Yearly Archives: 2012

Five-lined Skink

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Skinks belong to a superfamily of lizards with about 1200 species, their family the second most diverse family of lizards, exceeded only by geckos.

The Five-lined Skink is one of the most common lizards in the eastern U.S. They are ground-dwelling reptiles that prefer a moist, partially wooded habitat that provides cover as well as sites to bask in the sun.

The bright blue tail can be detached if the lizard is attacked by a predator. The tail will twitch for quite some time while the lizard makes its escape.

As their name implies, Five-lined Skinks have five light lines that run down their backs and tails. They tend to grow to 6 or 7 inches in total length.

They will often climb dead trees where there are a lot of insects, which are their main source of food.

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Eastern Box Turtle

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Walking the edge of this cypress swamp, something up ahead caught my eye.

The box turtle gets its name for its ability to close up the bottom of its shell with a “hinge.” Although it lives on land, the box turtle is more closely related to aquatic turtles than tortoises.

This turtle lives in a wide range of habitats, including woodlands, field edges, thickets, marshes, bogs, and stream banks. Box turtles have high, domed shells and eat a variety of plant and animal matter.

Male Eastern Box Turtles, like this one, often have red eyes. Many Box turtles stay in a small home range (under five acres) most of their lives; they routinely live for several decades, and occasionally for a century or more.

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Marbled Salamander

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Today I found my first Marbled Salamanders ever. They are named because of their pattern.

Marbled Salamanders are part of a group known as “mole salamanders,” and spend most of its life under logs or in burrows.

Unlike most mole salamanders, instead of laying eggs in the spring, Marbled Salamanders lay their eggs in the fall in low areas that are likely to flood during winter rains. The female coils around the eggs until they can be underwater.

This reproduction strategy gives baby Marbled Salamanders a “head start.” The Marbled Salamander larvae gain a size advantage by feeding and growing for several months before the much larger Jefferson Salamanders and Spotted Salamanders hatch later in the spring.

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Western Cottonmouth

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Greetings from southern Illinois. Let’s see what kind of cool stuff that can be found in the next few days. The first snake of the trip was this young Western Cottonmouth.

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The cottonmouth is a dark, stout, thick-bodied venomous snake. The name “cottonmouth” is derived from the snake’s habit of opening its mouth in a defensive posture when it feels threatened. Other names for this snake are “water moccasin” and “trap jaw.”

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This is a snake that is usually found in or around water. When swimming, the cottonmouth holds its head above water with most of its body barely touching the surface.

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The young wiggle their tails so that the yellow tip appears to be a small worm. When small frogs and lizards see the wriggling tail, they think it’s something to eat and rush forward to grab it, only to be eaten by the baby cottonmouth.

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Autumn Sneezeweed

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Lately I’ve been seeing a lot of this plant, which is a type of aster with clusters of up to 100 flower heads on each plant. The flowers are usually about an inch wide.

The common name is based on the former use of its dried leaves in making snuff, inhaled to cause sneezing that would supposedly rid the body of evil spirits. As the other part of its name implies, Autumn Sneezeweed blooms in late summer or fall.

Its Latin name, Helenium autumnale, is thought to have been named for Helen of Troy. The legend is that the flowers sprung up from the ground where her tears fell.

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Northern Redback Salamander

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The recent heavy autumn rains have brought to the surface of the forest floor many tiny amphibians that have been waiting out the dry, hot summer deep underground.

Woodland salamanders with short legs, Redbacks are part of a large group known as “lungless salamanders.” Breathing is accomplished by absorbing oxygen through the skin and mouth lining. Lungless salamanders will drown if submerged in water for a long period of time.

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Unlike most amphibians, Redback Salamanders are completely independent of water. There is no tadpole or larva stage. The eggs, usually six to eight, are laid in hanging grape-like clusters under moist rocks and logs. The female coils around the eggs to protect them from predators and prevent them from drying out during the six week incubation period.

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These are small, slender creatures usually less than 4 inches in total length. The Northern Redback’s world is magical and unfamiliar to us – they hunt in the damp thickness of leaf litter just below the forest floor.

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In addition to the highly variable “red” back (it also occurs in a “leadback” variation, which is dark and unpatterned) this amphibian is often sprinkled with greenish metallic highlights. Here is a “leadback” version:

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Although not often seen, throughout most of their range Redback Salamanders are very common – they can be the most common vertebrate in the eastern woods. Population densities of Northern Redbacked Salamanders can range from 800 to 8,000 salamanders per acre. This species lives throughout most of the northeastern United States.

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Because they’re so abundant, they play an important role in forest food chains. They’re active predators and eat just about anything they can catch (ants, termites, beetles, earthworms, spiders, slugs, mites, and millipedes).  On the other hand, Northern Redback Salamanders are important food items for small forest snakes and birds that forage in the leaf litter.

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Bat in a Sign

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While visiting a State Park, I noticed something was a bit odd about the information sign.

Closer observation revealed that there was a bat in the sign! I opened the sign up in an effort to release it, but the animal just “settled in” and made itself more comfortable.

The Little Brown Bat lives along streams and lakes (there was a creek nearby).  It eats insects like gnats, flies, moths, wasps and beetles. It hunts at dusk and at night. Bats are the only mammals capable of flight.

It uses echolocation to locate prey by sending out a high-frequency sound. When the sound hits an object, it bounces back to the bat. The bat then can identify what the sound hit and where it is. Echolocation is thought to be one of the most sophisticated systems ever developed. It is a rare occasion when a bat ever strikes any object, including a person.

They capture prey with their teeth, and by netting them with the tail membrane, or by deflecting an insect with a wing tip into the tail membrane. Bats may eat hundreds of insects each night.

The little brown bat migrates to caves or mines in the winter to hibernate. It wakes up every couple of weeks during hibernation. It doesn’t feed when it wakes up, but it may fly around outside the cave on warm nights. This species is about 3-1/2 inches long with a 10 inch wingspan.

You may think that seeing a bat in a sign is a once-in-a-lifetime experience, but a few days later I visited a park along the upper Cuyahoga River. Guess what?

This one was so amused by my reaction that it stick its tongue out at me.

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Shagbark Hickory

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Shagbark Hickory is probably the most distinctive of all the hickories because of its loose-plated “shaggy” bark. Each long, thick bark plate is attached at the middle, with both ends curving away from the trunk, giving the tree a truly ragged appearance.

The nuts are edible with an excellent flavor, and are a popular food among people and squirrels alike.

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It is a slow-growing but potentially massive tree located throughout Ohio and is frequently found in association with other hickories and oaks.

Shagbark Hickory’s timber is prized for making tool handles, athletic equipment and furniture. Its “green” wood (or sometimes seasoned, but freshly-wetted wood chips) is also sought after for the smoking of meats.

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Eastern Milk Snake

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A barn off in the distance looked like it would be good snake habitat. Snakes like clearings in the woods, where they can bask in the sun. They also like hiding under man-made objects like metal or wood that may be lying in the ground.

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It turned out that the spot had a few Eastern Milk Snakes. Milk snakes get their name because “back in the day” they would often be seen hanging around barns. When farmers had low milk production from their cows, they accused the snakes of drinking milk right from the cows’ udders!

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This of course is silly, but the name stuck. Snakes like barns because one of their favorite foods, rodents, can also be found in and around them.

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There are 25 subspecies of milk snakes, and the eastern is one of only a few which does not have red, yellow and black bands resembling a Coral Snake. These snakes have a light colored v-shaped or y-shaped patch on their neck and a checkered belly.

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Although adults usually have brown blotches on a tan background; young Eastern Milks have maroon blotches on a gray background – over time the colors change.

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The Eastern Milk Snake is one of our only constricting snakes in Northeast Ohio. In addition to eating rodents, it also eats other snakes.

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This snake can be encountered throughout Ohio in a variety of habitats, including woods, meadows, and river bottoms and even within cities, where they occasionally enter buildings in search of mice.

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Spotted Touch-me-not

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This plant and its yellow-flowered relative are also known as Jewelweed, because water droplets on its leaves shine like tiny jewels. It favors wet areas where the ground retains moisture.

Touch-me-not’s stem is nearly translucent and contains a sap that can be used to soothe the effects of Poison Ivy and Stinging Nettle. Its ripe, long banana-shaped seed pods explode when touched, expelling its seeds in all directions. This characteristic, along with the dark spots on its flowers, give the Spotted Touch-me-not its common name.

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This flower is an important nectar plant for hummingbirds. If you scrape off the dark brown covering of ripe seeds, a sky blue seed awaits underneath.

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