Sitka Nature

St. John’s-wort is introduced in Southeast Alaska. While it is an invasive plant in many regions, to this point it does not seem to have made in-roads around Sitka, as I have only noticed it growing at the edge of the long term parking at the Sitka airport. It will be interesting to see what happens with it over the next couple of years, as it may have only recently been introduced here (though it’s been reported at other locations in Southeast for many years).

St. John’s-wort (Hypericum perforatum) at Natural History of Southeast Alaska wiki

Coral Slime (Ceratiomyxa fruticulosa) seems to be one of the more common slime molds around Sitka. Individuals growths are small and can be easy to to overlook when they occur in small clusters. I associate this slime mold mostly with rotting wood in coniferous forests. I’ve also only noticed it at lower elevations, though this may be due to lack of time spent at higher elevation forest.

More pictures of Coral Slime (Ceratiomyxa fruticulosa)

• Watching family of Pied-billed Grebes on Swan Lake. One of very few breeding records for Alaska #

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This photo is from a hike up Indian River in 2006. I noticed a metallic gold beetle crawling on the zipper of my backpack while stopped for a break. Only recently did I get around to posting it on bugguide.net, where it was quickly identified as Lioligus nitidus by v belov, who noted it was a new genus for the site.

Looking on-line, I found very little about this beetle, but I did find one paper about a study done on Prince of Wales Island where this species was one of many invertebrates found in alder leaf litter. (That study was looking at diversity/productivity of conifer and alders, with a mind toward the management of second growth, and whether alder should discouraged, as it has been in past years, or encouraged.)