The Urban Pantheist

I wouldn't let myself get away with this substandard photograph for this project, but I know that you can just click here and see amazing examples of the same animal. This of course is a female Phiddipus audax* sometimes called the daring jumping spider. They have a knack for surviving around humans, hunting at windowsills and other spots where insects congregate. The "mask" on the abdomen and the green chelicerae are distinctive. These spiders are so charismatic that some people keep them as pets like mini-tarantulas.


* Phidippus: "Likely from Cicero's oration (speech) De Rege Deiotaro; Phidippus was a slave who was physician to King Deiotaros. Phidippus: Greek, 'one who spares horses'." Audax: literally bold or daring. An apt description of this tiny creature who seems unafraid of the giants around it.

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."

I opened a door to an office--it was a small building and the office opened directly to the outdoors, where I was. I poked my head in and interrupted a conversation between 2 of my coworkers to tell them about my observations regarding carpenter bees and paper wasps around their building. As I was exlaining that these scary insects weren't really anything to worry about I became distracted by this beautiful little jumping spider Platycryptus undatus. It was on the open door and jumped to the sidewalk. I dropped to the ground on my hands and knees to photograph it, cementing my reputation at work as the weird bug guy.

Sunday was sunny and warm! We stayed in the yard most of the day, doing yardwork (Alexis) and loafing about (me).

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Here's a very random set of photos that are in my folder preventing me from doing anything else until I post them. This first one is an ant doing something weird, I think tending a scale insect to get honeydew, but I've never really seen a scale insect and don't know if that's what this is.

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This yellow bear Spilosoma virginica was in the back part of the yard, near the perennial beds.

The yellow bear looks like an all-yellow version of the more familiar wooly bear. Unless it's an individual that looks like an all-white wooly bear, or one that looks like an all-reddish brown wooly bear. This caterpillar has a wide range of possible coloration. As an adult, it's an almost all-white moth called a Virginia tiger moth. The species is widespread and a generalist, making it a fairly common caterpillar to come across.



Bonus jumping spider! This large male salticid circled the kitchen, high up on the walls.

This one made the sad mistake of lurking on the toilet seat. It was partially mangled when the seat was dropped. I think it was an immature running crab spider.


This jumping spider was much more fortunate, lurking instead on the exterior wall of the house. Much safer there. I couldn't really identify it from this picture, but I'm happy to say we seem to have a lot of jumping spiders around.

Jumping spider and moss sporangia, Exeter.


Hover fly.

Portland is nice and all--look at this city park.  But we wanted to get away from this hustle and bustle and out to the country.  A few more pictures from Forest Park, and then our trip out of Portland.
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I have to admit, one of my favorite things about working where I do, is that there are many more bugs than in the city.



Thread-legged bug. ( Read more... )