Bugs in our backyard
Tips for bug collectors:Pick up a field guide, such as the Peterson Field Guide to Insects or Insects of the Pacific Northwest. Field guides often have information on how to build nets and other collecting equipment.
When collecting, make sure to write down where a specimen was found, who collected it, what environment it was in and the name of the species.
If you can’t figure out what a specimen is, try contacting the entomology department at a local university, such as Washington State University or Oregon State University.
The buzzing grew ever louder in the corner of Craig Sondergaard’s Washougal study.
He looked up from a table strewn with microscopes and perhaps 100 pinned and dried samples of bugs found in Clark County.
“That small one,” he said, pointing to the noisy live insect as it circled the ceiling light. “That’s a lesser house fly. Their larvae feed on rotting material, flesh.”
In some cases, he added, their larvae have even been found in human stomachs, which could happen if somebody ate food after a fly lay eggs on it.
Gross? Perhaps.
But considering scientific estimates that there’s a ratio of at least 200 million insects for every man, woman and child on the planet, it doesn’t hurt to know more about these ubiquitous creatures.
Even here in Clark County, there are millions of different insects to investigate — in the forests, rivers, mountains and even in residential backyards. And there’s always room for more budding bug collectors to help learn more about them, Sondergaard said.
Common sightsSondergaard’s insect collection includes about 7,000 dried bees, beetles, flies, moths and other insects, and several hundred larval and soft-bodied specimens preserved in liquid in vials.
He gathered his first bugs as a kid in Tacoma, after he became interested in the honey bees he saw in his family’s backyard.
“They were all around,” Sondergaard said. “My grandmother was a gardener, and I know they could sting, so there was danger involved in collecting them — which was exciting. There are hundreds of different bees just here in the Pacific Northwest — carpenter, mason, leaf cutter.”
He counted out about a dozen more before offering to look the rest up in one of the field guides in his book-lined study.
Bees are especially interesting this year, he said, because our oddly cold and damp summer weather has dampened the creatures’ pollinating abilities.
What Do Wasps Eat - News
“It's parasitic, and will drill into places where wood wasps lay their eggs and deposit its own eggs on top of them. Their larvae eat the wood wasps when they hatch.” Sondergaard has about a thousand more stories of our region's bugs and their habits,
The Peters Township Public Library's Go-Green Club offered a free lecture entitled, “Plant Sex: How The Birds and the Bees Are Responsible for One-Third of the Food You Eat (and What You Can Do to Help Them)” on Thursday. The slideshow and lecture
They even take up residence and eat roughly round holes clear through leaves or most of a leaf, leaving a ragged edge. Snails also do damage, but they're quite small compared to the brown snail that infests California and many of the Southern states.
Many wasps and other insects lay eggs inside their victims, who are then eaten alive from the inside out. Horror movies have nothing on the insect world. A tiny wasp known as the emerald cockroach wasp injects venom into a cockroach's head,
A while agon, these tiny wasps laid eggs on the hornworm, which hatched and entered the hornworm, consuming it from the inside while they grew, just like aliens in a sci-fi movie. They have now emerged and made their cocoons.
What do Wasps Eat
A wasp is a winged insect that has the ability to fly. The word wasp is used to describe any insect that is not a bee or an ant, but is part of the order Hymenoptera. There are over 100,000 species of wasp and many have a venomous sting. Unlike bees wasps do not die after they have stung an insect or animal and actually use their sting as part of their hunting mechanisms. Common characteristics of wasps include two pairs of wings, a stinger (ovipositor) and few or no thickened hairs. Most wasp species build nests to brood their young. Wasps tend to be either solitary or social.
What do Wasps Eat? Wasps eat different things depending on their age. Baby wasps or larvae are parasites and eat other insects. The adults wasps search out the food, paralyze it by stinging it and then bring it back to the nest for the larvae to consume. Some species of wasp lay their eggs inside other insects and spiders so when they hatch they have something to eat. Each pest insect species has at least one species of wasp that prey on it making wasps crucial in natural control of pest insects.
As adults many wasps live solely on nectar and pollen, much like bees. There are certain social wasps that are omnivores and will eat fallen fruit, nectar and other dead insects. Many species of wasp also eat the secretions (saliva especially) of their young as it is sweet and highly nutritious. Some aggressive species of wasp will invade a honey bee hive and steal the honey or drink the blood of the honey bees themselves. Wasps will also eat any sweet substance that they can find such as jams, cakes and other human foods.
What do paper wasps eat? 
RT @: Serious question.. How do bees, flies, wasps etc eat ? What do they eat ? And where do they shit ? Lots of questions as it goes haha..
Serious question.. How do bees, flies, wasps etc eat ? What do they eat ? And where do they shit ? Lots of questions as it goes haha..What Do Wasps Eat - Bookshelf
Bees & Wasps
>r^> A tarantula hawk wasp can catch and paralyze a spider that's What do wasps eat? Most wasps are fierce hunters. They use their stings to kill or ...American book publishing record
979.7 Wasps. 595.798 Watching bison in North America. 599.643097 Watching cobras in Asia. ... 813.6 What to eat. 613.25 What would Jackie do? ...Guide to Nature Study for the Use of Teachers
This, when spread on the edge of their nest and dried, becomes their paper. Wasps were the first paper-makers. T. — What do wasps eat ? (No answer. ...Life in the insect world, or, Conversations upon insects between an aunt and her nieces
What do they want with so many cells, if none of them are used for honey ? rfunt M. They require them for the ... Mary. Aunt Mary, what do wasps eat ? ...Popular science news
Has a spider a neck by which it can be caught, and do wasps eat spiders, as represented in the recent article on the tarantula ? Jabkz 340. ...Day-to-day Walkthroughs Directory
What do wasps eat
some wasps eat stuff that bees eat like pollen and nectar People also think that bees and ... wasps are eaten by spiders or dragonflies. Do wasps eat anything? ...
Wasps - Frequently Asked Questions
Stowaways - invasive inertebrates in natural ecosystems ... What do wasps eat? Wasps eat a wide range of invertebrates including spiders, caterpillars, ants, bees, and flies. ...
Wasp - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
With most species, adult parasitic wasps themselves do not take any nutrients ... one species to another and this is what can give many species a nest of ...
Re: WHAT DO WASPS EAT
Re: WHAT DO WASPS EAT. Area: General Biology. Posted By: Kurt Pickett, Grad student ... As you may have noticed, these wasps have very thin, or constricted abdomens. ...
What animals eat wasps
What eats Wasps. Here are a few creatures that do, the first list being invertebrates: ... From New Scientist "Does Anything Eat Wasps" Note: There are comments associated with ...