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!!!