Friday, July 20, 2012

Critter Time Again! First we have Rana pipiens the Northern Leopard Frog. This common frog of the northeast is informally grouped with Rana sylvestris (Wood Frog) and Rana palustris (Pickerel Frog)and called meadow frogs. This implies that these frogs unlike some of the others found in the same region can be found in meadows and woodlands and not always directly ajacent to warter. The fellow pictured here however was accidentally scooped out of Beebe Lake when I was doing some watering there the other day.
These little fellows were also accidentally captured during the same Beebe Lake watering episode. They are Daphnia or Water Fleas. there common name comes from the way they "jump" through the water. These miniscule freshwater crustacea are an important link in the food chain of the freshwater ecosystem as many animals depend on them as a food source at various stages of development. They are a particular favorite of salamander larvae and fish fry.
We move from Beebe Lake to the Cornell Filtration Plant retention ponds behind the Hort Center. Here if you look closely you can see a young Vulpes vulpes fulvus -American Red Fox stalking an equally young but inexplicably soaking wet Marmota monax or Groundhog.
In the end the fox decided they were too close in size for now to risk an attack and slunk away.
I got closer to get a picture of the groundhog and saw why the fox thought better of his attack, look at that glare!

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