Critter of the Month: Stegosaurus

Meet Steggy.  She might not have very much of a brain, but she makes up for that with the softness of her heart.  There’s not a whole lot that’ll surprise her (thanks to Pete’s training), and she’ll let just about anybody clamber on her back. 🙂

I say “just about” anybody, because there was that one time some kids wanted her to be their fortress in a water balloon battle.  That was a bit too much for Steggy.  But that class of preschoolers who came to visit were adorable.  Steggy just sat there and let them climb all over her (Pete stuck a few tennis balls on her spikes, so they wouldn’t be so sharp).  The kids had a great time painting stars and hearts on her big plates.

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Fossil Friday: Insects Part 6

Here we are at the final chapter of Jurassic Insects! Today I’ll be exploring crickets, grasshoppers, and lacewings. Grasshoppers did not appear as we know them today until the Jurassic (though there are plenty of grasshopper-ish things, as usual), but Crickets and Lacewings are known from the Permian. In both of these groups there are many families I have not included here, because if I did we’d be sitting on another post for each of them! So after a brief look down below, I encourage you to take a look at the resources and see the amazing variety of crickets and lacewings that survive to the modern day.

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Fossil Friday: Insects Part 5

Next week will be the last part in this series of Jurassic insects. I really did try to fit all the rest of them in this post, but when I saw how many different families were in with grasshoppers, crickets, and lacewings, I had to have a post just for them. So if you can bear with me for just a bit longer with all these bugs, we’ll explore a few true bugs and other insects crawling into the kitchen sink for this round.

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