Brenna McKaig's Digital Scavenger Hunt Part 2 (8 Pictures)

On July 22^nd, I left to go on vacation to visit family in Seattle. Throughout the course of our vacation, we went to many places in Olympic National Park including the Hoh Rainforest, the Hood Canal and Mount Rainier. We also visited the city and went to the Woodland Park Zoo. I typed this introduction because all of the photos in this album were taken over the course of my vacation to Washington.

 

8. This is a picture of a red panda in the Woodland Park Zoo located in Seattle, Washington. Red pandas are considered vulnerable, and are very close to becoming an endangered species. Red pandas are mainly located in India and China, where they have become close to becoming endangered due to deforestation of their habitat. Hunters and poachers also pose a large threat to red pandas located in these areas, as they hunt them for their fur. There are roughly 10,000 red pandas left in the world, and the death rate in the wild is much higher than the reproduction rate.  As a result of the decreasing number of red pandas, numerous attempts at conservation have been launched in both China and India as well as other countries located in Asia.

 

9. This is a picture of the trail in Hoh Rain forest, located in Olympic National Park. Hoh Rainforest is an example of a temperate rainforest as the rainforest maintains a temperature range of around 39-54 degrees Fahrenheit, and receives about 140 to 170 inches of annual precipitation. Although the picture was taken on an uncharacteristically sunny day, the rainforest receives a lot of rain throughout the course of the year and is normally foggy. The Hoh Rainforest also has trees which create a canopy above the ground of the forest and provides for much shade.

 

10. This is a hoary marmot located off a trail on Mount Rainier located in Olympic National Park. Taxonomy is a branch of biology which classifies animals by appointing scientific names starting with kingdom and eventually making the descent to species.

The scientific classification of a marmot is:

Kingdom: Animalia

Phylum: Chordata

Class: Mammalia

Order: Rodentia

Family: Sciuridae

Genus: Marmota

Species: Marmota caligata

 

11. This is another picture from Hoh Rainforest and is of airplants, which are also known as epiphytes. The clusters of these epiphytes consist of lichens and hanging mosses. Lichens then consist of multiple organisms from different kingdoms to form a plant that as a whole lives with multiple symbiotic relationships within itself allowing it to survive as one organism. The main part of the lichen is a fungus which produces food for itself, and provides for most of the visible plant. Sometimes the fungus contains algae cells which provide further nutrition for the lichen plant.

 

12. This picture was taken during a walk on the beach of the Hood Canal. This picture represents the ecosystem of the Hood Canal, as it displays the abiotic and biotic factors which compose the habitat. Abiotic factors are nonliving constituents of the ecosystem, and include the water shown in this picture as well as the air, temperature, and sunlight. Biotic factors displayed in the picture are the two herons, and the grass. The herons contribute to the ecosystem by eating and therefore maintaining the population of the fish and small animals living on the Hood Canal, and the grass contributes by providing nesting areas for birds. All of these factors combined compose an ecosystem.

 

 13. These are two river otters in the Woodland Park Zoo. They exemplify the term consumer as they depend mainly on a diet of fish, crustaceans, plants, amphibians, and insects. Although otters aren’t necessarily the first animal that comes to mind when the term consumer is mentioned, their diet causes them to qualify. River otters are secondary otters because they consume primary consumers. Primary consumers are typically herbivores and therefore only eat plants. River otters are secondary consumers because they depend on a diet consisting of organisms which eat plants, and are primary consumers. Most secondary consumers are either carnivores or omnivores, which describes the diet of a river otter because they consume both plants and other organisms.

 

 

14. Slugs are detrivores, or decomposers. This slug was found on one of the many trails that we hiked throughout our vacation, and they were everywhere…Detrivores are organisms that maintain a diet consisting of organic waste such as dead leaves, or for worms, soil.  

15. This is a picture of trees growing on top of a dead tree, which is an example of detritus. Detritus is dead organic matter, and the trees are growing on top of the dead tree because when the trees were seedlings, the forest floor was not an accommodating surface. Seedlings were more able to thrive on top of the dead tree (detritus) because the trunk provided minerals, moisture and heat. Over time, the trees growing on top of the supporting tree, referred to as a nurselog, overpower the dead tree and reach the ground.