![]() ![]() We were all sad, but fortunately, my six-year-old “little biologist” understands how nature works. My husband and I weren’t sure whether to laugh or cry. For one, it was real quick – before it reached the tree in our front yard a bird came out of nowhere and snatched it up. She may have been overworked, but she was determined to carry on life, and she laid dozens of eggs on a small hollyhock plant that I had dug up and potted from my yard so that I could put it down into the cage.īutterflies don’t live very long after they mate, so when we released our first generation, I’m not sure how much time they had left. Four out of six larvae made it to maturity, and when we observed them mating, we figured out only one of them was a female. We kept our first generation in our butterfly habitat, a roomy mesh cage about the size of an aquarium. I thought we’d just try it and see what happens. I had visions of my house being invaded by tiny caterpillars, but I persevered thinking that at any time, I could throw the whole thing outside. Then we got the crazy idea to keep the butterflies, watch them mate, lay eggs, and raise a second generation. We ordered the larvae from an online company and watched them grow, pupate and emerge into adult butterflies. If you read my column regularly, you may recall that we raised Painted Lady butterflies this spring. Note: This column was published in the Barrow Journal on June 26, 2013. If you’d like to participate in the School of Ants project, go to to get detailed instructions and additional information.Ĭome back on Thursday when I post a letter from the School of Ants answering my question, “Why is it important to study ants?” My son was excited about that, so maybe we’ll try it. Perhaps we can make a small contribution to science. I asked my son if he’d like to try to find those ants again and observe them for a while. The two in the woods were common ants, but the tiny ants in our driveway were not so common, so there’s not much known about them. According to their site, we found three different species. We never received an e-mail, and it took several months, but we finally found our ants listed on the School of Ants website. When we did the project, I read that we would be e-mailed within a few weeks about our ants. We had to fill out a small form, register our kit online and get a confirmation code, which we mailed with the ants. Supposedly, this is a humane way of killing the ants. We collected what we found and put all the baggies into one big gallon-size bag, and then put them into the freezer overnight. ![]() They were just beginning to find the cookies. The cards we left in the woods had plenty of ants on them, but the cards on the pavement only had a few tiny ants. After an hour, we were instructed to quickly dump the card, cookie and any ants we collected into a separate plastic bag. ![]() On the other four notecards, we wrote “paved.” These had to go on a paved surface for one hour, so we put those on our driveway. We left a quarter of a cookie on each card for one hour in the woods beside our house. My son and I took four of the notecards and labeled them “green.” These had to go on a lawn, garden or forest about one foot apart. You’ll need 8 3×5 index cards, 1 pen, 2 Pecan Sandies cookies, 8 1-quart zip-lock bags, 1 1-gallon zip lock bag, and 1 envelope plus postage for submitting your kit. Though it’s easy to do the project, participants must make their own kit and pay for postage. He took pictures of them and then released them, not knowing that they were so rare! It had been discovered in the 1940s and never seen again until a North Carolina State University student found two of them under a rock outside his apartment. Other rare species have been found too, such as the Bigfoot ant, which is North America’s rarest ant species. The School of Ants has already helped scientists identify an invasive Asian needle ant in samples from New York, Wisconsin and Washington. Andrea Lucky’s lab at the University of Florida. If you live in Florida, you’ll send your specimens to Dr. map, which you can view on their website. All we had to do was collect some ants in our yard and send them to North Carolina State University where the scientists identified the ants and labeled a U.S. When I told my six-year-old about the project, he couldn’t wait to do it. Any adult, child or classroom can participate in this fun, educational project, and by doing so, you can help scientists collect data on ants that live in urban areas. This past school year, my son and I participated in the School of Ants project. Note: This column was published in the Barrow Journal on Wednesday, July 24, 2013. ![]()
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