Found dead on the path this morning; killed by a bite to the neck by a cat? a raccoon? Stretched out, the animal would have been nearly as long as my forearm. In life, this animal was the frenetic terror of mice, voles, young birds and any other small, moving creature. Now, stillness.
Mustela frenata
Happy Solanum tuberosum
So far, this has been the best potato year ever. The relatively cool and wet weather has let them grow into gloriously lush plants. In most years, potatoes struggle a bit in the heat — Tennessee’s summer is not well-matched to plants’ genes which yearn for the cooler Andes (or perhaps for Ireland).
Junebug the pure-bred* Kentucky Possum-Hound finds a young friend in a tree hole (possum on left; dog nose on right). After some persuasion, canid and marsupial parted company. *as pure as all known members** of this unusual breed. ** n = 1
Fledgling Downy Woodpecker
This youngster has been glued to its dad for the last day or so. The young bird follows where-ever the older bird goes, landing right next to him and begging:
So far, the thirteen-year cicadas have been much more active in the valley than on the mountain. There are a few buzzing around Hat Rock Rd and Willie Six Rd, but most places in Sewanee have no cicadas. They may still be on their way, the soil here being cooler than in the valley. However, thirteen years ago the cicadas were also much less common in Sewanee/Monteagle than in the lower surrounding areas.
…was warming itself on the paved surface on the path of the old Mountain Goat railroad tracks. This snake is the reptilian incarnation of leaves: its body is a gorgeous soft green color. Rough Green Snakes are nonvenomous and they climb trees to feed on insects. The one that I encountered on the path was about 20 inches long and about as wide as my index finger. It watched me for a minute, then turned and sped into the low vegetation.
One of the few advantages of spending time in airports and train stations is the opportunity these places afford for watching people. Several years ago, Radio Lab ran a piece on how walking speed scales with the size of cities. Apparently, people walk faster in larger cities.
I timed how long it took people to walk twenty paces at my various stops:
The "Leisurely Stride Index" calculated as an average of twenty people at each of five cities.
Evidently, there are some differences among cities (although the statistical rigor of this test is weak, to say the least).
But, the graphs below show that city size seems to have no correlation with walking speed. Latitude does: people in southern cities, especially the two southernmost in my sample, Nashville and Washington DC, walk with a more leisurely pace.
Walking speed plotted against population size (top graph) and latitude (bottom graph)
I suspect that Atlanta would blow this hypothesis out of the water. My few experiences in the airport there have not been conducive to leisurely strides.
A few doors down from the White House sits the largest collection of molluscs in the country, including the holotype of the “Cumberland tigersnail,” Anguispira cumberlandiana, a species that was first described in 1840. The holotype is surprisingly colorful and fresh-looking, despite its age.
Anguispira cumberlandiana holotype
Anguispira cumberlandiana holotype, bottom view. The streaks on the base of this shell are confounding -- they are seldom found in other members of the "same" species and are very much like the streaks on the base of Anguispira picta shells.
Specimen labels, including those from the 1840s
Bob Hershler, Research Zoologist and Curator of Mollusks, was a very helpful and welcoming host and was kind enough to let me look through some of the other type specimens — the Smithsonian has cabinets full of extraordinary material.
Following up on previous comments about museum street art, the entrance to the museum had no snail sculptures, but some tree ferns appeared as I was working inside. They were on the back of a truck when I walked in, no doubt coming to add summertime botanical interest to the entranceway. I think they are Dicksonia, a south-east Australian/Tasmanian species.
Australia comes to Washington -- tree fern in front of the Smithsonian
This honey bee was working the ornamental dwarf boxwoods in front of a sidewalk café in downtown Philadelphia.
Bee in the urban jungle
Even the most urban of habitats has a few drops of wild sweetness. Somewhere in the concrete someone has a hive on a rooftop, or wild bees have found a hollow wall.
The bee's neighborhood -- her nest is hidden here somewhere
After my last blog post about the lack of street art snails, I was dumbfounded to walk up to the Academy of Natural Sciences in Phildelphia and see this:
Snail outside ANSP (the red brick building behind). There seems to have been some convergent evolution with bryophytes.
The ANSP also has cool dinos in front:
Deinonychus at ANSP
Thanks to the kind welcome of Amanda Lawless, Research Assistant in the Department of Malacology, I was able to examine more Anguispira specimens, including some from Sewanee collected in the mid-19th century when Sewanee was known as “University Place”:
Old Skool malacology in Sewanee
More holotypes. This one is from a species endemic to one small part of Kentucky:
Anguispira rugoderma holotype
A cornucopia of tigersnails!
David George Haskell 