Call Out The CSI Team!

There have been a series of murders in the yard over the last week leaving me feeling much distress.  I currently live in the suburbs of a small Midwestern city where the space between houses is about six feet at the most and much of the surrounding farm fields have been converted into condo subdivisions. With that said I have become sort of attached to some of the wildlife which does exist in the yard.

Murder #1 The Robins

The first animals to be murdered were a nest of unhatched  baby robins. Mr. & Mrs. Robin lovingly placed their nest in the branches of the pine tree in the front yard defending it from all would be intruders and those of us who dared walk near it to look at the blooming flowers. She then laid a clutch of 3 bright blue eggs and that's when things went to poop.  The nest now lays overturned under the pine tree the three blue eggs each of which has a tell tail beak sized hole in it. 

Murder #2 Mc Squidgey

Now Mc Squidgey was a rather cunning grey squirrel who spent the winter eating an entire HUGE block of peanut suet, put out for the birds. Once she had polished off the big one she ate not just one but 2 smaller suet blocks!

Here is Mc Squidgey doing her best to scare people sitting at the kitchen table.



Murder #3 Pfeffernusse

Pfeffernusse was a rather large cottontail rabbit who spent much of the winter eating seeds, which the birds kicked onto the ground from the birdfeeder. Pfeffernusse would spend cold stormy nights under the stacked lawn chairs or the edge of the chimney.

Now I know what your thinking; how do I know that the other grey squirrels or rabbits that move through the neighborhood are not my beloved backyard friends? Simple they had very distinct markings on them.   Pfeffernusse had a stripe of missing hair on the middle of it's back on the left side and Mc Squidgey had bright white ears where as all the other squirrels have grey ears.

So what happened to them?

Murder #1 The Robins

Culprit: The European Starling. 
Bias Alert! I hate these birds! I may or may not have killed off some baby starlings my roommates had found laying in the lawn of our place of employment. I suggested feeding it to the raptors we had at the rehabilitation clinic, but they decided we needed to feed them and raise them. So for weeks we took turns feeding them mash (as prescribed by our wildlife biologist), changing the poopy paper, and keeping them warm. Until one day I running late for work, and forgetting it was my morning to feed the creeps, threw a hand full of mealworms into a cup of water. After the wiggling stopped I figured I was safe and grabbed the tweezers to stuff them in the gullets of the two noisy houseguests.  Full, I headed to work not giving them another thought until later that night I was accused of murder. See I hadn't left the meal worms in the cup of water long enough to actually kill them I merely had stunned them. And during the day they had chewed their way out of the starling's stomachs killing them (as confirmed by our wildlife biologist).   Now before you get all upset starlings are not native to the United States they were brought here in 1890 and released into Central Park. They are extremely aggressive bird which has been know to steal nest from other birds throw the eggs over the side and take over the nest as their own. Starlings will also peck open and eat the eggs of the nest they are taking over, but mainly they feed on insects.

Murder #2 Mc Squidgey
Culprit: Raptor or Heart Attack

I'm not a hundred percent sure what may have happened, but I'm sure it had something to do with the weight gain from eating too many suet block over the winter.  There are a lot of red-tailed hawks living in the neighborhood which I have seen chase after smaller speedier squirrels.  Yes, there has been a recent squirrel meets tire incident, but I checked no white ears.  So, if your a raptor cruising the hood who would you eat a small speedy squirrel or a fat slow moving squirrel.

Murder #3 Pfeffernusse
Culprit: Vulpes vulpes

I found clumps of rabbit hair while moving the yard and after I was done took a stroll through the neighborhood looking for headless rabbits hanging in trees. Didn't find any, so that ruled out the local area raptors.  Confused? I'll explain raptors, smaller than a great horned owl, will feed on prey items the size of a rabbit where they kill it because they are generally too heavy and awkward to carry to a perch to feed on.  However, raptors like the great horned owl or larger can carry heavy prey to a nearby tree and then feast until they are full leaving the rest to rot in the tree.  I once worked on Gallop's Island in the middle of Boston Harbor and often found some of our slower rabbits headless hanging in trees killed the night before by the population of Great Horned owls on the nearby Lovells Island.  Since I found hair, but no body, I checked nearby tall trees for left over rabbit. A few days later after coming back from a walk I saw a most curious sight. Vulpes vulpes bold as brass trotting through the neighbors back yards!

    Red Fox In Yellowstone National Park by Peter Zuzga

 

 

I tore out the back door thinking I was suffering from heat induced delusions only to hear the neighbor's scream as he trotted past them.  COOL!!! I know there are red foxes, coyotes, and occasionally wolves in the area, but I have never seen them EVER.  It is entirely possible my dear rabbit became lunch for the local fox and he was probably in the area scouting for another meal when he was spotted by the two legged locals.  I'm hoping to see him or her again  (goodness knows there are still many many many more rabbits to eat) because watching them pounce is pretty fun.  Feast well my friend!

 



Red Fox Pounce by Peter Zuzga

 

Murders Solved. Case Closed. 









Rub John Harvard’s Foot Without Fear?

If I say the words Periodic Table of Elements what is your first reaction? Sweaty hands, dry mouth, panic attack, horror flashbacks to high school or college classes of hours of boring lectures?  I will admit right now I hated chemistry in high school and college. I almost flunked out of college because of my inability to remember if certain elements bonded covalently or how may p or s orbitals they had in their atoms.  And truly the only thing I remember from high school chemistry was our chemistry teacher accidentally setting the Periodic Table of Elements chart on fire the first day.   

However, I am beginning to come around to the fun side of the Periodic Table of Elements since reading The Disappearing Spoon. I thought that the only fun you could have with the Periodic Table of Elements could be listening to the renowned mathematician and professor Tom Lehrer sing his song “The Elements.” (If you haven’t heard it click the link.)  I applaud the author, Sam Kean, for his ability to collect and use so many FUN stories and information about the Periodic Table of Elements. Do you know why  Gandhi hated iodine, how solving a math equation wrong and then sending your wrong answer to Einstein can win you a Nobel Prize, why  a noted astronomer in 1564 who lost his nose in a sword duel had it replaced with one made out of silver, and what’s the deal with copper piping?  

Sam Kean’s section on the oligodynamic properties of copper and silver got me to thinking about the time I once visited the famous statueof three lies while showing a friend around Boston. We stood on the Harvard campus watching students and others needing luck, rub, lick, and kiss John Harvard’s left foot.  Yuck, I though why would you touch that after watching someone lick the statue? Millions of germs spreading from person to person……..or maybe not?  There are certain metals in the Periodic Table of Elements; silver, copper, aluminum, zinc, and tin which have been shown to kill certain bacteria, algae, and fungi within a few hours.  As these organisms move across the surface of these metals they pick up metal atoms which once they get into the cells disrupts their metabolism and in some cases messes up their cell’s DNA causing the cells to die. Scientists call this the oligodynamic effect. Scientists still are not 100% sure how the oligodynamic effect works but people have been using and experimenting with different metals since 1000 BC.  People in 1000 BC left river water in silver pots sitting in the sun then filtered the water to remove sand and bits of plant matter and found the water was drinkable.  Silver coins were dropped into milk jugs to keep the milk from spoiling as people moved westward across America.  Since 1976 copper tubes have been put in air conditioners to kill harmful bacteria growing in the warm moist environment.  One recent research paper shows copper can kill drug resistant salmonella in water in 4-8 hours, while tin is less effective at killing nasty organisms which make us humans deathly ill. 

Back to John Harvard.  His statue is made up of bronze which is a mixture of copper and tin, both have oligodynamic properties.  A group of researchers showed bronze plates (94% copper 6% tin) to be slower at killing harmful organisms when submerged in contaminated water then pure copper plates.  So, I think this callsl for an experiment! All I need to do is fly to Boston swab John Harvard’s left foot and grow the swab on a culture medium plate (something which looks a little like Jello which scientists grow bacteria on) to figure out what types of bacteria are on his foot.  While the bacteria are growing keep everyone from touching the foot and then at 4 hour intervals swab his foot and grow those swabs to see if the oligodynamic properties of bronze help to kill all the nasty stuff I think maybe on John’s foot.  If the oligodynamic effect works maybe his foot would self-sterilized by morning if no one touched it at night. Who knows? Anyone near Harvard who has access to a bacteria lab and who can figure out how to control for all the experimental variables I have not thought of please run this experiment and then tell me what your results are. I wait with baited breath! 

Do Elk Fight In Heaven?

This is the first thought which came to mind when I read in a friend's Facebook post of the passing of the famous (or infamous) elk #10.  #10 was killed by a local wolf pack at the ripe old age of 15-18 years old.

                                                             #10 Copyright Peter Zuzga

It was with much anticipation I spent my first season in Yellowstone National Park waiting for the elk rut to start. Late August I started hearing the buzz among staff: “Monster was up at Africa Lake last night” or “#6 was seen out by the high bridge”, this news was often met with a mixture of excitement and dread among my coworkers who had been there many more seasons than I.  I had heard stories of Mammoth Hot Spring’s most famous elk the car smashing duo of #6 and #10, but surely I thought these stories were greatly exaggerated. Right?  I hadn’t seen any bull elk all summer, and while yes I had watched visitors get chased and charged by female elk I had no idea what I was in for.

Bull or male elk stick to themselves up in the high country protecting their growing antlers and packing on the pounds all summer long.  Come late August or sometimes not until mid-September, depending on the weather, the bull elk head to their favorite breeding grounds to round up a harem of female elk to mate with.  Once a bull has his harem he has to protect them and keep them at all costs. Bulls can and will steal other females from their rivals.   A bull elk can lose as much as half of their body weight during the rut trying to ward off would be rivals and keep their harems together.  But bull elk have an arsenal of ways to keep their harems together and I have witnessed it all while trying, often in vain, to keep the elk and the tourist separated.

1)      The Antlers: I use to tell tourist that the rut was all about the antlers.  The bull with the most impressive rack wins the females. Female elk will size up the health of the males in the area by the size and symmetry of their antlers.  Male elk will use their antlers to destroy shrubbery, rip up grass, and in the case of elk #6 and #10 bash out car windows, break out trail lights, rip off mufflers, and chase visitors all as a way of showing other male elk how tough they are and impress lone female elk.  #6 chased me twice and I watched him destroy car after car which stopped to take his picture. (65 cars in his last mating season.)

 

#6

 

2)      The Bugle: An elk bugle carries for ¼ of a mile or more depending on the wind conditions. It is by far the easiest way to tell where the elk are if for some reason you can’t see them.  Bull elk spend A LOT of time, especially in the evening and nighttime hours, bugling.  Bugling is the elks way of saying “this is my spot go find your own and I WILL defend my spot!” The sexually mature males have a bugle which starts low (almost sounds like a growl) and ends high. Younger males have mainly the high pitched end of the bugle.

 

                                        Copyright Peter Zuzga

3)      The Size up: Every now and then two bulls will size each other up by doing what’s called paralleling. They will run or trot alongside each other antlers laid back almost horizontal to their backs sizing each other up. They may do it two or three times and then one elk will decide the other guy is bigger and wander away on his own.  Sometimes when the “looser” makes his way back into the ceded turf the “victor” will give chase at speeds of 30 miles an hour until the looser has been driven far enough away.  Every so often when two elk are sizing each other younger smaller males will sneak into their harems and mate with their females and make a run for it when they see the big guy coming back.

4)      The Fight: In six seasons of watching elk during the rut I saw only one fight.  They are rare no elk wants to damage their rack of antlers. If they break you could lose all of their females, like I said it is all about the antlers!  This particular fight lasted maybe 5 minutes at the most. These two elk had stood all day on either side of the road bugling at each other as they guarded their harems in tight groups. I had seen these two elk size each other up on numerous occasions and the smaller of the two had always wandered off.  Today junior was feeling his oats and decided to take on his much larger competitor. The larger of the bulls pushed his competitor up the hill as the smaller of the two tried to dig in his heals. They released a few times only to lock antlers again.  As they smashed into each other each elk lost at least two antler points each which is pretty impressive when you think that this is the hardest part of the antler.  Antlers are made from bone and can grow as much as a ¼ of an inch per day.  They smashed into and moved picnic tables which are so heavy it takes about 6 people to move one. After the fight was over the looser went and “sulked” alone on the other side of the road while the victor went back to his females.    

Copyright Peter Zuzga

Copyright Peter Zuzga

 

So, while #10 and #6 have gone to the great prairie in the sky their offspring roam the hills and valleys around Mammoth Hot Springs in Yellowstone National Park. Visitors beware.

 

Photographs used with the permission of Peter Zuzga.  

More Information:
http://www.rmef.org/ElkFacts.aspx

Excuse me, is your dress made out of slime?

Q: What do you do with a bucket of hagfish slime?

A:  If you are a hagfish you use it to gum up the gills and mouths of things trying to eat you.  If you’re a scientist you see if you can make clothing or bullet proof vests out of it.

The hagfish gets no love from most people unless you happen to be a teenage boy with a fascination for all things snot like. A hagfish is an ancient creature older than the dinosaurs which lives in the deep deep depths of the ocean 5,600 feet below the surface feeding on mainly dead things. This blind boneless “fish” has no teeth, but eats by using the hooks on the end of its tongue to rip off pieces of food.  By far the most memorable thing about a hagfish is the SLIME.  I had the chance to see a hagfish and its slime up close and personal one day at the Oregon Coast Aquarium in Newport, Oregon.  The program presenter had a hagfish in a five gallon bucket. Needless to say the hagfish did not like being moved from one place to another and did what hagfish do when threatened or agitated it oozed slime. This slime comes out though pores in the skin and there can be as many as one hundred on each side of the hagfish’s body. (Check out the a really cool video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bb2EOP3ohnE)  The presenter reached in and pulled out the hagfish slime telling us that one hagfish can produce about one gallon of slime at a time! He invited us up at the end of the program to touch his slime. How could I resist.  I grabbed hold of the edge of the slime with two fingers and pulled, it stretched nicely, but then I tried to let go it stuck fast. A few minutes of scraping and a few tissues later I was free of the slime.  

At first glance this clear slime looks a little bit like snot, but unlike mucus this stuff bends and stretches and sticks to everything it comes in contact with.  This is because unlike mucus the hagfish slime has little tiny fibers in the slime which allows it to stretch without breaking. Apparently if you allow hagfish slime to dry it becomes rather silky and can be twisted into thread.  Scientists are currently working in the lab to see if they can replicate the protein structure of the hagfish fibers as a way to make super stretchy fabrics for athletic wear, packing materials, or even bulletproof vests.  Environmentally friendly fabric made from hagfish slime, who would have thought.

 

For more information:

http://www.greenlivingtips.com/eco-news/fish-snot-clothing.html
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-04-07/study-finds-fish-snot-fashionable-alternative/4613712
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/347187/description/Repellent_slime_has_material_virtues
http://www.seasky.org/deep-sea/atlantic-hagfish.html
http://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/explorations/lewis_clark01/logs/jul08/media/hagfish.html

Can Caffeine Save The World?

Ever wish you could collect a group of scientists together and suggest a question for them to work on? Ok, maybe it is just me.  Here is the question which has recently sprung into my mind: Would introducing the genes which create the chemical compound caffeine increase crop yields? That’s just crazy you say. Well think about it. Plants have three main problems: 1) getting enough sunlight and nutrients to survive, 2) attracting pollinators, and 3) creating a way to keep from being eaten. Caffeine can help with these problems.

Problem #1: Getting Enough Sunlight and Nutrients

Caffeine is an allelopathic chemical which is known to kill, stunt, or stop seed germination of plants nearby. The caffeine is sent out through the plants leaves, through a process I don’t quite understand, which messes with the respiration of the leaves the plant is trying to kill. Plants can also send out caffeine through the roots into the soil and as the old leaves fall and decompose more caffeine is released into the soil.  From personal experience I can tell you caffeine is a darn effective plant killer. 

In the greenhouse I use to work in we had one raised planting bed with coffee and tea plants and no matter what other plants we tried to grow in that raised bed nothing worked. Once we learned of caffiene’s allelopathic properties we set up a slightly scientific experiment using sterilized soil, grass seed, leaves of the coffee plant and tea plant, and distilled water. We grew three pots of grass and once they had reached a certain size we put the same amount of tea and coffee leaves into a blender with some distilled water and “watered” the two pots of grass with the leaf water. In two months’ time we had killed the grass treated with tea or coffee leaf water.

Problem #2: How to Attract Pollinators.   

Again caffeine appears to help here too especially with honey bees. Dr. Geraldine Wright at Newcastle University in England last month published a paper about how caffeine affected the learning behavior of honey bees. It seems that plants which create nectar with a little bit of caffeine in it get more repeat pollinators. Bees which get nectar with a little bit of caffeine in it seem to remember the plant's smell better. Bees associate the scent of the flower with whatever “buzz” like feeling they get from the caffeine. 

What would be cool here is to take the bees from Dr. Barrett A.Klein's study which he woke up using his “insominator” device and see if giving them a little bit of caffeine in the morning helps them to communicate better with their hive mates about the location of good flowers.

Problem #3: Creating A Way To Keep From Being Eaten

Yep, caffeine is useful here too. If you were to eat straight caffeine you would notice that it has a very unpleasant bitter taste. The bitter taste helps to keep away hungry herbivores and caffeine concentrations in leaves and plant stems can be lethal to many plant eating insects and slugs.

Ok, scientists of the world I have given you something to think about now go see if this all makes any practical sense.

Will someone please figure this out!

Calling all future zoologists will you PLEASE figure out why animals have blue tongues! The scientific community must be asleep because we have been able to find giant squids and document them on camera, launch a rover to Mars, but I still cannot find out why certain animals have blue tongues.   

I recently started thinking about blue tongued animals again because of this picture showing up on my desktop wallpaper.

 

It was taken last October by my friend Peter Zuzga in Yellowstone National Park. We stood in the cold for hours photographing them. When I first saw this picture I just thought the baby bighorn sheep was SOOOO cute. But now she mocks me with her blue tongue every time I see her.

To the World Wide Web I went yet again hoping hoping to find the answer to why some animals have blue tongues.  I bet your wondering “how many animals could possibly have blue tongues?” Well, here are just a few animals which have blue tongues off the top of my head; the Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep, the blue-tongued skink, polar bears, giraffe, some rattlesnakes, and bison. Let’s breakdown what we know and see if we can make an educated guess as to why bighorn sheep and bison, two of my favorite animals, have blue tongues.

Polar bears are thought to have blue tongues because they have black skin. The black skin is an adaptation they have to help keep them warm in cold climates which has evolved over many many years.  Blue-tongued skinks and rattlesnakes are thought to use their tongue along with hissing and other threatening postures to scare off other animals looking to eat them.  A giraffe is assumed to have a blue tongue as an adaptation to keep it from getting sunburned while the giraffe is pulling off leaves in the desert.  

Ok, now to the bison and bighorns.

As an adaptation to keep them warm? Um, I am going to have to say know. Having seen many bighorn sheep and bison pelts they do not have black skin.  Also bison have extremely thick fur and do not feel cold until the temperatures reach -45 degrees Fahrenheit. 

As a way to scare predators?  Yeah, again no.  Having been snuck up on by a wild bison predators have more reasons to be scared than a tongue. For example size. A male bison can reach 1,000 pounds and a female about 900 pounds. They can run at speed of close to 30 miles per hour and use their heads like a battering ram.  Also bison can leap a 6 foot object from a standing position.   As for bighorn sheep they have horns which also make effective battering rams, they run at speeds of close to 20 miles per hour, and can run down a steep slope with no problem.  Imagine getting one of these animals to stick their tongue out at you. Now I ask you are you scared of that?  

To protect from sunburn?  We may have something here. While there is NO scientific evidence yet to back up this theory it may help protect their tongues from sunburn.  Both bison and bighorn sheep live in environments where there is very little tree cover and a higher elevations where the sun’s rays are more intense, so it might make sense.  I told my theory to a bison biologist friend who told me quite simply “we don’t know why their tongues are that color.”

So, all you scientists and graduate students someone please take up the investigation and find out why animals have blue tongues

Breaking News: Collembola Plunges 300 Feet To Death!

I have been reading The Wild Trees: A Story of Passion and Daring by Richard Preston about a group of scientists and who have been mapping and cataloging the plants and animals living in the tops of northern California’s coastal redwoods.   I was shocked to read they found  collembolans in the soil of the fern “forest” growing at the top of a trees over 300 feet tall.  Collembolans at the top of a 300 foot tall tree it blows my mind!  Sadly for me they offer no explanation as to how they got there.

A collembolan or more commonly known as a springtail is a small, really small arthropod which lives in the soil and helps to decompose poop, leaves, fungus, and decaying plant matter.  Bug Guide has some really cool pictures of different collembolans. There are tons of these everywhere in the forest, your backyard, on a soccer or football field, and they can even be seen moving across the water and snow. One scientist estimated there were 300 million per acre in some grassland habitats.   No, way you say there can’t be that many! Take it from me there can be. I spent three years assisting with an invertebrate research study project where my heart sank every time I opened a sample bottle and poured it out to see thousands of dead collembolans floating on the top. By the time the project ended we counted 652,013 from thirteen 100 meter square research plots.  (My record for one sample bottle is 30,000 from one cottage cheese sized container placed in the grass.)  

But, what makes them really cool is how they move when scared, they use a furcula.  Furcula look like either a long or short forked arm that hangs down from the “belly” of the collembola.  When the collembola hits this furcula onto the ground the collembola is sent somersaulting into the air about seven inches off the ground for a distance of about 50-100 times their body length.  So, the largest collembolan at 0.39 inches (10mm) would land almost four inches away from where it leapt from the ground. Downside to furcula propulsion is no steering!  Collembolans have no way to direct where they will land, so if you are living in the top of a redwood tree and are suddenly scared by an invading scientist you might just fling yourself right out of your tree to plunge 300 feet or more to your death!

 

Want to know more:

http://www.collembola.org/

http://www.cals.ncsu.edu/course/ent425/library/compendium/collembola.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Sq2gjsysG0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xh0ERos22qQ