Giant Stonefly: Michigan's State Insect?

Recently, in my role as LGROW’s Aquatic Specialist, I had the good fortune to meet Emma Witkovsky, the fifth-grade teacher for Aberdeen Academy, a Grand Rapids Public School. Emma reached out to LGROW for help coordinating an aquatic macroinvertebrate collection field trip with two specific requirements: 1) her students wanted to find stoneflies and, 2) they were hoping to stay within the city limits of Grand Rapids, for bussing purposes. I told her that the first requirement was no problem but, unfortunately, the second was most likely not possible. Stoneflies, as an Order, are highly sensitive to any water quality degradation, and streams/rivers which flow through urban areas will most often be moderately degraded at least.1 I told Emma that the nearest waterway to G.R. where I could guarantee the presence of stoneflies was the Rogue River. High quality creeks in Lowell and Ada – Honey Creek, for instance – were also an option and may be better for fifth graders than trying to wade the Rogue River. As we worked out the details for the field trip, Emma told me that the requirement to find stoneflies supported a project she and her students had been working on to make the stonefly Michigan’s state insect.

Surprisingly, 48 states have state insects and state butterflies; more surprisingly, Michigan is one of two states that have neither.2 Emma noticed this fact last year while creating a social studies project about the fifty states. When she mentioned this to family and friends, they suggested that she have her class write to Lansing to draft a bill for a state insect. She presented this to her students and mentioned how the stonefly would be the perfect candidate because it would connect to the brook trout, our state fish, via food chains and they were all in. Emma then reached out to a number of governmental officials including Patrick Crandell, a deputy general counsel in Lansing and Shawon Cecil, the policy director to Representative Rachel Hood to help her students draft everything appropriately.

In Emma’s words, “Our process is that we (my students) have written persuasive essays on why [the stonefly] should become our state insect; we've described it, its benefits to nature, and benefits to humans/economy. And we will also [draw and] send in a life cycle... We will send these out at the end of next week to Lansing. From there…someone at Lansing [will draft this] into a bill and send to the House of Representatives and follow the process there, hopefully passing to the Senate and then to the Governor and then [it will be] signed in as a bill. Mr. Crandell helped me find that 4 other symbols were drafted by students in a similar way: the painted turtle, the mastodon, Kalkaska sand, and the dwarf lake iris.”

At the time, I was very interested in this project but, given the fact that it revolved around insects, I didn’t think it would gain much traction or be a high priority for anyone in our government. However, thanks to all the hard work that Emma and her class put in, I got word a few weeks later that, not only were legislators at our state house taking this seriously, but Representative Rachel Hood was coming to Emma’s class to speak to the students and deliver a draft copy of a bill to make the stonefly our state insect!

Fast forward to March. In preparation for Representative Hood’s visit, Emma, her husband Adam, my daughter Emma, and I went out to collect stoneflies in the Rogue River to exhibit live, and in good health, in the classroom in a shallow, makeshift aquarium.3 Specifically, we were looking for Michigan’s largest stonefly larva Pteronarcys sp., the giant stonefly or salmonfly. We found four of these for the classroom aquarium, as well as a smaller variety of stonefly called perlids (Family Perlidae).

Giant stoneflies, Pteronarcys sp., collected from the Rogue River.

On Monday, March 4th, amidst stoneflies, various educators, and 18 excited fifth graders, Rachel Hood and her legislative aide, Shawon Cecil, visited Emma’s class at Aberdeen Academy. A reporter from the School News Network, Riley Kelly,4 was also present to document the event. Five of Emma’s students bravely got up in front of the classroom and gave a short presentation on why the stonefly should be Michigan’s state insect (the stonefly’s role as a water quality indicator, its importance in the food web, and its amazing life cycle were a few of the selling points).

“Stonefly state insect” presenters at Aberdeen Academy.

After the student presentation, Rachel Hood gave a presentation on a range of topics including her background, her work as a legislator, and her passion for water-based issues and watershed education.

“I really love water,” Representative Hood told the class. “I have loved water for a long time. And one of the things I have done in the entirety of my career is to help students understand why water is so important and how to keep our water healthy, how to protect it. And so, teachers like…Ms. Witkovsky…have done a wonderful job…helping to make sure that every kid in Grand Rapids Public schools has access to what we call watershed education.”

State House Representative Rachel Hood speaks to Emma Witkovsky’s fifth-grade class.

She also spoke about how a bill becomes a law, enumerating the steps, and then brought out draft copies of the proposed stonefly bill. “Some bills can be a stack of sheets of paper…a hundred and fifty papers…it can be super long. They can have lots of details. But this is a very simple bill, one that is very simple to read, and you guys can take a look at it.” At this point, single sheets of paper were handed out to the students while Rachel concluded. “And we have two versions. One that is a House Bill, and then we’re also able to make what’s called a mirror bill for the senate, and I can now take this senate bill and give it to an elected official in the senate. Your state senator is senator Mark Huizenga. And we can introduce these bills and move forward in the process. And we’re going to do that for you...!” As one can imagine, the children were elated.

Representative Hood concluded by letting the children know that the legislature and the government works for its constituents – including them – and that their voice truly does matter.

Emma Witkovsky (far left, middle), teacher at Aberdeen Academy, and Matt Bain, LGROW’s Aquatic Specialist (behind Emma), with Emma Witkovsky’s fifth-grade class during a visit from State House Rep. Rachel Hood (three in from the right).

So, here we are, full circle back to our field trip. “I can't in good faith have them do all of this research and connecting with Lansing and have them never get in a waterway,” Emma told me.

“No problem,” I told her. “I’m just excited to be a part of all this!”

For the sake of accessibility and safety, we have decided to have the collection/field trip at Honey Creek in Seidman Park. There are no giant stoneflies there, but I can, at least, guarantee perlid stoneflies, which would be the second largest variety I’ve come across in the Lower Peninsula. There are also plenty of other cool macroinvertebrates in that creek including hellgrammites, crane fly larvae, and many native crayfish. Priorities for the field trip will be: Safety first, Act as scientists, Find and identify stoneflies, and Enjoy the time. (In Emma’s words: “[W]e are there to be scientists first and the fun will come with it”).

Students will observe/interact with macros carefully and responsibly; take plenty of notes; ID what they collect; count up each kind; and let them go. These students have already done most of the hard work, researching life history, ecology, pollution tolerance, etc., so I’ll be expecting them to inform me a bit. However, there is one big takeaway I would like the students to leave Honey Creek at Seidman Park with. This stream, with a fully forested buffer and many miles of buffer upstream, is what a stream should look like, if we hope to find creatures like stoneflies in it.

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Footnotes:

1. (I have, in the past, found a small stonefly near Ah-Nab-Awen Park, and winter stoneflies are possible because they’re a bit more tolerant than other stoneflies, but the odds are not good, and I certainly did not want to disappoint Emma or her students!).

2. Representative Julie Brixie, on behalf of the Michigan Garden Clubs, Inc., sponsored House Bill 4159 which would designate the black swallowtail as Michigan’s state butterfly. This bill has passed the house. Visit the following site to track the bill’s progress, https://www.legislature.mi.gov/Bills/Bill?ObjectName=2023-HB-4159.

3. With care and preparation, sensitive insects such as stoneflies can be kept alive and in apparent good health, away from the river/stream, over a 24-hour period. They need cold water, plenty of oxygen, and detritus. For our purposes, we created a miniature ecosystem in a large plastic bin and nested this within another bin containing some ice; finally, we added a bubbler and kept the bin partially covered.

4. Riley Kelley, a reporter for the School News Network, published the initial piece on this event. Kelley’s piece is titled “Fifth-graders say ‘very special’ stonefly should be state insect” and can be found here https://www.schoolnewsnetwork.org/2024/03/11/fifth-graders-say-very-special-stonefly-should-be-state-insect/.