The Pot 'O Bugs

One thing I learned this week is that when digging through a bucket full of dirt, leaves and other biotic samples from the outdoors is that it is much harder to find the bugs when there is a small, miniature pond in the bucket due to an unexpected, though avoidable, flood.

During biology this week we had to dig through a bucket filled with dirt and samples from the back 40 and see what we find. We were looking for things such as seeds and bugs, and that is just what we found, however it was much more difficult to do with an overflow of water, turning our dirt to mud. Many times someone would be heard saying, “I found something!” then, after looking again, “Never mind, it’s just a rock” or something similar. When we finally did find something, however, it got very interesting, especially if our find was alive. 

Of the various living (or no longer living) organisms found in the bucket, we found two spiders, a slug, a dead slug, a pill bug, a millipede,   two worms, and some kind of larva. (Among other things that I cannot remember right now.)

We were also were looking for other biotic parts of the environment such as plants, and of that we found a germinated seed, four other seeds, and an acorn shell.

Not to mention the entire oak sapling that led us to this bucket of bugs!

This very tree now sits in my window, soaking up the nice sunset.