11/15/10 A Land Planarian

     When I was in Blanchard Park on 11/11/10 I saw a worm moving oddly on the ground. It had been dry for several weeks and I didn't see why a worm would be out of the ground at all. Then I noticed it was fighting with something and appeared to be in pain. But creature it was fighting with I had never seen before, so I took some pictures and let them be.
     So I went on an extensive Internet search and finnaly found it. The yellow thing killing the worm in the above pictures is a Land Planarian (Bipalum kewese mosley). They are an invasive/exotic from Vietnam. If I had known this I would have saved the worm and stomped the Planarian into mush.

11/14/10 Chinese Tallow Tree Hunting

     It was so nice to get back into the woods this morning and back into the fight against invasive. Picture one above is a African Ear Tree blocking the sun from getting to a native Palmetto Palm Tree. I took out my survival knife and hacked the Ear Tree back to the ground. You see the freed Palmetto in picture two.
     My main focus today was Cesar Weed. I took out 500 of those. I also ripped out 10 Chinese Tallow Trees and a bunch of litter too.
     I noticed 30 Plecostomus fish (Pterygoplichthy multiradiatus), also known as algae eaters or Armoured Catfish. These exotic invasive fish which should be illegal to sell are crowding out native fish here in Blanchard Park. In a fish tank they are two inches long. In the river they grow to two feet long. They have spikes which expand when anything tries to eat them. I will find a way to get to them!
     11/16/10 Update on Algae Eaters. I looked up the FWC (Florida Wildlife Commission) website and they say there is "no bag or size limits" on taking out these invasive fish. Now I just need a method, I think bow fishing would be best or maybe a very long spear.

11/12/10 A Walk in a Playalinda Beach Forest

     Four of my friends met at Playalinda Beach on the East Coast of Central Florida. I noticed a bunch of plastic flower petals on the ground. (See top picture) I've seen this before at Hindu festivals. I've asked them before at other lakes in Orlando not to litter with plastic. A more environmental option would be to throw real flowers petals instead.
     Later on I went for a walk in a long a forest trail within the Canaveral National Wildlife Preserve. I was suprised to smell a Skunk close by. It brought back fond memories of one I used to have as a pet. Skunks are rare in Central Florida.
     There was some small patches of Cesar Weed in the forest and I pulled out every one of them. As I walked in I was creating little piles of Cesar Weeds and I picked up 38 of them one the way back out. At one point I heard a loud rattling. I thought "This will be a good picture of a Rattlesnake". It turned out to be a Black Racer vibrating it's tail in some dry leaves. I only caught a glimpse as it shot off into some brush.
     A Mud Wasp was carrying a catapillar and two Cuban Anoles ran over and ganged up on it and tried to rob it. I chased off the Cuban Anoles and the Wasp was able to continue on its way.

11/9/10 A Yellow Garden Orb Spider Visits Work

     I brought a Yellow Garden Orb Spider to work today. Many coworkers came to see it and I showed it to an environmental group also. The spider was very well behaved. Having the spider in a jar allowed even very cautious person to see it up close without fear of it touching them.
     I reaseased it the next day and it went off into the grass to go on with it's spider life.

10/31/2010 My Turtle's First Halloween

     As you can see my tiny baby Razor Back Musk Turtle went as a surfer for Halloween. The surfboard is one of those small keychain ones, but it's hard to tell the scale in this picture. She is way too young to go trick or treating. I went as Micheal Myers, the mass murdering mental patient from the "Halloween" movies.

11/5/2010 Coral Snake Sighting

     My supervisor at work took these two great pictures of a beautiful Florida Coral Snake. Like me he has a respect for native species, so he took the picture and left the snake alone. I don't kill anything native unless I have to. The Coral Snake is America's version of the Cobra. Like Cobras it has a neurotoxin venom (a venom that works on the nervous system).
     Most people bitten by poisonous snakes were trying to kill the snake when bitten. Religious snake handlers bring up the statistics and people like me who handle poisonous snakes make up most of the rest, with true accidental bites being extremely rare. That's why they make such great news. Many more people die each year from domestic dog attacks (33 in 2007, 23 in 2008 and 30 in 2009) than from poisonous snake bites (6 from year 2000 to now).

11/2/10 Some Insect Embassadors

     I have begun a new pattern of behavior. I go out on Mondays after work and look for something interesting in nature to bring in to work. I work at the University of Central Florida and we have several environmental student organizations.
     So today is Tuesday as I have brought in a Pine Saywer Beetle and a Lubber Grasshopper (Romalea guttata), both which I found out in my swamp yesterday. Both insects were very well behaved all day and many people came by to see them. Both insects are native species in Florida and many people recognized the Lubber Grasshopper.
     As well as giving a small biology lesson, I taught people how to handle insects so they would not get bitten or harm the insect. With both Lubber Grasshoppers and Pine Sawyer Beetles you can pick them up gently around their "shoulders" they cannot turn around to get to you.
     Both insects will be back in the woods Wednesday morning. Both are diurnal insects (they come out in the day) so I release them in their best element. Releaseing them at night might leave them exposed as they did not have time to seek shelter as they normally would have.