Bug's Life

This topic submitted by Amber Bennett, Andrew Watkins, Sarah Canole (Canolese@muohio.edu) at 1:19 pm on 9/30/99. Additions were last made on Saturday, January 18, 2003. Section: Nicholson


We're going to try and discover some of the anatomical differences between land and water insects, and how these different features help them survive in their own environments.
We're predicting that the land insects will have some features, such as longer mouths, which would help them eat off of land-based plants whereas the water insects will have mouths that help them eat water plants. Some other features that will differ will be their mode of transportation, be it legs vs. some sort of extremity that will help
a water insect swim. We also predict that some insects will be capable of living on either water or land, and will have a mixture of these features.

We're planning on carrying this out by collecting insects from both environments and examining their different features. We are, as of yet, still unsure precisely where we will be doing the collecting.

These are some of the pages that we feel relate to the topic:
http://www.mobot.org/pfg/interd/munchers/muncher2.htm
www.biohaven.com/biology/flower.htm
http://www.ento.vt.edu/~sharov/3d/virtual.html
www.zoo1.canterbury.ac.nz/rm.htm

This is interesting research because it allows for detailed examination of commonplace bug structure and their adaptations and lets us understand how our adaptations help us survive. It's related to the article "seeing the familiar" and teaches us observation skills about things we see everyday.

other research that has been done can be found at: http://gnv.ifas.ufl.edu/~tjw/recbk.htm

this is relevant to our daily lives because we all have adaptations that sort of parallel the adaptations of an insects.

experimental design: we're going to collect insects from each of the
environments and study their anatomical features.

materials: sweeping nets for water and air, jars to keep them in, some sort of preservative to keep them after they are dead, magnifying glasses, microscopes and reference material

first we will collect bugs on our own, to see where the best places are to find them and to have a backup plan on the offchance the class is unable to collect any on the day we do the lab. after they collect bugs, they will sort them, having collected only the ones we specifically asked them to look for. if they don't find them all, we will have them just in case so they can study them.

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