Butterfly, Grasshopper and Beetle

Every time I pull a reference book or field guide off the shelf to read about a recently seen insect I seem to run across a quote by the famous entomologist E. O. Wilson. I like this comment I ran across recently on insects, calling them “the little things that run the world.”

It’s easy to see why someone would want to become an entomologist. You could specialize in any one of a number of orders in the Class Insecta; Hymenoptera, Coleoptera, Orthoptera, Lipidoptera…how many orders of insects are there? It depends who you talk to, but there are around thirty orders. Whoa, you could spend several lifetimes studying insects and never be done! This Growing Native episode only mentions three species from three different orders. I’ve got some learning to do!

The photos are mine. The common buckeye butterfly is on an Apache plume shrub. The oak leaf grasshopper on the ground is among old oblong white oak leaves and the large leaves in the top right of the photo are sycamore. The fiery searcher ground beetle in my hand is with some of the old grass that came with the capture. It’s a beautiful beetle!