Why did I ever leave the lab?

Today’s adventure in spidering was a trip to SWELL, the Scandia Woods Environmental Learning Lab. It’s a lovely place. I hated it.

There is a lake there. The lake has a thick marshy boundary, and outside that, a path through thick woods leading to a classroom that, in normal times, is used for school children’s field trips. It is lush and damp and overgrown, and you know what that means, boys and girls? In Minnesota? Yes, it means that the actual purpose of this site is to lure in delicate tasty young children so that their blood may feed the Mosquito Gods. If an old guy wanders in, well, all the better — a nice snack.

I had sprayed myself thoroughly with picaridin before we left. For some strange reason, perhaps the possession of arcane foreknowledge, the head of the trail had a mailbox containing a supply of Deep Woods Off. And a hammer. The hammer was a mystery for a short while. As we walked down the trail, the mosquitoes descended upon us. I had hosed myself with so much insect repellant that my skin was layered with a shiny sheen (which is even now drying to a lacey craquelure.) It did me no good. Apparently I was supposed to use the hammer. Part of the problem was that there many spiders, mostly tiny unfortunately, and I was frequently stopping and trying to photograph the things, and that was the signal for a pack of voracious beasts to charge in whining.

Also aggravating: Mary had no problems at all. I guess we know which of us is the succulent, luscious one now! Or was. I’m kind of dessicated after that experience.

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Went looking for Vikings at the Rune Stone Park, only found…

…spiders.

There are lots of things with the “Runestone” moniker attached in my area: Runestone Telecom Association, Runestone Apartments, Runestone Mobile Home Park, etc., etc., and there’s a park called Kensington Rune Stone Park just 40 minutes away from me. I decided to take a trip out there.

That’s a rather nice building to honor a fake carved rock supposedly left by Vikings visiting Minnesota in the 14th century. It’s empty now, probably due mostly to the pandemic, but it’s not clear what they do there — it contains a big empty meeting space, perhaps for lectures about Vikings. The Olaf Ohman farmhouse is there and a big barn and some nicely maintained grassy grounds. The notorious Runestone itself is not there — it has a separate museum of its own in Alexandria, 20 minutes away. It’s all rather embarrassing.

But we didn’t care we were there for spiders. We found a few!

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Looks exactly like my office

I’m still trying to work out the biology of nest building in my spiders — I’ve got some that assemble cunning little nests out of wood shavings, and some that do not. Someday I’ll have to figure out whether this is a different species from P. tepidariorum or not.

Cute, hey? I’ve been looking at spider architecture for a while, and am rather impressed with their work.

I suspect it might be P. tabulata, but I’ve got to do more experiments to be sure. I say more about it on my Patreon page.

I keep telling you, I refuse to get into ants

Nope, no way. They just keep getting in the way of finding spiders.

We took a walk out by our Horticulture Display Gardens, which recently reopened — but with sensible restrictions, like social distancing and masks and arrows designating the directions for walking. It was a little disappointing. Oh, sure, flowers and all that stuff, but our timing was off, because last night the area got pummeled by a brutal storm, there were downed trees and tree branches everywhere, and worst of all, most of the spider webs had been blown away. We found a few examples of spider survivors trying to recover from the catastrophe, like this brave little baby spider who had put together a beautifully formed orb web.

There were a few others around (posted on Instagram), but we’ll probably find more in a few days, once everything has dried out and they have a chance to do some reconstruction.

It’s a palace! A SPIDER PALACE!

I found a happy couple, a pair of Parasteatoda, nestled in a very awkward nook, low to the ground and difficult to photograph. That may be to their benefit though, since it’s nicely sheltered.

They’ve built a nest of flower petals and debris brought up from the ground. It’s fairly elaborate, which means it’s not a shack, it’s a palace by spider standards. The female is down below, the male is hiding up above.

(If you want to see it, it’s on my Patreon and Instagram pages)

I strongly suspect this is Parasteatoda tabulata, because they’re the ones with a reputation for building refuges in their web. The only way to be sure is to…dissect them and look at details of their anatomy, which seems like a cruel way to break up the happy pair and destroy their hideaway.

I’m going to take a different tack and leave them alone until I see an egg sac. Then I’ll scoop them up, home and all, and put them in a nice roomy cage in my lab with plenty of food and no predators and raise their offspring. Then maybe I’ll dissect a few of their children instead.

Yikes, that took a dark turn.

Spider fans gather at #Arachnids20 today!

Hey! Tonight! It’s the start of the 2020 American Arachnology Society Virtual Summer Symposium, and it’s going to be great.

We’re very excited to launch the AAS 2020 Virtual Summer Symposium TODAY, June 25, 7-9 PM ET with a brief welcome and overview of the symposium, and the keynote address by Martin Ramirez, Senior Researcher at Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales, Buenos Aires, Argentina. This talk is honoring the contributions of Norman Platnick to arachnology: “From roots to myriad leaves: the legacy of Norman Platnick on spider systematics”.

So it’s going to start with a discussion of this Platnick.

I anticipate some spicy conversations about cladistics.

Also note, tomorrow is all about social justice.

We also want to share updates and encourage you to join the Forum tomorrow, Friday June 26, 3-5 pm ET where we will host a community discussion of impacts of racism on arachnology and potential actions the AAS can take.

At a science conference?!?? Of course. Smart people care about correcting racial inequalities.

AAS Meeting starts Thursday!

Maybe I’m the only one enthused by it all, but the 2020 American Arachnology Society Virtual Summer Symposium starts the day after tomorrow. Online admission is only $10 if you want to see it! A quick summary of the schedule:

  • Thursday evening is a keynote recognizing the contributions of Norm Platnick.
  • Friday is a Discussion: Impacts of Racism on Recruitment and Retention of Black Arachnologists. Every scientific society is finally trying to pay attention to this issue.
  • Saturday, we have a workshop on using iNaturalist for science and outreach.
  • Sunday is the online poster session.
  • Monday looks like wall-to-wall 15 minute presentations.

A jolly time will be held by all. It’s more spread out than the usual in-person scientific meeting, which means, I hope, it will be low-stress and a little less exhausting than the usual affair.