Monster lizard bugs North America

Some people rescue puppies, some kittens; some rehabilitate injured wildlife.

I save bugs.

Well, some bugs. If I find a bee, wasp or spider in my house, I am likely to trap it under a cup, slide a postcard under it, and release it outside.

The same goes for butterflies and moths that aren’t eating my clothes.

But not roaches, ants or mosquitoes.

Mosquitoes must die, before they kill me with a virus. Also any spiders so venomous they’re a threat, such as the black widow or the brown recluse.

That I’m a bug rescuer occurred to me the other day when I saw a Facebook post urging people not to smack or spray spiders that show up in the house.

It said only a dozen or so of 40,000 spider species can harm humans. And that must be true, because it was on Facebook.

A 2014 Washington Post report said spider species total 45,000. It cited a USDA study that showed 614 species were found in farm fields, in cotton, soybeans, corn, alfalfa, peanuts, sugarcane, etc.

According to the research, North American spider species overall are 59 percent web-spinners and 41 percent wanderers, but in farm fields they’re 56 percent wanderers and 44 percent spinners, so most are roaming through the crops, preying on other bugs.

“Spiders are primary controllers of insects,” a guy who studies arachnids told the Washington Post. “Without spiders, all of our crops would be consumed by those pests.”

But if spider species are like other species on Earth, they’re headed for extinction.

It’s no secret we homo-sapiens are doing a good job of wiping out the critters we need and nurturing the ones we don’t. Just look at all the invasive species we have here in the South now, like those Burmese pythons down in the Florida Everglades.

Some of those are huge, big enough to swallow a human. So they’re lucky they’re in Florida, where they have plenty to eat – retirees, alligators, wild birds, cartoon characters, dead bodies the Mafia dumped in the swamp, etc.

But because they’re eating everything, the pythons are ruining our fetid swamps, helping wipe out our decent hardworking American wildlife as they grow as long and wide as storm sewers. Someone should tell the president he needs to round up all those Burmese pythons and send them back to Burmesia.

Florida’s now being terrorized by another invasive behemoth: the giant lizard.

Well, relatively giant: The exotic black-and-white tegu from South America grows four feet long and eats smaller animals, so among the species it threatens here are house pets.

If this trend continues, Florida is going to become way too realistic an action-adventure theme park, with giant lizards and snakes and crocodiles and palmetto bugs and disease spreading insects everywhere. Soon you’re going to have to buy tickets at the state line just to get in.

But we don’t have to go to Florida to see an invasive species. Just look down.

Go out for a walk after a warm, spring rain – or a warm fall or winter rain, these days – and watch the fire ants spread. Some pastures are checkerboards of red-clay ant beds and green spring grass.

Fire ants don’t belong here, either, and they’re eating things that do, pretty much anything on the ground they can swarm.

An often overlooked aspect of environmental change is that humans alone don’t wipe out the species we need; humans use other species to wipe out the species we need, by putting pests where they don’t belong and can’t be confined.

So when I catch an innocent spider in my house, I try to do my part by putting it back where it belongs – outside, eating other bugs.

The fire ants will probably get it anyway.

This story was originally published April 23, 2017 at 10:54 PM with the headline "Monster lizard bugs North America."