Back in the ’60s when I was just a youngster, a relative of mine visited Mexico and instead of bringing back the usual souvenir tee shirt, brought back some Mexican Jumping Beans. Being that this was the first time I had ever seen these, or even heard of them, I was quite intrigued. I opened the package and dumped the beans on the table and they were twitching and moving around all by themselves.
Well after having the jumping beans for a while, they stopped jumping around. My curiosity got the better of me, so I cracked one open to find a little bug or larvae. Gross!
Apparently the larvae makes their home in these beans and when they get hot, they twitch around in hopes of moving themselves into a shady or cooler area, because the heat will kill them.
It’s too bad we didn’t have Google back then so I could have looked these buggers up, but fortunately we have Google now and you can get more details about the Mexican Jumping Bean at the link below.
More details at wikipedia.com:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican_jumping_bean
I think those are making a comeback. I’ve seen them in several shops up here in Oregon. They were jumping around too, although it’s not very hot up here.
Great, I can see an epidemic of those moths flying around Oregon after the larvae makes its transformation. : D