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So this past weekend I was out of town at a conference in Northern CA, so I paid my brother to take care of my bugs while I was gone.  Really, all he had to do was mist and feed my mantids as everything else I have would do just fine for the amont of time i was away.  Well, when I returned the other day everything was alive, but I seem to have aquired some new pets, several thousand of them!  Well, I have a 20L that I have my Hissers and Turkistan roaches in, and now I have a nice colony of Argentine ants building a nest in there!  None of the roaches have been hurt yet, although if some of the Turks have dissapeared I wouldnt know cause there are so many of them.  I was contemplating taking the hissers out and leaving the Turks and antls to co-habitate, but today I saw the anlts carrying eggs and larva, and the thought of having a complete colony of those in my room doesnt sit well with me, since eventually they might discover some of my other bugs, like mantid nymphs, and then i would be royaly P!$$ed off!  So, how would I get rid of these guys and keep them gone? I wil be cleaning tlhe cage out tomorro and ridding the tank of them, I dont want to use pesticides in my room of course, butl are there other ways to keep them away?

Tags: Pest Ants Roach Hissing Madagascar Turkistan

   So I got some Spiny Flower Mantid nymphs from KenTheBugGuy at the sfbats meeting and they are awesome!  They are beautiful, active, and freaken voracious!  The largest one, L3?, started getting B. lateralis nymphs tonight.  I selected 5 fairly small ones and put them in the big guys container.  Well, it seems he/she was very hungry since it climbed down to the ground and snatched one up right away and proceedd to chew off its head.  Evidently not satisfied with just one roach, it transfers the one it has already to one claw, and almost negligently reaches out with its now roachless claw and snags another one!  This one is a little bit bigger and is struggling a bit, so it stops feeding on the one it has already partly eaten just long enough to eat the strugglers head and then goes back to its previous meal! Now finished with unlucky roach #1 it starts chowing down on unlucky roach #2.  Realizing that it now has a free claw, it proceeds to again snag yet anotlher unlucky roach, bite off its head and go back to roach # 2.  This proceeds until there is now one cowering roach left huddled in tlhe corner.  The mantids appetite seems sated for now, but for how long?  Next time I'll be armed with a camera

Tags: Mantid Spiny Flower Roach Eating

 Nature Deficit Disorder (NDD) is the term that describes a growing problem in todays youth.  It was a phrase first used by Richard Louv in his book "Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder."  In his book he highlights the growing trend of the young to be locked up indoors playing video games and generally not going outside to explore and be exposed to wonderful world that we live in.  Some of us I'm sure cannot relate to that perspective, while many of us can, as we became interested in the natural world (especially inverts  ) later on in our lives. 

        In my work, I lead schoolgroups from many different places on guided walks through my park.  It never ceases to amaze me that with some groups that live no more than 20-30 minutes away from wilderness, many of the children have never been in the woods before.  There idea of wilderness is the city park, with swing-sets and carefully manacured grass and man-made creeks with "blue" chemicalized water so that nothing will grow in them.  This is fairly alarming considering that these children (please forgive the cliche) are our future.  The ones who will be voting on whether or not to save our environment (and bugs) for future generations to enjoy.

       Well, I have come up with a partial solution; subvert the children

       I came up with this idea yesterday.  My extended family had gathered at my house for Thanksgiving and this year we had quite a few young ones in attendance.  My brilliant family decided that since I worked with kids on a regular basis I wouldnt mind "keeping an eye on" the 8 kids that were running around the house screaming as loud as they could.  Well, I wasnt too happy about that but decided to make the best of it since it WAS Thankgiving after all.  So i gathered them all up and took them to my room to show them the only things that might keep their attention for the couple of hours that I had to keep them entertained;  The Bugs.  The transformation was amazing.  These are mostly kids that play video games all day and you would think wouldnt want to have anything to do with "creepy crawlies" but as soon as I showed them my Black Widow and started talking about it's life history I had them hooked.  I ended up going through all of my pets this way and by the end they even submitted to my quizzing them, and even got some of the answers right! (I'm an educator, of course I have to quiz them)

       Not only were they entertained for over two hours, but I believe I got that spark nestled in some of their heads.  They may not be able to remember the life history of a Black Widow or a Wood Scorpion but now maybe they will realize that they are not just "icky bugs" to be stepped on and not cared about.  By teaching these children and showing (and showing OFF ) our collectlions maybe we can put the spark in their minds that will ignite into a flame that will help sustain the environment (and yes, our bugs) into the future.

A funny side note.  My 7 year old cousin, a self proclaimed "princess"  decided that we needed to have a "bug" (and rat) fashion show for the family.  So I passed out some Sticks, let one of them hold the CRITTER KEEPER with the Black Widowand finaly, let my cousin the princess hold my Chilean Rose Hair because it matched her dress.  Some tense moments, but overall a success.  In fact, all my cousins  that are ald enough are going to get a Stick Insect (complete with critter keeper!) for x-mas  That will teach my aunts and uncles to abandon me with the kids when they dont want to deal with them.  Oh, and maybe teach the kids a little about the natural world and how to take care of a living animal and watch it grow and all that kind of junk