Education

Adventures in Flight Exhibit

We sent some of our specimens on a summer retreat, so that you can enjoy them. Bats, birds and their sounds are on display at the Adventures in Flight Exhibit at three parks in Delaware county: Deer Haven Park, Shale Hollow Park, and Gallant Farm

Each park’s exhibit has a different focus, at Deer Haven park birds rule – not only inside the nature center but also at the feeders outside. I did see a racoon sneak by though during my visit, but that’s a different story.

When you walk into the nature center, a friendly volunteer greets all visitors, explains that following last year’s Ice Age and dinosaur-era exhibit, this year’s exhibit showcases the only non-extinct dinosaurs, birds.

The first display highlights blue birds from all over our Blue Planet. A hummingbird from Brazil, a jay from Mexico and an Indigo Bunting from the USA. The oh so blue Cerulean Warbler greets people at the entrance desk.

display of different wings for different things

Further you will find differently shaped bird wings which allow speedy flight in some and gliding in others.

sound kiosk & acknowledgementsThe sound kiosk with various drumming patterns of woodpeckers and a snippet from BirdNote, a nonprofit radio program dedicated to the conservation of birds and their habitats, is tucked in the corner right next to the “window on nature” with great looks at various bird species visiting the numerous feeders. A Ruby-throated Hummingbird landed during my visit and drank leisurely from the provided sugar water solution.

In the neighboring room, bird skulls illustrate and highlight the enormous variability in size and shape among birds. Compare a hummingbird skull to a Bald Eagle!

On to the next park:

Shale Hollow park is only a short drive south from Deer Haven, you actually pass it on your way back to Columbus.

The exhibit is well worth a stop: Enter a darkened room to learn about bats, fireflies and moths! Insects and bats are the theme here, including butterflies (a tent with life butterflies is soon to open!).

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display explaining Bird FlightA poster gives basic information about the anatomy of flight and why some animals fly and we do not – at least not using our arms as wings, we built machines to take us into the air. To explore man-made flight visit the third of the exhibits at Gallant Farm.

note for Gallant Farm exhibit

Can you guess what’s inside this flower?

On my way out I discovered a microscope for smartphones – obviously I still have to practice perfecting my images, but you can guess the intricate patterns of this dragonfly’s wing.

I really enjoyed the exhibits which also showcase specimens from the Natural History Museum at Ohio Wesleyan University. Thank you Liz Neroni for working with us on these displays and letting some of our specimens be part of this exciting summer exhibit – and of course there are plenty of opportunities to enjoy the outdoors while you visit each of these exhibit sites. Enjoy!

About the Author: Angelika Nelson on her last assignment as the social media outreach manager for the Museum of Biological Diversity.

 

 

 

7/17/2023: Post edited. Broken link removed.

Junior Explorer Club of Upper Arlington visits ant lab

How do animals communicate?

ant sketch

Morgan Oberweiser introducing animal sound activities to junior explorer club

Morgan Oberweiser introducing animal sound activities to junior explorer club

The Adams Ant Lab hosted elementary school children from the Junior Explorer Club of Upper Arlington. Recent graduate Mazie Davis and undergraduate students Andrew Mularo and Morgan Oberweiser put together a program to teach the little ones about various ways that animals communicate. First the students played a bioacoustics guessing game – they listened to some diverse audio recordings, courtesy of the Borror Lab of Bioacoustics, and tried to guess what animals they came from.

Can you tell which animals make these sounds? Look for the correct answers at the bottom of this post.

mystery sound 1:

mystery sound 2:

mystery sound 3:

Next the students learned about the use of coloration for communication. They observed camouflage in northern walking stick insects and African ghost mantises, as well as warning coloration in Peruvian black velvet stick insects and yellow banded poison dart frogs.

The last animal communication system we discussed was chemical communication. The students played a game in which they were each given a scented cotton ball (peppermint, almond, vanilla) and were tasked with sorting themselves into groups using only their noses. Then they compared their skills to those of our large Atta ant colony.

Ant colonies & fungus gardens in R Adams lab at OSU-MBD

Ant colonies & fungus gardens

The grand finale of the trip was a quick tour of the tetrapod collection lead by Dr. Katherine O’Brien. It was a joy to have such wonderful and inquisitive kids come to visit – we expect to see many of their excited faces return come next spring’s Open House (April 7, 2018)!

About the Author: Morgan Oberweiser is an undergraduate (Evolution and Ecology major) research assistant in Rachelle Adams‘ lab.

Answers to animal sound quiz: sound 1 = American alligator (chickadees scolding the alligator), sound 2 = Texas leafcutting ant, sound 3 = South American catfish

Bat sounds

Bats are social mammals that use a repertoire of vocalizations to communicate with each other and to move around in the environment.

To detect obstacles and prey in their environment, bats emit a series of ultrasounds, very high-pitched sounds above 20,000 Hz, beyond our range of hearing. As a bat flies and calls, it listens to the returning echoes of its calls to build up a sonic image of its surroundings. Bats can tell how far away something is by how long it takes the sounds to return to them, how big the target is based on the strength of the returning signal, and what shape the target has based on the spectral pattern of the returning sound waves. We call this process echolocation.

Individual bat species echolocate within specific frequency ranges that suit their environment and prey types. This means that we can train ourselves to identify many bats by listening to their calls with bat detectors.

Let’s LISTEN to recordings of the little brown bat (Myotis lucifugus) and the big brown bat (Eptesicus fuscus) for comparison. – But how can we listen, if we cannot hear their calls? Let’s use a trick: When we slow down the recordings by a factor of 10, the calls are transposed to 10 times lower pitch and become audible to us.

Note: To make the sounds visible in sonograms we plotted frequency in thousands of cycles per second (kilohertz, kHz) on the vertical axis versus time in seconds on the horizontal axis. The varying intensity of colors ranging from dark blue (low intensity or quiet) to red (high intensity or loud) indicates the amplitude or loudness of each call. Amplitude is also shown in the top part of each figure with larger waves representing louder calls.

Little brown bat: Calls last from less than one millisecond (ms) to about 5 ms and sweep from 80 to 40 kHz, with most of their energy at 45 kHz.

sonogram of little brown bat Myotis lucifugus calls

Call series of a little brown bat Myotis lucifugus

 

Big brown bat: Calls last several milliseconds and sweep from about 65 to 20 kHz, and are thus lower pitched than calls of little brown bats.

bigsonogram of brown bat Eptesicus fuscus echolocating calls

Call series of a big brown bat Eptesicus fuscus

 

 

The above call series were recorded when the bat is generally surveying its environment, but what happens when it actually detects prey? Listen to this feeding buzz of a little brown bat:

sonogram of feeding calls of little brown bat

Feeding calls of a little brown bat Myotis lucifugus

 

When closing in on prey, a bat may emit 200 calls per second.

What might sound to us like the bat is getting excited – don’t you talk faster when you are excited about telling something? – this rapid series of calls actually helps the bat to pin-point the exact location of its prey, then it swoops in, and GULP – dinner is served, or not!

 

We hope you enjoyed listening to these bat sounds; if you have any questions please contact Angelika Nelson.794@osu.edu, curator of the animal sound archive at The Ohio State University.

The Ohio State University - logo

 

All recordings are archived with the Borror Laboratory of Bioacoustics (BLB.OSU.EDU) at The Ohio State University.

EEOB students experience charismatic creatures of the tropics

students in front of sign for Metropolitan nature park

Tropical Behavioral Ecology and Evolution class at the entrance to the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute canopy crane, Metropolitan Nature Park, Panama City, Panama. Photo credit: Ryan McCarthy.

For the Tropical Behavioral Ecology and Evolution course in Panama, we established independent research projects, networked with the internationally-renowned Smithsonian Institution, got to know Panamanian culture, and made new friends. In addition, we had the opportunity to see some very charismatic Panamanian creatures, including the three-toed sloth (Bradypus variegatus). Attracted by their soothing movements, mischievous smiles, and tendency to hug things, I have long desired to see one of these slow, long-armed teddy bears of the jungle.

The chance to see a sloth came during a visit to Metropolitan Nature Park, where our group was preparing to board a canopy crane. Suddenly, while waiting excitedly to be lifted into the tropical rainforest canopy, out rang the call of, “İPerezoso!” the Spanish word for sloth, which also means “lazy.” All attention was diverted to a nearby forest edge, where a baby three-toed sloth was descending vines and trees, moving toward the ground.

Baby sloth pauses his descension from the canopy to consider EEOB students. Photo credit: Ryan McCarthy.
Baby sloth hangs from a vine. Photo credit: Ryan McCarthy.

We learned from one of the crane operators that sloths go to the ground to poop, a risky endeavor that makes them vulnerable to predators. It is thought that movement to the ground may benefit the moth and algae associates that live on a sloth’s coat, which the sloth relies on for camouflage. Regardless of its biological function, our group capitalized on the little sloth’s potty break as a photo opportunity.

adult sloth in tree

Adult sloth high in the canopy of an Anacardium excelsum tree. Photo credit: Ryan McCarthy.

When the crane was ready to take another group into the canopy, we begrudgingly pulled ourselves away from the baby sloth. Little did we know that we would see mama sloth, poised in the canopy and waiting for her little one’s return!

Our earth’s tropical rainforests are full of amazing biodiversity. The story of the sloth’s epic journey to the forest floor is just one of many biological sagas playing out in nature. You don’t have to go to the jungle to make amazing discoveries—check out a local natural area today!

 

Kali Mattingly, EEOB PhD candidateAbout the Author: Kali Mattingly is a PhD student in Steve Hovick’s lab studying population ecology and genetics of invasive plants. Kali recently participated in the Tropical Behavioral Ecology and Evolution course in Panama under Dr. Rachelle M. M. Adams and Dr. Jonathan Shik.

Dynamics of Neo-Tropical Arachnids

Today’s post is a guest post by Andrew Mularo,  an undergraduate student in the Department of Evolution, Ecology and Organismal Biology. He is currently doing his Tropical Behavior Evolution and Ecology research project under Dr. Rachelle M. M. Adams and Dr. Jonathan Shik.

You may love them or you may fear them, but no one can deny the incredible ecological importance of spiders and scorpions. As an aspiring biologist, I have chosen to study the interactions between arachnids and their environment in the tropical rainforests of Panama for the 2017 Tropical Behavioral Evolution and Ecology course. The tropics are a biodiversity hotspot for the majority of the world’s organisms, so there are plenty of creatures to look at. From the smallest spiderling to the largest tarantula, I am curious to see how these cryptic and intriguing animals interact with their ecosystem.

For my project, I am doing an observational study where I am assessing the relationship between leaf litter and arachnid diversity and abundance. I am accomplishing this by creating several 50 meter transects in the Panamanian rainforest, sampling leaf litter with 1 square meter quadrants along each transect. For each quadrant, I take a measurement of leaf litter depth, and sift through the leaves to extract any organisms out of the area. Back at the lab, I sort through the organisms, first finding any arachnids in the sample, and then any other insect or invertebrate, such as ants, beetles, millipedes, snails, mites and many others. With these data, I hope to make a correlation between leaf litter abundance and arachnid diversity and abundance, as well as a correlation between the diversity of potential prey items and arachnid predators.

Naturally, the majority of the organisms that I have been assessing have been very small, from the size of a thumbnail to not even being visible to the human eye. However, there

Wandering Spider (Photo by A. Mularo)

are several occasions where I have observed some extremely imposing arachnids in the tropical forest. One of these includes the huntsman spider, an extremely large nocturnal species that does not rely on a web to capture its prey. This family of spiders is very poorly researched, and is largely unknown how dangerous the venom is for the majority of species. However, they are quite shy, and often scurry away at the sight or sound of a human.

Another fascinating group of organisms I see occasionally are scorpions. The two pictured below are from the genus Tityus, whose venom is very potent. I found the two in the picture below, which we believe to be different species, huddled in close quarters in the water well of a bromeliad. While potentially dangerous, these are a relatively uncommon sight in the rainforest. Nevertheless, it is always good to be careful where you step.

Tityus scorpions (photo by A. Mularo)

While many of them are feared, arachnids are some of the most fascinating organisms on the planet. They come in all shapes and sizes, and have a wide array of interesting characteristics that are of great interest to scientists. Being interested in biology since I was a child, I have always dreamed of coming to the tropics so I could study the vast diversity of organisms, and I could not have picked a better group of organisms to focus on!

Dragonflies and Damselflies of Ohio

Dragonfly at Magee Marsh Wildlife Area.

Dragonfly at Magee Marsh Wildlife Area.

The Triplehorn Insect Collection is beginning a collaborative project to survey the dragonflies and damselflies of Ohio.

These spectacular aerial predators are surprisingly diverse: currently 164 species have been recorded in the state. Brilliant colors and striking markings make them the songbirds of the insect world. The immature stages of all species are aquatic, and these animals are found in lakes, rivers, ponds, and streams from Lake Erie to the Ohio River.  Although many dragonflies and damselflies are common, a number are listed as threatened or endangered.

This new Ohio Odonata Survey is scheduled to last 3 years. The work will be done together with the ODNR Division of Wildlife, the Ohio Odonata Society, and a network of avid volunteers and citizen scientists across the state.

MaLisa Spring, an Entomologist and recent OSU graduate, just joined us as coordinator for all of these efforts.  She will be working out of the Triplehorn Insect Collection in Columbus, and will be actively interacting with participants around the state.

Information on the project can be found in the newly created Ohio Odonata Survey website.  Project activities will also be widely advertised on social media.

Ohio naturalists are invited to contribute to the project. If you have images that can help document the distribution and seasonality of the various species of dragonflies and damselflies in our state, please check out the guidelines.

Finally, the Ohio Odonata Society will be holding its 2017 annual meeting, ODO-CON-17 on 23-25 June at the Grand River Conservation Campus in Rock Creek, OH.

Damselfly in Columbus, Ohio.
Dragonfly at Magee Marsh Wildlife Area.
Halloween pennant. Specimen from the Triplehorn Insect Collection.
Dragonfly on window screen in Columbus, Ohio.
Close-up of dragonfly on window screen in Columbus, Ohio.

Resources:

Photos by L. Musetti (dragonflies) & Huayan Chen (damselfly).

About the Author: Dr. Norman F. Johnson is an Entomologist, Professor at Ohio State University, and Director of the Triplehorn Insect Collection.

Backyard Bug Explorer

Visitors touring the Triplehorn Insect Collection are invariably drawn to the biggest, longest, most colorful creatures that we have among our four million specimens. Giant walking sticks, Goliath beetles, white witch moths, and birdwing butterflies are a sure hit with visitors of all ages.  One question that usually follows that exhilarating experience is … “Are these from Ohio?” And, unfortunately, we have to say that no, those enormous and colorful insects come from tropical forests in Africa or South America or elsewhere.

That is not to say, though, that there aren’t plenty of interesting and very striking insects in Ohio. In fact, there are plenty of cool insects right in our own backyards, many of them still poorly known or even completely unknown to science.

Here are just a few examples of the insect fauna that I found in my urban backyard in the past few weeks.

Bees & bee nests

During Spring, carpenter bees and bumble bees are very busy building their nests and collecting pollen. Well, that’s true of the female bees, anyway. The male carpenter bees are far too worried about patrolling their territory and checking out everything that comes along, all in the hope of finding a female that might be susceptible to their charms. Not to worry: the males are harmless, and you’d practically have to grab hold of a female before she would think of stinging.

 

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Under a clay pot that was left leaning against a wall, a queen bumble bee has dug a hole into the soil where she’s starting her own colony. The same sort of gardening accessories are also great places for spiders to build their webs and for insects to hide away their eggs from predators.

Clay pottery left in the backyard over the winter serves as perfect shelter for bumble bee nest
I was not fast enough to snap a photo of the bumble bee entering the nest. But trust me, she’s there!
Upside down clay pots left in the backyard over the winter now house spider webs and insect eggs

Wasp nests

A mud-nesting solitary wasp found the perfect place to build her nest among the wrinkles of a deteriorating plastic cover on an old outdoor fireplace in our yard.  This might be a mud dauber or perhaps a potter wasp nest. Either way, the mother wasp builds the nest using soft mud, then goes hunting for caterpillars or other insects.  The prey – stung into a state of suspended animation – is stuffed into the nest accompanied by a single wasp egg.  The larva that later hatches will feed on the living prey and develop into a new flying adult wasp.

Solitary wasp nest in the shape of a tube. The female wasp builds the next with soft clay.
The fragile nest broke in two when I moved the plastic.
Notice the empty cocoon.

Insect eggs (my all time favorite)

The most exciting finds for me are insect eggs. Sometimes the eggs are parasitized and produce the little wasps that are my object of study. Here on our screen door I found the eggs of an assassin bug. Each egg is like a small piece of art in itself each with a beautiful ornate crown. I’ve been watching carefully to see if assassin bug nymphs will emerge or if the eggs will produce any of my parasitic wasps.

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Ants

When I rolled over a log, I found a number of Lasius interjectus.  These bright yellow ants are commonly called “citronella ants.” If you disturb them, they respond by releasing a bouquet of repellent chemicals that smell like lemon or the citronella candles used to repel mosquitoes. These ants are farmers: they maintain underground “herds” of aphids or mealybugs. These “cows” feed on the fluids in plant roots and excrete a sweet honeydew that the ants love.

A small log resting over a bed of leaf litter holds a surprise: a colony of ants!
Citronella ants under a log in the backyard.

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Here’s a quick video of the citronella ants. They are very cute!

Beetle larvae

I love looking for insects on, in, and under dead trees. Recently I found quite a number of very slick and shiny beetle larvae beneath the bark of a large dead tree near our house. I actually don’t know what kind of beetles they are, but I am hoping my buddies who study beetles will be able to identify them. And who knows, maybe I found something entirely new?!

Small patch of trees and shrubs in our neighborhood.
Rotting log & leaf litter, perfect habitat for many insects.
Close-up of the log, with bark poke-marked by insect burrows.
Multiple beetle larvae found under the bark of a rotting log.
Close up of one of the beetle larvae found under the bark of a rotting log.
Close-up of a smaller beetle larva found under the bark of a rotting log.

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When disturbed the larvae move deeper into the soft wood.

I have more photos and videos of local insects, but I’ll stop here for now.  Yes, I know, the local bugs are not massive and showy like the amazing things that come from tropical rain forests, but pay close attention and you will find that they are just as fascinating. And best of all, they are right here in our backyard!

 Insects are everywhere. The more we learn about them the more we see how absolutely fascinating, beautiful, and important they are.

 

So take your family outside the house and go explore. Look around your backyard, watch for signs of insects, check out the flowers, the underside of tree leaves, listen to the buzz of the bees and see what they are doing.  Notice the differences between a bumble bee and a carpenter bee and other bees (get more info here.)

A final note: Monday, May 22, is the International Day for Biological Diversity. People all over the world and here in Ohio will be celebrating the day with the goal of increasing understanding and awareness about biodiversity, and to have a good time observing nature.

What a great opportunity to connect with fellow bug explorers and to promote the insect biodiversity that is right around us! Post your discoveries, photos, and musings about Ohio insects on social media. Use the hash tag #OhioBugs so we can keep in touch.

Hope to see you out there!

About the Author: Dr. Luciana Musetti is an Entomologist and the current Curator of the Triplehorn Insect Collection at The Ohio State University.

facebook.com/TriplehornInsectCollection

Follow on Tweeter or Instagram: @osuc_curator

Flight of the Butterfly

What does re-animated life in the Triplehorn insect collection look like? What if a butterfly took flight from its drawer? Watch for yourself: Flight of the Butterfly by Tamara Sabbagh

THANK YOU Luciana Musetti, curator of the OSU Triplehorn Insect collection for facilitating the students’ visit.

About the Author: Angelika Nelson is the outreach and multi-media coordinator at the Museum of Biological Diversity and facilitates visits of school classes and students.

*** Which of the animations is your favorite? ***

Samsara – Cyclicality of life

Another video of re-animated life produced by a student in the Moving Image Art class organized by Amy Youngs, Associate Professor of Art:

Samsara – Cyclicality of life by Yuntian Zang: Inspired by the antlers on the wall, a deer goes wandering …

THANK YOU Stephanie Malinich, collection manager of Tetrapods, for facilitating the students’ visit.

About the Author: Angelika Nelson is the outreach and multi-media coordinator at the Museum of Biological Diversity and facilitates visits of school classes and students.

*** Which of these animals is your favorite? ***

re-animated Life I

We scientists look at our natural history collections as a great resource for our studies. Specimens tell us about life in the past (where species lived, what they looked like, how many individuals existed etc.) and let us hypothesize about the future. This is one way of looking at these dead “things” that we so meticulously curate. Artists may have a quite different view. This was greatly illustrated by a Moving Image Art class organized by Amy Youngs, Associate Professor of Art, last semester. Students visited our collections of dead things and were asked to find ways to re-animate these animals. We were amazed by the imagination of these young artists-to-be. Over the next days we will share some of the best pieces with you. Here is the first animation, Re-Animated Life by Alina Maddex: Birds and one turtle moving in their natural environment

THANK YOU Stephanie Malinich, collection manager of Tetrapods, Marc Kibbey, Associate Curator of the Fish Division, Caitlin Byrne, Collections Manager of the Division of Molluscs, and Luciana Musetti, curator of the OSU Triplehorn Insect collection for facilitating the students’ visit.

About the Author: Angelika Nelson is the outreach and multi-media coordinator at the Museum of Biological Diversity and facilitates visits of school classes and students.

*** Which of these animals is your favorite? ***