First Day in the Field

Yesterday, January 10th 2014, we ventured out into the Ecoscape on Birmingham-Southerns campus. In the small forest on campus, Dr. Van Zandt told us the best places to look for insects were under decaying wood, under the leaf layer, and on trees. Much to my surprise, the first rock I turned over I saw small jumping insects that quickly buried themselves back in the soil after being exposed. I soon saw Dr. Van Zandt flipping over cut up tree trunks and joined the fun. The first log had so many insects under it I could not believe how alive the insects became as the soil under the log was exposed. I saw and collected a earwig (the second bug in the picture below from top to bottom) under the first log. The second log showed much of the the same insects except there was one interesting yellow/brownish insect (picture below) that was a mystery to Dr. Van Zandt. The next log was again a surprise. We found termites on the bottom of the log. This was a surprise because Dr. Van Zandt said they are not usually found during the winter. These are the small white/clear insects shown below that have a darker brown spot found near their mouth. There were many beetles and cockroaches found under the logs (see picture below). It seemed to me as if the beetles were being crushed by the logs, but after picking them up I know that the log does keep them very warm and these insects get cold very fast. The most interesting find to me was the yellow/brownish insect. This insect was also very lively. Every time I opened my collecting tube this little guy would go crazy and would be very close to escaping. However, twenty minutes after being placed in the freezer it was as hard as a rock. Most of the class came across the same insects. There were some other types of beetles found. I learned that some beetles may bite or secret toxins so one has to be careful when handling these. Dr. Van Zandt also taught us the difference between a centipede and millipede, which is, a centipede has one pair of legs coming off of each body segment and a millipede has two. These are not classified as insects are actually arthropods. The last thing we found was a leaf with a sort of gall type brown, round balls attached to the otter part of the leaf. This was also another mystery. My job now is to identify these insects for my collection.  I can't wait for the next outing!

photos by catherine sandon