Bioblitz

I attended the 9th annual bioblitz at the Sam Zim blog today and I had a banner day. I chose the spider group so I got to spend the whole day with a spider expert who teaches at Bethel University in Mankato. Around the Welcome Center we found a grass spider, a parasteatodam, a sheet web spider, a filmy dome spider and a wolf spider (see picture). I thought wolf spiders were huge but I guess they come in all sizes. This one was very small. We found dozens of wolf spiders today. I almost stepped on a toad and a wood frog.

We saw a dwarf spider, a ground spider and a lichen moth (see picture).

This is the carcass of a fishing spider stuck to the siding of the Welcome Center. I guess I didn't realize spiders shed like this when they grow larger but it makes perfect sense now.

We drove a few miles away to an agricultural area. We parked between a pasture and a hay field. Here we found a Bronze jumping spider, a flower crab spider (which was bright yellow), a cob web weaver spider, a daddy long legs (which is not actually a spider), and a four line plant bug. I learned that black widow spiders are found in Minnesota but only in Houston County and they are only found down inside gopher holes. Then we saw a female dicsissel fly by with food in her mouth. This dicsissel is a lifer bird for me so this was a banner day. There is a dicsissel irruption this year. We saw bobolinks and a sedge wren and a savannah sparrow, a warbling vireo and a sedge wren. Then I scooped up a spider using the spider net that he could not identify. He took it to preserve it. He planned to soak it in clove oil for a week for more and then surgically extract the reproductive organs and look at it under a microscope. If it turns out to be a new state record spider he said he would give ME partial credit because I scooped it in the net! OMG! Just think of the street cred this would give me! Fingers crossed this is a new state record. This guy already has 50 to 60 state records.

Then we found an assassin bug. That is my finger and also that yellow spot is assassin bug manure. Sh*t happens! We also found a dwarf singer orb weaver, a metaphoria spider, and a mesh weaver. We found a long jawed orb weaver and it was a male. He told me the long jawed orb weaver males hold their sperm in these protrusions from their mouth. The sperm is sucked from the abdomen by the negative pressure in the mouth protrusions which totally sounds like science fiction to me but he swore it was true! 

This is an arabesque bog weaver spider.

Back at the welcome center at the end of the day I found a phoebe nest with babies in it. The group had a recap of the day. The bee group found a frigid bee. The plant group found dog vomit slime mold. The name alone makes me wonder what it looks like. The gall group (not gull but gall) found 60 NEW species today. The bird group found golden winged warblers (which I have yet to see) which is excellent for a middle of the day birding group. They said because of the drought this is tough year for butterflies. Someone found a primrose moth which are a beautiful moth in bright pink and yellow. The primrose moth sleeps during the day inside the primrose flower which is where they found it. All together the 55 people in attendance found between 400 and 500 species.

I forgot to play bog bingo but I had a banner day today.