There is a special little bird that I can hear outside my office window right now, so today, the little creature that never fails to make me smile just by appearing gets to be the center of WWWT attention.
You've probably seen the unfailingly charming eastern bluebird and even heard its distinctive song without knowing it. Its cheerful burble is hard to miss once you know it and these dapper little birds are often found perching on fence and power lines at dusk, watching for the perfect moment to swoop out and grab an insect meal.
They are dedicated parents, spending as many as 20 days carefully raising their chicks after hatching. Bluebirds also exhibit what is called philopatry, where one chick may remain with the parents after fledging and help to raise the next brood of chicks in an admirable show of sibling support.
In the late 70's, these little gems were declared a rare species; their populations were demolished by a combination of several harsh winters, pesticide use to curtail fire ants, and competition from invasive species. Bluebirds require a cavity to nest in; given that they are not a woodpecker, they cannot excavate their own and thus must rely on the available holes in their territory. Non-native invaders like house sparrows and starlings will fight and even kill a bluebird to steal away a lucrative nest site and as a result, our azure native's reproductive success plummeted.
Campaigns to encourage the installation of bluebird boxes across this animal's range have resulted in a population rebound throughout much of its former habitat. Bring a smile to your backyard today by hanging one in YOUR habitat. You can build your own or order from many sources, including this deluxe edition from Amazon.com (OH! I WANT it!). Here are some great directions on how to install it for maximum benefit to the birds.
Friday Fun Fact! I am deeply sorry I missed your fun fact last week, but I was stricken, nay pounded down by a horrid flu virus. But this week, I bring you things which make you go, "OMFG, that's huge!"
The Atlantic Giant Squid's eye can be as large as 15.75 inches wide. All the better to watch you with, my dear.
The largest flying animal was the pterosaur which lived 70 million years ago. This reptile had a wing span of 39 feet and weighed 190-250 pounds. That's like a flying black bear!
The tentacles of the giant Arctic jellyfish can reach 120 feet in length. There is no cookie shelf too high for baked goods safety!
In a full grown rye plant, the total length of fine root hairs may reach 6600 miles. That would cross the US. Twice.
The world's largest amphibian is the giant Japanese salamander (left). It can grow up to 5 ft. in length. A salamander that can eat your leg is just...cool.
You are already experts on counter-current exchange and the way in which it allows efficient exchange of heat from veins to arteries. It also allows animals which operate in a low-oxygen environment to maximize the amount of oxygen in the blood using the same principle of running oxygen rich blood in parallel and opposite to oxygen poor blood in order to exchange the gas across vessel walls.
This is a really big deal if you are, say, a migrating bar-headed goose (right). These striking birds fly at 29,000 feet, confidently flapping over the peaks of the Himalayas. We're talking an altitude where the air is so thin, helicopters can't even fly. They need these special physiological adaptations just to get to the other side of that inconveniently placed mountain range.
While these geese are certainly the trophy-winners at altitude, they are not the only high flyers out there. An airliner once struck a mallard at 21,000 feet above Nevada. Evidence of pintail ducks and black-tailed godwits have been found at 16,400 feet on a Himalayan glacier. Even the tiny, delicate Monarch butterfly has been sighted at 11,000 feet up in the air.
Next time you see migrating critters passing overhead, take a moment to appreciate what it takes to get them there and the astounding achievements of which they are capable without even flinching.
No Friday Fun Fact for you! I will be away all weekend, drinking working hard at an aquatic conservation conference. And debating my latest puzzle: why does science insist we write in the driest, most boring fashion imaginable? Do they deliberately try to create a body of literature so inaccessible to any person with a spark of imagination? Every time I try to slip in the smallest of colourful adjectives, I am slapped down by the mighty hand of the Personality Police. God forbid someone might actually have an emotion, or even worse, smile, while reading a report. For we must maintain the harmonic, transparent, joyous relationship that science currently has with the public and within its own ranks. By the way, yes, that clanking sound you hear IS in fact my eyes rolling all the way back in my skull at that last...
We already know that ants always fall to the right when they are drunk. The logical next step is to fund further research into "when animals behave like frat boys." I can almost see the giggling researchers sitting around the table, having finally found a sponsor who will apparently fund ANYthing. "Oh, oh, how about bats? Let's see if we can get them drunk enough to crash into things when they fly."
And lo and behold, at least in the Western hemisphere, drunk bats are still able to fly just fine, thank you, as well as operate heavy machinery and avoid drunk dialing ex-cavemates.
If only we could all be so evolved. I need to find out who is funding all this critical research...
One simplistic way to divide up the animal kingdom is to split it into "warm-blooded" (capable of regulating their internal body temperature, i.e. mammals) and "cold-blooded" (reliant on external conditions to warm or cool the body, i.e. reptiles). However, like seemingly every categorical system ever devised on earth, black and white are interspersed with shades of grey.
Like oceanic tuna. In this group, bluefin tuna have been most successful in the art of keeping one's core muscles warm for high-speed swimming in cold ocean currents. So how does an animal with no true thermoregulatory mechanism achieve this? By the sleek and efficient workings of counter-current exhange.
This relies on a simple principle of physics: that heat always travels from warmer places to colder places. You experience this every day in a thousand different ways. For example, get cold then climb into a hot bath. The heat from the water will travel into your body and the surrounding cool air. Your body gets warmer, but the water in the tub gets steadily cooler.
Bluefins use this to great advantage. All of their arteries are set up so they flow from the core of the body out towards the skin and extremeties while all the veins flow from the outside in. The two sets of blood vessels run in parallel and lie close to each other. As a result, as warm arterial blood (heated by muscle activity and food metabolism) passes cool venous blood, heat leaves the arterial blood and is transferred to the venous blood. Heat exchange is greatest when the difference in temperature between the two vessels is greatest, so when the arterial blood has 100% of its warmth and it is next to venous blood that has 0% of its warmth, a lot of heat will be transferred. It looks a lot like this:
So what you get is blood steadily losing warmth as it runs out of the core. Blood traveling back into the core is steadily gaining warmth. Net result: the warmth stays close to the core and is not lost to the surrounding, heat-sucking water.
It's a life-saver. Cool muscles are slow to respond to demands for movement so if you keep your muscles warm, you have a better chance of escaping things that want to eat you and you can swim farther and faster in search of food in a giant ocean. Birds use the same system to reduce heat loss though their long skinny legs and to keep oxygen levels in their lungs and flight muscles high at altitude.
A certain song keeps popping into my head: "AH-AH-AH-AH, stayin' alive, stayin' alive..."
Ok, it may actually be rainsnowsleeting here right now, BUT my horse is shedding and there are buds on my wisteria so I firmly believe that spring is on its way!! So in honor of that and in hope of encouraging its onset, todays FFF is about my favourite little harbingers of spring: crocuses.
These cheerful little flowers were brought to the US by settlers from Europe. There are around 80 different crocus species, native to southern Europe, the Middle East, north Africa, and western China.
The flowers and leaves have a special waxy coating which allows them to thrive even when pushing through snow and ice.
Crocuses have a long and colourful history; it is said that the Greek deities Zeus and Hera loved each other so passionately that crocuses burst forth in profusion across all the land. In the 1560s, the Holy Roman Emperor's ambassador to the Sublime Porte (can you think of an awesomer job title?!) brough back crocus bulbs from Constantinople. Some of these were sent to a botanical garden and within 60 years, garden varieties had sprung into being. Today, they sprout merrily in my yard at the end of winter, assuring me that rescue from grey doldrums is imminent!
I know I'm supposed to give you a Friday Fun Fact today, but I figured since the point of FFF is to make you go, "wow!" then this will do just as well.
This has got to be up there on the list of one of the most amazing things I have EVER seen. I have always been entranced by elephants and firmly believe there is far more behind their wise eyes than they are given credit for. Watch as a female in Bali gives birth to a stillborn calf. And then gives it CPR. I'm not kidding. Animals are completely and totally awesome.
Pipefish, upright seahorse cousins who live in warm oceans, are nursed to adulthood by their fathers. After fertilization, the female passes all her embryos to dad's pouch so he can protect and feed the young until they are ready to live on their own.
Sweet father, right?
There's a catch.
Many times, dear old dad will actually reabsorb some or all of the embryos into his own body for nutrition, perhaps because food supplies are scarce.
Kids driving you crazy? On your ever last nerve? Taking too much time or resources? No problem, just eat them, it's nature's way! Tastes like chicken...
In Indonesia, the veined octopus has recently been discovered collecting coconut hulls and assembling them into underwater shelters. Octopuses (because it's more fun to say then "octopi") have long been known for their incredible intelligence, including differentiating shapes, colours, playing, and learning by observation, but this level of tool use is a first, not only for this group but the entirety of the diversity of invertebrate fauna.
All I'm saying is, when you've finished that pina colada on a serene Indonesian beach, do an octo-friend a favour and hurl it into the surf!
Yup, I let Darwin choose your fun fact topic for this week: the largest living structures on the planet -- corals. What you see as a coral reef is actually a skeleton of calcium carbonate which is built by millions of tiny polyps. Polyps vary in shape, size, and colour (example at right), but each is an individual animal, working with its neighbours to build the rock hard foundations on which they sit.
No doubt you have heard about the vanishing coral reefs of the world, thanks to pollution, warming oceans, and direct destruction. Fact is 70% could be gone by 2050, only 40 short years from now. "Oh well," many think, "it's not like I need a coral reef to get through my life."
You might.
Reefs have provided treatments for cancer, HIV, cardiovascular disease and uclers. The calcium carbonate coral skeletons have been used for bone grafts. Boy, when you need it, I'll bet you'll be thinking coral reefs are THE most important thing in the world.
In addition, even though reefs only cover about 1% of the planet's surface, they provide a home for over 25% of marine fish species. And food and livelihoods for 500 million people. Let me say that again -- 500 MILLION PEOPLE. $375 billion (yes, BILLION) of goods and services EACH YEAR exist thanks to coral reefs.
So, Mr. Darwin, your mighty little architects are indeed not to be lightly dismissed. The industrious polypus has gifts to offer each of us, upon which our lives might one day depend.
To learn about how you can help coral reefs every day, click here.
Adult turkeys have between 5,000 and 6,000 feathers (oh poor student who had to count these, how I pity you.). These feathers allow them to fly up to 55 mph, unless they have the misfortune of being born a domesticated turkey, which cannot fly at all. Even if they are on the ground though, don't take a turkey on in a foot race as they can easily pass you at 25 mph in a dead run.
Turkeys may be goofy looking, but they are very intelligent and posses keen eyesight. Which was why Benjamin Franklin chose the wild turkey as the US national bird. Unfortunately, the turkey was ousted by the showy bald eagle -- which is somewhat more appropriate, as eagles are known for their scavenging, bully ways; they much prefer to beat up smaller birds and take their food rather than hunt on their own, a piece of poetic irony I just love.
There still a few bronze leaves twirling to the ground in the wind outside my window. But the chill in the air leaves no doubt: it is time to gorge myself, curl up in a warm dark hole, and sleep till spring like Lil' Ms Dormouse on the right.
Winter makes food and water deathly scarce for wildlife the world over (plus it's just damn cold and no fun at all). In a rather miraculous feat of survival, many species opt to sleep it out, either in full hibernation or a lighter nap known as torpor.
True hibernation involves the near-shutting down of an animal's metabolism. Average mammalian body temp is around 99 degress, but they will drop it down to an average of 43 degrees. Heart rate can plummet to 10 beats per minute.
Some, like bears, den up alone and may even give birth to cubs without waking up (how about that for a relaxing childbirth experience?!). Others, like bats, snakes and ladybugs, will snuggle together in one giant spoon-fest to share collective body heat. So closely rationed are body resources that bats, for example, if awakened during winter in their hibernacular caves, can die as a result. The unexpected waking event will burn too much energy and they will run out of resources before spring and renewed food supplies arrive (spelunk quietly and with care in the winter and try to stay out of hibernaculars!).
A bear is often thought of as a classic hibernator, but in actuality, they practice torpor. Their body temperatures do not drop as low and they may rouse several times to track down a snack or two. Amphibians and reptiles are better examples of true hibernators -- they sleep solidly through the worst of the seasons, encased in a cave, den, or dried mud until seasonal cues coerce them slowly back to life (Noooooooooooo!).
Here in the Southeastern United States, it pretty much feels like it's been raining for the past decade. Ok, so it's only been three days. But I'm keeping my eyes peeled for an ark -- we've garnered well over six inches in the last 48 hours.
It could be worse, I suppose. I could live in Cherrapunji, India, home of the world's heaviest average rain fall (about 430 inches). I hope residents have webbed feet and gills because they can get as much as 87 FEET of rain in a single year.
Of course, we are no stranger to wet and wild places. Our wettest state is Louisiana, which soaks in 56 inches (a little over 4 feet) of rainfall per year. But if you want to spread it all out evenly, go stand on the summit of Mt. Waialeale in Kauai, Hawaii, which drowns during up to 350 rainy days every year.
Pulling out that umbrella at the thought and wondering why it never seems to keep you dry enough? Well, that's because the umbrella was originally invented for protection from the blazing sun of Egypt; wind was not really an issue there. And if THAT idea makes you feel too warm, remember that all rain starts out at cloud level as snow and ice; what form it hits the ground in depends on temperatures on the way down.
The most important thing to remember, of course, is that all rain started out as water in a river or stream (or is it that all streams started out as rain???) so whatever we put in one rains down upon our heads from the other. So think of it this way: what do you want in your hair today?
It's a favourite time of year for many -- fall, autumn, that magical time when green swaths of forest turn red, orange, yellow, gold, magenta, even purple, as trees prepare for winter. But how and why do all these changes happen?
Leaves have a broad, thin surface and are vulnerable to freezing and subsequent damage, so in order to survive, the tree must ditch the weak links. The tree seals off the end of the branch near the leaf stem and the leaf is dropped like yesterday's paper.
Beginning in mid-June, days begin to shorten and this signals to the trees that it is time to start the Great Preparation for winter dormancy. Many brilliant colours are always there, but hidden by the deep green of the chlorophyll. As chlorophyll production slows and stops, the green fades and the colours emerge in full dazzling array.
Brown colors in oaks and elms come from a waste product called tannin. Orange comes from carotene. The yellows are due to xanthophyll and are seen blazing on birches, tulip poplars, redbud and hickory, who exclusively show this color, never red.
Bright red & purple colors found in sugar maple, dogwood, sweet gum, black gum and sourwood come from anthocyanin pigments, formed from trapped glucose. This pigment is not produced until chlorophyll starts breaking down in late summer. Anthocyanins lower the freezing point of the leaves, allowing them to stay on the tree longer and buying time to maximize the amount of nutrients the tree can pull out before releasing the leaves to the wind.
Every form of life, be it fauna OR flora, has a unique and specialized way of surviving the seasonal changes that life hurls at it. Here in the Eastern US, one of the best places in the world to view the changing colours of autumn, we are lucky enough to be surrounded by trees who choose to do so in a rainbow salute to the dying of summer before settling into a grey sleep, awaiting spring and green rebirth.
If you divided all the water in the world equally among everyone, each person would get 2.5 gallons of their own.
The average American uses 400 gallons.
Yes, something is very very wrong with this picture! Contrary to popular belief, water is NOT an infinite resource that will just magically keep coming out of the tap after you turn it on. We MUST get better at using water wisely and stop assuming that fairy magic will clean it and return it to us after we use it. Why? Because even in the US, our freshwater supplies are imperiled; already there are lawsuits and other fights across the country. If we want to continue to have access to clean, safe drinking water, each of us are going to have to take steps to make that happen.
Need ideas? Try 100 ways to conserve water; that should give you plenty to work on!
It's migration season, the time of year when animal species around the world complete ming-boggling feats of endurance and determination. Best known of these journeys are those completed by feathered denizens of the sky.
Some warblers (a common local one here is the prothonotary warbler, pictured) complete their journeys, as many birds do, with no stopovers. It's a single, all-out flight from summer to winter feeding grounds. And they cover as much as 1,900 miles in just three days. That's like you driving from San Francisco to the Mississippi River. Only you weigh two pounds and can only use your tiny flapping wings to get there.
Makes me tired just thinking about it...
So help out a songbird or two in fall and spring. Feeders and water can go a long way towards helping out an exhausted bunting or oriole or warbler as many places they would normally obtain food and water along their route have been destroyed by development. Seeing them able to rest and fly off refreshed is a colourful thank you salute.
A new species of chimaera has just been named after years of languishing unknown in museum collections. Chimaeras are related to sharks and are the oldest living group of fish in the world, haunting deep oceans for hundreds of millions of years. This new species, the Eastern Pacific black ghostshark, flies through watery darkness, thousands of feet beneath the waves off North America's Baja Peninsula.
A distinctive chimaera feature is the retractable sex organ males wear on their heads. Club-shaped and spiked on the end, scientists hypotheisize that the fellows use it to stimulate females or draw them in for mating.
Friday Fun Fact! (Yes, that IS all I'm good for these days -- I promise, real posts shall return, I am slowly gathering my energy. But I'm trying to at least keep up with your Friday entertainment!)
The Humboldt squid is not the world's largest squid, but it's not exactly a pushover either. They can easily grow up to 7 feet long and weigh 100 lbs. They belong to a group called cephalopods, which includes octopus, squids, and cuttlefish. These are highly intelligent animals, and like cuttlefish, squid communicate and camoflage themselves using a system of rapidly changing color pigments in their skin. For example, watch the dark colour bands rippling on this fellow below (not a Humboldt) -- the complexity and speed at which they can control these pigments are startling!
They usually reside between 600 and 2300 feet deep in the darkness of the ocean, but at night, they will rise to the surface to hunt in packs. Ah yes, nothing says wilderness like the haunting sound of a squid pack in full cry...
In the winter, glaciers store about 75% of the world's freshwater supply. Be nice to glaciers or else they will spit it out into the ocean and then it will be too salty to drink!
How much water is that exactly???
The entire world has 1.4 million cubic kilometers of water. For those of you who are not Canadians excellent at visualizing that particular quantity, that is 3.69...umm, what comes after trillion -- gajillion? -- or 3,690,000,000,000,000 gallons of water. A LOT.
Well dang! Why do we have water shortages then? Oh, because less than 1% of that is available as drinking water. And of that, very very little is readily available for use (i.e. in streams and rivers).
So think carefully next time you turn on the tap or the hose because that resource supply is tiny and finite! And it's on the brink of being too contaminated for use.
Friday Fun Fact is back!
