LIKE A SPIDER forever rebuilding its web, J. Gordon Edwards unflaggingly persists in his endeavors. And that quality, the San Jose State University emeritus professor of entomology says in a Mr. Wizard voice, “is the greatest thing insects do.”
A 74-year-old who scaled the Matterhorn two years ago, Edwards has added 130,000 insects to the university’s collection of almost 1 million. With his reading spectacles riding far down on his nose, he pulls out glass-covered trays of metallic green beetles, blue-winged bees and fluorescent yellow Hi-Liter butterflies, all impaled on pins above tiny ID placards in the J. Gordon Edwards Entomology Museum.
Beauties like the nefarious “toe biters,” the Madagascar hissing beetle and the three-inch Titaneus giganteus bee surround him. Overhead, bloated larvae float in jars like worms in tequila, while live, caged Central American cave cockroaches scuttle over pellets of dog food.
Edwards’ creepy-crawly passion began in the ’40s, when his uncle gave him a 1,300-page tome about the beetles of Indiana, Edwards’ home state. And like a game hunter who uses nets instead of elephant rifles, he’s amassed both trophies and adventure stories.
During a mid-’70s solo collecting expedition in Glacier National Park, a grizzly bear tore into the stalwart scientist’s hand. When Edwards played dead, the beast left. Before walking more than a mile to his boat, Edwards snapped a picture of his gory hand; the photo of the crimson gash now peeks from beneath a stack of papers in the museum.
Another photo in the hall shows him on a beach brandishing the machete he used to whack a faint trail across the Yucatan peninsula during a three-week trek in 1965. While mapping 80 miles of jungle for the Mexican government, he nabbed 1,200 beetles and bugs, plopping his treasures into a succession of leaking plastic bags after adding water to his dehydrated formaldehyde.
Whether collecting insects on a World War II Army furlough in the French Riviera or snatching a Black Witch butterfly from a wall at Peru’s Machu Picchu, his dedication has never veered. “The last flung I think about when I go to bed at night is entomology,” he admits.
Ever-committed Edwards — who used to publicly eat a tablespoon of DDT Insecticide to prove its safety to humans — has even supped on treats like canned grasshoppers (beware the spiny legs) and toasted agave worms. “I could live on them,” he says, “but frankly, I think potato chips are better.”
