Post #1 - Jan. 5, 2015 - “The Beetle Backlog Blog”

Over the last year, I’ve been mostly “too busy” to curate the vials upon vials of beetles that I’ve collected, mostly from my two backyards in Lookout Mountain & Athens, GA, over the past five years. This has resulted in what I like to call “the backlog” that currently sits behind my microscope. In reality, unless I make a concerted effort, that backlog will never be worked through. 

Some of the "backlog" I got to work through recently over a break. 

That backlog, though, contains at the very least, about a year’s worth of Lindgren (or 12-funnel trap) samples that have been sorted through and cherry picked for the taxa that our lab studies: mostly beetles (Coleoptera) of Cucujoidea (a superfamily of Coleoptera). That means that behind my desk there is a year-long record of the particular beetles of interest to me that I currently can’t access. 

Along with the beetles I like, there is a good number of other interesting taxa; I’m too curious of a taxonomist to limit myself to one superfamily of beetles. I’ve collected hundreds of other insects over the past five years that were just too darn interesting to throw away. But currently, they are all still sitting back behind my microscope. 

But what am I going to do about it? I’m “too busy” after all. This semester, for example, I’m supposed to be teaching two introductory biology labs, going to the regional Southeastern Branch meeting of the Entomological Society of America, submitting a draft of paper I started three years ago, and full-scale starting the final chapter of my dissertation, a revision of the genus Bactridium (a future blog post I’m sure, stay tuned for that). 

However, over the past year, a theme I’ve heard over and over is that if you are truly passionate about something, but keep making excuses for why you can’t do it, then it’s time to find the time, regardless of your practical and often theoretical time constraints. Because there is no aspect of beetle taxonomy that I enjoy more than curating beetles and insects and talking about them, I simply am going to find the time this year. 

From a practical standpoint, I can rationalize the time spent in numerous ways. First, the blogging aspect will improve my writing. Second, I’ll get valuable specimens for use in my research. Third, I’ll improve my curational skills. And finally, I’ll get emotional and mental benefits from the break from teaching, emailing, and bureaucracy that so often seem to make up the majority of my day. 

So once a week, start looking for my curational exploits! They’ll likely contain stories of collecting trips, little brown beetles, and the trials of being a beetle taxonomist in the southeastern United States.