October 19th, 2011

You’ve just seen some of the amazing micro-organisms found in pond water – here we see a few examples of the equally awesome macro-sized pond animals.  While grade 6 students manned the microscopes, grade 4’s studying Habitats and Comminities handled the pond nets

In the video, a teacher and her students take inventory of the contents of their pan:  a water scorpion, dragonfly and  damselfly nymphs, the lesser water bug, a house-building caddisfly larva, several species of beetles, tadpoles, snails, clams, and the ubiquitous backswimmer.

This small pond is teeming with aquatic organisms – some like the beetles are permanent pond dwellers, while many species of winged insects (dragonfly, mosquito) rely on water for their larval or nymph stages only.

The other day we had two great finds, neither of which I anticipated seeing.  One is this large, segmented horsefly larva – very attractive in this form, but one of my least favourite insects in its adult form!  The other was the legendary giant water bug, a formidable pond predator that dines on tadpoles, frogs and fish.