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| Site location. Click to enlarge. |
On my
most recent trip in search of the southern boundary of the introduced crab spider
Ozyptila praticola (Thomisidae) in Washington state, I had leapfrogged over Tacoma and drove directly to DuPont and Lakewood, which I thought might lie in the southern reaches of the specie's local range. Finding no
O. praticola at the sites I sampled in those cities, it made sense to backtrack to Tacoma for my next sample. Tacoma is the next major city south of the
southern-most place I have confirmed
O. praticola's presence (Federal Way).
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| Sample site. Screen grab from Google Street View. |
On the drive to DuPont a few days prior, I had glimpsed several large pine trees growing around businesses near the Tacoma Mall. Although I encountered the usual problems with most of them (cones and tree litter had been removed by groundskeepers, or fallen cones were present but not open), I did eventually find a row of shore pine (
Pinus contorta) and Scots pine (
Pinus sylvestris) trees planted along a stone wall supporting the raised parking lot for Macy's Furniture Gallery. Unfortunately I have lost the photos I took at the site, but this screen grab (
left) from Google Street View will suffice. Note that there was more needle littler on the ground than is evident in this photo, but it was quite thin.
Although I was able to find 41 open or semi-open cones to tap, I found only two arachnids in them: 1 juvenile
Enoplognatha probably-
ovata spider, and 1 adult
Paraligolophus agrestis harvestman. Both are introduced species. This was perhaps my most uninteresting cone sample to date.
At the moment,
Federal Way remains the southern-most confirmed location of
O. praticola in Washington state. The search continues...
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| The spiders are out there. |
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