Critters - Arthropods, Mollusks, Worms, Fish, etc.
smells like cherries when it gets disturbed, the smell comes from cyanide which it uses as a defense mechanism. The yellow and black markings are warning colors to any predator that might want to eat it. The worst they can do to a person who picks them up is to poop on them (but at least it smells like cherries)! Unlike carnivorous centipedes which eat insects and can sting with modified mouthparts, millipedes are herbivores and eat dead leaves. Millipedes do not sting. Although they are arthropods, they have many more than 6 legs, so they are not insects. more millipede info
Mating Millipedes are quite a tangle of legs! ;)
Close-up of a Purple Pillbug infected with an iridovirus.
(a.k.a crawdad, crayfish, mudbug) in the creek at the University of Tennessee Arboretum. It was very well camouflaged against the mud. Crawfish are crustaceans with 10 legs. The pincers are like those of a lobster, one is used for crushing, the other for tearing and pulling food.
Terrestrial crawfish make holes along stream banks, many have blobs of mud that look like chimneys. Like their totally aquatic kin, they have to keep their lungs wet to survive. They dig down to the water level and live there.
is a mollusk, making it related to clams, snails, abalone, cuttlefish, squid and octopus. Unlike the animals listed above, it has no external or internal shell. When I was in Germany several years ago, I went into my friend's garden to pick some fresh strawberries. Many of them were already being eaten by these slimy creatures. I asked Ursula what they are called in German. Her answer was "Nacktschnecke". I laughed and said, "Oh, so they are a 'naked snail'!". German is such a literal language! :) Slugs move about on a trail of slime, leaving a silvery trail behind them. Squiggly lines seen on logs, rocks, fence posts, etc., may be the marks left behind by feeding slugs. They have a rasping mouth called a "radula" used for scraping algae.
Note how the legs of this Millipede are in pairs, their legs move in waves as they walk. Centipedes have one pair of legs per segment, millipedes have 2 pairs per segment.
Kenny put this huge Millipede on his hat for scale to show its size. It measured ~5"!
Iridovirus-infected Pillbug (taken with a flash and a 105mm macro lens)
during our Stream Ecology class. The female carries her eggs (sometimes called "berries") under her tail until they hatch.
I photographed this Snail crawling on a log at Tremont. Like slugs, snails are molluscs, they move on a large muscular foot on a trail of slime. This snail has one eyestalk extended. The snail can pull itself into the shell if it is in danger.
, or segmented worms. It is easy to see the small segments in this photo. The wider band in the middle of the worm is called the clitellum, it is from this area from which the worm lays its (or maybe I should say "his/her" since these worms are both male and female!) egg-filled cocoon. I was interested to learn that this band will slide off after the worm deposits the cocoon. Earthworms are highly beneficial, as they burrow through the ground they consume and digest organic material, returning the nutrients to the soil in their droppings, called frass. They have small, stiff setae which help them move through the soil. I remember having to dissect preserved earthworms in high school biology many years ago. It seemed strange to find out that they had 10 hearts!
This Millipede was not happy at all when Kenny flipped it on its back in his hand so I could get a photo of the pairs of legs. I had to focus and shoot quickly because it kept trying to right itself! But, what better way is there to show the layout of the many legs than this?! Also, note the tiny points on the end of each leg, I guess millipedes walk on their "tiptoes". After this shot, I replaced it into the leaves on the side of the trail. So, I'm not TOO mean! :)
sp./ Class Diplopoda Great Smoky Mountains NP August 9, 2008 These odd little pink creatures are related to millipedes. They are commonly seen in deciduous forests.
spp. Some of the kids at science camp where I teach in the summer found this centipede. These animals are different from millipedes by being carnivorous, venomous, and having 1 pair of legs per segment rather than 2 pairs or 4 legs. Centipedes can have from 15 to 191 pairs of legs (they always have an odd number), this one has 73 pairs!. This kind of centipede lives in the soil and can burrow up to 28" as it hunts for worms and insect larvae. Centipedes can bite with fang-like modified legs next to the head, called forcipules (which are attached to venom glands), if handled and is painful if the skin is broken.
, the small upward-pointing appendages below the walking legs. If you have ever wondered how to determine the gender of a crawfish, pick it up and look at the underneath side, only the male has claspers.
The water in Piney River is surprisingly clear considering it is downstream from a clearcut forest area. The section below the first bridge is quite deep, so there are lots of fish. We enjoyed watching these bluegill catch insects in the river.
Aquatic worm
When my husband picked up this Narceus americanus millipede he quickly learned its' defense mechanism. As he held it in his hand, it began to ooze a pungent orange liquid that looked, smelled, and stained like iodine! A while later the stain turned a maroon color. He had stains on his hands for a few days. This one became annoyed and finally nipped his hand!
I didn't find this on one of my wildflower excursions, but it was so strange I just had to add it! When I was sweeping the patio at our house I found this purple pillbug (a.k.a. "roly-poly"). I added a normal-colored one for comparison. I have no idea why it was so strangely colored! Another of life's little mysteries! ***Update*** The "little mystery" of the purple color may have been solved thanks to an internet search. According to a site I found called Arachnoboards someone posted a quote from the San Diego Natural History Museum Entomology page stating: "The blue color you noted is due to an infection of the pillbug by an iridovirus; this disease which affects pillbugs in our area is being studied by scientists at the Universities of California at Riverside and Berkeley. The blue color is due to the refraction of light from the infected cells. The virus has been named the "isopod iridescent virus" or IIV." This icosahedral-shaped virus is found in the soil and infects isopods and terrestrial insect larvae. The virus is eventually fatal to the pillbug, this one died a couple of days after I took this photo.
House Centipede; Common Scutigera; Scutigera coleoptrata
This is the only centipede that is commonly found in houses, but I photographed this one in a hotel room in Nashville! I'm probably one of the few people in the world that would be excited to find a critter like this in my hotel room! :) I've seen these in the bathroom at school too. They get the girls pretty riled up! I guess this is a "30-pede" since it has 15 pairs of long legs. House centipedes are not native to North America, they probably hitched rides on many of the ships that sailed from Europe long ago (along with Norway rats!). They actually are pretty helpful creatures to have in a house, school or even a hotel room because they eat roaches, termites, ants, silverfish, spiders and other household critters we don't want to share our homes with.
decided to see who was disturbing his peace and quiet while I was leading a nature hike at the UT Arboretum. We were amazed to see him peek out and wave his claw at us as if he was telling us to go away!
These squiggly marks on the wood were made by a snail or a slug. Their mouth has rows of tiny teeth on the "tongue", called a radula. This photograph shows where a snail or slug has eaten algal cells growing on a wooden bridge.
spp. This horsehair worm was found coiled around a stick in the river at Tremont. It could be a male waiting for a female to come to the river. These roundworms have an interesting life cycle beginning as eggs in water. When an insect, such as a roach, cicada, beetle, grasshopper, or cricket, eats a worm cyst (or 2 or 3!), the cyst hatches releasing the larval worm. The parasitic larva eats its' host and develops into an adult worm throughout the year. When the host is ready to die, it goes to water. As it comes in contact with water, the adult worm (which can be up to 2 feet long!) leaves the host's body. When the male and female mate, the female lays her eggs in the water and the cycle starts all over again. I found out in an interesting way how this happens! While I was at Tremont, the Smokies field school, a few years ago, the director (Amber) handed me a jar with a camel cricket. She told me to put a little bit of water in the jar and watch what happens. The cricket was a female and I was surprised when her "ovipositor" got longer and longer. I was amazed, shocked, and a little horrified when I realized it was a thin, brown worm coming from the cricket's body! It got quite a lot of attention from the other participants just before lunch! Good thing we didn't have spaghetti that day! :)