Owl Pellet Soup

Our Biology lab today consisted of dissecting owl pellets and examining the contents within. An owl pellet is of similar size to human's thumb, these pellets are the product of an owl vomiting up the parts of its prey that it cannot digest. These parts that the bird rejects would be bones and teeth. The reason the owl, along with other birds of prey, regurgitates these parts of an animal is because the bones are not digestible and would do great harm to the birds internal organs. Once we began dissecting the pellets we would find a bone, remove it, and then examine it under a microscope, and, using a key would decide what bone the bone we found is. Through this process my partner and I figured out (to a point) which animals the owl, whose pellet we were dissecting, had identified as prey. The process I afore described was not a pretty one, although it was very interesting and a good experience

Invertebrates

On Thursday of last week in Biology Lab, our class examined various arthropods, almost all of which were insects. Using microscopes and a key similar to that of a dichotomous key one uses to identify trees, we identified which order each chosen arthropod belonged to. To the naked eye the "bugs" are not the most impressive, interesting, or complex group of organisms. But once we put them under a microscope and looked for characteristics unique to that "bug." We had to examine all the parts of these arthropods that one never notices when passing a flower bed, or swatting a pest. For example, we weren't simply to identify if the creature had wings, but how many, and if those wings were the same or different sizes, and if the wings had many veins. We were also called to examine the mouth and antennae of the animals, and decide how many segments made up the antennae, and what type of mouth parts the certain arthropod had. The process was even more detailed than what I have mentioned but to describe it all would be very time consuming. This lab really opened my eyes to how intricate and delicate things are outside of what I observe walking around, taking the time to sit down and analyze these bugs that are often over looked or taken for granted was a great experience.

Gigantic Brown Recluse

A couple weekends ago, I was in the basement of Clay doing laundry and the BIGGEST Brown Recluse Spider came out of nowhere. I do not like spiders at all even though I know they serve a purpose I cannot stand to be near one. Anyways, I did some research on these spiders and found that the average size is about the circumference of a nickel, although size can differentiate somewhat greatly. The best way to identify a brown recluse spider is the color, generally light to medium brown, along with the odd marking on their backs that resembles a violin or fiddle. Well I used these tools to identify this spider and it was definitely a Brown Recluse, however this guy would've covered the top of a coke can! He was the biggest spider I have ever seen, and it was terrifying. I had no means of smashing him immediately around me, and I knew it would take more than my flip flop and I had no desire to get my bare foot anywhere near that cat sized spider. So, I grabbed a chair, about the similar to the ones found in most of the dorms on campus, and I crushed him with the chair. But when I picked up the chair the spider seemed unaffected and began to RUN AWAY. At this point I was absolutely terrified and knew that I had to kill it now or I would never be able to rest knowing that this ginormous spider was in the same building as myself... So I literally threw the chair at this spider and, thankfully, hit right on the money, completely squishing the devil. I was so relieved at first, but soon I began to think of how many more there might be surrounding me. Needless to say I got my laundry and retreated to my room in record time!

http://www.brownreclusespider.org/brown-recluse-spider-information.htm

Leopold Discussion

My viewpoint on Leopold's piece will be coming from a Christian perspective. Leopold's central point is that humans must develop a code of ethics between man and the land on which we live and grow. Leopold states, and I agree, that we must have more respect for the land on which we reside, and that we must treat the land and its resources with greater care. In Genesis 1:26 God says "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." So I believe that God has given man dominion over the earth, and that God wants us to use the gifts within the earth to our benefit; but with this privilege I believe God has entrusted to us the responsibility of maintaining and protecting the earth from being destroyed.
I did not agree with Leopold that we should become members and citizens of the earth, coexisting with animals and plants, because I believe that man is a higher form of life than the animals and plants, and- going back to the scripture- we have dominion over these things, therefore we cannot be their equals but are required by God to be their superiors. To sum up my point of view, I believe that God has given man a responsibility to the world to cultivate it, take advantage of its resources, and to maintain and protect it.

Dichotomous Key

Thursday in BHC (Biology and Human Concerns) our lab consisted of going outside and finding different branches of leaves from the various species growing here on campus and finding ways to differentiate each species from the others. This tasked at first seemed near impossible, because none of the class, myself included, new much of anything about the distinctive characteristics that made each species of tree unique. Once Dr. Adkins found enough samples for the class lesson he gave my classmates and I various combinations of three or five different samples and told us to create a Dichotomous Key. I should preface that statement by telling you that Dr. Adkins did not just throw us into the fire, he first explained a Dichotomous Key and then gave us a few distinguishing visual traits of different trees to go by. Using our visual observations of the samples and a sheet of different characteristics found in trees, these characteristics consisted of blade type, vein position, leaf arrangement, and number of leaves per bud. By simply observing these plants we were able to distinguish each sample from the others. At first We thought this task immeasurable but by the end if you asked anyone in the class, they'd say we were all professionals. Following that lab, I am amazed by how many different species of tree there are in just one block of a college campus in downtown Lexington! Now, I seem to observe various trees and think to myself what blade type it has or maybe observe that the tree has compound leaves, or maybe its leaves alternate.

Tectonic Plates, Coal, and Mining- Blog Post #1

In Biology lab on Thursday, we watched a video about how the Appalachian Mountain Range formed and how anthracite coal came to be as well as how mining operations are run in today's world. First, let me say that I had no idea how big the Appalachians actually are... I thought they stretched from maybe southern Pennsylvania, to north Georgia, but after watching that video I learned that these mountains stretch all the way to Newfoundland, Canada! According to the video we watched, the Appalachians formed from the crashing together of two continental Tectonic Plates, these plates were under what we now call North America and Africa, when these to plates converged the land was forced upward creating this mountain range. The video also provided an explanation for how coal was created, ancient trees were covered by loads of sediment and under incredible pressure over millions of years these trees became modern day coal. Thirdly, this video showed from a distance what a surface mine operation looks like as well as what a shaft mine looked like when they were the norm. Surface mines replaced shaft mines as the norm because surface mines are genuinely safer for workers as well as require less workers to manage. The video's main beef with surface mines was that the mines strip away trees and other vegetation in order to mine coal, even though the mining companies replace the vegetation whenever they move on from the area, it still takes the area several years to return to the form that it had before the mining began.