I didn’t have to search for this science news. A link to the complete scientific paper appeared on my facebook page last week, and I knew right away this important new study was blog worthy. Some pundits complain about the way social media intrudes on privacy, but I love how information relevant to my interests is directed to me. If people are worried about their privacy, they should not go on the internet.
For almost 100 years paleontologists thought just 1 species of mastodon occurred in North America during the Pleistocene. They believed the American mastodon (Mammut americanum) ranged from coast-to-coast and from the Rio Grande to Alaska. However, 10 years ago some scientists noticed mastodon skeletal material from the Rancho Labrea Tar Pits in California differed from mastodon bones found elsewhere in North America. Mastodon bones are relatively uncommon from Rancho Labrea where they are greatly outnumbered…
I shop at an Asian grocery store twice a year. I am knowledgeable about food, but I can always find items that are unfamiliar to me at this store. Canned eel, jarred snake fish, stinky durian fruit, dried lotus seeds, seaweed salad, cucumber kimchi, and preserved duck eggs are some of the unusual items they carry. I was somewhat less adventurous last week. Below are some of the items I purchased.
Dried shitake mushrooms, mung beans for sprouts, chicory coffee, Thai bananas, white sweet potatoes, cherimoya, almond cookies, and 3 kinds of noodles. Not pictured are bok choy and Japanese persimmons. A 7.3 pound duckling with the head and feet attached. This bird yielded a quart of cooking fat.Kimchi.Spring rolls.
Here are a few recipes using items I purchased last week.
Leftover Roast Pork and Bok Choy Lo Mein
I forgot to take a photo of the bok choy, but Asian food stores almost always carry the highest quality bok choy a shopper can find. Dice up the meat from a leftover seasoned pork tenderloin (many grocery stores sell pre-seasoned pork loins). Sprinkle some soy sauce on the meat and brown in hot fat (I prefer bacon grease). Remove the meat and set aside. Sautee the chopped bok choy for a few minutes in the grease. Next add cooked seasoned noodles and the meat. Stir and serve.
Roast Duckling
Cut off the head and feet and feed them to your cat or dog. Remove the giblets and save for another dish. Liberally season the duckling with garlic salt. Poke holes in the skin and fat. Put the duckling on a rack and roast at 350 degrees for about 2 hours. (Oven temperatures vary so you might want to cook it for a shorter or longer time.) The duckling I bought was exceptionally large. Most of them weigh about 5 pounds. I was hoping I’d get more dark meat, but the extra weight was all fat. It yielded a quart of excellent cooking fat. I love duck. Eating duck is like eating a bacon cheeseburger. The crispy skin is like bacon, the layer of fat is like cheese, and the dark meat is like a juicy hamburger.
Home Fries Cooked in Duck Fat
Peel the potatoes and slice the potatoes into oval-shaped pieces. Melt some duck fat in an iron skillet. Place the potatoes in the hot grease, season with salt and pepper, and cover for 10 minutes. Uncover, turn the potatoes over and re-cover for 5 minutes. Take the cover off for 5 more minutes, and they will be cooked perfectly.
Leftover Duck and Hard Boiled Egg Gumbo
Remove the meat, skin, and fat from a leftover duck carcass. Set this aside. Put the duck bones in a crockpot with an onion and bay leaf and cover with 6 cups of water. Cook on low for at least 4 hours.
Make a roux with 4 tablespoons of melted duck fat and 4 tablespoons of flour. Stir until the roux is a dark brown. Dice 2 onions and 1 stalk of celery and add that to the roux. Season with an heaping teaspoon of Tony Cachere’s Cajun seasoning mix (or salt, cayenne, black pepper, and chili powder) and 1 teaspoon of paprika and stir. Sautee until the vegetables are soft. Add the 6 cups of duck stock made with the duck bones. Add 1 cup of cooked brown rice. I usually don’t add rice directly into my gumbos because it dilutes the flavor, but duck is rich and the rice reduces the greasiness of this particular gumbo. The rice will kind of disintegrate. Simmer for 2 hours. Just before serving add the reserved meat to the gumbo to heat through. To serve, put an hard-boiled egg sliced in half into a bowl and ladle the gumbo over it. Top with finely chopped green onion and parsley.
Cryptozoology is a waste of time. >99% of the time when a mysterious creature is spotted or caught on camera, it is determined to be an existing species or a fake. Bigfoot is a man in an ape suit. The television show, The Unexplained, lately airing on The Travel Channel, included a segment with a video showing a mysterious pygmy-like humanoid running away from motorcycle riders on a dirt road in the jungles of Sumatra. The video was released on social media during March of 2017 by Fred Pastrana who puts videos of his off road motor cycle riding club on Twitter. Allegedly, his club was riding on a dirt road in Sumatra when they encountered a strange pygmy-like man who ran away and disappeared in the tall grass. The lead motorcycle rider tipped over when the pygmy first appeared.
Analysts on the television show speculated the pygmy belonged to a surviving band of the Mante tribe that was thought to have gone extinct through interbreeding with the general population. However, analysts noticed the figure was too small even for a pygmy but could not be a child because it was built like an adult. Instead, they speculated the figure could be an individual related to the extinct species of human known as Homo floriensis. This species is believed to have been a dwarf offshoot of Homo erectus that lived on the Indonesian island of Flores between 190,000 years BP-50,000 years BP when they were probably wiped out by newly arriving Homo sapiens. H. floriensis grew to 3 feet 7 inches tall, and they used stone tools similar to those used by Australopithicus. Some anthropologists speculate H. floriensis might still exist and recent survivors are the source for a local legend, the ebu gogo–the cannibalistic grandmother. According to the legend, the ebu gogo are a tribe of small people who ate everything including farmer’s crops and the farmers themselves. They had a mumbling language, and the women had long breasts that they draped over their shoulders when they ran.
I carefully analyzed the video (watch it here https://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2017/04/02/aceh-sighting-ape-or-pygmy-could-have-been-small-person-says-expert.html ), and I suggest it is some form of digital fakery. The video is shot by a man in a trailing motorcycle. He is filming straight ahead and comes upon the lead motorcycle which allegedly crashed when first encountering the pygmy. There is something suspicious about this scene–the pygmy is nowhere to be seen in the frame.
Supposedly the cyclist crashed when he saw the pygmy man come out of the forest, but there is no pygmy man in this frame.
Next, the trailing motorcyclist briefly points the camera at the ground and when he points it straight again, the creature is suddenly in the frame. This is a clever trick because it disguises the insertion of a phony 3-D animated figure into the frame. The figure runs faster than an Olympic sprinter while the motorcyclist follows. The figure is wearing some kind of weird hat reminiscent of a video game character based on the Greek God Mercury. The hat doesn’t fall off, despite his amazingly fast sprint down the road. Finally, the figure disappears into the grass. The Indonesian government actually wasted money looking for this tribe in order to determine how to protect a people who don’t really exist. Maybe someone who plays video games will recognize what game this figure is from.
This is the first shot of the pygmy man. Just before this frame, the camera man cleverly points the camera to the ground before pointing it straight again. This is sothe video doesn’t obviously look fake when they insert this image into the video.Note the size comparison. The figure is too small to be a modern day pygmy, leading some to speculate that it is a surviving individual of an extinct species of dwarf man known as Homo floriensis. Instead, I suggest it is totally fake.He’s clearly wearing some kind of weird hat. Why doesn’t the hat fall off when he is running this fast?The figure slips into the tall grass never to be seen again. I suggest the figure is an image from a video game inserted into this video.
Scientists recently recognized a new species of saber-tooth cat from specimens found in museum collections. Specimens of this species were originally excavated from sites in Texas, Idaho, California, and Oregon. Although only 7 specimens of this species are known to science, scientists were able to diagnose it as a new species based on the dimensions of the arm bones. Skulls and fangs have yet to be found, and all we know about it comes from arm and jaw bones. Scientist gave the species the unpronounceable scientific name of Machairodus lahayishupup. One of the specimens was found on the Umatilla Indian Reservation, and the scientists decided to honor the Indians by giving it the name lahayishupup, meaning ancient cat in the Cayuse Indian language. I say thumbs down for giving it such an unpronounceable name.
Artist’s rendition of the newly recognized species of Miocene saber-tooth. This artist forgot to draw the fangs.Fossilized arm bone of the Miocene saber-tooth.Fossilized jaw bone of the Miocene saber-tooth. Skulls and fangs of this species have not been discovered yet.
Scientists believe the species lived from 9 million years BP to 5.5 million years BP during the late Miocene. Individuals averaged 600 pounds and may have reached weights of 900 pounds. Potential prey species in North America included rhinos, horses, tapirs, camels, and giant ground sloths. It was likely an ambush predator that lived in semi-tropical woodlands. Most of North America was semi-tropical then. At the time similar species occurred in Eurasia and Africa. This species may have been ancestral or related to the ancestor of the well known Smilodon fatalis and the lesser known Homotherium latidens both of the late Pleistocene.
Reference:
Orcutt, J. and J. Calede
“Quantitative Analysis of Feliform Humeri Reveal the Existence of a Very Large Cat in North America during the Miocene”
The middle of the 20th century was a very scary time. Most of my dad’s relatives were rounded up by Nazis and carried away to concentration camps where they perished. Millions of young men who should have been safe at home enjoying wet dreams were forced to join armies engaged in massive wars with high casualty rates. WWII was followed by the Cold War, a decades-long nightmare of anxiety caused by the doctrine of mutually assured destruction. People hoped the possibility of nuclear suicide would prevent egomaniacal leaders from starting WWIII. Nuclear weapons have great destructive power, and one would think the U.S. military has strict control over them. So it is shocking to realize the U.S. military has lost at least 12 nuclear bombs and probably 13. Here is the list:
1950–A B-36 bomber flying over the Pacific Ocean experienced engine trouble. The pilots jettisoned the nuclear bomb and bailed out over British Columbia. The conventional explosive detonated, and the Plutonium core sank.
1956–A B-97 carrying 2 nuclear bombs disappeared over the Mediterranean Sea never to be seen again.
1957–Crew members of a C-124 jettisoned 2 nuclear bombs into the Atlantic Ocean. They were never found.
1958–During war games a B-52 bomber collided with an interceptor. The nuclear bomb fell into Wassaw Sound off the coast of Georgia. The military claims the bomb was not armed, but they extensively searched for it to no avail.
1959–A U.S. Navy P5M crashed into Puget Sound and lost a nuclear depth charge.
1961–A B-52 carrying 2 nuclear bombs crashed into a North Carolina swamp. 1 bomb was found hanging from a tree by a parachute. The other bomb sank into the mud and was never found. That bomb was in the armed position but luckily did not detonate. The U.S. government bought the land around the lost bomb and does not allow trespassers.
1965-An A-4E Skyhawk with a nuclear bomb fell off an aircraft carrier into the Pacific Ocean and sank into 16,000 feet of water.
1968–A submarine carrying 2 nuclear warheads sank off the Azores Island killing all 99 crew members.
1968–A B-52 carrying 4 nuclear bombs collided with an air oil tanker over Greenland. 3 of the bombs broke apart, but the 4th stayed intact and sank into a glacier.
The old U.S.S.R. military was even more incompetent than the U.S. military. They probably lost more nuclear bombs than we will ever know about. However, 1 incident that we do know about occurred during 1986 when a submarine sank off the coast of Bermuda losing between 24-36 nuclear warheads. (Soviet missiles each carried 2 or 3 nuclear warheads.) With this 1 incident, the old Soviet Union far surpassed the number of nuclear weapons lost by the United States.
The U.S. military has lost at least 12 nuclear bombs.Nuclear bombs can incinerate whole cities, and the nuclear fallout can cause radiation sickness for people living nearby, depending upon which way the wind blows following the blast.
Nuclear weapons are terrifying. They can incinerate whole cities, and the nuclear fallout can cause radiation sickness for many miles outside the blast zone. Radiation sickness can cause bleeding beneath the skin, brain seizures, cancer, and weakened immune systems. If all humans suffered from radiation sickness, our species would become extinct. In my favorite Planet of the Apes movie, Beneath the Planet of the Apes, from 1970, humans exposed to radiation following nuclear wars mutated to become telepathic cult worshippers of nuclear missiles. This is less likely than total extinction. Happy Halloween everyone.
This is a scene from Beneath the Planet of the Apes–my favorite in the series. Telepaths mutated by radiation worship a nuclear missile.
My fantasy of living in a primeval wilderness is not realistic, but many suburban communities are taking action to preserve green space that would otherwise be transmogrified into cement and asphalt. The Greeneway Trail is an example of protected green space that improves the quality of life for local residents. The trail follows an abandoned railroad right of way and leads to a series of ponds created from pits dug for clay used in the nearby manufacture of brick. The trail is shaded by tall trees, and in some places it bisects steep hills. During construction of the rail line, probably shortly before or after the Civil War, railroad workers dug through the hills to make the rail line flat. This makes for a nice flat trail enjoyed by hikers and bikers. The trail is paved, and I was able to push my wife’s wheelchair on it with little effort. The brick factories closed during the Great Depression, and the area became abandoned until the 1990’s when Mayor Tom Greene led the repurposing of the railroad right of way and abandoned brick factories into a green space everybody could enjoy. State funds were used to pay for construction and maintenance of the trail.
The Greeneway Trail in North Augusta, South Carolina is named after the mayor behind the development of this really nice park.The paved tree-shaded lanes follow what used to be railroad right of ways.The trail is completely flat because the construction crews building the railways dug through hills to make the track flat for trains. Some parts of the road have steep hills on both sides, making it even shadier. Here are the exposed roots of an old water oak.Species of trees found along the Greeneway Trail are typical of river bottomland forests. Another common environment on the original river bottomlands were pure stands of bamboo cane known as canebrakes. They formerly were found in pure stands that covered hundreds of square miles. I found a small stand of bamboo cane along the trail.Brick pond. Until the Great Depression there were brick factories in North Augusta. Workers dug pits for the clay which they used to make bricks. The pits filled with water and became ponds.A yellow bellied cooter on Brick Pond.
The common species of trees along the Greeneway Trail are those typically found in river bottom land forests including sweetgum, sycamore, water oak, red maple, basswood, river birch, shortleaf pine, and non-native evergreen Carolina cherry (a species native to the coast). Cypress and weeping willow were planted as ornamentals. There are small stands of bamboo cane, and grape vines are abundant on the trees. Pickerel weed grows in the ponds. This area was abandoned during the 1930’s, and most of the mature trees are probably about 90 years old.
The Trail runs parallel to the Savannah River, and during certain times of they year birdwatching must be productive. I saw 6 species in an hour–crows, blue jays, bluebirds, cardinals, mockingbirds, and an unidentified species of warbler. I thought I’d gotten a photo of the warbler, but it was not in the picture when I examined the image on my computer. Small birds don’t cooperate with photographers. On a log in the pond I saw a yellow bellied slider. Reportedly, alligators occur in the ponds. Photos of deer on the Greeneway Trail have been posted on the Friends of the Greeneway Trail Facebook Page.
While we were at Brick Pond, a worker was using a leaf blower to clear the leaves from a picnic area, ruining the quiet natural atmosphere. Leafblowers are 1 of the dumbest contraptions ever invented by mankind. They perform the same function as a rake or broom, but leaf blowers are more expensive, horribly noisy, and belch noxious fumes. Shmucks who use them are polluting the air with noise and poisonous exhaust. Moreover, small engines often break down, so the jerks who use them waste money on the dumb machine itself, fuel, and repairs…all because they are too lazy to use a rake. Rakes never break down. I’m sure my rant against leaf blowers will fall on deaf ears because the assholes that use them must be deaf from the noise they endured from the stupid machines.
Riverview Park is part of the Greeneway, and it is a really nice facility. The park offers a gym, beach volleyball, frisbee golf, real golf, tennis, and a dog park in addition to the trail for hikers and bikers. A boat ramp accesses the Savannah River. The Greeneway is also within walking distance of Antonio’s (a classic Italian restaurant on a corner), a traditional British style pub, Gary’s Hamburgers, and a Waffle House. I’d enjoy living in a neighborhood near the Greeneway.
20 years ago, a computer simulation determined low levels of human hunting could cause the extinction of Pleistocene megafauna within a 1,640 year time frame. This simulation has held up well since the results were first published. A recent study of sedimentary data from Lake Llaviucu, Ecuador determined most of the megafauna in this region became extirpated 1,800 years after humans first entered the area. 1,800 years is remarkably close to 1,640 years. Another study, this one of a site in Patagonia, determined megafauna were extirpated in that region between 1000-2000 years after first human contact–also remarkably close to the computer simulation.
Locations of the data obtained for the below referenced study. Scientists dredged cores of sediment from beneath Lakes Llaviucu and Palicacocha in Ecuador. They used pollen composition, charcoal abundance, and dung fungus spore concentrations to determine the presence of humans, not environmental change, caused the extirpation of megafauna in this region.Image from the below referenced studyby Raczka et. al.Graph showing pollen composition, charcoal abundance, and dung fungus (sporomiella) concentrations. Dung fungus abundance is a proxy for the presence of megafauna; charcoal concentrations are a proxy for human presence because people set fires.People were present, but the environment did not change. It was a paramo grassland before people entered the region, and it still was a paramo grassland when megafauna became extinct in this region.Image also from the below referenced studyby Raczka et. al.Lake Llaviucu in Ecuador along with a llama. A glacial moraine dams a stream, thus creating this lake.Photo from Travel Ecuador.A paramo grassland. Photo from the Missouri Botanical Garden. This region has been a paramo grassland for 16,000 years. Megafauna became extinct here about 12,800 years ago…1800 years after humans colonized the region. There was no change in the environment.
Scientists analyzed the pollen composition, charcoal concentration, and dung fungus spore concentration from a sedimentary core taken at Lake Llaviucu. The pollen composition provides information about the local environment. The area was under a glacier until ~18,000 years ago. After the glacier receded it was replaced by paramo grassland, an environment dominated by tussock grasses, rosette plants, and evergreen shrubs. Tropical cloud forests occur at lower elevations and plants from this environment contribute to the pollen rain. Charcoal concentrations are used as a proxy for human presence. Lightning strikes, a natural cause of fires, are extremely rare at this locality, so charcoal most likely came from human-set fires. Charcoal became common at this site about 14,600 years ago. Dung fungus spore abundance is a proxy for megafauna populations. Dung fungus declined in abundance 12,800 years ago. This is when populations of stegomastodons, horses, and ground sloths likely disappeared from the region. The core taken from this lake was 36 feet long and radiocarbon dates ranged from 16,200 years BP at the lowest part of the core to 9,000 years BP at the highest. The finding is consistent with similar studies at other sites in the Americas.
Lake Llaviucu is located in El Cajas National Park. Though most of the megafauna is gone, there are still some species of large mammals left here including llamas, mountain tapir, deer, spectacled bear, and cougar. The park is also home to 157 species of birds, and it is the Andean condor’s last stand. I’d love to visit the paramo grasslands and tropical cloud forests, but alas it is too far away.
Reference:
Alroy, John
“A Multi-Species Overkill Simulation of the End Pleistocene Megafaunal Extinction”
Science 292 (5523) 2001
Raczka, M. et. al.
“A Human Role in Andean Megafaunal Extinction?”
Quaternary Science Review 205 2019
Grayson’s and Meltzer’s Case Against Overkill would get Thrown out of a Court of Law for Perjury
I was listening to National Public Radio the other day, and they were interviewing a paleontologist who was excavating the bones of extinct Pleistocene megafauna. I didn’t catch his name or the name of the fossil site, but he was certain overhunting by humans caused the extinctions. For balance they also interviewed Meltzer, an archaeologists from SMU, who believes environmental change, not humans, caused the extinctions. About 20 years ago, he co-authored a series of illogical papers with Donald Grayson, an anthropologist, in an attempt to debunk the theory that man caused the extinction of Pleistocene megafauna. They are both a couple of dishonest shmucks. They are not paleo-ecologists. They are an archaeologist and an anthropologist. They know nothing about paleo-ecology. On the radio Meltzer simply repeated the same illogical arguments he made 20 years ago, and he ignored the overwhelming number studies that have since been published in support of an human role for the extinctions. A few years ago, Grayson published a book with a chapter about extinctions. He deliberately misrepresented the findings of a paper that ruled out environmental change as a cause of megafaunal extinctions. He suggested the results were the opposite of what the authors of the study concluded. (See: https://markgelbart.wordpress.com/2017/01/23/donald-graysons-disingenous-case-against-overkill/ ) In a court of law a judge will throw out a case, if a witness perjures himself. Grayson’s and Meltzer’s case against overkill would get thrown out for perjury. Incidentally, I informed Grayson of the above linked article. He refused to respond.
I love the fungus that grows on manure. I know that sounds weird, but the dung fungus spore concentration in sediment samples is the best evidence paleo-ecologists have of determining past megafauna populations. It is the perfect proxy because if dung fungus spores are high in a sample, megafauna populations must have been high during that time period. There is no hiding all the defecation that was occurring then. Low dung fungus spore concentrations are evidence of low megafauna populations. The latest dung fungus spore study was from a core of sediment taken beneath Lake Peten-Itza in Guatemala. The core was over 120 feet long and included radio-carbon dated time periods from 42,000 years BP-4,000 years BP. The dung fungus concentrations were compared with the pollen composition within each time period to determine what types of environments existed when megafauna populations were high or low. The types of environments fluctuated with known climate phases, alternating between oak and myrtle-dominated woodlands, pine-dominated woodlands, dry acacia-grassland scrub, and seasonal rain forest (the predominating present day environment). Oak-dominated woodlands prevailed during wet interstadials; acacia scrub grasslands prevailed during dry stadials. Megafauna populations were highest in this region during phases of climate that favored oak-dominated woodlands. I also noticed on the chart below that grass pollen was higher during this phase as well, suggesting wildlife had abundant grass and acorns to eat. Nearby fossil sites show horse, llama, mammoth, gompothere, and glyptodont occurred in this region during these time periods. Megafauna populations were lowest during dry stadials.
Location of the study site. Image from the below referenced study. Scientists took the core from 1 of the deepest parts of the lake that never dried out during dry climate phases.Chart showing abundance of dung fungus (sporomiella) with pollen composition from a >120 foot core taken from sediment beneath Lake Peten-Itza. Megafauna populations were most abundant during wetter climate phases. Chart from the below reference.Lake Peten-Itza today. It is surrounded by a seasonal rain forest, but during different climatic phases of the Pleistocene the surrounding environment varied between oak-dominated woodlands, pine-dominated woodlands, poor quality scrub grasslands, and seasonal rain forests.This lake is old and over 500 feet deep in some places. Lucky Oak Woodland in Indiana. Much of central Georgia probably looked like this during wet interstadials of the Pleistocene.Oak woodland in Ellijay, Georgia. Over 10,000 years ago this was prime habitat for Jefferson’s ground sloths, long-nosed peccaries, and tapirs. At least deer still occur here.
Other regions of the world weren’t the same. The mammoth steppe, a grassland and forb-dominated environment, located from northern Europe across Asia to Beringia, supported higher megafauna populations during cold stadials than other climate phases that favored forests and woodlands. The arid acacia scrub grasslands that occurred in Central America during stadials may have been nutrient poor and just did not support high populations of megafauna. Much of the region may have been bare soil.
I hypothesize populations of megafauna in the piedmont region of southeastern North America were also higher during interstadials. Pollen evidence indicates oak trees increased in abundance during these climate phases. Wetlands expanded and more grass, herbaceous plant growth, and acorns were available with increased precipitation; thus providing more potential food for wildlife. I think megafauna were likely limited to oasis-like habitats in this region during cold dry stadials. These habitats probably occurred in river valleys where stream flow was much reduced, and instead of meandering continuous rivers like those of today, the waterway was more like a chain of pools clogged with sand bars.
Many folks imagine Pleistocene-environments to resemble the modern day Serengeti, but this was not always the case. During cold dry climatic phases large areas may have hosted scarce wildlife populations restricted to shrinking water holes. Wildlife populations rebounded whenever climate phases shifted to more moist conditions. I’m sure wildlife populations fluctuated in parts of North America just like they did in Guatemala.
Reference:
Rozas-Davila, A.; A. Correa-Metreo, N. McMichael, M. Bush
“When the Grass wasn’t Green: Megafaunal Ecology and Paleodroughts”
My research on toads led me to the fascinating Heterodon genus of snakes. They specialize in preying upon toads, creatures most other predators avoid eating because the poison glands on their skin make them distasteful and even toxic. The Heterodon genus includes 3 species of hog nose snake–eastern southern, and western. They are easy to distinguish from other snakes because their nose resembles a pig’s snout. The eastern hog nose snake (Heterodon platyrhinus) occupies the largest range which partially overlaps with that of the western hog nose snake (H. nasicus) and fully overlaps the more limited range of the southern hog nose snake (H. simus).
Eastern Hog-nose snake. I’ve seen this species with this color variation in my neighborhood.Southern hog-nose snake. They are smaller and less widespread than Eastern hog-nose snakes.Hog-nose snake playing dead.
The eastern hog nose snake varies greatly in color. I looked for photos of this species on google images and found at least 18 different color variations. The variation of this snake in my neighborhood most closely resembles the top photo above. This species grows to almost 4 feet long and inhabits sandy soils in open woodlands. In some regions frogs and toads make up 100% of their diet, but in other regions they also prey on mice, birds, lizards, and other snakes. When threatened they feign aggression. If this doesn’t deter a predator, they play dead. Fossil evidence of this species dating to the Pleistocene and/or Pliocene have been found at Ladds in Georgia, as well as sites in Kansas, Oklahoma, Florida, Texas, and West Virginia. The Heterodon genus is at least 5 million years old.
The southern hog nose snake grows smaller than the eastern, reaching lengths of less than 2 feet. Biologists believe the population of this species is in decline, while those of the eastern are stable. Southern hog nose snakes also prefer sandy soils in open woodlands. They too feign aggression and play dead, but these actions are less pronounced than those of the eastern. Fossil specimens of this species have been found at 2 sites in Florida.
Hog nose snakes rarely bite people. An exception occurred when a man who had just handled toads picked up an hog nose snake. The snake likely scented the toad and got confused. They do have venom injected by rear fangs, but it is dangerous for amphibians, not people. Frogs and toads swell up to prevent snakes from swallowing them, however, the rear fangs of a hog nose snake puncture the frog, deflating it, and the venom stops the frog from struggling–another example of evolutionary measure and countermeasure between predator and prey.
During the first months of 1976 I was the new kid at Patty Hilsman Middle School in Athens, Georgia where a group of cruel, little jerks decided to give me the nickname–toad. The nickname stuck immediately. Jocks, nerds, “cool” kids, and pretty girls all referred to me as toad instead of my given name of Mark. I was 13 years old, and the experience didn’t enhance my self-esteem. It also gave me a dim view of southern hospitality (our family had moved from Ohio), and after living in the South for over 45 years, I can confirm it is a myth. I saw a southern toad (Bufo terrestris) hopping in my yard the other day, and it brought back the unpleasant memory of being likened to an ugly amphibian. Nevertheless, it also reminded me that I’ve never written about this amazing Pleistocene survivor. Toads may seem insignificant, but they have outlasted many of the beautiful more dynamic animals that lived during the Pleistocene.
Southern toad. This species is common in my yard.Photo from Alamy.
Georgia is home to 2 species of true toads, 1 species of spadefoot toad, and 1 species of narrow-headed frog that is given the common name of toad. Southern toads are the most common species. They live in areas with sandy soils where they can burrow during the heat of the day. They hunt insects at night. After heavy rains, they breed and lay eggs in temporary pools where, if the pool doesn’t dry out, their tadpoles can metamorphize into adults. Fossil evidence of southern toads dating to the Pleistocene has been found at 6 sites in Florida and 1 site in Alabama. They were likely just as widespread then as now.
Oak toad. My neighborhood is close to the northern range limit for this species. I’ve seen small toads in my yard but they may be juvenile southern toads.Photo from pininterest.
Oak toads (Bufo quercicus) also prefer sandy soils and are common on coastal plain pine savannahs. This species is small, growing to just an inch in length. Fossil evidence of this species dating to the Pleistocene has been found at just 1 site in Florida (Reddick).
Eastern spade foot toad. They live in spiral burrows underground but emerge above ground to breed.
Eastern spade foot toads (Scaphiophus holbrooki) belong to the Pelobotidae family and are not closely related to true toads. They are named for a protuberance found on both feet that helps them dig deep spiral burrows where they spend most of their life, and for this reason they are rarely seen. Their burrows are much deeper than those of the true toads. After heavy rains, they emerge to breed and lay their eggs in temporary pools. This species is so well evolved to live in pine savannahs they can survive the light ground fires that occur in their environment. Fossil evidence of this species dating to the Pleistocene has been found at 10 sites in Florida.
The narrow-mouthed toad is not a true toad but belongs to the narrow-headed frog family.Photo from wild herps.
Narrow-mouthed toads (Gastrophyne carolinensis) are not true toads but instead belong to the narrow-headed frog family (Microhylidae). This species burrows near wetlands and spends much of its time in emergent wetland vegetation. They mostly eat ants. Fossil evidence of this species has been found at Ladds in northwest Georgia.
Woodhouse toads (Anaxyros woodhouseii) no longer occur on the southeastern coastal plain of North America, but their fossil remains have been found at sites in Florida and Alabama. The reason for their regional disappearance is a mystery. Perhaps, unlike other species of toads here, they are not well adapted to human set fires.
Toads secrete poisons that make them unpalatable to mammalian predators. However, toads do make up the majority of the hog-nosed snake’s diet. Toads do have a defense mechanism against the snakes too. They swell their bodies, making them hard for the snake to swallow. Sometimes this defense mechanism works and sometimes it does not.
GeorgiaBeforePeople 