It's a valid subject!
I did a zoology degree back in the good old days when you could afford to fuck about and put work off for a further few years without incurring the debt of a small third world nation. As part of the course I spent a summer in Portugal doing some research. I was paired with a rather attractive girl from my course which was lucky because the majority looked like Bill Oddie's groupies. One of our experiments involved the requirement to smear the branches of a shrub with vaseline in order to isolate some branches from the local ant population. The next stage of this experiment/folly was to remove any remaining ants from the branches. Essentially we were trying to achieve an ant-free branch. Don't ask why - there was a valid purpose! Anyway the instrument that we were using to remove these ants was called a 'pooter'. For those not in the know this is basically a jar with two pipes running from the lid. It acts as a vacuum - you point one tube at the insect and suck through the other and the insect is sucked into the jar. It's the quickest and easiest way to collect small insect samples without harming them. Some of the ants were persistent little buggers and were trying to crawl their way through the vaseline barrier. And it's for this reason that our professor, who had come to check on our progress, witnessed me standing behind a bush with my research partner on her knees loudly stating "I'm not sucking you off whilst you are all covered in vaseline!". He immediately turned tail and came back half an hour later, whistling loudly as he approached.
(Grezmo, Fri 10 Dec 2010, 16:46, 3 replies)

I've seen those on sale for children
but isn't there a slight risk that you could accidentally swallow the insect?

Anyway, clicky for making me giggle :D
(Petite chien is going to do science to it, Fri 10 Dec 2010, 16:52, closed)

They often have a mesh covering...
but a few of the smaller ones got through. Crunchy and bitter would cover it.
(Grezmo, Fri 10 Dec 2010, 17:05, closed)

*clickage* for 'Bill Oddie's groupies'.
We like.
(Billy The Fish wants to gargle with Lucy Pinder's bath water, Sat 11 Dec 2010, 18:50, closed)