Fun in the Field

So it seems my resolution of trying to post every week has degenerated to the point where I post once a month! Oh well, it is better than nothing I suppose.
We have been trying for several weeks to schedule our annual department field/collecting trip but it seemed every time we set a date the weather thwarted us. Firstly there were monsoon level thunderstorms, then there was excessive heat which our team member who harks from Alaska couldn't quite face, then there were various vacations to work round but finally, rather like the proverbial herding of cats we managed to all get together on the same day.



The primary objective of the day was to collect some more native fish species to replenish our tanks, on display in the 'Riverworks' exhibit. This is most successfully done using a seine net to scoop the fish gently out without injuring them and then selecting the species we need from the net before releasing the rest.


Another activity that I always encourage is the gathering of crayfish. There is a very aggressive invasive species throughout Illinois called the Rusty Crayfish which is out-competing many native species. We scoop up as many of these as we can because we have lots of aquatic turtles in our collections who like nothing more than hunting and eating crayfish! Boy did they get a big treat - a whole bucketload!



I have been particularly lucky to have some really fantastic interns this year so it's always a great pleasure to be able to give them the treat of a day out in the field. And as you can see they were extremely enthusiastic about joining in with whatever was going on.


Here is Alex proving that chest waders are optional!


And also proving that 'girls rock!!' Because Amy didn't feel the need for them either :)


So who the ones wearing the waders? Our two male interns!!! YOU GO GIRLS!!
It wasn't all water though. We did get the chance to see some beautiful butterflies mud-puddling along the shores of the river.


These are Giant Swallowtails Papilio cresphontes
and this is a Red-spotted Purple Limenitis arthemis astyanax


A little less flamboyant but no less beautiful is this Hackberry Emperor Asterocampa celtis. Drove me crazy trying to get it to stay still enough for a photo though.


And of course, the damselflies were not to be ignored either.


Another highlight of the day? I finally got to 'christen' my new wellies on their first ever field trip :)


What a great day. We all came home hot, sweaty, muddy, tired and happy. What more could we ask for?


Photo Credits - CJT

SAVE THE FROGS!

I am rather fond of frogs. I even share my home with one rather splendid Ornate Horned Frog called Winston.


So a couple of years ago when I was asked to organize something at the Museum to recognize Save the Frogs Day, (Yes I am blogging about work again :( ) it wasn't too much of a stretch. We have several species of frogs as a permanent part of our living collections


and it provided us with the perfect excuse to sneak an extra couple of days of field work to go out and collect the remaining species so that we could display all thirteen species that are native to the Chicago region.


Well now Save the Frog Day has become a permanent fixture on our calendar and each year we try and change things up a bit. This year we decided that as well as displaying all the native frogs we would also show some exotic species too. In my totally unbiased opinion Winston stole the show!


As well as having over 25 species of frogs on display, we had an information table for visitors to find out about all the threats that amphibians are facing and what they can do to help.


We had representatives from the Frog Monitoring Network recruiting volunteers to partake in their citizen science program.


And we had numerous art and craft activities and games that children could partake in, all frog related


We got some great coverage from local TV channels too, here is the clip of the WGN Coverage


And here is a cut down version of the NBC Coverage and Winston won over everyone at the studio and ended up being friended by a couple of the presenters! (Yes, Winston Packman has his very own facebook page!!) They even used him at the end of the program when they were running the credits too :)


Hopefully we got our message out that many amphibians are facing a lot of threats in the modern world and they are an enigmatic and delightful group of species that are well worth protecting and conserving.



Photo Credits - CJT

A Sneak Peek

Well it has been a long time coming. It was well over a year ago when I first sat down in a little meeting room with our exhibits team and members of the education department to begin planning our next big 'in house' exhibit and now we are just two days away from opening it to the public. And although the boards are still up


I am going to give you a sneak preview of what we have been toiling away at for so long.
The title of the exhibit is Nature's Architects and, as the name suggests, it showcases all the incredible structures that creatures create. It explains the techniques, the materials used and why the structures are created. It has been a long, and at times painful process but now the opening is upon us we are feeling quite happy with how things have turned out.
The centerpiece of the exhibit is a huge termite mound (a little homage to my favorite place in the world!)


which towers 15 feet high. The signage explains all the amazing features of these structures (if you want to know more you will have to come and see the exhibit!)


I think the exhibits team did an amazing job of creating such a realistic representation, it was fun seeing it slowly growing out on the loading dock of the museum. There is even a little area that allows you to see inside.


You can explore a Prairie Dog town and learn what all the different tunnels and chambers are used for.


And visit with that most industrious of North American species, the beaver and learn how he builds things just to his liking.


We have a working beehive. They are currently being fed in the hive but when the weather finally warms up, that little pipe at the back of the hive gives them direct access to the outside world so that they can go and gather nectar from our surrounding prairie areas.


While you are with the bees you can learn the dance steps that they use to communicate to each other.


We have incorporated some of our extensive collections to highlight the plethora of different birds nest designs and materials


I just can't resist the hummingbird nests, they are too perfect.


And as for new charges that will come under my care. We couldn't really do an exhibit about builders and not include spiders could we?


So we have got trapdoor spiders and the beautiful orb weavers too


Although we are still working on a better way to light their display so that you can see the webs better.


Ants also just had to be included


And the mysterious caddisflies


But by far the noisiest new animals I have got are the Monk Parakeets


They are an exotic species that have established themselves very successfully in and around Chicago in recent years. They build massive communal nests usually on power lines so we tried to recreate their Chicago environment in the exhibit.


Another little personal homage was the inclusion of a section about weaver birds. The footage of the industrious males constructing their masterpiece nests made me feel quite winsome for the colony who used to build over our lagoon every year.
And if you fancy your chances as a weaver bird you can even try your nest building skills but you can only use a beak and a foot (hand puppet)! Don't worry, abject failure is perfectly acceptable. It just makes what these little birds create even more spectacular.


Other tests of skill include trying to move as much soil as an aardvark does when it digs (are you noticing another African link here? Well lets face it, all the coolest animals live in Africa!!!)
Have I left anything out? Probably, but I have been working on this project for so long now I am starting to see nests and webs and burrows in my sleep!

The press gets 'let in' tomorrow and then on Friday we finally take down the boards and open to the public. Phew! It has been a long journey but we've almost made it.


Photo Credits - CJT

The Story of Spike

Two of the numerous animals under my care at work and the sole representatives of the mammal group, are Spike and Diesel, two rats. In this picture, Spike is the one on top. As you can see they are pretty much inseparable but they couldn't be much more different in personalities.


Spike is very nervous, very anxious, very shy and a total home body. He likes to spend the majority of his day tucked up in their cage, occasionally peeping out if a treat is offered. Diesel on the other hand is a total extrovert, he is into everything and demands attention from anyone who happens to be passing. He sulks if he doesn't get to ride around on my shoulder in the morning as I walk around the Museum checking on all the other animals and if he doesn't get his way he squeaks like a spoilt child! They have a very luxurious two storey cage set up, with a ladder between the two levels. During the day we take the top level off the cage and they have a free run, in and out of the cage and around the surrounding counter top where they have various tunnels and boxes and other little hide-outs. Of course if we ever try to work at this particular counter top then Diesel is immediately right in whatever it is we are trying to do, stealing pens, sheets of paper or anything else that takes his fancy!
Four weeks ago, on a day when I wasn't at the Museum, Spike had an accident. Someone startled him when he was sleeping and he panicked, ran blindly into the ladder, got stuck between two of the rungs and snapped his leg, really badly. Of course I took him off to the vet and the x-rays revealed that the tibia was in three pieces and the fibula was, well lets just say, pretty much a lost cause the two ends were so far apart! I was given three options, euthanasia, amputation or attempt to set it and try and let it heal. Rats are not long lived animals and so I did consider the first option but I just couldn't quite reconcile that because he had been injured through mishandling. I couldn't really cope with the thought of amputation either as it was his hind leg so that left me with the final option. But nothing is that simple really is it? What is the one thing that rats are renowned for? Chewing! Of course. The chances of a rat keeping a cast on long enough for a broken limb to heal are slim at best but I felt I owed him the chance to try at least. And so Spike came back to the Museum with his leg in a cast from the hip all the way down over his foot (he had also managed to dislocate his ankle when he broke his leg!)


I had to give him pain-killers and calcium medication twice a day for the first two weeks (remember my post about going to work in the blizzard? He was one of the reasons!) I also had to be meticulous in keeping his cage as clean and dry as possible. For any of you that haven't had a pet rat, trust me when I tell you they are prodigious pee-ers and poopers! And, of course, I had to keep one step ahead of him when he chewed the cast. We did a pretty good job and all the extra handling that he had to endure actually made him a lot more calm as the days went by. We developed a great bond, which is always one of the most rewarding parts of my job. The worst part of the whole thing was that he had to be kept separate from Diesel because Diesel would have chewed the cast off in two minutes flat! It was heart breaking to see Diesel spending hours each day sitting on top of Spikes little 'hospital cage.' I did let him drop in - quite literally - for brief visits from time to time but they had to be closely monitored because it was usually about thirty seconds before he started chewing on Spikes cast!


After two weeks, we went back to the vet to get a progress report, he had another x-ray and we could see that the tibia was starting to heal slowly but surely. It was only on this return visit that I learned that the vet techs had been taking bets on how many days Spike would take to chew his cast off! It gave me great pleasure to be able to prove them all wrong!
Another two weeks past. We stopped the pain killers but continued with the calcium and today, after four weeks, we went back to the vet again. This time Spike was sedated and x-rayed again. I was waiting to hear the outcome when I heard a cheer - Good Job Spike! The vet returned smiling, carrying a rather woozy Spike, just waking up - with his cast removed! His x-ray showed his leg healing well and they had taken his cast off for him. Needless to say I was delighted and couldn't wait to take him back to see his buddy.
First order of business - give the leg he hadn't seen for four weeks a very thorough clean.


Then - luxury of luxuries - he finally got to scratch his own ear (if a little tentatively) I have been doing it for him for the past four weeks and I am sure I didn't do anywhere near as good a job as he would do for himself.


And finally after all the rest of us had made a big fuss over him, he got to snuggle up with his best friend and take a well earned nap.


It will take him a while to strengthen the muscles in his leg again and put his full weight on it but he is certainly heading in the right direction.
And why did I wait until now to do this post? - well I wanted to be reasonably sure that the post would have a happy ending :)


Photo Credits - CJT

DUMPSTER RESCUE

Whenever anything animal related occurs in or around the Museum it is always the Biology Department who gets called upon to sort it out and yesterday was no exception.
We have several large metal dumpsters on the loading dock at the back of the Museum which are emptied by city workers early each morning. Around lunchtime Andrew, our seasonal gardener, discovered that a certain furry someone had got stuck in the bottom of one of them.


It was a very hot day and the heat inside the dumpster was very extreme so we knew we had to get this little guy out as promptly as possible.


Raccoons make look irresistibly cute but, as with any wild animal, they are likely to react rather unfavorably if you try to touch them! So we had to provide him with a means of getting himself out.


A wooden pallet provided a perfect raccoon step ladder! And within less than a minute out he came.


He made his way precariously around the top lip of the dumpster


Took one last look back inside his steamy prison


Before scrabbling his way down the side and trotting off to find a shady spot to cool down.


A good deed done and an unusual use found for an old wooden pallet!


Photo Credits - CJT