Jar of Goodness 8.28.22: Native Prairies

. . . The weekly virtual “gratitude jar.”

This week, I’m expressing thanks for Missouri’s native tallgrass prairies.

We visited Friendly Prairie and Paintbrush Prairie today (they’re both south of Sedalia). It’s always good to see the flowers.

From a distance, the staggering variety of plants just doesn’t register. You have to wade in there in order to start really seeing things. Each time I go to Friendly Prairie, I see some new plant I didn’t know before. Maybe it should be renamed “Making New Friends Prairie.”

Today’s new friend is slickseed wild bean, Strophostyles leiosperma. I think. There are a few other species in that genus that occur in Missouri, and my pictures don’t show all the characters definitively, but that’s what my money’s on.

I was wading through the grasses, and I just looked down and saw its delicate little tendrils and soft, hairy trifoliate leaves, with oval leaflets, and I thought, What is this new little pea plant? The pods of this demure little legume were only slightly longer than an inch.

Here’s a picture of the prairie taken straight ahead, at eye level. My eyes are well over 5 feet above the ground. The tall stalks are big bluestem (good ol’ Andropogon gerardii), the prime tall grass of the tallgrass prairie. Its flower stalks can reach 8 feet high. Sue’s dad, having read many accounts of pioneers and settlers, used to talk about how crazy it was just to think of American grasses so high. A native of Ohio, he had not ever really seen the tallgrass prairie. So I took lots of pictures like this for him. See? See how high they are? So I still take these pictures.

At Paintbrush Prairie, I noticed an American bluehearts plant abloom. I’ve seen it at Friendly, but not at Paintbrush. Bluehearts is one of those MUAH! *chef’s kiss* wildflowers that pretty much only grow on high-quality native prairie. It’s also a semiparasitic plant, attaching to other plants (usually trees and other woody plants) via the roots and swiping nutrients. Unlike a lot of other parasitic plants, bluehearts does have green chlorophyll and can live okay without a host. And here’s another thing, per MDC’s Field Guide page, “Prairies, by definition, have very few trees. But historically, Missouri’s prairies, glades, savannas, and open woodlands formed a patchwork of open, grassy habitats that were kept open by occasional fires.” You can bet American bluehearts used to take advantage of that patchwork.

American bluehearts is one of the several caterpillar host plants for buckeye butterflies. Yay! And indeed, I saw a common buckeye not long after I spied the bluehearts! Yay! It was on top of a pretty curlytop ironweed plant. Yay! . . . But, hey, it wasn’t moving . . .

Turns out a crab spider was having a happy hunting day! I’m thinking this is a whitebanded crab spider (Misumenoides formosipes) but don’t quote me on that. . . . But yeah, I know. Sad day for the butterfly. But I did notice the butterfly was pretty beat up. Let’s hope it got to mate and create the next generation before its final stroke of luck.

On the subject of insects, there were a lot of grasshoppers flicking around. I managed to capture a picture of this one. No, I don’t know what it is. It’s a juvenile something-something. My first guess is two-striped grasshopper, Melanoplus bivittatus, but seriously, hell’s out for recess on this ID.

Finally, the picture at the top of this post is of wholeleaf rosinweed. It’s sort of become my favorite rosinweed because, well, it don’t get no respect. Unlike compass plant (look at those huge, flat, deeply lobed basal leaves!) . . . and carpenter weed (look at those square stems and opposite, perfoliate leaves!) . . . and prairie dock (look at those gigantic, smooth flower stalks, and those enormous basal leaves!) . . . wholeleaf rosinweed apparently gets written off as “some kind of” sunflower. Its leaves are, well, leaf-shaped.

So that’s the report for today. It’s mainly pictures. If I get behind in posting, it might be that when I’m not working, I’m just out trying to have fun, seeing what I can see. I'm sure you understand.

Noninsects of 2019

If you don’t like arthropods (insects and spiders and such), get ready to rejoice, because once this post is done, I’ll turn to other subjects. Meanwhile, this is the one that’ll give you the heebie-jeebies for sure. After several posts highlighting the various insects I photographed in 2019, I’m doing a post on non-insect arthropods.

As you might remember, one of the key identifying features of insects is their number of legs: six. So if you see something that looks like an insect and it doesn’t have six legs, then it’s probably not an insect. A millipede is a prime example, because it has not just six legs, but a million.

Just kidding. It’s not really a million legs; it’s usually more like 80 to 100 or so. Interesting fact: they have two pairs of legs for each body segment, not counting the head and tail (which have no legs), and the first three body segments (which have only one pair of legs per segment). As the millipede grows and molts, it adds new body segments. These humble arthropods eat humble fare: lichens, maybe, and decaying vegetation. At least some types of millipedes (usually the ones with bright warning colors) can secrete toxic substances (including cyanide) if they feel threatened. But unless you’re planning on eating one (not recommended), why would anyone threaten a millipede?

Anyway, we found this cute little millipede walking around on our front porch steps in the late afternoon sunshine on March 13; it was a fairly warm evening. It was only about 1¼ inches long. The warming temperatures must have roused it out of its winter torpor.

The next two are spiders. The first is an oddball called a featherlegged orbweaver.

We get these around our yard each year, and I took this photo on June 5. Why do I call it an oddball? Well, first, it just looks odd. The forelegs are typically held straight out in front of the body, though sometimes they hold their forelegs foreword in a Y shape. Either way, they look rather peculiar.

By the way, in the photo above, she is facing downward, her forelegs stretched out straight in front of her, and above her abdomen is one of her egg cases, which is shaped something like a whelk shell. These spiders create a line of these spindle-shaped egg cases, which look a lot like their abdomens, then pose along the line, blending in.

But there’s more. Although they’re an orbweaver (a weaver of orb-shaped webs), they’re not true orbweavers (a member of the Araneidae or typical orbweavers, the family of spiders that build orb webs). Featherlegged orbweavers instead belong to a family of spiders called cribellates, or cribillate orbweavers (Uloboridae), because they possess an unusual sieve-like (perforated) plate called a cribellum, which is positioned at the place where silk exits the spider’s body. This cribellum causes the silk to become hackled—to have woolly fuzzy extensions along its length, instead of being a smooth-sided silky strand. Because the silk is so cottony, it easily snags the legs and other pointy, jagged body parts of insects. They stick to it the way rough dry fingertips snag on polyester fabric.

In fact, this cribellate silk is so good at snagging insects, it replaces the sticky goo that other spiders have on their webs. Also, cribellate spiders have such success with their hackled threads that they do not even have venom; they don’t need it. Not having any venom is a true oddity for a spider. Instead of injecting venom into the prey, they regurgitate digestive juices onto the bound prey, then lap up the liquefying meaty juices. It’s sort of how flies burp up digestive fluids onto their foods, then sop up the goodies.

The other spider I photographed (above) was a longjawed orbweaver, genus Tetragnatha, in family Tetragnathidae. These are also called “stretch spiders,” for the way they rest. Holding the two pairs of forelegs straight forward, and the two pairs of hind legs straight backward, they—with their elongated, narrow bodies—look like little twigs. The “longjawed” part of their name refers to their huge chelicerae. Best not to imagine yourself as a mayfly when you contemplate the hunting of longjawed orbweavers.

They are fascinating spiders that are associated with boat docks and the vegetation around lakes and streams. This longjawed orbweaver built its web among the big tropical plants we keep along the retaining wall of our driveway.

Finally, the other noninsects I photographed were these water springtails (above). Long considered insects, because they have six legs, springtails as a group are now classified separately from insects. They may have six legs, but they aren’t related to insects. I photographed these floating on a pond on a relatively warm day at MDC headquarters, March 23.

Springtails are fascinating! There are all kinds of interesting facts about them, including why they are not considered insects. Here’s another cool fact: water springtails (this species), for instance, can see polarized light—an adaptation for living near water! Do look at my writeup on water springtails on the MDC field guide.

Neoscona crucifera, Our Little Friend in the Doorway

Yes, it’s “another one of our little friends,” a Neoscona crucifera. Allow me to introduce you. This sturdy, fuzzy, orb-weaving spider constructs her bug-snaring traps (a.k.a. “webs”) around dusk. Then she takes down the whole shebang each morning—consuming her threads, so as not to waste material.

Therefore, it’s too dark for me to get a picture of her in her web at night!



She’s almost certainly a descendant, or at least a relative, of the neosconas we’ve had around the house as long as we’ve lived here. I’m glad for this species’ habit of recycling webs every morning, since otherwise I’d be walking through them all the time. One year, a neoscona built her web each night across our back porch steps.

But this year, this neoscona habitually builds her web right in the way of our front door each night. Yes, I have to keep in mind she does, in case I ever have to dash outdoors some evening!

A word about the name. As you know, I prefer to use scientific names, when I can determine them, because they’re far more precise. And respectful, I think. The common name for this remarkable animal is “barn spider,” and it’s problematic, because other spiders are called “barn spider,” too. (Plus, I resent any comparison of our house to a dusty, cavernous structure for holding horses, tractors, cows, and chickens!)

Anyway, we call other organisms by their genus names (such as iris and asparagus)—what’s to keep me from continuing the trend?

Besides—it’s kind of a cute name. Although “crucifera” must refer to some cross-shaped something on her body (her spinnerets, maybe?), I haven’t been able to learn what “Neoscona” means. The “neo-” surely means “new”; but I don’t know what “scona” means. Meanwhile, I’ll think of those sweet little biscuits the British have with tea: “Neoscona”? . . . Newbiscuit. (Hey, it works for me!)

By day, Ms. Neoscona hides like this in the upper corner of our doorway, making herself as little as possible. Surely you won’t notice me here. She’s almost covering up her little eyes.



At night, she builds her magnificently detailed, wheel-shaped web and makes a fine living off the many insects that flutter toward our dusk-to-dawn porch light.

There was a time when I would have squished her unceremoniously with a broom or sprayed her mercilessly with a garden hose. Thankfully, those days are long past, because I realize that each time I kill a creature, some part of me suffers, as well. So despite my distaste for occasionally stepping into their webs, I give spiders a break. They are fellow Earthlings; they do us vastly more good than harm; and when all’s said and done, they just want to spend their brief lives eating insects, quietly fulfilling their humble destinies. It’s our choice to fear them or to marvel at them. Trust me, it’s much more fun to do the latter!

October Twenty-Fourth

Greetings, everyone! Once again, I must apologize for my absences. As in the past, absence from blogging means that I've been preoccupied with something else. For the past month, in particular, Sue and I have been busy with one of our cats, Genji, who is struggling. Actually, he's doing pretty well, considering that his illness will eventually (and possibly soon) mean the end of him, but his relative comfort these days is due in large part to the efforts of Sue and me. We use a miniblender to liquify canned food, and we try to feed him just about whenever he's hungry. Then, we wipe his mouth, shirt front, and the kitchen floor. There is pain medicine twice a day. And well, you know . . . we're simply keeping an eye on him, and offering him a lap when he wants it, and trying to make sure he knows he's cared for, and that we love him.

When I get behind in my "journal-journal" (the real one, that's made of paper), I have traditionally used a technique I call "Newsflashes." It's a silly but effective way for me to cover as many subjects as possible, giving myself permission to treat each subject as a "headline." (I'm really not fitted for this Internet-Twitter-ADHD-cursory-shallow style of writing.) So maybe I ought to try that today. I'll omit the silly little lightning-bolt "icon" I would draw beside each statement, if I were writing in my actual journal. Here goes.

TODAY IT'S MY BIRTHDAY. Forty-seven! As Rose O'Neill remarked on her sixtieth, "How roguish!" Well, I'm just glad we have nice weather, that water flows out of the tap today, and that we're going out somewhere for dinner. I don't even know where yet! (I get to decide!)

GREAT NEWS ABOUT THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI PRESS. All summer long, people have been outraged about the efforts by a few at the University of Missouri to hijack and dismantle Missouri's number-one book publisher, which happens to belong to the people of the State of Missouri. Fortunately, after months of receiving all kinds of public pressure, the administrators have--amazingly!--reversed their decision. But a great deal of damage was done. Press staff numbers are at an all-time low, and the disturbance in operations means that they're scrambling to rebuild their forthcoming list of titles.

I was looking to see if I had any pictures of the press or its staff to share with you. Most people don't know what "book publishing" looks like. Really, it's a bunch of people staring at computers. But to give you an idea of the change in the press in the past few years, here's a picture of the staff as of 2008, before nearly all the layoffs and downsizing began (copied from p. ix of University of Missouri Press: 50 Years of Excellence, 1958-2008). As far as I can tell, the total staff today numbers seven. Seven!!

But yes, the most recent news about the press has been particularly encouraging, so I'd like to encourage you to contribute to the press's future. Here's a link for making a tax-deductible donation. (Yes: My birthday wish is that you'd send a check to the University of Missouri Press!)

Also, browse their catalog and buy a book! Indeed, the books are available in print or electronic formats, and have been for years.

YARD WORK: MOVING THE IRIS. This has been my project the last few weekends. The catalyst was that my dad gave me a bushel of surprise lily bulbs: "If you can't find places for them, just throw them in a compost pile." (As if.) Back when Sue and I got our beloved privacy fence, we moved a bunch of iris to a less-than-optimal place under a tree, right on the corner. (I told you about our hardy heirloom irises.)

My plan was to remove the irises from under the tree and put the surprise lilies there. Those irises, then, could go into an expanded existing (more appropriate) iris bed. (It was expanded because of our new sidewalks and driveway--remember?) The iris, I think, will do well in their new location.

I also rescued some poor little iris bulbs from one of the local nonresident landlord's properties. They'd been mowed off regularly by his "lawn-scalper," but I think they should strengthen and revive. I look forward to seeing what color they are, once they're able to bloom again!

And you know how bulbs are--they always take up more space than you think they will. So I ended up digging up about a half of one of our backyard beds, too, and--sort of--reorganizing it, including some of the extra bulbs: Regular irises go "here," surprise lilies go "here," and Siberian (or are they Japanese?--oh, whatever!) irises go "here." And I made an attempt to segregate that variegated "bishop's weed" stuff (Aegopodium podagraria). We'll see how that goes!

THE NEW SIDEWALKS: UPDATE. Yep, they're lovely, all up and down Broadway. Despite the months of bare dirt due to the construction, heat, and drought, the grass they planted (once it started raining again) has taken off. It's looking really good! Compare the pictures below to the ones I posted earlier!

BREAKING NEWS: PHIDIPPUS AUDAX OBSERVED IN HOME OFFICE! Or, as they say in the guidebooks, a "bold jumping spider." I love the scientific name, though. Phidippus sounds like some Classical Greek playwright, and audax stands for "audacious." And these little characters are audacious! I get the idea they're as curious about us as we are about them. Naturally, I carefully trapped him with a cup and a piece of junkmail and escorted him outside. Below are a few pictures of a P. audax I took in 2008, while it perched on the hood of my car. Aren't the iridescent green chelicerae nifty? What a cool little fella!

If you're a regular reader, you know how I've grown to love spiders!

Well, that's enough "updating" for now--I have plenty more I want to write about, but I have a bunch of other stuff I want to do today!

The Frost Is a Coup de Grâce

As usual, we’ve been keeping tabs on our argiopes—our black-and-yellow garden spiders—as the season’s progressed. We’ve had them all summer—two on the corner, among the blades of a yucca, and one in the flowerbed near our front door.

Look, spider-watching really is fun! The orb-weavers stick around all season. You walk past an argiope web every day, and you can’t help but note things like, “oh, look, she’s got a grasshopper!” And you know when one of them has made an egg case, because she disappeared from her web for a whole day and has now returned to it, half as rotund as she was before. Then you find yourself peeking around the nearby vegetation, looking for that hidden egg sac. When you clean out that bed later on, you don’t want to inadvertently pitch that spent vegetation into the composter if it’s got her babies in it!

This past week, the argiope near our front door seems to have given up on her web-making. The winds and rain were simply too much; apparently, she threw in the towel and crept away.

She’s moving slowly; she’s getting skinny.

Over the weekend, she clung precariously to the bricks above our front door, which freaked out my nephew when he was visiting (we all had to walk right under her each time we went in and out of the house).

Do you suppose the argiope just said to herself, “Oh, what the heck! My web-spinning and egg-laying is done! Let’s go out and see some of this great big world that the grasshoppers are always telling me about (right before dinner).”

Nah—I know better. She hasn’t given up; quitting isn’t in a spider’s vocabulary. It’s survival; we’ve seen it plenty of times with argiopes. If one web location isn’t good—if it’s too windy, or gets smacked into too much, or doesn’t catch enough bugs—the argiope relocates. I’ll bet that’s what she was trying to do, bless her heart. And anyway, orb-weavers tend to have poor vision; she wasn’t “sight-seeing.”




The next day, we found her just standing, rather still, on the concrete steps leading up to our front door. (I hope she hadn’t fallen . . . I’m glad no one had squished her . . . some people just squish spiders as a matter of course . . .) So we picked her up and put her into the plants in one of our front planters. It’s pretty warm there. And so far, that’s where she’s stayed.

The embers of life go out so slowly with spiders. It’s her time.

I used to get rather sad when the freeze would come and, in a single, late October night, put an end to all the spiders, all the tender plants, all the bugs, all that vibrant summertime life. But now I see: The frost is a coup de grâce.

When it doesn’t come, cold-blooded life gradually grows too cold to continue, anyway. Spiders don’t have enough food, because the insects are dwindling; they can’t spin effective webs, because it’s cold and windy, they cannot move quickly anymore, and they’re beginning to starve. Without a decisive freeze, it can be a long, drawn-out death.




Think about it: All summer long, these insects and spiders have fought hard and survived. Our argiopes have netted and trussed prey, and feasted on it; they’ve scrambled away and hidden from garter snakes and praying mantises; they’ve mated; they’ve laid eggs. They’ve endured this summer’s drought, and they’ve put up with the indignity of being sprinkled with the garden hose.




The great majority of arthropods never make it to autumn; there are a million ways for a bug to expire. The ones that are left at this time of year are the survivors, the winners, the elders—as old as any of their kind ever get. In human terms, they are going to die of “natural causes”—of old age, of senescence, of systems breaking down.




The overnight freeze, when it comes, is a gift from nature that lets them die in their sleep.

I used to think it was rather cruel, how the freeze sneaks in during an autumn night and extinguishes all those amazing little sparks of life, but now I see it’s nature’s kindest way of saying—to the humblest of its creatures: Well done; come home.

Long-Jawed Spiders, a.k.a. Stretch Spiders--Genus Tetragnatha

I learned about a new spider recently, and I want to share it with you! (Autumn is a “spidery” time of year, isn’t it? It’s their last hurrah, before the frosts zap them like so many pretty flowers.)




As with the case of the picture-winged fly, this is one of those small arthropods that are so common and humble, I’ve never bothered to learn about them. But now I’m glad to have looked them up!

So today I’d like to introduce you to Tetragnatha! I’m pretty sure the species is T. elongata (though I’m not ruling out the similar T. extensa—apparently there’s a lot of variability in the drab coloration and patterning in both species). Also, the photos on this post show three different individual Tegragnathans, and they might not all be the same species, anyway.




Pronunciation: Do you suppose it’s pronounced TET-rag-NATH-ah, or TET-rah-NATH-ah? Gnathos is the Greek word for “jaw,” and I gather the g is silent—but then I was taught that the group of “jawless fishes” (including the lampreys), Agnatha, is pronounced “ag-NATH-ah,” with a hard g. If anyone knows how to say this, please chime in!

Some folks call these “stretch spiders,” because when at rest, or when frightened, they strike a uniquely “elongated” or “extended” pose, with the two long, skinny front legs stretched straight out before them, and the hindmost pair stretched behind. With their drab tan or gray costumes and narrow bodies, they look like an insignificant little twig or piece of grass.




The third pair of legs are shorter than the other pairs, and these are used to grasp whatever they’re resting on—a cattail blade, the underside of a dock railing, or their web.






The web is remarkable—these spiders weave orb webs, but they are not orb-weavers. Yes! They are in their own family, the Tetragnathidae, which is separate from the “official” family called the “orb-weavers,” the Araneidae. (The Araneidae famously includes two nifty spiders I’ve profiled before: the black-and-yellow garden spider, Argiope aurantia, and Micrathena gracilis, which I have dubbed the “heavy-metal spider.”)

Now, most spiders that spin orb webs (you know—those beautiful, intricate wheels of gossamer to net their prey with) make them “vertical”—they’re upright, like the wheel of your car, when it’s on your car.

Well, Tetragnatha seems to usually spin its web horizontally—parallel to the ground—like a tractor tire that’s being used as the boundary of a child’s sandbox.

But Tetragnatha’s web is not usually positioned over the ground. You’ll find their webs most often over water—lakes, ponds, streams. I see them commonly on the edges of docks, where a right-angle bend makes a nice V-shaped nook for them to build in.




Now, why in the world do they position their webs like this? Are they trying to catch jumping minnows—? No.




At this point, it’s time to talk about the life history of the mayfly! Mayflies, like many insects, undergo metamorphosis from unwinged juveniles to winged adults.

And the juveniles of mayflies (and dragonflies, too) are aquatic. Without the wings, they are odd-looking armored, legged insects with antennae-like “tails” that creep around on the bottoms of lakes and ponds, acting like “bottom feeders,” for the months and even years it takes for them to mature.

When a mayfly nymph has gone through all its juvenile molts and gotten big enough to become an adult, it floats to the surface, creeps up the stem of an emergent plant, or a stick, or the leg of a dock, and slips out of its skin (much like a cicada). What emerges is the mayfly form we’re familiar with, with wings as well as forelegs folded together like praying hands. (They oughta be praying . . .)




(Note: I’m simplifying the mayfly life history here: They actually have a subadult molt that gives them functional wings prior to the final molt as the sexually mature adult. But let’s leave that discussion for another day.)

So the mayflies say goodbye to their murky aquatic existence, crawl out of the water, and transform into their equivalent of “butterflies”—delicate insects capable of flying through the bright, clear air. It’s just like when cicadas emerge from years of living in the soil to be reborn as glorious flying, singing creatures.




But right over the spot where the mayfly’s wings are just now hardening, in the morning sun, into the machinery of flight, guess who’s cast her big hunting net? Yep. Tetragnatha. The mayfly opens its wings a few times, stretching its newly discovered flying muscles, then leaps into the air for its very first flight . . .






Now, now—don’t be crying over the mayflies! They are famously numerous, sometimes occurring in swarms. Some people absolutely despise them and the greasy mess their swarms make. In their adult form, mayflies are also famously short-lived (the name of their order is Ephemeroptera—the ephermeral insects). And anyway, if you eat meat and eggs, then you can’t talk—cows, pigs, chickens, lambs, all have more “going on upstairs” than the pin-headed mayfly.




By the way, another common name for spiders in this family is “long-jawed orb weaver.” The genus name Tetragnatha itself means “four-jawed spider”—which although literally untrue (they have just two fangs like all the other spiders), does colorfully describe the fact that the fangs are much longer than those of many other spiders!




In taking my pictures, I didn’t go so far as to harass (much less kill) any of these spiders just to show you the full extent of their unfolded fangs (chelicerae—chuh-LISS-er-ee)—but if you search the “Web” (ha ha) for pictures, you’ll find close-ups of the face, of the fangs, and even of the fangs “in action”: When a male and female Tetragnatha “get together,” they lock chelicerae. They, too, are “pin-headed.” The nice long “arms” of the fangs hold off the hungry female, preventing her from devouring the male before his “mission” is complete.




Sooooo . . . the next time you’re on a dock, or walking along the edge of a lake hunting for a nice fishin’ spot, or even taking a walk to the “island” at Columbia’s wonderful Stephens Lake Park (where many of these pictures were taken), keep an eye out for skinny little Tetragnatha, and greet her by name.

Voted “Meanest Common Name Ever”

Many amazing animals on God’s green earth have been vilified, abhorred, hated, persecuted by humans, needlessly—out of fear and ignorance. Out of prejudice, and in complete denial of our own human wickedness and insensitivity.

Spiders generally fall into this group.

And the people who “like” spiders tend to fit into a sort of “type” (trust me, I saw a lot of these guys when I worked at the pet store)—these are the same people who think piranhas, snakes, and any other seemingly “ferocious” predators are “cool.” I used to get the idea that these guys (and they usually were “guys”) didn’t “love” their pets so much as they liked the “bad boy” image those pets conferred upon their owners. (Probably “compensating.” Am I right—?)

But I contend that with a better understanding of their biology, and a willingness to translate their lifeways into the kinds of issues that matter to us—our children’s welfare, our survival, the pain of hunger—we can see them not “just” as predators but as animals more or less like all the other animals, ourselves included.

So today I’ve been thinking about a particular species of spider—a running spider, a wolf spider—that has gotten stuck with a most repellent name. Even the scientific name is unfortunate: Rabidosa rabida. You can probably guess right now what that means.




Here’s the common name: Rabid wolf spider. Rabid? Rabid?? It’s just silly. Invertebrates like spiders don’t carry or suffer from rabies; mammals (like ourselves) do.

I haven’t been able to find an explanation for the Latin name or the first word of the common name. So your guess is a good as mine. Meanwhile, our forever calling it “rabid” can’t do anything to help the PR efforts of this robust, athletic hunter.

For lots of interesting pictures of this species, click here.

The “wolf spider” name is fairly apt. This family of spiders, the Lycosidae, are swift runners. They don’t build webs; instead, like wolves, they have to chase down their prey on the ground. (A better metaphor, however, is a cat—for these spiders are intensely solitary and don’t hunt in wolflike “packs.”)

Wolf spiders, you might be interested to know, are lie-in-wait predators, kind of like pikes, cheetahs, and herons. They sit relatively still and quietly wait for prey to wander by—and then Boom! They’ve got ’em! Nailed! (Duck, turkey, squirrel, and deer hunters do about the same thing, only they “cheat” and use weapons—imagine how hard it would be if they had to chase after and grab their quarry!)

I think wolf spiders’ instinctive hunting strategy is what accounts for their sudden, jerky, fast movements. They’re not trying to be scary—it’s just that their movements only seem to have an “on” and “off” switch—stop, and GO!

When they’re hungry, they have to be able to distinguish between their prey and the “scenery,” which is why they sit so still: They’re looking for motion. Think of a cat frozen in place, zeroing on the movements near your birdfeeder!

Wolf spiders have pretty good eyesight, unlike the spiders that hang around in webs hoping to net and truss their prey. All wolf spiders have the same arrangement of eyes: On the lowest part of their “face,” a row of four little eyes; then a little higher, two quite large eyes, sort of like goggles; then, higher still and facing more to the sides, two medium-sized eyes.

Wolf spiders, by the way, can often be located as you walk around at night, if you hold a flashlight against your temple, right next to your eye, and beam the light parallel to your gaze, against the ground—these spiders have eyeshine like cats and rabbits, and their little “goggles” will reflect back at you like tiny mirrors.

One of the most remarkable things about wolf spiders, however, is the intensity of their maternal instinct. Female wolf spiders lay their eggs and enclose them into an egg sac, then attach the egg sac to the end of their abdomen, against the spinnerets. They drag this sac of eggs everywhere they go, even when they hunt. The egg sac can be almost as big as themselves, and nearly as heavy, too.

They are famous for the intensity of their search, should the egg sac fall off for some reason. They have been described as “frantic” as they hunt for their eggs; if they don’t find the egg sac, they sometimes instinctively attach another rounded object, like an empty snail shell, in its place.

The maternal instinct doesn’t end there, oh no. When it’s time for her eggs to hatch, the wolf spider allows all two or three hundred of the tiny spiderlings to scamper up her legs and onto her body, where for the next six months or so, they ride around, safe, on her abdomen. Again, while she hunts and carries on her life.

This doesn’t seem very “rabid” to me—it’s actually more like “family values”: a mother carefully tending to her children, the way nature intended.




The reason why I’m on this subject is that yesterday, while I was doing a bunch of yard work, I uncovered a female “rabid wolf spider” and her egg case. It was like a pale blue marble. It was about the size of a blueberry, or a green pea, and about as heavy.

In her haste (I was getting rid of an old brush pile that was her home), she dropped the egg case as she darted up the nearby walnut tree. I continued my work, figuring she would either come back for it or not.

About fifteen minutes later, after she’d gotten over her shock, she crept tentatively back down the tree trunk, retracing the steps of her flight, heading to where she’d dropped her egg sac. And indeed she hunted for it. Carefully. She was pretty wigged out at having her brush pile utterly “disappeared.”

But she was evidently quite relieved upon rediscovering her eggs. She put her whole body over them. She seemed to be checking them out. She carried them around. She did not reattach them, however.




I took photos of her, but when I stood to continue my yard work, she ran away again, abandoning the egg case. It was still there when we went in for the night. This morning, it was gone.

Two scenarios come immediately to mind: either she came back and retrieved them (which is my hope, since it was my doings that separated her from her eggs in the first place), or else some critter came along and enjoyed some spider caviar. That wouldn’t be such a bad fate, I guess, since the eggs would at least have done some good, somehow. It would be sad if they just rotted or got squished or something.

But I’ll keep my eyes open for her; if she did reclaim her egg sac, surely in a few weeks the eggs will have hatched and she’ll be walking around with her babies. And that would be pretty cool to see.

But we seriously need to come up with a better name for this creature—“rabid wolf spider” isn’t fair, and it isn’t kind. We can’t change the scientific name, but common names are, by definition, mutable, regional, fickle, inventive. Anyone have any suggestions?

Ummm, for the characteristic stripes . . . “Bacon-backed wolf spider”—? (Who doesn’t love bacon, even in secret?)

“Chocolate-striped wolf spider”? Chocolate has a lot of happy associations!

“Skechers wolf spider”? They remind me of those spiffy brown-striped casual sneakers so popular these days. And they are definitely a running spider . . .

Or . . . well, what do you think?

Year of the Mushroom: It Never Really Ended

Today, I'm picking up on the subject of my last entry, where I described how Sue and I used to have an annual theme. It started with my unofficial "Year of the Star," after I finished grad school and discovered I really missed "learning things."

When we lived in Columbia, our apartment was in a low area, next to a field and a creek, and we had lots and lots of spiders. I combated my instinctive arachnophobia by reading and learning about spiders. I shared what I'd learned with Sue. That year, which we later called "Year of the Spider," we even had a big lovely argiope on our tomatoes.

Somehow, learning their different names, and preceding each with "Mrs." (because, again, nearly all the ones you see are females), removed their anonymity and made them less scary. Mrs. Cyclosa. Mrs. Araneus. Mrs. Agelenopsis. And audacious Mrs. Phidippus with her groovy tetrachromatic color-vision goggles.




Yes, over the course of a whole year, we stopped to look at just about every single spider we saw, and tried to identify it. And we often fed them, too!

The first time we decided to designate a "Year of the" beforehand was in 1999. Neither of us had much of a clue about mushrooms and other fungi, so we set out consciously to spend a year with the shrooms.




We read mushroom books (and there are a lot of incredibly fun, popular science books about them!)--we started noticing them, "seeing" them.




And, amazingly enough, in August 1999, the annual conference of the North American Mycological Association was held right here in Missouri! We didn't join, but we did make it down to Cape Girardeau to witness some of the events.





But 1999 was a dry year, and overall it was kind of a bust for mushrooms. So we gave it another go--and 2000 became "Year of the Mushroom," too. It turned out to be a good thing--1999 gave us the preparation, the study, the exposure. In 2000, we got out in the woods!




Yep. It was great. We had our first-ever morel hunt, and I learned how to cook morels, too. That spring we found enough to make several dishes, from a delicious Asian stir-fry, to the good ol' "sauté in butter and garlic and add to chicken" stand-by (you can never go wrong with that), to Ozarkian Classique (cut 'em, soak 'em in salted water, rinse, drain, dip in egg, dredge in cornmeal, deep-fry in Crisco or canola, and salt).

We attended a great class--"Mushroom Mystique"--led by Ken Gilberg, held at Shaw's Arboretum. It was a lecture followed by a foray, after which all the shrooms we collected were ID'd by the master!




And we had a great time that year at the international grocery stores! The Italians, Germans, and Russians love mushrooms--and so do the Asians. We found all types--canned, dried, fresh. And they all have great names. Even the Mexicans have a favorite culinary fungus: corn smut (huitlacoche) is a delicacy to them!

We got a "grow-your-own shiitakes" kit. My mom bought me a special "mushroom cleaning brush." I made sushi rolls featuring mushrooms. At Christmas, I suddenly noticed how many ornaments (especially Old World ones) depict mushrooms (often those poisonous/hallucinogenic red-capped Agaricus species).




We never got very good at identifying mushrooms--mainly out of lack of interest. It's not like I'm starving and need to determine which mushrooms are edible. We had plenty to learn about them, culturally, biologically, ecologically.




Did you know that we'd probably be drowning in a sea of fallen branches, sticks, twigs, and leaves, if it weren't for fungi's amazing decomposition powers?




And did you know that some researchers think that the witch trials of old Europe resulted from "flying" hallucinations, excruciating burning sensations, and tissue damage caused by widespread ergot poisoning? (Ergot's a fungus that attacks grain crops.) The folks, being as superstitious as all get-out, attributed their maladies to witchcraft.




And did you know that tall people aren't very good at mushroom hunting? Short people--children especially!--are much better! Some folks think that "Easter egg hunting" evolved from annual springtime morel hunts.




There is so much to appreciate. Indeed, I think there are more absolutely fascinating "gee-whiz" stories about fungi than there are about plants and animals combined.




No, we didn't need to get into mycology so far that we would have to analyze spores microscopically. And the spore prints we made were mainly just for fun.

I made a spore print of a big gilled mushroom that was about five inches across--then I realized I could photocopy the spore print and make, well, "art" out of it. Very cool.




In August of that year there was a big news story out of Oregon, where biologists had determined they'd found the "largest living thing." It was the vast, subterranean mycelium of a "tree-killing mushroom," Armillaria ostoyae, often called the honey mushroom. They're supposed to be edible, but I'm not eager to try them.




I'm pretty sure those are the same doggone things that killed one of our young maples, and the serviceberry we'd planted. We get big clumps of them in our yard, wherever a tree used to be. Doggone it!




I'm kind of mad at them, and I worry that they're going to attack more trees in our yard . . . but I still find their exuberant masses of golden caps a source of wonder. I can't help but enjoy them.




So here it is, 2010, a decade after we had our second "Year of the Mushroom," and when we see a shroom, or a turkeytail, or a yellow blob of witch's butter, we still stop to appreciate the structure, the color, the texture. We still look 'em up in the books. We still have "mushroom consciousness." Hooray!




Throughout this post, I've included pictures of mushrooms that I've taken this fall. Just as spring is the best time to appreciate wildflowers, fall is an excellent time to look for mushrooms. I hope you've enjoyed the pictures as much as I enjoyed taking them!




Note: Just to make it perfectly clear--none of the mushrooms pictured on this blog post are being identified, and I am absolutely not telling you what you can or cannot eat. Consult a real expert for that--I'm just an enthusiastic enthusiast! With a camera!