Chilean poet Pablo Neruda claimed the following in his “Self-Portrait” (Autorretrato):
For my part I am or believe I am
hard of nose, minimal of eyes…
…slow in going…
…unrustable (sic) heart, fan of the stars…
…admirer of scarabs…
(Translation by Janine Pommy Vega, from the book Windows that Open Inward: Poems by Pablo Neruda, edited by Dennis Maloney)
In his biography, Neruda explains he was fascinated by beetles ever since he was a little kid. He used to look for beetles through the fallen leaves of the cloudy rainforest in Temuco, southern Chile, where he grew up. I am certain that Neruda was just like the entomologists* I know: he never lost the ability to marvel at these small bugs (*entomologists are biologists who study insects).