Kerry Wixted

Connecting Nature & Community

Tag: wildlife

A wooly white gall with pink spots on an oak.

Oh, the Gall! Gall-making Wasps

Have you seen a weird lump, bump, and/or projection growing off a leaf or stem of a plant? If so, you might have encountered a gall which is an abnormal growth of plant tissue caused by an invertebrate, fungi, and/or bacteria. Gall-making invertebrates secrete chemicals (like proteins) as they feed, causing plant tissue to form
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Jewels of the Wasp World

One group of wasps that captivated me early on are the Chrysididae, or cuckoo wasps. They are jewels of the wasp world, adorned with metallic colors that seem to iridize with light along the pitted design of their exoskeleton. Their colors are complex and are created by light refracting through open spaces between six layers
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Pumpkin Spice and Everything Nice: Meet the Eastern Red Bat

Happy fall! With pumpkin spice season around the corner, I wanted to focus on our pumpkin-colored bat species: the eastern red bat. They are one of 11 species of bats documented in Maryland and are one of the more common ones you can see around Maryland. Eastern red bats are known as ‘tree bats’ since
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Who Ya Gonna Call? Injured & Orphaned Wildlife

Around mid-April, we get into baby season in Maryland. As a naturalist, I receive countless questions on what to do with sick, injured, and orphaned wildlife. Maryland Dept. of Natural Resources has some information pages on what to do and who to call. Please save this post. First and foremost, Disney has taught us that
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Eastern Coyotes

A tale I often hear is how Maryland and other state wildlife agencies secretly introduced coyotes into their states. Sometimes, the release was done in conjunction with insurance agencies. Sometimes, it was done just because. People will repeat stories of coyotes running around with “State Farm” ear-tags and the secrecy of the project to reduce
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A Frog-filled Night at Kubah

Nestled not too far from Kuching in Sarawak, Malaysia is Kubah National Park. While the Park hosts bearded pigs and hornbills, it is best known as a destination for frog-focused night tours as well as containing around 93 species of palms. Over 60 species of frogs are found at Kubah, including one of the smallest
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Vanilla: a Sweet Flavor with a Sticky History

It would be hard to imagine a modern world without vanilla. Vanilla is one of the world’s most popular scents and flavors. It has been used for centuries, and the demand for vanilla far exceeds natural production. In fact, it is estimated that roughly 18,000 metric tons of vanilla flavor is produced annually, much of
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I Like Big Invertebrates, and I Cannot Lie

How do they say it? Everything is bigger in Borneo! At least, that is how I felt when I saw some of the invertebrate species during my time in Sarawak. Below are a few of the species I could identify. Giant Golden Orbweaver (Nephila pilipes)  I missed out on seeing some of the cool spiny
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A Day in Paradise: Bako National Park

Just outside of Kuching, Bako National Park is a popular tourist destination in Sarawak. It was protected in 1957, making it Sarawak’s oldest national park. While Bako is small for Asian National Park standards, it still delivers in scenery, flora, and fauna. The area contains a lot of limestone which has been carved away by
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A Better Guide to Yellow, Stripey Things

Did you know? Maryland has over 1,200 documented wasp species, many of which are super tiny and exist around you without you realizing they are there. I have spent the last 20 years working with wildlife and unlearning a lot of harmful stereotypes I grew up with (snakes are dangerous/spider bites cause major medical issues/
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