My first adult incognita of the year. Like birds, wolf spider males are often more eye catching than the females. In the case of this species, this means a bolder pattern with greater contrasts like this one here.
Males mature ahead of the females, but I think I also observed a female with only one molt to go which means they’ll start maturing soon too.
I’m just learning how to recognize females as they approach maturity. At present I’m assuming that if they’re big enough to be recognizably male and they aren’t, then they must be females.
The timing appears to simultaneous across its range, with recent observations from Oklahoma, Kansas, and for the first time ever, Louisiana. Even those that have been lab raised since last October are on schedule with the first male molting into an adult last week.
It was a day when, like it or not, we got up hours before sunrise. Trying to paddle down a reach of the Brazos River on the last day of June, any boating crew is well advised to start early and finish early. Unlike most of the days in the rainy first half of 2024 this one promised to have few clouds, and therefore the full intensity of the midsummer sun.
Bluffs. Photo by Peggy Connor
We looked at weather apps as we rode along that describe the expected true air temperatures and the now ever so popular “FEELS LIKE” index. We noted that the “Feels Like” index was exactly the same for Houston, Waco, Terlingua, and Las Vegas, Nevada. All of these places have different levels of humidity due to their locations on the North American continent. But for the most part they all receive the same amount of solar radiation (sunlight) on any given day. The locations where the humidity was higher Houston and Waco were blessed with lower temperatures but they “felt” to be the same temperature as the two chosen desert localities. This is no new discovery: IN SUMMERTIME IT IS HOT. Therefore it “FEELS HOT.” Always has!
Fishing Spider. Photo by Victoria St. Everett
As it was, we got into the river and launched boats at 7:33 AM. Angie and Adam dropped us off under the Highway 7 bridge with Victoria, Alan, and Peggy in three boats. The river level was gently dropping into the 2400 cfs range after being higher during the wee hours of the morning. This was pretty-clear, cool water from Lakes Whitney and Aquilla that was being released upstream of Waco. The flow rate pushed us downstream and even in this wide, placid stretch of the Brazos you did not have to work hard to move rapidly. We saw Great Blue Herons, heard woodpeckers, and watched Bluff Swallows entering and leaving their nest holes in the colonies burrowed into the red soil riverbanks. Cliff Swallows mobbed the bridges where they had huge colonies of mud nests glued to the underside of the concrete structures.
The wide Brazos River. Photo by AE Rudd.
Victoria was in the lead when she passed an antlerless white-tailed deer swimming across the river. You could see why the cattle drovers from the Texas coastal plains always pushed their herds upstream of Waco before trying to cross the Brazos on the northward cattle drives. This deer was stuck below a high, steep, red alluvial soil embankment. Its thrashing hooves could not gain traction to climb the bluff and it repeatedly fell back into the river and was washed downstream where it would try again to clamber up the slick red clay. Finally, it arrived at a point where a small creek entered from the eastern shore, and it rapidly disappeared up the slope of this creek-bed.
I was reading about mammals’ swimming abilities recently, and the author pointed out that swimming motions are directly derived from walking motions. Humans (and probably other hominids) are a rare exception to this rule, and we must learn to swim with motions other than our walking strides. Even goofy arboreal species of mammals like tree sloths are surprisingly talented swimmers. I would like to travel back in time 16,000 years and watch a giant ground sloth swim across the Brazos River.
The trip was fast. We traveled 4.9 miles by kayak and canoe in 1 hour 35 minutes. We had a perfect pull-out point at the concrete boat ramp at Falls on the Brazos Park. A big thank you goes to the Falls County Commissioners court for keeping this old park open access. The recent two months of flood stage water levels have rebuilt sand and gravel bars and scoured clean the riverbed. Every river benefits from a good flushing to renew the system. I had to risk exposure to the heat to get a quick look at the cleaned-up face of the Brazos.
Wolf spiders usually carry egg sacs attached to the spinnerets at the back of the abdomen. They will pull the egg sac forward under their sternum to protect it when feeling threatened so I expected to see the sac still attached to the spinnerets with silk in the ventral view. What I did find was the spinnerets in a jumble and apparently not working right. Until the spiderlings emerge and climb on her back, she won’t be able to catch prey or eat without putting the sac down. She seems prepared to do whatever is necessary.
Spider courtesy of Alan Rudd/Edwards Ranch.
I suspect this species spends a lot of time preying on smaller Pardosa wolf spiders on the lake shore. Without better than average photos including a ventral view, this story would never be known. As it is, we’ll never know how it ends. Or how she managed to make the egg sac in the first place.
I’ve been checking my local Hogna ‘incognita‘ spiders since late last year and looking forward to the time when I can get some good photographs of adults. They’ve already started to grow rapidly, and at 5:15 AM on June 15 I found my first sub-adult male. A few more molts and they’ll be adults!
More good stuff outside. Grab your camera and go look.
I had just put out some bird seeds for the squirrels and the Doves. I put some for them on the ground to keep them from crowding the bird feeders.
I don’t know if you are aware of it, but White-tail bunnies (cottontails) like bird seed! I was surprised also. But they do. They come every day now. I had a hard time getting a photo though, because they wanted to run if I got too close. Sometimes there is a fight between everyone wanting the seeds, including Doves, Cardinals, Blue Jays, squirrels, and many others.
Also, on our front porch is a nest full of baby Phoebes just about ready to leave the nest.
Here’s one of their parents watching them dutifully from our doggie yard.
Then while on my walk, I found a Red-eared Slider laying eggs down by our front gate.
What a Spring and Summer we are having. The rains have produced abundant field grass and insects. Eat up my friends. And please, eat all the mosquitoes you can!
