While tasked with identifying plants and animals around Heart Mountain for BioBlitz, “citizen scientists” learned a little about biodiversity in their backyard. 

BioBlitz, which took place the weekend of June 13-14, was organized by the University of Wyoming Biodiversity Institute, Audubon Rockies and The Nature Conservancy in Wyoming.

POLLINATION EDUCATION

“Do you see a pollinator on it?” asked Jamie Weiss, Habitat Heroes coordinator for the Rocky Mountain regional office for Audubon Rockies in Fort Collins, Colorado.

Weiss was questioning Taylor Peters, 6, who lives below Heart Mountain with her parents, Brian and Carrie Peters, who manage the ranch for The Conservancy.

It was a scarlet globemallow flower, with exquisite red petals perched on a hill overlooking Eaglenest Creek. With clipboard in hand like a university botany student on a field trip, Taylor studied the flower intently.

Next, Taylor examined Wyoming’s state flower.

“Taylor as our plant biologist recognizes this as an Indian paintbrush,” Weiss said.

At least one species of bird with sharp beaks is attracted to the herbaceous plant because of its vibrant red pigment. That name seemed apt, because as it appears the plant was dipped in rosy red paint.

“Hummingbirds love the Indian paintbrush,” Weiss said.

She encouraged participants to plant wildlife-friendly gardens and gave them wild flower seeds that she said will attract pollinators such as hummingbirds and butterflies.

CATCH AND RELEASE

Children and adults took part in sampling the fish along 300 feet of Eaglenest Creek by catching the fish with nets, said Jason Burckhardt, Wyoming Game and Fish Department fisheries biologist in Cody.

Burckhardt and Game and Fish fish technician Chelsey Sherwood used electricity to stun the fish for easy netting and to avoid injuring them, he said.

They caught brown trout and mountain suckers. Some of the browns were more than 16 inches in length.

He could see the excitement in their eyes. “They were just amazed at the size of the brown trout,” Burckhardt said.

The youth enjoyed it. “The adults that participated had a good time as well,” Burckhardt said.

Generally, people only appreciate the land’s resources if they are familiar with those resources. “Some of them may grow up to be hunters and anglers, but hopefully they all go away with a broadening appreciation of the natural world,” Burckhardt said.

BEAR EATS AND SAFETY

“Grizzly bears dig, dig, dig,” said Luke Ellsbury, Game and Fish large carnivore biologist, holding a grizzly bear paw the size of a catcher’s mitt with huge claws poking out.

Bears eat anything and everything. Feces can often tell the observer what the animal has recently consumed, like scat dotted with chokecherry pits. They eat lots of insects too, such as army cutworm moths. Though the moths can be found in other high-mountain locations, grizzlies appear to only partake of the high-calorie insects in the Absaroka Range.

Bears dig ants, too. “They eat ants like crazy,” Ellsbury said.

Bears eat bugs and plants, but 70-80 percent of a typical male grizzly’s diet consists of meat. Meat makes up 40-50 percent of the food for female bears in Wyoming, Ellsbury said.

Humans aren’t the only animals that get stressed.

When surprised, bears may adopt aggressive behavior. Grizzlies will huff, yawn and lower their head while salivating heavily. “If they start vocalizing, you know they’re stressed out,” Ellsbury said.

If that happens, hold your ground until the bear makes contact. If they do make contact, lay on the ground, flat on your stomach, with hands over your neck, he said.

Predatory attacks occur when the bear sees a human as a food source. “And that’s the time you are probably in a lot of trouble,” Ellsbury said.

However, bear predatory attacks are extremely rare. Ellsbury said he knows of one instance in the region in the eight years he has worked for the Game and Fish.

He recommends carrying and knowing how to use bear spray. Hold the canister at about chest height and point it at a slight downward angle. It has an approximate 30-foot range. Don’t empty the can; spray in one-second bursts. “You don’t want to dump it all at once,” Ellsbury said.

If confronted by any predator, don’t look it in the eye.

Mountain lions will bare their teeth and hiss when surprised or contemplating an attack. Bear spray works on mountain lions too, Ellsbury said.

If a mountain lion or wolf attacks, fight back, he said.

PALEONTOLOGY APLENTY

Paleontology elsewhere pales when compared to the Big Horn Basin.

The Basin is huge in paleontology. For the last 100 years, a dozen universities have studied the Basin each summer; it is fossiliferous. “Fossils are common,” said J.P. Cavigelli, museum collections specialist at Casper College Tate Geological Museum.

The Basin has an abundance of fossils, Cavigelli said.

In eastern United States, sediment sheltering fossil deposits are swallowed and hidden by metamorphic rock and trees. In western locales such as Wyoming, younger mountain ranges thrust up, bringing with them sediment rich in fossils. And, vegetation is minimal, making it easier to find fossils, Cavigelli said.

Cavigelli spoke mostly of the Eocene epoch — 56-35 million years ago. “Dinosaurs were already fossilized by then,” he said.

No T-rex wreaking havoc, but a plethora of now-extinct creatures inhabited the Basin, just the same.

Cavigelli had a list of 60-70 species calling the Basin home during Eocene years. Most of the animals were pretty small, like the horse, about the size of a collie, he said.

The Eocene horses did not graze; grasses were not yet common. “They were browsers, eating leaves,” he said.

Horses evolved in both Europe and North America. The two continents were connected in the Eocene, so the fossils of both continents were quite similar at that time.

By the middle of the Eocene, the North American and European continents were no longer connected, according to the Smithsonian Natural History Museum.

Horses soon became extinct in Europe, but continued to flourish here. “There are no Oligocene (35-23 million years ago) horses in Europe,” Cavigelli said.

It was only during the Pleistocene (Ice Age, 1.6 million to about 10,000 years ago), when Vietnam and Asia were connected, that horses migrated back to Eurasia and became extinct here.

But, not all beasts were petite in those days.

The Eocene rhinoceros in the Basin were larger in stature. “It was perhaps a bit smaller than today’s rhinos,” he said.

“Another thing that was common out here was crocodiles,” which made their appearance during the Jurassic period and continued on from there, Cavigelli said. 

Cavigelli held fragments of fossils with perfectly spaced indentations called scutes. Both crocodiles and turtles have scutes. Cavigelli held out his hands, conveying the size of soft-shelled Basin turtles.

The turtles grew as large as 4 feet across. “We have a huge one here at the Tate (museum) that will be going on display soon,” Cavigelli said. 

The Basin has yielded two good skeletons of the 6-foot tall flightless Eocene bird, Diatryma, Cavigelli said.

The Natural Trap Cave in the Big Horn Mountains has provided a treasure trove of animal remains dating back thousands of years, Cavigelli said.   

Cavigelli said he believes the dinosaurs were killed off as the result of a 6-kilometer (3.72-mile) wide meteor off the coast of the Yucatan Peninsula. Iridium deposited just above dinosaurs in the sediment suggested a meteor was the cause, because iridium is relatively common in meteors but a far less common metal on Earth.

Following impact, dense dust clouds obstructed the sun, and plummeting temperatures resulted in the death of most plants and animals 65 million years ago, according to information on PBS.