05.23.2010 Stick insects and worms
Okay, okay. We got these a while ago. I'm just now getting around to posting. The stick insects have grown from this:
to this:
Shedding many times in the process, and eating a despicable amount of ivy. That plant may be the most common thing in England, but we might still cause a shortage if this keeps up.
Every week I sneak up to the Museum of Bath at Work with my wirecutters and snip a few branches. They have loads. There's a small child who shouts HELLO if he/she sees me from his/her yard (it's hard to tell with kids sometimes, okay?)
Speaking of androgyny and gender balance, did you know that stick bugs are almost all girls? And that— despite the fact that males exist occasionally in their species— they can reproduce on their own? It's like Jurassic Park meets, I don't know, clams.
We've had two shedding accidents so far. In the first one, a stick got some skin stuck on the end of her tail, causing some problems with excretion. We were afraid she was done for, but no! She's just completely stopped shedding and growing. And maybe some other things, but again: it's hard to tell. All the other bugs are about 4 times bigger than her now. Thankfully they're peaceful and herbivorous, unlike praying mantises.
The second one was more tragic. One of the sticks got caught halfway out of her skin and sort of imploded in the process. It wasn't pretty. I'm hoping it was just a fluke and that the rest of them are happy and healthy, and not barely avoiding such similar incidents each time they molt. It did make me reflect on the benefits of being a vertebrate, though. Snakes wouldn't have that problem because their structure comes from the skeleton; they just use the skin to keep things in. Insects, on the other hand, really are shedding their skeleton each time. And apparently it's a big risky deal.
Around the same time that we got those pets, we got an even more-numerous collection of home-composting red wiggler worms:
Urgent live worms DO keep cool. Soooo cool. Emma named them all Mo'nique, we hydrated the starter-compost block, and emptied the envelope onto it. Within a few seconds they were all out of sight, exploring their new home.
And for the next few days, they were finding the limits of that home. A small but steady parade of dried-out worms at breakfast seemed to siphon off the adventurous among them, and since then they've been quite content. There are some small white mites in there, now, too, but they don't seem to be causing problems or escaping into the rest of the kitchen.
After a bit, we noticed some small round things in the compost. Looking it up on the ol' Internet we found that they were worm eggs! Looking close you can see a tiny, tiny worm inside. (If I had a better camera you could look close and see that right here. Maybe someday.) Then, a week ago or so, tiny baby worms everywhere in the compost!
We must be feeding them the right vegetables.
Posted by charlie williams at May 23, 2010 12:47 PM
