Emcee Tom Turpin of Purdue University stood at the podium and acknowledged he might mispronounce an entomology student's name.  "If it sounds anything like your name and I’m looking at you, that’s you."

So began the Linnaean Games, a college-bowl type competition that's as lively as it is entertaining and educational.

And it's all about insects, entomologists and entomological facts.

The Linnaean Games, held at the annual Entomological Society of America (ESA) meeting, is an event that pits student-teams against one another until a winner is declared. The 2010 event, hosted in San Diego, ended with Ohio State University winning the championship.  

Students buzz in with the answers to questions such as:

What’s the loudest insect in the world? What is the egg case of a cockroach called? Kissing bugs, in the family Reduviidae, are vectors of what disease? About how long have insects been on earth?  Give three official common names for Helicoverpa zea.

Ohio State defeated UC Davis, Pennsylvania State University and the University of Georgia and finally, in the championship game, toppled the University of Nebraska. 

But first, the Ohio team of Joshua Bryant, Glene Mynhardt, Kaitlin Uppstrom and Nicola Gallagher had to get by the UC Davis team of Meredith Cenzer, Matan Shelomi, Andrew Merwin, and Ralph Washington.

As the crowd cheered them on, the two teams tied the score several times. Finally, with the score knotted at 90-90, Ohio correctly answered the final question to advance to the next round.

Tom Turpin of Purdue emceed the program while a trio of judges--J. E. McPherson of Southern Illinois University, Carol Annelli of Washington State University and Susan Weller of the University of Minnesota--scored the answers.

Each ESA branch sponsors a Linnaean Games competition and sends up to two teams to the nationals. 

Pacific Branch sent UC Davis and Washington State University.

Southeastern Branch: University of Georgia and University of Florida

Eastern Branch: Pennsylvania State University (University of Maryland also won at the branch level but did not participate in the nationals)

North Central Branch: Ohio State University and the University of Nebraska

Southwestern Branch: New Mexico State and Texas A&M

Answers to the above questions (see sixth paragraph):

Question:
What’s the loudest insect in the world?
Answer:
African cicada (Brevisana brevis); it has been measured at 106 decibels,  (equivalent to a gas mower at 3 feet away).

Question: 
What is the egg case of a cockroach called?
Answer:
Ootheca.

Question:
Kissing bugs, in the family Reduviidae, are vectors of what disease? Answer:
Chagas disease

Question:
About how long have insects been on earth?
Answer:
Some 400-380 million years ago.

Question:
Give three official common names for Helicoverpa zea?
Answer:
Corn earworm, tomato fruitworm, and cotton bollworm

Other questions and answers included:

Question:
Which sexes of cicadas have tymbals and which have tympana?
Answer:
Males have both. Females have only tympana.

Question:
What term is used to describe the antennae found on male mosquitoes? Answer:
Plumrose

Question:
Crickets are well-known music makers. What are the names of the two specialized structures that allow them to make that wonderful noise and where specifically on the body are they located?
Answer:
File and scraper, located on the forewings.

Question:
At what American school was the first entomology class taught and who was the teacher?
Answer: 
Harvard (1805-1822) W.D. Peck.

Question:
In the Amazon rain forest, what are the common names of two groups of insects that make up about 1/3 of the biomass of all animals in the habitat?
Answer:
Ants and termites.

Question:
Problems with honey bee hives in what state led to the recognition of colony collapse disorder?
Answer:
Pennsylvania

Question:
Name two orders of insects that are entirely predatory.
Answer:
Odonata and Mantodea

Question:
The monarch is actually the second-most popular state insect.  What insect is the most frequently adopted state insect?
Answer:
Honey bee.

Question:
Robert Frost wrote a poem that begins with the lines:  “An ant on a table cloth ran into a dormant moth of many times his size.”  As you might guess the poem is about ants.  What is the title of the poem?
Answer:
Departmental

One of the highlights of the 58th annual Entomological Society of America meeting in San Diego, Dec. 12-15 is the Linnaean Games.

ESA describes the Linnaean Games as "a lively question-and-answer, college bowl-style competition on entomological facts played between university-sponsored student teams."

Indeed, the games are fun, entertaining and educational. Videos of last year's games are posted here.

This year 10 teams will compete in the preliminaries, set from 12:30 to 3:30 p.m., Sunday, Dec. 12. The finals will take place from  5:30 to 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Dec. 14.

The teams include our UC Davis Department of Entomology team, coached by faculty member and Extension specialist Larry Godfrey. The bug team members are Meredith Cenzer, Matan Shelomi and Emily Symmes, all in the doctorate program, Andrew Merwin, who is in the master’s program; and alternate Ralph Washington, an undergraduate entomology major.

The list of teams:

Pacific Branch:
University of California, Davis
Washington State University

Southeastern Branch
University of Georgia 
University of Florida

Eastern Branch:
Penn State University
University of Maryland

North Central Branch:
Ohio State University
University of Nebraska

Southwestern Branch:
New Mexico State
Texas A&M

Stay tuned for the winners!

Okay, what are the answers?

It's a fun game that draws entomologists and would-be entomologists from throughout the world. Professor Tom Turpin of Purdue, decked out in a tuxedo and a monarch butterfly bowtie, moderates the event and provides more humor than some of the late-night TV shows. This year's ESA meeting, the 56th annual, took place Nov. 16-19 in Reno.

Question: U.S. states have an official state insect.  List three states that do not have one.
Answer: Hawaii, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Nevada, North Dakota, Rhode Island, and   Wyoming.  Source: See  http://www.statesymbolsusa.org/Lists/state_insects.html

Question: What is the purpose of the process in folklore known as “Telling the Bees?”
Answer: To keep honey bees from leaving the hive when a bee keeper had died.

Question: Approximately how many beetle species have been described to date? Choices:
a. 50,000
b.100,000
c. 350,000
d. 500,000
e. 650,000
Answer: 350,000 (c)

Answer: Gil Grissom

Answer: None.  This would be their first blood meal, and Lyme disease is not transovarially transmitted.

UC Davis, our home team (Go Aggies!), also competed.  Hillary Thomas, Andrew Pederson, Dominic Reisig and Michael Branstetter gave it the ol' Aggie try but didn’t quite make the finals.  Next year! Their coach, Larry Godfrey, was on a University of Kentucky championship team.

(Godfrey received his undergraduate and graduate degrees at Purdue and his doctorate at the University of Kentucky.)

Question: Name three insects of the five that are athletic team mascots at universities in the United States.
Answer: Bees, Black Flies, Hornets, Wasps, Yellowjackets

Question: What well known American poet wrote a poem entitled “The Bird to the Bees” that began with the lines “There is obviously a complete lack of understanding between the bee/ And me?"
Answer: Ogden Nash

In future columns, we'll take a look at some of the other questions and answers.

Meanwhile, check out the Smithsonian Magazine article on the University of Maryland team at the Linnaean Games. The article mentions that the students crammed for the Linnaean Games by poring over  "The Insects," written by UC Davis entomology professors Penny Gullan and Peter Cranston.

Quick! Name three states that have no official state insect.

That was one of the questions at the Linnaean Games, a traditional part of the Entomological Society of America's annual meeting.

This year's meeting, the 56th annual, is now under way in Reno. The Linnaean Games have begun. This is a "bug bowl" type of quiz pitting university teams (graduate students in entomology) against one another. 

UC Davis competed in the semi-finals. Several of us from UC Davis watched in the spectator section. 

The questions included:

1. How many beetle species have been described to date?

2. According to folklore, what does "telling the bees" mean?

3. Name the main character, the forensic entomologist, in the TV show, CSI.

4. If you walked past an egg mass of deer ticks, what's the risk of getting Lyme disease?

The moderator is noted  Purdue entomology professor Tom Turpin, who makes the Linnean Games informative, educational and entertaining.

Turpin, a Cooperative Extension entomologist,  is  an award-winning teacher and writes a well-read newspaper column, "On Six Legs."

More locally, Turpin served as a mentor for Larry Godfrey, a UC Davis professor who received both his bachelor of science degree and master of science degree from Purdue (and then his doctorate at the University of Kentucky). Godrey was a member of the University of Kentucky championship team in1983. That was the second annual Linnaean Games (second annual in the North Central Branch of ESA, where it all began). The national meeting adopted the Linnaean Games several years later.

Know the answers to the questions above? Fire away! (We'll answer them in another blog.)

Meanwhile, the finals of the Linnean Games take place tonight.

May the bugs be with them.