Scientists are taught to remain objective about their study organisms and not anthropomorphize behaviours or biology. Sure, this might be useful for preventing bias in results, but it can suck the fun right out of day to day work!
Here’s your chance to act less like a scientist and have some fun with the insect world. Every 2 weeks we’ll post a new photo of an insect (or other arthropod), and your mission, should you choose to accept it, will be to come up with a witty/funny/clever caption.
Although being given the chance to showcase your witticism and comedic chops for everyone on the internet to see should be award enough, we know people really like prizes, so here’s how it’s going to work:
- Take a look at the photo and submit your best caption ideas in the comments (Please keep your captions PG-13. If this is your first time leaving a comment on this blog it will need to be approved by an ESC Admin before showing up. Once we’ve recognized you’re not spam and approved your comment, all your subsequent comments will be visible immediately after posting. Any captions or comments judged by the ESC admins to be derogatory, denigrating, or discriminatory will result in you being banned from commenting further effective immediately)
- Crystal & I will select up to 5 of our favourite captions for each week’s photo
- You’ll then get the chance to vote for your favourite nominated caption
- The authors of the Top 3 voted captions will score points (5 points for first, 3 points for second, 1 point for third)
- After 8 photos (4 months) we’ll tally the points and award some yet-to-be-determined prizes (don’t worry, we’ll make sure they’re awesome and entomological) to the caption-creators with the highest accumulated scores!
Think of it as American Idol meets The New Yorker, but with more insects and less Simon Cowell.
Also, if you took an insect photo which you think is just begging to be captioned, send it in to us and we’ll be happy to use it in the contest.
Without further ado, here’s photo #1! Good luck & have fun!
ESC Caption Contest C1 P1 – Photo by Morgan Jackson
With only 3 captions for Photo #4, everyone’s guaranteed points, but it’s up to you to decide who earns the top honours:
