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Today is the 15th straight day of absolutely beautiful weather here in the Ozarks. With nearly cloudless skies, temperatures have been climbing up around to 80° during the day and dropping to 50° or so at night. The next two days look to break the string with a chance of rain each day and cooler temperatures arriving by the end of the week. This is October after all and the area should experience a killing frost by the end of the month. But until that happens, the insects are still out in numbers and some very interesting caterpillars have placed themselves in front of my camera recently.
First up is the caterpillar of the Funerary Dagger Moth (Acronicta funeralis.) This is one of the few caterpillars (as opposed to the adult moth) that has a common name – the Paddle Caterpillar – for the paddle-shaped hairs projecting from each body segment.
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| Acronicta funeralis, Cedargrove, Dent County, Missouri. |
The adult is a non-descript gray moth with a wingspan of an inch and a half or so. The larvae feed on a variety of plants including cottonwood, dogwood, oak, maple willow, apple, alder and hickory. Occurring from Manitoba to Nova Scotia, south to Georgia and west to Texas (though apparently missing from some of the midwestern and southern states) and along the west coast from California to British Columbia, A. funeralis produces one to two or more generations depending on how far north or south you’re looking.
Next is the Fall Webworm, Hyphantria cunea. This time, it’s the adult moth that doesn’t have a common name.
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| Hyphantria cunea, Cedargrove, Dent County, Missouri. |
Usually considered a pest due to the leaf and branch enclosed webs it produces in late summer and early fall, H. cunea is native and common from Mexico to Canada with up to four generations produced in a year. Unfortunately, an introduced population occurs in Europe and Asia. The adult has a 1-1/2 inch wingspan and is mostly white in the northern part of it’s range, but with black or brown spots on the forewing in the south. The larvae feeds on nearly any deciduous tree; more than a hundred species have been identified as hosts.
Here we have the caterpillar of the American Dagger Moth, Acronicta americana.
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| Acronicta americana, Big Spring, Carter County, Missouri. |
Reaching two inches, the caterpillar can be white or yellow with paired black tufts on the first and third abdominal segments and a single tuft on the eighth segment. The hairs have been known to cause skin irritation in humans. Occurring from the Rockies east, this is a creature of the forest, those in the bottomlands particularly, the larvae feeding on the leaves of many deciduous trees including hickory, maple, oak, walnut and elm. The adult is the largest dagger moth in the east with a wingspan of 2-1/2 inches, but still qualifies as a “non-descript, gray-brown moth.” Up to three generations per year can occur in the southern part of its range.
This one is probably my favorite caterpillar of all, the White-marked Tussock Moth, Orgyia leucostigma.
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| Orgyia leucostigma, Big Spring, Carter County, Missouri. |
This caterpillar looks like a meth-using redneck – who had been playing with a Mr. Potato Head – took a bunch of caterpillar parts and stuck them on willy-nilly. It must have went something like this:
“Gimme the yeller and black striped one. Now a purple, no, red head – I like redheads – and we gotta have lots of them there bristly things. There ya go, that’s the ticket. We can put these white brushy things here and them red things on his back end. And I don’t know what this thing is, but I like it. Stick it in his butt. Git ‘er done.”
And it worked. This caterpillar is beautiful. Of course anything this outrageous looking is screaming “Eat me! I dare you! But you’ll be SORRY!” And for good reason. It has defensive glands (the “red things on his rear end”) and the hairs can cause an allergic reaction in humans.
Common throughout the eastern United States and Canada, O. leucostigma produces at least two generations annually, overwintering as eggs. The caterpillars are not picky eaters, taking a wide range of deciduous trees and even some conifers. The females are wingless, emerging from her cocoon to send waves of pheromones that bring the males, who do have wings but no mouth-parts, zipping to her. After laying her eggs on herself or her cocoon and covering them with froth, the female dies. You would think that since the females are wingless, dispersal would be limited to the distance that those little caterpillar legs could carry them. But the newly hatched and very tiny caterpillars toss a line of silk to the wind and go ballooning, much like some spiders. Nature is never boring.
Here is our last caterpillar for today:
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| Lochmaeus bilineata or L. manteo, Eastwood, Carter County, Missouri. |
I’ve narrowed it to the genus Lochmaeus, but the genus has two species, L. bilineata (Double-lined Prominent) and L. manteo (Variable Oakleaf Caterpillar), and they are indistinguishable as larvae. It was munching on an oak leaf, but that doesn’t help because both species eat oak along with those of other deciduous trees. Range doesn’t help either since they’re both widespread and occur here. However, L. manteo is capable of spraying formic acid that can irritate your skin and even cause blisters. So, if I prod and pest the caterpillar until he sprays me, he’s L. manteo.
Maybe I can find a volunteer to help with that experiment. Where’d that methed-up redneck go? 
Now, after all of those “icky” caterpillars, let’s cleanse our palates with a lovely Monarch butterfly.
Of course, that beautiful butterfly used to be an icky caterpillar too.
Last Sunday (9/18) was one of those chilly, rainy days that we didn’t have during last year’s hot, dry September and October. The rain was coming in periodic showers and the temperature climbed only into the mid-60s but I decided to head down to Big Cane and Coon Island Conservation Areas in the flat lands of Butler County anyway. As usual, I was looking for crayfish, which were nowhere to be found. Heck, other than a few frogs and a pair of snakes that some idiot had killed, even the herps weren’t cooperating.
The highlight of the day was this juvenile Broad-winged Hawk (Buteo platypterus) that flew out of the grass alongside the gravel road in the northeastern part of Big Cane.
Not terribly wary, he let me approach fairly closely and shut off the truck so I could use the camera without worrying about the vibration from the motor. He was even thoughful enough to perch in the open, unobscured by the usual limbs and brush.
It’s getting a bit late in the year and I expect he’ll be be heading south to the tropics soon. ‘Course I suppose he could be a migrant from another area already on his way and just passing through.
Broad-winged Hawk Range Map
Breeding range is shown in orange, wintering range in purple and migration routes in yellow. Broad-wings are year-round residents of Cuba and Puerto Rico.
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The Robert E. Talbot Conservation Area sits on the headwaters of the Spring (Neosho) River, a few miles northwest of Mt. Vernon in Lawrence County. Two miles of Spring River lie within the CA and even though it’s nearly three hours away, it’s an easy drive because only the last few miles are two lane roads. Three species of crayfish could be expected in the river and that’s what brought Dayna and myself to the area. Actually, that’s what brought me to the area – it was stopping at the mall on the way home through Springfield that brought Dayna along. 
The road parallels and crosses the river before you reach the CA and I could see that the Curse of the Muddy Water had struck again, even though there had been no rain for three weeks or so. I was guessing that someone had heavy equipment in the river and that was sort of confirmed by a local who told us “they’re pulling rootwads out of the river.” Bottom line was that the river was way too muddy for snorkeling, much less photography. But I knew from a previous trip that Stahl Creek, which joined the river within the CA, was easily accessed only a mile or so to the north. And since I didn’t believe the muddiness of the river was from the weather, there was hope that the creek would be clear.
We reached the parking lot at Stahl Creek – a staging area for horseback riders – and walked the short distance to the creek. It was clear. Or nearly so, still having that slightly milky look that so many of our streams had been showing after all the rain this spring. It was also very cold, a fact that chased me from the water sooner than I had planned.
Two of those three previously mentioned crayfish, Orconectes neglectus and O. macrus, were present in large numbers. The third species – O. virilis – put in an appearance only through a few small, wary juveniles that I was unable to catch or photograph. But those first two species more than made up for the lack of the third with one of the highest densities of crayfish I’ve seen so far. The joint was literally crawling with them.
This population of O. neglectus is considered to be the nominate subspecies, so it’s actually O. neglectus neglectus.
There were at least three age classes present, including this old warrior that was approaching 4” in length.
Did I mention that there were a lot of crayfish in this stream? Take a look at this photo and see how many crayfish you can find:
I see six, all O. n. neglectus, and I think I found them all.
O. macrus, the Neosho Midget Crayfish, was also abundant in the creek. O. macrus seldom exceeds two inches, making it one of Missouri’s smallest crayfish. As the common name suggests, O. macrus occurs only in the Neosho River basin of southwest Missouri and northwest Arkansas and possibly in adjacent areas of Kansas and Oklahoma.
I was so wrapped up with the crayfish, that I barely noticed the fish, something that disappoints me now, since the Spring River basin has some species I can’t find here at home. The only fish photo I ended up with was this Banded Sculpin:
Remember that I mentioned the water being cold? I wasn’t kidding. I had a couple of hours to spend and only managed to stay in the water for about 45 minutes before I froze out. But I had found and photographed the two primary species I had been looking for, so I was satisfied. I still hadn’t photographed an adult O. virilis but they’re likely to turn up anywhere and I knew it was just a matter of time, though it’s ironic that the most widespread crayfish in the state was proving to be one of the most difficult for me to find.
Missouri apparently has a healthy and growing black bear population, mostly in the southern half of the state. In response, the Department of Conservation (MDC) has been conducting a study to “provide information about the movement patterns, population densities, habitat preferences and overall numbers of Missouri bears.” The home page for the study is located here. The site is full of good info and you can even follow the movements of several radio-collared bears (17 at the moment) via Google maps animations. Very cool stuff.
This project is being conducted in cooperation with the University of Missouri-Columbia, Mississippi State University, landowners and various other state and federal agencies. One of those other agencies is the National Park Service, and ONSR’s terrestrial ecologist Kim Houf has the enviable position of being the park’s participant in the project. And she has been nice enough to provide a couple of photos for me to post here.
Kim’s role in all of this is maintaining a series of bait stations within the park. Each station has a game camera present and a “hit” results in a trap, either culvert-style or leg snare, being placed nearby. Kim has had at least one hit, because this guy (there’s another photo that clearly shows he’s male!) was caught in the act of snatching the donuts.
He may be distracted by the sweets, but so far he’s been sharp enough to stay out of the trap. Some of the donuts are hanging in the bag because bears aren’t the only critters that like donuts. Raccoons are quite fond of them too. But Raccoons are smart and they’ve quickly figured out to climb out the limb where the bag is hanging and pull it (and the donuts) up to their hungry little paws.
Although Kim hasn’t caught a bear yet, she has gotten to go along with another crew that had better luck. One of those bears was this gorgeous cinnamon gal, who managed to get herself into a trap, somewhere near the Howell-Oregon County line I believe. Don’t worry, she’s not injured, just sedated.
Weighing in at 280 pounds, she was five years old and has had one litter, probably when she was three years old. Female bears in Missouri (and maybe elsewhere, I don’t really know) don’t breed until their third year and I think the cubs stay with their mothers for most of two years, so they only have litters every other year.
I’ve been looking for and hoping to see a bear since I found a track in the snow thirty or so years ago, but other than more tracks and two piles of poop (one literally still steaming,) I’ve struck out. But seeing these photos and knowing how many this study is turning up, I’m getting more hopeful all the time. Dayna, on the other hand, is starting to think she may need an armed escort to cross the yard to her car! 
Photos courtesy Kim Houf, National Park Service.
when you cross Indian Paintbrush with Fire Pink? Indian Pink, of course. Well, ok, not really. But there is such a plant, as I recently discovered.
I had driven to Gooseneck back on Memorial Day weekend, hoping to find a Cambarus diogenese outside it’s burrow since the colony was covered by a couple of feet of now falling flood water. The crayfish were a no show, but on the drive in, there was a wildflower I didn’t recognize growing alongside the road near a low-water concrete slab crossing of a small hollow. So on the way back out, I naturally stopped to take a look.
As you can see, it’s a very distinctive looking flower, but I had no idea what it was. I make no claim to be a great botanist by any means, but I’ve seen most of the early wildflowers in the area and those that I haven’t actually seen, all those hours looking at field guides usually pay off by offering at least a clue. Not this time. It took some creative searching with Google Image to identify it as Spigelia marilandica, or Indian Pink. Also commonly known as Woodland Pinkroot, it reaches a height of 12-18 inches and occurs across the greater southeastern United States. In Missouri, it’s only found in a handful of counties in the southeast corner of the state minus most of the lowlands. The ones I had found were in Ripley County, but just barely – Gooseneck Road crosses back and forth from Carter to Ripley County several times.
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Range maps courtesy of the US Department of Agriculture.
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Nearby, was a Hackberry Butterfly (Asterocampa celtis) sipping from the moist mud and even though I have quite a few photos of the species, I had to take a few more.
Back near the low water bridge on Big Barren Creek was another large group of butterflies, all also very intent on sucking the moisture from the mud. Almost all of them were Spicebush Swallowtails (Papilio troilus), but there was one Tiger Swallowtail (not in the photo) and two well worn Giant Swallowtails (Papilio cresphontes.) Unlike the Hackberry Butterfly, I don’t have many shots of the Giant Swallowtail, so again, I had to stop for photos.
And finally, right across from the only house near the road, was a Dickcissel. You rarely see these in this part of the Ozarks, but there he was, sitting on the guy wire from a power pole singing his heart out, thirty feet from the truck. And naturally, I had left the long lens at the house, because I was only expecting to be shooting crayfish (which I didn’t photograph at all.) He posed quite cooperatively, something I’m sure he wouldn’t have done had I had the longer lens along. I shot away with my 18-55mm and he was still there as we drove away.
Before you judge this photo too harshly (I know it’s crappy,) remember what it was taken with, that it was only intended to document the Dickcissel’s presence and you can tell what kind of bird you’re looking at. 
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