3-Nov-2015 DeYoung Park, Woodinville, Washington

Site location map. Click to enlarge.

The weather wasn't dry enough for a regular field trip with Rod Crawford, but it was just fine for tapping pine cones.  I chose Woodinville's shopping area for my destination and quickly spotted a huge western white pine (Pinus monticola) growing in tiny DeYoung Park (only 0.6 acres!).  The park is surrounded by parking lots and businesses and, like most urban parks, is kept clear of "tree trash".  However, I did manage to scare up 23 cones, many of which had escaped the groundskeeper's rake by falling into the Spiraea shrubs that were growing around the pine tree.

Huge pine tree in tiny park

Cones and needles accumulated
in Spiraea

I tapped 33 spiders from those 23 cones!  That averages 1.43 spiders per cone, which is the highest density I've collected so far this year in western Washington.  Twenty-one of them were juvenile Ozyptila (Thomisidae) colored and patterned like praticola.  And as usual I collected several juvenile Enoplognatha (Theridiidae) that look like ovata. A male theridiid still awaits identification.

Female Cryptachaea blattea tapped
from pine cone

What a stately pine

I also found several Cryptachaea blattea (Theridiidae) in this cone sample.  I've tapped this cosmopolitan species before from cones at other sites in the Seattle conurbation, but until now I hadn't gotten around to identifying it.

UPDATE [19-Aug-2017]: I again tapped fallen western white pine cones in DeYoung Park. Thirty-nine tapped cones produced 64 spiders, including a female O. praticola. This sample confirms the presence of O. praticola at this location.

A sprig of Spiraea still in bloom!