Hello arthropod lovers,
I wanted to share these 2 things with you that I thought were super cool.
1. I took home a female adult American Dog Tick (Dermacentor variabilis) to see it up-close. Over here you can see how its conceals it's hypostome (Hypostome is the mouthpart that will be used to suck blood) under the palps. The palps are used for sensing a host in the vicinity.
2. The 2nd one is about Long-jawed Orb Weaver spiders (Family: Tetragnathidae). Their name describes what is so special about these spiders. I caught a couple mating at the Arastradero Pearson preserve. Spiders are different from other insects during the mating process because they don't couple their reproductive organs. Instead, the male deposits some sperm in a small web and transfers it to the female's genital opening using his pedipalps. In the video you can see both locking their long jaws with each other, that is so that the female does not eat the male during mating. For people interested in the spider, my best guess it is a Tetragnatha extensa.
I wanted to share these 2 things with you that I thought were super cool.
1. I took home a female adult American Dog Tick (Dermacentor variabilis) to see it up-close. Over here you can see how its conceals it's hypostome (Hypostome is the mouthpart that will be used to suck blood) under the palps. The palps are used for sensing a host in the vicinity.
2. The 2nd one is about Long-jawed Orb Weaver spiders (Family: Tetragnathidae). Their name describes what is so special about these spiders. I caught a couple mating at the Arastradero Pearson preserve. Spiders are different from other insects during the mating process because they don't couple their reproductive organs. Instead, the male deposits some sperm in a small web and transfers it to the female's genital opening using his pedipalps. In the video you can see both locking their long jaws with each other, that is so that the female does not eat the male during mating. For people interested in the spider, my best guess it is a Tetragnatha extensa.
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