Class Camping Trip

By Anonymous -



Class Camping Trip - Robbers Cave State Park 

Taylor Marshall, 
Cari Marota, and Jacob Grimm 


On Friday, our insect class set out on an adventure. We were traveling to Robbers
Carrion Beetle
Cave state park, and had a long three-hour drive ahead of us to get there. The drive there went by rather quickly and we arrived around 4:30 in the afternoon. We didn’t really know what to expect right when we got there but we were pleasantly surprised to discover that our evening would just be socializing with our classmates and our professor and his family. The Hoekmans had brought food for all of us to cook around the campfire. One of our food items was, at first, very peculiar to me because I had never seen it done before. We took Pillsbury biscuits, stretched them out and wrapped them around wooden sticks to cook around the fire. It worked surprisingly well and resulted in delicious butter and cinnamon sugar covered biscuit spirals. We continued to cook and talk for the rest of the night. We thought we were not going to be catching any insects that night but Dr. Hoekman proved us wrong. He put out a blacklight/bug light after the sun went down and the insects started to gather around it in large numbers. Most of the insects that congregated were very small, but there were some larger insects to be had. One of the larger insects around the light was caught by Taylor and has been identified as a Fishfly! Tyler also caught a type of Carrion beetle that was infested with some kind of parasite. All in all, there were some very interesting insects caught around the light that night.

The Fishfly belongs in the Order Neuroptera, Family Corydalidae, Subfamily Chauliodinae, Genus Chauliodes. The fishfly has aquatic larvae usually living in slow moving water. Once pupation occurs adult typically live less than a week before laying eggs and dying.




The next day we got up early to eat a magnificent breakfast cooked by the Hoekman family. More specifically, Rachel cooked some amazing french toast. After our delectable breakfast, we got loaded up and headed out on the trial in a search for new insects. Our first encounter was something that Dr. Hoekman had scoped out at an earlier time. He took us off the trail to inspect a silk sack filled with a very interesting caterpillar species. Several of us took specimens into our collection and are still working on identification. We continued down the trail as many of us tried and were unsuccessful at catching dragonflies and damselflies. Fortunately, we had two expert catchers in our class! Ali and Bree were successful in catching several dragonflies and damselflies. They were kind enough to distribute them out to people that needed them including Taylor. She identified her specimen as a Dragonhunter Dragonfly. We continued farther down the trail and saw some amazing sights off the side of the mountain in our ongoing search for insects.



The Dragonhunter belongs in the Order Odonata, Family Gomphidae, Genus Hagenius. Dragonhunters are the largest clubtail in the Gomphidae Family. Dragonhunters are predators often feeding on prey along the edge of a water source. Dragonhunters lay eggs in the water where they will hatch into larvae. These larvae will sometimes remain living in the water over four years before going through metamorphosis.

As we continued down the path, many more insects were observed and caught along the way including Tiger beetles, several different Lepidopterans and many others. There was one other insect that was observed in large quantities along the way and that was walking sticks. While we are still working on the exact identification of these insects, they were very prevalent and worth mentioning. Over 6 were captured by the Hoekman boys alone! Shout-out to Josiah, Eli, and Simon!


IMG_4647.JPG


Walking sticks received their name because they are easily mistaken for a fallen piece of wood or grass. They are herbivores and have a hemimetabolous life cycle going from egg to nymph to adult.

After getting back from our morning excursion we had sandwiches for lunch and then some of us packed up our belongings and then we all traveled to the actual Robbers Cave site and had a really great time exploring, climbing and looking for more insects. We all had an enjoyable and memorable time at Robbers Cave thanks to Dr. Hoekman and his obvious passion for enjoying life.


Sources:



All photos taken by Taylor Marshall and Cari Marota



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