Coniferous Forest Group Second Field Day

Coniferous Forest Ecosystem Week 2, Tuesday Lab Section

---

The day started pretty rockily as we waded across the flooded bridge area with trash bags. I'm pretty sure, to all the groups, we looked pretty silly. However, after the initial trek to our BioCube, everything else went smoothly. We found a lot of interesting specimens pretty easily! The two most interesting were the Eastern Red-backed Salamander and the Isabella Tiger Moth caterpillar. The salamander was alive and kicking when we put it on the white sheet of paper to photograph and kept trying to slither off. It was pretty surprising when we found it buried in the dirt. I almost stepped on the caterpillar corpse on accident when I first saw it and I'm glad I didn't! After poking it with a stick, we found that the spikes were very sharp and rigid, similar to a sea urchin. We had no idea what it could've been at first so we put it in a Tupperware container to save for later. Besides those two organisms, we were able to dig up an earthworm and a Garden Soldier Fly. I didn't know that flies buried themselves in the dirt. It was a very rewarding day in the field!

- By Jiayi