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.

The morning after our latest haboob I found an expiring Sphinx moth, battered by the winds and on its last legs.  It was a big one, not as colorful as some, but marked like bark in black and white, with three orange spots on its abdomen.  It’s a fairly large animal: about three inches long, with an abdomen like my little finger, except segmented and furry.  I’ve identified it as  Manduca rustica, the Rustic Sphinx (if you know different, please let me know), which as an adult moth feeds on deep-throated nectar flowers such as Petunias and Tecoma.

<< Manduca rustica (photos A.Shock, click to enlarge)

Although it’s probable that this individual was done in by the wind, it may also have been at the end of its life span anyway.  I carried it to the outdoor table, and took a few macro shots with my cell-phone macro lens.  That I got any results worth sharing is a bit amazing, since the lens, which is designed for a different cell phone than the one I own, has to be scotch-taped to the device.  (Seriously, scotch-taped to the device, not exaggerating.)

Anyway, here’s the sphinx’s face, with its big night-seeing eye, its furry head, and its coiled, straw-like proboscis, plenty long for reaching down the throats of flowers for the good stuff.

Doesn’t it look like a Jeep?

Those dark “headlights” are eyes, which jumping spiders, unlike most spiders, rely on to hunt.  I can count three pairs: two on the front (big and little) and one on the side (little).  See ’em?  There may be more…

We photographed this tiny jumping spider before relocating it outside, since the sofa was not a safe location for it.

So that you can fully comprehend its tininess, know that it’s sitting on my cell phone stylus, which is slightly smaller in diameter than a typical pencil.  Officially: dinkose.  It’s a Dinky Dude of the Desert, arachnid-style.

I don’t know enough about jumping spiders to know its common name, if it has one, or even its genus.  Anyone?  For more info, including technical identification keys and species accounts, click on jumping-spiders.com.  The photos running on the masthead are worth checking it out for.

(Photo by E, edited by A Shock)

Here’s a slightly arty image of an un-opened Potter Wasp nest on the front wall of our house, with a drawing pencil for scale.  Click here for more info on what these tiny clay pots are, and why the wasps build them.  One of these days, I hope to be in the right place in the right time, and see the new wasp break out and fly away.

(Photo A.Shock)

…of convergent evolution.

(photo A.Shock)

For those like me who need facts and a story, this is a Palo Verde Root Borer Beetle (Derobrachus geminatus, adult, fully 3″ long), posing for what I thought were post-mortem portraits this morning after I fished her out of the pool.  However, she was clearly heard to state “I’m not dead yet!” when she threatened me with her pliers-like mandibles.  She’s out there now, trundling around, still drying out I s’pose.  I didn’t have the heart to do her in, although her grubby children do not play well with others, and insist on voraciously damaging the roots of trees.  Get a load of the spiky thorax!

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).

Though the lady bug life cycle has been covered here before, I can’t resist posting this photo of a brand new Lady Bird Beetle and its recently exited pupal casing.

>> the bug and the box it came in. Click to enlarge, it’s a nice big file (photo A.Shock).

Just a couple of days ago, I’d noticed the pupa on an artichoke leaf in the veggie garden. It was practically the first evidence I’d seen of the spring lady bug generation’s progress since finding the eggs on the cilantro earlier this month. Later, I’d only managed to find one active larva, so I was pleased to locate this pupa. Sunday morning I went to show it to E, and there it was — split open now, while its erstwhile occupant, having backed out of the crack in the posterior of the casing, pumped its new flight wings full of hemolymph in the bright morning sun. The unripe-tomato-y quality of the elytra at this stage is perfect, starting out transluscent waxy-yellow and slowly deepening to the familiar cherry-tomato red. The spots appear and darken gradually like darkroom images, gaining contrast and intensity as the carapace dries and hardens.

Last fall our herb garden hosted a successful crop of parsley, cilantro, and Lady bird beetles (AKA Lady bugs).  But we only noticed the bounty of bugs when we found roving hordes of hungry beetle larvæ voraciously devouring hapless aphids.  Pictures of the process of larval metamorphosis were captured  and posted here, but all the eggs had already hatched, leaving the beginning of the adventure undocumented. Now the cycle has begun again, and happily this time we caught it from the start.

>>Here are lovely saffron-colored lady bug eggs on our bolting parsley, awaiting transition into fearsome predatory eating machines. (Thanks to E for the photo.)

We’ll have to be careful when we harvest for tabbouleh!

Which feels worse, the hollowed out jalapeño or the worm what done it?

Go ahead; click on it just to make yourself miserable.