Monarch butterfly migration, termite fortresses, and the fleeting life of a mayfly are just a few of the topics covered at this educational site from PBS. "Alien Empire" is the title of a recently aired program on insects, part of PBS's series Nature. The interactive Website presents short Flash animations on insect behavior and lifecycles, puzzles and activity ideas for kids, teacher resources,...

From the University of Alberta comes Bugs 101, a free online course that introduces learners to "the diverse (and sometimes alien) world of arthropods to learn how they work, what they do, and how insects and humans interact every day." Launched in August 2019 on Coursera, the course is taught by Dr. Maya Evenden, a professor of biological sciences specializing in entomology at the University of...

Lovers of nature documentaries have reason to celebrate with Bugs!, a new "live-action nature drama filmed in awe inspiring, totally immersive 3D," now showing at IMAX theaters all over. The Web site offers loads of cool features, including a fun trailer for the movie, and extensive image gallery, and a detailed look at the making of the movie. The Web site and the movie trailer are available in...

The Bugscope project, offered through the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, allows K-12 classrooms to remotely operate a scanning electron microscope (SEM) in real time from a classroom computer to create incredibly cool images of insects and other "bugs" at high magnification. Detailed instructions for scheduling a session and...

Edward O. Wilson is a name synonymous with ants, sociobiology, and biodiversity. And it's a name that more often than not appears with a mile-long list of accolades trailing it. The University of Alabama offers a more personable introduction to this celebrated scientist, one of the University's most distinguished alums (1). The next site is the homepage of the Department of Entomology at Harvard's...

UK-based Butterfly Conservation presents the preliminary results of the Garden Butterfly Count (GBC), which enlisted the help of private residents to survey backyard butterflies and moths. Over 11,000 completed survey forms were returned to Butterfly Conservation at the end of the 2002 season, and the Web site provides a brief look at early results and analysis. The information is presented for a...

This National Academy of Sciences (NAS) Web site contains an interesting, in-depth article on the use of insect pheromones in pest management. The article is one of many from Beyond Discovery: The Path from Research to Human Benefit; a NAS-sponsored series designed to demonstrate "how science works by illustrating how basic research produces knowledge that can lead to practical results of human...

This Web site, edited by Mark Swanson, is "a collection of resources related to the fascinating antlion, or doodlebug." In addition to providing general information about antlions, this site contains "videos of antlion feeding behavior and metamorphosis, as well as information on how and where to find antlions." Frequently updated, the site recently added the Doodlebug Oracle, which answers...

Let’s Talk About Insects is a fun educational program designed for nine to 11-year-old students by Schools Online at the University of Illinois Extension. The program utilizes numerous slides with cartoon-like illustrations, photographs, text, and audio narration to explore the world of insects. The program was developed to help students “gain an appreciation of insects; learn how insects grow and...

The University of Wisconsin-Entomology Department's impressive Insect Research Collection (IRC) represents close to 70 years of work by professional and amateur entomologists in Wisconsin. The Collection "contains about one million pinned and preserved insects with primary geographic emphasis on Wisconsin and the Great Lakes Region." The primary orders represented in the IRC are Lepidoptera,...