Are beavers as small as pencil erasers?
This is the time of year to look closely at where you are stepping when you are outdoors on your nature hike.
No, I am not going to admonish you about the pitfalls of encounters with venomous snakes. Nothing of the sort.
Instead, I want you to pay particular attention to any tree branches laying about that look somewhat odd or out of place.
The strange thing will be that these tree branches on the ground still have leaves attached to them. That seems unusual.
You would more nearly expect to find long-dead branches there, rather than branches that, just days previous, were part of the healthy, living part of the tree.
Pick up the fallen, leafy tree limb. Take a really close look at the end of the severed branch. You'll notice that it looks like the handiwork of a beaver that must be no bigger than a pencil eraser.
That's nonsense, of course; no treefelling beaver comes in that compact of a model.
What you are seeing is, in fact, the signature clue that is left behind by an insect called the twig girdler beetle. This small bug chews a circular cut that goes halfway through the living tree limb. Lifegiving water continues to go from the tree trunk to the tree leaves.
The leaves, in turn, combine sunshine and other items to produce simple sugars. The transportation tubing underneath the tree bark is ingeniously severed by the bug so that the tree food begins to accumulate in the tree branch tips. That is where the bug laid her eggs.
Eventually, Oklahoma's incessant wind twists the tree branch back and forth enough that it breaks free from the tree limb and goes tumbling to the ground. Once there, the bug eggs turn into young grubs, which dine on the sugar-fortified tree limb that their mother meticulously prepared for them.
Ain't nature grand?
— Neil Garrison, NewsOK Contributor