Climate, Hibernation, and Migration

by Susan Dean | Feb 6, 2018 | Animals, Land Animals

Hibernation, Migration and Estivation

Climate is the usual weather of a place over a long time. It varies greatly in different habitats such as the arctic, a rainforest, or a desert. There are many survival strategies in the animal world for dealing with the climate of an area. Animals may respond to the climate by hibernating, estivating, brumating, or migrating. When winter comes it is very hard for animals to find food for energy.

In the winter some animals hibernate in a den, burrow, hollow log, rocks or a cave. The animals’ body temperature drops, breathing slows down and they sleep. It is very difficult to awaken them. Most animals eat large amounts of food to store up fat before hibernation. Bears are extremely efficient hibernators. During hibernation, animals stop eating and excreting. Preparation is required to hibernate and some animals prepare a den and line it with leaves and mud for insulation. Polar bears dig tunnels in the snow. Small animals tend to hibernate because it would require an enormous amount of energy for their body size to migrate. Hibernation in reptiles is sometimes called brumation.

When an animal enters a hibernationlike state in the summer it is called estivation. Estivation is another form of sleep or dormancy. Many animals hibernate and estivate. Animals that estivate are trying to escape things happening in their environment. This happens often in hot desert climates. Estivation protects these animals from high temperatures and drought. Their breathing and heart beat get very slow and the animal doesn’t need as much food and water to live since food is fuel for energy and they aren’t using much. Animals don’t move, grow, or eat during this time. When hot and dry times come, theses animals will usually find themselves a safe place to sleep, usually underground. Some examples of estivators are: lungfish, earthworms, bees, frogs and toads, snails, turtles and lizards. Many animals are hibernators and estivators: earthworm, bees, snakes, frogs, snails.

Torpor is a term for short term hibernation. The black capped chickadee and hummingbird are good examples of this. It only lasts for a few hours and saves them a lot of energy. It is used by many species of birds and insects.

Migration is the large scale movement of an animal species from one place to another. Migration is usually tied to seasonal changes in weather and feeding or breeding patterns. Some animals migrate to a warmer climate in winter. The caribou, a large deer-like animal that lives in northern climates, has the record for the longest overland migration (2,000 miles in a year). some other animals that migrate are: Arctic tern, monarch butterfly, geese, ducks, storks, hummingbirds, whooping cranes, robins, eels, salmon, whales, and turtles.

Activities: Use a large map to show migration routes or use small plastic models of animals that they can group according to those that migrate and those that hibernate, estivate or brumate.

Birds

by Susan Dean | Feb 6, 2018 | Animals, Land Animals

Birds

Winter is the very best time for observing birds since there are no leaves on the trees! It is also a good time to feed them since food is scarce in winter. A scientist that studies birds is called an ornithologist. Many animals can fly: Insects, birds, bats, flying squirrel (glides). Birds have something that no other animal has – feathers. They build nests almost everywhere, lay eggs, are warm blooded, most of them fly, molt and migrate. They have scales, claws and preen glands. The ostrich has claws on the wings. Birds can fly, hop, run, or swim. They evolved from reptiles. The archaeopteryx had teeth. All birds have beaks and no teeth. They control insects, plant seeds, and help pollinate plants.

Can you name some birds that fly? Name some birds that cannot fly: penguin, ostrich, emu, kiwi, chickens, and turkey. Birds have no sweat glands and pant to cool off. Their predators are hawks, snakes and foxes. Male birds are the most colorful and sing the most.

Food: Birds may be carnivores, herbivores, omnivores, or fructivores. They may eat seeds, insects, worms, fish, mice, fruit, rabbits, nectar, or dead animals. Seed and nut eaters have gizzards for grinding and some birds have crops to store food for later. The scavengers that eat dead animals are gulls, crows, ravens and vultures. Birds may feed by hawking for insects, gleaning from trees, probing, chiseling, leaf tossing, sweeping, diving in water, stooping (falcons), dabbling (ducks), stalking, piracy, and scavenging. Hawks and owls cough up pellets.

Bodies of birds are shaped like a rocket. They are vertebrates. The bones are hollow making them lightweight for flying. Owls are able to see at night when they hunt and falcons have telephoto vision that they can find a mouse in a field from very far away. They have a bone in their tongue, breathe air; have lungs with air sacs, a 4 chambered heart, large eyes, claws, scales on their legs, and a preen gland that makes oil. They have different kinds of beaks and feet. They bath in water and some give themselves dust baths (thought to control mites and lice.)

Some birds roost together when they sleep. Birds usually lay their head back and tuck their beak in their shoulder when they sleep. Those that perch to sleep are able to lock their feet in place so they don’t fall off the limb.

Feathers When birds groom themselves it is called preening. Feathers have barbs or hooks and if they get messed up the bird can hook them back with their beaks and oil them to water proof them. Birds molt their feathers (lose feathers and grow new ones.) Birds have 3 kinds of feathers: body feathers, downy feathers and flight feathers. Many birds fly in flocks.

Flight Wings are curved on top so air rushes over them and are more flat below so air moves slower creating lift. The Bernouli effect – air acts like a fluid and its effect upon a curved surface is lift. Some birds are night flyers; owls, oil birds. Many birds migrate south in winter months. Some birds fly in formation: ducks, pelicans and geese. Birds navigate by following the stars or the sun, or the magnetic field of the earth.

Nests They make nests in holes of trees, on the ground, in rock crevices, hanging, in cactus and bird boxes. Nests are made of sticks, mud, hair, leaves, grass and moss and some birds decorate their nests. Bower birds build houses sometimes 6 feet tall and decorate them with pretty things they find and sometimes paint the inside of the nests blue. The largest nest is the bald eagles.

Eggs: Birds incubate their eggs. Baby birds have an egg tooth to crack out of the shell. Many animals lay eggs: fish, reptiles, amphibians, insects, platypus and anteater. Eggs are the most complete food known to man and one of the rare foods that has vitamin D. Chickens with red feathers lay brown egg, white feathers = white eggs. Largest egg is from the ostrich.

Bird Sounds Birds may have a call or they may sing, quack, honk, coo, hoot, screech, chirp, peep or whistle. Storks have no voice. The oil bird lives in caves with bats and uses echolocation making a clicking sound. A mynah bird is the best talker and the mockingbird can sing anything. The Loon has a weird cry (hence “crazy as a loon).

Habitat Birds live in every type of habitat.

The fastest bird is the swift – 130 mph.

The arctic tern flies the farthest.

The only bird that can fly backwards is the hummingbird.

The Jacana has the longest toes.

A woodpecker drills holes hammering with his beak.

The albatross lives 42 years, Macaw 100, hummingbird 5.

The male hornbill plasters the female in hollow of a tree to have her young.

Owls have eyes that can only look straight ahead but can turn their head all around to see. They can see in the dark and can hear a beetle crawling.

The kiwi doesn’t have wings and the feathers look like hair. They live underground at the bottom of trees. They stomp the ground at night and worms crawl out that they eat. Some birds can talk.

The Loon is like a flying submarine, and is the best swimmer, diving the deepest and staying under water the longest.

Recipe for birds: 1 cup peanut butter, 4 cups cornmeal, 1 cup shortening, 1 cup white flour. You can fill a large pine cone with this mixture and hang it outside for them. They love it.

Materials: Models and pictures of birds, samples of feathers, eggs and skeletons, mixer and bowl for beating up egg whites for class to see( in marshmallows and meringue) The yolk goes in another bowl to examine. It is the food for the tiny embryo that you see as a tiny white spot on the yolk. The white acts as a cushion for the yolk. I have a few wings from birds, feet from several and samples of beaks I have collected over the years. Bird call are fun and there are some great recordings of bird sounds. Hand out of different kinds of bird feet and bird beaks.

Activities See if kids can name the birds in the pictures. See if they can match the feet and beaks to the right birds on the print outs, Give each child a feather to inspect. Kids can examine the samples of eggs, bones, feet, and beaks. Can they identify any of the bird calls? Break out an egg and examine it. They love to see what happens when you beat up the whites! Make pine cone bird feeders from the recipe.

BIRD SUET RECIPE

2 lb. of Suet or Lard, vegetable shortening or peanut butter
6 cups Cornmeal
3 cups Wheat flour
4 cups Oatmeal
2 cups Peanut Hearts (I substituted unsalted shelled sunflower seeds)
Optional: raisins or other dried fruit, nuts, peppers

Soften the lard to room temperature. Stir in the other ingredients a couple of cups at a time until the mixture is quite thick. Children will love mixing this with their hands. Roll it out with a rolling pin and let children cut out “cookies.” Freeze. The mixture can also be frozen in tuna cans or plastic tubs about 4 inches by 4 inches fits nicely in wire suet cage feeders. You could push thin chicken or fishing wire through the thick cookie before freezing. Children can give these suet cookies as gifts or put them out for your birds through the winter.

REFLECTION

Harpie Eagle

Little Blue Fairy Penguin

ROADRUNNER

RED ROBIN

HUMMINGBIRDS

PURPLE GALLINULES

MARSH HEN GATHERING FOR NEST

SPECKLED OWL         SOUTH AMERICA

WHITE BACKED VULTURE

BLUE JAY

BLUE FOOTED BOOBIES

THIRSTY CANARY

SPARROW

PEREGRINE FALCON

NEST BUILDING

Bats

by Susan Dean | Feb 6, 2018 | Animals, Land Animals

BATS What do you call a little bat? A battle.

What do you call a bat in a belfry? A dingbat.

Why did the bat use mouthwash? Because he had bat breath! Which bat knows the ABC’s? The alpha bat!

“Catch a bat in your hat and good luck will follow!”

In Chinese art 5 bats represent the blessings of Health, long life, prosperity, love of virtue, and peaceful death.

How we think about animals depends on our cultural biases. Blind as a bat! Wise as an Owl! Smart as a fox! Hungry as a bear! Busy as a bee! Bats are mammals and make up the order Chiroptera. There is evidence bats have existed for 50 million years or longer. They are warm blooded, nocturnal, nurse their babies with milk, and have fur. There are over 900 species of bats, but only 3 are vampires located in Central and South America. They suck blood from the wounds of birds and mammals. A lot of bats, including the flying fox, eat fruit. Other bats eat insects, frogs, fish, and other small animals. Because they are active at night their life seems mysterious. Bats are the only mammals that can fly with “hand wings”. Their finger bones are elongated and connected with membranes. If we had fingers like a bat they would be longer than our legs! A few tropical bats have a wingspan of 6 feet, but most bats are small (1/10th of a pound in the U.S.). They have enlarged ears, bizarre noses, and the habit of hanging upside down. Their leaf- noses and large ears are involved in echolocation. Bats produce a high- pitched burst of sound and then their brain analyses the echo for finding their way and finding their prey. Bats’ brains process the auditory information within those echoes as visual maps. All bats can see and all bats are sensitive to changing light levels because this is the main cue that they use to sense when it is nighttime and time to become active. To track down prey, avoid predators and find their way home in the dark, most bats depend on echolocation. They broadcast high-pitched sonar signals and listen for the echoes of sound waves bouncing off objects they’re looking for or obstacles in their path. Biologists listen to bat sounds with bat detectors that translate the ultrasonic signal into a range that we can hear. Bats increase the number of calls before they attack prey in order to pinpoint their meal. Many insects can hear echolocation and hide. You may see bats at night around lights trying to catch insects. In the southwest, the long-nosed bats seek fruit nectar of the saguaro cactus and agave. The organ pipe cactus has flowers that open at night and is dependent on bats for pollination. Bats eat the fruits and disperse the seeds in their guano. Bats carry their babies for 4 months and have 1 single “pup” each year. The red bat has multiple births. Baby bats are born big like a 120 lb. woman having a 40 lb. baby. There are large maternity crèches but some species roost alone. Mother bats feed babies milk and babies make a distinct sound that the mother recognizes. Babies grow quickly and in 3 moths the little brown bat is ready to fly. The big brown bat is ready in 1 month. Fifty percent of babies die the first winter. Bats are present throughout most of the world and perform vital ecological roles such as pollinating flowers and dispersing fruit seeds. Many tropical plant species depend entirely on bats to distribute their seeds. The greatest numbers of bats are in the tropics. Bats are absent from the poles and the very dry desert. Forty species live in the United States. Hawaii has 1 bat species. CA. has 25 bat species. About seventy percent of bats are insectivores. Most of the rest are frugivores, or fruit eaters. A few species such as the Fish-eating bat feed from animals other than insects, with the vampire bats being the only mammalian parasite species. Bats play an important role in controlling pests (the mosquito.) They need to eat 30-50% of their body weight nightly. A single bat can eat enough mosquitoes in a single evening to save several people the agony of these insects that bite and cause great itching bumps protecting us from malaria, dengue, and yellow fever. Bat droppings are good fertilizer. Bats are disappearing due to the destruction of habitats, pesticides, and roosting sites being disturbed. Bats are very sensitive and susceptible to pesticides. The gray bat is endangered in the U.S., and so are the Hawaiian hoary bat, Indiana bat, Mexican long nosed, and big-eared bat. Bats live 10 – 30 years and often migrate with the seasons to more sheltered sites. They may migrate 300 miles in all directions of their summer home. The free tailed bats may migrate 1000 miles to Brazil or Mexico. When bats hibernate, their body temperature drops to save energy and their heartbeat slows to 10 beats/minute. Their heart beats 13,000 times a minute in flight. Flight has enabled bats to become one of the most widely distributed groups of mammals. Apart from the Arctic, the Antarctic and a few isolated oceanic islands, bats exist all over the world. Bats are found in almost every habitat available on Earth. Different species select different habitats during different seasons — ranging from seacoast to mountains and even deserts — bat habitats have two basic requirements: roosts, where they spend the day or hibernate, and places for foraging. Bat roosts can be found in hollows, crevices, foliage, and even human-made structures; and include “tents” that bats construct by biting leaves. Inside a cavern in Mexico there are 20 million bats hanging by their toes. It is the largest concentration of warm-blooded animals in the world! At dusk they all fly out to feed. Because they are active at night their life seems mysterious. The scientists who discovered Onychonycteris finneyi, the oldest known bat fossil concluded that the prehistoric species could fly but that the sonar sense didn’t evolve until later. When scientists examined O. finneyi, as part of the study, their results suggested that the ancient species may have shared that same echo locating bone structure. Though echolocation is a relatively primitive trait, existing since at least 50 million years ago, researchers are still discovering new complexities about the sonar system. Most bats do have bad eyesight, but they are definitely not blind. What they see can sometimes interfere with what they hear. We know that visual information can override echolocation information even when the echolocation information contradicts the visual information. A captive bat in a darkened room might fly into a window since it sees light coming through pane as an escape route, although echolocation sonar tells it there’s an obstacle in the way. In laboratory tests, bats have been shown to be able to distinguish shapes and colors. This is not unlike dolphins that use echolocation to hunt, especially in the murky depths. Their eyes, while small and sometimes poorly developed, are also completely functional, not to mention the fact that they have excellent hearing and sense of smell. Perhaps the saying should be changed to “Keen as a Bat”? The smallest bat is the bumblebee bat (with a wingspan of 6 inches=15 cm. It is arguably the smallest extant species of mammal, with the Etruscan shrew being the other contender. The largest species of bat is the Giant Golden-crowned Flying-fox, which is 336–343 mm (13.23–13.50 in) long, has a wingspan of 1.5 m (4 ft 11 in) and weighs approximately 1.1–1.2 kg (2–3 lb). Two traditionally recognized suborders of bats are: 1. Megachiroptera (megabats) 2. Microchiroptera (microbats/echolocating bats) Not all megabats are larger than microbats. The major distinctions between the two suborders are: Microbats use echolocation: megabats do not with the exception of Rousettus and relatives. Microbats lack the claw at the second toe of the forelimb. The ears of microbats do not close to form a ring: the edges are separated from each other at the base of the ear. Microbats lack under fur: they are either naked or have guard hairs. At 130 decibels in intensity, bat calls are some of the most intense airborne animal sounds. To clearly distinguish returning information, bats must be able to separate their calls from the echoes they receive. Microbats use two distinct approaches. Low Duty Cycle Echolocation: Bats can separate their calls and returning echoes by time. Bats that use this approach time their short calls to finish before echoes return. This is important because these bats contract their middle ear muscles when emitting a call so that they can avoid deafening themselves. The time interval between call and echo allows them to relax these muscles so they can clearly hear the returning echo. The delay of the returning echoes provides the bat with the ability to estimate range to their prey. High Duty Cycle Echolocation: Bats emit a continuous call and separate pulse and echo in frequency. The ears of these bats are sharply tuned to a specific frequency range. They emit calls outside of this range to avoid self-deafening. They then receive echoes back at the finely tuned frequency range by taking advantage of the Doppler shift of their motion in flight. The Doppler shift of the returning echoes yields information relating to the motion and location of the bat’s prey. These bats must deal with changes in the Doppler shift due to changes in their flight speed. They have adapted to change their pulse emission frequency in relation to their flight speed so echoes still return in the optimal hearing range. Two groups of moths exploit a bat sense to echolocate: tiger moths produce ultrasonic signals to warn the bats that they (the moths) are chemically protected or aposematic. This was once thought to be the biological equivalent of “radar jamming”, but this theory has yet to be confirmed. The moths Noctuidae have a hearing organ called a tympanum, which responds to an incoming bat signal by causing the moth’s flight muscles to twitch erratically, sending the moth into random evasive maneuvers. Vision is used to navigate microbats especially for long distances when beyond the range of echolocation. It has even been discovered that some species of microbats are able to detect ultraviolet light. The finger bones of bats are much more flexible than those of other mammals because the cartilage in their fingers lacks calcium and other minerals nearer the tips, increasing their ability to bend without splintering. The skin on their wing membranes has more elasticity and can stretch much more than other mammals. The wings of bats are much thinner than those of birds, so bats can maneuver more quickly and accurately than birds. It is delicate, ripping easily, however the tissue of the bat’s membrane is able to regrow, so small tears can heal quickly. The surface of their wings is equipped with touch-sensitive receptors on small bumps called Merkel cells, found in most mammals including humans, similarly found on our finger tips. These sensitive areas are different in bats as each bump has a tiny hair in the center, making it even more sensitive and allowing the bat to detect and collect information about the air flowing over its wings, thereby providing feedback to the bat to change its shape of its wing to fly more efficiently. An additional kind of receptor cell is found in the wing membrane of species that use their wings to catch prey. This receptor cell is sensitive to the stretching of the membrane. The cells are concentrated in areas of the membrane where insects hit the wings when the bats capture them. The teeth of microbats resemble insectivores. They are very sharp to bite through the hardened armor of insects or the skin of fruit. Mammals have one-way valves in veins to prevent the blood from flowing backwards, but bats also have one-way valves in arteries. One species of bat has the longest tongue of any mammal relative to its body size. This is beneficial to them in terms of pollination and feeding. Their long narrow tongues can reach deep into the long cup shape of some flowers. When their tongue retracts, it coils up inside their rib cage. Bats rarely fly in rain as the rain interferes with their echolocation, and they are unable to locate their food. Studies show that bats make all kinds of sounds to communicate with others. Scientists have been able to identify some sounds with some behaviors bats will make after the sounds are made. At least two species of bat are known to feed on bats: the Spectral Bat, known as the American False Vampire bat, and the Ghost Bat of Australia. One species, the Greater Noctule bat, catches and eats small birds in the air. Predators of bats include bat hawks and bat falcons. Most bats have a breeding season, which is in the spring for species living in a temperate climate. Bats may have one to three litters in a season, depending on the species and on environmental conditions such as the availability of food and roost sites. Females generally have one offspring at a time. Female bats nurse their youngsters until they are nearly adult size; this is because a young bat cannot forage on its own until its wings are fully developed. Female bats use a variety of strategies to control the timing of pregnancy and the birth of young, to make delivery coincide with maximum food ability and other ecological factors. Females of some species have delayed fertilization, in which sperm are stored in the reproductive tract for several months after mating. In many cases, mating occurs in the fall, and fertilization does not occur until the following spring. Other species exhibit delayed implantation, in which the egg is fertilized after mating, but remains free in the reproductive tract until external conditions become favorable for giving birth and caring for the offspring. In yet another strategy, fertilization and implantation both occur but development of the fetus is delayed until favorable conditions prevail. All of these adaptations result in the pup being born during a time of high local production of fruit or insects. At birth the wings are too small to be used for flight. Young microbats become independent at 6 to 8 weeks, while megabats don’t until they are four months old. Bats’ guano is so rich in nutrients that it is mined from caves, bagged, and used by farmers to fertilize their crops. During the U.S. Civil War, guano was used to make gunpowder. The Congress Avenue Bridge in Austin, Texas is the summer home to North America’s largest urban bat colony, an estimated 1,500,000 Mexican free-tailed bats, which eat an estimated 10,000 to 30,000 pounds of insects each night. An estimated 100,000 tourists per year visit the bridge at twilight to watch the bats leave the roost. A bat house constructed in 1991 at the University of Florida campus next to Lake Alice in Gainesville, Florida has a population of over 100,000 free-tailed bats. The bat is also a totem. If one’s totem is a bat, these people are typically extremely aware of their surroundings and are perceptive on a psychic level, especially in their dreams. In addition, self-improvement using the bat as a totem requires 100% commitment to spiritual growth. People often wear either a bat tattoo or bat jewelry as a symbol of their totem. In some Native American traditions, the bat was considered a symbol of intuition and vision due to it being highly sensitive to its surroundings. As such, a bat spirit would be invoked when special energy was needed to see though ambiguity, helping medicine people and shamans dive straight to the truth. In addition, the bat was a symbol of communication because it was highly social with their group. However, some groups of Native Americans such as the Creek, Cherokee, and Apache, believe that the bat is a trickster spirit. Bats have long been associated with witchcraft, black magic and darkness. The witches incorporate bat in their brew in Shakespeare’s Macbeth. The fact that bats are mammals, yet can fly gives them status as liminal beings in many cultural traditions. The bat is sacred in Tonga and is often considered the physical manifestation of a separable soul. Bats are closely associated with vampires, who are said to be able to shape shift into bats, fog, or wolves. Bats are also a symbol of ghosts, death, and disease. Chinese lore claims the bat is a symbol of longevity and happiness, and is similarly lucky in Poland and geographical Macedonia and among the Kwakiutl and Arabs. Pre-Columbian cultures associated animals with gods and often displayed them in art. The Moche people depicted bats in their ceramics. In Western Culture, the bat is often a symbol of the night and its foreboding nature. The bat is a primary animal associated with fictional characters of the night, both villains like Dracula and heroes like Batman. The association of the fear of the night with the animal was treated as a literary challenge by Kenneth Oppel, who created a best selling series of novels, beginning with Silverwing, which feature bats as the central heroic figures much as anthropomorphized rabbits were the central figures to the classic novel Watership Down. An old wives’ tale has it that bats will entangle themselves in people’s hair. One likely source of this belief is that insect-eating bats seeking prey may dive erratically toward people, who attract mosquitoes and gnats, leading the squeamish to believe that the bats are trying to get in their hair. In Mesoamerican mythology during the Classic-Contemporary period, bats symbolized the land of the dead, which was considered to be theunderworld. They also symbolized destruction and decay. Bats may have been symbolized in this way because they fly only at night and dwell in caves during the daytime and are associated with human skulls and bones by classic Maya ceramists. In the Postclassical era Central Mexicans depicted bats having snouts that looked like sacrificial knives and carrying a human head. Bat images were engraved onto funerary urns and were emphasized with large claws and round ears by Zapotecs. The depiction of bats on funeral urns and goods took on some the characteristics of the jaguar, which was and still is another entity of the night and the underworld. There have been instances where bats are portrayed next to other animals portrayed negatively in Mesoamerica, including scorpions and other nocturnal animals such as owls. A gigantic, life-size ceramic batman has been discovered and dug up from the Templo Mayor. The Templo Mayor is located in the center of the Mexican capital of Tenochtitlan. Known as a god of death, this statue has the clawed feet and hands of a bat, but the body of a man. The statue’s human-like eyes bulged out from the bat-like head, making the Zapotec images very realistic and living. It was said that in the 1930s the Kaqchikel Maya proclaimed that the bat was the Devil’s provider. Kaqchikel would leave the Devil’s underworld home and collect blood from the animals to be used for scrumptious meals to feed the Devil. “In the myths, the beast of prey and the animal that is preyed upon play two significant roles. They represent two aspects of life—the aggressive, killing, conquering, creating aspect of life, and the one that is the matter or, you might say, the subject matter”. In the Devil’s underworld, dead sinners would work off their sins in order to get to heaven, indicating that the bat was too a sinner and worked under the authority of the Devil. Oaxacans believe that the jealousy of the bat in wanting birds’ feathers that gently fit their bodies led him to become nocturnal. The bat feeling isolated and undesirable spoke to God after that he complained he was extremely cold. God, fair and just turned to birds in the animal kingdom and asked if they would show compassion and donate a feather to the bat so the feathers would keep him warm. The birds all agreed, and began to pluck one feather from their bodies to give to the bat. With all of the feathers, the bat became much magnificent looking than all birds, even able to spread color to the night sky. During daylight, the bat created rainbows that reflected vibrant colors from the sun. The bat soon became overly arrogant and conceited having this new and improved look. The birds grew tired of the bat’s self conceit and glorification, and decided to fly up to heaven and speak to God to do something. The birds informed God of the bat’s behavior. God was surprised and decided to take a look himself. When on Earth, God called on the bat to show him what he was doing. The bat began to fly across the light blue sky, where one by one each feather began to fall out, uncovering the bat’s natural ugly looking body. The bat became ashamed and distressed of his appearance after all feathers came off. Missing the beautiful, plentiful feathers he had, he decided to hide in caves during the day. He would only come out during the night, searching high and low for the feathers to avoid embarrassment of being seen during his search. According to a particular East Nigerian tale, the bat developed its nocturnal habits after causing the death of his partner the bush-rat. The bat and the bush-rat would share activities such as rummaging through the grass and trees, hunting, talking and bonding during the day. At night the bat and the bush-rat would alternate in cooking duties and eat together. It appeared to be a dedicated partnership, however the bat hated the bush-rat immensely. The bush rat always found the bat’s soup more appetizing so when eating dinner one night asked the bat why the soup tasted better than his own and how it was made. The bat agreed to show him how to make it the next day but instead was forming a malicious plan. Next day as bat prepared his soup, the bush-rat came, greeting him and asked if he could be shown what was agreed yesterday. Earlier, the bat had found a pot looking exactly like the one he used, but it held warm water so the bat decided to use this instead. The bat explained to the bush-rat that to make his soup, he had to boil himself prior to serving the soup where sweetness and flavor of the soup came from the flesh. The bat jumped in the pot seemingly excited, with the bush-rat mesmerised. After a few minutes the bat climbed out and while the bush-rat was distracted, switched pots. The bat then served his soup out of the soup pot, both tasted it. Over anxious and eager, the bush-rat, jumped into the pot of warm water. He stayed much longer in the pot dying in the process. When the bush-rat’s wife returned that night to find her husband dead, she wept and ran to the chief of the land’s house telling him about what happened and what the bat had done. In hearing this, the chief became angry, ordering the immediate arrest of the bat. It just so happened that the bat was flying over the house and overheard what was just said. He quickly went into hiding high up in a tree. When the chief’s men went looking for the bat, he could not be found. The search to arrest the bat carried on over several days, but still it could not be found. The bat needed to eat, so flew out of hiding every night to hunt for food to escape being arrested. This, according to Eastern Nigeria mythology, is why bats only fly at night. Three U.S. states have an official state bat. The Mexican free-tailed bat represents Texas and Oklahoma. The Virginia big-eared bat represents Virginia.

Bracken Bat Cave

Hickory Horned Devil

by Susan Dean | Feb 6, 2018 | Animals, Land Animals

Recently a friend showed me a hickory horned devil caterpillar, a monstrous caterpillar and the scariest I had ever seen. The Regal Moth or Hickory Horned Devils are commonly found on walnut, hickories, persimmon, sweetgum, and sumacs. It’s said that larvae grow faster and larger on persimmon.
The moth lays up to four tiny yellowish eggs on the upper surface of the host plant that hatch 7–10 days later. After hatching, the small black larva feeds at night and sleeps the day, using leaf tops as hammocks and masquerading as a bird dropping. The larva molts four times, enlarging with each molt and changing colors, wearing shades of yellow, brown, and bright orange before the final coat of green. It spends about forty summer days devouring foliage.
The larva, mistaken for bird poop, mushrooms into the largest North American caterpillar at six inches long and fat as a hot dog with a massive reddish-orange headpiece of horns with black spikes up to an inch long. Enhancing fear are two long and two shorter red spikes protruding from the next two segments, and four short black spikes on the abdominal segments. Big black spots on the body mimic eyes. Chickens shy away, but other birds devour them. Pick them up without fear, but picking them up is the hardest part.
The caterpillar’s spikes neither pierce nor sting; its bright colors are just for show; and its ruse of rearing its horned head and vibrating violently to create a buzz resembling that of a rattlesnake’s is but a scam.
Before pupation, the larva expels its gut and changes color from green to turquoise. They crawl down the host and burrow in the ground five or six inches deep and pupate in a earthen chamber, rather than spinning a cocoon. The devils are transfigured into glossy brown pupae, which will spend winter entombed like mummies. Some pupae overwinter two seasons.
From the tomb arises the adult regal moth, giant cousin of the silk moth and the largest moth north of Mexico. When the orange veined, greenish-gray wings dotted with creamy yellow are smoothed open, they measure up to six inches across. After mating, the female spends her life laying eggs. Adults have vestigal mouths, mouthparts are reduced, and they do not eat and only live about a week. It’s a midsummer moth, on the wing from late June through August with larvae peaking August through October. Remember, they may look creepy, but they’ve got nothing.

Ravens

by Susan Dean | Feb 6, 2018 | Animals, Land Animals

Something about these corvids seems almost spooky, making them the unofficial mascots of Halloween. Flocks of them aren’t called an “unkindness of ravens” or a “murder of crows” for nothing. Can you tell the difference in ravens and crows?

Common Ravens and American Crows overlap widely throughout North America, and look quite similar. Ravens are larger, the size of a Red-tailed Hawk, and often travel in pairs. Crows are seen in larger groups. Watch the bird’s tail as it flies overhead. The crow’s tail feathers are mostly the same length, so when it spreads its tail, it opens like a fan. Ravens have longer middle feathers in their tails, so their tail appears wedge-shaped.

​ Crows give a cawing sound. Ravens produce a lower croaking sound. While crows caw and purr, ravens croak and scream bloody murder.

A raven’s strut is often punctuated by a few two-footed hopping flights. Ravens ride the thermals and soar and crows do more flapping. Ravens have bigger, curvier beaks relative to crows. While both species have bristles at the base of the beak, the raven’s are noticeably longer. Its throat feathers are quite shaggy. Look for ravens foraging in pairs; crows are highly sociable and will hang out in murders and communal roosts.

THE CROW