Ruud Kleinpaste Riverdale!!!!

We had Ruud Kleinpaste speak to the school today all about Bugs!!! He is a famous!!! He is the host of the Animal Planets Buggin' with Rudd!!!

How exciting is that!!! Kei te tino hiamo koutou!!!!!

Did you know that ants invented farming and not us humans? Who do you think invented sign language? A household jumping spider!!! They tap and move their front legs to talk to others.

Bees are our best mates! They take the pollen from flowers to trees which in turn helps to feed us.

Piwakawaka then feast on the insects. Which makes the insects extremely important for the food chain!

Monkeys from the Amazon like to eat these insects too! Rudd has never actually seen a moneky eat a banana 🍌!!!

If they all eat bugs... then why don't we????

Māori used to eat huhugrubs because of the rich protein. Did you know that the snails that we call pests in NZ are the same type they would eat in France 🇫🇷

Bugs are great predators. They look after our roses from the aphids. The mighty Kingfisher is great for the Bugs too. How you may ask... by fishing and eating and pooping! Insects then take the protein from it and take it back to their babies. Nature doesn't have waste!

Sloths 🦥 Rudd studied these creatures in South America. Why do sloths have moths running through their hair? The moths crawl down the sloths body and onto the poo to lay her eggs. These caterpillars then spread all the good nutrients around the base of the tree. Such a great system. Kotahitanga - everything works together.

Dung beetles 🪲 do something similar, they lay their eggs in the dung. Plenty of Kai for their tamariki.

Some Bugs eat rotting stuff! Ewwww but it's actually brilliant for our whole planet 🌏. Worms are the best transporters. They feed the trees and vegetation.

Did you know that mosquitoes pollinate our plants??? Females only take our blood to feed her babies. Our blood then fuels a whole eco system as the mosquitoes get eaten by small fish, small fish get eaten by bigger fish, bigger fish get eaten by Kingfishers and you know how Kingfisher feed our insects...

How can we help Bugs? Take a look at these examples of bug habitats.

Rudd is such a bug lover. Take a look at this...

Rudd shared a millipede with us and let us know that if you annoy one their safety mechanism is to make a really smelly smell to scare off their predators!!!