Environmental Monitors/BioIndicators - Biodiversity for a Livable Climate

Featured Creature: Toxoplasma gondii

What ubiquitous little parasite purposely changes the behavior of its host, through some method researchers can’t even agree on?

Fluorescently stained *T. gondii* cells;
Morne Arin via Wikimedia Commons, CC-BY-4.0; image is cropped)

Science fiction (and horror) features a lot of mind-controlling parasites. Someone gets infected, is completely taken over, and makes it their mission to spread the disease as far and wide as they can. The parasite consumes their brain, and they become just another vector for the organism’s spread.
While that’s obviously a little far-fetched in real life, there are animals that use humans and other animals purely as vectors to stay alive, and there are even organisms that can alter the behavior of others to make their own survival as easy as possible.

A parasite is an organism that lives either on or inside another organism (a host) and benefits at the host’s expense; it steals food and nutrients from its host and often harms the host in other ways, too. This relationship between a host and a parasite is a type of symbiosis called parasitism.

There are several kinds of hosts in a parasitic relationship, but the most important are definitive and intermediate hosts: definitive hosts are the parasite’s ultimate hosts; the parasite can reproduce sexually in these hosts, allowing it to complete its life cycle. Intermediate hosts are just hosts where the parasite ends up on the way to the definitive host; they can still reproduce in intermediate hosts, but only asexually—by dividing inside host cells to create new copies of themselves, rather than mixing DNA from two parents as we do..

Incidental hosts are hosts the parasite ends up in by accident, and they don’t really help the organism reach its target destination, the definitive host. Reservoir hosts are those that harbor the parasite but aren’t affected by it; they just end up carrying it elsewhere.

Many hosts, whether they’re definitive, intermediate, or something else, are animals like mammals, fish, birds, or insects—but parasites can also infect much smaller organisms, even other microbes.

A rat carrying the bubonic plague (reservoir host)
Public Domain

Parasites can be all kinds of organisms, but tend to be very small: single-celled organisms, insects, and worms (like a tapeworm) are common examples. Toxoplasma gondii is an extremely tiny single-celled parasite- around 1/20th the width of a strand of your hair!

T. gondii is found in several hosts, but its only definitive host is the cat. Its most common intermediate hosts are rodents. Cats are its only definitive hosts because their intestines provide a unique environment where T. gondii can reproduce sexually— due in part to cats’ low levels of the enzyme delta-6-desaturase, which allows linoleic acid to build up and trigger that process.

This parasite can also infect most other warm-blooded animals, such as deer, dogs, and even people. In fact, it’s pretty common for humans to have this parasite —around 30% of us worldwide have been infected at least once. In the United States, that rate is much lower, but it can be as high as 80% in other countries around the world.Now in humans, T. gondii keeps a low profile. Chances are, you wouldn’t even know it was there. In rare cases, it can develop into an actual infection called toxoplasmosis; with symptoms similar to the flu. Neurological changes are possible, but also rare. A severe infection can cause dizziness, clumsiness, slower thought processing, and lower stress levels (while that doesn’t necessarily sound like a bad thing, risky behavior can lead to an increased risk of car accidents.

Two *T. gondii* cells viewed through a TEM; Jacques Rigoulet et al. via Wikimedia Commons, CC-BY-4.0;

Humans are an incidental host, so all of these changes are accidental. The host T. gondii actually wants to manipulate is the intermediate host: rodents. In mice and rats, a Toxoplasma gondii infection changes their behavior. Infected rodents tend to take more risks if there’s a threat of a predator, like cats, and become more aggressive. Typically, rodents are repelled by the smell of cat urine because they don’t want to be in places cats have been before. It’s a survival instinct, and the infection gets right in the middle of that. Their lowered guard inevitably leads to more infected rodents being eaten, giving the parasite easy access to its definitive host, the cat and its abundant delta-6-desaturase enzyme. There, the parasite can finish its life cycle and reproduce, to spread and infect other animals again.

This is an example of what is known as parasite-increased trophic transmission, in which a parasite increases its own survival by making its intermediate host (a rodent, in this case) more likely to be consumed by a predator (a cat). The behavioral changes T. gondii causes in rodents make them more likely to act aggressively and fearlessly, leading them to be caught by cats when they don’t run away. In this way, T. gondii drives ecological interactions between different species.

The obvious question is how. It’s complicated stuff, no doubt. There are a couple of different theories as to how the parasite causes these oddly specific behavioral changes, but none is without their own flaws and uncertainties.

The first major theory is tropism. Parasitic infections like these often form cysts; those small nodes, clusters, or pockets of tissue in the body that aren’t supposed to be there, often filled with something unusual. T. gondii cysts contain hundreds of individual T. gondii cells, all dormant and ready to be reactivated later. These cysts aren’t spread evenly around the body, though– they’re concentrated in areas like the brain, eyes, and other immune-privileged locations. The cysts form where they can better hide from the body’s immune system. Tropism says that the physical location of these cysts plays a part in how they affect the host. In humans, they’re vaguely denser in certain areas of the brain, like the hypothalamus and amygdala. These parts of the brain deal with your mood and fear response, which is just the sort of thing that goes wrong in infected rodents. The theory is that, because there are more cysts in those locations, they’re able to interfere with how those neurons function. They might do this through inflammation and swelling, by physically destroying neurons, or by releasing certain chemicals.

As foreshadowed, it’s not a perfect explanation. Even when cysts are cleared or inactive, some behavioral effects can persist, suggesting that changes in the brain may outlast the infection itself.

Image: *T. gondii* cysts in muscle tissue; Dr. Martin D. Hicklin via Pixnio, CC0)

The second major theory is that the parasite disrupts human dopamine production. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that deals with reward and motivation. Toxoplasma gondii has two genes that allow it to increase dopamine production in its neighboring neurons. In humans and infected organisms, dopamine levels are much higher in areas with cysts. Too much dopamine can cause a decrease in stress responses and can cause animals to take more risks, with the motivation to explore new smells, like cat urine.

The final major theory is that the parasite also changes testosterone and vasopressin levels in its host. Exposure to more of these chemicals increases aggressiveness and decreases caution, making the rodent more likely to be eaten by cats. This theory also holds because male rats are more likely to exhibit strong behavioral changes in response to an infection than females. Several studies have tested this, and testosterone levels have been shown to increase in humans and in rats, but strangely, not in mice.

Several studies have examined each of these theories and sought to test and disprove them; many disagree with one another. No one has fully agreed on which possibility is correct, and perhaps there is a more nuanced truth that combines of all of them. No matter what’s going on under the hood, T. gondii is able to infect intermediate hosts and alter their behavior to get closer to its definitive host, advancing its own life cycle.

Toxoplasma gondii isn’t the only parasite that does this, either: the zombie-ant fungus causes ants to drop their regular behavior and start to climb as high as they can before dying; the fungus will then release its spores, which tend to travel further and infect more insects because they have more room to travel if they’re in the air instead of on the ground. The rabies virus is also a common example; the classic “foaming at the mouth” appearance is actually a result of overproduction of saliva that contains the virus itself. The virus makes the host more aggressive, increasing the likelihood that it will bite others and spread the infection. Also, the common rumors that rabies makes you scared of water aren’t entirely false. While it doesn’t actually create a fear of water, the infection causes painful throat spasms that make swallowing difficult—so infected animals avoid drinking, which keeps the virus-rich saliva from being washed away.

Image: an ant infected with Ophiocordyceps unilateralis; Tiago Lubiana via Wikimedia Commons, CC-BY-4.0)

The world is full of parasites that alter behavior in oddly precise ways, all in an effort to increase their own survival and reproduction. These manipulations aren’t random—they’ve evolved over time through complex, codependent relationships that change predator-prey dynamics, influence brain chemistry, and even change how energy moves through ecosystems. Parasites like T. gondii show just how interconnected species are to each other; no species exists in a vacuum, and even something as small as a single-celled organism can affect completely different species; any tiny piece of something has the potential to change everything else.

Anya Reddy is a high school student at Blue Valley North. She loves biology and biochemistry, as well as entomology, ecology, and environmental science in general. Some of Anya’s non-science passions include archery and all kinds of 2D and 3D art. She enjoys learning about all kinds of organisms and how they connect and interact with others in their environment; she hopes to use writing to help share fascinating details about them, helping others like the weird and interesting organisms she loves.

Dig Deeper

Featured Creature: Yangtze River Dolphin

What river-dwelling goddess could navigate by sound alone, survived twenty million years of environmental change, yet disappeared within a few decades of human industrial expansion?

According to Chinese legend, the story of the baiji begins with a beautiful young girl who lived along the Yangtze River with her evil stepfather. One day he took her out by boat, with hopes to sell her at the local market. During this journey, he attempted to take advantage of the girl, and she dove into the welcoming arms of the Yangtze river to escape. Suddenly, a storm rose, capsizing the boat and drowning him. When the water calmed, a white dolphin appeared gliding across the current. The locals believed this to be the girl reborn as the baiji: Goddess of the Yangtze and guardian of fishermen.

For centuries, the baiji was more than a dolphin. She was deeply embedded in Chinese mythology, and fishermen considered encountering the baiji a good sign. The baiji embodied the river itself and served as a reminder of the river’s generosity, as well as the dangers. Unfortunately, in 2006, experts declared the baiji as functionally extinct.

The baiji fell victim to the one force she could not outswim: human industrial expansion.

A Living Fossil

The baiji, Lipotes vexillifer, was one of only five freshwater dolphin species in the world. Nicknamed the “living fossil,” the baiji was a subspecies that diverged about sixteen million years ago from two South American species: La Plata dolphins and the Amazonian river dolphin. The baiji was the only member of the mammal family called Lipotidae since they carried unique traits such as a single stomach rather than two and small eyes adapted to the Yangtze’s murky waters.

The Yangtze: Lifeline and Powerhouse

Stretching over 6,300 kilometres from the Tibetan Plateau to the East China Sea, the Yangtze is Asia’s longest river and the third longest in the world. Today it supports mega dams like the Three Gorges, shipping routes carrying millions of tonnes of cargo, and over 400 million people living in cities along its banks. Alongside this, it generates about $2 trillion annually, nearly 40% of China’s GDP and sustains hundreds of fish, mammal, amphibian and reptile species.
The baiji was perfectly adapted to this environment, with a long, narrow beak and echolocation ideal for shifting through silt and mud in search of carp and catfish. She often fed near sandbars, where nutrient-rich deposits attracted fish and fishermen alike. But even these adaptations could not save her against escalating industrialisation.

Sadly this is not the only extinction story from the Yangtze. The Chinese paddlefish, and last member of its genus Psephurus, was last seen in 2003. This species survived for at least two hundred million years, and was killed, with overfishing and dam construction to blame.

When Growth Outpaces Nature

Before China’s industrialisation in the 1950s, there were an estimated six thousand baiji living in the Yangtze’s thriving ecosystem. By the 1980s, only a few hundred remained, and by 1997, fewer than twenty were left. The baiji’s collapse reflects what can happen when economic growth is expedited at the expense of ecologies, both human and non-human.

China’s proto-industrialisation began in 1978, and while the baiji were initially hunted for meat, oil and leather, the greater threats came later from dredging, untreated waste, and the Three Gorges, which permanently altered the Yangtze’s flow. Studies suggest that it was not simply the changes to the river flow, but the relentless pursuit of artisanal fishing that posed a major threat to the baiji. Many small-scale fishers, trapped in poverty, ignored restrictions and turned to destructive methods such as electric shocks and dynamite. In 1981, extreme poverty affected 70% of urban and 97% of rural Chinese populations, thus leaving fishermen little choice but to prioritise survival over sustainability.

The baiji were not deliberately hunted to extinction but perished as bycatch, a concept economics call a ‘negative externality’ which reflects the hidden costs of rapid industrialisation. These costs include habitat destruction, pollution, and biodiversity loss; all of which were not factored into economic calculations that drove further development along the Yangtze. Each of these costs matter individually, yet when collectively overlooked they do not only lead to environmental damage, but also result in missed opportunities for intervention that could have prevented irreversible loss.

Missed Chances

The Yangtze can be described as a social-ecological system due to its interconnected importance for humanity and nature alike, thus making its management complex and politically charged. As baiji populations declined alongside other species, Chinese lawmakers implemented protective legislation in the late 1970s banning harmful fishing practices and creating reserves along the main channel. The issue of how to save the baiji was debated internationally, including in two IUCN reports, but the existence of differing opinions led to minimal financial or logistical support ever materialising. In-situ reserves (on-site conservation efforts) proved inadequate, and the later ex-situ (controlled preservation of a species outside of its natural habitat) programme at the Tian’e-Zhou oxbow lake came too late. In 1995, one baiji was successfully transferred, but perished due to summer flooding and thus the initiative collapsed.

Arguably, only a total fishing ban could have offered real protection, however given that the majority of Chinese households lived in extreme poverty in the 1980s, this would have been economically and socially unfeasible. Families depended on the river for survival, and there would have been a need to provide alternative income sources and livelihoods for river communities. It seems almost impossible for a developing nation to shoulder this economic burden. In 2021, China finally implemented a 10-year fishing ban. By 2020, studies show that the share of people living in extreme poverty in both urban and rural areas was below 1%, and now as the world’s second-largest economy China could absorb the financial cost of such policies.

Sadly, it was too late for the baiji. This case is illustrated by the ‘environmental Kuznets curve’ (EKC), shown below, which describes the relationship between economic development and environmental degradation. EKC suggests that environmental degradation initially increases with economic growth in poorer countries, then decreases after reaching a certain income level. The idea is that countries often cannot afford environmental protection until a certain level of development is reached. But, by that point, often too much damage has been done to the most vulnerable species.

Beyond the Tragedy of the Commons

What happens when everyone has access to an abundant public resource? American ecologist and microbiologist, Garrett Hardin, considered this very question with his concept of the ‘Tragedy of the Commons.’ He describes a situation in which individuals with access to a finite public resource, such as the Yangtze, will all act in their own interest and thus overuse it, even possibly destroying the resource altogether. This concept links well to artisanal fishing. The regulation of common resources is a widely discussed concept, as it focuses on creating incentives to change individuals’ behaviour and use of shared resources, rather than relying on government ownership and direct control.

Yet Hardin’s model captures only one part of the baiji’s story. As mentioned earlier, much of the destructive fishing stemmed from economic desperation with families choosing to provide for themselves no matter the cost. Even those aware of the damage often continued because others did, a dynamic known as conditional cooperations. This reflects a wider reality that many of the ‘tragedies of the commoners’ are at heart, tragedies of inadequate social policy, where poverty traps leave communities without viable alternatives.

For the case of the baiji, the Yangtze required not only stronger top-down regulation, but also community-level institutions that Noble-prize winner Elinor Ostrom described within the concept of ‘polycentric governance.’ This governance system requires multiple, independent decision-making centres to interact and coordinate, rather than relying on a single, centralised authority. In the context of the Yangtze, this method requires not just regulation from Beijing, but also local fishing cooperatives collaborating and collectively developing economic incentives for conservation and alternative livelihoods for river-dependent communities. Economists now promote a scheme called ‘Payments for Ecosystem Services’, where communities are paid to conserve biodiversity. Had such frameworks been in place in the 1980s, fishermen might have been given both the means and the incentives to protect the baiji. Unfortunately, the absence of these mechanisms left short-term survival and extraction as the only rational choice.

Moving forward

All six river dolphin species in the world are classified as Endangered or Critically Endangered on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. In South Asia, the Ganges River Dolphin, scientifically known as Platanista gangetica, is officially endangered. Like the baiji, the Ganges River Dolphin holds significant cultural importance in Hinduism, but is struggling under mounting pressures from industrial runoff and accidental bycatch. Meanwhile, in South America, the Amazon River Dolphin faces mercury contamination from gold mining, entanglement in fishing gear, and deliberate killing for use as bait. It seems that the baiji’s extinction is not an isolated tragedy, but part of a global pattern for other river dolphins.

Despite these challenges, there are signs of hope for river dolphins around the world. Studies show that China’s 10-year ban has shown promising results for biodiversity recovery. Fish eggs and fry counts in 2023 from the Jianli monitoring section reached six billion in total which is 4.4 times higher than those in 2020. However, scholars debate whether the ban alone is enough to reverse the situation, particularly since overfishing contributed only 30% of the total fish decline, with human activities contributing more heavily. Globally, there is a clear increase in integrating ecological resilience into economic frameworks. For instance, Costa Rica’s Payments for Environmental Services Program (PES) is the first scheme of its type in the region. This program is designed to promote forest ecosystem conservation and combat land degradation In which landowners receive payments for adopting sustainable land-use and forest-management techniques. Additionally, WWF’s River Dolphin Initiative acts as a global knowledge hub of the best practices for river dolphin conservation and management.

The baiji’s extinction illustrates the cost of delayed regulation, undervalued ecosystem services tied together with short-term economic thinking. Extinction is final, and the baiji’s story reminds us that we must embed biodiversity into policy before it is too late.

Once revered as the Goddess of the Yangtze and guardian of fishermen, the baiji now endures as a warning, that treating rivers as merely resources erodes not just ecosystems but the very myths that bound us to them.

Marija Trendafiloska is a final-year BSc (Hons) Economics and Management student at King’s College London with a keen interest in environmental economics and climate policy. Her research experience has focused on turning complex economic concepts into clear, actionable policy insights, something she is motivated to deepen through postgraduate study. As the Co-President of KCL Green Finance Society, she also explores the intersection of sustainable finance, policy, and real-world impact. Beyond her academic commitments, Marija is passionate about reading, painting, and playing the piano, alongside being an avid gym-goer.

Dig Deeper

Featured Creature: Common Loon

What species is an expert diver and well known for its haunting wail?

On the fringes of my mind, there lies a lake. I can’t recall what it looks like, now just a fragmented memory, but I know it’s there. I imagine that it’s shimmering, with small ripples that echo and a deep blue that beckons, brightened by the sun. I imagine how time passed through this landscape, with the basin painstakingly carved out by a glacier, then pooling with the tears of retreat and the cry of melting snow. I imagine the lake resting, a wooded mountain towering above. Here, I am at peace.

A bird emerges from the water. It peers down, neck craned, to gaze into the depths of the lake. In a flash, the creature dives. Beneath the surface, the bird’s black and white feathers glimmer, and its stark, red eyes skillfully search the darkness. Under the bird’s sleek exterior lies a solid bone structure, allowing it to swim deeper and deeper, reaching depths of 250 ft as it races through the dim waters. The water is clear, allowing the bird to spot a small fish swimming, just a few feet below. Five minutes pass before the bird re-emerges, a small fish tucked in its beak.

The bird may be diving for fish in a faint memory, but it continues to swim at the forefront of my mind. Meet the common loon.

Mirror Lake, Thornton, NH
(Photo credit: Adrianna Drindak)

Growing up, my grandparents spent one week of each summer along Blue Mountain Lake, nestled within the Adirondack Mountains in upstate New York. I remember going up to visit with my parents. We would sit outside and chat for hours, dipping in the lake to cool down and cooking meals for our small, close family. The details of these visits are now hazy. After all this time, it’s not the smell of the lake or a stunning evening sunset that lingers. It’s a sound that we cherished, a beckoning that would dance in our ears, a noise that both chilled and calmed my spirit – the call of the loon.

Even now, the loon calls to me. The common loon has four distinctive calls, with its voice most likely to be heard from May to June.

The hoot is a terse call that often allows for family units to converse over small distances.

A male loon might produce a yodel when defending its territory from nearby males, predators, and other threats.

The tremolo is a sound often released over water, as the loon flies over lakes inhabited by other loons.

But, of all the loon’s calls, there is one that settles in your bones, demanding you to listen – the wail. Often a call into the night, the wail serves as a way for mated loons to communicate over the expanse of a large lake. The sound haunts you. It is a cry that mourns, a cry that beckons, a cry that celebrates all that is living and has lived.

…

It is a few days after my grandmother’s funeral.

I hold a small, carved loon in the palm of my hand. This wooden loon is just one of the many objects remaining in my grandparents’ empty home. I hold the loon, and I’m pulled back to Blue Mountain Lake. Even if years separate me from the memory, I can still imagine the gentle whispers of my grandparents as a loon calls.

Now I hear the loon and I feel its own mourning. There is a raw grief, as watersheds are polluted and habitats are destroyed, but there is also the need to communicate and seek partnership. A yearning for what is lost and what is loved. If grief is an expression of love, maybe the loon’s call is one for the world, a call to the wild, to the marshlands and lakes, to the ecosystems that once were, to the future and what our world can be.

Our planet has so much to share, and it’s up to us to listen.

Adrianna Drindak is a rising senior at Dartmouth College studying Environmental Earth Sciences and Environmental Studies. Prior to interning at Bio4Climate, she worked as a field technician studying ovenbirds at Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest and as a laboratory technician in an ecology lab. Adrianna is currently an undergraduate researcher in the Quaternary Geology Lab at Dartmouth, with a specific focus on documenting climate history and past glaciations in the northeast region of the United States. This summer, Adrianna is looking forward to applying her science background to an outreach role, and is excited to brainstorm ways to make science more accessible. In her free time, Adrianna enjoys reading, baking gluten free treats, hiking, and backpacking.

Dig Deeper

Common Loon – Life History

Spirit of the North: the Common Loon, Marie Read

Featured Creature: Fire Click Beetle

What tiny creature glows in the dark, digests cellulose, and can propel themselves up to 20 times their body length in the air without even using their legs?

Image: a fire click beetle; Camilo Garcia Gonzalez
(CC BY-NC 4.0 via iNaturalist

II first discovered fire click beetles a few years ago while on a vacation to Florida in 2019. It was dark out, and my family and I sat at a firepit, joined by my younger cousins who we were visiting at the time. My brother and I had a tradition of catching fireflies, so we took our cousins to a grassy lawn bordered by trees and tall grasses on the other side of our hotel. Fireflies were dancing around in the air, and we had a lot of fun chasing them. I saw a light coming from the grass, and went towards it, thinking that trapping a firefly from below would be easier than jumping for one as it flew past me. I parted the grass to take a look, and saw that the glowing light wasn’t from a firefly at all!

At the time, I didn’t know that there were insects other than fireflies that could glow, much to my surprise. It was shinier than a firefly, without the characteristic red-yellow head, and the greenish glow was coming from two spots that looked like eyes! I didn’t try to pick it up, because I wasn’t sure if it would bite me, and instead went to share this unexpected finding with my parents. When I brought them over to see, it had disappeared. Later (with the help of Google, of course) I found out it was a click beetle; specifically, a fire click beetle (genus Pyrophorus). I had never seen one before. As someone who loves entomology, I started to read more, and I found them to be fascinating! Let’s take a look at what makes fire click beetles so unique.

Bioluminescence

As you know, fireflies are able to produce light, and fire click beetles are able to as well. Within an insect, the front section is the head, the middle section is the thorax, and the back portion is the abdomen. Pyrophorus has two glowing spots on its thorax, near the head. This beetle also has a spot underneath its abdomen, which is only visible when a beetle opens its wings to fly. These spots can glow yellow or green, and unlike fireflies, don’t really turn on and off. Fireflies can flash their lights at will, but fire click beetles cannot. These beetles can only control the brightness of their light at a given moment, changing intensity to adapt to the present environment and conditions. Fire click beetle eggs, larvae, and pupae glow, too!

Image: a fire click beetle with spread wings; Leonardo Adrián LEIVA (CC BY-NC 4.0 via iNaturalist)

Fireflies and fire click beetles produce their light in the same way: a chemical reaction. Both creatures have glowing “light organs”, which have special cells that contain a molecule called luciferin. Luciferin is stable by itself, but if it breaks down in a certain way, the energy within the molecule is released as light. Enzymes help break this chemical down using oxygen; the main enzyme involved is called luciferase (the suffix -ase means that it breaks down its namesake chemical, luciferin).

Interestingly, fireflies and fire click beetles have varying genes for luciferase. Since enzymes are coded for by DNA, scientists were able to compare the genes of the two insects to see the similarities and differences. The DNA turned out to differ significantly! This result indicates that these two insects did not get their bioluminescence in the same way, since there isn’t a common ancestor that passed the ability down. Each evolved to have bioluminescence separately, and it ended up working the same way. It’s no surprise that luciferins are one of the most efficient ways to create light!

Image: a fire click beetle showing off its mesosternal lip;
Janet Guardiola (CC BY-NC 4.0 via iNaturalist, image is rotated)

On a side note, the word “luciferin” has no direct correlation with the devil; lucifer is a Latin word meaning “light-bearing”. Luciferin, which produces light, was named by adding the suffix “-in”, which is commonly used for many molecules and compounds.

Clicking Powers

Click beetles (family Elateridae) – believe it or not – can click! They get their name from a loud and sharp snap they can produce. This sound is produced through a latch mechanism, where they build up energy that suddenly releases, propelling themselves in the air and releasing a click. It works kind of like snapping your fingers; when you press your fingers together, the friction between your fingertips keeps them from moving until enough energy has built up that it overcomes resistance, and your finger slips, making a snapping sound. Click beetles have a little notch at the base of their thorax that acts as a hinge; when they bend backwards, the notch slips into a latch that holds it in place. When they try to bend forwards, the pressure builds up until it, metaphorically, explodes.

Now, in your case, your middle finger (or whatever finger you use to snap), slips fast and hits your palm. Click beetles don’t have a release like this; instead, the force flings their whole body into the air (given how small they are, this doesn’t actually take that much energy; they’re usually only about an inch long). They can go up around twenty times their body length, and one species, Athous haemorrhoidalis, can “jump” up to a foot in the air.

This motion only works when the beetles are on their back. If they were standing normally, they would technically be propelled down into the ground. They use this technique to flip themselves over when they are stuck on their back. At the same time, if the beetle is in danger, it could also be used to get up and away from a predator much faster than if they tried to fly.

Fire click beetles have no extra mechanism for making sure they land right-side–up; most animals, if they fall, are able to at least somewhat orient themselves in the air. Fire click beetles, and most insects, cannot. Still, they land right-side-up 2 out of 3 times. How? Well, it is actually quite simple – they act like a weighted coin. Their underside is much heavier than their top, since their exoskeleton there is thicker and denser. Therefore, when they are falling, their bottom side tends to go first, and ends up below, where it belongs. Of course, this is not a foolproof method, as they still land upside down a third of the time. In that case, they can just do it again!

Why don’t fire click beetles get hurt when they fall? When they’re in the air, they accelerate very fast, up to 300 times the force of gravity. That’s fast enough to kill a human, but the beetles are not injured at all – with the capacity to crawl and fly immediately. This ability is a result of their hard exoskeleton that protects them on the outside, and their soft tissue inside, which is designed to absorb impact to avoid internal damage. Coupled with their size, this structure allows most smaller insects to survive their terminal velocity. This means that, if you dropped one from as high as an airplane, it would survive the fall! (risks from air pressure, wind speed, or an unlucky bird encounter notwithstanding).

Image: a fire click beetle; Aacocucci (CC BY 2.0 via iNaturalist)

Role in the ecosystem

Fire click beetle larvae live in soil or decaying wood, where they feed on a mix of decomposing plant material and small invertebrates. In this way, they help recycle nutrients in their ecosystems. Adults of some click beetle species feed on pollen, nectar, and occasionally soft-bodied insects, though the diet of Pyrophorus adults is bit less well documented.

It’s worth talking here about cellulose, for a minute, a carbohydrate found in the lining of plant cells. Cellulose is one of the main “leftover” materials that needs to be broken down in the environment, since other animals only tend to digest proteins, lipids, and certain carbohydrates. Cows, for example, also have the right enzymes and gut microbes to digest cellulose; that’s why they can rely on grass as a food source, unlike humans. In our diets, cellulose is typically a fiber; we do not get energy from it, but it helps us in other ways (including helping digestion go smoothly, and helping diversify our gut microbes). However, these beetles are believed to tolerate and digest cellulose rather easily.

Since fire click beetles often eat pollen and plant matter, warm, leafy areas like the tropics, subtropics, and temperate regions are a favorite. They can be found in Central and South America, as well as the surrounding islands. They can even be found as far north as Mexico or, rarely, southern US, although they have recently been disappearing from there, along with many other insects in the area. Habitat loss and deforestation, pesticide and herbicide use, and temperature and precipitation variations due to climate change are some of the major contributors to fire click beetle disappearance. These beetles are usually referred to as cocuyos in areas south of Florida.

Also, remember when I mentioned aphids before? Some fire click beetle adults eat them, as well as other soft-bodied pests. This predator-prey relationship keeps aphid populations in check. Other species play a role in managing fire click beetle populations, such as large insects, moles and shrews, and some birds, which are all common predators of Pyrophorus.

Every species in an ecosystem has a specific role to play in the flow of energy and cycling of nutrients. Some of the main roles in a food web are producers, consumers, and decomposers. If any of these groups become too abundant or too small, the ecosystem might become unstable. A trophic cascade is a series of impactful and often harmful effects in a food web caused by a change in one of the populations in the ecosystem; the addition or removal of just one species causes the entire thing to fall apart.

For example, if most of the fire click beetles in a certain environment suddenly died, aphid populations could grow exponentially. This action could cause other harmful effects, starting with the death of plants that the aphids feed on. Animals that feed on the click beetles might also decrease in size, as they would lack this creature as a food source. In turn, other species those animals eat would increase in size, and the ecosystem would become unstable.

These potential consequences present the main reasons why it’s concerning that these beetles, and other insects and animals, are disappearing from certain locations. Climate change and human activities are causing ecosystem instability at much faster rates than usual, which puts environments at risk.

The potential for this kind of ecosystem collapse is part of the reason why invasive species or endangered species are such a big deal. Ecosystems are interconnected, and the presence or absence of a given species has the power to entirely change or destroy how other organisms interact with the environment.

I hope you’ve learned a little about a fascinating tiny insect that I love, and their weird features like bioluminescence and clicking. I also hope you’re more knowledgeable about the important roles species play, which are often critical to maintaining a stable ecosystem. Decomposers and little critters that feed in the soil are necessary for the flow of energy and nutrient cycling through an ecosystem. Consumers, like the adults, help keep populations in check and maintain a balance between different species.

I hope this introduction to the fire click beetle encourages us to dive into any curiosities we have, like I did with these beetles. I also hope that this reflection helps us become more aware of the natural world and our place in it, and consider how we affect other species and individuals in our ecosystem.

Dig Deeper

Featured Creature: Black Capped Petrel

Which charismatic seabird is famed for its aerial agility and the illusion that it can walk on water?

Image credit: Patrick Coin (cc-by-sa-2.5)

Alone on a rolling sea, I scan the waves for life and find comfort in the company of seabirds. While gannets and shearwaters soar, it is the little storm petrels that make me smile the widest. They are like ocean butterflies, fluttering the valleys between waves to pluck at invisible animals in the neuston. Because so much of the world is covered by the ocean, the most numerous bird species is the Wilson’s petrel, found in all oceans. In New England and Newfoundland, Leach’s petrel nests on rocky outlying islands. Storm petrels can be distinguished by their foot color, shape of the “usual” white rump patch, and tail shape. I cannot tell them apart, and that does not lessen my enjoyment of being with individual petrels.

The black-capped petrel feeds on squid, tiny fish, and zooplankton. Named “petrel” after the fisherman Saint Peter because the spritely birds stirring the sea surface with their feet for food looked like they were walking on water.

These elegant little birds, dressed in black and white feathers, spend most of their lives in the Caribbean Sea, returning to land in fading light to nest in burrows among the mountains of Hispaniola and Dominica.

Sadly, the black-capped petrel is currently threatened due to human activity.

The mountains where they nest are being cleared for agriculture and development, which is destroying the petrel’s nesting habitat, making it increasingly difficult for the population to survive.

During their nesting period, black-capped petrel chicks fall prey to human-introduced species such as rats and mongooses. These invasive predators have had a devastating impact on the petrel population.

From mountains to the sea, our environment is all connected. Our actions high on land are harming petrels and marine life below.

The good news is that local actions, when taken together, have a meaningful impact. We have passed a tipping point where vegetation is being removed, and soils are being replaced by hardscapes and heat islands. Although annual rainfall has not increased, water that once seeped into the ground now runs off as stormwater, causing flooding. When water cascades over hot hardscapes, it absorbs and transports heat to the ocean, along with harmful pollutants that reduce the productivity of phytoplankton and lower the nutritional value of copepods, a petrel’s favored food.

To better understand what’s happening, try warming a cup of water with a hair dryer. You’ll find that the only way to heat water above the air temperature is to place it on a hot plate. The solution to the petrel’s plight is to remove the hot plates, to cover heat islands with vegetation and soil, such as potted plants and raised gardens. Enabling properties to retain rainwater that falls on them will allow plants and rivers to survive dry periods, reduce municipal stormwater management costs, and alleviate suffering for people living in low-lying areas.

Our collective action to green our neighborhoods can turn the tide on the climate crisis and save charming little birds like the black-capped petrel from extinction.

I like to take the power of the wind to propel a sailboat into the wind. For the sails to fill and drive the boat forward, the wind must be about 40 degrees to the side. Too close to the wind, the sails lose the wind, luff, and the boat stalls. Sail for a while on a tack with the wind coming over one rail and then turn the boat before the wind, to fill the sails on the other side. Progress is a zigzag. Sometimes, when going through the narrows, no matter how expertly the boat is brought about and sails sheeted in, the windward mark cannot be fetched due to wind, tide, and weather.

I take the same approach to advancing environmental legislation. The course is set, sails trimmed, and you go as far as you can, against the wind, before conditions change and obstacles appear. Then, quickly shift the effort onto a new tack. Sometimes, despite everyone’s best efforts, the legislation does not pass. Like going for an afternoon sail, win or lose, you still go sailing the next day because it’s not the destination; it’s the thrill of the voyage with a capable crew pulling together when the helmsman cries:

“Ready about, hard to lee,” fill the sails with wind and move forward once more.

Rob Moir, PhD, is the Executive Director of the Ocean River Institute. He lives in Somerville, Massachusetts, with a population density of 19,000 people per square mile, making it the most densely populated city in the Northeast. He enjoys sailing from Boston Harbor to see the Harbor Islands give way to open ocean with no land on the horizon, humbled by our smallness and the vast power of the ocean. For more information, please visit www.oceanriver.org. Rob’s Clam Chowdah Narratives are on Substack https://robmoir469011.substack.com/

Dig Deeper

Ocean River Institute

Featured Creature: Fireflies

I flicker and float in warm evening air,
Like nature’s own fireworks, more care than scare.
No sound, just light as I drift and play
What glowing insect lights up your way?

Fireflies

We’re doing Featured Creature a little differently this week. Instead of a written piece, we’re publishing this conversation between Adrianna Drindak (Science Communications Intern) and Brendan Kelly (Communications Manager), with media and contextual commentary from Alexandra Ionescu (Associate Director of Regenerative Projects).

Brendan

Hi Adrianna.

Adrianna

Hi Brendan.

Brendan

So, Alexandra Ionescu had this idea of exploring fireflies for Featured Creature this weekend. It’s obviously Fourth of July in the United States and we typically celebrate with fireworks, and she made this great observation from the woods in Upstate NY, about fireflies being nature’s fireworks, and I thought that was so great and left open so much room to explore not just the ecology and biochemistry, but also I think our collective childlike awe and fascination with them.

Alexandra

Exactly! Thank you both and I’m so bummed I have to miss the rest of this conversation, but yes I wanted to give a little more context.

This summer I shared a really beautiful moment with my dad while he was visiting from abroad.

I took him to one of my favorite spots in Upstate NY near my husband’s parents house to see the beavers. We went at dusk and were able to catch a beaver and a few tail slabs. It was nearly dark by this point and the path back to the car cut through the forest. And what unraveled was this beautiful transition from being in the presence of a beaver and observing its movement through the water, and then walking back to the car through the dark forest.

Except, it wasn’t.

The forest was lit up by probably thousands of fireflies. Wherever you looked you could see them flickering and communicating and signaling. There were rhythms and waves of dots and points and flashes of light dancing all around us.

And it’s fascinating to realize that firefly season coincides with the 4th of July, especially if we think of fireflies as nature’s own fireworks. (Only, it happens through chemistry, with absolutely no sound the human ear can detect, and no pollution.)

How does nature illuminate, versus how humans illuminate?

Maybe it all comes down to an intentionality of being—one that respects the web of life, that practices co-existence, where illumination doesn’t disturb the ways of other beings, but coexists alongside them—through silence, wavelengths, and chemistry.

So I invite everyone this weekend—and beyond—instead of going to see the violent, explosive fireworks, the human–made fireworks, go see nature’s own fireworks instead.

By Alexandra Ionescu

Brendan

Thanks Alex, that’s such a beautiful way to set course for this conversation and our hope is to circle back around to some of those themes by the end. Okay, Adrianna, what do we know about fireflies?

Adrianna

Thanks Alex! Yes, let’s talk about fireflies. Or lightening bugs, depending on where you live or grew up.

Brendan

I was raised in Kansas, they’ve always been lightening bugs to me.

Adrianna

As a New Englander, it’s fireflies.

Brendan

Agree to disagree.

Adrianna

Sure. So this probably won’t come as a surprise to anyone, but fireflies are unique in that they are one of the few organisms that are able to produce their own light.

Brendan

You’re talking about bioluminescence?

Adrianna

That’s right, bioluminescence. Oxygen inside the firefly’s light organ, or lantern, mixes with three other components: adenosine triphosphate (ATP), a molecule called luciferin and the enzyme luciferase. And researchers believe that different fireflies can give off different intensities of light that they’re producing based on the level of oxygen that’s being supplied to the light organ, to the lantern.

During that reaction, nearly all the energy is released as light, not heat. It’s one of the most energy-efficient light sources in nature.

Brendan

That’s really neat. I’m reading right now that they’ve even inspired energy-saving LED technologies. If Alex was still here I think she’d have a lot to say about biomimicry!

I see that one way LED designers have drawn from fireflies is by adding microscopic surface structures that help light escape more efficiently. In most LEDs, those structures are symmetrical, but fireflies have asymmetric, angled microstructures on their lanterns. This boosts light output in two ways: First, the greater surface area increases light interaction, so less of it gets trapped. And second, the uneven angles scatter the light more randomly, giving it more chances to exit. It’s really clever. I’ll send you the article. The close-up images are wild.

Adrianna

And kind of like how you can buy different color LEDs, there are different colors of light amongst fireflies.

Brendan

Oh, interesting. Is it involuntary? I was reading about how, we can get into this in a second, but how the light is used to signal and communicate, where males will have their own flash patterns and specific sequences. So is what you’re talking about the mechanism by which that is controlled or are we talking about two separate things?

Adrianna

We’re talking about two separate things. Oxygen and chemical regulation can vary between species, which is why you get different colors and hues of light from different species of firefly. Separately, yes, each firefly can control the sequence of signals it sends.

But, it’s important to note that some firefly species are active during the day instead of at night. They don’t produce light, so instead of flashing, they communicate using pheromones.

Brendan

Yeah, I saw something similar in a recent report, just a couple years old. So…what do you call a lightning bug that doesn’t light up? Just a bug?

Adrianna

Well, technically fireflies aren’t bugs; they’re beetles.

Brendan

I’ll be honest I’m not entirely sure where that leaves us.

Adrianna

Communication.

Brendan

Right. One of my more recent feature creature articles was about African gray parrots and I focused pretty much exclusively on the communication aspect because what I love about those birds is that their vocalizations are hyperlocal and they have their own dialects based on where they live in the forest. Almost like accents. And it almost seems like there’s a similar phenomenon going on here with this sort of language of light.

*Photo by Jud McCranie. Butler Island Plantation, Georgia*

Adrianna

Yes! There are around 2,000 species of fireflies, which is wild to think about. When multiple species live in the same area, they each occupy a specific “signaling niche.” That means they might share habitats, but they’ll come out at different times of night, and they use distinct flash patterns to communicate. So even if they’re in the same place, they’re not getting their signals crossed, each species is speaking its own visual language, on its own schedule.

Brendan

That’s such a cool thing to know. If you’re observing fireflies in your backyard or local area, you can probably start to notice patterns, like what time they come out, how they flash. And then maybe when you’re somewhere else in the summer, you could compare what you’re seeing and pick up on the differences. I’m not sure if there’s a whole firefly-watching community out there like birders, but it’s fun to think about!

I was reading that the whole thing is kind of like a dance, at least when it comes to mating. The males are the ones flying around, flashing their little signals like peacocks, trying to get attention. The females stay on the ground or in low vegetation, and if they spot a male they like, they flash back. That’s how they find each other and connect.

Adrianna

That’s right. The male sends a flash of light and then the female will see the signal from a male of her species, and they communicate and find each other. They navigate their way towards each other through those sequences of flashes.

Brendan

It’s almost melancholy though because when you see them you get excited but they’re at the end of their life basically if you see them flying around flashing, right?

Adrianna

Yep. I’m looking at a diagram now and they are eggs for about 3 weeks, in their larva stage for about one to two years, in their pupa stage for about three weeks, and then they’re adults for only three to four weeks.

Brendan

Okay now I read this in a few reports so I have a degree of confidence about it. In some species, like Photuris fireflies, the females will actually mimic the flash patterns of a different firefly species to lure in unsuspecting males. The male thinks he’s found a mate, but when he arrives, it’s a total bait-and-switch…she eats him instead. It’s a wild example of aggressive mimicry.

Adrianna

That’s crazy.

Brendan

Yeah. Who knew the life of the lightening bug could be so hostile. But I guess on that point, it can be a hostile life!

Adrianna

It can, for sure. I came across a recent Penn State project studying threats to fireflies, and one key point was how climate change is affecting their development. For many U.S. species, the seasonal temperature patterns they rely on (warmer summers and cooler winters) are shifting. Unseasonal heat or cold can disrupt their life cycles. Changing rainfall patterns are also a problem: both droughts and flooding can interfere with firefly development at different stages.

Brendan

That makes sense. Fireflies usually need some level of moisture, so drier conditions are definitely a concern. But the issue of light pollution stood out to me. As cities expand and the night gets brighter, the bioluminescent signals fireflies use to find mates can get drowned out. If the flashing is less visible, then males and females may just miss each other altogether.

It’s a reminder that habitat isn’t just about physical space, it’s also about light, temperature, and other environmental cues that species depend on.

Adrianna

Definitely. I’ve never lived in a city before and I think it’s been really interesting for me to notice those kinds of changes and to think about those kinds of shifts in what organisms I’m seeing and which organisms I’m not seeing. I was just home last weekend in upstate New York like Alexandra, and we were walking in the woods and there were fireflies everywhere. And then I come back to D.C., where I’m living this summer, and it’s just very different.

Brendan

I didn’t see many fireflies when I lived in D.C. either, and I think that makes sense. When you’re out of the city, you can look up and see the stars clearly. But in the city, even on a clear night, you look up and the stars are hidden by all the light. And I think it’s probably the same for fireflies. To our eyes, a star and a firefly are about the same size. If we can’t see the stars, we’re not going to see the lightning bugs either. And more importantly, they might not see each other.

I’m sure pesticides are a factor too, but light pollution alone feels like a big deal.

Brendan

Bringing this full circle, I’ve been thinking about how deeply embedded fireflies are in our collective memory, especially for those of us who grew up in suburban or rural areas in the U.S. They’re not like pets, exactly, but I’d still put them up there with cats and dogs in terms of how familiar and emotionally resonant they are. Almost everyone seems to have a memory: running barefoot through the yard at dusk, chasing little flashes of light, maybe at a cookout or camping trip. All of mine are social. Playing with friends, watching them float above the grass while the adults talked nearby. Even now, fireflies still feel special. You can’t be alone in the woods at night if there are fireflies all around.

There’s something about them that’s instantly nostalgic. Mention catching one in a jar and people don’t need an explanation…they just nod, like, “Yeah, I remember that.”

Adrianna

Yeah, and going back to how Alex opened this conversation with that contrast between fireflies and fireworks. On one hand, you’ve got fireflies, which have this quiet, calming, joyful presence. And then on the other, fireworks, which are loud and disruptive to so many living things. It’s just a really different kind of relationship you can have with each of them.

Alexandra Ionescu is a Certified Biomimicry Professional, Ecological Artist and 2024 SUGi Fellow. Her aim is to inspire learning from and about diverse non-human intelligences, cultivating propensities for ecosystem regeneration through co-existence, collaboration and by making the invisible visible. She hopes to motivate others to ask “How can humans give back to the web of life?” by raising awareness of biodiversity and natural cycles to challenge human-centric infrastructures. At present, Alexandra is immersed in expanding her knowledge of ecological restoration through Miyawaki forests, beaver-engineered landscapes, and constructed floating wetlands. In her spare time, Alexandra is part of the Below and Above Collective, an interdisciplinary group that combines art with ecological functionality to build constructed floating wetlands.

Brendan Kelly began his career teaching conservation education programs at the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium before relocating to Washington, DC. Since then, he has spent a decade as a journalist and policy communications strategist, designing and driving narratives for an array of political, advocacy, and institutional campaigns, including in the renewable energy and sustainable architecture spaces. Most recently before joining Bio4Climate, Brendan was working in tech, helping early and growth stage startups tell their stories and develop industry thought leadership. He is interested in how the intersection of informal education, mass communications and marketing can be retooled to drive relatable, accessible climate action. While he loves all ecosystems equally, he is admittedly partial to those in the alpine.

Featured Creature: Axolotl

What animal was named after an Aztec god, maintains a youthful appearance for its entire life, and can regrow limbs, organs, and even parts of its central nervous system without scarring?

A leucistic axolotl
(Image credit: John P Clare via Flickr, CC-BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Axolotls happen to be my favorite of all amphibians! Why? They’re just so darn unique (as you’ll find as you read this profile)! I recall seeing my first batch of axolotls when touring a scientific lab in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and I can say without a doubt that they are cuter in-person (especially the hatchlings) than they are through the screen of a computer or television.

But, a laboratory, you say? Today, far more axolotls exist in captivity or in lab environments than in the wild (we’ll get to their hyper-specific range later). Like much of the more-than-human world, the axolotls’ relationship with research environments has been checkered and controversial. Historically, many of the breakthroughs in axolotl regeneration came from invasive lab studies, a reflection of an older scientific mindset that prioritized discovery over care. Today, more researchers (and the rest of us) are asking: ‘how can we learn from nature without harming it?’

Water Dog? Water Monster?! Hardly!

The axolotl is named after the Aztec god of fire, lightning, monstrosities, sickness, and more… Xolotl (English pronunciation: show-LAH-tuhl), who in art was depicted as a dog-headed man, a deformed monster with reversed feet, or a skeleton. According to the creation myth recounted in the Florentine Codex, after the Fifth Sun was initially created, it did not move. Ehecatl (God of Wind, English pronunciation: e-HE-kah-tuhl), consequently began slaying all of the other gods to induce the newly-created Sun into movement. Xolotl, however, was unwilling to die, and among the creatures he transformed himself into in order to avoid capture was an axolotl. In the end, his effort was in vain.

With all of that mythological backstory out of the way, common translations from Nahuatl (the language of the Aztecs) for the axolotl include “water monster” and sometimes “water dog”. Of course, looking at an axolotl, it is obviously not a dog, and CERTAINLY not a monster.

The Peter Pan of Salamanders

No, I didn’t come up with that phrase myself. Numerous sources, including The Nature Conservancy, have compared the axolotl to “The Boy Who Never Grew Up”. Axolotls are members of the salamander family, and salamanders usually undergo a process called metamorphosis to become adults. It’s very much like how a tadpole becomes a frog, replacing their gills for lungs, and moving around on land. One unique feature of the axolotl is that they never undergo metamorphosis. Rather, they keep their frilly external gills and other juvenile features, and remain in the water for their lifetime. Even though they look like the “tadpole” form of most salamanders, they do become adults in the sense that they are able to reproduce, and grow larger compared to when they hatched (typically up to 9–12 inches (23–30 cm)). This condition or characteristic is known as neoteny.

(Image Credit: John P Clare via Flickr, CC-BY-NC-SA 2.0)

A Salamander Superpower

Axolotls are also known for a few other “salamander superpowers,” especially their remarkable ability to regenerate. If a limb, tail, or even part of an organ is lost to injury or predation in the wild, the axolotl simply grows it back, perfectly. Limbs can regenerate multiple times over the course of the axolotl’s life without scarring, and every tissue involved is rebuilt: bone, cartilage, muscle, skin, blood vessels, and nerves. And yes, I said organs too. Limited parts of the heart, lungs, spine, and brain can regenerate as well, and remain fully functional.

While going into detail about just how this regeneration is done would fill a library, from what we know this process starts with a flurry of biological coordination. After an injury, certain skin and muscle cells near the wound site essentially “reset” themselves, reverting to a stem-cell-like state. These cells gather into a small mound called a blastema, not too different from the buds that grow into limbs in a developing embryo. From there, guided by molecular cues from the surrounding tissues, that blastema begins reconstructing the missing part, layer by layer, in perfect proportion and order. Nerves and blood vessels regrow too, restoring full function.

Axolotls are able to do all this without forming scar tissue — a key difference from most other vertebrates. Non-invasive researchers studying regeneration from an ecological perspective believe this may be due in part to the axolotl’s highly tuned immune response, which seems to encourage healing rather than halt it. Perhaps owing to this physiological philosophy, axolotls also appear to be extraordinarily resistant to cancer. Their cells seem to have built-in checks that limit runaway growth even during rapid regeneration. Do the same mechanisms that allow for precise, rapid regeneration also give the axolotl greater control over proliferating cancerous cells?

A Keystone AND Indicator Species

Axolotls are classified as a keystone species–one that plays a crucial role in maintaining the health and diversity of their native ecosystem(s), as their actions significantly impact the environment and other species. What exactly do axolotls do that impacts their local ecosystem and environment? Axolotls are carnivores, by ingesting with a vacuuming-like maneuver (and thus, controlling populations) various small animals, including insects and their larvae, worms, crustaceans, mollusks, and even small fish. By doing so, they keep these populations in check and help to maintain the balance of their aquatic environment.

Axolotls are also an indicator species–one that is particularly responsive to changes in their environment, which can then be used to assess the health of an ecosystem, the quality of a particular habitat, and/or the impact of human activities. In the case of the axolotl, their sensitivity to changes in water quality, temperature, and pollution levels make them a living, breathing, warning system. A decline in populations of axolotls will often signal broader environmental degradation or changes.

Xochimilco on the outskirts of Mexico City is one of the few places axolotls can be found in the wild.
Pablo Leautaud, **CC BY-NC 2.0**

Even Superheroes Need Help

Wild axolotls are found in only two (dwindling) places: Lakes Xochimilco and Chalco in the southern reaches of Mexico City. Though they may be eaten by storks, herons, and large fish from time-to-time, their biggest threats are urbanization and pollution of the lakes in which they live.

Life in the manmade canals of Xochimilco, a once-thriving agroecological system, has put the axolotl on a daily collision course with humans and a more extractive built environment. These waterways were once part of chinampa farming, an ancient, sustainable method that supported both people and native species. But centuries of colonial disruption, urban expansion, and pollution have degraded the ecosystem. Today, most of Xochimilco’s water is too toxic to support native life, and axolotls are left struggling to survive in what was once their ecological stronghold.

Their persistent decline has also been attributed to predation from introduced invasive fish and large birds, as well as overfishing for both food and medicinal purposes. They are currently listed as Critically Endangered by the IUCN Red List. While estimates of the number of mature wild individuals are hard to come by and not always reliable, most sources report between 50-1,000, versus at least a million in captivity.

To save wild populations of axolotls, a species recovery plan needs to involve habitat management and restoration before any other measure, such as further axolotl reintroductions. Any reintroduction efforts should take care to avoid introducing potential diseases or genetic problems from captive colonies to wild ones.

Sienna Weinstein is a wildlife photographer, zoologist, and lifelong advocate for the conservation of wildlife across the globe. She earned her B.S. in Zoology from the University of Vermont, followed by a M.S. degree in Environmental Studies with a concentration in Conservation Biology from Antioch University New England. While earning her Bachelor’s degree, Sienna participated in a study abroad program in South Africa and Eswatini (formerly Swaziland), taking part in fieldwork involving species abundance and diversity in the southern African ecosystem. She is also an official member of the Upsilon Tau chapter of the Beta Beta Beta National Biological Honor Society.

Deciding at the end of her academic career that she wanted to grow her natural creativity and hobby of photography into something more, Sienna dedicated herself to the field of wildlife conservation communication as a means to promote the conservation of wildlife. Her photography has been credited by organizations including The Nature Conservancy, Zoo New England, and the Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute. She was also an invited reviewer of an elephant ethology lesson plan for Picture Perfect STEM Lessons (May 2017) by NSTA Press. Along with writing for Bio4Climate, she is also a volunteer writer for the New England Primate Conservancy. In her free time, she enjoys playing video games, watching wildlife documentaries, photographing nature and wildlife, and posting her work on her LinkedIn profile. She hopes to create a more professional portfolio in the near future.

Dig Deeper

Featured Creature: African grey parrot

I live where the forest is humid and deep,
I chatter and mimic, I laugh and I weep.
With feathers of gray and a mind that’s quite bright,
I talk with my flock from morning to night.

Who am I?

Image credit: Ucumari, **CC BY-NC-ND 2.0**

The forest used to be louder.

Perched on the sturdy branch of a Kapok tree deep in the Congo Basin rainforests, an adult African grey parrot listens as dawn begins to wake the parts of the forest that had been asleep.

Not long ago there had been many other roosts that would be waking up at this time, their overlapping songs passed from bird to bird, fragmenting into dialects and quips that only birds of a certain feather understood.

Now the forest stews in a silence that doesn’t fall all at once, but settles slowly.

Logging and habitat fragmentation have eroded away at the networks that bring the forest canopy to life. Roosts that once echoed with dozens of unique signatures have gone silent. Routes once marked by familiar voices are quieter now. The loss is not just physical territory, but a breakdown in the sonic landscape that makes community possible. When one parrot calls out to the forest, more and more often the forest doesn’t answer back.

Even so, at dawn the space between the trees begins to come alive. Slowly, the chorus starts with whistles and clicks, high-pitched mimicries and melodic chatter, weaving through the canopy with the morning light. To the untrained ear, certainly to mine, the parrot’s calls might sound like a kind of white noise, like a beautiful but nonsensical Youtube soundtrack titled Nature Jungle Ambiance 2. But to those birds in the know, it’s a language of memory, bond, warning, and belonging.

Communication is…everything to the African grey. These parrots live in fission-fusion flocks, where individuals join, leave, and rejoin subgroups throughout the day. In such fluid communities, each bird develops a unique vocal signature, a kind of name, that other parrots remember and respond to. Mates and family groups share contact calls, using them to locate one another in dense foliage or across long distances.

This writeup is not an exploration of physiology, but it’s important to understand how these parrots’ bodies are designed for communicating. Whereas we use vibrating vocal cords to speak, parrots produce sound using a complex organ called the syrinx, a structure of muscle and membrane. They control both airflow and tension in the syrinx’s membranes with remarkable precision, allowing them to mimic complex sounds, including human speech, with impressive clarity.

These are not purely instinctive habits; they’re learned, practiced, and honed as the parrots interact with each other and neighboring roosts. In a very real way, African greys don’t just make sounds, they participate in culture.

Young parrots learn by imitation, listening to their parents, flockmates, and the wider jungle soundscape. The mimicry is not random. They imitate that which surrounds them, other birds, local sounds, and occasionally the distant echo of chainsaws or human speech drifting from nearby villages and cities. These learned sounds are woven into their daily communication and social behavior.

They use alarm calls to signal predators, appearing to modulate their tone and pitch depending on the urgency of the situation, and reserving certain calls for specific threats. We’ve even seen strong evidence that some parrots can use reference-like calls, calls that refer to specific individuals, objects, or situations. In a way, we’re essentially talking about the capability for vocabulary, a primitive but very real form of symbolic language.

Image credit: Terese Hart (**CC BY-NC-SA 2.0**)

Communication among African greys also shapes their emotional reality. When separated from bonded partners, parrots often call persistently, showing signs of stress and vocal distress. Reunion is met with preening, soft warbles, and mutual mimicry.

If there’s anything we establish with this little exploration of African grey communication, it’s that these aren’t just functional instincts, they’re expressions of connection and culture. There’s really a month’s worth of Featured Creature essays we could fill up on the African grey, but I wanted to focus on communication because isn’t that what biodiversity really is at the end of the day? The exchange between living things? Trees share signals through their roots, grasses respond to grazing, coral reefs pulse with chemical messages. And the more we learn, the more it seems like life on Earth is always in conversation.

Brendan began his career teaching conservation education programs at the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium before relocating to Washington, DC. Since then, he has spent a decade as a journalist and policy communications strategist, designing and driving narratives for an array of political, advocacy, and institutional campaigns, including in the renewable energy and sustainable architecture spaces. Most recently before joining Bio4Climate, Brendan was working in tech, helping early and growth stage startups tell their stories and develop industry thought leadership. He is interested in how the intersection of informal education, mass communications and marketing can be retooled to drive relatable, accessible climate action. While he loves all ecosystems equally, he is admittedly partial to those in the alpine.

Dig Deeper

Featured Creature: Rotifers

I’m smaller than dust, yet ancient and wise,
I thrive in the harshest of lows and highest of highs.
No mate, no death, no fear of the cold,
I borrow new genes when my own get too old.

Our world follows certain rules. Or at least, that’s what I was taught growing up. Falling objects accelerate at 9.8 meters per second squared in a vacuum. Warm air rises. Diagonally cut sandwiches just taste better. Living things, too, evolve a certain way, survive a certain way, die a certain way.

Or so I thought, anyway.

I was not taught that there are some creatures out there that cheat death, that rewrite their own DNA and survive in conditions that should render said survival impossible. At a moment when humans are trying to hack biology in an effort to live younger, longer, there are creatures out there that have been doing it for millions of years.

Meet the rotifer.

You’ve probably never seen one, but they’re everywhere: in puddles, moss, soil, and freshwater lakes. They look like something from Pandora, spinning through water with wheel-like cilia. Hardly larger than a speck of dust, they don’t roar, they don’t tower over landscapes, and they’re not exactly at the top of any food chain as I know them. But they’ve outlived entire species, survived mass extinctions, and continue to defy the rules of biology we thought we knew.

While rotifers may be practically invisible to our eyes, their impact is not. They play a fundamental role in freshwater ecosystems, drifting through aquatic environments and feeding on algae, bacteria, and other organic debris. Remember my little quip earlier about food chains? Well, it’s sort of a half-truth. They feed on algae, bacteria, and bits of organic debris—basically whatever’s floating around at the microbial level. In doing so, they turn microscopic life into something usable for everything else. They’re one of the first stops in the food web, sustaining creatures far bigger than themselves. Take them out, and the whole darn thing starts to wobble.

Life is full of exceptions, and even the smallest creatures can upend our understanding of what survival, and life itself, really means.

Rule #1: It Takes Two to Tango

A fundamental principle of biology I thought I understood is that species need genetic diversity to evolve and survive. Sexual reproduction is nature’s way of mixing genes, creating stronger offspring that are better adapted to changing environments. Without this reshuffling of DNA, plant and animal species alike face genetic stagnation and, over time, possibly extinction.

Rotifers see it differently.

For tens of millions of years, the bdelloid class of rotifer has lived without sex. They reproduce by cloning themselves over and over, spawning genetically identical offspring generation after generation.

By my logic, this should have led to their extinction long ago. They should have faced great difficulty adapting to changing environments, vulnerable to disease, and trapped in a state of evolutionary stasis. Instead, they’ve flourished.

But how?

By stealing DNA from other organisms. Instead of relying on traditional sexual reproduction, bdelloid rotifers are actually able to absorb genetic material from bacteria, fungi, and even some plants. This process, known as horizontal gene transfer, allows them to patch together their own genes with foreign DNA, essentially hijacking useful traits from unrelated life forms.

It’s a complicated process that, to be honest, I don’t fully understand. But that’s okay, because neither do the scientists studying this stuff. Here’s what they think is happening.

When a bdelloid rotifer dries out (usually in a harsh environment), its DNA begins to crumble and break apart into pieces. When it rehydrates, something strange happens: its cell walls become more permeable, just enough to let in snippets of DNA floating nearby, bits from bacteria, fungi, even plants. Once inside, the rotifer’s cellular machinery picks them up and patches them into its own fragmented genome. It’s like a genetic repair job using whatever foraged parts are lying around. Instead of mixing genes through sex, bdelloids build their genetic diversity by borrowing from the world around them. It’s a little messy, a little miraculous, but it works.

Rotifers can get nutrients from algae they can’t eat directly. A parasitic fungus infects algae and releases spores, which the rotifers can eat, allowing energy to pass from the algae to the rotifer through the fungus.
Image Credit: Virginia Sánchez Barranco, et al. 2020

Rule #2: Death and Taxes

I remember my parents quipping throughout my childhood that there are only two sure things in this life, death and taxes. But while I can’t speak for their fiduciary responsibilities, rotifers have been able to generally cheat the former.

When an organism is deprived of water, it usually dies. Cells shrivel, biological processes shut down, and life ends.

When conditions turn hostile for rotifers, when droughts dry up their ponds, when ice encases them, when the world around them becomes unlivable, rotifers don’t really die. They shut down, entering a sort of paused or stalled state, called cryptobiosis. Their bodies lose nearly all water content, their metabolism grinds to a halt, and for all practical purposes, they are lifeless husks of a microorganism. But give them a single drop of water, and they wake up, pretty much just as they were before.

Some rotifers can survive in this suspended animation for decades. Others have gone far longer. In one of the most staggering discoveries, scientists revived a 24,000-year-old rotifer from Siberian permafrost, and it immediately resumed life, eating, cloning itself, and otherwise carrying on as if it had just taken a nap. I’m not too well-versed on Marvel films, but I’m 99% sure this was basically the plot of a Captain America movie.

Most creatures don’t get a second chance at life, and this individual superpower bodes well for the species as a whole. Limited though it may be, fossil evidence suggests they’ve been around for tens of millions of years, enduring planetary shifts, ice ages, and environmental catastrophes that wiped out far larger and more powerful creatures. I think it’s safe to say they’re well positioned for another few dozen million years, come what may.

notholca rotifer
image credit: Wiedehopf20

The Things We Think We Know

Rotifers challenge what I thought I knew about survival itself. They don’t evolve the way they should, they don’t die when they should, and they have little regard for the biological limits we assume all creatures must adhere to.

Despite their microscopic size, rotifers keep ecosystems running, breaking down organic material, cycling nutrients, and supporting food webs that stretch far beyond their little dominion.

Science is full of rules. They help us understand how the world works. But rotifers are proof that rules aren’t always as rigid as we think. They remind me that life’s possibilities are bigger, weirder, and more resilient than we might imagine.

Brendan Kelly began his career teaching conservation education programs at the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium. He is interested in how the intersection of informal education, mass communications and marketing can be retooled to drive relatable, accessible climate action. While he loves all ecosystems equally, he is admittedly partial to those in the alpine.

Dive Deeper

Featured Creature: Penguins

What creature is able to control blood flow to their extremities, has eyes adapted for underwater vision, and spends 75% of its life at sea?

Adélie penguins, *Pygoscelis adeliae*
Image Credit: Nidhin Cyril Joseph via iNaturalist (CC-BY-NC)

Now that I’ve been writing for Biodiversity for a Livable Climate for a while, I’ve received several requests from friends and family for creatures to feature. This piece is the result of a request from my close friend’s two children, who, after listening to their parents read my feature on sloths, emphatically asked if I could write about penguins next.

Who am I to deny such an impassioned request?

While many penguins live in more temperate climates, today we’re putting the spotlight on the species that live in Antarctica and its surrounding islands.

When people share their ideas with me, it always gives me inspiration and prompts me to ask myself:

“What does this creature have to teach me about its life on Earth?” If you’re a penguin, the answer is, “quite a lot!”

Meet Our Flightless Friends

Chinstrap penguin, *Pygoscelis antarcticus*
Image Credit: Greg Lasley via iNaturalist (CC-BY-NC)

If you play charades and act out the word “penguin,” you will probably start waddling, right? While the tendency to teeter back and forth on land is one of penguins’ most widely known (and adorable) characteristics, there is a lot more to them than that. Their countershaded plumage, flippers, and underwater vision are all features that make life as a penguin possible – and unique. But before we get to that, let me introduce you to our flightless friends.

Out of the 18 species of penguins, only eight of them live in the Antarctic. Out of those eight, only two species, Emperor and Adélie penguins, live exclusively on the ice shelves of the Antarctic continent. The rest of these cold climate birds – Macaroni, Gentoo, Chinstrap, Southern and Northern Rockhopper, and King penguins – live on the Antarctic Peninsula and surrounding sub-Antarctic islands.

In addition to their typical black and white feathers, many have distinctive features like red-orange beaks, or pale pink feet. Red eyes and yellow crests identify species like Macaroni penguins, and King and Emperor penguins can be recognized by the orange and yellow plumage on their chests and cheeks.

Here’s something you might not know: one in every 50,000 penguins are born with brown, cream-colored feathers rather than with black plumage. This washed-out look is called isabelline. While it’s not the same as albinism (which is defined by a complete lack of pigmentation) isabellinism is the partial loss of pigment.

Isabelline King penguin, *Aptenodytes patagonicus*
Image Credit: Sebastian Traclet via iNaturalist (CC-BY-NC)

The Birds that Swim

Penguins are highly specialized for life in ocean water, and have many adaptations that suit their lifestyle in their environment. These beautiful birds have streamlined bodies that are equipped with a well-developed rib cage, wings that have evolved into flippers with shorter and stouter bones, and a pronounced keel, or breastbone, which provides an anchor for the pectoral muscles that move the flippers. Penguins might not be able to fly in the air, but they propel themselves with incredible agility into “flight” underwater with their flippers. In the water, Gentoo penguins (pictured below) are the fastest of all penguins, and of all swimming birds. While searching for food or escaping predators, they reach speeds up to 36 km (22 miles) per hour.

Their eyes, which are their primary means of locating evasive prey and avoiding predators and fishing nets, are adapted for underwater vision. And these aren’t the only traits that make penguins incredibly well-fit for aquatic life. Their short feathers, which minimize friction and turbulence as they swim, are denser than most other birds, with up to 100 feathers per square inch in some species, such as the Emperor penguin. This close spacing helps keep penguins warm, preserving a layer of air under their plumage that not only insulates them from the cold water, but also provides them with buoyancy.

Gentoo penguins, *Pygoscelis papua*
Image Credit: Laura Babahekian via iNaturalist (CC-BY-NC)

Penguins also conserve heat in other ways. They possess this remarkable vascular countercurrent heat exchanger called a humeral arterial plexus – a system of heat exchange between opposing flows of blood. This allows cold blood to absorb heat from outflowing blood that has already been warmed, limiting heat loss in their flippers and feet, ultimately helping these small animals survive in such cold.

What Else Do Penguins Have to Teach Us?

We already know that most penguins have darker feathers on their backs and wings, and lighter-colored feathers on their bellies, but why? Called countershading, it’s actually a form of camouflage. For predators like orcas, it is difficult to look up from below and distinguish the white belly of a penguin from the water’s surface and sky above it. Similarly, from above, the bird’s dark back blends into the darker ocean depths. It’s speculated that birds with extreme plumage irregularity, like isabelline penguins that don’t have the advantage of camouflage, have a decreased life expectancy as a result of increased predation. However, research shows that isabelline individuals have survived for many years.

Young Gentoo penguin, *Pygoscelis papua*
Image Credit: Hugo Hulsberg via iNaturalist (CC0)

While most penguins share incubation duties (one parent broods while the other forages at sea, switching when the other returns) species like the Emperor and King penguins have unique strategies where the males take on greater, or even sole, responsibility. But, the parents’ warm bodies are not the only thing protecting their babies: the eggs of cold-climate penguins are well-adapted to their adverse nesting environment too, with thick shells that reduce the chick’s dehydration and the risk of breakage. Once a clutch hatches and the parents go out to hunt, on their way back to their colony, some penguins use the sun as a directional aid while others rely on landmarks or even the Earth’s magnetic field to navigate, like a built-in gps. Once safely on land, parents use unique vocal calls to locate and reunite with their baby.

Did you know that even though a group of penguins is called a colony, they can also be called a “waddle” on land, and a “raft” in the water? Still, penguins don’t waddle all the time. Besides their awkward and amusing side to side rock, penguins also jump with both feet together to move more quickly across steep or rocky terrain. Can you guess what the Southern and Northern Rockhopper penguins were named for? If penguins want to conserve energy while moving quickly, they’ll do something called tobogganing, sliding on their bellies across the snow while using their feet to propel and steer themselves.

Northern Rockhopper penguin, *Eudyptes moseleyi*
Image Credit: whale_nerd via iNaturalist (CC-BY-NC)

What is the Penguin’s Role in its Ecosystem?

Regardless of which ecosystem a creature calls home, Earth’s organisms always have a more significant role in their environment than we first realize. Penguins are an important part of land and ocean ecosystems. Adult penguins are prey for sharks, orcas, and leopard seals, and penguin eggs/chicks serve to sustain other land predators like pumas, mongooses, and many seabirds like skuas, petrels, and sheathbills. Our aquatic fliers use their powerful jaws and spiny tongues to grip their quarry, eating krill, small fish, crabs, and squid, and getting nutrients from the rich, well-oxygenated waters of their ecosystem. Penguins then in turn fertilize the landscape with the nutrients like nitrogen, phosphorus, and organic carbon from their ocean foraging.

Penguins also play a key role in their colony’s survival. They are incredibly social creatures, and as a result of the extreme Antarctic conditions they live in, huddle together to stay warm during violent winter storms, even rotating so each penguin gets a turn at the center of the heat pack. Many penguin species form long-term pair bonds, fostering better collaboration, sharing of responsibilities, and improving the success of breeding over time. But, some have high divorce rates, switching mates in different breeding seasons.

Emperor penguins, *Aptenodytes forsteri*
Image Credit: Greg Lasley via iNaturalist (CC-BY-NC)

Threats

Most penguin specie populations are declining, with nine out of the 18 species classified as endangered or vulnerable on the IUCN Red List.

While the Antarctic Treaty has provided some legal protections for penguins, these birds are still at risk. You might have already guessed one of the reasons why: climate change. The rapid increase in temperature around the globe is altering oceanic conditions and melting sea ice, threatening penguins’ food supply, breeding grounds, and the delicate natural infrastructure of water and ice that sustains their way of life. In fact, we’ve recorded a correlation between record low sea ice in 2022 and the first-ever known large-scale breeding failure of Emperor penguins, an episode in which few (or nearly none at all) chicks are born.

Penguins are also at risk from pollution, caused by the usual suspects: littering and ecological disasters like oil spills. Development projects threaten nesting sites, and unsustainable and irresponsible fishing practices increase competition for available food in the sea.

And just last year, H5N1, so-called “bird flu,” was detected in the Antarctic region. Due to their dense breeding practice, the looming threat to penguin colonies is significant if the virus continues to spread around the region and continent.

Life on Earth

Some of these risks are more dangerous or difficult to combat than others, but doing our part to help protect penguins is not a hopeless cause. We can support marine protected areas that provide refuge for vulnerable species like penguins and conservation organizations that focus on preserving penguin populations and their habitats. We can spread awareness about the threats they face, advocate for the nature-based solutions that keep the Antarctic cool, and do our part to keep our oceans clean.

I’ve come to understand that these penguins that dwell in some of the coldest places on Earth are some of most resilient animal species on Earth. Despite the challenges their environment throws at them, they are strong and patient, and work together to survive and thrive.

Now, join me if you will in taking a deep, collective breath before I present this to some tough critics, my friend’s children. 🙂

Abigail Gipson is an environmental advocate with a bachelor’s degree in humanitarian studies from Fordham University. Working to protect the natural world and its inhabitants, Abigail is specifically interested in environmental protection, ecosystem-based adaptation, and the intersection of climate change with human rights and animal welfare. She loves autumn, reading, and gardening.

Sources and Further Reading

Featured Creature: Pika

What creature is mall and round
and with a shrill sound
it nests in the ground,
where it hopes not to be found?

The Pika! (Ochotona)

The American Pika has a short, stocky body with large round ears and short legs. Don’t be fooled by this adorable ball of fur and ears. The pika is a hardy creature, one of the only mammals, in fact, that is able to survive its entire life in alpine terrain. The intensity of alpine environments makes it difficult for animals to thrive. The pika is believed to have originated in Asia, where 28 out of the 30 species of the lagomorph still reside. Fossil remains of ancient pika date back to over 15 million years ago, and are thought to have traveled from Asia to North America in the Miocene epoch, across the Bering land bridge.

Lagomorphs, not rodents

As a guinea pig owner, the pika first drew my attention due to its resemblance to my beloved pets. Despite its guinea-pig and mouse-like appearance, however, the pika is not, in fact, a rodent. Instead, the pika is a lagomorph, sharing the title with rabbits and hares. The pika is the smallest lagomorph, with most weighing between 125 and 200 grams, and measuring about 15 cm in length. Unlike rodents, lagomorphs have a second, smaller pair of incisors located directly behind the first. In addition to their second pair of front teeth, lagomorphs produce two separate kinds of feces, drops that are both solid and round, or black soft pellets. The soft feces contain up to five times as many vitamins as the solid droppings, and after their production are re-consumed to utilize their nutritional value. The purpose of this process is to allow the animal to access the nutrients that its body was unable to absorb upon its first digestion, an important adaptation for life in their lives in an unforgiving alpine environment.

Where do they live?

Pika squeaking (Wikimedia Commons by Vickie J Anderson)

The pika reside in two very distinct and separate places, depending on the specific species. While some live in rocky, alpine terrains, others prefer to burrow in meadows. The American pika inhabits the former, on the treeless, rocky slopes of mountains, found in mountainous areas of the Sierra Nevada and the Rocky Mountains in both Canada and the United States. These pikas are social creatures, and gather to live in colonies together. These colonies provide the pikas with protection, as at any sign of danger they will squeak a warning call to their colony, a sound which is represented in the following video. Although they live together, pikas are territorial of their own den. Each pika’s den is built into the crevasse of the rocky environment, and the pika will also emit territorial cries to keep their fellow pikas away.

The pika’s breeding season is in the spring, when their aggression and territorial feelings reach a low. This change in disposition allows the creatures to mate with their den’s closet neighbor. Pika gestation lasts 30 days, and litters of one to four are born blind and hairless, to be cared for by their mother. The young pikas grow quickly, and reach adulthood in just 40 to 50 days, and adult pikas have an average lifespan of about three years. Mother pikas generally birth two litters of babies each summer, but the first litter tends to have a higher survival rate.

The American pika varies from brown to black in fur color, resembling the rocky terrain that it inhabits. Their thick coat of fur, which keeps them warm in the cold winter months, thins during the summer, allowing some relief from the summer heat. Pikas are active year-round, and do not hibernate. Instead, the pika seeks shelter within the cracks and crevices of their rocky terrain, remaining warm through the insulation of heavy snow. In addition, the American Pika makes sure to take precautions in order to prepare for the tough winter months, when grasses and wildflowers are sparse.

Winter is Coming

To prepare for harsh winter months, the pika gathers its favorite foods, grasses, weeds, and wildflowers, carrying its harvest in its mouth before depositing it into a hidden pile. This collection process is called haying, and the pikas store their clippings in crevices and under boulders, where they dry out over time. Haying allows the dry grasses to be stored for long periods of time in the pika’s den without growing moldy, perfect for saving a snack for the winter. During the summer, haying becomes the pikas primary activity, and each individual haystack can grow to be quite large in size.

American Pika with a mouthful of flowers (Wikimedia Commons by Frédéric Dulude-de Broin)

A little sweet and sour, pikas also participate in kleptoparasitism, stealing precious resources from already existing haystacks. They reach peak aggression in the summer months, desperate to defend their dens and haystacks from thieving neighbors. And for good reason–because they don’t really hibernate, the pika’s winter survival hinges on its successful haying season. In order to survive the winter, one pika needs approximately 30 pounds of plant material stored. That’s a lot! Each pika may have multiple haystacks, spread out throughout its individual territory. Usually, they focus their energy on one specific haystack, which over time can grow to be two feet in height and two feet in diameter.

American Pika haystacking (Wikimedia Commons by Jane Shelby Richardson)

Up, up, up

The pika has made its home among the rugged, wind-scoured peaks of Asia and North America’s mountain ranges, thriving in an environment too harsh for most creatures. But something is changing.

As summers grow hotter and snowpacks thin out, the pika’s alpine world is shrinking. The tiny mammals, perfectly adapted to the cold, are being driven higher and higher up the slopes, chasing the last pockets of cool, livable habitat. A pika cannot sweat or pant to cool itself down; instead, when temperatures climb above 78°F, it faces a simple but devastating choice—find shade or perish.

Historically, pikas have lived at elevations as low as 5,700 feet, but now, scientists are tracking their ascent to over 8,300 feet, seeking relief from the relentless heat. But mountains have their limits. What happens when the pika reaches the summit, and there is nowhere left to climb?

We’re already starting to find out. In the Great Basin region of the western United States, seven out of twenty-five pika populations have vanished, unable to adapt fast enough to their rapidly changing circumstances. Without deep winter snows to insulate their rocky dens, some freeze in the cold months, while others struggle to gather enough food as their growing season shifts unpredictably.

The pika’s journey upward is a silent alarm, a warning from one of nature’s smallest mountaineers.

Helena Venzke-Kondo is a student at Smith College pursuing psychology, education, and environmental studies. She is particularly interested in conversation psychology and the reciprocal relationship between people and nature. Helena is passionate about understanding how communities are impacted by climate change and what motivates people towards environmental action. In her free time, she loves to crochet, garden, drink tea, and tend to her houseplants.

Sources and Further Reading:

Featured Creature: Cicada

What insect spends years hidden underground, preparing for a brief but spectacular emergence into the sunlight, filling the air with the deafening, iconic song of summer?

The cicada (Cicadoidea)!

Sub Alpine Green Cicada (Image Credit: Julie via iNaturalist)

Every time I return to the south of France, there’s one sound that immediately signals to me that summer has arrived—the unmistakable hum of cicadas. Their chorus, loud and unrelenting, fills the air in the warm Mediterranean heat and acts as a personal cue to pause, take a breath, and unwind. For me, it’s not just the start of summer; it’s the sound of nostalgia, the reminder of countless days spent hiking through the pine forests, picnicking under the shade of olive trees, or simply soaking in peaceful serenity at the beach. The cicadas’ song is always complemented by the sweet, earthy smell of ripening figs. It’s a sensory symphony that epitomizes the region’s charm.

These moments, marked by the rhythmic buzz of cicadas, offer a unique connection to nature—one that I’ve come to cherish as a deeply rooted part of my experience in the region. The cicadas’ song is a call to slow down, reconnect, and embrace the simple beauty of life in the south of France.

As much as these personal experiences have shaped my connection to cicadas, there’s so much more to learn about these fascinating creatures. From their complex life cycles to the essential roles they play in ecosystems around the world, cicadas are much more than the soundtrack of summer.

The Backstory

If the name “cicada” doesn’t quite ring a bell, you might recognize it from Animal Crossing. It’s a common insect that players can encounter in the game.

Cicadas are the loudest insect species in the world, known for their buzzing and clicking noises, typically sung during the day. This song, produced by males to attract females, is a highly specialized mating call. Each species of cicada has its own unique variation, which is genetically inherited rather than learned, unlike the calls of other animals such as birds. Some cicada species, like the double drummer, even group together to amplify their calls, deterring predatory birds by overwhelming them with noise. Others adapt by singing at dusk, avoiding the attention of daytime predators.

If you’re curious about the fascinating science behind how cicadas create their iconic sound and want to dive deeper into their unique anatomy, I highly recommend checking out the following video. It’s a captivating look at how these incredible insects make their music!

But there’s more to cicadas than their songs. If you’ve ever tried to catch one, you might have discovered their quirky behavior firsthand—cicadas pee when they fly! This “cicada rain” is simply their way of excreting excess liquid after consuming large amounts of plant sap. While it’s harmless, it’s something to keep in mind if you’re ever under a tree full of buzzing cicadas—or reaching out to grab one!

With more than 3,000 species worldwide, cicadas are primarily found in temperate and tropical climates, avoiding regions with extreme cold. Their life cycle consists of three stages: egg, nymph, and adult. After hatching, nymphs burrow underground and feed on plant root sap for years before emerging, molting, and transforming into adults.

Watching a cicada emerge from its nymphal shell is like witnessing a miniature metamorphosis in real-time—its delicate wings unfurling as it prepares to take flight. If you’ve never seen this magical process, here’s a fascinating video that brings it to life.

While most species are annual cicadas, emerging every year, some, like the periodical cicadas of North America, emerge every 13 or 17 years. These synchronized groups are referred to as “broods.” A brood consists of all the cicadas of the same lifecycle group that emerge in a specific year within a particular geographical area. This classification system helps scientists and enthusiasts track and study the various populations of periodical cicadas.

These mass events, involving millions of cicadas, are a marvel of nature and the unique cycle remains a topic of scientific curiosity. In exceptionally rare cases, two different broods can emerge simultaneously, creating a spectacle of overlapping generations. This video explains more about these extraordinary dual emergence events and why they capture the fascination of entomologists and nature enthusiasts alike.

Showstoppers: Stunning Species from Around the World

Across the globe, these fascinating insects showcase an incredible range of colors, patterns, and sizes, rivaling even the most vibrant creatures of the animal kingdom. Here’s a look at some standout species that prove cicadas are as much visual marvels as they are auditory icons:

**Tacua speciosa**: Native to Southeast Asia, *Tacua speciosa* is among the largest cicadas, boasting a black body with a striking yellow or chartreuse pronotal collar and cyan or yellow tergites and shimmering blue-green wings. Found in Southeast Asia, this giant cicada commands attention not just with its size but with its bold elegance.
(Image Credit: Valentinus-Tikhonov via iNaturalist)

**Zammara Smaragdina**: Found in tropical regions, this species stuns with its bright turquoise coloration, a rare hue in the insect world that gives it a truly jewel-like appearance.
(Image Credit: Benoît Guillon via iNaturalist)

**Salvazana mirabilis imperialis**: This species, found in Cambodia, China, Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam, displays an amazing blend of greens and reds on their wings.
(Image Credit: xtbg-eec via iNaturalist)

Cicadas vs. Locusts: Clearing Up the Confusion

Cicadas are often mistaken for locusts, a confusion that dates back to early European colonists who likened the sudden mass emergence of cicadas to the biblical plagues of locusts. However, cicadas and locusts are very different insects with distinct behaviors and ecological impacts.

Locusts, a type of grasshopper, are infamous for forming destructive swarms that can devastate crops and vegetation, causing severe agricultural damage. In contrast, cicadas do not consume foliage in a way that harms plants or crops. While their synchronized emergences can be dramatic, cicadas are not considered pests and pose no threat to agriculture.

Cicadas’ Impact: How They Shape the Ecosystem

Cicadas play a crucial role in maintaining ecosystem balance at every stage of their life cycle. During their subterranean nymph stage, they engage in burrowing activities that profoundly impact soil structure and health. By creating tunnels, they aerate the soil, facilitating root respiration and improving water infiltration, which enhances soil moisture distribution. Their burrowing also redistributes nutrients, mixing organic matter and minerals from different soil layers, which boosts soil fertility and supports plant growth.

These tunnels also provide microhabitats for other soil organisms, such as insects, microorganisms, and invertebrates, fostering biodiversity. Upon their emergence, adult cicadas become a vital food source for various predators, such as birds, mammals, and reptiles, boosting the survival and reproduction of these species.

When cicadas die, their decomposing bodies enrich the soil with nutrients, stimulating microbial activity and increasing the diversity of soil microarthropod communities (Microarthropods are like miniature insects such as springtails or soil mites). This nutrient flux improves plant productivity and even impacts the dynamics of woodland ponds and streams, underscoring their importance in nutrient cycling.

Cicadas as Ecological Signals: What They Tell Us About Nature

Cicadas are valuable bioindicators, reflecting the health of their environments. As root feeders, their abundance can tell us a lot about the integrity of root systems and the availability of water and nutrients. Cicadas also require well-structured, uncompacted soil to create their burrows, making their presence an indicator of healthy soil conditions.

The Cicada-MET protocol, which involves counting cicada exuviae (shed skins), offers a standardized method to assess environmental quality. Additionally, acoustic methods to analyze their songs are used to study the impacts of disturbances like wildfires and can guide conservation strategies.

Challenges Facing Cicadas: The Threats to Their Survival

Cicadas face various threats that jeopardize their populations and the ecosystems they support. Habitat loss due to urbanization is a significant challenge, as forests and grasslands are replaced with buildings and infrastructure, reducing the availability of suitable

environments for their life cycles. Planting native trees, preserving green spaces, and advocating for wildlife-friendly urban planning are simple but effective ways to help restore their habitats. For example, oak, pine, and olive trees in Mediterranean areas, or sycamore and dogwood in North America, are ideal choices. Climate change is another major threat, particularly in regions like Provence, where extreme heat waves can suppress cicada singing and disrupt mating behaviors, potentially forcing them to migrate to cooler areas, altering both new ecosystems and those they leave behind.. Additionally, some cicada species are vulnerable to invasive pathogens, such as fungi like Massospora cicadina, which manipulate their behavior and spread infections. While this fungus predominantly affects periodical cicadas, similar threats could arise for other species. If you have the opportunity, I would recommend participating in citizen science projects to report sightings of infected cicadas and track population health.

A Month of Delight

Cicadas have a way of sparking curiosity and creativity in those who encounter them. Whether it’s collecting their delicate, shed exoskeletons to study, transforming them into art, or pausing to listen to their summer chorus, these insects invite us to engage more deeply with the natural world. By paying closer attention to creatures like cicada’s, we can gain a greater appreciation for their fascinating life cycles, and develop a stronger connection to the ecosystem that sustains them.

Naturalist Jean-Henri Fabre once said, “Four years of hard work in the darkness, and a month of delight in the sun––such is the Cicada’s life, We must not blame him for the noisy triumph of his song.” By understanding and appreciating these extraordinary creatures, we can ensure their songs—and the inspiration they bring—continue to resonate for generations to come.

Lakhena

Lakhena Park holds degrees in Public Policy and Human Rights Law but has recently shifted her focus toward sustainability, ecosystem restoration, and regenerative agriculture. Passionate about reshaping food systems, she explores how agroecology and land management practices can restore biodiversity, improve soil health, and build resilient communities. She is currently preparing to pursue a Permaculture Design Certificate (PDC) to deepen her understanding of regenerative practices. Fun fact: Pigs are her favorite farm animal—smart, playful, and excellent at turning soil, they embody everything she loves about regenerative farming.

Sources and Further Reading:

Featured Creature: Seahorse

What animal swims upright and is one of the few where males carry the pregnancy?

The seahorse (Hippocampus)!

West Australian Seahorse, *Hippocampus subelongatus*
Image Credit: J. Martin Crossley via iNaturalist

Introducing Our Spiny Friends

In celebration of my niece’s first birthday, my family and I visited the The New England Aquarium in Boston. As I watched her stare in awe through the glass, taking in all the colors and shapes of various plants and animals, I couldn’t help but tap into my own wonder. Together we brushed the smooth backs of Cownose rays, took in the loud calls of the African penguins, and spent quite a bit of time trying to find the seahorses in their habitats. Eventually we did find them, at the bottom, with their tails curled around bits of seagrass. Now, I already knew a couple details about seahorses: that they were named that way because of their equine appearance, and that they swam vertically. But, crouching there next to my niece, who was looking at them in such curiosity (and confusion), I began to feel…the same way. Why do they curl their tails around plants? Are they tired? How exactly do they eat if they don’t swim around? So when I got home that day I did what any curious person in the 21st century would do, I took to the internet and started learning more about them.

The Small Horses of the Sea

With a long-snouted head and a flexible, well-defined neck reminiscent of that of a horse, the seahorse is aptly named. Its scientific name, Hippocampus, comes from Ancient Greek: hippos, meaning “horse,” and kampos, meaning “sea monster.” In fact, the hippocampus in our brains is named that way because its shape resembles the seahorse.

These creatures can be as small as the nail on your thumb or up to more than a foot long. Out of all 46 species, the smallest seahorse in the world is Satomi’s pygmy seahorse, Hippocampus satomiae. Found in Southeast Asia, it grows to be just over half an inch long. The world’s largest is the Big-belly seahorse, Hippocampus abdominalis, which can reach 35 centimeters long (more than a foot), and is found in the waters off South Australia and New Zealand.

Big-belly Seahorse, *H. abdominalis*
(Image Credit: Paul Sorensen via iNaturalist (CC-BY-NC))

Instead of scales like other fish, seahorses have skin stretched over an exoskeleton of bony plates, arranged in rings throughout their bodies. Each species has a crown-like structure on top of its head called a coronet, which acts like a unique identifier, similar to how humans can be distinguished from each other by their fingerprints.

A well-known characteristic of seahorses is that they swim upright. Since they don’t have a caudal (tail) fin, they are particularly poor swimmers, only able to propel themselves with the dorsal fin on their back, and steer with the pectoral fins on either side of their head behind their eyes. Would you have guessed that the slowest moving fish in the world is a seahorse? The dwarf seahorse, Hippocampus zosterae, which grows to an average of 2 to 2.5 centimeters (0.8-1 in.) has a top speed of about 1.5 meters (5 ft.) per hour. Due to their poor swimming capability, seahorses are more likely to be found resting with their tails wound around something stationary like coral, or linking themselves to floating vegetation or (sadly) marine debris to travel long distances. Seahorses are the only type of fish that have these prehensile tails, ones that can grasp or wrap around things.

Dwarf seahorses in their tank at The New England Aquarium (Photo by author)

How Do Seahorses Eat? By Suction!

Most seahorse species live in the shallow, temperate and tropical waters of seaweed or seagrass beds, mangroves, coral reefs, and estuaries around the world. They are important predators of bottom-dwelling organisms like small crustaceans, tiny fish, and copepods, and they have a particularly excellent strategy to catch and eat prey. As less-than-stellar swimmers, seahorses rely on stealth and camouflage. The shape of their heads helps them move through the water almost silently, which allows them to get really close to their prey.

Denise’s pygmy seahorse, *Hippocampus denise*
(Jack McKee via iNaturalist

Can you find the seahorse in the picture above? As one of the many creatures that have chromatophores, pigment-containing cells that allow them to change color, seahorses mimic the patterns of their surroundings and ambush tiny organisms that come within striking range. They do what’s called pivot-feeding, rotating their trumpet-like snouts at high speed and sucking in their prey. With a predatory kill rate of 90%, I’d say this strategy works. Check out this video below to watch seahorses in action!

Mr. Mom

One of the most interesting characteristics of seahorses is that they flip the script of nature: males are the ones who get pregnant and give birth instead of the females! Before mating, seahorses form pair bonds, swimming alongside each other holding tails, wheeling around in unison, and changing color. They dance with each other for several minutes daily to confirm their partner is alive and well, to reinforce their bond, and to synchronize their reproductive states. When it’s time, the seahorses drift upward snout to snout and mate in the middle of the water, where the female deposits her eggs in the male’s brood pouch.

After carrying them for anywhere between 14-45 days (depending on the species) the eggs hatch in the pouch where the salinity of water is regulated, preparing newborns for life in the sea. Once they’re fully developed (but very small) the male seahorse gives birth to an average of 100-1,000 babies, releasing them into the water to fend for themselves. While the survival rate of seahorse fry is fairly high in comparison to other fish because they’re protected during gestation, less than 0.5% of infants survive to adulthood, explaining the extremely large brood.

White’s seahorse, *Hippocampus whitei*
(Image Credit: David Harasti via iNaturalist (CC-BY-NC))

A Flagship Species

Alongside sea turtles, seahorses are considered a flagship species: well-known organisms that represent ecosystems, used to raise awareness and support for conservation and helping to protect the habitats they’re found in. As one of the many creatures that generate public interest and support for various conservation efforts in habitats around the world, seahorses have a significant role.

Not only do these creatures act as a symbol for marine conservation, but seahorses also provide us with a unique chance to learn more about reproductive ecology. They are important predators of small crustaceans, tiny fish, and copepods while being crucial prey for invertebrates, fish, sea turtles, seabirds, and marine mammals.

How Are Seahorses Threatened?

Climate change and pollution are deteriorating coral reefs and seagrass beds and reducing seahorse habitats, but the biggest threat to seahorses is human activities. Overfishing and habitat destruction has reduced seahorse populations significantly. Bycatch in many areas has high cumulative effects on seahorses, with an estimated 37 million creatures being removed annually over 21 countries. Bottom trawling, fisheries, and illegal wildlife trade are all threats to seahorse populations. The removal of seahorses from their habitat alters the food web and disrupts the entire ecosystem, but seahorses are still dried and sold to tourists as street food or keepsakes, or even for pseudo-medicinal purposes in China, Japan, and Korea. They are also illegally caught for the pet trade and home aquariums (even though they fare poorly in captivity, often dying quickly).

Supporting environmentally responsible fishers and marine protected areas is a great way to start advocating for the ocean and its creatures. Avoiding non-sustainably caught seafood and avoiding purchasing seahorses or products made from them are ways to protect them too.

Project Seahorse, a marine conservation organization, is working to control illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing and wildlife trade for sustainability and legality, end bottom trawling and harmful subsidies, and expand protected areas. The organization also consistently urges the implementation and fulfillment of laws and promises to advance conservation for our global ocean.

The Life We Share

All creatures on this Earth rely on us to make sure the ecosystems they call home are healthy and protected. The ocean is not just an empty expanse of featureless water, but a highly configured biome rich in plants and animals, many of them at risk. So the next time you go to the aquarium and see those little seahorses with their tails wrapped around a piece of grass, remember that we are all part of the same world. Just as these creatures rely on us, we rely on them too.

Abigail

Sources and Further Reading:

Featured Creature: Kingfisher

What creature often looks blue, but isn’t, is found on every continent but Antarctica, and inspired a train’s design?

Kingfishers! (Alcedinidae)

Patagonian Ringed Kingfisher, *Megaceryle torquata ssp. stellata*
(Image Credit: Amelia Ryan via iNaturalist)

Kingfishers are kind of like snowflakes. They both float and fly through the air, and no two are really alike. It’s what I love so much about them. Each kingfisher presents characteristics unique to their own lifestyle. They make me think of people. Like kingfishers, we live almost everywhere on Earth and we’ve all adapted a little differently to our diverse environments. I hope as you get to know the kingfisher, you’ll start to feel a small connection to these birds as I have.

Kingfishers are bright, colorful birds with small bodies, large heads, and long bills. They’re highly adaptable to different climates and environmental conditions, making them present in a variety of habitats worldwide. Many call wetland environments like rivers, lakes, marshes, and mangroves home. Now, their name might lead you to think all kingfishers live near these bodies of water, but more than half the world’s species are found in forests, near only calm ponds or small streams. Others live high in mountains, in open woodlands, on tropical coral atolls, or have adapted to human-modified habitats like parks, gardens, and agricultural areas.

Common Kingfisher, *Alcedo atthis* (Image Credit: Alexis Lours via iNaturalist)

Even so, you’re most likely to spot them in the tropical regions of Africa, Asia, and Oceania, but they can also be found in more temperate regions in Europe and the Americas. Some species have large populations and massive geographic ranges, like the Common Kingfisher (Alcedo atthis), pictured above, which resides from Ireland across Europe, North Africa and Asia, as far as the Solomon Islands in the Pacific. Other kingfishers (typically insular species that evolved on islands) have smaller ranges, like the Indigo-banded Kingfisher (Ceyx cyanopectus), which is only found in the Philippines.

Birds of a Feather

Kingfishers are small to medium sized birds averaging about 16-17 cm (a little over 6 inches) in length. They have compact bodies with short necks and legs, stubby tails and small feet, especially in comparison to their large heads and long, pointed bills. While many species are proportioned the same way, some are quite distinct. Paradise Kingfishers (Tanysiptera), which are found in the Maluku Islands and New Guinea like the one pictured below, are known for their long tail streamers. The African Dwarf Kingfisher (Ispidina lecontei) is the world’s smallest kingfisher at just 10 cm (barely 4 inches) long, and is found in Central and West Africa. The largest is the Laughing Kookaburra (Dacelo novaeguineae), coming in at a whopping 41-46 cm (15-18 inches) long, and is native to Australia.

Buff-Breasted Paradise Kingfisher, *Tanysiptera sylvia*
(Image Credit: Peter and Shelly Watts via iNaturalist)

Now, I know what you’re thinking: ‘Wait, are kookaburras and kingfishers the same thing? Sometime. Out of all 118 species, only four go by the name kookaburra: the Laughing Kookaburra (Dacelo novaeguineae), the Blue-winged Kookaburra (Dacelo leachii), the Spangled Kookaburra (Dacelo tyro), and the Rufous-bellied Kookaburra (Dacelo gaudichaud). Native to Australia and New Guinea, the kookaburra are named for their loud and distinctive call that sounds like laughter. Sometimes their cackles can even be mistaken for monkeys!

So, are they as colorful as everyone says?

Yes! If you ask anyone who has seen a kingfisher to describe what it looks like, they will most likely go on and on about its color. Kingfishers are bright and vividly colored in green, blue, red, orange, and white feathers, and depending on the species, can be marked by a single, bold stripe of color. These features all accent the bird’s most recognizable feature, which is the blue plumage on their wings, back, and head. But here’s where things get interesting: Kingfishers don’t actually have any blue pigment in their feathers.

Laughing Kookaburra, *Dacelo novaeguineae* (Image Credit: Angela Quinn via Pixabay)

So, what gives? It’s something called the Tyndall effect. What’s happening is that tiny, microscopic keratin deposits on the birds’ feathers (yes, the same keratin that’s in your hair and nails) scatter light in such a way that short wavelengths of light, like (you guessed it) blue, bounce off the surface while all others are absorbed into the feather.

It sounds a little strange, but you see it every day. It’s why we see the sky as blue, too.

Azure Kingfisher, *Ceyx azureus* (Image Credit: David White via iNaturalist)

Are kingfishers Really Kings of Fishing?

Yes! And no. Kingfisher species are split into three subfamilies based on their feeding habits and habitats: the Tree Kingfishers (Halcyoninae), the River Kingfishers (Alcedininae), and the Water Kingfishers (Cerylinae). Despite their name, many of these birds primarily prefer insects, taking their prey from the air, the foliage, and the ground. They also eat reptiles (like skinks and snakes), amphibians, mollusks, non-insect arthropods (like crabs, spiders, scorpions, centipedes, and millipedes), and even small mammals like mice.

Tree Kingfishers reside in forests and open woodlands, hunting on the ground for small vertebrates and invertebrates. River Kingfishers are more often found eating fish and insects in forest and freshwater habitats. Water Kingfishers, the birds found near lakes, marshes, and other still bodies of water, are the fishing pros, specialize in catching and eating fish, and are actually the smallest subfamily of kingfishers, with only nine species.

New Zealand Sacred Kingfisher, *Todiramphus sanctus* ssp. vagans, eating a crustacean
(Image Credit: Ben Ackerley via iNaturalist)

Because the diets of kingfishers vary, so does the size and shape of their bills. Even though all species have long, dagger-like bills for the purpose of catching and holding prey, those of fishing species are longer and more compressed while ground feeders have shorter and broader bills that help them dig to find prey. The Shovel-billed Kookaburra (Clytoceyx rex) has the most atypical bill because it uses it to plow through the earth looking for lizards, grubs, snails, and earthworms.

Shovel-billed Kookaburra, *(Clytoceyx rex)*
(Image Credit: Mehd Halaouate via iNaturalist)

Can the blue-but-not-really-blue kingfisher get any more interesting?

Oh yes, yes it can. Ready for another physics lesson? Kingfishers have excellent binocular vision, which means they’re able to see with both eyes simultaneously to create a single three-dimensional image, like humans. Not only that, but they can see in color too! But what makes them so adept at catching fish is their capability to compensate for the refraction of light off water.

When light travels from one material into another (in this case, air into water), that light will refract, or bend, because the densities of air and water are different. This makes objects look as though they are slightly displaced when viewed through the water surface. Kingfishers are not only able to compensate for that optical illusion while hunting, but they also can accurately judge the depth of their prey as well.

But, triangulating underwater prey is only half the battle. Then you’ve got to catch it.

Fishing species of kingfishers dive no more than 25 cm (10 inches) into the water, anticipating the movements of their prey up until impact. Again, what happens next differs depending on which kingfisher we’re talking about. Many have translucent nictitating membranes that slide across their eyes just before impact to protect them while maintaining limited vision. Others, like the Pied Kingfisher (Ceryle rudis leucomelanurus), actually have a more robust bony plate that slides out across its eye when it hits the water—giving greater protection while sacrificing vision.

Pied Kingfisher in action

Kingfishers usually hunt from an exposed vantage point, diving rapidly into the water to snatch prey and return to their perch. If the prey is large (or still alive), kingfishers will kill it by beating it against the perch, dislodging and breaking protective spines and bones and removing legs and wings of insects. The Ruddy Kingfisher (Halcyon coromanda) native to south and southeast Asia, removes land snails from their shells by smashing them against stones on the forest floor.

Typically, kingfishers have eyes so dark brown they’re nearly black. In this photograph, however, you can see these Common Kingfishers’ nictitating membranes, most likely activated on land to remove sand or any other debris that may be hindering their vision. Image Credit: misooksun via iNaturalist

Learning from kingfishers

Occupying a place fairly high in their environments’ pecking orders (trophic level) makes kingfishers susceptible to effects of bioaccumulation, or the increasing concentration of pollutants found in living things as you climb the food chain. This phenomenon, coupled with the kingfisher’s sensitivity to toxins, makes the bird a fairly reliable environmental indicator of ecosystem health. If a kingfisher population is strong, that can indicate their habitat is healthy because the small aquatic animals they feed on aren’t intaking poisons or pollutants. When problems are detected in a kingfisher population, it can serve as an early warning system that something more systemic is wrong.

But that’s not the only thing we can, or have learned, from kingfishers. In 1989, Japan was looking for a way to redesign its Shinkansen Bullet Train to make it both faster and quieter. As the train flew through tunnels at 275 km/h, massive amounts of pressure would build up, reigned in by the front of the train and the tunnels’ walls. Upon exiting the tunnels, that pressure would release, sending roaring booms through the homes of those living nearby. Engineer Eiji Nakatsu was not only the project’s lead, but birdwatcher as well. Noting the kingfisher’s ability to plunge into dense water at incredible speeds with hardly a splash, Nakatsu and his team remodeled the front of the train with the bird’s beak in mind. The result not only solved the problem of the boom, but also allowed the train to travel faster while using less energy.

Kingfishers: A Little More Like You Than You Think

In learning about the kingfisher, I saw a little bit of us. We all come from the same family, even if we each do things a little differently. I think for me, this gets to the root of why finding our connections with all living things matters, not just because they give us inspiration to solve human problems or because we depend on them to keep natural systems in balance, but because this is just as much their Earth as ours.

Let’s do our part,

Abigail

Sources and Further Reading:

Featured Creature: Eastern Emerald Elysia

What creature steals photosynthesis, can go a year without eating, and blurs the animal-plant boundary?

The Eastern Emerald Elysia (Elysia chlorotica)!

“It’s a leaf,” my friend said when I showed her the photograph.

“Look closely. It’s not a leaf,” I replied.

“What is it then? Some insect camouflaged as a leaf?” she asked, still staring at the photo.

“It’s a slug. A sea slug. It starts as an animal and then… becomes plant-like. It steals chloroplasts. It can photosynthesize,” I almost yelled in excitement.

“What do you mean, it steals chloroplasts? Is there some symbiotic relationship with bacteria that allows it to photosynthesize?” my friend asked—she’s a nature nerd.

“No, not at all,” I said, feeling overwhelmed. “I don’t quite understand how it works yet. I am not sure anyone truly does.”

It had only been a few hours since I learned about the Eastern Emerald Elysia (Elysia chlorotica). Since then, I haven’t been able to stop sharing this incredible discovery with anyone who crosses my path—whether they’re interested or not—I’ll share anyway.

At first glance, *Elysia chlorotica* might seem relatively modest. Image Credit: bow_brown_brook via iNaturalist via Maryland Biodiversity

Photosynthesis in Nature through Symbiosis

Days later, as I write, I contemplate my friend’s first instinct. In nature, if you’re not a plant and want to photosynthesize, you usually rely on symbiosis. The first thing that comes to mind are corals. Corals host tiny algae called zooxanthellae within their tissues. The algae photosynthesize, providing the coral with food and energy in exchange for protection and access to sunlight.

But I became curious — What other species in nature photosynthesize through symbiosis?

I learned that some sea anemones, sponges, giant clams, hydras and, surprisingly, yellow-spotted salamanders—the only known vertebrate that photosynthesizes—also rely on similar symbiotic relationships, though that’s a story for another time.

And … lichens, too.

In his book Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, biologist and author Merlin Sheldrake describes lichens as “places where an organism unravels into an ecosystem, and where an ecosystem congeals into an organism. They flicker between ‘wholes’ and ‘collections of parts’. Shuttling between the two perspectives is a confusing experience.”

Indeed, it is a confusing experience. There’s this consistent thread of life forms rejecting the categories we impose on them. Lichens blur the lines between fungi and plants, comprising fungi, algae, and bacteria—organisms from three kingdoms of life, each with a specific ecological role crucial to the whole—a miniature ecosystem.

But the Eastern Emerald Elysia (Elysia chlorotica) once more challenges categorization, blurring the lines between the animal and plant world.

Where does the animal stop and the plant begin?

Upon a closer look, *Elysia chlorotica* proves to be more than ordinary. Transformation in color from brown-reddish to green upon stealing chloroplasts from the *Vaucheria litorea* algae. The transformation occurs in about 48 hours. Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons 1, 2, 3)

Elysia Chlorotica’s Way of Being: Living In Between Worlds

I am learning that Elysia chlorotica can be found very close to where I live on the eastern coast of the United States. My friend noted several sightings of them on iNaturalist in states like Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Jersey, and Connecticut. In fact, the highest concentration of Elysia Chloratica is on Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts.

Their preferred habitat is shallow tidal marshes and pools with water less than 1.5 feet deep.

They are shy, flat, and between 1 and 2 inches long.

And although they belong to the clade Sacoglossans, they are often mistaken for Nudibranchs. What differentiates the two is their diet. Nudibranchs are carnivorous, while the Sacoglossans are herbivores.

Sacoglossans are also known as sap-sucking slugs due to their feeding behavior. Elysia chlorotica feeds exclusively on the yellow-green macroalga Vaucheria litorea, the two living in close proximity.

Selected quote from the video: “It then lives on the food made by these chloroplasts.
It is a fascinating story of endosymbiosis.”

The term “feeding” might be a bit misleading. Elysia chlorotica does eat the algae, yet it uses its radula, a specialized set of piercing teeth, to puncture it and suck out all of its contents – “kinda” like a straw. In the process of feeding, it begins to digest everything else, except it leaves the chloroplasts intact – the tiny organelles responsible for photosynthesis in plants.

The undigested chloroplasts become incorporated into the slug’s digestive tract, visible on its back as a branching pattern that resembles the venation found on a leaf or the structure of our lungs. This process is known as kleptoplasty, derived from the Greek word “klepto,” meaning thief. As chloroplasts accumulate, the slug’s color changes from reddish-brown to green due to the chlorophyll in about 48 hours.

Karen N. Pelletreau et al., (CC BY 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons)

When I read this, I engage in a thought exercise—I imagine I am eating a salad. The salad is composed of cucumbers, sesame seeds, and dill (my favorite!) with a bit of olive oil, vinegar, and salt. In the process of eating, I digest everything except the dill, which I leave intact within me. Once the dill gets to my digestive tract, within a matter of 48 hours, I start turning green and gain the ability to photosynthesize—to eat light, to fix CO₂, and emit oxygen in return.

Of course, this is impossible (or doesn’t yet happen) for humans and animals. Repurposing chloroplasts into one’s physiology, even without digesting them, is a feat that is far from straightforward. It involves complex genes, proteins, and mechanisms—thousands of them—ensuring that this process functions correctly. There’s a precise interaction, akin to a lock-and-key mechanism, that makes this extraordinary adaptation possible. It is more of a dialogue, an evolutionary dialogue—an activation.

What is even more extraordinary is that Elysia chlorotica can maintain functioning chloroplasts for its entire life cycle, approximately 12 months. It only needs to eat once. Normally, chloroplasts need a lot of support from the plant’s own genes to keep functioning. When they are inside an animal cell, they are far from their original plant environment. And one cannot ignore the immune system, which upon sensing a foreign body, should initiate an attack.

This intrigues scientists. For example, there are many other species that are kleptoplasts, including a few other Sacoglossans sea slugs. I learned that some ciliates and foraminiferans are, too. And there’s a marine flatworm that can steal chloroplasts from diatoms.

However, none of them can maintain intact chloroplasts as long as Elysia chlorotica.

At first you might have been surprised by just how it incorporates plant-like processes into an animal body. But then the question transforms into how it maintains these processes. Maintenance, it seems, is still a mystery. And for what?

For a more in-depth exploration of Elysia chlorotica, watch this video and
refer to its description for scientific papers and additional readings.

Yet What is This Chloroplast Maintenance For? Does It Need Photosynthesis to Survive?

From the video above that does an excellent job summarizing various scientific discoveries and Ed Yong’s article “Solar-Powered Slugs Are Not Solar-Powered,” I was able to understand the development of a mental model and the nature of scientific inquiry through experimentation and challenging assumptions surrounding the sea slug.

Initially: It was believed that Elysia chlorotica stole chloroplasts and relied entirely on photosynthesis for survival.

Then: It was found that sunlight isn’t crucial for its survival—starvation, light or darkness–it doesn’t matter.

Finally: Research on other species of sea slugs Elysia timida and Plakobranchus ocellatus showed that while these slugs convert CO₂ into sugars in the presence of light, they don’t need photosynthesis to survive. They concluded that chloroplasts might act as a food reserve, hoarded for future needs.

However: The mystery remains of how chloroplasts perform photosynthesis in an animal body. The hypothesis that chloroplasts function due to gene theft was disproven. Chloroplasts need thousands of genes, mostly from the host cell’s nucleus, but that is left behind during chloroplast theft. Nobody truly understands how the chloroplasts continue to function under these conditions.

I’m left confused, moving from thinking photosynthesis was essential to realizing it’s not required for survival, yet chloroplasts still perform photosynthesis.

If you also feel confused, please know, this uncertainty and surrendering to the unknown is crucial when studying and learning from the natural world. Questions like ‘why they need photosynthesis at all’ and ‘how it happens’ remain unanswered.

Due to the difficulty of raising Elysia chlorotica in the lab, and the need to carefully limit their collection to protect wild populations, research on them is highly challenging. Climate change and habitat fragmentation make this task even more difficult.

I look forward to following the progress of this research and am grateful to the scientists who continue to push boundaries and deepen our understanding of these remarkable creatures. This is one more example of why it is so important to protect and restore the Earth’s ecosystems.

The Genesis of Symbiosis. The Origin of The Chloroplast. The Becoming of the Earth.

Researching Elysia chlorotica took me on an entirely different path. I have always been interested in the origin of things, how something emerges, and the question of what is the origin of the chloroplasts intuitively unfolded.

I tried to understand symbiosis as defined by evolutionary biologist Lynn Margulis. At the recommendation of Bio4Climate staff biologist Jim Laurie, I watched (and then re-watched) the documentary Symbiotic Earth: How Lynn Margulis Rocked The Boat and Started a Scientific Revolution.

It led me to Symbiogenesis. Symbiogenesis, as defined by Lynn Margulis, is the theory that new organisms and complex features evolve through symbiotic relationships, where one organism engulfs and integrates another.

In a moment of serendipity, I was surprised to see in one of the scenes in the documentary that the Elysia chlorotica was on the cover of the book titled “Symbiogenesis: A New Principle of Evolution” by Boris Mikhaylovich Kozo-Polyanksy. One of its editors is Lynn Margulis.

Photograph I took of a projected scene from the documentary *Symbiotic Earth: How Lynn Margulis Rocked the Boat and Started a Scientific Revolution.*

I never considered the genesis of symbiosis before–its connection with the genesis of life on Earth as we know it and with the biogeochemical cycles, fundamental processes that make our planet habitable.

This serendipitous moment, coupled with my learning process of Elysia chlorotica feels like some sort of beginning for me–a new understanding of how to perceive the becoming of the Earth.

Lynn Margulis, through her Serial Endosymbiotic Theory (SET), proposed that chloroplasts and mitochondria were originally free-living bacteria that entered into symbiotic relationships.

I am becoming aware that these primordial organelles have been integral to life’s evolution, part of a biological legacy that has shaped the Earth’s emergence of life for billions of years. And it all started with bacteria!

Elysia chlorotica, with its ability to steal chloroplasts, has reminded me that when studying the natural world, there is always something that doesn’t quite fit into our predetermined categories of knowledge and that life inevitably discovers a way to persist through new configurations of interacting and being.

We now understand that classifying nature goes beyond just physical appearances. There are hidden processes at play—molecular, genetic, and biogeochemical—that allow us to trace the origins of life and understand it in ways that extend beyond mere morphology. Nature, ultimately, defies rules—this seems to be the only rule. The once-ordered tree of life gives way to fluid boundaries and intricate entanglements. This emerging complexity reflects the true essence of life: dynamic, interconnected, ever-evolving, filled with irregular rhythms.

And now, I have a new category, a new lens through which to perceive nature: “Animals That Can Photosynthesize.” (hear Lynn Margulis talk about this topic in the first 10 minutes of the podcast).

Left: Chloroplasts. Photo Credit: Kristian Peters-Fabelfroh (CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons)
Right: Project Apollo Archive (Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons)

Without chloroplasts, there would be no plants, sea slugs, and oxygen-rich Earth. And without cyanobacteria—the believed progenitors of chloroplasts—much of the life we know of today, and perhaps countless other forms yet to be discovered, would not exist.

I hope you can look beyond the form of living systems and envision how life emerged through symbiosis.

Picture this emergence on various scales, from the microscopic chloroplast to the scale of an entire planet.

With gratitude, yet green with chloroplast envy,

Alexandra

Alexandra Ionescu is an Ecological Artist and Certified Biomimicry Professional. She currently works at Bio4Climate as the Associate Director of Regenerative Projects, focusing on the Miyawaki Forest Program. Her aim is to inspire learning from and about diverse non-human intelligences, cultivating propensities for ecosystem regeneration through co-existence, collaboration and by making the invisible visible. She hopes to motivate others to ask “How can humans give back to the web of life?” by raising awareness of biodiversity and natural cycles to challenge human-centric infrastructures. In her spare time, Alexandra is part of the Below and Above Collective, an interdisciplinary group that combines art with ecological functionality to construct floating wetlands and is a 2024 Curatorial Fellow with Creature Conserve where she organized a webinar and “Read/Reflect/Create” club centered on beavers.

Sources and Further Reading:

Videos

Articles

Scientific Papers

Mollusc-Algal Chloroplast Endosymbiosis. Photosynthesis, Thylakoid Protein Maintenance, and Chloroplast Gene Expression Continue for Many Months in the Absence of the Algal Nucleu (Brian J. Green et al., 2000)
Horizontal gene transfer of the algal nuclear gene psbO to the photosynthetic sea slug Elysia chlorotica (Rumpho et., al 2008)
Chloroplast symbiosis in a marine ciliate: ecophysiology and the risks and rewards of hosting foreign organelles (McManus et al., 2012)
Genome Analysis of Elysia chlorotica Egg DNA Provides No Evidence for Horizontal Gene Transfer into the Germ Line of This Kleptoplastic Mollusc (Bhattacharya et al., 2013)
Plastid-bearing sea slugs fix CO2 in the light but do not require photosynthesis to survive (Christa et al., 2014)
Switching off photosynthesis (Christa et al., 2014)
Photophysiology of kleptoplasts: photosynthetic use of light by chloroplasts living in animal cells (Serôdio et al., 2014)
Lipid Accumulation during the Establishment of Kleptoplasty in Elysia chlorotica (Pelletreau et al., 2014)
A new case of kleptoplasty in animals: Marine flatworms steal functional plastids from diatoms (Van Steenkiste et al., 2019)
Photosynthetic sea slugs induce protective changes to the light reactions of the chloroplasts they steal from algae (Havurinne and Tyystjärvi 2020)
Shared ancestry of algal symbiosis and chloroplast sequestration in foraminifera (Pinko et al., 2023)

Featured Creature: Pigeon

What often-overlooked creature is an expert navigator, an impressive postman, and a natural mammographer?

A pigeon!

While the term “pigeon” actually refers to over 300 species of bird of the family Columbidae, the animal is generally characterized by its plump body, head-bobbing strut, and gentle disposition. That, and the fact that they seem to be everywhere. Pigeons have adapted to the majority of habitats on earth, with the most impressive being the urban environment.

Rock pigeons, also known as city pigeons or common pigeons, were first introduced to North America in the 1600s, from Europe. Since then, they have come to inhabit nearly every city across the Americas.

Historical records in Mesopotamia and ancient Egypt suggest that pigeons were first domesticated around 5,000 years ago, making it nearly impossible to discern their original, wild range. Today, wild pigeons make homes of rocky cliffs or in caves, while their feral cousins nest on building ledges.

With some of the most powerful flight muscles in the animal kingdom, pigeons are impressive fliers with the ability to take off almost vertically and avoid any in-flight obstacle. This enables them to dwell in even the busiest urban environments.

Lovebirds!

Pigeons are monogamous, mating for life, and typically raise 1 to 2 chicks at a time. Their mating season is May through August in the Northern hemisphere, and co-parenting is key to the nestlings’ success. Dad usually takes the day shift while Mom takes the night watch, alternating incubation duties so the other can hunt for food or hit the McDonald’s drive thru.

In the first four or five days after hatching, the chicks are fed “pigeon milk,” a unique secretion of a portion of the parents’ digestive system called the “crop.” This milky liquid is rich in nutrients and closely resembles that of mammals’ milk. Crop milk production is a hormonal response that begins a few days before the eggs hatch. When the chicks are around 10 days old, the milk-producing cells return to their normal dormancy and hatchlings can ease into a normal pigeon diet. (This process isn’t unique to pigeons; flamingoes and some species of penguin also produce a milk-like substance for their hatchlings.) Four to six weeks later, pigeon chicks are semi-independent, freeing the mated pair to start another brood. A couple of common pigeons can raise up to 12 chicks (six pairs of eggs) in a single mating season.

Both Beauty and Brains

Due to both natural selection and human breeding, there are now over 300 species of pigeon cooing across the globe. They are all descendents of the humble rock pigeon.

Charles Darwin, a pigeon breeder, marveled at the beauty of evolution at work in the range of appearance and genetic expression in pigeons, calling it an analogy of what happens in nature. Many species of wild pigeon have developed flamboyant colors and crests that rival that of anyone’s favorite bird. Check out the photos below for some beautiful displays!

Crested Pigeon (Image by schneeknirschen on Pixabay)

Pigeon in Budapest (Image by Charles on Pixabay)

Doves are biologically identical to common pigeons
(Image by StockSnap on Pixabay)

Pigeons are more than just looks, though. They’ve managed to take on a variety of human tasks with ease, often outperforming their human and technological counterparts. Pigeons have been carrying mail for centuries, back to ancient Roman times, and can deliver mail at speeds of up to 90 miles per hour (their average flight speed being 50-60 mph). They were even employed as military spies, with 95% of pigeons completing their missions and returning photographs of enemy operations to their side in WWI. The key to their impressive performance is their ability to tap into earth’s magnetic field.

They can also read the position of the sun, and have a keen sense of sight and smell. Their acute eyesight also makes them, unexpectedly, great mammographers. Pigeons can diagnose breast cancer in human patients with an accuracy on par with human radiologists reviewing the same cases.

So maybe the next time you hear someone refer to pigeons as “sky rats,” take a moment to share about some of the brilliance behind those red eyes.

Humbly,
Ryan

Ryan Pagois is a climate advocate and systems thinker serving as an Associate Director at Built Environment Plus, helping to drive sustainable building solutions in MA. He is passionate about urban ecology, carbon balance, and rewilding cities. He is excited to pursue a Masters of Ecological Design at the Conway School starting this fall, to explore how low-impact urban development can be our greatest climate solution and community resilience tool. He grew up in Minnesota and studied environmental policy and international relations at Boston University.

Sources and Further Reading:
https://www.britannica.com/animal/pigeon
https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Rock_Pigeon/overview#
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/pigeons-diversity-doves-photographs
https://www.ovocontrol.com/pigeon-facts-figures
https://www.ovocontrol.com/news-blog/2018/01/how-fast-do-pigeons-reproduce
https://www.spymuseum.org/exhibition-experiences/about-the-collection/collection-highlights/pigeon-camera/
https://www.northumberlandnationalpark.org.uk/pigeon-perfect/
https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/pigeons-can-distinguish-cancerous-breast-tissue-normal
https://www.audubon.org/field-guide/bird/rock-pigeon
https://www.audubon.org/news/pigeon-milk-nutritious-treat-chicks
https://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/05/science/pigeons-a-darwin-favorite-carry-new-clues-to-evolution.html

Featured Creature: Atlantic Puffin

What striking seabird is a master of adaptability in the ocean and the air?

The Atlantic Puffin!

Image by Anne-Ed C. from Pixabay

Nestled around the edges of the North Atlantic, the Atlantic Puffin, or Fratercula arctica, is a seabird of great charm and adaptability. Resembling a penguin in its coloration, yet distinguished by its multicolored and uniquely shaped bill, this captivating creature is often affectionately dubbed the “sea parrot.”

Atlantic puffins have also been known as “sea clowns” because of that funky flattened bill, but make no mistake – these are some seriously impressive seabirds. With sophisticated burrows, skillful hunting, and dedication to raising families with determined care, these bright birds are marvels of the ocean.

Aquatic Aviators

Atlantic puffins spend the majority of their lives navigating the vast expanse of the North Atlantic, where they are found on islands and coastal shores from North America to Scandinavia. With wings that double as paddles, they can “fly” through the water, propelled by powerful flippers and webbed feet.

These adept swimmers dive to impressive depths of up to 200 feet, hunting small fish like sand eels and herring with remarkable precision. In addition to their aquatic prowess, puffins can also fly, though they are unable to soar like other broad winged seabirds. Instead, using wings that can flap up to 400 times per minute, Atlantic puffins are able to reach speeds of up to 55 miles per hour (88.5 km/h).

Family Life

During the breeding season, thousands of puffins gather in colonies along the coasts and islands of the North Atlantic. These colonies provide safety in numbers, shielding the birds from larger predators like skuas and gulls that patrol the skies above. The breeding season sees puffins at their most colorful, with those distinctive bills featuring their blue-gray triangles accented in bright yellow. When the season is over, the bills’ outermost layers actually molt, and revert to a partly gray and partly orange color combination.

Puffins exhibit strong pair bonds, often forming lifelong partnerships with their mates. They engage in affectionate behaviors such as rubbing and tapping beaks, reinforcing their bond year after year. Remarkably, these avian couples frequently return to the same burrow to raise their young each season.

Using their beaks and claws, they construct deep burrows that nestle between rocky crags and crevices. These generally feature separate tunnels that are used as a bathroom area, and a main nesting chamber that serves as a safe haven for incubating eggs, which hatch after a period of 42 days.

Pufflings, as these chicks are called, are adorned with fluffy feathers that will eventually facilitate their ability to swim and fly. Both parents play an active role in incubating the egg and caring for their offspring once it has hatched, fetching food for the young puffling with skill and dedication. They make use of a unique adaptation of small spines along their bills, tongues, and the roofs of their mouths that allow them to hold bunches of fish in place as they fly from their hunts on open waters back to the nests where their young ones wait. It is estimated that during the time a puffling stays in its burrow dependent on this care, its parents will make close to 12,400 dives total to keep up the steady supply of food.

Persevering Under Threat

Despite their remarkable adaptability, Atlantic puffins face a number of challenges in the modern world. From habitat loss and predation to climate change and human disturbances, these beloved seabirds are confronted with an uncertain future, and they are currently classified as Vulnerable by the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature). In particular, as ocean temperatures rise and fish populations decline or shift their habitat, puffins struggle to find food with enough frequency and reliability to get by. Conservation and restoration measures can help ease these pressures by preventing overfishing, ensuring abundant marine ecosystems, and allowing all forms of ocean life, from underwater critters to seabirds, to survive and adapt. While the intersecting challenges of a warming and increasingly chaotic planet may be complex, modifying human behaviors has made a tremendous difference for these colorful creatures before.

Take a look at the story of their bounce back from near extinction in the 20th century:

May we take hope in our power to shape our planet’s future for the better, and show the same love and dedication to these sweet seabirds as they do to their young pufflings.

Flapping away now,

Maya

Maya Dutta is an environmental advocate and ecosystem restorer working to spread understanding on the key role of biodiversity in shaping the climate and the water, carbon, nutrient and energy cycles we rely on. She is passionate about climate change adaptation and mitigation and the ways that community-led ecosystem restoration can fight global climate change while improving the livelihood and equity of human communities. Having grown up in New York City and lived in cities all her life, Maya is interested in creating more natural infrastructure, biodiversity, and access to nature and ecological connection in urban areas.

Sources and Further Reading:
https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Atlantic_Puffin/overview#
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/birds/facts/atlantic-puffin
https://kids.nationalgeographic.com/animals/birds/facts/atlantic-puffin
https://www.audubon.org/field-guide/bird/atlantic-puffin
https://abcbirds.org/bird/atlantic-puffin/
https://www.science.org/content/article/watch-puffin-use-tool-scratch-itch
Recent changes in the diet and survival of Atlantic puffin chicks in the face of climate change and commercial fishing in midcoast Maine, USA. Stephen W. Kress, Paula Shannon, Christopher O’Neal. FACETS 21 April 2016. https://doi.org/10.1139/facets-2015-0009

Featured Creature: Flamingo

What long-legged creatures are known for their beauty, social habits, and fabulous flamboyance?

Flamingos!

Flamingos are among the most recognizable birds in the world. These long-legged wading birds are known for their vibrant pink plumage and distinctive S-shaped necks, and rank among the most iconic inhabitants of wetlands across the globe.

They are known to congregate in large flocks, standing (often perched on one leg) in the shallows of their habitat. Given their unmistakably flashy appearance, it is apt that a group of flamingos is known as a “flamboyance.”

Flamingos boast a slender body, stilt-like legs, and a characteristic downward-bending bill, making them instantly recognizable. Though they are most often depicted as a bright pink, their plumage ranges from a subtle pink to crimson. This hue is actually derived from carotenoid pigments found in their diet of algae, crustaceans, and small invertebrates. So as flamingos’ range and available food sources vary, so too might their color. Interestingly, this same pigment responsible for the flamingo’s iconic pink is also what makes carrots orange and ripened tomatoes red.

Flamingos thrive in saline or alkaline lakes, mudflats, and shallow lagoons, where they feed on algae, invertebrates, larvae, small seeds, and crustaceans like brine shrimp. Their long legs enable them to wade into deeper waters, utilizing their uniquely adapted bills to filter food from the mud and water. In fact, though the term usually calls to mind creatures like oysters or whales, flamingos are also considered “filter feeders” in their behavior and diet.

While most flamingo species are not endangered, habitat loss and human activities pose significant threats to their populations. Conservation initiatives, such as the establishment of protected reserves and the monitoring of wild populations, are crucial for safeguarding these charismatic birds and their habitats. As indicators of environmental health and key feeders in the wetlands, flamingos play a vital role in maintaining the delicate balance of their ecosystems.

Lifestyle and relationships

Flamingos are highly social creatures, forming large flocks that can number in the thousands. They engage in intricate mating displays and rituals, characterized by synchronized movements and vocalizations. Once a couple has chosen to mate, breeding pairs construct simple mud nests, where they raise their offspring, feeding them a specialized “crop milk” produced in their upper digestive tract.

With a lifespan of 20 to 30 years in the wild, and up to 50 years in captivity, flamingos exhibit remarkable longevity. They typically lay a single chalky-white egg, which both parents incubate and care for until hatching. Young flamingos, born with gray downy feathers, gradually develop their iconic pink plumage over time.

Over time, these bright birds form strong social bonds that characterize their lives and behaviors. Remarkably, it has been observed that some flamingos will make friends for decades. Researchers have speculated that the bonds, which are influenced by factors such as personality traits and physical characteristics, may aid survival.

This long lasting affinity has led to comparisons and speculations about different forms of love in the animal kingdom. Though we see lots of courtship, pairing, and even mating for life in different species, friendship is one of those underrated forms of love well worth celebrating. And while these social relationships may indeed help with survival, it also might just be true that life is better with friends by your side.

Feeling the love,

Maya

Sources and Further Reading:
https://animals.sandiegozoo.org/animals/flamingo
https://kids.nationalgeographic.com/animals/birds/facts/flamingo
https://nationalzoo.si.edu/animals/american-flamingo
https://www.audubon.org/birds-of-america/american-flamingo
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/flamingos-make-friends-for-life
https://nationalzoo.si.edu/animals/news/why-are-flamingos-pink-and-other-flamingo-facts

Featured Creature: Lichen

Which creature is a combination of two other organisms, comes in bright colors, and helps us measure air quality?

Lichen!

Master of Symbiosis

Though we know lichens as creatures in and of themselves, lichens are actually a result of symbiosis, a mutually beneficial relationship between two or more species. In the lichen’s case, algae and fungi come together to form a new creature. No two lichens are alike. They vary in form, color, and which type of algae they have – either green, blue-green, or both.

The fungus gives the lichen a majority of its traits, including shape and anatomy. The algae determines the color, from orange to yellow to neon green. The fungus partners with the algae out of necessity for food. Since the algae, or cyanobacteria, can photosynthesize, they provide food for the fungus in exchange for shelter. Therefore, each party relies on the other for survival.

Abundant yet Unique

From hot deserts and windy coastlines to the arctic tundra, lichen are found around the world. In North America alone, there are thought to be 3600 different species! They grow on trees, rocks, and soil. They can even grow on things made out of one of the above, such as a house made out of wood. If a sand dune remains stable for long enough, soil crusts will form and lichens will begin to appear along the crusts. Essentially, all lichens need is something solid to hang onto.

Lichens require a stable habitat because they take a long time to grow. Every year, they only grow 1-2 mm. To promote their growth cycle, lichens will often partner with moss, adding yet another organism to the party. Mosses are simple plants (meaning they lack roots, stems, and leaves) that retain water, and since lichens have two creatures to sustain (the algae and fungi), this water source is a welcomed one. This partnership is so common that if you look up ‘lichen’ on the internet, a majority of pictures will contain both lichen and moss. They are truly geniuses of cooperation!

The lichen *Letharia vulpina* at Mt. Gleason, CA (Photo by Jason Hollinger from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0)

Welcomed by All

At first glance, it may look like lichens harm trees. (After all, if you or I had something bright green or orange growing on our limbs, we should call the doctor). But fear not – lichens don’t harm any plants they attach themselves to. On the contrary, they benefit many other species, such as birds that use lichen as nesting material. Numerous invertebrates see lichen as a source for food and shelter and, as a result, the more lichen in a forest, the more organisms the ecosystem can sustain.

Humans have reaped the benefits of lichen, too. We have used them for clothing, decorations, and food. They are also highly valued for their antibiotic properties. Today, we use them in toothpastes, salves, deodorants, and other products. So you can thank lichens for helping us stay clean and healthy!

Cup Lichen (Image by Jürgen from Pixabay)

A Climate Helper

Since the algae in lichen photosynthesize, lichens contribute to the important function of converting carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to oxygen. The fungus in lichen contribute to this function, too, by allowing algae to live in places they wouldn’t be able to on their own. By providing a form of shelter, the fungus gives an opportunity for more algae to exist and thrive, and that means we have more creatures sequestering carbon and stabilizing the climate.

Lichens also play a vital role in soil formation and development by helping to break down solid minerals like rock. This process creates pockets in the soil – perfect for larger organisms to thrive in. It also creates pathways for nutrients to sink deep into the Earth, where they will later benefit plants and other creatures. As we like to say at Bio4Climate, healthy soil makes for a healthy planet.

Last but not least, lichens give us an insight on the amount of pollution in their respective area. Lichens absorb everything around them – including air, nutrients, water, and pollutants. Scientists study lichens in order to understand the type of toxins present in the environment and their levels. This information gives us insights on the root causes of disease and environmental degradation. With that knowledge, we can address issues affecting human and wildlife communities – creating a cleaner environment for us all.

That’s all for now, but I hope you’re lichen this series!
Tania

Tania graduated from Tufts University with a Master of Science in Animals and Public Policy. Her academic research projects focused on wildlife conservation efforts, and the impacts that human activities have on wild habitats. As a writer and activist, Tania emphasizes the connections between planet, human, and animal health. She is a co-founder of the podcast Closing the Gap, and works on outreach and communications for Sustainable Harvest International. She loves hiking, snorkeling, and advocating for social justice.

Sources:
https://www.deschuteslandtrust.org/news/blog/2016-blog-posts/five-fun-facts-about-lichen
https://www.fs.fed.us/wildflowers/beauty/lichens/about.shtml
https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/blog/2019/04/what-is-lichen-seven-types-of-lichen-found-on-trees/
https://digitalcommons.humboldt.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1078&context=ideafest

Featured Creature: Dragonfly

Which creature existed before the dinosaurs, is an aerial genius, and can detect things we can only witness through slow-motion cameras?

The dragonfly!

Eugene Zelenko (CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons)

Predecessors to the Dinosaurs

Dragonflies were some of the first winged insects to evolve, about 300 million years ago. When they first evolved, their wingspans measured up to two feet! In contrast, today’s dragonflies have wingspans of about two to five inches.

Although in this feature we speak of dragonflies in a general sense, there are more than 5,000 known species of them, each with its own characteristics.

Joi Ito (CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons)

The Dramatic Entrance

Dragonflies begin as larvae. During this almost 2-year stage, they live in wetlands such as lakes or ponds across every continent except Antarctica. Despite their small size, their appetite is huge, and they are not picky eaters. In their larval to nymph stages, they will eat anything they can grasp including tadpoles, other insect larvae, small fish, mosquitos, and even other dragonfly larvae.

After their nymph stage, dragonflies emerge as if they were reviving from the dead. They crawl out of the water, split open their body along their abdomen, and reveal their four wings- along with their new identity. Then, they spend hours to days drying themselves before they can take to the skies as the insects we know and love.

Once a dragonfly is dry and ready to fly, their voracious appetite continues. As usual, they’ll eat almost anything, but now they will only eat what they catch mid-flight. These feasts consist of butterflies, moths, bees, mosquitoes, midges, and, yet again, even other dragonflies. They seem to embrace the motto “every fly for themself.”

Check out their dramatic transformation:

Engineered for Optimal Flight

Dragonflies emerge after their larval stage as masters of the air. Their four independently moving wings and their long, thin bodies help them maneuver the skies. They hunt and mate in mid-air and they can fly up to 60 miles per hour. They are also able to fly backwards, sideways, and every which way in a matter of seconds or less.

This incredible ability requires excellent vision. (Or else we would likely see them crash much more often!) Thankfully, dragonflies have just the answer. Their head mostly consists of their eyes. Their multiple lenses allow them to see nearly everything around them, covering every angle except one: right behind them. The insect’s vision not only reaches far and wide, but allows them to see the world at faster speeds than we can.

How are human activities impacting dragonflies?

Since dragonflies consume a variety of organisms, and rely on healthy bodies of water to grow, they are considered important environmental indicators. In other words, when dragonfly populations plummet, conservationists have something to worry about. Nymphs and dragonflies will eat just about anything, so they will only go hungry if there is no available food. Looks like those big appetites came in handy after all.

Declines in dragonfly populations also indicate water pollution and habitat loss. These are consequences of agricultural methods that favor chemicals and synthetic fertilizers, and forest management that disregards the importance of maintaining balance within an ecosystem. One solution is regenerative agriculture which ensures fewer toxins in our environment.

Overall, the more green (and blue) space for wildlife, the more likely these iconic insects will thrive.

Featured Creature: Poison Dart Frog

pixabay.com

What creature the size of a paperclip is lethal enough to kill ten grown men?

The poison dart frog!

What makes the poison dart frog so powerful?

Poison dart frogs – so named because the Indigenous Emberá people of Colombia traditionally used the venom in blow darts – are some of the most toxic creatures on Earth. Some carry enough poison to kill ten grown men or to poison 20,000 mice.

This potent toxicity originally comes from plant poisons that were ingested by the frogs’ insect prey. The effects of this diet, whose repercussions pass from plant to insect to frog to human hunters, shows just how interconnected these ecosystems are. Though it’s not established how the plant poison is processed into venom, when poison dart frogs are bred in captivity and fed a different diet, they do not develop the venom.

Why are poison dart frogs so colorful?

The poison dart frog uses bright colors and patterns as a warning to predators – do not attack if you wish to live! Various species come in bright yellow, turquoise and black, or strawberry red, and these eye-catching visuals broadcast to predators that they’re venomous and dangerous.

They use poison in self-defense, not in hunting, excreting venom into their skin when they’re threatened, so that a single touch would be enough to stop a human heart. This is such an effective tool that many species have evolved to mimic the bright colors and patterns of poison dart frogs in order to get some of that protection from predators by association.

What are other characteristics of poison dart frogs?

They’re tiny! Grown adult frogs typically measure one to two inches, and can be held on a single fingertip (though you wouldn’t want to try this at home).

Like all frogs, they’re amphibious, which means they lay eggs that hatch tadpoles, and have permeable skin through which they can absorb water and oxygen.

How are human activities impacting poison dart frogs?

Deforestation is one of the biggest threats to the poison dart frog. Poison dart frogs are spread across the rainforests of Central and South America. There are over one hundred species of them, and new ones continue to be found! However, habitat loss across these areas, especially in the Amazon, put them at risk of extinction.

Check out this brief look at the life of one golden dart frog:

These bright creatures may be dangerous, but they are just as dazzling. They show that brilliant things can come in small packages.

Featured Creature: Pacific Salmon

This week we ask,

What creatures navigate oceans, climb mountains, feed forests, and motivate us to destroy renewable energy infrastructure?

The Pacific Salmon!

USEPA Environmental Protection Agency (Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons)

How do salmon find their way home?

Pacific salmon are famous for their migrations from the saltwater habitats they live in as mature adults to the freshwater rivers and streams where they were born and return to spawn. Salmon have two means of finding their way back to where they first hatched, often to the very same patch of gravel.

In the open ocean, they have a GPS system based on the earth’s magnetic fields sensed through their lateral line (a highly-sensitive line of nerves running down each side of their bodies). When they get near shore, they then follow smells that they imprinted from their natal river up to where they originally hatched, to spawn again and continue this cycle.

How do salmon manage to get back upstream?

Salmon make their way back home against the current of streams and rivers, even climbing mountains in the process. As they go, they feed upland forests by transporting ocean nutrients into the headwaters of their natal streams, supporting all kinds of life in the process (and not just hungry bears)!

Istvan Banyai (CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons)

What happens to Pacific salmon after they successfully spawn?

Spawned-out Pacific salmon all die after completing their journey. In late fall, on a salmon river, rotting corpses and dying fish appear everywhere, white with mold and stinking with decay. In doing so, they feed forests and the aquatic life that sustains the next generation of fish when they hatch in the spring. We don’t really know why they all die after spawning, unlike the Atlantic salmon, which live after the process is complete.

Bears also increase the ecological reach of these salmon by catching them in rivers and streams and carrying them deep into the forest to feast. This brings their helpful nutrients, particularly nitrogen, into dense stretches of forest where they can fertilize the ecosystem and help trees grow. In fact, it is estimated that eighty percent of the nitrogen in the trees of the Great Bear Forest in Canada comes from salmon. Learn about the interdependent links of salmon, bears, and forest health here.

Where do we find Pacific salmon?

Pacific salmon are an anadromous species, which means they live in seawater but spawn in freshwater. They hatch from eggs in gravel and spend their early years in freshwater rivers up high in the mountains and forests along the Pacific coast. Then, once they reach about 6-8 inches in length, they move down through the estuarial waters to spend several years in the open ocean, feeding and growing large, before they journey upstream to spawn and die.

What is the cultural significance of these fish?

Pacific salmon are part of a religious cycle of life for Indigenous peoples on the American and Canadian West coasts as well as across the planet. Their annual return is celebrated as part of a natural process in which Autumn brings a bountiful harvest of fish to add to other stores of food to last through a long cold winter. Salmon are objects of worship by coastal native inhabitants, human and nonhuman alike, who depend on the annual return of these salmon in the fall to help them get through a long cold winter.

A Shoshone-Paiute tribal member during the reintroduction of the Chinook Salmon
into the East Fork Owyhee River by the Shosone-Paiute Tribe (May 28, 2015)
(Photo by Jeff Allen, Northwest Power and Conservation Council)

We want renewable energy sources! So why are we destroying them for these salmon?

From the 18th into the 20th centuries, our human thirst for factory power had us constructing many dams on our rivers, with little attention to their harmful ecological impact. Many of our anadromous fish species – adapted to the specific conditions of their river watersheds – were lost forever when dams left them unable to complete their journeys upstream.

It is only in recent decades that a powerful movement for dam removal and habitat restoration has been gaining momentum as a means of saving these precious species. The beneficial effects of removing these barriers have been spectacular, as rivers – freed from their shackles – blossom with new life. Along with the salmon have come a revival of other runs, including steelhead, herring, eels, shad and other diadromous fish (ones that transition between freshwater and saltwater environments), as well as birds and wildlife previously not seen in these areas. Our rivers are showing us all that we had lost and all the flourishing that is possible once we get out of their way.

How are human activities impacting these salmon?

Pacific salmon are in serious trouble. A thirst for hydropower has placed them at dire risk of extinction. We are removing dams, building fish ladders on existing dams (since their proper design is crucial), making sure culverts and other means of fish passage stay open and unhindered. But salmon are cold water species, so a warming planet puts them in peril.

However, there is much we can do to protect them, and restore them once they are threatened or lost. Several short but informative videos on salmon restoration efforts can be found here and here.

May we keep supporting the Pacific Salmon,

Fred

Fred is from Ipswich, MA, where he has spent most of his life. He is an ecological economist with a B.A. from Harvard and a Ph.D. from Stanford, both in economics. Fred is also an avid conservationist and fly fisherman. He enjoys the outdoors, and has written about natural processes and about economic theory. He has 40 years of teaching and research experience, first in academics and then in economic litigation. He also enjoys his seasonal practice as a saltwater fly fishing guide in Ipswich, MA. Fred joined Biodiversity for a Livable Climate in 2016.

Dig Deeper

A Living Fossil

The Yangtze: Lifeline and Powerhouse

When Growth Outpaces Nature

Missed Chances

Beyond the Tragedy of the Commons

Moving forward

Dig Deeper

Dig Deeper

Bioluminescence

Clicking Powers

Role in the ecosystem

Dig Deeper

Sadly, the black-capped petrel is currently threatened due to human activity.

Our collective action to green our neighborhoods can turn the tide on the climate crisis and save charming little birds like the black-capped petrel from extinction.

Dig Deeper

Fireflies

Water Dog? Water Monster?! Hardly!

The Peter Pan of Salamanders

A Salamander Superpower

A Keystone AND Indicator Species

Even Superheroes Need Help

Dig Deeper

Dig Deeper

Rule #1: It Takes Two to Tango

Rule #2: Death and Taxes

The Things We Think We Know

Dive Deeper

Meet Our Flightless Friends

The Birds that Swim

What Else Do Penguins Have to Teach Us?

What is the Penguin’s Role in its Ecosystem?

Threats

Life on Earth

Sources and Further Reading

Where do they live?

Winter is Coming

Up, up, up

Showstoppers: Stunning Species from Around the World

Cicadas vs. Locusts: Clearing Up the Confusion

Cicadas’ Impact: How They Shape the Ecosystem

Cicadas as Ecological Signals: What They Tell Us About Nature

Challenges Facing Cicadas: The Threats to Their Survival

A Month of Delight

Birds of a Feather

So, are they as colorful as everyone says?

Are kingfishers Really Kings of Fishing?

Can the blue-but-not-really-blue kingfisher get any more interesting?

Learning from kingfishers

Kingfishers: A Little More Like You Than You Think

Photosynthesis in Nature through Symbiosis

Elysia Chlorotica’s Way of Being: Living In Between Worlds

Yet What is This Chloroplast Maintenance For? Does It Need Photosynthesis to Survive?

The Genesis of Symbiosis. The Origin of The Chloroplast. The Becoming of the Earth.

Lovebirds!

Both Beauty and Brains

Aquatic Aviators

Family Life

Persevering Under Threat

Lifestyle and relationships

Master of Symbiosis

Abundant yet Unique

Welcomed by All

A Climate Helper

Footer Appeal