⟢ The One Slow Step

A Stairway Encounter

I was leaving my mother-in-law’s house when I did what I always do: looked down at the left side of the stairs, where yellowjackets had nested a few years ago. Force of habit, I suppose. Repeated actions can be hard to undo. But why would I want to undo this one? It keeps me aware of where I am, and of what may be there.

The yellowjackets were long gone. But there, on the step, was another creature entirely: a large, dark bug standing on long legs, as though it had been waiting to be noticed. I crouched beside it simply to admire it. Its antennae were extraordinary. Long and dark for most of their length, each ended in a bright orange tip, like two tiny signal flags. Its legs carried the same warm orange accents, set against a body the color of bark, old wood, and shadow.

This is a leaf-footed bug, Acanthocephala terminalis, a member of the true-bug family Coreidae. The name “leaf-footed” comes from the widened hind tibiae, the dark, flattened expansions on its back legs. On this one, they looked less like leaves than small dark paddles, hardly the leafy feet the name had led me to expect. 

This leaf-footed bug belongs to a different kind of familiar margin from the yellowjackets that once lived beside the stairs. Open woodland, thickets, sunny roadsides, and the shrubs that gather at their edges are its world. Sumac, wild grape, ninebark, and young hickory shoots are among the plants on which it feeds. It overwinters as an adult, then returns with the warm season, part of the small annual traffic of the wooded edge.

Then I remembered where it was: in the middle of a stair, directly in the path of unsuspecting feet. I gave it the gentlest nudge, hoping it might move to a safer place. It was not remotely troubled. Each careful encouragement produced one slow, deliberate step, then a pause. Another nudge, another single step. There was no alarmed dash, no sudden flight, only the measured progress of a creature apparently unconvinced that haste was necessary.

I had gone looking for the old yellowjacket nest. Instead, I found an orange-flagged traveler, calmly crossing the stairs one slow step at a time. It made me pause. It quieted my mind, as observing always does. It reminded me that beauty can occur anywhere and at any time, whenever it feels like showing itself to someone who cares enough to notice.

🔎︎ A few papers for the curious

→ McPherson, J. E., et al. “Review of Acanthocephala (Hemiptera: Heteroptera: Coreidae) of America North of Mexico with a Key to Species.” Zootaxa, vol. 2835, no. 1, Apr. 2011. DOI.org (Crossref), doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.2835.1.2.

→ “Leaf-Footed Bugs (Family Coreidae).” Field Station, 18 Jan. 2011.

📷 Acanthocephala terminalis | © Claire O'Neill, please credit accordingly.