This winter (2021) marked the first time a Snowy Owl (Bubo scandiacus) was spotted in New York City’s Central Park in 130 years. Why was it there? Where did it come from? Since 99.9% of the population immediately just thinks of Harry Potter when Snowy Owls are mentioned, the guys wanted to cast the proverbial “Lumos!” and shed some light on the subject.

Join them and guest Daniel Mlodozeniec (photographer and naturalist) as they delve into the Snowy Owl’s ecology in part 1. Then, in part 2, come along as they look into the research behind what drives Snowy Owl irruptions, those irregular migrations that cause Snowies to end up in Central Park and even in places like Bermuda and Hawaii!

This episode was recorded on February 1, 2021 in Buffalo, NY at the Erie Basin Marina (part 1) and Tifft Nature Preserve (part 2).

This winter (2021) marked the first time a Snowy Owl (Bubo scandiacus) was spotted in New York City’s Central Park in 130 years. Why was it there? Where did it come from? Since 99.9% of the population immediately just thinks of Harry Potter when Snowy Owls are mentioned, the guys wanted to cast the proverbial “Lumos!” and shed some light on the subject.

Join them and guest Daniel Mlodozeniec (photographer and naturalist) as they delve into the Snowy Owl’s ecology in part 1. Then, in part 2, come along as they look into the research behind what drives Snowy Owl irruptions, those irregular migrations that cause Snowies to end up in Central Park and even in places like Bermuda and Hawaii!

This episode was recorded on February 1, 2021 in Buffalo, NY at the Erie Basin Marina (part 1) and Tifft Nature Preserve (part 2).

Now that Bill’s done droning on about animals, we can finally talk about PLANTS! and CARNIVOROUS plants at that. Steve reviews carnivorous plants in general and then breaks into examples of carnivorous plants that have evolved to eat poop: Roridula spp. in South Africa, Sarracenia purpurea in North America, & Nepenthes spp. in Southeast Asia.

00:00 - Intro
02:00 - Carnivorous plant review
14:20 - Roridula spp. & Pameridea spp.
23:10 - Sarracenia purpurea & its inquilines
26:00 - Gumleaf USA ad
28:35 - Nepenthes lowii, N. macrophylla, N. raja & mountain tree shrews
36:45 - Nepenthes hemsleyana & Hardwicke’s Woolly Bat
40:10 - Nepenthes bicalcarata & diving/swimming ants
45:05 - Concluding remarks
46:20 - Outro

Image credit:
"Nepenthes raja, eine freischfressende Kannenpflanze. Gesehen im Botanischen Garten beim Gunung Kinabalu Headquater, Sabah, Borneo" by anschieber

Useful Links:
True Facts: Carnivorous Plants

Gumleaf Boots, USA (free shipping and 10% off for patrons)

Support us on Patreon!

Work Cited:
Byng, J.W., Smets, E.F., van Vugt, R., Bidault, E., Davidson, C., Kenicer, G., Chase, M.W. and Christenhusz, M.J., 2018. The phylogeny of angiosperms poster: a visual summary of APG IV family relationships and floral diversity. The Global Flora, 1, pp.1-35.

Ellison, A.M. and Adamec, L. eds., 2018. Carnivorous Plants: physiology, ecology, and evolution. Oxford University Press, Ch. 1, 3, 13, 24, 26.

Groover, A.T., 2005. What genes make a tree a tree?. Trends in plant science, 10(5), pp.210-214.

McGhee, G.R., 2011. Convergent evolution: limited forms most beautiful. MIT Press.

With the high-end guests we’ve recently had on, we’re concerned that the podcast is getting a bit too classy. So, this month, we’re getting down and dirty, delving into the delightful topic of defecation. Specifically, animals that eat poop. We know, it seems gross. We thought so, too. But once we started exploring this surprisingly common behavior (called coprophagy), we were amazed at what we uncovered!

Links

Fecal sac video

More info about World War 2, the Germans, and Camel Poop

Check out The Stuff You Should Know episode about fecal transplants

Find out more about Michel Lotito, the man who could eat anything

More on Dung Beetles:

American Kennel Club article about dogs eating poop

Two excellent (and damn funny) videos from True Facts:

Dung beetles

Tree Shrews

Sponsorship of this episode provided by Gumleaf Boots, USA

Support The Field Guides through Patreon!

As always, check out Always Wandering Art (Website and Etsy Shop), who usually provides the artwork for our episodes!

Visit the Roger Tory Peterson Institute’s website to find out more about the site, events/exhibitions, and the good work they are doing.

Steve and Arthur discussed the hellbender head-start program, and the question came up about whether it was connected with the Buffalo Zoo. Here’s what we found:

“The “hellbender head-start program” is a collaboration between the Bronx Zoo, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, and the Buffalo Zoo. The snot otters were hatched at the Buffalo Zoo in October 2009 and raised at the Bronx Zoo’s Amphibian Propagation Center.” You can find more info here.

Arthur mentioned the recent renaming of a bird. He was referring to the McCown’s Longspur (Rhynchophanes mccownii). It’s common name was recently changed to the Thick-billed Longspur.

Links:
Sandy Beach Island State Park (Pulaski, New York)
Piping Plover running (video)
Piping Plover chick running (video)
Piping Plover chick hiding under their mom (video)
Rockaway Beach (Queens, New York)
An article about Claire and her team (Article)
New York State Parks Blog about the Piping Plovers (Article)
Report Banded Piping Plovers (or email [email protected])
Great Lakes Piping Plovers of New York (Facebook page)

Notes:
Coordinators on the project include US Fish and Wildlife, SUNY ESF, Onondaga Audubon, and the staff at NYS Parks

The project and Claire’s position are funded annually by the USFWS Great Lakes Restoration Initiative (GLRI) grant funding from the Federal Government, DOI, with Regional efforts led by Robyn Niver.

Errata:
Claire mentioned that the Piping Plover weighs the same as a stick of butter. She informed us that she misspoke and meant to say that they weigh about the same as a half of a stick of butter. They’re also about the height of a stick of butter stood up on its end.

Picture credit:

"Piping Plovers" by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service - Midwest Region

Works Cited:

Robinson, S., Fraser, J., Catlin, D., Karpanty, S., Altman, J., Boettcher, R., Holcomb, K., Huber, C., Hunt, K. and Wilke, A., 2019. Irruptions: evidence for breeding season habitat limitation in Piping Plover (Charadrius melodus).

During the editing process for this episode, Bill shared some posts about this species via social media. Several listeners commented that, in an effort to acknowledge problematic botanical names, many sources now refer to this plant as Ghost Pipe. So, although it was too late to re-record the episode, Bill altered these notes to reflect the name change.

Several times in the episode, Steve and Bill wondered if a stand of Monotropa uniflora was composed of separate plants growing closely together or if it was a single plant with multiple stalks rising from a common rootstalk. In doing follow-up research, Bill could not find a conclusive statement, but in going through pictures of herbarium specimens, drawings of harvested plants, and numerous descriptions, every instance showed each Ghost Pipe stalk having its own, single bundle of roots at its base. So, for now, Bill is going out on the proverbial limb and saying that each stalk is an individual plant.

The guys questioned whether Beechdrops (Epifagus virginiana) was in the Ericaceae family, along with Ghost Pipe, and Steve went on to say that he thought it might be in the Broomrape family – Orobanchaceae. He was correct!

Bill mentioned that Steve is now a published researcher. He was one of the authors on a paper looking into how plants evolve certain chemicals. Check out an article about the paper here, and here’s a link to the paper, itself.

Bill mentioned that, although Monotropa uniflora seems extraordinary because it lacks chlorophyll, “there are some 3000 species of non-photosynthetic vascular plants in the plant kingdom (about 1/2% of all vascular plants). Steve wondered aloud if this number was greater than all the gymnosperms out there (non-flowering plants, like pines). Steve was correct again! There are roughly 1000 extant species of gymnosperms.

Steve questioned what you call an animal that feeds on sap. According to Wikipedia, it’s a gummivore. Gummivores are a hybrid class of omnivores that defines a group of animals whose diet consists primarily of the gums and saps of trees (about 90%) and bugs for protein.

Steve mentioned that there are trees in the Gentian family, and then he went on to joke about whether or not there are any woody orchids. Well, Bill checked. There aren’t any.

Have you ever dreamed of ditching your day job and pursuing a career in the woods? Maybe working with wolves in the desert southwest or conducting plant surveys in the wilds of Alaska? Well, Matt Gaffney did it! Leaving behind a job in digital marketing, he went back to school to get his degree in environmental studies and went on to work a series of seasonal positions with the National Forest Service. Bill caught up with him in August of 2019 in the Monongahela National Forest in West Virginia. Join them on a hike on Spruce Knob (the highest point in WV) as Matt shares his adventures and advice on pursuing a career in the wild!