Why Evolution is True is a blog written by Jerry Coyne, centered on evolution and biology but also dealing with diverse topics like politics, culture, and cats.
Today’s photos of Costa Rica come from reader Leo Glenn. His narrative is indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them:
Here are some photos from my recent trip to Costa Rica. We spent most of our time on the Pacific side in the northwest region, in Guanacaste Province. The Pacific side has more distinct dry and rainy seasons, in contrast with the Caribbean side, which receives considerably more rainfall year round. Although slightly smaller in land area than the U.S. state of West Virginia, Costa Rica boasts 32 national parks, over 50 wildlife refuges, and over a dozen forest and biological reserves. This creates tension, of course, between preservation efforts and ecotourism, which is the country’s largest source of income.
The view from a higher elevation, about 20 minutes from where we stayed.
The local beach, Playa Avellanas, was a short walk from our lodging via a boardwalk that traversed a mangrove swamp, comprised mostly of White Mangrove (Laguncularia racemosa). After an earthquake in 2012, the land along the coast rose one meter, which closed off the mouth of the river, causing the water in the mangrove swamp to stagnate and kill all of the trees (thus the many dead trees in the foreground). A restoration effort was undertaken to restore the area and replant the mangroves. It appears to have been largely successful, though it will be years before the new trees mature and the ecosystem returns to something close to its pre-earthquake state.
The shallow and drier areas of the swamp were populated by several crab species, including the Racer Mangrove Crab (Goniopsis pulchra).
The forested areas on the path to the beach were dotted with numerous small burrows, inhabited by Red Land Crabs (Gecarcinus quadratus), which would freeze when approached, before slowly slinking backwards into their holes.
A juvenile Atlantic Ghost Crab (Ocypode quadrata). They were lightning fast, and very hard to photograph.
Some Brown Pelicans (Pelecanus occidentalis), flying over the beach. There were quite a few more in the line. Apparently, a group of pelicans can be called a pod, a pouch, a scoop, a squadron, or, if fishing as a group, a fleet.
Although colorful butterflies were abundant, I lacked the skill, patience, and hardware to photograph them, unless, as in this instance, I got lucky when one happened to land in the swimming pool. We rescued it immediately, of course, and after a few minutes spent drying its wings, it took flight. Theona Checkerspot (Chlosyne theona).
I did manage one halfway decent photo of an Apricot Sulphur (Phoebis argante).
A Crested Caracara (Caracara plancus), described on Wikipedia as “a bold, opportunistic raptor, often seen walking around on the ground looking for food,” which is exactly what this one was doing.
A nest of Northern Warrior Wasps (Synoeca septentrionalis), in a tree outside our lodging. According to Wikipedia, “It is a swarm-founding wasp that is also eusocial, exhibiting complicated nest structure and defense mechanisms.” The nest was about 30 ft up in the tree, and without a telephoto lens (or a very long stepladder), this was the best photo I could get. Its high location in the tree was a comfort to us, being so close to our rental house. Though not a particularly aggressive species, they are reported to have a very painful sting.
Today we have part 3 of Tony Eales’s safari to Botswana (see parts 1 and 2 here and here, and we have one more to go: from Victoria Falls). Tony’s captions are indented, and you can enlarge his photos by clicking on them.
Safari Part III
Ok, enough elephants and hippos. We all know what WEIT fans are here for: cats and owls.
The first cats were ones that worked at the Sedia Riverside Hotel. One specialised in breakfast clean up, the other in small bird control.
But of course, what you go to Africa for are the big cats. and the first and most wonderful we saw was an adult female leopard (Panthera pardus):
We found out about her position from another safari car and when we got to her position there were at least half a dozen other cars all trying to get a position to see her. She had taken an impala kill into a thick bush and was eating part of it:
When she had had her fill, she came out and lay in the grass and cleaned herself. We were a bit annoyed with one particular safari company that had many cars there and seemed to be coming in far too close and blocking other peoples’ views. Despite all this the leopard acted as if the cars didn’t exist only occasionally looking up briefly when a car restarted its engine. All the cats, leopards and lions, that we saw treated the cars as beneath their concern, unworthy of any attention:
We got the story from some other guides that they believed that this leopard had cubs hidden somewhere. Because our camp was very close by we were able to stay after all the other cars had left and got some great views before she wandered off after sunset, presumably to see her cubs or get water.
The next day we came back early and saw a hyena, presumably attracted by the kill, run off. we went to the thicket but the impala was gone. Then we heard jackals yelping nearby:
We followed their gaze and found the female eating again, this time in high grass. As more cars turned up we decided to head off:
We came back in the afternoon and found a different scene. Now the adult female was laying out on a high mound near a tree. And in that tree was a young male:
The story we gleaned from others was that this male was her cub from last year. He had come to participate in the meal and she had chased him up the tree. He was no longer going to get handouts now that she had new cub. If he moved at all she growled and ran at the tree climbing halfway up the trunk to keep him in place. It was hard not to anthropomorphise his expression as confused and sad as he watched her with fixed gaze as she eventually wandered off:
The next cats we saw was a small pride of lions (Panthera leo), a female, two young male brothers and two cubs. we were the first to spot them and got wonderful views of them playing and interacting:
In the end we saw approximately 30 lions in the trip both in Momei and Chobe and I can’t put up all the shots I got this nice one of a young male in Chobe:
Regular Mark Sturtevant is back with a batch of lovely arthropod photos. Mark’s captions are indented, and you can enlarge his pictures by clicking on them.
Here are more pictures of arthropods. Some are from area parks, and others are from my house here in Michigan.
First up is an Antlion larva, Brachynemurus abdominalis. One can find the conical pits that these little beasties make all over what I call the Magic Field. How they use their pit to ensnare passing insects is shown in this video. Although they are easily extracted with a spoon to be taken home for pictures, actually getting pictures was not that easy since they generally want to scuttle backwards in an attempt to bury themselves. Right now, I am keeping a few larvae in cups of sand and feeding them ants (which is always entertaining), with the aim of later photographing the pupal stage. Antlion pupae are interesting in that they are still ill-tempered and they bite:
I came upon this wasp-mimicking beetle (Necydalis mellita) along a woodland trail. That it is indeed a beetle is proven by its elytra, even though they are very short. I’ve seen these before but could never get a picture because they are alert and flighty (wasp mimics tend to be wasp mimics all the way). But this one allowed a few pictures. It belongs in the longhorn beetle family:
Next up is a Big Sand Tiger Beetle (Cicindela formosa). These lovely but very alert beetles are common around here in sandy areas. Some days, nothing will get you a picture of one, but on this rather cool and overcast day the task was pretty trivial. Tiger beetles used to be in their own family, but now they have been absorbed into the ground beetle family:
Another challenging beetle is shown next. This is a tumbling flower beetle, Mordella marginata. Tumbling flower beetles belong to their own rather obscure family, and they are normally found on flowers where they eat pollen. There, the least disturbance will cause them to live up to their name as they curl up and fall to the ground:
Next are two grasshoppers because I really like grasshoppers. The first is a ‘hopper nymph of uncertain identity, but it most resembles the Two-striped Grasshopper, Melanoplus bivittatus.
Over the previous summer, I made it a regular habit to scour the front porch in the morning to look for insects that were drawn in overnight by our porch light. Among the more common squatters were these very small Mayflies which I believe to be Callibaetus ferrugineus. First are two females. The close-up picture is focus-stacked with my super macro lens, as are all of the remaining pictures here. She looks pretty strange, as all Mayflies do, but get a load of the male in the next picture.
Here is a male. I still remember my astonishment seeing the first of these! The upward turret-shaped portion of their compound eyes are thought to be used to watch for females:
This set finishes with a couple spiders. First up is a Slender Crab Spider, Tibellus sp. These are shaped to stretch out along grass blades:
And finally, here is a Ground Crab Spider, Xysticus sp. The super macro lens lets me peer into a new world, but I wasn’t expecting that face to look back from it!:
Today we feature another travel/historical/picture contribution from Athayde Tonhasca Júnior. His captions are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.
Macedonian treasures
Macedonia, in northern Greece, is the descendant of the Kingdom of Macedon of Alexander the Great fame, and not to be confused with Northern Macedonia, the independent country resulting from the dissolution of Yugoslavia. The young country’s choice of ‘Macedonia’ for its name caused a 25-year kerfuffle with Greece, which is still bitter about it (source of the images in parentheses).
Some of the 266 fragments of the Derveni Papyrus, the oldest European ‘book’ and one of the documents in the UNESCO’s ‘Memory of the World’ Programme. The papyrus roll from the 3rd-4th c. BC was found carbonized among the remains of a funeral pyre in northern Greece. The text, read with special photographic techniques, consists mainly of an allegorical-philosophical interpretation of a poem ascribed to the mythical poet Orpheus. One of the lines read: Zeus is the hea[d], Zeus the mid[dle], and from Zeus all things are ma[de], which unsurprisingly resonates with the idea of a Grand Poobah from the Abrahamic religions. Most modern myths such as the Flood, Immaculate Conception, Chosen People, Garden of Eden, Hell, are not original – the Ancient Pagans thought of them first. (Thessaloniki’s Archaeological Museum, AM):
A bill of sale from 3rd c. AD.: Titos, son of Lykos, buys from Amphotera a two-month old slave girl. The girl’s name is Nike. The price is set at 15 silver pieces. Slavery was a fact of life for the Greek city states and every other ancient civilisation. (AM):
JAC: I’ve highlighted Nike’s name
Aphrodite, or Venus for the Romans. Her family tree was unusual even for the imaginative Greeks: she was born from the white foam produced by the severed genitals of Uranus (Heaven), after his son Cronus threw them into the sea (aphros means ‘foam’). Aphrodite had a wide portfolio: goddess of sexual love, beauty and fertility, she was also worshipped by seafarers, prostitutes and warriors. This terracotta figurine is an early representation of Aphrodite, with no features to distinguish her from other goddesses. (Pella Archaeological Museum):
Hermaphroditus, the son of Aphrodite and Hermes. The water-nymph Salmacis, seeing him bathing in a pool, fell in love and prayed that they may never be separated. The gods acquiesced and joined the pair into one body with a dual nature, boy and girl. Among Greeks and Romans, Hermaphroditus was worshipped by – unsurprisingly – hermaphrodites, and also by ‘effeminate men’. But he was also seen as a deity of marriage for representing the union of a man and a woman. Hermaphroditus has experienced an unexpected revival into the modern pantheon, as the Church of Woke often cites him in mendacious arguments for the idea of sex as a continuum. (AM):
A votive relief dedicated to Hades, the god of the dead and the ruler of the underworld. 2nd c. AD. The Greeks had a god or demigod for any imaginable situation or activity. Listeners of A Way with Words mentioned some gods missing from the museum, including: Lemonades, god of cool refreshments; Ledes, god of low power lamps; Marmalades, god of chunky fruit spreads; Seus, god of children’s literature; Mediocretes, god of things that are slightly below average; Herpes and Chlamydia, the incurable romantics; Auricles and Ventricles, protagonists of a heart-breaking story; Apallo, god of shock and dismay; Diabetes, the god of carbonated sodas; and Phlebotomies, god of vampires. (AM):
You may have attended symposiums, but not likely the ones put together by the Ancient Greeks. Symposiums were gatherings of upper-class men in the andrones (‘men’s quarters’), which were furnished with couches along the walls. The lads would dine and drink in a semi-reclining position, which was a mark of elegance and decorum (the standing figure is a slave, who are always depicted as small). Household women did not take part: instead, cultured and sophisticated courtesans (the hetairai) were hired to entertain the guests with music, songs, dances and their ‘feminine charm’. (AM).
A helmet and funerary mask from ~520 BC. The warrior was buried wearing his helmet and his face was covered with a golden mask. The facial characteristics must have been created by pressing the gold sheet against the dead man’s face. (AM).
This gold chest is believed to have held the bones of King Philip II, and the gold wreath of oak leaves adorned his dead body. Philip II turned the kingdom of Macedonia into a regional power and prepared the ground for his son, Alexander the Great. The discovery of Philip’s tomb near modern Vergina in 1977 by Greek archaeologist Manolis Andronikos is one the most remarkable archaeological findings ever. (Royal Tombs of Vergina):
A replica of the Horologion of Philippi from 250-350 AD. This amazing instrument was used to calculate time, latitude, the height and the azimuth of the sun or some other star. You can find out how it works here. Only the Antikythera Mechanism could be more spectacular and awe-inspiring (AM):
A clay alabastron (a vessel used for storing oil) with a bust of the god Dionysus from the 2nd-1st c. BC. It is shaped like a phallus, which was a symbol of fertility and well-being, and a charm to avoid bad luck. Phallic amulets, often in the form of winged willies, really took off with the Romans. They were depicted in jewellery, pendants, lamps, relief carvings, mosaics, etc. and given to male children to ward off the evil eye and keep them healthy during their early years. These phallic charms were known as fascini (sing. fascinus), which is fascinating. (Museum of the Roman Agora, Thessaloniki):
Alexander III, aka the Great (356-323 BC). As king of Macedonia, Alexander created the largest empire in the ancient world until the Romans came to the stage, and he laid the foundations for the Hellenistic Period, when Greek language and culture spread throughout the Mediterranean. Alexander was no thicko: he studied literature, science, medicine and philosophy under the supervision of Aristotle, his private tutor. This head bust embodies all that riles the Woke apostles: empire, male dominance, whiteness. So inevitably the Classics are being cancelled, sometimes by classicists themselves. (Pella Archaeological Museum):
This lead tablet from the 4th c. BC contains a curse in the dialect spoken by the population of Pella (the ancient capital of Macedon). Among other things, it says: ‘…were I ever to unfold and read these words again after digging (the tablet) up, only then should Dionysophon marry, not before; may he indeed not take another woman than myself, but let me alone grow old by the side of Dionysophon and no one else”; ‘But please keep this (piece of writing) for my sake so that these events do not happen and wretched Thetima perishes miserably’. Curse tablets with magic texts intending to cause harm or to ward off evil were a big thing among Greeks and Romans. They were placed in graves, thrown into wells or nailed to the walls of temples. A whole collection of them was found in the English city of Bath. (Pella Archaeological Museum):
Today sees the return of Robert Lang, physicist, origami master and, today, photographer. Robert’s narration is indented, and you can click on the photos to enlarge them.
More local animals
The Los Angeles basin is a vast urban/suburban metropolis, but its natural boundaries of ocean and mountains are abrupt with sharp transitions created by water and steepness. The northern boundary is formed by the San Gabriel and San Bernardino Mountains (collectively, the Transverse Ranges) and they rise steeply from many back yards along the range. My studio is about 20 feet from the edge of the Angeles National Forest; this gives rise to many wildlife encounters, both at the studio and on the trails that climb up from the back property line. Most of these pictures are fairly recent.
One from last fall that I’ve been saving for RWP is this California Tarantula (Aphonopelma sp.). Probably a male, because he was out and about; in the fall, the males go on walkabout looking for females (who mostly stay hidden in their burrows):
Then we turn to a couple of reptiles. The Western Fence Lizard (Sceloporus occidentalis) is one of the most common lizards around; just walking down the front steps, I’m likely to see one (although it’s rare that they stay still enough to be photographed). They are highly variable in color, and the same lizard can appear either light or dark. In the morning, they are dark to absorb the sun’s rays; then in the afternoon, after they’ve warmed up, they lighten their skin and their lovely iridescence becomes visible:
I was pleased on a recent hike to see a Blainville’s Horned Lizard (Phrynosoma blainvillii) at an elevation of about 4000 feet. They used to be more common in the San Gabriels, but earlier in the previous century their numbers were reduced by collectors gathering them for the curio trade, and they’ve never fully come back. I really should have taken a wide-angle photo of this one; it would have been a great candidate for the “Spot the …” series, as it was so perfectly camouflaged against the sand and gravel I nearly stepped on it:
Another reptile that I’m glad I didn’t step on was this Southern Pacific Rattlesnake (Crotalus oreganus helleri), who was stretched out across the trail. He was pretty chill, though; didn’t budge as we approached, and so we gingerly stepped past. A nice set of rattles on that one!
We have three kinds of squirrels around; ground squirrels, gray squirrels, and the (introduced) Fox Squirrel (Sciurus niger). The local rattlers are happy to dine on any of them.
We also have both crows and ravens; crows are more common down in the neighborhoods, while ravens like this Common Raven (Corvus corax) dominate up in the chapparal. This one is perched on the top of one of last year’s blooms from the Whipple Yucca (Hesperoyucca whipplei):
Larger creatures sometimes come visit the meadow behind the studio. A not infrequent visitor is the coyote (Canis latrans). Although this one was (barely) within the National Forest, they come far down into the adjacent neighborhoods, where they find plentiful food in the form of dropped fruit, loose garbage, and the occasional domestic animal whose owners ill-advisedly allow them to roam free:
Another frequent large visitor is the California Mule Deer (Odocoileus hemionus californicus). This time of year, the bucks are in velvet, like this one. We had a very wet spring, so there is a lot of browse in the mountain canyons and not much to lure them into the meadow, but in the fall, when the acorn crop starts to fall, they’ll be visiting twice a day:
In much of California, the urban/wilderness interface usually exists in one of two states: (1) recovering from the last wildfire; (2) stocking up for the next wildfire. A year ago we had a relatively small wildfire just across the canyon; fortunately, it was a cool day with not much wind, and the fire crews held it to just a few acres:
I spent the afternoon watching the firefighters dragging hoses for hundreds of yards up the ridges while helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft dropped water and fire retardant. I am in awe of the firefighters, who were clambering up cliffs that I wouldn’t even try to scramble under the best of circumstances, while they were wearing and/or carrying 50 pounds of kit and dragging hoses. Within a few hours, they had things under control. The drifting smoke and red fire retardant gave things an almost surreal appearance as they were mopping up:
That was a year ago. One thing about the chaparral is it recovers quickly from fire (indeed, many plants rely on it), and after this spring’s wet rains, the formerly bare ground is covered in new growth, and the burned bushes have resprouted. They’re getting ready for the next fire, which is bound to happen sometime; it’s the nature of this bit of Nature.
Today we have part 2 of Tony Eales’s recent safari to Botswana (part 1 is here). Tony’s narrative is indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.
Botswana Safari Part II
After we left the Okavango Delta camp, we moved northeast into the Moremi Game Reserve, still mostly in the delta. Being winter, the nights were cold and mornings brisk but the days warmed up nicely. It was strange to Australian eyes to see a forest in a landscape much like Australia but with deciduous trees. There’s only one species of deciduous tree native to Australia so it looked very off to our eye. In addition, the forest looked like it had been trashed by heavy machinery and had regrown from broken trunks and suckers. Of course, the heavy machinery in question was elephants—major shapers of the habitat.
Here’s a baby begging for food from mum. There were so many baby elephants around when we were there all of them acting in the most cute and silly ways:
Moremi was perhaps my favourite place, it was varied with pools and swamps as part of the delta as well as large grasslands, forests and thickets. one shallow waterhole in particular was a haven for birdlife with two species of pelicans and African Skimmers (Rynchops flavirostris) both of which were on my bucket list for Africa. here’s a shot of a skimmer with Great White Pelicans (Pelecanus onocrotalus) in the background:
It was here that I realised that if you looked closely at most of these large waterholes, you’d see the eyes and nose of (Southern African) Nile Crocodiles (Crocodylus niloticus ssp. cowiei) poking out. We also saw many out basking on the banks.
Also nearby, we got great close-up views of the famous Marabou Stork (Leptoptilos crumenifer):
Close to the Third Bridge Camp Site we saw zebra (Chapman’s ZebraEquus quagga ssp. chapmani), wildebeests (Connochaetes taurinus ssp. taurinus), ostriches (Struthio camelus ssp. australis) and a lone young spotted hyena (Crocuta crocuta) moving quickly through:
My son—this trip was a combined 18th and 21st present for him—was absolutely in love with the mongooses. We mainly saw Banded Mongoose (Mungos mungo ssp. ngamiensis) and Slender Mongoose (Herpestes sanguineus):
And of course, no one can leave a safari without the obligatory photo of the Lilac-breasted Roller (Coracias caudatus ssp. caudatus). A jaw-droppingly beautiful bird.
I’ll finish with a pic of a giant herd of Cape Buffalo (Syncerus caffer ssp. caffer) that we saw in amongst dead leadwood trees near sunset. It made for some stunning photos.
Today’s photos come from UC Davis ecologist Susan Harrison. Her narrative is indented, and you can enlarge the slides by clicking on them:
Great Gray Owl Expedition
In late June I had the good fortune to join a field trip in the southern Oregon Cascades led by Harry Fuller. After retiring as an award-winning San Francisco TV journalist, Harry became a self-taught Great Gray Owl (Strix nebulosa) expert and prolific natural-history author and field trip leader. His book on the owls is full of amazing photos, scientific information and stories. One example is the account of a landowner who fed live-trapped voles to a nesting female Great Gray Owl after her mate was killed by a Great Horned Owl (Bubo virginianus). She fledged her young successfully thanks to her hardworking human admirer!
Our first sighting was an owlet who kept trying to expel a pellet:
As nests, Great Grays often use the tops of large broken-off trees, or platform-type nests built by other birds – for example, the owl-containing former Northern Goshawk (Accipiter gentilis) nest that I recently saw in Finland. Man-made nesting platforms like the one above have been a great boon for these owls.
Later we saw one of the owlet’s parents guarding the nest:
Female Great Grays mind the young and only leave the nest to hunt for themselves. Four times a day or more, their mate flies in bringing food for the 1-4 owlets, who are typically of slightly varying ages. Unlike many other birds, these owls will feed their smallest young first.
Listening for prey, this Great Gray seemed unbothered by us:
Small mammals, mainly voles (Microtus), are the Great Gray’s staple diet. It makes little sense for such large birds to fly long distances for such tiny food items. Thus, according to Harry, when you see an adult Great Gray in the summer it’s probably within a few hundred yards of its nest.
Two weeks later, the owlet was out of the nest:
The adult owls were still guarding and feeding it, but not for much longer:
Many of the other birds we saw were likewise occupied with tending their young.
Pileated Woodpecker (Dryocopus pileatus) removing a fecal sac from the nest:
Williamson’s Sapsucker (Sphyrapicus thyroideus), the first male of this high-elevation species I’ve seen:
Mountain Bluebird (Sialia currucoides) male delivering food to a rocky crevice:
The same bird posing on red volcanic rock:
The mate of the same Mountain Bluebird, also feeding their kids:
Cassin’s Finch (Haemorhous cassinii), a high-elevation cousin of the House Finch (Haemorhous mexicanus), gleaning food on a Red Fir (Abies magnifica). Females of this species were nest-building at the same location just a week earlier:
Killdeer (Charadrius vociferus) luring us away from its nest:
Today marks the return of photos from reader Ivar Husa, who sends us lovely birds. He lives in Washington State but the photos are from the southwestern U.S. Ivar’s narrative is indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.
The birds in this collection have very limited ranges in North American, for the most part to the mountainous areas along our southern border. Finding them is a special treat for birders visiting southeast Arizona. These were all photographed in the Santa Rita Mountains, south of Tucson, Arizona.
Elf Owls (Micrathene whitneyi), seen here, are the world’s smallest raptor. Males and females maintain separate nests nearby to one another. The male brings food to the female’s nest each night during nesting season, arriving around sunset with their first offering. The land owner has habituated these birds to the light of a small flashlight, enabling photography. The property owner has been showing off this nest and these birds, ‘guiding’ as it were, for no charge, for the last 11 years.
This male, and they believe no other, has served this nest for 11 years. This, based on behavior rather than appearance. Cornell’s All About Birds website reports (perhaps incorrectly?) that the oldest known wild Elf Owl lived to at least 5 years, 10 months old.
A female died in her nest 7 years ago (evidenced by the presence of many wasps eating the carrion). The following year a new female was brought to this nest, apparently unfazed by its history. These owls are unable to create their own nesting cavities, so one can’t be too picky! This continuing female occupant seems also to be longer lived than expected.
JAC: I took a paragraph from Wikipedia to show you how small these cavity-nesting birds are (they often occupy abandoned woodpecker nests):
The elf owl is the world’s lightest owl, although the long-whiskered owlet and the Tamaulipas pygmy owl are of a similarly diminutive length. It is also the world’s smallest owl. The mean body weight of this species is 40 g (1.4 oz). These tiny owls are 12.5 to 14.5 cm (4.9 to 5.7 in) long and have a wingspan of about 27 cm (10.5 in). Their primary projection (flight feather) extends nearly past their tail. They have fairly long legs and often appear bow-legged.
Back to Ivar:
Eggs were expected to hatch a week or so after my visit, which was June 2, 2023:
This male Elegant Trogon (Trogon elegans) is also bringing food to its nest:
Today is Sunday, ergo John Avise is here with a particularly winsome batch of baby birds, including two species of DUCKS. John’s captions are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.
Baby Birds
Depending on the species, avian babies come in several types ranging between two extremes: precocial and altricial. Precocial chicks typically hatch with a full set of downy feathers and quickly leave the nest to feed and fend for themselves (often with parental guidance). By contrast, altricial young hatch nearly naked and helpless, and require intensive care and feeding by their parents until they grow more feathers and eventually fledge. Precocial babies can be very cute, whereas altricial babies often tend to be– well, rather ugly. This week’s post shows several examples of cute and not-so-cute avian babies and other youngsters.
Today we have another photo-and-story piece from Athayde Tonhasca Júnior. His narrative is indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them:
Flavour of the month
Many things can be ‘plain vanilla’, but vanilla is not one of them. This spice comprises a complex mixture of vanillin and other organic compounds that produce its distinctive flavour and aroma. The main source of vanilla, the flat-leaved vanilla orchid (Vanilla planifolia), is native to Central and South America but grown commercially in tropical areas around the world; Madagascar is by far the largest producer, followed by Indonesia.
Vanillin is found in the orchid’s ‘beans’ (botanically speaking, its fruits), and it’s not easy to get. The vanilla orchid grows as a vine that can extend for 20 to 50 metres, so it needs supporting structures to spread out. In its native range, the vanilla flower is pollinated by bees; elsewhere, it is hand-pollinated (you can watch how this is done). The operation has to be quick because a flower remains receptive for about 24 hours. If not pollinated, it wilts and falls to the ground. The beans take six to nine months to mature; when ready, they are hand-picked, dipped in hot water and dried for up to a month. So it’s not surprising that such a labour-intensive crop doesn’t come cheap: as spices go, only saffron costs more by unit of weight.
So how come your run-of-the-mill vanilla ice-cream or cake is not particularly dear? Because about 99% of all vanilla products (food, beverages, cosmetics and pharmaceuticals) are flavoured with synthetic vanillin, which can be obtained from wood pulp, clove oil, coal tar and other petrochemicals, and it’s about 20 times cheaper than natural vanilla. Chefs, bakers and food buffs debate the organoleptic differences between natural and synthetic vanilla. Whatever their verdict, the food industry is under growing pressure to reduce artificial flavours from their products, so production of natural vanilla remains strong and tends to increase.
The growing value of natural vanilla is promising to small farmers in Madagascar and other developing countries, but there are clouds on the horizon. Almost all natural vanilla comes from a single species cultivated as a monoculture in a few areas around the globe, and all plants are obtained by cloning (cuttings). These distribution and propagation patterns promote genetic uniformity, which is a risk to vanilla production. A simplified and impoverished genetic base makes the crop vulnerable to diseases and pests, which are similar threats to those hanging over the genetically homogeneous bananas available to European and American consumers.
One way to reduce these risks is in-situ conservation, that is, the protection of flat-leaved vanilla orchids in their places of origin. These areas are natural gene banks, potential sources of genetic material that could be incorporated into crops to help them adjust to new environmental stresses. And here, bees may have a lot to contribute.
In the wild, flat-leaved vanilla orchids grow in isolation deep inside mature forests, climbing from one tree to another. When plants reach a certain size, they produce only a handful of flowers. A pollinator needs special skills to locate a flower in the chaotic, crowded environment of a tropical jungle. This is a job for orchid or euglossine bees (tribe Euglossini). Females gather pollen and nectar like any ordinary bee, but males spend a great deal of their time collecting volatile compounds, primarily from orchids; they can fly for dozens of kilometres in pursuit of the right scent. Males store a variety of these chemicals, and the resulting aromatic bouquet advertises their prowess to females. Many orchids take advantage of this perfume obsession: they are especially adapted to transferring pollinia (pollen packets) to the bodies of visiting male orchid bees.
Orchid bees are the main, or possibly the only, pollinators of the flat-leaved vanilla orchid, although we have only sketchy details about specific species. These bees play another role in the orchid’s life, one that has been recognised only recently: as seed dispersers.
Seed dispersal is as important as pollination. By having its seeds spread out over large distances, a plant does not have to compete with its seedlings. Dispersed offspring also has a better chance of escaping predators, diseases or environmental misadventures that may befall the parent plant. Herbivores play a big part in dispersal: the seeds in the fruits they eat will end up in a steamy, fertilised pile somewhere. But mammals and birds are not tempted by most orchids because their fruits are not particularly nutritious. It makes no difference for most orchids; their seeds are easily uplifted and dispersed by the wind: for some species, 3 million seeds weigh as little as 1 g.
But things are different for Vanilla spp. and a few other orchid genera: they produce fleshy fruit whose seeds are protected by a hardened coat and not easily carried by the wind. These characteristics suggest zoochory (seed dispersal by animals), and indeed rodents and marsupials eat the fruits of flat-leaved vanilla orchids, later passing the seeds. Karremans et al. (2023) discovered that some male orchid bees and female stingless bees (tribe Meliponini) join the feast: they take seeds away when the fruits split open naturally. So the flat-leaved vanilla orchid is likely to be part of a select group of plants with mellitochorous seeds, i.e., dispersed by bees. Mellitochory is not common, but this could reflect our lack of knowledge more than rarity of the phenomenon. Most recorded cases involve seeds hitching a ride when stingless bees collect resin or other nest-building material. Later these seeds fall off or are chucked out of the bees’ nests, germinating on the ground.
To summarise: there’s a global craving for natural vanilla, which is extracted mostly from one species of orchid whose populations are vulnerable to genetic homogeneity. Protecting native orchid habitats would allow bees to give a hand by pollinating flowers and dispersing their seeds, thus helping safeguard commercial flat-leaved vanilla against future vicissitudes. This intricate tale is anything but plain vanilla.
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