Wildlife Experience!

As part of our animal adaptation science unit, Beverly Critcher (Ms. C)  from Wildlife Experience brought wild animals to Mrs. Yollis' class for careful scientific observation.

 

 

Wildlife Experience is a non-profit wildlife education organization that brings native and exotic animals to schools and teaches children about the importance of our natural world. Here is Ms. C., the owner of Wildlife Experience.

 

 

In order for students to understand the animals adaptations, Ms. C needed to give us the definition of behavioral adaptations and physical adaptations.

 

Art by me, Keira

 

 

Here is an animal adaptation post from Mr. Mannell in NSW, Australia:

 

Animal Adaptations by Mr. Mannell 

 

 

Here are a few photos and facts about the animals that were brought into our classroom.

 

 

Fact:  Human hands have an opposable thumb. The thumb can work with the other four fingers to grasp and pick up items. 

 

 

 

Not all animals have that ability. Here two students tried to tie a bow without using their thumbs, only their four fingers.

 

 

What did you notice? Challenge yourself to do a task without your thumbs!

 

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Now for the animals! 

 

 

Meet George the Giant Millipede!

 

 

This is George the giant millipede. As you can see, George has many legs and antennae. His legs are not fully grown yet, and he is waiting to get his total of three-hundred legs. Right now he has only two-hundred sixty legs.

 

If you ever see a long creature with many legs, and you don't know if it is a centipede or a millipede, stay away from it because centipedes have poison. If you touch a centipede and think it is a millipede, you are doomed unless you disinfect it.

 

 

What did you notice about the giant millipede?

 

 

 

Meet Rose the Tarantula!

 

 

 

Rose is a rose-haired tarantula and is very hairy. She is an arachnid, which means she has four legs on each side of her body, which equals eight legs in all.

 

 

 

 

There are little spinnerets on the back of the tarantula's body. The spinnerets are what the silk comes out of, and the spider uses the silk to make its web. Sometimes a spider's web can be very pretty when it has dew on it and you can see it clearly.

 

 

What did you notice about the tarantula?

 

 

Meet Beth the Ball Python!

 

 

 

 

Beth has a very interesting texture on her, as she should. To me, it feels like a bunch of smooth bumps that are crowded on one body.

 

Beth also has a very interesting pattern. They look like a bunch of spots on her back and then, when the back turns into her belly, the spots become stripes. You can spot that on the stomach the dark shade of green turns into a cream color and that is where the spots turn into stripes.

 

As you may know, Beth can constrict. That is why you should never hold a snake around your neck because they may be able to constrict you and you will suffocate. Believe it or not, this is how they get their prey. They squeeze their victim to death and then eat it. Beth can eat something up to ten times the size of her head. Watch out, rats and mice!

 

 

What do you notice about the ball python?

 

 

Meet Stacy the Salamander!

 



 



Salamanders are amphibians, which means that they can survive on land and water. However, you do need to stay moisturized if you are an amphibian so your skin does not dry up.

If you are looking in a pond, and you see a tadpole, you may not be able to tell if it is a frog or a salamander. Salamanders grow up just the same as frogs, except for one thing. They are born, then they are tadpoles, next they grow their tails, except that they keep their tails unlike frogs, who lose their tails. Then they become a fully grown salamander.

We got to touch Stacy, and to me she felt slimy. Even though she was slimy, she still felt very smooth.

Notice the pattern on her back. She is called a Tiger-Eyed Salamander for that pattern. Doesn't it look like a tiger pattern, a little bit?

Here you can see her crawling back into her log, safe and sound. There is moist dirt in her tub so she does not dry up and die.

What are some things that you noticed about the salamander?

 

 

 

Meet Oswald the Opossum!

 

 

As you may know, opossums can play dead and let out an odor that is horrible smelling, but did you know that they do this without thinking about it? Well, they do. For instance, if an opossum was just cruising along and then it saw a fox looking for food, and the fox sees it, comes at it, the opossum's first defense is to run. Since they do not run very fast, and the fox is catching up to it, the next thing they would do is show its fifty razor sharp teeth with saliva drooling out of its mouth. If that does not work, then they get so scared that a chemical releases in its brain and puts it to sleep. Then two sacks in its body lets out the odor that makes it smell dead. Of course, no animal wants to eat something that is dead, so the fox walks away looking for something else to eat. Once the opossum's ears can hear the animal walking away, and it calms down a few minutes later, then it wakes up and minds its business again. Surprisingly, as I told you before, the opossum has no way of knowing when it begins to play dead and when it wakes up.

Opossums are marsupials, which means they carry their babies in their pouch, like kangaroos and koalas. Since the joeys of the opossum are as small as a dime, they can carry about twenty of them in their pouch. When the babies grow older, but not old enough to live on their own, the mother has to carry them on her back, as shown above. Of course this is not a real opossum, but a stuffed one.

What are some things that you noticed about the opossum?

 

 

Meet Digger the Skunk!

 

 

 

This is Digger, a spectacular skunk. Normally, skunks would spray in the face of danger, but this particular skunk had its skunk sacks removed so it can not spray anybody when it goes to teach classes about skunks.

 

Digger is a striped skunk, the most common skunk. I have skunks in my backyard, and they are all striped skunks. My dog, Cooper, always gets sprayed by skunks and the best way to get the odor off of him is bathe him in vinegar.

 

What did you notice about the striped skunk?

 

 

Meet Bo the Bard Owl!

This is the only bird that Ms. C brought to our class, so all the students were amazed at the owl. I was enchanted as well. Bo is probably my third favorite animal that Ms. C brought us.

You can see that Ms. C is wearing a glove to protect her hand, and that glove has a rope on it, and the rope has a soft leather strap on it. Since Bo was the victim of a car crash, he cannot fly. So if he tries to fly away to somewhere else in the room, the soft leather strap holds onto him to keep him safe. If he did not have that strap, and he tried to fly, he would fall right to the ground.

Have you ever heard that owls can turn their head all the way around? Well that's not true. Owls can only turn their head 2/3 of the way around. Since owls cannot turn their eyes like us, they need to look around them somehow, so that is why they have a special bone in their neck that allows them to turn 2/3 of the way around.

 

What did you notice about the Bard Owl?

 

 



 

 

Meet Fred, the Fennec Fox from Africa!

 

 

As you can see, Fred is a very cute fox. He is probably my second favorite out of all the animals that Ms. C brought us. He lives in Africa so he has to blend in with the landscape. That is why he is an orange-brownish color. Also, since the ground is so hot there, he has little pads on his paws so that he can walk without burning his paws.

His ears are perked up in this photo, so this means that he hears something. He has to have very keen hearing because, in Africa, what if a predator is stalking around just waiting to eat him and he doesn't hear the predator? If he has good hearing, then he can hear the footsteps of the predator and quickly escape.

Here is a baby fennec fox, and it is white instead of the color that Fred is. This means that it is still growing up and it is waiting for its orange-brownish fur.

If you can see, the feet have the little pads on the bottom. These are the pads that I talked about in the first paragraph about fennec foxes. They are just developing, so when the animal gets bigger the pads will too.

Here is another picture of a fennec fox with its ears up, except this fennec fox is a baby. Look at that small face and those huge ears!

 

What did you notice about the fennec fox?

 

 

Meet Honey the Hedgehog!

 

 

This is Honey the hedgehog. I would have to say that Honey is my favorite out of all the animals Ms. C brought us. She is just so cute! Look at that face!

 

Okay. Back to work. When hedgehogs are in danger, they curl up in a ball and start to bounce. If a predator was above it, and the hedgehog started to bounce, the quills would poke the predator and the predator would be hurt and that would give the hedgehog a chance to escape. When Ms. C was holding her, she started doing this and it was so cute to us humans, but to another animal it would be danger.

 

 

What did you notice about the hedgehog?



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Teeth!

 

Teeth can tell a lot about what an animal eats.

 

Canine Teeth= Meat eaters

Canine teeth are sharp and are used for devouring meat.

 

Molars= Plant eaters

Molars are flat and are used for crushing plants.

 

Incisors= Meat and Plant eaters

Incisors are used for cutting and gnawing. 

 

 

 

Here are some different types of diets:

 

Carnivore: Meat eater

 

Herbivore: Plant eater

 

Omnivore: Meat and Plant eater

 

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Human Teeth: Nice smile, Mr. Bones!

 

 

 

 

Porcupine Teeth: Look at the molars on the sides.

 

 

 

 

Bobcat Teeth: Look at those canines! They stick out from the sides!

 

 

Bobcat Teeth: Here's an even better shot of those canines! Look at the size of them!

 

 

 

 

Turtle Jaws

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Visual Notes!

 

Some students took visual notes, which are notes but in picture form. Here are some examples of visual notes by Heather:

 

 

 

Striped Skunk and Tarantula notes

 

 

 

Giant Millipede, Hedgehog, and Bard Owl notes

 

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All photos were taken by Mrs. Yollis.

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Do you ever take any visual notes?

 

What was the most interesting set of teeth to you?

 

What was your favorite animal that Ms. C brought to show us?

 

Search up some facts about these animals on World Book Online!