paloma dwarf

[lostriverdoc]

Went out to the same area a few weeks ago to look for some more but the grass there was so high it made hunting very difficult. Had my wife and kids along but didn't want them wading through the grass because of the amount of Mohave's and Diamondback's we have here. Just don't want to take chances like that.

 

[josh_r]

i know what you mean! every time i go down tehre during the summer, im affraid to even get out of the car because of how friggin common the mojaves are. the grass grows right over the side of the roads too. makes it even worse. do you ever see hognose snakes down there??

 

[lostriverdoc]

I have only seen one in the 5 years I have been here. Also have only seen one Az. Mtn. King and that was two years ago." LOL" She is a sweetheart and very rarely musks (except when my 9year old son holds her.)

 

[MaartenSFS]

when i go hunting, it is usually with ONE other person. very rarely is it with a group. i tend to never go alone just incase something happens, there is a second person there to help

I'm in the perfect place to hunt, but there just aren't many Chinese people with interest (luckily?) and most there are too little Westerners to have representatives of the crazier "groups" like the one we subscribe to. :wall:

I suppose I'll have to go solo.

 

[josh_r]

I'm in the perfect place to hunt, but there just aren't many Chinese people with interest (luckily?) and most there are too little Westerners to have representatives of the crazier "groups" like the one we subscribe to. :wall:

I suppose I'll have to go solo.

gotta do what ya gotta do, just be safe if your going alone. good luck and keep us informed of your findings!

 

[josh_r]

I have only seen one in the 5 years I have been here. Also have only seen one Az. Mtn. King and that was two years ago." LOL" She is a sweetheart and very rarely musks (except when my 9year old son holds her.)

very nice snake. i found a pyro when i was in the pajaritos a couple years back. they are supposed to be really hard to find in that mountain. i tell ya its the nicest looking pyro ive seen yet. they really are stunning animals.

 

[josh_r]

oh, heres A. hualapai pics

 

[lostriverdoc]

Nice. looks like a mini a. Chalcodes. I have a Female Hognose but it's c/b not w/c. I haven't taken any pics of her yet, but I'll post one as so as I do. Very difficult to find Hogs they are only found down near the border around the Douglas area from what I've read (but you know the old saying. Can't believe everything you read)

 

[lostriverdoc]

Here's a pic of my Hog. As you can see from her eye, she's about ready to shed and I had to take a quick one as she wouldn't sit still.

 

[MaartenSFS]

gotta do what ya gotta do, just be safe if your going alone. good luck and keep us informed of your findings!

Will do.

Cool snakes, by the way. I haven't seen any snakes near Guilin, but I saw a juvenile cobra in my wife's hometown and that was an amazing experience. Supposedly there are king cobras around here somewhere..

 

[josh_r]

Here's a pic of my Hog. As you can see from her eye, she's about ready to shed and I had to take a quick one as she wouldn't sit still.

very nice specimen. a buddy of mine and i went to the salt flat playa near willcox and found box turtles and some hognose one year. that was the year we discovered how many mojave rattlers there are out there..... scary numbers

 

[lostriverdoc]

Wanted to share my last find. Found this while walking with the wife and kids a month ago not 200 yards from our house. Was just lying motionless on the ground and I thought it was fake. Upon closer examination it started to move, so I scooped it up and carried it home in a cup. This is about as big as it gets (talk about dwalf species) Species is " Sonora semiannulata" (Ground Snake)and is considered mildly venonous as is the Hognose.

 

[josh_r]

i found a sonora jusr around the corner from where i live in a VERY WELL DEVELOPED neigborhood in phoenix..... it was so wierd. my girlfriend and i were driving to get some dinner one night and i guess ive alwasy got my radar on... i yelled, "SNAKE" and sure enough.....it was a very plain morph. no pattern, just tan with a red snout. very cool.

-josh

 

[lostriverdoc]

There is a few different color variations of this species even from the same area. I could go out fielding 10 weekends in a row all day long and find nothing at all. And just go for a walk with the family and find things I've never found before. Go figure.

 

[josh_r]

i think there are 5 color morphs of sonora... could be wrong..

 

[Bugs In Cyberspace]

Spoke with Josh on the phone for a good amount of time today. Really nice talking to you Josh! I'll be touring the lower part of Arizona again this summer and hope to meet up with Josh for a neat day trip.

Anyway, back in 2001, I was coming from California towards Tucson. I know we were past Yuma and we took the turn South (after Paloma) onto Hwy 85 towards Ajo. Somewhere in this general area, I turned over a board that we saw about thirty feet off the roadside. Underneath we found a leopard gecko, some death feigning beetles and the tarantula at the following link. I've always wondered what it was. Anybody have a clue? I know the photo quality isn't all that great, but maybe somebody can cross-reference the locality and photo info. and take a guess??? I ended up sending this specimen and two others from other parts of AZ to a researcher. Been so long now, I don't even remeber who I mailed them to. He was particularly interested in this specimen and I seem to recall him mentioning that it was probably actually an adult specimen. Hard to recall for sure, but I'd guess it had a ~2 inch legspan +/- .5 inches.

This thread you guys are writing is REALLY getting me excited about my trip down there. Like Josh, I'm not a huge "collector" and prefer to work with captive bred stuff, but I guess we do have to get a few individuals to start a program with! Mostly, I just want to be in the desert and see and photograph lots of bugs

For the record, I'll be taking a few captive bred individuals of the famed Arizona Unicorn Mantis down with me. I'll be releasing them in a sort of symbolic "giving back" kind of way.

Here's the link to that mystery tarantula. It's not even an active link on my website. I had labeled it Aphonopelma at the time (please disregard):

http://bugsincyberspace.com/aphonopelma_sp2.html

Thanks for the really enjoyable and informative (and tantalizingly teasing) thread guys! There is no place like...Arizona!

Peter Clausen

 

[josh_r]

your spider has a striking resemblance to aphonopelma mojave. however, it is not supposed to be found in the area you found this spider in. i dont think it is mojave, just looks alot like one. there is a chance it is a subadult of a larger species. its too hard to tell with a pic. you would really have to see it in person.

was the spider super aggressive?? walked REALLY tall and had its fangs super extended??? did it walk super slow in that position?? ive never seen a spider like taht from the ajo area. is very interesting. i may have to go down tehre again. do you remember where on the 85 you found it??

-josh

 

[josh_r]

just to keep the thread fresh

ya gotta admit, the dwarfs are pretty cool!

mojave (bttom right) joshua (bottom left) hualapai (center) paloma (top)

 

[Bugs In Cyberspace]

As I think back seven years, I do distinctly remember passing through Ajo at night (and collecting some mantises that were at the lights on the wall of school building). We spent the night near Organ Pipe (well, tried...too hot to sleep), so it would probably have been near Sells the following day, or back somewhere on the eight (even before Yuma), the previous day. Here's a photo of the leopard gecko I found under the board (didn't take the gecko).

The small T I found sure has long hair compared to your dwarfs. Not that it matters too much, but the three photos I took of my "dwarf" were of it in the bottom of a 16 oz. deli cup.

I don't vividly remember any behavioral details. It didn't seem particularly aggressive. I'd remember that as it was the first tarantula I've ever collected in the wild (of 3). For a mostly-insect guy, the jump from 6 to 8 legs can be a bit intimidating when it comes to live collection. I only remember that it was under a board and visible when the turned over the board in the middle of the day. It was a very thin and fragile looking spider. I figured it was a young juvenile, but somebody I was in contact with back then (who knew his Aphonopelma) said he couldn't recognize it from the photo and suspected it might actually be an adult.

Well, I was just curious. Thanks for trying! When I started my previous post, I didn't realize that was the first T I'd ever collected. I'm slightly more curious to know what it is because of this, but I'll find another someday.

Your dwarfs (ves?) all look so similar to me. It's cool that they are mini's and how many photos of those four species together has anybody seen?

I took stills with a video camera, back then. Here are a few other photos from two other Ts we saw. At least one of the other two individuals was collected near Sedona.

http://www.bugsincyberspace.com/us_tarantulas.html

Hey, Josh...as I plan my trip down there, I'm wondering...is there a best time of day to visit that place we spoke of? Would you prefer to do the morning, day, evening or night thing, there? Of course, we have months to figure this all out, but our conversation yesterday has really got spending a lot of time looking at my map :?

Thanks again!

Peter

 

[josh_r]

that spot is definitely a day time trip. very beautiful