Focus 580; Biodiversity in Illinois

Good morning this is focused 580 our morning telephone talk show. My name is Jack Brighton sitting in for David Enge. Glad you could listen today during this hour of the program. We'll be talking a bit about the habitat in Illinois and about biodiversity in the area. And we have two guests from the Illinois natural history survey. Michael Jeffords and Chris Phillips. They are professional scientists and they know a lot about to have life in this region and we'll talk with them about that and of course take your questions as well we'll also talk about a very interesting event that is occurring on June 29 30th called the biodiversity blitz. It is an attempt to count the number of species in a 24 hour period in a given. A section of land and we'll talk a bit about that and also take your questions about biodiversity in Illinois and you think about the variety of plants and animal life questions are welcome. 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 is our Champaign-Urbana number we also have a toll free line. Anywhere you hear of which is 800 to 2 2 9 4

5 5 going around Champaign-Urbana 3 3 3 W I L L toll free anywhere you hear of eight hundred two to two while I should mention that our guests have particular areas of biological expertise chrysalis is a herpetologist and that of the two studies reptiles and amphibians. I got that right Chris. And Michael Jeffords is an entomologist correct. But good. And also a very fine photographer I should say. Thank you. I have a copy of your book in the wild which came out a few years few years ago so I'm well just to start the conversation. Tell us about the bio diversity blitz. Well the it's kind of a long story the survey has been doing biological surveys for almost one hundred forty five years you know and we had you know we do it as individual scientists and that's part of projects and so forth and we thought well it's a new millennium and perhaps we should kind of

showcase what the kind of research that we do in a kind of science that we do and there's a trend going across the country where a lot of places have been doing what they call bio blitzes and you know Walden Pond it was watching them in several parks and so what there's never been one done in the Midwest. And I got this idea at a conference of the World Wildlife Federation last year and I said well let's let's see if we if the survey would be interested in doing a biodiversity blitz because we have tremendous resources we have hundreds of scientists at the minute of 57 not all system of this but but a good percentage and can sit and identify organisms. So we decided well where were should we do this and with the logical places where I would Alec in part because it's big enough to be challenging small enough to be doable. Diversity of habitats to keep a lot of different biologists interesting and interested and doing project then. So we're trying to break the temperate zone biodiversity blitz record of 106 and 105 species from Walden Pond. So we think we can do it. But

I mean we know we can collect that I mean we just thought oh we're going to identify them all right. OK so this is 24 hours between 2pm on June 2 PM June 29 to 2:00 pm on June 30th and we're going to just try to count as many species count and identify as many species as possible and we're going to hedge it a little bit and we're going to accept morpho species which is a concept basically identified as far down as you can. And then you say well this is different from a lot of species that's only relevant to the entomologist and invertebrate people we expect the vertebrate people in the plant people to be able to identify the species and you're looking at plants animals insects insects mite. Protozoa one celled animals all add up to birds to mammals everything while it's an alt taxa meaning all groups and how do you go about that. Organization

organization organization. We believe we have a great range of expertise at this area that we certainly don't cover all of those groups so we covered as many as we can internally and then we have scientists coming in from us one from ISU. He's one of the world authorities on the so copter ah which is the Barcalounger and probably an integrate charismatic group but nonetheless we have John Aventura from Eastern Illinois University coming in is probably one of the best field botanist in Illinois he's retired emeritus and he's a member of the survey as an affiliate KING is also on our board so he's going to organize a botanist and give you a by. A few of my scientists than should be interesting. There is got to be obviously a method to this madness. What kind of system I mean how do you go about compiling information I mean you know physically what's going to happen.

We have all the scientists will have a saying that a sheet and they will fill it out then we have will have bucket drops at Allerton and there will be periodic data collection and we're actually setting up a small network system and our tunnel have four PCs one acting as a survey as a server to that entry people will have a projected on a on a screen to be going to actually see the process of data entry and so forth and identification. And we're using a fairly sophisticated database which was basically modified just for this by a bit so we've got computer people involved in IT network people that entry people said about it from secretaries up to the scientists are involved in the process. And you're expecting I mean obviously different species would be countable at different times of the day and night. Right. We have from where we have been obviously the diurnal people caught in today and do their thing but we have a myth netting going on in the evening and we'll have mammal you know live trapping of mammal

insect black lighting up. Could Fall traps all those sorts of things and everything that can be identified without being collected and harmed will be. But you know it's a feast invertebrates and few of those will be collected and for identification purposes but everything else will be capturing really. You mentioned that a number of scientists are involved in this but you're also inviting the public to be involved in to some extent. Yes we have we have three ways the public can be involved we actually have what are called excursions where you can actually sign up and go with Krista do is her sample or you can go with Joyce Hoffman to do her bad sampling and so forth. And those are there's a finite number of As You can't have too many and then there's going to be presentations at the route at the red barring on Friday evening and Saturday morning and afternoon of several of those. And their 20 minute presentations and people can just come and see the biologists and tell them what they

do and why they do it and so forth. And if you're a teacher we're also offering what are called CPD you credits if you go to those you can get actually recertification credits because you're you're this is a learning process. It's not a big circus affair it's a biological entity that's going on which can be observed by families in the public. What do you think people would get from observing the process or you know what kind of things you hope people would learn how biologists work out some of the difficulty involved in identifying a organism I mean Chris can pick up a snake and say this is a but what. But you don't realize is that a huge amount of predate knowledge and experience built into that identification. And that's kind of the process we want people to see. And the base the bottom line of all biological knowledge is what is it. And you put a name on it otherwise you're talking in the dark. It sounds to me like the record held it while Walden Pond one thousand nine hundred five species just based on

reading a little bit about the diversity of biological life in Illinois that you know breaking that record might be very doable. We think so. You know go for it into the wild and only had five hundred five species of insects you know in Illinois we have at least 20 to 24 thousand species that we know about and a good percentage of those may be at Allerton. The soil organisms we have to really good soil invertebrates specialise in the soil isn't limitless. Think of things we don't know what they are but so it shouldn't be a problem. You know we're expecting the bird people that are in the vertebrate people to do their share and the botanists will certainly have a great influence because there are potentially 900 species of plants in our time that we'd like to find at least 90 percent of the food that is sitting there. Well let's turn to Crystal and ask a couple questions about her pathology in this area. I think you know obviously there are some snakes and frogs and things like

that but maybe there's a lot of life that people aren't aware of in this area and to be in a reptile category. Well one of certainly one of the most overlooked is salamanders and we don't have a lot but there are only amphibians and there are you know 10 or 11 species that could be found. But you have to look there are secretive much more secretive than frogs for example. So salamanders are often overlooked and turtles are overlooked as well that she occasionally went on the road but for the large number of turtles that never leave the water and so you won't see them out cruising around on the road. So the other two groups would come in line and did the rest. How do you go about I mean obviously these are rather bashful creatures. I mean they don't exactly like to be counted. How do you go about it. Well you. Don't you just use all the tricks in your bag and brute force is one of the easiest ways. You just put more people out there looking for him.

You know you have to look under water and stones look in places where they're going to be a lot of them are small and most of them don't make any sounds and frogs are the exception. So that's the easiest way. Just more people out there looking for him and then we can use some hardware we can use certain kinds of traps can be set up in a small amount of time and yield quite a good result. They're quite effective they work when you're out doing something else. We have a couple calls to talk with folks who include them in our conversation let me mention though our guest this morning during our focus by the Michael Jefferson crystal ball with the Illinois natural history survey. Chris Field who's a herpetologist a biologist who studies in reptiles and Michael Jeffries is an entomologist and they are both involved in this biodiversity blitz being held on June 21 30 at that Allen Park. We're talking about that and about biodiversity in Illinois. Questions are welcome. 3 3 3 8 9 4 5 5 or toll free 800 to 2 2

9 4 5 5 will go first to a listener in Danville on line number four. Good morning on focus on Ivy. Yes hello. They're called they're on for I guess not. OK well that's all right. We'll talk with someone instead on line number one in Aurora. Good morning. Yes good morning. How timely this is. I had a phone call from a friend in Kentucky last night and she told me about the Japanese beetles. They asked and I wondered do we have Japanese beetles and why and how far up do they go. I mean it must be a matter of climate. Actually we do have Japanese beetles in Illinois. They're just beginning to show up this year. Originally they were confined to an area near a car co.. There are some interesting things one of them in the

50s with DDT and B-52 bombers trying to medicate the Japanese people from Iroquois County but it is it is spread throughout east central Illinois and they really like the things you like in your yard. We like rosebushes and raspberries like you tell me and I have a few hours they took down a neighbor's 12 rose bushes. Yes they had they were very very prolific. And they have been a problem in Illinois for a very very long time. And in the US for a very very long time and in Illinois. You know the last several years. Don't ask me how to get rid of them because I'm not the kind of entomologist and if I was I'd probably have the Nobel Prize. I know how to get rid of me that she hangs out from behind a trap that tracks them and once they get in the trap they can't get out and she empties the bag she has three bags and empties them every day. Yeah there's also some information about that. If you put those traps up you might be attracting more than you're actually causing the demise.

So yeah it's a dilemma. Thank you so much Sharon thanks for the call. Well introduced species do they come from Japan Japanese eel. Yeah I think. Yeah they've been there were introduced a long time ago and they've been like a set up pest and you see us for a very very long time we have lots of introduced species and knowing which is one of the major problems in Illinois they introduced species of a third of our flora is introduced. You know they're not all weeds of course but right a good percentage of them are. How much do we know about the species that live in this region is there a lot that we don't know. We actually. I'll go out on a limb here and say that we probably know more about the biological resources of our contiguous political area Illinois than any other contiguous political era knows about theirs. You could say we know a lot about the biodiversity because we've had biologists basically

studying all life one hundred forty years. Do we know everything now. Not now not a day goes by that I don't get a question that I don't know the answer. No one knows the answer to it. We know a lot about El and I know that the botanists know a lot about the herpetologists know a lot of we know the distributions of a lot of things and a lot of things that we we don't know. So we continue to work and the I guess the larger and more charismatic the group the probably the more we know about it. We know virtually nothing about most of the or the invertebrates and second thing we know something about the butterflies you know on those sorts of things but other things it's. It's tough because there is there are so many there are so many in Illinois a very very habitat rich state and we have at least 93 different kinds of habitats. You have to superimpose on that this huge blanket of development that is covered Illinois because ninety nine point ninety three percent of Illinois has been altered in some way so which means there aren't very many pristine habitats now but a lot of the species have

adapted to living human disturbed landscapes and so forth. So yeah. Well we have another caller in Bloomington talk would look to do that and someone performed. Good morning your own flukey 580 Hello. Yeah my question is about poisonous snakes and it's my understanding that that water moccasins for example don't get a sense all of a sudden oh my aunt but if you look at the range maps in the field guides for rattlesnakes that kind of show them get into this region but and people are frequent enough by that water. I think they're probably just common ground water snakes but also rattlesnakes that I've either actually for you know less reeds and Moss you know some of that. Face it that's where it's a survey. Go back to the early night under Flight 800 for the fighting. But other currently rebel states.

Well there certainly aren't any cotton. Your statement about their range is correct they don't get farther north than about the bottom three or four rows of southern Illinois counties. And you're also correct on that most people are saying common water snakes. Generally any time anybody sees a snake in the water they just call it a cotton mouth her moccasins. So that's that's absolutely correct. There are no water moccasins or cottonmouths in central Illinois that never have been any going back you know at least several thousand years. But we have had rattlesnakes and the rattlesnake that we've had historically would be the snake or the mouse saga and it's largely been extirpated from most of central and I would a few exceptions and allergen park where we would be having a blitz is one of the places where we know that it has survived in a very. Isolated and a very small number of most of us probably live there today.

So definitely an allergen thought a rattlesnake and then there's possibly a few remnant populations in other parts of central Illinois of the Masada that may have gone undetected and I field 50 to 75 phone calls. Some are about rattlesnakes and some troll and I the ones that I can respond to are almost always Fox 6 which look a lot like them. Of course without the rattle. But people are generally not getting that close to see whether they actually have a rattler or not so starkly go the Masada was probably very widespread at least through the prairie area of central Illinois so their numbers have been reduced drastically because they were reported for example in the late 1800s as very common for people traveling across the state. Reports of seeing 20 a day were not that uncommon. So today you know it's a very rare sighting. We try to look for an allergy

and we have a program where we spend time you know almost 100 hours for example has been spent over the last couple of years and we have not been able to find any Moss Side is there. So even though we know they're very reduced numbers and it's a it's a very very long shot for someone to see a Masada in allergen let alone outside of allergen. Oh great thank you very much. Thank you call. Speaking about rattlesnakes. You know I lived in Texas and they had to go down there the ones that we're talking about up here or smaller varieties Perro snake is in a group that are known as the pygmy rattlesnakes and they're very small or three feet long would be a very large dog around snake most of them are smaller than that. So they and they do not use their rattle immediately when disturbed they'd rather hide they have a very. Interesting color pattern that helps him stay camouflaged. So the idea that they were able to warn you is

true but only as a last resort. So that's what makes it difficult for us to find and they're not out there advertising their presence with their rattle or hiding and letting us walk in some cases probably right over the top of them. And while the are venomous they're not as dangerous perhaps as some other varieties. They're not prone to use their venom just as they're not going to rattle and the venom is a costly substance to produce and it's generally used for doing prey. It's only as a very very last resort would have been to be used in defense and most Muslims I guess don't get that close to needing it because their concealment or camouflage is so good and so they don't they are prone to bite and there are a small snake. They generally don't have a lot of venom than to inject if you did come to delivering a bite. But if it did the venom is fairly potent on the potent end of the scale. But the other two things prevent it from being a major source of injury.

Just to sort of focus a little bit on Alison Parker There are probably most people in the champagne Abana area are familiar with Alison Parker certainly people in Monticello and sensual Noir here but you know were heard throughout Illinois and a lot of Indiana folks may not know about Alison Park it's a wonderful place and maybe I could ask you want to both of you to talk about what is so special that in part why this would be a great location for doing research on numbers of species and area. You know but it's never flown over central Illinois. I can answer that question very easily because island is Alak and it's an island of. Natural vegetation and evolving or succeeding natural vegetation in a sea of agriculture so it and it is connected on both ends by riparian corridors a lot of Sangamon So it is a repository of many of the species that exist in central Illinois because there's really no place else for

them to exist. For instance if there are fourteen hundred fifty three species of plants in the Sangamon River Valley almost 900 of them exist within the confines of Alice in part for that reason alone. It's an interesting place and time logically there are lots and lots of there's probably 40 species of butterflies and there is only 97 of states so maybe almost half of the butterfly species unknown like can be found in our theme park. I don't know about the similar things at the Hertz but it's just a cool place to do it and it's nice that totally surrounded with development agriculture development with the exception of those corridors. And you know that's why it's it's it's representative of. I guess the Grand Prairie region more or less where that went out there's not a great representation of prairie there. But other habitats will and one thing that has a fairly decent

representation of the habitats that once existed in central Illinois. There is a section of tall grass Prarie Allerton. Yeah it's a recreation. Yeah right. Right not original not an original over the prairie So it is a grassland and has prairie species in it and it's prairie insects in it. So given that yes it's a quote unquote prairie. It's still rather impressive. Yeah I was out there last summer and just amazed by the the you know the smallest of the prairie grass growing there and just how you know it's an amazing thing to see if you've never seen it before you know it will be the most intimidating aspect of colonization of Illinois by Europeans was the fact that it was colonized by a European people who were for its dwelling peoples and when they crossed the Wabash river instead of coming to what was to be Illinois.

No trees and water it was grass and you know they automatically assume that it was because it could grow trees it was really bad so I'll you know and actually the colonization is interesting actually crept out on the prairie along the watercourses and they would rather cut down the trees dig up the roots and farm that rather than venture out on the Prairie. Initially and then 1839 and then still scouring mobile was developed and it soon became evident that the richest saw on earth was under the fair ecosystem and disappeared very quickly. But progress a landscape where you can't see where you're going where the grass is over your head is a very intimidating landscape. We take third grade kids to Perris in Illinois to one of our two acre prairie and it's an experience they've never had before. As you can be five feet away from someone and you can't see them so you know the old adage is if you are a man on a horseback couldn't see over some of the prairie grasses that that's extreme conditions in

music that wet prairie but it's fine Larch true. We have another caller to talk with then we're a little past our midpoint let me just reintroduce our guests we're talking with Chris built herpetologist and Michael Jeffords entomologist and they're both a professional scientist with the Illinois natural history survey. We're talking about biodiversity in Illinois and the questions you have about the variety of plant and animal life will try to give you some answers. And also we're talking about the biodiversity blitz occurring at Allen Park on June 29 30th and people are also invited to participate and learn from that. The number around Champaign-Urbana 3 3 3 9 4 5 5. We also have a toll free line anywhere you're worth around Illinois and Indiana. Eight hundred to 2 2 9 4 5 5. We have a listener in or on line number four. Good morning. Yes hi good morning again. Oh hello I

am a bird watcher and I always ask about the barn barn al to you would have any census on its recent census and is there any attempt being made to bring it back to its original or is that impossible. Well I'm going into my eyelids and Chris is a herpetologist so with my apologies to the birds of the world I know of of a few places in Illinois where the barn owl can still be found there's a pocket there's a small population them in the Cache River State Natural Area and there's a bar and another has barn owls in it down in around Salem. There's a there's a small population of barn owls down in that area. Beyond that I would be hesitant to say the status of the organism. That's just not in my ex I'm not a bird so it's not really my expertise then of Chris as any you know I do you know.

MARTIN cash I have seen that and that structure was retained just for the owls but I can't say on that. OK I guess I'll have to write to Vernon claimed. Thank you. Yes there are other people at the survey that you know besides. Thank you. Thanks very much. You know focusing in on Allerton it's it's a place that again for folks who don't know it was constructed by a Mr. Robert Allinson back in and it was before this from the Century I don't know exactly the time frame. Yeah I think it was in the late 19th early 20th century and out of Alice in a story about it was by by Robert Allison Sr.. And he was made a fortune in the Chicago Stock market stock stock yards not stock market stock yards rather early and established this pretty remarkable landscape in central Illinois and he was basically assisting sustainable

agricultural farmer and he thought of the sustainable practices that are being researched now actually would be in practice by Allison a long time ago in the Senate Robert Alex and I created a park basically and it's you know it's. Current permutations with the sculpture gardens you know it's a remarkable feat of landscape architecture with its mansions and so forth but the land around it was was largely much it was a cultural and it's grown back and that the president within the forested outon park that's a fairly recent phenomenon has a lot of early succession no mid succession a forest landscape and now within that if you look at aerial photos from the 20s and 30s weren't there. I just the question I have is Did did did Mr. Alvin bring in exotic flora and fauna or essentially work with the materials that he had there I mean I was he brought in a lot of you know sculpture is an art

to also bring in brought in a lot of planets to mean that the alley there you know the spruces the blue spruce is in those sorts of things a rod and periwinkle their you know their ancestral famous Periwinkle that he brought in a lot of exotic plants for the animals that's the $64000 question of course there is a river that he brought the rattlesnakes with him. To keep people out there's no truth to that whatsoever. While the song is a prairie animal and undoubtedly was there before he got there and it's there now because of his practices and that's why it's there and not in the surrounding landscape. We're going to the call to talk with let's do that. This is a listener in Savoy on one number one. Good morning on focus my beauty. I just started listening and I don't know if you can help me answer this question. We have a family of chrome scrolls that just moved into our into our backyard and I was wondering about what their habitat is what their feeding

habits are and if there's anything we can do to help them. Have a good environment yet. You know really truly I don't know if this is any of your areas especially not really but I'll talk to what what goes on at the survey we have a place called the South annex which is a lot of lines in and we have populations of 13 Lang ground squirrel there and you know. And since they were called Picket pigs because they like to stand up and see all the vegetation so they really like short grass in the big grade and so forth and we've co-existed with them at the Natural History Center in art with our big loans for as long as I can remember them. If you want more information then I would recommend you call the survey and ask your Doctor Joyce Hoffman what's her area of expertise. OK so the.

On a particularly long grass at snow I like short dress and I like that. But they've actually increased because they like that they like to see what's what's around them. OK well great. Thank you very much. Thanks very much for the call. Returning to the topic of introduced versus indigenous species I'm curious what you can say about the balance in Illinois obviously development has affected the the landscape you know dramatically. And as you've mentioned agriculture in particular and you know the woodland areas are no longer near the saucer that they once were but I mean how have the species how species balance you know so changed with with the landscape is it mostly because it changed the landscape or is it also due perhaps in significant part to introduce species. Well for for instance most of our agricultural weeds are introduced species.

Most of our species and natural systems are introduced species and they were you know they were brought in for a variety of reasons some some some intentionally because they thought in the early settlers will this that this would be a better alternative because it was familiar. They brought it with them from Europe. Things like God unless they were brought in as pot herbes purple loosestrife was brought in because the beekeepers really liked it and I know that some are major indigenous Swedes and I mean basically the human landscape is a disturbed landscape in a disturbed landscape. It's an early success in a landscape in a lot of the organisms that come in and turn weedy Ivy's early success in species and we keep you know turning the land over and turning land over and with various disturbances so we actually promote their activity that are so I think eight hundred police 800 species of introduced plants in the Illinois some of those you know think that marigolds and so hard aren't aren't problems but I mean it it

like peas a lot was brought in for the flax industry which is becoming a major problem along roadsides and so overhead and freight restorations are just a litany of species for instance that we have not had feral hogs roaming around southern Illinois making up the landscape which is a major problem in the southern US and the Appalachians right now they've made it in Illinois. There there are all sorts of. Woes caused by organisms being out of place. Well we're going to call it include them. Instead of making them wait too long in Belgium on line number four. Good morning on focus on duty morning. Actually I'd like to direct a question for a herpetologist there. Sure it seems as though they're not. I have a small place it's along a stream that is in the watershed of the Vermilion and I watch it very closely and and try to encourage as many species to be there as possible. And I've noticed that snakes have really dropped off from the population. I've been at this now maybe

10 years and when I was first there it it had been used as as a pasture for for cattle. Pretty much let it grow up. Which one of the most of noxious weeds been introduced is tries to take over of which is multiple rows. It's ugly ugly introduced species into the United States. But anyway I notice that the the snake population is releasing to the drop off in the area. And I don't have many cats or anything like that that would be chasing them down there. Is that generally the case around their own. Not really. One of the problems of snakes is they're they're the most secretive of the amphibians and reptiles probably in it may be that you're not seeing as many because of your changes to the landscape. Give them more places to hide and it is a better habitat for him you know sort of that goes along with that and you can't see him as readily. That's true and we would hope that that is the

case in most areas and I explained this to people a lot because I don't want to think there's something they're doing isn't benefitting you know that snakes are another target species so nine times out of 10 it's you're doing a really good job of your habitat and therefore you can't see them as readily which means they're not exposed to predators. And it means it's a much better situation for them. Your enjoyment of them drops off a little bit because you can't see them but I think in a case like that it's probably because you made improvements and helped them to conceal themselves. So it's probably a very positive thing. I have I've never really looked at it quite that way. That might very well be the case because before it is gone from more open grassland and now there's a lot more you know young trees starting. You know brambles something right especially if it was pastored it was plastered heavily. The snakes that were there you'd see very easily. But that did not make it good habitat for me just me more. I guess that's true. Well thank you very much.

You're welcome to call. We're going next to a listener in Champaign on line number one. Good morning and focus on getting back to the saga. I consider the water slick. I'm also thought it is a rattlesnake and so it's a viper. The pit viper. It's in the same family with timber rattle snakes and Diamondback Rattlesnake copperheads and moccasins. Those are that's family. Then in this the water snake is in a family non-venomous snakes. And it's more closely related to things like razors and rat snakes and garter snakes than it is to the vipers. So it's a completely different group of those two snakes. OK well I was out at the lodge Park last year just up up the creek from Allerton park and bike and the pond there parked and that looks really interesting. I was trying to identify it and closest I could come to

the method. I thought it looked a lot like that. No common water snake shares a lot of properties with most of the pattern the color pattern is somewhat similar. I would probably I would guess it was probably a water snake you saw it actually in the pond. Yeah some of the Sagas don't they are they aren't as prone to avoid water is so the other apples makes but it would be writers who don't actually in the pond. OK I thank you very much. Thanks so much for the call. Oh just our Alison park yesterday and I was amazed by the number of spiders I saw out there just running across the trail. A lot of them just to be walking along and to see you know a dozen or so just as running. Oh yeah. While spider that one of the major predatory invertebrate groups on earth I mean it wasn't for spiders we would be over you know overrun with all sorts of

things we really probably would want to be overrun with. The unfortunate 70 doesn't have an Iraq knowledge if we had one it was our collections manager. She retired and moved on and that's kind of one of the voids that will for the bio blitz we're bringing in an Iraq knowledge as from Millikin University and then Cathy who was our collection manager thank you coming back to help us but that absolutely tremendous diversity in spiders meant nothing at all. I think you have to remember is that if you're an invertebrate person you there are all the stages that you know metamorphosis that insects go through see if you can collect an egg and you can collect about maybe the same species of a maybe four or five different inspired between so identifying things like spiders and so forth. Very difficult. But the good news is abundance of spiders means as abundance of prey and which means that the system is hopefully functioning in some way if you come a place where there are no spiders. Maybe not so good. The other thing that

amazes me is the number of butterflies that we saw. This is the year of the butterfly. I was in place when wet snow yesterday and I've been I've been collecting butterflies for 48 years and I've been studying butterflies and have never seen more butterflies and I have about 13 or 14 different species than I saw yesterday. It was absolutely incredible and they were everything from from what I would consider uncommon to incredibly rare species and yet they were extremely admits. If you wanted to have a year this is the year of the butterfly. Why is that the idea. Cyclic I mean butterfly populations are extremely cyclical several and they become inciting butterflies also like snow cover in the winter and they like winters they don't like heating cooling. We like where it's warm in January and cooling is warm and insect I absolutely hate that move as they come out of diapers. The Come-Outer estimation. Then you get hit with a cold snap again and they don't make it through the winter. So given

all those factors here the butterfly. OK. We have a couple of the callers to talk with let's go next to a listener champagne on line of 1 good morning on Focus on TV. Oh yeah I have a question about Capriles I believe it's that we get a little way to collect wrongs or catch frauds. That's true the law classifies all of our frogs game species in Illinois and therefore to be absolutely legal You should have a fishing license or a combination hunting fishing license to take them because they're treated as a game species just like fish. In practice however you know that the collecting of a few tadpoles or a bullfrog or a couple frogs for your own enjoyment. Well I guess you could say strictly illegal is not something that you're going to be pursued by the conservation police over it. So it's it's it's just a quirk of the way the law is written that we classify all frogs as game

species when in fact probably only two species are actually taking a known eye for game purposes. So I do not worry too much about it and actually encourage especially children that grow tadpoles up and watch them change over just like I did when I was grown. Well you think we've done that. There's a creek that runs into Madison lake that we visit at least 8 10 years. And I believe that actually frog yes or I used to live right there on Peachtree and we used to take my kids down there all the time and in fact that's one of the most common things in there is the American toad and the toad tadpoles fill that little branch along the border trail in good years and years and they they can often breed twice toads might be breeding twice this year. Well the last three years it's mean it's been really sparse this year especially and the general decline in the for all the population is here too.

You know we're not really seeing any of the global declines that are being reported in Frog and Toad species but it's very difficult to answer that because there's not a program right now out there surveying to frogs and toads in Central and so we don't really have the basis just to compare this year to any other quantitatively. But people often call me with that sort of qualitative survey ssion that why just aren't seeing as many toads or frogs are hearing as many this year as I did last year. And just like the butterflies but they're also very sick like in their other other factors that are involved in why they may or may not be locally abundant in various areas and this may be a case of their medicine like one. Final thing were to pep. They're scavengers. What should we put in the tank. Paul's temples. They scrape algae. They filter it out of the water column. Or they should they scrape it off of the surfaces of leaves or stems

in the natural environment. The easiest way to seed tadpoles in captivity is to give them spinach or lettuce. And you know if you boil it a little bit it helps to break it down quicker. Also just one of the reasons why they do well in captivity with little kids is that if you just neglect the jar and let algae grow in it then they're going to have plenty of heat especially if you think that they may eat something else and a big chunk of beef or meat in there for him. You can encourage bacterial algae growth that will help them to live but if you want to give them something you can give them as a commercial pellet available but you can just give them spinach or let us look like great thank you. Thanks for the call. We have just about three minutes left and one more caller will include Lie number two in Champaign. Good morning you're on focus on beauty. It's interesting I have another toad question I would like to reintroduce in my garden years and years ago they were here and I haven't seen any very many years

and I can't find a source a legal source of. To get them. Can you help. Where do you live. Southwest champagne. You know I know you know people I said would just go to the park because the GOOD told here that you do see all the signs in the park that say not to remove anything. Well there are there are maybe a couple areas where the owner or maybe the city or the county would agree to let you remove them because that's not something that they're going to be very concerned about. So one way to do it is just to get permission. And the other thing just is to try to go someplace as close as possible and not to your area. And the easiest thing the best way to do it would be to find out where around you they were the water of that they were breeding in the past to find out if it's still there if it's gone and you can bring adults in but they won't be able to reproduce. Yeah that was my second point. You're going to have to find the pond or the standing water that they used.

If you can locate that then actually the easiest way is to bring in the tadpoles. OK. But Tim in your your body of water because then there are more likely to stay put the adults might wander off because they might be trying to get back to their home. OK. OK I appreciate it. Thank you. Thanks very much for the call. Just over at the Japan Health South Lincoln there are couple ponds there that just are full of tadpoles. It's amazing how many I saw. Those were the most colonised naturally and we were pretty sure yeah. And there are both frogs there there should be toads although I haven't actually verified yet that those are the two things that could have walked in there on their own. It's not it's not as isolated as I was but there's a little bit of a connection to the south and so those are the two things that are out there. Do you find it and those were what we predicted would find it in fact they did. GREENE Well we're just about at the end of our time. I thought perhaps that if you want we could mention for folks if they want more information on the biodiversity Blitz

How should they do that. Well we have a Web site and that's the best way to do it and you want me there. Rejigger OK but I have to read it anyway. Instead every WWE CEO in he e d that you are you see the edu slash are a P C C flesh by B. Oh. B L I N T Z slash. And all the information should be on there. OK and I also found if you don't mind mentioning one more website a little bit shorter the Illinois natural history website has a link. And they do it on its own because Yeah and that's just simply w w w dot dot you want U.S. dot edu. Thank you Lanny Jesse only natural history survey might be easier to remember that way and I bet if you put in an allergen and the search engine don't you get it. Yeah that would be another good way to go. And good

well if folks are interested to check that out the biodiversity blitz June 21 30th and the opportunities to participate in that. Our guests have been talking about that. Michael Jeffords and Chris Wilson the only natural history survey. Thanks very much for talking with us. Thank you.