I came across this spider years ago, while looking for salamanders (which is how I found most of the animals shown on this blog). It was on the silt fence, and when I held the camera up close to it, the spider kept running toward it. Reminds me of the way my cat approaches strange dogs — fluffed up and growling, but too curious not to approach and sniff the dog.
The constant motion made it very hard to get a clear photo. When I got around to uploading them from the camera, there were twenty very blurred pictures, and this one.
These pretty little lizards were the fastest-moving thing on the ground in the Florida sandhills. I saw them every day, but I never managed to get a photo of one in situ. I caught this one in a snake trap and snapped this shot just before letting it go. Look at those crazy long toes!
The six-lined racerunner is a type of whiptail lizard, the only one found in the east. There are more in the southwest. You might have heard of those; they’re known for a very interesting trait. Some populations of whiptail lizards are all female. They reproduce by parthenogenesis. No males required!
This is not the same thing as the asexual reproduction you see in plants, where a part of an organism is broken off and an entirely new one grows from it. That’s cloning, in which the offspring and the parent have the same set of chromosomes. In parthenogenesis, no new DNA is introduced, but the existing chromosomes still go through meiosis, so the offspring are not genetically identical to the parent. And, honestly, my several attempts at a paragraph explaining how that works only reminded me that it’s been a long time since I took a genetics class, so I’ll do us all a favor and just point you to Wikipedia’s entry on parthenogenesis.
We tend to think of only plants and some invertebrates as reproducing asexually, but it’s more common in vertebrates than you might have thought. Some of the other species it’s been documented in include hammerhead sharks, boa constrictors, Komodo dragons, and domestic turkeys. While looking for examples, I discovered that I’m already familiar with some local snakes capable of parthenogenesis: the cottonmouth and copperhead — a 2012 study found genetic evidence in both species! No matter how you feel about venomous snakes, that is pretty damned cool.
In the comments for last week’s cricket frog post, I mentioned that the cricket frog was not the smallest frog in Florida. Then, I completely neglected to say what the smallest frog was. So, here it is: the little grass frog. It’s related to the spring peeper, in the Pseudacris genus.
They are tiny. The frog pictured above is sitting on my raincoat, which doesn’t really give a good sense of scale. Here’s one on a square of ordinary velcro, and one on the palm of my hand:
Little grass frog, on velcro.
Little grass frog, on hand.
The little grass frog is another amphibian that breeds in ephemeral ponds, as well as other grassy-edged bodies of water. I’ve only ever seen two, and I spent a great deal of time in their habitat.
It’s not particularly rare; it’s just very hard to see. Put this little guy in some dead grass, and he would disappear. These, like literally hundreds of mole salamanders, ornate chorus frogs, and leopard frogs, were captured in an attempt to catch flatwoods salamanders (more about those next week). I’ve never seen one just hopping around on the ground. If you do, what luck! Take a picture. Preferably with an object for scale, because nobody will comprehend just how tiny it is without one.
Go to a pond in the southeast and walk along the muddy edge, and you’ll likely see tiny frogs leaping into the water ahead of you. You’ll rarely see the frog beforehand; the first hint of its existence will be a little splash. They launch themselves many times their body length, springing from the weeds into the water as if assisted by wings. From the opposite side of the pond, you’ll hear repeated clicks, like stones being struck together.
If you can find one sitting still long enough to get a good look, you’ll see that it’s about an inch long: a slender, long-legged creature, with bumpy skin and a triangle on the back of its head. It will be some combination of brown, black, green, and gold.
There are two species of cricket frogs: northern and southern. The northern species has slightly longer legs and a slightly more rounded snout, but they are otherwise very similar. They sometimes interbreed where their ranges overlap. (Those shown in this post are the southern species or hybrids of the two.) Between the two species, they cover most of the eastern half of the US.
The breeding season depends on the local climate; in Florida they may breed year-round, while in the northern edge of their range it’s limited to spring. Adults eat insects and spiders, while the tadpoles are vegetarians and feed on algae. The tadpoles are actually longer than the adults, if you include their tails, which are long, transparent, and often black-tipped. The black tip may be useful in confusing predators into grabbing for the tail instead of the body. This is good, because cricket frog tadpoles are eaten by just about everything else in the water — dragonfly larvae, salamanders, fish, snakes, other frogs… The lucky tadpoles which survive can take anywhere from 4 to 12 weeks to metamorphose into adults.
Rat snakes are some of the most frequently seen snakes in the US, but they still cause a lot of confusion and panic. They’re often mistaken for whatever venomous snake lives in the same area. They’re relatively large snakes, and they have an intimidating defensive posture, raising the fronts of their bodies above the ground. And they can have a slightly triangular head if you’re looking at it and thinking, is that triangular? I don’t know… maybe? Kinda. Better assume it’s venomous.
It’s not venomous. Rat snakes are harmless, unless you’re small enough for them to swallow. They can even be beneficial to humans, keeping the rodent population under control. On the other hand, they’re notorious for stealing chicken eggs, which they can swallow whole. And they can clear out an entire nest of baby birds. (If you put up birdhouses, it’s a good idea to add predator guards.)
They’re also skilled tree-climbers*. If you live in the United States, and you see a snake hanging out in a tree in your yard, or from the rafters in a barn, or perched calmly on top of your doorframe as you go to open the door, chances are pretty good that you have a rat snake.
Identifying them can get a little complicated. They come in different patterns and colors, depending on the region. In peninsular Florida, they’re yellow with dark stripes:
These are all the same species! At the edges of their regions, intergrade patterns are often found. The Atlantic coast has some olive-green ones, a mix of yellow and black. In the Piedmont, where I live, they’re mostly black but often have some faint markings.
Rat snakes are constrictors, like boas and pythons, but much smaller. A truly giant rat snake is about 7 feet long, and most adults are under 5 feet. Still, you could say they’re the closest thing the US has to pythons (except in the Everglades, where the Burmese python has become a pest).
They like abandoned buildings and other structures near humans, where the rats are plentiful. So if you see a big yellow, black, or brown snake hanging out in a tree or a hayloft, no need to panic. It’s probably just a rat snake going about its exterminator duties. Leave it alone, and enjoy fewer rats around your house.
Lizards eat small invertebrates. That’s what lizards do. Insects, spiders, ticks, grubs– all tasty morsels for your local lizard population.
When I lived in Florida, I had geckos in the house. I didn’t put them there, but they came in, and I happily let them stay. Because of them, I never had spiders on the ceiling. Lizards eat spiders. It’s the way of the world.
But sometimes… Sometimes, a spider defies its destiny.
Newts are familiar to most people, or at least the word “newt” is, whether as the name of one of the US’s more infamous politicians or as the thing you get turned into when you annoy a witch. But what is a newt, exactly?
It’s a type of salamander. There are many species of newts, but the only one in my area is the red spotted newt, or Eastern newt, which lives throughout most of eastern North America.
Like the mole salamander, the newt has a complicated life cycle. It, too, hatches from eggs laid in ponds, and its larval form is aquatic. So is its adult form. But it has another, in-between stage in which it lives on land. Newts in this stage are called “efts.” They are the form most commonly seen — not only because they live on land instead of in ponds, but also because efts are red. (They’re also poisonous. Their color acts as a warning.)
Eft from western North Carolina
After a couple years of this carefree land-roaming lifestyle, the newt returns to the water to reproduce. Its red color fades to olive green, keeping only the red dots on its back. It grows a fin-like ridge on its tail, which helps it swim. The newt lives mostly in water for the rest of its life. That can be a long time — newts can live 15 years or more!
The cottonmouth, also known as the water moccasin, may be the most feared animal in the eastern United States. People panic about cottonmouths in areas where cottonmouths don’t even live. Growing up in West Virginia, which is decidedly outside the cottonmouth’s range, I was told by several people that they had killed or been chased by “moccasins” in the creeks. This was highly unlikely.
Some of the fear is justified: cottonmouths are venomous, and they’re more common than the larger diamondback and timber rattlesnakes, with more venom than the smaller pigmy rattlesnakes and copperheads. Either way you’re ranking threat level — number of bites or seriousness of bites — the cottonmouth falls somewhere in the middle.
So, why do they have such a bad reputation? One possibility is mistaken identity. The Nerodia genus of non-venomous water snakes can be found pretty much anywhere with fresh water, and they are often misidentified as cottonmouths. They’re both fairly large, heavy-bodied, dark-colored snakes usually found near water; it’s an understandable mistake. After all, who wants to get up close and check the shape of the pupil or the color of the inside of the mouth?
The common nighthawk is a swift, graceful flyer capable of catching and eating insects on the wing. Its territorial “call” isn’t really a call; it’s a loud whirring buzz made by its wings as it dives. You’d think such a bird would nest high in a tree, as close to the sky as possible, right?
Nope. The nighthawk doesn’t build a nest at all. It just lays its eggs right on the ground, where their speckled pattern blends in with the dirt and leaves.
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Overlooked Nature 