Category: Spiders

May 31st, 2016

5/31/2016

First night at the Firestone and had to take at least a little bit of a walk to see what was out there. A photo software glitch has been fixed and so hopefully for the next week or so I will be able to put up lots of pics.

Of note, I usually try to put identifications with my animal photos, but it is looking like there might not be enough time to do that, at least for now.

I could have put up a pic of this critter in profile, which would have been more familiar looking. But this really is a praying mantis (nymph stage) from above on a tree with cool bark.

The only reason I found this stick insect under these leaves is because I saw it fly and land there.

Ah yes, a frog. I will ID some of the more obvious species, but ones like this I will have to see if I can ID later.

I like this frog in the colorful and textured bits on the ground. Darn near impossible to see the thing with the naked eye, but the camera really grabbed it.

It never really stopped raining, so some things had drops of water on them.

And finally for now... a beautiful spider

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Flower Crab Spider (Misumena vatia) from Warren Center, Pennsylvania

9/5/2015

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These beautiful spiders don't spin webs, but like to sit on white flowers and wait for an insect to land. Very camouflaged! This one is a female, as the males are much smaller.

Female flower crab spider (Misumena vatia) from Warren Center, Pennsylvania

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wild stuff, Huntsman spider in Borneo

8/10/2015

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Borneo seems to be Huntsman central. I hadn't seen this guy before but likely not a great spider to get bit by.

Huntsman spider in Malaysia, island of Borneo.

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Another Borneo spider

4/13/2015

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Little time tonight for such things, but here is another spider from Gunung Mulu National Park on the Malaysian side of Borneo.

A huntsman spider from Gunung Mulu National Park in Malaysia, on the island of Borneo

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Costa Rica, a few more pics from the FCRE

9/7/2014

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It has been a busy, and fun, summer. Here are some last pics from the Firestone Center for Restoration Ecology in Costa Rica.

A beautiful cicada from the Genus Zammara

A large tarantula-like spider that was on the handrail at the program house.

The drivable road to the top of the property ends in the bamboo forest, but generally a high-clearance 4x4 is needed to get this far. We almost always walk up, and this bit is some 900-feet of elevation gain from the Program house.

I have been to the FCRE a number of times, but never in August. This assassin bug seems to be only around later in the summer. This seems to be a bee-killer assassin bug (Apiomerus vexillarius) but I would like a verification on the ID.

Likely this is the end of my pics from my week in Costa Rica. But there are quite a lot of pics from the FCRE in Costa Rica on this website if you wish to look at the old blog photos and also in the galleries.

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A correction and a few night pics

8/29/2014

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Seems like only four of us have been feeling poorly, so not quite "most of us." And several chicken-eaters had no problems. So the source of the troubles remains a mystery. But boy do the troubles hurt.

Last night I finally got back up to speed enough to take a short night hike after spending the day mostly in bed. And some pics from that bit are worth the wait.

An anole that was sleeping until I came along

This thing is amazing. I have no idea what it is so will need more time for an ID, but worth posting

Connor holds a Truando toad (Rhaebo haematiticus)

Another sleeping butterfly.

A "tink" frog, but don't have time to ID it

This looks like a small tarantula, and a spider I have not seen here before. Will take a bit of work to ID this one

A tailless whip scorpion (Amblypygidae)

Not sure if I got this species of owl butterfly on the blog yet, so here it is (Caligo sp.)

And, as a final test of my ID skills, I present what appears to be a terrestrial planarian. Which, I note, I have no clue about it other than it appears to be a planarian and is pretty cool.

This looks like a terrestrial planarian (flat worm), but certainly a critter I can't find and place easily.

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Firestone Center, Costa Rica day two

8/25/2014

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First order of business today is to note that I have competition!!! The students are blogging their trip, so to get all the goods on the trip you should also check out:

costaricathesis.wordpress.com

From what I've seen so far they are putting up a pretty fun bit.

From my end, I led an orientation walk of the whole property this morning, and only took one photo. The golden silk spider (Nephila clavipes) makes big webs, and apparently can capture big prey.

Golden silk spider (Nephila clavipes) with an owl-eye butterly (Caligo sp.). The spider is about four inches long

Afterwards, I went over and got a new machete for Connor. Greddy, the land manager for the Firestone Center was kind enough to put a sharp edge on it.

Machetes come very dull. But Greddy fixed that up

And then dinner and well, another hike up the hill to look for frogs and other things that can only be found at night in the tropical forest. I will note that it is something like 800 feet of elevation gain to get up to the ponds with the frogs and such, so it is not a trivial bit to get up there.

But on the way up we saw:

A nice moth with colorful underwings

Katydids making katydids

Looks like a tree cricket

A pretty rough-looking owl butterfly (Caliga sp.)

And then there is the stuff we saw at the top of the Firestone. Very fun evening on top of the hill.

The first critter was this giant spider on a banana plant

This neon-colored grasshopper was a new one for me on the property.

And of course there were red-eyed tree frogs (Agalychnis callidryas), but not as many as we see earlier in the summer

Wasps, check that box, as they are always around

Cool looking dragonfly

Frogs were a key part of the night walk, but I don't have the time or materials to identify them right now. I will post more photos, and hopefully have the IDs, later

Near the end of the walk up on top, we spotted this leaf-legged bug (probably Genus Anisoscelis) which was beautiful

I have a couple more interesting pics from the hike, but will have to put them up tomorrow as too darn late here to do more. Gotta sleep at least a little bit.

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Some arachnids from Gomantong Caves of Borneo

8/12/2014

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Lots of arachnids in the caves. Here are a few with more to come.

A Harvestman in the caves of Gomantong.

Another pic of this Harvestman

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Life is the pits

7/15/2014

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Today's mission was working with Guy van Rentergem, an engineer from Belgium. He is the project cartographer and videographer among other things. Today he needed to locate some of the pit entrance up on the hill above Simud Hitam and I agreed to go along and take pictures and help out as I could.

Guy at work

We headed up top to see what was what. The hill is pretty darn steep, but there are trails and in a number of places wooden ladders and rope handlines. The trails are well-maintained because the bird nests are so valuable that there are guards at every entrance year round.

Working our way up the hill on a steep trail

And there are a couple giant King Kong gates to keep out nest thieves

Near the top of the hill were the entrances we were interested in. They dropped into both the entrance passage and the bit pit in Simud Hitam. The views were spectacular, with the giant open air pit and the swiftlets flying around and small waterfalls. World class beautiful. Very hard to photograph with the sun hitting some spots and deep shade in others. But I did what I could.

One of the openings to the big pit. I'm guessing that this opening is about 200 feet above the floor

One of the waterfalls had a rainbow effect going on. Guy was making videos of all the things we saw today, and he got some very good footage today

Careful when you grab that video recorder Guy, that spider is in the Hunstman family

I still don't have a decent shot of the male, but my shot of the female white-crowned shama worked

I'm going to break this into two posts so as not to make any one post too huge. I'll end with a random pic.

How about another orangutan sighting! This youngster and its mama were eating the fruits off the vines. They were very hard and you could really hear it crack when they bit into it

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Dallas, Pennsylvania part 2

6/20/2014

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A few more shots from this area. I was hoping to be able to ID some of this stuff, but limited luck. I will update IDs if I can work them out later.

A plume moth in the Pterophoridae family. Looks like the genus Hellinsia, but of that i can't be sure. These are quite common in the area.

This looks like a European skipper (Thymelicus lineola) but am only reasonably sure about this ID. The European skipper in an introduced species that has done well in most of the northeaster US.