Ask any participant in the 4-H entomology project why they collect bugs, and they’ll all say: it’s fun.
Somehow, there’s nothing like a giant dobson fly with its angry-looking pincers or a saucer-sized cecropia moth to get a child excited.
“They’re interesting and I can tell my friends what they are so they’re not scared of them,” Klair Vogel said of the bugs in her collection.
And, they’re convenient.
“We can’t do cattle and stuff because we don’t live on a farm,” Tyler Holloway said. Bugs, obviously, require less space.
Entomology project classes are determined by a 4-H’er’s age and level of experience. The number of specimens that need to be collected varies with each class.
Participants must identify the insects, mount them according to standards and record the location and month of collection.
That’s not as easy as it sounds, if bugs are collected year round.
“My freezer is always full of bugs,” said 4-H mom Laura Vogel.
Wade Vogel relayed how one giant moth the family collected was ruined because his son was a little eager in taking the ice cream out. Veteran collectors Ethan and Tyler Holloway avoid such mishaps.
“We don’t have food in the freezer where we keep our bugs,” Tyler said. Still, that doesn’t help them remember when or where they caught them, Tyler said. Or prevent other mishaps.
“The biggest bug we got, we broke it when we were trying to mount it,” Tyler said. “It was a polyphemus moth — it was probably eight inches long.”
Each budding scientist has a favorite bug.
For Ethan Holloway, it’s a giant stag beetle he found at church camp in Ottawa. For Tyler, it’s the strikingly handsome olive and black pandorus sphinx moth. Tyler spent a year searching until he found — and collected — one.
Klair’s favorite is her cecropia moth, or maybe the cicada she caught by hand. Isaac Heskett has a dobson fly.
Most of the kids collect specimens around their homes or on family trips. The Holloways got their walking sticks from their garage wall. The Vogels chase insets in their yard.
“Everything we do is a family project,” Wade said. Proving the point, Klair’s sister Shannon grabs their collecting jar and heads to the field, while Klair waves a long butterfly net after a large blue dragonfly. Wade helps secure the captured insects.
Shannon’s catch, a giant wasp called a cicada killer, can give quite a sting, Wade says, quickly capping the jar.
Mom Laura types up the labels for the collection, she said.
Each family has a preferred method to kill their catch. The Vogels freeze their prey. The Holloways use an alcohol-filled “killing jar.”
Big bugs seem preferred over small.
“You start getting little bitty bugs you have to identify them with a magnifying glass,” Wade said.
This year, only the common name, rather than the Latin name for specimens, is required for the fair displays.
“I think we should stick to the scientific name,” Tyler said. “It’s not that hard to find,” he said.
The kids all use the bug bible, “Insects in Kansas” put out by Kansas Dept. of Agriculture. They also use the Internet. And, they network.
“We’ve been at it a few years and we talk with people,” Ethan said.
The young scientists learn a lot in researching their catches, too.
The Vogels have been researching habitats, to make a natural looking display to teach people where to find certain insects.
Ethan learned that female luna moths are translucent, while males are opaque.
And Tyler has an eyed click beetle.
“The eyes are to scare people off so they don’t eat them because they’re kind of a delicacy,” he said. “It’s one of my favorite bugs,” he added.
Tyler said the idea if eating bugs isn’t so weird.
“We ate popcorn flavored beetles at the San Diego zoo last year,” he said.
“They tasted really good.”
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