The Macedon Ranges Shire Council Environment and Planning Department has officially
become a Major Sponsor for the 2022 National Entomology Insect Expo to be held on
July 1 -2 - 3rd at the Woodend Buffalo Sports Stadium.

The Exhibition Director, Bert Candusio was
delighted that the Council had jumped on board for what promises to be one of the Shires major annual
events and hopefully will continue to grow bigger and bigger each year.

Our Curator, Bert Candusio featured in several ABC Radio interviews this week. First came ABC Radio Central Victoria with Sian discussing the Central Victorian Regional Insect Collection and its history.

Download It Here

The following morning, ABC Radio 774 Melbourne also picked up on the story and Bert was again on the airwaves talking with Ali Moore about the significance of the collection and its future development.

Download and Listen Here

 In early December 2021, a team from the Central Victorian Regional Insect Collection (C.V.R.I.C) headed by its curator Bert Candusio and renoun invertebrate seeker Trevor Glyn-Jones, went into a remote and heavily forested area of the Lerderderg State Park in order to search for one of the most elusive and curious oddities of the animal kingdom. This creature has remained virtually unchanged for over 540 million years and is known as the Peripatus or Velvet Worm.

Many biologists today consider it a living fossil and it represents the shape and form of one of the first creatures to have ever walked upon the dry land.

Living a secluded and nocturnal existence, these animals live within rotting logs and feed on a large variety of invertebrates such as ants, termites, spiders and cockroaches. Although only a few centimeters in length, they are voracious predators and capture their prey by means of sticky slime-like threads which they squirt onto their victim. Once secured, the prey is devoured by powerful slicing jaws.

The research team were curious to see if the animals still existed in the same locality based on the first specimen collected in 1895. Known as Ooperipatus oviparus (Dendy, 1895), these animals are rarely seen by members of the public and so the C.V.R.I.C Team was keen to find at least one specimen to help highlight the importance of habitat conservation. Only one specimen was found after many hours of detailed searching.

The specimen was recently a *Special Guest* on the C.V.R.I.C TV Zoom Cast and many viewers were amazed at the appearance of this wondrous little animal. Another Zoom *Special* Episode devoted to this animal will be scheduled soon. Details will be available on the cvric.com.au website.

Congratulations to our graduates of the Ecology and Identification of the Ants of the Macedon Ranges Course 2021.
(Andrej Hohmann, Kylie McGenniskin and Violet, Danielle Thyne, Megan Radford, Bronwyn Morris with Course Director Bert Candusio). (Missing: Greg Cassidy, Jonathan Stephens, Darcy Dreja, Elyse Dixen)

The 6 week course covered early evolution of the Hymenoptera, Classification of Insect Orders, Ecology of the Formicidae, The Ant Castes, Collecting Methods, Specimen Preparation, Collection Curation, Identification to Sub Family Level and Databasing a Collection.

This was such a successful course that another will be run in 2022. Congratulations Graduates!

(Note: Several Graduates couldnt attend Graduation Presentations due to the severe weather experienced that evening.)

Next week on CVRIC TV, we have a special guest in the form of a live colony of Oribatid Soil Mites.

Closely related to other Arachnids, these mites are common in soil and assist in the decomposition of organic nutrients.
We hope you can join us this coming friday at 8:00 Pm. See you there.

Folsomia candida was the subject of tonights C.V.R.I.C Live Microscope Telecast.

Populations consist only of females, which reproduce by parthenogenesis. The globular white eggs take about one week to hatch at 21 °C (70 °F) and three weeks to reach maturity, having moulted five times. Development takes longer at lower temperatures. Adults continue to moult, doing so about 45 times during their lives, including shedding the lining of the midgut. They may live for 110 to 240 days, depending on the temperature, and each may lay about a thousand eggs. The diet consists mainly of the hyphae of fungi including grazing on root mycorrhizae.

Invertebrates living among the soil particles in underground habitats often experience raised levels of carbon dioxide, which tends to increase with depth. Researchers have found that the surface-dwelling springtail Allacma fusca can tolerate a 10% level of carbon dioxide for a few hours while in contrast, Folsomia candida, which lives deeper in the soil, can survive under the same conditions for more than six weeks.

Great News.

The C.V.R.I.C Courses and On-Line Programs are finally up and running for everyone.
Take a look at our Courses Page and see what we have available as we have a great selection of individual courses both on and off line.

Over the next few weeks, we plan to add several other unique options to the lists so stay tuned...

Our Ecology and Identification of Ants of the Macedon Ranges Course is fast approaching and will commence on October 8th. Now is the time to enroll in this specialised certificate course via the Woodend Neighbourhood House. Topics to be covered during this 6 week course will include Ant Evolution and the fossil record, the work of E.O.Wilson, Reproduction and Nest Establishment, the Ant Castes, Methods of Collecting and Preservation as well as the Identification of the major Ant Sub-Families. Hope to see you there.

Every Monday evenings commencing at 8:00 Pm, the C.V.R.I.C conducts a 'Live Microscope' microcast on our public 'Zoom' Channel. Each week, we feature either one of our live cultures or an interesting specimen from our entomological collections for viewers to observe live and enjoy. Someone is always available to answer your questions as to whats being observed under our microscope during the microcast. Zoom Meeting Details on how to connect to the room are:

C.V.R.I.C Live Microscope Meeting Room ID: 238 318 4250
C.V.R.I.C Live Microscope Meeting Room Passcode: tBH02r

Dont have Zoom? You can Download it from here: Zoom Download Page

FANTASTIC NEWS!!:

Australian Entomological Supplies PTY LTD has kindly offered to support our Junior Entomology (Insect) Club by providing student storage boxes, insect pins, pinning boards and numerous other items as well as offering our students a 10% discount on items they may wish to purchase. A huge thank you to AES for such amazing support. They are now our Official C.V.R.I.C Junior Entomology (Insect) Club Sponsors and we look forward to a long association with them.
More information is available on our couses and blog pages.

Meet the Anthrenus Museum Beetle.

A member of the Entomological Collections Network contacted us recently regarding how we can use our existing MS Access Database with a web based interface. Many people advised us to use other, more sofisticated software applications such as Specify 6 or 7, however we decided that that option was far too much overkill for our needs.
So the C.V.R.I.C is now looking into the possibility of making all our collection data publicly available to everyone. Lets keep our fingers crossed and hope we can get this up and running.

The C.V.R.I.C has now finalized the courses program for 2021/2022 and is now accepting enrollments for the Ecology and Identification of Ants of the Macedon Ranges Course in early October. As dates are slotted in, enrollments will come on line for registrations and we will update the Courses Page accordingly.
We have also had a great response from many parents regarding our Junior Entomology (Insect) Club and we look forward to working along side our budding young entomologists later this year!
Of special note is our 2022 C.V.R.I.C Entomological Technicians Course which offers a unique opportunity for participants to gain valuable skills in the preparation of entomological specimens to a stage where they are ready for scientific study. 

 After working with our ant collections since early April this year, we are starting to really get to know them well!