I'm a big fan of eye spots. In the animal world, they're meant to be scary, but to us humans those big "eyes" just make critters look like cartoon babies.
Bug-haters may struggle to join in on my fun, but come on, is this not one cool-looking insect?
Alaus oculatus -- the eyed click beetle or eyed elater -- can be almost 2 inches long. Their true eyes are up by the antennae. Those big spots are just evolution's way of saying, "don't mess with me, I'm either a snake or a really freakin' cool beetle."
But the eye spots are just part of why we love this bug.
Click beetles have a special hinged thorax. And when they're threatened, they bend that hinge to snap a little spine on the bottom of their thorax in and out of a special v-shaped notch. It doesn't just "click" -- it produces enough force to flip the beetle up in the air.
It's a helpful trick when they end up on their backs for some reason.
Like, say, when they happen to be placed on their backs by amused humans.
If you ever happen upon a click beetle, don't be afraid to play with it: they don't sting or bite. Just don't torture the poor things too much!
Amateur videos of quick-jumping beetles are fraught with focusing difficulties, but these two give you an idea of the action:
Eyed click beetle larva hang out in decaying logs and eat other beetle larvae; when we've come across these beetles it's always been in the woods. And, for some reason, we seem to come across them at this particular time of year.
Have you ever seen a click beetle? Where was it?
Wednesday, May 23, 2012
Wednesday, May 16, 2012
LOOK FOR: Putty root
For the longest time, this leaf was a mystery to me.
We see it scattered infrequently through forests around the DC metro area in the winter. Always just one leaf.
The pinstripes are pretty noticeable, right? If you know a little botany, you know that the fact that those leaf veins are parallel is significant. It places this plant in the monocot class. What's in that class? Grasses, but this clearly isn't a grass. Onions, daffodils, tulips...pretty sure it's not any of those. Orchids...could it be an orchid?
With a little research we figured out that this must be the leaf of the putty root orchid. A distinguishing characteristic of the putty root is that the leaf dies back before the flowers bloom. As with ramps, you'll see a leaf, or a flower, but almost never both at once.
And so for years we've been saying, oh look, there are the orchid leaves. How nice, that orchids grow here.
If we could just see the orchids. You know, the flower part.
But it turns out that it's a lot easier to see a pinstriped dark green leaf in the middle of winter than it is to see a putty root flower in spring.
These are not the hot pink blooms you might think of when you think "orchid." They're more of a light green edged in a brownish purple...not colors that will catch your eye among the bright colors of spring wildflowers. The flower stalk can be 20 inches tall, but you could walk right by it without noticing.
And so, when I finally saw a putty root in flower, it wasn't because its flowers caught my eye. It was because I stopped to look at a bright yellow flower right next to it.
It took me several seconds to even notice the camouflaged orchid flowers. Then it took me several more seconds to realize what I was looking at.
And then, I looked in the leaves at the base of the flower stalk. And sure enough, even though the leaf was shriveled and brown, those pinstripes stood out. I had found the putty root at last.
Wednesday, May 9, 2012
LOOK FOR: Migratory Warblers
In the last 2 years, we've had a bunch of migrating warblers come through our yard in mid-May. In fact, we've noted four of the same species two years in a row. I like to think they remember our little pond as a nice stopping-over point (but I'm sure it's just random).
Have you seen any of these birds lately? I'm keeping an eye out to see if this will be the third year in a row for our backyard guests.
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