Chalcedon Checkerspot

Posted on March 26, 2021 by tspuckler

I sometimes come across this colorful and very cool little butterfly while on my visits to California. It it relatively small, with a wingspan of less than two inches.

It is a highly variable species, with the wing upper surface being black to dark brown and a characteristic yellow and red checkerspot pattern.

The Chalcedon Checkerspot is widespread in the western mountains from Mexico to Alaska and ranges west to the Pacific Coast. It is a habitat generalist, though I most often see it in open fields.

It can also be found in streamsides, forest clearings, sagebrush flats, desert hills and alpine areas. Males often remain perched on their caterpillar host plants, like Monkey Flower, as a strategy to encounter females.

This is an enjoyable creature to see on my visits to the Golden State.

Third Eye Herp
E-mail

Giant White Wakerobin

Posted on March 19, 2021 by tspuckler

This spectacular wildflower was easy to spot in the overcast, rainy Pacific Northwest forest. This largest and showiest type of trillium is frequently cultivated in wildflower gardens.

The species is endemic to the western United States, ranging from west central California through Oregon to Washington. It is found in diverse habitats, such as the moist slopes of mixed deciduous-coniferous forests, among shrubs, thickets and along stream banks and river beds.

This plant has an elegant appearance in low-growing clumps of large green leaf-like bracts and brilliant white flowers. Scientifically known as Trillium albidum, this is a very long lived genus, with some species known to live for multiple decades. In the wild, most species take 7-10 years to produce flowers from seeds.

Giant White Wakerobin’s seeds are mainly dispersed by ants, which transport the seeds to their homes in order to consume part of the seed coat. This plant also spreads underground through rhizomes.

As its common name suggests, it is one of the earliest blooming of California native flowers and a herald of spring.

Third Eye Herp
E-mail

Flattop Crab

Posted on March 12, 2021 by tspuckler

This was a tiny, but super cool find while tidepooling on the California coast. A member of the Porcelain Crab Family, it shares the general body plan of a squat lobster, but their bodies are more compact and flattened – an adaptation for living and hiding under rocks.

These are quite fragile animals and often shed their limbs to escape predators, hence the family name “Porcelain Crab.” What struck me the most about this creature was its oversized claws which it uses to defend its territory.

Flattop Crabs are an example of carcinisation, whereby a noncrab-like animal (in this case a relative of a squat lobster) evolves into an animal that resembles a true crab. They can be distinguished from true crabs by the apparent number of walking legs (three instead of four pairs) and the long antennae located on the front outside of the eyestalks.

These crustaceans feed by combing plankton and other organic particles from the water using long bristle-like structures on their mouthparts. At a a shell size of less than one inch across, its prey is quite small, mainly consisting of diatoms.

The Flattop Crab can be found in the lower intertidal of sheltered waters. Its range extends from southeastern Alaska to southern California. It prefers areas with strong currents and can be found under rocks, especially those embedded in gravel or sand under seaweed and mussel beds in both exposed and sheltered shores.

This was an awesome find on my Golden State adventure.

Third Eye Herp
E-mail

Leather Star

Posted on March 5, 2021 by tspuckler

While tidepooling on the California Coast, I came across this sea star that was unlike any I’d ever seen before. Instead of being spiny and hard, it was soft and smooth.

Leather Stars usually have five wide arms. Their upper surface is blue-gray and mottled with red and orange. Their texture is smooth and slippery to the touch, somewhat like wet leather.

This animal feeds largely on sea anemones, sea cucumbers and Purple Sea Urchins. Occasionally they may eat sponges, hydroids and other marine invertebrates.

The Leather Star sometimes lives symbiotically with the scaleworm Arctonoe vittata. This worm lives in the tube foot grooves of the sea star.

Unlike many other sea stars, Leather Stars swallow their prey whole and digest it internally. They can grow to about 12 inches in diameter and have a distinctive smell that resembles garlic and sulphur.

In order to hunt for food, the Leather Star has sensors at the end of each arm that can detect prey.

Sea stars can reproduce sexually and asexually. They reproduce asexually by dividing their bodies and regenerating missing parts. The decapitated starfish limb can grow into a new sea star, so long as a part of the central body portion is attached.

Leather Stars are found from Prince William Sound, Alaska to San Diego, California. They live on rocky shores and in clean harbors on pilings and sea walls.

Third Eye Herp
E-mail

By-the-wind-sailor

Posted on February 26, 2021 by tspuckler

While tidepooling on the California coast, I came across these strange looking creatures. At fist I didn’t think that they were organisms at all, but rather pieces of plastic.

It is a free-floating hydrozoan that lives on the surface of the open ocean. Each apparent individual is a hydroid colony and most are less than three inches long.

Though their deep blue color is eye-catching, their most obvious feature is a small stiff sail that catches the wind and propels them over the surface of the sea. They catch their prey (generally plankton) using tentacles that hang down in the water and bear stinging cells.

These creatures typically live far offshore in open ocean waters and their little sails help distribute them using the force of the wind. However, because they sail only downwind or at a slight angle to the wind, they are often blown ashore in very high numbers, with millions piling onto beaches in drift rows.

There are two forms of By-the-wind-sailors. California specimens have a sail which is angled to the right of the main axis. This means that as the wind pushes it along, the creature tacks as much as 60 degrees to the right of the true wind direction. California’s predominant wind is from the northwest, therefore these animals are usually kept offshore.

The other form of By-the-wind-sailor has a sail angled to the left of the main axis. Not surprisingly these animals are found on the other side of the ocean – Japan, Korea and Siberia. Here the sail functions in the same way – it keeps the animal offshore and therefore safe from being stranded.

Each By-the-wind-sailor is a colony of all-male or all-female individuals (called polyps), which are divided into separate groups within the colony. Some polyps specialize in feeding and reproduction, while others protect the colony and provide structural support.

All polyps of an individual By-the-wind-sailor are connected by a canal system that distributes food and eliminates wastes. Even though they are very common and distributed throughout the oceans of the world, very little is known about the details of their life.

This was indeed one of the coolest creatures that I found on my visit to the Golden State. These animals may be alternately known as Sea Rafts, Purple Sails and Little Sails.

Third Eye Herp
E-mail

European Starling

Posted on February 19, 2021 by tspuckler

This bird was introduced to North America in 1890 and 1891, when about 60 individuals were released into New York’s Central Park as part of the local Shakespeare society’s plan to introduce all the birds mentioned in their author’s favorite writings.

Today, more than 200 million European Starlings range from Alaska to Mexico and many people consider them pests. Here in Ohio, this may be the most numerous of any bird species, with massive Winter roosts numbering into the tens of thousands.

This is a surprisingly long-lived creature, with the North American record for a wild bird being 17 years and 8 months. Starlings are great vocal mimics; they readily imitate other birds as well as mechanical sounds and even human speech.

European Starlings turn from spotted to glossy and dark each year without shedding their feathers. The new feathers they grow in Fall have bold white tips – that’s what gives them their spots. By spring, these tips have worn away, and the rest of the feather is dark and iridescent brown. It’s an unusual changing act that scientists term “wear molt.”

Starlings will eat nearly anything, but they focus on insects and other invertebrates when they’re available. They also eat fruit including wild and cultivated types. We most often see them at our suet feeders.

Though they’re sometimes resented for their abundance and aggressiveness, European Starlings are still dazzling birds when you get a good look at them.

Third Eye Herp
E-mail

Wandering Broadhead Planarian

Posted on February 12, 2021 by tspuckler

It’s not very often that I come across these very cool creatures, but I did recently while flipping rocks along a creek. Land Planarians are a type of flatworm that have about 1,000 different species living worldwide. The Wandering Broadhead Planarians are identified as flat, yellow and with a dark stripe down the middle of their backs. They are quite slimy, like a slug. Apparently the slime helps them move as well as maintain internal moisture levels.

Wandering Broadhead Planarians are nocturnal predators that feed on slugs, snails, pillbugs, millipedes, spiders and earthworms. They use chemical signals that are produced in folds of their skin to detect prey. When a land planarian feeds, it slimes over top of potential prey, attaches its mouth opening and vomits digestive juices, liquifying its food. Then it sucks up the soupy nutrients.

Like many other flatworms, they are able to reproduce either sexually or asexually. Sexual reproduction culminates in eggs being placed in cocoons that hatch in three weeks. A single planarian will, every couple of weeks or so, attach its tail to a rock or some other immoveable object and slime away, tearing its tail from its torso. A new tail grows from the wound, as we might expect of a flatworm. The tail segment left behind, however, grows a new torso and head within 10 days.

I often think of these strange creatures as being in the tropics and although I found these on a chilly Ohio day, they are indigenous to Southeast Asia. In the United States, they were first encountered in 1943 in Westchester County, New York. Since that time, and despite the disparity in climate between the USA and Southeast Asia, they have spread practically from coast to coast.

Third Eye Herp
E-mail

Trentepohlia Alga

Posted on February 5, 2021 by tspuckler

While hiking in Brecksville Reservation, I noticed this bright orange coloration on a rock wall. Upon closer examination, it appeared to be made up of tiny orange “cushions.”

The genus Trentepohlia would not, at first glance, be taken as a green alga. But this free-living species is mostly yellow to bright orange or red-brown in color, due to carotenoid pigment, which usually hides the green of the chlorophyll.

Trentepohlia is a genus of filamentous terrestrial green alga with a worldwide distribution. It grows on rocks, old walls and the trunks and branches of trees. It does not do any damage to the surfaces that it resides on.

Algae (singular alga) are members of a group of predominantly aquatic photosynthetic organisms. Algae are almost ubiquitous throughout the world and can be categorized ecologically by their habitats.

Their photosynthetic pigments are more varied than those of plants, and their cells have features not found among plants and animals. Algae serve ecological roles as oxygen producers and as the food base for almost all aquatic life.

This was a fun and colorful find on an otherwise dreary February day in northeast Ohio.

Third Eye Herp
E-mail

Canvasback

Posted on January 29, 2021 by tspuckler

I’ve come across this distinctive duck a few times while out and about. This large, big-headed diving bird has a gently sloping forehead and a stout neck.

Breeding males have a chestnut head and neck set off against a black chest, with a whitish body and black rear. Females are pale brown in the areas where males are chestnut and black and they have a grayish, rather than white body.

Canvasbacks breed in the Prairie Pothole Region of North America. They prefer to nest over water on permanent prairie marshes surrounded by cattails and bulrushes, which provide protective cover.

I only see these ducks in Ohio in the Winter. Canvasbacks migrate through the Mississippi Flyway to their wintering grounds in the mid-Atlantic United States, including the Great Lakes Region.

The Canvasback dives for its food, which consists mainly of the bases and roots of plants growing under water. Wild celery is particularly favored. They also consume mollusks, insects and some small fish.

With its distinct, angled head and auburn hues, the Canvasback is one of our most striking waterfowl species and a favorite of mine to see in the wild.

Third Eye Herp
E-mail

Stone Centipede

Posted on January 22, 2021 by tspuckler

January isn’t the most ideal time to look for most types of invertebrates in northeast Ohio, but on above-freezing days some cool things can turn up. This month I found a few of these distinctive looking creatures by lifting rocks in my backyard.

Centipedes (which in Latin means “hundred foot”) are exclusively predatory creatures. Because their exoskeletons lack a waxy coating that helps to retain water inside their bodies, centipedes require moist environments to survive.

This particular type is known as a Stone Centipede; it was a species that I often encountered as a child growing up in Cleveland when looking for bugs. Though we used to call them “Hundred Leggers,” they only have 15 pairs of legs. They thrive in soil, leaf litter, under rocks and inside dead wood or logs.

Centipedes are some of the oldest terrestrial animals and were some of the very first creatures to crawl from the sea onto the land. The first centipedes were probably very similar in appearance to modern centipedes. All are nocturnal and actively hunt down insects and other small animals.

To subdue prey, this creature uses “poison claws” which are located on each side of its head. At less than two inches in total length, the Stone Centipede is harmless to humans, but deadly to spiders, sowbugs and any other smaller creature it may encounter.

Third Eye Herp
E-mail

Tim Spuckler's Blog

Reptile Ramblings and More

Yearly Archives: 2021

Chalcedon Checkerspot

Giant White Wakerobin

Flattop Crab

Leather Star

By-the-wind-sailor

European Starling

Wandering Broadhead Planarian

Trentepohlia Alga

Canvasback

Stone Centipede