Theraphosidae

My family annually goes to see the Bay Area Blonde Tarantulas making their way across the Mt. Diablo in Contra Costa County, CA. You can usually see at least three crossing the road on your way up the mountain. Two times previously we collected and mounted specimens, totaling two - not for academic collection per se, but more for display purposes. Anyway, this year we decided we'd take one of the males to a spot we knew had female burrows and see if we could help him get lucky. As luck would have it, we found an unmated female's burrow and placed him in optimal position to enter. He was taking his sweet time, so we left before he dared to signal her or enter the burrow, but fingers crossed! In the first picture below, you can see two of the female's legs in the burrow if you look closely.

Arachnida; Araneae; Mygalomorphae; Theraphosidae; Aphonopelma smithi
Common Name: Bay Area Blonde Tarantula

Tarantulas such as these are mostly nocturnal, and hide in burrows until a tasty meal comes within pouncing distance. They do not possess significant venom, as their size is more than enough to aid in catching prey, so their bites are more equivalent to bee stings. They are fragile, awkward spiders, and rarely venture far from their burrows. When the males reach maturity, which may be by their 7th year, they venture out of their burrows and begin walking across the land, hoping to come across the burrow of a female. When they find an open burrow, they enter and the male transfers his sperm pouch from his forelimb to the female. Once she accepts the packet, she may eat the male, though it is not uncommon for the male to escape. Once they leave their burrow in search of a female, they live only a few weeks. After the female has mated with the male, she spins a cover over her den, to prevent other male spiders from entering to mate. When we were searching for "available" females, we were looking for dens that did not have that web covering - surprisingly, most of the dens were covered, and after about 6 dens we found one that was open. There are more photos available in my Picasa album, but they are rather large, so I only put up a few.

Insect Festival

Here are a few pictures from the insect festival at Quail Botanical Gardens in Encinitas, CA. The collections were amazing - some of the displays had great colors and variety of insects! There were also a few large live insects, spiders, and other arthropods. I thought I overheard the woman talking about this giant stick insect say that they were becoming an invasive species here, but somehow I doubt it...I can't find any information about it online at any rate.

The spider-like creature is a sun spider, or Solpugid. The beetle collections mostly contain Cerambycidae and Scarabaeidae. The millipede isn't an insect, but I still think they're neat. The blue wasp is a member of Sphecidae, thread-waisted wasps. Blue wasps are among my favorite of Hymenoptera - they just look so cool. Anyway, hopefully one day I will be able to display a collection nearly as impressive.

Back from Monterey

Well, there will be no official collection entries until I return to San Diego where my pinning and identifying equipment is, but here are some teaser live photos of insects and other animals spotted during the trip to Santa Cruz and Monterey. Those pictured below include a moth, a stone fly, two ants (I am 99% certain that that second ant is a winged reproductive individual, not a wasp), a beetle (fairly certain), and two bees, in addition to a banana slug and a salamander/newt - I'll wait for Phil to respond with an identification since he is the amphibian expert. Also, contrary to the popular myth, the underside of a banana slug does NOT numb the tongue. I very thoroughly tested this. The two bees are not common bumble bees or honey bees, so I look forward to keying them.

It ended up being quite a productive trip, since we found a caddisfly and a stonefly, both new ORDERS, not just new families. The stonefly, of family Plecoptera, is one of the older insect orders. They start their lives as aquatic nymphs, as do dragonflies. I will elaborate more on this order once I key the specimen to family - it will probably be one of my first entries after this hiatus!

Theridiidae

I went out for a random night foray and saw a lovely black widow sitting in a corner. I tried to find food for her, but unfortunately beetles tend to fall through their very haphazard webs. The males are smaller and do not have the red hourglass shape on the abdomen. They court the female by bringing a dead insect as a nuptial gift, but of course run the risk of being eaten themselves. I have always liked black widows, since they are beautiful spiders, somewhat dangerous, and very cool hunters. I had the pleasure of capturing one and I threw a crane fly (tipulidae) into the jar with it. The crane fly was flying very fast and erratically, and the black widow was sitting at the bottom, a sticky thread between her front pair of legs, and in a split-second she lunged at the crane fly and caught it with the string. It was really remarkable - they have such amazing reflexes. Here are the lovely pictures.

Arachnida; Araneae; Araneomorphae; Entelegynes; Theridiidae; Latrodectus hesperus
Common Name: Western Black Widow

The family Theridiidae contains cobweb spiders, which spin webs that are three-dimensional or mesh sheets, instead of a traditional orb web. Usually these spiders have eight eyes, rarely six. The genus Latrodectus, which contains black widows, is widespread in the US. The venom is a neurotoxin, and symptoms of envenomation include swelling of the lymph nodes, profuse sweating, rigidity of the abdominal muscles, facial contortions, and hypertension. Antivenin is readily available, and no deaths have been linked to black widows since the 1940s. For more information on the biology of black widow venom, see my medical blog.

Araneidae

I do not usually post images if spiders, as they are not insects, but one of my favorite spiders in a resident of Hawaii. It is not a native species, but rather originated in India and Sri Lanka. It was introduced to Hawaii in 1985. Their populations are controlled by the Red-Vented Bulbul, a bird also from India, which is its only natural predator. The birds themselves are also an invasive species around the world, and in Hawaii they prey on many insects. The bird is not deterred by the Monarch butterfly's toxin, and so a white variety of the Monarch has developed, which is able to evade predation better than the orange morph.

Arachnida; Araneae; Araneomorphae; Araneoidea; Araneidae; Gasteracantha mammosa
Common Name: Asian Spinybacked Spider

Dipteran and Chilopoda (Centipede)

I went on an excursion today to try to find new insects. The usual trail was open again, so we went and I collected insects and more caterpillar feed. I decided to get some leafy ground weeds since grass is hardly nutritious and these caterpillars seem to crave variety in their diet. Most of the wild ones were smaller than my six, so I must be doing something right.

As for the non-insect specimen collected today, here are lovely pictures:

Arthropoda; Chilopoda; Scolopendromorpha; Scolopendridae; Scolopendra polymorpha
Common Name: Common Desert Centipede

This species comes in a variety of colors, hence the species name polymorpha. Its color range includes orange, yellow, blue, red, and various light-dark combinations. They tend to take cover under rocks and consume small insects, particularly crickets. It can reach a length of up to 5 inches and is common in the southwest United States.

By the by, I am going to need a new camera, specifically for macro photographs. I love the macro on my current camera, but for creatures smaller than 10 mm it just does not do them justice.