A Blue-Spotted Vision

Although the temperature plummeted and rain ran off our jackets, our excitement and determination could not be dampened. Rubber boots tromped over soggy leaf litter, and hands grasped at every fallen log, flipping them over as we searched the forest. The Wild Wonders campers and I were on a mission, seeking out an animal who thrives in rainy conditions–the salamander.

Enthusiasm began to dwindle as each log we flipped yielded no amphibian friends. I began to wonder if we would be successful in our pursuit. Then, mid-flip of a log, a camper let out a yip of surprise. “Salamander!" In an instant, the other kids abandoned their own logs and dashed through the damp ferns to jockey for a closer look.

My excitement paralleled the campers. We had found a blue-spotted salamander! The little four-legged being waved their tail back and forth at us. To the campers, it seemed like the salamander was waiving hello. In reality, we were being told to back off. When feeling threatened, blue-spotted salamanders will stand their tail up and wind it back and forth in an S shape in an attempt to make themselves seem bigger and more threatening. It didn’t work to scare us off, but not wanting to cause more stress for our friend, we said goodbye and gently rolled the log back over their hiding spot.

Wild Wonders campers and their blue-spotted salamander! Photo by Heaven Walker.  

I had hoped that we'd find some kind of salamander on our rainy excursion, but seeing this particular species was a big surprise. Growing up in Iowa, I only knew of the blue-spotted salamander as being a rare, state endangered species only found in two counties. A little research soon told me that in Wisconsin they are common across most of the state. This got me thinking, why are blue-spotted salamanders endangered in Iowa, but not in Wisconsin?

Blue-spotted salamanders are forest dwellers. They are relatively secretive, taking cover under logs, leaf litter, and other forest debris to keep from being seen. Here in Wisconsin, they inhabit both hardwood and coniferous forests across the state. With roughly 46% of Wisconsin being covered in forest land, they have a wide range of potential habitat available. Comparatively, only 8% of Iowa is covered in forest habitat.

Blue-spotted salamanders also need vernal ponds for laying eggs and for their larvae to develop over several weeks. These ponds form in the spring, and are typically dried up by summer. Because the ponds dry up, they cannot support fish, and have fewer predators for salamander larvae.

Blue-spotted salamanders also like damp, sandy soil that’s easy for them to burrow into for the winter. Taking a look at forest cover and soil maps, I discovered that the two Iowa counties where blue-spotted salamanders are found have both sandy soil and a little bit of forest cover. Mystery solved!

Close up with a blue-spotted salamander. Photo by Emily Stone. 

On the other hand, there are two other Iowa counties that have the sandy soil and forest cover overlap but have no recorded populations of blue-spotted salamanders. Salamanders are sensitive to disturbances within their habitat. Habitat fragmentation can limit their access to breeding areas, cause fatalities when migrating to breeding ponds, and limit reproductive success. The siltation of vernal pools would also be detrimental to salamander populations. At a glance, the habitat may appear right, but without a closer look it is hard to be certain.

The longer I live in the Northwoods of Wisconsin, the more I find to appreciate about the diverse nature of this place. While there is some overlap in the flora and fauna of my home state and northern Wisconsin, I’m grateful for the opportunity to discover the differences between the two states, and encounter new plants and animals!

For more than 50 years, the Cable Natural History Museum has served to connect you to the Northwoods. Our Summer Calendar is open for registration! Visit our new exhibit, “Becoming the Northwoods: Akiing (A Special Place). Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and cablemuseum.org to see what we are up to.

Unexpected Hope

Rounding the bend in an old two-track road, our group gaped up at the huge greenish-gray pile of dust that towered above. With weeds growing on the sloped sides and back, and an almost vertical cliff facing us, the landform felt like a poor quality model of the magnificent Half-Dome in Yosemite National Park. Our boots made tracks in the fine sediment under our feet, and water had made tracks and grooves down the steep face of the pile.

Bill Tefft, leader of the Ely Field Naturalist group, explained to participants on the Cable Natural History Museum’s Landscape Ecology in Northern Minnesota program that this was the waste material from a long-closed operation that quarried greenstone bedrock, crushed it into material for asphalt shingles, and then made a pile the stuff that got too powdery. “It extends all the way down to the railroad tracks,” Bill told me as we peered over a steep, forested bank. Green Mountain wasn’t just the cliff, it was the entire area.

"Green Mountain" near Ely, MN

We followed the old two-track as it curved down around the side of the pile through thick forest. The group stopped and gawked in awe at the shore of a glimmering lake surrounded by artfully rugged greenstone cliffs. Calm water reflected the lovely patchwork of a mature forest. A few cattails took advantage of the shallow water where the gentle slope of this old road disappeared into the lake.

Participants on the Cable Natural History Museum’s Landscape Ecology in Northern Minnesota program gaze at the beautiful lake that has formed in an old greenstone quarry. Photo by Emily Stone.

According to Bill, the quarry operation had to stop about a hundred years ago when they unearthed a spring and water poured into the hole. Rumor has it that some of the mining equipment is still at the bottom. But why were we here on a natural history field trip?

Tom Fitz, geologist extraordinaire, explained that this greenstone bedrock represents a time in Earth’s history about 2.79 billion years ago when lava erupted from the seafloor in a world that was almost entirely ocean. Subsequent action by plate tectonics buried the hardened lava. Heat, pressure, and time transformed some of the components into greenish minerals, and it became a rock called greenstone that’s common around Ely, MN. This is some of the oldest rock exposed at Earth’s surface. Unnatural as they may feel, roadcuts and quarries provide some of the best opportunities to observe this slice of history.

Tom Fitz explains the formation of the Ely Greenstone in front of "Pillow Rock," a landmark in Ely, MN. Photo by Emily Stone.

I was just about ready to round up the group and move on when someone exclaimed over a pretty white flower among the weeds. Five luminous petals, each with translucent lines arcing gracefully toward the nectar reservoir in the center, provided the backdrop for a ring of delicate eyelashes tipped with glossy yellow spheres. I could barely believe my eyes!

Bog star or marsh grass-of-Parnassus is a lovely little flower of cool, damp places.
Photo by Emily Stone.

I first met bog star, or marsh grass-of-Parnassus, during my summer in Alaska while assisting with a snowshoe hare study in the Brooks Range. This little beauty captured my imagination immediately. Their range map includes most of Europe and plenty of other places in the Northern Hemisphere, but in Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Michigan, they are harder to find. Except where they’re not! Once we started looking, more than a dozen bog stars appeared among the weeds.

I first met Bog Star on my sabbatical to Alaska in the summer of 2018, and painted a postcard of it when I returned. 

The information in the iNaturalist app, when we used it to confirm their identification, mentioned that marsh grass-of-Parnassus is an indicator of the damp, calcareous soil in fens. Calcium-rich soil isn’t common in the Northwoods, since the ancient oceans that deposited limestone were mostly farther south. “Could there be something in the pulverized greenstone of the green mountain that would result in calcareous runoff?” I asked Tom. “Yes,” he answered. In fact, we’d just seen veins of the mineral calcite (calcium carbonate, the same mineral that’s in limestone) in a chunk of greenstone earlier that morning.

Bill Tefft shows us a giant drill core of greenstone. It was removed to provide air flow into an iron mine. Tom spotted calcite veins in the core. Photo by Emily Stone. 

After taking a zillion photos of these beautiful flowers, I stood to stretch my back and gaze out over the quarry lake again. How odd, I thought, that this rare friend would be growing in place so impacted by humans. And yet, sorting through old memories from Alaska, I realized that I’d found that first bog star in the gravel beneath the Trans-Alaska Pipeline that carries oil from Prudhoe Bay.

Can you spot the silver snake of the pipeline in the middle of the Brooks Range, Alaska?
Photo by Emily Stone.

For a moment, my delight in finding this flower diminished. Wouldn’t it be better to find them in a pristine wetland, untouched by the industrialized footprint of humans? But what part of the Earth is truly untouched? Not only have Indigenous peoples been living in relationship with the Northwoods ecosystem since the glaciers retreated, the impacts of modern humans include dropping mercury, microplastics, and DEET into even the most remote lakes, and changing the patterns of temperature and rainfall over wilderness and cities alike.

And yet wild nature, beautiful nature, survives. That doesn’t give us license to pollute and destroy without restraint. Instead, it gives me hope that if we are careful in how we use the Earth’s natural resources—Natural Gifts, in the words of Robin Wall Kimmerer—the ecosystems who sustain us can heal. With this thought, it was as if the Sun had emerged from a cloud, and the little white bog stars shone brightly again.

Emily’s award-winning second book, Natural Connections: Dreaming of an Elfin Skimmer, is available to purchase at www.cablemuseum.org/books and at your local independent bookstore, too. Natural Connections 3 will be published in November 2025!

For more than 50 years, the Cable Natural History Museum has served to connect you to the Northwoods. Our Fall Calendar is open for registration! Visit our new exhibit, “Becoming the Northwoods: Akiing (A Special Place). Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and cablemuseum.org to see what we are up to.

Further Observations of Forked Fungus Beetles

Katherine Woolley is about to start her junior year as an environmental education major at Western Colorado University. This summer, as a Summer Naturalist Intern at the Museum, she taught our Junior Naturalist programs and showed a real talent for finding and appreciating the oddest parts of nature.

I was dragging my feet on a sunny afternoon after a long day of sitting in front of my computer lesson planning and preparing supplies for my upcoming Junior Naturalist program I co-run with my fellow intern. I didn't really feel like going on a hike, but the urge to go see what my forked fungus beetles were up to ended up outweighing my desire to sit on the couch and never leave. Since my first sighting of them this summer, I've found plenty more shelf mushrooms that house beetles. Thanks to their stationary lifestyle, I have been able to get to know each pair quite well and identify their home polypore easily. Today, I was on my way to see my favorite male and his mate.

I spotted the male first. He was sitting on the highest point of the mushroom shelf like he was the king of the hill. Then I spotted his mate, who to my surprise, looked like she was sitting up. I knelt down and cocked my head to the side to get a better look. For beetles who usually crawl on all six legs, this was an unusual position. Was she laying eggs? I couldn't be quite sure.

I searched carefully for egg capsules in the spot where I first saw this beetle. Sure enough, there was a little line of eggs! Female forked fungus beetles lay 8 to 12 eggs on the surface of their polypore or just below the surface. Eggs are laid one at a time and then covered by a sticky black material created by the female. This material is placed to the side of each egg when it is first produced and then is spread over the egg using little hairs that grow on the underside of the female's abdomen.

Female Forked Fungus Beetle using her Ovipositor to lay eggs. 

Photo by Katheine Woolley

Focusing my attention back on the female’s current location, I witnessed more of the egg laying process. By this time the beetle was up higher on the fungus and I was able to see her ovipositor at work. Her ovipositor was small, black and cone-shaped with the narrower part toward the bottom. What a treat to see! Then I got just a little too close to her and she retracted her ovipositor back into her abdomen.

I was so enraptured with watching the egg laying that I almost missed the process that occurs before eggs can even be laid. On the fungus shelf to my right, I saw another female with a male directly on top of her. In an instant I realized what was happening and my face grew red. After the initial shock of interrupting an intimate moment between fungus beetles, I started to giggle.

Like many other insects, the copulation process begins when the male climbs onto the back of the female. In the case of forked fungus beetles, the male climbs on so he is facing the opposite direction of the female. Then the male will use his legs to hold onto the female's wing coverings that are called elytra. Forked fungus beetles have proven to have phenomenal grip strength, and they most certainly need it. The two forked horns that adorn the males’ heads are not just for show, they are for prying other mating males off of females. If male fungus beetles want to pass on their genetic material, they have to be really good at holding on to avoid getting dislodged by a competing male.

Forked Fungus Beetle Copulation.
Photo by Katherine Woolley

After I snapped some pictures, I realized I was definitely interrupting and should probably back off. I checked on the female who was laying her eggs just a minute ago, but she was gone. I scolded myself for getting too excited about documenting what I was seeing and scaring her away during such an important moment. I whispered an apology to all the beetles who occupied both of the fungi and backed away, promising to give them some space for the next few days. As I walked home, I was so grateful I had chosen to go on a hike that day even when I really didn't want to. If I hadn't, I wouldn't have gotten to watch beetle life in the making. Yet again, I was shown that walks on the Forest Lodge Nature Trail are truly never boring.

For more than 50 years, the Cable Natural History Museum has served to connect you to the Northwoods. Our Summer Calendar is open for registration! Visit our new exhibit, “Becoming the Northwoods: Akiing (A Special Place). Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and cablemuseum.org to see what we are up to.

Finding Forked Fungus Beetles

 

Katherine Woolley is about to start her junior year as an environmental education major at Western Colorado University. This summer, as a Summer Naturalist Intern at the Museum, she taught our Junior Naturalist programs and showed a real talent for finding and appreciating the oddest parts of nature.

A walk along the Forest Lodge Nature Trail is never boring. I was reveling in this fact as I took my evening meander through the large trunks of towering trees. To my left, I spotted a shelf fungus clinging to the bark of a half-decayed paper birch stump. Creeping closer to investigate, I peered up, to the side, then the other side. Then I crouched down and took a good look at the underside of the fungus, my eyes squinting in the bright evening light. I squealed with delight. There they were! Two forked fungus beetles were nestled in the corner of their polypore home.

Despite being one of my favorite insects, this was only the second time I had ever been gifted with their presence. My first encounter with forked fungus beetles was almost two years ago but only a few miles away on a Northland College field trip to the Forest Lodge Estate on the south shore of Lake Namakagon. While there, a fellow classmate and I roamed the grounds together. We first spotted a shelf mushroom, and then when investigating further, spotted a weird brown bump. Looking closer, the bump had legs, antennae, was moving, and was not actually a bump at all, but an insect.

Female forked fungus beetles lack forked horns. Photo by Katherine Woolley.

With a gasp of awe, I called my other classmates and professor over to see this amazing creature, but not a single one of us had ever seen one before. Later I found out through the iNaturalist app that this insect was a forked fungus beetle. These beetles only live east of the Mississippi River. Until my move to Wisconsin from where I had grown up in Minnesota, I had lived west of their range. After that encounter, my friend and I spent the following summer scouring the forests to find another beetle, but to no avail. That made it even more thrilling to spot these two beetles this summer.

Male forked fungus beetles have two horns that they use to fight with other males. Photo by Katherine Woolley.

The particular mushroom where I spotted the beetles that day was filled top to bottom with a wide and intricate network of holes. While searching for beetles, I discovered that holes like the ones I saw are a great indicator that fungus beetles are present. This is because their larvae are the ones who create these holes by burrowing inside the woody polypore after they hatch from eggs that are laid on the outside of the mushroom.

Once inside the polypore, the beetle larvae go through their final two stages of metamorphosis—pupae and then fully formed beetles—rather peacefully by giving each other a wide birth. Even so, if a larva happens to stumble across a pupa who is still forming into a beetle inside the mushroom, they may eat that pupa! Pupae who survive the hungry mouths of their brothers and sisters emerge from their pupal cases a pale whitish yellow. After emergence, the beetles stay in their cases for a few days until they develop their characteristic deep woody brown and wet-bark-black colors.

Forked fungus beetles can spend the winter in either the adult or larval stage. Adults hide safely tucked into fungus, stumps, logs, and other decaying wood to wait for warmer weather. The larvae stay snug inside the polypore tunnels and then start their transformation in spring. Generations of the same beetle family will live on the same mushroom for up to nine years, moving onto a different polypore when the clutter of holes becomes unlivable.

An old polypore home abandoned by forked fungus beetles. Photo by Katherine Woolley.

After I snapped some pictures, I wondered if I kept coming back to this stump if I would see them again. When forked fungus beetles are born, they don't often go far. These beetles can fly, but they very rarely do. I took a final look at the shelf mushroom, looking for eggs. Finding none, I bid my beetle friends farewell. As I traveled farther down the trail, I stopped at every shelf mushroom with hopes to discover more fungus beetle strongholds, but there were none. I suppose their elusiveness is part of what makes seeing them such a treat. I smiled in gratitude at their stump on my way home.

For more than 50 years, the Cable Natural History Museum has served to connect you to the Northwoods. Our Summer Calendar is open for registration! Visit our new exhibit, “Becoming the Northwoods: Akiing (A Special Place). Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and cablemuseum.org to see what we are up to.

Seeds on the Move By Kylie Tatarka

Kylie Tatarka is about to start her senior year as an environmental science major at Rochester Institute of Technology. This summer, as a Summer Naturalist Intern at the Museum, she taught our Junior Naturalist programs and spearheaded the creation of the online “Becoming the Northwoods” exhibit.

While leading a group of Junior Naturalists from Wayside Wanderings Natural Play Area back to the Cable Natural History Museum, we came across a field covered in snow. Snow? In July? What we actually saw was a blanket of aspen seeds across the lawn. These seeds are attached to cotton and when they detach from the seed pods in June, the wind picks them up and carries them away to a new home.

The fluffy coating on aspen seeds carpets the grass like snow in July. Photo by Kylie Tatarka.

Maple seeds also disperse on the wind, using a helicopter spin to move farther from their parent tree and find more space to grow. As a kid I enjoyed when maple tree seeds were falling from their trees, as the helicopter seeds fell in mesmerizing flights through my town parks. My sisters and I would pick them up and force them to whirl downwards again as the wind blew them around.

Seeing the aspen-covered ground reminded me of a tree that is more common in my home state of New York, the eastern cottonwood tree, which is a relative of the aspen with similar cotton-tufted seeds. I grew an affection for these trees while leading a seed dispersal hike. With the kids, we discovered examples of seeds that are dispersed by wind, water, animals, gravity, and bursting. Now I’m always on the lookout for plants with interesting methods of seed dispersal.

While exploring Lake Namakagon in a kayak this summer, I ran into a plant that I don’t often see in New York, the yellow water lily. Their seed heads burst open and the seeds fall onto the surface of the pond or lake where they live. The seeds are then transported to new locations through the movement of the water, reaching places far from their parent plant.

Yellow water lilies produce seeds that float to new homes. Photo by Emily Stone.

Plants living beside water can also have seeds transported by water, as long as their seeds float, which is the case for the example I used in my dispersal hike, the weeping willow. This tree thrives on the shorelines of ponds and lakes. Their seeds have a light, fluffy casing, similar to the aspen and cottonwood trees, which allows for the seeds to float on top of water.

The next example from the seed dispersal hike has been the most memorable to me. Why? It contained every kid’s favorite topic, poop! Wild grapes are eaten by animals who then poop out the seeds. This fact always forced a pause in the hike so that all of the laughing kids could breathe again. Once they were calm, I explained that the seeds are pooped out into a new part of the environment which helps in creating less competition between the wild grape plants. Since moving to Wisconsin, I’ve been on the lookout for bear scat full of berry seeds, too.

Bursting, or ballistic dispersal may be the most exciting form of seed dispersal. I haven’t seen this yet, but many of my fellow naturalists have raved about the jewelweed's seed pods. When the seed ripens in August, any touch will cause them to burst open and a spring loaded mechanism will send the seeds flying. I can’t wait to witness that!

Jewelweed flower. Photo by Emily Stone. 

 

Jewelweed seed pod. Photo by Emily Stone. 

Jewelweed burst seed pod. Photo by Emily Stone. 

The mechanism of each seed and how it is transported is a result of centuries of evolution. However, the ability to be dispersed does not guarantee the success of germination for the seeds. A maple tree can produce thousands of seeds a year, but only a small percentage of those will sprout and even fewer will become trees. Dispersal only works if it brings the seed to a site that has the conditions of growth that the seed needs.

Whether they grow or not, each seed is crafted with adaptations to help them disperse. Each seed is special and carries long evolved characteristics that we may or may not think of on a daily basis until it looks like it's snowing in July.

For more than 50 years, the Cable Natural History Museum has served to connect you to the Northwoods. Our Summer Calendar is open for registration! Visit our new exhibit, “Becoming the Northwoods: Akiing (A Special Place). Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and cablemuseum.org to see what we are up to.

Boundary Waters Beauty

Growing up, my dad used to call me his “mud and water daughter.” It was a fitting title, since I spent most of the summer mixing various concoctions of mud pies under the playhouse and squirting things with the hose. As an adult, though, I am more of a “bedrock and water daughter,” and I thrive in the places where waves lap on crystalline shores.

Several times over the past 15 years working at the Museum, I have shared my love of such places by taking a small group of Museum members to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in northeastern Minnesota, which just happens to be my favorite place on Earth. I’m not alone in my opinion. The Boundary Waters is the most visited wilderness in the United States, with more than 250,000 annual visitors.

Why do we love it so much? Many have waxed poetic about its beauty. On those trips we slipped through a meandering river lined with golden stands of wild rice, watched a sunrise through the swirling fog from a pink granite knob, and ran out from under the tarp to marvel at a rainbow that began and ended right in our bay. We paddled under towering cliffs of well-worn stone, painted by eons of dripping water and softened by an intricate crust of lichens. We marveled at the endless variety of clouds in the sky, and became mesmerized by their glimmering reflections in the silky medium that supported our thin-walled canoes.

The Boundary Waters is beautiful, but that’s only part of it. What really keeps people coming back, I believe, is the way this place helps us to challenge ourselves. When you cut out the excess, the superfluous, and the mess, and fit everything necessary for a week or two of life into a single, green pack, life becomes simple. There is an incredible sense of freedom in this knowledge of self-sufficiency. This freedom feels all the more sweet when it comes with manageable challenges and a means to test our mettle.

Both the challenge and the teamwork of paddling and portaging forge connections on a trip to the Boundary Waters. Photo by Emily Stone.

Portaging the canoe over steep and muddy trails is not easy. Paddling into a fierce headwind fatigues both the arms and the will. Living with our mistakes (a forgotten food item, too much heavy gear, a wet sleeping bag), can hurt our pride as much as our bodies. Our sense of accomplishment at the end of a long day isn’t due to our conquering the wilderness, it’s because we conquered ourselves. And, a hot meal and the wail of a loon at moonrise don’t hurt.

This place would be nothing without clean water. It seems obvious, but it bears repeating. Not only is the water our highway, but clean, drinkable water is our lifeblood. To dip a potful right out of the lake and be able to simply filter, treat, or boil it to make it safe is amazing. You can’t do that everywhere. I wouldn’t do that from the river I grew up with.

While observing the people who’ve joined me on the trips, I am always reminded that water doesn’t mean the same thing to everyone. Ed found his peace in fishing, and paddled out into a flurry of whitecaps to test his skill. We ate well from his efforts. JoAnn slipped reverently into the water each afternoon for a graceful swim along the shore. She found joy in this glassy cradle. Others preferred just to admire the sparkling view, or relax to the serene lapping of waves. I love drinking the wilderness waters, as Mary Oliver says, “flavored with oak leaves and also, no doubt, the feet of ducks.”

A quarter of a million people visit the Boundary Waters each year to paddle, fish, swim, drink, and test themselves in the presence of beauty. What would we do without this vast reservoir of personal challenges and clean water? But a proposed sulfide-ore copper mine on the edge of the wilderness—one that would certainly pollute an entire watershed of currently pristine waters—is being fought over at both the state and federal levels. With this threat looming, I’m even more grateful for each day I get to spend with the clean lakes of Boundary Waters.

This September we’ll be exploring the beautiful Kelso River during another trip to the Boundary Waters. Photo by Emily Stone

I’m also grateful for yet another chance to connect Museum members with my favorite place on Earth this September during a four-day Natural History Paddle in the Boundary Waters. We’ll learn the unique skills that are necessary to travel in this beautiful place, make our home at a cozy campsite, swim in the warmth of a sunny afternoon, paddle through a slow and winding river to a magical bog with a mysterious rock, and enjoy the peace that comes from a few days connected to nature instead of the internet. Find more information at cablemuseum.org.

Water reflects not only clouds and trees and cliffs, but all the infinite variations of mind and spirit we bring to it.

– Sigurd Olson

Author’s Note: Portions of this article are reprinted from 2016.

Emily’s award-winning second book, Natural Connections: Dreaming of an Elfin Skimmer, is available to purchase at www.cablemuseum.org/books and at your local independent bookstore, too. Natural Connections 3 is in the works—and needs illustrators from the community! Find out more at: https://www.cablemuseum.org/books/

For more than 50 years, the Cable Natural History Museum has served to connect you to the Northwoods. Our Summer Calendar is open for registration! Visit our new exhibit, “Becoming the Northwoods: Akiing (A Special Place). Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and cablemuseum.org to see what we are up to.

Looking Into the Lives of Dragonflies

Upon spotting the green dragonfly resting close enough for me to capture, I knew I had to try. With my kayak nestled into the grassy bank of the Namekagon River, I snapped a few photos of my target and began to reach my hand out slowly. But when my fingers gently grasped the dragonfly, I was horrified to find that it was squishy rather than the typical hard feeling of an exoskeleton. My hand shot back to my side in an instant, repulsed. My first thought was that the dragonfly was dead and waterlogged.

Not interested in a squishy, dead dragonfly, my attention drifted and I let myself be absorbed by the scenic setting of the Namekagon River. It wasn’t until my eyes meandered back over to the dragonfly that I realized they had moved! Rather than being lower on the blade of grass, they were now several inches higher.

My curiosity piqued, I inched my kayak closer. That’s when I spotted the brown, empty shell of the nymph’s exoskeleton. Beginning to put the pieces of the puzzle together, I realized the dragonfly that I had tried to capture was a freshly emerged adult who had just burst out of their final molt!

A teneral boreal snaketail dragonfly, freshly emerged.

Using a dragonfly guide book, I keyed in on the bright green coloration, and club-shaped abdomen, identifying the dragonfly as a boreal snaketail. These dragonflies are found near cold northern streams and rivers, and males can be spotted flying up and down the water, patrolling their territory.

The boreal snaketail’s aquatic life started when an egg was deposited into the Namekagon River by a female dragonfly tapping her abdomen on the top of the water as she flew by. The snaketail’s egg sinks through the water, and settles into the riverbed. Days later, a small nymph hatched out of the egg. Most of their life was spent as a nymph, swimming through the water looking for their next meal. In general, dragonfly nymphs are voracious predators, eating zooplankton, aquatic invertebrates, and even small fish!

A key part of a dragonfly nymph’s success as a tiny-but-mighty aquatic predator is their extendable hinged jaw, or labium. Think of it as an extra arm that shoots out to snatch prey before bringing it to their mouth. If that’s not cool enough, the labium is hydraulically powered! To propel their deadly grabber, a nymph draws in water through their body and compresses their abdomen, creating pressure that pushes out their labium in a matter of milliseconds, snatching prey as they swim by.

The nymph's ravenous appetite fuels their growth. This causes them to molt multiple times–shedding their exoskeleton as they grow bigger and bigger, much like a kid who keeps outgrowing their clothes. Depending on the species, a dragonfly nymph undergoes between five to fourteen molts before finally emerging as an adult. When they are ready to begin their transformation, the nymph makes their way to the edge of the water, scouting for a place to emerge. Once they have found a suitable location, they’ll sit in shallow water for several days, poking their head above the water as their body changes inside their exoskeleton, slowly shifting to breathing air.

Emergence–the act of a nymph transitioning into an adult dragonfly–begins as the nymph grabs vegetation and hauls themself above the water. Once in position, they hook into their perch with their forelegs, and begin to transform. The skin behind their head splits first, letting their thorax push through. As the crack travels farther down their back, the head, wings, legs, and part of the abdomen are pushed out. Now only attached to their old exoskeleton by their abdomen, they take a break, waiting for their new body parts to harden. Grabbing their old exoskeleton, they pull their abdomen free, and shed their final connection to their life as a nymph.

An emerging boreal snaketail dragonfly and its exuvia. 

These newly emerged adult dragonflies are called tenerals, and are very susceptible to predation. Their wings are shiny and new, but lack fully developed wing muscles, hindering their ability to escape predators. Birds are the main predator of ternal dragonflies, but even rainfall or strong winds pose a threat to their still-hardening exoskeleton. Regardless, they take off in a weak flight, eating as many insects as they can. It takes roughly a week for them to gain their adult colors, strong flight abilities, and a fully hardened exoskeleton. Once they are a full adult, they are incredible aerial predators who catch their prey 95% of the time!

Not wanting to disturb the teneral boreal snaketail dragonfly more than I already had, I continued down the river. My mind was swimming with excitement around witnessing the boreal snaketail’s emergence. I was privy to an intimate part of an animal's life, and I could not be more grateful for this moment.

For more than 50 years, the Cable Natural History Museum has served to connect you to the Northwoods. Our Summer Calendar is open for registration! Visit our new exhibit, “Becoming the Northwoods: Akiing (A Special Place). Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and cablemuseum.org to see what we are up to.