Fashion and field ecology do not mix

I saw a couple today wearing blue jeans with enormous holes in the knees. I deduced they were neither field ecologists nor on their way to pick blackberries. The absurd fashion of wearing raggedy clothes brought to mind a column I wrote years ago about Tom Cruise.

I had seen Tom Cruise in an interview wearing blue jeans with a big hole in each knee. We all know a Hollywood movie star can afford new jeans, so clearly the gaping holes were a fashion statement.

My recent observation confirmed that some young people (and a few old enough to know better) are also fans of holey jeans. Professional ecologists do not intentionally wear such garb, at least not in the field. At the time I was fond of old, faded jeans with patches to cover the holes. I no longer wear even patched ones. Here's why.

One summer day, I went on a field trip to look for aquatic turtles with Vince Burke, a University of Georgia graduate student. As we left our lab, I grabbed a pair of blue jeans, field shoes and a T-shirt and hurriedly began putting them on as we rode along. The process went even faster after Vince suggested he drive.

Field ecologists rely on blue jeans to protect them from a lot of biting, stinging, thorny things. As I put this old and worn pair on, I ripped a huge hole in the right knee, just below an earlier patch. How fashionable, I thought. I will look good in the field, like Tom Cruise. I asked Vince if he had brought a camera.

I may have looked good (although possibly not as good as Tom Cruise), but I would soon feel awful. I got my first inkling that fashion and ecology do not go hand in hand as we made our way from the truck to the pond where the turtles were.

We walked through a patch of blackberry bushes about the size of Vermont. Blackberries are the silver lining of a very black cloud known as blackberry briars. By the time I reached the water, my right knee looked like an angry bobcat had used it as a scratching post.

Well, I thought, once I start wading around, my knee won't feel so bad. This was momentarily true when we reached an area of knee-deep water. Then I discovered a second hazard of a good-looking tear at the knee: a small insect known as a backswimmer. Backswimmers defend themselves by jabbing their mouthparts into the body of anything they consider a threat. They are not venomous and won't hurt you unless you provoke them. But their "bite" hurts like a bee sting for a minute or so.

Blue jeans, socks and shoes generally confer protection from backswimmers, which only bite people when they are pressed against a person's body and cannot escape. Do you think a big hole in a pair of blue jeans would let in a 1/2-inch-long backswimmer? Yes, quite a few.

One after another ended up inside my pants leg, pressed tightly against my right leg. Being squeezed between denim and tender flesh provoked them, and each proceeded to protect itself. The experience was not enjoyable.

Tom Cruise always seems quite comfortable in kneetorn blue jeans, but then I have never seen him being interviewed while he was standing in water infested with backswimmers.

Upon leaving the water, I encountered a low-lying branch that aimed right for my Achilles knee. Later, a horsefly decided my exposed knee was the most delectable eating spot in the county. The final blow came when I knelt down to observe a turtle nest. Sure enough, the only sharp-edged rock within a hundred yards was lying right where I put my knee.

When we returned, I discarded this fashionable pair of blue jeans with the thought that if Tom Cruise needed another pair, he was welcome to them.

Whit Gibbons is professor of zoology and senior biologist at the University of Georgia’s Savannah River Ecology Laboratory. If you have an environmental question or comment, email ecoviews@gmail.com.