Bug Hunt Hong Kong
Mapping the insect biodiversity in Hong Kong
Bug Hunt Hong Kong is an initiative from DIYBIO Hong Kong, a group of citizen scientists in Hong Kong. It is a long term citizen science project studying the insect biodiversity of Hong Kong.
Bug Hunter's Handbook
Bug Hunt Field Trip
What is Bug Hunt Hong Kong?
What are the Tracks?
Bug Photography & Filming
Bug Hunters like to walk in nature and try to find interesting bugs. They will then take photos or videos of the bugs they find and share them with each other. Some Bug Hunters become experts at macro photography (when you take photos of small things from close up so that you can see a lot of detail).
Bug Art & Design
Bugs are not only interesting, they are also beautiful. They have the most amazing colours, patterns and shapes! Bug Hunters get inspired by these wonderful colours, patterns and shapes and make beautiful bug inspires art, fashion, accessories, robots and inventions.
Bug Pet & Breeding
Bugs make wonderful pets! They don’t need a lot of food, don’t have to be taken for walks and don’t need a lot of space. They are also very interesting to watch. There are different ways of making bug-houses wherein your bugs will live happily. You can also breed your bugs and see how they lay eggs. You can then monitor and document their life cycle from egg to adult.
Bug Ecology is the scientific study of how bugs, individually or as a community, interact with the surrounding environment. We want to know what they eat and what eats them? Where they are found? If their habitat is in danger? What do their eggs look like? How do they change over time as they grow. Where do they sleep? In what way are they important? Many bugs help in pollination, or they help to break down the poo or dead bodies of other animals. Many insects eat other insects and prevent them from taking over the world. Some insects are useful by making honey or silk.
Each species of bug is different from all others in some way. By looking at all the details of a specific bug, we can find how it differ from all the other bugs in the world. Luckily some Great Bug Hunters of the past have already named many bugs in the world hand have left us with special keys to identify the ones that they have described. So we can use these keys it identify the bus we collect. But, there are many bugs that have never been found before and that have not been described or named. It is every Bug Hunter’s dream to find a new species of bug that has not been found before. You too can find new species of bugs if you try hard enough.
Bug DNA Barcoding
Just as you can use morphology to identify different bugs, can you also use DNA Barcodes. We can generate short DNA sequences from different bugs that can be used to identify them. We can use the DNA barcodes to: (a) Identify the bug’s species (b) Draw genetic trees to see how different bugs are related to each other (c) Compare the DNA Barcodes from the same species of bug from many different locations to see if we can learn something about different populations or how spread through an area through time. This link up very nicely with studies of bug Ecology.