A Butterfly Flew By Our Window - Or More Unschooling Science

Yesterday, a butterfly flew by our window.  We set off with our butterfly net to catch it, in hopes of making an identification. Science is one of the subjects we pretty well unschool completely.  Much of what we learn is prompted by a desire to find out more about the world we see around us, day to day.

According to the North American Butterfly Association there are approximately 20,000 species of butterflies in the world.

Of those, about 575 species live in the lower 48 states of the United States.

The Montana Field Guide lists around 205 species in the state.

So far this spring, we've spotted - 2.

It's debated a little, but basically, whether you're looking worldwide, or locally, all of the butterfly species can be divided up into 6 different families.

• Hesperiidae, or Sippers - named for their quick, darting flight habits (per Wikipedia)
• Lycaenidae, or Gossamerwing/Hairsteaks - small and bright, often with a metallic gloss.
• Nymphalidae, or Brush-footed - most have a reduce pair of forelegs they do not walk on, giving them the appearance of having only four legs.
• Papilionidae, or Swallowtail - large (includes the world's largest) and colorful, often with a forked  appearance to their hindwings.
• Pieridae, or Oranges, Whites, and Sulphurs - most are white, yellow, or orange, often with black spots.
• Riodinidae, or Metalmarks - named for the small, metallic spots commonly found on their wings.

The butterfly that flew by our window yesterday, appeared to have only four legs...

...placing it in the Brush-footed family.

Kaufman's Butterflies of North America,  Field Guide divides the Brush-footed family into 4 additional sub-families for easy identification.

•  Longwings and Fritillaries - found mostly in the southern most states.
•  Crescents and Checkerspots - mostly small, low flying butterflies with a crescent or checkered pattern on their wings, as their name suggests.
•  Typical Brush-foots - a catchall category, containing many marked by a flight action of several fast flaps followed by a glide.
•  Satyrs - mostly shades of brown, with bright wing spots, and a floppy flight.

The butterfly that flew by our window was small (about 1.5'' across) and had a crescent pattern on it's wings (see the arrow below).

The Montana Field Guide lists 6 Crescents from the Brush-footed family living in the state.

• Field Crescent - with blackish crescents and black antennae clubs.
• Mylitta Crescent - with orange crescents and orange antennae clubs.
• Northern Crescent - dark black and bright orange, with almost no crescents showing, and orange antennae clubs.
•  Pale Crescent - slightly larger, with orange antennae clubs, and pale crescents.
•  Pearl Crescent - very common, orange antennae clubs.
• Tawney Crescent - very similar in appearance to the Field and Pearl Crescents - antennae clubs are black.

The butterfly that flew by our window yesterday, had pale crescents and black antennae clubs.

It could be a Tawny Crescent, but then all of these butterflies are polymorphic (meaning they can appear differently depending on sex, or other factors) and the in the Black Hills (not too terribly far away) a scientific study has shown hybridization (mixing) between this species and its close relatives - making identification tricky.

One of the things I really like about this type of science project is that there are no answers for us to turn to at the back of the book.  

We could be right.  We could be wrong.  All we can do is make an educated guess, and keep our eyes open for additional observations to guide us along the way.  

Right or wrong, we know more about butterflies (scientific classification, local plants, Latin word roots, and available field guides) today, than we did yesterday.

A Butterfly's Eye View - UV Nectar Guides

While identifying the Queen Alexandra's Sulpur butterflies in our backyard, we read that they are also sometimes called UV Sulphur butterflies. The male butterflies reflect UV light to attract females - or something like that.  We didn't fully understand everything we read, but we wanted to check it out.

I made a quick butterfly net out of a hanger, and some netting, that came around our oranges, for the children...

...and sent them on a butterfly hunt.

Once we captured a specimen (and by we, I mean me - much to the amusement of our neighbors, I'm sure), we placed it into an empty fish bowl...

...so we could shine a UV flashlight onto it, in a dark room.  It sort of glowed, but not in anyway that was impressive, so I'm thinking there's more to it, than we were seeing or understanding.  Still, it was worth a try.

After we released our butterfly back into the wild, and watched it fly away, stunned but unharmed...

...we decided to take a look at one of the dandelions it was frequenting.  This time our UV light revealed something interesting.  The florets on the outer edge of the flower turned a light pink, while the center of the dandelion remained dark yellow.  After a little more research we found out this is called a nectar guide.

Butterflies, like bees, and a number of other insects, don't see the color red, but do see some UV light.  When viewed under a UV light, many flowers have patterns that indicate nectar, and draw insects in like a bullseye. 

We won't be looking at dandelions the same way again.  Who knew there were so many fascinating scientific discoveries waiting in our backyard?

Sources:
Wikipedia - "Ultraviolet Communication In Butterflies" and "Colias Alexandra"
Boston University - "Ultraviolet Patterns in Flowers, or Flowers as Viewed by Insects" by Richard B. Primack. This is a good one to read, if you're wondering how scientists know that insects can see UV light and not red.
PBS Kids - Fetch!: season 4, episode 13, "Is it a Bird? Is it a Plane? It's...Ruffmanman!"

Queen Alexandra's Sulphur Butterflies - Unschooling Science Strikes Again

While we were out trying to get a peek at the baby ground squirrels, the kids noticed the small butterflies, that I had been calling cabbage whites, didn't look as white as the ones we're used to seeing.  In fact, they looked to be more of a florescent yellow-green.

Naturally, we had to take a closer look.

And happily for us, a couple of the little guys were good enough to fly in and land on a dandelion for just long enough for us to sneak up, and get a few good pictures...

...to label, like with the honey bee.

...and identify, with the help of the Montana Field Guide...

...after a short detour to BrainPop.com for a review of animal classification (you have to have a subscription to view the BrainPop video, but you can find the simpler BrainPop Jr. video on animal classification, here, on YouTube).  I'm not trying to sell you on a subscription service, BrainPop just happens to be our go-to site for easy to digest bits of information, and in this case was great help as we navigated through the Montana Field Guide:

• from Kingdom - Animals - Animalia
  • to Phylum - Insects, Springtails, Millipedes - Mandibulata
    • on to Class - Insects - Insecta
      • and Order - Butterflies / Moths - Lepidoptera
        • and Family - Orange-tip / White / Sulphur Butterflies - Pieridae
          • and finally to Species - which turned out to be a Queen Alexandra's Sulphur - Colias alexandra rather than a Cabbage White - Pieris rapae - same family, but different butterfly.

A little more research revealed some interesting facts about this particular butterfly, that led us on another adventure involving a homemade butterfly net, a fish bowl, and a UV flashlight, that I hope to tell you all about...

...tomorrow.

It's great to be a homeschooler.

Plastic Egg Compound Insect Eye Glasses

No impromptu honey bee study would be complete without a quick look at compound eyes.  I thought, briefly, about running into town to see if I could find a pair of "bee" glasses at a toy store, but we had company coming in, and T (age 17) had a midterm scheduled, with our associate pastor coming over to proctor (meaning I had a house to clean, and thank you cookies to bake), so I opted for something the younger children and I could put together quickly.

After fumbling around our craft closet, we came across a couple of plastic eggs (this is a great time of year to pick up a package or two, on clearance, to use for projects just like this). We pulled the bottoms off of two of them, and I (it takes a bit of hand strength) poked a bunch of holes in them with a thumbtack. 

Bees' eyes are made up of thousands of tiny lenses, giving them a mosaic-type sight, much like looking through the holes in the eggs.

When we were satisfied with the number of holes punched, we taped the eggs together, glasses style, with two pieces of clear tape, sticky sides together, for a bridge...

...and a piece of elastic string tied through holes near the outside edge, to hold them on.

They aren't a perfect representation of compound eyes, but they are pretty neat to look through, and quick to make.  The only thing that might make them better would be using red colored eggs.  Apparently, honey bees don't see red, and I think looking though holes in red eggs might make it hard for the children to see red, too - that would be a nice effect.

If you're interested, you can find out more about honey bees, their vision, and compound eyes at  http://ag.arizona.edu/pubs/insects/ahb/inf2.html.

Collecting Pollen With Static Electricity

One of the interesting facts we read about bees, this week, is that the little hairs on their bodies build up a static electric charge, that attracts pollen to them, as they fly over, and land on flowers.

That sounded like something we needed to try out for ourselves. C (age 8) took a balloon outside, rubbed it on her head (to produce a static charge), and then passed it over a dandelion (coming close to the flower, but not touching it).

And, sure enough...

...it worked.  There was pollen on the balloon.

I don't know about you, but we thought it was pretty cool.

The Evolution of a Zoob Honey Bee

The creation above was D(age12)'s contribution to our honeybee study, yesterday.  It started out in the morning as a Kafkaesque combination of a Zoob-man meets insect.

Then, after some reading on insects, and bees in particular, it gained a couple of legs, and an abdomen as well as a thorax...

...finally morphing, by late afternoon, into a full blown, if slightly cumbersome, honey bee...

...all ready to be photographed, and labelled in Paint.  

I was very grateful for the entire process, not just because it demonstrated a good deal of thought, creativity and attention to detail on the part of a student (always nice to see), with no work or preparation on my part (even better), but also because it saved me the precious printer ink I would have needed to for the honeybee worksheet I had bookmarked (total victory).

It's great to be a homeschooler.

Pollination Snacktivity

While we were out looking at ground squirrel holes, and ladybugs, C (age 8) also spotted an Apis mellifera on our Taraxacum officinale.  Although, I believe she might have called it a honeybee on the dandelions.  Or, maybe she was just screaming - BEE!!!!!

Anyway, she might not have been to happy to see the bee in its natural habitat, but all three younger children (ages 8-12) were pretty interested in the pictures of said bee collecting pollen on its corbicula, or pollen sacs (you can see the orange balls of pollen sticking out from the bee's back legs, in the picture above).

The pollen sacs, also sometimes called pollen baskets, are polished indentions, surrounded by hairs, in the bees' tibia, used to collect pollen for transport back to the hive.

We tried out our own "pollen" collection techniques with a Bee-licious, Scholastic, Bee Movie inspired snacktivity.

With plastic fork "bee legs", and banana "pollen baskets"...

...made sticky with honey instead of hairs...

...we collected "pollen" (candy sprinkles, nuts, coconut, and graham cracker crumbs) from one or two of our bowls (standing in for flowers).

After we had made (and eaten) a few of our bee-nana snacks, we began to notice, that we weren't just collecting "pollen", we were depositing it, as well...

...providing us a perfect segue from the activity of bees to the process of pollination.

It's great to be a homeschooler.

The First Ladybug of the Season

Have you spotted your first ladybug yet, this spring?

I love how the first spotting is always a surprise.  We were out checking out one of the holes made by our neighborhood ground squirrels, in the vacant lot next to our house...

...when a little flash of red caught our eye.

Did you know there are about 5000 species of ladybug worldwide, and more than 400 in the United States alone (per National Geographic Kids)?  Our first ladybug of the season, this year, was a Coccinella septempunctata, or Seven Spotted Ladybug...

...easily identified by its 7 spots, black pronotum (the part that looks like the head) with two large white (eye-like) spots (thanks to a handy dandy identification chart from the Lost Ladybug Project). 

How about you?  What kind of ladybugs have you spotted so far?

A 13 Spotted Ladybug

My little bug spotters sighted a second ladybug for our list...

...actually it's the third or fourth ladybug they've spotted since seeing the convergent ladybug, but the others flew away before they could really be studied and identified.  This time, we decided to follow the advice from the folks at the Lost Ladybug Project, and captured the little beetle under a milk cap, that happened to be handy.  Then, we slipped a piece of paper under the cap, so we could carry our friend through the house, and into the freezer for a few minutes.

It sounds like harsh treatment, but just a few minutes (less than six) in the freezer won't kill a ladybug.  It will slow it down for long enough to take a good look at it through a pocket microscope, though.

Those pocket microscopes are really something, too.  In my excitement to let the children have a look, before the ladybug thawed out and started moving, my hand slipped, and I flung the device across the kitchen, onto the floor, and into four parts.  I was pretty sure it was all over, but after snapping the pieces back together, removing and replacing the batteries, and tightening the tiny light bulb, everything was right as rain.  If only all our gadgets were so sturdy.

But, back to the ladybug - which thanks to a quick peek through the microscope, we identified as a 13 spotted ladybug, or hippodamia tredecimpunctata tibialis if you want to get all Latiny and official.

As the name suggest, it has 13 spots (most of the time).  Spots can be tricky clues for identifying species of ladybug.

It is usually orange to red, and slightly elongated, or oval shaped.

But, the easiest, and clearest way to identify a 13 spotted ladybug is by the white pronotum (the shell right between the head and the elytra, or wing casing), with the oblong black dot.  To me it looks like large black dot, with a smaller dot on each side.  The children think it looks like the silhouette of a sheep's head.

It is a native to North America and according to bugguide.net has a range from Newfoundland to North Carolina, west to Alaska and northern California.

Strangely enough, it was thought to be extinct in the UK for 60 years, but was recently rediscovered there, as well.

After we were through identifying our ladybug, we returned it to the garden, where D (age 9) kept watch until he was satisfied it was still alive and well, after it's short stint in the freezer.

It's great to be a homeschooler.

Ladybug Checklist

We spotted our first ladybug of the season, in our yard, this week - a convergent ladybug, to be precise.

And, we do want to be precise, because this year we're making a ladybug checklist, to hang on the fridge.

Last fall, I presented the older children with pictures of all the different ladybugs we'd seen through the summer, and challenged the children to identify them.  The challenge went unanswered, as fall took off, and interests led us in different directions of study.

Now though, with the ladybugs returning (at least I hope this first one means more are about to follow), and right in front of us again, I thought I'd take a new approach.  I found a nice ladybug notepaper image to print and hang on the fridge.

So, as we spot, and photograph different types of ladybugs throughout the spring and summer, we can identify, and add them to our list, right away.

Not sure how to tell a convergent ladybug from say a nine spotted ladybug?  Come back tomorrow, and we'll share some tips Almost Unschool style - and, in case your wondering, that means we're making cookies.

It's great to be a homeschooler.