What are fossils?  They’re remains of plant or animal life from the past.  As the song from Buddy Davis from Answers in Genesis goes…”billions of dead things buried in rock layers, laid down by water, all over the earth.”  Finding fossils is like a treasure hunt!  Here in Central KY, we don’t have to go far to find wonderful fossil examples…

The shells are easy to see, but can you find the coral in the bottom right corner?

This picture is harder to see, but there are bone-like fossils in the middle and near the bottom.

The coral is easy to see in the middle of this picture!

I’d love to see pictures of fossils you find in rocks!

Below are some of the resources we used this month.  December will be focusing on Animal Signs.  I may or may not put up resources in the sidebar since December is such a busy month.  If not, I’ll be sure to add Conifer resources in January!

Caleb decided to investigate inside the spit on our recent nature walk and this is what he found.

Crawling on another of the same plant were the same bugs, only brown.  They’re hard to see in the photo below, but look about midway down on the right side of the plant.

We made many guesses about the identity of these little creatures, but decided to find out the exact identity when we got home.  They are…..

Spittle Bugs (named for the spit-like protection the nymph forms around it’s body), which are a type of aphid

Below are a few helpful websites for learning more about spittle bugs.

http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/2005-05/1116730719.Zo.r.html

http://insects.tamu.edu/extension/youth/bug/bug049.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aphid

I have big news coming tomorrow!  Remember all the talk about the NaturExplorer e-books Melissa and I are working on?  They are finished and ready for you!  Be sure to stop by here tomorrow (Monday) for the big unveiling of our NaturExplorer units and a fun giveaway!!!