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3. Minibeasts
What is your minibeast?
W9
Describe your minibeast by filling in the table below.
no
legs
x
more
no
six
two
than six
wings wings
legs
legs
four
wings
shell
x
Try and answer these questions:
• How is a snail different from an earthworm?
• Which minibeasts have more than six legs?
• Which minibeasts on the chart are most alike?
no
shell
x
Draw or name your minibeast in
the box below.
Where do minibeasts
live?
Put a tick
where you found your minibeast.
Remember, don’t
harm the minibeast
grasshopper
or cricket
spider or
harvestman
centipede
or millipede
beetle or
ladybird
butterfly
or moth
woodlouse
flies
snail
or slug
bee or
wasp
froghopper
& other bugs
dragonfly
damselfly
earwig
weevil
ant
worm
W10
in the grass
under a
on a flower
stone or log
on a tree
somewhere
else
Minibeast Habitat
Investigation
W11
We have several different habitats here - long and short grass, log piles and compost
heaps, shrubs, trees, stinging nettles and wild flowers. Choose two different habitats to
sample and record the number of minibeasts found. You may find it easier to draw a line
for each minibeast like so:
This would mean you’ve found 7 minibeasts
Minibeast
Habitat A is:
Habitat B is:
grasshopper
or cricket
spider or
harvestman
centipede
or millipede
beetle or
ladybird
butterfly
or moth
woodlouse
flies
snail
slug
bee or
wasp
froghopper
& other bugs
earwig
weevil
ant
worm
What conclusions can be drawn from your results? Was your method of sampling a fair test?
W12
An insect has…….
4 wings
(flies have two wings
and two balancers)
A small
number of
insects
don’t have
wings.
a body in 3 parts
6 legs
Tick which animals you think are insects. Then colour them in.
butterfly
robin
spider
snail
dragonfly
beetle
worm
bee
rabbit
Minibeast food chains
W13
The list below shows some of the minibeasts that you may find
on your visit and what they eat. Use this to help you make some
land minibeast food chains.
Minibeast
Slug
What it eats
Decaying and living plants
Snail
Decaying and living plants
Earthworm
Bacteria, fungi, dead plants
Ant
Plants, nectar, other insects
Beetle
Other insects
Centipede
Small insects
Millipede
Decaying plants
Shield bug
Plant juices
Ladybird
Aphids and other small insects
Grasshopper
Plants
Cricket
Insects and plants
Spider
Flies and other spiders sometimes
Woodlouse
Dead plants and animals, fungi
Earwig
Dead plants and other insects
Fly
Dead plants and animals
Butterflies and moths
Nectar
Producer
Dead plant
eaten by
eaten by
primary consumer
secondary consumer
Flies
Spider
ID4
Land Minibeast
Field Guide
White-lipped Snail
Slug
Earthworm
Fly Larva
Pupa
Moth
Dragonfly
6 legs
Butterfly
no legs
Common Garden Snail
Damselfly
Hoverfly
Cranefly
Mosquito
Fly
Mayfly
Lacewing
Ladybird
Caddisfly
Aphid
Wasp
Bee
Beetle
Weevil
Shield bug
Froghopper bug
Mirid bug
Cricket
6 legs
ID4 Continued
spring
Spider
Harvestman
Centipede
Ant
Springtail
Earwig
Woodlouse
Millipede
Protecting Wildlife for the Future
more than 6 legs
Grasshopper
ID5
A Minibeast
Sorting Tree
earwig
‘see
-t
win hroug
gs
h’
i
sv
g
win
b
segody i
me n
nts
ell
enon ‘se wings
’
h
g
u
thro
butterfly
6 leg
s
s
millipede
he
ll
seg no
men
ts
le
sib
2
ea pair
ch s
se leg
gm s o
en n
t
no
s
sh
snail
leg
gs
8 le
slug
hin
ings
gt
no w
lon
medium legs
harvestman
wings hidden
ant
spider
bee
no legs
1 pair legs on
each segment
many legs
14
gs
le
earthworm
woodlouse
all minibeasts
centipede
)n
Colour and camouflage
I6
Look out for these insects on your visit to Chilston Pines and Ponds or Bull Heath. Look
carefully to see how they may use their colour. Colour can have two almost opposite
uses in animals. It can be used for both hiding and showing off. Most animals use some
kind of camouflage to conceal themselves when hunting or being hunted.Some animals
also use bright colours as a statement. This may be to warn potential predators that
the animal is dangerous or has an unpleasant taste or to attract a potential mate. Some
harmless species will even mimic(copy) the colours of others to protect against
predators.
The black and yellow body of the wasp advertises
its sting to the whole animal population. Hoverflies
mimic bees or wasps to make predators think they
sting.
The mottled greens and browns of the
grasshopper make it indistinguishable
from its surrounding vegetation.
Large eye-spots on the wings of the peacock
butterfly are enough to startle predators
giving the butterfly time to get away.
A bird attracted to the bright yellow and black caterpillar of the cinnabar moth or the spots on a ladybird
will in future associate these colours with the unpleasant taste and never eat one again.
Beautiful butterflies
Butterflies are considered by many to be the most beautiful and interesting of
insects. Many people watch and collect butterflies as a hobby. One of the most
distinguishing features of butterflies are their bright and colourful wings of
many different patterns.
There are around 18,000 species of butterflies. They are found throughout the
world.
Stages of Life of a Butterfly
The butterfly has a very interesting life cycle that includes four stages:
1) Egg - Butterflies are born from eggs. The eggs are attached to a leaf of a
plant with a special type of glue. The butterfly egg stage usually only lasts for a
couple of weeks.
2) Larva or Caterpiller - When the butterfly egg hatches, out comes a
caterpillar. Caterpillars are long multi-legged insects that make up the larva
stage. They eat mostly plants and moult (shed their skin) regularly as they
outgrow their skin .
3) Pupa - The third stage of the Butterfly lifecycle is called the Pupa. The larva
(caterpiller) attaches itself to usually the underside of a leaf, or a grass stem.
At this point the caterpiller moults one last time and during the pupal stage
undergoes metamorphasis into a full butterfly. When the butterfly first comes
out of the pupal stage it can't fly. It takes some times for the butterfly to
unfold its wings so it can fly.
4) Adult Butterfly or Imago - The final stage is the full winged flying
butterfly. It is often thought that this last stage of life for a butterfly is very
short. The length of life for the final stage is varied, however. Depending on the
species, butterflies can live for one week (eg the Painted lady butterfly) or up
to a year (eg the Monarch butterfly).
The adult butterfly has four wings that are covered with tiny scales that give
them their colourful and diverse designs. They have six legs, antenna, head,
compound eyes, a thorax, and an abdomen. They can sense the air for nector
and other scents with their antennas. Butterflies also have fairly good eye sight.
Butterflies play an important part in ecology as pollinators. Adult butterflies eat
a sugary water only liquid - nectar, fruit juice, and tree sap, but they mostly live
off of nectar from flowers.
Some butterflies will migrate over long distances. The monarch butterfly, for
example, will migrate up to 2500 miles from Mexico to North America.
I7
Butterfly
lifecycle wheel
1. Cut around the circle below
2. Cut a triangular section out of a small paper plate
3. Put a split pin through both the centre of the plate
and centre of the wheel
4. You can now turn the plate around the butterfly wheel
to view the different parts of its lifecycle
F4
Dragonfly
lifecycle wheel
1. Cut around the circle below
2. Cut a triangular section out of a small paper plate
3. Put a split pin through both the centre of the plate
and centre of the wheel
4. You can now turn the plate around the dragonfly wheel
to view the different parts of its lifecycle
F6
Butterfly maze
Can you help the butterfly find its caterpillar ?
F12
Looking at ladybirds
F16