Dinosaurs Open Part of North Campus!

Unless you're living in a cave somewhere (no offense to the troglobites out there), you've heard that we're opening a new Dinosaur Hall next week. In anticipation of this meteoric occassion all Museum staff were invited to preview the hall, which began with a jaunt through the soon to be open sections of the North Campus (car park, transition garden, entrance plaza, and footbridge). Even though these areas of the North Campus were only recently planted, we're already noticing wildlife visiting, including a ladybug that landed on me during the preview and another cat caught on camera trap!

Lost Ladybugs?
The ladybug that landed on me during the staff preview was a Multicolored Asian Ladybug, Harmonia axyridis. It's an introduced species from Japan, which has become very common in our area. This is the first ladybug of its kind that I've found in the North Campus, which brings the total for North Campus to seven species. I wonder what ladybug species number eight will be!

Multicolored Asian Ladybug, Harmonia axyridis

Curious Cats
After finding the ladybug on Thursday, Sam and I went out to the North Campus to set up our trusty camera trap. We weren't expecting to find much of anything over the weekend, but we wanted to give it a try. Sam scaled the living wall and installed the trap around the base of a palo verde tree.

Here's some footage of what we found!

Its another domestic cat, Felis catus. Incidentally, we can be sure that this cat is a different individual than the one caught on camera three weeks ago. The first cat had a lot more white markings. This is cat number two for Expo Park! As for what the bright, white, floating thing is, we're not sure. Maybe a leaf, or a caterpillar even?