What Bug Would You Make?

By Kelly Conaboy October 17, 2016

If you could make a bug.

What has the face of a wasp but no wings, the legs of a grasshopper, the antenna of an ant, and the body of a cockroach? I’ll give you a second to make your guess. Have it? OK, here we go. The answer is…a river. Or, I mean — no. The answer is…this old bug.

Ancient ‘Frankenstein’ Bug Mixed Grasshopper, Wasp & Roach Parts

Bugs are bad because they’re scary, they move too fast, and they can crawl up walls. Yes, we know. Also they can hurt you, even though they are small and you are big. Plus their buzzing is very unsettling. This new “old bug” information does nothing to negate these ideas; if anything, it confirms them unnecessarily. However, as citizens of the world, we must give it our attention.

Scientists have discovered a 100-million-year-old horrible monster. You can learn about him (her) from George Poinar, Jr., a professor emeritus in the College of Science at Oregon State University:

“We had various researchers and reviewers, with different backgrounds, looking at this fossil through their own window of experience, and many of them saw something different. If you focused on its strong hind legs you could call it a grasshopper. The antenna looked like an ant, the thick abdomen more like a cockroach. But the face looked mostly like a wasp, and we finally decided it had to be some kind of Hymenoptera.”

Ah yes. It’s called Aptenoperissus burmanicus and it was found in Myanmar. Obviously, among scientists, the discovery of this new old horrible monster bug that I hate brings one question to the forefront: What bug would you make? If you could make a bug with parts of other bugs.

Here’s mine:

It’s like a ladybug but the back part doesn’t split open like the ladybug back part does. It has a hat and doesn’t fly. (Its wings are decorative and they’re actually butterfly wings.) It has shoes on and humanoid hands. Like all bugs, it’s scary and I hate it.