Bugs

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Presents...

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3 Check It Out! 4 The Praying Mantis 6 Good Eats 7 This Web I Spin 8 Hear a Bug Stomping Around 9 Max & Gracie 10 Puzzles 12 Tagging Monarch Butterflies 14 The Little Girl Who Eats Bugs 18 The Worm’s Bag 19 Assassin Bug 20 Six-Legged Musicians 22 10 Little Facts 24 Water Bug Circus 25 Nature’s Papermakers 26 Cowboy Ants 27 Lots of Legs 28 Buggy Funnies 29 Kids Corner 30 Puzzle Solutions

If you could be a bug for a day, which would you choose? If you were a tiny bug, you wouldn’t want to turn your back on a praying mantis, or you might end up as lunch. There are over a trillion different bugs. Some are insects, which usually have six legs. Imagine being a beautiful black and orange monarch butterfly. You would be able to fly over 1000 miles. If you were a spider, you could spin awesome webs. A water bug is a good choice if you like to swim. Some water bugs can walk on the water. Others swim on their backs. Many insects have special talents. There are farmer ants and musical bugs. With so many bugs to choose from, you may have a hard time deciding. After you read this issue, let us know which bug you would be for a day. It might be one included here, or it might be another. You can write or email us your answer. You can even send us a picture you drew. We will include your answer in a future issue and send you a surprise for telling us! Take your magazine outside. Settle down in a cozy spot. While you are reading, a curious little bug may come by to visit. A butterfly might even land on your shoulder. How cool would that be? Send your answers or drawings to Kids Corner, PO Box 227, Bluffton, OH 45817-0227, or email us at kidscorner@funforkidz.com.

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by Susan Nagle-Schwartz

Someone may be hiding in your backyard. Large eyes on a triangular head peer out from behind a leaf. A slim light-green or tan body is perched on a twig. The body, blending in with its surroundings, makes him a master of disguise. Who is that lurking in the bushes? He is a praying mantis, hiding and waiting for his next meal. To him, summertime is one long picnic. Butterflies, spiders, bees, flies, and beetles all make their appearance during the warm summer months. What a feast! You might catch a glimpse of him patiently waiting for his meal to arrive. If you do, he will be standing on four slender hind legs, with two thicker front legs folded upward as if in prayer. This pose gives the “praying” mantis his name. While he stands quietly, large eyes beneath two threadlike antennae watch for movement – a signal that his meal is close by. Keen vision allows him to easily find his prey. After locating his target, he uses his two powerful front legs to pounce with lightning speed. Rows of spikes on the front legs grip the insect, while strong mouthparts chew away.

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As he finishes his meal, he sees movement behind him. A long neck gives him the ability to look over his shoulder. Could that beetle be dessert? He follows the beetle’s movement. The praying mantis stalks, then pounces . . . and the beetle is gone! It didn’t even see what was coming. You can’t turn your back on a praying mantis. All of this eating can only lead to one thing – growth. As we grow, we outgrow our clothes. When the praying mantis grows, he outgrows his body. The outer covering becomes so tight, he bursts through it, and it is shed, or molted. The inner layer of his body hardens and becomes the new outer covering. Eating his way through the summer, the praying mantis might shed his outer covering five to ten times. His former body is left behind, hidden among the leaves and twigs. The female praying mantis also spends her summer munching and molting. But when fall approaches, she leaves something behind that only she can. She lays a white foamy liquid along a branch or twig. Within the foam are up to 400 eggs. The white foam hardens into a tan-colored papier-mâché-like oval case. The eggs remain in this protective case through the winter. If you go for a walk, you might see what appears to be a small walnut attached to a twig. It might not be a walnut, but a praying mantis’s egg case. Who is hiding in your backyard? It is a praying mantis. Whether summer, fall, winter, or spring, it quietly leaves clues to its existence throughout the year.

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by Kathlyn Gay Charoenkrung.Studio99/Shutterstock.com

“Good eats,” you might say after bolting down a piece of your favorite pizza. But would you say the same about banana worm bread or chocolate-covered grasshoppers? How about grasshopper tortillas with stink bug salsa? Believe it or not, these and other insect foods are part of the diets of at least 2 billion – yes, that’s billion – people around the world. Hundreds of species of insects and bugs are considered “good eats.” They provide high levels of protein, minerals, and vitamins.

This boy is enjoying a bamboo worm and crispy insect chocolate wafer bar. For thousands of years, people have eaten locusts, crickets, and grasshoppers. Early in American history, some Native Americans ate fly pupae that washed up along a lakeshore. The worm-like creatures were gathered and dried in the sun. Then they were mixed with seeds or acorns to make a bread. Today bugs are traditional foods in many African, Asian, and Latin American countries. North Americans generally are not entomophagists (en ta MOFF a jists). That’s a tongue-twisting term for people who regularly eat insects or bugs. Many of us have been taught that insects and bugs are pests that destroy crops or cause diseases. Many bugs bite or sting. So just the idea of eating them can be stomach-churning. Even with the “yuck” factor, scientists say that in the future, insects will be a food source for people. Why? Because already nearly 1 billion people around the world have little or no food. That number will rise as the world’s population grows. It won’t be easy to feed so many people. Eating bugs and insects can help. New companies now sell foods such as cricket protein bars and macaroons made with roasted crickets. You can find insect products online or in local stores and restaurants in some states. So, are you ready for waxworm tacos or BBQ-dipped insects?

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Don’t be tempted to gather and prepare insects from your backyard! Some insects are poisonous. To try insect-based foods, buy them from bug-eating and insect-farming experts. They know which creatures are safe and healthy to eat.

by Ken Tapp A six-legged breakfast would taste mighty fine. So I’ll spin me a web – now, where shall I dine? By flowers with pollen the bugs will come crawlin’, Then into my web those bugs will be fallin’. When shall I spin my silk so fine As I design this web of mine? In the dark of the night with the stars as my light, It will hang like a curtain, all slinky and bright. What’s that sparkle I see when my spinning is done, As the night runs and hides at the sight of the sun? It’s my newfangled, dew-spangled web-site that shines. Do come in, little bugs. I am ready to dine. Who will visit this web I have spun To join me for breakfast or swing in the sun?

Maybe bugs that have wings and bugs that have stings And other bug things a summer breeze brings. What shape is my web when their visits are done, And my web doesn’t look like it did when first spun? It’s tattered . . . it’s scattered. It’s splattered with bugs. It’s saggy . . . it’s baggy from too many tugs. My web’s all a mess, now what shall I do As the night tip-toes back with the stars and the dew? I shall weave it again, spinning out, spinning in, And a tidy new web I shall mend and re-spin. But . . . Where shall I spin the web I spin As I begin to spin . . . Again?!

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Hear a Bug Stomping Around There are many sounds too tiny for us to hear. Usually this is good. Imagine how noisy the world would be if we heard snowflakes crashing on the ground, or everyone’s heart beating, or the sounds of all the insects clomping around on their six legs. Scientists have heard these sounds, but they had to use amplifiers to help their ears. You can make an amplifier very easily, and you can hear some tiny sounds too.

YOU WILL NEED:

• a clean, empty Styrofoam cup

• a piece of clear plastic wrap, large enough to cover the mouth of the cup • a rubber band • an insect

NOTE: You will have to catch the insect for this experiment. It can be a fly, grasshopper, a cricket, or any kind of insect you don’t mind catching. Of course, DO NOT catch a bee or a wasp or any kind of insect that can sting or bite you.

HOW TO HEAR YOUR INSECT STOMPING AROUND Go somewhere that is VERY, VERY quiet. Press the side of the cup against your ear and hold it very still. Listen carefully. Insects have six legs and six feet. You should be able to hear all of those feet stomping around. Of course, they are very tiny sounds, so you won’t hear STOMP, STOMP, STOMP, STOMP, STOMP, STOMP. If you listen very carefully, you will hear tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick . . . and it will be the insect walking. You have heard a sound very few people have heard.

HOW DOES IT WORK? An amplifier is something that makes sounds louder. If you tap a stick on the floor, it makes a small sound. If you tap the same stick on a drum, it makes a loud sound. A drum is a sound amplifier.

WHAT TO DO:

1. Put the insect in the cup.

2. Quickly cover the mouth of the cup with the plastic wrap.

3. Snap the rubber band around the plastic wrap and the cup to hold the plastic wrap in place.

4. After doing this experiment, release the insect back where you caught it. Don’t forget to thank it for helping you do this experiment.

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The Styrofoam cup acts like the drum. When the insect walks on it, the Styrofoam acts like the drumhead, and the insect’s feet act like the stick.

Charlotte, North Carolina 4:15 PM Warm, with a nice breeze Max and Gracie and their owners, Linda, Craig, and their seven-year-old son, Ed, are driving the back roads of America. Perhaps you have seen Max and Gracie with their heads out the window. If not, here is a letter describing their most recent adventure.

when a cloud of mosquitoes er fun time catching two balls, We’re at the park, having a sup attacks Ed, Gracie, and me. Gracie barks, “This way.” e it out to a clearing, where ll dirt path in the woods. We mak sma a n dow her w follo I and Ed . quito population seems normal the sun is shining, and the mos delicious. I wiggle in the dirt e rare blood type that makes us Gracie wonders if we have som elf of 1000 itches. on my backside, trying to rid mys way on the other side of the s we were playing with all the Ed realizes he’s left the two ball quitoes just to retrieve the him to go back and face the mos in it has he if w kno sn’t doe park. He steal our ball! other. No mosquito is going to balls. Gracie and I look at each oes that seem to have balls. Gracie air bites the mosquit the find kly quic and k bac run We a muffled bark, s in my mouth and give Gracie ball h bot up pick I . nds usa tho multiplied by the go. letting her know we’re good to y to go back to the hotel. By the time we return, Ed is read favorite sport is?” , do you know what a mosquito’s That night, Gracie asks, “Hey, Max Gracie.” “Mosquitoes don’t play sports, a diver?” it? Like a skydiver or a deep-se “They sure do – skin diving. Get “Oh, Gracie.”

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