Reader Ichneumonid sends two photos of mammals from a recent trip:
A couple of shots of (large) rodents from a recent trip to Brazil for your consideration
First an Agouti from Brazil. This maybe Dasyprocta leporina (various common names), but a reader might want to correct me on that. These were running wild, but within the park area of a Zoo in Campinas, Saõ Paulo State.
I’m sure reader Diana will have something to say about its thoughts.
Everybody’s favorite South American rodent, the Capybara (Hydrochoerus hydrochaeris), looking rather content. Capybaras are the largest of all rodents. We discovered on this trip that their associated ticks carry Brazilian spotted fever (a bacteria, Rickettsia rickettsi), which can be fatal to humans. We looked at them with somewhat less affection after we found this out!
From reader Tim Anderson, who I think is pulling our leg about this bird’s behavior:
This waterbird is a White-faced Heron (Egretta novaehollandiae), at Dangar Island, New South Wales. It is common over most of Australia and Southeast Asia. Its hobbies are knitting, flower arranging and gokart racing.
We rarely have plants here, but that’s only because most people send photos of animals. Reader Tess, though, had some nice photos of something we often overlook: grass.
Flowers of sweet grass. Some may remember it as Hierochloe odorata but the accepted botanical name is now Anthoxanthum nitens. It keeps its fragrance for years, and is used in basketmaking. I learned in a sedge and grass class that the chemistry causing the fragrance discourages herbivores, and I have seen this grass completely undisturbed on a Maine island grazed by sheep.
And moar birds from reader Mal Morrison (sent a while back!):
After seeing John Pears’ contribution today I thought I’d send these. John hasn’t had the luck to catch a Bullfinch (Pyrrhula pyrrhula) in his garden so here’s a couple I saw in Devon last year. The bright one is the male, the pink one the female.
Note: This sexual dimorphism may be cultural rather than genetic, and the male-vs.-female distinction a social construct. (NOT!)
I’ve also included a Greenfinch [Chloris chloris], which is looking a little forlorn just after a thunderstorm.
The rodents have some kind of skin issue 🙁
I believe we are missing a photo of a white faced heron!
It must have gone off go-karting!
It’s sticking to its knitting. Or, it might be a night jar in disguise.😀
Sticking to its knitting–LOL!
OH HAI
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b3/White-faced-Heron444.jpg/320px-White-faced-Heron444.jpg
You just flew in?
I heard there might be kittehmallows.
According to this Thesis, the agouti from Campinas is D. leporina: http://livros01.livrosgratis.com.br/cp124237.pdf
Tick-transmitted spotted fever was possibly brought to Brazil in imported farm animals. It can be cured with readily available antibiotics. The 19th century tropical naturalist Thomas Belt died of spotted fever . . . in Colorado.
Thanks for the confirmation on the species and for the interesting background on spotted fever!
The standing capybara may have a big round tick on its shoulder.
Yes, I wondered that myself.
At our local zoo, the jaguar habitat is directly across the footpath from the capybaras’ – I’m sure the jaguars are well-fed, but their favorite noms are tantalizingly close; presumably they have no idea. The capybaras always look to me like they have one wary eye on the jaguars’ place though …
Capybara and agouti are very cute animals. I read about a guy who raised capybara but the males could be very dangerous and he had to train them to behave. It’s easy to think of them as big guinea pigs (both being cavies) so you forget that they are dangerous.
That poor agouti looks sad and disappointed as if thinking, “roots and fruit – is that all there is to my existence? Eating roots and fruit?”
Now what is the capybara thinking, with those evil looking squinty eyes and all that?
That and brooding ticks apparently. Man the grass is always greener; I wish I could lay around eating roots and fruit!
Oh wait. The capibaras are the tick brooders. So yeah roots and fruit.
Sub
The grass Hierochloe odorata is said to be a favorite food of the European bison (Bison bonasus). There is a form of Polish vodka named “Zhubrowka” meaning “of the bison”. A few leaves of the grass are included in the bottle as a reminder of the noble beast and for a bit of color and flavor.
Herons arranging sweet grass? 🙂
Those photos taken by Tess are lovely. So that’s the material that’s used for a certain kind of basket! Some quick research revealed:
“During the days of slavery, rice cultivation, and the flourishing plantations of the Old South, these baskets were in great demand for agricultural purposes. They also brought extra income to slave owners, who often sold baskets to other plantation owners.”
http://www.ccpl.org/content.asp?id=15732&action=detail&catID=6045
I’m pretty sure that’s a different kind of grass. I have seversl “sweetgrass” baskets I bought in South Carolina, and they’re made from a much thicker-bladed grass that grows in wetlands. But I’m not 100% certain.
The sweetgrass in the photos does not grow in the southeast. It grows in the northern High Plains and at higher elevations in the Rockies. The dried braided leaves are sold for scenting the house (sometimes sold with bundles of sagebrush as “Native American medicine” but the use of both plants is more widespread than that). As Bill Morrison mentioned, sweetgrass is also used for flavoring vodka in Europe.
The article on South Carolina baskets mentions that they are made from bulrush, which isn’t a grass. In the south, “bulrush” can mean Juncus (a stiff grasslike marsh plant) or Typha (cattail).
I took a look at the article linked by Michelle above and it does not sound like the baskets discussed there were made of the same stuff as my pictures. Clearly a lot of different monocots have been used in weaving, and natural fibers often have a pleasant scent, so there could be a lot of different regional “sweet grass baskets.” The grass in my photos, now named Anthoxanthum nitens, grows in the northern part of North America, I think not in the southern United states.
The flowers of Anthoxanthum nitens bloom in spring,but they are not fragrant. The flowers are on stalks with only a few tiny leaves. Nearby, from the same underground rhizome, leafy stalks grow and mature later in the summer. The leaves possess the fragrance.
When dried, the grass becomes quite thin, drying around its mid vein. The local (Maine) baskets I have seen mostly introduce braids of sweet grass in with other materials, to give the long-lasting sweet fragrance to the basket. It really lasts a long time, years.
Can never see enough agoutis or capybaras–there’s just something about them… 🙂
Lovely heron, Tim! I’ve been watching some Grey Herons on African Bird Cams–the standard ‘gray heron’ model doesn’t seem to vary that much among continents. Here in the US we have our Great Blue Heron, of course. Always the same iconic shapes at the edges of ponds & lakes.
Yes, they are decidedly cute. Coming from Australia, to me the agouti rather resembled the
pademelon, a small wallaby that inhabits rainforest in this part of the world. Another example of convergent evolution?
Australia is like the living embodiment of why evolution is true! 🙂
(Well, the entire biosphere is, of course, but you know what I mean.)
What a cute little wallaby. From the pictures I’d guess it’s probably nocturnal.
I think the early European colonisers did think of Australia as a ‘separate creation’, so different was the fauna and flora. But on closer inspection of course there are so many examples of convergent evolution by marsupials in particular that it truly is a great example of WEIT.
By the way, the pademelon is active most of the day and night, preferring a kip in the afternoon, much like me when I have the time! (Not that I’m up all night very often)
🙂
Tess, it’s a delight to seem some plants for a change. 🙂 Lovely shots of that sweet grass, and interesting story to go with them. I wonder if there’s any evolutionary reason for the twisty peduncles?
Mal–sweet birds! I hope I see a Bullfinch some day on one of the UK feeder-cams I watch.
Hmm, interesting point. My wildish speculation is that it makes them bobble and maybe twist in the breeze so that they fling out their pollen.
I was thinking along the same lines. 🙂
I love the way you can see anthers in some of the flowers–far left, first shot, at least–and those lovely pistils, at least one with stigma, in the 2nd. (Right? Haven’t “done botany” for some time.)
I think you are right about the anthers and stigmas in the pictures. This grass and many others have stigmas that are feathery looking, lots of surface area for catching the wind distributed pollen.
You captured such wonderful detail on those small flowers!
On nomenclature of graminoids.
The common name “sweetgrass” may refer to native North American Hierochloe odorata (a.k.a. Anthoxanthum nitens) or to European Anthoxanthum odoratum, which has been introduced to North America. The name is also used for Muhlenbergia filipes from southeastern North America. All are used for basketry.
The statement ” In the south, “bulrush” can mean Juncus (a stiff grasslike marsh plant) or Typha (cattail).” is no doubt accurate. Where it live, bulrush is used for various sedges of the genus Scirpus (or Schoenoplectus, which is segregated from Scirpus, though Schoenoplectus species are also called Tules).
These are some reasons why I prefer the less ambiguous scientific names.
However, even scientific names have their ambiguity: The decision to shift the Hierochloe species into Anthoxanthum, promoted by Flora of North America, is perhaps premature. The two genera are closely related but perhaps should not be merged.
Guess who’s a plant taxonomist specializing in grasses and grass-like plants?
That sounds like a particularly daunting specialty!
I prefer the scientific names as well. Since the grass in my photos might still be known to a lot of people as Hierochloe odorata, I gave that name as well as the newer name now accepted, Anthoxanthum nitens. Sometimes a specific epithet can stay the same when one genus is merged into another, but in this case there already was a grass named Anthoxanthum odoratum, as sedgequeen mentions above, and that name had priority, so Hierocloe odorata got both a new genus name and specific epithet.
To add to what sedgequeen said about common names, sedges especially get a bad deal with “grass” used as part of their common names, such as wool grass, and cotton grass, which are sedges. Scientific names are much better. We just have to keep up with the name changes, a lot of which are driven by DNA evidence of course.