From the tropical forest of Ecuador, we get a chilling report from Lou Jost, who can’t even go to the bathroom in peace! His notes include a classic line: “I pulled up my pants and ran for my camera.”
Arachnid-on-arachnid violence in my bathroom!
As I sat down on my toilet recently I saw a jumping spider hanging in the web of a regular spider, with the regular spider in the saltacid’s mouth! The jumping spider had leaped into the web to nom the regularspider. I pulled up my pants and ran for my camera, but by the time I returned to the bathroom the jumping spider was on my wall with his prey.
This must be a dangerous way to get food, since the regular spider is also a good predator. A few days later when I sat down on my toilet I found a jumping spider (perhaps the same one) in another web, but this one had been killed by the web owner.
Some may wonder why I tolerate spiders everywhere in my house. Here’s why: a few days after I took the preceding pics, I again sat down on my toilet only to find this scorpion dangling in my face, still alive and struggling in the web of a regular spider (the same species that is in the other pictures). I really hate scorpions in the house. The enemy of my enemy is my friend.
I do draw the line at any spider that I can hear when it walks. I don’t like to be kept awake at night by spider footsteps or spiders rustling papers in my bedroom. Big fat funnel-web spiders are the worst. As I was working on the above spider pictures in my computer, one such big nasty spider walked between my feet. There was no time to get the camera….All that is left of him now is a big skid mark where I plastered him under my shoe.
To make up for that carnage, here are two new photos from Stephen Barnard in Idaho:
This is why they call it Sun Valley. It will be cloudy here all day–so annoying.
The extremes – Ecuador to Idaho.
Appears to be a center pivot out there on the flat with the mountains behind.
Not a center pivot — a wheel line. My fields are irregular and don’t lend themselves to wheel lines. During irrigation season field hands (legal, well compensated Mexican labor) move the wheel lines every day, and also manually move a number of hand lines, which is hard work.
Oops. Should be “Don’t lend themselves to center pivots.” 🙂
Thanks…very interesting.
So it’s a form of manual irrigation, moving the system manually. This could be very hard work if watering takes place on dirt, before the crop comes up and covers the ground.
I remember many years ago, irrigating corn by moving 30 foot pieces of irrigation pipe manually through the field. This requires walking through the mud and lifting pipe high over your head while moving to another location. Never did any harder work.
Lou, might I suggest inspecting the toilet area before sitting down. 🙂
Always do!
I think my wife would divorce me if we had a bathroom like yours, Lou.
This may have something to do with why I am still a bachelor…
Wow! How daring of the hopping spider, but his daring was most likely the end of him. Funny how such a small spider can kill such big, well armoured & venomous predator as a scorpion!
An adventurous life, not knowing what you will encounter while leaving an offering at the porcelain alter.
The jumping spider that got deaded might have been an ant mimic, as it looks rather shiny.
That’s some toilet. Remind me not to use it.
Hmm, sometimes I’m really glad I live in England.
I have a firm policy of not willingly sharing my living space with any living thing that is big enough to see with the naked eye and whose natural complement of legs is less than two or more than four.
That’s my preference too, but hard to implement here.
I live close to New Zealand native bush and such, so arachnids are everywhere, however, all but one, the white-tailed spider, Lampona cyclindrata and Lampona murina are the only ones I would call nasty and they are Australian. We have others (2 I think) that bite but not in my local.
If your toilet was mine it would have to be inspected (by wife decree) and traps set on a daily basis.
The landscape snow shots are very nice and remind me of ice cream cake.
I know I know… magic of the forest, Nature all around..but basically I’m wondering, do you live in Hell?
Well, I guess people can get used to anything.
My vision of hell is rocketing along a concrete roadway every day in a metal box, sequentially just narrowly missing (often by just one or two meters) hundreds of other large metal boxes zooming past in the opposite direction. If any one of the drivers of those other metal boxes misjudges his or her direction by even a few percent, you die. And the drivers of those boxes rushing past you at effectively 120mph (your speed plus theirs) are random people, including drunks, tired people that are nearly dozing off, etc.
Whose hell is worse?
I think about the same thing a lot, as I drive to and from work. It is pretty insane.
I rather like a bit of arthropod fauna in the bathroom; one can only read so much. 😉
Alas, at the moment I have only ladybugs, with perhaps a small house spider now & then. I don’t mind millipede season, but hate it when the earwigs show up.
I would draw the line at scorpions, etc., though. I did once find a tiny pseudoscorpion (I think that’s redundant) above my bed, which was kinda cool.
A very small spider lives in the corner of the baseboards in the bathroom. He catches the very small ants that regularly invade. There are daddy long legs that live under the birds nightlight, and they are so polite, slow and fragile that I never bother them.
Any spider big enough to see with out my glasses and/or ones that challenge me must be returned to the wild.
Great photos Lou and a well worded comparison of differing perspectives of hell. However, I can’t quite get over the fear of a scorpion attack whilst having a shit, so it’s the metal boxes for me.
Just look before you poop. At least if I get bit, it is my own carelessness that causes it. And a bite is not a big deal. Those 120mph metal boxes, on the other hand, can really hurt!
Wow. I have never heard such, despite having seen > 20 cm tarantulas and what not. But that was mostly outdoors, thankfully. (But I remember sharing a wall in an Amazon hut with a > 5 cm spider. Yeah, it took a while to accept the sharing … no help with the rent. (O.o))
And now I hope I never will!
Even relatively small wolf spiders make enough noise to hear them when they walk on dry leaves, paper, etc, in a completely quiet environment.
Ah, the pitter-patter of little–really little–feet!
Really cool pictures, Lou!
People are going to start looking at you funny when you make a point of always grabbing your camera before you go to the loo.
Beautiful snow/light-scapes, Stephen!
Looks like there might me another homestead or two at the base of the mountains?