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(intro music) Rich Braman: Becky, I'm ready and raring for this, but I cannot believe it's here.

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Rich Braman: It's, uh, been my pleasure to welcome everyone for my last chance to say this.

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Rich Braman: I'm, uh, Rich Braman.

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Rich Braman: I'm with the Center for Urban Agriculture, and of course, we support this through Becky, and we're always ecstatic to support

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Rich Braman: all of her programming.

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Rich Braman: But this course has just been one for our history books, Becky.

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Rich Braman: It has been marvelous all around.

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Rich Braman: And so it is my pleasure to hand things off to our own host who makes all this happen, our Becky Griffin, National Coordinator

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Rich Braman: of our Great Southeast Pollinator Census.

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Rich Braman: Becky, take it away.

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Becky Griffin: Thank you, Rich.

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Becky Griffin: Thanks for being such a great co-host.

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Becky Griffin: Um, I'm excited about today.

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Becky Griffin: Beetles.

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Becky Griffin: Those of you who didn't catch on, we played a little appropriate Beatles music to get us warmed up.

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Becky Griffin: I have on my beetle earrings, and I have on a shirt I had made just for today, so I am very excited.

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Becky Griffin: I'm extremely thrilled for our present- presenter today.

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Becky Griffin: So our presenter for our final session is Dr. Joe McHugh.

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Becky Griffin: (coughs) Excuse me.

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Becky Griffin: I got carried away.

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Becky Griffin: He is the Herbert H. and Jean A. Ross Memorial Distinguished Professor of Insect System- System and Evolutionary Biology in the Department of Entomology at

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Becky Griffin: UGA.

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Becky Griffin: What a mouthful.

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Becky Griffin: Joe is also the curator of the Georgia Museum of Natural History.

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Becky Griffin: (coughs) Excuse me, folks.

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Becky Griffin: So he brings both the research depth and storytelling ability to help us appreciate beetles and some of the other insects we haven't covered yet.

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Becky Griffin: A perfect way to wrap up seven weeks together.

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Becky Griffin: Welcome, Joe.

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Becky Griffin: The floor is yours.

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Joe McHugh: Okay.

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Joe McHugh: Hold on a second here.

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Joe McHugh: Let's get started.

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Joe McHugh: Okay.

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Joe McHugh: Does that look okay?

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Rich Braman: You might need to sh...

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Rich Braman: Let's see.

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Rich Braman: Reshare?

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Rich Braman: If you don't mind.

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Joe McHugh: Okay.

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Joe McHugh: Hold on a second.

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Joe McHugh: I'll go back to share.

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Joe McHugh: And back share.

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Joe McHugh: And I'll come back down here to share.

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Joe McHugh: Okay, and then can you see that?

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Rich Braman: Okay, Joe, that's perfect.

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Rich Braman: I'm seeing your title slide.

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Rich Braman: All right.

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Rich Braman: We're in business.

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Joe McHugh: Oh, all right.

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Joe McHugh: Hello, everybody.

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Joe McHugh: Greetings from the public library in Vergennes, Vermont.

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Joe McHugh: I am up here moving my daughter to a new location.

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Joe McHugh: Uh, we just got in with a moving truck last night, and I am in a library I've never been in before because they have Wi-Fi and, uh, hopefully this

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Joe McHugh: all goes smoothly, and we don't have any connectivity, uh, issues along the way.

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Joe McHugh: Fingers crossed.

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Joe McHugh: Thanks for the very nice introduction.

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Joe McHugh: I appreciate it.

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Joe McHugh: I'm an entomologist.

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Joe McHugh: I've always been an entomologist since I was a child.

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Joe McHugh: I was one of those little boys who always loved insects, and I never outgrew that love of insects.

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Joe McHugh: I went to college to study insect diversity specifically, and after, uh, I finished graduate school, I, uh, was fortunate enough

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Joe McHugh: to be hired at the University of Georgia at, uh, Department of Entomology, and I've been on the faculty there for over thirty years now.

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Joe McHugh: Um, I am the curator for the collection of arthropods at the Georgia Museum of Natural History.

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Joe McHugh: That's a collection of over two point two million specimens of insects and related arthropods.

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Joe McHugh: So I'm an entomologist to the core since forever.

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Joe McHugh: Um, but I'm a particular kind of entomologist.

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Joe McHugh: I am a systematist, and systematists are people who study the science of biodiversity.

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Joe McHugh: And so I'm...

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Joe McHugh: I study things like the discovery and description of new species, the classification of insects, the, uh, biogeography, the nomenclature, the

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Joe McHugh: evolution of insects.

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Joe McHugh: So all things that have to do with, with diversity.

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Joe McHugh: And in particular, my interests are focused on beetles, and so I'm talking about my passion here today, my love of beetles.

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Joe McHugh: But I am not an ecologist.

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Joe McHugh: I am not a population...

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Joe McHugh: I'm not a pollination biologist.

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Joe McHugh: I'm not a conservation biologist.

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Joe McHugh: And so, um, my presentation will have a bit different sort of, uh, focus and, um, bias than maybe you have seen in some of the other presentations.

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Joe McHugh: All right.

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Joe McHugh: So we're here at the end of the course, and you've heard about all these, uh, fantastic insect groups that are, uh, pollinators.

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Joe McHugh: You've heard about the butterflies and the moths.

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Joe McHugh: You've heard about wasps and bees.

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Joe McHugh: Uh, you've heard about flies.

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Joe McHugh: This is the great pantheon of insect pollinators.

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Joe McHugh: But something sadly has been missing.

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Joe McHugh: Beetles, beetle pollinators.

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Joe McHugh: So I'm so happy that we actually have a presentation devoted to beetles because I think they deserve some love as well when it comes to talking about insect pollination.

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Joe McHugh: So how am I gonna proceed here?

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Joe McHugh: Uh, I'm gonna give you sort of a, a, beetle presentation that, uh, connects different aspects of beetle biology

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Joe McHugh: to pollination along the way.

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Joe McHugh: And I wanna talk to you a little about anatomy, a little about the history of beetles, a little about their diversity, their biology, and then talk to you about

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Joe McHugh: a few different types of beetles that are common in the southeastern United States.

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Joe McHugh: They're common pollinators in the southeastern United States, and hopefully, uh, familiarize you with them if you don't already know them.

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Joe McHugh: All right.

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Joe McHugh: So what are beetles anyway?

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Joe McHugh: Beetles are a group that people usually have a very clear picture of in their head.

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Joe McHugh: When they think about it a little bit, they usually can conjure up, uh, a typical classical beetle.

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Joe McHugh: There's some sort of beetle-ness that they all have that help people to, uh, to recognize them.

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Joe McHugh: Beetles have been recognized all the way back to the time of Aristotle.

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Joe McHugh: They, um, they are distinctive enough that two thousand three hundred years ago, Aristotle thought that beetles formed some sort of natural cohesive

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Joe McHugh: group.

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Joe McHugh: He could see those features.

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Joe McHugh: Since the very start of zoological nomenclature, beetles have been recognized as a formal group in classification as well.

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Joe McHugh: Linnaeus in Systema Naturae, uh, recognized an order Coleoptera, which is the order for the beetles.

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Joe McHugh: So since seventeen fifty-eight, uh, they have been...

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Joe McHugh: Since the start of zoological nomenclature, beetles have been a formal group.

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Joe McHugh: But, you know, when you look at beetles and you dig more, uh, deeply into beetle diversity, the things you think make a beetle a beetle get fuzzy.

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Joe McHugh: (laughs) It gets a bit more complicated to actually figure out what features beetles have.

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Joe McHugh: Beetles are unbelievably diverse, and the more you look at, uh, beetle diversity, the more confused you get, I think.

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Joe McHugh: So let's talk a little bit about anatomy.

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Joe McHugh: All right?

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Joe McHugh: Uh, by talking to you about anatomy, I'm hoping that it'll help you to recognize beetles in their various different forms, but I hope it also will help you to

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Joe McHugh: understand some aspects of beetle pollination that are directly, uh, impacted by their anatomy.

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Joe McHugh: And now I need to give you a warning, okay?

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Joe McHugh: Pretty much everything I say about beetle diversity from this point going forward is going to be a half-truth or a partial truth or not a lie, but it won't

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Joe McHugh: exactly be an airtight, complete sentence because beetles are so diverse.

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Joe McHugh: There is an exception to every single rule with beetles.

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Joe McHugh: There's some beetle someplace that doesn't follow the rules and, uh, is different.

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Joe McHugh: And so with that warning, we'll move forward.

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Joe McHugh: So if look at the beetles, there are some beetles here on the left-hand side of the screen, and you look at some other insect groups on the right-hand side

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Joe McHugh: of the screen, some big differences jump right out at you.

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Joe McHugh: If you look at the, uh, if you look over here on the right ha- right-hand side of the screen, we have things like dragonflies.

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Joe McHugh: We have things like the butterflies and moths here.

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Joe McHugh: We have bees here.

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Joe McHugh: There's a cicada here.

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Joe McHugh: You can see that flying insects typically have, uh, four well-developed flight wings.

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Joe McHugh: I know that you heard about flies last week, and they have four wings, just two of them are very tiny.

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Joe McHugh: But, um, but most insects, most of flying insects have four large, well-developed flight wings.

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Joe McHugh: And usually the forewings are the bigger, more powerful wings that drive most of the flight.

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Joe McHugh: If you look over here at the beetles, something is going on with the beetles.

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Joe McHugh: And what exactly, what exactly is the story here with them?

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Joe McHugh: If you look at a beetle, they have this characteristic look to them where over the abdomen, there are these two plates that meet down the...

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Joe McHugh: And so what are these two plates?

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Joe McHugh: What, what's going on with this?

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Joe McHugh: These are the structures for which the beetle order Coleoptera gets their name.

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Joe McHugh: Coleoptera means sheath wing.

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Joe McHugh: It translates to sheath wing, and it's in reference to the fact that the anterior pair of wings, which are usually the, the major wings that, that power the flight

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Joe McHugh: in insects, are now hard shells that are protective, covering the abdomen.

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Joe McHugh: All right?

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Joe McHugh: They're no longer capable of powering flight, so they have a whole different function, and that's what you think of when you see beetles.

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Joe McHugh: You know, the, the elytra, um, jump right out at you.

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Joe McHugh: You kind of notice this feature of them, this, the line down the middle and these two hard shells.

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Joe McHugh: So

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Joe McHugh: the interesting thing is that beetles, when they pop open those elytra, they still have fully developed hind wings.

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Joe McHugh: Um, they still have these membranous hind wings back here.

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Joe McHugh: They're all folded up or coiled up underneath the elytra.

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Joe McHugh: So beetles can fly, but they've given up two of their wings for a protective covering, and that might sound like a terrible mistake to make, right?

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Joe McHugh: When you give up two of your wings, you're flying only with your hind wings, and that's, that's called posteromotorism.

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Joe McHugh: Um, but you're flying just with your hind wings now, and so why in the world would beetles do that?

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Joe McHugh: By making their top pair of wings hard shells that protect their abdomen and protect their hind wings, beetles are...

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Joe McHugh: were now able to utilize all different kinds of other habitats and access all different other kinds of resources.

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Joe McHugh: They could bore through wood.

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Joe McHugh: They could burrow underground.

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Joe McHugh: They could crawl through rocks.

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Joe McHugh: They could live underwater and swim, and still have wings.

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Joe McHugh: They could still come out, pop the elytra open, and then fly away, and so they kind of have the best of both worlds.

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Joe McHugh: It's really kind of an amazing, really important adaptation.

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Joe McHugh: But they did trade off their forewings for that.

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Joe McHugh: Beetles are also covered with very hard shells.

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Joe McHugh: Um, they're very heavily armored, and oftentimes, the plates that cover their body segments are, are very hard, crunchy sort of shells,

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Joe McHugh: and they fit very tightly together with each other.

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Joe McHugh: Beetles don't have a lot of exposed membrane.

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Joe McHugh: They're not very flexible sorts of insects, right?

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Joe McHugh: If you look at a beetle, you see all of these plates all tightly abutting to each other, you know, hard, hard plate to hard plate, and that makes for

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Joe McHugh: a very rigid sort of body.

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Joe McHugh: Think of a beetle as sort of a, a tank, right?

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Joe McHugh: And so this affects how you pollinate.

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Joe McHugh: If you think about it, you gave up, you gave up your two primary flight wings to make hard shells over your back, and you're, and you're covered with these

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Joe McHugh: hard plates that all tightly fit together.

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Joe McHugh: And so, uh, those kind of things all combine together to make beetles very clumsy flyers.

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Joe McHugh: They're not particularly agile in the air and, um, if you're gonna be a pollinator, that's a problem, right?

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Joe McHugh: That, that poses some special, uh, issues for beetles that some of the really good flyers, like flies and like Hymenoptera and like Lepidoptera, are

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Joe McHugh: really good at.

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Joe McHugh: They can hover.

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Joe McHugh: They have precise kind of flying ability.

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Joe McHugh: Beetles do not.

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Joe McHugh: So they're clumsy flyers.

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Joe McHugh: What else about their anatomy impacts their pollination?

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Joe McHugh: Beetles have mandibulate mouthparts.

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Joe McHugh: Okay, and what do I mean by that?

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Joe McHugh: They have biting, chewing mouthparts.

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Joe McHugh: They have these structures called mandibles that oppose each other and act sort of like chisels to pinch or to chop and chew things for their food.

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Joe McHugh: Things like stag beetles, male stag beetles, have gigantic mandibles, and they're really, really obvious.

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Joe McHugh: Things like this carabid beetle have normal-sized mandibles for a beetle.

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Joe McHugh: You can see them there, though.

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Joe McHugh: And so biting and chewing types of mandibles.

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Joe McHugh: And so right around now, you're probably thinking, "What about weevils?"

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Joe McHugh: Weevils don't have biting and chewing mandibles, right?

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Joe McHugh: They have sucking types of mandibles.

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Joe McHugh: They have that long beak that sticks out in front of them.

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Joe McHugh: Weevils are beetles, and they have this big rostrum here, but actually, that rostrum is just part of their head capsule that's elongated.

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Joe McHugh: And at the very end of that long rostrum are little mandibles and little biting, chewing mouthparts.

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Joe McHugh: They are not drinkers either.

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Joe McHugh: And so beetles lack the ability to drink up liquid fl-fluid types of food.

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Joe McHugh: So, so far in this course, you've heard about bees.

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Joe McHugh: Uh, bees have a tongue.

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Joe McHugh: They can, they can lap up, uh, nectar from flowers with a tongue.

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Joe McHugh: Butterflies and moths have a proboscis.

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Joe McHugh: They actually have a straw, a coiled straw that they can stick down deep into a flower and drink up nectar.

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Joe McHugh: Flies have a labellum that they can use to lap up liquid food and drink that as well.

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Joe McHugh: Beetles do not have that.

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Joe McHugh: Beetles do not have the ability to drink up liquid food like those other groups can.

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Joe McHugh: And that is obviously going to impact how they interact with flowers, right?

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Joe McHugh: Not being able to drink up that nectar.

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Joe McHugh: What else about their anatomy is relevant here?

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Joe McHugh: Well, if you look at beetle anatomy, they have antennae on their head, and the antennae are wildly variable.

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Joe McHugh: Uh, in fact, the antennae are very important for taxonomy and identification of beetles.

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Joe McHugh: But for the purposes of our discussion, what's important to know is that those antennae are covered with tiny little structures called sensoria that are

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Joe McHugh: responsible for detecting different types of things.

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Joe McHugh: There are certain sensoria that can detect chemical cues, there are sensoria that can detect temperature, ones that can detect humidity, touch, or even sound

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Joe McHugh: vibrations.

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Joe McHugh: But for the purposes of pollination, these two cues here, chemical cues and temperature cues, are very important because those are things that flowers actually

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Joe McHugh: use to lure in pollinators.

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Joe McHugh: And so beetles on these crazy antennae have the ability to detect these chemical cues and these temperature cues from flowers.

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Joe McHugh: All right, let's stop the anatomy lesson and switch over to a history lesson now.

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Joe McHugh: Okay?

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Joe McHugh: If you look at the history of beetles, some interesting things come up.

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Joe McHugh: Scientists are able to date the age of different, uh, organisms, uh, including the beetles, based on, uh, fossil evidence and based on molecular

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Joe McHugh: phylogenetic dating methods.

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Joe McHugh: And so you can get an idea when different types of creatures have, have appeared.

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Joe McHugh: Right, so what can we say about that?

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Joe McHugh: Well, whenever you're talking about, uh, these kind of very, very old events, uh, it's hard to wrap your head around people talking about the Triassic period or the Miocene,

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Joe McHugh: and, you know, uh, your head just kinda gets confused about what that all means.

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Joe McHugh: So let's try to put this in, uh, a little bit easier terms to digest.

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Joe McHugh: Let's get a reference point here for age.

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Joe McHugh: We'll pick Fido, okay?

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Joe McHugh: Our, our friend Fido here.

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Joe McHugh: And, um, Fido belongs to a family in the classification system called Canidae, and, um, the date that Canidae are thought to have, uh,

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Joe McHugh: appeared in the evolutionary, uh, record is about forty million years ago.

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Joe McHugh: That's when that branch of the tree of life seemed to appear.

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Joe McHugh: What about these guys?

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Joe McHugh: Dinosaurs.

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Joe McHugh: Okay, dinosaurs, they go way back.

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Joe McHugh: That's a ancient, prehistoric group.

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Joe McHugh: That goes deep, deep into evolutionary history.

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Joe McHugh: And so those have been dated back somewhere, you know, there's a lot of debate, uh, you know, some- somewhere around two hundred and thirty million years ago.

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Joe McHugh: So deep in history.

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Joe McHugh: What about our friends, the beetles?

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Joe McHugh: Where do the beetles sit relative to these ones, the Canidae, which are relatively recent, and the dinosaurs that are really ancient?

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Joe McHugh: Beetles go back at least three hundred million years.

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Joe McHugh: Beetles are older than the dinosaurs, and they're still here.

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Joe McHugh: (laughs) They're still here, and they're still here in huge numbers.

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Joe McHugh: They have tremendous diversity.

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Joe McHugh: If you think about that, three hundred million years ago, beetles were here.

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Joe McHugh: Beetles were around, and they were actually active pollinating ancient forests of gymnosperms and, you know, things like cycad forests over

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Joe McHugh: a hundred and fifty million years ago.

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Joe McHugh: That means that beetles were pollinating plants before there even were bees, before there were butterflies.

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Joe McHugh: Beetles were pollinating plants before there were angiosperms with flowers.

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Joe McHugh: Okay?

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Joe McHugh: They are an ancient group.

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Joe McHugh: They were the pioneers of the pollinating world.

251
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Joe McHugh: Thrips were also involved, but beetles were one of the key pollinators of ancient forests, and they continued to be pollinators through history.

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Joe McHugh: When the angiosperms did arise, beetles, lots of different beetle groups, became pollinators of them as well.

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Joe McHugh: What's interesting is if you look at some of the ancient plant lineages, things like cycads, things like...

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Joe McHugh: in the angiosperms, things like water lilies or magnolias, they are still pollinated by beetles today, and that's sort of a remnant of that anct- ancient connection

255
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Joe McHugh: that goes way back deep in history.

256
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Joe McHugh: All right.

257
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Joe McHugh: Let's switch...

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Joe McHugh: Let's stop the history lesson.

259
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Joe McHugh: Let's switch over to diversity.

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Joe McHugh: I'm a beetle systematist, and so my, my bias is going to shine through here.

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Joe McHugh: Humor me.

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Joe McHugh: This is something that I really always have been passionate about.

263
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Joe McHugh: But I think this is the most amazing aspect of the Coleoptera, of the beetles.

264
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Joe McHugh: Their diversity is just astounding.

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Joe McHugh: They are hyper-diverse in any measure you want to use.

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Joe McHugh: How diverse are they?

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Joe McHugh: Let's get a reference point again.

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Joe McHugh: Here's our...

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Joe McHugh: here's Fido.

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Joe McHugh: We'll pull up Fido one more time.

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Joe McHugh: Fido is in that family Canidae.

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Joe McHugh: It includes things like wolves.

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Joe McHugh: includes coyotes, foxes, and all the different types of dog groups.

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Joe McHugh: And this is the family Curculionidae, the weevils.

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Joe McHugh: Okay?

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Joe McHugh: Weevils are a big group of beetles, not the biggest ones.

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Joe McHugh: Staphylinidae are the biggest family of beetles, but they are probably the second-biggest family of beetles.

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Joe McHugh: How do these two families match up with each other?

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Joe McHugh: Okay.

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Joe McHugh: I have the Linnaean classification system here, uh, so kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species, and I have a family versus family comparison.

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Joe McHugh: The dog family, about thirty-five species.

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Joe McHugh: The weevil family, about sixty-five thousand species of weevils alone.

283
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Joe McHugh: Okay?

284
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Joe McHugh: All right.

285
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Joe McHugh: Let's go a little bit higher over here on the classification.

286
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Joe McHugh: Let's compare the weevils to the entire order of animals in...

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Joe McHugh: called the Carnivora.

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Joe McHugh: The Carnivora.

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Joe McHugh: These are the flesh-eating or meat-eating groups, and that includes not just the dogs, but bears and skunks and seals, whales, raccoons, the cat family,

290
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Joe McHugh: pandas, and a whole bunch of other groups that eat, uh, meat.

291
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Joe McHugh: Okay?

292
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Joe McHugh: Two hundred and seventy species versus sixty-five thousand species of just the weevils.

293
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Joe McHugh: Let's go a little higher.

294
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Joe McHugh: The entire class Mammalia, let's compare them.

295
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Joe McHugh: That adds things like the ungulates, the primates, the marsupials, and the rodents.

296
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Joe McHugh: Five thousand species.

297
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Joe McHugh: Sixty-five thousand species of weevils.

298
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Joe McHugh: Still, the weevils dwarf the entire class Mammalia.

299
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Joe McHugh: Let's go higher, the phylum.

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Joe McHugh: The dogs are in the phylum Chordata with all the animals that have a ventral nerve cord and a whole bunch of other features as well.

301
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Joe McHugh: This includes things like frogs, reptiles, birds, and fish, as well as all those other things.

302
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Joe McHugh: Five thousand species versus sixty-five thousand species.

303
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Joe McHugh: Okay?

304
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Joe McHugh: Uh, Curculionidae still dwarfs the group.

305
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Joe McHugh: I could go even higher and compare the kingdom that the dogs are in with the weevils, except for that the weevils are in the same kingdom with the dogs.

306
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Joe McHugh: And so, uh, they're part of Animalia, and so it's a little bit of a confusing comparison.

307
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Joe McHugh: But I could throw this one up here for you.

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Joe McHugh: Uh, the order Coleoptera, which is the order for the beetles, compared to the plants, the kingdom Plantae.

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Joe McHugh: The plant kingdom has thirty-two, uh, two hundred, uh, three hundred and twenty thousand species, and the beetles have about four hundred thousand species,

310
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Joe McHugh: uh, described.

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Joe McHugh: Okay?

312
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Joe McHugh: So beetles are bigger than the entire kingdom Plantae.

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Joe McHugh: Beetles occur in almost every type of habitat on the face of the earth, except for the, the marine habitat.

314
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Joe McHugh: They occur on, uh, every continent except Antarctica.

315
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Joe McHugh: They are everywhere from treetops to subterranean.

316
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Joe McHugh: They are in deserts.

317
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Joe McHugh: They're in tropical rainforests.

318
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Joe McHugh: They are every imaginable place.

319
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Joe McHugh: Those four hundred thousand species of beetles make up about a quarter of every, uh, animal sp- of all the animal species that are out there.

320
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Joe McHugh: So if you think about it, one out of every four animal species known is a beetle.

321
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Joe McHugh: All right?

322
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Joe McHugh: That's pretty amazing.

323
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Joe McHugh: What's even more amazing, though, is that is just the, uh, number of described beetle species.

324
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Joe McHugh: All right?

325
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Joe McHugh: Those are the ones that actually some scientist has named and officially described.

326
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Joe McHugh: We've only scratched the surface of knowing the beetle diversity that's on the Earth.

327
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Joe McHugh: Estimates of the actual diversity of species on Earth range everywhere from, from a million species to eight million species to even higher.

328
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Joe McHugh: And so you see that we, we barely even know the diversity of beetles on Earth today, and it's still astounding.

329
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Joe McHugh: Beetles range in size from the size of a baseball to the size of a single-celled paramecium.

330
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Joe McHugh: Shocking range of size, uh, diversity.

331
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Joe McHugh: And if you look at the beetle, the beetleverse, if you will, you can find sort of an analog of almost every other kind of animal within the beetleverse.

332
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Joe McHugh: Elephants, very cool, unusual body form.

333
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Joe McHugh: We've got our own elephants over in the beetleverse.

334
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Joe McHugh: Giraffes, yeah, we got those, too.

335
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Joe McHugh: A triceratops.

336
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Joe McHugh: Oh, is that a challenge?

337
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Joe McHugh: Nope.

338
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Joe McHugh: Atlas beetles.

339
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Joe McHugh: In fact, any horned animal you can, you can picture, there is a beetle that pretty much matches that horned animal, uh, in the beetleverse.

340
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Joe McHugh: What about a peacock?

341
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Joe McHugh: Spectacularly beautiful, iridescent creature.

342
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Joe McHugh: Stunning, right?

343
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Joe McHugh: There are all kinds of outrageously beautiful iridescent beetles to choose from.

344
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Joe McHugh: What about this guy?

345
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Joe McHugh: A vespid wasp.

346
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Joe McHugh: It's another kind of insect.

347
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Joe McHugh: What about...

348
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Joe McHugh: what have the beetles got to compare to that?

349
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Joe McHugh: Well, if you look in the beetle world, there are a whole lot of beetles that look an awful lot like vespids because they're trying to mimic them.

350
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Joe McHugh: Uh, a lot of beetles that hang out on flowers, uh, become mimics of stinging Hymenoptera in order to avoid, uh, being preyed upon.

351
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Joe McHugh: They, they look like they've got a, a stinger, and so predators don't wanna mess around with them.

352
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Joe McHugh: But we've got our own vespids even in the beetle world.

353
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Joe McHugh: This is a moth.

354
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Joe McHugh: This is a lepidopteran, and you can see the proboscis.

355
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Joe McHugh: There are moth-like beetles that are out there.

356
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Joe McHugh: These two look an awful lot alike because they're involved in a mimicry complex.

357
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Joe McHugh: In this case, it's thought that both of them are toxic, and they're just in a Müllerian type of mimicry complex.

358
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Joe McHugh: What about behaviors like this?

359
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Joe McHugh: You've got two deer here fighting two bucks, uh, fighting with their antlers over a territory or over a mate.

360
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Joe McHugh: Happens in beetles too.

361
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Joe McHugh: There are lots of beetles that have horns, that use the horns to fight with each other over a territory or over, um, uh, over a mate.

362
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Joe McHugh: In this case, these aren't horns on the head or horns on the thorax.

363
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Joe McHugh: These are actually the mandibles that are enlarged in stag beetles.

364
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Joe McHugh: And the, and the males will fight with each other to throw each other off the log here.

365
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Joe McHugh: That's a prime spot for either a mate or, um, uh, for maybe for, uh, the female to be able to lay eggs after mating.

366
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Joe McHugh: Nest-making behavior.

367
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Joe McHugh: This seems like a higher level type of behavior as well that we see in the animal world.

368
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Joe McHugh: In the beetleverse, it happens as well.

369
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Joe McHugh: There are beetles that make nests.

370
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Joe McHugh: For example, this is a dung beetle.

371
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Joe McHugh: Dung beetles burrow underground.

372
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Joe McHugh: They make galleries underground.

373
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Joe McHugh: They provision little cells with, uh, dung balls, lay eggs on the dung balls for their young to grow up, uh, in their nest underground.

374
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Joe McHugh: What about parental care?

375
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Joe McHugh: Think of a mama bird feeding the baby birds.

376
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Joe McHugh: Something like that happen in beetles?

377
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Joe McHugh: Absolutely.

378
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Joe McHugh: Just think of the bess beetle.

379
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Joe McHugh: If you crack open some logs, you, you've surely seen some bess beetles.

380
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Joe McHugh: Um, bess beetles actually pre-chew food to feed to their larvae in their galleries inside old rotting logs, and they also provide protection

381
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Joe McHugh: for their larvae, and they also communicate with them with stridulation.

382
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Joe McHugh: And so even that type of thing occurs in the beetles.

383
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Joe McHugh: Bioluminescence.

384
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Joe McHugh: Things like anglerfish and, uh, some other types of animals are able to produce cold chemical light for various reasons.

385
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Joe McHugh: We have that in beetles, of course.

386
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Joe McHugh: You all know Lampyridae, the fireflies, are able to produce light with their body.

387
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Joe McHugh: Uh, in fact, there are five different families of beetles that are able to produce light, bioluminescent light.

388
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Joe McHugh: It's an amazing ability, and there are five different groups of beetles that can do it.

389
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Joe McHugh: All right.

390
00:28:10,040 --> 00:28:11,020
Joe McHugh: But what about this guy?

391
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Joe McHugh: A furry little hamster here.

392
00:28:13,560 --> 00:28:15,700
Joe McHugh: Do beetles match that in the beetleverse?

393
00:28:16,200 --> 00:28:16,520
Joe McHugh: Yes.

394
00:28:16,700 --> 00:28:26,960
Joe McHugh: There are furry little beetles, and what's interesting is with respect to pollination, uh, many beetle pollinators have an unusual little vestiture

395
00:28:27,560 --> 00:28:36,140
Joe McHugh: of setae, these hairs you see on the body, either little scales or hairs, and that helps make them more effective pollinators.

396
00:28:36,220 --> 00:28:45,000
Joe McHugh: They're sort of like a dust mop picking up all of the pollen as they're milling around, and they're able to move the pollen more effectively with that.

397
00:28:45,600 --> 00:28:48,460
Joe McHugh: So we have our own little, our own little, uh, fuzzy mammals.

398
00:28:49,120 --> 00:28:52,180
Joe McHugh: All right, so I could go on all day with that, but I'll spare you.

399
00:28:52,940 --> 00:29:01,840
Joe McHugh: If you look at the history of, of beetle evolution, you'll see an interesting pattern or you'll see an interesting pattern with respect to pollination.

400
00:29:02,300 --> 00:29:09,960
Joe McHugh: This is a phylogenetic tree that was produced in a collaborative study that my lab worked on back in twenty fifteen with, uh, Duane McKenna.

401
00:29:10,590 --> 00:29:15,300
Joe McHugh: Uh, and these are some of the higher level groupings of the beetles here.

402
00:29:15,620 --> 00:29:20,380
Joe McHugh: And so all that beetle diversity can be jammed into one of these groups that you see here.

403
00:29:20,920 --> 00:29:21,040
Joe McHugh: Right?

404
00:29:21,160 --> 00:29:23,660
Joe McHugh: So this kind of reflects how they're all related to each other.

405
00:29:24,530 --> 00:29:29,940
Joe McHugh: And if you map onto this tree here, which ones are known pollinators?

406
00:29:29,980 --> 00:29:33,940
Joe McHugh: Which ones of these groups include species that are known pollinators?

407
00:29:35,060 --> 00:29:36,320
Joe McHugh: They're all over the tree.

408
00:29:37,040 --> 00:29:41,740
Joe McHugh: Uh, there are lots and lots of groups here that have known pollinators in them.

409
00:29:41,880 --> 00:29:50,040
Joe McHugh: And so beetles have an extensive, uh, range of different interactions with, uh, with the flowers throughout the tree here.

410
00:29:50,280 --> 00:29:57,800
Joe McHugh: Multiple different evolutions of, uh, pollination, uh, behavior have popped up in the tree for the beetles.

411
00:29:58,920 --> 00:29:59,240
Joe McHugh: Okay.

412
00:30:00,440 --> 00:30:02,480
Joe McHugh: Let's talk about the biology for a bit now.

413
00:30:03,220 --> 00:30:06,920
Joe McHugh: Okay, if you look at beetle biology, we'll talk about the development here.

414
00:30:08,140 --> 00:30:10,140
Joe McHugh: Beetles are a holometabolous group.

415
00:30:10,150 --> 00:30:13,120
Joe McHugh: They're like the, they're like the butterflies and moths.

416
00:30:13,140 --> 00:30:14,620
Joe McHugh: They're like the bees and wasps.

417
00:30:14,660 --> 00:30:16,300
Joe McHugh: They're like the flies.

418
00:30:16,420 --> 00:30:17,690
Joe McHugh: Uh, they lay eggs.

419
00:30:17,720 --> 00:30:19,360
Joe McHugh: The eggs hatch into larvae.

420
00:30:19,800 --> 00:30:23,660
Joe McHugh: The larvae pupate, and the pupae hatch out into the adult.

421
00:30:23,880 --> 00:30:25,799
Joe McHugh: So they've got complete metamorphosis.

422
00:30:26,920 --> 00:30:31,000
Joe McHugh: Beetle larvae are unbelievably diverse, like everything else about beetles.

423
00:30:31,040 --> 00:30:32,880
Joe McHugh: They have many, many different forms.

424
00:30:32,920 --> 00:30:34,769
Joe McHugh: They live in many, many different places.

425
00:30:34,780 --> 00:30:37,780
Joe McHugh: They have many, many different feeding behaviors, okay?

426
00:30:38,300 --> 00:30:43,700
Joe McHugh: Beetle larvae are the longest living stage in the life history of a beetle.

427
00:30:44,129 --> 00:30:44,420
Joe McHugh: Okay?

428
00:30:44,640 --> 00:30:48,800
Joe McHugh: Some of them live two years or longer in the larval stage alone.

429
00:30:49,880 --> 00:30:53,460
Joe McHugh: And in the larval stage, beetles do most of their feeding.

430
00:30:54,260 --> 00:31:00,160
Joe McHugh: What's interesting is that the larval stage is not, um, the stage that's responsible for pollination.

431
00:31:00,600 --> 00:31:05,080
Joe McHugh: Pollination in beetles is always limited to the adult stage.

432
00:31:05,700 --> 00:31:15,740
Joe McHugh: What's interesting also about the larvae here that I should mention is that in beetle species that are known to be pollinators, typically, always, the larvae

433
00:31:15,800 --> 00:31:18,000
Joe McHugh: have nothing to do with the flowers, okay?

434
00:31:18,540 --> 00:31:28,870
Joe McHugh: You'll find beetle pollinator species whose larvae actually are borers in wood or are detritivores that live in leaf litter or soil

435
00:31:28,940 --> 00:31:37,140
Joe McHugh: inhabiting, totally disconnected from the biology of the adult, which is to be feeding on the floral materials.

436
00:31:37,820 --> 00:31:42,920
Joe McHugh: So it's a very, very strange kind of split between the, the larval biology and the adult biology.

437
00:31:43,420 --> 00:31:45,460
Joe McHugh: But the larvae aren't the pollinators.

438
00:31:46,020 --> 00:31:49,580
Joe McHugh: Ecological roles of beetles, they do everything.

439
00:31:49,660 --> 00:31:50,540
Joe McHugh: Again, diversity.

440
00:31:51,000 --> 00:31:59,140
Joe McHugh: Uh, they can be predaceous, parasitic, coprophagous, necrophagous, detritivorous, mycophagous, and herbivorous.

441
00:31:59,710 --> 00:32:08,580
Joe McHugh: And this is, of course, the, the type of ecological role here that we're interested in for this subject and for this course is a connection to plants.

442
00:32:09,460 --> 00:32:13,100
Joe McHugh: But even within that category, they do everything.

443
00:32:13,300 --> 00:32:23,600
Joe McHugh: There are frugivorous beetles, granivorous beetles, pollinivorous beetles, nectivorous beetles, florivorous beetles, folivorous beetles, xylophagous

444
00:32:23,680 --> 00:32:26,940
Joe McHugh: beetles, rhizophagous beetles, and detritivorous beetles.

445
00:32:27,840 --> 00:32:32,360
Joe McHugh: Only these categories here in red are related to pollination, though.

446
00:32:32,720 --> 00:32:34,260
Joe McHugh: So let's focus on those.

447
00:32:35,360 --> 00:32:38,140
Joe McHugh: There actually is a term for pollination by beetles.

448
00:32:38,180 --> 00:32:46,680
Joe McHugh: It's called cantharid-- cantharophily, and that is, uh, literally is pol-- is love of beetles or pollination by beetles.

449
00:32:47,580 --> 00:32:47,860
Joe McHugh: All right?

450
00:32:48,180 --> 00:32:51,440
Joe McHugh: And so you can see a couple of different beetles here on flowers.

451
00:32:52,060 --> 00:32:54,140
Joe McHugh: What can we say about cantharophily?

452
00:32:54,900 --> 00:33:01,580
Joe McHugh: Beetles are, um, not very elegant diners, okay, if you wanna put it nicely.

453
00:33:01,740 --> 00:33:12,260
Joe McHugh: They're considered mess and soil pollinators, and the reason why they're considered that is that, um, they get in there, and they use those mandibulate mouthparts

454
00:33:12,300 --> 00:33:14,580
Joe McHugh: that I mentioned to chew up the flower.

455
00:33:14,680 --> 00:33:15,820
Joe McHugh: They chew up the petals.

456
00:33:15,860 --> 00:33:17,500
Joe McHugh: They chew up the sexual parts.

457
00:33:18,100 --> 00:33:20,740
Joe McHugh: They plow their way around the flower.

458
00:33:20,829 --> 00:33:22,140
Joe McHugh: They do a bunch of damage.

459
00:33:22,740 --> 00:33:30,980
Joe McHugh: They have a habit, a nasty habit of mating with each other on top of the flower, and even a worse habit of defecating on the flower while they're wandering

460
00:33:31,040 --> 00:33:32,800
Joe McHugh: around on it as well, okay?

461
00:33:33,460 --> 00:33:37,820
Joe McHugh: Not elegant dining guests for sure compared to a lot of the other groups.

462
00:33:39,000 --> 00:33:41,060
Joe McHugh: So mess and soil pollinators.

463
00:33:41,140 --> 00:33:50,620
Joe McHugh: They're kind of like a mixture between a dust mop that's cruising around picking up pollen while they're just kind of bumbling around on the flower, on the flower head,

464
00:33:51,260 --> 00:33:57,260
Joe McHugh: and kind of like a tractor plowing their way around and, and doing damage along the way.

465
00:33:58,360 --> 00:33:58,780
Joe McHugh: All right.

466
00:33:59,800 --> 00:34:03,820
Joe McHugh: What can we say about the flowers that, that are associated with beetles?

467
00:34:04,490 --> 00:34:12,280
Joe McHugh: They have a particular sort of syndrome of features if they are specialists that rely heavily on beetle pollination.

468
00:34:13,100 --> 00:34:23,020
Joe McHugh: They tend to have strong fragrances that may be fruity, spicy, like a fermenting smell or a musky smell, okay?

469
00:34:23,680 --> 00:34:33,440
Joe McHugh: And, uh, if you think back to those crazy antennae that I told you about that are covered with those sensory structures, remember that beetles rely very heavily on olfactory

470
00:34:33,620 --> 00:34:39,500
Joe McHugh: cues and, and thermal cues to, to recognize their, uh, flowers.

471
00:34:39,520 --> 00:34:44,440
Joe McHugh: And so these fragrances are meant to lure in the beetles to be able to find them.

472
00:34:45,380 --> 00:34:50,600
Joe McHugh: Um, beetles don't rely as much on vision as a lot of other pollinators, okay?

473
00:34:51,040 --> 00:34:53,340
Joe McHugh: What else can we say about beetle-pollinated flowers?

474
00:34:54,140 --> 00:34:59,080
Joe McHugh: They tend to be active, uh, open during the daytime, okay?

475
00:34:59,160 --> 00:35:03,400
Joe McHugh: They tend to be diurnal flowering, opening flowers.

476
00:35:03,740 --> 00:35:04,060
Joe McHugh: Okay?

477
00:35:05,300 --> 00:35:15,400
Joe McHugh: And, uh, part of their explanation for why that is that those, those fragrances that the flowers produce can be produced and, uh, spread widely more easily when it's

478
00:35:15,420 --> 00:35:16,919
Joe McHugh: warm out from the heat of the day.

479
00:35:18,020 --> 00:35:19,020
Joe McHugh: What else can I say?

480
00:35:19,490 --> 00:35:27,600
Joe McHugh: The color of beetle-pollinated flowers tend to be white, yellow, pale green, and sometimes reddish-brown, burgundy in color.

481
00:35:28,140 --> 00:35:28,500
Joe McHugh: Okay?

482
00:35:29,160 --> 00:35:36,520
Joe McHugh: And again, color is not so important to beetles because they're using other, uh, cues to find the flowers.

483
00:35:37,320 --> 00:35:47,440
Joe McHugh: Flowers that are beetle-pollinated, that are kind of specialists for beetle pollination, don't have nectar guides because beetles don't really care to be finding the nectar.

484
00:35:47,840 --> 00:35:48,080
Joe McHugh: Okay?

485
00:35:49,120 --> 00:35:58,040
Joe McHugh: Beetles are flying in primarily to look for pollen, protein-rich pollen, and petals to chew on.

486
00:35:59,160 --> 00:35:59,300
Joe McHugh: Okay?

487
00:35:59,340 --> 00:36:02,940
Joe McHugh: They're not focused on the nectar 'cause they can't really drink it.

488
00:36:03,960 --> 00:36:05,580
Joe McHugh: What about the form of the flowers?

489
00:36:06,380 --> 00:36:11,820
Joe McHugh: There's sort of like three different appearances of flowers that you'll see that are, uh, beetle-pollinated.

490
00:36:12,360 --> 00:36:21,200
Joe McHugh: They can be big flowers that are bowl-shaped with big, thick, fleshy petals that the beetles can just flop into.

491
00:36:21,320 --> 00:36:21,620
Joe McHugh: Okay?

492
00:36:22,080 --> 00:36:28,040
Joe McHugh: Remember, the beetles gave up a pair of their wings, pair of their flight wings, and they're heavily armored.

493
00:36:28,380 --> 00:36:29,820
Joe McHugh: They are not good flyers.

494
00:36:30,160 --> 00:36:34,810
Joe McHugh: They're clumsy, and so they just wanna fly over the flower and kind of flop down onto it.

495
00:36:35,360 --> 00:36:41,140
Joe McHugh: And so you see flowers that have these big open kind of bowl shapes, uh, that they can flop onto.

496
00:36:41,250 --> 00:36:45,390
Joe McHugh: And then they have big thick petals that the beetles can, can munch on.

497
00:36:46,380 --> 00:36:52,880
Joe McHugh: The other, option is a big open-faced flower that again, they can fly into and flop onto like a sunflower.

498
00:36:53,560 --> 00:37:02,420
Joe McHugh: Or big broad clusters of tiny flowers in this kind of inflorescence that again, the beetles can flop onto.

499
00:37:02,460 --> 00:37:09,880
Joe McHugh: Beetles need a big landing pad to land on, and then they wander around and they want to chew up the pollen and chew up the petals.

500
00:37:09,960 --> 00:37:20,860
Joe McHugh: And so typically, those flowers provide lots of those resources, lots of pollen and lots of petals for them to munch on while they're milling around picking up pollen

501
00:37:20,920 --> 00:37:22,700
Joe McHugh: to carry on to another flower.

502
00:37:23,720 --> 00:37:29,020
Joe McHugh: Beetles, again, don't have the ability to drink nectar very easily, so that's not what they're there for.

503
00:37:30,120 --> 00:37:30,340
Joe McHugh: Okay.

504
00:37:30,860 --> 00:37:39,420
Joe McHugh: With that, I wanna change tracks one more time here and talk to you about who are some of the usual suspects that you might see in the southeastern United

505
00:37:39,560 --> 00:37:44,280
Joe McHugh: States when you're looking at, uh, flowers, when you're surveying pollinators.

506
00:37:44,880 --> 00:37:47,140
Joe McHugh: This is not a beetle taxonomy course.

507
00:37:47,240 --> 00:37:57,040
Joe McHugh: Um, I, I teach one of those at UGA, and I spend a whole semester and, and barely scratch the surface of beetle, uh, taxonomy, and it requires a lot

508
00:37:57,080 --> 00:38:03,160
Joe McHugh: of really good microscopes and, and squinting at details of tarsi and, and antennae.

509
00:38:03,820 --> 00:38:05,500
Joe McHugh: Uh, but that's not what my purpose here is.

510
00:38:05,660 --> 00:38:10,280
Joe McHugh: I wanna just try to show you a couple of, uh, types of beetles so that you can recognize them.

511
00:38:11,300 --> 00:38:21,020
Joe McHugh: And I'm well aware of the fact that beetles in pollination surveys usually fall into this other category down here.

512
00:38:21,080 --> 00:38:27,820
Joe McHugh: You know, carpenter bees get their own category, bumblebees get their own category, honeybees their own category, small bees their own category.

513
00:38:28,840 --> 00:38:32,540
Joe McHugh: Poor beetles don't even get their own order-level category.

514
00:38:32,660 --> 00:38:35,460
Joe McHugh: They get dropped into the other insect group.

515
00:38:35,920 --> 00:38:36,860
Joe McHugh: (laughs) All right.

516
00:38:37,040 --> 00:38:43,460
Joe McHugh: So let's talk about some of those beetle groups that are likely suspects that you'll see out there when you look at your flowers.

517
00:38:44,060 --> 00:38:52,680
Joe McHugh: Uh, the first one is the Scarabaeidae, and the Scarabaeidae are commonly known as scarab beetles or June beetles and chafers and things like that.

518
00:38:53,460 --> 00:38:54,580
Joe McHugh: How do you recognize them?

519
00:38:54,960 --> 00:38:56,260
Joe McHugh: They have a stout body.

520
00:38:56,490 --> 00:38:59,560
Joe McHugh: It's convex, so it's humped up dorsally.

521
00:39:00,240 --> 00:39:04,740
Joe McHugh: Uh, they have antennae that have those fan-like, uh, clubs.

522
00:39:04,800 --> 00:39:12,380
Joe McHugh: These really spectacularly beautiful clubs that can close up to look like a club or open up to look like a beautiful, delicate fan.

523
00:39:13,190 --> 00:39:20,000
Joe McHugh: Their front legs are fairly thick, and they have teeth on them, denticulate projections off the sides of the legs.

524
00:39:20,040 --> 00:39:21,320
Joe McHugh: You can see that here on this guy.

525
00:39:22,000 --> 00:39:28,020
Joe McHugh: And if you look at them from above, you'll notice that normally their abdomen isn't completely covered by the elytra.

526
00:39:28,440 --> 00:39:28,620
Joe McHugh: Okay?

527
00:39:28,700 --> 00:39:32,480
Joe McHugh: You can see part of their abdomen sticking out beyond the elytra.

528
00:39:33,360 --> 00:39:33,500
Joe McHugh: Right?

529
00:39:33,580 --> 00:39:36,160
Joe McHugh: So those are the scarabs.

530
00:39:36,280 --> 00:39:38,500
Joe McHugh: And you can see this guy here is covered with setae.

531
00:39:38,600 --> 00:39:44,430
Joe McHugh: He's one of the fuzzy ones that picks up a lot of pollen in the process of crawling all over the flowers.

532
00:39:45,280 --> 00:39:46,060
Joe McHugh: All right.

533
00:39:46,070 --> 00:39:52,620
Joe McHugh: The next family is Cerambycidae, and the Cerambycidae are the longhorn beetles, and these are much more elongated beetles.

534
00:39:53,160 --> 00:40:02,000
Joe McHugh: They tend to have either a cylindrical body form like these guys here or sort of a diamond-shaped body outline like these guys here.

535
00:40:02,920 --> 00:40:07,480
Joe McHugh: Um, the head is usually roughly about the same width as the pronotum.

536
00:40:08,220 --> 00:40:11,480
Joe McHugh: Uh, the antennae, however, are very, very distinct.

537
00:40:11,520 --> 00:40:13,280
Joe McHugh: That's what they get their common name from.

538
00:40:13,660 --> 00:40:23,860
Joe McHugh: The antennae are very long and typically thread-like antennae that are at least as long as half the body length, and sometimes they're even way longer

539
00:40:23,900 --> 00:40:25,610
Joe McHugh: than the entire body length.

540
00:40:25,660 --> 00:40:28,810
Joe McHugh: So long to very long antennae.

541
00:40:29,740 --> 00:40:38,600
Joe McHugh: If you look at the elytra, the elytra are very broad anteriorly, and they give these kind of shoulder, these shoulder pad sort of look to them.

542
00:40:39,720 --> 00:40:42,600
Joe McHugh: So that's what, um, the longhorn beetles look like.

543
00:40:43,420 --> 00:40:50,960
Joe McHugh: Chrysomelidae are the leaf beetles, and, uh, these are small, oval to round-shaped beetles.

544
00:40:51,040 --> 00:40:53,120
Joe McHugh: They're strongly convex dorsally.

545
00:40:53,760 --> 00:40:58,280
Joe McHugh: Uh, they look a little bit like a weevil at first glance, but they don't have a snout.

546
00:40:59,280 --> 00:41:03,560
Joe McHugh: Uh, their antennae are not more than half their body length.

547
00:41:03,620 --> 00:41:07,500
Joe McHugh: Their pronotum usually has a sharp edge to it laterally.

548
00:41:07,600 --> 00:41:10,260
Joe McHugh: Look here, you can see a sharp edge there.

549
00:41:10,320 --> 00:41:19,640
Joe McHugh: Their elytra are hard and crunchy, kind of hard, crunchy, shell-like types of elytra, and they typically cover the entire abdomen.

550
00:41:19,660 --> 00:41:22,380
Joe McHugh: There's no abdomen sticking out posteriorly.

551
00:41:23,100 --> 00:41:32,620
Joe McHugh: One other feature is if you can get a careful, look carefully at their legs, you might notice that chrysomelids have fat, spongy types of feet, if you will.

552
00:41:32,820 --> 00:41:36,880
Joe McHugh: Their tarsi have, uh, pads on the bottom that make them look fat.

553
00:41:37,660 --> 00:41:39,040
Joe McHugh: The next family is Cantharidae.

554
00:41:39,140 --> 00:41:40,340
Joe McHugh: These are the soldier beetles.

555
00:41:40,950 --> 00:41:46,220
Joe McHugh: Uh, soldier beetles are yellow, brown, or reddish in color, oftentimes with black markings on them.

556
00:41:46,560 --> 00:41:47,980
Joe McHugh: Their body is squishy.

557
00:41:48,200 --> 00:41:50,560
Joe McHugh: These are squishy beetles, not crunchy beetles.

558
00:41:51,040 --> 00:41:53,780
Joe McHugh: They are leathery, okay, instead of hard.

559
00:41:54,420 --> 00:42:01,700
Joe McHugh: Uh, they're very similar to fireflies in appearance, but they have no light organ on them, and their head is visible from above.

560
00:42:01,820 --> 00:42:07,039
Joe McHugh: In fireflies, the pronotum covers the whole head, so you can't see it from above.

561
00:42:07,120 --> 00:42:15,500
Joe McHugh: But cantharids look like a firefly, but you can see the head from above, and they can't bioluminesce.

562
00:42:15,900 --> 00:42:17,079
Joe McHugh: They can't bioluminesce.

563
00:42:18,280 --> 00:42:24,480
Joe McHugh: Uh, the antennae of cantharids are long and thread-like, and their elytra are soft and leathery.

564
00:42:25,460 --> 00:42:26,580
Joe McHugh: That's soldier beetles.

565
00:42:27,760 --> 00:42:31,120
Joe McHugh: Meloid beetles, these are the blister beetles.

566
00:42:31,220 --> 00:42:36,560
Joe McHugh: Uh, blister beetles are unusual looking because their head narrows abruptly posteriorly.

567
00:42:36,700 --> 00:42:38,460
Joe McHugh: It makes it look like they have a neck.

568
00:42:39,640 --> 00:42:47,260
Joe McHugh: The pronotum is also very narrow anteriorly, and that helps to accentuate that neck appearance that the beetles have.

569
00:42:48,100 --> 00:42:49,740
Joe McHugh: The elytra are soft.

570
00:42:50,160 --> 00:42:54,060
Joe McHugh: They're kind of flexible, and they're kind of floppy and loose over the back.

571
00:42:54,500 --> 00:42:58,960
Joe McHugh: Sometimes they're extremely short, like in these guys over here, these black ones.

572
00:43:00,000 --> 00:43:02,180
Joe McHugh: The coloration is usually striking.

573
00:43:02,410 --> 00:43:03,560
Joe McHugh: It's aposematic.

574
00:43:03,600 --> 00:43:05,080
Joe McHugh: It's warning coloration.

575
00:43:05,320 --> 00:43:11,609
Joe McHugh: There's usually some kind of contrasting color pattern or bright color pattern that's warning you not to touch them.

576
00:43:11,930 --> 00:43:16,080
Joe McHugh: And the reason why they're warning you is because these are the blister beetles.

577
00:43:16,720 --> 00:43:25,220
Joe McHugh: They are able to exude droplets of cantharidin from the joints on their body, and that causes blistering of your skin.

578
00:43:26,180 --> 00:43:29,100
Joe McHugh: That's their protective, uh, their protective mechanism.

579
00:43:29,560 --> 00:43:31,120
Joe McHugh: Piridae [VERIFY: "Piridae"; click beetle family name] are the click beetles.

580
00:43:31,220 --> 00:43:34,060
Joe McHugh: They are-- these are a favorite of kids everywhere.

581
00:43:34,100 --> 00:43:40,760
Joe McHugh: If you, uh, have spent much time out in nature, you surely have, at some point or another, played around with click beetles.

582
00:43:40,780 --> 00:43:44,020
Joe McHugh: They have this elongate kind of typical sort of body form.

583
00:43:44,700 --> 00:43:53,860
Joe McHugh: Uh, they have a very unusual sort of junction between the, the pronotum and the rest of the body here that forms sort of a joint that, uh, is kind

584
00:43:53,900 --> 00:44:03,680
Joe McHugh: of a hinge between the anterior part of the body and the posterior part of the body, and that's what they bend in order to latch their clicking mechanism, and

585
00:44:03,700 --> 00:44:06,720
Joe McHugh: that's what allows them to pop up in the air when they want to flip.

586
00:44:07,320 --> 00:44:14,220
Joe McHugh: If you look at the pronotum carefully, the posterior edges laterally have this sharp tooth on each side.

587
00:44:14,400 --> 00:44:16,540
Joe McHugh: You can see it on this guy over here very nicely.

588
00:44:17,360 --> 00:44:22,020
Joe McHugh: Uh, but that backward-projecting tooth is another thing that's helpful to recognize the click beetles.

589
00:44:22,120 --> 00:44:24,840
Joe McHugh: But these guys are another pollinator group that you will see.

590
00:44:25,320 --> 00:44:29,480
Joe McHugh: Nitidulidae are the sap beetles, picnic beetles, and pollen beetles.

591
00:44:29,760 --> 00:44:34,580
Joe McHugh: These are, are oval to oblong in body form.

592
00:44:34,760 --> 00:44:36,960
Joe McHugh: They're sort of dorsoventrally flattened.

593
00:44:37,020 --> 00:44:40,540
Joe McHugh: They're not as convex as many of the other beetles that I've mentioned to you.

594
00:44:41,160 --> 00:44:45,320
Joe McHugh: If you look, they have a kind of broad head that's visible from above.

595
00:44:45,720 --> 00:44:55,920
Joe McHugh: And on that head, they have a very unusual type of antenna that ends in a very abrupt club that is round and,

596
00:44:56,040 --> 00:44:56,960
Joe McHugh: uh, flat.

597
00:44:57,300 --> 00:44:59,320
Joe McHugh: It looks like a lollipop on a stick.

598
00:44:59,960 --> 00:45:03,380
Joe McHugh: Uh, so think of lollipop on a stick antennae for the nitidulids.

599
00:45:03,420 --> 00:45:05,640
Joe McHugh: That's a great character for recognizing them.

600
00:45:06,360 --> 00:45:09,240
Joe McHugh: The elytra in nitidulids are truncated.

601
00:45:09,300 --> 00:45:16,520
Joe McHugh: They're very sharply cut straight across, and it usually exposes two or three of the abdominal seg- segments.

602
00:45:17,660 --> 00:45:20,020
Joe McHugh: So Nitidulidae, very common.

603
00:45:20,620 --> 00:45:22,960
Joe McHugh: By the way, nitidulids are a family.

604
00:45:23,120 --> 00:45:29,820
Joe McHugh: They're, they're nitidulid beetles that are the known pollinators of, of the pawpaw tree.

605
00:45:29,890 --> 00:45:31,300
Joe McHugh: And so pawpaws are one of...

606
00:45:31,620 --> 00:45:38,960
Joe McHugh: They are the largest edible fruit in North America, and it's nitidulids that are, uh, one of the key pollinators for that fruit.

607
00:45:39,940 --> 00:45:42,320
Joe McHugh: Mordellids are the tumbling flower beetles.

608
00:45:42,520 --> 00:45:42,600
Joe McHugh: Mm.

609
00:45:42,780 --> 00:45:45,120
Joe McHugh: These are very, very distinctive looking beetles.

610
00:45:45,200 --> 00:45:47,360
Joe McHugh: They have a, a humped back.

611
00:45:47,520 --> 00:45:50,980
Joe McHugh: The head is turned underneath, and it's very small.

612
00:45:50,990 --> 00:45:56,940
Joe McHugh: The abdomen, at the end of the abdomen, has a very long spike-like projection off the end.

613
00:45:56,960 --> 00:46:04,340
Joe McHugh: And they're usually covered with a very fine sort of fur or, uh, scales that make them look kind of fuzzy looking.

614
00:46:05,060 --> 00:46:12,600
Joe McHugh: They're called the tumbling flower beetles because if you've ever gotten up close to these guys and touched the flower that they're on or got too close with your camera,

615
00:46:12,960 --> 00:46:16,980
Joe McHugh: they pop off and, uh, drop down into the ground down below.

616
00:46:17,780 --> 00:46:19,450
Joe McHugh: So they're able to kind of jump.

617
00:46:19,460 --> 00:46:26,080
Joe McHugh: They have, big hind legs and this spike that help them to push off and, uh, drop to the ground.

618
00:46:26,640 --> 00:46:26,940
Joe McHugh: All right.

619
00:46:27,260 --> 00:46:32,220
Joe McHugh: And so that is it of our quick tour of common pollinator groups in the southeastern US.

620
00:46:32,820 --> 00:46:34,300
Joe McHugh: Uh, there are some fantastic...

621
00:46:34,420 --> 00:46:34,860
Joe McHugh: As I...

622
00:46:35,300 --> 00:46:37,100
Joe McHugh: I'm wrapping up the, the presentation here.

623
00:46:37,200 --> 00:46:43,600
Joe McHugh: These are some general, uh, references here, uh, that you can go to online about beetle pollination.

624
00:46:44,160 --> 00:46:50,940
Joe McHugh: Uh, for beetle identification, bugguide.net is a really fantastic reference for identifying beetles.

625
00:46:50,970 --> 00:46:54,620
Joe McHugh: They have some fantastic photographs of all different kinds of beetles.

626
00:46:54,660 --> 00:47:00,140
Joe McHugh: And this book here by Arthur Evans called The Beetles of Eastern North America is fantastic.

627
00:47:00,280 --> 00:47:05,340
Joe McHugh: If you're interested in learning more about beetle diversity or identifying beetles, buy that book.

628
00:47:05,680 --> 00:47:15,930
Joe McHugh: Uh, he's got pretty much every genus of beetle in the southeastern United States illustrated with descriptions and, uh, diagnoses and

629
00:47:16,000 --> 00:47:17,240
Joe McHugh: biological information.

630
00:47:18,120 --> 00:47:21,400
Joe McHugh: And so to wrap up, final, final comments here.

631
00:47:21,860 --> 00:47:24,700
Joe McHugh: I hope you have a newfound respect for beetles as pollinators.

632
00:47:25,180 --> 00:47:32,060
Joe McHugh: Beetles have a very long, very rich and diverse history of being pollinators through evolutionary time.

633
00:47:32,310 --> 00:47:41,600
Joe McHugh: They were pollinating before there even were angiosperms, before there were bees, before there were butterflies, and they continue to be very important pollinators today as well.

634
00:47:42,700 --> 00:47:52,700
Joe McHugh: And last but not least, just because you're a clumsy flyer, you're a weak flyer, and just because you lack specialized mouth parts that allow you to suck up or

635
00:47:52,880 --> 00:48:03,340
Joe McHugh: lap up nectar, and just because you're a sloppy, destructive, and illele- and inelegant diner, it doesn't mean you can't also be a really important pollinator.

636
00:48:03,640 --> 00:48:08,500
Joe McHugh: And so I hope you've come to appreciate, uh, beetles as important pollinators out there.

637
00:48:09,180 --> 00:48:14,940
Joe McHugh: And with that, I wanna just say thanks very much to Becky and to Rich for helping me to be part of this.

638
00:48:15,260 --> 00:48:24,440
Joe McHugh: And, uh, the image credits go to canva.com and to, various Bugwood, uh, contributors and photographers out there.

639
00:48:24,760 --> 00:48:27,760
Joe McHugh: And with that, I can wrap it up and take questions.

640
00:48:28,600 --> 00:48:30,460
Becky Griffin: Joe, I, I like your last slide.

641
00:48:30,490 --> 00:48:32,400
Becky Griffin: I think there's some life lessons in there.

642
00:48:33,260 --> 00:48:37,900
Becky Griffin: Uh, just 'cause you're not the most, uh, logical pollinator doesn't mean you're not an important one.

643
00:48:38,460 --> 00:48:38,840
Joe McHugh: Yeah.

644
00:48:39,760 --> 00:48:41,960
Joe McHugh: So should I sh- stop the share now?

645
00:48:42,700 --> 00:48:42,980
Becky Griffin: Yes.

646
00:48:43,440 --> 00:48:44,020
Becky Griffin: Now we're ready.

647
00:48:44,740 --> 00:48:47,060
Becky Griffin: All right, so we'll go through a couple questions.

648
00:48:47,720 --> 00:48:49,180
Becky Griffin: How do beetles get water?

649
00:48:49,900 --> 00:48:51,640
Joe McHugh: A lot of it is what they ingest.

650
00:48:52,180 --> 00:48:56,740
Joe McHugh: So beetles, what they're eating has some, has some, uh, water in it.

651
00:48:57,040 --> 00:49:03,300
Joe McHugh: Um, beetles do have other s- other mouth parts that are capable of maybe picking up a little bit of water.

652
00:49:03,440 --> 00:49:11,100
Joe McHugh: But, you know, they have maxillae and, and, uh, a labium that can maybe get a little bit of liquid, but a lot of it is just what they're ingesting.

653
00:49:11,570 --> 00:49:17,579
Joe McHugh: And beetles have special mechanisms in their digestive system for retaining water.

654
00:49:17,899 --> 00:49:21,940
Joe McHugh: They're really, really good at surviving with very little water.

655
00:49:22,280 --> 00:49:31,409
Joe McHugh: Uh, beetles have recycling systems in their digestive system for holding water, the little bit of water they get, and so that's why we actually have problems with some stored

656
00:49:31,480 --> 00:49:32,300
Joe McHugh: product pests.

657
00:49:32,560 --> 00:49:42,560
Joe McHugh: Beetles can live inside a bag of flour or, uh, a, a bag of dog food or seeds or something like that and have m- many, many generations for

658
00:49:42,620 --> 00:49:45,900
Joe McHugh: a whole year without any access to free water.

659
00:49:46,160 --> 00:49:50,510
Joe McHugh: And so they're just really, really good at, at getting by with little, little water.

660
00:49:51,600 --> 00:49:51,980
Becky Griffin: Excellent.

661
00:49:53,120 --> 00:50:03,840
Becky Griffin: Uh, Wendy wants to know if beetles pollinate I'm gonna spell this C-O-O-N-T-I-E 'Cause I'm not sure what that is I'm

662
00:50:03,920 --> 00:50:05,420
Joe McHugh: actually not sure either.

663
00:50:06,220 --> 00:50:06,229
Becky Griffin: Okay.

664
00:50:06,260 --> 00:50:09,080
Joe McHugh: I'll have to, I'll have to, I'll have to look that up and- Okay.

665
00:50:09,100 --> 00:50:10,560
Joe McHugh: I'm gonna look that one up and see.

666
00:50:10,620 --> 00:50:10,840
Joe McHugh: Yeah.

667
00:50:11,660 --> 00:50:12,180
Joe McHugh: I'm a- Sorry.

668
00:50:12,240 --> 00:50:13,520
Joe McHugh: I'm a, I'm a beetle guy.

669
00:50:13,580 --> 00:50:16,060
Joe McHugh: I'm not a, I'm not a plant- Not a plant guy Sorry.

670
00:50:16,280 --> 00:50:16,880
Joe McHugh: Sorry, folks.

671
00:50:17,380 --> 00:50:17,919
Becky Griffin: Oh, no, no.

672
00:50:18,040 --> 00:50:18,720
Becky Griffin: This is great.

673
00:50:19,220 --> 00:50:19,380
Becky Griffin: If...

674
00:50:19,670 --> 00:50:29,940
Becky Griffin: Laura wants to know if beetles mimic the vespids, then the vespids had to have been around about three hundred million years ago also.

675
00:50:30,060 --> 00:50:30,900
Becky Griffin: Is this true?

676
00:50:31,600 --> 00:50:31,780
Joe McHugh: No.

677
00:50:32,180 --> 00:50:38,820
Joe McHugh: Um, the, uh, the ones that are mimicking the vespids came much later.

678
00:50:38,940 --> 00:50:49,200
Joe McHugh: And so if you look at that evolutionary tree that I showed you, there were ancient lines of beetles that were associated with cycads, long, long, you know, millions,

679
00:50:49,640 --> 00:50:50,980
Joe McHugh: hundreds of millions of years ago.

680
00:50:51,120 --> 00:50:55,780
Joe McHugh: But then there were many beetles that much more recently became pollinators.

681
00:50:56,220 --> 00:51:06,300
Joe McHugh: And those beetles would have much later been involved in these mimicry complexes and would have evolved to, to, uh, be

682
00:51:06,360 --> 00:51:12,600
Joe McHugh: able to utilize, uh, mimicry to help to protect themselves out in the open on a flower.

683
00:51:13,300 --> 00:51:14,400
Becky Griffin: That's sort of fascinating.

684
00:51:15,220 --> 00:51:17,900
Becky Griffin: Yeah, I think everybody has a new respect for beetles.

685
00:51:18,580 --> 00:51:18,620
Joe McHugh: Mm-hmm.

686
00:51:18,660 --> 00:51:26,980
Becky Griffin: So right now, Joe, I'm gonna send you over to the Q&A to type up some answers, and I'm going to share my screen, and we're going to talk a

687
00:51:27,040 --> 00:51:30,180
Becky Griffin: little bit about the Census in general.

688
00:51:31,200 --> 00:51:31,640
Becky Griffin: Okay.

689
00:51:32,480 --> 00:51:33,240
Becky Griffin: Let's see

690
00:51:34,500 --> 00:51:35,840
Becky Griffin: I can do this correctly.

691
00:51:36,780 --> 00:51:37,400
Becky Griffin: All right.

692
00:51:37,560 --> 00:51:45,540
Becky Griffin: So as you all know, th- well, this was a fantastic, a fascinating study on beetles.

693
00:51:45,720 --> 00:51:46,940
Becky Griffin: I've always respected them.

694
00:51:47,060 --> 00:51:53,060
Becky Griffin: I feel I was shamed because the original counting sheet that Joe showed did not have a beetle on it.

695
00:51:53,180 --> 00:51:54,920
Becky Griffin: I think we have fixed that.

696
00:51:55,020 --> 00:52:02,740
Becky Griffin: Uh, we've been through some iterations since then, and so we know that we chose beetles as one of the other insects, like Joe said, not because we don't have

697
00:52:02,820 --> 00:52:08,500
Becky Griffin: respect for them, but just because we, uh, had to keep our list at a certain level.

698
00:52:09,580 --> 00:52:17,580
Becky Griffin: And we are gonna see in August some insects that don't fall into those eight categories that we've pr- previously discussed.

699
00:52:18,140 --> 00:52:20,620
Becky Griffin: Uh, and these are just some examples of things I've seen.

700
00:52:20,840 --> 00:52:25,240
Becky Griffin: We have one of the flower beetles that Joe was talking about on a jewelweed.

701
00:52:25,360 --> 00:52:26,040
Becky Griffin: Very cute.

702
00:52:26,980 --> 00:52:29,500
Becky Griffin: Um, we've seen dragonflies and mantids.

703
00:52:29,700 --> 00:52:34,200
Becky Griffin: I know somebody sent me a picture of a mantid today, uh, on, on some plants.

704
00:52:34,240 --> 00:52:35,060
Becky Griffin: It was really cute.

705
00:52:35,580 --> 00:52:39,800
Becky Griffin: Over here we have an ambush bug, which is a really tiny insect.

706
00:52:40,260 --> 00:52:41,660
Becky Griffin: This was on mountain mint.

707
00:52:41,760 --> 00:52:48,420
Becky Griffin: So these are the kind of things, lady beetles, these are the things that we are going to see that you would put in the other category.

708
00:52:49,060 --> 00:52:59,080
Becky Griffin: If it is not an insect, uh, let's say it's a hummingbird because I know everyone loves hummingbirds, and they really, really, really wanna count them during the census, but

709
00:52:59,140 --> 00:53:00,540
Becky Griffin: we are looking at insect.

710
00:53:00,580 --> 00:53:05,080
Becky Griffin: Um, just kinda keep that in mind as you go along in your counting.

711
00:53:06,060 --> 00:53:16,400
Becky Griffin: Now, uh, we have had, uh, seven weeks of some pretty intense scientific information and some really good hints on counting and creating

712
00:53:16,480 --> 00:53:18,020
Becky Griffin: your wonderful pollinator garden.

713
00:53:18,600 --> 00:53:21,160
Becky Griffin: I know I have taken copious notes every week.

714
00:53:21,220 --> 00:53:23,720
Becky Griffin: We've had some really amazing speakers.

715
00:53:23,760 --> 00:53:29,620
Becky Griffin: But this all leads to August twenty-first and twenty-second for this year's census.

716
00:53:29,700 --> 00:53:37,280
Becky Griffin: So, um, if you are in the southeast, as part of the course, we want you to lead a census event or at least participate.

717
00:53:37,880 --> 00:53:44,220
Becky Griffin: And if you have not checked out the census website, I definitely need you to do that ASAP.

718
00:53:45,000 --> 00:53:51,109
Becky Griffin: There you will have everything that you need to lead a census program or to participate.

719
00:53:51,140 --> 00:53:58,120
Becky Griffin: There are PowerPoints you could use to train your garden club or the day of your event, um, have those pulled up.

720
00:53:58,580 --> 00:54:02,380
Becky Griffin: There are videos where I explain in detail how to count.

721
00:54:03,360 --> 00:54:13,060
Becky Griffin: Um, if you're an educator or you have a boys and girls club, we have lessons and games and books and all sorts of recommendations on things you can do

722
00:54:13,160 --> 00:54:14,680
Becky Griffin: around a census event.

723
00:54:15,340 --> 00:54:25,510
Becky Griffin: We also have rack cards and bookmarks that you are welcome to maybe send to a place like Vistaprint where you can add your own event information.

724
00:54:26,340 --> 00:54:27,140
Becky Griffin: So those are...

725
00:54:27,180 --> 00:54:30,360
Becky Griffin: Everything you need should be at the, um, website.

726
00:54:30,520 --> 00:54:36,700
Becky Griffin: If it's not, and there's something there that you need that's not, please email me and let me know, and we can get that to you.

727
00:54:37,820 --> 00:54:42,540
Becky Griffin: Uh, we unveiled, I think it was last week, the twenty-twenty-six I Counted stickers.

728
00:54:42,600 --> 00:54:50,340
Becky Griffin: They feature, uh, lady beetles in honor of Joe here and our, our, uh, emphasis on beetles in the other insect category.

729
00:54:50,860 --> 00:54:58,820
Becky Griffin: These are located on the website for you to easily print out, um, use them on social media the day of the events.

730
00:54:59,060 --> 00:55:00,390
Becky Griffin: Print them out for stickers.

731
00:55:00,900 --> 00:55:09,540
Becky Griffin: Um, oddly enough, people collect these, and I've had people email me and wanting to have one from twenty nineteen or one from twenty twenty-one.

732
00:55:09,620 --> 00:55:16,180
Becky Griffin: Uh, I think that's kind of funny, but this is, uh, this year's official I counted sticker.

733
00:55:17,320 --> 00:55:18,400
Becky Griffin: You are also...

734
00:55:18,660 --> 00:55:24,780
Becky Griffin: You-- anyone is available, is able to use the insect mascots, and I have this QR code up.

735
00:55:24,860 --> 00:55:27,920
Becky Griffin: It is a link to the insect mascots.

736
00:55:28,060 --> 00:55:34,200
Becky Griffin: All of these things that you're seeing here were created just for the census by the very talented Megan McCoy.

737
00:55:34,700 --> 00:55:36,380
Becky Griffin: You can make T-shirts with them.

738
00:55:36,480 --> 00:55:38,340
Becky Griffin: You can print them on your flyers.

739
00:55:38,500 --> 00:55:39,860
Becky Griffin: You can make hats with them.

740
00:55:39,900 --> 00:55:42,840
Becky Griffin: I have a really cool hat I made with the moth.

741
00:55:43,460 --> 00:55:48,600
Becky Griffin: So, um, you can go to the website and download those and use them for anything you want to.

742
00:55:48,720 --> 00:55:50,900
Becky Griffin: You don't need any of my permission for that.

743
00:55:51,440 --> 00:55:53,560
Becky Griffin: I've seen them on signs at schools.

744
00:55:53,780 --> 00:56:03,010
Becky Griffin: Uh, I think there's a school in Walton County, and they call themselves the Walton Wasps Counters, and they have actually, um, downloaded that wasp and used that cute thing.

745
00:56:04,180 --> 00:56:10,160
Becky Griffin: If you have a specific question about what's going on in your state, um, these are your state coordinators.

746
00:56:10,300 --> 00:56:17,320
Becky Griffin: I'm the national coordinator, but Georgia's my home state, and I'm really pulling hard that Georgia's participate again this year.

747
00:56:17,900 --> 00:56:27,120
Becky Griffin: So your coordinators can talk to you about events in your state, specific questions about habitat in your state, insects you may see in your state.

748
00:56:27,620 --> 00:56:30,580
Becky Griffin: Um, so please maybe take a screenshot of this.

749
00:56:30,680 --> 00:56:34,580
Becky Griffin: If you don't, if you're not already familiar with your coordinator, get familiar with them.

750
00:56:34,640 --> 00:56:40,620
Becky Griffin: They're wonderful people, and they love pollinators just like you do, and they're, um, excited to talk to you about them.

751
00:56:41,140 --> 00:56:43,240
Becky Griffin: Um, hosting a census event.

752
00:56:43,980 --> 00:56:51,560
Becky Griffin: We did a newsletter on hosting this, a census event, and I have the MailChimp, uh, link there.

753
00:56:51,640 --> 00:56:56,160
Becky Griffin: So if you didn't-- if you're not on our mailing list, you should be, and you can get on it through the website.

754
00:56:56,780 --> 00:57:06,300
Becky Griffin: Um, if you miss this one, I give you a lot of helpful hints on successfully hosting an event, uh, a way to showcase your garden, a way to showcase

755
00:57:06,400 --> 00:57:11,540
Becky Griffin: what you're doing, as well as providing a group atmosphere for people to count.

756
00:57:12,100 --> 00:57:16,400
Becky Griffin: So I recommend that if you haven't seen that, please go and look at that.

757
00:57:17,120 --> 00:57:26,410
Becky Griffin: This is our eighth year as the census, and so I've done and participated in a lot of events and wanna save you guys, um, any kind of heartache or

758
00:57:26,440 --> 00:57:27,400
Becky Griffin: that's a strong word.

759
00:57:27,460 --> 00:57:33,460
Becky Griffin: Any kinda-- I wanna make sure you have the best possible time and get the most out of hosting an event.

760
00:57:34,460 --> 00:57:34,900
Becky Griffin: All right.

761
00:57:34,960 --> 00:57:37,680
Becky Griffin: Yes, this is our updated census form.

762
00:57:37,700 --> 00:57:41,300
Becky Griffin: And yes, Joe, there is a beetle down here, so I feel, feel a little vindicated.

763
00:57:42,000 --> 00:57:50,380
Becky Griffin: Uh, one of the things that I really emphasize that I learned from watching others do events is if you have a census event and you are printing out the

764
00:57:50,400 --> 00:57:55,680
Becky Griffin: count sheets like this, and you're having people, uh, you're teaching them a little bit about counting.

765
00:57:56,100 --> 00:57:58,740
Becky Griffin: They go out and count, and they're bringing you the count sheets.

766
00:57:59,320 --> 00:58:05,420
Becky Griffin: You do not wanna upload fifty count sheets, and chances are good that you're just gonna not do it.

767
00:58:05,920 --> 00:58:07,440
Becky Griffin: So there are two things you can do here.

768
00:58:07,960 --> 00:58:13,480
Becky Griffin: One is you can, as they bring their count sheets back to you, they're gonna have their cell phones.

769
00:58:13,540 --> 00:58:19,800
Becky Griffin: You can have them take their cell phones, go with the QR code, and have them upload their own counts.

770
00:58:20,420 --> 00:58:23,200
Becky Griffin: That way, you're not responsible for doing it.

771
00:58:23,460 --> 00:58:28,400
Becky Griffin: We get the counts, it takes them two minutes, and it saves you a lot of trouble.

772
00:58:29,020 --> 00:58:39,320
Becky Griffin: Now, something that we haven't talked a lot about, but I'm very excited about, is you all who have participated in the census before know that the day

773
00:58:39,580 --> 00:58:47,000
Becky Griffin: of the census, that morning, like at twelve oh one a.m., we will open up the website for uploading your counts.

774
00:58:47,580 --> 00:58:56,780
Becky Griffin: One of the really neat features that Rich has worked really hard on for years that we have wanted to make sure we have is this year you will now

775
00:58:56,860 --> 00:58:59,580
Becky Griffin: be able to count on your phone.

776
00:59:00,280 --> 00:59:02,100
Becky Griffin: So we have like an app.

777
00:59:02,160 --> 00:59:09,880
Becky Griffin: It's still gonna give us all of the information we need, like what flower you counted on, what's the temperature, uh, what are the weather conditions.

778
00:59:09,920 --> 00:59:15,820
Becky Griffin: Things that we need for the researchers that places like iNaturalist just were not allowing us to ask you.

779
00:59:16,579 --> 00:59:21,630
Becky Griffin: So if you are feeling comfortable, y-maybe you don't even need a count sheet.

780
00:59:21,690 --> 00:59:25,900
Becky Griffin: Maybe you've done this before, and you just feel confident counting on your phone.

781
00:59:26,000 --> 00:59:27,680
Becky Griffin: So that's a new feature.

782
00:59:27,900 --> 00:59:30,640
Becky Griffin: You'll be able to try it out this year.

783
00:59:30,800 --> 00:59:32,820
Becky Griffin: We're extremely excited about it.

784
00:59:32,920 --> 00:59:34,340
Becky Griffin: It is a long time in coming.

785
00:59:34,460 --> 00:59:38,960
Becky Griffin: And man, I'm so excited, and I know Rich is too, 'cause I've been bugging him about...

786
00:59:39,180 --> 00:59:39,600
Becky Griffin: Bugging him.

787
00:59:40,060 --> 00:59:42,020
Becky Griffin: I've been bugging him about it for quite a while.

788
00:59:43,100 --> 00:59:45,820
Becky Griffin: All right, uh, some more information that will be helpful to you.

789
00:59:46,080 --> 00:59:48,180
Becky Griffin: We have two Facebook pages.

790
00:59:48,820 --> 00:59:55,320
Becky Griffin: The first one over here, the Great Southeast Pollinator Census community page, is the one that is original.

791
00:59:55,420 --> 00:59:57,580
Becky Griffin: We have over ten thousand members.

792
00:59:57,680 --> 00:59:58,440
Becky Griffin: It is fun.

793
00:59:59,100 --> 00:59:59,400
Becky Griffin: All right?

794
00:59:59,440 --> 01:00:00,540
Becky Griffin: We show pictures.

795
01:00:00,660 --> 01:00:03,600
Becky Griffin: We share excitement about our pollinator gardens.

796
01:00:04,120 --> 01:00:09,640
Becky Griffin: Right now, we are in the middle of wasp week, so there's a lot of information this week on wasps.

797
01:00:10,220 --> 01:00:11,740
Becky Griffin: I will give you quizzes.

798
01:00:12,140 --> 01:00:15,100
Becky Griffin: We talk about building gardens, all that type of thing.

799
01:00:15,580 --> 01:00:24,340
Becky Griffin: One of the things we found out is that it's such a big popular page that when people started posting events, they got lost in the shuffle.

800
01:00:24,420 --> 01:00:30,400
Becky Griffin: So we have the Great Southeast Pollinator Census page, which is for our events.

801
01:00:31,020 --> 01:00:33,340
Becky Griffin: So let's say you are hosting an event.

802
01:00:33,860 --> 01:00:40,900
Becky Griffin: You can send your event flyer to your state coordinator or me, and I can put it on the events page.

803
01:00:41,680 --> 01:00:51,880
Becky Griffin: If you are looking for an event that you wanna join in your area, instead of sifting through the many, many posts that we have on the community

804
01:00:51,960 --> 01:00:55,640
Becky Griffin: page, you can go straight to this census page.

805
01:00:56,040 --> 01:01:02,200
Becky Griffin: I know that's a little confusing, and you'll be able to find just listed nicely in a row all of the many, many events.

806
01:01:02,700 --> 01:01:12,660
Becky Griffin: Last year we had well over hun- we had hundreds of events, and I wanna make sure the best I can, that you are able to find those if you

807
01:01:12,740 --> 01:01:13,700
Becky Griffin: wanna participate.

808
01:01:13,800 --> 01:01:18,940
Becky Griffin: And it's fun to participate in events one day and then count at home with your family the next day.

809
01:01:19,620 --> 01:01:22,180
Becky Griffin: I love the camaraderie of counting at an event.

810
01:01:22,720 --> 01:01:28,620
Becky Griffin: I have been to so many of them, and everyone's excited and, uh, they learn from each other.

811
01:01:28,920 --> 01:01:33,960
Becky Griffin: If you're not a totally confident counter, you get some help there.

812
01:01:34,500 --> 01:01:40,680
Becky Griffin: Uh, it is so much fun to count at this event, but it is also fun to count at home with your family in your own garden.

813
01:01:41,070 --> 01:01:43,740
Becky Griffin: And I have several people who have counted for...

814
01:01:43,860 --> 01:01:45,000
Becky Griffin: this will be their eighth year.

815
01:01:45,560 --> 01:01:51,720
Becky Griffin: And they actually do a really neat thing, and they keep their own counts and see how it varies in their own garden.

816
01:01:52,420 --> 01:01:55,620
Becky Griffin: If you have a school that's counting, maybe you can volunteer at the school.

817
01:01:55,660 --> 01:01:57,940
Becky Griffin: There are so many ways to participate.

818
01:01:58,580 --> 01:02:03,420
Becky Griffin: If you are in Georgia, we are asking this year for you to invite a friend.

819
01:02:04,000 --> 01:02:12,240
Becky Griffin: Uh, we want to keep spreading the word, and I think everyone who is already passionate about pollinators knows about the census and participates.

820
01:02:12,340 --> 01:02:20,940
Becky Griffin: So maybe grab a friend who lives in your neighborhood, or a friend that goes to school with your children, or is on the soccer team and invite them over.

821
01:02:21,000 --> 01:02:28,240
Becky Griffin: Maybe, maybe you supply the sweet tea, uh, and then allow others to count and fall in love with these insects.

822
01:02:28,920 --> 01:02:38,620
Becky Griffin: So I appreciate your patience with these, the social media, but again, we just wanna make sure that you can find the events close to you, and there's a way

823
01:02:38,660 --> 01:02:41,960
Becky Griffin: that we can promote events that you are doing.

824
01:02:42,790 --> 01:02:43,300
Becky Griffin: All right.

825
01:02:44,340 --> 01:02:47,180
Becky Griffin: Mostly, we just want you guys to have a lot of fun.

826
01:02:47,280 --> 01:02:48,609
Becky Griffin: Send and post pictures.

827
01:02:49,180 --> 01:02:59,540
Becky Griffin: Um, the schools across the state, across the southeast, we had five hund- ninety-four schools participate last year for the no-cost STEM event, as you can see pictures here.

828
01:03:00,220 --> 01:03:04,400
Becky Griffin: Teachers, of course, if they, uh, they train their students.

829
01:03:04,780 --> 01:03:10,600
Becky Griffin: If they don't feel their students are giving a good reflection in their counts, they just don't upload them.

830
01:03:11,140 --> 01:03:11,440
Becky Griffin: Okay?

831
01:03:11,530 --> 01:03:14,120
Becky Griffin: I have schools like a K through six school.

832
01:03:14,700 --> 01:03:16,300
Becky Griffin: It's Pollinator Day at that school.

833
01:03:16,380 --> 01:03:18,100
Becky Griffin: They play our pollinator music.

834
01:03:18,220 --> 01:03:19,060
Becky Griffin: The kids are out.

835
01:03:19,120 --> 01:03:20,960
Becky Griffin: They have worked on that pollinator garden.

836
01:03:21,480 --> 01:03:23,920
Becky Griffin: The kindergartners are not gonna give you an accurate count.

837
01:03:24,000 --> 01:03:27,140
Becky Griffin: They're mostly gonna get outside and run around and say, "It's a bee.

838
01:03:27,240 --> 01:03:27,840
Becky Griffin: Look at me."

839
01:03:28,480 --> 01:03:30,420
Becky Griffin: So we just don't make a big deal about that.

840
01:03:30,800 --> 01:03:33,120
Becky Griffin: Those counts just are not uploaded.

841
01:03:33,800 --> 01:03:35,420
Becky Griffin: So I want you to keep that in mind.

842
01:03:36,520 --> 01:03:38,160
Becky Griffin: And again, having loads of fun.

843
01:03:38,480 --> 01:03:40,360
Becky Griffin: Just look at the groups around you.

844
01:03:40,520 --> 01:03:41,280
Becky Griffin: Join a group.

845
01:03:41,360 --> 01:03:42,180
Becky Griffin: Host a group.

846
01:03:42,340 --> 01:03:42,940
Becky Griffin: Scouting.

847
01:03:43,240 --> 01:03:46,560
Becky Griffin: I had somebody today say they are working with their Scout, Girl Scout group.

848
01:03:47,120 --> 01:03:48,990
Becky Griffin: I was a Girl Scout leader for twelve years.

849
01:03:49,440 --> 01:03:50,040
Becky Griffin: Go Scouts.

850
01:03:50,549 --> 01:03:53,440
Becky Griffin: And I know that those girls love this type of thing.

851
01:03:53,840 --> 01:03:55,520
Becky Griffin: Our state parks are involved.

852
01:03:55,740 --> 01:03:57,500
Becky Griffin: Just it is a big, big deal.

853
01:03:58,000 --> 01:04:01,840
Becky Griffin: So just make sure that you are part of that deal when the time comes.

854
01:04:03,020 --> 01:04:09,300
Becky Griffin: I also wanted to make sure that everybody knew that this year's census is dedicated to the Walter Reeves.

855
01:04:09,740 --> 01:04:15,200
Becky Griffin: He is known throughout the southeast for his radio show, uh, and his love of the environment.

856
01:04:15,620 --> 01:04:20,980
Becky Griffin: He was funny, and I knew him long before he became famous, and he is a good friend.

857
01:04:21,100 --> 01:04:28,960
Becky Griffin: So it was just appropriate to make sure that we think about him as we're counting pollinators this year.

858
01:04:30,040 --> 01:04:31,860
Becky Griffin: Couple other things to share with you.

859
01:04:32,360 --> 01:04:35,960
Becky Griffin: Uh, we do have a Grand Marshal this year, but I'm not spilling the tea.

860
01:04:36,620 --> 01:04:38,140
Becky Griffin: Uh, you're gonna have to wait and see.

861
01:04:38,420 --> 01:04:40,800
Becky Griffin: I think that will be announced maybe Monday morning.

862
01:04:41,360 --> 01:04:45,600
Becky Griffin: Uh, as you all know, the Grand Marshal is someone who is representing the census.

863
01:04:45,720 --> 01:04:53,460
Becky Griffin: They are opening the census officially, so it is very-- it's very cute to watch them get all excited.

864
01:04:53,580 --> 01:05:03,000
Becky Griffin: So I'm working behind the scenes with Amanda, so that should give you a hint that we are looking at a North Carolinian this year to open up the census.

865
01:05:03,540 --> 01:05:04,199
Becky Griffin: That's coming.

866
01:05:04,960 --> 01:05:11,420
Becky Griffin: Uh, wanna make sure that if you have any questions, again, you can email your state coordinator or myself.

867
01:05:12,540 --> 01:05:15,520
Becky Griffin: Uh, I have some notes I wanted to make sure that you guys all knew.

868
01:05:16,160 --> 01:05:18,740
Becky Griffin: Uh, make sure that you do upload your counts.

869
01:05:19,320 --> 01:05:22,160
Becky Griffin: Um, it's great to use the resources and participate.

870
01:05:22,400 --> 01:05:25,280
Becky Griffin: It doesn't help our researchers if we don't upload those counts.

871
01:05:25,360 --> 01:05:30,820
Becky Griffin: So Rich is making it easy this year, counting on your phone using the QR code.

872
01:05:30,980 --> 01:05:32,480
Becky Griffin: We should be in really good shape.

873
01:05:33,040 --> 01:05:34,800
Becky Griffin: Rich, what are you, um...

874
01:05:34,840 --> 01:05:40,160
Becky Griffin: Do you have some information about how the count's gonna go this year?

875
01:05:41,320 --> 01:05:41,920
Rich Braman: I sure do.

876
01:05:42,300 --> 01:05:48,680
Rich Braman: And just like Becky said, you should be able to go right to our count page this year.

877
01:05:48,740 --> 01:05:57,320
Rich Braman: So if you're someone who bookmarks that already, go right ahead 'cause you'll be able to go there and do the whole thing on your phone, uh, if you want

878
01:05:57,360 --> 01:05:57,580
Rich Braman: to.

879
01:05:57,840 --> 01:06:08,100
Rich Braman: Of course, I know for lots of folks, myself included, just because I have my own spot that we love right out there, right smack dab in the middle

880
01:06:08,160 --> 01:06:12,900
Rich Braman: of where I know for a fact we don't get cell service, and that's okay.

881
01:06:13,760 --> 01:06:17,100
Rich Braman: I am taking my newer sheet out there with me.

882
01:06:17,560 --> 01:06:20,080
Rich Braman: I just printed off a, a big old stack of them, Becky.

883
01:06:20,700 --> 01:06:21,080
Rich Braman: All right.

884
01:06:22,200 --> 01:06:31,200
Rich Braman: And, uh, I know a few folks had mentioned in the chat too that they were needing a QR code to the count page 'cause they had been asked to

885
01:06:31,540 --> 01:06:32,540
Rich Braman: stick it on flyers.

886
01:06:32,600 --> 01:06:36,580
Rich Braman: So I just, uh, dropped one in the chat for you.

887
01:06:37,300 --> 01:06:47,360
Rich Braman: So if you do need that f-to do promotion for your own event or to promote the census with a flyer of your own, you can

888
01:06:47,420 --> 01:06:48,640
Rich Braman: grab that QR code.

889
01:06:49,100 --> 01:06:50,040
Rich Braman: It's in the chat now.

890
01:06:50,100 --> 01:06:52,800
Rich Braman: You should have a little download button there to download it too.

891
01:06:53,800 --> 01:06:53,810
Becky Griffin: Right.

892
01:06:53,820 --> 01:06:59,539
Rich Braman: And I see some question about the mascots, Becky.

893
01:07:00,200 --> 01:07:00,440
Rich Braman: Okay.

894
01:07:00,600 --> 01:07:02,320
Rich Braman: We're saying maybe the QR code.

895
01:07:03,280 --> 01:07:06,480
Rich Braman: Maybe it got forked a little bit in the- Oh, got tw- In the slide.

896
01:07:07,000 --> 01:07:07,120
Becky Griffin: Okay.

897
01:07:07,160 --> 01:07:10,160
Rich Braman: So we will provide that to folks.

898
01:07:10,680 --> 01:07:14,500
Rich Braman: We can stick that right up there with, um, with the recording as well.

899
01:07:14,960 --> 01:07:16,120
Rich Braman: And I think we can stick...

900
01:07:16,480 --> 01:07:16,810
Rich Braman: You know what?

901
01:07:16,880 --> 01:07:23,840
Rich Braman: We'll stick all these QR codes in the mail that we send out when we announce the recording for this week.

902
01:07:23,860 --> 01:07:24,160
Becky Griffin: Okay.

903
01:07:24,940 --> 01:07:25,220
Becky Griffin: All right.

904
01:07:25,420 --> 01:07:30,390
Becky Griffin: I'm going to, just in the, um, chat, I'm going to type the, um,

905
01:07:31,800 --> 01:07:33,390
Becky Griffin: website for the insect mascots.

906
01:07:33,430 --> 01:07:34,320
Becky Griffin: And I'm sorry about that.

907
01:07:34,620 --> 01:07:39,940
Becky Griffin: I, um, I generated that one right before we started, and I bet I just went too fast.

908
01:07:41,140 --> 01:07:46,160
Becky Griffin: Um, while we're finishing talking, I'm gonna launch our post-webinar poll.

909
01:07:46,800 --> 01:07:54,380
Becky Griffin: Uh, one of the things that we are asking, let's see, you to do this time is usually there's just two questions.

910
01:07:54,500 --> 01:08:01,360
Becky Griffin: Today at the beginning, we would like you to tell us one thing you'll remember about the t- our time together in the pollinator course.

911
01:08:02,240 --> 01:08:03,620
Becky Griffin: It is a short answer.

912
01:08:03,860 --> 01:08:12,400
Becky Griffin: Just be brief, but we just wanna make sure that we hit the mark for you, and that you come away, uh, learning a little bit more, appreciating these insects,

913
01:08:12,910 --> 01:08:17,100
Becky Griffin: and getting you ready for learning in your own garden, that type of thing.

914
01:08:17,980 --> 01:08:18,880
Becky Griffin: So yeah.

915
01:08:18,940 --> 01:08:21,380
Becky Griffin: I'm gonna just set that aside.

916
01:08:21,410 --> 01:08:25,780
Becky Griffin: And, uh, I know that I'm counting with some FFA students on that Friday.

917
01:08:25,980 --> 01:08:28,380
Becky Griffin: I've got three classes I'm going to visit this year.

918
01:08:29,100 --> 01:08:33,120
Becky Griffin: I know that they're planning a big countdown at Georgia Tech as well.

919
01:08:33,660 --> 01:08:36,420
Becky Griffin: I was speaking with my friend Dr. Levy earlier.

920
01:08:37,080 --> 01:08:46,800
Becky Griffin: Many of our state gardens across the state are counting, and they're giving, um, discounts for admission if you're, uh, doing some counting.

921
01:08:47,340 --> 01:08:48,860
Becky Griffin: So that's always a lot of fun.

922
01:08:48,900 --> 01:08:53,320
Becky Griffin: There will be counting, I believe, at the Governor's Mansion again this year.

923
01:08:54,160 --> 01:08:56,520
Becky Griffin: Our, uh, governor's wife is just very...

924
01:08:56,740 --> 01:08:57,700
Becky Griffin: loves this project.

925
01:08:57,860 --> 01:09:02,920
Becky Griffin: And as you know, we have a proclamation from the governor about it, so she's- she counts every year.

926
01:09:03,620 --> 01:09:04,400
Becky Griffin: It's gonna be fun.

927
01:09:04,460 --> 01:09:06,820
Becky Griffin: It is a pollinator party for two days.

928
01:09:07,600 --> 01:09:10,980
Becky Griffin: Uh, all, all the states are having a big pollinator parties.

929
01:09:11,140 --> 01:09:12,980
Becky Griffin: Uh, our new state this year is Mississippi.

930
01:09:13,720 --> 01:09:23,760
Becky Griffin: Uh, they are-- This is their first year, so if you are from Mississippi, definitely do your counts, uh, and talk to your local Extension personnel about getting even more

931
01:09:23,780 --> 01:09:24,340
Becky Griffin: involved.

932
01:09:25,220 --> 01:09:26,480
Becky Griffin: Florida is very big.

933
01:09:26,540 --> 01:09:27,680
Becky Griffin: I've got Amanda on here.

934
01:09:27,780 --> 01:09:32,260
Becky Griffin: I know she is very excited about, um, what's going on in North Carolina.

935
01:09:32,820 --> 01:09:35,400
Becky Griffin: Last year, South Carolina had a hurricane.

936
01:09:35,440 --> 01:09:45,640
Becky Griffin: (chuckles) So, uh, we are hoping that we do not have a hurricane this year for the counts, and so that we can, um, make sure everybody has

937
01:09:45,680 --> 01:09:46,300
Becky Griffin: a good time.

938
01:09:46,900 --> 01:09:53,590
Becky Griffin: We did pick that August date because it was sup-supposedly one of the driest weekends (chuckles) in the calendar.

939
01:09:54,320 --> 01:09:56,440
Becky Griffin: Uh, but occasionally, that doesn't work out for us.

940
01:09:57,600 --> 01:10:05,260
Becky Griffin: Amanda, do you have, um, anything you'd like to address to the, uh, North Carolinians who are on the call today?

941
01:10:05,980 --> 01:10:06,350
Amanda Bratcher: Oh, yeah.

942
01:10:06,560 --> 01:10:09,400
Amanda Bratcher: (laughs) We are gonna beat Florida this year.

943
01:10:09,940 --> 01:10:12,140
Amanda Bratcher: I wish Jeremy was here so he could hear me say that.

944
01:10:12,800 --> 01:10:19,460
Amanda Bratcher: Um, so in North Carolina, we, we have been doubling our participation since we joined in twenty twenty-three.

945
01:10:19,550 --> 01:10:27,620
Amanda Bratcher: And so this year we have a goal of ten thousand counts across the state and a count in every county.

946
01:10:27,680 --> 01:10:35,660
Amanda Bratcher: So there's a hundred counties in North Carolina, and last year we had ninety-two of one hundred counties represented, so that was really cool.

947
01:10:35,760 --> 01:10:36,260
Becky Griffin: Great.

948
01:10:36,360 --> 01:10:43,210
Amanda Bratcher: So I'm really confident that we can get all one hundred counties, um, in North Carolina represented.

949
01:10:43,700 --> 01:10:45,420
Amanda Bratcher: And so Becky, I just echo you.

950
01:10:45,680 --> 01:10:52,800
Amanda Bratcher: Folks who are on here, count yourselves, but then also grab a friend or a family member and have them count as well.

951
01:10:53,440 --> 01:10:58,800
Amanda Bratcher: I did drop, um, a note in the chat, and North Carolina has some North Carolina-centered resources.

952
01:10:59,260 --> 01:11:05,320
Amanda Bratcher: So if you are joining from North Carolina, you're hosting some stuff in North Carolina, I have a whole...

953
01:11:05,970 --> 01:11:15,000
Amanda Bratcher: I have a lot of marketing stuff already made for folks in North Carolina that's got like NC State branding, um, as well as the Georgia and Great Southeast Pollinator

954
01:11:15,080 --> 01:11:15,840
Amanda Bratcher: Census branding.

955
01:11:15,940 --> 01:11:23,340
Amanda Bratcher: So it kind of like just lowers the barrier to entry for hosting an event, whether you do it at your house or your local community center.

956
01:11:23,820 --> 01:11:28,660
Amanda Bratcher: And then I do a-- I am keeping track of events that are happening in North Carolina.

957
01:11:28,670 --> 01:11:30,160
Amanda Bratcher: And just before I,

958
01:11:31,560 --> 01:11:31,590
Amanda Bratcher: um,

959
01:11:33,100 --> 01:11:35,630
Amanda Bratcher: just, um, just before I joined, was...

960
01:11:35,660 --> 01:11:40,480
Amanda Bratcher: There was a, um, there were thirty-two events already scheduled in North Carolina.

961
01:11:41,040 --> 01:11:49,040
Amanda Bratcher: So my goal for by the end of the week is to have a map of all the events that folks can see to join in North Carolina.

962
01:11:49,120 --> 01:11:50,140
Becky Griffin: That's awesome.

963
01:11:50,180 --> 01:11:54,900
Amanda Bratcher: So if you're in North Carolina during the census, there is lots of pl- ways to get involved.

964
01:11:55,980 --> 01:12:03,120
Becky Griffin: And as you can see, Amanda is a very, um, enthusiastic coordinator, so she's planned a lot of really fun things.

965
01:12:03,880 --> 01:12:12,360
Becky Griffin: Some other fun things that happened is if you're around the Atlanta area, you may know that the Atlanta forecast, weather forecasters give a forecast for the census.

966
01:12:13,040 --> 01:12:18,080
Becky Griffin: So that's something fun to look forward to, to get ready, uh, get everybody psyched and ready to go.

967
01:12:18,600 --> 01:12:26,680
Becky Griffin: We have a Spotify playlist that you guys have been hearing most weeks that is public, that, um, you're welcome to use to get people pumped and ready to go.

968
01:12:27,320 --> 01:12:30,840
Becky Griffin: I personally will have no problem getting pumped and ready without the music.

969
01:12:31,000 --> 01:12:34,690
Becky Griffin: But you do whatever you need to do to be ready to, to count pollinators.

970
01:12:35,740 --> 01:12:39,780
Becky Griffin: All right, just a few more minutes, seconds on the poll here.

971
01:12:41,040 --> 01:12:43,560
Becky Griffin: And there we go.

972
01:12:44,620 --> 01:12:49,560
Becky Griffin: All right, I just wanna take a minute to thank everybody for joining us for this fun adventure.

973
01:12:49,720 --> 01:12:53,480
Becky Griffin: As Rich and I were talking earlier today, this has been over a year in the planning.

974
01:12:53,960 --> 01:12:57,780
Becky Griffin: Uh, he and I first started making definite plans about this about a year ago.

975
01:12:58,460 --> 01:13:06,120
Becky Griffin: Uh, I've been very fortunate and very blessed that we have had some of the best presenters in the United States dealing with our topics.

976
01:13:06,780 --> 01:13:10,660
Becky Griffin: I was not told no one time, and I so appreciate that.

977
01:13:11,080 --> 01:13:20,420
Becky Griffin: And that just goes to show you how important that these researchers and scientists feel that the census and the work that we do, uh, really does matter.

978
01:13:20,540 --> 01:13:22,480
Becky Griffin: So that's, uh, you know, that's great.

979
01:13:22,860 --> 01:13:24,100
Becky Griffin: I know I took a lot of notes.

980
01:13:24,200 --> 01:13:25,220
Becky Griffin: I learned a lot of things.

981
01:13:25,320 --> 01:13:27,799
Becky Griffin: I'm gonna be looking for beetles this week in my yard.

982
01:13:29,000 --> 01:13:31,800
Becky Griffin: And I wanna thank Rich for being an amazing co-host.

983
01:13:31,940 --> 01:13:33,100
Becky Griffin: High five to you, Rich.

984
01:13:33,700 --> 01:13:35,540
Becky Griffin: We do a good job together.

985
01:13:35,549 --> 01:13:38,840
Becky Griffin: Uh, and Beth for handling all of our background admin stuff.

986
01:13:39,320 --> 01:13:41,220
Becky Griffin: None of this would ever work without her.

987
01:13:41,240 --> 01:13:42,500
Becky Griffin: She's our unsung hero.

988
01:13:43,220 --> 01:13:49,440
Becky Griffin: I'm going to be visiting Griffin next week so that we all three will be together, and we're gonna go out and do some celebrating.

989
01:13:51,200 --> 01:13:54,769
(outro music)