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| Site location map. Click to enlarge. |
After recently
finding the introduced crab spider
Ozyptila praticola (Thomisidae) near the ferry terminal on Bainbridge Island, Bremerton became the next logical place to look for it. Accordingly, I hopped on a morning ferry from Seattle and tapped spiders from 8 sets of fallen conifer cones in the greater Bremerton area.
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A typical black pine grouping,
this one in Silverdale. |
The native western white pine (
Pinus monticola) is a minor but common part of the forest in this part of Kitsap County, but I was unable to find any that were accessible; they tended to grow on the highway margins or in private back yards. However, there were lots of black pines (
Pinus nigra) within reach. This is an introduced species commonly planted on commercial property in this region.
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Kitsap Peninsula. Blue & red
pins show where I have and haven't
found O. praticola, respetively. |
The long and the short of it is, I tapped a total of 357 fallen conifer cones and collected 33 spiders from 6 families. Five or six species were identifiable, including the native linyphiids
Erigone dentosa,
Grammonota kincaidi and
Tachygyna vancouverana and the introduced theridiids
Cryptachaea blattea and
Theridion tinctum. All in all, it was a fairly typical set of cone spiders from central Pugetopolis, except that it didn't contain any
Ozyptila praticola or even any juvenile
Ozyptila of questionable identity
. I have yet to find any
O. praticola on the Kitsap Peninsula, despite having found it on neighboring Bainbridge Island and Vashon Island.
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View from the ferry: Manette Bridge spans the Washington Narrows, linking
the two halves of Bremerton. The Olympic Range provides a scenic backdrop. |
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