ACTIVITY 12

Classroom Collection Connection*

Teaching Objectives:

1. Students will work together to collect insects.
2. Students will identify the insects collected using available reference materials.
3. Students will learn the proper methods for collecting various species of insects.
4. Students will learn the proper methods for mounting insect specimens and mount the insect specimens collected.
5. Students will record the habitat of the insects collected.

Read "Some Thoughts on Insect Collections" for ideas on what to do and what not to do when making classroom collection assignments.

Materials Needed:

• Large flat box Styrofoam or floral foam to fit inside the box
• White or light blue felt or paper to cover the foam (optional)
• Mounting pins ordered from a supply hous; extra-long straight pins can be used only for short-term collections as they rust
• Small labels
• Black marking pens

Looking for Insects:

Insects and their relatives can be found in many places as depicted in five habitat areas at the O. Orkin Insect Zoo: pond, desert, mangrove, rainforest, and house. In these and other habitats, insects dominate the animal inventory.

Collecting insects allows you to examine these amazing arthropods more closely. You may choose to preserve your catch in a collection using either pins or alcohol, or you may choose to keep your insects alive and watch them feed and reproduce. Insect life cycles range from very simple to very complex to unknown.

Get your equipment together before you go collecting. The following items are useful, depending on the types of insects you wish to collect:

• Nets (aerial, sweep, aquatic)
• Containers (plastic bags, jars, plastic food containers)
• Paper or waxed-paper envelopes
• Ice chest and ice
• Shovel and/or trowel
• Hatchet
• Knife
• Notebook and pencil
• Field guides

You need to develop a good search image, or be aware of certain signs, when looking for insects:

• Seeing a curled leaf tells you that a caterpillar or spider may have curled the leaf together with silk to make a shelter.
• A partially eaten leaf with frass (insect droppings) all around it may tell you an insect is still close by and probably feeding on another leaf.
• Field guides will help when learning what to look for.

THINGS TO CONSIDER: The most important piece of field or laboratory equipment anyone has is between one's ears and behind one's eyes.

Nets:

• Aerial insect nets are made of netting with a cloth rim. The netting is light and desirable for collecting delicate insects such as butterflies.
• Sweep nets are made of more durable material such as muslin and are used to sweep through grass and shrubbery.
• Aquatic nets are made of a combination of heavy muslin and netting shaped into the form of a "D" which gives them the descriptive name of D-frame nets. Dragging the net along the bottom of ponds and streams and through aquatic vegetation will yield water boatmen, diving beetles, and dragonfly nymphs.
• A kitchen sieve also makes an excellent aquatic net.

Containers and Transportation:

Place your catch into an appropriate container.

1. Plastic bags with zip-locking tops are good for many types of insects. However, insects with chewing mouth parts may chew through a plastic bag and will need a hard plastic container.
2. Once the insect is in the bag, place associated foliage in with it and zip the bag mostly closed.
3. Inflate the plastic bag by blowing into it as you would a balloon and then seal the bag completely. Plastic bags such as these are reusable and non-breakable. When collecting needed plant material, try to identify it using a field guide. This will make obtaining more plant material easier in the future.
4. Paper or waxed paper envelopes (like those used by stamp collectors) are good for transporting butterflies, moths, and dragonflies. Fold the wings up over the insect's back and slip it into the envelope. This method prevents the insect from exhausting itself and damaging its wings.
5. An ice chest with ice is essential if you want to take live insects home on a hot day. Insects die quickly in a container exposed to the sun or left in a car. Place the container holding your live insect in the ice chest, and take it out when you get home. The worst that will happen to the insect is that it will cool down and become sluggish. When you get home, take the insect out of the ice chest and let it warm up to room temperature.

Where to Look for Insects:

1. Shovels, hatchets, and knives are useful for digging into rotten logs to find beetles, termites, carpenter ants, and millipedes. You can put part of a rotten log into a plastic bag and take it home to sort through. Be sure to practice good safety habits when using sharp tools.
2. Many insects, especially moths, beetles, and katydids, are attracted to lights. If you leave a porch light on and check every few hours throughout the night you can collect a large assortment of insects. An ultraviolet light or black light works even better. Placing a white sheet as a reflector behind the light makes it more effective. Night light collecting works better on dark, warm nights when there is no moon.
3. Look for insects on leaves, branches, tall grass, rotting logs, flowers, under bark, under rocks, and in ponds and streams. Check in the basement, attic, and garage where undisturbed piles of boxes or lumber make great places for spiders and insects to hide.
4. The best way to learn which insects occur locally is to get out and observe and, if you desire, collect insects. Wherever you collect, make sure you have permission to do so, preferably written permission. This is very important, as the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is doing its best to combat the collection of threatened and endangered species both inside and outside the United States. Keeping accurate records of who gave permission to collect and when it was given will ensure compliance with Fish and Wildlife Service regulations.

Make a record of each collecting trip using the Field Collection Record. Record the place, date, the collector, weather, and type of insect collected (if known) and place the records in a field notebook. When you arrive home, label the container in which you keep the insect(s) with the correct information.

THINGS TO CONSIDER: If you wish to preserve your insects, take your live insect catch home and put it in the freezer. A day or two in the freezer is preferable to the standard cyanide or ethyl acetate killing jars used when freezers are not available.

Procedure:

Prepare for collecting the insects by studying the best methods for trapping, killing, and storing the insect specimens

Collect containers and plastic bags in which to keep the specimens when caught.

Discuss the procedure for making field notes and have the students record where they find the insects.

Construct some type of box in which to mount specimens. Commercial varieties are available, but the class can make their own by getting a large, flat box and putting a solid piece of styrofoam or floral foam in the bottom of it. White or light blue felt can be placed on top of the styrofoam, but this is not essential.

Instruct the students in the basic safety precautions when dealing with insects.

Take a field trip to a local park or farm to do the collecting of specimens. Divide the class into groups and have them go to different areas. Since this is a group project, every effort should be made to be certain all students are doing their part in the search for insects.

When specimens have been gathered, return to the classroom and begin the identification process using the resources available through books, magazines, and the Internet. Students should write the insects' names on the labels carefully and correctly. Zoo Display Label forms can be used for this. The students should supply both the common name and the scientific name if appropriate for the students' grade level.

Make a list of the insects found according to habitat.

Supplemental Activities:

Have the students make individual insect collections but assign them certain species or certain habitats and give them a time frame in which to find each type (e.g., assign two specific species or habitats per week).

As a class, "collect" insects from each of the 50 states by writing to someone who lives in each state and asking for a picture of an insect that lives where that person is located. Students can mark a Map of the Fifty States as the pictures arrive. Additionally, they can graph the numbers of the different species to determine which insects seem to be the most commonly found throughout the United States. For students living outside the United States, appropriate modifications can be made to this activity.

THINGS TO CONSIDER: Check on laws regarding the transportation of insects across state lines and discuss why these laws were put into effect.