Water Day-Baby Cricket Frog

Today was water day for our preschool Wiggle Worms camp. We tromped out to the pond and used dip nets to catch all kinds of critters.

This critter is a dragonfly nymph, the aquatic stage of the dragonfly. Earlier in the day, Linsi read the story Dazzling Dragonflies by Linda Glaser to the campers. This is an excellent book for young children on the dragonfly life cycle. Since they were already prepared by the book, they were really excited to catch these somewhat creepy-looking insects. Many were excitedly screaming " I caught a baby dragonfly!"

This lizard-like creature is a damselfly nymph. Damselflies are in the same order as dragonflies. The abdomens of adult damselflies are more slender than most dragonflies and they hold their wings folded over their backs while dragonflies hold them out to the sides of their body.

This critter is a young crayfish, or crawdad, if you will. Many of the kids thought they were lobsters, which they do resemble. Even though it was too tiny to do any harm, it was a feisty little thing!

We even found part of a fascinating plant. This is Common Bladderwort, a carnivorous plant. The bladders, the dark, round objects in the photo, trap tiny pond creatures and produce enzymes to digest the prey.

Blanchard's Cricket Frog, Acris crepitans blanchardi, a sub-species of the Northern Cricket Frog, posed nicely for a photo. I think its face kinda looks like Kermit, if Kermit was brown. These frogs are masters of camouflage, as you can see on another post. Also, Nothern Cricket Frogs are a Species of Special Concern for Indiana, which means their numbers are declining, so they are on a watch list. I am very pleased they like our pond!

The big excitement for the day was catching these little guys! A young cricket frog, smaller than my thumbnail! Wow!

And then we caught this one. A cricket frog that still had its tail! It was still going through metamorphosis and was even smaller than the last one! It was such a great day out at the pond, exploring and discovering many, many cool things!

Nature's Adaptations

On Wednesday, we had a round robin for the third graders of Acton Elementary. Great bunch of kiddos! Chris did a program on food webs, Miranda covered habitats and I did a program on nature's adaptations.


One of the topics I covered was camouflage. This topic always fascinates me! How an animal can blend so perfectly with its environment utterly blows me away. They don't have mirrors, so how do they know what they look like? A frog can't possibly see its back, so how does it know it matches the mud seamlessly?


When shooting the photos of the handsome Leopard Frog, I stumbled upon this Blanchard's Cricket Frog. Blanchard's Cricket Frog, Acris crepitans blanchardi, is a sub-species of the Northern Cricket Frog which is a Species of Special Concern for Indiana. (Also, very pleased we have lots of these around.) The frog caught my eye when it hopped. It was so cryptic it took me a while to locate it. Can you see it below? It is right in the center of the photo. In the above photo, look for the dark indentation and go down a little and to the left.

Below is another pair of photos I used for my program. These wonderful photos are from John Howard. John thought this was a dead leaf at first, until he saw it move! The caterpillar, a Rose Hooktip, Oreta rosea, is on the right side of the dead leaf.

Below is a shot of the caterpillar on a green leaf so you can see all of its parts. The "tail" is what intrigues me the most. It looks just like the petiole, or stem, of a dead leaf! The adult moth also mimic dead leaves having a yellow and brown coloration to its wings.

Thanks, John, for sharing your amazing caterpillar photos. The students and teachers really enjoyed them!