Notes from the Field
Interesting Nature Facts #152 – Skippers
Skippers are a group of butterflies in the Hesperiidae family that are often mistaken for moths, as most of them are drab brown to orange. They have short wings and stubby bodies, but you can always tell it’s a skipper because they have their thin antennae clubs...
Interesting Nature Facts #153 – Pierid Butterflies
Pierid butterflies (also known as the sulphurs and whites) are very common light-colored yellow or white butterflies that belong to the Pieridae family, which are often found feeding energetically on the nectar of wildflowers. It is believed that the English word...
Interesting Nature Facts #151 – Pronghorns
The second fastest animal in the world (the cheetah is first), the pronghorn is the only surviving modern member of the Antilocapridae family in North America. Evolved to outrun the extinct American cheetah, it still retains its once most valuable resource - speed!...
Interesting Nature Facts #150 – Black-Tailed Gnatcatcher
One of the very smallest of all of North America's songbirds, the desert-loving, black-tailed gnatcatcher weighs about the same as a nickel. MORE PHOTOS OF BIRDS MORE INTERESTING NATURE FACTS Interesting Nature Facts is a series about the flora, fauna and places that...
Interesting Nature Facts #149 – Collared Lizard
Collared lizards are capable of bipedal locomotion. This means they can run on their rear two legs at speeds up to 15 miles per hour! If you see a collared lizard with red splotches on its body, you can tell it is a gravid female (carrying eggs) and these red markings...
Interesting Nature Facts #148 – House Finch
When you think of birds feeding their babies in the nest, we immediately think of hungry little chicks gobbling up insects dutifully foraged in the surrounding environment. House finches do things a little bit differently, and feed their chicks a nearly 100%...
Interesting Nature Facts #147 – Damselflies
These ferocious little relatives of dragonflies have been gorging on mosquitoes and other small flying insects for at least 300 million years. While they are often seen clinging to rocks, reeds and other structures near water, they cannot walk at all. Their legs are...
Interesting Nature Facts #146 – Prairie Falcon
Prairie falcons may look very similar peregrine falcons and do share a common extinct ancestor, but live in very different habitats and rarely come in contact with each other. The prairie falcon prefers nesting in the hot dry deserts and scrublands and ca sometimes be...
Interesting Nature Facts #145 – Drone Flies
While bees are the current darlings of the invertebrate world, drone flies deserve a lot of credit as well. Not only do these cousins to mosquitoes, houseflies and horseflies live in almost complete obscurity in the public eye, these bee-mimicking insects play an...
Interesting Nature Facts #144 – Eastern Kingbird
The Eastern kingbird mostly eats flying insects during the summer in North America and maintains a breeding territory that it defends vigorously against all other kingbirds. In the winter along the Amazon, however, it has a completely different lifestyle: it travels...
Interesting Nature Facts #143 – Dragonflies
Roughly 300 million years ago, dragonflies were the among first insects to take to the air. While modern dragonflies have wingspans of only two to five inches, fossilized dragonflies show that they once had wingspans of nearly two feet! VISIT THE DRAGONFLIES GALLERY...
Interesting Nature Facts #142 – Monarch Butterflies
Monarch butterflies use thermals (updrafts of sun-warmed air) to help them ride air currents as they migrate across the United States to Mexico and back. MORE PHOTOS OF BUTTERFLIES MORE INTERESTING NATURE FACTS Interesting Nature Facts is a new series of nature photos...