It could be due to the fact that I’m running off three hours of sleep for Entomology, studying for my lab midterm tomorrow. It could be due to the fact that I get asked practically daily why there is a picture of me with a net, fanny pack, and giant beach hat on the internet. Today I thought I would talk about one of the requirements for one of my classes: bug catching. First off, peep the picture below to get an idea of what my attire is like during one of these outings. There’s also a picture under the “Zealot” setting in the heading my site. I look great in both.
Entomology is the study of insects. The ones with six legs. If you ask me why I took an entire class devoted to insects I wouldn’t be able to tell ya. I needed an upper level biology course but I could’ve taken mammalogy. Not that it would be easy by any means but at least I would be handling animals I’ve heard of before (an insect technically counts as an animal). There’s so many bugs out there you wouldn’t believe me if I told you. There’s people who devote their whole lives to these little guys. That’s probably the craziest part to me. If you want a detailed description on how to go about one of these bug safaris continue reading this paragraph. If not, carry on to the next paragraph but you’ll be missing out. You start off by using that giant net you me holding there and gaining in a swift figure eight motion through brussels of grass. Next you swoop it up really quick, squeeze the part of the net closest to the net shut and check out what you got. That’s the boring way. I like to prey on the biggest insect I see running, hopping, or flying around as if I’m a lion in the savannas sneaking up on a gazelle. It’s all about the technique. I wouldn’t say either is necessarily wrong, but mine is definitely more fun. That’s all that matters, right? Once you gather your specimen in the nets you carefully move them into a tube. Now, this tube may have ethanol in it to preserve (you are killing them) for later observation and study. If the insect has soft wings, such as a moth, you keep it alive …until you get back to the lab and freeze it. Then it’s dead. At the lab various pinning techniques are used to observe the bug in your collection. The goal is to get twenty five different species, you get more points if they are from varying orders. It’s a ton of your final grade. Somehow, even after learning so much about insects I can’t say I don’t still swat any mosquito or gnat coming my way. I don’t think those count though. Nobody likes a mosquito. I know this class sounds like all fun and games but when you have to know the insects by there full order, family, genus, and species name it loses the glamour. Let’s just say a butterfly is really called a “butterfly”. There’s even reasoning behind why butterfly is one word and not two, like honey bee is. Wild, I know. As much as I joke about this portion of the class I actually kind of like it. It’s different, I’m not sitting in a classroom for three hours, and I’m learning a lot. Try something new for once, you might like it. Just watch out for velvet ants. Those hurt. A lot.
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Blurbs:This is where I speak about random life instances that could be a story with something to be gained from. Or, it may simply be that, a story. Archives
November 2016
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