Why Evolution is True is a blog written by Jerry Coyne, centered on evolution and biology but also dealing with diverse topics like politics, culture, and cats.
Today Colin Franks has returned, but this time not with birds but amphibians. His captions are indented, and you can enlarge his photos by clicking on them. Colin’s photography site is here, his Facebook site is here and his Instagram site is here.
Here are a dozen images of our local “Pacific Tree Frog” [Pseudacris regilla]. At this time of year, the juveniles are about the size of your fingernail. Cuteness defined.
I have about five days worth of photos left, so please send yours in.
Today we have contributions from several readers. Leading off is Bryan Lepore, whose captions are indented. Click the photos to enlarge them:
Dear PCC(E) – here’s a photo of a gray treefrog (Dryophytes versicolor) in my area. I like the anthropomorphically pleasurable facial expression. These little guys use the gutters as resonating chambers to sound their mating calls. This one is near the gutter, but is hiding well with coloration (second photo).
From Christopher Moss, a great blue heron (Ardea herodias):
Found a feathered dinosaur eating my fish and frogs, early this morning. At least he (or she) stands in the shallows and takes the little ones. I noticed on getting up that the bullfrogs were silent this morning, and I wonder if they have the sense to keep quiet when such a monster is looking for breakfast?
That bulge in his neck is one of my fish!
I found this one from Christopher sent last year during our email conversation about this fine dessert, and I couldn’t resist adding it. Maybe we should introduce food posts from readers? I LOVE rice pudding!
Today I decided to make a rice pudding to illustrate the process. I used one Japanese cup of long grain rice, and one of sticky rice, well-rinsed beforehand (the Japanese cup measure that comes with the Zojirushi cookers is about ½ a US cup measure). I didn’t have any short grain rice in the house, and since I’m not allowed out , I decided to wing it. Filled the rice cooker to the 2 cup mark with home made soy milk (I had this and skim milk. Again, not allowed out – my ANC is zero this week! – so I improvised). Switched it on to the white rice program and set a timer for 30 minutes. At that point there is only a little milk left unabsorbed, so I take out the inner liner and put it on the stove to finish the job. I added a total of four TBSP white sugar, one pinch of ground nutmeg and about another cup (US) of soy milk, along with a can of evaporated milk as it simmered very slowly for about another twenty minutes.
Here it is just after going on the stove:
. . . ..and here after cooking. I shall keep it in this container in the fridge and it will be eaten over the next two or three days by three of us. The ludicrously clever Zojirushi is next to it.
And northern cardinals (Cardinalis cardinalis), looking a bit shopworn, from Divy in Florida.
The cardinals are the most common and give us the best show. We’ve seem them in all stages, from courting to pairing up, and seeing the brood make their way to our feeders and to our mulberry trees to pick the ripe berries.
Please send in your good wildlife photos!
Today we have Mark Sturtevant’s photos of some carnage in spiders, leavened with orthopterans and a tree frog as lagniappe. The indented IDs and captions are Mark’s, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.
I came across a pirate spider (Mimetus puritanus) in the yard. Pirate spiders are specialists in that they pretty much just eat other spiders. The first two pictures are focus stacks in a staged setting.
With some mixed feelings about it, I decided to try to photograph this spider while it was doing its thing. There were orb weavers (I think cross orb weavers, Araneus didematus) in the yard, so I got the camera and put the pirate spider near the web of one of the orb weavers. You can see Mimetus in this picture in the upper left. She froze the moment she contacted the orb weaver web. There was a definite impression that she was deciding on what to do next.
Unfortunately, I then discovered that the batteries for the flash were dying, so I ran off to replace them. Just a couple minutes, but it was already over when I returned (@$#%$$!!). I wanted to see what happened!
There are different descriptions about how pirate spiders take down a resident spider from their own web. One is that they delicately pluck on the web, enticing the other spider to come close to investigate. The pirate spider can use its long legs, with prominent spines, to hold the other spider at bay while it bites it with venom that is especially potent against spiders. Here is a sequence showing just that. In any case, when I got back the orb weaver was loosely wrapped up and motionless.
This last picture shows what I think are rather maniacal markings on the abdomen of the spider killer.
After that, it seems a good time for some cuteness. There is a river shore where one can collect our smallest grasshoppers, and here are their super tiny nymphs. The first is a pygmy grasshopper (Tetrix sp.). Adults are about a half inch long, but this little hopper is the size of a sesame seed.
And here is an even smaller nymph of a pygmy mole cricket. They are just adorable! Pygmy mole crickets are rather strange in that they are not crickets at all, but are classified instead as being within the same suborder as grasshoppers. The species here is Ellipes minuta, and adults are about 5mm long. I placed it on a thin film of water to get it to sit still (it was pretty jumpy otherwise). A thing to note is that in the side view you can see a pair of long rods under the body. These are long tibial spurs that they have on the ends of their hind legs that they use to stand on water.
Finally, here is a baby tree frog, and it’s the size of your thumbnail. It could be one of two species that are around here, either Hyla chrysoscelis, or H. versicolor. These are identical in appearance, although their songs are different. Interestingly, the second species is a polyploid descendant of the other species.
Today’s batch comes from ecologist Susan Harrison, whose notes and IDs are indented. Click on the photos to enlarge them, and don’t forget to keep those pictures coming in!
The northern end of California’s Redwood Coast, from Smith River to the Klamath River, Feb. 11-13, 2022
Calm harbor waters, Crescent City:
Red-breasted Merganser, Mergus serrator:
Horned Grebe, Podiceps auratus:
Pelagic Cormorant, Phalacrocorax pelagicus:
Common Loon, Gavia immer:
Rocky shores and beaches, near the mouth of the Smith River:
Gulls (Larus), of which expert birders saw six species in this flock: Western (L. occidentalis), California (L. californicus), Herring (L. smithsonianus), Glaucous-winged (L. glaucescens), Short-Billed (L. brachyrhynchus) and Icelandic (L. glaucoides):
Peregrine Falcon, Falco peregrinus:
Surf Scoter, Melanitta perspicillata:
Sanderling, Calidris alba, showing why it was given the Old English name sand-yrðling, “sand-ploughman” (per Wikipedia):
Redwood forest, near the mouth of the Klamath River:
Northern Pygmy Owl, Glaucidium californicum:
Northern Pygmy Owl eating an Alligator Lizard (Elgaria sp.) in swirling coastal fog:
Varied Thrush, Ixoreus naevius:
Salamander, Ensatina sp., one of the remarkable ‘ring species’ complex studied by the late David Wake and colleagues (wakelab.berkeley.edu):
Cultural artifacts around Crescent City:
Shell middens (white scatter in foreground) left by Tolowa people beside a now-vanished village at Point St. George; this is the third westernmost continental point in the lower 48 states:
Battery Point Lighthouse at Crescent City Harbor, built in 1856 and still flashing its Fresnel lens:
Lighthouse Jetty, a 3,400-foot rock and concrete breakwater at Crescent City Harbor, built in 1957:
by Greg Mayer
May 1-7, 2022, is Amphibian Week, which is being celebrated by anurophiles, salamander lovers, and caecilianists all over the country, including Partners in Amphibian and Reptile Conservation (PARC), the National Park Service, the Fish and Wildlife Service, and the National Zoo. We’re late to the party here at WEIT, but better late than never!
And speaking of late, it’s been a very late season for amphibians here in southeastern Wisconsin. The picture above is from May, 2021, because it’s been a very cold spring, and there’s been hardly any amphibian activity. Normally, chorus frogs (Pseudacris triseriata) begin calling in mid-March; this year I first heard them on April 7, and, since then, calling has been only sporadic. A year ago, American toads (Bufo americanus) began trilling the first week of May; I haven’t heard any yet. I have seen one adult bullfrog, in the last week of April. It was actually quite large– I spotted it with my naked eye across the Pond while scanning for turtles. (Turtles are out, but not in large numbers or consistently.)
Among the participating organizations is the Department of Defense PARC, which is charged with protecting and managing amphibians and reptiles on military lands, and they have been sending interesting items all week. One of the most fun ones for me was an amphibian identification quiz. It was done as a Powerpoint file, but I can’t figure how to set it up here in WordPress, so you’ll have to take my word for it 🙁 . They sent a nice guide to modern amphibian origins:
And this set of links:
We’ll finish up with DOD PARC herpetologists in the field and lab (yes, some of these feature reptiles, not amphibians).
Today we have a panoply of taxa from reader Scott Goeppner. His notes are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.
These photos were all taken around Stillwater, Oklahoma:
Physa acuta at Sanborn Lake in Stillwater OK. These freshwater snails are common at pretty much any location in Oklahoma with water, along with other species of Physa.
Planorbella (Helisoma) sp., most likely Planorbella trivolvis from Sanborn Lake. Another very common freshwater snail in Oklahoma.
Spined micrathena (Micrathena gracilis) near Sanborn Lake:
Eastern Pondhawk (Erythemis simplicicollis) next to Sanborn Lake:
Pearl Crescent butterflies (Phyciodes tharos) on the edge of Boomer Lake in Stillwater OK.:
Green-striped grasshopper (Chortophaga viridifasciata) – Teal Ridge wetland in Stillwater OK:
Obscure bird grasshopper (Schistocerca obscura) – Teal Ridge wetland:
Southern Leopard frog (Lithobates sphenocephalus) at the Teal Ridge wetland:
Hackberry emperor butterfly (Asterocampa celtis) at the Teal Ridge wetland:
Here’s another one from Boomer Lake with its wings open:
Common Green June beetle (Cotinis nitida) at Teal Ridge:
Widow Skimmer (Libellula luctuosa) near the Teal Ridge Wetland in Stillwater OK:
Sachem (Atalopedes campestris) from Teal Ridge:
Send in your photos, please; the holidays will soon be on, and nobody will be reading or sending. Thanks!
Today’s photos, a great batch, come from regular Tony Eales from Queensland. His notes are indented, and you can enlarge his photos by clicking on them.
A grab bag of rainforest finds. I’ve been getting seriously addicted to doing night walks in the local rainforest. There’s a lot of different species out compared with the day, and different activities are going on.
Like cicadas emerging from their pupal shells, this one is a Green Grocer (Cyclochila australasiae). One of the favourite photos I’ve ever taken.
I encountered this mantidfly (Ditaxis biseriata) wandering about on a huge tree fallen limb. The ones I’ve found in the rainforest in the day have flown off quickly but this one seemed very interested in my lights.
A lot of sex seems to happen at night as well. Who would have thought that cockroach sex would be so weirdly beautiful? These are in the family Ectobiidae, but more than that I do not know.
There’s a few species I only ever see at night, like this huntsman (Heteropoda hillerae):
And these harvestmen, probably an undescribed Neopantopsalis species:
. . . and these weird crickets in the ‘Cave Weta’ family Macropathinae:
During the day these spiders (Genus Namandia in the family Desidae) stay deep in their messy cobweb retreats in the hollows and forks of trees. But at night they run out and grab anything walking around on the trunk of the trees. This hairy caterpillar’s spines were apparently no defence.
The lower trunks of the trees are full of these prehistoric looking pygmy grasshoppers (Tetrigidae). They are both armoured and camouflaged and difficult to photograph well, but worth the effort. This one is Vingselina crassa. [JAC: Look at those hoppers!]
Not just invertebrates come out at night but also vertebrates and normally shy frogs are rather easy to approach and photograph at night time. This one is the Dainty Tree Frog, Ranoidea gracilenta, a fairly common frog but one I never tire of photographing.
Here’s the first installment of rainforest photos from reader Athayde Tonhasca Júnior. Click on the photos to enlarge them, and his notes and IDs are indented:
You asked for readers’ photos, so here’s a tour through the Brazilian Atlantic Forest.
Moth:
Access road:
Bad-tempered toad:
Black-faced hawk (Leucopternis melanops):
Bothrops sp. (fer-de-lance). Keep your distance!
Another bromeliad:
Cheeky lizard:
Forest:
Forest:
Fungus 1:
Fungus 2:
Fungus 3:
