June 2009 – Page 3 – Seabrooke Leckie

Moths, and me

Virginia Creeper Sphinx, Darapsa myron

I finally got a chance this evening to sit down and put together the June edition of The Moth and Me. For something different, I set it up as a contest. Visit each of the sites, find the name of the moth shown and the country it’s from (or at least, the country of the blog it’s from), email the answers to me, and if you have them all right you’ll be entered into a draw for a $5 Amazon.com gift certificate (or Amazon.ca if you’re Canadian, or Amazon.co.uk if you’re British, or… you get the idea). It’s not a huge sum, but maybe it’ll help you finally decide to buy that book you’ve had your eye on for a while. Mostly, it’s a not-so-subtle attempt to show off just how cool and diverse moths are, and get you to go actually visit some of these sites. :)

Hermit Sphinx, Sphinx eremitus

Here on my own blog, I haven’t posted anything on moths for a little while, there’s just been so much else to write about! So here’s a brief mothing interlude. I’m up well over 200 species identified for the year so far, and there’s no way I could include everything I’ve been seeing. So I thought I would just mention one group of moths that, because of their size and unusual shape, are one of the more eye-catching families of moths. The family is Sphingidae, the Sphinx moths, which includes some 124 species in North America.

One-eyed Sphinx, Smerinthus cerisyi

The most familiar to most people are probably the day-flying hawkmoths, which are often seen hovering at flowers in gardens or meadows. Other people may know the group by their caterpillars, sometimes called hornworms for the long “spike” that protrudes from the tail-end, such as the Tomato Hornworm aka Five-spotted Hawkmoth. However, these two subsets make up only a tiny portion of the sphinx moths.

Modest Sphinx, Pachysphinx modesta

All of the moths in this post are ones that have come to my lights at night so far this spring. With the addition of the Nessus Sphinx that I spotted briefly visiting the dog poop on the driveway, I’m up to 13 species of sphinx. There’s an incredible range of colours, shapes and sizes even within this small bunch of species. The Lettered Sphinx is one of the smallest, at approximately 1.5 inches (4cm) long, and of the ones shown here, the Modest Sphinx is the largest, at nearly the size of my palm.

Small-eyed Sphinx, Paonias myops

The Small-eyed Sphinx is the most colourful, with rich yellows, periwinkle blues and deep maroons. Some of the most unicolored are in the nominate genus Sphinx.

Lettered Sphinx, Deidamia inscripta

There are some that curl their abdomens up, holding their wings above the surface they’re resting on in a very distinct posture: Lettered Sphinx, for instance, or Walnut Sphinx. Abbott’s Sphinx curves its back and curls its wings downwards when at rest; the parallel lines along the trailing edge of the forewing create the fairly convincing impression of broken bark.

Abbott’s Sphinx, Sphecodina abbottii

The sphinx moths are one of the most well-studied groups of moths, simply because their large size, often bright colours and eye-catching shapes and habits make them more interesting than most other groups of moths. Sphinx moths, like silkworm moths, are sometimes raised from caterpillars in captivity, providing information on their life cycle.

Pawpaw Sphinx, Dolba hyloeus

Of course, most of that rearing was for the purpose of then killing and mounting the specimens for private collections. Just like birding with binoculars evolved from the hobby of collecting with a shotgun, so too has mothing with a digital camera evolved from collecting and pinning specimens. Many entomologists still maintain collections, and they do have important uses, but it’s becoming more and more popular simply to record what you’ve found or caught, and then let it go.

Laurel Sphinx, Sphinx kalmiae

The closest I’ve come to encountering a sphinx caterpillar in the wild is the mummified shells I found on the twigs of trees overhanging the lake during the winter. One website hypothesizes that sphinx caterpillars do most of their feeding at night, which would explain why they’re rarely encountered. Another factor is that sphinxes are never around in large numbers the way some things, like tent caterpillars, can be, although Lettered Sphinx can be found in small but moderate numbers in early spring, sometimes with as many as five or six individuals caught in a night.

Walnut Sphinx, Amorpha juglandis

Most other species you’re likely to encounter probably every year, but you may only see one or two over the course of the whole season. For example, the Laurel Sphinx above was a species I caught one of last year, and have only seen once this year so far. Some species have short flight windows, only a couple of months in the summer, but there are others that fly for several months, such as the Northern Apple Sphinx which is on the wing from May through September.

Waved Sphinx, Ceratomia undulosa

The caterpillars of most sphinx moths actually burrow underground to pupate, though a select few might pupate in the loose leaf litter. Depending on their life cycle, some may spend the winter this way, while others may overwinter as eggs.

Blinded Sphinx, Paonias excaecatus (no pupil in the eyespot = blind)

I must admit that I get excited when a sphinx comes in to my light. They’re such striking moths – the charismatic megafauna of the moth world. I’ve illustrated 12 species here, but I expect I’ll still see a few more over the course of the summer.

Tuesday Miscellany

An assorted collection of photos this week. Getting out to do the MAPS fieldwork with Dan has been a great opportunity for me to see things I wouldn’t normally encounter; not just birds, but bugs and flowers and such as well. It’s almost too good – I come home at the end of the day with a couple hundred photos, and enough blog fodder to last me a couple of weeks. I’ve been hoarding some photos that I hope to put into a full-length post, and hopefully I actually get around to doing that.

This week’s first photo is of a Scarlet Tanager we banded at one of the MAPS sites over the weekend. He’s fine, don’t worry – some birds, if you open your hand slowly, don’t realize they’re free at first, and will just sit on your open palm for a few moments before flying away. Male Scarlet Tanagers are striking birds, and their red can sometimes be so bright and vibrant as to overwhelm the camera. This was a particularly spiffy bird, an after-second-year, meaning it was hatched in at least 2007 or earlier. Birds in their first summer as a breeding adult (second-year birds) can look a little ratty because their wing feathers, which are the same ones they grew in the nest, wear and fade more than seasoned adults.

It was a toss-up over which photo I wanted to use for my headliner image. This Luna Moth was in such pristine condition, unusual for larger moths. I’ve been getting quite a number of these coming to the trap the last few times I’ve set it out – sometimes up to three or four in a night. Yesterday night we accidentally left the porch light on when we went to bed, and when we arose in the wee hours of this morning, in among the great numbers of smaller moths were two Lunas hanging on to the nearby wall. Most people are probably familiar with this species from a number of sleep-aid commercials and other advertising. However, it is a common moth of the east, flying in early summer at northern latitudes, a wider window farther south as it’s able to raise multiple broods. However, because adults live for only about a week, they may not be regularly encountered. Like with so many characteristics of animals, the purpose of the long, showy tails isn’t definitively known, but is believed to be a form of protection by focusing a predator’s attention away from vital body parts.

This was probably third runner-up for header photo. This is a nest stuffed full of Veery chicks. The nest itself is one from Maplewood Bog that Dan profiled on his Frontenac Birds blog. On our last visit the female was still incubating the eggs. Although only nine days elapsed between our first and second visit, already the chicks – who weren’t even hatched last time – are alert, eyes open, and begging for food as you carefully lift the overhanging branch to peer in. It’s amazing how fast chicks grow. For most songbird species, it only takes two weeks or so for the young to grow from naked, blind hatchling to feathered fledgling, and leave the nest. This nest will be empty on our next visit.

Back over at Hemlock Lake, we spotted a number of these interesting and colourful fungi growing on the trunks of dead hemlocks. The site is full of dead trees, mostly hemlock though possibly some pine – my dead-bark identification skill is still being refined – so there’s certainly lots of great growing location for this fungus. I believe this to be Ganoderma tsugae, also known as Hemlock Varnish Shelf. These are young specimens; as they grow they’ll lose the bold white outer rim, and will attain a slick gloss, the reason for the word “varnish” in the name. The fruiting bodies themselves, the part you actually see, are annual; they grow anew every year. However, the mycelium, the network of “roots” that exist within the dead tree, is longer-lived and is the source of new brackets each year. It’s a species that can be found across a large portion of North America.

I haven’t noticed these around our home, but there were quite a few at Maplewood Bog, and a handful at Hemlock Lake as well. This is Wood Lily, Lilium philadelphicum. It seems to grow at the edge of clearings in dry deciduous woods, and will grow in loose congregations of a handful of individuals scattered together. It’s very widespread, found just about everywhere in North America east of the Rocky Mountains, except for the Maritimes and Florida. It grows from tuberous bulbs, which Native Americans would gather for eating. I imagine, however, that this would need to be done sustainably, as removing the bulb essentially removes the plant.

I haven’t been able to come up with an ID for this fly. One of the rare instances that my trusty Kaufman Insects wasn’t able to provide me with the answer. There are so many species of flies that flipping through my Stephen Marshall’s Insects leaves me a little overwhelmed, though I think it might be a species of Tachinomyia, a relatively common group that develop as parasites of tent caterpillars – something we have no shortage of around here. I thought the yellow foot pads might be useful, but there are a number of species that have those. This poor fly had got caught up in one of our nets. I was able to untangle the fine mesh and let it go, although often with flies and wasps they get it so tightly wound around their tiny necks that you don’t have much choice but to pop their head off to get them out of the net.

And the last photo, a little bit of rainbow hiding in a juniper shrub. The sites are usually very dewy first thing in the morning, and I wear rainpants just till the sun is up high enough to dry off the vegetation. The dew drops make for some beautiful images. In this case, the dew had lightly coated a spider web, and I walked past it, the sunlight refracting through the millions of tiny water droplets cast a lovely rainbow.

That’s it for this week. There’s so much going on, though, I’ve already started working on next week’s miscellany post!

Looking for lost time

Self-portrait, birding at Maplewood Bog

This post could alternatively be called looking for fast, reliable internet. Our account went over-quota late last night due to a leaky program on one of our two computers, resulting in a nearly-useless connection for most of today. I have all the photos picked out and edited for my Monday Miscellany, but have been waiting for our penalty time to expire and the ‘net to come back up to speed. Naturally, it finally did so right about my bedtime. On the up side, I got quite a bit of work done today without the internet at hand to distract me.

Dan and I are off to Rock Ridge tomorrow, bright and early, for what we hope will be another productive day of MAPS. Back to normally scheduled programming tomorrow. Look for some hungry babies, sexy males, and flashy tails in tomorrow’s Tuesday Miscellany!

Nature’s artwork

Yesterday afternoon I’d put Raven out on her tie-out in the yard, and was sitting inside at my computer doing some work. Raven will occasionally bark at random things if she’s feeling bored – a stray flowerpot, a broom propped against the house, other things that I can’t see. She’s got a particular type of bark that goes with those objects, playful. But yesterday she started barking something different, very much alarmed and uncertain, something she almost never does. So I went out to investigate.

I noticed some movement in the long grass at the edge of the lawn, which I took at first to be a snake, so I returned inside to get my camera. When I approached closer, to take a photo, I realized it wasn’t a snake, after all, but rather a turtle. I reached in and pulled it out of the grass for a better look. It was a Painted Turtle, Chrysemys picta, and a good-sized one with a shell 15cm (6″) long.

I presume that she was wandering about looking for a sandy spot to lay her eggs, since this is about the time of year they would be doing so. If that were the case, then this would be a female turtle. The females don’t reach sexual maturity until at least 5 years of age, sometimes not until 7 or even older, while males are ready to mate at 2-3 years. That’s a long time to have to avoid predators and cars. Dan thought he saw another one in the side yard near where the soil was recently disturbed to have the septic tank pumped last week. That’d be a great spot for a turtle to lay eggs, so I’ll have to check for any signs of digging. The nests are only about 10-12cm (4-5″) deep, and the female lays only a relatively modest 4-15 eggs. However, she may build up to five nests in a season.

There are two ways to determine the sex of the turtle. One is by the placement of the cloaca on the underside of the tail. In females, the cloaca is close to the body, while in males it’s further down the tail. This confirms this individual as a female. Also, the shape of the shell above the tail is helpful: in females it’s relatively straight, while in males it’s notched above the tail. The reason for both of these differences has to do with how turtles mate. Sex in plated body armour is not easy, and takes a bit of careful manoeuvering. The male climbs onto the back of the female with his forefeet so that his tail is approximately aligned with the female’s, and then curves his tail underneath so their cloacas meet. The notch is so that when his shell is tipped backwards it’s not cutting into his tail.

Even the tail gets tucked away when the turtle pulls itself into its shell. Really, when they “retract” their body it isn’t all that different from you pulling your knees and arms to your chest to form a tight ball, except that the turtle has a wide, hard shell overhanging on each side. A turtle’s shell is actually modified bone; the back is modified ribs, broadened and flattened to form a continuous surface, and the the belly is modified sternum. The turtle’s backbone is fused to the interior of the shell, so unlike a hermit crab that can trade in its shell if it finds something it likes better, a turtle is very much connected to its shell for life. If you find an old shell, its owner long since gone, it’s interesting to examine the bone structure.

Look at those claws! Turtles have remarkably long, strong claws that are used for a number of purposes. Defense, certainly, if needed, but a turtle’s primary defense is its shell. The claws are more useful in helping to grip the ground to power forward when walking on land – a cumbersome endeavour – as well as in digging out the nest site. However, males have substantially longer claws than females. Wikipedia suggests he uses them in foreplay to “tickle the cheeks of the female rapidly up-and-down in a vibratory manner”. I don’t know if this is true or not, but… whatever gets you going.

From underneath you can really see the colours that give the Painted Turtle its name. There are four subspecies of Painted Turtle, all varying in the alignment of their shell scutes and the patterns on their faces. We have the Midland Painted Turtle (C. p. marginata) here. The Western Painted Turtle (C. p. bellii) is also found in Ontario, but only in the northwest, near the Manitoba border.

Turtles hibernate over the winter, burying themselves in up to 3 ft (90 cm) of mud under relatively shallow water. In this environment they are starved for oxygen, but have evolved the ability to survive for up to five months without oxygen at temperatures just above freezing. This is the longest known period of oxygen deprivation of any air-breathing vertebrate. Unsurprisingly, over the winter their metabolism slows to a near crawl, but unlike the Wood Frog, they don’t “die”.

One can often see Painted Turtles in the summer hauled out of the water on a submerged log or rock. They do this to sunbathe, to raise their body temperature since, as reptiles, they are unable to thermoregulate themselves. Their body temperature needs to be at least 65 F (18 C) in order for them to digest their food properly. Interestingly, Painted Turtles, as well as other semi-aquatic turtle species, will only eat underwater.

Raven remained freaked out by the turtle even when I showed her it was harmless. Probably a good thing for any future turtles she may encounter, anyway. I picked the turtle up and took it down to the lake to release it, where it would be away from Raven (both for its sake and Raven’s). I set it gently in the water at the edge, where it remained momentarily, before abruptly extending its limbs and motoring away into the lake. For all their awkwardness on land, turtles are really at home in the water, moving swiftly and with ease. In the blink of an eye, it was gone, hopefully off to find itself a better nesting site than our driveway.

Today at Kingsford – Snapping Turtle eggs

The home inspection associated with the sale of the house was scheduled for yesterday morning, so I bundled Raven up and headed over to the nearby town to see if I could find any cardboard boxes to get started on packing. I also made a stop at the local ball diamond to let Raven run for a bit – something that this house lacks is open space for her to dash around. There’s a little side yard, but it’s just not enough space for Rocket Dog. We had a nice outing, Raven got lots of exercise, I got a few wine boxes from the liquor store, though the other stores’ recycling pickup had unfortunately been the day before, so I wasn’t able to get any large boxes.

On the return trip home I decided to go along a back route that I don’t normally take because it’s narrow and twisty and indirect. It’s significantly faster to go along the main route, but the back route is quite scenic. Since I wanted to give them lots of time to finish up the inspection before I returned home, I opted for the slower, scenic route. As I was coming along a section that ran alongside a lake, I spotted what appeared to be a mess of white reptile eggs at the side of the road. I quickly pulled over and stopped the car, grabbed my camera and asked Raven to stay patient for a couple of minutes, and went over to investigate.

There were a lot of them, and they were strewn across the sandy shoulder. As I got closer, I could see that there was a small hole in the ground that presumably they had once been inside of. And as I got closer still, the mound of dirt beside the hole suggested that these weren’t simply a natural hatching. Inside the hole there were still a couple of eggs, but it appeared that nearly all of them were now on the ground at the side of the road.

The eggs were large, nearly the size of a ping-pong ball, and about the same texture and hardness. Based simply on the size, I figured they had to be Snapping Turtle eggs. There are certainly snappers in the area around here, although I haven’t encountered too many. They don’t haul up on logs the way Painted and other small turtles do, so it’s easier to miss them. Snappers lay their eggs in sandy soil, usually in June although in some parts of their range they may lay eggs spring through fall. The eggs get covered up in the sand, and heat released from the ground as it’s baked by the sun over the summer helps to incubate the eggs. The young eventually hatch after about 100 days, in August or September. When they hatch, the babies are just 4.4 cm (1.75 inches) long. They crawl up through the soft sand, and then make their way to water.

That is, if they manage to survive undiscovered for the entire summer. Reptile eggs are a delicacy for foxes and raccoons, and many clutches will end up as somebody’s dinner. The difficulty the female turtle faces, when she lays her eggs, is in concealing the nest sufficiently that it doesn’t arouse suspicion before the next rain can wash away both visual and olfactory clues to its presence.

The rain didn’t come soon enough for this nest. Not a single egg was intact. Most of them were clean inside, but there were one or two that looked like they contained what might have been egg yolk. I suspect raccoon, which would be more likely to hold the eggshell and lick the interior clean of yolk. Also, the hole in the ground was way too small and tidy to be the work of a fox (consider what results when your dog digs up your garden, for instance), but for a raccoon with dexterous arms and hands it wouldn’t be any trouble to dig a small opening and then reach inside to pull out the treats.

A female snapper may make more than one nest, each containing anywhere from 20-40 eggs, so hopefully she has another clutch safely buried somewhere, but it’s entirely possible this was her only bunch and she’ll have to wait till next year to try again. Fortunately, wild snappers, once they’ve made it through those perilous first few years, may live up to 30 years or more – captive individuals have been recorded as old as 47 – so she should have many opportunities for a successful clutch.