Bugs

This week we got to stay in a State park in upstate New York and visit Northrop camp in Massachusetts. Everywhere I looked I saw bugs. let me tell you about the bugs I saw.

At Northop camp wasps made their nest where we were spending our time. Wasps are like bees because they collect nectar and they use their stingers to attack people. Mr. Ling our nature guide and Adrielle our classmate got stung by a wasp.They are not exactly like bees because when they sting they keep thier stingers and they stay alive. After two people got stung we found the nest that they had made. The wasps made a paper nest by chewing on the bark of trees until they got paper. The nest was home to about 500 wasps. A wasp died in our learning center and we got to look at it under a microscope. We learned that the wasp was black and white with some yellow and had long eyelashes and many hairs.

I also got to see grasshoppers. They are green and some other colors. I learned that they are scared of humans. They are always trying to get away. Grasshoppers hop with their two giant back legs. Grasshoppers communicate by rubbing thier legs together to make sounds.

At our camp site I found carpenter ants inside of a stump by my tent. Carpenter ants like wood but not like termites like wood.When I looked inside the stump the ants were carrying thier eggs out as fast as they could carry. I noticed that they were a reddish brown color with pinchers on the front of their faces.

Mr. Ling our nature guide brought some pond water for us to look at. I learned about dragonflies who fly quickly. when they fly they make a buzzing sound like other flying insects such as bees. They mostly live near ponds,streams, and rivers. They have five life cycles that they go through. The dragonfly that I saw was in its third cycle and was swimming, so it didnt have its wings yet.