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Michigan Wildlife Exhibits From The Leslie Science And Nature Center

by Employee 37

This summer we welcome back three live animal exhibits from the Leslie Science and Nature Center.

Visit the Malletts Creek Branch to see an eastern newt in an aquatic enclosure along with some little pond bug friends (at least until he eats them all). Drop in to the Pittsfield Branch to visit a grey tree frog who may even sing to you if you’re lucky. And be sure to stop by the Traverwood Branch for a lifecycle exhibit of the cecropia moth, currently housing last year’s cocoons, that will hatch into North America’s largest native moth over the next 3-5 days. The moths only live for about one week, and we release them after a few days, so you’ll need to hurry if you want to see them before they’re gone. The moths reproduce by laying eggs that hatch into caterpillars, who will spend the summer growing through several impressive phases before building cocoons for the winter. You’ll get to witness multiple caterpillar instars simultaneously at any given time in the enclosure, try to identify them all!

Be sure to watch for this Friday's badge drop at play.aadl.org for a chance to earn Summer Game badges and points for visiting the critters, and read on for some sneak preview video!

If you’d like a sneak preview of the newt exhibit, check out this shaky underwater amateur video footage of the Malletts Creek newt in action, filmed with a videoscope that you’ll be able to check out and take home from the library in just a couple of weeks.

Comments

Submitted by Morgsush on Thu, 06/20/2013 - 1:40pm

Yay the critters are back!
Time travel again! This was posted at 12:31, but some comments were there at 11:30! Weird...

Submitted by Commander Taffy on Thu, 06/20/2013 - 1:57pm

Sounds like a fun activity and I actually have time to go! Plus I could always use more codes.

We're not doing a code for each stage of the caterpillars this year. Its a little complicated to make that work and we will likely have multiple stages in the tank at the same time. But, you may get a special bonus if you visit all 3 exhibits. The "hurry you only have a few days" mostly pertains to the moths who, alas, die young, but they haven't hatched yet, we'll do a post as soon as they do.

Submitted by Bookbird on Fri, 06/21/2013 - 4:24pm

tell your brother if he has something to say, say it on the new chat thread...

a friend of mine once put up a bannar saying THE GAME, with a sharpie next to it. people who lost made a tally somewhere. once she saw 20 people lining up to tally the sign.

Submitted by Bookbird on Thu, 06/20/2013 - 5:34pm

what?

Submitted by Morgsush on Thu, 06/20/2013 - 5:40pm

*Trying to imagine Livia doing such a thing and failing to even imagine the scene.
I don't think Livia would do something like that...

Submitted by Morgsush on Thu, 06/20/2013 - 5:56pm

It just didn't seem like you, I guess? I don't know, I just didn't expect you to play, for some reason...

Yes!!! And do you know my last name? Don't write it here but if you don't, it's the same as Grace's. Note: DO NOT WRITE MY LAT NAME HERE. I DON'T WANT STALKERS.

Submitted by smariej on Thu, 06/20/2013 - 8:38pm

My mom just found a caterpillar today and decided to take it home for her own personal cocoon exhibit to see what kind of butterfly it will be :)

Submitted by tree64 on Thu, 06/20/2013 - 11:17pm

I bet there's going to be a badge for this later on, like there was last year in Summer Game 2013. XD

Hardcore includes you, morgsush. And when I step up my game, aka write review for the hundreds of books I've checked out, I'll be first. I just need some motivation first. And snacks. And other food… and I need to stop sleeping on the couch… I'll probably do it tomorrow, or Sunday, or Monday…

I don't usually write reviews but I try, when I do, to actually write a quality review. I always see those one word reviews, and it's annoying. Reviews, for me, are not something to just randomly do for points. You actually need to put a lot of thought into them and actually know the book, unlike adding to the list or tagging.

TWO PAGES!!!
Hah! XP

Submitted by Smiles on Fri, 06/21/2013 - 11:06am

Yeah they are. They just aren't always related to stuff we SHOULD be talking about. But they are on topic--the topic we choose.

Well, -_-, is the classic Asian face set with two squinty eyes. :D

And 0.o is the weirded out face. You know the thing where one eyebrow is up and the other is down? It's that face.

*sigh*
That wasn't a competition, Smiles.

Anyways, I just sent it. Check it. On your gmail or yahoo. Whichever you prefer. (But seriously, which one do you use more?)

Submitted by Commander Taffy on Fri, 06/21/2013 - 1:01pm

Hmm, I don't know. I was just looking at what other people said. However, I do not see new badges, so it is probably some other time.

Submitted by tree64 on Fri, 06/21/2013 - 11:56am

The new badge drop is going to come around 12:00 P.M. today right? Kind of like what happened last year...

Submitted by Commander Taffy on Fri, 06/21/2013 - 12:02pm

Midnight badge drop, by that time i will have been asleep for two hours. Oh well, I will work on it tomorrow.

Submitted by Commander Taffy on Fri, 06/21/2013 - 3:27pm

Too bad, they are really funny. I you look up "spam Monty Python" you will find a video about a restaurant where all the meals contain spam. It also has random vikings in it.

Submitted by Commander Taffy on Fri, 06/21/2013 - 3:36pm

Random Team is now #6. However #5 is Bob Lee's Trees, sound like anyone we know?

Submitted by Commander Taffy on Fri, 06/21/2013 - 3:40pm

Probably, plus when you click on it you get a message saying, 'Team of Bob Lee supporters. If you know who Bob Lee is and want to join, find a way to contact us, and we'll give you the code!".

Submitted by SBrandt on Fri, 06/21/2013 - 4:35pm

I enjoy these exhibits every year. Just saw the newt at Mallets today. I don't always head to other branches, but I may have to make treks to Traverwood at least to see the moths. It is fun to watch their progression through the summer.

1. Well he can't attach his brother to his account, then it would show up as James spamming.
2. Why's James's brother playing the online game anyways
3. This should be discussed on the chat thread
4. I'm acting like a police now right?
5. To justify why I'm commenting here, and why the comment is largely unrelated to the post, they obviously can't take this to the chat thread. If they can, the next comment I should see should be about the post's topic.
6. A comment related to the post: are the codes going to stay the same? If not, about when would they change?

Good news! Sorta. The staff are working on gxl's comment problem. They haven't completely figured it out yet, but are restoring her comments as they see them. Won't be long now!
As 'police', I hereby declare that since the comment problem isn't fixed yet, you may comment off topic here with gxl.

Until the commenting is fixed. When that happens, as 'police' (your fault for mentioning police, CT) I will have to ask you to move your random conversations to the chat thread created for your random conversations so post related conversations can be had without unrelated topics popping up. :)

I thought the little grey tree frog was kind of cute, though he did not sing for me. I did take lots of pictures of him though. I like frogs. :) I have a small water garden/pond and I always hope that a froggie will come make it his home in the summer. Some summers I get one. I'm not sure I will this year though as currently a chipmunk has his burrow underneath my pond so I'm not sure if that will scare a froggie away or not.

@Bookbird: It's not a natural pond - it's a pond my dad and I made by purchasing a pre-formed pond liner from Lowe's. Then we surrounded it by rocks so it looks a bit more natural. The chipmunk burrowed down under the liner through a little opening in the rocks. :)

@Zhengyang: Yup, for us poor saps who want a pond/water garden and don't have one in our yard. :) I wanted to have a water lily specifically, so my dad helped me dig the hole and level it and then put in the liner and put the stones around it. I have a small fountain and a couple other plants as well as my water lily. :) It's small - only 50 gallons, but they make them larger. They also make a flexible liner if you want a pond bigger than the sizes the pre-formed pond liners are available in.

The library has lots of books on water gardening (I've even made a public list with some of them), if you want to know more. :)

@Bookbird: Nope - they make burrows in the ground. Sometimes you'll see them in trees, but they burrow in the ground. :) I check the pond liner every spring and fall for cracks and such so I do everything I can to keep it from flooding his burrow, but I'm limited where I can put the pond because being in the sun too much makes me itch, so we've got the pond in a spot where it gets just enough sun for the water lily to get all it needs but enough shade for me to have shade when I work in it.

@Bookbird

Not entirely true. You have to make sure they either have enough sun - either natural or artificially (through a greenhouse grow light or something similar) so they can make some of their own food. But then, it's HIGHLY recommended that you give them plant food tabs once a month, which help act as a sort of fertilizer for pond plants. :)

But no, you don't have to feed them in the same way that you have to feet the animal exhibits. :) However, the plants might not be very exciting to watch since they take a lot longer to grow than the caterpillars and newts and frogs. But the blossoms are worth it (at least in my opinion). :)

Submitted by Midnight on Fri, 07/05/2013 - 1:12pm

Cool!

Submitted by ks1287 on Fri, 08/02/2013 - 7:39pm

These fun creatures are a big hit with my daughter. Thank you to the Leslie Science and Nature Center for lending them to the library!

Submitted by beeniepie on Thu, 08/29/2013 - 7:50am

We really love all of the Leslie Science Center exhibits. Thank you so much for including them in the summer game!

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