Catherine and I spent our last full day on the Island visiting her field site at Island View Beach. The weather was cool with a bit of rain, and it was a good time to explore the driftwood and dunes looking for arthropods.
The Formica obscuripes colony I visited earlier this year was busy and seems to have some reproductives emerging.
These ants are colourful and charismatic.
The winged adults were not flying (yet) but seemed ready to do so when conditions are right.
A dance fly (Empididae) waiting on a grass leaf.
A male Zebra Jumper (Salticus scenicus) scoping around for females. These guys have massive chelicerae!
A soldier among workers of the western subterranean termite, Reticulitermes hesperus.
There were quite a few Dysdera crocata hiding under the logs. Catherine and I learned that these can live up to four years in captivity!
A particularly large and pretty giant house spider, Eratigena duellica.
This tiger crane fly bears some superficial similarity to a male black widow… The same long orange-yellow legs with dark joints anyway.
Another crane fly from head-on.
I do not know what this spider might be, and this is the only shot I got…Any ideas?
Tenebrionids live a long and presumably boring life. This one is feeding on moss, which I guess is good, but not my favourite.
This Phidippus johnsoni was the only other jumper we encountered. The Habronattus were not active.
Of course, the widows were quite abundant as usual. We saw many females, none with egg sacs, and no males…Our search was not extensive though. We were hoping to see some of the large overwintered morph males such as the one I encountered last week.
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