Favoritos de rjadams55

An Orbweaver spider with brightly colored swirling markings on its abdomen. It constructed a vertical web inside a red bucket in a grassy meadow near cattle trough. It looks like it caught a winged insect. Very well camouflaged on it's "trashline-of-debris" web.

Update 4/5/22:

"M. spinipes is one of the very few semi-colonial spiders in the US. Each individual builds its own orb web with a retreat made of leaves and silk suspended inside a surrounding tangle web. A line connects the retreat to the center of the orb while the tangle webs of the different spiders are interconnected."

Metepeira spinipes is a member of Typical Orbweavers, Subfamily Araneinae

Great local observation of this species: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/3976674. Thanks @rjadams55!

https://bugguide.net/index.php?q=search&keys=Metepeira+spinipes

Update 4/6/22 07:53

Western Spotted Orbweaver (Neoscona oaxacensis) a.k.a Zig-zag Spider, or Araña Manchada de Jardín is a species of spider in the family Araneidae. It is distributed in the Americas, from Kansas and California south to Venezuela and Peru, including the Galápagos Islands.

The Mission Cactus in not native to the region, but was brought to Monterey County by Spanish missionaries and settlers. Both the fruit and pads (nopales) are edible. As part of the former Soberanes Ranch, these cactus are widespread in the canyon's dryer south-facing slope.

This extremely large male fishfly was identified to species based on the structure of its reproductive organs, clearly visible in photo 2.

Information used to identify this individual was found in Liu and Winterton's (2016) review of the North American species.

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0148319

This adult male tarantula was found along the side of I-180 just inside New Mexico and within the Gila Natl. Forest.

Species-level identification based on appearance, location and information contained in the tarantula revision by Hamilton et al. (2016).

Mono County phacelia, Phacelia monoensis, Nevada, White Mountains, Pinchot Creek - Columbus Salt Marsh drainage, elevation 2626 m (8615 ft).

This rare annual species is a study in paradoxes. In a genus known for its showy purple flowers, Mono County phacelia belongs to a small group of yellow-flowered species adapted mostly to alkaline clay soils.

This species is found only along and near both sides of the California-Nevada boundary in the southwestern Great Basin, and is limited to isolated patches of shrink-swell clay soils derived from andesitic volcanic deposits at middle elevations in the mountains.

But paradoxically, most populations are found where these deposits have been bisected and disturbed by mining roads and other dirt tracks. Plants have been found in low densities on undisturbed clay deposits, but populations are generally densest on clay road banks that experience infrequent re-disturbance. It's even possible that seeds are dispersed between clay deposits by riding on muddy vehicle tires.

But even so, the plants do not spread outside their preferred set of soil patches, and remain rare and vulnerable to more intensive or frequent disturbance, including road maintenance and mining exploration and development activities.

Uploaded from my Flickr site: https://www.flickr.com/photos/127605180@N04/