The small pond in the woods is shrinking–drying up, really–and that has left some of the salamander egg masses high and dry. It has also made it possible for me to get closer to them to have a look at them, which is what I did today, hoping to be able to see a bit of what is going on inside of them. What I could see is that in one of the masses anyway, it looks like some of the salamander larvae have hatched, and I could see one that was breaking out of its egg, though it was still inside the goo of the mass.
Backyard Amphibian of the Day:
Salamander larvae. The green circles are eggs filled with algae, which the larvae feed on before they hatch. I think they white circles are eggs that the larvae have already emerged from. You can see the larva in the middle of the picture appears to be partly out of its egg. I saw it wriggling occasionally.
When I read about the salamanders after I found the egg masses I read that it takes between 30 and 60 days for them to hatch. I would guess it was between 30 and 40 since these were laid.
Backyard Bug of the Day:
Some kind of fly
There weren't a lot of bugs around today in general, with the exception of Hymenoptera:
The leafy spurge is still showing some popularity. Here's a tiny wasp and some beetles. Other plants also had ants on them.
The flowering crabapple has past the peak of its bloom, but it is still popular. I saw several birds feeding on the tree in the morning, and when I did my bug walk in the afternoon I could see that there are still many bees and wasps of a variety of species attracted to the flowers:
Click beetle
Stonefly. Different species than the one I kept seeing over the winter (winter stonefly)
Arachnid Appreciation:
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Jumping spider
No comments:
Post a Comment