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.

New plant, but no new siblings

Uno is still Numero Uno going solo. Recent advice from the Zoo suggested the eggs need some sunlight/UV to aid their development/hatching potential. So on Monday, they spent the day on a car dashboard in the carpark at work. It felt slightly wrong putting them out there on their own with no surveillance, but the temperature and humidity were ideal, not to mention the lovely UV bath they were getting.

Tuesday was rain and overcast, so the eggs didn't venture out. Today, Wednesday, was cool and cloudy, and the eggs had a sojourne on the window ledge in my classroom above the heater.

As for Uno - he's up and about these days. We had a frantic day on Monday looking for him after we successfully transferred him onto another Pittosporum plant (variegated leaves this time). He seemed to hover around the mid height of the plant, doing his little sway dance after being transferred. Apparently that is typical Phasmid behaviour as they try to imitate a moving leaf! Can't fool us, Uno. Well, actually you did for about a day. I though it'd be easier to spot Uno in the variegated foliage, which is also less dense than the previous plant. But alas, not.

Today, Uno was found "hiding" right on the top of the perspex door. Looking... looking... on the plant, and then there he was right before our eyes. We'll have to be careful when opening the door in future - don't want to put our fat fingers on him by accident. We even got excited when we spotted Uno's poo stuck to the door in the condensation! All part of honing our observation skills!

Whilst Uno was posing so boldly on the door, we took the opportunity to measure him and do a photo shoot. The quality of photo is average, but at least it's recording the milestones!

Sadly, one of the hatchlings at another school died on the weekend. It sounded as though he was not moving much, and then not at all. They had a second one hatch and now look after that one.

News flash - we were in the local Ocean Grove "The Voice" newspaper last week. It showed our students excitedly looking after the eggs.

Warming up again

Uno and his little egg mates are now cosily ensconced in a pink wool blanket, extra heat pad up against the back wall, and the microscope "lab lamp" radiating heat up into the enclosure. Good to note that the heat mat was not anywhere near feeling like it was going to melt the plastic adhesive backing. And I've hooked the blanket up a bit so the lamp will not set it on fire!

These extra measures have dragged the temperature over the 20 degree mark again, a critical minimum.

The humidity has been fine all along (bordering on 100% - that's rain isn't??) The fog was building in the enclosure today as the temperature climbed.

Even though we couldn't actually see Uno clearly today, due to foggy conditions, we were happy that the temperature was getting into the acceptable range again. Hope the little guys will resond positively to this round of climate change and continue to hatch!

Phew!

PS A couple of the other schools, who are part of this pilot project, have announced the arrival of their first hatchlings in the last day or two. A lot are worried about the cold, and the Zoo said this is no good! Hopefully we're getting on top of this problem at Bellarine now.

Winter chill sets in at Bellarine

Thursday and Friday last week my trusty LHISI student caretakers alerted me to the fact that the overnight temperatures in the enclosure dropped as low as 16 degrees. Too cold! I presumed (wrongly as it turns out), that the heat mat had broken. Other stakeholders in this program had said this had happened to them. Yesterday Siggy came home with a second heat mat for us. I am thinking of attaching it to the perspex sheet that sits on top of the enclosure. If need be, we can change the position of the heat source this way by moving the perspex sheet to the side/back or top of the enclosure. It's just a matter of trying it out.

Can you see Uno? His/her handsome leg and antennae are visible just behind the leaves at the front of the photo. Uno is growing before our eyes - noticeably longer in the abdomen since hatching. We are too scared to poke around too closely with a ruler, but I reckon the insect is about half a centimetre longer since hatching on Wednesday!

No siblings for Uno this weekend. The Zoo's group of eggs laid at a similar time have continued to hatch. We do not have the perfect climate control that they have though.

I met Mary this morning, from another local school, who also has a colony to hatch. They have had quite varied and colder conditions than us, and not as humid. And none hatched yet. So I think this emphasises the importance of a stable position with not too much door opening and poking around. Also, we are lucky that our enclosure can stay at school and I pop up to do weekend checks/waters. Rather than carting it around to someone's house to look after on the weekend.

Act Wild - video link

Yesterday, the LHISI blog/ning written by the Melbourne Zoo shared that they had their first hatchling (which was out of the same batch of eggs as we had). I had missed that notice, so was especially surprised with our little guy presenting himself this morning. Anyhow, when I was on the Melbourne Zoo blog/ning, I noticed a new video they had posted. It is a snapshot of the LHISI story, aired by Act Wild.

As well as the video on the Act Wild link, there are tabs with "Fact File" information and a few photos of the different lifecycle stages of the LHISI.
Enjoy!

Uno hatched!

Our first hatchling arrived this morning! As I was in the staff room, 3 excited Year 9 students ran to share the news. I named the young nymph Uno, number 1, and we rated him "excellent". He was a lovely bright lime green colour, 2 cm long and no bent body parts. Incredible that this "big guy" emerged from an egg the size and shape of a tic-tac!

We left the young nymph inside his hatching container all morning, where he was clearly visible to all the students who came to look. Then during lunch time, we transferred Uno to the bush, which was carefully checked for any spiders or other creatures who may munch on the new little soft-bodied Lord Howe Island Stick Insect.

He wasn't moving much, but had no trouble transferring to the Pittosporum tree. I was trying to gently scoop him up on the end of a clean paint brush, when he seemed interested in simply walking onto the leaves. Too easy. Uno obligingly stayed perched on a lower leaf close to the front of the enclosure for all to observe: drinking some fresh water sprayed onto the leaves, and taking a few tentative steps.

So now we hope that Uno likes his enclosure and stays healthy, and maybe soon he will have a sibling to keep him company. We'll be sure to be looking in the morning!

Stick Insect Inactivity in April

After the initial excitement and flurry of setting up the enclosure for the Drysdale colony of Lord Howe Island Stick Insect, nothing happening yet!

Students have been diligently spraying the enclosure to humidify the atmosphere to simulate the indigenous origins; plus monitoring the maximum and minimum temperatures on a daily basis.

According to the Zoo's blog, there have been nil hatchings elsewhere in school based colonies. We are now told it could be up to another month, or even two months!

There was a great little 5min snippet on Behind the News, which fills in a bit of the story to these elusive creatures:
http://www.abc.net.au/btn/story/s3469096.htm

Enjoy.

New mini weather station

Thanks to Siggy for finding and buying a new gadget that solves the problem of the malfunctioning max-min thermometer. The new one is digital and runs on batteries and reports maximum and minimum temperature and humidity, all at the press of a button. I just hope it can stand the humidity (twice daily sprays of water) in the enclosure!

Meeting Phasmids at Zoo yesterday

I picked up 10 tic-tac sized eggs from the Melbourne Zoo yesterday. They will hatch in 3 weeks at the beginning of Term 2, all being well. The temperature and humidity regime in their lovely new Perspex enclosure needs to be just right! The mini Lord Howe Island ecosystem is checked twice daily, data being recorded by a dedicated team of students and staff. Communication and observation will be the key to the success of this project. I have never been involved this closely with such an important project. 25 schools out of 150 applicants to the Melbourne Zoo are embarking on this extension of the ark, for LHISI population research. Only a couple of dozen insects are known to exist in the wild, not even on their original island, but 23km off shore on Balls Pyramid, a rugged shard of rock protruding from the Tasman Sea.

The transformer-like stick insect was thought to be extinct for 80 years, until a rock climber found a handful of live specimens in 2003. “Adam and Eve” were brought to the Melbourne Zoo and there they started a captive colony. Around 9000 eggs have hatched in the intervening 9 years. Each creature lives for about 18 months, reaching maturity after 6 months. A female can lay 200-300 eggs in her lifetime. The large, nocturnal, dark brown stick insects were wiped out in 1918 when a ship ran into Lord Howe Island, spilling rats onto the land. They ate the entire population. Amazingly, a few of these special stick insects somehow made their way to Balls Pyramid.

If you’d like to see the LHISI home page, go to … http://www.zoo.org.au/lord-howe-island-stick-insect

There, you can even see a nymph hatching on video.

For the next 18 months, as much as possible, students and staff in Bellarine Science classes will focus on the return of these fantastic Phasmids. There will be cross-age peer teaching opportunities between Year 8 Environmental Studies students and Year 1 and 2 classes, who are studying Minibeasts. Year 7 studies on Classification will come to life with real examples of this extremely rare invertebrate. And Year 9 students will be vying with each other to focus their Behavioural research project on the Lord Howe Island Stick Insect. Their observations will be submitted to the Melbourne Zoo as part of the growing database of information about these little known insects. There will also be opportunities for collaboration with students from other schools who are also caring for the insects.

We must wait with baited breath for the start of Term 2 to find out if we have viable eggs. And then we will try to help the juveniles through to adulthood. And hopefully get some successful mating and egg production after that. That’s a long way down the track though, and for now, we will be starting with one day at a time.

Eggs installed at home

I’m slightly worried about the temperature regime in my enclosure. When I was setting up the box, I noticed my max-min thermometer is no good. The mercury has separated. I’ll try and buy a replacement one tomorrow. So I've put a couple of other standard thermometers in the box. One is on the base, the other is in the space above the eggs. The air temp has been around 20 degrees during the day (maybe down to 16-18 degrees overnight), but the base temp has been around 23-25 degrees constantly. I've left the heat mat on the whole weekend and the above temps have been pretty constant all weekend.

LHISI - it's pick up morning

I'm just a bit excited and woke up early this morning because it's time to pick up the LHISI eggs from the Melbourne Zoo. That's Lord Howe Island Stick Insect, for those who are coming along on the journey of involvement of rearing these CRITICALLY ENDANGERED species.

THe Zoo has a great website about them. Here it is. http://www.zoo.org.au/lord-howe-island-stick-insect
Click on it and find out more...There's a great video of a LHISI hatching. Amazing.

I was hoping to catch the train up from Geelong, but there is track work and bus replacements half way through the journey. This could prove challenging on the return leg when I am trying to carry a 90cm x 45cm x 45cm box, 20 or so CRITICALLY ENDANGERED LHISI eggs and 2 plants!!

from Ms Singleton