The Near Wreck of the Turtle:

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With many apologies to Gordon Lightfoot… And some of you who could definitely write this better 
 Dorothy Boorse June 12, 2019
  
 The legend lives on from the administration on down
 About the turtle named Dora 
  
 She walked from the mud, wandered through the reeds, 
 And became a famous  explorer
  
 Chrysemys picta her name, Painted turtle the same
 She’d been basking and sunning all day
  
 'Til suddenly an unstoppable urge 
 Said, “eggs! I just need to lay!”
  
Found in the middle of a parking lot road. Not a good place for a turtle.

“I’ll cross this strip, dig a hole in the ground,
Lay those cream eggs in a nest
 
Walk back to the pond, and lay on a log
To take a much-needed rest”
 
After walking ten feet, as slow as could be
A car drove too close for comfort
 
Driver hopped out, picked her up and could see
Her withdrawing both head and foot

Painted had her head and legs out initially but tried to hide when she was picked up. She is completely safe to hold. Snapping turtles are the one species you want to be extra cautious with. Put a stick in their mouth and when they snap on it, carry them over to safety. Do not drag them and never pick up a turtle by its tail. If a snapper is larger, you might want to have help and to put a shirt or canvas bag over their head.

So Painted was moved in the direction she wished
The best idea for safety
 
And that is the tale of a reptile slow
Who is not well adapted to roadways.
 
Driving around, be cautious and care
To save painted turtles from squashing
 
It’s dangerous indeed, with a wish and a prayer,
To attempt such a dangerous crossing.

One half of a journey is over- Painted can lay eggs here before turning back. If you are trying to save turtles, move them in the direction they are headed.

Tiny snow creatures

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This picture came from a colleague, C, with a question- what are these tiny black dots all over the snow? They look like they jump.

So, on the off chance you want to know, here is an answer in two  snack-sized pieces:

These tiny dots, the size of about a poppy seed, are omnivorous animals that eat tiny  microbes and break up minuscule bits of leaf litter.  They are in a group called “collembolans” or “springtails”.   The springtails are one of the most common animal groups on the planet.

While they have the three body segments, an exoskeleton, and six legs, collembolans are not considered true insects, but an insect wanna-be, a close relative. There are two other six-legged groups that are not insects but are still in the larger group that contains insects, the”Hexapoda”. Members of the other two almost insect-groups are also tiny and live in leaf litter and soil. You are very unlikely to have run across species of either of these tiny soil dwellers.

While small, collembolans are the most obvious of the three non-insect hexapods. Sometimes they can be seen in large numbers on the surface of water, held up by surface tension. I and my students see them most often just the way C and his family did- in large groups on the surface of snow on sunny winter days in the woods. In general, they require dampness and many live in mossy habitats. They can get into damp parts of buildings but are not known to harm humans or materials.

This is a good stopping point if all you needed was a snack of information.

Below is not a whole informational meal, but a second, snack, with more protein:

 

(from U. Burkhardt, under a Creative Commons license):https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Isotoma_Habitus.jpg

The collembolan in this picture is 3.5 mm long, about 1/8 inch.

Notice a bump on the underside between the second and third pairs of legs. This is the collophore- a structure that gives Collembola its name. People used to think it was for physical balance but now the thinking is that the collophore somehow works to regulate water balance and is possibly used to obtain oxygen as well.

Now notice another structure that juts out from the tip of the abdomen, up towards the legs and outward. This collembolan furcula is used in locomotion and allows them to spring quite high suddenly (thus “spring tail”). This spring loaded structure can propel them upward as much as 15-20 times their height. (For me that would be jumping as much as 88-118 ft.)  Cool beans, now I know what I want my super power to be!

Most collembolans are elongated like this one above, but other species are globular. To me globular springtails are pretty darn cute when seen up close:)

This globular springtail is not from MA but this photo is a great microscope image that lets you see the furcula. from:https://digitalcommons.mtu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=1151&context=bryo-ecol-subchapters

Because they are epically fabulous, some collembolan  species can reproduce without fertilization.  In other species, males produce spermatophores (sperm packets), placed in the habitat, with which females inseminate themselves. This process may involve males simply placing spermatophores all around their mossy patch, hoping females will find it, or  engaging in several kinds of courtship rituals in which a male entices a female to accept his spermatophore.

I know how much you need this picture; here are two courting collembolans (from the same source as above):

That’s all our  information on micro-life for the day. It might have actually been a meal. Sorry about that.  I hope you are able to go out and see some tiny creatures too.

Timeline of environment, political change, in MA

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Massachusetts History Timeline

10,000 BC

Pleistocene

Glaciers retreating, megafauna roaming.

1400s AD
(1498) English explorer, John Cabot, sailed along Massachusetts coast

1500s- cod wars in Grand and Georges Banks

1600s

(1602) Bartholomew Gosnold explored coast; named Cape Cod due to codfish found in bay

(1604) Samuel de Champlain mapped coast

(1607) Three ships arrived from England with 104 men and boys; settlers named river James after the king; established Jamestown settlement

(1614) Capt. John Smith mapped coast

1617–1619, smallpox killed 90% of the Native Americans in the region

(1620) Mayflower arrived at Cape Cod; Pilgrims established settlement named Plymouth

(1621) Pilgrims signed treaty with Wampanoag Indians; celebrated first Thanksgiving

1623 Gloucester, Massachusetts, settled by the Dorchester Company

(1628) John Endicott established settlement at Salem an estimated 20,000 migrants between 1628 and 1642, arrived in Boston and Salem in the Massachusetts Bay colony

(1629) Massachusetts Bay Company chartered

(1630) Boston founded; later named capital of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, towns of Ipswich, Watertown, Hull, Dorchester, Roxbury also established.  Others settled between 1622 and 1641): Weymouth, Gloucester, Charlestown, Salem, Saugus, Cambridge, Hingham, Concord, Cambridge, Newbury, Dedham, Rowley, Salisbury, Sudbury, Haverill

1630) 12 ships of puritans come from England to Salem (700-800 people) then dispersed

(1632) Boston officially capital of colony

1634) already complaints of pollution on Boston Harbor!

(1634) Boston Common first public park in U.S.

(1635) Roger Williams banished from Massachusetts due to religious disputes

1636) Harvard College established

1636 all of the New England colonies went to war with the Pequot of southeastern Connecticut, practically wiping them out

 

(1639) First Post Office in U. S. established in Boston at Richard Fairbanks’ tavern; Mather School, first free public school founded

 

(1640) colony suffered its first economic depression, began to export beef

 

(1641) Massachusetts became the first state in the North American colonies to make slavery legal.

 

(1643) New England Confederation formed to oppose Indian and Dutch attacks

 

(1644), Boston merchants began to engage in the Triangle Trade: slaves from Africa,, sold in West Indies, cane sugar brought back to Massachusetts to make molasses and rum

 

1600s generally Fishing was important in coastal towns like Marblehead. Great quantities of cod were exported to the slave colonies in the West Indies.

  (1645)  the General Court ordered rural towns to increase sheep production. Sheep provided meat and especially wool for the local cloth industry, and reduced the expense of imports of British cloth.

(1646) first ironworks in America was established at Saugus in 1646

(1648) Massachusetts Bay Colony tried and executed an accused witch for the first time. 

(1659 -1661), four Quakers were put to death by the Puritans.  King Charles II intervened.

(1664, 1676)- Britain sends two groups over to rule. Rebuffed by colonists.

(1675-1676) King Phillip’s War between Indians and settlers, devastating. 40% of Wampanaug still alive were killed, many towns burned.(1676)Boston reached 4,000 inhabitants

(1685-1686) Massachusetts charter annulled, King of England upset with colonists, sends English governor over,

(1686) Oxford, first non-Puritan town established; Dominion of New England established

(1689) mob kicks out british governor

(1691) Massachusetts granted new charter, became royal colony with Maine and Plymouth; more restrictive about religious laws.

(1692)witchcraft trials held in Salem

(1689–97) The colony fought alongside British regulars in a series of French and Indian Wars . First was  King William’s War (1689–97)

1700s

Expansion, colonial skills,  wars.

Early to mid 1700s:

Britain had policy- Salutary neglect- officials allowed the colonies in America more freedom from trade regulations , hoping  England could later tax them.

 

 

  • (1716)First lighthouse in America, “The Boston Light” built in Boston Harbor
  • (1713-1745) Great building expansion Old State House in 1713, Old North Church in 1723, Old South Meetinghouse in 1729 and Faneuil Hall in 1742.

 

(1730) Boston had over 13,000 residents.

(1750) Boston had 15,000 residents.

 

(1754)

French and Indian War in the singular is used in the United States specifically for the warfare of 1754–63,

 

(mid 1700s) Wolves killed,

 

(1763) by King George III, after the end of the French and Indian War/Seven Years’ War, forbade all settlement west of a line drawn along the Appalachian Mountains, which was delineated as an Indian Reserve.

 

(1765 )Stamp Act , other acts, attempted to reap money from colonies

 

Colonists got very angry and this contributed to the Revolution

(1776)- Declaration of Independence

 

(1780) Slavery made illegal in the state constitution, first state to  outlaw it

 

(1783) Treaty of Paris ended the American Revolutionary War.

 

http://historyofmassachusetts.org/history-of-the-massachusetts-bay-colony/

 

1800s:

Economic Growth, political change, distant wars, literature, Boston infrastructure, Medicine and science,  new immigrants

 

Industrial revolution

Economy in Massachusetts changed  from an agricultural economy to a manufacturing economy

 

(1810)   The first woolen mill established in Uxbridge, MA- just making yarn

 

(1813), the first successful integrated textile mill in North America built in  Waltham

 

(1812 ) War of 1812 was the result of British interference in North American trade.

War caused New Englanders to increase local manufacturing which sped up industrialization in the region

 

mid 1800s: factories around Boston producing textiles and shoes, and factories around Springfield producing precision manufacturing tools and paper

 

1830s-Civil war: New England Renaissance: MA center of literary revolution including Henry David Thoreau, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Ralph Waldo Emerson, as well as authors Walt Whitman and Herman Melville, among many others.

 

1836, Mary Lyon opened Mount Holyoke College, the first women’s college in America.

 

1840s-1850s: millions of Irish Catholics immigrate to escape the Great Famine

 

 

(1861-1865) Civil war:  150,000 men, including first official African American regiment in US, women as nurses, and manufactured supplies all from Massachusetts

 

1880s Immigration of Germans, British, Irish, and Scandinavians  continues until about 1880s

 

(1884)  raw sewage collected in Boston on Moon Island in the harbor, and discharged  500 feet off shore, with the ebbing tide

 

(1889-1904) Boston  built one of the finest regional sewerage systems in the country, still discharging raw sewage  into ocean

 

Post Civil War – 1900 : Gilded Age

 

 

(1892): Sierra Club founded by John Muir

  1. MA creates Indian Affairs commission

 

 

 

1900s:

 

pollution , over exploitation come home to roost

 

1952  Boston began to treat the sewage it poured daily into Boston Harbor, oddly separating sludge from effluent and then dumping both in the harbor

Boston Harbor:

1972 Clean Water Act, and updated Federal Water Pollution Control Act –

requiring all publicly owned treatment works that dump sewage into waters of the United States install both primary and secondary treatment equipment by July, 1976

The harbor 1970s -2000

1976-  Boston finished Harbor study, Metropolitan District Commission (MDC)  is in charge

1977: Congress amended law to allow cities to get waivers. Boston applied for a waiver.

It was denied by EPA

Boston Harbor group did nothing

1982-83 : 3 lawsuits

  1. Quincy sued Boston over pollution of Quincy Bay, failing to obey laws about water
  2. EPA sued over breaking water protection laws
  3. Conservation law foundation sued to force harbor clean-up

1983- agreement to do cleanup

1984 nothing happened

1984- Quincy goes to court again

Judge orders new organization to be made, Mass Water Resource Authority

1985 EPA  sues to get a schedule of improvements enforced

 

(1988) the continuous pollution of Boston Harbor had earned it the infamous label of “America’s Dirtiest Harbor.”

(1989) Boston Harbor Project begins (3.8Billion, 10 year proj.) (They stalled from 1972-1989)

1991: Metropolitan Sewerage System finally stops dumping 400,000-500,000 gallons of sludge into the harbor.

1996: Governor Weld jumps in to Charles River

1992 the Canadian Federal Minister of Fisheries and Oceans,  declared a moratorium on the Northern Cod fishery off of Newfoundland, Cod were at 1% of historic levels

  1. MA creates Indian Affairs commission

1993 effort to revive  Massachusett language

1994 President Clinton signs executive order 12898 on Environmental Justice “Federal Actions to Address Environmental Justice in Minority Populations and Low-Income Populations.”

EJ defined by EPA as

“The fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, national origin, or income with respect to the development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and policies. Fair treatment means that no group of people, including racial, ethnic, or socioeconomic group should bear a disproportionate share of the negative environmental consequences resulting from industrial, municipal, and commercial operations or the execution of federal, state, local, and tribal programs and policies.”

https://www.boem.gov/Environmental-Stewardship/Environmental-Assessment/12898/index.aspx

2000s

Boston Harbor

2000: Deer Island Sewage Treatment Plant , fully functional,

2000, the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority ended the daily discharge of millions of gallons of largely untreated sewage into Boston Harbor (from combined swage systems).

2011 Boston Harbor beaches clean enough to swim

(2010) 37,000 Native Americans belong to tribes, in mA

(2013) The New England Fishery Management Council cut the catch limit on Gulf of Maine cod by 77 percent

(2014) Gulf of Maine  Cod had dwindled to as little as 3 % of what it would take to sustain a healthy population. The  National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration banned virtually all cod fishing throughout the region.

Caterpillar Rain

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Gypsy moth females crowd the trunk of an oak in Ipswich MA. Each female is laying between 500-1000 eggs in a tan mass. Photo credit: Craig Story

I was on the phone with an alumn recently, talking biology and teaching when he asked about something he was hearing. It was like rain, he said. It was constant.  It was caterpillars eating all of the leaves on his trees, his neighbors’ trees, the trees for miles around.  Their chomping and the delicate fall of their dry droppings (frass) made a gentle but continuous noise.  “Why are they so bad this year?” he asked.

Lots of people have been asking me that and other questions such as,

“Why are my oaks all dying?”  Here is a quick answer: gypsy moths.

Gypsy moths (Lymantria dispar) are, not surprisingly, in the Lepidoptera (moths and butterflies) order of insects. They are in a group called the tussock moths.  They hatch from eggs into caterpillars on trees and shrubs and eat leaves in the spring, eventually molting several times. Then the gypsy moth caterpillars pupate, emerge as adults, mate and the females lay eggs.   The males have functional brownish wings. You may see them flying about in an oddly jerky way while they follow the mesmerizing scent of a female.  The females don’t fly.  They just wait with white, unusable wings, on the trunks of trees. Later the females will lay masses of eggs in what looks like a fuzzy, spongy tan packet on trees and picnic tables and where ever else strikes their fancy.

Why are Gypsy moths here?

Gypsy moths came originally from Europe and Asia. Unfortunately, in 1869 they were purposely imported by someone who wanted to use them for silk production.  The caterpillars do make small amounts of silk, so the wind can catch the silk threads and distribute caterpillars from tree to tree. However, the silk experiment did not go as intended.  Today, we do not have a thriving silk industry from gypsy moths and unfortunately, the moths have become a huge pest in many parts of North America.

Because they did not evolve in North America, gypsy moths have few natural controls such as diseases, predators and parasites.   Unfortunately, gypsy moths voraciously eat 500 different host plants (their favorites are oaks), and can destroy hardwood forests. The worst infestation in New England was in the 1980s but the last few years have been pretty bad as well.

Why so bad right now?

Gypsy moths naturally have outbreak and die-off cycles.  A drought in 2016 weakened trees and also killed a fungus that can infect moth larvae. This meant that gypsy moth populations reached high numbers  in 2017. Gypsy moths are killed by deep cold, thus recent warmer winters have had an effect. In 2018 we actually have fewer moths in Massachusetts than we did in 2017.  However, as my phone caller described, because of uneven distribution of moths, some places (including nearby Ipswich) have had incredible densities of gypsy moths.

Most trees can handle a single defoliation. In fact, a small infestation of leaf-eating caterpillars is a good thing. It can open up forest floor for growth, provide food up the food chain, and fertilize the soil.  However, when several years of annual defoliation pass and a drought has stressed them, even huge hardwoods can die.   The forest floor can be so opened that invasive species move in, and  valuable wood as well as ecosystem functions can be lost.

What can kill gypsy moths?

There are some predators and pathogens that can knock the moths back. For example, viruses can infect gypsy moths. One virus in particular, (the nucleopolyhedrosis virus) can stop an outbreak by killing off much of the moth population.  Like the virus, a major fungal pathogen (Entomophaga maimaiga)  is also more likely to spread when caterpillars are very crowded and the weather is wet.

In years when gypsy moths are less common, mammals and birds help keep the moths under control. The little white footed mouse munches away on pupae, adults and larvae, even climbing trees to find them. The short-tailed shrew eats moths voraciously.  Even squirrels get into the act. At least 14 species of birds are known to eat them as well.

There are several “bugs” (used the way normal people, not entomologists, use this word) that eat gypsy moths; ladybird beetles, wasps, and spiders are a few examples. Two insect predators need special mention. The parasitic fly, Compsilura concinnata, was released in the US in 1906 to kill the gypsy moth.  It was brought from its native Europe.  The fly is quite effective at killing insect hosts. The larvae eat the body of the host on which they have been laid. Then they pupate, and as adults, mate and parasitize more hosts, in three or four generations a year. Because the gypsy moth has only one generation per year, the parasitic fly has to live on other insects as well. (Poor planning by the people who released it!)  Indeed, the fly can parasitize 200 species of insects. Unfortunately their prey include native species like the giant silk moths, such as the Luna.

The adults of a large, ground beetle (Calosoma sycophanta) eat gypsy moth larvae, and the larval beetles seek out and feed on the moth pupae.  The beetle is large and iridescent and spectacularly beautiful.   While it does eat several other moth species, the ones it eats are often invasive.

What Can I do?

The gypsy moth caterpillar season is over for 2018 and the adults don’t feed.  Trying to trap the males, which is possible, is unlikely to be effective.  You can  scrape egg masses off of trees, but if you do so, don’t just let them drop onto the ground where some eggs may survive, but knock them into a can of soapy water.  The biggest thing you can do is try to prevent the caterpillars from defoliating your trees next spring.

While pesticides can sometimes be used against Gypsy moths, in general the chemicals have to hit each individual caterpillar or egg, and this coverage is very hard to achieve in tall trees.  Pesticides can also kill non-target organisms including predators of the moths, which obviously is the opposite of your goal.   So for very particular lawn trees, spraying might be useful but its effectiveness is limited. Pesticides are  much more effective on small trees, such as you might find in an orchard, especially early in the caterpillars’ growth.

Early in an infestation, small caterpillars can be treated successfully with  Bacillus thuringiensis (kurstaki), commonly known as B.t.k.. This is a bacterium that makes a toxin that kills certain types of insects. A certified pest control operator with tree top equipment would need to apply the solution, but this option can be effective.  When infestations are not at high levels, trapping caterpillars on tree trunks in either burlap trap or a sticky barrier can help keep caterpillar damage down.

Gypsy moths offer a cautionary tale about releasing organisms in parts of the world where they don’t normally occur.  Here, we’ve managed to have forests in spite of a number of invasive insect pests. The impact of climate change is a yet unknown force, however, and we have still to see what will result.

Gypsy moth females on a tree trunk in Annisquam, MA, July 21, 2018 photo credit: Alexa Bragg

 

For More information

https://ag.umass.edu/landscape/fact-sheets/gypsy-moth

http://www.gypsymothalert.com/control.html

https://www.massaudubon.org/learn/nature-wildlife/insects-arachnids/nuisance-moths/gypsy-moths

https://ag.umass.edu/landscape/news/gypsy-moth-caterpillar-feeding-finished-for-2018

http://www.courant.com/community/brooklyn/hc-kn-brooklyn-gypsy-moth-devastation-killing-trees-in-eastern-ct-0524-20180521-story.html

https://www.fs.fed.us/ne/morgantown/4557/gmoth/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calosoma_sycophanta

 

The People’s Climate March Sept 21, 2014

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I marched a week ago with 310,000 people in NYC , to send a message to the world that climate change is real and needs our attention. I believe this to be true because I have scientific training, attend scientific conferences, read papers on climate, and read reports by climate change researchers. I care about it because I am a Christian. I love the natural world, the art work of God. I love my neighbor, I love the creator.  Caring about giant changes in the world wrought by human action has to be a part of this love.

Next to me was a group of scientists. Coming from all over, they did not all know each other before the march.  They wore lab coats, and little stickers that said “Science Stands”.  I walked and talked with a biologist from Texas.  One of the organizers was a microbiologist from NYC.  They were marching not only about climate, but about science  and science education itself.   I could have easily chosen to walk with them and I was thrilled that the organizers put scientists and faith communities together in the same section.  In my life, these communities do not need to be at odds.

The group I was walking with included Christian college students, people from the Christian Reformed Church, staff from Young Evangelicals for Climate Action. John and Barbara Elwood (of the blog BelovedPlanet).   Ahead of me was a group from Harvard’s Divinity School.  Far to the front, a friend of mine was walking with a group of investors.  The crowd was so large that she had marched, and was on her bus on the way back to Washington, D.C. before I finished walking.  I have never been in a group so large. It was energizing and humbling to be a part of such an action.

Climate change, and other environmental degradations, are the outworking of excess, cumulative impacts of all of our actions, and unintended consequences of things we sometimes did for good reason.   This reality- that it is no one person, and no one action we have to change, makes it more difficult to solve.  Nonetheless, pretending that it isn’t really happening will not help us. People often ask me for a list of things they can do. I often resist giving such a list, in part because I don’t think most of the change we need now will be because individuals change their light bulbs. It will be because of corporate actions,  large scale impacts which will both come out of the many small behaviors of individuals but will also change those behaviors.  It will involve changes to the way governments and large corporations do business.

I do not know the impact of the Sept 21 Climate March. I do know we tried to send a signal to the UN , the world, and to leaders of the US that this matters and needs attention now.  I know it sent a signal to me, myself, to work on the things I am able to, and yell about the things we need to do together.

Here, Now a Pilgrimage of the Small

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I am writing this blog because I am so compelled by the wonder of nature around me.   Many of my favorite books are about people living extraordinary lives of observation. Annie Dillard spent a year in the Wilderness writing A Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, Thoreau escaped to Walden to live in a cabin. Henry Beston lived in a shack on the beach described in  in The Outermost House, braving the fierce howling winds of winter. One of my new favorites, Elizabeth Tova Bailey wrote The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating, while on a sickbed. In Desert Solitaire, Edward Abbey escapes civilization to  the red canyons and shimmering air of the hot southwest. Some writers like Julie Zwickefoose who wrote  A year in Eden live on farms, or in wild places.  They have pets, and move slowly, and write of homemade bread and jam. Birds flock to their feeders and they know them all.

Well, world- I live here, not there, now, not the past or future. I live  on a third of an acre on a busy street, here where the salt from the winter plows kills the edge of my grass. I’m here in a place of privilege- a larger lot than many in the heart of cities will ever find, and yet an infinitesimal plot compared to the great unreached farms of Australia where cattle wander in search of water, small compared to the wild reaches of Appalachia, small compared to the national park where I would want to go- to have a year if I were such  a pilgrim. How vast are the reaches I would hike, how closely I would watch the creeks, how cold and warm and tired and boundlessly energetic I would be were I to take a year to go and be.

The call of my real life, my two sons, my spouse, one pet and two jobs, holds me here with ties I have chosen and love. And so my pilgrimage is broken into a mosaic- a glimpse of the transcendent her and there, the windows into truth and beauty are flashes in the everyday. Heart stopping joy and the crazy fun of curiosity, the morbid fascination of the odd, all here- where I am. And I share it with you now, in the hopes we will travel together, for I suffer an overwhelming love of the fierce and wild, the real, the live and dead, the complex and messy world-  that threatens to undo me.

Moth of the Moon

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Recently, a friend pointed out a creature clinging quietly on the bricks on the side of the fitness center at work.  Although it was the middle of a summer day, the creature was a normally nocturnal Luna moth (Actias luna). This species was named because of its moon-like spots by the father of biological classification, Carolus Linnaeus himself, in 1758.  The wings of Luna moths are pale green to bluish green with maroon or yellow rims, and with long tails swooping off the ends of the hind pair of wings. Both pairs of large wings have eyespots shaped a little like moons, that can be used to frighten predators.   The hind-wing tails can also be used to confuse the echolocation of bats  that swoop in to snag a moth out of the air and eat it.

This moth was photographed in an evening on a screen door. The friend sent the picture to me to find out what it might be. You can see the underside of the moth. You can also see that the wings are ragged, possibly from flying past vegetation or escaping predators.

 

This moth was about 5 ft off of the ground (about 1.5 meters) resting on a brick wall at about 11:30 AM. The hind wings are tucked under the forewings but the tails are very striking and you can see the maroon on the leading edge of the forewings. Sometimes that color goes around most of the wing edges.

Orienting Luna Moths in the Natural World

Insects are part of the kingdom Animalia, itself a part of the eukaryotes. The Eukaryote domain is a group of kingdoms whose members all have a membrane around a nucleus in their cells. Insects are the class in the phylum Arthropoda (“jointed foot”) which also includes other animals with exoskeletons such as lobsters and spiders. Phyla are subdivisions of kingdoms. Within the animal kingdom, insects are the class with the highest number of known species (about 900,000). In fact, insects account for more than half of all named eukaryotic species. Moths and butterflies are in an order of insects called the Lepidoptera (meaning “scale wing”). To give perspective, ants, wasps and bees are in a different insect order, the Hymenoptera (“membrane wing”) , and flies are in yet another order, the Diptera (“two-wing”). If you have ever accidentally brushed a moth or butterfly or seen one dead on the ground, you may have seen tiny powder-like scales coming off of the wings.  This is the reason for the name of the group.

Inside the order Lepidoptera, the Luna moths are members of a family of large moths called the ”Saturniidae”,  named after Saturnia, an alternative name for Juno, the Roman Queen of the Gods. There are 2,300 species in the Saturniidae but only 68 of these species live in North America. The species Actias luna, which I was seeing sitting on the red brick wall, is only found in North America. You might think that 2,300 is a large number of species to be in a family, but realize that there are 70,000 known species of weevils, a family in the beetle (Coleoptera or “case-wing”) order.  For an insect family, Saturniidae isn’t very large.

Luna moths are in a subfamily of the saturniids referred to as the Giant Silkworm Moths. (The silkworm used to make silk is not actually in this family and is not native to North America but some of the Giant Silkworm Moths do make a small amount of silk).

How do Luna Moths Live?

With a wingspan of about 4.5 inches (around 11 centimeters), Lunas are one of the largest moths in North America. Some other saturniids are even larger.  Luna moth caterpillars also get large large right before they form a pupa, and can eat a wide variety of plant leaves.

Two other large moths in the same subfamily are the Cecropia silkmoth (Hyalophora cecropia) and the Polyphemus moth (Antheraea polyphemus). Like the Luna moth, these two are large, nocturnal, and have caterpillars that feed on leaves of trees. They all find mates by coming out in the summer night, moving toward light, and using pheromones, or chemical attractants.  Insects use pheromones as chemical signals for an array of activities including finding food, escaping predation and finding mates. Antennae of saturniids, especially males, are brushy and featherlike and are among the most sensitive chemical receptors to be found. Some moths have 60,000 receptors and can detect a single molecule of pheromone that has wafted from a mile away!  Female Luna moths will release their pheromones and wait. Males will swim upwind until they find the source, often near midnight.  Then pairs of Luna moths join,  remain connected and mate for up to 24 hours.  Later the female will  lay several hundred eggs in small batches on vegetation. These eggs will hatch in a bout a week, and the caterpillars will be munching away on the leaves where they hatch.

Even More to Know!

There is a great deal more to say about the Luna moth and its relatives but I’ll just stick with a few more surprising features:

*Luna moth caterpillars hatch and grow quickly, molting several times and growing each time before forming a cocoon and inside it, the thin pupal covering.

* Luna moth caterpillars can rear up, spew a distasteful substance and make a clicking noise with their mouths to scare off predators

*Like other moths, Luna moths have a pupal stage when their body undergoes a dramatic metamorphosis.  During that stage, the moth absorbs its entire digestive system and forms reproductive structures.  As adults, Luna moths have tiny or absent mouths and never eat. They reproduce and die within about a week.  Not all moths do this.

* Sometimes Luna moths have multiple generations in a summer.  Later generations are colored slightly differently. As climate change occurs, multiple generations are occurring more northerly.

*Overall, large moths, including the Saturniidae, have declined in New England over the last 50 years.  Luna moths, fortunately, appear to be holding steady, although they are not common.

NATIONAL MOTH WEEK!!! July 21-29, 2018

July 21-29 is National Moth Week! Who knew?  You can be a part of something big by collecting data and submitting it to groups that want to know what moths are out there. Collecting information for scientists to use is a part of citizen science.  In fact, moth week occurs in countries all over the world as well.

Believe it or not, looking for moths is called mothing.  It is usually done at night.

If there is enough interest, I will try to arrange a local mothing event.  You could also organize one! Get your family out on the lawn and use one of the fun techniques described here:

http://www.mothscount.org/uploads/How_to_start%20_mothing.pdf

 

Thanks to my friend for pointing out a delightful and amazing Luna moth. I hope you all get to see one as well some enchanted evening in the last week of July! 

 

 

 

 

If you are interested:

Here is some information on National Moth Week

http://nationalmothweek.org/

 

Several of these moths  can be seen if you navigate from here: https://www.butterfliesandmoths.org/taxonomy/Saturniidae.

 

Here is an interesting but somewhat technical paper about large-bodied moth declines in New England

http://nationalmothweek.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Moth-Decline.pdf

more on insects:

https://www.si.edu/spotlight/buginfo/bugnos

 

Is That Turtle Stuck?

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One recent Sunday morning before church, I was surprised by a call on the house phone. “Dr. B?” someone asked.  “This is N, from environmental science. I’m here with A.  We are walking out near Gull pond. I’m sorry to bother you, but we found a turtle.  We think it might be stuck. The turtle is on a gravel hill and its moving its legs and not going forward. Should we help it move?”

I explained that it was very unlikely that the turtle was stuck. Turtles have been going over  gravel bumps for a long time. I asked if it looked like the turtle was digging. They could not tell.   I asked what the shell looked like. Together we could not get much farther over the phone although I had a pretty good idea what was going on.

I asked the students to take some pictures and send me some pictures.  Later in the afternoon, I got to look at the photos.  As I suspected, the turtle was fine. It was a female digging a hole to lay eggs. She would then go back to her pond home and the eggs, covered with sand and gravel, will develop over a period of 75 to 95 days. When they hatch from the leathery shells,  the baby turtles will push their way through the dust and dirt to the surface and walk by instinct to the pond as well. Around here, that often means crossing a road.  Watch for the mamas on the way to lay eggs, and the babies on the way back!

From the students’ descriptions, I thought it was most likely a snapping turtle. However, it did not have some of the ridges some snappers have and I wasn’t certain from just hearing about it. Nonetheless, when I saw the stout head and gripping jaws, and powerful digging legs, I knew it was the common snapping turtle, Chelydra serpentina.

How else might I have figured this out? Well, there are only ten (actually , eleven, but we’ll come to that) species of turtles in Massachusetts (and up to five sea turtle species that could -potentially- be seen  in the waters near Cape Cod).  Of the ten land/pond/wetland species,  most are quite rare.  Blanding’s Turtle, the Bog Turtle, the Eastern Box Turtle, the Diamond-backed Terrapin, the Northern Red-bellied  Cooter, and the Wood Turtle are all so rare that it is illegal to kill, harass, collect or possess them.   If you get into herpetology enough and can find one of these and recognize it, take a picture and tell the Massachusetts National Heritage and Endangered Species Program.

Then there are the Spotted Turtle (which has spots, not surprisingly) and the Eastern Musk Turtle, (which lets out a terrible odor when frightened). Neither of these look like our turtle and neither are very common in this area or big enough to to be this mama.

There are three species left:

The Painted turtle is quite common, but it is small, has a very smooth shell and distinctive yellow lines and spots on its head.

Aha- Now we come to the reason some lists say ten and some say eleven species of turtles in Massachusetts: the Red-eared Slider is quite common in this area but it is not a native to the northeast. Instead, it has been released here and many other parts of the world by people who got tired of their pets and released them into the wild where they bred. Releasing pets is actually a very bad idea. (Similar releasing of the African Clawed frog caused the spread of a deadly fungus across North America that wiped out members of many other frog species.) For the purpose of our question- the Red Eared Slider is also too smooth, too small, and has red spots on its head.

The only one left is the rugged snapper. Built like a tank, and sometimes irascible, snapping turtles have long life spans and get very large.  The oldest recorded was one hundred years old, in Canada, and the largest can be 19 inches (almost half a meter) long.  Females don’t even reach reproductive age until 15-20 years old!  Snapping Turtles are omnivores, eating plants as well as fish, frogs, snakes, birds, insects, and smaller turtles as well as scavenging.   When turtle soup was a more common food, the turtle in the soup was usually Snapping Turtle.

photo credit: Nathan Lookwhy

Back to our lovely , hopeful mama turtle. Should all go well, and predators such as  raccoons or weasels not find and eat the eggs,  those babies will hatch. Whether they become male or female will depend on the temperature at which they incubate.  The higher temperatures produce more females.  You can imagine that warming temperatures are changing turtle sex ratios. In fact, among sea turtles some, like the Green Sea Turtle in Australian waters, are 99% female. Hopefully, here in the temperate forest, we will still see a mixture of sexes in the babies that hatch.

Just a few more tidbits about Snapping Turtles:

  • You cannot pick them up by the tail safely. That’s an old wives tale. They are very likely to be injured.  You can break the tail or even part of the back.
  • unless they are small or you are very experienced, it is probably better not to pick up a Snapping Turtle.  There are all sorts of videos on You tube claiming to know how but since some of them show people picking up turtles by the tail- you can’t necessarily trust the. If a Snapping Turtle is medium or large and in danger- try to nudge it in the direction it was going with a stick.
  • Like all turtles,  the shell of a Snapping Turtle has two parts- the top carapace and the bottom plastron. The carapace is made from about 50 bones fused together- the ribs and vertebrae. So in spite of many cartoons to the contrary, turtles cannot leave their shells!
  • Turtles have a territory and if you move them elsewhere they won’t know what to do and they will try to return home, even if that is dangerous.
  • In general, enjoy seeing them and then let them be.

Thanks for learning a little about Snapping Turtles with me! Here are some resources:

https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/01/australia-green-sea-turtles-turning-female-climate-change-raine-island-sex-temperature/

https://massherpatlas.org/amphibians_reptiles/turtles/snapping_turtle/index.html

https://www.massaudubon.org/learn/nature-wildlife/reptiles-amphibians/turtles/turtle-species-in-massachusetts

a Flock of Doves, an Eagle Claw, a Wild Columbine

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May 15, 2016 Wild Columbines

May 15, 2016 Wild Columbines

May 2016 Wild Columbine near the native plant garden

May 2016 Wild Columbine near the native plant garden

Long before the term “Columbine” was shorthand for a terrible disaster, it meant a town, it meant the sweetheart of Harlequin in pantomime, and it was the name of a flower. Right now, wild columbines (Aquilegia canadensis), are sprinkled about our local rocky outcroppings, their bright red and yellow flowers nodding. These spectacular flowers are worth a closer look. The 60 or 70 species of columbines are in the genus Aquilegia, whose name comes from the Latin for eagle, because the petals of this oddly shaped flower looked to observers like an eagle’s claw.

Photo by Sage Ross https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquilegia_canadensis#/media/File:Wild_Columbine.jpg

Photo by Sage Ross
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquilegia_canadensis#/media/File:Wild_Columbine.jpg

The sepals, another part of the flower, look like wings next to the recurved spurs of the petals. The flower itself hangs upside down. To people in the Middle Ages, these jutting wings made the flower look like a group of doves rising upward, and thus the common name, columbine, comes from the Medieval Latin columbīna (herba) dovelike (plant).

These flocks of doves, these eagle talons, provide nectar for their long-tongued pollinators such as hummingbirds, butterflies, and bees. Such pollinators desperately need food sources, and the columbine are a perfect supplier.

Native Americans used various parts of the columbine to treat ailments as diverse as heart disease, bladder problems, headaches and kidney problems. Seeds were ground to make a love charm.

Wild columbines are flowering now and will later produce seeds from August until October, but they are perennials and will overwinter as well.The flowers of the wild columbine, join the tulip poplars, azaleas, and other local showy spring plants to bring sparks of color to this spring festival.

Enjoy!

 

What’s That Foam on Trees?

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Foam at the base of a pine tree near Frost Hall, courtesy of Kate McMillan and Abby Stroven

Foam at the base of a pine tree near Frost Hall, courtesy of Kate McMillan and Abby Stroven

Walking in the woods at Appleton Farms (Ipswich) with a class recently, I was soaked by seemingly unending rain. Our hardy group was out looking at vernal pools when several students asked me about foam at the bottom of several tree trunks. We saw that trickles of foam were coming down the trunks and piling at the base. What was the cause?

Then two staff members saw the same thing on campus and sent me a picture. I did not have an immediate answer for the cause of the foam, but I knew that sometimes foam forms in nature, and that it was not necessarily a problem. But just to be sure, I did some digging around.

Guess what? Foam forms on the trunks of trees in heavy rains because of chemical interactions similar to those that occur when you make soap. That is, it’s like a simple soap made in nature. On pine trees, foam forms because some of the chemicals found in pine sap are soap-like. On other trees, sometimes foam is formed from a chemical process that is created by the combination of air pollutants and plant materials. The air pollutants land on trees during dry periods and build up. During rains, they interact chemically, forming a soap and run down the trunks, foaming as it hits bumps in the bark. A similar process occurs on roads when rain occurs after a dry spell, leaving small pockets of foam by the edges of the road.

Sometimes, however, there is more foam than just the small amounts we saw this week. Foam can appear to pour out of a specific place in the trunk of a tree and down to the base. This is a sign of a bacterial disease called slime flux (also called foamy canker, alcoholic flux, or wetwood) . Trees that are stressed, especially by drought, can be weakened. Bacteria can get into damaged areas of the tree. Through wounds such as breaks in the bark. The bacteria break down tree tissue and produce alcohol and carbon dioxide. The gasses force themselves out of the wood, making a bubbling foam of sap and producing a wet area on the trunk. Sometimes insects such as bees come to feed on the alcohol mixture. If you wound a tree in your yard by hitting it with a lawn mower or weed whacker, the same problem can arise.

For more information on foam on trees see this

http://vtstateparks.blogspot.com/2012/05/whats-with-foam-i-saw-on-trees.html

and this:

http://en.allexperts.com/q/Plant-Diseases-715/white-foam-Oak-Tree.htm