Is it important for bugs to have names?
“Surq Sia is what we call them!” Azeem laughed. Red-black was certainly not what these bugs were called. They have no name. A group of men had gathered once again to see what I was discovering. Two red and black beetles were attached together at their ends. One pulled the other in one direction; then the other pulled in her direction. What were they up to? Other pairs of beetles were doing the same thing, and I was taking photos.
“We sometimes just call these bugs insects,” Mr. Momeen came beside me. “We don’t have other names for these things.”
I read a book about Moslem sciences last night. The book explained that the only original Islamic sciences were astronomy and geography. All other sciences were “foreign” and long considered suspect.
Mr. Momeen said, “There is another animal we know. We call them night butterflies. They have no eyes, but do not need them to find their home. They can fly like that (he made a zooming motion) to find their homes even with no eyes.” I think he meant moths. I nodded. “Yes, they use their antennae to smell.”
“And another thing: there are birds,” he said in awe, “that fly in a V shape. The bird at the head of the V is the leader. But when she becomes tired, she drops behind and another bird takes her place. They work together like this, with no fighting about who will be leader. It is truly wonderful. People fight so much over who will be the leader. So many crimes are committed over this.”
Just moments before I had been watching karachs, the large indigenous sow bug. They dig large holes and move in and out of them, jockeying for position, pushing one another out. Azeem told me that the Afghans called Russian tanks after these bugs – “Shasht pipi.” Shasht pipi means “six legs.”
“But they don’t have six legs,” I countered, picking one up and holding it upside down.
“You have counted them?” Another man asked.
“Yes. They have 14 legs.”
He counted the squiggling legs and agreed. “And what are these?” I explained those were the antennae waving in front.
