Ecology XI

     The blue whale is currently accepted as the largest animal to have ever existed. We can find no remains that exceed the size of the blue whale. Even those of prehistoric times cannot outweigh the 170 tons and 100 foot length of the blue whale.
     The blue whale is a sea mammal of dark blue/gray and regular gray complexion. The dark skin on the top of the whale protects it from being seen from above and the light skin helps it stay invisible while being viewed from below. This camouflage helps the whale stay hidden from predators such as killer whales and sharks. If the blue whale were some other color, like pink, it would be eaten right away with no chance of survival. When they are not being eaten themselves, the blue whale likes to feed on krill mainly. They are filter feeders.
     Blue whales in the pacific ocean have very specific migration patterns that they follow with their pods. In the winter they migrate to the equator to escape the frigid northern waters, and then in the summer they return to the waters around Alaska. These migration patterns coincide with mating times to have calves born in the summer when the waters are warmer.
     The interesting thing about mating whales is that they need wing-men, LITERALLY. While copulating, the male whale is below the female, but below the male is another male pushing upwards to keep the pair afloat. Without these brave wing-whales, the species may have gone extinct long ago.
     While we know little about whales, they are majestic creatures that roam the ocean. Many go whale watching to get a glimpse of these elusive creatures, but many go their entire lives without seeing a single one.  We don't appreciate nature around us, we don't take in what may be gone eventually.

Sources:

http://best-diving.org/images/Adrenaline_DivingWall/diving%20blue%20whale.jpg

http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/blue-whale/

http://acsonline.org/fact-sheets/blue-whale-2/

http://www.afsc.noaa.gov/nmml/education/cetaceans/blue.php

http://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/permanent-exhibitions/biodiversity-and-environmental-halls/milstein-hall-of-ocean-life/the-blue-whale

http://www.montereybayaquarium.org/animals/AnimalDetails.aspx?enc=Z5SIVkZ+n+WzlEHjk17NFw==

Ecology X

The golden jackal of northern Africa and south-central Eurasia shares much of its lineage with the modern day wolf, dog and coyote. The black-backed and side-striped jackals of sub-Saharan Africa are actually more related to each other than they are to wolves and other canine species. Both however are opportunistic carnivores that will eat most anything they can scavenge up, just like the American jackal: the coyote.

Jackals are small canine creatures resembling a cross between a dog and a wolf, in size. Their fur patterns allow them to best camouflage to their individual surroundings, most of which consist heavily of sand. Both jackal species have a light brown base coat with either dark-brown/black or golden tones depending on whether they live in southern or northern Africa. Side-striped and black-backed jackals live primarily in forested areas below the Saharan Desert. The golden jackal lives in Asia as well as Africa, with its coat allowing it to blend in better with sandy areas and the plains.

Jackals, like other canines, live in packs. They are crepuscular, meaning they are most active in the twilight hours. This time frame is heavily used by few, making it the perfect time for the scavenging jackal to work its business. Jackals scavenge food together to feed themselves and their young. Jackals have several litters per year consisting usually of a few pups. After a year or so the pups are large enough to live on their own, they either set off to form their own pack; they seldom stay with their parents.

The jackal are animals that many fear, as they do not understand them. Even here in America, most of us are scared of the coyote, because we know little about it, we never go near them. But in reality they are not as dangerous as we think, they are primarily scavengers and as long as their is enough food lying around they will not attack live prey. They are not very dangerous, we just don't understand them.

Sources:

http://www.canids.org/gallery/popup19381.jpg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackal

http://www.blueplanetbiomes.org/golden_jackal.htm

http://www.arkive.org/golden-jackal/canis-aureus/

http://www.canids.org/species/canis_aureus.htm

http://www.krugerpark.co.za/africa_side_striped_jackal.html

Ecology IX

I was not in school on Friday because I was participating in the HACC math competition. On the way there I saw three groundhogs! In the one mile from STHS to HACC I saw those groundhogs within several hundred feet of one another. I hadn't seen a groundhog in a long time, so it was nice to know that they were still around doing reasonably well.

Groundhogs, Marmota Monax, are small marmots also known as woodchucks, land-beavers, and whistle pigs. I have no clue why they are called whistle pigs. They can be between 16 and 26 inches long, plus a 6 inch tail. Groundhogs usually weigh between 4 and 9 pounds, with the weight difference being food availability, not gender. They were covered, except on the tail, in hydrophobic fur that allows them to stay warm even in cold wet conditions.

They can live up to six years in the wild, but the average is between two and three years. They can live up to 14 years in captivity, due to the removal of predators. Groundhogs give birth to one litter per year with between four and five young per litter. Natural predators of the groundhog include coyotes, wolves, snakes, bears, hawks, and dogs.

Groundhogs survive by burrowing into the ground as their shelter, and by eating almost any type of vegetation. They will also eat grasshoppers and frogs on occasion. Unlike other marmots however, it will not store food in its burrow for future consumption. Groundhogs also do not do drink water to hydrate; they get all their water through leafy plants.

Groundhogs may play a small role in ecology, but that does not make it an unimportant one. Another thing they do is provide work for golf course greens keepers, a line of work with very little exercise. Thanks to groundhogs, Bill Murray had to stop being a weirdo and actually do his job.

Sources:

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groundhog

http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/groundhog/

http://www.fcps.edu/islandcreekes/ecology/woodchuck.htm

http://wildlifedamage.uwex.edu/pdf/Woodchuck.pdf

https://encrypted-tbn2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQUoPQRA-3XM8GarYqyEYWetRXM4QV_D3kGG_p9ydy2iy0qI-UY

Ecology VIII

The pistol shrimp is one of the loudest animals on the planet. With the larger of its asymmetric claws it creates a clap similar to when jets break the sound barrier, except louder. The claws disperse water so fast that a vacuum forms just in fron t of the claw. When the water comes back together a clap travelling sixty miles per hour is created, and for a fraction of a second the temperature at the vacuum location soars to over eight-thousand degrees fahrenheit. The pistol shrimp uses this shock wave to stun and kill the small fish that it uses for food.

The pistol shrimp lives in tropical waters. It lives on the bottom of the ocean where there is an abundance of life and other resources it needs to survive, like in coral reefs, oyster reefs, seagrasses, and the Florida mangrove forests. The pistol shrimp is typically between one and one-fourth to one and three-fourths inches long. They are a translucent green color, with red/orange claws and a blue/purple tail.

The prey of the pistol shrimp are anything that is small enough to be killed by their cavitation bubble's percussion blast. Pistol shrimp are not picky and will eat whatever they come across. Sometimes this includes other shrimp, small fish, and crabs. They however will not kill goby fish, Pistol shrimp have formed a symbiotic relationship with gobies, who allow the shrimp to live in their homes with them.

Pistol shrimp are not well known by the multitudes, but they should be. They make excellent aquarium pets and are really cool. They are not expensive, you can feed them anything, and are a cool conversation starter. Who wouldn't want to own one of the loudest things known to mankind?

Sources:

http://i25.tinypic.com/709pis.jpg

http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Tiger-pistol-shrimp

http://www.liveaquaria.com/PIC/article.cfm?aid=201

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1085398/Deadly-pistol-shrimp-stuns-prey-sound-loud-Concorde-UK-waters.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpheidae

PA Ecology VII

    I like to use different distributions of Linux on my computer, especially Ubuntu. The different releases are named after animals, and one of the more recent ones was Precise Pangolin. Pangolins are also known as scaly anteaters, due to the extremely hard plates that armor their bodies. They live in southern Africa as well as across the Indian subcontinent and southeast Asia. Their Latin genus is Manis, and there are eight species that exist today, each with their own little adaptations. Pangolin comes from the Malay word for 'something that rolls up,' pengguling.

    Pangolins are the only mammal to have a plated armor system. The individual plates are made of keratin and shift over one another when the pangolin is moving. When they feel threatened  they roll up into a ball with the scales overlapping to form a protective sphere. The scales are so hard that not even a lion can bite through the plates. Pangolin species range from thirty to one hundred centimeters in length, with the females being slightly smaller than the males. They are called scaly anteaters because of how they feed. They have no teeth, so they use their extremely long prehensile tongue to pull ants out of anthills for food. Some pangolins can extend their tongues up to forty centimeters, snaking it through the ground in search of food.

    Pangolins in Africa give birth to one young at a time, several times per year. Whereas the Asiatic pangolins give birth at the same rate, but between one and three young at a time. Several species of pangolins live in hollowed out trees, but most live in underground burrows depending on what their prey are. Pangolins are mostly nocturnal, doing their hunting at night, and during the day staying curled up in a ball to sleep. Fun fact, pangolins are very good swimmers.

    Pangolins are a threatened mammal, with most Asiatic species facing large amounts of poaching. Many Asian cultures believe the scales have healing properties, with the meat also curing cancer and other diseases. As well as hunting, deforestation has greatly reduced their habitat, resulting in many species already having gone extinct.

     Pangolins are one of the most interesting animals on planet earth, but sadly due to superstition and industrialization they are beginning to disappear. Within my life there will be a time when many species are gone from the earth, and sadly the pangolin will most likely be one of them.

Sources:

http://petcaregt.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/the-pangolin-facts.jpg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pangolin

http://www.awf.org/content/wildlife/detail/pangolin

http://savepangolins.org/what-is-a-pangolin/

http://www.sandiegozoo.org/animalbytes/t-pangolin.html

http://science.jrank.org/pages/5010/Pangolins.html

PA Ecology VI

One of the most dangerous animals in Pennsylvania is probably the Eastern Coyote. Canis latrans var is one of twenty subspecies of coyote, who in total live across nearly entire North and Central America. The Eastern Coyote lives throughout most of northeastern Pennsylvania and up through New England. While I have never seen a coyote in the wild, i know I do not want to. They are big enough to cause me, and certainly my dogs, some distress, and what's worse is that they hunt in packs. If they're hungry I'd be done for!

The Eastern Coyote is roughly the size of a small-medium dog. They weigh between thirty and forty-five pounds, and are usually between four and five feet long including the tail, which itself is about a foot in length. They are believed to mate for life with a single partner in order to form their packs, and raise their pups together. One couple will usually have a litter per year for life, with each litter consisting of between five and seven pups, depending on how many resources are available. Pups are usually born in April and leave by October to find and form their own mates and packs.

Coyotes are mostly opportunistic predators. Approximately eighty percent of their diet originates from small rodents and lagomorphs, but they will also eat insects, fruit and berries, fish, birds, snakes, and even garbage if hungry enough. They are strong enough to kill many different kinds of dogs and house cats, but are sometimes able to take down livestock if they have a larger enough pack.

The coyote has very few predators of its own. While they do have to worry a bit about wolves and bears, humans pose the greatest threat to coyotes. We usually will shoot them if they become a nuisance, or during certain times of the year they become too populous and we feel we need to take action. Other than that they live their lives and we live ours.

While most people never come into contact with coyotes, we know what their behavior is like. Most of us own dogs, and all of us have met dogs before. Dogs and coyotes share many traits, but have their differences as well. As long as we leave them alone they won't bother us too much, and one of the most integral members of the food chain will continue its job, eating, dutifully.

Sources:

http://people.westminstercollege.edu/faculty/tharrison/citycreek/coyotes/predators.htm

http://nwco.net/PDF/coyote.pdf

http://hal_macgregor.tripod.com/kennel/Eastern-coyote.jpg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coyote

http://www.portal.state.pa.us/portal/server.pt?open=514&objID=598430&mode=2

http://newyorkoutdoors.wordpress.com/2010/03/24/coyotes-in-pennsylvania-and-new-york-are-mostly-coyote-wolf-hybrids/

http://www.poconorecord.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130205/SPORTS90/302050306/-1/sports

Debate

Global warming and climate change. They are some of the most highly contested issues in politics today. While the evidence supporting climate change is overwhelming, there are many who still believe it to be a conspiracy theory perpetrated by the radical left in order to kill capitalism, or something like that. The temperature of the earth has been rising rapidly since the age of industrialization began. With the new temperature differentials natural disasters have increased dramatically not only in rate but in strength. Many just cannot accept that there are penalties to their lifestyle, they do not want to give up all the luxuries they have to fix a problem they not only do not believe exists, but if it does will never affect them. That is the problem with our society.

But that is just my opinion on climate change. But the article I read was about how the theory of global warming impacts the way people view the weather and think about the weather. The different individuals who posted in regards to the prompt had many different opinions on how we view the weather. One man said that "One side uses the weather when it helps their view. Then the other side does the same." In his opinion, it doesn't matter what happens in regards to the weather, people will try to look at whatever happens differently to fit their viewpoint. This is for the most part true, people are always going to spin the circumstances in order to further their cause, and to justify themselves further. But what I do disagree with is that everyone can successfully soon everything. That's just not true. If you want to win the war you have to accept that you'll lose a few battles.

The second commenter had a similar opinion to the first. But while the first believed that people will purposefully spin the weather to their view, the second believed that many people look at the same situation in different ways, but come to the same opinion eventually. "Some will believe that unusually heavy snowfall is evidence of a cold spell because if had been warmer there would have been rain.Others will believe unusually heavy snowfall is evidence that temperatures are warmer than normal because colder temperatures would result in less water in the air and less snow. Thus, interpretations about the causes of heavy snowfall reveal mental models (i.e., explanations for how things work) about weather." People like to think they know about everything, but in reality they don't, and base their 'knowledge' on pure conjecture.

What it really comes down to are the facts. Regardless of how people want to spin the circumstances, it is undeniable that the world is warming up. We have created an intense greenhouse through our massive CO2 releases, and the more we drive our cars, burn coal, and run our factories, the worse the problem gets. Maybe by the time the icecaps finish melting we will have realized the situation we are in, but by then it will already be too late.

Sources:

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/science/topics/globalwarming/index.html

http://www.naacp.org/programs/entry/climate-justice?source=BSDAds_GoogleSearch_Climate%20Change_Climate%20Change_Climate%20Change_Exact_13684846033&gclid=CNuO6viIv7UCFc87Ogod8wYAhw

http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/11/global-warming-and-weather-psychology/

http://www.nrdc.org/globalwarming/

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoD_8mi3dgY-OG1Z7sJltyWyUFhV-496ZA3fcHEQBLfxtLFrDXz0q08O8-zPM2PkSp001YBX1BHsOyVpOnAAIQeDin77HRObNz7wodjFCH-NCn-5I4DUlxk1f46sFwKhjHzgxW2dGPhmJD/s1600/scientists-clues-print+%25281%2529.jpg

PA Ecology V

Seeing how it's cold outside and most animals that are normally out and about well, aren't, it was rather hard to find an animal for this week's blog entry. What I found this week was not unlike my previous ecology post, the squirrel. This week the only animal I could find in my backyard was the eastern chipmunk. It lives in primarily deciduous areas, as do most other chipmunk species, which populate most of North America. Its conservation status is least concern, meaning that with no unforeseeable changes to their lifestyle they will be around for years to come.

The eastern chipmunk has mostly reddish-brown fur on top with a lighter belly and dark short furry tail. Its fur is striped with dark and light stripes atop its regular coat. Eastern chipmunks are usually smaller then six inches long, less than 9 including the tail. Chipmunks normally weigh less than a pound. Eastern squirrels will have many litters of three to five pups every spring, while western chipmunks usually produce one litter per year.

Chipmunks make their burrows underground, with many different passages for food, refuse, living, and etc. While most of their diet is berries, leaves, and other plant matter, they will eat bird eggs, worms, and a frog occasionally if it is small enough.

Predators to the eastern chipmunk include dogs, snakes, raccoons, foxes, owls, coyotes, and cats, all of which like to eat squirrels as well. Like squirrels, chipmunks have ears that they can move independently in order to stay on high alert at all times in all directions. Chipmunk's escape their predators by either dashing into their burrows or up the nearest tree.

Not unlike squirrels, chipmunks play a small role in its community. But it is a role that matters still. For many predators they are a quick source of food. It may not be a keystone species but it lives in the keystone state, so that makes the eastern chipmunk important enough.

Sources:

http://www.fcps.edu/islandcreekes/ecology/eastern_gray_squirrel.htm

http://www.dnr.state.oh.us/tabid/6646/Default.aspx

http://www.blueplanetbiomes.org/eastern_chipmunk.htm

http://www.psu.edu/dept/nkbiology/naturetrail/speciespages/chipmunk.htm

http://www.wonderclub.com/Wildlife/mammals/easternchipmunk.htm

http://naturalhistory.uga.edu/~gmnh/gawildlife/index.php?page=speciespages/species_page&key=tstriatus

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiahyAIkWwQoS6TetB9ykSOOSCE-CRmWsov0bi6Q_DtJ-iQJZ7W16q9Z6h9m67yDdH-z0WJO7iMJ6qmKzdCV6wPT3VTM_S0fxMlS3woZhZFp2wwS91mBQYaFjlI9PRv63GG-eauAMZsi_w/s400/Eastern+Chipmunk.jpg