Zoology Web Page
This year in zoology you will begin the year by making an insect collection. Doing an insect collection will help you learn about the diversity of all arthropods as well as of insects.
Do not begin your insect collection until you have been taught the proper pinning technique in class. The pin must be put in the insect in a special way. When you collect insects you will need to be sure to keep a field notebook in which you will record where each specimen was captured by county. Other data you should consider keeping would be the type of habitat which the insect was living in when you captured it. This information can come in handy when you are trying to identify the specimen. Do not collect insects too far ahead of the time which you will pin them. Insect exoskeletons become so hard and brittle that late pinning of a specimen can often result in lost body parts and an unidentifiable specimen.
This year we will not collect any more than two specimens of Lepidoptera. I worry very much about the local populations of some moths and butterflies. I do not believe that we have large enough numbers of certain lepidopterans in our area and discourage indiscriminate collecting. You will however, be required to have at least two specimens which you have used an insect spreading board for.
When collecting hymenopterans (bees, ants, and wasps,) you do so at your own risk. Because I never know who may react strongly against the sting of a bee or wasp, I will not require you to collect them. We also have species of wingless wasps in our area which students may mistake for an ant, so be careful when collecting all hymenopterans.
You are required to have 100 insects in your collection, representing at least 12 different insect orders.
Be sure to visit the links on this page for further reading on the subject of insects.
Click Here to see images of insects
Click Here to go the the Illinois State Museum
Click Here to go to a biological diversity web site
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