How do gecko lizards walk on ceilings?

Gecko Lizard

Gecko has the ability to walk on walls and ceilings due to special adhesive pads on their feet.  These small lizards live in warm climates.  They have wide-spreading toes.  Each toe ends in a pad and hidden claw.  

These toe pads, made up of thousands of tiny suction cups, enable the gecko to cling to any smooth surface—even glass.  The claws can be moved out like those of a can, and are used on rough surfaces.  

The gecko’s grip is so good that it can scamper easily over walls, ceilings, and windowpanes while watching for insects and other prey.–Dick Rogers

Do insects have bones?

Insects

If you could look inside an insect’s body, you wouldn’t see any bones. But insects do have skeletons!  Insects differ from creatures with back-bones, such as humans, horses, dogs and fishes.  These animals have hard skeletons inside their bodies. Your skeleton is made of bone, and the rest of your body is shaped around it. 

An insect’s skeleton though, is a tough outer shell.  It provides support and protection for the insect’s soft insides.  Some insects, especially beetles have hard, heavy skeletons.  Others, such as butterflies have light, thin skeleton. – Dick Rogers

Why Does Not A Spider Get Caught In Its Own Web?

Spider Web

Spiders build their webs to trap flies and other insects for food.  An insect is unable to escape once it has become caught in the spider’s web.  The more the insect struggles, the more it becomes entangled in the sticky threads. A spider’s silk is strong enough that most insects cannot break through it. 

A web-spinning spider does not become caught in its own web.  When walking across the web, it grasps the silk threads with special hooked claw on each foot.  The spider also secretes an oily liquid onto its legs and feet that prevent the sticky silk from sticking to its body. – Dick Rogers

Why does a mosquito bite itch?

The itchy welt you welt you get from a mosquito bite is caused from the saliva the mosquito injects into the skin.  The saliva keeps the blood from clotting so that the mosquito can easily sip your blood.

Most of us are allergic to the mosquito saliva, and the itchy welt that forms on the skin is very irritating. Only the female mosquito “bites.”  The male mosquito feeds only on plants juices.  The female mosquito does not really bite. To the eye, her needle-like beak looks like a think tube.  Actually, it holds daggers with saw-like tips.

As soon as she settles on your skin, she starts sawing.  Into the tiny hole she injects the saliva that helps her to sip the blood. If you swat her before she can suck back the irritating saliva, your itching will be worse.

Next to its bite, the hum of a mosquito is probably most annoying – especially when we are trying to sleep.  The hum of a mosquito is the sound of its wings beating rapidly as it flies.  The humming “song” helps the female mosquito attract a male mosquito.-Dick Rogers

What are ladybirds?

Ladybirds are really small, spotted beetles with a rounded body shaped like half a pea. The polka-dotted ladybird, or ladybug, is really  small beetle with a round body shaped like half a pea.

The most familiar ladybirds are shiny red with black spots.  But some are black with red spots.  Still others are yellow with black of red spots.

These gaily colored insects live in a orchards, gardens, and fields, where they eat great number of aphids and other plant-harming bugs.

In order times, farmers burning off their fields fretted about harming the helpful ladybird, giving rise to the children’s verse:  “ladybird, ladybird, fly away home.  Your house is on fire and your children are gone.”

To “fly away home,” a ladybird first raises its hard wing covers and then unfolds it flying wings.  The lady bird beetle got its name during the Middle Ages, when the insect was associated with the Virgin Mary by such names as creatures of Our Lady and Animals of the Virgin.-Dick Rogers

Why Do Woodpeckers Peck On Wood?

Woodpecker

When a woodpecker pecks, it may be searching insects for food that are living in the back of the tree, it may be digging out a nest, or it may be drumming out a “song” to its mate.

Most kinds of woodpeckers are our good friends.  They eat insects that harm trees.  Using its strong, sharp bill, the woodpecker digs out insects that are living in the cracks in the bark of trees.

In the springtime a woodpecker calls to its mat by drumming out a tattoo on a dry limb or the roof of a house with its strong bill.  Woodpeckers make holes in the trunks of trees for their nests.  They leave chips of wood on the bottom to cushion the white eggs.

The California woodpecker stores acorns in holes that it drills.  The woodpecker is not storing the acorns to eat.  A small worm has bored into each acorn.  Later, the woodpecker will return to feast on the fattened worms.

Only a few woodpeckers sometimes harm trees.  The unwelcomed ones are the sapsuckers.  As their name indicates, the drill rows of holes in the bark of trees and drink the sap as it drips from the holes.–Dick Rogers