Living is northern New Mexico is not easy for any creature, but seems particularly challenging for an amphibian. Even if you somehow manage to find food and shelter, and avoid dying out, how on earth can you reproduce when surface water is so rare?

Nonetheless, Woodhouse’s toad (Anaxyrus woodhousii) seems to be doing just fine here.

We first came across them in a nearby arroyo a few years ago. They are about 3″ – 4″ in length and their color and pattern fits right into the background.

Since then, we have run across them in the yard from time to time. They seem especially drawn to irrigation control boxes, which are dark, protected, and often moist.

Terry has a particularly good garden for toads. He has a small pond and some good protected spots. He has seen a toad (or maybe more, they all look similar to me) occasionally for quite some time.

As an homage to P.G. Wodehouse (acknowledging the difference in spelling) we have been calling the toad(s)”Jeeves.”

Jeeves hangs out in and near the pond.

He has also been found in the irrigation box some distance away.

After a little research, it became clear that Woodhouse’s toads are well adapted for life here in the dry highlands. They are widespread throughout western North America, from Montana and North Dakota in the north, all the way south to the Gulf coast, and from the Missouri river in the east to western Arizona and Utah in the west. Their range abuts those of several closely related species, such as Fowler’s toad (A. fowleri) and the Arizona toad (A. microscaphus), and hybrids of these species can be common.

Woodhouse’s toads make use of many habitat types, including grasslands, pine forests, agricultural land, suburbs, and, of course, pinyon-juniper woodlands. They prefer loose or sandy soil, presumably because of the need to burrow to escape summer heat and winter cold. They are active from spring to fall, with specific dates depending on latitude and elevation, and feed on a wide variety of insects and other arthropods.

Given the general lack of surface water here, it is surprising that they can reproduce at all. However, Woodhouse’s toads are capable of traveling several kilometers, and are not picky about where they breed. They breed in ponds, swamps, river backwaters, lake shallows, along with human constructed lakes and ponds. Larvae hatch three days after mating, and take 4 – 7 weeks to mature into little toadlets.

Glands in their skin produce noxious secretions, but predators such as snakes, birds, skunks and raccoons still take their toll on toadlets and adults. Motor vehicles also cause significant mortality.

For the moment, populations of Woodhouse’s toad appear to be largely stable. Let’s hope that they will be able to keep up with the ever-warming and changing environment.

Although I made use of a few other articles, the best overall source of information was the following chapter:

Dodd, C. K. (2023) Anaxyrus woodhousii (Girard, 1854) Woodhouse’s toad. in Frogs of the United States and Canada. (pp 158-167). Johns Hopkins University Press.

Once again, I joined Dr. Drew Talley and Dra. Dr Natalia Rodriguez Revelo for a summer survey of the islands in Bahia de los Angeles, Baja California.

The work on the islands went well, and we got data regarding beetle populations from twelve islands. It is also a highlight of my year to spend the time with my best friend and our wonderful colleague.

Although work on the islands can be challenging, we are usually done by late morning, and there is time for other activities. This year, I thought it would be interesting to test the thermal resilience of some of the beetle species. The specific idea is that beetles that produce defensive chemicals (like Eleodes does) would be more sensitive to extreme conditions such as high temperature when compared with undefended beetles (such as Philolithus in Santa Fe or Cryptoglossa in Bahia). This has been assumed to be the case, but has not been tested rigorously.

My idea was simple: collect beetles from two species, one defended and one undefended, and test their survival at temperatures ranging from benign to lethal. My prediction would be that the undefended beetles would survive at higher temperatures than those that invest energy and water in defensive scent glands.

We decided it was better to collect the experimental beetles on the mainland. The project was added to the permit application along with the other, ongoing projects. However, the permit only allowed us to survey the beetles on the mainland, not collect or test them. Nonetheless, sampling would allow us to determine where it would be best to find enough beetles for experiments in the future.

For our first sampling location, we set traps at the local dump. We reasoned that we could avoid protected areas and private property by sampling at the dump.

We set nine pitfall traps, baited with oatmeal along an arroyo. After checking back every afternoon for three days, we had caught six Cryptoglossa muricata. It was good to find beetles that would be appropriate for experiments, but we needed at least two species, and about 40 of each. We thought it best to look elsewhere.

We thought that the Glendale Community College field station might be a better location, so we asked Jared Ocampo, an old friend and the station manager, for permission to set traps around the station. He agreed, and even helped us set the traps.

We set a total of 24 traps in three sets of eight. One group was set in an arroyo to the south of the station, one set was placed in desert to the west, and the last was placed near the beach to the north. Rather than checking every day, we left the traps for two nights.

The results were pleasing. We trapped more than sixty C. muricata, and ten Eleodes loretensis, along with a number of Stibia. This is an almost ideal result, in that E. loretensis is chemically defended, whereas C. muricata is not, and they are well-matched n terms of size and mass.

The traps in the arroyo were the most productive, and those in the desert also caught a good number of beetles. Interestingly, those by the beach only trapped a few Cryptoglossa.

Assuming that all goes equally well next year and we have the proper permit, we should be able to compare the temperature sensitivities of these two species that are highly similar except for the presence of chemical defense.

As always, there is more to come.

Coming soon: Photos and videos of the most recent trip to Bahia de los Angeles, Baja California.

A draft of Birds of Santa Fe Savanna page is now live. This is the first of several that will document the local wildlife.

The page illustrates the seasonality and relative abundance of birds specific to the area around the lab. The Santa Fe area has a a diverse array of wildlife communities, so the bird fauna here will differ from those at, e.g., the Randall Davey Audubon Center or Las Golondrinas.

Over the years, I have wondered about the best time to post a new page. Because information changes, better photos become available, links break and so on, an active site is always a work in progress. I have opted for the good rather than the perfect for now, and will continue to improve all of the content on the site.

The video below is a bit big, so may take some time to load.

Here is the Terry’s updated hatch and fledge data from the past seven years. The hatching times show some variation, but the time from hatching to fledging is remarkably consistent at 29 days.

Males are fully capable of flight, and look very much like other wasps, whereas females are flightless. Both males and females feed on nectar. The fact that they are earthbound, coupled with their fuzzy and often colorful appearance makes these insects easy to recognize.

The above subtitle “Dangerous Beauties,” refers to two aspects of the ants’ biology.

First, both species described below are ectoparasitoids of ground-nesting bees. That is, their larvae develop attached to the larvae of their hosts, and ultimately kill them.

The second reason for calling them dangerous is because of the females’ powerful stings. Being stung is apparently excruciating to humans, and is an effective defense against most predators. Velvet ants use bright colors and stridulating noises to warn potential predators of the hazards.

Below are two species from closely related tribes of velvet ants. They share common features of velvet ants (e.g., strong stings and parasitic reproduction), but differ in some aspects of physical appearance, behavior and natural history.

The common velvet ant, Dasymutilla vestita, is brightly colored and active during the day.

The females appear as colorful fuzzballs wandering around in western North America. Generally some combination of black, red, and/or yellow.

Nocturnal velvet ants are seen more rarely. They are generally smaller, more drably colored, and, unsurprisingly, nocturnal. You can click the photos for larger views.

The above nocturnal velvet ant is in the genus Odontophotopsis, but I have not been able to identify the species as yet.

Gall et al., (2018) The indestructible insect: Velvet ants from across the United States avoid predation by representatives from all major tetrapod clades. Ecol Evol 8:5852-5862.

Velvet Ants, Mutillidae (Insecta: Hymenoptera) https://ask.ifas.ufl.edu/publication/IN717 (note Florida focus)

Four of five of the eggs in Terry’s nest box have hatched, and the owlets are growing rapidly. Of course, for each meal the owlets enjoy, a mouse, bird, or insect has a very bad day.

We have been tempted to add another bluebird box that has a camera so that we can watch the process of growth and fledging. I have been hesitating, largely because some broods do not survive and I am not sure that I want to watch that happen. My attitude was reinforced this week, when the female bluebird did not go into the nest box, and there was a something strange and pink sticking out of the hole.

When I opened the box, there was a large pink coachwhip snake inside. It had made a meal of the brood, even though the nest is on a pole about four feet off the ground.

There seems to be a large crop of rabbits this year, which has led to plenty of coyote sightings. I see them at least a few times a week on morning surveys, and they show up regularly on the wildlife cams.

Terry was lucky enough to spot one finishing its rabbit meal, and fast enough to get a video. Another coyote, with an injured front leg, tries to share, but the first coyote is having none of it.

It is a harsh life out there, and a coyote that can’t hunt will not be able to eat. Animals can heal, so it may be back on all four feet and able to hunt again.

Four of the five eggs have hatched, and the parents are feeding them heavily with insects, rodents, and birds. The most recent videos are here. For all the rest, check out the owl box main page.

To get a more mechanistic understanding of heat stress in the beetles, I plan to do two sets of experiments once the beetles are available later in the summer. One will be a relatively straightforward measure of the range of temperature tolerance for the stink beetles (Amphidorini) and their non-stinky mimics (Asidini).

The other experiment will measure activity in the nervous systems of the beetles when they are under heat stress. There is considerable evidence that there is a blast of neural activity, sometimes referred to as a “spreading depolarization” when insects enter a state of paralysis known as heat coma. I would like the measure the temperature that is required for the spreading depolarization in the Amphidorini, which are relatively heat sensitive, and the Asidini, which are more resistant. The hypothesis is that it will take a higher temperature to induce spreading depolarization in the Asidini.

To get those data, I will need an amplifier to record neural activity in the beetles. Although I could spend a few thousand dollars on a new, ready made amplifier, there are some nice DIY designs in the literature. The circuit I chose (from Land et al., 2001, J. Neurosci Meth. 106:47) should do everything I need. It can amplify signals between 100X and 1000X, it has filters to stabilize the signal and reduce noise, and is relatively inexpensive to build.

The circuit diagram from the original paper is shown above. It uses two op-amps for amplification and filtering, and was designed to be powered by two 9V batteries. I will use the same circuit, but plan to use a 9V DC power supply for simplicity.

Most of the components arrived from Mouser Electronics today, and I can get started once a few more things (like the circuit boards) arrive. I plan to build one single channel amplifier to work out the process (little box on top), then assemble a four channel unit to record multiple beetles at once (bottom box).

The middle box will house the analog-to-digital converter (ADC), which will allow me to record the data on a computer.

I will post more details about the setup and procedures as things progress.

Special thanks to Dr. Hans Ruppel, whose support is making this project possible.