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Flora & Fauna

Snapping Turtle Hatching

By Monica Macoubrie, Wildlife Education Specialist  This is a familiar sight in Nebraska: You’re driving along a two-lane highway listening to the radio, when all of a sudden, a dinosaur walks across the road just ahead of you. OK, not literally a dinosaur, but a living creature that is as close as you can get — a snapping turtle. As you approach the turtle, you notice that it’s earnestly on a mission, however slow and lumbering. It’s trying to make …

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Deceptive Dayflowers

Story and photos by Gerry Steinauer, Botanist As their name implies, each dayflower blossom is fleeting. New flowers that open to greet the rising sun close about noon and wither by dusk. The lovely blue flowers are as delicate as they are short-lived. When rubbed between one’s fingers, their petals quickly disintegrate into a watery ooze. Belonging to the spiderwort family (Commelinaceae), two dayflower species, both growing up to a foot tall, inhabit Nebraska. Slender dayflower (Commelina erecta) is a …

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Preseason Checklist for Hunters

We are in the “dog days” of summer. In fact, it was so hot in Nebraska the other day I saw a coyote chasing a rabbit and they both were walking! Just kidding. On the serious side of things, wildflowers are in bloom, ears of sweet corn are being harvested and elderberries will soon be ripe. The start of school is also just around the corner. Boating, swimming, tubing and fishing are being widely enjoyed now on the hot weekends. …

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Why You Should Love Wasps!

Story and Photos by Chris Helzer Wasps are amazing. No, seriously, they’re startlingly cool. To begin with, there are more than 100,000 wasp species that have been cataloged by science and many more that haven’t. Among all those species, there is incredible variation in size, shape, lifestyle and aggression toward humans. Spoiler alert: Only a tiny percentage of wasps pose any threat to us at all. Categorizing all wasps as aggressive, winged canisters of pain is like categorizing all Husker …

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Cicada Sounds

By Jamie Bachmann, Outdoor Educator While there may be plenty of hot days left this summer, I know that cool, fall days are on their way when I begin to hear the distinctive sounds of cicadas. Cicadas are one of the coolest and most noticeable group of insects active during this time of year. Take a look at image above, which shows an exuviae, the remaining exoskeleton of an adult cicada that has just emerged, or eclosed. I’m sure you …

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Nebraska’s Monkey-flowers

Story and photos by Gerry Steinauer, Botanist To find roundleaf monkey-flower (Mimulus glabratus), do not look high in the trees. Instead, head to the cold, clear water streams of central and western Nebraska. The plant’s favorite haunts include the slow shallows of spring-fed Sandhills streams and the sandy-bottomed pools of spring-branch canyon streams flowing into the central Niobrara River. Avoid streams where agricultural runoff has muddied the waters: You will be hard pressed to find it there. Often growing partially …

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The Silver Linings of Downtime

I have been sidelined with an injury. I would like to tell you that I wrestled with a badger and lost. I would like to tell you that I was chasing a coyote, stepped in a hole and wrecked my knee. I would like to tell you that while wade fishing, I was reeling in the biggest fish of my life, lost my balance and twisted my knee. None of which would be true. Not by a long shot. The …

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Nebraska’s Venomous Snakes

By Monica Macoubrie, Wildlife Education Specialist In Nebraska, we have 29 species of snakes, and of those species, only four of them are venomous. They are the prairie rattlesnake (Crotalus viridis), western massasauga rattlesnake (Sistrurus tergeminus), timber rattlesnake (Crotalus horridus) and copperhead (Agkistrodon contortrix). Generally found in the western half of Nebraska, the prairie rattlesnake has the widest range of all, while the other three species are restricted to the southeast. All four are considered pit vipers. Vipers are a …

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Nebraska’s Third Black Vulture

By Joel Jorgensen Spring is a period when many birds are on the move. This means it is a great time of year for birders to be on the lookout for rarities or vagrants. A rarity is a bird that usually appears somewhere outside of its normal range. Finding a rarity sometimes requires special effort, but other times, it’s just luck. On April 26, birder and photographer Steve Kruse discovered a vulture on the ground at Merganser Recreation Area in …

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What Is Snake Venom?

By Monica Macoubrie, Wildlife Education Specialist As an outdoor educator, I hear a lot of discussion about the “poisonous” snakes in Nebraska. Actually, the correct term is venomous snakes, not poisonous. Although both poison and venom can cause death or serious impairment to the function of organs and/or living tissues, these two terms cannot be used interchangeably: Poisons are toxins that are ingested or inhaled, such as a plant or substance; whereas venom is a toxin that is injected, most …

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