In a group chat of the children's book group, a group of friends mentioned "Fabre Insects", and then everyone talked about their pets: unicorn fairy, Chinese big knife mantis, horned frog, tadpole, spade armor... The moment opened up new horizons for us. So the book reviewer invited several of his friends to talk in detail about the interesting experience of raising these insects.
The sound of silkworm babies nibbling every night,
So much so that I suspected that we had a herd of pigs
In early spring, when I read the autobiographical novel "Silver Teaspoon" by Japanese writer Kansuke Naka, I was attracted by one of the silkworm farming stories, and I longed for it, and by the way, I could let my daughter get practical education, so I bought twenty silkworms online.
Three days of courier arrived as promised, the transparent feeding box placed a lump of mulberry leaves, you can see many one-centimeter-long light gray larvae through it, nibbling on the leaves out of many small holes.
According to the feeding strategy, we decided to move to a new house for him first. According to the status of the family, all these coolies are borne by me. In order to avoid hurting the silkworm babies with too much force, I used the prepared goose feathers to pull out the clumps of mulberry leaves and bring the silkworm babies into the new home one by one. Halfway through the move, a special individual was found on the leaves, larger than the other silkworm babies, and the color was emerald green, like emerald. I excitedly beckoned my daughter to come and see, and firmly believed that this jun was a small giant standing at the top of the evolutionary theory of the silkworm world.
To verify this conclusion, I went through all the books on bugs in the house, but I found no knowledge about the mutant silkworms. Excited to fill in the pages of the evolutionary book, I opened my phone and sent the photo to customer service to ask if I had ever seen such a variant. After a few seconds of silence at the other end of the chat window, he replied with five words: "This is a vegetable worm." ”
A random vegetable worm
The silkworms grew faster than expected, and in just three or four days, the original slender larvae became plump and the color changed from gray to white. Squeezed in the hand soft, upside down, countless small feet squirming, very cute. Of course, there were troubles that followed, the reserves of mulberry leaves could not keep up with the needs of silkworms, and every night I could hear the sound of gnawing, and I once suspected that I had a group of pigs. Under the coercion and inducement of my daughter, I set an alarm clock every day to prepare food for silkworms. The silkworms became fuller and fatter, and I became emaciated.
From cubs to five years old for about ten days. The appetite of the silkworm began to decrease, and the body gradually became transparent from milky white, until finally the whole body became very short. They no longer stayed at the bottom of the feeding box, but climbed on the wall of the box, their heads and chests high, swinging from side to side, spitting out fine silk. My daughter and I thought they were performing some strange ritual and didn't pay much attention. Unexpectedly, when I went to see it every few days, there were many oval cocoons in the feeding box. At this point, my career as a breeder officially ended, and I was transferred to the observation group to welcome the silkworm moth to the human world at any time.
Breaking the cocoon into a "moth"
Compared with the previous stages, the birth of the moth is relatively long. As we gradually lost patience, the first moth was born. It spread its wings and lay on its cocoon, its eyes were like ink, fluffy like snow, and its antennae were like two wooden combs standing on the door of the head, plain and lovely. As silkworm moths continue to be born, our feelings for them gradually fade. It is as if after the dust has settled, all the surprises that have been constructed and simulated in the heart countless times will dissipate. After the last moth was born, my daughter and I invariably fixed our eyes on the snow house in the corner that had failed to break the cocoon.
In order to raise praying mantises,
Incidentally, we raised the mantis food fruit flies together
I've always loved insects and critters, probably because my brother had pigeons, rabbits, dogs, and cats when I was a kid, so I did. Just at the beginning of this year, two mantises were adopted from a teacher in the circle of friends, and the children named them big mantis and small mantis (according to the size of the mantis).
Above are the big mantises, and below are the small mantises
The mantis is different from the mantis we usually see, the common mantis is green, while the mantis is brown when it is underage, and it will have blue wings when it is an adult, which is very beautiful.
Praying mantises molt every once in a while before they become adults, do not eat or drink before molting, and are motionless. The mantis after molting has grown significantly and the amount of food has increased. We collected the skins of the praying mantis in a glue drop bottle. Adult praying mantises, male mantises have all brown-green wings, and female mantises have emerald green on both sides of the wings.
We raise praying mantises in yogurt bottles, poke some small holes in the lid to breathe, put some dead vines into it for mantises and fruit flies to climb, and put some apple peels for fruit flies to eat, and the apple skins should be slightly more meaty when cutting.
Fruit flies are the main food of the mantis, while fruit flies feed on apple peels.
The eggs on the apple skin hatched a number of fruit flies
The number of mantises eating fruit flies will increase with the age of the month, we will observe the process of mantises catching fruit flies to eat fruit flies, haha, so interesting! In order not to always buy fruit flies, we collect the leftover apple peels of fruit flies, which will have the eggs of fruit flies on them. After a period of time, the eggs will hatch fruit fly larvae, get some oats mixed with water and let the larvae eat, and then they will slowly grow into adults, and many fruit flies will hatch each time.
The nest of the praying mantis has to be cleaned every once in a while, there will be a lot of mantis feces, the dead vines will be moldy, and the apple peel will also be eaten by fruit flies, when there are many fruit flies, the whole bottle will have a lot of spots left by fruit flies, densely packed. When cleaning up, prepare a new nest and move the praying mantis over. At this time, the child will usually put the praying mantis in her hand for a while, at first she is still quite afraid, and then she is not afraid under my drive. The praying mantis crawls on the hand, which is interesting.
The most troublesome thing is to take the fruit fly out and put it in the mantis's nest. Place two boxes of the same size facing each other and pat them. The living will climb up into the new box and die in the original box. Then put the new box in the mantis's nest. Fruit flies can't fly, but they can jump, and if they are not fast enough, they will crawl all over the house, and if there are many of them, it is really difficult to catch. Every time I get fruit flies, the children will help together, haha, and happily catch fruit flies.
During the time of raising praying mantises, we often ate apples and picked up dry branches, which was different in the eyes of colleagues, and actually raised this insect. The child's father is also extremely unsupportive, especially when looking at the whole bottle of fruit fly larvae, he feels particularly disgusting. Fortunately, the child follows me, does not hate at all, and likes it very much.
In fact, before adoption, I also consulted the child's opinion, and she also made it clear that she wanted to adopt and would insist on taking good care of the praying mantis, so I agreed to adopt. In fact, I also played a little careful, hoping that she can learn to do what she says, have a sense of responsibility, and can insist on taking care of her before adopting. During the breeding period, although I mainly take care of it, she has always been involved and assisted, and I think it is quite good.
Adopt the one-horned fairy queen,
The child is suddenly not afraid to touch the insect with his hand
We have a 6 year old boy in our family. Because it is a boy, it is inevitable to be naughty. He had a time when he liked to pick up leaves on the side of the road, but he was severely stopped by his grandmother every time, and he had to wash his hands carefully as soon as he got home. Later, after being diagnosed with allergic rhinitis, he became more likely to be clean.
Of course, it is a good habit to love cleanliness, but I always feel that children who grow up in the city are too clean. When watching foreign children play with mud without concern, I feel a little lost in my heart.
Later, during the New Year, the children played a game called "Collection!" at a relative's house. Animal Forest Friends Association", in which the insect catching session was particularly well played, he happily called himself a "master of insect catching", which was the first time he became interested in insects. Later, I stumbled upon the community parent-child project that Tongji University is doing, which regularly has some insect courses to introduce children to nature. When an event to adopt unicorns was open, we immediately went to the community workstation to queue up early and collect the larvae.
The project is to have children raise a one-horned fairy on their own, from larva to adult, and personally observe the metamorphosis of insects. Juveniles and adults will have a series of obvious changes in morphological structure and living habits, and these changes are still concentrated in a short period of time, which is very suitable for children to observe.
The unicorn fairy larvae brought back is a big white fat worm, and the mother and children who have lived in the city since childhood are also the first time to see a bug at such a close distance, not to mention raising it by hand.
larvae
Children have been very scared for a long time, until the time of pupae, the shape of the insect has changed significantly, and they are not afraid. When a long oval pupae appeared at the bottom of the jar, we did not pay special attention, but the children found that the bugs did not change much in two weeks, so they worriedly urged me to go to the teacher of the workstation to inquire, and sure enough, the teacher said that the pupae room was too wet, so the bugs might die. The children were anxious at that time, and suddenly they were not afraid to touch the bugs with their hands, helped dig up the pupae together, took out the bugs that had become pupae with light hands and feet, sucked the soil dry, and finally put the bugs back. In the whole process, there is no longer the dirty and smelly look that was at the beginning.
Chrysalis
In the end, our unicorn adult worm was still quite smooth, the insect volume was also very large, although the final bug game only won one, the children still regularly fed it jelly and helped it change wood chips.
imago
Raising the relationship of unicorn immortals, we have seen some shovel armor picture books, and later when we look at picture books, we will pay special attention to the plot related to insects, such as The Japanese Qin Haoshilang's "Summer Day" tells the story of a little boy catching insects. Living in the city for a long time, living a life surrounded by human civilization and technology, and occasionally coming into contact with nature will also have various taboos. Having raised a bug yourself is probably one of the most convenient ways to get in touch with nature.
To see the ants,
He was able to squat on the ground for an hour or two
Momo is an 8-year-old boy who has been obsessed with many things at different stages from childhood to adulthood, such as excavators, dinosaurs, planets, ores, weapons, microorganisms, and "damn" mobile games.
There will always be an interest in inconspicuous ants at some age. One day, Momo squatted on the ground to observe the ants. The two ants touched each other with the antennae of their heads, and the probe probed the brain like two miniature versions of humans saying good morning to each other, which triggered his infinite curiosity.
In the words of his grandmother, this child can squat on the ground for an hour or two in order to watch ants, and reading is not necessarily so serious. So, we bought an ant observation box from the almighty Taobao network so that he could watch it at home.
Nature observation in the wild
Ants are so interesting, not to mention children, adults are also fascinated. You can clearly distinguish between soldier ants and worker ants, as well as lazy, fat queens. If you feed the ants well enough and maintain good temperature and humidity, the queen will desperately lay eggs, and the worker ants will work diligently, taking on the duties of "childcare sister-in-law", "builder", "hunter" and "soldier", as if it were an orderly society. Remember! Remember! Ants' nests can't be moved around, and even the slightest vibration is an earthquake for them!
In the process of observing ants, the child has a lot of questions. For example, ants have their own "language", how worker ants and soldier ants divide labor, and even how the "society" of ants operates, and so on.
A flock of ants
These questions, even if they cannot be answered, cannot be perfunctory. The information on the Internet is either upside down and illogical, hearsay, unfounded, and far less quality than the information in books. Therefore, I found popular science books such as "The Beauty of Ants", "The Story of Ants", and "The Society of Ants"; essay essays such as "Visitors on the Balcony", "Next to Bugs", "Insect Chronicles"; chapter novels with insects as the main characters such as "Cool Bug School" and "Ant Agent". As long as he put these books within his reach, he would read them with hunger and clatters from time to time.
A few days ago, there was a flood in Henan, and the deeds of people watching out for each other were touching. After hearing about it, Momo told me that there is a kind of ant that carries the injured kind back to the nest for "treatment", and the mortality rate has dropped from 80% to 20%. So we had an interesting conversation about human society...
Feed the mealworms,
It is equivalent to a daily research activity
My family is 5 years old, a little girl, usually like small animals. A year ago, I raised a turtle and fed the turtles lacked suitable feed, so I fed the mealworms myself.
Yellow mealworm, commonly known as breadworm, is an insect of the genus Powderyx in the family Coleoptera. Mealworm is a completely perverted insect, that is, adult insects, eggs, larvae, pupa 4 forms, yellow mealworm like to live in groups, one by one gathered together, they eat everything, the most like to eat wheat bran and other coarse grains, usually also need to eat vegetables to supplement water and vitamins, such as carrots, greens. Although mealworms are ultimately meant to be food for the turtle, the whole feeding process is fun.
The watermelon worm found in the yellow mealworm, next to the pot is the yellow mealworm
Every time they were fed, they twisted their chubby bodies, devoured the food cleanly, and Yang Yang enjoyed feeding it every time, crouching there for a long time to observe.
Once, yangyang ran over to feed and said, "Mom, Mom, it's not good!" The bread worms were all eaten by the black bugs. "When we looked over, the black pressed piece in the box fed by the yellow mealworm turned out to be a part of the yellow mealworm pupae, and the adult insects were black bugs like "beetles".
Yang Yang usually likes to read picture books, and after reading the picture book of "Fabre Insects", he is very interested in insects, and feeding mealworms is equivalent to a daily research activity.
Throughout the feeding process, it is necessary to understand the habits of mealworms, and to observe the growth and development of insects, so as to have a basic understanding of the characteristics of insects, such as knowing that some insects have a "completely perverted" growth process. In addition, feeding small animals can exercise children's patience and sense of responsibility. Feeding animals requires 100% seriousness and dedication, patience is essential, and caring for the growth of animals every day cultivates her sense of responsibility.
Written by | Lee Brains, End of Love, Miss Slowlife, Nimo, Big Bowl Mom
Edit | Shen Chan
Proofreading | Fu Chunyi