Lessons With Nature | The Fallen Predator

The Lizard and the Ants

Our little garden always has little visitors. Some are bugs, ants, caterpillars, bees, and yes, even lizards. The @divinekids love watching them, observing their behaviors, and they even make some stories featuring these little beasts.

Among these little creatures, they have a special fixation on ants. The kids also love watching Ants Canada youtube channel - he breeds different ant species, makes terrariums, and then shares his observations via his channel. Well, my kids have not gone to that level, but sometimes I still don't get their fascination. For me, ants are small insects that bite me. But for them it is different. They purposely "bait" them with bread crumbs or any other food check how long the ants would take to find it and consume it. They draw lines around them to see if it is true that ants do not really cross black lines (hmm, yes, they do! lol).

Anyhow, one morning, my Little Man found that the ants have caught a lizard. Apparently, the lizard was still alive at that time and was desperately fighting for dear life. Little Man said that it was "still wiggling" when he found the poor fellow.

He checked again the following morning and boy, oh boy! This is what's left of it!

The ants had totally ripped it off of its flesh in just a matter of 24 hours!

_{Remains of the lizard.}

Biology Time!

The homeschoolers in us did not let the opportunity pass without observing the skeletal remains of the little reptile.

We collected the bones - they were tiny and fragile.

Here's what we got. The head, jaw, limbs, spine, and some small bones of the tail.

Here's another one with toothpicks next to them for size reference.

Observing the Skeleton of the Lizard

Little Miss decided to get the magnifying glass to be able to observe the bones more closely. What can you see?

Later on, we took out our digital microscope to be able to get a better view of the remains!

"Is that blood?!", Little Miss asked.

"Nope, I think that's the bone marrow," I said.

You can click on the photos below for a closer look, if you dare. 😄

	Magnified lizard bones.

The Fallen Predator

From what we've seen from the lizard, we learned that nature has its own cycle. When it was alive, the lizard was the bigger animal that preyed on smaller insects for sustenance. Then it got weaker and now it's the smaller insects' turn to dominate. The ants are decomposers that amazingly brought down the lizard in a very short period of time!

How strong could their mandibles be?

Where did they bring the lizard flesh?

On to more beautiful things...

After spending a few more minutes observing the skeleton, we proceeded to walk around the house to find more things to observe under our mini microscope.

We observed leaves, rocks, wood, among others. Finally, we picked these beautiful wild flowers and decided to check them out.

Can you see these cotton-y stuff? Yup, they are the stalks of the flower.

"Oh, I really want to touch that cotton!" Little Miss exclaimed.

We explored a bit more. Until...

"Wait, are those ants?"

"Look, Mommy! Ants!"

And we just stayed there looking at the ants for a few more minutes...

Nope, no sniffing flowers! We don't want little creepies inside our nostrils!