April at Bouverie Preserve
It’s time for our monthly check-in with Bouverie Preserve’s Resident Biologist, Jeanne Wirka. Lately she has been observing the extremely rare Sonoma Sunshine flower, glow-in-the-dark Phengodid larvae and the tiny newt.
Sonoma Sunshine is an endangered plant found in vernal pools, which fill with water in winter and spring and then slowly drain. The fact that this bright yellow flower is blooming at Bouverie right now is the result of hard work on the part of Wirka and Preserve volunteers.
“We’ve been restoring the plant here at Bouverie for a few years,” says Wirka. “The last natural population we know about in the Sonoma Valley is across the street at the Sonoma Valley Regional Park.” She adds that the flower probably grew throughout the Valley at one time.
With funding from U. S. Fish & Wildlife, Wirka and a group of volunteers began collecting the flower’s seed from the regional park. They propagated the plants in the nursery and planted them at a Preserve vernal pool in 2008. Additional seedings and a lot of hands-on care continues. The eventual goal is for Bouverie’s population of the flower to be self-perpetuating.
As for the glowing little Phengodid larvae, these strange critters sound like something from Alien.
“They eat millipedes,” says Wirka. “At this time of the year millipedes are out and about looking for food, decomposing plant material and leaf litter. Millipedes have poison glands up and down their body that produce toxic chemicals similar to cyanide. It squirts out and is orangish. It can’t affect humans, but it puts off most predators.
“The Phengodid is a beetle,” she continues. “Its larvae, which belong to a group called ‘glow worms,’ have found a way around that toxin. The worm comes out of the ground and grabs a millipede by the head. It injects the head with digestive juices faster than the millipede can eject its own poison, paralyzing it in the process. Then it wraps itself all the way around the head like a rim and sucks out the insides. All that’s left when it’s done is the empty millipede shell, the exoskeleton. It’s a very efficient process.
“If you pick up a Phengodid larva in your hand, it curls up in a ring,” Wirka says. “It looks like a glowing flying saucer. It has a green glow with little dots like flying saucer windows.”
That may seem like a hard act to follow, but wait until you hear about the formidable defense mechanism of the Preserve’s newts.
“April is the peak of breeding season for newts,” says Wirka, who adds that Sonoma County has three species: the Red-bellied Newt, the California Newt and the Rough-skinned Newt. All three reside at Bouverie. Newts are extremely slow-moving. Unlike lizards, which scurry rapidly away from humans, newts are easily picked up and handled (doing so is the highlight of a Bouverie visit for 3rd and 4th graders).
“Normally, being slow is not a good quality in nature,” Wirka says, “but all three of Bouverie’s newts have a very, very potent toxin in their skin. It’s the same exact chemical you find in puffer fish, tetrodoxtoxin, one of the most potent toxins in nature. The toxin is produced by bacteria that live in a newt’s skin in a symbiotic relationship. In exchange for providing a home for the bacteria, nothing eats the newts because they’re toxic. That’s why newts can afford to be mellow.
“But it gets even more interesting. The only known animal able to eat newts at Bouverie is the garter snake, which has evolved with resistance to tetrodoxtoxin. There’s been a sort of evolutionary arms race going on for a long time whereby the garter snake will evolve resistance to the newt’s toxin, so the newts get more toxic. Then the garter snake gets more resistant, and so the newt ups its toxicity.”
Wirka delivers sound advice for all nature lovers: “You can hold a newt without worrying about the toxin,” she says, “but you don’t want to swallow one.”
You might not want to chomp on any Phengodid larvae, either.
Read March at Bouverie Preserve
Take a guided nature walk at Bouverie Preserve April 30 from 9:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. For more information, visit egret.org/node/516.
Photos: Jeanne Wirka (Sonoma Sunshine Flowers); Dan Murphy (Phengodid/millipede); Gerald Mungele (Red-belled Newt)
contact me
Are all tours guided? Are you guys open on weekends? If so, are you able to do any insect collecting for college course work?
Yes, all tours are guided. You can learn more about Bouverie Preserve at its website: http://www.egret.org/visit_bouverie.