For Those Who Like Their Bugs Big

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Residents of Southern California have reported record numbers of uninvited guests invading their neighborhoods and homes this spring. The visitors are a rare species of praying mantis indigenous to Mexico and whose northern range, until this year, had not reached Mexico's border with California. Emergency Rooms throughout the region report a heavy influx of patients with symptoms that range from mild dermatitis to bites that require butterfly enclosures and antibiotics.

Chief Entomologist Clarence Biddle stated in a news conference at the CISRFB, "Most of these bites happen at night when the mantis seeks warmth and ends up crawling between the sheets of the victim's bed. However office workers are also at risk as these insects often hide on the underside of computer desks where they can benefit from the warmth of the computer."

Biddle, who has served at the Institute since its inception in 1982, feels that the appearance of this insect is a product both of climate change and the increased use of certain pesticides south of the border. "This species may become a permanent fixture in the southwest, which is particularly disturbing because it's such a nasty critter. I've been studying insects all my adult life and this one really creeps me out."

Officials at the CISRFB (California Institute for the Study of Really Frightening Bugs) feel that the appearance of this praying mantis in California may have more far-reaching consequences than the Canadian Cockroach Migration of 1939 which devastated the agricultural industry of upstate New York.

Am I concerned about these developments? To be sure. I have a good friend in California and I just hope this news doesn't give her the "willies" every time she sits at her desk or crawls into bed. No one wants that.