Tim’s Nature Blog

Rhinoceros beetle

Thu, 11 Feb 2010 22:46:31 -0500

This beetle’s scientific name is Xyloryctes jamaicensis. It is more commonly known as the rhinoceros beetle; mine is female. I can tell that because males have a horn on the top of their heads.

Adults are 25-28 mm long and eat ash leaves; larvae eat the roots of ash trees. According to BugGuide.net, they live in deciduous forests in the Carolinas and Virginia, and north to Rhode Island. According to Insects of The Duke Campus, however, they live as far west as Arizona. I found this beetle in a parking lot at a hardware store in Virginia.

References

n.a., n.d.
BugGuide.net Accessed January 26, 2010 at http://bugguide.net/node/view/3310

Insects of the Duke Campus Accessed February, 11, 2010 at http://www.biology.duke.edu/dukeinsects/Xyloryctes_jamaicensis.php

Golden Orb-Weaver

Fri, 11 Sep 2009 17:57:37 -0400

Last Wednesday I saw a golden orb-weaver spider (Argiope aurantia) that had a black and yellow abdomen and a gray head; its legs were orange and black.

Its web was circular, with a squiggly line going down the center. It was a short line, only about two inches long. There was also a smaller circle right in the center of the line. In the web was an animal that looked like a moth wrapped in silk.

I looked to my left, and saw a second orb-weaver spider, and a third in front of that one. I had never seen that many spiders of that species so close to each other before.

Reference

Jeffrey K. Barnes, July 1, 2002. University of Arkansas Arthropod Museum. Accessed September 8 at http://www.uark.edu/ua/arthmuse/argiope.html.

King Cobra

Wed, 26 Aug 2009 11:42:30 -0400

The King Cobra (Ophiophagus hannah) is the largest of the venomous snakes. They live in northern India and southern China; they also live in in western Indonesia and the Philippines. They live in habitats that are near the water like bamboo thickets and open forests.

It eats cold blooded animals, particularly other snakes; they eat non-venomous snakes like Asian rat snakes, dhamans, and pythons that are about ten feet in length. They also eat lizards, frogs, and small mammals.

Birds of prey, mongooses, and humans are the king cobra’s predators. Humans are the its main predators, they cut down the forests it lives in and that has made their population drop.

When a king cobra is full grown it is black, yellow, brown, or green. It ranges from 10-12 feet long, it can even grow to 18 feet long. Because of its size, it regarded as a fierce and aggressive snake. (Animal Diversity Web)

Breeding season for the king cobra starts in January and ends in April; the babies hatch in the fall. It can lay up to 40 eggs when they reproduce. The female covers the eggs and stays near by to watch them; the male watches the eggs too. The female is usually very aggressive when a human comes near the eggs.

At Reptile Day on July 25, 2009, there was a king cobra at the museum that was from the Luray Zoo. Mark Kibly (one of the owners of the zoo) said that even though the king cobra has a hood, it doesn’t spread it often; when it feels threatened, it will spread its hood as a warning. I liked this Reptile Day, and hope I can go to the one next year.

Photo from Virginia Museum of Natural History – http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=2292304&id=6590102478

References

Young, D. 1999. "Ophiophagus hannah" (On-line), Animal Diversity Web. Accessed July 31, 2009 at http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/accounts/information/Ophiophagus_hannah.html.

(n.a.) (n.d.), King Cobra at http://www.blueplanetbiomes.org/king_cobra.htm.

Jennifer Westhoff, Copyrighted 2007. Luray Zoo, Accessed August 26, 2009 at http://www.lurayzoo.com/.

Virginia Museum of Natural History. Accessed August 24, 2009 at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Martinsville-VA/Virginia-Museum-of-Natural-History/6590102478?ref=mf.

Mole Salamander

Thu, 6 Aug 2009 21:36:01 -0400

On April 5, 2009, I went to the Solite Quarry with a few other people and dug for fossils. I was looking around for wildlife, when I spotted a salamander in a pond. I caught it and took some pictures of it; later I released it where I found it. Now, I have found out that it is the mole salamander (Ambystoma talpoideum).

There are five other species of Ambystoma, but this salamander is Ambystoma talpoideum. The colors on the other salamanders don’t match the colors on my salamander. They also had different color patterns on the sides of their bodies from mine. Another thing is that my salamander has a black line running from the edge of its eye to the front of its head; only A. talpoideum has that line.

This salamander lives in most of the southern and central United States including Virginia and North Carolina. A. talpoideum is a neotenic salamander. That means that when it grows into an adult, it has the characteristics of a juvenile; a noticeable characteristic of this salamander as an adult is that it still has gills.

A. talpoideum eats aquatic creatures such as copepods and water fleas as a juvenile. As the babies grow, they begin to eat bigger creatures, but they still eat the animals they ate as juveniles. When it is an adult, it eats tadpoles and different invertebrates like aquatic insects and earthworms.

The neotenic form of the mole salamander lives in permanent ponds that don’t have fish. They may not live in ponds with fish because the fish eat them. “If they are around, bluegill sunfish will eat lots of mole salamander eggs; marbled salamanders (Ambystoma opacuum) also eat mole salamander eggs” (Animal Diversity Web).

The neotenic kind of mole salamander doesn’t have a long lifespan. When it becomes full grown, 45% of them will die in the breeding pond (which is the pond they live in). Aquatic predators are one of the reasons they don’t live long. Another is that some ponds aren’t permanent; the ponds will dry up, and the salamanders die.

References

Behr, A. and K. Francl. 2009. "Ambystoma talpoideum" (On-line), Animal Diversity Web. Accessed July 22, 2009 at http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/accounts/information/Ambystoma_talpoideum.html.

(no author), (n.d.). Axolotl (on-line), Wikipedia. Accessed July 22, 2009 at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axolotl.

Common Horsetail

Sat, 30 May 2009 21:33:48 -0400

The Common Horsetail (Equisetum arvense) often live in areas that are near streams. These horsetails were found at Acadia National Park, Maine close to a stream. They were very small; only a few inches tall.
The common horsetail has one stem that is divided into segments. On each segment are the leaves, which are positioned in a circular pattern. They have a top called a strobilus that is shaped like a cone and looks like a flower, but it is neither. Instead of making seeds, the strobilus makes spores.

There is a kind of flowering plant called Hippuris that is often mistaken for a horsetail. Like those of the horsetail, the leaves of a Hippuris are positioned in a circular pattern. You can tell that the plants are different from the stems; Hippuris isn’t divided into segments like the horsetail is.
Horsetails date back all the way to the Pennsylvanian Period; that is 300,000,000 years ago. They were enormous in the Pennsylvanian; they were as big as trees at that time. It is amazing that they have lived for that long.

Fossil horsetail from the Cleveland Museum of Natural History.

References

Dooley, Alton C. Jr., personal communication
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horsetail.
Calflora: Equisetum Arvense at http://www.calflora.org/cgi-bin/species_query.cgi?where-taxon=Equisetum+arvense.
Flora of North America at http://www.elforas.org/florataxon.aspx?flora_id=233500616.
Utah State University, Horsetail at http://extension.usu.edu/range/forbs/horsetail.htm.