by Robert D. Kenney Three of the previous installments in this Marine Mammals of Rhode Island series have been about seals that occur in our region—harbor seals, harp seals, and gray seals. Gray seals were also the subject of an article in the Fall 2022… Continue reading
On April 1, scientists from the Natural History Survey traveled to the Barrington River to investigate a possible Plesiosaur sighting. “We’ve wondered why reptiles like diamondback terrapins thrived in 100 Acre Cove but nowhere else…now maybe we know,” said URI herpetologist Jauncy Farakker. If the… Continue reading
By Scott Buchanan, Ph.D., Herpetologist, RIDEM Division of Fish & Wildlife … As I neared my home about midnight, there was virtually no amphibian activity, and so a stout frog sitting in the road near an area of unpromising oak woodland could not help but… Continue reading
by Robert D. Kenney Gray seals (“grey” seals in Canada and Europe) are the second most likely seal species to be encountered in Rhode Island, after harbor seals (harbor seals are covered in installment 5 in this series). Unlike harbor seals, which are found in… Continue reading
by Robert D. Kenney I know what you’re saying—“He’s really gone off the deep end now! There are no gray whales in the Atlantic.” That’s sort of true (take your pick about which part), but not entirely. In May of 2010 marine biologists conducting a… Continue reading
by Stephen Hale Every state has a list of official state symbols, but Rhode Island is unique in having an official state appetizer. At least seventeen of Rhode Island’s state symbols relate to plants and animals and rocks (see table and images). Relative to the… Continue reading
by Robert D. Kenney Humpback whales were not scheduled to be the next installment in this series, but a lot of things have been happening recently, so it seemed like a timely idea to let them cut in line. [Editor’s Note: this was sent to… Continue reading
Way back in 2009 I wrote a blog about Emerald Ash Borer at a time when it was becoming clear it would indeed break out of attempted containment areas in the Mid-west and spread across the east. Well, since then we’ve watched it move inexorably… Continue reading
by Robert Kenney Mother Nature is never quite as neat as we’d like her to be. Common dolphins are a good case in point; over the years they have given me quite a headache. Although I first learned as a graduate student that there was… Continue reading
by David Gregg The $5 term for the ticks and mosquitoes, no-see-ums, deer flies, horse flies, and all that literally bug us while we’re enjoying our outdoors pursuits, collectively, is “haematophagous arthropods.” Mites are in the Acari, a sub-class of the Arachnida (spiders and kin)… Continue reading