Diabolical Ironclad Beetle

Posted on February 21, 2015 by tspuckler

Back in June of 2013 I was herping in Southern California and came across this beetle. It turned out to be an easy-to-keep pet, and I still have it in a terrarium on my basement window sill.

These beetles mainly eat fungus as well as some vegetation. As the common name implies, have one of the hardest of all arthropod exoskeletons. Adults are often found walking around out in the open; they may also be found under bark. They are about an inch long.

As a defense, the adults play dead, pulling in their legs and antennae. Their body has special grooves to hold these appendages.

This extremely durable beetle and its relatives reside in the American desert. Their hard exoskeleton is useful in retaining water. It is also nocturnal, venturing abroad when temperatures are cooler than in the daytime.

For as cool as this little insect is, not much is known about it – including how it got it’s “diabolical” name. This group of beetles have not been studied thoroughly and very little is known about their biology and habits.

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Milkweed

Posted on February 14, 2015 by tspuckler

As I walk through snow-covered fields this Winter, it’s hard not to notice the seed pods for Milkweed plants. With a little imagination, this one looks like a dragon’s head puffing smoke.

Milkweed is an important plant because so many species of insects depend on it. Monarch Butterflies, Milkweed Bugs and Milkweed Leaf Beetles only eat milkweed, and could not survive without it. Here’s a Milkweed Tiger Moth caterpillar that I saw last Summer in Brecksville Reservation.

This plant’s fruits are green pods which turn brown before bursting open and letting out fluffy seeds. A Milkweed seed is spread by the wind, which catches the cotton-like part and carries the seed for long distances.

Milkweed is usually 4-5 feet tall and has large, broad leaves. It can be found in fields, gardens and along roads. Milkweed flowers are pinkish-purple clusters which often droop. This is one that I photographed in the summertime.

This plant gets its name from its milky sap, which seeps when a leaf is broken. This sap has poisons in it which some animals can eat and not be harmed. When the Monarch butterfly’s caterpillar consumes the leaves of Milkweed, the sap goes into its body, making the caterpillar poisonous to predators. Even after the caterpillar has changed into an adult butterfly, it is distasteful to predators. Here is a Monarch Butterfly on Milkweed seen in Cuyahoga Valley National Park last Summer.

In the Autumn, large numbers of Milkweed Bugs can often be seen on the seed pods. At this time of the year, the Milkweed Bugs are focused on piercing the wall of the pod to feed on the seeds inside.

Milkweed is an interesting plant which can be enjoyed during all seasons.

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White-tailed Deer

Posted on February 8, 2015 by tspuckler

Although these are the largest wild animals where I live, they are smallest members of the North American deer family, and are found from southern Canada to South America.

In the Summer they are often found fields and meadows, using small trees for shade and hiding places. During the Winter they generally reside in forests, preferring coniferous stands that provide shelter from the harsh elements.

Only the males (bucks) grow antlers, which bear a number of tines, or sharp points. During the mating season, bucks fight over territory by using their antlers in sparring matches.

White-tailed Deer are reddish-brown with a white belly and tail in Summer. In Winter, the reddish-brown changes to grayish-brown. White-tailed Deer are mostly nocturnal, but can be seen any time of day. They do most of their feeding early in the morning or when the sun is going down.

A female (doe) has from one to three fawns in a litter. Fawns stay with their mother for almost a year. A doe leaves her fawns hidden while she feeds. Sometimes she leaves them for up to four hours. They do not move while she is gone. They have extra white spots on their coats which help camouflage them. These photos were taken in my backyard this month, here’s a summertime fawn seen in my yard a couple of years ago.

White-tailed Deer run very fast, up to 36 miles per hour. They are great swimmers and can leap far as well. Deer can leap over eight feet high and thirty feet long.

These animals are herbivores, but they eat a wide variety of foods, including green plants in the Summer; acorns, fruits and nuts in the Fall; and twigs in the Winter. White-tailed Deer also eat a lot of garden plants, flowers, vegetables and ornamental trees in people’s yards.

When a deer is nervous it will snort and stamp its feet. When it is alarmed it automatically raises its tail. Sometimes when you startle a deer, all you see is a flash of white disappearing into the woods.

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Tinder Conk Mushroom

Posted on February 1, 2015 by tspuckler

The species of fungus produces very large fruit bodies which are shaped like a horse’s hoof and vary in color from a silvery grey to almost black, though they are normally brown.

It contains a spongy material used primarily as tinder, but also used to make clothing and other items. The 5,000-year-old Ötzi the Iceman (a well-preserved natural mummy) carried four pieces of this fungus, thought to be used for tinder.

It’s scientific name is Fomes fomentarius. The Latin word fomes means “tinder” or “touchwood” and the Latin word fomentarius means “material to feed a fire” – both the generic and species names emphasize the use of this fungus for fires.

It also has a long history of being used for a variety of medical purposes. Hippocrates in the fifth century BC described it as a “cauterization substance for wounds.” The fungus is credited with helping to stop bleeding. Due to this fact, surgeons at the time found use for it.

This species of fungus dwells on bark of trees. If not picked, it does not fall off the bark. It remains attached to the tree until it is dead; then it starts to initiate rotting of the tree bark. This often provides the beginning of a hole that birds which nest in tree cavities eventually use.

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Tufted Titmouse

Posted on January 24, 2015 by tspuckler

With its pointy crest, large eyes and seemingly friendly disposition, the Tufted Titmouse has a special kind of appeal. It has a busy demeanor, flitting about actively foraging for food. This bird often hangs out with its similar-sized relative, the Black-capped Chickadee.

This bird is familiar to anyone who feeds birds as it is a frequent visitor to homes. Its peter, peter, peter call can often be heard when on woodland hikes. The Tufted Titmouse relishes sunflower seeds and will hold a seed with its feet and use its beak to hammer away at the seed until the shell falls off. These birds create caches of food, hiding seeds away under the bark of trees to retrieve later.

In warmer months they feed on insects, snails and spiders. In the Winter they seek out acorns, sumac, beechnuts and cherries.

This is one of about the two dozen species of Ohio birds that need dead or dying trees to construct a nesting cavity. Relatively recent woodland management methods have started to understand the value of standing dead timber.

The Tufted Titmouse likes to line its nest with fur and has been observed plucking to hair from sleeping dogs as a way of collecting its nest materials.

These birds seem comfortable around people and are common in a variety of habitats. They do not migrate and can be enjoyed year-round.

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House Spider

Posted on January 18, 2015 by tspuckler

These creatures occur throughout the world and have derived their name from their presence inside human dwellings. A number of species are classified as “house spiders,” although the Common House Spider is the most recognized. These arachnids are also sometimes referred to as American House Spiders.

House Spiders are typically brown or gray in color, with darker chevron markings along their bodies. Their legs are yellow, with rings at the end of each segment. Adult females are considerably larger than males.

Their presence is typically characterized by the formation of cobwebs; irregularly shaped structures that can be located in various places within a home, including windows, ceiling corners and above or beneath fixtures.

The abundance of empty webs is caused by the House Spider’s propensity to construct webs in various locations until it finds the most suitable place to catch prey. Unlike some other spider species, House Spiders may choose to cohabitate and mate numerous times. Females deposit as many as 250 eggs into a sac of silk. These sacs are often brown in color and are flask-like in shape. An individual spider can produce over a dozen egg sacs in her lifetime.

After hatching, air currents disperse surviving spiderlings on threads of silk. This process, known as ballooning, allows spiders to populate areas far from where they were hatched. Adult specimens may survive for more than a year.

This is one of the most commonly encountered cobweb spiders in urban areas, and can be found in almost every garage, barn, and attic. It is harmless, and it catches and eats flies, mosquitoes, and other pests that enter buildings.

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Eastern Hemlock

Posted on January 10, 2015 by tspuckler

Ohio’s only native hemlock can be differentiated from other Buckeye State conifers by its flattened needles, featuring 2 white lines beneath them.

This tree grows best in cool, moist locations such as the north-facing slopes of deep ravines. The photos in this blog post were taken near Chippewa Creek in Brecksville Reservation.

Its cones are very small (from ½ to ¾ of an inch long), and appear pale green in the early autumn and turn a darker brown in late autumn. The cones hang singly from the tips of twigs and have 2 small seeds underneath their rounded scales.

The Eastern Hemlock has a range that covers most of the eastern United States and extends into Canada and to the west. This is a slow-growing, long-lived tree, which unlike many conifers grows well in shade. Eastern Hemlocks can take 250 to 300 years to reach maturity and may live for 800 years or more.

Its size varies tremendously, based upon local growing conditions, but in general Eastern Hemlock slowly reaches 70 feet in height by 35 feet in spread in favorable sites. Specimens can achieve twice that size under optimum conditions.

“Back in the day” its bark was much in demand for its tannic acid, which was used for tanning leather. Lumber production from eastern hemlock reached its peak between 1890 and 1910 but is seldom harvested for solid wood products now. Several birds and mammals feed on its seeds.

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River Chub

Posted on January 5, 2015 by tspuckler

While exploring this waterway, I saw a few decent-sized torpedo-like fish. I decided to investigate further and catch one. It turned out to be a River Chub. The River Chub is the largest of Ohio’s minnows, occasionally attaining lengths of 12 inches. They are sometimes caught by fisherman.

Living in rivers and streams, they prefer large amounts of gravel and cobble. These fish are often found hiding around boulders, submerged logs and other structures on riffles and runs.

These fish deposit eggs on gravel where they construct large circular nests. The nests are occasionally four feet long and are often used for egglaying by other species of fish as well. Male River Chubs can move up to 200 pounds of stones to build the nest.

River Chub are good indicators of water quality, because of their intolerance of pollution and siltation.

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Red-tailed Hawk

Posted on December 27, 2014 by tspuckler

It was cold, it was grey, it was overcast. A typical December day in the Greater Cleveland Area. I decided to see what was up at Brecksville Reservation.

This Red-tailed Hawk was busy scanning the landscape below. Slowly it would move its head from side-to-side, looking for any kind of movement. A few times the bird stood up, as if it were about to take flight.

Before long something caught its interest and the bird dove down to the forest floor. The sound from the impact of where the hawk hit the leaves could be heard from where I was standing.

It was unsuccessful in catching its prey, so it found a new place to perch and start the process all over again. The Red-tailed Hawk is the most common large, broad-winged hawks in North America. Its range is from Alaska and northern Canada south to Central America.

The Red-tailed Hawk is a bird of open country. It can be seen along fields and perched on telephones poles, fenceposts, or trees standing alone or along edges of fields. The eyesight of a hawk is 8 times more powerful than a human’s.

This large, majestic bird has another way of hunting – by spending much of its time soaring and scanning the ground below. Both hunting styles allow them to expend a minimum amount of energy when hunting. Its call is commonly used in television and movies to represent the vocalizations of other birds, including vultures and eagles.

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Christmas Fern

Posted on December 20, 2014 by tspuckler

During the Carboniferous Period (300 million years ago) ferns were the dominant part of the vegetation. Ferns are among the world’s most ancient plants, found as fossils in rocks 400 million years old.

Today’s coal is made largely of fossilized ferns from back in their “hey day.” Dead plants became buried underground and very gradually turned to coal under the immense pressure of the earth.

Christmas Fern is one of the few green plants you are likely to see if you hike in the eastern forests during this time of the year.

Their association with Christmas is an old one. “Back in the day” its fronds were once harvested, baled into bundles and sold to florists for wreath making.

This is a common and easy-to-identify plant. It is especially abundant on well shaded, forested hillsides near streams. Its leaflets look like tiny Christmas stockings. The rich, green leaves (fronds) of the fern are up to three feet long and are about four inches wide.

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Tim Spuckler's Blog

Reptile Ramblings and More

Diabolical Ironclad Beetle

Milkweed

White-tailed Deer

Tinder Conk Mushroom

Tufted Titmouse

House Spider

Eastern Hemlock

River Chub

Red-tailed Hawk

Christmas Fern