Why Evolution is True is a blog written by Jerry Coyne, centered on evolution and biology but also dealing with diverse topics like politics, culture, and cats.
Tony Eales from Brisbane sent us another batch of arthropods. His notes are indented:
More of the amazing arthropods of Borneo. Here’s a few more Jumping Spiders [salticids]. Definitely my favourite group.
I couldn’t stop taking photos of the charming Harmochirus brachiatus. He struck so many photogenic poses.
I finally found a Myrmarachne, this one M. cornuta. In my favourite group, the jumping spiders, my favourite sub-group are the ant mimics. [JAC: see drawings at the link; this one is definitely an ant mimic, skinny and with a long petiole.]
Plexippus petersi has the cool common name of Common Housefly Catcher. [JAC: as the link shows, it also eats other spiders, sometimes big ones.)
Last is yet another salticid that I can’t find an ID for:
It’s once again time for me to importune you for wildlife photos. Although I have a comfortable backlog of contributions, I’m getting a wee bit nervous. So if you’re sitting around tomorrow digesting your Thanksgiving meal (if you’re American, that is), or eating your sweetcorn sandwiches (if you’re a Brit), or otherwise have some free time, think about sending me ten or so of your good wildlife photos.
Today’s contribution includes some lovely arthropod photos from Aussie Tony Eales, whose notes are indented:
More pics from the Borneo expedition. Spiders!
I found my first Wandering Spider, in the family Ctenidae. At first I thought it was a Wolf Spider but the eyes are wrong.
There were many species of Huntsman family Sparassidae.
I’m pretty sure of the two Heteropoda sp. But the other two I’m not sure what genus they might be. The first one is an undescribed Heteropoda quite similar toH. davidbowie but that species has orange hairs and black lines on the face.
JAC: In case you’re wondering about the name Heteropoda davidbowie, Wikipedia explains:
The species name honours David Bowie, with particular reference to songs such as “Glass Spider” (from the 1987 album Never Let Me Down), and the resemblance of the frontal view of the spider to the singer’s painted face in his early career.
I’ve put its photo (and Bowie’s) below:
I don’t see much of a resemblance. . .
Back to Tony’s photos:
In webs I found a strangely beautiful species of Cellar Spider family Pholcidae and what I think might be a Theridiid but that’s based more on the tangled web than the spider.
Pholcidae:
Theridiid:
There were many interesting Jumping Spiders, family Salticidae. Thiania bhamoensis is known as the Malaysian Fighting Jumping Spider. Apparently children keep them in matchboxes and fight them in contests. It appears the one I photographed has been in a fight as it was missing one of its front legs.
I was pleased to find a Parabathippus petrae even if it was a female. Others on the expedition managed to photograph the spectacular male but the females are odd and colourful.
No idea what the last Jumper is but he’s a handsome species.
We have some wildlife photos and one space picture today. The wildlife pictures come from reader Tony Eales of Brisbane, Australia, whose notes are indented:
More pics from my trip to Brunei, Borneo. Enter the arthropods. Here’s a collection of the more unusual creatures in the rainforest at Ulu Temburong National Park. Colourful rainforest crabs were pretty common on the night walks. Probably Geosesarma sp. One of the so called Vampire Crabs.
There were also plenty of fairly large Harvestmans (Order Opiliones); I have no idea of even the family. They are such weirdos with their eyes on stalks.
I only saw one giant tropical centipede but it was impressive even though the old hands assured me it was a medium-sized one.
We saw lots of giant ‘house’ centipedes, Scutigerids. This one was mind boggling. The body looked so thick and large, more like a sardine sized fish than any myriapod I’m used to. Just all legs and fangs.
A personal favourite was the Vinegaroon, also known as Whip Scorpions, Thelyphonida. An impressive beast.
And an astronomy photo from another Aussie, reader Tim Anderson:
NGC2070 [JAC: also called the “Tarantula Nebula”] is an emission nebula embedded in the Large Magellanic Cloud. This image derives from sixty 20-second sub-frames taken in each of the red, green and blue wavelength channels.
Professor Ceiling Cat (Emeritus) requests that you send in your wildlife photos!
We have another batch of lovely arthropod photos from Mark Sturtevant, whose captions are indented.
We begin with an insect called an ambush bug (Phymata pennsylvanica). These are small assassin bugs with wonderfully cryptic shapes and colors that help them lurk on flowers so that they may ambush an unsuspecting pollinator. The first picture is a female, and it illustrates how difficult it may be to find one of these little killers. In the second picture we see a great example of how I usually notice them, which is when I spot a pollinator that looks ‘wrong’. In this case we have a mating pair of ambush bugs and the female is feeding on what is probably a digger bee (Anthophora sp.). These predators clearly do not care if their prey is bigger and well armed. I think of this scene of sex and premature death as “insect life, briefly summarized”. While I was taking pictures, the female was disturbed by my presence and shortly after she dropped her meal into my hand.
What is the insect in the next picture? I had earlier posted this as a kind of contest on a macrophotography web site. No one could guess, and this is probably because it is seen out of its more familiar context. It is a predaceous water bug (genus Belostoma). Normally these insects are in the water, but this one was sitting on the reeds over a pond. In the next picture is another one just under the surface of a pond.
Next is a clavate tortoise beetle (Plagiometriona clavata). These are herbivorous beetles, and many species are incredibly colorful although this one is fairly plain. But I like how the color pattern looks like a teddy bear.
In the Magic Field the dusty parking lot is a busy place for burrowing wasps. The next two pictures are of a sand wasp known as Bicyrtes quadrofasciatus. These lovely little wasps dig a burrow and stock it with paralyzed insects to feed to their larvae. This particular species is known to prefer Hemiptera. They are by far the easiest of the burrowing wasps to photograph since they spend a lot of time managing their burrow, and they are so single-minded about their task that an observing human is pretty much ignored. One merely has to lie down next to a burrow that has a sand wasp inside. When she emerges, she soon decides the prone body is merely part of the scenery, and soon she is back at work moving the dirt around.
I especially love dragonflies, and never tire of just watching their antics near water. One of the most entertaining is the slaty skimmer (Libellula incesta). Territorial males, like the one shown in the next picture, will have a favorite perch that is usually about a foot or so above the water. They frenetically dash off to chase away any intruder, then return to the same spot. So if a perching slaty disappears from my camera viewfinder I merely have to keep looking through the viewfinder. In a few seconds it will return to the same spot.
Finally, we have one of our most common dragonflies: a widow skimmer (Libellula luctuosa). This individual has recently emerged as an adult, and so it has not developed its wing pigments and it can not fly far. I recommend that readers embiggen this picture to appreciate its sparkly new wings.
Reader Tony Eales from Australia sent us a passel of arthropods. His notes are indented.
I found another of the Whip Spiders (Ariamnes colubrinus) that I sent in recently. This one shows how their elongated bodies provide great camouflage.
Here’s a photo of the species from Wikipedia showing its body separate from the legs:
I came across a scene of a White-tailed Spider (Lampona cylindrata); actually there’s a lot of confusion over both the genus and species of these spiders) stalking a House Spider (Badumna sp.). Apparently they are obligate spider eaters and Badumna are a favourite. White-tails have an unfair bad reputation. It’s widely believed that the bites of White-tailed spiders cause a necrotising ulceration, but research indicates that this is a myth. As a result they are reviled and feared. They are aggressive and will bite if they feel threatened and are common in houses in some parts of Australia.
White-tailed spider:
House spider:
I startled this Mantispid Lacewing right into a spider-web. I rescued it and it thanked me with a great photo shoot. It’s probably Ditaxis biseriata but these are really hard to ID.
This is one of my favourites. It’s a large Tachinid fly whose larvae are parasites on snails. They’re impressively coloured and about the size of a small grape. Apparently they are impossible to properly ID without a microscope, but this one is in the genus Rutilia (Ameniamima) sp.
Lastly, a cute and teeny-tiny jumping spider. Again ID is difficult. It’s either Simaethula aurata or S. auronitens. They’re so tiny: only about 2mm max.
Reader Rick Longworth sent a hummingbird video from Idaho. His notes are indented:
I’ve been watching my local hummingbird community since I arrived in Idaho in April. So far I’ve identified black chinned (Archilochus alexandri) and rufous hummingbirds(Selasphorus rufus). I was lucky to capture three types of feeding behavior shown in the attached film.
1. In addition to flower nectar, hummingbirds eat lots of tiny bugs. They are usually ambush predators, waiting on their favorite perch for insects of the right size to fly by. The clip shows a female rufous hummingbird detecting and attacking a moth overhead. The clip is shown in normal speed and then slowed down.
2. Another approach to gathering protein is to be fortunate enough to land next to a tasty morsel as seen in the second clip, also shown twice. It’s another female rufous.
3. Finally, a black chinned female demonstrates the familiar method of sipping nectar. A hummingbird visits about 2000 blossoms a day to get enough glucose.
Tony Eales from Australia sent some arthropods; check out the first two photos of the whip spider!:
A few more arthropods from around south east Queensland Australia
One of my favourite spiders, the Whip Spider (Ariames colubrinus). These are predators on other spiders and I think their extraordinary shape allows for camouflage against their dangerous prey.
Next is an exciting find for me, something I’d been hoping to observe for a while, a parasitic Drynid Wasp larvae attached to a Flatid Planthopper nymph. Wikipedia describes the life cycle:
“The female dryinid injects an egg into the host insect with her ovipositor. Females may also have front legs modified with a pinching apparatus which they use to restrain the hosts for their larvae during oviposition. The larvae are legless or have only vestigial legs. The larva feeds on the internal structures of the host, and as it grows larger it begins to protrude from the body. It develops a hardened sac (called a “thylacium”) around its body for protection. The host is eventually killed and the larva leaves the dead body and spins a cocoon.”
Next are three small predatory flies.
Coenosia sp. Sometimes known as Killer Flies, these are small flies in the House Fly family Muscidae. I find these amazing because they don’t seem to have any physical specialisation for their predatory lifestyle. The one in the photo has a minute little fly in its grasp that you can just make out.
Hybos sp. is another very small fly that catches prey on the wing. It’s in the Dance Fly family Hybotinae. These show some pretty good adaptation for its predatory lifestyle with large rear legs that superficially resemble the grasping arms of mantids.
Octhera sp. These are predators on mosquito larvae as maggots and flying mosquitos as adults. They’re a predatory branch of the Shore Fly family Ephydridae. I found this one among the mangroves.
And I present once again a photograph of the beautiful mallard drake (Anas platyrhynchos) named James Pond:
Reader Tony Eales from Australia sends some camouflaged beasties and a brightly colored spider. His notes are indented.
Some camouflage.
A Brisbane Two-tailed Spider, Tamopsis brisbanensis, on a mangrove tree trunk. These are very hard to spot. They have a leg span of around 3 or 4 cm. I believe the one in the photograph has some securely wrapped prey in front of it on the bark but even this is well camouflaged. I found this video of a slightly different species of Two-tailed spider catching prey: https://youtu.be/6uo1rPHxlRI
I’ve sent a Flat-headed Leafhopper (Ledromorpha planirostris) nymph as a spot the before, but I saw another one just recently. I’ve attached a long shot, a close up and the reveal.
At the opposite end of the spectrum from camouflage, I found another species of Peacock Jumping Spider. This one is Maratus nigromaculatus.
I’ve also included a picture of one of our really common and colourful bugs. It is a male Cotton Harlequin Bug (Tectocoris diophthalmus). Females are orange with iridescent green blotches, and the nymphs are iridescent dark blue with red patches. They love hibiscus, especially the tree-sized ones we have around here called Cotton Trees (Hibiscus tiliaceus).
And lastly a katydid genus Polichne. There’s a lot of undescribed and hard to distinguish species in this genera.
