Golden Scalycap

Posted on November 27, 2024 by tspuckler

While hiking along the edge of a swamp in southern Illinois last month, these very colorful mushrooms with their golden yellow hues caught my eye.

This species is perhaps the most noticeable member of its genus. It grows in large clusters on live trees, snags, and logs of conifers and hardwoods – most commonly Beeches.

The cap is sticky when young, and bears dark brown or reddish-brown scales that contrast with the yellow cap color.

Having the scientific name Pholiota adiposa, Pholiota means “scaly” and adiposa comes from the Latin word “adeps” which means lard or grease in reference to the texture of the caps.

Like other mushrooms, Golden Scalycap serve as decomposers in ecosystems, breaking down organic matter from dead plants and animals and recycling nutrients back into the soil. They play a crucial role in the carbon cycle.

With its striking golden-brown caps and intricate scales, the Golden Scalycap presents a visual spectacle in an otherwise dark swamp and made for a neat encounter on my trip.

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Southern Painted Turtle

Posted on November 22, 2024 by tspuckler

While visiting Mingo National Wildlife Refuge in southeast Missouri last month, I observed several of these fine reptiles basking. This species was officially recognized as a separate species from other Painted Turtles in 2014.

The Southern Painted Turtle is a small, colorful aquatic turtle with an olive brown to almost black shell, featuring a prominent yellow, orange, or red lengthwise stripe down its center. The adult upper shell length is 4–5 inches, occasionally reaching 6 inches.

This reptile is often found in the quiet water of shallow swamps, slow-moving streams, sloughs, oxbow lakes, and occasionally drainage ditches with aquatic vegetation and soft bottoms. Its preferred habitat is wetlands embedded within bottomland forest dominated by Water Tupelo, Bald Cypress, and Oak.

The Southern Painted Turtle’s diet consists mainly of aquatic insects, snails, crayfish, and plant material, with duckweed and algae also readily consumed. Younger individuals consume more animal matter in their compared to adults.

Their range is the midwestern and southeastern parts of the United States, stretching from Texas to Florida and up to southern Illinois. Finding these completed my quest to find all four types of Painted Turtles (Eastern, Midland, Western and Southern) in the wild.

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Overcup Oak

Posted on November 15, 2024 by tspuckler

This tree is native to lowland wetlands in the eastern and south-central United States and in all the coastal states from New Jersey to Texas, inland as far as Oklahoma, Missouri, and Illinois.

Its common name refers to its acorns that are mostly enclosed within the acorn cup. This is a medium to large-sized deciduous tree, growing as tall as 150 feet, with typical height of 80 feet. The trunk averages 30 inches in diameter. It is slow-growing and often takes 25 to 30 years to mature.

Overcup Oak occurs in wet bottomland forests bordering swamps and in valleys with floodplain forests bordering rivers. This tree is adapted to use seasonal floodwaters as a way to float its acorns to new sites for dispersal. The cap that covers each seed is very corky, which causes the acorns to float.

This species is unique among the White Oaks in that their acorns exhibit a prolonged dormancy. Normally, acorns of the various White Oaks germinate in the Fall, not long after they are shed from their parent trees. However, living in areas prone to flooding would make germinating at that time of year a risky endeavor. As such, Overcup Oak acorns lay dormant for months until environmental cues signal that enough time has passed.

The species is known to provide both food and habitat for a range of wildlife. Its acorns can be eaten by small mammals and birds such as squirrels and Wild Turkey. Trees in general create their own small habitats upon their surfaces and with their shade. Countless insects creep around on the bark. Many plants, including wildflowers, can only survive among the leaf litter on a shaded forest floor.

Overcup Oak’s Latin Name Quercus lyrata, and the species name lyrata, means “lyre-shaped” referring to the shape of this tree’s leaves.

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Murky Ground Beetle

Posted on November 8, 2024 by tspuckler

Flipping rocks in southern Illinois revealed this cool creature. Adults are about one inch long, oblong, flattened, and dark in color with deeply grooved wing covers. There are a dozen or more common species of beetles in the genus, but all others are considerably smaller than this one.

Murky Ground Beetles are active insects, with long legs, large eyes, and strong sickle-like mandibles. They run rapidly and are active mostly at night.

These are regarded as very beneficial to agriculture. Adults feed on the larvae of Colorado Potato Beetle and other harmful larvae, ragweed seeds, and occasionally fruit (probably in search of needed water). They are often attracted to electric lights. Their larvae are wormlike in appearance with powerful prominent jaws.

The Murky Ground Beetle is distributed across North America and found in a wide range of habitats including grasslands, open meadows, forests, agricultural fields, and even in urban areas. Like many Ground Beetles, it can release pungent odor when threatened.

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Rough Earth Snake

Posted on November 1, 2024 by tspuckler

While visiting a glade in Missouri, I found my first-ever specimen of this small reptile. This uniformly brown creature has a somewhat cone-shaped head and is usually less than ten inches long.

Rough Earth Snakes are entirely terrestrial and are most commonly found under objects on the ground surface. This is primarily a species of open hardwoods, pine woods, grassy areas, and suburban woodlots – it prefers areas with sunlit openings.

This reptile eats invertebrates. It feeds almost exclusively on earthworms, although slugs, snails, sow bugs, insect eggs and larvae have also been found in their stomachs. It is seldom found above ground. During warm, damp weather, individuals may become active at night.

Rough Earth Snakes typically mate in spring or early summer and give live birth to 3-11 babies in July or August. The babies are usually darker than the adults and often have a distinct neckband.

To verify its identification, and to distinguish it from the very similar Smooth Earth Snake, one must look closely: the Rough Earth Snake has strongly keeled scales along the back (which makes it feel rough).

It was neat to encounter this snake in the field, especially after having found several example of its smooth-scaled relative.

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Prairie Dock

Posted on October 25, 2024 by tspuckler

While visiting a glade habitat in Missouri in search of reptiles and amphibians, it was hard not to notice this very distinctive plant. This member of the Aster Family has enormous leaves, as rough as sandpaper, with beautifully scalloped edges featuring coarse teeth.

The leaves of Prairie Dock tend to orient in a north-south direction. That is, the broad part of the blade faces east and west, to maximize sunlight for photosynthesis. This adaptation also minimizes water loss due to transpiration.

Even when it’s very hot out, its leaves feel cool to the touch.

Its flowers attract long-tongued bees, including Honeybees, Bumblebees, and Miner Bees. Other flower visitors include Halictine Bees, Bee Flies, and the Ruby-Throated Hummingbird. It typically blooms from July through October.

Prairie Dock is a very tall (sometimes over eight feet) perennial plant, with a nearly leafless flower stalk. Not only does the plant extend high into the air, it also has a long taproot that grows deep into the soil.

This adaptation is beneficial, because this plant’s environment is often hot and dry, and the deep taproot allows the plant to reach water. This feature also helps the plant persist despite grazing and mowing. With so much energy reserves stored underground, sending up new shoots is not that costly for the plant.

With the Latin Name of Silphium terebinthinaceum, the species name means “with turpentine” and refers to the resin, which gives this plant a pleasant, spicy scent.

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Southern Redback Salamander

Posted on October 18, 2024 by tspuckler

While walking along the edge of a glade in Missouri, I hiked along a creek. I rolled a few logs to see what herps would turn up, and I encountered this “lifer” amphibian. Noticeably territorial, this salamander marks its territory with scent to notify other salamanders of its presence.

The Southern Redback Salamander is typically gray or black in color, with a red-brown, fading stripe across the width of its back. It grows from 3 to 4 inches in length. This creature can evade predators by dropping all or part of its tail in the event of an attack.

Mostly nocturnal, this creature lives in ground debris in moist, forested areas. It is often found beneath rocks, logs and leaf litter in mixed hardwood forests. In dry seasons, it moves closer to permanent water sources. Its primary diet is small insects, spiders and other invertebrates.

Due to their lack of lungs, they need to live in damp or moist habitats in order to breathe. Unlike many other amphibian species, they have no aquatic larval stage. Females lay eggs in damp environments and the eggs hatch as tiny land-dwelling salamanders.

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Largescale Stoneroller

Posted on October 11, 2024 by tspuckler

This was a neat fish that I caught a few examples of while on my visit to southern Illinois. The Largescale Stoneroller may attain a length of 12 inches, but is usually about eight inches long. It is a dark-brown minnow with patches of brown or black scattered over the body. Its fins are short and rounded and its bluntly rounded snout projects beyond its mouth.

It is found natively in many of North American streams, rivers, lakes, and creeks. This fish inhabits well-oxygenated waters with low turbulence and a reduced flow of water. This species can tolerate waters that are polluted and therefore it does not have much competition in some habitats. It has been introduced to other areas of the United States, probably as escaped bait fish.

The Largescale Stoneroller’s lower jaw has a hard edge that is used for scraping algae when feeding. It is a herbivorous fish which eats diatoms, green algae, and blue-green bacteria, with a tendency to ingest less sand and silt than its relative the Central Stoneroller.

This creature prefers upland habitats above the Fall Line where they spawn from early March through April. Males excavate spawning pits in shallow water by moving stones with their mouths or pushing them with their heads.

It was fun to find a new fish and the Largescale Stoneroller certainly is an interesting one.

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Wrinkled Grasshopper

Posted on October 4, 2024 by tspuckler

While exploring a glade in Missouri, I found a couple of these intricately marked insects that I had never seen before. This is a large, heavy bodied grasshopper that feeds primarily on short grasses, especially Bluegrass and Japanese Brome.

This species inhabits prairies, pastures, open woodlands, roadsides, alfalfa fields, and almost any grassy area within its geographic range. Unlike other grasshoppers, it is most commonly found in areas with dense grass. Its pattern helps to conceal it when it hides in tangles of vegetation.

The Wrinkled Grasshopper occurs across the eastern two-thirds of the United States, as far west as southwest Montana, eastern Wyoming, and Colorado, and southward into Mexico. It is absent in Canada, New England, and the Great Lakes states.

This is one of those creatures with a common name that seems a bit “off”. The “wrinkled” name came from the species name that was in use at the time, but not quite interpreted right. That species name actually referred to the roughened, sometimes ridged upper surface of the insect’s back. In reality, this is one of the smoothest and least “wrinkled” of the Band-winged Grasshoppers.

Wrinkled Grasshoppers overwinter as eggs. Adults are mostly seen in July or August into October or November in much of their range, and sometimes through Winter in the southernmost part of their range. When flying, its hind wings display yellow, orange, red, or pink with a dark curved band running around outer edge and with a dark spur from this band near the front margin of the wing.

Males are usually active, alert, and difficult to approach or catch. Females are powerful fliers as well, but may rely on camouflage instead of trying to escape, taking to the air only as a last resort. Wrinkled Grasshoppers were indeed a fun find with on my trip to the Midwest.

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Silky Dogwood

Posted on September 27, 2024 by tspuckler

Silky Dogwood represents a group of shrub dogwoods native to Ohio that have a strongly multi-stemmed growth habit and are always found in nature as a shrub rather than a tree. They are found throughout all of Ohio, and grow to 10 feet tall and 10 feet wide under optimum conditions as a single specimen. At this time of the year their berries are ripe.

This tree prefers moist to wet sites in soils of various composition and pH. It adapts to dry soils, poor soils, or soils that are wet in Winter and Spring, and dry in Summer and Autumn. Silky Dogwood is a host plant for the Spring Azure Butterfly. Its flower have also been found to support several specialist bee species.

The mid-Spring flowers of Silky Dogwood are flat-topped, and white but without the large, showy bracts that are characteristic of Flowering Dogwood. The blooms form in clusters, which are visited by a variety of bee and butterfly pollinators.

The blue-black fruits mature in mid-Summer and are quickly consumed by birds, squirrels, and other woodland mammals. More than 45 types of songbirds and game birds have been documented consuming Silky Dogwood’s berries. Indeed, at Beaver Marsh in Cuyahoga Valley National Park, the berries seem to be disappearing quickly.

Silky Dogwood has simple, opposite leaves that turn a brownish-red color in the Fall. Because of its preference for wetter areas, Silky Dogwood is sometimes referred to as Swamp Dogwood.

As with most of the “shrub dogwoods” that occur in the fields, forest edges, stream borders, and fencerows of the eastern United States, the growth habit is usually an upright, dense shrub in youth, which becomes a spreading, sprawling, open and loose collection of mature branches and vigorous suckers with age.

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Reptile Ramblings and More

Author Archives: tspuckler

Golden Scalycap

Southern Painted Turtle

Overcup Oak

Murky Ground Beetle

Rough Earth Snake

Prairie Dock

Southern Redback Salamander

Largescale Stoneroller

Wrinkled Grasshopper

Silky Dogwood