Sex, Theft and a Beetle
How The New York Times whiffed on a story about polyamory, poison and going outside without your phone
In a culture drawn to sex and shiny objects, it would seem hard to overlook the Dogbane Leaf Beetle. Along with its rainbow glow, this beetle is promiscuous, polyamorous, and poisonous. It’s a heck of a lifestyle.
Which is why the Dogbane Leaf Beetle came to mind after I noticed a four-part series now running in The New York Times Lifestyle section titled “The Touch Grass Challenge.” Its shocking conclusion: we spend too much time on our phones.
So The Times is encouraging readers this month “to put down your phone and reconnect with the real world.” Week 1’s advice: “Go Outside,” which reduces stress and boosts mood, focus, and memory. “So let’s get outside, together,” The Times reports. “Here’s how to do it.”
Since I’m an expert on going outside, I’ll spare you the particulars of The Times’ 737-word article and tell you, in only two words, how to go outside:
Go outside.
It’s not that difficult. Use either a front door or a back door (or climb out the window if you must).
But before I poke more good-natured fun at the nation’s presumptive paper of record, Week 1’s article is sadly typical of too much news and policy writing on nature: It lacks heart because its writers know little of what swims, slithers, crawls, hops, walks, jumps, flies, or just sits there glowing and mating in nature, even in a city like New York.
Perhaps recognizing this herself, the series’ author quotes scientists who advise readers to “listen to the birds,” “gaze at the curiously shaped clouds drifting overhead,” or notice “a dandelion popping out of the sidewalk.”
Don’t get me wrong. Birds and clouds and dandelions are wonderful — I enjoy them often, and I hope you do as well. But The Times is giving us boilerplate nature, void of beauty, detail, and drama, and unlikely to get phone addicts to turn off and go out.
So before I give you the antics of the Dogbane Leaf Beetle (Chrysochus auratus), here’s a gallery of nature happening right now in three other major American cities (and therefore probably happening near many of you as well).
Meet the Beetles
Not incidentally, you can now find Dogbane Leaf Beetles in Midtown Manhattan, committing larceny within walking distance of The New York Times newsroom. The beetle feeds on dogbane plants (in the genus Apocynum), which defend themselves with heart-stopping chemicals called cardenolides. Unfazed, the beetle eats and sequesters the toxins, later secreting them to ward off attacks by birds, spiders, or other predators. Basically, the Dogbane Leaf Beetle steals the plant’s defense for its own use.
The beetle does all this when it’s not having sex. As adults, Dogbane Leaf Beetles live for about six to eight weeks, nearly every day of which is an orgy. And yet each copulation, which reportedly lasts about 90 minutes, is not entirely indiscriminate. After insemination, neither male nor female rushes off to the next partner. Instead, the male rides around for a while on the female’s back, something known as “post-copulatory mate guarding.” He stays put so that she’ll lay eggs fertilized by his sperm before another male arrives on scene to … you know … do what he just did.
I don’t know about you, but all this from a beetle that glows like Times Square at night might be more reason to get outside than clouds and dandelions, and perhaps even birds (whose copulations last only seconds).
Take Your Time and Keep off the Grass
The Times might have titled its series something other than “The Touch Grass Challenge.” Unless you live in native prairie, the grass most of us touch as lawn isn’t nearly as diverse as most other green places.
Sure, any time spent in nature, even touching grass, is time well spent. The Times suggests 20 minutes per day outside without your phone — either all at once or in two, 10-minute segments. Well, uh, okay. But, c’mon, Americans spend four or more hours a day on average engaged with their phones. You’d think Times readers might spare more than 20 minutes of their days intimately engaged in nature.
The Dogbane Leaf Beetle certainly does.
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The Touch Grass Challenge in The New York Times.
I went outside yesterday.
This reminds of the time the NYTimes recipe section wrote an article about the easiest way to boil an egg and it was also about 1000 words, had 100 steps and involved programming a nuclear reactor.