At CenTrop
Entomology and Mammalogy students from the SU Biology deparment conducted a fieldwork at the Center for Tropical Conservation Studies (CenTrop) in Palinpinon in Valencia, and recorded overnight about 265 species of insects and one unidentified.
As part of their laboratory sessions, the students implemented in the field certain techniques and methods they had learned in the classroom. This included insect and mammal specimen and habitat assessments, GPS coordinates mapping, and data logging.
The students also conducted day and night transect walks, whilst mapping GPS coordinates for insect and mammal assessment of specimens in their natural habitats.
The route at the CenTrop facility in Palinpinon (located somewhat behind Tierra Alta) was a combination of flat and steep areas, wherein one would have to hold onto branches of trees for safety.
A wide variety of insect orders were observed and documented: caterpillars, grasshoppers, katydids, crickets, ants, beetles, moths, flies, and butterflies. One mammalian rodent was also sighted.
A different variety of insect orders were surveyed at night, aided by headlights or flashlights. They were relatively larger crickets and grasshoppers.
The students also found the highly-camouflaged Walking Stick (order Phasmida) that was attached to a leaf hanging from a tree. Walking Sticks, known to be the friendliest insect, however, often escape predation by blending with vegetation, and swaying back and forth to resemble greens moving in the wind, making them most difficult to spot in the wild.
The students were also tasked to set up a light trap beside the facility’s staff house to assess which insect species are attracted to light. A large cheesecloth was hung with nylon strings parallel to the hut’s wall, with a light bulb placed in front of it.
The students found an abundance of a common species of bees, and a variety of moth species hovering by the cheesecloth between 10:00 pm to 1:00 in the morning.
A variety of reptiles were also spotted at the CenTrop facility like geckos/large lizards (tuko), and a tree snake.
The fieldwork was a first major activity for most of the junior students who had started their inital years in college in their respective hometowns here and abroad due to the pandemic.
The 34 Biology majors were accompanied by their professors Esteven Theodore Nacar and Michael Alcala. (Selin A. Toker)
