Timo's Bugs
The story about collecting insects
TIMO: "When I met my wife Kimberly, I told her we need to get a lot of adventure under the bridge, to get some substance building into our relationship. So I took her on trips to Costa Rica, Southern Mexico, all the Hawaiian Islands, Trinidad and Tobago, multiple times. I told her I was going to build an exotic collection of the world's greatest insects, until I had a representation of it all. From travels and importing specimens I accomplished that goal. My specimens are rare and are worth a great deal of money. For example, one butterfly I caught in Trinidad, paid for my entire trip including air fare for two, hotel stay at the Hilton, and a rental car. Plus a rental of a house on Tobago (the Island Pirates used to occupy). A beetle I caught called 'Titanus Gigantius' (world's largest beetle) fetches a $1,700 price tag".
"I also caught the largest dragon fly in this hemisphere that made a entomological news story. I have collected a new species of velvet ant near the pyramids in Talum. And I have made expeditions to the bottom of Kauai's grand canyon to search for the great Sphinx in the swamps. Only a few have ever been collected. The last one was gifted by King Kamehameha to the Queen of England. I was unsuccessful in finding another even though I researched the moth's host plant and altitude carefully. I used mercury vapor lamps and black lights at night to try and entice the bloody thing, but it never showed up".
"The insects I collected in Costa Rica were by permit from the government and I sold them to a professor at Cal Poly Institute. I won't mention his name, but he was one of the top four nuclear physicists working on cold fusion. The museum of Natural History in Los Angeles invited me to display my collection with other entomologists for 5 years. The first floor of the museum was set up for all the collectors to come and set up their collections. The museum curator said we drew more people to see these displays than the dinosaurs ever did"
