Newsletter of the Michigan Entomological Society Volume 57, Numbers 1 & 2 June 2012 Inside this Issue: 58th Annual MES Meeting: June 22-23, 2012 Martinoptera ... 2-3 David C. Houghton, MES President-Elect Little Bug, a Poem ... 3 Department of Biology, Hillsdale College, 33 East College Street, Hillsdale, MI 49242 Email: [email protected] Experiences with Tabanids ... 4 MES Governing Board Minutes The 2012 MES annual conference will take place on 22-23 June at the G.H. Gordon ... 4 - 5 Biological Station and Rockwell Lake Lodge (http://www.therockwelllakelodge.com), lo- Michigan Butterflies & Skippers cated in Lake County approximately 25 miles Under New Management ... 5 southeast of Cadillac. This is the largest pri- vate college biological station in Michigan, Collecting Gray Petaltails ... 6 - 7 combining an active research station with a functioning resort and conference center. The Michigan Odonata Atlas ... 7 The property features a 50-acre lake with good fishing. There are kayaks, canoes, and other boats available for attendees to use free of charge. The property also contains Michigan Mosquitoes ... 8 - 9 a small creek, upland forest, meadows, and various types of wetland habitats. There are also several miles of interpretive hiking trails. Insect collecting is encouraged. Trapping Cerambycids ... 10 - 11 Elegant rooms for 1–2 people at the Lodge are available at $79.00 per night (which includes breakfast). Beds in the cabins are available for $15.00 per night. Meals can Hemlock Woolly Adelgid in MI 12 also be purchased in any combination from the Lodge. All lodging options include free Wi-Fi. Registration details were mailed to all members and can be found on the MES Restoring Savanna Ecosystems 13 website. Our keynote speaker is Dr. Ralph W. Holzenthal, Professor of Entomology at the New Arthropod Records ... 14 - 15 University of Minnesota. Ralph will speak about insect diversity and how the ‘digital revolution’ can help overcome the concerns of Ed Voss 1929 - 2012 ... 16 describing new species. The MES Newsletter is There still may be room for additional talks, published as four numbers so please contact Dave Houghton if you wish to per year speak. We hope to see you at this year’s meet- ing. We encourage submission of oral and poster presentations on any topic related to entomology. ISSN 1554-2092 Students are especially welcome and there will be cash awards for the top student presentations. For more information, contact: David C. Houghton by phone at (517) 607-2394 or by Email at <[email protected] >. June 2012 NEWSLETTER of the MICHIGAN ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY V57 (1&2) M E S MES Homepage: http://michentsoc.org 1 2011-2012 Officers of MES Martinoptera President ..........................................Toby Petrice [email protected] Bug Mecca President-Elect ....................... David Houghton Martin J. Andree [email protected] 3990 Four Mile Road NE, Grand Rapids, MI 49525 Immediate ......................................Ethan Bright Email: [email protected] Past President [email protected] Secretary ................................. Adrienne O’Brien Every passion has its own particular Mecca. Monet aficionados might take a stroll down the charming streets of Giverny, Harley- [email protected] Davidson bikers might visit the Harley-Davidson Motorcycle Treasurer ..................................Tina Ciaramitaro Museum in Milwaukee, and fans of the Romanov Dynasty might venture to the site of their untimely demise in Yekaterinburg, [email protected] Russia. Although I’m not sure of what or where they are, I’m Member-at-Large (11-14) .............. Sarah Smith certain that every devotee from quilting to spelunking all have their once in a lifetime place to visit before croaking. [email protected] But what about us, the entomologists? Do we have a collec- Member-at-Large (10-13) ................ Harry King tive Mecca? Do we have a place we need to visit before extir- pating? Is it brazen and well known to all, or is it secretive like [email protected] the vine-shrouded elephant graveyard? We certainly have deep Member-at-Large (09-12) .................. Ted Herig traditions and hallowed ground. We have many historic men and [email protected] women, made of heroic timber, full of passion and daring. The great forefathers of our craft who somehow managed to further Journal Editor ............................Therese Poland our knowledge without the Internet, DNA sequencing, shelves of [email protected] fascicles, Gore-Tex, DEET and the MES (this last one is almost Associate Journal ............... Anthony Cognato impossible to comprehend). Yet with all of this, I had difficulty putting a stake in the Editor [email protected] ground, erecting a signpost or putting a pin in the map. I was Associate Journal ........................ Ronald Priest embarrassed about our lacking. Especially when I considered that even comedians have a personal Mecca. They visit the grave Editor [email protected] of Rodney Dangerfield in Los Angeles, where the inscription Newsletter Editor ....................... Robert Haack under his name reads, “There goes the neighborhood.” I felt slighted. Where are our heroes anyway? Does our Mecca lie with [email protected] the dead? Webmaster ...................................Mark O’Brien I considered the great Linnaeus. We use his system every- day. To infidels, who are unfortunate enough to be sitting next to [email protected] us at McDonalds while we discuss the evening’s haul of speci- Current Annual Dues Schedule mens, it must appear that we speak not English, but Linnaeusese. Student (through university) ....................................$12.00 He seemed like the preferred universal candidate: he has prefect Active ...........................................................................$25.00 bug feng shui, his house is preserved, he is buried and he has Institutional ................................................................$45.00 a fancy tombstone. What could be better for the wife and kids Sustaining ....................................................................$35.00 than a little jaunt to Sweden? You could yammer on incessantly Life ............................................................................ $500.00 about his childhood while visiting Råshult, the town of his birth, clap your hands gleefully as you traipse the flower-filled ISSN 1554-2092 meadows of his youth, and tell yarns about his life, as you roam the rooms of his preserved house at Hammerby, whilst think- ing hungrily about unburdening your picnic hamper in Carl’s 2012 MES ELECTIONS backyard. All of this mirth would end on a morose note, as you The following MES members ran for two open positions on tearfully stood at the base of his tombstone, set somberly in the the MES Governing Board in 2012. We thank them for their floor of the Uppsala Cathedral. willingness to serve the Society. Ballots are still coming in Here is where old Carl falls from grace. He isn’t ours alone. and the results will be annnounced at the 2012 MES Annual His fingerprints are all over everything from Old World monkeys Meeting. Martin Andree and Ranger Steve Mueller ran for to club mosses. He won’t do, he isn’t exclusive enough and be- President-Elect, and Julie Craves and Dave Cuthrell ran for sides, his gravestone, unlike Rodney’s, isn’t as funny. Instead of Member-at-Large. Please consider running for office in the having it engraved, “ Caroli a Linne”, he might better have left future. a smile on the face of all who followed, and instead inscribed, Carl linnaues (L. 1778), Plate IX, Fig. 9. June 2012 NEWSLETTER of the MICHIGAN ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY V57 (1&2) 2 MES Homepage: http://michentsoc.org M E S There are many others to consider, Bio-Quip. No entomologist’s life is com- from J. Henri Fabre to J. L. LeConte to plete without a trip to their store in Rancho Little Bug W.J. Holland. All great, but not so all Dominguez, California. They have it all, encompassing as we would like. Perhaps from pins to drawers, to traps and forceps, Little bug in my hand the dead are not for us? Perhaps we should from books to spreading boards, from nets trying to get away, look towards geography? Several places to vials, they meet our every capricious let me get a look at you come immediately to mind. There is the desire. This is our store, there is no other I won’t make you stay. great gathering place of the Monarchs in like it in America. When you walk in and Michoacán, Mexico. That magical place look around in dreamy admiration of their I just want to find out where the yearly migration ends and the wares, you find yourself saying, “This is what kind of bug you are, butterflies hang heavy on the firs and the it! This is where I always wanted to be. I would it be so terrible air is filled with glinting wings. The per- want to work here. I want to live here. I’m to be put in a jar? fect Mecca for Lepidopterists. understood, and finally, like the “swallow- Another excellent candidate is tails” of Capistrano, I feel I am home!” You drop to the bottom, “Grasshopper Glacier,” in Carbon County, Ken Fall, the owner, gave me a you crawl to the top, Montana. Here one can purportedly pluck, personal tour of their production facility, I can’t see you good perfectly preserved, now extinct, Rocky unselfishly showing me the machinery that if you will not stop. Mountain Locust (Melanoplus spretus) aids in the crafting of the perfectly fitted right out of the ice. What better Mecca for Cornell drawer. Lavishing me with free I lift off the cover Orthopteran lovers? advice on building my own drawers and to get a better look, Once again, it seems that our geo- even providing me a gratis small plastic but a flick of your wings graphic leanings are fraught with specifics. baggie of corner hardware. What a place! and that’s all it took . No one place seems to cover all of the I couldn’t decide for a moment if I was in entomological bases.