Ted the Bug Boy

Bug collections are popular in Hokkaido.  We’ve seen big beetle type bugs in the mall selling for 2000 – 3000 yen.  We’ve seen bug boys out in front of our apartment building catching their own bugs.  We’ve heard of two brothers who have a live bug collection in their closet. At the university there is a lightning bug club.  The students grow their own lightning bugs in aquarium/terrariums. There is some kind of fascination with bugs here.

A big bug flew in our door and landed on the ceiling. Did I mention, it was big?

Luckily, we had finished a jar of jam and hadn’t yet taken the jar out to the recycling.  Ted stood on the step stool and caught the bug in the jar.

He poked holes in the lid and took it over to the university, where he found out the name of the bug is kami kiri. That translates to paper cutter. He brought it back to the “yard” behind our apartment and took some close up pictures of it, then let it go.  I wanted him to turn the bug around three times so it would be confused and not know how to get back to our apartment, but Ted thought it was confused enough and he left it on the bark of a tree.