At the Movies: A Real Bug’s Life

In the corner of my deck there’s a spider web with the remnants of a moth tangled in its silk. The maker of the webs is currently rubbing together its front legs on the deck railing while it presumably patrols its nets. A few ants are scavenging across the floor. Just now, a fly landed upside down on the top of my table’s umbrella. A small white butterfly just came perilously close to one of the webs but phew, at the last second, it flew away. Another spider just now climbed up its nearly invisible string of silk into the tassels of my umbrella stand. A blue swallowtail butterfly just fluttered and landed on a maple leaf before lighting and disappearing into the pines. Around me in the trees, some cicadas are singing in a constant and overlapping rattle of wings.

And that’s just what I’ve noticed in the last five minutes. Almost every day this week, I’ve watched a daddy long leg bounce up and down across the table to some drumbeat I can’t hear while using a feeler to conduct the invisible orchestra. I bet if I took a little bit more time and examined my potted plants and the cracks and crevices of our furniture and deck, I’d find even more micro creatures taking care of the business of existence.

Of course, they were always there, but now I see them. I know they are there. And I’m a teensy bit creeped out.

A Real Bug’s Life

Inspired by the animated Pixar Classic A Bug’s Life, A Real Bug’s Life is an original series that invites us into the microscopic, wild, and foreign world of insects that is happening right underneath our noses. Each episode explores one of nine different insect kingdoms, beginning with the hard and dirty New York streets, to showcase the intimate and unfamiliar existence of the planet’s most abundant creatures.

And when I say “abundant,” I mean it—insects outnumber all other animals… combined. As of 2022, there are 1.05 million named insect species, compared to over 11,000 birds, over 11,000 reptiles, and over 6,000 mammals, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List of Threatened Species. 

If that doesn’t make your skin crawl, scientists estimate there could be as many as 30 million different species of insects on Earth, easily making up over 90% of animal life and over half of all living things.

Insects are everywhere, patrolling, digesting, pollinating, reproducing, communicating, flying, flirting, dancing, and battling for territory, and most of the time, we don’t even notice it.

Narrated by the fun voice of Awkwafina, the original documentary series A Real Bug’s Life from National Geographic is available on Disney+.

Finding the Love: Faithifying Your Viewing

A Real Bug’s Life has me thinking about everything that is necessary in our world that goes mostly unseen, and how, if we do notice them, it’s often because they’ve become an inconvenience.

For instance, In the late spring and early summer months around Lake Erie, a storm of mayflies emerge, peppering cars, lamps, and streets with tons of bugs. We even have apparel to commemorate the experience. 

Back in 2007, a giant swarm of midges disrupted a Yankees vs. Indians game infamously remembered as the “Bug Game.” In the bottom of the 8th inning, the bugs drove pitcher Joba Chamberlain nuts (or gnats… ha ha ha). He was so distracted by the midges that he threw two wild pitches that ultimately drove the tying win home.

And this is just the local news. Cicadas sing across the country. Japanese beetles take over. Swarms of crickets invade towns. Stink bugs descend on New York.

From smeared windshields to legendary baseball stories, when we do pay attention to bugs, it’s because they’ve been thrust upon us. 

What a nuisance! Better to be rid of all these pesky insects, right? 

Here on Lake Erie’s shore, mayflies and midges might drive us crazy, but their presence and population growth are actually good. They mean the freshwater lake we love so much is clean and thriving. They mean the shoreline and inlets have life, and life abundant.

It’s amazing how many things we think were meant for harm are actually intended for good. That is the gospel—or good news—given to us through Jesus Christ and sprinkled throughout our sacred text, from the very beginning to the very end, the very fabric of creation is called good by God and held together by love. 

The first episode of A Real Bug’s Life showcases jumping spiders, mantises, flies, cockroaches, and pavement ants, offering up fascinating facts about the creatures we’d rather not see at all and how they are also fearfully and wonderfully made. 

It is a bug-eat-bug world filled with tales of abundance and scarcity, one that will open your eyes and make you appreciate the miniature critters that quietly make the world go round. From apex predators to pavement ants, everything is necessary, everything matters.