Be a Little Buggy Children will discover that bugs can be our buddies! Time requirement 45 minutes Objective(s) 1. Identify an insect based on the Group size and grade(s) number of body parts and legs. 5-11 students 2. Meet a real insect and an insect 3 year olds look-a-like 3. Foster child/adult relationship by Materials working together on a craft x Giant pillow insect 4. Dispel some myths and possible fears about insects. x Plastic insect model 5. Practice counting skills. x Insect parts for craft, glue, paper, crayons x Paper leaves Theme x Hole punches Insects are important animals that are x Scarves fun to learn about! x Copy of song x L i f e c y c le poster of Butterfly Sub-themes 1. Insects can be identified by how Goal(s) they look. 2. Insects come in different shapes x To increase children’s wonder and sizes. and knowledge of arthrodpods 3. Insects are beneficial to people. x To reduce children’s fear or uncertainty towards arthropods. Academic standards National Science x Educational Standards Benchmarks for Science Literacy (Project 2061) Ohio Science Academic Content Standards Kentucky Core Content— Science Indiana Science Standards Be a Little Buggy, 3 yr olds, April, 2013 Page 1 of 7 Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden Background They begin life as an egg that hatches to a larva. The larva eats, grows, and sheds, then A very turns into a pupa in which chemical changes successful take place. The final stage is changing into animal group the adult insect, which is able to reproduce. Insects and In more primitive insects, such as spiders are grasshoppers and stick insects, another type invertebrates, of development is used. This process is which means called incomplete metamorphosis where the they do not have an internal skeleton and insect hatches from the egg as a miniature backbone. Instead, they have a hard version of the adult. The insect continues to exoskeleton on the outside, the top layer of grow, and every time it molts it gets larger which is known as the cuticle. The cuticle is until it reaches adulthood. made out of proteins and is very versatile. It can be thick and hard for protection, thin Groupings and soft for flexibility, and even stretchy for Insects are divided into two main groups: movement. It can be heavy or it can be light the wingless insects like bristletails and to allow for flight. It can be permeable, silverfish; and the winged insects like letting water or gases in and out, or it can be dragonflies, cockroaches, grasshoppers, solid and waterproof. It can also be different stick insects, beetles, flies, butterflies, ants, colors. Your skin is different on different and bees. Many people think that spiders are areas of your body, and an insect’s cuticle is, insects—they are not. Spiders belong to a too, because it serves many purposes. different group of animals called arachnids, Because the cuticle is so versatile, this main which also includes scorpions. There are feature of insects has allowed them to nearly one million known species of insects, become one of the most successful groups of and more are being discovered each year. animals on Earth. However, many are also lost each year due to habitat destruction, and many of these we Six- and eight-legged wonders may never even have known existed. An insect’s body is divided into three main parts: the head, the middle section, called Insects and spiders are everywhere! the thorax, and the end section, called the Insects can be found in just about every type abdomen. A spider's body has two segments: of habitat on Earth. Some cricket relatives a cephalothorax and an abdomen. Insects live actively in snow, and there are beetles have a brain, a nervous system, a heart, a gut and cockroaches that live in the hot sands of for digestion, and tubes called tracheae to deserts. Many insects survive harsh breathe oxygen. They have two antennae conditions by burrowing and remaining and six legs, both of which have special inactive, and some can even survive for organs on them to sense sound vibrations years after being completely dried out—they and movement and to "taste" and "smell" revive when placed in water! Adult insects food (although they don’t have taste buds can range in size from less than 0.08 inches and noses like we do). Spiders have eight (0.2 millimeters) in tiny wasps to 12 inches legs and, in general, have "simple" eyes (30 centimeters) in stick insects. The largest instead of the "compound" eyes that give insects can weigh up to 2.5 ounces (70 many insects much better vision. grams). Did you know that there are more kinds of beetles in the world than any other Life cycle type of animal, invertebrate or otherwise? Most insects, such as beetles, wasps, and And did you know that the weight of ants flies, go through complete metamorphosis. Be a Little Buggy, 3 yr olds, April, 2013 Page 2 of 7 Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden alone is roughly equal to the weight of all to create the butterfly's new shape, including human beings on Earth? its wings. So how does the caterpillar know when it's time to change? Its brain produces Butterflies a chemical called "juvenile hormone." As long as the level of this hormone in its body One of the most well known and loved is high, it keeps eating, growing, and insect is the butterfly. Technically speaking, shedding. But when the hormone level butterflies are types of moths. But there are drops, then the caterpillar "knows" that it's some ways to tell them apart. Butterflies time to move on to the next stage. generally have long, smooth antennae that are rounded on the ends, while most moths Life cycle steps have thick, feathery antennae. Moths also The egg— An adult female lays her eggs on tend to have larger, fuzzier bodies than the right plants for the caterpillars to eat butterflies. Most moths fly at night, while when they most butterflies fly during the day. Because hatch from the of when eggs. Some they're butterflies will active, lay their eggs butterflies on only one tend to be type of plant! more colorful than The moths, but caterpillar— that's not When the egg always the hatches, a small case. You caterpillar can see another difference when they're emerges and eats the egg casing. It then resting: most moths flatten their wings out starts to eat the plant. Caterpillars are over their bodies, while most butterflies basically munching machines. This is the raise them up and against each other. And stage when most of the eating and growing although both butterflies and moths develop happens, and each time the caterpillar gets in a chrysalis, most moths also spin a too big for its skin, it sheds and starts again. protective cocoon. When people talk about this family of insects in general, they may The metamorphosis— The last time the use "butterflies" or "moths" to describe caterpillar sheds, a hard casing forms around them, and both are considered correct. it, called a chrysalis or pupa. Moths add more protection to this—they spin a silky The amazing metamorphosis cocoon as well. The magic metamorphosis One of the most incredible things about happens at this stage, and when the butterfly butterflies is the way they change from breaks out, it is an adult that can reproduce, crawling caterpillars into winged beauties. fly in search of food, and migrate if This process is called metamorphosis, and it necessary. It does need to plump up its has fascinated and perplexed people for wings first, filling them with fluid then centuries. In fact, scientists still aren't sure letting them dry and harden. exactly how it works! What we do know is that when a caterpillar seals itself into a chrysalis, chemicals are released from its body that change and rearrange all the cells Be a Little Buggy, 3 yr olds, April, 2013 Page 3 of 7 Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden On the wing centimeters) across; smallest—leaf miner Do you know what butterfly wings are made moth Phyllocnistis spp at 0.12 inch (0.3 of? They're actually pretty complex. The centimeter) across and western pygmy blue main structure of the wing is made of thin butterfly Brephidium exilis at 0.5 inch (1.3 layers of chitin, a protein that also makes up centimeter) across the outer "shell" of the body. These layers Weight: not really known, but are so thin you can see through them. Th e y approximately 0.0001 ounce (0.003 grams) are covered with thousands of tiny modified for the smallest to 0.1 ounce (3 grams) for hairs called scales, which create the colors the largest and patterns we see. These scales are the Adult life span: 2 weeks to 2 months for "dust" that comes off a butterfly wing if you most species; longest is 9 to 12 months for touch it. The wings also contain a system of the migrating monarch Danaus plexippus veins that circulate blood, and strong Number of eggs: anywhere from just a few muscles on the butterfly's body move the to thousands wings up and down. The wings actually Size at hatching: usually 0.1 inch (3 move in a figure "8" motion that pushes the millimeters) or less butterfly through the air. Development: varies widely among species, but typically several days for egg to hatch, 2 Can you taste with your feet? to 4 weeks as a caterpillar, and 1 week to 2 You probably wouldn't want to! But this is months or more in pupa form.