Our Collection Experience So Far

Imagine walking along a trail in a local nature preserve with a few colleagues and friends. The day is warm, but not too hot and the wind is blowing just the right amount to keep you cool, but not mess up your hair. Things are going smoothly and people are chatting about their week, when the movement of 13 people passing through arose something from its slumber and darts over the trail. One of your friends yells, “There!” and points in a direction. Your eyes catch the glimmer of bright orange wings beating a desperate escape. It begins... Everyone brandishes his or her nets and charges into the brush after the elusive, desired butterfly. After a few minutes of a chase, someone has captured the prey. A large, orange monarch butterfly has been caught. Your friend, who caught the butterfly, pulls out an envelope and gently grabs the butterfly and puts it inside to keep it from hurting itself.

            Its sounds like fun, and it is, but a little less cool and a little more nerdy. Instead of everyone charging elegantly, imagine a bunch of environmental science students wearing backpacks and awkwardly running (because who can run majestically with a backpack on) around in the woods swinging wildly until someone catches the butterfly. Then everyone gathers around gasping for breath to see it up close. It is a spectacle to behold and I recommend observing it at least once in their life. All jokes aside, this is just a small part of what our class, Insect Ecology at Southern Nazarene University, has done so far in an effort to make an insect collection.

            This year the winter has been very mild. So mild that we began to see whole colonies of insects emerge as early as January 31^st. On this day we saw many Boxelder Bugs (Boisea trivittata) and other species found in the Order Hemiptera, the “true bugs.” While walking along the same dirt trail in Stinchcomb, a local nature preserve, we spotted a bagworm cocoon in a Juniper tree. As a few of us walked up to investigate we began to see that there were many cocoons all along the trail where the Juniper trees were growing. Unfortunately, as we began to open the cocoons, we found that all of the bagworms had already emerged from their cocoons. So we continued along the trail in search of insects. Bagworm moths are in the family Psychidae and the order Lepidoptera, along with other moths, butterflies and skippers.  

(Box Elder Bug colony in late January, Photo by Patrick Lunn)

(Bagworm Moth Cocoon, Photo by Doris Rapp/Flickr)

            During the same collection at Stinchcomb, another insect was waiting to emerge from its home on the branches of a hackberry tree. As we searched the nearby hackberry trees, there were countless gals hanging from the branches that housed immature Psyllids. The gals were brought back to the lab. Many of the insects inside the galls were empty. There was one gal that was not only brown but had white wool-like matter all throughout the inside. After carefully pulling the white matter out, six immature insects were still growing inside! It was clear they were still developing because many of them were still soft and squishy. The coloration of the developing insect was beautiful, being different shades of blue and green and red. Seeing the individual chambers for six developing Psyllids led to the identification of the gal as being a Hackberry Petiole Gal. 

(Physillids found inside the gall, Photo by Cassidy Herbster)

(Hackberry Petiole Gall, Photo by John Howard)

            On another collecting trip we went to a forested park next to a local lake, Lake Hefner. It had rained earlier that week so the ground was muddy and there were pools of water on the ground. As we neared one of the puddles we could see an insect skidding across the top of the water. When someone went to capture it, the insect quickly ran out of site. Although we were unable to catch these insects perched on top of the water, we could identify them as water striders, which are a species of true bugs. As we went further into the forest we came upon a tree branch that had many wasps flying around it. With a few careful swipes of our nets, some of us were able to catch a few. The wasps turned out to be a species of paper wasp, which is in the order Hymenoptera. After spending a few more moments in the forest we wandered to the sandy shore of the mostly dried up lake. We were able to walk out onto the lake bed because the water levels were so low. While looking closely at the ground we were able to see many small insects scurrying about. There were two mating insects, attached to each other, end to end. Each of them was only about a centimeter long. They were fairly easy to catch because their abdomens were attached to each other while mating, limiting their flying capabilities or run quickly. At first we assumed they were a type of fly, but upon further inspection under a microscope we were able to identify them as more true bugs!

There are more trips to be had. Look out for the next blog to find out more!

Contributors:

Patrick Lunn, Ali Bland, and Cassidy Herbster

Sources for Photos:

http://www.amusingplanet.com/2016/01/log-house-like-cocoon-of-bagworm-moth.html

http://indyparks.blogspot.com/2010/03/hackberry-gall.html