Many months ago in the summer weather of August 2017, my family and I were vacationing in the hills of Virginia, just miles away from Monticello, the home of Thomas Jefferson. We found something at the campground: a very large caterpillar. Being the nature lovers we are, we quickly collected our "specimen" in a Starbucks iced-coffee cup and gave this caterpillar some leaves to chew on (although I don't think it needed to grow anymore... This thing was HUGE). Then, the next day, it had built it's cocoon and went to sleep for who knows how long. Months went by. We thought our caterpillar would never awake. But yesterday it did. One of the last things we expected to see crawling around our house, this fat, wrinkled, wet Polyphemus moth was a very startling sight to see. But it hatched! After over half a year, it hatched. Almost like a resurrection. Here are some pictures I took of the moth (click to enlarge) Thanks for reading. Happy Easter everyone!
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Looking down on the ground a few days ago, I noticed a small black speck. It was moving. An ant! Finally, they’re here. Ants are such fascinating insects, designed by God in an incredible way. Their ability to work together side by side to build vast tunnels under ground is miraculous. Let’s take a look at the design of an ant. Ants are created in a perfectly detailed way. Every tool they need to tunnel, communicate, and much more is built into them.
All ants serve the queen of the colony who gives birth to every single ant. The workers do a number of things. They look after the queen and the larvae, look for food outside the nest, and expand or repair the nest. Soldiers defend the colony, protecting it from invaders from other colonies. All ants are incredibly strong, and can lift over 20 times their body weight. That is the equivalence of a second grader being strong enough to lift a car! Ants use their strength to carry their food into the nest. Ants eat many things: insects, plants, fungi, and other animals. They spend much of their time searching for their food, and sometimes roam up to 300 feet from the nest, always finding their way back. Ants are truly incredible creatures to look at and study. God is an amazing artist. Here are some pictures I took of a colony beginning to build their nest. (Sorry for the blur. I have yet to perfect macro photography.) What is an insect? Many people don’t know the answer to this question. Of course, there are many answers. “A bug,” some people say. But then, what is a bug? Let’s take a deeper look at what an insect truly is. Insects have three body parts: a head, an abdomen, and a thorax. They also have six legs. Instead of the bones that we humans have, insects have a hard protecting shell called an exoskeleton. Insects belong to the phylum Arthropoda which means jointed legs. Spiders, crabs, scorpions, moths, and so many more are also arthropods. But of all arthropods, insects are the largest group. So that’s insects. But what are bugs? Bugs are also insects. Insects are categorized into eight different orders. These orders are odanata, orthoptera, dictyoptera, hemiptera, diptera, coleoptera, lepidoptera, and hymenoptera. Bugs belong to the order hemiptera, which means ‘half wing.’ True bugs are cicadas, stink bugs, water bugs, and more. Okay, so that’s bugs. But what about spiders? Spiders are not insects. They belong to the second largest group of arthropods: arachnids. Arachnids have eight legs instead of six, and have only two body parts: a cephalothorax, and abdomen. Please watch this helpful video I found on YouTube which explains basic insects identification in more detail: |
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