Geauga Park District - Ask a Naturalist. Ever wondered what kind of footprint that was? What was growing in your backyard that made you itch? Or whether it's true that daddy long legs are venomous? Look no farther than your local naturalists, the people at your Park District whose job it is to help you understand the natural world around you. Submit your questionabout nature in Northeast Ohio to sward@geaugaparkdistrict. ASAP with a naturalist's response. For example: Bald Eagle . Last year the Blue Beech were not doing well with dying and curled leaves. I thought this was leaf scorch due to the dry summer, but was told the Beeches had a fungus and would all eventually die. I’m hoping this is not true. The Beeches make the lower canopy just beautiful. A: The common name . This plant is actually a birch. While t. The American Beech does have diseases that could threaten its survival. I am not aware of any diseases of the American Hornbeam (same plant, different common name). Here are two links about this tree: https: //plants.
This picture is from our old Video "Our Planetary Game" (in English and in Russian), which you can find a way down this Page. The Null Point or the Border (the Wall.As I described above, the . There is also the other common name, . Can you please tell me why? Thank you. A: This is an example of bark shearingdone by woodpeckers working the trunksof dying ash trees harboring emerald ash borers (EABs). As larvae, these invasive beetles eat away at ash trees’ life- sustaining inner bark cutting off the trees’ supply of water and nutrients, killing the trees within three. EABs likely arrived in the U. S. Their damage first showed up in Michigan several years ago before spreading into Ohio from the Toledo area. These exotic invaders have since spread throughout the Midwest. For more information, see www. Your photograph shows woodpecker bark- shearing as they work away at bark with their bills to feed on EABs as they overwinter in the bark as pupa. This workis evident as light- colored expanses onash tree trunks where the outermost bark surface has been removed by the birds. This has become a common sight in the Geauga County region and therefore serves is a testament to the widespread damage done by EABs. Ash death will becomemore apparent when the trees fail to leaf out in spring. It remains to be seen if woodpeckers will be able effectively control EABs given the explosive onslaught of this insect, but it’s good to know that EABs have predators here in the U. S. A: I thought this was a fungus but sent it to Tom Sampliner for an ID. Due to the limitations of the images taken, I can only indicate they are one of the very rubbery textured fungi which include the various members of the Ascomycetes such as the jellies, ears, cups, etc. We would need to see detail of the underside, as well as the inside. The spores are produced in these specimens inside tiny holes within the bowl- like upper surface. Some of these are used in Chinese cultures for various purposes, including some valued for soups.- Thomas Sampliner, past president of the Native Plant Society and fungus aficionado. Q: Who was this little critter under the little boy/sign at Bird in the Hand at The West Woods? A: The photo you sent is of an insectivore known as a Northern Short- tailed Shrew, which although rodent- like in appearance belongs to an order whose diet is primarily insects and other invertebrates like earthworms, millipedes, spiders and snails. They consume perhaps three times their weight in food each day and need more food in the winter to keep warm. Good job getting a photo of this little guy, since most of the time shrews are beneath logs, leaves, snow or underground. Here is a link with more information about Northern Short- tailed Shrews. Just discovered she is there. She sleeps on top of the LED light bank which stays from 7. F by day and is usually in the moist geranium pot during the night. Question: Internet entries state that if I put her outside now she will die since her metabolism has not gradually prepared for cold weather. How many days/weeks(?) must she have proper weather to acclimatize her blood chemistry? How long to be able to find a good safe spot to hibernate? There is quite an odor, I suspect from her urine. Coincidentally, the one gray tree frog that we keep as part of our minimal live animal collection here at The West Woods Nature Center came to us under identical circumstances: brought in undetected on a house plant kept outdoors for the summer, discovered too late in the season for release. Disney Family Proudly Presents: A Beauty and the Beast Party. There are so many ways to bring Beauty and the Beast to life for an enchanted birthday party or celebration. Sounds as if your tree frog is active and therefore has the need to feed. How do you feel about housing her and feeding her until an end of April release? Meal worms and crickets from a local pet store will fill the bill for food. If this is not a viable choice for you, let me know and we’ll work on a Plan B. Tim Matson, vertebrate zoologist with the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, who I consult with regarding matters of amphibian biology, in this case the possibility exists of inducing hibernation for a mid- winter release. Pretty unusual, yes? A: Pretty in pink! The AXS Cookie Policy. This website, like most others, uses cookies in order to give you a great online experience. By continuing to use our website you accept to our. The Texarkana Gazette is the premier source for local news and sports in Texarkana and the surrounding Arklatex areas. RED FOX Vulpes vulpes. Content Updated: 3rd September 2015. CONTENTS: Evolution and Early Distribution Taxonomy North American Red foxes British Red foxes. Lisa Rainsong, a local expert on the insect order Othoptera (grasshoppers, crickets, katydids), for an explanation of this unusual color form. According to Lisa: It is called erythrism, an unusual and little- understood genetic mutation caused by a recessive gene similar to that which affects albino animals. This mutation results in one of two things happening or even a combination of the two; a reduction or even absence of the normal pigment and/or the excessive production of other pigments, in this case red, which results in pink morphs. Here's another example of the same species, but a younger one (nymph), found at the Hiram College Field Station in 2. I have seen them in great numbers in Canada and southern Ohio, but not around here. Just wondering why I am seeing them now. The black form is more common in the north (Canada), but the ones that are showing up in Geauga County probably expanded their range from the population that was introduced to Kent State University more than 5. Our Geauga county habitat is providing the things they need for survival, so sightings have increased. Here is a 2. 01. 1 article about them.- Linda Gilbert, Naturalist A: The local gray squirrel population is increasing, as evident at The West Woods feeding station. Black is a color phase of the Eastern Gray Squirrel. As gray squirrels increase in number, so does the incidence of this color morph. Gray squirrels are more of a forest squirrel than fox squirrels. The natural reforestation of Geauga County that has been taking place over that last 7. By the below accounts from history sleuth Connie Wells, black squirrels were in our area prior to the Kent State population, so the ones we see today may have expanded from Geauga's own historical population. A genetic study could tell us more. Here is the account: History sleuth Connie Wells, in combing the micro- film newspaper archives in the Chardon Public Library, produced some history of black squirrels in Chardon. Connie writes in an email to Geauga Park District Naturalist Dan Best dated November 4, 2. This reference came from an 1. Claridon called The Middle Street. That street became Taylor Wells Road and was designated 'middle' because it was between the 'West Street' (Aquilla Road) and the township 'Center Street' (Claridon- Troy Road). The black squirrel incident had to happen between 1. Wells families arrived from Connecticut) and Oct. Ebenezer Wells died. Eben Wells is the father referred to in the article. He was the father of Jason Wells, the article’s author. Jason Wells was born in 1. Claridon (Twp). The Wells farms were on the highest hill in the area. The first Claridon settler families came in 1. In a reference to rattlesnakes written by Jason Coe Wells in the Feb. Geauga Republican newspaper, a reference to timber rattlers featured this passage: “They were quite large, and I have been told that they were sometimes found four and even five feet in length. How the snake managed to secure so large and active an animals as a black squirrel is a question the writer is unable to answer.” From the diary (no dates or page numbers) of renowned Geauga Historian Ella Maude Beech (1. Chardon Public Library’s Allyn Room: “In 1. County Auditor H. A. Cowles, conceived the idea of placing black squirrels in the park (Chardon Square). Many residents enjoyed the new residents. Houses were put in the park for them and feed was provided for them I suspect many people put feed out for them. I can remember Art Carlson (founder of the Geauga County Maple Festival and owner of Carlson’s Hardware Store on Chardon Square) crossing Main Street with his fast walking gait to feed the squirrels. But there were people who complained the squirrels were getting into their attics. They howled until the squirrels were neglected and gradually disappeared. They were there for 3. Nearly all the black squirrels, about 3. It takes a large quantity of shack to feed them.”In the Geauga Republican, Feb. Local News column: “The park squirrels wintered fine. So eight were obtained and four were placed in Dr. Crampton’s yard, four in the park. Those in the park now stem from those eight. Otters are large mammals: three to four feet in length. Male minks may reach two feet in length, females smaller. Both are aquatic mammals with otters being the Olympic swimmers. Both are dark brown in color; mink may have a white chin spot. Both are voracious predators of fish and other aquatic animals. Mink, too, take frogs, snakes, crayfish as well as muskrats and venture away from water for mice, voles and birds. Mink are pretty common locally, more apt to be seen than otters. They inhabit or frequent ponds, lakes, streams and ditches. Any ideas what they may be? It's on Allyn Road in Mantua. A: This looks like Pseudocolus fusiformis, commonly called the stinky squid or octopus stinkhorn. It is most common in wood mulched areas. It was named by Lloyd, an early 2. Ohio mycologist. Click here for a good reference on this mysterious mycological marvel, one of the bizarre group of stinkhorn fungi. Bion. TERMS OF USEThis pdf is provided by Magnolia Press for private/research use. Commercial sale or deposition in a public library or website is prohibited. Zootaxa 3. 02. 2: 3. Copyright . LOUIS JR. ANGELICA CROTTINI1,4, ROGER- DANIEL RANDRIANIAINA1,2, FRANK GLAW5 & MIGUEL VENCES1. Technical University of Braunschweig, Zoological Institute, Mendelssohnstr. Braunschweig, Germany 2. D. Antananarivo, 1. Madagascar. 3Center for Conservation Research, Omaha. Padre Armando Quintas, 4. Vair. E- mail: noufam@yahoo. Abstract. Endemic to Madagascar, the genus Uroplatus of the family Gekkonidae consists of 1. These forest dwelling lizards are famous for their cryptic and odd appearance. We describe a new species of the Uroplatus ebenaui group from the Montagne d’Ambre massif in northern Madagascar. Uroplatus finiavana sp. It also can be differentiated from U. The new species is relatively abundant at Montagne d'Ambre National Park where at lower elevations (ca. U. Beside the description of the new species we discuss the geographic prove- nance of the holotypes of the nominal species and synonyms in the U. Even so, knowl- edge of its vertebrate fauna is far from complete, and new vertebrate species have been discovered and described at an unprecedented rate in the last few years (e. Yoder & Nowak 2. Glaw et al. Focusing on the herpeto- fauna, Madagascar harbors over 6. Glaw & Vences 2. This high species diversity is associated with a high degree of microendemism, and this high per- centage of range- restricted species is largely the outcome of a specific combination of climate, topography, vegeta- tion and historical events (Wilm. One of the areas exhibiting high microendemism is Montagne d'Ambre, a volcanic massif covered by an extensive mountain forest that rises to an elevation of 1. Madagascar. Established as a national park in 1. Madagascar, Montagne d’Ambre National Park boasts over 7. Raxworthy & Nussbaum 1. D’Cruze et al. The relevance of this massif for the harboring of new and microendemic species is illustrated by therecent descriptions of various new reptile species (e. The Madagascar- endemic genus Uroplatus consists of the unique nocturnal forest dwelling leaf- tailed geckos, all of which display bizarre shapes and appearances that camouflage these animals. Currently containing 1. Uroplatus is represented by species that are distinguishable from other geckos by their rather flat or laterally compressed body, triangular head, and a leaf- shaped tail. Based on morphology (Glaw & Vences 1. Uroplatus can be divided in several species groups: the U. Since its discovery, the majority of taxonomic studies have focused on the morphology of the genus. The first phylogenetic hypothesis on the genus’ evolution was presented by Bauer & Russel (1. Recent molecular and morphological studies have however indicated that species diversity of the genus Uroplatus is underestimated, even though a comprehensive data set has not yet been established, and population- level data on genetic variation are largely unexplored (Glaw et al. Green- baum et al. Raxworthy et al. 2. One of the still unresolved questions is the status of the small sized of the Uroplatus ebenaui group that are found at Montagne d’Ambre, despite these being well- known by the scientific community for the past two decades. Glaw & Vences (1. U. Additional evidence for their morphological distinctness was found by B. Raxworthy et al. In the present work, we provide further molecular and mor- phological evidence for this differentiation. We show that two species of the Uroplatus ebenaui group occur sympatrically at Montagne d’Ambre and describe one of them as a new species. Material and methods. Sampling. Specimens were collected during nocturnal surveys, using flashlights or headlamps to locate individu- als. Representative specimens were euthanized by injection of chlorobutanol solution, hardened in 9. Locality information was recorded using Global Positioning System receivers. New specimens included in this study were deposited in the collection of the Zoologische Staatssammlung M. Historical type specimens used for the morphometric comparative analysis came from the Mus. FGZC, ZCMV and 2. E refer to field numbers of F. Vences and both respectively; URANO, JAR and UAMB refer to a survey done by E. Ratsoavina, ACZC to the field numbers of A. Crottini, and DRV to D. Vieites’ field numbers. MPFC acronyms are field numbers of M. Pabijan. To facilitate effective comparisons, the description scheme of the new species follows that of Uroplatusmalama by Nussbaum & Raxworthy (1. Uroplatus malama (ZCMV 1. ZSM) to validate our interpretation of characters. Pictures of the living animal were taken at Andreoky in the Andohahela area, in southeastern Madagascar. Definition of measurements (all in mm) and characters, shown in Figure 1 are as follows: snout- vent length (SVL); tail length (Ta. L); tail width (Ta. W); head length, measured from tip of snout to posterior end of the cranium (HL1); head length, measured from snout tip to small central head prominence (HL2), maximum head width (HW), forelimb length (For. L), measured from the proximal end of the humerus to the distal tip of the longest finger, hindlimb length (Hi. L), measured from the proximal end of the femur to the distal tip of the longest toe, length of medial posterior projection of the interorbital ridge (IRPL), neck triangle length (NTL), measured from the poste- rior edge of a small central head prominence (which is present in the U. Morphometric data were analyzed using Statistica software (Statsoft) employing nonparametric Mann- Whitney U tests. FIGURE 1. Measurements taken from. Uroplatusspecimens listed in Table 1, (a) head; (b) body and tail. Molecular work. Two types of tissue samples were used in the molecular study (tail tip or muscle from thefemur). All tissues were preserved in 9. Total genomic DNA was extracted from the tissue samples using proteinase K digestion (1. Bruford et al. Standard protocols for PCR amplification were used to amplify two gene segments: a fragment of the mitochondrial NADH dehydrogenase subunit 4 (ND4) using the primers ND4 5’- CACCTAT- GACTACCAAAAGCTCATGTAGAAGC- 3’ and Leut. RNA 5’- CATTACTTTTACTTGGATTTGCACC- 3’ (Ar. C- mos) using the primers CO8 5’- GCTTGGTGTTCAATAGACTGG- 3’ and CO9 5’- TTTGGGAGCATCCAAAGTCTC- 3’ (Han et al. We generated sequences using an automated DNA sequencer (ABI 3. XL, Applied Biosystems) and aligned them using Codon. Code Aligner (Codon Code Corporation) with the Clustal. W algorithm. Altogether we analyzed 2. ND4 and 4. 1 C- mos sequences of several individuals of the U. Newly determined sequences have been deposited in Gen. Bank (accession numbers JN0. JN0. 38. 13. 7). Bayesian inference (BI) searches were performed with Mr. Bayes 3. 1. 2 (Ronquist & Huelsenbeck 2. The Akaike Information Criterion (Akaike 1. Mr. Modeltest v. 2. Nylander 2. 00. 2) selected a GTR+I+G model as the best fitting model to explain our ND4 data, and we consequently implemented this model in our BI analysis. We performed two runs of 1. Markov chains (using default heating values) each, sampling the Markov chains at intervals of 1. Stabiliza- tion and convergence of likelihood values occurred after three million generations. The first five million genera- tions were conservatively discarded and five millions trees were retained post burn- in and summed to generate a majority rule consensus tree (Figure 5). Haplotypes of the C- mos fragment were inferred using the PHASE algorithm (Stephens et al. Dna. SP software (Version 5. Librado & Rozas 2. Haplotype network reconstruction of phased sequences of the C- mos fragment (Figure 7) were performed using the software TCS, version 1. Clement et al. 2. Templeton et al. To confirm the taxonomic distinctness ofthe Uroplatus from Montagne d'Ambre (Figure 2), we first investigated the identity of the available scientific names in the U. We reviewed the original literature and/or examined the type specimens of all nom- inal species in this species group and all their junior synonyms. Original measurements of specimens examined by us are given in Table 1. Specimens of the different species and candidate species in life are shown in Figs. Figs. 4 and 5; the molecular differentiation among taxa is shown in Fig. Figure 9. FIGURE 2. Photo in life of a male of. Uroplatus finiavana sp. Uroplatus malamaencountered in May 2. Andreoky (Andohahela area), south east of Madagascar around. This species is characterized by (1) an almost straight line of dermal folds between the eyes (interorbital ridge) that connects the supraciliary spines, (2) a short (Ta. L/SVL 0. 2. 16–0. Several of these features (such as the straight interorbital line) have been previously noted by B. Therefore, little doubt remains about the identity of this species. Uroplatus boettgeri—This nomen was coined by Fischer (1. ZMH R0. 43. 56)from . The short original tail of the subadult holotype (Ta. L/SVL 0. 2. 80), the presence of a straight line between the eyes, and the presence of a blackish oral mucosa, are in full agreement with Uroplatusebenaui. Therefore, we continue to consider U. This specimen was collected by Rev. Five years later, Peracca (1. Andrangoloaka (catalogue number MZUT R. Andreone 1. 99. 1) with a short tail of 1. Bauer & Russell (1. U. Baron travelled extensively throughout Madagascar, but apparently toured in the northwest, north and northeast of the island no earlier than 1. Uroplatusphantasticus. All Malagasy amphibians and reptiles collected by Baron and described by Boulenger are from typelocalities in the northern central eastern portion of Madagascar (e. Boophis albilabris), or in the southern central east (e. Madascincus macrolepis, Calumma gastrotaenia, Liophidium torquatum, Pseudoxyrhopus microps,Tam- nosophis infrasignatus, Mantella baroni; biogeographic regions according to Boumans et al.
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