What's Up With That?

Sometimes nature is, well, weird. Here’s a look at some of Missouri’s animal oddities that might leave you scratching your head.

Bald Birds

Fun fact: Bald eagles aren’t truly bald. But this northern cardinal sure is. Feathers give a bird its shape, keep it warm, and help it fly. Birds molt, or grow new feathers, regularly to replace ones that are worn-out or damaged. Most birds molt their feathers a few at a time. But some, like this cardinal, molt them all at once. Don’t worry. In about a week, he’ll be back to his fetching, fully-feathered former self.

Invasion of the Body Hatchers

This tomato hornworm’s days are numbered. Weeks earlier, a mama wasp used her knifelike tail to lay dozens of eggs inside the doomed caterpillar. The eggs hatched into rice-sized larvae and began eating the caterpillar’s insides. To keep their squirming nursery alive, the larvae avoided the caterpillar’s vital organs. Eventually, the baby wasps wiggled out and spun cocoons on the caterpillar’s back. This made the hornworm stop eating. Once the adult wasps emerge from their cocoons, the caterpillar will starve.

Ant Imposter

Look closely. How many legs does this ant have? Ants, which are insects, should have six legs. This little guy plainly has eight — because it isn’t an ant. It’s a jumping spider. Ants bite and sting, which makes some predators think twice about eating them. To avoid snack attacks, certain kinds of jumping spiders pretend to be ants. Not only are the eight-legged imposters shaped and colored like ants, they also raise their second pair of legs and wave them around to imitate an ant’s antennas.

It Snot What You Think

This slippery, slimy ball of snot is actually a whole city of itty-bitty animals. Bryozoans (brie-oh-zoh-unz) are found in the warm, quiet waters of lakes, swamps, and slow-flowing rivers. Most are no bigger than a golf ball, but some can grow as large as a basketball. The creatures that form these jellylike colonies make their living by using tiny tentacles to pluck bacteria, algae, and other microscopic creatures from the water. This helps keep our waterways clean.

A Flash of White

Most ruby-throated hummingbirds sparkle like emeralds in the sun. But not this fascinating fella. This hummer’s genetic road map has a detour in it, called a mutation, that prevents his body from making the pigments that would normally cause his feathers to be green. His eyes are pink because without pigments, the only color that shows up comes from the blood vessels behind his eyes.

Pebble Palace

Caddisfly babies, or larvae, live underwater. Many build tube-shaped homes out of leaves, pebbles, or sand. These rocky retreats offer camouflage, protect the baby’s squishy body, and add weight so the little insect isn’t swept downstream by swift currents. Near the end of their lives, the larvae rise to the surface and transform into air-breathing, moth-like adults. Caddisflies need clean water to survive. Finding them is a good clue that a stream is healthy.

Babies On Board

A mama crayfish is a nursery and mini van all rolled into one. In late spring, the mama mudbug lays a few hundred tiny black eggs and glues them to her tail with a waterproof paste. She waves her little legs — called spinnerets — to move water over the eggs. Once they hatch, the babies cling to mom’s tail for several more weeks. Eventually, they swim off to explore nearby areas, but they dart back under mom’s tummy if they feel threatened.

Seeing Double

What has four eyes, two brains, one stomach, and no legs? A two-headed snake, of course. About one in every 100,000 western ratsnakes are born with two heads. But in the wild, a two-headed snake has little chance for survival. It can’t escape into nooks and crannies that a one-headed snake could fit into. And with two heads trying to make decisions, there are always disagreements on which way to slither and who gets to eat. Luckily, this snake is well cared for at a Conservation Department nature center and should live to a ripe old age.

Doo-Doo Disguise

Someday, this caterpillar will turn into a beautiful giant swallowtail butterfly. But as a baby, it looks like, well, poop. And that isn’t an accident. You see, birds gobble up caterpillars the same way baseball fans snarf down hotdogs. But what self-respecting bird would eat something that looks like this? The caterpillar’s disguise is so convincing that it doesn’t even try to hide. It usually rests in plain sight on top of leaves — exactly where you’d expect to find bird droppings.

Cotton Candy Katydid

Katydids are often heard but rarely seen. That’s because the earsplitting insects are master mimics — they’re colored and shaped to look nearly identical to the leaves on which they live. But pink katydids are born without the skin pigment that makes them leafy green. Although they look pretty in pink, it’s good that this condition is rare. Pink katydids stick out like bubble gum on a bedpost, and most wind up getting chewed by a bird.