Ladybirds

Ladybirds

Anatomy
Ladybirds are beetles. Their scientific name is coccinellidae, which means ‘little red sphere’.
They smell with their feet and antennae. They have two eyes but can only see in black and white. They are able to distinguish between light and dark. A ladybirds jaw moves sideways when it chews, not up and down like humans.
All ladybirds have wings. They are hidden under the shiny hard wing cases called the elytra. The elytra are hinged to the pronotum, the section just behind the ladybug’s head. When the ladybug flies, the elytra lift up, releasing the gossamer wings underneath, which beat eighty-five times a second. The wings fold neatly back under the elytra when the ladybird lands.
This hard exoskeleton prevents them from growing any larger and protects them from predators. The spots on the elytra fade as they get older. The spots are always symmetrical. However, not all ladybirds have spots, some are plain others are striped.
A ladybird can retract it head under the pronotum, which acts like a crash helmet, protecting the ladybug’s head from predators, giving it a more rounded appearance. Sometimes the pronotum has spots on as well.

Habitat
Ladybirds are solitary creatures preferring to live alone in vegetation. They can be found in forests, fields and gardens.
Farmers often have ladybird farms to help control pests on their crops.

Diet
Ladybirds eat aphids, such as greenfly and black fly, which helps the farmers’ crops and protects gardens. A few species will eat plants and mildew. They clean themselves after eating. If food is scarce ladybirds will eat each other and their own larvae.
Small birds, dragonflies, wasps, frogs and spiders eat ladybirds.

Lifecycle
The ladybird lifecycle has four stages: egg, larvae, pupa and adult.
The adult will lay about 10-15 eggs on the back of a leaf. These eggs look like tiny spots of yellow gel. A ladybird can lay up to 1000 eggs in its lifetime.
Ladybird larvae look like tiny lizards and shed their skin as they grow. They eat the infertile eggs and aphids before attaching themselves to a leaf for the pupa stage. The pupae are more rounded in shape. After about a week, the skin splits open and the fully grown ladybird emerges. At first they are very pale. It takes a few hours for the shell to harden and become bright red.
The whole process takes about a month. Females are bigger than the males. Their life expectancy is dependent on weather conditions.

Behaviour
Ladybirds hibernate in colonies in winter to keep warm. They are very slow fliers compared to other insects. Their fastest speed is about 15mph.
Its bright colours warn predators to stay away. They release a horrible smelling yellow liquid from their knees which is toxic to small birds and other predators.

Different species
It is not possible to tell a ladybirds age by counting the spots. The spots indicate the different species of ladybird. There are over 5000 different species of ladybird worldwide.
There are lots of different colour ladybirds, not only the common scarlet with black spots, black head, legs and antennae. You can also find orange with black spots, yellow with black spots, black with red spots and grey with white spots, striped or totally brown ladybirds.

Spiders

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Spiders

Anatomy
Spiders are not insects. Insects have six legs, wings and antennae. Spiders have eight legs, no wings and no antennae. Spiders are arachnids. Other members of the arachnid family are mites, ticks and scorpions.
Spiders have an exoskeleton and no backbone. Their bodies are split into two segments the cephalothorax and the abdomen. A spider’s eyes, fangs, pedipalps, legs, stomach, brain and venom glands are all located on the cephalothorax. The silk glands called ‘spinnerets’ are on the abdomen. The whole of their bodies are covered in water-repellent hairs, which help prevent them from getting wet and means they are able to survive hours underwater.
Most spiders have eight eyes, some have six and some have less. There are even spiders that have no eyes. Spiders are generally near-sighted so are unable to see long distances. They use the hair on their bodies and pedipalps to help them feel their way around. The hair on a spiders front legs are used to taste their prey by touching it. Spiders even have short hairs on their feet that allow them to walk upside down on the ceiling.
Most spiders are venomous except one species – the Bagheera Kiplingi, which can be found in Central America in countries such as Mexico. The venom is released through the spider’s fangs.

Habitat
Spiders can live in all kinds of habitats. They like dark places. They can be found in every continent in the world, except the Arctic and Antarctica.
Most spiders live on land but a few, like the raft spider live on and in the water. These spiders can ‘run’ across the water’s surface using the waterproof hairs on their feet.
Abandoned spider’s webs are called cobwebs.

Diet
Spiders make webs to catch their food. They eat many types of harmful insects and help to keep gardens and homes free of pests. However, they are only able to eat their food in liquid form. The spider will stun its prey with venom and then release enzymes from its stomach to reduce their prey to a liquid.
They will also eat old spider’s webs. They roll the old web into a ball and use their digestive enzymes in the same way to break down the silk into liquid form.
Spiders also drink water. This is why they can often be found in the bath.

Lifecycle
Spiders hatch from eggs. The female spider will lay her eggs on a bed of silk. She will then cover them with more silk. This is known as an ‘egg sac’. There can be 200-300 eggs in a sac. The baby spiders will stay in their eggs until the weather gets warm. When they emerge the stronger spiders eat the weaker ones and any unhatched eggs. Some species will eat their mothers and in other species the mother will perish or leave the egg sac before they are born.
The young spiders will shed their exoskeleton as they grow. The female spiders are usually bigger than the males but are fewer in numbers. When they have finished mating the female spider will often eat the male spider.
The average life of a spider is about one to two years. However tarantulas can live up to 20 years and in China they have a colony of ‘holy’ spiders which are over 2,800 years old.

Behaviour
All spiders spin silk but not all spiders build webs to catch their prey. Some will chase and pounce on their prey, like the Wolf spider and the Jumping spider.
Spiders do not only use their silk for catching prey and protecting their young. They also use it for shelter and to help them move. They are able to spin little parachutes and balloon away in the wind. Single threads of silk are known as ‘draglines’ and help a spider to climb back up if they fall or let themselves drop.
When crawling, spiders have four legs off the ground and four legs on the ground. Their muscles only allow them to move their legs towards their bodies. They are unable to pull their legs back out/ they have to pump water into their legs to push them out. When a spider curls into a ball it is not dead. It means it has lost too much water to push their legs out again.

Different species
There are about 40,000 different species of spider. Some of the most common spiders are:

• Orb Web spider
This spider is about 15mm long and has silver-grey markings on its abdomen. It gets its name because it spins an orb shaped web. They feed on flying insects such as butterflies, wasps and flies and are usually found in the garden. They refuse to leave their egg sacs to hunt and feed, so will die before the eggs hatch.

• Giant House spider
These spiders can grow 120mm long. They build sheet like webs in neglected corners of a room and can be found in sheds, attics and garages. They can bite but their venom is not potent enough to harm humans.

• Daddy long-leg spider
This is not the same as the daddy long-legs (crane fly) that flies. They are not spiders. They are insects. The Daddy long-leg spider is easily recognisable by its long spindly legs. It does not have any wings. They have thin grey bodies and can grow to about 45mm. it has a strong venom but its fangs are not strong enough to penetrate human skin.

• Money spider
These are tiny spiders about 2mm in size. It is believed to be good luck if one crawls on you, as you are likely to come into money. They are not harmful to humans. They travel through the air on strands of silk, picked up by the wind. They weave hammock shaped webs and bite their prey to paralyse it, then wrap it in silk. It may be several days before it will eat it.

• Red spider
The red spider is bright red in colour and about 1mm across. They usually live in grass and are actually mites rather than spiders. They feed on common plants, fruit and vegetables and are harmless to humans and pets.

Some species of spiders are more deadly:

• Black Widow spider
Black Widow spiders can be easily identified by the hourglass shaped mark on their abdomen. They are very poisonous and can be found in many countries worldwide. The Black Widow spider’s venom is fifteen times stronger than a rattle snake. They have tiny bristles on their back legs, which they use to cover their prey with silk once they have trapped it in their large web. The female Black Widow spider will always eat the male after mating and this is how the spider got its name.

• Funnel Web spider
The Funnel Web spider is one of the most deadly spiders in the world and is native to Australia. They are dark coloured and shiny in appearance. They live in burrows underground or in old tree stumps. They line their burrows with silk. They eat lizards and frogs and can live for about twenty years.

• Tarantula
The Tarantula has very a large hairy body and legs so looks more deadly than it actually is. In most species the venom is actually very weak, weaker than a honey bee. Although painful the venom will not harm humans. This is why Tarantulas have become very popular pets. They move very slowly and mainly eat insects, frogs, toads and mice. Females will sometimes eat their mate

Introduction to Dinosaurs

Introduction to Dinosaurs

The Mesozoic Era
The Mesozoic Era was between 250 and 65 million years ago and is split into three periods, known as the Triassic, the Jurassic and the Cretaceous.

Triassic Period (250 – 200 million years ago)
During the Triassic Period there were no continents only one single landmass called Pangaea. It was covered by large deserts, as the climate was exceptionally dry and hot. There would have been no polar ice caps. The plant and animal life would have been very similar, and mainly consisted of those that thrive in hot climates such as cacti and reptiles, whose kidneys are excellent at conserving water and skin is less porous than mammal skin, so perspire less in extreme heat. Before the Triassic Period, the dominant land reptiles were archosaurs (ruling lizards) and therapsids (mammal-like reptiles). These reptiles evolved into the first dinosaurs. But for over twenty million years after the first dinosaurs appeared the most fearsome reptiles were crocodiles. Towards the end of the Triassic period, a series of volcanic eruptions and earthquakes split Pangaea slowly into two smaller land masses, divided by what is known today as the Atlantic Ocean. This affected the climate and vegetation that could survive, which in turn influenced the dinosaurs’ evolution.

Jurassic Period (200 – 145 million years ago)
When Pangaea split into two it created two continents. The southern most continent was called Gondwana and the northern most continent was called Laurasia. However, similarities in the fossils found during the Jurassic period suggest there were probably land bridges between these two land masses. The new ocean would have caused an increase in rainfall. But the climate would have still been warmer than it is now, due to high amounts of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The discovery of fossil fuels, indicate plants such as ferns and forests of tall conifer trees grew over vast areas. The changes in the environment and climate caused many large land animals to become extinct – but dinosaurs survived. They evolved into a wide variety of different forms and increased in numbers. The bountiful plant supply encouraged the emergence of enormous herbivore sauropods, such as the Brachiosaurus and Diplodocus. These were the largest animals ever to walk the Earth. By the end of the Jurassic period their herds would have dominated the landscape.

Cretaceous Period (145 – 65 million years ago)
The word Cretaceous comes from the Latin word ‘creta’ meaning chalk. This is because during the Cretaceous period, the sea levels rose and fell, causing single-celled algae to repeatedly flourish and die. Their skeletons would sink to the seabed, forming chalk. The seas separated the land into some of the continents we know today, although they are in different positions. Europe was made up of lots of small islands. The separation of the land masses saw a boost in evolution. Dinosaurs evolved independently in different regions of the world, becoming more diverse. Other groups of organisms also diversified. The first snakes evolved, as well as the first flowering plants. Various insect groups evolved, including bees, which helped to increase the spread of these flowering plants. Mammals evolved into ground dwellers, tree climbers and predators capable of killing small dinosaurs.

Dinosaurs Fun Quiz

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The T rex Projector and Room Guard Dinosaur Quiz

If you read the fact sheets carefully you will find all the answers to the below quiz – have fun!

1. In what period did the first dinosaurs evolve?
2. Where does the word ‘Cretaceous’ come from?
3. Who classified the dinosaurs into different groups?
4. Name four sub-groups of lizard hipped dinosaur.
5. Name five sub-groups of bird hipped dinosaur.
6. What group did birds evolve from?
7. How many herbivores can you find on the T rex projector and room guard?
8. How many carnivores can you find on the T rex projector and room guard?
9. How many dinosaurs on the T rex projector and room guard are from the late Cretaceous period?
10. Name the dinosaur on the T rex projector and room guard that is from the early Cretaceous period.
11. Name the dinosaur on the T rex projector and room guard that is from the Mid Jurassic period.
12. How many dinosaurs on the T rex projector and room guard are from the late Jurassic period?
13. How many horned faced dinosaurs are there on the T rex projector and room guard?
14. Name two dinosaurs from the thyreophorans sub-group?
15. Name three sauropods on the T rex projector and room guard?
16. How many beast feet dinosaurs are there on the T rex projector and room guard?
17. What sub groups is the Parasaurolophus?
18. What continent were most of the dinosaur fossils discovered?
19. In what year was the first Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton found?
20. Which dinosaurs name means ‘bison lizard’?
21. What does Achelousaurus mean?
22. Which dinosaur was named by Barnum Brown in 1908?
23. Who discovered and named the brachiosaurus?
24. How many dinosaurs featured on the T rex projector and room guard did Othniel Charles Marsh name?
25. Where are the two types of Spinosaurus from?
26. What dinosaur did Lawrence Lambe name in 1913?
27. Which dinosaurs name means ‘alarming lizard’?
28. What does Triceratops mean?
29. Where was the Utahraptor found?
30. Which dinosaur has retractable claws?
31. Which dinosaur skeleton is nicknamed ‘Sue’?
32. Which dinosaurs name means ‘roof lizard’?

To find out if you got the answers correct just click on the ’Quiz Answers Page’

Dinosaurs Quiz – Answers

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Quiz Answers

1. The Triassic period
2. The Latin word ‘Creta’, meaning chalk
3. Harry Seelay
4. Birds, theropods, prosauropods and sauropods
5. Stegosaurs, ankylosaurs, ornithopods, pachycephalosaurs and ceratopsians
6. Saurischians (lizard hipped)
7. 11
8. 7
9. 11
10. Utahraptor
11. Monolophosaurus
12. 5
13. 5
14. Ankylosaurus and Stegosaurus
15. Brachiosaurus, Dicraeosaurus and Diplodocus
16. 7
17. Ornithopods (bird feet)
18. North America
19. 1902
20. Einiosaurus
21. Achelous lizard, after the Greek god Achelous
22. Ankylosaurus
23. Elmer S. Riggs
24. 4
25. Egypt and Morocco
26. Styracosaurus
27. Tarbosaurus
28. Three horned face
29. Utah
30. Velociraptor
31. Tyrannosaurus Rex
32. Stegosaurus

Einiosaurus

Name: Einiosaurus

Pronounced: ie-nee-oh-sore-us

Meaning: ‘Bison lizard’

Period: Late Cretaceous (74 million years ago)

Group: Ceratopsians (horn faces)

Size: It was 6m long. In 2010, Gregory S. Paul estimated the Einiosaurus was 4.5m tall and weighed approximately 1300kg.

Diet: Herbivore

Characteristics: Einiosaurus walked on four legs and had an enormous downward-curving horn protruding from its narrow, pointy nose. The horns above the eyes were shorter and more triangular than other ceratopsians and its frill was relatively smaller too.

Named by: Scott D. Sampson in 1995

Discovery: Einiosaurus fossils have been found exclusively in the upper part of the Two Medicine Formation of Montana and are thought to be part of a herd that died in a catastrophic event like a drought or flood. They were discovered by Jack Horner in 1985 and excavated from 1985-1989 by members of the Museum of the Rockies. At least fifteen Einiosaurus are represented by three adult skulls and hundreds of other bones. These remains are currently at the Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman, Montana.

Tyrannosaurus rex

Name: Tyrannosaurus Rex

Pronounced: tie-RAN-oh-sore-us

Meaning: ‘Tyrant lizard’

Period: Late Cretaceous (67 – 65 million years ago)

Group: Theropods (beast feet)

Size: It was 12m long and 5.6m tall. It weighed 7000kg.

Diet: Carnivore

Characteristics: The Tyrannosaurus Rex walked on two strong legs but its arms were only 1 m long with two-fingered hands. Its stiff, pointed tail was used as a counterbalance for its enormous head when making fast turns. Its skull was over 1.5m long and the jaw contained sixty sharp, pointy teeth, the largest being approximately 20cm long. Palaeontologists know the Tyrannosaurus could crush bones with their teeth, because they have found fossilised Tyrannosaurus dung, which contained the bones of its prey. Also there are distinctive bite marks on the fossils of the Triceratops, which match the teeth formation of the Tyrannosaurus. Plaster casts of the skull have shown the space for the part of the brain responsible for smell was quite big, indicating it had good sense of smell to hunt its prey. Its eyes were on the front of its face and the brain casts showed large visual lobes, so palaeontologists believe it had excellent depth perception for hunting. We know close relatives of the Tyrannosaurus sometimes lived together because fossils of groups have been found in the same place. However, we don’t know for sure if they hunted alone, or in packs. The largest complete skeleton is located at the Field Museum of National History, in Chicago and is nicknamed ‘Sue’.

Named by: Henry Fairfield Osborn in 1905

Discovery: Teeth from what is now documented as a Tyrannosaurus were found in 1874 by Arthur Lakes near Golden, Colorado. The first Tyrannosaurus skeleton was first found by Barnum Brown in 1902, in Hell Creek, Montana, North America. Isolated fossilised footprints have also been assigned to the Tyrannosaurus. The first was discovered at Philmont Scout Ranch, New Mexico, in 1983 by American geologist Charles Pillmore. The second was found in the Hell Creek Formation of Montana in 2007, by British palaeontologist Phil Manning.

Velociraptor

Name: Velociraptor

Pronounced: vel-OSS-ee-rap-tor

Meaning: ‘Quick plunderer’

Period: Late Cretaceous (84 – 80 million years ago)

Group: Theropods (beast feet)

Size: It was approximately 1.8m long and 1m tall. It weighed between 7kg – 15kg.

Diet: Carnivore

Characteristics: The Velociraptor walked on two long, thin legs and had an s-shaped neck. It had a long, flat nose and about eighty very sharp, pointy, curved teeth. Some of the teeth were over 2.5cm long. It had three claws on its front limbs and four claws on the back limbs. Each second toe had a retractable 9cm long, sickle-shaped claw. These claws would have been its main weapon. This dinosaur would probably have hunted in packs. It has been estimated that it may have been able to run up to 40 mph for short bursts. Its stiff tail worked as a counterbalance and allowed it make very quick turns at high speeds. It is now thought to have had a fine feather-like covering as in September 2007, researchers found quill knobs on the front limbs. Palaeontologists claim these bumps indicate where feathers could have grown.

Named by: Henry F. Osborn in 1924

Discovery: During an American Museum of Natural History expedition to the Outer Mongolian Gobi Desert, on 11 August 1923, Peter Kaisen discovered the first Velociraptor fossils, which included a crushed but complete skull and one of its retractable second-toe claws. Between 1988 and 1990, a joint Chinese-Canadian team discovered Velociraptor remains in northern China. To date, about a dozen Velociraptor fossils have been found, including one which died in a battle to the death with a Protoceratops and two hatchling Velociraptor skulls, found near a dinosaur nest in Mongolia, which may have been a tasty meal.

Stegosaurus

Name: Stegosaurus

Pronounced: STEG-oh-SORE-us

Meaning: ‘Roof lizard’

Period: Late Jurassic (156 – 144 million years ago)

Group: Stegosaurs (covered lizards)

Size: It was between 8m – 9m long and 2.75m tall at the hips. It weighed around 3100kg.

Diet: Herbivore

Characteristics: The Stegosaurus walked on four legs but there has been much debate about this. It had seventeen bony plates embedded into the skin of its back and tail in two rows, alternating in alignment. These bony plates were not attached to the skeleton, which is why in most fossil finds the plates are detached from the body. The largest of these triangular plates was about 76 cm tall and just as wide. When Marsh described the first fossil of a Stegosaurus, he concluded the plates lay flat on its back. After finding a specimen preserved in mud, he realised the plates stood upright on either side of the spine. Palaeontologists do not agree what the plates were used for. They may have acted as a warning to predators, or helped them to identify each other. Another suggestion is that the plates were used to control the temperature of their body, as there were tiny grooves on the surface of the plates, which possibly contained veins. The amount of blood passing through these veins would determine the dinosaur’s temperature. The Stegosaurus also had spikes at the end of its flexible tail. Compared with the rest of its body, the Stegosaurus had a small head and its brain was around the size of a golf ball. They had flat and blade-like teeth and probably ate low-growing vegetation.

Named by: Othniel Charles Marsh in 1877

Discovery:
The first Stegosaurus fossil was found in Morrison, Colorado in 1876 by M. P. Felch. Others have been found since in Utah, and Wyoming, North America.

Styracosaurus

Name: Styracosaurus

Pronounced: sty-RAK-oh-sore-us

Meaning: ‘Spiked lizard’

Period: Late Cretaceous (76 – 70 million years ago)

Group: Ceratopsians (horn faces)

Size: It was 5.5m long and stood about 1.8 meters tall. It weighed nearly 3000kg.

Diet: Herbivore

Characteristics: The Styracosaurus walked on four short legs and had a short tail but a huge body. The most prominent feature was the four to six long horns extending from its neck frill. It also had a smaller horn on each of its cheeks and a single horn extending from its nose, which is believed to have been up to 15cm wide and 60 cm long. The function of these horns and frills are still a question of debate. The jaw was tipped with deep, narrow beak and contained shearing cheek teeth, which were believed to have been better at plucking and grasping, than they were at biting. This indicates it ate plants. It probably fed on low vegetation as suggested by the position of the head, but they may have been able to knock down trees due to their large weight. Like other ceratopsians, the Styracosaurus is believed to have been a herd animal, travelling in large groups, as many fossils have been found together.

Named by Lawrence Lambe in 1913

Discovery: The first fossil remains of Styracosaurus were collected in Alberta, Canada by Charles Mortram Sternberg from the Dinosaur Park Formation in 1913.

Ceratosaurus

Name: Ceratosaurus

Pronounced: Keh-RAT-oh-sore-us

Meaning: ‘Horned lizard’

Period: Late Jurassic (150 – 144 million years ago)

Group: Theropods (beast feet)

Size: It was 6m long and 4m tall. It weighed approximately 524kg.

Diet: Carnivore

Characteristics: The Ceratosaurus walked on two legs. Its skull was quite large in proportion to the rest of its body. It had large jaws and blade-like teeth. The front legs were powerful but very short. It also had horns – one on its nose and a smaller pair over the eyes. There has been a lot of debate over what the Ceratosaurus used its horns for. In 1884, Othniel C. Marsh believed they were powerful weapons. Nowadays, this is considered unlikely. In 1985, Norman argued the horns were not used for protection against predators, but for butting contests with its male counterparts to impress females. In 1990, Rowe and Gauthier suggested the horns were probably for display purposes only and consequently would have been brightly coloured and not used for protection, or combat at all.

Named by: Othniel Charles Marsh in 1884

Discovery: Many Fossils have been found in the Dry Mesa Quarry of Colorado in North America and in the Cleveland Lloyd Dinosaur Quarry, central Utah also in North America.

Spinosaurus

Name: Spinosaurus

Pronounced: SPINE-oh-SORE-us

Meaning: ‘Thorn lizard’ or ‘Spine lizard’

Period: Late Cretaceous (95 – 70 million years ago)

Group: Theropods (beast feet)

Size: It was 18m long and 5m tall. It weighed about 4000kg.

Diet: Carnivore.

Characteristics: The Spinosaurus walked on two legs and had large bony spines coming out of its back vertebrae to form a sail. It is believed the upper spine was very flexible as the vertebrae consisted of ball-and-socket-joints meaning it could arch its back, perhaps to spread its sail, in a similar fashion to opening a fan. This has led palaeontologists to conclude the sail may have been for regulating body temperature. The sail may have also been used to attract mates or give the appearance it was larger than it was. The sail could have been brightly coloured, like the fins of some reptiles today.

Named by: Ernst Stromer von Reichenbach in 1915

Discovery: Fragmentary remains of the Spinosaurus aegyptiacus were found by Richard Markgraf in 1912, in the Bahariya Formation of western Egypt. These incomplete fossils included bony-sail spines up to 1.8m long. However the partial skeleton was unfortunately destroyed during WWII. A potential second species Spinosaurus maroccanushas has since been recovered from Morocco.