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| 99 Dromore
Road, Scarsdale, NY 10583 |
Phone: 914 723-3470 FAX: 725-6599 |
Weekdays (Except Fridays): 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.; Weekends: 10:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
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| Featured
Articles
BIOMIMICRY:
Nature as Model, Measure
and Mentor by Sara Cashen, Assistant Managing Director
IT STARTS HERE by Judy Fritsch |
Have you ever
admired an intricate spider web and wondered how such a small,
seemingly delicate creature can produce silk strands that are stronger
than steel? Have you ever seen a monarch butterfly in flight and
wondered how that species manages to return to the same overwintering
spots over a gap of several generations? What about
photosynthesis, the complex process by which electrons in a leaf cell
convert sunlight into fuel in trillionths of a second?
The products of
biomimicry are things that we can all use – things like miracle
medicines, smarter computers, stronger and more earth-friendly
materials. But it will take a mindshift to advance biomimicry,
because traditionally our society has been accustomed to trying to
dominate nature. Our ability to change the way we think about nature
may well determine our ability to live within our means instead of
living beyond our means.
Two
fourteen-year-olds arrive after school and want to know how they can
begin volunteering here to work with the animals. I refer them to
the Museum Curator, who gives them paperwork to fill out and asks them
to observe me for the afternoon. I show them how to clean cages
and prepare food plates for the sugar gliders. We talk about how
much work is involved in caring for animals, whether pets or exhibits
here.
They observe which
features of an animal help it to survive: the sharp claws on the
ferret to dig out his prey; the fat tail of a gecko storing surplus
nutrients; the sticky tongue of the frog to catch a fly; the
sideways-looking eyes of a tortoise; the antennae on a millipede.
What do humans need to survive? Are we also animals?
How can we share our world with our fellow animals and plants so that
we can all exist in a healthy manner?
One misconception is that the aliens
are all plants. This is predominantly the case, but there are
invasive animals which can potentially become aggressively invasive as
well. They are sometimes introduced unknowingly, while others
were intentionally released as biological controls, unwanted pets, or
even for economic reasons. One of these cases is the gypsy
moth. It was introduced to jumpstart the silkworm industry and
has since become a serious pest, destroying countless trees. Some
pets that have been released and become invasive are the African clawed
frog and Burmese python. Another example of a pet being
introduced can be found right here at the Greenburgh Nature
Center. At some point in time the painted turtle was introduced
to our vernal pond. This most likely happened when a person
dropped off an unwanted pet by Woodfrog Pond thinking that it would be
a good place for it to live. As it turns out, it was a great
place for the turtle to live and reproduce (to the detriment of the
local amphibians). Time went by and the painted turtles began
consuming more and more of the woodfrog tadpoles and salamander larva
and their population numbers declined drastically. However,
Senior naturalist, Dean Fausel, may have found a happy ending for them.
To find out more about invasive
aliens and to learn what the Nature Center is doing about our
invasives, come visit our new Natural History Exhibit. We have a
large exhibit that our naturalists have put up all about invasive
plants and animals. We also have some suggestions on how you can
help in the search and removal of these aliens. Moreover, there
are brochures, such as the one where I got much of my information,
which you can take home and use in this process.
As it turns out, the
cold is not a problem for turtles. When the temperature drops,
they, like other cold-blooded animals, tend to slow down and go into a
state of dormancy. In this inactive state their metabolism slows
down, they eat little to no food and they require little oxygen - but
this is exactly where the problem comes in. The problem they face
is finding a way to breathe despite being engulfed in mud, deep under
water. Turtles normally use their lungs to breathe air, but
during their ‘winter’s nap’ they acquire oxygen in a most unusual
way. They absorb it from the surrounding mud and water through
their cloaca (a.k.a. their bum). The skin of the cloaca includes
a vast network of blood vessels that functions similarly to a fish’s
gills. Turtles are not the only animals spending winter in the
pond’s muddy bottom; bullfrogs, like turtles, also absorb oxygen
through their skin. 
Though beavers do
not bury in the mud, they do spend most of the winter underwater.
They stay warm and even dry while resting in their partially submerged
lodge. These lodges can be relatively warm even on the coldest of
days. One lodge was recorded to have an internal temperature of
60 degrees F. when the outside temperature was 2 degrees F.
Beavers are also resourceful in that when they do leave the lodge and
go for a swim, they breathe from the air bubbles that collect
underneath the ice. Even more amazing is how beavers lower the
level of the pond in order to create a layer of air between the bottom
of the ice and the top of the water. With the precision of an
engineer, beavers modify the height of the dam in order to allow a
select amount of water to flow over, thus creating the pocket of air
under the ice. The beavers are then no longer “trapped” under the
ice without air to breathe. 
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