Brachiosaurus, Riverdogs, and Frog Hunting (Day 1, SC 2014)

Here's a brain teaser: how can you tie the 4th of July to Brachiosaurus, South Carolina, and air travel altogether?  It's probably pretty difficult unless you were with me on the 4th of July when my family and I traveled from South Carolina by airplane, while having a layover in Chicago's O'Hare airport in Illinois, where they have a mounted Brachiosaurus skeleton!

My family unwittingly taking part of a scheme I concocted to have them act as scale bars for my Brachiosaurus picture.  They had no idea that I was manipulating them in such a fashion.

But the connection goes a little bit deeper than that, though.  It was actually on the fourth of July, way back when in the year 1900, when H. W. Menke, an assistant of the paleontologist Elmer Riggs, first discovered dinosaur bones at what would one day be called Quarry 13 in Grand Valley, Colorado.  From this quarry, the bones of a unique sauropod were uncovered.  It wasn't until several years later, in 1903, when Riggs gave a scientific name to this new leviathan, Brachiosaurus altithorax.

Today, a cast of this now-famous dinosaur is mounted in the Chicago O'Hare airport, and we got to see it on our layover!  Here are some pictures of this fantastic beastie!  It was originally at the Chicago Field Museum, but apparently was moved to the airport several years ago, to make room for the most complete Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton known, nicknamed "Sue."

Brachiosaurus, as you can see in the pictures, in an extraordinarily large animal!  A sauropod, or long necked dinosaur, its remains have been discovered in the Morrison Formation from the Late Jurassic Period, deposited approximately 150 MYA.  Brachiosaurus differs from other Morrison Formation sauropods such as Apatosaurus and Camarasaurus in that the fore limbs of the animal are much larger than the hind limbs.  In Apatosaurus, the opposite is true, with the fore limbs about twice as short as the hind limbs.  As a matter of fact, the name Brachiosaurus even means "arm lizard!"  

Myself standing next to the brach of Brachiosaurus!  Photo Credit: Julie Neher

A very closely related dinosaur, now known as Giraffatitan brancai, used to be referred to as another species of Brachiosaurus.  Giraffatitan (whose name literally means "giant giraffe"), an African sauropod, is known from the Tendaguru Beds in Tanzania, a formation which is approximately contemporaneous with the Morrison Formation from the western United States.  Other dinosaurs, such as Stegosaurus from the Morrison and Kentrosaurus from Tendaguru, seem pretty closely related.

The foot of Brachiosaurus. 

We were flying to O'Hare from Charleston in South Carolina.  Although we are back from our trip, I wanted to start with the end of our trip, the Brachiosaurus, as it had that fun little tie-in to the Fourth of July.  But starting from the beginning....

Just from the airport to the rental car place, a pretty short drive, I saw a ton of fun and exciting birds, including cardinals, herons, osprey, and egrets!  South Carolina has a ton of birds, many of which you can see all over the place!  I didn't get any great pictures on the first day, but here we have one of a Mississippi kite (Ictinia mississippiensis)!  I wasn't entirely sure what it was, thinking it might be a harrier, but a quick email to my friend Anne Price, the Curator of Raptors at the Raptor Education Foundation confirmed that it was indeed a Mississippi kite!

This I am almost positive is a Carolina wren (Thryothorus ludovicianus), the state bird of South Carolina!  The only other bird that I think is a possibility is the Bewick's wren (Thryomanes bewickii), but the body coloration of this bird makes me think it more likely that it is the Carolina wren.  It is a little tough to see in the photograph below, but the bird is in the middle of the photo.

We love visiting South Carolina so much so that we can see our very good friends the Beckleys!  Once we got to their house and got settled, I went out back to look around for a few minutes, which is when I took that picture of the possible harrier.  They also have different squirrels here in SC: in Boulder, Colorado, we commonly see the fox squirrel (Sciurus niger), while in SC you see another member of the same genus, the eastern gray squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis).  Apparently, the eastern gray squirrel is the most commonly seen mammal east of the Mississippi River!

Here's a picture of Honey, one of two of the Beckley's dogs!

To celebrate the Fourth of July, our families went to a minor league baseball game featuring the local Charleston RiverDogs (affiliated with the New York Yankees), playing the Rome Braves.  Although the RiverDogs lost, you, the reader, will end up winning, as you get to learn about riverdogs.  

Pete Perez, the pitcher for the Rome Braves.

An awesome RiverDog hat that I got at the game!  On it, you can see that the logo is simply a dog, and not an otter, a salamander, or a turd.  If you are confused, then you are clearly not familiar with the associations that the word "riverdog" has with different people.

At first, I assumed that a riverdog might be a nickname for the otter.  Although the connection seems tenuous (with other, slightly more raunchy suggestions out there), it looks like riverdog might be the nickname for the Hellbender salamander (Crypotobranchus alleganiensis), the largest aquatic salamander in the United States!  The hellbender can often grow to a foot in length, but apparently can sometimes grow to more than two feet!

I thought it was interesting that other salamanders are sometimes given dog-like nicknames, such as "mudpuppy."  Apparently, this nickname is due to the fact that the mudpuppy and waterdogs, all members of the genus Necturus, make a dog-like vocalization.  Like the axolotl, the mudpuppies and waterdogs retain their external gills as they mature.  

Later on in the day, after the sun set, I went out gator huntin' with a flashlight and my camera.  I didn't see any gators, but I saw lots of fun critters on the golf course at night!  First, here we have what I think is a squareback marsh crab (Armases cinereum).  This crab is semi-terrestrial, and I saw it maybe 20 or 30 yards from the nearest pond.

There were also a ton of frogs and toads, many of them concentrated around the sand traps on the golf course, and others in the little sprinkler areas.  I have attempted to identify these frogs to the best of my ability, but I'm not 100% certain about them!  The lighting was weird (it was at night, and I had a flashlight shining on a lot of them), and sometimes the colors of the frogs got washed out.  But I think the frog below is a green tree frog (Hyla cinerea).

I think both of the amphibians below were American toads (Anaxyrus americanus), with the second one actually pretty large, maybe three inches long when sitting like in the picture!

Another little critter that I got a good picture of was the southern leopard frog (Lithobates sphenocephalus).  

Apparently, cockroaches are found in Colorado, but I don't think I've ever seen any of them.  I did see an American cockroach (Periplaneta americana) on my little walkabout, however.  I thought that was kind of cool, because on the airplane today, I read a paper entitled "Cockroaches Probably Cleaned Up After Dinosaurs" (Vršanský et. al.).  The paper discussed how members of the family of proto-cockroaches, the Blatullidae, have been linked to the byproducts of certain types of dinosaurs, using interesting fossil amber from Lebanon.  So I got way more excited about this cockroach then really anyone else would, ever.  

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Works Cited:

Sea Turtles on Tybee Island and the Tybee Sea Turtle Project by Amy Capello, Guest Blogger

Last summer, my family and I took an ecology tour with Dr. Joe Richardson on Tybee Island off the coast of Georgia and South Carolina.  These tours, called the Tybee Beach Ecology Trips, were a fantastic way to learn more about the local sea life of Tybee.  When we returned home, I became a fan of his tours on Facebook (you can too if you click HERE), where he shares lots of cool photos from the days catch.  Since then, Dr. Joe was generous enough to do a guest post here on the blog, which you can read by clicking HERE.  Over the last year, he has also shared numerous photos from another Facebook page for the Tybee Sea Turtle Project (which you can visit by clicking HERE).  I decided to contact the folks at the Tybee Sea Turtle Project as well to ask if they would be interested in doing a guest post, and I got back some fantastic material from Amy Capello, a volunteer involved in the Sea Turtle Project!  So without further ado, I'm going to let Ms. Capello tell you all about the project, and how to help out the sea turtles!  

Loggerhead sea turtles, Caretta caretta, are a common species of sea turtle found on Tybee Island and all along the Georgia coast. There are several species of sea turtle found throughout the world, all of which are threatened or endangered. Due to their status, there are many efforts being made to protect these amazing creatures. The Georgia Department of Natural Resources is responsible for monitoring sea turtle populations throughout the state. This is a large project to undertake and depends on sea turtle volunteers on every island in Georgia. On Tybee Island, the Sea Turtle Project is headed by a wonderful, dedicated local named Tammy Smith. She is responsible for coordinating approximately 80 volunteers. These volunteers are willing to give up large portions of their time to ensure the welfare of sea turtles. Starting in May, volunteers take turns walking the beach at sunrise to look for evidence that a nesting female came out overnight to lay a nest. Usually, the best indication of a female coming out to nest is her tracks. You might think it’s easy to spot the tracks from a 300+lb. female turtle, but that’s not always the case! Sometimes it can be quite difficult to spot her tracks and the volunteers have to make sure they don’t get distracted by Tybee’s beautiful sunrises and instead focus on potential tracks in the sand.

This is a female that was laying a nest on Tybee. It is a rare occurrence that we get to see the nesting females on Tybee. Some tourists spotted her and called it in and the volunteers were able to go out and see her. She had identification tags and we're waiting to see what other nests she may have laid this season.

Once a nest is located, Tammy will come out to the location and determine if the female laid a nest or simply came out of the ocean and decided to return. Sometimes females will emerge from the water and then change their mind about laying a nest. This could be caused due to disturbances from people who get too close or scare her with their white-light flashlights. It could also be caused due to natural reasons, such as no dry sand to lay a nest during a very high tide. If you encounter a sea turtle while you’re out on the beach at night, keep your distance and make sure that your presence doesn’t change the natural behavior of the turtle. Any living sea turtle you may see on the beach is a female; males will never come out of the water, so make sure to give them their space to do what they came to do! Remember, they are endangered and need to lay every nest they can if we are going to see increases in their population.

This is a false crawl. This means that the female came out of the water to lay a nest and decided not to for some reason.

If a nest is found during a dawn patrol walk, Tammy will determine if the nest is in a suitable location. Sometimes females will lay their nests in a place that may get washed over by high tides and cause the hatchlings to drown. If this possibility is anticipated, we will move the nests to a better, safer location.

A bucket of eggs waiting to be moved. Sometimes the nests are relocated if they need to be moved to a safer place for incubation.

All nests, whether or not they are relocated, are marked with posts and monitored by the volunteers every day on their dawn patrol walks. We make sure that there are no disturbances to the nests, by people or natural predators like ghost crabs.

We mark all of the nests on Tybee Island with a special sea turtle caution tape. The nest is federally protected since the turtles are endangered and only trained and permitted volunteers are allowed to interact with the hatchlings if they require assistance.

The nests will incubate for approximately 50 days, give or take, and then the babies will hatch out. Our volunteers work hard to look for field signs that a nest is going to hatch. When the time comes, we try to be on hand to make sure that the hatchlings make their way to the water safely. I often wish that the nests came with little timers so we would know right when they are going to hatch, but unfortunately, they’re like human babies – they come when they’re good and ready!

A traditional hatching is often referred to as a “boil.” This is because all of the babies hatch out at the same time, appearing to boil out of the sand. It’s a unique experience to get to witness, but since it only takes minutes for the babies to come out, it’s often missed – even by our volunteers! Once the babies come out, they orient themselves with the brightest point on the horizon. A lot of people think they only hatch during a full moon, and this is completely false. However, any light reflecting off the water is going to be brighter than light reflecting off the sand, so the light leads the babies in the right direction. But think about developed islands, like Tybee. There is so much light pollution from inside and outside condos, restaurants, hotels, residences, etc. that often times our babies will head towards those lights, since they are much brighter than the light reflecting off the water. Unfortunately, this means they head in the exact opposite direction of where they are supposed to go. This is why it’s so critical for people to be aware of how much light pollution is out on our beaches. If you are on any island during sea turtle nesting season (May – October), it’s extremely important to turn OFF your lights!! The only “sea turtle friendly” lights are ones that are red-filtered. Even the red-filtered lights, if they are too bright, can disorient a sea turtle, but they are less distracting than a bright white light. If you want to walk the beach at night, consider going without a flashlight or light from your cell phone and your eyes will adjust to the dark. But, if you must have a light, you can purchase red-filtered flashlights in lots of stores like Wal-Mart and Bass Pro Shop. I can’t stress enough how important this is for our babies!

Hatchlings making their way to the sea. These turtles came out earlier in the daytime, allowing for a photo opportunity! All of the babies made it safely to the sea.

Once the little hatchlings hit the water, they are faced with a 24 hour long journey out into the Sargasso Sea where they will spend the first 10-15 years of their lives. They don’t start reproducing until they are about 35 years old. Considering that only 1 in 4,000 survive to adulthood, if we lose any sea turtles before that age, they haven’t even had a chance to replace themselves in the population! In the ocean, they face threats of boats (whose propellers hit them, often fatally), fishing line, and plastic. Plastic in particular looks very similar to one of their favorite foods – jellyfish! Sea turtles have never been to the store and don’t know how to tell the difference between a floating plastic bag and a floating jellyfish.

We love our sea turtles so much and we’ll do anything we can to protect them. We’re so happy that our efforts and the efforts of the public are starting to make a difference! Last year, we broke the record for the number of sea turtle nests on Tybee and overall in the state of Georgia. It was a big year for all of us! We hope to see an increase every year until their populations have fully recovered.

What are some ways you can help sea turtles? Here are some great starting points:


1.  Turn off all lights at night during nesting season (May – October) – this includes buildings, flashlights, and cell phones
2.  Use red-filtered lights if you must use a light
3.  Pick up trash on the beach, especially plastic of all kinds
4.  Do not disturb sea turtles you encounter on the beach
5.  Fill in any holes you dig on the beach and knock down sand castles – these are major obstacles, even to a large turtle
6.  If you are on a boat, keep an eye out for sea turtles and make sure you don’t hit them
7.  Educate others and spread the word! Often times people are willing to do the right thing, they just haven’t been told what the right thing is yet

This was fantastic: thank you very much Ms. Capello, as well as the Tybee Sea Turtle Project, for taking the time out of your busy schedules to teach us about these sea turtles, and what we can do to help!  To support the cause, make sure you check out the project's Facebook page by clicking HERE!  You can also check out the website for the Tybee Island Marine Science Center HERE!  Thanks again, and hope to hear from you guys again in the future!  - Zack Neher

Photo Credit for all of the pictures in the post goes to the Tybee Sea Turtle Project.  

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The Wild Reptiles of Epcot

One of the best parks at Walt Disney World in Florida was Epcot, it was super cool to see all of the different cultures and stuff like that!  Epcot also had lots of cool resident wildlife in and around the vast lake that much of the park is built around!

I just LOVE this picture!  An anole contemplates how small it really is as it gazes upon the Epcot ball!

We saw a TON of anoles!

 

 There were also a ton of cool turtles and fish just chilling in the waters at Epcot! 

 

 

The Animal Statues of Brookgreen Gardens

Brookgreen Gardens near Myrtle Beach in South Carolina was a fantastic place to visit.  They had something for everyone, from a zoo, amazing flowers, a butterfly garden, and some amazing statues!  Today, I'm going to share some pictures of the cool animal statues with you, taken by my mother and I!  Enjoy!

A pair of jaguars attacking a tapir!

A pair of bears!  Photo Credit Julie Neher

A pair of bears!  Photo Credit Julie Neher

A pair of bears!  Photo Credit Julie Neher

  A regal looking lion!  Photo Credit Julie Neher

What look like a king penguin and a pelican

A pair of chortling penguins

What looks like a stork and a shoe-bill

Some people using giant tortoises as a means of transportation!  Photo Credit Julie Neher

This just looked really cool

Platypus

Bessie the Belligerent!

A giant anteater.  Photo Credit Julie Neher

A mammoth

A mastodon

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Necklace Shells by Dr. Joe Richardson, Guest Blogger

Last summer on my family's vacation to coastal Georgia and South Carolina, we spent a few nights on Tybee Island, off the coast of Savannah, Georgia.  In the post about the whales and dolphins of South Carolina, I mentioned the Tybee Beach Ecology Tour that we went on under the guidance of Dr. Joe Richardson.  Here is a bit about Dr. Joe: 

Dr. Joe Richardson (Ph.D. Marine Sciences) conducts TybeeBeach Ecology Trips (http://www.ceasurf.com/Pages/BeachTrips.aspx) for families and groups year-round at Tybee Island.  He is a retired marine science professor who continues to conduct research throughout coastal Georgia through his consulting business Coastal Environmental Analysis.  He can be reached at joe@ceasurf.com.

The Ecology Tour was definitely a ton of fun, and my family and I learned a ton, I definitely recommend checking it out if you are out that way!  Now, Dr. Joe has agreed to do a guest post for the blog!  He has some very interesting information to share with us, so let's give him a warm welcome!  

Shell beds such as this can be found all along Tybee’s beach.  Photo Credit: Joe Richardson

Tybee Island has a large variety of species and colors of shells that wash up on its beach.  Because of its position on the east coast, Tybee has northern and southern marine plants and animals, both along the shore and offshore, that produce a large diversity or variety of what we are likely to find (see “Tybee Diversity").  Along with the diversity of shell species, we also see a wide variety of shell colors that are often due to the past environment where a particular shell has been buried or spent time.  For example, our most common bivalve (2-shelled) shells, the Ark shells, are often found in colors ranging from dark red, to orange, to gold, to white.  During my Tybee Beach Ecology Trips, people often remark about how they are surprised to see Tybee’s vast array of colors and types of shells.

It’s not hard to find Ark shells with perfectly round, small holes at Tybee.  Photo Credit: Joe Richardson

While alive, bivalve mollusks, such as this Ark and Surf Clam, have two shells and the soft-bodied animal that made the shells lives inside these protective shells.  Photo Credit: Joe Richardson

You don’t have to pick up many of our bivalve shells to find one with a perfectly round, small hole in it – just right for making a necklace.  You will see these holes in our Arks, Surf Clams, Cross-hatched Lucines and others.  It might surprise you to find out, though, that the animal that lived inside and made its shell did not make that hole.  To find out where that hole came from, we need to look at another mollusk, a gastropod or snail, that we also often find at the beach.

Moon Snail shells are sometimes called “Shark Eye shells” because they look like an eyeball when viewed from their bottom.  Photo Credit: Joe Richardson

If you know where and how to look, it’s not too difficult to find Moon Snails on the beach at Tybee.  Their round, light-brown shells often wash up along the high tide line; but you can sometimes find a live one burying through the sand in the mid and low tide, wet sandy parts of the beach. 

This is probably a Moon Snail burying its way through the sand.  It is probably an inch or two deep into the wet sand.  Photo Credit: Joe Richardson

Here are a couple of Moon Snails in our beach ecology trip “touch tank” as they are extended and gliding around in our tank of water.  Photo Credit: Joe Richardson

If you find a live one, it will probably quickly withdraw back into its shell.  But if you lay it back onto the wet sand or put it into some seawater, and be patient, it might re-emerge and start gliding across the surface.  You will be amazed at how large its body is, outside of its shell, and wonder how-in-the-world it can pack all that body back into that small shell!

While beach combing at Tybee, you might also come across the sand-colored, collar-shaped egg case of a Moon Snail.  Photo Credit: Joe Richardson

These Moon Snails are predators, and they like to eat many of those bivalves such as the Arks and Surf Clams that live buried down in the sand.  To accomplish this, the Moon Snail glides through the sand, by producing and using lots of slime to help it move through the sand, until it encounters one of its clam-like prey, which quickly closes up for protection inside its two shells.  The Moon Snail is not able to pry the two shells apart, but it wants to eat the soft-bodied animal that is inside.  Inside the snail’s mouth is a tongue-like structure called a radula.  The radula is like a small file or rasp that is hard and covered with tiny sharp teeth-like structures.  A Moon Snail can extend this radula out of its mouth and drill a perfectly round, small hole through the bivalve’s shell.  The hole is too small for the large snail to crawl through, but it can extend its radula down through the hole to the inside of the bivalve, where its soft body is.  The snail will then slash its radula around in there, shredding and chopping the bivalve’s body into “soup.”  The snail can then just suck the contents out, and it leaves behind a couple of empty shells – one of which has the hole in it!  So the hole wasn’t originally a part of the bivalve’s shell; but instead that hole was pretty much the last thing that happened to that animal.

This Moon Snail sort of got what was coming to it!  They can be cannibalistic.  Photo Credit: Joe Richardson

Sometimes it’s difficult to find an empty Moon Snail shell at Tybee because the Hermit Crabs like to use them for their own protection.  Photo Credit: Joe Richardson

So while you’re beachcombing at Tybee, and you find that perfect size, shape and color shell with a hole in it for making your necklace; you can thank the bivalve animal that made the shell.  But you need to also thank some predatory snail, like our Moon Snails, for drilling the hole!

Thanks so much for doing this, Dr. Joe, it was really interesting!  I think we would all like to thank you for doing this post for us, and we all would love to hear from you in the future!  Also, make sure to check out the page for Dr. Joe's Eco Tours HERE, and like his Facebook page too, right HERE!  He always posts really cool pictures!  Thanks again! - Zack Neher

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