For the Love of Insects

Entomology - Insect Orders

Poster Text: Insects have short life spans and reproduce in great numbers. These two facts allow a much greater rate of evolution and adaptation that in other organisms. Having existed since prehistoric times, insects have evolved and adapted into highly specific and varied forms. The majority of these can be grouped into one of seven orders; odonata, hamiptera, coleoptera, lepidoptera, diptera, hymenoptera, and orthoptera.

Coleoptera, Hymenoptera, Hemiptera, Diptera, Orthoptera, Odonata, Lepidoptera.

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Entomology - Insect Structure

Poster Text: Though much variation exists from one species to the next, the bodies of all insects can be seen as having three distinct regions: the head, thorax, and abdomen. all insects also have an exoskeleton, which provides both protection for internal organs and supports the body. Other common traits are six legs which are divided into three pairs; and wings, though not present on all insects.

The abdomen has no appendages, with the possible exception of extended genitalia in some species. The exoskeleton covering the abdomen is somewhat more flexible than that of the thorax and head to allow for the expanding and contracting motion needed for respiration through rows of small holes called spiracles.

The thorax is divided into three segments: the prothorax, mesothorax, and metathorax. One pair of legs is attached to each segment of the thorax, near the bottom. If a single pair of wings is present, they attach at the mesothorax, If a second pair of wings is present, these attach at the metathorax.

On the surface of the head are one to three simple eyes, two compound eyes, one pair of antennae, and mouthparts. The head also houses a simple brain.

Entomology - Insect Metamorphosis

Poster Text: Most insects undergo a noticable change in form as they mature, a process known as metamorphosis. Nearly all display either hemimetabolous (incomplete) or holometabolous (complete) metamorphosis. Some insects, however, change so little from birth to adulthood that they are said to have ametabolous metamorphosis, meaning that there is almost no change aside from an increase in size.

AMETABOLOUS - Primitive insects such as brisletails an silverfish undergo little change from hatching from their egg to reaching sexual maturity. Only an increase in size and slight proportionate changes occur.
HEMINETABOLOUS - As insects such as true bugs mature, wings (the outer pair of which often forms a hard shell), and sexual organs appear. There is little other change aside from an increase in size and slight proportionate changes.
HOLOMETABOLOUS - Insects such as butterflies, moths, ants, wasps, and bees all go through a drastic change over the course of their development. Each starts life as something completely different from its adult form, and goes through a pupal, or resting state before emerging as a fully develped adult.

Entomology - Insect Defenses

Poster Text: The large success of the insect world has been greatly aided by insects' natural defenses. First and foremost, an insect's size contributes to its survival. Many entomologists estimate that nearly half of all insect species have yet to be identified simply because they have been overlooked. Also, the insect exoskeleton provides a constant protection against many physical hazards, including a immunity to many chemicals. The ability to fly affords may species a mehod of quick retreat. Other, more specialized defenses include camouflage, self-advertising, mimicry, bites, and stings.

SELF-ADVERTISERS AND MIMICS - Many insects which have developed phyiscal defenses such as stings, repellent glands, spines, or toxic internal compounds have also evolved colorful, contrasting markings to advertise the presence of an unpleasant consequence to sany world-be predators. Once an inexperienced predator eats (or attempts to eart) one of these insects, a negative experience is associated with the bright markings, and a repeat attempt is thus avoided in the future.
Many insects, like the locust borer shown, have no substantial physical defenses. Instead, they mimic the bright, colorful markings of insects such as bees and wasps, benefiting from the learned consequences of predators who mistake them for more dangerous insects.
STINGS - The ovipositors of some female insects of the order hymenoptera have developed into stinging mechanisms. These may either be retractable, as is the case with most wasps and ants, or able to sting only once, as is the case with bees. Lodging in the victim and pulling vital organs from the stinging bee as she leaves, this self-sacrificial tactic is used mainly to protect the bees' hive.
MANDIBLES - Many insects possess stong mandibles with which they work and feed. Mandibles can, however, serve as defensive mechanisms, and are quite powerful in the case of some beetle, ant, and wasp species, such as the stag beetle.
CAMOUFLAGE - Some insects have evolved an appearnace that mimics the material on which they normally rest. One amazing example is the leaf insect.

Entomology - Insect Feeding Methods

Poster Text: The method in which insects feed depends on the type of food they eat. Chewing, piercing/sucking, and sponging are the three main types of feeding methods, though many variations exist. All insects' mouths are composed of the sme distinct parts; a labrum (upper lip), labium )lower lip), mandibles (jaws), and palps (small appendages for tasting and/or manipulating food). The mouthparts of each species vary greatly depending on how they are used during feeding.

PIERCING/SUCKING - The labrum and labium of piercing/sucking mouthparts have evolved into a tube-like proboscus which covers the needle-like, hollow mandibles that do the actual piercing. In some varieties, this tube may coil up whne not in use. Mosquites, true bugs, leafhoppers, and butterflies all have piercing/sucking mouthparts.
CHEWING - Chewing mouthparts are the most common, and the individual components are well defined. Mandibles, labrum, labium, and palps are all visible, Wasps, beetles, dragonflies, crickets, and grasshoppers all have chewing mouthparts.
SPONGING - Sponging mouthparts have developed into a folding proboscus with a fleshy labium at the tip which acts like a sponge, extending to suck up food. Only flies possess sponging mouthparts.

Honey Bee

The honey bee is important as a principal pollinator of crops and for producing pleasant-tasting and healthful honey. A social insect, the honey bee lives in highly organized colonies.

The Honey Bee is the Arkansas, Georgia, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, New Jersey, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Utah, Vermont, West Virginia, Wisconsin State Insect

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Beetles constitute about 25% of all known life forms. They are placed in the order Coleoptera, so named by Aristotle for the shieled-like forewings (Greek: coleo = shieled + ptera = wing).

Dung beetles, belonging to the superfamily Scarabaeoidea, get their common name because they feed partly or exclusively on feces. Dung beetles are very important to agriculture: they remove dung that would provide habitat for dangerous pests, buried dung enriches the soil, and provide the ultimate in waste management.

Jean Henri Fabre, considered the “father of modern entomology”, did pioneering work in the behavior of dung beetles. The minotaur insect is a dung beetle found on heaths and moors of the British Isles.

The scarab beetle (a dung beetle) from Ancient Egypt was considered sacred with many amulets and stamp seals found in burials.

The scarab beetle has gained fame from Carl G. Jung in his article Synchronicity, An Acausal Connecting Principle ~ “A young woman I was treating had, at a critical moment, a dream in which she was given a golden scarab. While she was telling me this dream I sat with my back to the closed window. Suddenly I heard a noise behind me, like a gentle tapping. I turned round and saw a flying insect knocking against the window-pane from outside. I opened the window and caught the creature in the air as it flew in. It was the nearest analogy to a golden scarab that one finds in our latitudes, a scarabaeid beetle, the common rose-chafer (Cetonia aurata), which contrary to its usual habits had evidently felt an urge to get into a dark room at this particular moment.” [Coll. Works, vol. 8, § 843]

Lady Bug, Coccinella Spp

The Lady Bud is the Delaware, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Tennessee State Insect.

The female Anoplheles mosquito is the vector for transmitting the malarial parasite plasmodium to humans. The plasmodium is harmless to the mosquito and causes the disease malaria in humans.

FYI - Dr. John Sappington of Arrow Rock, Missouri is noted as the first doctor to “effectively use quinine (from the chinchona plant) for the treatment of malaria and fevers.”

DDT (Dichloro - Diphenyl - Trichloroethane) is a synthetic pesticide used in WWII to control mosquitoes that spread insect born diseases like malaria and typhus. After WWII it was used as an agricultural insecticide. In 1962 Rachel Carson's book Silent Spring exposed the environmental impact of using DDT without understanding the full effect on ecology and human health.

Yellow fever, an acute viral hemorrhagic disease, is transmitted by the bite of female mosquitoes (the yellow fever mosquito, Aedes aegypti, and other species) and is found in tropical and subtropical areas in South America and Africa.

Dr. Walter Reed, a U.S. Army physician, building off the work of Dr. Carlos Finlay from Cuba, lead the team which “... confirmed the theory that yellow fever is transmitted by mosquitoes”.

Fleas on rats and rodents carry the bacterium Yersinia pestis that causes bubonic plague.

• “The right of a nation to kill a tyrant in case of necessity can no more be doubted than to hang a robber, or kill a flea.” ~ John Adams
• “You just need to be a flea against injustice. Enough committed fleas biting strategically can make even the biggest dog uncomfortable and transform even the biggest nation.” ~ Marian Wright Edelman
• “The better a work is, the more it attracts criticism; it is like the fleas who rush to jump on white linens.” ~ Gustave Flaubert
• “He that lies with the dogs riseth with fleas.” ~ George Herbert
• “A professor must have a theory as a dog must have fleas.” ~ H. L. Mencken
• “Man is certainly stark mad; he cannot make a flea, and yet he will be making gods by dozens” ~ Michel de Montaigne
• “If you go long enough without a bath, even the fleas will leave you alone.” ~ Ernie Pyle

• “To ask an author who hopes to be a serious writer if his work is autobiographical is like asking a spider where he buys his thread. The spider gets his thread right out of his own guts, and that is where the author gets his writing.” ~ Robertson Davies
• “The artist is a receptacle for emotions that come from all over the place; from the sky, from the earth, from a scrap of paper, from a passing shape, from a spider’s web.” ~ Pablo Picasso

Moebius Strip / Ants Fine-Art Print by M.C. Escher

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Anna Maria Sibylla Merian spent several years, c. 1700, in Suriname, illustrating insects and plants in great detail.

Giant Flip-and-Learn Wall Chart
Opens into an easel with 16 brightly colored flip charts boldly introduce your kids to ABCs, numbers, shapes, and telling time, as well as animals, dinosaurs, insects, birds and more.

Gardener's Alphabet, Art Print

Gardener's Alphabet

A - Apple, B - Butterfly, C - Camellia, D - Dragonfly ...

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