Brave Sneelock is back!

Phidippus audax spiders were celebrating fall in North Texas just like me. The weather finally gets below eighty degrees and you just want to run through the grass, sun yourself, play peek-a-boo on the metal railing down by the dam, and show off your iridescent green fangs. When one Bold and/or Daring Jumper dragged a captured bee off between the cactus spines while two skipper butterflies watched, I was pretty sure there was going to be a jumping spider BBQ tailgate party. According to iNaturalist these spiders are audacious. For jumping spiders these are large, the females up to 3/4 inch long, and they get extra style points for black and white fur, stripes, and spots. They also like to be YouTube stars.

Sneelock is probably my favorite Dr. Seuss character, ahead of even the Pale Green Pants:

Through pots full of lots of big Stickle-Bush Trees
Slides a man! What a man! On his Roller-Skate-Skis!...

© 2014-2016 Nancy L. Ruder

Hello, spiders!

This noon I walked up to the patch of prairie, and was pleased to see the split rail fence and the Blackland Prairie sign. Ready to greet me at the locked gate was this delightful little jumping spider. It looks strangely like the weekend parking lot attendant at one of my jobs. Must be the mustache!

Down by the dam I peered at the seriously low water level through an orb-weaver's web.

At the dam the long-jawed orb-weavers were in abundance. And, duh, these spiders are described in field guides as "elongate". I kept misreading "elegant" instead of "elongate". They were there, upside-down, under many of the railings. In my opinion, they've still got elegance.

 

What a knack
there is to that

Acting like a 
born aristocrat

We got elegance,
if you ain't
got elegance

You can never
ever carry it off

Lyrics from Hello, Dolly!