so today we have kind of a fun subject they have two grandsons and I want to teach them
to collect bugs in jars and acquaint them with my backyard inhabitants and this is a jar that
I found called recap Explorer bug catcher and it has a flip top on it it fits on mason jars
even the glass mason jars but the jar that comes with it looks like a mason jar but it's
just plastic has this green removable handle and the top already has the holes in it so if you're
like me maybe when you were little you grabbed a Smuckers jar or something and popped a couple
holes in the top or maybe even just put the top on loose but the bugs often just died out from
suffocation it also has replaceable gaskets for the inside of it so this thing's pretty
cool it's plastic it is BPA free so non-toxic and you can see the magnifying lid works pretty
good here now cautionary tale about magnifying lids if you were like me when you were little
when you first discovered magnifying glasses you can use the Sun to start a fire and burn things
so little cautionary tale there it's pretty good the top will actually come off if you want it to
including the magnifying part here's the label on the back so you can just get a good look at
it and the cap glows in the dark too so that's kind of interesting and here it is the way I'm
going to use it and one of the things I want to collect which is probably the most fun in
the summertime is not these Japanese beetles Japanese beetles communicate through pheromone
and they find each other and then like these two are doing they mate and make more Japanese
beetles to eat your plants what we're after is this little Firefly also known as a lightning
bug so you can find them during the day they just cling to branches this one is not eating this leaf
so those holes are from other bugs and here's another curious insect in other words there are
bugs everywhere in kids can have a great time just collecting him in their jar and bringing
him home maybe for you to look at or give them an insect book so they can learn to look up and
classify bugs themselves and here we have some native pollinators little wasps and in the back
you see little sweat bee there and this is on a plant called Queen Anne's lace there's interesting
insects everywhere in your yard if you just look so but today of course we want to get into these
lightning bugs now lightning bugs communicate with flashing light and that's how they're gonna find
mates and what we're showing you here are their bioluminescence and some species of lightning
bugs don't flash at all they're diurnal and they communicate with pheromone but here in
the northeastern United States we're looking at the bugs that communicates your flashing light now
there are mimics within the Firefly species that replicate the flashing lights of other species
of fireflies and it will be an imitation of a female and she will lure the male in who
is flying around trying to find a mate and then when he approaches her she actually eats him so
she imitates the same species but she is not now the fireflies that I'm showing you here actually
do not eat when they are mature they just ingest they can't chew so they get nectar that's why you
see them on plants that yield a lot of nectar along with the other nectar collecting insects
now they're very easy to collect you can actually add tusks see them flying just three or four feet
off the ground and you can walk up and scoop your hand under a flying Firefly and it will
land right on your hand and then you can just flip the top open on your bug jar and toss it
right in there now when they're inside the bug jar they'll try to climb to the top so give it a
little tap down just before you toss in more bugs and before you know it you'll have an entire jar
full of these fantastic fireflies aka lightning bugs now one of the ways we know that these are
the nocturnal species of Firefly is the size of their eyes if you look closely and these are
drinking nectar that I made for them their eyes are enormous and that's so they can see in every
direction at night and find mates with flashing lights now the female will remain stationary and
it's the male that flies around and they flash back and forth and then they join each other
of course on leaves of plants that are tall now in some areas the fireflies are in decline and
that's largely because of broad pesticide use Firefly larvae are also known as glow worms
and they actually feed on snail larvae and slug larvae in the soil so when you're treating for
those insects when you're treating for snails and slugs and broadcasting pesticides into the
soil keep in mind that you're probably also killing off the beneficial species that would
otherwise destroy them and here's my collection of fireflies sitting in my backyard and I'll just
let you watch them a little bit and listen to the environment you can hear frogs on my pond
[Applause]
remember that fireflies this species anyway does not by itself it's a great introduction to the
insect world from kids especially during the summer time we are here in July and the best
time for you to go out and collect the fireflies is just at dusk when you can still see them flying
around and you can just go around and catch them in your hand of course it's the male's
that are flying through the air and you'll find the females on plants and they'll sit
as high up as they can go in the grasses and you'll see them flash from there and you can
just scoop those up with your hand they tend to just drop off of the leaves so you can hold
your jar next to it and tap above the firefly and she'll just wrap that into the jar [Music]
[Music] [Applause]
don't forget to put a damp paper towel on the bottom of your jar that keeps their
bodies moyses or soft body beetles and they definitely don't want to dry out so that's
an added bonus if you put that in there for them and the nectar that you saw me feeding
them earlier on was just 50/50 sugar water try not to keep your bugs more than 24 hours so if
your kids collect them you know on Friday night or whatever make sure they're gonna
release them the following Friday or the following day so that those insects can't
get back to what they're supposed to do I hope you enjoyed this presentation and I
hope you introduce your kids to the fauna of collecting bugs thank you for watching