San Saba and Lampasas Counties

Last Wednesday was warm and humid, so that was the day to go spider hunting. I wasn't going to let Colorado Bend State Park being closed spoil my trip, and I found my first lapidicina group spiders along the road about a mile outside the park gate. Although there was no water or even a dry wash nearby, it looked like runoff probably crossed the road at that point and more importantly perhaps were the stones scattered over largely treeless grazing land. It turned out there was a pretty active colony there. All appeared to be mercurialis. I checked several more spots along the way home including a small creek near the intersection of TX 580 and CR 1457. On the narrow sand beach along the creek I found a single juvenile Arctosa littoralis. I moved on to a large expanse of exposed bedrock about 30' from the water which was littered with loose stones. It turned out there was a pretty active colony of Pardosa mercurialis there as well. In both places I had to do a lot of stone turning before finding at least one of each sex.

I had hoped to find some vadosa in the area which was downstream from those I found near Menard. The San Saba River had high vertical sides going through town. It's possible that would block any downstream migration of vadosa.

Eric

Posted on 15 November, 2021 21:40 by eaneubauer