It's been an interesting week with the wildlife here in Nicaragua. After several years you think you've seen or experienced them all, but this week proved that I am very wrong.
First Experience: It started out on Monday. My roommate Rachel can't stand a bug whether big or small anywhere near her. None the less she is usually the one that encounters the biggest insects in our apartment. She was upstairs when Kate and I, downstairs, hear a scream and need no explanation to know why. The little friend she encountered had Kate and I puzzled. We thought it was an insect because it was using three legs and had antennae about 3x the size of its legs. Then we thought maybe it was a spider because it has 2 body parts, but spiders don't have antennae. When it started running, it resembled that of a crab as did its two dangerous claws it held close to its mouth. Kate bravely caught it and I took it to school in the morning. A parent told me that it is a tailless whip scorpion. They prefer to call it a 'hideous creature' because it truly is the ugliest insect they've seen. On the Internet it says they are completely harmless to humans. They don't have venom and they only use their claws or pinchers for capturing small insects. We also discovered that people in North America people will buy them for $35. My students and I are scheming a way that we can reproduce and sell them.
First Experience: It started out on Monday. My roommate Rachel can't stand a bug whether big or small anywhere near her. None the less she is usually the one that encounters the biggest insects in our apartment. She was upstairs when Kate and I, downstairs, hear a scream and need no explanation to know why. The little friend she encountered had Kate and I puzzled. We thought it was an insect because it was using three legs and had antennae about 3x the size of its legs. Then we thought maybe it was a spider because it has 2 body parts, but spiders don't have antennae. When it started running, it resembled that of a crab as did its two dangerous claws it held close to its mouth. Kate bravely caught it and I took it to school in the morning. A parent told me that it is a tailless whip scorpion. They prefer to call it a 'hideous creature' because it truly is the ugliest insect they've seen. On the Internet it says they are completely harmless to humans. They don't have venom and they only use their claws or pinchers for capturing small insects. We also discovered that people in North America people will buy them for $35. My students and I are scheming a way that we can reproduce and sell them.
Although this is a picture of the tailless whip scorpion, I did not take it.
Second Experience: This happened Wednesday morning. I am greeting the kids like normal as they come into the classroom before 7:30 am. Every morning they come in, hand in homework, get ready for the day, and then work on an assignment that is posted on the board. I project sentences on the white board using an overhead projector; this is their morning work. Well this morning a gecko appeared to be projected on the board. Upon closer look the students were astonished to find out that the gecko was inside the projector and was probably getting really warm. They were very concerned for the gecko, although I was more concerned about the projector. I turned it off and took the top off to remove the gecko. All the kids gathered around to see and I was thinking to myself that this was going to be perfect because the gecko will run out and scare them. Well, there was no gecko in sight, but there were several gecko eggs in difficult places to reach. I figured the only solution was to hold the projector upside down. One student was very concerned that this would harm the baby geckos, which was the least of my concerns. I told her that as I turned the projector over, she could catch the eggs. Well as I started to turn it over the gecko ran out onto my arm and into my hand! I screamed of course out of surprised and quickly threw it on the ground. Thankfully the projector went unharmed, but it was a very exciting start to the day. There are still more eggs in the projector so there could be a repeat occurrence of this situation.
1 comment:
ABSOLUTELY HILARIOUS gecko story! we've had trantulas come out of our projectors (when i was in HO that is) but never breeding geckos....:) Thanks for the fun stories!
And gross hideous creature!
Post a Comment