June 13, 2009
Last night was pretty slow at the nets and (sigh) we didn’t catch anything we were looking for.
We did come across this very pregnant Northern long-eared bat though. She was being very calm and cooperative (or perhaps she was just so fat she really couldn’t move…?) and I was able to get a bunch of decent pictures before she slipped back into the darkness.
There were also a pile of these Eastern Cricket frogs down there making a terrible racket. If you haven’t heard one from 2 feet or less it is quite an experience. I think I can still feel the pulsing in my ears…
I didn’t get any pictures that were real winners but I didn’t have all night…
Finally if you haven’t heard about the new and fast spreading illness that is taking a huge toll on many bat populations -well its probably past time I said something about it. It’s called “white-nose syndrome.” The best idea is to read up on all the latest info on the illness right here. But in short we still don’t know what exactly is killing the bats or how or if it is even possible to stop its deadly spread. I did attempt a couple of pictures that express the plight of our bats. Hopefully soon we will know more about this illness.
Tags: bats, Cricket-frog, frogs, mammals, white-nose syndrome
Posted at 11:43 EDT in Biology, Research.
April 17, 2008
One of the most common questions I get asked is “what is it.” It seems like such a nice simple question, unfortunately it often digs far deeper than those asking me realize.
Take for example this frog I found escaping from the sun’s hot rays beneath some flowerpots on our deck. Hopefully all of you will be able to be able to agree that it is indeed a frog. Perhaps quite a few of you will note that it is a treefrog by the large “sticky” toe pads just barely visible in the picture above. Hopefully there will be at least a few of you who will recognize it right away as being a gray treefrog; a common frog found throughout the eastern US and well known for breeding in everyone’s swimming pools (which, unfortunately for it, is not to its advantage). While you would be right in saying it’s a gray treefrog, you may be surprised that I still don’t know what species this frog is. The problem is there are actually two (externally) identical species of “gray treefrogs,” Cope’s Gray Treefrog (Hyla chrysoscelis) and Common Gray Treefrog (Hyla versicolor). Their ranges largely overlap and they can only be identified by their breeding call or DNA analysis (the Common Gray has twice as many chromosomes as Cope’s). Thus, this guy is one or the other but nobody can tell just by looking.
I think you are probably getting the picture -but wait it gets worse. I can remember during my undergraduate studies working at a stream with a local expert on fish identification. Our class was catching all sorts of different fish and then working to learn their proper identification. It is much harder than you might think to properly identify some of the species but I was catching on -or so I thought. One particular fish had me stumped so I asked the expert for some help and he told me seemingly without thinking “Oh, it’s just a hybrid” [yes it's true, some native species naturally hybridize].
Moral of the story: If a biologist tells you they don’t know what something is, don’t just assume they’re a pathetic excuse for a biologist. They may just be more honest than most.
Frog: Nikon D1x, Nikkor 70-300 f:4-5.6 ED
Tags: amphibians, frogs, Gray-treefrog, identification
Posted at 22:55 EDT in Biology.
