Mike Raupp spoke to a room quite filled with gardeners at Oregon Ridge Nature Center Monday January 18. He is a great speaker and if you ever have a chance to hear him - make the time. He quizzed us a lot about insects in general.
His web site is http://www.bugoftheweek.com/
BUGS RULE:
So Many
So old - silver fish are 350 mill years old
So like us - we share 80% of our genes with them and 50% of our genes with bananas.
I loved the picture of the Hummingbird moths who like trumpet shaped flowers. Do any of you see them up here? His video of them really looked like a bird!!
I loved the picture of tiger beetles - may/June - metallic green. They jump up and look at you to see if you have aphids on you. Again, any one seen these?
His statement that Manna from Heaven was the secretion of scale insects sent me googling and I found this: (Exodus 16:31), it is either the sweet dried sap of a Mediterranean ash tree Fraxinus ornus, the lichen Lecanora esculenta (which is still sometimes made into bread), the lumpy sap from certain kinds of legumes native to Egypt and Syria, or the result of a scale insect (Coccus manniparus) puncturing the bark of a tamarisk tree (Tamarix mannifera), which causes the tree to drip sweet sap which falls on the ground and hardens. All of them are edible and can keep you alive in a desert wilderness for a while, but they aren't what this movie is about.
And spelled with one "n", it is a Polynesian word referring to the spiritual force that accumulates in precious or powerful objects, people, or places.
Back to Mike who says bugs are high protein. About 5 people shared about eating bugs, then he reminded us that catsup legally has bugs in it, which reminded me that chocolate also legally have a few percentage of bugs in them. Yummy.
In the time of the tree ferns the insects were huge (4 ft wing spans) because of the large amounts of oxygen put out by the huge plants.
Pollinators are the most diverse of all insect species because they co-evolved with flowering plants which are very diverse because they co-evolved with the insects because........
Bees are the only insects whose babies eat pollen.
Great pictures, many of them small videos.
Milkweed - monarch
Tulip poplar - tiger caterpillar
Paw Paw - zebra - Does anyone have paw paw trees here? I really do want to try that fruit.
Spice Bush - spice bush butterfly.
A healthy landscape has multiple different plants so different stages of insect can stay in your yard. Just azaleas, pine and grass is not good. Need food for good and bad bugs like multiple stories, and different types of plants.
Ladybug eats 3,000 aphids/year and lives 3 years and each of her baby as larvae eat 1,000.
I fyou are wondering about spraying for aphids when you see them - wait a few days. You may see "aphid mummies" that are dead shells. If there are at least 10% mummies, you do not need to spray - your predator insects are doing their job.
Leave wood piles so insects can overwinter (another example of my laziness being good for wildlife - which also helped me get my Bay Wise Certification).
No predators for squash bugs.
He said there were dramatically fewer Japanese beetles the last 2 years - too few to study. I told him to come to my house. As they eat, they release a hormone that says - "here's great food, come and join me.", so pick them off early.
Signing off,
Christina
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