By Rachel Sargent Mirus “Look!” I exclaimed, bending to examine a pair of half-inch-tall, bright orange, club-shaped mushrooms. Kneeling in the leaf litter, with my 2-year-old son watching in puzzlement, I carefully scraped away at the base of the […]
Tag: By Rachel Sargent Mirus
Walking with many legs
By Rachel Sargent Mirus Grinning and giggling, my 1-year-old son ran across the living room, only to trip over his own feet and faceplant on the carpet. Sometimes, two legs can be too many to coordinate. How, then, do invertebrates […]
How to spin a spider web
By Rachel Sargent Mirus One neighbor calls our house “the spider house” because so many orb weavers spin webs outside our large living room windows. Our spiders work on their webs at dawn and dusk, and I watch their silhouettes […]
The tangled tale of the Ash-Tree Bolete
By Rachel Sargent Mirus If the enemy of my enemy is my friend, then surely the friend of my enemy is my enemy. This inverted cliche is one way to characterize the tangled relationship between ash trees and the ash-tree […]
Birds nest using lichen as camouflage
By Rachel Sargent Mirus Birds use a wonderful variety of materials and techniques to create their nests. Some nests are small and tidy, like grass baskets lined with cozy feathers. Others are large and messily blobbed with mud. Some species […]
Cozy cattails feed bugs and birds
By Rachel Sargent Mirus On a winter day, I drove down to a nearby wetland bisected by a town road and walked carefully onto the ice. I was looking for cattail heads to dissect so I could meet the caterpillars […]
Fungi may kill winter ticks, and help moose survive
By Rachel Sargent Mirus Legend says a stake through the heart will kill a vampire. But it’s a bit more complicated if you’re plagued – as moose can be – by tens of thousands of tiny blood-suckers. In the case […]
Lichen colors offer protection
By Rachel Sargent Mirus As I stroll through the cemetery near my home on a snowy day, splashes of golden orange, bright as daylilies in July, pop from the gray stones. These patches are elegant sunburst lichens, which provide a […]
Decomposing into the rainbow
By Rachel Sargent Mirus As we stroll down a forest trail, we pass trees of all types and sizes, with red and orange and brown leaves strewn below, a riot of ferns fading to yellow, and intermittent moss-covered rocks. Amongst […]
Blister beetles use chemical defense to deter predators
By Rachel Sargent Mirus “I’ve got something for you,” my husband calls from the front door. He’s found an oddly beautiful beetle in the autumn woods. It’s around of an inch long, a dark iridescent teal, and its wings and […]