The Yin-Yang of Pikas and Rattlesnakes

In many ways, pikas and rattlesnakes are polar opposites among North American animals.  The pika, of course, is a furry, warm-blooded (i.e., endothermic) mammal primarily thought of as a dweller of northern temperate mountainous zones.  And his seeming opposite, the rattlesnake, is a scaly, cold-blooded (i.e., ectothermic) reptile most associated with southern desert, arid and …

Talus Troglodyte… An American Pika Symbiont

In my experience, one of the more rewarding aspects of growing older occurs when some riddle of the past, which long-ago may have lacked enough contexts for clear understanding, is resolved through some current day observation.  A sense of accomplishment always accompanies connecting the two bits of knowledge… no different than when some broken household …

Mouseland

Author: Steve Stampfli, White Salmon, WA, USA, oakridgetree@gmail.com Cover of colorful but unrelated 1901 book by Edward Earle Childs   When U.S. Captain George B. McClellan traversed Washington’s Cascade Mountain Range in 1853 (nine years before he would briefly serve as general-in-chief in Lincoln’s Union Army), his wagon train was well equipped with a trained …