INSECT ASSESSMENT

Untitled Slide

INSECT REPRODUCTION

• One adaptation that insects have developed is their ability to reproduce in large amounts. For example, a honey bee queen lays as many as 4,000 eggs a day. This adaptation is a way to continue the species for a long time and was essential to the insects survival for so many years.

INSECT MOUTHPARTS

• Insects get food from many different sources. Their mouths have adapted so they can eat the foods they eat. For example, butterflies have curling tongues so they can reach nectar deep inside the flower. Flies have special tongues with hair to pick up food. If insects had the same mouthparts, one type of food would run out and the others wouldn't be pollinated. Then, the insects wouldn't have food to eat and wouldn't survive.

INSECT CAMOFLAUGE

• Many insects adapt to look like their habitats. For example, a walking stick looks like a dead, brown, stick and lives in trees. These adaptations help insects blend in with their surroundings. Camouflage helps them hide from predators or surprise their prey, and is very helpful for survival. The animals live in the habitat which their camouflage matches.

COCKROACHES

• One thing I learned during the cockroach investigation is how to see if a cockroach is male or female.
• One way that they are different is their antennae. The male has thicker antennae and has red fuzz on them.
• Another difference is their thorax. The males have two bumps on their thorax while the females don't.

COCKROACH EXPERIMENT

• For our experiment, I wanted to see if the cockroach traveled faster on a flat or hilly surface. My hypothesis was that it would travel faster on flat ground because gravity wouldn't affect it. To make the cockroach travel, we used oranges to lure it through the course, and we tried each course 3 times to get a good average.

COCKROACH CONCLUSION

• After the experiment, we inferred that the cockroach might spend more time walking on flat ground than hilly ground. Also, we thought that gravity might have made it harder for the cockroach to travel up the hill.
• Some of it might have been our fault, too, because it was harder to drag the orange through the hilly course, so the cockroach might have not been moving.

QUESTION:

ANSWER

• When I researched, I learned that bees have two stomachs, one for honey, and one for food. When it drinks nectar, the nectar goes to the honey stomach.
• The bee then goes to the hive and the nectar is then passed mouth-to-mouth from bee to bee until it becomes a thick consistency. That thick syrup is actually the honey.