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Category: Animals

Animal tracks: Raccoon

Animal tracks: Raccoon

Thoughts of salt marsh wildlife typically evoke images of great blue herons, ospreys, hermit crabs and various species of fish. Seldom due people consider the mammals that inhabit a salt marsh, particularly during low tide when the exposed marsh platform and mud flats provide considerable opportunities for foraging, but many mammals do regularly utilize these habitats for foraging, including raccoons. Raccoons (Procyon lotor) are found everywhere in Massachusetts, except on Nantucket. Although we’re all familiar with raccoons’ reputation as masked…

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White Turtlehead (Chelone glabra)

White Turtlehead (Chelone glabra)

Native to all of New England and commonly found along the edges of ponds, streams and other wetland margins, white turtlehead (Chelone glabra) is one of my favorite wildflowers. One to two inch white flowers grow in spikes at the apex of the plant, and bloom in late summer and early fall. The name is derived from the fact that the upper lip of each flower arches over the lower lip, somewhat resembling the head of a turtle. In fact,…

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Faraway places: Nova Scotia

Faraway places: Nova Scotia

When we first booked our vacation to Nova Scotia, I imagined a world of plants and animals relatively unfamiliar to me. I figured since we were heading so far north (it turns out, Nova Scotia is really more east than north) and all the way to another country, I would be faced with an assortment of new species. But while the rocky coastlines and higher elevation ecosystems in Cape Breton were quite different from most of our Cape Cod landscapes,…

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Slaty Skimmer (Libellula incesta)

Slaty Skimmer (Libellula incesta)

The Libellulidae family, also known as skimmers, is the largest and most diverse family of dragonflies worldwide, with more than 1,000 species. Extremely diverse in both colors and patterns, skimmers can rival butterflies in terms of their bold coloration. Widely varying colors and patterns often allow for relatively easy identification of male skimmers in the field, based on a combination of body, eye and wing color and pattern. Immature males and females, however, often look very different and can lead…

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Mouse bot fly (Cuterebra fontinella)

Mouse bot fly (Cuterebra fontinella)

I first heard about bot flies during a college semester abroad in Costa Rica. After having the life cycle of bot flies described to us, my classmates and I lived in semi-constant fear that we would wake up with a bot fly maggot burrowing under our skin (luckily this did not happen to any of the students that year). However, since Costa Rica was where I’d learned about them, I never considered that bot flies could live anywhere other than…

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Common spider crab (Libinia emarginata)

Common spider crab (Libinia emarginata)

While working in Pleasant Bay in Chatham last week, I saw numerous pairs of common spider crabs (Libinia emarginata) in the shallow water. Spider crabs have quite a different look from other local crabs. Their carapace is rounder with a distinctive beaklike protrusion. Their eight walking legs and two claws are long and narrow giving them a very spider-like appearance. This species is also called “nine-spined spider crab” due to the nine spines, or bumps, running down the center of…

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Turkey vulture (Cathartes aura)

Turkey vulture (Cathartes aura)

If there’s one bird I can almost guarantee to see every day from my house, it’s a turkey vulture (Cathartes aura). And while most people are familiar with their high soaring flights, I have been luckily enough to catch them at an entirely different activity: waking up. Almost every morning over the last couple months, as my dog and I are taking our early morning walk, the turkey vultures in my neighborhood are only just starting to stir from their…

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Baltimore checkerspot (Euphydryas phaeton)

Baltimore checkerspot (Euphydryas phaeton)

It was a very butterfly-filled weekend for me. I attended the Thornton Burgess Nature Club’s monthly adult natural history program on Saturday. This month’s topic was “Butterflies” with an up close and personal look at a variety of species within the Cape Cod Museum of Natural History’s Butterfly House. Within the Butterfly House, I was able to closely observe monarchs (Danaus plexippus), red admirals (Vanessa atalanta), and question marks (Polygonia interrogationis).  A newly emerged monarch butterfly. A question mark butterfly. …

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American Toad (Bufo americanus) eggs

American Toad (Bufo americanus) eggs

True toads are differentiated from frogs by prominent bony ridges (called cranial crests) on top of their heads, and conspicuous swellings (parotoid glands) behind their eyes. These parotoid glands are a defense mechanism against predators (including cats and dogs), as they will secrete a toxic fluid if punctured. The many warts covering a toad’s body also secrete a similar toxin. However, despite the toxin’s deterrent effect on predators, toads are not poisonous to touch (and they do not cause warts…

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Spittlebugs

Spittlebugs

I have been noticing masses of white, wet, bubbly foam attached to the stems of many herbaceous plants on my recent walks. These blobs of foam are produced by the larvae of a type of Hemipteran insect in the family Cercopidae. The adults are called froghoppers because many are wider posteriorly and are shaped somewhat like a frog, and although they can fly and walk, their most obvious form of locomotion is to make large leaps (up to 200 times…

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