My first inclination was GET THAT OUT OF MY HOUSE! But quickly I decided to look up on the internet (so grateful for this invention - really - thank you Al Gore) and learned in a few minutes that it was a grub and had come out of the acorn. This is what I found:
It seems that inside most acorns there is a very tiny grub worm. After the acorn falls from the tree the worm eats its way out of the acorn. This little worm is a favorite food of flying squirrels, which are the most common squirrel in the Ozarks. You hardly ever see them in the wild because they are nocturnal, but there are millions of them around here. Anyway, you can tell that the worm has eaten his way out of the acorn when you pick one up because there will be a small hole in the acorn - that is where the grub came out of. And you can tell if a flying squirrel has had a little snack because the acorn will have been eaten into - the squirrel really doesn't eat the acorn itself, but rather chews into it until he finds the grub worm. Sometimes if you gather up a quantity of acorns and put them into a plastic bag or bucket and wait until the next day, you will see many of these little white worms in the bottom of the container - and many little holes in the acorns!
Anyway - my challenge to you is to go out and learn something new today. Something unique, maybe useless and silly - but learn some new little tid-bit. It's kind of fun :)
(These pictures and information were found on this website.)
6 comments:
When Mama and Papa were on their mission to Minnesota they were in charge of a dinner for all of the missionary couples. It was fall, so they decided to make some cute little namecards for each person. Each one had a little acorn person on it, with a little hat made from the top of the acorn. They had worked so hard on them!
Well, about half way through the dinner the hats all started moving and sort of dancing....yup, you guessed it. It was the grubs working their way out the top of the acorn. Pretty funny--although they may not have thought so at the time.
Allison just told me she wished she had a pet grub. Sounds good to me.
I discovered this in high school, when I was decorating tables with acorns for a party, and well, they started coming out on the table. Needless to say, the acorns were quickly removed from the tables.
I just discovered this for myself when I went to clean out my car. My son collects acorns while he's waiting for me to pick him up after school. When he gets in the car, he deposits them in my center console. So I got a nasty little surprise when I wen to clean them out of the console. I had put another batch in a plastic bag for my son and I went to look at it after my car discovery and, sure enough, there were a few worms in there too. Blech!
You are right...with boys, it's always an adventure!
I found this out when I was younger around age 5. I cracked them open and found the little white worms to amuse myself.
thank you so much for the information . I live in Corolla North Carolina .we are Trish area in the summertime and swell to thousands of people weekly, however there were only 542 of us that actually live here year round . are children have to ride the school bus 4 hours a day . we just got a charter school .we have 15 students this year .I had them out for recess when 1 of the girls found worms in a corn and we all started looking for acorns with worms in them. we didn't know how they got in there .now I can tell the kids .thank you so much .this will help to teach them to look for the answers when you don't know something .
My discovery came after I had washed, dried and sprayed a large amount of acorn with spray polyurethane so I could decorate a large glass vase. I put a glass contained candle inside the vase and then filled the vase with the acorns. When the candle was lite it looks so warm and fall festive until I discovered these worms crawling around in the bottom of my vase on day several days after I'd made the candle display! UGH!
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