Arachnids, Fear, and Entomological Warfare - Study Notes

Introduction to Arachnids and Fear

• Brown Recluse Spiders: Common in many households, including the instructor's kitchen. They are venomous, meaning they inject material that reacts negatively with the body.
• Risks: Scorpions, spiders, and ticks are significant environmental risks, distinguishing them from typical insects.
• Upcoming Lecture (Lecture 4): Will clarify why entomologists study scorpions, ticks, and spiders, even though they are not insects. This will delve into biological classification.
• Arachnophobia: The fear of spiders, discussed in a previous session, raises the question of whether instilling fear can be a military advantage.

Arthropods in Culture and Warfare Inspiration

• Influences: Arthropods have clearly influenced human culture and conflict:
  • Assassin Bug: Stacks the heads of dead ants on its back, strikingly similar to the "Predator" movie creature.
  • Beetle Warrior: A small beetle riding a bee, illustrating the idea of insect-based combatants.
  • Dungeons and Dragons: Often features large insect problems for players to face.
  • Angry Birds: While birds aren't typically scary, the concept of angry, swarming creatures can be adapted, perhaps leading to an "Angry Bees" app.

Stinging Arthropods: Classification and Risks

• Scientific Names: Students will learn the scientific names of six insect orders. This is for conciseness in test questions, avoiding long lists of common names.
• Order Hymenoptera: Includes bees, wasps, hornets, yellow jackets, and ants. A key characteristic is that females can potentially sting.
• Scorpions: Are not insects but arachnids, related to spiders and eyelash mites. They possess eight legs and sting with their tail (telson).
• Stinging vs. Biting: Insects bite (e.g., mosquitoes, horse flies) with their mouths, but sting with their posterior end (e.g., bees, wasps, scorpions).
• Phobia and Allergies:
  • Phobia: Defined as an excessive fear.
  • First Sting: The fear of dying from a first sting is largely unfounded; one must survive the initial exposure to something to learn if they are allergic.
• Bee Sting Fatalities: While rare, bee stings do cause deaths annually.
  • Risk Disparity: Males are statistically more likely to die from bee stings than females, not due to inherent toughness of females, but because males tend to take more risks.
• Video Game Portrayals: Games like Far Cry depict bees as environmental dangers where disturbing nests leads to stings and potential death, mirroring real-world understanding of bee aggression.

Historical Use of Stinging Arthropods in Warfare

Bees and Wasps

• Behavioral Advantage: Bees (especially colony-nesting species) build in enclosed spaces, raise offspring, and defend valuable resources, making them aggressive when disturbed.
• Mayan Bee Grenades:
  • Time Period: Ancient South America.
  • Method 1 (Mannequins): Hollow mannequins with squash heads were filled with bees. Striking the mannequin (a cultural practice to count coups without killing) resulted in stings.
  • Method 2 (Clay Pots): Bees were allowed to colonize clay pots. The openings were then sealed with straw, and the pots were thrown at enemies. This disoriented enemies, making it hard to maintain fighting formation.
• Castle Defense (Medieval Europe):
  • Beehives in Architecture: Castles often had specialized architectural features on their south side (not too hot, not too cold) called "skeps" to house beehives. Skeps were typically straw baskets.
  • Deployment: During sieges, these straw baskets of bees would be dropped from castle walls, breaking upon impact and releasing an angry swarm into the attacking forces.
• German Peasants vs. Swiss Cavalry:
  • Scenario: Underequipped German peasants against well-armored Swiss knights and horses.
  • Tactic: Peasants threw wasp nests at the armored horses. Horses, disliking stings, would buck and kick, dislodging the heavily armored riders who were then vulnerable to pitchfork attacks.
  • Outcome: The town where this occurred was renamed "Bayenberg" (Bee Town).
• American Civil War (Battle of Antietam):
  • Scenario: Union soldiers took defensive positions around a farmhouse on high ground, which also contained beehives.
  • Impact: The bees interfered with both Union defense and Confederate attacks, highlighting their indiscriminate disruptive power.
• Vietnam War:
  • Asian Giant Honeybee: This species builds large nests, up to $10$ feet across, and has an aggressive swarm response.
  • Vietnamese Tactic: Nests were moved at night and strategically placed on trails or left with a single person to trigger their swarm when enemy troops approached.
• Siege Warfare by Tunnel: Early Roman experiences with tunnel warfare led to the idea of digging tunnels under castles and releasing bees into them to clear out defenders.
• King Richard the Lionheart (Crusades):
  • Objective: Retake the Holy Land from Saladin's Muslim troops.
  • Siege of Acre: King Richard transported $13$ boatloads of bees from Great Britain to Israel. He then used trebuchets to launch these bees into the city of Acre.
  • Outcome: The bees caused such chaos that the European crusaders initially rushed into the city but were also driven out by the swarming bees. The city was left to the bees for several days before the Europeans could declare a victory.

Scorpions

• City of Hatra (Modern Iraq):
  • Historical Context: A crucial city on the Silk Road, besieged by the Roman legions, the most formidable fighting force of the time.
  • Defense: Citizens dropped clay pots filled with Deathstalker scorpions onto the Roman soldiers below their $40$-foot walls.
  • Outcome: The "scorpion bombs" caused Roman soldiers to break formation, making them vulnerable to archers. Hatra remained undefeated for another $500$ years due to this effective defense.
• Modern Relevance:
  • Flooding in Egypt ($2021$): Heavy rains forced underground scorpions to the surface, leading to many stings and initial reports of deaths (later confirmed to be electrocution due to power lines).
  • Smuggling: Scorpions are still smuggled, highlighting their continued perceived threat or value.

Biological Warfare Using Insects to Transmit Disease

• Historical Ignorance of Germ Theory: Ancient societies, like those during the plague, did not understand germ theory, leading to ineffective and often detrimental practices (e.g., stacking bodies to ward off evil spirits).
• Modern Understanding: With scientific advancement, we now know that germs cause illness and can be transmitted directly (e.g., coughing) or indirectly by insects.
• Insect-Transmitted Diseases: Examples include Zika virus and bubonic plague.
• Biblical References (Ark of the Covenant): The Bible describes Philistine cities afflicted with "tumors" and mice after capturing the Ark ($1$ Samuel $5$:$6$-$12$). This description (tumors, mice) is highly suggestive of bubonic plague, likely transmitted by fleas on rats.
  • Flea Longevity: Fleas can survive for prolonged periods without a blood meal (up to half a year), making them ideal vectors for dormant pathogens.
• Unit 731 (Imperial Japanese Army during WWII):
  • Location: Harbin, China (now home to the Unit $731$ Museum).
  • Experiments: Conducted horrific biological warfare experiments on prisoners of war (POWs), including Americans and British.
  • Plague-Infected Fleas: Prisoners were deliberately infected with plague via fleas. Early tests showed high efficacy.
  • Mass Production: By the end of the war ($1945$), Unit $731$ was producing $3,000,000$ rats and $100,000,000$ fleas per day.
  • Strategic Goal: The commander, General Shiro Ishi, proposed using these agents to stop American forces, notably during the anticipated invasion of the Philippines (Bataan).
  • Post-War Immunity: Ishi and $3,000$ other Japanese scientists involved received immunity from war crimes prosecution in exchange for their biological warfare data. Ishi was later employed by the US Army at Fort Detrick, Maryland, to develop biological warfare machines.
  • Geneva Convention: While the Geneva Convention explicitly prohibits the development of biological warfare agents, the US acquired the technology and knowledge from Unit 731.
• Korean War ($1952$): China accused the United States of dropping biological warfare agents on its territory. The US denied this, but the accusations highlight the ongoing concern and potential use of such weapons.
• Cuban Crop Pests ($1996$): Small vegetable pests appeared in Cuba. There were unconfirmed sightings of US prop planes flying over Cuba at the time, leading to speculation about biological warfare related to agriculture.
• Operation Big Buzz (US Test):
  • Location: Savannah, Georgia.
  • Purpose: The US dropped non-infected Egyptian yellow fever mosquitoes to test the dissemination of pathogens.
  • Implication: This experiment aimed to understand how effectively pathogens could be spread in areas within the US, implying research into internal biological warfare capabilities or defense.

Exam Relevance

• Scientific Names: Learning scientific orders (e.g., Hymenoptera) helps simplify complex groups for exam questions.
• Exam Structure: Exams will be multiple-choice (four to five answer options) via Canvas and LockDown Browser.
• Practice: Though in-class questions aren't graded for course points (earning participation points instead), they serve as crucial practice for the graded exams. For example, understanding the offensive use of bees in sieges (e.g., throwing them into a castle to cause chaos) is a key concept.