Flannel Moths

The moth Megalopyge opercularis has a lot of other common names including southern flannel moth, pussy moth, puss caterpillar, tree asp, and, as caterpillar. It is visually striking in both larval and adult forms. The inch long larva is generously coated in long, weird looking hair, making it resemble a tiny Persian cat, the characteristic that presumably gave it the name "puss." It is variable in color, from downy grayish white to golden-brown to dark charcoal gray. It often has a streak of bright orange running longitudinally. The 'fur' on early-stage larvae is sometimes extremely curly, giving the larva a cottony, puffed-up look. The body tapers to a tail that extends well beyond the body, unlike its relatives. Crispate. The middle instar has a more disheveled, bad hair day appearance, without a distinctive tail The adult moth is also very interesting in appearance, covered in long fur in colors ranging from dull orange to lemon yellow, with hairy legs and fuzzy black feet.(this thing is very weird looking and crawls weird). The 'fur' of the larva contains venomous spines that cause extremely painful reactions in human skin upon contact. The reactions are sometimes localized to the affected area but are often very severe, radiating up a limb and causing burning, swelling, nausea, headache, abdominal distress, rashes, blisters, and sometimes chest pain, numbness, or difficulty breathing (Eagle man). Additionally, it is not unusual to find sweating from the welts or hives at the site of the sting. Ironically, the resemblance of the larvae to soft, colorful cotton balls encourages people to pick them up and pet them.M. opercularis can be found on oaks, elms, citrus and other trees, and many garden plants such as roses and ivy. It is distributed throughout the southern United States, Mexico, and parts of Central America. The larva does not spin a real cocoon, rather, it separates from its furry skin and uses it as a protective covering while it pupates. Exposure to the caterpillar's fur-like spines will lead to an immediate skin irritation. The caterpillar is regarded as a dangerous insect because of its venomous spines. Medical advice may be sought in case of contact with one. It is best if the venom from the spines is treated within hours of first contact. For first aid, it is recommended that you remove the spines (if present) using cellophane tape. Other remedies, which are reported to have varying degrees of success, include ice packs, oral antihistamine, baking soda, hydrocortisone cream, juice from the stems of comfrey plants, or calamine lotion. 

 

 

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"Joe Dirt" Report

Joe Dirt was a really funny movie; it is about a guy that was abandoned at the age of eight at the Grand Canyon.

The story starts out when he is mopping a entrance way next to the elevators, then one of his friends takes him in to this place were the radio station is broadcasting live. Then his friends puts him on the air and he introduces himself, after they talk for a while he starts telling this story about his journey to find his parents. The story begins when he is standing in a trash can.  Then he gets out of the trash can when he is walking around he can’t find his parents or anyone in his family he cannot even find his family’s car. Then he tells about how he grew up a little living on just change that he found I guess. Then it shows him sitting next to a fire he had made and in the sky he sees a shooting star, it is apparently a meteorite and when he sees it in the ground he carries it with him in a wagon everywhere. He even eats on the thing and sleeps on it. Then he goes to a place to see how much this giant thing is worth, turns out it is poop from an airplane! After that he is stealing from  a farm but one day the dog parts are stuck to the porch, he calls the dog’s owner brandy out and he and her get the dog privates unfrozen. After that Joe and brandy become really good friends. But what Joe does not know is that brandy has a huge crush on him, after that brandy’s dad’s leg is taken off by a train. The dad is so furious he shoots the dog because he didn’t get help. (In the dog’s defense dog’s cannot talk so how could the dog explain that the dad is stuck in a railroad track.) After that joe decodes to take off the farm with the dogs ashes later he finds a really nice car that this women is selling, he is working in advertising for a dentist’s company not making a lot of money. But the lady is nice enough that she tells him to pay whatever is in his pockets and she will give him the car. (Why are people not like her I would want a car like a Lincoln for like five dollars and forty nine cents).  After that trouble strikes as when he is fixing a hot air balloon he gets a ride from it and lands near an oil rig that is hiring and pays three hundred and sixty dollars just in a day. After that he hitches a ride to a carnival and works there for a while. After that he tries to call brandy but the guy who wanted to marry her answers and tells Joe that she found his parents but does not want him to come back to the town.  After that he gets really famous and discovers his parents are not dead, he finds out they abandoned him and that they did not forget him. He is so mad he kicks over there shelf with a whole bunch of clown statues. After that he is on the ledge of the bridge saying that he is going to kill his self. But brandy shows up and she tells him she is in love with him and she wants to get married Joe says yes but he falls off the bridge. But luckily there is a bungee cord tied around his legs, he hits his head and passes out. He wakes up in his home with brandy and some people he met. They surprise him with a very nice car and new hair implanted into his head.

That is basically where the movie ends, it is a good movie though and it is very very funny.

Mystery Topic!

Fun Center Putt  Putt is well basically a miniature golf course; it was started over fifty years ago. It also has go carts arcade games and boat bumpers!

Boat bumpers are basically you know exactly like car bumpers but on water. We actually got to see people riding on them and a cool thing is that these bumpers have a water sprayer in them. The first time we saw the course though we thought it was a swimming pool or at least I thought it was a ocean themed hole.

The arcade games are really interesting to, some of their games are fast and furious drift, and deal or no deal. You can even win prizes with tickets. It says it has a huge state of the arts game room, (I think that is good not sure). They even have a cafeteria near it so you will not go hungry(with pizza and hotdogs) .

They even have a go cat track that looks really fun. But the problem if you have to be over fifty inches tall (this means my sister cannot try to drive one) but I can. Over all this go cart track sounds really fun.

This place sounds really fun I would like to go there for my birthday. And a plus is that a bowl American and a Hardees is right next to it. My dad and I just want to put a house right next to the place it would be like the perfect house that you would never want to move away from.

Gone in Sixty Seconds Report

“Gone in Sixty Seconds” was a good move with lots of really nice cars, It starts off when Memphis (main character) is stealing a Porsche but the cops follow him to his ware house and he escapes with his team. Then it takes you six years that have passed Memphis is running a go cart place, and his brother kip has gotten in some serious trouble kip has gotten a job at a boost and upset his boss and is forced into a car that is getting crushed in a junk yard. Memphis is informed by one of his old team mates that his brother is in trouble and he goes to were his brother works to save him. He reaches his brother just in time and before he does his brothers boss has made him a deal to get fifty cars in four days, Memphis is forced to take the deal to save his brother. After he saves his brother they go to his brother’s place, after that he goes to his old friend’s car garage and asks him if he will help get the fifty cars in four days. He accepts and then they start calling other people that used to steal cars with them. They manage to get about three people, then his brother comes in with other guys to help with the deal one is a gadget guy, the other is a hacker, and the third guy is really good at ordering pizzas. After the team is assembled they make a list of what cars they need to steal, there is one car the Memphis has tried to steal in the past but have never managed to. After they make the list thy find all the cars. They manage to get forty-nine cars and there one hour left, the car that they have to get is the 67 ford cutlass. Memphis is going to get it when cops are surrounding him when there is like ten minutes left he jumps a crash on a bridge and escapes them then he gets to the docks. But he is too late and his brother’s boss is waiting for kip, one of the car stealer's that also works with kip says kip left him now the boss wants Memphis. Memphis is in trouble to be shot in the head when his brother hits the henchmen with a crane and knocks them down. After that Memphis is chased by the boss who has a gun suddenly the main cop enters the place and the boss is pointing a gun at his head then Memphis knocks him off the railing and stands there with his arms up. The cops decides to not arrest him (mostly because he just saved his life) and Memphis is reunited with his team.

This was a really good movie. And I know ii forgot to mention the snake that was thrown out of the hummer. (sorry daddy I know you were looking forward to me writing it in this report)

Report on the book "The Giver"

The Giver was a really good book, the main character is named Jonas the other characters are Lily, Gabe (Gabriel), mom dad, and the giver. It starts off when Jonas is looking out at a window, he sees a strange plane the people turning the community say for the people to go inside the nearest building and leave their bikes were they are. It turned out that the flyer of the plane had gotten lost and stumbled into their community. I should probably mention that in this book Jonas isn’t eleven years old they say that he is an eleven his sister lily is a seven becoming an eight next year. Anyways in the book Jonas is happy but worried about becoming a twelve that is the year you practically become an adult and get your career chosen for you (if you ask me ii don’t want my career picked for me). Anyways Jonas starts to notice stuff changing for like a second like an apple, books, and his friends Fiona’s hair. His father is a nurturer he works at the nurturing center (which is basically a hospital so he’s technically a doctor) He is assigned to take care of a child that isn’t devolving fast enough, so he decides to ask his boss if he can take the little child home instead of keeping it with the night crew. The night crew is not that good with children there mostly trainees and are not very experienced. He snoops around and finds out that the child’s name is Gabriel so he decides to call him “Gabe” for short. When he wakes up they always tell each other their dreams when it usually gets to Jonas’s turn he usually has had no dreams but this time he said in his dream he had stirrings. His mother called a person to get him special pills to stop these “stirrings”. Finally the ceremony for sevens eights and nines comes this is the part of the story where Lilly becomes an eight and nothing really changes. When the ceremony is over they will all out outside and have their evening meal (which is probably lunch in a different form of saying it). Lily is happy she is now a number higher. The next day it is the ceremony for tens elevens and twelve’s. They had the children sit in order with what number they were Jonas’s number was in the teens. Time passed as he was eager and a little afraid for the chief elder to get to him. When the chief elder finally got the person before Jonas he was ready to be given his career job. But something had happened the chief elder had skipped Jonas the crowd was suspicious and worried. After the twelve’s were done she announced the Jonas should be the new “Receiver of Memory” Jonas was shocked then he noticed the old receiver of memory watching him from the audience. Days passed and he had gotten his rules one of the rules was that he could lie and he could not talk about his training to anyone. When he firsts meets the Giver he is very surprised that he looks old but is probably about 50 or 60. They start there training with the giver giving him memories of war, sunburns, snow, love sunlight, and color. The first color he recognizes is red. Soon a year passes and Jonas and the giver have become very good friends the ceremony for the new twelve’s are coming up. And Jonas dads says he will release Gabriel in the morning (release means to kill them with a needle put in a vain that is big enough). The giver and Jonas make a pan for him to escape, its days away before their plan and he sneaks out with Gabriel very sad that he had done this without saying goodbye to the giver. Then he runs out of food and starts catching fish with a homemade net. After a while they get snow he gives almost all of his memories away to Gabriel to keep him alive. At the end of the book they finally find a new town where they will live.

I really liked this book it was interesting how a twelve year old can keep a baby alive in the snow with his memories.