Signs of spring

The sixty-five degree days in Billings this week have a lot of us fooled into thinking that winter is over. Even the animal world has come alive as if spring were really here. This afternoon we glimpsed the first painted turtle of the year swimming in Will's Marsh. Painted turtles hibernate at the bottom of the pond during winter. When they settle in to hibernate, their respiratory rate and pulse slow down significantly. Their body temperature drops to less than 50% of normal. Since they are not active and are not trying to keep their bodies warm, they don't burn up energy. Therefore they don't need much oxygen at all, and can get by on what they absorb from the water through specialized cells in their tails. They usually warm themselves back up in the spring when the weather is warm and their food supply again becomes plentiful. The turtle that was "awake" this afternoon may have a shock ahead as the temperature drops tomorrow. It is not clear whether the turtle will return to a state of hibernation, or if it will stay active, and try to get enough food to stay warm. Going into hibernation might seem like a better option, but keep in mind that it takes a LOT of energy to warm a body back up out of hibernation; it is energetically stressful. What do you think the turtle will do? We'll keep looking for him as the temperature dips back below freezing in the next few days.


Another surprising sighting on our pond this week was a beautiful male wood duck. This mid-sized duck normally arrives in Billings for the breeding season (though there are populations that live year-round in the western half of Montana). Wood ducks nest in tree cavities or boxes provided by humans. Like mallard ducks, wood ducks are dabbling ducks (as opposed to diving ducks). They feed mainly on seeds and invertebrates, and occupy a wide variety of habitats: creeks, rivers, overflow, bottomlands, swamps, marshes, beaver and farm ponds. For more information, visit the Cornell Lab of Ornithology's website.

Leadership Institute for Nature, Kids, and Stewardship

Are you a high school student in Billings? Interested in nature, kids, and land stewardship? Then apply for LINKS, the Leadership Institute for Nature, Kids, and Stewardship at the Audubon Center. Click HERE for more information.

Awesome Arachnids

Over sixty people participated in a fantastic Weekend Wonders Family Program yesterday at the Audubon Center. The program was led by Amy Weidlich who is working on her Master's degree at MSU-B in the Biological Sciences department. She is studying northern scorpion (Paruroctonus boreus) populations on the rims northwest of Billings for her thesis project, and is a an expert on scorpions. Amy brought several scorpions and spiders with her for the families to look at during the program. In the photo below, her son, Josh, is holding their pet tarantula for kids to see up close. At one of the stations, students of all ages drew and labeled the parts of a spider as they learned about spider anatomy.
In the photo below, one of the scorpions (no longer living) is lit up under a microscope for closer identification. Students also had the opportunity to examine several dead spiders with the microscope in order to identify their body parts. In a dark room at the Center, Amy used a black light to show students how the scorpions light up (fluoresce). Scorpions fluoresce because they have a fluorescent protein in their exoskeleton. This is how Amy finds her study species: she hikes the rims with her black light at night until she sees a scorpion's fluorescence. It is not known why they possess this adaptation; more research is certainly needed on this unique creature.

The most exciting moment of the day was when Amy fed crickets to two live scorpions. The crowds watched in awe as the scorpion grabbed the cricket with its pedipalps (front pinchers) and then lifted its tail to inject venom into the cricket. The venom killed the cricket, and then the scorpion had a feast for lunch. Scorpions only need to eat once every two - three weeks. These scorpions hadn't eaten since the New Year so they were very ready for a meal of crickets!

Northern scorpions can sting humans, but it would not hurt much more than a bee sting. As many as 1,500 species of scorpions have been described worldwide, but only about 30 of these are considered dangerous. The bark scorpion, found in the desert Southwest, has venom strong enough to cause severe symptoms in humans.