Part 2 of our #Insectapalooza! episode drops tomorrow!
Jason Dombroskie, the collection manager and director of the insect diagnostic lab at Cornell University, gives us the skinny on blue morpho butterflies.
New episode coming this Friday! We're excited to share our tour of the Cornell University Entomology Lab. In the meantime, here's a little preview....
We have adorably fugly nestlings!
Since their eyes are still not open, these Eastern Bluebird youngsters are most likely less than a week old (their eyes open on day 5-8). They still can’t regulate their own body temperatures, so they rely on heat from mom, which leaves dad to do all the hunting. He brings back caterpillars and other insect prey to mom, who, after eating her fill, distributes the sloppy seconds to the kids. This may seem selfish, but remember, if mom dies, the kids will get too cold and will have to take the long walk over the rainbow bridge (dad bluebirds, sadly, can’t brood).
By Day 7-9, the young will have a handle on maintaining their own body temperatures, so mom will no longer need to brood them, which is good, because now the kids spend most of their time clamoring for food. Mom will join dad in the monumental task of bringing food roughly every five minutes (during daylight hours).
Bill and his family are in the Florida Keys this week, and they were lucky enough to run into a pair of West Indian Manatees at Bahia Honda State Park. This sighting was a first for Bill, his wife, and daughter, and they collectively peed their pants with excitement.
Also called ‘sea cows’, manatees evolved in habitats without natural predators, and consequently lack predator avoidance behaviors. They’re gentle and slow, which makes them easy to love, but it also makes it difficult for them to avoid fast-moving boats. Many manatees, like the one seen here, have white scars from an unfortunate run-in with a boat’s hull and/or propeller.
Say hi to the Banded Anole (Anolis stratulus).
If you’ve spent any time where it’s hot and wet for a good chunk of the day, you’ve probably encountered an anole. They’re often underfoot, scurrying away, moving as if they’re in an old-timey movie, fast but with herky-jerky stops and starts. These lizards are everywhere on St. John, but the island is home to at least five species. The dark bands on this one’s back, its white eye ring, and the reddish dewlap (the throat flap) all point to this one being the Banded Anole. The color of the dewlap helps to differentiate between species, and not just for us humans. Anoles also make a delightful - and species-specific - series of bobbing motions (what many sources refer to as “anole push-ups”). Combined with the distinct dewlap, anoles can use these cues to differentiate between species, to signal territory to same-species males, and let females of their species know when they’d like to get it on.
Meet the Blue Land Crab. Visit a salt pond or a mangrove swamp on St. John in the evening, and you might be lucky enough to encounter a Blue Land Crab (Cardisoma guanhumi) high-stepping it down the tail, moving away from you as quickly (comically slow) as it can. Peek into the undergrowth, and you’ll spot their burrows, holes a few inches across that lead to their underground pantry. They have sexually dimorphic claws, meaning males mask their insecurities by developing one HUGE claw; some grow to be 6 inches long, longer than the crab’s shell! After taking this video, Bill did some research and found out that these crabs’ visual acuity is poor (like his), and that they use mostly light and sound to hunt (Bill is a poor hunter, regardless if which sense he uses). Experiments have shown that they can be drawn out of their burrows by the sound of dropping fruit. So, apparently Bill should’ve stood still and dropped some fruit instead of chasing down and pestering this poor guy.
Post #3 from Bill’s trip to St. John - Persistence pays off. After snorkeling a bunch of St. John’s beaches this week, Bill and his family were finally rewarded with views of a Green Sea Turtle (Chelonia mydas). The largest of the hard-backed sea turtles, these gentle giants can grow five feet long and weigh over 400 pounds. This species is the only sea turtle that is herbivorous as an adult, and they like to chow down on seagrasses, the only flowering plants that grow in ocean environments. The waters of many St. John beaches are home to large beds of the stuff, so the turtles show up, chowing down contentedly while snorkelers gawk and point from the surface.
Another reason to love St. John - the island is lousy with hermit crabs! Wild ones! Specifically, the Caribbean Land Hermit Crab (Coenobita clypeatus). Along the beaches and trails, it’s almost impossible NOT to run into them as they adorably scramble away at your approach. This is one of the two species typically sold as pets. Bill was a grown up before he learned that hermit crabs use the shells of other creatures (usually snails) for their homes. Pull one out, and the crab’s short, tapered abdomen curls behind its head like a fern frond. Another adorable hermit crab fact? They engage in “shell fights”. When a crab decides it wants some other crab’s shell, it uses its big, purple claw to tap vigorously on the other’s shell before going to town, trying to evict the owner.
An Easy Load
A Chipmunk's cheek pouches are impressive adaptations...
