… “Ossuary: an archæology of resurrection” in the show Death and Rebirth at Maryville University’s Morton May Gallery in St.Louis.  The show will be up until this friday, December 2.  Click here for details about the show and about the Ossuary.

<< Detail (photo and piece, A.Shock)

On our way home from our weekend getaway, E and I stopped at Montezuma Well National Monument.  It’s one of our favorite places: a compact confluence of archæology, geology, and natural history. If you haven’t been there while visiting central Arizona, I highly recommend it.

>> Montezuma Well and beautiful fall color (all photos in this post either A or E Shock; click to enlarge)

As we were walking back to the truck, admiring the glow of the cottonwoods in the creek bed and dramatic clouds in a sapphire blue sky, I remembered to look down.  It was a good thing I did: underfoot were a couple of spiders.  Unaware of each other or of us, they were not going in straight lines as if to get from point to point, but were moving around deliberately, as if looking for eight lost contact lenses.  Each was a moderately large animal, the size of an adult wolf spider.  But they had round cephalothoraxes, and were black with lots of gray spiky hairs on their abdomens and stocky legs.  I bent over for a closer look, and wondered if I were seeing tiny tiny tarantulas.  Tiny for a tarantula, that is — they were still fairly large spiders, about an inch and a half from toe to toe.

<< on the go, places to be, females to find

We watched them for a while, got some pictures, and went on our way, hoping the squabbling tourist family on the trail behind us wouldn’t accidentally flatten the little guys through inattention.

Back on the highway in cell phone range, and uncertain if we’d really seen tarantulas, I consulted the internet and discovered this site: So You Found a Tarantula?  (In case you ever need to know how to transmit a live tarantula through the US Postal Service — and apparently there are good reasons to do this — this is your site.) It solicited questions, specimens for ID, and generated answers about things tarantular, including citizen science and advice about tarantula husbandry.

>> “Do not get too close: I am assuming the posture that indicates I am willing to kick irritating urticating hairs off my abdomen at you.”

Through this post on the website of the American Tarantula society, Dr. Brent Hendrixson of Millsaps College is trying to increase what’s known about American tarantulas, which for all our familiarity with them from heebie-jeebie movies turn out to be poorly understood in terms of their systematics and life history.

<< Keen sandal for scale.  Tiny tarantula is just to the left of the yellow leaf.

The website was fascinating, but it assumed you already knew you’d found a tarantula — it wasn’t set up to answer the question “Did I find a tarantula?”  And we weren’t sure: aren’t all tarantulas huge hairy hand-sized horrors?  Other tarantulas I’ve seen in the wild or in captivity were all enormous.  If tarantulas we had seen, then they were “toy” tarantulas, the chihuahuas, the tea-cup tarantulæ of the arachnid world.

After a little more research on the Web I was still undecided about their tarantularity, and decided to email Dr. Hendrixson photos of one of our dinky dudes asking if we had seen tarantulas, and if so, what kind?  Within minutes, I’d received an email reply from him: “Definitely a tarantula.”  This was exciting!  Better yet was the next part: “There are a number of ‘small’ species in Arizona and it turns out that this one is most likely undescribed (i.e., doesn’t have a name yet).”

>> Possibly, these were adult males  wandering about searching for females’ burrows, where the ladies were waiting for male callers.

Sure enough, according to this website, there are 14 species of tarantula, all in the genus Aphonopelma, that live in Arizona: three in Maricopa, three in Pima, three in Coconino, etc.  But in Yavapai County, situated between Coconino County and Maricopa County, no tarantulas have been scientifically described.

This doesn’t mean that we discovered an unknown, new species of tarantula (although it is a possibility).  It’s just that biologists haven’t poked around enough tarantula burrows to know who answers the door in this location — it could be an already described species that also lives in an adjacent county.  We’ll have to wait to see what science decides.

In the meantime, we can fantasize about eponymous lightning striking twice: first Thermogladius shockii, now Aphonopelma shockii?  Well, of course not (that’s not how scientific nomenclature-giving works), but you can’t blame us for pretending.  Nevertheless, I’m still excited about having spotted diminutive, un-named tarantulas in the wild, who are living their lives entirely unconcerned that no one has ever slapped a latinate moniker on their hirsute posteriors.

Bonus etymology

All American tarantulas belong to the genus Aphonopelma.  According to Henry F. Beechhold, this name is derived from the Greek elements aphonos, “silent”, and pelma, “[sole of the] foot”.  (I haven’t cracked Liddell and Scott on this one, so we’ll have to take his word for this.)  I think it’s unfair of tarantulas — even tiny ones — to be pussy-footed; I’d rather be able to hear them coming. On the other hand, I once heard the click of a cockroach’s feet as it walked across ceramic tile, and that was fairly disturbing, so maybe, on second thought, silence is golden.

E and I managed a bit of a getaway northward this weekend.   We’re back home now, unsure if we were gone a month or a minute.  But I’ll be putting up some images from the trip to prove we were somewhere else, for however long it was.  Here’s one from late Sunday afternoon, of yuccas and the Bradshaw Mountains:

I don’t usually favor the hectic clarity of unrepentant HDR editing — it can be used subtly to great effect — but the Arizona landscape is able to stand up to the full treatment.  The heightened color and clarity imposed by all-out HDR supplies a fairytale quality that suits the country, as if the hopped-up postcard images filling the rotating metal racks in the tourist shops were really real.  This photo was shot and edited on my iPhone.

Me: reminiscing about our trip to New Zealand a while back.  You: trying to Spot the Bird.

It shouldn’t be too hard, but here’s a hint: you’re looking for a parrot.  Now don’t go clicking on the photo to enlarge it right off the bat, you’ll make it too easy!  (And, by the way, it’s a giant file, so if you click twice, you’ll get a very large image of a partially obscured parrot on your screen.)

And on the subject of New Zealand ornithology, if you enjoy a nice kiwi, click here and watch the video.

Update: photo key is here.

I rolled back into Phoenix from Tucson earlier today — the drive seemed nearly instantaneous and was marvelously uneventful, although I did miss the bumper crop of towering dust devils swirling in the dry creosote flats on the Gila River reservation that I’d seen on the way down but was unable to photograph safely from the driver’s seat.  And the windshield made the trip intact, unlike last time.  And once again I failed to stop at the ostrich farm to take pictures as intended, but it was smack in the middle of the day as I zipped by, and it was so damn hot…

Emma the (real live) Desert Box Turtle nose to nose with a clay coati >>

So now I’m at home being given Stink Back by the felines, coddling the pool back to cleanliness after a dust storm that hit after I left, and rounding up moribund insect life that had made indoor sport for the same felines in my absence, and the email is working again as inexplicably as it wasn’t working earlier, and things may return to normal soon.  The Tucson Bird and Wildlife Festival was a good show, sales-wise, and I got a chance to meet new folks, visit with bird festival friends, and send Three Star Owl pieces off to new homes, which is always a good thing.  If you missed the Festival, be sure to look into it next year. Thanks, Tucson Audubon Society, for a great effort and a well-organized and graciously hosted first-time event!

Even better, I had some fun with friends — I stayed with Kate, and she and Dustin and I talked and ate good food, and I met JoJo and Dave and saw Bri’s fine octopus (oh, if I’d only gotten a picture: my sub-theme here seems to be missed shots), and netflixstreamed Jim Jarmusch’s film Dead Man, and went to Copper Country resale emporium (see swell carved boxes scored there >>), and ogled their current beading frenzy.  As usual I left her home feeling that I’d taken away more than I’d left behind, which was physically true because Kate sent me away with many excellent things like harlequin boxes and an articulated silver manpart charm (with a chain to pull to make it either alert or waggle), and more.  I can’t show you the very special thing that came home with me, because I have to check with Dustin first, and show it to E (for whom it’s intended) but I will later, maybe.  And we saw the Gargoyle House >>

And now I’ve got to be ready to hit the ground running, because there is a lot to do, like get the owls to their people…

….Three Star Owl is hitting the road!

For three days — Thursday, Friday and Saturday August 4, 5, and 6 2011, I’ll have a booth at the Southwest Wings Birding and Nature Festival in Sierra Vista, AZ.

For more info about the festival, click HERE.

<< VLO (Very Large Owl) effigy and a couple of coati tails.

Special Note: THERE WILL BE OWLS.  Also, lots of mugs: hummers, horned lizards, corn, ravens, and more!

Hope you can make it!

Updated with possible bug ID, see bottom of post:

E sent me a photo he took of this brightly colored centimeter-long bug marching up the stone steps of the Yellow Crane Tower in Wuhan, China. Since there’s not much going on at home here in AZ, except ongoing wrestling with both the machinery and chemistry of a swimming pool that’s picked a very bad time to become unswimmable, I thought I’d shamelessly post vicariously from China instead.

The shape of the bug’s carapace, coloration and pattern reminded me of something — something Chinese — and, when my brain churned up what it was, I inset an image of it into E‘s bug photo.  And, no, “Chinese opera mask bug” is not the insect’s real name.  I have no idea about insects, so this guy’s identity is a mystery to me.  Any ideas?  It’s probably not poisonous — maybe — but it really wants you to think it is!  And, it’s on the go: note the blurred-with-lightning-fast-action right-hand mid-leg!

And, speaking of poisonous, here’s a sight E caught in a public place in Wuhan: 50 gallon drums of Chloroform rusting under a staircase.  For when you really, really, need to make sure something’s asleep…

(Both photos E.Shock)

Update:

With the help of Google (I searched “red black white hemipteran china”) and the What’s this bug website, I think this guy is the immature form of Lycorma delicatula, which is a Fulgorid leafhopper.  They are native to southern China, but have invaded the Korean peninsula, apparently at least in part through lumber imports, where they are considered a pest (see fun Korean video here).

So what’s new?  Underpass art along Hwy 60 at Devil’s Canyon Bridge.

Other way to consider this issue: Is the cat amenable to Show Procedure?

Go ahead, click to enlarge. (Photo A or E Shock)

updated:

Wait, I didn’t think I would need to explain that this was found art, not made-by-me art.

“In the dark was a boojum, you see,” to paraphrase Lewis Carroll.

The javelinas, bats, and skunks get to see it like this all the time. But before last friday night, I’d never seen a boojum in the moonlight.

Turns out waxing gibbous is a good look for the strange tree.

(Boojum, Fouquieria columnaris, or cirio in Spanish, “candle”. Photo A.Shock, Boyce Thompson Arboretum)