Insect Mimicry; Caterpillar Predators; Baby Snapping Turtles & Bird Eggs: Jan Thornhill Blog Post Updates

by Jan Thornhill 

This week's blog post was going to be about mimicry. I'd come across an insect in Chile that  was a fabulous example of automimicry – the kind where part of an animal's body looks like a more vulnerable part. 

Here's the first view I had of this insect:

"What a character!" I thought.  Kinda cute, and kinda homely at the same time, like an old shoe. 

Then I changed my camera angle...

...and saw that what I'd thought was a face was actually the insect's rear end. 

How fabulous – it's abdomen was pretty much a replica of its head, complete with bulging red eyeballs! 

If anyone knows anything about this beetle(?), I'd love to hear from you!!

And that was it. Kind of short for a blog post. But then I realized I'd already written a post about mimicry (Spider Art and Bioluminescent “Bombs”: Extreme Animal Mimicry) – and that I should just add this guy to that post as an update. And then I remembered more updates I needed to do.

Update # 2:

It seems like a no brainer to add this find to a post about cabbage moth caterpillars I wrote a couple of years ago, Wild Helpers in the Brussels Sprouts Patch. 

I found a tiny clay urn glued to our outdoor table yesterday. I knew it was some kind of wasp nest. I also knew that the tiny pot was going to be destroyed one way or another, so instead of leaving it to be crushed by a coffee cup or plate of sliced tomatoes, I sliced it off the table with a knife so I could see what was going on inside.

Oooh! 

The urn was built by a Potter Wasp nest – someone in the genus Eumenes. 

Potter Wasp, Eumenes sp. (Wikipedia)

Potter Wasps normally won't bother you. What they will do is construct tiny, marble-sized urns out of drops of mud.

Potter wasps sometimes include an urn "neck."

They fill these little pots with paralyzed caterpillars, then lay an egg on the inside clay surface. If all goes well, the egg will hatch and the wasp larva will feed on the caterpillars until it's mature enough to chew its way out of the pot and start its adult life.  

I don't think the egg in the one I found one "took." Or maybe something happened to the builder before she could lay an egg. Too bad, since there were five different desiccated caterpillars inside, one of which, judging by its pale green colour, was surely a cabbage caterpillar. 

A feast gone to waste.

Update # 3

A few weeks ago I wrote a post about a bird egg collection I donated to the Royal Ontario Museum, I Might Be a Criminal. I sent a link of the blog to the ROM's Mark Peck, who, in response, told me about a Canadian citizen scientist nest monitoring program that anyone can join: Project NestWatch. 

It looks like a fun summer project. A little late now, but there's always next year! Go to their website to see how It works:

Step 1:  Register for Project NestWatch 

Step 2:  Learn how to find and monitor nests using the resources provided on this site

Step 3:  Search for nests around your home, school, cottage, or elsewhere

Step 4:  Monitor your nest(s) throughout the breeding season

Step 5:  Submit your data online and contribute to Canada's national nest records database!

Update # 4:

I wrote a post a few years ago about helping snapping turtles on our road, A Baby Snapping Turtle Success Story. Snappers have been nesting on and near that same bridge for years. Then the county decided to replace the bridge. But what about the eggs that had already been laid? Solution: my neighbour Tracy and her daughter gathered the eggs and took them to the Ontario Turtle Conservation Centre (previously the Kawartha Turtle Trauma Centre) where they were incubated. Tracy picked them up when they hatched and sent me pictures of their release. 

Photos by Tracy Dafoe

Another friend brought 50 snapper eggs to the Ontario Turtle Conservation Centre a few weeks ago. At that point, the centre was already incubating 3,000 eggs! Please consider helping them in this important work!  

A Baby Snapping Turtle Success Story

Jan Thornhill 

Newly hatched snapping turtle—mini prehistoric beast!

There's a small old bridge on our road that a little creek flows under. The bridge has been there long enough that gravel has accumulated on the edges. The gravel's not very deep, but for some reason female snapping turtles think it's a great place to dig shallow holes and lay their eggs. They do this every year. And every year raccoons, and probably skunks and foxes too, find the nests, dig up the eggs, and gobble them up. The turtles often lay their eggs at night and, just as often, by dawn they're all gone.

The bridge is so cramped, this female ended up damaging
another nest while making her own.

But last year, a few of days after I posted on Sci/Why about freshwater turtles and ways to help them during nesting season, I happened to drive over the bridge while a female snapping turtle was in the process of laying her clutch of eggs. A chance to put my money where my mouth was!

I used a board to temporarily cover the nest when she was done, but I needed something else to protect it for the two months or so it would take for the eggs to mature: boards are okay for a couple of days to mask the fresh turtle scent, but after that nests need to be protected while at the same time leaving them exposed to sun and air and moisture. All I had at home was some chicken wire, which I tried to keep in place with some rocks and pegs, but this proved to be inadequate and one of two nests I covered was dug up within 24 hours. 

Happily, I wasn't the only one monitoring the snapping turtles. My neighbours, Tracy and Jim and their kids, who live beside the bridge, were also paying attention. While another turtle laid her eggs, Jim was constructing sturdy open wooden boxes with heavy-duty wire mesh "lids." These were placed over the two intact nests. Sadly, a raccoon managed to raid both clutches that night by cleverly digging under the boxes. One of the two nests had only been partially dug up, so Tracy carefully reburied the few eggs that seemed undamaged, replaced the box and, this time, put a heavy rock on it. That did the trick and the box remained undisturbed for the rest of the summer.

A baby snapping turtle impatiently trying to
get out of the protective cage Jim made.

By the end of August, Tracy and I and everyone else who knew what was going on on the bridge were stopping to check several times a day to see if there were any signs of hatching. We'd almost given up when our mail lady, who had made it a habit to slow down to glance at the box every time she crossed the bridge, saw some movement. She drove up Tracy and Jim's lane to deliver the news: "The turtles are hatching!" Tracy called me from the bridge and I raced up the road with my camera.  

And here they are—our little success story of five baby snapping turtles! 

Five newly hatched snapping turtles!

Baby snapping turtles are shy.

Oops! This one fell off an inch-high cliff (the indent from the box).

Tracy and I were worried that the babies would get picked off by predators
before they reached the creek, so we carried them to the water's edge.

All five in the creek. Within minutes they'd all
disappeared into the safety of deeper water.

What You Can Do (*This is a refresher from last year's post)

Help a Turtle Cross a Road

Pull over to a safe spot before getting out of your car. If it's any species other than a snapping turtle, use two hands to carry it in the direction it was travelling. Turtles often urinate when picked up. Don’t let this startle you or you might drop it! NEVER pick a turtle up by its tail—you could damage its spinal cord.

Snapping turtles have long necks that can easily stretch half the length of their carapace and they can also inflict a nasty bite or gouge you with their claws, so it's best not to pick them up. Instead, try using a stick or a shovel to coax them across the road. A snapping turtle will also sometimes latch onto a stick held near its mouth, making it easy to drag it across the road.

Protect a Clutch of Eggs

If you know the location of a new turtle nest, you can lightly sweep the surface to remove the scent or cover it with a board for a few days. You can also protect a nest from predators with a piece of wire mesh (at least 2’x2’) stapled onto a wooden frame or held down with rocks. Remove the mesh protection after 14 days. DO NOT disturb the eggs in a nest.

Report Sightings

There are various turtle monitoring programs in North America that want to hear about turtle sightings:

http://ontarionature.org/protect/species/herpetofaunal_atlas.php

http://www.torontozoo.com/adoptapond/

Help an Injured Turtle

Never try to nurse an injured turtle yourself. Use Google to find a licensed wildlife rehabilitation facility near you. In southern Ontario, contact the Ontario Turtle Conservation Centre (previously Kawartha Turtle Trauma Centre) (705-741-5000). For information on what to do with an injured turtle: https://ontarioturtle.ca/ourmission/drop-off/

Support the Ontario Turtle Conservation Centre

This non-profit, registered charity operates a hospital for injured wild turtles. They release recovered turtles back into the wild and also harvest eggs from wounded females, which they incubate and release after hatching. You can volunteer to be a Turtle Taxi driver, help with ongoing care, donate money or simply help to spread the word about their work: https://ontarioturtle.ca

Stop Snapping Turtle Harvesting in Ontario

Write your local MP. Write Ontario’s Minister of the Environment and the Minister of Natural Resources. There's an online email you can send via: http://action.davidsuzuki.org/snappers

Update 

August 21, 2018

Snappers have been nesting on and near that same bridge for years. Then – uh oh – the county decided to replace the bridge. But what about the eggs that already been laid? Solution: my neighbour Tracy and her daughter gathered a nest of eggs and took them to the Ontario Turtle Conservation Centre where they were incubated over the summer. When they hatched, Tracy and her daughter picked them up and sent me pictures of their release. 

Photos by Tracy Dafoe

Another friend brought 50 snapper eggs to the Centre a few weeks ago. At that point, they were already incubating 3,000 eggs! Please consider helping them in this important work! 

Giving Turtles a Helping Hand

by Jan Thornhill

Newly hatched snapping turtle (photo: Megan Racey, USFWS)

In the past few days, I’ve had five separate close encounters with turtles—three painteds, a Blanding’s, and a snapper. Why? Because it’s turtle-nesting season and I was helping females get safely across the road so they could lay their eggs. It's nice to do my part even if they sometimes make my hands smell funky.

My favorites are common snapping turtles (Chelydra serpentina). They’ve been around for 40 million years and they look it. They’re very long lived—and long-necked!—and old ones can weigh as much as a ten-year-old child. In their wetland homes, they act like reptilian garburators, scavenging dead fish and other animals while carving out underwater routes for smaller reptiles, fish and amphibians. Because the snapping turtle’s lower shell, or plastron, is small, it can’t just hunker down and tuck in its head and legs the way other turtles do when threatened. Instead, snappers have developed an aggressive temperament and can be downright ornery. They have powerful claws and a sharp bony beak that—you guessed it—snaps shut, though not hard enough to take off a finger.  

A snapper can't tuck itself into its shell because its belly plate is too small. (photo: Jarek Tuszynski)

Like all turtles, snappers lay their eggs on land and sometimes have to walk substantial distances to find suitable nesting spots. Unfortunately, this means they often have to cross roads that are near waterways. Though snapping turtles are well armed against predators, their hard shells and sharp claws are no match for the wheels of fast-moving cars and trucks.

But even without the dangers of crossing roads, snapping turtles don't have it easy. They face heavy egg predation from animals such as raccoons, skunks and foxes, who can easily smell out freshly buried eggs and dig them up. And even when a nest is overlooked and the eggs hatch, young snappers still face so many dangers that the chances of surviving long enough to reproduce are incredibly slim, so slim it’s been estimated that only about one in 1,500 eggs laid will produce a turtle that reaches sexual maturity. 

Many female snapping turtles wait almost twenty years to they lay their first eggs. (photo: Moondigger)

Along with natural stressors, road mortality and severe habitat loss (southern Ontario has lost about 70% of its original wetlands to development), snapping turtles have yet another problem to contend with—hunting. Anyone with a valid recreational fishing license is permitted to "harvest" up to two snapping turtles a day in Ontario, with a possession limit of five. Considering that snapping turtles have been listed under Ontario’s Endangered Species Act as a species of special concern because of the aforementioned stressors, the continuation of this hunt seems unconscionable.

An adult snapping turtle with hitchhiking snails. (photo: Willy Logan)

What You Can Do

Help a Turtle Cross a Road

Pull over to a safe spot before getting out of your car. If it's any species other than a snapping turtle, use two hands to carry it in the direction it was travelling. Turtles often urinate when picked up. Don’t let this startle you or you might drop it! NEVER pick a turtle up by its tail—you could damage its spinal cord.

Snapping turtles have long necks that can easily stretch half the length of their carapace and they can also inflict a nasty bite or gouge you with their claws, so it's best not to pick them up. Instead, try using a stick or a shovel to coax them across the road. A snapping turtle will also sometimes latch onto a stick held near its mouth, making it easy to drag it across the road.

Protect a Clutch of Eggs

If you know the location of a new turtle nest, you can lightly sweep the surface to remove the scent or cover it with a board for a few days. You can also protect a nest from predators with a piece of wire mesh (at least 2’x2’) stapled onto a wooden frame or held down with rocks. Remove the mesh protection after 14 days. DO NOT disturb the eggs in a nest.

Report Sightings

There are various turtle monitoring programs in North America that want to hear about turtle sightings:

http://ontarionature.org/protect/species/herpetofaunal_atlas.php

http://www.torontozoo.com/adoptapond/

Help an Injured Turtle

Never try to nurse an injured turtle yourself. Use Google to find a licensed wildlife rehabilitation facility near you. In southern Ontario, contact the Kawartha Turtle Trauma Centre (705-741-5000). For information on how to transport an injured turtle: http://kawarthaturtle.org/blog/about/drop-off/

Support the Kawartha Turtle Trauma Centre

This non-profit, registered charity operates a hospital for injured wild turtles. They release recovered turtles back into the wild and also harvest eggs from wounded females, which they incubate and release after hatching. You can volunteer to be a Turtle Taxi driver, help with ongoing care, donate money or simply help to spread the word about their work: http://kawarthaturtle.org/blog

Stop Snapping Turtle Harvesting in Ontario

Write your local MP. Write Ontario’s Minister of the Environment and the Minister of Natural Resources. There's an online email you can send via: http://action.davidsuzuki.org/snappers