You know Dasher and Dancer and Prancer and all the rest, but do you know all the amazing features that make Reindeer the perfect animal to pull Santa's sleigh?  Learn all about these amazing and unique members of the deer family!

What's the difference between a native species, a non-native naturalized species and an invasive species?  Good question!  Listen to this week's episode and find out!

I frequently find cool stuff that I want to talk about that just don't warrant their own episode, so this episode is dedicated to some of those critters.  Crayfish, dusky salamanders, ground beetles and a parasite that drives its host to drown itself.  Dig through the junk drawer of my observations!

On this episode we'll take a look at 3 "Non-placental" mammals from Australia: Wombats, Platypuses and Tasmanian Devils.  2 marsupials and a monotreme.  There's cube-shaped poop, butt slams, egg-layng, venom and a whole lot of teeth!  If you need a conversation starter for Thanksgiving dinner - this is the episode you need!

Continuing with a Halloween theme, this episode takes a closer look at some "Halloween adjacent" arthropods - the crawliest of the creepy crawlies: Centipedes and Millipedes.  Some of the first land animals on earth, Centipedes and Millipedes don't just have a lot of feet, they can perform a lot of feats - including glow in the dark - how cool is that?

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Welcome to spooky season!  In ancient Greece owls were associated with protection and wisdom, but sometime in the Middle Ages in Europe they became associated with witches - probably owing to the fact they were nocturnal and mysterious.  Learn about how these amazing birds and how they have evolved to be masters of the nighttime hunt!

Meet the toads and frogs that are commonly found right here at Dispatches HQ: American Toads, Fowler's Toads, Green Tree Frogs, Cope's Grey Tree Frogs, Cricket Frogs and Pickerel Frogs.

Wasps get a lot of hate - primarily because we are afraid of getting stung.  But did you know that of the 4000 species of wasp found in the United States, only 30 - less than 1% - are capable of stinging.  And in addition to being pollinators, wasps provide natural pest control.  Learn more about the fascinating world of wasps on this episode of the Dispatches from the Forest Podcast!

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I know I said I was going to talk about wasps, but I had another idea - come along with me as I take a hike at Crow's Nest Natural Preserve Area - a 2872-acre peninsula situated between two tidal creek tributaries of the Potomac River in Stafford County, Virginia.  This property has been used by humans for the last 11000 years and with its mature hardwood forests and freshwater marshes it has a fantastic amount of biodiversity!  What did I see?  Listen and find out!

About 80% of flowering plants rely on living pollinators to move their pollen between flowers.  In this episode I'll tell you about just a few of those - Honeybees, Bumblebees, Carpenter Bees and Mason Bees.  Fascinating insects that have incredibly important jobs!