August 24th, 2024

 08/24/24

Today we do more bug pinning. More label making, and more updating. 

The walking stick died, unfortunately. This was kind of a crazy scenario because I had finally found the oak that she would eat and she died anyway after only a couple of weeks. Sometimes they die once they’ve laid eggs but I didn’t see any eggs. I do some youtube research to determine how to best preserve her (should I put her in the freezer so that I can get to pinning her over the weekend?) Turns out that if it’s a female then the eggs in her abdomen are viable. Mind you, this is Tuesday of a very busy rotation and I’m basically just home for hygiene and sleep so I don’t have any time to pin this bug. 

Cut to me doing an emergency c-section on this bug once I get home on Wednesday. Got about 30 eggs out of her abdominal cavity and put them onto a moist paper towel, hoping for the best. I’m writing this entry about a month later and there’s no signs of hatching so I think it’s safe to say we will not have baby stick bugs. 

07/10/24

The tomato hornworms pupated and hatched into sphinx moths. I attempted to unroll the moth’s probiscus to allow him to drink nectar, but it refused. The first one unfortunately died because I didn’t know how to get him to eat. I allowed for Rev to pin this one, with the expectation that I would have other moths hatch and successfully feed them. Two more hatched, and I ended up releasing both because I was not able to unravel their proboscis to allow them to feed. I thought more would emerge by the time that my feeder came in so that hopefully they would naturally want to feed, but no more hatched. I’ll need to find some more hornworms at a later date.

Also during this rotation I picked up a couple of colorful grasshoppers, who are now thriving in that enclosure. Fungus gnats have gotten involved so I’ve put the enclosure outside while working on cleaning up my office now that I’ve been on a lighter rotation for most of August. 

08/11/24

Found this pale green assassin bug on a walk. We left it alone to take care of pests. 

My son decided that the enclosure needed more life, so he diligently collected 5 big booty darkling beetles on our walks. The reason that he chose 5 was because I had to put a cap on it. There are so many darkling beetles about and he wanted all of them!

08/19/24

My friend Lara found a polyphemus moth and offered to bring it to me. It was fresh and bendy, so I pinned it right away. 

Here is the updated display!