Travis County
I photographed 12 lapidicina group spiders near the upper and lower McKinney Falls in Travis County. They were lighter than the ones from Williamson, Milam, and Bell Counties although some from below the upper falls had stronger banding and one was a darker brown. Most others were without gray or black except for the leg bands. However, considering the ranges of appearance of each county group I failed to find any consistent characteristics to indicate more than one species was involved.
Each population was slightly different on average. Those from Williamson had the greatest contrast and variety of colors looking somewhat reminiscent of P. lapidicina in the southeast U.S. Those in Travis tended to be the lightest with the least variety of color. For now it seems all are probably P. mercurialis and the search for P. vadosa will have to move farther west.
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Lots of differences in different populations. Do you think it would still be P. mercurialis in Abilene?
Meant to look at those. Probably mercurialis though. Lots of them out in Briscoe County. Looked at P. vadosa obs. in Texas earlier today. First two probably mecurialis, but last two out in western TX probably represent two of the three other possible species, vadosa, sura, and steva. I'm reluctant to move ahead with the small number of west TX observations at present. By the way, it appears I'm the world leader in iNat Pardosa observations with 260. Second place has 120.
Yes! I actually saw that you were #1 weeks ago. I knew it would probably happen eventually.
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