Trivia, Folklore, and Fun Facts: An Unusual Exploration of Nature
by Wendy E. Jones, Head Naturalist
One of the things I love about nature is that there is always something new to learn or observe, due to the
abundance of plants, animals, weather, and geographic features dominating the natural world. You may
think as a naturalist I know everything about nature, but that is far from the case! As I read books and
magazines and peruse websites, I constantly come across new discoveries, facts, and folklore, many of
which just amaze me. Read on and hopefully you will also be amazed with an unusual exploration of
nature.
Earthworms are not native to Michiana – and they may be endangering songbirds and
salamanders! All those worms in your garden and those that you dug as a kid for fishing? They don’t
belong on this continent! The cold temperatures and grinding glaciers of the last ice age 11,000 years ago
wiped out the native earthworms living in northern states and Canada, with all the forest ecosystems in
our area developing after that in the absence of worms. Deep layers of leaf litter (called duff) were the
norm, providing shelter for spiders, insects, salamanders, mice and shrews, and ground-nesting birds like
hermit thrush and ovenbird. In some places the slowly-decaying material would pile up a foot or more in
depth. Enter the earthworms introduced via European settlers (in ship ballast and the soil of imported
plants), and today that duff blanket is disappearing, reducing habitat quality and diversity for anything
living on the forest floor. There are less insects and other arthropods to support the food chain; there is
less plant cover to hide from predators,
to camouflage nests, or to encourage
seed germination; fewer nutrients are
being recycled into the soil for new
plants to grow; and soil is more prone
to exposure and erosion. Given that
earthworms eat approximately 30% of
their body weight every day and there
can be up to 1.75 million earthworms
in an acre of high-quality soil, it is
clear that this one small alteration to
our native forests is causing changes
that ripple widely throughout the entire
ecosystem.
Another import – the house mouse is not native to North America either! They are native to
Central Asia and India and arrived here after a long continent-crossing journey. As their name indicates,
house mice thrive in the company of humans. As
early as 1100 BC, a Chinese dictionary referenced
keeping them as pets. Following human travel and
trade routes, house mice arrived in the Mediterranean by 8000 BC and made it to Europe by 1000
BC. It is believed that extended time gap is due to
the need for larger human settlements to really
allow house mice to thrive. And tucked away in
ships, barrels and crates used to transport goods
with the Spanish Conquistadors, the French fur
traders, and English colonists, house mice began
arriving in North America in the 1500s. With a
very high reproduction rate (females can mate again within twelve to eighteen hours of giving birth and
are capable of bearing up to 100 young per year), it is no wonder they can quickly become a problem – in
1926-1927 the Central Valley of California was overrun with an estimated 82,000 mice per acre following
a bounty season of crops. No wonder cats were domesticated by 9000 years ago in the Middle East!
Female earwigs make great mothers! The majority of insects provide no parental care for their babies,
with females simply laying their eggs and moving on. But those creepy-crawly earwigs that you find in
cool, moist crevices are the only non-social insect that takes care of its babies, and these Moms are more
dedicated than ants, bees, or wasps that
designate child care to the working class of
the colony. When fall comes, a pair of
earwigs moves into an underground chamber,
and although the male has mated with the
female, she simply stores the sperm and
delays fertilization of her eggs until late
winter or early spring. After the male leaves
(or is driven out by the female), she lays
clusters of rounded, cream-colored eggs in
her soil cavity over a period of two days. An
ambitious female can lay up to 300 eggs in
multiple cavities! She then fiercely protects
the eggs from predators and from deadly
fungi with regular cleanings. The eggs hatch
in seven days, with Mom assisting in their
emergence. She then feeds them regurgitated
food and continues to protect them from danger until their first molt, when they are capable of living on
their own. Such a contrast to the false belief that the name ‘earwig’ comes from their supposed attempt to
crawl through our ears and into our brains to lay their eggs there! Instead, the name earwig harkens back
to the Old English words for ‘ear’ and ‘insect or beetle’, referencing how their hindwings look like the
human ear when unfolded. And with “to earwig” serving as the slang for “to eavesdrop,” we get to the
earwig devices used by security teams that are discreetly tucked into their ears for communication with
one other. Not bad for an insect that gives most people the heebie-jeebies!
The North Star isn’t always the North Star! Polaris, located at the end of the Little Dipper’s handle
and today’s North Star, hasn’t always been the North Star. Because the Earth’s axis wobbles every
25,800 years or so, a procession of stars take turns as the “pole star,” or the celestial point around which
everything rotates during that time, with the
pole star changing about every 2000 years. At
the peak of Egypt’s pyramid construction and
associated cultural growth, the star Thuban in
Draco the Dragon’s tail was the pole star, and
approximately 20,000 years from now Thuban
will be the pole star again. But none will be as
good of a North Star as Polaris, which points to
true north with an accuracy of better than one
degree.
Is there a South Star designating the opposite end of the
celestial pole for those living below the Equator? Sadly,
no – with 41,253 square degrees of sky, the odds of a
particularly noticeable star occupying that exact spot are
nearly a thousand to one. But in the Southern Hemisphere
the Southern Cross is a lovely constellation that dominates
their evening skies and points towards the south with the
long end of its horizontal axis. Want to see both the
North Star and the Southern Cross at the same time?
Go to Hawaii!