A slug at the Chalk Festival...

My Dream Vacation To Orlando

Discovery Cove

Wekiva Springs state park

Cuba Libre restaurant

Cicadas: A Symbol of Change

The life cycle of a cicada is quite extraordinary. They make a complete, gradual metamorphosis! The growth happens in the nymph stage.

The first stage of a cicada's life cycle is the egg. The female cicada cuts a slit in some bark and lays her eggs there.

wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ee/Cicada_egg_slits

www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://pest.ca.uky.edu/EXT/Cicada/eggs

The second stage is the nymph. When the eggs hatch, the nymphs emerge. They suck sap from the branch that they are hatched on. Then they drop from the branch and burrow into the soil. There they suck sap from a tree root. The nymph continues to grow underground until it is ready to come out. The nymphs stay below the ground between 2 and 17 years.

www.cicadamania.com

When the nymphs come out they will climb up anything they can find. Then they molt out of their nymph skin and transform into the third stage of their life cycle, the adult cicada!

Fun Fact: In Ohio, we get cicadas every year. But every 17 years, a huge brood of "17 year cicadas" or Magicicada emerge. The next batch of Magicicada that will come out in Northeast Ohio will be in 2016.

Amazing Cicada Life Cycle

More science games & videos on Metamorphosis at NeoK12.com

The Amazing Velvet Worm

Hi! Have you ever heard of a velvet worm? Probably not. It is astonishing that they are not very well known! Well, now is your chance to learn about them and help to save them!
Most of my facts come from Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onychophora), but I've included a lot of pictures and a video. Enjoy!

http://www.animalpicturesarchive.com/view.php?tid=3&did=26101

Almost all of the types of velvet worms are endangered, some are critically endangered, and one type is possibly extinct.

Velvet worms are between 0.5 and 20cm's long. The average length is 5cm. Velvet worm's skin is usually brown, red, or orange, but they can be brightly colored too. Their skin is covered in fine hairs called villi.

Velvet worms have about 14 pairs of legs. Other appendages include a pair of antennae, and a slime gland.

http://www.polydesmida.info/tasmanianmultipedes/onychophora-key.html

Velvet worms are carnivorous. They eat other small insects which they catch by immobilizing them with a sticky slime. To reclaim their slime, they eat it along with the insect. Velvet worms, on average, eat once every 1 to 4 weeks.

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/notrocketscience/2010/06/01/death-from-disorder-scientists-uncover-secret-of-the-velvet-worm’s-quick-setting-slime/

Velvet worms live in all tropical zones in the Southern Hemisphere. For example, they can be found in Central and South America. They can also be found in places like Australia and Indonesia. They like dark moist places such as forest floors.

http://www.google.com/imgres?

Velvet worms are endangered because of loss of habitat. Their habitats are being used for farming and factories. We can save the velvet worm by protecting our world's rain forests. I think every country with velvet worms should be like Tasmania. In Tasmania, they have a special velvet worm conservation plan.

Fun Fact: Velvet worms give birth to live young.