firefish Posted April 18, 2009 Report Share Posted April 18, 2009 For the last week i've been on a uni field trip (biol222) in Nelson lakes. For the last couple of days we do a group project. My group decided that we'd do aquatic insects. We chose to sample 4 rivers with 2 different vegetation types to see if there are any differences in the species. For each river we did 5 transects and 3 quadrats per transect. So that meant having 15 containers full of algae and insects to ID later per stream. So on friday night we had 45 samples to ID, with 5 of us IDing 3 of us stayed up till 7am the next morning busily IDing. But we got it done :bounce: Near the end of the night we could hardly write straight or pick up the insects. I got a fright when a leaf jumped out of the container cos i thought it was a megaloptera! It turns out that our group IDed 4000 insects in a couple of days . All of the insects were tiny so we had to concentrate really hard, but the weird thing was that after the IDing was finished we (even the ones who'd gotten a good night sleep) kept on seeing bugs EVERYWHERE, like in peoples hair, in glasses of water and in wood. there were lots of knots in the wood our room was made in and i saw a mayfly and lots of different worms The worst thing was that these wood-bugs moved like the real insects :-? Lukily we've all stopped seeing fake insects. :lol: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Romeo Posted April 18, 2009 Report Share Posted April 18, 2009 LOL, I hate it when that happens. You get so engrossed in something for long periods of time and it's all you can think about. Happened to me when I was doing 60+ hour weeks programming for my final paper at CPIT! PS: Nelson lakes district is a pretty epic place, especially Rotoiti! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chilli Posted April 19, 2009 Report Share Posted April 19, 2009 reminds me of when i first picked kiwifruit id see kiwifruit everywere,on the car ride home,even in my dreams Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
whetu Posted April 19, 2009 Report Share Posted April 19, 2009 Wow firefish that sounds great! (Apart from seeing phantom insects of course ) A couple of years ago a friend of mine was doing her PhD and she was studying invasive alligator weed in a swampy lake up north. She had to put insect traps out to find out which bugs were living in the swamp. A bunch of us spent a weekend building bug traps and wading through stinky, slimey swamps to install them. It turned out to be excellent fun - but then the poor girl had to spend the next several months of her life counting and identifying bugs! Glad I just got to wade through slime, that ws the fun part! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luke* Posted April 19, 2009 Report Share Posted April 19, 2009 was there alligators in there whetu? yea sometimes i dream about swimming or the amazon. or it running under the house. which kinda came true the other day when i dropped a fish through the deck. had to scramble under and took ages to find it. survived it tho..yay Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stella Posted April 19, 2009 Report Share Posted April 19, 2009 I feel your pain! I only has six samples to sort through and they took 2-3 hours each. (the worst had about a hundred stoney cased caddis that were less than 2mm long. Just when you thought you had got them all you spot another.) I am so not doing anything to do with invertebrates for my masters (if I survive that long). Though I have come to the conclusion that no matter what your topic is in ecology, you will get wet, muddy and go blind counting. At least it sounds like you had a good bunch of people to work with. I can't believe the number of third year ecology student who continually whine "this is boring, I'm hungry, I want to go". :roll: :evil: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
firefish Posted April 20, 2009 Author Report Share Posted April 20, 2009 Those stoney cased caddisflies are amazing! its a wonder how they manage to stick all those little stones together and the shell is still smooth. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stella Posted April 20, 2009 Report Share Posted April 20, 2009 Totally! The spiral ones are very cool but yes, I think the straight ones show off the technique better Did you know somewhere people pull the critter out of its shell then place it in a tank with crushed up precious stones and gold dust so the caddises make new home out of that, then they use the case as jewellery or something.... Seems kinda humiliating to the caddises (caddii?) but the results are really pretty. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zev Posted April 20, 2009 Report Share Posted April 20, 2009 http://www.nexistepas.com/enthuse/2002/ ... y-jewelry/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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