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book log 010: Golden Wings & Hairy Toes
Jan. 16th, 2024 11:05 amtitle: Golden Wings & Hairy Toes, Todd McLeish
started: 6/??/23
ended: 1/15/24
thoughts: A thorough overview of fourteen endangered species in New England, this book goes into great detail on the history and behavior of each species, the conservation efforts being taken to preserve the species and the challenges they face, and a prediction on how they may fare in the future. (For reference, this was published in 2007, and with the exception of one case I don't know how badly the climate change in the past 17 years has affected the species in this book.)
It's a great book for lovers of Cool Animal Facts (and plant and bug facts), though I did find the highly detailed passages regarding trapping and tagging a bit dry and repetitive (there's not too many ways to tag birds or fish). I did come away with some ~NEW FAVORITE CREATURES~ after reading, which I will gush about below.
Sandplain Gerardia: A wildflower that grows in transitional grasslands that grow in the aftermath of wildfires; with wildfires and their destructive impact greatly reduced in the past century, the Sandplain Gerardia is mostly confined to historic cemeteries where constant mowing creates the clear and sunny landscape they need to survive. This also keeps them safe from being trampled, as they're very small and delicate.
American Burying Beetle: The largest carrion beetle in New England, its preferred carcass for reproduction is something around the size and weight of the long-extinct passenger pigeon. While they don't specifically need a passenger pigeon carcass they don't choose anything smaller, and suburban sprawl has made carrion in general much less available. Conservationists pretty much just scatter quail chick carcasses for the beetles to use.
Also a beetle pair can bury a carcass in a single night! Apparently they just get under the carcass and dig down and by the time the sun comes up they're several feet underground. They'll also carry a carcass if the soil's not suitable for breeding--they have to go very deep to keep ants and flies from finding it. :o
Karner Blue Butterfly: A tiny blue butterfly that can only reproduce in areas with abundant wild lupine, a flower that primarily grows in pine barrens--another transitional habitat dependent on relatively frequent wildfires. In addition to only reproducing on a single flower species, the Karner Blue butterfly only lives for a few weeks and can't fly very far in that period, so it's extremely difficult for them to discover new areas to reproduce.
The area of conservation for the Karner Blue is within driving distance for me and open to the public--it's been so successful that the conservationists have stopped breeding the butterflies in captivity and moved on to other endangered species of butterflies and moths. I also got to see why Karner Blue butterflies don't travel very far: they are atrocious fliers. Like, I've seen puffins fly, and it's clear those little chunky birds need to work very hard to just get off the ground but the Karner Blues are so...helpless? Like they don't know how their wings work?? They fly in little messy circles for a full minute just to reach a flower a foot away. One landed on me (yes, very magical) and I had to wait almost 10 minutes for it to find its way somewhere else--I tried walking away from it to help it out, but that just seemed to make it harder for the poor lil' guy. Anyway I love these itty bitty butterflies that don't know how to use their wings, really hope they continue to thrive in the dollop of pine barren habitat behind the local airport.
quotes that I remembered for reasons unknown: "One lynx in particular, L18, was caught regularly, and it may have learned that the trap contained a free meal with only the minor inconvenience of being enclosed for a short time."
"Natural history essayist Stephen Jay Gould referred to Nabakov as a scientific "stick-in-the-mud," in part for dismissing the idea that genetics could be used to distinguish among insect species. Instead, Nabakov relied on the microscopic comparison of butterfly genitalia to identify species, which was the more traditional method at the time."
started: 6/??/23
ended: 1/15/24
thoughts: A thorough overview of fourteen endangered species in New England, this book goes into great detail on the history and behavior of each species, the conservation efforts being taken to preserve the species and the challenges they face, and a prediction on how they may fare in the future. (For reference, this was published in 2007, and with the exception of one case I don't know how badly the climate change in the past 17 years has affected the species in this book.)
It's a great book for lovers of Cool Animal Facts (and plant and bug facts), though I did find the highly detailed passages regarding trapping and tagging a bit dry and repetitive (there's not too many ways to tag birds or fish). I did come away with some ~NEW FAVORITE CREATURES~ after reading, which I will gush about below.
Sandplain Gerardia: A wildflower that grows in transitional grasslands that grow in the aftermath of wildfires; with wildfires and their destructive impact greatly reduced in the past century, the Sandplain Gerardia is mostly confined to historic cemeteries where constant mowing creates the clear and sunny landscape they need to survive. This also keeps them safe from being trampled, as they're very small and delicate.
American Burying Beetle: The largest carrion beetle in New England, its preferred carcass for reproduction is something around the size and weight of the long-extinct passenger pigeon. While they don't specifically need a passenger pigeon carcass they don't choose anything smaller, and suburban sprawl has made carrion in general much less available. Conservationists pretty much just scatter quail chick carcasses for the beetles to use.
Also a beetle pair can bury a carcass in a single night! Apparently they just get under the carcass and dig down and by the time the sun comes up they're several feet underground. They'll also carry a carcass if the soil's not suitable for breeding--they have to go very deep to keep ants and flies from finding it. :o
Karner Blue Butterfly: A tiny blue butterfly that can only reproduce in areas with abundant wild lupine, a flower that primarily grows in pine barrens--another transitional habitat dependent on relatively frequent wildfires. In addition to only reproducing on a single flower species, the Karner Blue butterfly only lives for a few weeks and can't fly very far in that period, so it's extremely difficult for them to discover new areas to reproduce.
The area of conservation for the Karner Blue is within driving distance for me and open to the public--it's been so successful that the conservationists have stopped breeding the butterflies in captivity and moved on to other endangered species of butterflies and moths. I also got to see why Karner Blue butterflies don't travel very far: they are atrocious fliers. Like, I've seen puffins fly, and it's clear those little chunky birds need to work very hard to just get off the ground but the Karner Blues are so...helpless? Like they don't know how their wings work?? They fly in little messy circles for a full minute just to reach a flower a foot away. One landed on me (yes, very magical) and I had to wait almost 10 minutes for it to find its way somewhere else--I tried walking away from it to help it out, but that just seemed to make it harder for the poor lil' guy. Anyway I love these itty bitty butterflies that don't know how to use their wings, really hope they continue to thrive in the dollop of pine barren habitat behind the local airport.
quotes that I remembered for reasons unknown: "One lynx in particular, L18, was caught regularly, and it may have learned that the trap contained a free meal with only the minor inconvenience of being enclosed for a short time."
"Natural history essayist Stephen Jay Gould referred to Nabakov as a scientific "stick-in-the-mud," in part for dismissing the idea that genetics could be used to distinguish among insect species. Instead, Nabakov relied on the microscopic comparison of butterfly genitalia to identify species, which was the more traditional method at the time."
