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| Site location |
A lovely 1.5 mile hike through the quiet forest brought me to my day's destination, the end of Sholan Point. Now here was a view! The end of Sholan Point is high and rocky and provides one of the best panoramic views of the reservoir. I'm sure that if it was closer to Route 110 and reliable parking, it would be a popular destination for lovebirds.
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| Sampling site |
Eastern white pines (
Pinus strobus) dominated the collection area, with various species of oaks (
Quercus sp.) present in smaller numbers in the overstory as well as creating scrubby thickets in the understory.
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| Damselfly on fallen cone |
Tapping 50 cones, I collected 9 spiders from 4 species. Among them was a female
Eridantes erigonoides (Linyphiidae, Erigoninae), one of the few microspiders I've been able to identify to species (so far). Her epigynum was so distinctive that I was able to identify her by flipping through the illustrations in Paquin & Dupérré's
Guide d'identification des araignées de Québec.
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| Eridantes erigonoides |
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| Pseudoscorpion, family Neobisiidae |
I collected 15 spiders and 3 species from a load of pine needle litter. The species represented by mature specimens were
Neon nellii (Salticidae),
Phrurotimpus alarius (Phrurolithidae) and a linyphiid TBD that I recognize from earlier cone and litter samples.
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| Trailside mushroom |
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| Nectaring Agapostemon sp. bees |
The litter sample also contained numerous mites as well as a pseudoscopion (Order Pseudoscorpionida). One of these days I will study this group of arachnids in greater detail. They turn up fairly regularly in
Pinus ponderosa cones in Washington state, but less frequently in
P. strobus cones here in Massachusetts.
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| View of Wachusett Reservoir from end of Sholan Point |
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