May 1st, 2007
it’s all happening in the field
One of the great things about participating in the Blogger BioBlitz was that it spurred quite a number of people to get out into the field to do some serious looking around. While I’m fairly observant year round, I did find that I was paying even more attention to happenings in the field, especially for this time of the year when things still seem a little slow. In actual fact, there was quite a lot to see and I thought I’d report on a couple of interesting events.
First up is this molting Virginia Ctenucha caterpillar. Over the past week, I’ve seen these caterpillars by the dozens while out walking through the meadows. At first, I just noticed a couple, but then my shape recognition mechanism kicked into high gear and I began seeing them everywhere I looked. One afternoon, I even came upon a little “gathering” of caterpillars on the grass atop a giant anthill. A couple of the caterpillars were occupied with the business of molting. That’s what’s going on in the above and photo to the left. These caterpillars go from being dark with short, very bristly setae (hair), to having a longer, denser, yellow and white coat of setae as in the photo down below. It’s interesting to see how wet and bedraggled these caterpillars are when they first wriggle out of their molted skins. By the way, speaking of molting, do hike on over to visit Dharma Bums to see robin’s post about the catastrophic molting of elephant seals.
Another interesting encounter was with several Firefly (Lampyridae) larvae found slowly crawling over the bark of poplar trees in the woods (see photo below). They are ponderous creatures, moving like strange, slow-motion robots, as they patrol the bark in search of small prey. The head weaves from side to side, while the tail section periodically curls under and then out behind the long body. I’ve found these larvae on the poplars before, so had been watching for them, and sure enough, they appeared in time to be included in my bioblitz count.
The last sighting that I wanted to make mention of was an incredible aggregation of Springtails (Collembola). I came upon them while walking a section of the trail that leads past the ruins of an old dairy barn on the other side of the farm. The Springtails were assembled on a patch of winter-bleached grass in an almost perfect circle about 45cm (18 inches) in diameter. At first glance, the aggregation looked like the dense black soot that comes out of a woodstove pipe when you do a clean-out. In fact, that’s just how it registered in my mind. Then as I went to step over it, I suddenly thought, “What the heck… what would soot be doing out in the middle of the field!?” I knelt down to take a closer look and this is what I saw. I’ve posted two photos below. The top photo is of just a small section of the aggregation. It should give some idea of the concentration of the Springtail. The lower photo gives a better idea of what they look like when viewed up close. Keep in mind that these little guys are very small… really not much larger than a little black speck of soot.
Well, as you may have noticed, I haven’t provided the wrap-up of the farm portion of our week of bioblitzing. I’m still working on some IDs, and have to fill in the data sheets to submit, so I guess it will be another day or two until I get around to reporting the final tally of flora and fauna. In the meantime, the weather has improved, there is a lush carpet of green grass in the meadows, and the leaves are finally budding out on the trees. I’ve always thought that this part of the world has a certain bewitching quality about it — something that soothes us and causes us to forget how long and tiresome our winters can be. Over the next few weeks, I’ll be spending an increasing amount of time outdoors, and hopefully, can bring some of those sights back here to share with all of you.
Tags: Virginia Ctenucha, Ctenucha virginica, Firefly larva, Lampyridae, Collembola, Blogger BioBlitz