Frog Calls Frog Calls
February, 2013
Newsletter of Crosstimbers Connection v Volume 1, No.1 v February, 2013 v
Welcome to “Frog Calls”! We are glad you are reading this issue of Frog Calls, the newsletter of Crosstimbers Connection. In these
the Dallas-Fort Worth Herpetological Society, going on field trips and providing educational events for
pages, we’ll tell you what we have been doing, and what we plan to do. We hope you will plan to join us
the public. We believe that spending time in nature is exciting and fun, and that we can learn a lot about
for a field trip! We will also include some stories about the wonderful places and animals found in
the world around us when we go for a walk in the woods. To ask about one of our field trips, just
north Texas.
contact us through our website.
Who is Crosstimbers Connection? We are a small
Frog Calls can be downloaded from our website,
nonprofit organization started by people who have spent many years in the woods, creeks, and forests of
www.crosstimbersconnection.org, or it can be emailed to you if you let us know you would like to
north Texas. Several of us have served for years with
get it.
Reptiles Up Close
Kids at the GO FW club learn about the nature of north Texas On February 23, we took our stories, photos, and some harmless reptiles to Riverside Community Center in Fort Worth, to the Get Outside Fort Worth (GO FW) club. There were lots of slides of some beautiful prairies, woodlands, and wetlands, along with equally beautiful slides of the reptiles and amphibians that live there. We talked with thirteen kids and six adults, and started making some plans for a follow up field trip to the Fort Worth Nature Center and Refuge. Jocelyn Continued on page 2
Jocelyn and her dad check out a three-toed box turtle Page 1
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February, 2013
Reptiles Up Close, continued and her dad got a chance to meet a three-toed box turtle. Mark Pyle showed them this shy turtle, which stayed mostly closed up in its shell. Andrea and lots of other kids enjoyed seeing a speckled kingsnake and several other harmless snakes. Mark also showed them a glass lizard, which is an unusual lizard that has no legs and moves around somewhat like a snake. The GO FW program is a free family nature club that provides monthly informal outings where people are welcome to come and go as they please. (To contact the GO FW program, call 817-871-7670)
Andrea makes friends with a speckled kingsnake
The Web of Food that Supports Life Michael Smith It all started with grass. Fresh, new shoots of the kinds of grasses that grow on the prairie. Grasses
Some of those prairie grasses were eaten by a grasshopper. A little, green grasshopper that was just
with names like bluestem, indiangrass, and sideoats grama. And because of grass and other green plants,
a little too slow. If it was faster, it might have hopped away from the whiptail lizard that thought it would
a hawk soars in the skies of north Texas. And also because of these grasses, a bullsnake cruises along
make a tasty treat. As it was, the lizard pounced on the grasshopper and ate it. It ate dozens of other
the prairie at sunset in the last rays of sunlight.
insects that day, and since each insect had stored the energy from the plants it had eaten, the lizard was
In fact, maybe we should say that it all started with
benefiting from all that food created by the bluestem and the indiangrass.
those rays of sunlight. After all, it is the energy in sunlight that green plants use to make food for themselves. Then if we eat the plant, it becomes our food. We eat spinach, squash, carrots, and other
Nearby, a couple of northern pygmy mice were nesting under some old cactus pads from a prickly
plants to get the food they created using sunlight. And lots of animals, like rabbits, grasshoppers, or
pear cactus. These little gray mice had grown up on a diet of plants, and they especially liked small
deer, eat plants as a source of food.
seeds. It also happened that a western coachwhip Page 2
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February, 2013
The Web of Food, continued snake was prowling around the area, looking for food. This long, slender snake had large bright eyes and would raise the forward part of its body from time to time and look around, flicking its jet black tongue out to pick up a “taste” of its surroundings. It used everything it could see and smell to know if
Western coachwhip (photo by Mark Pyle)
eight or ten feet. But ultimately, it could not outrun the coachwhip, and the snake got another meal.
food - or danger - was nearby. Picking up traces of the nearby mice, it poked its head into the burrow
The body of the lizard had been fed by many insects, and most of the insects were plant-eaters. The
under the cactus pads. The snake grabbed the first mouse and pinned it against the ground and ate it,
energy of all those plants, passing through the insects and then the lizard, was used by the snake to
as the second mouse escaped out another opening to its burrow. One pygmy mouse was not much of a meal for a fullgrown coachwhip, and so it continued its search. Five feet of sandy light brown scales slipped around clumps of grass and rocks, as its reddish brown head looked this way and that. The coachwhip spotted the whiptail lizard, and the chase was on. Both reptiles were agile and quick, and the whiptail could dart ahead and suddenly stop, becoming nearly invisible in the tangle of grass. Its dark body had light yellowgreen stripes which blended in with the grasses and made it harder to make out the outline of its body. The slightest movement would trigger another dash by the lizard, running in a blur of speed for another
grow and to chase down more food. But that was not the end of the story. A few weeks later, the coachwhip was once again slipping through the grasses and poking its head into burrows or under rocks, looking for food. Thirty yards away, perched on the high branches of a live oak tree, a red-tailed hawk looked out across the field. The hawk’s keen vision spotted movement. A long snake was moving among the grasses and rocks. The bird took to the air, silently swooping toward the snake. At that moment, the coachwhip pulled its head back from where it had been checking an old mouse burrow, and caught sight of the hawk. It made a
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February, 2013
The Web of Food, continued frantic dash toward the edge of the woods, and as the hawk got close, the snake turned hard to the left
animals are all linked in this way. Grasses and herbs feed cotton rats that are in turn eaten by that
without slowing down. The hawk used its powerful wings to pivot in mid air and drop on to the snake.
bullsnake that we mentioned earlier. A coyote might also eat the cotton rats (and perhaps the bullsnake).
Strong talons and a sharp beak ended the snake’s life, and the hawk almost immediately rose into the air and carried the coachwhip’s body up to a safe perch for a leisurely meal.
When biologists talk about how energy is passed from the plant up through the insect, to the lizard, to the snake, and to the hawk, they describe it as a “food chain.” Each link in the chain is a plant or
The food had started in the leaves of plants, and then was used by insects or mice. It passed from these
animal. The grass is one link, and the insect is another. The lizard is a link further up the chain,
animals to lizards and snakes, and finally to a hawk. Anything that harmed the plants could, in turn, affect
followed by the snake and finally the hawk.
a great many other animals, even the ones that do not eat plants. In one way or another, plants and
Any prairie or forest or pond has many of these links at each level, and so biologists talk about a “food web” of plants and animals that are all connected to each other. The plants do not just support insects, they are food for rats and mice, rabbits, deer, and other animals. Some animals take food at different levels - for example, box turtles may eat green plants, mushrooms, fruit, insects, and may feed off the bodies of dead animals. Sometimes it’s sad to think about how our favorite kind of animal is killed in the wild. Snake-lovers may not like it that hawks eat snakes. Many birdlovers are unhappy that some snakes such as Texas rat snakes eat birds. It may be helpful to remember that this is part of the big picture in
Ornate box turtle, eating a grape (photo by Michael Smith)
which everything participates in a food web that supports all life.
Crosstimbers Connection - connecting people with nature in north Texas We take people out into the woods and prairies, looking for reptiles, amphibians, and other wildlife, learning and having fun. And we do it without charging anything (but we gladly accept contributions to keep us going). We are a nonprofit organization - please visit us on the web at: http://crosstimbersconnection.org. Michael Smith, President - michael@crosstimbersconnection.org Rob Denkhaus, Board Member Mark Pyle, Vice President - markpyle@crosstimbersconnection.org Kaydee Doss, Docent Debbie Dorman, Secretary/Treasurer - ddorman@crosstimbersconnection.org
P.O. Box 151882 h Arlington, Texas 76015 Page 4