Okay so not so many spills (even after some wine at the RES yesterday), and no thrips… basically this is a post about the fabulous trips we’ve been on recently and I wanted an insect pun in the title.
Back in February we were treated to a day at the Natural History Museum in London, and had a fabulous day of ‘behind the scenes’ tours led by Erica McAlister. We learned so much about the collections and the value of having museum specimens, we heard about the science and research happening and even saw specimens collected by Darwin and Wallace!
The EntoMasters and IMP cohort plus some lovely undergrads- photo credit Heather Campbell
We then had some very busy lecture weeks with lots of group work to keep us out of trouble, but more importantly on Monday 9th March we were bundled back on an early morning coach to head to the headquarters of the Royal Entomological Society for some talks, staring at lovely old books, and a walk in their gardens. We spent much of the time trying to photograph the weevils in the garden and helped a B. terrestris on her way.
Perhaps I should include some lecture work (and somehow link it to thrips as the title says…). Since Christmas we’ve had Pesticide Technology, Biodiversity and Ecosystem services (this is how our farm trip ended), and Ecological Entomology, which rounds up the modules for the year and leaves us with assignments to write, exams to prepare for, and MRPs to plan. Exciting! We also handed in assignments for Insect Physiology and Behaviour, and Commercial and Practical Biological Control (where we learned about Thrips!! See, knew I’d find a way to mention it and validate the title!).
I have a few more posts lined up about exciting MRPs and the results of the RES Student Essay competition (we’ll have to wait until Antenna is published to read them though!) but importantly, I’ll be spending the next 2 weeks with my head in my revision notes prepping for the exams.
The EntoMasters cohort, lecturers, and one sneaky undergrad! (Simon tweeted this photo but I don’t remember who took it!)
Mastering Entomology 