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I have mostly restrained myself to putting photos on this site relevant to my graduate studies. However, I am making an exception today because I think everyone should get to see some adorable spiders.

These are my two pets- Jayne and Shelob. Jayne is Curlyhair tarantula sling whose parent is based on Ohio State’s Wooster campus. Shelob is a jumping spider rescue- from the bathroom of Howlett hall this Halloween. They are both probably sick of me watching them and trying to give them cage decorations, but its so hard not to spoil your first children.

 To the Left- a size comparison of Jayne next to my pinky nail. They like climbing a lot, and have dug a beautiful burrow.

To the right- Shelob when I found them in Howlett hall. If you know spiders you will understand how I felt when I saw their abdomen and knew that I had extra fruit flies at home (Jayne can only eat so many at a time).

Take care of yourself, all. – Caralee

I have to imagine there is a point in every entomologist’s life where they realize they have a much lower threshold for fear of insects than is average. For me this was a conversation with friends where – after marveling over an internet herpetologist’s confidence in picking up everglades reptiles – I said “I do the same thing with some insects, but I know they’re small and won’t hurt me.” A comment that received a resounding “you do what?”

At the time I was thinking of beetles, hemipterans, cellar ‘spiders’, and (most often) male Carpenter bees (pictured left), but when going through my photos, I realized I also have a confidence to interact with bees in general. For some bees this confidence is pretty easily explained. Any male bee I see can be scooped up without fear of being stung. Stingers are modified ovipositors, and since male bees don’t lay eggs they can’t sting. No worries.

However, I also have interacted with several bees that I know can sting without worry. Sometimes you see a queen bee on clover and try to hold the flower still so you can take a photo of her. Then she decides your finger is a more stable place to perch. But I wasn’t trying to hurt her and she was focused on what she was doing.

Then sometimes on a cold day you’re trying to get a photo of a bee holding onto a leaf and the external warmth provided by your hand is a good enough reason to climb off the leaf they were clinging to.

Or during a field sampling day a bumblebee caught in a freak rainstorm climbs first onto your sampling equipment and then onto you when you pick it up.

And this is not even acknowledging all of the sweat bees I can never get photos of fast enough before they are done sampling my field season perfume. Obviously, I am not advocating for people to try and hold every bee they see, particularly not without training. But I think there is something to be said about the importance of education and insect extension in increasing understanding of these tiny animals. Most of the time the average arthropod is not interested in biting or stinging you. Even if you catch them, their first goal is usually to get away. Through sending some of these photos to my friends I have been told they are now looking at the different bees at their flowers, when before they would have given any flying insect a few meters berth. Maybe by sharing these here, you too can spend time around these little ladies without fear.

July 31st 2024

We may have to update our sampling records after field sampling today. Our lab has previously caught many interesting organisms as part of field research – moths, spiders, and parasitoids to name a few that have occurred as bycatch during our typical bee and mosquito sampling – but I think this may be the first time we caught a cat.

Today in the yard of a homeowner who we had previously established had no pets we had two kittens run by us as we were beginning our veg sampling process. The homeowner confirmed that the kittens were strays that they were working with their neighbor to try to catch and neuter (if not find homes for) the fluff balls.

If you have gone out sampling with me, you know that my methods during vacuum sampling include 1) setting up undergrad research technicians next to the native plants that are blooming in a yard, 2) setting a timer for 4 minutes during which they vacuum any insect which lands on the flowers, and 3) going off to record the species names and abundance of all native and nonnative plants blooming at the site until the 4 minutes are up, then pointing thestudents towards the next most abundant native plant. This yard happened to have limited species of native plants blooming so we set our timer as usual- with one undergrad watching the milkweed vine and one undergrad watching the cats by request (with a pair of gloves I keep in the van for handling bumblebee boxes).

As anyone who has done field sampling knows, one sampling effort does not yield a complete estimate of the species present in an area. In our sampling effort we only captured one kitten of the two – who I have temporarily dubbed Gris. Normally any specimen we catch gets bagged up and labelled before freezing and pinning. We will not be following our usual methods for specimen collected during vacuum sampling in this one very exceptional circumstance.

Update:

I am very happy to update this post with the news that Appa (formerly Gris) is settled down into his new home with a fellow graduate student in the Entomology department. His new parent informed me that he loves playing with his siblings (another cat and a dog) and has a great time chasing light reflections on the floor.

This summer I had the opportunity to travel with my family to Alaska over the July 4th week. I admit, while traveling, I am often bad at taking photos. I don’t usually think of stopping to take a photo of what I’m doing, as I tend to focus on the doing. However – let it not be said that I cannot take photos of my travels.

Or at least the bees I see there.

I have many photos of bumblebees I saw while visiting the town of Sitka.  I was also lucky in that the National Parks Service building in Sitka had a bumblebees of Alaska field guide, so I had a lot of fun trying to ID some of these.

On this plant I found several bumblebees with this bright orange, but naturally found that they were too focused on foraging to hold still for photos of identifying features.
Based on this side photo I am tempted to call this a Yellow headed or a black tail bumblebee.

Though THIS lady clearly has a black stripe between the yellow and orange tergal segments. I don’t know if we’re in an area cool enough to get polar bumblebees, so my guess would be a Frigid bumble bee.

On this later plant I had some luck with my action shots, though no shots good enough to identify with my experience.

And then this little friend (a Yellow head bumble bee?) was hanging onto a leaf, but when I moved the leaf to get it in focus she decided that my hand would be a decent perch as well.

I did also get a few photos of the mountains and my family, so it wasn’t all bee photos on my phone. Just 95% of the photos I took.

Special thanks to my mom for capturing the experience of going on walks with me. I had fun, and she seemed amused too.

Forgive my lack of creativity today. I am aware I am one of MANY who is deciding to post about the eclipse I had the opportunity to experience.

I drove up to The Ohio State University’s Marion campus with a few other members of the Entomology Graduate Student Organization in the morning. A few of them had classes and were able to take them remotely from my car (thank goodness for strong campus WiFi signals), while Lydia and I went to do a guided tour of the restored prairie.

There we ran into Dr. Frances Sivakoff, a professor we have both been lucky enough to work with.

After pausing to take some absolutely necessary photos of a bee I saw, we returned to the group to wait as the light slowly changed.

I’m not going to pretend any of my photos do it justice. Or that I am the first person to describe the way the world goes dark with a flash as the edge of the sun disappears behind the moon. The drop of the temperature and the way your breath catches looking up at the ring of light left in the sky. But I’m incredibly lucky that I was in Ohio this year so that I was able to experience it.

And am so grateful for the group I was there to live through the experience with.

I am excited to announce that Ohio State’s Entomology Graduate Student Organization held our elections for student officers this week.

As of last night, I have been elected the incoming president for E.G.S.A.’s 2024-2025 year.

Congrats to all other officers. It’s going to be an exciting year!

I think anyone who has been to a National Entomological Society of America Conference knows it cannot be summed up in a few words. And this year’s conference in National Harbor was no exception.

I flew in on the 4th, and after walking around National Harbor and checking into the hotel, I went to DC to see a few of the sights and meet up with my mom’s cousin for dinner.

What I saw was varied but all incredible. This artwork of a spider in the National Gallery of art’s sculpture garden was one of my favorites (left), and of course there were some very informative public art displays I saw on my walk.

I do enjoy dinner with a view.

At the conference itself I attended a workshop on insect photography and made friends with a beetle. I thought this photo in particular belongs in some kind of advertisement.

I then attended talks before my student competition time. Below are photos of my lab mates Michelle, Erika, and Lucy all giving their 10 minute student talks!

I was not able to get any pictures of my 10 minute talk, but I do have photos from later in the day. The Entomology Graduate Student Organization set up a merch table at the conference this year, and I spent some time manning the table!

It was a busy conference all around, but we did have a chance to go into DC before flying out. Naturally we went to one of the most important cultural landmarks in the city: The Smithsonian Natural History Museum.

Hope to see everyone again next year!

But they will still find some insects to look at!

I am on spring break in Arizona, but I thought I would take a minute to share some photos of the adorable bees I saw today!

There was a cluster of bees hiding in this species of mallow (I believe). I wish I could have gotten better photos, but the sun was a bit too bright to see my phone screen clearly.

This blog is going to see a mix of posts about my research, extension, and outreach activities. I may make other posts related to my entomological interests, as well. However, blogging is rarely going to be my priority, so for up to date information, please contact me directly, or see my cv (linked on the homepage).