Invertebrates–animals without backbones. That covers a lot of species from butterflies to spiders to slugs and earthworms. I could have divided this category into more specific categories like spiders, insects or mollusks, but often I don’t even know where to start looking when trying to identify an invertebrate. Did you know ticks are arachnids not insects?
One of the most fascinating transformations in nature is the change a caterpillar undergoes to become a butterfly. Small, wriggly caterpillars hide within a chrysalis…
Lizards are one of the more well-known animals to regrow their tail after shedding it to evade predators. Last week, I wrote about autotomy (the…
Northern alligator lizards and western blue-tailed skinks possess two unique abilities in the animal world–they can self-amputate their tail and grow it back. The process…
When wandering through the woods I’ll occasionally stumble across an ant hill. Sometimes the ant hills are only a few inches high, sometimes a few…
Have you seen the small pits that resemble craters on the moon at the base of large trees? Or maybe in the sandy soil under…
While throwing rocks into Boulder Creek, I noticed the insects that look like big mosquitos walking on water in the eddies. I call them water…
Big insects are hard to miss, especially big beetles. This summer I’ve encountered two big beetles I’ve never seen before–the ten lined June beetle and…
Spit bug, spittlebug, froghopper. They’re all the same insect that produces the globs of spit-like froth on stems of grasses, flowers and shrubs this time…
Fluttering at the base of a bush caught my attention. I thought it was a butterfly but the antennae indicated it was a moth–a moth…
While sweeping the garage last fall, I came across small carcasses that were c-shaped, hollow, white and smaller than a dime. I hadn’t seen any…
As a child I remember daddy longlegs in the basement bathroom, especially in the shower. Not liking spiders, I never got close and took quick…
Whether a bird, plant or insect, identifying one I haven’t seen before is always interesting. So when I received an email that Cal Russell was…