North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences

The North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences is an impressive downtown museum that was fun for us to visit on our Raleigh vacation in August.

North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, with a boy running across

Awesome quote on the way in

The ground floor shows many flora and fauna of North Carolina, including cute animals, adorable insects (like butterflies), and pretty birds. Naturally, we were drawn to the items below...

Venus fly trap

Red bat

Massive shark jaws

Fierce feline predator

Unassuming red drum fish

The first floor also shows some of the local sea and water life, including aquariums with fish, crabs, and other swimmers.

Water and land collide!

Tank with a hermit crab, among others

The second floor features a large room showing the various inland regions of North Carolina, including wetlands, savanna, and piedmont forests.

Beaver dam display is not too exciting to the toddler

Interactive exhibit!

They also explained the geology of the area, along with common minerals, like quartz and emerald, found in the region. They even explained what's in soil!

4 food groups of soil--Water, Air, Weathered Rock, Organic Material

A nearby tree was hollowed out and had a mirror up top so visitors shorter than me could see what it looked like to be a bat.

In the tree

More fun posing

Nearby was the most amazing exhibit of all--an exhibit about museums! It explains the collecting and processing of various items. The history of the museum is also explained. 

What is a museum?(!?)

Old-fashioned processing of specimens

Old-fashioned collecting of specimens

We found a favorite part of the museum, the dinosaur exhibit. One of the first items is a tyrannosaurus rex skull, which my children found off-putting.

T-rex about to get us

 The exhibit shows lots of skeletons in action.

Prowling predator

We even found a chart showing various species and their differences.

Divvying up the dinos

More dino action

Big foot of an herbivore

A special room has an exhibit on a locally-discovered dinosaur, the Acrocanthosaurus. The skeleton is only 54% real bone but it is the most complete example extant. Scientists studied the bones and saw the many different injuries that helped flesh out the lives of predators in the Cretaceous period. 

Acrocanthosaurus

On the top floor we found an exhibit devoted to insects, which was a bit scary for everyone.

Either pretending to be bugs, or hiding from bugs

Since the insect world is so small, many exhibits blew them up like a 1950s sci-fi horror film. We were not amused.

Bees defending their honeycomb

The top floor also has a living conservatory where many South American animals live. We saw a sloth, a tarantula, and a host of butterflies. We were told not to touch anything (easy to follow with the tarantula). The toddler was a little worried about the butterflies landing on him. Older brother and sister both had landings for which they were excited. The young one was happy to get out unassailed.

Butterfly garden

Tarantula behind glass

Hard to get a butterfly in focus with a toddler tugging on you

Butterflies, including a blurring flying one on the bottom left

We went back downstairs and watched Museum Alive 3D, a fun and imaginative look by David Attenborough at the contents of the London's Natural History Museum. The 3D glasses were too much for the toddler. When he's older, he'll appreciate them more.

Ready for the show

Me in 3D glasses over my regular ones

The poster

We had a fun visit to the museum, even without seeing the whole other wing across the street (with the space and genetics stuff). We did find a copy of the Liberty Bell on our way back to the car.

Inspiration for a Philadelphia trip?

Library Pics March 2017

March brings Spring to the northern hemisphere. Our local library had a bunch of story times with bugs and insects as the theme. We try to go to the story times that include crafts, resulting in some fun bring-home items.

One story time had a "five little bees" story with an accompanying craft. Our toddler loved bees who aren't scary (i.e. noisy, stingy, and floaty). Such bees are easy to put in their place.

Gluing bees near a bee hive

Where do I go for my hand stamp?

Cheeky pose for the camera

On a later week we heard a variety of bug stories and got to make our own butterfly. The craft was very simple (one stick, one yellow tissue paper for wings, one purple cardstock paper for the body). My boy still needed some help. The craft box came with some crayons but we couldn't figure out where to draw. The toddler isn't adept enough to draw a face on the tiny butterfly head.

Gluing it together

"Is that a butterfly up there?"

"Maybe not..."

We are looking forward to April's story times!

Valley Gardens in the Summer

One hot Saturday morning (we've had a heat wave where the temperature has been in the 30s Celsius or high 80s/low 90s Fahrenheit), we decided to go to Valley Gardens. The kids would splash around in the wading pool before it was too crowded and too sunny. We got there at 8:15, and sure enough we were the first ones there. The kids made a beeline for the wading pool which was only just being filled with water. The upside was the cleanness of the water. The downside was the coldness of the water. Kids don't usually mind unless water is ice-cold, so they were happy.

L also brought her birthday roller skates. She went around a lot though she needed to hold hands the whole time.

Holding the fence's hand

Hands-free for a moment!

While she was skating, J was wandering from the zip line to the castle to the fort tower. He found a little boy named Freddie and they played together. Freddie's dad was hovering around the vicinity just like I was. J and Freddie busily chatted about this and that. Freddie's daddy and I busily ignored each other like guys do in such a situation. It wasn't that we were on our smart phones or otherwise occupied; we were just playing it cool. Or maybe aloof?

After playtime was done, we headed back through the gardens to get a snack at the ice cream pavilion. Plenty of flowers were in bloom, attracted rather large insects!

Mothera?

Shelob?

There aren't any famous gigantic bees, are there?

Even though it was only 10 a.m., we still had ice cream cones, because the temperature was already in the mid-20s (around 77 F). The car was a good five minutes away and we needed energy to complete the journey. J doesn't like ice cream but my wife was brilliant enough to pack a granola bar, which he loved.

Soon we were back home sheltering from the bright, bright sun. It was a fun morning.

Habemus Erucam!

I'm sure you all heard the big news from yesterday. J's class has a new caterpillar! He excitedly told me the news yesterday after I picked him up. This morning, L and I went to drop him off and we had our first view of the new little bug. Of course, the classroom has strict rules and people aren't allowed to take pictures, so I have nothing to show you. The caterpillar is very small, it must have just hatched in the last day or two.

Naturally, the main stream media has put its spin on this story, assuming a new caterpillar will usher in a new age of freedom and change for the classroom. Finally, the classroom will adopt a more libertarian view and allow the children the freedom to do whatever they want whenever they want. The media clearly knows nothing about caterpillars or classrooms. It's kind of embarrassing, really.

The caterpillar will indeed change. He will go into a secret compartment called a cocoon. He will seem to have died. But after a little while, he will emerge with a new and splendid body. People, even his own friends and intimate companions, may not recognize him if they don't pay close attention. His nature hasn't changed, just his appearance. It will be his glorified state on show for all. J says then the class will release him to the heavens, where all can enjoy his splendor. Or something to that effect.

The talk in the classroom is that they will name him Francis, after some celebrity in recent news.

Real Zombie Insects

NPR has provided the kind of hard hitting and important coverage that you don't see in other media outlets--zombie ants! Here's an excerpt from their online article:

In the current edition of the journal PLoS ONE, an international research team led by David Hughes of Penn State University reports that they've found the fungus that allows an ant colony to survive infestations by a "zombie-ant fungus, which invades an ant's brain and causes it to march to its death at a mass grave near the ant colony, where the fungus spores erupt out of the ant's head."

"In a case where biology is stranger than fiction, the parasite of the zombie-ant fungus is itself a fungus — a hyperparasitic fungus that specializes in attacking the parasite that turns the ants into zombies," Hughes said...

Read the whole story here.

It reminds me of the bee zombie stories from a couple of months ago, like this one from Scientific American. I've always regretted not blogging about that because I could have used the title: The Bee in Zombie. You've been spared until now.

Anyone want to take bets on the next insect to be zombified? These guys don't count.

h/t to Frank Weathers of yimcatholic for pointing out the ant story.