 |
Site location map.
Blue: O. praticola confirmed via adult specimen.
Yellow: Juvenile O. ?praticola found.
Red: No O. praticola adults or ?praticola juveniles found. |
With a few hours free on this, the final day in an extended dry spell, I decided to cross Lake Washington to look for
Ozyptila praticola (Thomisidae) in the Bellevue area. I was sure that Bellevue lay solidly in the heart of
O. praticola's local range. However, since I've done very little sampling there, I had no specimen to validate my assumption.
Hunts Point
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Black pines at Hunts Point
Town Hall |
I exited Hwy 520 at 84th Ave because I had seen, via Google Street View, that that street was lined with black pine (
Pinus nigra) trees. This was indeed the case, but unfortunately their litter and fallen cones had been removed. So I proceeded to the next possibility, which was another row of black pines next to the Hunts Point Town Hall. The litter there was intact, but the fallen cones were poorly opened. Nevertheless, they harbored enough spiders to let me know I was on the right track; tapping 50 cones got me 3 spiders, two of which were
O. praticola juveniles.
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Cone scales poorly opened,
but needle-wood chip litter... |
 |
| ...produced several adult O. praticola. |
Having had success sifting pine litter in a similar situation the other day in Kent, I decided that sifting another batch here, where I knew
O. praticola was present, was probably a better use of my very limited time than looking for another cone deposit that might (or might not) produce a mature specimen. This turned out to be a good decision; the bag of litter (pine needles and wood chip mulch) I sifted contained 6
O. praticola, including 3 females and 1 male.
Hunts Point is a tiny town of just 500 inhabitants. There are probably more
O. praticola there than people.
Bellevue
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| Black pines on Bel-Red Road... |
 |
| ...had nice thick needle litter beneath. |
I was still hoping to take a sample in Bellevue proper, but had no time to scout out a good cone source. So I made do with sifting litter from beneath yet another row of black pine trees with closed fallen cones, this time along Bel-Red Road. My luck wasn't as good at this site, as I found only one juvenile
O. praticola and had no time to sift a second batch.
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A pine peeks over the town hall of Hunts Point, where O. praticola
undoubtedly outnumbers the human inhabitants. |
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