Almost Not Cold

All day the promised sunshine appeared tantalizingly close, but the clouds held fast, at least in Northfield. Lisa and Lida, returning from a trip to Burnsville only twenty miles away, said it was sunny there the whole time. I’d worked all morning and whiled away the day, hoping the clouds would move off. Eventually, later in the afternoon, I went for a hike at McKnight Prairie sans sunshine.

Walking the ridge trail I saw no signs of the Pasque Flowers or other early plants. The clouds, thin as threadbare fabric, let in a soft light and slight warmth so that it felt almost not cold. At the top of the prairie bluff directly above the large blowout, I turned over a few of the small limestone shards. Surprisingly, I found an abundance of caterpillars. Quite a number were found on the underside of the stones, but as soon as I had noticed these I also began to see many others on top of the stones. Watching them, they appeared to be grazing the moss and lichen that covered the stones. I didn’t make the connection at the time, but examining the photos later they were easily identified as the caterpillars of lichen moths. Of course.

Having seen photos and read descriptions of tiny terrestrial snails, I’ve been keen to find them in the field, realizing I’d simply overlooked them due to their miniscule size. So today, turning over a small piece of limestone not much bigger than a piece of a broken dinner plate, I was delighted to spot a small white spiral shell. Photographing it in the field proved impossible so I brought it home where I could use a better macro lens and a flash. With the help of iNaturalist snail expert Susan Hewitt, the snail was determined to be of the genus Gastrocopta. Because of the arrangement of teeth inside the aperture these snails have been given the common name of Snaggletooth Snails.

The final curiosity of the visit was a Thread-legged Bug which ambled out of a crevice in a small piece of cedar found on the ground. These insects look to be part walking stick part mantis, though much smaller, perhaps the size of long mosquito if there were such things as long mosquitoes. The Thread-legged Bugs move very slowly and meticulously, using only their rear four legs for walking. According to one account I happened across, these insects use their front legs to rob food from spider webs.

Posted on March 28, 2017 03:26 AM by scottking