The End of an Era

This past week BioQuip Products announced to their customers that the company will be closing its doors permanently as of March 11, 2022, after more than 75 years of service to museums and universities, individual entomologists, botanists, naturalists, teachers, and many others. BioQuip, located in the Greater Los Angeles area, California, USA, employed scores of individuals skilled in the craftsmanship necessary to produce high quality goods like insect drawers and cabinets. The loss to the local community, as well as to clients, is nearly unfathomable.

My relationship with BioQuip dates farther than I can recall, but it was certainly the company I dealt with exclusively for decades, beginning when I learned how to make a proper insect collection. Back in Portland, Oregon where I grew up in the 1970s, we had our own biological equipment dealer, Carolina Biological Supply, in Gladstone, Oregon, but their selection of products for entomology was limited, and the quality was nothing to crow about. BioQuip always came highly recommended by my mentors, and I returned the favor by suggesting the company to students I mentored myself in later years.

When I struggled financially, I went to the owners of BioQuip and asked if they might be interested in sponsoring this blog. Without hesitation they agreed, and the revenue generated from their ads helped to keep me afloat. When the pandemic hit, I kept the ads up for no charge. It was the least I could do. The company has carried my books ever since their publication, and last year even invited me to do a virtual signing at an annual conference in Arizona.

BioQuip was a major exhibitor at the annual Bug Fair at the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History, and their presence there will be sorely missed. They were regular exhibitors at the national meetings of the Entomological Society of America as well, even when the convention crossed the border into Canada for a joint international meeting. BioQuip's offices were also the site for monthly meetings of the local Lorquin Entomological Society. These are the activities I know about personally, but no doubt the company was a major fixture in many other organizations and events.

I am personal friends with the owners of Bioquip, and I know it pains them deeply to have reached the decision to close. My understanding is that they did entertain offers to buy the company, but that nothing materialized in a timely manner. Managing a company in the best of times is stressful enough, but in our ongoing health and economic crisis, it is borderline impossible, especially when your major clients are public institutions that understandably had to make their own hard choices.

It is my wish for BioQuip owners, employees, and customers to find renewed success in every facet of their lives, with minimal hardship along the way. Thank you to all who have been affiliated with the company, you have had a far greater impact than you know.

Bug Eric 2020 Outlook

This blog has slowed down considerably as I turn my attention to Sense of Misplaced blog to address larger social, environmental, and justice issues. However, I am still actively engaging in entomology activities. That will be more evident this calendar year.

Black Swallowtail butterfly from the 2019 City Nature Challenge in Colorado Springs

Speaking Engagements

I may be coming to a location near you this spring, summer, or fall. I have been invited to give a keynote address for The Biggest Week in American Birding the evening of Tuesday, May 12, 2020 at Maumee Bay Lodge and Conference Center in Oregon, Ohio (near Toledo), courtesy of the Black Swamp Bird Observatory. The topic will be “Birding and Bugwatching in the Age of Animal Decline.”

I will be participating in a panel discussion on the “insect apocalypse” at the North American Prairie Conference in Des Moines, Iowa the evening of Monday, July 20, 2020. More details will be forthcoming.

Last but not least, I will be a keynote speaker for the autumn Roan Mountain Naturalists’ Rally at Roan Mountain State Park, Tennessee, the evening of Saturday, September 12, 2020. I will also be leading a field trip in the park that afternoon before the presentation.

Colorado Springs Bioblitz Events

Colorado Springs will be participating in the City Nature Challenge for the second consecutive year, April 24-27, recording image and/or audio observations in iNaturalist. April 28-May 3, experts will be identifying the images and recordings submitted.

This summer the City of Colorado Springs has seen fit to schedule two more bioblitzes. The first is a public event at Stratton Open Space, June 19-22. Many organizations will have informational tables at the “base camp,” and science teams ranging from entomology to mycology to botany will be on hand recording observations that will be entered into iNaturalist.

The second bioblitz will be for science teams only, at Jimmy Camp Creek Park, July 18-19.

Book Projects

The most exciting news is that I am now under contract to complete two books this year, for publishers who must remain anonymous and on subjects that I cannot reveal. Watch this space for updates as I am permitted to share them.

New Blog Feature

Soon I will be adding another tab at the top of this blog’s home page that will link to more of my insect-related writings online. Please comment if you find any of the links anywhere on my blog are broken. I continue to moderate comments on my posts at least once per week.

Thank you again for your support and encouragement. Have a great 2020 and make sure you get outdoors as often as you can.

Saturday Night Special: Personal News Update

Those of you who have your own blogs know that sometimes you lack inspiration to make a post, lack images to illustrate a post with, or even just don’t feel like writing. Then there are the times when you are doing other things instead of blogging. This past week I have confronted all of those obstacles. So, instead of an insect or arachnid, I’ll let you in on what I’m working on in real life, apart from the blogosphere:

• Contributing to another field guide. Once again I am collaborating with naturalist Kenn Kaufman and his wife Kimberly, furnishing text about insects and related arthropods for a regional field guide to the upper Midwest (think Chicago as the epicenter). Besides writing, I am also going through my own insect images to see if any are worthy of inclusion, too.
• Preparing a presentation. I have been invited to give a presentation to the Aiken Audubon Society of Colorado Springs at their monthly meeting on Wednesday, April 17, at 7:00 PM, at the Division of Wildlife building located at 4255 Sinton Road. The title is: “Beyond Birds: the Rewards of Bugwatching.”
• Preparing for a workshop. I have agreed to deliver another Advanced Naturalist Workshop for the Cincinnati Museum of Natural History. This one will take place August 23-25, and cover true bugs (Hemiptera: Heteroptera). I look forward to the friendly confines of the Eulett Center, the eager students, and the biodiversity there on the “edge of Appalachia.”
  
  Melanchra adjuncta
• Planning for “Mothapalooza.” I will be at the Eulett Center in June, too, participating in a moth-centered event there, from June 14-16. Many thanks to several people who are making my visit possible, and cost-effective. I actually look forward to learning a lot, as moths are not my strong suit.
• Planning for “Bug Fest” in Bloomington, Indiana. One of my good friends is organizing a weekend event at the Hilltop Garden and Nature Center on the Indiana University campus, Saturday, June 22. I will help lead field walks and provide any other assistance I can. I will spend the week between this event and Mothapalooza there in Indiana.
• Project Noah. I have been anointed the status of “Ranger” on this interactive website whereby people can post “spottings,” in the form of images uploaded from their computers, cameras, or even smartphones. The mobile accessibility is unique, as is the fact that these spottings are from all over the world. Right now I feel little more than useless since all the insect spotting are coming from the southern hemisphere and I don’t recognize any of them! I’ll be more productive at making identifications once spring has sprung north of the Equator.
• Working on *me*. My wife and I purchased a year membership to Planet Fitness and have been going to the gym regularly to improve our physical health. Some days I’m not sure whether I’m in a gym, a tattoo parlor, or a prison (seriously, one guy the other day had an ankle monitor), but I am already feeling the results after only one month. I have no illusions that I’ll miraculously get the body I had in my 30s, but I want to be as healthy as I can be, especially if I want to travel overseas (which I do).
• Birding. Well, when insects are few and far between, I tend to let my attention drift briefly to birds. This is not all bad. The Aiken Audubon Society has some very nice field trips, with delightful people, and usually great food. The promise of food alone is usually enough to get me up early, but I really enjoy the social aspect since most of my time during the week is spent home alone.
• 
  Boning up on fossil insects. Just today I spoke with people at Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument, and they would like me to teach a one-day seminar on insects of the park, both extinct and extant. The park is perhaps best known for its unique arthropod fossils. They even have a fossil wasp as their logo. We are looking at July for that possible event.

There are other projects and/or part-time jobs that are stirring, but I don’t want to jinx myself. You will hear about them when the time comes, if it ever does. Meanwhile, I’m trying to figure out how to create “Moth Monday” as a feature when Heidi has Sunday and Monday off, thus pleasantly distracting me….

Happy Holidays!

I want to wish all of my followers and fellow bloggers Happy Holidays, and my sincerest best wishes to you for a bright new year.

I spent yesterday doing a Christmas bird count in the vicinity of La Veta, Colorado (Spanish Peaks area), where we were rewarded with spottings of wild turkey (the bird, silly, not the whiskey), and a Golden Eagle among several other species. Interestingly, I learned that Eastern Boxelder Bugs (Boisea trivittata) are called "adobe bugs" there. Never heard of that before. That insect was quite plentiful, though, basking on the south side of houses despite the lingering snow at over 7,000 feet elevation.

I continue to enjoy making new discoveries like that, and then sharing them with all of you. Remember there will be more diversity in posts next year. Remember, too, that you are always welcome to share your own questions, images, and observations with me. My personal universe is rather small, but together we can broaden our collective horizons. Thank you.

BugEric24ATyahooDOTcom.

Big Changes Coming Here

I can hardly believe I have been at this for three years and over 300 posts, but that is how it should be. When you enjoy what you are doing, time flies. Time has come to make some changes, though, all for the better I think.

There will be more diversity in the subjects covered here. I will likely be adding “Moth Monday,” “True Bug Tuesday,” and “Fly Day Friday” to the current “Wasp Wednesday” and “Spider Sunday.” “Orthoptera Thursday” is another possibility. You won’t get one of each every week, but you’ll probably get at least two posts each week.

Posts will probably be shorter. I need to expand my audience, and most people do not read online, they scan. They like bullet points. I will do my best to balance thoroughness and storyline with brevity.

I will be debuting a new website. I am privileged to be working with a good friend who is also a website developer to make BugEric dot com a reality, probably sometime in January or February of 2013. Blog posts will likely be moved there, and this site kept as an archive. The new site will offer me far more flexibility in what else I can do, including making products available for sale.

The most important thing I need to do, however, is to promote my name and my site to generate some kind of income. Yes, I could get a “regular job,” but then most of what you are getting would cease to be due to time constraints. Please help me to do this, if you will, through continued donations, recruitment of advertisers, and whatever other avenues you can think of. My expertise is in writing and entomology, not in internet marketing.

I thank you for your continued support through following this blog, and look forward to bringing you an even better product in the future.