Eugene Oregon has produced a couple of popular nicknames. It is officially known as Oregon\’s Emerald City, but also fondly referred to as TrackTown U.S.A. The entire world of track and field knows the reason for that one. Hayward field of the University of Oregon is world renowned as the stage of Oregon\’s track stars. The U.of O. has more than a century long sports history and is the center of Eugene fitness.

Eugene Oregon has a proud history of fitness programs with some achievements having attained world wide fame. There may be a lot of people who don\’t know who Phil Knight is, but almost everybody knows the monstrous Nike Empire that he has built. Phil ran track for Oregon in the late 1950s and later joined with his track coach to found Nike Sports Apparel. That simple swoosh logo that Carol Davidson designed for them is now recognized from Africa to the Arctic Circle. Nike clothes, literally cover the entire world of sports.

Probably the second most famous Eugene sports hero was Steve Prefontaine. He might be less famous but not less of a leader. Steve was born on the Oregon coast at Coos Bay in 1951 and made his way to Eugene and the U.O. track team in 1969. In only four years he won seven NCAA Championships and came in fourth at the Munich Olympics. \”Pre\” was struck down in his prime as the victim of a car crash.

You can see runners everyday following the memorial Steve Prefontaine trail as it snakes along the banks of the Willamette river. Eugene fitness devotees remember him with a proud love. He was a special example of character beyond his years as he volunteered for many services throughout the community. People are still deeply touched and inspired by his quiet example. He was a mythic modern hero and could have walked right out of the book \”Sometimes A Great Notion.\”

The book was a written by Ken Kesey, the famous author and Eugene tribe member. Kesey is another Oregonian favorite son pioneer… although more of a mystic pioneer than a woodsman.

Eugene is famous for producing world class athletes. It might have something to do with the communities commitment to a healthy life style that emphasizes fitness. Eugene\’s leaders have provided an excellent demonstration of leading by example. It\’s no secret that is the only way of real leadership.

The evidence of that leadership in action can be seen throughout the city of Eugene. The city has a massive network of parks that are connected with an entire circulatory system of bike lanes and pedestrian paths. There are bridges engineered over the Willamette river exclusively for the use of pedestrians and bikes. If there was just one it would be extraordinary. The fact there are three shows a community devotion to health and fitness that is virtually unheard of.

When You travel the world from Amsterdam to Victoria and Florida to Hawaii, you will find no finer organized city for health and fitness than Eugene, Oregon. It is a city where the ideal of natural beauty is real and the community compliments it with an all out commitment to fitness of mind and body.

The study of insects is called entomology. Entomology is a sub-section of biology and is one of the oldest sciences. Man has studied the habits of insects, normally with a view to getting rid them, since the first plague of locusts landed on primitive farmers\’ crops tens of thousands of years ago. However, entomology was not really recognized and studied as a science until the Sixteenth Century.

Entomology has had many well-known devotees but the most famous was Charles Darwin. More recent entomologists are Karl von Frisch the Nobel Prize winner for medicine in 1973 and E. O. Wilson the two time Pulitzer prize winner.

Entomologists are also frequently credited with helping solve murders by studying the insects that are discovered on and in the dead body. This is quite possible and not merely a device used in Hollywood films.

The first thing to understand is that not all creepy crawlies are insects. For example, spiders are not insects, but many entomologists are not so strict and have an interest in arachnids (spiders), worms, slugs and snails.

All insects pass through several stages of life, but there are two kinds of insect development \’simple metamorphosis\’ and \’complete metamorphosis\’.

The first sort includes most beetles and bugs like bed bugs. They are born as eggs and hatch into larvae (nymphs), which, if not perfect copies of their parents do look a lot like them

The second sort are also born as eggs, also hatch into larvae, but they look nothing like their parents – so different in fact that if you do not know what they are, you could not imagine. The larva then grows into a pupa when it seems to become dormant, this is not true though, there is lots going on and when it emerges from the pupal stage it is unrecognizable. Butterflies are like this.

If you want to study insects, you have to focus because there are at least 1.3 million varieties of insects that we have discovered so far and there are plenty more to name and classify.

You would be forgiven for thinking that these unknown insects, worms, slugs and beetles et cetera are all in remotest Africa or in deep jungles, but last year a carnivorous slug was discovered in a backyard in the centre of Cardiff in the UK.

In order to study insects, you usually have to catch them without killing them. This means nets and traps. it is easy enough to buy a butterfly net (or fishing net) and you can make your own pitfall traps for ground beetles. You will also need a decent book to help you identify your find and a magnifying glass to be able to better see it.

One word of caution though: you may think that there are too many insects and that no one actually cares about them, but this is not the case. There are numerous insects in each country that are protected and you will be breaking the law by capturing them or killing them, so the first thing to do is learn which ones you may study and which ones it is better to leave alone.