Misconceptions Part 2

Mary Katherine- Blue

Ander- Red 

After reading the Earwig's Tail, I noticed several misconceptions throughout the book so Ander and I decided to do another blog post on the book. This post is about the second half of the book. The chapter and misconception that I wanted to address was the toilet spider. The misconception was that the Chicago airport bathrooms were infested with blush spiders. So when people would use the bathroom these spiders would bite them causing them to experience fevers, chills, vomiting, paralysis, and in three cases death when traveling on the planes. Although, they come to find out that the whole thing was just a hoax and was not true. Another urban legend in this chapter was the beehive hair. A girl had a beehive do and left it there for several days and before she knew it bees and other insects were in her hair. It sounds really gross but it was funny. This class has been one of the best and most interesting classes ever! I strongly encourage people to go back and really read this chapter (the toilet spider) because there are many urban legends that are funny and cool. I really enjoyed this book and semester and would encourage anyone and everyone to take this class. It teaches you several things about insects and life lessons. 

Last night I watched the movie bugs life. This has always been one of my favorite movies since I was a little kid. This movie is about a colony of ants living together and the problems that they face. The main character is an ant called Flik. Flik has a huge crush on the princess ant Atta. Each year the ants colony must collect food for the grasshopper's. If they do not do this the grasshoppers will kill all of the ants. The grasshoppers are led by an evil grasshopper named Hopper. At the begging of the movie Flik, who is an inventor (although not a very successful one) knows down all of the food that the ant colony had gotten for Hopper and the other grasshoppers. This makes the grasshoppers mad and now tell the ant colony that they must get double the amount of food or they will kill them. After this Flik gets a job where he is suppose to go recruit other insects to fight the grasshoppers. The ant colony ask him to do this because they thought it would result in his death. To make the story short Flick goes and finds a circus group of insects and convinces them to come and fake being warriors. When Flick returns home he is greeted with gifts and becomes a star because they think they have warriors to fight the cockroaches. They device a plan, but it does not work. However the ants realize that they have more numbers then the cockroaches and attack them with the help of their new circus friends. This is a great movie. What I realized about this movie was that all of the characters are made to look like humans rather than insects. The cockroaches look like a human and so do the ants. 

Final Thoughts

Mary Katherine- Blue
Ander- Red 



My views have definitely changed about insects. At first, I was scared of them and would never in a million years touch them. When I saw a dead bug laying around the house and I had to throw it away I would always get a ton and I mean a ton of toilet paper and pick it up and throw it down the toilet. The thought of touching insects would never cross my mind. I use to think they were all harmful and dangerous. After being in this class and learning so much information about insects, constantly being around them, picking them up, and observing them, I am now better with insects. I am not scared of them at all. I mean if a bee came Yellowjacket came buzzing around my head I would be nervous but I am not scared of them. Cockroaches are still gross to me but I have picked several up without gloves, but yes they were dead. I feel as now I have information about insects that I would never had if I would not have taken this course. I learned so much about insects and each in particular bug. I was not aware about how many species there are of each bug. I really enjoyed this class because it taught me more than just "information about bugs" but it also taught me life lessons. I learned lessons from how to kill bugs without squashing them to how bugs overwinter. I would highly recommend this course for people of all ages so they get a comfortable sense of insects rather than this terrifying sense because thats how they have always looked at insects. It was a great course, with great people, and an excellent professor! 

My final thoughts on this class was that I really enjoyed it. When I first signed up for this class I did not know how it was going to be or what I had gotten myself in to. I usually just take the class in January that I know will not have any work. However Mary Katherine convinced me to take this class. When I started the class I was scared of bugs and just wanted to kill any bug that came close to me. I hated just looking at the insects, but now some things have changed. Now I know more information on insects like, which can harm me. This has helped me not be scared of them anymore. I still do not like picking up the insects, and I do not think this will ever change (everyone in the class knows that I always put gloves on before touching the insects). I have learned so much about insects and am happy that I decided to take this class. This January I actually learned something and it was great making a bug collection. After finishing it I have something to be proud of and know that all of my effort was for a reason. This class was a lot of fun and would tell anyone who wants to do something a little bit different than their normal class to take this class because not only will they actually learn something, but they will have fun doing it. I enjoyed all of my classmates and my teacher. I will miss this class, but will remember everything that I learned. One thing that probably won't change is the fact when I see an insect in my room I will try to kill it. 

Thanks so much for reading out blog throughout this class and we hope you enjoyed it. 

Finding Bugs!

Mary Katherine:
Ander:
Last weekend Ander and I went out to my family's farm to look for bugs! It was a good weekend and really pretty to look for bugs. At first we did not find much and were irritated. So we went over toward the lake and started to look for some bugs. We looked under rocks for the first thirty minutes and there we found three earwigs, a beetle, and a yellow jacket. the earwigs looked like the first ones we already had but we kept them just to make sure. After we looked under rocks we went into the forest that surrounded the lake and looked under logs. We really did not find much under the logs except for some baby beetles but we thought they may be too hard to identify so we left them. We them searched the barn for some insects. There we found several wasp of different species. Some were blue wasp and some were yellow and then some were dark brown. We also found a dead ladybug so we were able to keep it and identify it for our collection. When we identified them the last couple days we were able to identify two different species. It was a good day for insects and I am glad we decided to go! 

Last week our search for insects continued, but this time we were in a new territory. We decided to go to Gadsden, Alabama which is the home of Mary Katherine. Her family has a farm about 20 minutes away from her house. We knew that this would be a great place to find some insects. However once we got there we quickly found out it would not be as easy as we first thought. The first insects that we found were earwigs. For some reason every time we go look for insects we find earwigs. We found a total of three earwigs and they looked pretty similar to our previous finds. After this we continued to look under some rocks and found some more insects. We found a beetle and a yellow jacket. This was very exciting because we knew we would have something for our collection. After this we took our search to the area by the lake because there were some rotted logs. However we did not find anything other insects that we already had. After this we went to the barn where we found some wasp. This was one of our better days for insect hunting. Mainly because we found something other then earwigs. It was great to find the yellow jacket and the wasp. They were different then our previous insects. After this our collection seemed to be getting better and we were not as worried. After identifying our insects from this adventure in Gadsden we found two new species. This was a great trip and I enjoyed it. I think it would be good as a class to go to somewhere farther away like Gadsden because I think it helped with finding different insects. Also it was just fun to see a different environment even though I did not enjoy the drive. 

Entomophagy

Mary Katherine:
Ander:

After reading the web pages and Barenbaum I never really thought about or knew we consume insects almost everyday. At first I was really grossed out just because I have learned about insects and their body parts. I have been learning everyday how insects eat or how they use each of their body parts, then I was told I eat these insects and their body parts. My first feeling was unsure and almost disgusted. After I thought about it for awhile I thought if I have been eating them for 21 years and I am healthy then they cannot be too harmful. I just never knew I would eat them. I have always heard of the horror stories of toddlers picking up insects and eating them and such and they were never harmed either, but it is just the concept of putting one of those in your mouth and chewing it an hearing it crunch in your mouth. Especially after I have learned so much, pinned them, smelt them, I was just initially horrified that I have been eating them for this long. I know they do not harm you or haven't harmed me yet because I have not had any problems but I just cannot get over the concept of eating insects. I do not think I would ever try an insect much less allow them to be my main source of protein. I could not take putting them in my mouth and crunching down on them. It gives me chills and just disgust me. I would never be able to be on one of those shows where they have to eat bugs because I would be the first one kicked off for gagging just watching someone who eats it. I have become better about insects and touching them but I am not comfortable eating them and I do not think I will ever be comfortable eating them! 

Prior to this class my knowledge of insects was slim to none. All I knew was if I saw and insect I was going to get freaked out and then try to kill it. After reading the web pages as well as Barenbaum I learned a lot of new things about insects in particularly that we eat insects almost on a daily basis. After learning this I was initially shocked and then grossed out. I could not believe that I ate insects without even knowing that I was. Then I thought about some of the foods that I regularly eat. For example some of the fast food places that I eat at our pretty gross themselves. So after a while I can to grips that I sometimes eat insects. I do not think it is that big of a deal because I am still healthy. The main reason I was disgusted is that in my mind I already think that insects are gross and because of this I freaked out when learning I ate insects. I do not think I could switch insects into my main source of dietary protein. However I do think I could eat insects if it were needed. I think I would be grossed out at first, but in time I would get use to it and be able to the insects. I would need a million dollars or more to make insects my sole source of protein though. 

Misconceptions

Ander:
Mary Katherine:

The book The Earwig's Tail by Mary R. Berenbaum discusses the different types of misconceptions about insects. To be honest I did not know much about insects before this class, but have learned a lot more from taking it. The misconception that I had previously heard about was when a male and female praying mantis mate the female praying mantis kills and eats her partner, usually devouring the head first. The misconception with this is that the female praying mantis does not always do this (Berebaum 83). There are 2,000 species of mantids in the world and the phenomenon has been reported in only a tiny handful of them (Berebaum 84). Prior to this reading I had heard about this and thought that it was true. I thought it was really weird that after sexual activities the female would kill its mate. It sounded so vulgar that one would think it could be true in movies. After reading this book I found out that the female praying mantis does not always kill its mate. After researching this misconception more on they internet I found that one of the reasons why people believed this was because the studies were flawed. Most of the studies on the mating of praying mantis were done in laboratories in small tanks with bright lights shining on them. This was not the habitat that most praying mantis mate in and because of this it skewed the study. After creating an environment that more closely resembled their natural mating habitat the study would show that it was rare for the female praying mantis to kill her male partner after mating (http://www.cracked.com/article_19935_8-ridiculous-animal-myths-you-probably-believe.html). 

The most interesting misconception I found in the Earwigs Tail was the chapter about the brain-boring earwig. The misconception about this chapter is earwigs really do not live in ears. There has never been a case where there was an earwig in someone’s ear yet. The book talks about how the misconception is how people use to think earwigs would crawl into people’s ears and burrow into their brain laying eggs, which would later hatch and take over the person’s brain. Fortunately, this statement is false and that has never happened. I really thought that as interesting because before seeing and knowing what an earwig was, when we talked about them in class I related the “ear” in the word earwig to it being an insect that lives in people’s ears. This legend is claimed to be the “oldest arthropod urban legend” (pg, 10). They came up with this myth because “earwig” is a member of the order Dermaptera that translates to “ear wicga” or “ear wiggler or ear insect” (pg, 10). So they took that information and came up with the legend that earwigs climb into people’s ears at night and kill them by laying eggs in their brain. This misconception is disturbing but cool at the same time, although I am glad it is not true! After finding a couple of earwigs and examining them under a microscope carefully, I would never want something like that in my ear!

http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/28806/title/The-Earwig-s-Tale/

Turkey Creek and Huntingdon

Mary Katherine

Ander

About a week ago the class want to Turkey Creek. It was one of my favorite field trips e took because of the gorgeous creek running through the park. I could have sat there and read a book and just relaxed because it was so peaceful. When we first arrived we had to get the keys for the gate but Dr. Van Zandt told us to get out of the van because there were lots of bugs on the shed where he had to get the keys. Unfortunately, I did not find any bugs there because they were already watched up. Then we finally made it into the park. Our first thirty minutes of our field trip was just exploring and searching for bugs. Everyone really ran down to the creek while Jpatt and I stayed up in the grassy area. There I found a grasshopper and some sort of little beetle. After we searched the grassy area for about fifteen minutes but then we made it down to the creek with the others. I did not find anything down by the creek but that was okay because it was just relaxing and beautiful watching the creek. After we searched for about thirty minutes Dr. Van Zandt gathered us all together and showed us and talked about where we were going next. It was a spot in between two sides of the forests where he said insects loved to be. Before we all started heading that way he showed us this Praying Mantis cocoon/eggs. It was were the Praying Mantis lays their eggs. It was very different than anything else we have ever seen on these field trips and it was very cool. After we searched in between the pine trees for a couple of minutes we then loaded the bus and came back to campus. It was an awesome field trip just because of the natural beauty. Dr. Van Zandt explained how we could come back to Turkey Creek during the summer and play and fish in the creek. I really want to try and come this summer because I love fishing and playing in water. 

Sadly I was not able to go on the class trip to Turkey Creek because we had a basketball game at Huntingdon. This was upsetting because I have really enjoyed all of the off campus adventures. Since I was not able to go on the trip I decided to make the best of it. I knew Huntingdon was in the middle of nowhere so I thought maybe  I could find some insects there. I brought one small "kill jar" with me and hoped I could at least find one insect. I would have around 4 hours before my game started because the JV team had a game before we did. When arriving at Huntingdon the first thing that I noticed was a small park. On the side of the park was a small creek and beside the creek were some logs and rocks. The logs and rocks seemed out of place so I began to look under them. The first few rocks I did not find anything. Finally after picking up a rock I found 2 earwigs that looked different than the ones we already had in our collection. The next day I brought them to class to put in our collection and quickly realized that I was wrong and we already had this insect. Overall I wish I would have been able to go to Turkey Creek especially after seeing all the pictures. 

Falling Rock Falls

Today's blog post features Mary Katherine and Ander talking about our experience at Falling Rock Falls! It was a beautiful place and a wonderful experience. Tune in to the video to listen to what we have to say about the trip. We did not find but one potential insect but we had a great time. We climbed some rough terrain to a waterfall that was absolutely gorgeous. We also found some unique salamanders. We found a total of five and they were all different in shape, size, and color. We had some other cool encounters on this field trip that the video talks about and we do not want to spoil so tune in and catch up with our blog!

Below are some videos of the beautiful waterfall from different views. Hope you enjoy today's blog post! 

Lockwood Post

Ander- Red
Mary Katherine- Blue 


In The Infested Mind by Jeffrey Lockwood he mentions how humans react to insect in four ways: fear, disgust, love or fascination. After reading through the book and after handling insects I think I am fascinated by insects. At first, I was fearful of them because let's be honest who isn't? I was scared to hold or touch them. In chapter five Lockwood explains that fear and disgust "entangled together" but they are different as well (Lockwood, 70). He uses an example of having a spider crawl across your cookies and tea. If you have a fear of insects more than likely you would just eat the cookies and not think twice about it. If insects disgust you then more than likely you would not touch the cookie and either throw them our or get someone else to dispose of them for you. I would not consider insects to disgust me but I may have had a fear of them. As of now, I think my fear turned into fascination because now I will pick them up and touch them. At the beginning of the class I would not have picked them up in a million years. After learning about them and being around them I honestly think they are cool. 

In chapter eight Lockwood discusses how to overcome your fear or disgust of insects. He talks about how you can decrease your anxiety about insects by focusing on the "task itself rather than the larger context (Lockwood,127). He uses an example of the fire fighter checking all four corners of a bedroom for a child rather than worrying that it is smokey and he could die. Another example he talks about is practicing your fears so that it becomes second nature to you and you do not have anxiety when something fearful really does happen to you. He also discusses fascinations in this chapter as well. He talked about a male named Dick who loved bees since he was a young boy. He was fascinated with them and instead of being scared of them he wanted to get close and study their nest and characteristics. I would like to say i am fascinated with insects but not to the point where i would go and study a bee's nest. I am still fearful of most insects but i am gradually changing my perspective from fear to fascination. 

I read an article about a man who was fearful of cockroaches because of an experience he had or saw when he was four years old. He goes on to talk about his fear of them and how they invade our house and other examples of cockroaches and why he has this fear of them. Then he starts to explain that his fear has lead him to be fascinated and interested in them. He started researching and reading information about cockroaches. He talks about how it does not make sense to fear cockroaches when we should fear other things that can harm us or hurt us. Lockwood talks about this concept as well in his book. He talks about how cockroaches could hurt us worst by giving us food poison where as you could walk through a park and get malaria yet we are not scared of mosquitos. It is a weird concept but both Lockwood and the man who wrote this article both discuss and explain it. His article is rather long and goes into great detail but he mentions Lockwood in his article and discuss the same types of discussion topics as Lockwood does, which was cool. At the end he sums his article up by talking about how people need to research and find information on their phobias to overcome them because more than likely they should be scared of something else. 

The book The Infested Mind by Jeffery A. Lockwood discusses how humans react to bugs. Lockwood writes that their are 4 ways. These are fear, love. disgust, and fascination. Prior to this class I had a fear of bugs. I did not like them at all. When I saw a spider I would freak out and look for a shoe to kill it (usually not my shoe because I like my shoes to be clean). I really just hated the thought of bugs. I had a fear of bugs rather then disgust because I was not disgusted about bugs. For example Lockwood talks about a bug walking over a cookie and how for some people that may be disgusting (Lockwood,70). If I were in this predicament I would not be disgusted by the bug. I would be scared of what the bug could have done to the cookie and because of this I would not eat it. However after finding out more information on bugs I have grown to like them and become fascinated with them. Although I am fascinated with them to an extent I still do have fears about them. At this point I like learning more about bugs, but not to a point where I would like to have a job on bugs. I am fascinated with how they can adapt to their environment and many other things about bugs everyday life. Similar to the cockroach story when I was growing up I was extremely scared of wasp. This was because my brother is allergic to them and so he and the rest of my family would always freak out when they saw a wasp. For example one time a wasp stung my brother and he was rushed to the hospital. This was a very scary experience for me and since then I have been scared of wasp even if they were already dead. Earlier today I overcame that fear by touching a dead wasp.    

Sources:
The Infested Mind, Jeffrey Lockwood 
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20140918-the-reality-about-roaches

Ruffler Mountain

Ander- Red
Mary Katherine- Blue 


Today we went to Ruffler Mountain Nature Center. It was a little cold and damp but it was very fun and interesting. We hiked up to the top and stopped along the way to search for some insects and look at the view. It was challenging finding bugs just because of the weather conditions. Ander and I turned over many logs and rocks trying to fins some insects. When we came to the second search area we found a Junebug. It was under a huge rock. The rock was halfway under the ground and halfway above the ground.  The Junebug was burrowing facedown in the bug. Ander grabbed him by the abdomen and pulled him out. He wasn't moving very well and looked as if he was almost dead. A junebug are named Junebugs because adult Junebugs are most common in the month of June. June bugs are in the Scarabaeidae family and in the Coleoptera order. They can be classified in many different genuses depending on the species or type of the Junebug. The Junebug was the most interesting insect we found today at Ruffler Mountain. It was different from all of our other insects that we have found so far.  

Another interesting adventure was going down into the cave. It was very interesting looking at limestone and learning how it was molded together. Dr. Van Zandt explained to how the cave was made from the leftover limestone after all the water evaporated. He told us that overtime the water would eventually make the cave bigger and wider. It was amazing just being down in the cave. Another interesting fact I learned was how the cave will stay around 50 degrees all year round. It was freezing yesterday (at least I though so) and when we went down in the cave it felt warmer than the outside temperature. Summers in Alabama can get really hot and to know that temp stays 50 degrees was very interesting. I made the comment that I would stay in the cave if I was an insect because it was warmer there but Dr. Van Zandt informed me that there is not much food in caves because of the lack of sunlights and other factors that play into it. 

Today we had our first off campus adventure. We went to Ruffler Park. I was excited to encounter new insects and to see the beautiful view that I had heard so much about. Once we arrived at Ruffler Park we began our journey up the trail. This trail seemed like it would never end. Finally we took a pit stop and began looking at walnuts on the ground. Some of the walnuts had insects inside of them. However just with my luck we did not find any insects in the walnuts that we picked up. After this we continued our hike up the trail. We then stopped at our second stop. Where I found a bunch of rocks and logs. I began to pick up them and finally found a bug. The insect I found was a Junebug. I was excited because this was a bug that we had not found yet. After this we continued on the trail which led us to a cave. Dr. Van Zandt asked if anyone wanted to go inside of it. Normally I would say no and be a little freaked out about entering a cave, but for some reason I will follow Dr. Van Zandt through anything. Overall this adventure at Ruffler Park was a great experience  I wish I would of found more insects, but still had a great time

Junebug

Limestone Rock 

Limestone Cave 

Sources:
http://www.everythingabout.net/articles/biology/animals/arthropods/insects/beetles/june_bug/
http://daynoid.blogspot.com/2010_05_01_archive.html
http://www.softschools.com/facts/rocks/limestone_facts/370/
http://www.fsu.edu/news/2011/12/02/going.underground/
http://www.getintravel.com/veliko-tarnovo-bulgaria/fragment-of-the-limestone-rock-in-balkan-mountains/

Being A Cold Bug

Ander- Red
Mary Katherine- Blue 


Being a cold bug sounds miserable. I absolutely hate being cold. If I had to choose which life stage to overwinter in I would pick to overwinter as an adult butterfly. It is hard for butterflies to survive waters because their temperatures drop to the temperature of their surrounding. Although, I would hibernate in a tree hole where it blocks the cold wind chills and rain. I would try to find an old tree that had a hole in it that I could fly high up in. I would not want to want the tree to because I would need it to be strong and sturdy and not have any chances of falling over in storms. It would stay dry in the tree and no snow or rain would be able to creep in, at least at the top of the hole. Another strategy I would use is I would use my natural antifreeze to secrete my body so I would have some sort of protection against the harsh winters. The antifreezes are all natural and come from small molecules like glycerol. This helps prevent me from crystallizing and dying. This also helps me survive the lowest temperatures that come my way. I cannot wait till the spring to come out of hibernation  because I will be one of the first insects to come out of hibernation because of how I hibernate. I will be able to come out during the warmer weather of the spring. It is truly amazing how we, butterflies, hibernate and how we can survive freezing winters. If we did not have the antifreeze characteristic we would not be able to survive the winter. Most people do not know this fun fact about us and never have really thought about our survival strategies. 

Sources: 
http://www.si.edu/Encyclopedia_SI/nmnh/buginfo/winter.htm
http://www.naturemuseum.org/the-museum/blog/where-do-butterflies-go-in-the-winter

I am a cold bug, but what bug am I? 
I am small...red...and an insect...but what am I?...To be continued
There are many different life stages of insects that overwinter, and multiples of different strategies insects use to survive. Insects very unique in the way that they are able to avoid freezing during the winter. If I was an insect during the Winter time and I was faced with the predicament of finding a strategy to help me survive the cold I would choose to a fallen tree bark or a firewood. An example of this are lady bugs. This particular insect chooses to overwinter under tree bark or a firewood because this creates a protective environment for the insect. Ladybugs also overwinter in herds, which is something that was very interesting to me. The life stage that I would choose is as an adult. As an adult the ladybugs are together in herds when they overwinter, which is something that I liked. 
It is amazing learning the unique ways that insects adapt to their environment in order to survive. I do not think that if I were put in a similar situation as insects that I would find a way to survive in the cold conditions.   

Sources:
http://www.hmrprint.com/helensphotos/LADYBUGS.html
(Source:http://web.extension.illinois.edu/cfiv/homeowners/071213.html)

A Closer Look At Insects

Ander- Red

Mary Katherine- Blue

We were able to really explore insects last Wednesday. On this day everyone had his or her own personal microscope. We were able to choose any of the insects that were available in the lab and take them back to our microscope and examine them. After we looked closely at them, we were told to sketch them out on our piece of paper.  The concept of this lesson was to take a closer look at insects and really look at all of the parts it takes to make an insect work. I was really amazed at all of the tiny characteristics of the cricket. My favorite aspect that the microscope highlighted on the cricket was the little hairs on its legs. Another stunning characteristic on the cricket was the shape of his abdomen. The abdomen was lined that went downward with small dots at the bottom of each lined section, which really was fascinating  I also noticed that the cricket had two sets of eyes. I saw his compound eyes but slightly in front of them I found another set of small eyes. The last characteristic on the cricket that really stood out to me was the different segments in the cricket's legs. It had different little sections on each leg but I only noticed this when I was examining him under the microscope. It was truly amazing to see how everything was so small but had a purpose for the little cricket. Below are pictures of the cricket I drew and how the cricket looked under the microscope. 

Last Wednesday we began exploring insects more in depth that previously. Each member of the class chose an insect to examine under a microscope. There were a vast amount of insects to choose from. After looking through the collection, I chose to examine a big shiny black beetle. Our assignment in class was to not only look at the chosen insect in the microscope, but to also draw a portrait of the insect. This was a struggle for me because I am a terrible artist. My art starts and stops at stick figure drawings. For this reason I will not be posting my picture of the beetle that I drew. Although my drawing was a failure the assignment helped me obtain a better understanding of the beetle's body and forced me to examine the insect closer than I usually would. The first thing that I noticed when examine my beetle under the microscope was how shiny its body was. The next thing that I noticed was the amount of lines it had on it. It was very interesting to see the great detail on the beetles body and I never would have realized any of this without this activity. 

On a side note this weekend we found a wasp, which will be adding to our collection. This was exciting because I remember when I was growing up I was scared of wasp. This was because my brother is allergic to them so every time we would see a wasp we would both freak out. The wasp is the sixth insect that we have in our collection. Tomorrow we are going on our first field trip of the class and hopefully we will find something new. 

Until next time from yours truly Ander (Going to bed thinking about catching an insect in my kill jar) 

Cricket (Mary Katherine) 

Cricket (Mary Katherine) 

Mary Katherine attempted drawing of cricket 

Beetle (Ander) 

Beetle (Ander) 

Initial thoughts on insects

Ander Galfsky-Red

Mary Katherine Catanzaro-Blue

Blog Post 1:

I do not know much about bugs. I thought I knew what some types of bugs were that we see in our everyday life but after talking in class today, I think I would be wrong on my guesses. After watching the video on insects I was surprised how little I knew about bugs and insects. I found out several things I did not know and how to characterize insects from bugs. I now know the five main characteristics of insects, just from watching that fie minute video. There is still tons of information to learn about bugs. I want to know which bugs are dangerous and which bugs are not. I want to know which bugs are poisonous and can harm you rather than the bugs that are not poisonous. I want to know how you can figure out if they are poisonous or how to tell whether or not they can be dangerous. I want to know how you determine which bug family the bug belongs in. I am very curious about bugs and how the different parts of the bugs can help you identify them. I never really knew how complicated identifying bugs would be until after today's discussion. To be honest, I am a little bit afraid of bugs. I do not really care for them rather than being afraid of them. If I knew which bugs could hurt me and which bugs could not hurt me, I would not be as scared. I have always thought of bugs in negative terms. I just always thought they could harm you by stinging you or some other way. So I am excited to learn which bugs are not harmful and which to be afraid of. I look forward to being able to tell which bug is which and have a better understanding of bugs. 

To be honest I do not really know much about bugs. The extent of my knowledge on bugs is that I can distinguish between the bugs that one would see on an everyday basis. However after watching the video today in class I know more of the basics than I did before. I now know how to tell insects and bugs apart. It is interesting because last week when I was talking to my friends about this class none of us new the real difference between bugs and insects. There are a lot of things that I hope to learn about bugs from this class. I want to know the difference between the different kinds of bugs and what they can do. Whether or not a specific bug can hurt me or what their purpose is. I am not afraid of bugs, but I do not like having them around me. When I see a bug in my room I freak out a little bit and then try to kill it. The bugs that I am around the most are ants. Early this year my roommates room was infested with ants. Also in my basketball locker room there were ants as well. Hopefully by the end of this class I will know more about bugs and be able to tell them apart.