Tonya Smith has been entertaining her granddaughter with nature. "She was not thrilled about a spider. After I described it to be a glitzy
spider with a pretty and shiny abdomen I was able to get her attention." Aversion to spiders is most likely a cultural learned trait, spanning the spectrum from a bug in the house to full blown arachnophobia. Like most things in life, knowledge and repeated exposure can bring understanding.
She found this spider skittering around on her golden alexander and
identified it as a Striped Lynx spider, "one of the most abundant beneficial spider
species in gardens, yards, and agricultural fields throughout North
America. ". The eye arrangement is
typical of the the Lynx Spider family. The stripes on the thorax are faint, suggesting that it may have just recently molted. The iridescent dorsal coloration and the facial marking nails her diagnosis when compared with the photographs on entnemdept.ufl.edu. |
| entnemdept.ufl.edu |
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| by Tonya Smith |
The large pedipalps hanging below the face are the "key" in identifying this as a male. They end in palpal bulbs that are uniquely shaped by the species. The male reaches back to pick up his sperm, then fitting it into the female pore as described in Wikipedia as the "lock-and-key" theory.
Lynx spiders, Family Oxyopidae, are active hunters, eschewing web building and instead grabbing their prey in hand to hand combat (actually chelicera to insect). They tend to hang out on flowers,wit awaiting various pollinators that are bitesize. They have have "large spiny bristles on their legs and in many species the bristles
form almost a basket-like structure that may assist in confining the
prey that they grasp, and protect the spider from its struggles." If everyone could learn just a little about spiders, children could grow up with an understanding of them if not actual affection. Tonya's granddaughter is off to a good start.