Gary man afflicted with bugs on the brain

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Jim Louderman of Gary, who works in the Entomology Department at The Field Museum in Chicago, lets a tarantula crawl on his arm during a program in Northwest Indiana. | sun-times media file photo

Updated: January 18, 2012 8:02AM

“If all mankind were to disappear, the world would regenerate back to the rich state of equilibrium that existed 10,000 years ago. If insects were to vanish, the environment would collapse into chaos.”

— E.O. Wilson

Jim Louderman works in the Entomology Department at The Field Museum in Chicago. He lives in the Miller neighborhood of Gary with his wife, Cherisse. They’ve been married 38 years and raised one son.

Louderman, 64, is originally from the northwest side of Chicago.

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“I first became interested in insects when I was 5,” Louderman began. “There was a periodic cicada emergence. I’d take the nymphs off of trees, put them in my window screen and watch them emerge. My mother really loved that.”

Jim, you’re talking to a former Newton County 4-H grand champion in entomology. I wasn’t a farm boy, so I didn’t have a swine or sheep to show.

“I always let the insects go when I was younger, but now that I work at The Field Museum, I actually collect things. We have a huge collection, about 14 million specimens. It’s like a lending library; we send out loans all over the world to different institutions. Our insect department does close to 300 loans per year.”

Tell me about the walking stick.

“Walking sticks are really very common around here, but you almost never see them because they spend almost all their lives in trees and they just look like a stick. About the only time you find them is after a wind storm. Around here, the males get to be about 4 or 5 inches long; the females get to be about 6 or 7 inches.”

While we were waiting for the library to open, you mentioned praying mantis and spiders.

“All the praying mantis that we have around here are introduced; they all come from China. Although they’re really cool animals, they do seem to be causing a problem with the big orb-weaving spiders.”

You’re referring to what we called a banana spider when I was a kid.

“Yes, or garden spider; the large yellow and black spider. The praying mantis eats the same things the garden spider does. They seem to be diminishing the population of the garden spider because there isn’t enough food to go around. Garden spiders are native and should be here.”

If a praying mantis and a banana spider had a fight to the death, who would win?

“The spider would win probably more often than the mantis because the spider has venom.”

Jim, I know an insect has to have three body parts and six legs. A spider?

“Spiders have eight legs, two body parts and can have two, six or eight eyes.”

Someone told me daddy longlegs have the most deadly venom of all.

“Ah, the old wives’ tale about the daddy longlegs or harvestman having the most toxic venom of any spider in the world, but their fangs are too small to penetrate human skin. The truth is, daddy longlegs are not spiders. They don’t have venom or fangs. They are absolutely harmless.”

The emerald ash borer?

“The emerald ash borer is here. It’s a problem because they disperse quickly. They tunnel underneath the bark, into the circulatory system of the tree, cutting off the flow of nutrients and water. Emerald ash borers kill trees from the top down. The emerald ash borer also is from China.”

When did you start working as an entomologist at The Field Museum?

“About 17 years ago. I went back to school and got a degree in environmental biology from Northeastern Illinois University. All the environmental work I do, I use insects as indicators of habitat.”

What did you do before you became an entomologist?

“I worked most of my life in the produce market in Chicago — South Water Market.”

Really? I used to raise organic vegetables and sell them in the Brunswick neighborhood of Gary. I didn’t have much luck growing sweet potatoes in the Lowell clay, so I’d buy them by the case at South Water Market. That place is something to see at 2 a.m.

“Yeah, I worked there for almost 20 years.”

Ever find a tarantula in a box of bananas?

“No tarantulas, but one time we got a load of grapes from California that was full of black widows.”

Yikes.

“There were hundreds of them. Anytime produce is shipped from the West or Southwest, the truckload of produce is supposed to be fumigated. Well, they didn’t fumigate that load.”

Aren’t black widows deadly?

“Not deadly; black widows can’t kill a healthy human, but the venom is really strong, and the bite is excruciatingly painful. It will cause muscle cramps and convulsions, and can last up to two or three months. The good news is, if you get bitten by a black widow, you’re not going to die. The bad news is, you’d wish you would.”

How do you keep the displayed insects from deteriorating?

“Basically, mothballs. There’s a little beetle that would eat all our specimens. I also make sure the jars have the proper amount of alcohol in them.”

So, some insects are mounted with pins and some are stored in alcohol.

“Yes, if we collect a whole bunch of something, we’ll mount a representative sample, and the rest will stay in alcohol. They’ll preserve for hundreds of years, whether in alcohol or mounted on a pin.”

How many species of insects in Northwest Indiana?

“Close to 150,000. The dunes probably has the highest plant diversity in the United States, and it also has one the highest insect diversities in the U.S.”

One of your favorite parts of the job?

“When I bring live tarantulas, scorpions and millipedes to schools and teach children why insects and arachnids are important to man.”

I used to keep honey bees, but a mite killed them.

“You’ve heard of hive collapse, where the bees are flying out to forage and dying in the field?”

Yes.

“If we don’t figure out what’s causing it and solve it, and honey bees go extinct, it is estimated that humans will go extinct in about three years. They are the pollinators of almost all our food sources.”

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When not using a butterfly or sweep net, Louderman uses rancid chicken livers when baiting his insect traps. He said I could accompany him this summer when he goes collecting.

I promised not to bug him.