Megan's Nature Nook
Nature Notes, Phenology, Photography, Fun Facts, Trips, Maybe Even a Bad Joke or Two... and More!
This week a co-worker and I were out on a hike at the Minnesota Valley National Wildlife Refuge when we came across an animal crime scene, or as we call it, WSI: Wildlife Scene Investigation. I will spare you the details (and most of the pictures) of this crime scene, but long story short, we believe an owl got an Eastern Cottontail Rabbit (Sylvilagus floridanus) as a meal. We found large blood spots, a blood trail, gut pile, fur, scat, and lastly, blue snow! I can see where most of these parts come into play during a predator-prey interaction, except for the blue snow – what in the world?! It turns out, rabbit urine can turn blue! When Eastern Cottontails eat the twigs and bark of Common Buckthorn (Rhamnus cathartica), an invasive species, their urine turns blue. A chemical in the Buckthorn is excreted in their urine. Initially the urine is yellowish to brown, but within 10 minutes or so, sunlight reacts with the chemical and changes the urine to blue. So, no you aren’t crazy, and no there aren’t smurfs running around in the woods; it’s just rabbits eating Buckthorn causing the blue snow.
Thank you to Elana for the photo and for always being up for a hiking adventure so we can find cool things like this!
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