Today we went to Cades Cove to monitor butterflies, dragonflies, and snakes. We began at the Gregory homesite and continued up to Gregory Cave, which is about a guaranteed salamander spot. This time there were fewer than last time, but I still found 2 long tail salamanders and Isaak found a northern slimy. Random Gregory Cave Tidbits:
--the temperature of any cave will approximately be the average yearly temperature for its region at any given time... so in E. Tennessee, about 56 degrees fahrenheit year round.
--the cave could possibly hold evidence of a permanent Cherokee settlement in Cades Cove, something archaeologists had previously ruled out
--the cave contains pictographs
--the cave was used as a bomb shelter during the cold war
--the cave hid union loyalists in Cades Cove from N. Carolina's Confederate raiders during the Civil War
--the cave was once the site for summer dances
--the black stuff on the ceiling isn't guano--it's buildup of soot from years of fires and torches
--the cave is super easy to get to
--you shouldn't touch the ceiling in a living (still-forming) cave--the oil from scraping your fingers against the ceiling can delay stalagtite formation by about 100 years
After Gregory Cave, we went to Stupka sinkhole, near the Abrams Falls trailhead. With the drought, the sinkhole was dry, but during wetter weather there are abundant salamanders and a kind of algae (I know... wow... algae) that is only found in that sinkhole. Between the sinkhole and Mill Branch (a tributary of Abrams Creek) we found a Norther Watersnake in one of the research tins and the decomposing body of a euthanized feral pig. Introduced in a hunting preserve in North Carolina in 1908, wild boars escaped and have become one of the largerst nuissance species of exotics around. There are hunters on the National Park payroll whose job is simply to hunt and kill wild boars (tidbit... there are no species of pig native to the americas). Since they reproduce so quickly, half of the boars in the park must be killed each year for the population to stay even. To promote a balanced ecosystem, when a boar is killed it is left in its place so decomposers can go to work and so it can fertilize the area.
Once on Mill Branch, we went down the branch with nets in hand. Bored with finding no dragonflies, I started flipping logs and found a Northern Slimy Salamander. Tons of damsel flies (especially ebony jewel winged damsel flies), but few dragonflies. Isaak and Spencer (a 7th grader from Oak Ridge) netted a dragon hunter, though. Dragon Hunters are the largest dragonfly species in the park (about 3-3.4 inches) and are so named because they eat other dragonflies.
Following this stop, we went to the lagoons near the end of the loop road (they're behind the horse stables). Several damsel flies, a few common white tail dragon flies,and tons of blackberries. I found a clutch of 26 large snake eggs under a log, Probably from a black rat snake.
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