Hello!

Hello everyone! I've wanted to have a blog for awhile, so I decided to come on here and create one. I'm not really sure what to write about so my posts will probably be really random. I think for this first post I'll write about something that I found today. My #1 spot for favorite insect is a tie between inchworms and woollybears. Today I found a picture on MSN's Animal Tracks slideshow that made me add a 3rd name to that #1 spot. The picture is of a Cockchafer. It's a type of European beetle that almost went extinct in the 1900s due to pesticide use. People have changed the way they control pests, so the beetles' populations have slowly been growing since the 1980s. They grow to be about 25-30 mm long and have little "leaves" on their antennae. Males have 7 "leaves" and females have 6. The adult beetles eat oak leaves or pine needles and the larvae eat plant roots. The females lay their eggs under the ground and the eggs hatch after 4-6 weeks. The grubs stay under ground for as long as 5 years until they enter a pupation stage (like caterpillars making cocoons). The grubs stay in this stage for 6 weeks and develop into adults. Then, they spend the winter underground and come out in the spring. Once they come out, they only have about 5-7 weeks to live. I'm glad these beetles didn't go extinct. If they had, I probably would have never known that they existed. I think they're kind of cute. :)