You've GotNo

Backboneor

The Big Bookof Things

You Should NOTEat

byStony Point Elementary School's

5th Grade Students

January 2001

This bookis dedicated

to the 5th graders who:

researched, sketched and wrote aboutan invertebrate of choice,

mixed paint from primary colorsusing an eraser tip to paint,

studied complimentary colors,and

were inspiredby

Chuck Close, the artistand

Georges Seurat, the Pointillist.

"Pointillism is a technique for portraying the play of light using smalldots and tiny brushstrokes of contrasting colors, creating compositions withtiny, detached strokes of pure unmixed primary colors too small to bedistinguished when looking at the entire work but the paintings shimmer withbrilliance."

BLUE-RINGED OCTOPUSBy Aaron Hackett

The Blue-Ringed Octopus is a mollusk that is very deadly.

After it gets close, it will bite and then spit poisonous saliva

into its prey’s wounds. Then it moves in for the kill tearing up

flesh with its sharp beak. The bright blue rings are a warning

for its deadly spit. Even the warning of color is too late before

it pops out of the shadows spitting and biting. Be careful the

next time you go swimming in Australia because there might

be a Blue-Ringed Octopus lurking around!

The Snakelocks Anemone

by Angus

The long, sticky tentacles of the anemonethat grows up to be 20cm across vary in color from dull grey brownto vivid green with purple tips.

The Seapen

The seapen is a coelenterate. That means it hasstinging cells. You can find seapens in colder waters like inCanada. They live at the bottom of the ocean burrowing inthe deep mud between reefs. They can burrow as much 15meters into the mud. They also have a muscular foot thatthey use to move. By Anna Watson

Mexican Red-KneedTarantula

bbyy AAsshhbbyy

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TThhee HHeerrmmiitt CCrraabb

IInn mmyy ppiiccttuurree tthheerree iiss aa hheerrmmiitt ccrraabb.. II kknnooww tthhaatt tthheeyy hhaavvee tteennlleeggss.. II lleeaarrnneedd tthhaatt wwhheenn aa hheerrmmiitt ccrraabb sseennsseess ddaannggeerr,, iitt qquuiicckkllyyddrraawwss bbaacckk iinnssiiddee iittss sshheellll aanndd sseeaallss tthhee eennttrraannccee wwiitthh iittss hhaarrddccllaawwss. A hermit crab is red and orange with white dots.

By: Brooke Lilly

he Brittle Star

By Cadessa Davis

The brittle star belongs to the group of echinoderms.The brittle star moves around in the ocean with its fragilearms. They live in a tidepools. The brittle star uses itsfragile arms to open up food. They eat oysters, clams, andmostly other shelled animals in the ocean. The brittle star has spiny skin. All of the echinodermshave spiny skin. The brittle star has five arms. The brittlestar has red triangles and white dots for color. The brittle starhas a blackish brown body.

Octopuses

Octopuses have eight tentacles, which are good for their wet habitat.Octopuses live in the ocean. Some can shoot an inky substance fromtheir siphon to blind enemies. This one cannot. Octopi usually havebeaks. Octopi have four hearts! Octopi change color according totheir mood. They change red when they are angry or exited.

BBByyy CCCooodddyyy LLLeeewwwiiisss

South African Rock Scorpion

The Flat Rock Scorpion is supposedly the longest scorpion in theworld. It is very terrestrial. It grows to be 5.5” to 7.5 “ long.The Flat Rock does not usually attack somebody unless it attacksits young. At that point, it does not hesitate to pinch. There are somany colors of scorpions -- mine is brown. They are differentcolors because of their locations. Babies feed on crickets and othersmall insects. Adults feed on crickets and other big bugs.

by Cory Hale

A Branching Spongeby Crystal Brittain

A Branching Sponge is named after their shape.They stay attached to rocks all their lives.Also many Sponges live on coral reefs.They come in a variety of colors and shapes.They were once thought to be plants but they are animals.They feed by filtering food from water that passes through their body.

Spiny Sea Star By Dannette McGee

The Spiny Sea Star has a brownish tan looking color to it. Ithas a lot of different colors. The cool thing about it is that itcan regenerate a lost arm. Regenerate means they can re-grow something they lost. Their scientific name isEchinoderm. I found this animal at www.ajkids.com and Ifound the Invertebrates in an Eyewitness book calledSeashore. They have five pairs of legs. On the bottom of thesea star’s arm is a little red dot for them to look up and “see”what’s going on. Sea Stares can be found at the bottom ofthe ocean.

The Giant SquidBy Daniel Martin

The giant squid is the world’s largest invertebrate. It’s verydifficult to study this creature because it’s so hard to find.Giant squids can grow up to 15 meters long and weigh up to1900 pounds. There was a giant squid washed up on PlumIsland in Massachusetts in 1980. It is only the third giantsquid found on U.S. shores. The squid was a 9 foot, 400pound female squid. Its tentacles were gone and its marooncolored skin was gone when it washed on shore. Theestimated length of the giant squid's tentacles are about 30feet.

Yellow Seapen By Eden Miller

Seapens are coelenterates. They are also very rare. Their habitat isthe sandy bottoms between reefs. Seapens are found in colderwaters like Canada. They also have a muscular foot to help themmove. Between the reefs where they stay, it has to have deep softmud 15 meters deep. Seapens are lots of different colors. Seapensare hard to find so we don’t know a lot about them, because they areusually buried under the mud.

A Nudibranchby Emily

My nudibranch’s scientific name is Chromodoris willani.Nudibranch’s are more commonly known as sea slugs. They area type of mollusk. Mollusks are soft-bodied animals with amuscular foot. They also usually have shells.

The Luna Moth

The Luna moth lives in Eastern America and Canada. Itis also known as a “Moon Moth”. The Luna moth’s wingspan is5 inches. It has long tails at its end. It has featheryantennae. The head is hidden so many birds in trees will peckat it’s long tail instead of it’s head.

By Evan Ware

The Imperial Scorpionby Giles Leake

The Imperial Scorpion, with a body seven inches long, is thelargest scorpion in the world. It is from West Africa. Thesmallest scorpion is the Typholchactas mitchelli measuring only 0.4of an inch.

THE GYPSY MOTHby Heather

The Gypsy Moth is an insect and part of the moth family.The male is brown and the female is white with brownish black spots. The GypsyMoth goes through 4 stages through their life, 1 an egg and when it hatches, 2becomes a caterpillar and eats and eats and then 3 makes a cocoon arounditself and when it breaks through it, 4 becomes a Gypsy Moth.

Saltwater JellyfishBy

Jenny Platt

This is a picture of a saltwater jellyfish. They are in thecrustacean group of invertebrates. Their tentacles havea powerful sting and they can have up to 800 of them.They eat fish, of all types. Jellyfish are soft and ghostlylooking. They are about the size of a quarter when fully-grown.

The Sea Gooseberry

The Sea Gooseberry is a coelenterate. It is called the Seagooseberry because it resembles the fruit of the gooseberryas it swims with its gelatin body. It can grow up to be 15mmlong and have 8 evenly spaced combs. The Sea Gooseberries’long tentacles originate from bulbs at the base of it. Thecombs of the sea gooseberry are usually used to propel itforward while it has sticky spots that collects zooplankton andbrings it to the mouth. One of the sea gooseberries biggestthreats is when it opens its carnivorous mouth and swallowsanything that comes in as it swims. If a predator is detectedthe comb reverses and steers away from danger. You mayfind this predator on the Pacific coast from Mexico to Alaska

By Jeremiah Santana

Sea slug

The sea slug lives in the sea and can change its color. Ithas a muscular foot to move around. It is a mollusk and iteats little particles from the sea.

By Jessica Charlie

The Octopus

The octopus in the picture above can lay up to 150,000 eggs in twoweeks. The octopus does not eat until her eggs hatch. Most octopusesnever get to see their babies because it takes up to fifty days to hatch.When the babies are born they weigh up to one pound and twelve ounces.One octopus has over 100 suckers. They have over 60 suckers on one leg,big or small. The End By Joanna Brown

The By The Wind SailorBy Jonathan Pulzone

The By The Wind Sailor is a jellyfish. It has a fin on its back. It is see-through. It is located from the oceans in Mexico to North Carolina. Itusually floats on the surface of the ocean. It probably got its name from theflap on its back.

The Striped Sea Anemone

The Striped Anemone is 19mm high and 6mm wide. It’s brown to olive-green column is usually covered with vertical stripes of orange, yellow, orcream. The Striped Anemone lives on solid objects in shallow water. It alsolives in brackish water and in salt marshes. It has been observed andreported near Maine, the Chesapeake Bay, Texas, Washington, and evenCalifornia. By, Kane Kashouty

Man-Of –War

The Portuguese Man-of-War is a coelenterate. Thismeans that they have stinging cells on their tentacles. Thetentacles can be over 15 meters long. They also have largefloats that are filled by a gas-gland inside. It would be verypainful if one stings a human. Although some fish are notharmed by its sting, like the ocean sunfish. The oceansunfish will actually eat Man-of-War.

Ben Perdue

THE DARING JUMPING SPIDER

By Matt Fife

The daring Jumping Spider lives from the AtlanticOcean to the Rocky Mountains. It lives in rotten wood,tree trunks, dead trees, fallen limbs and gardens. It eatsinsects. It goes into houses and hides on windowsills andon shelves and hunts for food. It is black and white.

The Morpho Didius Butterfly By Max Connor

The Morpho Didius Butterfly is a colorful sight. It is 6 in. wide and5 in. tall. It is the largest colored morpho butterfly. The malemorpho is blue and the females have brown on their upperwings.All morpho didius butterflies have white dots on the sides of theirwings. They also have different color dots on the under side oftheir wings. They never come down to land except to drink fromsandy riverbeds. Long ago Indians used their wings for ritualdances and making masks.

THE MONARCH CATERPILLAR

The monarch caterpillar is black with yellow stripes. It willonly eat milkweed. When it becomes a butterfly, the threepairs in front will stay and be the butterfly’s legs. The backpairs will become wings. Then it will be fully morphed intothe monarch butterfly.

-Sally

The Starfish

The starfish in this picture is very dangerous because if youget too close, it will stick you with its stickers. They will getstuck in your foot and will not come out right away. Thestarfish is not a fish. It is an invertebrate. It lives in the sea.In the sea, it is a dark color and out of the sea, it changes toa light color. The starfish is the prettiest invertebrate in thesea. The starfish is shaped like a star. It got the namestarfish because it moved like a fish and floats like a fish.

by Samantha

The Ghost Crab

The Ghost Crab is a crab that is an invertebrate. Thegroup that they’re in is the Crustacean group. It was namedGhost Crab because when their enemy is coming towardthem, they disappear under the sand as if they were a realghost. As you may already know, this kind of crab lives onbeaches. The Ghost Crab feeds on sea turtle eggs, andhatchlings, plus sand hoppers. By Morgan Watt

The Grasshopper By Stewart Beazell

Grasshoppers are insects. Insects are part of a group calledArthropods. Arthropods are invertebrates. The grasshopper isgreen. It helps the grasshopper blend in the grass. Grasshoppers can cause damage to corn by eating ears andleaves. They also can be found on soybeans. Grasshoppernymphs were devastating the soybeans on July 15, 1996. Youmight have thought that they were cute but think again!

Io Moth CaterpillarBy Tommy Hernandez

This is a picture of the Io moth caterpillar. It looks like it has greenstring sticking out of it. Those little stringy things are toxic to the touch.When an enemy grabs it, the stringy things ooze out poison. When itcocoons itself, it turns into a moth. The red and white stripe is to scareaway enemies.

THE DESERT SCORPION

The desert scorpion could kill a single person with itspoison. The scorpion is an arthropod and has 2 main body parts. It is acrustacean. I wish that I could get one some day. It has 3 pairs of legs,which means it has 6 legs.

The EndWayne Norford

The Railroad Worm

The Railroad Worm lives in South and Central America. The RailroadWorm is not really a worm at all but is like a worm. It can grow to be3 inches long. If it is disturbed, it will start to glow. The reason is thatit has a chemical reaction in its body. When it is glowing, it can be ayellow-green to a bright red color. I do not think it is deadly.

Anthony Matos

Bulldog AntThe bulldog ant is the largest species of ant in the world. They are found inAustralia. They can grow up to be 40 mm long. The bulldog ant is active in theday and calm at night. They prefer to build their nests under bushes. Thebulldog ant is an ant with a long head, large eyes, and powerful long jaws. It isan ant to be avoided because it stings like a wasp! They are deadly insectswhen they attack in numbers. They will finally kill you! They are poisonousinsects. Approximately thirty stings can kill a full-grown man. This is becomes aproblem because they will defend their nest aggressively. The bulldog ant haslong legs and it has a long body.

Brian Clarry

The Monarch Butterflyby

Chris Batt

It is black and orange. They lay white eggs. The caterpillaris black, yellow, orange and cream stripes. It is a commonpoisonous butterfly found worldwide. Animals that eat it getsick. It lays eggs on the poisonous milkweed. The butterflydrinks nectar from the flowers. They can live up to 8 or 9months. In the fall, they fly from Canada and the US toMexico, where they live in the winter that is over 2000 miles.

Lingus Tree Snailby

Carter

One thousand years ago these snails came to America from Cuba onfloating logs which were blown ashore by hurricanes. They now livein the hammocks of the Everglades. In the fall, after they mate, theadult snail lays 30 eggs. The eggs are never safe from theirpredators because they dig them up and then eat them. Their shellsare 2 or 3 inches long and are spiral. They are also a big collector'sitem. They feed on microscopic lichens. In South Florida, thedevelopment is moving rapidly. If it does not stop, the snails will be ingreat danger.

Ladybugsby

Elinor Allen-Henke

Ladybugs belong to the insect group, which is the largestgroup of arthropods. They are 4-5 mm long. The head ofthe male is white and the head of the female has a largeblack spot. Ladybugs are vegetarians. I wanted to researchladybugs because they are my favorite arthropod.

Gastrotrich

By Hunter Beasley

A Gastrotrich is a microscopic animal that has cilia tohelp it move. The Gastrotrich is common in aquaticenvironments worldwide and has sticky tubes along thesides of its body for clinging to things. They are foundin oceans, marshes and even puddles! Most freshwaterspecies are entirely female. The Gastrotrich ranges insize from 0.1 to 1.5 mm. (0.004 to 0.06 inches).

Adonis Blue Butterfly

This butterfly is threatened in itsgrassland habitat in France. It is nowprotected by law. It hangs out with otherbutterflies in big fields. It passes the winterin its chrysalis stage and in the late spring itcomes out. You can only see this butterfly inFrance in fields of wildflowers.

Mariah Martin

THE PUSS MOTHCATERPILLAR

BY NICK A PAYNE

This caterpillar has a few tricks up its sleeve if it isabout to become lunch for a bird. It will rear up andshoot out a red string and if that doesn’t scare the birdit will shoot out a stinging formic acid. It also hashuge fangs for cutting through leaves.

American Brown Recluse SpiderPaul Michel

The American Brown Recluse spider is in thefamily of the recluse spider. It has been known to killwhen it bites. When the spider bites it will look like alarge mosquito bite. Then the bite becomes the size of aquarter. The bite swells and increases in size. Necrosis,or rotting flesh, may appear.

The Brown Recluse spider is the most poisonousspider in the US. It’s seen mainly in houses. A biteoccurs when the spider is disturbed while sitting in acloth or towel or shoes. They prefer warm climates.

Horseshoe CrabBy Reniya Lewis

They have 5 pair of legs and a hard shell. You can step on iton the beach. If they get mad at you, they put their tail upand you step on it and it hurts. When they are born they areso little. If they get pushed over by a wave, they use their tailto flip their body back over. They are a living fossil. Theyare not really crabs. They are related to spiders.

Blood StarBy Sarajanee Davis

The Blood Star is a sea star like most others. It is a memberof the group echinoderms. The blood star is usually foundon rocky ocean shores. With this particular sea star, thenumber of arms may vary but this one usually has five. Ithas another name as well: Blood Henry. It takes longerthan other sea stars to regenerate lost arms. This sea starwas very interesting to study.

The Scorpionby Meredyth

Scorpions are venomous arthropods that are classified as arachnids.The scorpions have a small tail and sting which they use to subdueprey. Some scorpions use their tails to handle prey. The desertscorpion is one of the most venomous scorpions in the world. Thelongest scorpion in the world is the South African scorpion. Itreaches the length of 8 inches long. Scorpions are nocturnal,animals that feed on a variety of insects, spiders, centipedes andother scorpions. The average female gives birth to about 25-35young. The average scorpion probably lives three to five years, butsome species undoubtedly live atleast 10-15 years. The world's mostvenomous scorpion can be found in North Africa. If you get stungyou will most likely die.

Giant Swimming NudibranchDendranatus iris

By Steve Norum

Nudibranchs are sea invertebrates that can be foundalmost anywhere in the world, including the Antarctic. Theyare usually very colorful, but sometimes have camouflage.Some nudibranchs have colorful gills. Nudibranchs areessentially snails without shells. The giant swimmingnudibranch eats only the tube-dwelling anemone(Pachycerianthus finbriatus). Most nudibranchs have aribbon of teeth called a radula. The giant swimmingnudibranch lives in the waters near British Columbia,Canada. It can grow up to 200 millimeters (7.8 inches) long.

The Rainforest Dazzler

The Rainforest dazzler lives in South America.It's in the group of butterflies called Morphos.Morphos have brown underlings to hide themfrom prey. They are known to include some ofthe world's most dazzling butterflies. Somemorpho's wings are used in the making ofjewelry.

Kaylyn