Category: molluscs

Readers’ wildlife photos

April 9, 2022 • 10:45 am

Today’s photos come from Paul Edelman, an emeritus professor of Mathematics and Law at Vanderbilt University. His notes are indented, and you can click on the photos to enlarge them.

When we were down in Sanibel, FL we once again visited Harns Marsh in Lehigh, FL.  I’ve sent you pictures from there before.  This time we were fortunate enough to see the Snail Kites (Rostrhamus sociabilis).  South central Florida is the only place in North America where one can find these birds and this population is under considerable threat.  The University of Florida, in conjunction with the United States Geological Survey, is currently monitoring and researching the Florida population.

Snail kites flying:

One problem for the snail kite is that its diet consists almost only of apple snails (genus Pomacea).  At Harns they are in competition for the snails with the Limpkin (Aramus guarauna), but since they hunt for these snails in different fashion (the kites from above and the limpkins from below) they seem to peacefully coexist.  The real threat is eradication of the marsh habitat cutting off their supply of food.

Snail kites with food:

A limpkin:

On a more interesting evolutionary front, the snail kites in Florida had to deal with an invasive species of apple snail that was crowding out the indigenous ones.  This invasive species was considerably larger than the native snail, which made it more difficult for the snail kite to feed.  Interestingly, according to this study, the snail kites actually evolved to have larger beaks so that they could feed effectively on the new larger snail!!

These birds are just gorgeous.  I apologize for some of the pictures being less than stellar, but the birds were not being particularly cooperative.  Nevertheless, the birds are quite unusual in many ways and I thought your readers would enjoy seeing them.

Readers’ wildlife photos

January 26, 2022 • 8:45 am

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:

Readers’ wildlife photos

November 25, 2021 • 8:00 am

Today I’ll show my own “wildlife” photos just for fun, but keep sending yours in.  Click the pictures below to enlarge them.

Feeding wild cats at a nunnery in Mystras, Greece, 2002. I always carry a box of dry cat food in my backpack in places like this.

A rare bloom in Death Valley, California, 2005. I don’t know what the moth is, and I’m baffled about where the many pollinating insects come from in those very occasional wet years. They just appear from out of nowhere.

Me feeding a grape (with permission) to a ring-tailed lemur (Lemur catta) at the Duke Lemur Center, 2006. Note the baby clinging to its belly.

Another ringtail with child:

Sifakas (lemurs, Propithecus sp.):

Cepea nemoralis snails on a fencepost, Dorset, England, 2006. The riot of colors and banding in this species was subject to a lot of investigation when I was in college, but evolutionary geneticists still don’t have an explanation for why the variation persists:

A butterfly (I don’t know the species) in the garden at Thomas Hardy’s boyhood home, 2006:

Snail and fly near Clouds Hill (T. E. Lawrence’s cottage), Wareham, Dorset, 2006:

Gooseneck barnacle, a rare and expensive delicacy. Galicia, Spain, 2006:

The one above was found on the rocks at low tide. Here are some for sale in the market. You eat the meat underneath the leather skin. It’s very good.

Me feeding a Texas longhorn on David Hillis’s and Jim Bull’s Double Helix ranch outside Austin, 2007:

Groundhog (Marmota monax), Capitol grounds, Ottawa, Canada, 2007:

Greg Mayer’s pet common snapping turtle (Chelydra serpentina); I believe its name was “Snappy”), Kenosha, Wisconsin, 2008:

Butterfly and orchids (species unknown), Guatemala, 2009:

Statue dedicated to all the lab cats “sacrificed” in medical research. St. Petersburg, 2011:

Gulls, Lake Geneva, Switzerland, 2011

Trees in autumn, Switzerland 2011:

I have many more, and perhaps I’ll post some of them on another holiday (Chanukah, Christmas, and Coynezaa are coming up).

Readers’ wildlife photos

October 11, 2021 • 8:00 am

Please send in your good photos, as the tank is depleting faster than I’d like. Thanks.

Today we have a potpourri of photos from various readers and contributors. Their captions are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.

The first photo is by Jamie Blilie:

Winter plumage American Goldfinch (Spinus tristis) in the middle of a snowstorm.  Taken Dec 23, 2020, in a tree in our back yard, Minnesota.  We have many winter resident birds.  We have many feeders in our yard to help them through the winter (we feed much less in summer).

Reader Bryan found slugs making The Beast with Two Backs in Middlesex County, Massachusetts:

I saw this the other day (cool fall day in N. hemisphere).Reading a bit tells me it is gastropod copulation involving Spanish slugs, Arion vulgaris.  It was satisfying to know I stumbled (figuratively!) on a fascinating biology topic.

From Thomas Czarny, sent September 8:

Yesterday an epic line storm coming across Lake Michigan slammed into the Traverse City, MI area causing widespread wind, rain and hail damage.  Below is a sequence of photos of the advancing front as it swept inland from the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Shoreline.  Only the first one is my photo, the rest are from friends and other local sources.  At last report the Cherry Hut in Beulah is still intact.🍒

From Divy:

 We went to the Ubud Monkey Forest in Bali a couple of years ago.  If I remember correctly, this was a tourist conservation, owned by the local community.  There were several Hindu temples within the forest which were closed-off to the public; only the monkeys could enter. I believe these were Balinese long-tailed macaques (Macaca fascicularis).

Reader Reese sent in some photos he got from a friend who tends ducks in a pond by his house. I’m going to show these photos to Honey.

From my friend John Williamson who feeds ducks and other wildlife on a resaca in Brownsville, Texas.  I hope some of your pals are planning on wintering there.  His house backs up to Town Resaca (which appears to be a body of water that goes nowhere) in Brownsville, not far from the Gladys Porter Zoo.  I attach a few more photos so your ducks have a better idea of the winter spa awaiting them:

Note that he has built a duck-feeding platform (and also a Buddha platform).

Nutria (rodents also known as coypu; Myocaster coypus) also appreciate the duck corn.  There also seem to be duck pellets:

Readers’ wildlife photos

August 7, 2021 • 8:00 am

Send in your photos, please! Today’s batch comes from Rik Gern. His captions are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.

The last pictures I submitted for your Reader’s Wildlife Photos feature pretty much drained my tank of prepared photographs,  so I’ve gone thru the files to find some pictures that might be worth processing and sending your way.

These pictures revisit a Spineless Prickly Pear Cactus (Opuntia ellisiana), pictures of which I sent you about this time last year. Same plant, new pictures.

In the springtime it’s always the yellow flower that catches the eye, so we start with an overhead view of a fresh flower, pollen intact and unmolested by bees or wind. Going in close and then pulling back we focus first on the female part of the flower, the stigma, at the tip of the pistil. Taking a wider view we can see the anther and filament of the stamen, or male part. Surrounding all that are the petals, one of which has a little pointy spike.

The cactus also sprouts fresh pads in the spring, and they’re briefly covered with funky little vestigial leaves that eventually fall off and leave glochids–clusters of prickly little pins.  This particular pad is growing on the underside of the cactus, from the stump of a pad that was lopped off to make room for pedestrian traffic on the sidewalk. Just below the base of the fresh pad you can see a small snail on the underside of the cactus plant.

Here’s the snail in closeup; it’s a Globular Drop Snail (Helicina orbiculata).

There were a number of them residing on this cactus; here’s another that was cruisin’ along the edge of a pad in the early sunlight.

Besides picturesque snails and bees, the Spineless Prickly Pear is also home to the very buggy looking bug, Cactus Coreid (Chelinidea vittiger). They give me the willies when I see bunches of them on the sides of the pads, but viewed individually they’re very interesting. Here is one reaching the top of the cactus and finding a crater where the flower used to be.

Where is the flower? I don’t know if it’s the same one, but here is a flower fallen from it’s perch and lying among the undergrowth, dethroned but still radiant.

For those who might be interested, the pictures were taken with a Canon PowerShot SD400 and processed with Photoshop CS6.

Readers’ wildlife photos

August 3, 2021 • 8:00 am

I’m running out of photos to post, so once again I importune readers to send me their good wildlife/landscape/street photos. The need is urgent. Thanks!

Today we have a melange of photos from several readers. Their captions are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.

First up are moose and elk photos from Stephen Barnard in Idaho.

I had another visit from mama moose and the twins. Not knowing the moose [Alces alces] were in the front yard, I let my dogs out to confront them face-to-face. The dogs started barking like crazy, of course, but obediently came back in. Mama and the twins were unperturbed and kept browsing on my shrubbery, finally crossing the creek in the usual place.

I don’t normally see elk [Cervus canadensis] herds in this field this time of year, because I’m normally growing barley or alfalfa so the farm hands scare them off. This year, because of the irrigation restrictions, I’m not growing anything, so there’s no one to bother them. The air is clouded with smoke from wildfires.

From Leo Glenn:

Here are a few that I took back in May of a white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) doe and newborn fawn. This was just beyond our orchard in our back yard, in western Pennsylvania.

 

From Laurie Berg:

Immature eagle with former mouse

Limpets from  Ken Phelps:

And from Diana MacPherson:

I took this on my iPhone of the tiny little thing. This pseudoscorpion lives in my bathroom enjoying the humidity.  Isn’t he/she cute?

Recommended film: “My Octopus Teacher”

July 25, 2021 • 1:30 pm

When I was getting my teeth cleaned the other day, my hygienist Maria and I were talking about travel and biology, both of which she likes, and she recommended a movie I hadn’t heard of: “My Octopus Teacher“. She couldn’t say enough good things about the movie, so I investigated it. I found out that it was a Netflix film made in 2020, won the Oscar that year for the Best Documentary Feature, and had a high critics’ rating of 95% on Rotten Tomatoes (91% critics rating).  And it was about a man forging a relationship with an octopus. How could I not watch it?

I did, and I was entranced. It is a fantastic film, and you really must watch it.

The story is simple: South African filmmaker Craig Foster, burned out from work, unable to relate to his family, seeks peace in getting away from everyone, snorkeling in the local kelp forest. There he finds a female common octopus (Octopus vulgaris), and, after days and weeks of effort, befriends her. Not interfering in her life, he simply visits her every day for over 300 days, marveling at her intelligence and adaptations, living through her travails. The experience is bittersweet because he knows that her lifespan is about a year, and he’s with her to the end.

What did the octopus teach him? I’ll leave you to watch the film to see the marvelous ending that sums up what he learned. I have to say, though, that I’ve formed a similar bond with my ducks, seeing them several times a day from when the day they hatch until they leave the pond in the fall. When you spend hours and days with an animal, you learn a lot about them, and it does change you.

Here’s the trailer. SEE THE MOVIE!