Insect Ecology @ Au Sable - spring 2024

Insect Collecting Can Be Fun!  By: Abigail Chitwood and Randy Williams  To many people, the thought of collecting insects seems outlandish and unimportant. But when you take a closer look, collecting insects is not only important to discover more about them but it can also be pretty fun. I went into this class wondering, how on Earth do people collect insects? As it turns out there are many resources and tools people can use when collecting various types of insects. When collecting insects, one must start with finding a good place to search for insects. Insects are almost always all around us.  Using envelopes to collect butterflies. https://news.rice.edu/2014/11/03/outdoor-learning-2/ When going out on a collecting trip, going to an open field, a park, or a grassy area near a lake can provide the most abundant amount of insects for collecting. The larger the area you are searching, the greater diversity of insects you will fi...

Insects are absolutely incredible. Unfortunately, most people are too busy trying to get rid of them to notice this. Let’s pause for a moment to observe just one aspect of insects. We will look at one simple part of insects, their mouths. Specifically, their mandibles. Yes, insect mouths may not sound enticing to most but stay with us here. It will be worth it. In doing so, you will hopefully gain an appreciation for just how incredible these often-overlooked creatures are and learn a few things in the process. For those of you who flip past Animal Planet when channel-surfing, allow us to fill you in on what exactly a mandible is. Take a look at the four main mouthparts as  they appear on a grasshopper. https://insectmouthparts.weebly.com/morphology.html Insects generally have four main components of their mouth, the labrum, labium, maxillae, and mandibles. With the exception of butterflies and moths, all insects have these general structures. However, they are distorte...

        In order for insects to survive in their environment, they have to adapt and survive against many different conditions. They are required to defend against predators and have adapted into different defense mechanisms that best suits their living. Highlighted defenses will be those of caterpillars and bees.          Caterpillars defend themselves in many different ways; camouflage, hairs, coloration, repellence, pain, and mimicry are a few of the ways they defend against predators. The coloration of caterpillars plays a large part into many different defenses. Some predators see different colors and assume that its taste will be bad, where others see a familiar coloration and are reminded of the last time they had a bad encounter with a caterpillar. Either way, coloration is a large part in serving as a warning, saving the time and effort physically avoiding its predator. This also plays a part into mimicry. Some species can adapt the...

Ants. Upon hearing the word you think of the mounds you find in your yard, maybe the red ones swarming your feet and biting you. Maybe a picture of a coke can covered in the small insects comes to mind, swarming with the little guys coming in for a sugar meal. Ants are fascinating creatures that are found all over the entire world.  Sometimes they are found in very unusual places. One such place rose to national attention in 2017. This place was Houston, Texas. Houston is known for many things, NFL teams, NBA teams, maybe even stifling humidity and heat. Speaking of weather, Houston experienced devastating flooding during the fall of 2017. This was a result of the massive amount of rainfall that fell during a short period of time when hurricane Harvey parked on top of the gigantic city in south Texas.  Terrestrial insects are those that live on the ground rather than in an aquatic environment. Ants fall square into this category. Since they live on the ground...