Dylan, David and Rumi created this puppet pal show to share their knowledge about digestion

The Magic of Glow Worms - explored and explained by Michael, Connor and Naho

Glow worms.

Now I'm going to explain to you what Glow worms are .

Glow worms are  the larvae of a special kind of fly known as fungus gnats.

They live in damp places, like caves and old mining tunnels. When you go to visit it, you must be very, very careful. Don't touch these tiny glow worms. Sometimes  when you go to the forest you might find the glow worms on the moist banks beside a stream or in a gorge.

When you are looking at glow worms in dark places, you can see they are glowing like stars. At that moment you must be quiet, because they attract their prey to come here. Their tails will glow, because of bioluminescence,which is a reaction between the chemicals given off by the glow worm and the oxygen in the air.

When the glow worms are born they have another name which is larvae. They grow up and they are called pupa. Adult glow worms look like a large mosquito,and they live no longer than a few days. After that they lay eggs and then they die.

By Michael Lu

                                                            GLOW WORMS

Glow worms are larvaes of a special kind of fly that is known as a fungus gnat and they live in New Zealand and Australia.

Life cycle

The females are the ones that lay the eggs. The females lay around 120 small eggs. Within 20 days the young larvae hatches and goes away. Then the small larvae build a pupa which they wrap themselves in. That will last 13 days. After 13 days they become adults. When they are adults they have one job and that is to find a mate and lay eggs so they don't become extinct.

Habitat

Glow worms prefer to live in damp places such as caves and tunnels. Glow worms moist and still air.

Why do they glow

Glow worms glow to attract prey. Their sticky threads look like fishing lines. When their prey is tugging and trying to escape, the glow worms go and eat it. Their sticky threads looks like shiny strings of beads. If their prey is too big they cut the line off.

By Connor Johnson

Glow Worms

Glow worms live in deep, deep caves. They look as beautiful as the stars. It's like watching the stars above the dark and quiet ocean. Glow worms are not worms. They are flies called fungus gnats, but they look more like mosquitos. Fungus gnats use crystal clear sticky threads to hunt small, flying insects.

A wet and damp place is the best place to live for glow worms. They can't live in a windy, dry, sunny or noisy place, because if it's noisy, they can't glow, so they can't hunt insects.

Female flies lay about 120 eggs and it takes 20 days to hatch from the egg. The larvae are 3 mms long, but they can already have a strong light. It takes 9 months to be a pupa. The pupa stage is similar to the cocoon stage of the butterfly cycle. Adult glow worms can only live for a few days.

A special organ makes glow worms glow. The larvae have the brightest, strongest light. They glow all day! When the worms are disturbed by other lights like our torches, they will hide into a crevice. It's like a fish hiding behind a rock, because humans came.

By Naho Tozawa

Rumi explains how we digest food - well done!

First you put your food into your mouth and the teeth crunch it into smaller pieces. Second you swallow the food. The esophagus squeezes it down.

Then the food goes into the stomach. It doesn’t only go down, it pushes it down so the food can go into the intestine.

Then the intestines break it down more and the blood takes the little bits of food where it is needed.

Akira's text: Digestion - what a fun read!

David's Explanation: Food To Energy