Living Laboratory
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Phacelia flowers
Praying mantis
Mealyworms
Cockroaches
Slugs
Worms
Wee beasties (Paramecium)
Phacelia flowers – grow in the spring in the
classroom and plant out in summer
Purpose: provides pollen and nectar for
beneficial insects which
prey on insect pests
Investigate:
• insect visitors
• compare pests in area
with/without phacelia
INSECT CLASSIFICATION:
Diptera, Flies
Coleoptera, Beetles
Phasmida, Stick-Insects
Dictyoptera, Cockroaches and Praying
Mantids
Hymenoptera, Wasps, Ants and Bees
Lepidoptera, Butterflies and Moths
Praying mantis
Orthodera novaezealandiae
Praying mantis egg case
Picture shows 11 eggs intact.
5-6 months in egg case (ootheca) until hatching in spring.
Case taken from warm north facing garage wall.
• Food supply:
Nymphs: fruit flies (Drosophila spp.)
Adults: flies, wasps, bees, grasshoppers
Rear adults singly in ventilated container with water source
and string across container for skin shedding / hanging by
instars
• Investigations:
Temperature for development
Orientation of ootheca on development
Mealyworms (Darkling beetles)
Class: Insecta
Order: Coleoptera
Family: Tenebrionidae
Genus and species: Tenebrio molitor
Egg-------Larva--------Pupa---------Adult
10-12 days
12-54 days
9-20 moults
3-30 days
creamy white to brown
80 days
Purchase from:
Feed with:
Uses:
Require:
Pet store and bait shop (Animates)
bran, oatmeal, fresh oats, wheat bran.
Sliced potato, carrot, apple (water source)
Food source for reptiles, fish, wild birds, fishing bait
Ventilation and dark preference
Orientation experiments
Ranging – no knowledge
about where to find
resources
Local searching – more
restricted search
Ranging and Local Searching
•Place a bug in the centre of a piece of filter paper
and moisten paper at radius of 10cms (leave dry gaps
around radius)
•If bug goes through gap re-position in centre.
•Repeat with other bugs.
• Results: Ranging occurs until moisture is detected
and then localised searching begins.
Further ranging investigation:
Place bug on wooden object and use paintbrush to
keep it moving along.
Note direction it turns
at T junction. Repeat
with same bug.
Repeat with 4 more
bugs.
NEXT.... Use the bend right + T junction
Try the bend left and T junction
Repeat with 20 bugs for each.
How many turn left after the
right bend or right after the left
bend?
Investigate the same with
different starting orientation to
light source.
Repeat with 4 more bugs.
Frogs
http://www.nzfrogs.org/R
esources/Kids+Informatio
n/Keeping+Frogs.html
Cockroaches: (cerci in both sexes)
Male (with stylets)
Female (without)
American cockroach
Periplaneta americana
Size range:
Large insect, up to 40 mm long
Distribution:
Originally from tropical America, found
in warmer parts of New Zealand
A pest in heated buildings
Life History:
Fast running
Scavenger. Eats almost anything,
food scraps, paper, damp wood
Unpleasant smell
Native bush cockroach
Celatoblatta spp.
Size range: up to 15 mm
Distribution: NZ native, about 15 species
Life History: Favours damp, dark habitat,
wingless, not a household pest
TIP - Put into deep freeze to slow them down to
transfer to other containers.
Investigations:
• Leg movement in which order?
• Life cycle and egg laying studies.
• Dissection of gut
Slugs
Slug eggs:
Keep moist under
soil and small rocks
Investigation:
Temperature for
hatching
Worms:
Mixing the soil in a
wormery
Worms:
Adults with clitellum
(saddle)
Investigation:
Dollar value of
earthworms
(worksheet
www.lincoln.ac.nz/scie
nceoutreach)
Protists and wee pond beasties.
Use dropper to take
liquid from leaf bases
of bromeliads (from
hot house Botanical
Gardens)
Transfer to container
and add straw.
(Protists feed on the
bacteria that rot the
straw)
Make sure the contents does not dry out.