Mountain Lions in Marin County

Would you believe that prior to some recent efforts, the last published, scientifically verified, mountain lion in Marin County was in 1931!  This charismatic animal had accumulated many fleeting sightings in local lore in the following decades, but there was sparse verifiable evidence (e.g. a clear photograph or museum specimen) that could bump the sightings up a notch to merit a place in the scientific record. 

With the relatively recent increased availability of motion-activated wildlife cameras (camera traps), wary species like the mountain lion are more readily documented.  I highly recommend checking out Nature of a Man and Sebastian Kennerknecht to see masterful camera trap imagery of this species. 

Local biologist, Ginny Fifield, combined good, old-fashioned tracking prowess with the technology of camera traps, and did a lovely job of documenting our local mountain lions.  She has been consistently documenting one local male since 2010.  Her work was recently published, and is available here, including photos of this fellow and a description about what makes him unique.  He is still quietly living his life here, and photos and videos of him are continually being added to  http://wildfelids.smugmug.com in the "Mountain Lions in Marin County" gallery.

There are now a number of other project which have also been documenting this species locally, and I look forward to learning more about this species in the coming years. 

And if news of this species occurring here is new to you, I encourage you to be excited and not concerned.  Mountain lion attacks on humans are VERY rare, in the past 125 years, (since 1890) there have been only 16 verified mountain lion attacks on humans in California, and few of those were fatal.  Taking a bath or owning a puppy is much more hazardous statistically.  Mountain lions really prefer to avoid people and enjoy their deer dinner in peace. 

For additional information on Mountain Lions in California:
https://www.dfg.ca.gov/wildlife/lion/lion_faq.html
http://www.dfg.ca.gov/wildlife/lion/
http://bapp.org/
http://www.mountainlion.org/FAQfrequentlyaskedquestions.asp
http://www.felidaefund.org/?q=species-mountain-lion
http://www.mountainlion.org/CAL_ch1.asp

Pseudopupil

I learned something yesterday.

Yesterday something that looked, out of the corner of my eye, like a large clumsy moth/grasshopper careened by us and landed unceremoniously and loudly on a jasmine plant.   I went over to investigate and found a large mantis looking back at me.

I say looking back, because as I moved around it taking pictures, it appeared as though it's eyes were following me.  At least it looked like there was a pupil always aimed me, but I couldn't otherwise figure out how it's eyeball would move, and didn't they have compound eyes?

That is when I learned about the pseudopupil!

"In the compound eye of invertebrates such as insects and crustaceans, the pseudopupil appears as a dark spot which moves across the eye as the animal is rotated. This occurs because the ommatidia which one observes "head-on" (along their optical axes) absorb the incident light, while those to one side reflect it. The pseudopupil therefore reveals which ommatidia are aligned with the axis along which the observer is viewing."

I imagine this effect is just more obvious in the mantis, because of the size and color of their eyes.  And their willingness to hold still.  It did also turn it's head to follow my actions, giving the impression of more presence of mind than most insect encounters.

Another interesting factoid from Wikipedia "All S. Californicas have sensors near their legs that allow the praying mantis to lose its head and still function. This is good if the head is devoured during mating."  So much for presence of mind...

This one maybe the native Stagmomantis californica, California Mantis, but possibly the introduced Mantis religiosa - there seems to be a dark spot on the bicep, but I can't tell for sure.  I think it is a he, based on the length of the wings in comparison to the torso (thank you RandomTruth for the guidance on this and species!).  I hope he hangs around and catches some of the horse flies.

References:
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudopupil
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stagmomantis_californica
http://daviswiki.org/mantids