They’re hard-working, tail-slapping, tree-cutting machines, and they’re one of the greatest wildlife recovery stories in North America: Castor canadensis, the North American beaver. And, as if all that weren’t enough, apparently their rear ends produce an oil that’s vanilla-scented. Join the guys as they keep their puns and innuendos in check and dive into beavers!

This episode was recorded on January 28, 2023 at the Beaver Meadow Audubon Center in North Java, NY.  

Episode Notes

Beaver anal glands – which gland is used for which? There was some confusion over the beaver’s anal glands and the oils they produce. Some sources stated that beavers have two anal glands that produce oil for waterproofing - the oil that smells like motor oil in male beavers and rancid cheese in females) and two more glands that produce oil (castoreum) for marking their scent mounds. Some sources, however, said the waterproofing oil was also used for scent marking. So, what gives?

With a little more research, Bill discovered that he misspoke during the episode. Beavers have two anal glands that produce the waterproofing oil, and two castor sacs (not glands, although they’re often referred to as such) that produce castoreum, the oil used for scent-marking. All four structures are located near each other, between the pelvis and the base of the tail.

Here’s a paper that explains it all. Click the “pdf viewer” tab for a format that is easier to read.

Steve recalled hearing how parts of whales were used in perfume production. He was right! “Ambergris [is] a solid waxy substance originating in the intestine of the sperm whale (Physeter catodon). In Eastern cultures ambergris is used for medicines and potions and as a spice; in the West it was used to stabilize the scent of fine perfumes.” From Britannica.com

When discussing the study that looked at how beaver dams fare during floods, Bill cited that, in one study, 70% of beaver dams remained intact during a flood event. Steve then pointed out that 30% of the dams failing seemed to lend at least some credence to the anecdotal records of beaver dams being unreliable at mitigating flood impacts. If Bill was a quicker thinker, he would have realized that he had JUST SAID that even though 30% of the dams in the study did not remain completely intact, the researchers found that many of them still helped reduce flood impacts downstream.

Do wetlands have lower biomass? Steve mentioned he thought this was true, but, after the episode, Bill did a search of general and academic sources and could not find a definitive answer. He was, however, rushing a bit, trying to get this episode released. If you find a source with a concrete answer to this question and send it in (thefieldguides@gmail.com), the guys would definitely give you a shout-out on a future episode!

Links

The Conversation: This is the website Bill mentioned that publishes science articles for the general public, written by academics and researchers.

The world’s largest beaver dam - 58.2722° N, 112.2521° W

A collection of Gerry Rising’s nature columns from the Buffalo News (1991-2015). More recently, he wrote for Buffalo Spree, and those articles can be found here.

Check out the Outside Chronicles website. You can also follow them on Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram.

Support

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Always Wandering Art - Thank you to Always Wandering Art for this month’s episode artwork!

Works Cited

Aleksiuk, M., 1970. The function of the tail as a fat storage depot in the beaver (Castor canadensis). Journal of Mammalogy, 51(1), pp.145-148.

Lancia, R.A., Dodge, W.E. and Larson, J.S., 1982. Winter activity patterns of two radio-marked beaver colonies. Journal of Mammalogy, 63(4), pp.598-606.

Larsen, A., Larsen, J.R. and Lane, S.N., 2021. Dam builders and their works: Beaver influences on the structure and function of river corridor hydrology, geomorphology, biogeochemistry and ecosystems. Earth-Science Reviews, 218, p.103623.

Lazar, J.G., Addy, K., Gold, A.J., Groffman, P.M., McKinney, R.A. and Kellogg, D.Q., 2015. Beaver ponds: resurgent nitrogen sinks for rural watersheds in the northeastern United States. Journal of environmental quality, 44(5), pp.1684-1693.

Stephenson, A.B., 1969. Temperatures within a beaver lodge in winter. Journal of Mammalogy, 50(1), pp.134-136.

Tape, K.D., Clark, J.A., Jones, B.M., Kantner, S., Gaglioti, B.V., Grosse, G. and Nitze, I., 2022. Expanding beaver pond distribution in Arctic Alaska, 1949 to 2019. Scientific Reports, 12(1), pp.1-9.

Westbrook, C.J., Ronnquist, A. and Bedard‐Haughn, A., 2020. Hydrological functioning of a beaver dam sequence and regional dam persistence during an extreme rainstorm. Hydrological Processes, 34(18), pp.3726-3737.

Our six-legged celebration continues! In this second part, the guys wrap up their behind-the-scenes tour of the Cornell University Insect Collection with Jason Dombroskie, collection manager and director of the insect diagnostic lab, and THEN, Jason provides the guys with some eye protection and takes them out into the woods for some nighttime mothing!

This episode was recorded on July 2-3, 2022 at the Cornell University Insect Collection in Comstock Hall at Cornell University and at Steege Hill Nature Preserve in Corning, NY.

Links

Check out Jason’s website to find out about his lab, research, publications, and more.

The Cornell University Insect Collection

Follow their social media feeds: Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, and Facebook

And their annual October event Insectapalooza

The Museum of the Earth’s Six-Legged Science exhibit

Visit The Finger Lakes Land Trust to find out about their vital work conserving the Steege Hill Preserve and other wildlands in central NY State.

Check out Walden Heights Nursery and Orchard, a certified organic farm specializing in cold-hardy, fruiting plants.

Support

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Make a onetime Paypal donation.

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Always Wandering Art

This month, Bill and Steve geek out over insects! And it’s because they were lucky enough to have an even bigger insect geek invite them on a field trip. Jason Dombroskie is the collection manager and director of the insect diagnostic lab at Cornell University. His invite to take the guys mothing in July of 2022 turned into a marvelous, day-long adventure:

In part one, you’ll hear the guys meet up with Jason for a tour of his property and an interview delving into Jason’s background and what it’s like to be a professional entomologist (it involves studying lots of insect genitalia, among other things). We follow that up with a behind-the-scenes tour of the Cornell University Insect Collection - an assemblage spanning over 7 million insect specimens representing about 200,000 species, or roughly 20% of the world’s described insect fauna.

So, strap in and prepare yourself for…Insectapalooza!

This episode was recorded on July 2, 2022 at Jason’s property near Ithaca, NY and at the Cornell University Insect Collection in Comstock Hall at Cornell University.

Links

The Cornell University Insect Collection

Also, check out their great Instagram feed

And their annual October event Insectapalooza

Support

The Field Guides Patreon

Make a onetime Paypal donation.

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Gumleaf Boots, USA

Always Wandering Art

Have you ever heard a mockingbird imitate a blue jay? How about a seal imitating a Maine fisherman? This month, the guys explore what happens when animals make sounds they’re not supposed to: the wild world of vocal mimicry. Birds imitate chainsaws and car alarms, elephants speak Korean; what’s going on? With a special focus on one of the bird world’s best known mimics - the northern mockingbird (Mimus polyglottos) - the guys delve into the research trying to explain why animals - especially birds - feel the need to engage in the wildlife equivalent of, “I know you are, but what am I?”  

Episode Notes

Steve wondered about the similarity between the scientific names of the northern mockingbird (Mimus polyglottos) and monkeyflowers (in the genus Mimulus). Turns out that both refer to mimicking; the mockingbird (whose scientific name means ““many-tongued mimic”) imitates the sounds of other species, and the monkeyflowers have flowers that, at least to some, seem to have grinning faces resembling those of monkeys.

Bill mentioned that the viceroy butterfly (Limenitis archippus) is often mistakenly cited as an example of Batesian mimicry. What’s up with that? Here’s what the University of Wisconsin has to say about it: “Ecologists have long preached that Viceroys have enjoyed a Batesian “Get-out-of-Jail-Free” card due to their resemblance to the toxic Monarch butterfly (Batesian mimicry—the harmless imitating the harmful). Monarchs are poisonous because their caterpillar host plant, milkweed, contains harmful cardiac glycosides. Recent research suggests that because willow leaves are very bitter, the Viceroy may be almost as distasteful as Monarchs. In that case, Monarchs and Viceroys are mimicking each other, each cashing in on the other’s bad reputation (Mullerian mimicry).”

Check out episode 34: The Downy-Hairy Game for more info on Batesian and Mullerian mimicry

The guys wondered, “Are there any large passerines (songbirds/perching birds)?” The largest seem to be in the raven family; “The heaviest and altogether largest passerines are the thick-billed raven and the larger races of common raven, each exceeding 1.5 kg (3.3 lb) and 70 cm (28 in). The superb lyrebird and some birds-of-paradise, due to very long tails or tail coverts, are longer overall.” (Source: Wikipedia)

The guys briefly discussed mobbing behavior in birds, and Bill mentioned a couple of suspected reasons behind the behavior. He regretted not mentioning what is accepted as the most likely reason: to drive away predators!

Steve wondered, “Did mimicry evolve independently?” According to a 2018 study, “Vocal mimicry evolved independently at least 237 times and was lost at least 52 times.”

Since brown headed cowbirds are nest parasites and don’t raise their own young, how do their young learn the brown headed cowbird song? Turns out that the good people at BirdNote did an episode on this very topic in 2021! Here’s the takeaway from the episode transcript” “Scientists think that when a young cowbird hears the “chatter call” of an adult cowbird, something is triggered in its brain, and it begins to learn the song of its own species. Like a kind of “password,” the chatter call guides the young bird in recognizing what species to identify with. Then, when the young cowbird is ready — probably when it’s two years old — and hears an adult male Brown-headed Cowbird sing, it will imprint on that song.  It’s a remarkable adaptation, even more so when you consider that cowbirds are fostered by as many as 220 different species. And they still wind up learning their own song.”

Links

Find out more about Hoover, the talking seal.

A clip of the superb lyrebird from the incomparable David Attenborough and his series Lives of Birds

Head down a fascinating rabbithole and explore the world of mimicry

Meet Koshik, the elephant that speaks Korean

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Photo Credit

(c) bluewing – some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)

Works Cited

Ancillotto, L., Pafundi, D., Cappa, F., Chaverri, G., Gamba, M., Cervo, R. and Russo, D., 2022. Bats mimic hymenopteran insect sounds to deter predators. Current Biology, 32(9), pp.R408-R409.

Gammon, D.E. and Altizer, C.E., 2011. Northern mockingbirds produce syntactical patterns of vocal mimicry that reflect taxonomy of imitated species. Journal of Field Ornithology, 82(2), pp.158-164.

Howard, R.D., 1974. The influence of sexual selection and interspecific competition on mockingbird song (Mimus polyglottos). Evolution, pp.428-438.

Owen-Ashley, N.T., Schoech, S.J. and Mumme, R.L., 2002. Context-specific response of Florida scrub-jay pairs to northern mockingbird vocal mimicry. The Condor, 104(4), pp.858-865.

Black Walnut (Juglans nigra) is a tree well-known for its ability to negatively affect other plants growing nearby, a phenomenon known as allelopathy. But is Black Walnut really as allelopathic as the Internet would have you believe? In this episode, the guys go nuts: delving into this question and many other facets of the fascinating (and tasty?) Black Walnut, including an on-air tasting of Black Walnut syrup. Enjoy!

This episode was recorded on May 11, 2022 at the Beaver Meadow Audubon Center in North Java, NY.

Episode Notes

Thank you to listener Mark Carroll for giving us the idea for this episode and providing the paper on which much of it was based.

Is Black Walnut wind pollinated? Bill mentioned during the episode that he thought the flowers were insect pollinated. He was WRONG! According to Floral Biology And Pollination Of Eastern Black Walnut, a publication by the National Forest Service, “Walnut trees are wind-pollinated and classified as monoecious; male and female flowers are on the same tree, but separated from each other.” Bill stands by his assessment, however, that the distinctive, seldom-seen flowers are worth checking out. This page provides some nice pictures; scroll down to see both the male and female blossoms. The female flowers look like milkweed pods with a sea anemone stuck on top!

What is the correct measurement of diameter at breast height (DBH)? Diameter at breast height, or DBH, is a standard method of expressing the diameter of the trunk or bole of a standing tree. Tree trunks are measured at the height of an adult's breast; in many countries, DBH is measured at approximately 1.3 m (4.3 ft) above ground, but in the US, DBH is typically measured at 4.5 ft (1.37 m) above ground. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diameter_at_breast_height

Does Steve know about honeysuckles? Steve claimed that honeysuckles (Lonicera sp.) with a hollow pith are not native to eastern North America and that the ones without a hollow pith are native. According to Iowa State University, “Twigs of all species can be hollow. However, the twigs of native species tend to be less hollow with a white pith whereas the exotic species are more obviously hollow with a brown pith.”

Are there other plants with a chambered pith? Yes! Black Tupelo (Nyssa sylvatica) is another species, unrelated to walnuts, that has a chambered pith.

What does microcarpa mean? During their discussion of other walnut species, Bill mentioned the Little Walnut (Juglans microcarpa) , and Steve wondered what “microcarpa” means. The answer? Small fruit.

Links

The Get Crackin' Nut Cracker

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field-guides.creator-spring.com">The Field Guides Merch Shop

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Gumleaf Boots, USA

Picture Credit

Thank you to Always Wandering Art (Website and Etsy Shop) for providing this episode’s artwork, as well as the art for many of our previous episodes!

Works Cited

Chalker-Scott, L., 2019. Do Black Walnut Trees Have Allelopathic Effects on Other Plants?. Washington State University Extension.

Marking, L.L., 1970. Juglone (5-hydroxy-1, 4-naphthoquinone) as a fish toxicant. Transactions of the American Fisheries Society, 99(3), pp.510-514.

Willis, R.J., 2000. Juglans spp., juglone and allelopathy. Allelopathy J, 7(1), pp.1-55.

Page, Teri. Homestead Honey, honey.com/beyond-maple-syrup-tapping-black-walnut-trees/">https://homestead-honey.com/beyond-maple-syrup-tapping-black-walnut-trees/. Accessed 5 Apr. 2009.

What’s dark and slimy and over two feet long? It’s an Eastern Hellbender! This aquatic giant salamander, endemic to the eastern and central US, is the largest amphibian in North America, often weighing in at over 4 lbs.! The hellbender (Cryptobranchus alleganiensis) is, not unlike Steve, secretive and slimy but also fascinating. Join the guys for one hell of an episode learning about this rare and disappearing denizen of fast-moving streams.

This episode was recorded on January 22, 2022 at Chestnut Ridge County Park in Orchard Park, NY.

Episode Notes

Bill said that the Kinzua Bridge was about 300 feet long, but he was mistaken. The bridge was about 300 feet high. The length was 2,053 feet.

When Bill was talking about the white tips on hellbender toes, he mistakenly said that hellbenders have “fingers”. D’oh! Bill understand that salamanders don’t have toes, but he wants everyone to know he was using the term in a cutesy way.

Steve mentioned his friend Zachary Cava and Zack’s research into hellbenders. Bill was able to track down Zack’s study! Full citation below under “Works Cited”.

Around the 20:50 mark, Steve wonders if there is an ecological concept or law stating that larger species tend to go extinct more quickly than small species. After recording, Bill did some searching but could not find any specific law. Anyone out there that knows of one? Please get in touch with us!

Bill gave a quick and somewhat vague definition of siltation. Here’s a more complete definition: Siltation refers both to the increased concentration of suspended sediments and to the increased accumulation of fine sediments on [waterway] bottoms where they are undesirable. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siltation

Useful Links

Check out Life Among the Milkweed, the new book from friend-of-the-podcast Melissa Borowicz Betrus

Visit Kinzua Bridge State Park and Sky Walk in Pennsylvania

Ellen Paquette’s WeeBeasties Etsy Shop (Paquette is the artist who created the plush hellbender Bill mentioned in this episode)

Stuff You Should Know’s excellent episode on zoos: Are Zoos Good or Bad For Animals?

Sponsors

Gumleaf Boots, USA (free shipping for patrons)

Thank you to Always Wandering Art (Website and Etsy Shop) for providing the artwork for many of our previous episodes!

Support Us

Support us on Patreon!

field-guides.creator-spring.com/">Check out the Field Guides merch at our Teespring store. It’s really a great deal: you get to pay us to turn your body into a billboard for the podcast!

 Works Cited

Bodinof, C.M., Briggler, J.T., Junge, R.E., Beringer, J., Wanner, M.D., Schuette, C.D., Ettling, J., Gitzen, R.A. and Millspaugh, J.J., 2012. Postrelease movements of captive-reared Ozark hellbenders (Cryptobranchus alleganiensis bishopi). Herpetologica, 68(2), pp.160-173.

Cava, Z.A., McMillan, A.M., Pennuto, C.M. and Warren, R.J., 2018. Hellbender prey preference is superseded by native and nonnative prey behavior. Journal of Herpetology, 52(2), pp.162-170.

Crowhurst, R.S., Faries, K.M., Collantes, J. et al. Genetic relationships of hellbenders in the Ozark highlands of Missouri and conservation implications for the Ozark subspecies (Cryptobranchus alleganiensis bishopi). Conserv Genet 12, 637–646 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10592-010-0170-0

Foster, R.L., 2018. Lessons From the Past: A Historical Approach to Conservation of the Eastern Hellbender Salamander (Cryptobranchus alleganiensis) (Doctoral dissertation, State University of New York at Buffalo).

Photo Credit

"Hellbender" by John Garret is licensed under CC BY NC

Jewelweed. Spotted touch-me-not. Orange Balsam. It’s a plant known by many names, and, even if you don’t recognize any of them, you’ve probably popped one of its exploding seed pods. A favorite of hummingbirds and nature-lovers young and old, it’s a species with many stories to share. Listen in as the guys dive deep into the jewelweed patch, eating some seeds, trying to find the source of the “jewel” in jewelweed’s name, and getting to the bottom of the age-old claim that jewelweed is a cure for poison ivy.

 This episode was recorded on September 26, 2021 at Birdsong Park in Orchard Park, NY

 Episode Notes:

Which species is more common in North America: yellow (aka pale) jewelweed or orange jewelweed? While it may vary from place to place, orange jewelweed seems to be the more common species. Nearly every site we visited referred to it as “common” or “more common” and to the yellow jewelweed as “less common”. Orange jewelweed’s North American range is also broader than yellow jewelweed’s (yellow is absent from most of the Gulf states and most Canadian provinces).

When do the Witch hazel seeds explode out of their capsules? Steve and Bill were both confused on the timing. Witch hazel (Hamamelis virginiana) is a forest understory tree that blooms in the fall. The seeds take a year to develop and are forcibly expelled (because of dehiscence) from the seed capsules the following fall or winter. Check out our episode on witch hazel!

Are there any plants that produce only cleistogamous (closed, self-pollinating) flowers? Not that we could find. Most sources make reference to the fact that cleistogamous flowering is a behavior that appears to have evolved to ensure reproduction under unfavorable conditions. These conditions usually limit or prevent cross pollination of the typical, chasmogamous (open) flowers.  

How many species of jewelweed do we have in North America? The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center lists 4 species of Impatiens native to North America. I. capensis and I. pallida are the ones found in the east (although, as mentioned in this episode, some sources list I. capensis as native in the Pacific northwest, as well). Five nonnative Impatiens species have also been introduced to the continent.

Steve wondered what the Latin term ecalcarata means. This came up when Bill was discussing the western species of jewelweed, specifically, Impatiens ecalcarata. Turns out that ecalcarata means spurless, and the common name of this species is, appropriately enough, spurless touch-me-not or spurless jewelweed (AKA western jewelweed). FYI: The Latin name has been updated recently, and this species is now Impatiens ecornuta.

Schizomyla impatientis is the Latin name of the midge that makes a gall on jewelweed. Steve recognized the genus, Schizomyla, and wondered if this insect was related to any of the gall-making insects we mentioned way back in our goldenrod episode (episode 1!). Bill checked, and the answer is no. 

Books Mentioned During This Episode

100 Flowers and How They Got Their Names – Diana Wells

How Plants Get Their Names by LH Bailey

The Book of Swamp & Bog: Trees, Shrubs, and Wildflowers of Eastern Freshwater Wetlands by John Eastman

National Audubon Society Birds of North America

National Audubon Society: Trees of North America

Useful Links

Gumleaf Boots, USA (free shipping for patrons)

Thank you to Always Wandering Art (Website and Etsy Shop) for providing the artwork for many of our previous episodes!

Support us on Patreon!

field-guides.creator-spring.com/">Check out the Field Guides merch at our Teespring store. It’s really a great deal: you get to pay us to turn your body into a billboard for the podcast!

 Works Cited

Cipollini, K. A. & Hurley, S. L. (2008) Variation in Resistance of Experienced and Naive Seedlings of Jewelweed (Impatiens capensis) to Invasive Garlic Mustard (Alliaria petiolata). The Ohio journal of science. 108 (3), 47–49.

Guin, Jere D., and Ruth Reynolds. "Jewelweed treatment of poison ivy dermatitis." Contact dermatitis 6.4 (1980): 287-288.

Lipton, R. A. "The use of impatiens biflora (jewelweed) in the treatment of rhus dermatitis." Annals of allergy 16.5 (1958): 526.

Long, David, Noel H. Ballentine, and James G. Marks Jr. "Treatment of poison ivy/oak allergic contact dermatitis with an extract of jewelweed." Dermatitis 8.3 (1997): 150-153.

Martin, L.J., Agrawal, A.A. and Kraft, C.E., 2015. Historically browsed jewelweed populations exhibit greater tolerance to deer herbivory than historically protected populations. Journal of Ecology, 103(1), pp.243-249.

Motz, Vicki A., et al. "Efficacy of the saponin component of Impatiens capensis Meerb. in preventing urushiol-induced contact dermatitis." Journal of ethnopharmacology 162 (2015): 163-167.

Motz, Vicki Abrams, et al. "The effectiveness of jewelweed, Impatiens capensis, the related cultivar I. balsamina and the component, lawsone in preventing post poison ivy exposure contact dermatitis." Journal of ethnopharmacology 143.1 (2012): 314-318.

Schmitt, J., Ehrhardt, D. and Swartz, D., 1985. Differential dispersal of self-fertilized and outcrossed progeny in jewelweed (Impatiens capensis). The American naturalist, 126(4), pp.570-575.

Travers, S.E., Temeles, E.J. and Pan, I., 2003. The relationship between nectar spur curvature in jewelweed (Impatiens capensis) and pollen removal by hummingbird pollinators. Canadian journal of botany, 81(2), pp.164-170.

This month, the guys set out to discover if daddy longlegs really are the most poisonous spider in the world, but, along the way, they uncover a fascinating array of arachnids and adaptations in the group known collectively as harvestmen. Join them for some mythbusting and a deep dive into the little-known order of arachnids called Opiliones.

Episode Notes

Steve referred to the American toad as Bufo americanus, and Bill agreed. But they were both wrong because its Latin name has been changed to Anaxyrus americanus.

At one point, Bill made a comment where he seemed to be saying that all reptiles have teeth. They do not. He wants to clarify that he was speaking specifically about snakes. What he should have said is “Most snakes have teeth, but not all snakes have fangs.”

Steve mentioned that he didn’t know much about Dick Walton, so we looked him up! Turns out Dick Walton is a naturalist and teacher living in Concord, MA. He considers himself a generalist but has focused on birds, butterflies, dragonflies, solitary wasps, and jumping spiders. He coauthored Peterson’s seminal Birding By Ear audio field guides, the go-to guide for budding birders in the pre-app era. Check out his work at http://www.rkwalton.com/ The guys have great respect for his work and hope that Mr. Walton was not offended by their joking around in this episode..

What is the origin of the name “daddy longlegs”? No one seems to know for sure, but some sources point to the book, Daddy-Long-Legs, a 1912 novel by the American writer Jean Webster. But the book, as far as we can tell, has nothing to do with arachnids. So, we’re still scratching our heads on that one.

Steve wondered if crane flies are dipterans – they are!

Also, during this episode, Steve had a couple questions about the mouth parts of dipterans (flies) and hemipterans (true bugs):

Do all dipterans have sucking mouth parts? Yes! “Flies have a mobile head, with a pair of large compound eyes, and mouthparts designed for piercing and sucking (mosquitoes, black flies and robber flies), or for lapping and sucking in the other groups. “ from Wikipedia

How are wheel bugs killing? The wheel bugs is a species of assassin bug and is a True Bug (Order Hemiptera). “Most hemipterans feed on plants, using their sucking and piercing mouthparts to extract plant sap…but some hemipterans such as assassin bugs are blood-suckers, and a few are predators” from Wikipedia

Steve wondered if mites were the largest group of invertebrates, but it turns out that arthropods. Ok, then, are mites the largest order of arthropods. Nope, that honor belongs to insects. Alright, maybe Steve meant to say that mites are the largest group of arachnids, but, still no, spiders are.

Do spider legs have chemical receptors? Spiders, in fact, do taste, and also smell, through special sensory organs on their legs, as well as on their pedipalps.

Steve was correct when he said that our five local species of ashes (black, white, green, blue, and pumpkin) are critically endangered.

Steve mentioned seeing a kissing bug covered in dust in his house, but a search did not turn up any records of this behavior in kissing bugs. Maybe Steve was referring to an insect commonly called the masked hunter (Reduvius personatus). Masked hunters are given this name because the immature masked hunter carries dust and debris on its body to camouflage itself.

What are the hairs in pitcher plants called? 12-venezuelan-pitcher-wettable-hairs-insects.html">Trichomes 

Useful Links

Gumleaf Boots, USA (free shipping for patrons)

Thank you to Always Wandering Art (Website and Etsy Shop) for providing the artwork for many of our previous episodes!

Support us on Patreon!

field-guides.creator-spring.com">Check out the Field Guides merch at our Teespring store. It’s really a great deal: you get to pay us to turn your body into a billboard for the podcast!

Works Cited

Pinto-da-Rocha, Ricardo, Glauco Machado and Gonzalo Giribet. 2007. Harvestmen: The Biology of Opiliones. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Shear, W.A. (2009) 'Harvestmen: Opiliones--which include daddy-long-legs--are as exotic as they are familiar', American Scientist, 97(6), 468+, available: https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A229835627/AONE?u=nysl_oweb&sid=googleScholar&xid=680b9445 [accessed 25 Jun 2021].

Zobel-Thropp, P.A., Mullins, J., Kristensen, C., Kronmiller, B.A., David, C.L., Breci, L.A. and Binford, G.J., 2019. Not so dangerous after all? Venom composition and potency of the Pholcid (Daddy Long-Leg) spider Physocyclus mexicanus. Frontiers in ecology and evolution, 7, p.256.