![]() The usual denizens were present, although I found no Ozyptila of any species. While Rod sifted litter, I sifted moss, then sifted more moss. Individuals of this species were using the space to both molt and mate.įrom there we moved on to Hard Scrabble Creek Gulch, an invitingly shady oasis on what was turning out to be quite a hot day. The underside of the fence rails was also a busy realm, especially for the theridiid Platnickina tincta ( Theridion tinctum). He posted a nice photo of one of the spiders from Roy here. It is so rare and was so long ago that I had totally forgotten about it until Rod reminded me. Synageles has been collected only twice before in Washington, once by me during the Roy BioBlitz in 2009. But the most exciting rail-running salticid I found was a male Synageles. Salticus scenicus (Salticidae) were especially noticeable running along the rails, as well as darting in and out of the narrow gaps between rails and the rail sleeves that connect rail pipes end-to-end. The top rail of the cemetery's chain link fence was already uncomfortably hot to the touch by the time I started perusing it, but that didn't stop numerous spiders from using it. I tapped 61 cones and got only two spiders, but both were identifiable: a female Micaria pulicaria (Gnaphosidae) and a juvenile Bassaniana utahensis (Thomisidae). We started the day at the Van Zandt Cemetery, where I quickly homed in on a batch of fallen cones dropped by a huge Douglas-fir ( Pseudotsuga menziesii) tree in the cemetery's back corner. However, neither of us turned up any in recent visits to nearby Nugents Corner or Everson, so I had no particular expectations for what we might find this day. ![]() praticola in Bellingham and, most recently, in Lynden. With this dual purpose in mind, we spent the day collecting in the vicinity of Van Zandt, Washington. Rod Crawford still has several gridspaces in Whatcom County that he wants to sample that are also of interest to me in my search for the introduced thomisid, Ozyptila praticola. ![]()
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