280 days of Urbpandemonium #116

When referring to an animal of unknown sex, I try to default to female pronouns. It's only fair, male pronouns have been the default since--I don't know, all of recorded history I suppose, at least in the West. There's some biological merit to it, as well. Females are the norm, males are an aberrant version of the female concocted to provide genetic variation.

With spiders, males are distinctive enough that we bug people will often lead with the fact of their sex. "Well, first of all it's a male." Small relative size, slim not plump abdomen, and usually visibly large palps. Palps are leg-like appendages on the front end of the spider, used by the males to transfer sperm from their genitalia to the female's. I don't see them on this little spider, but I do see comically large front legs. One commenter already remarked that it looked like he skipped his lower body day at the gym.

I suspect that these front legs are used by this jumping spider Tutelina harti* as visual communicators. Many male salticids** wave their front legs in various distinct patterns. Sometimes they do it to communicate with other males, probably territorial messages. More importantly, they signal to the female, to indicate that they are males of the same species, to convince the larger more powerful female spider not to eat them.

Bugguide says that these spiders are "usually found on tree bark." I guess the fabric of my shorts was close enough.


* Tutelina was a Roman goddess who protected the crops. Harti refers to a man named Hart (dunno who). A hart is another word for a deer.

** "Family of dancers."

280 days of Urbpandemonium #117

July is the time for the reddish-brown stag beetles Lucanus capreolus to appear in Boston. They are so much larger than most of our other beetles that discovering one is something of an event. The beetles spend much of their lives as huge white grubs feeding within well-rotten wood. We encounter males like the one above, lumbering about looking to scuffle with other males, and mate with females.


We encounter females who drink tree sap and look for soft decaying stumps in which to lay their eggs.


They can be handled quite harmlessly--males fight one another with their big mandibles, but I've never suffered a pinch from them.


I always appreciate an insect who will pose nicely, and doesn't require macro lens for a decent photo. The male is from July 4th, while the female was found at our bug night event, on July 25th.

*From Lucania, an ancient district of southern Italy; Plinius the Elder used this name to describe the stag beetle. Names of European deer species -- Cervus elaphus (the red deer; elk in America), Capreolus capreolus (the roe deer), and Dama dama (the fallow deer) have all been used as specific epithets for various Lucanus species (L. dama has been synonymized with L. capreolus) (Fremlin 2010)

280 days of Urbpandemonium #118

This fairly large (over an inch long) moth was resting on our shed, when I came along and bothered it.


It drew its forewings back and flashed its high-contrast underwings at me. If I was a bird, would it have scared me away? It's successful enough that there is a whole category of moths called underwings, with different contrasting colors and patterns on the second set of wings.


This one is Catocala epione*


When it was a caterpillar it was over on my shagbark hickory tree, feeding on the leaves.

* Generic epithet Catocala is Greek meaning "beautiful below."Epione was a mythological Greek healer, wife of Aesclepius, mother of Hygeia, Panacea, Machaon and several others.

3:00 snapshot #2011: by special request

This blog's biggest fan was in town this past weekend, and really wanted to be in a 3:00 snapshot. How could I say no?
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