Uno's big day out - reflections of the year

Uno is united with his own kind at the Melbourne Zoo. For now, they are on display at the end of the Butterfly House.

Yesterday we took the train to Melbourne together, mingling with the madding Melbourne crowd of female youth (spray tanned to their bum cheeks) on their way to the Stereosonic Festival at the Melbourne Showgrounds in Ascotvale. I'm sure there were equal numbers of boys, but they were far more sensibly clad and did not catch our attention as much! The Lord Howe Island Stick Insect is far more subtle in gender differentiation - a slightly different-shaped abdomen and different features at the tail end of the abdomen.

Buying a VLINE ticket at Geelong South Station 

Off to board the bus (replaced the train due to Geelong track work!) 

Southern Cross Station

Still at Southern Cross Station

Alighting at Royal Park Station - last stop, the Zoo

Uno didn't bat an eyelid (chiefly because he doesn't have any, and he was sleeping) throughout the journey. I was mildly concerned as we alighted at Southern Cross Station when my olfactory senses were assaulted with perfumes, car fumes and cigarette smoke. We had been so careful to instruct cleaners to be chemical free around our precious cargo all year. They were lovely and obliging, finding chemical free wiping sponges, and certainly no spraying any surfaces. Interesting how sensitive I have become when returning to the big SMOKE, particularly with Uno in tow!

The year at Christian College concluded with Uno doing a tour of Year 1, 2, 3 classes where students read about him, looked at him and asked questions about him. I know we were instructed not to personalise our hatchlings with a name, but in our case naming Uno worked well. He survived the year and became a personality in our midst. (Well, as much a personality as a nocturnal, transformer-like adolescent shining black stick insect can muster!) 

Year 8 students involved with the original application for the Lord Howe Island Stick Insect eggs

The Year 8 students learned of the LHISI story initially through their Environmental Studies classes and helped apply for the opportunity to hatch and manage a small population of these critically endangered Lord Howe Island Stick Insects. 

Later,Year 9 focused on the monitoring of the enclosure climate, and discovered Uno the morning he had hatched. That day was the second of May 2012. I will never forget the urgent tapping on the staff room door as two Year 9 boys excitedly told  me the news. We all ran down the corridors (very unprofessional, I know) to the enclosure to view our baby boy!

Year 9 students settling in the newly hatched Uno onto the
Pittosporum bush 

What continued was a changing story as Uno moulted his exoskeleton as he grew. He started at just short of 2cm, a lime green delicate little soft bodied stick insect, hiding (quite effectively) in the upper branches of foliage of his feeding plant, the non-native, ubiquitous Pittosporum. Within six busy weeks of munching he had doubled his length. He continued to sleep and feed in the upper reaches of his tree. It was possibly the warmer part of the enclosure because heat rises, and we had placed a second heat mat on the top to try and beat the winter chills.

Uno is 5 months

During August and September, Uno started changing colour to a gain a golden brown tinge on his shoulders and legs. By the September holidays, Uno was covered in an overall dark brown-black shining armour.

Yesterday at the Zoo reunion, about 10 schools of the original 25, were represented as we returned with our animals (dead and alive). There were some very sad stories, where one individual had died the day before from the heat spike, and of course that was the day the air conditioner broke. The other survivor from that population of nine hatchlings was dying on the way to the Zoo yesterday. (The other seven had succumbed from overzealous, possibly illiterate, cleaners who basically poisoned the whole population.) We say illiterate because Aimee, the insect carer (expert), had put up numerous signs and warnings to the cleaners and yet they had continued to spray chemicals.

Uno at 5.5 months, trying out his box. Didn't like it!
He preferred hanging in his tree or gripping the inside of his
perspex enclosure, up high

It was great talking to the other teachers who had shared a similar journey to me and our school community. We had all been cautious about handling the hatchlings at first, then as they "toughened up" in recent weeks, we had allowed a couple of students to handle the animals. I hope the students realise the importance of their involvement in bringing this species back from the brink of extinction. One day they will be able to show their children photos of them tending and holding Uno. 

Another key to the great feel we had as a group was the use of the Ning! What is a Ning you might ask? It's basically a secure blog site that allowed us members to post questions, answers, suggestions, photos and videos as we all shared and learned through this WORLD FIRST operation. I realised I had not been on the Ning much at the end of Term 3 and into Term 4. We were just going about our normal business at school and Uno was stable and happy. 

Uno at 5.5 months

Upon reflection, I think we were extremely lucky that Uno survived the duration with us. He was a great specimen from the day he hatched (rated as excellent, based on his size, colour, no deformities or missing parts). The fact that we didn't handle him much, vigilantly removed spiders from his enclosure the couple of times we found them, and of course tried to keep his atmosphere comfortable (warm and humid), probably helped. Although there were days that we forgot to water the plant, change the plant, measure the temperature and humidity, he fortunately put up with our shortfalls. Even though we tried to keep his climate comfortable, I was strongly aware and concerned that we did not ever overcome the winter chills, day or night. This was despite extra heaters, heat lamps, blankets and even bowls of warm water (covered in gladwrap) to try and better replicate the Lord Howe Island temperatures. Trying to encourage more eggs to hatch, the Year 1 classroom with North-facing windows hosted the egg container for a number of weeks, but the gentle autumn/winter sunshine did not do the trick. In response to a number of worried queries via the Ning, Rohan Cleave (Invertebrate Zookeeper and "father" of the LHISI project) had suggested to direct UV rays onto the egg container to try to prompt further hatching. In our case, and other schools' situations, this did not work. My belief is that the initial two weeks (March/April holidays) when the egg container was sitting in my SUNROOM, they received optimal conditions. Following this, they were moved to school where they were not in direct UV light conditions (until Rohan's suggestion) and by then the overnight temperatures were suboptimal. Humidity was always 80-90% or more - ideal. That was easy - just spray with rainwater every day, or twice a day.

Year 5 students carefully handling Uno, on the move!

In fact, it was this simple daily task that captivated a few individual students from year 5. They were the regular, reliable helpers that kept the project in the spotlight with certain classes. By having Uno's enclosure in the passage/junction of the Science rooms, plenty of children had exposure to the project. Shame it was a bit on the cool side for Uno. As Rohan said, luckily, the colony of eggs that Uno sprang from, was actually from Ball's Pyramid, the highly exposed granite rock outcrop 23km off Lord Howe Island. Temperatures and conditions are more varied and extreme there compared to Lord Howe.

Ball's Pyramid - an extreme environment

Uno at 6 months old, under his pink blanket!

So where to from here? Ultimately, the Lord Howe Island Stick Insect population will be returned to their native Lord Howe Island. This of course cannot happen until the rats have been ERADICATED. Federal, state and local money has been promised to this end, hopefully in the next few years. There was some media attention about this during the middle of this year. Federal funding promise to rid rats from Lord Howe, July 2012 It was also mentioned in this radio interview. PM, ABC Radio with Sir David Attenborough, August 2012

The Melbourne Zoo, in its 150th year, has played an INCREDIBLE role in bringing the Lord Howe Island Insect to our attention - personally, educationally and community wide. The two things that the Zoo hangs it hat on with pride and expertise is: managing small populations and saving species. There are 16 species in Victoria, two of which are our faunal emblems (do you know which they are???), that will likely be extinct in five years. The Zoo is doing its best to capture and manage these endangered populations in an attempt to ward off their impending extinction. In fact Sir David Attenborough selected the Melbourne Zoo (out of 1000 interview requests during his Melbourne visit in August) to specifically see the Lord Howe Island Stick Insect. Rohan and staff had 40 minutes with Sir David, and have video footage and memories of this special encounter. From what the media reports, it was Sir David Attenborough who felt that he was the privileged one, to have encountered the Lord Howe Island Stick Insect. Attenborough meets rare stick insect, August 2012 Here is the 7.30 Report video.

And so say all of us; privileged indeed, to have played a small part in the story of the LORD HOWE ISLAND STICK INSECT.

Thanks from the Melbourne Zoo

PS Victoria's two faunal emblems are both endangered: the Helmeted Honeyeater and the Leadbeater's Possum

Helmeted Honeyeater

Leadbeater's Possum

Baby Leadbeater's Possum 

Back to the Zoo today

Uno i s o n t h e t r a i n.

NO, Uno's a BOY!!!

After much to-ing and fro-ing with photos to the Zoo Keeper, Rohan, he thinks Uno is a boy!

This is what Rohan said in his last email:

Looks like a male to me in this photo.  If you look closely at the brown part towards the tip of the abdomen you will see it is more rounded.  If it was a female it would be very pointed.  I saw the photos on your blog of the students involved in the radio cross yesterday.  Looked great.
Sincerely
Rohan

Sorry Uno. Apparently his rear end is flattened, not pointy like a girl's.

We're all learning!

Uno's a girl!

See those TINY claspers at the end of her tail? And those delicate female thighs. At this stage we have decided Uno is a GIRL! 

Sorry, we've been calling Uno a "him" all this time! But it's only now that she's big enough to really see the body parts clearly.

Uno's carers on the radio

Today was pretty special: it's not every day you get to take over the Principal's office! This afternoon four of my students stayed back at school for an hour so they could talk about our special Lord Howe Island Stick Insect project on a radio station. It was a live to air program called Primary Perspectives, run by kids for kids, on the FM band at 94.1. The radio station will be saving it as a podcast too!

Uno is a radio star!

Uno is noticeably bigger - about 3.5 cm long. He is 6 weeks old now. 

If a student hasn't seen him for a while, they are quite surprised at how much he has grown. His colour is changing slightly too. He is not the bright lime green of his early days any more. He's dulled off in colour and gone a slightly darker green. There are brown stripes on the segments of his antennae, and his abdomen has a whitish stripe on it at the moment.

We are wondering if he is about to shed his exoskeleton. Or maybe he has already? We haven't seen him shed, or found any evidence of a moult (shed skin) on the base of the enclosure. I think one of the other insects at another school has already shed. We'll just keep our eyes open.

Here, Uno is being gently transferred onto a fresh plant. Yum! The other one had been insdie for a few extra weeks, and it was definitely ready for a bit of fresh air, sunshine and water!

As for the eggs... They are still eggs! We didn't end up putting them in the chicken incubator because I could not get the temperature stable in the right range. And, then we started taking the egg container to a different classroom where they get full northern sun through their window most of the day. They have spent a few weekend days at my house on the heater or in front of the sunny window. Still not happy...The latest advice from the Zoo Keeper is to shine a desk lamp straight on them!



This afternoon, we are quite excited because we are doing a radio interview! Between 4-5, on  94.1fm 3WBC

Details of the show are:

Here’s the blurb for the podcast:

Christian College Bellarine was a successful applicant from the Melbourne Zoo, selected to participate in a pilot program where schools could raise critically endangered Lord Howe Island Stick Insects in captivity. Year 8 Environmental Studies students applied for the project with their teacher. The special story of how this insect was thought to be extinct for over 80 years has spread throughout the school. Many students from the Prep –Year 9 campus visit the specially made enclosure to try and find where Uno is hiding. He is so named as the first and so far only, Lord Howe Island Stick Insect to hatch at the school. Conditions for a healthy environment for the insects have meant cleaners have avoided using chemical cleaning products around the enclosure. Young children rush up to search for Uno in the foliage in his enclosure; older students are monitoring the “climate” conditions on a daily basis. Other students have conducted a behaviour research project. Eventually, all animals and research information will be returned to the Zoo. During the project, the school is keeping the Zoo and other schools informed of progress via a dedicated blog site. The project has been a highlight for the students and the school.

Produced for broadcast on 94.1fm 3WBC and nationally via CRN

by the multi-award winning team at Wonderful World Media/SBN

Streaming live world wide via www.3wbc.org.au

Podcast via www.primarypersepctives.info 

and available from May 12 in USA via www.earthpreservers.com

and wwwpositiveimpactmagazine.com

Follow us on Twitter @WWMNradio

Wonderful World Media Network broadcasts live globally ~

Multi-award winning radio for creating sustainable societies

If you miss the live program, we will be saved to a podcast for later listening!

Uno settled "upstairs"

Uno is consistently enjoying the probably warmer, more humid climes "upstairs" at the top of the foliage in his enclosure. This is where the Zoo said the juveniles tend to hang out. It does make for trickier sighting of the little beastie, though. This morning I took the whole plant out, finally to find him cleverly mimicing a leaf by suspending himself under a leaf, lying parallel to the midrib vein. Can you see him today?

And horror of horrors, I found quite an established web in the far top back corner of the enclosure! We were warned that spiders will attack and kill these sensitive creatures! In fact, another school blogger said that that very thing had happened to them.

I was surprised how saddened I was moved to feel when other schools were reporting deaths this last week.
On a happier note, one school has had its fourth hatchling arrive. We really must get the incubator going for our eggs. I am even contemplating putting the whole "show" into a classroom where there is more natural light. The UV will aid the plant, as well as the eggs. This will be the move next week.

Some schools have still not had any hatchings yet. The Zoo reminds us to be patient and wait for up to another two months!

Here's one of our devoted students and I proudly pointing out little Uno who was perched on the door of the enclosure, a few days ago. Believe it or not, his body is about three centimetres long now.