Ex-Jungle

In a way, all big cities are the same. No matter where you are, you're basically in a big bathtub of concrete. Buildings and streets. Trains underneath. A few trees atop. We rank these bathtubs by their cleanliness and who's bathing in them and voila, we have best cities in the world lists.

Every now and then here in Sampa, I get a reminder that this bathtub used to be a jungle. The insects here are consistently different from the US. Butterflies in particular are where you really see it. Crazy coloration that makes you stop in your tracks like it's a little alien fluttering around. Same thing with one of these caterpillars I nearly stepped on the other day.

Last night, Dani and I were in bed watching some videos on the laptop when a commotion above us made us leap from the sheets. Something had flown in through our open window. I thought it was a bird. Then a bat. Once it landed, it turned out to be some kind of enlarged grasshopper. Think a grasshopper with the wingspan of a small bird.

Dani and I collected ourselves from the jump and reentered the room to examine. Maybe grasshopper wasn't the right word for it. This particular insect had a thorax with big wings that were shaped and colored exactly like green tree leaves. Surely it was some kind of Darwinian camouflage mechanism. We leaned in and just watched it for a while as it sat. It didn't even have to move to impress us.

In a perfect world my turning-off-the-lights-and-holding-a-flashlight-out-the-window strategy would have been a peaceful parting of ways for us and the friend. I didn't have that kind of patience. The hour was late. I grabbed my UNCW beach towel and whipped it to death. A sad end, but a necessary one. Go Hawks.