My name is Carolyn Trietsch, and I recently started working towards my PhD in Entomology at Penn State. I came here from Long Island, New York, a short 5-hour drive away compared to some of the distances my fellow students and lab-mates have come (Italy and Hungary, for example).
Back home, I worked on sampling and identifying insects within the salt marshes of the Long Island South Shore Estuary. I identified around 40,000 specimens (about half of those specimens were of the family Delphacidae) for my undergraduate thesis and another 10,000 specimens as part of my master’s work. Though it is strange to leave the marshes behind after spending the last few summers out in the Spartina meadows with a sweep net and various other gear, I am excited to become a part of the research going on at Penn State.
The sheer diversity of insect fauna in Pennsylvania is astounding compared to what I’m used to back home. On Long Island, we don’t have any coldwater mountain streams, and as such I have never encountered mayflies, stoneflies, dobsonflies or caddisflies before. Finding and identifying these insects all constitute new experiences for me. I was also lucky enough to spot my first stick insect (Phasmatodea: Heteronemiidae) while exploring Shaver’s Creek Environmental Center. Other insects I have never encountered before include wheel bugs; fortunately, I was warned about their painful bite before I had the chance to pick one up.
As part of the Frost team at Penn State, I will be working on parasitic wasps of the family Megaspilidae, which belongs to the super-family Ceraphronoidea. I have been provided with a drawer containing specimens belonging to 16 different species of Conostigmus. My current objective is to look through the specimens and try to tease out the morphological characteristics that distinguish each species.
Considering how small these wasps are, and considering the fact that most species can only be distinguished by dissecting and examining the male genitalia, I have a lot of work ahead of me. Time to get started!
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