Tag: natural history
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From the Time of the Cuckoos
by Nicolette L. Cagle, Ph.D., July 1, 2026 Before the cuckoo family (Cuculidae) embedded itself in the ancient rites of Hera in Greece or the cuckoo clock folk art of Germanic Europe, the cuckoo arose from the annals of deep time, straddling the devastation of the K-Pg boundary (66 Ma), when planet Earth lost 75%…
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Milkcap Mushrooms
Recent rains means it’s Milkcap Mushroom (Lactarius sp.) season! Did you know that North Carolina has an unusually important history of milkcap research? UNC mycologist William Chambers Coker published The Lactarias of North Carolina in 1918. A later assessment of the UNC Herbarium reported 456 milkcap specimens representing 76 species, and 355 of those specimens…
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The Rhythm of the Land
by Nicolette L. Cagle, July 22, 2026, Sennett’s Hole, Durham, NC The air is thick with the reverberations of cricket frogs that clatter, katydids that creak, and birds that burr. Between the pulsing choruses and punctuated calls, the river chatters, babbling over boulders and burbling through descending levels of metamorphic rock. A gentle wind pushes…
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From the Land of the Cuckoos
By Nicolette L. Cagle, Ph.D, June 30, 2026 My mother’s maiden name is Kukulski. In Polish, kukułka means “cuckoo,” and the name carries bird-sound inside it: kuku, kuku. Before the cuckoo became a symbol, before some members of its family evolved brood parasitism, before people made it a marker of seasons, it was a voice…
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Looking into the Box: Individuality and Variation in Eastern Box Turtles
by Nicolette L. Cagle, June 1, 2026 In the last post, we opened the box by looking at the Eastern Box Turtle’s participation in the forest-floor food web. We considered the turtle not as an ecosystem service, but as a participant in the exchanges that make the forest floor come alive. Now we look more…
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Where I Come From
by Nicolette L. Cagle, Ph.D., July 1, 2026 I come from a place where the river carried nuclear material in its mesmerizing current and the roar of cars from the nearby Tri-State lulled me to sleep. My dogs were once surprised while walking near a bend in that river, a place where the water sat…
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Opening the Box: The Eastern Box Turtle and the Forest-Floor Food Web
by Nicolette L. Cagle, Ph.D., May 31, 2026 In the last post, we unwrapped one of the Eastern Box Turtle’s clearest gifts: the seeds and spores it carries through the landscape. We followed Mayapple seeds and fungal spores through the turtle’s body and back into the forest floor. But the story does not end there.…
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Unwrapping the Box: Seeds, Spores, and the Forest Inside the Turtle
by Nicolette L. Cagle, Ph.D., May 26, 2026 In the last post, we began a new part of this Eastern Box Turtle series by considering the turtle’s gifts. In Western science, many of these gifts are described as ecosystem services, or the useful work a species does in a larger ecological system. That language can…
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Holding History: Irises of the Mongolian Steppe
by Nicolette L. Cagle, June 13, 2026 In Khentii Province, Mongolia, history is close to the ground. This is a landscape closely associated with Chinggis Khan, with the Onon and Kherlen river worlds of his birth, with sacred mountains, and with the stories that connect empire, pastoral life, and Mongolian identity. To walk in Khentii…
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Wrapped in a Box: The Gifts of the Eastern Box Turtle
by Nicolette L. Cagle, Ph.D., May 25, 2026 In the previous posts in this Eastern Box Turtle series, we followed the turtle from deep evolutionary time into the present: through its ancient shell, its contested names, its once broad but now shrinking range, its remembered routes, its habitat mosaics, and the broken landscapes that threaten…
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Beyond the Box: Young Turtles, Interrupted Routes, and the Future of Eastern Box Turtle Landscapes
Eastern Box Turtles can persist for decades in changing landscapes, even as the conditions needed for their future quietly disappear. In this post, I explore what the scientific literature reveals about young turtles, population declines, skewed sex ratios, fragmented habitats, roads, mowing, and management. The story is sobering, but clear: conserving box turtles means protecting…
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Within the Box: Habitat Mosaics, Moisture, and the Seasonal Lives of Eastern Box Turtles
Eastern Box Turtles are often described as woodland turtles, but the scientific literature reveals a more complex story. In this post, I explore how Eastern, or Woodland, Box Turtles use habitat mosaics of forest, wetland, edge, leaf litter, logs, brambles, moisture, shade, and overwintering sites. Their home is not a single habitat type, but a…
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What Happens to a Nut on the Forest Floor?
by Nicolette L. Cagle, June 1, 2026 What happens to a hickory nut or walnut after it falls to the forest floor? At first, it can seem like a simple thing, a stored future released from the canopy and left beneath the tree that made it. Imagine a hickory nut resting inside its husk, a…
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Around the Box: Home Range, Movement, and the Remembered Routes of Eastern Box Turtles
by Nicolette L. Cagle, Ph.D., May 20, 2026 In the last post, I explored the early Western scientific descriptions of the Eastern, or Woodland, Box Turtle (Terrapene carolina carolina): a turtle that early naturalists struggled to name, classify, and even describe, but repeatedly recognized for its most remarkable feature: the ability to close itself away…
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Drawing the Box: Early Descriptions and Studies of the Eastern Box Turtle
by Nicolette L. Cagle, Ph.D., May 25, 2026 In the last post, we explored the overlapping ranges and contemporary taxonomic debates surrounding the Common Box Turtle (Terrapene carolina), focusing our attention on the most widely distributed and iconic form of the eastern United States: the Eastern or Woodland Box Turtle (Terrapene carolina carolina). In this…
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Outside the Box: Range, Roads, and the Future of the Eastern Box Turtle
by Nicolette L. Cagle, Ph.D. In the first post of the Eastern Box Turtle series, we explored the evolutionary history of box turtles, from their origins as chunky, shellless, toothed, lizard-like creatures to the emergence of the domed, hinged, beaked turtles we recognize today. We followed that story from the earliest turtle-line reptiles of deep…
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Before the Box: The 260-Million-Year Story of the Eastern Box Turtle
by Nicolette L. Cagle, Ph.D., May 15, 2026 The Eastern Box Turtle is one of the most familiar and beloved turtles of eastern North America, yet its story begins far beyond the forests, fields, and backyards where we encounter it today. To understand this small, domed, gold-mottled turtle, we have to travel through deep time to…
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Silver Birch: A Tree of Disturbance and Renewal
by Nicolette L. Cagle, Ph.D., April 13, 2026 In the last several posts, I’ve explored the dry woodlands and steppe-edge habitats of Central Europe, where trees grow in bright light and on poor soils impacted by disturbance. After turning to Scots Pine, I arrive at another characteristic species of these transitional places: Silver Birch (Betula…
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Scots Pine: The Workhorse of Dry European Soils
by Nicolette L. Cagle, Ph.D., April 13, 2026 In the last post, I explored the dry woodlands and steppe-edge habitats of Central Europe, where thin soils, lots of light, and anthropogenic disturbance create a different world from the cool mountain forests, broadleaf lowlands, and floodplains that came before. Here, I turn to one of the…
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Rock, Loess, and Light: Dry Woodlands and Steppe-Edge Habitats of Central Europe
by Nicolette L. Cagle, Ph.D., April 13, 2026 In the last several posts, I’ve been moving through the major forested worlds of Central Europe, from mountain forests of Spruce, Fir, Beech, and Larch, to the Broadleaf Forests of the lowlands and foothills, and most recently to the shifting floodplain forests of the Danube, Morava, and…
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Pannonian Ash: A Tree of Hardwood Gallery Forests and Lowland Rivers
by Nicolette L. Cagle, Ph.D., April 13, 2026 In the last several posts, I’ve been exploring the floodplain forests of Central Europe through some of their characteristic trees, including Black Alder and Black Poplar, both species closely tied to shifting sediments and mercurial river banks. Pannonian Ash belongs to the floodplain as well, but it…
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Black Poplar: The Fast-Growing Pioneer of Central Europe’s Floodplains
by Nicolette L. Cagle, Ph.D., April 13, 2026 In recent posts, I have been exploring the dynamic floodplain forests found along the iconic Danube, Morava, and Tisza Rivers, including the resilient, rooted, and red-hued Black Alder. But Black Alder is not alone in its ability to live with instability. It is joined by Black Poplar,…
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European Hornbeam: Knitting the Broadleaf Forest Across Moisture Regimes and Canopy Layers
by Nicolette L. Cagle, Ph.D., April 4, 2026 In the last two posts, I introduced two species that anchor the mesic and upland Broadleaf Forests of Central Europe: Pedunculate Oak and Sessile Oak. Here, I turn to a species that helps knit those forest stands together across moisture regimes and canopy layers: European Hornbeam. If…
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Norway Spruce: The Dark Spire of Central Europe’s Mountain Forests
by Nicolette L. Cagle, Ph.D., March 30, 2026 In the last few posts, I’ve been moving through the trees that help define the mountain forests of Central Europe. I began with the larger upland landscape, then turned to species such as Sycamore Maple, European Beech, and Silver Fir, each of which helps shape the structure…
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Why Does the Junco Flash Its Tail and Other Notes
A winter storm approaches. Light flakes of snow dance in the air, and the birds forage and feast, fighting to fill their bellies before snow blankets their food source and enforces a period of fasting. The Ruby-crowned Kinglets are acrobats, flipping and bouncing through the trees. The Cardinals are confident, their size and boldness allowing…
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Glass Flowers at the Harvard Museum of Natural History
In 1886, a father and son team of Czech glass artisans were asked to make botanical models for Harvard University. Over nearly half a century, Leopold and Rudolf Blaschka worked to create one of the most “scientifically and breathtakingly beautiful collections ever created”. Popularly, the collection created by the Blaschka’s and Harvard are called the…
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Where Have All the Naturalists Gone?
Where Have All the Naturalists Gone? | Cool Green Science: The Conservation Blog of The Nature Conservancy An interesting article about the lack of naturalists, and respect for them, was recently posted on the Nature Conservancy’s Conservation Blog (see link below). In my own experience, the role of naturalists in science has greatly declined. In…
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