Writing in Biology

What appeared in my container was a seemingly simple, elongate insect in an early stage of its life cycle, perhaps its larval state. This organism was beige in color with a dark brown coloration at its head. This insect consisted of a head with a mouth and no eyes, a 3-4 cm long body separated into about 12 segments with 6 legs very proximal to its head, and a caudal end with what looked like two separate appendages sticking out at the end. This organism moves by first feeling its immediate surroundings with its true legs, then contracting, sending a wave from the caudal end of its body to the rostral end, grabbing the ground with pro-legs found near the middle and back of the ventral side of its body. Other notable visual characteristics include the dark coloration of the legs and the tiny dark spots that are present on either side of each segment of its body. There are no notable smells or sounds coming from the organism.

The way that the insect moves seems to be random. It grasps at surfaces, looking for obstacles until it decides to move forward. After shining a flashlight on it, I discovered an adverse reaction, so the organism prefers to be in the dark. It also has a hard time returning its legs to the ground once it has been flipped over.

There is a single larva-like organism contained within a clear, plastic container. The larva's body is long, semented, and tan in color with a dark brown head at one end. There are also brown flecks along its side. The organism moves around the perimeter of the container using its many small appendages on its underside. Waves travel through its body from the back to the front, propeling the organism forward. The organism seems to want to leave the container, rearing the upper half of its body up onto the container walls and scratching the sides with its front six appendages. 

A some form of larvae was provided for observation. The size was longer in length and wider in diameter then other provided larvaes. It had a bilateral structure, with a body shape that the middle part of the body being ider tha the head and tail. It had a shape of an ellipse. The larvae had a segmented body with two red dots on each sides and a light line crossing through the segment horizontally. The color of the body was creamy white, the head was dark red, and the very tp of the head and the tail was black. Counting the head as the first segment, the second, third and fouth segment had a larger red paired feet that kept on moving as it was trying to sense something on the wall. The larvae moved in a wave-like motion with the front part of the body first stretching out then the hind part of the body following it to bring back the length to normal. The back part of the body, the sixth and seventh segment had smaller paired feet compared to the frontal feet, which seemed to only function for walking. The fifth, nineth, and the tenth segmet did not exhibit any feet. There was a long black line that ran through the top of the head to the tip of the tail and on the sixth sehment, there was a black spot on the skin. For the behavior aspect, the larvae did not show curiosity to the food inside of the container. It only showed concern to the wall. It did not walk the middle of the container, but stayed on the outer side of it. The lavae also did not show any distraction when the lid of the container was hit few time to make sound, nor when the container was moved around. It just kept on walking along the side. However, when the container was flipped, the larvae had a shock, in which it stopped moving for few seconds. After time, the larvae started to roll around to adjust its orientation, then started to move in the wave-like motion again.
 

The larvae had a bilateral symmetry with ~12 segments separating the body. The larvae had an anterior side and posterior side. The anterior side was brown with hair-like structures. The posterior side contained a white clear tip. The body between the anterior and posterior sides was tan with brown discoloration. The underside of the larvae was also tan but, lighter than the topside. There are small white patches along the sides of the body. There was also a darker gray lateral line from the anterior to posterior end. The widest part of the larvae was in the middle segments.

There are 3 pairs of feet on the anterior underside of the larvae with 4 pairs of stubs on the posterior underside. The larvae walks in a wave motion raising each segment of its body to move forward. The larvae had hair-like structures that could be used to sense its environment. The larvae moved both forward and backwards but, mostly in the anterior direction. The larvae lifted half its body length along the side of the container. However, it could not fully climb up the walls of the container. This suggests the larvae lives near the ground and not on trees.

This organism looks a lot like a grub and might belong to the grub family. It doesn’t seem to be exactly “thriving” in the enclosed environment, but this may just be its function, doing nothing. It may belong in more of a soil like environment, but this is just a guess based off the ancestors I think it has. The organism is off-white in color, measuring approximately ¾ an inch, it’s very tiny. The insect does seem to have the ability to sense his surroundings. It might have feelers on the bottom part of his body that makes it able to sense its surroundings. Plus, when the organism is turned over, it tends to freak out about being on its back and does everything in its ability to flip back over once again. The insect tends to move slow except when stimulated or disturbed by an outside source. After learning more about the insect from our professor, the worm almost can’t prosper unless it is in an enclosed container by itself. I find this very interesting and offers insight into the types of environments it should live in and will do well in. It’s purpose doesn’t seem apparent in this environment. What is this insects purpose? Is it supposed to provide nutrients to other organisms? It can be inferred that this insect is prey because of the “eye-like” dots on the back of it. Usually this is supposed to intimidate other organisms and animals.

There is an organism, possibly a larva, ressembling a catapillar or maggot. It is 2cm in length and 4mm wide. The organism's body consists of 12 segments, off-white and yellowish in color. The body's segments also divide into smaller segments.The organism moves slowly with alterations between contracting and elongating movements, with seven or eight pairs of legs to assist. Movement reveals the body's soft tissue, which is connected to a firm head with two round parts, possibly eyes, and what appears to be a mouth, brown in color. Tiny clear hairs pertrude from the body.  There are darks specks on the organism along the sides, eight pairs of specks total. The skin is slightly transparent. A dark line down the center of the organism extends from the head to the end of the body. This could perhaps be the spine, but after light is shined through the body, the line appears to be luminescent. The organism reacts to light, turning away from it, suggesting it could live underground.

My first glance I noticed a minuscule living creature, circling the perimeter of the container in which it was held captive in. The creature had shades of light/dark brown along its segmented rod-shaped body. As it had little motility, I noted the way that the creature moved; in such movement similar to a slinky. At its assumed posterier, I observed two circular dark brown dots, which helped with the organisms movement and sensation to the environment. In comparison to its posterior, the head was much darker in color and took on a more cone shape.

After noting some of the creatures characteristics, I can now predict that this creature is in fact a larvae. Larvae tend to have very limited motility and take on a rod shaped segmented figure. I then began to observe some of the larvaes behavior as it was contained in this environment. As mentioned above, the larvae would circle around the perimeter walls of the container; that is when I decided to move the larvae into the center of the container and realized that it quckly found its way to the edge once more.

What might this prenounced larvae turn into? I had no idea. However, I'm sure that in a couple of weeks that the organism it might evolve into will be something along the lines of a caterpiller or even a moth. I was soon pleased to discover by my professor that this was indeed a "wax worm". A wax worm is simply a caterpiller larvae of a moth. Who knew that after looking at an organism for about thirty minutes we'd be able to specifiy its species.

The worm is approximately half an inch in length and is made up of 10 segments. One end of the worm is smaller than the other end, similar to that of a cone. The end that is smaller has a darkened tip which appears to be the head. On the larger end there are two dark end spots. The two dark spots are dorsally placed when the worm is moving. The skin of the worm is transparent, which makes it possible to see inside. Inside the worm is a white fluid that moves when the worm moves. The worm moves by inching forward starting with the head, first by lifting it up and the rest of the body follows, similar to a wave. When the container was shaken the worm shrinks into itself and stays still for a few minutes. After, the worm just resumes squirming around the perimeter of the container. The worm takes 1 minute to travel the perimeter of the container. There are side bumps that may assist with movement, when it doesn't have a perimeter for it to follow, the worm rolls when it moves. The worm just moves forward in one direction. The way the worm moves just changes its direction, it doesn’t appear to be intentional. When the container is flipped upside down and then back up, the worm was able to stick to the surface for a few seconds before falling.

It looks like some sort of larva. The way that the larva moves is similar to that of a worm. It doesn’t appear to have limbs anywhere on its body, therefore it moves in a fashion that resembles a wave. The larva never looks to move inward into the container, rather it circles the container always remaining on the outer perimeter. Occasionally the larva looks up towards the lid of the container making a weak attempt to escape out of the lid. Sometimes the larva stops moving as if it has lost all energy to move forward. Other times it the larva stops and changes the direction it was going as if it has forgotten the which way it was going.

    After violently shaking the container containing the organism a few times, the organism still demonstrated the ability to move around and behave normally. Through this test alone, it can be hypothesized that its central nervous system is not complex and/or is well protected. Otherwise, the organism would have demonstrated an inability to move around after being violently shook. It was observed that the organism scrunches up after being violently shaken, and contracts its body immediately in response. This behavior is most likely a reflexive response in order to better protect its body. More tests were done, and it was realized that the longer or more violent the shake, the longer the organism stays in shock until it demonstrates the ability to move around again. A final test was performed, and the organism was shook for about 5 seconds violently. The organism was in shock for about 4 minutes before being able to regain its ability to move around again, supporting the initial hypothesis. The test was not redone for a longer time in fear that the organism may die if the shaking duration lasts too long.