Garden Snail

Anyone who has stepped outside during summer in California has no doubt seen the signs of the great success of the garden snail. Whether you see its slime trails, or its shells, the snail itself or just its squashed remains, it is clear that this scourge of gardeners everywhere is not going away anytime soon. However, it may surprise you to learn that this wasn't always the case, at least not until 1850.
The garden snail, Cornu aspersum (or Helix aspersa), is also known as the European garden snail for good reason. Originating in the Mediterranean region, the snail has since moved and thrived throughout the world with the help of Humans. Although sometimes transported by humans by accident, more often it was transported to different parts of the world to be eaten as a delicacy known as escargot. This was the case for California, as well as other parts of North America, and once the snails arrived here, they thrived.
If you are having trouble finding snails in your area, it because snails are mostly nocturnal, but do come out during the day sometimes, especially after a rainstorm. If you ever just really want to find cool snails and their slug cousins, you can find them hiding during the day in damp soils, usually beneath rocks. However, even if you don't see them around, they leave tell-tale signs of there presence in the form of destroyed greenery and slime trails. Snail's are well known for their mucus making abilities, and they should be! Although they don't make as much as some other animals (I'm looking at you hagfish) slime is vitally important to the snail's life style. When you only have one muscular foot to get you around, anything that can the make the ground a bit slicker and easier to move on is important, and the snail's slime does exactly that. Additionally, the slime makes them rather unappetizing and difficult to digest for most predators, the exception to this rule apparently being Europeans.
There was so much information on garden snails, and snails in general that I will be doing a snails part 2 post very soon. After all, we haven't even begun to talk about their shell torsion or their radula, or their simultaneous hermaphrodism! Confused? Don't worry, you wont be for long.

Sources:
http://entomology.ifas.ufl.edu/creatures/misc/gastro/brown_garden_snail.htm
http://www.arkive.org/garden-snail/helix-aspersa/#text=All
http://www.nhm.ac.uk/research-curation/research/projects/species-dictionary/species/cornu_aspersum.html
http://hypertextbook.com/facts/AngieYee.shtml
http://www.topnews.in/law/amateur-scientist-discovers-snails-have-homing-instinct-222938
Invertebrate Zoology: A Functional Evolutionary Approach by Edward E. Rupert and Robert D. Barnes

Picture source:http://www.topnews.in/law/files/garden-snails.jpg

Wood Ducks

And now for of the classiest looking birds you are ever likely to find, the wood duck. They are some of my very favorite water fowl, and why? Well for one their Latin name, Aix sponsa, literally means “waterfowl in a wedding dress.” And for good reason! Male wood ducks are immediately recognizable by their classy drooping green crests with stylish white stripes. While, females are not quite as colorful, they are still sport an elegant brown crescent and white tear-drop markings around the eye.

Wood ducks are the second most popular game duck in America (the first being, of course, the Mallard). But they haven’t always been so abundant. In fact, in the early 1900s, wood sucks were so popular for their beautiful feathers and for their taste, that they had been driven virtually extinct. However, due to the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, passed by congress in 1918, and the tireless efforts of conversationalists, wood ducks have made a huge comeback, and are now of very little concern. *sniff* I love a good species success story.

One of the most intriguing aspects of wood duck recovery is their tie to the American beaver. Beavers go a long ways to create the ideal habitat for wood ducks, and the spread of beavers throughout wood duck range has been one of the many steps in helping the ducks rebound. This however, is not to downgrade any of the steps that conversationalists did on their own. Protecting habitat and building and placing nest boxes have been some of the most important steps to helping the wood duck recover.

What else has helped them recover? Why their own reproductive abilities of course! Almost all ducks will reproduce only once per year, but not this one. In fact, the Wood duck is the only North American duck to reproduce twice in a year, greatly helping to increase their numbers. Also unlike other ducks, wood ducks have sharp claws on their feet; this allows them to perch in trees and tree hollows, their preferred nesting areas. When there are not enough adequate tree cavities, wood ducks will use the large amount of nest boxes that have been provided by volunteers and conversationalists. These nest boxes, however, have caused a new wood duck phenomenon to come to light. Female wood ducks housed in nest boxes are known to carry their eggs over and place them in a neighbor’s nest while the neighbor is away. This phenomenon, known as brood parasitism (brood=children) allows mothers to pass along their genes without actually spending energy in raising the child, and is not uncommon among birds. However, what makes this so intriguing is that this was not noticed in wood ducks until they began using the nest boxes. Why only then? Well we don’t really know, but the most likely answer is that this happens in nature, but only when females are nesting close together. So when people began building lots of nest boxes close together, this brood parasitism immediately began to stand out.

Spring is just around the corner! So if you see any cute and fuzzy spring animals (or any kind of animal really, since they’re all amazing) that you want to know about, please leave the request in the comments.

Here are my sources:

http://www.npwrc.usgs.gov/resource/birds/woodduck/wddump.htm

http://www.ducks.ca/resource/general/naturenotes/woodduck/index.html

ftp://ftp-fc.sc.egov.usda.gov/WHMI/WEB/pdf/woodduck%281%29.pdf

http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Wood_Duck/lifehistory/ac

http://birdweb.org/birdweb/bird/wood_duck

The source for the image above was: http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Wood_Duck/lifehistory/ac

it was taken by Brian L. Sullivan http://www.briansullivanphotography.com/