Trinity River Audubon Center - June 21, 2013

I am out at the Trinity River Audubon Center on the first day of summer 2013 and it is a beautiful day.  Mid to upper 80's and sunny.  The only bad thing is that I forgot all of my insect collecting jars.  Thanks goodness I had my camera.

 

I went out to specifically find more snout beetles to see if they also have the "bacteria" I found on the 14th.  I can see the damage they have done to the plants, but can't find a single one. 

 

Found many Argiope - usually clustered close together - within 1 to 1.5 meters.  Female body size is about 2-3 cm.  They have lots of growing to do before mating.

 

Found one Argiope web with a hole in it and no spider.  Probably snatched up by a bird.

 

This is the back of the web.  Notice how the stablimenta hide the spider.

 

 

 It is early in the day and I came across this dragonfly sunning in a small clearing.  Body and wings oriented directly at the sun.  He let me get very close.  They are such good fliers that it must have known I was no treat to him.



I found one of my favorite spiders - a jumping spider.  She had just captured a homopteran that was as big as she was.  These spiders have excellent vision and, as I moved around the plant, the spider kept moving to keep facing me.

Notice that you can see the retreat this Salticid has built.

 

Of course, I just had to get as close as possible.  The poor little spider became so alarmed that it dropped its prey and hid.  I found it again and it faced and threatened me by shaking its fuzzy pedipalps - the two shortest "arms" near the face.

Here is the sad part.  Fire ants are constantly scouting everywhere for prey.  While the spider was hiding and then trying to scare me off, an ant found the dead hopper.  Soon it had recruited several of its sisters to help begin dragging the hopper off. 

 

I backed off to watch and see what would happen.  The spider watched the lost prey from a distance, but wouldn't approach it because of the ants.  Sorry about that.  Last time I checked the ants had the hopper about half way down the plant. 

 

The spider, threatened by me and having lost its prey to fire ants decided to hide out in its retreat. 

 

While I am sorry I caused the spider to lose its prey, it should have no trouble making it up.  The homopterans, or hoppers, are everywhere.

 

 

 

 These are beautiful animals.  Notice the stripe on the top insect continues through the eye.

 

One more very interesting, and rather large insect I found is this wheel insect.  About 3.5 cm (1.4 inches) from head to tail. 

Now for some of the plants at TRAC today.

 

The Texas Skeleton Plant (Lygodesmia texana)  Note that it has not disk flowers, only ray flowers.

 

 

Black-eyed Susan (Rudebeckia hirta)

 

 



 

 

Firewheel (Gaillardia pulchella)

Wright's Vervain (Verbena wrightii)

 On the back of a leaf I found a cluster of insect eggs.

 

 

 I took them back to the lab to see what I could find with the scanning electron microscope.

 

[100x]

 

 [350x]

The top of the egg has a definite pattern to it.

 

 [1,000 x]

 

 [1,200x]

There are tiny air holes in the top of the egg. The distance between marks on the scale is 4.0 microns making the holes about 1 micro in size.

 

 

It was a pretty good first day of summer at the Trinity River Audubon Center.  Even though my current focus is on spiders and insects, it is impossible to pass up the flowers. 

 

M. Gans

 

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