This article critically explores the epistemic practices of bioscience, using creative writing and analyses of science studies to implicate the non-linguistic side of science where a ‘feeling for the organism’ matters more, perhaps, than theoretical precision. It offers new critique of curricula in science which are so thoroughly immured with theory, ‘talk’ and discourse that the matter of the ‘scientific object’ tends to be forgotten. This article models pedagogy that restores the silent kinaesthetic and affective body using the epistemic insight of the ‘Mangle of Practice’ woven into a narrative of ‘Bella’ and her bneetle.