One That Got Away

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Sometimes it just doesn’t work in your favor. However that is what makes it so fun, never knowing if you will get the target or not.

When I first saw this critter I thought Daddy Shortlegs (Harvestmen – Opiliones) However as I looked closer I realized it was a new species for me.

It was fairly small. And it was slightly smaller than the usual Daddy Shortlegs. It belongs in the suborder of Armoured Harvestmen (Laniatores) and the family of Pied Harvestman (Cosmetidae). There are three species of this genus in the US. And only one species in our range. It is the Libitioides sayi. It pays to look at a familiar species. Sometimes it surprises you like this one did for me. 😉

A very white shelf fungus!

This was a sad looking fungus hanging down on a Cottonwood.
A tiny little one!

The flash made it look pinkish. But it really was kinda whitish.
Dusted with cinnamon? 😉
Not much was left of this tiny one.
This was the one that got away and it was even dead. LOL. It was in a crack in a fallen log. I tried to get it out with a twig. However it fell further into the debris and I lost it. And I figured I wouldn’t have been able to ID it since it looked to be missing its head. Oh well this side was interesting. 🙂

So the Pied Harvestman worked in my favor. But the dead critter didn’t. Go figure. LOL.

Dragonflies are all-terrain insects: Lifeform of the week

Mass Die-Off in Bats Across US Linked to Over 1,000 Human Infant Deaths

Something Strange Is Happening to The Calls of Amazon Parrots

Keep looking!

The more you know, the more you see and the more you see, the more you know

11 Comments

  2. That one that got away has interesting black and white markings. Maybe you will come across a live one and go “oh that is the one that got away but not this time”.
    On the Pied Harvestman what was different from our regular Daddy Shortlegs? I notice the leg joints looked white and the whole body was very reddish. Now I will have to look at mine closer!
    By the way, there is an interesting conversation on my iNaturalist posting of the Stagmomantis praying mantis. Apparently the species carolina does not occur here and mine is this other species that does. But the naming apparently isn’t official because it is hard to find information and almost all of this species is called carolina in the postings. iNaturalist won’t even let me enter the correct one. https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/240407008

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  3. very concerning about the bats along with so many other creatures.
    So i dragonflies usually only live 2 months on the fly they must be flying fast to cover 9000 miles.

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  5. I always love the fungi photos. Good article on dragonflies. I believe the long-range migrants depend on seasonal wind currents. I was fortunate to witness a dragonfly migration here in the LBJ Grasslands about 15 years ago.

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