This post is about a spider (be forewarned). But it also gives an interesting look at sibling dynamics. Also: yes, we do refer to our three cats as sisters. Although they are all different breeds (none of them are pure-bred, so "breed" seems a little strong, but "cat-type" doesn't really have the same oomph), they don't seem to resent this too much.The last post involved our cat who we'll continue to refer to as P - she refused to sign the release and insists that she wants nothing to do with all this inter-what's-it ballyhoo. Out of respect to her, I'll continue to preserve her anonymity. But she's not really involved in this post. This story is about Coco and Molly.
Coco signed the release form without even reading it (disconcerting). But she'll basically sign anything I put in front of her (she didn't understand why the Human Cent-iPad episode of South Park was funny).
Molly was a tougher nut to crack, but we struck a bargain - she got to watch me play with a ping-pong ball. Now she'll play with ping-pong balls if she's by herself - but if I come to watch her, she insists on watching me. I used to think that maybe she just wanted me to have a turn, but I now believe that she's just interested in all my fancy ping-pong ball rolling tricks. Namely, I put English on it so that it rolls back to me, curves around, or makes sharp turns when it bumps something.
As a side note, I bought Molly's current pack of ping-pong balls at the Sheetz station on Rte. 29 in Ruckersville, VA. I had recently stepped on her old ping-pong ball by accident, so when I stopped for gas on the way back from a visit to Charlottesville in the spring and spotted these by the cash register, I thought of her. But the point of this side note is that I was carded for the ping-pong balls! When the cashier asked for my ID, she said it was because I was "getting that game." I thought about returning the compliment and telling her that I thought she had game, as well...But I knew what she meant. Random thought: could I have made grain alcohol from the white-cheese popcorn I was also getting?
Anyway, to the spiders! So the other weekend, I heard Molly crying (meowl-ing) from the basement. Sometimes this means she wants me to come clean her litter box, other times this means that I'm not paying enough attention to her and we're in different parts of the house. When I went downstairs (like a chump), Molly was waiting for me at the bottom of the steps and Coco was near the opposite corner trying to look casual. Molly led me over to Coco and, while I was distributing pettings, Coco tried to play it up as though she had just then noticed the mature, male Woodlouse Hunter right in front of her.
Let me break this down for you. What happened here is that Coco was just handling her business - doing cat stuff, being too curious (consider reviewing some advice on curiosity in the previous post, BugsIRL: Classic - Cicada Killer), and maybe getting into just enough trouble to keep her day interesting. Molly, either because of feeling left out of the game, or because of general younger-sibling anxiety, decided to blow up Coco's spot and come tattle on her. Meowl! Meowl! Dad! Meowl! Dad! Dad!!! So, Dad came to see what all the fuss was (and probably tell someone to stop slamming the screen door) and ended up ruining all the good-natured fun. Can anyone detect a bias in this retelling that might hint at my birth-order?
Normally, I'd try to safely put him outside. But with Coco already making her plans for him, I moved to get the closest thing to kill him with. As I moved back towards him, I watched Coco playfully bat at him. Thankfully, his response was to curl up. However, if he had reared back and shown his fangs, I'm sure I would have been able to see them clearly from where I was standing.
So I did, unfortunately, kill that spider. But, in the interest of blogging, I've since gone out and captured a male and a female. Now, all you lucky bastiges (Johnny Dangerously! Anyone? Anyone? Nope? OK.) get to enjoy some up-close views without the horror of handling these monsters!
If you're like me, you'll find it hard to look away from this picture. If you're like my wife, you may have to tape a piece of paper over part of your screen to continue reading this page. Either way, you're probably hungry for more info on this spider!
The Woodlouse Hunter is so named because of its primary prey: woodlice. This is the grown-up name for roly-polys. They can spin silk, but they don't use it to catch prey. They creep around, under stuff and through mulch or leaf litter, actively hunting for potato bugs, pill bugs, sow bugs, as well as other, more obscure names for roly-polys. They are also said to occasionally prey on some beetles. But as the main beetles they're likely to share their environment with (at least in the mid-Atlantic) are stag beetles, which could easily out run them, I'd imagine that this isn't the norm.
Although they don't use silk for hunting, they do spin themselves lovely bed chambers under stuff. In the picture at right, you can see two compact sleeping units that were nestled cozily under my favorite piece of lawn cardboard. Woodlouse Hunters are mostly nocturnal, so they were of course thrilled when I lifted up their roof in the middle of the afternoon. The two that made these elliptical, silken retreats scurried off quickly, so I don't know what their situation was. But I imagine they had an Ernie & Bert style will-they/won't-they thing going on.
Aside from their unique coloration and only having six eyes (most spiders have eight), the Woodlouse Hunter's most distinguishing feature is its enormous fangs. These are needed to pierce the thick, hard shell of balled-up, terrestrial isopods (there will be a quiz at the end). Since the two spiders that I caught were either constantly moving or constantly hiding (constantly), I wasn't able to get many pics of their fangs. If these pics I took (below) inspire you though, I'd encourage you to do some Googlin' - some of the pics out there can look pretty threatening (more on this, below).
As dangerous as their fangs make them look, I did not find this spider to be quick to use them (neither did Coco, praise Neptune). My theory on why this would be is basically that their size adds significant liability to their use. Consider the following. Imagine that you're a little boy (I know this just got creepy, but stay with me here). Little boys are always making swords or other weapons out of random things they find. In my case, I usually had a huge armory well stocked with sticks. I would swing these sticks around, hit stuff with them, and hopefully only break my sabers, katanas, and machetes. But I could afford to break these swords, which often started out so long that they were unwieldy, because there were always more sticks. This is not the case for the Woodlouse Hunter. A spider's fangs do not grow back, if broken. Further, I'm lucky in this analogy in that I could have chosen plenty of other implements to swing at all the ninjas, goblins, koopas, and trees that had looked at me the wrong way that I was constantly battling with (constantly) - I never had to rely on a particular stick as the only means that I would ever have of subduing and digesting food. So, while it did take some prodding to get the female in the pic above to make the threat display shown, I never got the impression that she intended to follow through. After looking online for other peoples' experiences, it seems like my observation is the typical one. I did find a paper with the results of eight confirmed bites (on eight different people). The theme was swelling, itching, and slight pain that went away after an hour. There were also some non-confirmed bites that raised some concern over the toxicity of this spider's venom.
I'd also like to relay an interesting anecdote about the female pictured above with the moth. I was going to have to keep her for a few days, so I put that moth in her container as a feeder bug. After it flapped around a bunch, she killed it. I don't think she injected any venom, because she never tried to eat it. I think that the moth was just annoying her! The next day, as I was taking pictures, she would occasionally give it a quick, dry bite. Then she would typically pick it up and try to hide under it.
So in terms of identification, these spiders are pretty easy. Dysdera crocata is the only species in this family believed to live in the Eastern US. I've read that there's another, nearly indistinguishable species that's been found far from human habitations in other parts of North America. But I think I can be reasonably confident that these are D. crocata. The thing about spiders though, is that they're excellent hitch-hikers. In fact, this spider, which is common throughout much of the world, is originally native to Europe. Related thought: so my wife and I went with my brother in law to the National Museum of the American Indian, last weekend - none of the exhibits specifically addressed whether they're ever surprised to lift up junk in their back yards and find people of European descent living beneath. That was an insensitive joke, Brian...Also a little bit meandering.
Well, here we are...I would love to write more and put up more of my pictures, but this entry has gotten pretty long and the pics I've already put up are probably weighing down the page. I have about 60 other pics of these two spiders. Way too many to put here. So I'm considering starting starting a flickr or Picasa account to link from here. I could post my pictures, add some bitty captions, and my many fans would be able to peruse them at their leisure, again and again. Yeah. Maybe I'll do that.
Wrapping up old business, the emoticon I posted last week: ))<>((
is from the 2005 movie You And Me And Everyone We Know. It denotes the totally possible act of "pooping back and forth." As the keyboardsman explains, this is where one party poops into the butt of another party. Then, the second party poops it back into the butt of the first party. He goes on to explain that this could continue indefinitely - specifically, forever. Despite this hopeless romantic's lack of regard for the long-term integrity of a typical fecal mass, his description leads an otherwise minor female character to make some pretty questionable choices. Overall, I give the film a solid C. This one memorable and amusing gem can be viewed on YouTube (if you don't feel like you just saw the whole scene). I'm not sure if any of the available clips include the twist near the end of the movie, though.
Thank you all for reading. Please post comments or send questions to whodatbug@gmail.com. Until next time, I leave you with this parting thought.
I'm pimping where I'm winning - that's just how I'm chilling. I'm smoking grits & selling chickens; corvette painted lemons.
- Radric Davis (AKA, Gucci Mane), 2009
So I did, unfortunately, kill that spider. But, in the interest of blogging, I've since gone out and captured a male and a female. Now, all you lucky bastiges (Johnny Dangerously! Anyone? Anyone? Nope? OK.) get to enjoy some up-close views without the horror of handling these monsters!
 |
| People tell me that I wear my heart on my sleeve, but they're mistaken. As you can clearly see, it's close to the surface along the middle of my abdomen. With some of the major blood vessels also visible, it kind of makes a lightning bolt pattern. Also, don't mind that splotch on my right side...I ran into a slug while evading capture. |
The Woodlouse Hunter is so named because of its primary prey: woodlice. This is the grown-up name for roly-polys. They can spin silk, but they don't use it to catch prey. They creep around, under stuff and through mulch or leaf litter, actively hunting for potato bugs, pill bugs, sow bugs, as well as other, more obscure names for roly-polys. They are also said to occasionally prey on some beetles. But as the main beetles they're likely to share their environment with (at least in the mid-Atlantic) are stag beetles, which could easily out run them, I'd imagine that this isn't the norm.
 |
| Separate beds - just like Lucy & Ricky! "You know, all the really smart people are sleeping in separate beds" - the slutty one from Downton Abbey. |
Aside from their unique coloration and only having six eyes (most spiders have eight), the Woodlouse Hunter's most distinguishing feature is its enormous fangs. These are needed to pierce the thick, hard shell of balled-up, terrestrial isopods (there will be a quiz at the end). Since the two spiders that I caught were either constantly moving or constantly hiding (constantly), I wasn't able to get many pics of their fangs. If these pics I took (below) inspire you though, I'd encourage you to do some Googlin' - some of the pics out there can look pretty threatening (more on this, below).
 |
| More of a trophy than a meal. |
 |
| THREAT DISPLAY! |
 |
| I need some me-time. |
As dangerous as their fangs make them look, I did not find this spider to be quick to use them (neither did Coco, praise Neptune). My theory on why this would be is basically that their size adds significant liability to their use. Consider the following. Imagine that you're a little boy (I know this just got creepy, but stay with me here). Little boys are always making swords or other weapons out of random things they find. In my case, I usually had a huge armory well stocked with sticks. I would swing these sticks around, hit stuff with them, and hopefully only break my sabers, katanas, and machetes. But I could afford to break these swords, which often started out so long that they were unwieldy, because there were always more sticks. This is not the case for the Woodlouse Hunter. A spider's fangs do not grow back, if broken. Further, I'm lucky in this analogy in that I could have chosen plenty of other implements to swing at all the ninjas, goblins, koopas, and trees that had looked at me the wrong way that I was constantly battling with (constantly) - I never had to rely on a particular stick as the only means that I would ever have of subduing and digesting food. So, while it did take some prodding to get the female in the pic above to make the threat display shown, I never got the impression that she intended to follow through. After looking online for other peoples' experiences, it seems like my observation is the typical one. I did find a paper with the results of eight confirmed bites (on eight different people). The theme was swelling, itching, and slight pain that went away after an hour. There were also some non-confirmed bites that raised some concern over the toxicity of this spider's venom.
I'd also like to relay an interesting anecdote about the female pictured above with the moth. I was going to have to keep her for a few days, so I put that moth in her container as a feeder bug. After it flapped around a bunch, she killed it. I don't think she injected any venom, because she never tried to eat it. I think that the moth was just annoying her! The next day, as I was taking pictures, she would occasionally give it a quick, dry bite. Then she would typically pick it up and try to hide under it.
So in terms of identification, these spiders are pretty easy. Dysdera crocata is the only species in this family believed to live in the Eastern US. I've read that there's another, nearly indistinguishable species that's been found far from human habitations in other parts of North America. But I think I can be reasonably confident that these are D. crocata. The thing about spiders though, is that they're excellent hitch-hikers. In fact, this spider, which is common throughout much of the world, is originally native to Europe. Related thought: so my wife and I went with my brother in law to the National Museum of the American Indian, last weekend - none of the exhibits specifically addressed whether they're ever surprised to lift up junk in their back yards and find people of European descent living beneath. That was an insensitive joke, Brian...Also a little bit meandering.
Well, here we are...I would love to write more and put up more of my pictures, but this entry has gotten pretty long and the pics I've already put up are probably weighing down the page. I have about 60 other pics of these two spiders. Way too many to put here. So I'm considering starting starting a flickr or Picasa account to link from here. I could post my pictures, add some bitty captions, and my many fans would be able to peruse them at their leisure, again and again. Yeah. Maybe I'll do that.
Wrapping up old business, the emoticon I posted last week: ))<>((
is from the 2005 movie You And Me And Everyone We Know. It denotes the totally possible act of "pooping back and forth." As the keyboardsman explains, this is where one party poops into the butt of another party. Then, the second party poops it back into the butt of the first party. He goes on to explain that this could continue indefinitely - specifically, forever. Despite this hopeless romantic's lack of regard for the long-term integrity of a typical fecal mass, his description leads an otherwise minor female character to make some pretty questionable choices. Overall, I give the film a solid C. This one memorable and amusing gem can be viewed on YouTube (if you don't feel like you just saw the whole scene). I'm not sure if any of the available clips include the twist near the end of the movie, though.
Thank you all for reading. Please post comments or send questions to whodatbug@gmail.com. Until next time, I leave you with this parting thought.
I'm pimping where I'm winning - that's just how I'm chilling. I'm smoking grits & selling chickens; corvette painted lemons.
- Radric Davis (AKA, Gucci Mane), 2009
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