With the exception of ants, it’s difficult to imagine an arthropod more colonial than bees. However in thinking of bees this way, we all-to-often forget that not all bees are colonial. In Britain and Ireland, for example, there are approximately ten times more species of solitary bee than bumblebee and honeybee species combined.
It was back in 2014 while attending the 2014 convention of the Entomological Society of America being held that year in Portland, Oregon that I first became aware of both the possibilities for, and scope of interest in, entomophagy. Intrigued by its traditional practice as well as by its potential for sustainability if expanded to a large scale, since that time I have never passed up an opportunity to learn more about it.
Despite their vast, open stretches of sand where, other than some waving swaths of unusually hardy grasses, living things seem sparsely represented at best, the dunes of the Pacific Northwest are actually teeming with a wide ranging variety of life – if you know where to look.
A friend of mine once asked “why don’t people watch insects the same way they watch birds?” It’s a fair question. After all, many insects – such as butterflies and a good many beetles – are distinctively patterned or colored in such a way that an amateur could learn to identify them on sight – […]