A Trip to Cedar Bog

On Thursday, I made a visit to a longtime destination of mine: Cedar Bog Nature Preserve, located 4 miles south of Urbana, Ohio in Champaign County. The 450-acre state nature preserve is actually a fen, not a bog, left behind by retreating glaciers over 10,000 years ago.

Bogs and fens are both a type of mire (an open wetland dominated by peat-forming plants), but they get their water differently. Bogs receive almost all of their water from rainfall, while fens are fed by surface and/or ground water. Water in a bog is trapped and only leaves via evaporation, while the water in a fen trickles out. You can remember this with the following handy mnemonic: "Bogs clog, fens flow." 

So why is it called Cedar Bog, then? The unsatisfactory answer given to me by an interpretive sign was that "people are slow to change." Well, Cedar Bog, then why don't you speed up the process by changing your erroneous name? But I didn't go there for a nomenclature argument; I went to see some of the rare flora and fauna Cedar Bog is known for, and I wasn't disappointed.

The 1-mile boardwalk passes through a variety of wetland habitats.

The boardwalk cuts through a wet forest (swamp).

A wet prairie bordered by hardwoods.

A sedge meadow dotted with white cedar, Thuja occidentalis.

In the forested areas, the ground was dominated by skunk cabbage, Symplocarpus foetidus. The flowers are gone—they bloom as early as February because they can melt the snow and ice around them—but not the huge leaves.

It's the motherleaf!

Here's another cool plant: bittersweet nightshade, Solanum dulcamara. It's in the same genus as the tomato plant, but you wouldn't want to eat it (hint: it's poisonous).

But the real botanical prize was the showy lady's-slipper, Cypripedium reginae. Cedar Bog is the best place in the state to see this rare orchid, which is listed as threatened in Ohio.

Note the tiny katydid nymph on the right blossom. :3

And now, on to the critters!

Well, what do we have here? A bumble bee? Think again! This is a fly; see how short the antennae are? It's Laphria thoracica, one of the "bee-like robber flies." An apt name for the genus, I would say.

Here is the beautiful ebony jewelwing damselfly, Calopteryx maculata.

This is probably my favorite damselfly, and I saw dozens of them. They are easily identified and sexed at a glance. Both males and females have all-black wings and iridescent green bodies, but females are duller in color and have a white spot (stigma) at the end of each wing.

A female ebony jewelwing.

Depending on the light, they can also appear blue or even bronze.

A male ebony jewelwing rocking electric blue. That wad of
snuff in his mouth was formerly a gnat or other small insect.

Beautiful, but deadly (if you're an insect). That's why I love odonates. Here's a dragonfly, and this one's a first for me:

It's an arrowhead spiketail, Cordulegaster obliqua.

Moving on to larger fauna, I had read of the climbing prowess of the eastern ratsnake, Pantherophis alleghaniensis, but now I've seen proof. As I came into a small wet prairie edged by trees, I looked up at one tree and saw this:

Yep, just a snake chillin' in a tree cavity, probably a good 30-40 feet off the ground. To give you an idea how high up it was, here is a zoomed-out shot with the snake circled.

And it climbed all the way up there without any arms or legs! Snakes are awesome.

But now to my main reason for this trip: skinks! I had been wanting to visit Cedar Bog ever since a friend told me that skinks just jump off the boardwalk in front of you as you walk. She wasn't wrong.

Close-up of a juvenile common five-lined skink.

The skinks in question are common five-lined skinks, Plestiodon fasciatus. As their name implies, they are Ohio's most common lizard and can be found throughout the state. Despite this, I had never seen one, or any wild lizard, in Ohio before, so you can understand my excitement.

Juvenile five-lined skinks have bold, dark brown or black stripes and a bright blue tail.

The tail is brightly-colored to make it more appealing to predators. If it is grabbed, it will break off, leaving a predator with a mouth full of wriggling tail while the skink makes a speedy getaway. Eventually, the skink's tail will grow back, but it won't be as long or brightly-colored as the first one.

As the skink matures, both its tail and its dark stripes fade, leaving it brown overall, but the head of the adult male turns red during the breeding season. The one adult male I saw wanted to stay hidden, but he couldn't resist poking his head up between the slats of the boardwalk to show me his color.

"Yes. My head is fabulous."

Skinks are among the fastest reptiles in the world, and it was fun to see and hear them darting over and under the boardwalk as I sauntered along. My only regret is that I didn't see the threatened spotted turtle or the endangered massasauga rattlesnake, both of which call Cedar Bog home. Nonetheless, a rare orchid, a new dragonfly, and my first lizard made for a great trip.

World Pangolin Day: Meet the Pangolin!

Today marks the fifth annual World Pangolin Day, a day created to spread awareness about my favorite animal, the pangolin. What the heck is a pangolin? You probably have no idea, which is why that’s the first thing I’m going to tell you, followed by why it’s endangered and what YOU can do to help save it.

This is a pangolin. A ground pangolin, to be precise.
It lives on the ground.
Photo by David Brossard [license]

This is a tree pangolin. Guess where it lives...
Photo by Bart Wursten [license]

Despite being called a "scaly anteater" and wearing armor like an armadillo, the pangolin isn't related to anteaters or armadillos; it's in an order all its own. It's the world’s only mammal that is covered with overlapping scales, which are hard and made of keratin (the same stuff as our fingernails).

These scales are on a mammal. Believe it!
Photo from Leeds Museums and Galleries [license]

These scales are a double-edged sword for the pangolin because they protect it from predators, but also make it desirable to humans. While its scales are its most recognizable feature, the pangolin boasts numerous other weird and wonderful adaptations. First and foremost of these is a long, sticky tongue, which is anchored near the pangolin's pelvis and can exceed the length of its body! The pangolin uses its tongue to lap up ants and termites—nearly 200 thousand a day! While dining, it can seal its nostrils and ears shut to keep out insects. It locates ant and termite nests with its acute sense of smell, then burrows into them with massive, shovel-like claws.

Dragon foot? Nope, pangolin foot.
Photo from The Children's Museum of Indianapolis [license]

Wow, with weapons like that, the pangolin must be able to really mess up would-be predators, right? ...Actually, no. It prefers to use its numerous sharp teeth to... just kidding. Pangolins don't have teeth; they use gravel and keratinous spines in their stomachs to break up insect chitin. Some species are adept tree-climbers, such as the cleverly-named tree pangolin, which can hang from branches with its prehensile tail like a monkey. But pangolins aren't fast enough to run for the trees when faced by a predator, what with all those heavy scales (which can account for a fifth of their body weight). So, what do they do for protection? They use their scales as armor and roll up into a ball, of course!

A pangolin curled up for defense.
Photo by Wildlife Alliance [license]

"There must be a door here, or a zipper, or SOMETHING."
Photo by David Bygott [license]

This is even how the pangolin got its name. The word "pangolin" comes from the Malay word "pengguling," which means "one who rolls up." However, while this behavior can and does protect pangolins from being chewed on by big cats and hyenas, it is no defense against humans, who can simply pick up the scaly balls and carry them off.

The pangolin is threatened by a rampant illegal international trade in scales and meat.

There are eight extant species of pangolin—four in Asia and four in Africa—and all of them are threatened with extinction due to poaching. In fact, an estimated 100,000 pangolins are snatched from the wild each year. Why? Because their scales are thought to have magic healing powers. Yep. Their keratin scales, made of the same stuff as our nails and hair, are believed in Asia to be able to cure everything from acne to cancer.

Of course, their meat is also eaten. In Africa it's bush meat, but in Asia it's a delicacy. Wealthy patrons of certain restaurants in China and Vietnam can pay to have a smuggled pangolin brought out and killed in front of them (to guarantee the freshness, of course). They'll often take the blood home in a jar. It's a supposed aphrodisiac. And did I mention pangolin fetus soup, because that is unfortunately a thing.

This happens despite pangolins being protected under CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora), and it continues to happen due to lack of public awareness, low levels of information about the illegal pangolin trade, and lack of political will.

But you can help!

Education and awareness are key to stopping pangolin trafficking.

The pangolin is the most trafficked mammal on Earth, but most people in the Western world don't even know it exists! Polar bears, tigers, and rhinos are endangered, but at least they have the benefit of being well-known. You can help pangolins just by telling people about them. Post about pangolins on social media, make a piece of pangolin art, bake a cake that looks like a pangolin, or come up with something all your own. Just get the word out, and mark your calendar for World Pangolin Day, the third Saturday in February, so you know when to do it again. You can also like World Pangolin Day on Facebook.

Here are some bonus facts to make you love pangolins even more:

• A mother pangolin carries her baby around on her tail. D'aww.
• Besides humans, pangolins are the only mammals to walk primarily on two legs. Watch this gif and tell me it doesn't remind you of a little T. rex.
• When pangolins drink, they get bubble beards. See a video here.
• Pangolins love to play in the mud. See a video here.

To find out more about the eight species of pangolin, check out pangolinsg.org/pangolins.

Happy World Pangolin Day!

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]