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Happening
at the Crossroads
July 14,
2008
by Coggin
Heeringa
Gobies and buckthorn and worms.
Oh, my.
To
pets who walk their owners at Crossroads at Big Creek, exploring goes
far beyond sound and sight. To dogs, and many other creatures, odors
provide as much or more information than vision. Most people are aware
that wildlife depends on scent. Less well known is that for many
species of insects, pheromones (chemical smells and tastes which
communicate) influence behavior in countless ways.
Many female
insects give off "come hither" pheromones to attract mates. Males of
the same species can detect these chemical messages from as much as a
mile away.
Angry worker (which means female) yellow jackets give
off an alarm pheromone as they sting a perceived enemy. This scent so
enrages other yellow jackets that they rush to join the attack.
When
worker ants (also female) find a good source of food, they leave a
scent trail as they return to their anthill. Others from their colony
can follow the scent trail directly to the food. As long as food is
plentiful, food-bearing ants give off the chemical and the
trail
is easy to follow. When the food source dries up, the scent trail
becomes so faint that ants abandon it.
Tent caterpillars seem to
be everywhere this year. When the caterpillars leave their tent to "go
out to eat", they leave pheromone trails (a la Hansel and Gretel) so
they can find their way home.
In a forest, healthy trees can
usually protect themselves from beetles by giving off a sticky pitch
which prevents the insects from burrowing under the bark. But, when a
bark beetle is successful in getting under the bark, the successful
insect lays her eggs and she also gives off a pheromone to attract
other beetles to the sick or injured tree.
Wisconsin DNR Forest
Ecologist Linda Williams knows a great deal about insects and their
habitats... and her programs have become so popular she has become
known far and wide as THE BUG LADY. In conjunction with the "Catch the
Reading Bug Program" at the Door County Libraries, Linda will present a
program for families at Crossroads on Wednesday, July 23 at
1:00.
If only we had a pheromone that would attract kids and their
families to great programs...
Other great programs for
families include Historical Village Tours on Sunday, "Old School Days"
and "Diving for Bugs" on Monday, and "Talking Trash" on Tuesday.
Crossroads
at Big Creek is located at the intersection of Highway 42/57 and
Michigan in Sturgeon Bay. The trails are free and during summer, all
are open people and their keen-nosed pets (if the pets are on leash and
under control.) The Wisconsin Wildlife Exhibit in the Collins Learning
Center is open to the public 1:00-3:00 daily during the summer.
Many of
the Past News articles may be retrieved from this directory,
indexed and named in the following manner: 080101-news.htm
where
the first two numbers are the year, the second two the month and the
last two the date.
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