Nominating a new state insect!

[Amine Kousba]

Thanks for joining us at last night's meeting and dinner, and thank you to Dr. Sofia Casasa for your fascinating talk on causes of Onthophagus phenotypic plasticity or lack thereof in different species!

For everyone who was not able to attend last night, we discussed making a petition to the State of Massachusetts to add on a second state insect. Currently, our state insect is the seven-spotted lady beetle, but we could definitely have a second insect that is native to our beautiful state! Click this link to view my slides about this if you wish, but all the information is summarized below.

We are accepting nominees for new state insects! If you would like to nominate an insect, please submit your nomination to me via email at amine...@gmail.com by February 8th so we can vote at our February 10th meeting. Your nomination should include a photo of the insect, a range map, and ideally a sentence or two on why you think it's a good candidate (even if it's just "it's a totally cute bug!"). I'll add all these to a PowerPoint for voting purposes. 

Here are the criteria for our insects:

• The insect should be charismatic enough for the average, non-bug-loving person to care about its conservation
• It should be native to Massachusetts
• Ideally, it should be distributed through some different parts of the state so all people here can be proud of and visit their state insect!

One point we have not reached a full consensus on is whether or not it should be a species of special concern of not.

Arguments in favor of this:

• Gives more attention to its conservation and habitat restoration

Arguments against this:

• People searching for a rare insect may harm the population further by collecting or otherwise damaging them
• Species that are already listed as rare already receive conservation attention
• Something popular and widely distributed will not be harmed as much while also being charismatic enough to motivate conservation of habitats