Enthusiasm is Catching, Entomology Edition

This past week I went to a meeting of the New York Entomological Society at the American Museum of Natural History.

Before the lecture I was actually reading a book about entomology, which I posted about a few weeks ago, and I just read that beetles and caterpillars will drop out of the trees if they sense a predator approaching. Right after reading that, I stepped out of my apartment on the way to the entomology lecture, and I saw a caterpillar on the city sidewalk, vigorously crawling back to it's tree home. The caterpillar was probably using the escape method I just real about. What timing! It's not every day that I read about a concept, go outside and see it demonstrated for me. Since the caterpillar was in danger of being stepped on, I rescued it and put it back on the tree.

Rescuing the caterpillar.

The entomology event was fun, and the talk was easy to follow for a lay-person like me. Louis Sorkin, who I've also mentioned before in another post, started off the evening by talking about insects as food. He is very enthusiastic about people eating bugs, despite the fact that he himself is allergic to mealworms.

The caterpillar happily crawling up the tree.

Next on the evening's agenda, Richard Falco, Ph.D. talked to us about tick and mosquito activity in the NY area for this summer. He told us not to believe any of his predictions, but there should be medium-high tick activity and medium-low mosquito activity this year. Now we'll have to see if his predictions come true!