June 21, 2018
TREEFROGS CALLING
Several days ago some kind of weather system drifted over us providing four days and nights of heavy overcast with occasional showers, cooler weather and some nice breezes. It felt good to us humans and it must have been an exciting time for the rancho's frogs and toads, for they called very robustly. You might enjoy reviewing our well illustrated page of our cement pond's Gulf Coast Toad orgies during such rains at https://www.backyardnature.net/mexnat/gulftoad.htm
The toads call with lusty, sustained trills, but this week there was a different call, one that reminded me of sharp honks emitted by those horns with rubber balls on their backs, which you squeeze to toot. Clowns in circuses use them, as do folks on bicycles riding around in city streets selling things. Except that these honks were amazingly loud, somewhat gruff ones, no-nonsense honks. When I went to see who was making them I found among the dozens of toads two or three smaller frogs who when they honked briefly inflated double-pouched bladders below their mouths, as shown at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/18/180621tg.jpg
Technically such bladders are described as "paired, subgular, greatly distensible vocal sacs."
I was disappointed that the loud little frog was so drably colored, but soon another frog started honking the same way, and when I found him neatly camouflaged on some rocks his appearance was very different, as you can see at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/18/180621tf.jpg
In that picture, notice at the image's top, left the round pads, or "finger discs," at the toe tips, which help the frog stick to vertical surfaces, and which are typical of treefrogs.
We've seen this treefrog before, at Chichén Itzá, and our pictures of that one show a frog as different looking from these as these are from one another. A good shot of that one is at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/12/120325tf.jpg
This is the Mexican or Baudin's Treefrog, SMILISCA BAUDINII. Jonathan Campbell in his Amphibians and Reptiles of Northern Guatemala, the Yucatán, and Belize characterizes it as a widespread and common species, and writes that its "loud, raucous call is one of the most frequently heard sounds in the evenings after or during rain showers." Occupying a wide variety of habitats the species is distributed from extreme southern Texas south through Mexico and Central America to Costa Rica. Campbell also notes that the species is capable of "considerable metachrosis; a pale green specimen collected at night in the rain may become almost completely brown by the following morning."
With such variation in appearance, how can the species be distinguished from others, who also may show variation? Campbell points to some field marks that remain fairly distinct in all variations. First, between the eye and tip of the nose there's a dark line, or "dark canthal stripe," as he calls it. Second, there's a spot between the back of the eye and the lip below it, which can be whitish, ash gray or lime green. In our first, darkly drab frog the spot was ash gray, but in the second it was lime green.
*****
EATING PINEAPPLE
At https://www.backyardnature.net/mexnat/pineappl.htm we look at pineapple plants, their flowers and maturing pineapple fruits. This week when I harvested one of our fruits I cut it open lengthwise instead of across, so that a better view of its internal anatomy can be seen. You can see the fruit, the deep pit beside the hut serving as a dark background, at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/18/180621pa.jpg
Notice how the tuft of leaves at the top arises from a solid, whitish zone. In fact, that firm, solid tissue, becoming softer, yellow and sweet, continues all the way through the pineapple fruit, then hardening again and continuing into the fruit's stalk when it was present. This solid core of leaves, fruit and stalk can be visualized as an axis that continues from generation to generation, for the pineapple's top can be cut off, the tuft of leaves will root, and eventually a new pineapple will appear in the tuft's center. This undying "axis" can be seen in our earlier picture of an immature, flowering pineapple atop its stout stalk shown at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/17/170212pc.jpg
A close look at the pineapple fruit's interesting surface is shown at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/18/180621pb.jpg
To help make sense of what's being seen there, it might help to know that in the old days pineapple plants, Ananas comosus, were assigned to the genus Bromelia. In our area we have two commonly occurring Bromelia species, and of course they are very closely related to pineapple plants, and share basic anatomy. Take a look at the flower cluster, or inflorescence, of our local Bromelia pinguin, shown at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/18/180318pn.jpg
There we see individual flowers held in a somewhat loose cluster, atop a strong stalk (axis). Anatomically, this is just like we've seen with the pineapple, except that on pineapple plants the flowers are all crammed together into a cone-like unit with the axis inside. A few weeks earlier, that loose cluster of Bromelia pinguin flowers started out with the flowers held close together, shown at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/18/180311bc.jpg
In that picture, notice that each flower has at its base a pale, sharp-pointed scale, or "bract," a bract being a modified leaf.
Therefore, in our close-up picture of a pineapple fruit's surface, the roundish item occupying most of the picture's middle, with a dark spot in its center, is the mature ovary of an earlier flower. The broad, scoop-like thing below the mature ovary, looking like an orange pterodactyl with a sharp head, is what's become of the flower's bract. Since usually we think of a flower's matured ovary as a fruit, this means that the pineapple "fruit" is actually composed of many fused-together "fruits." Pineapple fruits are "multiple fruits," like figs, mulberries and Osage Oranges. There's a nice diagram making all this clearer on our Multiple Fruit page at https://www.backyardnature.net/frt_mult.htm
Once all this has sunk in, it's more fun to look closely at a pineapple's yellow interior, shown at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/18/180621pc.jpg
At the picture's bottom it's solid and firm, and away from this core/axis the pineapple's flesh becomes markedly softer. Near the fruit's surface at the picture's top the flesh looks soft, juicy, and is interrupted here and there by crater-like pits and other openings. A close-up a pit is shown at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/18/180621pd.jpg
The purplish, sharp-tipped thing at the picture's top is the bract tip, and you can see that as soon as the bract reaches the pineapple's surface it grows thick and juicy, and becomes as edible as all the rest. Inside the crater below the bract we see dried remains of the flower's stamens. The ovary below the stamens has grown up over this part of the old flower.
But, the surprising feature of this picture is that below the stamens, embedded in the ovary's flesh, there's an open chamber containing three dark, shiny seeds. Commercially produced pineapples very seldom produce seeds, because growers use cultivars that don't develop them, pineapples with seeds being deemed less desirable.
I'm unsure why this pineapple had seeds. It may be a cultivar of the past before people started growing strictly seedless ones, or it may be because when I started gardening in this spot several pineapple plants had been planted there for three or four years without fruiting. In well managed pineapple plantations fruits can be produced in a year or two, but they need more time under less than ideal conditions. Maybe our plant's stress had caused them to produce seeds.
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GROWING MEALWORMS
Lee, who owns the rancho and the Genesis eco-resort in Ek Balam where I get my Internet connection, brought over to me a Tupperware-like plastic container, pried off the lid, and showed me her new pets. You can see a few of them at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/18/180621tn.jpg
They're mealworms -- the larvae of the Mealworm Beetle, TENEBRIO MOLITOR, of the Darkling Beetle Family, the Tenebrionidae. A fellow in Mérida had supplied her with some.
In that picture, notice that the individual at the top, center looks a bit different. That a mealworm entering its pupal stage, the last stage during the process of complete metamorphosis before becoming an adult. A close-up of a pupa looking like mealworm on one end but changing winged beetle on the other, is shown at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/18/180621to.jpg
In that picture you can see that there's a problem. Notice how powdery material coats each pebble-like grain. It's fungus, and once we started looking closely we realized that the whole mealworm farm was heavily contaminated with fungus, probably because a big, watery slice of mango had been given them to eat. The box's humidity had risen to levels perfect for fungi.
Mealworm pupa need three to thirty days to metamorphose into adults, the time depending mainly on temperature. Lee's farm had just been established, so I could find only one adult Mealworm Beetle, but he was in a mess, his soft parts heavily coated with fungus, and he was barely moving about. You can see the poor thing at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/18/180621tp.jpg
Immediately Lee got a new container, filled it with oatmeal, and transferred her larvae to the new farm, where they have been thriving.
In the past, mealworms have been thought of mostly as pests, because they feed on people's stored grains. In Asia, however, traditionally they've been eaten, commonly being sold in food markets and along streets. In fact, more and more the rest of the world's health food industry is marketing baked and fried Mealworms as a high-protein snack option. Mealworm larvae contain levels of potassium, copper, sodium, selenium, iron and zinc that rival beef, and have greater vitamin content by weight compared to beef, except for vitamin B12. The eating of insects is called "entomophagy."
Lee was interested in garbage disposal, so I did some work with the search engine. The big surprise was learning that mealworms can degrade polystyrene into usable organic matter. Moreover, no difference was found between mealworms fed only styrofoam, and those fed conventional foods. This information was in Rob Jordan's 2016 article "Plastic-eating worms may offer solution to mounting waste, Stanford researchers discover," downloadable from the Stanford News Service.
If you want to try your own experiments, you can order mealworms on the Internet. Normally they are reared on fresh oats, wheat bran or grain, with sliced potato, carrots or apple as a moisture source, just being sure not to add too much wet stuff.
*****
GIANT SPANISH DAGGER
Several weeks ago, on April 5th, in the mountains east of Saltillo, Coahuila, northeastern Mexico, I started out hiking on a valley floor, and climbed a small limestone mountain that was grassy and scrubby at its base, but forested on top. At the top, at ±7000 feet in elevation (2100m), the forest was composed nearly entirely of widely spaced, low growing, somewhat gnarly pines and junipers, but here and there tree-size yucca plants appeared. You can see a couple, with the valley in the background, along with mountains that are grassy below but forested above, at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/18/180621yu.jpg
Twelve yucca species -- species of the genus Yucca of the Agave or Asparagus Family -- are listed for Coahuila state, so since the yuccas on this mountain weren't flowering, I wondered if I'd be able to identify them. When I looked closer at the plants' blades, however, I saw I might have a chance. You can see why at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/18/180621yv.jpg
For one thing, the blades are considerably shorter and broader than leaves on most other yucca species. The most interesting field mark, though, was how the blades' margins bore stiff, white, curly, hair-like items. Those were so distinctive that I took the close-up shown at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/18/180621yw.jpg
You can see that they're not really hairs. LH Bailey in his Manual of Cultivated Plants refers to them as "fairly coarse curly marginal fibers," indicating that they don't really have a good name. I'm guessing that they're an adaptation of this species for wicking moisture from the air, which on these mountaintops often manifests as cloud.
In the end, the blades' stubby shape and their curly marginal fibers was enough to peg this yucca as YUCCA CARNEROSANA, a species endemic just to six arid northeastern Mexico states, and the Big Bend National Park area of southwestern Texas. It's widely planted in gardens in other countries, so it's graced with some English names, the most common maybe being Giant Spanish Dagger. In Texas we've met a flowering yucca just called Spanish Dagger, and you enjoy comparing our present species with that one -- noticing the other's more typical longer, narrower blades -- and being reminded of what yucca flowers are like, at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/w/yucca-tr.htm
Another mountaintop yucca species with similar filamentous fibers on its blades' margins occurs in the area, Yucca filifera, but its blades are more slender, and likes higher elevations than Yucca carnerosana, though in some parts, where the forest is oak/pine instead of pine/juniper, they mingle.
The filamentous marginal fibers on this species' blades reminds us that yucca blades are very stiff because they contain tough fibers. In north-central Mexico, as with the Henequen agave in the Yucatan, traditionally this yucca's blades have been harvested and the fibers removed for making ropes. Stiff, dry fibers from the leaves are known as ixtle and have been sold for use in the brush-making industry. People who gather ixtle are known as ixtleros, and the whole region where ixtleros gather the fiber is known as the Zona Ixtlera. (Ixtle fibre is also made from leaves of the Lechugilla Agave and the big bromeliad, Achemea magdalenae.)
*****
BADMOUTHING KATRINA
It was an experiment. Katrina the dog sat beside me grinning about something, and in the most friendly voice I could summon I said:
"What're you doing down there with that stupid look on your face? Why, I ought to reach down and pull that slimy tongue out of your stinking mouth and slap your ugly face with it."
I said all this with the biggest smile I could manage, while scratching around her ears the way she likes.
"That's just like you, you hussy," I continued, "lousing around all day and just being in the way. Why, you're good for nothing but feeding fleas, and I wish you'd go away and not come back."
Katrina just laughed and wagged her tail as if I were making squeaking sounds, which she likes. But, I felt terrible. It was fascinating how bad I felt, like I'd broken something important inside myself, so the experiment was giving good results.
I'd known I was getting into deep water with this experiment because for many years I've realized that human mentality -- "my" mentality -- is a bag of worms that shouldn't be played with. When I was in college I did enough Jungian analysis of my dreams to scare myself, and I'd learned how to hypnotize myself and others. And then, there was this:
For decades I'd been oppressed by frequent dreams of riding a bus trying to get between home and the university, going one way or another, but I'd always miss my connections or the bus would get lost. Then a couple of years ago, remembering the power of the spoken word during hypnosis, I went into the woods alone and, feeling very foolish, said to myself in a regular speaking voice:
"Dream-Maker, I want to talk to you about these bus dreams in which I never get to school or back home. I'm an old man now, have had my degrees for forty years, and there's no more home to go back to, all gone... I enjoy most of our dreams and know that even the hard ones are important for my proper functioning, but could you keep in mind that these trips between school and home are out of date... ?"
I knew to speak with respect to the Dream-Maker, for my Jungian dream analysis had showed that "I," like everyone else, am a composite of somewhat distinct personalities, and each is a worthy and necessary presence. I think it's they who are the Dream-Maker, maybe just one of them, or more likely several working together.
Whatever the case, since that talk in the woods, since then I've experienced no such dreams. Sometimes I still find myself on disoriented buses, but the college <---> home dreams are gone. I've been astonished at the change, and even more than ever in awe of, and mystified by, human mentality.
Here's what I decided was the take-home message from the Katrina experiment: Words are important, and spoken words are much more powerful than read or thought ones.
This means that we should be careful about the words we let ourselves hear, whether they're our words or those of others. We might do well to tune out conversations dripping with cynicism and negativism, or dwelling on bad news we already know but can't do anything about. We should make a conscious effort to seek uplifting, positive words of encouragement, and articulate to others our own nurturing messages.
Finally, besides the fact that human mentality is the crowning achievement of evolving Life on Earth, and thus an appropriate topic for a Naturalist Newsletter, there's this:
Nature speaks to us in words of birdcalls, wind through trees, thunder on the horizon, water dripping off roof eaves, and every word spoken tells the truth, is life-confirming, good to hear, and always at hand. Simply by focusing on Nature is one important way we can improve ourselves, and help others along.
*****
Best wishes to all Newsletter readers,
Jim
All previous Newsletters are archived at https://www.backyardnature.net/n/.
