Rayetta's Butterflies - They Continue, Scarce

Hmmm. Due to the cold and cloudy weather consistent with Polar Bear season, my butterflies are scarce. When Ogma peeks out and the Pansy thermometer points to 60 we may see orange sulphurs (Colias eurytheme). Occasionally, there is a dainty sulphur or a variegated fritillary. Slim pickings.

But Crumby has been busy inspecting various seed crops for the tiny and underepresented in ecology. There may be a great many such lilipution creations. Crumby, what have you found so far in the Verbesina virginica seed crop?

Right away, I found this spider, Rayetta. I am not sure if this spider is dead, or merely frozen. Either way, this spider is presently inert and good for photo practice. Here we see this spider sitting upon a mm scale. The inert may be placed on such scales for purposes of measurement, whereas the lively won't stay put. This photo makes me wish I was not a total ignoramus when it comes to spiders. A man of my expereince ought to be capable of identifying this spider to family at least, but I can't. I may have to do something about that. Anyway, this spider habitates upon the receptacles, amid the chaff, of Verbesina virginica, or, Verb virgin.

Hmmm. Crumby, take some more pictures of that inert spider using the flash or flashes. Maybe you can eliminate the shadow from the flashlight on its butt.

All righty then, Rayetta.

Later:

All righty then, Rayetta. Check this out. This is using the good for 10,000 years flashlight to get focus, then a flash held about a foot from the spider off to the left. The picture shows the lower four eyes, chelicerae and proximal segments of the pedipalps.

Hmmm. Crumby, we are making progress.

Yepper. We need to build a little frame for the flashes though, so we don't have to hold them. I feel silly holding a flash. It's like having a robot for a pet.

Later:

See here Crumby. Borror, Delong and Triplehorn have diagrams of spider faces on page 113. This spider most resembles the diagram labeled Amaurobiidae.

Er. What else Rayetta?

They are also called white-eyed spiders. They are widely distributed.

Er. What else Rayetta?

That's it.

See. Borror, Delong and Triplehorn aren't any count for spiders. If you are going to keep me going on spiders, Rayetta, we need some spider tomes.

No, we don't Crumby. We can do all our own spiders. These will be the CB spiders. Soon Crumby, you shall have a pictorial key for the CB spiders and we can give them all names.

Man. That's too much work, Rayetta.

It will give you something to do Crumby, until, Hope Remains, the season, not Ray's girlfriend, commences.

All righty then, Rayetta.

Much later:

Dang it! This flash works intermittently. Why won't it do like I want it to? It's aggravating me, Rayetta.

Course it is, Crumby. It is the nature of digital devices to be aggravating. Just keep after it. Meantime, you have a picture of the Penstemon Psocid ready. Right?

Yepper. I believe this is about a third or fourth instar of one of the Pseudocaeciliidae. But I may be wrong about that. But if I'm right, it could also be an Ectopsocus.

All righty then, Crumby. Let's get back to work and see if we can find an adult.

All righty then, Rayetta.

Much, much later.

Shoot Crumby. You should have kept that first dead adult you found in the first batch of seeds.

Yepper Rayetta. There are no adult pscodids in this group. Just very tiny unidentifiable instars. We have reached the bottom of the bean bin on our ability to resolve. That instar is really little. Like 1/10mm.

Yep, that little yellow jobby. But check out that fungi, Crumby. I'll bet that fungi is our problem. That white stuff must be old cast off baby instar insect skins. And those tiny skins may not be former Psocids either.

Yepper.

Yepper.