What Makes Invertebrates Mad?

If I were a zoologist who wanted to really benefit mankind, I would write that pamphlet. There are lots of different kinds of invertebrates that harm us directly. Bees, wasps, ants, crabs, jellyfish (do they get mad? I don't know) spiders, scorpions, sea anemones, octopuses and cone snails. And those are just the ones I can think of. What makes them want to attack you? They are all very simple creatures, but all different. There is not much to the behavior of any one invertebrate species (I once read a whole book on what makes bears mad) so it wouldn't be hard to write if you knew a little about entomology.

Now there is some obvious variation here. Some of the things that make killer bees mad (robbing their hive) are not going to upset hiveless bumblebees. Fire ants are not going to think like army ants, and hornets are a lot more irascible than sea urchins.

But I don't have a lot of knowledge about any of them. I think a lot of this has to do with how alien they are. Bears, for all their deadliness, behave a lot like people. You can predict how a bear will respond to a stimulus based on how you yourself do, and even cast bears in starring roles of movies convincingly.

But if I hadn't been told that scorpions never sting people if they can help it, and that fire ants seek out people to sting, I never would have guessed. I might as well have thought it was the other way around. If I could just have a little book, with a paragraph-long sketch of what you can safely do to each of the invertebrates, I would feel a lot better.