Catching the lovebug : CSU entomologists debate romance between insects

collegian.com · Feb 16, 2026 · Collected from GDELT

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Maci Lesh, Staff Reporter Collegian | Elias Javier Tristan Kubik and Melissa Schreiner pose for a photo after their debate in the Visit Fort Collins Welcome Center Feb. 11. “And of course, if you notice any familiarity between us tonight, that is because we are on our own little love adventure,” Kubik said. “We do not regularly hug and kiss our co-presenters.” The question at the center of last Wednesday’s Ram Talk sounded simple enough: Are insects romantic? By the end of the evening, the audience heard arguments involving seductive gifts, chemical perfumes, lifelong pair bonds and sexual cannibalism. They laughed and cast their votes. The verdict: Insects are not romantic. The debaters disagreed. “Over 90% of animal biodiversity is comprised of invertebrates,” said Tristan Kubik, a rare invertebrate biologist for the Colorado Natural Heritage Program, who shared the stage with Colorado State University Extension entomologist Melissa Schreiner. “They may be smaller than us, but from an ecological perspective, they are titans.” The Feb. 11 event, titled “Are Insects Romantic? A Debate,” was part of CSU’s Ram Talks series, a public science program held twice monthly in Old Town. Rather than a traditional lecture, organizers flipped a coin to assign sides. The debate format allowed Kubik and Schreiner to present insect courtship as both wondrous and unsettling. Their exhibits for romance included gift-giving species that present food offerings to mates, insects that release perfume-like chemicals to attract partners and species that sing or dance to impress suitors. Arguments against romance included sexual violence, trickery, extreme dimorphism and cannibalism. “We obviously compared insects to a lot of human ideologies of romance,” Schreiner said. “But that is one way to crack people open and get them thinking about arthropods in a light that makes them more relatable.” She emphasized that fear often stems from unfamiliarity. “Introducing people to these concepts … helps them connect to some of this biology and appreciate biodiversity,” Schreiner said. Kubik pushed that idea further, challenging common assumptions about insect minds. “People think that insects don’t experience subjectivity, and that’s just plain wrong,” Kubik said. “There’s increasing bodies of evidence that suggest we are horribly mistaken in our assumptions about what insects experience … (and) how capable they are at thinking, calculating and navigating their world. … We’re such an arrogant species. We think we deserve this planet, but really, we share it.” Biologist Tristan Kubik talks about dung beetles as he argues that insects are not romantic at the Visit Fort Collins Welcome Center, where he and entomologist Melissa Schreiner delivered a Ram Talks presentation Feb. 11. (Collegian | Elias Javier) The audience may have ruled against insect romance, but the debaters’ own answers were unequivocal. “We both find insects deeply romantic,” Kubik said. “We’re entomologists. We’re guilty every day of romanticizing insects. … We find their quirky charisma bewitching. We have fallen head over heels in love with insects.” That affection extends beyond research. Schreiner and Kubik met years ago as students at CSU, where both served as presidents of the entomology club. Their relationship grew through shared fieldwork, long days outdoors and a mutual fascination with the smallest creatures in the landscape. “Our love really has unfolded as a series of field expeditions,” Kubik said. “We go out together, we explore the insect world together, and there’s a tremendous amount of reciprocity that transpires in the realm of teaching and learning. It’s not often that I get to set foot in the field with someone who is so like-minded but so capable of still pointing things out to me that I have waited my entire life to see. … It is a sweet, deeply sincere backdrop to a friendship, which is where it started, let alone romance, which is where it has just fully blossomed.” Schreiner described those moments as the foundation of their partnership. “We spend our professional lives as entomologists for Colorado,” Schreiner said. “When we get a weekend away, we head onto the prairie, up into the mountains, out into the desert, and experience the joy of discovery together. I feel grateful to have found such a partner that I get to take that adventure on with.” While the debate leaned into humor, both scientists framed their work as part of a broader mission: expanding public understanding of overlooked life forms. “Insects are considered an incredibly impactful aspect of wildlife,” Schreiner said. “People should have more curiosity for insects, not just think the delete button needs to be pressed on them.” That message carries particular weight in Colorado, where recent legislation officially recognized invertebrates as wildlife — a milestone for scientists who study Tristan Kubik passionately argues that bugs are not romantic creatures at the Visit Fort Collins Welcome Center Feb. 11. “I now get to berate you with some not-so-friendly examples of insect courtship,” Kubik said. “We’ll see through a lot of these exhibits against insect romance that it kind of boils down to the male’s desperation, laziness, stupidity — you know, it’s a showcase of shortcomings.” (Collegian | Elias Javier) organisms that make up the overwhelming majority of animal biodiversity. “Folks who call themselves animal lovers need to be thinking more inclusively,” Schreiner said. “Spiders, crustaceans, insects, centipedes, millipedes — that is a big part of what wildlife is.” Public programs like Ram Talks, Kubik said, play a critical role in that shift. “Knowledge should be free, and precisely because it embodies a tremendous amount of power,” Kubik said. “The more you know, the more power you have. … Ram Talk, as any public education event, is really a profound and wonderful celebration of the dissemination of knowledge. It is, in essence, empowering people.” For both scientists, insect courtship offers more than strange trivia. It offers perspective. “Any insect mating behavior that reminds us of a human behavior shouldn’t make us think, ‘That’s incredibly human,’” Kubik said. “It should make us think, ‘That’s incredibly Earth.’ That is life on Earth. … The experience of life itself unites us, and insect mating behaviors that mirror our own might be more than just a reflection. There might be an opportunity to open our minds to this world that we are not so alone in as we often suppose.” The goal is not to humanize insects, Schreiner said, but to help people see them differently: as living participants in shared ecosystems rather than background noise. “It’s a fun way to explore really important topics,” Schreiner said. “Celebrating love can be an exciting angle to explore biology.” The Ram Talks audience voted against insect romance. Kubik and Schreiner left convinced otherwise, not just by chemical signals or courtship dances, but by long days in prairie grass, turning over logs together. If romance is a shared fascination with the living world, they have already cast their vote. Reach Maci Lesh at science@collegian.com or on social media @RMCollegian.