Turtle Travels by K.R. Woollums

Rosie Wollums is about to start her Junior year as an Environmental Studies and Creative Writing major at Coe College. Being in the Northwoods for the first time as a Summer Naturalist Intern at the Museum, Rosie was excited to explore and visit Lake Superior.

I stood barefoot, my heels and toes sinking in as if the shifting shoreline of Friendly Valley Beach was going to swallow me whole. The water of Lake Superior lapped gently onto shore, beckoning me in. A south wind pushed the warming water towards me and my new coworker and friend, Katherine. The barren lakebed glittered in the sunlight, even as I stood knee deep. I hadn’t seen any plants, insects, or even minnows. Nothing blocked the light from pouring down onto the expanse of quartz sand except for myself, Katherine, and our shadows.

A rock caught my eye. It was the size of my palm, and a few feet away. As I approached, I realized it wasn’t a rock, but a young snapping turtle laying in the sand. The dark, bumpy carapace sat in stark contrast to the pale, smooth lakebed. Despite loving the turbid waters of estuaries and lakes for both home and food, the little turtle lay in the chilly and crystalline waters of Lake Superior.

Rock or turtle? It can be hard to tell in the shifting sunlight. This is a rock, but Rosie found a turtle. Photo by Emily Stone.

The estuary near Friendly Valley Beach holds the most nutrient-rich water in the area. The Sioux River carries nutrients in, and clear, cold, nutrient-poor Lake Superior pushes from the other side. The pressure from both bodies of water keeps many of the life-supporting nutrients within the estuary, and creates an extremely productive area, providing food and shelter for many creatures, such as snapping turtles.

The bare sand of the Friendly Valley Beach contrasts with the nutrient-rich estuary where the Sioux River meets Lake Superior. Photo by Emily Stone.

Back on the shore of Lake Superior, driftwood, weeds, and small spiders filled the otherwise vacant beach. Just feet behind that sat a line of brush and trees, and swallows flew and dipped through the air above. Beyond, lay a lively river, estuary, and fields. Despite the lack of life I saw in the lake, there was plenty to be seen around me.

View from a sandbar looking back at the beach. Photo by Emily Stone. 

Wading past the turtle to a sandbar, I maintained a respectful distance. I didn’t want to disturb the turtle’s sense of safety. While snapping turtles are known for being passive in water, I was a little worried about being on the receiving end of a defensive bite.

Unlike other turtles, snapping turtles cannot hide within their shells. The plastron, or bottom shell, is too small to fit their bodies. So, instead of hiding within their shell, they bite when they feel seriously threatened in life-or-death situations, or are females actively laying eggs. Snapping turtles have a strong bite, up to 125 lbs. of pressure, because they sometimes feed on hard foods. This is almost as strong as our bites, which are 160 lbs.! Common snapping turtles are foragers, eating vegetation, invertebrates, amphibians, carrion, and even the occasional small mammal, bird, or fish!

Given the small size, and rough, bumpy shell, I knew this turtle was a juvenile. Snapping turtles' carapace flatten with age, so mature adults will have a smoother shell. Maybe this teenage turtle came from the nearby Sioux River Estuary, and was exploring Lake Superior, just like me. While it was possible the turtle hatched out a nest on the sandy beach, it wouldn’t have been this year. The turtle was already far larger than any newborn snapping turtle would be, and seemed to be at least a few years old. I knew they couldn’t be near the beach to lay their own eggs because adult common snapping turtle carapaces are 10-20 inches, and this turtle’s was somewhere around 5 inches.

Young snapping turtle with bumpy shell. Photo by Mark G, iNaturalist.

Katherine and I crept further into Lake Superior. We lay in the shallows enjoying the cool water and sun just like the small turtle. After this adventure in Lake Superior, I planned to eat dinner before falling into bed. I imagined the young snapping turtle swimming back to their estuary, grabbing a snack, and settling down just the same.

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.

Weirdos in the Kaleidoscope

Late summer days are a kaleidoscope of vibrant flowers in all colors of the rainbow. Some of the blossoms have their perfect petals neatly arranged while their leaves form regular patterns up their stems. They are a testament to the precision that can be written into genetic instructions for growth.

Royal catchfly is part of the rainbow of our August pollinator gardens! Photo by Emily Stone. 

I find myself drawn to the weirdos, though, like the pearly everlasting flowers woven into a new shape by black-spiked caterpillars, or the milkweed leaves whose tattered appearance hints at a feeding frenzy. (See last week’s article about my front yard safari!) These weirdos are great examples of how our relationships with other beings can be both messy and emergent.

Near the milkweeds is a thick patch of goldenrod. They weren’t quite blooming last week on my safari, but many of the stems were topped by arching plumes of little green buds, just about to burst into soft yellow flowers. Several of these stems, though, were topped by tufts of leaves, as if the stems had been pulled through pinched fingers and all the little green triangles collected in a bunch. They looked a bit like doll-size cabbages. Weirdos indeed!

Goldenrod cabbage gall. Photo by Emily Stone. 

Goldenrod galls like these were my first introduction to insect galls back in college. I remember walking through a field on a nature hike at the very beginning of Fall Block—a requirement for my Outdoor Education major—and finding both the round ball galls I’ve written about before and these leafy cabbage galls on the goldenrods.

Goldenrod ball gall. Photo by Emily Stone. 

I’d never heard of galls before, even though there are likely over 100,000 species of insects who lay their eggs on a plant, have their larvae chew their way in, then induce the plant to grow some form of house around the larvae. The larvae then drink the plant juices and enjoy the gall’s protection. Eventually each insect metamorphoses and emerges as an adult, ready to lay eggs and start again. Gall-forming insects include species of midges, flies, wasps, and mites. Each insect parasite has their own preferred host plant.

Knowing this, I thought a quick search for “goldenrod cabbage gall” would give me all the information I needed. Instead, according to an article about galls on the iNaturalist website, there are at least a dozen insects who create similar leaf bunch galls on goldenrod!

Picking my way through the descriptions of the top two galls, I realized that if I knew what species of goldenrod they were on, that would help with insect identification. But looking at a list of characteristics that separate Canada goldenrod from giant goldenrod, I still wasn’t sure. Some species, like the delicate zig-zag goldenrod of forests, or seaside goldenrod of shorelines are pretty distinctive, but these big plumy types can be tricky.

So, I texted Sarah Boles, a native landscaper and long-time Museum volunteer who planted these gardens and asked what species of goldenrod she’d put in. “None!” was her reply. All the goldenrods in our pollinator gardens blew in of their own accord, on tiny seeds carried by fluffy parachutes built for pioneering.

Finally, I decided to crack open a gall to see what I could find. Breaking the leaf cluster off the top of the plant, I split it open from top to bottom down the center. I’d expected a central chamber with a single larva, not all that different from the ball galls we dissect with sixth graders during our MuseumMobile programs. Instead, the gall looked empty. Then something moved. A tiny yellow larva wiggled out of a tiny chamber formed by the curled base of a miniaturized leaf.

A tiny yellow midge larva hides at the base of a leaf inside the cabbage gall. 

Photo by Emily Stone. 

Ah ha! Using that search image, I could now see that almost every leaf base held either a larger yellow or a smaller white larva. Some of the yellow larvae had a stomach full of green visible through their translucent sides. Now it was clear, these galls were formed by the gall midge Rhopalomyia capitata, whose galls are dormitories with 6-20 roommates. Knowing that, I could also assume that the flower was giant goldenrod—Solidago gigantea. The insects had done the plant identification for me!

Older (yellow) and younger (white) midge larvae in a cabbage gall. Photo by Emily Stone. 

Looking again at the plants, I could now see that all the goldenrod with cabbage galls had smooth stems among the flowers, while the others had hairy stems. It had been hard to be confident about these subtle characteristics without the insect’s help.

Sharing my story of discovery with Sarah, we got to chatting about how goldenrod was taking over the gardens and needed to be cut back to allow the milkweed, spiderwort, figwort, and other plants to survive. Gazing out over the garden, I realized that the plants with galls on them were shorter, with many fewer flowers, some wouldn’t have any flowers at all. They wouldn’t be able to contribute as much to goldenrod’s spread. Perhaps these little midges are Nature’s way of keeping goldenrod in balance. The weirdos have their place in the vibrant kaleidoscope of the world!

Emily’s 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.

Front Yard Safari

The flower head looked odd. Pearly everlasting—with their beautiful flat-topped cluster of white flowers with yellow centers—had finally bloomed. And now the petals would dry out and hold their shape for many months. Except, as I walked past the small patch of native plants between the Museum and the Forest Lodge Library, I noticed that one of the flower clusters was a shapeless blob of petals. Dark balls, like peppercorns, clung to the bottom. And did one of those petals move?

Poking the blob, I found that it gave easily under my finger, as if were made of soft cloth. Peeling open a corner, I spotted yellow stripes, red dots, and multi-tipped black spikes. Yikes! That’s what this American painted lady caterpillar wanted me to think…and then to leave them alone.

An American painted lady caterpillar hides inside the house of flower petals they wove together. Photo by Emily Stone.

A few weeks ago I found a younger version of both the plant and the caterpillar on the Superior Hiking Trail. With no flowers blooming yet, the smaller caterpillar had tied together the fuzzy, gray-green leaves into a little home. I’d never seen this older version with the gorgeous, woven-petal shroud.

Scanning the garden, I soon discovered a few more caterpillar homes in the pearly everlasting, all with dark bales of frass (caterpillar poop) spilling out. Some gardeners might be frustrated to lose a few flowers, but hosting native insects is exactly why we plant native species in our gardens, instead of importing species from all over the world who don’t play a positive role in our local ecosystem.

As I poked around, I noticed something else dark and spikey hiding under the canopy of petals on a caterpillar-less flower. Was that an ant? With extra legs? And then I found a better window into the action: a brown spider clasped a black ant in a death grip. The larger front legs probably indicated they are a crab spider—a group who often sits on flowers to ambush their prey.

A crab spider feasts on an ant in the dining room created by a pearly everlasting flower.
Photo by Emily Stone. 

Inspired, I began a slow walk around the Museum’s pollinator gardens. Goldenrod buds looked ready to burst. Most of the bergamot had already erupted into purple pompoms of petals. A tattered male monarch butterfly rested on a stem. And then a tuft of yellow, black and white on a milkweed leaf caught my eye.

Milkweed tussock moth caterpillars feed only on milkweed and dogbane leaves, and concentrate toxins from the plants into their bodies to protect them from predators. The brightly colored hairs offer some protection, too! Photo by Emily Stone.

Just like the American painted lady, these caterpillars are very selective about their baby food. Milkweed tussock moth caterpillars only munch on the leaves of milkweeds or their cousins the dogbanes. Just like monarch caterpillars, their bright colors are a warning to birds and would-be predators that they have concentrated the cardiac glycosides from the plant and have become both toxic and distasteful. Once the aptly nicknamed “milkweed tigers” metamorphose into drab brown moths, they warn bats about their bad taste by making ultrasonic clicks.

Although monarch and moth caterpillars would seem to compete for the same food source, it’s reported that monarchs prefer tender young milkweed leaves, and the moth larvae focus on leaves too old and tough for monarchs.

Walking slowly, I scanned the flowers for anything out of place, any disruption to the normal patterns. On the dark center of a black-eyed Susan, I found a small green anomaly. Crouching down, I found myself face-to-face with the fierce scowl, long horns, and serrated edges of a jagged ambush bug. They lie motionless on a flower until an unsuspecting pollinator comes looking for a sugary treat. Wham! With front legs so strong and scary that scientists call them “raptorial,” the ambush bug ambushes the hungry visitor; jabs them with that vicious beak; injects paralyzing, digesting poison; and drinks their fill. Using this technique, they can catch and eat prey more than twice their size. If you try to squash an ambush bug, they will bite you. While painful, their poison is not dangerous to humans.

Jagged assassin bugs lie motionless on a flower until an unsuspecting pollinator comes looking for a sugary treat. Then they attack! Photo by Emily Stone.

Looking up, I found the green stem of an aster absolutely covered with bright red aphids. While aphids have piercing/sucking mouthparts just like the ambush bugs and other relatives in the group known as “true bugs,” they suck plant juices instead. This stem must have gotten too crowded with the clones of one female, because a few of the aphids had sprouted clear wings, readying themselves to escape the crowds and expand to a new frontier.

Aphids, including a few with wings, crowd onto the stem of a flat-topped white aster.
Photo by Emily Stone. 

My loop around the yard complete, I headed back into the air-conditioned Museum to look at my photos. Some people fly halfway around the world to witness the dramas of nature play out on the African savannah. I found plenty of action walking halfway around the yard.

Emily’s 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.