Hello everyone,

I am shifting my blog to a new place (http://insectandarachnid.wordpress.com/) to match the shift in my writing. I'm hoping that the new start will give more information to those that are looking towards the outdoors, especially in an arthropodal context. But don't worry, there will still be plenty of nature posts in the future!

Bug

Tarantulas

Hello readers,

My tarantula collection has certainly expanded over the past couple months. I made the jump from the two in my last post up to the 10 I have now. This will only be a short post and I will try to have pictures for you later. But here is my current list of only tarantulas...

Avicularia metallica (Metallic pink toe)
Brachypelma albiceps (Mexican golden red rump)
Brachypelma smithi (Mexican red knee)
Euathlus sp. Red (Chilean dwarf flame)
Grammostola pulchripes (Chaco golden knee)
Grammostola rosea (Chilean rose hair)
Heteroscodra maculata (Togo starburst baboon)
Psalmopeous irminia (Venezuelan suntiger)
Psalmopeous pulcher (Panama blond)
?? (?) This was an extra the breeder I bought from threw in for me, though he couldn't remember what it was. I have my suspicions, but I want to wait until it molts and gets older. It's only half an inch long, so it's very hard to tell.

These tarantulas are a joy to have and I look forward to watching them all grow over the next few years. What a fun time it will be.

Until next time,

Bug

Life of an Arthropod

Hello everyone,

As I write this, my many tarantulas and other pets wander and watch me. They are content to sit and wait, while it seems that I am always busy doing this or that. All they need is some food and water from time to time and they are content. Yet despite this existence, I can't help but notice different personalities.

People may say that insects and spiders can't have a personality because they do not have an advanced nervous system, but I disagree with this fully. Each of my pets has its own personality, as do the ones that my friends own. My red knee tarantula (Brachypelma smithi) is more than happy to sit around when I get her out, while my friend's red knee is very nervous when brought out. The difference between those two is very noticeable.

My little red knee, Illidiance

Of course the temperament can vary between species. My metallic pink toe tarantula (Avicularia metallica) tends to be a bit skittish when I get him out, but he still a very mellow little guy, content to walk around and occasionally projectile frass. 

My metallic pink toe, Arkeuthys

I am very happy to own these tarantulas, along with all the other insects and spiders as well. They are all so much fun to watch and provide me with hours of entertainment. I recommend looking into a pet insect or spider of your own to watch and learn from. It's a great experience.

Bug

Hello readers,

I have been out of touch for far too long. These past few months have been exceedingly busy, but filled with knowledge. I only have a short post for you today, but it's one I hope you enjoy and take to heart.

Insect rearing is a very rewarding hobby. In the past year, I've gotten so many awesome pets while they were young and cared for them until adulthood. It has taken patience and a lot of care, but it is very much worth it. I recommend that everyone gives it a try at some point. Whether it's the caterpillar you find in your back yard, or even an adult spider or beetle, you learn so much and it just makes you love insects even more. Information abounds about these insects around us and raising them teaches us more. Science is all about he pursuit of knowledge, but raising insects is a blending of science and hobby. There are many people out there that will raise insects for fun and then publish what they learn through trial and error on the internet or even in a book. Keep your eyes open in curiosity and watch all the insects around you.

Bug

Milwaukee Public Museum

Hello my patient readers,
Sorry it's been so long since I last posted. I've just been crazy busy with everything, but now is definitely the time to write something.

A few weeks ago, myself and a few members of Club Insecta (and a couple other random people who wanted to come with) went to the Milwaukee Public Museum. I was the only person who had been there previously, so I knew that they had a very nice insect collection and butterfly garden.

As we walked up the stairs, we were greeted with a fantastic site.

A whale skeleton, decked out for the holidays

To me, this is a fantastic way to start off the tour of the museum (though the last time I had been there, there hadn't been any lights on the whale). As you can just barely see at the top of the stairs, there are other interesting things up there as well.
Once you get to the top, there is a wonderful assortment of skeletons and taxidermied animals. There are some of the most bizarre creatures that they have in this collection. I wish it was better organized and my friend said I should work here to better organize everything (I am a bit OCD when it comes to symmetry and organization at times).

Just a handful of the animals. You can see birds in the case behind
 them, along with another very random assortment of things.

And while these things are interesting, this was Club Insecta I was with, so of course we are looking for the greatest insects we can find. I led them around to the back of this great opening display to show them a thing of disorganized beauty.

This was about a third of the entire box. There were so many amazing
specimens that had basically been randomly thrown into a box.

I am biased towards longhorn beetles. I find them fascinating,
so I couldn't pass up a shot of them.

Nice selection of Buprestids (though notice the one random Elaterid in the mix)

It was great to see these specimens, but we still had to see the butterfly house! That of course was our next stop. As we walked in, I just looked down and saw this little guy chilling on the rock right by the door. He was completely unperturbed by the people coming in.

There were butterflies flitting about everywhere! It was great to see so many different species all together in a peaceful place such as this. And as an added benefit by the museum, they played calming music as we walked through. They even had morphos laboriously floating through the air. As stunning as those were though, there was one specimen that caught my eye, not because it was big or brightly colored, but because it was green!

Such a cool little butterfly

 After some time, we were able to drag ourselves out of the magical butterfly room into the insect wing (yes, they have an insect wing). In a small room, they had many live specimens and a few more great looking pinned ones. My favorite thing in the room though was a terrarium that had two Damon diadema in it. Absolutely love those and am planning on getting one as a pet one day.

And showing another bias of mine, the giant Tanzanian tailless whip scorpion (Damon diadema)

A cool looking mantis. In a container right beside this, there
were many little mantises just like this.

Another great display of insects

Once exiting this room, there is one devoted entirely to butterflies and moths. There is display on display filled with many different beautiful species. It was great to see. There was even a video (with a song) about the butterfly life cycle depicted by puppets. It was somewhat disturbing to see, but quite educational for any kids that may come through. Despite all the butterflies and moths everywhere, there was a large mantis in the middle of the room, attacking a butterfly. This was rather odd, but made for a great photo opportunity for the club.

A few members of Club Insecta

One of the more colorful cases

Besides all the great insects that were being shown off, there were other unexplored places within the museum to see. This brought us to what was being shown as a research area. This was pretty cool because there was a huge display with so many different animals that depicted the tree of life.

The Tree of Life with my friend sitting at the control chair in the middle.
A rather frightening thought.

 From there, we moved on to some rooms showing the history of life, complete with fossils and dinosaurs. And right next to that is a whole ecosystem, the rain forest! It was very well done, but too dark for any good pictures. They had facts posted everywhere, so it was extremely informative.

After that, we realized we were running short on time, so we quickly moved through the other exhibits. They mostly depicted different indigenous people from different regions of the world. It was cool to see the tools they used and what sort of clothing they made because you could compare a group from Africa to a group from New Zealand or South America or India just by walking into another room. My camera had died by this point, so I'm sorry that I wasn't able to get any pictures of all this.

A fun thing about this museum is that it has a bunch of random little ecosystems scattered about to go with the indigenous people. They would give little bits of information about the habitat along with how people could survive it. And yet the last exhibit we saw was kind of secluded away from the rest. It was an ocean that had a small room dedicated to shells and a roundabout staircase to get you up to that room. The staircase had all these cool little portals to look through and see different sea creatures at different depths. It was cool to see, but time was of essence, so we had to move on so we could get out before the museum closed.

The Milwaukee Public Museum is an awesome place and I advise everyone to visit there at some point. It's a trip you won't forget if you're a buglover like me.

Bug





Severson Dells Forest Preserve

Hello readers,

For me, Severson Dells Forest Preserve has always been a place that I enjoyed visiting. It is up near my home in northern Illinois and has a very unique set of ecosystems that can be explored, not to mention the wide variety of organisms you can find there. As far as a park goes, it is a little on the small side, but well worth the trip and the look around. Just be sure to bring bug spray if you visit in the spring or summer!

One of my favorite places to visit when I'm there is the little pond/marshland. Usually a good area for turtles, dragonflies, and butterflies, along with the occasional bird and cussing squirrel. It's a good place to contemplate simple things and there are even a couple benches that you can sit on along with a small deck to walk out on to see a little more (though I think the deck is more for the dragonflies since they seem to love sitting and sunning on it). I have spent many hours sitting on the benches or the small deck, watching the life of the pond and mulling over many thoughts and trying to get good pictures.

One of my best pictures

There is a short trail that goes throughout the preserve and it's always a joy to walk because of the different ecosystems you can go through or be near. This multitude of different habitats means you can see a ton of different species of birds, bugs, and mammals. A huge benefit for most people is that the trails are very easy to hike because they aren't very long. The entire preserve has about three miles of trails total.

 A White-Breasted Nuthatch (Sitta carolinensis)

You truly never know what you will see there, which is what makes it so exciting. And it's always so peaceful because there generally aren't many people there even though it's right beside a well traveled road. This encourages the wildlife to emerge, especially during the spring and summer months. I wish I would have been able to visit there this fall, but being as far away as I am and not returning home often makes it difficult. Hopefully the weather will be nice over fall break and I can visit.

Don't always look for the biggest parks or natural areas you can to find natures beauty. It can be easily found in a small preserve such as Severson Dells.

Enjoy the change in season,

Bug

Changes of Fall

Hello readers,

Well fall is certainly here and I absolutely love it. Fall is my favorite season for a multitude of reasons: the leaves change color, the temp is perfect, Halloween and all that that entails is on its way, insects abound as the final days of summer wane...the list really just goes on and on.

To celebrate today (though the weather here is not very good), the two little pets I am currently keeping in my dorm room are doing well and undergoing their own seasonal changes. The first, a tobacco hornworm (Manduca sexta) that I brought back with me from my genetics lab last Thursday is pupating! It's hard to believe that this was just a caterpillar a week ago.

Tobacco Hornworm caterpillar (M. sexta)

My little pupa! The brown blob you see next to it is a shed skin.

While commonly considered a pest species, this large caterpillar will turn into a large, beautiful moth come springtime.

Tobacco Hornworm Moth (M. sexta)

I can't wait for this beauty to emerge! And besides having this occurring, I also now have a sowbug killer (Dysdera crocata), also known as a woodlouse spider, that has just finished laying her eggs and is covering them with little pieces of debris that were either present in her container, or pieces that I threw in myself to observe. It has been a lot of fun to watch her pick up pieces of bark from a twig, or a larger piece of the twig itself that I broke off, and carry over and place it on the eggsac. Once the piece has been placed, the runs many strands of silk over it to hold it in place. She is doing her best to camouflage the eggsac from any predators that may come by. This also solves a mystery for me that I have been curious about for some time now. The eggsac of a woodlouse spider looks like the one in the photo below and can usually be found in the spring or summer very torn up and just a shred of what it used to be. The cool thing (and also the identifying feature!), are some strands that stick out to the sides for stability. They are difficult to see here, but if you look at the tip of her front right leg, you can see 3 or 4 sticking out.

Woodlouse Spider (D. crocata) and eggsac

Fantastic day of change for my pets and cannot wait to see where it goes from here!

Keep your eyes open for the changes of fall everyone. Not just the changes in insects and arachnids. The changes of nature.

Bug