The cone snail

Cone snails (genus Conus) members of the family Conidae have conical shells, long narrow apertures, and short blunt spires. Outer lip thin and smooth; inner lip never toothed or pleated. Cones are predators and use hollow harpoon-like teeth to inject a potent neurotoxin. Conus textile and C. geographus are potenentially lethal to humans.There are over 600 different species of  cone snails. Cone snails are carnivorous and feeds on marine worms, mollusks, small fish and even other cone snails because cone snails are slow moving they use a venomous harpoon (called a toxoglosson radula) to capture faster moving prey sush as fish. the larger species, especially the piscivorous ones are powerful enough to kill a human being.

classification

kingdom: Animalia
phylum:   Mollusca
class:      Gastropoda
unranked:Gaenogastropoda
                Hypsogastropda
                Neogastropoda
superfamily: Conoidea
family: conidae
subfamily: Coninae
genus: Conus

The scorpion in the house and jonathan leeming

 This is south-Africa's second most deadly scorpion, I only know its 'afrikaans' common name its "Transvaalse dikstert skerpioen" its scientific name is parrabuthus transvaalicus. I had the privilege to care for it for a little while. When I got it I fed it a baby mice and the scorpion ate it.

 He could eat two crickets at a time, he hunted them without stinging them. I also fed him big stuff like grasshopper's.

Later the scorpion escaped but I found it again. it was a true horror. This is when we met uncle Jonnathan Leeming known as the scorpion king.He told us how dangerous this specie was and that we should immediately put it back into the field. We talked about scorpions and other creepy crawlies. The photo here shows uncle Jonathan,s book and the photo down here shows were uncle Jonathan singed my book.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  

Carnivorous plants

The sundew

Drosera commonly known as sundews comprises the largest genera of carnivorous plants which contains at least 194 species. Sundews trap prey like this, when an fly for example lands on it can't get of again because the plant contains very sticky stuff. For this reason the fly cannot get of  again. Once a meal is stuck on the plant the plant rolls up with the prey on it.




The trumpet pitcher

This is the trumpet pitcher (in afrikaans beker plant). The trumpet pitcher can't find enough water where it lives so it gets its water from insects when an insect gets to close to the mouth of the plant it falls in and drowns because at the mouth of the plant it is very slippery so the insect stay on it but why do the insect go to it in the first place? Well, the insect smells nectar and then go to the plant to collect it but instead of getting a meal it becomes a meal. Sometimes other animals like frogs tries to catch the insects before the plant does ,but if the frog gets to near the mouth the plant will eat him too. Other plants do pretty much the same, for example the cobra lily which gets its name from that it looks like a cobra, has a opening and when an insect goes through there it can't get out again.




The Venus flytrap

I have one of these myself. The Venus fly trap is the most easiest carnivorous plant to take care of. All it needs is it must be soaking in water and it only needs to be fed once a weak, it needs no fertiliser. The Venus flytrap catches insects by luring them with sweet nectar to the leaf and then it closes it. Venus flytraps is found originally in California. Venus flytraps needs up to 14 hours of strong sunlight everyday and can come in different colours like green and red.

There are to many different kinds of carnivorous plants to write about. For more information on carnivorous plants look on the net.

The Octopus at the rocks

When we were at Manaba Margate in 2010 we were at a tidal swimming pool, looking at the ocean and so on. I was as usually looking around in the smaller pools for al kinds of stuff. Sooner the others went back to the apartment but I asked if I can stay and they said yes so I went on looking for stuff and all the sudden someone said there was an Octopus over there! I went running to the apartment to tell the others. When we got back there My dad took a picture and after that I catched it with a net just to look at it for a while. It escaped and I had to catch it again. Once we had it again we putted it into a smaller tidal pool and watched it consuming big crabs leaving the hard exoskeleton behind. As the rest were watching I was calling some other people to come and watch. We watched it eating the one crab after another. It consumed 5 big crabs leaving just the shells behind. As we were watching more people came to watch it eating more and more big crabs and not just crabs but also sea snails. This video shows the octopus after it has bean eating and leaving the crabs exoskeleton behind.

This photo shows were the octopus escaped from my net.

The Devil firefish

The Devil firefish (Pterois Miles) like on the fotto is armored with 13-15 rays (pectoral fins) and sharp dorsal spines that are highly venomous and can cause painful wounds and belive me I once got stung by one of these and I know what I,m talking about. The devil firefish are carnivorous eating mostly small fishes but also feed,s on crabs and shrimps.The devil firefish hunt,s by extending the pectoral fins like a net and engulfing prey with a lunge.The devil firefish juveniles live in tidal pools. An adult devil firefish are about 30 cm long and has a reddish body and many white crossbars just like the one on the fotto but without antenna.Simmilar species to the devil fire fish are P.antennata the antenna firefish has a pair of long tentacles above the eyes and 12 dorsal spines.P. Russellii the paintail firefish has numerous thin bars on the body no spots on dorsal,anal or tail fins. Note that there is some uncertainty in taxonomy of the genus.

classification

Kingdom: Animalai

Phylum:    Chordata

Class:        Actinopterygii

Order:       Scorpaeniformes

Family:      Scorpaenidae

Subfamily:  Pteroinae

Genus:       Pterois

Species:     P.miles

The devil firefish are indo pacific and live in coral and rocky reefs.

Die steenvis

 Die steenvis (Synanceia Verrucosa) is n soort vis wat jy net in korraal riwwe en sanderige plekke kry maar in Australie sommer by die rotse.n Baie gevaarlike vis wat dodelike gif bevat in sy stekels wat hy laat uitstaan wanner n mens op hom trap en dan gaan daar deur die stekels gif uit wat jou groot skade aan kan doen.Die steenvis is n karnivoor wat gewoonlik klein vissies eet. Hy vang hulle deur hulle in te suig. Die visse aan die anderhand sien nie die steenvis nie want hy het goeie kamoevlering wat hom baie moeilik maak om raak te sien en daarom is dit baie maklik om op hom te trap. Die steenvis se rig bevat 13 stekels en almal van hulle is vol gif.Die steenvis jag deur om homself in die sand te begrawe en te wag vir n onverwagste hapie om verby te swem en wanner dit gebeur is dit oor in

minder as n honderd van n sekonde.Die steenvis maak n suigaksie deur  in die lug op te skiet en sy prooi in te suig.Elke stekel is verbind aan 2 gif plaatjies,dis 26 kanse vir vergiftiging so pasop! Na die steek voel jy verskriklike pyn en dan vloei die gif in die weefsel in en swel jou been op. Vir meer inligting oor wat gebeur wanner jy deur n steenvis gesteek word kyk op "you tube" en soek die video wat se "stonefish" daar op die heel einde wys hulle jou wat gebeur.

Wat is n Nautilus

n  Nautilus (Argonauta) (as dit waar is) is n prehistoriese seedier wat nie uitgesterf het nie.Net soos seekatte  behoort hulle ook aan die klas Cephalpoda. Net die wyfie maak n dop, die dop is
soos n kamer vir eiers.n Nautilus gebruik nie sy tentakels om mee te swem nie. Die pyp (siphon) wat julle hier sien is die pyp waarmee dit asem haal maar hy swem ook daarmee en grawe in die sand daarmee.Die tentakels gebruik hy om prooi en aanvallers mee op te spoor en om prooi te vang.n Nautilus swem met sy dop vorentoe. Hy kan nie mooi sien waar hy gaan nie. Een van die nautilus se grootse vyande is die seekat aangesien die seekat goed is met kamovleuring.N nautilus is snags aktief en leef gewoonlik 20 jaar lank en eet gewoonlik shrimp,klein vissies,en krustasee.Nautiluse word net in die stille oseaan gevind.Nautiluse
anders as ander cephalopoda kan nie goed sien nie.

Die klasifikasie van nautiluse

konningkryk:          Animalai

phylum:                  Mollusca

klas:                     Cephalopoda

subklas:                Nautiloidea

order:                     Nautilida

superfamillie:           Nautilaceae

famillie:                  Nautilidae

                                                                                                                              Nautilus belauensis

Seekatte

Seekatte behoort aan die Order Cephalopda. Seekatte is karnivore en eet meestal  goed soos krappe en shrimps maar eet ook soms vis en seeslakke. Seekatte kom in allerhande grotes voor van so klein soos 25mm tot so groot soos n 6 sitplek kar! Seekatte wat so groot is het al goed so groot soos klein haaie gevang glo my maar hier oor want ek het dit gesien op die internet. Party seekatte is gevaarlik soos byvoorbeeld die blouring seekat wat in Australie voorkom is omtrent so lank soos jou middelvinger en is dodelik en sy byt is moeilik om te behandel. Seekatte kou hul kos met n pappegaaiagtige bek. Groot seekatte byt hul kos dood met hul groot bekke en  klein seekatte se suiers het klein tandjies wat gif bevat en hulle maak hul prooi daarmee dood. Seekatte soos alle moliska het drie harte. Die video hierbo wys n rotsseekat (ek dink dis wat dit is) nadat hy n krap geeet het. Ons het dit geneem by Manaba( Margate).

Die geskiedenis van sjokolade volgens National Geographic

Jammer dat ek nie fotos ook kon wys nie maar

hierdie is die geskiedenis van sjokolade volgens die National Geographic Tydskrif.

Dalk al in 1000 v.c.

Die antieke Olmec wat beroemd is vir hul reuse kopstandbeelde het in Mexiko en Sentraal-Amerika gewoon en was dalk die eerste mense wat die kakaoplant gebruik het.

1300

Die Asteke het kakaosade en rissies gemeng om n skuimende,gekruide drankie te maak.

1528

Die verkenner Hernan Cortes het die Asteke se drankie  na
Spanje saam geneem.

Middel van 1500s

Franse en spaanse adelikes het kaneel en rietsuiker by die
bitter drankie begin inroer.

1847

Joseph fry en sons of England het die eerste sjokolade
stafie gemaak.