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Joe DiGeronimo sent photos of an egret rookery in the Oceanview neighborhood of Norfolk. “These beautiful great white egrets’ nesting colony is a beautiful sight presenting photo opportunities,” DiGeronimo wrote, “but unfortunately their presence has somewhat taken over a portion of this neighborhood.”

Prue Salasky got a shot of a great egret taking flight at Knitting Mill Creek in Norfolk. “I wasn’t sure if this egret was real or a lawn ornament as it allowed me within feet before taking flight,” Salasky wrote.

Nancy Norman sent photos of a great blue heron stalking along the edge of the marsh at Back Bay in Virginia Beach.

Michael Schimmel came across a pair of yellow-crowned night herons having a crab feast at Pleasure House Point in Virginia Beach.

Neil Rose sent photos of a yellow-crowned night heron nest with young in the nest in the Freemason District in Norfolk.

Kevin Jones sent photos of a yellow-crowned night heron at Chic’s Beach in Virginia Beach. “Several have made this section of the beach home,” Jones wrote.

Bill Caruso photographed a yellow-crowned night heron at the Myrtle Park area in Larchmont on the Elizabeth River in Norfolk.

Jane Hughey photographed a male house sparrow “trying to get kids to fledge from the birdhouse” in her yard in the Saratoga section of Norfolk. “Little piece of dried mealworm as incitement,” Hughey wrote.

Mike McClane sent a photo of a chickadee enjoying a snack on his deck in the Chelsea neighborhood in Virginia Beach.

Linda Glasson sent a photo of a dragonfly hanging out in the grasses at Pleasure House Point in Virginia Beach.

Allen Waters got a shot of an assassin beetle peeking out of a Japanese iris at the Tidewater Arboretum in Virginia Beach.

Reuben Rohn got a photo of a terrapin resting in the sand at Pleasure House Point in Virginia Beach. Terrapins live in brackish rivers and streams along the Chesapeake Bay and the seaside of the Eastern Shore.

Tony Silvia sent a photo of a large snapping turtle on a log with a yellow-bellied slider in the Nottoway River near Franklin. “I can’t recall ever seeing these two species hanging out together, so it was a pretty lucky shot,” Silvia wrote.

Elizabeth Weller sent photos and a video of a box turtle laying eggs in her yard at the North End in Virginia Beach. “It took her two hours to dig the nest, and 20 minutes to lay three eggs,” Weller wrote, “and after a short rest about an hour to cover them up.”

Norm Grefe sent a photo of a skink with a caterpillar in its mouth at the Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge in Suffolk.

Connie Owen sent photos of a pair of northern water snakes enjoying the sun at Stumpy Lake in Virginia Beach. “I value the good things snakes do for us,” Owen wrote.

Gary Williamson got a shot of a cottonmouth gaping with its mouth open while resting in poison ivy at Northwest River Park in Chesapeake.

Dan Short came upon an alligator swimming through the dark waters at the Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge in North Carolina. Alligators can be found throughout the coastal regions of the southeast with North Carolina being their northernmost range.

Vickie Shufer, wildfood@cox.net

Not only is geese poop unsightly and smelly, but it also contributes to water pollution, presenting a risk to public health with disease-causing bacteria including C. botulinum, salmonella and E. coli.   In addition, tossing stale bread, crackers, popcorn and other high-carbohydrate human foods to geese can cause poor health and deformities for the geese, such as “angel wing.” This irreversible condition causes the bird’s wing to stick out from the side, rather than lying against the body, and can prevent the bird from flying.

Canada geese populations are protected under federal and state laws, which limit what can be done to control their numbers. To prevent them from becoming a nuisance bird, the best thing to do — for them and for natural resources — is to not feed them.

According to the National Audubon Society, wild geese can access plenty of food in their habitat to sustain their diet of stems, grass shoots, sedges and aquatic plants, along with seeds, berries and grains. Occasionally they may eat insects, mollusks, crustaceans and small fish.

To help local geese reach safe open spaces where they can graze on their natural diet, consider these strategies:

• Do not feed the geese; they will find food on their own.
• Use signs to discourage public feeding of geese in areas where they congregate.
• Make the habitat unattractive for geese nesting by planting tall, thick, native plants on shorelines.
• Limit the amount of grassy open spaces around ponds and other water sources.
• Add 24-inch barrier fencing with 3-inch openings around ponds and water sources.
• Use humane geese repellent sprays where geese tend to congregate.
• Curb geese with noisemakers, professional herding dogs or predator decoys.

And please, do not harass geese during molting season, which is late June to August.

On a final note, geese work well as a team. They fly together in V formation, communicate with one another and look out for their teammates when one is sick or injured. Being this smart, they can also find food on their own. Letting these birds fend for themselves is good for the goose, the gander — and the environment.

Katie Cullipher and Rebekah Eastep are team leaders of the askHRgreen.org public awareness and education campaign for the Hampton Roads Planning District Commission. For more ways to make an environmental difference in Hampton Roads, visit askHRgreen.org.

Rhett Beutler, co-owner of Beutler and Son Rodeo Co. near Elk City, told KFOR-TV that the horses died shortly after being fed.

“We didn’t know what was going on, we just got the feed and started feeding it like always,” Beutler said. “Then all of a sudden looked up and there was horses just falling over, dying.”

Beutler and Son officials did not immediately return messages seeking comment Friday.

“All them horses are kind of like my kids; I’ve raised them from time they were born,” Beutler told KOKH-TV, “Once you lose one, that’s one too many.”

The Oklahoma Department of Agriculture, Food and Forestry said in a statement that it was notified Aug. 23 of the horses’ deaths related to a bulk order of feed and has opened an investigation.

“An inspector visited the Beutler and Son site on behalf of the department on Monday, August 26, and learned that the feed originated in Kansas,” according to the statement. “The ODAFF inspector collected a feed sample which is being analyzed in two state-certified laboratories.”

The department said it is working with the Kansas Department of Agriculture to investigate the company that provided the feed.

“We have initiated an investigation which includes labeling procedures, operating procedures and a review of their records to ensure the appropriate protocols were followed” in producing and shipping the feed to Oklahoma, said Kansas agriculture spokesperson Jamie Stewart.

The company that provided the feed has not been identified because of the ongoing investigation, Stewart said.

Dr. Gregg VeneKlasen, of the Timber Creek Veterinary Hospital, the Beutlers’ veterinarian, declined to comment on the deaths other than to call it a “tragedy.”

Beutler and Son was founded in 1929 as Beutler Brothers near Elk City, about 105 miles (169 kilometers) west of Oklahoma City, and provides stock for rodeos, including the National Finals Rodeo.

The company is providing the majority of stock for the Elk City Rodeo starting Friday night, according to Elk City Rodeo board member Randy Hargis, who said the events include bareback horse riding, saddle bronc riding, bull riding and steer wrestling.

NEW YORK (AP) — Above a bodega in New York City’s Harlem neighborhood, a mosque congregation hosts iftar, the traditional Islamic end of fast meal, for hundreds of hungry migrants every night during this holy month of Ramadan.

Up north in the Bronx, an imam has turned the two-story brick residence that houses his mosque into a makeshift overnight shelter for migrants, many of them men from his native Senegal.

Islamic institutions in the Big Apple are struggling to keep up with the needs of the city’s migrant population as an increasing number of asylum seekers come from Muslim-majority African countries. The challenge has become all the more pronounced during Ramadan, which began March 11 and ends April 9.

Many mosques have opened their doors to migrants during the daylight hours, becoming de facto day centers where new arrivals can find a quiet place to rest and recover, oftentimes following restless nights sleeping on the streets or in the subway.

Muslim leaders say they’ve stepped up their appeals for donations of money, food, clothing and other supplies in recent days.

“We’re doing what we can do, but we can’t do everything. That’s the bottom line,” said Moussa Sanogo, assistant imam at the Masjid Aqsa-Salam in Harlem, just north of Central Park. “These brothers, they don’t eat enough. They’re starving when they get here. Can you imagine? Starving. In America.”

Imam Omar Niass, who runs Jamhiyatu Ansaru-Deen, the mosque in the Bronx, said providing a place for newly arrived migrants to bed down is the least he can do, even if it has come at great personal expense.

His utility bills have long since outpaced his ability to pay. He estimates he’s behind about $7,000 on the home’s electricity service and another $11,000 on water service.

“In our culture, you can’t deny the people who come to the mosque,” he said on a recent Friday as more than 50 men arrived for afternoon prayers. “We keep receiving the people because they have nowhere to go. If they come, they stay. We do what we can to feed them, to help them.”

The latest migrant surge has seen more than 185,000 asylum seekers arrive in New York City since the spring of 2022, with Africans from majority Muslim nations such as Senegal, Guinea and Mauritania among the top nationalities represented in new cases in federal immigration courts in the state.

New York City’s estimated 275 mosques were among the first places to feel the impact of the African wave, as they’re often migrants’ first stop upon arriving in the city, said Assefash Makonnen, of African Communities Together, a Harlem-based advocacy group supporting African immigrants.

But relying solely on the generosity of faith-based communities — many of which are already struggling to keep afloat — isn’t sustainable in the long run, she said.

Last summer, Democratic Mayor Eric Adams announced to fanfare a program meant to provide funding, security and other support for up to 75 mosques, churches and synagogues that agreed to provide overnight shelter to migrants.

So far, though, just six houses of worship holding around 100 beds have been approved to provide additional space for the more than 64,000 migrants currently housed by the city in hotels and other shelters.

Bishop Matthew Heyd of the Episcopal Diocese of New York said the challenge for many faith-based institutions is that they’re located in older buildings that don’t meet current fire safety standards.

With more “commonsense” regulations, he said, houses of worship are prepared to provide 5,000 additional beds for migrants at a fraction of the cost the city is currently paying to shelter migrants in hotels across the five boroughs.

“We want to be part of the solution to this. We have been before, and can be now,” Heyd said, referring to a network of faith-based shelters that grew in response to the city’s homeless crisis in the 1980s.

Adams spokesperson Kayla Mamelak said the city, in response to the concerns, lowered the maximum number of beds permitted at faith-based shelters earlier this year from 19 to 15, meaning they wouldn’t be required to have sprinkler systems under city building codes.

“We are making changes where we can,” she said. “Obviously the health and safety of the people we are sheltering has to be the priority. You just can’t walk into a church and turn it into a shelter.”

In the Bronx, Niass said he hasn’t given the city program much thought. He also stressed he doesn’t collect rent from the migrants, in contrast to the illegal, dangerously overcrowded migrant boarding houses the city has shut down in recent weeks.

Still, the conditions at the mosque are less than ideal.

On a recent visit, men rested on the floor of a basement prayer room in between the day’s five prayer times. More lounged out in the backyard, where there was a microwave and hot water kettle set up for preparing basic meals, as well as a shed for storing luggage and a row of file cabinets for incoming mail. Near the driveway was a portable toilet covered in a blue tarp that did little to mask the odors that drew swarms of flies.

Malick Thiam, a Senegalese migrant who has been staying at Niass’ mosque for about a month, said he’s thankful for the hospitality but looks forward to finding a place of his own.

The 29-year-old, who arrived in the country in August, said he’s recently started work making late-night food deliveries. He said he typically returns to the mosque as others get up for early morning work shifts, allowing him to avoid conflicts as men jockey over sleeping spots.

“Sometimes they got fighting, sometimes they got many problems,” Thiam said, speaking in clear but at times broken English as he relaxed in the mosque’s backyard. “Living here is not easy. It is difficult. It is very, very difficult.”

Back in Harlem, Alphabacar Diallo is similarly thankful for the support Masjid Aqsa-Salam has provided, but is anxious to get on with his life. Like many others coming for iftar, the 39-year-old migrant from Guinea says he’s still waiting for work authorization some eight months after arriving in the country.

Until then, the mosque provides him a place to keep warm, fed and close to the faith that’s sustained him.

“Without the masjid,” he said in French through a translator, “I don’t know where I’d be.”

___

Follow Philip Marcelo at twitter.com/philmarcelo.

The site stated early on “Network failed. Please try again” — but some posts slowly began showing near the end of President Biden’s address.

Trump’s 6.67 million followers began seeing some action at about 10:15 p.m. as the former president pointed out Biden kept coughing into his right hand, “DON’T SHAKE PEOPLE’S HANDS GOING OUT,” Trump wrote.

Trump noted deep into the State of the Union address that Biden is “having a hard time now — The words are not flowing smoothly out of his mouth!”

Another post followed up: “Other countries are laughing at our stupidity on ‘Climate.’ The Green New Scam is destroying our Economy and our Country!”

Another post was a photoshopped image of Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin inside a “Biden/Harris” campaign spoof ad saying “Endorsed by Vladimir Putin.”

A few other early posts by Trump did show, only to disappear again as the site struggled to stay live. It’s not clear why, but it could be a massive crush of new followers or some other glitch.

It didn’t stop the Trump team, however, from pivoting to email alerts as President Biden made his way through this address. One missive stated, “Joe Biden’s Education Department is more focused on social justice indoctrination than teaching students.”

It also didn’t stop the heckling in the chamber, with GOP Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene yelling out when Biden addressed the migrant crisis.

A Truth Social post that showed late stated Trump saying of the migrant crisis: “He’s talking about Violence, but Migrant Violence is leading the Worst Crime Wave in history!”

The feed began picking up steam just as Biden was given a Bronx cheer when he said, “finally,” before delivering his closing remarks.

Trump’s post around that time, clearly delayed depending where you were on the feed, stated: “He made Iran RICH. Thish is why we have the problems in the Middle East. With me, Iran was BROKE. He is the reason that the Middle East is blowing up!”

But that was it as Biden ended just after 10:30 p.m. with Biden shaking hands on the way out.

Seasonal eating is the practice of eating local produce that has been harvested at its peak. This guarantees the freshest fruits and vegetables, the best taste and optimal nutrient content. For those looking for savings on food, abundant and convenient in-season produce is generally the cheapest option at the store.

As you plan weekly menus and shopping lists this August and September, intend to incorporate seasonal produce from your area. In most of the U.S., late-summer produce includes tomatoes, corn, zucchini, green beans, peaches, blackberries and watermelon for a distinctive variety of fruits and vegetables.

Cost benefits of seasonal produce

While grocery stores will often carry produce all year long, out-of-season produce must be shipped in from other parts of the world. To make this possible, farmers must often pick produce early and let it ripen in transit or store produce in cold storage.

In-season produce comes from local farms. It doesn’t have to travel as far to reach your farmers’ market or grocery store, minimizing transportation costs. Produce is also more plentiful when in season, increasing supply. This combination brings down produce prices at the grocery.

For an idea of how much savings in-season produce can provide, the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis collected pricing data for a pint of strawberries. In 2022, out-of-season strawberries cost up to 90 cents more than in-season strawberries.

Local farmers can also pick and deliver seasonal produce at the height of ripeness. Picking produce early limits the time that nutrients and flavors can develop. Time in transit or cold storage will also cause water-soluble nutrients to dissolve. By eating seasonally, fruits and vegetables taste great, are packed with vitamins and will also reach their maximum size. As a result, you get better quality produce for less money.

Budget-friendly shopping tips

Beyond the savings from eating in-season produce, there are additional ways to reduce costs when buying late-summer produce. As you source your produce at the end of summer, consider these tips for finding the best deals.

Farmers’ market and local grocery stories

Shopping for fruits and vegetables at a farmers’ market in your city is a great way to guarantee you are getting local produce. For extra savings, visit farmers’ markets later in the day. As the market winds down, vendors will often be looking to clear their stock and might offer discounts.

If you buy produce from the grocery store, check the weekly ads for sales featuring seasonal fruits and vegetables. Flyers, online deals and the store’s app can help you find sales.

Buying in bulk

Take advantage of the abundance of end-of-summer produce by buying in bulk. Large quantities can bring down the price per unit. A crate of tomatoes or a bushel of corn is an affordable way to stock up. If you can’t eat everything before it spoils, split the cost and produce with family or neighbors.

Maximizing value with preservation

While it is best to buy fresh produce when it’s in season, you can enjoy late-summer produce throughout the year with preservation. Canning and freezing can make extra produce last for months.

Canning summer produce

Canning locks in nutrients and removes the microbes that cause vegetables and fruit to spoil. Tomatoes and peaches are ideal for canning, preserving their flavor for months. You can also turn end-of-season tomatoes into a flavorful tomato sauce or make jam from late-summer berries. Safely preserving produce by home canning requires the proper equipment and skills, but learning how preservation can be an effective way to make your grocery money go further.

Pickling is another option that adds vinegar and spices. This creates a briny, sweet flavor and crisp texture, making pickled vegetables and fruits perfect for snacks, toppings and more. Pickles from cucumbers are traditional, but pickled jalapenos offer an incredible tang as well. Refrigerator pickling can preserve produce for two to three weeks.

Freezing your own produce

You can also freeze the produce you buy in late summer. Berries, corn and green beans all freeze well, as do many of your other favorite fruits and veggies. For berries, wash and dry them before putting them in freezer bags. Frozen berries are perfect for smoothies or baked goods.

To freeze vegetables, blanch them for a few minutes to preserve the texture and lock in nutrients. Drain and dry the veggies, spread them on parchment-lined baking trays and place them in the freezer until frozen. After that, you can store frozen vegetables in freezer bags.

Meal planning with seasonal ingredients

Cooking with seasonal produce can be as simple as picking up your favorite vegetables for roasting or tossing in a salad. Fruit cobblers or sliced fruit make a refreshing summer dessert. You can also plan a seasonal menu to optimize your shopping list.

A weekly meal plan with seasonal ingredients

With the plethora of late-summer produce, you can create a colorful, seasonal menu filled with a variety of tastes and textures. Try a grilled corn and zucchini salad or a tomato and basil Caprese salad. These make great sides or refreshing main dishes on hot summer nights.

Avocado toast with late-summer tomatoes makes for a savory breakfast or snack. For dessert, a peach and berry crisp showcases summer flavors and is a must for a weekly menu.

Reducing food waste

By planning your menu ahead of time, you can save more money by ensuring no food goes to waste. Get creative with your leftover veggies. Leftover corn brightens up a weekend corn chowder and extra veggies are a healthy addition to fried rice.

You can also use every part of the vegetables you buy. Save peels and scraps in a bag in the freezer. When the bag is full, add all the scraps to a pot and fill it with water. Simmer the pot for several hours to make a homemade vegetable broth, saving you even more money.

Eat seasonally through the end of summer for grocery savings

When it comes to produce, late summer promises delicious flavors, vibrant colors and nutritious ingredients. Above all, seasonal produce is an affordable way to eat. Add late-season produce to your shopping lists to make the most out of the summer harvest and your grocery budget.

Shruthi Baskaran-Makanju is a food and travel writer and a global food systems expert based in Seattle. She has lived in or traveled extensively to over 60 countries, and shares stories and recipes inspired by those travels on Urban Farmie.

I love tacos when I’m cooking for a crowd because they’re usually so much easier to pull together than a sit-down dinner with multiple courses, and they can be easily individualized depending on the toppings.

Any protein made with tinga, a spicy-ish sauce crafted from fire-roasted tomatoes, chili peppers and spices, is always at the top of my go-to list because it’s so flavorful and can be prepared fairly quickly — a blessing when you’re pinched for time in a crowded kitchen full of hungry people.

I was just that during a recent weekend, when four of my five kids (plus two daughters-in-law and two grandkids) came for a weekend visit. Taking everyone out to dinner would have cost the proverbial arm and a leg, along with the patience required to dine with active toddlers. And ordering pizza just seemed so … predictable.

But tacos? Kids especially love crunchy handheld foods and the grown-ups appreciated the casual eat what you want, when you want it taco bar I set up on the kitchen counter.

There are probably as many recipes for chicken tinga as there are home cooks, but a few pantry ingredients are essential: tomatoes, white onion and garlic, chipotle peppers in adobo and Mexican oregano, which is a bit more floral than the Italian variety used in pasta sauces.

I also like to add a little cumin to the sauce. Mexican cookbook author Rick Bayless, whose recipe I’ve adapted over the years, also recommends a dash or two of vinegar for extra tang.

This recipe is doubled for a crowd, but can easily be cut in half for smaller gatherings. If you like, you can cook the chicken thighs whole and shred them in the pan with two forks just before serving, or you can start with thin slices or bite sized pieces. It all depends on how chunky you like your tacos.

Similarly, if you prefer a tamer dish, cut down on the amount of chipotles and adobo sauce you add.

Serve with a salty, crumbly cheese such as queso fresco or feta and lots of chopped cilantro.

Chicken Tinga Tacos

PG tested

• Vegetable or olive oil to coat the pan
• 1 large white onion, sliced a little less than 1/2 inch thick
• 2 pounds boneless, skinless chicken thighs
• 5 garlic cloves, peeled and finely chopped
• 2 (15-ounce) cans diced fire-roasted tomatoes
• 1 (7-ounce) can chipotle chiles in adobo sauce, or to taste
• 2 teaspoons Mexican oregano
• 2 teaspoons cumin
• A little additional vinegar, if you think the dish needs it
• 1 ripe avocado, sliced
• 1 cup Mexican queso fresco or other fresh cheese like farmers cheese, mild feta or fresh goat cheese
• A handful of cilantro leaves for garnish
• Chopped red onion, for garnish
• 24 hard taco shells or soft taco-sized flour tortillas, warmed

Prepare chicken. Set a very large (12-inch) skillet over medium-high heat and drizzle the bottom liberally with oil. When the pan is hot, add onions.

Stir onions until they soften and start to brown, about 4 minutes, then snuggle the chicken in the pan in a single layer on the bottom. Cook until everything is nicely browned, about 5-6 minutes. Stir in the garlic and cook a minute or so longer.

In a blender or food processor, blend the tomatoes and their juice to a very coarse puree.

Remove chipotle peppers from sauce and chop into small pieces — start with 3 or 4, you can always add more.

Add puree to the browned chicken in the skillet, along with the chopped chiles, half the adobo sauce from can and oregano and cumin. Reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer until the chicken is tender and the mixture is thick, about 4 minutes.

Taste and add a little more adobo sauce or chopped chiles if it’s not spicy enough. Season with 2 teaspoons of salt and a couple dashes of white or red vinegar, if you would like it a little more tangy. Stir to combine.

When ready to serve, place some chicken tinga in warmed hard taco shells or on warmed soft tortillas. Top with sliced avocado, a sprinkling of fresh cheese, chopped onion and leaves of cilantro.

Serves 8.

— Gretchen McKay, Post-Gazette

©2024 PG Publishing Co. Visit at post-gazette.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Brood XIII, though, is the perfect movie bug.

If this were a film, it would eat you: Some scientists in Springfield would be working on a way to solve world hunger, except good intentions would turn bad and Brood XIII would grow to the size of small dogs and develop a taste for human flesh. More likely, in the next few weeks, as Brood XIII spreads throughout Northeast Illinois, joining up in places with cousin Brood XIX, the worst that will happen is a bunch of dead trees and squirming human flesh.

Still, if you are like me, a connoisseur of bug films, the scenario is unnerving.

They don’t bite, they suck, draining precious bodily fluids (from trees). Their names alone — Brood XIII, The Great Southern Brood, and so forth — sound intentionally ominous, and their origin story — they rise out of the earth simultaneously once every 221 years, when the soil is at least 64 degrees — is basically off-brand Stephen King I.P. There are 2,500 species of cicada, and Illinois will see the ones straight out of central (bug) casting. As many as a trillion are expected, and while evolutionary biologists are not certain how cicadas know to rise out of the soil simultaneously, they suspect it’s partly a show of strength and pragmatism:

Should they emerge all at once, yes, many will perish — but mankind can’t stop them all.

The bug, any bug, as Hollywood has taught for generations, is an unknowable, unstoppable menace, autonomous and so rich in fecundity, it outpaces man’s ability to truly eradicate. In David Cronenberg’s still touching/disgusting 1986 remake of “The Fly,” Jeff Goldblum, in the late stages of his man-to-bug transformation, delivers a sort of movie bug manifesto. He feels the rush of the house fly growing inside him. He tells Geena Davis that “Insects don’t have politics.” Insects, he says, are brutal, they show “no compassion, no compromise — we can’t trust the insect.” It’s an explosion of freedom that people will never know. But right now, he does: “I am an insect who dreamt he was a man, and now that dream is over.”

What man has over bugs is size, but inevitably, that’s never enough, either.

In the meditative 1974 science fiction cult favorite “Phase IV” — the only film directed by Saul Bass, better known for merging graphic design with movie credit sequences in classics such as “Anatomy of a Murder” and  “Psycho” — a scientist in the arid Southwest notes that his nemesis is “so defenseless in the individual, yet so powerful in mass.” He means lowly ants, which in the film, develop an ability to communicate across species and have begun to signal their intentions to man. Their messages are not inviting. The ants leave traps, take out computers, construct “2001”-like monoliths in the desert. Unlike in most bug thrillers, Bass dedicates an inordinate amount of time to watching actual bugs stalking, scurrying, forging. The point being, indeed, they look squishable. Yet there are so many of them, streaming outward in rivers of writhing ink-black malevolence, by the end of the film our hero (Michael Murphy) realizes he is being controlled by ants.

“We didn’t know for what purpose,” he says wistfully, “but we knew we would be told.”

More to the point, in the way-cheesier “Empire of the Ants” (1977), starring Joan Collins as a shady land developer, giant ants hole up in warehouse offices (seriously) and organize people (or at least Floridians) to do their bidding. “My god!” a woman shouts. “They’re herding us like cattle!” The movie bug — like the similar-sounding Borg of “Star Trek” — is a bundle of our uncanniest fears: Bugs are not individuals, bugs have patience, bugs self-sacrifice, bugs move in sync. They are the original hive mind. Like the real thing, movie bugs prove so uncomfortable to man, their verbs alone generate shivers: Bugs crawl, bugs creep, bugs nest, bugs chew, bugs cocoon. Bugs, if they’re doing their cinematic job, revolt. In “The Mist” (2007), Frank Darabont’s exceedingly nightmarish Stephen King adaptation, there’s a scene in which survivors of a giant bug invasion pick find victims pasted to the walls of a storage room, shrouded in webbing. A hand reaches out. A soldier, alive. Yet his skin pulses with nascent spiders. The soldier tumbles from the web and shatters into a puddle of bugs.

Bugs killed this man, we realize, but bugs were also holding him together.

Ew, sure. But I wouldn’t want it any other way.

I have been a lover of bug movies since my grandmother insisted on reminding me throughout my childhood that killer bees should be arriving from Mexico any day now. Gen X, back me up: Nukes were eventual, but killer bees were always just around the corner.

So, for a brief window in the 1970s, disaster movies merged with those newspaper warnings of coming insect plagues. As bad as the William Shatner vehicle “Kingdom of the Spiders” (1977) was, its images burrowed like termites: children (and their bikes) covered in webs, country roads littered with spiders. Rachel Carson didn’t predict in “Silent Spring” that William Shatner would one day hopscotch through streets of poisonous tarantulas, but “Kingdom of the Spiders” did raise real-world fears that pesticides could kill natural predators, creating imbalances in nature. “Squirm” (1976) promised a world in which extreme weather would lead (somehow) to everyday worms ganging up in carnivorous undulating spaghetti dinners that borrow into your face and make cicada-like cries of digital white noise sounding suspiciously like busted synthesizers.

The peak of this mini-trend was “The Swarm.” Its cast alone is proof that folks in the 1970s were sweating the threat of bug infestations: Henry Fonda plays a scientist, Olivia de Havilland plays a schoolteacher, Richard Chamberlain plays a doctor. Michael Caine, the hero, is shocked when killer bees invade Texas: “The bees have always been our friends!” But they derail trains, cause a nuclear explosion and completely raze Houston. (“Will history blame me or the bees?” asks the general, played by Richard Widmark.) The best part is the earnest disclaimer over the credits that plays now like a parody of environmentalism: “The African killer bee portrayed in this films bears absolutely no relationship to the industrious hard-working American honey bee to which we are indebted for pollinating vital crops that feed our nation.” I mean, the last thing Warner Bros. would need is picketing honey bees.

Especially after generations of mixed messaging.

If bug flicks since the 1970s have been largely concerned with unstoppable infestations of normal-size pests, Hollywood’s depiction of insects prior to Nixon and disco were defined by scale. In 1954, four months before “Godzilla” was initially released in Japan, launching the age of atomic monsters, “Them!” and its giant radioactive ants in the New Mexico desert scrambled there first. The opening scenes remain an effectively spooky template: A child is found wandering, only able to say “THEM!” A trailer is found demolished. A storekeeper is found dead, full of formic acid, a chemical generated by ants. What does it mean? A myrmecologist (Edmund Gwenn, who won an Oscar for playing Santa in “Miracle on 34th Street”) decides atomic testing at the nearby White Sands military base created big ants.

Giant bug movies of the 1950s played like “Frankenstein” smooshed against UFO invasion pictures with a heaping side of Cold War metaphor: Giant locusts (“Beginning of the End”) attack Chicago, a giant spider attacks Arizona (“Tarantula”), giant scorpions (“The Black Scorpion”) attack Mexico City. A few facts about the organized, devious nature of the invading hordes get muttered by scientists and generals, then invariably someone has to “call Washington.” Unless Washington is already threatened (“The Deadly Mantis”). Not unlike when politicians spoke of the Soviets, the predictions could get positively Biblical: “An entire population razed for deliverance!” screamed the trailer for “Black Scorpion.”

And the Bible doesn’t have a lot of good things to say about insects.

Most “are to be hated” (Leviticus 11:20). In fact, it’s a short walk from the Bible to the visceral nausea that characterizes the gnarliest use of bugs in movies. Kate Capshaw swings wildly at millions of bugs in “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom,” but it’s that single centipede that crawls into her hair that gets the audience gagging. One large spider crawls down the belly of a woman in the shower in “Arachnophobia.” There’s a bug scene in Peter Jackson’s remake of “King Kong” full of throbbing fanged pink worms but it’s the way the rescue party swats and spins and waves frantically at themselves that get across the ick.

Even as I write this, I itch.

But it’s hard to say precisely why. Bugs have become a shorthand for countless concerns, from mental collapse (“Bug,” William Friedkin’s 2006 adaptation of the Tracy Letts play), to feeling small (“A Bug’s Life“), to the dehumanization of the proletariat in probably the most celebrated bug story of all, Kafka’s “Metamorphosis.” But disgust is probably most common.

Nothing coveys revulsion faster than a wiggling dark clump of cockroaches. There’s nothing worse than walking into a cloud of gnats. Movie bugs play off this, like a psychosomatic extension of 3-D, causing physical recoil by merely being. Yet we hardly matter to them. As naturalist E.O. Wilson once wrote: “If all mankind were to disappear, the world would regenerate back to the rich state of equilibrium that existed ten thousand years ago. If insects were to vanish, the environment would collapse into chaos.” When cicadas — whose shrill whine sounds eerily like the evil ants of “Them!” — occupy our streets this summer, keep that mind. They do not want your flesh, and they do not want to herd you like cows.

But they will outlast you.

Step lively.

cborrelli@chicagotribune.com