Better late than never: silkworm

Today was so busy that we forgot to post Ivor's animal on the blog! This has to be corrected.

Today Ivor is a silk moth. A species of moth that has actually been domesticated and no longer occurs in the wild, Ivor spent his time as a puppy eating mulberry leaves and fattening himself up for transformation, then made a silk cocoon to transform in. Ivor is old enough now that he has probably already done that, and is now a moth. While he has wings, he can't fly. Most silk moths also don't eat, but Ivor has clearly found a way around this.

Also, one of the interns here, Elizabeth, took a bunch of photos of Ivor on his last day. Thanks Elizabeth! Here's one of them:

Honeybee

Amy forgot to tell me what Ivor is today, so I am picking his animal for the second day in a row! Today Ivor is a European honey bee.

Highly social, Ivor loves to get things done. He communicates through dances and body language to other members of his hive, conveying directions to nearby food sources. He plays a crucial ecological and agricultural role as a large percentage of food crops depend on honeybees for pollination. And while you may see honey bees in the wild, Ivor, like all common European honey bees, is actually domesticated; the numerous honey bees you see in the wild are actually feral cousins of kept bees.

Interestingly, male honeybees are relatively solitary and short-lived, surviving only long enough to mate. This doesn't really seem like Ivor's personality. He seems more like a worker bee - longer-lived, social, and industrious. This means, though, that today he's actually a sterile female.