Final Thoughts

After taking this course and rereading my first post about insects, I think my fascination with insects has grown; however, I am also a little more paranoid about insects being in my house. I don’t know if it is coincidence or if my research on insects has lured them into my apartment, but this final week of class I have come in contact with a cockroach in my shower and a baby spider on my pillow. Needless to say, my fascination with insects has not propelled me to pick up or become immune to these creatures in my living space. On the other hand, I have gone out of my way and have greatly enjoy observing these insects in their NATURAL habitat. I would have continued running around the lake without knowing about the millions of cattail larvae I was passing by. I would have continued to think of trees in the winter as bare and would have missed the silk moth cocoons. I cannot even begin to explain how excited I am about the baby mantis that hopefully will be hatching shortly. I would have never been so knowledgeable on the common misconceptions having to do with the earworm, cockroaches, and mantis. I could have finished this course without knowing all the insects I consume, but now that I have done some research I cannot believe the amount of information out there; I would have never known about this topic without this class. One of the main focuses of this class was overwintering. I had never before asked myself how do insects survive the cold winter. I think this class along with the books we read really stressed the importance of understanding the world around me. I was naive to think insects just go about their life during the winter as they do in the summer. Of course, they need shelter and warmth just like I do. In one of the areas, pinning, in this class I gained even more respect for researchers. This respect was gained was when I tried to pin the moths. Their wings were so delicate and the needles were so pointy. It took me a good two hours to pin three moths and the pinning was certainly not up to par. After researching all my insects, I realized many different species and types of insects there are. When you a read a fact in a book saying something like “there are over 4,000 different species”, you underestimate all the time and details that went into finding and researching those species. When you start researching online, you cannot imagine how hard it must have been for scientists to find and publish this information about these different species because you have trouble finding the ONE species you are looking for. The search for these insects is rewarding in two ways though, you are ecstatic when you find your species you have been looking for and you learn even more about other species that you would have never known. All in all, this class has taught me many new things I never would have suspected and cleared up many things I had previously known.