A Toad in the Leaf Litter 𓆏

Small, Hidden Continuities of August

I love catching sight of a young American toad on the forest floor. It feels like a small victory. They are superbly camouflaged among leaves, soil, and moss, so finding one is never guaranteed. It is also a quiet reassurance that some things are right in the world: young toads are where they should be, doing what they should be doing at this time of year.

By early August, many young American toads have already been on land for weeks. Having left their breeding waters from mid-June onward, they move through surrounding uplands, growing rapidly, hunting small prey, and seeking cool, moist shelter. Their diet includes ants, beetles, flies, and other invertebrates small enough to manage.

My encounters also seem to reflect the landscape. In Middlesex County, I most often see American toads (Anaxyrus americanus), while on the sandy Outer Cape, I more often see Fowler’s toads (A. fowleri). Both species occur on Cape Cod and broadly across Massachusetts, so this is an observation about local habitat and encounter patterns, not a hard boundary. Fowler’s toads are associated with sandy areas near wetlands; American toads are commonly found on forest floors and in other more mesic settings.

The forest floor is not an easy place for a small toad. Young toads face snakes, birds, and mammals, as well as hazards from road crossings, habitat loss, pollution, and disease. Their defensive skin secretions may deter some predators, but camouflage, stillness, and the availability of moist cover remain essential.

So when I catch that slight movement in the leaf litter and realize it is a young toad, I feel grateful for the small, hidden continuities of August.

🔎︎ More about American toads

→ Powell, Robert, Roger Conant, and Joseph T. Collins. Peterson Field Guide to Reptiles and Amphibians of Eastern and Central North America. 4th ed. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016.

→ Raithel, Christopher J. Amphibians of Rhode Island. Rhode Island Division of Fish and Wildlife, 2019.

→ Wells, Kentwood D. The Ecology and Behavior of Amphibians. University of Chicago Press, 2007. 

📷 American Toad · Crapaud d'Amérique (Anaxyrus americanus) | © Claire O'Neill, please credit accordingly.

Bachelor Sleepovers in a False Sunflower 🌻

Two Long‑horned Bees and Their Shared Flower Bed

Yesterday evening, during my nightly round of the garden, I stopped to check a false sunflower where I had spotted two long‑horned bees (of the genus Melissodes) that morning, both likely males. To my surprise, there they were again, this time sleeping head to head right at the interface between the central disk and the ray flowers, rather than at a small distance from one another as they had been the night before.  

Wedged there securely, they were gently sheltered from wind and weather by the surrounding petals and by the low position of this particular flower beneath the taller blooms around it. It is a quietly touching little sleep arrangement. Male long‑horned bees often spend the night out on vegetation or in flowers like this, because they do not have nests of their own to return to. Females, in contrast, usually sleep inside the underground nests they have dug, where they are also storing pollen for their larvae.  

It makes sense that these males sleep close to the patch of flowers they patrol and use during the day. By bedding down right in their foraging patch, they minimize energy spent searching for food the next morning, and they “know” their way back into this familiar matrix of blooms. These small bachelor sleepovers on flowers are a characteristic part of male long‑horned bee life, a small but beautiful detail in their natural history. 

I am now officially committed to stalking them, or rather checking on them evening and morning, to see how faithfully they return to this same flower and how their sleeping arrangements change over time. And so I did. This morning they were still there, sleeping longer than I do. At some point in the night, they had shifted slightly apart, a tiny rearrangement in their shared flower bed. I am smitten.

🔎︎ More about long-horned bees 

→ Vermont Atlas of Life, Long‑horned Bees (Melissodes) https://val.vtecostudies.org/projects/vtbees/melissodes 

→ Native Beeology https://nativebeeology.com/mind-your-bees-and-gardens-2/long-horned-bees

📷 Melissodes | © Claire O'Neill, please credit accordingly. 

One Life - Fifteen New Beginnings 🦟

At first glance, it looked like a little piece of debris. As I approached, I realized it was a beetle pupa attached to the top of a rugosa rose leaf. 

On closer inspection, I noticed some fifteen tiny parasitoid wasps, likely chalcidoids and perhaps members of the Tetrastichinae subfamily, moving deliberately over its surface. Each was only a few millimeters long, yet together they transformed what seemed like an old, dried pupa into another fascinating natural history moment.

If these wasps had just emerged from the pupa, instead of a single beetle completing its transformation, an entire brood would have begun theirs. One host had become the nursery for these minute wasps, a reminder of the intricate ecological relationships that quietly shape insect populations.

These tiny wasps are more than a curiosity. As parasitoids, their larvae develop by feeding on a single host and ultimately killing it, helping regulate herbivorous insect populations and serving as quiet biocontrol allies in gardens, fields, and wild plant communities.

It is easy to walk past little details without a second glance. But slowing down and looking closely revealed not a piece of debris, not one insect, but some fifteen, each beginning its own story.

🔎︎ More about parasitoid wasps

→ Beneficial insects - parasitoid wasps https://extension.umn.edu/beneficial-insects/parasitoid-wasps 

→ North American genera of Tetrastichinae (Hymenoptera: Eulophidae) https://doi.org/10.1080/00222939400770091.

📷 Subfamily Tetrastichinae | © Claire O'Neill, please credit accordingly. 

First Mola Mola Encounter, Oh My! 𓆝

Oh my God, what a treat! My first wild mola mola! What a fantastic fish!!! And not just one, but three! A truly grand day, made even more special by watching a group of nine or so humpbacks and a gray seal at Stellwagen Bank.

What an awesome, wonderfully strange fish: such an unusual shape, yet the largest of all bony fishes. I knew mola mola drift, but do they actually swim? I had to check.

Despite their awkward appearance, mola mola are surprisingly efficient swimmers and active foragers. During summer, they enter Stellwagen Bank in search of prey, including jellyfish, salps, squid, and small fish. They may not be fast swimmers, but they can travel long distances and make impressive dives. They move through the water using their enormous dorsal and anal fins, a remarkable adaptation for such an extraordinary fish.

Nature never stops surprising me and rewarding my curiosity.  

📷 Common Mola · Mouldouz · Poisson-Lune (Mola mola) | © Claire O'Neill, please credit accordingly