Earth Almanac: January/March 2003

The Gilded West

The California poppy has been widely transplanted around the nation and the world, but only in its native range—California and thin slices of western Oregon, Washington, Nevada, and the Baja Peninsula—does it gild entire valleys and foothills to elevations of 7,000 feet. "To one who loves them in their glorious native hues, the white [cultivated] varieties seem almost repulsive," writes Timothy Coffee in The History and Folklore of North American Wildflowers. When the first Spanish explorers beheld the massive, almost fluorescent spring blooms sweeping across rich alluvial soils, they called the land the "Golden West." In fact, legend has it that California's real gold was created by the falling petals. The flowers close in late afternoon, providing snug refuge for insect pollinators that fly by day.

Dancing Gig

The first whirligigs of spring, splattered like purple ink over a windless pond, swamp, or lazy meadow stream, will make the surface quiver at your stealthiest approach. If you wade or paddle, they will sense your presence by reading the ripples with their antennae. If you come by land, they'll see you with the top parts of compound eyes, which allow them to simultaneously take in scenes above and below the surface. The only beetles that swim on surface film, whirligigs propel themselves with oarlike hind legs; when they dive they carry their own scuba tank in the form of an air bubble. They can also fly. Of the 60 species distributed through Canada and the United States, most belong to two genera—Dineutus (about half an inch long) and Gyrinus (a quarter-inch or less). The whirligigs you see now have spent the winter sleeping in the mud. Soon they will breed, lay eggs on the stems of submerged vegetation, and die. The new generation of adults will appear in late summer. Catching whirligigs is just difficult enough to make it grand sport for small children. Fish have an easier time of it, but once inside their jaws, whirligigs emit a vile-tasting goo that induces regurgitation.