Child of Earth

Published:

Evening blogsters:

Fifty years ago lads in eastern New Mexico would have called this creature an Earth Baby.  It was considered good luck to keep one captive in a jar, or cottage cheese container in your room.  Which it usually wasn't if an adult discovered it, or if it escaped into the house as they were prone to do.

Many decades later a guy with a PHD in biology told me the real name was Child of Earth.  I don't know which is correct.  I always figured they were called earth babies because the face resembles a human infant.

The PHD didn't know any more about them, what they eat, how they live.  Kids thought they lived seven years, which they might.

This one showed up on the front porch, newly enough dead so's the limbs weren't stiff when I handled it.... In fact, when I first picked it up I thought it was alive, but only stiff from the chill.

Anyway, get yourself one of these, put it in a cottage cheese container and keep it in your room.  Good luck.

Jack

 

 

Entry #372

Comments

Avatar luckierlady -
#1
Ew. How big is this thing? Did a kitty get it?
Avatar Rip Snorter -
#2
I'd call it an inch and a quarter, inch and a half long.

So far as I could tell nothig killed it. All the usual body parts in place undamaged. This critter's softer than you'd expect, looking at it. More like a grasshopper than, say, a cricket insofar as the texture and feel of the exoskeleton. Cats would have taken it apart in a nonce.

Jack

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