| SPRING 2006 CONTENTS |
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| Gimme Shelter: Attracting Insects |
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| GIMME
SHELTER! Attracting Insects to the Outdoor Classroom |
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| Outdoor classrooms are great places to study insects and their relatives. To attract insects, an outdoor classroom doesn't need much: a few plants, some soil, and a little moisture. If you want even more insects, however, there are some things you can do to attract them. This article lists a few tips to increase insect diversity in your outdoor classroom. | |
Here are some specific examples
of plants that tend to attract a large variety of insects: Even if you don't try to attract specific insects, you can get a general increase in diversity by planting a mix of tall and short plants, grasses and woody plants, fruiting and non-fruiting plants, trees and shrubs, and any other variations you can think of. 2. PROVIDE SHELTER Many insects and their relatives hide during the day under rocks and pieces of wood. Scatter these items around your outdoor classroom to attract ground beetles, centipedes, millipedes, wolf spiders, sowbugs, ants, and many other creatures. 3. JUST ADD WATER To attract an entire spectrum of insect diversity, install a small pond in your outdoor classroom, or build your outdoor classroom around an exisiting body of water. If you build a pond, add rocks and pieces of wood to the bottom to attract even more creatures and to encourage aquatic plant growth. A permanent pond or stream will have a whole host of aquatic arthropod life. In a pond, you will find mosquito larvae, giant water bugs, aquatic beetles, fishing spiders, water scorpions, water striders, dragonfly naiads, and damselfly naiads. Adult dragonflies and damselflies will also be attracted to the area. A cool, clean, fast-moving stream will have most of the insects a pond will have, plus mayfly and stonefly nymphs, caddisfly larvae, dobsonfly larvae, along with crawfish and aquatic sowbugs. |
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SHELTOWEE TRACE: Update |
| In the Spring '05 Wee Beasties, we told you about a plan to investigate the Sheltowee Trace, Kentucky's 250+ mile National Recreation Trail. During September 2005, Part 1 of the plan was completed as experts from the University of Kentucky's College of Agriculture hiked 110 miles from the Kentucky-Tennessee border to the Wildcat Battlefield monument near London, Ky. | |
| AWARENESS Along the way, we met with fellow Kentuckians, some along the trial and some in nearby towns and parks. We shared with them the recreational and educational opportunities available along the Sheltowee Trace. Most people knew that there was a trail in the area, but few realized that the Trace stretches for hundreds of miles across the Daniel Boone National Forest. Many Kentuckians leave the state to hike the Appalachian Trail, not knowing that we have an impressive National Recreation Trail right here in Kentucky. We want more people to know about the Sheltowee Trace and use it to explore Kentucky's natural resources. |
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| EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITIES The Sheltowee is crammed with potential for outdoor investigations. For instance, we found an elementary school in McCreary County that was just a few hundred yards from a historic coal mine that intersects with the Sheltowee. Few people in the area knew about the mine. Students could easily begin an investigation into the long-term cultural and environmental effects of the mine. Their work could provide genuine contributions to archeological and historical knowledge in their region. | |
FITNESS While hiking, all participants wore pedometers, and we were amazed to see that we walked over 20,000 steps most days. 20,000 steps is about 10 miles, and most health experts recommend about 10,000 steps per days. Hiking is a fun and exciting way to get physical activity. INSECTS! It goes without saying that we saw lots of plants and animals along the trail, including some amazing insects, spiders, and their relatives. The webs of orb-weaver spiders frequently crisscrossed the trail. Strange critters lurked in the foundations of abandoned buildings. We noticed that insects found in deep, humid valleys were much different from the ones found on dry ridgetops. One of the most common creatures seen along the trail, especially in the valleys, were 4" millipedes like the one pictured below right. |
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 Metallic wood-boring beetle from a ridge-top in the Big South Fork recreation area (B. Newton, 2005) |
 Millipede found on the Sheltowee Trace (B. Newton, 2005) |
The second part of our journey begins on September 23rd at the Wildcat Battlefield Monument - right where we stopped last year. We expect to meet more people along the trail and to see more incredible things as we make our way to Rowan County. When the hiking is done, we will gather our experiences, photos, and ideas to create an educational guide to the trail. Hopefully, people will follow our example and follow the Sheltowee Trace into Kentucky's wilderness. For more information about
this hike, visit the website at Kentucky AWAKE ,http://www.kentuckyawake.org/Sheltowee/default.cfm,
or contact Blake Newton at blaken@uky.edu. |
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CRITTER OF THE MONTH: CENTIPEDES |
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Centipedes are also unique because of their venomous fangs. Unlike spiders, whose fangs are a part of their mouths, centipede fangs are actually the front pair of legs. Centipedes use their fangs to capture termites, ants, insect larvae, and other creatures that live in soil. The centipedes that live in Kentucky should not be picked up. Their bites, like bee stings, are occasionally dangerous to allergic individuals. Some centipedes in other parts of the world have bites which are similar in severity to the bite from a venomous snake! Centipedes in Kentucky can grow to about 5", while some tropical varieties can exceed 1 foot in length. Pictured above is a "scolopendromorph" centipede that is in the process of shedding its exoskeleton. It looks pink in this picture, but when its skin hardens, it will be red-orange like the centipede pictured at the top of this newsletter. For more information about centipedes, including how to distinguish centipedes from millipedes, visit the Centipede Critter File. |
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| Each issue, Wee Beasties features one of the critters from the Critter Case Files, University of Kentucky's on-line guide to insects, spiders, and related critters. | ||
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BOOKS |
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UPCOMING EVENTS |
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| The Entomology Department
will be present with displays, insects, and information at the following
events and locations during Spring and Summer 2006:
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WEE BEASTIES MAILING LIST |
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CONTACT INFORMATION |
| If you have ideas, experiences,
or information that you would like to share or would like information
about educational resources available through the University of Kentucky,
Department of Entomology, write, phone, or email: Blake
Newton View and print Wee Beasties in the Adobe Acrobat (tm) PDF format. The Adobe Acrobat (TM) PDF format allows you to download, view, search, and print, while maintaining the original printed look of the document. You will need the (free) Adobe Acrobat Reader plug-in to read PDF documents.
Black and white images
used with permission from http://www.arttoday.com
Educational
Programs of the Cooperative Extension Service serve all people regardless
of race, color, age, sex, religion, disability, or national origin.
UNIVERSITY OF KENTUCKY, KENTUCKY STATE UNIVERSITY, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE AND KENTUCKY COUNTIES COOPERATING. |
1.
INCREASE PLANT DIVERSITY Some insects need certain
types of plants to live. If you install those plants, the insects
are almost sure to follow. If there is a certain type of insect
you want to attract, read about its life cycle and food preferences,
and you might be able to find the right kind of plant to attract it.
In general, if you have more types of plants in an outdoor classroom,
more insects will arrive to exploit those plants.
Centipedes are not
insects, but they are very closely related. In fact, centipedes
(along with their kin, millipedes) are more closely related to insects
than spiders are. You can easily distinguish a centipede from
an insect by counting the legs: insects always have 6 legs and centipedes
always have many more legs, usually more than 20. 
The
Wild About Reading Annotated Bibliography of Children's Environmental
Books