Back on September 14, 2019, the girls found this delightful larva for me while shuffling around some dead leaves.
When it was feeling threatened it would stand still with its head hidden like that, but then it would shoot out its head a considerable distance and poke around with it.
Sometimes I think we don’t fully appreciate just how alien arthropods are compared with mammals and other vertebrates, simply because (a) they are all over the place and we are used to them, and (b) they are mostly so small that we don’t clearly see the extent to which they do things very differently from us. Relative to us, in fact, they could be considered to be constructed backwards, upside-down, and inside-out. Here, let me explain what I mean by this [1].
1. Backwards? (digestive tract)
The last common ancestor of vertebrates and arthropods appears to be the (so far hypothetical) “ur-bilateran”, a bilaterally symmetrical, probably macroscopic organism with a photosensitive eye-spot, a bare minimum nervous system, and either no digestive tract at all, or a digestive cavity with a single opening that served both to bring food in, and to move wastes out. Here, let me make a quick sketch:
No, this is not about a catchy song about corn that you can’t get out of your head. Although it might be amusing if it was.
On August 25, 2019, we bought some ears of sweet corn from the grocery store. When we got them home and started peeling off the husks, I noticed that one of them had some insect damage at the tip:
We have a small decorative pond that we built some years ago in our side yard[1]. And on September 1, 2019, Sam and Rosie found this lethargic, pale dragonfly roosting on one of the rocks bordering the pond, and brought it in to show me.
On June 29, 2019, a mosquito had gotten into the house, probably bitten somebody, and then tried to escape through a window screen. She didn’t make it, though, because we have friends.
That’s a Zebra Jumping Spider, Salticus scenicus, looking out for her own interests while also simultaneously looking after ours. They hang around on our window screens and nab things like this mosquito that try to get through.
Every fall, Sandy puts out corn for the deer, with a trail camera[1] to keep track of who comes in. And we don’t just get deer. We get these, too.
These are wild turkeys (Meleagris gallopavo) coming in on November 21, 2020. And if anyone is still dubious about the idea that birds are actually the surviving dinosaurs, I think these are a pretty convincing argument. They are big, have a very dinosaur-like shape and gait, and I’m not sure I’d want to tangle with a flock of them.
I was down in the swamp on the northern part of our property on July 13, 2020 when I spotted these little yellow flowers growing amongst the cattails. I didn’t have my camera along, so I brought a sprig up to the house to photograph.
OK, this time we have a plant that both has an edible fruit, and is clearly and unambiguously a native plant[1]. They grow in some profusion out behind our house, among many, many other places, and have a fairly tasty little purple berry. Here is one that I photographed on May 26, 2019, just as it was close to peak bloom.
As I sit here looking out the window watching a snowstorm rolling in, it is natural to want to remember happier days. So let’s turn back the clock to May 31 of 2019. It was warm and sunny, the grass was green, and the magnolias were blooming.
I was driving home through Atlantic Mine (the town two miles down the road)[1] on July 13, 2019, when I spotted a suspicious-looking rock in the middle of the road. Of course, it wasn’t a rock at all, but a moderate-sized painted turtle (Chrysemys picta). So I rescued him from being run over in traffic, and brought him home. Here he is in Sam’s hand:
