Technorati Tags: wildlife,snakes

Snakes are perhaps the most feared and hated animals in New Mexico, but people’s fear of snakes comes from lack of understanding and superstition. Snakes are not mysterious at all, and these fascinating creatures don’t deserve the anxiety many people feel about them. Of the 46 snake species found in New Mexico, only 8 are poisonous and potentially dangerous, including 7 species of rattlesnakes and a coral snake.

There are many benefits from having some snakes around the yard or garden. Snakes are one of nature’s most efficient mousetraps, killing and eating a variety of rodent pests. While snakes will not eliminate pests, they do help keep their numbers in check. Some harmless snakes (king snakes and coach-whips) eat other snakes, including poisonous ones.

Although you wouldn’t want a poisonous snake around your home, snake venom can be beneficial and has been used in developing a variety of human medicines. One type of high blood pressure medicine was developed using information based on chemicals in snake venom. Researchers are conducting studies using snake poisons to develop treatments for blood and heart problems. Snake venom is also being investigated for controlling some types of harmful bacteria.

Some snakes are quite rare and are protected species. These rare snakes are on state and federal endangered and threatened species lists. The ridge-nose rattlesnake is on the federal list while the mottled rock rattlesnake, Mexican and narrow-head garter snakes, plain-belly water snake, green rat snake, and western ribbon snake are on New Mexico’s endangered and threatened list.

Snake Biology

Snakes are ectotherms, meaning they regulate their body temperature by absorbing or giving off heat. Because their body temperature is affected by environmental temperatures and varies with surrounding conditions, snakes become inactive during very hot seasons (aestivation) and very cold seasons (hibernation). During these periods of inactivity, snakes may go for several weeks without eating. Because they are cold-blooded, snakes must rely on their behavior to regulate their body temperature. During the hot part of the day, snakes move to shaded areas, and on cool days they sun themselves in warm open areas. Snakes often seek out paved roads where they are attracted by the heat from the road surface.

Because snakes have a backbone, they are classified as vertebrates. Although fish, mammals, birds, and people are also vertebrates, the snake’s skeletal system is unique. Snake bones are very light and the skeleton is very flexible. The lower jaw and skull are connected by a piece of stretchy material (liga) that allows the snake to open its mouth very wide and move each jaw independently. Thus, snakes can swallow prey much larger than their head by “walking” their mouth around the food from side to side in a forward movement. Snakes are specialized animals, with no legs, ears, or eyelids. There are no “walking” snakes. Often the sex organs of a snake may protrude from the anal plate area and be confused with legs.

Snakes use their forked tongue to smell, constantly flicking it to pick up any airborne particles and odors. Once a snake detects an aroma, it inserts its tongue into two holes on the top of its mouth (Jacobson’s organ), where the smells are interpreted by its brain. If the snake detects food and is hungry, it will pursue the animal. Contrary to popular belief, snakes are not slimy; in fact, they feel dry to the touch. Snake scales and skin help retain body moisture. Snakes shed their skin and eye coverings together.

Soon after temperatures rise in the spring, snakes come out of hibernation and mate. Some snakes lay eggs in a damp protected area where they will hatch in about two months. Other snakes hatch eggs inside their bodies. Once the young have been hatched or born, parents do not care for their off-spring because they are able to take care of themselves.

All snakes are predators, and many are fussy eaters. Bull-snakes eat rats, mice, and chipmunks. King snakes feed on other snakes, mice, young birds, and bird eggs. Some small snakes, like the smooth green snake, eat insects, while others (earth snakes and worm snakes) eat earthworms, slugs, and salamanders. Toads are the favorite food of hognose snakes.

When people encounter a snake, they often corner it, causing the snake to hiss loudly, open its mouth in a threatening manner, coil up, and strike at the individual; or bluff by advancing toward the intruder. These behaviors, intended to scare off the intruder, lead to a common misconception that snakes charge or attack people. In most cases, a snake advances only if it feels threatened. Usually it crawls away if it can reach cover safely. If you encounter a snake, leave it alone. A snake cannot reach around and grab its tail, rolling away from predators—there are no “hoop” snakes.

Controlling Snakes Around the Home

Various home remedies, including moth balls, sulfur, lime, cayenne pepper, sticky bird repellent, coal tar and creosote, gourd vines, and musk from king snakes, have not proved effective in deterring snakes. No fumigants or poisons are registered for snake control. Although there are chemicals on the market that claim to repel snakes, most scientific investigations have found them ineffective. The only efficient method of discouraging snakes is to modify the environment so they find it unattractive.

Snake Habitat

Snakes often live in cool, dark places where food is abundant.

Likely places to find snakes around homes include:

• Firewood or haystacks directly on the ground.

• Old lumber or junk piles.

• Gardens and flower beds with heavy mulch.

• Untrimmed shrubs and shrubs growing next to a foundation.

• Unmowed and unkempt lawns, abandoned lots, and fields with tall vegetation.

• Pond and stream banks where there is abundant debris or trash.

• Cluttered basements and attics with rodent, bird, or bat problems.

• Feed storage areas in barn haylofts where rodents may be abundant.

Modifying the Environment Around Your Home

The environment around a home can be made less attractive to snakes by removing potential snake shelters (usually cool, dark, damp hiding places) and food sources (rodents).

Lawns and fields that are kept clean and closely mowed are less attractive to snakes than areas with tall grass, weeds, brush, and junk. Remove other snake hiding places such as old boards lying on the ground, rock and junk piles, and trash piles. Trim shrubs and bushes so limbs hang no lower than 12” from the ground. Stack fireplace or stove wood away from the home on a rack (not on the ground) that sits at least 12” from the ground.

Keeping the yard clean also removes habitats for rodents, a favorite snake food. Other suggestions for reducing a snake’s food source include placing garbage in sealed trash cans (not bags) away from the house. If you feed pets outside, keep all dog and cat food cleaned up after each feeding and store feed in a steel trash can so it is unavailable to rodents.

Keeping Snakes Out of Your Home

Snakes enter buildings in search of cool, damp, dark areas, or places where rodents and insects abound. To prevent snakes from entering your home, check the foundation for cracks and openings 1/4″ or larger. Use mortar to plug holes in poured concrete, concrete block, or brick foundations. Use 1/8” hardware cloth or sheet metal to seal holes and cracks in wooden buildings. Seal cracks and openings around windows, doors, electrical pipes, and wiring with caulk or injectible foam. If you have an open septic tank or sump pump drain outside, cover the opening with 1/4” hardware cloth. Be sure to check it periodically to ensure the wire does not interfere with drainage.

If you have young children and live in an area where poisonous snakes are common, you may want to invest in a snake-proof fence. These fences are expensive to construct, so fencing an entire yard is not practical; however, you can enclose a small area where young children can play safely.

Construct snake-proof fences of 1/4” hardware cloth at least 36” wide. Bury the lower 6“ underground, and slant the fence outward at a 30° angle. To make the fence more sturdy, place supporting stakes inside the fence and attach wires from the fence to the stakes. Make sure all gates fit tightly; they should open to the inside because of the outward slope of the fence. Be sure to keep grass and weeds around the fence mowed close to the ground to prevent snakes from using them to crawl over the fence.

A snake-proof fence can keep snakes from entering an area, shelters (usually cool, dark, damp hiding places) and food sources (rodents).

Removing Snakes from Inside a Building

Occasionally homeowners encounter a snake inside the home, usually in a basement or crawl space. Snakes are attracted to these areas by warmth on cold days and cool shade on hot days.

You can increase your chances of capturing a snake in the basement by placing rumpled, damp cloths covered by a dry cloth in areas where snakes have been seen. You can then remove the whole works (cloths and snakes) or capture the snakes individually and remove them. If you are not afraid of snakes, the best way to remove non-poisonous snakes is to sweep them into a bucket or large garbage can with a broom. The snakes can then be released in a safe place 2 miles or more from human dwellings.

NOTE: Exercise extreme caution when moving in a crawl space, especially if venomous snakes have been seen in the area; a face bite can be very serious. A face-to-face encounter with even a non-poisonous coach-whip or bull snake can be an unpleasant experience.

Use a Glueboard Trap to Catch Larger Snakes

Another effective method of capturing snakes inside a home, under porches, in crawl spaces, or under mobile homes is to use a glueboard purchased from an agriculture supply or hardware store. Most small snakes can be captured using a single glueboard placed against a wall, away from pipes or other objects a snake could use for leverage to escape.

To capture larger snakes, make a large glueboard with purchased glueboards. Construct the trap using a 16” x 24” piece of 1/4” plywood. Drill a 3/4” hole in one comer of the board. When you need to remove the board, use a hook on the end of a long stick to grab the comer through the hole. Fasten or securely glue two to four glueboards along one side of the plywood board. This type of trap, when placed against a wall, is capable of capturing snakes up to 5 or 6 ft long.

Use glueboards only indoors or under structures where children, pets, and other wildlife cannot reach them; the glue is quite messy and hard to remove. Use common cooking or vegetable oil to remove animals from the glue. Once the unwanted guests have been removed, be sure to close any holes or entrances so the snakes do not return.

Remember, snakes are an important part of our natural world. The best approach to managing snake problems, whenever possible, is to leave these animals alone.

Recognizing Poisonous Snakes in New Mexico

Rattlesnakes

In New Mexico, rattlesnakes are the most common poisonous snakes. The primary way to distinguish a rattlesnake from other snakes is the presence of a rattle, a series of horny rings formed of keratin that scrape against each other in pulses to cause a rattling sound. The rattle begins with a single, soundless button on small snakes and grows with age, a new segment being added every time the snake sheds. Snakes shed variably according to their rate of growth and may shed several times a year. Thus, rattle size is not a good indicator of exact age, as often believed.

Some nonpoisonous snakes, such as bull snakes, coach-whips, and rat snakes, behave like rattlesnakes when confronted. This behavior may include hissing loudly or vibrating the tail. If the tail is in contact with dry leaves or grass, these snakes may be mistaken for rattlesnakes.

Although you must be dangerously close, another way to identify a rattlesnake is a conspicuous sensory area known as a pit on each side of the head. The pit looks somewhat like a nostril and helps the snake locate warm-bodied food. It is located about midway between and slightly below the eye and nostril.

Additionally, most rattlesnakes have triangular or “spade-shaped” heads (wide at the back and attached to a narrow neck). Many other harmless snakes can flatten their heads when threatened and may look like rattlesnakes.

New Mexico has seven species of rattlesnakes that vary in size, color, and other characteristics. The color of a rattlesnake’s scales often matches the environment; brown, gray, green, red, pink, or yellow.

The Rock Rattlesnake occurs in isolated mountain ranges in Southern New Mexico. This snake may be found in pine-oak forests, but mostly inhabits mountains with rugged, rocky terrain. It is variable in color and may be brown-black, greenish, or gray.

The Western Diamondback Rattlesnake is found throughout much of New Mexico, and is the species most often seen. It lives in flat plains and rocky canyons, from grassland deserts to pine-oak forests. The western diamondback is one of the largest of all rattlesnake species and the largest found in New Mexico (up to 6 ft long). Their color is most often gray-brown, although color often depends on the matching background color—many New Mexico snakes have a reddish to pinkish-gray color. This species has black and white rings on its tail, so it is commonly called the “coon-tail” rattlesnake.

The Western (Prairie) Rattlesnake is distributed across New Mexico, much of the western U.S., and into Canada. In eastern New Mexico, it is often called “sand rattler” and lives in a variety of habitats, from grassland desert to pine-oak forest. This species is generally more active after dark, except at high altitudes. Western prairie rattlesnakes are often greenish-gray or pale brown, with a series of light-colored rings on the tail that darken with maturity.

The Mojave Rattlesnake is found in extreme Southern New Mexico, although it is more common in southern California Nevada, Arizona and Texas and is more widely distributed in the Chihuahua Desert than the Mojave Desert. It lives in desert or low grassland habitats, often on flat terrain. The Mojave rattlesnake is often greenish-gray or olive green, with a white belly. Its venom is highly potent.

The Black-tailed Rattlesnake is distributed in southwestern and central New Mexico. It lives mostly in rocky mountainous areas, and is found occasionally in lower desert habitats. It is often colored a greenish or steel gray (but can be sulphur yellow or rust), with a dark brown or black tail. Generally considered mild mannered, this rattlesnake can nonetheless be quick to rattle and raise its head. It has been seen several feet off the ground in trees.

The Massasauga is distributed across southern, central, and eastern New Mexico where it occupies desert grassland, often in very sandy areas. This snake is relatively small (less than 4 ft long) and pale brown, and generally has pairs of spots on its head. Although not usually fatal to humans, bites from this species can be extremely painful.

The Ridge-nose Rattlesnake is listed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as a threatened species in New Mexico. It inhabits only a small part of the southwestern boot heel of the state, living in pine-oak woodlands, open grassy hillsides, and humid canyon bottoms. Its color is reddish brown, yellowish brown, or gray. Ridge-nose rattlesnakes are generally active day or night and tend to have a mild temperament.

Coral Snake

The Arizona coral snake is found in extreme southwest Catron County and western Hidalgo and Grant counties. Although coral snakes rarely bite, their venom is highly poisonous and they should not be handled. The Arizona coral snake has a black nose and is brightly colored with broad alternating rings of red and black, separated by narrower rings of white or yellow. These markings encircle the body, although they are less bright on the belly.

In New Mexico, other snakes with similar markings are the New Mexico milk snake, Arizona mountain king snake, and the long-nosed snake. The narrower red bands are bordered by black on the New Mexico milk snake and Arizona mountain king snake, while the Arizona coral snake has broad red bands with yellow borders. The long-nosed snake is pale compared to the Arizona coral snake, with stripes that do not extend around the body and white spots on the side of the snake’s black bands.

An easy way to determine whether a red, yellow, and black snake is a coral snake is to remember that red touches yellow on a coral snake, and red touches black on non-poisonous species.

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Technorati Tags: fox,kit fox,wildlife

Driving up the east side of San Augustín Pass one morning, I spotted a small, buff-colored animal with large, pointed ears lying dead on the pavement. Richard stopped the car and I walked back to see what it was. The animal was almost delicate and about the size of a house cat, with dense, buff-colored fur and a long, bushy tail tipped with black. That generous brush of a tail; the large, pointed ears; doglike face; relatively short legs; and the diminutive size gave away the identity of the dead animal: a desert kit fox.

Kit foxes are almost exclusively nocturnal, and thus rarely seen. These smallest of North American foxes are beautifully adapted to life in the desert. Their pale coloring makes them nearly invisible against a background of light-colored desert soils. Thickly-furred paws allow them to trot silently as they go about their nightly rounds; the hair also helps them float on sandy soils. Large ears help these dusk-to-dawn hunters to pick up night sounds. Even their small size may work to their advantage, making it easier to keep cool.

A kit fox’s day begins at dark, when the little fox emerges from its burrow and sets out across the desert to hunt kangaroo rats, cottontails, and other small animals. Biologists figure that a kit fox needs to eat about six ounces of meat each night in order to survive. They obtain all the water that they need from their food.

Kit foxes live alone in their underground dens for half the year. Then in winter, male and females pair up, mate, and begin preparing the natal den – used year after year – for the coming family. They haul out last year’s debris and dig new entrances. In February or March, four or five pups are born. For the first month of their life, the mother nurses the pups; the father hunts for food. Later, both parents hunt. Kit fox families stay together until autumn, when the pups are ready to live on their own.

Along with coyotes, kit foxes play an important part in controlling desert rodent and rabbit populations. For example, biologists say, the parent kit foxes must bring the pups about one hundred pounds of meat during the two months they feed them – the equivalent of about eight hundred kangaroo rats! Yet people have harassed these little foxes almost into extinction: kit foxes are trapped, shot, poisoned, and their habitat destroyed by farming or suburban growth.

I carefully picked up the limp kit fox, carried it off the highway, and laid it gently in the shade of a nearby shrub. As I walked away, I realized sadly that I’d seen only one wild kit fox since I moved here: the dead one that I had just laid down.

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Technorati Tags: birds,animals,wildlife

While jogging down the irrigation ditchbank one afternoon, I heard a loud, rattling call. A not-quite-crow-sized bird flew up from a perch above the ditch with strong, precise wingbeats, headed downstream. Its distinctive silhouette included a daggerlike bill and a ragged crest atop a big head. Its plumage was sober blue above and pure white below. A wide blue-gray stripe crossed its chest.

The clattering call, which sounds like a loud wooden rattle, and the unique silhouette gave away the bird’s identity: a belted kingfisher, named for its banded chest and its fish-catching skills. Its scientific name, Ceryle alcyon, commemorates the Greek goddess Halcyone, who threw herself into the sea in grief for her drowned husband; the gods took pity on the couple and turned them into kingfishers. (Ceryle comes from the Greek for “king of the fishes.”)

Belted kingfishers’ head and bill are proportionately larger than their small feet and short tail, making them appear top-heavy when perched. But their ungainly physique belies a graceful abilty to hover and dive. Living along shallow water from seacoasts to creeks, ponds, lakes and small rivers, belted kinfishers fish for their meals. They spot their prey – mainly small fish, but also bullfrog tadpoles, crabs, crayfish, and mussels – either from a perch or as they hover over the water. (Kingfishers also sometimes hunt over land, diving for small animals such as lizards and insects.)

Once a kingfisher spots a toothsome aquatic morsel, it dives directly into the water, seizes the fish in its powerful bill, then pushes itself to the surface with its short, strong wings, and flies back to its perch. There the kingfisher stuns the fish by whacking it on the perch, tosses the fish into the air and swallows it whole, headfirst. This latter behavior is not a display of bad manners; rather, it is an adaptation to birds’ lack of teeth. After kingfishers digest their meal, they spit out the undigestable parts – such as fins, scales, and bones – in a pellet, like hawks and owls.

Strongly territorial, kingfishers are solitary except in breeding season – April to May in the southern Southwest – when they pair up to dig a 3- to 6-foot-long horizontal nest burrow in a bank near water. The partners alternate excavating, digging with their stout bills, and pushing out dirt with their feet; depending on how clayey the soil is, burrow construction requires from three days to three weeks. Incubating the four to six eggs and raising their brood takes another two months.

Although belted kingfishers live in the southern Southwest year-round, they need permanent water. Our irrigation ditch – a seasonal stream, running only from April to October – boasts no such residents. Only in spring and fall do we hear the occasional rattling call, or see a plummeting dive as a visiting “king of fishers” passes through on its way to more promising waters.

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Technorati Tags: birds,wildlife

One searingly hot summer afternoon, I spotted a thrasher standing quite still on the ground in the shade of a small tree. The thrasher’s long curved bill was open and its wings slightly spread. At first I thought that it was sick. But then I noticed a plump white-winged dove perched on a branch overhead. It too held its mouth wide open; as I watched, I could see the skin of its throat pulsating rapidly.

Neither bird was sick. Like me, they were simply hot. Unlike people however, birds lack sweat glands and so cannot sweat to cool themselves down. But birds call on a variety of innovative techniques to beat the heat. Black vultures and wood storks, for instance, use a highly practical, if not pretty method: they defecate on their unfeathered feet and legs. As the moisture in the excretia evaporates, the bare skin cools quickly, sucking heat from the bird¹s body. Vultures and other large soaring birds also cool themselves by riding thermals to several thousand feet up in the atmosphere where the air may be 50 degrees cooler than on the ground.

Most birds use more prosaic cooling methods, such as seeking shade, bathing and/or reducing their activity – a bird in flight produces from 9 to 15 times as much heat as a resting bird. They also simply reverse their heating tactics: Instead of fluffing up their feathers, they compress their plumage to retain as little body heat as possible. And they increase circulation to unfeathered parts that will radiate heat from their blood to the outside air.

When air temperatures rise over 100 degrees, many birds – like the thrasher that I watched – pant, stepping up their breathing rate to expel hot, moist air from inside their bodies. The influx of dry outside air also cools the bird evaporatively from within by vaporizing water in its lungs and its air sacs, a system of balloon-like extensions of the lungs that fill most of the extra space in a bird¹s body, including some of its bones. Most birds can dissipate about half of their resting heat production by panting.

In addition to panting, some birds – like the perched white-winged dove – pulse the skin of their throat in and out, and at the same time, increase the blood flow to their throat skin. Like a car radiator cooling the hot water from the engine, the fluttering skin radiates the heat of the bird¹s blood to the air.

Sweat began to trickle down my back as I stood watching the two birds. After a moment, I walked on, headed for the air-conditioned campus library. As I pulled open the door, releasing a gush of cool air, I looked back. The thrasher and the white-winged dove sat motionless in the shade, their mouths open, panting.

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Technorati Tags: nighthawks,animals,wildlife

One evening in early May, I set out on a walk along the irrigation ditch at dusk. As I turned the corner onto the ditch road, I saw a cloud of birds flying back and forth, skimming low over the water, fluttering up over the road, then turning and flying back down the ditch like swimmers executing graceful laps.

I walked closer. Undisturbed by my presence, dozens of birds navigated the crowded air over the ditch, looping around each other, tilting as they turned, never colliding. The birds were mottled brown all over, with a wide, off-white wingbar near the pointed end of each long, crescent-shaped wing.

These evening flyers are lesser nighthawks, migrants that winter as far south as northern Chile and summer as far north as Colorado. Lesser nighthawks are members of an odd family of birds: goatsuckers, so named for their imagined tendency to suck the milk from goat¹s teats at night.

Lesser nighthawks and other goatsuckers are, indeed, nocturnal. However, their curious gaping mouth with its edging of stiff, bristle-like hairs is designed to scoop up flying insects at night, not to suck goat¹s milk.

By day, lesser nighthawks and other goatsuckers rest on limbs of trees or shrubs or on the ground, holding their body parallel to their resting place so that their mottled brown plumage renders them nearly invisible.

Lesser nighthawks arrive in the southern Southwest around mid-May. Unlike their larger cousins, common nighthawks, who summer in the mountains, lesser nighthawks stick to the lower elevations: from deserts to dry foothills grasslands. They live in towns and around farms, as wells as in the open desert.

Like other goatsuckers, lesser nighthawks do not build a nest. Instead, they lay their two eggs right on the ground, or on a flat gravel roof. Just as the parents’ plumage hides them at rest, so too the eggs, colored pale gray or off-white and spotted with pastel lilac, tan, or gray, disappear against the soil.

Because nesting right on the ground leaves the eggs vulnerable to all sorts of hungry predators, including prowling cats, lesser nighthawks’ nest period is short: the eggs hatch in just two-and-a-half weeks, and the young, born downy and with their eyes open, can fly three weeks after hatching. Soon they are hunting with their parents, swooping close the ground at night to catch beetles, moths, grasshoppers, winged ants, and other insects.

As I walked the ditch in the gathering darkness that May evening, I heard low whinnying sounds, like the trilling of toads. It was the lesser nighthawks, calling to each other as they wove back and forth over the ditch.

The cloud of nighthawks that crowded the air over the ditch that night have moved on, headed farther north for the summer. Only a handful remain, enough to delight me on my nighttime walks.

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Technorati Tags: owls,animals,wildlife

Last Saturday, I went birdwatching at the Home Depot store in Las Cruces. We pulled into the store parking lot and headed for the garden section, strolling past potted tomatoes and chile peppers, roses and columbines, and then down an aisle of storage shelves towering high over our heads.

There, atop a pallet of bagged decorative gravel, on a shelf about twenty feet up, was what we¹d come to see: a great horned owl nest. I saw the fledgling owl first, looking like a shaggy snowman in white downy feathers, except for intense yellow eyes peering right at me.

Then the parent owl looked my way, its huge face seeming very catlike with its smooth plumage, creamy tan and brown markings, and conspicuous tufts of feathers so like ears.

Great horned owls are not easy to hide. They are big birds, standing two feet tall, with wings that measure five feet from tip to tip.

Despite their size, great horned owls are often overlooked because of their camouflaging feather pattern and their ability to fly without making a sound. The forward edge of their flight feathers is serrated to disrupt the flow of air over the wing, thus eliminating the noise created by airflow over a smooth surface.

These birds use their ability to blend in and their silent flight in hunting. A great horned owl watches and listens for prey from an observation perch like the topmost shelf in the Home Depot nursery section, or a treetop, cliff ledge, utility pole, antenna, or building ledge.

Once the owl spots its prey, the bird uses the element of surprise: it swoops down and snatches its meal noiselessly.

Great horned owls hunt prey as small as mice and frogs, and as large as skunks, porcupines, and domestic cats. They have a prodigious appetite: one great horned owl may ingest several mice each night, thus potentially dispatching over a thousand mice each year.

Like most owls, great horned owls are night hunters, prowling for food in twilight or full darkness, and roosting during the day. They are well-adapted to night life: Their eyes are large, and contain a high proportion of light-gathering rods, giving them acute night vision.

The distinctive disk-like arrangement of feathers around their eyes functions much like the radio-antennae that scientists use to hear sound waves from outer space, intensifying sounds and directing them to the bird¹s large ear openings.

Humans can tell whether a sound is closer to their right ear than their left; great horned owls use assymetric ear openings to precisely triangulate the location and distance of sounds, thus enabling them to “see” prey in complete darkness.

Once an owl catches its food, it carries it to a feeding perch, usually in a sheltered location. There the owl fairly inhales its meal, swallowing smaller prey whole, and using its sharp claws to tear larger prey into manageable chunks.

Great horned owls are early breeders, and often begin courting in mid-winter. The male shows the female several prospective nest sites, and the two conduct nighttime hooting duets, before settling down to start a family.

Female great horned owls lay one to six eggs, usually two, and incubate them for around a month. The owlets are born covered with white down, and are fed small mammals and birds by their parents as they grow.

The owlet in the nest I watched looked every bit as big as its parent, but was still downy. They usually acquire their feathers at five or six weeks of age, and do not fly until they are more than two months old.

Great horned owls are among the most adaptable of owls, living in most habitats throughout the Americas, except the tundra of the far north and treeless areas of the Great Plains.

The pair of great horned owls nesting atop the storage shelves at the Home Depot store in Las Cruces is simply taking advantage of a sheltered nesting location, one protected from predators and supplied with night lighting and an abundance of prey. The store, in return, is getting expert pest-removal services. Seems like a great deal to me!

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Technorati Tags: windscorpions,animals,wildlife

Southern New Mexicans have been terrorized by windscorpions. Many even think they look like miniature aberrations brought forth directly from their worst nightmare. Because of their fierce appearance, many myths have sprung up about them over the years. These myths include certain death if bitten, all the way to your mother-in-law suddenly hating you if you have the audacity to touch one.

Southern New Mexicans also have a unique name they call these creatures: “Children of the Earth.” I’ve heard this name before used for a big, burrowing cricket with a huge, shiny bald head in central California. That makes sense, since it sort of looks like an infant’s head, but how anyone can attach the name to windscorpions is one of the great mysteries that can truly never be solved. Other nicknames for them are “sunspiders” and “camelspiders” (both are one word because they aren’t spiders, nor are they scorpions). Camelspiders is another mystery, as is sunspiders because most species come out only at night. New Mexico also has more of them than any other state, with the possible exception of Arizona or Texas.

One of my first experiences with windscorpions took place just south of New Mexico, at Balmorhea State Park in West Texas, so many years ago that I refuse to reveal the exact number because it may tend to incriminate me. After sunset, I’d set up my light trap and was waiting for some great desert insects to stop by. In case you didn’t know, a light trap is made up of a white linen bed sheet hung vertically on a line with one end touching the ground with as many ultraviolet lights shining on it as an entomologist can afford, which usually isn’t many. Insects and other arthropods find this irresistibly attractive, and wing, squirm, or crawl spellbound toward it. This is when I found out how smart they are. We’ve known for some time how many species of spiders that spin webs to snare prey (and only a bit more than half of the 36,000 spider species do) will learn that they will catch a lot more prey if they build the web near insect-attracting lights, conveniently supplied by humans. Not to be outdone by a mere spider, windscorpions have learned to gather around lights and feed on the insects that have fallen to the ground below the lights.

Soon, I was collecting many of the windscorpions that had made a bee-line to my light trap, along with many of the more flashy insects. As is wont to happen, this upset many non-entomologists in the campground, but I’m used to that. As more windscorpions zipped in for a free meal, I watched the ensuing carnage for hours. The windscorpions tore their prey asunder with their powerful chelicerae (loosely, jaws) and devoured insect after insect (mostly moths) that had tumbled to the ground. Once in a while, I had to wrestle an insect specimen away from one that I wanted to collect, but the windscorpion would always find a replacement for it quickly.

This type of experience is my idea of unsurpassed outdoor fun and recreation. I will never understand why anyone would want to get a gun and go out to shoot some herbivore, or take a stick with a hook on a string and pull a slimy vertebrate out of its aquatic habitat. Why would anyone do that when they can simply set up a light trap and get hours of intense entertainment watching a huge variety of far more interesting animals. Human behavior is pretty weird that way.

Windscorpions (order Solifugae) got their name because they seem to “run like the wind.” They’re a hyper group of arachnids with about 1,000 species world-wide. Perhaps 120 or so species are present in then U.S., with most seen in the arid Southwest. Some species reach nearly three inches in length. This qualifies them as one of the largest arachnids. Most hide during the day and come out at night to scamper about in a frenzied search for food or a mate, but some species (mostly in Africa) are active during the day.

As with many other arachnids, the windscorpion body is divided into two major regions; the cephalothorax, where the legs, pedipalps and chelicerae are located, and the abdomen, containing the heart, reproductive and other organs. Unlike the name may imply, windscorpions have no stinger on their tails, or even have tails at all. The abdomen is rounded at the end without any tail structure. They have thickened, sharp, pincer-like chelicerae near the mouth followed closely by stubby leg-like pedipalps with sticky tips they use to sense, capture and handle their prey. The thin, first pair of legs are often used as feelers in many species. The remaining three pairs of legs serve as more than adequate running legs. A pair of simple eyes lie on top of the animal in the head region behind the large chelicerae. The eyes are fairly keen for a non-spider arachnid, at least in the diurnal species.

Most run a zigzag searching pattern, constantly probing, prodding, exploring holes in the ground, deftly touching everything in reach of their pedipalps and first pair of legs for a bite to eat. The closest vertebrate equivalent I can think of is our state bird, the road runner. Road runners also move around quickly, devouring any insect or small reptile that moves. Windscorpions are frequent feeders, needing to replace the lost water and energy expended during their frantic activity.

As with other aspects of their biology, windscorpion mating habits are intriguingly distinctive. There is variation with species, but in general, once the male becomes mature, he gives up his zigzag search pattern for a more straight line course and begins to eat less often. One male covered nearly a mile in less than two hours while seeking out females with its human scientist eyewitness in tow across the deserts of southwestern Africa.

The male may find the female on the surface, or he may somehow sense her holed up below the surface in her burrow, and will begin digging her out. She will ascend to the surface, or if in the open, the male briskly touches her and jumps back, before moving forward and making a grab for her abdomen. If the female is unreceptive to the male’s initial advances, he won’t continue to stalk her like some other male animals do; he’ll turn tail and run off to look for an interested female.

Once the female’s abdomen has been grabbed by the male, if she is a willing sort, he will touch her cephalothorax with his pedipalps then begin a complete massage of her abdomen with his chelicerae. The female gathers her legs to her body and remains motionless, or torpid, for the duration of the mating. This component of the courtship ritual is called “female torpor induction.”

The male continues his massaging of the female, gradually working forward to her cephalothorax, until he finally stands over her, both facing in the same direction. The male holds the female’s legs and palps against his body and exudes a spermatophore (sperm packet) from the underside of his abdomen onto the female. He then quickly backs off the female, retrieves the spermatophore, lifts her abdomen up, and places it directly into her genital opening. The male will continue to massage the areas around the genital opening and the spermatophore, which may have something to do with liberating the sperm from the packet, until the female wakes up from her “torpor” and sprints away. The male usually returns to his hyper, female seeking behavior afterward.

The fertilized female will excavate a chamber and lay about 60 eggs inside it. Some females may stay to guard them, others may not. Most species of windscorpions have one or two generations per year and most males probably do not live for more than a few weeks after becoming adult.

Although infinitely interesting, they are the most difficult arachnid to keep successfully in captivity for any length of time. Even the best, most attentive arachnid caretaker can’t keep a captured windscorpion alive in captivity for more than two to six weeks. Speculation has it that penning up this normally very active animal up makes them sluggish and prone to die quickly. Some windscorpion researchers have labeled this “taming.” At least two scientists have raised them from egg to adult, but apparently you need to hatch the eggs in captivity for them to survive. Maybe they’re fooled into thinking life in captivity is normal.

Windscorpions, like many other arachnids orders, are considered 100% beneficial to humans. The main reason is that they are all predators capable of reducing the numbers of animals humans call pests. Their prey includes just about anything they can catch and subdue that doesn’t eat them first. Some species specialize on termites, while others feast on small lizards, rodents, snakes, scorpions, and numerous soft-bodied insects such as cockroaches. The worst a windscorpion can do to a person is nip at fingers with their sharp pincers, but unless they’re one of the large ones, they can’t even draw blood. Combine this with the fact they have no venom, and thinking folks realize that windscorpions make extraordinary allies, even if they may not think they’re gorgeous animals as I do.

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Technorati Tags: lizards,animals,wildlife

One spring, we raised the cement block wall that encloses our yard. Soon after the builders had finished, I saw the first lizard of the year, stretched out in the sun on the vertical face of the wall as if gravity had no hold on her slight body. I borrowed Richard’s binoculars for a closer view. Just about five inches long, the lagartija (little lizard) was faded brown all over, and marked head to tail with cream-colored stripes, each paralleled by a precise line of tiny, yellow dots. The lizard’s hind legs were huge, and her tail extravagently long.

The lizard was probably a New Mexican whiptail lizard, a species of small lizards mostly confined to the Rio Grande valley from northern New Mexico to northern Chihuahua, Mexico. Whiptail lizards, named for their long, whiplike tails, are hyperactive. Constantly in motion, whiptails dash across the ground from shrub to shrub – often running upright on their hind legs like miniature dinosaurs. They forage ceaselessly for termites and other ground-dwelling insects and spiders, swiveling their head rapidly from side to side, sniffing the air with their slender, forked tongue, and probing under surface debris with their pointed snout.

Whiptails’ hyperactivity serves as a defense also. Their alertness, speed, and agility help them outmaneuver predators like thrashers, roadrunners, Gila monsters, and snakes. These zippy lizards can sprint up to fifteen miles per hour, as fast as a roadrunner. Whiptails also escape capture by forfeiting their tails: When grasped, their tail breaks easily along a fracture plane in the vertebrae. The disembodied tail wriggles violently, startling and distracting the predator so that the lizard can dash to safety. Imagine a predator’s surprise at grabbing for a juicy lizard and instead scoring only a wriggling tail!

I called the New Mexican whiptail sunning on our new wall “she” for good reason. Along with five other whiptail species living in the Southwest, New Mexican whiptails are all-female – no males have yet been found. A product of hybridization between two other species, these unisexual whiptails reproduce by cloning themselves – producing eggs, and hence more female lizards, without mating at all.

Both dangers and advantages are inherent in this reproductive stragegy. Since the unisexual lagartijas are genetically identical, disease or inherited defects could wipe them out. However, just one lizard is required to found a dynasty, giving them an edge in colonizing newly disturbed habitats. By reproducing incredibly rapidly – they out-multiply “normal” lizards by a factor of two – the all-female species quickly outnumber competitors.

I see the New Mexican whiptail frequently. Once, when I was working near her section of wall, I turned over a rock, exposing a cockroach. She darted down, snatched it with her long tongue, and swallowed it. This largatija is a good neighbor indeed!

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Technorati Tags: Vultures,animals,wildlife

While riding my bike to Mesilla Park, just outside Las Cruces, one afternoon, I glanced up at the sky and skidded to a stop, head tilted upwards in astonishment. Just above the tops of the mulberry trees, the air was filled with huge, silent black birds with bare, wrinkled heads and wings held stiffly in a V as they teetered on the air currents – turkey vultures. I watched the flock of about 40 birds as they caught a thermal and spiraled upwards, coasted south towards the horse farm, then turned and rode the waves of southerly winds towards me, bouncing, teetering and coasting as if riding a giant water slide.

Ungainly on land, vultures excel in the air. These master gliders can soar gracefully for hours with nary a beat of their 6-foot-wide wings, riding thermals – rising columns or bubbles of warm air – or coasting on the streams of wind. With broad wings and a low wing loading (the ratio of body weight to wing area), vultures can soar at extremely slow speeds without sacrificing maneuverability. By soaring with their wingtip feathers spread wide like the fingers on a hand, vultures counteract the large amount of drag produced by their wide wings, reducing wingtip turbulence and lowering their stalling speed. When soaring slowly, vultures actually glide downward to maintain forward thrust, but they stay aloft because the rising warm air propels them upwards faster than they sink.

The ability to ride the air slowly to great heights and for great distances with little energy expenditure allows vultures to search efficiently for their randomly-occurring and often widely-dispersed food – carrion, rotting carcasses. Vultures also save energy by cooperating, searching in groups, and descending en masse when one spies a carcass.

Vultures often get bad press for their diet. But the scientific name of their family, Cathartidae, from the Greek word for “cleanser,” commemorates their role in Southwest ecosystems: they dispose of potential sources of disease, and recycle the nutrients contained in the carcasses. Vultures are well-designed for sanitarians. Sophisticated immune systems protect them from disease-causing organisms, and their unfeathered heads are easily cleaned of rotten meat and potential pests. The odor-processing area of a vulture’s brain is much larger than in other birds of comparable size, suggesting that the stench of carcasses helps them locate their food from long distances.

When we lived in Mesilla Park, we saw this flock of turkey vultures frequently. Communal birds, turkey vultures roost and nest together. In winter, they migrate south to Mexico, often in flocks of several hundred birds, returning in March. Since we moved to another part of town, I’d forgotten how awesome is the sight of these huge black birds passing silently overhead just above the treetops, teetering on the air currents as they go about their business.

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Technorati Tags: Vinegarones,animals,wildlife

It was one hot Artesian summer night, so no sheets or blankets were anywhere in evidence. Don’t believe in air conditioning. In any given year, I might kick on the swamp cooler for a couple of hours, maybe six times total, during the warmer months. Quite frankly, I get angry when it goes under 80°F.

I was sound asleep on my floor mounted mattress (never mind why it was there) when something crawled, tickling slightly, across my bare back. For many, maybe most folks, that would have been enough to wake even the dead, sending them screaming toward the nearest exit. My subconscious recorded the incident and decided to take no action, the arthropod could be captured in the morning. My subconscious scares me sometimes. I could tell you stories…

Once again, something scampered over my back. This time, my subconscious figured it might be a large centipede, meaning the situation could get nasty. Immediate action was required. I woke up and switched on the light and turned to see a gorgeous vinegaroon with front legs flailing away on the bed.

There was only one thing to do. I picked her up, found a clean cage, gave her some water, and went back to bed. Hey, we (the American Tarantula Society) sell these for a nice piece of change. A centipede would have been better; you can get triple what the vinegaroons bring in. The tooth fairy never left that much money under any pillow.

Artesia is a veritable gold mine of vinegaroons. I’ve lived and collected in California, Arizona, and Texas, and searched for arthropods at some point in nearly every other state. Never have I seen vinegaroons sauntering around in large numbers like they do in Artesia. Even better, they often turn themselves in instead of having to be hunted down.

The arachnid order of whipscorpions is a small one (called Uropygi, with about 130 species in two families worldwide). Of the two U.S. species, only one is common in places: Mastigoproctus giganteus, the giant vinegaroon, and it’s also the largest species in the entire order. This species is supposed to extend throughout the southern states from Florida to California, but West Texas, Arizona and New Mexico are the places they are seen the most.

Unlike what the name would imply, whipscorpions have no stinger. Instead, their tail has evolved into a whip-like appendage, hence their name. From the tip of their tail to the pedipalps, they can measure up to six inches, but 3 1/8 inches is the normal body length of the adults, tail (and batteries) not included. They usually carry their light-sensitive tails arched over their backs, or to the side as do scorpions. They are poor-sighted, appearing to many observers as being completely blind in spite of their six eyes, arranged in three dyads, on the cephalothorax. They are nocturnal, hiding or burrowing under stones, logs, sand or soil during the day and coming out to hunt at night. They appear to like the habitat humans supply them better than natural settings. In Artesia, they enjoy digging burrows along and under sidewalks, and next to buildings and near trees. We give them habitat, water, and with the water, insects (food). This is one tough little animal, not endangered by humans for a change.

The whipscorpion’s primary defense against attack by other arthropod predators and small mammals or birds is a vinegar spray of acetic acid they shoot from paired anal glands under the base of their tail. This liquid also contains a small amount of caprylic acid which can slightly degrade the waxy exoskeleton of insects unfortunate enough to be hit with it. The vinegar-like odor is responsible for their vinegaroon name, also affectionately called ‘roons. Once used to being handled, most ‘roons will stop spraying and behave themselves.

The first pair of legs are very thin and flexible with a high level of muscular coordination since they are used as “feelers” or sensory devices. The last three pairs of legs are used for walking. When startled, the whip tail and first pair of legs are waved all about in an apparent attempt to detect the threatening intruder.

They have small chelicerae near the mouth comparable to a spider’s (minus the fangs), and highly enlarged, spiked pedipalps they use to grasp small insects like cockroaches, and crickets and other arachnids such as scorpions. They can use these pedipalps to mildly pinch an exposed human finger, but stroking the pedipalps while handling them appears to have a calming effect on the animal.

Whipscorpion mating rituals embody the male transferring a spermatophore, or sperm package, to the female similar to the way scorpions do it. Courtship is reminiscent of the scorpions, with some kind of dance taking place in order for the male to present himself to the female as the correct species (as well as a real nice guy). He leads her over his spermatophore attached to the ground, and she picks it up. Unlike scorpions, the actual courtship ritual dance of the whipscorpions may last for days. These fun-loving arachnids apparently enjoy a good, long dance now and then.

The female lays up to 40 large eggs which she carries in a membranous sac under her abdomen. Once they hatch, the young ride on the mother’s back until their first molt, when they will wander off on their own.

Whipscorpions are highly patient hunters. When alerted to the presence of prey such as relatively fast moving crickets, they switch to slow search mode, carefully and gently feeling around with their first pair of legs until they can track down and finally seize the prey, usually after many unsuccessful attempts.

Terribly lethal to cockroaches, crickets and such, they are completely harmless to humans. They have only the mildly irritating vinegar spray for defense; ‘roons do not have venom, nor anything to even bite with. The only way I can imagine a human can be harmed by ‘roons is by trying to swallow three or four of them at once, which might result in choking. Because they are harmless with a vengeance, I’ve long recommended that people afflicted with arachnophobia adopt a ‘roon. and watch what it does closely. If you’re like most, the gentle creature that used to look like something from the darkest hell will begin to look as cute and innocent as a kitten. Actually, kittens are orders of magnitude more dangerous to us than ‘roons.

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