Cardinal Jumper

Posted on November 27, 2020 by tspuckler

While visiting a sandhill prairie in Missouri last month, I came across this very cool creature. Its bright colors mimic those of a “velvet ant” – a type of wasp that possess a very painful sting.

The Cardinal Jumper is a Jumping Spider and part of a family that contains over 6,000 described species; it is the largest family of spiders and makes up about 13% of all known spiders.

Jumping Spiders do not make webs to catch food, but use silk for building retreats, protecting eggs and creating safety lines while moving about. Having excellent eyesight needed for active hunting, Cardinal Jumpers tend to notice everything around them, including both large and small beings.

This species is most often found in areas with tall grass and weeds and it frequently climbs up on the grass stems. Its main food is insects, including grasshoppers and katydids several times bigger than they are.

Cardinal Jumpers have a well-developed internal hydraulic system extends their limbs by altering the pressure of the body fluid within them. This enables them to jump without having large muscular legs like a grasshopper. Most Jumping Spiders can jump several times the length of their bodies.

Interestingly, it seems to be most commonly sighted during the month of October, which makes its Halloween colors quite appropriate.

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Nine-banded Armadillo

Posted on November 20, 2020 by tspuckler

Driving back from Snake Road in southern Illinois one evening last month, I saw this cool and unusual creature rooting around in an empty field.

Though their body shape resembles that of an opossum, the Nine-banded Armadillo is more closely related to sloths and anteaters. Around 20 species of armadillo exist, but the Nine-banded is the only one found in the United States.

The term “armadillo” means “little armored one” in Spanish, and refers to the presence of the bony, armor-like plates covering their body. Contrary to their common name, Nine-banded Armadillos can have 7 to 11 bands of armor.

Nine-banded Armadillos are solitary, largely nocturnal animals that come out to forage around dusk. They are extensive burrowers, with a single animal sometimes maintaining up to 12 burrows on its range. I most often see them at night, like this one from a couple of years ago.

They are mainly insectivores that forage for meals by thrusting their snouts into loose soil and leaf litter and digging up grubs, beetles, ants, termites, and worms, which their sensitive noses can detect through 8 inches of soil.

During the Great Depression, the species was hunted for its meat in East Texas, where it was known as poor man’s pork, or the “Hoover Hog” by those who considered President Herbert Hoover to be responsible for the Depression.

Nine-banded Armadillos nearly always have litters of four babies – identical quadruplets. Armadillo babies look very much like adults, but are smaller and softer than their armored parents. This is a fascinating animal that I always enjoy encountering.

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Ivy-leaf Morning Glory

Posted on November 13, 2020 by tspuckler

This is a interesting plant that I have seen a few times on my October visits to southern Illinois. This twining or climbing vine has distinctive three-lobed leaves and large, showy purple-to-blue or white flowers.

It is most often found in disturbed low areas, roadsides, cultivated fields and ditches. Ivy-leaf Morning Glory prefers soil that is soggy or marshy. This plant is native of tropical America, but has been introduced to various parts of the United States.

Ivy-leaf Morning Glory’s flowers have five long, slender, hairy sepals and are tubular, funnel-shaped and up to two inches wide. Most morning glory flowers curl up and close during the warm parts of the day, and are fully open in the morning – thus their name.

The leaves are green, hairy and are usually three-lobed, but they may also be five-lobed or heart-shaped. The stems are green, slender, hairy, and twining.

This plant is also known as Woolly Morning Glory, Mexican Morning Glory and Entireleaf Morning Glory. It was neat to see this pale blue flower while out and about in the Land of Lincoln.

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Spotted Dusky Salamander

Posted on November 6, 2020 by tspuckler

This was a neat “lifer” that I encountered on my recent visit to southern Illinois. It only resides in Pulaski and Johnson counties in the southern part of the state. I found several in a small creek.

The Spotted Dusky Salamander’s coloration is variable from tan to brown to nearly black. It frequently has 6 to 8 pairs of golden or reddish dorsal spots, which are normally separated, but may fuse to form a light-colored band.

This species occurs along small lowland streams and in seepage areas, where it hunts for and eats earthworms, spiders, mites, centipedes, millipedes, beetles and other insects.

Dusky Salamanders are of the genus Desmognathus, derived from the Greek word desmos, meaning “ligament,” and gnathos, meaning “jaw.” It refers to the visibly enlarged bundle of ligaments on the sides of the heads of these salamanders.

Species of this genus have a unique jaw-opening mechanism where the lower jaw is stationary and the skull swings open. Its skeletal and musculature features have evolved to accompany this type of jaw-opening mechanism.

Sometimes referred to as a “Spring Lizard,” Spotted Dusky Salamanders are known to exhibit maternal care by brooding over their eggs.

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Broad-banded Water Snake

Posted on October 30, 2020 by tspuckler

While visiting Snake Road in southern Illinois this month, I decided to take a drive to Missouri to see what sorts of herps were out. My first snake in “The Show-Me State” was a “lifer.” This distinctive looking reptile is heavy-bodied with a series of irregular, wide and dark bands across a background cream coloration. It was easy to identify even at a distance.

Broad-banded Water Snakes can be found in and around lakes, ponds, streams, rivers and drainage ditches. This species is especially common in swamp and marsh habitats. It is at home in areas of thick vegetation, where both food and cover to escape fom predators is abundant.

This species feeds primarily on fish and frogs. It uses stealth to move about vegetation and debris to find and catch its food. It commonly hunts at night, especially after it rains, because this is when frogs are most active.

North American water snakes are thought to be most closely related to garter snakes, and like garter snakes, they do not lay eggs. Instead, the mother carries the eggs inside her body and gives birth to free-living young. The Broad-band averages generally an average of 15 babies per litter.

It was exciting to come across this snake (which I’ve been keeping and breeding at home for years) in the wild for the first time.

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Obscure Bird Grasshopper

Posted on October 23, 2020 by tspuckler

Despite its common name, this insect is anything but obscure – it is large, conspicuous and “showy.” Females can reach 2-1/2 inches in length. Males are smaller, sometimes remarkably so. The name “bird” comes from the Obscure Bird Grasshopper’s ability to fly rather long distances and often up into trees, if they are frightened.

This insect is related to the famous Desert Locust, which appears in the news when it occurs in massive swarms in Africa. Obscure Bird Grasshoppers are capable of long distance seasonal migrations, though they are not populous enough to cause mass destruction.

While grasshoppers will generally eat almost anything green, the Obscure Bird Grasshopper seems to favor plants in the citrus family, such as wafer ash and lime trees.

This insect’s habitat is fields and woodlands across most of the eastern and southern United States and into Mexico. Adults are typically found in late Summer and early Fall.

I dig big bugs and it’s always neat to encounter this species when visiting southern Illinois, which so far has been the only place where I have seen them.

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Wingstem

Posted on October 16, 2020 by tspuckler

While hiking Snake Road in southern Illinois, as well as when exploring Cuyahoga Valley National Park in my home state of Ohio, it’s hard to miss these conspicuous plants They are often over six feet tall and feature large yellow flowers with drooping ray florets.

This plant gets its common name from the fact that its main stem has vertical ridges, sometimes described as “wings.” Before the blossoms appear, the plant resembles Ironweed, prompting the additional common name of Yellow Ironweed.

Wingstem leaves are alternate and very coarse to the touch (like sandpaper). Its foliage serves as food for caterpillars and it is a host plant for the Silvery Checkerspot Butterfly, Summer Azure Butterfly and Gold Moth.

Wingstem flowers attracts a number of pollinators; they also serves as a food source for insects. This plant is a member of the Sunflower Family, the largest family of flowering plants, with more than 24,000 documented species.

This native wildflower prefers to grow in moist soil conditions in either full sun or partial shade. In the wild it is found along streams, flats, trails and moist woodlands.

Despite the great ecological value of this species and frequent occurrence in a number of different habitats, Wingstem is often left out of field guides, including the one that I frequently use, Wildflowers of Ohio.

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Lesser Siren

Posted on October 9, 2020 by tspuckler

While visiting southern Illinois, I had an encounter with this “lifer” amphibian. Sirens are usually regarded as the most primitive living salamanders; they share a conspicuous basic characteristic – the absence of rear limbs.

Another feature of this awesome amphibian is that it retains and uses its external gills throughout its life. Lesser Sirens are completely aquatic, rarely leaving water unless its an absolutely necessary.

Some bodies of water where they reside are temporary and may dry up at certain times of the year. In these cases, the salamander can secrete a cocoon, of sorts, which protects them from dehydrating. It can stay in this state of “suspended animation” for more than a year, until its pond refills with water.

Lesser Sirens grow to about two feet and prefer to live in swamps, ponds ditches and shallow wetlands with abundant vegetation and muddy bottoms. It is nocturnal, spending its days hidden in the debris and mud at the bottom of slow-moving bodies of water.

This creature feeds mainly on small insects, crustaceans and other invertebrates, such as worms and snails. The flattened head suggests that this creature burrows in the mud and its tiny eyes indicate that vision is not important to its survival at the bottom of dark swamplands.

Unlike most salamanders, the Lesser Siren is vocal, and will emit a series of clicks when it approaches others of its kind, It also has the ability to “yelp” if it is handled.

This amphibian is also known as the Two-legged Eel, Dwarf Siren and Mud Eel. It was super cool to finally meet on of the elusive creatures “in person” on this years visit to the Land of Lincoln.

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Broad-tipped Conehead Katydid

Posted on October 2, 2020 by tspuckler

While visiting southern Illinois I came across this very cool creature. Like all other coneheads, it possess a sharply pointed feature (called a fastigium) at the tip of its head, giving it a very distinctive look.

Adult Broad-tipped Conehead Katydids display either brown or green coloration, depending on their gender and season. This species also occurs throughout the southern United States, from Florida up to New Jersey, and extends westward to southern California.

These insects have have oversized jaws and a relatively large body, with adult females generally being much larger than males. Their bodies are covered by long, narrow, leathery forewings. They are strong fliers and tend to be attracted to lights.

When disturbed, adult Broad-tipped Conehead Katydids will fly off or dive down into the ground and bury their heads to make their body appear to look like grass.

This creature feeds mostly on different types of grasses. It has the ability to overwinter, so its mating call can be heard in early spring, occurring at least a month before many other types of insects begin calling.

This was a neat find while I was out and about looking for snakes.

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Blushing Rosette

Posted on September 25, 2020 by tspuckler

Sometimes you can find crazy things in your backyard – all you have to do is look. This week I can across this strange organism.

Abortiporus biennis is a true oddball – a gnarled, messy-looking mass of irregular white pores that exude a reddish juice and bruise reddish brown. There is hardly a cap or a stem to speak of, and as it grows it engulfs sticks and blades of grass.

This gnarled form of this species is sometimes given the separate species name of “Abortiporus distortus;” it is apparently the most commonly encountered form of the species, though it does have a more normal looking variety with an identifiable cap and stem

This ground-dwelling polypore often puzzles collectors with its mixture of “normal” shelving clusters and “aberrant” cauliflower-like fruiting bodies.

Despite the common name “Blushing Rosette,” which refers to the hues seen in many fruiting bodies, the color is actually quite variable, ranging from cream, reddish, ochre, to brown.

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Tim Spuckler's Blog

Reptile Ramblings and More

Author Archives: tspuckler

Cardinal Jumper

Nine-banded Armadillo

Ivy-leaf Morning Glory

Spotted Dusky Salamander

Broad-banded Water Snake

Obscure Bird Grasshopper

Wingstem

Lesser Siren

Broad-tipped Conehead Katydid

Blushing Rosette