Phidippus johnsoni is the largest jumping spider that we have seen on Leaning Oaks and is one of the largest on the west coast.  The teal chelicerae are particularly striking.

P. johnsoni is the most common jumping spiders in the west, its range extending from northern Mexico, east to the Great Plains and north to southern Canada. Despite that, there are others that we have seen here more frequently. They feed mainly on flies, other spiders and will eat aphids (yay!) . ​

The tubular silken nests are located under rocks or wood are two to three times greater than the length of the spider's body.  They remain in the nests at night, copulate in the nests and will remain in a nest for approximately two days pre-molt and six days post molt. They will use the same nest for up to 33 days (Jackson 1979). If you are looking up anything on the biology of Johnson's Jumping Spiders or Red-backed Spiders as they are known in some places, you will run into Robert Jackson's papers from the late '70s an early '80s; someone with keen observational skills and natural history interest. At least for this species!

These are both females at different molts. The males are solid red, whereas the females have the black stripe up the middles with varying amounts of design. The female on the right has had fewer molts than that on the left. They may have six to eight molts, males will have seven to nine (Jackson 1978). These both were found at the same time within a metre of each other so I am curious if siblings will molt at different rates. 

Where you find burying beetles (see #294) you will find a bevy of mites. The term phoretic refers the association between these two in which one organism attaches to the other, so the mite or phoront,  uses the other organism or host (the beetle) for dispersal. So if you are horse-riding, you are the phoront. Oh, except the phoront is technically not able to disperse on its own. Oh well, you get the picture. It isn't the English name of this particular species of mite! As far as I could find, there aren't any common names for these guys. 

Carrying around all of these mites has a cost to the beetle, the mites are heavy and can be found in great numbers, affecting the beetle's ability to fly long distances. What is the benefit to the beetle? This is where things get very cool. When the beetle finds some carrion, the mites amble off and feed on fly eggs and larvae, ridding the carcass of competitors that also feed on this limited food resource that the larvae of the beetles depend upon to survive. And the wingless, very small mites get to a food resource. Elegant. Don't feel sorry for the fly; they are more efficient and long distance dispersers than the carrion beetles and thus are more likely to find another food source. 

The mites lay their eggs in the brood chamber of their burying beetle. The new mite generation (or deuteronymphs) clamber on to the male beetle, who disperses before the female. When the beetles meet up with others, the mites will spread themselves around to other burying beetles, apparently keeping the numbers fairly even between the beetles (Schwarz and Muller 1992).  The numbers can be immense, Leech (1934) counted 328 on one Nicrophorus conversator! Interesting that for all of Leeches observations, he did not observe that it was the mites that were keeping the carrion free of maggots. He attributed this to the beetle adults protecting the food source from the competitors and that the only benefit that he could see of all these mites was that they "probably eat the filth sticking to the hairy undersides of the beetle". 

Running Crab Spider (Philodromus dispar) is a common crab spider found in trees and bushes at Leaning Oaks.  It is a" sit-and-wait" predator and hunts by ambushing its prey.  It does not build a web (what looks like a web in this photograph are actually reflections of its legs on a thermopane window ).  Males are a shiny black or dark brown with a white edging, females are much more variable in both size and colour.   As you can see the palps are large on this species (making it look like it is wearing boxing gloves). This male was photographed hunting at night on the sliding glass doors on the house, no doubt attracted to the insects lured by the lights inside the house.  It is yet another introduced invertebrate from Europe.

This is the most common and wide spread member of the Family Gnaphosidae. This is the family with the double exhaust pipes out the back, also known as spinnerets. Gnaphosa muscorum is rarely found in the open, but spends the day under logs and beneath the leaf litter, in moss and dirt, coming out at night to hunt. It is Holarctic in distribution, there being different subspecies as you circle the globe. 

Thanks (again!) to Darren and Claudia Copley for help with identification. 

This largish jumping spider was living beneath a flat of plants that had been sitting in one spot in the garden all winter. The characteristic scuttling and yes, jumping of this member of the Salticidae family got me very excited -these guys do have a huge cute factor. There is only one member of the Genus Evarcha in BC, so we are pretty sure that we got this identified as Evarcha proszynskii; but as always, let us know if we are wrong; or if there are others that this could be. Identifications are humbling!  An interesting factoid - the family Salticidae has approximately 5000 known species worldwide, and at that the highest percentage of members of any family of spiders. 

A member of the family Gnaphosidae or "stealthy ground spiders"--not a name that is going to win Zelotes fratis many friends I am afraid! They are not often encountered out in the open as they tend to to be mainly nocturnal,  and spend time under logs, rocks or debris. This one was found at the edge of the Douglas-fir forest. They hunt on the ground, not using a web to capture their prey.  The spinnerets are cylindrical, a bit like dual exhaust pipes and and often easy to see.

Thanks to Claudia and Darren Copley for all of their help in searching for, identifying and wrangling of these guys (and most of the spiders to follow! 

I was quite keen on the jaunty art nouveau pattern, found on the orb weaver Metellina segmentata. 

The web that this spider spins has no threads at its centre. This is common for the tetragnathid spiders. M. segmentata was introduced to the Vancouver area from Europe and is now one of the more common orb weavers in the Vancouver and Seattle areas. It generally builds it's web low and near the ground. 

Thanks to the person who provided the correct identification of this species -much appreciated!

It is fall. There is no doubt. How do I know? Because the guests leave the downstairs bathroom in one of four ways: 1) come running up for a huge jar and paper to save an amazing creature, 2) come out after there is a great deal of swooshing, flapping, slapping and flushing and then casually ask a while later...uhm, do you guys normally get such HUGE spiders?  3) come running up to use an upstairs facility because there is no freaking way they are going into the downstairs room, ever, 4) run screaming from the house, tossing their bags in front of them and all we see is the red tail lights tearing down the driveway.

It is fall and Eratigena atrica is looking to mate. They are not coming to get out of the cold, they are just on the move searching for another. That they are in your sink or shower just means that they ended up there while trying to get a drink and can't get out. Their webs are flat, a bit messy and have a funnel at one end.  They were introduced (accidentally I am sure) to North America from north western Europe in the early 1900's. 

Claudia Copley, a local spider expert demonstrates aptly in this video how there is nothing to fear from these guys; "they are our allies".  There are similar spiders that are moving about this time of year, including the hobo spider. The Garry Oak Ecosystem Restoration team had this great information sheet done up to tell the difference. The scientific name has changed since this was produced and what is Tegenaria duellica in there is this species. From what I could tell, there have been a number of taxonomic revisions. 

We think this jumping spider is Pelegrina aeneola, a widespread western North American species.  I will admit that I couldn't find a common name for the species and just plain made this one up. Leah hates it when I make up common names*.   Pelegrina refers to a famous pear-shaped pearl, discovered in the mid 1600's by an African slave in the Gulf of Panama that was "the size of a pigeon's egg". (As a reward his owner granted him his freedom). This pearl has an interesting history and was worn by the cross-dressing Rasputin to the opera, for example.  The word aeneola means made from bronze - undoubtedly in reference to one of the common colour patterns found in the males of this species.  

This small jumping spider has most often been collected from conifer trees, although has also been found in a wide variety of other habitats. Despite the tiny size of this spider it has been recorded taking prey as large as the Common Earwig. These are photographs of a female that joined us for lunch on July 5, 2014.

*She also doesn't like the term "common name"  and prefers the term "English name" or "Hul'q'umi'num' name or Spanish name....or whatever. For the record. 

A local spider expert commented that all we had featured were "boring spiders" ....I hope that this species doesn't fall into that category! I think that it is beautiful. This is Araneus diadematus, one of the spiders that builds the classic circular web that is strung between whatever they can find; in this case two Douglas-fir trees.  

It is an introduction from western and northern Europe and is found through southern Canada and the northern USA. An alternate English name is European Garden Spider--referring both to it's origins and a common habitat.

Eggs are laid in sacs in the fall and will hatch in the spring, the adults dying in the fall. 

Thanks very much to Sean McCann who caught the  identification error the first time around. And of course as I look now it is much clearer.  Much appreciated.