Visitors to the Bluebonnet Swamp no longer have to wonder what insects are crawling and flying around them. Because of professor Linda Bui’s entomology class, the swamp has an insect display.
Bui’s class began collecting insects last semester at the swamp to educate visitors. Bluebonnet Swamp naturalist Angela Evans said the students came to the swamp during their free time to collect the insects for their projects.
Nhu Nguyen, a biological sciences sophomore in the class, said they collected insects from the swamp, around Baton Rouge, at Sandy Hollow Wildlife management area in Tangipahoa Parish and at Kisatchie National Forest in Natchitoches Parish. They only used insects from the swamp for the swamp displays, he said.
The 30 students collected at least 30 different insects each, Bui said. They ended up with more than 1,000 insects.
They picked the best insects for the four display boxes sent to the Bluebonnet Swamp on Tuesday, said Jessica Rosson, research associate.
Only one-fourth of the insects collected were donated to the swamp, Bui said. The remaining insects will be used for teaching.
Two of the display boxes contain a variety of insects, while the other two have specific orders of beetles, butterflies and moths.
The butterfly and moth display box also includes a chart with fun facts. For example, one difference between the two is that butterflies fly during the day while moths fly at night.
The students also had to identify the insects, separate them into different groups and write about insect fun facts.
Bui said her students worked hard and did not let hurricanes or tropical storms interfere with their collecting.
Nguyen said the biggest problem he had collecting the insects was the weather. He collected insects at night, using a bright mercury vapor light that attracts insects; one drop of rain would have “shattered it to pieces.”
Rosson said the city’s spraying for mosquitoes also had a negative effect on collecting because it killed some insects.
The only insects the class had trouble finding were cockroaches, Bui said. They should have been more plentiful, but because cockroaches are good flyers, they might have been harder to catch, she said.
The two insects collected the most were honeybees and beetles because they are so common, Bui said.
Because beetles are the largest order of insects, it was easier to collect a large number of them, Rosson said. One student collected more than 90 insects, mostly from the beetle order.
“Students used swoop nets and various methods to collect their insects,” Rosson said. Some students went at night to set up lights and catch insects, while others cut open logs and used other techniques, she said.
In addition to swoop nets and mercury vapor lights, Nguyen said he ran after fast-flying insects, he said.
Evans said some students made pit-fall traps, which are long thin boards in the ground with cups at each end. Insects, such as ants, run into the board and follow it until they fall into the cups.
Other students put up milk jugs filled with banana pieces and boxes with dog food and raw meat to attract other types of insects, she said.
“They tied the boxes with dog food and raw meat to trees to keep raccoons from dragging them away,” Evans said.
Evans said the insects will be displayed inside the main building, but their exact location is to be determined.
Evans said the displays are helpful to visitors because they will be able to identify certain insects they might see at the swamp. They also will use the displays with some of their programs to help educate the public.
Bui teaches an insect ecology class, which also will collect insects for display. The students will make a 3-D display to show the insects in their natural habitat, Bui said.