How to Collect and Start your Insect Collection

How to Collect and Start your Insect Collection!

Insects are EVERYWHERE! Where to look… – On plants – Around lights – Near streams/lakes – In parks, around trees – Windowsills – Car Grills (in good condition of course!) – Rear window in cars – On the ground! In the grass!

More places… Under stones and loose bark Around mushrooms In rotten wood Sift through dried leaves Around dead animals Around manure In and around flowers Rotten fruit, garbage Tennis Courts at Rec

So how are you going to catch them? Nets Jars Traps Bait However you can!

White Sheet Trick Hang up a white sheet, pillowcase, or t -shirt under a porch light, or other light source Give a couple hours after dark for the insects to show!

So, how do you kill it? You need 4 things: 1. Jar with lid 2. Cotton Ball 3. Fingernail Polish Remover 4. Time

So, how do you kill it? Kill jars – Place cotton ball dampened with polish remover in a jar WITH A LID! – Insects will die a quick painless death – DO NOT LEAVE IN JAR FOR LONG! Freezer – Insects may be placed in the freezer for as long as you want – The specimen will die within a half hour

How to Pin Insects must be pinned on the RIGHT side The insects body will be about mid-top

Butterflies/Moths These are a little tricky, but just do your best Pin right in the middle, at the thickest point in the thorax Hold wings down with strips of paper, or bring to school to pin with me

Labeling after keying 2 label will be present with EACH insect Alabama, Lee Co. Coleoptera Opelika 10 April 2015 E. L. Gore Lady Bug

ORDERS

Order Orthoptera Family Gryllotalpidae Acrididae Gryllidae Tettigoniidae Common name Gryllacrididae Mole cricket Short-horned grasshopper Black cricket Katydids(long-horned grasshoppers) Cave Cricket

Camel cricket – Cave cricket

Katydid

Mole Cricket

Short-horned grasshopper

Hymenoptera Bees, wasps, ants – 4 wings

Lepidoptera Butterflies and moths

Order Odonata Dragonflies -Family Libellulidae • Stout • Non-folding wings • Entomophagous – eats insects • Capture insects on the wing in a “basket” formed by spiny legs. • Large, compound eyes • Mate while in flight

Damselflies – Family Coenagrionidae Slender, fragile insect 2 pair of wings Narrow wings

Diptera Flies, mosquitoes, crane flies – 2 wings

Order Blattodea Mantids Cockroaches Termites Chewing mouthparts Incomplete metamorphosis

Brown-hooded cockroach Order Dictyoptera – Family Blattodea

American cockroach

Madagascar hissing cockroach

Pale-bordered Cockroach

Order Mantids Family Mantodea

Praying Mantis

Termite Order Dictyoptera – Family Isoptera

Soldier termite

Hemiptera “True Bugs” – plant bugs, water bugs, hoppers, stink bugs,

Dermaptera Earwigs

Siphonaptera Fleas

Coleoptera Beetles, ladybugs hard outer wings

If you find an insect that you are not sure of, BRING IT TO CLASS! It may belong to an Order that I didn’t list

And REMEMBER, are spiders insects? NO!