Looking for Caterpillars and Counting Leaves

Today we kayaked to another spot to look for caterpillars. We spent all day, from 9:00 to 4:00 working very hard. We landed the kayaks in a very muddy place. I had to crawl between the kayaks so I wouldn't get stuck in the mud and not be able to move. Then we went into the swamp to set up a circle with a 10 foot diameter. This is the research plot. We had to walk through blackberry vines, poison ivy, thick bushes, and lots of mud. Rebecca, the researcher, used a machete to cut our way through all the bushes. There were spiders, mosquitoes, and many other bugs that I hadn't seen before. Before we could look for caterpillars, we had to record the kinds of vegetation (plants and trees) and count all the leaves. This took a long time. Then we looked carefully for caterpillars on the branches and under the leaves. We only found a few. Next we used the big piece of canvas that I am holding in the picture and a stick. We held the canvas under the leaves and hit the leaves with machete or a stick to see if any caterpillars would fall off. There were just five that we found. We did this in two different plots today. It was very tiring and very hot!! The best part of the day was when we left to go back to the bunkhouse. I got to kayak on this big river. That is the front of my kayak in the picture. The wind was blowing so we had to paddle hard to float down the river. We rode in the kayaks for an hour before we got back to our bunkhouse. One of the teachers made homemade pizza for us. It sure tasted good after a long day in the swamp.
The other picture is one that another scientist, Mark, took for me. It is a caterpillar that has parasitoids coming out of its body. A wasp laid eggs in the caterpillar. They ate in the caterpillar and grew. In the picture the larvae are coming out of the caterpillar. It was crawling around under a microscope when he took the picture. The larvae will turn into wasps. There are so many interesting events happening every minute with the caterpillars. Changes happen all the time.

Change in the Caterpillar Lab

I wanted you to see one of the caterpillars starting to pupate. He will create a chrysalis in his ziploc plastic bag home. If he is successful he will turn into a Tiger Swallowtail butterfly. You saw the picture of him in his bright green. Now his color is changing and he has strapped himself in place to begin making his chrysalis. He will stay in the bag until he turns into a butterfly. Another caterpillar has already turned into a moth. We had to put it in the freezer because Rebecca, the scientist, needs to keep it for her collection. She needs to be able to prove that she has done her research well and that she has correctly identified all the caterpillars and plants.

Random Pictures

These are some pictures from the past few days. The top one is me sitting on my bunkbed working on this blog. I sleep on the bottom bunk. A teacher from Kansas sleeps on the top bunk. Sleeping on the bed is comfortable. We are all so tired that we fall asleep really quickly. The next two pictures are little shelters for a caterpillar called a bagworm. They make the bag from their silk and little sticks. The girl bagworm lives her whole life in the bag and never leaves. The boy bagworm comes and finds her in the bag. It is the boy bagworm that turns into a moth. The last picture is one of bird eggs. A red bird called a Prothonotary Warbler laid them in this old post by a bridge. We saw her fly into the post and got to see her eggs after she flew out. Very cool!! Thank you for your comments and all the questions. I have tried to post your comments, but am having trouble making the blog do what I want it to do. I am going to try to answer some of the questions from Mr. Kropp's class. The first one is from Parfait. He asked if caterpillars change colors. Some can change colors when they eat different plants. Others change colors as they get older. Someone else asked if caterpillars lay eggs. Yes they do. Some other questions came from Ms. Nicholson's and Ms. Lewton's class.Sarah asked how long caterpillars live. Some caterpillars live for only a week while others can live for a year. Their life cycle depends on lots of things like temperature, precipitation (rain), and how much the caterpillar ate before it started its next stage. Mayly asked how caterpillars eat. They eat leaves with something called mandibles. Alexis asked how many legs a caterpillar has. They have six legs on their thorax. Makai asked how long it takes for a caterpillar to eat a whole leaf. It depends on the size of the caterpillar. I have seen some big caterpillars eating really fast and making big holes in the leaves. Some places here have lots of forest tent caterpillars hanging from the trees in nests. I have pictures on one of the blogs. There are so many caterpillars that they are eating all the leaves on many trees called tupelo trees. Thanks for all the questions. I only have two more days in the bunkhouse. Then we go back to New Orleans to work in the lab at Tulane University.

Tuesday in the Lab

Today was a very busy day in the caterpillar lab at Earthwatch Expedition. A group of t eachers went out in kayaks to catch more caterpillars. It was my turn to stay at the lab and help to clean the caterpillar bags and identify the plants and caterpillars that they caught. It was lots and lots of work!! We had to look up the caterpillar in a book and then on the internet to try to figure out what kind of caterpillar each one was . We also had to identify what plant it was eating. We worked together all day long, from 8:30 in the morning to 6:30 at night. We only stopped for a little lunch and then kept going. Even with five people working, we couldn't identify all the plants and caterpillars. Some people will try again on Wednesday to find out the caterpillars names. Can anyone figure out what kind of caterpillars these are? Two pictures are of the same one. He is looking at the camera from different angles. The other picture is Dr. Lee Dyer. He is the scientist that started the research. The bags behind him are where the caterpillars are living. He could tell us the scientific name of every caterpillar we found. Tomorrow, Wednesday, I will go out again in the kayak to hunt caterpillars. We will have to get out of the kayak and climb up the bank of the river to a forest area. There we will set up a circle with a 10 meter diameter. We will mark the circle with pink tape. Then we will use a beat sheet to make the caterpillars fall from the bushes and trees onto the beat sheet. I will show you a picture of a beat sheet in my next blog. After we catch the caterpillars we have to count all the leaves on all the plants in the circle. This even means counting all the leaves on the trees. Do you think we can really do this or will we have to estimate?

Pictures from the Field

These are some more pictures from the last couple days.

Who can indentify this caterpillar by looking on the website, www.caterpillars.org

Can you see the animal on the tree trunk?

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I am working in our bunkhouse which also is our lab. Check for more pictures later today.

Here is a link to click on so you can view a special dance:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7pb8O-00I4

Kayaking the Cypress Tupelo Swamp

Yesterday afternoon, Monday, we went to collect caterpillars with the scientist that started this research about 17 years ago. He came from Reno, Nevada to meet us and teach us about his research. We had to travel by kayak because the Pearl River is flooding and there wasn't any other way to collect caterpillars. You can see the kayak in the picture. It is a kind of boat. We floated in kayaks in the cypress tupelo swamp and looked for caterpillars. Do you know what cypress and tupelo are? At first it was hard to get the caterpillars from the trees and bushes and keep the kayak still. I had to hang onto the tree and get the caterpillar with one hand. Then I had to label the bag. Floating in the swamp was wonderful. We saw a woodpecker that was very big. We also saw some yellow birds, a frog, and some huge spiders!! One spider was in my kayak crawling on me and I didn't know it was there until we got back to shore. I'm glad I didn't know because I might have fallen out of the kayak and into the muddy water. This morning I will work in the bunkhouse to clean the caterpillars bags and record the new caterpillars with the computer. One of the caterpillars in the picture has camouflage that looks like bird poop. Tomorrow I will get to kayak again. I miss you all and will be excited to be back at James John next week.

Caterpillars and Plastic Bags

Today was another wonderful day. I slept last night in my bunkbed with eight other people. The other teachers are from Florida, Utah, New York, Maryland, Kansas, and Florida. We are also working with grownups who are students at Tulane University in New Orleans. We get up at 6:00 in the morning and eat breakfast. Today I just ate some cereal. Then we spent the morning cleaning the bags that the caterpillars are in. They are one gallon Ziploc bags. The caterpillars poop in them and we have to get the poop out. Caterpillar poop is called frass. We put the caterpillars in the bags when we catch them. We have to put leaves in the bags for the caterpillars to eat. Then we label the bags with the date, the name of the plant, and the name of the caterpillar. I have to ask one of the researchers what the names of the plants and the caterpillars are. When we get back to the bunkhouse we hang the bags on a rack. We also have to enter lots of information into a computer. The researcher, Rebecca, has information about 10,000 caterpillars she has found ! She keeps them in the plastic bags and studies them. They stay alive in the plastic bags for months. They even turn into butterflies in the bags. Not everyone stays alive the whole time. They don't need much air so they do fine in the bags. These are some of the caterpillars we have caught so far. There is also a picture of the caterpillar poop in the bag. Yuck!!!