River Otters

Hi everyone!

Here is another blog for you to enjoy. I apologize for not having a blog in November, but there was a lot going on for me.In this blog, we will learn about a rather playful and interesting mammal that hangs around water and that is the River Otter.
   

Photo by ME.

Looking at this critter, you may think that it sure does look like a weasel and it does. Well, otters are members of the weasel family. According to A Field Guide to the Mammals. Authors William H. Burt and Richard P. Grossenheider describe otters as "...rich brown above, with a silvery sheen below, and with small ears and broad snout; feet webbed, tail thick at base, tapering toward tip."

River Otters are naturals in the water. According to The Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Mammals. Author John O. Whitaker Jr. attributes the river otter's swimming and long submerging abilities to its tail that is like a rudder and "ears and nostrils are valved to keep out water." River Otters have the ability to remain under water for several minutes.


River Otters are primarily active during the day, but sometimes will move about at night too. They are found around streams, lakes, ponds, rivers, and marshes. Although they do spend a lot of their time in the water, they do move around on land. Sometimes they will travel some distances to find other territories.

They do live in dens; either ones they build or ones that have been abandoned by other animals like beavers and muskrats.  They prefer "dens in banks, with entrance below water, or other suitable places." (Burt and Grossenheider)

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In these dens, otters will have and raise their pups ( baby otters). A really interesting thing about otters, is for a time, the males are kicked out of the dens and the females will look out for the pups on their own. Eventually, the males are allowed back into the den and family.

Otter Family. Notice the Pups. Photo from Internet

As you may have learned at a zoo or aquarium or other place you may have seen otters or have read about them, Otters are very social creatures as they often join other otters to play and sometimes hunt for food. If you are lucky, you may stumble upon some otters playing in and around the water and sometimes sliding down muddy banks along large water sources. On top of that, they sometimes will communicate with each other. I recently observed two otters playing in the water and they made some grunt and chirping-like noises. It was neat!

Pictured below are two captive otters socializing.

Photo By ME. 

In regards to what otters eat, well, they eat mainly fish and frogs, but will eat crayfish, small mammals, and other small critters.  Otters are often considered to be pests; especially by fishermen and fish hatcheries. However, they generally go after the slower moving and sickly fish first ( though they will go after healthy fish too, that's just nature) and help play a role in keeping fish populations in check (Whitaker Jr.).

I hope in reading this blog, that you have learned something about such neat animals. As always, feel free to ask me any questions you might have.

Venom or Treat

Hi Everyone,

It is that time again for another blog. Since Halloween is almost upon us, I thought I would write about some kind of "creepy crawly." So I am going to write about the Black Widow Spider, one of the 2 spiders considered to be dangerous to people.

So, the Black Widow Spider, most people recognize the female by the classic red hour class located on the abdomen. You may be surprised to know that they do not always have that red hour glass. As you can see in the picture below, some may just have small, red blotches.

Black Widow. Photo by ME.

So of course, female black widow spiders are a solid black coloration, and like other spiders, have eight legs and are arachnids. As far as the males go, they are quite different from the females. According to Jessie Szalay's article "Black Widows: Facts and Information" in the Livescience website at livescience.com. "The male is about half the size of the female. He is lighter in color with red or pink spots on his back." 

Male Black Widow Spider. Photo from Internet.

Looking at the photo you may be thinking that the male is a big critter. Do not be fooled, males are much smaller than the females, I mean they are little fellas.  

Black Widow Spider. Photo by ME. 

As you may already know, these spiders get their name from the females eating their own mates, thus she is a widow! In fact after the mating occurs, the female usually will eat the dude, but, he has such a short life span anyway, it is not a major tragedy in the grand scheme of things. He would not live much longer after mating if he was not eaten. One thing to note is that other female spiders eat their mates on occasions to; Black Widows are not the only ones that do it. 

When she is not eating her man, the black widow generally eats insects and sometimes, other spiders that gets trapped in her cob webs! Of course she kills her prey with her venom.
A really neat thing about black widows is that they have a way of not getting stuck in their own webs and that is due to their "legs are coated in an oily substance... (Szalay)  

In regards to habitat and where Black Widows like to live, well they are found all over the place, geographical wise.  "Black widows are found in temperate regions throughout the world, including the United States, Southern Europe and Asia, Australia, Africa, and much of South America." (Szalay) 

Black Widows can be found in various habitats that yield some kind of damp and dark hiding places; including people's garages and basements. I have encountered them under logs that I rolled on many occasions, They also seem to like to hide under piles of undisturbed leaves and branches too. Or from what I learned from when I was bitten back in 2005, but I will write more about it shortly.

Now that I have wrote about some of the general information about black widow spiders and before I write about their venom, I would like to say that I am not trying to put fear of these animals into people, They are neat critters and can be enjoyed and observed safely. They help us people out by eating insects and other spiders, which helps keep populations in check.

That being said, black widow spiders, like all spiders, are venomous. They and Brown Recluse Spiders are the two species in the United States that can be harmful to people. They have neurotoxin venom, which attacks the nervous system. A bite can be serious but is rarely fatal, Also, it is important to remember that it is only the female black widow spider that can give a nasty bite. The males are not considered harmful to people, though a bite may still hurt. 

Photo from Internet

Back in the fall of 2005, I was bitten by a black widow spider while playing in a large pile of decomposing leaves. They were damp towards the bottom of the pile, which I suppose made for a nice hiding place for these spiders. The thing about a black widow bite is you usually cannot feel the actual bite ( though I have read that there have been some cases that the person has felt it), I did not feel it when my bite occurred, though the next day after being bit ( I did not realize it at this point) I started feeling cramping around my right leg ( I was bitten on my right ankle) and abdomen. I did not think much of it that this point as I had though I was feeling sore from playing various sports with friends on the day of the bite. Then on Monday,two days after being bitten, I began feeling some pain on my ankle. so I checked it and found a bite mark on my ankle that was swollen and was purple. I immediately suspected It was caused by a black widow, but was not entirely sure. In addition, I was still having cramping in my leg and abdomen. Finally, Tuesday came around and when I woke up and got out of bed that next morning, I immediately felt VERY sick. It basically felt like a stomach virus, and I then knew I had likely been bitten by a black widow. I ended up going to the doctor and he confirmed that I did in fact get bit by a black widow spider, but he gave me some medication ( I guess it what some sort of antivenom, but I do not remember what he exactly gave me). It took me over a week to fully recover, but recover I did. Therefore, a bite from these ladies can be serious, but if you seek medical help, it is very unlikely to be fatal. 

Again, my hope and goal is not to scare you, but give you a better understanding of these creatures. Sure, they can give a nasty bite, but they have a place in our ecosystem too, helping to keep insect and other spider populations in check. 


Again, feel free to ask me any questions you may have :)

My South America Adventure Part 2: Interesting Towns, Cities, and Sights.

Hello Everyone.

Here is my final piece on my Ecuador adventure. Again, I post this to encourage you readers to go out and have an adventure. You do not even have to leave the country to have an adventure. There so many neat places to go and things to do right here in America!

Anyway, here we go...

One day, I had an opportunity to travel with my friends to the capital of Ecuador, Quito. Above is a picture of Quito as we were driving in.  We spent half a day there walking around a neat museum; including where the equator is and the latitude and longitude is 0.

Quito

Picture below, is me at the museum and where you can straddle the equator.  The museum is pretty cool! I did not take many pictures but some of the things we saw included an authentic shrunken head, some guinea pigs and we learned about how they are an important food source. Sort of like a lobster dinner is to Americans.

At the Equator.

A neat thing about the museum was that we had a guide and that there were different activities going on. I do not remember what activity I was doing pictured on the bottom right.

The big activity there at the museum is trying to balance an egg on an nail. I did not succeed in this but a friend in the group did :)  So we spent rest of our time at a mall as well as a few other shops. So, it was a fun day in Quito.

More of Quito

The next neat place I got to travel to was Pacto. This is where I saw the huge beetles I wrote about in my last blog. Here we got to hangout with some locals and hiked to a beautiful waterfall and spent a few hours swimming.

Cool Tree seen along trail to the waterfalls.

Waterfalls.

Swimming Area

This was a pretty awesome place to swim and explore at. I did see some fish too! A really cool thing I got to see there was some ancient writings left behind by the natives. I know the Incas were in the Ecuador Andes at one point, but I do not know if the writings are from them or not. I do believe these writings are at least 1600 years old!

Ancient Writing

So, as you can see, the Andes in Ecuador is an interesting place with lots of cool things to see and do,  Another place I got to see and explore was Otavalo. It was a neat place. We rode in a van there and spent a full weekend there. It was about a 3 hour drive. The scenery on the way was cool and I even got to see a few volcanoes!

Volcano

Otavalo is a unique place in that it is excellent place to shop. There a lot of places that sell leather- made items. Other places that make items from wood. Plus, locals bring out their own handmade goods to sell. It is neat,




Pictured below is not a live animal; it was carved out of wood by one of locals, who was kind enough to allow my group to get some photos.



Here are some pictures of just some areas of Otavalo, I did not get any photos of the marketplace sadly.

Statue in Otavalo

Out front of a restaurant 

So, those are sort of the highlight places I got to see and explore. Ecuador is a really neat country to explore, the Andes in particular.  Again, if you have any questions, feel free to ask.

My South America Adventure Part 1: Nature

Hello Friends!

It is time for another blog post and I have decided to do something a little different. I would like to share with you the adventure I experienced when I had the opportunity to live in Ecuador, South America for a month. This will be a 2 part series with the first one focused mainly on the nature aspect and the next one will be about the pretty cool places and sites I saw. They are going to be somewhat lengthy posts but my hope is to spark an interest in you to seek adventure and to get out and live! Going to a new place, and even new culture is a little intimidating for sure, but it is also a fun and learning experience that for me, I am thankful for and it was life changing.

In the summer of 2009, I flew down to Ecuador, South America to spend roughly a month with some friends whom are missionaries there. I pretty much hung out in the  Andean Mountains; the Cloud Rain Forest. At the time, we were near a small town outside of Quito, pretty much in the middle of nowhere in the rainforest; a naturalist's paradise!

Cloud Forest

View I got to see everyday!

The first week I was there was pretty crazy but in a good way. I got to hangout with another group that was visiting and doing a missions trip. We went out into La Armenia and did a few service projects for a local school. We also got to hangout with some kids at another school and played soccer and Frisbee with them. One day, we did some outreach projects in the town of Mindo and then had the opportunity to go zip-lining up in the canopy! It was quite an experience!  Sadly, I did not take any photos :(

Outreach. Photo by ME.

During the month I was there, I certainly got to explore and see some pretty neat stuff, sites, and wildlife and plants. The couple that I stayed with knew I love animals and often went out into the forest to help me find stuff. They even caught a snake some time before I arrived and they saved it for me. 

Tropical Whipsnake. Photo by ME.

Ground Snake. Photo by ME.

Flock of Parrots. Photo by ME.

So getting to explore the rainforest was something that I had dreamed about doing since I was a kid, and so, this experience was a pretty big deal for me. Any how, one morning, one of my friends' and I were walking around and encountered a bird that had flown into the window and had knocked itself out; it did live and was eventually released. 

Tawny-Bellied Hermit. Photo by ME. 

I could go on with the neat stuff I saw exploring just the area I was staying at. However, I need to move on in this post. Though I will quickly mention that one day, I got to see a Basilisk  Lizard run across a dirt road on its hind legs! That was cool and sort of mind blowing too; they are known for running on their hind legs on water for a short distance. I never knew they could perform such a feat on land too. Sadly, that event was not captured on camera, but I did get a photo of the lizard.

Basilisk Lizard.

As you can imagine, being in a tropical environment, there are going to be a lot of insects. Well, this region was no exception; there were a lot of insects. One really interesting species of insect I encountered was the leaf-cutter ant. Leaf-Cutter Ants were running all over the place. I had the chance to see them running around, carrying leaf pieces they gathered from various plants. Another neat thing was they had a pretty insane trail going on and I have to say after this moment, I have been rather fascinated by leaf-cutter ants since.

Leaf-Cutter Ant collecting a leaf

Leaf-Cutter Ant Trail

So, yeah, that was cool. Here are few other pictures of some neat stuff :)

Waterfall

Me exploring a river. Photo by Miguel Labrador

Rain Frog

An Orchid of some kind.

So, exploring the tropics is sure to enlighten a naturalist and yield many learning and jaw-dropping moments. On many occasions I got to explore some rivers and see different things. There is a really cool tree I had the opportunity to see and I feel pretty fortunate to have seen it. However, I honestly forget what the actual name of the tree is, one the names it is called is "Blood of The Dragon", a pretty sweet name in my opinion. 

"Blood of The Dragon" Tree

The "blood" sap.

As you can see, the tree is called "Blood of The Dragon" due to the sap looks like blood. The neat thing is, the sap can be used to treat insect bites, or least from what I understand.

A really cool thing that occurred while I was in Ecuador is that many of the locals heard about me wanting to find some critters; snakes in particular and on a few occasions they would bring my friends a snake, they had captured or came across, so I could see it. 

Green Sipo

Both of us "Smiling"

Pretty cool, huh? One evening I was walking around and I got to see a beautiful sunset. The scenery there overall was spectacular!

Beautiful Sunset.

I tell ya, the Cloud Forest is pretty cool! I was pretty much in the middle of the Andes.  There was one day I had the opportunity to explore Quito, Ecuador and checked out the equator but I shall tell more of that in my next post. Here is a pretty cool bird that I saw:

Black-Tailed Trainbearer

So now, I am going to post a few more animal photos and will talk a little bit about them, but mostly it will just be photos and then I will go more into some plants and scenery ( thought not all, as I am saving some really good ones for the next post) aspects of the nature experiences of my trip.

Praying Mantis with a Hood. 

Forest Racer

Butterflies were everywhere!

Ok, so on one occasion, I had the opportunity to hangout in a town called Pacto, I will talk more of it the next post. There, I had the opportunity to see and check out some rather large insects. They are male and female Hercules Beetles as well as a Neptune Beetle. The size of them astounded me for sure, and it still does. They were caught by a local woman who sells them.

Neptune Beetle

Hercules Beetle

How big they were!

Yeah, they are huge! lol.  The one beetle is perched on sugar cane if you want to know what that object is.

So, that pretty much does it for the animal side of things, there are so much more photos and such I sadly have to leave out. but all of my photos are posted on my facebook page if you want to see more.

Now, I will spend some more time on plants :)


This plant below, I wish I knew what it is, but I do not know my plants. I do know that these flowers produce hallucinogens and will make you high if you smell them too long. And no, I did not test it, lol

Photo by Miguel Labrador

Along a river

Pod of seeds of some kind

The next few plant photos are of fruits and coffee! Goods that people use!

Coffee Beans and Tree

Limes

Oranges

So, coffee, a lot of people are really into it. It is commonly grown in the Andes and throughout the Latin Americas as a whole.

Ok, so if you are still reading at this point, thank you for bearing with this lengthy post. I will say that if you ever have a chance to have an adventure in the tropics or in another country in general, I would say go for it! It is an amazing experience! I will end this post with a few scenery photos. Be sure to read my post next month to learn more about some of the other aspects of Ecuador's Andean Mountains I got to experience.

Cloud Forest

River

More Scenery