Tag: Creatures Among Us
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Laguna Fiddler Crabs
Fiddler crabs are small, their carapaces, or shells, rarely over two inches in diameter. Only the male fiddler bears an oversized cheleped, or claw-bearing limb, which it waves to attract mates and defend turf.
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The Portuguese Man-of-War: a Beautiful, Venomous Colony
A Portuguese Man-of-War (Physalia physalis), also dubbed “bluebottle,” is not a jellyfish. Rather, it is a siphonophore, a colony of same-sexed organisms, called polyps or zooids, working cooperatively as one.
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The Rio Grande Ground Squirrel
The ever-vigilant Rio Grande ground squirrel, like a rabbit or mouse, faces the daily trial of feeding itself but not becoming dinner. A coyote or hawk is no more frightening than I.
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Harris’s Hawks—Guardians of the Grasslands
Like no-nonsense lifeguards perched along a shoreline, Harris’s hawks scrutinize grasslands from multi-tiered poles and brush piles along the Brownsville Historic Battlefield Trail of an evening—sometimes two or three raptors to a pole.
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Golden-fronted woodpecker — drummer supreme
by M. Kathy Raines Its vigorous, automatic rat-a-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat startled me when it first appeared. Whose cell phone? What alert is that? Then this creature — hitting his stride, hammering on a metal vent on our roof early each morning — served as a consistent, unwelcome alarm clock throughout April and early May. We worried the…
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Eastern Meadowlark — Beauties of the Fields
by M. Kathy Raines From the honey-colored fields of the bike trail, I first hear its piping, plaintive call, rather like a kitten’s persistent mewing. Then I see it — the eastern meadowlark, with its lemon-colored chest painted with a stark black V, its feet clutching a twig, camouflaged by the profuse yellow blossoms of…