Sunday, July 25, 2010

Science Sunday: Fruit Flies part 2

We have been observing fruit flies for a little over a week.  No I never did get rid of them completely so it was easy to catch enough to observe.  We actually caught them in two jars, but I focused on the one. It was actually weird.  The jar we observed more closely had 1/2 of a not very good peach (they had all been dry and tasteless thus I figured I would get more use out of them by feeding them to fruit flies).  The other jar had the other half of the same peach plus some strawberry tops and, I think, a blueberry.  The fruit flies in that jar seemed to be more numerous at first, but it didn't have near the same amount of maggots (if that is the correct term for the larva stage of fruit flies) as the other jar.  The peach in our observation jar ended up disintegrating to mush, but the other one still has shape to this day.  Though there was more juice in it at first and I wonder if the larvae drowned?  No clue.  Anyhow, the girls, Tabitha specifically, got as excited as I did when I would call them over to see something new I had observed.
Day 1: I set out the jars with the peaches over night and in the morning I very very quickly covered the jar with a cut up piece of pantyhose held on with a rubber band.  I wish I could have had an accurate count, but they are constantly in motion.  I was estimating 20.
Day 2: There was no visible change
Day 3: We observed several maggots slithering around on the fruit and the bottom of the jar.
Day 4: Many, many maggots were all over the inside of the jar, I made sure none were sneaking out from underneath the rubber band.  Won't make that mistake again.  I found it interesting watching them move.  I guess I would say they move like worms.  The front juts out and the rest of the body catches up with it.  What was really interesting was noting that the midsection of the maggot is slightly darker and I could watch it undulate as it moved.
Day 5: Some of the maggots are entering the pupa stage, they are a cream color.


Day 6: Most of the maggots are now in the pupa stage.
Day 7: The pupa are getting darker, close to brown.
Day 8: At 2:00 pm I saw 1 new fruit fly.  It was very light in color compared to the mature fruit flies caught last week.
Day 9: The jar is full of fruit flies.  They tend to gravitate to the opening and if you hold it up to your ear you can hear the buzzing.  No, I am not counting them!!




We made a Fruit Fly Life Cycle Book:


(Coloring the peaches)

(Gluing on the peaches and pantyhose)

(Tabitha working on Day 3)

(Gluing on some maggots, made out of yarn of course)






To see what others are doing with their toddlers and preschoolers head on over to 

Tot School

preschool corner

I am also linking up to Science Sunday hosted by Ticia at Adventures in Mommydom



 

6 comments:

  1. Interesting. I've really never thought of doing all that with fruit flies before. It's just amazing how much science is around us all the time!

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  2. What a GREAT experiment!!! So neat to watch! I'll have to try this with my preschoolers!!

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  3. Experimenting with fruit flies reminds me of the genetics experiments done with them.
    I wrote another chemistry post, starting more from the beginning, that I hope clarifies things! I am sorry I was a bit confusing. Hopefully it all makes sense now. If it doesn't, please feel free to let me know what you would like more clarification on.

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  4. I think it's great that you can do such a fascinating experiment. I am so squeamish that I think I would have trouble knowing there were maggots in my house! Silly, I know.

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  5. My poor kids will never get to do this because I can't stand maggots. Ever since my 5th grade science class had mealworms I've been grossed out by them. YUCK.
    That being said, this is an incredibly cool job with hands on science!

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  6. Wow, you are brave, and I bet it was a lot of fun to do such a hands on project.

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