History Meets Entomology...

Entomology collections are fascinating.  Because of insects' chitinous exoskeletons, they can survive for a LONG time as pinned specimens.  The insides break down and they become very fragile, but all the distinguishing characters are there. So by looking at insects collected in the past, we can monitor how populations and ranges change over time.

My project for these weeks between classes is to work on putting together a list of all the bumble bees that have been collected and recorded from Montana.  This means I'm going through the hundreds of specimens in the museum, confirming their identifications, and databasing them.  So far, there are 23 species on our list and we have bees from 46 of the 56 Montana counties.

My nerdiness comes out again... I've handled specimens and read labels on bees that were collected as early as 1897!  There are a bunch of them from the early 1900s... '02, '04, '27, '31.  As I read the beautiful tiny cursive writing on some of the labels and read about where the bees were collected, I can't help but wonder who these collectors were and what the landscape looked like at that time. Montana in 1900?  I bet the scenery was pretty wild and spectacular.

Bombus bifarius collected in 1904

My determination label looks way less interesting...

Puddling Behavior

Have you ever seen a bunch of butterflies in a puddle?  Do you know what they're doing?  They're drinking a ton of water in order to get ions, especially Na+.  It's called puddling behavior.  What's amazing is that certain species can consume up to 600X their body mass and excrete 8microliters of urine every 3 seconds for 200 minutes! They have unique digestive tract set up  for this type of thing-- during this behavior they don't try to conserve water at all, water gets sent straight through quickly in order to get as many ions as possible from such a dilute source. It is for this same reason that insects (and other animals like mountain goats) are attracted to urine. It's for the salts, not the water!

---

If nothing ever changed, there'd be no butterflies.  ~Author Unknown

Bees and Keys

For the last few weeks, I've been working a bit on my patience.  Identifying bees is tough!  Here's a little glimpse.  In the picture, all of those little guys are the same family, but there are two different genera and at least five or six species.  

Each genus has it's own key.  It took me about 4 hours to ID just the top row--four species.  And I'm not really confident in any of the IDs.  :-(  Unfortunatly, there is no one here who knows the bees well enough to check.  I'm hoping to take my bees on a road trip to the bee lab in Logan, Utah to have the experts there tell me if I'm right or wrong.  Once you practice a lot with the keys and learn the characters of the bees, it's supposed to get easier.  I'm excited to get to that point. 

The keys are tough.  I'm not sure why the taxonomists feel the need to make up their own words.  For example, "wings lightly infuscated, becoming slightly more hyline apically, veins and stigma ferruginous; tegulae piceous."   That's a ridiculous sentence.  Why can't it just say, "wings with a brown tinge, becoming translucent near the ends.  Veins and stigma are reddish-brown and the tegulae are a glossy blackish/brown?!

Well... at least I'm expanding my vocabulary.  :-)

All of my insects are being added to an online database through The Ohio State University.  If you go to Hymenoptera online: http://hol.osu.edu/ you can type in my name (case sensitive): "Dolan, A. C." and hit find.  If you click on the little plus sign next to "collecting trips" it will show a map of how I spent my summer collecting 1,118 specimens!  If you zoom in on the map and click on the small "show options" link.  You can track the collector (me!) in 2014 and the little dots move/connect/bounce to show when I was in the different locations.  :-)   Below that is a list of all my insects so far-- with IDs on the ones I've identified. 

One of the many keys...

--

"Try to learn something about everything and everything about something."  -Thomas H. Huxley

The Wow-ness of Insect Physiology!

That annoying fly that keeps landing on your sandwich... the irritating mosquito creating a high pitched buzzing in your ear... the bumble bee that is drunkenly crawling around in a flower…  All these tiny creatures form an amazingly diverse micro-world that most of us never think very much about.  One might think that such small organisms can’t possibly be very complex, right?  Wrong!!  I’m taking an insect physiology course this semester and am in awe and wonder of how brilliantly designed structures in insects create body systems that are incredibly efficient in their functionality.

Let me share a few of my “Wow!” statements with you…

The insect thorax (middle segment) is basically ALL MUSCLE.  The heat generated by these muscles during flight has been picked up by infrared cameras.  Some insects, like bees, even use these muscles to “shiver” and warm themselves up in cold environments!

from: http://www.centralexterminatingco.com

The inner layer of an insect’s exoskeleton, called the endocuticle, has a new layer added to it each day.  This means that if you looked at a cross section of an insect you could count the rings to know how many days it has been since the last molt, similar to counting rings in a tree. 

from: http://insectsdiditfirst.com

Malpighian tubules:  These are the insects’ version of kidneys, functioning to get rid of wastes created by the normal functioning of body cells.  Malpighian tubules are small dead-end tubes that connect to the digestive tract.  One amazing feature of these tubules is that they are coated with thin muscles that allow them to “wave” or “wiggle” through the hemolymph (hemolymph = insect blood).  Another, even more fascinating, feature of the tubules is how they work together with the rectum (last part of the digestive tract) to conserve water and ions (salts).  There is a flow of water from the hemolymph, into the malpighian tubules, through the gut/rectum, and back into the hemolymph.  This flow of water is important because waste products that need to get excreted are dissolved in the water.  But the water is not pumped in/out of these structures.  The salts are what are actively pumped through cells into the malpighian tubules and out of the rectum. The water flow is simply a result of diffusion—the water follows the salts, trying to dilute them!  And, because of water’s tendency to chase ions, the wastes dissolved in water get moved to the rectum for excretion.  But, insects are tiny creatures that often do not have access to a lot of water.  So it’s not enough for the water to bring the waste to the rectum.  The waste needs to be left behind and the water and salts need to get recycled back into the blood.  This recycling action is possible (in part) because there is a layer of exoskeleton on the inside of the insect’s hindgut, creating a barrier that allows water and ions to pass through but prevents the larger waste materials from going back into the hemolymph.  Amazing!

from: http://www.tutorvista.com

Did you know insects actually have brains?  The structure and function of individual nerve cells  in insects in incredibly similar to the structure and function of nerves in other animals, including humans.  The number of neurons in insects’ brains varies by species.  There are about 1.2 million neurons in a cockroach’s brain, 950,000 in a honey bee, and 200,000 in fruit flies.  That’s a lot of neurons, but (not surprisingly) comes nowhere close to the number of neurons found in the average human brain which is around 100 billion.

from: http://www.animalbehavioronline.com

Imaginal Discs:  Have you ever wondered how adult butterfly structures (like wings and unique mouthparts) that are not present in caterpillars “magically” form inside the chrysalis?  One important part of the answer is areas of cells called imaginal discs.  When a baby insect is developing inside of the egg, there are often areas of embryological cells that don’t grow and develop right away.  These “patches” of cells are present throughout the juvenile caterpillar’s life and then become activated by hormones when metamorphosis begins.  The result is the formation of adult insect structures. 

from: http://www.scientificamerican.com

A feature of insects that most everyone learns as a child is that instead of an internal skeleton made of bones like vertebrates (including humans), they have an exoskeleton  which supports and protects the insect, like a suit of armor.  The exoskeleton is made up of distinct layers and has many functions:  protection, support, a place for muscles to be anchored, coloration/camouflage, secretion of chemicals for defense and communication, the gathering of sensory information, temperature regulation, the prevention of water loss, and probably many others.  What is most amazing to me, is that most of the exoskeleton is not made up of living cells.  All of those functions are possible because of one single layer of cells at the base of the exoskeleton. 

Though exoskeletons are basically designed to be strong and rigid, some types/parts of an insect’s exoskeleton can be stretchy.  This adaptive feature allows for some bizarre behaviors:

1.     A termite queen’s exoskeleton is able to stretch to accommodate ridiculous amounts of eggs.  She looks like a giant sausage inside the termite colony.  Some scientific studies have reported that termite queens can lay an egg a second for long periods of time (while the workers feed and tend and groom her).

2.     Some members of  a honeypot ant colony are used as living storage organs for the colony.  When food is abundant, foraging workers bring nectar to the colony and deposit it into the mouths/digestive tracts of  some of their sisters.  These workers store the food internally, swelling up like giant water balloons.  Then, when resources are scarce, these "storage" ants feed the colony.

A honeypot ant
  from: http://weirdimals.wordpress.com

You taste with your mouth.  So do insects.  But some insects also have taste receptors on their feet (like flies) or on their egg-laying structures called ovipositors (like some wasps).

Do you think you’re so much different from an insect?  Actually basic functions of living things, like the production of proteins (which are basically how everything in your cells works), the contraction of muscles, and metabolism (“burning” nutrients and oxygen to make energy for cells to do their jobs) are essentially the same in ALL LIVING THINGS. 

Quite a bit is known about how insect hormones work to control the insects’ processes of molting and metamorphosis.  Interestingly (or, depending on your perspective, disturbingly,) much of our understanding of insect hormone functions came from experiments where scientists cut the heads off of insects and/or strung a bunch of headless insects together.  Knowing that an insect can live for quite a long time without its head and that key hormones needed for development are created in both the head and thorax is definitely fascinating.  But, I’m thinking that those early scientists must have had a little bit of crazy in them to come up with these experimental methods. 

A male insect’s penis is called an aedeagus.  Sometimes the only way to tell the difference between males of different species is by pulling out the aedeagus and examining its unique structure under a microscope.

Some aedeagus diversity
from: http://www.scielo.br

Have you noticed some of the brilliant colors that occur in certain insects (especially beetles and butterflies)?  Many of the most spectacular color patterns are not caused by chemical pigments, but by special structures in the insect’s exoskeleton.  This microsculpturing of the exoskeleton causes different wavelengths of light to be reflected, refracted or absorbed.  The unique colors/patters caused by light work as a type of communication between insects of the same species.

from: http://www.learnaboutbutterflies.com

I could go on and on… but I think that’s enough insect wonder for today...

 *********************************************************************************

“The poetry of the earth is never dead.” –John Keats

“The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.” –Psalm 19:1

“Complexity is the prodigy of the world.  Simplicity is the sensation of the universe.  Behind complexity there is always simplicity to be revealed.  Inside simplicity there is always complexity to be discovered.” –Gang Yu

The Power of Thanks

Yesterday was good mail day. I came home to a package of homemade thank you cards from a brownie troop in town that wanted to thank me for teaching them about bugs. On the same day, I got a postcard from a former student thanking me for supporting her service trip to Peru last summer. The mailbox full of thanks definitely made my day!!

It can be very easy to get caught up in the hectic nature and stress of day-to-day life and forget to let people know how much we appreciate them. It's also very easy to focus on the multitude of things that are frustrating or wrong or annoying, and take for granted all the positive things that we are blessed with each day. 

I was taught growing up to always say "please" and "thank you" and to always write thank you notes for gifts. I tried, as a teacher, to make the time to give props and appreciation to coworkers, school leaders, and guests-- to let them know how much their time, effort, and passion meant to me. But still, I'm a bit ashamed to say, sometimes appreciations fall to the bottom of my to-do list. So, today, I'm taking this opportunity to remind myself and others of the power and importance of gratefulness. It has been my experience that both the giver and receiver of thanks walk away happy!

When I moved to Montana in May, I decided to start a journal that I would write in at the end of every day. The goal was simply to write at least 3 things I was thankful for on that day. It seemed like a simple task that would help me to both stay focused on the positives and have a bit of a record of some of my experiences. To be sure, some days this task is way easier than others, and there have been some days (or even weeks) when I did not keep up with this task. However, what I now have compiled is a beautiful list to remind me of all of the blessings in my life. Here is a sampling of my "today I'm thankful for" list. (I'd highly reccommend this kind of task to everyone and I'm sorry that the list got a bit excessive!)

Today I'm thankful for--

-My awesome sister Katie and the chance we had to live together for the past four years

-Four wheel drive vehicles on rough Montana roads

-Trader Joe's Chai Tea

-The amazing diversity of nature

-Gummy vitamins

-wifi-- I never realized how much I used it until I didn't have it

-Stretching

-Music

-Warm wool socks

-Sara, my awesome, loyal friend who always knows what I need to hear

-Pretty clouds and sunsets

-Wildlife in the wild!

-Rain

-Opportunities to learn new things

-Gramps. And all my grandparents. I've had some pretty amazing people to look up to

-Mountain goats

-Unique earrings

-The ability and opportunity to hike to beautiful places

-Chocolate mixed with peanut butter. Yum-my!

-Chances to sleep in my tent

-Small towns and tight communities

-Sounds of nature: bumble bees, loons, birds in the morning

-Mom and Dad- when they are near, everything feels safe and familiar

-Huckleberry flapjacks in Libby, MT

-The smell of pine forests-one of my favorite things

-Walks at dusk (especially with my mom)

-Hummingbird courtship dives

-Alone time

-Microscopes: to view with wonder the complexities of tiny things

-Strawberries

-Hot showers

-Charts, graphs, lists to organize my thoughts

-Time in church to be reminded of who I am and where my priorities should be

-Clothesline-dried sheets

-Going back through old, silly pictures

-Blue skies, crazy clouds, sunshine

-Baby animals

-Bug spray

-The hand-on-the-steering-wheel wave of rural Montana and rural Minnesota

-Taco John's

-The ability to walk to work

-A long conversation with my nephew

-Chances to catch up with my big sister

-Good old friends like Jill and Katie and Amanda and Monika and Ory and Greg 

-Familiar places and the memories that go along with them

-Sheep faces

-All the quirky people in my life

-Microbreweries and IPAs

-My awesome brothers

-Armfuls of nephews

-Blue herons

-Lakes and dragonflies and lily pads and frogs

-People watching at the airport

-The smell and sound and sight of the ocean

-Experiencing a new place

-Harry Potter

-Thunderstorms

-Stargazing

-Feeling proud of my hard work

-An opportunity to work on my patience

-Top-of-mountain views

-Farmers markets

-Hazelnut lattes

-The sound of sprinklers and memories of summer nights in Montello

-Thor

-Crossing off things on my to-do list

-My pillow & fleece blankets

-Bon Jovi

-Sweet potato fries

-Working up a sweat doing hard work

-Sore muscles

-Burritos!

-Meteor showers

-Travel mugs

-Postcards

-Not being lost in the woods

-Reisling wine

-Feeling appreciated

-Packages in the mail

-Time with family

-Great messages and great people at Shining Mountains Lutheran Church

-Video chat with my NELA friends

-Stretchy pants

-Radiolab

-Friendly cashiers

-Muppets

-Small town parades

-Musicals

-Mowgli

-All the challenges

-My little green table

-Enough

-Calm people

-Answered prayers

-Happy dogs in bicycle baskets

-Fall air

-New recipes

-Garlic

-Good teachers

-Forgiveness

-Discovering that I do like salad!

-Waterfalls

-The Sound of Music

-Waffles

-Time

-Migrating raptors

-Random road trip adventures

-A good night's sleep

"Cultivate the habit of being grateful for every good thing that comes to you, and to give thanks continuously. And because all things have contributed to your advancement, you should include all things in your gratitude."

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Snakeflies

Order: Rapidioptera

Earlier this summer I posted this picture and one of my friends made the comment that it looks like a carousel ride from hell.  That made me chuckle.  But it’s true, this is one interesting looking insect, the stuff legends (or Harry Potter movies) are made of.  When hiking up Flagstaff Mountain near Libby, MT at the end of June, there were a bunch of these on the flowers along the trail.  I thought they looked like baby dragons. :-)

Let me tell you about this little lady...

Snakeflies are voracious predators (of small, weak prey) both as larvae and as adults.  The long prothorax (“neck”) helps it to rotate its head to find food.  When hunting, they strike at their prey in the same way that snakes do.  Some sources report that females wave their ovipositors when feeding, like a dog contentedly wagging its tail.  These insects are found throughout the Northern Hemisphere, but in the U.S. they are generally restricted to areas west of the Rocky Mountains.  

If you are looking for snakeflies, you can find adults on flowers, tree trunks, or other plants (though I did find one on the driver’s side window of my car in Arizona a few years ago).  The larvae, which look sort of creepy and snake-like as well, are usually found under bark or in rotting wood.  

Sources:

Daly and Doyen's Introduction to Insect Biology and Diversity by James P. Whitfield

http://bugguide.net/node/view/233370

Phoretic Mites!

What's that schmutz on my wasp?!?!

As a science teacher for the past several years, I've taught about symbiosis and definitely thought I knew about this topic.  Symbiosis is defined as "a close relationship between two organisms where one lives on, in, or very near the other and where at least one of the organisms benefit from the relationship."

I've always taught about the three types of symbiosis:
Mutualism:  A symbiotic relationship where both organisms benefit (i.e. bees & flowers)
Commensalism: A symbiotic relationship where one organism benefits and the other is not really affected (i.e. barnacles on whales)
Parasitism: A symbiotic relationship where one organism benefits and the other is harmed (i.e. tapeworms)

And now I feel like a lousy science teacher!!  I recently learned about another type of symbiosis that I knew nothing about: phoresy.  And this type of symbiosis is pretty fascinating.  It's a transportation symbiosis!  One organism (the "phoront") is transported from one place to another by the host.  Neither organism depends on the other in a physiological way.

I learned about this while looking at bees and wasps under the microscope.  I saw that the Eumenid wasp pictured above had some brownish "stuff" on it.  "What is that?  Weird pollen?  Some sort of fungus?"  Nope.  The answer is phoretic mites!

So here's the story of the mites:
Mites that are on a male wasp can be transferred to a female wasp during mating.  The female wasp carries the mites back to her nest and they disembark.  While she lays her eggs and the larvae develop, the mites live in the nest.  It is thought that they are "housekeepers" in a way, feeding on debris in the nest and even "cleaning" the developing wasps.  The mites time their reproduction to coincide with the time that the new generation of wasps leaves the nest.  The "baby" mites hop onto the newly grown wasps and get carried to new nests where the cycle continues.

What's amazing is that some wasps actually have little body cavities (usually on the thorax) where the mites can safely congregate.

I was fascinated by this phenomenon and started seeking out more information, especially related to wasps.  So currently there are three scientific papers and a section of a book on solitary wasps on my table waiting to be read...  I'm excited to learn more!

I looked up other pictures online when I was geeking out on phoresy.  Apparently it's pretty common in beetles as well:

from bugguide.net

from wildabouttheworld.com

The Transition to Montana..

This was a little update I had written on May 29th soon after arriving in Montana.
I left Prescott on Tuesday, drove for 2 days and arrived in Bozeman on Wednesday evening.
People sometimes ask me if I get nervous or worry or am unsure of myself.  The answer to that is a resounding YES!!  (And I'm shocked that it doesn't show.)

But... You can't have exciting adventures or learn new things if you don't step out of your comfort zone, right?


So...  Tuesday's breakfast was rough.  I am not a fan of saying goodbye to my amazing sister who was the best roommate ever.  I know it's a little weird how we couldn't figure out whose stuff was whose and how we'd say the same things with the same voice inflections at the same time... but, it has been awesome having Katie there for the last four years.  So, Tuesday morning was hard.  

My little car packed up for another road trip!!

I cried on and off all the way through northern Arizona. :-(

Driving through Utah was amazing.  It's such a pretty state.  The scenery, my love of road trips, Hubba Bubba bubbles (thanks to a gift from Cyndi), Radiolab on the radio, and some loud car singing helped me move on from the sadness.  When I crossed into Idaho and then into Montana, I was so happy.  I love the mountains, I love the sky, I was excited for the new adventure.

Yay!!  Into Montana! :-)

Then I got about 45 minutes out of Bozeman, and I stopped the car.  I was "early", I was a little tired, and I was really really really nervous.  What the heck?  I was about to walk into the lab of a scientist I'd never met to start a job I have no idea how to do and to be a student again for two years... Sitting by the river calmed me a bit.  So did a quick chat with Sara...

I got to Bozeman around 5pm and went straight to the Marsh Lab, which will be my home away from home for the next two years.  I wasn't sure it was the right place because it was a sketchy brick building a little ways away from campus that says "Veterinary Sciences" on the front windows.  But, it also said something about the agricultural department... so I figured I was in the right place.  I walked into a dark building with no idea which direction to head into.  I asked the first person that I saw if he could tell me where I'd find Michael Ivie.  He said, "You must be Amy."  That was a good sign.  This was Charles.  He is one of the other grad students under Dr. Ivie (there are only 3 of us).  He walked me to the Ivie lab and introduced me to Mike.  Mike is a loud, confident, joke-making, brilliant entomologist in a wheelchair.  I think I am going to learn a great deal from him.  Charles took me to the "museum" (where the collection is, and which I like more than the "lab" because one whole wall is windows) where I met Frank (another grad student), Hannah (a recent grad who's working in the collection for the summer), Casey (a really nice bee expert that works in another lab in the building), and Tyler (who I will be spending the summer with in Libby).  Everyone was really nice and welcoming.  I was a bit shellshocked and overwhelmed and tired...

I followed Mike to his house where his wife had dinner ready for us.  Donna is sweet and is a talker!  She reminds me of a 60 year old version of my friend Robin from the MCC.  There are two labs here too, Buster and Violet.  They are super-sweet.  Buster was hit by a FedEx truck last weekend and is hobbling around in a doggie cast.  Violet likes to play fetch.  Donna has macular degeneration and can no longer drive.  Mike had a spinal cord injury about 5 years ago and is in a wheelchair (but he does drive!).  I have a bedroom & bathroom in the basement.  This house has bug decorations all over.  I LOVE it!  Hahaha...  Now, some of you may be aware of my lack of sporty spiceness...  well, it came through in an embarrassing way last night.  I was throwing the tennis ball off the 2nd floor, covered porch for Violet.  She would tear down the stairs and bring it back up.  Somehow, when I threw the ball, it went WAY off target and hit the lamp and a chunk of decorative wood fell off...  that's not a great first impression to make.  Oi.

Today was a new day.  Mike drove me around Bozeman first thing this morning, he even stopped by the chamber of commerce so I could get a map.  He named the surrounding mountains (the Bridgers, the Gallatins, the Madisons, the Tobacco Roots, the Spanish Peaks, and the Story Hills) and pointed out every coffee house he could.  When we got to the lab, I wasn't sure what to do with myself (awkward), so I read a bumblebee guide book.

The View from the Montana State University Campus

After lunch, Charles, Tyler and I were going to walk to campus.  James, who is a 26 year old IT worker in the lab came with us.  James is unique because he is pretty severely disabled.  He has muscular dystrophy (I think...), is in a wheelchair, and can really do nothing for himself.  If his hand falls down, he can't move it back.  If he was in a building with an elevator, he couldn't use it because he can't actually push the button.  He's also very shy and softspoken.  So he doesn't like to ask for help, and if he did, people might not hear him anyways.  It was cool getting to know him on this walk though.  He was telling me about music festivals and how he sometimes goes to the brewery with the guys after work.  He went to school at MSU as well, but there were parts of campus that were new to him too.  Some huge things that I am going to learn in this position are to slow down to a pace that is more accomodating to folks in wheelchairs, to not ever underestimate folks in wheelchairs, and to pay more attention to wheelchair accessible routes.  Also, I am not going to be taking my mobility for granted anymore, that's for sure.

On campus I got a student ID (go bobcats!), a MSU credit card, and turned in my application for keys.  We stopped by the post office to mail some specimens from the collection to another university.  The lady at the campus P.O. said, "you got more bugs? I'll take care of them."  Awesome.  :-)

Go Bobcats! :-)

The rest of the afternoon was spent learning about how much I don't know about insects and especially about bees-- do you know that there are five major families of bees in North America?  I'm going to learn to identify them down to species by looking at cells on the wing, grooves on the face, etc.  It is going to be a challenge.  I also got some practice pinning insects... my hands felt huge and clumsy... Lots to learn.  Lots to practice.  

On the drive home, Mike reminded me of my title.  I'm a student.  I'm here to learn.  I am not expected to know everything yet.  It's important to remember that.  

Donna had very important questions for me tonight when we got back:  1.  Do you like margaritas?  2.  Frozen or on the rocks?  3. Salt?  

This is going to be an exciting adventure.  I'm going to come out on the other side of this adventure smarter and WAY nerdier.  Are you ready for that?!  Now sleep.  I'm tired.  But I am doing alright.  :-)  I love you all!

Amy :-)

Do you know your bugs??

I thought I’d share just an introduction to the study of insects with y’all.  This is for both the entomology and etymology nerds out there!

First.  Insects are Animals.  (Yep.  Kingdom Animalia)

Second, insects are Arthropods—cousins of crabs and crayfish, millipedes and spiders. (Phylum Arthropoda= “Jointed legs”)

Third, insects are part of the Subphylum Hexapoda (“six-legs”)

Finally, insects make up the Class Insecta. 

Within the insect class, there are 27 orders, though this is sometimes disputed and changes all the time… silly taxonomists (no, not taxidermists…)  

As of now, these are the orders I know:

Hymenoptera (“membrane” “wing”)—Bees, ants, wasps

Lepidoptera (“scaly” “wing”)—Moths & butterflies

Orthoptera (“straight” “wing”)—Grasshoppers, crickets, katydids

Odonata (“odonto”= tooth and “wing”)—Dragonflies and damselflies, which are pretty tough predators with teeth on their mandibles

Ephemeroptera (“ephemera”= for a short time and “wing”) –Mayflies (which live only one day as adults)

Hemiptera (“Half” “wing”)—True bugs, cicadas, leaf-hoppers, aphids—the original members of this order had wings that were half membranous and half tough

Coleoptera (“Sheath” “wing”)- Beetles, which have hard outer wings called elytra

Dermaptera (“skin” “wing”)—Earwigs, which have a thick protective outer wing

Blattodea (“blatta” = Greek for cockroach)—Cockroaches and Termites

Thysanoptera (“tassel/fringe” “wing”)—Thrips, which have cool, feathery wings

Plecoptera (“folded wing”)—Stoneflies, which have pleated hind wings that fold under the forewings at rest

Neuroptera (“neuron” “wing”)- Lacewings, which have amazingly complex wing venation

Mecoptera (“long” “wing”) Scorpian flies—They also have long heads and some have long scorpian-like tails

Psocoptera (“rubbed or gnawed” “wing”)- Book lice and bark lice—yep, they gnaw on things like wood and paper

Diptera (“two” “wing”)- True flies, which have only 2 wings compared to all the other insects with four wings or no wings

Phthiraptera (“lice” “wingless”)—Parasitic/biting lice

Siphonaptera (“tube” “wingless”)-Fleas

Thysanura (“tassel/fringe” “tail”)-Silverfish, which have long filaments as tails

Mantodea (“mantis” = Greek word for mantids)- Mantids

Phasmatodea (“phasm” = “phantom”)—Walking sticks, leaf insects, etc., which are very cryptic in their appearance and behaviors

Raphidioptera (“needle” “wing”)—Snakeflies

Trichoptera (“hair” “wing”)—Caddisflies

Megaloptera (“large” “wing”)—Alderflies and dobsonflies

There are a few other lesser-known orders that I don’t know much about:

Grylloblattodea = insects found in cold, icy places

Embiidina= webspinners

Zoraptera= tiny, termite-like things found in decaying wood

Strepsiptera= twisted wing parasites

Snakefly, Order Raphidioptera.
Collected this summer on a hike up Flagstaff Mountain in Libby.

Order Lepidoptera.
From Butterfly Wonderland, a magical place in Scottsdale, AZ.  I took students there for my flight intensive in January 2014.  We were all mesmerized.

Bumble bees and Bald-faced Hornets, Order Hymenoptera.
Some of the first insects I collected this summer in Libby.

E.O. Wilson said,

"If you have seen one ant, one bird, one tree, you have not seen them all."

Howard Ensign Evans said,"Discovery is one of the greatest joys, and it is still there to be had in abundance. Discovery may be on several planes. It may be personal, one's discovery of a fact of nature previously unknown to him. It may be practical, a new way of putting information to use in some human discipline. It may be universal, a fact new to science... Since insects constitute the major class of our coinhabitants of planet earth, it is good to become better acquainted with them. They provide a very rich source indeed of the joys that accompany discovery."

And here is where I am...

Sometimes I pause and think about where I am and what I'm doing right there in that moment.  I love it when that pause make me say, "Wow.  This is my life right now."  Looking back, some of those moments really stand out to me.  One of them was in 2007 when I was in Argentina with an Earthwatch Educator's Fellowship.  I had set my alarm for 2am to go out into the Pampas grassland in the middle of the night, looking for wild cats and checking traps.  I remember pausing in the middle of the walk to one of those traps, looking up at the most spectacular stars (including Scorpio and the Southern Cross) and having the thought.  "Wow.  This is my life right now.  It's the middle of the night.  I'm in the middle of nowhere Argentina.  I'm standing here by myself (no worries, my trap-checking partner was nearby) and I'm actually hoping to bump into a cat like a puma, a geoffrey's cat, or a jaguaruni."  That moment made me smile.

Another of those moments came in the spring of 2010.  I was working at Driftwood Education Center.  It was a hot afternoon.  I was sweating like a pig and standing ankle deep in the nasty water that was the duck pond I was cleaning.  The duck was wandering around, obviously a little uneasy about what was happening in her pen.  The smell was horrendous.  I was filthy.  The great horned owl nearby was probably still angry at me for accidentally dumping a whole tarp full of water on her head.  I remember pausing, and actually saying to the girl I was working with, "Yep.  This is my life right now."

In January 2012, along with my friend and colleague, Alison Zych, I took students to the Sea of Cortez in Mexico.  It was a cold cold January, but that did not deter us from swimming with sea lions.  I remember jumping into the cold water in the shadow of the sea lion rookery, and looking down into the water through my snorkeling mask.  The moment when a baby sea lion swam and twirled right below me and seemed to look me right in the eye was amazing!  I actually screamed a little in excitement, which is a bad idea when you're under water.  Again, "Wow.  This is my life (and my work) right now!  I'm in the Sea of Cortez.  I can't really feel my fingers or toes because it's so cold, but I'm looking a wild sea lion face to face!"  Cool.  

Since I came to live in Montana, for the second time, earlier this year, I've had several of these moments...  Driving around the Kootenai National Forest looking for huckleberry patches and bees, hiking through the forest, seeing beautiful scenery, getting chased by a mountain goat, getting lost on a mountain, blowdrying bees, chuckling at bees under the microscope, taking my first exam since 2001...

So, I decided to share some of those moments and some of the fascinating things I'm learning and discovering.  It seems there are always a bunch of stories in my head that I want to share with my family and friends (and write down for myself because my memory seems to get worse and worse...).  Also, part of my purpose in working towards a Masters in Entomology is still to share and educate-- maybe find a way to be a bridge between academia, this interesting and political world I've landed in, and everyone else, especially the students that I love.  And... a few people have suggested that I start a blog...

How did I end up here?  (Right now I'm in a laundromat in Bozeman on a rainy fall Saturday... but my question is bigger than that.) This is a question that I keep asking myself...  It all started with intensives at Northpoint.  First, it was my "Home on the Range" intensive, when John Kava introduced me to Stephanie, a fascinating woman with a passion for moths.  This led to another intensive, "Buggin' Out."  Though there was some scepticism that a nerdy science intensive about insects could be successful, I'm proud to say that it was a hit!  I loved chasing bugs and learning new things with my students (and I think they enjoyed it as well).  Two years later I was "Buggin Out" again.  This is when I officially got hooked.  I'd always wanted to get my masters degree in an area of biology, but I couldn't choose which area I loved the most (I love cats!  I love trees! I love the ocean!  No, I love bugs!)  Entomology, with a microscopic world waiting to be discovered and the importance of insects needing to be shared, seemed like a good fit.
It all started with a letter...

                                                                                                                                                              July 2013

Dear Dr. Ivie,

I hope this message finds you well and you are enjoying summer in the most beautiful state of Montana!

I am writing to inquire about the possibility of applying to Montana State University Graduate School for a Master's Degree in Entomology, working in your lab and learning about the curation of an insect collection.

In 2001, I graduated from Wisconsin Lutheran College with a Bachelor’s Degree in Biology.  Since that time, I have been working as a science educator in various capacities.  I taught middle school life science for four years and then worked for the Montana Conservation Corps as Senior Youth Crew Leader for a year.  I spent a season teaching barrier island dynamics, beach ecology, and an understanding & appreciation for reptiles, among many other things as an educator at Driftwood Education Center on one of Georgia's barrier islands.  Currently, I am teaching high school biology and chemistry at an Expeditionary Learning school in Prescott, Arizona.  

Twice in the last three years, I prepared and taught a two-week (all-day, every-day) "intensive" class on entomology. I learned and then taught students how to collect and pin insects and to classify them by order.  I took them to the University of Arizona and Arizona State University to see the collections, visit labs, and learn about ongoing research.  We then donated our insect collection to the brand new Natural History Institute at Prescott College.  During this process I learned a lot and became invested in the study of insects.  I would love an opportunity to formally learn more and dig deeper into this science. I acknowledge the fact that my background is most likely different from other candidates that contact you. At this point in my career I have not formally participated in research or been published, but I believe my experiences and informal study has helped me develop invaluable skills, knowledge and perspectives.  My strong work ethic, innate love of learning, and adaptability will help me meet the challenges of graduate study and research.

The aspects of entomology that interest me most are biodiversity and adaptation. I would like to study how different types of insects live and interact in specific environments and what each does to survive and reproduce.  I am also interested in the effects of habitat destruction, fragmentation, or modification on insect populations and the implications for the ecosystem.  Because of my background in education, I am also very interested in outreach and finding ways to convey the fascination and importance of insects with others.  I realize these topics are very broad and I look forward to narrowing my focus of study or discovering different perspectives from which to explore them.

I found your website after exploring the Montana State University web page, looking for information about the entomology program.  I am contacting you because your research interests of biodiversity and systematics fit with my interests.  Also, your work with undergraduate students and the curation of the insect collection seem like interesting prospects for community outreach and education.   In addition, I would love to learn from and about an insect research collection.

I have a couple questions for you.  Do you work with graduate students, and, if so, will you be accepting students in the next year?   I am also wondering if you have suggestions on applying for fellowships and/or assistantships.  Finally, whether or not I have the opportunity to work more with you in the future, do you have suggestions for me as I move forward in my pursuit of a Masters Degree in Entomology?

I truly appreciate your time and will value any information or suggestions you have for me.

All the best,

Amy Dolan

About nine months later I was suddenly faced with a decision to be made in a pretty small window of time.  To go or not to go?  Yep.  I had been offered a research assistantship at MSU (despite the fact that I had not yet applied or visited or even taken the GRE...)  My first reaction was "Heck no!  I can't go!" But, my good friend Sara and my awesome sister Katie helped me to see a different perspective and the excitement of this opportunity.  And...  less then two months later I had packed up my little car (again) and was on my way to Montana!

So... Here I am.  And I'm glad I'm here.  There is a lot to learn and discover.  As I move forward through the ups and downs of this new chapter of my life, there are priorities to remember, and bigger purposes to keep in mind.  One of my priorities is sharing and education.   My hope that it this blog can be educational, interesting, and maybe even inspiring...  That was a really long introduction... I hope you enjoy!

-A


Henry David Thoreau said,

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms.”

Albert Einstein said,

“Wisdom is not a product of schooling but of the lifelong attempt to acquire it.”

Mark Twain said,

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do.  So throw away the bowlines!  Sail away from the safe harbor! Catch the trade winds in your sails! Explore. Dream. Discover."

John Steinbeck said,

“I’m in love with Montana. For other states I have admiration, respect, recognition, even some affection. But with Montana it is love. And it’s difficult to analyze love when you’re in it.”

Jeremiah 29 says,

“'For I know the plans I have for you,' declares the LORD, 'plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plan to give you hope and a future.”