Ander Galfsky and Mary Katherine's Bug Blog : 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)