No Small Feet...(Correction) Lots of Small Feet

How do you tell the difference between a millipede and a centipede?

Look in their closets and count their shoes.

Well, not exactly. Firstly, neither of them actually wear shoes (it would be too expensive). And secondly, counting just the number of feet won't help much. Despite their names, centipedes do not have 100 legs and millipedes do not have 1,000 legs. Even the leggiest millipede, Illacme plenipes, has at the most 750 legs. It's only about an inch long though, so it is still quite impressive.

If you aren't freaked out by tiny feet and creepy crawlies, the best way to tell the two apart is to hold one close and count how many legs are attached to each body segment. Centipedes have one pair of legs for each segment; millipedes have two pairs. Just look somewhere along the middle or back end, because the first few segments of a millipede only have one pair each.

If you are a bit squeamish and would rather not get your dainty fingers dirty, just watch how it moves. Centipedes are quick darty little buggers. Millipedes are slow. And for good reasons.

Millipedes are detritivores. They like to gently munch on dead leaves and such. Centipedes are vicious killers. They come out at night and speed after tiny prey. Or not so tiny. Some centipedes, with the help of a poisonous bite, have been known to eat reptiles, bats and even birds.

Both like dark places, so get out and about and flip over a log or stone or two. See who is lurking underneath. And if you use your highly honed science skills, you can tell what kind of pede you got--centi or milli.

This is one of the several species of giant millipedes found in Madagascar. I found this leggy fellow on a rock near Ibity. (Yes, I know my hands are dirty. I'm a science teacher and a carpenter. It's hard to keep them clean.)

When you live in the dark, whopping big antenna can be quite handy for "seeing" around.

Proof of two things. One, this is indeed a giant millipede. Two, I'm not the only one who likes creepy crawlies; that is my wife's arm.

Hey, Did that Stick Just Blink?

The wily, not to mention barky, leaf-tailed gecko.

There is good camouflage and then there is this fellow--the leaf-tailed gecko. I practically had to touch my eye my right up against her eye before I was even sure she had an eye. And this one wasn't even on a tree with bark. It was on a larger ginger plant, but it still blended completely in to look like just some part of the plant. 

If I was a fly, I would have been smacked by her tongue and scarfed up as a tasty snack for sure.

Proof. This is no hunk of bark. There are indeed eyeballs. Not to mention a big grinning mouth.

Check out the leafy eyelashes. That's attention to details.

The gray bit on the left is the tail and the rest are legs, feet and probably the world's weirdest toes.

Here's a little comparison. On the left is the bark of a nearby tree. Notice that the gecko's disguise even includes white spots to mimic fungus and mites. Crazy.

Here's Lookin' at You Kid...and You...and You...and You...

Look around all you want. You'd have a tough time finding a better set of eyes than a praying mantis. Correction, better sets of eyes. A praying mantis like this one from Andasibe, Madagascar, has more eyes than you can shake an optometrist at.

Like all insects, they have a pair of compound eyes. Those are the big bulgy ones you can see in the photo. Those black dots in the middle are not pupils. It's just an optical illusion. They don't have pupils or eyelids. Each one of those compound eyes is made of hundreds of little eyes, or lens.

But that is not what makes them such good lookers. They also have three simple eyes that can sense light and dark arranged in a triangle between their long antennae. Of course, most insects have simple eyes, so that's not so special either.

Here are the special bits.

A praying mantis is one of the few insects with stereoscopic vision. That's a fancy way of saying they can see things from two different angles like we do and pinpoint exactly how far away a tasty gnat may be buzzing.

"Hey, if we have stereoscopic vision too, why are praying mantises so special?"

Well, can you look straight ahead and read a book that's behind your left shoulder? A praying mantis can...as long as you teach it how to read first. They can see 300 degrees without even turning their heads.

But turn their heads they can. They are one of the few animals in the world that can turn their heads around and look straight behind them without moving their bodies.

Add that to all their eyes and the stereoscopic vision and you have yourself one fine little predator. Mosquitoes and flies don't stand a chance if they are unlucky enough to land nearby.

But it is not just annoying insect pests that get served up for mantis lunches. Large tropical praying mantises have been known to eat small lizards, birds, rodents and even snakes.

Let's hope they don't get any bigger.

The Lesser of Two Weevils

You do not look the same as a boy. Unless of course you are a boy. In that case, you do not look like a girl.

That is not always true. Yesterday we learned that those common, but still cute, brown lemurs look alike. Boy and girl brown lemurs are about the same size, weight and color.

But that is a funny thing in the animal world, because most boys and girls look different. In science-speak, that's called dimorphism (try using that in the dinner table conversation tonight).

For humans, males are usually taller. Woman usually have narrower shoulders. And think of birds. Most male birds go around bragging and boasting their colorful plumage while the females get stuck with the dull end of the feather. Those stunning red cardinals flitting around the feeders right now are all boys. The gray brownish birds looking jealous nearby are the females.

But it's not just us and the birds. Even insects get into the act. Insects have boys and girls too and most of them are different from each other. Sometimes it can be hard to tell, but not with these two lovely weevils.

There are weevils weeviling around the United States and Europe and Asia and all over the world, but none like these two. These are giraffe weevils, Trachelophorus giraffe, and they can only be found in Madagascar. In science-speak, that would make them endemic to Madagascar.

The first two pics show a male giraffe weevil and his long neck that bends like a crane. His neck can be 2-3 times longer than the neck of a female like the one in the last two pics. That long neck isn't used for fighting or for changing hard to reach lightbulbs though.

The lanky head-holder helps him build a nest by rolling up a leaf and fixing it into a tube. If the shorter necked female likes his handy work, she lays a single egg in the nest and in a few weeks a baby giraffe weevil pops out--presumably head first.

The hungry little weevil larva doesn't have to look to hard to find food. That leaf fort that Dad built is not only warm and safe; it's also tasty. In fact, it's usually a leaf from the giraffe weevil's favorite tree...the giraffe weevil tree.

Coincidence?

Boring Name but Cute Nonetheless

Allow me to introduce the common brown lemur. And since we have talked about lemurs before let me skip the old stuff and just mention what makes these "common" primates uncommon.

Well, for one thing they all look alike. The males and females look and weigh pretty much the same. That is rare for lemurs or any primate for that matter.

These are no night lemurs. They spend their days scouring the trees for food. But sometimes they do stay up late and hunt around in the night too especially when the moon is full. (Vampire lemurs perhaps?)

And what do they eat? Mostly fruit, but they won't turn down a tasty cicada or millipede if their 5-fingered hands find some (Oh come on, like you've never wanted to eat a millipede). They even nibble on dirt occasionally to get some extra minerals.

A lot of the plants the eat are full of nasty toxic chemicals that would kill many other animals. But common brown lemurs, and some other lemurs, have evolved to be able to handle all the poisons. That means they can eat the juicy leaves that others animals have to leave behind. Smart, eh?

There are not a lot of these medium-sized lemurs flying about the treetops, so they are considered near threatened. Their families have about 9-12 members, but no one seems to be in charge (try that with a human family of 9-12 and see what happens). And their families don't grow very fast. A mature female will only have one baby a year. There have been a few cases of twins too.

All these photos are from a wonderful little weekend away my wife and I just spent near Andasibe. We were lucky enough to lots of wonderful creatures besides these lemurs. I will put up a new post each day this week to show you everything from spiders to geckos.

Come back tomorrow and see whose next.

I Can't See the Forest for the…Hey, What Happened to the Trees?

The once tree-covered highlands around Ankafobe.

Madagascar is a weird and wonderful world of amazing plants and animals. Huge forests with towering trees and jumping lemurs. Giraffe-sized giant birds and tortoises as big as school desks roam around the hills. It is a paradise of life found nowhere else on earth.

Or at least that was true 2,500 years ago. But ever since pesky humans showed up, paradise has slowly been disappearing. Now there are very few forests or even trees for that matter. About 90% of the lush life-giving rain forests are gone. Those big birds and lumbering tortoises are extinct and so are many of the lemurs, fish, reptiles and other unique beasties that used to call the Red Island home.

There are still little bits of this once wild wonderland, but many of those bits are in trouble too. People cut down trees for houses and cooking fires they need to survive. And some people come and cut down the oldest and most beautiful trees like Rosewood to sell for lots of money. And if a tree survives the axes and chainsaws, it may not be safe yet. Fires rage around the country in many places.

Farmers burn trees and brush to make new fields for rice, beans and manioc. But fire can quite quickly get out of control and burn much more that just one or two soon-to-be fields. And without trees, the hard rains that pour down on the island for half the year can quickly wash away the good soil that used to be protected by the trees' sheltering canopy and thick roots.

This all means that it is very important to protect what forests still survive. Missouri Botanical Garden (MBG) is one of the groups trying to protect those survivors. And my wife, Dr. Cindy, is one of the scientists helping them.

These photos are from one tiny but special patch of forest that MBG is saving. It is only a fragment of what the forest used to be. But they are working hard to save what trees are left and plant new trees to make the forest bigger.

Does saving one little patch of trees make a difference? Well, just ask a Schizolaena bush.

"Hey, where in the world am I supposed to find a talking Schizolaena bush to ask?"

Well, to be honest, nowhere. Bushes don't talk. But if you want to find a non-talking Schizolaena bush, you will have to come to Madagascar. But not just anywhere in Madagascar. You have to come to a forest. And not just any forest. You will have to come to Ankafobe, this forest fragment that MBG is fighting to save. Every Schizolaena bush in the world lives in this one tiny forest. Only 100 bushes in a forest no bigger than 50 soccer fields.

That is what is called endangered. But then again, that's better than being called extinct.

One of the only 100 Schizolaena bushes in the world.

Awesome butterfly or awesome moth? Check the wings. Wings flat: moth. Wings up: butterfly. That means it's an awesome moth. Not all moths love the nighttime.

Ah, an old favorite...the eyeball leech. I did find it latched onto my hand, but it didn't even get near my peepers.

Replanting a forest takes a lot of trees. And all trees start as seeds. Local villagers run this MBG nursery that produced over 6000 saplings last year.

Saving a forest is more than just putting up keep out signs and planting a few trees. Local people have to have some way of making a living if they can't cut down the trees for money. Here is one wonderful way that MBG helps. This is a fish farm that produces fish that can be sold at nearby markets. It takes up less space than other forms of farming. It produces more money. It also generates compost that can be used for plants and vegetables. Sadly, a large rain the week before broke the damn and most of the fish were washed down into the surrounding rice paddies.