This spring, the staff at the Science Library have been amusing themselves by watching people in the Bowl perform the Caterpillar Dance. To join in, walk under a tree, then either duck and weave from side to side or stagger backwards while flailing your arms and sputtering.

Cankerworms and their cousins, tent caterpillars, are known as defoliators, insects that strip deciduous trees of their leaves. The outbreak we are currently experiencing in Saskatchewan is one of four species of tent caterpillar (though “ours” shouldn’t really be called tent caterpillars at all because their larvae congregate in clumps, not tents). Often, “outbreaking insects” like tent caterpillars are thought of as a single unit: basically, a homogenous eating machine. This article states that there are lazy caterpillars and more aggressive, hungry caterpillars. Their individual behavior greatly affects the ecology of the species.

Photo courtesy of Glenda Goertzen

Visit the Saskatchewan Environment website for more information on forest tent caterpillars.

Dangling worms aren’t the only insect to threaten us on campus this season. After venturing out on Saturday to the prairie at Wanuskewin, walking beside the tall grasses and under the hanging trees for several hours, a Science Library staff member came home happily bug free. However, sitting down at a workstation on Monday, the staff member, mind not quite attending (saving us from a screech) followed the feel of tiny feet and flicked an insect onto the floor. Retrieving it on a piece of paper, she carried it into the back office for confirmation. A tick! It was duly identified, photographed, catalogued, and dissected in the sink. The staff determined the bloodthirsty little hitchhiker was not the Lyme-carrying deer tick, but a smaller and less dangerous species. For more information about ticks and how to keep them off your pets, visit this article courtesy of the Veterinary Medical Centre.

Photo courtesy of Megan Johnson
Tick courtesy of Beth Matheson

Our campus recently made the news when 75,000 honeybees were collected from the exterior of the Health Sciences Building by a Saskatoon high school student.

Let’s be careful out there!