Doodle Bug Hole
Years ago, I had a seventh grader with big eyes whose class met after lunch. This boy always had a faraway look in his eye, liked he was listening to music no one else could hear. But, he knew right what was going on, answered questions, read, etc. Twenty years later a handsome man introduced me to his wife and little daughter. It was that same kid. Finally, I said, “You probably don’t remember, but you had a faraway look in your eye during class.” He started laughing. “Mrs. Russell, I’d gobble my lunch and then go catch doodlebugs and put them in my hair. Sometimes I’d have six or seven of them walking around.”
—Peg Russell
I’ve been wanting to see a doodle bug for the last two summers, but the wet weather we’ve had has left nary a doodle bug in my yard—at least any that I could easily see.
When I was a girl we would crouch down with our head leaned close above the little inverted tornado looking place in the soft dirt and say:
Doodlebug Doodlebug come out!
Your house is on fire and your
Children will burn!
There’s all sorts of other little chants kids said to try and entice doodle bugs out of their homes. You can read them here. A different technique was to try and “fish” the bugs out with a piece of straw or grass. Neither method worked well for me. Maybe I’ll see some doodle bug sign this summer and give it another try, but I assure you if I catch one I won’t be putting it in my hair 🙂
Last night’s video: Catching Up on the Porch in Appalachia – Dead Freezer, New Logo, Lizards, and Homework!
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I remember chanting to the Doodle Bugs in the crater, but the one in the hole where we used a straw to fish it out was not actually a bug…….although we called it a Doodle Bug too, it was worm-like with pincers on it’s head. In those days we were so easily entertained!!! ♥
I can’t believe this was posted. On Thursday I saw doodle bug homes under my tractor shed and I wondered about the phrase we all said as we tried to find doodle bugs 65+ years ago. When I learned that they were ant lions, I was amazed to see what creatures nature could invent. I will admit I have dropped an ant in a hole to watch. Today I think how cruel that was.
I’ve already caught several this year, we always just scoop up the whole patch, gently blow the dirt away. Sometimes if you watch close your can see them pitching the dirt up.
I’m 58 and still do this. Taught my kids and grandkids. Now I’ll be teaching my great grandkids
I keep learning things I’ve never heard of on your blog. Love the learn!
“Doodlebug, doodlebug fly away home!
Your house is on fire and your children alone!”
That incantation and stirring the hole with a short stick never failed to bring one forth.
Sometimes the stick alone would work, but we never trusted it.
I have some of these critters in my dirt floor garage. I’ve never seen them, of course, because they are buried in the dirt, but there is evidence, as pictured above, that says they are there. One day I dug in the softened dirt to see if I could see what they look like but, alas, I could not find even one critter!
Tipper–Ron Banks mentions trying to catch ant lions (doodle bugs) with a broom straw. With a fine hand, youthful quickness, and alertness, it can be done. I did it often as a boy. The steps involved are: (1) Use a long, slender broom straw or piece of broom sedge and ever so gently insert it in the hole at the bottom of the cone trap, (2) Lean it slightly to the side, just enough to disturb the trap’s walls a tiny bit, (3) Hold the straw between your index finger and thumb, and (4) When you get a “bite” in the form of the slightest twitch of the straw, jerk it out. Sometimes, though not always, you’ll pull the ant lion from its lair.
It’s precisely the sort of thing a bored youngster, or maybe just a naturally curious one, will spend hours doing. In a sense it’s like fishing for sheepshead, a notoriously subtle biter among saltwater species. You almost have to jerk before you get a bite.
Jim Casada
I haven’t ever looked for doodlebugs. I am pretty sure I have seen that trap before though and just didn’t know what was in there. I probably assumed it was an ant or something like that.
The only “doodlebug “ I have ever looked for was a car! That is what we always called a volkswagon. If we saw one we would say peanut and make a game of it! Lol
If I could find a real doodlebug I definitely would not put it in my hair! Lol
We called the volkswagen ‘bug’ a ‘punch bug’. When you see one coming down the road you have to be the first one to yell ‘punch bug, no punch back’ while punching the nearest person. If you forget to say the ‘no punch back’ part you are fair game for a wallop back on the arm. If you saw a car with only one headlight you yelled ‘padiddle, no punch back”. Anyone else play this game?
Patty, I’m 58 and still play the slug bug game. We don’t actually slug anymore. Just say bug now days. I taught my kids and grandkids. Now I’ve got great grandkids to teach
I played Herbies and Wheelies with my kids. A VW beetle was Wheelie and worth 1 point. If it was a white one it was a Herbie and worth 10. If you passed a graveyard on your side you lost all your points and had to start over.
I’ve never heard of doodle bugs and probably never saw one.
The rhyme you wrote is familiar though. We would say…..Ladybug, ladybug fly away home. Your house is on fire and your children will burn.
Ive had some success in “seeing” doodle bugs. A doodle bug’s “trap” works when a tiny insect of some sort dislodges a grain of dirt in the trap. The doodle bug feels the vibration of the critter and comes out todrag it down and feast on it! A gentle touch with a blade of grass will do this without ruining the “trap”.
That was one unique young man who put doodle bugs in his hair for entertainment! He was way “outside the box”! Probably brilliant!
I do remember getting doodle bugs to come out here in Florida – so much sand. The lady bug diddy was from Europe along with the early settlers. Knowing that lady bugs were great predators of aphids, they used to sing “Lady Bug, Lady Bug fly away home, your house is on fire and your children will burn.” It was to teach kids the value of the lady bugs when the farmers would burn their fields in the spring before planting – they wanted to save all the lady bugs thus the ditty was sung. (I don’t know where the word ditty comes from but means (to me) a little poem or short song.) I’m becoming aware of all sorts of words I know that are ‘different’ since reading Tipper’s blog. Too many years ago, I read that the poem about the Egg falling off the wall that all the kings horses and all the kings men, couldn’t put back together again – was created to keep children off the castle walls! I don’t remember the Egg’s name nor the beginning of the poem.
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall!
YES, that is the one – thanks for the memory jog, can I hire you? LOL
I can’t say I’ve seen a doodle bug. If y’all didn’t know it, while in the military I collected many insects- mostly cockroaches (God knows Ft. Bragg, NC is body slammed with the varmints.) THEYRE used for chemical agents research. I also spread lime and sprays to control bugs. I have a love and affinity for most bugs EXCEPT fire ants, slugs, roaches, aphids, biting flyers etc… but I love black ants (except in my house.) I’m hitting those aphids with a knockout punch- flour to constipate they say and diatomaceous earth, plus washing with soap and water… game over! It’s a struggle in the garden in this heat for sure!
Yes indeedy: we would say “Ladybug, ladybug, fly away home. Your house is on fire and your children alone.” Doodle bugs were something I would watch but never try to catch. I had a cousin that would turn a mason jar upside down over the hole and wait for them to come out. It worked.
All those little childhood rhymes are coming back to me now; Ladybug, Buttercups, there was something about twirl twirl twirl but I can’t seem to dig it out of my dusty memory this morning.
What the heck is a doodle bug? I’m 53 and have never heard of such a creature. Hugs!
Look up “ant lion”.
Send me some of your wet weather and I will send you a doodle bug when I find one. Sending a doodle bug would be hard to do since I haven’t seen one in a few years. The moles in my yard must be eating them.
I remember trying to entice those things out of the ground with a broom straw. Can’t remember if I ever got one. There was a saying we said too. Seems like they were always in the very dry loose soil under the old shed where dad parked the car.
We’ve seen their holes in the ground but never actually seen the doodle bug itself in spite of trying to entice it to come out. If I ever did get one to come out I would definitely not put it in my hair!! 🙂
I remember calling doodle bugs…..”house on fire”
don’t think i’ve ever seen a doodlebug but we used to sing that for ladybugs. only we didn’t say “come out”, we said “fly away home!” you’ve got tons of ladybugs there, i know.
As kids we would use a small stick and gently push some of the dirt back in it’s hole and then watch it flip the excess dirt back out. Once we saw an ant clumsily fall in the hole and couldn’t get out. After a few seconds the ant got pulled under and that was that. After that we looked for ants to put in the sand hole and never did an ant escape. Years later we found out that doodle bugs were ant lions.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antlion
I can’t remember our doodle bug ditty. It went something like “Doodlebug, doodlebug, come out come out wherever you are, your kids have run off and your house is on fire.”
I think I have posted this before but the doodle bugs love that dry sand under the cliff overhangs in the Cumberland Plateau country. Mr. Eddings would know about that to I guess. Of course there is sandy ground there all over, not just under the cliffs. But that makes me wonder how the doodle bugs fared when it rained when they weren’t under the cliff. They must have taken a pounding in a hard rain.
Who would knowingly put a bug in their hair? Yikes!!! I am laughing! I know kids do things adults shudder about. Oh to be young and free!
P.S. I have seen a doodlebug’s home, but never the bug itself.
Donna. : )
Well, I recognized the tiny trap in the picture, but to make sure I was right, a doodle bug is an ant lion larvae. Not sure why someone would put one in his hair!
We recite that rhyme for lady bugs. Don’t think we have doodle bugs, except the little cars like dune buggies up here. Lady bugs are supposed to be good luck, & bad luck if you kill one.
I so look forward to your blogs…and yes, ‘back in the day’ we searched for doodle bugs and loved to watch what they had to do….God Bless