Reflection on Antarctic Presentation

I thought this presentation was fascinating! There were so many cool things that I learned from Mr. Watts's Presentation. I learned a lot about different animals.

• Seals 
• The seal mother comes early to give birth to a pup. Her milk is 40% fat.
• Super Wiener- a pup that doesn't stop feeding, usually a pup that is going to be a dominate male.
• Crab Eater Seals eat mainly krill.
• Leopard Seals eat penguins and krill.
• Leopard Seals bulls are extremely aggressive.
•   Elephant Seals- Bulls can be 500 kilos, eat squid and penguins.
• Female Leopard Seals- SUPER SCARY, do NOT go into the WATER with one around.
• Male Leopard Seals sing to attract female Leopard Seals. 

• Whales
• EAT EAT EAT!
• Huge animals, they need to eat a ton of food.
• Migrate from Brazil, Equator going down to the arctic.
• Breed in Brazil and Equator.
• Whale feces fertilizes the food that krill eat.

• Penguins
• Gentoo penguin
• Macaroni penguin
• Chinstrap penguin
• Adelie penguin
• All arrive in the spring around the same time. Hatch in Christmas/ New Year.
• Emperor Penguins arrive at the end of summer because they take longer to grow a chick.  Hatch in Christmas/ New Year. Have to survive during winter to grow chick.
• Krill
• Eating machines, swim super fast.
• Ultimate victim to almost every animal in the Arctic.
• Eat 1/4 of their body weight in a day.
• Live up to 10 years, and eat algae all the time.
• They only produce eggs only in the Spring.

• Polar Bears
• Mainly eat the fat of the animal they kill, hardly ever eat the meat. 
• Thick fur to keep body heat in.
• Super powerful, not very good at sprinting.
• Polar bears are only in the Arctic, not in the Antarctic.

I learned a whole bunch from this presentation, I have always wanted to learn more about the colder places on earth. Also the stories that he told us about living in such a cold climate. Especially the Whale poop story, that was hilarious! Mr. Watt's helped connect to things that we are learning now, with what he really experienced. He help taught us, Form and Function. Every animal is built to survive, each and every animal is equipped with different tools to help make our world complete. :)
Thanks,
 -Blaise

Africanized Bee

Africanized bee

Did you know that Killer bees are just cousins of the good old Honey Bee? In 1957, biologist Warwik E. Kerr accidently realized 26 Tanzanian Queen Bees which then they reproduce to now are Honey bee hybrids. These bees were realized in Southern Brazil, as of 2002 they have moved from Brazil up to Florida, California and Texas. One of the observations scientists have made is that the bees have not gone farther than Louisiana. In the Southern part of the United States killer bees are quite a hazard. Killer bees are highly more aggressive than the regular honey bee, for example African Honey Bees are able to take over a European Honey Beehive in a very short time. These bees swarm more frequently than any other type of bee and have, a better way of defending the colony. Also these hives have“guard” bees, which are extremely aggressive and not very nice.

Right at the first moment that I read the title of this article, I was sucked in. Africanized bee, I have never heard of that! This article was really interesting, not only did it have an article but links to other websites that provided more information about killer bees. I researched more on this subject because I was so consumed about learning more about killer bees. Reading about this made me wonder about the other animals in the world. Could they be accidents also? Then I research about other combined animals such as the Liger, Zebroids and Wholphins. It is so cool that this type of scientific research is going on, but I hope that these hybrids are not accidents, like the killer bee. 

Here is a National Geographic Youtube clip of Killer bees.

 By Blaise Sevier

Sites Used:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Africanized_bee

http://www.sciencedaily.com/articles/a/africanized_bee.htm

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b2/Killerbees_ani.gif

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ygreen/20100427/sc_ygreen/sixamazinghybridanimals

Biomes and Ecosystems- Ven diagram

Antarctic Food Chain

Tiny, New, Pea-Sized Frog Is Old World's Smallest

Tiny, New, Pea-Sized Frog Is Old World's Smallest

August 25th, 2010

By: Science Daily

Micronyal Nepenthicola is the tiniest frog the world has ever set eyes on! This frog was last seen in the 1950’s and was rediscovered in a late night of September 4th, 2004. This tiny amphibian was spotted on the road side of the summit of Gunung Serapi, which is in the Kubah National Park and is located on the Southeast island of Borneo. Dr. Indraneil Das and Alexander Hass have set out on mission to find these magnificent lost creatures. Micronyal Nepenthicola is about 15 millimeters long, about the size of a pea. This frog lives in shady damp forests of Borneo. This cold blooded creature deposits its eggs on the sides of a plant which the frog relies on. The unborn frog grows from the water accumulation of the plant. Nepenthes Ampullaria, the plant that helps the frog grow, is also its name sake.

This topic to me was extremely interesting to me, not only did scientists find a tiny frog, but they found a lost tiny frog! I was researching more on this topic when I found an actual blog from the scientist that found this frog! I thought that it was awesome to hear his exact words on finding a “new” species. I wonder what other animals that have gone missing. Hopefully in the future we are able to find other animals like the Micronyal Nepenthicola. This helps me further understand what topics we are learning about in class because it show that global warming has a lot to do with the animals all around the world. We have done a lot to this world, with the amount of pollution we give off every day affects the habitats around the world. Maybe something happened to this frog’s environment and it caused a lot of the population to die away. I am interested in finding out more about this topic. Hopefully there is new information to come.

By- Blaise Sevier
September 20th, 2010

Arctic Food Chain

Survival Tactics (What I learned)

                                                   Survival
    We watched a Eyewitness Survival movie and here are some things that I learned. Animals have to survive, and each animal has it's own way of surviving. A fox, has keen eyes and a sharp since of smell, and can run very fast, this helps helps find it's prey and catch it. Each animal needs to master their defense skills before going out, just like a fox, its mother and child play a "pretend hunt." Other animals like the hawk, they have to harry it's prey before the catch, with this technique it needs other hawks to help out. This creates more of a chance to catch the prey, but it also means the hawks have to share.
    Small things like snapping turtle tongue are useful to survival, these things are very useful to animals when they want to eat. Some animals have camouflage to help them to survive, this prevents them from their predators to see them. Migration is a big part in survival for the herbivores, for example, the Wildebeests need to migrate after they have eaten all of the grass, if they don't migrate, they don't have any food.
     Also adaptation is a big part in living in some animals, the Great Canadian Tree Frog has to adapt to the extreme weather in the mountains. This animal is basically frozen for a whole Winter in-tell the ice melts. One quote I really liked from this movie is
"Survival is not for the moment, but across time!" -Eyewitness Survival Movie.


Here is a cool Poison Dart Frog Video!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ar57xFsHebc

Living Things and the Environment (Answers)

What are the levels of organization within an ecosystem? 
 The levels of organization in the ecosystem is
Organism- a living thing that has (or can develop) the ability to act or function independent.
Population- this is a group of organisms that are physically similar, and can mate.
Community- this contains more than one species, all the different populations living together.
What are the two parts of an organism's habitat with which it interacts?
It interacts with the living and the non-living, this is also referred to as Biotic (living) Abiotic (non-living.) Biotic, is a living is any living organism, grass, trees, frogs (ect.) Abiotic is Water, Sunlight, Oxygen, temperature and soil.
Why do you find different kinds of organisms in different habitats? 
 An organism lives in its habitat to obtain food, water, shelter and other things it needs to grow and reproduce. The different organisms live in different habitats  because they have different requirements for survival.

Think about what will soon start happening within Belgrade. How do animals prepare for such a change? Summer turns into Fall just like Winter turns into Spring. I call Winter and Summer the dominate seasons, because there isn't much else going on expect for warm weather in the Summer and cold weather in the Winter. Fall and Spring are less dominate seasons, because there weather is not very consistent. Now it is almost fall, the animals are making there last preparations for Winter, the cold season. Some of the animals go into hibernation, some animals die because they can survive the cold and most of their food source had died. Things will start to "quiet down" as the Winter slowly comes to Belgrade. Then in the spring, things will finally start up again, and the cycle begins again.

What needs are met by an organism's environment?
 The needs that are met by an organism's environment is:

• Food-extremely important for the organisms survival.
• Water- all living things need this, it is something that we must have.
• Sunlight- sunlight provides growth to plants, important nutrients to people, and a nice tan. Few organisms live in places without sunlight.
• Temperature- the temperature determines if the organism can live there. Arctic fish can not live in the tropics, because they are just not made for the hotter water.
• Soil- the soil type influences what plants can live there. Some use it as a home, and other depend upon it as a source where the get there food from. 

Here is a cool video on Toucan's!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ExbebXMw1M

 

Living Things and the Environment (Questions)

After reading the section on living things and the Environment in your textbook, apply your knowledge to answer the following questions in a new blog post on your blog. What needs are met by an organism's environment? What are the two parts of an organism's habitat with which it interacts? What are the levels of organization within an ecosystem? Why do you find different kinds of organisms in different habitats? Think about what will soon start happening within Belgrade. How do animals prepare for such a change?

Now, search for and embed a video showing a living thing in its environment. What would happen if we took away one or more of the living or nonliving factors in its environment? Which factors could they survive without?

Look at (at least) two of your classmates blog posts. Respond to them in their comments section under their post about either their answers to the questions or the video they have posted. Email me the names of the classmates who you respond to.