I Work With Bugs…And I Love It!

Imagine if your co-workers were millipedes, beetles, and tarantulas. That’s daily life for Ngan Nguyen Rawlings, PhD, an entomologist who runs Scotts Miracle-Gro’s Insectary at the company headquarters in Marysville, Ohio. What’s an insectary? It’s an innovative work-learn space where Rawlings studies bugs and welcomes visitors to discover insects and arachnids (eg, spiders). There, she shares what fascinating creatures bugs can be. But the job also requires her to find solutions to insects that can be harmful to humans (think ticks and roaches). Balancing that duality is what makes Rawlings’ work challenging – and satisfying.

Were you the kid who was always digging up crawly things in the backyard?

I always loved all living things, but initially I gravitated toward mammals, the soft and fuzzy ones. I didn’t get interested in insects until the end of my master's program, when I took a tropical rainforest ecology class in Panama with an entomologist. We would hike through the rainforest and he would point out different types of insects. After that, I pivoted to a PhD in entomology.

When you meet someone at a party, how do you describe your job?

I tell them I collect insects for research. I’ll say, “I’m the weird lady in the neighborhood going to homes with an aspirator (a tool for collecting insects) asking people if I can suck up their ants for testing.”

So you go door to door asking for neighbors’ ants?

Yes, sometimes I can’t go buy the type I need, so I’ll ask, “Have you seen odorous house ants or pavement ants?”

null — Besides ant collecting, what is a typical day of work like?

We have an insectary in the basement of the greenhouse at Scotts Miracle-Gro. It’s where I have what we call our pets: millipedes, tarantulas, walking sticks, and different types of beetles that we rear from larvae grubs. We get to show our pets to all kinds of groups, including high-school students and Girl Scouts. People get to handle them and hear about how insects are amazing. We even name our insectary friends. There’s Hue Jackman, the male rainbow stag beetle.

Beyond the show-and-tell, what do you love most about the work you do?

I love that I get to be creative and solve problems that consumers have. I figure out how to design protocols and do testing. Working for Ortho, people initially think, ‘Oh, you guys are just out to kill all the insects.” I became an entomologist because I love insects, but there are times when you don’t want certain insects or arthropods in your living space because they can cause harm. For instance, mosquitoes are the most dangerous insects to humans. And ticks are the most dangerous to all animals, period. So I love that I get to figure out solutions in these scenarios.

Cockroaches are another insect nobody wants in their kitchen. They’re part of your research, right?

Yes, we maintain year-round colonies of both German and American species at the insectary, specifically to study effective control methods. These cockroaches can transmit diseases like E. coli and Salmonella, and their feces, saliva, and shed body parts can trigger allergic reactions.

But we also have a bit of fun by holding a derby with our Madagascar Hissing Cockroaches to raise money for the American Heart Association (AHA). Last year, we raised over $2,500.

That’s amazing. On the topic of bugs we want to control, what can you share about those headline-grabbing invasive species?

One that made major headlines recently is the Spotted Lantern Fly. Their host plant is the Tree of Heaven, but they're not specific about the plants or trees they feed on. Right now, people are really concerned with vineyards, because the Spotted Lantern Flies are reducing the quality of the grapes and the wine.

With invasive species, at first they don't have any predators, so there’s no control. But after a while, the population is controlled. It happened with Japanese beetles: They were a really big problem, but now there are some predators and the population has stabilized.

Is there any bug that people try to banish that is actually good for our home or garden?

It's not an insect, but I’d say spiders. If you have a lot of spiders in your home, they're doing you a favor. There's something they're feeding on—you have some other pest problem that you may not know of, and they’re helping you to get rid of the problem.

Okay, flipping the script: Instead of getting rid of insects, how can we bring pollinators like monarch butterflies to our backyards?

The best way to encourage more pollinators in your yard is to plant a diverse range of native plants that bloom throughout the seasons. While I do not personally conduct research on pollinators, minimizing risks to beneficial insects, including pollinators, is a primary focus of our product development efforts. We develop our product labels with clear application instructions—such as applying treatments pre-bloom or when pollinators are least active—to help reduce any impact on these insects.

What’s one fun fact most of us don’t know about bugs?

They communicate with each other. Ants, for instance, have different pheromones [chemical signals released by animals]. When the foraging worker ants go out for food, they leave food pheromones for their other foraging worker ants so they can find the food. They also send out alarm pheromones if there's an invader, alerting their nest mates, ‘Hey, come help protect our colony.’

What’s the biggest myth about insects?

The big thing people get wrong is that they think insects are creepy and scary. But if you take a closer look at insects—at the colors of their wings, their scales, their exoskeletons—they are just amazing.

About the Writer

Lisa Lombardi is a New York-based writer and editor whose work has appeared in The Washington Post, Real Simple, TIME, Glamour, and other outlets. Her new favorite hobby is checking out the hummingbirds that visit the native garden one of her sons planted in their backyard.

Your Shopping Cart

Your cart is empty