People just don't look at bugs the same way they do other creatures. In fact, I bet a lot of people don't even consider them animals. They are bugs. They kill them all the time.
That could be because other animals may view the bugs as a food source. I never burnt ants. The question that comes to mind here is 'why would I want to'? The interesting thing to wonder is how many who did burn ants as small children received pleasure and gratification out of it, then moving onto bigger insects and then onto animals and so on...
Yes. But that is to keep the bugs away. What of those who seek out the ants or bugs with magnifying glass and/or lighter fluid and matches? Different context.
Yeah well he was trying to get rid of pesky wasps around your house right? Does he head outside for no reason with a magnifying glass, matches etc just to kill bugs for fun?
It is impossible to convince anyone who owns a bug zapper that they don't kill the bad bugs, they do kill the good bugs, they draw bugs into their vicinity from a distance, and any benefit from them is as much from the light as from killing the Luna moths and Crane flies drawn in. I have to think part of the attraction is the entertainment value of seeing some insect fry on the wires. But IMHO it's not so much dark cruelty as a blank spot where the brain should have lights of its own.
Once. I think I used a match, not a magnifying glass. I already knew that ants will eat their dead, and wanted to see if they will eat "roasted ant". Answer: they did. I loved to place various edibles (bits of meat, bread, candy, large insects, live froglets) near anthill, and watch ants handle them. I don't remember them ever refusing anything remotely edible.
Yes, for many reasons. Mostly boredom. Until about 12 or so. The so-called fireants are a problem in my area, I use gasoline on thier nests, then poison.
I remember frying more than a handful of ants as a youngster. I suppose I did it to see if it was for real (really? you can torch them with one of these things?). I can also recall a sense of being god-like (Hah! little ant, ...). Cruelty, to a kid is a notion that often occurs to them (to me anyway), a bit after the deed has been done. I remember keeping white mice too, and I "looked after" them, but I got a bit bored with it. When I eventually decided ( maybe a few weeks of deciding) they should be fed, I opened the door of their little cupboard, and a pack of ferocious, dark brown and grey mice leapt out and disappeared quickly into the undergrowth --I'd left it a bit too long (I guess they survived on cannabilism and so on --I could see a big hole they had been trying to chew through the side of their prison. Oops). This was an example of wanton neglect I guess, on my part. I have since become something of a Buddhist, possibly (I open a window and try to shoo flies out, before using spray out of a can on the determined ones).
No. just tracking them with the sun focused through a magnifying glass (which of course also burns other stuff, like wood). P.S. I always left spiders alone (and I still do, even rescuing them and letting them go somewhere outside). I think spiders are pretty cool, though (and wetas). But then whenever some girl started screaming about some bug, I was always keen to see what it looked like (if someone is that terrified of it it must be really cool, type of thing)
"if someone is that terrified of it it must be really cool, type of thing" Huh!? :bugeye: How's that, do you care to explain ?
As a "i dare ya" exercise, or accidentally (like on a motorbike)? I take I'm correct in assuming you're a member of the "screaming at spiders when a young girl" set?
I think I could eat any bug as long as it was roasted and crunchy (not squishy and gut bursting) EXCEPT for a cockroach.
