They accompany the runner and the casual walker, the slow cows, the excited dogs and their quarry the hurrying monkeys. Like attentive lackeys preparing the way, these marvels skip ahead of each step on the path, ready to accept the accidental prey kicked up by the dust.
Their life is measured in weeks. They live without worry, eager only in determined hunt – itself a precondition of species success. And they must meet and mate. The mysteries of day and night, of victory and failure, of anguish over longevity and pride of progeny, of appropriate reactions to culture and fashion and a pressing need for social integration are not theirs. For they are free.
They have their markings; their carapace is an identity wherein they are able to elude predation and find each other. They make good the time that is theirs. Or not: the margin between thriving and death may be slim and ever close.
Tiger beetles shimmer in the light. Their magnificent spots and iridescence capture the eye and the mind. So unlike humans, the life they have they must have. The life we have, we must choose.
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