Tag: Eric Neubauer

Nighttime Photobombers

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by Eric Neubauer

Since I do photography in the dark with artificial lighting, I’m often get photobombing visitors. On the last trip, my experience at Monahans Sandhills State Park was especially hideous with a multitude of some kind of wasp which even stung me three times, once when I sat on one. By the time I got to Oasis State Park I had learned to keep my headlamp set to red lightand only turn on the lighting for photography as briefly as possible.

Some of the photobombing insects become meals for my subject spiders, which is a good thing. I like sending them away with something to show for it. I also got a couple of nice adult antlion observations this trip.

Brachynemurus hubbardii

Then there was this moth from Oasis State Park just across the border near Portales, NM. I put a species ID on it, then someone put a different ID on it, and then we agreed both were wrong. After a search of observations around the entire country, I finally found a pretty good match. Lacinipolia vicina is primarily found in the Northeast although there are several observations scattered around the country. The closest two are in California.

So, you never know what might drop in. The 55 observations on iNaturalist peak in September so that checks out OK.

Encounter with a Black Witch

Sue Ann (Suna) Kendall1 Comment

by Eric Neubauer

I recently got back from the TX/NM border region including Monahans Sandhills State Park. Not great timing for wolf spiders because only a few species were in or nearing their breeding season, but I was still able to add two species to my life list. There were other compensations:

Ascalapha odorata (Black Witch) is a huge moth. I had seen a couple of very worn ones in a dark alcove at Devils River last fall where they couldn’t be readily photographed. As I made my way down into a sand dune blowout, I flushed one that flew around for a while before settling down about 5′ away. Unbelievably it let me approach quite close. The photos were amazing and were a credit to the Olympus camera. Light levels were very low and the setting sun had already left most of the
blowout in shadow.

Not far away was a Euploca convolvulacea (Phlox heliotrope) which had only the bare essentials of a mature plant. Many plants were covered with hundreds of bloom.

I’ve known about the Black Witch for decades but never expected to see one, so never looked up the details. The range map on iNat is amazing and includes all of North and South America except the coldest extremes. It has even turned up on Wake Island in the eastern Pacific. It is quite a flier and apparently has some sort of northward migration in the fall.

Mine was in perfect condition, so it must have matured nearby rather than migrating there. There had been 8 previous observations scattered around Ward County, all in good condition suggesting there is a healthy local breeding population there.

The spider show that didn’t happen and came back as blog fodder

Sue Ann (Suna) Kendall1 Comment

by Eric Neubauer

I noticed I hadn’t taken a wolf spider photo at all in June. It wasn’t as if I didn’t have spiders on the brain. We were working on a species group that’s prevalent in South Texas. Still, I thought I’d like to do something with live spiders, and I thought it would be nice to find several big ones and bring them in to the El Camino Real Texas Master Naturalist booth on the 4th of July for show and tell.

Before the sun was up, I was out looking and found two out of the three I hoped for. By early afternoon those of us at the west end of the county could see the impending storm looming over us but we had no way of knowing it was about to stall. So I decided not to drive into Cameron.

As the day ended, I photographed the two spiders and then released them. The first was a mellow and self assured adult male Rabidosa rabida with black forelegs. His leg span was nearly 3″, and he required special treatment, because he easily climbed out of containers that work for most wolf spiders.

The second was a cautious adult female Hogna antelucana who gave me no trouble at all except for fidgeting during her face shots.

The Railroad Down Under

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by Eric Neubauer

I saw many things during my expedition around the lower half of the Texas Panhandle. Too many in fact to even summarize. So here is one thing I particularly noticed. I spent some time at Big Spring State Park after sunset.

The land was dry, and the spiders were scarce. Finally, I found a nice adult female Big-eyed Wolf Spider at the edge of the road near the entrance. This is only one of a growing number of fairly large
unnamed wolf spiders in the pipeline.

Big-eyed Wolf Spider, female

While preparing photos for iNaturalist, I was struck (not for the first time) by the rainbow colors on the chelicerae of this species. The chelicerae are analogous to human lips or jaws except for housing venomous spines at the ends and separating in a vertical plane. Wolf spiders often have bold or complex patterns, but here is something extremely delicate.

Face close up.

Starting earlier this year I added face shots to my routine. After all, this is what spiders see when they meet each other. In this case it captures a colorful detail that would have been missed and shows how big the eyes of the Big-eyed Wolf Spider really are. The white circles in six of the eyes are artifacts, reflections of the dedicated light ring that is part of my setup.

Wolf Spider Update

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by Eric Neubauer

To the outside world it may seem like I’ve been in hibernation but that isn’t so. One current project is making face shots part of my wolf spider observation routine. It’s a lot harder than the dorsal and
ventral views I’ve been doing for a long time. A spider needs to be encouraged to stretch up the side of a container for best results and then stay there for more than a second. It’s especially difficult with spiders small enough to balance on the head of a pin. I’m making progress but it till takes multiple attempts and a lot of prodding.

This is a typical Hogna incognita. His/her body is just over 1 mm wide and just over 3 mm long. It most likely left its mother in late October or early November and has been hanging out ever since. They have grown little over the intervening months and regardless of whether they are in captivity or wild, the only notable different is the ones in captivity are fat and the ones in the wild are skinny. In a month or two they will start to grow rapidly and most will mature in July. Sex can only be determined a little before maturity.

I rarely bother to look when it’s cold, but I did this time and found this one still moderately active at 43 degrees. By the way, Dr. Russell Pfau has started the scientific paper for this new species in earnest. I just reviewed a draft yesterday. We’ll be chasing down a several other loose ends in the same genus later this spring, but that will be another story.