#macroinvertabrates

[onenicebugperday]

Hey, so I have a sister that was always super into bugs as a kid. She wanted to be an entomologist and all and it was her big thing. She's now studying environmental stuff and has entered that sort of world, but said she has a hard time figuring out how to get into learning about bugs. Apparently there's loads of resources on things like plants and fungi because people are into those, but less on macroinvertabrates. What sort of books and resources got it kick-started for you? Moreso science and technical stuff rather than surface level stuff

I will direct you to @cnestus to ask your question because they are an actual entomologist and I am not!

[boycritter]

call me a benthic macroinvertabrate the way i am a critter

[cleanwaterchronicles]

Students Get Outdoors with Benthic Bug Hunts

Students from Birmingham Covington School & Novi Meadows Elementary got outdoors this week to study the quality of the Rouge River. The students broke up into three stations. Biological, Physical, and Chemical. In the biological station they collected samples from the river, then identified the macroinvertabrate species they found. In the physical station, they measured velocity, depth, and observed stream habitats. In the chemical station, they tested the stream’s dissolved oxygen, pH, fecal coliform, phosphates, and nitrates. 

[hamishcat437]

Friend shaped <3

[nanobomb-enjoyer]

My class went to a state park for a field trip and we searched the stream for macroinvertabrates and we took our shoes off and stepped in. Long story short, my teacher was taking pictures and now there’s a picture of me hunched over in a stream barefoot looking like peak feral energy. And now it’s in the folder that the teacher used to let us make presentations about the trip. The school board will be forced to look at me going full gremlin. I don’t know how to feel.

[cleanwaterchronicles]

Troy Students Participate in Fall River Monitoring

Niles Community High School Students visited Firefighters Park along the Rouge River on October 1st to identify the benthic macro-invertebrates of the stream. Students got in the river with nets to catch the stream insects in order to identify and determine their presence in the river.

Benthic macroinvertebrates (also known as "benthos") are small animals living among stones, logs, sediments and aquatic plants on the bottom of streams, rivers and lakes. They are large enough to see with the naked eye (macro) and have no backbone (invertebrate).

Macroinvertabrates provide an important food source in the stream and because they tolerate different stream conditions and levels of pollution, their presence or absence is used to indicate clean or polluted water.

If you would like to take a training course or volunteer in a fall bug hunt, please visit: https://therouge.org/bug-hunts/ for more information.