Pearl Crescent Scat Party!

And you just thought butterflies were all about nectar and sugary bits, didn't you? Well, look at this!

A pearl crescent "puddle club" on some scat (feces),
possibly American mink scat.

Butterflies also perform a feeding behavior called "mud-puddling," or simply "puddling," in which they seek out certain moist substances and suck up the fluid. Mud-puddling does not only occur around mud puddles, however; butterflies may gather around rotting fruit, animal waste, and even carrion. Groups of butterflies feeding together in this manner are called "puddle clubs." The photo above features a puddle club with no fewer than eleven pearl crescents (Phyciodes tharos) dining on some scat, or feces. I'm no scatologist (yes, that is a thing), but I'm guessing the scat in question was made by an American mink.

If a butterfly lands on your skin, it is probably not because it thinks you are a flower. More likely, it is attracted to the salt in your sweat. You see, butterflies like to drink our blood, sweat, and tears. They are also one of the only animals besides Bear Grylls that are known to drink their own urine.

Why do butterflies puddle? To obtain nutrients such as salts and amino acids that they just can't get by drinking nectar. Puddling is done almost exclusively by male butterflies; the nutrients gained from it are packaged with the male's spermatophore (sperm capsule) to help the female produce her eggs.

I'm always amused when I hear people speak of "butterfly kisses." After all, would you want any of these guys to kiss you?

"I can't wait to go land on a human after this."

Ruminating White-tailed Deer

White-tailed deer are ruminants; that is to say, they ruminate. Rumination is the process of chewing and swallowing food, regurgitating it in a partially-digested form called "cud," then chewing and swallowing it again. It may sound gross, but it is a key part of a fascinating digestive system.

Here is video of a white-tailed deer doe ruminating. Watch her throat after she swallows, and you can see the cud come up! 

Pretty cool, huh?

There are about 150 species of ruminants in the world, including cattle, goats, sheep, giraffes, yaks, deer, antelopes, and even some marsupials. Excepting the marsupials, all ruminants are ungulates, or hoofed mammals. Ruminants have crazy, multi-chambered stomachs. You may have heard that cows have four stomachs, which is not strictly true; they have four-chambered stomachs.

Below is an MS Paint masterpiece, by yours truly, that shows how food passes through the ruminant digestive system.

First, the plant matter is chewed and swallowed and enters the rumen, by far the largest compartment, where it is attacked by billions of bacteria and begins to ferment. Then, the food particles pass into the reticulum. This chamber acts like a filter, only allowing tiny food particles to pass into the omasum. If the food particles are too large to pass on, they are regurgitated, chewed and swallowed again, often multiple times, until the combination of chewing and bacterial fermentation breaks them down enough. In the omasum, water and salts are absorbed from the food before it finally enters the abomasum, the "true stomach." The abomasum contains acid that breaks down the food before it enters the intestine, much like our own monogastric (single-chambered) stomach.

So, there you go. That was your biology lesson for the day. Now, since this is supposed to be a wildlife photography blog, enjoy these photos of white-tailed deer (with a few raccoon interlopers):

Teeny, Tiny Toads

A pea-sized toadlet sits perched on my thumb.

For the past week, Blacklick Woods Metro Park has been hopping with teeny, tiny eastern American toads (Anaxyrus americanus americanus). These toads are common in Ohio from urban backyards to remote woodlands. In spring, they mate anywhere with shallow water, from ponds and ditches to tire ruts.

Males inflate their vocal sac and give a high trill that lasts 6 to 30 seconds. Their song is often mistaken for crickets chirping, but toads sing in the spring, while most crickets don't begin chirping until late summer.

One female American toad may lay as many as 12,000 eggs in long strands attached to aquatic plants, which hatch into tiny, jet-black tadpoles. The tadpoles steadily grow by eating algae and aquatic vegetation for over a month. Then, by early June, they emerge from the water as pea-sized toads.

American toads are extremely beneficial to people, especially in gardens, eating huge numbers of invertebrate pests like insects and slugs. The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that a single adult toad can eat almost 10,000 insect pests over the course of an average summer.

Toads do not have warts, and people do not get warts from handling toads. The bumps on a toad's skin are actually glands that secrete bufotoxin, a poison that burns the sensitive mouth tissues of predators. Unless it gets in the eyes or mouth, it is harmless to humans.

Despite this defensive measure, mortality for the juvenile toads is high, else there would not need to be so many of them. At this size, even an insect or spider could make a meal out of a poor little toad! But, as with the snapping turtles mentioned in my previous post, enough manage to bring their own teeny, tiny offspring into the world to continue their species' survival.

O.N.E. Photography Workshop

Early last month I was able to attend a photography workshop hosted by Ohio Nature Education (O.N.E.), a nonprofit organization that provides homes for permanently injured wildlife and incorporates them into environmental education programs. The photo shoot raises money to feed these animals. Here are some of my photos from the workshop.

Artemis, the red-shouldered hawk:

Rosalie, the peregrine falcon:

Falco, the American kestrel:

Rusty, the red-morph eastern screech owl:

Otus, the gray-morph eastern screech owl:

Raleigh, the barred owl:

Hibou, the great horned owl:

And finally, Tank (or Dozer?), the eastern box turtle:

O.N.E.'s website: [link]
O.N.E.'s Facebook: [link]

Snapping Turtle Breeding Season

It's that time of year; if you live within a few miles of a pond, lake, or stream, you could step outside one morning and come face-to-face with a 20-pound reptile! But there's nothing to worry about. In fact, you could be in for a treat. Chances are, it's a female common snapping turtle, Chelydra serpentina, just looking for a place to lay her eggs.

Snapping turtles mate from April through November, with their peak egg-laying season in June and July. During this time, a female will stray far from water looking for sandy soil in which to dig a nest chamber. You may see her rub her nose on the ground; she's testing the soil to see if it is soft enough. When she finds a suitable location, she'll use her powerful back legs to dig a hole and deposit 10-80 (but typically 20-50) one-inch eggs that look just like ping pong balls. Then, she buries the eggs and returns to the water, never looking back. Nine out of ten nests will be raided by predators such as crows, minks, skunks, foxes, and raccoons. Often the nest will be discovered and the eggs eaten the very first night. As hatchlings they may be preyed upon by all of those animals and more, including herons and other shorebirds, birds of prey, bullfrogs, large fish, snakes, and even other snapping turtles. It's a wonder any survive at all! They are obviously doing something right though, because they've managed to stick around for over 70 million years. Snapping turtles shared the Earth with dinosaurs and are still around to share it with us. I often wonder if they preferred the dinosaurs' company to ours.

The prehistoric gaze of Chelydra serpentina,
the Common Snapping Turtle.

Snapping turtles have an unfair reputation for being vicious. On land they can be aggressive, but that's only because they are out of their element and unable to make a quick getaway. In the water, snapping turtles swim gracefully, and prefer to slip away quietly from people rather than attack. Even on land, they will usually attempt to scare you off by hissing, only snapping if you don't get the message. It is thought that they evolved their powerful snapping jaws because they are too large to hide in their shells like other turtles.

A snapping turtle's nostrils are on the very tip of its snout,
effectively functioning as snorkels.

Older snapping turtles often have shells covered with
algae and leeches... Turtle soup, anyone?

In spring, male snapping turtles wage combat to re-establish their territories. I had the privilege of witnessing a battle between two large males last year, thrashing and shoving in an aquatic Sumo match, hissing all the while. It was truly an awe-inspiring experience. I regret that, lost in the moment, it never occurred to me to press the video button on my camera. I did, however, take plenty of pictures to chronicle the fight.

Here we have two male snappers fighting over territory.
The one in front has clamped onto its opponent's neck.

Here they have decided to reconcile their differences
and are hugging it out.

"Just kidding! I poke your eyes out!"

Last Tuesday as I was working, a ranger called the nature center and said there was a snapping turtle in the parking lot. Naturally, my coworker and I went out to see. We watched as she made her slow way around the grassy strip between the two halves of the parking lot, occasionally rubbing her face on the ground, looking for a nesting spot. After a few minutes, we left her to her search. As I was leaving, at about 6:30 P.M., I went back to check on her progress, and lo! She had started digging a nest! Here is a short recording of her using her hind legs to dig (ignore my brother's chatter).

Had I stayed another couple of hours, I would have seen her lay her eggs. It was really tempting to stay and watch, and forget going to my sister's high school graduation ceremony. How many people can claim to have seen a wild turtle lay eggs? I did leave, though; some day I hope to come across this spectacle again, and get video of the eggs being laid.

The next morning, I anxiously went back to the nest, only to have my worst fears confirmed: it had been raided, probably by one of the park's dozens of raccoons.

The raided nest. :(

Broken egg shells, broken dreams.

I was upset to say the least. I really wanted to see the adorable, quarter-sized babies emerge. But, oh well, nature can be cruel.

Many turtles can be seen crossing roads at this time of year. If you see a snapping turtle crossing a road, you can help it by approaching slowly from behind, gripping the shell on either side of the tail (they have incredibly long necks and can reach all the way back to their hind legs to bite you), and carrying it across in the direction it was walking. Don't take it back the way it came from; it will just try to cross again. This applies to all turtles. You may have heard that it is safe to pick up a snapping turtle by its tail, but this should never be done, as it can damage the turtle's vertebrae. Other than to help it cross a road, please don't move any turtle you come across. It's probably a female just looking for a nesting site.

Dragonflies Are Awesome!

A blue dasher, Pachydiplax longipennis, perched on a twig,
contemplating its own awesomeness.

With a title like "Dragons, Flies, and Dragonflies," it's only natural that my first post should be about dragonflies. They are, by far, my favorite insects. Why?

1. They have the coolest names of any insects.

Insects have some pretty cool-sounding names: assassin bug, antlion, beewolf, even death's-head hawkmoth. But, seriously. DRAGONfly. I might be biased because of my love of fantasy, but I am of the opinion that nothing is cooler than dragons. And if you think there's something cooler, dragons can probably eat it.

But the coolness doesn't end with "dragonfly." A dragonfly is just any member of the order Odonata, suborder Epiprocta, infraorder Anisoptera, which contains about 3,000 species. Odonata means "toothed ones," which is pretty cool as far as order names go. But when you get down to the genus level, you see names like meadowhawk, boghaunter, and my personal favorite, shadowdragon. Keep in mind that those are just genus names. Go one step further down the taxonomic ladder to species, and you're spouting names like ebony boghaunter, black meadowhawk, smoky shadowdragon, and... dragonhunter.  

WOAH BOY, we just found the only thing cooler than a dragon, a dragonhunter. But what would be foolish enough to hunt a dragon? Only a bigger dragon, of course! Which is exactly why the dragonhunter is so-named; this 3.5-inch (9 cm) monster will take down any insect its own size or smaller, and that includes every dragonfly in its range. Which brings me to my next point about dragonflies... 

2. They are the BEST predators.

A female eastern pondhawk, Erythemis simplicicollis,
dines on an amber-winged spreadwing, Lestes eurinus.

What animals pop into your head when I say "predator"? Probably something like a shark, or a lion, right? Well, what if I told you that great white sharks only succeed in catching about half of the prey they chase after? And for lions, it's even worse: three out of four of their hunts fail! But dragonflies?... They succeed in catching their target 95% of the time.

Unlike the shark and lion, which give chase to their prey in the hopes that they can catch it, dragonflies calculate the velocity of their target and intercept it. In the space of a second, their simple brains decide how far away their prey is, how fast it's moving, and in what direction. And 95% of the time, they are right.

In other words, dragonflies are better at math than me.

But that's not all. Dragonflies display selective attention when hunting. This means that their brains can lock onto one insect in a swarm and filter out all others, much like how a person can filter out background noise to hear their friend talking at a concert. Until this discovery, selective attention had only been demonstrated in primates.

So, dragonfly brains can single in on one target amid a swarm and calculate velocity for a perfect kill. Everything about them makes them more efficient killers, from their huge eyes (the largest of any insect), which give them a nearly 360° field of vision; to their spiny legs, which cage in prey so there is no escape; to their serrated jaws that mash prey into a wad of snuff to be devoured. Oh, and did I mention their wings?

3. They are the BEST fliers.

There are two types of insect flight: direct and indirect. Most insects fly using indirect flight, in which the wings are lowered and raised by expanding and contracting the entire thorax.  

Only two orders of insects, Ephemeroptera (mayflies) and Odonata (dragonflies and damselflies), use direct flight. In direct flight, each wing has its own group of muscles and can move independently. In Ephemeroptera, the hind wings are reduced or absent, making mayflies less agile and graceful on the wing than odonates. Dragonflies and damselflies have four wings, and each can be raised, lowered, and rotated forward or backward independently of the others, making odonates masters of flight. They can move straight up or down, hover in place, make hairpin turns instantly, fly backwards, and even fly upside down when they need to! No other animals are as aerially adept!

Because of their wider hind wings, dragonflies are faster, more powerful fliers than even their damselfly brethren. The southern giant darner, Austrophlebia costalis, is believed to be the fastest dragonfly, and has been clocked flying at 36 mph (58 km/h), which comes to 126 body lengths per second for the 5-inch (13 cm) insect. For a 6-foot (1.8 m) human to travel that fast, they would have to run at a speed of 515 mph (829 km/h)!

Dragonflies are truly amazing fliers, which makes sense considering how long they've been flying.

4. Their design is so perfect, they've remained nearly unchanged for 300 million years.

Fossils of gigantic dragonfly ancestors have been found in rocks dated as far back as the Upper Carboniferous, a geologic period that lasted roughly from 323 to 299 million years ago. Scientists have named this order of giants Meganisoptera, and it contained the largest known insect of all time: Meganeuropsis permiana. This hawk-sized insect had an estimated wingspan of 28 inches (71 cm), and a body length of nearly 17 inches (43 cm). The land was dominated by amphibians during this period, and it probably ate small amphibians as well as other insects.

Apart from their size, meganisopterans only differed from modern dragonflies in a few key ways: they had a relatively simpler pattern of wing veins, and their wings lacked nodi (wing notches) and pterostigmata. A pterostigma is a thickened cell on the anterior edge of a wing that makes gliding easier.

An eastern amberwing, Perithemis tenera, with wings showing
pterostigmata and nodi, as all modern dragonfly wings do.

Some scientists have taken to calling meganisopterans "griffinflies," because, you know, griffins are obviously bigger than dragons. -_-  As for me, I think I'll stick to meganisopterans, or maybe "wyvernflies." Wyverns are the simpler relatives of dragons, just as meganisopterans were simpler relatives of modern odonates. While a dragon usually has four legs, a wyvern has only two.

Dragon – legs = wyvern, so dragonfly – wing veins = wyvernfly?

Hey! You know another cool thing about dragonflies?

5. They come in a dazzling array of colors and patterns.

Most people would probably say with confidence that butterflies are the most beautiful insects, and with good reason, but I would like to make a case for dragonflies. They show striking colors and patterns on not just their wings, but their bodies and eyes as well. I'll let a few of my photos do a little talking here, but they don't make a complete case for the dragonfly's beauty; I would recommend doing a quick Google Images search of "most beautiful dragonflies."

Look at the gorgeous, multi-colored eyes on this blue dasher.

The widow skimmer, Libellula luctuosa, has a metallic blue
body and black and white wings.

Behold the brilliant, Halloweeny wings of the Halloween
pennant, Celithemis eponina.

Do you love dragonflies yet? If not, I've still got an ace up my sleeve.

6. They always look like they're smiling.

They do. I'm serious. Just look at the huge smile on this swamp darner (Epiaeschna heros).

Happiness is a smiling dragonfly.  ^_^

This species illustrates the happy demeanor of dragonflies better than any other I've seen, due to the caret-like (^) lines on the eyes, and the yellow "smile" line across the face.

But it's not just this species that wears a perpetual smile. It's all of them. Every one. Just look for a smile line on any dragonfly face. It might not be highlighted like it is on the swamp darner, but it will be there.  

It's the icing on the cake of the dragonfly's awesomeness.