28 October 2022

Back in the Late Permian, 258 to 252 million years ago, there was a family of gliding lizards called Weigeltisauridae whose fossils have been found in Germany, Britain, Russia and Madagascar. Europeans drew them as dragons.

Today there are still gliding lizards on Earth but they are smaller and live in Asian jungles. Dracos can glide 100+ feet from tree to tree by extending their long skin-covered ribs.

Watch one fly to escape a dominant male in this BBC Planet Earth II clip.

Learn about Draco dussumieri of Southern India in this video from Roundglass.

Where do Dracos live? Click on the map caption to see a larger view.

(photos, maps, a video and illustrations from Wikimedia Commons; click on the captions to see the originals. videos also embedded from YouTube)

11 July 2022

This spiky ball, a pufferfish, is so toxic that if eaten it can kill 30 adult humans.

There are more than 260 species of pufferfish in two families, almost all of which are toxic: Diodontidae and Tetraodontidae. The spiky ones are aptly called porcupinefish.

They don’t swim fast so their main defense is to blow up into an unappetizing ball. When fully extended their buoyancy changes and they involuntarily roll onto their backs, exposing their white bellies. In this position they can still swim with tiny fins.

How do pufferfish blow themselves up? Why are they toxic? Who eats them? This video explains it all.

And though they are spiky, they somehow they manage to look cute.

An awesome pufferfish expanding its body after sensing a threat.

(Photo Syed Khalid) pic.twitter.com/esWKUi6ljf

— Weird Animals (@Weird_AnimaIs) January 15, 2022

(photo from Wikimedia Commons; click on the captions to see the originals)

13 June 2022

Some salamanders are easy to find, some are rarely seen, and some, like the green salamander, are so rare that they’re listed as Near Threatened. It was quite a surprise to find anything, let alone green salamanders, thriving in the remnants of mountaintop removal in Virginia in 2016.

The green salamander (Aneides aeneus), native from Alabama to Pennsylvania, is a habitat specialist that lives in the dark furrows of naturally moist rock outcrops on cliffs in the Alleghenies and Cumberland Plateau.

His favored habitat is usually close to trees — he climbs them.

In April 2016 when Dr. Wally Smith of University of Virginia Wise County decided to look for salamanders at an old mountaintop removal site, he didn’t expect to find anything in the half-acre remnant of rocks and trees left by the mining company. He was stunned and overjoyed to find a green salamander.

Working with Kevin Hamed of Virginia Highlands Community College, Smith surveyed more mountaintop removal sites. There’s a lot from choose from in Wise County, Virginia.

They found that …

Unsurprisingly, hillsides and rock walls that had been directly carved up or deforested didn’t hold any salamanders. But around 70 percent of the surviving natural outcrops did—often in surprisingly healthy numbers. As long as the old crevasses and tree-cover were present, the species showed up, regardless of the racket and disturbance nearby. “The salamanders in these pockets seem to be doing pretty well,” Smith said. “They’re abundant, they’re reproducing, which are signs that the populations are still hanging on.”

— Gizmodo: Rare Appalachian salamanders are reclaiming abandoned Coal Mines

The discovery led to more questions so Smith and Hamed expanded their search and, with the help of locals and landowners, found 70 locations with salamanders including …

… a motherload of salamanders in the municipal park of a local city. “Usually if you’re lucky, you find one or two a day. There, we were finding 70 to 100 per hour,” said Smith.

— Gizmodo: Rare Appalachian salamanders are reclaiming abandoned Coal Mines

This photo of Kayford Mountain, WV gives you an idea of the remnant pockets the mining companies leave behind.

How did green salamanders get to these sites? Is each site a remnant “island” population or do the groups interchange with populations elsewhere? The study continues.

Meanwhile it’s a miracle to find them at all.

Read more about the salamanders at mountaintop removal sites in Gizmodo: Rare Appalachian salamanders are reclaiming abandoned Coal Mines.

Learn more about mountaintop removal before-and-after at Appalachian Voices.

(photos from Wikimedia Commons, Virginia Division of Mined Land Reclamation and Rana Xavier via Flickr)

2 April 2022

Have you heard ducks quacking deep in the woods lately? The sound comes from a soggy wooded place or puddle or tiny pond and there is no duck in sight.

Nature is playing an April Fool’s joke. Those aren’t ducks or chickens. Those are male wood frogs calling to attract females. If you could see what they were doing you’d find …

Wood frogs (Rana sylvatica) gather together in large leks to mate. In these leks, males are much more common than females, typically outnumbering females by at least two to one. The males arrive first, and begin calling and wrestling with each other. As female wood frogs arrive at the ponds, they swim toward the center of the lek. Multiple males grab them, clinging to each female until one male wins out. This particular mating behavior, in which the male clings to the female, is known as amplexus. The females will typically each lay a single egg clutch consisting of about 400-1,200 eggs.

— Description of Wood Frogs from Mister Toad website by Michael F Benard @BenardMF

Wood frogs are some of the earliest frogs to appear in the spring so don’t wait. Get outdoors soon before they’re done mating.

(photo from Wikimedia Commons, video by Gregory Bulte)