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Photo by Dan Zarlenga, Missouri Department of Conservation.

By Don Corrigan

Residents in the Times reading area are no strangers to snakes. Forested properties near local homes mean the vipers can be as close as your fire pit wood pile or a rock border on your garden.

Powder Valley Conservation Nature Center in Kirkwood gets phone calls, emails and even photos of snakes found at residential homes. Residents want to know if the creature they took a selfie with is venomous.

The two most common venomous snakes in our area are copperheads and timber rattle snakes, according to Erin Shank, urban wildlife biologist at the conservation center. Visitors to Powder Valley can see these two poisonous snakes in captivity.

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Photo by Paul Burton/USFWS.

By Allison Hagene

Listed as endangered since 1955, the Hine’s Emerald Dragonfly has struggled to maintain healthy populations. One main concern is habitat loss – humans have destroyed their ecosystems for development and agricultural purposes, which not only eliminates food sources, but also changes water levels where the dragonflies lay their eggs. 

The farming industry has also caused setbacks for the dragonfly with the use of pesticides and herbicides. Toxic pollutants damage reproductive abilities, reduce healthy ecosystems and insect populations, and contaminate water sources – making them unable to support offspring.

The Hine’s Emerald Dragonfly is a unique insect with a long, dark body containing two yellow stripes, and large explosively green eyes. They live in high calcium carbonate spring-fed marshes and meadows where they eat mosquitos, gnats, and other small aquatic bugs. Dragonfly larvae can live up to five years, while adults live for, at most, seven weeks. Their short life span is filled with feeding, reproduction, and egg laying, making those seven weeks vital to species growth and survival. 

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Photo by MDC Staff, courtesy Missouri Department of Conservation.

By Allison Hagene 

The Missouri Gray Bat once flourished in caves across the southeastern U.S., but since 1976 they have been consistently documented as an endangered species. Living only in an estimated 11 caves across the country, the Gray Bat has been struggling to cope with human encroachment, cave disturbances and diseases in their underground living spaces. 

Human disturbance is posing a very real and growing threat to the Gray Bat’s population growth. When humans enter a nursery cave, they can scare mothers who abandon their young which then either die from starvation or fall out of the nest and die on impact. When humans also enter wintering caves, they disturb hibernating bats that, when woken early, use up fat reserves and die from starvation as well. Both issues can collapse a colony’s population and reproduction for the whole year. 

Conservation efforts are underway to try to preserve Gray Bat populations, including maintaining and protecting wintering and nursery caves from disturbances, as well as reducing pesticide use in surrounding areas. 

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