My experience with this lab on sorting insects from the field felt like a nice review for me. I could sort through the bag pretty easily and knew for the most part what each insect was.I found orders like lepidoptera, hemiptera, diptera, and coleoptera. I also sorted the insects into the way they feed or type of mouth-parts.
As you can see above are pictures of a grasshopper and a labeled drawing of parts of the insect.
There were many different mouth-parts in the bags of insects. I found chewing, piercing-sucking, and siphoning mouth-parts in my bags. I could see some limitations doing this lab in the field instead of the lab room. We would not have the access to the microscopes to get a better look at the mouth-parts of the insects, and if a person is out scouting alone they wouldn't have anyone to consult with about what they are seeing.
Key structures - good work on describing the structures.
ReplyDeleteBlogging about experience-also you did a good job talking about the limitations of using this method in the field. But think about the alternatives that you use, if you had to face the field situation.