News and Events for Nantucket Island
You may have heard about the recent theft that occurred at Stop and Shop. A man’s wallet was stolen from his cart right in the parking lot. It was front page news! Ok, it wasn’t front page news, but the perpetrator was identified as a frequent culprit of such crimes—a seagull.
This past week we wrapped up the Nantucket BioBlitz. When we were out and about trying to catalog every living thing on the island mid-July, we came across a plethora of caterpillars. As a plant ecologist, I’m usually more attuned to the flora rather than the fauna. However, when you get up close and personal with a plant, you have a front row seat to the faunal associates living off of, in, and around the plant.
The past several days have been stunningly beautiful, though the hot and muggy weather forcing us to seek relief at the shoreline—well, forcing might be too strong a word. How about: it gave us an excuse to head to the beach to swim and play in the water. Whether on vacation, trying to occupy the kids, or just i need of a little salt water solace, many of us have escaped to the beach these past few weeks.
by Dr. Sarah Treanor Bois, PhDDirector of Research & Education at the Linda Loring Nature Foundation Chicken claws, sea beans, glasswort, sea asparagus—these are all common names for the same plant. With multiple species of glasswort worldwide, these plants are commonly called by their Latin genus, Salicornia. The word “salicornia” […]
by Dr. Sarah Treanor Bois, PhDDirector of Research & Education at the Linda Loring Nature Foundation Last week I was walking the Linda Loring Nature Foundation trails with two of our summer research and conservation volunteers. While we were examining some of our research trees, I noticed something different. There […]
A theme of many of my articles is how special and unique Nantucket’s flora and fauna are. Often I highlight rare species that call the island home: endangered plants, rare butterflies, insects, threatened birds… life on-island that makes Nantucket’s ecology unique. Today, however, I am going to discuss the absence of a group of species which gives the island species character: mammals.
by Dr. Sarah Treanor Bois, PhDDirector of Research & Education at the Linda Loring Nature Foundation It sounds like something out of a movie: predatory plants. This has me thinking zombies, Venus fly traps, body snatchers, and, possibly, giant dog-eating vines (Feed me Seymore!). However, predatory plants are not a […]
When I was a kid, the first movie I ever saw in 3D was The Creature from the Black Lagoon. The movie was from 1954, but in the 1980s the VHS tape was released, and we all had the special glasses. It was fun in the watching and seemed sort of ridiculous. However, as a 7-year-old, it instilled a fear of freshwater in me that was hard to shake. I wouldn’t go into a pool or lake for the rest of the summer without thinking about the swamp man.
