Insect Exploration!

The other day my son got curious about this thing on his hand

I said it was a small spider. But what is a spider anyway? It might have been the first time he really paid close attention to a spider and we started to look at it more closely: it has legs, many legs... only once did it rest for a short while in which we could count them. 1, 2, 3,... 8! And some fangs to go with it. It really was tiny - like 3mm across perhaps and "liked" to walk along fingers and arms. Some insects don't really like to walk on skin, but this one did.

Here is a pretty good close up:

I think it's important to get kids in touch with nature. There is nothing scary about this tiny spider (I mean, sure, if it was like 10 cm across I'd reacted differently) and I think it's a good idea to understand the world we live in. Directing their attention to plants and animals and letting the kids explorer them seems like a good idea to foster a good relationship with their surroundings.

And then a fruit fly came to visit us (or perhaps more accurately, I caught it in the kitchen while it was devouring our bananas). A fly is different than a spider. It has 1, 2, 3, ...6 legs! But also two wings with which it can ... fly. We gave it some banana in the glass, but surprisingly it didn't have an appetite. I wonder if it actually understood the situation it was in and its priority shifted to finding an escape... If so, that would be quite intelligent for something so small.

Lastly, we set them free. Insects don't really belong in the house. Outside they had a fair chance at survival. At least I think the spider was more relieved than the fruit fly as there isn't too much fruit lying around outside...