Sigh

I always check what stories Raw Story is reporting on their website, but I often find something to sigh about.  True, they're a young bunch of people, and they pull stories from everywhere and often have obscure political stories that don't get much play in other places.  I use the source as a headline collector.  But I do wish they would at least get an editor with some better skills.  Today, it's this story (which has an even larger picture on the page devoted to the story):

 

So, okay, maybe these guys have never lived anywhere that had crickets.  Or katydids - because that term is also used in the Agence France-Presse story they're posting.  A little sloppy in itself, because, while katydids and crickets are at least in the same family, they're not the same insect.  But a shield bug?  It's only distantly related to a cricket. Guys, that's what Google is for.  And don't just go to the images search, because Google puts up pictures that appear on a page with the term you're looking for - the images aren't necessarily that of what your searching.

Yes, I have more than the normal person's passing interest in insects, and recognized immediately what many others might not, but come on.  This should have been easy.


THIS JUST IN:

The Raw Story guys apparently just picked up the Agence France-Presse article along with the picture it had (which lets them off the hook, I suppose):



What's this world coming to?   Sigh.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

And, if you're not strangely attracted to insects, but merely curious now about how closely related the shield bug is to the cricket, here's a little chart.  They're both insects.  That's about it.  (And if you want to be thought of as annoyingly nerdish, when someone calls a spider an insect, you can correct him, and let him know it's an arthropod.) This is the scientific classification layout for everything in the natural world.  (Humans are in the same kingdom as insects and part ways at the phylum level.  And actually, there are several steps above kingdom and subclasses in each step, but that's waaaaay too nerdy, even for me.)  When you come to the fourth step (Order), crickets and shield bugs part ways. Shield bugs (sometimes called stinkbugs, if that's what came to your mind when you saw the picture) belong to the order Pentatomidae, and crickets to the order Orthoptera. 

No, I don't keep that information in my head - I can barely keep my name and address there - I had to look up the orders for crickets and shield bugs.  Once upon a time, I did have to know them all and be able to identify what order any insect I saw belonged to.  Imagine how useless I am going to be in another couple of years, and they talk about raising the retirement age.