Wednesday 2 January 2013

Insects!

Oscar...
Today we went to a place called La Selvestra. There were 8 bridges. The bridges were at different height sand most of them were above the tree tops. The bridges were made of metal mesh. There was a river below us. We saw some people zip lining.guess how many species of plant can live on one tree? 100!
Next we saw a stick insect and beetles. I held a praying mantis. The female praying mantis chops off her mates head. It's disgusting for boys I know!
After that we went into the butterfly garden and the life cycle is: egg, caterpillar, chrysalis, butterfly. Sometimes butterflies only live for one day or a week.
My favourite part of the day was when I saw the leaf cutter ants crawling across a log. The ants chew the leaves, spit them out then mix them with their poo to make a compost. The compost grows to make a fungus and the ants eat the fungus.







4 comments:

  1. Ciara says - "hello" and wants to know if you've seen any snakes? And, she hopes you are all having a good time =) Hilary and Ciara Xx

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  2. Hello Ciara,
    We went for a hike in a really sweaty rainforest and saw three snakes. One was bright yellow. They were quite small but had enough venom to kill us. We've also collected a snake skin from a python. Happy new year. Oscar

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  3. Hi from wet and muddy Banstead! We love the praying mantis photo - we see small pale brown ones in Portugal where we go on holiday but they are not as exciting as your version. Also we have a leaf-cutter bee who comes to our old garden shed every year - she builds lots of single egg cells up by the roof inside the shed. She lives alone and she likes to eat rose leaves and we see every leaf has a hole cut out where she has been busy. She rolls the piece of leaf to make the egg container - there are some photos on this website: http://www.rightplants4me.co.uk/?q=content/blog/leaf-cutter-bee
    Love from Fleur and Gabi and Pete xxx

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  4. Love your insect photos boys!
    Been trying to leave messages but can't seem to work it-hope this does!
    Thinking of you all
    The Fairleys

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