Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Arthropod Haiku

The NC State University Insect Museum in Raleigh recently held a Hexapod Haiku contest.   Read more about the Hexapod Haiku 2009 Challenge.  They haven't announced the winners yet, but I thought I'd share a couple of my own submissions.

Stabbing pain, hot fire!
Yellow jacket samurai 
Have found my soda can.

Ancient signals flash
Through twilight as fireflies ask,
Where are you, my love?

Limulus appears 
On muddy beaches once more.
Late spring on the Bay.

For you non-biologists out there, Limulus is the genus of the Atlantic horseshoe crab.  Horseshoe crabs are those prehistoric arthropods with many legs and other flapping appendages that simultaneously fascinated and scared the carp out of me as a little girl when I found them on the beach in late spring and early summer.  They're living fossils and completely harmless, but I love the way they lumber up on the beach to mate and lay eggs before disappearing back into the water as if they were hideous monsters from a 1950's science fiction movie.

Wikipedia has a good entry on the
horseshoe crab if you'd like to learn more about them.

Update, April 22, 2009!  I was given two honorable mentions by the judges for my firefly and yellowjacket submissions.  You can see the other honorable mentions posted here.

Now I have to decide how to include this on my CV.  

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