They Call Him Flipper

Dolphins are charismatic, no question about that. They play, they learn, they do amazing acrobatics. Their smiling faces draw people to aquatic parks worldwide. The freshwater dolphins have gotten some press lately, but they aren’t the prettiest dolphins around.

I suppose the Gharial-like snout on the Ganges River Dolphin (Platanista gangetica) is what bothers me about it. Its stubby dorsal fin gives it a humpbacked appearance that is far less pleasing than the torpedo-shaped marine dolphins we’re used to. However, both of these serve an important purpose: maneuverability. The shorter dorsal fin allows for faster turns, and the thin, tooth-filled rostrum is perfect for slashing sideways into an unsuspecting fish.

The Ganges River Dolphin is also effectively blind. The lack of a lens means that any light entering the eye is only seen as unfocused blurs of shadow. However, for a creature with echolocation living in the silt-filled rivers of India, this is less of a problem than one would expect.

As those silt-filled rivers are in some of the most densely human populated areas of the world, you can expect there to be some environmental issues. Damming, pollution, boat traffic, and by-catch are all problems that this blind dolphin faces. The Yangtze River Dolphin faced similar problems, and is now listed as “functionally extinct”.

The Ganges River Dolphin may have some support to save it from that fate. Dolphin reserves are being established, and the WWF is trying its darndest to educate the public. India even named this dolphin the National Aquatic Animal. However, there is still a lot of work to be done to make sure it doesn’t go the way of the Yangtze River Dolphin.

Look Out For Mr. Stork

I’ve wanted to write about the Marabou Stork for a long time. It is amazingly ugly. It has a bald head, except for minimal scraggly hair. The giant, pointed beak, perfect for ripping into large African carrion, is the color of decaying bone. There is only one reason that it hasn’t appeared on this blog yet: it’s not endangered. Amrita from Not Extinct Yet has saved me though. No, she didn’t go and shoot enough Marabou Storks to put them on the list¹. She found the Greater Adjutant (Leptoptilos dubius) which is closely related enough the Marabou Stork to fill its place on Endangered Ugly Things.

Image from MangoVerde

The Greater Adjutant hails from Southeast Asia, roosting near wetlands that teem with its prey. What kind of prey? Whatever it can catch. Insects, crustaceans, frogs, fish, carrion, rodents, even slow ducks. Much like the Marabou Stork (and the vultures they compete with), the ugly bald head is a great adaptation for shoving one's face deep inside a rotting carcass².

Their large nesting colonies form in leafless trees around these wetlands during the dry season. As the water recedes, the aquatic animals this stork preys on are that much easier to grab. The Greater Adjutant uses this abundant resource to produce their eggs, and feed their hatchlings. I can't find any pictures of young Adjutants, but they can't be any uglier than the adults. Come the rainy season, they migrate to other wetlands in Northern India until the next breeding season.

The draining, clearing, and general messing-around-with of wetlands in the area has left only two breeding populations of these giant birds. One is in Cambodia, the other in Assam, India. Between these two areas, there are less than one thousand individuals. Along with the destruction of their habitat, the eggs and adults are also hunted, presumably because there's a lot of meat on a four-foot tall bird.

The Greater Adjutant is protected in the areas in which it's found, but enforcement is not always up to snuff. It seems that there was a big push to stop egg collection, which helped increase Adjutant numbers the next year. Hopefully these conservation efforts will continue to keep these magnificent, if horribly ugly, birds around.



¹ I’m imagining the IUCN listing—Threats: Conservationists.
²Think about eating a bowl of jello without your hands. Wouldn't that be so much more pleasant if you were bald?

The White Tent The Raft

It’s been a while since an arachnid has graced this blog, and since I only have three arachnid posts total, it’s high time I add to it¹. Everyone keeps calling it “one of Europe's largest, most beautiful but least common species of spider.” Hate to break it to you guys, but it’s still a spider, and most people don’t like spiders.

Image by Helen Smith. Yeah, I think it’s pretty too. But look how surprised that fish is!

The Fen Raft Spider (Dolomedes plantarius) is not an aquatic spider--there’s no such creature². However, they aren’t aquatic in the same way a Water Strider isn’t aquatic. Just because you can’t swim doesn’t mean you have to get out of the pool—or rather, off the pool. They skate on top, using surface tension to float across the bogs and swamps; hence the name “Fen Raft”.
These spiders are found throughout in wetlands throughout Europe, with a fairly spotty distribution. They do not build webs to hunt, preferring to wait on a stem with their front legs touching the water’s surface. When they feel a vibration, BAM! Dinner is served. Main courses typically include aquatic insects, water striders, and less frequently, fish, like our surprised friend shown above.

The water also comes in handy when a male Fen Raft Spider wants to woo the ladies. Courtship involves drumming the water until the couple meets, when they both begin to bob slowly to each other. Mating is quick, likely because it is not unheard of for the male to become a protein source. After laying the eggs, the female carries the egg sac under her fangs for about three weeks. After hatching, the young spend a week growing up in a web-nest that’s constructed and guarded by mom.

It seems that wetlands are disappearing everywhere, and therefore, so are the Fen Raft Spiders. The remaining wetlands are getting more and more pollution problems, and all evidence suggests that these spiders require clean water. There’s certainly hope though. Britain has pulled out all the stops trying to protect their two populations from dying out, and frankly, it seems to be working.

¹Here’s a challenge for you readers: can somebody find me an endangered whipscorpion? That would be cool.
²These are not spiders.

Babyface

When I started blogging, I told myself that I would have to keep a set deadline to make sure I kept it up. I would write one each weekend, and if I didn’t keep it up, I would almost certainly fall into the trap of procrastination. And here I am. I’m going to see if I can manage back into weekend-ly posts. Since this post is for last weekend, I’ll see if I can crank out another post by Sunday night. It’s getting harder than I expected to keep finding Endangered Ugly Things.

Image by me

However, looking through IUCN’s list of amphibians, I never expected to see this guy. It’s the Axolotl (Ambystoma mexicanum), whose face appears on many “Strange Animals!”-type publications and programs¹. They fall into that category due to the fact that they exhibit neoteny; that is, they never undergo metamorphoses like other amphibians, but retain their gills and dorsal fin for life. They are classified as mole salamanders (genus Ambystoma), which includes more everyday salamanders, such as the Eastern Tiger².

If you think the name “Axolotl” is hard on the mouth, just wait, I’ve got a few doozies in the next paragraph.
The Axolotl likely gets its name from the Aztec words meaning “water-dog,” though some sources link it to the other Aztec god of the underworld, Xolotl, twin of Quetzalcoatl. With these clues (as well as the fact that its species name is mexicanum), it’s not hard to guess where these are generally found in the wild. Yes, it lives in central Mexico, and its historic range includes Lake Xochimilco and Lake Chalco, which hasn’t existed since before the Europeans showed up. Xochimilco (National Geographic pronunciation: SO-chee-MILL-koh) is now only a series of canals within the bounds of Mexico City. Understandably, Axolotl populations aren’t quite what they were when the Aztecs were using them as a daily meat source.

While pollution and habitat loss have thrown the wild Axolotls onto the Critically Endangered list, that isn’t to say that there aren’t many left. They breed in captivity wonderfully, and are used in many medical research labs to study their ability to regenerate limbs (wouldn’t that be convenient?).

The restoration of an ecological park has stabilized populations in the wild, and the introduction of the abundant captive bred individuals could bring these salamanders back from the brink. Also, a local university is working hard to save the local wildlife by increasing public awareness, and are using the Axolotl as their flagship species.

¹I, personally, first came to know of their existence from a series called Zoobooks, where an Axolotl appeared on the cover of “Animal Wonders,” I believe.
²Neat fact: other Mole Salamander species have developed neoteny, which apparently frequently shows up where the water is low on predators and the surrounding land is dry.

Dragonfly1

As an adult, this week’s EUT is a dazzling green aerobat, a thing to behold as it zips through the air, decreasing the mosquito population. As a youngster, it is a brown, hairy spider-like thing that lurks at the bottom of wetlands. It uses a projectile jaw to snatch at unsuspecting prey that swims by, as if something from Alien. It is still ultimately helping with the mosquito population.

Image from University of Michigan

The Hine’s Emerald Dragonfly (Somatochlora hineana), like all dragonflies (and damselflies, for that matter), are always found near water habitats. Not only are these prime habitats for the flying insects that make up their prey, they provide a good place to raise the kids, who are entirely aquatic. The Hine’s Dragonfly website² mentions that mosquitoes and deerflies³ make up a large amount of the adult’s diet. Since the larvae of both of those are aquatic, you can believe that the Dragonfly larvae eat them. Once they get big enough, the Dragonfly larvae might even go for some small fish. The projectile jaw can be seen in action in this short video, though I can tell you it’s not a Hine’s Emerald. The jaw works the same, though.

The reason that I have no issue posting about these flitting jewels is that, for all intents and purposes, the adults aren’t in danger. The larvae, however, have problems as the wetlands are continually polluted by runoff and pesticides, filled in, and drained. They used to be found in Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, and Wisconsin and Missouri. They haven’t been seen in Ohio and Indiana since 1961.

The recovery plan for the Hine’s Emerald Dragonfly mostly involves protecting the wetlands in which they’re already found. Many places are more and more worried about the states of their wetlands, since they’re discovering the ecological role that these habitats play. I know Ohio has its Rapid Assessment Methods for wetlands to designate and classify the state of wetlands. In the “Why Wetlands Are Important” Section of this site, it says that: “They are often referred to as ‘nature’s kidneys’…” This is an accurate, if slightly disgusting metaphor, since they filter out all the disgusting chemicals that flow through “nature’s veins.” Just remember, if you throw too much crap into the kidneys, they die, taking the rest of the body with them. “Nature’s dialysis machine” would not look pretty.

Edit: This is completely off topic, but I just found the blog of the people searching for the Attenborough's Echidna, which I wrote about a few months ago. It looks like they're getting close to finding it, too!

¹There are about 12 songs called "Dragonfly." Pick one to use for this title.
²To quote directly: “The ugly larvae have been called little "dirt balls" since dirt clings to the hairs that cover their bodies.”
³Let me tell you, when, while doing stream studies, the desire to do terrible things to deerfly larvae is overwhelming.

Snap Yo' Fingers

This month, I intend to keep with a theme: Local Water Habitats in Danger¹. I could, if I felt so inclined, spend a good long time on aquatic larval insects. However, I would rather keep from stagnating on a specific taxon, so here’s an angry turtle.

Image from National Geographic

The Alligator Snapping Turtle (Macroclemys temmincki) is the largest turtle in North America, and the largest freshwater turtle in the world; it can reach weights of more than 100 pounds. They inhabit any freshwater area large enough to house them: rivers, ponds, swamps, and similar. Their range covers much of the Southeastern United States, and up the Mississippi River to northern Illinois. Alas, this majestic animal does not make it into Ohio.

They’re called Snapping Turtles for a reason. They will sit at the bottom of the pool blending completely with the rocks. Their tongue has a wiggling wormlike projection that acts as a lure for any unsuspecting fish or frogs. Any animal that looks too closely… WAPOW! The sharp beak instantly grabs on. I wish I could find better videos of this, but a search on YouTube brings forth a good number low quality videos of Alligator Snappers doing just that².

The biggest threat to this animal is hunting, primarily for food. There’s a lot of meat on a 100-pound turtle, if you can keep all your fingers³. Since it takes about 12 years to reach sexual maturity, these slow-growing animals need some time to recover. This, along with the issues of pollution and runoff, are why it is listed in three states, and on the IUCN list. Many states now prohibit Snapping Turtle collection, though it is allowed in others with a permit. The EPA has wetland assessment methods in place to limit the impacts pollution will have on those fragile habitats, keeping the Alligator Snapper and its cohorts safer.

¹There is a reason for this. My senior biology project concerns information that never gets from the scientists to the public, such as, say endangered species that people don’t hear about. I want to involve my summer experience of working with the Ohio EPA’s water control methods. Hence, Endangered Ugly Things: Midwest Water Edition!
²Many of them are pets. I don’t like that. A) They’re CITES protected, which, alas, doesn’t stop domestic trade. B) I’m against keeping any animal with the ability to bite your hand off in less than a second.
³Arguably, there’s more meat if you can’t keep all your fingers, but I’m not going to think about that.

Some Crazy Bastard

I’m sorry that I’ve been slacking; I’ve got no real excuse, but I am having problems finding EUTs with enough information for a blog post. It’s exactly the problem I mentioned in the Hunter Slug post: the species that really need our help are the ones that we don’t know anything about. On a different note, the WWF has once again given reason to explain the existence of this blog. My grandparents just got their 2008 calendar last week. Out of 13 pictures, one is an amphibian¹, two are birds, and the rest, of course, are fuzzy, fuzzy mammals (well, I suppose the hippo and the whale aren’t really fuzzy, but you get the idea).

Image from IUCN

On yet another note, I believe this plant’s name ranks among the worst possible for a plant. It is the Bastard Quiver Tree (Aloe pillansii). Again, no explanation is given for the name, but it may be a, ahem, bastardization of the local term “Basterkokerboom²”. If you know your houseplants (or skin products) well enough, you probably recognize the genus Aloe. Yes, this thirty-foot tall tree from the deserts of Africa is a close relative to Aloe vera (which is found growing, among other places, rampantly in pots at my parents’ house).

I suppose saying it lives in the African desert is being unspecific. It inhabits the semiarid Karoo³ region of southern Africa, specifically on the north end of South Africa and south end of Namibia. Being one of the very few plants over about a foot tall gives it some important roles in the ecosystem, such as bird roost and food, and moisture provider through its thick leaves. It more than likely is pollinated by birds.

With fewer than 200 plants, it easily qualifies for IUCN’s critically endangered category. Why it’s endangered is a harder question, with answers ranging from grazing baboons to overgrazing to mining--or, of course, all of the above. At least some people are worried about it: International trade of the plant has been banned by CITES, so it struck me as odd that many of the informative sites about the plant were by horticulturalists. Local South African schools received puzzles, information packs, and worksheets about saving the Basterkokerboom.

¹The Red-eyed Tree Frog, only the most photographed frog in the world.
²This is complete speculation through minimal evidence. Don’t cite me as a source for this.
³Off topic: Microsoft Word’s spellchecker doesn’t know the words “monotreme,” “echolocating,” or even “blog,” but it takes “Karoo” without a second thought.

Paddlin' Madeline Home

Phantom Midge¹ gave me a few good suggestions recently, but alas, neither the Yeti Crab nor the Zombie Worm are listed, whether or not they are actually in danger of becoming extinct. There are gobs of disgusting-looking deep-sea critters, but since so little is known about their populations and habits, there is not enough information for them to be placed on an endangered species list. There is, however, an aquatic animal that I had known about for a while, but about which I have neglected to write.

Image from Texas Parks and Wildlife

This is the American Paddlefish (Polyodon spathula), which I have seen for years at the Columbus Zoo, and was sure it was on the Ohio Endangered Species List. It wasn’t which slightly upset me, since I was planning on writing about it for most of the week. Turns out it’s listed as vulnerable on the IUCN redlist, so I get to write about it anyway. It lives in large rivers of the Mississippi River basin, growing up to a size of seven feet, and living up to about twenty or thirty years.

The protruding…thingy (actually called a rostrum) from which the Paddlefish gets its name is covered with electroreceptors to help it find groups of zooplankton on which it feeds. The minute prey are swept unceremoniously from the water by the gaping maw of the Paddlefish, and then filtered from the water by raking protrusions on the gills. The fish’s mouth is specifically designed to open to an immense size to filter the largest amount of water possible. Wikipedia suggests that the rostrum also acts as a hydrofoil to help keep the head level in the water as filter feeding occurs, but I don’t really like to cite them as a source.

The American Paddlefish live in rivers, so of course dams affect their populations by impeding their moving patterns. Much like the sturgeon, they have been harvested for meat, and their eggs have been harvested for caviar. Agricultural runoff causes the streams to silt up, making filter feeding a difficult prospect. To help relieve some of these threats, farm-raised Paddlefish are released into the wild. Stricter regulations on Paddlefish harvesting have also been put into effect.

¹Still no blog, so here’s her sister’s link again.

Reel Big Salamander

In the footnote for the Sagala Caecilian¹, I mentioned some big, ugly salamanders. Both are endangered, and closely related to the Hellbender², in the family Cryptobranchidae, and the three species are together known as the Giant Salamanders. I’ll skip over the second largest salamander (the Japanese Giant Salamander, Andrias japonicus, you can look up information on your own), and start talking about the largest salamander in the world.

Image from Giant Salamander Protection International

The Chinese Giant Salamander (Andrias davidianus) is visually quite a lot like the Hellbender: flattened body and head with tiny, beady eyes, and folds of skin hanging from its body through which it breathes. The major visual difference, which will cause no one to mistake the two, is that the Hellbender is about a foot long, while the Chinese Salamander gets up to about, oh, six feet or so. This picture is the only one I could find that uses a person for scale. I don’t think anyone will disagree with me writing about this animal here.

They live in the cold mountain streams of China. Since they’ve got no gills or lungs, these streams must be well oxygenated. They are nocturnal, and hunt with a quick sideways snap of their mouth. What they hunt seems only to be limited by what they can catch. The Giant Salamanders mate in late August, where, according to ARKive, “hundreds of individuals congregate at nest sites.” Take a look at the videos they’ve got³. Now imagine hundreds of those things in a single place, mating.

IUCN has a nice long list of why these stream-leviathans are endangered, such as wood plantations, mining, clear-cutting, hunting, and pollution. There’s a BBC article about the poaching problems. Conservation methods are coming into place, as they are a protected species. There’s even a Giant Salamander Protection International website, and protected areas in these mountains are starting to appear. While other people want to make sure there are tigers for their grandchildren to see, I want to make sure my grandchildren get the chance to see a six-foot long salamander. Heck, I want to see it.

¹That was eight months ago! I’m impressed by how long I’ve kept this up, even if no one else is.
²I just got a job studying headwater streams in a nearby national park. My boss had a poster about Hellbender conservation in her office, and I asked if that meant they were local to the area. Alas, they are not. I was really hoping, too.
³I’m sure this is required viewing for CGI animators of Discovery Channel shows that involve prehistoric amphibians.

"Will You Walk Into My Parlor?"

Sorry for such a late post. I don’t have any good excuses; I’ve just been slacking. A few weeks ago, Greg (who also suggested the Siaga Antelope) suggested an EUT for me¹. I found out that its story is unavoidably attached to another Endangered Ugly Thing.

Image from Fish and Wildlife Service

This is the suggested animal, the Kauai Cave Amphipod (Spelaeorchestia koloana). It’s a blind, terrestrial, shrimp-like crustacean that inhabits the small caves formed by gas escaping through the Hawaiian lava². It lives happily on the detritus to be found in those caves. The Kauai Cave Wolf Spider (Adelocosa anops) inhabits the same habitat, except it lives happily on the Cave Amphipods to be found there. They’re only found in about five different locations on the island of Kauai, most of which are on private property.

Everyone seems to find it strange that the government would protect both a predator and its main prey item. Someone even did a cartoon on it, and, quite frankly, I don’t often see people trying to anthropomorphize blind amphipods. Or amphipods of any kind.

Look, it’s not that strange. The Kauai Cave Amphipod is not endangered because the Kauai Cave Wolf Spider eats it. The amphipod has had millions of years to evolve defenses against the spider. They’re both endangered because of Hawaii’s³ rapid development. Y’know, paving over the lava, agriculture, and heavy use of insecticides for invasive species control (and other less noble goals). Protection is just starting, as they only got added to the list in 2003, though they’ve been working on restoring the caves since 1995.

¹Please, please, please keep sending in those suggestions. It makes life so much easier for me.
²Yes, I know I just wrote about a Hawaiian EUT. See above footnote.
³I’m trying to decide if “Hawai’i’s” would look weird. Yeah it does.

Mussel of Love

In the very first post, I mentioned a particular animal and I haven’t gotten around to talking about them yet. It doesn’t have the distinction of being endangered anywhere save for Ohio and Minnesota (though it is threatened in Wisconsin). I wish I could find more detailed information about them, but I’ll share with you what I’ve found out about the Wartyback Mussel¹.

Image from Indiana Natural History Survey

The Wartyback Mussel (Quadrula nodulata) inhabits deeper rivers in the Upper Mississippi system, such as the Ohio River. There’s no real mystery to the origin of its name; it has bumps all over its shell. It hangs out in sand or fine gravel, where it filter- feeds by sucking in water and digesting anything somewhat nutritious. The gills do double duty as both strainers and breathing apparatuses.

Mussel reproduction is weird. The female will hold eggs in her gills³, which are fertilized when the male’s sperm are drawn in as the females are siphoning water. The female then creates a prey mimic, which looks like some sort of minnow, and as a fish comes by to eat it, larvae are released. Parasitic larvae⁴. I can’t find if the Wartyback uses the lure, but seeing as the main hosts are catfish, it seems likely. The larvae aren’t harmful to the fish, but, like burrs from a plant, hitch on (in this case, to the gills) to get away from mom and dad, where there’ll be less competition and more genetic dispersal.

Because they filter so much water, pollution is the major problem facing freshwater mussels. Yes, we’re talking about the whole group. I started talking in generalities about a paragraph and a half ago. Dam construction and pretty much anything that messes with river flow also add to the problem of endangerment.

The Columbus Zoo, in conjunction with people like ODNR and OSU recently built an entire center on freshwater mussel conservation. Granted, the Wartyback doesn’t seem to be listed on the site, but anything that’s good for freshwater mussels is good for the Wartyback. Breeding programs have extra steps when dealing with mussels, since they need to catch and parasitize fish and then release them. The fish likely swim away wondering what on earth just happened to them.

¹Does anyone want a “Save the Wartyback Mussel” t-shirt²? Just comment and I’ll make one.
²I’d make an Ohio Lamprey plush toy if I had any idea how to do so.
³At a science convention I went to, someone’s project was counting the eggs of local mussels. I think the numbers were in the hundreds for each individual. I couldn’t help feeling sorry for her, and I was counting roadkill snakes.
⁴Not co-endangered, because there are plenty of catfish to go around.

Lichen Rock

Well, I wanted to spread the love to all the taxa, and since no one suggested anything last week, you get to read about lichens. Lucky you. Well, to what group do the lichens belong, you may ask. The answer: most of ‘em. The major part of the lichen is a fungus, but it has a symbiotic relationship with either an alga or a cyanobacterium (or both) that allows them to be photosynthetic.

Image from Lichens of North America

I’ll admit the Rock Gnome Lichen¹ (Gymnoderma lineare) isn’t really ugly, it falls more into the category of endangered things you’d never hear or care about. Think about what I tend to write in other posts. What does it eat? Rocks. What behaviors does it have? It grows, very, very slowly, and eats rocks. Breeding habits? A piece of the lichen breaks off².

I suppose some of those are some points of interest, since lichens have the distinction of being able to metabolize minerals straight from rock faces, setting the stage for “higher” plant forms to colonize. A blank rock face with a few greenish growths today could be a forest in 100 years. Or, just as likely, the same lichens that are there today. Not the same population, the same individuals; which brings us to our second point. Lichens are incredibly slow growing. Something like a millimeter a year. They can be used to estimate dates like glacial retreat or ancient landslides. Redwoods and giant tortoises can’t hold a candle to that³. Heck, continents move faster than that.

This particular lichen lives in southern Appalachia, where it likes its rock served moist and vertical. It's the only member of its genus in North America, the other Gymnoderma live in the Himalayas or other East Asian mountains. The rock gnome lichen is extremely sensitive to trampling (despite the fact it lives vertically), and to changes in moisture levels. Many lichens have issues with air pollution, and it’s likely that the rock gnome has the same problems. Scientific collection is an endangerment cause I haven’t talked about yet⁴. What do you do to study something that won’t grow in the lab and dies if you poke at it too much? I’m not sure.

¹Good band name for, what, maybe a bluegrass band?
²Sex, when you’re two or three individual organisms per cell, is kinda difficult. Possible, just complicated.
³And not just because they don’t have opposable digits.
⁴Though a much smaller problem than in, say, the 1800s, when killing was the easiest way to document an animal and get it to as many museums as possible.

Does Whatever A Spider Can

After the post on most of the arachnids on the US List, I couldn’t help but look at the non-cave spider. I will get to your suggestions¹, but I’m still trying to spread the love to all the taxa².

Image from Animal Diversity Web

The Spruce-fir Moss Spider (Microhexura montivaga) is a small (3-5 mm) member of the tarantula group. They live above 5,400 feet in the Appalachian Mountains in North Carolina and Tennessee, where it can get colder and snowier than many spiders mind to handle. The prominent vegetation of these areas (surprise, surprise) is Frasier fir and red spruce, and the spiders inhabit the mosses found in association with those trees.

Like most tarantulas, the moss spider is an ambush predator, feeding on arthropods smaller than itself. This does not mean they don’t make webs; they weave tunnel-shaped nests between the rock and the moss. After mating, the males make a run for it, since many female spiders find the male to be a readily available protein. Females stay with the egg sac until it hatches, and will carry it around if she’s disturbed. When the spiderlings³ hatch, they disperse to other areas by a process called ballooning⁴, where the babies extend a strand of silk to be caught by the wind.

They’re not terribly sure why the spruce-fir moss spider is endangered, though there are some good ideas. The primary suspect: the balsam wooly adelgid, an invasive insect that attacks fir trees, which mess up the spider’s habitat. There’s a possibility of throwing out the baby with the bathwater, as it’s possible that the insecticide used to kill these tree-borers could also be killing the spiders.

The Louisville Zoo is working on a breeding program, though there are no cute little spiderlings yet. I’m finding enough information that I know someone is worried about the species. Heck, someone even named a debugging program after it.

¹I’m really looking forward to learning more about the antelope that looks like something out of Star Wars.
²There are two lichens that I might have to write something about to spread the love even further.
³This is the actual term for a baby spider. Another Cute Endangered Ugly Thing design?
⁴Popularized by the animated version of Charlotte’s Web.

Yellow Arachnids of Texas

Take a look at the U.S. Endangered species list, arachnid section. Out of twelve arachnids, eleven of them fall into the form of “X Cave Y,” where X is the name of a cave, and Y is the type of arachnid. Ten of these are from two counties in Texas. Since these aren’t discussed in depth separately, we’ll talk about the whole bunch. They are, in no particular order, the Bee Creek Cave Harvestman (Texella reddelli), the Bone Cave Harvestman (Texella reyesi), Robber Baron Cave Harvestman (Texella cokendolpheri), the Braken Bat Cave Meshweaver (Cicurina venii), the Government Canyon Bat Cave Meshweaver (Cicurina vespera), the Madla's Cave Meshweaver (Cicurina madla), the Robber Baron Cave Meshweaver, (Cicurina baronia), the Tooth Cave Pseudoscorpion (Tartarocreagris texana), the Government Canyon Bat Cave Spider (Neoleptoneta microps), and the Tooth Cave Spider (Leptoneta myopica). For your viewing pleasure today, we have the Bone Cave Harvestman, simply because it has a cool name (and if any Metalheads reading this are at a loss for a band or album name, you’re welcome).

Image from City of Austin

Each of the arachnids is predatory, feeding on smaller cave-dwelling invertebrates. They are eyeless, and paler than its superterranian counterpart, often becoming orangish or yellowish. Otherwise, the spiders (meshweavers included) are similar to the everyday house spiders, and the same goes with the harvestmen, though I had to look them up to find that harvestman was another name for daddy longlegs. Pseudoscorpions, which I’m not sure how many people are familiar with them (I’m not), look much like, well, scorpions, just tailless, with small venom glands in their claws.

What is this cave habitat that contains all these endangered species, and why are there so many endangered arachnids in such a small area (relatively, we’re talking about Texas here)? The Texas karst is a limestone area that, due to the erosion of softer rocks, has formed extensive cave systems. Since they have formed (and continue to do so, they won’t stop for us) by water flow, anything dumped on the surface goes right through to all of those places where eyes are luxury items. While pollution is certainly a problem, the major issue is development encroachment, which has the possibility of destroying the area around caves or the caves themselves, or changing the temperature of the cave, which has been constant since, oh, the last ice age. Invasive plants can bring in red fire ants, which compete with the arachnids for food and sometimes prey on them.

There’s another reason for the density of endangered cave arachnids: the density of spelunking entomologists. Like it or not, much of the information about endangered species comes from a few people looking for specific species. Since they know exactly what they’re looking for, they can determine that these species are endangered, and go through the rigmarole of getting them listed. There are tons of endangered species running all over the place, but since no one’s described them, or looked closely enough at them, they go unnoticed.

Oh, Caecilian, You're Breaking my Heart

Within amphibians, there are the frogs and toads (order Anura; it means tailless), which can be considered too cute to include on this blog and there are the salamanders and newts (order Caudata or Urodela, both meaning with a tail), which I’ve already posted about one¹. There is a third order of amphibians, of which most people have not heardof. The scientific name for the order is either Gymnophiona (naked snake) or Apoda (footless), both of which are stunning endorsements for the inclusion of a caecilian on this blog.

Image by John Measey

The Sagala Caecilian (Boulengerula niedeni) is a species that was first described in 2005. Its name comes from the hill it inhabits (Sagala Hill in southern Kenya). Since they’re such a newly discovered species, there’s a lot that still isn’t known about them, but scientists are pretty sure that their range is about 30 sq. km, which is smaller than Manhattan Island. Right there, with that small of a range, they become listed as Critically Endangered. Along with its already minimal range, large-scale farming disrupts streamside habitats, where they make their home, and introduces pollutants.

I’m having problems finding specifics about the Sagala caecilian, such as what it eats (probably small invertebrates) and specific reproductive history, though caecilians are the only order of amphibians that perform internal fertilization. In fact, the discerning feature of this amphibian, used to describe it as a new species, is its oddly shaped phallus.

On a different note, I have received my Official EUTshirt, and I am pleased with the quality. The concept of a cute lamprey stuck with me since I wrote about it. I asked friends and family if the idea of a line of cute Endangered Ugly Things t-shirts went against everything EUT stood for, and they said, “Maybe.” Well, they’re up and buyable anyway. Enjoy, and I’m up for any suggestions of other EUTs, since I’m having slight problems finding good ones.

¹Possibly more to come, ‘cause if you thought the hellbender was big and ugly, there are some bigger, uglier ones out there.

Lady Madonna - The Beatles

As beetles go, the American Burying Beetle (Nicrophorus americanus) isn’t terribly ugly (this may be due to its nice black and reddish orange pattern on its back). It is a little big (about an inch). On the other hand, invertebrates need a bit more screen time on this blog, and when you’re competing with pandas and tigers, anything with more than twice as many legs as eyes fits into the ugly category.

Image from University of Nebraska State Museum

There’s another thing going for this nocturnal beetle’s inclusion here. People really don’t like carrion eaters, despite their impressive ability to smell a dead body from two miles away within an hour of death. Of course, their habit for eating dead things is helpful for returning nutrients to the soil, and they even have orange mites living on them, which keep the beetle and the carcasses free of many microbes and fly eggs (nothing like a clean corpse).

The impressive part about this beetle is its childcare policy. While most insects tend to drop their eggs and either leave or die, burying beetles are almost… vertebrate in their parental care. After one finds a suitable dead thing, a dove or chipmunk, for example, it will send out a huge amount of pheromones into the air. When a potential mate shows up, the two work together to move the carcass to an acceptable location, and, once there, live up to their name. Once the body is under a few inches of soil, they strip off the skin and some appendages, and generally form the body into a flesh ball, applying excretions that stop fungal growth. The pair then mate, lay 10 to 30 eggs in an adjacent tunnel, and wait for them to hatch. Once the larvae have hatched, the adults will help them out by regurgitation feeding, a la birds, or by moving the young to particularly choice pieces of carcass.

The American burying beetle has a cause for endangerment I haven’t talked about yet: habitat fragmentation, which reduces available prey items, and increases competing scavengers, like raccoons and crows. It also separates the populations, resulting in minimized gene flow. Pesticides and light pollution (remember, they’re nocturnal) don’t help, so now the beetle exists only in isolated pockets, a shadow of its former range.

One does not normally think of breeding programs and reintroduction of insects, but they exist for the burrowing beetle. More than 200 beetles have been reintroduced into Southern Ohio since 1998, and Massachusetts has had a head-start program to bolster their burying beetle population since 1994. Many other states are doing their part to help bring this little necrophage back from the brink.

I Wish They All Could be California Arthropods

This one falls into the category of ugly things that I came across while randomly looking through The List. I'm going to keep on the lookout for any others, but I'm running low on EUTs that I've heard of. If anyone has any suggestions, start sending 'em in.

Image by Aviva Rossi

Looking somewhat like a cross between a horseshoe crab and a shield bug, the vernal pool tadpole shrimp (Lepidurus packardi) gets the distinction of being the first invertebrate on Endangered Ugly Things. It will not be the last, as the diversity of invertebrates is staggering, and, with the exception of butterflies, they're pretty much all considered ugly.

Distantly related to triops and sea monkeys (actually brine shrimp), which you can buy at any decent science shop, the tadpole shrimp share their ability to breathe through their 35 or so phyllopoda (leaf-feet) which also act as paddles. They grow up to a whopping 2 inches in length, eat organic matter smaller than them, and get eaten by everything that normally eats benthic macroinvertebrates: other invertebrates, amphibians, fish, and some birds.

The vernal pool tadpole shrimp hangs its small, strangely shaped hat in ephemeral pools in the San Fransisco bay area that dry out every summer. It survives these dry spells by laying drought-resistant eggs, which will hatch once the pools fill up again.

There are no big surprises with why these are endangered. Habitat destruction is always a problem when your habitat is a big wet spot, and someone says, "Hey, this looks like the perfect place for a shopping mall." Suddenly, your big wet spot is under a ton and a half of concrete. Agricultural and urban runoff, overgrazing, and invasive plants are also having an effect on the tadpole shrimp. Hope exists for them in the form of programs to save wetlands, which are being put into effect all over the United States.

Like a Salamander Outta Hell

There has to be a story behind the eastern hellbender's name. It sounds like Dante on a drug trip, a motorcycle gang, or a punk metal band¹ (the Ozark Hellbenders would perform cover songs heavily involving banjos). If anyone has the actual etymology behind the name, I'd be glad to hear it.

Image from Ohio Department of Natural Resources

Despite having an ugly sounding name, the eastern hellbender, Cryptobranchus alleganiensis, is, in fact, not pretty. As an adult, they can achieve lengths of 11 to 20 inches. Folds of skin hang from their sides, through which they breathe. The hellbenders have lungs, but those are used only for buoyancy. Their heads are flat, with tiny, beady eyes. Their habitat exists under rocks and debris in clear, fast-moving streams.

These giant salamanders hunt crayfish, small fish, and large insects, searching mainly using lateral lines and then sucking in prey, a method not shared by any other adult salamander. Also seperating them from other salamanders is the fact that the hellbender practices external fertilization, where the female will drop the eggs and then allow the male to fertilize them. After this, the male will guard the eggs for two to three months until they hatch.

Hellbenders are endangered in Ohio, Maryland, Illinois, and Indiana, threatened in Alabama, and a species of concern in New York. Pollution is a major problem facing eastern hellbenders, and for that matter, many amphibians. This is due to their ability to breathe through their skin. Any chemical with a higher concentration in the water than their body is drawn in, be it oxygen, nitrogen, or agricultural runoff. Damming rivers cause silt to clog the hellbender's nesting site (remember the lungfish?). The bad rap that the hellbender gets also doesn't help, as there are many legends of the salamanders sliming fishers' nets or poisoning river water. Photos of herpetologists, gloveless, holding it, might help dispel these myths. So if you happen to be creeking in the eastern Midwest (or western East), and see a gigantic salamander, consider yourself lucky to be in the presence of the largest salamander around.

¹They are a band! That's what I get for looking too far on the internet for hellbender research. Though, they look more indie than punk metal.