A black morph Fox Squirrel sits up in the yard, clutching a nut.

Squirrels, Labs, Genetics

We have a number of fox squirrels (Sciurus niger) on Owl Acres. Clancy loves to bark at them, and I suspect they like to tease him as they run across the yard and shoot up the trees where they sit and chatter incessantly. Our fox squirrels are reddish-brown in color. Except, what’s this? A black […]

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Chrysalis of Cabbage White Butterfly. Green and knobby with black dots, the pupa tapers to a point at each end. It emerges the last time the caterpillar splits its skin.

Magic or Just Biology: Metamorphosis

As I am discovering more about the insects on Owl Acres, I’ve learned that insects follow one of two basic lifecycles—either incomplete metamorphosis or complete metamorphosis. The approach that’s easiest to understand is incomplete metamorphosis. This scheme has the egg hatching into a nymph—a miniature version of a cicada or grasshopper. The nymphs grow and […]

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White dusty coating of Powdery Mildew on the leaves of Wild Bergamot in the prairie garden. The purple flower head of the host plant is visible at top of frame.

Alien Marvel: Powdery Mildew

When I was growing up in the sixties, my science teacher had us learn the classification system for plants and animals. That is, we learned that there were kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, and species. And we learned that there were two kingdoms—plants and animals. A lot of science and classifying has gone on […]

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