Notes from
Sierra Leone

 

Bugs!
3 July 2003

 


Bugs
 
 
 
 
 
 
 


 
 
 
 
 
 
 


 
   To most people, Africa brings to mind images of wild and spectacular animals, like lions and elephants and hyenas and zebras. Sierra Leone, thus far, has shown me a multitude of spectacular insects. Well, maybe not so spectacular, but certainly large. And where they are not large as individuals, they are many. Take, for instance, the ants that live in my cupboard. And shelves. And dishrack. And counter. And clothes. I fear they may move into my hair next.

Ants

As I see it, there are four kinds of ant here:

  • Teensy Ant is the most ubiquitous of all the ants. They are so small that they crawl through the tiny air holes in bread or sponges as if the tunnels were rooms in their condominium. Being so tiny and apt to get into everything, I learned to close my eyes and not examine my food too closely to see if the pepper I added to my pasta might crawl away. That tactic backfired the time I bit into a cookie and my face was instantly swarmed with tiny tickling feet trying to get away. Needless to say, I spit that cookie out.
  • Small Hyper Ant has a body about the same size as Teensy Ant, but with (proportionally) long spider-like legs that propel it along in sharp, lightening fast dashes.
  • Big-Ass Ant is about the size of queen ants in America, but without such a rotund body for bearing babies.
  • Big-Ass Hyper Ant is the largest, fastest, and dare I say freakiest ant of them all. He appears in a flash, with long skinny legs that arch up above the altitude of his body, then back down, like a spider's. He is less common than the other ants, and (in my house at least), has a bizarre penchant for clean dishes.
There seem to be tides of dominance among the ants, so that one morning I might wake to find that Big-Ass Ant rules the counter, and by evening the territory may have been conquered by Teensy Ant.

Spiders

Although the antis hyperitis seem spider-like to me, the spiders here are altogether another story. While there are a few spiders around resembling smallish Daddy Long Legs, I’ve seen a couple of spiders so big that they could cream those guys with a swipe of their fat legs. Aracna Fatsa is up there with the tarantulas, but not so hairy. They are dark brown with thick abdomens from which their legs radiate, arching only slightly so as to keep the spiders relatively flat to the ground.

Cockroaches

I spied my first cockroach today as I poured a glass of tropical nectar imported from Lebanon. (While I was busy looking at the cockroach, a Small Hyper Ant slowed down for a moment to brace himself against the surface tension of a drop of spilt juice and dip his head in for a drink). The cockroach was somewhat run-of-the mill: dark red, large, moving in a cautious scurrying motion.

Other animate lifeforms

Also present in good quantities are goats bleating on busy roads, chickens living in stairwells, ducks crossing the road, dogs that seem to be clones, small nervous cats, stick-footed geckos on the bathroom ceiling, birds, birds, birds, green tree snakes, and my favorite of all: colorful lizards doing pushups in the garden.

 

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Disclaimer: This article is not a serious examination of bugs in Sierra Leone!

Copyright © 2003 Julie Greene