Come to the Color

So many flowers are blooming right now. I feel like I'm seeing old friends as I recognize them. Some flowers are new to me, and they become new friends. I'm a bit behind in identifying some, but I do try to take lots of photos so I can eventually learn their names.

As I was driving to work this week, I spotted cactus blooms from Plains Pricklypear Cactus (Opuntia polyacantha). Flowering cacti have a special place in my love for flowers. The contrast between the prickly, mean cactus pads and the beautiful, delicate blossoms is something I will never be able to fully comprehend. But I can enjoy them, so I braked and went over for a closer look.

  I quickly saw that I wasn't the only one attracted to the colorful flowers. Bumblebees buzzed from one flower to another, and upon closer inspection, I could even see the pollen sticking to the bees hairs.


Flies and beetles wandered around the petals. National Pollinator Week is June 17-23, but I'm already appreciating our wonderful pollinators! I've planted native flowers in my yard to try and encourage even more pollinators to come visit.

 I was surprised to see this little spider hiding out in the cactus flower. What was it doing? Eating some of the insects that were attracted to the flower? Maybe visiting beautiful flowers isn't quite as peaceful as we think!

 I've been developing a better appreciation for spiders as I get ready for the Great Basin National Park Arachnid BioBlitz, to be held July 8-10. If you want to learn more about spiders and other arachnids, this is an event you won't want to miss!

I've got to go--so many wildflowers to go and visit this weekend!

Scenes from the Ranch

 I saw this strangely-colored tree as I was coming out of my driveway. It took me a minute to remember that the weed guy was spraying Russian olives today. Russian olives are a nasty invader that can turn a meadow into a thorn forest in just a few years. They grow really fast and are aggressive. This one isn't more than two or three years old, but it's already fairly tall.

 Normally the leaves are olive green in color. The bluish hue make them seem like fantasyland.

Down the road I noticed big birds out in the meadow. I zoomed in to find the group of sandhill cranes that likes to summer at the ranch. During the spring and fall we see a lot more as they head north and then return on their migration, but a few have decided that this little part of the Great Basin is just right for their summer vacation.

One was really intent on grooming itself.

Meet Desert Boy's newest pet: a roly poly. He was so excited about finding it under some rocks. He collected it and some dirt and gravel and wanted to take it home. I didn't exactly agree, but found it in the van. I said it wasn't going in the house, but he could keep it in his tree house. Desert Boy wanted to know when he could move into his tree house. What would you have answered?

Before I knew it, Desert Boy had taken a bottle out of recycling and had decided that would be the new home for his roly poly.

(If you're wondering what I answered about the tree house living, I told him he could live there when he turned 18. That's the same answer I gave him when he asked about skydiving.)

The roly poly's name is Dirt. By the way, the name for his slightly deformed crawdad (probably due to too many catch-and-releases) was Snapper. It's probably good I record all these, because when he tells me later that I should let him have another pet, I can show him the list of all his pets.

I'm wondering how long Dirt will live in his new bottle in the tree house. Any guesses?

BioBlitz 2012

 This last week I've been busy with the Great Basin National Park BioBlitz. This year's BioBlitz focused on Diptera (flies). Professor Riley Nelson from Brigham Young University led the event, and above he's talking with Park Superintendent Andy Ferguson.

 The BioBlitz is a three-day event, with a 48-hour collecting period. The idea is that if you get a lot of people searching, you can find a lot in a short period of time. For this event, people came from Nevada, Utah, California, Arizona, Colorado and even the countries of Oman and Germany!

 We started with a Diptera workshop, with talks about flies and how voluptuous they are.

 The talks were really good. Then everyone was ready to start collecting!

 Some park rangers got in on the action. All through Tuesday afternoon, people collected flies all over the park.

 In the evening, Dr. Nelson gave a campfire program, which was a big hit.

He even made it interactive, asking the kids what insects they saw on this rock from the nearby creek.

 Little collectors pause to see what's on the ground.

 The next morning I saw Dr. Nelson collect some flies from the edge of a stream with his aspirator.

 The flies came in all shapes and sizes.

 That evening, volunteer Ken gave a talk about flies that included lots of interesting facts, like flies taste with their feet and smell with their hair.

 Folks turned in their specimens at Baker Hall, and this family checked out what the Nevada State Entomologist had under his microscope.

 A group of kids came in and they were put to work sorting the insects out of the vegetation that had all been mixed together from the netting. They were amazingly good at sorting quickly and accurately.

 Several programs were part of the BioBlitz, including a kids program by Ranger Robb.

 His program involved painting, but not just any kind of painting.

 He's ready to unveil the surprise.

 Baby flies (aka maggots) helped with the painting.

 Both little kids and adult kids enjoyed the art.

 Back at Baker Hall, more sorters were hard at work.

 Once the insects had been sorted out of the vegetation, it was time to sort the flies from the "others."

 The microscope table was put to use.

 This is Bjorn, the scientist from Germany. He really knew his flies well and kept a list of all the families he had collected. He may have collected more diversity than any other individual.

 
At the end of the collecting period it was time for a lunch sponsored by the Great Basin National Park Foundation and raffle prizes from the Western National Parks Association. Thank you! Dr. Nelson also gave a talk about the preliminary results. Over 50 people collected thousands of flies, with about 20 families added to the park list. Wow, that's impressive!

Dr. Nelson will take the flies back to his lab and one of his students will spend most of the rest of the summer sorting out what was collected. We will find out more about the flies over the next months.

Some of the folks that collected! Everyone who participated had a great time. There was even a family who asked about next year's BioBlitz (still to be announced), as they want to plan their family reunion during the same time. It's a really fun event, so if you have a chance to be part of a BioBlitz, go for it!

Things in Caves

 I've been lucky to go on some caving trips lately, often with a biological focus, so I couldn't resist testing the limits of my cave point-and-shoot. Above and below are a pseudoscorpion, Microcreagris grandis Muchmore. They're the top of the food chain in many of the area caves.

 And they're only about a half-inch to an inch long. Such an ecosystem, where the top predator is smaller than the size of a quarter!

 Deb and Gerry helped me download data loggers along with place bait. They hadn't done much caving but were amazingly agile and moved without any problems.

 This tiny spider was really, really tiny, like about 2 mm long.

 My caving group after the cave trip. Notice how clean they all look. We visited a clean cave. (Spoiler: muddy cave to come.)

 This is a dipluran, and we may never know the species unless someone decides to become a dipluran expert and take on some work describing new diplurans! (Young readers, please take note of this. If you're the only dipluran expert in the world, you could get a lot of work heading your way.)

Notice what the dipluran is on--wet, gooey mud.

If you're wondering if this is a different cave, you're right!

 The above photo really isn't of nothing. In fact, there are five cave critters captured--a mama and four little babies. The babies are less than 1 mm long (very sorry for mixing English and metric systems, I end up using both for work). They are Arrhopalites springtails, and I watched them jumping on the surface of the water.

 Those Arrhopalites springtails were on the top of the water, but at the bottom of the little puddle was a white planaria. Maybe we can find someone to identify it.

Anyone know any planaria experts?

It would take a special kind of person to be a planaria expert.

Just saying.

 Phew, on to something almost warm and cuddly. At least it's bigger than two inches long and easily seen. This is a harvestman, this species only found in caves, and a relative of Daddy-long legs. It belongs to the Opilionid family, which means it is a cousin to the spiders (Arachnid family).

 So long, harvestman!

 No cave life in the above photo, but something surprising--running water in this cave! I had never seen that in this part of the cave, and I was terribly excited. The cave wasn't sumped, so we could follow the water and see a cave forming process in action!

 Nicole and Jennie negotiating the mud slope down to the water. See, I'm not the only crazy one who enjoys getting covered with gooey mud in a cave!

 We headed downstream, towards the canyon passage. The water was moving swiftly. We had rubber boots on, but we managed to find a pool deep enough that we all flooded our boots.

Then the water sounded louder, and we rounded a corner and found:

 a waterfall! Sweet! A two-foot waterfall in the cave. We saw the water continuing down into the narrow canyon passage and chimneyed above it for a bit, but it was apparent that the rest of the cave was sumped and the walls were extra slippery, so we turned around and headed back.

 On the way I spotted this little cave-adapted millipede, Idagona lehmanensis Shear.

 There was also this little rose-colored creature, perhaps a mite.

 Here's a photo of David after the cave trip. Originally his entire cave suit was yellow.

 Jonathan exiting with a smile.

 And we all gasped when Jennie pulled down her cave suit to reveal a pristine National Park Service uniform shirt. She takes her uniform seriously!

The next day we went into another cave. (Okay, I know this post is getting long, but if I stop now, I won't get started again till next week! If you need a break, just stop here and come back in the next few days and read the rest.)

 I saw a couple ants at the bottom of the squeezy vertical entrance. It's so tight, though, that you don't use vertical gear, you just wedge yourself through it. Going down wasn't too bad.

 Numerous cave crickets hung out at the bottom of the drop along the walls and ceiling.

 We also saw several of these fungal beetles.

 This is David taking serious photographs. You can see some of his work by clicking here.

 We found lots of small bones in the cave, scattered in various locations.

 Nicole holding up a pelvis.

After we finished our trip in the walking portion of the cave, it was time to head out. That was easier said than done as we tried to shimmy up the tight vertical section. A piece of webbing helped a bit. Finally we all made it to the surface, although with a few new scrapes and bruises. I think most everyone sighed in relief to be back on top.

Sometimes I appreciate the sun a lot more after a caving trip!