Nathaniel T. Wheelwright
Animals like painted turtles use different parts of their bodies to send distinct messages. Backs and bellies are designed to mislead predators, while faces, with their fine details, advertise a turtle’s identity and quality to nearby competitors and mates.
As soon as the ice melts from ponds, wood frogs emerge from hibernation, filling cool spring nights with the sound of their croaks. To tell males from females, just look at their hands. Males have absurdly muscular thumbs, the better to hold onto females in the fierce competition for mates.
If you took all the moose or deer in a northeastern forest and put them on a scale, they wouldn’t weigh as much as the superabundant but often overlooked red-backed salamander. (Hard to believe, I know, but check out the study “Salamander Populations and Biomass in the Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest, New Hampshire” published in the scientific journal Copeia in 1975!)