Flax Snail Report

 We have been learning about minibeasts in class as part of science. We have been creating information reports on a minibeast of our choice. The minibeast we chose had to live in Aotearoa/NZ. Here is my writing. I worked with issac. Flax Snail Report

Flax Snail Report

Flax snails are native to New Zealand/Aotearoa. A flax snail is a gastropod which means it is cold blooded and they are also invertebrates which means they have no spine. Flax snails can grow up to 115 mm long. They have a large shell which protects them from predators. The shell is a dark green/kakariki and brown/parauri colour. They can grow up to 20 years old. 


Habitat and location


Flax snails live in broadleaf forests and scrub on the top of the North Island of New Zealand. Baby flax snails live in trees 6 meters above the ground. Despite their name they do not eat flax or live in flax. 


What Do They Eat?


A snail is an omnivore which means they eat plants and meat. The baby snails eat the microorganisms that grow on the leaves. They eat fallen leaves off trees and some other small insects, worms and even some other snails. They feed on karaka, kohekohe, and rangiora leaves. They have thousands of little teeth that are very sharp which makes it easy to eat their food.


Breeding  
They lay their eggs in the dirt or behind a rock. It will take about 2 or 4 weeks to fully develop. They lay 30 to 120 eggs. Each egg is 12 to 14 millimeters long. They live in big groups which keeps them safe from predators. 


Threats

Some of their predators are flies, mites, millipedes, centipedes, some caterpillars, birds, fireflies, leeches and beetles. Beetles also eat their larvae. 


This report was about flax snails. Thank you for looking at our work.

By Noah and Issac.

Dirt Bike Animation

Today we were learning to do an animation on google slides. We had to use free to use images and we had to change some of the code to make it work. We had to make the animation loop by changing the word false to true inside the code. In the code I also changed the moving part to make it go faster. Hope you enjoyed my animation.

Weta Information Report - Term 3

This is a piece of writing that we did for our minibeast topic when we were learning about weta. We had to write an information report on this insect.


Click here to see our success criteria.

Amazing Weta 

What Is A Weta?            

  

Weta are a native insect to  New Zealand/Aotearoa.

Weta are invertebrates and they have an exoskeleton. An invertebrate is an animal that has no backbone. They have six legs, ears just below from their knees, and 2 antenna. They also have a thorax and an abdomen. People often think they look very ugly! There are five main types of weta but there are over 70 species. Male giant weta are smaller than the females. Although they don’t look pretty they are important native insects. 

Where Do Weta Live?

Weta live in many different places. Tree weta are often found in trees, rotten logs, grasslands and in your firewood pile. Cave weta are mostly found in caves near the shore and the tusked weta can be found in the ground and in extreme weather. The giant weta lives in alpine trees and under rocks. If you found a weta it would most likely to be a tree weta. 

What Do Weta Eat?

Every type of weta eats different things. Tree weta and the giant weta mostly eat lichens, leaves, flowers, seed heads, and fruits. They prefer to eat softer leaves and they also eat smaller insects. If you feed a weta you should feed them leaves or grass.

Where do weta breed?

Weta lay their eggs in the soil over the autumn and winter and they hatch the following spring. They breed in alpine environments, forests, grasslands, caves, shrublands and urban gardens. Every time the female lays eggs it is up to 3 or 6. But If the female lives her full 2 years than she can lay up to 300 eggs. Weta lay their eggs at night.

Threats To Weta?

Some weta threats are birds, reptiles, bats, cats and hedgehogs. Before humans came the only threats were birds and tuatara. Humans brought animals like cats, rats, hedgehogs, stoats and ferrets that also eat weta. Humans also destroyed most of their habitat. We can look after weta by making sure they have habitats to live in and predator free areas where they are safe.

              BY NOAH