NatureNotes

There are any number of insects, cocoons or eggs that might be in the live greenery we like to bring into our homes during winter.

What happens to butterflies in the winter?

In the northern hemisphere today there will be the longest period of darkness of the year.

Rudy visits a very special piece of land in the Piedmont.

The larvae of most braconids are internal or external primary parasitoids of other insects. Most species kill their hosts, though some cause the hosts to become sterile and less active.

Rudy remembers his first books on nature.

Hericium erinaceus (also called lion's mane mushroom, mountain-priest mushroom, bearded hegehog mushroom, or bearded tooth fungus) is an edible mushroom belonging to the tooth fungus group. Native to North America, Europe and Asia, it can be identified by its long spines (greater than 1 cm length), occurrence on hardwoods, and tendency to grow a single clump of dangling spines. The fruit bodies ca...

Ringbill gulls and Bonaparte's gulls spend the winters on South Carolina's inland rivers and lakes.

Pantherophis alleghaniensis, commonly called the eastern rat snake, is a species of nonvenomous snake in the family Colubridae. The species is endemic to North America.

Exidia recisa (common name willow brain or amber jelly roll) is a jelly fungus in the family Auriculariaceae. It is a common, wood-rotting species throughout the northern hemisphere, typically growing on dead attached twigs and branches of willow and other broadleaf trees.

Rudy shares a quote from Amiel's Journal, by Henri-Frédéric Amiel.

Green lacewings are insects in the large family Chrysopidae of the order Neuroptera. There are about 85 genera and (differing between sources) 1,300–2,000 species in this widespread group. Members of the genera Chrysopa and Chrysoperla are very common in North America and Europe.

The cicadas are a superfamily, the Cicadoidea, of insects in the order Hemiptera (true bugs). They are in the suborder Auchenorrhyncha, along with smaller jumping bugs such as leafhoppers and froghoppers. The superfamily is divided into two families, the Tettigarctidae, with two species in Australia, and the Cicadidae, with more than 3,000 species described from around the world; many species rema...

The groundhog (Marmota monax), also known as a woodchuck, is a rodent of the family Sciuridae, belonging to the group of large ground squirrels known as marmots. The groundhog is a lowland creature of North America; it is found through much of the Eastern United States, across Canada and into Alaska. It was first scientifically described by Carl Linnaeus in 1758.

A listener wants to know how to properly keep a cocoon until a moth emerges.

The first American Arbor Day was originated by J. Sterling Morton of Nebraska City, Nebraska, at an annual meeting of the Nebraska State board of agriculture held in Lincoln. On April 10, 1872, an estimated one million trees were planted in Nebraska. Birdsey Northrop of Connecticut was responsible for globalizing the idea when he visited Japan in 1883 and delivered his Arbor Day and Village Improv...

Bryozoa (also known as the Polyzoa, Ectoprocta or commonly as moss animals) are a phylum of simple, aquatic invertebrate animals, nearly all living in sedentary colonies. Typically about 0.5 millimetres (1⁄64 in) long, they have a special feeding structure called a lophophore, a "crown" of tentacles used for filter feeding. Most marine bryozoans live in tropical waters, but a few are found in ocea...

The Gulf Coast spiny softshell turtle (Apalone spinifera aspera), a subspecies in the Trionychidae family of softshell turtles, is endemic to the south-eastern United States. These turtles are found along the Gulf of Mexico from North Carolina to Mississippi. They live in temperate climates in freshwater biomes.

Trichonephila clavipes (formerly known as Nephila clavipes), commonly known as the golden silk orb-weaver, golden silk spider, or banana spider (a name shared with several others), is an orb-weaving spider species which inhabits forests and wooded areas ranging from the southern US to Argentina.

Crayfish eggs, attached to the female's abdomen, hatch in five to eight weeks. The larvae remain on the mother for several weeks.

Some listener report seeing a joro spider in Abbeville County.

We are all part of the natural world.

The timber rattlesnake, canebrake rattlesnake, or banded rattlesnake (Crotalus horridus) is a species of pit viper endemic to eastern North America. Like all other pit vipers, it is venomous, and this species is sometimes highly venomous. This is the only rattlesnake species in most of the populous Northeastern United States and is second only to its relatives to the west, the prairie rattlesnake,...

The southern house spider is a species of large spider in the family Filistatidae. Currently given the scientific name Kukulcania hibernalis, it was formerly known as Filistata hibernalis. Found in the Americas, it exhibits strong sexual dimorphism. It is occurs in the southern states of the USA, throughout Central America and some of the Caribbean, to southern Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina. The m...

The rusty blackbird (Euphagus carolinus) is a medium-sized New World blackbird, closely related to grackles ("rusty grackle" is an older name for the species). It is a bird that prefers wet forested areas, breeding in the boreal forest and muskeg across northern Canada, and migrating southeast to the United States during winter.