who's got your back?

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She's a man-eater!

"If you're in it for love, you ain't gonna get too far, Oh-oh, here she comes. Watch out boy she'll chew you up. Oh-oh, here she comes. She's a mantid-eater," sang Hall & Oakes in 1982. 

Well, not quite, I inserted the word "mantid," but you get the idea. 

Praying mantises! This is their mating season and the large predator insects are looking for mates. If you have any single, unattached male mantids in your yard call me, perhaps I can play matchmaker. This one watching over me has been hanging around the Plaza Pond in front of the Ijams Visitor Center. 

But, keep in mind that the female often eats the male after they have coupled, so it may be a death sentence for him. (Studies have shown that she is less likely to consume her mate if she has recently eaten, so perhaps he needs to take her out to dinner before any amorous overtures are made.)

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blue morpho

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Beautiful Morpho Phia-ides in center. Photo by Linda Knott.

We had a rare visit from a blue morpho butterfly (Morpho peleides) last Sunday afternoon at my Flutterby-ology class at Ijams. Considered one of the most spectacular butterflies on the planet, the blue morpho can have a wingspan of from 5 to 8 inches. The dorsal side of the wings are made up of tiny iridescent and metallic blue scales and the forewings are quite elongated. Normally, they are found only in in the tropical forests from Mexico to Colombia.

For a look at the rest of the class click: Flutterby-ology.

Thank you Phia for being so creative!

Giant blue morpho. Wiki commons.

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canoodling wrens

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As far as we know, Carolina wrens mate for life and spend 365 days a year close to one another foraging for insects, spiders, sunflower seeds, whatnot. 

When nesting season is over—and they can have up to three broods year—they travel around our houses, watching each others back, ever mindful. If something seems harmful, they send out an alarm call.

They also roost near each other at night. Tiffiny and Warren Hamlin noticed their pair were spending the night in separate ends of blinds they have on their screened-in porch, but as Tiffiny emailed, they recently "caught them canoodling in the same blind." After being discovered, "They quickly split up and went to their respective blinds."

Don't you just love the word canoodling?  

The Hamlins are assistant managers at Wild Birds Unlimited on Kingston Pike. 

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soldier fly: well, I never

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Soldier fly

Hold on to your accent Sir David Attenborough, the most beautifully odd lifeform we found Friday with the Ed-Ventures @ Ijams homeschool class on aquatic macroinvertebrates was a soldier fly larva, a common and widespread fly of the family Stratiomyidae. Unlike many other fly species neither the larvae nor adults are considered pests or vectors. They exist pretty much unbeknowst to us.

And I had never seen one of the juvenile form before. 

Shown at top resting on my thumb, the creepy larva is essentially an aquatic "maggot"—little more than a wriggling, writhing digestive canal: a head and mouth, a long intestine and an anus, with no walking legs whatsoever.

Ed-Ventures @ Ijams Homeschoolers

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opening pandora's box?

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As the Ancient Greeks would have us believe, out of simple curiosity Pandora opened a box and all the evils of humanity spilled out. Must have made quite a mess. That's a lot to lump on poor Pandora. I've perhaps opened thousands of boxes in my life and other than a few gasped expletives at odd Christmas presents I've not wreaked havoc on anyone.
 
Charlie Morgan found the above moth, dead, splayed out, a perfect specimen of a Pandora or Pandorus Sphinx Moth (Eumorpha pandorus).

At the nature center, Jen Roder found a chunky brown caterpillar with sizable spots that's the other end of Pandora's life cycle. No evils connected to this one.
 
When resting, sphinx moth caterpillars fold their front legs and head underneath giving themselves rather sizable front ends which reminded someone long ago of the Egyptian Sphinx, hence the name.
 
And if you know the Greek myth, once the evils were spilled upon the world the only thing left in Pandora's Box was hope. 

Hope. 

Something for your curiosity to ponder while the evils of the world grab all the international headlines. And curious camo green miracles wrapped in ponderous mythology are relegated to the fringes of the information age—obscure blogs.

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stalking invertebrates

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Josie and the Chilopoda

Centipedes are in the invertebrate class Chilopoda. They are carnivores. They bite with a pair of modified front legs called forcipules. It feels like a bee sting, so we avoid the real ones. That's why Josie is getting up-close to an oversized centipede made out of plastic. 

We had a great time recently stalking invertebrates with the Family Nature Club @ Ijams.

For more details on the club's outing, click: bugs

The centipede most often encountered indoors is Scutigera coleoptrata, or more simply "House Centipede."

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work of art

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Ermine moth (Ailanthus webworm)

TN Naturalist @ Ijams student Kathy Reilly has been seeing a small insect with odd coloration. I knew what it was, her description brought to mind a story I posted four years ago...

High on my "to-do" list was getting a photo of an ermine moth—specifically the Ailanthus webworm—because the boldly patterned, black, white and orange insects remind me of one of my favorite artists, French painter and sculptor Jean Dubuffet. Although I do not remember the color orange as being part of Dubuffet's pallette.

As their scientific name suggests, the moths are generally found on their host plant ailanthus, an introduced tree also known as "Tree of Heaven." The webworm moths are native to the tropics and south Florida but have expanded their range north as the alien trees became widespread.

Nature is in a constant state of flux. Give and take. Yin and Yang.

Although linked to the ailanthus, this week I located several of the short (slightly less than an inch in length) moths on common milkweed at Ijams.

Outdoor sculpture
Monument with
Standing Beast
by Jean Dubuffet
located in Chicago.

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powder white sprite

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Warren and Tiffiny Hamlin can be found at Wild Birds Unlimited Nature Shop on Kingston Pike. They love birds. And if you love birds you tend to watch a lot of birds. And, as this thread of logic goes, if you watch a lot of birds every so often you see something wondrous. 

Nature has a way of revealing its moments of awe when you least expect it.

The Hamlins had just gotten home from a vacation and were tending to the hummingbird feeders in their backyard when voilà they DID see something wondrous: a powder white sprite, a leucistic hummingbird had stopped by for a visit.

Similar to albinism, leucism is a genetic disorder resulting in "white, pale or patchy coloration of the skin, hair, feathers, scales or cuticle, but not the eyes" as in a true albino. Unlike albinism it is caused by a reduction in multiple types of pigment, not just melanin as in albinism.

But that's a lot of nuts-and-bolts science talk when the end result is something very rare and very beautiful: a pallid pixie like Tinkerbell. And it underscores the importance of being awestruck every now and then. It rocks your world. 

We are at the peak of fall hummingbird migration. Keep your feeders out and clean and fresh. Let's hope the powder white survives the fall migration and comes back next year.

Thank you, Warren for sending me the beautiful photographs. 

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miracle of life

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Hickory horned devil

In a natural world full of miracles, this may be one of the most profound. A moth or butterfly caterpillar spins a cocoon, creates a chrysalis or, in the case of the above hickory horned devil, burrows underground to form an earthen chamber. Then it pupates. The cellular organization that was once its worm-like body breaks down into a rich goo and then rearranges itself into a winged creature. This wondrous transformation is yet to be fully understood by biologists but it is one of the most sacrosanct undertakings in all of nature.

(The Cubs winning the World Series would be a miracle of equal amazement, but we'll wait and see about that.)

Two weeks ago was Sophia's first day of school. That's life-changing. AND to complete the analogy, she also acquired the oddest creature she had ever seen. It too would soon be going through something life-changing.

Metamorphosis: [met-uh-mawr-fuh-sis] noun. Biology. a profound change in form from one stage to the next in the life history of an organism.

Photo by Shirley Andrews

Both "Soph" and her hickory horned devil caterpillar were about to go through metamorphosis. Sophia was becoming a student and the large green spiky lepidopteran larva would transform into a royal walnut moth, a.k.a. regal moth (Citheronia regalis). 

Wow! The miracles in our lives.

To prolong the enchantment, I created a terrarium with appropriate tasty leaves for the devil, but it soon eschewed the edibles to burrow underground below the dirt and detritus. It was its time. After a few days, I gently moved the material aside and found the pupa: a shiny dark capsule that held a miracle in the making.  

Good luck in school this fall, Sophia. Good luck with the transformation of your own. 

Thank you, Grandmother Linda and Mom Karen. 

For the initial post, click: big day for Sophia.

Sophia with her foundling caterpillar as long as my opposable digit!

The horned devil/regal moth pupa hidden under leaves.

Regal moth: What the horned devil will look like after metamorphosis

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Balsam Mountain visit

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Don't you just love owls! Naturalist Jen Knight with barn owl, Luna.

Coming in 2017

Last evening, I spoke to a group at Balsam Mountain Preserve in Sylva, North Carolina about my first two books and my upcoming third: Ephemeral by Nature due in 2017.

I also got to visit with old friend and former Ijams' AmeriCorps member Jen Knight, who is an educator/naturalist at the nature center located there.

Thank you, Jen and Michael Skinner, Executive Director, Balsam Mountain Trust for inviting me.

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