The Urban Pantheist

Nature walk participant Keith pointed them out to me. "Fairy pins!" he said. I suddenly wished I had my reading glasses with me. With the naked eye I could see only the greenish white surface of the Trichaptum biforme*, a superabundant thin polypore mushroom. But through the loupe (good thing for a naturalist to carry) I could see the miniscule burnt matchsticks of Phaeocalicium polyporaeum.** These tiny mushrooms are the fruiting body of a fungus that parasitizes the Trichaptum biforme.


*Double-formed, bound in hairs

**Dark buds of polypore

When someone asks, as they always eventually do, "why do mosquitoes exist?," they're really asking another hidden question. Because mosquitoes exist for the same reason all organisms exist: evolution provided adaptations to fit the available energy sources. Blood-suckers suck blood because blood is a liquid that can be sucked--the alternative is flesh-eating. Which is worse?

The hidden question is this "Is the natural world in balance?" The answer of course is no. Humans have proved to be so adaptable in such a short time, that we have thrown the entirety of the rest of the natural world out of kilter. We have spread to every corner of the globe, bringing our food animals with us. We have created vast climate-controlled structures to live in. We have dug deep into the earth to find energy trapped in hydrocarbons that have held onto it for millions of years, and released so much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere that we have changed the atmosphere and climate of the planet forever.

One of the most mundane activities of humans--the selling of goods between one land mass and another--has resulted in the spread of mosquitoes. In prehistory the mosquitoes would have lived in balance with their predators--the mosquitoes pushing their hosts gently toward fitness, the predators keeping them at a tolerable level. Moving mosquitoes around the world has brought these biting flies to land masses that never had them before, and brought multiple species to places that used to have only a few species. The shiploads of tires and other mosquito-moving industries did not bring along the predators of the mosquitoes. We ask too much of our native bats and dragonflies--there are simply too many exotic mosquitoes for natural controls to retake the balance.

The result is blood-borne diseases in North America bearing the names of regions in Africa. The result is the almost complete destruction of Hawaain bird diversity. The result is mosquitoes that bite in the daytime, that breed in dumpsters and dirty gutters, in densities that mock the equilibrium of the past. Why are there mosquitoes? Because there is blood to drink. Why are there so many god damned mosquitoes? Because human activity creates and destroys habitat in a way that rarely makes the world a better place.

Mosquito=little fly
Mosquito family Culicidae=family of little flies

As Alexis and I were walking the dogs through the Lost Pond Reservation last week, she stopped and said, hey, what are these flowers? I looked and said that they're kind of wintergreen. Then somewhere in the back of my brain the word "pipsissewa" spoke up. That turns out to be true, but since I didn't have conscious access to the process, I'm not sure I can use it to my future advantage with plant identification.


Pipsissewa is the name given by the Cree, indigenous people of what is now Canada. The plant, Chimaphila umbellata*, has a number of uses including treating urinary disorders and fever and to flavor root beer. Despite having chlorophyll in its leaves to photosynthesize, this plant derives some of its nutrients by parasitizing mycorrhizae, in the same way as strictly parasitic plants like monotrope.

* "Umbellate** winter-lover"

** Umbellate refers to a type of flower growth, ie: in umbels. Umbels are a type of flower wherein a number of flower stalks radiate from a common origin. The most familiar umbellate wildflower is Queen Anne's Lace Dauca carota***.

*** "carrot carrot"

My coworker Jason flagged me down. He had an unhappy expression on his face and a piece of paper in his hand. On the paper was not words, but a female Dermacentor variablis*, what we usually call a dog tick or a wood tick. "Picked this off of me," he said grimly. I got excited about having a specimen to photograph, so much so I almost forgot to say what we always do when this happens, "At least it wasn't a deer tick."


Sure, dog ticks spread Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever and tularemia, but when was the last time you heard of someone catching one of those? But I can't think of a single New Englander I know who doesn't have a friend or family member who has experienced Lyme disease, or had it themselves. I almost feel warmly toward Dermacentor ticks, on account of how much loathing their smaller cousins the Ixodes** ticks inspire.

* "Variable skin-pricker."

**Greek ixos(ιξος)- "birdlime" (a sticky substance put on places where birds perched in order to trap them) + -odes (-ωδης)- a variant of -oides(οιδης)- "like, resembling" (only seen as an ending).

"Bootlaces" on a dead tree. These are the mycelial threads that the parasitic fungus Armillaria sp. uses to spread from area to area, colonizing new hosts. Armillaria is a complex of fungi species collectively called "honey mushrooms" for their edible yellow-brown mushrooms.

On Sunday the weather started to clear.

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This carpenter bee pupa fell out of its nest--a hole chewed under the handrail of our porch.
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It was quite a nice surprise to hear my story of being covered with peacock lice repeated on the Caustic Soda Podcast! If you would like to hear all about lice, with a balance of good science information, dumb jokes, and grossness, listen here. Thanks to lj friend wirrrn for immortalizing my tale of bird lice in my beard.