Heroes of the Night
Guided hike for Alberta Parks
By: Chelsea Stone
August 2016
Hello and welcome to heroes of the night, my name is Chelsea, I am a volunteer with Alberta Parks and I am here tonight to talk with you all about some of the amazing unsung superheroes of Kananaskis Country! It will be about a 1.5 km walk and should take us about an hour and a half. Now it looks like everyone is equipped with the items that they will need to enjoy this program, correct? Comfortable supportive shoes, a headlamp or flashlight, and a warm layer in case it cools off? Great!
Can you think of any other adaptations we as humans have come up with to help us be more comfortable in different situations?
These items we know to bring with us are an example of humans being able to adapt to different types of environments and stay comfortable. Tonight on our hike, we will have six stops where we will get to learn about the adaptations that some creatures have so they can be comfortable in the environment they live in, which is in the dark.
So first off, who can tell me the word we use to describe an animal who is active in the night time? Nocturnal! That’s right. And the animals that are active in the day time, what are they called? They are called diurnal! Different animals who are active at opposite times of the day are going to need different adaptations right? I like to think about these adaptations as if they were super powers that each of these animals have. What are some of the powers that your favorite superheroes have? (get audience to shout out some favorite super powers) Well tonight we are going to learn about the amazing super powers of some of our nocturnal super heroes here in Kananaskis Country.
We are going to get moving on our hike now so keep a look out for any evidence of animals that you may see. Please remember to stay behind me and on the trail so that we are able to stay together as a group and avoid stepping on any sensitive plants or animal homes and remember that if you have any questions at all please ask.
Hook: At our first stop we will be talking about our first superhero of the evening, an animal that is so accurate and precise in its hunting technique that it could make Hawkeye jealous.
STOP 1 OWLS
Props – feather or wing, owl skull, crinkly paper, blindfolds for owls
Graphics - Owl skull, Barred owl (showing facial disk)
Being able to hunt accurately is an essential skill for nocturnal predators to have, if a prey animal is able to evade capture, a second chance for the predator is pretty unlikely. Here we will be discussing one of the most precise hunters and well known nocturnal species that we have here in Kananaskis. Can anyone guess what one of or large flying superheroes might be? Owls! Owls have some of the most interesting superpowers, or adaptations of any nocturnal animals.
The first one that I want to talk about it their hearing. If you think about your ears, how are they positioned on your head? (One on either side at the same spot). Well some owls’ ears are actually offset meaning that they have one ear higher than the other; this allows them to pinpoint exactly where a sound is coming from. If a sound is coming from below, it will hear it from the lower ear first. If the sound is coming from above, it will hear it from its higher ear first. And if the sound is coming from eye level, the owls’ ears will pick up the sound in both ears at the same time. This makes their ears work as a two-dimensional tracking device! Let’s see Hawkeye do that! Not only are owls able to use these offset ears to detect exactly where their prey is, they also have a special ruff of feathers which are positioned around their faces (graphic). This ruff of feathers, called a facial disk is used as a kind of “noise funnel” which the owl is able to move in order to collect the sounds of their prey and direct it toward their ears. Imagine being able to pinpoint exactly where something is without ever seeing it.
Activity # 1
I want to see how many of you are able to pinpoint where a sound is coming from using just your ears. I will need a few volunteers to be our owls and a few to be our prey. those of you who are our prey animals will get these crinkly papers that will sound like a mouse running around in the leaves, and I want you to crumple them up a bit every once in awhile, – not too often we don’t want to make it too easy for our owls. And it will be the job of our owls to try and point to exactly where the mouse in the leaves has come from. In order to try and locate the sound more accurately you can cup your hands behind your ears to try and funnel the sound in, much like the owls’ facial disks we talked about. Now I will get my volunteers spread out a bit in this area and wait until I give you the go ahead and then we can let the test begin. (give a couple of minutes for activity) Great work owls and prey, now you were able to point in the direction that the noises were coming from but imagine being an owl – they would be able to locate a mouse with accuracy to about one degree. That about the width of your pinky! And they’re doing it in the dark! That’s amazing.
While some superheroes require expensive high tech gadgets which allow them to do certain things, such as night vision goggles to see in the dark, all of our Kananaskis super heroes have their powers built in! Owls are no exception to this, another superpower they possess is their sense of sight. Owls eyeballs are not balls at all! They are actually more tube shaped. This is to allow them to collect light more efficiently in the night time. Both humans and owls have two types of cells in their eyes, cones and rods. A human’s eyes have cones for telling the difference between colors, and rods, for collecting light. An owl’s eyes are mostly filled with the light collecting rods so they are able to collect enough of what little light is available at night to see! Like us, the owls’ eyes are positioned in the front of their heads, but while our round eyes are able to look up, down, and side to side, the owls’ tube shaped eyes are stuck in the same position! Because of this the owl is able to move its’ head 270 degrees in order to look at what it wants to. I want you to turn your head to look to your right. (audience looks right) Now turn your head to look to the left. (Audience looks left) Now try looking to the right again by turning your head to the left over your left shoulder and getting back to the position your head was in when looking to the right before. Of course we aren’t able to do that, but its no problem for an owl, this is because when they turn their heads that far, their spines are able to spiral to allow them that extra range of motion.
Finally, have you ever noticed a superhero’s ability to sneak up on even the most prepared villain? Well a great power that the owls have to help them with their night time hunting is their stealth. If we are to take a look at a wing feather from one of the diurnal birds of prey, such as this one from a raven, we notice a smooth, sharp edge to it (Show feather) – this is to give them an element of speed, but it’s not very silent (demonstrate by flapping feather.). But for the owls, who like the element of surprise, the feathers on their wings are fuzzy along the edges (Show owl feather/wing) so when they are in flight, the whirring sound that would be created by a smooth flight feather is eliminated (demonstrate). Isn’t that amazing? It’s like their own stealth shield. Now we have talked about an animal that hunts totally silently, let’s move on to one who depends on making noise to get around and locate its prey. I’ll give you a hint, this animal moves around sort of like the superhero Daredevil.
Stop 2 – BATS
Props: Vial of how many mosquitos a bat can eat in one hour, little brown bat
Graphics: echolocation, bat wing, chart of how many gummy bears you would eat a night if you ate half your weight in gummy bears. 1 pound = 70 bears.
Bat box building instructions
So who knows their superheroes and could guess what this stop is about? That’s right Bats! We just talked about some of the most silent predators in the nocturnal community, but now I want to tell you all about one that relies on making noise in order to hunt and navigate in the night skies, bats! Like many superheroes, bats are very misunderstood by a lot of people, but tonight I am going to introduce you to the side of bats that I know and love.
While there is only one bat-man, in Alberta there are 9 species of bats, but the most common one is called the little brown bat (show little brown bat), which is exactly as its name describes; little and brown, but even though it is little, it is capable of some impressive feats, I mean Ant man is at his best when he’s the size of a tiny little ant! Contrary to popular belief, bats are not rodents; bats belong to the order chiroptera.
But what does chiroptera mean? Let’s see if anyone has a good guess (graphic of bat wing) What does the bat’s wing look like to you? (a hand) That’s right, a hand! Chiroptera means “hand wing” and it is pretty easy to tell why it has that name. If we look at the wing what do you notice? (It looks webbed) A thin membrane stretched between four bones, those are basically the bat’s fingers. And the one on top? You guessed it, that’s the bat’s thumb! And what do you think they would use that clawed thumb for? (holding on to stuff, climbing). Right! When a bat roosts it needs to be able to get a good grip onto the side of the places it chooses to call home. Where do you think bats like to live? (Audience gives suggestions) In forested areas, bats will roost in places like hollow trees, caves, and even under the bark of large trees. Bats will also make their homes in cities or areas where a lot of us live. They will make their homes in buildings, accessible attics, or under bridges. One thing we can do to give bats homes and hopefully invite them to be our new neighbors is provide them with bat boxes to live in in our yards, and I can give you some instructions at the end of the hike if anyone is interested in learning how to make one. So the bat’s wings look a lot like our hands would if we had elongated fingers with webbing in between them. And because the bat has so many more joints in its wing, than say a bird, it is able to make much sharper or precise turns and have more complex flight patterns than birds. So even though it may SEEM like they are flying erratically, they are actually quite precise.
One of the most well-known things about bats is the way in which they find their way around in the dark. Can anyone tell me what their special power is that is used to navigate around? (Echolocation) That is right! Bats use what is called echolocation to make their way through the night sky. The way that the echolocation works is that the bat will consistently emit little squeaks that will bounce off of any objects near the bat and return to its ears to create an image of its surroundings. (show graphic of how echolocation works) Typically, a bat will emit about ten of these squeaks per second, but as soon as something a bat would like to eat gets on to its radar it can increase the number of squeaks up to 200 per second! Let’s see if you can do that… Try and squeak 200 times in one second, ready, GO! (audience will try and squeak 200 times per second) Times up! Good try! Luckily for us though, these squeaks are made at an exceptionally high frequency, up to around 200 kHz, much out of the range we are capable of hearing. Humans can only hear frequencies or pitch up to 20 kilohertz. And we know dogs can hear much higher pitches than us, right? They can hear frequencies up to 45 kHz. So 200 khz is really high! If we were able to hear the bats’ squeaks at that frequency it would be like holding an alarming smoke detector to your ear! This power of echolocation works so well that even superhero daredevil trained himself to be able to use it, however he uses this power to help him catch villains, not a delicious meal.
Speaking of delicious meals, does anyone have any guesses how many insects a bat can eat in one evening of hunting? (Audience makes some guesses) Those are all very good guesses! In fact, a bat can eat up to half its body weight in insects in a single night! How would you like to know how many gummy bears you could eat if they were insects and you were a little brown bat?
(graphic of gummy bear chart)
At our next stop, I am going to introduce you to a superhero who is very important for the bats to have around, but they do have a bit of a love/hate relationship with them. While we are walking there I want you to try and think of a Kananaskis creature that you have probably seen tons of, both out here and at home in the city.
STOP 3: MOTHS
Graphics/props:
Powers:
Was anyone able to think of a creature who lives all over the place and a bat may like to get to know? Moths!
Who is able to tell me what the computer system Iron Man uses to help him is called? (J.A.R.V.I.S.) That stands for “Just a rather very intelligent system” Well our next superhero of the night has its own version of this system, but it didn’t need to use billions of dollars to create it. Just good ol’ evolution and adaptation. I’m talking about the moth! The moth is a creature with as many tricks up its wing as Iron man when it comes to navigation, defence, and its method of locating a mate.
Moths are in the same family as butterflies, the Lepidoptera and just like the butterflies, moths feed on the nectar from flowers so they have an important role as pollinators. While the butterflies tend to wear flashy colours and grab the attention of passersby like you and I, the moths are much more understated and prefer function over fashion when it comes to their uniform.
The first super power that I want to tell you about is the moth’s ability to defend itself. One of the moth’s natural predators in the bat, who we all now know has a voracious appetite as well as a sophisticated tracking system, what was that tracking system called? (echolocation) exactly, echolocation. Well what if I told you that the moths have an equally amazing power that they use to protect themselves from becoming a meal for one of those superheroes? You might say something like “I know you said that the moths have a lot of cool stuff like Iron Man, but without a suit of armour how are they supposed to protect themselves from something so much bigger than it, like a bat?” Well the moths have developed a technology which can detect and then jam the bats’ echolocation. This amazing defensive technology can work in a few different ways.
Moths really are quite amazing at deflecting unwanted company, but they also have their bases covered for when it comes to finding the company they want. When the time comes for the moths to find a mate and continue their legacy of superheroes, they use their ultra-sophisticated mate tracking system. Although Iron man never found the need to try too hard to attract a mate using the abilities his suit has, I can think of at least one guy who could seriously benefit from this attraction ability. *Cough* My little brother *cough* unfortunately for him, he is not a moth and cannot use this system the way that they can. The tracking system I’m talking about works through the use of something called pheromones.
Who here has ever smelled something so enticing that it draws them in to find whatever is producing that fragrance? For me, it happens any time a neighbor is baking something delicious, like a pie. If my neighbours want company, all they have to do is bake something sweet. This is similar to the way a pheromone trail works to draw a male moth to a female, except in this case it would be more like a really nice smelling perfume to the moth rather than a tasty pie. The way these pheromones work is that a female moth will produce a kind of molecule which will attract a male of her specific species straight to her, the male senses these molecules in the air using his olfactory (or smelling) organs, which for the male moths are located in is fuzzy, feather-like antennae. What is truly super about this ability is the long distances the male moth is able sense these pheromones and then fly to in order to locate the lady moth of his dreams. Some male moths have been known to almost 50 kilometers in order to locate a female whose pheromone trail he is following. That’s some pretty strong perfume!
Activity #4
In order to find out how this system works a little better, we are going to do a little game which allows us to see just how good we are at following our noses. I’ll need a few pairs of volunteers for this. What is going to happen is that each team will have a specific scent which has a corresponding picture that goes with it. One member of the team will need to make their way to the graphic they have been assigned to while the other attempts to guide them there safely. But here is the catch. The person being guided must be blindfolded and can only use their sense of smell to find their target. It is the job of the guide to take these vials of fragrance and help their partner smell their way over to the finish line! The graphic that you will be guided to are these pictures of what the smell comes from. I’ll get you to now break up into your teams, get blindfolded, and familiarize yourselves with your particular fragrance before I reveal the images.
(allow a couple of minutes for activity)
While we are on our way to our next stop, I want you to try and think of what all of our previous stops had in common. Our next superhero has some incredible powers of adaptation that are nothing like anything we have seen so far.
Powers:
Patagium
Big eyes
Whiskers
Graphics/props:
Graphic of squirrel/membranes
Patagium
Big sunglasses/goggles
Whiskers
Claws
Tail
Stop 4.
FLYING SQUIRREL
At our last three stops we got a chance to discuss the skills of some of our heroes of Kananaskis who possess the power of flight, but this next one is a bit of an imposter when it comes to flying. I’m talking about the flying squirrel. Out of all the different species of squirrels that we have in Alberta the flying squirrels are the only ones who are nocturnal, and of course, the only ones who can “fly”. While there are two different species of flying squirrel here in north America, being the northern and southern flying squirrels, Kananaskis Country is host to only one of them, the Northern Flying Squirrel The southern flying squirrel is more commonly seen in California and the Yosemite Valley. Unlike the commonly seen Red squirrel, who spend colder days as well as nights under the ground, the flying squirrels spend their days and winters in comfortable holes in trees with up to 10 other squirrels of their species. These holes can sometimes be large holes that woodpeckers make while searching for their food. The flying squirrels are mainly vegetarians and they spend most of their night foraging for things like berries, lichens, fungi, seeds, buds, and leaves from various shrubs and trees. However, they are opportunistic and will eat whatever they can find including insects.
Activity 4 (-throughout)
I am going to need a volunteer from the audience! I would like to take this cooperative member of the audience and make them into our very own flying squirrel friend. We are going to see all of the great adaptations that the flying squirrels possess. While we will only be going into detail about the adaptations it uses for its nocturnal lifestyle, please feel free to ask me any questions you may have about the other adaptations we skim over.
The first super power the flying squirrel has that I want to discuss of course has to be its flight. Can anyone tell me how it is that this squirrel is able to fly? (Audience answers) Well! The flying squirrel does not actually fly, as its name suggests. Just like Batman, who uses his cape to glide from rooftop to rooftop, the flying squirrel has an adaptation that allows it to glide from tree to tree. It uses a membrane called patagium which is a skin membrane that stretches between the squirrel’s wrists and ankles and has cartilage that runs along the outer edge. When the squirrel wants to travel from one tree to another it will climb to a high branch of a tree and then scout out a perfect landing spot, which can be up to 45 meters away! It will then prepare for takeoff by first bobbing its head so that it can gauge how far the jump is going to be, although they have huge eyes, those eyes are not great with depth perception, so the squirrel has to bob and turn it’s head to really figure out its flight path. The squirrel then gets a bearing for where it wants to land and launches into the air. This is when the magic really happens – cue intense superhero theme song here, the squirrel then spreads its arms and legs as if it were doing jumping jacks and its patagium open between them so that they can glide through the air! For us we would need a hang glider, but the flying squirrel has this ability built in. (Put patagium on volunteer)
While the squirrel is travelling through the air, it uses its long, flat, feathery tail as a rudder and back legs to steer toward where it wants to go as well as potentially dodging any hungry predators, like owls along the way. As it approaches its landing spot, the squirrel is able to easily switch from being in a horizontal gliding position to being vertical by using their rudder-like tail and then is able to grasp a tree with its sharp claws (Add claws)
Aside from the gliding, the flying squirrels have a lot in common with beast from the x-men, just a very tiny version of him. Just like beast, as well as many of the other Kananaskis super heroes, the flying squirrel has an adaptation that is plain to SEE as soon as you look at it. I’m talking of course about their sense of sight.
If we take a look at the flying squirrel (Graphic) we can see that it has these very large bulbous eyes that almost seem too big for it’s little body. Having eyes this big is a huge advantage for the flying squirrel as it needs to be able to see the spot it wants to land. Like the owls that we talked about at our first stop, the flying squirrel has many rods and opposed to cones in their eyes so that they can absorb lots of what little bit of moonlight that is available to them. Along with all of these rod cells in their eyes, the flying squirrel also comes equipped with pupils that are in the shape of a vertical slit, which looks the same way that your cat at home’s pupils look. This is to protect their eyes in the daytime and allow for maximum light absorption at night due to being able to close further and open wider than if they were to have a round pupil like us. Now I will set you up with your new set of eyes (Add goggles to volunteer)
The final super power that the flying squirrels have is a lot like daredevil’s superhuman sense of touch. Just like daredevil, even while having other senses blocked, the flying squirrels are able to use this superpower to find their way. This power is due to the sensitive whiskers that they have around their nose and mouth. In fact, the flying squirrel has some of the longest whiskers out of anyone in the squirrel family! Let’s set you up with this set of whiskers (Add whiskers) They can use them to find their way around in the darkest of crevices where there is so little light that even their powerful eyes are unable to see, and are very useful when making a quick getaway, in which instances they will hold them out directly in front of themselves in order to navigate through any obstacles it may encounter while making an escape. These whiskers, or vibrissae are very important in helping the flying squirrels find their way around. The way the squirrel uses these is by sweeping them back and forth and any time they come into contact with an object, the squirrel is able to decipher the size and texture. They are tactile marvels!
Beautiful! Show us a twirl, squirrel, you look fantastic! Before we move along I will have to get all of my adaptations back from you but then we can get moving to our fifth and final stop on our hike. Now this next superhero is one that really has nothing in common with anyone else as it is not able to spend any time at all in the air. Its an animals that keeps it’s feet planted, even though that isn’t always on the ground.
Stop 5: Porcupines
Props: Quills, chewed sign, rodent skull, porcupine hide swatch
Graphics: Porcupine in tree
Close up of quill compared to barbed fish hook.
Some of the superheroes of Kananaskis that we got to talk about tonight have been quite social, like the bats; however so many other superheroes that exist are actually quite solitary. Like superman who lives in his own fortress of solitude, the next hero’s home turf is quite small, less than a square kilometre, as it doesn’t travel around as much as some of the other Kananaskis super heroes. It spends most of the year living alone and focuses more on defending itself than it worries about using its powers for hunting, and that defensive strategy is really quite effective. This superhero has a more ‘prickly’ approach to its defense. Any guesses what it is!? Yes! Here, we will be discussing the North American Porcupine!
The first power that porcupine uses to its advantage is its most well-known and valuable defensive strategy, who can tell me what the porcupine is most known for? (Its quills) That’s right, it’s quills! Most of the time they keep those 30 000 quills or so concealed in a nice thick layer of coarse and insulating guard hairs and the quills themselves are actually made out of the same stuff as hair! But while we have these soft insulating, and might I say luscious locks on our heads, the quills are hardened, hollow, and covered in barbs. The barbs are like little spikes which are pointed in the opposite direction that the quill points which makes them very difficult to remove. You can compare these barbs to the way a fish hook looks. (show graphic) We know that these barbed hooks make it easier to keep the fish on the end of your line, and that is the same way that these quills work. A common myth is that porcupines are able to shoot these quills at a threat but in fact, they aren’t able to do that. Since the quills are just like our hair, they have a tendency to fall out, just like we, and other animals shed their hair. That’s why it is not uncommon to find their quills lying around. However, just like wolverine from the x men who can use his claws at will when needed, the porcupines can erect their quills when they feel they need to protect themselves. And if a curious dog for example, happens to get too close to those erected quills, they may get ‘stuck’ with a muzzle full of them!
Being able to defend themselves is not the only thing that porcupines need to do in order to thrive though. Just like every living thing on this great planet, these heroes need to be able to feed themselves. Can anyone tell me what a porcupine might like to eat? (Audience suggestions) Have you ever broken a stick off of a tree that was still living? (yes) And what did it look like on the inside? (green, wet) right! That wet, green layer is the cambium of the trees and porcupines love it. They are also known to have quite the appetite for salt and will often be seen licking roads, which can unfortunately lead to their demise, as it’s hard to see little porcky in the middle of the road in the dark! It is not uncommon to have porcupines cause a bit of havoc in parks as they have been busted chewing on the signs that we have up, possibly canoe paddles that people have out or even wooden boxes used for storage. (Graphic of chewed sign). This is actually one of the main reasons why you won’t find wooden signs that much anymore in Kananaskis Country. It’s also a good idea if you’re camping, not to leave your backpacks outside as you may wake up to chewed through shoulder straps! When we hike a lot of salty sweat ends up on our pack and that is like a delicious gift to a porcupine!
The porcupine’s taste for eating that cambium in the trees brings us to their next amazing power that is quite seldom known about them. While they will gnaw at the bottoms of trees in order to get the nutrition that they need, they have this awesome ability that allows them the opportunity to feed as much as they need to while also feeling safe. Can you think of a place a porcupine might go in order to satisfy these two important needs? (up the tree) Exactly! While Spider-Man is great at scaling buildings in the big city, the porcupines feel quite comfortable up in the trees. Although they are quite slow and clumsy on the ground they are actually really amazing climbers. This might be a reason why they are pretty difficult to spot when you are out walking around at night, not only is it pretty difficult for us to see in the dark, we might also just be looking in the wrong places!
At our final stop we are going to putting all these amazing adaptations together to build our very own superhero!
CONCLUSION:
We have spent the last while discussing all of the incredible powers that our Kananaskis superheroes have that enable them to live a happy, healthy, and safe nocturnal life out here in the forest, and now I want to give you all the opportunity to take that knowledge and create your very own ultimate superhero. I have here a superhero template which you can use to produce your super masterpiece. Before we get started let’s quickly review all of the heroes we talked about and their powers.
For the owl, we discussed the extremely accurate hearing that they have due to their offset ears, their stealth shield thanks to their silent flight, which is represented of course by this set of owl wings, and their swivelling neck – paired of course with those amazing tubular eyes!
The bats have the echolocation which allows them to hunt in the dark without even needing to use their eyes and their agile hand wings,
The moths, with their Iron-man like technology are able to track their mate, and their amazing defensive technique of jamming the bats echolocation.
Next up we have the flying squirrels! Which have their patagium which as we know is what they use to glide through the air from tree to tree, there is also their sensitive whiskers which help them to find their way around in even the darkest of places, and their super night vision.
Last but certainly not least, we have the porcupine, who has the defensive powers of their quills, those massive incisors for gnawing at trees and of course other things, and its ability to climb trees like a champ.
So take some time now, think very carefully about how you want to design your hero and have fun! The night sky is the limit! Remember that if at any point you have a question that you would like to ask about any of these powers, I would be happy to help out.
(give about 10 mins for activity)
I hope you have all had enough time to think about how the best hero can be created. I would love to have a look at what kinds of ideas you came up with!
(Leave time to share heroes and discuss with the audience)
We have come to the end of our hike now and I want to thank you all so much for coming out with me tonight, I’ve had a great time with you all and I hope it was very educational and fun. Just remember that Alberta Parks is home to all these amazing super heroes, and quite possibly the most important superhero is…YOU! You all have the power and ability to protect these amazing places these animals call home. So the next time you see signs of these animals, or if you’re lucky enough to see them face to face, be sure to give them their space and remember the power you have to protect them by keeping wild areas wild and respecting our parks in Alberta! You are free to spend some more time exploring the area if you like but if you are ready to head back to the parking lot you are more than welcome to head back with me. Once again my name is Chelsea and I’m a volunteer with Alberta Parks in Kananaskis Country, have a great night!