Woodchucks!

You might be familiar with this adorable mammal from seeing pictures of it on groundhog day. These groundhogs, or woodchucks, are field dwellers whose hibernation patterns influenced the rise of groundhog day.

 

Woodchucks' primary diet consists of grass. Since grass does not have great nutritional value, woodchucks must eat immense portions of it. They spend their whole summer and autumn gorging themselves, building up fat reserves for the winter hibernation. Their main foraging times are in the morning and afternoon. Forage sessions usually last no more than two hours.

 After the first frost, woodchucks retire to their burrows to sleep the winter away. During hibernation, their heart rate falls very low, and their body temperature is about that of their burrow. Their only means of staying alive is through their fat reserves. Thus, they must lower their heart rates to at most four beats per minute. The burrows they dig are five to thirty feet deep, which is why woodchucks are sometimes considered pests if they dig burrows in a person's front yard. The burrows are full of complex passages, chambers, and escape holes. In spring, woodchucks give birth to litters of of about six kits. They are solitary animals, meaning that their mates do not stay with them to tend the offspring.

When a woodchuck spots a predator such as a hawk,  fox, or raccoon, it will release a sharp whistle. This is a warning to other woodchucks so they can dash into their safe burrows. 

Invasive Species Alert: Nutria!

 

 This bizarre creature might appear to be an alien cross between a woodchuck, a beaver, and a mouse. In fact, it is a nutria, an invasive semi-aquatic rodent. It is the only member of the family Myocastoridae. Its scientific name, Myocastor coypus, translates from Greek to 'mouse beaver.' 

Nutria are smaller than beavers, and larger than muskrats. The only difference between the nutria and these two animals is that its tail is round with minute hairs like a mouse's tail. Its forepaws have five toes, four of which have claws, and the other one reduced to a stub. They use these paws to dig for roots in swamps, which is their primary diet. Nutria also feed on aquatic plants, consuming about 25 percent of their body weight daily. The hindfeet are webbed to assist in swimming. This combination of foot types enables the nutria to both walk on land and swim in water. Though they are suited to do both, nutria are most at home in aquatic environments. Nutria breed year round and are extremely prolific, producing around two litters a year, each containing 1-13 young. 

 

Baby nutria

 Because they are so prolific, nutria are becoming a threat to aquatic ecosystems. Native to South America and introduced to Europe, North America, and Asia, nutria are invasive species. They were first imported for their fur, but escaped from these fur farms and began to breed. Since they reproduce rapidly, nutria population exploded and expanded. This is a problem of increasing concern, since they devour aquatic plants, which are food for most muskrats and waterfowl. This results in a smaller food supply for native creatures, potentially causing them to die off, while supporting the invasive nutria.

In addition, nutrias' consuming the roots of aquatic plants contributes to soil erosion, harming wetlands and thereby the wetland ecosystem. Their primary predators include alligators, large snakes, and birds of prey. Although they do have natural predators, nutria reproduce so quickly that predation makes very little impact on the population. In addition, according to invasive species expert Dan Murphy, "because of the impact of nutria, the wetland disappeared and what we have now is open water.” If more wetlands continue to disappear, all the animals and plants who dwell in them could become endangered.

 

Today, people have begun efforts to eradicate the nutria. However, these efforts must involve killing them, because, according to biologist Steve Kendrot,  “we are not trying to catch these animals alive to move them somewhere else; unfortunately we don't have a place to take them.” In the past decade, scientists have caught about 15,000 nutria in more than 60,000 hectares of land. While this may seem like a large figure, the eradication project has only begun, and there are far more nutria to remove before wetlands can be restored to their natural state. 

Pastry Photo Gallery: Charlottes

Mint rose, assorted macarons, mixed berry, cream puff (top left, clockwise)

Chocolate, berlingot (a type of French peppermint),strawberry, raspberry, cookie assortment (top left, clockwise)

     

Strawberry macaron, mango banana, mango cake (left to right)

Pumpkin chocolate assortment, pumpkin caramel, pumpkin St. Honore (top left, clockwise)

Miniature Halloween Pastries (with tutorial)

Welcome to a new component of Fun With Flora, Fauna, and Fungi: Food!
I will post images and tutorials on how to make miniature (inedible) pastries. Each week I will post a "Pastry of the Week," a post containing facts, miniatures, real images, and recipes for a particular French pastry. All miniatures I made and post here are inspired by creator ParisMiniatures (http://parisminiatures.blogspot.com/) Please check out her incredibly realistic miniatures on etsy if you want to purchase some tiny pastries (https://www.etsy.com/shop/ParisMiniatures?ref=search_shop_redirect)

 Since it is almost Halloween, I will begin with tutorials on Halloween themed miniatures.

To make these charlottes, or cakes surrounded in lady finger cookies topped with frosting and treats, begin by rolling a sphere of clay. Here is the procedure:
1. Roll a sphere of clay. You may use air-dry clay or Sculpey, but I prefer air-dry clay since it does not require baking and can be found at the supermarket.

2. Flatten the top gently, leaving thick sides. Press edges as desired.

3. Take a small section of clay and roll it into a thin log. It should not be much taller than the cake.

4. Flatten this log until you have the oval lady finger shape, which should not be taller than the cake. Press it to the side.

5. Repeat until your cake is surrounded.

6. Now it's time for the fun part: painting! The charlotte at left is more complicated, so I will begin with that one.

7. Paint the lady fingers your color of choice (in this case I used tan).

8. Turn the charlotte over so that the lady fingers are facing upwards.

9. Scrape a white chalk pastel over the lady fingers with a blunt kitchen knife or clay tool. This creates the effect of powdered sugar. You can also use different colors of chalk pastel to show pumpkin, chocolate, or strawberry flavor.

10. Press the chalk pastel in gently with your finger.

11. Paint the top of the charlotte your color of choice, and begin sculpting the chocolates on top.

12. For a circle chocolate, make a small sphere and press it, shaping the edges. For the tall bonbon, stack two spheres on top of each other. For a heart, make a circle chocolate and push down on an edge with your nail. Push down and round out the edges. Attach the chocolates to the top of the cake with clear liquid glue.

13. For the charlotte at right, follow the same process for the lady fingers (I used orange chalk pastel here) and paint the top. Make a pumpkin by molding a sphere, and then pinching the top with a corner of your nail. Paint the whole thing orange, and then, using a fine brush or toothpick, paint the top and creases black. The creases are lines around the pumpkin.

14. Squeeze dots of gold dimensional fabric paint around the pumpkin. This can be found at a craft store. If you want, scrape more chalk pastel on top for a garnish.

You have made a charlotte! Please feel free to share images of your creations in the comments! 

How You Can Alleviate Suffering: End Animal Testing!

    

   

Imagine being confined in a tiny metal cage your whole life, having never seen the sun, having never known love. This is the life of a mammal subject to medical testing in laboratories. These animals, primarily dogs, cats, primates, and rodents, suffer agonizing experiments and are brutally killed when they are ‘no longer useful,’ meaning when they are old, disabled, or not needed in a test. If we consider torture and massacre of humans evil, why do we let it continue with animals? Numerous studies show that medical mammal testing is unnecessary to and may even harm human health. Thus, the multiple billion dollars of taxpayer money used to fund medical mammal testing is being wasted. 

Mammals used for testing are not treated as living beings who can feel pain; they are treated as machines who cannot suffer, who cannot feel emotions. Therefore, medical testing on mammals is unjust and should be banned. From an early age, humans are taught to be just, fair beings by following the Golden Rule of treating others the way you want to be treated. For this reason, we would not torture other humans. For this reason, we would not slaughter people if they are old or disabled. For this reason, we would not abandon our friends to die a slow and painful death. Why do we justify these exact same behaviors on animals? According to ethicits, “All beings share the desire to live...we share the same origins, we inhabit the same Earth, and we are ruled by the same laws of nature. We are all the same.” We are all the same, therefore we cannot justify torturing mammals in medical tests. We must not live with this injustice and hypocrisy. Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, “injustice anywhere threatens justice everywhere.” Allowing medical mammal testing to continue is unjust, and threatens human nature as a whole. It sets an example of cruelty and encourages discrimination and hypocrisy for all humans. We cherish our pets and would never harm them, yet we allow animal testing in which the same animals are needlessly slaughtered. If mammal medical testing continues, millions of animals will suffer, and future human generations will become desensitized to cruelty and encouraged to discriminate.

The assertion that medical testing on mammals benefits humans by forecasting capabilities of certain drugs is a myth. Studies show that such tests demonstrate nothing about the effects of these drugs on humans, and may even harm human health. According to polio expert Dr. Albert Sabin, “prevention of polio was long delayed by the erroneous conception of the nature of the human disease based on misleading experimental models of the disease on monkeys.” This illustrates that, if it weren’t for animal testing, countless lives might have been saved during the polio epidemic of the 20th century. Today, millions of people per year are dying of cancer, and the primary method of testing potential cures is on mice. However, according to the former director of the National Cancer Institute, “The history of cancer research has been a history of curing cancer in the mouse. We have cured mice of cancer for decades and it simply didn’t work in humans.” If testing on mice had been abandoned earlier for more practical alternatives, thousands of lives may have been saved. In addition, studies suggest that the results of tests on mammals are insignificant and mean nothing in preventing human illness. For example, experiments show that fewer than 2 percent of human illnesses are expressed in animals. In fact, over 106,000 people die yearly from drugs tested safe on animals. This evidence shows that tests on animals are meaningless, harmful to human health, and detract from efforts towards discovering cures for fatal diseases such as cancer. If we continue to experiment on mammals, not only the animals, but also millions of people would die. 

Because medical mammal testing is meaningless, it is a waste of money. Today, the government spends 12 billion dollars of taxpayer money on animal research. Not only does this money contribute towards meaningless drug tests, it also contributes towards proving facts that we already know to be true. Today, the government has spent 20 million dollars exposing animals to drugs in order to prove for the umpteenth time that smoking is dangerous to human health. This money could have been used to alleviate suffering, create jobs or benefit veterans. Instead, it contributed to more people dying of cancer, and one more of the hundreds of studies warning people not to smoke. Every person in the country lost some of their personal income funding this. This illustrates that medical animal tests are an immense waste of money that could eventually lead to increased unemployment, homelessness, and starvation. In addition, alternatives to animal testing are currently being developed. One existing alternative is testing chemicals on cells in vitro. This eliminates all animal suffering, and can produce human-applicable results. Studies show that in vitro tests “produce data that is more relevant...than...a value obtained from mice, rats, or other animals.”

These alternatives have the potential to completely replace animal testing, and could eventually contribute to the development of cures for fatal diseases. Testing on mammals has been a setback in medicine, is unethical, and thereby sets an example of cruelty, discrimination, and hypocrisy for humans. Medical mammal testing is useless, cruel, and a waste of money as I have proven. It is so misguided that it is not only killing animals, but is also killing and impoverishing humans.  Do you want your hard-earned income contributing to human deaths and more studies showing smoking is unhealthy? The answer is a clear no. For this reason, it is imperative that you take action against animal testing.

    How can you help alleviate the agony of animals used for testing? First, you can only patronize cruelty-free companies. Visit the following link to download an app or view a list of companies that do test on animals: http://www.beaglefreedomproject.org/cruelty_free. You lose nothing in replacing one type of shampoo with a cruelty-free one, or any cruel product with a cruelty-free one. However, the animals the product was tested on lost their lives for one fleeting whim. Imagine you were one of these animals. Choose cruelty-free. Another thing you can do is sign anti-cruelty petitions by subscribing to the PETA online news with the following link: http://www.peta.org/features/what-peta-really-stands-for/ (at the bottom of the page). Finally, you can support the Beagle Freedom Project by adopting or fostering rescued beagles (http://www.beaglefreedomproject.org/adopt_or_foster ), volunteering to help (http://www.beaglefreedomproject.org/get_involved),  purchasing their merchandise (http://www.beaglefreedomproject.org/right_to_release ),  or donating (https://beaglefreedomproject.nationbuilder.com/donate).

The 3D Printing Pen

Imagine being able to make your drawings into real objects, customize jewelry, and draw buildings! You're probably thinking, "That's impossible!" However, with the 3Doodler pen, you can do all this and more without needing to learn complicated computer software! The 3Doodler is exactly like a pen, except instead of ink, it releases molten plastic which hardens in several seconds. The 3Doodler requires a special type of plastic strand, which is extremely easy to load into the pen. Once you have pushed the plastic through the back of the pen, you are ready to start doodling! You can either doodle 3-dimensional structures, or make flat drawings, and then lift them right off the paper.

Thanks to Professor Lynn Klett at Pellissippi State College, a scientist studying polymer compositions and 3D printing, I was able to borrow a 3Doodler pen. She showed me how to use it, and explained how it works. She also showed me several 3D printers in action, and told me about one of the world's first 3D printed cars, engineered at the Oak Ridge Lab in Tennessee. Click the following link for more information on how it was made: http://web.ornl.gov/sci/manufacturing/media/news/detroit-show/
                                             Here are some projects I made with the 3Doodler pen:

A neuron

How does this seemingly magical device work? It works exactly like a hot glue gun, heating the plastic until it is soft, then extruding it. However, unlike hot glue guns, it can melt two types of plastic: ABS and PLA. PLA requires a lower temperature to melt, and is a corn-based polymer, whereas ABS is petroleum-based. Why use two different kinds of plastic? ABS can bend more easily when dry, and is easy to peel of paper. PLA, on the other hand, often peels paper with it, and is brittle, but more suitable for drawing on hard surfaces. Although PLA and ABS are more suited for some uses than others, they are still able to make the same projects. For example, if you want to make a detachable paper doodle, you can still use PLA. If you have any questions about general use of the pen, visit http://the3doodler.com/faq/.

All About Morels!

If you aren't a mushroom forager, you probably haven't seen this strange, rare mushroom in the wild. However, you might have heard of it because of its delicious reputation. What is it? It's a morel! Morels only sprout for a short time in early spring - late March through May, and can be found in most of the United States. They are known to grow under deciduous trees in most of the U.S, but under conifers in the western region.  In addition, morels are known to grow in forests frequently burned by fires. Moderate-intensity fires results in higher morel growth than low or high. There are around 60 species of morels, and several color types: yellow (mostly beige) morels, white morels, and black/brown morels, all of which are quite rare and considered a delicacy. However, if you are foraging for morels, make sure you do not find a toxic false morel!

 

This might look like a morel from the outside, but it is not! This is a toxic, more common false morel, which is known to grow alongside true morels. How can you tell which is which? For some species, false morels look quite different:

 

But for some, like the one in the first picture, true and false morels look almost identical. However, determining which is which is not a matter of trial and error. True morels are hollow in both the stype and fruiting body, whereas false morels are not hollow. When you pick a morel, the stype should be brittle and there should be a hole where it was plucked (see following image)

If the mushroom you found looks like this, it is a true morel. If your mushroom looks like the mushroom at right in the picture below, it is not a true morel! 

 However, even if you do find a true morel, especially if it is not growing in a forest, I do not recommend you eat it, since it may contain toxic chemicals from the soil. 

The Fascinating World of Moss

You probably don't pay much attention to the green pads of moss in your backyard or alongside a hiking trail. However, a closer look at these tiny plants can reveal a fascinating world. What exactly is moss? Moss is a small, nonvascular plant that grows in large clusters. The clumps you see are not one bush, but made of hundreds of minuscule shoots. They only grow close to the ground because they lack vascular tissue, a means of transporting water and nutrients around the whole plant. Mosses also do not produce seeds like most plants; instead, they produce spores. They release spores during a certain time of their life cycle, in which spore capsules rise from the shoots. This phase is called the sporophyte stage. 

Sporophyte Moss

Mosses not only have a role in most forest ecosystems as soil producers and fertilizers, they also have medicinal properties.  They have been used as bandages to regulate blood clotting. In addition, they are sources of antibacterial, antifungal, and antiviral compounds. Some mosses have even been shown to possess anticancer properties. Mosses can also be used in insect repellent, since most insects find moss indigestable. Finally, mosses are used in agriculture as an ingredient in fertilizers. Moss makes a suitable fertilizer because of its tendency to retain water and gradually release it. This helps keep plants alive during shipping. Moss also prevents the development of harmful bacteria and fungi in soil.

 

Before we start identifying moss, we must learn what really is a moss. Though the plant in the above picture may look like moss, and even has 'moss' in its common name (Spanish moss) it is not a true moss. In fact, it is a type of lichen, a symbiotic relationship between a fungus and alga. Reindeer moss, though it also looks like a moss, is not moss. It is also a lichen. Club mosses are not mosses either. Though they are not lichens, they are vascular plants similar to ferns. Many people believe that green algae are mosses, but these slimy, green 'pond scum' are a different type of plant. 

Reindeer Moss - once again, not a moss!

Club moss - not a moss!

Algae - also not a moss!

Now that you know what is and is not a moss, it is time to learn how to identify them! You will need a microscope or high-power hand lens to view distinguishing features of mosses such as leaves. Leaves are either ovate, lance, or sickle. Ovate leaves are shaped like ovals, lances like pointed ovals, and sickles like distorted lances or claws.  Leaf shapes can give you important clues to the identity of your moss. When you take a specimen of moss, note its surroundings and where you found it (on soil, on a rock, on a log, etc.) Do not take the whole cluster, but do not take only one shoot, either. Tease apart a small sprig and seal it in a plastic bag. If you see any in the sporophyte stage, definitely sample that, too! If there is also a dry patch, take it too, since some mosses can look very different when dry. If no dry specimens are available, you can dry some in the sun, your house, or your garage.I recommend you purchase a field guide of mosses specific to your area to aid identification.

Creating a Nature Journal

Early spring is one of the best times to start a nature journal. Everywhere you look there are trees budding, flowers blooming, and white butterflies fluttering. In a nature journal, you record details about something interesting you see in nature. Spring is an excellent time for this not only because of the variety but because you can compare the first signs of life if you keep a journal for several years. The first step in creating a nature journal is to find - or make - a notebook. Be sure to keep it in one notebook, in one standard place to avoid losing it, or making entries in several different notebooks. To avoid scattering your entries, mark your one notebook 'nature journal.' Now that you've found a notebook (lined or blank paper does not matter), it is time to choose what to enter. All your entries do not need to be on something rare or extremely exciting - for example, you could choose to draw and write about the chickweed on your lawn. If you do see something extremely exciting, definitely write about it! If it is spring, summer, or fall, there will almost always be something to draw in your journal. Look around you and see what you would find most interesting to draw. Sometimes you need to do a bit of exploring to find a subject. You could simply find the nearest wildflower or weed, or you could inspect stems to find leaf hoppers and turn over leaves to find stinkbugs.

For example, here in a page of my nature journal, I began drawing a buddleia plant, and then turned over a leaf and found stinkbug eggs and nymphs - much more interesting to write about than a common flower! If you do not have a large backyard, or one with several trees, you can visit a local garden, nature preserve, or national park. Although some subjects are more interesting than others, almost anything in nature you can find is subject material for a nature journal.
           Now that you have decided on a subject, what do you do next? Write about it. You do not need to write much; you can research it and provide a several-page report about it, or just write what it is. However much you write, there are some basic things you need to note:
1. Date (month, day, and year)
2. What it is you found
3. Where you found it. This should not be just the place, but if you found it on the ground, in a tree, on a plant or flower, on a rock, or in the water. Ideally, state what plant it was on, but if you cannot identify it or did not bring a field guide, describe it or draw it, especially if you found a caterpillar.

When I write in my nature journal, I also like to write some facts about the plant or animal, and give personal details about where I am. I draw in my nature journal outside, and I highly recommend you do that as well, since it is extremely enjoyable and may allow you to draw from a model. I describe what I hear, smell, and feel outside in my journal. For example, I note if I hear crickets, or if a petal fell on my head, or if I smell honeysuckle.  

Now that you've written about it, it's time to draw your subject (if you are working from something alive you should draw it first). If you prefer, you can photograph it, but I prefer to do both. You may think that you are terrible at drawing and could never create something worthy of a nature journal. However, do not give up, or be discouraged because you can only draw a stick figure. Try working just from the shapes of the object. Divide it into shapes and then refine it. One important tip for drawing is to work in pencil, with a large amount of eraser, then outline in pen. Sketch loosely and lightly, and draw your final shape darker. If no matter what you do, your drawing turns into a mass of fat blobs, you can find many helpful tutorials online. Once you have the outline of the picture, you are ready to shade it in. I use colored pencils, but you can also use markers, pens, or paints. I recommend either colored pencils or paints, since they allow you to blend colors.  Try to draw your subject as accurately as you can.

Great blue heron and muscovy duck

Dragonfly nymph exoskeleton

As well as drawing them, you can add real organisms to your nature journal by pressing flowers or leaves. Do not tape them directly into your journal, otherwise they will rot.You can purchase a flower press kit, or stack heavy books on the flower you are pressing. To do this, place the flower on a piece of regular paper, making sure that the petals or leaves are not folded. Stack several heavy books on this, and let it wait for a few days. When you remove the books, the flower will be dry and brittle. You can tape it into your notebook, and cover it with clear packing tape to prevent the petals from chipping. Flowers generally retain their color, but white flowers turn out darker, sometimes a light brown. Pale pink also turns slightly brown.

These are some flowers that I pressed

Now that you know how to create one, you might wonder, what can you use it for? First, it can help you compare the coming of the seasons. It also documents beautiful and interesting nature so you always remember the beautiful phenomena you see. Finally, I find it fun to draw and write in a nature journal, and I hope you do too!

Have fun with your nature journal, and feel free to post pictures of your entries in the comments!

Twirling Tails: How Luna Moths Avoid Predators

 

When you look at this picture of a luna moth, you might think about how beautiful those long pastel green tails are. However, moths use their 'tails' for a more practical, and unexpected, purpose than beauty: fending off predators. They do not directly fight predators, but use the tails to refract the sound waves emitted by bats. How does this work? Bats find their prey by echolocation, or by emitting rapid, high-pitched pings. They bounce off of prey such as moths or mosquitoes, and the bats are able to interpret these refractions and locate the prey. When a luna moth flies, its tails flap and twirl. When bats send out their sound waves, they do not bounce off of the moth itself but off its spiraling tails. Since bats rely almost entirely on sound waves to locate prey, and receive refraction signals from the tails, they attack the tails instead of the moth. These tails tear off easily, and leave the moth unharmed. Sometimes, the confused bats even miss altogether.

 In lab experiments, bats headed for the tails 55% of the time, proving that attacking the tails is not a mere coincidence. Researchers also tested cases where they trimmed the tails off luna moths, and found they were nine times more likely to be caught by a bat. In addition, scientists investigated other possible purposes of long tails in moths, and found that there was no other possible purpose - they were not involved in courtship, and did not assist flight. In fact, long spatulate tails have evolved independently in four different species of moths in the family Saturniidae, further supporting that these tails developed to confuse bats. In another experiment, the survival rate of luna moths was compared to that of a larger, tailless moth. Bats were able to catch the larger moths 66% of the time, showing that luna moths are harder to catch, probably because of their tails. “Clearly, tails provide an anti-bat advantage beyond increased size alone,” Jesse Barber of Boise State University wrote.

Here is a link to a video showing bats missing luna moths because of their flapping tails, followed by a poem I wrote about this phenomenon:

      The Tail of the Luna Moth

A bat emits a stream of high-pitched titters

Sound waves ripple back as a luna moth flutters

Long green tails flap and twitch and twirl

The night is silent save for the crickets’ chorus

As the bat zooms closer to its unwitting target.

No thoughts of predators echo through the moth’s primitive brain

And the bat flits closer with its high-pitched blips

Bouncing off the luna moth’s swinging tails

They hypnotize the bat like a pendulum

They smack the sound waves like a tennis racquet

And they echo back to the bat, refracted

The bat receives the waves’ message

It makes a sharp swoop for its dinner

It does not crunch into the moth’s fat white thorax

It only tears off a tail

As the luna moth spirals and swirls off like a ballerina

Leaving the confused bat with a mouthful of wing scales.

Link to Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUiGEWpxqeg#