Dr. Worm

A friend of mine found an exciting Endangered Ugly Thing that I knew I had to write about. Nothing fits so far outside the "charismatic megafauna" category as a giant earthworm.










While the Giant Palouse Earthworm (Driloleirus americanus) is not the largest earthworm¹, a three foot long earthworm is nothing to sneeze at. Especially when it smells like flowers. Yes, while other animals thrash or bite or musk when handled, the Giant Earthworm emits a flowery scent. Smelling like lilies, in fact. No one knows why. It is also said to spit and run (slither?) away to avoid predators. One local conservationist has been oft quoted as saying, "This worm is the stuff that legends and fairy tales are made of." I want to know what fairy tales he's been reading.

The Palouse region from which the Earthworm derives its name is an area of eastern Washington and northern Idaho that was dominated by thick prairies. However, as of today, most of the area has been converted to agricultural use. While the Giant Earthworm never tends to directly contact surface vegetation--what with living in burrows 15 feet underground--it can still be affected by the change. This habitat loss, as well as competition with invasive worms² has led to the Palouse Giant Earthworm's decline.

Like a few other animals I've written about, the Giant Palouse Earthworm went a long time without any sightings. Unlike, for example, the Long-beaked Echidna, they've recently found another specimen. In 2005, a grad student from the University of Idaho found one, and it is now preserved in formaldehyde for posterity. While the IUCN has listed it as vulnerable, the US Fish and Wildlife Service seems reluctant to federally list it. This, of course, has put conservationists in an uproar. But hey, if this kind of controversy can produce stories in multiple newspapers, teaching more people about new vulnerable animals, it can't be all bad.

¹ That honor belongs to the Giant Gippsland Earthworm (Megascolides australis) from Australia, which can grow up to 9 feet.
²Most earthworms you come in contact with in North America are invasive. Now you know.

Purple Haze

As a comment on my Copperbelly Watersnake post, Gargoyle Grins asked—very nicely—for a post on the Purple Burrowing Frog. I’m not sure when the comment was made, but I only saw it recently. I am more than happy to oblige a reader.

Having only been formally described in 2003, there is a surprising amount of information known about the Purple Burrowing Frog (Nasikabatrachus sahyadrensis). So far, it has only been found in two small areas in Western India, where it spends most of its time buried underground.

There are two major reasons for its subterranean lifestyle: it’s moist underground, and that’s where the termites live. With minimal eyes¹, the Purple Burrowing Frog relies on smell and touch to hunt. The pointy nose is useful for shoving through termite’s walls, and it has a tongue specially shaped for sucking up the little morsels. The Purple Burrowing Frog depends on termites for more than just a food source. The structures and tunnels built by the termites help aerate and moisten the soil. It is the only burrowing frog that feeds underground; all others simply hide in the dirt to avoid predators.

During the monsoon season, however, the frogs come out to breed. They make their way to nearby water sources, and begin the mating process. Due to similarities to other species, it’s probable that the male temporarily glues himself to the back of the female during amplexus. Since it was only discovered in 2003, there are still quite a few uncertainties about its lifecycle.

Our lavender friends are listed as endangered by the IUCN because the range it has been found in is so small, and the forests under which they dig are threatened by expanding cultivation. Much more needs to be learnt about this animal before conservation efforts can be put into place.

¹Eye reduction happens a lot in underground animals.

Horseshoes

I have been slacking and I know it. I graduate from the warm, quiet womb of my liberal arts college at 1:00 this afternoon, so I’ve been trying to set up a summer job and a grad school, and the blog has fallen by the wayside. I should be on schedule during the summer.

Greg e-mailed me an article about an endangered rat from Australia that people are desperately trying to protect. Unfortunately, there seems to be little information on the little rodent, but I thought you readers might be interested. This week’s animal is one I’ve looked at for a while, and I’ve just now gotten around to writing about it.
















Three years ago, I worked in the Shores department at the Columbus Zoo. One of the scariest looking denizens of the touch pool was the Horseshoe Crab (Limulus polyphemus). With its fierce-looking eyes and pointy tail, it intimidated some of the visitors. It didn’t help that many people thought it was a baby stingray¹.

That scary-looking tail (formally called a telson) is about as sharp as a dulled pencil, and just about as dangerous. When adults migrate en masse onto the dry high-tide zone to lay eggs, flipping is a definite possibility. Right side-up, they present an armored shell to any seabirds. Upside-down, they are a bowl of seafood². The long telson allows them to right themselves, hopefully before any hungry seagulls show up.

The eggs they lay hatch into “trilobite larvae,” who look enough like their namesake. These stay buried for a few weeks, until the right high tide rolls in. They then swim like mad until they are below the intertidal zone. A few days later, they molt into juveniles, and start living on the bottom, living in deeper waters as they age. As adults, they aren’t exactly picky about what they eat; they live off of whatever animals have burrowed into the sand.

I know, they’re not actually listed as endangered, but there are a number of people worried about their conservation. There are two main uses for them, both of which costal states are setting limits on. The first is use as bait for eel and conch fishing, and this seems to be the largest source human-induced mortality in the Horseshoe Crabs. The other use is in medical research, as they are harvested for their literal blue blood (it’s copper-based). This can be used to test pharmaceuticals, but don’t ask me how. Research and education programs are popping into existence to try to help save the Horseshoe Crab before it gets listed.


¹Alas, the Touch-A-Shark pool had shut down years before.
²Upside-down, they also look like face-huggers from Alien.

Buzzsaw

This will not be the first time I’ve written about things with exciting nasal protuberances. I don’t find these noses ugly—they all do nifty things, and I can’t help but write about them.














The rostrum of Green Sawfish (Pristis zijsron) is no exception. It uses its saw mainly for feeding—swiping at unsuspecting fish, stunning and injuring the intended prey, or raking up tasty crustaceans from the seafloor. The Sawfish is closely related to sharks and rays, and, like them, has sharp scales called denticles; these have been modified to form the “teeth” of the saw. Catching food is not the only thing the rostrum is good for, as it is lined with motion- and electric- sensing pores to find buried prey. That, and if anything happens to appear threatening, it couldn’t hurt to have a spiky protrusion on… um… hand.

I thought Wikipedia had a typo when it stated that the Green Sawfish grew as large as 7 meters—surely, they must mean feet. Nope. This is a big fish. They reach maturity at 14 feet. Think of the length of a typical bedroom. A little more than half of that is filled with a fish that looks halfway between a shark and a ray. The other five and a half feet is a nose with spikes. Don’t worry; humans are much too large to be considered prey, though you might not want to provoke them.

The Green Sawfish is the most common sawfish. It’s also critically endangered. That doesn’t bode too well for the other species. In fact, the Common Sawfish (Pristis pristis) is pretty close to becoming extinct. The biggest threat to all sawfish is accidental by-catch by the fishing industry. Let’s face it, with a proboscis like that, getting tangled in nets would not be pleasant. Less frequently, they are caught on purpose—for meat, for oil, or for an interesting six-foot long spiky thing. As of yet, they are only beginning to set conservation measures into place.

Black Bead Game

I really wanted to write about the whipscorpion that Phantom Midge found, but I hate to say, there is little to no information about Trithyreus shoshonensis. So, my fall back this week is an animal that I got a picture of during my spring break trip to the Columbus Zoo. Growing up, I remember learning that the Gila Monster was one of two venomous lizards. This is the other one.

















Yes, the Mexican Beaded Lizard (Heloderma horridum) looks a whole lot like the Gila Monster. This so happens because they are within the same genus, and the major differences are that the Gila Monster is smaller and more colorful. Not having the hinged fangs of vipers, the Beaded Lizard delivers venom that flows along grooves in the teeth, and delivers by chewing. Digimorph gives a wonderful visual of that—check out the horizontal dynamic cutaway¹ and watch for the hollow bottom teeth. The venom is used mainly as a defense mechanism, and is typically non-fatal to humans—if you get medical treatment quickly enough. The small animals they prey on…well, that’s a different story.

The “beads” from which this lizard gets its name are osteoderms²: tiny bits of bone growing within the skin that lead to its studded appearance. This adds another layer of protection on top of the fact that they can maim with a single bite. They inhabit the scrublands and other semi-arid habitats of Western and Southern Mexico, explaining the other part of their name. Like some other arid-adapted lizards, the Mexican Beaded Lizard can store fat in its tail to provide food and water during times of scarcity.

Habitat loss, due to clearing for agriculture, is one large factor in this species’ decline. The one that really surprises me, however, is the pet trade. I’ve always been an avid fan of reptiles, and have no problems with keeping some as pets. But I draw the line at an animal that can kill me if improperly handled. To help stop this problem, they are listed by CITES, and there are breeding and head start programs to replenish their numbers in the wild.

¹Yes, it’s actually a Gila Monster. The principle is the same.
²Meaning “bone skin.”

You Dirty Rat

Today, I had an urge to write about a non-descript rat thing. At one point, I mentioned that the EDGE website was full of them. So, I went trolling, but to no avail. Many of them are quite cute. The ones that aren’t, well, it’s possible that some of them have been extinct since the ‘60s and no one’s noticed¹. Then, like a bolt from the blue, I remembered a non-descript rat thing that was much closer to home. I mentioned it by name in the original essay, and promptly forgot about its existence.














The Allegheny Woodrat (Neotoma magister) is literally a big packrat. Much like the Fen Raft Spider researchers who called it a “beautiful spider,” the Woodrat is described by Wikipedia as, “…particularly handsome in appearance resembling more of an over sized White-footed Mouse than the Norway Rat.” That’s not exactly a stunning endorsement.

As its name suggests, the Allegheny Woodrat is found along the Allegheny Mountains, typically in the woods. More specifically, these large rodents are found among rocky outcroppings, where they build their nests. They are nocturnal and understandably shy, as their main predators are owls, bobcats, weasels, foxes, and probably any other large predator that happens to be outside at that time of night. Their food consists of typical small herbivore fare: berries, seeds, nuts, and grasses.

Like other packrats, they make a bark-and-grass nest, tucked away in their little hidey-hole, and decorate it with exciting shiny things they find around the place. It has been suggested that they will place dried leaves near their football-sized nest to act as early warning systems to detect incoming predators. They raise three litters of three babies per year, which is apparently very few compared to their more promiscuous cousins.

Scientists have noticed the population decline of the Woodrats all over their range, except, apparently, in Kentucky, where they seem to be doing all right for some reason. Defoliation vectors, such as Gypsy Moth or Chestnut Blight have caused habitat problems throughout the Woodrat’s range. However, the best suspect for their decline is a little nematode known as Baylisascaris procyonis. As areas become more urbanized, generalists, such as Raccoons, become more populous. B. procyonis is a Raccoon parasite, and it is fatal to Woodrats. Most of the conservation efforts surrounding the Woodrat have been studies trying to control this parasite.

¹I really don’t like the fact that I can’t write about some organisms because there’s not enough data out there. I may have to make a post of animals with cool names and insufficient data, just to keep track of them.

Blood Meridian

It’s been a while since my last insect post, and I’m trying to decide if that’s a good way to go about picking the animals I write about. I fully intend to research the whipscorpion that Phantom Midge picked out for me, but I recently wrote about an arachnid—that’s why it took so long to write about the Copperbelly Watersnake. While looking through ARKive’s insects, I couldn’t help but note how interesting names play a part in which organisms I choose.
I just found the Dracula Ant. (Cue thunder.)



It doesn’t particularly look like much. However, note the stinger on the Dracula Ant (Adetomyrma venatrix): much like their wasp cousins, worker Dracula Ants will seek out prey and paralyze it with its stinger, and then… fail to drink its blood. No, it’s far worse then that. The helpless prey are then dragged back to the colony, and fed to the larvae. Once the larvae are satiated, the adults proceed to chew holes in them, sucking out some of their blood¹. This is termed “non-destructive cannibalism” by scientists, because the larvae aren’t killed. ARKive goes on to state (a little creepily): “Nevertheless, when hungry workers enter the chamber, the larvae have been observed attempting to flee and escape their fate.”

As weird as this sounds, other ants will feed outside food to their larvae for digestion, some of which the larvae will regurgitate as food for the adults. This allows each individual ant to have specialized mouthparts for their tasks. Since larvae are always specialized for eating, this allows them to act as a stomach for the colony.

While these miniscule bloodsuckers were first described in 1993, and the first colony discovered in 2001, they are listed as Critically Endangered by the IUCN. Like many animals from Madagascar, the island’s growing human population is encroaching on their habitat. Unlike most other ants, the queens are flightless, so they are that much more susceptible to habitat fragmentation. Their major protection lies in the hands of one guy—Dr. Fisher of the California Academy of Sciences. He was the one to discover the first colony, and he moved a few into his lab. If there is ever a need to start a captive breeding program, he seems to be the go to guy.

Edit: I just got new information (and a video!) on the Dromedary Jumping-Slug. I knew I created that e-mail address for a reason.

¹Technically, insects don’t have blood. They have hemolymph, which translates to “blood-water,” which is a pretty good definition of what it is.