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