By Phoebe Coburn and Morgan Graham
In honor of Valentine’s Day, we’re highlighting a special kind of friendship: interspecies friendships.
Coyotes and Badgers
This remote camera trap footage of a badger and coyote traveling through a culvert together was recently captured by the Peninsula Open Space Trust. The badger and coyote’s playful behavior is endearing—but their reason for being together has a purpose other than playtime. Badgers and coyotes have been known to hunt as a team—the Navajo passed along stories of the bond between badgers and coyotes for generations. In the early 1990’s, a badger biologist named Steven Minta observed that on our very own National Elk Refuge, more coyotes hunt with badgers than hunt alone, and coyotes with badger buds catch a third more ground squirrels than solo coyotes. Minta theorized that the relationship benefits both animals—a badger will flush rodents from their burrows to the coyote waiting above ground, or a coyote standing guard will send the rodents burrowing, right into a badger’s mouth. But, if the badger and the coyote were to have Facebook pages, their relationship status might be “It’s Complicated.” Coyotes also eat badger babies. In the spirit of Valentine’s Day, we can reflect on how two species who undoubtedly have their differences, are able to find common ground(squirrels) and work together.
Photo by Tom Koerner-USFWS
Moose, Magpies, and Ticks Oh My!
You may have seen pictures of oxpeckers riding on the backs of water buffalo, zebras, elephants, and giraffes. It’s nature’s quintessential display of a symbiotic relationship—the oxpecker gets a delectable tick meal, and the mammal is liberated of the parasite. But have you seen that magpies do the same for moose and elk here in Jackson Hole? This New York Times article illustrates just how troublesome ticks can be for moose and elk:
“They [ticks] clump together and infest by the thousands, remaining on a host all winter, expanding to grape size when fully engorged. They can drain all the blood from a moose calf, and are credited with giving the moniker ‘ghost moose’ to those that groom themselves hairless.”
Moose and elk who are willing to host their prattling magpie friends are rid of the festering ticks, and the magpies are rewarded with the perfect (para)site to hold a party. Yummy!
Clark’s Nutcracker and Whitebark Pine
The tightest of all friendships might be the Clark’s nutcracker and whitebark pine—so tight they’ve been called “evolutionary soul mates.” One cannot flourish without the other.
Photo by Marshal Hedin
The whitebark pine, the majestic icon of the subalpine, rely on Clark’s nutcrackers to disperse their seeds. A single Clark’s nutcracker can pack up to 150 whitebark pine seeds under its tongue, and then fly throughout the Tetons and beyond, stashing the seeds for future meals. The forgotten caches grow up into whitebark pines.
Taza Schaming, who studied Clark’s nutcrackers as part of her Ph.D. at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, found that when the whitebark pine cone crop failed in 2011, 79 percent of the birds abandoned the study area in Bridger-Teton National Forest. Schaming also found that in years when the whitebark pines failed to produce cones, she couldn’t find any breeding nutcrackers the following spring. She theorized that the birds were in such poor condition after a season forgoing the nutritious whitebark seeds that they couldn’t breed, or they chose to skip breeding because they sensed tough times ahead.
Blister rust and mountain pine beetle outbreaks throughout the West are decimating whitebark stands, but it’s not just the Clark’s nutcracker that are hurting. Over 100 other species feast on the forgotten caches.
AND YOU!
Lastly, of all these interspecies bonds, there’s one that’s very close to home. You! The most common interspecies friendships include humans and dogs, humans and cats, and humans and livestock. People have loving relationships with everything from chinchillas to yaks—but it’s not just domestic animals that we can develop bonds with. Here in Jackson, we relate to our wildlife neighbors in both positive and negative ways. This Valentine’s Day, don’t forget to appreciate how lucky we are to see wildlife in our backyard, and count yourself extra lucky if you spot some unlikely critters canoodling.