i didn't actually know much about scorpions, other than that they bear live young, which they carry on their backs, and that the constellations scorpius and orion chase each other across the sky, and other than the rumor that you can gauge a scorpion's toxicity by comparing the thickness of its tail to that of its legs, or alternately by looking at the size of the claws (allegedly, larger claws = less toxic). i wasn't able to confirm or refute either of these though - anyone know? i did find out that many scorpions glow under a blacklight, that they are found almost everywhere in the southern hemisphere except antarctica and new zealand, and that they have many anatomical features in common with spiders (common sense i guess, being in the same class), but also many unique ones - for more anatomy, see diagrams here and here.
(reconstructed in the pale, watery, wintry auckland sun - i can see my breath)
while spam was visiting, we made the necessary pilgrimage to the marktplatz, where we'd met 14 years earlier. in addition to startling some old friends, dodging hurled bakers' pans and hearing dubious tales of rabid local canines, we took a sunset walk around buck lake. i know i've nattered on about buck lake before, so i'll just post the pictures and let them speak for themselves.
(continuing to reconstruct the june-july trip to north america)
after the california weekend, i headed to the lake, while the pebbles went to vancouver for a week. the northwoods were as beautiful and peaceful as always, in their verdant summer foliage; the lake was like glass in the morning, and gave birth to millions of mayflies at dusk; the phoebes called their names all day long and darted around to feed their ravenous broods. the water was clearer than i'd ever seen it and the stones at the bottom could be seen even at night. my old friend spam stopped in for a few days and we swam, stargazed and scrabbled, and visited good people up at clv.
hmm... i plead jetlag? it's still webnesday in the US so let's go with that. ;) back to our regular schedule next week. in the meantime here are some interesting spider tidbits (spidbits?) from the interweb:
another beautiful jumping spider video from opo terser: Paraphidippus aurantius
and a few more of my own videos with the new camera. unfortunately i have absolutely no clue what kind of spider this is, and no idea where to even start IDing it. all i know is that i've seen a few of them, they've all been males, and they always have enormous pedipalps. maybe i'll call them dollies. ;)
all right, time for some backtracking. we’ve just returned from a lovely summery month in the US, during which time i managed to post exactly nothing (apart from half of the spider posts i was supposed to). and yet, i have over 3 gig of photos that need sorting and editing (and serious pruning), so perhaps if i do them in manageable, chronological chunks, i can reconstruct the trip. from the wistful vantage point of my midwinter desk.
things kicked off in california, following my 16th flight across the pacific, an unusual one because the pebbles and i were actually traveling together. we had a stopover in LA, during which we met up with a friend of mine from high school, whom we will call bendy. see exhibit a.
bendy took us to santa monica for a great mexican lunch and told us stories about the celebrities he runs into in the apple store in hollywood, where he works. among others, he has seen most of the cast of firefly (and even has something of a rapport with sean maher), plus many drool-worthy musicians. i wound up heading back to his flat in hollywood (that just sounds so cool) after dropping the pebbles back at the airport for his flight to vancouver, and we hung out there for a few hours, me trying to get the trans-pacific kinks out of my back and legs and bendy just doing some general yoga stretching. we got talking about acro-yoga, which has some close parallels with some of the acro-balance stuff bumbly and i have been doing in our circus class, and pretty soon we were trying out various balances, and even succeeded at one i had previously been convinced was impossible. excellent thai food wrapped up the looooong day and i slept like i was dead.
over the weekend, i headed to monterey bay for the biennial convention of ceph-heads organized through tonmo. there, i met up with a few good folks i had known previously, many more i had only known online and some entirely new but very cool others. there were squid dissections, talks on octopus and squid of all sizes, terrible ceph jokes and the invasion of a nearby chinese restaurant (with fish on the ceiling) – pretty much heaven.
two aquarium visits sandwiched the convention, just to add to the marine bliss. on the friday we checked out monterey bay aquarium (amazing seahorse exhibit at the moment and some lovely ceph tanks, but no mola mola).
and on the sunday we went to the california academy of sciences, which (in addition to its aquarium, including resident giant pacific octopus) has an amazing green roof and a three-story live rainforest exhibit.
thus fortified with oceany goodness (although apparently not everyone’s cup of tea, see below), i headed into the interior.
inkspotters! i have not been this excited about webnesday since i got to post the Porrhothele pics. are you ready? i know, i have been terribly delinquent and have not only missed two editions but also misnumbered the previous post (now fixed). i apologize, and i’m about to make it up to you in spades.
i
am currently visiting the natural history museum in santa barbara. (the absence of any posts from this trip so
far is a separate issue, to be rectified shortly.) and while poking through squid jars, of
course one eye is always peeled for other eight-legged, more animated
wildlife. cue the webnesday theme song
(um, now accepting submissions?)… yesterday, two little jumping spiders
(roughly of this ilk i think?) hopped across my workspace and were duly impounded for
observation. (and released, of course.)
here
they are – and i know salticids get disproportionate attention here, but look at them. can you really gaze into those four frontal
eyes and not be smitten?
well, that’s not the end of the story. today, no fewer than four individuals, all of this same species, appeared in various corners of the lab. for a brief moment i even thought i had several males and a female, but (luckily for anyone who quails at the thought of business time in the spider world) they all turned out to be males.
and while observing them, i began to wonder how males react when they bump into each other, as they must do fairly often (given that i found four of them in under ten minutes). fears of cannibalism did cross my mind, so i introduced them to each other slowly, through barriers at first. they seemed disinterested until they were actually sharing a petri dish and then look what happened.
my favorite part was when they got right in each other’s faces, literally eye to eye, and started pushing, while still posturing with the front legs.
there was no physical fighting – well, no violence, no biting (luckily for my conscience. although i was ready to separate them quickly if necessary) – just the alternating dance of the quivering pedipalps and reaching legs, and then the head-butting.
i don’t mind telling you, i was enthralled. and i don’t think i stressed them too much – made sure the stand-offs were between similar-sized individuals and didn’t expose them to each other for longer then a couple minutes; and all were released into their separate corners afterward. so, happy ending for everyone except the resident entomologist, whom i pestered a number of times with ‘hey, look what they’re doing now!’
ps, i have a new video camera. :)
oh, the shame. episode 26, the half-yearly anniversary of the weekly spider feature, is a week late. all i can say is, i'm on vacation, but as you will see, i haven't actually been neglecting the eight-leggers. only the celebritizing them online. so here are a selection of the fearsome beasts i've encountered in northern minnesota in the last two weeks. a little light on the info this week, too, i'm afraid, but a picture is worth... you know.
