Howdy, BugFans,
The BugLady is busy writing about shagbark hickory (for the Friends of the Cedarburg Bog) and Short-eared Owls (for the Western Great Lakes Bird and Bat Observatory), so here are some items about insects, some of which were sent to her by alert BugFans.
MIGRATORY INSECTS? Migration is defined as a seasonal movement from one point to another – and back. Birds migrate, but do insects? Technically not, because, like the migratory population of the Common Green Darner, it is generally the offspring of the insects that leave in fall that return and recolonize in spring. Except, of course, for the extraordinarily long-lived Gen(eration) 5 Monarchs, which travel to Mexico in fall, live in the mountains in winter, and then turn around in spring to make the journey back again, at least part of the way. Here’s a list of migratory insects, some of which, like the large milkweed bug, are surprisingly small for such an undertaking http://texasento.net/
FINDING A NEW INSECT SPECIES By some estimates, somewhere in the neighborhood of a million known species of insects occupy the planet, but there may be at least that many more waiting to be discovered. Are they all tucked away in tropical rain forests and on Sumatran mountainsides? No indeed! http://www.opb.org/television/
And TAKING CARE OF FAMILIAR ONES Here’s a news item that didn’t get nearly enough attention when it aired: http://host.madison.com/news/
BUGS IN/ON THE ART WORLD Would Vincent have been pleased? Van Gogh said “If you truly love nature, you will find beauty everywhere.” https://www.npr.org/
UNSUNG HURRICANE SURVIVORS Fire ants are aggressive, invasive ants from central South America that have changed the ecological landscape along the southern edge of the country (and are poised to spread the love) http://articles.extension.org/
UP CLOSE AND VERY PERSONAL Who doesn’t love a good macro insect photograph? Who doesn’t love twenty of them https://www.theatlantic.com/
GOT FLIES? If you do nothing else with this article, do scroll down to look at the electron microscope picture of the maggot of a bluebottle fly. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/
WHERE HAVE ALL THE INSECTS GONE? There have been a number of articles about the worldwide decline of insects. Here are two of them. http://www.sciencemag.org/
And there’s more to the discussion because, as John Muir once said, “When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe” (Leonardo Da Vinci said it a bit earlier – “Realize that everything connects to everything else.”). The problem? What happens to the predators that depend on insects to feed themselves and their young? https://wglbbo.org/aerial-
Kate Redmond, The BugLady
Bug of the Week archives:
http://uwm.edu/field-station/