How to Recognize Spiders By their Webs - Bay Nature Magazine
Sep 29, 2015 · Illustration by Rachel Diaz-Bastin. Orb webs are the classic, wheel-shaped webs that have inspired everyone from engineers to poets to, well, designers of computer networks. They are primarily associated with their namesake, the family Araneidae, commonly known as the orb-weaver spiders, and have allowed spiders to fully enter vertical space.
Photosynthesis in Leaves That Aren’t Green - Bay Nature
Jul 1, 2008 · All photosynthesizing plants have a pigment molecule called chlorophyll. This molecule absorbs most of the energy from the violet-blue and reddish-orange part of the light spectrum. It does not absorb green, so that’s reflected back to our eyes and we see the leaf as green. There are also accessory pigments, called carotenoids, that capture ...
Bay Nature: What Is El Nino, Why Is it Called That, and What Does …
Sep 15, 2015 · El Niños are classified by the Oceanic Niño Index, or ONI, which is a measure of how much ocean temperatures in the tropical Pacific deviate from the norm. “The ONI only considers a very specific part of the ocean — between 5 degrees north and 5 degrees south, and 120 degrees west and 170 degrees west,” says Null.
Why do Pacific Salmon Die After Spawning? - Bay Nature
Nov 21, 2013 · For the five species of Pacific salmon (Chinook, chum, coho, pink, and sockeye), this arduous journey is a race against the clock that ends in a fleeting romance and ultimately death. The answer to why they die, it turns out, hinges on a problem every animal on Earth has had to solve. “Every kind of organism has evolved to solve the problem ...
The Enduring Mystery of Oak Tree "Mast" Years - Bay Nature
Jul 5, 2022 · Figure 1. The mean acorn crop of valley oak at Hastings Reservation (mean number of acorns counted per 30 second visual survey), 1980-2021; dashed lines divide years into those where the crop was <25% and >75% of the maximum acorn crop. Divided like this, only 3 of 42 years were “mast” years, while 16 were “medium” and 23 were “poor ...
How Do You Tell California Squirrels Apart? - Bay Nature
May 28, 2019 · A good way to tell western gray from the others is to look at the color of the fur on the face. Western grays are predominantly cool gray and white and don’t have brown on their faces, in contrast to the two introduced species who have a lot of orangey-brown all over their faces. The black squirrels that are common in some areas are simply a ...
ENature.com Website Launch
Apr 1, 2002 · Share This: If you haven’t checked out eNature.com, now’s the time. The website has been acquired by the National Wildlife Federation and offers a tremendous resource and tools for exploring Bay Area nature. Local-Guides on the site provide you with a zip-code-based photographic primer on the wildlife common in any area, including birds ...
What’s It Like Inside a Woodrat Nest? - Bay Nature
Jan 3, 2021 · Woodrats, pack rats, and trade rats are all common names for the same remarkable rodent genus, Neotoma.Our local species, the dusky-footed woodrat (Neotoma fuscipes), has a nice multicolor coat—unlike the nasty nonnative Norway and black rats, all too common in urban areas.It’s also extremely cute, with big Mickey Mouse ears and a lovely, lightly fuzzy tail.
Bay Nature: The Bizarre World of the Banana Slug
Sep 30, 2018 · Branson reportedly clocked a banana slug covering 6.5 feet in two hours, a speed of 0.000275 meters per second. Slugcycle. Banana slugs lay a few dozen eggs at a time in moist cracks, crevices, or holes. After one or two months the eggs hatch and the inch-long baby slugs emerge to look for food. This is a prime window for smaller predators like ...
When a Plant Dies, Where Do the Nutrients in its Cells Go? - Bay …
May 15, 2018 · To do this, saprotrophic fungi use enzymes to dissolve the cell walls in plant material and then absorb the nutrients that are released. Fungi are very efficient at breaking down lignin, the tough material that makes up the cell walls of plants. About 400 million years ago, when a tree died it would fall where it stood and barely break down.