Absolutely Bogus Short Stories (eBook)

The Truth About Cob

This paper is written in honor of the person who taught me the right way to do research and document my studies, my father Ivan Bentley, Sr., PhD.. He authored “Big Foot, Good Neighbor, Good Friend” A book that should have been awarded a Nobel Prize in Science. Thus, I write this paper in his memory.

Defining the Cob was my first of many hurdles to be jumped. First and foremost, the common Cob is a bug, not a spider an Arachnid. The Cob study was in the beginning, locate and identify.

We, that is the team and myself, made a very in-depth list of good to excellent locations for a starting place. At the six-month mark, the research was not moving as expected. Skipping down the list, it was determined to, in a word, go old school. We, the team, located a house in a small rural town in Illinois. An old store on Main Street became our base camp. A couple of days cleaning and the base camp was fully functional; deck area, sleeping area, bath, kitchen, and TV room.

The study house was a bit more involved. First in the matter of how any extensive cleaning should be done. This was an evolution the entire team got in on. The main point of interest was, to my surprise, the strength of the cleaning products to be used. I listened to all sides of the exchange before saying anything. The talks went from near steam cleaning, to sweep and dust only.

At this point I decided to take a middle of the road stance. The house was to be stripped of all furniture, boxes, and debris. The furniture was thoroughly cleaned. As for any boxes, it was mostly rubbish with only a few wooden boxes kept and cleaned. Each room received its own level of cleaning per its intended use. That said, the kitchen and bath received the most attention while the other rooms received less in degrees.

At this point, we believed the house was ready or near so. There was a suggestion to apportion the furniture, so each room had a basic set and not over furnished. This idea at first was odd sounding but further down the road it became a gold mine of information. A quest was taken up by the team and myself for unwanted furniture within the neighborhood. To that end, we canvassed the area door to door for such items.

The good people of the town helped out and then some. When local residents found out our purpose in their town, an insect study, some said it was great and others said we were nuts. After a short time, the landlords for the two properties we were renting, reduced the rent. The house rent was reduced seventy-five percent and he would take over the lawn care duties. Due to the nature of our study, I informed the landlord that the use of chemicals could affect our study. He responded stating he would only be using water.

The landlord for our base camp opened the second floor for our use and reduced rent by half. The upstairs was patterned after an old-style boarding house with bedrooms and bathrooms. There was a fair amount of cleaning to bring it to a habitable condition.

The team and I settled in to being a well-oiled research team. Furniture in the study home was carefully placed so as to replicate an everyday home. Shear window dressings were added. Setting up cameras in the house was quite involved. Because of the time period of the study, VHS style cameras were utilized. The recording would be played on VCRs. Then day-to-day studies of the tapes which recorded anything and everything.

At the forth week mark we had a small hit. Just to the left side on a tape frame, a web was being formed. The video techs brainstormed for ways to bring the web event more into the frame. The conclusion was to change to a different lens, plus reposition all cameras. Besides the repositioning, cameras were adjusted for low light recording. Within two weeks of these changes by the techs a payoff was earned.

Per the date time stamp, 2:35 am, Friday, 7-13-1996, we had our very first view of this obscure tiny creature. (Yes, six legs.) (Yes, makes a web.) This led to questions to be answered. What do they eat and drink, mating ritual, do they sleep or hibernate, do they emerge during daylight? Now we have real hurdles to work on and are truly motivated.

The next three weeks were devoted to documenting everything recorded. It was observed that if another creature was within its area. It would remain in hiding for extended periods of time until they felt safe to emerge or not emerge until the next night. We were now certain this was a nocturnal creature. A question-and-answer session produced a sticking point. Nocturnal creatures usually have sensory adaptations; could be auditory, visual, or some other sensory perception.

So, the Cob has one more mystery for us to work on. The video techs came up with an idea I could not turn down nor could the team. The idea involved a lens upgrade to a macro lens. High end microphones were added to the mix. At this point environmental factors needed to be recorded. Time tracked temperature, humidity, and barometric pressure. These were added to the lens and microphone order. Work continued as is while the goods were in transit.

Once our order arrived it was an all-hands effort to install everything while not disturbing the Cobs work. This took a day and one half. Once online we could now observe one or more cameras while recording same. Fortunately, this equipment was easy to operate. Two nights later we were receiving a better look at the life and times of Cobs.

Time Stamp 11:33 pm 8-25-1996, the entire team laughed half the day. It was the funniest recording ever! It began with a Cob in the sweet spot for the recording devices. After a minute, the little show off did the totally unexpected. It perched on the edge of the lens retainer and started straight up the lens. It then briefly disappeared only to be seen repelling down the front and center of the lens. We got such a kick out of it. (I’m ready for my close-up Mr. DeMille!)

Not every day was fun and games. As people of science, we looked at the work on hand. Days of laughter were needed also! Answers to questions evoked by the Cob began coming our way. Determining the size of the Cob was definitely tricky. We took the simple approach by placing a clearly visible ruler in front of the camera lens. The waiting game was now required.

The Cob found the ruler within the first ninety minutes of the evening! It appeared the Cob was moving slower than usual on top of the ruler. This was a benefit to us as we recorded measurements for several of the Cobs. Measurements revealed that the average Cob was slightly smaller than the common flea.

During the evening in the dining room. The process of creating a web was being revealed by a Cob that chose the ruler in that room for the site of its web. The amazing process was recorded on tape. First, the Cob would regurgitate a fluid. Next, it would stick its abdomen (Butt) in it, then stretch the liquid over the ruler. Reaching the opposite side of the ruler, the Cob regurgitated again. This time when the abdomen touched the fluid, the just created string seemed to break off. The aforementioned actions were repeated over and over to make a full web.

Oddly, the dining room was the only room receiving this web treatment. Several samples of web material were harvested and sent to a laboratory for analysis. The analysis would take some time to yield a result. The results once returned to us contained quite a bit of surprising information. One result in particular seemed odd to me. The web material was not in any way similar to a spider’s web either structurally or chemically. The adhesive holding the web in place was classified as a biological adhesive akin to super glue.

The team now focused on diet as we had nothing up to this point to rely on. Several more nights of observation gave us a huge goose egg for diet information. Tape recordings were checked by several different on scene scientists.

They agreed nothing was visible as to diet. One team member then proposed the theory that the Cob may be a daytime feeder. This theory was taken seriously provoking the technicians to reset all of the recording equipment for night and day recording. Once all was functional, daylight movement was noticed! What were they doing? For the next four days intense scrutiny was made exposing to us that daytime travel was nothing like their nighttime travel. Perusing notes, I appreciated that one technician had given the various Cob names such as Skunk, Big Bill, and Slow Joe. Playing back the recording several times, a travel pattern was discerned. The pattern was predictable to the minute whereas night travel random.

One of the scientists on dining room shift alerted us to a peculiar action she noted. Near a darker area of the living room right at a floor joint one Cob seemed to be looking at the joint. To be exact, approximately one inch from the joint. In due course, several other Cobs had assembled near the joint at the same distance, all facing the joint. Within a split second, all those assembled proceeded into the joint. A voice from the back of the scientific observation area shouted, “They are hunting like a wolf pack.” Ok, what were they hunting? A video tech zoomed in on the scene to take stills of the feeding frenzy. In an indeterminate but short period of time, the number of Cobs feasting swelled to triple the initial feeders. We observers got a good look at what initiated the frenzy, hanging from the mouths of the Cobs were dust mites. The Cobs are carnivorous!

With this new knowledge, team members started reviewing previously recorded information, focusing...