Liverwort

Back in November, Chris Barnhart send me pictures of a large patch of liverwort that he had been watching.  Initially it was a dull mass, seen below, but the morning after a rain it blossomed into the bright green you see above.  I sent it to Nels Holmberg who identified it as Asterella tenella, sending it on to John Atwood for confirmation.  They added that "I have never seen such a thick pad of this species. Usually it is spread out 1 plant deep."

Dry liverwort - Christ Barnhart

My initial search for Asterella tenella brought up only limited listings with no details.  One titillating title caught my eye, Laboratory Induction of Sexuality in Asterella tenella, but as usual in scientific literature it was only describing the short days and low temperatures required for the induction of sex organs in this species.

A. tenella is a thaloid liverwort, which I am sure most of you recognized but was Greek to me (actually Latin, but never mind).  I did finally find this definition of the genus.

"Asterella is a liverwort, a type of simple, non-vascular plant, akin to mosses. Like mosses, liverworts are restricted to moist habitats or moist times of the year. ......Astrella is found widely around CSUCI, but only in well-shaded habitats (such as the shadiest parts of north facing slopes). It is active (green) only in the days or weeks immediately following rainfall. When dry and inactive, it is black and crusty" Cal. State U Channel Islands

Our Master Naturalist program in March is on the Bryophytes by Nels Holmberg.  They are the "lower half" of the plant kingdom, seedless non-vascular plants, made up of mosses, liverworts and hornworts.  The other "half" are all the flowering vascular plants we are familiar with.  For me it is easier to talk about what bryophytes aren't, comparing them against flowering, seed forming trees, forbs and grasses that are familiar in their lifestyle and reproduction.

Asterella tenella  closeup - Chris Barnhart

One thing I can start to understand is that since they aren't "vascular," there are no vessels for fluid transport.  What would appear to my untrained eye as a "root" is called a protonema, branching filaments that spread out and form shoots and leaves.  With no vessels to carry water, "Water and mineral nutrients required for the moss to grow are absorbed, not by the rhizoids, but rather by the thin leaves of the plant as rain water washes through the moss cushion."*

Brachythecium species of moss

At that point I begin drowning in a sea of terminology about asexual reproduction and structures.   I would suggest that you take a deep breath, relax and pick up a hand lens to look at the beautiful macroscopic structure above.  If you are one of our Master Naturalists, come to the next meeting with an open mind.  If not but still curious about nature, maybe you should consider looking into a Master Naturalist or like-minded organization near you.  Warning, it can be addictive!

* /bryophytes.plant.siu.edu/

What the Rain Brings

The report on the Resurrection Fern on the last blog got me to thinking about other examples of overnight resuscitation after a little rain.  The most common example that comes to mind is another lower life form that I associate with rain after a dry spell, our beloved fungi.  Many edible species such as morels and oysters spring to life after rain.

We had a pair of logs that Mark Bower introduced me to where Oyster Mushrooms would bloom after a rain.  After a nice fall shower two years ago, I trekked up the little wet-weather creek filled with anticipation and found a large blossoming of mushrooms.  Cutting them off, one fell over the edge of the log and I reached down to retrieve it, stopping just short.  A very patient copperhead waited without moving while I grabbed my camera for a shot of a lifetime.

Mark Bower and I came across nostoc along the rocky glade trail Saturday.  The barren rocks look like they couldn't support any life but add a little rain (in this case just a sprinkle) and in the words of Bill Bryson in A Short History of Nearly Everything, “Life just wants to be; but it doesn't want to be much.”

As we discussed in a earlier blog, this cyanobacteria produces a rather disgusting mass, looking like a rotting plant on its way out rather than a new growth.


Another example of overnight greening after a rain will be featured in the next blog.

Resurrection Fern

Gala Solari shared these pictures of a fern that was growing straight up a tree trunk. I sent the pictures to Justin Thomas (Institute of Botanical Training) who sent back this answer.

"That is Resurrection Fern (Pleopeltis michauxiana). It’s a wonderful fern that shrivels upon drying only to rapidly bring back to life with rain. It is considered a species of high conservation value (C=8), is restricted to the southern and southeastern portions of Missouri and is one of our few epiphytes in the state. In the deep south, it is famous for lining the limbs of stately Live Oaks." - Justin

Epiphytes, sometimes called air plants, don't have roots in the soil.  As defined by Wikipedia, they "grow harmlessly upon another plant (such as a tree) and derives its moisture and nutrients from the air, rain, and sometimes from debris accumulating around it."

The "Resurrection" label comes from its revival with just a little water after weeks or months of desiccation, turning grey-brown and appearing dead.  Over 24 hours it returns to a vivid green color.  It has been estimated that it can last 100 years in this state, waiting for water to revive it.

Jumping Spider

Silk under the bark

This time of year it is hard to find new subjects in nature so I was pleased to find a new spider when out hiking with Mark Bower.  He found this when he stripped bark off a dead tree in search of fungi. "When I stripped off the bark, part of a web was wiggling, and I had to kind of squeeze the spider out." This species uses silk to cover its eggs and also to create a winter home for itself.

Metallic chelicerae of a Phidippus species

After chasing it around in a coffee cup with my camera, I gave up and cooled it in the fridge before finally getting good pictures.  The bright metallic blue- green chelicera are a sign of  the genus Phidippus.  It has the large anterior medial eyes typical of Salticidae.  This is the Canopy Jumping Spider, Phidippus otiosus, which can be found from North Carolina to Texas.  Females lay eggs in the winter, positioning a single egg sac under the bark of oak and pine trees.

Jumping spiders are favorites of collectors and you can even buy them online.  Their popularity is partially based on their eye placement, giving them a distinctive face.  Their large eyes seem to study their surroundings with apparent intelligence including to appear to focus on our faces when viewed closeup.*



The coloration of the spots on the dorsal abdomen of P. otiosus vary from white to red on available pictures.  In general, colors can vary a lot between individuals but the pattern of spots on the back of the abdomen is a common feature.*  Many of the Phidippus species have sophisticated hunting strategies.

"Like most spiders, jumping spiders have 8 eyes arranged in a characteristic pattern with two large anterior medial eyes in the center.  Extensive studies in the 1960s described the eyes in detail.
Jumping spiders, also known as salticids, alternate between entertaining and alarming us by planning prey-capture tactics ahead of time, adjusting their hunting behavior in accordance with how the prey responds and giving us other examples of un-spider-like acumen.  (Harland and Jackson, 2004).

Underlying salticid behavior, there is a more basic defiance of common sense. We may think that spider-size eyes are simply not suitable for seeing a lot of detail, but salticids seem to be telling us to think again. Here we have a celebrated example of how seeing with high spatial acuity can be achieved at a high level by a lowly animal working under severe size constraints. " Jackson and Harland.

* Common Spiders of North America, Richard Bradley, 2013

Another Wasp in the House

Yellow banding on abdomen helps identify P. fuscatus - REK

P. metricus

We have new boarders in our creek house as well as up at Bower's cabin.  This is Polistes fuscatus, the Northern Paper Wasp. After years of harboring dark red-brown Polistes metricus that occasionally come from nowhere to assert dominance with their stinger, we are hoping for a better relationship with P. fuscatus.  There are prettier pictures of it live but this one from Jan Bower is the way I like to handle them - dead. 


These are social wasps in a matriarchy with a solitary queen although her "court" sometimes has other female queens that serve her.  Occasionally they will share their paper nest with P. metricus.  When they first emerge there may be fighting between the females until one establishes dominance.  This is a battle of reproductive strength where the dominant queen usually has the largest and most developed ovaries.

There is evidence that the wasps can recognize individual nest mates by their appearance.  When an individual was painted with black and yellow paint to change its features, it was greeted with aggression which let up with time, unlike a wasp from another nest, suggesting that chemical clues are more important in nest mate recognition.


There is extensive information on every stage of P. metricus life here.  This was the species that was studied in understanding frass-flinging caterpillars.   Caterpillars of silver-spotted skippers (Epargyreus clarus) were paired with P. metricus to determine the benefits of "flinging" frass (caterpillar poop) shooting it away from their leaf shelters.  We have a video of the frass flying out here, a fun sight before delving into the scientific experiments.  I will try to keep in mind the wasps' contributions to entomological research the next time I find them inside our bedroom window.

Bear Den study

This is the time of year when the MDC bear biologists are checking collared female bears in their dens.  This is an opportunity to count and study any newborn bears and the health of the adult.  I had the opportunity to tag along with Jeff Beringer and his crew to locate a bear den last winter.  We were in the northern portion of the known bear range in Missouri.

The Moment of Truth - taken with a telephoto, I'm not stupid!

They knew the approximate GPS location and used a hand held antennae to localize it in the woods.  This bear was nestled in the base of a hollow tree, but sadly did not have any cubs.  Jeff crept up to estimate the size and then measure the dose of sedative.  He sedated the bear using a jab stick, a 5 foot long aluminum tube with a spring-loaded hypodermic needle on the end.  After waiting for the sedative to take hold, there came a "moment of truth" when he had to creep up and test the bear.

Measuring the den

Then they pulled the bear out and started taking detailed measurements of everything including the temperature and dimensions of the den.  The bear was weighed by moving it onto a sling with a scale attached and lifting it up with a pole.  Over 20 measurements of the bear were recorded on the sheets you can see in this folder.  Fine details included a dental exam and even measuring the size of the nipples.  Body fat, hydration and muscle mass were measured by an instrument with alligator clips attached to the bear's lip and anus, (which I considered another way of testing the level of sedation.)

"Say Awww!  Dental exam- notice the broken left lower canine - REK

You can see the tracks of all radio collared bears that have been recorded at this MDC link.  The latest locations aren't posted for the safety and privacy of our bear neighbors.  You can see the locations of this bear (1519) by entering the number in the "bear selector" box on the left.  Turning on "Paths" and "Markers" will show where she traveled on individual days.

More photos and detailed narrative of this bear den check are on Flickr at this link.

The Unicorn

Unicorn antler, draped in velvet - August 2016

Unicorn and friend - September 2016

Early this fall our friend Willie started seeing a "unicorn deer" on game cameras along the creek.  It became an obsession like Captain Ahab's chase of Moby Dick.  When he finally got a shot at it, the arrow deflected off a branch and it bolted away, leaving a trace of blood.  He spent days searching for it without success.

Fast forward to this January.  He was out again the last day of archery season with a tag left when he saw an antler-less deer approaching.  It was underweight and limping badly, unlikely to survive long.  He decided to take it as his last tag in an act of merciful euthanasia.  It turned out to be a buck that had shed its rack early.  Cleaning it he saw the leg wound in its knee, then noticed the pedicle scars where the horns had shed.  The right pedicle was large and irregular, suggesting that this was the "unicorn."

Pointing out the "unicorn" point

Pedicle and antler - perfect fit - Click to enlarge

A week later, Barb found a shed up on the glade.  We sent the photograph to Willie who excitedly reported that it was the unicorn antler.  He retrieved the skull which showed a perfect fit between the antler and the pedicle.

Barb started reading up on deer antler growth and said deer and other cervids such as moose and elk were the only mammals that could regenerate a lost organ.  I argued that an antler isn't an organ but was destroyed by her her resources.  (After 51 years of marriage I should have known better.)

Antlers contain skin, bone, cartilage, blood vessels and nerves while growing.  They are the fastest growing tissue in mammals and can grow an inch a day!  The skin (velvet) falls off on its own although helped along by rubbing.  I had heard theories that it itched but apparently only deer hunters have the itch as velvet has no nerves by the time it falls off.

Deformities can cause atypical racks and are prized by deer hunters.  They are caused by injury to the pedicle or to the tender velvet that is providing nutrition to the underlying developing bone.  Even a leg injury can cause alteration of growth to the antler on the opposite side.

Just when I thought I had read everything to know about "unicorn" antlers, Zoe, a WOLF school student, taught me one more fact.  Did you know that the national animal of Scotland is the unicorn?  Historian Elyse Waters recently described the source of this connection.  Folklore extending back 5,000 year to the Babylonians held that unicorns were bitter enemies with lions and elephants.  It was a symbol of nobility, purity and power, still believed in when King Robert adopted it as the Scottish national animal in the 1300s, putting it on his coat of arms.
https://talesofmidlothian.wordpress.com/tag/unicorn/

One last technical note.  A unicorn would likely have had a horn made of keratin (if it indeed existed) and our deer's antler is made of bone.

Addendum:  I was showing the shed to Jay Barber and VP Shelly Jones and I mentioned that I had found a pair of sheds 20 feet apart and wondered if the deer might shake it head to get the second antler off once it felt the lopsided pressure.  She showed me this video of a moose shaking off a loose antler.

A little Googling brought some confirmation of this.  Several sites talk about deer sheding their remaining antler by shaking or rubbing them, as in this note from Havalon.com:

"Antlers occasionally fall off together, but that’s somewhat rare. I do believe; however, that a mature buck will put quite a bit of effort into getting the other side off because of the lopsided feeling he has with one antler. He shake’s his head, rub the antler on trees and push it on the ground to work it off. If you find a nice shed, put an exhaustive effort into finding the other side. Chances are good that it’s close by."