Bluegill (Lepomis macrochirus) The Bluegill is the Illinois State Fish, and rightly so. If an Illinoisan has only caught one fish in their life, there’s a good chance it was […]
Fish Friday with…. the Bluegill
Category: natural history
Fish Friday with… the Rainbow Smelt
Rainbow Smelt (Osmerus mordax) Netting buckets of Rainbow Smelt once provided Chicagoans and Lakefront suburbanites with an annual rite of near-spring. News that spawning smelt had begun to run sent […]
Fish Friday with… the Starhead Topminnow
Starhead Topminnow (Fundulus dispar) At just three inches long, the Starhead Topminnow invites predation. But as they say at the Charles Darwin School of Business, predation spurs innovation. “Starhead Topminnows […]
Fish Friday with… the Walleye
Walleye (Stizostedion vitreum) The Walleye can reach 36 inches in length. As you might guess, a yard-long sport fish offers sport indeed. The range map above, courtesy of the Atlas […]
Fish Friday with… the Chinook or King Salmon
Chinook or King Salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) The largest North American salmon, the Chinook or King Salmon grows to 58 inches and can weigh over 30 lbs. The Chinook, like the […]
Fish Friday with… the Northern Pike
Northern Pike (Esox lucius) In middle school, I knew a kid with one of those dads who spent every spare moment fishing. This man went straight from work to the […]
Fish Friday with… the Northern Brook Lamprey
Northern Brook Lamprey (Ichthyomyzon fossor) A poll on Favorite Fish of Illinois would presumably return zero votes for any lamprey. Granted, most of us do not consider the lamprey a […]
Flammulina velutipes, the space shuttle mushroom
Flammulina velutipes (Curtis) Singer Edible, but tough. Despite appearances, the commercially produced “enoki” mushroom found in many grocery stores is a cultivated form of this mushroom. One of the best-known […]
Entoloma salmoneum, an attractive fungus
Entoloma salmoneum (Peck) Saccardo Entoloma salmoneum can be found growing alone or scattered in leaf litter under hardwoods, or in moss under conifers; frequently on rotting, moss-covered conifer logs. When […]
On Mutinus elegans, a mushroom both naughty and smelly
Mutinus elegans (Montagne) E. Fischer Usually at least partially submerged in the ground; appearing like a whitish to pinkish or purplish “egg” up to 4 cm high; when sliced, revealing […]
The Stalker: Excerpt from Curious Encounters with the Natural World
It was my first day on the Falkland Islands, and our group of five headed to Volunteer Point. I felt as though I was not supposed to know the point’s […]
200 Years of Illinois: Golden Nature Guides
Born on July 12, 1909, Herbert S. Zim taught at the University of Illinois in the 1950s. It was during his years in Champaign-Urbana that Zim penned or cowrote several of […]