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AUTUMN'S RURAL ROADSIDE BEAUTIES

      I know of no human-made habitat more simple, and so closely visible, than vegetated roadside shoulders in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania farmland during September into October.  Many miles long, but only a few feet deep between blacktop and fields, many of those rural roadsides are mowed at least once each summer.  Communities of adaptable, wild plants and animals thrive along roadside shoulders, whether they were mowed or not.  But unmowed roadsides are better habitats for wildlife, because of a greater abundance of food and shelter.      Foxtail, purple-top, wire-grass, and other kinds of grasses dominate many country roadsides.  Foxtail grass seed heads do appear bushy, like a fox's tail.  The seed heads of purple top grass has an attractive, purply or reddish glow, especially when the sun shines on them.      Differential and red-legged grasshoppers, and field crickets live along many rural roads and eat the...
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SPICEBUSH BEAUTIES

      In the middle of April in southeastern Pennsylvania, and across much of the eastern United States, a yellow haze brightens the understories of many bottomland, deciduous woods.  That lovely, golden mist is created by innumerable flowers on native northern spicebushes that stand up to about eight feet tall and dominate many shady, deciduous forest understories on moist soil.         Some spicebushes are female and the others are male.  After being pollinated by bees, flies and other kinds of small, early insects that sip nectar from those golden flowers, and add more interest to the blossoms, each female bloom grows a green berry that swells through summer and becomes red by September.  Multitudes of those attractive berries are strikingly beautiful among spicebushes' green foliage that turns yellow in autumn.        During September, flocks of American robins, starlings, cedar waxwings and migrant thru...
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MOLE CRICKETS

      Of all the kinds of crickets I have seen, or heard, northern mole crickets are the most unusual.  And those crickets are so-named because they live much like moles in the same underground habitat both types of creatures are well adapted to.      Real moles and mole crickets demonstrate how genes and habitats shape body forms into a specific habitat.  Genes dictate the body form, but the habitat dictates what body forms will continue to thrive in a particular habitat to the age of reproduction.  Though unrelated, moles and mole crickets are both adapted to living in underground burrows, another case of convergence.      Like moles, mole crickets have small eyes to keep soil out of them.  They can't see in the dark anyway.  Mole crickets have shovel-like front feet, with "claws", to dig tunnels in soil, especially moist soil.  And like moles, mole crickets have fine "hairs" that sheds soil off them.  Als...
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FIVE-LINED SKINKS

      To me, the adaptable, common five-lined skinks are the most beautiful lizards in the rocky-bottom woods of the eastern United States, including here in southeastern Pennsylvania.  I mostly see juvenile, blue-tailed skinks in crevices on cliffs and among rocks in locks of an abandoned canal along the Susquehanna River bordering Lancaster and York Counties.  But I see them only for a second because they are quick to scamper away and hide.               Juvenile skinks are particularly striking with their distinctive brown and yellow stripes that run lengthwise on top of them from nose to tail, and camouflages them.  And they have long, bright-blue tails that might attract the attentions of predators, who may attack those tails, breaking them off, while the young skinks get away to grow a new, but stunted, tail.       Five-lined skinks are diurnal, basking in the sunlight to warm up enough to hu...
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BURDOCKS AND COCKLEBURS

      Seed dispersal is important to every species of plant that produces seeds.  Many, like dandelions and milkweeds have small seeds on "parachutes" that float away on the wind.  Seeds in berries pass through birds' digestive tracts and are passed later.  And prickly seed pods hitch rides on mammal fur.  Plant species that have their seeds spread into proper habitats, far and wide, and away from parent plants, have a good chance of thriving, as a species, indefinitely.        Common burdocks and common cockleburs have burs in their names, and for good reason.  These  plants have characteristics in common, particularly in how their seeds are dispersed over the countryside and away from the parent plants.  Burdocks and cockleburs have bristly seed capsules that, not only protect the seeds inside them until they mature, but those pods break off and hitch rides in the fur of mammals, including foxes, rabbits, deer,...
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ATLANTIC MUDSKIPPERS

      Atlantic mudskippers are well-named.  They are ten inch, semi-aquatic fish that live on Atlantic Ocean coast mudflats, including those flats with mangrove tree forests growing on them, in a hot, humid climate along the western shore of Africa.  They are diurnal, amphibious fish that live three-quarters of their lives on mud flats and the rest in brackish or salt water down the burrows they dig into coastal flats, a niche they are well adapted to.        All species of mudskippers need to be always moist to be able to absorb oxygen through their skins, mouths and gill chambers, much like amphibians, frogs and salamanders, do.  Mudskippers even store water in their gill chambers to retain moisture to breathe when foraging for tiny fish and crustaceans, and worms and other invertebrates, or mates, on the flats and in shallows.  Scales and mucus also help them retain moisture.        Atlantic mudskipp...
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SWIFTS, SWALLOWS AND LANTERNFLIES

      From 5 to 6:30 pm on August 8 of this year, I sat on our deck in New Holland, Pennsylvania to enjoy the beautiful, green scenery of numerous trees and shrubs, and watch for interesting wildlife I regularly see on our back lawn in summer.  I saw the usual couple each of gray squirrels and cottontail rabbits on the ground under a neighbor's bird feeders, a pair of northern cardinals, a catbird, a family of blue jays, a few mourning doves, and several each of house finches and house sparrows, all of which I like to see.        But I was also happy to see several each of chimney swifts and barn swallows streaking, sweeping and zig-zagging across the sky after flying insects they caught on the wing and ingested.  And I was thrilled to see a couple of monarch butterflies on our butterfly bushes and about a half dozen adult spotted lanternflies on our deck and around our back yard.             The swifts...
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