Return to the Streams

In early July, we surveyed streams for stream salamanders and their larvae. While we were there I ran across some fascinating fungi:

This one was small and orange on a log. Note the tiny hairs on the edges!

This one was not only bright, it has an intriguing texture.
It almost looked like a bunch of tiny cylinders all bunched together. 

July is also prime time for many wildflowers in the Southern Appalachians:

I think the first two are bergamot, though the purple one was a particularly fun find. The one on the right is Scarlet Beebalm. All of the plants are in the same genera, which is why they have very similar leaf and flower shapes. There was an entire hill-slope covered in the Scarlet Beebalm and Appalachian dodder (the orange plant that looks like silly string in the pictures below).

Turk's Cap Lilies also dotted the roadsides. 

As for salamanders, we saw many of the large Desmognathus shown below (on the left). These salamanders dominate the streams in the Appalachian mountains. The more unusual find (in our study streams at least) was the spring salamander larvae (on the right). They can appear almost light purple when they are young (mentioned in Wandering in the water), as seen in the image below.

Stay tuned for more!

Playing in the Rain and other Extreme Sports

Also known as: Hiking 10 miles, uphill, in the rain, at night. Before we get to that story, here is what we saw earlier in the week.
The week before we revisited our stream sites, it rained. A lot. This meant the salamanders were happily taking advantage of moist nights and were all over the place!

Ocoee salamander with a pretty pattern

Climbing pair 

Such a narrow perch

Surveying its territory? 

Peeking over the moss

Climbing on a spiderweb!!

Proof that seepage salamanders climb too

They look a little silly sometimes

Acrobatics

Tiny mouse! They climb too, but they move much more quickly.

Lots of red on this guy! Even on its eyes and head

We saw another frog! This one we know was a wood frog (Rana sylvatica) because we caught it! It had a distinguishing mask across its face and bright yellow flashing on its back legs. This bright coloration is supposed to be distracting to predators as the frog jumps away.

Must be a close relative of the 'humongous fungus'... (see It ended with a rattlesnake)

Another venomous visitor: this copperhead was seen several times by the dorm (or multiple were visiting, not sure). My field crew walked right by this one and almost didn't see it. Good thing it's tail wasn't sticking out and nobody stepped on it!

Puffball mushrooms are fun when they are releasing spores, because if you touch them you can see a cloud of spores come out of the top.

And finally we come to 'playing in the rain'. My REU student was doing some diet studies and put out insect traps near the sites where she collected diet samples to see if the salamanders were being selective or eating anything. She needed to go pick up the traps, but since it had been raining all day (and the day before) we didn't feel comfortable driving down one of the unpaved roads to these sites. So we hiked about 2.5 miles in to the sites and then down slope to a few more. We finished collected the traps around dark (it took a little longer than we planned) but had to go back to the dorm to pick up a few different supplies for collecting diet samples that night at the same sites. So we hike back out, pick up supplies and hike back in. This is one of our drier and south facing sites, so we had not seen many animals to collect diet samples and were hoping to get more because of the recent rain.  We did see lots of animals and things were going great until we were down slope from the road and had found about half of the animals she wanted. That's when it started raining. Being in a temperate rainforest, we were prepared with rain gear, but it was not just a light rain, it was a torrential downpour. Luckily I had an umbrella so I held it over her while she tried to get diet samples, but we still had to hike up hill to the road and then 2.5 miles out to the car.... It was an adventure, for sure. Needless to say, we both got entirely soaked despite rain coats and rain-pants. 

Before the rain started I did get to take a few pictures. These were some of the largest Plethodon salamanders I had ever seen. Most of them had an abundance of white spots but some still had some red on the legs or cheeks.

At the dorm was this large moth, also seeking shelter from the rain:

End it with a pretty picture, right?

It Ended with a Rattlesnake

I got way behind with sharing my summer field experiences, so this is going to be a bit dated but lots of pictures make up for it, right? (side note, since it took a while to write these up, the next few posts are mostly pictures and not many stories...I will try to keep up this year!)

Salamander found as photographed...

In June we saw a lot of salamanders. There was just the right amount of rain and it was still cool at night. The mushrooms started to come out in June as well, (though lots more in July than in June). Some highlights of removal plot sampling include this cute little salamander climbing on one of the plot markers.

Near one plot was this giant mushroom that we fondly called this the 'humongous fungus'. It was about a foot tall and at least a foot and a half wide. 

Near the same plot was a patch of Indian Pipe flowers. Many were more vertical than usual; you could actually see a ring of tiny flowers in the middle.

We found this rather unusual fungus (I think that is what it is)...It looked like clear gel.

We saw lots of climbing salamanders in June! Here are a few cute pictures. Climbing salamanders are quite charming.  

Also up off the ground, we saw this beetle eating a snail and an extremely fuzzy caterpillar.

We found some galls on the ground walking to some of our field sites. This one was slightly opened so that you could see where the insect was living inside. Galls are complex structures created by insects while they develop. (See On top of Spaghetti for a green version)

While on the subject of invertebrates, here are some pretty moths and just strange bugs seen out and about.

 

This cricket had just molted and was soft and very pale. 

Back to cute salamanders:

Pretty gold flecks on its back, unusual for an animal this large

Beautiful Eastern Newt (eft). These guys move around a lot,
making them a little bit harder to find if you are looking
specifically for them, but we see them quite a bit.

Almost as bright as the salamander above:

Bright slime mold

Speaking of fungi:

Little mushroom perfectly growing under a fern

We don't see many frogs on our surveys since we are out in the woods, but there are streams near by so we see them occasionally.  Here is one exciting (the rarity makes it more exciting) example. I am not actually 100% sure what species this is, it jumped away pretty quickly but I think it is a wood frog (Rana sylvatica).

Bear corn (Conopholis americana) is a strange looking parasitic plant that looks a bit like an ear of corn sticking out of the ground. It has many tiny seeds inside the 'fruits' after blooming. It is found near several of our study sites.

By far, the most exciting part of June happened near the end. We were walking to a plot at about 2 am and sitting right next to the path was an adult Timber Rattlesnake (Crotalus horridus). If you look closely in the first picture, you can see a salamander behind it. Rattlesnakes are venomous so we kept our distance, but what a beautiful animal. Since snakes are exothermic and move more slowly when cold I was not terribly worried about our safety.