Science in Action and February Finds

   This past weekend was the first weekend in a while where there wasn't a museum related activity for members of our department, which was honestly a welcome break for us to spend time with our families and return to our non-bug-research related lives for a bit. However, the weekend before we had Science in Action and ID Day at the Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History on Sunday from 1-5pm. This event allows all of the departments in our museum to talk about their collections, research, and other activities while also having the curators there to help identify objects or specimens collected by Oklahomans. The most popular departments to visit during ID day are the Archaeology and Paleontology departments, since many people bring objects they believe to be fossils or arrowheads to have our experts look at. Other departments, such as ours or the other "recent" natural history departments (Ornithology, Herpetology, Mammalogy, etc.), usually get a few objects to identify but not a whole lot in comparison.
      Last year we had a lot of visitors with commercially purchased shells (such as shells bought for hermit crabs, shells you can buy while you're at the beach...etc.) that they wanted identified. Since neither myself or Laura is a malacologist (someone who studies mollusks), we did the best we could identifying what they had. We got to the mollusk family in most cases, but because a lot of the shells are exotic shells (from China, South East Asia), its even more of a challenge to figure out what they are because we only have guides to North America.

A selection of shells found at pet-stores for hermit crabs. Many are not what you'd normally find "as is" here in North America, making identification for us challenging!

    This year we had no shells (yay!), but only two arthropods. One was a small, dead jumping spider (Phidippus sp.) that was somewhat convenient because of our focus on spiders and jumping spiders in particular for our shows, and the other insect was a dead green lacewing (Chrysopus sp.). Both animals are out and about in late February probably because of the unseasonably warm weather out for a few days, and unfortunately also got hit with the cold temps again as Oklahoma see-saws its way through Spring and froze.
    Green Lacewings are able to survive in colder temperatures that most other insects can't tolerate here in North America, and are effective predators for other insects that are bad for crops, such as aphids. This is why they are commonly used for integrative pest management in many gardens and crops: they can be around longer than other insects to control pest insects in different growing seasons (spring, summer, fall, winter), and they are fairly easy to work with. If you are around lights during the night in spring and fall Green Lacewings are usually the first and last insects you'll see around, including here in Oklahoma.

Life cycle of Green Lacewings. From U.C. Davis IMP website (http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/NE/green_lacewing.html)

     I wonder what next year's event will bring! Please no shells, though!