The Lonely Loon

“Is that a loon?” Kevin pointed at a dark shape, just barely visible in the gray light of a cloudy afternoon. We aimed our paddleboards for a closer look. The shape turned sideways—showing the distinctive loon profile—then peered below the surface, then dove. Classic loon.

Smiling, I thought back to early summer sightings of this individual, when they bobbed like a brown fluffball next to parents and sibling. This loon family had the earliest hatch and oldest chicks within the range of my Loon Pontoon Tours all summer. By late July, both chicks had molted into their smooth, light brown juvenile plumage, but they were still begging for food from their parents.

By mid-September, this young loon on Lake Namakagon was already in full juvenile plumage. Photo by Emily Stone.

Now this juvenile seemed to be all alone. This is typical for loons. Adults migrate first. They need to get to the ocean or a large lake before they start to molt their flight feathers, since this renders them flightless for a time. Juveniles hang around a bit longer to build up fat stores and gain wing strength by flapping across the water. As long as they head south before the lakes freeze and their runway for takeoff is closed off, they should be fine. How they navigate to a place they’ve never been may always be a mystery.

“Look!” Kevin pointed just over my shoulder, where the juvenile loon had popped up moments before. We watched in awe as the loon cocked their head one way and then the other to examine us odd-looking ducks. When the loon swam closer, we held our breath until, with barely a ripple, they dove. Our grins and delighted exclamations were interrupted when the loon surfaced again, even closer. Were they lonely? Was this the runt of the family? Will they have the time and the strength to migrate?

This juvenile loon swam over to investigate Kevin on his paddleboard last week on Lake Namakagon. Photo by Emily Stone.

The period from when a juvenile loon leaves their natal lake to when they return three years later as an adult is mysterious and dangerous. By banding chicks and attempting to observe them again as adults, one study in northeastern Wisconsin has found that the juvenile survival rate has fallen from 41% in 2000 to 12.7% in 2019. Are they starting their teenage years with fewer energy reserves? Are there new dangers in the coastal waters where they feed?

Despite the dangers that still await this bird, they are lucky to have made it through the chick stage. A groundbreaking study from Birds Canada that brought together data from 49 years (1975–2023), 9 Canadian provinces, and 7 U.S. states just reported that the number of chicks reaching six weeks of age has declined by an average of 40% across North America.

There are many theories on what could be causing the decline in chick survival. Is volatile spring weather to blame? Have black flies chased too many loons off their nests? Has increased shoreline development infringed on their nesting habitat? Are raccoons and eagles eating more eggs, chicks, or adults? Have declines in water quality reduced food or made loons sick?

These may all be factors, but in the northeastern Wisconsin study area, researchers think that increased rainfall due to climate change is the main reason that fewer chicks are surviving, and the ones who do survive weigh less. A single storm can flood a nest or swamp the chicks. Rain washes fertilizers and other pollutants into the water. Sediment makes the water cloudy right away, and subsequent algae growth makes the problem worse. If a loon can’t see, they can’t catch fish. Canadian researchers are now testing the impacts of water clarity across their study areas, too.

The loon popped up again. I thought back to 2020, the last year I volunteered for the population survey. For decades in Wisconsin, loons have been monitored by the LoonWatch program, which was formerly housed within Northland College and recently spun off into its own non-profit with the Sigurd Olson Environmental Institute.

LoonWatch conducted a statewide loon population survey every 5 years, and found that populations were stable. The trick was that the survey was really good at counting loon pairs on territories, but loon population dynamics are really good at making sure that all available nesting territories are occupied each year. If a member of a nesting pair dies, they will be replaced immediately by a “floater” loon who was biding their time. For now, there are enough floater loons to keep the territories full. But with the decreasing reproduction rates and juvenile survival rates, scientists are worried that we’ll soon start to see significant declines in our favorite northern diver.

There is hope, though. Even though we can’t change the weather, humans can do a lot to reduce runoff and improve water quality, as benefits from the Clean Water Act and Clean Air Act showed. Education and legislation restricting the sale and use of lead fishing tackle in Vermont and New Hampshire have increased the survival of adult loons there, and more states could follow suit. We can live and recreate with care around loons to reduce death by propeller hits, fishing line, and habitat loss. We all can help make sure this loon doesn’t get even more lonely.

Learn more at the Science on Tap event at the Deep Water Grille in Ashland, Wis. on November 17, at 6:30 p.m. I will be talking about loons!

Emily’s award-winning third book, Natural Connections3: A Web Endlessly Woven, is available to purchase at www.cablemuseum.org/books and at your local independent bookstore, too.

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! The Museum’s new exhibit, The Wetland Way is now open! Discover how life thrives at the intersection of soil and water, and why we must care for these special places as they care for us. Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and cablemuseum.org to see what we are up to.

Winding Our Way Toward Winter

The forest of fall colors visible from my favorite rocky knob were past peak, but yellow, green, and orange aspen leaves still glowed among the gray twigs of the maples. Temperatures were sinking in tandem with the sun, so I didn’t tarry too long on this after-work hike. A flash of movement on the narrow trail snapped me out of my thoughts and brought me up short.

The garter snake must have been using the last rays of sun to warm themselves in the middle of the trail. Being ectothermic and using the environment instead of their metabolism to regulate their temperature means that snakes need less than one tenth of the food required by a mammal of a similar size. It’s very efficient, except when the warmest surfaces are traversed by humans.

My eyes barely registered the snake’s dart to safety and still my brain knew exactly what was going on. Once we were both frozen in place, it took me several moments to spot the parallel ribbons of black and pale green in the dry leaves on the edge of the trail. Their red, forked tongue darted out to gather chemicals from the breeze. Head up, their long, muscular body tensed and then began moving forward, the back half of their body tracing the same sinuous path that their front half pioneered. Where would they go?

I was mesmerized by the effortlessness of their movement back across the rough dirt path. It brought back physical memories of roller skating as a kid and the challenge of propelling myself forward using only subtle pressure on the insides and then the outsides of my wheels. Even as the snake climbed a small slope of bedrock, I could see how slight curves of their body found purchase on slight irregularities on the rock and conspired with the scales on their belly to enable forward movement. This technique is called serpentine motion, and is the most common way for garter snakes to move.

On especially slippery surfaces, garter snakes might attempt a sidewinding motion, but it’s not as coordinated as when a desert snake loops around to avoid touching hot sand. In confined spaces, where S-curves are limited, garter snakes may expand forward, hook their scales on some small notch, and then pull the rest of their body along in a motion resembling an accordion.

Nosing between two rocks, the snake seemed to be searching for something. But no, that wasn’t the place. They swung around and moved along the base of the rock until reaching a long crack. Tongue flickering in apparent recognition, they lifted their head up toward a wide place in the crevice, nosed in, and began disappearing into the dark. Their stripes flowed forward as if the rock was slurping them up like a long, wet spaghetti noodle.

And then the snake was gone.

Using the flashlight on my phone, I peered into the crevice. A smooth tunnel of soil vanished into the earth. What lay beneath? This outcrop of rock had been a jumbled flow of ‘A‘ā lava just 1.1 billion years ago during the Mid-Continent Rift. Over its life of being buried and excavated, the rock had become both more smooth and more fractured. Although the volcanic heat was long gone, the warmth of the summer sun would be stored in the bedrock. As long as the snake could wiggle their way below the frost line where the temperature would remain above freezing, this would be a good place to spend the winter.

Large numbers of garter snakes often gather in crevices like this one, or burrows or basements, to snuggle in and share body heat throughout the winter. In their hibernacula, these cold-blooded beings enter brumation, which is a slowing of their metabolism, breathing, and heart rate that is similar to hibernation.

Thinking back, I can remember seeing a garter snake in this exact spot at least one other time. And I’m pretty sure that the front of a hiking group saw them several more times while I was at the back helping people down the steep slope from the overlook. It would make sense, since good hibernacula are used year after year.

Tummy rumbling, I sped up on my way back to the car. The snake’s belly was likely even emptier than mine, since they make a point to stop eating well before brumation. It’s best if all of their frog snacks or toad tidbits are digested and absorbed before their systems shut down, or else the food will decay instead of digest and make them ill. Perhaps they had been sunning themselves in the trail in order speed the processing of their final fall meal.

No sun remained now, as both the day and the season darkened toward the coming winter.

Emily’s award-winning third book, Natural Connections3: A Web Endlessly Woven, is available to purchase at www.cablemuseum.org/books and at your local independent bookstore, too.

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! The Museum’s new exhibit, The Wetland Way is now open! Discover how life thrives at the intersection of soil and water, and why we must care for these special places as they care for us. Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and cablemuseum.org to see what we are up to.

Woodland Walks with Lois Nestel

“Autumn has trailed light fingers across the byways and in the wake of that cool touch, the leaves flush or blanch and sink earthward in a silent swoon…The passing of days is swift and soon the glory will fade to the dun shades that precede winter’s snow.”    – Lois Nestel, Wayside Wanderings.

With nearly constant travel and busyness during these last two months, I feel a bit untethered and adrift. The autumn woods are golden, and chickadees call cheerfully from their newly re-formed winter flocks, but it’s difficult to get my attention to rest on any one subject. In times like these, I find it’s helpful to turn to a wise friend and elder for guidance. And so, I’ve pulled together a few of Lois Nestle’s essays from the Museum’s archives. Lois was the Museum’s founding Naturalist and Director. In these, she captures both my mood and the antidote. Take a deep breath of the crisp fall air and enjoy!

“Winds of change are sweeping across the land, wiping out the last vestiges of the summer past and ushering in the bleak kinsman, winter. Angrily the winds have torn away the last dry leaves, battered the heavy-needled pines and contemptuously knocked aside trees too weak to withstand the onslaught. In their wake, soon now, will come the cold and snow and we, who have not fled, begin settling into the routine winter brings.

“Perhaps it is because garden time is over and I haven’t found a suitable substitute. Perhaps it is because the season has not yet become full-fledged but balances on an emotional teeter-totter, even as I. Perhaps a lot of things—the fact remains that I am impatient—impatient with the shortening days and my seeming inability to function efficiently in artificial light, impatient that tasks undone forever seem to multiply instead of lessening.

“The weather is a handy scapegoat. One day soon the sun will shine, this mood will pass and some new enthusiasm will have me reaching for the moon again.

“As we walk through field and woodland these lovely autumn days, we perform an important, though unintentional service, that of helping to disburse a variety of seeds. Who has not come home with socks, jacket, or pants matted with innumerable small seeds or spent an hour picking, pulling, or cutting burrs from the fur of a favorite pet?

“Many, many are the plants who see to the distribution and continuation of their kind by letting their seeds literally hook a ride on whatever available creature that passes. Hooks they have, which so easily catch on fur or clothing that one is unaware of touching anything. Once attached they are tenacious, defying removal by all but the most tedious effort.

Milkweed seeds prepare to be borne on the winds of autumn by silken parachutes.
Photo by Emily Stone.

“A plant is a stationary object and as such must use whatever resources are possible to maintain and regenerate itself. These resources run the gamut of inventiveness. Some, like dandelions, milkweed, and thistles have their seeds borne on the wind by silken parachutes. Some rely on edible fruits whose seeds are dropped far and wide through discarding, in feces or, as in the case of nuts and acorns, their being cached by ambitious rodents and birds. Some are explosive, their seed capsules opening with a violent and audible pop, shooting showers of seeds in all directions. Some are in shaker pods while others glide and twirl on vagrant breezes. All are ingenious devices to accomplish a necessary end. The bird-carried seed may go the farthest, but the hitch-hiking burr gets the vote for sheer tenacity.

“One of the last really summery days we spent a lovely afternoon, my dear friend and I. It had been far too long since we had walked and talked and enjoyed the out-of-doors in our own special way. We shared the scenery and gathered treasures here and there. Nature spread her bounty along road and trail sides and of its wealth we gratefully partook.

A walk with a dear friend in the autumn woods is a chance to “seize the bright and gentle moments to treasure now and again in memory…” Photo by Emily Stone.

“Elderberries hung their purple heads for us to gather. Wild hops festooned the trees and shrubs and yielded papery strobiles to eager hands. In the woodlands there were mushrooms to collect and amid the tangles of greenbrier and wild clematis there were, for sampling, the sweetness of black haws and the fire red, acid fruits of high bush cranberries. We dug hog peanuts for the bean sized, crunchy nuts they bore and gathered cattails for their down.

“Reviving memories of other woodland walks, we created new ones to see us through the busy to days come. It’s autumn now and there is much to do before the snow and cold arrives. Almost as quickly as the clouds cover the harvest moon, the days fly by. We must seize the bright and gentle moments to treasure now and again in memory. All the beauty, all the plentitude awaits us, yet—too often—we are too busy to know or care.”

I’ll be heading outside soon to seize some bright and gentle moments that will see me through the busy days to come. I hope you will, too!

Emily’s award-winning third book, Natural Connections3: A Web Endlessly Woven, is available to purchase at www.cablemuseum.org/books and at your local independent bookstore, too.

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! The Museum’s new exhibit, The Wetland Way is now open! Discover how life thrives at the intersection of soil and water, and why we must care for these special places as they care for us. Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and cablemuseum.org to see what we are up to.

Fall Food and Wild Fellowship in the Boundary Waters

When my friend Deb and I launched my canoe on Gunflint Lake in Northeastern Minnesota, the gentle tailwind that pushed us north toward the narrows could not have been more different than the gusty first day of the Museum’s Boundary Waters trip in early September. I had spent a week in the front country catching up on emails and packing another round of food. Then I headed back into the Wilderness.

On a gorgeous, late September day, Deb and I slipped in nine miles before lunch, and were thrilled to find a quiet campsite in James Bay. Or so we thought. It was far enough away from the Saganaga Corridor that the rumble of motorboats barely reached us and the neighboring campsite stayed unoccupied, but the sunny hillside soon became a hive of activity. It started when a streak of movement materialized into the racing stripes of a least chipmunk coming to investigate our lunch on the slab of pale pink Saganaga Granite.

A chipmunk investigates my bag of gorp at our campsite on James Bay in Saganaga Lake. Photo by Deb Gens.

The mini-bear darted close, then scurried off, posing motionless for brief moments to survey the area for danger. From the top of a lichen-covered rock, they sounded their characteristic clucking alarm call, tail hiccupping with each repetition. Even though they sniffed hard at my little baggie of trail mix, I made sure the chipmunk never got a single peanut. Cute though they are, feeding wildlife at campsites is a recipe for problems.

They seemed to be finding their own food just fine anyway. Pulling long blades of grass through tiny paws, they nibbled on the seedheads. Scrambling acrobatically up a birch sapling, they grabbed catkins from the most slender of twig tips. And, upon hearing a rustle in an overgrown area behind the fire grate, we discovered a chipmunk feasting on the tiny red fruits of a hawthorn bush. As we watched, what we thought was a single chipmunk morphed into three individuals scurrying busily around the campsite.

Chipmunks are usually solitary, so this furry flurry likely included Mom and two almost-independent offspring. Starting in October, chipmunks head underground and go through cycles when their body temperature drops from 94 degrees to the ambient temperature of their burrow—around 40 degrees. During these periods of hibernation, their heartbeat slows from their normal rate (which is up to 350 beats per hyper, stress-filled minute) down to 4 beats per minute. Every few days throughout the winter, the chipmunks will warm up, wake up, and feed on food they stored during this glorious fall weather.

Later, as Deb and I shared a pot of chili for supper, a rustle in the bush behind the fire grate gave away the position of a ruffed grouse. The Ham Lake Fire burned over our route in 2007, and the regenerating forests of aspen, birch, and other sun-loving shrubs are perfect habitat for these beautiful birds.

Precariously positioned on the flexible stems, she stretched her neck to rip at the scarlet rose hips like a cat playing with a Christmas tree. When she hopped down, we lost sight of her, until she reappeared in the same hawthorn bush where the chipmunks had been earlier. On an excursion into the woods, I was entertained by another grouse ripping leaves from the quaking aspen trees overhead. These are all typical fall foods for “wood hens,” before they transition to the buds on aspen and birch trees out of necessity and their gizzards and digestive tracts grow to accommodate the tough, bulky, winter food.

Fall isn’t just about feeding. During our first evening on Clove Lake, Deb had been startled by the black neck ruff and fanned tail of a male grouse in full display while a female watched from a nearby fir tree. This time of year, as the young disperse, the established males will drum and display to make sure that no “young buck” usurps their breeding territory and associated drumming log before next spring.

This handsome fella entertained us for several minutes on our first night. 

With our bear-resistant food canister closed up and squares of chocolate eaten, Deb and I chatted in the setting sun. When we fell into a contented silence, a family of beavers on the far side of the lake took up the thread of conversation with their adorable grunts. We’d paddled past several active beaver lodges on our trip, each with a good supply of willow and aspen twigs stashed out front in their “beaver freezer.” All winter long, the parents, this year’s kits, and any surviving siblings from the previous year will have access to the twigs from under the ice, and will tote snacks up into the lodge’s feeding platform for family dinners.

This beaver lodge on the Granite River has a “beaver freezer” full of aspen and willow twigs. Over the winter, beavers will bring sticks into their lodge and nibble at the nutritious cambium. 

The chipmunks, grouse, and beavers have the right idea, I think. Fall is the perfect season for enjoying good food and fellowship whether you’re at a campsite with friends, in a lodge made of sticks, or at your community’s harvest dinner. What friends are you going to celebrate the season with next?

Emily’s award-winning third book, Natural Connections3: A Web Endlessly Woven, is available to purchase at www.cablemuseum.org/books and at your local independent bookstore, too.

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! The Museum’s new exhibit, The Wetland Way is now open! Discover how life thrives at the intersection of soil and water, and why we must care for these special places as they care for us. Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and cablemuseum.org to see what we are up to.

Modes of Misery

“In many ways, a canoe trip is an endlessly repeated exercise in various modes of misery, each one a contrast—therefore, a relief, albeit temporary—to the misery preceding it. So there is always the illusion of looking forward to something that will most likely be…another misery.” –Douglas Wood, Paddle Whispers pg. 107.

The Sweetness of Death in Autumn

“Something smells nice right here,” commented my fiancé as we hiked over a rock outcrop strewn with sun-warmed, yellowed birch leaves. The sweet aroma of autumn comes when microbes break down sugars that trees manufactured in the height of summer. Before letting them go, the tree pulled nitrogen and phosphorus out of the leaves and into the twigs, where the molecules will remain on deck to fuel next spring’s leaf growth. But the tree doesn’t need to save every last molecule of sugar.

Yellowing birch leaves smell wonderful in autumn! Photo by Emily Stone. 

His comment got me started thinking about the juxtaposition of life and death in fall.

I’ve been admiring the rich colors of dying ferns in the road ditches, for example. But only this year’s growth is dead. Just like the trees, the ferns are allowing fragile, ephemeral parts of themselves to whither in order to protect their main roots and rhizomes under the soil. These hardy, perennial structures will send up a new ensemble of fiddleheads in the spring.

Cinnamon ferns draw chlorophyll and other nutrients out of their leaves and into their underground stems. They will send up new fiddleheads in the spring. Photo by Emily Stone.

Cinnamon fern fiddleheads will appear right here in spring! Photo by Emily Stone. 

The bergamot flowers in the Museum’s pollinator gardens have shed their purple petals. But the dry brown bobbles that remain atop their stems don’t represent death—they are developing seeds that will initiate the next generation.

Bergamot flowers have already gone to seed. Although the above-ground parts die back, next spring they will sprout from both the roots and the seeds. Photo by Emily Stone.

Some of the goldenrod has already turned into fluffy seedheads, too, with crinkly brown leaves below. Pollen-filled plumes of yellow still dominate the patch, though, and these were crawling with life in the midday sunshine. Northern paper wasps were the most abundant visitors. These are the architects of the papier-mâché nests in the honeycomb pattern with no outer covering. At this point in the summer, most of the colony is waiting to die. It’s just one part of their annual cycle.

Goldenrod going to seed. Photo by Emily Stone. 

The paper wasp’s genus, Polistes, means “founder of a city.” Each spring, a queen emerges from hibernation and starts a colony, sometimes in partnership with another young queen. She lays the first round of eggs and feeds them herself. After they hatch into a generation of sister/workers, they care for their younger siblings. In the height of summer, when the caterpillars they use as baby food are most abundant, the foundress lays eggs that will become reproductive males and future queens. Then she dies. Right about now, the males and future queens are mating. Then the fertile queens will fatten up on flower nectar, find a cozy rotten log for hibernation, and burrow in before the first frost. Everyone else in the colony dies, but not before ensuring the continuation of their genes for next year.

A northern paper wasp and a common eastern bumble bee forage for nectar on goldenrod flowers. Unless they are new queens, neither of these insects will survive beyond the first hard frost. Their hard work will ensure the health of the next generation, though!
Photo by Emily Stone.

The same could not be said about the several porcupine carcasses I’ve swerved around recently. The black-and-white quills strewn across the pavement look a little bit like some of the spiny seeds that grab onto your socks, but quills alone can’t produce the next generation. I’ve learned to expect to see porcupines (live or dead) along roads in the spring as they are drawn to the fresh salad in sunny road ditches. But why would there be an influx of them now? It’s the same juxtaposition of life and death.

This porcupine traveled far to eat aspen catkins one spring. Photo by Emily Stone.

Female porcupines hang out in their relatively small territories all year round. During mating season, the males wander five times farther than normal in search of females. I didn’t poke through the roadkill to determine if the unlucky ones were male or female, but I think it’s pretty likely that these bachelors were taking inventory on their prospects for mating and encountered big metal beasts instead.

While the females probably aren’t quite ready now, their window for mating is only about 12 hours long once it opens, and so it’s important for the males to keep a nose to the very informative scent marks the females spread around. These guys are out of luck, but some of their stronger, smarter, counterparts will soon share in the creation of an adorable new porcupette, to be born next spring.

Leaves are falling, plants are dying, life cycles wax and wane. Soon I’ll be cleaning out my vegetable garden and piling the remains on my compost heap. Nature is doing the same. Many Beings will never again see the light of day. But all of that death is accomplished in the name of survival. And so, despite the decay, the end of summer smells sweet.



Emily’s award-winning third book, Natural Connections3: A Web Endlessly Woven, is available to purchase at www.cablemuseum.org/books and at your local independent bookstore, too.

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! The Museum’s new exhibit, The Wetland Way is now open! Discover how life thrives at the intersection of soil and water, and why we must care for these special places as they care for us. Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and cablemuseum.org to see what we are up to.

Holy Moly Roly Poly!

"Holy Moly Roly Poly!" This enthusiastic shout came from an adorable, towheaded 4-year old, standing on the far side of a log I’d just rolled toward me. Together, we paused to watch a dozen or more oval gray invertebrates with lots of legs scurry in confusion around their suddenly well-lit home. Then I let the log roll gently back to its original position. We continued down the trail…or rather I continued down the trail, and the boy joined his friends in splashing along the small creek.

 Two Armadillidium nasatum, one likely Trachelipus rathkii found under the log.
Photo by Emily Stone.

This child’s exclamation was my favorite moment of a fun-filled morning with about 20 kids and their adults at the Kishwauketoe Nature Conservancy in William’s Bay on Geneva Lake in southern Wisconsin. The popular “Kish Kids” program began at the picnic shelter with me introducing the magic of a “treasure finder.” This device is imbued with special powers that guide its path. So when you toss a treasure finder (gently, not too high, and not at your friends,) it will always land on something special.

This Treasure Finder (aka a dive ring for the swimming pool) found a violet! 

Photo by Emily Stone.

These kids hardly needed help! The gadget found vibrant green grass, a web of fungal mycelium, and clover making sugar. But just the act of slowing the kids (and adults) down meant that they found spider webs covered in dew, colorful grasshoppers, a pooping snail, monarch eggs on milkweed, and so much more. By the time the 4-year-old and I had rolled over the log, the treasure finder was completely unnecessary for discovery.

This yellow garden spider was an early highlight of the walk! Photo by Emily Stone. 

The discovery continued when I got home. Just based on that boy’s enthusiasm, I knew I needed to write about roly polies. As a start, I uploaded a few of my photos to iNaturalist. To my surprise, all three photos were of different species!

Initially, iNaturalist helped me identify one species as the spurred ridgeback isopod, Haplophthalmus danicus. While they are native to Europe and Asia, entomologists believe they were brought to this continent during the original European settlement—stowed away in the pilgrims’ potted plants and ship ballast, perhaps? When I went back to my observation a few days later, though, two different people with specialties in isopods had made much more educated IDs. This is one of the benefits of posting observations to iNaturalist!

The experts’ IDs, the nosy pill woodlouse (Armadillidium nasatum) and Rathke's woodlouse (Trachelipus rathkii), are two more European species who were brought here, probably by accident. When the nosy pills roll up, they don’t quite form a complete ball, so maybe they don’t technically fit the kid’s ID of roly poly? I called those sow bugs as a child.

This Rathke's woodlouse made their home under a log near a creek in southern Wisconsin. Photo by Emily Stone. 

The common pill bug, aka common pill woodlouse, roly-poly, potato bug, slater, doodlebug, carpenter, wood shrimp, chiggypig, penny sow, cheesybug or Armadillidium vulgare, was the most interesting find of that log. They are introduced from Europe just like the others, but according to the World Catalog of Terrestrial Isopods by German entomologist Helmut Schmalfuss they are “the most extensively investigated terrestrial isopod species.” The benefit of having that title is that we know all sorts of cool facts about their lives!

The common pill bug, aka common pill woodlouse, roly-poly, doodlebug, chiggypig, penny sow, cheesybug or Armadillidium vulgare is a little critter who loves to live in the damp darkness under rotting logs. Photo by Emily Stone.

Many of pill bug’s adaptations are centered around not drying out. Isopod’s ancestors evolved in the sea, and the lungs on their bellies still need a thin film of water to work. So they live in damp soil underneath rocks or rotting logs that provide shade and prevent evaporation. They don’t need complicated eyes; they just have a simple photoreceptor to detect light and dark. They huddle with their relatives and seek out tight corners to reduce water loss through evaporation. They often forage at night, on the gourmet fare of decomposing plant litter, with a few seeds, live plants, dead animals, fungi, and some scat thrown in.

By nibbling on fungi, pill bugs reduce the amount of carbon dioxide that the fungi release through decomposition. This may make a small contribution toward reducing climate change, especially when you consider that some locations support up to 900 pill bugs per square foot!

In order to keep their eggs from drying out, pill bugs are an invertebrate version of marsupials. Three times a summer the female places a dozen or so eggs into the nutrient-filled water of her brood pouch. Once they hatch, the young will remain in the brood pouch for a few days before emerging as juvenile adults. Since exoskeletons can’t grow, the juveniles need to molt twice to achieve all seven body segments and seven pairs of legs.

The seven segments in their thorax’s tough exoskeleton allow piddlebugs to roll up into a tight ball for protection against predators, which include spiders, centipedes, beetles, and salamanders. If the danger overwhelms them, common pill bugs may play dead just like their buddy in marsupiality the opossum! The towhead and I must not have seemed dangerous, because none of the isopods even rolled up when we flipped the log.

Climate-mitigating, marsupial invaders who play dead? Holy Moly Roly Poly indeed!

Emily’s award-winning third book, Natural Connections3: A Web Endlessly Woven, is available to purchase at www.cablemuseum.org/books and at your local independent bookstore, too.

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! The Museum’s new exhibit, The Wetland Way is now open! Discover how life thrives at the intersection of soil and water, and why we must care for these special places as they care for us. Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and cablemuseum.org to see what we are up to.