Ant Lions Grrrr...

Ant Lions have fascinated me for a while now. It started when Clarence, a retired biology teacher introduced me to their fascinating behavior and metamorphoses. When the insect lab came up, I just had to get these creatures for my students.

I found some ant lions on line and paid dearly for them. My mom helped me catch ants to keep them fed until I could pawn them off on the kids! I discovered that ant lions eat crickets and meal worms too. This made my job easier because I have plenty of those in the classroom. Yesterday my husband and I were walking around some property that is for sale near hear. At the back of the property we found a large abandoned chicken house and guess what I found on the dusty floor of the broken down structure? All along the dirt floor we saw pits, large and small with

ANT LIONS!

You can be sure that I will be back there to get FREE ant lions for next year's lab:) Here are some interesting facts about ant lions:

The ant lion is not an ant and not a lion. Have you ever heard of a "doodlebug"? A doodlebug is actually an ant lion in it's larval or baby stage. We get the name ant lion because they are voracious predators of ants and other insects.
Do ant lions make good pets? Ant lions are some of the coolest insects around. When you have an ant lion for a pet, you get a front row seat to one of nature's wildest battles. Ant lions are not only entertaining, but also very educational. You can learn about how insects think, learn, and respond to their environment. Choose an ant lion if you are looking for a pet that is easy to keep and entertaining for the whole family .

Feeding the ant lion is quite easy. Simply drop in to the cage a few ants, a small cricket, meal worm, or any small insect two times a week . I have plenty of crickets in my classroom and students are returning for more, to feed their hungry lions. You can leave the top off the cage when there are no insects for the ant lion to eat. The ant lion can not crawl out.

Why are they called ant lions? The name "ant lion" best describes this insect's predacious larval form—a mottled gray or brown creature with an oversized head, spiny jaws, short legs, and a soft body covered in bristles. Since it preys primarily on ants, the ant lion is, metaphorically speaking, a "lion" among ants. The larvae of some ant lion species hide under bits of debris or wood and attack passing insects. In sandy regions, some species dig a shallow cone-shaped pit and wait at the bottom for an ant or other insect to slip on the loose sand and fall in, only to be immediately devoured . These pit-digging ant lions are called "doodlebugs" in the United States because of the designs they make in the sand. As a doodlebug seeks an ideal location to dig its pit, it leaves meandering trails that resemble the random "doodles" of a preoccupied artist. When it finally finds the right place to dig, the doodlebug "draws" a series of concentric spirals, each deeper than the last, until the pit is excavated. Adult ant lions resemble dragonflies or damselflies The adult is seldom seen in the wild because it is active only in the evening.

For more information you can check these videos:

Lady Bug Madness Part II

After about four or five days the yellow eggs began to turn dark. The eggs were about to release their black, strange looking, inhabitants.
Lady bug larva feed off the left over egg parts for about two days. After that, everything is fair game, including their siblings and other unhatched eggs! The larva are about as small as a grain of sand when they first hatch out. As they grow they will shed their exoskeleton. This is called an "in-star" and it will occur about five times before the larva pupates into an adult beetle. If I can keep these creatures alive and fed during these stages, I will continue to photograph their development. Unfortunately, spring break is coming up and I hope to see our grandbabies for a week. Oh what a difficult decision, stay home and photograph bugs or visit the family. . . What to do??





Poor hopeless aphids waiting to be eaten by those cute little lady bug larva... Of course, farmers and folks in the plant industry might think otherwise :)

Lady Bugs and Aphids Invade the Lab

Annie and Tylerbrought me three beautiful ladybugs. Tyler found his bug on a shopping cart at Walmart! He couldn't wait to bring it to lab. We looked at them under the microscope and look what we saw. Nathan took this video during the lab.

We went outside to find some aphids chomping on the fennel. Ladybugs love to eat aphids. The ladybugs were so grateful that the students brought them some dinner...I wonder how the aphids felt about this?
While we were outside, the ladybugs surprised us by laying clusters of eggs.
I am patiently waiting for them to be born so I can photograph them hatching out of the tiny yellow eggs. The eggs are positioned under the micrscope. Hopefully, I can capture them in the act. I will keep you posted.

Lab Assistant Falls in Love

Nathan, my assistant in science lab and youngest son wanted to visit the College of Charleston. He is thinking of pursuing a medical profession of some sort. So, Monday, March 23rd we drove to Charleston to visit the College of Charleston.

We parked the RV and rode bikes all through the campus. What a place.

Spanish moss dripping from the trees, brick roads and sidewalks, old buildings everywhere...Nathan is in love. He is in "hot pursuit" of this school!

The question remains, will the food

entertainment

and other distractions like the beach and the the oversize percentage of females at the campus lure him away from his passion? Only time will tell! Speaking of distractions. Look what I found!

Black Market Minerals in Charleston has the most amazing collection of rocks I have seen in a long time.

I bought two bags of various rocks for next year's rock lab. I can't wait to show the students...

ACSI Southeast Regional Early Education Conference

Saturday March 7th our school hosted the annual gathering of Early Education teachers who meet yearly to train and to eat! There were many exciting classes and vendors to visit. I taught three classes: Science Experiments for Young Children, How to Create Wildlife Habitats at Your School, and Maintaining Animals and Plants in the Classroom. Trudy, our school librarian who is earthy like me, brought her Leopard Gecko for us to see. Can you see that look of pride on her face? Kind of like a mother would show off her baby at an all girl's a.k.a. hen party! Trudy wears this beauty on her shoulder at times when she reads books to the students. This is a very tame and sweet Gecko.
Marina (who is crazy about Hedgie, her husband is jealous) helped me take out Hedgie. True to himself he started hissing, licking, and foaming at the mouth... What a guy that Hedgie. What does Marina see in him anyway? (I'm talking about Hedgie, not Marina's husband) He certainly will never win any "Mr. Congeniality" awards.

I still can't help but like him. For some odd reason, I attracted all kinds of interesting people at these events... Hope to see you all at the Ladies Wildlife Retreat in May!

Meteoroids Near Miss

Today, March 2, 2009, a Near Earth Object known as Asteroid 2009 DD45 made a close pass to Earth. Asteroid 2009 DD45 passed within 63,500 km (~39,000 miles), or about 0.17 Lunar orbits. Below is a video of the NEO Asteroid 2009 DD45. The video is in real-time, and you can see the meteoroid as a white speck that floats from right to left.

Did anyone watch nightly news with Brian Williams? He said this thing was the size of a two story building and would have hit with the force of 100,000 A-bombs.

Free Box of Rocks

The US Polar Rock Depository has a great program for educators to borrow a box of rocks from Antarctica.
We showed the students where the South Pole is located. The box had some very nice books, lots of lesson plans, and of course rocks!

Click Here to find out more.

Rock Lab Highlights

February is rock month for my after school Science and Nature Lab students. I have been collecting rocks all year and even have some rocks from past years to pass out to the the children. I think they liked it!Egg crates make great containers for holding lots of rocks. I like the fact that egg crates don't cost anything, can stack neatly in the back of a child's closet, and keep the rocks organized. We placed cotton at the base of each egg hold. This keeps the rocks in place and prevents them from getting scratched. Students chose quartz, pyrite, marble, sulfur, diatom, mica, lava rock, magnetite, Canada rocks, geodes, and some others for their starter collections. I went to Lowes and bought a marble tile, broke it up then, tumbled it in the rock tumbler.Some of our marble pieces were magnetic. The students really liked that. We checked all the rocks in my rock box and found three of them that had magnetic properties. Geodes are surprising and exciting. I showed them how to open their geode. Tristan gleefully offered to give up his sock so I could demonstrate. The sock prevented anyone from getting harmed with flying rock debris. Pyrite or Fools Gold is a great rock for kids. It is also quite prevalent around here. I found most of mine around Lake Hartwell. I hid the pyrite in a tub of sand so they had to "pan for pyrite" to find their fool's gold...
Everyone got to choose one of their rocks to put under the microscope. Here is a piece of pyrite that we magnified at 10X. Several of my Canada rocks have gold in them. The children all hoped that their Canada rock would have gold embedded inside somewhere as well. Quartz is another great rock that is quite prevalent around here. We washed our quartz rocks and cleaned them with toothbrushes. Mica is easily found near Lake Hartwell as well. Of course there is always time for a few diversions during lab such as Zach's sea shell collection
and a visit from Buddy Bird! Next month we will study insects. Wait till you see what students get to take home!!