In the first image, you see what some folks call a pill bug, but I have called them roly polies since childhood. What most folks don’t know about these little guys is that they are not insects. Instead, they are distant cousins to insects because they have an exoskelton and jointed appendages. They are an ancient lineage having been around since the Carboniferous period of the Paleozoic era which began some 300 million years ago. Pill bugs and their relatives during their long history began as ocean dwellers and some of them like our little friend here transitioned to living on land. Armadillidium vulgare in the family Armadillidiidae are also new comers to North America having been brought from the Mediterranean where their kind originated. You can read more about them at Animal Diversity.org.

In the second and third images, you see a member of the genus Araneus. The Arachnids or spiders and their kin, have been around a very long time. The oldest fossil Arachnid existed some 420 million years ago. The spiders appeared in the fossil record some 165 million years ago. (Wikipedia)

Spiders began as land dwellers and lived like tarantulas and wolf spiders of today making their living as ambush or pursuit predators. The web builders came along much later. Somewhere in this individual’s life, it lost a leg to a predator or something trapped in its web that could bite.

The last image is of a White-tailed Dragonfly, Plathemis lydia. Dragonflies have been flying around earth’s freshwater environments for 300 million years. This dragonfly is a member of the Libellulidae, or the Skimmer family. Libellulidae is the largest dragonfly family numbering 1000 species worldwide. 109 species in North America.

All of the above are Arthropods because they wear their skeleton on the outside, and possess jointed appendages and other body parts. They are living fossils of ancient animal lineages that first left the sea to live on land. They are each beautiful in their own way and beneficial to their to their ecosystems.

The post Three Descendants Of Ancient Lineages appeared first on GJM Nature Media.

The plants pictured here were photographed in Red Rock Canyon State Park near Hinton, Oklahoma. They are of the species Equisetum hyemale in the Horsetail family Equisetaceae.

Scouring Rushes or Horsetails as they are sometimes known are an ancient species of plants related to the ferns. Like the ferns they do not produce seeds and reproduce by making spores. They have been doing this since the Carboniferous period some 300 million years ago.

The cylindrical stems of these plants are evergreen and consist of hollow joints or sections stacked up to produce unbranched stems 2 to 3 feet tall. The surface of these sections are ridged and a narrow black-green band or sheath of tiny leaves forms between each section.
The high silica content of these plants and the ridges on the sections make these plants useful for scrubbing or scouring, hence their common name.

They like sandy or loamy soils with plenty of moisture, they tolerate clay or limestone rich soils, and can be found along the margins of streams, rivers, ponds, and other habitats where their feet can stay wet. Their presence can, in certain drier areas, can indicate a natural spring or seep is nearby even when flowing water is not visible. While these plants were from Oklahoma, they occur in suitable habitats all over the U.S. and Canada. They are cultivated by gardners and escapees from cultivation have become pests in South Africa and Australia.

The post Scouring Rush Is A Living Fossil appeared first on GJM Nature Media.