Fills Your Niche

Northern Mockingbird: The Singing Bully of the Backyard

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 07 Jun 2017 15:17:00 +0000

Link to this photo on my Flickr profile.

This morning

two mockingbirds

in the green field

were spinning and tossing

the white ribbons

of their songs

- Mary Oliver¹

If you have a backyard and you live in Nothern or Central America, you probably have at least one Northern Mockingbird (Mimus polyglottos) living nearby. They are the second most popular state bird in the United States, a symbol of Texas, Tennessee, Florida, Arkansas, and Alaska.² They are visually easy to identify; they have long tails they flick about and large white spots on the backs of their wings.

What's in a name?

However, their family name, Mimidae, and even their genus and species name hints at a very different way to identify Mockingbirds.³ Mimus ployglottus translates to "many-tongued mimic" in English. Listen for a long string of unrelated songs all woven together that resembles the songs of other birds in your neighborhood. If you have never heard one before, or you're not sure if you have, I recommend listening to a sound clip on this page, from Cornell University's Ornithology Lab.

Link to this photo on my Flickr profile.

Not only are they song thieves, they don't stop at just one or two. What's fascinating is they continue adding to their repertoire over their entire lives. It's not just the males either, the ladies also sing and just as well, though quieter and usually when the male is away.⁴ Studies have shown that they can learn up to 200 songs over their 8-year lifespan (20 in captivity).^{5, 6, 7} This can, arguably, get pretty annoying if they are right outside your window as males will sing in the evening as well as during the day.

Link to this photo on my Flickr profile.

Fight, not Flight

Aside from song theft, they are also guilty of being the playground bully! These featherweight fighters will push around anything in their territory; larger birds, dogs, cats, even humans. I have watched many a Mockingbird chase Blue Jays, Grackles, Crows and dive bomb a stray cat in my parents' yard when I was young! According to a study in 1988, there is a difference in aggression between the sexes when nest guarding against humans. Males were more aggressive than females; striking more often, following the "intruder" further out to the edge of their territory and vocalizing more frequently.⁸

They Never Forget a Face

They don't just attack you once, but these little brutes remember individual human faces! If you mess with a Mockingbird, you will receive their full wrath - forever. Not something I'd want to deal with. Dr. Douglas Levey and his team of researchers published a study in 2009 showing that they can distinguish between individual human faces after only 60 seconds of exposure and with that attacked those who "offended" the birds with swoops and head grazes.⁹ Anecdotally, I met a woman while taking the photos in this blog post and she claimed she rescued an injured Mockingbird a few years ago and nursed it back to health. That bird remained near her home for several years, pecking at her window or landing near her when she went outside in her yard. So maybe they remember the good as well as the bad!

The President's Bird

Mockingbirds are fascinating birds with a ton of character! I've mentioned a lot of the more suspect aspects of our pushy little friends, but they also have a lot of great qualities. Mockingbirds mate for life and are excellent parents. As mentioned earlier, their aggression is focused around protecting their young. One pair can have up to three broods, or groups of chicks, per year. They're so awesome, the third President of the United States of America, Thomas Jefferson, had several pet Mockingbirds, one named Dick. Dick is the only one he mentions by name in his diary. Margaret Bayard Smith, a friend of Jefferson's, wrote that Dick’s cage was “suspended among the roses and geraniums in the window recesses of the presidential cabinet” and that President Jefferson treated Dick “with peculiar fondness, not only for its melodious powers but for its uncommon intelligence and affectionate disposition.”¹⁰

With a ringing endorsement from the President, maybe we should all take a second look at the Mockingbirds in our yards. Our noisy and assertive neighbors!

References:

1. Mary Oliver. Mockingbirds. The Atlantic. Link to the web page.
2. National Wildlife Federation. Northern Mockingbird. Link to the web page.

3. The Cornell Lab of Ornithology, All About Birds. Mockingbirds, Thrashers, and Allies. Link to the web page.

4. The Cornell Lab of Ornithology, All About Birds. Northern Mockingbird, Life History. Link to the web page.

5. Kim C. Derrickson. 1987. Yearly and Situational Changes in the Estimate of Repertoire Size in Northern Mockingbirds (Mimus polyglottos). The Auk. 104, 198-207. Link to the Journal Article.

6. USGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center. 2016. Longevity Records of North American Birds. Link to the Journal Article.

7. American Expedition. Northern Mockingbird Information, Photos, and Facts. Link to the web page.
8. Randall Breitwisch. 1988. Sex differences in defence of eggs and nestlings by northern mockingbirds, Mimus polyglottos. Animal Behavior. 36, 62-72. Link to the Journal Article.
9. Douglas J. Levey et. al. 2009. Urban mockingbirds quickly learn to identify individual humans. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 106, 8959-8962. Link to the Journal Article.
10. Presidential Pet Museum. Thomas Jefferson’s Mockingbird Named Dick. Link to the web page.

The American Museum of Natural History's Butterfly Conservatory Exhibit

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 02 Jun 2017 21:09:00 +0000

The American Museum of Natural Historyin New York City is one of my all time favorite museums to visit! I remember going when I was a small girl with my Uncle Steve, a science teacher and big promotor of my then budding love of all things science. While I go a few times a year, this visit was for a trip to the Butterfly Conservatory. I wish I had my real camera with me, but my cell phone did a surprisingly decent job. So please enjoy a few photos and some descriptions of the species involved!

Let me set the stage for you...

When you walk into the balmy tent full of magic and light breezes produced by hundreds of butterfly wings, the first visual thing you notice is the incredible amount of color! There is gorgeous foliage everywhere, in various shades of green and then, of course, the butterflies. It's a little overwhelming at first as the stunning diversity hits you full in the face. Small black butterflies sit daintily on the leaves while large black and white striped butterflies flap near your face and over your head. Several bright orange beauties are resting on a food source, enjoying a sugar solution.

The Clipper (Parthenos sylvia) resting. A description of this species further down. Link to this photo on my Flickr profile.

Some folks are lucky enough to have a few butterflies land on them and one terrified young girl is panicking as a small black and red butterfly alights on her head. I felt like a child again as one landed on my shoulder and spent several minutes with me as I toured the tent.

Link to this photo on my Flickr profile.

This beautiful and somewhat worn-looking little friend is a Postman butterfly (Heliconius melpomene plessini). The Postman butterfly has a range throughout Central and South America and comes in many color morphs. The subspecies plessini is in the photo, but there are other subspecies as well that differ slightly in appearance having various types of red and yellow banding on their fore- and hindwings.¹ There are 19 subspecies according to Wikipedia, but I'd take that with a grain of salt as taxonomic classifications change somewhat frequently at the subspecies level and the article they referenced is no longer online.²

Link to this photo on my Flickr profile.

The photo above is another Postman butterfly, but a different subspecies. I believe we are looking at Heliconius melpomene either subspecies melpomene or rosa. I'm not really sure on which here, it's not always easy to tell from photos!

Postman butterflies eat toxic plants, preferring passion flower vines, as larvae (caterpillars) to make them unappetizing for predators!³ For those of us in North America, we can compare this to our friends the Monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus), who eat milkweed as larvae gaining a similar protection.⁴ For more information on Monarch butterflies, you might enjoy National Geographic's webpage on them. Hopefully, I'll get a photo of one myself and dedicate a blog post to them!

Link to this photo on my Flickr profile.

The Dark Blue Tiger butterfly (Tirumala septentrionis) is native throughout Asia, India and into western China.⁵ These black and blue, vibrant butterflies are members of subfamily Danainae, again like our buddies the Monarchs.⁶

Link to this photo on my Flickr profile.

The Cydno longwing (Heliconius cydno alithea) have a native range from Mexico to northern South America. H. cydno is emgages in Müllerian mimicry with several other Heliconius species.⁷ This means that toxic species share the same color morphology to alert predators they are all dangerous, unappetizing, or hazardous to consume.⁸ Similarly to wasps and bees sharing their black and yellow patterning. The females of this species have been observed creating clicking sounds with their wings when encountering conspecifics (organisms of the same species) and during aggressive encounters with other butterfly species.⁹

Link to this photo on my Flickr profile.

The Red Lacewing (Cethosia biblis) are commonly found in forested and suburban areas of temperate India and Asia.¹⁰ Like the Postman butterfly, the caterpillars prefer feeding on the passion vine for its toxic properties and they have one of the most elaborate wing patterns of any butterfly.¹¹

Link to this photo on my Flickr profile.

The Clipper (Parthenos sylvia) is yet another member of family Nymphalidae and one of only three species within the genus Parthenos.¹² They are native to South and Southeast Asia and known for their fast flight.¹³ The subspecies Parthenos sylvia lilacinus comes in a brilliant blue coloring where the orange stripes are on my friend here in the photo.

Link to this photo in my Flickr profile.

Tiger longwing butterflies (Heliconius hecale) come in many subspecies like the other Heliconius mentioned earlier in the post. There are several different and beautiful color morphs. This subspecies is Heliconius hecale shanki. The Tiger longwing can be found from Central American down through the Amazon.¹⁴ Interestingly, Heliconius butterflies as a group prefer pollen as the main food source instead of collecting it as a product of foraging for nectar as it is high in amino acids - perhaps aiding Heliconius in their long life span of six months.¹⁵ They produce a large amount of saliva in order to hold the pollen to the proboscis and liquefy it for consumption.¹⁶

Link to this photo on my Flickr profile.

Continuing with the Heliconius hecale, here we have a subspecies Heliconius hecale zuleika. You can see the color and pattern (morphology) difference between our friend just above this photo. This little fella or lady hung around on my husband's shoulder for around 20 minutes, taking a tour of the tent! Eventually we had it safely removed by a volunteer and placed on a food source.

Link to this photo on my Flickr profile.

I photographed, but did not interrupt, a mating session with these two butterflies! I'm not sure on the species, but let's talk about what's happening here. Butterflies come together abdomen end to abdomen end. The male holds the female with claspers at the end of his abdomen and then proceeds to pass her a spermatophore which is a combination of sperm and nutrients. She then stores the packet in her bursa until she is ready to fertilize her eggs.^17,¹⁸

Link to the photo on my Flickr profile.

This incredibly beautiful eye spot butterfly is a Teucer Owl Butterfly (Calogo teucer). The Teucer Owl is found through the Amazon and this species is the most abundant species within the genus Calago.¹⁹ You can see in the photo our friend here is resting and taking a drink from the hydration pellets in the feeder. They use their proboscis like a straw (it's actually two straws held together by tiny hooks, like velcro) to pull up the moisture. One of my favorite things about this species and others like it is that awesome owl-like eyespot on the hindwing! Scientists think that these impressively bright eyespots help to deflect predator attacks away from the vulnerable head and body and onto the wings. There was a study done to test this in 2014, Eyespots deflect predator attack increasing fitness and promoting the evolution of phenotypic plasticity.²⁰ For additional information, you might enjoy the news article written by Oregon State “Eyespots” in butterflies shown to distract predatory attack.

Link to the photo on my Flickr profile.

The White Morpho butterfly (Morpho polyphemus) is native from Mexico, south throughout Costa Rica. Apparently, there are some sightings as well in Arizona.²¹ These delicate butterflies have a beautiful mother of pearl sheen to them in person. I wish the photo did this butterfly justice!

Link to the photo on my Flickr profile.

This massive and massively beautiful moth, and the only moth I managed to get a photo of is an Atlas moth (Attacus atlas). I'm not sure you can get a sense of scale here, but this is a huge moth! The Atlas moth has a wingspan of about 27 cm across (10.6 in), wider than the average human hand.²² This massive adult may look like it needs a lot of food to survive, but it doesn't eat as its mouthparts are not fully formed or functional. It's a race against time for males and females to find each other, mate and lay eggs before they starve to death - about two weeks total. It's a hard ending for such a beautiful animal.²³

That's all I have for today! Future posts may be shorter unless I have another collection of photos from an event or something warranting a large multi-species post. If you have any questions or comments feel free to leave a comment beflow!

References:

1. Heliconius melpomene. Tree of Life Web Project. Link to the web page.
2. Heliconius melpomene. Wikipedia. Link to the web page.
3. Postman Butterfly. London Zoo, Zoological Society of London. Link to the web page.
4. Interactions with Milkweed. Monarch Lab, University of Minnesota. Link to the web page.
5. Dark Blue Tiger (Tirumala septentrionis). Smithsonian National Musem of Natural History. Link to the web page.
6. Milkweed Butterflies. Encyclopedia Britannica. Link to the web page.
7. Heliconius cydno. Tree of Life Web Project. Link to the web page.
8. Müllerian mimicry. Encyclopedia Britannica. Link to the web page.
9. Mirian Medina Hay-Roe and Richard W. Mankin. 2004. Wing-Click Sounds of Heliconius cydno alithea
(Nymphalidae: Heliconiinae) Butterflies. Journal of Insect Behavior. 17, 329-335. Link to the full and free PDF.
10. Cethosia biblis Lacewing Butterfly. Encyclopedia of Life. Link to the web page.
11. The Red Lacewing, Cethosia biblis. Cambridge Butterfly Conservatory. Link to the web page.
12.Family Nymphalidae (Brush-footed Butterflies). Butterflies and Moths of North America. Link to the web page.
13. Parthenos sylvia. Biodiversity India. Link to the web page.
14. Heliconius hecale. Tree of Life Web Project. Link to the web page.
15. Lawrence E. Gilbert. 1972. Pollen feeding and reproductive biology of Heliconius butterflies. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, USA. 69:1403–1407.
16. Heliconius Homepage, Ecology. Heliconius.org. Link to the web page.
17. How Butterflies Work. How Stuff Works Animals. Link to the web page.
18. Reproduction. Monarch Lab, University of Minnesota.Monarch Lab, University of Minnesota. Link to the web page.
19. Caligo teucer (Linnaeus, 1758). Naturkundesmuseum Narlsruhe. Link to the web page.
20. Kathleen L. Prudic, Andrew M. Stoehr, Bethany R. Wasik, Antónia Monteiro. 2014. Eyespots deflect predator attack increasing fitness and promoting the evolution of phenotypic plasticity. Proceedings of the Royal Society B. Link to the full and free journal article.
21. White Morpho Morpho polyphemus Westwood, [1850]. Butterflies and Moths of North America. Link to the web page.
22. Spotlight: the atlas moth. Natural History Museum. Link to the web page.
23. Atlas Moth (Attacus atlas). World Association of Zoos and Aquariums. Link to the web page.