The rocks:

A pile of what we call “river rocks” used to stabilize a drainage area. This particular area is mowed grass, so it is irrigated often.

You would expect to find an isopod (also called rolypoly or pillbug), after all there’s one on the International Rock Flipping Day badge.

But what is that with the isopod?

What is that brownish coiled object in the lower right of the photograph?

It is a tiny snail! There’s another with its head out.

It’s blurry, but definitely a snail. Finding snails is amazing in this hot, dry climate.

The snail wasn’t the only one carrying it’s house.

What is the gray object that looks like a small tube of mud? It is moving!

There is some sort of insect larva inside.

I think it is a beetle larva carrying a case. It is most likely a member of the leaf beetle family (Cryptocephalinae). It probably got washed to the drainage area during a recent storm.

Another tiny beetle scurries away.

Mites were common. Here’s a brightly colored one.

Spiders were also abundant. This tiny jumping spider seems to have its eyes on something.

Maybe it was trying to catch one of these Indian house cricket nymphs.I don’t envy any predator that hunts these.

I know I had trouble capturing them with my camera. The springtails that were everywhere were even worse. I never did get a photograph of them.

Finally, I did find some ants. I posted those results at Wild About Ants.

Overall, I was pleasantly surprised by the number of creatures I found. And in addition to finding different kinds, I also learned a little bit more about my neighbors that live under rocks.

Did you flip any rocks this weekend? What did you find?

For more information about the creatures featured here try:

Isopods

Indian house crickets

Jumping spiders

Mites

Snails and raising snails

International Rock Flipping Day is coming up in a few weeks. September 11, 2011 to be exact.

What is International Rock Flipping Day? It is a blog carnival to celebrate all those critters that live under rocks, as well as the naturalist spirit that drives you to look a little deeper.

How do you participate?

Basically you go outside and look under a rock or two. Record what you see by drawing, painting, taking photographs or recording in your nature journal. (If you live where there might be poisonous creatures under there, like scorpions or snakes, you might want to use gloves and/or a bar to flip the rocks.)

When you are done, carefully return the rock to its original position.

Then blog about what you found. out.

I will have more information about more information about where to send your posts as the date approaches. I believe Wanderin’ Weeta will be hosting.

Edit:  Yes, Wanderin’ Weeta is hosting and you can get the full scoop now.

This citizen-science project involves gathering samples of ants from near homes or schoolyards throughout the United States.

To participate you simply need to visit the website School of Ants, sign up, and order an ant sampling kit (the kits are free). Everyone is welcome to give it a try.

The kit will contain three types of vials. The blue-capped vials (they come with cookie bait) are to sample in a yard or other green space. The red-capped vials are for sampling a sidewalk location. If you have any other ants or even other insects, that you would like identified, send them along in the orange-capped vial.

You will need to leave the baited vials on the ground for one hour, open to let the ants crawl in. Then you cap the samples and place the ones with ants in the freezer for at least an hour (I recommend overnight).

You will need to purchase an envelope and postage to mail the samples back, so there will be some cost to you.

The ants you send in will be identified and recorded on a map. It’s that simple!

I would love to hear from you if you decide to participate. Let me know what you find.

And if you’d like to find more citizen science projects, try the Citizen Science Network. There is a project finder feature that let’s you search by keyword and whether it is family-friendly.

Sometimes it is hard to remember that scientists discover new species all the time. Some of these newly discovered creatures are pretty large, which makes you wonder how they got overlooked. Take, for example, the huge monitor lizard!

Of course, we are most interested in the spiders and insects on the list.

Right on time for the Spiders in Space project, one of the top 10 is an orb weaving spider with a giant web. Sometimes the webs go across entire streams! How does the spider even do that?

In this video, you can watch one that has caught a dragonfly.

When botanists wanted to know what kind of creature pollinated a rare orchid, they set up a camera to watch. Imagine their surprise when a cricket showed up! Not only was this the first example of a cricket pollinating a plant, the cricket was a new species.

Check out the cricket pollinating the orchid in this video.

The final insect is a jumping cockroach, with back legs enlarged like a cricket’s.

Go ahead and investigate the rest of the list on your own. When you are done exploring, come on back and let us know which organism you think is the coolest!

Using a special artificial flower and a high speed camera, researchers have been able to record some incredible shots.

Look at that tongue, it is acting like a mop.

For more about the video, see this report at Wired magazine.

Hummingbirds use these incredible tongues to catch small flying insects, as well.

We raised brown garden snails, which are a commonly considered to be a pest species. We kept them in gallon-sized jars (sun tea jars work well) with a fabric (light cotton) cover. The cover was simply held on with a rubber band. We tried moist soil in one container and wet paper towels in the other. The paper towels were easier to clean and the snails sometimes used the towels for food. We were vigilant to keep the towels moist.

The soil was more of an issue, because we soon had an overgrowth of springtails and sowbugs that we had accidentally added with our garden soil. The soil was also harder to keep free of rotting vegetable matter. (Hence the extra critters). Snails need to be cleaned frequently.

Eye to Eye with Garden Snails by Kathy Liu is an excellent resource that has methods for raising snails, as well as science activities with snails. She talks about adding sources of calcium, like egg shells. We gave the snails egg shells that we washed out. We also gave them a number of different leafy vegetables.

The snails laid their eggs in the paper towels or under the soil. In no time we had a lot of snails (you probably should have an “exit plan” such as friends that are willing to take some off your hands).Taking care of them and watching their life cycle was a great way to learn about a creature so different from our fuzzy pet friends.

The book Snailology by Michael Elsohn Ross, Darren Erickson (Illustrator), and Brian Grogan (Illustrator, Photographer) is also a wonderful resource.

To learn more try:

Anatomy of Snails has labeled photographs of snails parts

Kiddyhouse has worksheets for the younger set, including a diagram to label and a garden scene with snails to color.

Science Buddies has Can Copper Foil Snails?

The greatest treasure is, however, the fabulous list of links to places where you can do real science. There are many more places to do citizen science than I realized. So many opportunities, so little time.

Just a reminder:  one opportunity that is coming up fast is the Great Backyard Bird Count. Go check out the website now, get the instructions and then the counts are to be made February 18 -21, 2011. We participated last year and had a wonderful experience. This year my son has been trying out various “blinds” so as to get closer and not disturb the birds (and to keep the cats from “helping.”) We’d love to hear from you if you decide to give it a try.

No blind needed to get a close-up of this coot (Photo by ds.)

if you ever have any questions about the posts, would like to know more, or if you have a topic you’d like to see covered, please feel free to send me an e-mail at growingwithscience (at) gmail (dot) com.

I was so excited about the new summary, I’ve included here. Enjoy!

Below is a summary of the science experiment blog posts, organized by topic. The links to the posts are in red.

Biology

Mycology (Fungi)

A Fungus Among Us

1. Making a spore print

Exploring yeast

1. Characteristics
2. Decomposition Experiment

Ecology

What’s Under a Rock?- Exploring a habitat

Green Roof

Botany

Growing plants indoors

Algae

1. Make an algal collection
2. Investigate food chains
3. Investigate how humans use algae for food
4. Algae produce oils that can be used for biofuel

Mosses, Ferns, Liverworts and Horsetails: Science Activities

1. Identification
2. Searching for Spores
3. Moss habitats

Trees -botany

More tree science

1. Tree Transpiration
2. How far does the water have to travel from roots to top of the tree?

Experiments with Tree Leaves:

Leaf litter decomposition

Tree leaf age

Putting the leaves back on the trees- leaf identification

Fall leaf color chromatography
Saguaro Cactus Activities

1. Why Spines?
2. Waxy Coating

Ornithology (Birds)

Bird Counts – trends

Bird Migrations

Shore Birds

Zoology (Animals)

Goats and Sheep

1. Fainting goats

Experiments with Isopods (pillbugs or rolypolies)

Frogs and Toads

1. Identification
2. Frog songs
3. Eat or be eaten

Ocean and Shore Animals

Learn about Steller Sea Lions

Investigate an animal (sea slug) that can make its own food

Sea Horses and Other Fish

1. fish anatomy
2. moving through water

Shore Birds

Science with Pets

Mouse running a maze

Cat communication

Cats’ sense of smell

More cat experiments

Observing cat behavior

Science with your pet mice

1. Identification/Classification of Rodents
2. Food/Nutrition
3. Making Houses and Toys
4. Animal Behavior
5. Mouse Development

Do cats have cold feet?

Entomology (Insects)

Honey Bees

1. Gardening for bees
2. Honey bees and water
3. Honey bee communication and dances
4. Bee nests

Where do insects go in the winter?

Ants

1. Ant anatomy
2. Ant pheromones

Human Biology

Experiments with the senses of taste and smell

Chemistry

What is in seawater

Smart Materials

1. Shape-memory alloys
2. Shape memory polymers
3. UV beads

General Chemistry Projects

1. Density
2. A Density Column
3. Elephant’s toothpaste
4. Acids and Bases
5. Using chemicals to make light

Glowing Chemistry

1. Glowing under ultraviolet light
2. Light sticks
3. Day-Glo

Colors and acids and bases

Classic lemon experiments

Growing crystals

Making cheese

Fun with bubbles

Chemistry Links

Physics

Activities having to do with hunting for planets outside the solar system.

1. Make a rainbow
2. Activity: Make your own spectrometer from a cereal box.
3. The Doppler Effect

Investigate the amount of light pollution and how it effects how we see the stars at night

Build a telescope

Experiments with movement of floating trash

Soils

Sand Experiments

1. Test sand samples with a magnet
2. Make sand

Experiments with ice

1. Ice spikes
2. Ice cube rescues
3. Freezing and thawing water
4. Floating and sinking
5. dry ice

Boats and Floating

How long can a paper boat float?
Results of paper boats

Can you make a boat travel across a bathtub without touching it?
Results

Do pumpkins or apples float?
Why do they float?

Movement of water in small containers

All about parachutes

Toy car physics

Meteorology

Does building shape influence damage level by hurricanes?

Iridescent clouds

A. Is it honey bees or honeybees?

When in graduate school, I learned a convention from Dr. Roger Morse for insect names (I have since learned the idea originated with Robert E. Snodgrass). The insect names that are taxonomically correct, such as honey bees are actually bees, should be written as two words. Insect names that are not accurate in identification are given as one word. For example, whiteflies are not really flies, but are relatives of aphids, and thus should be one word.

Quiz (answers at the bottom of this post):

Pick the correct common name according to this convention:

1. Butter fly or butterfly?

2. Crane fly or cranefly?

3. Dragon fly or dragonfly?

4. Lady bug or ladybug?

5. Leaf-footed bug or leaf-footedbug?

Photo from Wikimedia

6. Bumble bee or bumblebee?

The convention is only a rule of thumb, however, because there are definitely exceptions:

Photograph by Craig Pemberton. Wikimedia

Although this creature is really a wasp, it’s common name is velvet ant (2 words).

B. Mantis or mantid?

This distinction is more difficult. I had learned that either is correct, that is the two terms are interchangeable. There is, however, a growing convention that mantis only be used for the insects of the genus Mantis, and that all others be called mantids. (Whitney Cranshaw, Colorado State University).

I personally like to use mantids for the plural, it is just easier.

For a searchable list of common names for insects of North America, see the Entomological Society of America

Let me know if you have any questions about insect names or would like to learn more.

Answers:

1. butterfly

2. crane fly (two words)

3. dragonfly

4. ladybug (Note: if you use beetle, then it is two words,  lady beetle or ladybird beetle)

5. leaf-footed bug (2 words)

6. Bumble bee (2 words)