An unusual spider web, and the spider that made it.

Also from Sunday's out and back run to Saddle Peak.

I'd just run up the long hill we call "The Beast," and was running east on a relatively level stretch of gravelly dirt road on Lasky Mesa, when it's movement caught my eye.

My first thought was "Tarantula!" but this spider was slightly smaller than a tarantula, and running. Tarantulas walk, they (usually) don't run. This spider ran with a smooth, agile, articulated gait that must be the envy of the Arachnid world. I had never seen a spider like this, and started moving in its direction.

Lurking in the back of my mind was an experience I'd had with a tarantula, also on Lasky Mesa. In an attempt to redirect the tarantula from the margin of a dirt road, I'd blocked its intended path with my foot. This had worked a couple of times before, but this time the big spider briefly paused and then continued to walk toward my running shoe. My shoe was on top of some dried oak leaves, in the grass on the side of the road. I thought maybe if I rustled the leaves... with lightning speed the tarantula charged my foot, and I jumped the proverbial mile.

Today I was going to have to react quickly if I was going to get a photograph. As I started moving toward this unusual spider, it saw me, and increased its speed. I continued to move in its direction, and it suddenly began a series of bizarre, defensive leaps. In a couple of seconds, the spider did three exaggerated "accordion" leaps, extending vertically to the full length of its impossibly long legs. The motion was somehow reminiscent of the propulsive action of a jellyfish. It was unexpected, and very effective!

After that the spider hunkered down, but seeing how quickly it had moved, I only took photos from a "respectable" distance. I wasn't real excited about putting my hand a couple of inches from its big fangs.

Saturday, I was running at Ahmanson with Brett, on Lasky Mesa, and shortly after telling him this story, he spotted the wolf spider (probably Schizocosa mccooki) pictured above!

Related post: Tarantula Time

I found this and several other variable checkerspots (Euphydryas chalcedona) flittering about and feeding on golden yarrow along the Garapito Trail, on a recent run in the Santa Monica Mountains.

A closer look revealed an outlandish creature with black-spotted orange ladybug eyes, a bright orange spiked hairstyle, and a substantial spiraled trunk.

The "hair spikes" are part of the butterfly's sophisticated scent sensing system. They are probably used in combination with the antennae to provide a three dimensional olfactory picture of the butterfly's surroundings. This would help guide the butterfly to food or potential mates.

Butterflies are masters of low speed flight, and exploit several unusual mechanisms to generate aerodynamic lift. They are also opportunistic, and will take advantage of thermals and variations in the windfield to move from one place to another.

Several times when I've encountered a butterfly on a run, it has flown along with me for a surprising distance. I know that butterflies can be attracted by color, that's happened in my bright yellow kayak. But in this case I don't think it's color or coincidence. It seems to me the butterfly is surfing the wave of air pushed around me as I run, similar to the way a porpoise surfs the bow wave of boat.

Related posts: Sylvan Hairstreak, Western Tiger Swallowtail

A couple of weekends ago, I was running up toward the Hub on Fire Road #30 with a couple of runners training for Leona Divide. One of them stopped suddenly, and pointed, "That's a scorpion!"

It was -- about an inch or so in length. I guess I shouldn't be surprised, but somehow I just didn't expect to see a scorpion out in the middle of a fire road, on a run to Trippet Ranch.

The title photo is a view from Eagle Springs Fire Road, between the Hub and Trippet Ranch, in Topanga State Park. Saddle Peak is in the distance.

A Winter aggregation of convergent ladybug beetles in the Santa Monica Mountains, near Malibu, California. Here's a short HD video snapshot of one small cluster of the ladybugs.

From Saturday's trail run from Kanan Rd. to Malibu Canyon.

Almost incandescent in the soft light of an overcast sky, the remarkable color of this scrub oak apple gall contrasts sharply with the muted greens, grays and browns of the surrounding chaparral.

The gall forms in response to the larvae of the California gall wasp. The gall protects the developing larvae, as well as providing it a source of food.

On the right side of the gall there appears to be a "sun print" of an oak leaf in the red color, where a nearby leaf may have shielded the surface from sunlight.

From today's run on the Backbone Trail in the Santa Monica Mountains, near Saddle Peak.

The second and third weeks of September is the time I'm most likely to encounter tarantulas in Upper Las Virgenes Canyon Open Space Preserve (formerly Ahmanson Ranch). Autumn is when maturing male tarantulas emerge from their burrows and wander in search of a mate.

This tarantula (Aphonopelma spp.) was found near upper Las Virgenes Creek on today's wonderfully cool 8 mile "FiveFingers" run.

Its menacing body glistening a deep iridescent blue, a tarantula hawk wasp feeds on the flowers of a narrow-leaf milkweed.

I haven't found these huge wasps to be particularly aggressive, but I'm not sure at what point a digital camera held inches from the alien-looking insect becomes a threat -- and I don't want to find out!

The following is from the paper Venom and the Good Life in Tarantula Hawks (Hymenoptera: Pompilidae): How to Eat, Not be Eaten, and Live Long:

"Tarantula hawks produce large quantities of venom and their stings produce immediate, intense, excruciating short term pain in envenomed humans. Although the instantaneous pain of a tarantula hawk sting is the greatest recorded for any stinging insect, the venom itself lacks meaningful vertebrate toxicity. ...the defensive value of stings and venom of these species is based entirely upon pain. This pain confers near absolute protection from vertebrate predators."

Shudder...

While photographing the wasp, I also took this short HD video. From a run earlier this week at Sage Ranch Park.

Related post: Tarantula Hawk

Large milkweed bugs (Oncopeltus fasciatus) on narrow-leaf milkweed. There is a brood of immature bugs (nymphs) in the opening seed pod, between the two adults. The aposematic red-orange color tells predators the insects taste bad. Adults probably benefit from staying on a plant with the nymphs, because collectively the defensive display is more effective.

The adjacent photograph of immature milkweed bugs (from Photography on the Run) is being used by the Denver Museum of Nature and Science as part of their "Awesome Adaptations" station educational program.

Wood Ranch Open Space

The fire road was covered with crawling and darting bees -- so many I could feel the low, resonating buzz of the colony. Standing in the middle of the buzzing bees, I heard an "Oh crap!" from behind me. A mountain biker -- stopped about 20 yards away -- explains he's allergic to bee stings.

We were a little east of the China Flat "T" on the Albertson "motorway" -- a fire road in the Simi Hills. Taking advantage of cool, sunny weather in the Los Angeles area, I was doing a course I had not done for years, an out and back trail run from the Wood Ranch trailhead to Simi Peak, with a short circuit around China Flat.

I had taken a short detour to check a small vernal pool hidden in the oaks off the fire road. There are surprising number of these ephemeral water sources in the Simi Hills. They sometimes have water when it's unexpected, but this time the pool was dry.

The bees on the road were digger bees, ground nesting bees that look like fuzzy honeybees. Like honeybees, males have no stinger. Males swarm over the burrows of females, waiting for them to emerge. Females can sting, but in my experience, and from what I've read, are generally not aggressive. Here's a very short video (from later in the run) of a second colony on the Simi Peak Trail.

Not being able to risk being stung, the mountain biker waited on the side of the road for his buddy to realize he wasn't behind him anymore. I headed back to the China Flat Trail, and then continued to Simi Peak. Here's a Google Earth image and Google Earth browser view of a GPS trace of my approximately 10.75 mile route.

Note: A mountain biker on the Long Canyon trail told me he had seen a mountain lion in the area earlier in the morning. He was certain that it was a mountain lion, and not a bobcat or coyote.

A western tiger swallowtail butterfly on western columbine near Halfway Camp on the Vivian Creek trail on Mt. San Gorgonio.

A section of the trailing edge of the swallowtail's right hindwing is missing -- probably the result of bird predation. This did not seem to affect the butterfly's flight. It still nimbly flittered from flower to flower.

From Saturday's San Gorgonio Mountain - Falls Creek run.

Bumblebee on Kotolo milkweed. From a run on Lasky Mesa in Upper Las Virgenes Canyon Open Space Preserve (formerly Ahmanson Ranch).

There is yellow, and then there is the YELLOW of the mariposa lily, Calochortus clavatus. Remarkable in its brightness and purity, its yellow is one of the most intense and vibrant concentrations of color I have seen in the chaparral.

It is relatively uncommon, and this is one of a few seen along trails in Rocky Peak Park, and the Simi Hills. Of the varieties listed in the Jepson Manual, this appears most similar to the slender mariposa lily (Calochortus clavatus var. gracilis).

The insect emerging from the flower is a small bee -- probably a sweat bee (Halictidae). These bees were found on several of the mariposa blossoms along the trail. They were usually busy slurping nectar from the gland near the base of each petal, and partially hidden by the club-like hairs that gives the species its name.

From a run earlier this week in Rocky Peak Park.

Related posts: Mountain Mariposa, Plummer's Mariposa Lily

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The bright orange-red coloration of these immature large milkweed bugs (Oncopeltus fasciatus) is a warning to predators that they taste bad. Like monarch butterflies, they concentrate foul-tasting compounds from the narrow-leaf milkweed (Asclepias fascicularis) in their bodies.

Following several instars (molts), the nymph is transformed into the adult insect.

The photograph is from a run at Sage Ranch on July 23, 2007.

A bee forages on Bigelow's sneezeweed (Helenium bigelovii) at Little Jimmy Spring. From Sunday's Islip - Baden-Powell loop.

Mariposa lilies (Calochortus invenustus) blooming through the palmate leaves of a lupine at about 8500 ft., near Sawmill Mountain, west of Mt. Pinos.

According to data from the Consortium of California Herbaria, this species was documented in the Mt. Pinos area as early as 1897.

The wasp-like insect is a hover fly, probably Chrysotoxum festivum.

From Sunday's Mt. Pinos-Mt. Abel Out & Back run.

Related posts: Plummer's Mariposa Lily, Bee Fly On Western Wallflower

Perfectly sized to work the minute central disk flowers of golden yarrow, a tiny insect -- perhaps a syrphid fly -- hovers a few millimeters from the plant, assessing the risk of continuing to feed.

The compound flower head of the golden yarrow (Eriophyllum confertiflorum) is about the size of a green pea (10mm), and the individual disk flowers at its center are about 1/5 as large (2mm).

From a run at Sage Ranch Park on May 28, 2007.

Related post: Bee Fly on Western Wallflower.

Ants forage among the blossoms of Eastwood manzanita on the Chumash Trail in Rocky Peak Park. From a run on Wednesday, March 21, 2007.

Some related posts: Chumash-Las Llajas Loop, Chumash-Hummingbird Loop, San Fernando Valley from Rocky Peak, Chumash Trail Snow.

We received a little rain in the Los Angeles area earlier this week. There was just enough light rain to dampen my shirt, muddy my running shoes, and ornament this web with droplets of water. Refreshing as it was, the precipitation did little to relieve our ongoing drought.

To date, according to NWS data, this is the driest water year in Los Angeles since recordkeeping began in 1877. From July 1, 2006 to March 22, 2007 Downtown Los Angeles (USC) has recorded only 2.47 inches of rain. This is 10.79 inches below normal. Checking back through NWS records, 2.47 inches is the total amount of rain recorded in Downtown Los Angeles from May 23, 2006 through today -- a period of 10 months!

In the past few years Los Angeles has experienced a number of weather extremes. The driest water year on record for Los Angeles was just set in 2001-2002, when 4.42 inches were recorded. Then in 2004-2005, Los Angeles was deluged with 37.25 inches of rain -- the second wettest on record. During that period, Opids Camp in the San Gabriel Mountains recorded over 100 inches of precipitation! In July of last year Pierce College in Woodland Hills recorded a new all time high temperature for that station of 119°F. This may have been the highest temperature ever recorded in Los Angeles County. In mid January of this year many new record low temperatures for the date were set in the Southern California area. Pierce College plunged to a record low of 20°F (-6.7°C) and a temperature of 10.4°F (-12°C) was recorded at a research site in the Santa Monica Mountains.

Computer models are indicating another chance of rain early next week. At the moment, the system looks like it could produce rainfall amounts similar to Tuesday's system, perhaps a little more. But with the equatorial Pacific and atmosphere looking more and more La Nina like, significant rain is looking less likely, and we may be talking about record drought in Southern California for many months to come. We'll see!

The photo of the wet spider web was taken near Lasky Mesa in Upper Las Virgenes Canyon Open Space Preserve (formerly Ahmanson Ranch) on Tuesday, March 20, 2007. The funnel shaped web is probably that of the western grass spider, Agelenopsis aperta.

Related posts: Chaparral Freeze, The Color of Rain, El Nino Drought, Sunset Snow Shower, Rainy Morning on Rocky Peak Road.

An ant forages among the florets of a wreath plant.

I've run past wreath plants thousands of times in the chaparral of local open space areas. At a glance, the nondescript wiry brown plant isn't very appealing. But it's one of a few plants you'll see blooming in the chaparral in the Fall, so on a run this last November I took a closer look. This revealed a lavender-tinged composite flower that is anything but mundane. And, as I was to discover, a case of probable mistaken identity, and an example of one of the ways new species occur.

Three field guides in my library identify the plant pictured above as Twiggy Wreath Plant (Stephanomeria virgata). But, as discussed by Tom Chester, there is some confusion regarding it's characteristics and identity. It could be the case that many Southern California plants previously identified as S. virgata may actually be San Diego Wreath Plant (S. diegensis), including those in the Santa Monica Mountains.

The plants are very similar, but according to the identification key for the genus Stephanomeria in the Jepson Manual can be distinguished by a groove along the length of a seed (achene). This isn't something easily done in the field. The achenes are so tiny that they are best seen in a strong loupe or a low power microscope. Wayne's World Volume 9 (Number 3) Fall 2000 has some photographs of the achenes and groove.

So why are S. virgata and S. diegensis so similar? The genetic relationship of various members of the genus Stephanomeria has been researched and it appears likely that S. diegensis is a relatively recent species that resulted from a natural cross of S. exigua and S. virgata.

The photograph of the foraging ant was taken on a run at Sage Ranch on November 5, 2006. Based on examination of some achenes from wreath plants in the area, the plant is probably Stephanomeria diegensis.

Technical papers:

Genetic Evidence for the Hybrid Origin of the Diploid Plant Stephanomeria diegensis
G. P. Gallez, L. D. Gottlieb
Evolution, Vol. 36, No. 6 (Nov., 1982), pp. 1158-1167

Phylogeny of Stephanomeria and related genera (compositae–lactuceae) based on analysis of 18S–26S nuclear rDNA ITS and ETS sequences
Joongku Lee, Bruce G. Baldwin and L. D. Gottlieb
American Journal of Botany. 2002;89:160-168

On a chilly October morning, following a cold night at 9400 ft., a Seven-spotted Lady Beetle is slow to move from her bivouac amid the blossoms of a Rabbitbrush.

The photo is from the North Backbone Trail Revisited hike and run.

Fanged and clawed, death waits,
On a highland of lavender, near a saffron spire.

The silhouette of a crab spider on the petal of a back lit Purple nightshade (prob. Solanum xanti). The blossom is about 0.8 inch (~20 mm) wide, which would make the span of the spider's crab-like grasping forelegs about 0.25 inch (~7 mm). From a run at Sage Ranch Park on November 2, 2006.

Note: This is not a photo of Deadly nightshade (Atropa belladonna).

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Sylvan Hairstreak (Satyrium sylvinus) on California Goldenrod (Solidago californica) at Sage Ranch Park.

Cucumber Beetles (Acalymma trivittata) munching on the pistillate blossom of the wild gourd Calabazilla (Cucurbita foetidissima). The photograph is from Sunday's Ahmanson-Cheeseboro run.

A Blue Milkweed Beetle (Chrysochus cobaltinus) on a somewhat insect eaten Narrow Leaf Milkweed (Asclepias fascicularis).

Photograph was taken on a run on Laskey Mesa in Upper Las Virgenes Canyon Open Space Preserve (formerly Ahmanson Ranch).

The fuzzy critter with the beady eyes is a Bee Fly. Its darting, hummingbird-like movements caught my eye while running on the Tumamait Trail near Mt. Abel (Cerro Noroeste) on Sunday. It was feeding on a Western Wallflower (Erysimum capitatum). Fully consumed by the morning's experiences, I had been marveling at the vibrant yellow of Wallflowers along the trail.

With only a cursory glance, someone might mistake a Bee Fly for a bee. It does buzz. But the resemblance is superficial. It is smaller than a Honey Bee, and more thick-bodied. It has long legs, and a long proboscis to collect nectar. These can be seen in the inset photographs.

Looking at these photographs it struck me that there probably is a relationship between the length of the Bee Fly's proboscis, and the length of its legs. It can be seen in the photos that the Bee Fly uses its legs to grasp a plant while flying and feeding. This helps stabilize its flight, conserves energy, and enables a quick escape from a possible predator. It would seem that the legs have evolved to be just long enough to accomplish this task.

Like the Star Lily, Large Flowered Phacelia (Phacelia grandiflora) appears to be a "fire follower," blooming in the Simi Hills in the aftermath of the Topanga Fire.

Tarantula Hawks are among the largest of wasps, and are said to have one of the most painful stings of any insect. As chilling as any science fiction, female tarantula hawks hunt, attack and paralyze a tarantula, and then use the spider's inert -- but still living -- body as a host for the wasp's egg and developing larva.

Males have straight antennae, and females curled antennae. This may be because the long, showy antennae of the male would be a serious liability when battling a tarantula. The title photo is of a male on a narrow-leaf milkweed (Asclepias fascicularis) at the start of the Chumash Trail in Simi Valley. Here's another photo, taken in Las Llajas canyon by runner Lynn Longan, in which a female tarantula hawk has just attacked and paralyzed a tarantula.

Several good runs start at the Chumash trailhead, and many variations are possible. It's 2.6 miles up the trail to Rocky Peak Rd, and from there you can do out and backs north or south along the fire road, or loops via Las Llajas canyon, the Hummingbird Trail, or the Lower Stagecoach Trail. (Photo from a run on September 14, 2005.)

Related post: Sting of the Tarantula Hawk, Chumash Trail Training