One question that I get frequently is “how can I find one of those beautiful flower spdiers?” My answer is to search among composite (daisy-like) flowers, look for one of the ray flowers (petals) that is folded over. Inspecting closely … Continue reading
Research on spider diversity (the number of spider species) in Ohio has been limited. The first major effort was conducted by William M. Barrows (1883-1946) of the Ohio State University, culminating in publications from 1918 to 1924. Barrows listed 306 … Continue reading
This year the American Arachnological Society (the leading scientific society of arachnid biologists in the Americas) is going to be hosting a virtual annual meeting. The meeting events are from 24 June through 1 July 2021. One consequence of a … Continue reading
One of our strangest-looking spiders is Ocrepeira, the asterisk spider. She has an amazing camouflaged color pattern complete with little lumps on her abdomen. She is actually related to our more common orb-weaving spiders, but has a very unusual web. … Continue reading
During the early summer back in 2015 I found that a few leaves of my backyard grape vines were covered with colorful galls. After some research, I identified these galls as “grape tube galls” which were likely created by Cecidomyia viticola … Continue reading