Curtis Young - Basic Entomology for Master Gardeners

Whew! I took over 11 pages of notes on Monday night! Dr. Young was a great lecturer - we were so fascinated he could have run over his time and most of us would have stayed longer just to hear more about "bugs" that aren't really insects, like spiders or slugs.

He shared an entomologist joke with us - "All bugs are insects, but not all insects are bugs" - I think he was referring to "true" bugs.

Trivia about insects:
- Fossil records show 300 million years of bug life
- In any given day, 10 quintillion (that's 10,000,000,000,000,000) insects are alive
- 20 per cent of all crops grown are eaten by insects
- Approximately 1 in 6 people alive are currently affected by an insect-vectored disease

He assured us that, although it is possible to use dichotomous keys to positively identify insects, as master gardeners it is perfectly OK to make an educated guess about what family of insects a particular specimen may belong to and then go look at pictures to further identify it.

He went over the various pieces of insect anatomy - including the functions of the head pieces, thorax, and abdoment parts, and gave us much detailed information on each. Then we identified various common insects by looking at close-ups of their eyes. Fascinating! Deer flies have striped eyes!

Another interesting fact - if you are looking at an insect and it has wings, you can be SURE it is an adult. Most insect adults have two pairs of wings, except for those without any wings at all, like fleas, and the true flies - who only have one set. Immature insects are often wingless or have only embryonic wings.