Many questions about insects can be answered by setting small experiments in an insect zoo. Use transparent boxes with fresh leaves. Or use potted plants inside a small cage. Always make sure that the insects have fresh food. Keep the zoo in an shaded place to avoid high temperature. Take care that the environment inside the zoo does not get too dry or too humid.
Assign responsibility for the zoo to one or more farmers. They have to make sure that the insects have sufficient food, and they have to make daily observations.
Use insects zoos for:
- Study the life cycles of insects
- Keep caterpillars and see how they feed and how they pupate and develop to adult butterflies
- Study feeding behavior of insects
- What do they eat?
- How do they eat?
- How much do they eat?
- Study predators
- How do they feed?
- How many insects can they eat in one day?
- Study parasitoids
- Keep larvae and pupae of insects and see if they are parasitized
- Other experiments
- For example study the effect of Bt (insect don’t die quickly but they stop feeding).
