Insects as most of us know come in a vast array of forms. Still one can be truly amazed at what they come upon. Patty was recently working on the SugarTyme crabapples along the drive in front of Newfield when she came across a pair of odd creatures – wheel bugs, Arilus cristata.

They are related to assassin bugs and as that name implies I guess, they eat other insects. The old “inject you with toxins that dissolve your soft tissue then I suck you dry” routine. More or less. Wikipedia has a bit on them here. Here you will find lots of info on assassin and ambush bugs at UK. Read the rest of this entry »

Filed under: Horticulture

Maybe it’s the environment, but around here I’m always obsessing about the littlest things. The other day I devoted eight hours to looking at and learning more about some insects and pests. Needless to say the presence of these things at a museum can lead to big problems for art.

I visited the locally-owned, but world-renown, Insects Limited headquarters to take part in a one-day workshop on museum pest management. Sure I learned about pests in graduate school, but it’s been a while since I studied a bug under a microscope. And to top it off, I had my picture taken by Crista Pack of recent NYT fame.

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Filed under: Conservation