Internet Naturalist – November 11, 2013

Posted on November 11, 2013 by Mark Willis
  • Spring Valley Wildlife Area – Ohio
    This 842-acre wildlife area is situated in the gently rolling agricultural region of southwest Ohio just east of the Little Miami River, eight miles south of Xenia and four miles north of Waynesville. The area may be reached by turning east off U.S. Route 42 onto Roxanna-New Burlington Road. | More than one-third of the area is in cropland and permanent meadow intermixed with brushy fencerows and extensive brushy coverts. Woods cover approximately a third of the area. A 150-acre lake and marsh complex are located on the area’s south edge.
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Internet Naturalist – November 4, 2013

Posted on November 4, 2013 by Mark Willis
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Ghost Dance: Links and Sources

Posted on November 1, 2013 by Mark Willis

The Ghost Dance by the Oglala Lakota at Pine Ridge. Illustration by Frederic Remington, 1890. [Source: Library of Congress/Wikipedia]
The Ghost Dance by the Oglala Lakota at Pine Ridge. Illustration by Frederic Remington, 1890. [Source: Library of Congress/Wikipedia]

  • Ghost Dance – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
    The Ghost Dance (Caddo: Nanissáanah,[1] also called the Ghost Dance of 1890) was a new religious movement incorporated into numerous Native American belief systems. According to the prophet Jack Wilson (Wovoka)’s teachings, proper practice of the dance would reunite the living with the spirits of the dead and bring peace, prosperity, and unity to native peoples throughout the region.[2] The basis for the Ghost Dance, the circle dance, is a traditional ritual which has been used by many Native Americans since prehistoric times, but this new form was first practiced among the Nevada Paiute in 1889. The practice swept throughout much of the Western United States, quickly reaching areas of California and Oklahoma. As the Ghost Dance spread from its original source, Native American tribes synthesized selective aspects of the ritual with their own beliefs. This process often created change in both the society that integrated it, and in the ritual itself. | The chief figure in the movement was the prophet of peace, Jack Wilson, known as Wovoka among the Paiute. He prophesied a peaceful end to white expansion while preaching goals of clean living, an honest life, and cross-cultural cooperation by Native Americans. Practice of the Ghost Dance movement was believed to have contributed to Lakota resistance. In the Wounded Knee Massacre in 1890, U.S. Army forces killed at least 153 Lakota Sioux.[3] The Sioux variation on the Ghost Dance tended towards millenarianism, an innovation that distinguished the Sioux interpretation from Jack Wilson’s original teachings. The Caddo Nation still practices the Ghost Dance today.[4]
  • Ghost Dance
    The Ghost Dance has a rich history of tradition throughout the years. For more information about the Ghost Dance…
  • Paiute Native American Shaman Wovoka and the Ghost Dance – YouTube
    The Ghost Dance appeared during a time of desperation for the Native American Indian people. The Ghost Dance started when Paiute shaman Jack Wilson or Wovoka had a vision that if our people would dance and sing we Indians would live again. The Ghost Dance spread throughout the land. In Dec. 1890 the military panicked and massacred innocent Lakota Indian people at Wound Knee while they danced. It is one of the worse incidents in United States history. Judy Trejo – Summit Lake (Tommo Agi) and Walker River (Agi) Paiute and Anita Collins – Shoshone and Walker River Paiute speak about Wovoka. The Round Dance was a traditional Great Basin dance that spread across the land in the form of the Ghost Dance, and is now part of many celebrations. Robbie Robertson sings “Ghost Dance”.

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Internet Naturalist – October 30, 2013

Posted on October 30, 2013 by Mark Willis

An adult male Rufous hummingbird. [Photo by Allen Chartier / Great Lakes Hummernet / Michigan Radio]
An adult male Rufous hummingbird. [Photo by Allen Chartier / Great Lakes Hummernet / Michigan Radio] See other photos documenting Ohio/Michigan sightings.

  • It’s getting colder, but hummingbirds haven’t left the state yet | Michigan Radio 102413
    With the chill in the air now, you might guess that most hummingbirds would have ditched Michigan for a more tropical place. The Ruby-throated hummingbird is the bird you’re most likely to see in Michigan, and it has flown south, for the most part. But Allen Chartier still wants you to keep an eye out on your backyard feeders.He studies hummingbirds and he’s the project director for Great Lakes Hummernet. “The chances that what you’re looking at is a Ruby-throat is about 50/50, because there are western species that start showing up.” He says you might get a chance to see a Rufous hummingbird.
  • Great Lakes HummerNet Home Page
    The Great Lakes HummerNet is a project designed to learn more about hummingbirds in the Great Lakes region by enlisting the help of volunteer observers throughout the state. That’s you! The project is in the beginning stages and will be fine-tuned as it progresses.
  • Pulvinar neurons reveal neurobiological evidence of past selection for rapid detection of snakes | PNAS 102813
    Snakes and their relationships with humans and other primates have attracted broad attention from multiple fields of study, but not, surprisingly, from neuroscience, despite the involvement of the visual system and strong behavioral and physiological evidence that humans and other primates can detect snakes faster than innocuous objects. Here, we report the existence of neurons in the primate medial and dorsolateral pulvinar that respond selectively to visual images of snakes. Compared with three other categories of stimuli (monkey faces, monkey hands, and geometrical shapes), snakes elicited the strongest, fastest responses, and the responses were not reduced by low spatial filtering. These findings integrate neuroscience with evolutionary biology, anthropology, psychology, herpetology, and primatology by identifying a neurobiological basis for primates’ heightened visual sensitivity to snakes, and adding a crucial component to the growing evolutionary perspective that snakes have long shaped our primate lineage. [PNAS-2013-Van Le-1312648110.pdf]
  • Eeek, Snake! Your Brain Has A Special Corner Just For Them : Shots – Health News : NPR 102813
    Anthropologist Lynne Isbell was running through a glade in central Kenya in 1992 when something suddenly caused her to freeze in her tracks. “I stopped just in front of a cobra,” she says. “It was raised with its hood spread out.” | Isbell, who is at the University of California, Davis, says she has spent the past couple of decades trying to understand how she could have reacted before her conscious brain even had a chance to think — cobra! | “At first I thought it was luck,” she says. “But now I’m pretty sure that it’s not luck. It’s a reflection of 60 million years of evolutionary history working on my visual system.” | The answer involves monkeys, the evolution of primate vision and a part of the brain called the pulvinar, which Isbell in Monday’s Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. | In the years after her encounter with the cobra, Isbell developed a theory that snakes are a major reason that humans and other primates evolved really good vision. | “We have our forward-facing eyes,” she says. “We have our excellent depth perception. We have very good visual acuity, the best in the mammalian world. We have color vision. So there has to be some sort of explanation for it.” | Primates in parts of the world with lots of poisonous snakes evolved better vision than primates elsewhere, found out. It’s no accident that lemurs in Madagascar have the worst vision in the primate world, she says. There are no venomous snakes.
  • NPR.org » Shortage Of Workers Hampers Chili Harvest In New Mexico 101313
    Let’s talk chili peppers. It’s harvest time in New Mexico where the iconic crop has been grown for centuries. New Mexico still produces more chili peppers than any other American state. But production in the U.S. is a fraction of what’s produced in India and China, countries with large pools of labor.
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Herpetologists Question Animal Care in ‘Snake Salvation”

Posted on October 20, 2013 by Mark Willis

Pastor Jamie Coots holds a snake at Full Gospel Tabernacle in Jesus Name Church of Middlesboro, Ky. [Source: NPR]
Pastor Jamie Coots holds a snake at Full Gospel Tabernacle in Jesus Name Church of Middlesboro, Ky. [Source: NPR]

  • Serpent Experts Try To Demystify Pentecostal Snake Handling : NPR 101813
    Two weeks ago, NPR of Pentecostals in Appalachia who handle snakes in church to prove their faith in God. The story got us thinking: Why are the handlers bitten so rarely, and why are so few of those snakebites lethal? After the story aired, NPR was contacted by snake experts who strongly suggest that a snake’s reluctance to bite a religious serpent handler may have more to do with the creature’s poor health than with supernatural intervention. The herpetologists at the Kentucky Reptile Zoo have been following the activities of Pentecostal snake handlers for years. They have watched hours of video of snake-handling services and examined snakes used in church. “The animals that I’ve seen that have come from religious snake handlers were in bad condition,” says Kristen Wiley, curator of the Kentucky Reptile Zoo, a facility in the town of Slade that produces venom and promotes the conservation of snakes. “They did not have water. The cages had been left not cleaned for a pretty long period of time. And the other thing we noticed is there were eight or 10 copperheads in a container that was not very large.”

smake_boxes_npr
Boxes housing snakes sit on the floor of the Full Gospel Tabernacle in Jesus Name in Middlesboro, Ky. [Source: NPR]

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Michigan Radio’s Environment Report: “In Warm Water: Fish and the Changing Great Lakes”

Posted on October 15, 2013 by Mark Willis
  • A chilly Lake Superior warms up | Michigan Radio 093013
    We kick off our week-long series In Warm Water: Fish and the Changing Great Lakes with a look at Lake Superior. It has long been the coldest and most pristine Great Lake. Its frigid waters have helped defend it from some invasive species that have plagued the other Great Lakes. But Lake Superior’s future could look radically different. Warming water and decreasing ice are threatening the habitat of some of the lake’s most iconic fish.
  • Great Lakes fish on a diet | Michigan Radio 100113
    Scientists say one way climate change is harming the Great Lakes is by warming the water too quickly in the spring. That warm-up can decrease food for tiny creatures in the lakes–the creatures that game fish like trout and salmon eat.Leaner meals
  • A mystery at the bottom of the Great Lakes food web | Michigan Radio 100213
    Phytoplankton – the algae that are food for plankton which in turn feed fish – are behaving strangely. They’re surrounded by a nutrient they need to grow. But for some reason, they’re not using it. The puzzle has big implications for how scientists think about the Great Lakes’ future in a warming world.
  • Too warm for your fried perch dinner? | Michigan Radio 100313
    Yellow perch are a staple of firehouse and church fish fries, and the delicate fish on that dish might once have lived in the Great Lakes. But warmer lake waters in a changing climate threaten the yellow perch population as well as other popular cool water fish, like walleye.
  • Warmer waters fuel toxic algal blooms in the Great Lakes | Michigan Radio 100413
    Big, ugly algal blooms are reappearing in the western basin (and sometimes the central basin) of Lake Erie. The blooms happen when excess nutrients – mostly phosphorus – run off into the lake from farms and sewage treatment plants. Some of these kinds of algae produce toxins that are among the most powerful natural poisons on Earth. Over the past decade, these algal blooms have been common in Lake Erie. And scientists predict climate change could make the problem worse.
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Internet Naturalist – October 14, 2013

Posted on October 14, 2013 by Mark Willis
  • Antarctica Through the Eyes of Emperor Penguins – The Takeaway 100913
    Due to a lapse in appropriations caused by the government shutdown, funds for certain government Antarctic research programs will be depleted by October 14, 2013. What’s it really like to do research in Antarctica? In the book Empire Antarctica, author Gavin Francis details his 14 month adventure as the base-camp doctor at Halley research station in Antarctica. Today Francis joins The Takeaway to discuss his work and the way forward for Antarctic research.
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