Firefly Larvae and Pupae Bioluminescence

A few days ago when searching through a rotting stump I found these Firefly larvae and two pupae.  I took this 4 second exposure to capture the bioluminescence in their abdomens.  Any day the adult fireflies, which are a kind of soft winged beetle, will be emerging and flying the low areas adding their allure to late evening hikes at Springbrook and other natural areas. 

 The chemical/pigment luciferin combines with oxygen to cause the glowing "light" in fireflies.  An enzyme called luciferase speeds up the reaction to make them even brighter.  Nature and science combine in ways that make wonderful viewing for us.

White Admiral Butterfly Life Cycle

Two weeks ago I was leading a group of 2nd graders around the Beaver Pond trail at Springbrook Nature Center.  We were looking for examples of life cycles in nature.  One of the students noticed this very odd caterpillar feeding on a wild cherry tree leaf.  It was a White Admiral butterfly caterpillar.  These Caterpillars mimic a bird dropping to not get eaten. 

 It does not look like food to me!

Two days later it attached itself to the cherry twig stem and hung up side down preparing to metomorphose into it's chrysalis.  This is the part of it's life cycle where it stays quiet while changing into a butterfly, or the adult portion of its life.

It hung like this for less than 24 hours before its skin split and the new chrysalis underneath was revealed.

Notice the spiracles, or breathing openings, one on each segment of its body. they are little tiny dark "holes" in the center of each segment.

I took this picture within an hour after it shed it's caterpillar skin.  Notice that you can already see the veins in the wings, and the antennae running along the front edge of the wing.

Less than 24 hours before photo was taken this was a caterpillar walking up the leaf on the tree!

It still is trying to look like a bird dropping so nothing will eat it.  It also has this very odd disc sticking out of its back.  Somehow the disc must make it look less like something good to eat, because I don't believe it will be of any use to the future butterfly. 

 Seven days later the skin over the wings has hardened and you can begin to see butterfly forming inside the transparent skin.

 By the 8th day as a chrysalis the color of the scales on the wings  can be seen through the skin.  With each hour the colors are more vivid now. 

The butterfly was ready to emerge at this point.  I waited up until after midnight to try to catch it breaking out of the chrysalis, but finally gave up.

 It must have emerged shortly after I left it, since the chrysalis was empty at 6:30 AM the next morning.  The butterfly was a few inches away on the twig, with wings hardened after several hours of drying

The White Admiral is a good example that you do not have to go to the tropics to see beautiful, colorful butterflies.  They exist right here in Minnesota, and this is one of the most colorful.

Here it is next to the now empty chrysalis.

These pretty butterflys are slightly smaller than Monarch butterflies, and are found in wooded areas where they fly very fast zig-zag patterns amongst the branches of the trees.  They are at Springbrook right now near the park entrance.  But you need quick eyes to see them.

Cecropia Moth Emerges From Cocoon

Last fall I created a post about the Cecropia moth caterpillars making their protective cocoons to overwinter inside them as pupae.

Yesterday, about 4 pm, an adult moth emerged from its cocoon while I was working nearby, and I was able to set the camera up quickly and photograph the moth as its wings expanded and hardened.

The picture on the left is one I took this morning after the wings had hardened all night and the moth had recovered some energy. The moth's wingspan is 6".

 This is the caterpillar from last fall as it was "spinning" the silk, which comes from its mouth, to make the cocoon.  It was inside the cocoon for just over 7 months.

Down below is the moth about ten minutes after it had emerged.

Moths are emerging daily from their cocoons at Springbrook Nature Center.  Visit the center to see this life cycle end and a new one begin.

 In this picture the moth is already about ten minutes old, and the wings are expanding quickly.

After emerging, the moth hangs from the silk cocoon and pumps fluid from its body into the wings.  The wings are very soft and floppy at this stage, and it is critical for the moth to be able to hang with the wings hanging below it. 

 Within another ten minutes the wings are quickly opening up, with wonderful color concentrations. Within a few minutes these yellow/green spaces had expanded out and were gone.

You can tell this is a female by the small antennae and the large body that holds all the eggs. The males have very large antennae that can smell the female's pheromones for miles.  At night the males fly toward the pheromone smell until they find the female and mate with her.

Cecropia moths, and all moths in the saturniid family, including Luna and Polyphemus moths, emerge as adults without any working mouthparts.  So they are unable to eat anything.  Their purpose as adults is to mate and lay eggs. After a week or so as adult moths they die.

The body colors of the adult Cecropia moth are my choice for the most attractive of all the large moths.

By the end of an hour the wings were nearly fully expanded but still very soft and floppy.  It was getting dark outside and I needed to use a flashlight to light the moth up.







I took the last picture below at about 10 pm.  The wings were finally just drying enough for the moth to hold them out from her body instead of only letting them hang as in the picture to the left. 

Baby Red Foxes at Springbrook

 The baby Red Foxes at Springbrook Nature Center are growing fast.  These pictures from 6 AM on April 23rd show more color and a longer muzzel.  Most of the bluish cast to the eyes is also gone.

There seem to be only two kits, and they dissappear well before the sun comes up.  But early in the dawn light they silently play with mock attacks on each other, and find bits of old animal skin and fiercely shake it, pounce on it and find tiny bits of food to pull off for a snack. 

I've seen one of the adults drop off a freshly killed muskrat and a small rabbit.  But the sound of the shutter makes the adults run off with a warning bark to the kits, who quickly dive into the den.

This little kit saw something alarming in the sky that I could not see from my blind, and an instant later the little fox had bolted into the burrow entrance behind it.

At this age these little foxes are alert and curious.  The other kit dissappeared at the click of the camera shutter, but this one was curious to know where the sound was coming from and walked toward the sound.  The top picture was taken when it had reached its closest point, about 30 feet away. 

It was dark enough that I had to take these pictures with an ISO of 2000, a shutter speed of 40th/sec,  and lighten them in photoshop to make the pictures look ok here.

Downy and Hairy Woodpeckers and a Hermit Thrush

 Hairy and Downy Woodpeckers look almost identical.  Hairys are bigger than Downys, but unless they are seen side by side outdoors, that doesn't help much.  One of the easiest ways to tell the difference is in the length of the beak.  In proportion to its head, the Hairy's beak is quite a bit longer and stouter than the Downy's beak, pictured below.

The white feathers around the eye are different with each individual of both species, so that is no help in telling the difference in species.

I photographed these two woodpeckers at yesterday's bird banding program at Springbrook

Another way of telling the difference is in the red on the back of the head of the male woodpeckers.  In the Hairy Woodpecker the red is separated by a black patch in the middle, as seen in the picture to left.  But in the Downy's, as you can see in the next picture below, the red is one solid band across the back of the head. 

 An unusual capture at Springbrook's bird banding yesterday was this Hermit Thrush.  They should have migrated south long ago.  The light colored stripe under the wing is one way to identify these thrushes in flight.  Primarily though, the easiest way to sepatate this thrush from all the others is the rusty red color of the rump and tail, as seen in the picture below.

Burdock Burrs-Nature's Velcro

Sorry, it has been a long time since my last post---life!   If you walk off the trails at Springbrook this time of year, you may get a surprise hitch-hiker firmly attached.  Burdock burrs are waiting for any passerby to attach to. This is this plant's mechanism to move to a new location-seed dispersal.  And this plant has a unique method that humankind now uses everywhere. 

I sliced this burr in half so the hundreds of seeds are exposed inside.  But look at all the "hooks" waiting to snag a coat cuff, sock, scarf, dog tail, or kids mittens.  I was told long ago that this plant was the inspiration for a scientist's idea for velcro, and, if true, you can see why.  There are over a thousand hooks on each burr, enlarged below. 

This is a great idea taken from nature. But it is a good thing there are no weed seeds in velcro.

Fox Snake Eggs Hatching

At the end of June Fridley Police found a Fox snake in the parking lot at a local hospital and brought it to Springbrook.  On July 13 the small snake laid 8 large eggs.  On September 1st, after 50 days of incubation, the eggs started to hatch all at once.  You can see the slits in the leathery eggs made by an egg 'tooth.' Lots of fluid is released from the holes, and the hatchlings wait a day to absorb the remaining yolk sac before leaving the egg.

You can see the one above is 'tasting' the air with its tongue, and then emerges further out of the egg when all seems safe.  The dark material on the egg is vermiculite from the moist incubating bed I kept the eggs in. The bubbles come from all the fluiod in the eggs and the babies breathing after they make the slits in the eggs.

Fox snake eggs stick to each other when laid, so you see them here as they were laid.

While all the eggs started to hatch at the same time, some babies took longer to emerge than others.  The eggs on either side of this one are empty and have begun to dry and shrivel up.  The ones to the lower left are still occupied, so are still moist and pliable.


Within minutes after I took this picture the snake emerged from the egg and sat on top of the eggs.  The eggs are 2 1/2 inches long, and the snakes are 12 inches long.  Hard to imagine how they fit into what seems a little egg.

At about seven days old the young snakes will shed their skins, getting rid of the left over egg smell on their bodies.  After they shed they will be hungry, and looking for a meal of baby mice, or something similar.

The babies are totally on their own.  The mother snake leaves the eggs after laying them and never sees them again. The baby snakes will turn the more traditional brown pattern color over the next few years.