jasontang wrote:Hey guys! I was wondering what orders' families people have noticed get tested more often than others. Also, besides using the field guide, what are people doing to efficiently recognize which family in the order a certain insect is? One more thing. How are you formatting your cheat sheets? Thanks!
I have noticed that Dactylopiidae has been on literally every test I've taken (4 tests). Probably because they are weird looking and most kids get confused by them. It was just ID, no actual facts. Also, one of my tests had a lot about grasshoppers and cicadas.
To ID, I would suggest using the tester (http://scioly.org/users/balsa/public/Sc ... index.html) to help with identification. It helps a ton. Practice makes perfect. I have used my cheat sheet a lot to help me learn (see below)
For my notes, one side is dedicated entirely to information about all 100 families. I usually put on defining characteristics, size, human impact, and diet. For the ones that need it, I put info about the larval forms and life cycle.
The other side is for info about 30 families, the same stuff as above. Also it has types of legs, wings, antennae.... and anatomical diagrams.
Agreed except I've never seen Dactylopiidae on any of my tests before(3 tests). They are weird looking but they're the most unusual one out of our entire list because they don't even look like an insect, so I'd say they're the easiest to identify. Once you know what it looks like, of course. I also had a lot of grasshoppers and crickets on mine(they tried to mix up some Gryllacrididae and Gryllotalpidae to confuse us. It wasn't very effective.)
The tester that he linked is the best thing in the world. I use it for at least 10 minutes every single day, and somehow you just get enormous satisfaction out of seeing the green Correct! sign over and over again.
Re: Entomology B/C
Posted: March 13th, 2014, 7:47 am
by SOnerd
ceg7654 wrote:
Agreed except I've never seen Dactylopiidae on any of my tests before(3 tests). They are weird looking but they're the most unusual one out of our entire list because they don't even look like an insect, so I'd say they're the easiest to identify. Once you know what it looks like, of course. I also had a lot of grasshoppers and crickets on mine(they tried to mix up some Gryllacrididae and Gryllotalpidae to confuse us. It wasn't very effective.)
The tester that he linked is the best thing in the world. I use it for at least 10 minutes every single day, and somehow you just get enormous satisfaction out of seeing the green Correct! sign over and over again.
I know!! I love the correct sign
Dactylopiidae is really easy to ID if you know what it looks like, but I guess most people don't.
Oh! I forgot to add on my last post that they had a Sesiidae on my regional test that looked EXACTLY like a Hymenoptera (They asked for the order). It was a scary resemblance. I am pretty sure almost everyone put in Hymenoptera for the order, but I'm not sure. It looked something like this one:
jasontang wrote:Hey guys! I was wondering what orders' families people have noticed get tested more often than others. Also, besides using the field guide, what are people doing to efficiently recognize which family in the order a certain insect is? One more thing. How are you formatting your cheat sheets? Thanks!
To recognize families I use flashcards and I use my cheatsheet. Without our cheatsheet there is no way we could have done as well as we did at regionals.
Our cheatsheet took forever to make. What we did this time is that the front was entirely dedicated to families and the descriptions. The back was more helpful. We put on a lot of info about the orders (metamorphosis, etc.) and a bunch of anatomy. For anatomy we did pictures with descriptions on how it works. We also had a section for entomology terms and definitions, which helped. We filled the rest of the space in with random wikipedia insect facts, such as the 44 ways a bug can eat we didn't use any of them though! All of our words were less than font 5. Do well!
Re: Entomology B/C
Posted: March 13th, 2014, 6:41 pm
by SOnerd
Mortem_Haedo wrote:
jasontang wrote:Hey guys! I was wondering what orders' families people have noticed get tested more often than others. Also, besides using the field guide, what are people doing to efficiently recognize which family in the order a certain insect is? One more thing. How are you formatting your cheat sheets? Thanks!
To recognize families I use flashcards and I use my cheatsheet. Without our cheatsheet there is no way we could have done as well as we did at regionals.
Our cheatsheet took forever to make. What we did this time is that the front was entirely dedicated to families and the descriptions. The back was more helpful. We put on a lot of info about the orders (metamorphosis, etc.) and a bunch of anatomy. For anatomy we did pictures with descriptions on how it works. We also had a section for entomology terms and definitions, which helped. We filled the rest of the space in with random wikipedia insect facts, such as the 44 ways a bug can eat we didn't use any of them though! All of our words were less than font 5. Do well!
Yeah that's almost exactly what I did.
Re: Entomology B/C
Posted: March 13th, 2014, 7:07 pm
by Godlike
Can anyone tell me the difference in Hymenoptera Colletidae and Halictidae? I know Haltictidae are usually metallic and has the 2-3 cells in the front wing, but I looked up pictures of Colletidae and their wings also have 2-3 cells. I feel its unreliable to go with color as the deciding factor, any information regarding this would be great. Thanks
Re: Entomology B/C
Posted: March 15th, 2014, 8:19 am
by SOnerd
Godlike wrote:Can anyone tell me the difference in Hymenoptera Colletidae and Halictidae? I know Haltictidae are usually metallic and has the 2-3 cells in the front wing, but I looked up pictures of Colletidae and their wings also have 2-3 cells. I feel its unreliable to go with color as the deciding factor, any information regarding this would be great. Thanks
This probably isn't the most reliable either, but Colletidae seem to have a distinctive eye shape. Again, that is really not very reliable.
I guess Halictidae are just more metallic than Colletidae...
Re: Entomology B/C
Posted: March 15th, 2014, 8:21 am
by SOnerd
Another question:
If a test asks for a family of an insect that we only need the order for, what would be the best way to answer it?
For example, a test asks for the family of an Phasmatodea, would the best thing be just to put "Phasmatidae" since -idae means family?
Or should you just put Phasmatodea?
Re: Entomology B/C
Posted: March 15th, 2014, 9:55 am
by Godlike
SOnerd wrote:
Godlike wrote:Can anyone tell me the difference in Hymenoptera Colletidae and Halictidae? I know Haltictidae are usually metallic and has the 2-3 cells in the front wing, but I looked up pictures of Colletidae and their wings also have 2-3 cells. I feel its unreliable to go with color as the deciding factor, any information regarding this would be great. Thanks
This probably isn't the most reliable either, but Colletidae seem to have a distinctive eye shape. Again, that is really not very reliable.
I guess Halictidae are just more metallic than Colletidae...
Thanks, hopefully the test makers make the difference obvious.
SOnerd wrote:Another question:
If a test asks for a family of an insect that we only need the order for, what would be the best way to answer it?
For example, a test asks for the family of an Phasmatodea, would the best thing be just to put "Phasmatidae" since -idae means family?
Or should you just put Phasmatodea?
If you can ask the supervisor during the test, that's probably the best course of action. If not, I think you should just put Phasmatodea, the grader should accept that for an answer.
Re: Entomology B/C
Posted: March 15th, 2014, 10:28 am
by caseyotis
SOnerd wrote:Another question:
If a test asks for a family of an insect that we only need the order for, what would be the best way to answer it?
For example, a test asks for the family of an Phasmatodea, would the best thing be just to put "Phasmatidae" since -idae means family?
Or should you just put Phasmatodea?
Find the family in your book. If you're running out of time, put Phasmatodea for order and Phasmatidae for family. However, if you do have time, just search your guide for a family in Phasmatodea. Even better, find the family of the organism they give you.
On our test, we had to give a family for Mantodea. The most obvious one was Mantidae (they had given us a praying mantis anyway), and it turned out to be correct. I don't know the results, but that was definitely correct.
Or you can be sassy and say "we don't have to know this family, therefore this is invalid". But that could lead to a plethora of other issues. Possibly.
Re: Entomology B/C
Posted: March 15th, 2014, 12:11 pm
by Cjkowalcz
I was a little disappointed with our entomology test because there were many insects that weren't on our list like June Bugs and tons more
like June Bugs and tons more