Synthetic Safari

Sorry for my extended absence. I've been busy graduating from Ohio State and stuff, but now that's done and my seasonal work as a naturalist will be resuming in the spring, so I should be able to get back to a semi-regular posting schedule. With my return, I have decided to rename this blog from "Dragons, Flies, and Dragonflies" to "Cameron's Critter Blog." While I do love dragonflies (as my first post can attest), this is not strictly a dragonfly blog, but a general critter blog.  

Now that that's out of the way, here is a photographic series from the photography class I took during my final semester:

Did any of those fool you at first?

As you've no doubt figured out, the subjects of these photos are all inanimate figurines, which I placed in natural environments to try to bring them to life, if you will.

Stay tuned; next month, I'll be back with a big post about a real critter, which just so happens to be my favorite animal!

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.