Focus 580; Forensic Entomology and The 22nd Annual Insect Fear Film Festival

We are very pleased to welcome back to this program a friend of ours who shows up now and again to talk about insects Maybury and bombs with us she's head of the department of entomology at the U.N. She is a scientist who specializes in studying insects is well-known in her field for her work. Her research her scientific papers is also going to be known to a lot of people for some of the writing she's done about insects that are for the the general reader. So you can head out to the bookstore and you look at look for some of those books like 99 Nat snips and nibblers and 99 more mites midges and munchers or something like that that's might make it stuff it starts with them. And those books are published by the press. There's another book it's called bugs in the system which is also sort of this takes a look at insects and the way that their lives intersect with human beings and human lives. And she is also of course well-known. Well we know ours as the only person that we know who's ever showed up on the X-Files. And if that isn't enough the

founder of the now world famous insect fear Film Festival the U of I campus going back now to the I know I wrote down here when the first one was it was one hundred eighty four. That's right. The first one. Now it's the 22nd this year twenty second annual. And the idea here was that she I think she and her her colleagues thought. She could have a good time by showing some in some cases not very good movies that had insect themes and then also do a little teaching and have the opportunity for people to ask questions and talk about you know why it is that you can't really have a grasshopper that big and they have things like insect petting zoo so you can bring the kids down. It's an event that you can we can bring kids to and it's a lot of fun so this year it's happening this weekend February 19th at the foaling or auditorium on the UVA campus and the theme which we will be talking about here is insects and their use in solving crime. So all of that this morning here on the

program have we started yet. No I haven't even given her a chance to say anything. 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 toll free 800 2 2 2 9 4 5 5. It's nice to see you again. Always a pleasure. I don't even know when the last time I talked to you was it probably was last year sometime. Yeah kind of. We're seasonally in demand you know in 26 or our high profile that's when you think about entomologists but this time of year a lot of us are kind of in diapers I mean seeing you in the grocery store. Yes I don't need to get out more. Well I tell you what we have a caller here to talk and we end it when mayors here on the program and we also also want to say when courage people to call in with questions about insects not extermination questions. We got a guy for that film Nixon who comes in and does it every once in a while. So we sort of save those those questions for another day because that's really not what may specializes in controlling insects when she's here. We say well you know when you're invited to engage your curiosity if there are some insect that you have seen

and you can give us a description she may be able to tell you what it is. Other sorts of questions about how insects live their lives. That's what we do when she is here. So 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 toll free 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5. We do have a caller here listener in downs to start with on our line form. Here we go. Hello. Oh I want one of your incident over the radio what is this. OK. You're so good at this. And I have been waiting since last summer. Oh my God I saw the most exquisite Crystal. It was and I I was picking flowers. Probably in August it was on a miracle stem. About an inch and a quarter maybe an inch and a half long. A jade green but of the light kind of blue green already translucent so you could see the creature inside

with little gold spots. Yes. Thank heavens pupae are really hard to identify but you you found probably the most recognizable pupa that's a monarch butterfly. Chrissie points APUs unmistakable dangles from a single little silken thread. And it's just and it has a little row of M of little gold spots. Yeah that little thing looks like a zipper at the top. Yeah that's how it gets out and it's black it's shiny black on the top and metallic gold on the bottom of the person. Well the that it's old but it looks like a gold leaf. It's probably black because when you founded it was is you still have it. Oh ok yeah because it I couldn't keep. It when I sing I even parts of my comp when it's just about when it's close to emergence you can see through the translucent wall and that black that you see is actually the pattern on the monarch wings. But that it's unmistakable.

Back at the top you know it was only black. It's really that that little nothing else is like it. So and it you know they they do tend to wander you may say well what's it doing on marigolds if it you know they grew up on. Milkweeds well but you know this is a butterfly with wanderlust and it even applies to the larvae when they finish feeding they just take off and they'll climb up to any vertical surface that's handy. So that might have been growing near a patch of milkweeds and probably what would have happened had it been undisturbed may very well have happened is that the butterfly emerged then took off for the mountains of Mexico which is where they overwinter. Well I'm very sad today. It was it was one of the most explicit objects I've ever seen in his. It certainly is eye catching especially with those little gold spots and frankly nobody knows what the function is for that is going to turn out to be so drab brown. You know like sometimes happens. But there you have it here.

Yeah. And you are so good. What is it. Oh there's a wonderful poem a butterfly at best it's a caterpillar half dressed as I can and I think it's maybe this one I thought was This is beautiful. But yeah this is about a fly and rarely be that attention getting. Yeah although not to beat this into the ground but there's an interesting bunch of pupae in the family. These are butterflies called Little blue butterflies because they're little and blue in the family lysine itty and flutter. Yeah. And there's one called the spring Azure it's one of very first butterflies and there's a fellow named Howard Hinton who is a very colorful character who wrote a paper who in which he claimed that the pupae of the lysine and the problem with being a pupil if you're an insect is you're totally vulnerable you're sitting there you can't no legs no eyes no nothing you just sitting there metamorphosing. So what do you do to protect yourself some people have argued those little gold spots may you know catch reflected light and startle

predators or make them think twice. Well there's this group of pupae down in Central South America which according to Hinton look like. Ape faces really little tiny monkey faces and you know I've seen this paper and you really have to sort of squint to see anything that looks like a monkey face but it's sort of like this isn't it. Exactly and you know people of our you know why should a little monkey face scare anybody and he argued that birds don't have very good depth perception and they don't know it. Well who knows. But anyway yeah that's what you found I really believe because pupil identification is pretty hard. You know I call this a chrysalis you know well a pupil is the sort of general term chrysalis is the special term butterflies have so many admirers that they have their own vocabulary. So a chrysalis is basically a naked pupa. What you find inside a cocoon is a pupil but people often I'm very glad you use chrysalis because a lot of people say Kukkonen that's totally wrong. Cocoon is the silken

sleeping bag of plastic surgery. It was exactly that a Christmas. It will thank you very much. My pleasure thank you for the call. And our guest this morning is Mae Baron von she's head of the department of entomology at UVA. She's a scientist who studies insects and occasionally on the program particularly when things are warm and insects are a little bit more active and we just talk about how cool they can be. And usually the first time that that she appears on this program in the year is bought this time so that we can talk a little bit about the insect fear Film Festival and that's coming up this weekend on the campus and we will do that and also take questions and we have somebody else here who's ready to go so we'll do that. This caller's in Urbana on line 1. Hello. I want my kids were little I found some monarch you know caterpillars creeping around and they're pretty distinctive as well and fed them and put them in some kind of open container. And we watched them do their

Christmas thing and mark the Christmas changed color and we didn't really as they seemed to come out of their Christmas as a butterfly's when we weren't mocking but it was really fun to watch and I think the same thing happened with a Cecropia one time and I know I sound so it's just fascinating and I recommend it if you can find a way to see the caterpillars or even just keep the Christmas and inside but it does change color when the as the as it evolves evolve it matures. Yeah it sure is into the butterfly that's about to come out kind of like a sneak preview. Actually I don't know if you can answer this question for me. There's some kind of critter that's in my house at the moment and I haven't caught it yet but it's eating the petals of an orchid that I have here. Oh my goodness I can think I was like a ladybug walking around and then they're

off. I didn't know that either of us would eat things but I don't see the many caterpillars ladybugs. Actually I'm very fond of pollen but orchids are kind of funny that way they have unlike many flowers that have pollen sort of out there up for grabs. Orchids tend to pack their pollen and structures called pullin AEA that are very specialized and still a very sort of intimate associations with pollinators that make these that allow for pollination. So I don't know why they'd be eating petals. They pedals aren't particularly high in protein in the ladybugs tend to be kind of protein found most of the members of the family are carnivores. The only part of a plant that they find at all attractive would be the pollen which is pretty high in pollen in protein now. Sow bugs or pill bugs you say usually tend to feed on kind of the

stuff that's decaying or broken down to some degree it's not out of the realm of possibility but that they would expose themselves I mean the petals are kind of high up right. Yeah yeah they're up there at the top and it looks clearly like a caterpillar sort of a pattern in a semicircle are chewed as edge to leave. Own up to it when whatever it is it is perfect I take it sometimes and I actually bend over the fire. Oh I don't know how well an arc is going anyway. I don't see anything there doing it when I'm not looking. There are hiding out there have any cats or anything that might be I don't think cats eat organs either. OK very much yeah. Not on their own possibility but not incredibly likely either. And thank you for the call. We have time for and lots lots more people are having insect questions they can call us 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 toll free 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5 people are starved for insect infestation I

guess. I can't think of a time in the past when we've done the show at this time that we've suddenly had all these people having in seclusion. I wish you guys could see how or how able e David can step in and generate conversation and avoid and for long. Well that's kind of the thing about this show is that if no one calls I talk with a guest and so you just you're like have guests that that have lots of stuff. Well insects are small talk Aren't they can be there's some pretty big ones that you know you think wow the whole bunch of callers here I promise we will talk about the festival. We really well but in the meantime let's talk next with a caller Ian. Let's see I think next would be champagne. And that's line number two. Well I think the film festival where you are. But anyhow here's my question. Most

of us a look at a photo or fly collection. And so I have a special place in my heart. Her brother flies. Yeah the way I want to hear the speaker comment on that and the question I think is you know. Save the Father for us. Live it up and live. OK. It's incredibly timely that you should call and ask and ask me about that because just this morning I got an e-mail from the National Research Council which is the research arm of the National Academy of Sciences it's the basically group of scientists that advise the government on policy and there is about to be there's a new study that's about to start to determine whether in fact there is a pollinator crisis going on in our country whether those insects like butterflies that are important to pollinating plants are in fact disappearing and there's been a lot of speculation on that point.

There aren't that many plants that rely on only one or two species of insects but they tend plants tend to rely on sort of generally related groups of insects so they're sort of plants that are butterfly pollinated you can tell because they tend to be sort of red and they tend to flower in the daytime and they tend to have platform type inflorescence as their flower structures that butterflies can land on and there are moth pollinated flowers that are whitish and have a much heavier odor and that hang down so that butterflies can I mean the moths can hover and so they're sort of suites of pollinators. And if you don't have the right equipment you can't grab onto those pollen grains and transport them so it's it is a matter of concern if you even if you don't like insects if you like plants. Probably a third of two thirds of all North American plants are insect pollinated and a third of the food we eat is the direct result of insect

pollination So it's not just sort of what's the word. You know for the headed entomologists that are out there you know speaking for the butterflies but really the health of most terrestrial ecosystems depend on that interaction between flowering plants and insects. And there's been a lot of concern because some of the native species of pollinators have hit upon hard times. And often what I'm asked about is the disappearance of the Giants was the last caller mentioned the spectacular brick red heavy body to fuzzy guys that are used to be very common in the Midwest they make these big silken cocoon. They're actually kind of distant relatives to the Japanese silk month from which we get silk fiber. But their numbers have been documented the Klein all across the country at least one contributing factor it turns out that there's some rogue biological control agents that were introduced at the beginning of the last century to control

gypsy moth that hammer these guys in the northeast that you know so they're sort of the what's the I guess friendly fire or collateral damage I guess from the fight against. You know these invasive. Lepidoptera invents undesirable moths. But yeah there's a lot of concern about the general health and well-being of all kinds of butterflies here in Illinois which is sort of not a hotbed of biodiversity by any means we have at least 100 species of butterflies and probably 400 species of moths. So even even here in central Illinois where it's a lot of corn and soybeans you can imagine how frustrating it would be if you happen to be a butterfly who likes Lupin's you know the long way between Lupin's. So that's an incredibly timely question. If I know that if you for people who like butterflies and would like to see them in their yard there are particular kinds of plants that you can plant that will attract them and I'm sure it's

it's easy. You can go to the Internet you go to library you can go to garden centers and you can get lists and suggestions for particular plants that you can plant that are good for butterflies. Other than that if you if you said well I would like to make my yard a hospitable place for butterflies would be anything in particular that you could do. Oh absolutely. You can even construct a butterfly garden to attract particular species and the key to that of course is finding What the caterpillar host plants are. And again I don't know why I'm so literary that they are but the scent Exupery wrote in look at the plants in the little prince and I'm not going to try this in French but to have butterflies you have to put up with caterpillars. There's a wonderful line in that book. And so if you plant for example spice bush that is the premier host for the Achille o Troilus which is the spice bush butterfly. So you have spice bush in your and if you plant pipeline to Loki you can attract here in Champaign County you can track

the pipeline swallowtail. In terms of nectar plants this wild tales in general tend to like purple inflorescence is purple flowers thistles and the like. The Clovers are very popular and there's a plant called Bud Lee our butterfly bush which is favored by many butterflies to monarchs of course like butterfly we just would be a species of I think it's two Rossa. So yeah and you're right the Internet is full of helpful information I mean there are some sites that are you know you should probably think twice about but just about any University Extension Office will have at least a page or two about constructing a butterfly garden and so a wonderful. Activity it's kind of endlessly entertaining. Cheaper than cable and fewer reruns I guess I don't know. It's a yeah I recommend it highly.

Very good. Let's talk with someone next in in the you know 1 4 0 0 0. Well it's been a year I joined as Xerxes. Oh OK. And your books are cheap and are not cheap. I mean I would go on the Internet to look up and it's wits and everything there is or keep or move and I thought I might get away with two or three dollars but that's not true. Well actually I think if you go I don't know if I should promote this or not but Amazon you can buy used books. Yeah I don't know. Yeah OK roll that out. OK somebody else is like me. So I wanted to let you know about Xerxes side. Well actually I'm on the board of directors you are not. I'm so glad that I don't this is a society that doesn't get a lot of press. It's the Society for the preservation of endangered invertebrates. And if you think you know people out there think it's hard to convince the public about the values the value of preserving noble charismatic animals like bald eagles in Florida

Panthers try convincing people about the importance of preserving blind beetles. These are the least charismatic. So it's great that there is support out there. You know I just want to say you know the photography is really excellent. It's phenomenal. It's having national geographic level easily. And what the caller is referring to is the publication comes out from the city called Wings and it really it's I think is just an absolutely delightful publication. You know you know now when I guess when I decided to subscribe to the magazine or the journal or whatever my imagination was way ahead of me as I have even as I get older it keeps getting ahead of me. So I really haven't found what I'm after. And I guess what I'm after is something in between the the real books and they're actually I'm ology journals.

And even though I haven't looked at and Amala the journal and in years I used to do that regularly when I was in school as close to Purdue. But now that that's sort of the stop. But now that I'm retired I want to get back into the insect world that I lived in for many many years as a youngster and was unfortunately pulled out of it. But so I'm looking for something that if doing open exists. Well yeah actually here's two things that might be useful. One is the Lepidoptera society I mean if you're interested mostly in Red Lobster you know that's not a I think it's I don't maybe 25 or 35 dollars to join and they have two publications. OK one is a newsletter which is you know it has nice color pictures and and popular articles about new records of butterflies and mobs and then a more scholarly journal which isn't unapproachable it's not like they're you know there are.

Papers on the molecular biology you know that you know that's me flying too. I mean I'm educated and I know about these things. But trying to find what I was particularly after maybe you know I may be the only person that West wants it so. Well let me Dr. society is a good way I'll try that. The other one which is harder which is more expensive and I'm not sure you need all the benefits of membership but the Entomological Society of America. OK publishes a wonderful very partial but it's magazine is called the American entomologist. And it it is great it's kind of like People magazine for entomologists. OK. And you know so if there's any sort of six legged star that's making news they have very informative articles very approachable great photos. And it's I believe back issues are available online for free so I get on the net and I believe so I think.

But I do actually have a question. Oh yes sure. Anecdotally you know it's really up. That's me sometimes when people say well we're pretty certain that we don't have the really good statistics you know. You know I know the butterflies are gone you know I sit out my backyard you know at times from early morning early you know evening and just look what flies through and just over the last 10 years a lot less is flying through you know. And and since I'd sort of look upon that as a base station that things have gotten worse in the last 10 years. You know you see you normally see some of the common butterflies but the ones you used to see every once in a while they don't even they don't come through anymore. And unfortunately the common ones tend to be introduced from Europe like the cabbage white butterflies so our native species have taken probably a disproportionate hit. You know let me ask you the question something it's bothered me ever since I was a young little boy running through the weeds in the Midwest is the energy

input and energy put in terms of does for example like waving in the wind. I sometimes look at that and I say how in the hell do they laugh. I can do all that stuff like 60 feet up here sometimes and do all the sort you know to a human doing would to require a lot of energy so I just think there must be a lot in PA. And it must be so. And you know I attempted You know I fast found out I had to get into you know particular journals which I couldn't get access to but I often wonder about the energy system in the insects whatever you know I like beetles to I guess butterflies for a first cause you see I'm the next was staghorn beetles I think as a youngster six years old crawling across the sidewalks in my hometown and that that's long gone too. You know but I was wondering if you could give a little you know thing. I don't know how to go at it because you know it be a very small mouth thing with takin but I just wonder how in the hell do they do it.

Well that's a question that's fascinated in a lot of people interested in biomechanics because you know you look at a butterfly it looks like a frail delicate creature and yet while monarchs for example can fly a thousand miles or more one individual and they can you know. Reach impressive speeds and fly as you say great heights. And some of it is physiology some of it is bio chemistry. Some of it is just pure mechanics. One of the more impressive feats of involving flapping flight is there is sort of an us to city that's built into the external skeleton of some insects. That kind of allows the wings to spring back there are others like midges that can beat their wings. Hundreds of times a second where there's a special kind of musculature that that sort of responds with multiple contractions after only a single neural neural

stimulation. And that's what when they visit those flowers they're actually refuelling. It's you know they have their own energy crisis I guess where they have to keep calories in for calories out. So it's it is not a simple matter and they're just about everything that is engineered on an insect is engine engineered for sort of energetic economy. So it's it's there's a vast literature on how they manage what they do and we humans can't really reproduce that. Well we'll be past the midpoint here we have some other callers will get in a moment I should introduce Again our guest Mae Barenboim. She is the head of the department of entomology at the U of I. And is here in the program we talk about insects give people chance to call and ask questions. She's the author of a number of books that are aimed at the general reader. You might look for them including bugs in the system insects and their impact on human affairs. She has one that's titled buzz words a scientist muses on sex bugs and rock n roll and that's one a lot of those actually were

pieces that you wrote for the American entomologist. And then there are the other books the two that are both you buy Press books that we have mentioned. Ninety nine that's nits and nibblers and 99 more maggots mites and munchers. And they are available used for the low low price of four five that's on Amazon so if you want to buy it that way otherwise you can head down to the bookstore and look for them and those books are good for four children who are older older kids well if they're But if they're if they're interested in insects if you have a child. What I don't know 12 14 16 maybe who is who thinks bugs are pretty cool. This would be a good thing for them to introduce them to the subject maybe get them more excited and then they can go from that and you know who knows where an interest like that. What lead you. Well perhaps this weekend to fall under. Yes as a matter of fact. This is why we had to come over here to do the show and we have callers and I promise folks will get.

We will get to you in just a second here but now we're at the mid break Yeah I do want to have you talk a little bit about the festival that's been going on now for more than 20 years on the campus and it's coming up this weekend. This forensic entomology that's the theme. Right. Well forensic entomology is simply the use of insects and insect evidence to solve crimes in the most spectacular manifestation of forensic entomology in the one that people are now most familiar with is the use of maggots to estimate estimate post-mortem interval the time since death. And that has gotten a lot of publicity it's kind of a niche field within entomology but all across the country police and detectives are finding that insect evidence is really invaluable in the absence of other types of evidence at identifying whether bodies have been moved or transported or treated in various different ways wrapt buried immersed in water in the light because the insect identity and insect development is these are

so definitive that you can track back and sort of follow the history of it. Body a person once he or she is is dead. To find out where we are here she has been or has gone and we have a number of shows that depict this films that depict this in both the realistic and unrealistic way we have. We'll be showing an episode of CSI sex lies and larvae which features Gil Grissom the main detective who was actually an entomologist by training according to the story. And that's the use of maggots to solve a crime. We have another show a movie called The phenomenon with diary O gentle film from Italy which is not quite so realistic this is where the entomologist recruits a young female student played by General General Jennifer Connelly who is telepathic and communicate can communicate with insects and he'd like her to talk to the maggots to figure out

whether a crime has been committed and how it's been done. And will you have the usual sort of activities from six to seven. Will have a thematic Lee related activity such as a maggot petting zoo. You get to pick various species of maggots and get acquainted with the different species in the different forensic evidence they provide. And we also have some Burying beetles really charming element of the corpse. The carrion fauna and some guess the postmortem interval type games and in general should be a good time fall under open the public start Doors open at 6. Lots of fun and maybe can learn to do that. This coming weekend and you get you get the attention of our director Henry Frayne when he heard Jennifer Connelly mention so that that could be a selling point right there. If you know as some people might show up for William Peterson but then again some people want you over Jennifer Connelly. You think you could pick something more interesting to communicate with telepathically than the maggot a

maggot. Well you never know they they they get around. OK. This weekend at the fuller auditorium on the U of I campus doors opened six film started seven. It's free and it's a good family deal. So you might want to check it out. OK. No we have some callers and we better get back to them and we'll go next to someone on line 3 and I believe that would be a caller in pain. Here I know you were thinking. About cricket this morning and thinking there are varying degrees of spring and warmer weather. If you would care to discuss some. I was interested in when they might start chirping in central Illinois and how they reproduce and what happens to him in the winter. Thank you thank you. Well there's a lot of different answers to that question because there are a lot of different kinds of crickets and in fact there's a key to domesticus which is the house cricket

which isn't particularly tied to seasons and that's in fact some people even regard it as a somewhat pestiferous kind of cricket It's lives indoors and is pretty much I guess a season free they're the shortest. Shiny black creatures they they enter houses they're sometimes regarded as pests although there's an 1033 legal decision Ben-Hur holding company vs.. I can't prove the defendant was where Tenet withheld rent claiming that the infestation of crickets made his home uninhabitable the judge actually reviewed ruled that cricket's the cricket is a pleasant little fellow and an indefatigable musician par excellence. So legally then crickets are good roommates although if you have to listen to the chirp all the time I mean be so welcomed by the other. The outdoor crickets really tend to be later in the season than

they have among the earliest ones to come out. At least here in central Illinois we have the tree crickets tend to be again summer more than spring when they when you tend to hear their stridulation the sounds they make. But again there's a many different species of crickets and katydids in fact which are our late spring our true crickets are in the group of of north after a straight winged insects that are considered crickets. But there's field crickets there's tree crickets there's all kinds there's a wonderful website if you're interested in crickets that's run by the University of Florida. That's called singing insects of North America s i n a. And on this website you can actually click and hear music files download music files of all the different crickets in the you know in your geographic region. And that's really interesting because every cricket has a species specific call. The crickets of course use these calls for many purposes but it included among those as to it

males will sing to attract females females can't sing their will. They don't they don't sing at all they're all one quiet male smale there's a singers. And at this website you can just download these files and come to you know a little contrast and compared what you hear outdoors. Did you have any specific role the caller the caller hung up so I'm hoping that's a good that's good overview good cricket over there. Oh well let's go to the next and that would be in Abana one number one. Hello. MARTIN Yeah I remember you had a weekly show years ago four years ago on West amazing insects and I was wondering has anyone else ever picked up on that theme or are there other places one can go to get a oh insect commentary on a weekly basis maybe now on the web or. Well I you know I gave up but that's what actually led to the 99 books I

gave up on that show on the air shifters changed I showed up for my usual 10:30 those amazing insects Any looked at me like I was doing. So I just went to pen and paper rather than on the air I don't know maybe it is so I don't know weekly. There's some people who write columns for magazines on specific insects there's a fellow Mark Winston writes a regular column on bees and bee keeping but didn't general and say I don't know. Maybe something that meanwhile might be interested in. Yeah I think so maybe you have a graduate student. Next get up early on Saturday morning we have a great show I thought it was a lot of fun. Well thank you so much. That was nice of you find you never know on radio. If there's anyone out there except for a show like this where people call in. But so you just it's nice to know there was somebody out there I always thought 10:30 Saturday morning

most people are probably doing their vacuuming you know. But thank you thank you thank you for it. Let's go over to Indiana. Lie number four. Toll free line. Hello good morning. I picked it kindly. Probably an inappropriate question I was going to ask. Controlled and there well that's not really what we do when when me is here. OK I can relate amusing and please yes. OK I had a hummingbird feeder on my front porch it's all open and for some reason IMing birds were going close but you know they weren't feeding and so curiosity got the best of me and I walked up to it and there was a big praying mantis large well praying mantis in some part of the world can take down a hummingbird. They can actually catch him picking up and going in the bush and he came back and I think you know again he was angry but then

I took it around the house and everything was alright. Yeah that's that's good they they will also tend to hang out and Tamala just like to catch bugs by putting out a white sheet and turning a light on it because many many insects will hang out be attracted to light. Well mountains are not per se attracted to light but they're attracted to places where insects are attracted to light. So it's a very great frustration for entomologists who would like to go to their white sheets and collect insects and find that they've all been eaten by the praying mantis. You have many more callers. One more. And I'm sure good Okereke can remember back in the early sixties when I was a kid we went to church one morning and this is out in the country and we pulled up and there is I want to say it's a sassafras tree but is a really big tree like 40 50 feet tall. It was literally covered with monarch butterflies. Oh yes there had to be millions of things there. But yeah that's when they do their migratory flight. They tend to have these stopping places you

know takes them as you might imagine several weeks to fly a thousand miles and all along the route in fact year after year they will tend to roost in the same backyards in the same trees. No one is exactly sure what makes a roost site attractive to them but they're very faithful to them and it's just breathtaking here on campus. A line I Grove is one of the stopping places and one year there are about 20000 monarchs resting it and there are three TV crews came out to take footage so very impressive breathtaking sight. Well in my mistake in our I thought took like three generations of monarchs to fly from. Say the Midwest to Mexico. I just want to know well what happens is the the overwintering monarchs will fly to the southeastern US. The ones from Mexico the south in the southeast they'll raise a generation so the butterflies that emerge from the caterpillars that grew up say in Georgia. Well then fly here or parts north and have another

generation so these caterpillars were here in July and August will grow up and turn into butterflies that then turn around and go back. M.A. It is incredible I can't even. In fact I can't even drive to Decatur without getting lost and Fry's can find the same mountain tops in Mexico some without a map. Thank RICE No Mapquest necessary. No see I'm curious about the bout the medics at the hummingbird feeder. Is it there because of the stuff that you put there for the hummingbirds or does it really is it really their wanting to eat a hummingbird. Probably not a hummingbird but lots of other insects all come to nectar they're right so they're very opportunistic. That would make sense I would I would think that mentors would really think OK. Think big hummingbird I'm going to get this one. OK let's go to the next caller this is champagne wine to hello. Yes this is a quick question. I probably have. Our answer. Ah well that's actually an interesting question it's hard to say

ah priori because they don't have eyelids. So how do you know when they're asleep. But they definitely do have distinct patterns of these circulating in rhythm. So a daily pattern of activity and quiescence. And it's different for every species and some in some cases it's sort of they're synchronized by light signals in other cases it just runs on its own and it's been the subject of considerable investigation. There's a in fact a gene that seems to be sort of a clock gene in many insects. It's called purr for a period and that helps determine the genetic composition at that particular site. Deterrence helps set that clock for the periodic activity. Again no eyelids they don't close their eyes they don't snore. So it's kind of hard to say but if you do monitor activity standing very still.

Early morning when he leaves and we have had a few minutes here and there in the kitchen he said they looked like they were asleep. Well if it's a little chilly in the kitchen they may just be trying to warm up because the insects of course are where they're called Lutherans are not they they're cold blooded so their activity level reflects the external temperature so sometimes they're a little slow because they're in sort of a cold induced stupor but they could have been catching 40 winks or however many thanks there are insects but it's not you know it's a good question. OK thank you. All right thank you too. Champagne line number one. Hello. Oh I just wanted to let your listeners know that name a variable on one extremely prestigious award Ecological Society of America meeting just last August. The robber a MacArthur Award which is given to a relatively young intelligence to excelling in their field

is one with them and I wonder if you could comment on the value of planting native versus non-native and particularly from the perspective that natives tend to have higher insects close to non-native despoiling Champaign-Urbana will have lots of migratory birds to feed on and stocks that feed on plants and you know the natives have somebody. Sex on one person on it is that it's a good thing. But someone is going to spawn I'm not sure i'm so once I get over being embarrassed here. Thank you very very kind of you know store Internet. Yeah I'm I'm all for increasing value on our natural heritage. It's really kind of baffling to me. I can understand why Europeans three hundred years ago when they first moved here were nostalgic for their you know their homeland and wanted to surround themselves with

plants that were familiar to them and insects that were familiar to them. But in doing so they really did a number on the local flora and fauna and the advantage of appreciating the local flora and fauna is that this is you know where they are. They're made for this. This part of the world there this is where they thrive this is. This. Well for example I have always been keen on on not planting grass. I don't understand Kentucky Tucky bluegrass to save my life. Looks like to me it's just like a sterile moonscape or something. And so I let my yard which is outside city limits go go natural which meant it grew up in golden Ronson solid a go which is an native field. Remember the sort of her base is community here

and I don't think my neighbors approve very much but when we had that drought of one thousand eighty eight my yard was the only green one and you know for a mile and it's because these plants are deep rooted they're perennials and they're used to this they're you know they're made for the Midwest. So here we are we may as well celebrate what we've got. So and also the invasive species not the ones from Europe not universally but often the the fauna they support the those are the insects that are not native either. So it's just all it's kind of there's a whole subset of the insect and plant world that follows in human footsteps. They're just kind of human associates they're found never found far from where humans have created disturbance and that's it. Really kind of an just a tiny little guy little tiny window into the whole splendor of the natural world than

really there's so much more to appreciate than you know so I would encourage people to look beyond the you know sort of the bizarre mutants that the horticultural is create nothing against horticulturist been just kind of look and see the what nature is created right here in the Midwest right to this real ecological reason that you bed I mean it's good for the soil it's good for the animal community it's good for the soul. Thanks a lot thank you. Let's talk again with someone else this is someone listening in Belgium over by Danville. Hello good morning to you. I am not going to ask you how to control this since I don't want to talk about that but I have problems with the security. There's two different types I think I have. Lumber and lumber gets what's called Powder Puff spittle and I'm sure

you know the part opposed to doing that is that the larger your step brother the thing you know and I get it right. Yeah well the powder post beetle larva remains ensconced in the wood for quite a long time and spends all of its development inside the wood and in fact it can grow very slowly and occasionally people will construct things out of infested lumber and be amazed when the holes are created and these things come out come out as adults. Very upsetting when it comes to the table. Yes let me tell you. Absolutely. So yes so I guess the they're called powder post-Beatles because that's what happens they create they will turn solid wood into powder as they as they get a little I don't know spillover of the rat now. Don't miss it. Call around I've never seen one call around. Oh adults are responsible for dispersal so

their wing they can fly and they have and well they're typical of beetles you can't really see the wings because the first pair of wings is hardened and is kind of like a protective KING So what what they truly look like oh they're not much to look at actually even a little tiny brown beetles. Pretty pretty What's the I guess you could call them maybe cylindrical. OK. And maybe less than a quarter of an inch in length there. They're very small. Maybe eight to a quarter inch Yeah and they're so they have kind of like a head to head that sort of tucks the chin in and I know that they're very very difficult to control once you get it in a pile of lumber. Oh yeah you got a problem. Absolutely. Got a problem and they get to those pile of numbers in the adult stage so that you know the fly over and that's their dispersal stage. Yeah exactly. Now there's also one that is when the wood is where

you know you know what that is you know. I don't want it to work but just do some of the powder post-procedure. It's not dry enough for me yet. Well there are so many different kinds of beetles that live in Deadwood it's hard to say. Do you have a description. Sometimes I get some during the wet lumber from some of the dried up. Well it could be opportunistic powder post beetles waiting for wood to dry out but there are many many different wood boring beetles and actually a couple of different families that are like their lumber more or less wet or dry there's for example longhorn beetles that will often infest dead dead wood all of them are kind of problematical for people who want to use this dead wood for other reasons. You know I would have to jump in here in OK sorry. Maybe this is something that when Phil is here it will have him here in a couple months we can we can take up with him because he's really the control guy. Maybe he'd have some more

insight into the issue and then he's we've got to stop because we've used the time this weekend it's the film takes your film festival at foaling or on Saturday. Doors open six film started seven it's free. Thanks very much. Oh always a pleasure. Maybe she's head of the Department of Entomology here do you buy.