Project+Dermestid+Beetles

Hello, I'm Emmanuel Castillo, Class of 2013 at Trenton Central High school. I'm a 5'7" sporty baseball maniac who loves to hang out and chill in my spare time. I like to read Japanese comic books a.k.a. Manga. One of my favorite subjects in school is science. I like science because you have to question anything and everything around you in the real world. My favorite type of science is biology because it has to deal with cells in your body. When I'm an adult, hopefully I'll become a science teacher in 1st-5th grade.

Hey, I'm Leeanne Consiglio, and I'm going to be a sophomore at Notre Dame High School. I am 5'4" and I love the performing arts and dancing at school. I love hanging out with my friends and just having fun. I love math and science, especially when we learn about the environment. After college i hope to become an environmental engineer.




 * Hypothesis:** Do the Dermestid beetles prefer hydrated dead specimens over dehydrated dead specimens?


 * Procedure:** For our project, we wanted to test whether the beetles would select a wet dead specimen over a dry dead specimen to feed on. We placed 2 frog legs, two dead leaves, and two dried cicadas into the box parallel to each other. Once we did this, we wetted one side with a spray bottle and left the other side dry. After we did this, we observed the box every fifteen minutes and counted how many beetles were on each subject. After the results were in, we did a chi squared test to see if there was a significent difference in the number of beetle


 * Observation:**

While we were watching the beetles go to the different objects, at about 35 minutes into the experiment the beetles pulled the wet cicada down off of the cardboard. Also, the beetles pulled the wet frog leg off the cardboard at the 45 minute marker. This is the result of the chi squared tests.
 * || 15 minutes || 30 minutes || 45 minutes || 60 minutes ||
 * Dry Frog || 23 || 38 || 43 || 53 ||
 * Wet Frog || 36 || 43 || 47 || 56 ||
 * Dry Cicada || 1 || 0 || 0 || 3 ||
 * Wet Cicada || 29 || 12 || 10 || 7 ||
 * Dry Leaf || 0 || 0 || 0 || 0 ||
 * Wet Leaf || 3 || 0 || 0 || 2 ||


 * Test || x squared || DF || Critical Value || Significant? ||
 * Dry || 74.64906832 || 2 || 5.991 || yes ||
 * Wet || 50.5244898 || 2 || 5.991 || yes ||
 * Frog || 0.460914454 || 1 || 3.841 || no ||
 * Cicada || 11.75806452 || 1 || 3.841 || yes ||
 * Leaf || 1.25 || 1 || 3.841 || no ||

Out of the dry objects, more beetles went tot he frong over the cicada and the leaf. Out of the wet objects, the most eetles went to the frong. SOme beetles went to the cicada, and very few went to the leaf. Between the wet and dry frog, there was no significant between them because the beetles spread pretty evenly between the two. The leaf had the same thing pretty much happen because very few beetles went to either of the leaves. The cicada have a significant difference because many beetles went to the wet cicada over the dry one. We think this happened because the water was able to soften the shell so that the beetles were able to burrow inside of it.
 * Conclusion:**