Tag: Canada
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92/150: The Canadian Cicada, true North strong and free
Animalia: Arthropoda: Insecta: Hemiptera: Cicadidae: Okanagana: Okanagana canadensis (Provancher, 1889) Canadian Cicada is a very fitting name for this species as it is the most northerly found cicada, being seen as far north as the North West Territories. They can be found throughout Canada and the northern United States. Although it has been found in many…
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77/150: Mapleleaf Mussel – Important environmental indicators of Canadian Rivers and Lakes
Animalia: Mollusca: Bivalvia: Unionoida: Unionidae: Ambleminae: Quadrula: Quadrula quadrula (Rafinesque, 1820) The Mapleleaf mussel is a freshwater mussel found in North America. Mapleleaf mussels are a threatened species in Ontario since 2008 and have completely disappeared from Lake Erie, Detroit and Niagara rivers. The main threats to this species are habitat destruction, invasive Zebra mussels…
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76/150: Find out why the Grey Jay is Canada’s new National Bird!
Animalia: Chordata: Aves: Passeriformes: Corvidae: Perisoreus: Perisoreus canadensis (Linnaeus, 1766) The Grey Jay (P. canadensis) is a songbird from the Family Corvidae, also sometimes called the Canada Jay or Whiskey Jack, derived from the Indigenous name Wisakedjak. The Grey Jay is considered one of the smartest birds in the world along with other Corvids who…
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75/150: Old bold and sweet, the Sugar Maple
Plantae: Magnoliophyta: Magnoliopsida: Sapindales: Acer: Acer saccharum (Marshall) Wow! Can you believe we’re half way through our 150 posts about biodiversity? As you wear your red and white today, bearing the proud red maple leaf, you may wonder why a leaf? Why this leaf? In 1964, the well-known red and white Canada flag was adopted…
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DNA barcoding and Malaise traps capture the remarkable diversity in Canada’s National Parks
Hi everyone! As some of you may know, we here at BIO spend a great deal of our field work sampling in Canada’s beautiful National Parks. In fact, from 2012 to 2014, BIO and Parks Canada partnered up to complete a massive national barcoding project that aimed to map out the country’s arthropod biodiversity: the…