocate in James Khoo. A passionate and committed entomologist from Singapore, James lives with a large number of tiny creatures and is quite mesmerising in his descriptions of their superpowers and beauty. Listen in and learn more about “bio-mimicry,” the joys and challenges of science communication, the plight of insects globally and what we can all do to help.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:05

Hello, and welcome to the Field Notes Podcast from Arosha. I'm Joe Swinney and I'm Director of Communications for Orosha International.

SPEAKER_03 0:13

And I'm Rick Fah, and I've been with Arosha for 20 years as part of the Arosha Canada team.

SPEAKER_01 0:20

For many of us, the rapid loss of our planet's biodiversity, increasing inequality and poverty, and the changing climate can feel overwhelming.

SPEAKER_03 0:29

So it's our hope that in this podcast you will hear some remarkable and original perspectives from people we know who are working to care for creation around the world.

SPEAKER_00 0:43

For me, like I get a high just looking at insects. I mean like when I'm walking on the street and then I see an insect, oh I'll look at that. So insects are the one thing. If you notice them, it's like magic everywhere. Insects are the sparkles and the glitters on trees. It's like real-life jewels. So I mean you do have jewel people to use them as jewels, but just to see them adorn the trees, it's amazing, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:12

Welcome everyone to the next episode of the Field Notes Podcast. And I am confident that I can say, today you are in for a treat. This was wonderful. And we got to interview James Coo. He's from Singapore, and he is an entomologist, an insect expert. Uh, and he works as the science officer for Russia in Singapore, but also as a as an educator. He uh it seems to me in some ways that is as much as his love of insects comes through so clearly, uh, one of the things I think is he is he's a he's a bridge between the insect world and the rest of us and that education function. I can see him, I would love to be in his classroom. Uh so there's we got a little little flavor, a little taste of that today. Uh Joe, what is something that stood out to you after our conversation?

SPEAKER_02 2:10

Yeah, we went to school, didn't we? And um I think the thing that came that came through so clearly is that he there's a real love affair going on there between James and the insect world. Like he he he's fascinated by them, he's and he finds them endearing and cute and beautiful and wonderful, and he's impressed by them, he respects them, he honors them, and it's just infectious. I mean, I I'm not someone anymore who will squish a bug in my path, but neither will I get down close, get my face right to its space and have an encounter. But I think it might change now, Rick. I think I might, I think I might be I think I might be on the road to becoming a bug person.

SPEAKER_03 3:04

Oh man. Yeah, one of the lines that stood out to me, he said, uh something like insects, if you notice them, it's magic everywhere.

SPEAKER_02 3:15

He said that with the glitter on the on the rest of creation.

SPEAKER_03 3:19

That's right.

SPEAKER_02 3:20

They adorn it, that they're the jewels of creation. Yeah, it's very poetic.

SPEAKER_03 3:25

Well, it's such a such a lovely way to kind of reframe how we think of and approach this spectacular aspect of God's creation. It really, yeah, it's wonderful.

SPEAKER_02 3:37

Yeah. So let's get out of the way and let James take Semter stage where he belongs. Um do we know we're gonna enjoy it, as Rick says.

SPEAKER_03 3:47

Indeed. Here we go. Welcome everyone to this episode of the Field Notes Podcast. And today I am delighted to uh have a chance to talk with James Coo. Uh James, uh, we always like to start with a little bit about who you are and where you're coming from, to give our listeners a bit of a bit of a taste so they can kind of orient uh their heads around kind of your context. So can you tell us just a little bit about you know where where do you live, where are you coming from, and and maybe a way to describe that place would be if I came to visit you and you were gonna like show off kind of uh part of a part of uh creation that is near you that you really love, where would we go and what would we see?

SPEAKER_00 4:46

Yeah, so uh yeah, I'm James from Singapore. So Singapore is a city-state. So it's very, very urban, but we do have pockets of wild spaces. So one of the places I'll bring you to would be Windsor Nature Park, which is kind of like uh near where our Central Reserve is, the main reserve of our wild wildlife reserves are. And I'll probably show you some pretty cool insects like stock-eyed flies, um, tiger beetles, and yeah, just the other day we saw Dung Beetle rolling a ball of poop around there. Yeah. And but wildlife is all around. It's all around. So even like the other day, uh just yesterday, there's a researcher studying mantises, and then you need to catch mantises, and I actually stayed near next to like a patch of secondary rainforests with pockets of mangrove inside. I'll show you later. Um, I just turned the zoom. I don't know if you can, I don't know if like I was very, very burnt. But beyond this is a kind of like a it's a reserve, but it's also an army training ground. But a lot of wildlife actually pours in. So they were doing research on a mantis and they actually were catching that mantis downstairs. And it was the most abundant productive day for them because they spent like a few days. They only caught two specimens. I think they caught 14 from just under around my house, like the park area around my house. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 6:02

And like a mantis, like give me some sense of size. Like this is a okay. So that's about like an inch and a half.

SPEAKER_00 6:11

Yeah, it's and but it's camouflage, it's a bug mantis that sticks to the bark of a tree and it's flat and you can't see it.

SPEAKER_02 6:19

So I know that you are an entomologist, which is an insect expert. And insects don't always have the best relationship with humans. Um, and sometimes you know that you have pest controllers whose job it is to go around and exterminate certain things, including insects. Have you have you always have you always been drawn to insects, or did you have to overcome a bit of aversion yourself?

SPEAKER_00 6:48

For for most of the insects, um, I as a young kid, like when I went on a trip with my parents to somewhere overseas, uh, there's a camera with blurred photographs because there's no macro mode in the camera, and I was trying to try to take pictures of insects and the whole, it's just blurred images. That's what they said. So I've had a fondness for insects for a very, very, very, very, very long time. Since I was young, and when I was in primary school, I would go to catch insects in in catch grasshoppers in the field next to the school. And up to now, my primary school classmates, my ex-classmates, they're saying you're still doing the same thing. Yeah, you're catching insects. Uh yeah. So I've had had this fondness for insects. I did, it's not every single insect that you can love. It's a bit harder to love the wriggly ones, like maggots and that kind of stuff. But you sort of learn, you grow into them. Like how mag like like fruit flyer larvae can uh fruit fly maggots can jump. So you sort of like you spring their bodies and these hop hop hop. It's very cute, but it looks kind of freaky when you're when when you're younger. But I've gone grown to love each and every one of them.

SPEAKER_03 7:50

I mean, I you it sounds a bit like they're now these are your your family, like these are like your children. And I know you're not allowed to pick your favorite child, uh, but like do you have a particular insect or a particular I know bug is actually a subset of insect as I understand it. So a particular insect that is your favorite. Or or or can you can you also imagine or do you remember a particular encounter, like some moment when you or you saw somebody else have a particular uh connection with an insect that was especially memorable?

SPEAKER_00 8:28

I use a few kinds of beetles for teaching. Um, one of them is a stag beetle. I mean, they're they're very, very I don't have a specimen here. Actually, I do. Would would seeing the thing help help like frame it up for you?

SPEAKER_03 8:42

I have in my head what a stag beetle is. Okay, okay. Maybe I'm I might be wrong on that, but I have to.

SPEAKER_00 8:47

Yeah, they're really very, very tiny.

SPEAKER_03 8:49

This is the first on our podcast we get props.

SPEAKER_00 8:52

They are very, very tiny. So when we think stag beetles, we think very, very majestic. The Lucanus service, the European stag beetle, the one from UK. Um, in Europe, it's a big kind of like with red mandibles, very, very pretty, very, very charismatic. But what we have are very tiny ones. Uh, what I do is I use this for education. I think the EI just pulls it out, but I use it for education because they're very, very hardy. Because like they can drop from some height. So even when kids are are using or are sort of like encountering them for the first time, and it drops, they're ah, but they realize that actually the insects are very, very hardy, and and it because there are two kinds of aversion, one is that, oh no, I'm gonna hurt it, and it's the other version is like, eeee yucks, insects. So when they realize that actually insects are very, very hardy, and it sort of like gets them comfortable with like um how an insect moves and how how an insect like um can survive from such a height, they they sort of get more comfortable with it and they're willing to hold it and touch it and sort of build a better relationship with insects through that kind of touch for the first time kind of experience. So uh with the stag beetle, because they are very, very tiny, we do have this plastic, very, very cheap plastic toys when I was growing up. It's called Kuti Kuti. So it's like a cheap, like very neon-colored thing that you use and you sort of like play and you sort of use them to so you sort of flick them, and if if it if it sort of like overlaps the other one, you sort of win. So you flick them over each other. So it is kind of like that. And when people first see it, especially those of my generation or older, they will recognize and say, hey, it's so it's so small, it looks like kuti kuti or something like that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:25

So to someone to someone who would say, Um, why should I care about bugs? I don't I don't want to see them, I don't want to know about them. If they're eliminated, I don't care. What what's what how would you how would you convince them otherwise? Or what would your best arguments be in favor of insects?

SPEAKER_00 10:44

So I do have like kind of like an introduction workshop that I do to insects, and most of the time, like it starts with talking about the diversity of insects, because insects are incredibly diverse, they outnumber everything else, like 1.5 million animal species, 1.1 million species are insects, 400,000 are beetles. Yeah, so it's crazy. Uh, and then there's this thing called the speciescape. You you can sort of find it. Actually, like it's very good, like if anyone wants to use it to teach, because I sort of adopted it from a lecturer here at university. You can set speciescape, and it'll sort of show you um all the different animal groups uh represented, and and each one, the size of it is based on the number of species uh in that group. So the insects are huge. The image representing an insect is one huge like uh beetle, and then the organism, which is uh elephant representing the mammals, like really tiny. So it's like this versus this. So that's how outsized the roles insects play. And of course, I'll tell people that insects. So I did like a very, very short kind of like pilot study um kind of thing. It's kind of very small study where we went to households and I just look for insects in their house. And no one believed me when I told them that I can find an insect in your house because Singaporeans are very, very sticky about how clean their house is, and you'll clean every single thing, but I'm saying you can still find insects. And there's this buck lice that you can find in everyone's house, even like in the UK and Malaysia and everything, it's really very tiny, it's like 1 mm kind of thing. 1 mm, 0.5 mm, and I don't think we can find it. That and this cellar spider that's everywhere. So you always find that next to ants, uh, the other thing would be ants in tropics, yeah. So you can't run away from insects, and and and then there's also the insects make your food, they pollinate, they they decompose, they provide food for every a lot of your insectivorous birds, um, all your reptiles and everything rely on insects. So just showing how uh interwoven insects are in the ecology is something that I try to get people to be accustomed with. And then after that, what I do, especially with insects, um, in my workshops again to touch and hold and feel an insects. So normally what I do, and I only use local insects, um, just to show that Singapore has that kind of diversity. And so one very, very pretty one would be this one. So this is uh brown rhinoceros, yeah. So the ties they have a similar speech. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:13

James, just stop for a sec because I want to somehow convey what you are holding up on the screen to our listeners. Okay, it's it's shiny black. It looks like a rhinoceros, but more pointy bits. It's waving its legs around because it's balanced on a plastic thing on your finger. And it looks like it's made of plated armor, like different sections, maybe.

SPEAKER_03 13:39

It looks amazing. I want to hold it.

SPEAKER_00 13:42

So when when I mean, so normally when I take this out, Singaporeans are so like urbanized that when I take this out, the first thing they ask is, is it real? And I'll tell them it's not real. It's actually battery operated, and I change the battery every three years, and people actually believe me. And then they sort of start touching it and they're like, oh wow, it's very, very good. Then I say it's real, and they're like, Oh, it's real, then they get the but then they already touched it, so they have already overcome the fear, so it's good. So I get some people like that, but I don't, I uh yeah, then the rest I got to like use other things that feels like wood or it feels like just to get them to have the encounter. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 14:16

And then what do they do when you say, Oh, by the way, I was lying, it's actually real.

SPEAKER_00 14:21

Yeah, yeah. Or then then you're like, oh, then then then some kids will go like you know white-eyed, or or like they will like reel back, and then you'll reapproach the insect. Yeah, so it's kind of like wow, that's amazing.

SPEAKER_03 14:32

I love your description of like the way you try to get people to encounter that by by basically saying, Hey, this is a toy, and then they then they're able to engage it in a different way, and now, oh, it's actually real? Oh, and then and then it it kind of changes their perception. That's brilliant. I would so love to see that. But I I understand part of your expertise is not just with the insects themselves, but it is in this kind of I want to say cultivating an encounter. And my understanding is you've done some of this with video as well. So it's this it's science, but it's also using other forms of communication. Often artistic. Video is an artistic form. And I'm curious, how do you find those two things work together? Uh uh an artistic communication medium and the kind of more hard science. What do you find challenging or rewarding about that?

SPEAKER_00 15:36

So uh so a bit of context is that um I did study film. I'm not like classically trained as an entomologist. Um I did take quite a bit of insect photos. So my Instagram is filled with some insect photos and videos. Uh not as much as I would like, but it takes quite a bit to get the right gear to really film the insects.

SPEAKER_02 15:58

Uh so I haven't really like people wanted to find you on Instagram. What's your handle?

SPEAKER_00 16:04

Uh so I run a outside of Arosha, Singapore, I run a company called The Curious Pangolin. So you'll find me on the Curious Pangolin SG on on Instagram. Yeah. And and on that we sort of like um show nice photos of local bugs or nice videos, short videos, or short, short kind of like a few seconds kind of thing of insects in Singapore, just to show them like, hey, there's all these cool little bugs that you can find in Singapore and they they look very, very shiny or they do funny things with their legs and everything. Um so and just very short content, just so that people can encounter it. And then, oh, uh I I do nature walks also. So that's that's one way of attracting people to to um go on the walks and and to enjoy nature and to because I'll make sure there's some scientific information also for every each and every bug, just to show that everything is accounted for, everything has everything is unique, everything has like, oh, it has a unique um, for example, unique diet, unique kind of behavior. Yeah. So it's very, very interesting that we are. But I haven't really because now with Orosha and and like with the scientific work, when we get like proper imaging devices and everything, I would probably be able to do the more heavier macro stuff for you, attach like a microscope kind of thing um on a lens, uh in front of a lens and from camera, and then you can get really tiny stuff, like you can see the antennae moving, opening up, that kind of stuff. Hopefully it works out. Yeah. Um, and then you can get very, very cool details. Because like the the real thing that really draws me to insects are the details, the fine details. It's something so small, but there's so much detail, and every single like the scales of the butterfly are thermodynamic. They are they thermoregulate, they regulate the heat of the butterfly, they help it to fly, they help it to find a mate, and it's so incredible. The structures, this fine detail structures. And to be able to share this and communicate with this would be great. Um, with regards to communication, it's more a concept that really gets into my work when it comes to teaching or like educating or reaching out to people. Not so much the tools in itself, like the film stuff. It's more the concept behind the film, right? Because in all my teaching, I always look at a frame. So in film, whenever we want to communicate, or in video work, whenever you want to communicate to somebody, what goes into your frame at that particular point of time? Two characters, three characters, an object, and how those frames interplay with each other, create a film period of video. When it comes to education work, how do I frame it for the person? Also, you frame things for the audience. So it's always like, how do I frame this for the audience? So when I educate and everything, what do I want to put into the frame, into the reality of my audience at that point of time? So that's how I like frame, and it's storytelling, the essence of storytelling, basically, to create the space, to create the background and to experience the background, to experience the teaching on insects. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:57

Has your Christian faith impacted the way that you interact with insects, do you think?

SPEAKER_00 19:03

It's for me like like I get a high stress looking at insects. I mean, like like when I'm walking on the street and then I see an insect, wow, look at that. And then you sort of see, like, oh, you're you're you're a case-bearing leaf beetle, and then you're in this, so so we we do get a lot of exotic species. It's not the best thing in Singapore because you get South American beetles coming in, no one's aware of it. It's not like the US or like UK where they monitor invasive species. We don't. But then you see, hey, you're totally different, you're probably not from Singapore, but you know, like it's incredible, like you know, um, what they do, the case-bearing leaf beetles, they make little cases of poop for their babies and cases the egg in a poop and in poop, and then as the baby grows, you'll use this poop to make the case, right? So it's like they're little architects and everything, and just to marvel, so so insects are the one thing, if you if you notice them, it's like magic everywhere. And and even just to just to look at at like so I just came back from Japan in November last year, and like we went into the mountains and the autumn leaves and everything, and you sort of see because Singapore, we our abundance, our abundance has gone down. And every time like I go to nature park, sometimes uh sometimes there will be like someone from uh Goa or someone from a foreign country, and they say, Where are the insects? I said they are insects, I can show you the insects, but they say no, there's no abundance where you see tons of insects flying. Uh, even in India, when I say Rosha India, so there's a lot of insects flying, but we don't have the abundance in Singapore because of a land use change and a lot of uh misuse of fogging, of fumigation. But what happened when I was in in Japan at the time was when you see insects glistening in the sun, it's kind of like sparkles and glitters and everything. And there's this kind of wonder, and you see everything like just as a picture, just just wonderful. And then it's like how creation should be, right? It's that kind of like insects are the sparkles and the glitters on trees. If you really think about it, yeah, it's like real-life jewels. So, I mean, you do have jewel beetles used as jewels, jewelry, and as uh adorment on clothing, but also just to see them adorn the trees, adorn the sky, adorn like like like anything, it's it's it's amazing, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 21:13

Yeah, insects are the glitter on trees. I don't even remember that one. That's great. I mean, how I I as I understand it, part of what you do is you take people on walks to go around the city to explore the ways in which even if they're not abundant, they are there are insects everywhere. I'm curious I I would love to go on a on a tour like that with you, but after if after you get people hooked, they they have this encounter and you've got their attention and they're kind of paying like they're they're noticing in a way they didn't before What do you recommend for the next step for them? Like how do they engage afterwards?

SPEAKER_00 22:00

they can they call I love the way that you are so excellent even over this uh medium that we're using to cultivate my fascination but what do you what do you suggest for people next I guess I mean so the one thing is that when Singaporeans see a bug more than 50 60 70 80% of people would smash it or like you know like or get it out or chase it away the main thing I'm trying to uh grow on or to nurture and whoever comes on the walk is a sense of curiosity a healthy sense of curiosity what just flew in like what kind of beetle is it is it a beetle is it a fly and then just sort of look at it and then like I I actually do tell people collect it for the museum that means putting in your freezer and everything also. I am part of a network of entomologists called the Ansync Entomological network of Singapore and what we do is that we have a telegram group where you can submit your encounters to um where you'll put out events on insects.

SPEAKER_02 23:03

So somebody could actually find something new and be part of adding to the body of knowledge that we have as about our natural world about the natural world.

SPEAKER_00 23:14

Huh so even just earlier this year they found they described another 115 new species of flies I think from Singapore. So it's an incredibly so so in in insects you have what you call dark texa. And dark texa is like these areas of like um the animal kingdom where where you have no idea what's there because everything looks the same or they're incredibly tiny with regards to insects. So what you have is a very special or there are many many species in this particular group of genus of flies. And once you can find what defines uh a different species you can describe it and you can name it and then so there's a lot there's this particular fly genus I think with names of every entomologist I'm not there yet um every entomologist attached as the species names yeah so it's very interesting yeah something on your bucket list we need to have the James Coo one there.

SPEAKER_02 24:07

We need yeah we need to have the James so we don't have any sex named after you yet not yet yeah but my friends at the rest of the entomological network of Singapore they do have that yeah oh my gosh that your turn is gonna come it definitely is gonna happen for you then they're running on memes they've got through all the Kevins they've got to Kevin infinity so you're a you work as a um a science researcher teacher communicator and you're also a committed Christian so could you talk to us a bit about how your faith informs these roles and what part science plays in your personal discipleship um and also what what is it like to be a scientist in a church context is that respected is it acknowledged even how are you received in your vocational self in a church setting?

SPEAKER_00 25:08

As in research or as a scientist within the context of a church and you have a church that is very and the the the thing about Singapore is that it's very very urbanized it is very very focused on practicality. Singaporeans are very very practical when it comes to when it comes to bread and butter when it comes to livelihoods so the first reaction to anyone that's not in the norm of a tea of like teacher um doctor lawyer is that oh how do you make money is this a job is this a hobby um so that I mean but you use that as a as a way to say no this is meaningful work this is work that people will pay for this is work that that uh and this happens in church that's the thing also but also you use them to talk you use it to talk about God's creation and and you get people fascinated. So so I feel like like within the church because it brings uh members from all across different backgrounds it's the one place that it's a lot easier to reach out not preach to the choir because if I have to do a workshop outside only the the kids that are interested in bugs will go. But in churches it actually offers me an opportunity to reach out to kids who may not necessarily be interested in bugs because it just so happens that the the pastors and the leaders they do see a value in creation care and they are trying to get us to speak to the congregation. But I in my work like I really like the relationships of uh particular organism with everything else like oh what are you doing here? Why are you here that I go and see an insect in the bush what are you doing here? Why are you here in the first place? And then I encountering and recognizing that this insect is part of a a fabric of life that's all around us that that we should be part of we should be conscious that we are part of right just informs I guess from a faith-based perspective informs my work when it comes to uh as a teacher as communicator um I always see the teaching the teacher's desk or like where I teach from as like the altar and like whenever I give information it is like me giving the body of Christ to be like oh like like Christ giving his body right I too should whatever knowledge that I have learned or that's built me is given to others. So that that's how I see transmission of knowledge that that's essentially the body of knowledge that I have has become the body that I break to give to others. So that's why I think teaching is a very sacred duty or communication is a very sacred duty. Yeah. Teaching is sacrament.

SPEAKER_02 27:41

Yeah and you're feeding them like this knowledge is then being metabolized people are metabolizing what you're telling them and it's becoming part of them and then they're going to live in the world hopefully differently because of that in a better relationship with the the rest of the fabric they're part of so it is it's a really significant thing you've done really God ordained role that you have and it's wonderful that you're aware of that.

SPEAKER_03 28:08

James this is fascinating and one of the aspects of learning not just about nature but learning from nature or learning from creatures that I've I've become aware of in recent years is this notion of biomimicry. What is biomimicry and and how can it how can how can it be used or how how do we why is it significant why why would I want to mimic whatever bio is referring to so uh thanks Rick for the question.

SPEAKER_00 28:43

And yeah you're right um biomimicry is on the most fundamental level learning from nature and it's very very I mean it's it's it's very simple but it's very very that's it's very very deep actually when you think about it because like um life has been on earth for a very very long time really very very long time. And and you just see like uh how insects can adapt and how insects survive and and all the all the all the learnings that you can get like even for like just understanding like so in biomimicry like when you look at it from a I do teach a bit of it foundationally in in in the university that I'm teaching at um and you'll see at the center of it they have these biomimicry principles life principles at the center of it what drives everything is that life is conducive to life. And then we look at it from a Christian lens life is life for others if you think of it from a Christian lens. So that's actually the center the core principle of biomimicry and you can find this biomimic principles online. And you actually see like and and when you think about it right and you look at the caterpillar for example the caterpillar eats the leaf it is controlling the populations of that that plant it is then pooping and that poop that frost becomes fertilizer or has some other use and then that caterpillar would become a butterfly and then it um pollinates and that butterfly will then become food for another organism and everything. So nothing everything goes to something else and and it's life for others. So this is a biomimicry kind of thing right that that in all things that I do how is it life for others? So this is like applying biomimory concepts to to a faith kind of like lens of it um the other thing is that um when it comes to biomimicry like even the way that I I started as a company right running my company also I try to be like an insect I'm small I'm nimble so I do go around whenever I teach in schools I just carry a bag of insects and I just take all the insects and everything's there's like the marvelous beasts like like in Harry Potter that the character newts right so it's the same thing. So I I learn from the insects I got to be small I got to be nimble I got to reach out to people and go to as many people as possible but using whatever little I have and insects are incredible because um in that poverty of size and the poverty of that small minuscule body they have such a wealth of tools they have horns they have some of them have like acid they shoot acid um some of them release uh explosive gas they glow they fly they shimmer they yeah so it's amazing that you have something so small incredibly small but they can do so many things and so many different levels yeah and basically they're basically tiny superheroes aren't they yeah they are they are tiny superheroes I I did like a little like like a session with a permaculture designer and we did something called that heroes in the garden right yeah so it's nice that you mentioned it yeah so I mean I'm quite glad that we didn't go into the gloomy outlook for insects like we have we lightly glanced on it when you said about Singapore not having an abundance but it's sometimes it's just nice to be in this space of delight and you've really lifted me I'm sure maybe Rick too and just looking at your enthusiasm and thank you for bringing things to show us it's been very enjoyable but I'm sure that you are fully aware that things are difficult for insects as they are for everything else.

SPEAKER_02 32:33

And we always try and glean from our guests wisdom about living hopefully and we wondered if you had any practices, any habits that you have in your day-to-day life that enable you to keep living hopefully in light of the reality which is can feel quite bleak.

SPEAKER_00 33:00

I mean I mean yeah to to talk about like the bleakness I I do have like entomologist friends and everything because you do see the changes in the environment you sort of like pick it up like on a very very kind of like like oh there's a colloquially oh there's a telltale sign or the species I've not seen the species for some time and no one's aware of it like but I guess um when it comes to just innate joy innate because just the other day I had a I stay on the 14th floor but a leaf insect decided to fly into my corridor so just to to see that leaf insect like like oh wow that I've not I've not encountered it before in a while. It's not exactly wild but like just encountering it like um not in a kind of setting like a zoo was incredible just to have in my hand just to see it just to see its antennae it's a very very long antennae because it's a male um I just think that the sense of wonder helps to break away from the gloom and I I I come back to that quite often because just because when when it comes to teaching small kids and everything I think you're supposed to have a moment of wonder a moment of rest or something like that when when you teach preschool and I realized that we as adults we tend to lose that we tend to lose that sense of wonder and so very very interesting that there's a jewel beetle that's this big but and it's green it's very shiny I don't have a specimen for it and the moment that they actually cut down an old mango tree and there were stumps the moment they cut down and left those dead stumps there jewel beetles this size swam on it and laid eggs inside it. So it's very interesting where did the jewel beetles come from I mean they are a kind of what you say edge species that means they can both go to the forest and urban kind of settings but where did it come from how did it get danced very very beautiful jewel beetles and he sort of borrowed into what they laid their eggs there in response to just a small action that we did right all we did was we provided the habitat and they came. So in much the same way that any kind of intervention if we are aware of it and we we do it in a very kind of like um a learned manner and we understand this species much better or I need to provide for it. The moment we provide for a nature response. So it is just one species but the moment you start to recognize that like oh I need to plant flowers that are tropical or more native and then the bees will respond. So it's very interesting because insects are the first thing to respond and just seeing their response can be heartening because you see oh there's that diversity still there and we can still provide for it.

unknown 35:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 35:42

I feel very um motivated to increase my attentiveness to insects and I I actually honestly think I'm gonna be looking at the world differently after this conversation and I cannot think of a better advocate for insects than you James so thank you for all you're doing. Yes and for the time that you've given us today it's been really really lovely to have an hour with you. I wish we had longer.

SPEAKER_00 36:11

Yes thank you so much James we're just just talking about attentiveness I have one little like I have one little like anecdote I have to say I just remember because I was just thinking the other day because Sandeep from Orocia India so there was like the first night where we reached Orosha India, me, Mel and Ajit, we were sitting there and we were sort of discussing at the table about something to do with like the follow-up meetings with the landlord or something like that. And then there were a lot of insects flying in because I just had a light and then like there was no light everywhere else it's very dark inside that uh kind of like reserve space and then like insects start flying in and I had a macro camera I was taking pictures of every single beetle that landed on that table and then I show it to Sandeep and it's like oh my I didn't know that there's so much detail to that kind of thing. Last time I see this kind of species I'll just smash you know and throw it away but you know yeah and then you realize that every single tiny thing that's 1 mm 2 mm 3 mm has a unique shape and has a unique texture and everything is like oh no now I can't do this anymore.

SPEAKER_02 37:09

Yeah yeah yeah the life of a lot of beetles in India just in that one little photograph experiment wow that's amazing what is it like James thank you so much thanks for listening to the Feel Notes podcast if you enjoyed this podcast please leave a review and subscribe and there's more information about this podcast and Arasha at arasha org so do join us next time