Category Archives: Mammals

Northern Elephant Seal

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Renowned for their long distance migrations and their incredible diving abilities, Northern Elephant Seals are named because of the long elephant-like noses of males.

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The many that I saw at Año Nuevo State Reserve today were females with their offspring, which were born earlier this year.

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Northern Elephant Seals were almost hunted to extinction for the oil that could be rendered from their blubber. By 1892, only 50 to 100 individuals were left. In 1922 the Mexican government gave protected status to Northern Elephant Seals and the US government followed suit a few years later.

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These are not small animals. Males, known as bulls, range from fourteen to sixteen feet long and weigh up to 2-1/2 tons. At sea, they can stay underwater for 20 minutes and dive to a depth of 1,000 to 2,000 feet in search of their food: rays, skates, squid and small sharks.

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The pups are very curious and rather awkward. They are somewhat afraid of the water at first. But they learn quickly, spending more and more time swimming about. Then, during the last weeks of April, they go out to sea one by one.

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Fox Squirrel

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This squirrel is the largest of the four squirrel species in Ohio; gray, red and flying squirrels are the other three. Fox squirrels were not originally inhabitants of Ohio. The extensive, heavily wooded forest of pre-settlement Ohio was not their preferred habitat. Only when early settlers cleared away forests and created open areas, did this animal make the Buckeye State its home.

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Fox squirrels make use of hickory, oak, beech, black walnut, maple, elm and buckeye trees for food and shelter. Fox Squirrels use two types of nests: leaf and den. Leaf nests are constructed from leaves and twigs and are located in the forks of tree branches. Dens are formed in hollow tree trunks or branches.

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In contrast with our other native squirrels, the Fox Squirrel is less nervous and adjusts well to small woodlots in farmland or suburbia. They can often be seen in city parks…and on my backyard deck. Fox Squirrels have reddish-orange bellies and get their name from that color resembling the color of a Red Fox’s fur.

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Fox Squirrels spend considerable time foraging on the ground, where they move with a rolling walk or hop, searching for food with their keen senses of smell and sight. They don’t hibernate, so they must depend upon buried acorns and nuts, or bird feeders, for winter fare. Many acorns buried in the fall are never found and later sprout to become trees.

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Squirrels’ long bushy tails are used for a variety of purposes. They can be wrapped around a squirrels face to keep them warm or used as an aid in balancing when they run along tree limbs. With a little practice, watching a squirrel’s tail movements gives you a clue to their mood. Quick jerks of the tail signal that they are nervous or upset.

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Squirrels are members of the highly successful rodent family, which includes members ranging in size from tiny mice to the South American Capabara, which is as big as a dog.

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February is an important time for these animals.  That is when they begin raising their offspring. An average of three pups are born naked and blind.  They do not venture out of the nest until they are two months old, and accompany their mother for another three months after that. Squirrels typically live 4-7 years in the wild.

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Northern Short-tailed Shrew

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While checking out this habitat I came across an odd and seldom seen mammal. At three inches in size, it’s packed with energy. It is the largest shrew in North America.

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The Northern Short-tailed Shrew consumes up to three times its weight in food each day. It is mostly carnivorous, preferring insects, earthworms, voles, snails and mice for the bulk of its diet.

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It is one of the few venomous mammals that exist; its saliva is used to paralyze and subdue its prey. This enables them to kill mice and larger prey and paralyze invertebrates such as snails and store them alive for later eating.

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This animal can be found in grasslands, old fields, fencerows, marshy areas, forests and gardens; its preferred habitats are moist with a fair amount of leaf litter or thick plant cover. Northern Short-tailed Shrews construct elaborate runways under leaves, dirt, and snow and construct their nests in tunnels or under logs and rocks.

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Other shrews spend more time above ground than the Northern Short-tailed Shrew, which tends to tunnel below the ground or through leaf litter. Its tiny eyes indicate its poor eyesight due to a mainly subterranean lifestyle. Its ears are almost completely hidden by the fur.

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The tail is quite short, amounting to less than 25% of total body length (most shrews have significantly longer tails). The Short-tailed Shrew’s species name, brevicauda, means literally “brief (brevi) tail (cauda).” These deceptively ordinary little creatures are one of our most interesting and overlooked mammals.

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Eastern Cottontail

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This is a very adaptable mammal. I’ve seen them at school, work and occasionally in my backyard. The rabbits in this post were all seen near the Lake Erie shore while on a recent trip to Pennslyvania. Eastern Cottontails communicate with each other by thumping with their back feet against the ground.

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Historically, the Eastern Cottontail inhabited fields, swamps and hardwood forests. These days it prefers “edge environments” between woody vegetation and open land. Its range of habitats includes meadows, orchards, farmlands and hedgerows.

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They can be seen year-round. At this time of the year they browse in the evening and at night on grasses and herbs (they are also fond of garden fare). In Winter their diet consists of bark, twigs and buds.

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During the day, cottontails often remain hidden in vegetation. Cottontails have keen eyesight and hearing. When danger is sensed, a rabbit will usually freeze in place until danger has passed. If approached too closely, they flee, running in a zigzag pattern, sometimes reaching speeds of up to 18 miles per hour.

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This animal is an essential element of the food chain, serving as prime prey for many predators. As a result, Eastern Cottontail life expectancy is extremely short – one year or less – requiring the prolific reproduction so often attributed to rabbit species. Adaptability pays off; Eastern Cottontail is one of the most common mammals of both the natural and the human-generated ecosystems in North America.

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Palmer’s Chipmunk

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Palmer’s Chipmunks live in a “sky island”— Mount Charleston in southwestern Nevada, surrounded by a desert that the chipmunks cannot cross. These mammals are unique to this area. They occur here and nowhere else in the world.

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This species only lives at higher elevations in the Yellow Pine Forest, Pine-Fir Forest and Bristlecone Pine Forest Life Zones. This species can be locally abundant, but is very limited in distribution. The total adult population size is unknown.

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The name “chipmunk” is derived from the chipping noises these animals make with their teeth. Loud trilling type noises are used to call to potential mates, as well as in defending territories.

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It rarely ventures far from shelter among large rocks, logs, or cliff crevices.  Dens are typically on or near the ground but sometimes it nests in trees in cavities made by woodpeckers.

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Palmer’s Chipmunks are omnivorous. Their diet includes seeds, fruits, various plants, fungus, and invertebrates such as worms, snails and insect larvae. Bird eggs and small mice are occasionally eaten.

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Harbor Seal

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Driving along Highway 1 in the evening, I noticed a group of large rocks on a sandbar in the ocean. As I observed them, I noticed one of them move. I decided to investigate further. It turns out that the “rocks” were really Harbor Seals.

Harbor Seals have spotted coats in a variety of shades from white or silver-gray to black or dark brown. They reach five to six feet in length and weigh up to 300 pounds.

Since Harbor Seals cannot rotate their hind flippers underneath their hips, when on land they move by undulating in a caterpillar-like motion.

Their food includes herring, flounder, and perch. They will also consume octopus, squid and shrimp. A Harbor Seal’s diet varies seasonally and regionally and often is subject to local prey availability.

Seals have large eyes to see in dark, deep water. They have long necks, which they can shoot out quickly to catch fish while swimming. A seal’s whiskers help it hunt and navigate by sensing pressure waves from fish and underwater objects.

These days, many of the females are tending to their pups, which are born between February and April and weigh 20-24 pounds at birth. A pup can swim at birth and will sometimes ride on its mother’s back when tired. Pups make a bleating noise that sounds like maaaa. They sound like children and it’s a bit haunting.

It was a great way to end a day in the field to come across this unexpected surprise and experience these marine mammals.

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Virginia Opossum

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As I approached this thicket of bamboo, I saw a creature run for cover into the brush – so I followed it.

The Virginia Opossum is the only marsupial (pouched mammal) found in North America. It quickly ascended a tree. They are active at night (this was the first wild one I’ve ever seen in the daytime) and they do not hibernate in winter.

These animals are most famous for “playing possum.” When threatened by a dog, fox, or bobcat, an opossum will sometimes flop onto its side and lie on the ground with its eyes closed or staring fixedly into space. It will extend its tongue and generally appear to be dead.

An adult Virginia Opossum is about the same size as a house cat, but with much shorter legs. These animals have long, pointed noses, round, hairless ears and a chunky body. Opossums are excellent tree climbers and spend much of their time aloft. They are aided in this by sharp claws, which dig into bark, and by a long semi-prehensile (gripping) tail.

They are considered a primitive mammal have a small brain and many teeth (about 50). The Virginia Opossums is are one the shortest-lived mammals for their size – they rarely live longer than 18 months.

Opossums eat insects, snails, rodents, berries, over-ripe fruit, grasses, leaves, and carrion; occasionally they will eat birds, snakes, eggs, corn or other vegetables.

At birth the young opossums are tiny; they are so small that 20 could fit into a teaspoon. Each one crawls to its mother’s pouch. After two months, the young are ready to leave the pouch for increasing lengths of time. They follow their mother on her food-gathering trips, occasionally riding on her back. After another month, the young are independent.

The opossum has been around for at least 70 million years and is one of Earth’s oldest surviving mammals. Despite a rapidly changing world, it manages to survive in modern times. Not only is it surviving, but this “old school” animal’s range has been expanding steadily northward into Canada.

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American Beaver

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The beaver is North America’s largest rodent – it can weigh up to 65 pounds. It is often cited as one of the prime forces motivating exploration and European settlement of the United States and Canada, due to the value of its fur.

Unregulated hunting resulted in a drastic drop in beaver numbers; by 1830, there were none left in Ohio. Wildlife management practices were instrumental and effective in allowing the beaver to return to Ohio and establish a thriving population today.

The beaver has dark chestnut-brown fur, a large, flat, scaled tail and webbed hind feet. It has several special adaptations that are not visible, like valves in its nose and ears that close when it swims. It also has oversized lungs that allow it to retain enough oxygen to stay underwater for 10 to 15 minutes.

The beaver’s behavior is among the most unique and interesting in the animal world. American Beavers alter the existing habitat to suit their needs. Once a beaver has located an ideal habitat, it proceeds to construct an elaborate and effective dam.

Behind the dam, the beavers build an intricate domed lodge made of twigs, logs, and mud, that has at least two underwater entrances. American Beavers live in extended family colonies. This grouping is usually made up of an adult male and female and four or five of their offspring.

They like to eat the bark of aspen, willow, birch and maple trees. Beavers also enjoy the roots of aquatic plants, especially pond lilies. They tend to be most active in the evening and at night. Like all rodents, they need to gnaw to keep their ever-growing front teeth worn down. I could hear this one chewing from where I was standing.

Their broad, flat tail is used to navigate through and under the water. It also functions as a warning device to other beavers. A loud slap of the tail on the water’s surface is an alarm, telling of some type of disturbance or danger in the immediate area.

Beavers don’t just live off the land — they modify it to fit their needs. Only humans change the landscape more. A beaver’s hard work creates valuable wetlands which provides habitat for themselves as well as other wildlife.

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Cinereus Shrew

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One way to increase the amount of snakes you can find is to set out pieces of plywood or sheets of tin in suitable snake habitat. We call these setups “boardlines” and in the Spring snakes often congregate under this artificial cover to get the warmth of the sun while remaining hidden from predators.

 

Boardline sites don’t have snakes to be found at them in the Winter, but sometimes other cool things can be turned up by checking under the metal or wood during the cold months. I decided to investigate one of the areas where I set out sheets of metal. What I found was a Cinereus Shrew – one of the smallest mammals in the world.

Its weight is about equal to that of a dime. This animal is found in northern pine forests and open wet areas. Though they look like mice, shrews are classified as insectivores, not rodents. They eat spiders, insect larvae, and beetles, as well as caterpillars and many other invertebrates. Here’s a photo with the shrew next to my office keys, to give an idea of its size.

Shrews have an extremely high metabolic rate (their heart beats more than 1,200 times per minute). To stay alive, the Cinereus Shrew has to eat three times its body weight daily, which means capturing prey often, day and night; a few hours without food means certain death. They lead rather frenetic lives of near-constant searching, foraging and movement.

Its head is tapered and ends in a flexible, tubular snout for sniffing out food. Its small ears are barely visible because they are covered by short, soft fur. Its fur is cinnamon colored in the Summer, but it darkens quite a bit in the Winter. Cinereus means “ash colored” in Latin.

Cinereus Shrews spend much of their life in an underground world where they are active all year long – they even tunnel through snow. Throughout the day they take short naps to recharge from their activities.

Due to their fast-paced lifestyle, shrews only live for a short time, usually a little over a year. It was definitely worth the boardline trip to encounter this elusive mammal today.

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Eastern Gray Squirrel

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Walking through the woods today it was hard to ignore the activities of Eastern Gray Squirrels as they busily went about their work of collecting and stashing away food for the winter.

Squirrels are beneficial to the maintenance of Ohio’s forests through their habit of burying excess food supplies, such as nuts, seeds, and acorns. Although squirrels dig some of these up to eat during winter, many are left alone. In the spring, those will sprout, giving new growth to the forest. 

At the time of settlement, Ohio was 95% forested, making an ideal habitat for squirrels. A common saying is that a squirrel could travel from the Ohio River to Lake Erie without ever having to touch the ground. Agriculture and hunting have reduced their numbers significantly, but they can still be quite common in the right habitat.

Gray Squirrels prefer large expanses of wooded areas of hardwood trees. Although they are usually gray, on occasion they can be black. The mix of squirrels is often blamed on Kent State University, a rumored epicenter for the melanistic (black) squirrels in Northeastern Ohio.

Squirrels have been known to pretend to bury an object if they feel that they are being watched. They do this by preparing the spot as usual and miming the placement of the food while actually concealing it in their mouth, and then covering up the hole as if they had deposited the object.

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