2H Class Blog!: WILDLIFE ENCOUNTERS Comes BACK!!

Last Tuesday, the entire second grade was treated to an encore presentation from Krista Butts of Wildlife Encounters. Again, Krista brought several animals with her, this time with a focus on how animals contribute to the plants of our ecosystem.

The first animals we were introduced to were actually insects. These MADAGASCAR HISSING COCKROACHES are responsible for breaking down decaying plants, which gives us the richest compost. These cockroaches love warm, moist, dark places. When we were very quiet, we could hear their "hissssss".

Krista shows us a male and a female cockroach. You can tell the difference based on the thickness of their antennae! (males = thick, females = thin)

A few brave second graders handled these insects. The sticky hairs on the bottom of the cockroaches feet allowed them to be worn on the shirts of these volunteers!

Once the cockroaches were placed back in their container, Krista introduces to a grade-wide favorite, the BENNET'S WALLABY! Kaya, a member of the kangaroo family, is an herbivore. Her job is to eat plants (the flower part, not the roots) and then let the seed come out her other end. Wallabies take this digestive process one step farther by then stepping in their poop, which in turn plants the seed allowing for a new plant to grow!

Krista helped maneuver Kaya onto the floor by using her tail, the strongest joint of the wallaby body.

I think Kaya could smell the snacks in our lunch boxes!

Once Kaya hopped safely back into her cage, Krista brought out her most vocal friend: Noah, the GREEN-WINGED MACAW. Noah is a seed disperser. He eats seeds, flies away, and then poops the seed out in a new location. While he is a great disperser, macaws are also seed predators. His strong beak functions as a built in nutcracker! He can grind up thick shells such as walnuts and fully digest the seed (which cannot then be replanted when it comes out the other end).

While he was a little stage shy for us, Krista told us Noah has a huge vocabulary and frequently mimics the different voices of all the Wildlife Encounter employees!

Noah looks like a Scarlet Macaw, but the green stripe on his back is what makes him different (scarlet macaws have a yellow stripe on their back).

We also learned that the red feathers next to his eye function as his fingerprint! The special pattern is unique to Noah alone.

Next Krista was ready to introduce us to animals who have helped SAVE plants! If these next animals didn't exist, some plants would be extinct. We often don't think about plants being extint, but the lady slipper is a perfect example! Krista reminded us that if we're ever in the woods, to never pick the beautiful lady slipper.

One animal that helped save plants, way back when the settlers were harvesting, was the CORN SNAKE. When the settlers would harvest their corn, they would store it in wooden crates before bringing it to the market to be sold. After this long process, the settlers would arrive and find that mice had eaten all of their corn! The settlers placed snakes in their wagons to combat this problem and it worked! The snakes would eat the mice and thus save the corn! To this day, the corn snake is known as the "Farmer's best friend". Corn snakes can be red, gray, or yellow able to camouflage into American corn or Indian corn. They are common on the Eastern Seaboard in the Mid-Atlantic states.

This corn snake is an albino. Unable to camouflage, it would be unlikely he could survive in the wild.

Like our first visit, Krista again reminded us that snakes act on instinct only. While it's okay to hold most snakes, you should NEVER put one around your neck.

Another animal that has helped save plants is the CANE TOAD. The Cane Toad eats the beetles that destroy sugar cane. Unfortunately, the Cane Toad is also poisonous, so while they've helped save the sugar cane, they have also hurt the population of some animals. Native to South America, the Cane Toad was brought to Australia to help control the beetles. Once there, these toads quickly killed several species of animals there. The local animals didn't know that the toad was poisonous (like South American animals knew), would eat the toads, and then die. The Cane Toad is now known as an invasive species.

These toads are large! When full grown, they're about the size of a steering wheel!

The Cane Toad secretes posion from glands behind its eyes. The poison can get on the plants, which doesn't hurt the plants, but then hurts the animals that eat those plants.

Finally, we were introduced to the animal that "does it all". Fauna, the BROWN SKUNK, helps deposit rich nutrients into the soil, disperses seeds, and eats animals that eat plants! Skunks, in Krista's eyes, are one of the least respected animals, especially considering how much they help our ecosystem!! A lot of second graders had questions about the skunk's stinky spray. They were happy to learn that it actually requires a lot of energy (and is even a bit painful) for the skunk to spray, so skunks will only spray as a last resort. If you encounter a skunk in the wild, it will give you three warning signs before it actually sprays:

1. Stomps its feet in a loud and powerful way (their way of saying, "Go away!)

2. Waves its tail, aka its "stop sign" (their way of saying, "I'm scared!)

3. Turn its behind to face you; shows all of its colors in its high tail (their way of saying, "You are WAY to close, I'm about to spray!")

While only about 50% of skunks are mature enough to actually spray, 100% of skunks will act like they can!