Ask A Biologist Podcast

Fast Insects, Smart Science: Tiger Beetles Rule

• Dr. Biology Talks with biologist David Pearson about tiger beetles • Episode 143

Share episode

Tune in and get turned on to the world of tiger beetles! Dr. Biology chats with biologist David Pearson about these colorful sprinters that are not only fun to watch but also important “bioindicators” that help scientists understand the health of habitats. You’ll discover how tiger beetles inspire new designs through biomimicry, and why these tiny speedsters now have their very own celebration—World Tiger Beetle Day, November 11. 

If you have not already, please subscribe to the podcast so you can be notified about new episodes.

[00:00–00:32]
 Dr. Biology
Are you ready for a change of pace? Let's turn back time and tune in to an old radio channel about the topic for this episode. 
 
[Crackling radio sound with dial changing channels to find old fashioned radio program.] 

The adventures of the Tiger Beetle. Faster than a darting dragonfly. Mightier than a mantis on the hunt. Able to sprint across the sand in the blink of an eye. Look out on the trail.
 
 It's not a bird. It's not a plane. It’s the tiger beetle. Champion of speed. Defender of dunes. This tiny Titan hunts with lightning reflexes and jaws of steel. Keeping nature's balance, one bite at a time.

[Radio show fades out.]

Okay, all kidding aside. This is Ask A Biologist, a program about the living world, and I'm Dr. Biology. We've had plenty of guests on this podcast who study animals like birds, fish, pandas, monkeys, and many, many more.

[01:12–01:38]
 Dr. Biology
All of which are what you might think of as big animals. But today we're shrinking things down—way down. We're going to meet the tiger beetle, an insect so fast and fierce it has earned the name of one of nature's top predators. My guest today is David Pierson, a scientist who has spent much of his career studying these tiny speedsters all over the world.

[01:38–02:00]
 Dr. Biology
And I can tell you, from being in his office and looking at the map with all the pins, I don't think he's missed any part of the world. But we'll find out if he has. He's also one of the people behind World Tiger Beetle Day that's going to be on November 11th. It'll be a time to celebrate these colorful beetles and learn about the important role they play in the environment.

[02:00–02:27]
 Dr. Biology
It turns out that tiger beetles aren't just fun to watch. They're also bioindicators—living clues that tell scientists when the environment is changing, and sometime when it's in trouble. So get ready to explore a world where insects race faster than they can keep up with their eyes, dig clever traps for prey, and help to understand how nature keeps its balance.

[02:27–02:36]
 Dr. Biology
Now grab your field hat, if you haven't already, and join us for a wild ride with the Tiger Beetle. Dave, thank you so much for joining me.

[02:36–02:38]
 Dave
It's great to be here, Dr. Biology.

[02:38–02:49]
 Dr. Biology
For those that may not have gone all the way back in our long history of episodes, Dave is a pretty special guest. He's been on Ask A Biologist—

[02:49–02:58]
 Dr. Biology
This will be his third time, which is the most of any guest I've had. And he's also the very first scientist I had on Ask A Biologist many years ago.

[02:58–02:59]
 Dave
And it was an honor.

[02:59–03:09]
 Dr. Biology
And we talked about these amazing animals then. And with World Tiger Beetle Day coming up, I thought this would be a perfect time to have you back on the show.

[03:09–03:13]
 Dave
Oh, it's wonderful to talk about Tiger beetles again. I can always do more.

[03:13–03:23]
 Dr. Biology
Okay, let's start at the basics. Not everybody knows about tiger beetles. Let's talk a little bit about, well, where you'd find them.

[03:23–03:35]
 Dave
Tiger beetles occur around the world everywhere except Antarctica and a few Pacific islands. And they are very colorful. For the most part, they can attract attention, and they're on the ground, but they can also be on leaves and trunks of trees.

[03:36–03:43]
 Dave
They are in virtually every habitat, from the Amazon rainforest to the tundra, from coniferous forests to deserts.

[03:43–03:46]
 Dr. Biology
How about inner cities?

[03:46–03:57]
 Dave
Yes, we even get them here on the campus of Arizona State University. There are some species that at night especially are attracted to lights, and they will come long distances to in the night to disperse themselves.

[03:57–04:00]
 Dr. Biology
And they're really good hunters, right?

[04:00–04:19]
 Dave
They are excellent hunters, both as larvae and adults. The adults have got large mandibles, big eyes to see their prey, and they run them down and grasp the prey and then start to chew them. They don't swallow the whole prey, but they chew them and then masticate them with external digestive juices and suck up the juices.

[04:19–04:21]
 Dr. Biology
Ah, so, they kind of make a tiger beetle stew.

[04:21–04:40]
 Dave
A stew, exactly—that's a good word for it. Yes. And the larvae do much the same thing, but they do it from a vertical tunnel in the ground or in a cliffside or in a bush stem. And they wait for a small ant or a spider to come by, and they reach out and grab it, pull it down, and do the same thing with their smaller mandibles, but still very effective mandibles.

[04:40–04:55]
 Dr. Biology
So we talk a little bit about how fast they are. Let's just pretend that we made one get as big as we are, right? How fast would a tiger beetle be if you could scale the speed as well as the size?

[04:55–05:19]
 Dave
If you scale up the body length—I mean, these are small little things, and they're running four kilometers per hour. Really fast. And one in Australia is especially fast. They can't fly. It just runs and runs and hard to catch. If you scale it up to our body size and look at the speed per body size, it'd be well over 120, maybe 150, 200 miles an hour, depending on how you calculate it. It's be very, very fast.

[05:19–05:31]
 Dr. Biology
Wow. So they're really great at hunting and they're extremely fast, but they don't necessarily have great brains for keeping up with everything they're doing.

[05:31–05:50]
 Dave
Well, they can run so fast and move so fast that they're neurological capacity is overwhelmed, and they have to stop and reassess. And if the prey item hold still and doesn't move, targer beetle probably misses it. So the tiger beetle has to be looking for moving things, and it runs so fast it overwhelms its own brain system.

[05:50–05:58]
 Dr. Biology
So if I do something like “Honey, I Shrunk Your Kids,” you know, and I end up being shrunk down to the size of a tiger beetle—

[05:58–06:30]
 Dr. Biology
I want to stay very still so that they can't pick me up. Okay. All right, so we've talked about where they can be found and where they can't be found, which is very few places. We also talk a little bit about what their role is. And the term bioindicator was something that I mentioned at the very beginning of this show. Can we talk a little bit about how tiger beetles are important, beyond the cool nature of them, and just watching them?

[06:30–07:07]
 Dave
Well, for conservation efforts, it's very difficult to do studies of birds and mammals. That takes lots and lots of years of experience and fieldwork training. And then when you get out in the field, it's really hard to see what the birds are eating, what the mammals are catching, and to look at them and try and use them as management practices in conservation. Takes a lot of time, a lot of money, and a lot of effort.

Well, it turns out that tiger beetles are easy to see, easy to train people, and the data are very reliable. Not only that, but we find that many, if not most of the data we capture with tiger beetles also reflect things going on with some of these vertebrates, like birds and mammals.

[07:07–07:27]
 Dave
So we can go into a site, for instance—I've done this in the Amazon a couple times—where I take students who have never seen a tiger beetle before in their lives, and we take about 3 or 4 hours out in the field. There's a tiger beetle, there's a tiger beetle, but there's one—catch that one—and training them in identification, and that 3 to 4 hours, they are ready to collect reliable data on their own.

[07:27–07:49]
 Dave
If I did that with bird people and tried to train them on birds, it would be at least a year to reach that level of ability to get reliable data. And beyond that, we find that tiger beetles are very specialized. Almost every species is very specialized. That is, they have a very narrow range of habitats they use, which means they're also very sensitive to any kind of change in the environment.

[07:49–08:20]
 Dave
So for management, we found in almost every habitat we've been in that we can look at them and understand quickly: Is that habitat succeeding? Is something happening because all of a sudden a species that not should be there disappears, or one comes in that we didn't know had been there before? It tells us we're doing something right. So instead of having very complicated mathematical models to try and predict where this is going and where our conservation efforts and money should be spent, we can use these tiger beetles in a very, very fast manner to understand this is working.

[08:20–08:27]
 Dave
This is not working. We're getting results here, and it reflects on not only the tiger beetles but all the other species that use that same habitat.

[08:28–08:41]
 Dr. Biology
And when we talk about working and not working, sometimes it is changed. So some habitats, for whatever reasons, whether it's climate change or other things that are going on, a habitat might change over time.

[08:41–08:54]
 Dr. Biology
And so some tiger beetles, they found that a really good environment now no longer do, but others move in. So you basically get an idea to see the ebb and flow of different environments.

[08:54–09:08]
 Dave
Yes. Here in Arizona especially, we're more and more trying to use tiger beetles as an indicator of wetlands recovery. It's a big thing here in Arizona—trying to use what little water we have to restore wetlands that have been long gone.

[09:08–09:34]
 Dave
And amongst the tiger beetles, there are different species that come in at different times. There are what we call pioneer species that come in from a long distance. When the water first appears, all of a sudden they're there. And then after the water's been there for a year or two, there's a second set of species that come in, and then there's a third set of species that—they're not quite as good disperses—but they finally find it and finally come in, the climax species that are only there when we know this is a super healthy wetlands.

[09:34–09:55]
 Dave
And they wouldn't be there otherwise. So if we're managing it and we're seeing that the succession is going on and we're doing the right thing—whatever we're doing to manage that, to keep the water going, to keep the grass down or keep the grass growing, or whatever it takes to make the wildlife attracted to the area, like these tiger beetles—we know quickly what's working and what's not working.

[09:55–10:14]
 Dr. Biology
So it's almost like a level one, level two, level three, and then those climatic species and say, okay, we're at it, right? And then once we get that, we can make sure it's maintained, because if that final species disappears or starts getting limited in number, then something might be changing.

[10:14–10:37]
 Dave
And even beyond that, know the economic benefits. There are very obvious. In Venezuela, we're also using them for lumbering. We have the same series of species of tiger beetles in succession—some that come into newly cut forest have to have wide open, sunny areas. Then they're replaced by others that are more tolerant to shade. And we have then a succession of species that gets to a climax species.

[10:37–10:57]
 Dave
Some of the lumbering companies are now using that as a quick way to assess: Is this patch of forest ready to be harvested or not? And once we put the economic benefits associated with tiger beetles, all of these decision makers—these policymakers, these politicians, these government agencies that are in charge of this—they start to pay attention.

[10:58–11:12]
 Dr. Biology
So I have you on the show for an ulterior motive. And that's because World Tiger Beetle Day is coming up on November 11th. This is a new day of the year, right. This is World Tiger beetle day number—

[11:13–11:13]
 Dave
Number two.

[11:13–11:20]
 Dr. Biology
Number two. Okay—November 11th. How did we pick November 11th?

[11:20–11:31]
 Dave
We had a get together in India a couple of years ago, and we were doing a Red List of threatened and endangered species all across India with citizen scientists.

[11:31–11:40]
 Dr. Biology
So Red List is something that if you go up and look in Wikipedia, for example, is a really good place. If you see certain species, you'll see what they're labeled. Are they—

[11:40–11:42]
 Dave
Threatened? Endangered?

[11:42–11:47]
 Dr. Biology
There's a very specific list that's created called the Red List. So you're working on the Red List.

[11:47–12:10]
 Dave
And we're all together. And this is—the importance of getting together with people. It was a community of citizen scientists and professionals getting to know each other. I was there to help them in an overview, because I've worked in India for many, many years on tiger beetles. And, towards the end, one of the people came up to me and said, you know, we want, have a new idea of having every year a world tiger be today.

[12:10–12:31]
 Dave
And we weren't sure what to you. So we want to ask you, what's your birthday? And so that's how it was chosen. They decided to do my birthday. And so last year on November 11th, we had our first Zoom. It was an international Zoom. We had people from about 18 different countries involved, and they seemed to get turned on to tiger beetles more and more, because there are some people who are new to talking beetles.

[12:31–12:56]
 Dave
And again, it's very catchy when you have that amount enthusiasm and a very, very positive attitude from people and conservation. Often all we hear is doom and gloom. We have to be realistic, but sometimes people need a little positive feedback and a little enthusiasm that there is hope. There are ways and things they can do it, especially last year was super, and the one they're planning for this coming up this year seems to be doing quite well too.

[12:56–12:59]
 Dr. Biology
Now can anybody join in on the Zoom?

[12:59–13:18]
 Dave
Absolutely. We'll have it on Facebook. It'll be most like on Facebook. And we'll advertise it out and we'll see what's going on. There will be prizes. There will be all kinds of, emphasis on interactions, not only amongst professional scientists, but how important the citizen scientist and the nonprofessionals are in advancing diabetes.

[13:18–13:43]
 Dr. Biology
Well, this episode will come out before November 11th, and so we'll be sure to include the link on there so people know how to get to that Zoom meeting of the minds on tiger beetles.

So, bioindicators—great. You and I have a history with tiger beetles as well. I always tease you because I say I lost an entire summer thanks to you.

[13:43–13:54]
 Dr. Biology
You were very instrumental in creating a tiger beetle guide for North America. And, one of the things we needed to do is illustrate those tiger beetles.

[13:54–13:56]
 Dave
And thanks to you, we got the illustrations done.

[13:56–14:11]
 Dr. Biology
Yes, it's several hundred of them. But the thing about it is, they are amazing animals. The range of colors and patterns is stunning, really.

[14:11–14:25]
 Dr. Biology
And one of the things I wanted to mention is even if you can't get out and hunt down the tiger beetles, if you want to learn about these animals, Ask. A Biologist has not only some stories on there, but we have a zoom gallery.

[14:25–14:36]
 Dave
Which is being used around the world in schools right now in India. In Brazil, it's been a spectacular way to attract especially kids, third and fourth graders, and even adults use it very, very effectively.

[14:36–14:55]
 Dr. Biology
This is a fun way to see them—and not just see them at a distance. It's up close and really personal. So I wanted to make sure people know that not only can they get involved, which we would encourage them, but they certainly can learn about tiger beetles even if they can't get out in the field right away.

[14:55–15:12]
 Dr. Biology
But let's get back to the field again. How would I get started hunting for tiger beetles? Because when I go out for a walk—ants? No problem. In our area—cicadas? No problem. Why am I missing seeing tiger beetles?

[15:12–15:27]
 Dave
Well, this is something you have to develop what we call a search image. And once you train your eyes and your brain to recognize real quickly—because tiger beetles are not slow, it's not often going to just sit there and wait for you to say, well, I wonder what that is or not.

[15:27–15:49]
 Dave
They're going to be running or flying, and they have a very peculiar way in which they take off and fly the short distances. Their running patterns are very distinctive—going very fast, stopping, starting, stopping, starting. Also, knowing which habitats to expect them in can be very important. Sometimes I'll be surprised. I'll see—I'll talk to people—hadn't expected to be there at all, but that's again because my brain is hard wired now after all these years.

[15:49–16:12]
 Dave
It takes a little work, but I've done this with third graders. I've been working with a group of first graders in Los Gatos, California, and there's a rare and endangered species of tiger beetle lives near them. So their teachers are teaching them about conservation, using this rare species, taking them out into the field. And then we will Zoom every week or so and they'll line up and have questions.

[16:12–16:43]
 Dave
And two weeks ago, the six year olds lined up, and the third one that—a young girl—said to me, Doctor Pierson, can we expect tiger beetles to be carnivorous? This from a six year old? I mean, what those teachers are doing in their expectations, having been so high that the students just are amazingly able to respond, and how quickly they learned—drawing pictures of tiger beetles, drawing posters, going out in the field, even gathering funds for protecting tiger beetles.

[16:43–16:48]
 Dave
Starting early—like a language—is always a good thing, but you can still do it if you're an adult,

[16:48–16:57]
 Dr. Biology
Right. So it's not like, “Are you smarter than a fifth grader?” Here is: can you ID a tiger beetle that a third grader can do?

[16:57–16:58]
 Dave
There you go.

[16:58–17:12]
 Dr. Biology
Right. So I'll be out—challenged to do that. When I did the illustrations, I was very lucky—you brought them to me very well prepared. So I did not have to spend time hunting them down.

[17:12–17:15]
 Dave
Although we've had you on the field a couple of times, I know we've looked at tiger beetles together, a couple of times.

[17:15–17:21]
 Dr. Biology
Yes, yes, I've seen them. Yeah. It's just not as often as I thought I would see them.

[17:21–17:40]
 Dave
Well, they're also very seasonal. In much of the world, you can't expect to see them in the middle of the winter because they do need warmer temperatures. They are what we call cold blooded organisms that need external temperature to keep going. So wintertime, the larvae and adults are usually underground.

[17:40–17:52]
 Dr. Biology
Now you mentioned that they have a very distinctive running pattern and flying pattern. Is this again because they run so fast that they can't keep up?

[17:52–18:13]
 Dave
I'm not sure which came first. They have to run fast to catch the prey, and sometimes they run too fast to overwhelm their neurons again. But again, that's a generalization because there are some tiger beetles in the tropics who run up and down the trunks of trees or on leaves, but they still have this kind of stop, start, stop, start way of pursuing their prey in a very different type of substrate.

[18:14–18:37]
 Dave
And there are some species that are flightless—they've lost their wings. And that one in Australia that runs so fast is one of those. I know we were on the salt flats in Western Australia trying to catch one. We could not keep up with it. It was just amazing. We finally had put up little traps for it and try and have it fall into a pitfall before we could catch anything. Even though it couldn't fly, was so fast.

[18:37–18:43]
 Dr. Biology
Beyond their beauty and speed, they are part of the food web.

[18:43–18:49]
 Dave
Yes, they are an important top predator, but they're also prey.

[18:49–18:59]
 Dr. Biology
So let's talk a little bit about food webs, because that's a term that everybody's heard at least once in their lives. Let's talk about food webs.

[18:59–19:28]
 Dave
They are a central part to these food webs, especially being a top predator. They can control a lot of the rest of the community, and they themselves can be very important food for birds, for robber flies, for other types of predators. But in response, of course, it's a whole other set of adaptations that target beetles have, that we have seen—their colors, for instance. There are some species that produce a type of chemical called Ben's aldehyde, which turns into cyanide.

[19:28–19:51]
 Dave
I don't know if they ever smelt cyanide—it smells like almonds. If you catch a tiger and pick it up, it'll smell sweet. It's giving off this chemical. It doesn't affect us, but most of these insects, like robber flies, won't touch them, and it's very, very protective. But not only do they have the cyanide that they produce, but when they spread their wings to fly, they have a bright orange abdomen that you don't see unless they're flying.

[19:51–19:57]
 Dave
And that appears to be advertising—don't touch me. You're going to get zapped by this cyanide if you touch.

[19:57–20:06]
 Dr. Biology
Yes. It's a warning sign. Yes. So there are top predator. What's their favorite food?

[20:06–20:37]
 Dave
They're not very choosy on what species that eat—this mostly size. And their mandibles, we found, are directly related to the size of prey that they can eat. The big target beetles with the big mandibles can't handle the small things very well. And the small tiger beetles with the small animals, of course, can't handle the big tiger beetles. They just get turned over in their back, and they try and catch a big prey item. So other than their prey having also chemicals or having another protection that would keep them from being eaten, it's almost all by size of prey.

[20:37–20:45]
 Dave
It can be a small spider, it can be an ant, it can be a weevil. Anything that's small and isn't too hard to eat.

[20:45–20:54]
 Dr. Biology
Yeah. Because they're going to again chew them up, create little bits, put some digestive juices on them, and create that stew.

[20:54–21:23]
 Dave
And we also found that when, when tiger beetles occur together at the same site—you get 3 or 4 species—they're not the same size. They're almost always around the world—you're a small one, a medium one, and a large one. And what we found is that very likely is important, because they don't compete for the same prey item. So if their prey are rare or not real common, this is a way that you can keep on going in a site—that you won't be eating somebody else's food.

[21:23–21:40]
 Dr. Biology
Very interesting. So for those that we're going to have, go try out the zoom gallery—there are a dozen there, by the way, so don't worry, you're not going to be overwhelmed—do you have a favorite out of that gallery?

[21:40–21:54]
 Dave
Well, there's that Manticore is in the gallery. Yes. There's one called Albina, which is almost all white. One occurs on white sands, and when it's running on that sandy beaches, I swear I can barely see it.

[21:54–22:00]
 Dave
And it's not all pure white—[it] is white lines, and it just disappears as you're looking at it as a camouflage.

[22:00–22:16]
 Dr. Biology
That brings me to the patterns. Some of them have some amazing tiger stripes. Others are these really bright greens. Some of them have some really interesting patterns. What's the story behind that?

[22:16–22:39]
 Dave
Well, one thing is to be careful of how we perceive the colors—[it] may not be how other predators perceive the colors. There may be ultraviolet colors that we can't see, and so we have to be careful in that, too. But in many, many cases, what we call the kind of blaw ones—the ones that don't have bright colors—are specifically camouflage to their background. It could be a leaf, it could be sand, it could be dirt.

[22:39–22:59]
 Dave
And they're really restricted to a very, very narrow range of colors that they are almost invisible on. Others have brighter colors—advertising I'm dangerous, don't eat me. But there are some that don't have the poison, don't have the chemical, that are brightly colored, but they look just like a mutillid wasp. They look like other things that do sting.

[22:59–23:22]
 Dave
So they're again mimicking for that benefit. They're cheating, in other words, and looking like the bad things. We also find colors—we get into economic situation. There's a tiger beetle in Yellowstone National Park that occurs in hot, hot ponds. I mean, there's nothing else there. And people have fallen into those ponds and died—it's so hot it is able to endure.

[23:22–23:24]
 Dr. Biology
Right. This is in the extremophile.

[23:24–23:52]
 Dave
Yes. And that tiger beetle, even though it occurs in other types of habitats that are wet but aren't so hot, somehow that same species is able to go in here. And we're finding now engineers are now looking at the way the structure of the outer covering of those tiger beetles—looking at the color—trying to figure out what it is, is a combination of factors that they can mimic and perhaps do something for us in creating ways that we can endure heat as well. So, a jacket, a coat, a covering,

[23:52–24:03]
 Dr. Biology
Right. In this case, the scientists are trying to figure out from the tiger beetle: what do we need to mimic so that we can make use of that—whatever it's doing to endure these really hot temperatures.

[24:03–24:42]
 Dave
And that's becoming more and more common—where we're looking at how things have evolved over millions of years, really stark natural selection, and are surviving. How can we go in there and mimic that, use that, and have an economic return from it? It's becoming more and more common. So biologists have to learn to work with engineers. We have to work with economists and business people as well to get this out. And again, in conservation terms, the benefit is again—the politicians, the decision makers, the people who don't know about tiger beetles—this will catch your attention long before anything about color, long before anything about how fast they can run or how wonderful they are.

[24:42–24:53]
 Dr. Biology
Right? The term is biomimicry. And there are institutes that are all about this, and engineers have been learning from nature for quite some time.

[24:53–26:08]
 Dave
For instance, I was working for several years in India and getting very little response from the government officials who were trying to work with me, on the tiger beetles there. I was there until I told them we had discovered a tiger beetle is attracted to the rice paddies—if you change the angle of the dikes to 45 degrees—because the females prefer to put their eggs, what's called oviposit, their eggs in that angle. If it's flat, they won't do it. If it's 90 degrees, they won't do it. We had some farmers put half their fields to a 45 degree angle on the dikes, and keep the others at 90 degrees. We found in the fields at 45 degrees the number of these tiger beetles, the females coming in, tripled, quadrupled. And of course, when the females are there, more males come in. And this species has another habit—it climbs the rice dams to eat the rice. Them borers that are up there. And by doing that, the farmers don't have to use expensive and dangerous pesticides. We've got preliminary data—it's still a little bit arm waving as far as how far we can go, and what we can do with it. But just introducing that possibility, these politicians—they turned 180 degrees and say, wow, this is important. We've got to look at this. Oftentimes biologists and people in basic research don't appreciate how important it is to work with economists and business people, but that's—in conservation—it's becoming much, much more common now.

[26:08–26:11]
 Dr. Biology
Well, it's nice to have a common goal, right?

[26:11–26:11]
 Dave
Absolutely.

[26:11–26:17]
 Dr. Biology
If you want a certain outcome and it's both beneficial, that's great.

[26:17–26:24]
 Dave
It's a wonderful change I'm seeing. Yes. In and working in teams that include non biologist.

[26:24–26:37]
 Dr. Biology
So Dave, on Ask A Biologist I always ask three questions of my scientists. And this is your third time on the show. So I was trying to think about how we should vary this. So that was—

[26:37–26:38]
 Dave
A new question, okay.

[26:38–27:06]
 Dr. Biology
Well, there are two things I thought of. One of them is to see how consistent you are. And the other one is maybe to vary it a bit. Now, I do like the very first question. A lot of people wonder how people get started—when, you know, when did you decide you're going to be a biologist, that sort of thing. Do you have a story about becoming a biologist that you recall that just kind of sticks in your head?

[27:06–27:24]
 Dave
Well, when I was ten years old, back in Minnesota, for some reason—and I don't know why—I got really interested in birds. And there was a group of adults who started to take me out birdwatching, who were very good and took me under their wing, so to speak. And birds tend to slow down in the middle of the day.

[27:24–27:52]
 Dave
So during our field trips, and all the—these are the birdwatchers who decide to give me—those are the six legged birds. We can kind of fill in the time until the birds become active again. And I worked on that, and I became interested in birds and tiger beetles because of that. And as I grew older and older and I decided to actually do some research on birds—which I did my PhD on birds—I found out I couldn't answer the questions I wanted to with birds.

[27:52–28:23]
 Dave
I couldn't see what they're eating. I can see who's eating them. I couldn't manipulate them. I couldn't do experiments. It was really difficult. At the same time, there were tiger beetles in each of these sites, and I found out, wow, I can answer these very important questions using tiger beetles. I don't need to use birds. So I, in essence, switched from birds to tiger beetles to be able to do the research I needed to understand general and important questions of ecology, behavior, and conservation.

[28:23–28:28]
 Dr. Biology
I think you're pretty close to what you said before.

[28:28–28:29]
 Dave
I'm allowed to change now.

[28:29–28:30]
 Dr. Biology
You are.

[28:30–28:32]
 Dave
Professors shouldn't get caught up in no change.

[28:32–29:16]
 Dr. Biology
Yes, well, that's where the second question [comes in], because that's the one where I take it all away. Because I want to see if you would change what you would do. And so with you it's—it's kind of difficult, because you do so many things. You are a well known and avid birdwatcher—that's without a doubt. obviously, there's tiger beetles, conservation, teaching—all those things. I'm going to take those away. I always wonder what my scientists would like to do if they were outside of what they've done all their lives—what would be something they'd like to do, even if they don't have the skill? But they would love to have that skill.

[29:16–29:30]
 Dave
Wow. It's so much a part of my life. I am very interested in languages. I am very interested in other cultures, and I would be very, very happy to have had a lifetime career working there as well.

[29:30–29:33]
 Dr. Biology
How many languages now are you speaking?

[29:33–29:46]
 Dave
Well, I teach workshops in conservation in four and a half. Four and a half. What's the half? Well, in Brazil I started out in Portuguese, but by midday it's Portunhol and it goes to Spanish. I can't keep the Portuguese up—it fries my brain?

[29:46–29:51]
 Dr. Biology
Yeah, it's kind of like Spanglish rather than—yes. In this case, it's a blend of Spanish and Portuguese.

[29:51–30:07]
 Dave
But German was my second language I learned as a child. And, I've worked a lot in West Africa, where French is necessity, and of course Spanish throughout South America. And I can get in trouble in a couple of other languages where I'm just barely able to carry on some conversations.

[30:07–30:25]
 Dr. Biology
The last question is the one I'm changing, and the last question is: what advice would you have for a future scientist? What I'm changing it to is—what would you like people to do for World Tiger Beetle Day?

[30:25–30:57]
 Dave
Well, as you mentioned, Dr. Biology, they can certainly visit, Ask A Biologist and play around on zoom and get into that. And maybe—hopefully—we'll have our zoom topic be from India and you can get an idea of what other people are doing. But I would say there are guides like iNaturalist you can go to online, or there are field guides that we've published. You can look at those and on your own start to look for tiger beetles. The discovery is sometimes a big part of the adventure, and at first it may be a little difficult and maybe hard. Maybe you can get some other people working with you.

[30:57–31:16]
 Dave
Working in groups oftentimes is the best way to do this. Know the right time of year and get that information on Google or—and some of these websites—and look for them. Some are much, much more obvious. If you're in the eastern United States, as a bright green six spotted tiger be lit—famous for being in the forest as you walk along the paths.

[31:16–31:45]
 Dave
I know that sometimes looking down, you miss the birds and other things that are up above, but look in front of you. Just keep your eyes up—maybe 3 to 6 ft in front of you—and watch for things to fly up. It's again a learning experience, and I would say from my experience, I go out and work a lot with elementary and secondary schools, and when I'm working with third graders, second graders, it's why, why, why, why, why all the time—they are super enthusiastic.

[31:45–32:07]
 Dave
And when I get them out in the playground right around the school, it's just amazing what they can find, what they can see, what we can do to to encourage them. And it sticks. I have had people who were with me as first graders, who contacted me after they graduated from college and told me that was the major part of their life in changing their attitude towards biology.

[32:07–32:43]
 Dr. Biology
And I've always thought that a lot of people that get interested in insects will do collections, but not everybody has the materials to do that and the space to have the collections. But with photography nowadays you can create quite a gallery of these insects. One of the questions I have—is there a way to capture the insects and immobilize them enough briefly so that they're hopefully still in a natural state, but where you could then take a photograph? So what would you suggest?

[32:44–32:59]
 Dave
Well, there's two things. First of all, in nature, without catching the tiger beetle—they can be hard to catch sometimes—if you hold still and watch your movements, Tiger beetles will calm down and do their thing around you. You have to get on your hands and knees and get kind of eye to eye with them.

[32:59–33:16]
 Dave
And you get some spectacular photos. I naturalist online—it’s full of pictures like that where people have done a good job. And what's more, there are experts who identify your photos for you. If that doesn't work and you're willing to try and catch a tiger beetle, you can put it in a jar and put it in the refrigerator.

[33:16–33:39]
 Dave
Cool down a little bit—because it's cold blooded, it doesn't remain real active then—so you can take it out. It'll stand there and maybe walk slowly around; as it warms up, it'll get faster and faster, but it's a kind of way that you could maybe get some other photos. It would not be possible if you're just going to nature. There are some photographers who are purist—this is cheating—but the photos look pretty good too. You can decide how you want to do it.

[33:39–33:45]
 Dr. Biology
Well, I mean, it's still getting involved, and I think that's what's great. Well, Dave, thank you again for being on Ask A Biology.

[33:45–33:48]
 Dave
It was my pleasure. Anytime.

[33:48–34:03]
 Dr. Biology
The Ask A Biologist podcast is produced on the campus of Arizona State University and is recorded in the Grass Roots Studio, housed in the School of Life Sciences, which is an academic unit of The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

[34:04–34:35]
 Dr. Biology
And remember, even though our program is not broadcast live, you can still send us your questions about biology using our companion website. The address is askabiologist.asu.edu. Or you can just use your favorite search tool and enter the words ask a biologist. And let me say that we are using real scientists. No AI bots. As always, I'm Dr. Biology, and I hope you're staying safe and healthy.

Head Shot

Dr. Biology

Host