Lab #12

Date: 4/20/16

Location: Lumber River Park "The Wire"

Lab Activity: Collecting fish with nets in the Lumber River

Habitat: Freshwater River

Temperature: 78 F

Wind: Not Recorded

Humidity: 100% (It's a river)

Yellow Perch (Perca flavescens) 

    The Yellow Perch is able to reach lengths of up to 15 inches and can be recognized by the thick vertical stripe pattern that goes across their body in addition yellowish color.

    Yellow Perch can be found in all sorts of freshwater habitats such as rivers, lakes and ponds. 

    This species starts out eating zooplankton and algae, as they grow older their diet shifts to other fish, insects and just about any creature that will fit in its mouth.

Ducky Shiner (Notropis cummingsae)

    The Dusky Shiner is a member of the family Cyprinidae, the carp family, they are easily recognized by their relative short length along with the dark colored stripe which runs horizontally down the length of its body.

    The Dusky prefers to live in slow moving backwaters with plenty of detritus and vegetation. 

    When I tried looking up information on this species, I struggled to find much of anything; according to one source that I managed to find not much is known about this fish.

Largemouth Bass (Micropterus salmoides)

    You can find largemouth bass nearly anywhere in the eastern half of the United States and you can recognize them by their horizontal stripe, their spiny dorsal fin and of course their relatively large mouths. 

    The Largemouth also has large eyes and this is because they are visual predators and are often one of the top predator in their habitat. When they are young they eat primarily zooplankton but as they age their diet shifts to larger invertebrates and other species of fish.

Lab #11

Date: 4/13/16

Location: Lumber River Conservancy

Lab Activity: Checking Turtle Traps and more Radio Tracking

Habitat: Freshwater Pond

Temperature: 69.5 F

Wind: 1.7 mph

Humidity: 45.5%

    Hooped turtle traps were set up and baited the day before and left out all night. There were several traps but only one them had turtles.

    We also tracked another Eastern Box Turtle, please refer to the entry to Lab #9 for more information on how that is done.

Box Turtle #050 

Y-3864818

X-0650505

   No measurements were taken.

    Another Box Turtle was found dead that had been captured previously. By looking at its notches we were able to determine that its three letter code was "MNO".

    Because many zoologists use capture and recapture techniques in order to determine population sizes of animals they need a way to determine if the turtle in their trap is an individual that they have seen before or if it is new. In the case of the Lumber River Conservancy they mark the turtles by putting notches in its shell, where each notch represents a number. The notches that are on the anterior end of the carapace represent whole number while the posteriorly located notches represent decimals. 

 #050 a particularly colorful male

 MNO not so colorful (Gender unknown to me)

 Hooped Turtle Trap

    

Yellow-bellied Slider (Trachemys scripta)

    We caught two of this species in same trap one was a normal colored smaller male while the other was a melanistic rather aggressive and larger male.

   

 The melanistic individual, note that the yellowish markings are still present but are darker in coloration.

    The smaller out of the the two turtles was one that had been recaptured and we determined that his code was 0.17 and the melanistic turtle had notches placed on him and was given the code 6.90.

Yellow-bellied 0.17

Plastron: 134.3 mm
Carapace: 151.6 mm
Weight: 542 grams

Yellow-bellied 6.90
Pastron: 155.6 mm
Carapace: 170.5 mm
Weight: 740 grams

    The Yellow-bellied tends to live to no longer than 30 years of age. When these turtles first hatch they are mostly carnivorous but as they age their diet shifts to favoring plant material, although they are omnivorous throughout their lives and will spend most of their time in the water only coming out to back in the sun's heat.

Lab #10

Date: 4/6/16

Location: Lumber River Conservancy

Lab Activity: Searched under coverboards and checked pitfall traps

Habitat: Pine/Hardwood Forest

Temperature: 68 F

Wind: 3.2 mph

Humidity: 33.7%

Southern Black Racer (Coluber constrictor)

    We found this snake underneath one of the metal coverups, which is exactly what you expect because snakes favor the metal covers because they are warmer and drier underneath.

    Like the name suggests the Black Racer is very fast as far as snakes go and they need to be because when they grow up to be adults they prey on animals such as nesting birds, squirrels and even rabbits.

    The Black Racer are nonvenomous but you should still be careful if ever handling one of these snakes because they have several teeth and will draw blood if they bite you. Also these snakes are typically very aggressive and may try to wiggle themselves out your hands so grip them tightly behind the head and the near the end of the tail.

Eastern Fence Lizard (Sceloporus undulatus)

    You will know that you have picked up an Eastern Fence Lizard by the loose feeling on skin resulting from the arrangement of the lizard's scales which will also appear to be spikey. You will know that you have a male by the bright blue/green colorations on the throat and flanks on the underside of the lizard.

    Although sometimes the females can have slight colorations on their underside as well. The colored females are less desired by the males, but these females are often more aggressive and will sometimes be the one to initiate mating. The advantage for a male to mate with one of these colored females is that they typically have more "handsome" male offspring.

    These lizards can live a semi-arboreal life style living in wooded areas although they can also be found in grasslands. 

Eastern Five Lined Skink (Plestiodon fasciatus)

    Able to reach lengths of 20 centimeters, the Five Lined Skink is the second largest skink in North Carolina. They are named after the five yellow/cream colored lines which run down their body. The juveniles are more easily identified by their tail which is blue in color in order to force the attention of a predator on to that spot. If a Five Line feels threatened it will drop its tail which will remain twitching to keep the predator distracted while it runs away.

 Juvenile

    The Five Lined Skink live in wooded areas and many live a semi-arboreal lifestyle, but many also prefer to be in open areas such as a field or recently burnt section of a forest where they will be looking for insects to eat.