#chelys chatter

[sci-simulacrumb]

Hey, it’s Chelys!

One of my friends, a peryton faun named Pumpkin Rind, challenged me to a race through the prairie between Springstrict and Summer Shire. Even though I’m older than her by 4 whole years, her long deer legs make her taller.

 But that doesn’t matter. I’m still super fast...in the water, at least. And long grass is kinda like land-water, right? 

We both took off at “go”. With no logs or big rocks, it was a straight shot right to the tree line. Rind and I were neck-and-neck. Probably because her wings are too small to fly, and my tail isn’t very aerodynamic without water.

But then I broke out in the lead! I could almost taste the finish line. And I KNOW I would’ve won if my foot didn’t get caught in a hole.

I faceplanted in the dirt 2 seconds before I heard Rind crash through the bushes and whoop. She won. I heavily considered letting the ground eat me up. I’m happy for her! I was just embarrassed I fell so close to the line. 

Tiny snuffling in front of me pulled me out of my humiliation. I slowly looked up from my dirt prison of shame to see a gopher snout!

I leapt up and egged Rind into racing me to find whoever had the phone today. When we came back, the same gopher was poking its whole head out of the hole, so it was easier to identify. It was a Valley Pocket gopher A.K.A. Botta’s Pocket gopher. 

Botta’s Pocket gophers have dark brown fur and external furry cheek pouches that give them their name. Unlike many other kinds of rodents, their cheek pouches can be turned inside out and stretch as far back as the shoulders.

Most gophers live in limited places with softer soil since they use their claws for digging. But Valley Pocket gophers are really only stopped by large rivers and rocky/dry places, so they live in a variety of habitats, so they rely on their tougher teeth to dig. And with how much they have to dig to forage and build burrows, they need all the help they can get.

Even though its tunnel was the reason I fell in the first place, I guess meeting a gopher outweighs the embarrassment.

--Chelys

[sci-simulacrumb]

Heya, it’s Chelys.

This broken urchin shell is the first thing I saw right after I took my first official solo Sedgehog ride. I just left the Juvenile Community Den meeting where Uncle Wyimkono and TiTi Rhuligg said I’m finally old enough to ride the trailcar by myself. 

The community leaders and human staff like to do a Resident census every spring. The humans need it to plan their money for the year. And us C.R.itters need it to see how our age groups are changing.

Most species age very differently from each other, and spend different lengths of time at different life stages. So the adults agreed on a generic life stage chart to keep track of our community. 

I put stickers on the charts the grown-ups printed during the meeting to show where me and my friends are. See, I’m still in the small Juvenile stage. Fellowh and Galen are in the large Eft-Stage group.

Eft-Stagers look almost like full adults but don’t have the “last few physical traits for potential reproduction”, whatever that means. Um, wait, I’m getting off track.

What I mean is every living thing has a life cycle. And most change a whole lot between stages. Like, back to the broken urchin shell--sea urchins actually don’t have shells all of their lives. Look at the color AnimalFact.com chart. They start out as tiny embryos that develop a strange skeletal structure as pluteus larva. After a couple weeks, the inner urchin hardens its shell and eats the outer squishy parts. Then the spines grow out of all of those tiny bumps.

I wonder how sea urchin larvae feel. Do they know what they’ll look like in a few weeks? Are they excited to change?

I know I am. Galen says I’m in too much of a rush. But I want to be older because that’s cooler! There aren’t many Juveniles here, just a bunch of babies and Eft-Stagers. My two best friends are already practically Adults, and I JUST got permission to ride the Sedgehog alone! I’ve been swimming on my own and kinda getting my own food forever. I feel bigger, but Ti-Ti Rhuligg said it’ll be at least another two years until my body changes to be in the Adolescent stage. 

I like being a kid...I just don’t wanna be left behind. At least I don’t have to sneak alone on the Sedgehog anymore.

Chelys, out.🍭

[sci-simulacrumb]

sometimes I’ll lose a fight on purpose just to get the chance

| ORIGINAL AUDIO CREDIT: @/piink.mango on IG |

Hey, it’s Chelys. Another week of winter, another week stuck in my den. At least my warm-blooded friends stopping by to hang out or share lunch is holding back the cabin fever…kinda.

 Whenever Fellowh comes over, he tries to keep things entertaining…which usually turns into ragebaiting. Luckily for me (unluckily for him), I bite! And I bite HARD.

Alligator snapping turtles’ adductor muscles and jaw leverage system help them maintain a crushing force for long periods of time. They lie in wait at the bottom of lakes and rivers, holding their breaths for almost an hour while keeping their mouths wide open. 

ASTs have a little fleshy extended part of their tongues that looks like a worm called “vermiforms”. Prey, like fish and amphibians, are baited inside the ASTs’ mouths by the vermiforms. Then ASTs wait for the perfect moment to bite down, crushing the prey with a deathly quick snap! 

I may be a part-turtle kid, but I can still deal some serious damage when I want to.

Chelys out!🍭

(P.S. For those who need a kPA-PSI conversion, the AST’s bite strength is 800-1000 PSI while a human’s is 120-200 PSI)

[sci-simulacrumb]

Hey, it’s Chelys!

I heard Galen and Fellowh finally made up. But who cares, let’s talk about this weird rock stuff!

The map stretched a little further north than usual today, so I made a little boat to ride the northbound river as far as I wanted to go. At some point, I reached a suspicious hill on one side of the riverbank. On the other side was this cove absolutely covered in seaweed. And I mean covered! It was low-tide, too, so I could see a lot of stuff that would normally be underwater.

But this seaweed isn’t harmful, really. I’ve heard it be called rockweed or Knotted Wrack. These weird knob things are air bladders that keep the seaweed buoyant so it can photosynthesize underwater. This seaweed is classified as an algae even though its evolved to have blades, stem-like stripes, and root-like holdfasts. Rockweed likes cold water. That's why it's mostly found in Greenland and the Northern Atlantic coasts of North America and Europe.

Small critters like green crabs or fish use rockweed for shelter. It’s densely tangled and slippery, making it easy to stay hidden from predators. Humans even use rockweed for fertilizer and food.

I wanted to take some blades with me so I can dry them at home. They look like good wrapping material. I remembered Elder Dylomor’s scavenging checklist: 

Never take more than I need

If it’s not native to where I live, be cautious. Don’t take living parts that could become invasive if left alone.

So I only took a few. Chelys out!🍭

[sci-simulacrumb]

See, Scientist was summoned to a conference for people who run not-so-secret creature preserves. They asked if anyone wanted to come along. Fellowh and I said yes. This year’s conference was in one of the most popular national parks in the U.S., the Smoky Mountains. As long as we promised to stay hidden from tourists, Scientist let us explore.

The whole mountain region is a temperate rainforest, and boy did it rain! We spotted evaporating blue-ish fog when the rain stopped. That hazy mist is why the Indigenous North American Cherokee called these mountains “Shaconage”, or “the Place of the Blue Smoke“.

There were tons of rivers and waterfalls. Partridge Berry is a common soft ground-cover plant that makes a nice carpet up there. You can tell what the plant is by looking for 2 tiny dots on the red berries, which humans can safely eat.

 Lots of unique animals live in the High Country (about 6,000 feet up the mountains). Animals like Grand Globe Snails, and the Red-Cheeked, Northern Red, and Cherokee Mountain Dusky salamanders are used to cold temperatures and receiving up to 80 inches of rain per year. 

On our last day, we even saw a Black Bear looking for food! It was walking up a road while we were walking down a different one. We stayed far out of its way.

Fellowh was on a mission this whole trip. Galen has been…well, even MORE of a shut-in than usual ever since Fellowh’s hidden camera video. I haven’t seen them in weeks! Fellowh’s been trying to find a way to make it up to Galen. He really wanted to find something special to give as an apology, so we looked everywhere.

Fellowh was pressed to find the perfect apology gift for Galen. With so much there was to see up there, I hope he found it. I know I found my favorite picture---this cicada covered in rain droplets on a striped maple leaf.

Chelys out!

| PART 2 |

[sci-simulacrumb]

Hi! Chelys with the phone again, this time from a Temperate Rainforest!

| PART 1|

[sci-simulacrumb]

OOOOOHHH! Guess who got in trooubblleeee! Fellowh!!

I was swimming to the Communal Den the other day. Galen was using Scientist’s phone, and I wanted to borrow it. That’s when I heard a horrified scream. 

A purple blur shot straight over my head. Galen was hurtling straight for the Visitor Center!

Galen saw Fellowh’s last video. They couldn’t believe that Fellowh had secretly recorded them!

Of course I had to see what’s what. So I turned around to swim after them. By the time I got to the other side of the Reserve, Scientist had brought Fellowh and Galen into a room to talk. I found a window to watch everything go down. I can read lips, you know.

Fellowh admitted that he took the video without Galen’s permission. He apologized a lot. Galen’s mouth never moved once, but they sure looked mad.

Scientist’s final decision was that Fellowh is not allowed to post about anything for the rest of the season. Galen and I still can, though.

The second the meeting was over, Galen stormed out of the room. Fellowh tried to run after them, but Galen flew off.

......

So, uh, I guess I should do a lighter post for today. Let’s talk about wild horses!

I took the phone and lazily floated upriver for a while. The river turned a little salty, meaning the boundary had changed again. The brackish river soon gave way to barrier islands not too far from the North American mainland. When I saw these horses browsing on them, I knew I must’ve been near Assateague Island in the Atlantic Ocean. 

Different human legends say who abandoned these once domesticated horses over 300 years ago--some say pirates, a Spanish galleon, or even a shipwreck. But many believe these horses’ ancestors were just slowly left behind by European settlers of the region. With no natural predators on the island, these horses are free to do as they please.

Fun fact: even though they're referred to as “ponies” due to height, these wild horses are related to quarter and standard horses.

Chelys out!

[sci-simulacrumb]

Hey, it’s Chelys!

The southern region of the Reserve opened up to a swamp today, so I asked Fellowh to explore it with me. One thing about swamps is that the water’s gonna be pretty murky. There were also these super tall cypress trees! You can tell because of their roots sticking straight out of the water.  

      Cypress (AKA “baldcypress” or sweet pondcypress”) is a really sturdy kind of tree. Their wood is often used to make furniture because it oily resin makes it rot resistant, durable, and repellent to insects.

    They grow in much of the land East of the Rocky Mountains, particularly in Gulf Coastal Plains of North America. They prefer watery environments like riverbeds and swamps.

  No one knows for sure why cypress roots arch out of the water like that. There are 4 main hypotheses, though: tree support; reproduction; storing carbohydrates; nutrient collection; and most popular--airing out the root system.

Maybe all five are true. Who knows? All I know is that they are fun to play on. I roped Fellowh into playing “Swamp is Lava” with me on the knees. I won, of course.✨😁

Chelys, out!