Experiment Time

This week we did some experiments with our beetles. We wanted to see if they would show a clear preference between dry or moist environments. We thought they would be interested in moist because of the fact that were often around the potatoes (and previously with moist bread) and burrowing into the bottom of them. We performed the experiment by placing them between a moist paper towel and a dry paper towel. This first time through, they stayed primarily on the moist towel. They did not like the tinfoil in between the two and tried to avoid it mostly. We let them move around for about 10 minutes, and by the time they were done, most of them were very passive over on the moist side, and almost seemed to drinking in the moisture.

We went back later and did the experiment again, this time collecting some data. We recorded how many beetles were on each side every 30 seconds. During some of these trials, some of the beetles began to mate. We think this may have thrown off the data a little bit, but we had to keep moving on. In these trials where we kept the data, the beetles seemed to prefer the dry paper towel. We tried it in a darker condition even, and they still seemed to prefer the dry. All in all, it was an interesting experiment, and it has been an interesting ride with these little critters. We even found out that they have a hard time righting themselves from their backs, and cannot run away.