WildMaven’s World

Owning one of the best scientific names (Upupa epops…pronounced OOO papa EE pops) the Eurasian hoopoe is also the proud holder of the award for the smelliest nest in the world, built of feces. They also emit a strong musky oil which they can eject when they are alarmed. The hoopoe have a beautiful striped crest atop their heads that rises when they sense danger, and their backs are also striped. The beauty of this bird is evident when you examine the number of postage stamps that have been created in its honor:
Hoopoe Stamps http://www.bird-stamps.org/cspecies/9600100.htm

Nesting in holes in walls and trees, the female lays her eggs (5-8 of them) and the male feeds her until the young are hatched. They eat insects and larvae, poking around grasses with their curved bills and can be found throughout Europe, Africa, India and Asia.

The hoopoe was loved by the Egyptians and is found in their mythology adorning the sceptre of the god Horus, symbolizing happiness. They also created a heiroglyph based on the bird’s crest. Moslems forbid the eating of the bird due to it’s odor and the fact that it eats worms. The legend in Islam shows that the hoopoe smells foul because it carries the dead on its head, which is why it is forbidden to kill one. The hoopoe is mentioned twice in the Torah. Research has shown that when the Torah mentions a bird called the dukhifat, it is the hoopoe. The Torah lists it as one of the birds forbidden to eat. Other legends tell tales of magic and recommended using parts of the hoopoe to aid memory. My favorite legend tells that the hoopoe originally had a crest of gold, but because they kept being killed for it, they asked King Solomon for crests of feathers.

Large scale extinctions, like the dinosaurs, account for only 4% of the disappearance of animals from the earth. The rest die off quietly, without meteors or other major events to hurry them along. What causes these silent extinctions has puzzled scientists for generations. Now, there may be an answer. At the end of the chromosomes of every species (except bacteria and algae) are small protective caps called telomeres. When a cell dies, it tries to replicate these caps, but as a species goes on, the caps grow shorter and shorter, resulting in genetic abnormalities, such as cancer and immunodeficiency (think AIDS). This shortening, they theorize, will eventually cause the collapse of the species. More study is necessary at this point, and the new genetic mapping projects will be extremely helpful, but one can’t help but wonder about the future of our own species. Will we be able to genetically alter our destiny in the lab, artificially lengthening the telomeres, or will our species crash and burn, like so many before?

A constellation is a group of stars related to each other in a visible configuration. Humans find shapes in all kinds of things (clouds, for instance), so it’s not surprising that we have picked out some shapes in the night sky. Long ago, it was thought that the gods resided up there, and a lot of the constellations have a basis in mythology. However, if you were anyplace other than the Earth, the constellations would not look the same, since we are viewing them on a 2D plane, whereas the stars are in a 3D position. Also, different cultures have different constellations. Orion, for instance, was thought by the Sumarians to be a sheep, not a man.

The Big Dipper is called an asterism, which means it is not an official constellation. In fact, it is just a part of the constellation Ursa Major. The same goes for The Teapot in Sagettarius.

According to the International Astronomical Union, there are 88 official constellations. The first 12 on the list are the 12 signs of the Zodiac:

Aries, the ram
Taurus, the bull
Gemini, the twins
Cancer, the crab
Leo, the lion
Virgo, the virgin
Libra, the scales
Scorpius (also called Scorpio), the scorpion
Sagittarius, the archer
Capricornus (also called Capricorn), the sea goat
Aquarius, the water carrier
Pisces, the fish

Next, are the constellations named by Ptolemy, a Greek astronomer:

Andromeda
Aquila, the eagle
Ara, the altar
Argo Navis, the ship of the argonauts, since divided into Carina, Puppis and Vela
Auriga, the charioteer
Boötes, the herdsman
Canis Major, the greater dog
Canis Minor, the lesser dog
Cassiopeia, the Queen
Centaurus, the centaur
Cepheus
Cetus, the whale
Corona Australis, the southern crown
Corona Borealis, the northern crown
Corvus, the raven
Crater, the cup
Cygnus, the swan
Delphinus, the dolphin
Draco, the dragon
Equuleus, the little horse
Eridanus, the river
Hercules, the hero
Hydra, the sea monster
Lepus, the hare
Lupus, the wolf
Lyra, the lyre
Ophiuchus, the serpent-bearer
Orion, the hunter
Pegasus, the winged horse
Perseus
Piscis Austrinus, the southern fish
Sagitta, the arrow
Serpens, the serpent
Triangulum, the triangle
Ursa Major, the greater bear
Ursa Minor, the lesser bear

As European explores journeyed to areas where they could see the southern sky, they added to the list even more. Also, the gaps between the Ptolemy and the Greek sky were filled:

Antlia, the pump
Apus, the bird of paradise
Caelum, the chisel
Camelopardalis, the giraffe
Canes Venatici, the hunting dogs
Chamaeleon, the lizard
Circinus, the drawing compasses
Columba, the dove
Coma Berenices (traditional asterism), Berenice’s hair
Crux, the cross
Dorado, the swordfish
Fornax, the furnace
Grus, the crane
Horologium, the clock
Hydrus, the water snake
Indus, the Indian
Lacerta, the lizard
Leo Minor, the lesser lion
Lynx, the wild cat
Mensa, (originally Mons Mensae) table mountain
Microscopium, the microscope
Monoceros, the unicorn
Musca, the fly
Norma, the square
Octans, the octant
Pavo, the peacock
Phoenix, the flame bird of myth
Pictor, (originally Equuleus Pictoris) the painter’s easel
Pyxis, the compass
Reticulum, the reticle
Sculptor, the artistic man
Scutum, the shield
Sextans, the sextant
Telescopium, the telescope
Triangulum Australe, the southern triangle
Tucana, the toucan
Volans (originally Piscis Volans) the flying fish
Vulpecula (originally Vulpecula Cum Ansere) the fox with the goose

Finally, the asterisms, the group of stars that didn’t make the cut. Usually it is because they are a part of an already named constellation:

Big Dipper in Ursa Major
Little Dipper in Ursa Minor
Teapot in Sagittarius
Orion’s belt
Summer Triangle (Deneb, Altair, and Vega, or ? Cygni, Aquilae, and Lyrae)
Great Square of Pegasus
Urn in Aquarius
Sickle in Leo
Coma Berenices, once an asterism, is now officially a constellation

“There are tigers in China?” This was a comment I heard recently from a friend as I explained the plight of these beautiful creatures. That lack of knowledge is one of the reasons their numbers continue to decline. It is estimated that there are less than 100 individuals left on Earth, including those in captivity. The destruction of their native habitat has resulted in isolated pockets of habitat, not enough to ensure a diverse flow of the gene pool. Human intervention is needed if the South China tiger is to survive. The first step was listing them under First Level Protection according to the Law for Protection of Wildlife of People’s Republic of China. The next step is the reforestation of their homeland, not an easy task in a country already bursting at the seams. In 1998, a major project was begun to re-establish the tiger population in the Meihua Mountain Reserve, a place almost devoid of the human presence. Unfortunately, trade in tiger skins and organs (for medicine) continues despite the Law for Protection. With the increased demand for “holistic” medicines, tiger bone sales have gone through the roof, selling to 26 countries. Their whiskers are used in potions, and even their feces have a medicinal use. A ban on the trade of such items is needed, as well as stiffer penalties for poaching, or all we will have left of this magnificent animal will be their skins hanging on the wall.

It is estimated that, if their situation does not improve quickly, they will be extinct in less than years.

There are a lot of things scary about New York, but I never thought there could be such a thing as a two foot salamander traipsing about in the river drainages!!

With their short little legs, beady eyes, and wrinkled skin, they cannot be called cute or cuddly. Like most New Yorkers, the hellbender becomes active after dark, seeking food and/or courtship. Misconceptions about its nature are common (much like NYers). Caught by fishermen, they are killed in the mistaken assumption that they are poisonous. They eat crayfish and small fish and like to hide under rocks. This is one New Yorker who doesn’t mind “swimmin’ with th’ fishes.”

(Actually, the Eastern Hellbender is found from NY to Georgia)

Pollution of waterways is the major concern for this slimy, spotted creature who breathes through his skin and has no eyelids.

The next time you’re in a really nice trout stream, watch out…the hellbender is there….watching…..

Somewhere between a comet and an asteroid in composition, Centaurs are objects whose orbits around the Sun cause them to pass by one of our planets, usually Jupiter or Neptune. Very unstable, due to their interactions with the large planets, their orbits can change with every pass. Chiron, once classified as an asteroid, was reclassified as a Centaur, but now may also be considered to be a comet since the discovery that it has a small coma. Chiron may one day crash into a planet, or be totally ejected out of our solar system. Centaurs most likely originated from the Kuiper belt.

A sub-classification, Red Centaurs, are Centaurs that have an unusual red coloring, possibly from organic surface particles. Once such Red Centaur is Pholus, which orbits from Saturn to past Neptune.

The name Centaur comes from the mythological half-man, half-horse figure.

There are currently nine Centaurs orbiting between Jupiter and Neptune, but many more are probably just waiting to be discovered. Should one of these large objects become a comet and pass into Earth’s orbit, its debris trail could have a dramatic impact on the climate and pose a danger to our civilization.

Jim Conrad, naturalist. An interview.
First, I’d like to thank Mr. Conrad for agreeing to this e-mail interview and taking time away from nature to sit at the computer and type in his replies.

1. What projects are you currently working on?

The Web sites mentioned [in "About Jim Conrad" at the end of this interview] are evolving constantly, being added to on a daily basis. Mostly it’s adding info for new ecotour hosts wanting to be on the Posterboard, plus every time I find a new bug, mushroom or whatever, I scan it and add it to the nature site. Beyond that, my main project is personally to continue evolving spiritually and philosophically, and to learn how best to help others do the same.

2. What made you want to study nature?

Several people in my family are and were exceptionally close to nature, so maybe my predisposition for being a naturalist always was there. However, I didn’t make the decision to seriously study nature until I was in college during the late 60s. At that time there was a new awakening among educated people worldwide to social injustices and environmental problems. There was the war in Vietnam, the fight for civil rights, and the dawn of an environmental movement. I knew I wanted to be an activist, I knew I couldn’t work in every field needing attention, and I knew that my own tendencies were more in the field of natural history. So I began work on a degree in biology, though I also have very strong social and political beliefs. In my early days I thought that if I could explain “why nature is important” clearly enough, I might get people to drop some of their destructive attitudes and practices. So, my urge to know about nature was always there, but my decision to study it seriously arose during the ferment on college campuses during the late 60s.

3. You’ve led many nature hikes and tours. What was the funniest thing that ever happened during one?

One year I worked as a naturalist at a “jungle lodge” in Belize. Each night I’d take a group on a night hike through the tropical forest. The highlight of each walk was when we’d climb to the top of a small ruin of an ancient Maya temple, and I’d tell stories from Maya legends. Naturally this was a good spot for telling ghost stories. To me it was funny to see how my listeners, mostly well-to-do and highly educated North Americans, could be so unnerved by hearing a good ghost story told on an old ruin in the jungle.

4. What advice regarding the Earth would you give parents bringing up children today?

The greatest contribution any parent can make today is to limit the number of children produced. After that, they should provide good examples to children already on hand by practicing sustainable living patterns. Parents should project a sense of pleasure and enthusiasm as they set about discovering all the ways they waste energy and other resources, and consequently change their behavior. A child should see that making the effort to live sustainably is fun, and the child should feel that he or she is an important participant in an important undertaking.

5. Phenology is the science dealing with relationships between climate and periodic biological phenomena. Why is this important when studying nature?

For some of us, keeping phenological records is simply fun. Making the observations needed to maintain them requires us to pay attention, and that is rewarding in itself because then we see interesting things we might otherwise have missed. At this time in human history phenological records are important because they contribute to our understandings about global warming and other environmental challenges. For example, if we see that trees are leafing out and wildflowers are blossoming much earlier than in years past, that supports the theory that global warming is taking place.

6. When a person starts looking at the Earth as a whole, it can become overwhelming. Are there any baby steps they can take to become more aware?

The best way to begin discovering nature in a serious way is to begin focusing on one special corner of nature. For example, if you decide to become a birder, you soon learn about the species concept, and that certain species are rarer than others. You find that the deep forest has one community of birds and an abandoned field a completely different set. You see that in a tree one species may specialize in finding bugs among the leaves, another in finding them on the trunk’s bark. One can learn a lot about nature in general just by looking at birds. The same would be true if you decided to focus on, say, trees or wildflowers, mosses, insects…

7. You weren’t always a vegetarian. Was there a defining moment that caused you to switch?

When I left the small tobacco farm I grew up on in Kentucky to attend college, I entered an entirely new world. One thing I quickly discovered was that many of my old assumptions and beliefs were not appropriate in the broader world. I went through a period when I angrily rejected most of my “inherited beliefs,” despite having few insights with which to replace them. Gradually, one step at a time, I began making conscious decisions about what I would believe and not believe (a process still going on). When the time came for me to examine my eating habits, I realized that my farm-base diet had been unhealthy. Therefore I studied nutrition and developed my present eating habits. Also I asked myself if I would kill the animals I was eating. When I realized that I would not, then I decided that it would be hypocritical for me to eat flesh from the bodies of animals I was paying other people to kill. Once I had that insight there was no longer any question about my vegetarianism. Later in ecology class I learned what an enormous waste of land it is to grow cattle, when you could grow much more food on the same land for direct consumption, and that added an ethical dimension to my decision.

8. Do you agree with the the criteria that removes a species from the ‘endangered’ list to the ‘protected’ list?? Why, or why not?

Instead of debating the subtleties of the process I would prefer to focus on the fact that the entire program is vulnerable to politics. If enough politicians vote that preserving endangered or protected species is “bad for American businessmen,” as our President said with regard to international regulations for slowing global warming, regulatory nuances will be quite moot.

9. There is currently a lot of discussion, activity, and actual practice of non-native killings. This is done under the auspices of “nuisance control”. In as much as it seems no amount of protest, sponsorship, or outright pleading to stop this activity will be effective; and along with the increased decline of habitat and illegal killings of native animals, how do you see Earth in the future as far as Wildlife and Nature is concerned? Could we become “nature sterile” as the futuristic movies depict, or do you believe nature will right itself through necessity and evolve in a manner that allows the continued development of species other than man?

I have no idea what it will be like in the future. If computer projections of trends resulting from global warming are correct, vast parts of the world will change drastically as the world’s climate patterns alter. The US’s “Bread Basket,” the Midwest, will become too dry to consistently produce corn and wheat. The Southeast’s pine forests will become scrubland and grasslands. Extended droughts will cause monstrous forest fires like those now in the West. Such changes will occasion an enormity of suffering. And what of the Ozone Hole? In ten years will cancerous growths begin appearing on most living things exposed to sunlight? One can almost guess that within ten years terrorists will have managed to explode dirty, radioactive bombs. If they explode enough, then what will be the consequences of raising the level of background radioactivity worldwide? “Nature sterile,” at least in terms of Life on Earth, is a real possibility.
Sometimes I comfort myself with the thought that even if all life on Earth should be destroyed, clear down to the lowest organism in the deepest hot-water vent on the ocean floor, the Creator’s obvious delight in producing life will remain intact, and I’m sure that life will start all over again, and evolution will proceed as exuberantly as ever. Maybe the next time life evolves for about 4.8 billion years the resulting dominant thinking species will be a little less self-centered and arrogant than the human species.

10. There are a lot of illustrations in your books. Do you think an artist’s eye gives you a better appreciation of nature?

The more one sees at any level, the more one appreciates nature. By the way, this question begs a definition of “nature.” I have gradually come to conceive of everything as nature. If you believe that humans are animals who have evolved the same as other living organisms, then Manhattan must be seen as not entirely unlike an anthill - all quite natural. Maybe it’s bad psychology to even refer to nature. We should think of forests and oceans as being part of our own living space, our own personal environment, not as something set apart.

11. As new species are being discovered (ex. the monkeys in the paper recently), should they be protected from capture for the supposed purpose of studying them?

You must make this call on an individual basis. It should depend on how rare the species is, how endangered its habitat is, and what benefits can be derived from studying it. It seems that the California Condor may have been saved because of enlightened study and effort on its behalf. On the other hand, sometimes it seems that many in the scientific community have become obsessed with generating publications while paying too little attention to the disappearance of the worlds they are disappearing.
My default attitude is to oppose capture for study, but if the investigator can convince me that the benefits of more knowledge will outweigh the negatives, then maybe I’ll support the effort.

12. What has been the most rewarding part of your job?

If my “job” is “hermit working for free to produce educational web sites,” the most rewarding part is being exactly what I am. I craft words and web pages and send them into cyberspace, like the members of certain Buddhist sects who spin their prayer wheels. This is my meditation, my way of spending this time in a human body on Earth, and that is reward enough.

13. If an animals is in danger of death. Do you take the animals in and care for it? Or do you let the animal die as this is the natural thing? If the cause of death is caused by human interference with the natural state, do you care for the animal or do you make the assumption that even though it is caused by humans it is still natural?

If I find a bug drowning in my water bucket I will pick it out. If I find a nestling or baby squirrel whose nest has been blown down, I just leave it. I don’t think much about whether humans are at the root of the problem, but rather I recognize that all animals have very specialized needs, and that by intervening in a young animal’s life, probably I won’t be able to save it and, if I do save it, it will still face the problem of reintegrating into its species’ community. I tend to think that the damage done by setting free an animal poorly equipped for survival is uglier than just passing by a young animal in distress. Often there are no comfortable solutions. On the other hand, if, say, I find a deer caught in a fence, if I can free the deer and the animal looks unhurt, I’m very happy to do so.

14. Do you think we’ll ever solve the mystery of animal communication, or do you think it’s best that we don’t.

I don’t think in terms of “the mystery of animal communication.” I think that all animals have their own ways of communicating. The more we know about them, he more we can feel awe for their manner of being and the more beautiful they will be to us. Ignorance as a policy is seldom a good idea.

15. Next, is in regards to the theory of evolution…Now if we truly have evolved from Apes and Monkeys, why are there still Apes and Monkeys around as well. What stopped them from evolving further, the same goes for all the micro organisms that supposedly started it all…why did some go on and some not? Did some have the “Evolve” Genes, while others didn’t?

I’m not aware that anyone seriously concerned about the matter is saying that humans evolved from apes and monkeys. We shared common ancestors. The diagram of primate-species evolution is a tree, not a chain (as implied by the phrase “missing link”). Apes and monkeys are at the tips of their own branches, as are humans. Some branches of the primate tree develop faster than others. Some branches branch more than others. The number of branches between branch tips (current-day species) varies tremendously, depending on where you are on the tree, and what your branch is like.
This is the first time I’ve heard the suggestion that monkeys and apes have ceased to evolve. It can be assumed that all living species are evolving, always have and always will. The phenomenon of convergent evolution shows that for any given niche in any natural environment, a certain form or manner of being may be optimal for exploiting that niche. Thus once a species has assumed a specific narrow ecological niche and exploits its resources at a high rate of efficiency, there would be little pressure, all other factors remaining the same, for the species to change in conspicuous ways. That doesn’t mean that evolution stops, however. The species may look exactly the same for millions of years, but inside at a molecular level it can be assumed that sometimes certain chemical pathways, perhaps those associated with metabolism or respiration, alter in order to get the job done more efficiently. Just because something looks like it did millions of years ago doesn’t mean that it’s stopped evolving.

16. Many of us wish we could live the life of a hermit. What are the pluses and minuses of doing so?

I would prefer to live in a land-based community of mutually supporting individuals. It just turned out that I can’t find any such community and probably because of the heat, mosquitoes, ticks, mildew, fire ants and cultural ambiance of this part of the world (southwestern Mississippi) I doubt many others would want to come here. I am too involved in my work and studies to go looking for communities, and I don’t have the money to do so, anyway.
Nonetheless, being a hermit has its attractions, such as the peacefulness, the pleasure of seeing wild plants and animals up close every day and watching them change through the seasons, being able to do things at my own pace, and being able to order my time according to my own priorities.
I really can’t say that I find many negatives to being a hermit, other than that sometimes I need someone to look at a cut or itching place I can’t get to. During the day I am so active on the Internet, exchanging email with so many people, that by day’s end it’s really a relief to turn everything off and be alone.
During most of my life I’ve dreamed of finding a woman to share my life with, but that hasn’t worked out and I’m tired of looking.

17. Are there any further thoughts you’d like to leave us with?

If anyone knows of a park or reserve needing a “naturalist in residence,” I might be interested in the position. I would want to continue living as I am, very simply and close to nature, but I would welcome becoming more involved in a community. I would like to lead fieldtrips, workshops and such. In any position I’d need enough free time to continue my work on the Internet. Unfortunately I just can’t stand cold weather. Just for a laugh you may be interested in taking a look at my at “EarthFoot’s International Headquarters”:Jim’s Home http://www.earthfoot.org/jimscamp.jpg

About Jim Conrad

A fascinating man! I was hooked the minute I read his book “Discover Nature in the Garden.”

Main field of interest: Teaching nature-study techniques, and philosophizing about why understanding nature is so important.

Education: M.Sc. in Botany, B.Sc. in Geology

Languages: English, Spanish and German

Background: Born in 1947, Jim grew up on a small tobacco farm in western Kentucky, in the southeastern USA. He has spent most of his adult life as a freelance writer focusing on topics relating to natural history. For his work he has traveled in about forty countries. He has published over 200 magazine articles and stories, and six books.

He has served as a naturalist at a “jungle lodge” in Belize and on archeological ecotours in Guatemala’s Petén region.

Most recently he has developed EarthFoot’s Free Ecotour Posterboard, plus three other sites, Backyard Nature Study , Loess Hills of the Lower Mississippi Valley , and Traditional Mexican Markets. Also, he provides an online children’s book, Walks with Red Dog. Currently Jim lives a hermit’s life (with Internet access… ) in the forest south of Natchez, Mississippi.

He offers nature tours and his fee, as stated on his website is “Let’s barter. Maybe just a ride to town so I can buy groceries, or maybe a book, or something for the computer.”

Each week Jim issues his free Natchez Naturalist Newsletter, a page or two about the plants and animals around his forest home and in his organic gardens. If you would like to subscribe, just send an empty e-mail to natnat-subscribe@earthfoot.org . You can review all previous newsletters on the Web. If you haven’t seen his Natchez Naturalizt Newsletters, you are in for a real treat! It’s usually the highlight of my week! The previous newsletters are indexed according to topics. (Don’t miss his thoughts on pickle juice!!) http://earthfoot.org/znatnat/index.htm

His books include:

* Discover Nature in the Garden: Things to know and things to do, Stackpole Books, Mechanicsburg, PA, 1996

* Mexico A Hiker’s Guide to Mexico’s Natural History, The Mountaineers, Seattle, Washington, 1995.

* Yerba Buena: Word-Snapshots from a Missionary Clinic in Southern Mexico’s Indian Territory, Southern Missionary Society, Poland Springs, Maine, 1994.

* The Maya Road: Eastern Mexico, Belize, Lowland, Guatemala, BRADT Travel Guides; (1992)

* No Frills Guide to Hiking in Mexico, Bradt Publications, England, 1992.

* On the Road to Tetlama, Walker and Company, New York, 1991.

I just want to thank Mr. Conrad again. He is an inspiration to me and if you haven’t checked out his newsletter, you really are missing something!

Ready for a dose of reality? There are only an estimated 350 mountain gorillas remaining in the Virunga Mountains and 290 in the Bwindi Forest. Poaching destroyed their numbers dramatically until, in the early 1980’s, Dian Fossey brought their plight to the public. Males don’t reach maturity until they are 10-13 years old, at which time they begin to develop the silver patch of hair on their backs. Females who are taking care of a young one, will not mate for about 4 years. These all contribute to the slow rate of recovery in their numbers. A more recent tragedy struck the gorilla: the war in Rwanda, which destroyed prime mountain gorilla habitat as humans moved into camps at the edges of their territory.

Highly socialized, the mountain gorillas will protect each other and even mourn the death of a member of the group. They have a vocabulary all their own, which includes chuckling, belching, barking, hooting, screaming, chest-beating and roaring.

Not the creatures portrayed in movies such as “King Kong”, the mountain gorilla would rather spend its time eating, playing and napping. They are mostly vegetarians and favor bamboo shoots, fruit, vines, roots, wild celery and bark. Gorillas do not know how to swim, so it is a good thing they get most of their daily water supply from the foods they eat. (The first gorillas (lowland) brought into captivity were fed hamburgers!)

The mountain gorilla was “discovered” in 1902 when Captain Oscar von Beringe followed native reports of ape-monsters that came from the volcanic mountains.

There are no mountain gorillas in captivity, so captive breeding programs are not an option to preserve these beautiful creatures. (Most gorillas you see in the zoos are lowland gorillas). An end must be found to the political unrest which is threatening the work of the late Dian Fossey and others who followed in her footsteps.

It is ironic that the natives considered them to be “the protectors of the living.” Think about it…

Chuckwalla (also called chuckawalla and Sauromalus)

The largest non-venomous lizard (about a foot and a half in length) in the United States, this is my absolute favorite desert creature. The chuckwalla is a plump lizard with loose folds of skin and a short stubby tail, they kind of look like a bean bag with legs and head. They live in the southwestern United States. When threatened, they run into a crack, hole or groups of rocks and inflate their lungs 4 times the normal size, wedging themselves nicely so that they cannot be pulled out! I actually got to see this in action once when I lived in the desert. They can deliver a painful bite, but they’d much rather run and hide. They mark their territories by way of a liquid passed through pores on their thighs.

Hibernating during the winter, they wake to breed in the spring, though they will not do so if food is scarce. 3-16 eggs will be laid in a burrow during the summer. They are plant eaters, and will go out of their way for yellow flowers. To aid digestion, the chuckwalla must be exposed to very hot temperatures during the day (about 100 degrees). They can change the color of their skin from light to dark to regulate the way the heat is absorbed. They don’t drink, since they get all their moisture from the plants they eat. This moisture is stored in special lymph glands to be used during dry spells.

The Mojave Indians found their tail to be a delicacy. Sold more and more in the pet trade, chuckwalla numbers have been slowly declining. Loss of habitat and drought conditions are also contributing factors. Thankfully, export from the United States has finally been banned. In some states, they are listed as a “sensitive species.” Of alarming concern is the status of the population found on a couple of islands in the Sea of Cortez. The chuckwalla numbers there have been almost destroyed by black market pet trading, where a single lizard can fetch $500 or more. The government is working with native people on the islands to teach them conservation methods and captive breeding programs, in the hope that the numbers can one day increase. I’ll be holding my breath.

Aurorae (plural of aurora) occur when the Sun emits charged particles which are then trapped by the Earth’s magnetic field. Those particles interact with upper atmosphere atoms, smashing together, which excites molecules of gas. Energy is radiated in the form of the beautiful colors you see when observing an aurora. Did you know that each individual sees an aurora differently depending on their eyesight?

Most aurorae are green (from oxygen atoms) or red (nitrogen), though sometimes violet can also be seen (caused when the rays extend high up and are hit by direct sunlight).

If you live in a Southern region, chances are poor that you’ll get to see an aurora. I live in Las Vegas, so unless I make a trek northward, I’m not seeing one anytime soon.

Aurorae come in different forms, including arcs, bands, coronas, glows, patches, rays, and veils. It is no coincidence that aurora activity peaks after a solar flare. When the sun is active, expect to see more aurora. Why does the aurora change and move? It all depends on solar wind and the Earth’s magnetic field.

Want to photograph an aurora? If so, use fast film (ISO 400). An aurora changes rapidly and slow film just wouldn’t cut it. A recommended setting would be 30 seconds at f/1.8 but experiment with many different settings. Write down what you do so that you can repeat it in the future. If you take a great aurora shot, I’d love to see it! More information on photographing aurora can be found if you visit Dick Hutchinson’s SHOOTING THE AURORA BOREALIS website. http://www.ptialaska.net/~hutch/aurora.html

Folklore is full of aurora tales. In Finland, they call it revontulet which means foxfire (there is an old tale about a fox who started fires with his tail).

Ever wonder what an aurora looks like from space? The Paintings in the Sky http://www.exploratorium.edu/learning_studio/auroras/fromspace.html website has some amazing images taken from the space shuttle.

When you see an aurora, you lose all rational thought as to the cause of the event. The beauty of that moving sky captures you and holds you…as you hold your breath, not wanting it to end.