Post AwQdMyTnSwEF1XndoW by theantlady@arthropod.social
(DIR) More posts by theantlady@arthropod.social
(DIR) Post #AwQdKMY7WDQgo2Zo3s by theantlady@arthropod.social
2025-07-23T15:04:15Z
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Okay, folks. I want to create a "Tools for Interacting with Insects" workshop for an organization in my community. This will be aimed at high school to college-aged people. What would you include in such a workshop? Please tag others who might have suggestions or even pre-built resources.@futurebird @alexwild
(DIR) Post #AwQdMyTnSwEF1XndoW by theantlady@arthropod.social
2025-07-23T15:05:37Z
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@futurebird @alexwild I plan to bring sweep nets, aspirators, small containers, magnifiers with me. I don't have classical Entomologist training but am thinking to experiment with Seek and maybe BugGuide for more of a deep dive.
(DIR) Post #AwQdWzlJYIEDthltpo by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-07-23T15:10:00Z
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@theantlady @alexwild I would catch and bring a selection of local bugs to introduce them to the most common local species. I made a little flyer about "the ants around our school" where I identified the five species of ants on the school grounds and explained a bit about how to tell them apart. If your community has smart phones learning to use the macro function or clip on macro lenses can help participants to get good photos. (I show examples of good and bad photos for identification)
(DIR) Post #AwQdea2x2tbOSVdcZs by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-07-23T15:11:23Z
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@theantlady @alexwild Also for each area some books and guides are better than others. I bring these along and show the more interested students how to follow the flow-chart after we go over the major parts of the bugs body. I really do need to do one for more kinds of bugs. I might do bees next... but I'm still learning to identify all of the bees in the school.
(DIR) Post #AwQpS1TsvtjFEM0y4u by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-07-23T17:23:34Z
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@theantlady @alexwild You might think "learn the names of all the bees and wasps on a NYC block" would be a simple thing. It is not.There are SO MANY little blue/black/green solitary bees and they might look the same but they are often very different building totally different nestsAnd then there are all of these tiny wasps and you ask someone who likes wasp "who is this?" and they say "never seen her in my life"The ants were easy by comparison. I will take on the beetles too someday.
(DIR) Post #AwQqw3k9Bb8st9VWcK by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-07-23T17:40:12Z
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@theantlady @alexwild If you live in the north east a good beginner site for learning your bees is this one:https://watchingbees.com/There are a bunch of AI generated sites that imitate this format, but this seems to be the source and they have written it in a way that you don't need to be an expert to use it. Once you are done with that you can look into the bee guides from Princeton University press, these have tons of photos and there are guides for both east and west US.
(DIR) Post #AwQrMh0tnqXODD2iRc by log@mastodon.sdf.org
2025-07-23T17:44:58Z
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@futurebird @theantlady @alexwild A person says something like that about beetles, and I start suspecting that they possess the elixir of immortality.
(DIR) Post #AwQrY3h5okapjwCLx2 by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-07-23T17:47:04Z
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@log @theantlady @alexwild How bad can "all the beetles that live on my block" possibly be?(I don't learn from experience on this kind of thing... it's a flaw.)
(DIR) Post #AwQtIvg5XUWORVdrWK by log@mastodon.sdf.org
2025-07-23T18:06:41Z
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@futurebird @theantlady @alexwild "I will learn to identify all the beetles that live near me!"(Spongebob time-elapsed voice-over) "One 'undred years latehr...""Whew! Nearly halfway done! And to think, without the Anthropogenic Thermal Extinction Event, I'd only be a quarter of the way there."Giant ants, wearing colorful identifying paint spots, police the queue to the microscope, pushing beetles into an orderly line. The beetle on the slide is escorted away and replaced.