Plant eaters challenge

This Nature Challenge was created by Seek (by iNaturalist):

Your mission:

Herbivores are animals that are adapted to feed only on plants. Herbivorous mammals often have complex digestive systems that enable them to break down large amounts of plant material. For example, cows actually have 4 stomachs to break down the plants they consume. Other mammals specialize in fruit (fruit bats) or seeds (squirrels). Many insects are also adapted to eat different parts of plants, such as caterpillars that eat leaves or plant hoppers that suck sap from stems.

  • Find 10 plants
  • Find 1 mammal
  • Find 2 insects from the orders:
    • Lepidoptera (Butterflies and Moths)
    • Hemiptera (True Bugs, Hoppers, Aphids, and Allies)

What is Seek? And how do you participate?

Seek (by iNaturalist) is a kid-safe app that helps you get outside and explore your local plants, animals, and fungi. Ask your parent or educator to visit the iNaturalist website to learn more. Or, they can click here for more information.

New challenges are released at the start of each month. To participate, you will need access to the app on a phone or tablet device. You can seek out plants, animal, and fungi in your backyard, local park, or nature reserve. Give it a go and become a naturalist today!

Five reasons we love plants:

  1. What living things create the atmosphere we breathe by breaking carbon dioxide down into oxygen? PLANTS! Did you know? 50-80% of our oxygen comes from plants in the ocean (photosynthetic plankton).
  2. What living things are at the base of our food chain and everything that we eat? PLANTS!
  3. What living things create the molecular compounds that many of our medicines come from? PLANTS!
  4. What are the largest living things on Earth? PLANTS!
  5. What living things provide the cellulose that makes up wood for our buildings and fibers for our pants, shirts, and other clothing? PLANTS!

When you eat, breathe, take medicine to feel better, get dressed, or live and work in a building, plants are there to help get the job done.

THANK YOU, PLANTS!

Art challenge: What if plants could talk?

Have you ever looked at a plant and thought “I wonder what that plant would say if it could talk?”

We have! We’ve created a series of stories called Talking to Plants, hosted by our friend Sofia Ceiba. And now we want you to make some plants talk too!

Your art challenge: Create a cartoon, comic strip, or story about a talking plant. What does your plant have to say? How does it live? What eats it? What are the challenges it faces in life? What makes it happy?

To share your art with us, parents or guardians can email us using the contact information on our About Us page.

June Species of the Week!

Meet a new species each week related to the challenge.

Week 1: umbrella thorn acacia

umbrella thorn acacia

Image of umbrella thorn © lappuggla (CC BY-NC) via iNaturalist

Week 2: dove tree

Image of dove tree © Alexander Chen (CC BY-NC) via iNaturalist

Learn more about the dove tree: https://www.treesandshrubsonline.org/articles/davidia/davidia-involucrata/

Week 3: Virginia creeper

Images of Virginia creeper © Ken Kneidel, Natalie (CC0) via iNaturalist

Learn more about the Virginia creeper: https://www.treesandshrubsonline.org/articles/parthenocissus/parthenocissus-quinquefolia/

Week 4: Io moth

Images of Io moth courtesy of © Jacob Gorneau, © Anita (CC BY-NC) via iNaturalist

You may like these stories and activities

Show plants some love: cartoons about plants

Moss is the boss! What is moss and why should people care about it?

images of moss

Indigenous knowledge helps protect the redwood forest

Keep a nature journal!