The Malpighian tubules of insects are an excellent model for examining the properties of secretion in a transporting epithelium. In this exercise students expose tubules from cockroaches or crickets to chlorophenol red and visually estimate the dye concentration in the lumen. By adding metabolic inhibitors and competitors or by substituting ion-free media they can demonstrate competition, specificity, and energy- or ion-dependence of active transport. Advanced students can design their own experiments after a review of the literature. This simple and inexpensive exercise provides students with a challenging and rewarding introduction to experimental design in the laboratory.

This exercise is a field study of the ecology of aquatic insects in a small stream. By using the inquiry technique, students discover how different animals have unique adaptations for being successful in particular habitats, especially at small spatial scales. Students also learn how these specializations establish essential ecological roles for the aquatic insects in stream ecosystems. Thus, students gain an appreciation of how biodiversity is not just a list of species in a particular environment; it also includes what they do in that environment.

The Monarch butterfly is an insect and has six legs and two sets of wings. The butterfly drinks using a straw-like mouth structure.

There are many reasons to seek alternatives to the use of vertebrates, including cost and concerns with use of vertebrates in undergraduate laboratories. This major workshop explores examples of alternatives, including: a) an exploration of thermoregulation without using animals at all, b) an investigation of actomyosin function and membrane excitation using giant alga, and c) using insects to investigate taste receptors and digestion. This workshop explores the importance of providing good background information to vertebrate processes and connecting the alternative experimental system to homologous physiological processes in vertebrates. Students can appreciate the commonality in biological processes and the importance of underlying physiological principles.

This site is a searchable encyclopedia of thousands of photos, descriptions, sound recordings, and other information about individual animal species. Find out about amphibians, arthropods, birds, fishes, insects, mammals, mollusks, reptiles, and sharks. Explore special features on mammals, skulls, and frog calls. Students are invited to contribute.

This collection of images of six different creatures, including insects and carnivorous vertebrates, illustrates the wide range of mouth types that exist within the animal kingdom.

One reason why ticks are considered to be arachnids is because they do not have antennae like insects do. Ticks suck blood from animals and are sometimes difficult to remove from the host's skin.

This Web page serves as a linked table of contents for the museum's supplemental resources on arthropod morphology. From it, you can access the following illustrated guides with a single click: Types of Antennae, Front View of an Insect (Grasshopper) Head, Parts of an Insect (Grasshopper), Parts of a Spider: Dorsal View of a Male Spider, Parts of a Spider: Ventral View of a Female Spider, and Metamorphosis.

This video segment from Wild TV takes a closer look at backyard bugs, their habitat and characteristics.

Join students as they observe mosquitoes in different stages of development and learn about the insect's life cycle in this video from Curious George.

This video segment from NOVA: "The Mystery of Animal Pathfinders" explores honeybee communication and navigation.

BeeVisit enables students to evaluate the relative contributions of different pollinator species to a plant's reproductive success through an interactive model of pollen transfer.

The model tracks a plant's presentation of pollen through time; pollen may be presented gradually or all at once, and the program lets you choose from a family of power curves to model the shape of the cumulative pollen presentation curve over a set number of time intervals (usually 100). Then, 'bees' of 1, 2, or 3 types are allowed to visit the plant.

You specify the expected number and type of visits; this sets the probability of a visit occurring during each interval, and visits occur stochastically according to these probabilities.

Learn about bees, their habitat and how to interact with a swarm in this Wild TV video segment.

In this video segment from WILD TV, learn about bees and the different techniques for handling them.

Students learn to identify several beneficial insects and spiders, including predators and pollinators, then record numbers and types of beneficial insects and spiders that they discover in the outdoors, and discuss ways that the insects and spiders that they observed are adapted to be pollinators or predators.

The design of the Biodiversity Counts resource collection allows you to tailor a curriculum by choosing the combination of resources that meet your requirements, needs, and time constraints. Mix and match to form your own curriculum or try one of the suggested combinations below-they offer a choice between investigating plants, arthropods, or both, in full or abridged versions.

Bees are an extremely vital part of life on this planet. In this video segment from QUEST, explore the huge impact these small insects have on our civilization.

Bug-go is designed to help the players learn to identify some insects while learning which insects are beneficial and interesting facts about others. The game should be played similar to the game bingo.

This lesson integrates writing and the study of insects by creating an innovation to the text of the book "How Many Bugs in a Box?" by David A. Carter