How Time Flies

Temperature: 75°
Humidity: 94%
Light Rain

All good things must come to an end. My seasonal position has ended here at Jones Lake State Park so there will be no more lunch time walks through the woods. As sad as I am, I am happy to have new adventures on the horizon. Who knows? Maybe those adventures will inspire new blogs to entertain the masses (all three of you!).........

Picture found at: Fliker

Strongest Beetle!

Temperature: 93°
Humidity: 56%
Sunny

I found a female Hercules Beetle (Dynastes hercules) today. It may not the strongest beetle but the name sure implies it (and it looks it too)! The girl I found is over two inches long. The picture above gives you a good idea of how big it was. It is by far the largest beetle I have ever seen in the wild. From what I understand they can grow to be up to eight inches long making them the largest beetle in the world. It was fascinating to see. Olive colored with dark spots, the wing cases look really hard. The best part is, she's a redhead. What's that you say? Let me explain. If you turn the females over they are covered in thick fine red hairs. Very pretty!

Picture found at: What's That Bug?

Mr. Toad's Wild Ride

Temperature: 86°

Humidity: 62%
Mostly Cloudy

Since our trails were closed due to a small forest fire that we had a few weeks ago, I haven't been out much during lunch recently. Strangely enough I (seem to) see just as much wildlife in our visitor's center. A ranger had caught two types of toads for me yesterday to use in a program. One was a Fowler's Toad (Bufo fowleri) and the other was an Eastern Narrowmouth Toad (Gastrophryne carolinensis). The Narrowmouth was easy to identify. It was plump and looked like a triangle (see the picture above). Really, you can't mistake their shape for any other type of toad that we have here in NC. The Fowler's Toad was a little harder. Basically it looked exactly like an American Toad. The only way that I was sure that it was a Fowler's was that it had a dark spot in the middle of its white chest. That's it. Apparently you can look at its cranial crest to see if it is less pronounced then an American Toad but since I had nothing to compare it to I decided to be happy with using the spot technique.
The two toads we had were by far the luckiest creatures that I have ever seen. After the program was over a ranger and I decided that our captive Eastern Hognose Snake (Heterodon platirhinos) needed a snack. We dumped our two tasty toads in and set back for the show. Unfortunately for our blood thirsty desires, the snake never seemed to catch on that it was lunchtime. We got bored and decided it was time to release all three in the wild. Putting them all in a small carrying container, we took them outside. Even squished in a small enclosure with his meal, the snake still couldn't find its food (but by his alert state he obviously knew it was there). All three ended up back in the woods no worse for wear but the toads both had a "wild ride"!

Picture found at: SREL Herp Home

Bats in the Belfry!

Temperature: 97°

Humidity: 83%
Mostly Cloudy

Actually it was a picnic shelter not a belfry. One of the rangers brought me a bat this morning to identify. It was found on the floor of our picnic shelter not looking so good. He was covered in debris and not moving when he was brought to me. I covered the box he was in and tried to give him time to calm down a little. Poor guy! After a while I took him out and started to clean him off to get a better look. He was completely entangled in some spider webs and couldn't move very well. Once cleaned, he started to move more actively which gave me hope he would be okay.
Turns out that he was a Seminole Bat (Lasiurus seminolus). They are common in south eastern NC. The easiest way to ID him was to look at his fur color. Reddish-brown all over but streaked with white around its head. They are known to roost in clumps of Spanish moss near bodies of water. Surprisingly they are solitary bats, as are most bats that live in trees. Do you know why I love bats? Because they feed in flying insects and we all know what that means... bye bye skeeters!!!

Picture found at: Peter May Nature Photography

Been Gone So Long!

Temperature: 89°

Humidity: 58%
Partly Cloudy

I decided to take a little hiatus from my blog, but now I'm back ready to write! This morning I found nature had come to call without me even stepping outside. In our staff kitchen was a beautiful female Blue Margined Ground Beetle (Pasimachus depressus). Look at the size of the mandibles on these babies! Funny part is, they feed on small caterpillars and insect larvae, not human flesh (which in my mind is what they look like they are for!). The picture above doesn't show it very well but the edges of the shell on these ground beetles are a really pretty, but subtle, blue.
This isn't the first insect to find its way inside our visitor center. On my hiatus I had to look up a Five Banded Tiphiid Wasp (Myzinum quinquecinctum) that was found in our maintenance man's truck. It was fairly easy to ID. It's abdomen was long, black, and skinny with very distinct yellow bands encircling it. The strange thing about these wasps is when you look at its stinger, it appears to be curved up and nonthreatening looking. Five Banded Tiphiid Wasps were apparently imported to America to be used as a biological control against Japanese Beetles. These beetles are devastating pests of urban landscape plants. Seems funny that we would import an insect to rid ourselves of another imported insect!

Picture found at: Texas Ento