Giddy-up, partners. Spring's sprung, and the critters are on the move. So grab yer six-guns. It's time for a bughunt. Heck, you don't even need a sidearm for this bughunt. All you need is a sense of adventure- no yellow-bellies allowed. Two of our latest lesson plans (Beneficial Bug Hunt and The Great Spider Debate) give you and your students a great excuse to get outside, take in the sun and fresh air, and look around for some insects and insect relatives.

The Beneficial Bug Scavenger Hunt allows students to get to know beneficial arthropods commonly encountered in the urban landscape. If your school has a few flowers and trees on the grounds, you're set, buckaroo. Let the students loose with the checklist and picture sheet that we have made up for you and let them hunt for preying mantids, green lacewings, and other creatures that roost at the top of the arthropod food chain.

Do your students already "know it all" about beneficial insects and spiders? Or are they too young for all the ecology and hunting strategy concepts that complicate these lesson plans? If so, these lesson plans can be easily simplified, or adapted for other groups of arthropods. How about a hunt where the students just write down every insect they see in a garden?

Make it a project by having students collect the insects and research how to take care of them. Students could then be assigned to feed the insects and record growth or behavior as time progresses.

Some common predatory aquatic insects include dragonfly and damselfly nymphs, giant water bugs, water scorpions, and predaceous water beetles. Be careful if you put predatory insects in your tank: the big ones will eat your fish (not to mention your other aquatic insects)! Then again, guppies are cheap, reproduce quickly, and make a great food source for most aquatic predatory insects. Many aquatic insect enthusiasts keep a separate guppy breeder tank, just to feed their insects! If you decide to go with the nymphs of damselflies and dragonflies, remember that these creatures will eventually turn into winged adults that will need room in the tank to dry their wings when they emerge, after which they should be released or collected for display.

Other aquatic insects are either scavengers or plant feeders. These will usually be happy with fish food and algae, or they will nibble on common freshwater aquarium plants. Some of these insects include water scavenger beetles and water boatmen. Crayfish, although not insects, are also scavengers, and make fascinating aquarium pets. Watch out though; they tend to rearrange rocks and other decorations to suite their tastes!

If you are interested in using aquatic insects in your classroom aquarium, the Native Fish Conservancy website has an online article entitled Insects in the Home Aquarium that goes into greater detail about the care and feeding of these creatures. Also, click here to see an article from the Michigan Entomological Society dealing with the collection of aquatic insects.

• Scorpions are in the water! They are in all kinds of ponds, creeks, and streams right here in Kentucky! Luckily though, "water scorpions" aren't real scorpions. Real scorpions are eight-legged arachnids (close relatives of spiders). Water scorpions are insects in the order Hemiptera, which also includes stink bugs and assassin bugs. Similar to giant water bugs, water scorpions are underwater predators that catch minnows, salamanders, and other creatures with their mantid-like front legs. Although water scorpions can't sting, they can bite, so think twice before you wade through a pond barefoot!

  Learn more about water scorpions at: http://lupus.northern.edu:90/natsource/INVERT1/Waters1.htm

• You've probably heard that when honeybees sting, they leave their barbed stingers behind. This allows the stinger to continue pumping venom into the wound. It also kills the bee, because a few internal organs are pulled out along with the stinger. Although this is true for worker honeybees, it is not true for queens: although queen honeybees have stingers, the stingers are not barbed. Also, queen bees have no reason to sting people since they are usually hidden deep inside their hive. But they will use their stingers to kill rival queens!

• The orange and black beetle at the head of the newsletter is called a "swamp milkweed leaf beetle." Although it resembles a lady beetle, the swamp milkweed beetle is really a plant-feeding leaf beetle in the family Chysomelidae. Predatory lady beetles are in the family Coccinelidae. Swamp milkweed beetles are one of the kinds of insects that feed on milkweed plants. The white sap that flows through milkweed plants is toxic to most animals, but the swamp milkweed beetle, the monarch butterfly, the milkweed bug, and a few other insects have evolved ways to resist the toxins. In fact, most insects that feed on milkweed are able to store the toxins in their bodies so that they are protected from predators!

INSECTIA (Vol. 1-4) Georges Brossard isn't just the host of Insectia, the 13 part insect documentary series that was recently broadcast on Animal Planet. Georges is a real-life adventurer who searches the world for fascinating insects (sort an entomological Indiana Jones). He is also a great promoter of insects: Georges' efforts led to the creation of one of the world's largest dedicated showcases of insect diversity, the Montreal Insectarium. He was also instrumental in the organization of the new Audubon Insectarium, which is currently under construction in New Orleans.

So this guy loves insects. And that's one of the reasons why Insectia is such a success. Not only is it packed full of characters from the arthropod world, its also packed full of Georges Brossard, whose enthusiasm about insects is very genuine, and very infectious. Each episode has a distinct theme, with Georges introducing us to different creatures that illustrate insect evolution, mating, weaponry, and other subjects. Many segments in Insectia focus on the interactions between humans and arthropods. Included are detailed reports about insect sculptures, medicines made from insects, myths inspired by insects, and some startling examples of insect jewelry.

The four volume Insectia boxed-set that we reviewed contains all 13 episodes, a total of five hours of programming for about $50. VHS and DVD versions of Insectia are available through the Discovery Channel website. You can learn more about Insectia and Georges Brossard at Insectia.com.

Be sure to come to "Bugz-All-Day" at the Lexington Children's Museum and the "Night Insect Walk" at Raven Run. These are our biggest events of the year!

Blake Newton
S-225 Agriculture Science Center - North
University of Kentucky
Lexington, KY 40546-0091
859-257-5107
Email: blaken@uky.edu

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