Tree Hugger Daddy

2010-02-13T13:58:00.000-08:00

This is what happens when you buy mail-order luna moth cocoons on the internet.

I thought the packaging was hilarious. Here's the official looking box.

CAUTION!

Directions, more warnings and advice.

Here's the styrofoam cup they came in.

Ami was pretty excited to open such an official looking box.

Per the instructions, we prepared to soak our cocoons in our popcorn bowl.

Soaking the cocoons.

We put each of the three cocoons into a terrarium that Ami got for Christmas. This wound up being a mistake since the moth didn't have room to stretch it's wings after emerging. Unfortunately, he suffered some wing damage post emergence. Once the three cocoons were in the terrarium, we gave them a spritzer of water from a spray bottle every third day to keep them moist (per instructions).

Our first hatchling arrived on February 13th 2010, roughly three months after the package arrived. They weren't supposed to hatch until March or April. This one is a male (you can tell by the large antennae). The males need larger antennae to pick up pheromones that the females release. Anyway, we're hoping one of the other cocoons will hatch soon with a female so that we can try for some Luna babies.

Luna moths only survive in this final stage of their lives for about two weeks. They emerge, mate, lay eggs, and die. The nice thing about this project is that you don't even need to supply them with food. During this final stage, they don't eat. In fact, they don't even have mouths.

As you can see from the pictures, we had a big snow just before this guy hatched. This made handling him easy. We stuck him in the fridge for 20 minutes or so and then went outside to take our pictures. He hardly even crawled around in the cold and never came close to trying to fly.

Here's our supply list for this project:

Cocoons	We ordered ours here carolina supply.
Terrarium or Fish Tank	You'll need a decent sized one so that there is room for them to flutter around and stretch their wings.
Spray Bottle	We washed out an old hair spray bottle and filled it with water. The cocoons need to be sprayed every third day. Just enough to make the outside of the cocoon moist.

Other Tips:

There's a wealth of information on the web about Luna Moths. Here are a couple sites we looked at... www.fcps.edu and www.wormspit.com
Luna moths don't eat during this final stage of life, so there's no need to worry about food for them.
Once they hatch, they need a little room to stretch their wings.
If you want to get some pictures of them, you'll want to put them in the refrigerator for a few minutes first. The cool air will make them go into a dormant state and they'll remain lethargic for a few minutes after you take them out.
To pick them up, carefully shut their wings, and hold them with thumb and index finger at the base of each wing just above the top of their head (try to only touch the red outer edge that runs along the top of each wing).

2009-09-28T11:39:00.000-07:00

The project for today was to trap a backyard animal using a box trap (we ended up catching two, a bird and a chipmunk). I had done this a few years ago with my niece.

There was a mad dash to the backyard right after this picture.

A very proud little boy just after catching a chipmunk.

Both Ami and Syd got an up-close at what we caught.

Our First Catch - A Tufted Titmouse

Our Second Catch - A Chipmunk

Here's our supply list for this project and some tips:

Large Box	We had an old animal cage. We've also had success using a clear plastic storage bin / laundry basket.
Stick or Board	We used a small board to prop up the cage.
Eye Bolt (optional)	I put an eye bolt at the top of the board to tie the string onto. You could also just tie the string directly to the board.
String	Tie to board and take the other end into the house.
Small Dish of Bird Seed	We set our trap directly under the bird feeder which made things much easier. Another tip is to leave the trap set up for a couple days and let the animals get used to eating underneath a strange looking box. They'll never know what hit 'em.

I've done this twice now as an adult. Once with my eleven year old niece, and once with my five year old son. In both cases, it was a lot of fun. The mad dash out of the house to see what you've caught is always my favorite part.

tuesday, september 30, 2009 - update
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Our third catch - A Black Capped Chickadee

Ami has not lost interest in this project. We've been continuing to catch backyard animals including this chickadee, a second titmouse, and a second chipmunk. I mentioned to Ami that we might be able to catch a rabbit if we left some lettuce under the trap for a few days. If so, I might be back with updated pictures of larger game ;).

2009-09-25T11:00:00.000-07:00

Coyote (Canis latrans)

On a recent blog entry I mentioned that my brother-in-law had given me a motion activated wildlife camera for Christmas and that I had finally hooked it up. We have been hearing coyotes for the past couple years. There is a creek on the other side of the road at the bottom of our lot. I had thought the coyotes were working their way up and down this creek bed. It turns out they are venturing quite a bit closer to our house. The picture above was taken less than 50 yards from our back door at 5am on the 24th.

I am not sure what this guy was after, but it almost appears to be stalking something. The interesting thing is that my camera trap was triggered a few nights earlier by a raccoon very near where this coyote was headed. You can click the picture above and to the right to see a very bad shot of the raccoon. He's on the ground in the upper left quadrant of the picture.

Most everyone is well aware of the coyotes expanding range, but it's still a little surprising to find them so close to our home in suburban Cincinnati. I spent a little time talking to Ami about what he's supposed to do if he sees a dog that looks like this with a big bushy tail. Most of what I've read says that coyotes are active at dawn, dusk, and at night. I told Ami to start screaming and run for the house if he sees one. He's often running around screaming and yelling so I'm not sure how I'll know if he's being chased by a coyote or quite literally crying wolf.

In this picture he's very near
where the raccoon had been a few nights before.

This picture was taken the following morning. This is possibly the same animal but it's not really possible to tell. Despite a lengthy search, I didn't find any raccoon carcass, so I'm assuming he got away.

2009-09-24T15:44:00.000-07:00

Black Rat Snake
(Elaphe obsoleta obsoleta)

Ami and I came across this rat snake today on our way to pick his sister up from pre-school. It was under our pear tree in the front yard. We've gotten quite a bit of rain the past few days and I'm guessing all the rain drove the snake from his typical haunts. I don't often see them in our front yard. We've been having a problem with chipmunks burrowing under our front stoop and I'm hoping this guy was addressing that problem. If you look closely you can see a decent sized bulge about halfway down the length of his body (see picture to the right). Hopefully this bulge is one of our chipmunks. I didn't mention this to Ami. I was afraid he would think it was Alvin, Simon or Theodore.

We took a few pics, but it was raining and I was feeling a bit rushed. I picked him up so Ami could touch him and get a closer look at the scales, forked tongue, and the bulge from a previous meal. When we finished looking at him, I took him to the back yard and tossed him down the hill into the woods.

A shot of Ami and the snake.

We were already in the car and backing out when we first noticed the snake. I was originally going to just look at it from the car. Ami insisted that we get out, take a closer look, and take some pictures.

Kids are genuinely interested in seeing snakes. It's a shame they get such a bad rap as most of them are harmless and in some ways beneficial.

2009-09-06T17:56:00.000-07:00

Eastern Box Turtle
(Terrapene carolina carolina)

Last night around dusk I heard the coyotes somewhere down below our house again. There's a creek on the other side of the road at the bottom of the hill in our backyard. I think the coyotes work their way up and down the creek bed. I hear them every so often yipping and howling. I've been wanting to get a picture of them for awhile now. I've heard them several times but only seen them twice (both times without a camera ready).

My brother-in-law gave me a wildlife camera last Christmas. It's one of those with a motion detector that you strap to a tree. Hearing the coyotes again last night motivated me to finally buy batteries and hook up the camera. A couple hours after I had it hooked up it got a little windy and rained. I decided to walk down the hill to see if the wind and rain triggered the camera. It didn't, but on the way back up the hill, I came across this box turtle. This is the second one I've seen in the woods in back.

I decided to take him inside to show Syd. I'm not sure Syd understood that it was actually an animal. The entire time she held it, it was afraid to poke its head or feet out. Even so, she thought it was interesting enough to take into mommies office. Mommy did not share her enthusiasm.

This particular box turtle is a female (males have red irises, females yellowish-brown). In the heat of summer, box turtles restrict their activity to morning and after rains. This explains why I stumbled across this one today.

The smithsonian institute lists salamanders as one of the items on a box turtle's diet. It could be that the box turtles are eating some of the salamanders that Ami and I came across when working on our rock wall.

Box turtles are most famous for their hinged shell (Syd is showing off the hinged shell in the picture to the right). The hinged shell allows them to retract almost completely into their bony armor to hide from danger. Juveniles have several predators, but very few species can prey effectively on adults. The shell also has great regenerative powers. A case was reported in which the carapace of a badly burned box turtle underwent complete regeneration.

When it stopped raining I took the little guy back to the spot where I found him and let him go. I didn't want him to get too overheated when the sun came back out. Hopefully, he made it back under a nice cool rock or wet log and we'll be able to play with him again some day.

As for the coyotes, the camera seems to be functioning and hopefully they'll traipse past it. If so, I'll be back here with more updates. I just hope coyotes don't eat box turtles.

2009-08-14T15:35:00.000-07:00

Stick Insect
(Carausius morosus)

Ami and I decided to go up to Alms park on Friday. He likes the slide at this park. It's unique since it's made entirely out of concrete and built into a hillside. On this particular day, Ami decided to bring his hotwheels and race them down the slide. We happened across this stick insect while searching for the hotwheels after he sent them all down. I believe this is an example of the common "Indian" walking stick. We didn't have the camera with us so we picked him up and stuck him in our lunch box so we could take some pictures at home.

Walking sticks belong to the Order Orthoptera, which includes not only walking sticks, but also grasshoppers, katydids, crickets, praying mantids, and cockroaches. They belong to the Suborder Phasmatodea, Family Phasmatidea which includes both walking sticks (which look like sticks) and leaf insects (which look like leaves).

I probably made a mistake in bringing this one home. It turns out that Indian walking sticks are an invasive species imported from the tropical forests of India, and are considered a pest. In the United States , you need to get a permit from the USDA to keep them. Ignorant of all this, we brought him home, snapped a few pics, and let him slink off into the backyard.

I had also hoped that having brought only one home, it wouldn't be able to reproduce (they only live 6 months to a year). I have since found out that walking sticks are parthenogenetic, meaning they don't require a mate to reproduce. One female can lay more than 1,500 eggs over its life of about 18 months. Males are extremely rare.

The minuscule eggs are dropped into the soil, where they incubate for a time that's governed by temperature, about four months at 70 degrees. Upon hatching, the nymphs – tiny versions of the adult – will grow by shedding their exoskeleton or "skin" several times. It's when they're so small that they're difficult to contain. I can't wait to see if there's a swarm in the backyard next summer (hopefully I have misidentified it and the onslaught will be avoided).

2009-07-26T18:54:00.000-07:00

Bumble Bee
(Bombus)

Mmmm nectar. Syd and I came across this worker bee over at California woods along the meadow trail. We've been down it several times, but I wanted to practice with the macro settings on my camera. It's an old camera but I've never really tried all the features. I think this camera does a decent job for being so cheap, but I'd like to get a nicer one some day. I'm not sure a better camera would matter to me anyway... it's so hard to balance a 30lb toddler in her backpack and hold the camera steady enough for a closeup. I don't think we did too bad on these though.

European Cabbage White
(Pieris rapae)

We snapped a shot of these two Cabbage Whites just after the bumble bee. Cabbage Whites were accidentally introduced into Quebec around 1860. Once here, this European species rapidly spread throughout North America. It reached western Ohio and the Cincinnati area by at least 1875. By 1878 they were regarded as very abundant in Southwest Ohio (Duty, 1878). Ironically, this butterfly is known to now be reared on garlic mustard (one of Ohio's most invasive European plant species). I suppose that the garlic mustard is eaten by the cabbage whites which are eaten by the starlings (one of Ohio's most invasive European bird species)! Yeesh, it's a whole European circle of life right here in the states. I guess it's not so bad though. Syd likes them just fine.

Unidentified Beetles

These beetles were all over this flower. The odd thing is that there were several other flowers just like this one, but apparently this particular one was their hot spot. I've been trying to figure out just what type they (and the one below) are, but there are so many. I've been leafing through page after page at whatsthatbug.com. Those guys are good. I'll have to come back and update this post with their taxonomy if I can figure it out.

Unidentified Beetle

This beetle was attempting to make a run across the lane coming into the park. We noticed him as we were about to leave. Hope he made it.

2009-06-25T10:27:00.000-07:00

Sand Shark
(Odontaspididae)

The family took a mid-summer trip to Pawley's Island, South Carolina in June. Several nights we went out to the beach at dusk. It's a lot nicer to go to the beach in the evening with kids (less people to compete with and not nearly as much heat). Each evening we went down to the beach we managed to come across something worth looking at. Ami caught the sand shark in the picture above on our first night. I hadn't even packed the fishing gear this year but we had stopped to talk to a man who was fishing and he let Ami reel this one in.

They may look slimey but sharks are like sandpaper to the touch. When we got back to our condo we read a little bit about them. One of the more interesting things about sand sharks is that they are the only shark to surface for gulps of air. They store the air in their stomachs which allows them to float motionless in the water as they hunt for prey.

Ghost Crab
(Ocypode cordimana)

Several of our nightly trips produced ghost crabs like the one above. These little guys have pincers and can inflict some real pain when they get hold of you. We caught several of them and finally came across one without pincers that Ami was able to hold.

These crabs are called ghosts because of their ability to disappear from sight almost instantly. They can travel at up to 10 miles per hour, change directions instantly, and flee into tunnels that descend to a depth of up to four feet when chased.

At dusk, these crabs will sprint to the ocean in order to obtain oxygen from the water which washes over their gills.

Soldier Crabs

On our last night of vacation the waves were a little bigger and there was quite a bit of floatsam that had washed up on the beach. Most of the debree appeared to be grass washed out of the intracoastal. There were hundreds of soldier crabs mixed in with this grass that presumably had washed out of the intracoastal and around to the beach with the crabs clinging to it all the way.

It took us less than an hour to round up a whole bucket full. The nice thing about these was that even Syd could participate. They were utterly defenseless and Syd could catch the slower ones by hand.

2009-04-15T07:40:00.000-07:00

Red Back or Ravine Salamander
(Plethodon cinereus)

It's amazing what you can find in your own backyard. This little critter was uncovered while working on a rock wall behind our house. Terrestrial salamanders like this one prefer moist, forested areas around rocks. The rocks absorb and retain heat and the salamanders use this heat to regulate their body temperature. These guys were probably trying to keep warm on an April morning by huddling up against the rock wall I've been working on. In winter they burrow much further into the earth. I uncovered a total of three salamanders while re-laying the first row of rocks.

The thing I find most interesting about terrestrial salamanders is that they are lungless. They breathe by exchanging oxygen and carbon dioxide through the walls of tiny blood vessels in their skin and the linings of their mouths. This also means they must always stay moist. Handling them too much can affect their ability to breathe. Still, I couldn't resist letting Ami play with one of them for a little while. He slithered off no worse for ware after a few pics (the salamander, not Ami). When I told Ami that they breathe through their skin, he responded with "yah, and they're slimey too" in typical little boy fashion.

I decided to do a little research on them once we came in. Best as I can tell from looking at the Ohio Amphibians web site, two of them were either Red back or Ravine salamanders. Red backs have been recorded in 79 of Ohio's 88 counties (including Hamilton). Ravine salamanders are common here too. I believe the third may be a northern two lined salamander.

Northern Two Lined Salamander
(Eurycea bislineata)

This is the third salamander we found. Based on my research, I think this may be a Northern Two Lined Salamander. I'm basing this mainly on the pictures at Ohio Amphibians. The interesting thing is that the Northern Two Lined has not been recorded in Hamilton County. Only the Southern Two Lined has been recorded here.

The nearest Northern was recorded in Knox County. The Ohio Amphibians site does note that inbreeding occurs between the Northern and Southern. This could explain the resemblance. With Knox County being the nearest county to record a Northern and with the strong resemblance to a Northern shown in the pictures, it makes you wonder.