It’s Halloween in the U.S., which means it’s a good excuse to talk about spooky creepy crawlies! That’s right: bugs!

I know what a lot of you are thinking. “Bugs? Gross.” But wait! Bugs are actually really cool, really important, and really in trouble. There’s a lot of scary news about the insect apocalypse and the massive ripple effect it will have on everything else. If we lose bugs, we lose everything else!

But people hate bugs. How can we expect them to save an animal that they want to constantly kill? We have a hard enough time trying to save species that people do care about. To answer these questions, I called my local bug nerd and friend, Jarek.

Jarek spends a lot of time trying to get people to care more about bugs. On a recent trip to Thailand, he got new insights on how people in other parts of the world view bugs (hint, they don’t try to burn their houses down whenever they see a spider…). So poor a drink and get in a super spoooooky mood as we talk about things creepy crawly!