On Saturday, Artur and I met up in the morning to explore Prospect Park. Artur brought along his very nice HD video camera, and we entered the park from Bartel-Pritchard Square (right next to the Pavilion movie theatre). It was very cold out there! I made the mistake of coming out with just shorts and a light jacket and it was absolutely freezing! (not as much as now but you get the idea). We crossed the Long Meadow and entered the narrow walk-ways that make up a mini-labyrinth inside of the Park. Unfortunately for us, these walk-ways were paved with asphalt, which meant that few insects would be found there. What we needed was a path we could walk on that had not been interfered with by people. Our first find was a very peculiar looking fly. It was no ordinary house fly. Neither was it a fruit fly (the kind you biologists often experiment with). No – is was rather large, and blended very well with the fallen leaves (it is Fall, you know). Artur spotted it as we made our way to the discovery of a lifetime.
At one point we ended up at a spot overlooking a waterfall. While Artur was video-taping this, I looked in and around the surrounding rocks in search for wildlife. Unfortunately, it was very hard to do so. The best we could find were a few spider webs, a tiny little worm, and that was it. It seemed as though the invertebrates were not as abundant as we thought. We couldn’t have been more wrong!
Having swept the area, we moved uphill. This place was completely new to me, even though I (thought I) knew Prospect Park like my own backyard. There were some other groups of people up here, but not many.
As we rounded a corner, we found something interesting. It might have been innocuous to the layperson, but for the invertebrate hunter, it was a treasure trove. We found…….a dead log!
On a first inspection, there is nothing of interest on or around the log (except for some very exotic fungi). It is quiet literally lifeless. But not so fast, for invertebrates like to dig a little while and hide away from the sun while they have their feast. As we uncovered the outer skin of the tree, we discovered some amazing things! For one, there were these miniature sea-shell exoskeletons hugging the tree, some 6 or 7 of them. We knew not from whence they came. There were various species of insects that moved about as we removed the outer bark. The greatest discovery, however, was the earthworm.
Only its head peered out when we exposed the tree. I stuck out my paper coffee cup directly in its path, hoping to catch it. Artur stayed alert with his video camera set to ‘Record’. As the worm inched forward, I ushered it into the cup. Slowly but surely, more and more of the earthworm came out. At one point, I moved the cup in a way to trap it. An amazing thing happened! The earthworm, seemingly knowing that it was captured, begin to jump out of the cup, trying to escape! I mean this quiet literally. It flailed around for a good 5-10 seconds before it finally calmed down. Luckily, Artur got it all on tape, so we have something good to look forward to!
In addition to the worm, we also discovered a mass of organic material inside the tree (we assumed it was a snail of some sort), including a nest of eggs. These were clear-looking balls, clearly foreign to the tree. They actually reminded me and my russian-speaking friend of Ikra, or caviar. We were not about to taste it (we swear)!
All in all, it was a productive day, with lots of new material to work with for our upcoming research paper and mini-documentary.
