Mary crawls through a list of creepy and huge insects in Ohio, including the American Burying Beetles, the Cecropia Moth, and the Carolina Wolf Spider.
Class Discussion Questions:
1) What adaptations do you see in these Ohio critters that allow them to be successful in their environments?
Read the Script:
Ick! Even the feeling of walking into a cobweb gives me the heeby geebies. And you know rightfully so because Ohio has some pretty creepy crawlers- and some of them are huge!
Let’s take a look at some of Ohio’s biggest bugs, starting with this guy – the American Burying Beetle. With its reddish orange markings they are hard to mistake. Plus, they can grow up to one and a half inches long.
Size aside, these guys live one nasty life in grasslands and forests. In order to start a family the male beetles go on the hunt, seeking out small dead animals – like birds or chipmunks. Once a carcass has been found, he’ll attract a mate. Together with the female beetle, the two will bury the dead animal.
Then they remove the fur or feathers from the carcass and cover it in secretions that preserve the body – basically they make a mummy.
Once this is complete the two beetles will mate and the female lays her eggs in a nearby burrow. When the eggs hatch into larva they feed on the mummified animal.
As gross as all that sounds, the beetles are basically recycling dead animals and they are actually very attentive parents. Both males and females spend time protecting and feeding the larvae until they grow into beetles too.
The American Burying Beetle is endangered and protected both by the federal and state government.
From beetles, let’s crawl over to Ohio’s biggest spider. The Carolina Wolf Spider is one guy I would not want to run into. They too are pretty rare in our state, but they can have a body that’s one and a half inches long and a four inch legspan!
Carolina wolf spiders hunt for prey at night. Rather than spinning a web like other spiders, they make burrows in the ground. They have excellent eyesight and are super speedy.
Luckily they’re scared of humans so normally they will run away from us - that is if you haven’t run away from them first!
Okay one last guy who isn’t so scary. The cecropia caterpillar. I mean he looks just like a cartoon! The tubby green guys can grow up to 6 inches long. They eat just about any leaves they can find and even though the orange, blue and yellow spikes on their back are a warning for other bugs to stay away, they aren’t harmful to humans.
After feasting all summer they build their cocoon and don’t emerge until spring. And boy when they do they are just as big!
The cecropia moth can have a wingspan of nearly 6 inches. Their wings are patterned with Brown, red, white and gray, and their furry bodies are striped red and white. This is as big as they’ll ever get - they don’t feed as adults, since this stage of their life is all about mating.
Okay those are all the bugs I can handle today. As long as they’re outside and not in my house, I’m okay with it!