by Greg Mayer
Once Jerry is well-ensconced in South Africa, I’m sure he’ll have plenty of wildlife photos for us, including some warthogs. In the meantime here’s some wildlife I observed in Toledo, Ohio.
In Late June, I attended the annual meeting of the Society for the Study of Amphibians and Reptiles at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, and there was an optional field trip to the Toledo Zoo, which included a visit to a prairie restoration on the banks of the Maumee River near the Zoo grounds.
Toledo is at the far eastern edge of the “Prairie Peninsula“, where there were only a few scattered stands of prairie at he time of settlement, so this is less a restoration than a creation.The particular patch we went to is on formerly developed land, so many plants were brought in when this patch was established in 2013. This looks like a Black-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia hirta); note the bristly, lanceolate leaves, and 10-13 rays in the flowers pictured.
Although we tend to think of cactus as Southwestern, they occur in Midwestern prairies (and even further east on sandy soils) as well.
The Zoo uses cover boards, a commonly used technique, to sample small vertebrates and arthropods.
And under the cover boards were Northern Brown Snakes (Storeria dekayi).
Lots of them! I think the one on the left is a gravid female.
And, they acted appropriately, engaging in volmerolfaction, sampling the air for chemicals with the tongue, to be sensed by the Jacobson’s organ in the roof of the mouth.
A member of the Zoo staff turned a board in front of me, revealing a nice one. I instinctively grabbed it, quickly handing it to her because I wasn’t sure if handling by us visitors was allowed, but we were, in fact allowed to be herpetologists! Northern Browns are common in Illinois prairies I have visited, and persist in urban and suburban habitats in New York, so it’s not surprising to see them here in Toledo.
There were also invertebrates under the boards,
and birds above the boards. A Turkey Vulture (Cathartes aura) soars overhead.
A young Bald Eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) perches in a tree on the banks of the Maumee.
And a Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias) was striding around Clark Island, an island being terraformed and enlarged in the Maumee.
While walking back to the Zoo proper, we also got to see a Five-lined Skink (Eumeces fasciatus) on a boundary fence at the Zoo.
This was an especial treat for me, because, although I am a lizard specialist, I grew up in the Northeast and have lived for many years in the Midwest, and lizards are not especially diverse or abundant in either region, so it was nice seeing a live, wild lizard!
Nice piece, Greg.
I remember posts like this when out and about – what used to be an imperceptible fog of weird bugs and stuff that bite me is now pretty much like a museum in the wild – distinct creatures minding their own business.
I still get bit by bugs, but that’s a tiny fraction, and the weird stuff is way more intriguing now (etc.).
Any idea about what determines the symmetric results of the Black-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia hirta)? Some underlying symmetry of 5 perhaps?
I remember Opuntia growing in the sandy banks of the York River E of Williamsburg VA, between the river and the Colonial Parkway.
I’ve seen that species—O. humifusa—on Cape Cod, near the northern end of its coastal range. Even though it’s native there, to me it looks oddly out of place.
Thanks for the post! It’s always nice to see habitat undergoing restoration efforts–or in this case, a recreation of what was probably in that area before humans messed it up.
Nice!
Storeria! Nostalgic: in my youth I knew them well in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and (not as youthful) Oklahoma.
On the other hand, here in the Mojave desert I have seen 7 different lizard species in my literal back yard. (Plus 4 snake spp.)
Beautiful skink there.
The danger of common names- Black-eyed Susan (Thumbergia alata) is something quite different in NZ https://www.nrc.govt.nz/our-northland/story/?id=74925
I agree with Norman Gilinsky: nice!
That was a fun trip. Thanks for sharing it. Such cute little snakes! We used to take day trips to Toledo when we lived in Ann Arbor, but never went to the zoo. Nice to see them doing some restoration work.
As an Aussie I have to observe: “That’s not a snake, mate.”
🙂
Great pictures. I don’t think of Ohio as being a wild natural place…
Thanks
D.A
NYC
Thanks for the pics and commentary. Lovely. The cover boards are a very neat technique. Creating new habitat is an interesting an daunting (looking) endeavor. I hope there are always funds to keep it going.
Cool. The biodiversity of the Midwest is all the more special for being subtle and underappreciated.
Thanks for the very cool Midwest post! And always good to see prairie restoration. Here in Illinois, we have so little of our natural prairie left. Last year the Rockford Airport destroyed/bifurcated a rare remnant prairie, and it was painful to see a bulldozer lay waste to something in minutes that took thousands of years to develop into a vibrant ecosystem- a small oasis for so many native animals and plants.