#arachtober — Public Fediverse posts

#Arachtober 28: clover mite (_Bryobia_) in a bright patch of lichen.

#ArthroBeauty #LichenSubscribe #DailyMitePic #Mitestodon #CloverMites #arachnids #mites #Acari #Acariformes #Prostigmata #Tetranychidae #Bryobiinae

#Arachtober 25: now for something entirely different, a penthaleid mite (https://bugguide.net/node/view/263374) feeding on a dandelion leaf. Species like the common _P. major_ (which this probably is) have a #DorsalAnus and excrete these globules as they feed, often hanging upside down on the undersides of leaves or vertically on blades of grass.

(If you think a dorsal anus is wild, certain astig females have secondary dorsal genital openings for copulation.)

#ArthroBeauty #DailyMitePic #Mitestodon #arachnids #mites #Acari #Acariformes #Prostigmata #Penthaleidae

#Arachtober 23: witnessed some interesting behaviour between two long-legged velvet mites (family Erythraeidae, likely genus _Balaustium_) on a tree trunk. They were circling each other and drumming their legs, similar to what I've seen courting _Allothrombium_ red velvet mites doing. I am going to email a mite expert and see what they think!

Unfortunately somewhat shaky video here: https://youtu.be/eGYU6fMfm_Q

#ArthroBeauty #DailyMitePic #Mitestodon #arachnids #mites #Acari #Acariformes #Prostigmata #Parasitengona #Erythraeidae

#Arachtober 21: dreams can come true (if your dream is finding a snout mite https://flipping.rocks/@nev/115403746846167689)

#ArthroBeauty #DailyMitePic #Mitestodon #mites #Acari #Acariformes #Prostigmata #Bdellidae #LichenSubscribe

#Arachtober 20: a tiny oribatid or beetle mite, likely suborder Mixonomata (https://bugguide.net/node/view/238862), ubiquitous dwellers of soil and leaf litter, armoured decomposers.

#ArthroBeauty #MiteMonday #DailyMitePic #Mitestodon #mites #Acari #Oribatida #Mixonomata

#Arachtober 12: a small yellow sac spider (_Cheiracanthium_) perches on a fence post and releases a stream of silk strands that are separated and carried aloft by the breeze and (as we've learned in recent years) atmospheric static electricity. If the silk catches on something, the spider can use it to bridge a long gap. Smaller spiders can be borne aloft entirely and traverse long distances, a behaviour called ballooning.

#ArthroBeauty #SpiderSilk #SpiderBehaviour #spiders #Araneae #Cheiracanthiidae

#Arachtober 10: from back in June, a mesh-web weaver (family Dictynidae) back-combing a line of silk to turn it into a fuzz of nanofibres. Spiders like this have a special sieve-like silk-making organ called a cribellum. This in fact is the ancestral state of most spiders.

Cribellate silk doesn't use glue; rather, it melds with the waxy compounds on some insect exoskeletons. It doesn't stick very well to other surfaces. Later in spider evolution, spiders developed other types of silk that could catch different insects and support more ambitious aerial webs. However, for a minority of spiders, cribellate silk still works just fine.

More details in this 2017 paper: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2017.0363 :OpenAccess:

#DailySpiderVid #arachnids #spiders #Araneae #Dictynidae #SpiderSilk #SpiderBehaviour #OpenAccess